 Section 9. CHAPTER III CONTINUED Carno. Carno, the predecessor of Napoleon and the organizing soldier of the early Revolutionary Wars, owed his power to backbone. He had not only a good solidity of brain, but an astonishing power of using it for hours and hours on end. This he owed perhaps to the excellent physical stock of which he came, the eldest of a very large family born to a notable lawyer in Burgundy. It was Carno's pride to hold a commission in the learned arms which were to transform at that moment the art of war. For as Bonaparte, his successor, was a gunner, so he was a sapper. His practice of exact knowledge and application and the liberal education which his career demanded further strengthened the strong character he had inherited. More important still, in his democratic views, he was what none of the older officers had been, convinced and sincere. He had not come within the influence of the very wealthy or the very powerful. He was young and he knew his own mind, not only in matters of political faith, but in the general domain of philosophy and in the particular one of military science. It has been said of him that he invented the revolutionary method of strategical concentration and tactical massing in the field. There is some truth in this, but the method would not have been possible had he not also invented, in company with Danton, and supported after Danton left power, a universal system of conscription. Carno understood as only trained soldiers can the value of numbers, and he depended with great sagacity upon the national temper. Thus at Watignier's, which was a victory directly due to his genius, though it was novel in him to have massed troops suddenly upon the right after a check on the extreme left of the field. Yet the novelty would have been of no effect had he not comprehended that with his young fellow countrymen as troopers, he could depend upon a charge delivered after thirty-six hours of vigil. He used not only the national, but also the revolutionary temper in war. One of the chief features, for instance, of the revolutionary armies when they began to be successful, was the development of lines of skirmishers who pushed out heartily before the main bodies and were the first in the history of modern warfare to learn the use of cover. This development was spontaneous. It was produced within and by each unit, not by any general command. But Carno recognized that it had hewn chute, and used it ever after. The stoical inflexibility of his temper is the noblest among the many noble characters of his soul. He never admitted the empire, and he suffered exile, seemingly thereby in the eyes of the vilest and most intelligent of his contemporaries, Fouché, to be a mere fool. He was as hard with himself as with others, holy military in the framework of his mind, and the chief controller of the terror which he used as it was intended to be used for the military salvation of the republic. Marat. Marat is easily judged. The complete sincerity of the enthusiast is not difficult to appreciate when his enthusiasm is devoted to a simple human ideal, which has been, as it were, fundamental and common to the human race. Equality within a state and the government of the state by its general will. These primal dogmas on the reversion to which the whole revolution turned were Marat's creed. Those who would ridicule or condemn him, because he held such a creed, are manifestly incapable of discussing the matter at all. The ridicule and condemnation under which Marat justly falls, do not attach to the patent moral truths he held, but to the manner in which he held them. He did not only hold them isolated from other truths. It is the fault of the fanatic to so hold any truth, but he held them as though no other truths existed. And whenever he found his ideal to be in practice working at a friction or stop dead, his unenourished and acute enthusiasm at once sought a scapegoat, discovered a responsible agent, and suggested a violent outlet for the delay. He was often right when he denounced a political intrigue. He often would have sacrificed a victim not unjustly condemned. He often discovered an agent partially responsible, and even the violent solutions that he suggested were not always impractical. But it was the prime error of his tortured mind that beyond victims and sudden violent clutches at the success of democracy, there was nothing else he could conceive. He was incapable of allowing for imperfections, for stupidities, for the misapprehension of mind by mind, for the mere action of time, and for all that renders human life infinitely complex and infinitely adjustable. Humor, the reflection of such wisdom he lacked. Judgment, as the English idiom has it, he lacked still more, if a comparative term may be attached to two such absolute vacuities. It must not be forgotten that so complete an absence of certain necessary qualities in the building up of mind are equivalent to madness. Marat was not sane. His insanity was often generous. The creed to which it was attached was obvious enough. And in the eyes of most of us it is a creed to be accepted. But he worked with it as a madman who is mad on collectivism, let us say, or the rights of property might work in our society, thinking of this one thesis, shrieking it and foaming at the mouth upon it, losing all control when its acceptance was not even opposed but merely delayed. He was valueless for the accomplishment of the ends of the revolution. His doctrine and his adherents to it were so conspicuously simple and sincere that it is no wonder the populace made him, for a few months, a sort of a symbol of their demand. For the rest, his face, like the character, was tortured. He carried with him a disease of the skin that irritated perpetually his wholly unbalanced temper. Some say, but one must always be aware of so-called science in the reading of history, that a mixture of racial types produced in him was a perpetual physical disturbance. His face was certainly distorted and ill-balanced, but physical suggestions of that sort are very untrustworthy. Those who met him in the management of affairs thought him worthless enough. A few who knew him intimately loved him dearly. More who came across him continually were fatigued and irritated by his empty violence. He was among those young revolutionaries, almost an elderly man. He was, this should never be forgotten, a distinguished scholar in his own trade, that of medicine, and he effected less in the revolution than any man to whom a reputation of equal prominence happened to attach. He must stand responsible for the massacre of September. Rope Spear. No character in the revolution needs for its comprehension a wider reading and a greater knowledge of the national character than Rope Spears. Upon no character does the comprehension of the period more depend, and none, for reasons I will give in a moment, has been more misunderstood, not only in the popular legend, but in the weighed decisions of competent historians. So true is this that even time which in company with scholarship usually redresses such errors has not yet permitted modern authors to give a true picture of the man. The reason of so conspicuous a failure in the domain of history is this, that side by side with the real Rope Spear, there existed in the minds of all his contemporaries, save those who actually came across him in the functions of government, a legendary Rope Spear, a Rope Spear popularly imagined, and that this imaginary Rope Spear, while yet or he has proved odious to posterity, seemed while he lived a fascinating forter to the man himself, and therefore he accepted it. For Rope Spear, though just, lacked humility. The problem is an exceedingly subtle as well as an exceedingly difficult one. The historian, as he reads his authorities, has perpetually to distinguish between what is strong and what is weak evidence, and to recall himself as he reads to reality by a recollection of what Rope Spear himself was. If he does not do so, he falls at once into the legend, so powerful is that legend in the numbers that supported it, and so strongly did Rope Spear himself support it by his own attitude. The legendary Rope Spear may be described in a very few lines. Conceive a man sincerely convinced of the purest democratic theory, a man who cared for nothing else but the realization of that theory, and who had never sacrificed his pursuit of its realization in the state to any personal advantage whatsoever. This man, trusted by the people and at last idolized by them, becomes more and more powerful. He enters the governing body, the committee of public safety. He is the master both within and without that body, and uses his mastery for establishing an ideal democracy, which shall recognize the existence of God and repose upon civic virtue. And to establish this ideal, he has recourse to terror. He finds that human defections from his ideal are increasingly numerous. He punishes them by death. The slaughter grows to be enormous. The best of democrats are involved in it. At last, it can be tolerated no longer. His immediate subordinates revolt against him in the committee. He is outlawed, fails to raise the popular rebellion in his favor in Paris, is executed, and his system of terror falls to the ground. This picture, though purely legendary in tone, contains not only much truth, but truth of precisely that sort which conspires to make credible what is false in the whole. Robespierre was sincerely attached to the conception of an ideal democracy. He was incorruptible in the pursuit of it. And to be a politician and incorruptible amounts to something like what the church calls heroic virtue in a man. He did enter the committee of public safety. He did support the terror, and when he was overthrown, the terror did come to an end. Where then does this legend differ from the truth? In these capital points, which change it all together, that Robespierre was not the chief influence in the committee of public safety, the all-powerful executive of the republic, that he did not desire the terror, that he did not use it, that he even grew disgusted with it, and that in general he was never the man who governed France. It need hardly be pointed out how such a truth destroys a legend. The whole nature of the twelve months between the summer of 1793 and the summer of 1794 must vary accordingly as we regard them as Robespierre or no, and they were not Robespierre. What were they then, and why has the error that Robespierre was then master arisen? Those months which may roughly be called the months of the terror were, as we shall see later in this book, months of martial law, and the terror was simply martial law and action, a method of enforcing the military defense of the country and of punishing all those who interfered with it or were supposed by the committee to interfere with it. No one man in the committee was the author of this system, but the one who most determined to use it, and the one who had most occasion to use it, was undoubtedly the military organizer, Carnot. Side by side with him, one man such as Barrier supported it because he kept up the committee of public safety which gave him all his political position. Another such as St. Just supported it because he believed that the winning of the war, in which he took an active part, would secure democracy everywhere and forever. Another such as Jean Bon supported it from the old sectarian bitterness of the Huguenot. But of all men in the committee, Robespierre supported the terror least, and was most suspected by his colleagues, and increasingly suspected as time went on, of desiring to interfere with the martial system of the terror and to modify it. Why then was Robespierre popularly identified with the terror, and why when he was executed did the terror cease. Robespierre was identified with the terror because he was identified with the popular clamor of the time, with the extreme democratic feeling of the time, and its extreme fear of a reaction. Robespierre, being the popular idol, had become also the symbol of a popular frenzy, which was supposed to be ruling a country. But that frenzy was not ruling a country. What was ruling a country was the committee of public safety, in which Carnot was the chief brain. Robespierre was indeed the idol of the populace. He was in no way the agent of their power or of any power. Why when he fell did the terror cease if he were not its author? Because the terror was acting under a strain. It was with the utmost difficulty that this absolute intolerance and intolerable martial system could be continued when once the fear of invasion was removed. For some weeks before Robespierre fell the victories had begun to render it unnecessary. When the committee saw to it that Robespierre should be outlawed by the parliament, they knocked away without knowing it the keystone of their own policy. It was his popular position which made their policy possible. When he was destroyed they suddenly found that the terror could no longer be maintained. Men had borne with it because of Robespierre, falsely imagining that Robespierre had desired it. Robespierre gone, men now would not bear with it anymore. Now finally if Robespierre himself had always felt opposed to the system of the terror, why did he not take the lead in popular reaction against it? He had his opportunity, given him by Danton in December 1793, seven months before his own catastrophe. The committee determined to put Danton out of the way because Danton in appealing for mercy was weakening the martial power of their government. Robespierre might have saved Danton. He preferred to let him be sacrificed. The reason was that Robespierre wrongly believed popularity to lie upon the side of the terror and against Danton. He was in no way a leader, save in rhetoric and in rhetoric directed towards what men already desired. And his own great weakness or vice was the love of popular reclaim. Later on in the summer of 1794, when he actually began to move against the terror, he only did so privately. He saw Ms. Redman that he still believed the terror to be popular and dared not lose his popular name. A man by nature as sincere as Crystal, he was tempted to insincerity in this major thing during the last months of his life and he yielded completely to the temptation. For the sake of his memory, it was deplorable and deplorable also for history. His weakness has been the cause of an historical error as grave as any that can be discovered in modern letters and at the same time has wholly maligned him to posterity. A factor in Robespierre's great public position, which is often forgotten, is the great effect of his speeches that men should still debate after so vast a change in taste whether those speeches were eloquent or no, is the sufficient proof of their effect. He spoke in an ordered and reasoned manner which bored the fine spirits of the early parliaments, but well suited the violent convictions of the later revolution. His phraseology, his point of view, just jumped with that of his audience. He could express what they felt and express it in terms which they knew to be exact and which they believed to be grand. For his manner was never excessive and those excessive men who hurt him in an excessive mood were proud to know that their violence could be expressed with so much scholarship and by moderated skill. By birth he was of the smaller gentry, though poor. It is an indication of his character that he had thought of taking orders and that in early youth literary vanity had affected him. He has left no monument, but from the intensity of his faith and from his practice of it his name though it will hardly increase will certainly endure. The end of Section 9. The end of Chapter 3. Section 10. The French Revolution. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The French Revolution by Hilaire Belac. Section 10. Chapter 4. The Faces of the Revolution. 1. From May 1789 to 17th of July 1789. The first point which the reader must hold in the story of the revolution is the quarrel between its first parliament and the crown. Of what nature was that quarrel? It was not, as it has sometimes been represented, a simple issue between privilege and a democratic demand for equality, or between traditional organs of government and a democratic demand for self-government by the nation. To imagine this is to read history backwards and to see in the untried conditions of 1789 the matured results which only appeared after years of struggle. The prime issue lay between legality and illegality. The forms of French law and all the inherited method of French administration demanded a certain form of authority, a centralized government of unlimited power. The king was absolute. From him proceeded in the simplest fashion whatever will was paramount in the state. He could suspend a debtor's liabilities, imprison a man without trial, release him without revision of his case, make war or peace, and in minor details such as the discipline and administration of public bodies, the power of the crown was theoretically and legally equally supreme. It was not exercised as the enormous power of modern government is exercised. It did not perpetually enter into every detail of the life of the poor in the way in which the power of a modern English government enters into it. It is the very nature of such autocratic power that while unlimited in theory it is compelled to an instinctive and perpetual self-limitation lest it break down. And autocracy may be compared in this to aristocracy, or more properly speaking to oligarchy, the government of a few. For where a few govern they know that their government reposes upon public opinion or public tolerance. They are very careful not to exceed certain limits, the transgression of which would weaken the moral foundation of their power. They welcome allies they recruit themselves perpetually from other classes in the community. In the same way an autocracy always has the desire to be popular. Its strokes affect the great and the powerful and are hardly ever aimed at the mass of the community. The intellectual, the wealthy, the privileged by birth, fortune or exceptional personal powers are a suspect to it. As for the mass of men an autocracy attempts to represent and in a certain sense to obey them. Now the French autocracy for it was no less aired not in the will to act thus popularly in the early part of the revolution but in the knowledge requisite for such action. The parliament shortly after it met in May of 1789 began to show in the commons part of it the working of that great theory which had leavened all France for a generation. The commons said we are the people at once the symbols of the people the direct mandatory servants of the people and though this was a fiction we are of the people in our birth and origin. We are therefore the true sovereign and the prince the head of the executive is no more than an organ of government morally less in authority than ourselves who are the true source of government. This attitude which was at the back of all men's minds and which was concentrated of course in the commons clashed with legality. It could not express itself in the terms of law it could not act save in a fashion which should be in the strictest sense of the word revolutionary. Now the crown on the whole national in sympathy and comprehending this new theory well I mean by the crown the general body of advisors around the king and the king himself was offended at the illegality not of the theory or the pretense for these were not illegal but of the action of the commons and this comparatively small source of friction was the irritant upon which we must fix as the cause of what followed. The nobles by 108 to 47 decided the day after the opening of the parliament to sit as a separate house the clergy by a much smaller majority 133 to 114 came to the same decision but carefully qualified it as provisional. The commons declared that the hall in which they met should be regarded as the hall of the national assembly and later made it their business to quote the phrase of the motion to attempt to unite in common all the deputies of the nation in that hall and never to abandon the principle of voting individually that is not by separate houses or the principle that the state's general formed one undivided body this attitude was qualified and compromised with to some extent in the days with followed but it held the field and while the commons were insisting upon this attitude as a moral right the nobles countered by a reaffirmation of the right of each house to a separate judgment upon public matters the nobles were standing upon legal precedent the commons had nothing in their favor but political theory if the orders sat all together and voted as individuals the commons who were in number equal to the other two houses combined would with their noble and clerical sympathizers have a majority now the king and his advisors notably necker who still had great weight were by no means impossible in this struggle they desired an understanding and through the last days of may and the first days of june the attempt at an understanding was made but the attempt dragged and as it seemed that nothing would come out of it on the 10th of june size moved that the assembly should verify its powers a french phrase for admitting and registering the presence of each member as acceptable to the whole body and to the theory of its constitution and that this should be done in the case of each member meaning members of all the three orders and not the common alone whether the members of the two privileged houses were present or absent the role was called and completed on the 15th none of the nobles attended the common roll call three of the parish clergy they were from the province of poito ditzo and thus admitted the right of the commons so to act a dozen of their colleagues joined them later but that was all so far there had been no action which could be precisely called illegal or revolutionary the commons had affirmed a right based upon a political theory which the vast majority of the nation admitted and the legal depository of power the king had not yet reproved one may draw a parallel and compare the action of the commons so far to some action which trade union for instance may take in england some action the legality of which is doubtful but upon which the courts have not yet decided it was upon the 17th of june two days after the completion of the roll call by the commons that the first revolutionary act took place and the student of the revolution will do well to put his finger upon that date and to regard it not indeed as the moral origin of the movement but as the precise moment from which the revolution as a revolution begins to act for upon that day the commons though in fact only joined by a handful of the clerical house and by none of the nobility declared themselves to be the national assembly that is asserted the fiction that the clergy nobles and commons were all present and voted together to this declaration they added a definite act of sovereignty which trespassed upon and contradicted the legal authority of the crown true the motion was only moved and passed provisionally but the words used were final for in this motion the self-styled national assembly declared that provisionally taxes endures might be raised upon the old authority but that only until the national assembly should disperse after which day and here we reach the sacramental formula as it were of the crisis the national assembly wills and decrees that all taxes and dues of whatever nature which have not been specifically formally and freely granted by the set assembly shall cease in every province of the kingdom no matter how such that province may be administered this is an illusion to the fact that in some provinces there was representative machinery in others nothing but the direct action of the crown the assembly declares that when it has in concert with not in obedience to the king laid down the principle of a national resettlement it will busy itself with the examination and ordering of the public debt etc etc such was the point of departure after which sovereignty was at issue between the crown and the state's general the crown a known institution with its traditions stretching back to the roman empire and the national assembly a holy new organ according to its own claims basing its authority upon a political theory stretching back to the very origins of human society the end of section 10 section 11 the french revolution this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the french revolution by hill air bellock section 11 chapter 4 continued two days later on the 19th of june the national assembly still only self-styled and possessing only the powers which it had ascribed to itself beyond all forms of law set to work nominated his committees and assumed the sovereignty thus claimed the nobles protested notably the bishops and the king on the advice of barrington keeper of the seals determined upon immediate resistance the excuse was taken that the royal session as it was called in which the king would declare his will needed the preparation of the hall and when the commons presented themselves at the door of that hall on the next day the 20th they found it shut against them they adjourned to a neighboring tennis court and took a solemn corporate oath that they would not separate without giving france a constitution they continued to me using a church for that purpose but on the 23rd the royal session was opened and the king declared his will the reader must especially note that even in this crisis the crown did not offer a complete resistance there was an attempt at compromise necker would have had a more or less complete surrender the queen and her set would have preferred an act of authority which should have annulled all that the comments had done what actually happened was a permission by the crown that the three orders should meet as one body for certain common interests but should preserve the system of voting as separate houses in all that might regard the ancient and constitutional rights of the three orders the constitution to be given to future parliaments feudal property and the rights and prerogatives of the two senior houses as a mere numerical test such a conclusion would have destroyed the power of the commons since as we have seen numbers were the weapon of the commons who were equal to the other two houses combined and if all sat together would with the liberal members of the clergy and the nobility be supreme but apart from this numerical test the act of sovereignty affirmed by the national assembly when it declared itself and itself only competent to vote taxes was annulled moreover the royal declaration ended with a command that on the next day the three orders should meet separately now at this critical point the king was disobeyed the current of the time chose the revolutionary bed and as it began to flow deepened and confirmed its course with every passing day and event already the majority of the clergy had joined the national assembly when it had affirmed its right to sit in spite of the check of the 20th of june there was a half hour on that decisive day of the royal session the 23rd of june when armed forces might have been used for the arrest and dispersion of the deputies they declared themselves inviolable and their arrest illegal but there was of course no sanction for this decree as the fact not a corporal's file was used against them the next day the 24th the majority of the clergy again joined the commons in their session in flat defiance of the king's orders and on the 25th 47 of the nobles followed their example the king yielded and on the 27th two days later ordered the three houses to meet together the national assembly was now legally constituted and set out upon its career the crown the old center of authority had abandoned its position and had confirmed the revolution but in doing so it had acted as it were in contradiction with itself it had made technically legal and illegality which destroyed its own old legal position but it had done so with ill will and it was evident that some counter stroke would be attempted to restore the full powers of the crown at this point the reader must appreciate what forces were face to face in the coming struggle so far the illegal and revolutionary act of the 17th of June the royal session which replied to that act upon the 23rd the king's decree which yielded to the commons upon the 27th had all of them been but words if it came to action what physical forces were opposed on the side of the crown was the organized armed force which it commanded for it must never be forgotten that the crown was the executive and remain the executive right on to the capture of the palace three years later and the consummation of the revolution on the 10th of august in 1792 on the side of the national assembly was without doubt the public opinion of the country but that is not a force that can be used under arms and what was much more to the point the municipal organization of france space forbids a full description of the origins and strength of the french municipal system it is enough to point out that the whole of gallic civilization probably from a moment earlier then caesars invasion and certainly from the moment when roman rule was paramount in gull was a municipal one it is still so the countryside's take their names mainly from the chief towns the towns were the seats of the bishops whose hierarchy had preserved whatever could be preserved of the ancient world in the towns were the colleges the guilds the discussion and the corporations which built up the life of the nation the chief of these sounds was paris the old systems of municipal government corrupt and varied as they were could still give the towns a power of corporate expression and even where that might be lacking it was certain that some engine would be found for expressing municipal action in a crisis of the sort through which france was now passing in paris for instance it was seen when the time came for physical force that the college of electors who had chosen the representatives for that city were willing to act at once and spontaneously as a municipal body which should express the initiative of the people it was the towns and especially paris prompt that spontaneous organization ready to arm and when armed competent to frame a fighting force which was the physical power behind the assembly what are the physical power behind the king his power was as we have said the regular armed forces of the country the army but it is characteristic of the moment that only a part of that armed force could be trusted for an army is never a mere weapon it consists of living men and though it will act against the general opinion of its members and will obey orders long after civilians would have broken with the ties of technical and legal authority yet there is for armies also a breaking point in those ties and the crown i repeat could not use as a whole the french speaking and french born soldiery luckily for it a very great proportion of the french army at that moment consisted of foreign mercenaries since the position was virtually one of war we must consider what was the strategical object of this force its object was paris the chief of the towns and round paris in the early days of july the mercenary regiments were gathered from all quarters that military concentration once affected the gates of the city held especially upon the north and upon the west by encamped regiments and by a particularly large force of cavalry ever the arm chosen for the repression of civilians the crown was ready to act on the 11th of july necker who stood for liberal opinions was dismissed a new ministry was formed and the counter revolution begun what followed was the immediate rising of paris the news of necker's dismissal reached the masses of the capital only an hour's ride from versailles on the afternoon of the 12th sunday crowds began to gather an ineffectual cavalry charge and one of the outer open spaces of the city only inflamed the popular enthusiasm for the soldiers who charged were german mercenary soldiers under the command of a noble public forces were at once organized arms were commandeered from the armorers shops the electoral college which had chosen the members of the assembly for paris took command at the guild hall but the capital point of the insurrection what made it possible was the seizure of a great stock of arms and ammunition including cannon it was in the depot and in villiades with such resources the crowd attacked at the other end of the city of fortress and an arsenal which had long stood in the popular eye as the symbol of absolute monarchy the best deal with the absurdly insufficient garrison of the best deal its apparent impregnability to anything the mob might attempt the supposed but doubtful treason of its governor and firing upon those whom he admitted to parley we are not here concerned the best deal was rushed after very considerable efforts and then appreciable loss and killed and wounded by the evening of that day tuesday the 14th of july 1789 paris had become a formidable instrument of war the next news was the complete capitulation of the king he came on the morrow to the national assembly promising to send away the troops he promised to recall necker a municipal organization was granted to the city with bailey for its first mayor and a point of capital importance and armed militia dependent upon that municipality was legally formed with lafayette at its head on the 17th louis entered paris to consummate his capitulation went to the guild hall appeared in the tricolored cockade and the popular battle was won it behooves us here to consider the military aspect of this definitive act from which the sanction of the revolution the physical power behind it dates paris numbered somewhat under a million souls perhaps no more than 600 000 the number fluctuated with the season the foreign mercenary troops who were mainly employed in the repression of the popular feeling therein were not sufficient to impose anything like a siege they could at the various gates have stopped the provisioning of the city but then at any one of those separate points any one of their detachments upon a long perimeter more than a day's march in circumference would certainly have been attacked and almost as certainly overwhelmed by masses of partially armed civilians could the streets have been cleared while the ferment was rising it's very doubtful they were narrow and torturous in the extreme the area to be dealt with was enormous the tradition of barricades not forgotten and the spontaneous action of that excellent fighting material which a paris mob contains had been quite as rapid as anything that could have been affected by military orders the one great fault was a neglect to cover the invalides but even had the invalides not been looted the stock of arms and powder in the city would have been sufficient to have organized a desperate and prolonged resistance the local auxiliary force of slight military value it is true the french guards as they were called were holy with the people and in general the crown must be acquitted of any considerable blunder on the military side of the struggle it certainly did not fail from lack of will the truth is if we consider merely the military aspect of this military event that in dealing with large bodies of men who are a not previously disarmed b under conditions where they cannot be dispersed and see capable by a national tradition or character of some sort of rapid spontaneous organization the issue will always be doubtful and the uncertain factor which is the tenacity decision and common will of the civilians to which soldiers are to be opposed is one that varies within the very widest limits in massing the troops originally the crown and its advisors estimated that uncertain factor at far too low a point even contemporary educated opinion which was in sympathy with Paris put it too low that factor was as a fact so high that no armed force of the size and quality which the crown then disposed of could achieve its object or hold down the capital as for the absurd conception that anybody of men in uniform however small could always have the better of civilian resistance however large and well organized it is not worthy of a moment's consideration by those who interest themselves in the realities of military history it is worthy only of the academies so ends the first phase of the revolution it had lasted from the opening of the state's general in may to the middle of july in 1789 the end of section 11 section 12 the french revolution this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the french revolution by hill air bellach section 12 chapter 4 continued the second phase from 17th of july 1789 to the 6th of october 1789 we've seen the military conditions under which the attempt at an armed counter revolution failed there follows a short phase of less than three months whose character can be quickly described it was that moment of the revolution in which ideas had the freest play in which least had been done to test their application and most scope remained for pure enthusiasm that is why we find in the midst of that short phase the spontaneous abandonment of the feudal rights of the nobility and that is why the violent uprisings all over france continued it is the period in which the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen a document which may fittingly stand side by side with the declaration of independence for together they formed the noblest monuments of our modern origins was promulgated in the same period where the elements of the future constitution rapidly debated and laid down and notably that national policy of a single chamber which the modern french have imprudently abandoned in that same period however appeared and towards the close of it another form of resistance on the part of the crown and of those who advised the crown the king hesitated to accept the declaration of the rights of man and similarly hesitated to promulgate the decree of the fourth of august in which the nobility had abandoned their feudal dues it would be foolish to exaggerate the military aspect of what followed louis did call in troops but only in numbers sufficient for personal defense and we can hardly believe that he intended anything more than to police the surroundings of his throne but the brigade for it was no more nor was it a full strength which he summoned was sufficient to kindle suspicion and the determinedly false position of the queen who all her life was haunted by the idea that the regular soldiers especially if they were well dressed and held themselves rigidly were a sort of talisman provoked an explosion a feast was given in which the officers of the regiment of flanders which had just reached Versailles were entertained by the officers of the guard it was made the occasion for a good deal of drunkenness and a violent royalist manifestation at which the queen was present though she approved and which some thought she had designed the failure of the harvest to relieve the scarcity of bread in Paris the permanent state of alarm in which Paris had remained and of suspicion for the safety of the parliament which it continually entertained since the early part of the summer needed no more to provoke an outbreak it is an error to imagine that the outbreak was engineered or that such a movement could have been facetious great masses of women in whom the movement originated and after them a whole flood of the populace marched upon Versailles there was no direct attack upon the palace though the palace feared such an attack at any moment the troops present were sufficient to prevent violence Lafayette followed in the night at the head of his new Parisian militia force too much reliance was placed upon the military character of this force the palace was invaded in the early morning an attempt to assassinate the queen on the part of the mob failed though two of the guards were killed and after scenes whose violence and apparent anarchy only massed the common determination of the populace the royal family were compelled to abandon Versailles and to take up their places in the tuleries the parliament followed them to Paris and neither king nor parliament returned again to this suburban palace this recapture of the king by Paris is much more significant than a mere impulse of the mob the king in Paris the unison of his person with the capital city had been the very sacrament of french life for century upon century it was precisely a hundred years since Paris had been abandoned by Louis the 14th for Versailles the significance of that error may be understood by the citizens of an aristocratic country if they will imagine the abandonment of their countryside by the squires or again the future historian of our modern industrial civilization may understand it when he describes how the wealthy manufacturers abandoned the cities in which their wealth was made to dwell outside and apart from the living interests of their people with the return of the royal family to Paris and with the presence of the assembly within the heart of the national life one prime factor appears which is this that while the national assembly proceeds step by step to what it imagines to be a complete attainment of democracy though how partial will soon be seen the resistance of the crown is transformed into a resistance of the mere court the attack on the revolution becomes a personal thing the king is still holy the chief of the executive he can give what commands he wills to the armed forces he controls receipts and payments he is for all active purposes the government but he is no longer considering that prime function of his nor even using it to restore his old power he acts hence forward as an individual and an individual in danger queen whose view of the revolution and its dangers had always been a purely personal one is the directing will in the court group from this moment october 1789 onwards and the chief preoccupation of that group for 18 months is personal safety surrounded by the pomp of the two years and amid all the external appearances of a power still greater than that of any other monarch in europe louis and his wife and their very few immediate and devoted friends and followers thought of the palace as a prison and never considered their position save as one intolerable the end of section 12 the end of phase two section 13 the french revolution this is a libre vox recording all libre vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libre vox.org the french revolution by hill air bellach section 13 chapter 4 continued the phases of the revolution phase 3 from october 1789 to june 1791 it is this which must explain all that followed in the succeeding phase which lasted from these early days of october 1789 to the last week of june 1791 throughout that period of 21 months the king is letting the revolution take its course with the fixed idea of thwarting it at the last by flying from it and perhaps conquering it by foreign aid but even this policy is not consecutively followed the increasing repugnance of the court and of the king himself to the revolutionary development forbids a consecutive and purely hypocritical acceptation of the national assembly's decrees deliberate and calculated intrigue might yet have saved the monarchy and the persons of the royal family oddly enough an ally in the struggle an excellent intriguer a savior of the monarchial institutions and a true defender of the royal persons was at hand it was the hand in the person at miribu the man had more and more dominated the assembly he had been conspicuous from the very first opening days he had been his very voice in the resistance to the king at Versailles it was he who had replied to the master of ceremonies on june 23rd that the commons would not disperse it was he who had moved that persons of the commons were privileged against arrest he was of a family noble in station and conspicuous before the people by the wealth and eccentricities of its head mirror boss father he himself was not unknown even before the revolution broke out for his violence his amours his intelligence and his debts he was a few years older than the king and the queen his personality repelled him nonetheless his desire to serve them was sincere and it was his plan while retaining the great hold over the national assembly which his rhetoric and his use of men furnished to him to give to the court and in particular to the queen whom he very greatly and almost reverently admired such secret advice as might save them this advice as we shall see in a moment tended more and more to be advised for civil war but marable's death at the close of the phase we are now entering on april 2 1791 and the increasing fears of the king and queen between them prevented any statesmanship at all they prevented even the statesmanship of intrigue and the period became on the side of the revolution a rapid and uncontrolled development of its democratic theory limited by the hesitation of the middle class and on the side of the court an increasing demand from your physical security and flight coupled with an increasing determination to return and to restore as a popular monarchy the scheme of the past the 18 months that intervened between the fixing of the assembly and the royal family in paris and the death of marable are remarkable for the following points which must all be considered abreast as it were if we are to understand their combined effects one this was the period in which the constructive work of the national assembly was done and in which the whole face of the nation was changed the advising bodies of lawyers called parliaments were abolished 11 months after the king had come to paris the modern departments were organized in the place of the old provinces the old national and provincial militia was destroyed but as it is very important to remember the old regular army was left untouched a new judicature and new rules of procedure were established a new code sketched out in the place of common law model in a word it was the period during which most of those things which we regard as characteristic of the revolutionary work were either brought to their theoretical conclusion or given at least their main lines two among these constructive acts but so important that it must be regarded separately was the civil constitution of the clergy which will be dealt with at length further in this book it was the principal work and the principal error of that year and a half three the general spirit of the revolution more difficult to define than its theory but easy to appreciate as one follows the development of the movement increased regularly and enormously in intensity during the period the power of the king who was still at the head of the executive added more and more as an irritant against public opinion and for that public opinion began to express itself in a centralized and national fashion of which the great federation of the 14th of july 1790 in paris on the anniversary of the fall of the bestial was the nucleus and also the symbol the federation consisted in delegates from the national guard throughout the country and it was of this capital importance that it introduced into the revolutionary movement a feature of soldierry which made even the regular troops for the most part sympathetic with the enthusiasm of the time five these 18 months were again filled with the movement of the immigration that movement was of course the departure of many of the more prominent of the privileged daughters and of a crowd of humbler nobles as also of a few ecclesiastics from France the king's brothers one fled at the beginning of the immigration the younger the comte d'artoy the other the elder at its close and coincidentally with the flight of the king must especially be noted in this connection they formed in company with the more notable of the other emigrants a regular political body which intrigued continually beyond the frontiers in germany and italy against the revolution and six it was therefore during these months that the ultimate origins of the larger european war must be found the armed body of the emigrants under condi formed an organized corps upon the rine and though there was not yet the semblance of an arm movement in europe beside theirs against the french yet by the emigres as they were called were sown the seeds of the harvest of which was to be the war of 1792 i have said that during these months in which most of the constructive work of the revolution was done in which the seeds of the great war were sown and in which the absolute position of the crown as the head of the executive was increasingly irritating to the public opinion of the french and especially of the capital merebo was the one man who might have preserved the continuity of national institutions by the preservation of the monarchy he received money from the court and in return gave it advice the advice was the advice of genius but it was listened to less and less in proportion as it was more and more practical merebo also favored the abandonment of paris by the king but it would have had the king leave paris openly and with an armed force withdraw to a neighboring and loyal centers such as campion and thence depend upon the fortunes of civil war meanwhile the queen was determined upon a very different and much more personal plan into which no conception of statesmanship entered she was determined to save the persons of her children herself and her husband plans of flight were made postponed and reposponed it was already agreed at the court that not merebo's plan should be followed but this plan of mere evasion the army in which bouillet commanded upon the frontier was to send small detachments along the great road from paris to the east the first of these were to meet the royal fugitives a little beyond chelons and to escort their carriage eastward each armed detachments in the chain as the flight proceeded was to fall in for its defense until once the town of arans was reached the king and queen should be in touch with the main body of the army what was then intended to follow remains obscure it is fairly certain that the king did not intend to pass the frontier but to take refuge at matme d the conflict that would have inevitably broken out could hardly have been confined to a civil war foreign armies and the german mercenaries in the french service were presumably to be organized in case the flight succeeded for a march upon paris and the complete restoration of the old state of affairs had merebo lived this rash and unstatesman-like plan might yet have been avoided it so happened that he died upon april second of 1791 and soon after we enter the third phase of the revolution which is that leading directly to the great war and to the fall of the monarchy shortly after merebo's death a tumult which excessively frightened the royal family prevented the king and queen from leaving the palace and passing easter at st cloud in the suburbs though further postponements of their flight followed the evasion actually took place in the night of the 20th to 21st of june it very nearly succeeded but by a series of small accidents the last of which the famous riot of druid to intercept the fugitives is among the best known episodes in history the king and queen and their children were discovered and arrested at fair ends within a few hundred yards of safety and were brought back to paris surrounded by enormous and hostile crowds with the failure of this attempt at flight in the end of june 1791 ends the third phase of the revolution the end of section 13 the end of phase three section 14 the french revolution this is a libre vox recording all libre vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libre vox dot org the french revolution by hill air bellach section 14 chapter 4 continued phase 4 from june 1791 to september 1792 to understand the capital effect both of this flight and of its failure we must once more insist upon the supreme position of the monarchy and the traditions and instinct of french polity the unwisdom of the flight it would be difficult to exaggerate it is impossible to exaggerate the moral revolution caused by its failure it was regarded as virtually an abdication the strong body of provincial silent and moderate opinion which still centered on the king and regarded it as his function to lead and to govern was bewildered and in the main divorced in the future from the crown it is an excellent proof of what the monarchy had for so long been to france that even in such a crisis barely the name of a republic was mentioned and that only in the intellectual circles in paris all the constitutional and standing forces of society conspired to preserve the monarchy at the expense of no matter what fictions the middle class militia guard under lafayette repressed in what is known as the massacre of the shamp de mars the beginnings of a popular movement the more radical leaders among whom was danton fled abroad or hid the duke of orleans utterly failed to take advantage of the moment or to get himself proclaimed regent the monarchial tradition was too strong immediately after the second anniversary of the taking of the best deal in july the decrees of the parliament created the fiction that the king was not responsible for the flight that he had been carried off and in the following september though until then suspended from executive power the king on taking the oath to the constitution was once more at the head of all the forces of the nation but all this patching and reparation of the facade of constitutional monarchy a fiction whose tautoriness is more offensive to the french temper than its falsehood had come too late already the queen had written to her brother the emperor of austria suggesting the mobilization of a considerable force and its encampment on the frontier to overall the revolutionary movement her action coincided within a few days with the end of that great parliament which had been chosen on the most democratic suffrage and which had transformed the whole of society and laid the basis of the revolutionary constitution with the meeting of the national assembly's successor on the first of october 1791 war was already possible that possibility was to be transformed very soon into probability and at last into actuality in the new parliament the weight not of numbers but of leadership fell to a group of enthusiastic and eloquent men who from the fact that certain of their principal members came from the giron were called the girondins they represented the purest and the most enthusiastic ideal of the democracy less national perhaps then that advocated by men more extreme than they but of a sort which from that time to this has been able to browse the enthusiasm of historians verinode and isnard were their great orators brissel was their intellectual intriguer and the wife of roland one of their members was as it were the soul of the whole group it was the fact that these men desired war which made war certain once the temper of this new second assembly should be felt the extremists over against them to whom i have alluded known as the mountain were especially peresian in character robespierre who had been at first an obscure and later a sectarian orator of the national assembly though not sitting in the second parliament was perhaps the most prominent figure in that group for he was the public orator of peris and indeed the mountain was peris peris whether inside or outside the parliament peris acting as the responsible brain of france later it was the mountain that had first opposed the war which was to ensure the success of the french arms by a rigidity and despotism in action such as the purer and less practical minds of the gyrondons apohort on the third of september 1791 to quote a fundamental date in the rapid progress towards a war which was to transform the revolution the king writing in a manner which betrays dictation by his wife beg the king of prussia as she had begged the emperor to mobilize an armed force and with it to back a congress that should have for its object the prevention of the spread of the revolution that letter was typical of the moment from both sides tension was rapidly proceeding to the breaking point nor was the tension merely upon generalities the revolution had broken a european treaty in the annexation of the papal state of avignon and it had broken european conventions when it had abolished in elsace feudal rights that were possessed by the princes of the empire it was as though some state today attempting collectivism should confiscate along with other property securities lying in its banks but held by the nationals of a foreign state on the revolutionary side also there was a definite pointed issue which was the permission accorded within the empire for the emigrants to meet in arms and to threaten the french frontier but these precise and legal points were not the true causes of the war the true causes of the war were the desire of the unreformed european governments notably those of prussia and austria that the revolution should in their own interests be checked and the conviction that their armed forces were easily capable of affecting the destruction of the new french regime the court of vienna refused to accept the just indemnity that was offered the princes of the empire in elsace for the loss of their old feudal rights leopold the emperor who was one of the same generation as the french king and queen died upon the first of march 1792 and was succeeded by a son only 24 years of age and easily persuaded to war on the french side with the exception of the mountain and notably of robespierre there was a curious coalition of opinion demanding war the court and the reactionaries were sufficiently certain of victory of the allies to find their salvation in war the revolutionary party that is the mass of public opinion and the patriots as they called themselves the gerondans also and especially desired war as a sort of crusade for the revolution they suffered grievous illusions its enthusiasts always must and believe the french armed forces capable of sustaining the shock the plans had already been drawn up for the campaign and promptly betrayed to the enemy by the queen du marais an excellent soldier had from the middle of march 1792 been the chief person in the ministry and the director of foreign affairs and a month later on the 20th of april war was declared against austria or to be accurate against the king of hungary and bohemia such was still the official title of marie antoinette's nephew who though now succeeded to the empire had not yet been crowned emperor it was hoped to confine the war to this monarch and indeed the german princes of the empire did not join him the land grave of his castle was an exception but the one german power that counted most the kingdom of prussia which du marais had especially hoped to keep neutral joined forces with austria the royal letters had done their work the end of section 14 section 15 the french revolution this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org the french revolution by hillar bellach section 15 chapter 4 continued the phases of the revolution phase four continued at the critical moment the french armed forces and the french strongholds were at their worst the discipline of the army was deplorable the regular soldiers of the old regime had lost from six to nine thousand officers by emigration and mixed no better than water and oil with the revolutionary volunteers who had been drafted to the number over 200 battalions into the ranks of the army moreover these volunteer battalions were for the most part ill provided far below their establishment some only existed on paper none were trained as soldiers should be trained in a more orderly time when the decrees of the government corresponded with the reality 400 000 men would have held the frontier such a number was in the estimates as it was from the swiss mountains to the english channel the french could count on no more than one fifth that number 80 000 alone were under arms the full prussian army was alone apart from its allies close upon treble the size of this disorganized and insufficient force panics at once ludicrous and tragic opened the campaign upon the french side the king took advantage of them to dismiss his geronded ministry and to form a reactionary government the parliament replied by measures useless to the conduct of war and designed only to exasperate the crown which was betraying the nation it ordered the dismissal of the royal guard the formation of a camp of revolutionary federals outside paris the transportation of the orthodox priests in pursuit of the court's determination to resist the assembly and to await the victorious allies louis vetoed the last two decrees lafayette was now in command of the army of the center with his headquarters at sudan right upon the route to the invasion declared for the king had the armies of austria and prussia moved with rapidity at this moment their revolution was at an end as it was their mobilization was slow and their march though accurate leisurely it gave time for the populace of paris to demonstrate against the palace and the royal family on the 20th of june it was not until the first days of august set the main force of the combined monarchs under the general ship in chief of the duke of brunswick who had the reputation of being the best general of his time set out for the march on paris it was not until the 23rd of august that the invaders took the first french frontier town long way meanwhile two very important things had lent to the french in spite of the wretched insufficiency of their armed force and intensity of feeling which did something to supply that insufficiency in the first place the third anniversary of the fall of the best deal the 14th of july had called to paris deputations from all the provinces many of them armed this gave the national feeling unity in the second place brunswick had issued from coblance which was his base upon the 25th of that same month of july a manifesto which was known in paris three days later and which though certain modern historians have questioned this undoubtedly set revolutionary opinion ablaze this manifesto demanded in the name of the allied army a complete restoration of the old regime professed to treat the french and their new authorities as rebels subject to military execution and contained a clause of peculiar gravity which excited an immediate and exasperated response from paris the authorship of this clause lay with marie antoinette and it threatened if there were any attack upon the palace to give the capital over to the military execution and total subversion two days later the federal from marcie a middle-class body of excellent citizens though merely amateurs at soldiering and small in numbers marched into the city their marching song has become famous under the title of the marcie they had accomplished the astonishing feat of traversing france drawing canon with them at the rate of 18 miles a day in the height of a torrid summer for close upon a month on end there is no parallel to such an effort in the history of war nor did contemporary opinion exaggerate when it saw in the battalion of marcie the center of the coming fight the shock between the palace and the populace was joined in the morning of the 10th of august the palace was held by about 6 000 men of whom some 1200 were regulars of the swiss guard the palace the tulliaries was or should have been impregnable the popular attack we may be certain would have been beaten back had the connection between the tulliaries and the loop on the south been properly cut the flooring had indeed been removed at this point for some distance but either the gap was not wide enough or the post was insufficiently guarded for the populace and the federals badly beaten in the main attack upon the long front of the palace succeeded in turning its flank where it joined on to the louvre thus infill added the suites of rooms and utterly put an end to the resistance of its garrison meanwhile the king and queen the doffin and his little sister with others of the royal household had taken refuge during the fighting in the hall of the parliament after the victory of the populace their fate was debated and decided upon they were imprisoned in the tower of the temple a medieval fortress still standing in the northeast of paris and though monarchy was not yet formally abolished the most extreme spirits which the revolution then contained and the most vigorous stepped into the palace of the old executive with danton at their head with them appeared in the seat of government for the spirit of military action its contempt for forms and its rapid decision the known accomplices of the supporters of the court's resistance and alliance with the invaders were arrested by the hundred the enrollment of volunteers already enthusiastic throughout france was supported with the new vigor of official aid and the revolution left at once all its old moorings to enter an extreme phase at the same moment the frontier was crossed and the national soil invaded on the 19th of august it is possible that the delay of the prussians until that moment had been calculated for the position in france was complicated and their decision to fight have been totally arrived at it was the news of the fall of the palace that seems to have decided them the place like the date of this grave event deserves to be more famous than it is runswick touched what was then french soil in that little triangle where now german and french lorraine and luxembourg meet the village is called redange thence did the privilege of europe set out to reach paris and to destroy democracy the first task occupied them for full 22 years upon the latter they are still engaged what forces the french could there bring against brunswick were contemptuously brushed aside four days later he had as we have seen taken the frontier stronghold of long we within a week he was in front of vir done vir done had no chance of resistance no garrison to call a garrison and no opportunity for defense the news that it must fall reached paris on the morning of a fatal date the second of september after its fall there would lie nothing between it and the capital and from that moment the whole nature of the revolution is wholly transformed by the psychological effect of war the end of section 15 the end of phase four section 16 the french revolution this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org the french revolution by hill air bellach section 16 chapter 4 continued the phases of the revolution phase five from the invasion of september 1792 to the establishment of the committee of public safety april 1793 the fifth phase of the french revolution may be said to date from these first days of september 1792 when the news of the successful invasion was maddening paris and when the revolutionary executive established upon the ruins of the old dead monarchy and in its image was firmly in the saddle up to the establishment of the yet more monarchial committee of public safety seven months later and these seven months may be characterized as follows they were a period during which it was attempted to carry on the revolutionary war against the governments of europe upon democratic principles the attempt failed in the place of discipline and comprehension and foresight the rising and intense enthusiasm of the moment was depended upon for victory the pure ideal of the gerondon faction with the model republic which it hoped to establish proved wholly insufficient for the conduct of a war and to save the nation from foreign conquest and the great democratic experiment of the revolution from disaster it was necessary that the military and discipline side of the french with all the tyranny that accompanies that aspect of their national genius should undertake the completion of the adventure this period opens with what are called the massacres of september i have said upon a former page that the known accomplices and supporters of the court's alliance with the invaders were arrested by the hundreds upon the fall of the palace and the establishment of a revolutionary executive with danton at its head these prisoners masked in the jails of the city were massacred to the number of 1100 by a small but organized band of assassins during the days when the news of the fall of erdan was expected and reached the capital such a crime appalled the public conscience of europe and of the french people it must never be confused with the judicial and military acts of the terror nor with the reprisals undertaken against rebellion nor with the gross excesses of mob violence for though votes in favor of the immediate execution of those who had sided with the enemies of the country were passed in certain primary assemblies the act itself was the mechanical deliberate and voluntary choice of a few determined men it had therefore a character of its own and that character made it stand out for its contemporaries as it should stand out for us it was murder the prisoners were unarmed nay though reasonable they had not actually taken arms their destruction was inspired in most of those who ordered it by mere hatred those who ordered it were a small committee acting spontaneously and marat was their chief footnote the legend that danton was connected with the massacre is based on insufficient historical foundation there are several second or third hand stories in support of it but the chief positive evidence brought forward in this connection is the stamped paper of the minister of justice it has been amply proved by dr robert ad was taken by a subordinate and without danton's knowledge or complicity to the much stupider story that the federals of marciae took part in the massacre the modern student he paid no attention it has been destroyed piecemeal and on indefeasible documentary evidence in the monograph of polio and marcel it was under the impression of these massacres that the deputies of the new or third assembly of the revolution known to history as the convention met in paris this parliament was to be at first the actual later the nominal governing powers in france during the three critical years that followed years which were the military salvation of the revolution and which therefore permitted the establishment of the democratic experiment in modern europe it was on the 20th of september that the convention met for its first sitting which was held in the palace of the tulirees during the hours of that day while it was electing its officials choosing its speaker and the rest the french army upon the frontier to its own astonishment and to that of its enemy managed to hold in check at the cannonade of velmy the allied invaders upon the moral the new assembly met in the writing school the menage where the two former assemblies had also said it was about to separate after that day sitting when one of the members proposed the abolition of royalty the convention voted the reform unanimously and dispersed on the third day the 22nd of september it was decreed that the public documents should henceforward bear the date first year of the republic but there was no solemnity on the occasion the idea of no king was novel and untried there was as yet no enthusiasm for any save the monarchic form of government it was not until the title republic began to come out in men's minds political liberty and had become also the flag as it were for the victorious national defense that the republican name acquired in our europe and from fans that strong and almost religious force which it has since retained the check given to the invaders at velmy again to the astonishment of both soldiers and statesmen determined the campaign sickness and the difficulty of communications made the further advance of the invaders impossible they negotiated for and obtained an unmolested retreat and a few weeks later they had recrossed the frontier meanwhile in paris the great quarrel had begun between the municipal and the national government which because paris was more decided more revolutionary and above all more military and temper than the parliament was destined to terminate in the victory of the capital the gerondans stood still in the assembly for an ideal republic a republic enjoying to the utmost limit individual liberty in its citizens and the autonomy of local government in every city and parish but opposed to this ideal and far more national was that of the revolutionary extremists called in the convention the mountain who had the support of the municipal government of paris known as the commune and were capable of french victories in the field these stood for the old french and soldierly conceptions of a strong central government wherewith to carry on the life and death struggle into which the revolution had now entered therefore they conquered all that autumn the quarrel between france and europe remained doubtful for though the armies of the republic under du marais won the battle of gemaps swept across the northeastern frontier and occupied belgium while to the south another french army swept right up to the rine du marais himself knew well enough that a campaign undertaken merely upon enthousiasms and with troops so mixed in character and many of them so undisciplined would end fatally but until the advent of the new year republic opinion was not instructed upon these lines and the revolutionary war seemed to have passed suddenly from the defense of the national territory to a crusade against the kings and the aristocratic governments of europe enthusiasm and enthusiasm alone was the force of the moment violent decrees such as the decree of fraternity which decreed an alliance with all people struggling to be free and the opening of the shelt a direct violation of treaty rights to which england among other nations was a partner were characteristic of the moment chief act of all the king was put upon his trial at the bar of the parliament it was upon the fourth of january 1793 the king had already made his will upon christmas day and the chief orator of the girondins moved that the sentence should be referred to the people for ratification the fear of civil war more than anything else forbade this just suggestion to pass upon the 15th of january the question was put to the parliament whether the king had been guilty of conspiring against public liberty and of attempting the general safety of the state many were absent and many abstained none replied in the negative the condemnation of louis was therefore technically almost a unanimous one the voting on these grave issues was what the french call nominal that is each member was called upon by name to give his vote and an expression of opinion as well if he so chose a second attempt to appeal to the people was rejected by 424 to 283 on the third question which was the decisive one of the penalty 721 only could be found to vote and of these a bare majority of 53 declared for death as against the minority of whom some voted for the death penalty conditionally that is not at all or voted against it a respite was lost by a majority of 70 and on the 21st of january 1793 at about 10 in the morning louis the 14th was guillotined then followed war with england with holland and with spain and almost at that moment began the inevitable reflux of the military tide for the french eruption to the rye in the low countries and the palatinate had no permanent military basis upon which to depend the moray began to retreat a month after the king's execution and on the 18th of march suffered a decisive defeat at near winden it was this retreat followed by that disaster which decided the fate of the gerondon attempt to found a republic ideally individually and locally free already before the battle of near winden was fought danton no longer a minister but still the most powerful orator in the convention proposed a special court for trying cases of treason a court which was later called the revolutionary tribunal the news of near winden prepared the way for a stronger measure and some exceptional form of government a special parliamentary committee already formed for the control of ministers was strengthened when on the 5th of april after some negotiations in doubt do moray despairing of the armies of the republic thought to ally his forces with the invaders and to restore order his soldiers refused to follow him his treason was apparent upon the moral the convention nominated that first committee of public safety which with its successor of the same name was hence forward the true despotic and military center of revolutionary government it was granted secrecy in deliberation the virtual though not the theoretic control of the ministry sums of money for secret expenditure and in a word all the machinery necessary to a military executive rousseau's dictator had appeared the great mind which had given the contract social to be the gospel of the revolution had also foreseen one of the necessary organs of democracy in its hardest trial his theory had been proved necessary and true in fact nine members formed this first committee beret who may be called the clerk of it denton its genius and camba on its financier were the leading names with the establishment of this truly national and traditional thing whose form alone was novel but whose power and method were native to all the military tradition of gall the revolution was saved we have now chiefly to follow the way in which the committee governed and in which it directed affairs in the great crisis of the war this sixth phase lasts for nearly 16 months and from the beginning of april 1793 to the 28th of july 1794 and it is convenient to divide those 16 months into two divisions the end of section 16 the end of phase five section 17 the french revolution this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the french revolution by hillair bellach section 17 chapter four continued the phases of the revolution phase six from april 1793 to july 1794 the first division of this period which ends in the height of the summer of 1793 is the gradual consolidation of the committee as a new organ of government and the peril of destruction which it runs in common with the nation it governs at the hands of allied europe the second period includes part of august and all the rest of 1793 and the first seven months of 1794 during which time the committee is successful in its military effort the nation is saved and in a manner curiously dramatic and curiously inconsequential the martial regime of the terror abruptly ceases the first step in the consolidation of the power of the committee was their letting loose of the commune of paris and the populace it governed against the gerondans looked at merely from the point of view of internal politics upon which most historians have concentrated the attack of the populace of paris and their commune against the parliament seems to be no more than the end of the long quarrel between the gerondans with their ideal federal republic and the capital with its instinct for strong centralized government but in the light of the military situation of which the committee of public safety were vividly aware and which it was their business to control a very different tale may be told when the defeats began the parliament had voted a levy of 300 000 men it was a mere vote which came to very little not enough in numbers and still less in morale for the type of troops recruited under a system of money forfeit and purchased substitutes was wholly beneath the task of the great war this law of conscription had been passed upon the 24th of february the date for its first application was in many villages fixed for the 10th of march all that country which borders the estuary of the leor to the north and to the south a country whose geographical and political peculiarities need not detain us here but which is still curiously individual began to resist the decree was unpopular everywhere of course as military service is everywhere unpopular with the settled population but here it had no ally for the revolution and all its works were grossly unpopular as well the error of the civil constitution of the clergy was a powerful factor in this revolt the piety and orthodoxy of this district were and are exceptional some such resistance in some such quarter was perhaps expected but what was not expected was its military success four days before the defeat of near wind in itself and four days after the decree of conscription in the village a horde of peasantry had taken possession of the town of shale in the southern part of this district vendee three days before the committee of public safety was formed the insurgents had defeated regular forces at macool and had tortured and put to death their prisoners the month of april when the committee of public safety was first finding its seat in the saddle saw the complete success of the rebels the forces sent against them were worthless for all military effort had been concentrated upon the frontier most of them were not even what we should call militia a small force of regulars was to have moved from orleans but before they could attack through ours parthené and fontané fell into the power of the rebels these posts afforded an advanced triangle right into the regularly administered territory of the republic the great town of nantes was outflanked even in such a moment the gerondon still clung to their ideal an individually free and locally autonomous republic it is little wonder that the temper of paris refused to support them or their influence over the parliament and we can easily understand how the new committee supported paris in its revolt that revolt took place on the 31st of may the forces under the command of the capital did not march but a deputation of the sections of paris demanded the arrest of the leading gerondons the body of the debating hall was invaded by the mob the committee of public safety pretended to compromise between paris and the parliament but a document recently analyzed sufficiently proves that their sympathy was with the parisian attack they proposed indeed to put the armed forces of paris at the disposition of the assembly that is in their own hands that day nothing of the movement was done but the parliament had proved of no strength in the face of the capital on the frontier the advance of the invaders had begun the great barrier fortress of valencians relied for its defense upon the neighboring camp of famars the garrison of that camp had been compelled to evacuate it by the advance of the allied army upon the 23rd of may and though some days were to be spent before the heavy artillery of the austrians could be in place valencians was henceforward at the mercy of its procedures there was news that love and e was not the only rebellion lions had risen three days before that had been heavy fighting the royalists and the gerondons had combined and had carried the town hall and established an insurrectionary and unelected municipal government such news coming immediately after the 31st of may browsed the capital to action this time the parisian forces actually marched against the parliament the demand for the suspension of the 22 named gerondon deputies was made under arms much has been written and by the best historians to make of this successful day a mere conquest by the commune of paris over the parliament though baer and danton both protested in public it was in reality their politics that conquered with paris to the 22 names that the forces of paris had listed seven were added the great gerondons berceau vernaud and the rest were not indeed imprisoned they were considered under arrest in their houses but the moral authority of the convention as an administrative machine not as a legislative one was broken on this day the second of june 1793 paris had ostensibly conquered but the master who was stronger than ever and whom paris had served was the committee of public safety this first committee of public safety endured to the 10th of july in the midst of such a war and of such an internal struggle the convention had voted upon the public initiative of the committee of public safety the famous constitution of 93 that prime document of democracy which as though to market's own ideal has remained no more than a written thing from then until now therein will be found universal suffrage therein the yearly parliament therein the referendum therein the elected executive a thing no parliament would ever give us to this day the constitution was passed but three weeks after the successful insurrection of paris a fortnight later still on the 10th of july the first of the committee of public safety was followed by its successor all this while the vendians were advancing nantes indeed had held out against the rebels but as we shall see in a moment the republican troops had not yet made themselves good the rebellion of lions was fortifying itself and a week later was to execute the radical chalier marcellet was rising on the 10th of july the convention summoned to its bar westerman the friend of dentin who had suffered defeat at the hands of the western rebels it is well to note at this point one of those small individual factors which determine the fate of states dentin the master of all that first movement toward the centralization the man who had made the 10th of august who had negotiated with oppressions after velmy who had determined upon and formed a central government against the jiranda nannarchy had broken down his health was gone he was a giant in body but for the moment he had tired himself out the renewing of his committee was proposed he was thrust out from the new choice barrier remained to link the old committee with the new a violent sectarian kelvin as pastor john born saint andre among the bravest and most warped of the revolutionaries kuthon a friend of robespierre saint just a still more intimate friend a young handsome enormously courageous and decisive man entered with others to the number of nine the new committee seventeen days later on the 27th of july robespierre replaced one of the minor members thus chosen he had precisely a year to live and it is the moment for fixing before the reader's mind the nature of his career the end of section 17 section 18 the french revolution this is a libra vox recording all the bravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org the french revolution by hillar bellock section 18 chapter 4 continued the phases of the revolution phase 6 continued robespierre was at this moment the chief figure in the eyes of the crowd and was soon to be the chief revolutionary figure in the eyes of europe that is the first point the second is of equal importance and is far less generally recognized he was not and was never destined to be the chief force in the revolutionary government as to the first point robespierre had obtained this position from the following combination of circumstances first alone of the revolutionary personalities he had been continually before the public eye from the beginning he had been a member of the first parliament of all and had spoken in that parliament in the first month of its sessions though then obscure in versailles he was already well known in his province and the native town of eras secondly this position of his in the public eye was maintained without a break and his position and reputation had increased by accumulation month after month for the whole four years no one else was left in the political arena of whom this could be said all the old reactionaries had gone all the moderate men had gone the figures of 1793 were all new figures except robespierre and he owed this continued and steady increase of fame to thirdly his conspicuous and vivid sincerity he was more wholly possessed of the democratic faith of the contract social than any other man of his time he had never swerved from an article of it there is no better engine for enduring fame than the expression of real convictions moreover fourthly his speeches exactly echoed the opinions of his audience and echoed them with a lucidity which his audience could not have commanded whether he possessed true eloquence or no is a matter still debated by those who are scholars in french letters but it is certain that he had in his own time all the effects of a great order though his manner was precise and cold fifthly he was possessed of a consistent body of doctrine that is he was not only convinced of the general democratic creed which his contemporaries held and he not only held it unswervingly and uncorruptedly but he could supplement it with a system of morals and even something which was the adumeration of religion sixthly he had as such characters always can but not often do gather around themselves a group of intensely devoted personal admirers and supporters chief of whom was the young and splendidly courageous saint just it was a combination of all these things i say which made ropes pierre the chief personality in the public eye when he entered the committee of public safety on the 27th of july 1793 now let it be noted that unlike his followers saint just and exceedingly unlike danton ropes pierre possessed none of those military qualities without which it is impossible to be responsible for government over a military nation especially if that nation be in the act of war and such a war the committee of public safety was the seizure of revolutionary france ropes pierre as a member of that seizure was hopeless his popularity was an advantage to his colleagues in the committee but his conception of action upon the frontier was vague personal and futile his ambition for leadership if it existed was subordinate to his ambition to be the savior of his people and of their democratic experiment and he had no comprehension of those functions of leadership by which he can coordinate detail and impose a plan of action ropes pierre therefore in every crisis of the last year we are about to study yielded to his colleagues never impressed them and never led them and yet it was the irony of his fate was imagined by his fellow countrymen and by the warring governments of europe to be the master of them all the first weeks after his appearance in the committee of public safety were the critical weeks of the whole revolutionary movement the despotic action of paris which i have concluded to be secretly supported by the committee had provoked insurrection upon all sides in the provinces normandy had protested and on the 13th of july a norman girl stabbed marat to death lions as we have seen had been some weeks in revolt marcia had rebelled in the first week of june bordeaux on the whole department of the giron had of course risen for their men were at stake later tulan the great naval depot of france revolted a reactionary municipal provincial government was formed in that port the little boy imprisoned in the temple aired to the kingdom was proclaimed under the title of louis 17 and before the end of august the english and spanish fleets had been admitted into the harbor and an excellent foreign garrison was defending the town against the national government meanwhile the allies upon the belgium frontier were doing what they could taking fortress after fortress and while mayans was falling on the rye valencians and condi were capitulating on the northeastern border and a portion of the allied army was marching to besiege dun kirk the insurrection in vendee which had broken out in the early part of the year though checked by the resistance of nantes was still successful in the field footnote on page 403 of my monograph on danton nesbitt and company 1899 the reader will find an unpublished report of the committee of public safety drawn up immediately before the destruction of the girondins on the 31st of may it forms in my view conclusive evidence read in the light of their other actions of the committee's determination to side with paris it was in the month of august that a successful effort was made carnault who soon proved the military genius of the revolution entered the committee of public safety on the 23rd of the month a true levy very different from the futile and its efficiently applied attempt of the spring was forced upon the nation by a vote in parliament it was a levy of men vehicles animals and provision and soon furnished something not far short of half a million soldiers with september the tide turned the first victory in this crisis of the struggle of haunchute relieved dun kirk in the early days of september by mid-october a second indecisive victory that have watched in yens relieved moberg lions had been taken normity was pacified long before by the end of the year too long was reoccupied and at the same time the last cohesive force of the vendians destroyed but meanwhile the crisis had had a double effect moral and material the moral effect had been a sort of national madness in which the most extreme measures were proposed and many of them carried through with what one may call a creative audacity the calendar itself was changed the week itself abolished the months renamed and readjusted such an act sufficiently symbolizes the mental attitude of the revolutionaries they were determined upon a new earth there went with this last and most violent attack upon what was believed to be the last remnants of catholicism in the country a hideous persecution of the priesthood in which an uncounted number of priests died under the rigors of transportation or violence the reprisals against the rebels varied from severity of the most awful kind to cruelty that was clearly insane and of which the worst examples took place at iras and nantes in all this turmoil the governing center of the country the committee of public safety not only kept its head but used the enormous forces of the storm for the purposes of achieving military success under that system known as the terror which was for them no more than martial law and an engine of their despotic control of the 2000 and more that passed before the revolutionary tribunal and were executed in Paris the large majority were those whom the committee of public safety judged to be obstacles to their military policy and most were men or women who had broken some specific part of the martial code which the government had laid down some were generals who had failed or were suspected of treason and some among the most conspicuous were politicians who had attempted to check so absolute a method of conducting the war of these the greatest was danton before the end of 1793 he began to protest against the system of the terror he believed perhaps that the country was now safe in the military sense and needed such rigors no more but the committee disagreed and were evidence available we should perceive that carno in particular determined that such opposition must cease danton and his colleagues including desmelins the journalist of the revolution and the chief publicist who promoted the days of july 1789 were executed in the first week of april 1794 the end of section 18