Everything seemed combined for the overthrow of the convention. Its armies were beaten on the north and on the Pyrenees, while it was threatened by the people of Lyons in the centre, those of Marseilles in the south, the Girondists in one part of the west, the Vendeans in the other, and while twenty thousand Piedmontese were invading France. The military reaction which, after the brilliant campaigns of Argonne and Belgium, had taken place, chiefly owing to the disagreement between Dumouriez and the Jacobins, between the army and the government, had manifested itself in a most disastrous manner since the defection of the commander-in-chief. There was no longer unity of operation, enthusiasm in the troops, or agreement between the convention, occupied with its quarrels, and the discouraged generals. The remains of Dumouriez's army had assembled at the camp at Famars, under the command of Dampierre; but they had been obliged to retire, after a defeat, under the cannon of Bouchain. Dampierre was killed. The frontier from Dunkirk to Givet was threatened by superior forces. Custine was promptly called from the Moselle to the army of the north, but his presence did not restore affairs. Valenciennes, the key to France, was taken; Conde shared the same fate; the army, driven from position to position, retired beyond the Scarpe, before Arras, the last post between the Scarpe and Paris. Mayence, on the other side, sorely pressed by the enemy and by famine, gave up all hope of being assisted by the army of the Moselle, reduced to inaction; and despairing of being able to hold out long, capitulated. Lastly, the English Government, seeing that Paris and the departments were distressed by famine, after the 31st of May and the 2nd of June, pronounced all the ports of France in a state of blockade, and that all neutral ships attempting to bring a supply of provisions would be confiscated. This measure, new to the annals of history, and destined to starve an entire people, three months afterwards originated the law of the maximum. The situation of the republic could not be worse.

The convention was, as it were, taken by surprise. It was disorganized, because emerging from a struggle, and because the conquerors had not had time to establish themselves. After the 2nd of June, before the danger became so pressing both on the frontiers and in the departments, the Mountain had sent commissioners in every direction, and immediately turned its attention to the constitution, which had so long been expected, and from which it entertained great hopes. The Girondists had wished to decree it before the 21st of January, in order to save Louis XVI., by substituting legal order for the revolutionary state of things; they returned to the subject previous to the 31st of May, in order to prevent their own ruin. But the Mountain, on two occasions, had diverted the assembly from this discussion by two coups d'etat, the trial of Louis XVI., and the elimination of the Gironde. Masters of the field, they now endeavoured to secure the republicans by decreeing the constitution. Herault de Sechelles was the legislator of the Mountain, as Condorcet had been of the Gironde. In a few days, this new constitution was adopted in the convention, and submitted to the approval of the primary assemblies. It is easy to conceive its nature, with the ideas that then prevailed respecting democratic government. The constituent assembly was considered as aristocratical: the law it had established was regarded as a violation of the rights of the people, because it imposed conditions for the exercise of political rights; because it did not recognise the most absolute equality; because it had deputies and magistrates appointed by electors, and these electors by the people; because, in some cases, it put limits to the national sovereignty, by excluding a portion of active citizens from high public functions, and the proletarians from the functions of acting citizens; finally, because, instead of fixing on population as the only basis of political rights, it combined it, in all its operations, with property. The constitutional law of 1793 established the pure regime of the multitude: it not only recognised the people as the source of all power, but also delegated the exercise of it to the people; an unlimited sovereignty; extreme mobility in the magistracy; direct elections, in which every one could vote; primary assemblies, that could meet without convocation, at given times, to elect representatives and control their acts; a national assembly, to be renewed annually, and which, properly speaking, was only a committee of the primary assemblies; such was this constitution. As it made the multitude govern, and as it entirely disorganized authority, it was impracticable at all times; but especially in a moment of general war. The Mountain, instead of extreme democracy, needed a stern dictatorship. The constitution was suspended as soon as made, and the revolutionary government strengthened and maintained until peace was achieved.

Both during the discussion of the constitution and its presentation to the primary assemblies, the Mountain learned the danger which threatened them. These daring men, having three or four parties to put down in the interior, several kinds of civil war to terminate, the disasters of the armies to repair, and all Europe to repel, were not alarmed at their position. The representatives of the forty-four thousand municipalities came to accept the constitution. Admitted to the bar of the assembly, after making known the assent of the people, they required the arrest of all suspected persons, and a levy en masse of the people. "Well," exclaimed Danton, "let us respond to their wishes. The deputies of the primary assemblies have just taken the initiative among us, in the way of inspiring terror! I demand that the convention, which ought now to be penetrated with a sense of its dignity, for it has just been invested with the entire national power, I demand that it do now, by a decree, invest the primary assemblies with the right of supplying the state with arms, provisions, and ammunition; of making an appeal to the people, of exciting the energy of citizens, and of raising four hundred thousand men. It is with cannon-balls that we must declare the constitution to our foes! Now is the time to take the last great oath, that we will destroy tyranny, or perish!" This oath was immediately taken by all the deputies and citizens present. A few days after, Barrere, in the name of the committee of public safety, which was composed of revolutionary members, and which became the centre of operations and the government of the assembly, proposed measures still more general: "Liberty," said he, "has become the creditor of every citizen; some owe her their industry; others their fortune; these their counsel; those their arms; all owe her their blood. Accordingly, all the French, of every age and of either sex, are summoned by their country to defend liberty; all faculties, physical or moral; all means, political or commercial; all metal, all the elements are her tributaries. Let each maintain his post in the national and military movement about to take place. The young men will fight; the married men will forge arms, transport the baggage and artillery, and prepare provisions; the women will make tents and clothes for the soldiers, and exercise their hospitable care in the asylums of the wounded; children will make lint from old linen; and the aged, resuming the mission they discharged among the ancients, shall cause themselves to be carried to the public places, where they shall excite the courage of the young warriors, and propagate the doctrine of hatred to kings, and the unity of the republic. National buildings shall be converted into barracks, public squares into workshops; the ground of the cellars will serve for the preparation of saltpetre; all saddle horses shall be placed in requisition for the cavalry; all draught horses for the artillery; fowling-pieces, pistols, swords and pikes, belonging to individuals, shall be employed in the service of the interior. The republic being but a large city, in a state of necessity, France must be converted into a vast camp."

The measures proposed by Barrere were at once decreed. All Frenchmen, from eighteen to five-and-twenty, took arms, the armies were recruited by levies of men, and supported by levies of provisions. The republic had very soon fourteen armies, and twelve hundred thousand soldiers. France, while it became a camp and a workshop for the republicans, became at the same time a prison for those who did not accept the republic. While marching against avowed enemies, it was thought necessary to make sure of secret foes, and the famous law, des suspects, was passed. All foreigners were arrested, on the ground of their hostile machinations, and the partisans of constitutional monarchy and a limited republic were imprisoned, to be kept close, until the peace was effected. At the time, this was so far only a reasonable measure of precaution. The bourgeoisie, the mercantile people, and the middle classes, furnished prisoners after the 31st of May, as the nobility and clergy had done after the 10th of August. A revolutionary army of six thousand soldiers and a thousand artillerymen was formed for the interior. Every indigent citizen was allowed forty sous a day, to enable him to be present at the sectionary meetings. Certificates of citizenship were delivered, in order to make sure of the opinions of all who co-operated in the revolutionary movement. The functionaries were placed under the surveillance of the clubs, a revolutionary committee was formed in each section, and thus they prepared to face the enemy on all sides, both abroad and at home.

The insurgents in Calvados were easily suppressed; at the very first skirmish at Vernon, the insurgent troops fled. Wimpfen endeavoured to rally them in vain. The moderate class, those who had taken up the defence of the Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the constitution was accepted by the other departments, it saw the opportunity for admitting that it had been in error, when it thought it was taking arms against a mere factious minority. This retractation was made at Caen, which had been the headquarters of the revolt. The Mountain commissioners did not sully this first victory with executions. General Carteaux, on the other hand, marched at the head of some troops against the sectionary army of the south; he defeated its force, pursued it to Marseilles, entered the town after it, and Provence would have been brought into subjection like Calvados, if the royalists, who had taken refuge at Toulon, after their defeat, had not called in the English to their aid, and placed in their hands this key to France. Admiral Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for eight thousand Spaniards by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux, who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles.

Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point. The Mountain commissioners had made their entry into the rebel capitals; Robert Lindet into Caen; Tallien into Bordeaux; Barras and Freron into Marseilles. Only two towns remained to be taken—Toulon and Lyons.

A simultaneous attack from the south, west, and centre was no longer apprehended, and in the interior the enemy was only on the defensive. Lyons was besieged by Kellermann, general of the army of the Alps; three corps pressed the town on all sides. The veteran soldiers of the Alps, the revolutionary battalions and the newly-levied troops, reinforced the besiegers every day. The people of Lyons defended themselves with all the courage of despair. At first, they relied on the assistance of the insurgents of the south; but these having been repulsed by Carteaux, the Lyonnais placed their last hope in the army of Piedmont, which attempted a diversion in their favour, but was beaten by Kellermann. Pressed still more energetically, they saw their first positions carried. Famine began to be felt, and courage forsook them. The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army entered the walls, where they awaited the orders of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself, defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell into the power of the republicans. The battalions of the army of Italy, reinforced by those which the taking of Lyons left disposable, pressed the place closely. After repeated attacks and prodigies of skill and valour, they made themselves masters of it, and the capture of Toulon finished what that of Lyons had begun.

Everywhere the convention was victorious. The Vendeans had failed in their attempt upon Nantes, after having lost many men, and their general-in- chief, Cathelineau. This attack put an end to the aggressive and previously promising movement of the Vendean insurrection. The royalists repassed the Loire, abandoned Saumur, and resumed their former cantonments. They were, however, still formidable; and the republicans, who pursued them, were again beaten in La Vendee. General Biron, who had succeeded general Berruyer, unsuccessfully continued the war with small bodies of troops; his moderation and defective system of attack caused him to be replaced by Canclaux and Rossignol, who were not more fortunate than he. There were two leaders, two armies, and two centres of operation—the one at Nantes, and the other at Saumur, placed under contrary influences. General Canclaux could not agree with general Rossignol, nor the moderate Mountain commissioner Philippeaux with Bourbotte, the commissioner of the committee of public safety; and this attempt at invasion failed like the preceding attempts, for want of concert in plan and action. The committee of public safety soon remedied this, by appointing one sole general-in- chief, Lechelle, and by introducing war on a large scale into La Vendee. This new method, aided by the garrison of Mayence, consisting of seventeen thousand veterans, who, relieved from operations against the allied nations after the capitulation, were employed in the interior, entirely changed the face of the war. The royalists underwent four consecutive defeats, two at Chatillon, two at Cholet. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d'Elbee were mortally wounded, and the insurgents, completely beaten in Upper Vendee, and fearing that they should be exterminated if they took refuge in Lower Vendee, determined to leave their country to the number of eighty thousand persons. This emigration through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection, became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly routed at Mans, they were destroyed at Savenay, and barely a few thousand men, the wreck of this vast emigration, returned to Vendee. These disasters, irreparable for the royalist cause, the taking of the island of Noirmoutiers from Charette, the dispersion of the troops of that leader, the death of La Rochejaquelin, rendered the republicans masters of the country. The committee of public safety, thinking, not without reason, that its enemies were beaten but not subjugated, adopted a terrible system of extermination to prevent them from rising again. General Thurreau surrounded Vendee with sixteen entrenched camps; twelve moveable columns, called the infernal columns, overran the country in every direction, sword and fire in hand, scoured the woods, dispersed the assemblies, and diffused terror throughout this unhappy country.

The foreign armies had also been driven back from the frontiers they had invaded. After having taken Valenciennes and Conde, blockaded Maubeuge and Le Quesnoy, the enemy advanced on Cassel, Hondschoote, and Furnes, under the command of the duke of York. The committee of public safety, dissatisfied with Custine, who was further regarded with suspicion as a Girondist, superseded him by general Houchard. The enemy, hitherto successful, was defeated at Hondschoote, and compelled to retreat. The military reaction began with the daring measures of the committee of public safety. Houchard himself was dismissed. Jourdan took the command of the army of the north, gained the important victory of Watignies over the prince of Coburg, raised the siege of Maubeuge, and resumed the offensive on that frontier. Similar successes took place on all the others. The immortal campaign of 1793-1794 opened. What Jourdan had done with the army of the north, Hoche and Pichegru did with the army of the Moselle, and Kellermann with that of the Alps. The enemy was repulsed, and kept in check on all sides. Then took place, after the 31st of May, that which had followed the 10th of August. The want of union between the generals and the leaders of the assembly was removed; the revolutionary movement, which had slackened, increased; and victories recommenced. Armies have had their crises, as well as parties, and these crises have brought about successes or defeat, always by the same law.

In 1792, at the beginning of the war, the generals were constitutionalists, and the ministers Girondists. Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, did not at all agree with Dumouriez, Servan, Claviere, and Roland. There was, besides, little enthusiasm in the army; it was beaten. After the 10th of August, the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Kellermann, and Dillon, replaced the constitutionalist generals. There was unity of views, confidence, and co-operation, between the army and the government. The catastrophe of the 10th of August augmented this energy, by increasing the necessity for victory; and the results were the plan of the campaign of Argonne, the victories of Valmy and Jemappes, and the invasion of Belgium. The struggle between the Mountain and the Gironde, between Dumouriez and the Jacobins, again created discord between the army and government, and destroyed the confidence of the troops, who experienced immediate and numerous reverses. There was defection on the part of Dumouriez, as there had been withdrawal on the part of Lafayette. After the 31st of May, which overthrew the Gironde party, after the committee of public safety had become established, and had replaced the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Houchard, and Dillon, by the Mountain generals, Jourdan, Hoche, Pichegru, and Moreau; after it had restored the revolutionary movement by the daring measures we have described, the campaign of Argonne and of Belgium was renewed in that of 1794, and the genius of Carnot equalled that of Dumouriez, if it did not surpass it.

During this war, the committee of public safety permitted a frightful number of executions. Armies confine themselves to slaughter in battle; it is not so with parties, who, under violent circumstances, fearing to see the combat renewed after the victory, secure themselves from new attacks by inexorable rigour. The usage of all governments being to make their own preservation a matter of right, they regard those who attack them as enemies so long as they fight, as conspirators when they are defeated; and thus destroy them alike by means of war and of law.

All these views at once guided the policy of the committee of public safety, a policy of vengeance, of terror, and of self-preservation. This was the maxim upon which it proceeded in reference to insurgent towns: "The name of Lyons," said Barrere, "must no longer exist. You will call it Ville Affranchie, and upon the ruins of that famous city there shall be raised a monument to attest the crime and the punishment of the enemies of liberty. Its history shall be told in these words: 'Lyons warred against liberty; Lyons exists no more.'" To realise this terrible anathema, the committee sent to this unfortunate city Collot-d'Herbois, Fouche, and Couthon, who slaughtered the inhabitants with grape shot and demolished its buildings. The insurgents of Toulon underwent at the hands of the representatives, Barras and Freron, a nearly similar fate. At Caen, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, the executions were less general and less violent, because they were proportioned to the gravity of the insurrection, which had not been undertaken in concert with foreign foes.

In the interior, the dictatorial government struck at all the parties with which it was at war, in the persons of their greatest members. The condemnation of queen Marie-Antoinette was directed against Europe; that of the twenty-two against the Girondists; of the wise Bailly against the old constitutionalists; lastly, that of the duke of Orleans against certain members of the Mountain who were supposed to have plotted his elevation. The unfortunate widow of Louis XVI. was first sentenced to death by this sanguinary revolutionary tribunal. The proscribed of the 2nd of June soon followed her. She perished on the 16th of October, and the Girondist deputies on the 31st. They were twenty-one in number: Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Fonfrede, Ducos, Valaze, Lasource, Sillery, Gardien, Carra, Duperret, Duprat, Fauchet, Beauvais, Duchatel, Mainvielle, Lacaze, Boileau, Lehardy, Antiboul, and Vigee. Seventy-three of their colleagues, who had protested against their arrest, were also imprisoned, but the committee did not venture to inflict death upon them.

During the debates, these illustrious prisoners displayed uniform and serene courage. Vergniaud raised his eloquent voice for a moment, but in vain. Valaze stabbed himself with a poignard on hearing the sentence, and Lasource said to the judges: "I die at a time when the people have lost their senses; you will die when they recover them." They went to execution displaying all the stoicism of the times, singing the Marseillaise, and applying it to their own case:

"Allons, enfants de la patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive: Contre nous de la tyrannie Le couteau sanglant est leve," etc.

Nearly all the other leaders of this party had a violent end. Salles, Guadet, and Barbaroux, were discovered in the grottos of Saint-Emilion, near Bordeaux, and died on the scaffold. Petion and Buzot, after wandering about some time, committed suicide; they were found, dead in a field, half devoured by wolves. Rabaud-Saint-Etienne was betrayed by an old friend; Madame Roland was also condemned to death, and displayed the courage of a Roman matron. Her husband, on hearing of her death, left his place of concealment, and killed himself on the high road. Condorcet, outlawed soon after the 2nd of June, was taken while endeavouring to escape, and saved himself from the executioner's knife only by poison. Louvet, Kervelegan, Lanjuinais, Henri La Riviere, Lesage, La Reveillere-Lepeaux, were the only leading Girondists who, in secure retreat, awaited the end of the furious storm.

The revolutionary government was formed; it was proclaimed by the convention on the 10th of October. Before the 31st of May, power had been nowhere, neither in the ministry, nor in the commune, nor in the convention. It was natural that power should become concentrated in this extreme situation of affairs, and at a moment when the need for unity and promptitude of action was deeply felt. The assembly being the most central and extensive power, the dictatorship would as naturally become placed in its bosom, be exercised there by the dominant faction, and in that faction by a few men. The committee of public safety of the convention created on the 6th of April, in order, as the name indicates, to provide for the defence of the revolution by extraordinary measures, was in itself a complete framework of government. Formed during the divisions of the Mountain and the Gironde, it was composed of neutral members of the convention till the 31st of May; and at its first renewal, of members of the extreme Mountain. Barrere remained in it; but Robespierre acceded, and his party dominated in it by Saint-Just, Couthon, Collot-d'Herbois, and Billaud-Varennes. He set aside some Dantonists who still remained in it, such as Herault de Sechelles and Robert Lindet, gained over Barrere, and usurped the lead by assuming the direction of the public mind and of police. His associates divided the various departments among themselves. Saint-Just undertook the surveillance and denouncing of parties; Couthon, the violent propositions which required to be softened in form; Billaud- Varennes and Collot-d'Herbois directed the missions into the departments; Carnot took the war department; Cambon, the exchequer; Prieur de la Cote- d'Or, Prieur de la Marne, and several others, the various branches of internal administration; and Barrere was the daily orator, the panegyrist ever prepared, of the dictatorial committee. Below these, assisting in the detail of the revolutionary administration, and of minor measures, was placed the committee of general safety, composed in the same spirit as the great committee, having, like it, twelve members, who were re-eligible every three months, and always renewed in their office.

The whole revolutionary power was lodged in the hands of these men. Saint- Just, in proposing the establishment of the decemviral power until the restoration of peace, did not conceal the motives nor the object of this dictatorship. "You must no longer show any lenity to the enemies of the new order of things," said he. "Liberty must triumph at any cost. In the present circumstances of the republic, the constitution cannot be established; it would guarantee impunity to attacks on our liberty, because it would be deficient in the violence necessary to restrain them. The present government is not sufficiently free to act. You are not near enough to strike in every direction at the authors of these attacks; the sword of the law must extend everywhere; your arm must be felt everywhere." Thus was created that terrible power, which first destroyed the enemies of the Mountain, then the Mountain and the Commune, and, lastly, itself. The committee did everything in the name of the convention, which it used as an instrument. It nominated and dismissed generals, ministers, representatives, commissioners, judges, and juries. It assailed factions; it took the initiative in all measures. Through its commissioners, armies and generals were dependent upon it, and it ruled the departments with sovereign sway. By means of the law touching suspected persons, it disposed of men's liberties; by the revolutionary tribunal, of men's lives; by levies and the maximum, of property; by decrees of accusation in the terrified convention, of its own members. Lastly, its dictatorship was supported by the multitude, who debated in the clubs, ruled in the revolutionary committees: whose services it paid by a daily stipend, and whom it fed with the maximum. The multitude adhered to a system which inflamed its passions, exaggerated its importance, assigned it the first place, and appeared to do everything for it.

The innovators, separated by war and by their laws from all states and from all forms of government, determined to widen the separation. By an unprecedented revolution they established an entirely new era; they changed the divisions of the year, the names of the months and days; they substituted a republican for the Christian calendar, the decade for the week, and fixed the day of rest not on the sabbath, but on the tenth day. The new era dated from the 22nd of September, 1792, the epoch of the foundation of the republic. There were twelve equal months of thirty days, which began on the 22nd of September, in the following order:— Vendemiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, for the autumn; Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose, for the winter; Germinal, Floreal, Prairial, for the spring; Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor, for the summer. Each month had three decades, each decade ten days, and each day was named from its order in the decade:—Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi. The surplus five days were placed at the end of the year; they received the name of Sans-culottides, and were consecrated, the first, to the festival of genius; the second, to that of labour; the third, to that of actions; the fourth, to that of rewards; the fifth, to that of opinion. The constitution of 1793 led to the establishment of the republican calendar, and the republican calendar to the abolition of Christian worship. We shall soon see the commune and the committee of public safety each proposing a religion of its own; the commune, the worship of reason; the committee of public safety, the worship of the Supreme Being. But we must first mention a new struggle between the authors of the catastrophe of the 31st of May themselves.

The Commune and the Mountain had effected this revolution against the Gironde, and the committee alone had benefited by it. During the five months from June to November, the committee, having taken all the measures of defence, had naturally become the first power in the republic. The actual struggle being, as it were, over, the commune sought to sway the committee, and the Mountain to throw off its yoke. The most intense manifestation of the revolution was found in the municipal faction. With an aim opposed to that of the committee of public safety, it desired instead of the conventional dictatorship, the most extreme local democracy; and instead of religion, the consecration of materialism. Political anarchy and religious atheism were the symbols of this party, and the means by which it aimed at establishing its own rule. A revolution is the effect of the different systems which have agitated the age which has originated it. Thus, during the continuance of the crisis in France, ultra-montane catholicism was represented by the nonjuring clergy; Jansenism by the constitutionist clergy; philosophical deism by the worship of the Supreme Being, instituted by the committee of public safety; and the materialism of Holbach's school by the worship of Reason and of Nature, decreed by the commune. It was the same with political opinions, from the royalty of the Ancien Regime to the unlimited democracy of the municipal faction. The latter had lost, in Marat, its principal support, its true leader, while the committee of public safety still retained Robespierre. It had at its head men who enjoyed great popularity with the lower classes; Chaumette, and his substitute Hebert, were its political leaders; Ronsin, commandant of the revolutionary army, its general; the atheist, Anacharsis Clootz, its apostle. In the sections it relied on the revolutionary committees, in which there were many obscure foreigners, supposed, and not without probability, to be agents of England, sent to destroy the republic by driving it into anarchy and excess. The club of the Cordeliers was composed entirely of its partisans. The Vieux Cordeliers of Danton, who had contributed so powerfully to the 10th of August, and who constituted the commune of that period, had entered the government and the convention, and had been replaced in the club by members whom they contemptuously designated the patriotes de la troisieme requisition.

Hebert's faction, which, in a work entitled Pere Duchesne, popularised obscene language and low and cruel sentiments, and which added derision of the victims to the executions of party, in a short time made terrible progress. It compelled the bishop of Paris and his vicars to abjure Christianity at the bar of the convention, and forced the convention to decree, that the worship of Reason should be substituted for the catholic religion. The churches were shut up or converted into temples of reason, and fetes were established in every town, which became scandalous scenes of atheism. The committee of public safety grew alarmed at the power of this ultra-revolutionary faction, and hastened to stop and to destroy it. Robespierre soon attacked it in the assembly, (15th Frimaire, year II., 5th Dec., 1793). "Citizens, representatives of the people," said he, "the kings in alliance against the republic are making war against us with armies and intrigues; we will oppose their armies by braver ones; their intrigues, by vigilance and the terror of national justice. Ever intent on renewing their secret plots, in proportion as they are destroyed by the hand of patriotism, ever skilful in directing the arms of liberty against liberty itself, the emissaries of the enemies of France are now labouring to overthrow the republic by republicanism, and to rekindle civil war by philosophy." He classed the ultra-revolutionists of the commune with the external enemies of the republic. "It is your part," said he to the convention, "to prevent the follies and extravagancies which coincide with the projects of foreign conspiracy. I require you to prohibit particular authorities (the commune) from serving our enemies by rash measures, and that no armed force be allowed to interfere in questions of religious opinions." And the convention, which had applauded the abjurations at the demand of the commune, decreed, on Robespierre's motion, that all violence and all measures opposed to the liberty of religion are prohibited.

The committee of public safety was too strong not to triumph over the commune; but, at the same time, it had to resist the moderate party of the Mountain, which demanded the cessation of the revolutionary government and the dictatorship of the committees. The revolutionary government had only been created to restrain, the dictatorship to conquer; and as Danton and his party no longer considered restraint and victory essential, they sought to establish legal order, and the independence of the convention; they wished to throw down the faction of the commune, to stop the operation of the revolutionary tribunal, to empty the prisons now filled with suspected persons, to reduce or destroy the powers of the committees. This project in favour of clemency, humanity, and legal government, was conceived by Danton, Philippeaux, Camille Desmoulins, Fabre-d'Eglantine, Lacroix, general Westermann, and all the friends of Danton. Before all things they wanted that the republic should secure the field of battle; but after conquest, they wished to conciliate.

This party, become moderate, had renounced power; it had withdrawn from the government, or suffered itself to be excluded by Robespierre's party. Moreover, since the 31st of May, zealous patriots had considered Danton's conduct equivocal. He had acted mildly on that day, and had subsequently disapproved the condemnation of the twenty-two. They began to reproach him with his disorderly life, his venal passions, his change of party, and untimely moderation. To avoid the storm, he had retired to his native place, Arcis-sur-Aube, and there he seemed to have forgotten all in retirement. During his absence, the Hebert faction made immense progress; and the friends of Danton hastily summoned him to their aid. He returned at the beginning of Frimaire (December). Philippeaux immediately denounced the manner in which the Vendean war had been carried on; general Westermann, who had greatly distinguised himself in that war, and who had just been dismissed by the committee of public safety, supported Philippeaux, and Camille Desmoulins published the first numbers of his Vieux Cordelier. This brilliant and fiery young man had followed all the movements of the revolution, from the 14th of July to the 31st of May, approving all its exaggerations and all its measures. His heart, however, was gentle and tender, though his opinions were violent, and his humour often bitter. He had praised the revolutionary regime because he believed it indispensable for the establishment of the republic; he had co-operated in the ruin of the Gironde, because he feared the dissensions of the republic. For the republic he had sacrificed even his scruples and the desires of his heart, even justice and humanity; he had given all to his party, thinking that he gave it to the republic; but now he was able neither to praise nor to keep silent; his energetic activity, which he had employed for the republic, he now directed against those who were ruining it by bloodshed. In his Vieux Cordelier he spoke of liberty with the depth of Machiavelli, and of men with the wit of Voltaire. But he soon raised the fanatics and dictators against him, by calling the government to sentiments of moderation, compassion, and justice.

He drew a striking picture of present tyranny, under the name of a past tyranny. He selected his examples from Tacitus. "At this period," said he, "words became state crimes: there wanted but one step more to render mere glances, sadness, pity, sighs—even silence itself criminal. It soon became high-treason, or an anti-revolutionary crime, for Cremutius Cordus to call Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans; a counter-revolutionary crime in a descendant of Cassius to possess a portrait of his ancestor; a counter-revolutionary crime in Mamercus Scaurus to write a tragedy in which there were lines capable of a double meaning; a counter- revolutionary crime in Torquatus Silanus to be extravagant; a counter- revolutionary crime in Pomponius, because a friend of Sejanus had sought an asylum in one of his country houses; a counter-revolutionary crime to bewail the misfortunes of the time, for this was accusing the government; a counter-revolutionary crime for the consul Fusius Geminus to bewail the sad death of his son.

"If a man would escape death himself, it became necessary to rejoice at the death of his friend or relative. Under Nero, many went to return thanks to the gods for their relatives whom he had put to death. At least, an assumed air of contentment was necessary; for even fear was sufficient to render one guilty. Everything gave the tyrant umbrage. If a citizen was popular, he was considered a rival to the prince, and capable of exciting a civil war, and he was suspected. Did he, on the contrary, shun popularity, and keep by his fireside; his retired mode of life drew attention, and he was suspected. Was a man rich; it was feared the people might be corrupted by his bounty, and he was suspected. Was he poor; it became necessary to watch him closely, as none are so enterprising as those who have nothing, and he was suspected. If his disposition chanced to be sombre and melancholy, and his dress neglected, his distress was supposed to be occasioned by the state of public affairs, and he was suspected. If a citizen indulged in good living to the injury of his digestion, he was said to do so because the prince lived ill, and he was suspected. If virtuous and austere in his manners, he was thought to censure the court, and he was suspected. Was he philosopher, orator, or poet; it was unbecoming to have more celebrity than the government, and he was suspected. Lastly, if any one had obtained a reputation in war, his talent only served to make him dangerous; it became necessary to get rid of the general, or to remove him speedily from the army; he was suspected.

"The natural death of a celebrated man, or of even a public official, was so rare, that historians handed it down to posterity as an event worthy to be remembered in remote ages. The death of so many innocent and worthy citizens seemed less a calamity than the insolence and disgraceful opulence of their murderers and denouncers. Every day the sacred and inviolable informer made his triumphant entry into the palace of the dead, and received some rich heritage. All these denouncers assumed illustrious names, and called themselves Cotta, Scipio, Regulus, Saevius, Severus. To distinguish himself by a brilliant debut, the marquis Serenus brought an accusation of anti-revolutionary practices against his aged father, already in exile, after which he proudly called himself Brutus. Such were the accusers, such the judges; the tribunals, the protectors of life and property, became slaughter-houses, in which theft and murder bore the names of punishment and confiscation."

Camille Desmoulins did not confine himself to attacking the revolutionary and dictatorial regime; he required its abolition. He demanded the establishment of a committee of mercy, as the only way of terminating the revolution and pacifying parties. His journal produced a great effect upon public opinion; it inspired some hope and courage: Have you read the Vieux Cordelier? was asked on all sides. At the same time Fabre- d'Eglantine, Lacroix, and Bourdon de l'Oise, excited the convention to throw off the yoke of the committee; they sought to unite the Mountain and the Right, in order to restore the freedom and power of the assembly. As the committees were all powerful, they tried to ruin them by degrees, the best course to follow. It was important to change public opinion, and to encourage the assembly, in order to support themselves by a moral force against revolutionary force, by the power of the convention against the power of the committees. The Dantonist in the Mountain endeavoured to detach Robespierre from the other Decemvirs; Billaud-Varennes, Collot- d'Herbois and Saint-Just, alone appeared to them invincibly attached to the Reign of Terror. Barrere adhered to it through weakness—Couthon from his devotion to Robespierre. They hoped to gain over the latter to the cause of moderation, through his friendship for Danton, his ideas of order, his austere habits, his profession of public virtue, and his pride. He had defended seventy-three imprisoned Girondist deputies against the committees and the Jacobins; he had dared to attack Clootz and Hebert as ultra-revolutionists; and he had induced the convention to decree the existence of the Supreme Being. Robespierre was the most popularly renowned man of that time; he was, in a measure, the moderator of the republic and the dictator of opinion: by gaining him, they hoped to overcome both the committees and the commune, without compromising the cause of the revolution.

Danton saw him on his return from Arcis-sur-Aube, and they seemed to understand one another; attacked at the Jacobins, he was defended by him. Robespierre himself read and corrected the Vieux Cordelier, and approved of it. At the same time he professed some principles of moderation; but then all those who exercised the revolutionary government, or who thought it indispensable, became aroused. Billaud-Varennes and Saint-Just openly maintained the policy of the committees. Desmoulins had said of the latter: "He so esteems himself, that he carries his head on his shoulders with as much respect as if it were the holy sacrament." "And I," replied Saint-Just, "will make him carry his like another Saint Denis." Collot- d'Herbois, who was on a mission, arrived while matters were in this state. He protected the faction of the anarchists, who had been intimidated for a moment, and who derived fresh audacity from his presence. The Jacobins expelled Camille Desmoulins from their society, and Barrere attacked him at the convention in the name of the government. Robespierre himself was not spared; he was accused of moderatism, and murmurs began to circulate against him.

However, his credit being immense, as they could not attack or conquer without him, he was sought on both sides. Taking advantage of this superior position, he adopted neither party, and sought to put down the leaders of each, one after the other.

Under these circumstances, he wished to sacrifice the commune and the anarchists; the committees wished to sacrifice the Mountain and the Moderates. They came to an understanding: Robespierre gave up Danton, Desmoulins, and their friends to the members of the committee; and the members of the committee gave up Hebert, Clootz, Chaumette, Ronsin, and their accomplices. By favouring the Moderates at first, he prepared the ruin of the anarchists, and he attained two objects favourable to his domination or to his pride—he overturned a formidable faction, and he got rid of a revolutionary reputation, the rival of his own.

Motives of public safety, it must be admitted, mingled with these combinations of party. At this period of general fury against the republic, and of victories not yet definitive on its part, the committees did not think the moment for peace with Europe and the internal dissentients had arrived; and they considered it impossible to carry on the war without a dictatorship. They, moreover, regarded the Hebertists as an obscene faction, which corrupted the people, and served the foreign foe by anarchy; and the Dantonists as a party whose political moderation and private immorality compromised and dishonoured the republic. The government accordingly proposed to the assembly, through the medium of Barrere, the continuation of the war, with additional activity in its pursuit; while Robespierre, a few days afterwards, demanded the continuance of the revolutionary government. In the Jacobins he had already expressed himself opposed to the Vieux Cordelier, which he had hitherto supported. He rejected legal government in the following terms:—

"Without," said he, "all the tyrants surround us; within, all the friends of tyranny conspire against us; they will continue to conspire till crime is left without hope. We must destroy the infernal and external enemies of the republic or perish with it. Now, in such a situation, the first maxim of your policy should be, to lead the people by reason, and the enemies of the people by terror. If, during peace, virtue be the mainspring of a popular government, its mainspring in the times of revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror becomes fatal, terror, without which virtue is powerless. Subdue, then, the enemies of liberty by terror; and, as the founders of the republic, you will act rightly. The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."

In this speech he denounced the moderates and the ultra- revolutionists, as both of them desiring the downfall of the republic. "They advance," said he, "under different banners and by different roads, but they advance towards the same goal; that goal is the disorganization of the popular government, the ruin of the convention, and the triumph of tyranny. One of these two factions reduces us to weakness, the other drives us to excesses." He prepared the public mind for their proscription; and his speech, adopted without discussion, was sent to all the popular societies, to all the authorities, and to all the armies.

After this beginning of hostilities, Danton, who had not given up his connexion with Robespierre, asked for an interview with him. It took place at the residence of Robespierre himself. They were cold and bitter; Danton complained violently, and Robespierre was reserved. "I know," said Danton, "all the hatred the committee bear me; but I do not fear it." "You are wrong," replied Robespierre; "it entertains no ill designs against you; but you would do well to have an explanation." "An explanation?" rejoined Danton, "an explanation? That requires good faith!" Seeing that Robespierre looked grave at these words, he added: "No doubt it is necessary to put down the royalists, but we ought only to strike blows which will benefit the republic; we must not confound the innocent with the guilty." "And who says," exclaimed Robespierre, sharply, "that an innocent person has been put to death?" Danton turned to one of his friends who had accompanied him, and said, with a bitter smile: "What do you say to this? Not one innocent person has perished!" They then separated, and all friendship ceased between them.

A few days afterwards, Saint-Just ascended the tribune, and threatened more openly than had yet been done all dissentients, moderates, or anarchists. "Citizens," said he, "you wished for a republic; if you do not at the same time desire all that constitutes it, you will overwhelm the people in its ruins. What constitutes a republic is the destruction of all that is opposed to it. We are guilty towards the republic because we pity the prisoners; we are guilty towards the republic because we do not desire virtue; we are guilty to the republic because we do not desire terror. What is it you want, those of you who do not wish for virtue, that you may be happy? (The Anarchists.) What is it you want, those of you who do not wish to employ terror against the wicked? (The Moderates.) What is it you want, those of you who haunt public places to be seen, and to have it said of you: 'Do you see such a one pass?' (Danton.) You will perish, those of you who seek fortune, who assume haggard looks, and affect the patriot that the foreigner may buy you up, or the government give you a place; you of the indulgent faction, who seek to save the guilty; you of the foreign faction, who direct severity against the defenders of the people. Measures are already taken to secure the guilty; they are hemmed in on all sides. Let us return thanks to the genius of the French people, that liberty has triumphed over one of the most dangerous attacks ever meditated against it. The development of this vast plot, the panic it will create, and the measures about to be proposed to you, will free the republic and the world of all the conspirators."

Saint-Just caused the government to be invested with the most extensive powers against the conspirators of the commune. He had it decreed that justice and probity were the order of the day. The anarchists were unable to adopt any measure of defence; they veiled for a moment the Rights of Man at the club of the Cordeliers, and they made an attempt at insurrection, but without vigour or union. The people did not stir, and the committee caused its commandant, Henriot, to seize the substitute Hebert, Ronsin, the revolutionary general, Anacharsis Clootz, Monmoro the orator of the human race, Vincent, etc. They were brought before the revolutionary tribunal, as the agents of foreign powers, and, as having conspired to place a tyrant over the state. That tyrant was to have been Pache, under the title of Grand Juge. The anarchist leaders lost their audacity as soon as they were arrested; they defended themselves, and, for the most part, died, without any display of courage. The committee of public safety disbanded the revolutionary army, diminished the power of the sectionary committees, and obliged the commune to appear at the bar of the convention, and give thanks for the arrest and punishment of the conspirators, its accomplices.

It was now time for Danton to defend himself; the proscription, after striking the commune, threatened him. He was advised to be on his guard, and to take immediate steps; but not having been able to overturn the dictatorial power, by arousing public opinion and the assembly by the means of the public journals, and his friends of the Mountain, on what could he depend for support? The convention, indeed, was inclined to favour him and his cause; but it was wholly subject to the revolutionary power of the committee. Danton having to support him, neither the government, nor the assembly, nor the commune, nor the clubs, awaited proscription, without making any effort to avoid it.

His friends implored him to defend himself. "I would rather," said he, "be guillotined, than be a guillotiner; besides, my life is not worth the trouble; and I am sick of the world." "The members of the committee seek thy death." "Well," he exclaimed, impatiently, "should Billaud, should Robespierre kill me, they will be execrated as tyrants; Robespierre's house will be razed to the ground; salt will be strewn upon it; a gallows will be erected on it, devoted to the vengeance of crime! But my friends will say of me, that I was a good father, a good friend, a good citizen; they will not forget me." "Thou mayst avert..." "I would rather be guillotined than be a guillotiner." "Well, then, thou shouldst depart." "Depart!" he repeated, curling his lip disdainfully, "depart! Can we carry our country away on the sole of our shoe?"

Danton's only resource now was to make trial of his so well known and potent eloquence, to denounce Robespierre and the committee, and to arouse the convention against their tyranny. He was earnestly entreated to do this; but he knew too well how difficult a thing it is to overthrow an established domination, he knew too well the complete subjection and terror of the assembly, to rely on the efficacy of such means. He accordingly waited, thinking, he who had dared so much, that his enemies would shrink from proscribing him.

On the 10th of Germinal, he was informed that his arrest was being discussed in the committee of public safety, and he was again entreated to save himself by flight. After a moment's reflection, he exclaimed, "They dare not." During the night his house was surrounded, and he was taken to the Luxembourg with Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, and Westermann. On his arrival, he accosted with cordiality the prisoners who crowded round him. "Gentlemen," said he, "I had hoped in a short time to liberate you, but here I am come to join you, and I know not how the matter may end." In about an hour he was placed in solitary confinement in the cell in which Hebert had been imprisoned, and which Robespierre was so soon to occupy. There, giving way to reflection and regret, he exclaimed: "It was at this time I instituted the revolutionary tribunal. I implore forgiveness from God and man for having done so; but I designed it not for the scourge of humanity."

His arrest gave rise to general excitement, to a sombre anxiety. The following day, at the opening of the sittings in the assembly, men spoke in whispers; they inquired with alarm, what was the pretext for this new proceeding against the representatives of the people. "Citizens," at length exclaimed Legendre, "four members of this assembly have been arrested during the night. Danton is one, I know not the others. Citizens, I declare that I believe Danton to be as pure as myself, yet he is in a dungeon. They feared, no doubt, that his replies would overturn the accusations brought against him: I move, therefore, that before you listen to any report, you send for the prisoners, and hear them." This motion was favourably received, and inspired the assembly with momentary courage: a few members desired it might be put to the vote, but this state of things did not last long. Robespierre ascended the tribune. "By the excitement, such as for a long time has been unknown in this the assembly," said he, "by the sensation the words of the speaker you have just heard have produced, it is easy to see that a question of great interest is before us; a question whether two or three individuals shall be preferred to the country. We shall see to-day whether the convention can crush to atoms a mock idol, long since decayed, or whether its fall shall overwhelm both the convention and the French people." And a few words from him sufficed to restore silence and subordination to the assembly, to restrain the friends of Danton, and to make Legendre himself retract. Soon after, Saint-Just entered the house, followed by other members of the committees. He read a long report against the members under arrest, in which he impugned their opinions, their political conduct, their private life, their projects; making them appear, by improbable and subtle combinations, accomplices in every conspiracy, and the servants of every party. The assembly, after listening without a murmur, with a bewildered sanction unanimously decreed, and with applause even, the impeachment of Danton and his friends. Every one sought to gain time with tyranny, and gave up others' heads to save his own.

The accused were brought before the revolutionary tribunal; their attitude was haughty, and full of courage. They displayed an audacity of speech, and a contempt of their judges, wholly unusual: Danton replied to the president Dumas, who asked him the customary questions as to his name, his age, his residence: "I am Danton, tolerably well known in the revolution; I am thirty-five years old. My residence will soon be nothing. My name will live in the Pantheon of history." His disdainful or indignant replies, the cold and measured answers of Lacroix, the austere dignity of Philippeaux, the vigour of Desmoulins, were beginning to move the people. But the accused were silenced, under the pretext that they were wanting in respect to justice, and were immediately condemned without a hearing. "We are immolated," cried Danton, "to the ambition of a few miserable brigands, but they will not long enjoy the fruit of their criminal victory. I draw Robespierre after me—Robespierre will follow me." They were taken to the Conciergerie, and thence to the scaffold.

They went to death with the intrepidity usual at that epoch. There were many troops under arms, and their escort was numerous. The crowd, generally loud in its applause, was silent. Camille Desmoulins, when in the fatal cart, was still full of astonishment at his condemnation, which he could not comprehend. "This, then," said he, "is the reward reserved for the first apostle of liberty." Danton stood erect, and looked proudly and calmly around. At the foot of the scaffold he betrayed a momentary emotion. "Oh, my best beloved—my wife!" he cried, "I shall not see thee again." Then suddenly interrupting himself: "No weakness, Danton!" Thus perished the last defenders of humanity and moderation; the last who sought to promote peace among the conquerors of the revolution and pity for the conquered. For a long time after them no voice was raised against the dictatorship of terror; and from one end of France to the other it struck silent and redoubled blows. The Girondists had sought to prevent this violent reign,—the Dantonists to stop it; all perished, and the conquerors had the more victims to strike the more foes arose around them. In so sanguinary a career, there is no stopping until the tyrant is himself slain. The Decemvirs, after the definitive fall of the Girondists, had made terror the order of the day; after the fall of the Hebertists, justice and probity, because these were impure men of faction; after the fall of the Dantonists, terror and all virtues, because these Dantonists were, according to their phraseology, indulgents and immorals.



CHAPTER IX

FROM THE DEATH OF DANTON, APRIL, 1794, TO THE 9TH THERMIDOR, (27TH JULY, 1794)

During the four months following the fall of the Danton party, the committees exercised their authority without opposition or restraint. Death became the only means of governing, and the republic was given up to daily and systematic executions. It was then were invented the alleged conspiracies of the inmates of the prisons, crowded under the law des suspects, or emptied by that of the 22nd Prairial, which might be called the law des condamnes; then the emissaries of the committee of public safety entirely replaced in the departments those of the Mountain; and Carrier, the protege of Billaud, was seen in the west; Maigret, the protege of Couthon, in the south; and Joseph Lebon, the protege of Robespierre, in the north. The extermination en masse of the enemies of the democratic dictatorship, which had already been effected at Lyons and Toulon by grape-shot, became still more horrible, by the noyades of Nantes, and the scaffolds of Arras, Paris, and Orange.

May this example teach men a truth, which for their good ought to be generally known, that in a revolution all depends on a first refusal and a first struggle. To effect a pacific innovation, it must not be contested; otherwise war is declared and the revolution spreads, because the whole nation is aroused to its defence. When society is thus shaken to its foundations, it is the most daring who triumph, and instead of wise and temperate reformers, we find only extreme and inflexible innovators. Engendered by contest, they maintain themselves by it; with one hand they fight to maintain their sway, with the other they establish their system with a view to its consolidation; they massacre in the name of their doctrines: virtue, humanity, the welfare of the people, all that is holiest on earth, they use to sanction their executions, and to protect their dictatorship. Until they become exhausted and fall, all perish indiscriminately, both the enemies and the partisans of reform. The tempest dashes a whole nation against the rock of revolution. Inquire what became of the men of 1789 in 1794, and it will be found that they were all alike swept away in this vast shipwreck. As soon as one party appeared on the field of battle, it summoned all the others thither, and all like it were in turn conquered and exterminated; constitutionalists, Girondists, the Mountain, and the Decemvirs themselves. At each defeat, the effusion of blood became greater, and the system of tyranny more violent. The Decemvirs were the most cruel, because they were the last.

The committee of public safety, being at once the object of the attacks of Europe, and of the hatred of so many conquered parties, thought that any abatement of violence would occasion its destruction; it wished at the same time to subdue its foes, and to get rid of them. "The dead alone do not return," said Barrere. "The more freely the social body perspires, the more healthy it becomes," added Collot-d'Herbois. But the Decemvirs, not suspecting their power to be ephemeral, aimed at founding a democracy, and sought in institutions a security for its permanence in the time when they should cease to employ executions. They possessed in the highest degree the fanaticism of certain social theories, as the millenarians of the English revolution, with whom they may be compared, had the fanaticism of certain religious ideas. The one originated with the people, as the other looked to God; these desired the most absolute political equality, as those sought evangelical equality; these aspired to the reign of virtue, as those to the reign of the saints. Human nature flies to extremes in all things, and produces, in a religious epoch, democratic Christians—in a philosophical epoch, political democrats.

Robespierre and Saint-Just had produced the plan of that democracy, whose principles they professed in all their speeches; they wished to change the manners, mind, and customs of France, and to make it a republic after the manner of the ancients; they sought to establish the dominion of the people; to have magistrates free from pride; citizens free from vice; fraternity of intercourse, simplicity of manners, austerity of character, and the worship of virtue. The symbolical words of the sect may be found in the speeches of all the reporters of the committee, and especially in those of Robespierre and Saint-Just. Liberty and equality for the government of the republic; indivisibility for its form; public safety for its defence and preservation; virtue for its principle; the Supreme Being for its religion; as for the citizens, fraternity for their daily intercourse; probity for their conduct; good sense for their mental qualities; modesty for their public actions, which were to have for object the welfare of the state, and not their own: such was the symbol of this democracy. Fanaticism could not go further. The authors of this system did not inquire into its practicability; they thought it just and natural; and having power, they tried to establish it by violence. Not one of these words but served to condemn a party or individuals. The royalists and aristocrats were hunted down in the name of liberty and equality; the Girondists in the name of indivisibility; Philippeaux, Camille Desmoulins, and the moderate party, in the name of public safety; Chaumette, Anacharsis Clootz, Gobet, Hebert, all the anarchical and atheistical party, in the name of virtue and the Supreme Being; Chabot, Bazire, Fabre-d'Eglantine, in the name of probity; Danton in the name of virtue and modesty. In the eyes of fanatics, these moral crimes necessitated their destruction, as much as the conspiracies which they were accused of.

Robespierre was the patron of this sect, which had in the committee a more zealous, disinterested, and fanatic partisan than himself, in the person of Saint-Just, who was called the Apocalyptic. His features were bold but regular, and marked by an expression determined, but melancholy. His eye was steady and piercing; his hair black, straight, and long. His manners cold, though his character was ardent; simple in his habits, austere and sententious, he advanced without hesitation towards the completion of his system. Though scarcely twenty-five years old, he was the boldest of the Decemvirs, because his convictions were the deepest. Passionately devoted to the republic, he was indefatigable in the committees, intrepid on his missions to the armies, where he set an example of courage, sharing the marches and dangers of the soldiers. His predilection for the multitude did not make him pay court to their propensities; and far from adopting their dress and language with Hebert, he wished to confer on them ease, gravity, and dignity. But his policy made him more terrible than his popular sentiments. He had much daring, coolness, readiness, and decision. Rarely susceptible to pity, he reduced to form his measures for the public safety, and put them into execution immediately. If he considered victory, proscription, the dictatorship necessary, he at once demanded them. Unlike Robespierre, he was completely a man of action. The latter, comprehending all the use he might make of him, early gained him over in the convention. Saint-Just, on his part, was drawn towards Robespierre by his reputation for incorruptibility, his austere life, and the conformity of their ideas.

The terrible effects of their association may be conceived when we consider their popularity, the envious and tyrannical passions of the one, and the inflexible character and systematic views of the other. Couthon had joined them; he was personally devoted to Robespierre. Although he had a mild look and a partially paralysed frame, he was a man of merciless fanaticism. They formed, in the committee, a triumvirate which soon sought to engross all power. This ambition alienated the other members of the committee, and caused their own destruction. In the meantime, the triumvirate imperiously governed the convention and the committee itself. When it was necessary to intimidate the assembly, Saint-Just was intrusted with the task; when they wished to take it by surprise, Couthon was employed. If the assembly murmured or hesitated, Robespierre rose, and restored silence and terror by a single word.

During the first two months after the fall of the commune and the Danton party, the Decemvirs, who were not yet divided, laboured to secure their domination: their commissioners kept the departments in restraint, and the armies of the republic were victorious on all the frontiers. The committee took advantage of this moment of security and union to lay the foundation of new manners and new institutions. It must never be forgotten, that in a revolution men are moved by two tendencies, attachment to their ideas, and a thirst for command. The members of the committee, at the beginning, agreed in their democratic sentiments; at the end, they contended for power.

Billaud-Varennes presented the theory of popular government and the means of rendering the army always subordinate to the nation. Robespierre delivered a discourse on the moral sentiments and solemnities suited to a republic: he dedicated festivals to the Supreme Being, to Truth, Justice, Modesty, Friendship, Frugality, Fidelity, Immortality, Misfortune, etc., in a word, to all the moral and republican virtues. In this way he prepared the establishment of the new worship of the Supreme Being. Barrere made a report on the extirpation of mendicity, and the assistance the republic owed to indigent citizens. All these reports passed into decrees, agreeably to the wishes of the democrats. Barrere, whose habitual speeches in the convention were calculated to disguise his servitude from himself, was one of the most supple instruments of the committee; he belonged to the regime of terror, neither from cruelty nor from fanaticism. His manners were gentle, his private life blameless, and he possessed great moderation of mind. But he was timid; and after having been a constitutional royalist before the 10th of August, a moderate republican prior to the 31st of May, he became the panegyrist and the co- operator of the decemviral tyranny. This shows that, in a revolution, no one should become an actor without decision of character. Intellect alone is not inflexible enough; it is too accommodating; it finds reasons for everything, even for what terrifies and disgusts it; it never knows when to stop, at a time when one ought always to be prepared to die, and to end one's part or end one's opinions.

Robespierre, who was considered the founder of this moral democracy, now attained the highest degree of elevation and of power. He became the object of the general flattery of his party; he was the great man of the republic. Men spoke of nothing but of his virtue, of his genius, and of his eloquence. Two circumstances contributed to augment his importance still further. On the 3rd Prairial, an obscure but intrepid man, named l'Admiral, was determined to deliver France from Robespierre and Collot- d'Herbois. He waited in vain for Robespierre all day, and at night he resolved to kill Collot. He fired twice at him with pistols, but missed him. The following day, a young girl, name Cecile Renaud, called at Robespierre's house, and earnestly begged to speak with him. As he was out, and as she still insisted upon being admitted, she was detained. She carried a small parcel, and two knives were found on her person. "What motive brought you to Robespierre's?" inquired her examiners. "I wanted to speak to him." "On what business?" "That depended on how I might find him." "Do you know citizen Robespierre?" "No, I sought to know him; I went to his house to see what a tyrant was like." "What did you propose doing with your two knives?" "Nothing, having no intention to injure any one." "And your parcel?" "Contains a change of linen for my use in the place I shall be sent to." "Where is that?" "To prison; and from thence to the guillotine." The unfortunate girl was ultimately taken there, and her family shared her fate.

Robespierre received marks of the most intoxicating adulation. At the Jacobins and in the convention his preservation was attributed to the good genius of the republic, and to the Supreme Being, whose existence he had decreed on the 18th Floreal. The celebration of the new religion had been fixed for the 20th Prairial throughout France. On the 16th, Robespierre was unanimously appointed president of the convention, in order that he might officiate as the pontiff at the festival. At that ceremony he appeared at the head of the assembly, his face beaming with joy and confidence, an unusual expression with him. He advanced alone, fifteen feet in advance of his colleagues, attired in a magnificent dress, holding flowers and ears of corn in his hand, the object of general attention. Expectation was universally raised on this occasion: the enemies of Robespierre foreboded attempts at usurpation, the persecuted looked forward to a milder regime. He disappointed every one. He harangued the people in his capacity of high priest, and concluded his speech, in which all expected to find a hope of happier prospects, with these discouraging words:—"People, let us to-day give ourselves up to the transports of pure delight! To-morrow we will renew our struggle against vices and against tyrants."

Two days after, on the 22nd Prairial, Couthon presented a new law to the convention. The revolutionary tribunal had dutifully struck all those who had been pointed out to it: royalists, constitutionalists, Girondists, anarchists, and Mountain, had been all alike despatched to execution. But it did not proceed expeditiously enough to satisfy the systematic exterminators, who wished promptly, and at any cost, to get rid of all their prisoners. It still observed some forms; these were suppressed. "All tardiness," said Couthon, "is a crime, all indulgent formality a public danger; there should be no longer delay in punishing the enemies of the state than suffices to recognise them." Hitherto the prisoners had counsel; they had them no longer:—The law furnishes patriot jurymen for the defence of calumniated patriots; it grants none to conspirators. They tried them, at first, individually; now they tried them en masse. There had been some precision in the crimes, even when revolutionary; now all the enemies of the people were declared guilty, and all were pronounced enemies of the people who sought to destroy liberty by force or stratagem. The jury before had the law to guide their determinations, they now only had their conscience. A single tribunal, Fouquier-Tinville and a few jurymen, were not sufficient for the increase of victims the new law threatened to bring before it; the tribunal was divided into four sections, the number of judges and juries was increased, and the public accuser had four substitutes appointed to assist him. Lastly, the deputies of the people could not before be brought to trial without a decree of the convention; but the law was now so drawn up that they could be tried on an order from the committees. The law respecting suspected persons gave rise to that of Prairial.

As soon as Couthon had made his report, a murmur of astonishment and alarm pervaded the assembly. "If this law passes," cried Ruamps, "all we have to do is to blow our brains out. I demand an adjourment." This motion was supported; but Robespierre ascended the tribunal. "For a long time," said he, "the national assembly has been accustomed to discuss and decree at the same time, because it has long been delivered from the thraldom of faction. I move that without considering the question of adjournment, the convention debate, till eight in the evening if necessary, on the proposed law." The discussion was immediately begun, and in thirty minutes after the second reading, the decree was carried. But the following day, a few members, more afraid of the law than of the committee, returned to the debate of the day before. The Mountain, friends of Danton, fearing, for their own sakes, the new provisions, which left the representatives at the mercy of the Decemvirs, proposed to the convention to provide for the safety of its members. Bourdon de l'Oise was the first to speak on this subject; he was supported. Merlin, by a skilful amendment, restored the old safeguard of the conventionalists, and the assembly adopted Merlin's measure. Gradually, objections were made to the decree; the courage of the Mountain increased, and the discussion became very animated. Couthon attacked the Mountain. "Let them know," replied Bourdon de l'Oise—"let the members of the committee know that if they are patriots, we are patriots too. Let them know that I shall not reply with bitterness to their reproaches. I esteem Couthon, I esteem the committee; but I also esteem the unshaken Mountain which has saved our liberty." Robespierre, surprised at this unexpected resistance, hurried to the tribune. "The convention," said he, "the Mountain, and the committee are the same thing! Every representative of the people who sincerely loves liberty, every representative of the people who is ready to die for his country, belongs to the Mountain! We should insult our country, assassinate the people, did we allow a few intriguing persons, more contemptible than others, because they are more hypocritical, to draw off a portion of the Mountain, and make themselves the leaders of a party." "If was never my intention," said Bourdon, "to make myself leader of a party." "It would be the height of opprobrium," continued Robespierre, "if a few of our colleagues, led away by calumny respecting our intentions and the object of our labours...." "I insist on your proving what you assert," rejoined Bourdon. "I have been very plainly called a scoundrel." "I did not name Bourdon. Woe to the man who names himself! Yes, the Mountain is pure, it is sublime; intriguers do not belong to the Mountain!" "Name them!" "I will name them when it is necessary." The threats and the imperious tone of Robespierre, the support of the other Decemvirs, and the feeling of fear which went round caused profound silence. The amendment of Merlin was revoked as insulting to the committee of public safety, and the whole law was adopted. From that time executions took place in batches; and fifty persons were sent to death daily. This Terror within terror lasted about two months.

But the end of this system drew near. The sittings of Prairial were the term of union for the member of the committees. From that time, silent dissensions existed among them. They had advanced together, so long as they had to contend together; but this ceased to be the case when they found themselves alone in the arena, with habits of contest and the desire for dominion. Moreover, their opinions were no longer entirely the same: the democratic party were divided by the fall of the old commune; Billaud- Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, and the principal members of the committee of general safety, Vadier, Amar, Vouland, clung to this overthrown faction, and preferred the worship of Reason to that of the Supreme Being. They were also jealous of the fame, and anxious at the power of Robespierre, who, in his turn, was irritated at their secret disapprobation and the obstacles they opposed to his will. At this period, the latter conceived the design of putting down the most enterprising members of the Mountain, Tallien, Bourdon, Legendre, Freron, Rovere, etc., and his rivals of the committee.

Robespierre had a prodigious force at his disposal, the common people, who considered the revolution as depending on him, supported him as the representative of its doctrines and interests; the armed force of Paris, commanded by Henriot, was at his command. He had entire sway over the Jacobins, whom he admitted and ejected at pleasure; all important posts were occupied by his creatures; he had formed the revolutionary tribunal and the new committee himself, substituting Payan, the national agent, for Chaumette, the attorney-general; and Fleuriot for Pache, in the office of mayor. But what was his design in granting the most influential places to new men, and in separating himself from the committees? Did he aspire to the dictatorship? Did he only seek to establish his democracy of virtue by the ruin of the remaining immoral members of the Mountain, and the factious of the committee? Each party had lost its leaders: the Gironde had lost the twenty-two; the commune, Hebert, Chaumette, and Ronsin; the Mountain, Danton, Chabot, Lacroix, and Camille Desmoulins. But while thus proscribing the leaders, Robespierre had carefully protected the sects. He had defended the seventy-three prisoners against the denunciations of the Jacobins and the hatred of the committees; he had placed himself at the head of the new commune; he had no longer reason to fear opposition to his projects, whatever they might be, except from a few of the Mountain and the members of the conventional government. It was against this double obstacle that he directed his efforts during the last moments of his career. It is probable that he did not separate the republic from his protectorate, and that he thought to establish both on the overthrow of the other parties.

The committees opposed Robespierre in their own way. They secretly strove to bring about his fall by accusing him of tyranny; they caused the establishment of his religion to be considered as the presage of his usurpation; they recalled the haughty attitude he assumed on the 20th Priarial, and the distance at which he kept even the national convention. Among themselves, they called him Pisistratus, and this name already passed from mouth to mouth. A circumstance, insignificant enough at any other time, gave them an opportunity of attacking him indirectly. An old woman, called Catherine Theot, played the prophetess in an obscure habitation, surrounded by a few mystic sectaries: they styled her the Mother of God, and she announced the immediate coming of a Messiah. Among her followers there was on old associate of Robespierre in the constituent assembly, the Chartreux Dom Gerle, who had a civic certificate from Robespierre himself. When the committees discovered the mysteries of the Mother of God, and her predictions, they believed or pretended to believe, that Robespierre made use of her instrumentality to gain over the fanatics, or to announce his elevation. They altered her name of Theot into that of Theos, signifying God; and they craftily insinuated that Robespierre was the Messiah she announced. The aged Vadier, in the name of the committee of general safety, was deputed to bring forward a motion against this new sect. He was vain and subtle; he denounced those who were initiated into these mysteries, turned the worship into derision, implicated Robespierre in it without naming him, and had the fanatics sent to prison. Robespierre wished to save them. The conduct of the committee of general safety greatly irritated him, and in the Jacobin club he spoke of the speech of Vadier with contempt and anger. He experienced fresh opposition from the committee of public safety, which refused to proceed against the persons he pointed out to them. From that time he ceased to join his colleagues in the government, and was rarely present at the sittings of the convention. But he attended the Jacobins regularly; and from the tribune of that club he hoped to overthrow his enemies as he had hitherto done.

Naturally sad, suspicious and timid, he became more melancholy and mistrustful than ever. He never went out without being accompanied by several Jacobins armed with sticks, who were called his body-guard. He soon commenced his denunciations in the popular assembly. "All corrupt men," said he, "must be expelled the convention." This was designating the friends of Danton. Robespierre had them watched with the most minute anxiety. Every day spies followed all their motions, observing their actions, haunts, and conversation. Robespierre not only attacked the Dantonists at the Jacobins, he even arose against the committee itself, and for that purpose he chose a day when Barrere presided in the popular assembly. At the close of the sitting, the latter returned home discouraged; "I am disgusted with men," said he to Villate. "What could be his motive for attacking you?" inquired the other. "Robespierre is insatiable," rejoined Barrere; "because we will not do all he wishes, he must break with us. If he talked to us about Thuriot, Guffroi, Rovere Lecointre, Panis, Cambon, Monestier, and the rest of the Dantonists, we might agree with him; let him even require Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, Legendre, Freron, well; but Duval, Audoin, Leonard Bourdon, Vadier, Vouland—it is impossible to consent." To give up members of the committee of general safety, was to expose themselves; accordingly, while fearing, they firmly awaited the attack. Robespierre was very formidable, with respect to his power, his hatred, and his designs; it was for him to begin the combat.

But how could he set about it? For the first time he was the author of a conspiracy; hitherto he had taken advantage of all popular movements. Danton, the Cordeliers, and the faubourgs had made the insurrection of the 10th of August against the throne; Marat, the Mountain, and the commune had made that of the 31st of May against the Gironde; Billaud, Saint-Just, and the committees had effected the ruin of the commune, and weakened the Mountain. Robespierre remained alone. Unable to procure assistance from the government, since he had declared against the committees, he had recourse to the populace and the Jacobins. The principal conspirators were Saint-Just, and Couthon in the committee; Fleuriot the mayor, and Payan the national agent in the commune; Dumas the president, and Coffinhal the vice-president, in the revolutionary tribunal; Henriot, the commander of the armed force, and the popular society. On the 15th Messidor, three weeks after the law of Prairial, and twenty-four days before the 9th Thermidor, the resolution was already taken; at that time, and under that date, Henriot wrote to the mayor: "You shall be satisfied with me, comrade, and with the way in which I shall proceed; trust me, men who love their country, easily agree in directing all their steps to the benefit of public affairs. I would have wished, and I do wish, that the secret of the operation rested with us two; the wicked should know nothing of it. Health and brotherhood."

Saint-Just was on a mission to the army of the north; Robespierre hastily recalled him. While waiting his return, he prepared the public mind at the Jacobins. In the sitting of the 3rd Thermidor, he complained of the conduct of the committees, and of the persecution of the patriots, whom he swore to defend. "There must no longer be traces of crime or faction," said he, "in any place whatever. A few scoundrels disgrace the convention; but it will not allow itself to be swayed by them." He then urged his colleagues, the Jacobins, to prevent their reflections to the national assembly. This was the transaction of the 31st of May. On the 4th, he received a deputation from the department of l'Aisne, who came to complain to him of the operations of the government, to which, for a month past, he had been a stranger. "The convention," said Robespierre, in his reply to the deputation, "in the situation in which it now stands, gangrened by corruption, and being wholly unable to recover itself, cannot save the republic-both must perish. The proscription of patriots is the order of the day. As for me I have one foot in the tomb; in a few days the other will follow it. The rest is in the hands of Providence." He was then slightly indisposed, and he purposely exaggerated his discouragement, his fears, and the dangers of the republic, in order to inflame the patriots, and again bind the fate of the revolution with his own.

In the meantime. Saint-Just arrived from the army. He ascertained the state of affairs from Robespierre. He presented himself to the committees, the members of which received him coldly; every time he entered, they ceased to deliberate. Saint-Just, who, from their silence, a few chance words, and the expression of perplexity or hostility on their countenances, saw there was no time to be lost, pressed Robespierre to act. His Maxim was to strike at once, and resolutely. "Dare," said he, "that is the secret of revolutions." But he wished to prevail on Robespierre to take a measure, which was impossible, by urging him to strike his foes, without apprising them. The force at his disposal was a force of revolutionary opinion, and not an organized force. It was necessary for him to seek the assistance of the convention or of the commune, the legal authority of government, or the extraordinary authority of insurrection. Such was the custom, and such must be all coups-d'etat. They could not even have recourse to insurrection, until after they had received the refusal of the assembly, otherwise a pretext was wanting for the rising. Robespierre was therefore obliged to commence the attack in the convention itself. He hoped to obtain everything from it by his ascendancy, or if, contrary to its custom, it resisted, he reckoned on the people, urged by the commune, rising on the 9th Thermidor against the proscribed of the Mountain, and the committee of public safety, as it had risen on the 31st of May against the proscribed of the Gironde and the Commission of Twelve. It is almost always by the past that man regulates his conduct and his hopes.