FROM THE 9TH THERMIDOR TO THE 1ST PRAIRIAL, YEAR III. (20TH MAY, 1795).
EPOCH OF THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The 9th of Thermidor was the first day of the revolution in which those
fell who attacked. This indication alone manifested that the ascendant
revolutionary movement had reached its term. From that day the contrary
movement necessarily began. The general rising of all parties against one
man was calculated to put an end to the compression under which they
laboured. In Robespierre the committees subdued each other, and the
decemviral government lost the prestige of terror which had constituted
its strength. The committees liberated the convention, which gradually
liberated the entire republic. Yet they thought they had been working for
themselves, and for the prolongation of the revolutionary government,
while the greater part of those who had supported them had for their
object the overthrow of the dictatorship, the independence of the
assembly, and the establishment of legal order. From the day after the 9th
of Thermidor there were, therefore, two opposite parties among the
conquerors, that of the committees, and that of the Mountain, which was
called the Thermidorian party.
The former was deprived of half its forces; besides the loss of its chief,
it no longer had the commune, whose insurgent members, to the number of
seventy-two, had been sent to the scaffold, and, which, after its double
defeat under Hébert and under Robespierre, was not again re-organized, and
remained without direct influence. But this party retained the direction
of affairs through the committees. All its members were attached to the
revolutionary system; some, such as Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois,
Barrère, Vadier, Amar, saw it was their only safety; others, such as
Carnot, Cambon, the two Prieurs, de la Marne, and de la Côte-d'Or, etc.,
feared the counter-revolution, and the punishment of their colleagues. In
the convention it reckoned all the commissioners hitherto sent on
missions, several of the Mountain who had signalized themselves on the 9th
Thermidor, and the remnant of Robespierre's party. Without, the Jacobins
were attached to it; and it still had the support of the faubourgs and of
the lower class.
The Thermidorian party was composed of the greater number of the
conventionalists. All the centre of the assembly, and what remained of the
Right, joined the Mountain, who had abated their former exaggeration of
views. The coalition of the Moderates, Boissy d'Anglas, Sieyès,
Cambacérès, Chénier, Thibeaudeau, with the Dantonists, Tallien, Fréron,
Legendre, Barras, Bourdon de l'Oise, Rovère, Bentabole, Dumont, and the
two Merlins, entirely changed the character of the assembly. After the 9th
of Thermidor, the first step of this party was to secure its empire in the
convention. Soon it found its way into the government, and succeeded in
excluding the previous occupants. Sustained by public opinion, by the
assembly, by the committees, it advanced openly towards its object; it
proceeded against the principal decemvirs, and some of their agents. As
these had many partisans in Paris, it sought the aid of the young men
against the Jacobins, of the sections against the faubourgs. At the same
time, to strengthen it, it recalled to the assembly all the deputies whom
the committee of public safety had proscribed; first, the seventy-three
who had protested against the 31st of May, and then the surviving victims
of that day themselves. The Jacobins exhibited excitement: it closed their
club; the faubourgs raised an insurrection: it disarmed them. After
overthrowing the revolutionary government, it directed its attention to
the establishment of another, and to the introduction, under the
constitution of the year III., of a feasible, liberal, regular, and stable
order of things, in place of the extraordinary and provisional state in
which the convention had been from its commencement until then. But all
this was accomplished gradually.
The two parties were not long before they began to differ, after their
common victory. The revolutionary tribunal was an especial object of
general horror. On the 11th Thermidor it was suspended; but Billaud-
Varennes, in the same sitting, had the decree of suspension rescinded. He
maintained that the accomplices of Robespierre alone were guilty, that the
majority of the judges and jurors being men of integrity, it was desirable
to retain them in their offices. Barrère presented a decree to that
effect: he urged that the triumvirs had done nothing for the revolutionary
government; that they had often even opposed its measures; that their only
care had been to place their creatures in it, and to give it a direction
favourable to their own projects; he insisted, in order to strengthen that
government, upon retaining the law _des suspects_ and the tribunal, with
its existing members, including Fouquier-Tinville. At this name a general
murmur rose in the assembly. Fréron, rendering himself the organ of the
general indignation, exclaimed: "I demand that at last the earth be
delivered from that monster, and that Fouquier be sent to hell, there to
wallow in the blood he has shed." His proposition was applauded, and
Fouquier's accusation decreed. Barrère, however, did not regard himself as
defeated; he still retained toward the convention the imperious language
which the old committee had made use of with success; this was at once
habit and calculation on his part; for he well knew that nothing is so
easily continued as that which has been successful.
But the political tergiversations of Barrère, a man of noble birth, and
who was a royalist Feuillant before the 10th of August, did not
countenance his assuming this imperious and inflexible tone. "Who is this
president of the Feuillants," said Merlin de Thionville, "who assumes to
dictate to us the law?" The hall resounded with applause. Barrère became
confused, left the tribune, and this first check of the committees
indicated their decline in the convention. The revolutionary tribunal
continued to exist, but with other members and another organization. The
law of the 22nd Prairial was abolished, and there were now as much
deliberation and moderation, as many protecting forms in trials, as before
there had been precipitation and inhumanity. This tribunal was no longer
made use of against persons formerly suspected, who were still detained in
prison, though under milder treatment, and who, by degrees, were restored
to liberty on the plan proposed by Camille Desmoulins for his Committee of
Clemency.
On the 13th of Thermidor the government itself became the subject of
discussion. The committee of public safety was deficient in many members;
Hérault de Séchelles had never been replaced; Jean-Bon-Saint-André and
Prieur de la Marne were on missions; Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just
had perished on the scaffold. In the places of these were appointed
Tallien, Bréard, Echassériaux, Treilhard, Thuriot, and Laloi, whose
accession lessened still more the influence of the old members. At the
same time, were reorganized the two committees, so as to render them more
dependent on the assembly, and less so on one another. The committee of
public safety was charged with military and diplomatic operations; that of
general safety with internal administration. As it was desired, by
limiting the revolutionary power, to calm the fever which had excited the
multitude; and gradually to disperse them, the daily meetings of the
sections were reduced to one in every ten days; and the pay of forty sous
a day, lately given to every indigent citizen who attended them, was
discontinued.
These measures being carried into effect, on the 11th of Fructidor, one
month after the death of Robespierre, Lecointre of Versailles denounced
Billaud, Collot, Barrère, of the committee of public safety; and Vadier,
Amar, and Vouland, of the committee of general safety. The evening before,
Tallien had vehemently assailed the reign of terror, and Lecointre was.
encouraged to his attack by the sensation which Tallien's speech had
produced. He brought twenty-three charges against the accused; he imputed
to them all the measures of cruelty or tyranny which they threw on the
triumvirs, and called them the successors of Robespierre. This
denunciation agitated the assembly, and more especially those who
supported the committees, or who wished that divisions might cease in the
republic. "If the crimes Lecointre reproaches us with were proved," said
Billaud-Varennes--"if they were as real as they are absurd and chimerical,
there is, doubtless, not one of us but would deserve to lose his head on
the scaffold. But I defy Lecointre to prove, by documents or any evidence
worthy of belief, any of the facts he has charged us with." He repelled
the charges brought against him by Lecointre; he reproached his enemies
with being corrupt and intriguing men, who wished to sacrifice him to the
memory of Danton, _an odious conspirator, the hope of all parricidal
factions_. "What seek these men," he continued--"what seek these men who
call us the successors of Robespierre? Citizens, know you what they seek?
To destroy liberty on the tomb of the tyrant." Lecointre's denunciation
was premature; almost all the convention pronounced it calumnious. The
accused and their friends gave way to outbursts of unrestrained and still
powerful indignation, for they were now attacked for the first time; the
accuser, scarcely supported by any one, was silenced. Billaud-Varennes and
his friends triumphed for the time.
A few days after, the period for renewing a third of the committee
arrived. The following members were fixed on by lot to retire: Barrère,
Carnot, Robert Lindet, in the committee of public safety; Vadier, Vouland,
Moise Baile in the committee of general safety. They were replaced by
Thermidorians; and Collot-d'Herbois, as well as Billaud-Varennes, finding
themselves too weak, resigned. Another circumstance contributed still more
to the fall of their party, by exciting public opinion against it; this
was the publicity given to the crimes of Joseph Lebon and Carrier, two of
the proconsuls of the committee. They had been sent, the one to Arras and
to Cambrai, the frontier exposed to invasion; the other to Nantes, the
limit of the Vendéan war. They had signalized their mission by, beyond all
others, displaying a cruelty and a caprice of tyranny, which are, however,
generally found in those who are invested with supreme human power. Lebon,
young and of a weak constitution, was naturally mild. On a first mission,
he had been humane; but he was censured for this by the committee, and
sent to Arras, with orders to show himself _somewhat more revolutionary_.
Not to fall short of the inexorable policy of the committee, he gave way
to unheard of excesses; he mingled debauchery with extermination; he had
the guillotine always in his presence, and called it holy. He associated
with the executioner, and admitted him to his table. Carrier, having more
victims to strike, surpassed even Lebon; he was bilious, fanatical, and
naturally blood-thirsty. He had only awaited the opportunity to execute
enormities that the imagination even of Marat would not have dared to
conceive. Sent to the borders of an insurgent country, he condemned to
death the whole hostile population--priests, women, children, old men, and
girls. As the scaffold did not suffice for his cruelty, he substituted a
company of assassins, called Marat's company, for the revolutionary
tribune, and, for the guillotine, boats, with false bottoms, by means of
which he drowned his victims in the Loire. Cries of vengeance and justice
were raised against these enormities. After the 9th of Thermidor, Lebon
was attacked first, because he was more especially the agent of
Robespierre. Carrier, who was that of the committee of public safety, and
of whose conduct Robespierre had disapproved, was prosecuted subsequently.
There were in the prisons of Paris ninety-four people of Nantes, sincerely
attached to the revolution, and who had defended their town with courage
during the attack made on it by the Vendéans. Carrier had sent them to
Paris as federalists. It had not been deemed safe to bring them before the
revolutionary tribunal until the ninth of Thermidor; they were then taken
there for the purpose of unmasking, by their trial, the crimes of Carrier.
They were tried purposely with prolonged solemnity; their trial lasted
nearly a month; there was time given for public opinion to declare itself;
and on their acquittal, there was a general demand for justice on the
revolutionary committee of Nantes, and on the proconsul Carrier. Legendre
renewed Lecointre's impeachment of Billaud, Barrère, Collot, and Vadier,
who were generously defended by Carnot, Prieur, and Cambon, their former
colleagues, who demanded to share their fate. Lecointre's motion was not
attended with any result; and, for the present, they only brought to trial
the members of the revolutionary committee of Nantes; but we may observe
the progress of the Thermidorian party. This time the members of the
committee were obliged to have recourse to defence, and the convention
simply passed to the order of the day, on the question of the denunciation
made by Legendre, without voting it calumnious, as they had done that of
Lecointre.
The revolutionary democrats were, however, still very powerful in Paris:
if they had lost the commune, the tribunal, the convention, and the
committee, they yet retained the Jacobins and the faubourgs. It was in
these popular societies that their party concentrated, especially for the
purpose of defending themselves. Carrier attended them assiduously, and
invoked their assistance; Billaud-Varennes, and Collot-d'Herbois also
resorted to them; but these being somewhat less threatened were
circumspect. They were accordingly censured for their silence. "_The lion
sleeps_," replied Billaud-Varennes, "_but his waking will be terrible_."
This club had been expurgated after the 10th Thermidor, and it had
congratulated the convention in the name of the regenerated societies, on
the fall of Robespierre and of tyranny. About this time, as many of its
leaders were proceeded against, and many Jacobins were imprisoned in the
departments, it came in the name of the united societies "_to give
utterance to the cry of grief that resounded from every part of the
republic, and to the voice of oppressed patriots, plunged in the dungeons
which the aristocrats had just left_."
The convention, far from yielding to the Jacobins, prohibited, for the
purpose of destroying their influence, all collective petitions, branch-
associations, correspondence, etc., between the parent society and its
off-sets, and in this way disorganized the famous confederation of the
clubs. The Jacobins, rejected from the convention, began to agitate Paris,
where they were still masters. Then the Thermidorians also began to
convoke their people, by appealing to the support of the sections. At the
same time Fréron called the young men at arms, in his journal _l'Orateur
du Peuple_, and placed himself at their head. This new and irregular
militia called itself _La jeunesse dorée de Fréron_. All those who
composed it belonged to the rich and the middle class; they had adopted a
particular costume, called _Costume à la victime_. Instead of the blouse
of the Jacobins, they wore a square open coat and very low shoes; the
hair, long at the sides, was turned up behind, with tresses called
_cadenettes_; they were armed with short sticks, leadened and formed like
bludgeons. Some of these young men and some of the sectionaries were
royalists; others followed the impulse of the moment, which was anti-
revolutionary. The latter acted without object or ambition, declaring in
favour of the strongest party, especially when the triumph of that party
promised to restore order, the want of which was generally felt. The other
contended under the Thermidorians against the old committees, as the
Thermidorians had contended under the old committees against Robespierre;
it waited for an opportunity of acting on its own account, which occurred
after the entire downfall of the revolutionary party. In the violent
situation of the two parties, actuated by fear and resentment, they
pursued each other ruthlessly and often came to blows in the streets to
the cry of "Vive la Montagne!" or "Vive la Convention!" The _jeunesse
dorée_ were powerful in the Palais Royal, where they were supported by the
shopkeepers; but the Jacobins were the strongest in the garden of the
Tuileries, which was near their club.
These quarrels became more animated every day; and Paris was transformed
into a field of battle, where the fate of the parties was left to the
decision of arms. This state of war and disorder would necessarily have an
end; and since the parties had not the wisdom to come to an understanding,
one or the other must inevitably carry the day. The Thermidorians were the
growing party, and victory naturally fell to them. On the day following
that on which Billaud had spoken of the _waking of the lion_ in the
popular society, there was great agitation throughout Paris. It was wished
to take the Jacobin club by assault. Men shouted in the streets--"The
great Jacobin conspiracy! Outlaw the Jacobins!" At this period the
revolutionary committee of Nantes were being tried. In their defence they
pleaded that they had received from Carrier the sanguinary orders they had
executed; which led the convention to enter into an examination of his
conduct. Carrier was allowed to defend himself before the decree was
passed against him. He justified his cruelty by the cruelty of the
Vendéans, and the maddening; fury of civil war. "When I acted," he said,
"the air still seemed to resound with the civic songs of twenty thousand
martyrs, who had shouted 'Vive la république!' in the midst of tortures.
How could the voice of humanity, which had died in this terrible crisis,
be heard? What would my adversaries have done in my place? I saved the
republic at Nantes; my life has been devoted to my country, and I am ready
to die for it." Out of five hundred voters, four hundred and ninety-eight
were for the impeachment; the other two voted for it, but conditionally.
The Jacobins finding their opponents were going from subordinate agents to
the representatives themselves, regarded themselves as lost. They
endeavoured to rouse the multitude, less to defend Carrier than for the
support of their party, which was threatened more and more. But they were
kept in check by the _jeunesse dorée_ and the sectionaries, who eventually
proceeded to the place of their sittings to dissolve the club. A sharp
conflict ensued. The besiegers broke the windows with stones, forced the
doors, and dispersed the Jacobins after some resistance on their part. The
latter complained to the convention of this violence. Rewbell, deputed to
make a report on the subject, was not favourable to them. "Where was
tyranny organized?" said he. "At the Jacobin club. Where had it its
supports and its satellites? At the Jacobin club. Who covered France with
mourning, threw families into despair, filled the republic with bastilles,
made the republican system so odious, that a slave laden with fetters
would have refused to live under it? The Jacobins. Who regret the terrible
reign we have lived under? The Jacobins. If you have not courage to decide
in a moment like this, the republic is at an end, because you have
Jacobins." The convention suspended them provisionally, in order to
expurgate and reorganize them, not daring to destroy them at once. The
Jacobins, setting the decree at defiance, assembled in arms at their usual
place of meeting; the Thermidorian troop who had already besieged them
there, came again to assail them. It surrounded the club with cries of
"Long live the convention! Down with the Jacobins!" The latter prepared
for defence; they left their seats, shouting, "Long live the republic!"
rushed to the doors, and attempted a sortie. At first they made a few
prisoners; but soon yielding to superior numbers, they submitted, and
traversed the ranks of the victors, who, after disarming them, covered
them with hisses, insults, and even blows. These illegal expeditions were
accompanied by all the excesses which attend party struggles.
The next day commissioners of the convention came to close the club, and
put seals on its registers and papers, and from that moment the society of
the Jacobins ceased to exist. This popular body had powerfully served the
revolution, when, in order to repel Europe, it was necessary to place the
government in the multitude, and to give the republic all the energy of
defence; but now it only obstructed the progress of the new order of
things.
The situation of affairs was changed; liberty was to succeed the
dictatorship, now that the salvation of the revolution had been effected,
and that it was necessary to revert to legal order, in order to preserve
it. An exorbitant and extraordinary power, like the confederation of the
clubs, would necessarily terminate with the defeat of the party which had
supported it, and that party itself expire with the circumstances which
had given it rise.
Carrier, brought before the revolutionary tribunal, was tried without
interruption, and condemned with the majority of his accomplices. During
the trial, the seventy-three deputies, whose protest against the 31st of
May had excluded them from the assemblies, were reinstated. Merlin de
Douai moved their recall in the name of the committee of public safety;
his motion was received with applause, and the seventy-three resumed their
seats in the convention. The seventy-three, in their turn, tried to obtain
the return of the outlawed deputies; but they met with warm opposition.
The Thermidorians and the members of the new committees feared that such a
measure would be calling the revolution itself into question. They were
also afraid of introducing a new party into the convention, already
divided, and of recalling implacable enemies, who might cause, with regard
to themselves, a reaction similar to that which had taken place against
the old committees. Accordingly they vehemently opposed the motion, and
Merlin de Douai went so far as to say: "Do you want to throw open the
doors of the Temple?" The young son of Louis XVI. was confined there, and
the Girondists, on account of the results of the 31st of May, were
confounded with the Royalists; besides, the 31st of May still figured
among the revolutionary dates beside the 10th of August and the 14th of
July. The retrograde movement had yet some steps to take before it reached
that period. The republican counter-revolution had turned back from the
9th Thermidor, 1794, to the 3rd of October, 1793, the day on which the
seventy-three had been arrested, but not to the 2nd of June, 1793, when
the twenty-two were arrested. After overthrowing Robespierre, and the
committee, it had to attack Marat and the Mountain. In the almost
geometrical progression of popular movement, a few months were still
necessary to effect this.
They went on to abolish the decemviral system. The decree against the
priests and nobles, who had formed two proscribed classes under the reign
of terror, was revoked; the _maximum_ was abolished, in order to restore
confidence by putting an end to commercial tyranny; the general and
earnest effort was to substitute the most elevated liberty for the
despotic pressure of the committee of public safety. This period was also
marked by the independence of the press, the restoration of religious
worship, and the return of the property confiscated from the federalists
during the reign of the committees.
Here was a complete reaction against the revolutionary government; it soon
reached Marat and the Mountain. After the 9th of Thermidor, it had been
considered necessary to oppose a great revolutionary reputation to that of
Robespierre, and Marat had been selected for this purpose. To him were
decreed the honours of the Panthéon, which Robespierre, while in power,
had deferred granting him. He, in his turn, was now attacked. His bust was
in the convention, the theatres, on the public squares, and in the popular
assemblies. The _jeunesse dorée_ broke that in the Théâtre Feydeau. The
Mountain complained, but the convention decreed that no citizen could
obtain the honours of the Panthéon, nor his bust be placed in the
convention, until he had been dead ten years. The bust of Marat
disappeared from the hall of the convention, and as the excitement was
very great in the faubourgs, the sections, the usual support of the
assembly, defiled through it. There was, also, opposite the Invalides, an
elevated mound, a _Mountain_, surmounted by a colossal group, representing
Hercules crushing a hydra. The section of the Halle-au-blé demanded that
this should be removed. The left of the assembly murmured. "The giant,"
said a member, "is an emblem of the people." "All I see in it is a
mountain," replied another, "and what is a Mountain but an eternal protest
against equality." These words were much applauded, and sufficed to carry
the petition and overthrow the monument of the victory and domination of a
party.
Next were recalled the proscribed conventionalists; already, some time
since, their outlawry had been reversed. Isnard and Louvet wrote to the
assembly to be reinstated in their rights; they were met by the objection
as to the consequences of the 31st of May, and the insurrections of the
departments. "I will not," said Chénier, who spoke in their favour, "I
will not so insult the national convention as to bring before them the
phantom of federalism, which has been preposterously made the chief charge
against your colleagues. They fled, it will be said; they hid themselves.
This, then, is their crime! would that this, for the welfare of the
republic, had been the crime of all! Why were there not caverns deep
enough to preserve to the country the meditations of Condorcet, the
eloquence of Vergniaud? Why did not some hospitable land, on the 10th
Thermidor, give back to light that colony of energetic patriots and
virtuous republicans? But projects of vengeance are apprehended from these
men, soured by misfortune. Taught in the school of suffering, they have
learnt only to lament human errors. No, no, Condorcet, Rabaud-Saint-
Etienne, Vergniaud, Camille Desmoulins seek not holocausts of blood; their
manes are not to be appeased by hecatombs." The Left opposed Chénier's
motion. "You are about," cried Bentabole, "to rouse every passion; if you
attack the insurrection of the 31st of May, you attack the eighty thousand
men who concurred in it." "Let us take care," replied Sieyès, "not to
confound the work of tyranny with that of principles. When men, supported
by a subordinate authority, the rival of ours, succeeded in organizing the
greatest of crimes, on the fatal 31st of May, and 2nd of June, it was not
a work of patriotism, but an outrage of tyranny; from that time you have
seen the convention domineered over, the majority oppressed, the minority
dictating laws. The present session is divided into three distinct
periods; till the 31st of May, there was oppression of the convention by
the people; till the 9th Thermidor, oppression of the people by the
convention, itself the object of tyranny; and lastly, since the 9th of
Thermidor, justice, as regards the convention, has resumed its rights." He
demanded the recall of the proscribed members, as a pledge of union in the
assembly, and of security for the republic. Merlin de Douai immediately
proposed their return in the name of the committee of public safety; it
was granted, and after eighteen months' proscription, the twenty-two
conventionalists resumed their seats; among them were Isnard, Louvet,
Lanjuinais, Kervelegan, Henri La Rivière, La Réveillère-Lépaux, and
Lesage, all that remained of the brilliant but unfortunate Gironde. They
joined the moderate party, which was composed daily more and more of the
remains of different parties. For old enemies, forgetting their
resentments and their contest for domination, because they had now the
same interests and the same object, became allies. It was the commencement
of pacification between those who wished for a republic against the
royalists, and a practicable constitution, in opposition to the
revolutionists. At this period all measures against the federalists were
rescinded, and the Girondists assumed the lead of the republican counter-
revolution.
The convention was, however, carried much too far by the partisans of
reaction; in its desire to repair all and to punish all, it fell into
excesses of justice. After the abolition of the decemviral régime, the
past should have been buried in oblivion, and the revolutionary abyss
closed after a few expiatory victims had been thrown into it. Security
alone brings about pacification; and pacification only admits of liberty.
By again entering upon a course characterized by passion, they only
effected a transference of tyranny, violence, and calamity. Hitherto the
bourgeoisie had been sacrificed to the multitude, to the consumers now it
was just the reverse. Stock-jobbing was substituted for the _maximum_, and
informers of the middle class altogether surpassed the popular informers.
All who had taken part in the dictatorial government were proceeded
against with the fiercest determination. The sections, the seat of the
middle class, required the disarming and punishment of the members of
their revolutionary committees, composed of sans-culottes. There was a
general hue and cry against the _terrorists_, who increased in number
daily. The departments denounced all the former proconsuls, thus rendering
desperate a numerous party, in reality no longer to be feared, since it
had lost all power, by thus threatening it with great and perpetual
reprisals.
Dread of proscription, and several other reasons, disposed them for
revolt. The general want was terrible. Labour and its produce had been
diminished ever since the revolutionary period, during which the rich had
been imprisoned and the poor had governed; the suppression of the
_maximum_ had occasioned a violent crisis, which the traders and farmers
turned to account, by disastrous monopoly and jobbing. To increase the
difficulty, the assignats were falling into discredit, and their value
diminished daily. More than eight milliards worth of them had been issued.
The insecurity of this paper money, by reason of the revolutionary
confiscations, which had depreciated the national property, the want of
confidence on the part of the merchants, tradesmen, etc., in the stability
of the revolutionary government, which they considered merely provisional,
all this had combined to reduce the real value of the assignats to one-
fifteenth of their nominal value. They were received reluctantly, and
specie was hoarded up with all the greater care, in proportion to the
increasing demand for it, and the depreciation of paper money. The people,
in want of food, and without the means of buying it, even when they held
assignats, were in utter distress. They attributed this to the merchants,
the farmers, the landed and other proprietors, to the government, and
dwelt with regret upon the fact that before, under the committee of public
safety, they had enjoyed both power and food. The convention had indeed
appointed a committee of subsistence to supply Paris with provisions, but
this committee had great difficulty and expense in procuring from day to
day the supply of fifteen hundred sacks of flour necessary to support this
immense city; and the people, who waited in crowds for hours together
before the bakers' shops, for the pound of bad bread, distributed to each
inhabitant, were loud in their complaints, and violent in their murmurs.
They called Boissy d'Anglas, president of the committee of subsistence,
_Boissy-Famine_. Such was the state of the fanatical and exasperated
multitude, when its former leaders were brought to trial.
On the 12th Ventôse, a short time after the return of the remaining
Girondists, the assembly had decreed the arrest of Billaud-Varennes,
Collot-d'Herbois, Barrère and Vadier. Their trial before the convention
was appointed to commence on the 3rd Germinal. On the 1st (20th of March,
1795), the Décade day, and that on which the sections assembled, their
partisans organized a riot to prevent their being brought to trial; the
outer sections of the faubourgs Saint Antoine and Saint Marceau were
devoted to their cause. From these quarters they proceeded, half
petitioners, half insurgents, towards the convention, to demand bread, the
constitution of '93, and the liberation of the imprisoned patriots. They
met a few young men on their way, whom they threw into the basins of the
Tuileries. The news, however, soon spread that the convention was exposed
to danger, and that the Jacobins were about to liberate their leaders, and
the _jeunesse dorée_, followed by about five thousand citizens of the
inner sections, came, dispersed the men of the faubourgs, and acted as a
guard for the assembly. The latter, warned by this new danger, revived, on
the motion of Sieyès, the old martial law, under the name of _loi de
grande police_.
This rising in favour of the accused having failed, they were brought
before the convention on the 3rd Germinal. Vadier alone was contumacious.
Their conduct was investigated with the greatest solemnity; they were
charged with having tyrannized over the people and oppressed the
convention. Though proofs were not wanting to support this charge, the
accused defended themselves with much address. They ascribed to
Robespierre the oppression of the assembly, and of themselves; they
endeavoured to palliate their own conduct by citing the measures taken by
the committee, and adopted by the convention, by urging the excitement of
the period, and the necessity of securing the defence and safety of the
republic. Their former colleagues appeared as witnesses in their favour,
and wished to make common cause with them. The _Crêtois_ (the name then
given to the remnant of the Mountain) also supported them warmly. Their
trial had lasted nine days, and each sitting had been occupied by the
prosecution and the defence. The sections of the faubourgs were greatly
excited. The mobs which had collected every day since the 1st Germinal,
increased twofold on the 12th, and a new rising took place, in order to
suspend the trial, which the first rising had failed to prevent. The
agitators, more numerous and bold on this occasion, forced their way
through the guard of the convention, and entered the hall, having written
with chalk on their hats the words, "Bread," "The constitution of '93,"
"Liberty for the patriots." Many of the deputies of the _Crête_ declared
in their favour; the other members, astounded at the tumult and disorder
of this popular invasion, awaited the arrival of the inner sections for
their deliverance. All debating was at an end. The tocsin, which had been
removed from the commune after its defeat, and placed on the top of the
Tuileries, where the convention sat, sounded the alarm. The committee
ordered the drums to beat to arms. In a short time the citizens of the
nearest sections assembled, marched in arms to assist the convention, and
rescued it a second time. It sentenced the accused, whose cause was the
pretext for this rising, to transportation, and decreed the arrest of
seventeen members of the _Crête_ who had favoured the insurgents, and
might therefore be regarded as their accomplices. Among these were Cambon,
Ruamps, Leonard Bourdon, Thuriot, Chasle, Amar, and Lecointre, who, since
the recall of the Girondists, had returned to the Mountain. On the
following day they, and the persons sentenced to transportation, were
conveyed to the castle of Ham.
The events of the 12th of Germinal decided nothing. The faubourgs had been
repulsed, but not conquered; and both power and confidence must be taken
from a party by a decisive defeat, before it is effectually destroyed.
After so many questions decided against the democratists, there still
remained one of the utmost importance--the constitution. On this depended
the ascendancy of the multitude or of the bourgeoisie. The supporters of
the revolutionary government then fell back on the democratic constitution
of '93, which presented to them the means of resuming the authority they
had lost. Their opponents, on the other hand, endeavoured to replace it by
a constitution which would secure all the advantage to them, by
concentrating the government a little more, and giving it to the middle
class. For a month, both parties were preparing for this last contest. The
constitution of 1793, having been sanctioned by the people, enjoyed a
great prestige. It was accordingly attacked with infinite precaution. At
first its assailants engaged to carry it into execution without
restriction; next they appointed a commission of eleven members to prepare
the _lois organiques_, which were to render it practicable; by and by,
they ventured to suggest objections to it on the ground that it
distributed power too loosely, and only recognised one assembly dependent
on the people, even in its measures of legislation. At last, a deputation
of the sectionaries went so far as to call the constitution of '93 a
decemviral constitution, dictated by terror. All its partisans, at once
indignant and filled with fears, organized an insurrection to maintain it.
This was another 31st of May, as terrible as the first, but which, not
having the support of an all-powerful commune, not being directed by a
general commandant, and not having a terrified convention and submissive
sections to deal with, had not the same result.
The conspirators, warned by the failure of the risings of the 1st and 12th
Germinal, omitted nothing to make up for their want of direct object and
of organization. On the 1st Prairial (20th of May) in the name of the
people, insurgent for the purpose of obtaining bread and their rights,
they decreed the abolition of the revolutionary government, the
establishment of the democratic constitution of '93, the dismissal and
arrest of the members of the existing government, the liberation of the
patriots, the convocation of the primary assemblies on the 25th Prairial,
the convocation of the legislative assembly, destined to replace the
convention, on the 25th Messidor, and the suspension of all authority not
emanating from the people. They determined on forming a new municipality,
to serve as a common centre; to seize on the barriers, telegraph, cannon,
tocsins, drums, and not to rest till they had secured repose, happiness,
liberty, and means of subsistence for all the French nation. They invited
the artillery, gendarmes, horse and foot soldiers, to join the banners of
the people, and marched on the convention.
Meantime, the latter was deliberating on the means of preventing the
insurrection. The daily assemblages occasioned by the distribution of
bread and the popular excitement, had concealed from it the preparations
for a great rising, and it had taken no steps to prevent it. The
committees came in all haste to apprise it of its danger; it immediately
declared its sitting permanent, voted Paris responsible for the safety of
the representatives of the republic, closed its doors, outlawed all the
leaders of the mob, summoned the citizens of the sections to arms, and
appointed as their leaders eight commissioners, among whom were Legendre,
Henri La Rivière, Kervelegan, etc. These deputies had scarcely gone, when
a loud noise was heard without. An outer door had been forced, and numbers
of women rushed into the galleries, crying, "Bread and the constitution of
'93!" The convention received them firmly. "Your cries," said the
president Vernier, "will not alter our position; they will not accelerate
by one moment the arrival of supplies. They will only serve to hinder it."
A fearful tumult drowned the voice of the president, and interrupted the
proceedings. The galleries were then cleared; but the insurgents of the
faubourgs soon reached the inner doors, and finding them closed, forced
them with hatchets and hammers, and then rushed in amidst the convention.
The hall now became a field of battle. The veterans and gendarmes, to whom
the guard of the assembly was confided, cried, "To arms!" The deputy
Auguis, sword in hand, headed them, and succeeded in repelling the
assailants, and even made a few of them prisoners. But the insurgents,
more numerous, returned to the charge, and again rushed into the house.
The deputy Féraud entered precipitately, pursued by the insurgents, who
fired some shots in the house. They took aim at Boissy d'Anglas, who was
occupying the president's chair, in place of Vernier. Féraud ran to the
tribune, to shield him with his body; he was struck at with pikes and
sabres, and fell dangerously wounded.
The insurgents dragged him into the lobby, and, mistaking him for Fréron,
cut off his head, and placed it on a pike.
After this skirmish, they became masters of the hall. Most of the deputies
had taken flight. There only remained the members of the _Crête_ and
Boissy d'Anglas, who, calm, his hat on, heedless of threat and insult,
protested in the name of the convention against this popular violence.
They held out to him the bleeding head of Féraud; he bowed respectfully
before it. They tried to force him, by placing pikes at his breast, to put
the propositions of the insurgents to the vote; he steadily and
courageously refused. But the _Crêtois_, who approved of the insurrection,
took possession of the bureaux and of the tribune, and decreed, amidst the
applause of the multitude, all the articles contained in the manifesto of
the insurrection. The deputy Romme became their organ. They further
appointed an executive commission, composed of Bourbotte, Duroy,
Duquesnoy, Prieur de la Marne, and a general-in-chief of the armed force,
the deputy Soubrany. In this way they prepared for the return of their
domination. They decreed the recall of their imprisoned colleagues, the
dismissal of their enemies, a democratic constitution, the re-
establishment of the Jacobin club. But it was not enough for them to have
usurped the assembly for a short time; it was necessary to conquer the
sections, for it was only with these they could really contend there.
The commissioners despatched to the sections had quickly gathered them
together. The battalions of the _Butte des Moulins, Lepelletier, des
Piques, de la Fontaine-Grenelle_, who were the nearest, soon occupied the
Carrousel and its principal avenues. The aspect of affairs then underwent
a change; Legendre, Kervelegan, and Auguis besieged the insurgents, in
their turn, at the head of the sectionaries. At first they experienced
some resistance. But with fixed bayonets they soon entered the hall, where
the conspirators were still deliberating, and Legendre cried out: "_In the
name of the law, I order armed citizens to withdraw_." They hesitated a
moment, but the arrival of the battalions, now entering at every door,
intimidated them, and they hastened from the hall in all the disorder of
flight. The assembly again became complete; the sections received a vote
of thanks, and the deliberations were resumed. All the measures adopted in
the interim were annulled, and fourteen representatives, to whom were
afterwards joined fourteen others, were arrested, for organizing the
insurrection, or approving it in their speeches. It was then midnight; at
five in the morning the prisoners were already six leagues from Paris.
Despite this defeat, the faubourgs did not consider themselves beaten; and
the next day they advanced _en masse_ with their cannon against the
convention. The sections, on their side, marched for its defence. The two
parties were on the point of engaging; the cannons of the faubourg which
were mounted on the Place du Carrousel, were directed towards the château,
when the assembly sent commissioners to the insurgents. Negotiations were
begun. A deputy of the faubourgs, admitted to the convention, first
repeated the demand made the preceding day, adding: "We are resolved to
die at the post we now occupy, rather than abate our present demands. I
fear nothing! My name is Saint-Légier. Vive la République! Vive la
Convention! if it is attached to principles, as I believe it to be." The
deputy was favourably received, and they came to friendly terms with the
faubourgs, without, however, granting them anything positive. The latter
having no longer a general council of the commune to support their
resolutions, nor a commander like Henriot to keep them under arms, till
their propositions were decreed, went no further. They retired after
having received an assurance that the convention would assiduously attend
to the question of provisions, and would soon publish the organic laws of
the constitution of '93. That day showed that immense physical force and a
decided object are not the only things essential to secure success;
leaders and an authority to support and direct the insurrection are also
necessary. The convention was the only remaining legal power: the party
which it held in favour triumphed.
Six democratic members of the Mountain, Goujon, Bourbotte, Romme, Duroy,
Duquesnoy, and Soubrany, were brought before a military commission. They
behaved firmly, like men fanatically devoted to their cause, and almost
all free from excesses. The Prairial movement was the only thing against
them; but that was sufficient in times of party strife, and they were
condemned to death. They all stabbed themselves with the same knife, which
was transferred from one to the other, exclaiming, "_Vive la République!_"
Romme, Goujon, and Duquesnoy were fortunate enough to wound themselves
fatally; the other three were conducted to the scaffold in a dying state,
but faced death with serene countenances.
Meantime, the faubourgs, though repelled on the 1st, and diverted from
their object on the 2nd of Prairial, still had the means of rising. An
event of much less importance than the preceding riots occasioned their
final ruin. The murderer of Féraud was discovered, condemned, and on the
4th, the day of his execution, a mob succeeded in rescuing him. There was
a general outcry against this attempt; and the convention ordered the
faubourgs to be disarmed. They were encompassed by all the interior
sections. After attempting to resist, they yielded, giving up some of
their leaders, their arms, and artillery. The democratic party had lost
its chiefs, its clubs, and its authorities; it had nothing left but an
armed force, which rendered it still formidable, and institutions by means
of which it might yet regain everything. After the last check, the
inferior class was entirely excluded from the government of the state, the
revolutionary committees which formed its assemblies were destroyed; the
cannoneers forming its armed force were disarmed; the constitution of '93,
which was its code, was abolished; and here the rule of the multitude
terminated.
From the 9th Thermidor to the 1st Prairial, the Mountain was treated as
the Girondist party had been treated from the 2nd of June to the 9th
Thermidor. Seventy-six of its members were sentenced to death or arrest.
In its turn, it underwent the destiny it had imposed on the other; for in
times when the passions are called into play, parties know not how to come
to terms, and seek only to conquer. Like the Girondists, they resorted to
insurrection, in order to regain the power which they had lost; and like
them, they fell. Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, etc., were tried by a
revolutionary tribunal; Bourbotte, Duroy, Soubrany, Romme, Goujon,
Duquesnoy, by a military commission. They all died with the same courage;
which shows that all parties are the same, and are guided by the same
maxims, or, if you please, by the same necessities. From that period, the
middle class resumed the management of the revolution without, and the
assembly was as united under the Girondists as it had been, after the 2nd
of June, under the Mountain.