 CHAPTER 12 THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KING A truce to personal squabbles having been for a moment agreed upon, the convention was proceeding to discuss the new constitution when, on the motion of the mountain, the question of the disposal of the king was declared urgent. The popular resentment against the dethroned monarch had been growing for some time past. Continual addresses from the departments as well as from the Paris sections were being received praying for his condemnation. The usual legal questions being raised as to the power of any tribunal to try the sovereign, it was agreed by the committee appointed to consider the matter that though Louis had been inviolable as king of France, he was no longer so as the private individual Louis Capet. The mountain vehemently attacked this view. Saint-Just, Robespierre, and others declared that these legal quibbles were an insult to the people's sovereignty, that the king had already been judged by virtue of the insurrection and that nothing remained but his condemnation and execution. Just at this time an iron chest was found behind a panel of the tuileries containing damning proofs of court intrigues with Mirabeau and with the immigrant aristocrats also indicating that the war with Austria had been urged on with a view to betraying the country and the revolution. This naturally gave force to the demand for the immediate condemnation of Louis as a traitor to the French and guilty towards humanity. The agitation was vigorously sustained in the Jacobin's club and in the sections and the moderate party in the assembly found itself compelled to give heed to the popular outcry at least up to a certain point. The convention by a considerable majority decided against the extreme right who urged the inviolability of the king and also against those mountainous who pressed for condemnation without trial. It was determined to bring the ex-king to the bar of the convention. The act, declaratory of the royal crimes, was then prepared. Meanwhile, Louis was being strictly guarded in the tompler where he had now been confined nearly four months. He had recently been separated from his family, the commune fearing the concerning of plots of escape. Only one servant was allotted to the whole family. Louis amused himself at this time with reading Hume's history of England, especially the parts relating to Charles I. On the vote of the convention being declared, Saint-Aire, the commandant of the National Guard, was commissioned to conduct Louis to the bar of the National Assembly. This took place on the 11th of December. The coach passed through drizzling rain, scowling crowds and through streets filled with troops. Arrived at the hall of the convention, the mayor of Paris, Chabot, and the procurator Chomet, who had sat with the king in the vehicle, delivered him over to Saint-Aire, who had been in attendance outside. The latter, laying hold of Louis by the arm, led him to the bar of the convention. Barrère, the president, after a moment's delay, greeted him with the words, Louis, the French nation accuses you. You are now about to hear the act of accusation. Louis, you may sit down. There were fifty-seven counts of the indictment relating to acts of despotism, conspiracies, secret intrigues, the flight to Varene, and what not. On the conclusion of the speech for the prosecution which lasted three hours, Louis was removed back to his prison. He had demanded legal counsel, so the convention decided after some discussion to allow his old friend Mel Elbe with two others, Tranchet and Décésar, to undertake the office. It was the latter who delivered the speech on the day of the defense which consisted partly in the old arguments and and royal inviolability and partly in a statement of Louis's services to the people. The people, said Décésar, desired that a disastrous impost should be abolished and Louis abolished it. The people asked for the abolition of servitudes and Louis abolished them. They demanded reforms and he consented to them, etc., etc. The speech concluded with an eloquent pareration calling upon history to judge the decision of the convention. The cowardly Girondin, although it was well known they had previously been in favor of the king's life, did not have the courage at this moment to make a definite stand one way or the other. They contented themselves with proposing to declare Louis guilty, but to leave the question of punishment to the primary assemblies of the people. This proposition which would probably have meant civil war was vehemently opposed by the mountain and rejected and the convention after having unanimously voted Louis guilty resolved on considering the question of punishment. The popular ferment outside the convention was immense and sentence of death was loudly demanded. After forty hours the final vote was taken and Louis condemned to death without respite, i.e. within twenty-four hours, by a majority of twenty-six in an assembly of seven hundred twenty-one. In vain did the defenders urge the smallness of the majority. The mountain which now for the first time dominated the convention showed itself inexorable. On Monday the twenty-first of January 1793 the execution took place. Louis who had taken leave of his family the previous day was awakened at five o'clock. Shortly after, Saint-Aire arrived to announce that it was the hour to depart. At the same time the murmur of crowds and the rumbling of cannon were heard outside. The carriage took upwards of an hour to pass through the streets which were lined with military. At length the place de la révolution was reached and Louis ascended the scaffold. He was beginning to protest his innocence when on the signal of Saint-Aire his voice was drowned by the beating of drums, the executioner seized him, and in a moment all was over. The death of Louis was probably necessary for the safety of the Republic at the time, but one cannot help having some pity for one whose worst offenses were a certain feebleness and a good nature which made him the ready tool of a cruel, unscrupulous and designing woman. It should be noted as regards the decree in the convention that, unlike the Girondins, Plucky Tom Payne up to the last manfully voted in the sense in which he had always spoken, vis for the life of the king and this at the imminent risk of his own. Notwithstanding this act a grateful respectability which afterwards tried to exalt the feeble Louis into a hero and a martyr has ever since heaped every vile calumny on poor Payne's memory. CHAPTER XIII The Death Struggle Between Mountain and Girond On the evening of the final vote in the convention on the matter of the king, Le Pelletier de Saint-Ferre-Joux, a deputy and ex-noble who had voted with the majority, was assassinated by an ex-royal guard in a cafe. On the Thursday following he received a public funeral, his remains being interred in the pantheon of great men. The convention, municipality, and all the revolutionary societies followed in a body. This was the last united action of the various parties. The feud between mountain and Girond broke out with renewed fury after the temporary cessation. The quarrel was intensified out of doors by the old but ever-increasing lack of the necessaries of life, especially of bread. The coup at the baker's shops assumed more formidable dimensions, developing into mobs and devastating provision shops. Marat had suggested in his journal that a few of the forest-tallers who were hoping to keep up the price of bread should be hanged at the doors of baker's shops. The crowds, dressed in carmagnol or merely ragged maddened by hunger, danced the more wildly to the well-known strains, vive le son du canon. Day and night groups of these revolutionary revelers might be met along the thoroughfares. Meanwhile the sound of the cannon was going on with vigor and to the honor and glory of France. Du Maurier had invaded and conquered the Netherlands and the Giacobbe and other revolutionary bodies that sent missionaries to the newly annexed provinces. But the powers great and small, finding themselves and the aristocratic monarchic order they represented being beaten all along the line, drew closer together and made new levies. England, Spain, Italy, Austria, Prussia, the small German states hurled new and gigantic armaments into the breach. The convention answered in its turn by a fresh levy of 300,000 men. But D'Anton and the mountain demanded at the same moment that while external enemies were being fought, internal enemies should not be neglected. They proposed that a tribunal composed of nine members should judge without jury and without appeal. The tribunal was instituted, but the jury added. Du Maurier now sustained some reverses in his invasion of Holland. He was ordered back into Belgium, but this did not satisfy the mountain and the Giacobbe, who had for long looked a scant at Du Maurier as a Girondiste partisan and became now more convinced than ever that he was working in the interest of the faction and that the defeat was due to treachery. The Girondet ministers and generals were the objects of the bitterest resentment. So high did the feeling run that a conspiracy was set on foot to assassinate the leading men of the party in the convention on the night of the 10th of March. The conspirators, it is alleged, actually set out, but the plan miscarried, owing to its betrayal beforehand to the persons threatened. Verneau, the great Girondet orator, denounced the plot next day in the assembly and the advanced parties were for a moment checked. But the news of the spread of the aristocratic revolt in the district of the Loire, known as Lavandé, quickly enabled them to regain their assentency. The Lavandé was a district in which there were no large towns and consequently hardly any middle class or proletariat. It was a district inhabited almost exclusively by peasants, priests, and nobles, and consequently altogether out of touch with the objects of the revolution. The peasantry still venerated their old masters and hated the new middle class. The immediate cause of the fresh outbreak, however, was the new Levy. In Paris, the feeling against moderates and half-hearted friends at the Republic waxed greater than ever. The new revolutionary tribunal redoubled its activity. Following upon the bad news from the Lavandé came that a further and still more serious reverses in Belgium on the part of du Maurier, and what was worse, indisputable evidence of intrigues with the Austrians to re-establish the monarchy in the person of the Duc de Chartres, the young sonne Philippe de Leon Egalité, the king's cousin and member of the mountain party. His Duc de Chartres, at that time a lieutenant of du Maurier, became subsequently Louis-Philippe, king of the French. Du Maurier almost immediately after openly proclaimed his attention of marching upon Paris to subdue the revolution. But he did not succeed any better than Lafayette, his predecessor in the same course. His troops, although attached to him personally, hesitated a treachery to the Republic. The same with the officers. The convention was energetic. It sent four commissioners, among them the minister of war, to summon the traitor-general to the bar of the convention. He not only refused to come, but handed over the commissioners as hostages to the Austrians. After a further fruitless attempt to seduce the army, he sought refuge with the Duc de Chartres and a few other officers in the Austrian camp, and from this time history knows him no more. Du Maurier's defection drove the last nail into the coffin of the Girondiste power. There is a well-known proverb that those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. This was certainly exemplified in the present case. For the Girondins had already, before their general Du Maurier's escape had become known, alienated the leading mountainous to have been in favor of reconciliation between the two parties, D'Anton to it, by unsubstantiated insinuations. And now, when Du Maurier's desertion had been for days passed a topic of discussion and declamation amongst the Paris sections, they succeeded amid scenes of violent disorder in the convention in getting a decree of indictment launched against Marat on the ground of the paragraph about the forestallers. The people's friend was accordingly brought before the revolutionary tribunal, the Girondiste vainly attempting to pack the jury. After a trial lasting two days, he was acquitted amid the acclamations of the audience, and carried in triumph by the populace into the hall of the convention. Girondiste was henceforth plainly a lost cause so far as peaceful and legal action was concerned. Its only hope lay in an insurrection of the departments. This also, as we shall see, was destined to failure. Meanwhile, Custin, D'Aupière, and other generals were sent to reorganize the armies of Du Maurier. But for the next few weeks, the main attention of all patriots was directed to one object, the destruction of the Girondiste faction. Chapter 14. Concerning Matters Economic Amid all this contention, the mountain, aided by economic pressure, succeeded in forcing through some important administrative and two great economic measures. In addition to the revolutionary tribunal, two powerful committees were established, which in the end practically assumed all the executive functions of a dictatorial ministry. These were the Committee of General Security, consisting of twenty-one members, and the Committee of Public Safety, consisting of nine members, the ministers themselves being subject to these committees. The economic measures referred to were, first, the Law of Maximum, by means of which, at a stroke, the starvation and misery previously existing were allayed. The Law of Maximum enacted a fixed price for redstuffs, above which it was penal to sell them. To avert the possibility of the dealers refusing to sell at all, it was made compulsory upon them to do so. They were, moreover, obliged to furnish accurate accounts of their stock which could, if desirable, be peremptorily checked by the authorities. The Law was subsequently extended to all the necessaries of life. The other economic measure forced through the convention by the Jacobin and the Mountain was a progressive income tax on an ascending scale. In addition to these, there was a forced loan of a milliard for war purposes levied on the wealthy classes. The Girondistes and the Plains, of course, shrieked and kicked at these glaring infringements of the laws of political economy and the rights of property, but the middle-class factions, though nominally dominant, were not really so, and were hence unable to resist the force of the popular demand for decisive steps in the direction of greater economic equality. The Law of Maximum and the Progressive Income Tax are the only two measures of a directly socialistic tendency which have ever been practically applied, and they were applied with complete success. And yet it is strange that at least the first of these measures, when proposed nowadays, is viewed by many socialists with indifference, not to say suspicion. It only shows how, in economics, as in other things, the rags of old superstitions unconsciously survive in us. Those who have triumphed over the old-fashioned bourgeois fallacies of the wickedness and in utility of interfering with the sacred laws of political economy by direct legislative interference with the freedom of production still wince at the notion of direct legislative interference with freedom, so-called of exchange. An eight-hour law is an excellent thing, but a maximum by which the eight-hour workmen is protected from the extortions of monopoly and the power of industrial and commercial capital to raise prices, guarding itself against the effects of competition by rings and corners. This is a very doubtful thing, indeed. In the present day, of course, a law of maximum would be a very little use unless supplemented by a law of minimum, i.e., a law fixing a minimum wage. And we may add, parenthetically, the eight-hours working day would, in all probability, also prove itself a questionable boon if unaccompanied by both these provisos. But in France at the end of the last century it was not so. The petite industrie prevailed everywhere except in the large towns where the workshop system had obtained a footing, though even there without having by any means entirely supplanted the smaller production. The law of maximum alone was therefore sufficient to meet all requirements. Scarcity and want there was still, but it was a scarcity and want due for the most part to other than remediable social conditions. Bad harvest, the devastations of foreign invasion and civil war had reduced France to the lowest ebb. The law of maximum saved it. With the two francs a day which was voted at a subsequent period as the allowance of every attendant at the primary assemblies of the sections or award ships, of which there were 44,000 in all France, the problem of the unemployed was solved for the nonce. The number of the unemployed in all trades ministering to the luxuries of the rich may be imagined and a measure of this kind was absolutely essential. The net result of the interference by the convention with the laws of political economy is well expressed by Carlisle where he declares that there is no period to be met in which the general 25 million of France suffered less than in this period which they name reign of terror. Time was as yet not ripe for the great constructive movement of modern socialism and hence the merely remedial treatment here explained was all that could even be attempted. The great fact to be noted is that for the first time in history, the cry for material and social equality as opposed to mere political and legal equality became definitely articulate. That cry has often enough since been smothered but has always made itself heard again at short intervals. The party of the mountain and the Jacobin, the Bebev conspiracy, the Chartist movement, the days of June 1848, the commune of 1871, are all so many stages in the awakening of the proletariat to the full consciousness of itself which it attains in modern socialism. Chapter 15 The Fall of the Gironde Apart from the laws referred to in the last chapter which were with difficulty forced through the legislature by the mountain, the six weeks which elapsed between the Equital of Mara and the Second of June, the day of the extinction of the Girondist power, were fruitful in nothing but a progressive mutual exacerbation of the two parties. Petitions and deputations began to pour in praying for the expulsion and even condemnation of some twenty-two of the leading Girondistes. On the 10th of May, the convention shifted its quarters from the old riding school to the Tuileries. The avenues to the new convention hall were continually blocked by Sankulot, the Breachless, the name given to the party of the people since the emote of the 21st of June 1792, when, among other emblems, a pair of black riches had been paraded in token of the want of these commodities by the working classes of France. At last, the Girondes made up their minds for a dashing stroke. Gadet suddenly moved the immediate suppression of the commune, its place to be filled add in tandem by the presidents of the sections, the transference of the legislation to Bourges with the smallest possible delay and the dispatch of the decree into the provinces by expresses. The mountain was taken unawares, and it is possible if the Girondistes had had the courage to proceed to action immediately they might have been successful. But this they did not dare do in face of the urgency of the situation on the frontier, well knowing that civil war would be the outcome. Indeed, it is doubtful whether they could have in any case obtained a majority in the assembly under the circumstances. Barrère proposed, as a compromise, the establishment of a commission of 12 members to inquire into the conduct of the municipality to search out the plots of the Gécorbe and to arrest suspected persons. The proposition was accepted, and the commission established. Under the pretense of having discovered a new conspiracy, it immediately proceeded to imprison several prominent persons, among them being the secretary of the commune Hébert, editor of the Père du Chez newspaper. This at once excited immense popular indignation. Deputation followed deputation demanding Hébert's release. The commune, the mountainous mayor Pache at its head, placed itself in permanent connection with the committees of the sections which, together with the clubs of the Gécorbe and Cordelier, declared themselves in permanent session. On the 27th of May, the rising of Paris against the convention began. The commune presented itself before the convention in a body, demanding the release of Hébert, its chief secretary, and the suppression of the Girondist commission. Deputies from the sections followed, all calling for its suppression, and some for the arrest of its members. The Girondist president, Isna, met these demands with the threat that the department should be raised in Paris annihilated so that the wayfarer would have to inquire on which side the Seine Paris had stood, a reply which became the signal for a general revolt of the mountain. The hall was now the scene of violent confusion in which swords and pistols were drawn, and during which the crowd poured in, the upshot being that Isna was compelled to leave the chair and make way for the mountainist and friend of Danton, Iro de Céchelle. Iro at once replied, conceding the demands of the petitioners. The mountain had won the day. Iberre's arrest was annulled, and the commission suppressed amid the acclamation of the populace. The next day the Girondist, with suicidal folly, succeeded by a scratch majority in re-establishing the commission on the ground that the proceedings of the previous day had been irregular. A veritable yell of indignation from clubs, sections, and municipality greeted this resolution. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Chomet, and Pache constituted themselves into an informal committee to organize the new the movement. On the thirtieth, the clubs and sections publicly declared themselves in a state of insurrection, their delegates to the number of ninety-six entering the Hotel de Ville, and as a matter of form annulling the municipality as a legally constituted body, but immediately reinstating its members in their functions under insurrectionary auspices. Mayor Pache was sent to report the matter to the convention, while Ahriot, the new commandant of the National Guard, called upon the sections to be ready for action at any moment, the Sainte-Culotte to be allowed two francs a day so long as they remained under orders. Early the following morning the thirty-first, the Tuxais was rung and the général beat, and the armed sections were assembled and marched upon the Tuileries. The signal for the insurrection was an alarm cannon which was fired just as Mayor Pache was making his report, and it must be admitted, trying to hoodwink the legislature with the pretense that he was not privy to the proceedings. The consternation in the assembly at the ominous sound was general. Danton rushed to the tribune to demand anew the suppression of the commission. All the leading mountainous did the same. The majority still hesitated. Deputations now began to arrive thick and fast till all the gangways were blocked up by excited crowds. The suppression of the commission and the arrest of its members and of the other leading gérandiste was loudly demanded on all sides. Various propositions were being discussed when the report spread that the Tuileries were surrounded by armed forces and the convention no longer free. Even some members of the mountain winced at this outrage on the national sovereignty. At length it was decided that the assembly should march out in a body and confront the insurgents. This was done, Herude Seychel leading the way. They were met by Henri on horseback at the head of the armed bands brandishing a saber. The people want not phrases, he said, but the arrest of twenty-two traitors. Two cannons were immediately pointed straight at the convention which prudently retired. All the other exits from the Tuileries gardens were found to wrestle equally with pikes and sabers, so there was nothing for it but to go back again into the hall. The popular demands were no longer opposed. Mérard, who had been the life and soul of the whole movement throughout, now dictated the names of the proscribed in the form of the resolution from the tribune. All the leading Girondins, including the twelve forming the commission, were placed under arrest. Upon the result being known outside, the insurgents quickly dispersed. Thus perished Girondism. Ever since the 10th of August, the nominal power in the state had been in the hands of the Girondist party, although as we have seen, the real power was very far from being so. Henceforth they were a proscribed faction whose members at last thought themselves lucky if they could find a corner of France in which to conceal themselves. End of chapters 12 through 15. Chapters 16 through 19 of the story of the French Revolution by Ernest Belford-Bachs. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16 The Saint-Culotte in Power. The Girondists driven successfully from the municipality, the Jacobins club, the ministry and finally from the convention now played out their last card, the attempt to raise the provinces which were largely with them. Never was the position of France more desperate than at this moment. La Vendée in open and hitherto successful insurrection on one side, the coalition of Europe again pouring in its levies on three sides and a Girondist insurrection brewing at several points in the interior. The Girondists after their defeat in Paris tried to rally at Caen in Normandy which town became the headquarters of the conspiracy as long as it lasted. Negotiations were entered into with General Wimpen and a royalist one count Prisaille. Somehow in spite of the sympathy of the departments, especially the large middle-class towns, the project failed completely as a general movement partly owing to mismanagement, want of concert and royalist intrigues which alienated many otherwise sympathetic partly to the presence of the foreign invader and partly to the vigorous action of the leaders of the revolution in Paris. The provinces hesitated, the insurgents dispersed, a few towns in the south only remaining to the Girondins. The insurrection did not miscarry for want of tall talk at a certain for the Girondins as usual were eloquent in threats couched in well-rounded periods. While this was going on, a young woman of good family in Caen who had been largely in the society of Girondins and had heard much talk of Marat as the leader of the recent movement without stating her intention to anybody traveled up to Paris by diligence and obtaining an interview with the popular leader under the pretext of furnishing information of the conspiracy at Caen, murdered him. Poor Marat, who was almost dying at the time, was in a bath, his helpless condition rendering him an easy prey to the knife of his dastardly assassin. A few Sioux only were found in his possession. Thus perished the first great vindicator of the rights of the modern proletariat, a truly single-minded champion of the oppressed. Of average intellect merely, it is Marat's unique and titanic force of character which must make him immortal in history. Charlotte Cordet was tried and condemned before the Revolutionary Tribunal, maintaining a theatrical demeanor to the last. She was guillotined on the 17th of July, three days later. A poor fool, a native of mines, Adam Lutz by name, went crazy over her. The death of the people's friend caused a veritable panic in the ranks of the Revolutionary Party. No patriot was without some token of him. He was invoked in every Revolutionary function and his bust was crowned in all public assemblies. The convention unanimously granted him the honors of the Pantheon. The fugitive Girondet now found his way through the never. They had to fly from Ca before the emissaries of the mountain. Gécovain commissioners were scouring the country up and down, the Revolutionary power in Paris having developed an almost super-human activity. The only places where the insurrections still flickered on were in Lyon, Merci and Bardot, cities which had compromised themselves too far to hope for vengeance. Yet notwithstanding the virtual collapse of the Girondiste rebellion, the state of affairs had hardly improved. The armies, now again everywhere on the defensive, were disorganized and dispirited. Things still seemed utterly hopeless. If France was to be saved, it could only be by a dead lift. The Revolutionary power in Paris now consisted of the convention, or rather the mountain, which dominated the whole assembly, the general security and of public safety, the commune, or municipality, and lastly, the clubs of the Jacobins and Caldelliers, especially the former, whose deliberations were hardly seconded importance to those of the convention. The primary assemblies of the 48 sections in which every citizen was free to express his opinion, but which were almost entirely appropriated by the Sainte-Culotte, together with the Revolutionary committees attached to them were also a considerable contribution. This acclamation of popular forces constituted the power which had to raise France and the Revolution out of the abyss into which they had sunk. The consolidation of the new government was the first thing to be attempted. The long talk of constitution was next put in hand, Iro de Seychelles being entrusted with the task of drawing it up. This democracy ever devised. It not only formally recognized the people as the sole primary source of power, but it delegated the exercise of that power directly to them. Every measure was to be submitted to the primary assemblies of these sections of which there were 44,000 in all France. The magistrates were to be re-elected at the shortest possible intervals by simple majority. The central legislature was to be renewed annually, by the primary assemblies who were to be furnished with imperative mandates. This constitution passed the convention and was accepted by a large majority of these sections throughout France. The representatives of the said 44,000 wardships when they came to the convention demanded in face of the existing emergency the arrest of all suspected persons and a general rising of the people. Donto provisions and ammunition and to raise a levy of 400,000 men and that the convention should take the oath of death or victory. This was carried unanimously. A few days after, Barrère in the name of the committees proposed still more decisive measures. All the male population from 18 to 40 were placed under arms and new requisitions were made. Soon there were the committee of public safety with Calnault grandfather of the late president of the French Republic as chief of the war department were untiring in their energies in organizing the defense. Forty sewer day was enacted as the allowance of every sectionist. The famous law of suspects was passed and wholesale arrests were made of persons thought to be of power. The court had begun necessitated by the same exigencies as the September massacres. Imminent foreign invasion combined with domestic treachery. As before, the moment decisive action was taken, matters began to mend on all sides for though Toulon was in the hands of the English, Merci and Bordeaux into force. Chapter 17 The Dictatorship of the Commune The revolutionary power in Paris, as we have said, was nominally divided between the Commune at the head of which were Hébert and Chomette, the two committees which included Reves-Pierre, Danton, Carnot, etc. The convention and the popular clubs whose influence, though unofficial and indirect, was in no respect less than that of the representative in the period from August 10, 1792, to the opening of the convention 21st September, the chief center of power lay with the Commune led by Danton. From the 21st of September to the 2nd of June the convention as a body was more or less dominant. In the period from the 2nd of June 1793 to the end of the year, power resided mainly in the Commune led by the Hébertiste, then forward especially the Committee of Public Safety which practically dictated to France. The Jacobin's club, meanwhile, reflected for the most part the attitude of the dominant Parisian opinion and of the governing body. It underwent several épuration or purifications in the course of the revolutionary period on which occasions a batch of members whose views were out of accord with the prevalent feeling of the hour would be expelled. After the uprising and the entry of the convention troops into the cities of the south, the tide began to turn in Lavendee. The attempt of the insurgents to take naut failed, and though the insurrection lingered on for some time longer, it never again became formidable. The revolutionary armies, indeed, were nearly everywhere victorious under the new generals, Moreau, Hoche, Pichgru, Jordan, and the east, the Spaniards driven back in the south, and the English and Hanovarians defeated in the north. Thus a second time was France by a stupendous dead-lift effort saved from imminent ruin by the raw levies of the revolution. The victories of du Maurier in 92 were repeated on a grander scale in the great campaign, which the genius of Carnot organized in 93 and 94. Count Menace, the combined kings threaten us, we hurl at their feet as gauge of battle the head of a king. France was converted into one vast camp, but for many months, yet the French were not destined to feel themselves out of the wood. The dread of possible reverses followed by invasion and political extinction was ever before their eyes. And hence it was not till the end of July 94 that we throw the system itself. So long as danger threatened from without, public opinion tolerated the guillotine and at the period at which we have arrived, the great activity of that famous instrument began. The law of the suspect which enabled the committees of the sections to arrest all suspected persons and incarcerate them prior to their being brought before the revolutionary tribunal speedily failed the prisons to overflowing. The commune was the virtual head of the revolutionary committees of the sections in the provinces as well as in Paris. It had a special force of 7000 men commanded by Ron Saint the dramatist and called the revolutionary army under its orders besides flying columns in its space scouring different parts of the country. The commune may be taken as the representative in the revolution of the proletarian interest pure and simple. Though the circumstances of the time caused it to be unhappily an instrument of the terror its activity was by no means confined to this. The commune made it pretty soon evident that in its size the existence of a commercial middle class was quite as incompatible with the welfare of the people as that of an aristocracy. Economical equality was the avowed end of the revolution for the commune. Ibert and Chomet nevertheless visit themselves with various evaluative character such as hospital and prison reform. They attempted to introduce primary and secular education into every village in France. The law of maximum and compulsory sale was at their suggestion enlarged in scope being applied to almost all articles of common consumption. Forstalling was forbidden under the heaviest penalties. A maximum was even applied to wages at this time a proceeding in a society not yet out of the small production to make considerable havoc with what some people call the rent of ability though it was enacted solely with a view to government employment for the national defense. The bus was closed. Financial and commercial syndicates were dissolved. The paper money or essignat were made compulsory tender at their nominal value. On the fifth of October Thomas who furnished the calculations and the clever Fayetonist Fabre Deglantine who supplied the poetical nomenclature came into the operation. The new era was to date from the declaration of the Republic the 21st of September 1792 so that the months do not coincide with those of the ordinary calendar. The three autumn months were Vendemière or the vintage month, Pumaire the three winter months Niveaus or the snowy month Puvios or the rainy month and Vartos or the windy month. The three spring months Germinal or the budding month Florial or the flowery month and Prairial or the meadowy month and the three summer months Messidar or the reaping month Thermidar or the heating month and Fructidar or the fruiting month. The week of seven days was abolished and decades were instituted instead. But the work for which the commune is most famous is the establishment of the new cultus the worship of reason. The Ebertiste as the party of the commune were now called and among whom was Anacalsis Clutes were firmly convinced that deliverance from the dogmas of supernatural religion was the necessary complement of deliverance and narcissism the idea naturally suggested itself of initiating a worship of reason as personified on the ruins of God Christ and the Virgin. For some time past stimulated by the missionaries of the commune numbers of priests had been sending in their demissions declaring they would no longer preach a lie and that liberty and the public welfare were their only gods. The church plate made bonfires to the accompaniment of the car manual. Early in November Gobelle the Archbishop of Paris together with his chapter entered the convention hall to publicly renounce the Christian faith. Christian rights and worship were now prescribed and a festival of reason was decreed by the commune at the instance of Chomette. A few days later a procession of citizens and a citizenesses in priestly barrows laden with church furniture defiled into the convention and after chanting straffs to reason proceeded to dance the car manual many of the legislators taking part. Later on the same day Procurer Chomette at the head of the commune and the president of sections arrived bearing in their midst on a palanquin Mademoiselle Conde the dancers in Bonnerouge and Blue Mantle guarded with oak as the goddess of reason. The bulk of the convention bearing the goddess the formal kiss proceeded in a body to Notre Dame where the new worship was inaugurated amid music, tricolor and versions dressed in white. A similar ceremony with other goddesses took place at Saint-Eustache and other of the principal churches of Paris. Commissioners soon established the new worship throughout the length and breadth of French territory from Antwerp in the north to Marseille in the south. In place of the mass of reason and in praise of liberty, equality and fraternity over the church yards appeared the device death is an eternal sleep. Old things had passed away and all things had become new. It should be said that the goddess of reason was never intended to be more than a symbol and not as has been sometimes represented herself an object of worship viewed in its true light the idea if somewhat pedantic was not the terror. By means of its courageous contempt for the so-called laws of political economy, its wholesale requisitions and the compulsion exercise on all traders and farmers with the aid of its revolutionary army to sell at the maximum price, the fearful misery occasioned by the circumstances of the time was kept under to a considerable extent by the commune. The revolutionary committees established by the military deputies who watched the provinces and were present with the military forces and last but not least the army of the commune under general Rence nevertheless had hard work to prevent the law of maximum from being violated. The commune now granted a free allowance of bread for each family. Arrests in Paris and the provinces went on a pace. The commune stated power to arrest all persons suspected of reactionary tendencies. On the 14th of October the queen Marie-Antoinette was brought before the revolutionary tribunal and convicted after two days hearing on overwhelming evidence of the basis treachery towards France and of the most sanguinary intentions with regard to Paris. It was the outbreak of the revolution. All this abandoned wretch could think of was squandering fabulous sums of the nation's wealth in conjunction with her friend the court had prostitute and procurus the princess de Namballe killed in the September massacres on jewels balls and sinecures for her paramours. If anyone ventured to call it was only after her amusements had been curtailed by the utter collapse of the finances a consummation to which she had contributed so largely by her criminal extravagances that she began to interest herself in public affairs. Her aim was then to get back the means for her debauchery and when the revolution broke out and affairs looked less and less productive of the diamond necklaces etc. her hatred against the new regime which had deprived her of hope was a foreign invasion which would quench the revolution in the blood of France and place the French people once more in her power. As for poor, feeble, foolish Louis he was completely in the toils of this noxious reptile. Note one the real character of Marie Antoinette apart from the lies of royalist historians and her assay Leveret Marie Antoinette returned to text. Many who looked on at the tumbrel conveying her to execution must have been inclined to think that the guillotine was too good for the foul autrichienne. She was not without a certain histrionic ability and when before the tribunal played out her queenly figure in a manner which showed that she might have gained of misconduct toward her son the little dofain which Ibelle brought against her. It is sufficient here to state that there are extant documents which show that the charge was not made without very good grounds although in the nature of things it could not be certainly proved. The fact is it is a mistake to apply the ordinary canons of maternity to a creature like Marie Antoinette. She was altogether an obscene scene again. At propos of the dofain it is necessary to caution our readers against the lies of the reaction and ent his treatment and especially the foul calamities against the young shoemaker Simone whose care he was placed. All the contemporary evidence goes to show that the poor child received every consideration and kindness but that having inherited a medium that in spite of every care he died in the temple the following year. On the 24th of October the 22 Girondistes were brought to trial. They were convicted after five days proceedings and guillotined on the 6th. Valais one of their number stabbed himself to death with a dagger on hearing the sentence but his body was nevertheless proved of their complicity in the insurrection of the departments were complete. They had played for high stakes and lost. Seventy-three other Girondistes deputies had been for some time under lock and key having been compromised in some papers found at the house of the deputy whom Charlotte Corday had visited on her first arrival in Paris. With the execution of the 22 however, Girondisme and Girondais it may here be mentioned were largely under the influence of Voltaire just as the mountain as a party was chiefly under the influence of Rousseau. Meanwhile, Lyon the last stronghold of royalism and Girondisme had fallen and Toulon had been recovered from the English to whom it had been surrendered. Both towns were visited with a fearful vengeance. Coludair Bois who was a member both of the people of Robespierre ordered wholesale massacres of the inhabitants of the former city in his capacity of commissioner. Ville Varene a colleague of Colos was also a leading agent of the terror. Le Bon worked the guillotine at Arras. Fréron the d'Antoniste made his holocausts at Merseille and Toulouse and Talié at Bordeaux. At Nantes Carrier another commissioner inaugurated his horrible noyade or drownings of monotism were placed in boats with false bottoms and drowned in the Loire. In some of these cases a man and woman were tied together naked. This was called republican marriage. The revolutionary commissioners or proconsuls in some cases traveled from town to town carrying a guillotine with them. All these things were very infamous it will be said and so they were. But they were not any worse if so bad of the Tsar in Poland in 63 or of the Versailles in Paris in 71 events which the middle classes have complacently swallowed without indignation. Chapter 19 The Fall of the Ebertiste After the 10th of August and the events that arose out of it of which he was the heart and soul Nantes had proved something of a failure. His peace had likewise proved abortive. He had played no important part since the 2nd of June in the convention itself and finally retired with his young wife for some weeks in disgust to his native town of Versailles-sur-Aube once he returned sometime after to join his friend Camille de Moulin in attacking the system of the terror. It should be explained that the Corde-de-Lis club of which Danton had formerly been the head had been reconstituted sometime since and was now the Ebertiste. Camille at the beginning of December started a new journal called The Old Corde-de-Lis which attacked the terrorists and especially the commune with bitter sarcasm. At first Robespierre approved of the sentiments there expressed and even looked over and corrected the proofs of the first numbers. It pleased him that the Ebertiste were sharply attacked. For the reason at the Jacobin club. Robespierre who was ambitious of being the Washington of France and had set his mind upon getting himself recognized by the powers wished to pose before them as the moderate man opposed to excesses of every description and thereby to win them over. There was also an old standing jealousy on the part of the committee of public safety as Robespierre's two colleagues on the committee Bioverin and Collauder Bois were enraged at the idea of even mitigating the terror and the notion found but little support generally. Robespierre whose influence was now immense became suddenly alarmed lest he should be taxed with moderation and hence a coolness sprang up between him and his friend Camille and the other Dantonists. Meanwhile among them we may notice the ex-member of the mountain and the king's cousin arrested at the time du Maurier's intrigues with his son became known and agreed accused along with the Girondet but not convicted till later. In November Madame Roland was also put on her trial. She was condemned and went to the place de la Révolution by the side of a poor printer whom she endeavoured to console. Arrived there she asked to write down the strange thoughts that were arising within her. Madame Roland was a remarkable woman but even apart from her politics one is repelled by her perpetual pedantry and posing and still more by her venomous hatred and malignant colonies against her opponents. She was an intrigueuse of the first rank and practically led the tactics of the Girondet party. Bayille the first mayor of Paris under the new regime he of the red flag 1791 was one of the executed. Bernard the constitutionalist leader in the constituent assembly also suffered. The corpse of the Girondiste Pétion who succeeded Bayille in the mayoralty of Paris was found about this time in a wood near Saint-Émilion partly devoured by wolves. The heads of ex-ministers and generals were falling by the score but to return to the contest on one side were the Ebertistes representing the commune and the terror on the opposite were the Dantonistes representing to a large extent the convention party and hostile now to both the commune and the terror wishing to see the constitution established and the convention all powerful. Between the two were the committees that of public safety being the dominant one. The committee men were mostly hostile to the power of the commune which stood in order and not to let the convention override their authority. Robespierre after some hesitation ranged himself on the side of his committee alike against the Dantonists with whom he had up till now been friendly and the Ebertistes to whom he had always been more or less hostile. The struggle lasted between three and four months and many were the stormy meetings of Jacobin since the reconstitution of the committee of public safety in July when Biot and Colau came into it the Dantonists that had no influence on either of the committees. The attack on the Ebertistes was begun by the suppression of the revolutionary armies in the provinces and a decree forbidding the sending of agents into the provinces by the commune and this was followed up inside and outside the convention by concerted attacks on every action of the commune from the Dantonists the Jacobin club continued to be the battleground between Robespierre and the Ebertistes there Robespierre thundered nightly against atheistic intolerance said that atheism was aristocratic on the ground that certain aristocrats had been atheists omitting to recognize the fact that they wished to retain atheism and free thought as an exclusive privilege of their class he mongered about the necessity of a supreme being as the Avenger of Injured Innocence and much more at last the compact between Robespierre and his fellow commitment Bio and Colot was struck they were to surrender their old friends the Ebertistes while he was to surrender the Dantonists a projected insurrection inaugurated by the section called Marat in favor of the Ebertistes miscarried owing to the failure to take action at the right moment accordingly Ebert Rancin Vincent who had already expelled from the Jacobet Club were arrested and after a mock trial in which they were accused of taking money from the English government to discredit the republic by their excesses were on 24th March 1794 sent to the guillotine poor Chometh's turn came a few days later a week afterwards Danton who had come back to Paris at the final this was Robespierre's great coup Danton's personality combined with his oratory was nearly securing his acquittal when Robespierre got a special law hurried through the convention which closed his mouth and he too went his way in company with his friends Camille de Moulin Filippo Héro de Sechelle and others to the place of the revolution Charles Robespierre he was although a prig and a repulsive prig at that apparently actuated by as much honesty of purpose as any other leader his services to the revolution at all the great crises were real but the germ of ambition and personal self seeking which was always observable grew with the progress of events until at the period we have now reached he had developed into a monster actuated by the accomplishment of that aim the murder of friends like de Moulin with whom he had lived and worked on terms of close intimacy since the beginning of the revolution yields to nothing in history for its treachery and infamy end of chapter 16 through 19 chapters 20 through 23 of the story of the French 20 the rule of Robespierre the old commune was now overthrown and all independence stifled in the convention no initiative remained but that of the committee of public safety and in the committee itself little at least in internal affairs but that of Maximilien Robespierre and his partisans the chief among the latter were guillotined or expelled was filled up with subordinate creatures of Robespierre a Belgian architect named Fleuriot-Lefscot replaced the devoted and noble-minded Pache as mayor of Paris the same thing went on all round the Cordelli's club was suppressed Robespierre had succeeded in reducing the Jacobin's club to a mere cluck of his own the convention was not found down on all opposition the increase of the terror now became frightful all over France but especially in Paris Robespierre himself directed the police department on the 22nd of Prairie the 10th of June an atrocious law was passed at the instigation of the dictator whereby persons sent before the revolutionary tribunal now divided into four sections were refused those accused were acquitted henceforth all prisoners were condemned when nothing else could be alleged against them on the general and vague charge of conspiracies in the prisons men and women were now tried by the public prosecutor Fouquiette Vill and the judges of the tribunal in batches of 50 or 60 at once it would be a mistake to suppose only 650 belonged to the upper or middle classes the Tumbrills that wended their way daily to the place de la Révolution and afterwards to the Foubours Saint-Antoine were largely filled with working men during the last three weeks of the tyrant's rule 1,125 persons were executed in Paris alone thus did this criminal monster be a self-idolatry when during a speech at the later in the convention he whispered to his neighbor with such doctrines as that he will do more harm than all the tyrants put together the notion of becoming the high priest of a new religion had been working in Robespierre's mind ever since the fall of the Hébertiste after many speeches in the Jacobin club on the 18th of May Maximilien at last mounted the convention recognizes the existence of a supreme being and the immortality of the soul and that a festival should be held in honour of the said being in his speech he dwelt on the distinction between a pure dayism and the superstitious cults of priests said that it mattered not whether the existence of God were demonstrable or even probable that in the eyes of the legislator all is truth which is useful in the world and in practice that a God was an indispensable article of state furniture deputations from the new Robespierre commune from the Jacobin and from the sections next filed in with the petition that the convention should vouchsafe to grant them a God and immortality the resolution was carried amid thunders of applause in the same convention which six months previously had applauded the atheistic worship of reason a few days afterwards one undoubted and another more questionable attempt at assassination was made on the steps of his house and the second on Robespierre himself by a young woman named Cicely Reno Robespierre was out when she called but she was arrested and knives were found in her possession she was guillotined together with all her family 54 persons dressed in red smocks were involved in this execution which took place in the Faux-Bours-Saint-Antoine the great workman's quarter at last 8th of June fixed for the glorification of the supreme being arrived the convention the Jacobean and sections in Gala attire might have been winding their way in splendid summer weather through the Tuileries gardens the procession headed by Robespierre radiant in sky blue coat and black britches bearing in his hand an enormous bunch of corn fruits and flowers a classical touch suggested by the pagan functions of antiquity arrived at an improvised altar allegorical figures intended to represent atheism, anarchy, etc. Robespierre proceeded to set fire to the latter with a torch they blazed away and presently by a triumph of mechanical art the supreme being himself emerged from their ashes rather the worse for smoke it is said the incorruptible made three harangues but the hopes of those who expected an announcement of a cessation of the terror were damped when he proclaimed today fresh to fight the enemies of the revolution all knew what this meant and two days later the monstrous law before spoken of was passed and the terror entered upon its last and acutus stage this disappointment of the public hopes was the beginning of the fall of Robespierre's popularity outside the governing bodies suppressed hatred and jealousy of him had long been the growing feeling in the convention with all except his own henchmen the law of prairie was the last occasion that the committee appeared united before the convention Fouquetinville the public prosecutor went to the committee himself to complain of the new law as being the reduxio ad absurdum of the terror and was told that it had been yielded under protest to Robespierre's importunity so strained were the relations that Robespierre henceforth rarely attended the sittings of the committee and the convention itself leaving everything to Couton, Saint-Just and Lebes on the other hand he was assiduous in his attendance at the Jacobin he never went out of doors indeed now without an escort of Jacobin armed with bludgeons an incident occurred about this time which was dexterously used by his enemies to throw ridicule upon the high priest that bent of a messiah and in conjunction with an ex-priest set up a kind of free Masonic society Barère the dexterous trimmer drew up a clever report on the subject in which he hinted at Robespierre's desiring to profit by the proceedings of the fanatics without naming him Biot, Colot and the members of the committee of general safety who had been you and your supreme being Biot was heard to say in a stage aside on the occasion are beginning to bore me it was now therefore a case of Hout César Hout Noulous with Robespierre Chapter 21 The Termida it had become a matter of life and death to Robespierre to overthrow the hostile members of the committees and get himself recognized as a dictator with the public safety but without effect Céjus by the way was probably the most sincere and enthusiastic of all the followers of Robespierre not yet 25 years of age he had made a great mark on the revolution his large poetic eyes his tall and dignified figure his long dark hair had obtained for him the nickname of the apocalyptic it was necessary to the community of the public safety were against Robespierre the convention therefore had to be tried and failing the convention an insurrection proclaimed headed by the Chacobay and the commune the latter bodies were prepared some time beforehand to resort to force if necessary to the ends of their champion and a conspiracy was actually formed the leaders of which were Céjus Dumas the president and Coffinal the vice-president of the revolutionary tribunal Saint-Just had been recalled in great haste by Robespierre from his mission with the army of the north and when apprised of the state of affairs he advised an immediate coup d'état this however was impracticable the convention had to be sounded first otherwise the pretext of Termidor Robespierre repaired to the assembly and opened the sitting with a long and dexterous speech denouncing the committees and defending himself in the name of the national sovereignty he wound up by recommending a general purification all round of the committees and of the convention Robespierre sat down amid absolute silence not a sound or word of applause greeted his challenge presently a member rose and moved sitting in circulation of the harangue this was at once vigorously resisted but was eventually carried the members of the two committees hitherto silent now took up the challenge they attacked Robespierre in turn the upshot was that the decree for the printing and circulation of the discourse was virtually rescinded being referred to the committee for examination Robespierre surprised at the unwanted resistance left the sitting without despairing of the situation in the evening he repaired to the Chacobain when he re-read the discourse of the morning and here it was of course greeted with tumultous applause the committees on their side kept together all night nothing was emitted during these momentous hours by either party to ensure victory on the moral the committees and the mountain negotiated successfully with the plane to bring about common action July 27th 9th Termidor members were to be seen encouraging each other in the corridors the sitting was opened by Saint-Just he had scarcely begun his speech attacking the committees when he was interrupted and denounced by the ex-commissioner Thalien who demanded that the veil should be withdrawn from the conspiracy Thalien was supported on all sides then spoke of packed meetings of Chacobain at this point of Biot's speech the whole convention rose and swore to defend the national sovereignty amid the applause of the public in the galleries all eyes were now turned towards Rabespierre who finally made a dash at the Tribune before he could speak however the cry of down with the tyrant resounded throughout the hall Thalien in an uncompromising speech then demanded the arrest of Paris Biot the arrest of other partisans of Rabespierre measures which were at once acceded to Rabespierre repeatedly attempted to defend himself but his voice was always drowned with shouts up down with the tyrant and by the ringing of the president's bell he turned to the plane he turned to the public in the galleries there was no response from either finally he sank down on a seat fetch cried a member of the mountain Rabespierre's arrest was demanded on all sides his brother Augustin Rabespierre Couton Leba and Saint-Just all claimed to share his fate and were finally all given into the hands of the gendarmerie the moment this became known at the Hôtel de Ville where the mayor Pailla and Henriot were assembled and the president's erection proclaimed the canineers were ordered to repair to the place de Grève by the Hôtel de Ville and the revolutionary committees were sent for to take the oath of insurrection the arrested deputies had meanwhile been released by their partisans on their way to the prisons and brought in triumph to the Hôtel de Ville where the people to rise was seized by two deputies and was being brought to the committees when he was liberated by Coffinal at the head of 200 canineers of whom Henriot himself at once took the command placing them in position round the convention the assembly which had adjourned for a couple of hours had now reassembled for the convention orders were almost immediately given by Henriot to fire when strange to say the canineers who up to this time had been with the insurgents hesitated wavered and finally refused to comply in the hands of those 200 canineers lay the fate of France Henriot hurried off to the Hôtel de Ville it was now the turn of the convention to take the aggressive the response factory the fact is the movement of the last two days had been sudden even for Paris and had developed out of a quarrel inside the government with which the general public were imperfectly acquainted besides this Robespierre's unpopularity had now become general though the sections assembled at nine o'clock they confined themselves to sending messages to the commune asking for further information while the assembled sections were discussing the matter the city delegates from the convention arrived apprising them of the real position of affairs they now no longer hesitated but arming themselves immediately proceeded not to the Place de Grève but to the Tuileries where they were naturally received with great enthusiasm a small body with a few pieces of artillery having been left as a guard to the convention the remainder then marched off outside at the sound of the Tuxain had gradually dispersed finding the sections did not arrive and the space was now much thinned emissaries from the convention proclaimed the outlawry of the insurgents upon which all that remained went home the armed sections now arrived from the Tuileries occupied all the outlets and set up a prolonged shout of long live the convention the insurgents themselves but only succeeded in breaking his jaw his brother threw himself from the third story le bas killed himself with a pistol Couton mangled himself with a knife Cofinale pitched Henriot from the window into the commons sewer and managed to escape Saint-Just alone awaited his fate with dignity and calmness where lay on a litter suffering horribly exposed to the jeers and taunts of the bystanders who upgraded him with all his crimes they were afterwards taken to the prison of the conciergerie and brought up thence the next day before the revolutionary tribunal with others of their associates they were of course condemned and were executed the same evening at six o'clock immense crowds hooting and jeering thronged the streets to see uncomplimentary references to the supreme being and to the prospective immortality of Robespierre's soul were not wanting a halt was made before the house where Robespierre had lodged all eyes were turned on him in his supreme being blue coat and the jeers and invectives grew louder the sullen hatred which had been growing for weeks past suddenly found vent at the time of his fall he probably had scarcely two or three hundred real followers in all Paris instead of mitigating or abolishing the terror at the moment when the danger of invasion being past it had no longer any solid backing in public opinion he had chosen to exacerbate it only too obviously for his own ambitious purposes thus he speedily degenerated from the most popular to the most hated man in all France the battle of Fleurue on the 26th of June had secured for France the reconquest of Belgium and destroyed the remaining chats of foreign invasion and hence all but the blind followers of the system were determined to be rid of the terror the national extremity which gave rise to it having passed away Eubespierre was the last to ascend the scaffold as a so-so the executioner wrenched off the bloody linen which bound up his jaw a horrible yell escaped him this was the only sign of life since his arrest the moment his head fell the roar of applause which lasted some minutes resounded far and wide on the evening air such was the celebrated revolution of Terre Midar Chapter 22 the reaction begins it is plain to us now that the fall of Eubespierre meant the end of the terror although the partisans of the system on the committees could not see it the bill could carry on the prescriptions with the other methods of revolutionary government they lost influence every day the terror was at once abolished except for the tale of Eubespierre the members of the commune some of the leading Eubespierre Jacobin etc who were guillotined to the number of some hundred and fifty in a few days in the relief which Sanculot like the rest felt at being rid of the perpetual democles virtue austerity incorruptibility with which Eubespierre and his crew had sickened everyone they little thought that the end of the revolution itself and so far as it interested the working classes of France was at hand in truth the reaction had begun four months before with the destruction of the party of the old commune the Ebertiste when a revolution proceeds to exterminate and announce the Ebertiste as atheists and communists to the inventor of the supreme being and the declaration of rights which was foisted upon the Jacobin in opposition to Chomet and Ebert and according to which the right of property is the right of every citizen to enjoy and dispose as he pleases of his goods which provided also that no commerce should be prohibited without a doubt what Robespierre desired was in short a republic of starched middle-class prigs of which he himself was to be the type the Ebertiste especially men like Chomet and Anacasi's Clutes whatever their faults may have been at least desired a change better worth fighting for than this their instincts were socialistic though their ideas may have been vague as they could as to the terror Robespierre substituted for the irregular methods of the commune a systematic plan of butchery which enabled him to rid himself conveniently of personal enemies still even Robespierre in spite of their contradicting the free trade principles he had laid down did not dare to suggest abolishing the maximum and other measures passed under the influence of the commune for ensuring a possible livelihood to the working classes and this it was reserved for the Thermadorians to do the committee men had accepted the aid of the convention in overthrowing Robespierre and his party they soon found that the convention was as determined to rid itself of the dictatorship of the committees as the committees themselves had been that of Robespierre the very next day the committees began to be attacked the abolition of the revolutionary tribunal was proposed Barrere who spoke in its support with having been a constitutional royalist before the 10th of August the convention nevertheless confined itself this time to issuing a decree of accusation against Fouquetinville and abolishing the love prairieale the committees themselves were next reorganized and their power curtailed the Paris commune never again rose after its second defeat under Robespierre the old the action did not stop at abolishing the terror it began at once undoing all the synculotic work of the revolution first the daily meetings of the sections were reduced to one in ten days next the allowance of twenty so a day for indigent members was done away with next the maximum was abolished the commissioners Lebon and Carrier most of the old members of the committees shortly after this either resigned or were ousted and their places were filled with Thermadorians Fréran the ex-mountainist and now reactionist started a paper in which he proposed that the youth of the upper and middle classes should arm themselves with loaded sticks to resist the synculote the suggestion was eagerly mounted front long hair done up behind entrances called cadenette and low shoes formed the costume a la victime of the jeunesse doré gilded youth as they were called every day street fights took place between them and the Jacobin the latter though they had undergone one of their customary purifications after the fall of Robespierre and had the convention before long broke up the vast federation of clubs of which the Paris Jacobin with a head by arbitrarily forbidding any further correspondence between the center and the provincial branches the assembly at the same time declined to receive any further deputations nevertheless the club was still the rallying point of every revolutionary influence in Paris an attempt was made to liberate gave rise to a formidable disturbance and led to the suspension of the Jacobin sittings by the convention the members assembled the next day notwithstanding in defiance of the decree but the meeting place was attacked by the gilded youth and the Jacobin driven out the convention thereupon suppressed the club altogether November 12 the Thermadorian party at first had not as yet received the honors of the Pantheon which the convention had granted after his death but it was not long before the reputation of Marat like everything else belonging to the proletarian side of the revolution fell under the ban of the reactionary party his busts were everywhere destroyed and his name became the by word it has been ever since or at least until quite recently the decree of expulsion against the nobles and priests the 73 members who had protested against the expulsion of the Gironde were released from prison and reinstated in their places in the convention the monument in front of the invalid celebrating the victory of the mountain over the Gironde was destroyed soon after this the few remaining Girondist leaders who had come out of hiding were received back into the convention thus further strengthening the great moderate party which had formed in 1995 the churches were again opened for Christian worship though here some caution was observed a good many restrictions on religious propagandism being still maintained the armies were now supplied solely by contract and not partially by requisitions on private property as here to four the confiscated goods of suspects and of those executed during the terror were restored Chapter 23 the reaction progresses the reaction was daily growing in intensity the fury of the new white terror in Paris had reached other leaders than Carrier and Lebon both of whom had been guillotined these other leaders were our old friends together with another committee man a demonstration Antoine and Saint-Merceau availed nothing on 21st March 1st Germinal they were brought before the convention and the proceedings lasted nine days though gallantly defended by the wreck of the mountain they were like to be condemned when once more the loyal workmen's quarters made an attempt to rescue them and stormed the convention to the Carrier bread and constitution of 93 and the liberty possibly fear of popular resentment prevented the convention from passing a capital sentence this time it confined itself to condemning the accused to transportation to Cayenne where Colot took the yellow fever drank off a whole bottle of brandy and died and Biot amused himself with breeding negroes and tame parrots the turn of Fouquetin Ville and the where are now the batches mockingly exclaimed some of the crowd as Fouquet mounted the scaffold Richard can I replied he is your bread any that cheaper for not having them in truth the economic situation was fearful the abolition of the maximum and the forced currency produced a terrific crisis the value of 5,000 francs in paper a senior sank to 20 francs in silver or gold for stalling swindling and extortion of every kind had a high time of it never before had starvation claimed so many victims as now death by the guillotine was succeeded by death from hunger the crowds at the baker's doors were worse than ever before the revolution bitterly did Saint-Ottoin and Saint-Masut look back on the time when under the commune and the committees they had a sufficiency and power the last of the popular insurrections unless we include the abortive bebev conspiracy as one took place on the 20th May 1st prairieale of this year 1795 and was a well-organized and determined movement but lacked leaders and staying power and consequently fell through the chief demands were still bred the constitution of 93 the release of all imprisoned patriots the fubourg this time marched fully armed the convention which was taken by surprise the daily recurring disturbances having hidden from it the fact that an organized insurrection was brewing the doors were forced and the Saint-Culotte rushed in at first repulsed they returned in greater numbers they fired at the president Boissi d'Angla a deputy Fero who rushed forward to protect him was cut down by sabers and his head fixed on a pike all the deputies now fled except those the old mountain to the number of about sixty Rome he of the calendar now took the chair and all the demands of the insurgents were put and carried in rapid succession but the wealthy sections had been a prize of what had happened and had meantime quietly surrounded the tuileries finally a drilled body of jeunesse d'arrêt suddenly burst in and drove out the insurgents in confusion at the point of the bayonet the deputies the decrees just past were annulled the members of the mountain were arrested as accomplices of the insurgents and secretly conveyed away from Paris but the Sainte-Culotte did not consider themselves beaten next day they again assembled in the outer Faux-Bourg and proceeded to march on the convention this time taking their cannon with them the inner or wealthy middle class sections were also drawn up in arms the cannon of the Faux-Bourg was already pointed on the tuileries when the convention sent commissioners to treat with the insurgents there was a pretense of favorably receiving their demands but nothing was definitely promised this sufficed, however to put the Sainte-Culotte off their guard not having an energetic commune and a determined commander at their back as on the 31st of May 1793 they retired satisfied with some vague direction which at the opening of the day had stood a fair chance of success and fatal also as the event showed to the cause of the democracy a few days later the assassin of Férot who had been tried and condemned to death was on his way to execution when the populace delivered him and carried him in triumph into the Faux-Bourg the convention then ordered the latter to be disarmed the interior sections surrounded the working class with this decree after some resistance it was affected the Faux-Bourg surrendered unconditionally with their arms and cannon the Paris working classes were now reduced therefore to the condition of an unarmed mob and for them organized insurrection was a thing of the past royalism became again fashionable it was openly advocated in newspapers and in public assemblies and even inside the convention itself though here it remained meanwhile the white terror was raging in the provinces far worse than in Paris the south especially became the scene of wholesale massacres of all supposed to be friendly to revolutionary principles bans of returned immigrants and wealthy young men called companies of Jesus and companies of the sun went about killing every revolutionist or suspected revolutionist they could find the Jacobin had been arrested wholesale during the last few weeks the prisons were broken into and every sans-culotte massacred at Lyon 300 Jacobin were enclosed in a shed which was then set fire to a cordon being formed around it till they were consumed to a man at Terascan hundreds of victims were hurled from the top of a rock into their own this sort of thing went on for weeks without any attempt to stop it on the part of the authorities later on the horrors of the French Revolution and of the mob with so much unction have prudently passed over the still worse horrors of the reaction and the respectable classes it is noteworthy that many of the most ardent of the Thermadorian reactionaries were precisely men who a few months previously had been the most ardent revolutionists and in many cases like Fréran Fouché and Talien the most impunity the royalists at last attempted an insurrection against the convention finding that they were not likely to obtain a majority in that body the immediate occasion of it was the conditions under which the assembly was to be dissolved the new constitution which had been voted was very much on the model of that of 1791 a property qualification and indirect voting were of course reintroduced with two capt by an executive committee or directory of five having power to appoint six ministers the electoral divisions of France were reorganized in an anti-democratic sense now with this constitution the royalists hoped to have obtained a majority in the next parliament and were grievously disappointed when the convention enacted that two-thirds of the new body should be chosen from its own members hence the tears of the royalists and hence the royalists section against the convention on the fifth October 1795 thirteenth of Vendemire 3 the task of quelling which was entrusted by Barat the generalissimo of the convention to a young artillery officer Napoléon Bonaparte by name a task the said young artillery officer duly accomplished by the aid of well-planted cannon on the evening of the same day End of chapters 20 through 23