[Footnote 2411: Letter of M. Lieutaud to the commissioners, May 11 and 18, 1791. "If I have not fallen under the assassin's dagger I owe my preservation to your strict orders and to the good behavior of the national guard and the regular troops... At the hearing of the case today, the prosecutor on the part of the commune ventured to threaten the court with popular opinion and its avenging fury... The people, stirred up against us, and brought there, shouted, 'Let us seize Lieutaud and take him there by force and if he will not go up the steps, we will cut his head off!' The hall leading to the courtroom and the stairways were filled with barefooted vagabonds."—Letter of Cabrol, commander of the national guard, and of the municipal officers to the commissioners, May 21. That picket-guard of fifty men on the great square, is it not rather the cause of a riot than the means of preventing one? A requisition to send four national guards inside the prison, to remain there day and night, is it not insulting citizen soldiers, whose function it is to see that the laws are maintained, and not to do jail duty?"]

[Footnote 2412: Letter of M. d'Olivier, lieutenant-colonel of the Ernest regiment, May 28.—Extracts from the papers of the secretary to the municipality, May 28 (Barbaroux is the clerk).—Letter of the commissions, May 29]

[Footnote 2413: Letter of the commissioners, June 29.]

[Footnote 2414: Letter of M. Laroque-Dourdan, naval commander at Marseilles, Oct. 18, 1791. (in relation to the departure of the Swiss regiment).]

[Footnote 2415: The elections are held on the 13th of November, 1791. Martin, the former mayor, showed timidity, and Mouraille was elected in his place.]

[Footnote 2416: "Archives Nationales." F 7 3197. Letter (printed) of the Directory to the Minister of War, Jan. 4, 1792.—Letter of the municipality of Marseilles to the Directory, Jan. 4, and the Directory's reply.—Barbaroux, "Memoires," 19.—Here we see the part played by Barbaroux at Marseilles. Guadet played a similar part at Bordeaux. This early political period is essential for a comprehension of the Girondists.]

[Footnote 2417: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3195. Official report of the municipality of Aix (on the events of Feb. 26). March 1st.—Letter of M. Villardy, president of the directory, dated Avignon, March 10. (He barely escaped assassination at Aix.)—Ibid., F7,3196. Report of the district administrators of Arles, Feb. 28 (according to private letters from Aix and Marseilles).—Barbaroux, "Memoires" (collection of Berville and Barriere), 106. (Narrative of M. Watteville, major in the Ernest regiment. Ibid., 108) (Report from M. de Barbentane, commanding general). These two documents show the liberalism, want of vigor, and the usual indecision of the superior authorities, especially the military authorities—Mercure de France, March 24, 1792 (letters from Aix).]

[Footnote 2418: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Dispatches of the new Directory to the Minister, March 24 and April 4, 1792. "Since the departure of the Directory, our administrative assembly is composed of only six members, notwithstanding our repeated summons to every member of the Council... Only three members of the Council consent to act with us; the reason is a lack of pecuniary means." The new Directory, consequently, passes a resolution to indemnify members of the Council. This, indeed, is contrary to a royal proclamation of Jan. 15; but "this proclamation was wrested from the King, on account of his firm faith. You must be aware that, in a free nation, the influence of a citizen on his government must not be estimated by his fortune; such a principle is false, and destructive of equality of rights. We trust that the King will consent to revoke his proclamation."]

[Footnote 2419: Ib., Letters of Borelly, vice-president of the Directory, to the Minister, April 10, 17, and 30, 1792.—Letter from another administrator, March 10. "They absolutely want us to march against Arles, and to force us to give the order."—Ibid., F7, 3195. Letters from Aix, March 12 and 16, addressed to M. Verdet.]

[Footnote 2420: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the administrators of the department Council to the Minister, March 10, "The Council of the administration is surprised, sir, at the fa1se impressions given you of the city of Marseilles; it should be regarded as the patriotic buckler of the department... If the people of Paris did not wait for orders to destroy the Bastille and begin the Revolution, can you wonder that in this fiery climate the impatience of good citizens should make them anticipate legal orders, and that they cannot comply with the slow forms of justice when their personal safety and the safety of the country is in peril?"]

[Footnote 2421: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3197. Dispatches of the three commissioners, passim, and especially those of May 11, June 10 and 19, 1791 (on affairs in Arles). "The property-owners were a long time subject to oppression. A few of the factions maintained a reign of terror over honest folks, who trembled in secret."]

[Footnote 2422: Ibid., Dispatch of the commissioners, June 19: "One of the Mint gang causes notes to be publicly distributed (addressed to the unsworn) in these words: 'If you don't "piss-off" you will have to deal with the gang from the Mint.'"]

[Footnote 2423: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3198. Narration (printed) of what occurred at Arles, June 9 and 10, 1791.—Dispatch of M. Ripert, royal commissioner, Aug. 5, 1791.—F 7, 3197. Dispatch of the three commissioners, June 19. "Since then, many of the farm laborers have taken the same oath. It is this class of citizens which most eagerly desires a return to order. "—Other dispatches to the same effect, Oct. 24 and 29, and Dec. 14, 1791.—Cf. "The French Revolution," I. 301, 302.]

[Footnote 2424: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3196. Dispatch of the members of the Directory of Arles and the municipal officers to the Minister, March 3, 1792 (with a printed diatribe of the Marseilles municipality)]

[Footnote 2425: Ibid., F7, 3198. Dispatches of the procureur—syndic of the department to the Minister, Aix, Sept. 14, 15, 20, and 23, 1791. The electoral assembly declared itself permanent, the constitutional authorities being fettered and unrecognized.—Dispatch of the members of the military bureau and correspondence with the Minister, Arles, Sept.17, 1791.]

[Footnote 2426: Ibid., Dispatch of the commandant of the Marseilles detachment to the Directory of the department, Sept. 22, 1791: "I feel that our proceedings are not exactly legal, but I thought it prudent to acquiesce in the general desire of the battalion."]

[Footnote 2427: "Archives Nationales." Official report of the municipal officers of Arles on the insurrection of the Mint band, Sept. 2, 1791.—Dispatch of Ripert, royal commissioner, Oct. 2 and 8.—Letter of M. d'Antonelle, to the Friends of the Constitution, Sept.22. "I cannot believe in the counter-orders with which we are threatened. Such a decision in the present crisis would be too inhuman and dangerous. Our co-workers, who have had the courage to devote themselves to the new law, would be deprived of their bread and shelter... The king's proclamation has all the appearance of having been hastily prepared, and every sign of having been secured unawares."]

[Footnote 2428: De Dampmartin (an eye-witness), II. 60-70.—" Archives Nationales," F7, 3196.—Dispatch of the two delegated commissioners to the Minister, Nimes, March 25, 1792.—Letter of M. Wittgenstein to the Directory of the Bouche-du—Rhone, April 4, 1792.—Reply and act passed by the Directory, April 5.—Report of Bertin and Rebecqui to the administrators of the department, April 3.—Moniteur, XII. 379. Report of the Minister of the Interior to the National Assembly, April 4.]

[Footnote 2429: Moniteur, XII. 408 (session of May 16). Petition of M. Fossin, deputy from Arles.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Petition of the Arlesians to the Minister, June 28.—Despatches of M. Lombard, provisional royal commissioner, Arles, July 6 and 10. "Neither persons nor property have been respected for three months by those who wear the mask of patriotism."]

[Footnote 2430: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of M. Borelly, vice-president of the Directory, to the Minister, Aix, April 30, 1792. "The course pursued by the sieur: Bertin and Rebecqui is the cause of all the disorders committed in these unhappy districts... Their sole object is to levy contributions, as they did at Aries, to enrich themselves and render the Comtat-Venaisson desolate."]

[Footnote 2431: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Deposition of one of the keepers of the sieur Coye, a proprietor at Mouriez-les-Baux, April 4.—Petition of Peyre, notary at Maussane, April 7.—Statement by Manson, a resident of Mouriez-les-Baux, March 27.—Petition of Andrieu, March 30.—Letter of the municipality of Maussane, April 4: "They watch for a favorable opportunity to devastate property and especially country villas."]

[Footnote 2432: "Archives Nationales," Claim of the national guard presented to the district administrators of Tarascon by the national guard of Chateau-Renard, April 6.—Petition of Juliat d'Eyguieres, district administrator of Tarascon, April 2 (in relation to a requisition of 30,000 francs by Camoin on the commune of Eyguieres).—Letter of M. Borelly, April 30. "Bertin and Rebecqui have openly protected the infamous Camoin, and have set him free. "—Moniteur, XII. 408. Petition of M. Fossin, deputy from Arles.]

[Footnote 2433: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Dispatch of M. Merard, royal commissioner at the district court of Apt, Apt, March 15, 1792 (with official report of the Apt municipality and debates of the district, March 13).—Letter of M. Guillebert, syndic-attorney of the district March 5.. (He has fled. )—Dispatches of the district Directory, March 23 and 28. "It must not be supposed for a moment that either the court or the juge-de-paix will take the least notice of this circumstance. One step in this direction would, in a week, bring 10,000 men on our hands."]

[Footnote 2434: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the district Directory of Apt, March 28. "On the 26th of March 600 armed men, belonging to the communes of Apt, Viens, Rustrel, etc. betook themselves to St.-Martin-de-Castillon and, under the pretense of restoring order, taxed the inhabitants, lodging and feeding themselves at their charge"—The expeditions extend even to the neighboring departments, one of them March 23, going to Sault, near Forcalquier, in the Upper-Alps.]

[Footnote 2435: Ib., F7, 3195. On the demand of a number of petitioning soldiers who went to Aries on the 22d of March, 1792, the department administration passes an act (September, 1793) granting them each forty-five francs indemnity. There are 1,916 of them, which makes 86,200 francs "assessed on the goods and property of individuals for the authors, abettors, and those guilty of the disturbances occasioned by the party of Chiffonists in the commune of Arles." The municipality of Aries designates fifty-one individuals, who pay the 86,200 livres, plus 2,785 francs exchange, and 300 francs for the cost of sojourn and delays.—Petition of the ransomed, Nov.21, 1792.]

[Footnote 2436: Ib., F7, 3165. Official report of the Directory on the events which occurred in Aix, April 27, 28, and 29, 1792.]

[Footnote 2437: Michelet, "Histoire de la Revolution Francaise," III.56 (according to the narratives of aged peasants).—Mercure de France, April 30, 1791 (letter from an inhabitant of the Comtat).—All public dues put together (octrois and interest on the debt) did not go beyond 800,000 francs for 126,684 inhabitants. On the contrary, united with France, it would pay 3,793,000 francs.—Andre, "Histoire de la Revolution Avignonaise," I. 61.—The Comtat possessed representative institutions, an armed general assembly, composed of three bishops, the elected representative of the nobility, and thirteen consuls of the leading towns.—Mercure de France, Oct. 15, 1791 (letter from an inhabitant of the Comtat).—There were no bodies of militia in the Comtat; the privileges of nobles were of little account. Nobody had the exclusive right to hunt or fish, while people without property could own guns and hunt anywhere.]

[Footnote 2438: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3272. Letter of M. Pelet de la Lozere, prefect of Vaucluse; to the Minister, year VIII. Germinal 30.—Ibid., DXXIV. 3. Letter of M. Mulot, one of the mediating commissioners, to the Minister, Oct. 10, 1791. "What a country you have sent me to! It is the land of duplicity. Italianism has struck its roots deep here, and I fear that they are very hardy."]

[Footnote 2439: The details of these occurrences may be found in Andre and in Soulier, "Histoire de la Revolution Avignonaise." The murder of their seven principal opponents, gentlemen, priests and artisans, took place June 11, 1790.—"Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3. The starting-point of the riots is the hostility of the Jansenist Camus, deputy to the Constituent Assembly. Several letters, the first from April, 1790, may be found in this file, addressed to him from the leading Jacobins of Avignon, Mainvielle, Raphel, Richard, and the rest, and among others the following (3 July, 1790): "Do not abandon your work, we entreat you. You, sir, were the first to inspire us with a desire to be free and to demand our right to unite with a generous nation, from which we have been severed by fraud."—As to the political means and enticements, these are always the same. Cf., for instance, this letter of a protege, in Avignon, of Camus, addressed to him July 13, 1791: "I have just obtained from the commune the use of a room inside the Palace, where I can carry on my tavern business.. My fortune is based on your kindness... what a distance between you and myself!"]

[Footnote 2440: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3. Report on the events of Oct.10, 1791.—Ibid., F7, 3197. Letter of the three commissioners to the municipality of Avignon, April 21, and to the Minister, May 14, 1791. "The deputies of Orange certify that there were at least 500 French deserters in the Avignon army. "—In the same reports, May 21 and June 8: "It is not to be admitted that enrolled brigands should establish in a small territory, surrounded by France on all sides, the most dangerous school of brigandage that ever disgraced or preyed upon this human species. "—Letter of M. Villardy, president of the Directory of the Bouches-du-Rhone May 21. "More than two millions of the national property is exposed to pillage and total destruction by the new Mandrins who devastate this unfortunate country. "—Letter of Megle, recruiting sergeant of the La Mark regiment, arrested along with two of his comrades. "The corps of Mandrins which arrested us set us at liberty... We were arrested because we refused to join them, and on our refusal we were daily threatened with the gallows."]

[Footnote 2441: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 379 (note on Jourdan, by Faure, deputy).—Barbaroux, "Memoires"(Ed. Dauban), 392. "After the death of Patrix a general had to be elected. Nobody wanted the place in an army that had just shown so great a lack of discipline. Jourdan arose and declared that as far as he was concerned, he was ready to accept the position. No reply was made. He nominated himself, and asked the soldiers if they wanted him for general. A drunkard is likely to please other drunkards; they applauded him, and he was thus proclaimed."]

[Footnote 2442: After a famous brigand in Dauphiny, named Mandrin.—TR. Mandrin, (Louis) (Saint Etienne-de—Saint-Geoirs, Isere, 1724—Valence, 1755). French smuggler who, after 1750, was active over an enormous territory with the support of the population; hunted down by the army, caught, condemned to death to be broken alive on the wheel. See also Taine's explanation in Ancient Regime page 356 app. (SR).]

[Footnote 2443: Cf. Andre, passim, and Soulier, passim.—Mercure de France, June 4, 1791.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3197. Letter of Madame de Gabrielli, March 14, 1791. (Her house is pillaged Jan. 10, and she and her maid escape by the roof.)—Report of the municipal officers of Tarascon, May 22. "The troop which has entered the district pillages everything it can lay its hands on."—Letter of the syndic-attorney of Orange, May 22. "Last Wednesday, a little girl ten years of age, on her way from Chateauneuf to Courtheson, was violated by one on of them, and the poor child is almost dead. "—Dispatch of the three commissioners to the Minister, May 21. "It is now fully proved by men who are perfectly reliable that the pretended patriots, said to have acted so gloriously at Sarrians, are cannibals equally execrated both at Avignon and Carpentras."]

[Footnote 2444: "Archives Nationales," letter of the Directory of the Bouches-du-Rhone, May 21, 1791.—Deliberations of the Avignon municipality, associated with the notables and the military committee, May 15: "The enormous expense attending the pay and food for the detachments.. .forced contributions... What is most revolting is that those who are charged with the duty arbitrarily tax the inhabitants, according as they arc deemed bad or good patriots... The municipality, the military committee, and the club of the Friends of the Constitution dared to make a protest; the proscription against them is their reward for their attachment to the French constitution.]

[Footnote 2445: Letter of M. Boulet, formerly physician in the French military hospitals and member of the electoral assembly, May 21.]

[Footnote 2446: "Archives Nationales," DXXIv. 16-23, No.3. Narrative of what took place yesterday, August 21, in the town of Avignon.—Letters by the mayor, Richard, and two others, Aug. 21.—Letter to the president of the National Assembly, Aug.22 (with five signatures, in the name of 200 families that had taken refuge in the Ile de la Bartelasse).]

[Footnote 2447: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3.—Letter of M. Laverne, for M. Canonge, keeper of the Mont-de-Piete. (The electoral assembly of Vaucluse and the juge-de-paix had forbidden him to give this box into any other hands.)—Letters of M. Mulot, mediating commissioner, Gentilly les Sorgues, Oct. 14, 15, 16, 1791.—Letter of M. Laverne, mayor, and the municipal officers, Avignon, Jan. 6, 1792.—Statement of events occurring at Avignon, Oct. 16, 17, and 18 (without a signature, but written at once on the spot).—Official rapport of the provisional administrators of Avignon, Oct. 16.—Certified copy of the notice found posted in Avignon in different places this day, Oct. 16 (probably written by one of the women of the lower class and showing what the popular feeling was).—A letter written to M. Mulot, Oct. 13' already contains this phrase: "Finally, even if they delay stopping their robberies and pillage, misery and the miserable will still remain "—Testimony of Joseph Sauton, a chasseur in the paid guard of Avignon, Oct. 17 (an eye-witness of what passed at the Cordeliers).]

[Footnote 2448: Andre. II.62. Deposition of la Ratapiole.—Death of the girl Ayme and of Mesdames Niel et Crouzet.—De Dampmartin, II. 2.]

[Footnote 2449: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV, 3. Report on the events of Oct. 16: "Two sworn priests were killed, which proves that a counter-revolution had nothing to do with it,.. Six of the municipal officers were assassinated. They had been elected according to the terms of the decree; they were the fruit of the popular will at the outbreak of the Revolution; they were accordingly patriots."—Buchez et Roux, XII. 420.—Official report of the Commune of Avignon, on the events of Oct. 16.]

[Footnote 2450: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3. Dispatch of the civil Commissioners deputized by France (Messrs. Beauregard, Lecesne, and Champion) to the Minister Jan. 8, 1792. (A long and admirable letter, in which the difference between the two parties is exhibited, supported by facts, in refutation of the calumnies of Duprat. The oppressed party is composed not of royalists, but of Constitutionalists.)]

[Footnote 2451: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3177. Dispatches of the three commissioners, April 27, May 4, 18, and 21.]

[Footnote 2452: Three hundred and thirty-five witnesses testified during the trial.—De Dampmartin, I.266. Entry of the French army into Avignon, Nov. 16, 1791: "All who were rich, except a very small number, had taken flight or perished. The best houses were all empty or closed."——Elections for a new municipality were held Nov.26, 1791. Out of 2,287 active citizens Mayor Levieux de Laverne obtains 2,227 votes, while the municipal officer lowest on the list 1,800. All are Constitutionalists and conservatives.]

[Footnote 2453: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Official report of Augier and Fabre, administrators of the Bouches-du-Rhone, Avignon, May 11, 1792.—Moniteur, XII. 313. Report of the Minister of Justice, May 5.—XII. 324. Petition of forty inhabitants of Avignon, May 7.—XII 334. Official report of Pinet, commissioner of the Drome, sent to Avignon.—XII. 354 Report of M. Chassaignac and other papers, May 10.—XI. 741 Letter of the civil commissioners, also of the Avignon municipality, March 23.]

[Footnote 2454: "The French Revolution," vol. I. pp. 344-352, on the sixth jacquerie, everywhere managed by the Jacobins. Two or three traits show its spirit and course of action. ("Archives Nationales," F7, 3202. Letter of the Directory of the district of Aurillac, March 27, 1792, with official reports.) "On the 20th of March, about forty brigands, calling themselves patriots and friends of the constitution, force honest and worthy but very poor citizens in nine or ten of the houses of Capelle-Viscamp to give them money, generally five francs each person, and sometimes ten, twenty, and forty francs." Others tear down or pillage the chateaux of Rouesque, Rode, Marcoles, and Vitrac and drag the municipal officers along with them. "We, the mayor and municipal officers of the parish of Vitrac, held a meeting yesterday, March 22, following the example of our neighboring parishes on the occasion of the demolition of the chateaux. We marched at the head of our national guard and that of Salvetat to the said chateaux. We began by hoisting the national flag and to demolish... The national guard of Boisset, eating and drinking without stint, entered the chateau and behaved in the most brutal manner; for whatever they found in their way, whether clocks, mirrors, doors, closets, and finally documents, all were made way with. They even sent off forty of the men to a patriotic village in the vicinity. They forced the inmates of every house to give them money, and those who refused were threatened with death." Besides this the national guard of Boisset carried off the furniture of the chateau.—There is something burlesque in the conflicts of the municipalities with the Jacobin expeditions (letter of the municipal officers of Cottines to the Directory of St. Louis, March 26). "We are very glad to inform you that there is a crowd in our parish, amongst which are many belonging to neighboring parishes; and that they have visited the house of sieur Tossy and a sum of money of which we do not know the amount is demanded, and that they will not leave without that sum so that they cam have something to live on, these people being assembled solely to maintain the constitution and give greater eclat to the law."]

[Footnote 2455: Mercure de France, numbers for Jan. 1 and 14, 1792 (articles by Mallet du Pan).—" Archives Nationales," F7, 3185, 3186. Letter of the president of the district of Laon (Aisne) to the Minister, Feb. 8, 1792: "With respect to the nobles and priests, any mention of them as trying to sow discord among us indicates a desire to spread fear. All they ask is tranquility and the regular payment of their pensions."—De Dampmartin, II. 63 (on the evacuation of Arles, April, 1792). On the illegal approach of the Marseilles army, M. de Dampmartin, military commander, orders the Arlesians to rise in a body. Nobody comes forward. Wives hide away their husbands' guns in the night. Only one hundred volunteers are found to act with the regular troops.]

[Footnote 2456: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3224. Speech of M. Saint-Amans, vice-president of the Directory of Lot-et-Garonne, to the mayor of Tonneins, April 20 and the letter of the syndic-attorney-general to M. Roland, minister, April 22: "According to the principles of the mayor of Tonneins, all resistance to him is aristocratic, his doctrine being that all property-owners are aristocrats. You can readily perceive, sir, that he is not one of them."—Dubois, formerly a Benedictine and now a Protestant minister.—Act of the Directory against the municipality of Tonneins, April 13. The latter appeals to the Legislative Assembly. The mayor and one of the municipal counselors appear in its name (May 19) at the bar of the Assembly.]

[Footnote 2457: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3198. Letter of M. Debourges, one of the three commissioners sent by the National Assembly and the king, Nov. 2, 1791 (apropos of the Marseilles club). "This club has quite recently obtained from the Directory of the department, on the most contemptible allegation, an order requiring of M. de Coincy, lieutenant-general at Toulon, to send the admirable Ernest regiment out of Marseilles, and M. de Coincy has yielded."]

[Footnote 2458: For instance (Guillon de Montleon, "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de Lyon," I. 109), the general in command of the national guard of this large town in 1792 is Juillard, a poor silk-weaver of the faubourg of the Grande Cote, a former soldier.]

[Footnote 2459: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, affair of Plabennec (very curious, showing the tyrannical spirit of the Jacobins and the good disposition at bottom of the Catholic peasantry)—The commune of Brest dispatches against that of Plabennec 400 men, with two cannon and commissioners chosen by the club.—Many documents, among them: Petition of 150 active citizens of Brest, May 16, 1791. Deliberations of the council-general and commune of Brest, May 17. Letter of the Directory of the district, May 17 (very eloquent). Deliberations of the municipality of Plabennec, May 20. Letter of the municipality of Brest to the minister, May 21. Deliberations of the department Directory, June 13.]

[Footnote 2460: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 376 (session of the Directory of the Pas-du-Calais, July 4, 1792). The petition, signed by 127 inhabitants of Arras, is presented to the Directory by Robespierre the younger and Geoffroy. The administrators are treated as impostors, conspirators, etc., while the president, listening to these refinements, says to his colleagues: "Gentlemen, let us sit down; we can attend to insults sitting as well as standing."]

[Footnote 2461: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of M. Valery, syndic-attorney of the department, April 4, 1792.]

[Footnote 2462: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3220. Extract from the deliberations of the department Directory and letter to the king, Jan.28, 1792.—Letter of M. Lafiteau, president of the Directory, Jan. 30. (The mob is composed of from five to six hundred persons. The president is wounded on the forehead by a sword-cut and obliged to leave the town.) Feb. 20, following this, a deputy of the department denounces the Directory as unpatriotic.]

[Footnote 2463: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of M. de Riolle, colonel of the gendarmerie, Jan. 19, 1792.—"One hundred members of the club Friends of Liberty" come and request the brigadier's discharge. On the following day, after a meeting of the same club, "four hundred persons move to the barracks to send off or exterminate the brigadier."]

[Footnote 2464: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of M. Sainfal, Toulouse, March 4, 1792.—Letter of the department Directory, March 14.]

[Footnote 2465: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3229. Letter of M. de Narbonne, minister, to his colleague M. Cahier, Feb. 3, 1792.—"The municipality of Auch has persuaded the under-officers and soldiers of the 1st battalion that their chiefs were making preparation to withdraw."—The same with the municipality and club of the Navarreins. "All the officers except three have been obliged to leave and send in their resignations."—F7, 3225. The same to the same, March 8.—The municipality of Rennes orders the arrest of Col. de Savignac, and four other officers. Mercure de France, Feb. 18, 1792. De Dampmartin, I. 230; II. 70 (affairs of Landau, Lauterbourg, and Avignon).]

[Footnote 2466: "'The French Revolution," I. 344 and following pages. Many other facts could be added to those cited in this volume.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of M. Neil, administrator of Haute-Garonne, Feb. 27, 1792. "The constitutional priests and the club of the canton of Montestruc suggested to the inhabitants that all the abettors of unsworn priests and of aristocrats should be put to ransom and laid under contribution."—Cf. 7, 3193, (Aveyron), F7, 3271 (Tarn), etc.]

[Footnote 2467: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of the syndic-attorney of Bayeux, May 14, 1792, and letter of the Bayeux Directory, May 21. "The dubs should be schools of patriotism; they have become the terror of it. If this scandalous struggle against the law and legitimate authority does not soon cease liberty, a constitution, and safeguards for the French people will no longer exist"]

[Footnote 2468: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3253. Letter, of the Directory of the Bas-Rhin, April 26, 1792, and of Dietrich, Mayor of Strasbourg, May 8. (The Strasbourg club had publicly invited the citizens to take up arms, "to vigorously pursue priests and administrators." )—Letter of the Besancon club to M. Dietrich, May 3. "If the constitution depended on the patriotism or the perfidy of a few magistrates in one department, like that of the Bas-Rhin, for instance, we might pay you some attention, and all the freemen of the empire would then stoop to crush you. "—Therefore the Jacobin clubs of the Upper and Lower Rhine send three deputies to the Paris club.]

[Footnote 2469: Moniteur, XII. 558, May 19, 1792. "Letter addressed through patriotic journalists to all clubs of the Friends of the Constitution by the patriotic central society, formed at Clermont-Ferrand." (there is the same centralization between Lyons and Bordeaux.)]

[Footnote 2470: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3198. Report of Commissioners Bertin and Rebecqui, April 3, 1792.—Cf. Dumouriez, book II. ch. V. The club at Nantes wants to send commissioners to inspect the foundries of the Ile d'Indrette.]

[Footnote 2471: Moniteur, X. 420. Report of M. Cahier, Minister of the Interior, Feb. 18, 1792. "In all the departments freedom of worship has been more or less violated... Those who hold power are cited before the tribunals of the people as their enemies."—On the radical and increasing powerlessness of the King and his ministers, Cf. Moniteur, XI. 11 (Dec. 31, 1791).—Letter of the Minister of Finances.—XII. 200 (April 23, 1792), report of the Minister of the Interior.—XIII. 53 (July 4, 1792), letter of the Minister of Justice.]

[Footnote 2472: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 369. Letter of the Directory of the Basses-Pyrenees, June 25, 1792.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of the Directory of Calvados to the Minister of the Interior, Aug. 3. "We are not agents of the king or his ministers."—Moniteur, XIII. 103. Declaration of M. de Joly, minister, in the name of his colleagues (session of July 10, 1792).]



CHAPTER V. PARIS.



I.—Pressure of the Assembly on the King.

His veto rendered void or eluded.—His ministers insulted and driven away.—The usurpations of his Girondist ministry.—He removes them.—Riots being prepared.

Previous to this the tree was so shaken as to be already tottering at its base.—Reduced as the King's prerogative is, the Jacobins still continue to contest it, depriving him of even its shadow. At the opening session they refuse to him the titles of Sire and Majesty; to them he is not, in the sense of the constitution, a hereditary representative of the French people, but "a high functionary," that is to say, a mere employee, fortunate enough to sit in an equally good chair alongside of the president of the Assembly, whom they style "president of the nation."[2501] The Assembly, in their eyes, is sole sovereign, "while the other powers," says Condorcet, "can act legitimately only when specially authorized by a positive law;[2502] the Assembly may do anything that is not formally prohibited to it by the law," 'in other words, interpret the constitution, then change it, take it to pieces, and do away with it. Consequently, in defiance of the constitution, it takes upon itself the initiation of war, and, on rare occasions, on the King using his veto, it sets this aside, or allows it to be set aside.[2503] In vain he rejects, as he has a legal right to do, the decrees which sanction the persecution of unsworn ecclesiastics, which confiscate the property of the emigres, and which establish a camp around Paris. At the suggestion of the Jacobin deputies,[2504] the unsworn ecclesiastics are interned, expelled, or imprisoned by the municipalities and Directories; the estates and mansions of the emigres and of their relatives are abandoned without resistance to the jacqueries; the camp around Paris is replaced by the summoning of the Federates to Paris. In short, the monarch's sanction is eluded or dispensed with.—As to his ministers, "they are merely clerks of the Legislative Body decked with a royal leash."[2505] In full session they are maltreated, reviled, grossly insulted, not merely as lackeys of bad character, but as known criminals. They are interrogated at the bar of the house, forbidden to leave Paris before their accounts are examined; their papers are overhauled; their most guarded expressions and most meritorious acts are held to be criminal; denunciations against them are provoked; their subordinates are incited to rebel against them;[2506] committees to watch them and calumniate them are appointed; the perspective of a scaffold is placed before them in every relation, acts or threats of accusation being passed against them, as well as against their agents, on the shallowest pretexts, accompanied with such miserable quibbling,[2507] and such an evident falsification of facts and texts that the Assembly, forced by the evidence, twice reverses its hasty decision, and declares those innocent whom it had condemned the evening before.[2508] Nothing is of any avail, neither their strict fulfillment of the law, their submission to the committees of the Assembly, nor their humble attitude before the Assembly itself; "they are careful now to treat it politely and avoid the galleys."[2509]—But this does not suffice. They must become Jacobins; otherwise the high court of Orleans will be for them as for M. Delessart, the ante-room to the prison and the guillotine. "Terror and dismay," says Vergniaud, pointing with his finger to the Tuileries, "have often issued in the name of despotism in ancient times from that famous palace; let them to-day go back to it in the name of law."[2510]

Even with a Jacobin Minister, terror and dismay are permanent. Roland, Clavieres, and Servan not only do not shield the King, but they give him up, and, under their patronage and with their connivance, he is more victimized, more harassed, and more vilified than ever before. Their partisans in the Assembly take turns in slandering him, while Isnard proposes against him a most insolent address.[2511] Shouts of death are uttered in front of his palace. An abbe or soldier is unmercifully beaten and dragged into the Tuileries basin. One of the gunners of the Guard reviles the queen like a fish woman, and exclaims to her, "How glad I should be to clap your head on the end of my bayonet!"[2512] They supposed that the King is brought to heel under this double pressure of the Legislative Body and the street; they rely on his accustomed docility, or at least, on his proven lethargy; they think that they have converted him into what Condorcet once demanded, a signature machine.[2513] Consequently, without notifying him, just as if the throne were vacant, Servan, on his own authority, proposes to the Assembly the camp outside Paris.[2514] Roland, for his part, reads to him at a full meeting of the council an arrogant, pedagogical remonstrance, scrutinizing his sentiments, informing him of his duties, calling upon him to accept the new "religion," to sanction the decree against unsworn ecclesiastics, that is to say, to condemn to beggary, imprisonment, and transportation[2515] 70,000 priests and nuns guilty of orthodoxy, and authorize the camp around Paris, which means, to put his throne, his person, and his family at the mercy of 20,000 madmen, chosen by the clubs and other assemblages expressly to do him harm;[2516] in short, to discard at once his conscience and his common sense.—Strange enough, the royal will this time remains staunch; not only does the King refuse, but he dismisses his ministers. So much the worse for him, for sign he must, cost what it will; if he insists on remaining athwart their path, they will march over him.—Not because he is dangerous, and thinks of abandoning his legal immobility. Up to the 10th of August, through a dread of action, and not to kindle a civil war, he rejects all plans leading to an open rupture. Up to the very last day he resigns himself even when his personal safety and that of his family is at stake, to constitutional law and public common sense. Before dismissing Roland and Servan, he desires to furnish some striking proof of his pacific intentions by sanctioning the dissolution of his guard and disarming himself not only for attack but for defense; henceforth he sits at home and awaits the insurrection with which he is daily menaced; he resigns himself to everything, except drawing his sword; his attitude is that of a Christian in the amphitheatre.[2517]—The proposition of a camp outside Paris, however, draws out a protest from 8,000 Paris National Guards. Lafayette denounces to the Assembly the usurpations of the Jacobins; the faction sees that its reign is threatened by this reawakening and union of the friends of order. A blow must be struck. This has been in preparation for a month past, and to renew the days of October 5th and 6th, the materials are not lacking.



II.—The floating and poor population of Paris.

Disposition of the workers.—Effect of poverty and want of work.—Effect of Jacobin preaching.—The revolutionary army.—Quality of its recruits—Its first review.—Its actual effective force.

Paris always has its interloping, floating population. A hundred thousand of the needy, one-third of these from the departments, "beggars by race," those whom Retif de la Bretonne had already seen pass his door, Rue de Bievre, on the 13th of July, 1789, on their way to join their fellows on the suburb of St. Antoine,[2518] along with them "those frightful raftsmen," pilots and dock-hands, born and brought up in the forests of the Nievre and the Yonne, veritable savages accustomed to wielding the pick and the ax, behaving like cannibals when the opportunity offers,[2519] and who will be found foremost in the ranks when the September days come. Alongside these stride their female companions "barge-women who, embittered by toil, live for the moment only," and who, three months earlier, pillaged the grocer-shops.[2520] All this "is a frightful crowd which, every time it stirs, seems to declare that the last day of the rich and well-to-do has come; tomorrow it is our turn, to-morrow we shall sleep on eiderdown."—Still more alarming is the attitude of the steady workmen, especially in the suburbs. And first of all, if bread is not as expensive as on the 5th of October, the misery is worse. The production of articles of luxury has been at a standstill for three years, and the unemployed artisan has consumed his small savings. Since the ruin of St. Domingo and the pillaging of grocers' shops colonial products are dear; the carpenter, the mason, the locksmith, the market-porter, no longer has his early cup of coffee,[2521] while they grumble every morning at the thought of their patriotism being rewarded by an increase of deprivation.

But more than all this they are now Jacobins, and after nearly three years of preaching, the dogma of popular sovereignty has taken deep root in their empty brains. "In these groups," writes a police commissioner, "the Constitution is held to be useless and the people alone are the law. The citizens of Paris on the public square think themselves the people, populus, what we call the universality of citizens."[2522]—It is of no use to tell them that, alongside of Paris, there is a France. Danton has shown them that the capital "is composed of citizens belonging one way or another to the eighty-three departments; that is has a better chance than any other place to appreciate ministerial conduct; that it is the first sentinel of the nation," which makes them confident of being right.[2523]—It is of no use to tell them that there are better-informed and more competent authorities than themselves. Robespierre assures them that "in the matter of genius and public-spiritedness the people are infallible, whilst every one else is subject to mistakes,"[2524] and here they are sure of their capacity.—In their own eyes they are the legitimate, competent authorities for all France, and, during three years, the sole theme their courtiers of the press, tribune, and club, vie with each other in repeating to them, is the expression of the Duc de Villeroy to Louis XIV. when a child: "Look my master, behold this great kingdom! It is all for you, it belongs to you, you are its master!"—Undoubtedly, to swallow and digest such gross irony people must be half-fools or half-brutes; but it is exactly their capacity for self-deception which makes them different from the sensible or passive crowd and casts them into a band whose ascendancy is irresistible. Convinced that a street mob is entitled to absolute rule and that the nation expresses its sovereignty through its gatherings, they alone assemble the street mobs, they alone, by virtue of their conceit and lack of judgment, believe themselves kings.

Such is the new power which, in the early months of the year 1792, starts up alongside of the legal powers. It is not foreseen by the Constitution; nevertheless it exists and declares itself; it is visible and its recruits can be counted.[2525] On the 29th of April, with the Assembly consenting, and contrary to the law, three battalions from the suburb of St. Antoine, about 1500 men,[2526] march in three columns into the hall, one of which is composed of fusiliers and the other two of pikemen, "their pikes being from eight to ten feet long," of formidable aspect and of all sorts, "pikes with laurel leaves, pikes with clover leaves, pikes a carlet, pikes with turn-spits, pikes with hearts, pikes with serpents tongues, pikes with forks, pikes with daggers, pikes with three prongs, pikes with battle-axes, pikes with claws, pikes with sickles, lance-pikes covered with iron prongs." On the other side of the Seine three battalions from the suburb of St. Marcel are composed and armed in the same fashion. This constitutes a kernel of 3,000 more in other quarters of Paris. Add to these in each of the sixty battalions of the National guard the gunners, almost all of them blacksmiths, locksmiths and horse-shoers, also the majority of the gendarmes, old soldiers discharged for insubordination and naturally inclined to rioting, in all an army of about 9,000 men, not counting the usual accompaniment of vagabonds and mere bandits; ignorant and eager, but men who do their work, well armed, formed into companies, ready to march and ready to strike. Alongside of the talking authorities we have the veritable force that acts, for it is the only one which does act. As formerly the praetorian guard of the Caesars in Rome, or the Turkish guards of the Caliphs of Baghdad, it is henceforth master of the capital, and through the capital, of the Nation.



III.—Its leaders.—Their committee.—Methods for arousing the crowd.

As the troops are so are their leaders. Bulls must have drovers to conduct them, one degree superior to the brute but only one degree, dressed, talking and acting in accordance with his occupation, without dislikes or scruples, naturally or willfully hardened, fertile in jockeying and in the expedients of the slaughterhouse, themselves belonging to the people or pretending to belong to them. Santerre is a brewer of the Faubourg St. Antoine, commander of the battalion of" Enfants Trouves," tall, stout and ostentatious, with stentorian lungs, shaking the hand of everybody he meets in the street, and when at home treating everybody to a drink paid for by the Duke of Orleans. Legendre is a choleric butcher, who even in the Convention maintains his butchering traits. There are three or four foreign adventurers, experienced in all kinds of deadly operations, using the saber or the bayonet without warning people to get out of the way. Rotonde, the first one, is an Italian, a teacher of English and professional rioter, who, convicted of murder and robbery, is to end his days in Piedmont on the gallows. The second, Lazowski, is a Pole, a former dandy, a conceited fop, who, with Slave facility, becomes the barest of naked sans-culottes; former enjoying a sinecure, then suddenly turned out in the street, and shouting in the clubs against his protectors who he sees put down; he is elected captain of the gunners of the battalion St. Marcel, and is to be one of the September slaughterers. His drawing-room temperament, however, is not rigorous enough for the part he plays in the streets, and at the end of a year he is to die, consumed by a fever and by brandy. The third is another chief slaughterer at the September massacres. Fournier, known as the American, a former planter, who has brought with him from St. Domingo a contempt for human life; "with his livid and sinister countenance, his mustache, his triple belt of pistols, his coarse language, his oaths, he looks like a pirate." By their side we encounter a little hump-backed lawyer named Cuirette-Verrieres, an unceasing speaker, who, on the 6th of October, 1789, paraded the city on a large white horse and afterwards pleaded for Marat, which two qualifications with his Punch figure, fully establish him in the popular imagination; the rugged guys, moreover, who hold nocturnal meetings at Santerre's needed a writer and he probably met their requirements.—This secret society can count on other faithfuls. "Briere, wine-dealer, Nicolas, a sapper in the 'Enfants Trouves' battalion, Gonor, claiming to be one of the victors of the Bastille,"[2527] Rossignol, an old soldier and afterwards a journeyman-jeweler, who, after presiding at the massacres of La Force, is to become an improvised general and display his incapacity, debauchery, and thievery throughout La Vendee. "There are yet more of them," Huguenin undoubtedly, a ruined ex-lawyer, afterwards carabineer, then a deserter, next a barrier-clerk, now serving as spokesman for the Faubourg St. Honore and finally president of the September commune; there was also, doubtless, St. Huruge alias Pere Adam, the great barker of the Palais-Royal, a marquis fallen into the gutter, drinking with and dressing like a common porter, always flourishing an enormous club and followed by the riffraff.[2528]—These are all the leaders. The Jacobins of the municipality and of the Assembly confine their support of the enterprise to conniving at it and to giving it their encouragement.[2529] It is better for the insurrection to seem spontaneous. Through caution or shyness the Girondins, Petion, Manual and Danton himself, keep in the background——there is not reason for their coming forward.—The rest, affiliated with the people and lost in the crowd, are better qualified to fabricate the story which their flock will like. This tale, adapted to the crowd's intellectual limits, form and activity, is both simple and somber, such as children like, or rather a melodrama taken from an alien stage in which the good appear on one side, and the wicked on the other with an ogre or tyrant in the center, some infamous traitor who is sure to be unmasked at the end of the piece and punished according to his deserts, the whole grandiloquent terms and, as a finale, winding up with a grand chorus. In the raw brain of an over-excited workman politics find their way only in the shape of rough-hewn, highly-colored imagery, such as is furnished by the Marseillaise, the Carmagnole, and the Ca ira. The requisite motto is adapted to his use; through this misshapen magnifying glass the most gracious figure appears under a diabolical aspect. Louis XVI. is represented here "as a monster using his power and treasure to oppose the regeneration of the French. A new Charles IX., he desires to bring on France death and desolation. Be gone, cruel man, your crimes must end! Damiens was less guilty than thou art! He was punished with the most horrible torture for having tried to rid France of a monster, while you, attempting twenty-five million times more, are allowed full immunity![2530] Let us trample under our feet this simulacra of royalty! Tremble tyrants, Scoevolas are still amongst you!"

All this is pronounced, declaimed or rather shouted, publicly, in full daylight, under the King's windows, by stump-speakers mounted on chairs, while similar provocations daily flow from the committee installed in Santerre's establishment, now in the shape of displays posted in the faubourgs, now in that of petitions circulated in the clubs and sections, now through motions which are gotten up "among the groups in the Tuileries, in the Palais-Royal, in the Place de Greve and especially on the Place de la Bastille." After the 2nd of June the leaders founded a new club in the church of the "Enfants Trouves" that they might have their special laboratory and thus do their work on the spot.[2531] Like Plato's demagogues, they understand their business. They have discovered the cries which make the popular animal take note, what offense offends him, what charm attracts him, and on what road he should be made to follow. Once drawn in and under way, he will march blindly on, borne along by his own involuntary inspiration and crushing with his mass all that he encounters on his path.



IV.—The 20th of June.

The programme.—The muster.—The procession before the Assembly.—Irruption into the Chateau.—The King in the presence of the people.

The bait has been carefully chosen and is well presented. It takes the form of a celebration of the anniversary of the oath of the Tennis-court. A tree of Liberty will be planted on the terrace of the Feuillants and "petitions relating to circumstances" will be presented in the Assembly and then to the King. As a precaution, and to impose on the ill-disposed, the petitioners provide themselves with arms and line the approaches.[2532]—A popular procession is an attractive thing, and there are so many workers who do not know what to do with their empty day! And, again, it is so pleasant to appear in a patriotic opera while many, and especially women and children, want very much to see Monsieur and Madame Veto. The people from the surrounding suburbs are invited,[2533] the homeless prowlers and beggars will certainly join the party, while the numerous body of Parisian loafers, the loungers that join every spectacle can be relied on, and the curious who, even in our time, gather by hundreds along the quays, following a dog that has chanced to tumble into the river. All this forms a body which, without thinking, will follow its head.

At five o'clock in the morning on the 20th of June groups are already formed in the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel, consisting of National Guards, pikemen, gunners with their cannon, persons armed with sabers or clubs, and women and children.—A notice, indeed, just posted on the walls, prohibits any assemblage, and the municipal officers appear in their scarves and command or entreat the crowd not to break the law.[2534] But, in a working-class brain, ideas are as tenacious as they are short-lived. People count on a civic procession and get up early in the morning to attend to it; the cannon have been hitched up, the maypole tree is put on wheels and all is ready for the ceremony, everybody takes a holiday and none are disposed to return home. Besides, they have only good intentions. They know the law as well as the city officials; they are "armed solely to have it observed and respected." Finally, other armed petitioners have already filed along before the National Assembly, and, as one is as good as another, "the law being equal for all," others must be admitted as well. In any event they, too, will ask permission of the National Assembly and they go expressly. This is the last and the best argument of all, and to prove to the city officials that they have no desire to engage in a riot, they request them to join the procession and march along with them.

Meanwhile, time passes. In a crowd irritated by delay, the most impatient, the rudest, those most inclined to commit violence, always lead the rest.—At the head-quarters of the Val-de-Grace[2535] the pikemen seize the cannon and drag them along; the National Guards let things take their course; Saint-Prix and Leclerc, the officers in command, threatened with death, have nothing to do but to yield with a protest.—There is the same state of things in the Montreuil section; the resistance of four out of six of the battalion officers merely served to give full power to the instigator of the insurrection, and henceforth Santerre becomes the sole leader of the assembled crowd. About half-past eleven he leaves his brewery, and, followed by cannon, the flag, and the truck which bears the poplar tree, he places himself at the head of the procession "consisting of about fifteen hundred persons including the bystanders."[2536] Like a snowball, however, the troop grows as it marches along until, on reaching the National Assembly, Santerre has behind him from seven to eight thousand persons.[2537] Guadet and Vergniaud move that the petitioners be introduced; their spokesman, Huguenin, in a bombastic and threatening address, denounces the ministry, the King, the accused at Orleans, the deputies of the "Right," demands "blood," and informs the Assembly that the people "resolute" is ready to take the law in their own hands.[2538] Then, with drums beating and bands playing, the crowd defiles for more than an hour through the chamber under the eyes of Santerre and Saint-Huruge: here and there a few files of the National Guard pass mingled with the throng and lost in "the moving forest of pikes"; all the rest is pure rabble, "hideous faces,"[2539] says a deputy, on which poverty and loose living have left their marks, ragamuffins, men "without coats," in their shirt-sleeves, armed in all sorts of ways, with chisels and shoe-knives fastened on sticks, one with a saw on a pole ten feet long, women and children, some of them brandishing a saber.[2540] In the middle of this procession, an old pair of breeches [culottes] borne on a pike with this motto: Vivent les Sans-Culottes! and, on a pitch-fork, the heart of a calf with this inscription: Coeur d'aristocrate, both significant emblems of the grim humor the imaginations of rag-dealers or butchers might come up with for a political carnival.—This, indeed, it is, they have been drinking and many are drunk.[2541] A parade is not enough, they want also to amuse themselves: traversing the hall they sing ca ira and dance in the intervals. They at the same time show their civism by shouting Vive les patriotes! A bas le Veto! They fraternise, as they pass along, with the good deputies of the "Left"; they jeer those of the "Right" and shake their fists at them; one of these, known by his tall stature, is told that his business will be settled for him the first opportunity.[2542] Thus do they flaunt their collaborators to the Assembly, everyone prepared and willing to act, even against the Assembly itself.—And yet, with the exception of an iron-railing pushed in by the crowd and an irruption on to the terrace of the "Feuillants," no act of violence was committed. The Paris population, except when in a rage, is rather voluble and curious than ferocious; besides, thus far, no one had offered any resistance. The crowd is now sated with shouting and parading; many of them yawn with boredom and weariness;[2543] at four o'clock they have stood on their legs for ten or twelve hours. The human stream issuing from the Assembly and emptying itself into the Carrousel remains stagnant there and seems ready to return to its usual channels.—This is not what the leaders had intended. Santerre, on arriving with Saint-Huruge, cries out to his men, "Why didn't you enter the chateau? You must go in—that is what we came here for."[2544] A lieutenant of the Val-de-Grace gunners shouts: "We have forced open the Carrousel, we must force open the chateau too! This is the first time the Val-de-Grace gunners march—they are not j.... f.... Come, follow me, my men, on to the enemy![2545]—"Meanwhile, outside the gate, some of the municipal officers selected by Petion amongst the most revolutionary members of the council, overcome resistance by their speeches and commands. 'After all," says one of them, named Mouchet, "the right of petition is sacred."—" Open the gate!" shout Sergent and Boucher-Rene, "nobody has a right to shut it. Every citizen has a right to go through it!"[2546] A gunner raises the latch, the gate opens and the court fills in the winkling of an eye;[2547] the crowd rushes under the archway and up the grand stairway with such impetuosity that a cannon borne along by hand reaches the third room on the first story before it stops. The doors crack under the blows of axes and, in the large hall of the Oeil de Boeuf, the multitude find themselves face to face with the King.

In such circumstances the representatives of public authority, the directories, the municipalities, the military chiefs, and, on the 6th of October, the King himself, have all thus far yielded; they have either yielded or perished. Santerre, certain of the issue, preferred to take no part in this affair; he prudently holds back, he shies away, and lets the crowd push him into the council chamber, where the Queen, the young Dauphin, and the ladies have taken refuge.[2548] There, with his tall, corpulent figure, he formed a sort of shield to forestall useless and compromising injuries. In the mean time, in the Oeil de Boeuf, he lets things take their course; everything will be done in his absence that ought to be done, and in this he seems to have calculated justly.—On one side, in a window recess, sits the King on a bench, almost alone, while in front of him, as a guard, are four or five of the National Guards; on the other side, in the apartments, is an immense crowd, hourly increasing according as the rumor of the irruption spreads in the vicinity, fifteen or twenty thousand persons, a prodigious accumulation, a pell-mell traversed by eddies, a howling sea of bodies crushing each other, and of which the simple flux and reflux would flatten against the walls obstacles ten times as strong, an uproar sufficient to shatter the window panes, "frightful yells," curses and imprecations, "Down with M. Veto!" "Let Veto go to the devil!" "Take back the patriot ministers!" "He shall sign; we won't go away till he does!"[2549]—Foremost among them all, Legendre, more resolute than Santerre, declares himself the spokesman and trustee of the powers of the sovereign people: "Sir," says he to the King, who, he sees, makes a gesture of surprise, "yes, Sir, listen to us; you are made to listen to what we say! You are a traitor! You have always deceived us; you deceive us now! But look out, the measure is full; the people are tired of being played upon!"—" Sire, Sire," exclaims another fanatic, "I ask you in the name of the hundred thousand beings around us to recall the patriot ministers... I demand the sanction of the decree against the priests and the twenty thousand men. Either the sanction or you shall die!"—But little is wanting for the threat to be carried out. The first comers are on hand, "presenting pikes," among them "a brigand," with a rusty sword blade on the end of a pole, "very sharp," and who points this at the King. Afterwards the attempt at assassination is many times renewed, obstinately, by three or four madmen determined to kill, and who make signs of so doing, one, a shabby, ragged fellow, who keeps up his excitement with "the foulest propositions," the second one, "a so-called conqueror of the Bastille," formerly porte-tete for Foulon and Berthier, and since driven out of the battalion, the third, a market-porter, who, "for more than an hour," armed with a saber, makes a terrible effort to make his way to the king.[2550]—Nothing is done. The king remains impassible under every threat. He takes the hand of a grenadier who wishes to encourage him, and, placing it on his breast, bids him, "See if that is the beating of a heart agitated by fear."[2551] To Legendre and the zealots who call upon him to sanction, he replies without the least excitement:

"I have never departed from the Constitution.... I will do what the Constitution requires me to do.... It is you who break the law." —And, for nearly three hours, remaining standing, blockaded on his bench,[2552] he persists in this without showing a sign of weakness or of anger. This cool deportment at last produces an effect, the impression it makes on the spectators not being at all that which they anticipated. It is very clear that the personage before them is not the monster which has been depicted to them, a somber, imperious tyrant, the savage, cunning Charles IX. they had hissed on the stage. They see a man somewhat stout, with placid, benevolent features, whom they would take, without his blue sash, for an ordinary, peaceable bourgeois.[2553] His ministers, near by, three or four men in black coats, gentlemen and respectable employees, are just what they seem to be. In another window recess stands his sister, Madame Elizabeth, with her sweet and innocent face. This pretended tyrant is a man like other men; he speaks gently, he says that the law is on his side, and nobody says the contrary; perhaps he is less wrong than he is thought to be. If he would only become a patriot!—A woman in the room brandishes a sword with a cockade on its point; the King makes a sign and the sword is handed to him, which he raises and, hurrahing with the crowd, cries out: Vive la Nation! That is already one good sign. A red cap is shaken in the air at the end of a pole. Some one offers it to him and he puts it on his head; applause bursts forth, and shouts of Vive la Nation! Vive la Liberte! and even vive le Roi!

From this time forth the greatest danger is over. But it is not that the besiegers abandon the siege. "He did damned well," they exclaim, "to put the cap on, and if he hadn't we would have seen what would come of it. And damn it, if he does not sanction the decree against the priests, and do it right off; we will come back every day. In this way we shall tire him out and make him afraid of us.—But the day wears on. The heat is over-powering, the fatigue extreme, the King less deserted and better protected. Five or six of the deputies, three of the municipal officers, a few officers of the National Guard, have succeeded in making their way to him. Petion himself, mounted on a sofa, harangues the people with his accustomed flattery.[2554] At the same time Santerre, aware of the opportunity being lost, assumes the attitude of a liberator, and shouts in his rough voice: "I answer for the royal family. Let me see to it." A line of National Guards forms in front of the King, when, slowly and with difficulty, urged by the mayor, the crowd melts away, and, by eight o'clock in the evening, it is gone.

*****

[Footnote 2501: Moniteur, X. 39 and following pages (sessions of Oct. 5 and 6, 1791). Speeches by Chabot, Couthon, Lequinio, and Vergniaud.—Mercure de France, Oct. 15. Speech by Robespierre, May 17, 1790. "The king is not the nation's representative, but its clerk."—Cf. Ernest Hamel, "Vie de Robespierre."]

[Footnote 2502: Moniteur, XIII. 97 (session of July 6, 1792)]

[Footnote 2503: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 61, Jan.28, 1792. The King in his usually mild way calls the attention of the Assembly to the usurpation it is committing. "The form adopted by you is open to important observations. I shall not extend these to-day; the gravity of the situation demands that I concern myself much more with maintaining harmonious sentiments than with continually discussing my rights."]

[Footnote 2504: Sauzay, II. 99. Letter of the deputy Vernerey to the Directory of Doubs: "The Directory of the department may always act with the greatest severity against the seditious, and, apart from the article relating to their pension, follow the track marked out in the decree. If the executive desires to impede the operations of the Directory.. . the latter has its recourse in the National Assembly, which in all probability will afford it a shelter against ministerial attacks."—Moniteur, XII. 202 (session of April 23). Report of Roland, Minister of the Interior. Already at this date forty-two departments had expelled or interned the unsworn ecclesiastics.]

[Footnote 2505: Mercure-de-France, Feb.25.]

[Footnote 2506: Moniteur, X. 440 (session of Nov.22, 1791). A letter to M. Southon, Director of the Mint at Paris, is read, "complaining of an arbitrary order, that of the Minister of the Interior, to report himself at Pau on the 25th of this month, under penalty of dismissal." Isnard supports the charge: "M. Southon," he says, "is here at work on a very circumstantial denunciation of the Minister of the Interior (Applause from the galleries.) If citizens who are zealous enough to make war on abuses are sent back to their departments we shall never have denunciations" (The applause is renewed.):—Ibid., X, 504 (session of Nov. 29). Speech by Isnard: "Our ministers must know that we are not fully satisfied with the conduct of each of them repeated applause:; that henceforth they must simply choose between public gratitude and the vengeance of the law, and that our understanding of the word responsibility is death." (The applause is renewed.)—The Assembly orders this speech to be printed and sent into the departments.—Cf. XII, 73, 138, etc.]

[Footnote 2507: Moniteur, XI. 603. (Session of March 10. Speech by Brissot, to secure a decree of accusation against M. Delessart, Minister of Foreign Affairs.) M. Delessart is a "perfidious man," for having stated in a dispatch that "the Constitution, with the great majority of the nation, has become a sort of religion which is embraced with the greatest enthusiasm." Brissot denounces these two expressions as inadequate and anti-patriotic.-Ibid., XII. 438 (session of May 20). Speech by Guadet: "Lariviere, the juge-de-paix, has convicted himself of the basest and most atrocious of passions, in having desired to usurp the power which the Constitution has placed in the hands of the National Assembly."—I do not believe that Laubardemont himself could have composed anything equal to these two speeches.—Cf. XII. 462 (session of May 23). Speech by Brissot and one by Gonsonne on the Austrian committee. The feebleness and absurdity of their argument is incredible.]

[Footnote 2508: Affairs of the Minister Duport-Dutertre and of the Ambassador to Vienna, M. de Noailles.]

[Footnote 2509: Mercure de France, March 10, 1792.]

[Footnote 2510: Moniteur, XI. 607 (session of March 10).]

[Footnote 2511: Moniteur, XII.396 (session of May 15). Isnard's address is the ground-plan of Roland's famous letter.—Cf. passim, the sessions of the Assembly during the Girondist ministry, especially those of May 19 and 20, June 5, etc.]

[Footnote 2512: Dumouriez, "Memoires," book III. ch. VI.]

[Footnote 2513: "Letter of a young mechanician," proposing to make a constitutional king, which, "by means of a spring, would receive from the hands of the president of the Assembly a list of ministers designated by the majority" (1791).]

[Footnote 2514: Servan, who was Girondist minister of war, proposed to let 20 000 federes or provincial National guards establish themselves outside Paris. (SR).]

[Footnote 2515: You will meet this sinister expression later on when the Government ceased killing in France but simply sent undesirables and imaginary or real opponents overseas to death-camps. Transportation was used by Stalin and Hitler only their extermination took place in their own countries not overseas. (SR).]

[Footnote 2516: Moniteur, XI. 426 (session of May 19). Speech by Lasource: "Could not things be so arranged as to have a considerable force near enough to the capital to terrify and keep inactive the factions, the intriguers, the traitors who are plotting perfidious plans in its bosom, simultaneously with the maneuvers of outside enemies?"]

[Footnote 2517: 'Mallet du Pan, "Memoires." I. 303. Letter of Malouet, June 29: "The king is calm and perfectly resigned. On the 19th he wrote to his confessor: "Come, sir; never have I had so much need of your consolations. I am done with men; I must now turn my eyes to heaven. Sad events are announced for to-morrow. I shall have courage.' "—"Lettres de Coray au Protopsalte de Smyrne" (translated by M. de Queux de Saint-Hilaire,) 145, May 1st: "The court is in peril every moment. Do not be surprised if I write you some day that his unhappy king and his wife are assassinated."."]

[Footnote 2518: Retif de la Bretonne, "Nuits de Paris," Vol. XVI. (analyzed by Lacroix in "Bibliotheque de Retif de la Bretonne" ).—Retif is the man in Paris who lived the most in the streets and had the most intercourse with the low class.]

[Footnote 2519: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3276. Letter from the Directory of Clamecy, March 27, and official report of the civil commissioners, March 31, 1792, on the riot of the raftsmen. Tracu, their captain, armed with a cudgel ten feet long, compelled peaceful people to march along with him, threatening to knock them down; he tried to get the head of Peynier, the clerk of the Paris dealers in wood. "I shall have a good supper to-night," he exclaimed "(or the head of that bastard Peynier is a fat one, and I'll stick it in my Pot!")]

[Footnote 2520: Letters of Coray, 126. "This pillaging has lasted three days, Jan. 22, 23 and 24, and we expect from hour to hour similar riots still more terrible."]

[Footnote 2521: Mercier (" Tableau de Paris") had already noticed before the Revolution this habit of the Parisian workman, especially among the lowest class of workmen.]

[Footnote 2522: Mortimer-Ternaux, 1.346 (letter of June 21, 1792).]

[Footnote 2523: Buchez et Roux, VIII. 25 (session of the National Assembly, Nov.10, 1790). Petition presented by Danton in the name of the forty-eight sections of Paris.]

[Footnote 2524: Buchez et Roux, XIV. 268 (May. 1792). Article by Robespierre against the fete decreed in honor of Simonneau, Mayor of Etampes, assassinated in a riot: "Simonneau was guilty before he became a victim."]

[Footnote 2525: How can one forget that great seducer of the masses Hitler? In his book "Hitler Speaks" page 208 Rauschning reports Hitler as saying: "It is true that the masses are uncritical, but not in the way these idiots of Marxists and reactionaries imagine. The masses have their critical faculties, too, but they function differently from those of the private individual. The masses are like an animal they obeys instincts. They do not reach conclusions by reasoning. My success in initiating the greatest people's movement of all time is due to my never having done anything in violation of the vital laws and feelings of the mass. These feelings may be primitive, but they have the resistance and indestructibility of natural qualities. A once intensely felt experience in the life of the masses, like ration cards and inflation, will never again be driven out of their blood. The masses have a simple system of thinking and feeling, and anything that cannot be fitted into it disturbs them. It is only because I take their vital laws into consideration that I can rule them."]

[Footnote 2526: Moniteur, XII. 254.—According to the royal almanac of 1792 the Paris national guard comprises 32,000 men, divided into sixty battalions, to which must be added the battalions of pikemen, spontaneously organized and composed, especially of the non-active citizens.—Cf. in "Les Revolutions de Paris," Prudhomme's Journal, the engravings which represent this sort of procession.]

[Footnote 2527: Buchez et Roux, XV. 122. Declaration of Lareynie, a volunteer soldier in the Ile Saint-Louis battalion.—To those which he names I add Huguenin, because on the 20th of June it was his duty to read the petition of the rioters; also Saint-Huruge, because he led the mob with Santerre.—About Rossignol, Cf. Dauban, "La Demagogie a Paris," 369 (according to the manuscript memoirs of Mercier du Rocher). He reaches Fontenay Aug.21, 1793, with the representative Bourbotte, Momoro, commissary-general, three adjutants, Moulins, Hasard, the ex-priest, Grammont, an ex-actor and several prostitutes. "The prettiest shared her bed with Bourbotte and Rossignol." They lodge in a mansion to which seals are affixed. "The seals were broken, and jewelry, dresses, and female apparel were confiscated for the benefit of the general and his followers. There was nothing, even down to the crockery, which did not become the booty of these self-styled republicans"]

[Footnote 2528: Mathon de la Varenne, "Histoire particuliere des evenements qui ont eu lieu en juin, juillet, aout, et septembre, 1792," p. 23. (He knew Saint-Huruge personally.) Saint-Huruge had married an actress at Lyons in 1778. On returning to Paris he learned through the police that his wife was a trollop, and he treated her accordingly. Enraged, she looked up Saint-Huruge's past career, and found two charges against him, one for the robbery and assassination of an alien merchant, and the other for infanticide; she obtained his incarceration by a lettre-de-cachet. He was shut in Charenton from Jan. 14, 1781, to December, 1784, when he was transferred to another prison and afterwards exiled to his estates, from which he fled to England. He returned to France on the outbreak of the Revolution.]

[Footnote 2529: With respect to connivance, Cf. Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 132 and the following pages.—Mallet du Pan, "Memoires," I. 300. Letter of the Abbe de Pradt, June 21, 1795. "The insurrection had been announced for several days... The evening before, 150 deputies so many Jacobins, had dined at their great table in the Champs-Elysees, and distributed presents of wine and food."]

[Footnote 2530: Moniteur, XII. 642 (session of June 12, 1792, narrative of M. Delfaux, deputy).—The execution of Damiens was witnessed by Parisians still living, while "Charles IX.," by Marie Chenier, was at this time the most popular tragedy.—"The French people," says M. Ferieres (I. 35), "went away from its representation eager for vengeance and tormented with a thirst for blood. At the end of the fourth act a lugubrious bell announces the moment of the massacre, and the audience, drawing in its breath sighing and groaning, furiously exclaims silence! silence! as if fearing that the sound of this death-knell had not stirred the heart to its very depths."—"Revolutions de Paris," number for June 23, 1792. "The speakers, under full sail, distributed their parts amongst themselves," one against the staffs, another against priests, another against judges, department, and the ministers, and especially the king. "Some there are, and we agree in this with the sieur Delfaux, who pass the measure and advise murder through gestures, eyes, and speech."]

[Footnote 2531: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 133.—There is the same calculation and the same work-shop in the faubourg Saints-Marcel (report of Saint-Prix, commandant of the Val-de-Grace battalion). "Minds remained tranquil until a club was opened at the Porte Saint-Marcel; now they are all excited and divided. This dub, which is in contact with that of Santerre, urges citizens to go armed to-morrow (June 20) to the National Assembly and to the king's Palace, notwithstanding the acts of the constituted authorities."]

[Footnote 2532: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 136. This program is first presented to the council-general of the commune by Lazowski and nine others (June 16). The council-general rejects it and refers to the law. "The petitioners, on learning this decision, loudly declare that it shall not prevent them from assembling in arms" (Buchez et Roux, XV. 120, official report by M. Borie).—The bibliography of documents relating to the 20th of June is given by Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 397 and following pages. The principal documents are found in Mortimer-Ternaux, in "L'Histoire Parlementaire" of Buchez et Roux, and in the Revue Retrospective.]

[Footnote 2533: "Correspondance de Mirabeau et M. de la Marck," III. 319. Letter of the Count de Montmorin, June 21, 1792. "The Paris bandits not being sufficient, they have invited in these of the neighboring villages."]

[Footnote 2534: Reports of the municipal officers Perron (7 o'clock in the morning), Sergent (8 o'clock), Mouchet, Gujard, and Thomas (9 o'clock).]

[Footnote 2535: Report of Saint Prix, commandant of the Val-de-Grace battalion (10 o'clock In the morning).—Report of Alexandre, commanding the Saint-Marcel battalion. "The whole battalion was by no means ready to march."—Official report of the Montreuil section. Bonneau, the commander concludes to march only under protest and to avoid spilling blood.]

[Footnote 2536: Deposition of Lareyrnie, a volunteer soldier of the Ile Saint-Louis battalion.]

[Footnote 2537: Deposition of M. Witinghof, lieutenant-general.—"Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck." Letter of M. de Montmorin, June 21. "At two o'clock the gathering amounted to 8,000 or 10,000 persons."]

[Footnote 2538: Moniteur, XII. 717. "What a misfortune for the freemen who have transferred their powers to you, to find themselves reduced to the cruel necessity of dipping their hands in the blood of conspirators!" etc.—The character of the leaders is apparent in their style. The incompetent copyist who drew up the address did not even know the meaning of words. "The people so wills it, and its head is of more account than that of crowned despots. That head is the genealogical tree of the nation, and before that robust head the feeble reed must bend!" He has already recited the fable of "The Oak and the Bulrush," and he knows the names of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Catiline. It seems to be the composition of a school master turned public letter writer, at a penny a page.]

[Footnote 2539: Hua, "Memoires," 134.]

[Footnote 2540: Moniteur, XII. 718.]

[Footnote 2541: "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Roederer, syndic-attorney of the department.]

[Footnote 2542: Hua, 134.—Bourrienne, "Memoires," I. 49. (He was with Bonaparte in a restaurant, rue Saint-Honore, near the Palais-Royal.) "On going out we saw a troop coming from the direction of the market, which Bonaparte estimated at from 5,000 to 6,000 men, all in rags and armed in the oddest manner, yelling and shouting the grossest provocations, and turning towards the Tuileries. It was certainly the vilest and most abject lot that could be found in the faubourgs. 'Let us follow that rabble,' said Bonaparte to me." They ascend the terrace on the river bank. "I could not easily describe the surprise and indignation which these scenes excited in him. He did not like so much weakness and forbearance. 'Che coglione! he exclaimed in a loud tone. 'How could they let those rascals in? Four or five hundred of them ought to have been swept off with cannon, and the rest would still be running!'"]

[Footnote 2543: "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Roederer.—Deposition of Lareynie.]

[Footnote 2544: Deposition of Lareynie.]

[Footnote 2545: Report of Saint-Prix.]

[Footnote 2546: Report by Mouchet.—Deposition of Lareynie. (The interference of Sergent and Boucher-Rene is contested, but Raederer thinks it very probable.)]

[Footnote 2547: M. Pinon, in command of the 5th legion, and M. Vannot, commanding a battalion, tried to shut the iron gate of the archway, but are driven back and told: "You want thousands to perish, do you, to save one man?" This significant expression is heard over and over again during the Revolution, and it explains the success of the insurrections.—Alexandre, in command of the Saint-Marcel battalion, says in his report: "Why make a resistance which can be of no usefulness to the public, one which may even compromise it a great deal more?..."]

[Footnote 2548: Deposition of Lareynie. The attitude of Santerre is here clearly defined. At the foot of the staircase in the court he is stopped by a group of citizens, who threaten "to make him responsible for any harm done," and tell him: "You alone are the author of this unconstitutional assemblage; it is you alone who have led away these worthy people. You are a rascal!"—"The tone of these honest citizens in addressing the sieur Santerre made him turn pale. But, encouraged by a glance from the sieur Legendre, he resorted to a hypocritical subterfuge, and addressing the troop, he said: 'Gentlemen, draw up a report, officially stating that I refuse to enter the king's apartments.' The only answer the crowd made, accustomed to divining what Santerre meant, was to hustle the group of honest citizens out of the way."]

[Footnote 2549: Depositions of four of the national guard, Lecrosnier, Gosse, Bidault, and Guiboult.—Reports of Acloque and de Lachesnaye, commanding officers of the legion.—"Chronique des cinquante jours," by Roederer.—Ibid. p.65: "I have to state that, during the Convention, the butcher Legendre declared to Boissy d'Anglas, from whom I had it, that the plan was to kill the king."—Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Revolution," III.43. "The king was to be assassinated. We heard citizens all in rags say that it was a pity; he looks like a good sort of a bastard."]

[Footnote 2550: Madame Campan, "Memoires," II. 212. "M. Vannot, commander of the battalion, had turned aside a weapon aimed at the king. One of the grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas warded off a blow with a sword, aimed in the same direction with the same intention."]

[Footnote 2551: Declaration of Lachesnaye, in command of the legion.—Moniteur, XII. 719 (evening session of June 20). Speech of M. Alos, an eye-witness. (The king does this twice, using about the same words, the first time immediately on the irruption of the crowd, and the second time probably after Vergniaud's harangue.) Declaration of Lachesnaye, in command of the legion.—Moniteur, XII. 719 (evening session of June 20). Speech of M. Alos, an eye-witness. (The king does this twice, using about the same words, the first time immediately on the irruption of the crowd, and the second time probably after Vergniaud's harangue.)]

[Footnote 2552: The engraving in the "Revolutions de Paris" represents him seated, and separated from the crowd by an empty space; that is a falsehood of the party..]

[Footnote 2553: The queen produces the same impression. Prudhomme, in his journal, calls her "the Austrian panther," which word well expresses the idea of her in the faubourgs. A prostitute stops before her and bestows on her a volley of curses. The reply of the queen is: "Have I ever done you any wrong?" "No; but it is you who do so much harm to the nation." "You have been deceived," replies the queen. "I married the King of France. I am the mother of the dauphin. I am a French woman. I shall never again see my own country. I shall never be either happy or miserable anywhere but in France. When you loved me I was happy then." The prostitute burst into tears. "Ah. Madame, forgive me! I did not know you. I see that you have been very good." Santerre, however, wishing to put an end to this emotion, cries out: "The girl is drunk "—(Madame Campan, II. 214.—Report by Mandat, an officer of the legion.)]

[Footnote 2554: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 213. "Citizens, you have just legally made known your will to the hereditary representative of the nation; you have done this with the dignity, with the majesty of a free people! There is no doubt that your demands will be reiterated by the eighty-three departments, while the king cannot refrain from acquiescing in the manifest will of the people."]



CHAPTER VI. THE BIRTH OF THE TERRIBLE PARIS COMMUNE.



I.—Indignation of the Constitutionalists.

Cause of their weakness.—The Girondins renew the attack. —Their double plan.

As the blow has missed the target, it must be repeated. This is the more urgent, inasmuch as the faction has thrown off the mask and "honest people"[2601] on all sides become indignant at seeing the Constitution subject to the arbitrariness of the lowest class. Nearly all the higher administrative bodies, seventy-five of the department directories,[2602] give in their adhesion to Lafayette's letter, or respond by supporting the proclamation, so noble and so moderate, in which the King, recounting the violence done to him, maintains his legal rights with mournful, inflexible gentleness. Many of the towns, large and small, thank him for his firmness, the addresses being signed by "the notables of the place,"[2603] chevaliers of St. Louis, former officials, judges and district-administrators, physicians, notaries, lawyers, recorders, post-masters, manufacturers, merchants, people who are settled down, in short the most prominent and the most respected men. At Paris, a similar petition, drawn up by two former Constituents, contains 247 pages of signatures attested by 99 notaries.[2604] Even in the council-general of the commune a majority is in favor of publicly censuring the mayor Petion, the syndic-attorney Manuel, and the police administrators Panis, Sergent, Viguer, and Perron.[2605] On the evening of June 20th, the department council orders an investigation; it follows this up; it urges it on; it proves by authentic documents the willful inaction, the hypocritical connivance, the double-dealing of the syndic-attorney and the mayor;[2606] it suspends both from their functions, and cites them before the courts as well as Santerre and his accomplices. Lafayette, finally, adding to the weight of his opinion the influence of his presence, appears at the bar of the National Assembly and demands "effectual" measures against the usurpations of the Jacobin sect, insisting that the instigators of the riot of the 20th of June be punished "as guilty of lese-nation." As a last and still more significant symptom, his proceedings are approved of in the Assembly by a majority of more than one hundred votes.[2607]

All this must and will be crushed out. For on the side of the Constitutionalists, whatever they may be, whether King, deputies, ministers, generals, administrators, notables or national-guards, the will to act evaporates in words; and the reason is, they are civilized beings, long accustomed to the ways of a regular community, interested from father to son in keeping the law, disconcerted at the thought of consequences, upset by multifaceted ideas, unable to comprehend that, in the state of nature to which France has reverted, but one idea is of any account, that of the man who, in accepting a declared war, meets the offensive with the offensive, loads his gun, descends into the street and contends with the savage destroyers of human society.——Nobody comes to the support of Lafayette, who alone has the courage to take the lead; about one hundred men muster at the rendezvous named by him in the Champs-Elysees. They agree to march to the Jacobin club the following day and close it, provided the number is increased to three hundred; but the next day only thirty turn up. Lafayette can do no more than leave Paris and write a letter containing another protest.—Protestations, appeals to the Constitution, to the law, to public interest, to common sense, well-reasoned arguments; this side will never resort to anything else than speeches and paperwork; and, in the coming conflict words will be of no use.—Imagine a quarrel between two men, one ably presenting his case and the other indulging in little more than invective; the latter, having encountered an enormous mastiff on his road, has caressed him, enticed him, and led him along with him as an auxiliary. To the mastiff, clever argumentation is only so much unmeaning sound; with his eager eyes fixed on his temporary master he awaits only his signal to spring on the adversaries he points out. On the 20th of June he has almost strangled one of them, and covered him with his slaver. On the 21st,[2608] he is ready to spring again. He continues to growl for fifty days, at first sullenly and then with terrific energy. On the 25th of June, July 14 and 27, August 3 and 5, he again makes a spring and is kept back only with great difficulty.[2609] Already on one occasion, July 29th, his fangs are wet with human gore.[2610]—At each turn of the parliamentary debate the defenseless Constitutionalists beholds those open jaws before him; it is not surprising that he throws to this dog, or allows to be thrown to him, all the decrees demanded by the Girondists as a bone for him to gnaw on.—Sure of their strength the Girondists renew the attack, and the plan of their campaign seems to be skillfully prepared. They are quite willing to retain the King on his throne, but on the condition that he shall be a mere puppet; that he shall recall the patriot ministers, allow them to appoint the Dauphin's tutor, and that Lafayette shall be removed;[2611] otherwise the Assembly will pass the act of de-thronement and seize the executive power. Such is the defile with two issues in which they have placed the Assembly and the King. If the King balks at leaving by the first door, the Assembly, equally nonplused, will leave through the second; in either case, as the all-powerful ministers of the submissive King or as executive delegates of the submissive Assembly, the Girondists will become the masters of France.