To those who might be tempted to imitate them or defend them this is a sufficient lesson.—Subject to the boos, hisses and insults from the hags lining the streets, the seventy-three[11106] are conducted to the prisoners' room in the town hall. This, already full, is where they pass the night standing on benches, scarcely able to breathe. The next day they are crammed into the prison for assassins and robbers, "la Force," on the sixth story, under the roof; in this narrow garret their beds touch each other, while two of the deputies are obliged to sleep on the floor for lack of room. Under the skylights, which serve for windows, and at the foot of the staircase are two pig-pens; at the end of the apartment are the privies, and in one corner a night-tub, which completes the poisoning of the atmosphere already vitiated by this crowded mass of human beings. The beds consist of sacks of straw swarming with vermin; they are compelled to endure the discipline,[11107] rations and mess of convicts. And they are lucky to escape at this rate: for Amar takes advantage of their silent deportment to tax them with conspiracy; other Montagnards likewise want to arraign them at the revolutionary Tribunal: at all events, it is agreed that the Committee of General Security shall examine their records and maintain the right of designating new culprits amongst them. For ten months they thus remain under the knife, in daily expectation of joining the twenty-two on the Place de la Revolution.—With respect to the latter, the object is not to try them but to kill them, and the semblance of a trial is simply judicial assassination; the bill of indictment against them consists of club gossip; they are accused of having desired the restoration of the monarchy, of being in correspondence with Pitt and Coburg;[11108] of having excited Vendee to insurrection. The betrayal of Dumouriez is imputed to them, also the murder of Lepelletier, and the assassination of Marat; while pretended witnesses, selected from amongst their personal enemies, come and repeat, like a theme agreed upon, the same ill-contrived fable: nothing but vague allegations and manifest falsehoods, not one definite fact, not once convincing document; the lack of proof is such that the trial has to be stopped as soon as possible. "You brave b——forming the court," writes Hebert, "don't trifle away your time. Why so much ceremony in shortening the days of wretches whom the people have already condemned?" Care is especially taken not to let them have a chance to speak. The eloquence of Vergniaud and logic of Guadet might turn the tables at the last moment. Consequently, a prompt decree authorizes the tribunal to stop proceedings as soon as the jury becomes sufficiently enlightened, which is the case after the seventh session of the court, the record of death suddenly greeting the accused, who are not allowed to defend themselves. One of them, Valaze, stabs himself in open court, and the next day the national head-chopper strikes off the remaining twenty heads in thirty-eight minutes.—Still more expeditious are the proceedings against the accused who avoid a trial. Gorsas, seized in Paris on the 8th of October, is guillotined the same day. Birotteau, seized at Bordeaux, on the 24th of October, mounts the scaffold within twenty-four hours. The others, tracked like wolves, wandering in disguise from one hiding-place to another, and most of them arrested in turn, have only choice of several kinds of death. Cambon is killed in defending himself. Lidon, after having defended himself, blows out his brains, Condorcet takes poison in the guard-room of Bourg-la-Reine. Roland kills himself with his sword on the highway. Claviere stabs himself in prison. Rebecqui is found drowned in the harbor of Marseilles, and Petion and Buzon half eaten by wolves on a moor of Saint-Emilion. Valady is executed at Perigueux, Dechezeau at Rochefort, Grangeneuve, Guadet, Salle and Barbaroux at Bordeaux, Coustard, Cussy, Rabout-Saint-Etienne, Bernard, Masuyer, and Lebrun at Paris. Even those who resigned in January, 1793, Kersaint and Manuel, atone with their lives for the crime of having sided with the "Right" and, of course, Madame Roland, who is taken for the leader of the party, is one of the first to be guillotined.[11109]—Of the one-hundred and eighty Girondins who led the Convention, one hundred and forty have perished or are in prison, or fled under sentence of death. After such a curtailment and such an example the remaining deputies cannot be otherwise than docile;[11110] neither in the central nor in the local government will the "Mountain" encounter resistance; its despotism is practically established, and all that remains is to proclaim this in legal form.



XI. Institutions of the Revolutionary Government

Institutions of the Revolutionary Government.—Its principle, objects, proceedings, tools and structure.—The Committee of Public Safety.—Subordination of the Convention and ministry.—The use of the Committee of General Security and the Revolutionary Tribunal.—Administrative centralization.—Representatives on Mission, National Agents and Revolutionary Committees.—Law of Lese-majesty. —Restoration and Aggravation of the institutions of the old monarchy.

After the 2nd of August, on motion of Bazire, the Convention decrees "that France is in revolution until its independence is recognized." which means[11111] that the period of hypocritical phrases has come to an end, that the Constitution was merely a signboard for a fair, and that the charlatans who had made use of it no longer need it, that it is to be put away in the store containing other advertising material, that individual, local and parliamentary liberties are abolished, that the government is arbitrary and absolute, that no institution, law, dogma, or precedent affords any guarantee for it against the rights of the people, that property and lives are wholly at its mercy, that there are no longer any rights of man.—Six weeks later, when, through the protest of the forty-five and the arrest of the seventy-three, obedience to the Convention is assured, all this is boldly and officially announced in the tribune. "Under the present circumstances of the Republic," says St. Just, "the Constitution cannot be implemented as this would enable attacks on liberty to take place because it would lack the violent measures necessary to repress these." We are no longer to govern "according to maxims of natural peace and justice; these maxims are only valid among the friends of liberty;" but they are not applicable between patriots and the malevolent. The latter are "outside our sovereignty," are lawless, excluded from the social pact, slaves in rebellion, to be punished or imprisoned, and, amongst the malevolent must be placed "the indifferent[11112]".—"You are to punish whoever is passive in the Republic and does nothing for it;" for his passivity is treason and ranks him among other public enemies. Now, between the people and its enemies, there is nothing in common but the sword; steel must control those who cannot be ruled "by justice"; the monarchical and neutral majority must be repressed (comprime);

"The Republic will be founded only when the sans-culottes,[11113] the sole representatives of the nation, the only citizens, "shall rule by right of conquest."[11114]

The meaning of this is more than clear. The regime of which St. Just presents the plan, is that by which every oligarchy of invaders installs and maintains itself over a subjugated nation. Through this regime, in Greece, ten thousand Spartans, after the Dorian invasion, mastered three hundred thousand helots and periocques; through this regime, in England, sixty thousand Normans, after the battle of Hastings, mastered two million Saxons; through this regime in Ireland, since the battle of the Boyne, two hundred thousand English Protestants have mastered a million of Catholic Irish; through this regime, the three hundred thousand Jacobins of France will master the seven or eight millions of Girondins, Feuillants, Royalists or Indifferents.

This system of government is a very simple one and consist in maintaining the subject population in a state of extreme helplessness and of extreme terror. To this end, it is disarmed;[11115] it is kept under surveillance; all action in common is prohibited; its eyes should always be directed to the up-lifted ax and to the prison doors always open; it is ruined and decimated.—For the past six months all these rigors are decreed and applied,—disarmament of "suspects," taxes on the rich, the maximum against traders, requisitions on land-owners, wholesale arrests, rapid executions of sentences, arbitrary penalties of death, and publicized, multiplied tortures. For the past six months, all sorts of executive instruments are set up and put into operation: The Committee of Public Safety, the Committee of General Security, ambulating proconsuls with full power, local committees authorized to tax and imprison at will, a revolutionary army, a revolutionary tribunal. But, for lack of internal harmony and of central impulsion, the machine only half works, the power not being sufficient and its action not sufficiently sweeping and universal.

"You are too remote from the conspiracies against you," says St. Just;[11116] "it is essential that the sword of the law should everywhere be rapidly brandished and your arm be everywhere present to arrest crime.... The ministers confess that, beyond their first and second subordinates, they find nothing but inertia and indifference."—"A similar apathy is found in all the government agents," adds Billaud-Varennes;[11117] "the secondary authorities which are the strong points of the Revolution serve only to impede it." Decrees, transmitted through administrative channels, arrive slowly and are indolently applied. "You are missing that co-active force which is the principle of being, of action, of execution.... Every good government should possess a center of willpower and the levers connected with it.... Every government activity should exclusively originate from the central source."—

"In ordinary governments," says Couthon, finally,[11118] "the right of electing belongs to the people; you cannot take it away from them. In extraordinary governments all impulsion must come from the center; it is from the convention that elections must issue.... You would injure the people by confiding the election of officials to them, because you would expose them to electing men that would betray them."

—The result is that the constitutional maxims of 1789 give way to radically opposed maxims; instead of subjecting the government to the people, the people is made subject to the government. The hierarchy of the ancient regime is re-established under revolutionary terms, and henceforth all powers, much more formidable than those of the ancient regime, cease to be delegated from the depths to the summit and will henceforth instead be delegated from the summit to the bottom.

At the summit, a committee of twelve members, similar to the former royal council, exercises collective royalty; nominally, authority is divided amongst the twelve; it is, in practice, concentrated in a few hands. Several members occupy only a subaltern position, and amongst these, Barere, who, official secretary and mouthpiece, is always ready to make a speech or draft an editorial; others, with special functions, Jean Bon St. Andre, Lindet, and above all, Prieur de la Cote d'Or and Carnot, confine themselves each to his particular department, navy, war, supplies, with blank signatures, for which they give in return their signatures to the political leaders; the latter, called "the statesmen," Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, are the real rulers providing overall direction. It is true that their mandate has to be renewed monthly; but this is a certainty, for, in the present state of the Convention, its vote, required beforehand, becomes an almost vain formality. More submissive than the parliament of Louis XIV., the Convention adopts, without discussion, the decrees which the Committee of Public Safety present to it ready made. It is no more than a registry-office, and scarcely that, for it has relinquished its right of appointing its own committees, that office being assigned to the Committee of Public Safety; it votes as a whole all lists of names which the Committee send in.[11119] Naturally, none but the creatures of the latter and the faithful are inscribed; thus, the whole legislative and parliamentary power belongs to it.—As to executive and administrative power, the ministers have become mere clerks of the Committee of Public Safety; "they come every day at specified hours to receive its orders and acts;[11120] "they submit to it "the list with explanations, of all the agents" sent into the departments and abroad; they refer to it every minute detail; they are its scribes, merely its puppets, so insignificant that they finally lose their title, and for the "Commission on External Relations" a former school-master is taken, an inept clubbist, bar-fly and the pillar of the billiard-room, scarcely able to read the documents brought to him to sign in the cafe where he passes his days.[11121]—Thus is the second power in the State converted by the Committee into a squad of domestics, while the foremost one is converted into an audience of claqueurs.

To make them do their duty, it has two hands.—One, the right, which seizes people unawares by the collar, is the Committee of General Security, composed of twelve extreme Montagnards, such as Panis, Vadier, Le Bas, Geoffroy, David, Amar, La Vicomterie, Lebon and Ruhl, all nominated, that is to say, appointed by it, being its confederates and subalterns. They are its lieutenants of police, and once a week they come and take part in its labors, as formerly the Sartines, and the Lenoirs assisted the Comptroller-general. A man who this secret committee deems a "suspect," is suddenly seized, no matter who, whether representative, minister, or general, and finds himself the next morning behind the bars in one of the ten new Bastilles.—There, the other hand seizes him by the throat; this is the revolutionary tribunal, an exceptional court like the extraordinary commissions of the ancient regime, only far more terrible. Aided by its police gang, the Committee of Public Safety itself selects the sixteen judges and sixty jurymen[11122] from among the most servile, the most furious, or the most brutal of the fanatics:[11123] Fouquier-Tinville, Hermann, Dumas, Payan, Coffinhal, Fleuriot-Lescot, and, lower down on the scale, apostate priests, renegade nobles, disappointed artists, infatuated studio-apprentices, journeymen scarcely able to write their names, shoemakers, joiners, carpenters, tailors, barbers, former lackeys, an idiot like Ganney, a deaf man like Leroy-Dix-Aout; their names and professions indicate all that is necessary to be told: these men are licensed and paid murderers. The Jurymen themselves are allowed eighteen francs a day, so that they may attend to their business more leisurely. This business consists in condemning without proof, without any pleadings, and scarcely any examination, in a hurry, in batches, whoever the Committee of Public Safety might send to them, even the most confirmed Montagnards: Danton, who contrived the tribunal, will soon discover this.—it is through these two government institutions that the Committee of Public Safety keeps every head under the cleaver and each head, to avoid being struck off, bows down,[11124] in the provinces as well as in Paris.

This has happened when the existing local hierarchy was replaced by new authorities making the omnipotent will of the Committee present everywhere. Directly or indirectly, "for all government measures or measures of public safety, all that relates to persons and the general and internal police, all constituted bodies and all public functionaries, are placed under its inspection."[11125] You may imagine how the risk of being guillotined weighed upon them.

To suppress in advance any tendency to administrative inertia, it has had withdrawn from the too powerful, too much respected, department governments, "too inclined to federalism," their departmental dominance and their "political influence."[11126] It reduces these to the levying of taxes and the supervision of roads and canals; it purges them out through its agents; it even purges out the governments of municipalities and districts. To suppress beforehand all probability of popular opposition, it has had the sessions of the sections reduced to two per week; it installs in these sections, for about forty sous a day, a majority of sans-culottes; it orders the suspension "until further directives" of all municipal elections.[11127]

Finally, to have full control on the spot, it appoints its own men, first, the commissioners and the representatives on missions, a sort of temporary corps of directors sent into each department with unlimited powers;[11128] next, a body of national agents, a sort of permanent body of sub-delegates, through whom in each district and municipality it replaces the procureurs-syndics.[11129] To this army of functionaries is added in each town, bourg or large village, a revolutionary committee, paid three francs a day per member, charged with the application of its decrees, and required to make reports thereon. Never before was such a vast and closely woven network cast from above to envelope and keep captive twenty-six million people. Such is the real constitution which the Jacobins substitute for the constitution they have prepared for show. In the arsenal of the monarchy which they destroyed they took the most despotic institutions—centralization, Royal Council, lieutenants of police, special tribunals, intendants and sub-delegates; they disinterred the antique Roman law of lese-majesty, refurbished old blades which civilization had dulled, aiming them at every throat and now wielded at random against liberties, property and lives. It is called the "revolutionary government;" according to official statements it is to last until peace is secured; in the minds of genuine Jacobins it must continue until all the French have been regenerated in accordance with the formula.

*****

[Footnote 1101: Titus Flavious Clemens, (Greek writer born in Athens around 150 and dead in Cappadoce in 250) He lived in Alexandria. (SR).]

[Footnote 1102: The words of Marat.]

[Footnote 1103: After the Constitution is completed, said Legendre, in the Jacobin club, we will make the federalists dance.]

[Footnote 1104: Archives Nationales, F.I.C.. 56, (Circular of Gohier, Minister of Justice, to the French people, July 6, 1793). "Certain persons are disposed to pervert the events of May 31 and June 2, by atrocious exaggerations and the grossest fables, and prevent the fortunate results they present from being seen. They are absolutely determined to see nothing but violations of the liberty of the people's representatives in a step which was specially designed to hasten on the Constitutional Act on which the liberty of all is established. Of what consequence is it who are the authors of the Constitution presented to you? What does it matter whether it issues from a mountain amidst lightning and the rolling thunder, like the Tables of the Law given to the Hebrews, or whether it comes, like the laws given to the early Romans, inspired in the tranquil asylum of a divinity jealous of his religious surroundings? Is this constitution worthy of a free people? That is the only question which citizens who wear the livery of no party need examine!"]

[Footnote 1105: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 177. (report by Herault Sechelles, June 10, 1793). Ibid, XXXI., 400. (Text of constitution submitted to discussion June 11th, and passed June 24th.)]

[Footnote 1106: De Sybel, II., 331. (According to the facsimile published in the Quarterly Review). "Herault says that he and four of his colleagues are ordered to furnish the draft of a constitution by Monday."]

[Footnote 1107: Report by Herault-Sechelles. (Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 178.)]

[Footnote 1108: Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 400. (Articles of the Declaration of Rights, 1, 7, 9, 11, 27, 31, 35)]

[Footnote 1109: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 178. Report by Herault-Sechelles. "Each of us had the same desire, that of attaining to the greatest democratic result. The sovereignty of the people and the dignity of man were constantly in our minds... A secret sentiment tells us that our work is perhaps the most popular that ever existed."]

[Footnote 1110: Archives Nationales, B. II., 23. (Table of votes by the commission appointed to collect the proces-verbaux of the adoption of the constitution, August 20, 1793.)—Number of primary assemblies sending in their proces-verbaux, 6,589 (516 cantons have not yet sent theirs in).—Number of voters on call, 1,795,908; Yes, 1,784,377; Noes, 11,531.—Number of primary assemblies voting Yes unanimously, not on call of names, 297.—At Paris, 40,990 voters, at Troyes, 2,491, at Limoges, 2,137.—Cf. For details and motives of abstention, Sauzay IV. pp. 157-161. Albert Babeau, II, pp. 83 and 84. Moniteur, XVII., 375 (speech by the representative Desvars).]

[Footnote 1111: Ibid., Moniteur, XVII., 20. (report by Barrere on the convocation of the primary assemblies, June 17, 1793.) Ibid., 102 (Report of Cambon, July 11). "It is now a fortnight since you demanded a Constitution. Very well, here it is.... Respect for persons and property is amply secured in it. Yes, more definitely than in any other constitution. Does it provide for its own revision? Yes, for in six weeks, we can convoke the primary assemblies and express our desire for the reform that may appear necessary.—Will the popular wish be respected? Yes, the people then will make definitive laws."]

[Footnote 1112: Guillon de Montleon, I., 282, 309.—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII, 356, 357 (Journal de Lyon Nos. 223 and 224.) "The acceptance of the Constitution was neither entire nor very sincere; people took credit to themselves for accepting a vicious and sketchy production." Meillan, "Memoires," 120. (In July he leaves Caen for Quimper). "Although we were assured that we should pass only through Maratist towns, we had the satisfaction of finding nearly all the inhabitants regarding Marat with horror. They had indeed accepted the Constitution offered by the Committee of Public Safety, but solely to end the matter and on conditions which would speak well for them; for, everywhere the renewal of the Convention was exacted and the punishment of assaults made on it." This desire, and others analogous to it, are given in the proces-verbaux of many of the primary assemblies (Archives Nationales, B. II., 23); for example, in those of the thirteen cantons of Ain. A demand is made, furthermore, for the reintegration of the Twenty-two, the abolition of the revolutionary tribunal, the suppression of absolute proconsulates, the organization of a department guard for securing the future of the Convention, the discharge of the revolutionary army, etc.]

[Footnote 1113: Moniteur, XVII., 20. Report of Barere: "The Constitutional act is going to draw the line between republicans and royalists."]

[Footnote 1114: Archives Nationales, F.I.C., 54. (Circular of the Minister, Gohier, July 6, 1793.) "It is to-day that, summoned to the alter of the country, those who desire the Republic will be known by name, and those who do not desire it, whether they speak or keep silent, will be equally known."]

[Footnote 1115: Sauzay, IV., 160, 161. (Article by the Vidette.) Consequently, "all the unconstitutionalists nobles and priests considered it a duty to go the assemblies and joyfully accept a constitution which guaranteed liberty and property to everybody."]

[Footnote 1116: "Journal des Debats de la Societe des Jacobins," No. For July 27, 1793 (correspondence, No. 122).]

[Footnote 1117: Moniteur, XVII., 156, 163.]

[Footnote 1118: Sauzay, IV., 158: "The motives for judgments were thus stated by judges themselves."]

[Footnote 1119: Moniteur, XVII., 40, 48, 72, 140, 175, 194, 263. (Cf. Speeches by Chaumette, July 14, and Report by Gossoin, August 9).—Archives Nationales, B. II., 23. Negative votes in Ardeche 5, in Aude 5, Moselle 5, Saone-et-Loire 5, Cote-d'Or 4, Creuse 4, Haut-Rhin 4, Gers 4, Haute-Garonne 3, Aube 2, Bouches-du-Rhone 2, Cantal 2, Basses-Alpes 1, Haute-Marne 1, Haute-Vienne 1, Var 0, Seine 0.—The details and circumstances of voting are curious. In the department of Aube, at Troyes, the second section in agreement with the third, excluded "suspects" from the vote. At Paris, the section "Gardes Francaise," Fourcroy president, announces 1,714 voters, of which 1,678 are citizens and 36 citoyennes. In the "Mont Blanc" section, the secretary signs as follows: Trone segretaire general de la semble.]

[Footnote 1120: Moniteur, XVII., 375. (Session of the convention, August 11, 1793). Chabot: "I demand a law requiring every man who does not appear at a primary meeting to give good reason for his absence; also, that any man who has not favored the Constitution, be declared ineligible to all constitutional franchises." Ibid., 50. (Meeting of the Commune, July 4th). Leonard Bourdon demands, in the name of his section, the Gravilliers, a register on which to inscribe those who accept the Constitution, "in order that those who do not vote for it may be known."—Souzay, IV. 159. M. Boillon, of Belleherbe, is arrested "for being present at the primary assembly of the canton of Vaucluse, and when called upon to accept the Constitutional act, leaving without voting."]

[Footnote 1121: Moniteur, XVII., 11. (Instructions on the mode of accepting the Constitution).—Sauzay IV., 158.—Moniteur, XVII., 302. (Speech by Garat, August 2.) "I have dispatched commissioners to push the Constitutional Act through the primary assemblies."—Durand- Maillane. 150. "The envoys of the departments were taken from the sans-culotterie then in fashion, because they ruled in the Convention."]

[Footnote 1122: Sauzay, IV., 158.]

[Footnote 1123: Moniteur, XVII., 363. (Report of Gossuin to the Convention, August 9). "There are primary assemblies which have extended their deliberations beyond the acceptance of the Constitution. This acceptance being almost unanimous, all other objects form matter for petitions to be entrusted to competent committees."—Ibid., 333. (Speech of Delacroix). "The anti-revolutionary delegates sent by the conspirators we had in the Convention must be punished. (August 6.).]

[Footnote 1124: Moniteur, ibid., 333. Speech and motions of Bazire, August 8.—XIX., 116. Report of Vouland, January 2, 1794. The pay of Maillard and his acolytes amounted to twenty-two thousand livres.—XVIII., 324. (Session of August 5. Speeches of Gossuin, Thibault and Lacroix.)—Ibid., 90. (Session of Germinal 8, year III.) Speech by Bourdon de l'Oise: "We have been obliged to pick men out of the envoys in order to find those disposed for rigorous measures."]

[Footnote 1125: Moniteur, XVII., 330. Ordinance of the Commune, August 6.]

[Footnote 1126: Moniteur, XVII., 332. (Session of the Convention, August 6.)—Cf. the "Diurnal" of Beaulieu, August 6. Beaulieu mentions several deputations and motions of the same order, and states the alarm of the "Mountain."—Durand-Maillane, "Memoires," 151. "Among the envoys from the departments were sensible men who, far from approving of all the steps taken by their brethren, entertained and manifested very contrary sentiments. These were molested and imprisoned."—"Archives des Affaires etrangeres," vol. 1411. (Report of the agents of August 10 and 11.) The department commissioners... seemed to us in the best disposition. There are some intriguers among them, however; we are following up some of them, and striving by fraternizing with them to prevent them from being seduced or led away by the perfidious suggestions of certain scoundrels, the friends of federalism, amongst them.... A few patriotic commissioners have already denounced several of their brethren accused of loving royalty and federalism."]

[Footnote 1127: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 408.]

[Footnote 1128: Moniteur., XVII., 330. (Act passed by the Commune, August 6.)]

[Footnote 1129: Archives des Affaires etrangeres, vol. 1411. (Reports of agents, Aug. 10 and 11). "Citizens are, to-day, eager to see who shall have a commissioner at his table: who shall treat him the best. .. the Commissioners of the primary assemblies come and fraternise with them in the Jacobin club. They adopt their maxims, and are carried away by the energy of the good and true republican sans-culottes in the clubs."]

[Footnote 1130: Moniteur, XVII., 307, 308. (Report of Couthon to the Convention, Aug. 2.) "You would wound, you would outrage these Republicans, were you to allow the performance before them of an infinity of pieces filled with insulting allusions to liberty."]

[Footnote 1131: Ibid. 124. (Session of Aug. 5.)]

[Footnote 1132: Ibid., 314; (Letter of Lhuillier, Aug. 4.)—322, Session of the Commune, Aug. 4th; 332, (Session of the Convention, Aug. 6).—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 409. (Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Aug. 5th).]

[Footnote 1133: Buchez et Roux, 411 (Article in the Journal de la Montagne.)]

[Footnote 1134: Moniteur, XVII., 348.]

[Footnote 1135: "Le Federation" was in 1790 "the Association of the National Guards." (SR).]

[Footnote 1136: Buchez et Roux, XVIII., 415 and following pages.]

[Footnote 1137: Ibid., 352.—Cf. Beaulieu, "Diurnal," Aug. 9.]

[Footnote 1138: On the mechanical character of the festivals of the Revolution read the programme of "The civic fete in honor of Valor and Morals," ordered by Fouche at Nevers, on the 1st day of the 1st decade of the 2nd month of the year II. (De Martel, "Etude sur Fouche," 202); also, the programme of the "Fete de l'Etre Supreme," at Sceaux, organized by the patriot Palloy, Presidial 20, year II. (Dauban, Paris en 1794, p.187).]

[Footnote 1139: It cost one million two hundred thousand francs, besides the traveling expenses of eight thousand delegates.]

[Footnote 1140: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 439, and following pages. Proces verbal of he National Festival of the 10th of August.—Dauban "La Demagogie en 1791." (Extract from the Republican Ritual.)]

[Footnote 1141: Moniteur, XVII., 366. (Session of Aug. 11. Speech by Lacroix and decree in conformity therewith.)]

[Footnote 1142: Ibid., 374. "Remember that you are accountable to the nation and the universe for this sacred Ark. Remember that it is your duty to die rather than suffer a sacrilegious hand....."]

[Footnote 1143: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 358. It is evident from the context of the speech that Robespierre and the Jacobins were desirous of maintaining the Convention because they foresaw Girondist elections.]

[Footnote 1144: Moniteur, XVII., 382. (Session of Aug. 12. Speech by Lacroix).]

[Footnote 1145: Ibid., 387.—Cf. Ibid., 410, session of August 16. The delegates return there to insist on a levy, en masse, the levy of the first class not appearing sufficient to them. (levy means mobilization of all men)—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 464. Delegate Royer, Cure of Chalons-sur-Saone, demands that the aristocrats "chained together in sixes" be put in the front rank in battle "to avoid the risks of sauve qui peut."]

[Footnote 1146: Decrees of August 14 and 16.]

[Footnote 1147: Moniteur, XVII., 375.]

[Footnote 1148: Riouffe, "Memoires," 19: "An entire generation, the real disciples of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire and Diderot, could be, and was annihilated, to a large extent under the pretext of federalism."]

[Footnote 1149: Moniteur, XVII., 102. (Speech by Cambon, July 11, 1793). Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. (Speech of General Wimpffen to the "Societe des amis de la Liberte et de l'Egalite," in session at Cherbourg, June 25, 1793). "Sixty-four departments have already revoked the powers conferred on their representatives." Meillan, "Memoires," 72: "The archives of Bordeaux once contained the acts passed by seventy-two departments, all of which adhered to measures nearly the same as those indicted in our documents."]

[Footnote 1150: Buchez et Roux, XVIII., 148.—Meillan, 70, 71.—Guillon de Montleon, I., 300 (on Lyons) and I., 280 (on Bordeaux). Archives Nationales, AF II., 46. (Deliberations of the Nantes section July 5).—Letter of Merlin and Gillet, representatives on mission, Lorient, June 12. Dissatisfaction at the outrages of May 31 and June 2, was so manifest that the representatives on mission Merline, Gillet, Savestre, and Cagaignac print on the 14th of June a resolution authorising one of their body to go to the Convention and protest "in their name" against the weakness shown by it and against the ursurpations of the Paris commune.—Sauzay, IV., 260. At Besancon, in a general assembly of all the administrative, judicial and municipal bodies of the department joined to the commissioners of the section, protest "unanimously" on the 15th of June.]

[Footnote 1151: Archives Nationales, Ibid.(Letter of Romme and Prieur, Caen, June 10th, to the committee of Public Safety). The insurgents are so evidently in the right that Romme and Prieur approve of their own arrest. "Citizens, our colleagues, this arrest may be of great importance, serve the cause of liberty, maintain the unity of the republic and revive confidence if, as we hasten to demand it of you, you confirm it by a decree which declares us hostages.... We have noticed that among the people of Caen, there is a love of liberty, as well as of justice and docility."]

[Footnote 1152: Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. (Printed July 5). Result of the deliberations of the Nantes sections. The act is signed by the three administrative bodies of Nantes, by the district rulers of Clisson, Anceries and Machecoul, who had fled to Nantes, and by both the deputies of the districts of Paimboeuf and Chateaubriand, in all, eighty-six signatures.]

[Footnote 1153: Archives Nationales, ibid., (letter of General Wimpffen to the "Societe des Amis de l'Egalite et de la Liberte" in session at Cherbourg, June 25, 1793).—Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 126.—On the opinion of the departments cf. Paul Thibaud ("Etudes sur l'histoire de Grenoble et du Department de l'Isere").—Louis Guibert ("Le Parti Girondin dans le Haute Vienne").—Jarrin, ("Bourg et Bellay pendant la Revolution").]

[Footnote 1154: Albert Babeau, II., 83. (Pamphlet by the cure of Cleray). "Every primary assembly that accepts the Constitution strikes the factions a blow on the head with the club of Hercules."]

[Footnote 1155: Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. II. Ch. XI.]

[Footnote 1156: Buzot.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 157. Reports by Baudot and Ysabeau to the Convention. The 19th of Aug. At the Hotel de Ville of Bordeaux, they eulogize the 21st of January: "There was then a roar as frightful as it was general. A city official coolly replied to us: What would you have? To oppose anarchy we have been forced to join the aristocrats, and they rule." Another says ironically to Ysabeau: "We did not anticipate that,—they are our tribunes."]

[Footnote 1157: Jarrin, "Bourg et Belley pendant la Revolution" ("Annales de la Societe d'Emulation de l'Ain," 1878, Nos. For January, February and March, p. 16).]

[Footnote 1158: Louvet, 103, 108.—Guillon de Montleon, I., 305 and following pages.—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 151. (Report of the delegates of the district of Andelys). "One of members observed that there would be a good deal of trouble in raising an armed force of one thousand men."—An administrator (a commissioner of Calvados) replied: "We shall have all the aristocrats on our side." The principal military leaders at Caen and at Lyons, Wimpffen, Precy, Puisaye, are Feuillants and form only a provisional alliance with the Girondists properly so called, Hence constant contentions and reciprocal mistrust. Birotteau and Chapet leave Lyons because they do not find the spirit of the place sufficiently republican.]

[Footnote 1159: Louvet, 124, 129.—Buchez et Roux, XXVII, 360. (Notice by General Wimpffen), July 7.—Puisaye, "Memoires" and "L'Insurrection Normande." by et Vaultier et Mancel.]

[Footnote 1160: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 471. Letter of Barbaroux, Caen, June 18.—Ibid., 133. Letter of Madame Roland to Buzot, July 7. "You are not the one to march at the head of battalions (departmental). It would have the appearance of gratifying personal vengeance."]

[Footnote 1161: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 153. (Deliberations of the constituted authorities of Marseilles, June 7.)]

[Footnote 1162: Guillon de Montleon, II., 40. The contrast between the two parties is well shown in the following extract from the letter of a citizen of Lyons to Kellerman's soldiers. "They tell you that we want to destroy the unity of the republic, while they themselves abandon the frontiers to the enemy in order to come here and cut their brethren's throats."]

[Footnote 1163: Guillon de Montleon, I., 288.—Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels d'Auvergne," p. 181.—Louvet, 193.—Moniteur, XVII., 101. (Speech of Cambon, July 11). "We have preferred to expose these funds (one hundred and five millions destined for the army) to being intercepted, rather than to retard this dispatch. The first thing the Committee of Public Safety have had to care for was to save the republic and make the administrations fully responsible for it. They were fully aware of this, and accordingly have allowed the circulation of these funds... They have been forced, through the wise management of the Committee, to contribute themselves to the safety of the republic."]

[Footnote 1164: Archives Nationales, Letter of Robert Lindet, June 16, AF. II., 43. The correspondence of Lindet, which is very interesting, well shows the sentiments of the Lyonnese and the policy of the "Mountain." "However agitated Lyons may be, order prevails; nobody wants either king or tyrant; all use the same language: the words republic, union, are in everybody's mouth." (Eight letters.) He always gives the same advice to the Committee of Public Safety: "Publish a constitution, publish the motives of the bills of arrest," which are indispensable to rally everybody to the Convention, (June 15).]

[Footnote 1165: Guillon de Montleon, I., 309 (July 24).]

[Footnote 1166: Sauzay, IV., 268.—Paul Thibaud, 50.—Marcelin Boudet, 185.—Archives Nationales AF. II., 46. Extract from the registers of the Council of the department of Loire-Inferieure, July 14. The department protests that its decree of July 5 was not "a rupture with the Convention, an open rebellion against the laws of the State, an idea very remote from the sentiments and intentions of the citizens present." Now, "the plan of a Constitution is offered to the acceptance of the sovereign. This fortunate circumstance should bring people to one mind, and, with hope thus renewed, let us at once seize on the means of salvation thus presented to us."—Moniteur, XVII., 102. (Speech of Cambon, July 11.)]

[Footnote 1167: Louvet, 119, 128, 150, 193.—Meillan, 130, 141. (On the disposition and sentiments of the provinces and of the public in general, the reader will find ample and authentic details in the narratives of the fugitives who scattered themselves in all directions, and especially those of Louvet, Meillan, Dulaure, and Vaublanc.) Cf. the "Memoires de Hua" and "Un Sejour en France in 1792 and 1795."—Mallet-du-Pan already states this disposition before 1789 (MS. Journal). "June, 1785: The French live simply in a crowd; they must all cling together. On the promenades they huddle together and jostle each other in one alley; the same when there is more space." "Aug., 1787, (after the first riots): I have remarked in general more curiosity than excitement in the multitude.... One can judge, at this moment, the national character; a good deal of bravado and nonsense; neither reason, rule nor method; rebellious in crowds, and not a soul that does not tremble in the presence of a corporal."]

[Footnote 1168: Meillan, 143.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 203. (Session of August 10).—Mallet-du-Pan, "Memoires," II., 9.]

[Footnote 1169: Ernest Daudet, "His. des Conspirations royalistes dans le midi." (Books II. And III.)]

[Footnote 1170: Guillon de Montleon, I., 313. (Address of a Lyonais to the patriot soldiers under Kellerman.)]

[Footnote 1171: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 222.—The insurrection of Toulon, Girondist at the start, dates July 1st.—Letter of the new administrators of Toulon to the Convention. "W desire the Republic, one and indivisible; there is no sign of rebellion with us... Representatives Barras and Freron lie shamefully in depicting us as anti-revolutionaries, on good terms with the English and the families of Vendee."—The Toulon administrators continue furnishing the Italian army with supplies. July 19, an English boat, sent to parley, had to lower the white flag and hoist the tri-color flag. The entry of the English into Toulon did not take place before the 29th of August.]

[Footnote 1172: Guillon de Montleon, II., 67. (Letter of the Lyonnese to the representatives of the people, Sep. 20): "The people of Lyons have constantly respected the laws, and if, as in some departments, that of Rhone-et-Loire was for a moment mistaken in the events of May 31, they hastened, as soon as they believed that the Convention was not oppressed, to recognize and execute its decrees. Every day, now that these reach it, they are published and observed within its walls."]

[Footnote 1173: Moniteur, XVII., 269. (Session of July 28). (Letter of the administrators of the department of Rhone-et-Loire to the Convention, Lyons, July 24). "We present to the Convention our individual recantation and declaration; in conforming to the law we are entitled to its protection. We petition the court to decide on our declaration, and to repeal the acts which relate to us or make an exception in our favor... We have always professed ourselves to be true republicans."]

[Footnote 1174: Guillon de Montleon, I., 309, 311, 315, 335.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197.]

[Footnote 1175: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 141.]

[Footnote 1176: Mallet du Pan, I., 379 and following pages; I., 408; II., 10.]

[Footnote 1177: Entry of the Republican troops into Lyons, October 9th, into Toulon, December 19th.—Bordeaux had submitted on the 2nd of August. Exasperated by the decree of the 6th which proscribed all the abettors of the insurrection, the city drives out, on the 19th, the representatives Baudot and Ysabeau. It submits again on the 19th of September. But so great is the indignation of the citizens, Tallien and his three colleagues dare not enter before the 16th of October. (Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197 and following pages.)]

[Footnote 1178: Seventy thousand men were required to reduce Lyons, (Guillon de Montleon, II., 226) and sixty thousand men to reduce Toulon.]

[Footnote 1179: Archives des Affaires etrangeres, vol. CCCXXIX. (Letter of Chepy, political agent, Grenoble, July 26, 1793). "I say it unhesitatingly, I had rather reduce Lyons than save Valenciennes."]

[Footnote 1180: Ibid., vol. CCCXXIX. (Letter of Chepy, Grenoble, August 24, 1793): "The Piedmontese are masters of Cluse. A large body of mountaineers have joined them. At Annecy the women have cut down the liberty pole and burnt the archives of the club and commune. At Chambery, the people wanted to do the same, but they forced the sick in the hospitals to take arms and thus kept them down."]

[Footnote 1181: Moniteur, XVIII, 474. (Report of Billaud-Varennes, October 18, 1793). "The combined efforts of all the powers of Europe have not compromised liberty and the country so much as the federalist factions; the assassin the most to be dreaded is the one that lives in the house."]

[Footnote 1182: The convention purposely reinstates incendiaries and assassins. (Moniteur, XVIII., 483. Session of Breumaire 28, year II.): XVII., 176. (Session of July 19, 1793). Rehabilitation of Bordier and Jourdain, hung in August, 1789. Cancelling of the proceedings begun against the authors of the massacre of Melun (September, 1792) and release of the accused.—Cf. Albert Babeau, (I., 277.) Rehabilitation, with indemnities distributed in Messidor, year II, to their relatives.—"Archives des Affaires etrangeres," vol. 331. (Letter of Chepy, Grenoble, Frimaire 8, year II). "The criminal court and jury of the department have just risen to the height of the situation; they have acquitted the castle-burners."]

[Footnote 1183: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 593. (Deputation of twenty-four sections sent from Bordeaux to the Convention, August 30).—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 494. (Report of the representatives on mission in Bouches-du-Rhone, September 2nd).—Ibid., XXX., 386. (Letter of Rousin, commandant of the revolutionary army at Lyons. "A population of one hundred twenty thousand souls..... There are not amongst all these, one thousand five hundred patriots, even one thousand five hundred persons that one could spare."—Guillon de Montleon, I., 355, 374. (Signatures of twenty thousand Lyonnese of all classes, August 17th).]

[Footnote 1184: Guillon de Montleon, I., 394. (Letter of Dubois-Crance to the Lyonnese, August 19th.)]

[Footnote 1185: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 198. (Decree of Aug. 6.)—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 297, (Decree of July 12.).—Guillon de Montleon, I., 342. Summons of Dubois-Crance, Aug. 8.)]

[Footnote 1186: Meillan, 142.).—"Archives des Affaires Etrangeres," vol. CCCXXXII. (Letter of Desgranges, Bordeaux, Brumaire 8, year II.): "The execution of Mayor Saige, who was much loved by the people for his benefactions, caused much sorrow: but no guilty murmur was heard."]

[Footnote 1187: Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. (Letter of Julien to the Committee of Public Safety Messidor 11, year II). "Some time ago a solemn silence prevailed at the sessions of the military commission, the people's response to the death-sentences against conspirators; the same silence attended them to the scaffold; the whole commune seemed to sob in secret at their fate."]

[Footnote 1188: Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Revolutionaire," pp. 277-299.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. (Registers of the Com. Of Surveillance, Bordeaux). The number of prisoners between Prairial 21 and 28, varies from 1504 to 1529. Number of the guillotined, 882. (Memoirs of Senart).]

[Footnote 1189: Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. Letter of Julien, Messidor 12, year II. "A good deal has been stolen here; the mayor, now in prison, is informed of considerable losses. The former Committee of surveillance came under serious suspicion; many people who were outlawed only escaped by paying: it is a fact that... Of a number of those who have thus purchased their lives there are some who did not deserve to die and who, nevertheless, were threatened with death."—Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 428. (Extracts from the Memoirs of Senart). "The president of the military commission was a man named Lacombe, already banished from the city on account of a judgment against him for robbery. The other individuals employed by Tallien comprised a lot of valets, bankrupts and sharpers."]

[Footnote 1190: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 493. (Speech by Danton, August 31, and decree in conformity therewith by the Convention).]

[Footnote 1191: Mallet-Dupan, II., 17. "Thousands of traders in Marseilles and Bordeaux, here the respectable Gradis and there the Tarteron, have been assassinated and their goods sold. I have seen the thirty-second list only of the Marseilles emigres, whose property has been confiscated.... There are twelve thousand of them and the lists are not yet complete." (Feb. 1, 1794.)—Anne Plumptre.2A Narrative of Three years' Residence in France, from 1802 to 1805." "During this period the streets of Marseilles were almost those of a deserted town. One could go from one end of the town to the other without meeting any one he could call an inhabitant. The great terrorists, of whom scarcely one was a Marseillaise, the soldiers and roughs as they called themselves, were almost the only persons encountered. The latter, to the number of fifty or sixty, in jackets with leather straps, fell upon all whom they did not like, and especially on anybody with a clean shirt and white cravat. Many persons on the "Cours" were thus whipped to death. No women went out-doors without a basket, while every man wore a jacket, without which they were taken for aristocrats." (II., 94.)]

[Footnote 1192: "Memoires de Freron." (Collection Barriere and Berville). Letters of Freron to Moise Bayle, Brumaire 23, Pluviose 5 and 11, Novose 16, II, published by Moise Bayle, also details furnished by Huard, pp. 350-365.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 144. (Order of representatives Freron, Barras, Salicetti and Richard, Novose 17, year II.)]

[Footnote 1193: Mallet-Dupan, II., 17.—Guillon de Montleon, II., 259.]

[Footnote 1194: Ibid., II., 281. (Decree of the Convention, Oct. 12); II. 312. (Orders of Couthon and his colleagues, Oct. 25); II., 366-372 (Instructions of the temporary commission, Brumaire 26).]

[Footnote 1195: Ibid. III., 153-156. Letter of Laporte to Couthon, April 13, 1794.]

[Footnote 1196: The contemporary French Encyclopedia "QUID" ed. Lafont, 1996 states on page 755 that according to Louis Marie Prudhomme there were 31 000 victims at Lyons. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1197: Ibid. II. 135-137. (Resolutions of the Revolutionary Commission, Germinal 17.) and Letters of Cadillot to Robespierre, Floreal, year II). III., 63.]

[Footnote 1198: Guillon de Montleon, II., 399. (Letter of Perrotin, member of the temporary commission to the revolutionary committee of Moulin.) "The work before the new commission may be considered as an Organization of the Septembrisade; the process will be the same but legalized by an act passed."]

[Footnote 1199: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 192. (Decree of October 12).]

[Footnote 11100: Ibid., XXX., 457. (Decree of November 23).]

[Footnote 11101: "Memoires de Freron." (Letter of Freron, Nivose 6).—Guillon de Montleon, II., 391.]

[Footnote 11102: Decrees of October 12 and December 24.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 44. The representatives on mission wanted to do the same thing with Marseilles. (Orders of Freron, Barras, Salicetti, and Ricard, Nivose 17, year II.) "The name of Marseilles, still borne by this criminal city, shall be changed. The National Convention shall be requested to give it another name. Meanwhile it shall remain nameless and be thus known." In effect, in several subsequent documents, Marseilles is called the nameless commune.]

[Footnote 11103: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 204. (Session of June 24: "Strong expressions of dissent are heard on the right." Legendre, "I demand that the first rebel, the first man there (pointing to the "Right" party) who interrupts the speaker, be sent to the Abbaye." Couhey, indeed, was sent to the Abbaye for applauding a Federalist speech.—Cf. on these three months.—Mortimer-Ternaux, vol. VIII.]

[Footnote 11104: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 175.—Dauban: "La Demagogie a Paris en 1793," 436 (Narrative by Dulaure, an eye-witness).]

[Footnote 11105: There were really only twenty-two brought before the revolutionary tribunal.]

[Footnote 11106: Dauban, XXVI., p. 440. (Narrative of Blanqui, one of the seventy-three.)]

[Footnote 11107: Buchez et Roux. XXIX., 178, 179. Osselin: "I demand the decree of accusation against them all."—Amar: "The apparently negative conduct of the minority of the Convention since the 2nd of June, was a new plot devised by Barbaroux." Robespierre: "If there are other criminals among those you have placed under arrest the Committee of General Security will present to you the nomenclature of them and you will always be at liberty to strike."]

[Footnote 11108: Ibid., XXIX., 432, 437, 447.—Report by Amar. (this report served as the bill of indictment against them, "cowardly satellites of royal despotism, vile agents of foreign tyrants."—Wallon, II., 407, 409. (Letter of Fouquier-Tinville to the convention). "After the special debates, will not each of the accused demand a general prosecution? The trial, accordingly, will be interminable. Besides, one may ask why should there be witnesses? The convention, all France, accuses those on trial. The evidence of their crimes is plain; everybody is convinced of their guilt.... It is the Convention which must remove all formalities that interfere with the course pursued by the tribunal."—Moniteur, XVII., (Session of October 28), 291. The decree provoked by a petition of Jacobins, is passed on motion of Osselin, aggravated by Robespierre.]

[Footnote 11109: Louvet, "Memoires," 321. (List of the Girondists who perished or who were proscribed. Twenty-four fugitives survived.)]

[Footnote 11110: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 395, 416, 435. The terror and disgust of the majority is seen in the small number of voters. Their abstention from voting is the more significant in relation to the election of the dictators. The members of the Committee of Public Safety, elected on the 16th of July, obtain from one hundred to one hundred and ninety-two votes. The members of the Committee of Security obtain from twenty-two to one hundred and thirteen votes. The members of the same committee, renewed on the 11th of September, obtain from fifty-two to one hundred and eight votes. The judges of the revolutionary tribunal, completed on the 3rd of August, obtain from forty-seven to sixty-five votes.—Meillan, 85. (In relation to the institution of the revolutionary government, on motion of Bazire, Aug. 28). "Sixty or eighty deputies passed this decree... it was preceded by another passed by a plurality of thirty against ten. .. For two months the session the best attended, contains but one hundred deputies. The Montagnards overran the departments to deceive or intimidate the people. The rest, discouraged, keep away from the meetings or take no part in the proceedings."]

[Footnote 11111: The meaning and motives of this declaration are clearly indicated in Bazire's speech. "Since the adoption of the Constitution," he says, "Feuillantism has raised its head; a struggle has arisen between energetic and moderate patriots. At the end of the Constituent Assembly, the Feuillants possessed themselves of the words law, order, public, peace, security, to enchain the zeal of the friends of freedom; the same manoeuvres are practiced to-day. You must shatter the weapon in your enemies' hands, which they use against you."—Durand-Maillane, 154. "The simple execution of constitutional laws," said Bazire, "made for peaceable times, would be impotent among the conspiracies that surround you."—Meillan, 108.]

[Footnote 11112: Moniteur, XVIII, 106. (Report of Saint-Just on the organization of the revolutionary government, October 10th, and the decree in conformity therewith.) Ibid., 473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes on a mode of provisional and revolutionary government, Nov. 18th, and decree in conformity therewith.)—Ib., 479 (session of Nov. 22nd, 1793,.—Speech of Hebrard, spokesman of a deputation from Cantal). "A central committee of surveillance, a revolutionary army, has been established in our department. Aristocrats, suspects, the doubtful, moderates, egoists, all gentlemen without distinguishing those who have done nothing for the revolution from those who have acted against it, await in retirement the ulterior measures required by the interests of the Republic. I have said without distinction of the indifferent from the suspects; for we hold to these words of Solon's: 'He who is not with us is against us.'"]

[Footnote 11113: The trousers used in pre-Revolutionary France by the nobility was called culottes, they terminated just below the knee where the long cotton or silken stockings would begin. The less affluent used long trousers and no socks and became known as the Sans-culottes which became, as mentioned in vol. II. a nickname for the revolutionary proletariat. (SR.)]

[Footnote 11114: Moniteur, (Speech by Danton, March 26, 1794.) "In creating revolutionary committees the desire was to establish a species of dictatorship of citizens the most devoted to liberty over those who rendered themselves suspects."]

[Footnote 11115: Mallet-Dupan, II., 8. (February, 1794). "At this moment the entire people is disarmed. Not a gun can be found either in town or country. If anything attests the super-natural power which the leaders of the Convention enjoy, it is to see, in one instant, through one act of the will and nobody offering any resistance, or complaining of it, the nation from Perpignan to Lille, deprived of every means of defense against oppression, with a facility still more unprecedented than that which attended the universal arming of the nation in 1789."—"A Residence in France," II., 409. "The National Guard as a regular institution was in great part suppressed after the summer of 1793, those who composed it being gradually disarmed. Guard-mounting was continued, but the citizens performing this service were, with very few exceptions, armed with pikes, and these again were not fully entrusted to them; each man, on quitting his post, gave up his arms more punctually than if he had been bound to do so through capitulation with a victorious enemy."]

[Footnote 11116: Moniteur, XVIII., 106. (Report by Saint-Just, Oct. 10th).]

[Footnote 11117: Ibid., 473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes, Nov. 13th).]

[Footnote 11118: Ibid., XVIII., 591. (Speech by Couthon, December 4th). Ibid., Barere: "Electoral assemblies are monarchical institutions, they attach to royalism, they must be specially avoided in revolutionary times."]

[Footnote 11119: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 40. (Decree passed on the proposition of Danton, session of September 13th). The motive alleged by Danton is that "members are still found on the committees whose opinions, at least, approach federalism." Consequently the committees are purified, and particularly the Committee of General Security. Six of its members are stricken off (Sept. 14), and the list sent in by the Committee of Public safety passes without discussion.]

[Footnote 11120: Moniteur, XVIII., 592. (Session of December 4, speech by Robespierre).]

[Footnote 11121: Miot de Melito, "Memoires," I., 47.]

[Footnote 11122: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 153. Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 443. (Decree of September 28th).—Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionaire de Paris," IV., 112.]

[Footnote 11123: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 300. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville and associates). Bill of indictment: "One of these publicly boasted of always having voted death. Others state that they were content to see people to give their judgment; physical inspection alone determined them to vote death. Another said, that when there was no offense committed it was necessary to imagine one. Another is a regular sot and has never sat in judgment but in a state of intoxication. Others came to the bench only to fire their volleys." Etc. (Supporting evidence.)—"Observe, moreover, that judges and juries are bound to kill under penalty of death (Ibid.,30)." Fouquier-Tinville states that on the 22nd of Prairial he took the same step (to resign) with Chatelet, Brochet and Lerry, when they met Robespierre, returning to the National Convention arm-in-arm with Barere. Fouquier adds, that they were treated as aristocrats and anti-revolutionaries, and threatened with death if they refused to remain on their posts." Analogous declarations by Pigeot, Ganne, Girard, Dupley, Foucault, Nollin and Madre. "Sellier adds, that the tribunal having remonstrated against the law of Prairial 22, he was threatened with arrest by Dumas. Had we resigned, he says, Dumas would have guillotined us.]

[Footnote 11124: Moniteur, XXIV., 12. (Session of Ventose 29, year III., speech by Baileul). "Terror subdued all minds, suppressed all emotions; it was the force of the government, while such was this government that the numerous inhabitants of a vast territory seemed to have lost the qualities which distinguish man from a domestic animal. They seemed even to have no life except what the government accorded to them. Human personality no longer existed; each individual was simply a machine, going, coming, thinking or not thinking as he was impelled or stimulated by tyranny."]

[Footnote 11125: Decree of Frimaire 14, year II., Dec. 4, 1793.]

[Footnote 11126: Moniteur, XVII., 473, 474, 478. (Speech by Billaud-Varennes). "The sword of Damocles must henceforth be brandished over the entire surface." This expression of Billaud sums up the spirit of every new institution.]

[Footnote 11127: Moniteur, XVIII., 275. (Session of Oct. 26. 1793, speech by Barere.) "This is the most revolutionary step you can take." (Applause.)]

[Footnote 11128: Ibid., 520. (Report of Barere and decree in conformity). "The representatives sent on mission are required to conform strictly to the acts of the Committee of Public Safety. Generals and other agents of the executive power will, under no pretext, obey any special order, that they may refuse to carry out the said acts."—Moniteur, XVIII., 291. (Report by Barere, Oct. 29, 1793.) At this date one hundred and forty representatives are on mission.]

[Footnote 11129: Archives Nationales, AF. II., 22. (Papers of the 'Committee of Public Safety. Note on the results of the revolutionary government without either date or signature.) "The law of Frimaire 14 created two centers of influence from which action spread, in the sense of the Committee, and which affected the authorities. These two pivots of revolutionary rule outside the Committee were the representatives of the people on missions and the national agents controlling the district committees. The word revolutionary government alone exercised an incalculable magical influence."—Mallet-Dupan, "Memoires," II., p. 2, and following pages.]



BOOK SECOND. THE JACOBIN PROGRAM.



CHAPTER I. THE JACOBIN PARTY



I. The Doctrine.

Program of the Jacobin party.—Abstract principle and spontaneous development of the theory.

Nothing is more dangerous than a general idea in narrow and empty minds: as they are empty, it finds no knowledge there to interfere with it; as they are narrow it is not long before it occupies the place entirely. Henceforth they no longer belong to themselves but are mastered by it; it works in them and through them, the man, in the true sense of the word, being possessed. Something which is not himself, a monstrous parasite, a foreign and disproportionate conception, lives within him, developing and giving birth to the evil purposes with which it is pregnant. He did not foresee that he would have them; he did not know what his dogma contained, what venomous and murderous consequences were to issue from it. They issue from it fatally, each in its turn, and under the pressure of circumstances, at first anarchical consequences and now despotic consequences. Having obtained power, the Jacobin brings his fixed idea along with him; whether at the head of the government or in opposition to it, this idea is fruitful, and the all-powerful dogma projects over a new domain the innumerable links of its endless chain.



II. A Communist State.

The Jacobin concept of Society.—The Contrat-Social.—Total surrender of the Individual to the Community.—Everything belongs to the State.—Confiscations and Sequestrations. —Pre-emption and requisition and requisition of produce and merchandise.—Individuals belong to the State.—Drafts of persons for Military service.—Drafts of persons for the Civil service.—The State philanthropist, educator, theologian, moralist, censor and director of ideas and intimate feelings.

Let us trace this inward development and go back, along with the Jacobin, to first principles, to the original pact, to the first organization of society. There is but one just and sound society, the one founded on the "contrat-social," and

"the clauses of this contract, fully understood, reduce themselves to one, the total transfer of each individual, with all his rights, to the community,.... each surrendering himself up absolutely, just as he actually stands, he and all his forces, of which the property he possesses forms a part."[2101]

There must be no exception or reservation. Nothing of what he previously was, or had, now belongs to him in his own right; henceforth, what he is, or has, devolves upon him only through delegation. His property and his person now form a portion of the commonwealth. If he is in possession of these, his ownership is at second hand; if he derives any benefit there from, it is as a concession. He is their depository, trustee and administrator, and nothing more.[2102] In other words, with respect to these he is simply a managing director, that is to say a functionary like others, with a precarious appointment and always revocable by the State which has appointed him.

"As nature gives to every man absolute power over the members of his body the social pact gives the social body absolute power over all its members."

The State, as omnipotent sovereign and universal proprietor, exercises at discretion, its boundless rights over persons and things; consequently we, its representatives, take all things and persons into our hands; as they belong to it, so do they belong to us.

We have confiscated the possessions of the clergy, amounting to about four billion livres; we confiscate the property of the emigres, amounting to three billion livres;[2103] we confiscate the property of the guillotined and deported: all this amounts to some hundreds of millions; later on, the count will be made, because the list remains open and is being daily added to. We will sequestrate the property of "suspects," which gives us the right to use it: here are many hundred millions more; after the war and the banishment of "suspects," we shall seize the property along with its income: here, again, are billions of capital.[2104] Meanwhile we take the property of hospitals and of other benevolent institutions, about eight hundred million livres; we take the property of factories, of endowments, of educational institutions, and of literary and scientific associations: another lot of millions.[2105] We take back the domains rented or surrendered by the State for the past three centuries and more, which gives again about a couple of billions.[2106] We take the possessions of the communes up to the amount of their indebtedness. We have already received as inheritance the ancient domains of the crown, also the later domain of the civil list. More than three-fifths[2107] of the soil thus falls into our hands, which three-fifths are much the best stocked; they comprise almost all the large and fine edifices, chateaux, abbeys, mansions, houses of superintendents and nearly all the royal, episcopal, seigniorial and bourgeois stock of rich and elegant furniture; all plate, libraries, pictures and artistic objects accumulated for centuries.—Remark, again, the seizure of specie and all other articles of gold and silver; in the months alone of November and December, 1793, this swoop puts into our coffers three or four hundred millions,[2108] not assignats, but ringing coin. In short, whatever the form of established capital may be we take all we can get hold of, probably more than three-fourths of it.—There remains the portion which is not fixed capital, that which disappears in use, namely, all that is consumed, all the fruits of the soil, every description of provision, all the products of human art and labor which contribute the maintenance of existence. Through "the right of pre-emption" and through the right of "requisition," "the Republic becomes temporary proprietor of whatever commerce, manufacture and agriculture have produced and added to the soil of France: "all food and merchandise is ours before being owned by their holder. We carry out of his house whatever suits us; we pay him for this with worthless paper; we frequently do not pay him at all. For greater convenience, we seize objects directly and wherever we find them, grain in the farmer's barn, hay in the reaper's shed, cattle in the fold, wine in the vats, hides at the butcher's, leather in the tanneries, soap, tallow, sugar, brandy, cloths, linens and the rest, in stores, depots and ware-houses. We stop vehicles and the horses in the street. We enter the premises of mail or coach contractors and empty their stables. We carry away kitchen utensils to obtain the copper; we turn people out of their rooms to get their beds; we strip them of their coats and shirts; in one day, we make ten thousand individuals in one town go barefoot.[2109]

"When public needs require it," says representative Isore, "all belongs to the people and nothing to individuals."

By virtue of the same right we dispose of persons as we do of things. We decree the levy en masse and, stranger still, we carry it out, at least in many parts of the country, and we keep it up for months: in Vendee, and in the northern and eastern departments, it is the entire male, able-bodied population, up to fifty years of age, which we drive in herds against the enemy.[2110] We afterwards sign an entire generation on, all young men between eighteen and twenty-five, almost a million of men:[2111] whoever fails to appear is put in irons for ten years; he is regarded as a deserter; his property is confiscated, and his family is punished as well; later he is classed with the emigrants, condemned to death, and his father, mother and progenitors, treated as "suspects," imprisoned and their possessions taken.—To clothe, shoe and equip our recruits, we must have workmen; we summon to head-quarters all gunsmiths, blacksmiths and locksmiths, all the tailors and shoemakers of the district, "foremen, apprentices and boys;"[2112] we imprison those who do not come; we install the rest in squads in public buildings and assign them their tasks; they are forbidden to furnish anything to private individuals. Henceforth, French shoemakers must work only for us, and each must deliver to us, under penalty, so many pairs of shoes per decade.[2113]—But, the civil service is no less important than the military service, and to feed the people is as urgent as it is to defend them. Hence we put "in requisition all who have anything to do with handling, transporting or selling provisions and articles of prime necessity,"[2114] especially combustibles and food—wood-choppers, carters, raftsmen, millers, reapers, threshers, wine-growers, movers, field-hands, "country people" of every kind and degree. Their hands belong to us: we make them bestir themselves and work under the penalty of fine and imprisonment. There shall be no idlers, especially in crop time: we take the entire population of a commune or canton into the fields, comprising "the lazy of both sexes;"[2115] willingly or not, they shall do the harvesting under our eyes, banded together in fields belonging to others as well as in their own, and they shall put the sheaves indiscriminately into the public granary.

But in labor all hangs together, from the initial undertaking to the final result, from the raw material to the most finished production, from the great manufacturer down to the pettiest jobber; grasping the first link of the chain involves grasping the last one. The requisition here again answers the purpose: we apply it to all pursuits; each is bound to continue his own; the manufacturer to manufacture, the trader to trade, even to his own detriment, because, if he works at a loss, the public profits, and every good citizen ought to prefer public profit to his own profit.[2116] In effect, let his office be what it will, he is an employee of the community; therefore, the community may not only prescribe task-work to him, but select his task; it need not consult him in the matter, for he has no right to refuse. Hence it is that we appoint or maintain people in spite of themselves, in the magistracy, in the army and in every other species of employment. In vain may they excuse themselves or try get out of the way; they must remain or become generals, judges, mayors, national agents, town councilors, commissioners of public welfare or administration,[2117] even against their will. Too bad for them if the responsibility is expensive or dangerous, if they have no time for leisure, if they do not feel themselves qualified for it, if the rank or services seems to them to lead to a prison or the guillotine; when they declare that the work is forced labor we reply that they liable to work for the State.—Such is, henceforth, the condition of all Frenchmen, and likewise of all French women. We force mothers to take their daughters to the meetings of popular clubs. We oblige women to parade in companies, and march in procession at republican festivals; we invade the family and select the most beautiful to be draped as antique goddesses, and publicly promenaded on a chariot; we sometimes even designate those among the rich who must wed patriots[2118]: there is no reason why marriage, which is the most important of all services, should not be put in requisition like the others.—Accordingly, we enter families, we carry of the child, we subject him to a civic education. We are schoolmasters, philanthropists, theologians, and moralists. We impose by force our religion and our ritual, our morality and our social customs. We lord it over private lives and consciences; we dictate ideas, we scrutinize and punish secret inclinations, we tax, imprison and guillotine not only the evil-disposed, but again "the indifferent, the moderate and the egoists."[2119] Over and above his visible acts we dictate to the individual his ideas and his deepest feelings; we prescribe to him his affections as well as his beliefs, and, according to a preconceived type, we refashion his intellect, his conscience and his sensibilities.



III. The object of the State is the regeneration of man.

The object of the State is the regeneration of man.—Two sides to this undertaking.—Restoration of the Natural man. —Formation of the Social man.—Grandeur of the undertaking. —To carry it out, the use of force is a right and a duty.

There is nothing arbitrary in this operation; for the ideal model is traced beforehand. If the State is omnipotent, it is for the purpose of "regenerating Mankind," and the theory which confers its rights, at the same time assigns to it its object. In what does this regeneration of Man consist?—Consider a domestic animal such as a dog or a horse. Scrawny, battered, tied up or chained, a thousand are strained and overworked compared to the few basking in idleness, dying from rich living; and with all of them, whether fat or lean, the soul is more spoiled than the body. A superstitious respect keeps them cowed under their burden, or makes them cringe before their master. Servile, slothful, gluttonous, feeble, incapable of resisting adversity, if they have acquired the miserable skills of slavery, they have also contracted its needs, weaknesses and vices. A crust of absurd habits and perverse inclinations, a sort of artificial and supplementary being, has covered over their original nature.—And, on the other hand, the better side of their original nature has had no chance to develop itself, for lack of use. Separated from the other, these two parts of its nature have not acquired the sentiment of community; they do not know, like their brethren of the prairies, how to help each other and subordinate private interests to the interests of the flock. Each pulls his own way, nobody cares for others, all are egoists; social interests have miscarried.—Such is Man nowadays, a disfigured slave that has to be restored. Our task, accordingly is two-fold: we have to demolish and we have to construct; we must first set free the natural Man that we may afterwards build up the social Man.

It is a vast enterprise and we are conscious of its vastness.

"It is necessary," says Billaud-Varennes,[2120] "that the people to which one desires to restore their freedom should in some way be created anew, since old prejudices must be destroyed, old habits changed, depraved affections improved, superfluous wants restricted, and inveterate vices extirpated."

But the task is sublime, as the aim is "to fulfill the desires of nature,[2121] accomplish the destinies of humanity, and fulfill the promises of philosophy".—"Our purpose," says Robespierre,[2122] "is to substitute morality for egoism, honesty for honor, principles for custom, duties for etiquette, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for indifference to misfortune, pride for arrogance, a noble mind for vanity, love of glory for the love of profit, good people for high society, merit for intrigue, genius for intellectual brilliancy, the charm of contentment for the boredom of voluptuous pleasure, the majesty of Man for the high-breeding of the great, a magnanimous, powerful and happy people for an amiable, frivolous and wretched people, that is to say, every virtue and miracle of the Republic in the place of the vices and absurdities of the monarchy."

We will do this, the whole of it, whatever the cost. Little do we care for the present generation: we are working for generations to come.

"Man, forced to isolate himself from society, anchors himself in the future and presses to his heart a posterity innocent of existing evils."[2123]

He sacrifices to this work his own and the lives of others.

"On the day that I am persuaded," writes Saint-Just, "that it is impossible to render the French people kind, energetic, tender and relentless against tyranny and injustice, I will stab myself."

—"What I have done in the South I will do in the North," says Baudot; "I will convert them into patriots; either they or I must die."—

"We will make France a cemetery," says Carrier, "rather than not regenerate it our own way."

In vain may the ignorant or the vicious protest; they protest because they are ignorant or vicious. In vain may the individual plead his personal rights; he has none: through the social contract, which is obligatory and solely valid, he has surrendered his entire being; having made no reservation, "he has nothing to claim." Undoubtedly, some will grumble, because, with them, the old wrinkle remains and artificial habits still cover over the original instinct. Untie the mill-horse, and he will still go round in the same track; let the mountebank's dog be turned loose, and he will still raise himself on his hind-legs; if we would bring them back to their natural gait we must handle them roughly. In like manner, to restore Man to his normal attitude, you must handle him roughly. But, in this respect, have no scruples,[2124] for we do not bow him down, we raise him up; as Rousseau says, "we compel him to be free;" we confer on him the greatest boon a human being can receive; we bring him back to nature and to justice. For this reason, now that he is warned, if he persists in his resistance, he is a criminal and merits every kind of chastisements[2125], for, he declares himself a rebel and a perjurer, inimical to humanity, and a traitor to the social compact.



IV. Two distortions of the natural man.

Two distortions of the natural man.—Positive religion. —Proscription of the orthodox cult.—Measures against unsworn priests.—Measures against the loyal orthodox.—Destruction of the constitutional cult.—Pressure on the sworn priests. —Churches closed and ceremonies suppressed.—Continuation of these persecutions until the Consulate.

Let us (Taine lets the Jacobin say) begin by figuring to ourselves the natural man; certainly we of to-day have some difficulty in recognizing him; he bears but little resemblance to the artificial being who (in 1789) stands in his shoes, the creature which an antiquated system of constraint and fraud has deformed, held fast in his hereditary harness of thralldom and superstition, blinded by his religion and held in check by prestige, exploited by his government and tamed by dint of blows, always with a halter on, always put to work in the wrong way and against nature, whatever stall he may occupy, high or low, however full or empty his crib may be, now in menial service like the blinded hack-horse turning the mill-wheel, and now on parade like a trained dog which, decked with flags, shows off its antics before the public.[2126] But imagine all these out of the way, the flags and the bands, the fetters and compartments in the social stable, and you will see a new man appearing, the original man, intact and healthy in mind, soul and body.—In this condition, he is free of prejudice, he is not ensnared in a net of lies, he is neither Jew, Protestant nor Catholic; if he tries to imagine the universe as a whole and the principle of events, he will not let himself be duped by a pretended revelation; he will listen only to his own reason; he may chance, now and then, to become an atheist, but, generally, he will settle down into a deist.—In this condition of things he is not fettered by a hierarchy; he is neither noble nor commoner, land-owner nor tenant, inferior nor superior. Independent of the others, all are equal, and, if all agree in the forming of an association, their common-sense will stipulate that its first article shall secure the maintenance of this primordial equality.—Such is man, as nature made him, as history has unmade him, and as the Revolution is to re-make him.[2127] One cannot batter away too vigorously against the two casings that hold him tight, one the positive religion which narrows and perverts his intellect, and the other the social inequality which perverts and weakens his will;[2128] for, at every effort, some band is loosened, and, as each band gives way, the paralyzed limbs recover their action.

Let us trace, (say the Jacobins), the progress of this liberating operation.—Always timid and at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical organization, the Constituent Assembly could take only half-measures; it cut into the bark without daring to drive the ax into the solid trunk. Its work reduced itself down to the confiscation of clerical property, to a dissolution of the religious orders, and to a check upon the authority of the pope; its object was to establish a new church and transform priests into sworn functionaries of the State, and this was all. As if Catholicism, even administrative, would cease to be Catholicism! As if the noxious tree, once stamped with the public seal, would cease to be noxious! Instead of the old laboratory of falsehoods being destroyed another one is officially established alongside of it, so that there are now two instead of one. With or without the official label it operates in every commune in France and, as in the past, it distributes with impunity its drug to the public. This is precisely what we, (the Jacobins) cannot tolerate.—We must, indeed, keep up appearances, and, as far as words go, we will decree anew freedom of worship.[2129] But, in fact and in practice, we will demolish the laboratory and prevent the drug from being sold; there shall no longer be any Catholic worship in France, no baptism, no confession, no marriage, no extreme unction, no mass; nobody shall preach or listen to a sermon; nobody shall administer or receive a sacrament, save in secret, and with the prospect before him of imprisonment or the scaffold.—With this object in mind, we do one thing at a time. There is no problem with the Church claiming to be be orthodox: its members having refused to take the oath are outlaws; one excludes oneself from an association when one repudiates the pact; they have lost their qualifications as citizens and have become ordinary foreigners under the surveillance of the police; and, as they propagate around them discontent and disobedience, they are not only foreigners but seditious persons, enemies in disguise, the authors of a secret and widespread Vendee; it is not necessary for us to prosecute them as charlatans, it is sufficient to strike them down as rebels. As such, we have already banished from France all unsworn ecclesiastics, about forty thousand priests, and we are deporting those who did not cross the frontier within the allotted time: we allow only sexagenarians and the infirm to remain on French soil, and, again, as prisoners and in seclusion; they incur the penalty of death if they do not of their own accord report to the prisons of their country town; the banished who return home incur the penalty of death, and there is penalty of death against those who shelter priests.[2130] Consequently, in default of an orthodox clergy, there must no longer be an orthodox worship; the most dangerous of the two manufactories of superstition is shut down. That the sale of this poisonous food may be more surely stopped we punish those who ask for it the same as those who provide it, and we prosecute not only the pastors, but, again, the fanatics of the flock; if these are not the authors of the ecclesiastical rebellion they are its promoters and accomplices. Now, thanks to the schism among them, we already know who they are, and, in each commune, the list is made out. We style as fanatics all who reject the ministry of the sworn priests, the bourgeois who calls him an interloper, all the nuns who do not confess to him, all the peasants who stay away from his mass, all the old women who do not kiss his paten, and all the relations of an infant who do not wish him to baptize it. All these people and those who associate with them, whether allied, close relatives, friends, guests or visitors, of whatever class, either men or women, are seditious at heart, and, therefore, "suspects." We deprive them of their electoral rights, we withdraw their pensions, we impose on them special taxation, we confine them to their dwellings, we imprison them by thousands, and guillotine them by hundreds; the rest will gradually become discouraged and abandon an impracticable cult.[2131]—The lukewarm remain, the sheep-like crowd which holds on to its rites: the Constituent Assembly will seize them wherever it finds them, and, as they are the same in the authorized as in the refractory church, instead of seeking them with the priest who does not submit, it will seek them with the one who does. But it will proceed without zeal, without confidence, often even with distrust, questioning itself whether these rites, being administered by one who is excommunicated, are not of doubtful quality. Such a church is not sound, and we have only to give it a push to knock it down. We will do all we can to discredit constitutional priests: we will prohibit them from wearing the ecclesiastical costume, and force them by law to bestow the nuptial benediction on their apostate brethren; we will employ terror and imprisonment to constrain them to marry; we will given them no respite until they return to civil life, some admitting themselves to be impostors, many by surrendering their priestly credentials, and most of them by resigning their places.[2132] Deprived of leaders by these voluntary or forced desertions, the Catholic flock will allow itself to be easily led out of the fold, while, to remove all temptation to go back, we will tear the enclosure down. In the communes in which we are masters we will make the Jacobins of the place demand the abolition of worship, while, in other communes, we will get rid of this authoritatively through our missionary representatives. We will close the churches, demolish the steeples, melt down the bells, send all sacred vessels to the Mint, smash the images of the saints, desecrate relics, prohibit religious burials, impose the civil burial, prescribe rest during the decadi[2133] and labor on Sundays. No exception whatever. Since all positive religions deal in error, we will outlaw them all: we will exact from Protestant clergymen a public abjuration; we will not let the Jews practice their ceremonies; we will have "an 'auto-da-fe,' of all the books and symbols of the faith of Moses."[2134] But, of all these various juggling machines, the worst is the Catholic, the most hostile to nature due to the celibacy of its priesthood, the most opposed to reason in the absurdity of its dogmas, the most opposed to democracy, since its powers are delegated from above downwards, the best protected from civil authority because its head is outside of France.[2135] Accordingly, we must be most furious against it; even after Thermidor,[2136] we will keep up constant persecution, great and small; up to the Consulate, we will deport and shoot the priests, we will revive against fanatics the laws of the Reign of Terror, we will hamper their movements, we will exhaust their patience; we will keep them anxious during the day and restless at night; we will not give them a moment's repose.[2137] We will restrict the population to the decadal cult only; we will change the market-days, so that no believer shall be able to buy fish on a fast-day.[2138]—We have nothing more at heart than this war against Catholicism; no article on our program will be carried out with more determination and perseverance. The question involved is truth. We are its guardians, its champions, its ministers, and never did the servants of truth apply force with such minute detail and such effect to the extirpation of error.



V. Equality and Inequality.

Social inequality.—Malice of the aristocratic race. —Measures against the King and Nobles.—Malice of the aristocracy of wealth.—Measures against landowners, capitalists and people with incomes.—Destruction of large fortunes.—Measures taken to prevent the large fortunes in reconstituting themselves.

Next to superstition there is another monster to be destroyed, and, also here it was the Constituent Assembly that had begun the assault. But it had also, through lack of courage or of logic, it stopped, after two or three feeble blows:

* Banning of heraldic insignia, titles of nobility and territorial names;

* abolition, without indemnity, of all the dues belonging to the seigneur by right of his former proprietorship over persons;

* abolition of the permission to purchase other feudal rights at a price agreed upon,

* limitation of royal power. This was little enough. When it concerns usurpers and tyrants they must be treated in another fashion; for their privilege is, of itself, an outrage on the rights of man. Consequently,