The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3

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Marat, Hébert, and Henriot, the maniac, the thief and the brute. Were
it not for the dagger of Charlotte Corday,[181] it is probable that
this trio, master of the press and of the armed force, aided by
Jacques Roux, Leclerc, Vincent, Ronsin, and other madmen of the slums,
would have put aside Danton, suppressed Robespierre, and governed
France. Such are the counselors, the favorites, and the leaders of
the ruling revolutionary class; did one not know what was to occur
during the next fourteen months, one might form an idea of its
government from the quality of these men.

And yet, such as this government is, France accepts or submits to it.
In fact, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, Nîmes, Bordeaux, Caen, and other
cities, feeling the knife at their throats,[182] turn aside the stroke
with a movement of horror. They rise against their local Jacobins; but
it is nothing more than an instinctive movement. They do not think of
forming States within the State, as the "Mountain" pretends that they
do, nor of usurping the central authority, as the "Mountain" actually
does. Lyons cries, "Long live the Republic, one and indivisible,"
receives with honor the commissioners of the Convention, permits
convoys of arms and horses destined for the army of the Alps to pass.
To excite a revolt there, requires the insane demands of Parisian
despotism just as it requires the brutal persistence of religious
persecution to render the province of la Vendée insurgent. Without the
prolonged oppression that weighs down consciences, and the danger to
life always imminent, no city or province would have attempted
secession. Even under this government of inquisitors and butchers no
community, save those of Lyons and La Vendée, makes any sustained
effort to break up the State, withdraw from it and live by itself. The
national sheaf has been too strongly bound together by secular
centralization. One's country exists; and when that country is in
danger, when the armed stranger attacks the frontier, one follows the
flag-bearer, whoever he may be, whether usurper, adventurer,
blackguard, or cut-throat, provided only that he marches in the van
and holds the banner with a firm hand.[183] To tear that flag from
him, to contest his pretended right, to expel him and replace him by
another, would be a complete destruction of the common weal. Brave men
sacrifice their own repugnance for the sake of the common good; in
order to serve France, they serve her unworthy government. In the
committee of war, the engineering and staff officers who give their
days to the study of military maps, think of nothing else than of
knowing it thoroughly; one of them, d'Arcon, "managed the raising of
the siege of Dunkirk, and of the blockade of Maubeuge;[184] nobody
excels him in penetration, in practical knowledge, in quick perception
and in imagination; it is a spirit of flame, a brain compact of
resources. I speak of him, says Mallet du Pan, "from an intimate
acquaintance of ten years. He is no more a revolutionnaire than I am."
Carnot[185] does even more than this: he gives up his honor when, with
his colleagues on the Committee of Public Safety, Billaud-Varennes,
Couthon, Saint-Just, Robespierre, he puts his name to decrees which
are assassinations. A similar devotion brings recruits into the armies
by hundreds of thousands, bourgeois[186] and peasants, from the
volunteers of 1791 to the levies of 1793; and the latter class fight
not only for France, but also, and more than all, for the Revolution.
For, now that the sword is drawn, the mutual and growing exasperation
leaves only the extreme parties in the field. Since the 10th of
August, and more especially since the 21st of January, it has no
longer been a question how to deal with the ancient regime, of cutting
away its dead portions or its troublesome thorns, of accommodating it
to modern requirements, of establishing civil equality, a limited
monarchy, a parliamentary government. The question is how to escape
conquest by armed force to avert the military executions of
Brunswick,[187] the vengeance of the proscribed émigrés, the
restoration and the aggravation of the old feudal and fiscal order of
things. Both through their traditions and their experience, the mass
of the country people hate this ancient order, and with all the
accumulated hatred which an unceasing and secular spoliation has
caused. Irrespective of costs, the rural masses will never again
suffer the tax-collector among them, nor the excise man in the cellar,
nor the fiscal agent on the frontier. For them the ancient regime is
nothing more than these things; and, in fact, they have paid no taxes,
or scarcely any, since the beginning of the Revolution. On this matter
the people's idea is fixed, positive, unalterable; and as soon as they
perceive in the distant future the possible re-establishment of the
taille, the tithe, and the seignorial rights, they choose their side;
they will fight to the death. -- As to the artisans and lesser
bourgeois, their spur is the magnificent prospect of careers, to which
the doors are thrown open, of unbounded advancement, of promotion
offered to merit; more than all, their illusions are still intact.

Camped out there, facing the enemy, those noble ideals, which in the
hands of the Parisian demagogues had turned into sanguinary harlots,
remain pure and virginal in the minds of the soldiers and their
officers. Liberty, equality, the rights of man, the reign of reason --
all these vague and sublime images moved before their eyes when they
climbed the escarpment of Jemmapes under a storm of grapeshot, or when
they wintered, with naked feet, among the snows of the Vosges. These
ideas, in descending from heaven to earth, were not dishonored and
distorted under their feet, they did not see them transformed in their
hands to frightful caricatures. These men are not pillars of clubs,
nor brawlers in the sections, nor the inquisitors of a committee, nor
hired informers, nor providers for the scaffold. Apart from the
sabbath revolutionaire, brought back to earth by their danger, and
having understood the inequality of talents and the need for
discipline, they do the work of men; they suffer, they fast, they face
bullets, they are conscious of their generosity and their sacrifices;
they are heroes, and they look upon themselves as liberators.[188]
They are proud of this. According to an astute observer[189] who knew
their survivors,

"many of them believed that the French alone were reasonable beings.
. . In our eyes the people in the rest of Europe, who were fighting to
keep their chains, were only pitiable imbeciles or knaves sold to the
despots who were attacking us. Pitt and Cobourg seemed to us the
chiefs of these knaves and the personification of all the treachery
and stupidity in the world. . . In 1794 our inmost, serious sentiment
was wholly contained in this idea: to be useful to our country; all
other things, our clothes, our food, advancement, were poor ephemeral
details. As society did not exist, there was no such thing for us as
social success, that leading element in the character of our nation.
Our only gatherings were national festivals, moving ceremonies which
nourished in us the love of our country. In the streets our eyes
filled with tears when we saw an inscription in honor of the young
drummer, Barra. . . This sentiment was the only religion we
had."[190]

But it was a religion. When the heart of a nation is so high it will
deliver itself, in spite of its rulers, whatever their excesses may
be, whatever their crimes; for the nation atones for their follies by
its courage; it hides their crimes beneath its great achievements.

_______________________________________________________________________

Notes:

[1] "Archives Nationales," AF II, 45, May 6, 1793 (in English).

[2] Moore, II. 185 (October 20). "It is evident that all the
departments of France are in theory allowed to have an equal share in
the government; yet in fact the single department of Paris has the
whole power of the government." Through the pressure of the mob Paris
makes the law for the Convention and for all France. - Ibid., II. 534
(during the king's trial). "All the departments of France, including
that of Paris, are in reality often obliged to submit to the clamorous
tyranny of a set of hired ruffians in the tribunes who usurp the name
and functions of the sovereign people, and, secretly direct by a few
demagogues, govern this unhappy nation." Cf. Ibid., II. (Nov. 13).

[3] Schmidt, I. 96. Letter of Lauchou to the president of the
Convention, Oct. 11, 1792: "The section of 1792 on its own authority
decreed on the 5th of this month that all persons in a menial service
could be allowed to vote in our primary assemblies . . . It would be
well for the National Convention to convince the inhabitants of Paris
that they alone do not constitute the entire republic. However absurd
this idea may be, it is gaining ground every day." - Ibid., Letter of
Damour, vice-president of the Pantheon section, Oct. 29: "The citizen
Paris . . . has said that when the law is in conflict with general
opinion no attention must be paid to it. . . These disturbers of the
public peace who desire to monopolize all places, either in the
municipality or elsewhere, are themselves the cause of the greatest
tumult."

[4] Schmidt, I. 223 (report by Dutard, May 14).

[5] Mortimer-Ternaux, VI. 117; VII. 59 (balloting of Dec. 2 and 4). In
most of these and the following elections the number of voters is but
one-twentieth of those registered. Chaumette is elected in his section
by 53 votes; Hébert by 56; Gency, a master-cooper, by 34; Lechenard, a
tailor, by 39; Douce, a building-hand, by 24. -- Pache is elected
mayor Feb. 15, 1793, by 11,881 votes, out of 160,000 registered.

[6] Buchez et Roux, XVII. 101. (Decree of Aug. 19, 1792). - Mortimer-
Ternaux, IV. 223. - Beaulieu, "Essais," III. 454. "The National Guard
ceased to exist after the 10th of August." -- Buzot, 454. -- Schmidt,
I. 533 (Dutard, May 29). "It is certain that the armed forces of Paris
is nonexistent."

[7] Beaulieu, Ibid., IV. 6. -- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3249
(Oise). -- Letters of the Oise administrators, Aug. 24, Sept. 12 and
20, 1792. Letters of the administrators of the district of Clermont,
Sept. 14, etc.

[8] Cf. above, ch. IX.-"Archives Nationales," F7, 3249. Letter of the
administrators of the district of Senlis, Oct. 31, 1792. Two of the
administrators of the Senlis hospital were arrested by Paris
commissaries and conducted "before the pretended Committee of Public
Safety in Paris, with all that they possessed in money, jewels, and
assignats." The same commissaries carry off two of the hospital
sisters of charity, with all the silver plate in the establishment;
the sisters are released, but the plate is not returned. -- Buchez et
Roux, XXVI. 209 (Patriote Français). Session of April 30, 1793, the
final report of the commission appointed to examine the accounts of
the old Committee of Supervision: " Panis and Sergent are convicted of
breaking seals." . . . "67,580 francs found in Septenil's domicile
have disappeared, as well as many articles of value."

[9] Schmidt, I, 270.

[10] Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 221 to 229, 242 to 260; VI. 43 to 52.

[11] De Sybel, "Histoire de l'Europe pendant la Révolution Française,"
II 76. -- Madame Roland, II.152. "It was not only impossible to make
out the accounts, but to imagine where 130,000,000 had gone. . . The
day he was dismissed he made sixty appointments, . . . from his son-
in-law, who, a vicar, was made a director at 19,000 francs salary, to
his hair-dresser, a young scapegrace of nineteen, whom he makes a
commissary of war" . . "It was proved that he paid in full regiments
that were actually reduced to a few men. -- Meillan, 20. "The faction
became the master of Paris through hired brigands, aided by the
millions placed at its disposition by the municipality, under the
pretext of ensuring supplies."

[12] See in the "Memoirs of Mme. Elliot," the particulars of this
vote. -- Beaulieu, I.445. "I saw a placard signed by Marat posted on
the corners of the streets, stating that he had demanded 15,000 francs
of the Duke of Orleans as compensation for what he had done for him.
Gouverneur Morris, I. 260 (Letter of Dec. 21, 1792). The galleries
force the Convention to revoke its decree against the expulsion of the
Bourbons. -- On the 22nd of December the sections present a petition
in the same sense, while there is a sort of riot in the suburbs in
favor of Philippe-Egalité.

[13] Schmidt, I. 246 (Dutard, May 13). "The Convention cannot count in
all Paris thirty persons ready to side with them.

[14] Buchez et Roux, XXV. 463. On the call of the houses, April 13,
1793, ninety-two deputies vote for Marat.

[15] Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution," V. 133. Conversation with
Danton, December, 1792. -- De Barante, III.123. The same conversation,
probably after another verbal tradition. -- I am obliged to substitute
less coarse terms for those of the quotation.

[16] He is the first speaker on the part of the "Mountain" in the
king's trial, and at once becomes president of the Jacobin Club. His
speech against Louis XVI. is significant. " "Louis is another
Catiline." He should be executed, first as traitor taken in the act,
and next as king; that is to say, as a natural enemy and wild beast
taken in a net.

[17] Vatel, "Charlotte Corday and the Girondists," I. preface, CXLI.
(with all the documents, the letters of Madame de Saint-Just, the
examination on the 6th of October, 1786, etc.) The articles stolen
consisted of six pieces of plate, a fine ring, gold-mounted pistols,
packets of silver lace, etc.-- The youth declares that he is "about to
enter the Comte d'Artois' regiment of guards until he is old enough to
enter the king's guards." He also had an idea of entering the
Oratoire.

[18] Cf. his upeech against the king, hishis report on Danton, on the
Girondists, etc. If the reader would comprehend Saint-Just's character
he has only to read his letter to d'Aubigny, July 20, 1792: "Since I
came here I am consumed with a republican fury, which is wasting me
away. . . It is unfortunate that I cannot remain in Paris. I feel
something within me which tells me that I shall float on the waves of
this century. . . You dastards, you have not appreciated me! My renown
will yet blaze forth and cast yours in the shade. Wretches that you
are, you call me a thief, a villain, because I can give you no money.
Tear my heart out of my body and eat it, and you will become what you
are not now -- great!"

[19] Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 296, 363; XXV. 323; XXVII. 144, 145. --
Moniteur, XIV 80 (terms employed by Danton, David, Legendre, and
Marat).

[20] Moniteur, XV. 74. -- Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 254, 257, sessions of
Jan. 6 and May 27.

[21] Moniteur, XIV. 851. (Session of Dec.26, 1792. Speech by Julien.)

[22] Moniteur, XIV. 768 (session of Dec. 16). The president says: "I
have called Calon to order three times, and three times has he
resisted. " -- Vergnieud declares that "The majority of the Assembly
is under the yoke of a seditious minority." - Ibid, XIV. 851, 853, 865
(session of Dec. 26 and 27). -- Buchez et Roux, XXV. 396 (session of
April 11.)

[23] Louvet, 72

[24] Meillan, 24: "We were for some time all armed with sabres,
pistols, and blunderbusses." -- Moore, II. 235 (October, 1792). A
number of deputies already at this date carried sword canes and
pocket-pistols.

[25] Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," p.101. Description of the hall by
Prudhomme, with illustrations. - Ibid., 199. Letter of Brissot to his
constituents: "The brigands and the bacchantes have found their way
into the new hall. - According to Prudhomme the galleries hold 1,400
persons in all, and according to Dulaure, 20,000 or 3,000.

[26] Moore, I.44 (Oct. 10), and II. 534.

[27] Moniteur. XIV. 795. Speech by Lanjuinais, Dec. 19, 1792.

[28] Buchez et Roux, XX. 5, 396. Speech by Duperret, session of April
11, 1793.

[29] Dauban, 143. Letter of Valazé, April 14. -- Cf. Moniteur, XIV.
746, session of Dec. 14. - Ibid., 800, session of Dec. 20. - Ibid.,
853, session of Dec. 26.

[30] Speech by Salles. -- Lanjuinais also says: "One seems to
deliberate here in a free Convention; but it is only under the dagger
and cannon of the factions." - Moniteur. XV. 180, session of Jan. 16.
Speech by N----, deputy, its delivery insisted on by Charles Vilette.

[31] Meillan, 24.

32 "Archives Nationales," AF, II.45. Police reports, May 16, 18, 19.
"There is fear of a bloody scene the first day." -- Buchez et Roux,
XXVII. 125. Report of Gamon inspector of the Convention hall.

[33] Moniteur, XIV. 362 (Nov. 1, 1792).- Ibid., 387, session of Nov.
4. Speech by Royer and Gorsas.-Ibid., 382. Letter by Roland, Nov. 5.

[34] Moniteur, XIV. 699. Letter of Roland, Nov. 28.

[35] Moniteur, XIV. 697, number for Dec. 11.

[36] Moniteur, XV. 180, session of Jan. 16. Speech by Lehardy, Hugues,
and Thibaut. -- Meillan, 14: "A line of separation between the two
sides of the Assembly was then traced. Several deputies which the
faction wished to put out of the way had voted for death (of the
king). Almost all of these were down on the list of those in favor of
the appeal to the people, which was the basis preferred. We were then
known as appellants."

[37] Moniteur, XV. 8. Speech by Rabaut-Saint-Ètienne. -- Buchez et
Roux, XXIII 24. Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 418. - Moniteur, XV.180, session
of Jan. 16. -- Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 292. -- Moniteur, XV. 182. Letter
of the mayor of Paris, Jan. 16. - Ibid., 179. Letter of Roland, Jan.
16. -- Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 448. Report by Santerre.

[38] Buchez et Roux, XXV. 23 to 26. -- Mortimer-Ternaux, VI. 184
(Manifesto of the central committee, March 9, 2 o'clock in the
morning).-Ibid. 193. Narrative of Fournier at the bar of the
Convention, March 12. -- Report of the mayor of Paris, March 10. --
Report of the Minister of Justice, March 13. -- Meillan, 24. --
Louvet, 72, 74.

[39] Pétion, "Mémoires," 106 (Ed. Dauban): "How many times I heard,
'You rascal, we'll have your head!' And I have no doubt that they
often planned my assassination."

[40] Taillandier, "Documents biographiques," on Daunou (Narrative by
Daunou),p. 38. -- Doulcet de Pontécoulant, "Mémoires," I. 139: "It was
then that the 'Mountain' used all the means of intimidation it knew so
well how to bring into play, filling the galleries with its
satellites, who shouted out to each other the name of each deputy as
he stepped up to the president's table to give his vote, and yelling
savagely at every one who did not vote for immediate and unconditional
death. - Carnot, "Mémoires," I.293. Carnot voted for the death of the
king; yet afterward he avowed that "Louis XVI. would have been saved,
if the Convention had not held its deliberations under the dagger."

[41] Durand-Maillane, 35, 38, 57.

[42] An expression by Dussaulx, in his "Fragments pour servir à
l'histoire de la Convention."

[43] Madame Roland, "Mémoires," ed. Barrière et Berville, II. 52. -
(Note by Roland.)

[44] Moniteur, XV, 187. Cambacérès votes: "Louis has incurred the
penalties established in the penal code against conspirators. . . The
execution to be postponed until hostilities cease. In case of invasion
of the French territory by the enemies of the republic, the decree to
be enforced." -- On Barrère, see Macaulay's crushing article in
"Biographical Essays."

[45] Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," V. 209. ("Sièyes," according
to his unpublished manuscripts.)

[46] Madame Roland, II.56. Note by Roland.

[47] Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 476.

[48] Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 513.

[49] Comte de Ségur, "Mémoires." I. 13.

[50] Harmand de la Meuse (member of the Convention), "Anecdotes
relative à la Révolution," 83, 85.

[51] Meissner, 148, Voyage à Paris" (last months of 1795).. Testimony
of the regicide Audrein.

[52] Louvet, 775.

[53] Meillan, 16.

[54] Remark by M. Guirot ("Mémoires"), II. 73.

[55] Moniteur, XIV. 432, session of Nov. 10, 1792. Speech by Cambon:
"That is the reason why I shall always detest the 2nd of September;
for never will I approve of assassinations." In the same speech he
justifies the Girondists against any reproach of federalism.

[56] "Le Maréchal Davoust," by Madame de Bocqueville. Letter of
Davoust, battalion officer, June 2, 1793: "We are animated with the
spirit of Lepelletier, which is all that need be said with respect to
our opinions and what we will do in the coming crisis, in which,
perhaps, a faction will try to plunge us anew into a civil war between
the departments and Paris. Perfidious eloquence. . . conservative
Tartufes."

[57] Moniteur, XIV. 738. Report by Cambon, Dec. 15. "On the way
French generals are to act in countries occupied by the armies of the
republic." This important document is a true manifesto of the
Revolution. -- Buchez et Roux, XXVII 140, session of May 20, and XXVI.
177, session of April 27, speech by Cambon: "The department of Hérau1t
says to this or that individual: 'You are rich; your opinions cause us
expenditure . . I mean to fix you to the Revolution in spite of
yourself. You shall lend your fortune to the republic, and when
liberty is established the republic will return your capital to you. -
"I should like, then, following the example of the department of
Hérault, that the Convention should organize a civic loan of one
billion, to be supplied by egoists and the indifferent. - Decree of
May 20, "passed almost unanimously. A forced loan of one billion shall
be made on wealthy citizens."

[58] Meillan. 100.

[59] Speech by Ducos, March 20. "We must choose between domestic
education and liberty. So long as the poor and the rich are not
brought close together through a common education, in vain will your
laws proclaim sacred equality! " -- Rabaut-Saint-Étienne: "In every
township a national temple will be erected, in which every Sunday its
municipal officers will give moral instruction to the assembled
citizens. This instruction will be drawn from books approved of by the
legislative body, and followed by hymns also approved of by the
legislative. A catechism, as simple as it is short, drawn up by the
legislative body, shall be taught and every boy will know it by
heart." -- On the sentiments of the Girondists in relation to
Christianity, see chapters V. and XI. of this volume. -- On the means
for equalizing the fortunes, see articles by Rabaut-Saint-Étienne
(Buchez et Roux, XXIII. 467). - Ibid., XXIV. 475 (March 7-11) decree
abolishing the testamentary right. -- Condorcet, in his "Tableau des
progrés de l'Esprit humain," assigns the leveling of conditions as the
purpose of society. -- On propaganda abroad, read the report by Cambon
(Dec. 15). This report is nearly unanimously accepted, and Buzot
exacerbates it by adding an amendment

[60] Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 287, session of May 28, vote on the
maintenance of the Commission of Twelve.

[61] Moniteur. XV. 395, session of Feb. 8, 1793.

[62] Decrees of March 13 and 14.

[63] Moore, II. 44 (October 1792). Danton declares in the tribune that
"the Convention should be a committee of instruction for kings
throughout the universe." On which Moore remarks that this is
equivalent to declaring war against all Europe except Switzerland. -
Mallet du Pan, "Considerations sur la Revolution de France," p.37: "In
a letter which chance has brought to my notice, Brissot wrote to one
of his minister-generals towards the close of last year: 'The four
quarters of Europe must be set on fire; that is our salvation.'"

[64] Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets." Decree of March 10-
12. Title I. articles 4, 12, 13; title II. articles 2, 3. Add to this
the decree of March 29-31, establishing the penalty of death against
whoever composes or prints documents favoring the re-establishment of
royalty.

[65] Ib., Decree of March 28 - April 5 (article 6). - Cf. the decrees
of March 18-22, and April 23-24.

[66] Decree of March 27-30.

[67] Decree of April 5-7.

[68] Decree of May 4. (A law fixing the highest price at which grain
shall be sold. TR.)

[69] Decree of April 11-16 (bearing on the reduction in value of the
legal currency. -TR).

[70] Decree of May 20-25.

[71] Decree of April 5-7. Words used by Danton in the course of the
debate.

[72] Decree of April 5-11.

[73] Decrees of May 13, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 29, June 1.

[74] Decrees of March 21-23 and March 26-30.

[75] Decrees of March 29-31.

[76] Decree of April 1-5.

[77] Schmidt, I. 232. Report by Dutard, May 10.

[78] "Archives Nationales," F7, 2401 to 2505. Records of the section
debates in Paris. -- Many of these begin March 28, 1793, and contain
the deliberations of revolutionary committees; for example, F7, 2475,
the section of the Pikes or of the Place Vendôme. We see by the
official reports dated March 28 and the following days that the
suspected were deprived all weapons, even the smallest, every species
of swordcane, including dress-swords with steel or silver handles.