_Views of the British Cabinet regarding the French
Revolution--Extraordinary Situation of France--Explanation of
the Anomaly which it exhibited--System of Terror--Committee of
Public Safety--Of Public Security--David the Painter--Law
against suspected Persons--Revolutionary Tribunal--Effects of
the Emigration of the Princes and Nobles--Causes of the
Passiveness of the French People under the Tyranny of the
Jacobins--Singular Address of the Committee of Public
Safety--General Reflections._
It has been a maxim with great statesmen, that evil governments must end
by becoming their own destruction, according to the maxim, _Res nolunt
diù male administrari_. Pitt himself was of opinion, that the fury of
the French Revolution would wear itself out; and that it already
presented so few of the advantages and privileges of social compact,
that it seemed as if its political elements must either altogether
dissolve, or assume a new form more similar to that on which all other
states and governments rest their stability. It was on this account that
this great English statesman declined assisting, in plain and open terms
the royal cause, and desired to keep England free from any pledge
concerning the future state of government in France, aware of the danger
of involving her in any declared and avowed interference with the right
of a people to choose their own system. However anxious to prevent the
revolutionary opinions, as well as arms, from extending beyond their own
frontier, it was thought in the British Cabinet, by one large party,
that the present frantic excess of Republican principles must, of
itself, produce a reaction in favour of more moderate sentiments. Some
steady system for the protection of life and property, was, it was said,
essential to the very existence of society. The French nation must
assume such, and renounce the prosecution of those revolutionary
doctrines, for the sake of their own as well as of other countries. The
arrangement must, it was thought, take place, from the inevitable course
of human affairs, which, however they may fluctuate, are uniformly
determined at length by the interest of the parties concerned.
Such was the principle assumed by many great statesmen, whose sagacity
was unhappily baffled by the event. In fact, it was calculating upon the
actions and personal exertions of a raving madman, as if he had been
under the regulation of his senses, and acting upon principles of
self-regard and self-preservation. France continued not only to subsist,
but to be victorious, without a government, unless the revolutionary
committees and Jacobin clubs could be accounted such--for the Convention
was sunk into a mere engine of that party, and sanctioned whatever they
proposed; without religion, which, as we shall see, they formally
abolished; without municipal laws or rights, except that any one of the
ruling party might do what mischief he would, while citizens, less
distinguished for patriotism, were subjected, for any cause, or no
cause, to loss of liberty, property, and life itself; without military
discipline, for officers might be dragged from their regiments, and
generals from their armies, on the information of their own soldiers;
without revenues of state, for the depression of the assignats was
extreme; without laws, for there were no ordinary tribunals left to
appeal to; without colonies, ships, manufactories, or commerce; without
fine arts, any more than those which were useful;--in short, France
continued to subsist, and to achieve victories, although apparently
forsaken of God, and deprived of all the ordinary resources of human
wisdom.
The whole system of society, indeed, seemed only to retain some
appearances of cohesion from mere habit, the same which makes trained
horses draw up in something like order, even without their riders, if
the trumpet is sounded. And yet in foreign wars, notwithstanding the
deplorable state of the interior, the Republic was not only
occasionally, but permanently and triumphantly victorious. She was like
the champion in Berni's romance, who was so delicately sliced asunder by
one of the Paladins, that he went on fighting, and slew other warriors,
without discovering for a length of time that he was himself killed.
All this extraordinary energy, was, in one word, the effect of TERROR.
Death--a grave--are sounds which awaken the strongest efforts in those
whom they menace. There was never anywhere, save in France during this
melancholy period, so awful a comment on the expression of Scripture,
"All that a man hath will he give for his life." Force, immediate and
irresistible force, was the only logic used by the government--Death was
the only appeal from their authority--the Guillotine[439] the all
sufficing argument, which settled each debate betwixt them and the
governed.
Was the exchequer low, the Guillotine filled it with the effects of the
wealthy, who were judged aristocratical, in exact proportion to the
extent of their property. Were these supplies insufficient, diminished
as they were by peculation ere they reached the public coffers, the
assignats remained, which might be multiplied to any quantity. Did the
paper medium of circulation fall in the market to fifty under the
hundred, the Guillotine was ready to punish those who refused to
exchange it at par. A few examples of such jobbers in the public funds
made men glad to give one hundred franks for state money, which they
knew to be worth no more than fifty. Was bread awanting, corn was to be
found by the same compendious means, and distributed among the
Parisians, as among the ancient citizens of Rome, at a regulated price.
The Guillotine was a key to storehouses, barns, and granaries.
Did the army want recruits, the Guillotine was ready to exterminate all
conscripts who should hesitate to march. On the generals of the
Republican army, this decisive argument, which, _à priori_, might have
been deemed less applicable, in all its rigour, to them than to others,
was possessed of the most exclusive authority. They were beheaded for
want of success, which may seem less different from the common course of
affairs;[440] but they were also guillotined when their successes were
not improved to the full expectations of their masters.[441] Nay, they
were guillotined, when, being too successful, they were suspected of
having acquired over the soldiers who had conquered under them, an
interest dangerous to those who had the command of this all-sufficing
reason of state.[442] Even mere mediocrity, and a limited but regular
discharge of duty, neither so brilliant as to incur jealousy, nor so
important as to draw down censure, was no protection.[443] There was no
rallying point against this universal, and very simple system--of main
force.
The Vendéans, who tried the open and manly mode of generous and direct
resistance, were, as we have seen, finally destroyed, leaving a name
which will live for ages. The commercial towns, which, upon a scale more
modified, also tried their strength with the revolutionary torrent, were
successively overpowered. One can, therefore, be no more surprised that
the rest of the nation gave way to predominant force, than we are daily
at seeing a herd of strong and able-bodied cattle driven to the shambles
before one or two butchers, and as many bull-dogs. As the victims
approach the slaughter-house, and smell the blood of those which have
suffered the fate to which they are destined, they may be often observed
to hesitate, start, roar, and bellow, and intimate their dread of the
fatal spot, and instinctive desire to escape from it; but the cudgels of
their drivers, and the fangs of the mastiffs, seldom fail to compel
them forward, slavering, and snorting, and trembling, to the destiny
which awaits them.
The power of exercising this tremendous authority over a terrified
nation, was vested in few hands, and rested on a very simple basis.
The Convention had, after the fall of the Girondists, remained an empty
show of what it had once some title to call itself,--the Representative
Body of the French Nation. The members belonging to The Plain, who had
observed a timid neutrality betwixt The Mountain and the Girondists, if
not without talent, were without courage to make any opposition to the
former when triumphant. They crouched to their fate, were glad to escape
in silence, and to yield full passage to the revolutionary torrent. They
consoled themselves with the usual apology of weak minds--that they
submitted to what they could not prevent; and their adversaries, while
despising them, were yet tolerant of their presence, and somewhat
indulgent to their scruples, because, while these timid neutrals
remained in their ranks, they furnished to the eye at least the
appearance of a full senate, filled the ranks of the representative body
as a garment is stuffed out to the required size by buckram, and
countenanced by their passive acquiescence the measures which they most
detested in their hearts. It was worth the while of The Mountain to
endure the imbecility of such associates, and even to permit
occasionally some diffident opposition on their part, had it only been
to preserve appearances, and afford a show of a free assembly debating
on the affairs of the nation. Thus, although the name of the National
Convention was generally used, its deputies, carefully selected from the
Jacobin or ruling party, were every where acting in their name, with all
the authority of Roman proconsuls; while two-thirds of the body sate
with submitted necks and padlocked lips, unresisting slaves to the minor
proportion, which again, under its various fierce leaders, was beginning
to wage a civil war within its own limited circle.
But the young reader, to whom this eventful history is a novelty, may
ask in what hands was the real power of the government lodged, of which
the Convention, considered as a body, was thus effectually deprived,
though permitted to retain, like the apparition in Macbeth,--
"upon its baby brow the round
And type of sovereignty?"
France had, indeed, in 1792, accepted, with the usual solemnities, a new
constitution, which was stated to rest on the right republican basis,
and was, of course, alleged to afford the most perfect and absolute
security for liberty and equality, that the nation could desire. But
this constitution was entirely superseded in practice by the more
compendious mode of governing by means of a junto, selected out of the
Convention itself, without observing any farther ceremony. In fact, two
small Committees vested with the full authority of the state, exercised
the powers of a dictatorship; while the representatives of the people,
like the senate under the Roman empire, retained the form and semblance
of supreme sway, might keep their curule chairs, and enjoy the dignity
of fasces and lictors, but had in their possession and exercise scarcely
the independent powers of an English vestry, or quarter-sessions.
The Committee of Public Safety dictated every measure of the Convention,
or more frequently acted without deigning to consult the legislative
body at all. The number of members who exercised this executive
government fluctuated betwixt ten and twelve; and, as they were all
chosen Jacobins, and selected as men capable of going all the lengths of
their party, care was taken, by re-elections from time to time, to
render the situation permanent. This body deliberated in secret, and had
the despotic right of interfering with and controlling every other
authority in the state; and before its absolute powers, and the uses
which were made of them, the Council of Ten of the Venetian government
sunk into a harmless and liberal institution. Another committee, with
powers of the same revolutionary nature, and in which the members were
also renewed from time to time, was that of Public Security. It was
inferior in importance to that of Public Safety, but was nevertheless as
active within its sphere. We regret to record of a man of genius, that
David, the celebrated painter,[444] held a seat in the Committee of
Public Security. The fine arts, which he studied, had not produced on
his mind the softening and humanizing effect ascribed to them.
Frightfully ugly in his exterior, his mind seemed to correspond with the
harshness of his looks. "Let us grind enough of the Red," was the
professional phrase of which he made use, when sitting down to the
bloody work of the day.
That these revolutionary committees might have in their hands a power
subject to no legal defence or evasion on the part of the accused,
Merlin of Douay, a lawyer, it is said, of eminence, framed what was
termed the law against suspected persons, which was worded with so much
ingenuity, that not only it enveloped every one who, by birth,
friendship, habits of life, dependencies, or other ties, was linked,
however distantly, with aristocracy, whether of birth or property, but
also all who had, in the various changes and phases of the Revolution,
taken one step too few in the career of the most violent patriotism, or
had, though it were but for one misguided and doubtful moment, held
opinions short of the most extravagant Jacobinism. This crime of
suspicion was of the nature of the cameleon; it derived its peculiar
shade or colour from the person to whom it attached for the moment. To
have been a priest, or even an assertor of the rights and doctrines of
Christianity, was fatal; but in some instances, an overflow of
atheistical blasphemy was equally so. To be silent on public affairs,
betrayed a culpable indifference; but it incurred darker suspicion to
speak of them otherwise than in the most violent tone of the ruling
party. By a supplementary law, this spider's web was so widely extended,
that it appeared no fly could be found insignificant enough to escape
its meshes. Its general propositions were of a nature so vague, that it
was impossible they could ever be made subjects of evidence. Therefore
they were assumed without proof; and at length, definition of the
characteristics of suspicion seems to have been altogether dispensed
with, and all those were suspected persons whom the revolutionary
committees and their assistants chose to hold as such.
The operation of this law was terrible. A suspected person, besides
being thrown into prison, was deprived of all his rights, his effects
sealed up, his property placed under care of the state, and he himself
considered as civilly dead. If the unfortunate object of suspicion had
the good fortune to be set at liberty, it was no security whatever
against his being again arrested on the day following. There was,
indeed, no end to the various shades of sophistry which brought almost
every kind of person under this oppressive law, so ample was its scope,
and undefined its objects.
That the administrators of this law of suspicion might not have too much
trouble in seeking for victims, all householders were obliged to publish
on the outside of their doors a list of the names and description of
their inmates. Domestic security, the most precious of all rights to a
people who know what freedom really is, was violated on every occasion,
even the slightest, by domiciliary visits. The number of arrests which
took place through France, choked the prisons anew which had been so
fearfully emptied on the 2d and 3d of September, and is said to have
been only moderately computed at three hundred thousand souls, one-third
of whom were women. The Jacobins, however, found a mode of jail-delivery
less summary than by direct massacre; although differing so little from
it in every other respect, that a victim might have had pretty nearly
the same chance of a fair trial before Maillard and his men of
September, as from the Revolutionary Tribunal. It requires an effort
even to write that word, from the extremities of guilt and horror which
it recalls. But it is the lot of humanity to record its own greatest
disgraces; and it is a wholesome and humbling lesson to exhibit a just
picture of those excesses, of which, in its unassisted movements, and
when agitated by evil and misguided passions, human nature can be
rendered capable.
[Sidenote: REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.]
The extraordinary criminal court, better known by the name of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, was first instituted upon the motion of Danton.
Its object was to judge of state crimes, plots, and attempts against
liberty, or in favour of royalty, or affecting the rights and liberty
of man, or in any way, more or less, tending to counteract the progress
of the Revolution. In short, it was the business of this court to
execute the laws, or inflict the sentence rather, upon such as had been
arrested as suspected persons; and they generally saw room to punish in
most of the instances where the arresting functionaries had seen ground
for imprisonment.
This frightful court consisted of six judges or public accusers, and two
assistants. There were twelve jurymen; but the appointment of these was
a mere mockery. They were official persons, who held permanent
appointments; had a salary from the state; and were in no manner liable
to the choice or challenge of the party tried. Jurors and judges were
selected for their Republican zeal and steady qualities, and were
capable of seeing no obstacle either of law or humanity in the path of
their duty. This tribunal had the power of deciding without proof,--or
cutting short evidence when in the progress of being adduced,--or
stopping the defence of the prisoners at pleasure; privileges which
tended greatly to shorten the forms of court, and aid the despatch of
business.[445]
The Revolutionary Tribunal was in a short time so overwhelmed with work,
that it became necessary to divide it into four sections, all armed with
similar powers. The quantity of blood which it caused to be shed was
something unheard of, even during the proscriptions of the Roman Empire;
and there were involved in its sentences crimes the most different,
personages the most opposed, and opinions the most dissimilar. When
Henry VIII. roused the fires of Smithfield both against Protestant and
Papist, burning at the same stake one wretch for denying the King's
supremacy, and another for disbelieving the divine presence in the
Eucharist, the association was consistency itself, compared to the
scenes presented at the Revolutionary tribunal, in which Royalist,
Constitutionalist, Girondist, Churchman, Theophilanthropist, Noble and
Roturier, Prince and Peasant, both sexes and all ages, were involved in
one general massacre, and sent to execution by scores together, and on
the same sledge.
Supporting by their numerous associations the government as exercised by
the Revolutionary Committees, came the mass of Jacobins, who, divided
into a thousand clubs, emanating from that which had its meetings at
Paris, formed the strength of the party to which they gave the name.
The sole principle of the Jacobinical institutions was to excite against
all persons who had any thing to lose, the passions of those who
possessed no property, and were, by birth and circumstances, brutally
ignorant, and envious of the advantages enjoyed by the higher classes.
All other governments have made individual property the object of
countenance and protection; but in this strangely inverted state of
things, it seemed the object of constant suspicion and persecution, and
exposed the owner to perpetual danger. We have elsewhere said that
Equality (unless in the no less intelligible than sacred sense of equal
submission to the law) is a mere chimera, which can no more exist with
respect to property, than in regard to mental qualifications, or
personal strength, beauty, or stature. Divide the whole property of a
country equally among its inhabitants, and a week will bring back the
inequality which you have endeavoured to remove; nay, a much shorter
space will find the industrious and saving richer than the idle and
prodigal. But in France, at the period under discussion, this equality,
in itself so unattainable, had completely superseded even the principle
of liberty, as a watch-word for exciting the people. It was to sin
against this leading principle to be possessed of, and more especially
to enjoy ostentatiously, any thing which was wanting to your neighbour.
To be richer, more accomplished, better bred, or better taught,
subjected you to the law of suspicion, and you were conducted instantly
before a Revolutionary Committee, where you were probably convicted of
incivism; not for interfering with the liberty and property of others,
but for making what use you pleased of your own.
The whole of the terrible mystery is included in two regulations,
communicated by the Jacobin Club of Paris to the Committee of Public
Safety.--1. That when, by the machinations of opulent persons, seditions
should arise in any district, it should be declared in a state of
rebellion.--2. That the Convention shall avail themselves of such
opportunity _to excite the poor to make war on the rich_, and to restore
order at any price whatever.--This was so much understood, that one of
the persons tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, when asked what he had
to say in his defence, answered,--"I am wealthy--what avails it to me to
offer any exculpation when such is my offence?"
[Sidenote: AFFILIATED SOCIETIES.]
The committees of government distributed large sums of money to the
Jacobin Club and its affiliated societies, as being necessary to the
propagation of sound political principles. The clubs themselves took
upon them in every village the exercise of the powers of government; and
while they sat swearing, drinking, and smoking, examined passports,
imprisoned citizens, and enforced to their full extent the benefits of
liberty and equality. "Death or Fraternity" was usually inscribed over
their place of assembly; which some one translated,--"Become my brother,
or I will kill thee."
These clubs were composed of members drawn from the lees of the people,
that they might not, in their own persons, give an example contradicting
the equality which it was their business to enforce. They were filled
with men without resources or talents, but towards whom the confidence
of the deceived people was directed, from the conviction that, because
taken from among themselves, they would have the interest of the lower
orders constantly in view. Their secretaries, however, were generally
selected with some attention to alertness of capacity; for on them
depended the terrible combination which extended from the mother society
of Jacobins in Paris, down into the most remote villages of the most
distant provinces, in which the same tyranny was maintained by the
influence of similar means. Thus rumours could be either circulated or
collected with a speed and uniformity, which enabled a whisper from
Robespierre to regulate the sentiments of the Jacobins at the most
distant part of his empire; for his it unquestionably was, for the space
of two dreadful years.
France had been subjected to many evils ere circumstances had for a time
reduced her to this state of passive obedience to a yoke, which, after
all, when its strength was fairly tried, proved as brittle as it was
intolerable. Those who witnessed the tragedies which then occurred, look
back upon that period as the delirium of a national fever, filled with
visions too horrible and painful for recollection, and which, being once
wiped from the mind, we recall with difficulty and reluctance, and dwell
upon with disgust. A long course of events, tending each successively to
disorganize society more and more, had unhappily prevented a brave,
generous, and accomplished people from combining together in mutual
defence. The emigration and forfeiture of the nobles and clergy had
deprived the country at once of those higher classes, that right-hand
file, who are bred up to hold their lives light if called on to lay them
down for religion, or in defence of the rights of their country, or the
principles of their own honour or conscience. Whatever may be thought of
the wisdom or necessity of emigration, its evils were the same. A
high-spirited and generous race of gentry, accustomed to consider
themselves as peculiar depositaries of the national honour--a learned
and numerous priesthood, the guardians of religious opinion--had been
removed from their place, and society was so much the more weak and more
ignorant for the want of them. Whether voluntarily abandoning or
forcibly driven from the country, the expulsion of so large a mass,
belonging entirely to the higher orders, tended instantly to destroy the
balance of society, and to throw all power into the hands of the lower
class; who, deceived by bad and artful men, abused it to the frightful
excess we have described.
We do not mean to say, that the emigrants had carried with them beyond
the frontiers all the worth and courage of the better classes in France,
or that there were not, among men attached to the cause of liberty, many
who would have shed their blood to have prevented its abuse. But these
had been, unhappily, during the progress of the Revolution, divided and
subdivided among themselves, were split up into a variety of broken and
demolished parties which had repeatedly suffered proscription; and,
what was worse, sustained it from the hand of each other. The
Constitutionalist could not safely join in league with the Royalist, or
either with the Girondist; and thus there existed no confidence on which
a union could be effected, among materials repulsive of each other.
There extended, besides, through France, far and near, that sorrow and
sinking of the heart, which prevails amid great national calamities,
where there is little hope. The state of oppression was so universal,
that no one strove to remedy its evils, more than they would have
struggled to remedy the _malaria_ of an infected country. Those who
escaped the disorder contented themselves with their individual safety,
without thinking of the general evil, as one which human art could
remedy, or human courage resist.
Moreover, the Jacobinical rulers had surrounded themselves with such a
system of espionage and delation, that the attempt to organize any
resistance to their power, would have been in fact, to fall inevitably
and fatally under their tyranny. If the bold conspirator against this
most infernal authority did not bestow his confidence on a false friend
or a concealed emissary of the Jacobin party, he was scarce the safer on
that account; for if he breathed forth in the most friendly ear any
thing tending to reflect on the free, happy, and humane government under
which he had the happiness to live, his hearer was bound, equally as a
hired spy, to carry the purport of the conversation to the constituted
authorities--that is, to the Revolutionary Committees or Republican
Commissioners; and above all, to the Committee of Public Safety. Silence
on public affairs, and acquiescence in democratic tyranny, became,
therefore, matter of little wonder; for men will be long mute, when to
indulge the tongue may endanger the head. And thus, in the kingdom which
boasts herself most civilized in Europe, and with all that ardour for
liberty which seemed but of late to animate every bosom, the general
apathy of terror and astonishment, joined to a want of all power of
combination, palsied every effort at resistance. They who make national
reflections on the French for remaining passive under circumstances so
hopeless, should first reflect, that our disposition to prevent or
punish crime, and our supposed readiness to resist oppression, have
their foundation in a strong confidence in the laws, and in the
immediate support which they are sure to receive from the numerous
classes who have been trained up to respect them, as protectors of the
rich equally and of the poor. But in France, the whole system of the
administration of justice was in the hands of brutal force; and it is
one thing to join in the hue and cry against a murderer, seconded by the
willing assistance of a whole population--another to venture upon
withstanding him in his den, he at the head of his banditti, the
assailant defenceless, excepting in the justice of his cause.
[Sidenote: FEROCITY OF THE POPULACE.]
It has further been a natural subject of wonder, not only that the
richer and better classes, the avowed objects of Jacobin persecution,
were so passively resigned to this frightful tyranny, but also why the
French populace, whose general manners are so civilized and so kindly,
that they are, on ordinary occasions, the gayest and best humoured
people in Europe, should have so far changed their character as to
delight in cruelty, or at least to look on, without expressing disgust,
at cruelties perpetrated in their name.
But the state of a people in ordinary times and peaceful occupations, is
in every country totally different from the character which they
manifest under strong circumstances of excitation. Rousseau says, that
no one who sees the ordinary greyhound, the most sportive, gentle, and
timid perhaps of the canine race, can form an idea of the same animal
pursuing and strangling its screaming and helpless victim. Something of
this sort must plead the apology of the French people in the early
excesses of the Revolution; and we must remember, that men collected in
crowds, and influenced with a sense of wrongs, whether real or
imaginary, are acted upon by the enthusiasm of the moment, and are,
besides, in a state of such general and undistinguishing fury, that they
adopt, by joining in the clamours and general shouts, deeds of which
they hardly witness the import, and which perhaps not one of the
assembled multitude out of a thousand would countenance, were that
import distinctly felt and known. In the revolutionary massacres and
cruelties, there was always an executive power, consisting of a few
well-breathed and thorough-paced ruffians, whose hands perpetrated the
actions, to which the ignorant vulgar only lent their acclamations.
This species of assentation became less wonderful when instant
slaughter, without even the ceremony of inquiry, had been exchanged for
some forms, however flimsy and unsubstantial, of regular trial,
condemnation, and execution. These served for a time to satisfy the
public mind. The populace saw men dragged to the guillotine, convicted
of criminal attempts, as they were informed, against the liberty of the
people; and they shouted as at the punishment of their own immediate
enemies.
But as the work of death proceeded daily, the people became softened as
their passions abated; and the frequency of such sacrifices having
removed the odious interest which for a while attended them, the lower
classes, whom Robespierre desired most to conciliate, looked on, first
with indifference, but afterwards with shame and disgust, and at last
with the wish to put an end to cruelties, which even the most ignorant
and prejudiced began to regard in their own true, undisguised light.
Yet the operation of these universal feelings was long delayed. To
support the Reign of Terror, the revolutionary committees had their own
guards and executioners, without whom they could not have long withstood
the general abhorrence of mankind. All official situations were
scrupulously and religiously filled up by individuals chosen from the
Sans-Culottes, who had rendered themselves, by their zeal, worthy of
that honourable appellation. Were they of little note, they were
employed in the various capacities of guards, officers, and jailors, for
which the times created an unwearied demand. Did they hold places in the
Convention, they were frequently despatched upon commissions to
different parts of France, to give new edge to the guillotine, and
superintend in person the punishment of conspiracy or rebellion, real or
supposed. Such commissioners or proconsuls, as they were frequently
termed, being vested with unlimited power, and fresh in its exercise,
signalized themselves by their cruelty, even more than the tyrants whose
will they discharged.
We may quote in illustration, a remarkable passage in an address, by the
Commissioners of Public Safety, to the representatives absent upon
commissions, in which there occur some gentle remarks on their having
extended capital punishment to cases where it was not provided by law,
although the lustre of their services to the Republic far outshone the
shade of such occasional peccadiloes. For their future direction they
are thus exhorted. "Let your energy awaken anew as the term of your
labour approaches. The Convention charges you to complete the
purification and reorganization of the constituted authorities with the
least possible delay, and to report the conclusion of these two
operations before the end of the next month. A simple measure may effect
the desired purification. _Convoke the people in the popular
societies--Let the public functionaries appear before them--Interrogate
the people on the subject of their conduct, and let their judgment
dictate yours._"[446] Thus the wildest prejudices arising in the Jacobin
Club, consisting of the lowest, most ignorant, most prejudiced, and
often most malicious members in society, were received as evidence, and
the populace declared masters, at their own pleasure, of the property,
honour, and life of those who had held any brief authority over them.
Where there had occurred any positive rising or resistance, the duty of
the commissioners was extended by all the powers that martial law, in
other words, the rule of superior force, could confer. We have mentioned
the murders committed at Lyons; but even these, though hundreds were
swept away by volleys of musket-shot, fell short of the horrors
perpetrated by Carrier at Nantes,[447] who, in avenging the Republic on
the obstinate resistance of La Vendée, might have summoned hell to
match his cruelty, without a demon venturing to answer his challenge.
Hundreds, men, women, and children, were forced on board of vessels
which were scuttled and sunk in the Loire, and this was called
Republican Baptism. Men and women were stripped, bound together, and
thus thrown into the river, and this was called Republican
Marriage.[448] But we have said enough to show that men's blood seems to
have been converted into poison, and their hearts into stone, by the
practices in which they were daily engaged. Many affected even a lust of
cruelty, and the instrument of punishment was talked of with the
fondness and gaiety with which we speak of a beloved and fondled object.
It had its pet name of "the Little National Window," and others equally
expressive; and although saints were not much in fashion, was, in some
degree canonized by the name of "the Holy Mother Guillotine."[449] That
active citizen, the executioner, had also his honours, as well as the
senseless machine which he directed. This official was admitted to the
society of some of the more emphatic patriots, and, as we shall
afterwards see, shared in their civic festivities. It may be questioned
whether even _his_ company was not too good for the patrons who thus
regaled him.
[Sidenote: REVOLUTIONARY ARMY.]
There was also an armed force raised among the most thorough-paced and
hardened satellites of the lower order, termed by pre-eminence "the
Revolutionary Army." They were under the command of Ronsin, a general
every way worthy of such soldiers.[450] These troops were produced on
all occasions, when it was necessary to intimidate the metropolis and
the national guard. They were at the more immediate disposal of the
Commune of Paris, and were a ready, though not a great force, which
always could be produced at a moment's notice, and were generally joined
by the more active democrats, in the capacity of a Jacobin militia. In
their own ranks they mustered six thousand men.
It is worthy of remark, that some of the persons whose agency was
distinguished during this disgraceful period, and whose hands were
deeply dyed in the blood so unrelentingly shed, under whatever frenzy of
brain, or state of a generally maddening impulse they may have acted,
nevertheless made amends, in their after conduct, for their enormities
then committed. This was the case with Tallien, with Barras, with
Fouché, Legendre, and others, who, neither good nor scrupulous men, were
yet, upon many subsequent occasions, much more humane and moderate than
could have been expected from their early acquaintance with
revolutionary horrors. They resembled disbanded soldiers, who, returned
to their native homes, often resume so entirely the habits of earlier
life, that they seem to have forgotten the wild, and perhaps sanguinary
character of their military career. We cannot, indeed, pay any of these
reformed Jacobins the compliment ascribed to Octavius by the Romans, who
found a blessing in the emperor's benevolent government, which
compensated the injuries inflicted by the triumvir. But it is certain
that, had it not been for the courage of Tallien and Barras in
particular, it might have been much longer ere the French had been able
to rid themselves of Robespierre, and that the revolution of 9th
Thermidor, as they called the memorable day of his fall, was, in a great
measure, brought about by the remorse or jealousy of the dictator's old
comrades. But, ere we arrive at that more auspicious point of our story,
we have to consider the train of causes which led to the downfall of
Jacobinism.
Periods which display great national failings or vices, are those also
which bring to light distinguished and redeeming virtues. France
unfortunately, during the years 1793 and 1794, exhibited instances of
extreme cruelty, in principle and practice, which make the human blood
curdle. She may also be censured for a certain abasement of spirit, for
sinking so long unresistingly under a yoke so unnaturally horrible. But
she has to boast that, during this fearful period, she can produce as
many instances of the most high and honourable fidelity, of the most
courageous and devoted humanity, as honour the annals of any country
whatever.
The cruelty of the laws denounced the highest penalties against those
who relieved proscribed fugitives. These were executed with the most
merciless rigour. Madame Boucquey and her husband were put to death at
Bourdeaux for affording shelter to the members of the Gironde faction;
and the interdiction of fire and water to outlawed persons, of whatever
description, was enforced with the heaviest penalty. Yet, not only among
the better classes, but among the poorest of the poor, were there men of
noble minds found, who, having but half a morsel to support their own
family, divided it willingly with some wretched fugitive, though death
stood ready to reward their charity.
In some cases, fidelity and devotion aided the suggestions of humanity.
Among domestic servants, a race whose virtues should be the more
esteemed, that they are practised sometimes in defiance of strong
temptation, were found many distinguished instances of unshaken
fidelity. Indeed, it must be said, to the honour of the French manners,
that the master and his servant live on a footing of much more
kindliness than attends the same relation in other countries, and
especially in Britain. Even in the most trying situations, there were
not many instances of domestic treason, and many a master owed his life
to the attachment and fidelity of a menial. The feelings of religion
sheltered others. The recusant and exiled priests often found among
their former flock the means of concealment and existence, when it was
death to administer them. Often this must have flowed from grateful
recollection of their former religious services--sometimes from
unmingled veneration for the Being whose ministers they professed
themselves.[451] Nothing short of such heroic exertions, which were
numerous, (and especially in the class where individuals, hard pressed
on account of their own wants, are often rendered callous to the
distress of others,) could have prevented France, during this horrible
period, from becoming a universal charnel-house, and her history an
unvaried calendar of murder.
FOOTNOTES:
[439] The Convention having, by a decree of the 17th March, 1792, come
to the determination to substitute decapitation for hanging, this
instrument was adopted, on the proposition of Dr. Guillotin, an eminent
physician of Paris; who regretted to the hour of his death, in 1814,
that his name should have been thus associated with the instrument of so
many horrors. He had devised it with a view to humanity.
[440] The fate of Custine illustrates this,--a general who had done much
for the Republic, and who, when his fortune began to fail him, excused
himself by saying, "Fortune was a woman, and his hairs were growing
grey."--S.--He was guillotined in August, 1793.
[441] Witness Houchard, who performed the distinguished service of
raising the siege of Dunkirk, and who, during his trial, could be hardly
made to understand that he was to suffer for not carrying his victory
still farther.--S.--Guillotined, Nov., 1793.
[442] Several generals of reputation sustained capital punishment, from
no other reason than the jealousy of the committees of their influence
with the army.--S.
[443] Luckner, an old German thick-headed soldier, who was of no party,
and scrupulously obeyed the command of whichever was uppermost at Paris,
had no better fate than others.--S.--He was guillotined in Nov., 1793.
[444] David is generally allowed to have possessed great merit as a
draughtsman. Foreigners do not admire his composition and colouring, so
much as his countrymen.--S.
[445] Thiers, tom. iv., p. 6; Mignet, tom. i., p. 248.
[446] Moniteur, No. 995, 25th December, 1793.--S.
[447] Carrier was born at Yolay, near Aurillac, in 1756, and, previous
to the Revolution, was an attorney. During his mission to Nantes, not
less than thirty-two thousand human beings were destroyed by _noyades_
and _fusillades_, and by the horrors of crowded and infected prisons.
Being accused by Merlin de Thionville, Carnot, and others, he declared
to the Convention, 23d November, 1794, that by trying him it would ruin
itself, and that if all the crimes committed in its name were to be
punished, "not even the little bell of the president was free from
guilt." He was convicted of having had children of thirteen and fourteen
years old shot, and of having ordered drownings, and this with
counter-revolutionary intentions. He ascended the scaffold with firmness
and said, "I die a victim and innocent: I only executed the orders of
the committees."
[448] See Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 42; Toulongeon, tom. v., p. 120;
Thiers, tom. vi., p. 373; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 165; Vie et Crimes
de Carrier, par Gracchus Babœuf; Dénonciation des Crimes de Carrier,
par Philippes Tronjolly; Procès de Carrier; Bulletin du Tribunal
Révolutionnaire de Nantes.
[449] Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 309. "In 1793, a bookseller, (a _pure_
Royalist in 1814,) had this inscription painted over his shop door, 'A
Notre Dame de la Guillotine.'"--MONTGAILLARD, tom. iv., p. 189.
[450] Ronsin was born at Soissons in 1752. He figured in the early
scenes of the Revolution, and in 1789, brought out, at one of the minor
Paris theatres, a tragedy called "La Ligue des Fanatiques et des
Tyrans," which, though despicable in point of style, had a considerable
run. Being denounced by Robespierre, he was guillotined, March 24, 1794.
His dramatic pieces have been published under the title of "Théâtre de
Ronsin."
[451] Strangers are forcibly affected by the trifling incidents which
sometimes recall the memory of those fearful times. A venerable French
ecclesiastic being on a visit at a gentleman's house in North Britain,
it was remarked by the family, that a favourite cat, rather wild and
capricious in its habits, paid particular attention to their guest. It
was explained, by the priest giving an account of his lurking in the
waste garret, or lumber-room, of an artisan's house, for several weeks.
In this condition, he had no better amusement than to study the manners
and habits of the cats which frequented his place of retreat, and
acquire the mode of conciliating their favour. The difficulty of
supplying him with food, without attracting suspicion, was extreme, and
it could only be placed near his place of concealment, in small
quantities, and at uncertain times. Men, women, and children knew of his
being in that place; there were rewards to be gained by discovery, life
to be lost by persevering in concealing him; yet he was faithfully
preserved, to try upon a Scottish cat, after the restoration of the
Monarchy, the arts which he had learned in his miserable place of
shelter during the Reign of Terror. The history of the time abounds with
similar instances.