themselves, suffice to render a name infamous, but which make no
perceptible addition to the great infamy of Barere. It would be idle,
for example, to relate how he, a man of letters, a member of an Academy
of Inscriptions, was foremost in that war against learning, art, and
history which disgraced the Jacobin government; how he recommended a
general conflagration of libraries; how he proclaimed that all records
of events anterior to the Revolution ought to be destroyed; how he laid
waste the Abbey of St. Denis, pulled down monuments consecrated by the
veneration of ages, and scattered on the wind the dust of ancient kings.
He was, in truth, seldom so well employed as when he turned for a moment
from making war on the living to make war on the dead.
Equally idle would it be to dilate on his sensual excesses. That in
Barere, as in the whole breed of Neros, Caligulas, and Domitians whom he
resembled, voluptuousness was mingled with cruelty; that he withdrew,
twice in every decade, from the work of blood to the smiling gardens of
Clichy, and there forgot public cares in the madness of wine and in the
arms of courtesans, has often been repeated. M. Hippolyte Carnot does
not altogether deny the truth of these stories, but justly observes
that Barere's dissipation was not carried to such a point as to
interfere with his industry. Nothing can be more true. Barere was by no
means so much addicted to debauchery as to neglect the work of murder.
It was his boast that, even during his hours of recreation, he cut out
work for the Revolutionary Tribunal. To those who expressed a fear that
his exertions would hurt his health, he gayly answered that he was less
busy than they thought. "The guillotine," he said, "does all; the
guillotine governs." For ourselves, we are much more disposed to look
indulgently on the pleasures which he allowed to himself than on the
pain which he inflicted on his neighbors:--
"Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset
Tempora saevitiae, claras quibus abstulit urbi
Illustresque animas, impune ac vindice nullo."
An immoderate appetite for sensual gratifications is undoubtedly a
blemish on the fame of Henry the Fourth, of Lord Somers, of Mr. Fox. But
the vices of honest men are the virtues of Barere.
And now Barere had become a really cruel man. It was from mere
pusillanimity that he had perpetrated his first great crimes. But the
whole history of our race proves that the taste for the misery of others
is a taste which minds not naturally ferocious may too easily acquire,
and which, when once acquired, is as strong as any of the propensities
with which we are born. A very few months had sufficed to bring this man
into a state of mind in which images of despair, wailing, and death had
an exhilarating effect on him, and inspired him as wine and love inspire
men of free and joyous natures. The cart creaking under its daily
freight of victims, ancient men and lads, and fair young girls, the
binding of the hands, the thrusting of the head out of the little
national sash-window, the crash of the axe, the pool of blood beneath
the scaffold, the heads rolling by scores in the panier--these things
were to him what Lalage and a cask of Falernian were to Horace, what
Rosette and a bottle of iced champagne are to De Beranger. As soon as he
began to speak of slaughter his heart seemed to be enlarged, and his
fancy to become unusually fertile of conceits and gasconades.
Robespierre, St. Just, and Billaud, whose barbarity was the effect of
earnest and gloomy hatred, were, in his view, men who made a toil of a
pleasure. Cruelty was no such melancholy business to be gone about with
an austere brow and a whining tone; it was a recreation, fitly
accompanied by singing and laughing. In truth, Robespierre and Barere
might be well compared to the two renowned hangmen of Louis the
Eleventh. They were alike insensible of pity, alike bent on havoc. But,
while they murdered, one of them frowned and canted, the other grinned
and joked. For our own part, we prefer _Jean qui pleure_ to _Jean qui
rit_.
In the midst of the funeral gloom which overhung Paris, a gayety
stranger and more ghastly than the horrors of the prison and the
scaffold distinguished the dwelling of Barere. Every morning a crowd of
suitors assembled to implore his protection. He came forth in his rich
dressing-gown, went round the antechamber, dispensed smiles and promises
among the obsequious crowd, addressed himself with peculiar animation to
every handsome woman who appeared in the circle, and complimented her in
the florid style of Gascony on the bloom of her cheeks and the lustre of
her eyes. When he had enjoyed the fear and anxiety of his suppliants he
dismissed them, and flung all their memorials unread into the fire. This
was the best way, he conceived, to prevent arrears of business from
accumulating. Here he was only an imitator. Cardinal Dubois had been in
the habit of clearing his table of papers in the same way. Nor was this
the only point in which we could point out a resemblance between the
worst statesman of the monarchy and the worst statesman of the
republic.
Of Barere's peculiar vein of pleasantry a notion may be formed from an
anecdote which one of his intimate associates, a juror of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, has related. A courtesan who bore a conspicuous
part in the orgies of Clichy implored Barere to use his power against a
headdress which did not suit her style of face, and which a rival
beauty was trying to bring into fashion. One of the magistrates
of the capital was summoned and received the necessary orders.
Aristocracy, Barere said, was again rearing its front. These new wigs
were counter-revolutionary. He had reason to know that they were made
out of the long fair hair of handsome aristocrats who had died by the
national chopper. Every lady who adorned herself with the relics of
criminals might justly be suspected of incivism. This ridiculous lie
imposed on the authorities of Paris. Female citizens were solemnly
warned against the obnoxious ringlets, and were left to choose between
their headdresses and their heads. Barere's delight at the success of
this facetious fiction was quite extravagant; he could not tell the
story without going into such convulsions of laughter as made his
hearers hope that he was about to choke. There was something peculiarly
tickling and exhilarating to his mind in this grotesque combination of
the frivolous with the horrible, of false locks and curling-irons with
spouting arteries and reeking hatchets.
But, though Barere succeeded in earning the honorable nicknames of the
Witling of Terror and the Anacreon of the Guillotine, there was one
place where it was long remembered to his disadvantage that he had, for
a time, talked the language of humanity and moderation. That place was
the Jacobin Club. Even after he had borne the chief part in the massacre
of the Girondists, in the murder of the Queen, in the destruction of
Lyons, he durst not show himself within that sacred precinct. At one
meeting of the society, a member complained that the Committee to which
the supreme direction of affairs was entrusted, after all the changes
which had been made, still contained one man who was not trustworthy.
Robespierre, whose influence over the Jacobins was boundless, undertook
the defence of his colleague, owned there was some ground for what had
been said, but spoke highly of Barere's industry and aptitude for
business. This seasonable interposition silenced the accuser; but it was
long before the neophyte could venture to appear at the club.
At length a masterpiece of wickedness, unique, we think, even among
Barere's great achievements, obtained his full pardon even from that
rigid conclave. The insupportable tyranny of the Committee of Public
Safety had at length brought the minds of men, and even of women, into a
fierce and hard temper, which defied or welcomed death. The life which
might be any morning taken away, in consequence of the whisper of a
private enemy, seemed of little value. It was something to die after
smiting one of the oppressors; it was something to bequeath to the
surviving tyrants a terror not inferior to that which they had
themselves inspired. Human nature, hunted and worried to the utmost, now
turned furiously to bay. Fouquier Tinville was afraid to walk the
streets; a pistol was snapped at Collot D'Herbois; a young girl,
animated apparently by the spirit of Charlotte Corday, attempted to
obtain an interview with Robespierre. Suspicions arose; she was
searched; and two knives were found about her. She was questioned, and
spoke of the Jacobin domination with resolute scorn and aversion. It is
unnecessary to say that she was sent to the guillotine. Barere declared
from the tribune that the cause of these attempts was evident. Pitt and
his guineas had done the whole. The English government had organized a
vast system of murder, had armed the hand of Charlotte Corday, and had
now, by similar means, attacked two of the most eminent friends of
liberty in France. It is needless to say that these imputations were,
not only false, but destitute of all show of truth. Nay, they were
demonstrably absurd; for the assassins to whom Barere referred rushed on
certain death, a sure proof that they were not hirelings. The whole
wealth of England would not have bribed any sane person to do what
Charlotte Corday did. But, when we consider her as an enthusiast, her
conduct is perfectly natural. Even those French writers who are childish
enough to believe that the English government contrived the infernal
machine and strangled the Emperor Paul have fully acquitted Mr. Pitt of
all share in the death of Marat and in the attempt on Robespierre. Yet
on calumnies so futile as those which we have mentioned did Barere
ground a motion at which all Christendom stood aghast. He proposed a
decree that no quarter should be given to any English or Hanoverian
soldier.[20] His Carmagnole was worthy of the proposition with which it
concluded. "That one Englishman should be spared, that for the slaves of
George, for the human machines of York, the vocabulary of our armies
should contain such a word as generosity,--this is what the National
Convention cannot endure. War to the death against every English
soldier. If last year, at Dunkirk, quarter had been refused to them when
they asked it on their knees, if our troops had exterminated them all,
instead of suffering them to infest our fortresses by their presence,
the English government would not have renewed its attack on our
frontiers this year. It is only the dead man who never comes back. What
is this moral pestilence which has introduced into our armies false
ideas of humanity? That the English were to be treated with indulgence
was the philanthropic notion of the Brissotines; it was the patriotic
practice of Dumourier. But humanity consists in exterminating our
enemies. No mercy to the execrable Englishman. Such are the sentiments
of the true Frenchman; for he knows that he belongs to a nation
revolutionary as nature, powerful as freedom, ardent as the saltpetre
which she has just torn from the entrails of the earth. Soldiers of
liberty, when victory places Englishmen at your mercy, strike! None of
them must return to the servile soil of Great Britain; none must pollute
the free soil of France."
The Convention, thoroughly tamed and silenced, acquiesced in Barere's
motion without debate. And now at last the doors of the Jacobin Club
were thrown open to the disciple who had surpassed his masters. He was
admitted a member by acclamation, and was soon selected to preside.
For a time he was not without hope that his decree would be carried into
full effect. Intelligence arrived from the seat of war of a sharp
contest between some French and English troops, in which the Republicans
had the advantage, and in which no prisoners had been made. Such things
happen occasionally in all wars. Barere, however, attributed the
ferocity of this combat to his darling decree, and entertained the
Convention with another Carmagnole.
"The Republicans," he said, "saw a division in red uniform at a
distance. The red-coats are attacked with the bayonet. Not one of them
escapes the blows of the Republicans. All the red-coats have been
killed. No mercy, no indulgence, has been shown towards the villains.
Not an Englishman whom the Republicans could reach is now living. How
many prisoners should you guess that we have made? One single prisoner
is the result of this great day."
And now this bad man's craving for blood had become insatiable. The more
he quaffed, the more he thirsted. He had begun with the English; but
soon he came down with a proposition for new massacres. "All the
troops," he said, "of the coalesced tyrants in garrison at Conde,
Valenciennes, Le Quesnoy, and Landrecies, ought to be put to the sword
unless they surrender at discretion in twenty-four hours. The English,
of course, will be admitted to no capitulation whatever. With the
English we have no treaty but death. As to the rest, surrender at
discretion in twenty-four hours, or death, these are our conditions. If
the slaves resist, let them feel the edge of the sword." And then he
waxed facetious. "On these terms the Republic is willing to give them a
lesson in the art of war." At that jest, some hearers, worthy of such a
speaker, set up a laugh. Then he became serious again. "Let the enemy
perish," he cried; "I have already said it from this tribune. It is only
the dead man who never comes back. Kings will not conspire against us in
the grave. Armies will not fight against us when they are annihilated.
Let our war with them be a war of extermination. What pity is due to
slaves whom the Emperor leads to war under the cane; whom the King of
Prussia beats to the shambles with the flat of the sword; and whom the
Duke of York makes drunk with rum and gin?" And at the rum and gin the
Mountain and the galleries laughed again.
If Barere had been able to effect his purpose, it is difficult to
estimate the extent of the calamity which he would have brought on the
human race. No government, however averse to cruelty, could, in justice
to its own subjects, have given quarter to enemies who gave none.
Retaliation would have been, not merely justifiable, but a sacred duty.
It would have been necessary for Howe and Nelson to make every French
sailor whom they took walk the plank. England has no peculiar reason to
dread the introduction of such a system. On the contrary, the operation
of Barere's new law of war would have been more unfavorable to his
countrymen than to ours; for we believe that, from the beginning to the
end of the war, there never was a time at which the number of French
prisoners in England was not greater than the number of English
prisoners in France; and so, we apprehend, it will be in all wars while
England retains her maritime superiority. Had the murderous decree of
the Convention been in force from 1794 to 1815, we are satisfied that,
for every Englishman slain by the French, at least three Frenchmen would
have been put to the sword by the English. It is, therefore, not as
Englishmen, but as members of the great society of mankind, that we
speak with indignation and horror of the change which Barere attempted
to introduce. The mere slaughter would have been the smallest part of
the evil. The butchering of a single unarmed man in cold blood, under an
act of the legislature, would have produced more evil than the carnage
of ten such fields as Albuera. Public law would have been subverted from
the foundations; national enmities would have been inflamed to a degree
of rage which happily it is not easy for us to conceive; cordial peace
would have been impossible. The moral character of the European nations
would have been rapidly and deeply corrupted; for in all countries those
men whose calling is to put their lives in jeopardy for the defence of
the public weal enjoy high consideration, and are considered as the best
arbitrators on points of honor and manly bearing. With the standard of
morality established in the military profession the general standard of
morality must to a great extent sink or rise. It is, therefore, a
fortunate circumstance that, during a long course of years, respect for
the weak and clemency towards the vanquished have been considered as
qualities not less essential to the accomplished soldier than personal
courage. How long would this continue to be the case, if the slaying of
prisoners were a part of the daily duty of the warrior? What man of kind
and generous nature would, under such a system, willingly bear arms?
Who, that was compelled to bear arms, would long continue kind and
generous? And is it not certain that, if barbarity towards the helpless
became the characteristic of military men, the taint must rapidly spread
to civil and to domestic life, and must show itself in all the dealings
of the strong with the weak, of husbands with wives, of employers with
workmen, of creditors with debtors?
But, thank God, Barere's decree was a mere dead letter. It was to be
executed by men very different from those who, in the interior of
France, were the instruments of the Committee of Public Safety, who
prated at Jacobin Clubs, and ran to Fouquier Tinville with charges of
incivism against women whom they could not seduce, and bankers from whom
they could not extort money. The warriors who, under Hoche, had guarded
the walls of Dunkirk, and who, under Kleber, had made good the defence
of the wood of Monceaux, shrank with horror from an office more
degrading than that of the hangman. "The Convention," said an officer to
his men, "has sent orders that all the English prisoners shall be shot."
"We will not shoot them," answered a stout-hearted sergeant. "Send them
to the Convention. If the deputies take pleasure in killing a prisoner
they may kill him themselves, and eat him too, like savages as they
are." This was the sentiment of the whole army. Bonaparte, who
thoroughly understood war, who at Jaffa and elsewhere gave ample proof
that he was not unwilling to strain the laws of war to their utmost
rigor, and whose hatred of England amounted to a folly, always spoke of
Barere's decree with loathing, and boasted that the army had refused to
obey the Convention.
Such disobedience on the part of any other class of citizens would have
been instantly punished by wholesale massacre; but the Committee of
Public Safety was aware that the discipline which had tamed the
unwarlike population of the fields and cities might not answer in camps.
To fling people by scores out of a boat, and, when they catch hold of
it, to chop off their fingers with a hatchet, is undoubtedly a very
agreeable pastime for a thoroughbred Jacobin, when the sufferers are, as
at Nantes, old confessors, young girls, or women with child. But such
sport might prove a little dangerous if tried upon grim ranks of
grenadiers, marked with the scars of Hondschoote, and singed by the
smoke of Fleurus.
Barere, however, found some consolation. If he could not succeed in
murdering the English and the Hanoverians, he was amply indemnified by a
new and vast slaughter of his own countrymen and countrywomen. If the
defence which has been set up for the members of the Committee of Public
Safety had been well founded, if it had been true that they governed
with extreme severity only because the Republic was in extreme peril, it
is clear that the severity would have diminished as the peril
diminished. But the fact is, that those cruelties for which the public
danger is made a plea became more and more enormous as the danger became
less and less, and reached the full height when there was no longer any
danger at all. In the autumn of 1793 there was undoubtedly reason to
apprehend that France might be unable to maintain the struggle against
the European Coalition. The enemy was triumphant on the frontiers. More
than half the departments disowned the authority of the Convention. But
at that time eight or ten necks a day were thought an ample allowance
for the guillotine of the capital. In the summer of 1794, Bordeaux,
Toulon, Caen, Lyons, Marseilles, had submitted to the ascendency of
Paris. The French arms were victorious under the Pyrenees and on the
Sambre. Brussels had fallen. Prussia had announced her intention of
withdrawing from the contest. The Republic, no longer content with
defending her own independence, was beginning to meditate conquest
beyond the Alps and the Rhine. She was now more formidable to her
neighbors than ever Louis the Fourteenth had been. And now the
Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was not content with forty, fifty, sixty
heads in a morning. It was just after a series of victories, which
destroyed the whole force of the single argument which has been urged in
defence of the system of terror, that the Committee of Public Safety
resolved to infuse into that system an energy hitherto unknown. It was
proposed to reconstruct the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to collect in
the space of two pages the whole revolutionary jurisprudence. Lists of
twelve judges and fifty jurors were made out from among the fiercest
Jacobins. The substantive law was simply this, that whatever the
tribunal should think pernicious to the Republic was a capital crime.
The law of evidence was simply this, that whatever satisfied the jurors
was sufficient proof. The law of procedure was of a piece with
everything else. There was to be an advocate against the prisoner, and
no advocate for him. It was expressly declared that, if the jurors were
in any manner convinced of the guilt of the prisoner, they might convict
him without hearing a single witness. The only punishment which the
court could inflict was death.
Robespierre proposed this decree. When he had read it, a murmur rose
from the Convention. The fear which had long restrained the deputies
from opposing the Committee was overcome by a stronger fear. Every man
felt the knife at his throat. "The decree," said one, "is of grave
importance. I move that it be printed, and that the debate be adjourned.
If such a measure were adopted without time for consideration, I would
blow my brains out at once." The motion for adjournment was seconded.
Then Barere sprang up. "It is impossible," he said, "that there can be
any difference of opinion among us as to a law like this, a law so
favorable in all respects to patriots; a law which insures the speedy
punishment of conspirators. If there is to be an adjournment, I must
insist that it shall not be for more than three days." The opposition
was overawed; the decree was passed; and, during the six weeks which
followed, the havoc was such as had never been known before.
And now the evil was beyond endurance. That timid majority which had for
a time supported the Girondists, and which had, after their fall,
contented itself with registering in silence the decrees of the
Committee of Public Safety, at length drew courage from despair. Leaders
of bold and firm character were not wanting, men such as Fouche and
Tallien, who, having been long conspicuous among the chiefs of the
Mountain, now found that their own lives, or lives still dearer to them
than their own, were in extreme peril. Nor could it be longer kept
secret that there was a schism in the despotic committee. On one side
were Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon; on the other Collot and
Billaud. Barere leaned towards these last, but only leaned towards them.
As was ever his fashion when a great crisis was at hand, he fawned
alternately on both parties, struck alternately at both, and held
himself in readiness to chant the praises or to sign the death warrant
of either. In any event his Carmagnole was ready. The tree of liberty,
the blood of traitors, the dagger of Brutus, the guineas of perfidious
Albion, would do equally well for Billaud and for Robespierre.