THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES AND THE ASCENDENCY OF ROBESPIERRE.
It was in November, 1793, and under the influence of the Commune of
Paris, that the Revolution reached its climax. The party of the Commune
was undoubtedly strong. It had behind it the elaborate organisation
of the Parisian municipality. It had many supporters in the Jacobin
Club. It had complete possession of the Cordeliers, once the scene of
Danton's triumphs. It had friends on the Committee of General Security.
It was countenanced by Pache, the Mayor, and by Bouchotte, the Minister
of War. On the Committee of Public Safety it had a powerful champion
in the person of Collot d'Herbois, and in Carrier, Fouché, and
other proconsuls of the Terror it had agents on whom it could rely.
Hébert, its most ambitious leader, enjoyed, as the editor of _Père
Duchesne_, a commanding influence in the Press. Chaumette, a worthier
disciple, held an important post in the Commune. Vincent, another of
its representatives, held an important post in the Ministry of War.
Ronsin, the commander of the Revolutionary Army, lent it the assistance
of an effective force. Other politicians of less note, Clootz and
Momoro, Desfieux and Proli, Maillard, Chabot and Bazire, were sometimes
associated with it, and contributed to it their strange enthusiasm,
their doubtful services, and their discreditable intrigues. Before long
the objects of the Commune appeared without disguise--to destroy the
power of the Convention, to usurp the place of the Government, and to
make its own views and heroes the chief authority in the State.
The proclamation of the worship of Reason marked the ascendency of
this party, and from that moment its decline began. The orgies which
accompanied its triumph, the tyranny which it had established in Paris,
and the license and brutality which distinguished its representatives
in the departments caused grave dissatisfaction in the Jacobin ranks.
The majority of the Convention submitted, but they submitted with
indignation and disgust, and though they had not the courage to rebel,
they were prepared to welcome anyone who would give voice to the
resentment which they felt. Under these circumstances a second party
raised its head among the forces of the time. Philippeaux and Fabre
d'Églantine, two well-known deputies of the Mountain believed to be on
terms of intimacy with Danton, came forward to attack the proceedings
of the Hébertists. Others, like Westermann and Bourdon de l'Oise,
Legendre, Lecointre, Lacroix and many others, joined in the attack with
more or less reserve. On the same side Camille Desmoulins threw himself
into the battle with all his impetuous eloquence and ardour; and behind
the attacking forces there rose, impressive and conspicuous as ever,
the figure of the man whom all regarded as a leader, and whom the
rising opposition hoped to make the spokesman of their protest against
the Commune and the Terror alike.
Danton, like so many of his contemporaries, had soon wearied of the
system of the Terror. He watched with repugnance the ruin which it
spread. He had no liking for political intrigue. He felt strongly
the need of stability and order, if there were ever again to be a
settled government in France. It is true that in the earlier days
Danton had taken a chief part in securing the Jacobin triumph. In the
heat of the revolutionary struggle, in the moment of national danger,
no one had been readier to act. He had encouraged and organised the
insurrection of the 10th August. He had grasped the helm of State
during the perilous days which followed. Many of the characteristic
Jacobin measures--the wholesale arrest of the suspected in September,
the foundation of the Committee of Public Safety, the establishment
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, of the Maximum and of the tax on the
rich, the formation of the Revolutionary Army, the proclamation of the
Terror, the conscription and the defence of France--had been largely
due to his initiative or support. In common with the rest of his
party, Danton had opposed the declaration of war, but as soon as the
invaders appeared upon the frontier, he had thrown himself into the
battle heart and soul. He cared little for party jangles; but he cared
intensely for the honour and greatness of his country. Free alike from
narrow theories, from absorbing jealousies and from morbid ambition,
Danton had always viewed events with a statesman's eye. He had seen
Dumouriez' failings, but he had seen also his conspicuous ability, and
he had supported him staunchly to the end. He had seen, as Mirabeau had
seen before him, that the government of the country could never prosper
until a strong Executive were formed, and accordingly, like Mirabeau,
he had endeavoured to induce the Convention to give the Ministers seats
in the House. Only when that scheme had failed, had he fallen back on
the device of a powerful committee. He had realised much sooner than
his colleagues the folly of the reckless decree by which, in November,
1792, the Convention had declared war on all the kings of Europe, and
four months later he had secured its repeal. He had discerned the uses
of diplomacy, had negotiated the withdrawal of Brunswick, had tried to
detach Prussia from the coalition, had secured an alliance with Sweden,
and had steadily laboured, in spite of the wild talk of his colleagues,
to bring France back into the comity of nations. From the time of the
king's death, Danton had done all that eloquent persuasion could do
to heal divisions and to unite parties in the work of defending the
Republic. He would gladly have worked with the Girondists, had they not
driven him by their intemperate charges into the opposing camp. 'If we
must shed blood,' he once pleaded nobly, 'let us shed the blood of the
enemies of our country.'
But when the danger of invasion passed away, Danton's energies passed
with it. When the Jacobins had conquered and the State was saved, he
felt that he had no employment left. He had little sympathy with the
Government of the Terror. He wearied of the long tale of violence and
outrage. Unscrupulous and hardened as he was, he turned disgusted from
the methods of Carrier and Hébert. After his second marriage, in June,
1793, his young wife and the delights of home called him away to purer
things than politics. He knew the limits of his own capacity, and that
he could not bring to the work of political manœuvring the irresistible
vigour and conviction by which he had roused the country and had swept
his colleagues into power. Even to the last, when Philippeaux and
Desmoulins forced him to the front, and made him the unwilling leader
round whom the party of reaction gathered, he was inclined to urge them
to put up their weapons, and to fall back on his old plea for unity.
He hated personal animosities and was not made to be a faction chief.
But he was too conspicuous and too honest to remain altogether in the
background, when his comrades were risking their lives in a cause which
he knew to be the cause of mercy, and believed to be the cause of
France.
Between Hébert and his adherents in the Commune, and the party which
gradually ranged itself behind Danton in opposition to the whole system
of the Terror, there stood, as a third party, the Government of the
day. The Government, that is the Committee of Public Safety, was not,
it is true, entirely united. Some of its members, like Collot d'Herbois
and in a lesser degree Billaud-Varennes, approved of the methods of
the Commune, and were closely leagued with its chiefs. On the other
hand, Robespierre detested the brutal license of many of the Communist
party, and his feelings were shared by Couthon and St. Just. Others,
again, like Carnot, had little liking for either Robespierre or Hébert.
Hérault de Séchelles was a friend of Danton and sympathised with his
ideas. But, divided as they were, most of the members of the Committee
felt that things were going too far. They were responsible for the
government of the country, and they could not, therefore, view with
unconcern the anarchy and public plunder which marked the course of the
agents of the Commune. They were for the moment kings of France, and
they had no intention of surrendering their throne to the ambitious
municipality of Paris, or of permitting any reaction in the Convention
which would deprive them of the power which it had suffered them to
usurp.
Accordingly, in the month of November, when Collot d'Herbois was absent
in Lyons, a decided movement against the Commune appeared. Robespierre,
with his strong sense of decorum and his reverence for the sentimental
theology of Rousseau, was shocked by the excesses of the materialist
party, and encouraged by the signs of opposition in the Convention,
he began to make his opinions felt. As usual, he proceeded with great
caution, but by significant hints and phrases he showed his resentment
at the conduct of Hébert. On the 17th November, in a long report upon
the foreign policy of France, he took occasion to denounce both the
'cruel moderantism and the systematic exaggeration of false patriots.'
Four days later, at the Jacobin Club, in answer to a challenge from
Hébert, he delivered a singular speech on the religious question, and
ended by proposing the purging of the Club. The grounds on which
Robespierre attacked his enemies were characteristically circuitous and
astute. 'Atheism,' he argued, 'is aristocratic. The idea of a Supreme
Being, who watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant
crime, is essentially the idea of the people.'
Cautious as Robespierre's action was, the majority quickly rallied
round him. Danton returned to Paris and ranged himself at Robespierre's
side. 'We did not destroy superstition,' he cried, 'in order to
establish the rule of the atheist.' In the Convention he pleaded
for milder measures, and urged that the sword of the Terror should
be pointed only at those convicted of crime. As the scrutiny at the
Jacobins proceeded, the victory of the opponents of the Commune became
more distinct. The attacks made upon Danton and Desmoulins collapsed.
Robespierre defended them with spirit and enthusiasm, and asked to be
judged by Danton's side. On the 4th December, a new law was adopted
by the Convention, consolidating the power of the Committee of Public
Safety, bringing all constituted authorities more directly under its
control, suppressing the revolutionary armies and the agents of the
Commune in the departments, forbidding the raising of taxes except by
decree of the Assembly, and extending the Government's supervision over
the committees in the Sections of Paris. The effect of this decisive
measure was largely to increase the authority of the Committee, and to
diminish the influence of the Commune both in the provinces and in the
capital itself.
The reaction against the Commune had unmistakably begun. On the day
after the decree of the Convention the first number of the _Vieux
Cordelier_ appeared. The Hébertists, defeated in the Jacobins, had
made their headquarters at the Cordeliers Club; and in order to
emphasise the difference between the new doctrines and the spirit which
had inspired the Cordeliers in their earlier days, Camille Desmoulins
gave to his protest the title of the club, where his wit and Danton's
eloquence had once held undisputed sway. Danton and his friends were
known to sympathise with the opinions of the new journal. Robespierre
corrected the first number in proof. Desmoulins began by denouncing
the Hébertists, but as the tide of reaction rose and the friends of
moderation gathered courage, he passed on to attack the whole system
of the Terror, and in the famous third number of his paper he boldly
arraigned its tyranny and crimes. Two days later, on the 17th December,
the Convention, on the motion of Danton's adherents, decreed the
arrest of three agents of the Commune, Vincent, Ronsin and Maillard.
Proposals were freely put forward for renewing and remodelling the
Government itself. Bodies of petitioners appeared at the bar of the
Convention asking for mercy towards the suspects. Robespierre proposed
the appointment of a commission to consider all cases of unjust arrest.
Camille Desmoulins appealed to Robespierre and passionately urged
the cause of mercy. 'The liberty I worship is no unknown God.... It
is happiness, reason, equality, justice.... Robespierre, friend and
comrade of my schooldays, whose eloquent words our children will read
often, recall the history and philosophy that we learned. Remember
that love is stronger and lives longer than fear, that reverence and
religion spring from kindly treatment ... and that no men can mount on
blood-stained steps to heaven. Why,' cried the writer bitterly, as he
wound up his powerful appeal, 'why has compassion become a crime in
France?'
To such a height had the reaction attained, when, on the 21st December,
Collot d'Herbois suddenly arrived in Paris. He was welcomed by the
Hébertists as a deliverer. 'The giant has arrived,' cried Hébert
gladly, 'the faithful defender of the Sansculottes,' and Collot at once
espoused the cause of his allies. Full of vigour and self-confidence,
the executioner of Lyons entertained no scruples about the Terror.
He denounced all ideas of moderation. His presence reanimated the
Committee, cheered the party of the Commune, and abashed the hopes of
the reaction. The capture of Toulon, which occurred about the same
time, served to increase the prestige of the Government. Many who
had welcomed Desmoulins' appeal began to feel that they had been too
precipitate. The Commune, gathering courage, demanded and obtained
the release of its imprisoned agents. The commission to enquire into
cases of unjust arrest was cancelled. Collot d'Herbois quickly made
his influence felt at the Jacobins and in the Committee, and all the
waverers, as usual, rallied to the stronger side. Robespierre, alarmed
at the turn events were taking, began to dissociate himself from his
new allies, lamented the bitterness of party feeling, and declared
that his object was 'to overwhelm factions, foreigners and moderates,
but not to ruin patriots.' Even Danton took occasion to declare his
loyalty to the Government, and endeavoured to restrain the incautious
declarations of his friends.
All through January and February, 1794, the struggle of parties
continued, and the fiercest animosities prevailed. At the Jacobins,
Desmoulins' colleagues renewed their onslaught on the followers of
Hébert, but no longer with the same success. Robespierre laboured
steadily by perpetual speeches to secure his ascendency in the club,
and studiously avoided committing himself to either side. But his
position changed. He began to display undisguised hostility towards
Philippeaux and Fabre d'Églantine, the most outspoken members of the
moderate party. He assumed a tone of paternal reproach towards Camille
Desmoulins, and proposed that the _Vieux Cordelier_, which he had
once cordially welcomed, should be burned. Danton, disheartened, and
embarrassed, relapsed into listless inactivity, and contented himself
with deprecating personal attacks. The chances of a reaction against
the Terror passed away, and the Government daily offered a stronger
front to the enmity of Hébertists and Dantonists alike.
At last, after many weeks of struggle and intrigue, the crisis came.
At the end of February, St. Just returned to Paris from a mission
in the provinces, and brought a new influence to bear upon events.
St. Just was the loyal disciple of Robespierre, but he possessed far
more energy and decision than his chief. He shared Robespierre's
dislike of Hébert, but he did not share his kindly feeling towards
Danton. Desmoulins had ridiculed the stiff pomposity of the young
Committee-man's demeanour, and to St. Just ridicule was an unpardonable
wrong. While Robespierre pleaded indisposition and held aloof from the
meetings of the Committee, St. Just declared himself without disguise.
He proposed to enforce the authority of the Government by sacrificing
Dantonists and Hébertists alike. He denounced significantly 'the
greatest criminals, who are only trying to destroy the scaffold because
they dread the prospect of mounting it themselves.' His presence seems
to have roused his colleagues, as the arrival of Collot had roused
them before. The Commune was once more made to feel the weight of the
Committee's authority. A decree of the Convention confiscated the
property of the suspects in order to provide for destitute patriots,
and by this great bribe diminished the influence which the Commune
enjoyed with the needy poor. The Hébertists, now thoroughly alarmed,
made a last effort to assert themselves. They held stormy meetings at
the Cordeliers Club, and indulged in reckless schemes of insurrection.
But even Collot d'Herbois seems to have felt that the leaders of the
Commune had gone too far, and he gave his consent to the policy of the
Committee. St. Just took the lead in the attack. On the night of the
13th March, Hébert and his principal colleagues were arrested. Next
day, Robespierre reappeared in the Convention and resumed his place at
the Jacobin Club. For the first time in the history of the Revolution
the less extreme party, with legitimate authority behind it, had
asserted itself against the forces of insurrection, had assumed the
offensive and had won the day.
On the one side the enemies of the Government had fallen. It only
remained for them to dispose of the rest. The extreme Terrorists
had consented to allow their friends in the Commune to perish, but
only on condition that the advocates of mercy should perish too. The
moderate party had many supporters in the Convention, and were a
serious danger to the supremacy of the Committee. They counted on the
support of Danton, and though Danton gave them little encouragement,
they used his great name to forward their designs. 'Danton sleeps,'
said Desmoulins, as he took up his pen again to attack the system and
the agents of the Terror, 'Danton sleeps, but it is the sleep of a
lion, and he will wake to defend us.' But Danton's power and energy
seemed destined never to wake again. Heartily weary of conspiracies and
factions, discerning plainly enough the danger which confronted him
but unable to rouse himself to avert it, disdaining to take measures
to defend himself or to fight his opponents with their own weapons of
intrigue, Danton remained undecided and inert. He would not compass his
enemies' destruction, and he did not believe that his enemies would
dare to compass his. Perhaps he relied on Robespierre's friendship,
and forgot that Robespierre was not the man to risk his own ascendency
in order to save another's life. At any rate when the crisis came,
Robespierre swallowed any scruples that he felt, and consented to unite
the Government by abandoning Danton to his opponents. On the night of
the 30th March, Danton, Desmoulins and their colleagues were arrested,
and next day Robespierre came forward and denounced the 'broken idol'
in the Convention. Danton's bearing before the Revolutionary Tribunal
was marked by his habitual scornful courage. 'My abode,' he said, in
answer to the judge's questions, 'will soon be in eternity; my name you
will find in the Pantheon of history.' He defended himself hotly and
proudly against the ridiculous charges of royalist conspiracy. His
vigorous eloquence created so profound an impression that his accusers
trembled for the consequences, and took exceptional measures to cut the
trial short. On the 5th April, Danton was guillotined. 'I see now,'
he said, 'that in times of Revolution, power falls ultimately to the
greatest scoundrels.... Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with
the governing of men!'
The fall of Danton left Robespierre by far the most conspicuous man in
France. For character and reputation he had no rival in the Committees,
and it was largely on his popularity that the Government rested for
support. In some points Robespierre compared favourably with his
colleagues. His life was frugal, pure and decent. His dress was always
neat. His sense of decorum never deserted him. His devotion to his
principles and his hatred of license and irreverence were sincere. He
represented admirably the complacent Philistinism of a certain type
of French bourgeois. His language breathed of virtue and emotion. His
long-winded, didactic generalities, his perpetual appeals to morality
and conscience imposed on well-intentioned, narrow minds, and, no
doubt, imposed upon his own. Robespierre's followers, women especially,
with whom his influence was great, took him at his own valuation.
They did not discover his amazing egotism. They did not resent the
qualities which make him appear to us the typical prig of history.
They liked the long abstract discourses, which were the fashion of his
time and sect. They liked his plain respectability. They liked his war
upon corruption. They liked his feeling for religion and his copious
sentiment. They were charmed by his high-sounding and unpractical
ideals. They marvelled when he recited, as he never tired of doing, the
tale of his own virtues. Robespierre was essentially a priest, and he
exercised a priest's fascination, preaching unceasingly and claiming
without scruple the admiration of his flock. 'I have never bowed,'
he cried, 'beneath the yoke of baseness and corruption.' 'Surrounded
by assassins, I have little to reconcile me to life except my love
for my country and my thirst for justice.' 'I am a living martyr to
the Republic, at once the victim and the enemy of crime.' 'If such
truths must be dissembled, then bring me the hemlock.' He was for ever
proclaiming himself the champion of morality, for ever protesting
his readiness to die in its cause. He reiterated it so often, and he
believed it so intensely, that he made his followers believe it too.
Moreover, Robespierre's sentiment was genuine. He had brought with
him from Arras the reputation of a young provincial lawyer, upright,
industrious and tender-hearted, fond of indifferent verse and of
pet-birds. In his early days he had resigned an honourable office
rather than condemn a man to death. He had from the first figured as
the friend of humanity, as the defender of the unfortunate and the
oppressed. If any question arose of suppressing disorder, he had always
raised his voice against severity. He had pleaded for the abolition of
the penalty of death. He had championed the cause of coloured men. He
had more than once shown his sympathy for priests. Later on, he had
defended the seventy-three members of the Convention, who were attacked
for protesting against the arrest of the Gironde. He was known to have
resented the treatment of Madame Elizabeth and the insults offered by
Hébert to the Queen. He had taken no part personally in the enormities
of the proconsuls of the Terror. He had repudiated the immorality and
materialism of the leaders of the Commune. He had helped to secure the
recall of Carrier. Conscious cruelty had no place in his speeches or
ideals.
But when one turns from Robespierre's speeches to his actions, a
different tale is told. In vain his apologists recapitulate his
language, and dwell on his protestations of virtue, on his ceaseless
iteration of benevolent designs. His career stands out in flagrant
contrast to his oft-repeated principles, and the record of his career
no apologies can explain away. The most noticeable characteristics of
Robespierre's public life were his lack of initiative, his disingenuous
reserve, and his profound incompetence as a practical politician.
There is hardly a single great measure of the Terror, except the
development of the Revolutionary Tribunal, in which Robespierre took a
leading part. His method was to combat every proposal and every party,
but rarely to make a proposal himself. If a critical occasion came,
Robespierre always waited to see the issue before he declared himself.
He never threw off his nervous hesitation. He never committed himself
to violent risks, or took the initiative in violent courses. These
characteristics are illustrated at each stage of his career. In the
difficult days of July, 1791, at the time of the 'Massacre of the Champ
de Mars,' he conducted himself with exemplary caution. A year later,
on the 10th August, he remained in the background till the battle
was decided, but he joined the Commune openly on the 11th, when the
victory was won. Later still, though he detested the doctrines of the
Hébertists, he did not venture to attack them straightforwardly. He
only threw out hints against them until he saw which way the tide was
running, and then he tried to discredit them by arguing that atheism
was an aristocratic idea! He was absent, on the plea of illness, while
their fate was being decided in the Committee, but he was well enough
to re-appear in public the morning after their arrest. He encouraged
Desmoulins cordially in his crusade against the Commune; but he changed
his tone as soon as Collot d'Herbois' reappearance turned the scale
against Desmoulins' views, and he finally threw over without a struggle
the man who had been for years his warm admirer and friend. With equal
treachery he sacrificed Danton as soon as it was evident that the
strongest party was bent on Danton's destruction, and directly the
arrest was made, he came forward to denounce a colleague, at whose
side, only a few weeks before, he had proudly asked to stand. Of course
it is possible that Robespierre was able, with his remarkable faculty
of self-deception, to persuade his conscience in every case that he
was acting as the interests of virtue required. But it is difficult by
any sophisms to excuse such heartless opportunism, and to avoid the
conviction that, whoever fell, Robespierre was determined to be upon
the winning side.
Hardly less noticeable than his tortuous manœuvring was his
incompetence in practical affairs. His speeches were treatises full of
vague and abstract speculation, in which the same forms and phrases
constantly appeared, but singularly lacking in definiteness and
meaning, with very little bearing upon facts, and generally without
any practical conclusions or result. He seemed to talk for the sake of
talking, but the listeners, who accepted his theory as their gospel,
never seemed to tire of the voice of the priest. At the height of
the struggle between the rival parties in January, 1794, Robespierre
solemnly invited the Jacobins to consider 'the crimes of the English
Government and the vices of the British Constitution.' At another time
of stirring interest and activity, he busied himself with drawing up
a lengthy indictment of the monarchs of the world. At another time,
he contributed to a practical discussion some luminous remarks, in
which he insisted that the outbreak of the Revolution had been largely
due to the determination of 'the London Cabinet ... to place the Duke
of York on the throne of Louis XVI,' and that Pitt was 'an imbecile
... who, abusing the influence acquired by him on an island placed
haphazard in the ocean,' conceived plans only worthy of a madhouse.
It is no wonder if his colleagues in the Government, who were nearly
all of them vigorous men of action, came to regard him with something
like contempt. All through the Revolution Robespierre's attitude was
the same. He never displayed much practical ability. The overthrow of
the monarchy, the establishment of the Republic, the defeat of the
invaders, the triumph of the Revolutionary Government, the organisation
of the national defence, owed little to him. On the Committee of Public
Safety his services, apart from matters of police, were unimportant.
He did little useful work himself, and his jealous interference only
hampered and embarrassed those who did. He never went on mission. The
equipment of the army and navy, the management of the food supply,
the control of the proconsuls, the administration of the country,
the heroic labours of the terrible Committee, rested in other hands.
Robespierre was only its tireless rhetorician, watching, manœuvring,
expatiating incessantly on his ideals, his virtues and himself. Even
after the fall of Danton, when he had ample scope for his designs, all
that he contributed as a practical reformer to the Utopia which he
had described a hundred times, was a masquerade to the discredit of
religion and the most sanguinary police-law which the world has seen.
But wrapped as Robespierre was in self-complacency, he was always
sufficiently awake to suspect and envy others. The doctrine of mistrust
was a part of the Jacobin creed. The habit of suspecting others seemed
to grow upon all those who professed the faith, and gradually to
distort their views and to discolour their judgment. The Robespierre
of 1794, the jealous, nervous, inflated fanatic, was a very different
being from the earnest, narrow-minded lawyer, who had set out from
Arras five years before to take his part in regenerating France. As
Marat had developed, under the influence of the Jacobin theory and
amid the desperate excitements of the time, from a soured idealist
into the furious advocate of murder, so Robespierre had developed
too. The mania of panic and suspicion had settled upon him. The peril
which he and his colleagues encountered had convinced him that he
was a martyr, and that all who did not recognise his virtues were
conspirators seeking for his death. 'Gazing on the multitude of vices
which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled down,' he cried in his
last great speech in the Convention, 'I have sometimes trembled lest
I should be soiled by the impure neighbourhood of wicked men.... I
know that it is easy for the leagued tyrants of the world to overwhelm
a single individual; but I know also what is the duty of a man who
can die in defence of humanity.' In the latter part of Robespierre's
career it seemed that nothing was too innocent for him to mistrust or
too improbable for him to suspect. 'I am not obliged to reflect,' he
told Garat, 'I always rely on first impressions.' He believed that his
instinct could not err, and his instinct always was to think the worst.
'Evidently,' he said one day to Garat, early in the spring of 1793,
'the Girondists are conspiring.' 'Where?' asked Garat. 'Everywhere,'
answered Robespierre. He needed no facts to prove it. His virtue,
the watchdog of the Republic, told him it was true. At one moment
Lafayette was the traitor, at another Brissot, at another Dumouriez,
at another Hébert. Servan, he insisted, was given a command in the
Pyrenees, in order to hand over the keys of France to Spain. 'Is
there no doubt of this in your mind?' asked Garat. 'None whatever,'
replied the infallible pedant. Again and again Robespierre denounced
mysterious conspiracies and treasons in Paris, in the departments, in
the Commune, in the Convention. He had no doubt whatever that he was
unmasking traitors, and traitors he could not scruple to send to the
guillotine. In particular, the generals of the Republic were singled
out by Robespierre as objects of alarm. It was he who sent Custine
to the scaffold, and scouted the suggestion that it was necessary to
offer written proofs of his guilt. It was he who took the chief part in
denouncing Houchard and in consigning him to a similar fate. It was he
who first threw doubts on the good faith of Kellermann. It was he who,
upon no evidence whatever, ordered the arrest of Hoche upon a charge of
treason[11].
The growth of this fever of suspicion, which was common to most of
the Jacobin party, but which was specially marked in Marat and in
Robespierre, enables one to understand how a man naturally neither
cruel nor unprincipled became so largely responsible for the bloodshed
of the Terror. Robespierre's apologists have vainly endeavoured to
defend him against this reproach, and to maintain that he always wished
to stop it. But even their defence of Robespierre contains conclusive
evidence of his guilt. His position, after the fall of Danton, was
unquestionably strong. In the two governing Committees, though he had
enemies and critics, he was closely supported by Couthon and St. Just.
His popularity in Paris was considerable. His reputation within his
own party stood higher than that of any of his colleagues. The Jacobin
Club was his stronghold. On the triumph of the Committee in March,
1794, the Commune had been reconstituted, and its new heads, Fleuriot
and Payan, were devoted to Robespierre's interest. The Revolutionary
Army of the capital had been dissolved, but Hanriot, Robespierre's firm
friend, retained his command in the National Guard, and was zealous
in Robespierre's service. The ministries also had been suppressed.
Twelve new commissions had been appointed to administer affairs in
their place, and in the appointments to these commissions Robespierre's
influence was naturally large. Had Robespierre really cared to use his
power to mitigate the Terror, it is difficult to believe that he could
not have done so with success. In the existing state of public opinion
he could, for such an enterprise, have commanded overwhelming support.
The great majority of the Convention, as their conduct both before
and after proved, were only waiting for an opportunity to throw their
weight into the scale of mercy.
But the fact is that Robespierre's influence was used throughout
in the opposite direction. He detested, it is true, the disorderly
excesses that had accompanied the Terror in the departments. He wished
to centralise and regulate the system, to make it uniform, moral and
decorous, to take the power of the sword out of the hands of men
whom he distrusted and disliked. But he did not wish to end it. The
police-law of April, 1794, which directed that all conspirators should
be brought to Paris for trial, and the establishment of a new Bureau of
police under the supervision of St. Just and of Robespierre himself,
were designed to prevent the occurrence of enormities like those of
Carrier in the provinces, and to deprive Robespierre's opponents in
the Committee of General Security of their monopoly in matters of
police. But they were not measures of compassion. From the first,
Robespierre had taken a prominent part in founding and developing the
Revolutionary Tribunal. Again and again he had protested against its
delays and its unnecessary forms. When he attained the climax of his
power, he swept those forms away. In the Revolutionary Tribunal he
had staunch adherents. His work in the Committee of Public Safety was
always largely concerned with questions of police. The Terror was an
essential part of his system. He honestly believed that his Utopia
could not flourish until he had consumed the wicked, and against the
wicked accordingly he sharpened the sword of death.
With this crusade against the enemies of his ideal he mingled
schemes of arbitrary benevolence. Both St. Just and Robespierre
were determined to found the State which Rousseau had conceived,
wherein all should be equal, virtuous, enlightened, without poverty
or riches, irreverence or sin. As a step towards it they determined
to establish Rousseau's Church. On the 18th Floréal (7th May),
Robespierre induced the Convention to decree its belief in a Supreme
Being and in the immortality of the soul. On the 20th Prairial (8th
June), he celebrated, in one of the strangest pageants of history, the
festival of the new Deity in France. Arrayed in a brilliant uniform,
and carrying a bouquet of flowers and corn sheaves, Robespierre
marched at the head of a procession out to the Champ de Mars, burned
the symbols of Atheism and Vice, and inaugurated the new religion.
'Here,' he cried, 'is the Universe assembled. O Nature, how sublime,
how exquisite, thy power! How tyrants will pale at the tidings of our
feast.' And within two days of this ideal festival he set to work
to re-organise the machinery of the guillotine. A few weeks before
he had taken a chief part in establishing, on the demand of his
adherent Maignet, an extraordinary tribunal at Orange in the South,
and had drawn up with his own hand a paper of instructions, which laid
it down that the conscience of the judges was to be the only test
of the guilt of the accused. In the law of the 22nd Prairial this
monstrous principle was carried further. The decree provided that the
Revolutionary Tribunal should be divided into four sections to expedite
its work, that prisoners should thenceforward be tried in batches, that
they should no longer have counsel to defend them or be allowed to
call witnesses for their defence, and that the question of their guilt
should be left to the enlightened conscience of the jury! The results
of this proposal were that, in the six or seven weeks which followed,
the number of victims guillotined mounted to over thirteen hundred,
a number considerably exceeding the total reached during the first
fifteen months of the tribunal's existence. In face of this measure,
which was unquestionably Robespierre's work, it is idle to pretend that
he wished to check the Terror. No doubt he disliked its extravagance
and license. No doubt he wished to strike some of the Terrorists. But
apart from that there is no evidence that he attempted to stop it, and
against him there is the whole tenour of his policy and the testimony
of this nefarious decree.
But Robespierre's ascendency was destined to be brief. The majority of
his colleagues had begun to dread him. They knew that he was jealous
of their authority. After the 10th June he held himself more and more
aloof[12]. He did not resign his place on the Committee; but finding
that he could not make its members accept his ascendency, he began
to form schemes for purging the Government afresh, to dissociate
himself from his colleagues, and to concentrate his forces in the
Commune and at the Jacobin Club. At last, aware that a breach was
inevitable, St. Just and others urged him to take vigorous measures
against his opponents. But Robespierre, always incapable of decisive
action, preferred to confine himself to speeches and to vague hints of
conspiracy and treason. On the 8th Thermidor (26th July), in a long and
mysterious speech, marked by his habitual and astonishing egotism, he
denounced the plots against the Convention, and demanded the punishment
of evil men. But he named no one, and his threats frightened all. That
night the combination which had been gradually forming against him
came to a head. Tallien, Billaud, Bourdon and others, Dantonists and
Hébertists, all parties alike determined to unite, to save their lives.
On the morrow, the 9th Thermidor, the crisis came, and the Convention,
for once acting with unanimity and vigour, rejected Robespierre's
appeal and boldly ordered his arrest. For a few hours the issue of
the struggle hung doubtful. The Commune rallied to Robespierre's
defence. He was delivered from prison and carried to the Hôtel de
Ville in triumph. Hanriot summoned his artillerymen to the rescue,
and once again the Commune proposed to raise an insurrection. But the
name of the Commune was no longer a watchword in the capital. The
Convention held its ground with unusual courage. It outlawed all the
chief conspirators. It took prompt measures to organise resistance,
to rouse Paris, to summon the forces of the Sections to its aid. The
prestige of the National Assembly, when united, was still redoubtable,
and Hanriot's troops hesitated to attack it. Early in the dawn of
the following day the Conventional forces assumed the offensive,
and marched on the Hôtel de Ville. The insurrection collapsed, and
Robespierre and his confederates died. At last the lawful authority in
France, so long paralysed and broken, had dared to act decisively, and
to use force to make itself obeyed. From the moment that its vigour
revived its triumph was assured, and with its triumph the reaction
began.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: Even M. Hamel admits this (_Hist. de Robespierre_, III.
p. 499 _et seq._), although he endeavours, in a manner that is not
convincing, to throw the responsibility on to Carnot. Carnot claimed to
have saved Hoche's life. He certainly joined in ordering his release
from prison almost immediately after Robespierre's fall.]
[Footnote 12: Robespierre himself said, on the 8th Thermidor, that
for the last six weeks he had 'absolutely abandoned his functions
as a member of the Committee of Public Safety.' Louis Blanc argues
that he was therefore not responsible for the Terror. But another
of Robespierre's admirers, Hamel, has taken pains to prove that
Robespierre was constantly present at the Committee's meetings up
to the 9th Thermidor, and decides that his alleged retirement must
consequently have been 'toute morale' (vol. III. pp. 594-601).]