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Ye have roused her, then, ye Emigrants and Despots of the world; France is
roused; long have ye been lecturing and tutoring this poor Nation, like
cruel uncalled-for pedagogues, shaking over her your
ferulas?
of fire and
steel: it is long that ye have pricked and fillipped [tweaked]
and affrighted her,
there as she sat helpless in her dead cerements [shroud] of a Constitution, you
gathering in on her from all lands, with your armaments and plots, your
invadings and truculent bullyings;—and lo now, ye have pricked her to the
quick, and she is up, and her blood is up. The dead cerements are rent
into cobwebs, and she fronts you in that terrible strength of Nature, which
no man has measured, which goes down to Madness and
Tophet?:
see now how ye
will deal with her!
|
The pressure of the threatening allied Austrian, Prussian and expatriate
force has had dire effect on the monarchy and has set France on a war footing.
|
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This month of September, 1792, which has become one of the memorable months
of History, presents itself under two most diverse aspects; all of black on
the one side, all of bright on the other. Whatsoever is cruel in the panic
frenzy of Twenty-five million men, whatsoever is great in the simultaneous
death-defiance of Twenty-five million men, stand here in abrupt contrast,
near by one another. As indeed is usual when a man, how much more when a
Nation of men, is hurled suddenly beyond the limits. For Nature, as green
as she looks, rests everywhere on dread foundations, were we farther down;
and Pan, to whose music the Nymphs dance,[158]
has a cry in him that can drive
all men distracted.
|
September 1792 is one of the most horrible and most glorious months of the
Revolution.
|
|
Very frightful it is when a Nation, rending asunder its Constitutions and
Regulations which were grown dead cerements for it, becomes transcendental;
and must now seek its wild way through the New, Chaotic,—where Force is
not yet distinguished into Bidden and Forbidden, but Crime and Virtue
welter unseparated, — in that domain of what is called the Passions; of what
we call the Miracles and the Portents! It is thus that, for some three
years to come, we are to contemplate France, in this final Third Volume of
our History. Sansculottism reigning in all its grandeur and in all its
hideousness: the Gospel (God's Message) of Man's Rights,
Man's mights or
strengths, once more preached irrefragably abroad; along with this, and
still louder for the time, and fearfullest Devil's-Message of Man's
weaknesses and sins; — and all on such a scale, and under such aspect:
cloudy 'death-birth of a world;'[159]
huge smoke-cloud, streaked with rays as of
heaven on one side; girt on the other as with hell-fire! History tells us
many things: but for the last thousand years and more, what thing has she
told us of a sort like this? Which therefore let us two, O Reader, dwell
on willingly, for a little; and from its endless significance endeavour to
extract what may, in present circumstances, be adapted for us.
|
For the first time in the Revolution, France is rootless. Monarchy and
Constitution are obliterated. What will take their place is one of the more
interesting stories in history.
|
|
It is unfortunate, though very natural, that the history of this Period has
so generally been written in hysterics. Exaggeration abounds, execration,
wailing; and, on the whole, darkness. But thus too, when foul old Rome had
to be swept from the Earth, and those Northmen, and other horrid sons of
Nature, came in, 'swallowing formulas' as the French now do, foul old Rome
screamed execratively her loudest; so that, the true shape of many things
is lost for us. Attila's Huns had arms of such length that they could lift
a stone without stooping. Into the body of the poor Tatars execrative
Roman History intercalated an alphabetic letter; and so they continue
Ta-r-tars, of fell Tartarean nature, to this day. Here, in like manner, search
as we will in these multi-form innumerable French Records, darkness too
frequently covers, or sheer distraction bewilders. One finds it difficult
to imagine that the Sun shone in this September month, as he does in
others. Nevertheless it is an indisputable fact that the Sun did shine;
and there was weather and work, — nay, as to that, very bad weather for
harvest work! An unlucky Editor may do his utmost; and after all, require
allowances.
|
As is usually the case for turbulent times, dispassionate records of this
period of the Revolution are hard to find.
|
| |
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He had been a wise Frenchman, who, looking, close at hand, on this waste
aspect of a France all stirring and whirling, in ways new, untried, had
been able to discern where the cardinal movement lay; which tendency it was
that had the rule and primary direction of it then! But at forty-four
years' distance, it is different. To all men now, two cardinal movements
or grand tendencies, in the September whirl, have become discernible
enough: that stormful effluence towards the Frontiers; that frantic
crowding towards Townhouses and Council-halls in the interior. Wild France
dashes, in desperate death-defiance, towards the Frontiers, to defend
itself from foreign Despots; crowds towards Townhalls and Election
Committee-rooms, to defend itself from domestic Aristocrats. Let the
Reader conceive well these two cardinal movements; and what side-currents
and endless vortexes might depend on these. He shall judge too, whether,
in such sudden wreckage of all old Authorities, such a pair of cardinal
movements, half-frantic in themselves, could be of soft nature? As in dry
Sahara, when the winds waken, and lift and winnow the immensity of sand!
The air itself (Travellers say) is a dim sand-air; and dim looming through
it, the wonderfullest uncertain colonnades of Sand-Pillars rush whirling
from this side and from that, like so many mad Spinning-Dervishes, of a
hundred feet in stature; and dance their huge Desert-waltz there!—
|
Carlyle sees two primary reactions to the situation of September, 1792:
the creation of first volunteer and later professional armed forces to prevent
invasion from without; and the strengthening of local popular government to
prevent counterrevolution from within. Most of the turmoil stems from these
two actions.
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Nevertheless in all human movements, were they but a day old, there is
order, or the beginning of order. Consider two things in this Sahara-waltz
of the French Twenty-five millions; or rather one thing, and one hope of a
thing: the Commune (Municipality) of Paris, which is already here; the
National Convention, which shall in few weeks be here. The Insurrectionary
Commune, which improvising itself on the eve of the Tenth of August, worked
this ever-memorable Deliverance by explosion, must needs rule over it, —
till the Convention meet. This Commune, which they may well call a
spontaneous or 'improvised' Commune, is, for the present, sovereign of
France. The Legislative, deriving its authority from the Old, how can
it
now have authority when the Old is exploded by insurrection? As a floating
piece of wreck, certain things, persons and interests may still cleave to
it: volunteer defenders, riflemen or pikemen in green uniform, or red
nightcap (or bonnet rouge), defile before it daily, just on the wing
towards Brunswick; with the brandishing of arms; always with some touch of
Leonidas?-eloquence,
often with a fire of daring that threatens to out-herod
Herod,—the Galleries, 'especially the Ladies, never done with applauding.'
(Moore's Journal, i. 85.)
Addresses of this or the like sort can be
received and answered, in the hearing of all France: the Salle de Manége
is still useful as a place of proclamation. For which use, indeed, it now
chiefly serves.
Vergniaud?
delivers spirit-stirring orations; but always
with a prophetic sense only, looking towards the coming Convention. "Let
our memory perish," cries Vergniaud, "but let France be free!"—whereupon
they all start to their feet, shouting responsive: "Yes, yes,
périsse
notre mémoire, pourvu que la France soit libre!"
(Hist. Parl. xvii. 467.)
Disfrocked Chabot?
abjures Heaven that at least we may "have done with
Kings;" and fast as powder under spark, we all blaze up once more, and with
waved hats shout and swear: "Yes, nous le jurons; plus de roi!"
(Ibid.
xvii. 437.) All which, as a method of proclamation, is very convenient.
|
The Paris Commune and the remnants of the Legislative Assembly provide some
short-term continuity.
|
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For the rest, that our busy
Brissots?, rigorous
Rolands?,
men who once had
authority and now have less and less; men who love law, and will have even
an Explosion explode itself, as far as possible, according to rule, do find
this state of matters most unofficial unsatisfactory, — is not to be denied.
Complaints are made; attempts are made: but without effect. The attempts
even recoil; and must be desisted from, for fear of worse: the sceptre is
departed from this Legislative once and always. A poor Legislative, so
hard was fate, had let itself be hand-gyved [shackled],
nailed to the rock like an
Andromeda, and could only wail there to the Earth and Heavens; miraculously
a winged Perseus[160]
(or Improvised Commune) has dawned out of the void Blue,
and cut her loose: but whether now is it she, with her softness and
musical speech, or is it he, with his hardness and sharp falchion [sword] and
aegis [shield], that shall have casting vote?
Melodious agreement of vote; this
were the rule! But if otherwise, and votes diverge, then surely
Andromeda's part is to weep, — if possible, tears of gratitude alone.
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Some of the Legislative tried to maintain order and a hold on power, but what
little real power that existed rested in the Commune.
|
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Be content, O France, with this Improvised Commune, such as it is! It has
the implements, and has the hands: the time is not long. On Sunday the
twenty-sixth of August, our Primary Assemblies shall meet, begin electing
of Electors; on Sunday the second of September (may the day prove lucky!)
the Electors shall begin electing Deputies; and so an all-healing National
Convention will come together. No
marc d'argent[financial qualification to vote],
or distinction of Active
and Passive, now insults the French Patriot: but there is universal
suffrage, unlimited liberty to choose. Old-constituents, Present-
Legislators, all France is eligible. Nay, it may be said, the flower of
all the Universe (de l'Univers) is eligible;
for in these very days we, by
act of Assembly, 'naturalise' the chief Foreign Friends of humanity:
Priestley?,
burnt out for us in Birmingham;
Klopstock?,
a genius of all
countries;
Jeremy Bentham?,
useful Jurisconsult;
distinguished
Paine?, the
rebellious
Needleman;
— some of whom may be chosen. As is most fit; for a
Convention of this kind. In a word, Seven Hundred and Forty-five
unshackled sovereigns, admired of the universe, shall replace this hapless
impotency of a Legislative, — out of which, it is likely, the best members,
and the Mountain in mass, may be re-elected. Roland is getting ready the
Salles des Cent Suisses,
as preliminary rendezvous for them; in that void
Palace of the Tuileries, now void and National, and not a Palace, but a
Caravanserai [inn].
|
Preparations for election of the National Assembly are under way. The vote is
extended to more citizens than in the previous election, and there are no
restrictions on who is eligible for election. (Carlyle does not note that
the number of French participating in this election was less than in the
previous one.)
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As for the Spontaneous Commune, one may say that there never was on Earth a
stranger Town-Council. Administration, not of a great City, but of a great
Kingdom in a state of revolt and frenzy, this is the task that has fallen
to it. Enrolling, provisioning, judging; devising, deciding, doing,
endeavouring to do: one wonders the human brain did not give way under all
this, and reel. But happily human brains have such a talent of taking up
simply what they can carry, and ignoring all the rest; leaving all the
rest, as if it were not there! Whereby somewhat is verily shifted for; and
much shifts for itself. This Improvised Commune walks along, nothing
doubting; promptly making front, without fear or flurry, at what moment
soever, to the wants of the moment. Were the world on fire, one improvised
tricolor Municipal has but one life to lose. They are the elixir and
chosen-men of Sansculottic Patriotism; promoted to the forlorn-hope;
unspeakable victory or a high gallows, this is their meed. They sit there,
in the Townhall, these astonishing tricolor Municipals; in Council General;
in Committee of Watchfulness (de Surveillance, which will even become
de
Salut Public, of Public Salvation), or what other Committees and
Sub-committees are needful; —
managing infinite Correspondence; passing infinite
Decrees: one hears of a Decree being 'the ninety-eighth of the day.'
Ready! is the word. They carry loaded pistols in their pocket; also some
improvised luncheon by way of meal. Or indeed, by and by, traiteurs
contract for the supply of repasts, to be eaten on the spot, — too lavishly,
as it was afterwards grumbled. Thus they: girt in their tricolor sashes;
Municipal note-paper in the one hand, fire-arms in other. They have their
Agents out all over France; speaking in townhouses, market-places, highways
and byways; agitating, urging to arm; all hearts tingling to hear. Great
is the fire of Anti-Aristocrat eloquence: nay some, as Bibliopolic
Momoro?,
seem to hint afar off at something which smells of Agrarian Law, and a
surgery of the overswoln dropsical strong-box itself; — whereat indeed the
bold Bookseller runs risk of being hanged, and Ex-Constituent
Buzot?
has to
smuggle him off. (Mémoires de Buzot (Paris, 1823),
p. 88.)
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The affairs of government that are done at all are done by the Paris Commune,
which labours mightily under the load.
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Governing Persons, were they never so insignificant intrinsically, have for
most part plenty of Memoir-writers; and the curious, in after-times, can
learn minutely their goings out and comings in: which, as men always love
to know their fellow-men in singular situations, is a comfort, of its kind.
Not so, with these Governing Persons, now in the Townhall! And yet what
most original fellow-man, of the Governing sort, high-chancellor, king,
kaiser, secretary of the home or the foreign department, ever shewed such a
phasis as Clerk
Tallien?,
Procureur
Manuel?,
future Procureur
Chaumette?,
here
in this Sand-waltz of the Twenty-five millions, now do? O brother
mortals, — thou Advocate
Panis?,
friend of
Danton?,
kinsman of
Santerre?;
Engraver
Sergent?,
since called Agate Sergent; thou
Huguenin?,
with the
tocsin in thy heart! But, as Horace says, they wanted the sacred
memoir-writer (sacro vate); and we know them not.
Men bragged of August and its
doings, publishing them in high places; but of this September none now or
afterwards would brag. The September world remains dark, fuliginous, as
Lapland witch-midnight; — from which, indeed, very strange shapes will
evolve themselves.
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We know names of men who ran France during those two months, but little about
their doings.
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Understand this, however: that incorruptible Robespierre is not wanting,
now when the brunt of battle is past; in a stealthy way the seagreen man
sits there, his feline eyes excellent in the twilight. Also understand
this other, a single fact worth many: that Marat is not only there, but
has a seat of honour assigned him, a tribune particulière.
How changed for
Marat; lifted from his dark cellar into this luminous 'peculiar tribune!'
All dogs have their day; even rabid dogs. Sorrowful, incurable Philoctetes
Marat; without whom Troy cannot be taken[161]!
Hither, as a main element of the
Governing Power, has Marat been raised. Royalist types, for we have
'suppressed' innumerable
Durosoys?,
Royous?,
and even clapt them in prison, —
Royalist types replace the worn types often snatched from a People's-Friend
in old ill days. In our 'peculiar tribune' we write and redact: Placards,
of due monitory terror; Amis-du-Peuple (now under the name of
Journal de la République);
and sit obeyed of men. 'Marat,' says one, 'is the conscience
of the Hôtel-de-Ville.' Keeper, as some call it,
of the Sovereign's
Conscience;—which surely, in such hands, will not lie hid in a napkin!
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Robespierre and Marat have a part in this new pseudo-government.
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Two great movements, as we said, agitate this distracted National mind: a
rushing against domestic Traitors, a rushing against foreign Despots. Mad
movements both, restrainable by no known rule; strongest passions of human
nature driving them on: love, hatred; vengeful sorrow, braggart
Nationality also vengeful, — and pale Panic over all! Twelve Hundred slain
Patriots, do they not, from their dark catacombs there, in Death's dumb-shew,
plead (O ye Legislators) for vengeance? Such was the destructive
rage of these Aristocrats on the ever-memorable Tenth. Nay, apart from
vengeance, and with an eye to Public Salvation only, are there not still,
in this Paris (in round numbers) 'thirty thousand Aristocrats,' of the most
malignant humour; driven now to their last trump-card? — Be patient, ye
Patriots: our New High Court, 'Tribunal of the Seventeenth,' sits; each
Section has sent Four Jurymen; and Danton, extinguishing improper judges,
improper practices wheresoever found, is 'the same man you have known at
the Cordeliers.' With such a Minister of Justice shall not Justice be
done? — Let it be swift then, answers universal Patriotism;
swift and sure!—
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On August 17, a special court is set up to try 'criminals'. The judges
are appointed by Santerre, commander of the National Guard. There is no
appeal from the sentence of the court.
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One would hope, this Tribunal of the Seventeenth is swifter than most.
Already on the 21st, while our Court is but four days old, Collenot
d'Angremont, 'the Royal enlister' (crimp, embaucheur)
dies by torch-light.
For, lo, the great Guillotine, wondrous to behold, now stands there; the
Doctor's Idea has become Oak and Iron;
the huge cyclopean axe 'falls in its
grooves like the ram of the Pile-engine,' swiftly snuffing out the light of
men! 'Mais vous, Gualches, what have you invented?'
This? — Poor old
Laporte, Intendant of the Civil List, follows next; quietly, the mild old
man. Then Durosoy, Royalist Placarder, 'cashier of all the
Anti-Revolutionists of the interior:' he went rejoicing; said that a Royalist
like him ought to die, of all days on this day, the 25th or Saint Louis's
Day. All these have been tried, cast, — the Galleries shouting approval;
and handed over to the Realised Idea, within a week. Besides those whom we
have acquitted, the Galleries murmuring, and have dismissed; or even have
personally guarded back to Prison, as the Galleries took to howling, and
even to menacing and elbowing. (Moore's Journal,
i. 159-168.) Languid
this Tribunal is not.
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The court quickly condemns several high-profile royalists for
counter-revolutionary acts. Execution — now for the first time by
Guillotine — follows immediately.
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Nor does the other movement slacken; the rushing against foreign Despots.
Strong forces shall meet in death-grip; drilled Europe against mad
undrilled France; and singular conclusions will be tried. — Conceive
therefore, in some faint degree, the tumult that whirls in this France, in
this Paris! Placards from Section, from Commune, from Legislative, from
the individual Patriot, flame monitory on all walls. Flags of Danger to
Fatherland wave at the Hôtel-de-Ville; on the Pont Neuf
— over the prostrate
Statues of Kings. There is universal enlisting, urging to enlist; there is
tearful-boastful leave-taking; irregular marching on the Great North-Eastern
Road. Marseillese sing their wild To Arms, in chorus; which now
all men, all women and children have learnt, and sing chorally, in
Theatres, Boulevards, Streets; and the heart burns in every bosom: Aux
Armes! Marchons! —
Or think how your Aristocrats are skulking into covert;
how Bertrand-Moleville lies hidden in some garret 'in Aubry-le-boucher
Street, with a poor surgeon who had known me;' Dame de Staël has secreted
her Narbonne, not knowing what in the world to make of him. The Barriers
are sometimes open, oftenest shut; no passports to be had; Townhall
Emissaries, with the eyes and claws of falcons, flitting watchful on all
points of your horizon! In two words: Tribunal of the Seventeenth, busy
under howling Galleries; Prussian Brunswick, 'over a space of forty miles,'
with his war-tumbrils, and sleeping thunders, and Briarean 'sixty-six
thousand' (See Toulongeon, Hist. de France. ii. c. 5.)
right-hands, — coming, coming!
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Meanwhile there are mass enlistments to field an army against the threatening
Prussians and Austrians.
|
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O Heavens, in these latter days of August, he is come! Durosoy was not yet
guillotined when news had come that the Prussians were harrying and
ravaging about Metz; in some four days more, one hears that Longwi, our
first strong-place on the borders, is fallen 'in fifteen hours.' Quick,
therefore, O ye improvised Municipals; quick, and ever quicker!—The
improvised Municipals make front to this also. Enrolment urges itself; and
clothing, and arming. Our very officers have now 'wool epaulettes;' for it
is the reign of Equality, and also of Necessity. Neither do men now
monsieur and sir one another;
citoyen (citizen) were suitabler; we even say
thou, as 'the free peoples of Antiquity did:' so have Journals and the
Improvised Commune suggested; which shall be well.
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The fall of the French outpost of Longwy spurs enlistment and panic.
|
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Infinitely better, meantime, could we suggest, where arms are to be found.
For the present, our Citoyens chant chorally To Arms;
and have no arms!
Arms are searched for; passionately; there is joy over any musket.
Moreover, entrenchments shall be made round Paris: on the slopes of
Montmartre men dig and shovel; though even the simple suspect this to be
desperate. They dig; Tricolour sashes speak encouragement and well-speed-ye.
Nay finally 'twelve Members of the Legislative go daily,' not to
encourage only, but to bear a hand, and delve: it was decreed with
acclamation. Arms shall either be provided; or else the ingenuity of man
crack itself, and become fatuity. Lean Beaumarchais, thinking to serve the
Fatherland, and do a stroke of trade, in the old way, has commissioned
sixty thousand stand of good arms out of Holland: would to Heaven, for
Fatherland's sake and his, they were come! Meanwhile railings are torn up;
hammered into pikes: chains themselves shall be welded together, into
pikes. The very coffins of the dead are raised; for melting into balls.
All Church-bells must down into the furnace to make cannon; all Church-plate into the mint to make money. Also behold the fair swan-bevies of
Citoyennes that have alighted in Churches,
and sit there with swan-neck, —
sewing tents and regimentals! Nor are Patriotic Gifts wanting, from those
that have aught left; nor stingily given: the fair Villaumes, mother and
daughter, Milliners in the Rue St.-Martin, give 'a silver thimble, and a
coin of fifteen sous (sevenpence halfpenny),'
with other similar effects;
and offer, at least the mother does, to mount guard. Men who have not even
a thimble, give a thimbleful, — were it but of invention. One Citoyen has
wrought out the scheme of a wooden cannon; which France shall exclusively
profit by, in the first instance. It is to be made of staves, by the
coopers;—of almost boundless calibre, but uncertain as to strength! Thus
they: hammering, scheming, stitching, founding, with all their heart and
with all their soul. Two bells only are to remain in each Parish,—for
tocsin and other purposes.
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There is an attempt to turn money and metal into arms almost overnight.
|
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But mark also, precisely while the Prussian batteries were playing their
briskest at Longwi in the North-East, and our dastardly
Lavergne?
saw
nothing for it but surrender, — south-westward, in remote, patriarchal La
Vendée, that sour ferment about Nonjuring Priests,
after long working, is
ripe, and explodes: at the wrong moment for us! And so we have 'eight
thousand Peasants at Châtillon-sur-Sèvre,'
who will not be ballotted for
soldiers; will not have their Curates molested. To whom
Bonchamps?,
La Rochejaquelins?
,
and Seigneurs enough, of a Royalist turn, will join
themselves; with
Stofflets?
and Charettes?;
with Heroes and Chouan Smugglers;
and the loyal warmth of a simple people, blown into flame and fury by
theological and seignorial bellows! So that there shall be fighting from
behind ditches, death-volleys bursting out of thickets and ravines of
rivers; huts burning, feet of the pitiful women hurrying to refuge with
their children on their back; seedfields fallow, whitened with human
bones; — 'eighty thousand, of all ages, ranks, sexes, flying at once across
the Loire,' with wail borne far on the winds: and, in brief, for years
coming, such a suite of scenes as glorious war has not offered in these
late ages, not since our Albigenses and Crusadings were over, — save indeed
some chance Palatinate, or so, we might have to 'burn,' by way of
exception. The 'eight thousand at Châtillon'
will be got dispelled for the
moment; the fire scattered, not extinguished. To the dints and bruises of
outward battle there is to be added henceforth a deadlier internal
gangrene.
|
At the same time, the first outbreaks of counter-revolution in the
Vendée appear.
|
|
This rising in La Vendée reports itself at Paris on
Wednesday the 29th of
August; — just as we had got our Electors elected; and, in spite of
Brunswick's and Longwi's teeth, were hoping still to have a National
Convention, if it pleased Heaven. But indeed, otherwise, this Wednesday is
to be regarded as one of the notablest Paris had yet seen: gloomy tidings
come successively, like Job's messengers; are met by gloomy answers. Of
Sardinia rising to invade the South-East, and Spain threatening the South,
we do not speak. But are not the Prussians masters of Longwi
(treacherously yielded, one would say); and preparing to besiege Verdun?
Clairfait and his Austrians are encompassing Thionville; darkening the
North. Not Metzland now, but the Clermontais is getting harried; flying
hulans [lancers] and huzzars [light cavalry] have been seen on the
Chalons Road, almost as far as
Sainte-Menehould. Heart, ye Patriots, if ye lose heart, ye lose all!
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Not only do Longwy and La Vendée strike fear: there are rumours of
the enemy on the road to Paris.
|
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It is not without a dramatic emotion that one reads in the Parliamentary
Debates of this Wednesday evening 'past seven o'clock,' the scene with the
military fugitives from Longwi. Wayworn, dusty, disheartened, these poor
men enter the Legislative, about sunset or after; give the most pathetic
detail of the frightful pass they were in: — Prussians billowing round by
the myriad, volcanically spouting fire for fifteen hours: we, scattered
sparse on the ramparts, hardly a cannoneer to two guns; our dastard
Commandant Lavergne no where shewing face; the priming would not catch;
there was no powder in the bombs, — what could we do? "Mourir! Die!"
answer prompt voices;
(Hist. Parl. xvii. 148.) and the dusty fugitives must
shrink elsewhither for comfort. — Yes, Mourir, that is now the word.
Be
Longwi a proverb and a hissing among French strong-places: let it (says
the Legislative) be obliterated rather, from the shamed face of the
Earth; —
and so there has gone forth Decree, that Longwi shall, were the Prussians
once out of it, 'be rased,' and exist only as ploughed ground.
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The survivors of Longwy return to no glory and little sympathy.
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Nor are the Jacobins milder; as how could they, the flower of Patriotism?
Poor Dame Lavergne, wife of the poor Commandant, took her parasol one
evening, and escorted by her Father came over to the Hall of the mighty
Mother; and 'reads a memoir tending to justify the Commandant of Longwi.'
Lafarge, Président, makes answer:
"Citoyenne, the Nation will judge
Lavergne; the Jacobins are bound to tell him the truth. He would have
ended his course there (termine sa carrière),
if he had loved the honour of
his country." (Ibid. xix. 300.)
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And the name of Lavergne was forever soiled.
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|
But better than raising of Longwi, or rebuking poor dusty soldiers or
soldiers' wives, Danton had come over, last night, and demanded a Decree to
search for arms, since they were not yielded voluntarily.
Let 'Domiciliary
visits,' with rigour of authority, be made to this end. To search for
arms; for horses,—Aristocratism rolls in its carriage, while Patriotism
cannot trail its cannon. To search generally for munitions of war, 'in the
houses of persons suspect,'—and even, if it seem proper, to seize and
imprison the suspect persons themselves! In the Prisons, their plots will
be harmless; in the Prisons, they will be as hostages for us, and not
without use. This Decree the energetic Minister of Justice demanded, last
night, and got; and this same night it is to be executed; it is being
executed, at the moment when these dusty soldiers get saluted with
Mourir.
Two thousand stand of arms, as they count, are foraged in this way; and
some four hundred head of new Prisoners; and, on the whole, such a terror
and damp is struck through the Aristocrat heart, as all but Patriotism, and
even Patriotism were it out of this agony, might pity. Yes, Messieurs! if
Brunswick blast Paris to ashes, he probably will blast the Prisons of Paris
too: pale Terror, if we have got it, we will also give it, and the depth
of horrors that lie in it; the same leaky bottom, in these wild waters,
bears us all.
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Danton gets the right to search homes, and assumes the duty to arrest
aristocrats for being aristocrats.
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One can judge what stir there was now among the 'thirty thousand
Royalists:' how the Plotters, or the accused of Plotting, shrank each
closer into his lurking-place,—like Bertrand
Moleville?,
looking eager
towards Longwi, hoping the weather would keep fair. Or how they dressed
themselves in valet's clothes, like
Narbonne?,
and 'got to England as Dr.
Bollman's famulus [assistant]:'
how Dame de Staël bestirred herself, pleading with
Manuel?
as a Sister in Literature, pleading even with Clerk
Tallien?;
a pray
to nameless chagrins!
(De Staël, Considérations sur la
Révolution, ii. 67-81.)
Royalist
Peltier?,
the Pamphleteer, gives a touching Narrative (not
deficient in height of colouring) of the terrors of that night. From five
in the afternoon, a great City is struck suddenly silent; except for the
beating of drums, for the tramp of marching feet; and ever and anon the
dread thunder of the knocker at some door, a Tricolor Commissioner with his
blue Guards (black-guards!) arriving. All Streets are vacant, says
Peltier; beset by Guards at each end: all Citizens are ordered to be
within doors. On the River float sentinal barges, lest we escape by water:
the Barriers hermetically closed. Frightful! The sun shines; serenely
westering, in smokeless mackerel-sky: Paris is as if sleeping, as if
dead:—Paris is holding its breath, to see what stroke will fall on it.
Poor Peltier! Acts of Apostles, and all jocundity of Leading-Articles, are
gone out, and it is become bitter earnest instead; polished satire changed
now into coarse pike-points (hammered out of railing); all logic reduced to
this one primitive thesis, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!—Peltier, dolefully aware of it, ducks low; escapes unscathed to England; to
urge there the inky war anew; to have Trial by Jury, in due season, and
deliverance by young Whig eloquence, world-celebrated for a
day[162].
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Those aristocrats who can arrange to do so, flee.
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Of 'thirty thousand,' naturally, great multitudes were left unmolested:
but, as we said, some four hundred, designated as 'persons suspect,' were
seized; and an unspeakable terror fell on all. Wo to him who is guilty of
Plotting, of Anticivism, Royalism, Feuillantism; who, guilty or not guilty,
has an enemy in his Section to call him guilty! Poor old M. de
Cazotte? is
seized, his young loved Daughter with him, refusing to quit him. Why, O
Cazotte, wouldst thou quit romancing, and Diable Amoureux,
for such reality
as this? Poor old M. de
Sombreuil?,
he of the Invalides,
is seized: a man
seen askance, by Patriotism ever since the Bastille days: whom also a fond
Daughter will not quit. With young tears hardly suppressed, and old
wavering weakness rousing itself once more—O my brothers, O my sisters!
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The more visible of those remaining, and those who have enemies, are arrested.
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The famed and named go; the nameless, if they have an accuser. Necklace
Lamotte's?
Husband is in these Prisons (she long since squelched on the
London Pavements); but gets delivered. Gross de
Morande?,
of the
Courier de
l'Europe, hobbles distractedly to and fro there: but they let him hobble
out; on right nimble crutches;—his hour not being yet come. Advocate
Maton de la
Varenne?,
very weak in health, is snatched off from mother and
kin; Tricolor
Rossignol?
(journeyman goldsmith and scoundrel lately, a risen
man now) remembers an old Pleading of Maton's! Jourgniac de
Saint-Meard?
goes; the brisk frank soldier: he was in the Mutiny of Nancy, in that
'effervescent Regiment du Roi,'—on the wrong side. Saddest of all: Abbé
Sicard?
goes; a Priest who could not take the Oath, but who could teach the
Deaf and Dumb: in his Section one man, he says, had a grudge at him; one
man, at the fit hour, launches an arrest against him; which hits. In the
Arsenal quarter, there are dumb hearts making wail, with signs, with wild
gestures; he their miraculous healer and speech-bringer is rapt away.
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Examples of the arrests.
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What with the arrestments on this night of the Twenty-ninth, what with
those that have gone on more or less, day and night, ever since the Tenth,
one may fancy what the Prisons now were. Crowding and Confusion; jostle,
hurry, vehemence and terror! Of the poor Queen's Friends, who had followed
her to the Temple and been committed elsewhither to Prison, some, as
Governess de
Tourzelle?,
are to be let go: one, the poor Princess de
Lamballe, is not let go; but waits in the strong-rooms of La Force there,
what will betide further.
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Many of the unpopular Queen's friends and household are arrested.
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Among so many hundreds whom the launched arrest hits, who are rolled off to
Townhall or Section-hall, to preliminary Houses of detention, and hurled in
thither, as into cattle-pens, we must mention one other: Caron de
Beaumarchais?,
Author of Figaro; vanquisher of Maupeou Parlements and
Goezman helldogs; once numbered among the demigods; and now — ? We left him
in his culminant [peak] state;
what dreadful decline is this, when we again catch
a glimpse of him! 'At midnight' (it was but the 12th of August yet), 'the
servant, in his shirt,' with wide-staring eyes, enters your room: —
Monsieur, rise; all the people are come to seek you; they are knocking,
like to break in the door! 'And they were in fact knocking in a terrible
manner (d'une façon terrible).
I fling on my coat, forgetting even the
waistcoat, nothing on my feet but slippers; and say to him' — And he, alas,
answers mere negatory incoherences, panic interjections. And through the
shutters and crevices, in front or rearward, the dull street-lamps disclose
only streetfuls of haggard countenances; clamorous, bristling with pikes:
and you rush distracted for an outlet, finding none; — and have to take
refuge in the crockery-press, down stairs; and stand there, palpitating in
that imperfect costume, lights dancing past your key-hole, tramp of feet
overhead, and the tumult of Satan, 'for four hours and more!' And old
ladies, of the quarter, started up (as we hear next morning); rang for
their Bonnes and cordial-drops, with shrill interjections: and old
gentlemen, in their shirts, 'leapt garden-walls;' flying, while none
pursued; one of whom unfortunately broke his leg.
(Beaumarchais'
Narrative, Mémoires sur les Prisons (Paris, 1823), i. 179-90.)
Those sixty
thousand stand of Dutch arms (which never arrive), and the bold stroke of
trade, have turned out so ill!—
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The first attempt to arrest Beaumarchais.
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Beaumarchais escaped for this time; but not for the next time, ten days
after. On the evening of the Twenty-ninth he is still in that chaos of the
Prisons, in saddest, wrestling condition; unable to get justice, even to
get audience; 'Panis scratching his head' when you speak to him, and making
off. Nevertheless let the lover of Figaro know that Procureur
Manuel?,
a
Brother in Literature, found him, and delivered him once more. But how the
lean demigod, now shorn of his splendour, had to lurk in barns, to roam
over harrowed fields, panting for life; and to wait under eavesdrops, and
sit in darkness 'on the Boulevard amid paving-stones and boulders,' longing
for one word of any Minister, or Minister's Clerk, about those accursed
Dutch muskets, and getting none,—with heart fuming in spleen, and terror,
and suppressed canine-madness: alas, how the swift sharp hound, once fit
to be Diana's, breaks his old teeth now, gnawing mere whinstones; and must
'fly to England;' and, returning from England, must creep into the corner,
and lie quiet, toothless (moneyless),—all this let the lover of Figaro
fancy, and weep for. We here, without weeping, not without sadness, wave
the withered tough fellow-mortal our farewell. His Figaro has returned to
the French stage; nay is, at this day, sometimes named the best piece
there. And indeed, so long as Man's Life can ground itself only on
artificiality and aridity; each new Revolt and Change of Dynasty turning up
only a new stratum of dry-rubbish,
and no soil yet coming to view, — may it
not be good to protest against such a Life, in many ways, and even in the
Figaro way?
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Imprisonment and release of Beaumarchais.
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Such are the last days of August, 1792; days gloomy, disastrous, and of
evil omen. What will become of this poor France? Dumouriez rode from the
Camp of Maulde, eastward to Sedan, on Tuesday last, the 28th of the month;
reviewed that so-called Army left forlorn there by Lafayette: the forlorn
soldiers gloomed on him; were heard growling on him, "This is one of them,
ce b—e là, that made War be declared."
(Dumouriez, Mémoires, ii. 383.)
Unpromising Army! Recruits flow in, filtering through Depôt after
Depôt;
but recruits merely: in want of all; happy if they have so much as arms.
And Longwi has fallen basely; and Brunswick, and the Prussian King, with
his sixty thousand, will beleaguer Verdun; and Clairfait and Austrians
press deeper in, over the Northern marches: 'a hundred and fifty thousand'
as fear counts, 'eighty thousand' as the returns shew, do hem us in;
Cimmerian Europe behind them. There is Castries-and-Broglie chivalry;
Royalist foot 'in red facing and nankeen trousers;' breathing death and the
gallows.
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The military situation in the East and Northeast is grim: ill-trained and
ill-equipped levees against the professional armies of Europe.
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And lo, finally! at Verdun on Sunday the 2d of September 1792, Brunswick is
here. With his King and sixty thousand, glittering over the heights, from
beyond the winding Meuse River, he looks down on us, on our 'high citadel'
and all our confectionery-ovens (for we are celebrated for confectionery)
has sent courteous summons, in order to spare the effusion of blood!—Resist him to the death? Every day of retardation precious? How, O
General
Beaurepaire?
(asks the amazed Municipality) shall we resist him?
We, the Verdun Municipals, see no resistance possible. Has he not sixty
thousand, and artillery without end? Retardation, Patriotism is good; but
so likewise is peaceable baking of pastry, and sleeping in whole skin. —
Hapless Beaurepaire stretches out his hands, and pleads passionately, in
the name of country, honour, of Heaven and of Earth: to no purpose. The
Municipals have, by law, the power of ordering it; — with an Army officered
by Royalism or Crypto-Royalism, such a Law seemed needful: and they order
it, as pacific Pastrycooks, not as heroic Patriots would, — To surrender!
Beaurepaire strides home, with long steps: his valet, entering the room,
sees him 'writing eagerly,' and withdraws. His valet hears then, in a few
minutes, the report of a pistol: Beaurepaire is lying dead; his eager
writing had been a brief suicidal farewell. In this manner died
Beaurepaire, wept of France; buried in the Pantheon, with honourable
pension to his Widow, and for Epitaph these words, He chose Death rather
than yield to Despots. The Prussians, descending from the heights, are
peaceable masters of Verdun.
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The Prussians take Verdun without a fight.
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And so Brunswick advances, from stage to stage: who shall now stay him, —
covering forty miles of country? Foragers fly far; the villages of the
North-East are harried; your Hessian forager has only 'three sous a day:'
the very Emigrants, it is said, will take silver-plate, — by way of revenge.
Clermont, Sainte-Menehould, Varennes especially, ye Towns of the Night of
Spurs; tremble ye! Procureur Sausse and the Magistracy of Varennes have
fled; brave Boniface Le Blanc of the Bras d'Or is to the woods: Mrs. Le
Blanc, a young woman fair to look upon, with her young infant, has to live
in greenwood, like a beautiful Bessy Bell of Song, her bower thatched with
rushes; — catching premature rheumatism. (Helen Maria
Williams, Letters from France (London, 1791-93), iii. 96.) Clermont
may ring the tocsin now,
and illuminate itself! Clermont lies at the foot of its Cow
(or Vache, so
they name that Mountain), a prey to the Hessian spoiler: its fair women,
fairer than most, are robbed: not of life, or what is dearer, yet of all
that is cheaper and portable; for Necessity, on three half-pence a-day, has
no law. At Saint-Menehould, the enemy has been expected more than once, —
our Nationals all turning out in arms; but was not yet seen. Post-master
Drouet?,
he is not in the woods, but minding his Election; and will sit in
the Convention, notable King-taker, and bold Old-Dragoon as he is.
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The eastern approaches to Paris are seriously threatened. People involved
in the capture of the King at Varennes flee or take arms. (Except for
Drouet who goes off to the Convention).
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Thus on the North-East all roams and runs; and on a set day, the date of
which is irrecoverable by History, Brunswick 'has engaged to dine in
Paris,' — the Powers willing. And at Paris, in the centre, it is as we saw;
and in La Vendée, South-West, it is as we saw; and Sardinia is in the
South-East, and Spain is in the South, and Clairfait with Austria and
sieged Thionville is in the North; — and all France leaps distracted, like
the winnowed Sahara waltzing in sand-colonnades! More desperate posture no
country ever stood in. A country, one would say, which the Majesty of
Prussia (if it so pleased him) might partition, and clip in pieces, like a
Poland; flinging the remainder to poor Brother Louis,—with directions to
keep it quiet, or else we will keep it for him!
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France is surrounded by hostile armies, and seemingly at the mercy of
Friederich Wilhelm II.
|
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Or perhaps the Upper Powers, minded that a new Chapter in Universal History
shall begin here and not further on, may have ordered it all otherwise? In
that case, Brunswick will not dine in Paris on the set day; nor, indeed,
one knows not when!—Verily, amid this wreckage, where poor France seems
grinding itself down to dust and bottomless ruin, who knows what miraculous
salient-point of Deliverance and New-life may have already come into
existence there; and be already working there, though as yet human eye
discern it not! On the night of that same twenty-eighth of August, the
unpromising Review-day in Sedan, Dumouriez assembles a Council of War at
his lodgings there. He spreads out the map of this forlorn war-district:
Prussians here, Austrians there; triumphant both, with broad highway, and
little hinderance, all the way to Paris; we, scattered helpless, here and
here: what to advise? The Generals, strangers to Dumouriez, look blank
enough; know not well what to advise, — if it be not retreating, and
retreating till our recruits accumulate; till perhaps the chapter of
chances turn up some leaf for us; or Paris, at all events, be sacked at the
latest day possible. The Many-counselled, who 'has not closed an eye for
three nights,' listens with little speech to these long cheerless speeches;
merely watching the speaker that he may know him; then wishes them all
good-night; — but beckons a certain young Thouvenot, the fire of whose looks
had pleased him, to wait a moment. Thouvenot waits: Voilá, says
Polymetis[144],
pointing to the map! That is the Forest of Argonne, that long
stripe of rocky Mountain and wild Wood; forty miles long; with but five, or
say even three practicable Passes through it: this, for they have
forgotten it, might one not still seize, though Clairfait sits so nigh?
Once seized; — the Champagne called the Hungry (or worse, Champagne
Pouilleuse [lousy]) on their side of it;
the fat Three Bishoprics, and willing
France, on ours; and the Equinox-rains not far; — this Argonne 'might be the
Thermopylae of France!' (Dumouriez, ii. 391.)
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Dumouriez and Thouvenot come up with a plan to envelop the attacking Germans.
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O brisk Dumouriez Polymetis with thy teeming head, may the gods grant it!—
Polymetis, at any rate, folds his map together, and flings himself on bed;
resolved to try, on the morrow morning. With astucity [craftiness],
with swiftness,
with audacity! One had need to be a lion-fox, and have luck on one's side.
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At Paris, by lying Rumour which proved prophetic and veridical [true],
the fall of
Verdun was known some hours before it happened. It is Sunday the second of
September; handiwork hinders not the speculations of the mind. Verdun gone
(though some still deny it); the Prussians in full march, with gallows-ropes,
with fire and faggot! Thirty thousand Aristocrats within our own
walls; and but the merest quarter-tithe of them yet put in Prison! Nay
there goes a word that even these will revolt. Sieur Jean Julien, wagoner
of Vaugirard, (Moore, i. 178.)
being set in the Pillory last Friday, took
all at once to crying, That he would be well revenged ere long; that the
King's Friends in Prison would burst out; force the Temple, set the King on
horseback; and, joined by the unimprisoned, ride roughshod over us all.
This the unfortunate wagoner of Vaugirard did bawl, at the top of his
lungs: when snatched off to the Townhall, he persisted in it, still
bawling; yesternight, when they guillotined him, he died with the froth of
it on his lips. (Hist. Parl. xvii. 409.)
For a man's mind, padlocked to
the Pillory, may go mad; and all men's minds may go mad; and 'believe him,'
as the frenetic will do, 'because it is impossible.'
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Wild rumours of invasion and counter-revolution afflict Paris.
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So that apparently the knot of the crisis, and last agony of France is
come? Make front to this, thou Improvised Commune, strong Danton,
whatsoever man is strong! Readers can judge whether the Flag of Country in
Danger flapped soothing or distractively on the souls of men, that day.
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But the Improvised Commune, but strong Danton is not wanting, each after
his kind. Huge Placards are getting plastered to the walls; at two o'clock
the stormbell shall be sounded, the alarm-cannon fired; all Paris shall
rush to the Champ-de-Mars, and have itself enrolled. Unarmed, truly, and
undrilled; but desperate, in the strength of frenzy. Haste, ye men; ye
very women, offer to mount guard and shoulder the brown musket: weak
clucking-hens, in a state of desperation, will fly at the muzzle of the
mastiff, and even conquer him, — by vehemence of character! Terror itself,
when once grown transcendental, becomes a kind of courage; as frost
sufficiently intense, according to Poet Milton, will burn. — Danton, the
other night, in the Legislative Committee of General Defence, when the
other Ministers and Legislators had all opined, said, It would not do to
quit Paris, and fly to Saumur; that they must abide by Paris; and take such
attitude as would put their enemies in fear, — faire peur;
a word of his
which has been often repeated, and reprinted — in italics.
(Biographie des
Ministres (Bruxelles, 1826), p. 96.)
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The Commune makes plans for a last-ditch defense of Paris.
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At two of the clock, Beaurepaire, as we saw, has shot himself at Verdun;
and over Europe, mortals are going in for afternoon sermon. But at Paris,
all steeples are clangouring not for sermon; the alarm-gun booming from
minute to minute; Champ-de-Mars and Fatherland's Altar boiling with
desperate terror-courage: what a miserere going up to Heaven from this
once Capital of the Most Christian King! The Legislative sits in alternate
awe and effervescence; Vergniaud proposing that Twelve shall go and dig
personally on Montmartre; which is decreed by acclaim.
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Paris sees turmoil and despair.
|
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But better than digging personally with acclaim, see
Danton?
enter; — the
black brows clouded, the colossus-figure tramping heavy; grim energy
looking from all features of the rugged man! Strong is that grim Son of
France, and Son of Earth; a Reality and not a Formula he too; and surely
now if ever, being hurled low enough, it is on the Earth and on Realities
that he rests. "Legislators!" so speaks the stentor-voice, as the
Newspapers yet preserve it for us, "it is not the alarm-cannon that you
hear: it is the pas-de-charge against our enemies. To conquer them, to
hurl them back, what do we require? Il nous faut de l'audace, et encore de
l'audace, et toujours de l'audace, To dare, and again to dare, and without
end to dare!" (Moniteur (in Hist. Parl. xvii. 347.) —
Right so, thou brawny
Titan; there is nothing left for thee but that. Old men, who heard it,
will still tell you how the reverberating voice made all hearts swell, in
that moment; and braced them to the sticking-place; and thrilled abroad
over France, like electric virtue, as a word spoken in season.
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Danton makes a stirring speech in the Legislature.
|
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But the Commune, enrolling in the Champ-de-Mars? But the Committee of
Watchfulness, become now Committee of Public Salvation; whose conscience is
Marat??
The Commune enrolling enrolls many; provides Tents for them in that
Mars'-Field, that they may march with dawn on the morrow: praise to this
part of the Commune! To Marat and the Committee of Watchfulness not
praise;—not even blame, such as could be meted out in these insufficient
dialects of ours; expressive silence rather! Lone Marat, the man forbid,
meditating long in his Cellars of refuge, on his
Stylites Pillar[92], could see
salvation in one thing only: in the fall of 'two hundred and sixty
thousand Aristocrat heads.' With so many score of Naples Bravoes, each a
dirk in his right-hand, a muff on his left, he would traverse France, and
do it.[165]
But the world laughed, mocking the severe-benevolence of a
People's-Friend; and his idea could not become an action, but only a
fixed-idea. Lo, now, however, he has come down from his Stylites Pillar, to a
Tribune particulière; here now, without the dirks, without the
muffs at
least, were it not grown possible, — now in the knot of the crisis, when
salvation or destruction hangs in the hour!
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Marat sees the desperate situation as an opportunity to carry out his project
to eliminate the aristocrats.
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The Ice-Tower of Avignon was noised of sufficiently, and lives in all
memories; but the authors were not punished: nay we saw Jourdan
Coupe-tête,
borne on men's shoulders, like a copper Portent, 'traversing the
cities of the South.' — What phantasms, squalid-horrid, shaking their dirk
and muff, may dance through the brain of a Marat, in this dizzy pealing of
tocsin-miserere, and universal frenzy, seek not to guess, O Reader! Nor
what the cruel Billaud?
'in his short brown coat was thinking;' nor
Sergent?,
not yet Agate-Sergent;
nor
Panis?
the confident of Danton; — nor, in a word,
how gloomy Orcus?
does breed in her gloomy womb, and fashion her monsters,
and prodigies of Events, which thou seest her visibly bear! Terror is on
these streets of Paris; terror and rage, tears and frenzy: tocsin-miserere
pealing through the air; fierce desperation rushing to battle; mothers,
with streaming eyes and wild hearts, sending forth their sons to die.
'Carriage-horses are seized by the bridle,' that they may draw cannon; 'the
traces cut, the carriages left standing.' In such tocsin-miserere, and
murky bewilderment of Frenzy, are not Murder,
Até?,
and all Furies near at
hand? On slight hint, who knows on how slight, may not Murder come; and,
with her snaky-sparkling hand, illuminate this murk!
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It is not surprising that the thought of murder would follow on this
violent disorder and panic.
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How it was and went, what part might be premeditated, what was improvised
and accidental, man will never know, till the great Day of Judgment make it
known. But with a Marat for keeper of the Sovereign's Conscience — And we
know what the ultima ratio of Sovereigns,
when they are driven to it, is!
In this Paris there are as many wicked men, say a hundred or more, as exist
in all the Earth: to be hired, and set on; to set on, of their own accord,
unhired. — And yet we will remark that premeditation itself is not
performance, is not surety of performance; that it is perhaps, at most,
surety of letting whosoever wills perform. From the purpose of crime to
the act of crime there is an abyss; wonderful to think of. The finger lies
on the pistol; but the man is not yet a murderer: nay, his whole nature
staggering at such consummation, is there not a confused pause rather, — one
last instant of possibility for him? Not yet a murderer; it is at the
mercy of light trifles whether the most fixed idea may not yet become
unfixed. One slight twitch of a muscle, the death flash bursts; and he is
it, and will for Eternity be it; — and Earth has become a penal Tartarus for
him; his horizon girdled now not with golden hope, but with red flames of
remorse; voices from the depths of Nature sounding, Wo, wo on him!
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To what extent the massacres were planned ahead we will never know.
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Of such stuff are we all made; on such powder-mines of bottomless guilt and
criminality, 'if God restrained not,' as is well said, — does the purest of
us walk. There are depths in man that go the length of lowest Hell, as
there are heights that reach highest Heaven; — for are not both Heaven and
Hell made out of him, made by him, everlasting Miracle and Mystery as he
is? — But looking on this Champ-de-Mars, with its tent-buildings, and
frantic enrolments; on this murky-simmering Paris, with its crammed Prisons
(supposed about to burst), with its tocsin-miserere, its mothers' tears,
and soldiers' farewell shoutings, — the pious soul might have prayed, that
day, that God's grace would restrain, and greatly restrain; lest on slight
hest or hint, Madness, Horror and Murder rose, and this Sabbath-day of
September became a Day black in the Annals of Men.—
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At that time even the smallest event might trigger deadly violence.
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The tocsin is pealing its loudest, the clocks inaudibly striking Three,
when poor Abbé Sicard, with some thirty other Nonjurant Priests, in six
carriages, fare along the streets, from their preliminary House of
Detention at the Townhall, westward towards the Prison of the Abbaye.
Carriages enough stand deserted on the streets; these six move on, — through
angry multitudes, cursing as they move. Accursed Aristocrat
Tartuffes?,
this is the pass ye have brought us to! And now ye will break the Prisons,
and set Capet Veto on horseback to ride over us? Out upon you, Priests of
Beelzebub and Moloch; of Tartuffery, Mammon, and the Prussian Gallows, —
which ye name Mother-Church and God! Such reproaches have the poor
Nonjurants to endure, and worse; spoken in on them by frantic Patriots, who
mount even on the carriage-steps; the very Guards hardly refraining. Pull
up your carriage-blinds! — No! answers Patriotism, clapping its horny paw on
the carriage blind, and crushing it down again. Patience in oppression has
limits: we are close on the Abbaye, it has lasted long: a poor Nonjurant,
of quicker temper, smites the horny paw with his cane; nay, finding
solacement in it, smites the unkempt head, sharply and again more sharply,
twice over, — seen clearly of us and of the world. It is the last that we
see clearly. Alas, next moment, the carriages are locked and blocked in
endless raging tumults; in yells deaf to the cry for mercy, which answer
the cry for mercy with sabre-thrusts through the heart.
(Félémhesi
(anagram for Méhée Fils), La Vérité tout
entière, sur les vrais auteurs de
la journée du 2 Septembre 1792
(reprinted in Hist. Parl. xviii. 156-181), p. 167.)
The thirty Priests are torn out, are massacred about the Prison-Gate,
one after one, — only the poor Abbé Sicard, whom one Moton a
watchmaker, knowing him, heroically tried to save, and secrete in the
Prison, escapes to tell; — and it is Night and Orcus, and Murder's
snaky-sparkling head has risen in the murk! —
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The massacres begin September 2, 1792, when some 30 prisoners,
non-juring priests,
being transported to the Abbaye are attacked and murdered by a mob.
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From Sunday afternoon (exclusive of intervals, and pauses not final) till
Thursday evening, there follow consecutively a Hundred Hours. Which
hundred hours are to be reckoned with the hours of the Bartholomew
Butchery, of the Armagnac Massacres, Sicilian Vespers, or whatsoever is
savagest in the annals of this world. Horrible the hour when man's soul,
in its paroxysm, spurns asunder the barriers and rules; and shews what dens
and depths are in it! For Night and Orcus, as we say, as was long
prophesied, have burst forth, here in this Paris, from their subterranean
imprisonment: hideous, dim, confused; which it is painful to look on; and
yet which cannot, and indeed which should not, be forgotten.
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Over the next five days, thousands are murdered.
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The Reader, who looks earnestly through this dim Phantasmagory of the Pit,
will discern few fixed certain objects; and yet still a few. He will
observe, in this Abbaye Prison, the sudden massacre of the Priests being
once over, a strange Court of Justice, or call it Court of Revenge and
Wild-Justice, swiftly fashion itself, and take seat round a table, with the
Prison-Registers spread before it; — Stanislas Maillard, Bastille-hero,
famed Leader of the Menads, presiding. O Stanislas, one hoped to meet thee
elsewhere than here; thou shifty Riding-Usher, with an inkling of Law!
This work also thou hadst to do; and then — to depart for ever from our
eyes. At La Force, at the Châtelet, the Conciergerie,
the like Court forms
itself, with the like accompaniments: the thing that one man does other
men can do. There are some Seven Prisons in Paris, full of Aristocrats
with conspiracies; — nay not even Bicêtre
and Salpêtrière shall escape, with
their Forgers of Assignats: and there are seventy times seven hundred
Patriot hearts in a state of frenzy. Scoundrel hearts also there are; as
perfect, say, as the Earth holds, — if such are needed. To whom, in this
mood, law is as no-law; and killing, by what name soever called, is but
work to be done.
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Ad-hoc courts are assembled at the seven main prisons of Paris to swiftly
try — and almost always condemn — the inmates.
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So sit these sudden Courts of Wild-Justice, with the Prison-Registers
before them; unwonted wild tumult howling all round: the Prisoners in
dread expectancy within. Swift: a name is called; bolts jingle, a
Prisoner is there. A few questions are put; swiftly this sudden Jury
decides: Royalist Plotter or not? Clearly not; in that case, Let the
Prisoner be enlarged with Vive la Nation. Probably yea; then still, Let
the Prisoner be enlarged, but without Vive la Nation;
or else it may run,
Let the prisoner be conducted to La Force. At La Force again their formula
is, Let the Prisoner be conducted to the Abbaye. — "To La Force then!"
Volunteer bailiffs seize the doomed man; he is at the outer gate;
'enlarged,' or 'conducted,' — not into La Force, but into a howling sea;
forth, under an arch of wild sabres, axes and pikes; and sinks, hewn
asunder. And another sinks, and another; and there forms itself a piled
heap of corpses, and the kennels begin to run red. Fancy the yells of
these men, their faces of sweat and blood; the crueller shrieks of these
women, for there are women too; and a fellow-mortal hurled naked into it
all! Jourgniac de
Saint Meard?
has seen battle, has seen an effervescent
Regiment du Roi in mutiny; but the bravest heart may quail at this. The
Swiss Prisoners, remnants of the Tenth of August, 'clasped each other
spasmodically,' and hung back; grey veterans crying: "Mercy Messieurs; ah,
mercy!" But there was no mercy. Suddenly, however, one of these men steps
forward. He had a blue frock coat; he seemed to be about thirty, his
stature was above common, his look noble and martial. "I go first," said
he, "since it must be so: adieu!" Then dashing his hat sharply behind
him: "Which way?" cried he to the Brigands: "Shew it me, then." They
open the folding gate; he is announced to the multitude. He stands a
moment motionless; then plunges forth among the pikes, and dies of a
thousand wounds.' (Félémhesi, La
Vérité tout entière (ut supra), p. 173.)
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As defendants are condemned, they are led outside to be murdered.
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Man after man is cut down; the sabres need sharpening, the killers refresh
themselves from wine jugs. Onward and onward goes the butchery; the loud
yells wearying down into bass growls. A sombre-faced, shifting multitude
looks on; in dull approval, or dull disapproval; in dull recognition that
it is Necessity. 'An Anglais in drab greatcoat'
was seen, or seemed to be
seen, serving liquor from his own dram-bottle; — for what purpose, 'if not
set on by Pitt?,'
Satan and himself know best! Witty Dr. Moore grew sick on
approaching, and turned into another street. (Moore's Journal,
i. 185-195.) — Quick enough goes this Jury-Court; and rigorous.
The brave are not
spared, nor the beautiful, nor the weak. Old M. de Montmorin, the
Minister's Brother, was acquitted by the Tribunal of the Seventeenth; and
conducted back, elbowed by howling galleries; but is not acquitted here.
Princess de Lamballe has lain down on bed: "Madame, you are to be removed
to the Abbaye." "I do not wish to remove; I am well enough here." There
is a need-be for removing. She will arrange her dress a little, then; rude
voices answer, "You have not far to go." She too is led to the hell-gate;
a manifest Queen's-Friend. She shivers back, at the sight of bloody
sabres; but there is no return: Onwards! That fair hindhead is cleft with
the axe; the neck is severed. That fair body is cut in fragments; with
indignities, and obscene horrors of moustachio grands-levrès,
which human
nature would fain find incredible, — which shall be read in the original
language only. She was beautiful, she was good, she had known no
happiness. Young hearts, generation after generation, will think with
themselves: O worthy of worship, thou king-descended, god-descended and
poor sister-woman! why was not I there; and some Sword Balmung, or Thor's
Hammer in my hand? Her head is fixed on a pike; paraded under the windows
of the Temple; that a still more hated, a Marie-Antoinette, may see. One
Municipal, in the Temple with the Royal Prisoners at the moment, said,
"Look out." Another eagerly whispered, "Do not look." The circuit of the
Temple is guarded, in these hours, by a long stretched tricolor riband:
terror enters, and the clangour of infinite tumult: hitherto not regicide,
though that too may come.
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The horror of the massacres exceeds Carlyle's willingness to describe it.
Among the abominations still not forgotten is the rape and dismemberment of
the Queen's friend, the Princess de Labelle.
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But it is more edifying to note what thrillings of affection, what
fragments of wild virtues turn up, in this shaking asunder of man's
existence, for of these too there is a proportion. Note old Marquis
Cazotte?:
he is doomed to die; but his young Daughter clasps him in her
arms, with an inspiration of eloquence, with a love which is stronger than
very death; the heart of the killers themselves is touched by it; the old
man is spared. Yet he was guilty, if plotting for his King is guilt: in
ten days more, a Court of Law condemned him, and he had to die elsewhere;
bequeathing his Daughter a lock of his old grey hair. Or note old M. de
Sombreuil, who also had a Daughter: — My Father is not an Aristocrat; O good
gentlemen, I will swear it, and testify it, and in all ways prove it; we
are not; we hate Aristocrats! "Wilt thou drink Aristocrats' blood?" The
man lifts blood (if universal Rumour can be credited (Dulaure:
Esquisses
Historiques des principaux événemens de la Révolution,
ii. 206 (cited in
Montgaillard, iii. 205).))); the poor maiden does drink.
"This Sombreuil is
innocent then!" Yes indeed, — and now note, most of all, how the bloody
pikes, at this news, do rattle to the ground; and the tiger-yells become
bursts of jubilee over a brother saved; and the old man and his daughter
are clasped to bloody bosoms, with hot tears, and borne home in triumph of
Vive la Nation, the killers refusing even money! Does it seem strange,
this temper of theirs? It seems very certain, well proved by Royalist
testimony in other instances (Bertrand-Moleville
(Mem. Particuliers, ii.213), etc. etc.); and very significant.
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On the other hand, there are documented cases where the murderers rejoiced
in acquittals.
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As all Delineation, in these ages, were it never so Epic, 'speaking itself
and not singing itself,' must either found on Belief and provable Fact, or
have no foundation at all (nor except as floating cobweb any existence at
all), — the Reader will perhaps prefer to take a glance with the very eyes
of eye-witnesses; and see, in that way, for himself, how it was. Brave
Jourgniac, innocent Abbé Sicard, judicious Advocate Maton, these,
greatly
compressing themselves, shall speak, each an instant. Jourgniac's Agony of
Thirty-eight hours went through 'above a hundred editions,' though
intrinsically a poor work. Some portion of it may here go through above
the hundred-and-first, for want of a better.
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In this chapter, Carlyle offers first-hand descriptions of September, 1792.
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'Towards seven o'clock'
(Sunday night, at the Abbaye; for Jourgniac goes by
dates): 'We saw two men enter, their hands bloody and armed with sabres; a
turnkey, with a torch, lighted them; he pointed to the bed of the
unfortunate Swiss, Reding. Reding spoke with a dying voice. One of them
paused; but the other cried Allons donc; lifted the unfortunate man;
carried him out on his back to the street. He was massacred there.
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The recollections of Jourgniac de Saint-Méard of the Abbaye.
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'We all looked at one another in silence, we clasped each other's hands.
Motionless, with fixed eyes, we gazed on the pavement of our prison; on
which lay the moonlight, checkered with the triple stancheons of our
windows.
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The murder of a now-unknown Swiss, Reding.
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'Three in the morning: They were breaking-in one of the prison-doors. We
at first thought they were coming to kill us in our room; but heard, by
voices on the staircase, that it was a room where some Prisoners had
barricaded themselves. They were all butchered there, as we shortly
gathered.
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Murder of prisoners in their cells.
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'Ten o'clock: The Abbé Lenfant and the Abbé de Chapt-Rastignac appeared in
the pulpit of the Chapel, which was our prison; they had entered by a door
from the stairs. They said to us that our end was at hand; that we must
compose ourselves, and receive their last blessing. An electric movement,
not to be defined, threw us all on our knees, and we received it. These
two whitehaired old men, blessing us from their place above; death hovering
over our heads, on all hands environing us; the moment is never to be
forgotten. Half an hour after, they were both massacred, and we heard
their cries.' (Jourgniac Saint-Méard,
Mon Agonie de Trente-huit heures
(reprinted in Hist. Parl. xviii. 103-135).) — Thus Jourgniac in his
Agony in
the Abbaye.
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Priests giving blessings before their own murder.
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But now let the good Maton speak, what he, over in La Force, in the same
hours, is suffering and witnessing. This Resurrection by him is greatly
the best, the least theatrical of these Pamphlets; and stands testing by
documents:
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From a pamphlet by Maton de la Varenne, imprisoned at La Force.
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'Towards seven o'clock,' on Sunday night, 'prisoners were called
frequently, and they did not reappear. Each of us reasoned in his own way,
on this singularity: but our ideas became calm, as we persuaded ourselves
that the Memorial I had drawn up for the National Assembly was producing
effect.
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Maton, a lawyer, has some slight hope his petition to the Legislature will
free him and his comrades.
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'At one in the morning, the grate which led to our quarter opened anew.
Four men in uniform, each with a drawn sabre and blazing torch, came up to
our corridor, preceded by a turnkey; and entered an apartment close to
ours, to investigate a box there, which we heard them break up. This done,
they stept into the gallery, and questioned the man Cuissa, to know where
Lamotte?
(Necklace's Widower) was. Lamotte, they said, had some months ago,
under pretext of a treasure he knew of, swindled a sum of three-hundred
livres from one of them, inviting him to dinner for that purpose. The
wretched Cuissa, now in their hands, who indeed lost his life this night,
answered trembling, That he remembered the fact well, but could not tell
what was become of Lamotte. Determined to find Lamotte and confront him
with Cuissa, they rummaged, along with this latter, through various other
apartments; but without effect, for we heard them say: "Come search among
the corpses then: for, de Dieu! must find where he is."
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Personal vendettas are carried out in the cells.
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'At this time, I heard Louis Bardy, the Abbé Bardy's name called: he was
brought out; and directly massacred, as I learnt. He had been accused,
along with his concubine, five or six years before, of having murdered and
cut in pieces his own Brother, Auditor of the Chambre des Comptes at
Montpelier; but had by his subtlety, his dexterity, nay his eloquence,
outwitted the judges, and escaped.
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Some justice is done, by chance, perhaps.
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'One may fancy what terror these words, "Come search among the corpses
then," had thrown me into. I saw nothing for it now but resigning myself
to die. I wrote my last-will; concluding it by a petition and adjuration,
that the paper should be sent to its address. Scarcely had I quitted the
pen, when there came two other men in uniform; one of them, whose arm and
sleeve up to the very shoulder, as well as the sabre, were covered with
blood, said, He was as weary as a hodman that had been beating plaster.
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The prisoners find out about the murders and fear for their lives.
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'Baudin de la Chenaye was called; sixty years of virtues could not save
him. They said, "A l'Abbaye:"
he passed the fatal outer-gate; gave a cry
of terror, at sight of the heaped corpses; covered his eyes with his hands,
and died of innumerable wounds. At every new opening of the grate, I
thought I should hear my own name called, and see
Rossignol?
enter.
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'I flung off my nightgown and cap; I put on a coarse unwashed shirt, a worn
frock without waistcoat, an old round hat; these things I had sent for,
some days ago, in the fear of what might happen.
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'The rooms of this corridor had been all emptied but ours. We were four
together; whom they seemed to have forgotten: we addressed our prayers in
common to the Eternal to be delivered from this peril.
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'Baptiste the turnkey came up by himself, to see us. I took him by the
hands; I conjured him to save us; promised him a hundred louis, if he would
conduct me home. A noise coming from the grates made him hastily withdraw.
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'It was the noise of some dozen or fifteen men, armed to the teeth; as we,
lying flat to escape being seen, could see from our windows: "Up stairs!"
said they: "Let not one remain." I took out my penknife; I considered
where I should strike myself,' — but reflected 'that the blade was too
short,' and also 'on religion.'
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Finally, however, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, enter
four men with bludgeons and sabres! — 'to one of whom Gérard my comrade
whispered, earnestly, apart. During their colloquy I searched every where
for shoes, that I might lay off the Advocate pumps (pantoufles de Palais) I
had on,' but could find none. — 'Constant, called le Sauvage, Gérard,
and a
third whose name escapes me, they let clear off: as for me, four sabres
were crossed over my breast, and they led me down. I was brought to their
bar; to the Personage with the scarf, who sat as judge there. He was a
lame man, of tall lank stature. He recognised me on the streets, and spoke
to me seven months after. I have been assured that he was son of a retired
attorney, and named Chepy. Crossing the Court called Des Nourrices,
I saw
Manuel?
haranguing in tricolor scarf.' The trial, as we see, ends in
acquittal and resurrection. (Maton de la Varenne,
Ma Resurrection (in
Hist. Parl. xviii. 135-156)).
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After terror that drove him nearly to suicide, Maton is acquitted.
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Poor Sicard, from the violon[cell] of the Abbaye,
shall say but a few words;
true-looking, though tremulous. Towards three in the morning, the killers
bethink them of this little violon; and knock from the court. 'I tapped
gently, trembling lest the murderers might hear, on the opposite door,
where the Section Committee was sitting: they answered gruffly that they
had no key. There were three of us in this violon; my companions thought
they perceived a kind of loft overhead. But it was very high; only one of
us could reach it, by mounting on the shoulders of both the others. One of
them said to me, that my life was usefuller than theirs: I resisted, they
insisted: no denial! I fling myself on the neck of these two deliverers;
never was scene more touching. I mount on the shoulders of the first, then
on those of the second, finally on the loft; and address to my two comrades
the expression of a soul overwhelmed with natural emotions.
(Abbé Sicard:
Relation adressée à un de ses amis (Hist. Parl. xviii.
98-103).)
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Secard, in the Abbaye, hides with the aid of two fellow-prisoners.
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The two generous companions, we rejoice to find, did not perish. But it is
time that Jourgniac de Saint-Meard should speak his last words, and end
this singular trilogy. The night had become day; and the day has again
become night. Jourgniac, worn down with uttermost agitation, has fallen
asleep, and had a cheering dream: he has also contrived to make
acquaintance with one of the volunteer bailiffs, and spoken in native
Provençal with him. On Tuesday, about one in the morning, his
Agony is
reaching its crisis.
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Back to Jourgniac:
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'By the glare of two torches, I now descried the terrible tribunal, where
lay my life or my death. The President, in grey coats, with a sabre at his
side, stood leaning with his hands against a table, on which were papers,
an inkstand, tobacco-pipes and bottles. Some ten persons were around,
seated or standing; two of whom had jackets and aprons: others were
sleeping stretched on benches. Two men, in bloody shirts, guarded the door
of the place; an old turnkey had his hand on the lock. In front of the
President, three men held a Prisoner, who might be about sixty' (or
seventy: he was old Marshal
Maille?,
of the Tuileries and August Tenth).
'They stationed me in a corner; my guards crossed their sabres on my
breast. I looked on all sides for my Provençal:
two National Guards, one
of them drunk, presented some appeal from the Section of Croix Rouge in
favour of the Prisoner; the Man in Grey answered: "They are useless, these
appeals for traitors." Then the Prisoner exclaimed: "It is frightful;
your judgment is a murder." The President answered; "My hands are washed
of it; take M. Maille away." They drove him into the street; where,
through the opening of the door, I saw him massacred.
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Scene of the Abbaye court-room. Maréchal Mailly is murdered.
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'The President sat down to write; registering, I suppose, the name of this
one whom they had finished; then I heard him say: "Another,
A un autre!"
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'Behold me then haled before this swift and bloody judgment-bar, where the
best protection was to have no protection, and all resources of ingenuity
became null if they were not founded on truth. Two of my guards held me
each by a hand, the third by the collar of my coat. "Your name, your
profession?" said the President. "The smallest lie ruins you," added one
of the judges,—"My name is Jourgniac Saint-Méard; I have served, as an
officer, twenty years: and I appear at your tribunal with the assurance of
an innocent man, who therefore will not lie." — "We shall see that," said
the President: "Do you know why you are arrested?" — "Yes, Monsieur le
President; I am accused of editing the Journal De la Cour et de la
Ville.
But I hope to prove the falsity"' —
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The "trial" of Jourgniac.
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But no; Jourgniac's proof of the falsity, and defence generally, though of
excellent result as a defence, is not interesting to read. It is long-winded;
there is a loose theatricality in the reporting of it, which does
not amount to unveracity, yet which tends that way. We shall suppose him
successful, beyond hope, in proving and disproving; and skip largely, — to
the catastrophe, almost at two steps.
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Jourgniac was in fact innocent, so his defense is of little interest.
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'"But after all," said one of the Judges, "there is no smoke without
kindling; tell us why they accuse you of that." — "I was about to do so"' —
Jourgniac does so; with more and more success.
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Once started, Jourgniac doesn't know when to stop talking.
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'"Nay," continued I, "they accuse me even of recruiting for the Emigrants!"
At these words there arose a general murmur. "O Messieurs, Messieurs," I
exclaimed, raising my voice, "it is my turn to speak; I beg M. le President
to have the kindness to maintain it for me; I never needed it more." — "True
enough, true enough," said almost all the judges with a laugh: "Silence!"
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But he lessens his danger with a joke.
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'While they were examining the testimonials I had produced, a new Prisoner
was brought in, and placed before the President. "It was one Priest more,"
they said, "whom they had ferreted out of the Chapelle." After very few
questions: "A la Force!"
He flung his breviary on the table: was hurled
forth, and massacred. I reappeared before the tribunal.
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There is a delay while they murder another priest.
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'"You tell us always," cried one of the judges, with a tone of impatience,
"that you are not this, that you are not that: what are you then?" — "I was
an open Royalist." — There arose a general murmur; which was miraculously
appeased by another of the men, who had seemed to take an interest in me:
"We are not here to judge opinions," said he, "but to judge the results of
them." Could Rousseau and Voltaire both in one, pleading for me, have said
better? — "Yes, Messieurs," cried I, "always till the Tenth of August, I was
an open Royalist. Ever since the Tenth of August that cause has been
finished. I am a Frenchman, true to my country. I was always a man of
honour.
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Jourgniac pleads his patriotism.
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'"My soldiers never distrusted me. Nay, two days before that business of
Nanci, when their suspicion of their officers was at its height, they chose
me for commander, to lead them to Lunéville,
to get back the prisoners of
the Regiment Mestre-de-Camp, and seize General Malseigne."' Which fact
there is, most luckily, an individual present who by a certain token can
confirm.
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He also pleads pro-patriot acts at Nancy.
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'The President, this cross-questioning being over, took off his hat and
said: "I see nothing to suspect in this man; I am for granting him his
liberty. Is that your vote?" To which all the judges answered: "Oui,
oui; it is just!"'
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They let him off.
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And there arose vivats within doors and without; 'escort of three,' amid
shoutings and embracings: thus Jourgniac escaped from jury-trial and the
jaws of death. (Mon Agonie (ut supra),
Hist. Parl. xviii. 128.) Maton and
Sicard did, either by trial and no bill found, lank President Chepy
finding 'absolutely nothing;' or else by evasion, and new favour of Moton
the brave watchmaker, likewise escape; and were embraced, and wept over;
weeping in return, as they well might.
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All three survive to write their experiences.
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Thus they three, in wondrous trilogy, or triple soliloquy; uttering
simultaneously, through the dread night-watches, their Night-thoughts, —
grown audible to us! They Three are become audible: but the other
'Thousand and Eighty-nine, of whom Two Hundred and Two were Priests,' who
also had Night-thoughts, remain inaudible; choked for ever in black Death.
Heard only of President Chepy and the Man in Grey! —
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But many did not escape.
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But the Constituted Authorities, all this while? The Legislative Assembly;
the Six Ministers; the Townhall; Santerre with the National Guard? — It is
very curious to think what a City is. Theatres, to the number of some
twenty-three, were open every night during these prodigies: while
right-arms here grew weary with slaying, right-arms there are twiddledeeing on
melodious catgut; at the very instant when Abbé Sicard was clambering up
his second pair of shoulders, three-men high, five hundred thousand human
individuals were lying horizontal, as if nothing were amiss.
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The Massacres occurred without alarming Paris.
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As for the poor Legislative, the sceptre had departed from it. The
Legislative did send Deputation to the Prisons, to the Street-Courts; and
poor M.
Dusaulx?
did harangue there; but produced no conviction whatsoever:
nay, at last, as he continued haranguing, the Street-Court interposed, not
without threats; and he had to cease, and withdraw. This is the same poor
worthy old M. Dusaulx who told, or indeed almost sang (though with cracked
voice), the Taking of the Bastille, — to
our satisfaction long since. He
was wont to announce himself, on such and on all occasions, as the
Translator of Juvenal. "Good Citizens, you see before you a man who loves
his country, who is the Translator of Juvenal," said he
once. — "Juvenal?'
interrupts Sansculottism: "who the devil is Juvenal? One of your
sacrés
Aristocrates? To the Lanterne!"
From an orator of this kind, conviction
was not to be expected. The Legislative had much ado to save one of its
own Members, or Ex-Members, Deputy Journeau, who chanced to be lying in
arrest for mere Parliamentary delinquencies, in these Prisons. As for poor
old Dusaulx and Company, they returned to the Salle de Manége, saying, "It
was dark; and they could not see well what was going on."
(Moniteur, Debate of 2nd September, 1792.)
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The depleted legislature has no influence whatever over those engaging
in massacres.
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Roland writes indignant messages, in the name of Order, Humanity, and the
Law; but there is no Force at his disposal. Santerre's National Force
seems lazy to rise; though he made requisitions, he says, — which always
dispersed again. Nay did not we, with Advocate Maton's eyes, see 'men in
uniform,' too, with their 'sleeves bloody to the shoulder?' Pétion
goes in
tricolor scarf; speaks "the austere language of the law:" the killers give
up, while he is there; when his back is turned, recommence. Manuel too in
scarf we, with Maton's eyes, transiently saw haranguing, in the Court
called of Nurses, Cour des Nourrices. On the other hand, cruel Billaud,
likewise in scarf, 'with that small puce coat and black wig we are used to
on him,' (Méhée, Fils (ut supra,
in Hist. Parl. xviii. p. 189).) audibly
delivers, 'standing among corpses,' at the Abbaye, a short but ever-memorable
harangue, reported in various phraseology, but always to this
purpose: "Brave Citizens, you are extirpating the Enemies of Liberty; you
are at your duty. A grateful Commune, and Country, would wish to
recompense you adequately; but cannot, for you know its want of funds.
Whoever shall have worked (travaillé)
in a Prison shall receive a draft of
one louis, payable by our cashier. Continue your work."
(Montgaillard, iii. 191.) —
The Constituted Authorities are of yesterday; all pulling
different ways: there is properly not Constituted Authority, but every man
is his own King; and all are kinglets, belligerent, allied, or armed-neutral,
without king over them.
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Nor does the Ministry nor the Commune seem to have any real control. It's
every man his own master.
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'O everlasting infamy,' exclaims Montgaillard, 'that Paris stood looking on
in stupor for four days, and did not interfere!' Very desirable indeed
that Paris had interfered; yet not unnatural that it stood even so, looking
on in stupor. Paris is in death-panic, the enemy and gibbets at its door:
whosoever in Paris has the heart to front death finds it more pressing to
do it fighting the Prussians, than fighting the killers of Aristocrats.
Indignant abhorrence, as in Roland, may be here; gloomy sanction,
premeditation or not, as in Marat and Committee of Salvation, may be there;
dull disapproval, dull approval, and acquiescence in Necessity and Destiny,
is the general temper. The Sons of Darkness, 'two hundred or so,' risen
from their lurking-places, have scope to do their work. Urged on by
fever-frenzy of Patriotism, and the madness of Terror; —
urged on by lucre, and
the gold louis of wages? Nay, not lucre: for the gold watches, rings,
money of the Massacred, are punctually brought to the Townhall, by Killers
sans-indispensables, who higgle afterwards for their twenty shillings of
wages; and Sergent sticking an uncommonly fine agate on his finger ('fully
meaning to account for it'), becomes Agate-Sergent.
But the temper, as we
say, is dull acquiescence. Not till the Patriotic or Frenetic part of the
work is finished for want of material; and Sons of Darkness, bent clearly
on lucre alone, begin wrenching watches and purses, brooches from ladies'
necks 'to equip volunteers,' in daylight, on the streets, — does the temper
from dull grow vehement; does the Constable raise his truncheon, and
striking heartily (like a cattle-driver in earnest) beat the 'course of
things' back into its old regulated drove-roads. The Garde-Meuble
itself
was surreptitiously plundered, on the 17th of the Month, to Roland's new
horror; who anew bestirs himself, and is, as Sieyès says, 'the veto of
scoundrels,' Roland veto des coquins. (Helen Maria
Williams, iii. 27.) —
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Carlyle sees the episode as the eruption of a small group of radicals
allowed to operate because of the extreme fear of invasion and
counterrevolution.
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This is the September Massacre, otherwise called 'Severe Justice of the
People.' These are the Septemberers (Septembriseurs);
a name of some note
and lucency, — but lucency of the Nether-fire sort; very different from that
of our Bastille Heroes, who shone, disputable by no Friend of Freedom, as
in heavenly light-radiance: to such phasis of the business have we
advanced since then! The numbers massacred are, in Historical fantasy,
'between two and three thousand;' or indeed they are 'upwards of six
thousand,' for
Peltier?
(in vision) saw them massacring the very patients of
the Bicêtre Madhouse 'with grape-shot;' nay finally they are 'twelve
thousand' and odd hundreds, — not more than that. (See Hist.
Parl. xvii. 421, 422.)
In Arithmetical ciphers, and Lists drawn up by accurate
Advocate Maton, the number, including two hundred and two priests, three
'persons unknown,' and 'one thief killed at the Bernardins,' is, as above
hinted, a Thousand and Eighty-nine,—no less than that.
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Despite later greatly-inflated estimates, Carlyle believes the death count
was 1,089 men and women, including 202 priests.
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A thousand and eighty-nine lie dead, 'two hundred and sixty heaped
carcasses on the Pont au Change' itself; — among which, Robespierre pleading
afterwards will 'nearly weep' to reflect that there was said to be one
slain innocent. (Moniteur of 6th November (Debate of 5th
November, 1793)).
One; not two, O thou seagreen Incorruptible? If so,
Themis?
Sansculotte
must be lucky; for she was brief! — In the dim Registers of the Townhall,
which are preserved to this day, men read, with a certain sickness of
heart, items and entries not usual in Town Books: 'To workers employed in
preserving the salubrity of the air in the Prisons, and persons 'who
presided over these dangerous operations,' so much, — in various items,
nearly seven hundred pounds sterling. To carters employed to
'the Burying-grounds of Clamart, Montrouge, and Vaugirard,'
at so much a journey, per
cart; this also is an entry. Then so many francs and odd sous 'for the
necessary quantity of quick-lime!' (Etat des sommes
payées par la Commune de Paris (Hist. Parl. xviii. 231).)
Carts go along the streets; full of
stript human corpses, thrown pellmell; limbs sticking up: — seest thou that
cold Hand sticking up, through the heaped embrace of brother corpses, in
its yellow paleness, in its cold rigour; the palm opened towards Heaven, as
if in dumb prayer, in expostulation de profundis,
Take pity on the Sons of
Men! — Mercier?
saw it, as he walked down 'the Rue Saint-Jacques from
Montrouge, on the morrow of the Massacres:' but not a Hand; it was a
Foot, — which he reckons still more significant, one understands not well
why. Or was it as the Foot of one spurning Heaven? Rushing, like a wild
diver, in disgust and despair, towards the depths of Annihilation? Even
there shall His hand find thee, and His right-hand hold thee, — surely for
right not for wrong, for good not evil! 'I saw that Foot,' says Mercier;
'I shall know it again at the great Day of Judgment, when the Eternal,
throned on his thunders, shall judge both Kings and Septemberers.'
(Mercier, Nouveau Paris, vi. 21.)
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Paris has a curious reaction to the Massacres. Part self-deception,
part indignation, a greater part business-as-usual.
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That a shriek of inarticulate horror rose over this thing, not only from
French Aristocrats and Moderates, but from all Europe, and has prolonged
itself to the present day, was most natural and right. The thing lay done,
irrevocable; a thing to be counted besides some other things, which lie
very black in our Earth's Annals, yet which will not erase therefrom. For
man, as was remarked, has transcendentalisms in him; standing, as he does,
poor creature, every way 'in the confluence of Infinitudes;' a mystery to
himself and others: in the centre of two Eternities, of three
Immensities, — in the intersection of primeval Light with the everlasting
dark! Thus have there been, especially by vehement tempers reduced to a
state of desperation, very miserable things done. Sicilian Vespers, and
'eight thousand slaughtered in two hours,' are a known thing. Kings
themselves, not in desperation, but only in difficulty, have sat hatching,
for year and day (nay De Thou says, for seven years), their Bartholomew
Business; and then, at the right moment, also on an Autumn Sunday, this
very Bell (they say it is the identical metal) of St. Germain l'Auxerrois
was set a-pealing — with effect. (9th to 13th September, 1572
(Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, iv. 289.)
Nay the same black boulder-stones of these Paris
Prisons have seen Prison-massacres before now; men massacring countrymen,
Burgundies massacring Armagnacs, whom they had suddenly imprisoned, till as
now there are piled heaps of carcasses, and the streets ran red; — the Mayor
Pétion of the time speaking the austere language of the law,
and answered
by the Killers, in old French (it is some four hundred years old):
"Maugré
bieu, Sire, — Sir, God's malison on your 'justice', your 'pity',
your 'right
reason'. Cursed be of God whoso shall have pity on these false traitorous
Armagnacs, English; dogs they are; they have destroyed us, wasted this
realm of France, and sold it to the English." (Dulaure, iii.
494.) And so
they slay, and fling aside the slain, to the extent of 'fifteen hundred and
eighteen, among whom are found four Bishops of false and damnable counsel,
and two Presidents of Parlement.' For though it is not Satan's world this
that we live in, Satan always has his place in it (underground properly);
and from time to time bursts up. Well may mankind shriek, inarticulately
anathematising as they can. There are actions of such emphasis that no
shrieking can be too emphatic for them. Shriek ye; acted have they.
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It is well to condemn the Massacres but well also to remember they are not
unique or even very unusual in French history.
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Shriek who might in this France, in this Paris Legislative or Paris
Townhall, there are Ten Men who do not shriek. A Circular goes out from
the Committee of Salut Public, dated 3rd of September 1792;
directed to all
Townhalls: a State-paper too remarkable to be overlooked. 'A part of the
ferocious conspirators detained in the Prisons,' it says, 'have been put to
death by the People; and it,' the Circular, 'cannot doubt but the whole
Nation, driven to the edge of ruin by such endless series of treasons, will
make haste to adopt this means of public salvation; and all Frenchmen will
cry as the men of Paris: We go to fight the enemy, but we will not leave
robbers behind us, to butcher our wives and children.' To which are
legibly appended these signatures:
Panis?;
Sergent?;
Marat?,
Friend of the
People; (Hist. Parl. xvii. 433.)
with Seven others; — carried down thereby,
in a strange way, to the late remembrance of Antiquarians. We remark,
however, that their Circular rather recoiled on themselves. The Townhalls
made no use of it; even the distracted Sansculottes made little; they only
howled and bellowed, but did not bite. At Rheims 'about eight persons'
were killed; and two afterwards were hanged for doing it. At Lyons, and a
few other places, some attempt was made; but with hardly any effect, being
quickly put down.
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The radicalness of the Commune's Committee of Public Salvation is shown by
its circular to other cities encouraging murder of prisoners. In most
places it was ignored.
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Less fortunate were the Prisoners of Orléans; was the good Duke de la
Rochefoucault?.
He journeying, by quick stages, with his Mother and Wife,
towards the Waters of Forges, or some quieter country, was arrested at
Gisors; conducted along the streets, amid effervescing multitudes, and
killed dead 'by the stroke of a paving-stone hurled through the coach-
window.' Killed as a once Liberal now Aristocrat; Protector of Priests,
Suspender of virtuous Pétions, and his unfortunate Hot-grown-cold,
detestable to Patriotism. He dies lamented of Europe; his blood spattering
the cheeks of his old Mother, ninety-three years old.
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Rochefoucauld is arrested as a fleeing aristocrat about this time and killed
by a local mob.
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As for the Orléans Prisoners, they are State Criminals: Royalist
Ministers, Delessarts, Montmorins; who have been accumulating on the High
Court of Orléans, ever since that Tribunal was set up.
Whom now it seems
good that we should get transferred to our new Paris Court of the
Seventeenth; which proceeds far quicker. Accordingly hot
Fournier? from
Martinique, Fournier l'Americain, is off, missioned by Constituted
Authority; with stanch National Guards, with
Lazouski?
the Pole; sparingly
provided with road-money. These, through bad quarters, through
difficulties, perils, for Authorities cross each other in this time,—do
triumphantly bring off the Fifty or Fifty-three Orléans Prisoners, towards
Paris; where a swifter Court of the Seventeenth will do justice on them.
(Ibid. xvii. 434.) But lo, at Paris, in the interim, a still swifter and
swiftest Court of the Second, and of September, has instituted itself:
enter not Paris, or that will judge you! — What shall hot Fournier do? It
was his duty, as volunteer Constable, had he been a perfect character, to
guard those men's lives never so Aristocratic, at the expense of his own
valuable life never so Sansculottic, till some Constituted Court had
disposed of them. But he was an imperfect character and Constable; perhaps
one of the more imperfect.
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Fournier was bringing a group of state prisoners from Orléans to Paris
while the Massacres were taking place.
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Hot Fournier, ordered to turn thither by one Authority, to turn thither by
another Authority, is in a perplexing multiplicity of orders; but finally
he strikes off for Versailles. His Prisoners fare in tumbrils, or open
carts, himself and Guards riding and marching around: and at the last
village, the worthy Mayor of Versailles comes to meet him, anxious that the
arrival and locking up were well over. It is Sunday, the ninth day of the
month. Lo, on entering the Avenue of Versailles, what multitudes,
stirring, swarming in the September sun, under the dull-green September
foliage; the Four-rowed Avenue all humming and swarming, as if the Town had
emptied itself! Our tumbrils roll heavily through the living sea; the
Guards and Fournier making way with ever more difficulty; the Mayor
speaking and gesturing his persuasivest; amid the inarticulate growling
hum, which growls ever the deeper even by hearing itself growl, not without
sharp yelpings here and there: — Would to God we were out of this strait
place, and wind and separation had cooled the heat, which seems about
igniting here!
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Unsure of what to do, Fournier takes the prisoners to Versailles where they
face a hostile populace.
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And yet if the wide Avenue is too strait, what will the Street de
Surintendance be, at leaving of the same? At the corner of Surintendance
Street, the compressed yelpings became a continuous yell: savage figures
spring on the tumbril-shafts; first spray of an endless coming tide! The
Mayor pleads, pushes, half-desperate; is pushed, carried off in men's arms:
the savage tide has entrance, has mastery. Amid horrid noise, and tumult
as of fierce wolves, the Prisoners sink massacred, — all but some eleven,
who escaped into houses, and found mercy. The Prisons, and what other
Prisoners they held, were with difficulty saved. The stript clothes are
burnt in bonfire; the corpses lie heaped in the ditch on the morrow
morning. (Pièces officielles relatives au massacre des
Prisonniers à
Versailles (in Hist. Parl. xviii. 236-249).)
All France, except it be the
Ten Men of the Circular and their people, moans and rages, inarticulately
shrieking; all Europe rings.
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Most of the prisoners are killed by the crowd. Many were once great men.
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But neither did Danton shriek; though, as Minister of Justice, it was more
his part to do so. Brawny Danton is in the breach, as of stormed Cities
and Nations; amid the Sweep of Tenth-of-August cannon, the rustle of
Prussian gallows-ropes, the smiting of September sabres; destruction all
round him, and the rushing-down of worlds: Minister of Justice is his
name; but Titan of the Forlorn Hope, and Enfant Perdu of the
Revolution, is
his quality, — and the man acts according to that. "We must put our enemies
in fear!" Deep fear, is it not, as of its own accord, falling on our
enemies? The Titan of the Forlorn Hope, he is not the man that would
swiftest of all prevent its so falling. Forward, thou lost Titan of an
Enfant Perdu; thou must dare, and again dare, and without end dare;
there
is nothing left for thee but that! "Que mon nom soit fletri,
Let my name
be blighted:" what am I? The Cause alone is great; and shall live, and
not perish. — So, on the whole, here too is a swallower of Formulas; of
still wider gulp than Mirabeau: this Danton, Mirabeau of the Sansculottes.
In the September days, this Minister was not heard of as co-operating with
strict Roland; his business might lie elsewhere, — with Brunswick and the
Hôtel-de-Ville. When applied to by an official person, about the
Orléans
Prisoners, and the risks they ran, he answered gloomily, twice over, "Are
not these men guilty?" — When pressed, he 'answered in a terrible voice,'
and turned his back. (Biographie des Ministres, p. 97.)
Two Thousand
slain in the Prisons; horrible if you will: but Brunswick is within a
day's journey of us; and there are Five-and twenty Millions yet, to slay or
to save. Some men have tasks, — frightfuller than ours! It seems strange,
but is not strange, that this Minister of Moloch-Justice, when any
suppliant for a friend's life got access to him, was found to have human
compassion; and yielded and granted 'always;' 'neither did one personal
enemy of Danton perish in these days.' (Ibid. p. 103.)
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Danton's role in the massacres is ambiguous. It can be argued that he had
other more pressing concerns. On the other hand, he clearly was able
to prevent to the murder of those he chose to.
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To shriek, we say, when certain things are acted, is proper and
unavoidable. Nevertheless, articulate speech, not shrieking, is the
faculty of man: when speech is not yet possible, let there be, with the
shortest delay, at least — silence. Silence, accordingly, in this
forty-fourth year of the business, and eighteen hundred and thirty-sixth of an
'Era called Christian as lucus à
non,'[164]
is the thing we recommend and
practise. Nay, instead of shrieking more, it were perhaps edifying to
remark, on the other side, what a singular thing Customs
(in Latin, Mores)
are; and how fitly the Virtue, Vir-tus, Manhood or Worth,
that is in a man,
is called his Morality, or Customariness. Fell Slaughter, one the most
authentic products of the Pit you would say, once give it Customs, becomes
War, with Laws of War; and is Customary and Moral enough; and red
individuals carry the tools of it girt round their haunches, not without an
air of pride, — which do thou nowise blame. While, see! so long as it is
but dressed in hodden [coarse peasant cloth] or russet [homespun];
and Revolution, less frequent than War,
has not yet got its Laws of Revolution, but the hodden or russet
individuals are Uncustomary — O shrieking beloved brother blockheads of
Mankind, let us close those wide mouths of ours; let us cease shrieking,
and begin considering!
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We need to look beyond the natural gut-reaction to the September Massacre to
see its significance.
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Plain, at any rate, is one thing: that the fear, whatever of fear those
Aristocrat enemies might need, has been brought about. The matter is
getting serious then! Sansculottism too has become a Fact, and seems
minded to assert itself as such? This huge mooncalf [fool] of Sansculottism,
staggering about, as young calves do, is not mockable only, and soft like
another calf; but terrible too, if you prick it; and, through its hideous
nostrils, blows fire! — Aristocrats, with pale panic in their hearts, fly
towards covert; and a light rises to them over several things; or rather a
confused transition towards light, whereby for the moment darkness is only
darker than ever. But, What will become of this France? Here is a
question! France is dancing its desert-waltz, as Sahara does when the
winds waken; in whirlblasts twenty-five millions in number; waltzing
towards Townhalls, Aristocrat Prisons, and Election Committee-rooms;
towards Brunswick and the Frontiers; — towards a New Chapter of Universal
History; if indeed it be not the Finis, and winding-up of that!
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The revolution is a whirl-wind. We can only wait and see where it will
redeposit the people and institutions of France.
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In Election Committee-rooms there is now no dubiety [uncertainty];
but the work goes
bravely along. The Convention is getting chosen, — really in a decisive
spirit; in the Townhall we already date First year of the Republic.
Some
Two hundred of our best Legislators may be re-elected, the Mountain bodily:
Robespierre ?,
with Mayor
Pétion?,
Buzot?,
Curate Grégoire?,
Rabaut?,
some three
score Old-Constituents; though we once had only 'thirty voices.' All
these; and along with them, friends long known to Revolutionary fame:
Camille Desmoulins?,
though he stutters in speech;
Manuel?,
Tallien?
and
Company; Journalists Gorsas?,
Carra?,
Mercier?,
Louvet? of Faublas;
Clootz?
Speaker of Mankind;
Collot d'Herbois?,
tearing a passion to rags; Fabre
d'Eglantine?,
speculative Pamphleteer;
Legendre?
the solid Butcher; nay
Marat?,
though rural France can hardly believe it, or even believe that
there is a Marat except in print. Of Minister
Danton?,
who will lay down
his Ministry for a Membership, we need not speak. Paris is fervent; nor is
the Country wanting to itself.
Barbaroux?,
Rebecqui?,
and fervid Patriots
are coming from Marseilles. Seven hundred and forty-five men (or indeed
forty-nine, for Avignon now sends Four) are gathering: so many are to
meet; not so many are to part!
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A National Convention — the assembly called for in the previous constitution
when that constitution might need mending — is quickly elected.
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Attorney
Carrier?
from Aurillac, Ex-Priest
Lebon? from Arras,
these shall
both gain a name. Mountainous Auvergne re-elects her
Romme?: hardy tiller
of the soil, once Mathematical Professor; who, unconscious, carries in
petto [in his breast] a remarkable New Calendar,
with Messidors, Pluvioses, and such like; —
and having given it well forth, shall depart by the death they call Roman.
Sieyès?
old-Constituent comes; to make new Constitutions
as many as wanted:
for the rest, peering out of his clear cautious eyes, he will cower low in
many an emergency, and find silence safest. Young
Saint-Just?
is coming,
deputed by Aisne in the North; more like a Student than a Senator: not
four-and-twenty yet; who has written Books; a youth of slight stature, with
mild mellow voice, enthusiast olive-complexion, and long dark hair.
Féraud?,
from the far valley D'Aure in the folds of the Pyrenees, is coming;
an ardent Republican; doomed to fame, at least in death.
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Many well-known men are elected, and several who will be known.
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All manner of Patriot men are coming: Teachers, Husbandmen, Priests and
Ex-Priests, Traders, Doctors; above all, Talkers, or the Attorney-species.
Man-midwives, as
Levasseur?
of the Sarthe, are not wanting. Nor Artists:
gross David?,
with the swoln cheek, has long painted, with genius in a state
of convulsion; and will now legislate. The swoln cheek, choking his words
in the birth, totally disqualifies him as orator; but his pencil, his head,
his gross hot heart, with genius in a state of convulsion, will be there.
A man bodily and mentally swoln-cheeked, disproportionate; flabby-large,
instead of great; weak withal as in a state of convulsion, not strong in a
state of composure: so let him play his part. Nor are naturalised
Benefactors of the Species forgotten:
Priestley?,
elected by the Orne
Department, but declining:
Paine?
the rebellious Needleman, by the Pas de
Calais, who accepts.
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There is no doubt that the Convention was a predominantly patriotic assembly.
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Few Nobles come, and yet not none. Paul François
Barras?,
'noble as the
Barrases, old as the rocks of Provence;' he is one. The reckless,
shipwrecked man: flung ashore on the coast of the Maldives long ago, while
sailing and soldiering as Indian Fighter; flung ashore since then, as
hungry Parisian Pleasure-hunter and Half-pay, on many a Circe Island, with
temporary enchantment, temporary conversion into beasthood and hoghood; —
the remote Var Department has now sent him hither. A man of heat and
haste; defective in utterance; defective indeed in any thing to utter; yet
not without a certain rapidity of glance, a certain swift transient
courage; who, in these times, Fortune favouring, may go far. He is tall,
handsome to the eye, 'only the complexion a little yellow;' but 'with a
robe of purple with a scarlet cloak and plume of tricolor, on occasions of
solemnity,' the man will look well. (Dictionnaire des Hommes
Marquans, para Barras.)
Lepelletier
Saint-Fargeau,?
Old-Constituent, is a kind of
noble, and of enormous wealth; he too has come hither: — to have the Pain of
Death abolished? Hapless Ex-Parlementeer! Nay, among our Sixty
Old-Constituents, see Philippe
d'Orléeans?
a Prince of the Blood!
Not now
d'Orléans:
for, Feudalism being swept from the world, he demands of his
worthy friends the Electors of Paris, to have a new name of their choosing;
whereupon Procureur Manuel, like an antithetic literary man, recommends
Equality, Égalité.
A Philippe Égalité therefore will sit; seen of the
Earth and Heaven.
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Only a few remnants are left of the monarchical party.
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Such a Convention is gathering itself together. Mere angry poultry in
moulting season; whom Brunswick's grenadiers and cannoneers will give short
account of. Would the weather only mend a little!
(Bertrand-Moleville, Memoires, ii. 225.)
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If the allies have their way, this is the last French legislature.
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In vain, O Bertrand! The weather will not mend a whit: — nay even if it
did? Dumouriez Polymetis, though Bertrand knows it not, started from brief
slumber at Sedan, on that morning of the 29th of August; with stealthiness,
with promptitude, audacity. Some three mornings after that, Brunswick,
opening wide eyes, perceives the Passes of the Argonne all seized; blocked
with felled trees, fortified with camps; and that it is a most shifty swift
Dumouriez this, who has outwitted him!
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Meanwhile General Dumouriez has succeeded in the first step of his plan to
flank the Prussian line.
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The manoeuvre may cost Brunswick 'a loss of three weeks,' very fatal in
these circumstances. A Mountain-wall of forty miles lying between him and
Paris: which he should have preoccupied; — which how now to get possession
of? Also the rain it raineth every day; and we are in a hungry Champagne
Pouilleuse, a land flowing only with ditch-water. How to cross this
Mountain-wall of the Argonne; or what in the world to do with it? — there
are marchings and wet splashings by steep paths, with sackerments and
guttural interjections; forcings of Argonne Passes, — which unhappily will
not force. Through the woods, volleying War reverberates, like huge
gong-music, or Moloch's kettledrum, borne by the echoes; swoln torrents boil
angrily round the foot of rocks, floating pale carcasses of men. In vain!
Islettes Village, with its church-steeple, rises intact in the
Mountain-pass, between the embosoming heights;
your forced marchings and climbings
have become forced slidings, and tumblings back. From the hill-tops thou
seest nothing but dumb crags, and endless wet moaning woods; the Clermont
Vache (huge Cow that she is) disclosing herself (See Helen
Maria Williams. Letters, iii. 79-81.) at intervals;
flinging off her cloud-blanket, and
soon taking it on again, drowned in the pouring Heaven. The Argonne Passes
will not force: you must skirt the Argonne;go round by the end of it.
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Drenching rains prevent a Prussian assault along any but the few roads
well-defended by Dumouriez.
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But fancy whether the Emigrant Seigneurs have not got their brilliancy
dulled a little; whether that 'Foot Regiment in red-facings with nankeen
trousers' could be in field-day order! In place of gasconading [boasting],
a sort of
desperation, and hydrophobia from excess of water, is threatening to
supervene. Young Prince de
Ligne?,
son of that brave literary De
Ligne? the
Thundergod of Dandies, fell backwards; shot dead in Grand-Pré, the
Northmost of the Passes: Brunswick is skirting and rounding, laboriously,
by the extremity of the South. Four days; days of a rain as of Noah, —
without fire, without food! For fire you cut down green trees, and produce
smoke; for food you eat green grapes, and produce colic, pestilential
dysentery, ολεκοντomicron;
δε λαοι.
And the Peasants assassinate us, they do not join us;
shrill women cry shame on us, threaten to draw their very scissors on us!
O ye hapless dulled-bright Seigneurs, and hydrophobic splashed Nankeens; —
but O, ten times more, ye poor sackerment-ing ghastly-visaged Hessians and
Hulans, fallen on your backs; who had no call to die there, except
compulsion and three-halfpence a-day! Nor has Mrs. Le Blanc of the Golden
Arm a good time of it, in her bower of dripping rushes. Assassinating
Peasants are hanged; Old-Constituent Honourable members, though of
venerable age, ride in carts with their hands tied; these are the woes of
war.
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It is a miserable time for the emigrées and the Germans; and no
picnic for the French patriots, either.
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Thus they; sprawling and wriggling, far and wide, on the slopes and passes
of the Argonne; — a loss to Brunswick of five-and-twenty disastrous days.
There is wriggling and struggling; facing, backing, and right-about facing;
as the positions shift, and the Argonne gets partly rounded, partly
forced: — but still Dumouriez, force him, round him as you will, sticks like
a rooted fixture on the ground; fixture with many hinges; wheeling now this
way, now that; shewing always new front, in the most unexpected manner:
nowise consenting to take himself away. Recruits stream up on him: full
of heart; yet rather difficult to deal with. Behind Grand-Pré, for
example, Grand-Pré which is on the wrong-side of the Argonne, for we are
now forced and rounded, — the full heart, in one of those wheelings and
shewings of new front, did as it were overset itself, as full hearts are
liable to do; and there rose a shriek of
sauve qui peut [save himself who can], and a death-panic
which had nigh ruined all! So that the General had to come galloping; and,
with thunder-words, with gesture, stroke of drawn sword even, check and
rally, and bring back the sense of shame;
(Dumouriez, Mémoires, iii. 29.) —
nay to seize the first shriekers and ringleaders; 'shave their heads and
eyebrows,' and pack them forth into the world as a sign. Thus too (for
really the rations are short, and wet camping with hungry stomach brings
bad humour) there is like to be mutiny. Whereupon again Dumouriez 'arrives
at the head of their line, with his staff, and an escort of a hundred
huzzars. He had placed some squadrons behind them, the artillery in front;
he said to them: "As for you, for I will neither call you citizens, nor
soldiers, nor my men (ni mes enfans), you see before you this artillery,
behind you this cavalry. You have dishonoured yourselves by crimes. If
you amend, and grow to behave like this brave Army which you have the
honour of belonging to, you will find in me a good father. But plunderers
and assassins I do not suffer here. At the smallest mutiny I will have you
shivered in pieces (hacher en pièces).
Seek out the scoundrels that are
among you, and dismiss them yourselves; I hold you responsible for them."'
(Ibid., Mémoires iii. 55.)
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The recruits rushing to the front reinforce Dumouriez's army, but their lack
of training gives him trouble.
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Patience, O Dumouriez! This uncertain heap of shriekers, mutineers, were
they once drilled and inured, will become a phalanxed mass of Fighters; and
wheel and whirl, to order, swiftly like the wind or the whirlwind: tanned
mustachio-figures; often barefoot, even bare-backed; with sinews of iron;
who require only bread and gunpowder: very Sons of Fire, the adroitest,
hastiest, hottest ever seen perhaps since Attila's time. They may conquer
and overrun amazingly, much as that same
Attila?
did; — whose Attila's-Camp
and Battlefield thou now seest, on this very ground;
(Helen Maria Williams,
iii. 32.) who, after sweeping bare the world, was, with difficulty, and
days of tough fighting, checked here by Roman Aetius and Fortune; and his
dust-cloud made to vanish in the East again! —
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But these shaky recruits will soon be part of one of the most effective
fighting forces in history.
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Strangely enough, in this shrieking Confusion of a Soldiery, which we saw
long since fallen all suicidally out of square in suicidal collision, — at
Nanci, or on the streets of Metz, where brave Bouille stood with drawn
sword; and which has collided and ground itself to pieces worse and worse
ever since, down now to such a state: in this shrieking Confusion, and not
elsewhere, lies the first germ of returning Order for France! Round which,
we say, poor France nearly all ground down suicidally likewise into rubbish
and Chaos, will be glad to rally; to begin growing, and new-shaping her
inorganic dust: very slowly, through centuries, through Napoleons, Louis
Philippes, and other the like media and phases, — into a new, infinitely
preferable France, we can hope!—
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In the returning discipline of the army we can see the beginnings of a
new order in France — one which will still be developing 50 years later.
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These wheelings and movements in the region of the Argonne, which are all
faithfully described by Dumouriez himself, and more interesting to us than
Hoyle's or Philidor's best Game of Chess, let us, nevertheless, O Reader,
entirely omit; — and hasten to remark two things: the first a minute
private, the second a large public thing. Our minute private thing is:
the presence, in the Prussian host, in that war-game of the Argonne, of a
certain Man, belonging to the sort called Immortal; who, in days since
then, is becoming visible more and more, in that character, as the
Transitory more and more vanishes; for from of old it was remarked that
when the Gods appear among men, it is seldom in recognisable shape; thus
Admetus' neatherds give Apollo a draught of their goatskin whey-bottle
(well if they do not give him strokes with their ox-rungs), not dreaming
that he is the Sungod! This man's name is Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe?.
He is Herzog Weimar's Minister, come with the small contingent of Weimar; to
do insignificant unmilitary duty here; very irrecognizable to nearly all!
He stands at present, with drawn bridle, on the height near Saint-Menehould,
making an experiment on the 'cannon-fever;' having ridden
thither against persuasion, into the dance and firing of the cannon-balls,
with a scientific desire to understand what that same cannon-fever may be:
'The sound of them,' says he, 'is curious enough; as if it were compounded
of the humming of tops, the gurgling of water and the whistle of birds. By
degrees you get a very uncommon sensation; which can only be described by
similitude. It seems as if you were in some place extremely hot, and at
the same time were completely penetrated by the heat of it; so that you
feel as if you and this element you are in were perfectly on a par. The
eyesight loses nothing of its strength or distinctness; and yet it is as if
all things had got a kind of brown-red colour, which makes the situation
and the objects still more impressive on you.' (Goethe,
Campagne in
Frankreich (Werke, xxx. 73.)
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Goethe, Carlyle's friend and mutual admirer, was with
the frustrated Prussians.
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This is the cannon-fever, as a World-Poet feels it. — A man entirely
irrecognisable! In whose irrecognisable head, meanwhile, there verily is
the spiritual counterpart (and call it complement) of this same huge
Death-Birth of the World; which now effectuates itself,
outwardly in the Argonne,
in such cannon-thunder; inwardly, in the irrecognisable head, quite
otherwise than by thunder! Mark that man, O Reader, as the memorablest of
all the memorable in this Argonne Campaign. What we say of him is not
dream, nor flourish of rhetoric; but scientific historic fact; as many men,
now at this distance, see or begin to see.
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And Goethe, by Carlyle's measure, was the the greatest man there.
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But the large public thing we had to remark is this: That the Twentieth of
September, 1792, was a raw morning covered with mist; that from three in
the morning Sainte-Menehould, and those Villages and homesteads we know of
old were stirred by the rumble of artillery-wagons, by the clatter of
hoofs, and many footed tramp of men: all manner of military, Patriot and
Prussian, taking up positions, on the Heights of La Lune and other Heights;
shifting and shoving, — seemingly in some dread chess-game; which may the
Heavens turn to good! The Miller of Valmy has fled dusty under ground; his
Mill, were it never so windy, will have rest to-day. At seven in the
morning the mist clears off: see
Kellermann?,
Dumouriez' second in command,
with 'eighteen pieces of cannon,' and deep-serried ranks, drawn up round
that same silent Windmill, on his knoll of strength; Brunswick, also, with
serried ranks and cannon, glooming over to him from the height of La Lune;
only the little brook and its little dell now parting them.
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Kellermann is able to advance to Valmy, where Brunswick is dug in.
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So that the much-longed-for has come at last! Instead of hunger and
dysentery, we shall have sharp shot; and then! — Dumouriez, with force and
firm front, looks on from a neighbouring height; can help only with his
wishes, in silence. Lo, the eighteen pieces do bluster and bark,
responsive to the bluster of La Lune; and thunder-clouds mount into the
air; and echoes roar through all dells, far into the depths of Argonne Wood
(deserted now); and limbs and lives of men fly dissipated, this way and
that. Can Brunswick make an impression on them? The dull-bright Seigneurs
stand biting their thumbs: these Sansculottes seem not to fly like
poultry! Towards noontide a cannon-shot blows Kellermann's horse from
under him; there bursts a powder-cart high into the air, with knell heard
over all: some swagging and swaying observable; — Brunswick will try!
"Camarades," cries Kellermann, "Vive la Patria! Allons vaincre
pour elle,
Come let us conquer for her." "Live the Fatherland!" rings responsive,
to the welkin,
like rolling-fire from side to side: our ranks are as firm as rocks; and
Brunswick may recross the dell, ineffectual; regain his old position on La
Lune; not unbattered by the way. And so, for the length of a September
day, — with bluster and bark; with bellow far echoing! The cannonade lasts
till sunset; and no impression made. Till an hour after sunset, the few
remaining Clocks of the District striking Seven; at this late time of day
Brunswick tries again. With not a whit better fortune! He is met by rock-
ranks, by shouts of Vive la Patrie; and driven back, not unbattered.
Whereupon he ceases; retires 'to the Tavern of La Lune;' and sets to
raising a redoute lest he be attacked!
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Repeated attacks by the Germans are repulsed by Kellermann's forces.
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Verily so: ye dulled-bright Seigneurs, make of it what ye may. Ah, and
France does not rise round us in mass; and the Peasants do not join us, but
assassinate us: neither hanging nor any persuasion will induce them! They
have lost their old distinguishing love of King, and King's-cloak, — I fear,
altogether; and will even fight to be rid of it: that seems now their
humour. Nor does Austria prosper, nor the siege of Thionville. The
Thionvillers, carrying their insolence to the epigrammatic pitch, have put
a Wooden Horse on their walls, with a bundle of hay hung from him, and this
Inscription: 'When I finish my hay, you will take Thionville.' (Hist.
Parl. xix. 177.) To such height has the frenzy of mankind risen.
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The Austrians are doing no better in the northeast. Thionville is besieged
but does not fall.
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The trenches of Thionville may shut: and what though those of Lille open?
The Earth smiles not on us, nor the Heaven; but weeps and blears itself, in
sour rain, and worse. Our very friends insult us; we are wounded in the
house of our friends: "His Majesty of Prussia had a greatcoat, when the
rain came; and (contrary to all known laws) he put it on, though our two
French Princes, the hope of their country, had none!" To which indeed, as
Goethe admits, what answer could be made? (Goethe,
xxx. 49.) — Cold and
Hunger and Affront, Colic and Dysentery and Death; and we here, cowering
redouted,
most unredoubtable, amid the 'tattered corn-shocks and deformed
stubble,' on the splashy Height of La Lune, round the mean Tavern de La
Lune! —
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The position of the invaders begins to seem to them untenable.
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This is the Cannonade of Valmy; wherein the World-Poet experimented on the
cannon-fever; wherein the French Sansculottes did not fly like poultry.
Precious to France! Every soldier did his duty, and Alsatian Kellermann
(how preferable to old
Lückner?
the dismissed!)
began to become greater; and
Égalité Fils, Equality Junior,
a light gallant Field-Officer, distinguished
himself by intrepidity: — it is the same intrepid individual who now, as
Louis-Philippe?,
without the Equality, struggles, under sad circumstances,
to be called King of the French for a season.
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The battle of Valmy enhanced Kellermann's reputation and was the baptism of
fire of the future king Louis-Philippe.
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But this Twentieth of September is otherwise a great day. For, observe,
while Kellermann's horse was flying blown from under him at the Mill of
Valmy, our new National Deputies, that shall be a NATIONAL CONVENTION, are
hovering and gathering about the Hall of the Hundred Swiss; with intent to
constitute themselves!
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September 21, 1792: The National Convention sits.
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On the morrow, about noontide,
Camus?
the Archivist is busy 'verifying their
powers;' several hundreds of them already here. Whereupon the Old
Legislative comes solemnly over, to merge its old ashes Phoenix-like in the
body of the new; — and so forthwith, returning all solemnly back to the
Salle de Manége, there sits a National Convention, Seven Hundred and
Forty-nine complete, or complete enough;
presided by Pétion;—which proceeds
directly to do business. Read that reported afternoon's-debate, O Reader;
there are few debates like it: dull reporting Moniteur
itself becomes more
dramatic than a very Shakespeare. For epigrammatic
Manuel?
rises, speaks
strange things; how the President shall have a guard of honour, and lodge
in the Tuileries:—rejected. And
Danton?
rises and speaks; and Collot
d'Herbois?
rises, and Curate
Grégoire?,
and lame Couthon?
of the Mountain
rises; and in rapid Meliboean stanzas[166],
only a few lines each, they propose
motions not a few: That the corner-stone of our new Constitution is
Sovereignty of the People; that our Constitution shall be accepted by the
People or be null; further that the People ought to be avenged, and have
right Judges; that the Imposts must continue till new order; that Landed
and other Property be sacred forever; finally that 'Royalty from this day
is abolished in France:'—Decreed all, before four o'clock strike, with
acclamation of the world! (Hist. Parl. xix. 19.)
The tree was all so
ripe; only shake it and there fall such yellow cart-loads.
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The easy decisions are quickly made: maintaining the right and the revenue
of the constitution, and abolishing royalty.
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And so over in the Valmy Region, as soon as the news come, what stir is
this, audible, visible from our muddy heights of La Lune? (Williams, iii.
71.) Universal shouting of the French on their opposite hillside; caps
raised on bayonets; and a sound as of République;
Vive la République borne
dubious on the winds! — On the morrow morning, so to speak, Brunswick slings
his knapsacks before day, lights any fires he has; and marches without tap
of drum. Dumouriez finds ghastly symptoms in that camp; 'latrines full of
blood!' (1st October, 1792; Dumouriez, iii. 73.)
The chivalrous King of
Prussia, for he as we saw is here in person, may long rue the day; may look
colder than ever on these dulled-bright Seigneurs, and French Princes their
Country's hope; — and, on the whole, put on his great-coat without ceremony,
happy that he has one. They retire, all retire with convenient despatch,
through a Champagne trodden into a quagmire, the wild weather pouring on
them; Dumouriez through his Kellermanns and
Dillons?
pricking them a little
in the hinder parts. A little, not much; now pricking, now negotiating:
for Brunswick has his eyes opened; and the Majesty of Prussia is a
repentant Majesty.
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October 1, 1792: The Prussians begin their retreat from Champagne.
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Nor has Austria prospered, nor the Wooden Horse of Thionville bitten his
hay; nor Lille City surrendered itself. The Lille trenches opened, on the
29th of the month; with balls and shells, and redhot balls; as if not
trenches but Vesuvius and the Pit had opened. It was frightful, say all
eye-witnesses; but it is ineffectual. The Lillers have risen to such
temper; especially after these news from Argonne and the East. Not a
Sans-indispensables in Lille that would surrender for a King's ransom. Redhot
balls rain, day and night; 'six-thousand,' or so, and bombs 'filled
internally with oil of turpentine which splashes up in flame;' — mainly on
the dwellings of the Sansculottes and Poor; the streets of the Rich being
spared. But the Sansculottes get water-pails; form quenching-regulations,
"The ball is in Peter's house!" "The ball is in John's!" They divide
their lodging and substance with each other; shout Vive la
République; and
faint not in heart. A ball thunders through the main chamber of the
Hôtel-de-Ville, while the Commune is there assembled:
"We are in permanence,"
says one, coldly, proceeding with his business; and the ball remains
permanent too, sticking in the wall, probably to this day.
(Bombardement de Lille (in Hist. Parl. xx. 63-71).)
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The Austrian are unable to take besieged Thionville and Lille despite
fierce cannonade.
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The Austrian Archduchess (Queen's Sister) will herself see red artillery
fired; in their over-haste to satisfy an Archduchess 'two mortars explode
and kill thirty persons.' It is in vain; Lille, often burning, is always
quenched again; Lille will not yield. The very boys deftly wrench the
matches out of fallen bombs: 'a man clutches a rolling ball with his hat,
which takes fire; when cool, they crown it with a bonnet rouge.' Memorable
also be that nimble Barber, who when the bomb burst beside him, snatched up
a shred of it, introduced soap and lather into it, crying, "Voilà
mon plat
à barbe, My new shaving-dish!"
and shaved 'fourteen people' on the spot.
Bravo, thou nimble Shaver; worthy to shave old spectral Redcloak, and find
treasures![167]
— On the eighth day of this desperate siege, the sixth day of
October, Austria finding it fruitless, draws off, with no pleasurable
consciousness; rapidly, Dumouriez tending thitherward; and Lille too, black
with ashes and smoulder, but jubilant skyhigh, flings its gates open. The
Plat à barbe became fashionable;
'no Patriot of an elegant turn,' says
Mercier several years afterwards, 'but shaves himself out of the splinter
of a Lille bomb.'
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The Austrians before Lille retreat on Dumouriez's approach.
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Quid multa, Why many words?
The Invaders are in flight; Brunswick's Host,
the third part of it gone to death, staggers disastrous along the deep
highways of Champagne; spreading out also into 'the fields, of a tough
spongy red-coloured clay;—like Pharaoh through a Red Sea of mud,' says
Goethe; 'for here also lay broken chariots, and riders and foot seemed
sinking around.' (Campagne in Frankreich, p. 103.)
On the eleventh
morning of October, the World-Poet, struggling Northwards out of Verdun,
which he had entered Southwards, some five weeks ago, in quite other order,
discerned the following Phenomenon and formed part of it:
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October 11, 1792: The Prussians retreat beyond Verdun.
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'Towards three in the morning, without having had any sleep, we were about
mounting our carriage, drawn up at the door; when an insuperable obstacle
disclosed itself: for there rolled on already, between the pavement-stones
which were crushed up into a ridge on each side, an uninterrupted column of
sick-wagons through the Town, and all was trodden as into a morass. While
we stood waiting what could be made of it, our Landlord the Knight of
Saint-Louis pressed past us, without salutation.' He had been a Calonne's
Notable in 1787, an Emigrant since; had returned to his home, jubilant,
with the Prussians; but must now forth again into the wide world, 'followed
by a servant carrying a little bundle on his stick.'
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Goethe describes the retreat.
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'The activity of our alert Lisieux shone eminent; and, on this occasion
too, brought us on: for he struck into a small gap of the wagon-row; and
held the advancing team back till we, with our six and our four horses, got
intercalated; after which, in my light little coachlet, I could breathe
freer. We were now under way; at a funeral pace, but still under way. The
day broke; we found ourselves at the outlet of the Town, in a tumult and
turmoil without measure. All sorts of vehicles, few horsemen, innumerable
foot-people, were crossing each other on the great esplanade before the
Gate. We turned to the right, with our Column, towards Estain, on a
limited highway, with ditches at each side. Self-preservation, in so
monstrous a press, knew now no pity, no respect of aught. Not far before
us there fell down a horse of an ammunition-wagon: they cut the traces,
and let it lie. And now as the three others could not bring their load
along, they cut them also loose, tumbled the heavy-packed vehicle into the
ditch; and, with the smallest retardation, we had to drive on, right over
the horse, which was just about to rise; and I saw too clearly how its
legs, under the wheels, went crashing and quivering.
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'Horse and foot endeavoured to escape from the narrow laborious highway
into the meadows: but these too were rained to ruin; overflowed by full
ditches, the connexion of the footpaths every where interrupted. Four
gentlemanlike, handsome, well-dressed French soldiers waded for a time
beside our carriage; wonderfully clean and neat: and had such art of
picking their steps, that their foot-gear testified no higher than the
ankle to the muddy pilgrimage these good people found themselves engaged
in.
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'That under such circumstances one saw, in ditches, in meadows, in fields
and crofts, dead horses enough, was natural to the case: by and by,
however, you found them also flayed, the fleshy parts even cut away; sad
token of the universal distress.
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'Thus we fared on; every moment in danger, at the smallest stoppage on our
own part, of being ourselves tumbled overboard; under which circumstances,
truly, the careful dexterity of our Lisieux could not be sufficiently
praised. The same talent shewed itself at Estain; where we arrived towards
noon; and descried, over the beautiful well-built little Town, through
streets and on squares, around and beside us, one sense-confusing tumult:
the mass rolled this way and that; and, all struggling forward, each
hindered the other. Unexpectedly our carriage drew up before a stately
house in the market-place; master and mistress of the mansion saluted us in
reverent distance.' Dexterous Lisieux, though we knew it not, had said we
were the King of Prussia's Brother!
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'But now, from the ground-floor windows, looking over the whole market-
place, we had the endless tumult lying, as it were, palpable. All sorts of
walkers, soldiers in uniform, marauders, stout but sorrowing citizens and
peasants, women and children, crushed and jostled each other, amid vehicles
of all forms: ammunition-wagons, baggage-wagons; carriages, single,
double, and multiplex; such hundredfold miscellany of teams, requisitioned
or lawfully owned, making way, hitting together, hindering each other,
rolled here to right and to left. Horned-cattle too were struggling on;
probably herds that had been put in requisition. Riders you saw few; but
the elegant carriages of the Emigrants, many-coloured, lackered, gilt and
silvered, evidently by the best builders, caught your eye.
(See Hermann
und Dorothea (also by Goethe), Buch Kalliope.)
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'The crisis of the strait however arose further on a little; where the
crowded market-place had to introduce itself into a street,—straight
indeed and good, but proportionably far too narrow. I have, in my life,
seen nothing like it: the aspect of it might perhaps be compared to that
of a swoln river which has been raging over meadows and fields, and is now
again obliged to press itself through a narrow bridge, and flow on in its
bounded channel. Down the long street, all visible from our windows, there
swelled continually the strangest tide: a high double-seated travelling-
coach towered visible over the flood of things. We thought of the fair
Frenchwomen we had seen in the morning. It was not they, however, it was
Count Haugwitz?;
him you could look at, with a kind of sardonic malice,
rocking onwards, step by step, there.' (Campagne in
Frankreich, Goethe's Werke (Stuttgart, 1829), xxx. 133-137.)
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In such untriumphant Procession has the Brunswick Manifesto issued! Nay in
worse, 'in Negotiation with these miscreants,' — the first news of which
produced such a revulsion in the Emigrant nature, as put our scientific
World-Poet 'in fear for the wits of several.' There is no help: they must
fare on, these poor Emigrants, angry with all persons and things, and
making all persons angry, in the hapless course they struck into. Landlord
and landlady testify to you, at tables-d'hôte,
how insupportable these
Frenchmen are: how, in spite of such humiliation, of poverty and probable
beggary, there is ever the same struggle for precedence, the same
forwardness, and want of discretion. High in honour, at the head of the
table, you with your own eyes observe not a Seigneur but the automaton of a
Seigneur, fallen into dotage; still worshipped, reverently waited on, and
fed. In miscellaneous seats, is a miscellany of soldiers, commissaries,
adventurers; consuming silently their barbarian victuals. 'On all brows is
to be read a hard destiny; all are silent, for each has his own sufferings
to bear, and looks forth into misery without bounds.' One hasty wanderer,
coming in, and eating without ungraciousness what is set before him, the
landlord lets off almost scot-free. "He is," whispered the landlord to me,
"the first of these cursed people I have seen condescend to taste our
German black bread." (Ibid. 152.) (Ibid. 210-12.)
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Any real power, and most hope, that the emigrées had is shattered by
the defeat of the Prussians and Austrians.
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And Dumouriez is in Paris; lauded and feasted; paraded in glittering
saloons, floods of beautifullest blond-dresses and broadcloth-coats flowing
past him, endless, in admiring joy. One night, nevertheless, in the
splendour of one such scene, he sees himself suddenly apostrophised by a
squalid unjoyful Figure, who has come in uninvited, nay despite of all
lackeys; an unjoyful Figure! The Figure is come "in express mission from
the Jacobins," to inquire sharply, better then than later, touching certain
things: "Shaven eyebrows of Volunteer Patriots, for instance?" Also "your
threats of shivering in pieces?" Also, "why you have not chased Brunswick
hotly enough?" Thus, with sharp croak, inquires the Figure. — "Ah, c'est
vous qu'on appelle Marat, You are he they call Marat!" answers the General,
and turns coldly on his heel. (Dumouriez, iii. 115. —
Marat's account, In
the Debats des Jacobins and Journal de la République
(Hist. Parl. xix. 317-21), agrees to the turning on the heel,
but strives to interpret it differently.) —"Marat!"
The blonde-gowns quiver like aspens; the dress-coats gather round;
Actor Talma (for it is his house), and almost the very
chandelier-lights, are blue: till this obscene Spectrum, or visual
Appearance, vanish back into native Night.
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Dumouriez's victories are celebrated, but the Mountain still suspects him.
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General Dumouriez, in few brief days, is gone again, towards the
Netherlands; will attack the Netherlands, winter though it be. And General
Montesquiou?,
on the South-East, has driven in the Sardinian Majesty; nay,
almost without a shot fired, has taken Savoy from him, which longs to
become a piece of the Republic. And General
Custine?,
on the North-East,
has dashed forth on Spires and its Arsenal; and then on Electoral Mentz,
not uninvited, wherein are German Democrats and no shadow of an Elector
now: — so that in the last days of October, Frau Forster, a daughter of
Heyne's, somewhat democratic, walking out of the Gate of Mentz with her
Husband, finds French Soldiers playing at bowls with cannon-balls there.
Forster trips cheerfully over one iron bomb, with "Live the Republic!" A
black-bearded National Guard answers: "Elle vivra bien sans vous,
It will probably live independently of you!"
(Johann Georg Forster's Briefwechsel
(Leipzig, 1829), i. 88.)
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Nevertheless, French arms are everywhere triumphant.
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France therefore has done two things very completely: she has hurled back
her Cimmerian Invaders far over the marches; and likewise she has shattered
her own internal Social Constitution, even to the minutest fibre of it,
into wreck and dissolution. Utterly it is all altered: from King down to
Parish Constable, all Authorities, Magistrates, Judges, persons that bore
rule, have had, on the sudden, to alter themselves, so far as needful; or
else, on the sudden, and not without violence, to be altered: a Patriot
'Executive Council of Ministers,' with a Patriot Danton in it, and then a
whole Nation and National Convention, have taken care of that. Not a
Parish Constable, in the furthest hamlet, who has said De Par le Roi,
and
shewn loyalty, but must retire, making way for a new improved Parish
Constable who can say De par la République.
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France has gone from fear of foreign invasion and of counterrevolution from the
palace; to invasion of other countries and a republic.
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It is a change such as History must beg her readers to imagine,
undescribed. An instantaneous change of the whole body-politic,
the soul-politic being all changed; such a change as few bodies,
politic or other,
can experience in this world. Say perhaps, such as poor Nymph Semele's
body did experience, when she would needs, with woman's humour, see her
Olympian Jove as very Jove; — and so stood, poor Nymph, this moment Semele,
next moment not Semele, but Flame and a Statue of red-hot
Ashes![168] France
has looked upon Democracy; seen it face to face. — The Cimmerian Invaders
will rally, in humbler temper, with better or worse luck: the wreck and
dissolution must reshape itself into a social Arrangement as it can and
may. But as for this National Convention, which is to settle every thing,
if it do, as Deputy Paine and France generally expects, get all finished
'in a few months,' we shall call it a most deft Convention.
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The change is both abrupt and extreme. What will come next is unclear.
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In truth, it is very singular to see how this mercurial French People
plunges suddenly from Vive le Roi to Vive la République;
and goes simmering
and dancing; shaking off daily (so to speak), and trampling into the dust,
its old social garnitures, ways of thinking, rules of existing; and
cheerfully dances towards the Ruleless, Unknown, with such hope in its
heart, and nothing but Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood
in its mouth. Is
it two centuries, or is it only two years, since all France roared
simultaneously to the welkin, bursting forth into sound and smoke at its
Feast of Pikes, "Live the Restorer of French Liberty?"
Three short years
ago there was still Versailles and an Œil-de-Bœuf: now there is that
watched Circuit of the Temple, girt with dragon-eyed Municipals, where, as
in its final limbo, Royalty lies extinct. In the year 1789, Constituent
Deputy
Barrère?
'wept,' in his Break-of-Day Newspaper, at sight of a
reconciled King Louis; and now in 1792, Convention Deputy Barrère,
perfectly tearless, may be considering, whether the reconciled King Louis
shall be guillotined or not.
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Carlyle marvels at how much things have changed in the three years of the
revolution.
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Old garnitures and social vestures drop off (we say) so fast, being indeed
quite decayed, and are trodden under the National dance. And the new
vestures, where are they; the new modes and rules? Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity: not vestures but the wish for vestures! The Nation is for the
present, figuratively speaking, naked!
It has no rule or vesture; but is
naked,—a Sansculottic Nation.
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Much has been destroyed; all waits to be rebuilt.
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So far, therefore, in such manner have our Patriot
Brissots?,
Guadets?
triumphed.
Vergniaud's?
Ezekiel-visions of the fall of thrones and crowns,
which he spake hypothetically and prophetically in the Spring of the year,
have suddenly come to fulfilment in the Autumn. Our eloquent Patriots of
the Legislative, like strong Conjurors, by the word of their mouth, have
swept Royalism with its old modes and formulas to the winds; and shall now
govern a France free of formulas. Free of formulas! And yet man lives not
except with formulas; with customs, ways of doing and living: no text
truer than this; which will hold true from the Tea-table and Tailor's
shopboard up to the High Senate-houses, Solemn Temples; nay through all
provinces of Mind and Imagination, onwards to the outmost confines of
articulate Being, — Ubi homines sunt modi sunt! There are modes
wherever
there are men.[169]
It is the deepest law of man's nature; whereby man is a
craftsman and 'tool-using animal;' not the slave of Impulse, Chance, and
Brute Nature, but in some measure their lord. Twenty-five millions of men,
suddenly stript bare of their modi,
and dancing them down in that manner,
are a terrible thing to govern!
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French society is in some ways without root or basis. Such a vacuum, though
it cannot sustain itself, is horrible while it lasts.
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Eloquent Patriots of the Legislative, meanwhile, have precisely this
problem to solve. Under the name and nickname of 'statesmen, hommes
d'état,' of 'moderate-men, modérantins,'
of Brissotins, Rolandins, finally
of Girondins, they shall become world-famous in solving it. For the
Twenty-five millions are Gallic effervescent too; — filled both with hope of
the unutterable, of universal Fraternity and Golden Age; and with terror of
the unutterable, Cimmerian Europe all rallying on us. It is a problem like
few. Truly, if man, as the Philosophers brag, did to any extent look
before and after, what, one may ask, in many cases would become of him?
What, in this case, would become of these Seven Hundred and Forty-nine men?
The Convention, seeing clearly before and after, were a paralysed
Convention. Seeing clearly to the length of its own nose, it is not
paralysed.
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The National Convention saw it as their job to fill this vacuum. If they
had been able to see the future, perhaps they would not have tried.
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To the Convention itself neither the work nor the method of doing it is
doubtful: To make the Constitution; to defend the Republic till that be
made. Speedily enough, accordingly, there has been a 'Committee of the
Constitution' got together.
Sieyès?,
Old-Constituent,
Constitution-builder
by trade;
Condorcet?,
fit for better things; Deputy
Paine?,
foreign
Benefactor of the Species, with that 'red carbuncled face, and the black
beaming eyes;'
Herault de Sechelles?,
Ex-Parlementeer, one of the handsomest
men in France: these, with inferior guild-brethren, are girt cheerfully to
the work; will once more 'make the Constitution;' let us hope, more
effectually than last time. For that the Constitution can be made, who
doubts, — unless the Gospel of Jean Jacques came into the world in vain?
True, our last Constitution did tumble within the year, so lamentably. But
what then, except sort the rubbish and boulders, and build them up again
better? 'Widen your basis,' for one thing, — to Universal Suffrage, if need
be; exclude rotten materials, Royalism and such like, for another thing.
And in brief, build, O unspeakable Sieyès and Company, unwearied!
Frequent
perilous downrushing of scaffolding and rubble-work, be that an irritation,
no discouragement. Start ye always again, clearing aside the wreck; if
with broken limbs, yet with whole hearts; and build, we say, in the name of
Heaven, — till either the work do stand; or else mankind abandon it, and the
Constitution-builders be paid off, with laughter and tears! One good time,
in the course of Eternity, it was appointed that this of Social Contract
too should try itself out. And so the Committee of Constitution shall
toil: with hope and faith; — with no disturbance from any reader of these
pages.
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A Constitutional Committee is soon established and embarks on a long and
frustrating task. Carlyle gives notice that he will ignore this part of the
history of the Convention.
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To make the Constitution, then, and return home joyfully in a few months:
this is the prophecy our National Convention gives of itself; by this
scientific program shall its operations and events go on. But from the
best scientific program, in such a case, to the actual fulfilment, what a
difference! Every reunion of men, is it not, as we often say, a reunion of
incalculable Influences; every unit of it a microcosm of Influences; — of
which how shall Science calculate or prophesy! Science, which cannot, with
all its calculuses, differential, integral, and of variations, calculate
the Problem of Three gravitating
Bodies[170],
ought to hold her peace here, and
say only: In this National Convention there are Seven Hundred and Forty-nine
very singular Bodies, that gravitate and do much else; — who, probably
in an amazing manner, will work the appointment of Heaven.
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The purpose of the National convention was to write a constitution and go home.
No one could have predicted its actual history.
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Of National Assemblages, Parliaments, Congresses, which have long sat;
which are of saturnine temperament; above all, which are not 'dreadfully in
earnest,' something may be computed or conjectured: yet even these are a
kind of Mystery in progress, — whereby we see the Journalist Reporter find
livelihood: even these jolt madly out of the ruts, from time to time. How
much more a poor National Convention, of French vehemence; urged on at such
velocity; without routine, without rut, track or landmark; and dreadfully
in earnest every man of them! It is a Parliament literally such as there
was never elsewhere in the world. Themselves are new, unarranged; they are
the Heart and presiding centre of a France fallen wholly into maddest
disarrangement. From all cities, hamlets, from the utmost ends of this
France with its Twenty-five million vehement souls, thick-streaming
influences storm in on that same Heart, in the Salle de Manége,
and storm
out again: such fiery venous-arterial circulation is the function of that
Heart. Seven Hundred and Forty-nine human individuals, we say, never sat
together on Earth, under more original circumstances. Common individuals
most of them, or not far from common; yet in virtue of the position they
occupied, so notable. How, in this wild piping of the whirlwind of human
passions, with death, victory, terror, valour, and all height and all depth
pealing and piping, these men, left to their own guidance, will speak and
act?
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The rootlessness of the society is reflected in the beginning of the
Convention: a meeting of 749 individuals, a circumstance perhaps
unique in history.
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Readers know well that this French National Convention (quite contrary to
its own Program) became the astonishment and horror of mankind; a kind of
Apocalyptic Convention, or black Dream become real; concerning which
History seldom speaks except in the way of interjection: how it covered
France with woe, delusion, and delirium; and from its bosom there went
forth Death on the pale Horse. To hate this poor National Convention is
easy; to praise and love it has not been found impossible. It is, as we
say, a Parliament in the most original circumstances. To us, in these
pages, be it as a fuliginous [murky] fiery mystery,
where Upper has met Nether, and
in such alternate glare and blackness of darkness poor bedazzled mortals
know not which is Upper, which is Nether; but rage and plunge distractedly,
as mortals, in that case, will do. A Convention which has to consume
itself, suicidally; and become dead ashes — with its World! Behoves us, not
to enter exploratively its dim embroiled deeps; yet to stand with
unwavering eyes, looking how it welters; what notable phases and
occurrences it will successively throw up.
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Carlyle proposes to examine not the workings of the Convention, which may
never be understood, but its deeds.
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One general superficial circumstance we remark with praise: the force of
Politeness. To such depth has the sense of civilisation penetrated man's
life; no
Drouet?, no
Legendre?,
in the maddest tug of war, can altogether
shake it off. Debates of Senates dreadfully in earnest are seldom given
frankly to the world; else perhaps they would surprise it. Did not the
Grand Monarque [Louis XIV] himself once chase his
Louvois?
with a pair of brandished
tongs? But reading long volumes of these Convention Debates, all in a foam
with furious earnestness, earnest many times to the extent of life and
death, one is struck rather with the degree of continence they manifest in
speech; and how in such wild ebullition, there is still a kind of polite
rule struggling for mastery, and the forms of social life never altogether
disappear. These men, though they menace with clenched right-hands, do not
clench one another by the collar; they draw no daggers, except for
oratorical purposes, and this not often: profane swearing is almost
unknown, though the Reports are frank enough; we find only one or two
oaths, oaths by Marat, reported in all.
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As an aside, Carlyle comments on the restrained and decorous speech of the
deputies, even when debating the wildest propositions.
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For the rest, that there is 'effervescence' who doubts? Effervescence
enough; Decrees passed by acclamation to-day, repealed by vociferation
to-morrow; temper fitful, most rotatory changeful, always headlong! The
'voice of the orator is covered with rumours;' a hundred 'honourable
Members rush with menaces towards the Left side of the Hall;' President has
'broken three bells in succession,' — claps on his hat, as signal that the
country is near ruined. A fiercely effervescent Old-Gallic Assemblage! —
Ah, how the loud sick sounds of Debate, and of Life, which is a debate,
sink silent one after another: so loud now, and in a little while so low!
Brennus,?
and those antique Gael Captains, in their way to Rome, to Galatia,
and such places, whither they were in the habit of marching in the most
fiery manner, had Debates as effervescent, doubt it not; though no
Moniteur
has reported them. They scolded in Celtic Welsh, those Brennuses; neither
were they Sansculotte; nay rather breeches (braccae,
say of felt or rough-leather) were the only thing they had;
being, as Livy testifies, naked down
to the haunches: — and, see, it is the same sort of work and of men still,
now when they have got coats, and speak nasally a kind of broken Latin!
But on the whole does not TIME envelop this present National Convention; as
it did those Brennuses, and ancient August Senates in felt breeches? Time
surely; and also Eternity. Dim dusk of Time, — or noon which will be dusk;
and then there is night, and silence; and Time with all its sick noises is
swallowed in the still sea. Pity thy brother, O Son of Adam! The angriest
frothy jargon that he utters, is it not properly the whimpering of an
infant which cannot speak what ails it, but is in distress clearly, in the
inwards of it; and so must squall and whimper continually, till its Mother
take it, and it get — to sleep!
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Though they often debated things more appropriate to barbarians.
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This Convention is not four days old, and the melodious Meliboean stanzas
that shook down Royalty are still fresh in our ear, when there bursts out a
new diapason [burst of sound], — unhappily, of Discord, this time.
For speech has been made
of a thing difficult to speak of well: the September Massacres. How deal
with these September Massacres; with the Paris Commune that presided over
them? A Paris Commune hateful-terrible; before which the poor effete
Legislative had to quail, and sit quiet. And now if a young omnipotent
Convention will not so quail and sit, what steps shall it take? Have a
Departmental Guard in its pay, answer the Girondins, and Friends of Order!
A Guard of National Volunteers, missioned from all the Eighty-three or
Eighty-five Departments, for that express end; these will keep
Septemberers, tumultuous Communes in a due state of submissiveness, the
Convention in a due state of sovereignty. So have the Friends of Order
answered, sitting in Committee, and reporting; and even a Decree has been
passed of the required tenour. Nay certain Departments, as the Var or
Marseilles, in mere expectation and assurance of a Decree, have their
contingent of Volunteers already on march: brave Marseillese, foremost on
the Tenth of August, will not be hindmost here; 'fathers gave their sons a
musket and twenty-five louis,' says Barbaroux, 'and bade them march.'
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A guard for the Convention is proposed.
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Can any thing be properer? A Republic that will found itself on justice
must needs investigate September Massacres; a Convention calling itself
National, ought it not to be guarded by a National force? — Alas, Reader, it
seems so to the eye: and yet there is much to be said and argued. Thou
beholdest here the small beginning of a Controversy, which mere logic will
not settle. Two small well-springs, September, Departmental Guard, or
rather at bottom they are but one and the same small well-spring; which
will swell and widen into waters of bitterness; all manner of subsidiary
streams and brooks of bitterness flowing in, from this side and that; till
it become a wide river of bitterness, of rage and separation, — which can
subside only into the Catacombs. This Departmental Guard, decreed by
overwhelming majorities, and then repealed for peace's sake, and not to
insult Paris, is again decreed more than once; nay it is partially
executed, and the very men that are to be of it are seen visibly parading
the Paris streets, — shouting once, being overtaken with liquor: "A bas
Marat, Down with Marat!" (Hist. Parl. xx. 184.)
Nevertheless, decreed
never so often, it is repealed just as often; and continues, for some seven
months, an angry noisy Hypothesis only: a fair Possibility struggling to
become a Reality, but which shall never be one; which, after endless
struggling, shall, in February next, sink into sad rest, — dragging much
along with it. So singular are the ways of men and honourable Members.
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And immediately becomes the focus of great bitterness. The Commune and
the Paris delegates oppose the idea, which is shelved only to resurface
several times more.
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But on this fourth day of the Convention's existence, as we said, which is
the 25th of September 1792, there comes Committee Report on that Decree of
the Departmental Guard, and speech of repealing it; there come
denunciations of anarchy, of a Dictatorship, — which let the incorruptible
Robespierre consider: there come denunciations of a certain Journal de la
République, once called Ami du Peuple;
and so thereupon there comes,
visibly stepping up, visibly standing aloft on the Tribune, ready to speak,
the Bodily Spectrum of People's-Friend Marat! Shriek, ye Seven Hundred and
Forty-nine; it is verily Marat, he and not another. Marat is no phantasm
of the brain, or mere lying impress of Printer's Types; but a thing
material, of joint and sinew, and a certain small stature: ye behold him
there, in his blackness in his dingy squalor, a living fraction of Chaos
and Old Night; visibly incarnate, desirous to speak. "It appears," says
Marat to the shrieking Assembly, "that a great many persons here are
enemies of mine." "All! All!" shriek hundreds of voices: enough to drown
any People's-Friend. But Marat will not drown: he speaks and croaks
explanation; croaks with such reasonableness, air of sincerity, that
repentant pity smothers anger, and the shrieks subside or even become
applauses. For this Convention is unfortunately the crankest of machines:
it shall be pointing eastward, with stiff violence, this moment; and then
do but touch some spring dexterously, the whole machine, clattering and
jerking seven-hundred-fold, will whirl with huge crash, and, next moment,
is pointing westward! Thus Marat, absolved and applauded, victorious in
this turn of fence, is, as the Debate goes on, prickt at again by some
dexterous Girondin; and then and shrieks rise anew, and Decree of
Accusation is on the point of passing; till the dingy People's-Friend bobs
aloft once more; croaks once more persuasive stillness, and the Decree of
Accusation sinks, Whereupon he draws forth — a Pistol; and setting it to his
Head, the seat of such thought and prophecy, says: "If they had passed
their Accusation Decree, he, the People's-Friend, would have blown his
brains out." A People's Friend has that faculty in him. For the rest, as
to this of the two hundred and sixty thousand Aristocrat Heads, Marat
candidly says, "C'est là mon avis, such is my opinion."
Also it is not
indisputable: "No power on Earth can prevent me from seeing into traitors,
and unmasking them," — by my superior originality of mind?
(Moniteur Newspaper, Nos. 271, 280, 294,
Année première; Moore's Journal, ii. 21,
157, etc. (which, however, may perhaps, as in similar cases, be only a copy
of the Newspaper).) An honourable member like this Friend of the People
few terrestrial Parliaments have had.
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Marat is indicted for his part in the September Massacre, but talks his way out
of a Decree of Accusation (the equivalent of a Bill of Attainder).
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We observe, however, that this first onslaught by the Friends of Order, as
sharp and prompt as it was, has failed. For neither can Robespierre,
summoned out by talk of Dictatorship, and greeted with the like rumour on
shewing himself, be thrown into Prison, into Accusation; — not though
Barbaroux openly bear testimony against him, and sign it on paper. With
such sanctified meekness does the Incorruptible lift his seagreen cheek to
the smiter; lift his thin voice, and with jesuitic dexterity plead, and
prosper: asking at last, in a prosperous manner: "But what witnesses has
the Citoyen Barbaroux to support his testimony?" "Moi!" cries hot
Rebecqui, standing up, striking his breast with both hands, and answering,
"Me!" (Moniteur, ut supra; Séance du 25
Septembre.) Nevertheless the
Seagreen pleads again, and makes it good: the long hurlyburly, 'personal
merely,' while so much public matter lies fallow, has ended in the order of
the day. O Friends of the Gironde, why will you occupy our august sessions
with mere paltry Personalities, while the grand Nationality lies in such a
state? — The Gironde has touched, this day, on the foul black-spot of its
fair Convention Domain; has trodden on it, and yet not trodden it down.
Alas, it is a well-spring, as we said, this black-spot; and will not tread
down!
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Neither does Barbaroux's condemnation of Robespierre result in a decree.
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May we not conjecture therefore that round this grand enterprise of Making
the Constitution there will, as heretofore, very strange embroilments
gather, and questions and interests complicate themselves; so that after a
few or even several months, the Convention will not have settled every
thing? Alas, a whole tide of questions comes rolling, boiling; growing
ever wider, without end! Among which, apart from this question of
September and Anarchy, let us notice those, which emerge oftener than the
others, and promise to become Leading Questions: of the Armies; of the
Subsistences; thirdly, of the Dethroned King.
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Dozens of questions face the assembly, chief among which are the defense;
the distribution of grain; and the fate of Louis XVI.
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As to the Armies, Public Defence must evidently be put on a proper footing;
for Europe seems coalising itself again; one is apprehensive even England
will join it. Happily Dumouriez prospers in the North; — nay what if he
should prove too prosperous, and become Liberticide,
Murderer of Freedom! —
Dumouriez prospers, through this winter season; yet not without lamentable
complaints. Sleek
Pache?,
the Swiss Schoolmaster, he that sat frugal in his
Alley, the wonder of neighbours, has got lately — whither thinks the Reader?
To be Minister of war! Madame Roland, struck with his sleek ways,
recommended him to her Husband as Clerk: the sleek Clerk had no need of
salary, being of true Patriotic temper; he would come with a bit of bread
in his pocket, to save dinner and time; and, munching incidentally, do
three men's work in a day; punctual, silent, frugal, — the sleek
Tartuffe?
that he was. Wherefore Roland, in the late Overturn, recommended him to be
War-Minister. And now, it would seem, he is secretly undermining Roland;
playing into the hands of your hotter Jacobins and September Commune; and
cannot, like strict Roland, be the Veto des Coquins!
[Veto of scoundrals] (Madame Roland,
Mémoires, ii. 237, etc.)
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Although Dumouriez has repulsed the Austrians and is moving into Belgium,
the War Ministry has passed to Jean Pache and will soon be a sanscoulotte
stronghold.
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How the sleek Pache might mine and undermine, one knows not well; this
however one does know: that his War-Office has become a den of thieves and
confusion, such as all men shudder to behold. That the Citizen
Hassenfratz?,
as Head-Clerk, sits there in bonnet rouge, in rapine, in
violence, and some Mathematical calculation; a most insolent,
red-nightcapped man. That Pache munches his pocket-loaf, amid head-clerks and
sub-clerks, and has spent all the War-Estimates: that Furnishers scour in
gigs, over all districts of France, and drive bargains; — and lastly that
the Army gets next to no furniture. No shoes, though it is winter; no
clothes; some have not even arms: 'In the Army of the South,' complains an
honourable Member, 'there are thirty thousand pairs of breeches wanting,' —
a most scandalous want.
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The War Ministry, never efficient, becomes sloth-like.
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Roland's strict soul is sick to see the course things take: but what can
he do? Keep his own Department strict; rebuke, and repress wheresoever
possible; at lowest, complain. He can complain in Letter after Letter, to
a National Convention, to France, to Posterity, the Universe; grow ever
more querulous indignant; — till at last may he not grow wearisome? For is
not this continual text of his, at bottom a rather barren one: How
astonishing that in a time of Revolt and abrogation of all Law but Cannon
Law, there should be such Unlawfulness? Intrepid Veto-of-Scoundrels,
narrow-faithful, respectable, methodic man, work thou in that manner, since
happily it is thy manner, and wear thyself away; though ineffectual, not
profitless in it — then nor now! — The brave Dame Roland, bravest of all
French women, begins to have misgivings: the figure of Danton has too much
of the
'Sardanapalus?
character,' at a Republican Rolandin Dinner-table:
Clootz?,
Speaker of Mankind, proses sad stuff about a Universal Republic, or
union of all Peoples and Kindreds in one and the same Fraternal Bond; of
which Bond, how it is to be tied, one unhappily sees not.
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Roland, Interior Minister, remains honest but ineffectual.
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It is also an indisputable, unaccountable or accountable fact that Grains
are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Riots for grain, tumultuous Assemblages
demanding to have the price of grain fixed abound far and near. The Mayor
of Paris and other poor Mayors are like to have their difficulties.
Pétion
was re-elected Mayor of Paris; but has declined; being now a Convention
Legislator. Wise surely to decline: for, besides this of Grains and all
the rest, there is in these times an Improvised Insurrectionary Commune
passing into an Elected legal one; getting their accounts settled, — not
without irritancy! Pétion has declined: nevertheless many do covet and
canvass. After months of scrutinising, balloting, arguing and jargoning,
one Doctor Chambon gets the post of honour: who will not long keep it; but
be, as we shall see, literally crushed out of it.
(Dictionnaire des Hommes Marquans, para Chambon.)
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The belief that grain is scarce in the cities complicates all local and
national politics.
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Think also if the private Sansculotte has not his difficulties, in a time
of dearth! Bread, according to the People's-Friend, may be some 'six sous
per pound, a day's wages some fifteen;' and grim winter here. How the Poor
Man continues living, and so seldom starves, by miracle! Happily, in these
days, he can enlist, and have himself shot by the Austrians, in an
unusually satisfactory manner: for the Rights of Man. — But Commandant
Santerre?,
in this so straitened condition of the flour-market, and state of
Equality and Liberty, proposes, through the Newspapers, two remedies, or at
least palliatives: First, that all classes of men should live, two days of
the week, on potatoes; then second, that every man should hang his dog.
Hereby, as the Commandant thinks, the saving, which indeed he computes to
so many sacks, would be very considerable. A cheerfuller form of
inventive-stupidity than Commandant Santerre's dwells in no human soul.
Inventive-stupidity, imbedded in health, courage and good-nature: much to
be commended. "My whole strength," he tells the Convention once, "is, day
and night, at the service of my fellow-Citizens: if they find me
worthless, they will dismiss me; I will return and brew beer."
(Moniteur (in Hist. Parl. xx. 412).)
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Carlyle doubts the severity of the dearth and makes fun of Santerre's
alleged solution to it.
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Or figure what correspondences a poor Roland, Minister of the Interior,
must have, on this of Grains alone! Free-trade in Grain, impossibility to
fix the Prices of Grain; on the other hand, clamour and necessity to fix
them: Political Economy lecturing from the Home Office, with demonstration
clear as Scripture;—ineffectual for the empty National Stomach. The Mayor
of Chartres, like to be eaten himself, cries to the Convention: the
Convention sends honourable Members in Deputation; who endeavour to feed
the multitude by miraculous spiritual methods; but cannot. The multitude,
in spite of all Eloquence, come bellowing round; will have the Grain-Prices
fixed, and at a moderate elevation; or else — the honourable Deputies hanged
on the spot! The honourable Deputies, reporting this business, admit that,
on the edge of horrid death, they did fix, or affect to fix the Price of
Grain: for which, be it also noted, the Convention, a Convention that will
not be trifled with, sees good to reprimand them. (Hist. Parl.
xx. 431-440.)
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There is a general clamor for fixed maximum prices for commodities,
particularly grain. The Roland ministry and a majority of the Convention
resist.
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But as to the origin of these Grain Riots, is it not most probably your
secret Royalists again? Glimpses of Priests were discernible in this of
Chartres, — to the eye of Patriotism. Or indeed may not 'the root of it all
lie in the Temple Prison, in the heart of a perjured King,' well as we
guard him? (Ibid. 409.)
Unhappy perjured King! — And so there shall be
Baker's Queues, by and by, more sharp-tempered than ever: on every Baker's
door-rabbet an iron ring, and coil of rope; whereon, with firm grip, on
this side and that, we form our Queue: but mischievous deceitful persons
cut the rope, and our Queue becomes a ravelment; wherefore the coil must be
made of iron chain. (Mercier, Nouveau Paris.)
Also there shall be Prices
of Grain well fixed; but then no grain purchasable by them: bread not to
be had except by Ticket from the Mayor, few ounces per mouth daily; after
long swaying, with firm grip, on the chain of the Queue. And Hunger shall
stalk direful; and Wrath and Suspicion, whetted to the Preternatural pitch,
shall stalk; — as those other preternatural 'shapes of Gods in their
wrathfulness' were discerned stalking, 'in glare and gloom of that
fire-ocean,' when Troy Town fell! —
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When price controls are finally implemented, they have the predicted effect
of reducing supplies further. There is real hunger now, and it is rumored
a royalist — or royal — plot.
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But the question more pressing than all on the Legislator, as yet, is this
third: What shall be done with King Louis?
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King Louis, now King and Majesty to his own family alone, in their own
Prison Apartment alone, has been Louis Capet and the Traitor Veto with the
rest of France. Shut in his Circuit of the Temple, he has heard and seen
the loud whirl of things; yells of September Massacres, Brunswick
war-thunders dying off in disaster and discomfiture; he passive, a spectator
merely; — waiting whither it would please to whirl with him. From the
neighbouring windows, the curious, not without pity, might see him walk
daily, at a certain hour, in the Temple Garden, with his Queen, Sister and
two Children, all that now belongs to him in this Earth.
(Moore, i. 123;
ii. 224, etc.) Quietly he walks and waits; for he is not of lively
feelings, and is of a devout heart. The wearied Irresolute has, at least,
no need of resolving now. His daily meals, lessons to his Son, daily walk
in the Garden, daily game at ombre or drafts, fill up the day: the morrow
will provide for itself.
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The king and his family are imprisoned and closely guarded in the Temple.
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The morrow indeed; and yet How? Louis asks, How? France, with perhaps
still more solicitude, asks, How? A King dethroned by insurrection is
verily not easy to dispose of. Keep him prisoner, he is a secret centre
for the Disaffected, for endless plots, attempts and hopes of theirs.
Banish him, he is an open centre for them; his royal war-standard, with
what of divinity it has, unrolls itself, summoning the world. Put him to
death? A cruel questionable extremity that too: and yet the likeliest in
these extreme circumstances, of insurrectionary men, whose own life and
death lies staked: accordingly it is said, from the last step of the
throne to the first of the scaffold there is short distance.
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Of the possible fates of Louis and family, the least dangerous for those now
in power seems to be death.
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But, on the whole, we will remark here that this business of Louis looks
altogether different now, as seen over Seas and at the distance of forty-four
years, than it looked then, in France, and struggling, confused all
round one. For indeed it is a most lying thing that same Past Tense
always: so beautiful, sad, almost Elysian-sacred, 'in the moonlight of
Memory,' it seems; and seems only. For observe: always, one most
important element is surreptitiously (we not noticing it) withdrawn from
the Past Time: the haggard element of Fear! Not there does Fear dwell,
nor Uncertainty, nor Anxiety; but it dwells here; haunting us, tracking us;
running like an accursed ground-discord through all the music-tones of our
Existence; — making the Tense a mere Present one! Just so is it with this
of Louis. Why smite the fallen? asks Magnanimity, out of danger now. He
is fallen so low this once-high man; no criminal nor traitor, how far from
it; but the unhappiest of Human Solecisms: whom if abstract Justice had to
pronounce upon, she might well become concrete Pity, and pronounce only
sobs and dismissal!
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It is difficult for us to understand motives of 50 (or 210) years past. Some
elements then important are bound to be now obscure or lost. Carlyle
suggests that fear was one such element that drove the regicides.
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So argues retrospective Magnanimity: but Pusillanimity, present,
prospective? Reader, thou hast never lived, for months, under the rustle
of Prussian gallows-ropes; never wert thou portion of a National Sahara-waltz,
Twenty-five millions running distracted to fight Brunswick! Knights
Errant themselves, when they conquered Giants, usually slew the Giants:
quarter was only for other Knights Errant, who knew courtesy and the laws
of battle. The French Nation, in simultaneous, desperate dead-pull, and as
if by miracle of madness, has pulled down the most dread Goliath, huge with
the growth of ten centuries; and cannot believe, though his giant bulk,
covering acres, lies prostrate, bound with peg and packthread, that he will
not rise again, man-devouring; that the victory is not partly a dream.
Terror has its scepticism; miraculous victory its rage of vengeance. Then
as to criminalty, is the prostrated Giant, who will devour us if he rise,
an innocent Giant? Curate Grégoire, who indeed is now Constitutional
Bishop Grégoire, asserts, in the heat of eloquence, that Kingship by the
very nature of it is a crime capital; that Kings' Houses are as wild-beasts'
dens. (Moniteur, Séance du 21 Septembre,
Année 1er (1792).)
Lastly consider this: that there is on record a Trial of Charles First!
This printed Trial of Charles First is sold and read every where at
present: (Moore's Journal, ii. 165.) —
Quelle spectacle! Thus did the
English People judge their Tyrant, and become the first of Free Peoples:
which feat, by the grace of Destiny, may not France now rival? Scepticism
of terror, rage of miraculous victory, sublime spectacle to the universe, —
all things point one fatal way.
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The fear was real and not to be sneered at now. The fear, the enthusiasms of
victory unexpectedly achieved, and a desire to show the strength and justice
of the revolution, all suggest Louis must die.
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Such leading questions, and their endless incidental ones: of September
Anarchists and Departmental Guard; of Grain Riots, plaintiff Interior
Ministers; of Armies, Hassenfratz dilapidations; and what is to be done
with Louis, — beleaguer and embroil this Convention; which would so gladly
make the Constitution rather. All which questions too, as we often urge of
such things, are in growth; they grow in every French head; and can be seen
growing also, very curiously, in this mighty welter of Parliamentary
Debate, of Public Business which the Convention has to do. A question
emerges, so small at first; is put off, submerged; but always re-emerges
bigger than before. It is a curious, indeed an indescribable sort of
growth which such things have.
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The Convention has a large and evolving set of issues to decide.
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We perceive, however, both by its frequent re-emergence and by its rapid
enlargement of bulk, that this Question of King Louis will take the lead of
all the rest. And truly, in that case, it will take the lead in a much
deeper sense. For as Aaron's Rod swallowed all the other Serpents; so will
the Foremost Question, whichever may get foremost, absorb all other
questions and interests; and from it and the decision of it will they all,
so to speak, be born, or new-born, and have shape, physiognomy and destiny
corresponding. It was appointed of Fate that, in this wide-weltering,
strangely growing, monstrous stupendous imbroglio of Convention Business,
the grand First-Parent of all the questions, controversies, measures and
enterprises which were to be evolved there to the world's astonishment,
should be this Question of King Louis.
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But the fate of the King, for many reasons, had to be decided first.
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The Sixth of November, 1792, was a great day for the Republic: outwardly,
over the Frontiers; inwardly, in the Salle de Manége.
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Outwardly: for Dumouriez, overrunning the Netherlands, did, on that day,
come in contact with
Saxe-Teschen?
and the Austrians; Dumouriez wide-winged,
they wide-winged; at and around the village of Jemappes, near Mons. And
fire-hail is whistling far and wide there, the great guns playing, and the
small; so many green Heights getting fringed and maned with red Fire. And
Dumouriez is swept back on this wing, and swept back on that, and is like
to be swept back utterly; when he rushes up in person, the prompt
Polymetis; speaks a prompt word or two; and then, with clear tenor-pipe,
'uplifts the Hymn of the Marseillese, entonna la Marseillaise,'
(Dumouriez,
Memoires, iii. 174.)
ten thousand tenor or bass pipes joining; or say, some
Forty Thousand in all; for every heart leaps at the sound: and so with
rhythmic march-melody, waxing ever quicker, to double and to treble quick,
they rally, they advance, they rush, death-defying, man-devouring; carry
batteries, redoutes, whatsoever is to be carried; and, like the
fire-whirlwind, sweep all manner of Austrians from the scene of action. Thus,
through the hands of Dumouriez, may
Rouget de Lille?,
in figurative speech,
be said to have gained, miraculously, like another Orpheus, by his
Marseillese fiddle-strings (fidibus canoris) a Victory of Jemappes; and
conquered the Low Countries.
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Dumouriez routs the Austrians at Jemappes. Belgium lies open to him.
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Young General
Égalité?,
it would seem,
shone brave among the bravest on this
occasion. Doubtless a brave Égalité;
— whom however does not Dumouriez
rather talk of oftener than need were? The Mother Society has her own
thoughts. As for the Elder
Égalité?
he flies low at this time; appears in
the Convention for some half-hour daily, with rubicund, pre-occupied, or
impressive quasi-contemptuous countenance; and then takes himself away.
(Moore, ii. 148.)
The Netherlands are conquered, at least overrun.
Jacobin missionaries, your Prolys, Pereiras, follow in the train of the
Armies; also Convention Commissioners, melting church-plate,
revolutionising and remodelling — among whom Danton, in brief space, does
immensities of business; not neglecting his own wages and trade-profits, it
is thought. Hassenfratz dilapidates at home; Dumouriez grumbles and they
dilapidate abroad: within the walls there is sinning, and without the
walls there is sinning.
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All the seemingly intractable problems remain, but at least the northeast
border is temporarily secure.
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But in the Hall of the Convention, at the same hour with this victory of
Jemappes, there went another thing forward: Report, of great length, from
the proper appointed Committee, on the Crimes of Louis. The Galleries
listen breathless; take comfort, ye Galleries: Deputy
Valazé?,
Reporter on
this occasion, thinks Louis very criminal; and that, if convenient, he
should be tried; — poor Girondin Valazé, who may be tried himself, one day!
Comfortable so far. Nay here comes a second Committee-reporter, Deputy
Mailhe?,
with a Legal Argument, very prosy to read now, very refreshing to
hear then, That, by the Law of the Country, Louis Capet was only called
Inviolable by a figure of rhetoric; but at bottom was perfectly violable,
triable; that he can, and even should be tried. This Question of Louis,
emerging so often as an angry confused possibility, and submerging again,
has emerged now in an articulate shape.
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The committees of the Convention report that Louis can and should be tried.
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Patriotism growls indignant joy. The so-called reign of Equality is not to
be a mere name, then, but a thing! Try Louis Capet? scornfully ejaculates
Patriotism: Mean criminals go to the gallows for a purse cut; and this
chief criminal, guilty of a France cut; of a France slashed asunder with
Clotho?-scissors
and Civil war; with his victims 'twelve hundred on the
Tenth of August alone' lying low in the Catacombs, fattening the passes of
Argonne Wood, of Valmy and far Fields; he, such chief criminal, shall not
even come to the bar?—For, alas, O Patriotism! add we, it was from of old
said, The loser pays! It is he who has to pay all scores,
run up by
whomsoever; on him must all breakages and charges fall; and the twelve
hundred on the Tenth of August are not rebel traitors, but victims and
martyrs: such is the law of quarrel.
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It is strongly argued in the Convention that no trial is necessary. Guilt is
evident and the just punishment clear.
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Patriotism, nothing doubting, watches over this Question of the Trial, now
happily emerged in an articulate shape; and will see it to maturity, if the
gods permit. With a keen solicitude Patriotism watches; getting ever
keener, at every new difficulty, as Girondins and false brothers interpose
delays; till it get a keenness as of fixed-idea, and will have this Trial
and no earthly thing instead of it,—if Equality be not a name. Love of
Equality; then scepticism of terror, rage of victory, sublime spectacle of
the universe: all these things are strong.
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But the factors mentioned earlier urge a trial.
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But indeed this Question of the Trial, is it not to all persons a most
grave one; filling with dubiety many a Legislative head! Regicide? asks
the Gironde Respectability: To kill a king, and become the horror of
respectable nations and persons? But then also, to save a king; to lose
one's footing with the decided Patriot; and undecided Patriot, though never
so respectable, being mere hypothetic froth and no footing? — The dilemma
presses sore; and between the horns of it you wriggle round and round.
Decision is nowhere, save in the Mother Society and her Sons. These have
decided, and go forward: the others wriggle round uneasily within their
dilemma-horns, and make way nowhither.
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Those who would avoid a trial can marshall no public support. The Jacobins
favor the trial.
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But how this Question of the Trial grew laboriously, through the weeks of
gestation, now that it has been articulated or conceived, were superfluous
to trace here. It emerged and submerged among the infinite of questions
and embroilments. The Veto of
Scoundrels?
writes plaintive Letters as to
Anarchy; 'concealed Royalists,' aided by Hunger, produce Riots about Grain.
Alas, it is but a week ago, these Girondins made a new fierce onslaught on
the September Massacres!
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Amid the more important work of feeding a hungry people and resisting threats
to order, a consensus grows in favor of a trial.
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For, one day, among the last of October, Robespierre, being summoned to the
tribune by some new hint of that old calumny of the Dictatorship, was
speaking and pleading there, with more and more comfort to himself; till,
rising high in heart, he cried out valiantly: Is there any man here that
dare specifically accuse me? "Moi!" exclaimed one.
Pause of deep silence:
a lean angry little Figure, with broad bald brow, strode swiftly towards
the tribune, taking papers from its pocket: "I accuse thee,
Robespierre,"—I, Jean Baptiste
Louvet!?
The Seagreen became tallow-green; shrinking to a
corner of the tribune: Danton cried, "Speak, Robespierre, there are many
good citizens that listen;" but the tongue refused its office. And so
Louvet, with a shrill tone, read and recited crime after crime:
dictatorial temper, exclusive popularity, bullying at elections, mob-retinue,
September Massacres; — till all the Convention shrieked again, and
had almost indicted the Incorruptible there on the spot. Never did the
Incorruptible run such a risk. Louvet, to his dying day, will regret that
the Gironde did not take a bolder attitude, and extinguish him there and
then.
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Robespierre reaches the low point of his power and influence in the Convention.
He will recover.
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Not so, however: the Incorruptible, about to be indicted in this sudden
manner, could not be refused a week of delay. That week, he is not idle;
nor is the Mother Society idle,—fierce-tremulous for her chosen son. He
is ready at the day with his written Speech; smooth as a Jesuit Doctor's;
and convinces some. And now? Why, now lazy Vergniaud does not rise with
Demosthenic thunder; poor Louvet, unprepared, can do little or nothing:
Barrère proposes that these comparatively despicable 'personalities' be
dismissed by order of the day! Order of the day it accordingly is.
Barbaroux cannot even get a hearing; not though he rush down to the Bar,
and demand to be heard there as a petitioner. (Louvet,
Mémoires (Paris, 1823) p. 52; Moniteur (Séances du 29 Octobre,
5 Novembre, 1792); Moore (ii. 178), etc.)
The convention, eager for public business (with that first
articulate emergence of the Trial just coming on), dismisses these
comparative misères and despicabilities:
splenetic Louvet must digest his
spleen, regretfully for ever: Robespierre, dear to Patriotism, is dearer
for the dangers he has run.
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For a variety of reasons, the accusation against Robespierre is not acted on.
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This is the second grand attempt by our Girondin Friends of Order, to
extinguish that black-spot in their domain; and we see they have made it
far blacker and wider than before! Anarchy, September Massacre: it is a
thing that lies hideous in the general imagination; very detestable to the
undecided Patriot, of Respectability: a thing to be harped on as often as
need is. Harp on it, denounce it, trample it, ye Girondin Patriots: — and
yet behold, the black-spot will not trample down; it will only, as we say,
trample blacker and wider: fools, it is no black-spot of the surface, but
a well-spring of the deep! Consider rightly, it is the apex of the
everlasting Abyss, this black-spot, looking up as water through thin
ice; — say, as the region of Nether Darkness through your thin film of Gironde
Regulation and Respectability; trample it not, lest the film break, and
then—!
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Carlyle sees the forces that will bring down the middle-class
revolution as only the visible fragment of a vast and uncontrollable disorder
set loose by the destruction of the old constitution.
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The truth is, if our Gironde Friends had an understanding of it, where were
French Patriotism, with all its eloquence, at this moment, had not that
same great Nether Deep, of Bedlam, Fanaticism and Popular wrath and
madness, risen unfathomable on the Tenth of August? French Patriotism were
an eloquent Reminiscence; swinging on Prussian gibbets. Nay, where, in few
months, were it still, should the same great Nether Deep subside?—Nay, as
readers of Newspapers pretend to recollect, this hatefulness of the
September Massacre is itself partly an after-thought: readers of
Newspapers can quote Gorsas and various Brissotins approving of the
September Massacre, at the time it happened; and calling it a salutary
vengeance! (See Hist. Parl. xvii. 401;
Newspapers by Gorsas and others (cited ibid. 428.)
So that the real grief, after all, were not so much
righteous horror, as grief that one's own power was departing? Unhappy
Girondins!
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And in Carlyle's view it is that dark force which sustains the revolution.
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In the Jacobin Society, therefore, the decided Patriot complains that here
are men who with their private ambitions and animosities, will ruin
Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood, all three: they check the spirit of
Patriotism, throw stumbling-blocks in its way; and instead of pushing on,
all shoulders at the wheel, will stand idle there, spitefully clamouring
what foul ruts there are, what rude jolts we give! To which the Jacobin
Society answers with angry roar;—with angry shriek, for there are
Citoyennes too, thick crowded in the galleries here. Citoyennes who bring
their seam with them, or their knitting-needles; and shriek or knit as the
case needs; famed Tricoteuses, Patriot Knitters; — Mère
Duchesse, or the
like Deborah and Mother of the Faubourgs, giving the keynote. It is a
changed Jacobin Society; and a still changing. Where Mother Duchess now
sits, authentic Duchesses have sat. High-rouged dames went once in jewels
and spangles; now, instead of jewels, you may take the knitting-needles and
leave the rouge: the rouge will gradually give place to natural brown,
clean washed or even unwashed; and Demoiselle
Theroigne?
herself get
scandalously fustigated [cudgeled].
Strange enough: it is the same tribune raised in
mid-air, where a high Mirabeau, a high Barnave and Aristocrat Lameths once
thundered: whom gradually your Brissots, Guadets, Vergniauds, a hotter
style of Patriots in bonnet rouge, did displace; red heat, as one may say,
superseding light. And now your Brissots in turn, and Brissotins,
Rolandins, Girondins, are becoming supernumerary; must desert the sittings,
or be expelled: the light of the Mighty Mother is burning not red but
blue!—Provincial Daughter-Societies loudly disapprove these things; loudly
demand the swift reinstatement of such eloquent Girondins, the swift
'erasure of Marat, radiation de Marat.' The Mother Society, so far as
natural reason can predict, seems ruining herself. Nevertheless she has,
at all crises, seemed so; she has a preternatural life in her, and will not
ruin.
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The Jacobins Club, long the soul of the revolution, is becoming more radical.
Middle-class revolutionaries, who had displaced less progressive members the
previous year, find themselves forced out of the society.
|
| |
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But, in a fortnight more, this great Question of the Trial, while the fit
Committee is assiduously but silently working on it, receives an unexpected
stimulus. Our readers remember poor Louis's turn for smithwork: how, in
old happier days, a certain Sieur
Gamain?
of Versailles was wont to come
over, and instruct him in lock-making; — often scolding him, they say for
his numbness. By whom, nevertheless, the royal Apprentice had learned
something of that craft. Hapless Apprentice; perfidious Master-Smith! For
now, on this 20th of November 1792, dingy Smith Gamain comes over to the
Paris Municipality, over to Minister Roland, with hints that he, Smith
Gamain, knows a thing; that, in May last, when traitorous Correspondence
was so brisk, he and the royal Apprentice fabricated an 'Iron Press,
Armoire de Fer,' cunningly inserting the same in a wall of the royal
chamber in the Tuileries; invisible under the wainscot; where doubtless it
still sticks! Perfidious Gamain, attended by the proper Authorities, finds
the wainscot panel which none else can find; wrenches it up; discloses the
Iron Press, — full of Letters and Papers! Roland clutches them out; conveys
them over in towels to the fit assiduous Committee, which sits hard by. In
towels, we say, and without notarial inventory; an oversight on the part of
Roland.
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A secret cache of the King's letters is discovered in the Tuileries.
|
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Here, however, are Letters enough: which disclose to a demonstration the
Correspondence of a traitorous self-preserving Court; and this not with
Traitors only, but even with Patriots, so-called!
Barnave's?
treason, of
Correspondence with the Queen, and friendly advice to her, ever since that
Varennes Business, is hereby manifest: how happy that we have him, this
Barnave, lying safe in the Prison of Grenoble, since September last, for he
had long been suspect!
Talleyrand's?
treason, many a man's treason, if not
manifest hereby, is next to it.
Mirabeau's?
treason: wherefore his Bust in
the Hall of the Convention 'is veiled with gauze,' till we ascertain.
Alas, it is too ascertainable! His Bust in the Hall of the Jacobins,
denounced by Robespierre from the tribune in mid-air, is not veiled, it is
instantly broken to sherds; a Patriot mounting swiftly with a ladder, and
shivering it down on the floor; — it and others: amid shouts.
(Journal des Débats des Jacobins
(in Hist. Parl. xxii. 296.) Such is their recompense
and amount of wages, at this date: on the principle of supply and demand!
Smith Gamain, inadequately recompensed for the present, comes, some fifteen
months after, with a humble Petition; setting forth that no sooner was that
important Iron Press finished off by him, than (as he now bethinks himself)
Louis gave him a large glass of wine. Which large glass of wine did
produce in the stomach of Sieur Gamain the terriblest effects, evidently
tending towards death, and was then brought up by an emetic; but has,
notwithstanding, entirely ruined the constitution of Sieur Gamain; so that
he cannot work for his family (as he now bethinks himself). The recompense
of which is
'Pension of Twelve Hundred Francs,' and 'honourable mention.'
So different is the ratio of demand and supply at different times.
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The letters impeach not only Louis and Marie Antoinette, but several heroes
of the revolution, including Mirabeau and Barnave.
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Thus, amid obstructions and stimulating furtherances, has the Question of
the Trial to grow; emerging and submerging; fostered by solicitous
Patriotism. Of the Orations that were spoken on it, of the painfully
devised Forms of Process for managing it, the Law Arguments to prove it
lawful, and all the infinite floods of Juridical and other ingenuity and
oratory, be no syllable reported in this History. Lawyer ingenuity is
good: but what can it profit here? If the truth must be spoken, O august
Senators, the only Law in this case is: Vae victis, the loser pays!
Seldom did Robespierre say a wiser word than the hint he gave to that
effect, in his oration, that it was needless to speak of Law, that here, if
never elsewhere, our Right was Might. An oration admired almost to ecstasy
by the Jacobin Patriot: who shall say that Robespierre is not a
thorough-going man; bold in Logic at least? To the like effect, or still more
plainly, spake young Saint-Just, the black-haired, mild-toned youth.
Danton is on mission, in the Netherlands, during this preliminary work.
The rest, far as one reads, welter amid Law of Nations, Social Contract,
Juristics, Syllogistics; to us barren as the East wind. In fact, what can
be more unprofitable than the sight of Seven Hundred and Forty-nine
ingenious men, struggling with their whole force and industry, for a long
course of weeks, to do at bottom this: To stretch out the old Formula and
Law Phraseology, so that it may cover the new, contradictory, entirely
uncoverable Thing? Whereby the poor Formula does but crack, and one's
honesty along with it! The thing that is palpably hot, burning, wilt thou
prove it, by syllogism, to be a freezing-mixture? This of stretching out
Formulas till they crack is, especially in times of swift change, one of
the sorrowfullest tasks poor Humanity has.
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Carlyle asserts that under law and custom the King could not be tried. But
that meant only that law and custom must be perverted or ignored. The
Convention agonized over the form of the perversion.
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Meanwhile, in a space of some five weeks, we have got to another emerging
of the Trial, and a more practical one than ever.
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The indictment of the king is read December 11, 1792.
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On Tuesday, eleventh of December, the King's Trial has emerged, very
decidedly: into the streets of Paris; in the shape of that green Carriage
of Mayor
Chambon?,
within which sits the King himself, with attendants, on
his way to the Convention Hall! Attended, in that green Carriage, by
Mayors Chambon, Procureurs
Chaumette?;
and outside of it by Commandants
Santerre, with cannon, cavalry and double row of infantry; all Sections
under arms, strong Patrols scouring all streets; so fares he, slowly
through the dull drizzling weather: and about two o'clock we behold him,
'in walnut-coloured great-coat, redingote noisette,'
descending through the
Place Vendôme, towards that Salle de Manége; to be indicted,
and judicially
interrogated. The mysterious Temple Circuit has given up its secret; which
now, in this walnut-coloured coat, men behold with eyes. The same bodily
Louis who was once Louis the Desired, fares there: hapless King, he is
getting now towards port; his deplorable farings and voyagings draw to a
close. What duty remains to him henceforth, that of placidly enduring, he
is fit to do.
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Louis is delivered under strong guard to the Convention.
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The singular Procession fares on; in silence, says Prudhomme, or amid
growlings of the Marseillese Hymn; in silence, ushers itself into the Hall
of the Convention, Santerre holding Louis's arm with his hand. Louis looks
round him, with composed air, to see what kind of Convention and Parliament
it is. Much changed indeed:—since February gone two years, when our
Constituent, then busy, spread fleur-de-lys velvet for us; and we came over
to say a kind word here, and they all started up swearing Fidelity; and all
France started up swearing, and made it a Feast of Pikes; which has ended
in this!
Barrère?,
who once 'wept' looking up from his
Editor's-Desk, looks
down now from his President's-Chair, with a list of Fifty-seven Questions;
and says, dry-eyed: "Louis, you may sit down." Louis sits down: it is
the very seat, they say, same timber and stuffing, from which he accepted
the Constitution, amid dancing and illumination, autumn gone a year. So
much woodwork remains identical; so much else is not identical. Louis sits
and listens, with a composed look and mind.
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Louis is interrogated in the hall where he, 15 months before, had accepted a
constitution which declared his person inviolable.
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Of the Fifty-seven Questions we shall not give so much as one. They are
questions captiously embracing all the main Documents seized on the Tenth
of August, or found lately in the Iron Press; embracing all the main
incidents of the Revolution History; and they ask, in substance, this:
Louis, who wert King, art thou not guilty to a certain extent, by act and
written document, of trying to continue King? Neither in the Answers is
there much notable. Mere quiet negations, for most part; an accused man
standing on the simple basis of No: I do not recognise that document; I
did not do that act; or did it according to the law that then was.
Whereupon the Fifty-seven Questions, and Documents to the number of a
Hundred and Sixty-two, being exhausted in this manner, Barrère finishes,
after some three hours, with his: "Louis, I invite you to withdraw."
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Louis for the most part denies the legitimacy of the documents presented
against him and otherwise pleads he acted within the law.
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Louis withdraws, under Municipal escort, into a neighbouring Committee-room;
having first, in leaving the bar, demanded to have Legal Counsel. He
declines refreshment, in this Committee-room, then, seeing Chaumette busy
with a small loaf which a grenadier had divided with him, says, he will
take a bit of bread. It is five o'clock; and he had breakfasted but
slightly in a morning of such drumming and alarm. Chaumette breaks his
half-loaf: the King eats of the crust; mounts the green Carriage, eating;
asks now what he shall do with the crumb? Chaumette's clerk takes it from
him; flings it out into the street. Louis says, It is pity to fling out
bread, in a time of dearth. "My grandmother," remarks Chaumette, "used to
say to me, Little boy, never waste a crumb of bread, you cannot make one."
"Monsieur Chaumette," answers Louis, "your grandmother seems to have been a
sensible woman." (Prudhomme's Newspaper
(in Hist. Parl. xxi. 314.) Poor
innocent mortal: so quietly he waits the drawing of the lot; — fit to do
this at least well; Passivity alone, without Activity, sufficing for it!
He talks once of travelling over France by and by, to have a geographical
and topographical view of it; being from of old fond of geography. — The
Temple Circuit again receives him, closes on him; gazing Paris may retire
to its hearths and coffee-houses, to its clubs and theatres: the damp
Darkness has sunk, and with it the drumming and patrolling of this strange
Day.
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Louis is now separated from his Queen and Family; given up to his simple
reflections and resources. Dull lie these stone walls round him; of his
loved ones none with him. In this state of 'uncertainty,' providing for
the worst, he writes his Will: a Paper which can still be read; full of
placidity, simplicity, pious sweetness. The Convention, after debate, has
granted him Legal Counsel, of his own choosing. Advocate
Target?
feels
himself 'too old,' being turned of fifty-four; and declines. He had gained
great honour once, defending Rohan the Necklace-Cardinal; but will gain
none here. Advocate
Tronchet?,
some ten years older, does not decline. Nay
behold, good old
Malesherbes?
steps forward voluntarily; to the last of his
fields, the good old hero! He is grey with seventy years: he says, 'I was
twice called to the Council of him who was my Master, when all the world
coveted that honour; and I owe him the same service now, when it has become
one which many reckon dangerous.' These two, with a younger
Desèse?,
whom they will select for pleading, are busy over that Fifty-and-sevenfold
Indictment, over the Hundred and Sixty-two Documents; Louis aiding them as
he can.
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Desèze, Tronchet and Malesherbes — a sort of "dream team" of that time
— undertake Louis' defense.
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A great Thing is now therefore in open progress; all men, in all lands,
watching it. By what Forms and Methods shall the Convention acquit itself,
in such manner that there rest not on it even the suspicion of blame?
Difficult that will be! The Convention, really much at a loss, discusses
and deliberates. All day from morning to night, day after day, the Tribune
drones with oratory on this matter; one must stretch the old Formula to
cover the new Thing. The Patriots of the Mountain, whetted ever keener,
clamour for despatch above all; the only good Form will be a swift one.
Nevertheless the Convention deliberates; the Tribune drones,—drowned
indeed in tenor, and even in treble, from time to time; the whole Hall
shrilling up round it into pretty frequent wrath and provocation. It has
droned and shrilled wellnigh a fortnight, before we can decide, this
shrillness getting ever shriller, That on Wednesday 26th of December, Louis
shall appear, and plead. His Advocates complain that it is fatally soon;
which they well might as Advocates: but without remedy; to Patriotism it
seems endlessly late.
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December 26, 1792 is set as the day for Louis' plea.
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On Wednesday, therefore, at the cold dark hour of eight in the morning, all
Senators are at their post. Indeed they warm the cold hour, as we find, by
a violent effervescence, such as is too common now; some
Louvet? or
?Buzot
attacking some
Tallien?,
Chabot?;
and so the whole Mountain effervescing
against the whole Gironde. Scarcely is this done, at nine, when Louis and
his three Advocates, escorted by the clang of arms and Santerre's National
force, enter the Hall.
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The plea is made before a turbulent Convention.
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Desèse unfolds his papers; honourably fulfilling his perilous office,
pleads for the space of three hours. An honourable Pleading, 'composed
almost overnight;' courageous yet discreet; not without ingenuity, and soft
pathetic eloquence: Louis fell on his neck, when they had withdrawn, and
said with tears, Mon pauvre Desèse.
Louis himself, before withdrawing, had
added a few words, "perhaps the last he would utter to them:" how it pained
his heart, above all things, to be held guilty of that bloodshed on the
Tenth of August; or of ever shedding or wishing to shed French blood. So
saying, he withdrew from that Hall; — having indeed finished his work there.
Many are the strange errands he has had thither; but this strange one is
the last.
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Desèze pleads eloquently, but changes few minds
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And now, why will the Convention loiter? Here is the Indictment and
Evidence; here is the Pleading: does not the rest follow of itself? The
Mountain, and Patriotism in general, clamours still louder for despatch;
for Permanent-session, till the task be done. Nevertheless a doubting,
apprehensive Convention decides that it will still deliberate first; that
all Members, who desire it, shall have leave to speak. — To your desks,
therefore, ye eloquent Members! Down with your thoughts, your echoes and
hearsays of thoughts: now is the time to shew oneself; France and the
Universe listens! Members are not wanting: Oration spoken Pamphlet
follows spoken Pamphlet, with what eloquence it can: President's List
swells ever higher with names claiming to speak; from day to day, all days
and all hours, the constant Tribune drones; — shrill Galleries supplying,
very variably, the tenor and treble. It were a dull tune otherwise.
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The Convention debates for several days, to the disgust of some.
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The Patriots, in Mountain and Galleries, or taking counsel nightly in
Section-house, in Mother Society, amid their shrill Tricoteuses, have to
watch lynx-eyed; to give voice when needful; occasionally very loud.
Deputy
Thuriot?,
he who was Advocate Thuriot, who was Elector Thuriot, and
from the top of the Bastille, saw Saint-Antoine rising like the ocean; this
Thuriot can stretch a Formula as heartily as most men. Cruel
Billaud? is
not silent, if you incite him. Nor is cruel
Jean-Bon?
silent; a kind of
Jesuit he too; — write him not, as the Dictionaries too often do, Jambon,
which signifies mere Ham.
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There is strong agitation by the radicals for a quick resolution.
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But, on the whole, let no man conceive it possible that Louis is not
guilty. The only question for a reasonable man is, or was: Can the
Convention judge Louis? Or must it be the whole People: in Primary
Assembly, and with delay? Always delay, ye Girondins, false hommes
d'état!
so bellows Patriotism, its patience almost failing. — But indeed, if we
consider it, what shall these poor Girondins do? Speak their convictions
that Louis is a Prisoner of War; and cannot be put to death without
injustice, solecism, peril? Speak such conviction; and lose utterly your
footing with the decided Patriot? Nay properly it is not even a
conviction, but a conjecture and dim puzzle. How many poor Girondins are
sure of but one thing: That a man and Girondin ought to have footing
somewhere, and to stand firmly on it; keeping well with the Respectable
Classes! This is what conviction and assurance of faith they have. They
must wriggle painfully between their dilemma-horns. (See
Extracts from their Newspapers, in Hist. Parl. xxi. 1-38, etc.)
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The Girondist party stands by their principles, though they have trouble
determining what those principles should be.
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Nor is France idle, nor Europe. It is a Heart this Convention, as we said,
which sends out influences, and receives them. A King's Execution, call it
Martyrdom, call it Punishment, were an influence! Two notable influences
this Convention has already sent forth, over all Nations; much to its own
detriment. On the 19th of November, it emitted a Decree, and has since
confirmed and unfolded the details of it. That any Nation which might see
good to shake off the fetters of Despotism was thereby, so to speak, the
Sister of France, and should have help and countenance. A Decree much
noised of by Diplomatists, Editors, International Lawyers; such a Decree as
no living Fetter of Despotism, nor Person in Authority anywhere, can
approve of! It was Deputy Chambon the Girondin who propounded this
Decree; — at bottom perhaps as a flourish of rhetoric.
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All European governments oppose France, if not over the matter of the King,
then over its declared intent to export revolution.
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The second influence we speak of had a still poorer origin: in the
restless loud-rattling slightly-furnished head of one Jacob Dupont from the
Loire country. The Convention is speculating on a plan of National
Education: Deputy Dupont in his speech says, "I am free to avow, M. le
Président, that I for my part am an Atheist," (Moniteur,
Séance du 14
Decembre 1792.) — thinking the world might like to know that.
The French
world received it without commentary; or with no audible commentary, so
loud was France otherwise. The Foreign world received it with confutation,
with horror and astonishment; (Mrs. Hannah More,
Letter to Jacob Dupont
(London, 1793); etc. etc.) a most miserable influence this! And now if to
these two were added a third influence, and sent pulsing abroad over all
the Earth: that of Regicide?
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There is also fear that France will export atheism.
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Foreign Courts interfere in this Trial of Louis; Spain, England: not to be
listened to; though they come, as it were, at least Spain comes, with the
olive-branch in one hand, and the sword without scabbard in the other. But
at home too, from out of this circumambient Paris and France, what
influences come thick-pulsing! Petitions flow in; pleading for equal
justice, in a reign of so-called Equality. The living Patriot pleads; — O
ye National Deputies, do not the dead Patriots plead? The Twelve Hundred
that lie in cold obstruction, do not they plead; and petition, in Death's
dumb-show, from their narrow house there, more eloquently than speech?
Crippled Patriots hop on crutches round the Salle de Manége, demanding
justice. The Wounded of the Tenth of August, the Widows and Orphans of the
Killed petition in a body; and hop and defile, eloquently mute, through the
Hall: one wounded Patriot, unable to hop, is borne on his bed thither, and
passes shoulder-high, in the horizontal posture. (Hist. Parl.
xxii. 131; Moore, etc.)
The Convention Tribune, which has paused at such sight,
commences again, — droning mere Juristic Oratory. But out of doors Paris is
piping ever higher. Bull-voiced St.
Huruge?
is heard; and the hysteric
eloquence of Mother Duchesse: 'Varlet, Apostle of Liberty,' with pike and
red cap, flies hastily, carrying his oratorical folding-stool. Justice on
the Traitor! cries all the Patriot world. Consider also this other cry,
heard loud on the streets: "Give us Bread, or else kill us!" Bread and
Equality; Justice on the Traitor, that we may have Bread!
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Foreign powers and the hungry masses of Paris each exert their own influences
on the trial.
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The Limited or undecided Patriot is set against the Decided. Mayor Chambon
heard of dreadful rioting at the Théâtre de la Nation:
it had come to
rioting, and even to fist-work, between the Decided and the Undecided,
touching a new Drama called Ami des Lois (Friend of the Laws).
One of the
poorest Dramas ever written; but which had didactic applications in it;
wherefore powdered wigs of Friends of Order and black hair of Jacobin heads
are flying there; and Mayor Chambon hastens with Santerre, in hopes to
quell it. Far from quelling it, our poor Mayor gets so 'squeezed,' says
the Report, and likewise so blamed and bullied, say we, — that he, with
regret, quits the brief Mayoralty altogether, 'his lungs being affected.'
This miserable Amis des Lois is debated of in the Convention itself; so
violent, mutually-enraged, are the Limited Patriots and the Unlimited.
(Hist. Parl. xxiii. 31, 48, etc.)
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Political fistfights break out in Paris.
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Between which two classes, are not Aristocrats enough, and Crypto-Aristocrats,
busy? Spies running over from London with important Packets;
spies pretending to run! One of these latter, Viard was the name of him,
pretended to accuse Roland, and even the Wife of Roland; to the joy of
Chabot and the Mountain. But the Wife of Roland came, being summoned, on
the instant, to the Convention Hall; came, in her high clearness; and, with
few clear words, dissipated this Viard into despicability and air; all
Friends of Order applauding. (Moniteur, Séance
du 7 Decembre 1792.) So,
with Theatre-riots, and 'Bread, or else kill us;' with Rage, Hunger,
preternatural Suspicion, does this wild Paris pipe. Roland grows ever more
querulous, in his Messages and Letters; rising almost to the hysterical
pitch. Marat, whom no power on Earth can prevent seeing into traitors and
Rolands, takes to bed for three days; almost dead, the invaluable
People's-Friend, with heartbreak, with fever and headache:
'O, Peuple babillard, si
tu savais agir, People of Babblers, if thou couldst but act!'
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The political disagreement between the Mountain and the Girondists is further
intensified in this atmosphere.
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To crown all, victorious Dumouriez, in these New-year's days, is arrived in
Paris; — one fears, for no good. He pretends to be complaining of Minister
Pache?,
and
Hassenfratz?
dilapidations; to be concerting measures for the
spring campaign: one finds him much in the company of the Girondins.
Plotting with them against Jacobinism, against Equality, and the Punishment
of Louis! We have Letters of his to the Convention itself. Will he act
the old Lafayette part, this new victorious General? Let him withdraw
again; not undenounced. (Dumouriez, Mémoires,
iii. c. 4.)
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The return of Dumouriez to complain about the lack of supply to his armies
raises fears that he has ulterior motives.
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And still, in the Convention Tribune, it drones continually, mere Juristic
Eloquence, and Hypothesis without Action; and there are still fifties on
the President's List. Nay these Gironde Presidents give their own party
preference: we suspect they play foul with the List; men of the Mountain
cannot be heard. And still it drones, all through December into January
and a New year; and there is no end! Paris pipes round it; multitudinous;
ever higher, to the note of the whirlwind. Paris will 'bring cannon from
Saint-Denis;' there is talk of 'shutting the Barriers,' — to Roland's
horror.
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The slow pace of the Convention's deliberation is considered by some
obstruction.
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Whereupon, behold, the Convention Tribune suddenly ceases droning: we cut
short, be on the List who likes; and make end. On Tuesday next, the
Fifteenth of January 1793, it shall go to the Vote, name by name; and, one
way or other, this great game play itself out!
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Under all this pressure, the Convention leaders decide to cut to the chase:
a voice vote on guilt is set for January 15.
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Is Louis Capet guilty of conspiring against Liberty? Shall our Sentence be
itself final, or need ratifying by Appeal to the People? If guilty, what
Punishment? This is the form agreed to, after uproar and 'several hours of
tumultuous indecision:' these are the Three successive Questions, whereon
the Convention shall now pronounce. Paris floods round their Hall;
multitudinous, many sounding. Europe and all Nations listen for their
answer. Deputy after Deputy shall answer to his name: Guilty or Not
guilty?
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There are three votes: guilt or innocence; whether the verdict is subject to
appeal to the primary electoral assemblies; and punishment.
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As to the Guilt, there is, as above hinted, no doubt in the mind of Patriot
man. Overwhelming majority pronounces Guilt; the unanimous Convention
votes for Guilt, only some feeble twenty-eight voting not Innocence, but
refusing to vote at all. Neither does the Second Question prove doubtful,
whatever the Girondins might calculate. Would not Appeal to the People be
another name for civil war? Majority of two to one answers that there
shall be no Appeal: this also is settled. Loud Patriotism, now at ten
o'clock, may hush itself for the night; and retire to its bed not without
hope. Tuesday has gone well. On the morrow comes, What Punishment? On
the morrow is the tug of war.
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The first two votes take a full day: "Guilty" and "No appeal".
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Consider therefore if, on this Wednesday morning, there is an affluence of
Patriotism; if Paris stands a-tiptoe, and all Deputies are at their post!
Seven Hundred and Forty-nine honourable Deputies; only some twenty absent
on mission, Duchâtel and some seven others absent by sickness. Meanwhile
expectant Patriotism and Paris standing a-tiptoe, have need of patience.
For this Wednesday again passes in debate and effervescence; Girondins
proposing that a 'majority of three-fourths' shall be required; Patriots
fiercely resisting them. Danton, who has just got back from mission in the
Netherlands, does obtain 'order of the day' on this Girondin proposal; nay
he obtains further that we decide sans désemparer,
in Permanent-session, till we have done.
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The vote on death does not begin until the next evening.
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And so, finally, at eight in the evening this Third stupendous Voting, by
roll-call or appel nominal, does begin. What Punishment? Girondins
undecided, Patriots decided, men afraid of Royalty, men afraid of Anarchy,
must answer here and now. Infinite Patriotism, dusky in the lamp-light,
floods all corridors, crowds all galleries, sternly waiting to hear.
Shrill-sounding Ushers summon you by Name and Department; you must rise to
the Tribune and say.
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The roll is called by department, the deputies of each department answering,
from the tribunal, in alphabetical order.
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Eye-witnesses have represented this scene of the Third Voting, and of the
votings that grew out of it; a scene protracted, like to be endless,
lasting, with few brief intervals, from Wednesday till Sunday morning,—as
one of the strangest seen in the Revolution. Long night wears itself into
day, morning's paleness is spread over all faces; and again the wintry
shadows sink, and the dim lamps are lit: but through day and night and the
vicissitude of hours, Member after Member is mounting continually those
Tribune-steps; pausing aloft there, in the clearer upper light, to speak
his Fate-word; then diving down into the dusk and throng again. Like
Phantoms in the hour of midnight; most spectral, pandemonial! Never did
President Vergniaud, or any terrestrial President, superintend the like. A
King's Life, and so much else that depends thereon, hangs trembling in the
balance. Man after man mounts; the buzz hushes itself till he have spoken:
Death; Banishment: Imprisonment till the Peace. Many say, Death; with what
cautious well-studied phrases and paragraphs they could devise, of
explanation, of enforcement, of faint recommendation to mercy. Many too
say, Banishment; something short of Death. The balance trembles, none can
yet guess whitherward. Whereat anxious Patriotism bellows; irrepressible
by Ushers.
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The punishment vote crawls. Some vote with a single word "La mort!".
Many try to explain or qualify their votes.
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The poor Girondins, many of them, under such fierce bellowing of
Patriotism, say Death; justifying, motivant, that most miserable word of
theirs by some brief casuistry and jesuitry.
Vergniaud?
himself says,
Death; justifying by jesuitry. Rich Lepelletier
Saint-Fargeau?
had been of
the Noblesse, and then of the Patriot Left Side, in the Constituent; and
had argued and reported, there and elsewhere, not a little, against
Capital
Punishment: nevertheless he now says, Death; a word which may cost him
dear.
Manuel?
did surely rank with the Decided in August last; but he has
been sinking and backsliding ever since September, and the scenes of
September. In this Convention, above all, no word he could speak would
find favour; he says now, Banishment; and in mute wrath quits the place for
ever,—much hustled in the corridors.
Philippe
Égalité?
votes in his soul
and conscience, Death, at the sound of which, and of whom, even Patriotism
shakes its head; and there runs a groan and shudder through this Hall of
Doom.
Robespierre's?
vote cannot be doubtful; his speech is long. Men see
the figure of shrill
Sieyès?
ascend; hardly pausing, passing merely, this
figure says, "La Mort sans phrase, Death without phrases;"
and fares onward and downward. Most spectral, pandemonial!
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Some votes are predictable, some surprising.
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And yet if the Reader fancy it of a funereal, sorrowful or even grave
character, he is far mistaken. 'The Ushers in the Mountain quarter,' says
Mercier, 'had become as Box-openers at the Opera;' opening and shutting of
Galleries for privileged persons, for 'D'Orléans Égalité's
mistresses,' or
other high-dizened women of condition, rustling with laces and tricolor.
Gallant Deputies pass and repass thitherward, treating them with ices,
refreshments and small-talk; the high-dizened heads beck responsive; some
have their card and pin, pricking down the Ayes and Noes, as at a game of
Rouge-et-Noir. Further aloft reigns Mère Duchesse
with her unrouged
Amazons; she cannot be prevented making long Hahas,
when the vote is not La
Mort. In these Galleries there is refection, drinking of wine and brandy
'as in open tavern, en pleine tabagie.' Betting goes on in all
coffeehouses of the neighbourhood. But within doors, fatigue, impatience,
uttermost weariness sits now on all visages; lighted up only from time to
time, by turns of the game. Members have fallen asleep; Ushers come and
awaken them to vote: other Members calculate whether they shall not have
time to run and dine. Figures rise, like phantoms, pale in the dusky
lamp-light; utter from this Tribune, only one word: Death.
'Tout est optique,'
says
Mercier?,
'the world is all an optical shadow.' (Mercier,
Nouveau
Paris, vi. 156-59; Montgaillard, iii. 348-87; Moore, etc.)Deep in the
Thursday night, when the Voting is done, and Secretaries are summing it up,
sick Duchâtel, more spectral than another, comes borne on a chair, wrapt in
blankets, 'in nightgown and nightcap,' to vote for Mercy: one vote it is
thought may turn the scale.
|
The vote takes on aspects of an entertainment, even drama, because it
is close.
|
|
Ah no! In profoundest silence, President Vergniaud, with a voice full of
sorrow, has to say: "I declare, in the name of the Convention, that the
Punishment it pronounces on Louis Capet is that of Death." Death by a
small majority of Fifty-three. Nay, if we deduct from the one side, and
add to the other, a certain Twenty-six, who said Death but coupled some
faintest ineffectual surmise of mercy with it, the majority will be but
One.
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But in the end the majority vote is for death.
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Death is the sentence: but its execution? It is not executed yet!
Scarcely is the vote declared when Louis's Three Advocates enter; with
Protest in his name, with demand for Delay, for Appeal to the People. For
this do Desèse and Tronchet plead, with brief eloquence: brave old
Malesherbes pleads for it with eloquent want of eloquence, in broken
sentences, in embarrassment and sobs; that brave time-honoured face, with
its grey strength, its broad sagacity and honesty, is mastered with
emotion, melts into dumb tears. (Moniteur
(in Hist. Parl. xxiii. 210).
See Boissy d'Anglas, Vie de Malesherbes, ii. 139.)—They
reject the Appeal
to the People; that having been already settled. But as to the Delay, what
they call Sursis, it shall be considered;
shall be voted for to-morrow: at
present we adjourn. Whereupon Patriotism 'hisses' from the Mountain: but
a 'tyrannical majority' has so decided, and adjourns.
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The king's lawyers ask that execution of the sentence be delayed. The
convention agrees to vote on it.
|
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There is still this fourth Vote then, growls indignant Patriotism:—this
vote, and who knows what other votes, and adjournments of voting; and the
whole matter still hovering hypothetical! And at every new vote those
Jesuit Girondins, even they who voted for Death, would so fain find a
loophole! Patriotism must watch and rage. Tyrannical adjournments there
have been; one, and now another at midnight on plea of fatigue,—all Friday
wasted in hesitation and higgling; in re-counting of the votes, which are
found correct as they stood! Patriotism bays fiercer than ever;
Patriotism, by long-watching, has become red-eyed, almost rabid.
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The impression that the Girondin faction of the Convention is obstructing
justice is strengthened by the complex mechanics of the trial.
|
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"Delay: yes or no?" men do vote it finally, all Saturday, all day and
night. Men's nerves are worn out, men's hearts are desperate; now it shall
end. Vergniaud, spite of the baying, ventures to say Yes, Delay; though he
had voted Death. Philippe Égalité says,
in his soul and conscience, No.
The next Member mounting: "Since Philippe says No, I for my part say Yes,
Moi je dis Oui." The balance still trembles. Till finally, at three
o'clock on Sunday morning, we have: No Delay, by a majority of Seventy;
Death within four-and-twenty hours!
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The majority votes for immediate execution of the sentence.
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Garat?,
Minister of Justice has to go to the Temple, with this stern message:
he ejaculates repeatedly, "Quelle commission affreuse, What a frightful
function!" (Biographie des Ministres, p. 157.)
Louis begs for a
Confessor; for yet three days of life, to prepare himself to die. The
Confessor is granted; the three days and all respite are refused.
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Louis is told he has less than a day to live.
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There is no deliverance, then? Thick stone walls answer, None—Has King
Louis no friends? Men of action, of courage grown desperate, in this his
extreme need? King Louis's friends are feeble and far. Not even a voice
in the coffeehouses rises for him. At Méot
the Restaurateur's no Captain
Dampmartin now dines; or sees death-doing whiskerandoes on furlough exhibit
daggers of improved structure! Méot's gallant Royalists on furlough are
far across the Marches; they are wandering distracted over the world: or
their bones lie whitening Argonne Wood. Only some weak Priests 'leave
Pamphlets on all the bournestones,' this night, calling for a rescue;
calling for the pious women to rise; or are taken distributing Pamphlets,
and sent to prison. (See Prudhomme's Newspaper,
Révolutions de Paris (in
Hist. Parl. xxiii. 318).)
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Nay there is one death-doer, of the ancient Méot sort, who, with effort,
has done even less and worse: slain a Deputy, and set all the Patriotism
of Paris on edge! It was five on Saturday evening when Lepelletier St.
Fargeau?,
having given his vote, No Delay, ran over to Février's in the
Palais Royal to snatch a morsel of dinner. He had dined, and was paying.
A thickset man 'with black hair and blue beard,' in a loose kind of frock,
stept up to him; it was, as Février
and the bystanders bethought them, one
Pâris of the old King's-Guard. "Are you Lepelletier?" asks he. —
"Yes." —
"You voted in the King's Business?" — "I voted
Death." — "Scélérat [Scoundrel], take
that!" cries Pâris, flashing out a sabre from under his frock,
and plunging
it deep in Lepelletier's side. Février clutches him;
but he breaks off; is gone.
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The capitol is calm when it learns the sentence.
Lepelletier's assassination is the only major violence.
|
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The voter Lepelletier lies dead; he has expired in great pain, at one in
the morning;—two hours before that Vote of no Delay was fully summed up!
Guardsman Pâris is flying over France;
cannot be taken; will be found some
months after, self-shot in a remote inn. (Hist.
Parl. xxiii. 275, 318;
Felix Lepelletier, Vie de Michel Lepelletier son Frère,
p. 61. etc. Felix,
with due love of the miraculous, will have it that the Suicide in the inn
was not Pâis, but some double-ganger of his.)—Robespierre
sees reason to
think that Prince d'Artois himself is privately in Town; that the
Convention will be butchered in the lump. Patriotism sounds mere wail and
vengeance: Santerre doubles and trebles all his patrols. Pity is lost in
rage and fear; the Convention has refused the three days of life and all
respite.
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The people fear the return of the old regime more than they regret the death of
it last vestige.
|
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To this conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless, Louis! The Son of
Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form of law. Under Sixty Kings
this same form of Law, form of Society, has been fashioning itself
together, these thousand years; and has become, one way and other, a most
strange Machine. Surely, if needful, it is also frightful this Machine;
dead, blind; not what it should be; which, with swift stroke, or by cold
slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumerable men. And
behold now a King himself, or say rather Kinghood in his person, is to
expire here in cruel tortures; — like a Phalaris shut in the belly of his
own red-heated Brazen Bull![171]
It is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O
haughty tyrannous man: injustice breeds injustice; curses and falsehoods
do verily 'return always home,' wide as they may wander. Innocent Louis
bears the sins of many generations: he too experiences that man's tribunal
is not in this Earth; that if he had no Higher one, it were not well with
him.
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It is not just Louis but his heritage that will die.
|
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A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the imagination; as
the like must do, and ought to do. And yet at bottom it is not the King
dying, but the Man! Kingship is a coat; the grand loss is of the skin.
The man from whom you take his Life, to him can the whole combined world do
more? Lally went on his hurdle, his mouth filled with a gag. Miserablest
mortals, doomed for picking pockets, have a whole five-act Tragedy in them,
in that dumb pain, as they go to the gallows, unregarded; they consume the
cup of trembling down to the lees. For Kings and for Beggars, for the
justly doomed and the unjustly, it is a hard thing to die. Pity them all:
thy utmost pity with all aids and appliances and throne-and-scaffold
contrasts, how far short is it of the thing pitied!
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He is as worthy of pity as any who have gone to the scaffold.
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A Confessor has come; Abbé
Edgeworth?,
of Irish extraction, whom the King
knew by good report, has come promptly on this solemn mission. Leave the
Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with its malice will go its way,
thou also canst go thine. A hard scene yet remains: the parting with our
loved ones. Kind hearts, environed in the same grim peril with us; to be
left here! Let the Reader look with the eyes of Valet
Cléry?,
through these
glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches; and see the cruellest of
scenes:
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Louis's valet describes the king's farewell to his family:
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'At half-past eight, the door of the ante-room opened: the Queen appeared
first, leading her Son by the hand; then
Madame Royale?
and Madame
Elizabeth?:
they all flung themselves into the arms of the King. Silence
reigned for some minutes; interrupted only by sobs. The Queen made a
movement to lead his Majesty towards the inner room, where M. Edgeworth was
waiting unknown to them: "No," said the King, "let us go into the
dining-room, it is there only that I can see you."
They entered there; I shut the
door of it, which was of glass. The King sat down, the Queen on his left
hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right, Madame Royale almost in front; the
young Prince remained standing between his Father's legs. They all leaned
towards him, and often held him embraced. This scene of woe lasted an hour
and three-quarters; during which we could hear nothing; we could see only
that always when the King spoke, the sobbings of the Princesses redoubled,
continued for some minutes; and that then the King began again to speak.'
(Cléry's Narrative (London, 1798), cited in Weber,
iii. 312.) — And so our
meetings and our partings do now end! The sorrows we gave each other; the
poor joys we faithfully shared, and all our lovings and our sufferings, and
confused toilings under the earthly Sun, are over. Thou good soul, I shall
never, never through all ages of Time, see thee any more! — NEVER! O
Reader, knowest thou that hard word?
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|
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For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves asunder.
"Promise that you will see us on the morrow." He promises:—Ah yes, yes;
yet once; and go now, ye loved ones; cry to God for yourselves and me! — It
was a hard scene, but it is over. He will not see them on the morrow. The
Queen in passing through the ante-room glanced at the Cerberus Municipals;
and with woman's vehemence, said through her tears, "Vous êtes tous
des scélérats."
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It is the last time the family will meet.
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King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry, as he had
been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair.
While this went forward,
Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger; it was
his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a mute
farewell. At half-past six, he took the Sacrament; and continued in
devotion, and conference with Abbé Edgeworth.
He will not see his Family: it were too hard to bear.
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January 21, 1793
|
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At eight, the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will and messages
and effects; which they, at first, brutally refuse to take charge of: he
gives them a roll of gold pieces, a hundred and twenty-five louis; these
are to be returned to
Malesherbes?,
who had lent them. At nine,
Santerre?
says the hour is come. The King begs yet to retire for three minutes. At
the end of three minutes, Santerre again says the hour is come. 'Stamping
on the ground with his right foot, Louis answers: "Partons,
let us go."' —
How the rolling of those drums comes in, through the Temple bastions and
bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a widow! He is gone,
then, and has not seen us? A Queen weeps bitterly; a King's Sister and
Children. Over all these Four does Death also hover: all shall perish
miserably save one; she, as Duchesse d'Angoulême, will live, —
not happily.
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The king leaves the Temple for the last time.
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At the Temple Gate were some faint cries, perhaps from voices of pitiful
women: "Grâce! Grâce!"
Through the rest of the streets there is silence
as of the grave. No man not armed is allowed to be there: the armed, did
any even pity, dare not express it, each man overawed by all his
neighbours. All windows are down, none seen looking through them. All
shops are shut. No wheel-carriage rolls this morning, in these streets but
one only. Eighty thousand armed men stand ranked, like armed statues of
men; cannons bristle, cannoneers with match burning, but no word or
movement: it is as a city enchanted into silence and stone; one carriage
with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound. Louis reads, in his
Book of Devotion, the Prayers of the Dying: clatter of this death-march
falls sharp on the ear, in the great silence; but the thought would fain
struggle heavenward, and forget the Earth.
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The path to the Place de la Révolution is lined with armed men.
|
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As the clocks strike ten, behold the Place de la Révolution,
once Place de
Louis Quinze: the Guillotine, mounted near the old Pedestal where once
stood the Statue of that Louis! Far round, all bristles with cannons and
armed men: spectators crowding in the rear; d'Orléans
Égalité there in
cabriolet. Swift messengers, hoquetons, speed to the Townhall,
every three
minutes: near by is the Convention sitting, — vengeful for Lepelletier.
Heedless of all, Louis reads his Prayers of the Dying; not till five
minutes yet has he finished; then the Carriage opens. What temper he is
in? Ten different witnesses will give ten different accounts of it. He is
in the collision of all tempers; arrived now at the black Mahlstrom and
descent of Death: in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling to
be resigned. "Take care of M. Edgeworth," he straitly charges the
Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two descend.
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|
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The drums are beating: "Taisez-vous, Silence!" he cries 'in a terrible
voice, d'une voix terrible.'
He mounts the scaffold, not without delay; he
is in puce coat, breeches of grey, white stockings. He strips off the
coat; stands disclosed in a sleeve-waistcoat of white flannel. The
Executioners approach to bind him:
he spurns, resists; Abbé Edgeworth has
to remind him how the Saviour, in whom men trust, submitted to be bound.
His hands are tied, his head bare; the fatal moment is come. He advances
to the edge of the Scaffold, 'his face very red,' and says: "Frenchmen, I
die innocent: it is from the Scaffold and near appearing before God that I
tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I desire that France—" A General on
horseback, Santerre or another, prances out with uplifted hand:
"Tambours!" The drums drown the voice.
"Executioners do your duty!" The
Executioners, desperate lest themselves be murdered (for Santerre and his
Armed Ranks will strike, if they do not), seize the hapless Louis: six of
them desperate, him singly desperate, struggling there; and bind him to
their plank. Abbé Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him:
"Son of Saint Louis,
ascend to Heaven." The Axe clanks down; a King's Life is shorn away. It
is Monday the 21st of January 1793. He was aged Thirty-eight years four
months and twenty-eight days. (Newspapers, Municipal Records,
etc. etc. (in
Hist. Parl. xxiii. 298-349) Deux Amis (ix. 369-373), Mercier (Nouveau
Paris, iii. 3-8).)
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|
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Executioner Samson shews the Head: fierce shout of Vive la
République
rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats waving: students of the
College of Four Nations take it up, on the far Quais; fling it over Paris.
D'Orléans drives off in his cabriolet;
the Townhall Councillors rub their
hands, saying, "It is done, It is done." There is dipping of
handkerchiefs, of pike-points in the blood. Headsman Samson, though he
afterwards denied it, (His Letter in the Newspapers
(Hist. Parl. ubi supra).) sells locks of the hair:
fractions of the puce coat are long
after worn in rings. (Forster's Briefwechsel, i. 473.)
— And so, in some
half-hour it is done; and the multitude has all departed. Pastrycooks,
coffee-sellers, milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian cries: the world
wags on, as if this were a common day. In the coffeehouses that evening,
says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot in a more cordial manner
than usual. Not till some days after, according to Mercier, did public men
see what a grave thing it was.
|
By the end of January 21, it was just another day.
|
| |
|
A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have consequences. On the
morrow morning, Roland, so long steeped to the lips in disgust and chagrin,
sends in his demission. His accounts lie all ready, correct in
black-on-white to the uttermost farthing:
these he wants but to have audited, that
he might retire to remote obscurity to the country and his books. They
will never be audited those accounts; he will never get retired thither.
|
On January 23, Roland resigns from the interior ministry.
|
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It was on Tuesday that Roland demitted. On Thursday comes Lepelletier St.
Fargeau's?
Funeral, and passage to the Pantheon of Great Men. Notable as
the wild pageant of a winter day. The Body is borne aloft, half-bare; the
winding sheet disclosing the death-wound: sabre and bloody clothes parade
themselves; a 'lugubrious music' wailing harsh
naeniae[172].
Oak-crowns shower
down from windows; President
Vergniaud?
walks there, with Convention, with
Jacobin Society, and all Patriots of every colour, all mourning
brotherlike.
|
The burial of Lepelletier.
|
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Notable also for another thing, this Burial of Lepelletier: it was the
last act these men ever did with concert! All Parties and figures of
Opinion, that agitate this distracted France and its Convention, now stand,
as it were, face to face, and dagger to dagger; the King's Life, round
which they all struck and battled, being hurled down. Dumouriez,
conquering Holland, growls ominous discontent, at the head of Armies. Men
say Dumouriez will have a King; that young d'Orléans
Égalité shall be his
King. Deputy Fauchet, in the Journal des Amis, curses his day, more
bitterly than Job did; invokes the poniards of Regicides, of 'Arras Vipers'
or Robespierres, of Pluto Dantons, of horrid Butchers Legendre and
Simulacra d'Herbois, to send him swiftly to another world than theirs.
(Hist. Parl. ubi supra.)
This is Te-Deum Fauchet, of the Bastille Victory,
of the Cercle Social. Sharp was the death-hail rattling round
one's Flag-of-truce, on that Bastille day: but it was soft to such wreckage
of high Hope as this; one's New Golden Era going down in leaden dross, and
sulphurous black of the Everlasting Darkness!
|
The issue of the King has given the leading men of the Revolution a
unity of purpose. After his death there is no unity.
|
| |
|
At home this Killing of a King has divided all friends; and abroad it has
united all enemies. Fraternity of Peoples, Revolutionary Propagandism;
Atheism, Regicide; total destruction of social order in this world! All
Kings, and lovers of Kings, and haters of Anarchy, rank in coalition; as in
a war for life. England signifies to Citizen Chauvelin, the Ambassador or
rather Ambassador's-Cloak, that he must quit the country in eight days.
Ambassador's-Cloak and Ambassador, Chauvelin and Talleyrand, depart
accordingly. (Annual Register of 1793, pp. 114-128.)
Talleyrand,
implicated in that Iron Press of the Tuileries, thinks it safest to make
for America.
|
The execution unites Europe and England against France.
|
|
England has cast out the Embassy: England declares war, — being shocked
principally, it would seem, at the condition of the River
Scheldt[173].
Spain
declares war; being shocked principally at some other thing; which
doubtless the Manifesto indicates.
(23d March (Annual Register, p. 161).)
Nay we find it was not England that declared war first, or Spain first; but
that France herself declared war first on both of them;
(1st February; 7th
March (Moniteur of these dates).) —\
a point of immense Parliamentary and
Journalistic interest in those days, but which has become of no interest
whatever in these. They all declare war. The sword is drawn, the scabbard
thrown away. It is even as Danton said, in one of his all-too gigantic
figures: "The coalised Kings threaten us; we hurl at their feet, as
gage [pledge]
of battle, the Head of a King."
|
With England and Spain involved, France is at war on every border.
|
|
This huge Insurrectionary Movement, which we liken to a breaking out of
Tophet?
and the Abyss, has swept away Royalty, Aristocracy, and a King's
life. The question is, What will it next do; how will it henceforth shape
itself? Settle down into a reign of Law and Liberty; according as the
habits, persuasions and endeavours of the educated, monied, respectable
class prescribe? That is to say: the volcanic lava-flood, bursting up in
the manner described, will explode and flow according to Girondin Formula
and pre-established rule of Philosophy? If so, for our Girondin friends it
will be well.
|
The execution of the king is the middle, not the end, of the Revolution.
|
|
Meanwhile were not the prophecy rather, that as no external force, Royal or
other, now remains which could control this Movement, the Movement will
follow a course of its own; probably a very original one? Further, that
whatsoever man or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it has, and
give them voice and activity, will obtain the lead of it? For the rest,
that as a thing without order, a thing proceeding from beyond and beneath
the region of order, it must work and welter, not as a Regularity but as a
Chaos; destructive and self-destructive; always till something that has
order arise, strong enough to bind it into subjection again? Which
something, we may further conjecture, will not be a Formula, with
philosophical propositions and forensic eloquence; but a Reality, probably
with a sword in its hand!
|
It will move randomly, "led" in the sense that some will ride the whirlwind,
until order is imposed on it.
|
|
As for the Girondin Formula, of a respectable Republic for the Middle
Classes, all manner of Aristocracies being now sufficiently demolished,
there seems little reason to expect that the business will stop there.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, these are the words; enunciative and
prophetic. Republic for the respectable washed Middle Classes, how can
that be the fulfilment thereof? Hunger and nakedness, and nightmare
oppression lying heavy on Twenty-five million hearts; this, not the wounded
vanities or contradicted philosophies of philosophical Advocates, rich
Shopkeepers, rural Noblesse, was the prime mover in the French Revolution;
as the like will be in all such Revolutions, in all countries. Feudal
Fleur-de-lys had become an insupportably bad marching banner, and needed to
be torn and trampled: but Moneybag of Mammon (for that, in these times, is
what the respectable Republic for the Middle Classes will signify) is a
still worse, while it lasts. Properly, indeed, it is the worst and basest
of all banners, and symbols of dominion among men; and indeed is possible
only in a time of general Atheism, and Unbelief in any thing save in brute
Force and Sensualism; pride of birth, pride of office, any known kind of
pride being a degree better than purse-pride. Freedom, Equality,
Brotherhood: not in the Moneybag, but far elsewhere, will Sansculottism
seek these things.
|
Middle class mercantilism, as represented by the Girondists of the Convention,
will certainly not be the force that restores order.
|
|
We say therefore that an Insurrectionary France, loose of control from
without, destitute of supreme order from within, will form one of the most
tumultuous Activities ever seen on this Earth; such as no Girondin Formula
can regulate. An immeasurable force, made up of forces manifold,
heterogeneous, compatible and incompatible. In plainer words, this France
must needs split into Parties; each of which seeking to make itself good,
contradiction, exasperation will arise; and Parties on Parties find that
they cannot work together, cannot exist together.
|
There is no one uniting faction, so there will inevitably be many divisive
factions.
|
|
As for the number of Parties, there will, strictly counting, be as many
Parties as there are Opinions. According to which rule, in this National
Convention itself, to say nothing of France generally, the number of
Parties ought to be Seven Hundred and Forty-Nine; for every unit entertains
his opinion. But now as every unit has at once an individual nature, or
necessity to follow his own road, and a gregarious nature or necessity to
see himself travelling by the side of others,—what can there be but
dissolutions, precipitations, endless turbulence of attracting and
repelling; till once the master-element get evolved, and this wild alchemy
arrange itself again?
|
There are no unifying ideas around which strong parties can form.
|
|
To the length of Seven Hundred and Forty-nine Parties, however, no Nation
was ever yet seen to go. Nor indeed much beyond the length of Two Parties;
two at a time;—so invincible is man's tendency to unite, with all the
invincible divisiveness he has! Two Parties, we say, are the usual number
at one time: let these two fight it out, all minor shades of party
rallying under the shade likest them; when the one has fought down the
other, then it, in its turn, may divide, self-destructive; and so the
process continue, as far as needful. This is the way of Revolutions, which
spring up as the French one has done; when the so-called Bonds of Society
snap asunder; and all Laws that are not Laws of Nature become naught and
Formulas merely.
|
A surprising result of a lack of unity is — the two-party system.
|
| |
|
But quitting these somewhat abstract considerations, let History note this
concrete reality which the streets of Paris exhibit, on Monday the 25th of
February 1793. Long before daylight that morning, these streets are noisy
and angry. Petitioning enough there has been; a Convention often
solicited. It was but yesterday there came a Deputation of Washerwomen
with Petition; complaining that not so much as soap could be had; to say
nothing of bread, and condiments of bread. The cry of women, round the
Salle de Manége, was heard plaintive: "Du pain et du savon,
Bread and
Soap." (Moniteur etc. (Hist. Parl. xxiv. 332-348.)
|
People are still hungry on the streets of Paris.
|
|
And now from six o'clock, this Monday morning, one perceives the Baker's
Queues unusually expanded, angrily agitating themselves. Not the Baker
alone, but two Section Commissioners to help him, manage with difficulty
the daily distribution of loaves. Soft-spoken assiduous, in the early
candle-light, are Baker and Commissioners: and yet the pale chill February
sunrise discloses an unpromising scene. Indignant Female Patriots, partly
supplied with bread, rush now to the shops, declaring that they will have
groceries. Groceries enough: sugar-barrels rolled forth into the street,
Patriot Citoyennes weighing it out at a just rate of eleven-pence a pound;
likewise coffee-chests, soap-chests, nay cinnamon and cloves-chests, with
aquavitae and other forms of alcohol, —
at a just rate, which some do not
pay; the pale-faced Grocer silently wringing his hands! What help? The
distributive Citoyennes are of violent speech and gesture, their long
Eumenides'?
hair hanging out of curl; nay in their girdles pistols are seen
sticking: some, it is even said, have beards, — male Patriots in petticoats
and mob-cap. Thus, in the streets of Lombards, in the street of
Five-Diamonds, street of Pullies, in most streets of Paris does it effervesce,
the livelong day; no Municipality, no Mayor Pache, though he was War-Minister
lately, sends military against it, or aught against it but
persuasive-eloquence, till seven at night, or later.
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February 25, 1793. Paris sees street riots over commodities.
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On Monday gone five weeks, which was the twenty-first of January, we saw
Paris, beheading its King, stand silent, like a petrified City of
Enchantment: and now on this Monday it is so noisy, selling sugar!
Cities, especially Cities in Revolution, are subject to these alternations;
the secret courses of civic business and existence effervescing and
efflorescing, in this manner, as a concrete Phenomenon to the eye. Of
which Phenomenon, when secret existence becoming public effloresces on the
street, the philosophical cause-and-effect is not so easy to find. What,
for example, may be the accurate philosophical meaning, and meanings, of
this sale of sugar? These things that have become visible in the street of
Pullies and over Paris, whence are they, we say; and whither?—
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This is in sharp contrast to the quiet at the King's execution.
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That Pitt?
has a hand in it, the gold of Pitt: so much, to all reasonable
Patriot men, may seem clear. But then, through what agents of Pitt?
Varlet, Apostle of Liberty, was discerned again of late, with his pike and
his red nightcap. Deputy Marat published in his journal, this very day,
complaining of the bitter scarcity, and sufferings of the people, till he
seemed to get wroth: 'If your Rights of Man were anything but a piece of
written paper, the plunder of a few shops, and a forestaller or two hung up
at the door-lintels, would put an end to such things.' (Hist. Parl. xxiv.
353-356.) Are not these, say the Girondins, pregnant indications? Pitt
has bribed the Anarchists; Marat is the agent of Pitt: hence this sale of
sugar. To the Mother Society, again, it is clear that the scarcity is
factitious; is the work of Girondins, and such like; a set of men sold
partly to Pitt; sold wholly to their own ambitions, and hard-hearted
pedantries; who will not fix the grain-prices, but prate pedantically of
free-trade; wishing to starve Paris into violence, and embroil it with the
Departments: hence this sale of sugar.
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The Girondists pretend to think that it is an English plot, the riots
arranged by Marat who is in their service. The radicals, now in control
of the Jacobins, pretend to think it is an English plot, paid for by
profits to the free-traders who control government.
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And, alas, if to these two notabilities, of a Phenomenon and such Theories
of a Phenomenon, we add this third notability, That the French Nation has
believed, for several years now, in the possibility, nay certainty and near
advent, of a universal Millennium, or reign of Freedom, Equality,
Fraternity, wherein man should be the brother of man, and sorrow and sin
flee away? Not bread to eat, nor soap to wash with; and the reign of
perfect Felicity ready to arrive, due always since the Bastille fell! How
did our hearts burn within us, at that Feast of Pikes, when brother flung
himself on brother's bosom; and in sunny jubilee, Twenty-five millions
burst forth into sound and cannon-smoke! Bright was our Hope then, as
sunlight; red-angry is our Hope grown now, as consuming fire. But, O
Heavens, what enchantment is it, or devilish legerdemain, of such effect,
that Perfect Felicity, always within arm's length, could never be laid hold
of, but only in her stead Controversy and Scarcity? This set of traitors
after that set! Tremble, ye traitors; dread a People which calls itself
patient, long-suffering; but which cannot always submit to have its pocket
picked, in this way, — of a Millennium!
|
There is an underlying disappointment that the hopes engendered by the
revolution have not been fufilled — and may never be.
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Yes, Reader, here is a miracle. Out of that putrescent rubbish of
Scepticism, Sensualism, Sentimentalism, hollow Machiavelism, such a Faith
has verily risen; flaming in the heart of a People. A whole People,
awakening as it were to consciousness in deep misery, believes that it is
within reach of a Fraternal Heaven-on-Earth. With longing arms, it
struggles to embrace the Unspeakable; cannot embrace it, owing to certain
causes. — Seldom do we find that a whole People can be said to have any
Faith at all; except in things which it can eat and handle. Whensoever it
gets any Faith, its history becomes spirit-stirring, note-worthy. But
since the time when steel Europe shook itself simultaneously, at the word
of Hermit Peter, and rushed towards the Sepulchre where God had
lain[174], there
was no universal impulse of Faith that one could note. Since Protestantism
went silent, no Luther's voice, no
Zisca's?
drum any longer proclaiming that
God's Truth was not the Devil's Lie; and the last of the Cameronians
(Renwick?
was the name of him; honour to the name of the brave!) sank, shot,
on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, there was no partial impulse of Faith
among Nations. Till now, behold, once more this French Nation believes!
Herein, we say, in that astonishing Faith of theirs, lies the miracle. It
is a Faith undoubtedly of the more prodigious sort, even among Faiths; and
will embody itself in prodigies. It is the soul of that world-prodigy
named French Revolution; whereat the world still gazes and shudders.
|
Carlyle compares faith in the principles of the revolution to
the great popular faith-based movements of western history.
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But, for the rest, let no man ask History to explain by cause-and-effect
how the business proceeded henceforth. This battle of Mountain and
Gironde, and what follows, is the battle of Fanaticisms and Miracles;
unsuitable for cause-and-effect. The sound of it, to the mind, is as a
hubbub of voices in distraction; little of articulate is to be gathered by
long listening and studying; only battle-tumult, shouts of triumph, shrieks
of despair. The Mountain has left no Memoirs; the Girondins have left
Memoirs, which are too often little other than long-drawn Interjections, of
Woe is me and Cursed be ye.
So soon as History can philosophically
delineate the conflagration of a kindled Fireship, she may try this other
task. Here lay the bitumen-stratum, there the brimstone one; so ran the
vein of gunpowder, of nitre, terebinth [turpentine] and foul grease:
this, were she
inquisitive enough, History might partly know. But how they acted and
reacted below decks, one fire-stratum playing into the other, by its nature
and the art of man, now when all hands ran raging, and the flames lashed
high over shrouds and topmast: this let not History attempt.
|
Carlyle claims that the next year (or perhaps six) of the story of the
Revolution is beyond the analysis of history, that things happened
for reasons that can not now be found.
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The Fireship is old France, the old French Form of Life; her creed a
Generation of men. Wild are their cries and their ragings there, like
spirits tormented in that flame. But, on the whole, are they not gone, O
Reader? Their Fireship and they, frightening the world, have sailed away;
its flames and its thunders quite away, into the Deep of Time. One thing
therefore History will do: pity them all; for it went hard with them all.
Not even the seagreen
Incorruptible?
but shall have some pity, some human
love, though it takes an effort. And now, so much once thoroughly
attained, the rest will become easier. To the eye of equal brotherly pity,
innumerable perversions dissipate themselves; exaggerations and execrations
fall off, of their own accord. Standing wistfully on the safe shore, we
will look, and see, what is of interest to us, what is adapted to us.
|
He proposes to pull a few instructive relics from the ashes.
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Gironde and Mountain are now in full quarrel; their mutual rage, says
Toulongeon?,
is growing a 'pale' rage. Curious, lamentable: all these men
have the word Republic on their lips; in the heart of every one of them is
a passionate wish for something which he calls Republic: yet see their
death-quarrel! So, however, are men made. Creatures who live in
confusion; who, once thrown together, can readily fall into that confusion
of confusions which quarrel is, simply because their confusions differ from
one another; still more because they seem to differ! Men's words are a
poor exponent of their thought; nay their thought itself is a poor exponent
of the inward unnamed Mystery, wherefrom both thought and action have their
birth. No man can explain himself, can get himself explained; men see not
one another but distorted phantasms which they call one another; which they
hate and go to battle with: for all battle is well said to be
misunderstanding.
|
Carlyle looks at the divisions of 1793 and says 'What we have here (on
earth) is a failure to communicate'.
|
|
But indeed that similitude of the Fireship; of our poor French brethren, so
fiery themselves, working also in an element of fire, was not
insignificant. Consider it well, there is a shade of the truth in it. For
a man, once committed headlong to republican or any other
Transcendentalism, and fighting and fanaticising amid a Nation of his like,
becomes as it were enveloped in an ambient atmosphere of Transcendentalism
and Delirium: his individual self is lost in something that is not
himself, but foreign though inseparable from him. Strange to think of, the
man's cloak still seems to hold the same man: and yet the man is not
there, his volition is not there; nor the source of what he will do and
devise; instead of the man and his volition there is a piece of Fanaticism
and Fatalism incarnated in the shape of him. He, the hapless incarnated
Fanaticism, goes his road; no man can help him, he himself least of all.
It is a wonderful tragical predicament; — such as human language, unused to
deal with these things, being contrived for the uses of common life,
struggles to shadow out in figures. The ambient element of material fire
is not wilder than this of Fanaticism; nor, though visible to the eye, is
it more real. Volition bursts forth involuntary; rapt along; the movement
of free human minds becomes a raging tornado of fatalism, blind as the
winds; and Mountain and Gironde, when they recover themselves, are alike
astounded to see where it has flung and dropt them. To such height of
miracle can men work on men; the Conscious and the Unconscious blended
inscrutably in this our inscrutable Life; endless Necessity environing
Freewill!
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Nor if ideas are well-expressed are revolutionaries much inclined to
consider them:
fanaticism breeds fatalism.
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The weapons of the Girondins are Political Philosophy, Respectability and
Eloquence. Eloquence, or call it rhetoric, really of a superior order;
Vergniaud, for instance, turns a period as sweetly as any man of that
generation. The weapons of the Mountain are those of mere nature:
Audacity and Impetuosity which may become Ferocity, as of men complete in
their determination, in their conviction; nay of men, in some cases, who as
Septemberers must either prevail or perish. The ground to be fought for is
Popularity: further you may either seek Popularity with the friends of
Freedom and Order, or with the friends of Freedom Simple; to seek it with
both has unhappily become impossible. With the former sort, and generally
with the Authorities of the Departments, and such as read Parliamentary
Debates, and are of Respectability, and of a peace-loving monied nature,
the Girondins carry it. With the extreme Patriot again, with the indigent
millions, especially with the Population of Paris who do not read so much
as hear and see, the Girondins altogether lose it, and the Mountain carries
it.
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In simplified terms, the Girondists become the party of order, the Mountain
the populist party.
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Egoism, nor meanness of mind, is not wanting on either side. Surely not on
the Girondin side; where in fact the instinct of self-preservation, too
prominently unfolded by circumstances, cuts almost a sorry figure; where
also a certain finesse, to the length even of shuffling and shamming, now
and then shews itself. They are men skilful in Advocate-fence. They have
been called the Jesuits of the Revolution;
(Dumouriez, Mémoires, iii. 314.)
but that is too hard a name. It must be owned likewise that this rude
blustering Mountain has a sense in it of what the Revolution means; which
these eloquent Girondins are totally void of. Was the Revolution made, and
fought for, against the world, these four weary years, that a Formula might
be substantiated; that Society might become methodic, demonstrable by
logic; and the old Noblesse with their pretensions vanish? Or ought it not
withal to bring some glimmering of light and alleviation to the Twenty-five
Millions, who sat in darkness, heavy-laden, till they rose with pikes in
their hands? At least and lowest, one would think, it should bring them a
proportion of bread to live on? There is in the Mountain here and there;
in Marat People's-friend; in the incorruptible Seagreen himself, though
otherwise so lean and formularly, a heartfelt knowledge of this latter
fact; — without which knowledge all other knowledge here is naught, and the
choicest forensic eloquence is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
Most cold, on the other hand, most patronising, unsubstantial is the tone
of the Girondins towards 'our poorer brethren;' — those brethren whom one
often hears of under the collective name of 'the masses,' as if they were
not persons at all, but mounds of combustible explosive material, for
blowing down Bastilles with! In very truth, a Revolutionist of this kind,
is he not a Solecism? Disowned by Nature and Art; deserving only to be
erased, and disappear! Surely, to our poorer brethren of Paris, all this
Girondin patronage sounds deadening and killing: if fine-spoken and
incontrovertible in logic, then all the falser, all the hatefuller in fact.
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Whatever their eloquence on the subject, the Girondists are no longer
revolutionaries.
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Nay doubtless, pleading for Popularity, here among our poorer brethren of
Paris, the Girondin has a hard game to play. If he gain the ear of the
Respectable at a distance, it is by insisting on September and such like;
it is at the expense of this Paris where he dwells and perorates. Hard to
perorate in such an auditory! Wherefore the question arises: Could we not
get ourselves out of this Paris? Twice or oftener such an attempt is made.
If not we ourselves, thinks
Guadet?,
then at least our Suppléans might do
it. For every Deputy has his Suppléant, or Substitute,
who will take his
place if need be: might not these assemble, say at Bourges, which is a
quiet episcopal Town, in quiet Berri, forty good leagues off? In that
case, what profit were it for the Paris Sansculottery to insult us; our
Suppléans sitting quiet in Bourges, to whom we could run? Nay even the
Primary electoral Assemblies, thinks Guadet, might be reconvoked, and a New
Convention got, with new orders from the Sovereign people; and right glad
were Lyons, were Bourdeaux, Rouen, Marseilles, as yet Provincial Towns, to
welcome us in their turn, and become a sort of Capital Towns; and teach
these Parisians reason.
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The party of Order is unlikely to gain popularity in Paris. A couple of
times they propose that the Convention be moved out of town or rotated
among the major cities of the republic.
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Fond schemes; which all misgo! If decreed, in heat of eloquent logic, to-day, they are repealed, by clamour, and passionate wider considerations, on
the morrow.
(Moniteur, 1793, No. 140, etc.)
Will you, O Girondins, parcel
us into separate Republics, then; like the Swiss, like your Americans; so
that there be no Metropolis or indivisible French Nation any more? Your
Departmental Guard seemed to point that way! Federal Republic?
Federalist? Men and Knitting-women repeat Fédéraliste,
with or without
much Dictionary-meaning; but go on repeating it, as is usual in such cases,
till the meaning of it becomes almost magical, fit to designate all mystery
of Iniquity; and Fédéraliste
has grown a word of Exorcism and Apage-Satanas [Get behind me, Satan].
But furthermore, consider what 'poisoning of public opinion' in
the Departments, by these Brissot, Gorsas, Caritat-Condorcet Newspapers!
And then also what counter-poisoning, still feller in quality, by a
Père
Duchesne of Hébert, brutallest Newspaper yet published on Earth; by a
Rougiff of Guffroy; by the 'incendiary leaves of Marat!'
More than once,
on complaint given and effervescence rising, it is decreed that a man
cannot both be Legislator and Editor; that he shall choose between the one
function and the other. (Hist. Parl. xxv. 25, etc.)
But this too, which
indeed could help little, is revoked or eluded; remains a pious wish
mainly.
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The Girondists command the most votes in the Convention, but not enough to
carry radical measures that might protect them. Meanwhile, ugly labels are
being stuck to them.
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Meanwhile, as the sad fruit of such strife, behold, O ye National
Representatives, how between the friends of Law and the friends of Freedom
everywhere, mere heats and jealousies have arisen; fevering the whole
Republic! Department, Provincial Town is set against Metropolis, Rich
against Poor, Culottic against Sansculottic, man against man. From the
Southern Cities come Addresses of an almost inculpatory character; for
Paris has long suffered Newspaper calumny. Bourdeaux demands a reign of
Law and Respectability, meaning Girondism, with emphasis. With emphasis
Marseilles demands the like. Nay from Marseilles there come two Addresses:
one Girondin; one Jacobin Sansculottic. Hot Rebecqui, sick of this
Convention-work, has given place to his Substitute, and gone home; where
also, with such jarrings, there is work to be sick of.
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The disagreements are not only in Paris and the Convention, but in a large
part of the country.
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Lyons, a place of Capitalists and Aristocrats, is in still worse state;
almost in revolt.
Chalier?
the Jacobin Town-Councillor has got, too
literally, to daggers-drawn with Nièvre-Chol
the Modérantin Mayor; one of
your Moderate, perhaps Aristocrat, Royalist or Federalist Mayors! Chalier,
who pilgrimed to Paris 'to behold Marat and the Mountain,' has verily
kindled himself at their sacred urn: for on the 6th of February last,
History or Rumour has seen him haranguing his Lyons Jacobins in a quite
transcendental manner, with a drawn dagger in his hand; recommending (they
say) sheer September-methods, patience being worn out; and that the Jacobin
Brethren should, impromptu, work the Guillotine themselves! One sees him
still, in Engravings: mounted on a table; foot advanced, body contorted; a
bald, rude, slope-browed, infuriated visage of the canine species, the eyes
starting from their sockets; in his puissant right-hand the brandished
dagger, or horse-pistol, as some give it; other dog-visages kindling under
him: — a man not likely to end well! However, the Guillotine was not got
together impromptu, that day, 'on the Pont Saint-Clair,' or elsewhere; but
indeed continued lying rusty in its loft: (Hist. Parl. xxiv. 385-93; xxvi.
229, etc.) Nièvre-Chol with military went about,
rumbling cannon, in the
most confused manner; and the 'nine hundred prisoners' received no hurt.
So distracted is Lyons grown, with its cannon rumbling. Convention
Commissioners must be sent thither forthwith: if even they can appease it,
and keep the Guillotine in its loft?
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The conflict is sharp and comes near to arms in Lyons.
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Consider finally if, on all these mad jarrings of the Southern Cities, and
of France generally, a traitorous Crypto-Royalist class is not looking and
watching; ready to strike in, at the right season! Neither is there bread;
neither is there soap: see the Patriot women selling out sugar, at a just
rate of twenty-two sous per pound! Citizen Representatives, it were verily
well that your quarrels finished, and the reign of Perfect Felicity began.
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Political turmoil, dearth, and a lingering fear of Royalist counterrevolution
create an unstable situation.
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On the whole, one cannot say that the Girondins are wanting to themselves,
so far as good-will might go. They prick assiduously into the sore-places
of the Mountain; from principle, and also from
jesuitism[175].
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The partisan attacks go both ways.
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Besides September, of which there is now little to be made except
effervescence, we discern two sore-places where the Mountain often suffers:
Marat and Orléans Égalité.
Squalid Marat, for his own sake and for the
Mountain's, is assaulted ever and anon; held up to France, as a squalid
bloodthirsty Portent, inciting to the pillage of shops; of whom let the
Mountain have the credit! The Mountain murmurs, ill at ease: this
'Maximum of Patriotism,' how shall they either own him or disown him? As
for Marat personally, he, with his fixed-idea, remains invulnerable to such
things: nay the People's-friend is very evidently rising in importance, as
his befriended People rises. No shrieks now, when he goes to speak;
occasional applauses rather, furtherance which breeds confidence. The day
when the Girondins proposed to 'decree him accused'
(décréter d'accusation,
as they phrase it) for that February Paragraph, of 'hanging up a
Forestaller or two at the door-lintels,' Marat proposes to have them
'decreed insane;' and, descending the Tribune-steps, is heard to articulate
these most unsenatorial ejaculations: "Les Cochons, les
imbécilles, Pigs,
idiots!" Oftentimes he croaks harsh sarcasm, having really a rough rasping
tongue, and a very deep fund of contempt for fine outsides; and once or
twice, he even laughs, nay 'explodes into laughter,
rit aux éclats,'
at the
gentilities and superfine airs of these Girondin "men of statesmanship,"
with their pedantries, plausibilities, pusillanimities: "these two years,"
says he, "you have been whining about attacks, and plots, and danger from
Paris; and you have not a scratch to shew for yourselves."
(Moniteur,
Séance du 20 Mai 1793.) —
Danton gruffly rebukes him, from time to time: a
Maximum of Patriotism, whom one can neither own nor disown!
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The Girondins have two easy targets of attack in the Mountain: Marat
and the ex-Duc d'Orléans. Marat is actually becoming more
respectable, though no less violent.
|
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But the second sore-place of the Mountain is this anomalous Monseigneur
Equality Prince d'Orléans. Behold these men, says the Gironde; with a
whilom Bourbon Prince among them: they are creatures of the d'Orléans
Faction; they will have Philippe made King; one King no sooner guillotined
than another made in his stead! Girondins have moved, Buzot moved long
ago, from principle and also from jesuitism, that the whole race of
Bourbons should be marched forth from the soil of France; this Prince
Égalité to bring up the rear.
Motions which might produce some effect on
the public;—which the Mountain, ill at ease, knows not what to do with.
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The greater embarrassment is d'Orléans, cousin of Louis the Last,
who sits in the Convention among the radical patriots.
|
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And poor Orléans Égalité himself,
for one begins to pity even him, what
does he do with them? The disowned of all parties, the rejected and
foolishly be-drifted hither and hither, to what corner of Nature can he now
drift with advantage? Feasible hope remains not for him: unfeasible hope,
in pallid doubtful glimmers, there may still come, bewildering, not
cheering or illuminating, — from the Dumouriez quarter; and how, if not the
timewasted Orléans Égalité,
then perhaps the young unworn Chartres
Égalité?
might rise to be a kind of King? Sheltered, if shelter it be, in the
clefts of the Mountain, poor Égalité will wait:
one refuge in Jacobinism,
one in Dumouriez and Counter-Revolution, are there not two chances?
However, the look of him, Dame
Genlis?
says, is grown gloomy; sad to see.
Sillery also, the Genlis's Husband, who hovers about the Mountain, not on
it, is in a bad way. Dame Genlis has come to Raincy, out of England and
Bury St. Edmunds, in these days; being summoned by Égalité,
with her young
charge, Mademoiselle Égalité,
that so Mademoiselle might not be counted
among Emigrants and hardly dealt with. But it proves a ravelled business:
Genlis and charge find that they must retire to the Netherlands; must wait
on the Frontiers for a week or two; till Monseigneur, by Jacobin help, get
it wound up. 'Next morning,' says Dame Genlis, 'Monseigneur, gloomier than
ever, gave me his arm, to lead me to the carriage. I was greatly troubled;
Mademoiselle burst into tears; her Father was pale and trembling. After I
had got seated, he stood immovable at the carriage-door, with his eyes
fixed on me; his mournful and painful look seemed to implore pity;—"Adieu,
Madame!" said he. The altered sound of his voice completely overcame me;
not able to utter a word, I held out my hand; he grasped it close; then
turning, and advancing sharply towards the postillions, he gave them a
sign, and we rolled away.' (Genlis, Mémoires (London,
1825), iv. 118.)
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D'Orléans, in contrast to Marat, is suspected by all sides.
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Nor are Peace-makers wanting; of whom likewise we mention two; one fast on
the crown of the Mountain, the other not yet alighted anywhere:
Danton?
and
Barrère?.
Ingenious Barrère, Old-Constituent and
Editor from the slopes of
the Pyrenees, is one of the usefullest men of this Convention, in his way.
Truth may lie on both sides, on either side, or on neither side; my
friends, ye must give and take: for the rest, success to the winning side!
This is the motto of Barrère. Ingenious, almost genial; quick-sighted,
supple, graceful; a man that will prosper. Scarcely Belial in the
assembled Pandemonium was plausibler to ear and eye. An indispensable man:
in the great Art of Varnish he may be said to seek his fellow. Has there
an explosion arisen, as many do arise, a confusion, unsightliness, which no
tongue can speak of, nor eye look on; give it to Barrère;
Barrère shall be
Committee-Reporter of it; you shall see it transmute itself into a
regularity, into the very beauty and improvement that was needed. Without
one such man, we say, how were this Convention bested? Call him not, as
exaggerative Mercier does, 'the greatest liar in France:' nay it may be
argued there is not truth enough in him to make a real lie of. Call him,
with Burke, Anacreon of the Guillotine, and a man serviceable to this
Convention.
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Danton makes several attempts to reduce the level of hostility.
Barrère acts as a buffer between the parties.
|
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The other Peace-maker whom we name is Danton. Peace, O peace with one
another! cries Danton often enough: Are we not alone against the world; a
little band of brothers? Broad Danton is loved by all the Mountain; but
they think him too easy-tempered, deficient in suspicion: he has stood
between Dumouriez and much censure, anxious not to exasperate our only
General: in the shrill tumult Danton's strong voice reverberates, for
union and pacification. Meetings there are; dinings with the Girondins:
it is so pressingly essential that there be union. But the Girondins are
haughty and respectable; this Titan Danton is not a man of Formulas, and
there rests on him a shadow of September. "Your Girondins have no
confidence in me:" this is the answer a conciliatory
Meillan?
gets from
him; to all the arguments and pleadings this conciliatory Meillan can
bring, the repeated answer is, "Ils n'ont point de confiance."
(Memoires
de Meillan, Representant du Peuple (Paris, 1823), p. 51.)
— The tumult will
get ever shriller; rage is growing pale.
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Danton's conciliatory efforts are snubbed by the moderates.
|
In fact, what a pang is it to the heart of a Girondin, this first withering
probability that the despicable unphilosophic anarchic Mountain, after all,
may triumph! Brutal Septemberers, a fifth-floor
Tallien?,
'a Robespierre
without an idea in his head,' as
Condorcet?
says, 'or a feeling in his
heart:' and yet we, the flower of France, cannot stand against them;
behold the sceptre departs from us; from us and goes to them! Eloquence,
Philosophism, Respectability avail not: 'against Stupidity the very gods
fight to no purpose,'
'Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Gotter selbst vergebens!'[176]
Shrill are the plaints of
Louvet?;
his thin existence all acidified into
rage, and preternatural insight of suspicion. Wroth is young
Barbaroux?;
wroth and scornful. Silent, like a Queen with the aspic on her bosom, sits
the wife of Roland?;
Roland's?
Accounts never yet got audited, his name
become a byword. Such is the fortune of war, especially of revolution.
The great gulf of
Tophet?,
and Tenth of August, opened itself at the magic
of your eloquent voice; and lo now, it will not close at your voice! It is
a dangerous thing such magic. The Magician's Famulus got hold of the
forbidden Book, and summoned a goblin: Plait-il, What is your will? said
the Goblin. The Famulus, somewhat struck, bade him fetch water: the swift
goblin fetched it, pail in each hand; but lo, would not cease fetching it!
Desperate, the Famulus shrieks at him, smites at him, cuts him in two; lo,
two goblin water-carriers ply; and the house will be swum away in Deucalion
Deluges.[177]
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In Carlyle's view, the Girondins are reaping what they have sewn.
|
|
Or rather we will say, this Senatorial war might have lasted long; and
Party tugging and throttling with Party might have suppressed and smothered
one another, in the ordinary bloodless Parliamentary way; on one condition:
that France had been at least able to exist, all the while. But this
Sovereign People has a digestive faculty, and cannot do without bread.
Also we are at war, and must have victory; at war with Europe, with Fate
and Famine: and behold, in the spring of the year, all victory deserts us.
|
The state of France can not sustain a long political stalemate.
|
|
Dumouriez?
had his outposts stretched as far as Aix-la-Chapelle, and the
beautifullest plan for pouncing on Holland, by stratagem, flat-bottomed
boats and rapid intrepidity; wherein too he had prospered so far; but
unhappily could prosper no further. Aix-la-Chapelle is lost; Maestricht
will not surrender to mere smoke and noise: the flat-bottomed boats must
launch themselves again, and return the way they came. Steady now, ye
rapidly intrepid men; retreat with firmness,
Parthian-like[178]! Alas, were it
General Miranda's?
fault; were it the
War-minister's?
fault; or were it
Dumouriez's own fault and that of Fortune: enough, there is nothing for it
but retreat,—well if it be not even flight; for already terror-stricken
cohorts and stragglers pour off, not waiting for order; flow disastrous, as
many as ten thousand of them, without halt till they see France again.
(Dumouriez, iv. 16-73.)
Nay worse: Dumouriez himself is perhaps secretly
turning traitor? Very sharp is the tone in which he writes to our
Committees. Commissioners and Jacobin Pillagers have done such
incalculable mischief;
Hassenfratz?
sends neither cartridges nor clothing;
shoes we have, deceptively 'soled with wood and pasteboard.' Nothing in
short is right.
Danton?
and Lacroix?,
when it was they that were
Commissioners, would needs join Belgium to France;—of which Dumouriez
might have made the prettiest little Duchy for his own secret behoof! With
all these things the General is wroth; and writes to us in a sharp tone.
Who knows what this hot little General is meditating? Dumouriez Duke of
Belgium or Brabant; and say, Égalité the
Younger King of France: there
were an end for our Revolution!—Committee of Defence gazes, and shakes its
head: who except Danton, defective in suspicion, could still struggle to
be of hope?
|
Things are going badly on the northern front. The inefficiency and theft
in the War Ministry is beginning to take a toll. Dumouriez' loyalty is
again questioned.
|
|
And General
Custine?
is rolling back from the Rhine Country; conquered Mentz
will be reconquered, the Prussians gathering round to bombard it with shot
and shell. Mentz may resist, Commissioner
Merlin?,
the Thionviller, 'making
sallies, at the head of the besieged;'—resist to the death; but not longer
than that. How sad a reverse for Mentz! Brave
Foster?,
brave Lux?
planted
Liberty-trees, amid ça-ira-ing music, in the snow-slush of last winter,
there: and made Jacobin Societies; and got the Territory incorporated with
France: they came hither to Paris, as Deputies or Delegates, and have
their eighteen francs a-day: but see, before once the Liberty-Tree is got
rightly in leaf, Mentz is changing into an explosive crater; vomiting fire,
bevomited with fire!
|
Custine, who took Mainz on the Rhine in 1792, loses it to the Prussians
in 1793.
|
|
Neither of these men shall again see Mentz; they have come hither only to
die. Foster has been round the Globe; he saw Cook perish under Owyhee
clubs; but like this Paris he has yet seen or suffered nothing. Poverty
escorts him: from home there can nothing come, except Job's-news; the
eighteen daily francs, which we here as Deputy or Delegate with difficulty
'touch,' are in paper assignats, and sink fast in value. Poverty,
disappointment, inaction, obloquy; the brave heart slowly breaking! Such
is Foster's lot. For the rest, Demoiselle
Theroigne?
smiles on you in the
Soirées; 'a beautiful brownlocked face,' of an exalted temper; and
contrives to keep her carriage. Prussian
Trenck?,
the poor subterranean
Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner. Thomas
Paine's?
face
is red-pustuled, 'but the eyes uncommonly bright.' Convention Deputies ask
you to dinner: very courteous; and 'we all play at
plumsack.?'
(Forster's
Briefwechsel, ii. 514, 460, 631.) 'It is the Explosion and New-creation of
a World,' says Foster; 'and the actors in it, such small mean objects,
buzzing round one like a handful of flies.'—
|
The Germans who came to Paris from Mainz do not fare particularly well, either.
|
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Likewise there is war with Spain. Spain will advance through the gorges of
the Pyrenees; rustling with Bourbon banners; jingling with artillery and
menace. And England has donned the red coat; and marches, with Royal
Highness of York,—whom some once spake of inviting to be our King.
Changed that humour now: and ever more changing; till no hatefuller thing
walk this Earth than a denizen of that tyrannous Island; and Pitt be
declared and decreed, with effervescence, 'L'ennemi du genre humain, The
enemy of mankind;' and, very singular to say, you make an order that no
Soldier of Liberty give quarter to an Englishman. Which order however, the
Soldier of Liberty does but partially obey. We will take no Prisoners
then, say the Soldiers of Liberty; they shall all be 'Deserters' that we
take. (See Dampmartin, Evénemens, ii. 213-30.)
It is a frantic order; and
attended with inconvenience. For surely, if you give no quarter, the plain
issue is that you will get none; and so the business become as broad as it
was long.—Our 'recruitment of Three Hundred Thousand men,' which was the
decreed force for this year, is like to have work enough laid to its hand.
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Spain and England actively support the coalition against France.
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So many enemies come wending on; penetrating through throats of Mountains,
steering over the salt sea; towards all points of our territory; rattling
chains at us. Nay worst of all: there is an enemy within our own
territory itself. In the early days of March, the Nantes Postbags do not
arrive; there arrive only instead of them Conjecture, Apprehension, bodeful
wind of Rumour. The bodefullest proves true! Those fanatic Peoples of La
Vendée will no longer keep under: their fire of insurrection,
heretofore
dissipated with difficulty, blazes out anew, after the King's Death, as a
wide conflagration; not riot, but civil war. Your
Cathelineaus?,
your
Stofflets?,
Charettes?,
are other men than was thought: behold how their
Peasants, in mere russet and hodden, with their rude arms, rude array, with
their fanatic Gaelic frenzy and wild-yelling battle-cry of God and the
King, dash at us like a dark whirlwind; and blow the best-disciplined
Nationals we can get into panic and sauve-qui-peut!
Field after field is
theirs; one sees not where it will end. Commandant
Santerre?
may be sent
thither; but with non-effect; he might as well have returned and brewed
beer.
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The Vendée erupts again, this time in civil war.
|
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It has become peremptorily necessary that a National Convention cease
arguing, and begin acting. Yield one party of you to the other, and do it
swiftly. No theoretic outlook is here, but the close certainty of ruin;
the very day that is passing over must be provided for.
|
These are the events that make political bickering an unaffordable luxury.
|
| |
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It was Friday the eighth of March when this Job's-post from Dumouriez,
thickly preceded and escorted by so many other Job's-posts, reached the
National Convention. Blank enough are most faces. Little will it avail
whether our Septemberers be punished or go unpunished; if Pitt and Cobourg
are coming in, with one punishment for us all; nothing now between Paris
itself and the Tyrants but a doubtful Dumouriez, and hosts in loose-flowing
loud retreat! — Danton the Titan rises in this hour, as always in the hour
of need. Great is his voice, reverberating from the domes: —
Citizen-Representatives, shall we not, in such crisis of Fate,
lay aside discords?
Reputation: O what is the reputation of this man or of that? Que mon nom
soit fletri, que la France soit libre, Let my name be blighted; let France
be free! It is necessary now again that France rise, in swift vengeance,
with her million right-hands, with her heart as of one man. Instantaneous
recruitment in Paris; let every Section of Paris furnish its thousands;
every section of France! Ninety-six Commissioners of us, two for each
Section of the Forty-eight, they must go forthwith, and tell Paris what the
Country needs of her. Let Eighty more of us be sent, post-haste, over
France; to spread the fire-cross, to call forth the might of men. Let the
Eighty also be on the road, before this sitting rise. Let them go, and
think what their errand is. Speedy Camp of Fifty thousand between Paris
and the North Frontier; for Paris will pour forth her volunteers! Shoulder
to shoulder; one strong universal death-defiant rising and rushing; we
shall hurl back these Sons of Night yet again; and France, in spite of the
world, be free! (Moniteur (in Hist. Parl. xxv. 6).)
— So sounds the Titan's
voice: into all Section-houses; into all French hearts. Sections sit in
Permanence, for recruitment, enrolment, that very night. Convention
Commissioners, on swift wheels, are carrying the fire-cross from Town to
Town, till all France blaze.
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News of the crumbling of the northern front sets in motion even greater
recruitment.
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And so there is Flag of Fatherland in Danger waving from the Townhall,
Black Flag from the top of Notre-Dame Cathedral; there is Proclamation, hot
eloquence; Paris rushing out once again to strike its enemies down. That,
in such circumstances, Paris was in no mild humour can be conjectured.
Agitated streets; still more agitated round the Salle de Manége!
Feuillans-Terrace crowds itself with angry Citizens, angrier Citizenesses;
Varlet perambulates with portable-chair: ejaculations of no measured kind,
as to perfidious fine-spoken Hommes d'état,
friends of Dumouriez, secret-friends of Pitt and Cobourg,
burst from the hearts and lips of men. To
fight the enemy? Yes, and even to "freeze him with terror, glacer
d'effroi;" but first to have domestic Traitors punished! Who are they
that, carping and quarrelling, in their jesuitic most
moderate way, seek to
shackle the Patriotic movement? That divide France against Paris, and
poison public opinion in the Departments? That when we ask for bread, and
a Maximum fixed-price, treat us with lectures on Free-trade in grains? Can
the human stomach satisfy itself with lectures on Free-trade; and are we to
fight the Austrians in a moderate manner, or in an immoderate? This
Convention must be purged.
|
The panic and the hunger again lead to calls to destroy internal enemies.
This time members of the Convention are on that list.
|
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"Set up a swift Tribunal for Traitors, a Maximum for Grains:" thus speak
with energy the Patriot Volunteers, as they defile through the Convention
Hall, just on the wing to the Frontiers;—perorating in that heroical
Cambyses'?
vein of theirs: beshouted by the Galleries and Mountain;
bemurmured by the Right-side and Plain. Nor are prodigies wanting: lo,
while a Captain of the Section Poissonnière
perorates with vehemence about
Dumouriez, Maximum, and Crypto-Royalist Traitors, and his troop beat chorus
with him, waving their Banner overhead, the eye of a Deputy discerns, in
this same Banner, that the cravates or streamers of it have
Royal fleurs-de-lys! The Section-Captain shrieks; his troop shriek,
horror-struck, and
'trample the Banner under foot:' seemingly the work of some Crypto-Royalist
Plotter? Most probable; (Choix des
Rapports, xi. 277.) — or
perhaps at bottom, only the old Banner of the Section,
manufactured prior
to the Tenth of August, when such streamers were according to rule!
(Hist. Parl. xxv. 72.)
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A Revolutionary Tribunal and price controls are demanded by deputations
that almost daily march through the Convention.
|
| |
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History, looking over the Girondin Memoirs, anxious to disentangle the
truth of them from the hysterics, finds these days of March, especially
this Sunday the Tenth of March, play a great part. Plots, plots: a plot
for murdering the Girondin Deputies; Anarchists and Secret-Royalists
plotting, in hellish concert, for that end! The far greater part of which
is hysterics. What we do find indisputable is that
Louvet?
and certain
Girondins were apprehensive they might be murdered on Saturday, and did not
go to the evening sitting: but held council with one another, each
inciting his fellow to do something resolute, and end these Anarchists: to
which, however,
Pétion?,
opening the window,
and finding the night very wet,
answered only, "Ils ne feront rien [they will not do anything]," and
'composedly resumed his violin,'
says Louvet: (Louvet, Mémoires, p. 72.)
thereby, with soft Lydian
tweedledeeing, to wrap himself against eating cares. Also that Louvet felt
especially liable to being killed; that several Girondins went abroad to
seek beds: liable to being killed; but were not. Further that, in very
truth, Journalist Deputy
Gorsas?,
poisoner of the Departments, he and his
Printer had their houses broken into (by a tumult of Patriots, among whom
red-capped
Varlet?,
American Fournier?
loom forth, in the darkness of the
rain and riot); had their wives put in fear; their presses, types and
circumjacent equipments beaten to ruin; no Mayor interfering in time;
Gorsas himself escaping, pistol in hand, 'along the coping of the back
wall.' Further that Sunday, the morrow, was not a workday; and the streets
were more agitated than ever: Is it a new September, then, that these
Anarchists intend? Finally, that no September came; — and also that
hysterics, not unnaturally, had reached almost their acme.
(Meillan, pp.
23, 24; Louvet, pp. 71-80.)
|
The riots of March 10, though not particularly destructive, increase the
rhetorical hysteria.
|
|
Vergniaud denounces and deplores; in sweetly turned periods. Section
Bonconseil, Good-counsel so-named, not Mauconseil or Ill-counsel
as it once
was, — does a far notabler thing: demands that Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet,
and other denunciatory fine-spoken Girondins, to the number of Twenty-two,
be put under arrest! Section Good-counsel, so named ever since the Tenth
of August, is sharply rebuked, like a Section of Ill-counsel;
(Moniteur (Seance du 12 Mars), 15 Mars.)
but its word is spoken, and will not fall to
the ground.
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A particularly radical section of Paris moves the arrest of the Girondins.
|
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In fact, one thing strikes us in these poor Girondins; their fatal
shortness of vision; nay fatal poorness of character, for that is the root
of it. They are as strangers to the People they would govern; to the thing
they have come to work in. Formulas, Philosophies, Respectabilities, what
has been written in Books, and admitted by the Cultivated Classes; this
inadequate Scheme of Nature's working is all that Nature, let her work as
she will, can reveal to these men. So they perorate and speculate; and
call on the Friends of Law, when the question is not Law or No-Law, but
Life or No-Life. Pedants of the Revolution, if not Jesuits of it! Their
Formalism is great; great also is their Egoism. France rising to fight
Austria has been raised only by Plot of the Tenth of March, to kill Twenty-
two of them! This Revolution Prodigy, unfolding itself into terrific
stature and articulation, by its own laws and Nature's, not by the laws of
Formula, has become unintelligible, incredible as an impossibility, the
waste chaos of a Dream.' A Republic founded on what they call the Virtues;
on what we call the Decencies and Respectabilities: this they will have,
and nothing but this. Whatsoever other Republic Nature and Reality send,
shall be considered as not sent; as a kind of Nightmare Vision, and thing
non-extant; disowned by the Laws of Nature, and of Formula. Alas! Dim for
the best eyes is this Reality; and as for these men, they will not look at
it with eyes at all, but only through 'facetted spectacles' of Pedantry,
wounded Vanity; which yield the most portentous fallacious spectrum.
Carping and complaining forever of Plots and Anarchy, they will do one
thing: prove, to demonstration, that the Reality will not translate into
their Formula; that they and their Formula are incompatible with the
Reality: and, in its dark wrath, the Reality will extinguish it and them!
What a man kens he cans. But the beginning of a man's doom is that vision
be withdrawn from him; that he see not the reality, but a false spectrum of
the reality; and, following that, step darkly, with more or less velocity,
downwards to the utter Dark; to Ruin, which is the great Sea of Darkness,
whither all falsehoods, winding or direct, continually flow!
|
The Girondists are out of touch with the people and the Revolution.
|
|
This Tenth of March we may mark as an epoch in the Girondin destinies; the
rage so exasperated itself, the misconception so darkened itself. Many
desert the sittings; many come to them armed.
(Meillan (Mémoires, pp. 85, 24).)
An honourable Deputy, setting out after breakfast, must now, besides
taking his Notes, see whether his Priming is in order.
|
March 10, 1793 changes the way the Girondins look at their jobs as
deputies.
|
| |
|
Meanwhile with Dumouriez in Belgium it fares ever worse. Were it again
General Miranda's fault, or some other's fault, there is no doubt whatever
but the 'Battle of Nerwinden,' on the 18th of March, is lost; and our rapid
retreat has become a far too rapid one. Victorious
Cobourg?,
with his
Austrian prickers, hangs like a dark cloud on the rear of us: Dumouriez
never off horseback night or day; engagement every three hours; our whole
discomfited Host rolling rapidly inwards, full of rage, suspicion, and
sauve-qui-peut [stampede]!
And then Dumouriez himself, what his intents may be?
Wicked seemingly and not charitable! His despatches to Committee openly
denounce a factious Convention, for the woes it has brought on France and
him. And his speeches — for the General has no reticence! The Execution of
the Tyrant this Dumouriez calls the Murder of the King. Danton and
Lacroix, flying thither as Commissioners once more, return very doubtful;
even Danton now doubts.
|
Dumouriez, barely able to maintain his lines, shows open distaste for the
Convention and government.
|
|
Three Jacobin Missionaries,
Proly?,
Dubuisson,
Pereyra?,
have flown forth;
sped by a wakeful Mother Society: they are struck dumb to hear the General
speak. The Convention, according to this General, consists of three
hundred scoundrels and four hundred imbeciles: France cannot do without a
King. "But we have executed our King." "And what is it to me," hastily
cries Dumouriez, a General of no reticence, "whether the King's name be
Ludovicus or Jacobus?" "Or Philippus!"
rejoins Proly; — and hastens to
report progress. Over the Frontiers such hope is there.
|
The representatives sent to him on mission see a man who is definitely not
a Republican.
|
|
Let us look, however, at the grand internal Sansculottism and Revolution
Prodigy, whether it stirs and waxes: there and not elsewhere hope may
still be for France. The Revolution Prodigy, as Decree after Decree issues
from the Mountain, like creative fiats, accordant with the nature of the
Thing, — is shaping itself rapidly, in these days, into terrific stature and
articulation, limb after limb. Last March, 1792, we saw all France flowing
in blind terror; shutting town-barriers, boiling pitch for Brigands:
happier, this March, that it is a seeing terror; that a creative Mountain
exists, which can say fiat! Recruitment proceeds with fierce celerity:
nevertheless our Volunteers hesitate to set out, till Treason be punished
at home; they do not fly to the frontiers; but only fly hither and thither,
demanding and denouncing. The Mountain must speak new fiat, and new fiats.
|
What little hope there now is of order depends on the radical faction of the
Convention, the Montagnards or men of the Mountain.
|
|
And does it not speak such? Take, as first example, those Comités
Révolutionnaires for the arrestment of Persons Suspect.
Revolutionary
Committee, of Twelve chosen Patriots, sits in every Township of France;
examining the Suspect, seeking arms, making domiciliary visits and
arrestments;—caring, generally, that the Republic suffer no detriment.
Chosen by universal suffrage, each in its Section, they are a kind of
elixir of Jacobinism; some Forty-four Thousand of them awake and alive over
France! In Paris and all Towns, every house-door must have the names of
the inmates legibly printed on it, 'at a height not exceeding five feet
from the ground;' every Citizen must produce his certificatory Carte de
Civisme, signed by Section-President; every man be ready to give account of
the faith that is in him. Persons Suspect had as well depart this soil of
Liberty! And yet departure too is bad: all Emigrants are declared
Traitors, their property become National; they are 'dead in Law,'—save
indeed that for our behoof they shall 'live yet fifty years in Law,' and
what heritages may fall to them in that time become National too! A mad
vitality of Jacobinism, with Forty-four Thousand centres of activity,
circulates through all fibres of France.
|
In addition to the Special Tribunal already established in Paris, the
government sets up local Revolutionary Committees to deal with those who
harbour non-republican sentiments.
|
|
Very notable also is the Tribunal Extraordinaire
(Moniteur, No. 70, (du 11 Mars), No. 76, etc.)
decreed by the Mountain; some Girondins dissenting,
for surely such a Court contradicts every formula;—other Girondins
assenting, nay co-operating, for do not we all hate Traitors, O ye people
of Paris?—Tribunal of the Seventeenth in Autumn last was swift; but this
shall be swifter. Five Judges; a standing Jury, which is named from Paris
and the Neighbourhood, that there be not delay in naming it: they are
subject to no Appeal; to hardly any Law-forms, but must 'get themselves
convinced' in all readiest ways; and for security are bound 'to vote
audibly;' audibly, in the hearing of a Paris Public. This is the Tribunal
Extraordinaire; which, in few months, getting into most lively action,
shall be entitled Tribunal Révolutionnaire,
as indeed it from the very
first has entitled itself: with a
Herman?
or a
Dumas?
for Judge President,
with a
Fouquier-Tinville?
for Attorney-General, and a Jury of such as
Citizen Leroi, who has surnamed himself Dix-Août,
'Leroi
August-Tenth,'?
it
will become the wonder of the world. Herein has Sansculottism fashioned
for itself a Sword of Sharpness: a weapon magical; tempered in the Stygian
hell-waters; to the edge of it all armour, and defence of strength or of
cunning shall be soft; it shall mow down Lives and Brazen-gates; and the
waving of it shed terror through the souls of men.
|
It is the Paris court, the Revolutionary Tribunal, that will send thousands
to the guillotine and be a wonder of the world.
|
|
But speaking of an amorphous Sansculottism taking form, ought we not above
all things to specify how the Amorphous gets itself a Head? Without
metaphor, this Revolution Government continues hitherto in a very anarchic
state. Executive Council of Ministers, Six in number, there is; but they,
especially since Roland's retreat, have hardly known whether they were
Ministers or not. Convention Committees sit supreme over them; but then
each Committee as supreme as the others: Committee of Twenty-one, of
Defence, of General Surety; simultaneous or successive, for specific
purposes. The Convention alone is all-powerful, — especially if the
Commune go with it; but is too numerous for an administrative body.
Wherefore, in this perilous quick-whirling condition of the Republic,
before the end of March, we obtain our small Comité de Salut
Public; (Moniteur, No. 83 (du 24 Mars 1793)
Nos. 86, 98, 99, 100.) as it were, for
miscellaneous accidental purposes, requiring despatch; — as it proves, for a
sort of universal supervision, and universal subjection. They are to
report weekly, these new Committee-men; but to deliberate in secret. Their
number is Nine, firm Patriots all,
Danton?
one of them: Renewable every
month; — yet why not reelect them if they turn out well? The flower of the
matter is that they are but nine; that they sit in secret. An
insignificant-looking thing at first, this Committee; but with a principle
of growth in it! Forwarded by fortune, by internal Jacobin energy, it will
reduce all Committees and the Convention itself to mute obedience, the Six
Ministers to Six assiduous Clerks; and work its will on the Earth and under
Heaven, for a season. 'A Committee of Public Salvation,' whereat the world
still shrieks and shudders.
|
In the absence of an effective executive, the Committee of Public Safety, even
at this early date (April, 1793), begins to exert executive control.
|
|
If we call that Revolutionary Tribunal a Sword, which Sansculottism has
provided for itself, then let us call the 'Law of the Maximum,' a
Provender-scrip, or Haversack, wherein better or worse some ration of bread
may be found. It is true, Political Economy, Girondin free-trade, and all
law of supply and demand, are hereby hurled topsyturvy: but what help?
Patriotism must live; the 'cupidity of farmers' seems to have no bowels.
Wherefore this Law of the Maximum, fixing the highest price of grains, is,
with infinite effort, got passed; (Moniteur (du 20 Avril,
etc. to 20 Mai, 1793).)
and shall gradually extend itself into a Maximum for all manner of
comestibles and commodities: with such scrambling and topsyturvying as may
be fancied! For now, if, for example, the farmer will not sell? The
farmer shall be forced to sell. An accurate Account of what grain he has
shall be delivered in to the Constituted Authorities: let him see that he
say not too much; for in that case, his rents, taxes and contributions will
rise proportionally: let him see that he say not too little; for, on or
before a set day, we shall suppose in April, less than one-third of this
declared quantity, must remain in his barns, more than two-thirds of it
must have been thrashed and sold. One can denounce him, and raise
penalties.
|
Grain prices, along with prices on other commodities, are fixed in the
spring of 1793.
|
|
By such inextricable overturning of all Commercial relation will
Sansculottism keep life in; since not otherwise. On the whole, as Camille
Desmoulins says once, "while the Sansculottes fight, the Monsieurs must
pay." So there come Impôts Progressifs,
Ascending Taxes; which consume,
with fast-increasing voracity, and 'superfluous-revenue' of men: beyond
fifty-pounds a-year you are not exempt; rising into the hundreds you bleed
freely; into the thousands and tens of thousands, you bleed gushing. Also
there come Requisitions; there comes 'Forced-Loan of a Milliard,' some
Fifty-Millions Sterling; which of course they that have must lend.
Unexampled enough: it has grown to be no country for the Rich, this; but a
country for the Poor! And then if one fly, what steads it? Dead in Law;
nay kept alive fifty years yet, for their accursed behoof!
In this manner,
therefore, it goes; topsyturvying, ça-ira-ing; —
and withal there is endless
sale of Emigrant National-Property, there is
Cambon?
with endless cornucopia
of Assignats. The Trade and Finance of Sansculottism; and how, with
Maximum and Bakers'-queues, with Cupidity, Hunger, Denunciation and
Paper-money, it led its galvanic-life, and began and ended, — remains the most
interesting of all Chapters in Political Economy: still to be written.
|
It can hardly be said there was an economic system in this time, but there
was an economy that, for a short time, worked.
|
|
All which things are they not clean against Formula? O Girondin Friends,
it is not a Republic of the Virtues we are getting; but only a Republic of
the Strengths, virtuous and other!
|
None of these trends — judiciary, administrative and economic — bode well
for the Girondists.
|
|
But Dumouriez, with his fugitive Host, with his King Ludovicus or King
Philippus? There lies the crisis; there hangs the question: Revolution
Prodigy, or Counter-Revolution? — One wide shriek covers that North-East
region. Soldiers, full of rage, suspicion and terror, flock hither and
thither; Dumouriez the many-counselled, never off horseback, knows now no
counsel that were not worse than none: the counsel, namely, of joining
himself with Cobourg; marching to Paris, extinguishing Jacobinism, and,
with some new King Ludovicus or King Philippus, resting the Constitution of
1791! (Dumouriez, Memoires, iv. c. 7-10.)
|
Dumouriez, back on the borders of France, with ill-equipped and ill-trained
soldiers, is running out of options.
|
|
Is Wisdom quitting Dumouriez; the herald of Fortune quitting him?
Principle, faith political or other, beyond a certain faith of mess-rooms,
and honour of an officer, had him not to quit. At any rate, his quarters
in the Burgh of Saint-Amand; his headquarters in the Village of Saint-Amand
des Boues, a short way off, — have become a Bedlam. National
Representatives, Jacobin Missionaries are riding and running: of the
'three Towns,' Lille, Valenciennes or even Condé,
which Dumouriez wanted to
snatch for himself, not one can be snatched: your Captain is admitted, but
the Town-gate is closed on him, and then the Prison gate, and 'his men
wander about the ramparts.' Couriers gallop breathless; men wait, or seem
waiting, to assassinate, to be assassinated; Battalions nigh frantic with
such suspicion and uncertainty, with Vive-la-République and
Sauve-qui-peut [every man for himself],
rush this way and that; — Ruin and Desperation in the shape of Cobourg lying
entrenched close by.
|
He does not have the trust of his troops, the towns in the region or of the
central government.
|
|
Dame Genlis and her fair Princess d'Orléans find this
Burgh of Saint-Amand
no fit place for them; Dumouriez's protection is grown worse than none.
Tough Genlis one of the toughest women; a woman, as it were, with nine
lives in her; whom nothing will beat: she packs her bandboxes; clear for
flight in a private manner. Her beloved Princess she will — leave here,
with the Prince Chartres Égalité her Brother.
In the cold grey of the
April morning, we find her accordingly established in her hired vehicle, on
the street of Saint-Amand; postilions just cracking their whips to go, —
when behold the young Princely Brother, struggling hitherward, hastily
calling; bearing the Princess in his arms! Hastily he has clutched the
poor young lady up, in her very night-gown, nothing saved of her goods
except the watch from the pillow: with brotherly despair he flings her in,
among the bandboxes, into Genlis's chaise, into Genlis's arms: Leave her
not, in the name of Mercy and Heaven! A shrill scene, but a brief one: —
the postilions crack and go. Ah, whither? Through by-roads and broken
hill-passes: seeking their way with lanterns after nightfall; through
perils, and Cobourg Austrians, and suspicious French Nationals; finally,
into Switzerland; safe though nigh moneyless. (Genlis,
iv. 139.) The
brave young Égalité has a most wild Morrow to look for;
but now only
himself to carry through it.
|
The Belgian frontier is safe for no one.
|
| |
|
For indeed over at that Village named of the Mudbaths, Saint-Amand des
Boues, matters are still worse. About four o'clock on Tuesday afternoon,
the 2d of April 1793, two Couriers come galloping as if for life: Mon
Général!
Four National Representatives, War-Minister at their head, are
posting hitherward, from Valenciennes: are close at hand, — with what
intents one may guess! While the Couriers are yet speaking, War-Minister
and National Representatives, old
Camus? the Archivist
for chief speaker of
them, arrive. Hardly has Mon Général
had time to order out the Hussar
Regiment de Berchigny; that it take rank and wait near by, in case of
accident. And so, enter War-Minister
Beurnonville?,
with an embrace of
friendship, for he is an old friend; enter Archivist Camus and the other
three, following him.
|
A deputation from the Convention is sent to watch Dumouriez
|
|
They produce Papers, invite the General to the bar of the Convention:
merely to give an explanation or two. The General finds it unsuitable, not
to say impossible, and that "the service will suffer." Then comes
reasoning; the voice of the old Archivist getting loud. Vain to reason
loud with this Dumouriez; he answers mere angry irreverences. And so, amid
plumed staff-officers, very gloomy-looking; in jeopardy and uncertainty,
these poor National messengers debate and consult, retire and re-enter, for
the space of some two hours: without effect. Whereupon Archivist Camus,
getting quite loud, proclaims, in the name of the National Convention, for
he has the power to do it, That General Dumouriez is arrested:
"Will you
obey the National Mandate, General?" "Pas dans ce moment-ci,
Not at this
particular moment," answers the General also aloud; then glancing the other
way, utters certain unknown vocables, in a mandatory manner; seemingly a
German word-of-command. (Dumouriez, iv. 159, etc.)
Hussars clutch the Four
National Representatives, and Beurnonville the War-minister; pack them out
of the apartment; out of the Village, over the lines to Cobourg, in two
chaises that very night, — as hostages, prisoners; to lie long in Maestricht
and Austrian strongholds! (Their Narrative,
written by Camus (in Toulongeon, iii. app. 60-87).)
Jacta est alea.
|
Faced with arrest and return to Paris, Dumouriez takes the commissioners
prisoner and hands them over to the Austrians.
|
|
This night Dumouriez prints his 'Proclamation;' this night and the morrow
the Dumouriez Army, in such darkness visible, and rage of semi-desperation
as there is, shall meditate what the General is doing, what they themselves
will do in it. Judge whether this Wednesday was of halcyon nature, for any
one! But, on the Thursday morning, we discern Dumouriez with small escort,
with Chartres Égalité and a few staff-officers,
ambling along the Condé
Highway: perhaps they are for Condé,
and trying to persuade the Garrison
there; at all events, they are for an interview with Cobourg, who waits in
the woods by appointment, in that quarter. Nigh the Village of Doumet,
three National Battalions, a set of men always full of Jacobinism, sweep
past us; marching rather swiftly, — seemingly in mistake, by a way we had
not ordered. The General dismounts, steps into a cottage, a little from
the wayside; will give them right order in writing. Hark! what strange
growling is heard: what barkings are heard, loud yells of "Traitors,"
of
"Arrest": the National Battalions have wheeled round,
are emitting shot!
Mount, Dumouriez, and spring for life! Dumouriez and Staff strike the
spurs in, deep; vault over ditches, into the fields, which prove to be
morasses; sprawl and plunge for life; bewhistled with curses and lead.
Sunk to the middle, with or without horses, several servants killed, they
escape out of shot-range, to General Mack the Austrian's quarters. Nay
they return on the morrow, to Saint-Amand and faithful foreign Berchigny;
but what boots it? The Artillery has all revolted, is jingling off to
Valenciennes: all have revolted, are revolting; except only foreign
Berchigny, to the extent of some poor fifteen hundred, none will follow
Dumouriez against France and Indivisible Republic: Dumouriez's
occupation's gone. (Memoires, iv. 162-180.)
|
Dumouriez deserts to the Austrian side.
|
|
Such an instinct of Frenchhood and Sansculottism dwells in these men: they
will follow no Dumouriez nor Lafayette, nor any mortal on such errand.
Shriek may be of Sauve-qui-peut, but will also be of
Vive-la-République.
New National Representatives arrive; new General Dampierre, soon killed in
battle; new General Custine; the agitated Hosts draw back to some Camp of
Famars; make head against Cobourg as they can.
|
The command void is immediately filled by Dampierre and Custine.
|
|
And so Dumouriez is in the Austrian quarters; his drama ended, in this
rather sorry manner. A most shifty, wiry man; one of Heaven's Swiss that
wanted only work. Fifty years of unnoticed toil and valour; one year of
toil and valour, not unnoticed, but seen of all countries and centuries;
then thirty other years again unnoticed, of Memoir-writing, English
Pension, scheming and projecting to no purpose: Adieu thou Swiss of
Heaven, worthy to have been something else!
|
Dumouriez fades, if not out of history, at least out of this one.
|
|
His Staff go different ways. Brave young Égalité
reaches Switzerland and
the Genlis Cottage; with a strong crabstick in his hand, a strong heart in
his body: his Princedom in now reduced to that. Égalité
the Father sat
playing whist, in his Palais Égalité, at Paris,
on the 6th day of this same
month of April, when a catchpole [police official] entered:
Citoyen Égalité is wanted at the
Convention Committee! (See Montgaillard, iv. 144.)
Examination, requiring
Arrestment; finally requiring Imprisonment, transference to Marseilles and
the Castle of If! Orléansdom has sunk in the black waters;
Palais Égalité,
which was Palais Royal, is like to become Palais National.
|
The young duke of Chartres, the future King Louis-Philippe, escapes to
Switzerland. His father is imprisoned.
|
|
Our Republic, by paper Decree, may be 'One and Indivisible;' but what
profits it while these things are? Federalists in the Senate, renegadoes
in the Army, traitors everywhere! France, all in desperate recruitment
since the Tenth of March, does not fly to the frontier, but only flies
hither and thither. This defection of contemptuous diplomatic Dumouriez
falls heavy on the fine-spoken high-sniffing Hommes d'état,
whom he
consorted with; forms a second epoch in their destinies.
|
Dumouriez's defection does not bode well for Danton or for the Girondists.
|
|
Or perhaps more strictly we might say, the second Girondin epoch, though
little noticed then, began on the day when, in reference to this defection,
the Girondins broke with Danton. It was the first day of April; Dumouriez
had not yet plunged across the morasses to Cobourg, but was evidently
meaning to do it, and our Commissioners were off to arrest him; when what
does the Girondin
Lasource?
see good to do, but rise, and jesuitically
question and insinuate at great length, whether a main accomplice of
Dumouriez had not probably been — Danton? Gironde grins sardonic assent;
Mountain holds its breath. The figure of Danton,
Levasseur?
says, while
this speech went on, was noteworthy. He sat erect, with a kind of internal
convulsion struggling to keep itself motionless; his eye from time to time
flashing wilder, his lip curling in Titanic scorn.
(Mémoires de Réné
Levasseur (Bruxelles, 1830), i. 164.)
Lasource, in a fine-spoken attorney-manner, proceeds:
there is this probability to his mind, and there is
that; probabilities which press painfully on him, which cast the Patriotism
of Danton under a painful shade; which painful shade he, Lasource, will
hope that Danton may find it not impossible to dispel.
|
Danton was a close friend of Dumouriez, and the Girondists accuse him of
complicity.
|
|
"Les Scélérats!" cries Danton,
starting up, with clenched right-hand,
Lasource having done: and descends from the Mountain, like a lava-flood;
his answer not unready. Lasource's probabilities fly like idle dust; but
leave a result behind them. "Ye were right, friends of the Mountain,"
begins Danton, "and I was wrong: there is no peace possible with these
men. Let it be war then! They will not save the Republic with us: it
shall be saved without them; saved in spite of them." Really a burst of
rude Parliamentary eloquence this; which is still worth reading, in the old
Moniteur. With fire-words the exasperated rude Titan rives and smites
these Girondins; at every hit the glad Mountain utters chorus: Marat, like
a musical bis, repeating the last phrase.
(Séance du 1er Avril, 1793 (in
Hist. Parl. xxv. 24-35).)
Lasource's probabilities are gone: but Danton's
pledge of battle remains lying.
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Hereafter Danton refuses cooperation with the Girondists.
|
| |
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A third epoch, or scene in the Girondin Drama, or rather it is but the
completion of this second epoch, we reckon from the day when the patience
of virtuous Pétion finally boiled over; and the Girondins, so to speak,
took up this battle-pledge of Danton's and decreed Marat accused. It was
the eleventh of the same month of April, on some effervescence rising, such
as often rose; and President had covered himself, mere Bedlam now ruling;
and Mountain and Gironde were rushing on one another with clenched
right-hands, and even with pistols in them;
when, behold, the Girondin
Duperret?
drew a sword! Shriek of horror rose, instantly quenching all other
effervescence, at sight of the clear murderous steel; whereupon Duperret
returned it to the leather again; — confessing that he did indeed draw it,
being instigated by a kind of sacred madness, "sainte fureur,"
and pistols
held at him; but that if he parricidally had chanced to scratch the outmost
skin of National Representation with it, he too carried pistols, and would
have blown his brains out on the spot.
(Hist. Parl. xv. 397.)
|
Still able to carry a small majority in the Convention, the Girondists
move a vote of accusation against Marat.
|
|
But now in such posture of affairs, virtuous Pétion rose,
next morning, to
lament these effervescences, this endless Anarchy invading the Legislative
Sanctuary itself; and here, being growled at and howled at by the Mountain,
his patience, long tried, did, as we say, boil over; and he spake
vehemently, in high key, with foam on his lips; 'whence,' says Marat, 'I
concluded he had got 'la rage,' the rabidity, or dog-madness. Rabidity
smites others rabid: so there rises new foam-lipped demand to have
Anarchists extinguished; and specially to have Marat put under Accusation.
Send a Representative to the Revolutionary Tribunal? Violate the
inviolability of a Representative? Have a care, O Friends! This poor
Marat has faults enough; but against Liberty or Equality, what fault? That
he has loved and fought for it, not wisely but too well. In dungeons and
cellars, in pinching poverty, under anathema of men; even so, in such
fight, has he grown so dingy, bleared; even so has his head become a
Stylites one![179]
Him you will fling to your Sword of Sharpness; while Cobourg
and Pitt advance on us, fire-spitting?
|
Violent motions make tumultuous sessions on the floor of the Convention.
The precedent of trying a sitting member of the Convention — Marat — will
rebound on the Girondists.
|
|
The Mountain is loud, the Gironde is loud and deaf; all lips are foamy.
With 'Permanent-Session of twenty-four hours,' with vote by rollcall, and a
dead-lift effort, the Gironde carries it: Marat is ordered to the
Revolutionary Tribunal, to answer for that February Paragraph of
Forestallers at the door-lintel, with other offences; and, after a little
hesitation, he obeys. (Moniteur (du 16 Avril 1793, et
seqq).)
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The accusation against Marat is voted.
|
|
Thus is Danton's battle-pledge taken up: there is, as he said there would
be, 'war without truce or treaty, ni trève ni composition.'
Wherefore,
close now with one another, Formula and Reality, in death-grips, and
wrestle it out; both of you cannot live, but only one!
|
France is no longer big enough for both the Mountain and the Girond.
|
|
It proves what strength, were it only of inertia, there is in established
Formulas, what weakness in nascent Realities, and illustrates several
things, that this death-wrestle should still have lasted some six weeks or
more. National business, discussion of the Constitutional Act, for our
Constitution should decidedly be got ready, proceeds along with it. We
even change our Locality; we shift, on the Tenth of May, from the old Salle
de Manége, into our new Hall, in the Palace, once a King's but now the
Republic's, of the Tuileries. Hope and ruth, flickering against despair
and rage, still struggles in the minds of men.
|
As bitter as the struggle is, it goes on in slow motion, while the Convention
goes about its business.
|
|
It is a most dark confused death-wrestle, this of the six weeks. Formalist
frenzy against Realist frenzy; Patriotism, Egoism, Pride, Anger, Vanity,
Hope and Despair, all raised to the frenetic pitch: Frenzy meets Frenzy,
like dark clashing whirlwinds; neither understands the other; the weaker,
one day, will understand that it is verily swept down! Girondism is strong
as established Formula and Respectability: do not as many as Seventy-two
of the Departments, or say respectable Heads of Departments, declare for
us? Calvados, which loves its
Buzot?,
will even rise in revolt, so hint the
Addresses; Marseilles, cradle of Patriotism, will rise; Bourdeaux will
rise, and the Gironde Department, as one man; in a word, who will not rise,
were our Representation Nationale to be insulted, or one hair of a Deputy's
head harmed! The Mountain, again, is strong as Reality and Audacity. To
the Reality of the Mountain are not all furthersome things possible? A new
Tenth of August, if needful; nay a new Second of September!—
|
The Girondists have the formal political power, especially in the provinces.
The Mountain has the power of the Paris mob.
|
|
But, on Wednesday afternoon, twenty-fourth day of April, year 1793, what
tumult as of fierce jubilee is this? It is Marat returning from
Revolutionary Tribunal! A week or more of death-peril: and now there is
triumphant acquittal; Revolutionary Tribunal can find no accusation against
this man. And so the eye of History beholds Patriotism, which had gloomed
unutterable things all week, break into loud jubilee, embrace its Marat;
lift him into a chair of triumph, bear him shoulder-high through the
streets. Shoulder-high is the injured People's-friend, crowned with an
oak-garland; amid the wavy sea of red nightcaps, carmagnole jackets,
grenadier bonnets and female mob-caps; far-sounding like a sea! The
injured People's-friend has here reached his culminating-point; he too
strikes the stars with his sublime head.
|
The Revolutionary Tribunal acquits Marat.
|
|
But the Reader can judge with what face President
Lasource?,
he of the
'painful probabilities,' who presides in this Convention Hall, might
welcome such jubilee-tide, when it got thither, and the Decreed of
Accusation floating on the top of it! A National Sapper, spokesman on the
occasion, says, the People know their Friend, and love his life as their
own; "whosoever wants Marat's head must get the Sapper's first."
(Seance (in Moniteur, No. 116 (du 26 Avril, An 1er).)
Lasource answered with some
vague painful mumblement,—which, says
Levasseur?,
one could not help
tittering at. (Levasseur, Mémoires, i. c. 6.)
Patriot Sections,
Volunteers not yet gone to the Frontiers, come demanding the "purgation of
traitors from your own bosom;" the expulsion, or even the trial and
sentence, of a factious Twenty-two.
|
The mob supporting Marat demands the expulsion of 22 prominent Girondins.
|
|
Nevertheless the Gironde has got its Commission of Twelve; a Commission
specially appointed for investigating these troubles of the Legislative
Sanctuary: let Sansculottism say what it will, Law shall triumph.
Old-Constituent Rabaut
Saint-Etienne?
presides over this Commission: "it is the
last plank whereon a wrecked Republic may perhaps still save herself."
Rabaut and they therefore sit, intent; examining witnesses; launching
arrestments; looking out into a waste dim sea of troubles.—the womb of
Formula, or perhaps her grave! Enter not that sea, O Reader! There are
dim desolation and confusion; raging women and raging men. Sections come
demanding Twenty-two; for the number first given by Section Bonconseil
still holds, though the names should even vary. Other Sections, of the
wealthier kind, come denouncing such demand; nay the same Section will
demand to-day, and denounce the demand to-morrow, according as the
wealthier sit, or the poorer. Wherefore, indeed, the Girondins decree that
all Sections shall close 'at ten in the evening;' before the working people
come: which Decree remains without effect. And nightly the Mother of
Patriotism wails doleful; doleful, but her eye kindling! And Fournier
l'Americain?
is busy, and the two Banker Freys, and
Varlet?
Apostle of
Liberty; the bull-voice of Marquis
Saint-Huruge?
is heard. And shrill women
vociferate from all Galleries, the Convention ones and downwards. Nay a
'Central Committee' of all the Forty-eight Sections, looms forth huge and
dubious; sitting dim in the Archevêche, sending Resolutions,
receiving
them: a Centre of the Sections; in dread deliberation as to a New Tenth of
August!
|
The Girondists control the few, weak instruments of executive power,
notably the Committee of Public Safety; but the Paris radicals are
organizing.
|
|
One thing we will specify to throw light on many: the aspect under which,
seen through the eyes of these Girondin Twelve, or even seen through one's
own eyes, the Patriotism of the softer sex presents itself. There are
Female Patriots, whom the Girondins call
Megaeras?,
and count to the extent
of eight thousand; with serpent-hair, all out of curl; who have changed the
distaff for the dagger. They are of 'the Society called Brotherly,'
Fraternelle, say Sisterly,
which meets under the roof of the Jacobins.
'Two thousand daggers,' or so, have been ordered,—doubtless, for them.
They rush to Versailles, to raise more women; but the Versailles women will
not rise.
(Buzot, Memoires, pp. 69, 84; Meillan, Memoires, pp. 192, 195,
196. See Commission des Douze (in Choix des Rapports, xii. 69-131).)
|
There is a strong contingent of women among the radicals of Paris.
|
|
Nay, behold, in National Garden of Tuileries, — Demoiselle
Théroigne?
herself
is become as a brownlocked Diana (were that possible) attacked by her own
dogs, or she-dogs![180]
The Demoiselle, keeping her carriage, is for Liberty
indeed, as she has full well shewn; but then for Liberty with
Respectability: whereupon these serpent-haired Extreme She-Patriots now do
fasten on her, tatter her, shamefully fustigate her, in their shameful way;
almost fling her into the Garden-ponds, had not help intervened. Help,
alas, to small purpose. The poor Demoiselle's head and nervous-system,
none of the soundest, is so tattered and fluttered that it will never
recover; but flutter worse and worse, till it crack; and within year and
day we hear of her in madhouse, and straitwaistcoat, which proves
permanent! — Such brownlocked Figure did flutter, and inarticulately jabber
and gesticulate, little able to speak the obscure meaning it had, through
some segment of that Eighteenth Century of Time. She disappears here from
the Revolution and Public History, for evermore. (Deux Amis,
vii. 77-80; Forster, i. 514; Moore, i. 70. She did not die till 1817; in the
Salpetriere, in the most abject state of insanity; see Esquirol, Des
Maladies Mentales (Paris, 1838), i. 445-50.)
|
Théroigne de Mércourt, "the Amazon of the Revolution", a
supporter of the Girondists, is attacked and beaten. She retreats into
insanity.
|
|
Another thing we will not again specify, yet again beseech the Reader to
imagine: the reign of Fraternity and Perfection. Imagine, we say, O
Reader, that the Millennium were struggling on the threshold, and yet not
so much as groceries could be had,—owing to traitors. With what impetus
would a man strike traitors, in that case? Ah, thou canst not imagine it:
thou hast thy groceries safe in the shops, and little or no hope of a
Millennium ever coming!—But, indeed, as to the temper there was in men and
women, does not this one fact say enough: the height SUSPICION had risen
to? Preternatural we often called it; seemingly in the language of
exaggeration: but listen to the cold deposition of witnesses. Not a
musical Patriot can blow himself a snatch of melody from the French Horn,
sitting mildly pensive on the housetop, but
Mercier?
will recognise it to be
a signal which one Plotting Committee is making to another. Distraction
has possessed Harmony herself; lurks in the sound of Marseillese and
ça-ira.
(Mercier, Nouveau Paris, vi. 63.)
Louvet?,
who can see as deep into a
millstone as the most, discerns that we shall be invited back to our old
Hall of the Manége, by a Deputation;
and then the Anarchists will massacre
Twenty-two of us, as we walk over. It is Pitt and Cobourg; the gold of
Pitt. — Poor Pitt! They little know what work he has with his own Friends
of the People; getting them bespied, beheaded, their habeas-corpuses
suspended, and his own Social Order and strong-boxes kept tight, — to fancy
him raising mobs among his neighbours!
|
Each side sees conspiracy everywhere.
|
|
But the strangest fact connected with French or indeed with human
Suspicion, is perhaps this of Camille
Desmoulins?.
Camille's head, one of
the clearest in
France,[181]
has got itself so saturated through every fibre
with Preternaturalism of Suspicion, that looking back on that Twelfth of
July 1789, when the thousands rose round him, yelling responsive at his
word in the Palais Royal Garden, and took cockades, he finds it explicable
only on this hypothesis, That they were all hired to do it, and set on by
the Foreign and other Plotters. 'It was not for nothing,' says Camille
with insight, 'that this multitude burst up round me when I spoke!' No,
not for nothing. Behind, around, before, it is one huge Preternatural
Puppet-play of Plots; Pitt pulling the wires. (See Histoire
des Brissotins, par Camille Desmoulins (a Pamphlet of Camille's, Paris,
1793).)
Almost I conjecture that I Camille myself am a Plot, and wooden with
wires. — The force of insight could no further go.
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Some of the plots "uncovered" are ridiculous.
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Be this as it will, History remarks that the Commission of Twelve, now
clear enough as to the Plots; and luckily having 'got the threads of them
all by the end,' as they say, — are launching Mandates of Arrest rapidly in
these May days; and carrying matters with a high hand; resolute that the
sea of troubles shall be restrained. What chief Patriot, Section-President
even, is safe? They can arrest him; tear him from his warm bed, because he
has made irregular Section Arrestments! They arrest
Varlet?
Apostle of
Liberty. They arrest Procureur-Substitute
Hébert, Père Duchesne; a
Magistrate of the People, sitting in Townhall; who, with high solemnity of
martyrdom, takes leave of his colleagues; prompt he, to obey the Law; and
solemnly acquiescent, disappears into prison.
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The Girondists obtain the arrest of some of their most violent opponents.
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The swifter fly the Sections, energetically demanding him back; demanding
not arrestment of Popular Magistrates, but of a traitorous Twenty-two.
Section comes flying after Section; — defiling energetic, with their
Cambyses' vein[72]
of oratory: nay the Commune itself comes, with Mayor Pache
at its head; and with question not of Hébert and the Twenty-two alone,
but
with this ominous old question made new, "Can you save the Republic, or
must we do it?" To whom President Max
Isnard?
makes fiery answer: If by
fatal chance, in any of those tumults which since the Tenth of March are
ever returning, Paris were to lift a sacrilegious finger against the
National Representation, France would rise as one man, in never-imagined
vengeance, and shortly "the traveller would ask, on which side of the Seine
Paris had stood!" (Moniteur, Séance du 25 Mai,
1793.) Whereat the
Mountain bellows only louder, and every Gallery; Patriot Paris boiling
round.
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The Paris mob now almost daily invades the Convention demanding the release
of Hébert and the arrest of the Girondists.
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And Girondin
Valazé?
has nightly conclaves at his house; sends billets;
'Come punctually, and well armed, for there is to be business.' And
Megaera women perambulate the streets, with flags, with lamentable
alleleu.
(Meillan, Mémoires, p. 195; Buzot, pp. 69, 84.)
And the Convention-doors
are obstructed by roaring multitudes: fine-spoken hommes d'état
are
hustled, maltreated, as they pass; Marat will apostrophise you, in such
death-peril, and say, Thou too art of them. If Roland ask leave to quit
Paris, there is order of the day. What help? Substitute Hébert,
Apostle
Varlet, must be given back; to be crowned with oak-garlands. The
Commission of Twelve, in a Convention overwhelmed with roaring Sections, is
broken; then on the morrow, in a Convention of rallied Girondins, is
reinstated. Dim Chaos, or the sea of troubles, is struggling through all
its elements; writhing and chafing towards some creation.
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The legislative power is now balanced evenly between the two factions.
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Accordingly, on Friday, the Thirty-first of May 1793, there comes forth
into the summer sunlight one of the strangest scenes. Mayor Pache with
Municipality arrives at the Tuileries Hall of Convention; sent for, Paris
being in visible ferment; and gives the strangest news.
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May 31, 1793. Insurrection of the Sections.
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How, in the grey of this morning, while we sat Permanent in Townhall,
watchful for the commonweal, there entered, precisely as on a Tenth of
August, some Ninety-six extraneous persons; who declared themselves to be
in a state of Insurrection; to be plenipotentiary Commissioners from the
Forty-eight Sections, sections or members of the Sovereign People, all in a
state of Insurrection; and further that we, in the name of said Sovereign
in Insurrection, were dismissed from office. How we thereupon laid off our
sashes, and withdrew into the adjacent Saloon of Liberty. How in a moment
or two, we were called back; and reinstated; the Sovereign pleasing to
think us still worthy of confidence. Whereby, having taken new oath of
office, we on a sudden find ourselves Insurrectionary Magistrates, with
extraneous Committee of Ninety-six sitting by us; and a Citoyen Henriot,
one whom some accuse of Septemberism, is made Generalissimo of the National
Guard; and, since six o'clock, the tocsins ring and the drums beat: — Under
which peculiar circumstances, what would an august National Convention
please to direct us to do? (Débats de la Convention
(Paris, 1828), iv. 187-223; Moniteur, Nos. 152, 3, 4, An 1er.)
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A well-planned "insurrection" puts the government of Paris in the hands of
the radicals.
|
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Yes, there is the question! "Break the Insurrectionary Authorities,"
answers some with vehemence. Vergniaud at least will have "the National
Representatives all die at their post;" this is sworn to, with ready loud
acclaim. But as to breaking the Insurrectionary Authorities, — alas, while
we yet debate, what sound is that? Sound of the Alarm-Cannon on the Pont
Neuf; which it is death by the Law to fire without order from us!
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The Convention attempts at first to resist but is cowed by the National
Guard and intimidated by the mob delegations of the sections.
|
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It does boom off there, nevertheless; sending a sound through all hearts.
And the tocsins discourse stern music; and Henriot with his Armed Force has
enveloped us! And Section succeeds Section, the livelong day; demanding
with Cambyses'-oratory, with the rattle of muskets, That traitors, Twenty-two
or more, be punished; that the Commission of Twelve be irrecoverably
broken. The heart of the Gironde dies within it; distant are the Seventy-two
respectable Departments, this fiery Municipality is near! Barrère is
for a middle course; granting something. The Commission of Twelve declares
that, not waiting to be broken, it hereby breaks itself, and is no more.
Fain would Reporter Rabaut speak his and its last-words; but he is bellowed
off. Too happy that the Twenty-two are still left unviolated! — Vergniaud,
carrying the laws of refinement to a great length, moves, to the amazement
of some, that 'the Sections of Paris have deserved well of their country.'
Whereupon, at a late hour of the evening, the deserving Sections retire to
their respective places of abode. Barrère shall report on it.
With busy
quill and brain he sits, secluded; for him no sleep to-night. Friday the
last of May has ended in this manner.
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The Girondist Committee of Public Safety resigns, but the 22 Girondist
delegates go home unattainted.
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| |
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The Sections have deserved well: but ought they not to deserve better?
Faction and Girondism is struck down for the moment, and consents to be a
nullity; but will it not, at another favourabler moment rise, still feller;
and the Republic have to be saved in spite of it? So reasons Patriotism,
still Permanent; so reasons the Figure of Marat, visible in the dim
Section-world, on the morrow. To the conviction of men! — And so at
eventide of Saturday, when Barrère had just got it all varnished in the
course of the day, and his Report was setting off in the evening mail-bags,
tocsin peals out again! Générale
is beating; armed men taking station in
the Place Vendôme and elsewhere for the night;
supplied with provisions and
liquor. There under the summer stars will they wait, this night, what is
to be seen and to be done, Henriot and Townhall giving due signal.
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June 1: armed mobs occupy the streets.
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The Convention, at sound of générale,
hastens back to its Hall; but to the
number only of a Hundred; and does little business, puts off business till
the morrow. The Girondins do not stir out thither, the Girondins are
abroad seeking beds. Poor Rabaut, on the morrow morning, returning to his
post, with Louvet and some others, through streets all in ferment, wrings
his hands, ejaculating, "Illa suprema dies! [that greatest of days]"
(Louvet, Mémoires, p. 89.)
It has become Sunday, the second day of June, year 1793, by the old style;
by the new style, year One of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. We have got
to the last scene of all, that ends this history of the Girondin
Senatorship.
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The Convention reconvenes on Sunday, June 2, a pivotal day in French history.
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It seems doubtful whether any terrestrial Convention had ever met in such
circumstances as this National one now does. Tocsin is pealing; Barriers
shut; all Paris is on the gaze, or under arms. As many as a Hundred
Thousand under arms they count: National Force; and the Armed Volunteers,
who should have flown to the Frontiers and La Vendée; but would not,
treason being unpunished; and only flew hither and thither! So many,
steady under arms, environ the National Tuileries and Garden. There are
horse, foot, artillery, sappers with beards: the artillery one can see
with their camp-furnaces in this National Garden, heating bullets red, and
their match is lighted.
Henriot?
in plumes rides, amid a plumed Staff: all
posts and issues are safe; reserves lie out, as far as the Wood of
Boulogne; the choicest Patriots nearest the scene. One other circumstance
we will note: that a careful Municipality, liberal of camp-furnaces, has
not forgotten provision-carts. No member of the Sovereign need now go home
to dinner; but can keep rank, — plentiful victual circulating unsought.
Does not this People understand Insurrection? Ye, not uninventive,
Gualches!—
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Not satisfied with Friday's concessions, the insurrectionists assemble an
intimidating armed force around
the Tuileries.
|
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Therefore let a National Representation, 'mandatories of the Sovereign,'
take thought of it. Expulsion of your Twenty-two, and your Commission of
Twelve: we stand here till it be done! Deputation after Deputation, in
ever stronger language, comes with that message.
Barrère?
proposes a middle
course: — Will not perhaps the inculpated Deputies consent to withdraw
voluntarily; to make a generous demission, and self-sacrifice for the sake
of one's country?
Isnard?,
repentant of that search on which river-bank
Paris stood, declares himself ready to demit. Ready also is Te-Deum
Fauchet?;
old
Dusaulx?
of the Bastille, 'vieux radoteur, old dotard,' as
Marat calls him, is still readier. On the contrary,
Lanjuinais?
the Breton
declares that there is one man who never will demit voluntarily; but will
protest to the uttermost, while a voice is left him. And he accordingly
goes on protesting; amid rage and clangor;
Legendre?
crying at last:
"Lanjuinais, come down from the Tribune, or I will fling thee down, ou je
te jette en bas!" For matters are come to extremity. Nay they do clutch
hold of Lanjuinais, certain zealous Mountain-men; but cannot fling him
down, for he 'cramps himself on the railing;' and 'his clothes get torn.'
Brave Senator, worthy of pity! Neither will
Barbaroux?
demit; he "has sworn
to die at his post, and will keep that oath." Whereupon the Galleries all
rise with explosion; brandishing weapons, some of them; and rush out
saying: "Allons, then;
we must save our country!" Such a Session is this
of Sunday the second of June.
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The demand is for the expulsion of the most prominent Girondists. Some
agree to step down; others resist to the point of violence.
|
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Churches fill, over Christian Europe, and then empty themselves; but this
Convention empties not, the while: a day of shrieking contention, of
agony, humiliation and tearing of coatskirts; illa suprema dies! Round
stand Henriot and his Hundred Thousand, copiously refreshed from tray and
basket: nay he is 'distributing five francs a-piece;' we Girondins saw it
with our eyes; five francs to keep them in heart! And distraction of armed
riot encumbers our borders, jangles at our Bar; we are prisoners in our own
Hall: Bishop
Grégoire?
could not get out for a besoin actuel [pressing need] without four
gendarmes to wait on him! What is the character of a National
Representative become? And now the sunlight falls yellower on western
windows, and the chimney-tops are flinging longer shadows; the refreshed
Hundred Thousand, nor their shadows, stir not! What to resolve on? Motion
rises, superfluous one would think, That the Convention go forth in a body;
ascertain with its own eyes whether it is free or not. Lo, therefore, from
the Eastern Gate of the Tuileries, a distressed Convention issuing;
handsome Herault
Sechelles?
at their head; he with hat on, in sign of public
calamity, the rest bareheaded, — towards the Gate of the Carrousel; wondrous
to see: towards Henriot and his plumed staff. "In the name of the
National Convention, make way!" Not an inch of the way does Henriot make:
"I receive no orders, till the Sovereign, yours and mine, has been obeyed."
The Convention presses on; Henriot prances back, with his staff, some
fifteen paces, "To arms! Cannoneers to your guns!" — flashes out his
puissant sword, as the Staff all do, and the Hussars all do. Cannoneers
brandish the lit match; Infantry present arms, — alas, in the level way, as
if for firing! Hatted Herault leads his distressed flock, through their
pinfold [place of restraint] of a Tuileries again;
across the Garden, to the Gate on the
opposite side. Here is Feuillans Terrace, alas, there is our old Salle de
Manége; but neither at this Gate of the
Pont Tournant is there egress. Try
the other; and the other: no egress! We wander disconsolate through armed
ranks; who indeed salute with Live the Republic, but also with Die
the
Gironde. Other such sight, in the year One of Liberty, the westering sun
never saw.
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The delegates will not be allowed to leave until they have expelled the
22 Girondists.
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And now behold Marat meets us; for he lagged in this Suppliant Procession
of ours: he has got some hundred elect Patriots at his heels: he orders
us in the Sovereign's name to return to our place, and do as we are bidden
and bound. The Convention returns. "Does not the Convention," says
Couthon?
with a singular power of face, "see that it is free?" — none but
friends round it? The Convention, overflowing with friends and armed
Sectioners, proceeds to vote as bidden. Many will not vote, but remain
silent; some one or two protest, in words: the Mountain has a clear
unanimity. Commission of Twelve, and the denounced Twenty-two, to whom we
add Ex-Ministers
Claviere?
and
Lebrun?:
these, with some slight extempore
alterations (this or that orator proposing, but Marat disposing), are voted
to be under 'Arrestment in their own houses.'
Brissot?,
Buzot?,
Vergniaud?,
Guadet?,
Louvet?,
Gensonné?,
Barbaroux?,
Lasource?,
Lanjuinais?,
Rabaut?,
— Thirty-two, by the tale;
all that we have known as Girondins, and more than we
have known. They, 'under the safeguard of the French People;' by and by,
under the safeguard of two Gendarmes each, shall dwell peaceably in their
own houses; as Non-Senators; till further order. Herewith ends
Séance of
Sunday the second of June 1793.
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The 22 Girondins, and more, are expelled and placed under house arrest.
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At ten o'clock, under mild stars, the Hundred Thousand, their work well
finished, turn homewards. This same day, Central Insurrection Committee
has arrested Madame Roland; imprisoned her in the Abbaye. Roland has fled,
no one knows whither.
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Madame Roland is also arrested, but her husband escapes.
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Thus fell the Girondins, by Insurrection; and became extinct as a Party:
not without a sigh from most Historians. The men were men of parts, of
Philosophic culture, decent behaviour; not condemnable in that they were
Pedants and had not better parts; not condemnable, but most unfortunate.
They wanted a Republic of the Virtues, wherein themselves should be head;
and they could only get a Republic of the Strengths, wherein others than
they were head.
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Carlyle eulogizes the Girondists.
|
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For the rest, Barrère shall make Report of it.
The night concludes with a
'civic promenade by torchlight:' (Buzot, Mémoires,
p. 310. See Pièces
Justificatives, of Narratives, Commentaries, etc. in Buzot, Louvet, Meillan:
Documens Complèmentaires, in Hist. Parl. xxviii. 1-78.)
surely the true
reign of Fraternity is now not far?
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In the leafy months of June and July, several French Departments germinate
a set of rebellious paper-leaves, named Proclamations, Resolutions,
Journals, or Diurnals 'of the Union for Resistance to Oppression.' In
particular, the Town of Caen, in Calvados, sees its paper-leaf of Bulletin
de Caen suddenly bud, suddenly establish itself as Newspaper there; under
the Editorship of Girondin National Representatives!
|
The expulsion of the Girondists excites protest, particularly in the north
and west, where some of those expelled have fled.
|
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For among the proscribed Girondins are certain of a more desperate humour.
Some, as
Vergniaud?,
Valazé?,
Gensonné?,
'arrested in their own houses' will
await with stoical resignation what the issue may be. Some, as
Brissot?,
Rabaut?,
will take to flight, to concealment; which, as the Paris Barriers
are opened again in a day or two, is not yet difficult. But others there
are who will rush, with
Buzot?,
to Calvados; or far over France, to Lyons,
Toulon, Nantes and elsewhither, and then rendezvous at Caen: to awaken as
with war-trumpet the respectable Departments; and strike down an anarchic
Mountain Faction; at least not yield without a stroke at it. Of this
latter temper we count some score or more, of the Arrested, and of the
Not-yet-arrested; a Buzot, a
Barbaroux?,
Louvet?,
Guadet?,
Pétion?, who have
escaped from Arrestment in their own homes; a
Salles?,
a Pythagorean
Valady?,
a Duchâtel?,
the Duchâtel that came in blanket and nightcap to vote for the
life of Louis, who have escaped from danger and likelihood of Arrestment.
These, to the number at one time of Twenty-seven, do accordingly lodge
here, at the 'Intendance, or Departmental Mansion,' of the Town of Caen;
welcomed by Persons in Authority; welcomed and defrayed, having no money of
their own. And the Bulletin de Caen comes forth,
with the most animating
paragraphs: How the Bourdeaux Department, the Lyons Department, this
Department after the other is declaring itself; sixty, or say sixty-nine,
or seventy-two (Meillan, p. 72, 73; Louvet, p. 129.)
respectable
Departments either declaring, or ready to declare. Nay Marseilles, it
seems, will march on Paris by itself, if need be. So has Marseilles Town
said, That she will march. But on the other hand, that Montelimart Town
has said, No thoroughfare; and means even to 'bury herself' under her own
stone and mortar first—of this be no mention in Bulletin of Caen.
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Many of the leading Girondists gather at Caen, where they discuss next steps
and publish propaganda.
|
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Such animating paragraphs we read in this Newspaper; and fervours, and
eloquent sarcasm: tirades against the Mountain, frame pen of Deputy
Salles; which resemble, say friends, Pascal's Provincials.
What is more to
the purpose, these Girondins have got a General in chief, one
Wimpfen?,
formerly under
Dumouriez?;
also a secondary questionable General
Puisaye?,
and others; and are doing their best to raise a force for war. National
Volunteers, whosoever is of right heart: gather in, ye National
Volunteers, friends of Liberty; from our Calvados Townships, from the Eure,
from Brittany, from far and near; forward to Paris, and extinguish Anarchy!
Thus at Caen, in the early July days, there is a drumming and parading, a
perorating and consulting: Staff and Army; Council; Club of Carabots,
Anti-jacobin friends of Freedom, to denounce atrocious Marat. With all
which, and the editing of Bulletins, a National Representative has his
hands full.
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There is an effort to raise an armed force against the Convention under
de Wimpfen.
|
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At Caen it is most animated; and, as one hopes, more or less animated in
the 'Seventy-two Departments that adhere to us.' And in a France begirt
with Cimmerian invading Coalitions, and torn with an internal La Vendée,
this is the conclusion we have arrived at: to put down Anarchy by Civil
War! Durum et durum, the Proverb says, non faciunt murum
[Hard and hard do not make a stone wall].
La Vendée
burns: Santerre can do nothing there; he may return home and brew beer.
Cimmerian bombshells fly all along the North. That Siege of Mentz is
become famed; — lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe will testify), washed
country-people of both sexes, stroll thither on Sundays, to see the
artillery work and counterwork; 'you only duck a little while the shot
whizzes past.' (Belagerung von Mainz (Goethe's Werke, xxx.
278-334).)
Condé is capitulating to the Austrians; Royal Highness of York, these
several weeks, fiercely batters Valenciennes. For, alas, our fortified
Camp of Famars was stormed; General Dampierre was killed; General Custine
was blamed, — and indeed is now come to Paris to give 'explanations.'
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Things are not going well for the central government on any front.
The revolt in the Vendée continues unabated; Mainz is under siege; and
defeat follows defeat in Belgium.
|
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Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must even make head as
they can. They, anarchic Convention as they are, publish Decrees,
expostulatory, explanatory, yet not without severity; they ray forth
Commissioners, singly or in pairs, the olive-branch in one hand, yet the
sword in the other. Commissioners come even to Caen; but without effect.
Mathematical
Romme?,
and
Prieur?
named of the Côte d'Or, venturing thither,
with their olive and sword, are packed into prison: there may Romme lie,
under lock and key, 'for fifty days;' and meditate his New Calendar, if he
please. Cimmeria and Civil War! Never was Republic One and Indivisible at
a lower ebb.—
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Deputies are sent on mission to disaffected areas. Some meet with better
success than others. French unity of purpose seems no longer to exist.
|
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Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the World, History specially notices one
thing: in the lobby of the Mansion de l'Intendance, where busy Deputies
are coming and going, a young Lady with an aged valet, taking grave
graceful leave of Deputy Barbaroux. (Meillan, p.75;
Louvet, p. 114.) She
is of stately Norman figure; in her twenty-fifth year; of beautiful still
countenance: her name is Charlotte
Corday?,
heretofore styled d'Armans,
while Nobility still was.
Barbaroux?
has given her a Note to Deputy
Duperret?,
— him who once drew his sword in the effervescence. Apparently
she will to Paris on some errand? 'She was a Republican before the
Revolution, and never wanted energy.' A completeness, a decision is in
this fair female Figure: 'by energy she means the spirit that will prompt
one to sacrifice himself for his country.' What if she, this fair young
Charlotte, had emerged from her secluded stillness, suddenly like a Star;
cruel-lovely, with half-angelic, half-demonic splendour; to gleam for a
moment, and in a moment be extinguished: to be held in memory, so bright
complete was she, through long centuries! — Quitting Cimmerian Coalitions
without, and the dim-simmering Twenty-five millions within, History will
look fixedly at this one fair Apparition of a Charlotte Corday; will note
whither Charlotte moves, how the little Life burns forth so radiant, then
vanishes swallowed of the Night.
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Charlotte Corday, a federalist and a sympathizer with the Girondists,
privately seeks introductions in Paris. Her intentions are unsuspected.
|
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With Barbaroux's Note of Introduction, and slight stock of luggage, we see
Charlotte, on Tuesday the ninth of July, seated in the Caen Diligence, with
a place for Paris. None takes farewell of her, wishes her Good-journey:
her Father will find a line left, signifying that she is gone to England,
that he must pardon her and forget her. The drowsy Diligence lumbers
along; amid drowsy talk of Politics, and praise of the Mountain; in which
she mingles not; all night, all day, and again all night. On Thursday, not
long before noon, we are at the Bridge of Neuilly; here is Paris with her
thousand black domes, — the goal and purpose of thy journey! Arrived at the
Inn de la Providence in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, Charlotte demands a
room; hastens to bed; sleeps all afternoon and night, till the morrow
morning.
|
July 9 she travels by coach to Paris, arriving on the 11th.
|
|
On the morrow morning, she delivers her Note to Duperret. It relates to
certain Family Papers which are in the Minister of the Interior's hand;
which a Nun at Caen, an old Convent-friend of Charlotte's, has need of;
which Duperret shall assist her in getting: this then was Charlotte's
errand to Paris? She has finished this, in the course of Friday; — yet says
nothing of returning. She has seen and silently investigated several
things. The Convention, in bodily reality, she has seen; what the Mountain
is like. The living physiognomy of Marat she could not see; he is sick at
present, and confined to home.
|
Corday soon finishes her ostensible business, but remains in Paris.
|
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About eight on the Saturday morning, she purchases a large sheath-knife in
the Palais Royal; then straightway, in the Place des Victoires, takes a
hackney-coach: "To the Rue de l'Ecole de Médecine, No. 44." It is the
residence of the Citoyen Marat! — The Citoyen Marat is ill, and cannot be
seen; which seems to disappoint her much. Her business is with Marat,
then? Hapless beautiful Charlotte; hapless squalid Marat! From Caen in
the utmost West, from Neuchatel in the utmost East, they two are drawing
nigh each other; they two have, very strangely, business together. —
Charlotte, returning to her Inn, despatches a short Note to Marat;
signifying that she is from Caen, the seat of rebellion; that she desires
earnestly to see him, and 'will put it in his power to do France a great
service.' No answer. Charlotte writes another Note, still more pressing;
sets out with it by coach, about seven in the evening, herself. Tired
day-labourers have again finished their Week; huge Paris is circling and
simmering, manifold, according to its vague wont: this one fair Figure has
decision in it; drives straight, — towards a purpose.
|
She attempts to see Marat. Refused, she tries again later in the day.
|
|
It is yellow July evening, we say, the thirteenth of the month; eve of the
Bastille day, — when 'M. Marat,' four years ago, in the crowd of the Pont
Neuf, shrewdly required of that Besenval Hussar-party, which had such
friendly dispositions, "to dismount, and give up their arms, then;" and
became notable among Patriot men! Four years: what a road he has
travelled; — and sits now, about half-past seven of the clock, stewing in
slipper-bath; sore afflicted; ill of Revolution Fever, — of what other
malady this History had rather not name[182].
Excessively sick and worn, poor
man: with precisely elevenpence-halfpenny of ready money, in paper; with
slipper-bath; strong three-footed stool for writing on, the while; and a
squalid—Washerwoman, one may call her: that is his civic establishment in
Medical-School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him.
Not to the reign of Brotherhood and Perfect Felicity; yet surely on the way
towards that? — Hark, a rap again! A musical woman's-voice, refusing to be
rejected: it is the Citoyenne who would do France a service. Marat,
recognising from within, cries, Admit her. Charlotte Corday is admitted.
|
She is admitted on the evening of July 13. Marat is in his bath, where his
disease forces him to remain for long periods.
|
|
Citoyen Marat, I am from Caen the seat of rebellion, and wished to speak
with you.—Be seated, mon enfant.
Now what are the Traitors doing at Caen?
What Deputies are at Caen? — Charlotte names some Deputies. "Their heads
shall fall within a fortnight," croaks the eager People's-Friend, clutching
his tablets to write: Barbaroux, Pétion, writes he with bare
shrunk arm,
turning aside in the bath: Pétion, and Louvet, and —
Charlotte has drawn
her knife from the sheath; plunges it, with one sure stroke, into the
writer's heart. "A moi, chère amie, Help, dear!"
No more could the Death-choked say or shriek.
The helpful Washerwoman running in, there is no
Friend of the People, or Friend of the Washerwoman, left; but his life with
a groan gushes out, indignant, to the shades below. (Moniteur,
Nos. 197, 198, 199; Hist. Parl. xxviii. 301-5; Deux Amis, x. 368-374.)
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Corday stabs Marat.
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And so Marat People's-Friend is ended; the lone Stylites has got hurled
down suddenly from his Pillar,—whither He that made him does know.
Patriot Paris may sound triple and tenfold, in dole and wail; re-echoed by
Patriot France; and the Convention,
'Chabot?
pale with terror declaring that
they are to be all assassinated,' may decree him Pantheon Honours, Public
Funeral,
Mirabeau's?
dust making way for him; and Jacobin Societies, in
lamentable oratory, summing up his character, parallel him to One, whom
they think it honour to call 'the good Sansculotte,' — whom we name not
here. (See Eloge funèbre de Jean-Paul Marat,
prononcé à
Strasbourg (in Barbaroux, p. 125-131); Mercier, etc.)
Also a Chapel may be made, for the
urn that holds his Heart, in the Place du Carrousel; and new-born children
be named Marat; and Lago-de-Como Hawkers bake mountains of stucco into
unbeautiful Busts; and David paint his Picture, or Death-scene; and such
other Apotheosis take place as the human genius, in these circumstances,
can devise: but Marat returns no more to the light of this Sun. One sole
circumstance we have read with clear sympathy, in the old Moniteur
Newspaper: how Marat's brother comes from Neuchatel to ask of the
Convention 'that the deceased Jean-Paul Marat's musket be given him.'
(Séance du 16 Septembre 1793.)
For Marat too had a brother, and natural
affections; and was wrapt once in swaddling-clothes, and slept safe in a
cradle like the rest of us. Ye children of men! — A sister of his, they
say, lives still to this day in Paris.
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Marat is buried with high praises and honors and enshrined in the Pantheon.
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As for Charlotte Corday her work is accomplished; the recompense of it is
near and sure. The chère amie, and neighbours of the house,
flying at her,
she 'overturns some movables,' entrenches herself till the gendarmes
arrive; then quietly surrenders; goes quietly to the Abbaye Prison: she
alone quiet, all Paris sounding in wonder, in rage or admiration, round
her. Duperret is put in arrest, on account of her; his Papers sealed, —
which may lead to consequences.
Fauchet?,
in like manner; though Fauchet
had not so much as heard of her. Charlotte, confronted with these two
Deputies, praises the grave firmness of Duperret, censures the dejection of
Fauchet.
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Corday is seized at the scene and imprisoned.
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On Wednesday morning, the thronged Palais de Justice and Revolutionary
Tribunal can see her face; beautiful and calm: she dates it 'fourth day of
the Preparation of Peace.' A strange murmur ran through the Hall, at sight
of her; you could not say of what character. (Procès
de Charlotte Corday,
etc. (Hist. Parl. xxviii. 311-338).)
Tinville has his indictments and tape-papers:
the cutler of the Palais Royal will testify that he sold her the
sheath-knife; "all these details are needless," interrupted Charlotte; "it
is I that killed Marat." By whose instigation? — "By no one's." What
tempted you, then? His crimes. "I killed one man," added she, raising her
voice extremely (extrémement),
as they went on with their questions, "I
killed one man to save a hundred thousand; a villain to save innocents; a
savage wild-beast to give repose to my country. I was a Republican before
the Revolution; I never wanted energy." There is therefore nothing to be
said. The public gazes astonished: the hasty limners sketch her features,
Charlotte not disapproving; the men of law proceed with their formalities.
The doom is Death as a murderess. To her Advocate she gives thanks; in
gentle phrase, in high-flown classical spirit. To the Priest they send her
she gives thanks; but needs not any shriving, or ghostly or other aid from
him.
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She confesses and is immediately condemned.
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On this same evening, therefore, about half-past seven o'clock, from the
gate of the Conciergerie, to a City all on tiptoe, the fatal Cart issues:
seated on it a fair young creature, sheeted in red smock of Murderess; so
beautiful, serene, so full of life; journeying towards death, — alone amid
the world. Many take off their hats, saluting reverently; for what heart
but must be touched? (Deux Amis, x. 374-384.)
Others growl and howl.
Adam Lux?,
of Mentz,declares that she is greater than Brutus; that it were
beautiful to die with her: the head of this young man seems turned. At
the Place de la Révolution, the countenance of Charlotte wears the same
still smile. The executioners proceed to bind her feet; she resists,
thinking it meant as an insult; on a word of explanation, she submits with
cheerful apology. As the last act, all being now ready, they take the
neckerchief from her neck: a blush of maidenly shame overspreads that fair
face and neck; the cheeks were still tinged with it, when the executioner
lifted the severed head, to shew it to the people. 'It is most true,' says
Foster, 'that he struck the cheek insultingly; for I saw it with my eyes:
the Police imprisoned him for it.' (Briefwechsel, i.
508.)
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She is executed on the day of her trial.
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In this manner have the Beautifullest and the Squalidest come in collision,
and extinguished one another. Jean-Paul Marat and Marie-Anne Charlotte
Corday both, suddenly, are no more. 'Day of the Preparation of Peace?'
Alas, how were peace possible or preparable, while, for example, the hearts
of lovely Maidens, in their convent-stillness, are dreaming not of
Love-paradises, and the light of Life; but of
Codrus'-sacrifices[183],
and death well
earned? That Twenty-five million hearts have got to such temper, this is
the Anarchy; the soul of it lies in this: whereof not peace can be the
embodyment! The death of Marat, whetting old animosities tenfold, will be
worse than any life. O ye hapless Two, mutually extinctive, the Beautiful
and the Squalid, sleep ye well, — in the Mother's bosom that bore you both!
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Far from resolving the conflicts splitting France, the murder of Marat
intensifies them.
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This was the History of Charlotte Corday; most definite, most complete;
angelic-demonic: like a Star! Adam Lux goes home, half-delirious; to pour
forth his Apotheosis of her, in paper and print; to propose that she have a
statue with this inscription, Greater than Brutus.
Friends represent his
danger; Lux is reckless; thinks it were beautiful to die with her.
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Corday does not die unadmired.
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But during these same hours, another guillotine is at work, on another:
Charlotte, for the Girondins, dies at Paris to-day;
Chalier?,
by the
Girondins, dies at Lyons to-morrow.
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Joseph Chalier, arrested for attempted a Jacobin insurrection at Lyons
in May, is executed in July.
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From rumbling of cannon along the streets of that City, it has come to
firing of them, to rabid fighting:
Nievre-Chol?
and the Girondins triumph; —
behind whom there is, as everywhere, a Royalist Faction waiting to strike
in. Trouble enough at Lyons; and the dominant party carrying it with a
high hand! For indeed, the whole South is astir; incarcerating Jacobins;
arming for Girondins: wherefore we have got a 'Congress of Lyons;' also a
'Revolutionary Tribunal of Lyons,' and Anarchists shall tremble. So
Chalier was soon found guilty, of Jacobinism, of murderous Plot, 'address
with drawn dagger on the sixth of February last;' and, on the morrow, he
also travels his final road, along the streets of Lyons, 'by the side of an
ecclesiastic, with whom he seems to speak earnestly,' — the axe now
glittering high. He could weep, in old years, this man, and 'fall on his
knees on the pavement,' blessing Heaven at sight of Federation Programs or
like; then he pilgrimed to Paris, to worship Marat and the Mountain: now
Marat and he are both gone; — we said he could not end well. Jacobinism
groans inwardly, at Lyons; but dare not outwardly. Chalier, when the
Tribunal sentenced him, made answer: "My death will cost this City dear."
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Federalists, supporting the Girondists, are temporarily in charge in Lyons
and threaten to take control of the entire South.
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Montélimart Town
is not buried under its ruins; yet Marseilles is actually
marching, under order of a 'Lyons Congress;' is incarcerating Patriots; the
very Royalists now shewing face. Against which a General
Cartaux?
fights,
though in small force; and with him an Artillery Major, of the name of —
Napoleon Buonaparte. This Napoleon, to prove that the Marseillese have no
chance ultimately, not only fights but writes; publishes his Supper of
Beaucaire, a Dialogue which has become curious. (See
Hazlitt, ii. 529-41.)
Unfortunate Cities, with their actions and their reactions! Violence to be
paid with violence in geometrical ratio; Royalism and Anarchism both
striking in; — the final net-amount of which geometrical series, what man
shall sum?
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The central government strikes back. Southern, western and northern
France are caught in an
accelerating cycle of violence.
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The Bar of Iron has never yet floated in Marseilles Harbour; but the Body
of Rebecqui?
was found floating, self-drowned there. Hot Rebecqui seeing
how confusion deepened, and Respectability grew poisoned with Royalism,
felt that there was no refuge for a Republican but death. Rebecqui
disappeared: no one knew whither; till, one morning, they found the empty
case or body of him risen to the top, tumbling on the salt waves;
(Barbaroux, p. 29.)
and perceived that Rebecqui had withdrawn forever. —
Toulon likewise is incarcerating Patriots; sending delegates to Congress;
intriguing, in case of necessity, with the Royalists and English.
Montpellier, Bourdeaux, Nantes: all France, that is not under the swoop of
Austria and Cimmeria, seems rushing into madness, and suicidal ruin. The
Mountain labours; like a volcano in a burning volcanic Land. Convention
Committees, of Surety, of Salvation, are busy night and day: Convention
Commissioners whirl on all highways; bearing olive-branch and sword, or now
perhaps sword only.
Chaumette?
and Municipals come daily to the Tuileries
demanding a Constitution: it is some weeks now since he resolved, in
Townhall, that a Deputation 'should go every day' and demand a
Constitution, till one were got; (Deux Amis, x. 345.)
whereby suicidal
France might rally and pacify itself; a thing inexpressibly desirable.
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The provincial rebellions do not fare well, but they do not need to in order
to shake the shallow foundations of the French Republic.
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This then is the fruit your Anti-anarchic Girondins have got from that
Levying of War in Calvados? This fruit, we may say; and no other
whatsoever. For indeed, before either Charlotte's or Chalier's head had
fallen, the Calvados War itself had, as it were, vanished, dreamlike, in a
shriek! With 'seventy-two Departments' on one's side, one might have hoped
better things. But it turns out that Respectabilities, though they will
vote, will not fight. Possession is always nine points in Law; but in
Lawsuits of this kind, one may say,
it is ninety-and-nine points. Men do
what they were wont to do; and have immense irresolution and inertia: they
obey him who has the symbols that claim obedience. Consider what, in
modern society, this one fact means: the Metropolis is with our enemies!
Metropolis, Mother-city; rightly so named: all the rest are but as her
children, her nurselings. Why, there is not a leathern Diligence, with its
post-bags and luggage-boots, that lumbers out from her, but is as a huge
life-pulse; she is the heart of all. Cut short that one leathern
Diligence, how much is cut short! — General Wimpfen, looking practically
into the matter, can see nothing for it but that one should fall back on
Royalism; get into communication with Pitt! Dark innuendoes he flings out,
to that effect: whereat we Girondins start, horrorstruck. He produces as
his Second in command a certain 'Ci-devant,' one Comte Puisaye;
entirely unknown to Louvet; greatly suspected by him.
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The Girondist supporters are without a symbol and therefore can not or
will not fight.
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Few wars, accordingly, were ever levied of a more insufficient character
than this of Calvados. He that is curious in such things may read the
details of it in the Memoirs of that same Ci-devant Puisaye,
the much-enduring man and Royalist:
How our Girondin National Forces, marching off
with plenty of wind-music, were drawn out about the old Château of
Brécourt, in the wood-country near Vernon, to meet the Mountain National
forces advancing from Paris. How on the fifteenth afternoon of July, they
did meet, — and, as it were, shrieked mutually, and took mutually to flight
without loss. How Puisaye thereafter, for the Mountain Nationals fled
first, and we thought ourselves the victors, — was roused from his warm bed
in the Castle of Brécourt; and had to gallop without boots;
our Nationals,
in the night-watches, having fallen unexpectedly into sauve qui peut:
— and
in brief the Calvados War had burnt priming; and the only question now was,
Whitherward to vanish, in what hole to hide oneself!
(Mémoires de Puisaye
(London, 1803), ii. 142-67.)
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The Calvados rebellion is soon over, with little violence.
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The National Volunteers rush homewards, faster than they came. The
Seventy-two Respectable Departments, says Meillan, 'all turned round, and
forsook us, in the space of four-and-twenty hours.' Unhappy those who, as
at Lyons for instance, have gone too far for turning! 'One morning,' we
find placarded on our Intendance Mansion, the Decree of Convention which
casts us Hors la loi, into Outlawry:
placarded by our Caen Magistrates; —
clear hint that we also are to vanish. Vanish, indeed: but whitherward?
Gorsas?
has friends in Rennes; he will hide there, — unhappily will not lie
hid. Guadet?,
Lanjuinais?
are on cross roads; making for Bourdeaux. To
Bourdeaux! cries the general voice, of Valour alike and of Despair. Some
flag of Respectability still floats there, or is thought to float.
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Most of the escaped Girondists move farther west, many into Bourdeaux.
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Thitherward therefore; each as he can! Eleven of these ill-fated Deputies,
among whom we may count, as twelfth, Friend
Riouffe?
the Man of Letters, do
an original thing. Take the uniform of National Volunteers, and retreat
southward with the Breton Battalion, as private soldiers of that corps.
These brave Bretons had stood truer by us than any other. Nevertheless, at
the end of a day or two, they also do now get dubious, self-divided; we
must part from them; and, with some half-dozen as convoy or guide, retreat
by ourselves ,— a solitary marching detachment, through waste regions of the
West. (Louvet, pp. 101-37; Meillan, pp. 81, 241-70.)
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They find their support is waning, even as they travel there.
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It is one of the notablest Retreats, this of the Eleven, that History
presents: The handful of forlorn Legislators retreating there,
continually, with shouldered firelock and well-filled cartridge-box, in the
yellow autumn; long hundreds of miles between them and Bourdeaux; the
country all getting hostile, suspicious of the truth; simmering and buzzing
on all sides, more and more.
Louvet?
has preserved the Itinerary of it; a
piece worth all the rest he ever wrote.
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The Girondist leaders make the long way to Bordeaux.
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O virtuous
Pétion?,
with thy early-white head, O brave young
Barbaroux?,
has
it come to this? Weary ways, worn shoes, light purse; — encompassed with
perils as with a sea! Revolutionary Committees are in every Township; of
Jacobin temper; our friends all cowed, our cause the losing one. In the
Borough of Moncontour, by ill chance, it is market-day: to the gaping
public such transit of a solitary Marching Detachment is suspicious; we
have need of energy, of promptitude and luck, to be allowed to march
through. Hasten, ye weary pilgrims! The country is getting up; noise of
you is bruited day after day, a solitary Twelve retreating in this
mysterious manner: with every new day, a wider wave of inquisitive
pursuing tumult is stirred up till the whole West will be in motion.
'Cussy?
is tormented with gout,
Buzot?
is too fat for marching.'
Riouffe?,
blistered, bleeding, marching only on tiptoe; Barbaroux limps with sprained
ancle, yet ever cheery, full of hope and valour. Light Louvet glances
hare-eyed, not hare-hearted: only virtuous Pétion's serenity
'was but once
seen ruffled.' (Meillan, pp. 119-137.)
They lie in straw-lofts, in woody
brakes; rudest paillasse on the floor of a secret friend is luxury. They
are seized in the dead of night by Jacobin mayors and tap of drum; get off
by firm countenance, rattle of muskets, and ready wit.
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|
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Of Bourdeaux, through fiery La Vendée and the long
geographical spaces that
remain, it were madness to think: well, if you can get to Quimper on the
sea-coast, and take shipping there. Faster, ever faster! Before the end
of the march, so hot has the country grown, it is found advisable to march
all night. They do it; under the still night-canopy they plod along; — and
yet behold, Rumour has outplodded them. In the paltry Village of Carhaix
(be its thatched huts and bottomless peat-bogs long notable to the
Traveller), one is astonished to find light still glimmering: citizens are
awake, with rush-lights burning, in that nook of the terrestrial Planet; as
we traverse swiftly the one poor street, a voice is heard saying, "There
they are, Les voilà qui passent!" (Louvet,
pp. 138-164.) Swifter, ye
doomed lame Twelve: speed ere they can arm; gain the Woods of Quimper
before day, and lie squatted there!
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Abandoning the immediate goal of Bordeaux, they make for Quimper in Brittany.
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The doomed Twelve do it; though with difficulty, with loss of road, with
peril, and the mistakes of a night. In Quimper are Girondin friends, who
perhaps will harbour the homeless, till a Bourdeaux ship weigh. Wayworn,
heartworn, in agony of suspense, till Quimper friendship get warning, they
lie there, squatted under the thick wet boscage; suspicious of the face of
man. Some pity to the brave; to the unhappy! Unhappiest of all
Legislators, O when ye packed your luggage, some score, or two-score months
ago; and mounted this or the other leathern vehicle, to be Conscript
Fathers of a regenerated France, and reap deathless laurels, — did ye think
your journey was to lead hither? The Quimper Samaritans find them
squatted; lift them up to help and comfort; will hide them in sure places.
Thence let them dissipate gradually; or there they can lie quiet, and write
Memoirs, till a Bourdeaux ship sail.
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They find shelter there.
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And thus, in Calvados all is dissipated;
Romme?
is out of prison, meditating
his Calendar; ringleaders are locked in his room. At Caen the Corday
family mourns in silence; Buzot's House is a heap of dust and demolition;
and amid the rubbish sticks a Gallows, with this inscription, Here dwelt
the Traitor Buzot who conspired against the Republic. Buzot and the other
vanished Deputies are hors la loi, as we saw; their lives free to take
where they can be found. The worse fares it with the poor Arrested visible
Deputies at Paris. 'Arrestment at home' threatens to become 'Confinement
in the Luxembourg;' to end: where? For example, what pale-visaged thin
man is this, journeying towards Switzerland as a Merchant of Neuchatel,
whom they arrest in the town of Moulins? To Revolutionary Committee he is
suspect. To Revolutionary Committee, on probing the matter, he is
evidently: Deputy
Brissot?!
Back to thy Arrestment, poor Brissot; or
indeed to strait confinement, — whither others are fared to follow.
Rabaut?
has built himself a false-partition, in a friend's house; lives, in
invisible darkness, between two walls. It will end, this same Arrestment
business, in Prison, and the Revolutionary Tribunal.
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The Girondists who did not flee Paris are not faring much better.
They will soon
be moved from house arrest to prison.
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Nor must we forget
Duperret?,
and the seal put on his papers by reason of
Charlotte. One Paper is there, fit to breed woe enough: A secret solemn
Protest against that suprema dies of the Second of June! This Secret
Protest our poor Duperret had drawn up, the same week, in all plainness of
speech; waiting the time for publishing it: to which Secret Protest his
signature, and that of other honourable Deputies not a few, stands legibly
appended. And now, if the seals were once broken, the Mountain still
victorious? Such Protestors, your
Merciers?,
Bailleuls?,
Seventy-three by
the tale, what yet remains of Respectable Girondism in the Convention, may
tremble to think! — These are the fruits of levying civil war.
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It is no longer safe even to have questioned the expulsion of the Girondists.
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Also we find, that, in these last days of July, the famed Siege of Mentz is
finished; the Garrison to march out with honours of war; not to serve
against the Coalition for a year! Lovers of the Picturesque, and Goethe
standing on the Chaussée of Mentz, saw, with due interest,
the Procession
issuing forth, in all solemnity:
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At this same time, Mainz falls to the Prussians. Carlyle quotes Goethe's
description of the French exodus:
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'Escorted by Prussian horse came first the French Garrison. Nothing could
look stranger than this latter: a column of Marseillese, slight, swarthy,
party-coloured, in patched clothes, came tripping on; — as if King Edwin had
opened the Dwarf Hill, and sent out his nimble Host of Dwarfs. Next
followed regular troops; serious, sullen; not as if downcast or ashamed.
But the remarkablest appearance, which struck every one, was that of the
Chasers (Chasseurs) coming out mounted:
they had advanced quite silent to
where we stood, when their Band struck up the Marseillaise. This
Revolutionary Te-Deum has in itself something mournful and bodeful,
however
briskly played; but at present they gave it in altogether slow time,
proportionate to the creeping step they rode at. It was piercing and
fearful, and a most serious-looking thing, as these cavaliers, long, lean
men, of a certain age, with mien suitable to the music, came pacing on:
singly you might have likened them to Don Quixote; in mass, they were
highly dignified.
|
|
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'But now a single troop became notable: that of the Commissioners or
Représentans.
Merlin of Thionville?,
in hussar uniform, distinguishing
himself by wild beard and look, had another person in similar costume on
his left; the crowd shouted out, with rage, at sight of this latter, the
name of a Jacobin Townsman and Clubbist; and shook itself to seize him.
Merlin drew bridle; referred to his dignity as French Representative, to
the vengeance that should follow any injury done; he would advise every one
to compose himself, for this was not the last time they would see him here.'
(Belagerung von Maintz (Goethe's Werke, xxx. 315.)
Thus rode Merlin;
threatening in defeat. But what now shall stem that tide of Prussians
setting in through the open North-East? Lucky, if fortified Lines of
Weissembourg, and impassibilities of Vosges Mountains, confine it to French
Alsace, keep it from submerging the very heart of the country!
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The French garrison is allowed to retreat under arms, but the eastern front
is now once again threatened.
|
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Furthermore, precisely in the same days, Valenciennes Siege is finished, in
the North-West: — fallen, under the red hail of York! Condé fell some
fortnight since. Cimmerian Coalition presses on. What seems very notable
too, on all these captured French Towns there flies not the Royalist
fleur-de-lys, in the name of a new Louis the Pretender; but the Austrian flag
flies; as if Austria meant to keep them for herself! Perhaps General
Custines, still in Paris, can give some explanation of the fall of these
strong-places? Mother Society, from tribune and gallery, growls loud that
he ought to do it; — remarks, however, in a splenetic manner that 'the
Monsieurs of the Palais Royal' are calling, Long-life to this General.
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On the northern and north-eastern fronts, cities are lost to the Austrians.
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The Mother Society, purged now, by successive 'scrutinies or
épurations,'
from all taint of Girondism, has become a great Authority: what we can
call shield-bearer, or bottle-holder, nay call it
fugleman?,
to the purged
National Convention itself. The Jacobins Debates are reported in the
Moniteur, like Parliamentary ones.
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The Jacobins Club of Paris has become a second legislature.
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But looking more specially into Paris City, what is this that History, on
the 10th of August, Year One of Liberty, 'by old-style, year 1793,'
discerns there? Praised be the Heavens, a new Feast of Pikes!
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The Constitution of 1793 is accepted August 10.
|
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For Chaumette's 'Deputation every day' has worked out its result: a
Constitution. It was one of the rapidest Constitutions ever put together;
made, some say in eight days, by
Herault
Séchelles?
and others: probably a
workmanlike, roadworthy Constitution enough; — on which point, however, we
are, for some reasons, little called to form a judgment. Workmanlike or
not, the Forty-four Thousand Communes of France, by overwhelming
majorities, did hasten to accept it; glad of any Constitution whatsoever.
Nay Departmental Deputies have come, the venerablest Republicans of each
Department, with solemn message of Acceptance; and now what remains but
that our new Final Constitution be proclaimed, and sworn to, in Feast of
Pikes? The Departmental Deputies, we say, are come some time ago; —
Chaumette very anxious about them, lest Girondin Monsieurs,
Agio?-jobbers,
or were it even Filles de joie [women of pleasure]
of a Girondin temper, corrupt their morals. (Deux Amis,
xi. 73.) Tenth of August, immortal Anniversary, greater almost
than Bastille July, is the Day.
|
Carlyle compares the celebration planned for the second constitution to
the Federalist fête of July 14, 1790 (what he calls "The Feast of
Pikes").
|
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Painter David has not been idle. Thanks to David and the French genius,
there steps forth into the sunlight, this day, a Scenic Phantasmagory
unexampled: — whereof History, so occupied with Real-Phantasmagories, will
say but little.
|
As 3 years before, temporary symbolic structures, statues and murals are
created.
|
|
For one thing, History can notice with satisfaction, on the ruins of the
Bastille, a Statue of Nature; gigantic, spouting water from her two
mammelles. Not a Dream this; but a Fact, palpable visible. There she
spouts, great Nature; dim, before daybreak. But as the coming Sun ruddies
the East, come countless Multitudes, regulated and unregulated; come
Departmental Deputies, come Mother Society and Daughters; comes National
Convention, led on by handsome Hérault; soft wind-music breathing note of
expectation. Lo, as great Sol scatters his first fire-handful, tipping the
hills and chimney-heads with gold, Hérault is at great Nature's feet (she
is Plaster of Paris merely); Hérault lifts, in an iron saucer, water
spouted from the sacred breasts; drinks of it, with an eloquent Pagan
Prayer, beginning, "O Nature!" and all the Departmental Deputies drink,
each with what best suitable ejaculation or prophetic-utterance is in him;
— amid breathings, which become blasts, of wind-music; and the roar of
artillery and human throats: finishing well the first act of this
solemnity.
|
The ceremonies are striking, if a bit over the top.
|
|
Next are processionings along the Boulevards: Deputies or Officials bound
together by long indivisible tricolor riband; general 'members of the
Sovereign' walking pellmell, with pikes, with hammers, with the tools and
emblems of their crafts; among which we notice a Plough, and ancient Baucis
and Philemon[184]
seated on it, drawn by their children. Many-voiced harmony
and dissonance filling the air. Through Triumphal Arches enough: at the
basis of the first of which, we descry — whom thinkest thou? — the Heroines
of the Insurrection of Women. Strong Dames of the Market, they sit there
(Théroigne too ill to attend, one fears), with oak-branches, tricolor
bedizenment; firm-seated on their Cannons. To whom handsome Hérault,
making pause of admiration, addresses soothing eloquence; whereupon they
rise and fall into the march.
|
There are tableaus historical and mythological.
|
|
And now mark, in the Place de la Révolution,
what other August Statue may
this be; veiled in canvas, — which swiftly we shear off by pulley and cord?
The Statue of Liberty! She too is of plaster,
hoping to become of metal;
stands where a Tyrant Louis Quinze once stood. 'Three thousand birds' are
let loose, into the whole world, with labels round their neck, We are free;
imitate us. Holocaust of Royalist and ci-devant trumpery, such as one
could still gather, is burnt; pontifical eloquence must be uttered, by
handsome Hérault, and Pagan orisons offered up.
|
A plaster statue of Liberty,
based on the form of Mme. Tallien, is erected in the
former Place Louis Quinze.
|
|
And then forward across the River; where is new enormous Statuary; enormous
plaster Mountain; Hercules-Peuple, with uplifted all-conquering club;
'many-headed Dragon of Girondin Federalism rising from fetid marsh;' —
needing new eloquence from Hérault.
To say nothing of Champ-de-Mars, and
Fatherland's Altar there; with urn of slain Defenders, Carpenter's-level of
the Law; and such exploding, gesticulating and perorating,
that Hérault's
lips must be growing white, and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his
mouth. (Choix des Rapports, xii. 432-42.)
|
Political symbols are found throughout Paris.
|
|
Towards six-o'clock let the wearied President [Hérault],
let Paris Patriotism
generally sit down to what repast, and social repasts, can be had; and with
flowing tankard or light-mantling glass, usher in this New and Newest Era.
In fact, is not
Romme's?
New Calendar getting ready? On all housetops
flicker little tricolor Flags, their flagstaff a Pike and Liberty-Cap. On
all house-walls, for no Patriot, not suspect, will be behind another, there
stand printed these words: Republic one and indivisible, Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity, or Death.
|
It is a day full of public profession of patriotism.
|
| |
|
As to the New Calendar, we may say here rather than elsewhere that
speculative men have long been struck with the inequalities and
incongruities of the Old Calendar; that a New one has long been as good as
determined on.
Maréchal?
the Atheist, almost ten years ago, proposed a New
Calendar, free at least from superstition: this the Paris Municipality
would now adopt, in defect of a better; at all events, let us have either
this of Maréchal's or a better, — the New Era being come.
Petitions, more
than once, have been sent to that effect; and indeed, for a year past, all
Public Bodies, Journalists, and Patriots in general, have dated First Year
of the Republic. It is a subject not without difficulties. But the
Convention has taken it up; and Romme, as we say, has been meditating it;
not Maréchal's New Calendar, but a better New one of Romme's and our own.
Romme, aided by a
Monge?, a
Lagrange?
and others, furnishes mathematics;
Fabre d'Eglantine furnishes poetic nomenclature: and so, on the 5th of
October 1793, after trouble enough, they bring forth this New Republican
Calendar of theirs, in a complete state; and by Law, get it put in action.
|
The revolutionary calendar is adopted in the autumn of 1793. It will
remain in use into the new century.
|
|
Four equal Seasons, Twelve equal Months of thirty days each: this makes
three hundred and sixty days; and five odd days remain to be disposed of.
The five odd days we will make Festivals, and name the five Sansculottides,
or Days without Breeches. Festival of Genius; Festival of Labour; of
Actions; of Rewards; of Opinion: these are the five Sansculottides.
Whereby the great Circle, or Year, is made complete: solely every fourth
year, whilom called Leap-year, we introduce a sixth Sansculottide; and name
it Festival of the Revolution. Now as to the day of commencement, which
offers difficulties, is it not one of the luckiest coincidences that the
Republic herself commenced on the 21st of September; close on the Vernal
Equinox? Vernal Equinox, at midnight for the meridian of Paris, in the
year whilom Christian 1792, from that moment shall the New Era reckon
itself to begin.
Vendémiaire,
Brumaire,
Frimaire; or as one might say, in
mixed English, Vintagearious, Fogarious, Frostarious:
these are our three
Autumn months.
Nivose,
Pluviose,
Ventose, or say Snowous, Rainous, Windous,
make our Winter season. Germinal, Floreal, Prairial, or Buddal,
Floweral, Meadowal, are our Spring season. Messidor,
Thermidor, Fructidor,
that is to say (dor being Greek for gift) Reapidor, Heatidor, Fruitidor,
are Republican Summer. These Twelve, in a singular manner, divide the
Republican Year. Then as to minuter subdivisions, let us venture at once
on a bold stroke: adopt your decimal subdivision; and instead of world-old
Week, or Se'ennight, make it a Tennight or Décade;
— not without results.
There are three Decades, then, in each of the months; which is very
regular; and the Décadi, or Tenth-day,
shall always be 'the Day of Rest.'
And the Christian Sabbath, in that case? Shall shift for itself!
|
Months are 30 days, "weeks" 10; 5 or 6 holidays are added to pad out the
solar year.
|
|
This, in brief, in this New Calendar of Romme and the Convention;
calculated for the meridian of Paris, and Gospel of Jean-Jacques: not one
of the least afflicting occurrences for the actual British reader of French
History; — confusing the soul with Messidors, Meadowals;
till at last, in
self-defence, one is forced to construct some ground-scheme, or rule of
Commutation from New-style to Old-style, and have it lying by him. Such
ground-scheme, almost worn out in our service, but still legible and
printable, we shall now, in a Note, present to the reader. For the Romme
Calendar, in so many Newspapers, Memoirs, Public Acts, has stamped itself
deep into that section of Time: a New Era that lasts some Twelve years and
odd is not to be despised. Let the reader, therefore, with such
ground-scheme, help himself, where needful, out of New-style into Old-style,
called also 'slave-style, stile-esclave;'—whereof we, in these pages,
shall as much as possible use the latter only.
|
The unfamiliar dating complicates the study of this period, so Carlyle
provides a handy conversion chart.
|
September 22nd of 1792 is Vendémiaire 1st of Year One,
and the new months are all of 30 days each; therefore:
| To the number of the day in |
Add |
| Vendémiaire |
21 |
| Brumaire |
21 |
| Frimaire |
20 |
| | |
| Nivose |
20 |
| Pluviose |
19 |
| Ventose |
18 |
| |
|
| Germinal |
20 |
| Floreal |
19 |
| Prairial |
19 |
| | |
| Messidor |
18 |
| Thermidor |
18 |
| Fructidor |
17 |
|
| We have the number of the day in |
Days |
| September |
30 |
| October |
31 |
| November |
30 |
| | |
| December |
31 |
| January |
31 |
| February |
28 |
| | |
| March |
31 |
| April |
30 |
| May |
31 |
| | |
| June |
30 |
| July |
31 |
| August |
31 |
|
|
There are 5 Sansculottides,
and in leap-year a sixth, to be added at the
end of Fructidor.
The New Calendar ceased on the 1st of January 1806.
See Choix des
Rapports, xiii. 83-99; xix. 199.)
|
|
|
|
Thus with new Feast of Pikes, and New Era or New Calendar, did France
accept her New Constitution: the most Democratic Constitution ever
committed to paper. How it will work in practice? Patriot Deputations
from time to time solicit fruition of it; that it be set a-going. Always,
however, this seems questionable; for the moment, unsuitable. Till, in
some weeks, Salut Public, through the organ of
Saint-Just?,
makes report,
that, in the present alarming circumstances, the state of France is
Revolutionary; that her 'Government must be Revolutionary till the Peace!'
Solely as Paper, then, and as a Hope, must this poor New Constitution
exist; — in which shape we may conceive it lying; even now, with an infinity
of other things, in that Limbo near the
Moon[132].
Further than paper it never
got, nor ever will get.
|
The calendar lasts for a while; the Constitution of 1793 is never put into
effect. With the declaration that the government of France is a Revolutionary
government, the Committee of Public Safety assumes executive power.
|
|
In fact it is something quite other than paper theorems, it is iron and
audacity that France now needs.
|
Carlyle believes a strong hand is just what France needs at this point.
|
|
Is not La Vendée still blazing; — alas too literally; rogue
Rossignol?
burning the very corn-mills? General
Santerre?
could do nothing there;
General Rossignol,
in blind fury, often in liquor, can do less than
nothing. Rebellion spreads, grows ever madder. Happily those lean
Quixote-figures, whom we saw retreating out of Mentz, 'bound not to serve
against the Coalition for a year,' have got to Paris. National Convention
packs them into post-vehicles and conveyances; sends them swiftly, by post,
into La Vendée! There valiantly struggling, in obscure battle and
skirmish, under rogue Rossignol, let them, unlaurelled, save the Republic,
and 'be cut down gradually to the last man.' (Deux Amis,
xi. 147; xiii. 160-92, etc.)
|
The defeated garrison of Mainz, pledged not to fight the Prussians or
Austrians for a year, are sent into the guerilla war of the Venée.
|
|
Does not the Coalition, like a fire-tide, pour in; Prussia through the
opened North-East; Austria, England through the North-West? General
Houchard?
prospers no better there than General
Custine?
did: let him look
to it! Through the Eastern and the Western Pyrenees Spain has deployed
itself; spreads, rustling with Bourbon banners, over the face of the South.
Ashes and embers of confused Girondin civil war covered that region
already. Marseilles is damped down, not quenched; to be quenched in blood.
Toulon, terrorstruck, too far gone for turning, has flung itself, ye
righteous Powers, — into the hands of the English! On Toulon Arsenal there
flies a Flag, — nay not even the Fleur-de-lys of a Louis Pretender; there
flies that accursed St. George's Cross of the English and Admiral Hood!
What remnants of sea-craft, arsenals, roperies, war-navy France had, has
given itself to these enemies of human nature, 'ennemis du genre
humain.'
Beleaguer it, bombard it, ye Commissioners
Barras?,
Fréron?,
Robespierre
Junior?;
thou General
Cartaux?,
General Dugommier?;
above all, thou remarkable
Artillery-Major, Napoleon Buonaparte!
Hood?
is fortifying himself,
victualling himself; means, apparently, to make a new Gibraltar of it.
|
France is threatened by internal revolt and foreign forces on every
border.
|
| |
|
But lo, in the Autumn night, late night, among the last of August, what
sudden red sunblaze is this that has risen over Lyons City; with a noise to
deafen the world? It is the Powder-tower of Lyons, nay the Arsenal with
four Powder-towers, which has caught fire in the Bombardment; and sprung
into the air, carrying 'a hundred and seventeen houses' after it. With a
light, one fancies, as of the noon sun; with a roar second only to the Last
Trumpet! All living sleepers far and wide it has awakened. What a sight
was that, which the eye of History saw, in the sudden nocturnal sunblaze!
The roofs of hapless Lyons, and all its domes and steeples made momentarily
clear; Rhone and Saone streams flashing suddenly visible; and height and
hollow, hamlet and smooth stubblefield, and all the region round; — heights,
alas, all scarped and counterscarped, into trenches, curtains, redouts;
blue Artillery-men, little Powder-devilkins, plying their hell-trade there,
through the not ambrosial night! Let the darkness cover it again; for it
pains the eye. Of a truth,
Chalier's?
death is costing this City dear.
Convention Commissioners, Lyons Congresses have come and gone; and action
there was and reaction; bad ever growing worse; till it has come to this:
Commissioner
Dubois-Crancé?,
'with seventy thousand men, and all the
Artillery of several Provinces,' bombarding Lyons day and night.
|
Lyons, center of perhaps the most serious resistance to the Revolutionary
government, is besieged and bombarded.
|
|
Worse things still are in store. Famine is in Lyons, and ruin, and fire.
Desperate are the sallies of the besieged; brave
Précy?,
their National
Colonel and Commandant, doing what is in man: desperate but ineffectual.
Provisions cut off; nothing entering our city but shot and shells! The
Arsenal has roared aloft; the very Hospital will be battered down, and the
sick buried alive. A Black Flag hung on this latter noble Edifice,
appealing to the pity of the beseigers; for though maddened, were they not
still our brethren? In their blind wrath, they took it for a flag of
defiance, and aimed thitherward the more. Bad is growing ever worse here:
and how will the worse stop, till it have grown worst of all? Commissioner
Dubois?
will listen to no pleading, to no speech, save this only, 'We
surrender at discretion.' Lyons contains in it subdued Jacobins; dominant
Girondins; secret Royalists. And now, mere deaf madness and cannon-shot
enveloping them, will not the desperate Municipality fly, at last, into the
arms of Royalism itself? Majesty of Sardinia was to bring help, but it
failed. Emigrant
Autichamp?,
in name of the Two Pretender Royal Highnesses,
is coming through Switzerland with help; coming, not yet come: Précy
hoists the Fleur-de-lys!
|
Though the dissidents of Lyons are predominantly Federalists, their only
hope of salvation appears to be foreign armies supporting the Royalists.
|
|
At sight of which, all true Girondins sorrowfully fling down their arms: —
Let our Tricolor brethren storm us, then, and slay us in their wrath: with
you we conquer not. The famishing women and children are sent forth: deaf
Dubois sends them back; — rains in mere fire and madness. Our 'redouts of
cotton-bags' are taken, retaken; Précy under his Fleur-de-lys is valiant as
Despair. What will become of Lyons? It is a siege of seventy days.
(Deux Amis, xi. 80-143.)
|
This divides the Lyonaise; but to the besieging Republicans, it is all one.
|
|
Or see, in these same weeks, far in the Western waters: breasting through
the Bay of Biscay, a greasy dingy little Merchantship, with Scotch skipper;
under hatches whereof sit, disconsolate, — the last forlorn nucleus of
Girondism, the Deputies from Quimper! Several have dissipated themselves,
whithersoever they could. Poor
Riouffe?
fell into the talons of
Revolutionary Committee, and Paris Prison. The rest sit here under
hatches; reverend Pétion with his grey hair, angry Buzot, suspicious
Louvet, brave young Barbaroux, and others. They have escaped from Quimper,
in this sad craft; are now tacking and struggling; in danger from the
waves, in danger from the English, in still worse danger from the French; —
banished by Heaven and Earth to the greasy belly of this Scotch skipper's
Merchant-vessel, unfruitful Atlantic raving round. They are for Bourdeaux,
if peradventure hope yet linger there. Enter not Bourdeaux, O Friends!
Bloody Convention Representatives, Tallien and such like, with their
Edicts, with their Guillotine, have arrived there; Respectability is driven
under ground; Jacobinism lords it on high. From that Reole landingplace,
or Beak of
Ambes?,
as it were, Pale Death, waving his Revolutionary Sword of
sharpness, waves you elsewhither!
|
The Girondist deputies have escaped Bretagne and hope to find shelter and
support in Bourdeaux.
|
|
On one side or the other of that Bec d'Ambes, the Scotch Skipper with
difficulty moors, a dexterous greasy man; with difficulty lands his
Girondins; — who, after reconnoitring, must rapidly burrow in the Earth; and
so, in subterranean ways, in friends' back-closets, in cellars, barn-lofts,
in Caves of Saint-Emilion and Libourne, stave off cruel Death.
(Louvet, p.
180-199.) Unhappiest of all Senators!
|
They make it with diffuculty and go into hiding.
|
|
Against all which incalculable impediments, horrors and disasters, what can
a Jacobin Convention oppose? The uncalculating Spirit of Jacobinism, and
Sansculottic sans-formulistic Frenzy! Our Enemies press in on us, says
Danton, but they shall not conquer us, "we will burn France to ashes
rather, nous brûlerons la France."
|
The Paris government is hard-pressed and has few resources.
|
|
Committees, of Sûreté or Salut,
have raised themselves 'à la hauteur, to
the height of circumstances.' Let all mortals raise themselves à la
hauteur. Let the Forty-four thousand Sections and their Revolutionary
Committees stir every fibre of the Republic; and every Frenchman feel that
he is to do or die. They are the life-circulation of Jacobinism, these
Sections and Committees: Danton, through the organ of Barrère and
Salut
Public, gets decreed, That there be in Paris, by law, two meetings of
Section weekly; also, that the Poorer Citizen be paid for attending, and
have his day's-wages of Forty Sous. (Moniteur, Séance
du 5 Septembre, 1793.)
This is the celebrated 'Law of the Forty Sous;' fiercely stimulant
to Sansculottism, to the life-circulation of Jacobinism.
|
The Jacobins can only further stimulate the efforts and the patriotism of
the masses, and that chiefly in Paris.
|
|
On the twenty-third of August, Committee of Public Salvation, as usual
through Barrère, had promulgated, in words not unworthy of remembering,
their Report, which is soon made into a Law, of Levy in Mass. 'All France,
and whatsoever it contains of men or resources, is put under requisition,'
says Barrère; really in
Tyrtaean?
words, the best we know of his. 'The
Republic is one vast besieged city.' Two hundred and fifty Forges shall,
in these days, be set up in the Luxembourg Garden, and round the outer wall
of the Tuileries; to make gun-barrels; in sight of Earth and Heaven! From
all hamlets, towards their Departmental Town; from all their Departmental
Towns, towards the appointed Camp and seat of war, the Sons of Freedom
shall march; their banner is to bear: 'Le Peuple Français debout contres
les Tyrans, The French People risen against Tyrants.' 'The young men shall
go to the battle; it is their task to conquer: the married men shall forge
arms, transport baggage and artillery; provide subsistence: the women
shall work at soldiers' clothes, make tents; serve in the hospitals. The
children shall scrape old-linen into surgeon's-lint: the aged men shall
have themselves carried into public places; and there, by their words,
excite the courage of the young; preach hatred to Kings and unity to the
Republic.' (Débats, Séance du 23 Août 1793.)
Tyrtaean words, which tingle through all French hearts.
|
All areas under control of the central government are placed on a war footing.
The French rise to the challenge.
|
|
In this humour, then, since no other serves, will France rush against its
enemies. Headlong, reckoning no cost or consequence; heeding no law or
rule but that supreme law, Salvation of the People! The weapons are all
the iron that is in France; the strength is that of all the men, women and
children that are in France. There, in their two hundred and fifty
shed-smithies, in Garden of Luxembourg or Tuileries, let them forge gun-barrels,
in sight of Heaven and Earth.
|
All available resources are thrown into the military.
|
| |
|
Nor with heroic daring against the Foreign foe, can black vengeance against
the Domestic be wanting. Life-circulation of the Revolutionary Committees
being quickened by that Law of the Forty Sous, Deputy
Merlin,?, not the
Thionviller, whom we saw ride out of Mentz, but Merlin of Douai, named
subsequently Merlin Suspect, — comes, about a week after, with his world-
famous Law of the Suspect: ordering all Sections, by their Committees,
instantly to arrest all Persons Suspect; and explaining withal who the
Arrestable and Suspect specially are. "Are Suspect," says he, "all who by
their actions, by their connexions, speakings, writings have" — in short
become Suspect. (Moniteur, Séance du 17 Septembre
1793.) Nay
Chaumette?,
illuminating the matter still further, in his Municipal Placards and
Proclamations, will bring it about that you may almost recognise a Suspect
on the streets, and clutch him there, — off to Committee, and Prison. Watch
well your words, watch well your looks: if Suspect of nothing else, you
may grow, as came to be a saying, 'Suspect of being Suspect!' For are we
not in a State of Revolution?
|
A crack-down on internal dissent accompanies the massive defence effort.
|
|
No frightfuller Law ever ruled in a Nation of men. All Prisons and Houses
of Arrest in French land are getting crowded to the ridge-tile: Forty-four
thousand Committees, like as many companies of reapers or gleaners,
gleaning France, are gathering their harvest, and storing it in these
Houses. Harvest of Aristocrat tares! Nay, lest the Forty-four thousand,
each on its own harvest-field, prove insufficient, we are to have an
ambulant 'Revolutionary Army:' six thousand strong, under right captains,
this shall perambulate the country at large, and strike in wherever it
finds such harvest-work slack. So have Municipality and Mother Society
petitioned; so has Convention decreed. (Ibid. Séances
du 5, 9, 11
Septembre.) Let Aristocrats, Federalists, Monsieurs vanish, and all men
tremble: 'The Soil of Liberty shall be purged,' — with a vengeance!
|
The internal suppression is severe.
|
|
Neither hitherto has the Revolutionary Tribunal been keeping holyday.
Blanchelande?,
for losing Saint-Domingo; 'Conspirators of Orléans,' for
'assassinating,' for assaulting the sacred Deputy
Leonard-Bourdon?:
these
with many Nameless, to whom life was sweet, have died. Daily the great
Guillotine has its due. Like a black Spectre, daily at eventide, glides
the Death-tumbril through the variegated throng of things. The variegated
street shudders at it, for the moment; next moment forgets it: The
Aristocrats! They were guilty against the Republic; their death, were it
only that their goods are confiscated, will be useful to the Republic;
Vive la République!
|
The terror has its excesses from the beginning; but while it was directed
mainly against aristocrats and royalists, it was viewed as patriotic.
|
|
In the last days of August, fell a notabler head: General Custine's.
Custine was accused of harshness, of unskilfulness, perfidiousness; accused
of many things: found guilty, we may say, of one thing, unsuccessfulness.
Hearing his unexpected Sentence, 'Custine fell down before the Crucifix,'
silent for the space of two hours: he fared, with moist eyes and a book of
prayer, towards the Place de la Revolution; glanced upwards at the clear
suspended axe; then mounted swiftly aloft, (Deux Amis,
xi. 148-188.)
swiftly was struck away from the lists of the Living. He had fought in
America; he was a proud, brave man; and his fortune led him hither.
|
Custine, having been defeated on the Rhine and in Flanders, is executed.
|
|
On the 2nd of this same month, at three in the morning, a vehicle rolled
off, with closed blinds, from the Temple to the Conciergerie. Within it
were two Municipals; and Marie-Antoinette, once Queen of France! There in
that Conciergerie, in ignominious dreary cell, she, cut off from children,
kindred, friend and hope, sits long weeks; expecting when the end will be.
(See Mémoires particuliers de la Captivité
à la Tour du Temple (by the
Duchesse d'Angoulême, Paris, 21 Janvier 1817).)
|
The Queen is moved to the Concergerie, usually the last stop before
execution.
|
|
The Guillotine, we find, gets always a quicker motion, as other things are
quickening. The Guillotine, by its speed of going, will give index of the
general velocity of the Republic. The clanking of its huge axe, rising and
falling there, in horrid systole-diastole, is portion of the whole enormous
Life-movement and pulsation of the Sansculottic System!—'Orléans
Conspirators' and Assaulters had to die, in spite of much weeping and
entreating; so sacred is the person of a Deputy. Yet the sacred can become
desecrated: your very Deputy is not greater than the Guillotine. Poor
Deputy Journalist
Gorsas?:
we saw him hide at Rennes, when the Calvados War
burnt priming. He stole afterwards, in August, to Paris; lurked several
weeks about the Palais ci-devant Royal; was seen there, one day; was
clutched, identified, and without ceremony, being already 'out of the Law,'
was sent to the Place de la Révolution.
He died, recommending his wife and
children to the pity of the Republic. It is the ninth day of October 1793.
Gorsas is the first Deputy that dies on the scaffold; he will not be the
last.
|
There is still a question of whether accused Conventionals could or should
be executed. It is partially answered by the capture and immediate execution
of the Girondist Gorsas.
|
|
Ex-Mayor
Bailly?
is in prison; Ex-Procureur
Manuel?.
Brissot?
and our poor
Arrested Girondins have become Incarcerated Indicted Girondins; universal
Jacobinism clamouring for their punishment.
Duperret's?
Seals are broken!
Those Seventy-three Secret Protesters, suddenly one day, are reported upon,
are decreed accused; the Convention-doors being 'previously shut,' that
none implicated might escape. They were marched, in a very rough manner,
to Prison that evening. Happy those of them who chanced to be absent!
Condorcet?
has vanished into darkness; perhaps, like
Rabaut?,
sits between
two walls, in the house of a friend.
|
Most of the prominent Federalists, Girondists, and even their occasional
sympathizers, are now under arrest or in hiding.
|
|
On Monday the Fourteenth of October, 1793, a Cause is pending in the Palais
de Justice, in the new Revolutionary Court, such as these old stone-walls
never witnessed: the Trial of Marie-Antoinette. The once brightest of
Queens, now tarnished, defaced, forsaken, stands here at
Fouquier-Tinville's Judgment-bar; answering for her life! The Indictment was
delivered her last night. (Procès de la Reine
(Deux Amis, xi. 251-381.)
To such changes of human fortune what words are adequate? Silence alone is
adequate.
|
Ten months after the King's execution, the Queen comes to trial.
|
|
There are few Printed things one meets with, of such tragic almost ghastly
significance as those bald Pages of the Bulletin du Tribunal
Révolutionnaire, which bear title,
Trial of the Widow Capet. Dim, dim, as
if in disastrous eclipse; like the pale kingdoms of Dis! Plutonic Judges,
Plutonic
Tinville?;
encircled, nine times, with Styx and Lethe, with Fire-
Phlegethon and Cocytus named of Lamentation![185].
The very witnesses summoned
are like Ghosts: exculpatory, inculpatory, they themselves are all
hovering over death and doom; they are known, in our imagination, as the
prey of the Guillotine. Tall ci-devant Count
d'Estaing?,
anxious to show
himself Patriot, cannot escape; nor Bailly, who, when asked If he knows the
Accused, answers with a reverent inclination towards her, "Ah, yes, I know
Madame." Ex-Patriots are here, sharply dealt with, as Procureur Manuel;
Ex-Ministers, shorn of their splendour. We have cold Aristocratic
impassivity, faithful to itself even in Tartarus; rabid stupidity, of
Patriot Corporals, Patriot Washerwomen, who have much to say of Plots,
Treasons, August Tenth, old Insurrection of Women. For all now has become
a crime, in her who has lost.
|
Despite the certain outcome, a train of witnesss is presented.
|
|
Marie-Antoinette, in this her utter abandonment and hour of extreme need,
is not wanting to herself, the imperial woman. Her look, they say, as that
hideous Indictment was reading, continued calm; 'she was sometimes observed
moving her fingers, as when one plays on the Piano.' You discern, not
without interest, across that dim Revolutionary Bulletin itself, how she
bears herself queenlike. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of Laconic
brevity; resolution, which has grown contemptuous without ceasing to be
dignified, veils itself in calm words. "You persist then in denial?"—"My
plan is not denial: it is the truth I have said, and I persist in that."
Scandalous
Hébert?
has borne his testimony as to many things: as to one
thing, concerning Marie-Antoinette and her little Son,—wherewith Human
Speech had better not further be soiled.[186]
She has answered Hébert; a
Juryman begs to observe that she has not answered as to this. "I have not
answered," she exclaims with noble emotion, "because Nature refuses to
answer such a charge brought against a Mother. I appeal to all the Mothers
that are here." Robespierre, when he heard of it, broke out into something
almost like swearing at the brutish blockheadism of this Hébert;
(Vilate, Causes secrètes de la Révolution
de Thermidor (Paris, 1825), p. 179.) on
whose foul head his foul lie has recoiled. At four o'clock on Wednesday
morning, after two days and two nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and
other darkening of counsel, the result comes out: Sentence of Death.
"Have you anything to say?" The Accused shook her head, without speech.
Night's candles are burning out; and with her too Time is finishing, and it
will be Eternity and Day. This Hall of Tinville's is dark, ill-lighted
except where she stands. Silently she withdraws from it, to die.
|
The sentence is death.
|
|
Two Processions, or Royal Progresses, three-and-twenty years apart, have
often struck us with a strange feeling of contrast. The first is of a
beautiful Archduchess and Dauphiness, quitting her Mother's City, at the
age of Fifteen; towards hopes such as no other Daughter of Eve then had:
'On the morrow,' says
Weber?
an eye witness, 'the Dauphiness left Vienna.
The whole City crowded out; at first with a sorrow which was silent. She
appeared: you saw her sunk back into her carriage; her face bathed in
tears; hiding her eyes now with her handkerchief, now with her hands;
several times putting out her head to see yet again this Palace of her
Fathers, whither she was to return no more. She motioned her regret, her
gratitude to the good Nation, which was crowding here to bid her farewell.
Then arose not only tears; but piercing cries, on all sides. Men and women
alike abandoned themselves to such expression of their sorrow. It was an
audible sound of wail, in the streets and avenues of Vienna. The last
Courier that followed her disappeared, and the crowd melted away.'
(Weber, i. 6.)
|
Carlyle contrasts the departure of Marie-Antoinette from Vienna for France,
with her departure from life in Paris.
|
|
The young imperial Maiden of Fifteen has now become a worn discrowned Widow
of Thirty-eight; grey before her time: this is the last Procession: 'Few
minutes after the Trial ended, the drums were beating to arms in all
Sections; at sunrise the armed force was on foot, cannons getting placed at
the extremities of the Bridges, in the Squares, Crossways, all along from
the Palais de Justice to the Place de la Révolution. By ten o'clock,
numerous patrols were circulating in the Streets; thirty thousand foot and
horse drawn up under arms. At eleven, Marie-Antoinette was brought out.
She had on an undress of piqué blanc:
she was led to the place of
execution, in the same manner as an ordinary criminal; bound, on a Cart;
accompanied by a Constitutional Priest in Lay dress; escorted by numerous
detachments of infantry and cavalry. These, and the double row of troops
all along her road, she appeared to regard with indifference. On her
countenance there was visible neither abashment nor pride. To the cries of
Vive la République and Down with Tyranny,
which attended her all the way,
she seemed to pay no heed. She spoke little to her Confessor. The
tricolor Streamers on the housetops occupied her attention, in the Streets
du Roule and Saint-Honorè;
she also noticed the Inscriptions on the house-fronts.
On reaching the Place de la Révolution, her looks turned towards
the Jardin National, whilom Tuileries;
her face at that moment gave signs
of lively emotion. She mounted the Scaffold with courage enough; at a
quarter past Twelve, her head fell; the Executioner shewed it to the
people, amid universal long-continued cries of 'Vive la République.'
(Deux Amis, xi. 301.)
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The execution takes place October 16, 1793.
|
|
Whom next, O
Tinville??
The next are of a different colour: our poor
Arrested Girondin Deputies. What of them could still be laid hold of; our
Vergniaud?,
Brissot?,
Fauchet?,
Valazé?,
Gensonné?;
the once flower of French
Patriotism, Twenty-two by the tale: hither, at Tinville's Bar, onward from
'safeguard of the French People,' from confinement in the Luxembourg,
imprisonment in the Conciergerie, have they now, by the course of things,
arrived. Fouquier Tinville must give what account of them he can.
|
The Girondist deputies, first excluded from the Convention, then held under
house-arrest, then jailed, are brought before the Revolutionary Tribune.
|
|
Undoubtedly this Trial of the Girondins is the greatest that Fouquier has
yet had to do. Twenty-two, all chief Republicans, ranged in a line there;
the most eloquent in France; Lawyers too; not without friends in the
auditory. How will Tinville prove these men guilty of Royalism,
Federalism, Conspiracy against the Republic? Vergniaud's eloquence awakes
once more; 'draws tears,' they say. And Journalists report, and the Trial
lengthens itself out day after day; 'threatens to become eternal,' murmur
many. Jacobinism and Municipality rise to the aid of Fouquier. On the
28th of the month,
Hébert?
and others come in deputation to inform a Patriot
Convention that the Revolutionary Tribunal is quite 'shackled by forms of
Law;' that a Patriot Jury ought to have 'the power of cutting short, of
terminer les débats, when they feel themselves convinced.'
Which pregnant
suggestion, of cutting short, passes itself, with all despatch, into a
Decree.
|
The Girondists are so successful at defending themselves that the Jacobins
push through a Conventional decree allowing jurors of the Revolutionary
Tribunal to declare themselves
convinced of guilt or innocence at any time in a trial.
|
|
Accordingly, at ten o'clock on the night of the 30th of October, the
Twenty-two, summoned back once more, receive this information, That the
Jury feeling themselves convinced have cut short, have brought in their
verdict; that the Accused are found guilty, and the Sentence on one and all
of them is Death with confiscation of goods.
|
A little pressure on the jury thus ends the Girondists's trial.
|
|
Loud natural clamour rises among the poor Girondins; tumult; which can only
be repressed by the gendarmes. Valazé stabs himself; falls down dead on
the spot. The rest, amid loud clamour and confusion, are driven back to
their Conciergerie; Lasource exclaiming, "I die on the day when the People
have lost their reason; ye will die when they recover it."
Δημοσθ'ενουσ ηιπ'οντοσ, Απσκτηνονα'ι σε "Αθυναιοι φωκ'ιων" Αν μανοσιν, ειπ σεδ, ηαν σωφρον`οσι—Plut.
Opp. t. iv. p. 310. ed. Reiske, 1776.)
No help! Yielding to violence, the
Doomed uplift the Hymn of the Marseillese; return singing to their dungeon.
|
The deputies are condemned.
|
|
Riouffe, who was their Prison-mate in these last days, has lovingly
recorded what death they made. To our notions, it is not an edifying
death. Gay satirical Potpourri by Ducos; rhymed Scenes of Tragedy,
wherein Barrère and Robespierre discourse with Satan;
death's eve spent in
'singing' and 'sallies of gaiety,' with 'discourses on the happiness of
peoples:' these things, and the like of these, we have to accept for what
they are worth. It is the manner in which the Girondins make their Last
Supper. Valazé, with bloody breast, sleeps cold in death;
hears not their
singing. Vergniaud has his dose of poison; but it is not enough for his
friends, it is enough only for himself; wherefore he flings it from him;
presides at this Last Supper of the Girondins, with wild coruscations of
eloquence, with song and mirth. Poor human Will struggles to assert
itself; if not in this way, then in that. (Mémoires
de Riouffe (in
Mémoires sur les Prisons, Paris, 1823), p. 48-55.)
|
Carlyle frowns on the Girondists for not spending their last night in prayer.
Instead, they eat, drink and are merry.
|
|
But on the morrow morning all Paris is out; such a crowd as no man had
seen. The Death-carts, Valazé's cold corpse
stretched among the yet living
Twenty-one, roll along. Bareheaded, hands bound; in their shirt-sleeves,
coat flung loosely round the neck: so fare the eloquent of France;
bemurmured, beshouted. To the shouts of Vive la République,
some of them
keep answering with counter-shouts of Vive la République.
Others, as
Brissot, sit sunk in silence. At the foot of the scaffold they again
strike up, with appropriate variations, the Hymn of the Marseillese. Such
an act of music; conceive it well! The yet Living chant there; the chorus
so rapidly wearing weak! Samson's axe is rapid; one head per minute, or
little less. The chorus is worn out; farewell for evermore ye Girondins.
Te-Deum Fauchet has become silent; Valazé's dead head is lopped: the
sickle of the Guillotine has reaped the Girondins all away. 'The eloquent,
the young, the beautiful and brave!' exclaims Riouffe. O Death, what feast
is toward in thy ghastly Halls?
|
The Deputies go to death singing the Marseillese.
|
|
Nor alas, in the far Bourdeaux region, will Girondism fare better. In
caves of Saint-Emilion, in loft and cellar, the weariest months, roll on;
apparel worn, purse empty; wintry November come; under
Tallien?
and his
Guillotine, all hope now gone. Danger drawing ever nigher, difficulty
pressing ever straiter, they determine to separate. Not unpathetic the
farewell; tall
Barbaroux?,
cheeriest of brave men, stoops to clasp his
Louvet?:
"In what place soever thou findest my mother," cries he, "try to
be instead of a son to her: no resource of mine but I will share with thy
Wife, should chance ever lead me where she is."
(Louvet, p. 213.)
|
The Girondists who fled are not doing much better.
|
|
Louvet went with
Guadet?,
with Salles?
and Valady?;
Barbaroux?
with Buzot?
and
Pétion?.
Valady soon went southward, on a way of his own. The two friends
and Louvet had a miserable day and night; the 14th of the November month, 1793.
Sunk in wet, weariness and hunger, they knock, on the morrow, for help, at
a friend's country-house; the fainthearted friend refuses to admit them.
They stood therefore under trees, in the pouring rain. Flying desperate,
Louvet thereupon will to Paris. He sets forth, there and then, splashing
the mud on each side of him, with a fresh strength gathered from fury or
frenzy. He passes villages, finding 'the sentry asleep in his box in the
thick rain;' he is gone, before the man can call after him. He bilks
Revolutionary Committees; rides in carriers' carts, covered carts and open;
lies hidden in one, under knapsacks and cloaks of soldiers' wives on the
Street of Orléans, while men search for him:
has hairbreadth escapes that
would fill three romances: finally he gets to Paris to his fair Helpmate;
gets to Switzerland, and waits better days.
|
The escapees split up. Louvet makes his way back to his wife in Paris and
ultimately escapes to Switzerland.
|
|
Poor Guadet and Salles were both taken, ere long; they died by the
Guillotine in Bourdeaux; drums beating to drown their voice. Valady also
is caught, and guillotined. Barbaroux and his two comrades weathered it
longer, into the summer of 1794; but not long enough. One July morning,
changing their hiding place, as they have often to do, 'about a league from
Saint-Emilion, they observe a great crowd of country-people;' doubtless
Jacobins come to take them? Barbaroux draws a pistol, shoots himself dead.
Alas, and it was not Jacobins; it was harmless villagers going to a village
wake. Two days afterwards, Buzot and Pétion were found in a Cornfield,
their bodies half-eaten by dogs. (Recherches Historiques
sur les
Girondins (in Mémoires de Buzot), p. 107.)
|
The rest die in flight or are taken and killed. By July, 1794, all are dead.
|
|
Such was the end of Girondism. They arose to regenerate France, these men;
and have accomplished this. Alas, whatever quarrel we had with them, has
not their cruel fate abolished it? Pity only survives. So many excellent
souls of heroes sent down to Hades; they themselves given as a prey of dogs
and all manner of birds! But, here too, the will of the Supreme Power was
accomplished. As Vergniaud said: 'The Revolution, like Saturn, is
devouring its own children.'
|
|
|
We are now, therefore, got to that black precipitous Abyss; whither all
things have long been tending; where, having now arrived on the giddy
verge, they hurl down, in confused ruin; headlong, pellmell, down, down;—till
Sansculottism have consummated itself; and in this wondrous French
Revolution, as in a Doomsday, a World have been rapidly, if not born again,
yet destroyed and engulphed. Terror has long been terrible: but to the
actors themselves it has now become manifest that their appointed course is
one of Terror; and they say, Be it so. "Que la Terreur soit à
l'ordre du jour[187]."
|
In this chapter, Carlyle tries to put the Terror into perspective.
|
|
So many centuries, say only from Hugh Capet downwards, had been adding
together, century transmitting it with increase to century, the sum of
Wickedness, of Falsehood, Oppression of man by man. Kings were sinners,
and Priests were, and People. Open-Scoundrels rode triumphant, bediademed,
becoronetted, bemitred; or the still fataller species of Secret-Scoundrels,
in their fair-sounding formulas, speciosities, respectabilities, hollow
within: the race of Quacks was grown many as the sands of the sea. Till
at length such a sum of Quackery had accumulated itself as, in brief, the
Earth and the Heavens were weary of. Slow seemed the Day of Settlement:
coming on, all imperceptible, across the bluster and fanfaronade of
Courtierisms, Conquering-Heroisms, Most-Christian Grand Monarque-isms.
Well-beloved Pompadourisms: yet behold it was always coming; behold it has
come, suddenly, unlooked for by any man! The harvest of long centuries was
ripening and whitening so rapidly of late; and now it is grown white, and
is reaped rapidly, as it were, in one day. Reaped, in this Reign of
Terror; and carried home, to Hades and the Pit!—Unhappy Sons of Adam: it
is ever so; and never do they know it, nor will they know it. With
cheerfully smoothed countenances, day after day, and generation after
generation, they, calling cheerfully to one another, "Well-speed-ye," are
at work, sowing the wind. And yet, as God lives, they shall reap the
whirlwind: no other thing, we say, is possible,—since God is a Truth and
His World is a Truth.
|
This final deterioration is the culmination of a centuries-old process
tending always away from the simple truths of God and nature.
|
| |
|
History, however, in dealing with this Reign of Terror, has had her own
difficulties. While the Phenomenon continued in its primary state, as mere
'Horrors of the French Revolution,' there was abundance to be said and
shrieked. With and also without profit. Heaven knows there were terrors
and horrors enough: yet that was not all the Phenomenon; nay, more
properly, that was not the Phenomenon at all, but rather was the shadow
of it, the negative part of it. And now, in a new stage of the business, when
History, ceasing to shriek, would try rather to include under her old Forms
of speech or speculation this new amazing Thing; that so some accredited
scientific Law of Nature might suffice for the unexpected Product of
Nature, and History might get to speak of it articulately, and draw
inferences and profit from it; in this new stage, History, we must say,
babbles and flounders perhaps in a still painfuller manner. Take, for
example, the latest Form of speech we have seen propounded on the subject
as adequate to it, almost in these months, by our worthy M.
Roux?,
in his
Histoire Parlementaire. The latest and the strangest: that the French
Revolution was a dead-lift effort, after eighteen hundred years of
preparation, to realise—the Christian Religion! (Hist.
Parl. (Introd.), i. 1 et seqq.)
Unity, Indivisibility, Brotherhood or Death did indeed
stand printed on all Houses of the Living; also, on Cemeteries, or Houses
of the Dead, stood printed, by order of Procureur
Chaumette?,
Here is
eternal Sleep: (Deux Amis, xii. 78.)
but a Christian Religion realised by
the Guillotine and Death-Eternal, 'is suspect to me,' as Robespierre was
wont to say, 'm'est suspecte.'
|
The tools of history are not useful in examining end times such as these,
and applying them sometimes leads to ridiculous conclusions.
|
|
Alas, no, M. Roux! A Gospel of Brotherhood, not according to any of the
Four old Evangelists, and calling on men to repent, and amend each his own
wicked existence, that they might be saved; but a Gospel rather, as we
often hint, according to a new Fifth Evangelist
Jean-Jacques?,
calling on
men to amend each the whole world's wicked existence, and be saved by
making the Constitution. A thing different and distant toto coelo,
as they
say: the whole breadth of the sky, and further if possible!—It is thus,
however, that History, and indeed all human Speech and Reason does yet,
what Father Adam began life by doing: strive to name the new Things it
sees of Nature's producing,—often helplessly enough.
|
Regardless, historians will continue to try to put a name to what their
tools cannot understand.
|
|
But what if History were to admit, for once, that all the Names and
Theorems yet known to her fall short? That this grand Product of Nature
was even grand, and new, in that it came not to range itself under old
recorded Laws-of-Nature at all; but to disclose new ones? In that case,
History renouncing the pretention to name it at present, will look honestly
at it, and name what she can of it! Any approximation to the right Name
has value: were the right name itself once here, the Thing is known
thenceforth; the Thing is then ours, and can be dealt with.
|
It would be a step forward for historians to admit their tools inadequate.
That would allow them to approach the problem from other directions.
|
|
Now surely not realization, of Christianity, or of aught earthly, do we
discern in this Reign of Terror, in this French Revolution of which it is
the consummating. Destruction rather we discern—of all that was
destructible. It is as if Twenty-five millions, risen at length into the
Pythian mood[188],
had stood up simultaneously to say, with a sound which goes
through far lands and times, that this Untruth of an Existence had become
insupportable. O ye Hypocrisies and Speciosities, Royal mantles, Cardinal
plushcloaks, ye Credos, Formulas, Respectabilities, fair-painted Sepulchres
full of dead men's bones,—behold, ye appear to us to be altogether a Lie.
Yet our Life is not a Lie; yet our Hunger and Misery is not a Lie! Behold
we lift up, one and all, our Twenty-five million right-hands; and take the
Heavens, and the Earth and also the Pit of Tophet to witness, that either
ye shall be abolished, or else we shall be abolished!
|
In fact, it was as if a whole people, motivated from outside themselves,
rose up to say no more! Tear it down!
|
|
No inconsiderable Oath, truly; forming, as has been often said, the most
remarkable transaction in these last thousand years. Wherefrom likewise
there follow, and will follow, results. The fulfilment of this Oath; that
is to say, the black desperate battle of Men against their whole Condition
and Environment,—a battle, alas, withal, against the Sin and Darkness that
was in themselves as in others: this is the Reign of Terror.
Transcendental despair was the purport of it, though not consciously so.
False hopes, of Fraternity, Political Millennium, and what not, we have
always seen: but the unseen heart of the whole, the transcendental
despair, was not false; neither has it been of no effect. Despair, pushed
far enough, completes the circle, so to speak; and becomes a kind of
genuine productive hope again.
|
Forget economics and politics: the Terror was the spontaneous
final rejection of centuries of falsehood.
|
|
Doctrine of Fraternity, out of old Catholicism, does, it is true, very
strangely in the vehicle of a Jean-Jacques Evangel, suddenly plump down out
of its cloud-firmament; and from a theorem determine to make itself a
practice. But just so do all creeds, intentions, customs, knowledges,
thoughts and things, which the French have, suddenly plump down;
Catholicism, Classicism, Sentimentalism, Cannibalism: all isms that make
up Man in France, are rushing and roaring in that gulf; and the theorem has
become a practice, and whatsoever cannot swim sinks. Not Evangelist
Jean-Jacques alone; there is not a Village Schoolmaster but has contributed his
quota: do we not 'thou' one another, according to the Free Peoples of
Antiquity? The French Patriot, in red phrygian nightcap of Liberty,
christens his poor little red infant Cato,—Censor, or else of
Utica[189].
Gracchus?
has become
Baboeuf?
and edits Newspapers;
Mutius Scaevola?,
Cordwainer of that ilk, presides in the Section Mutius-Scaevola: and in
brief, there is a world wholly jumbling itself, to try what will swim!
|
And random, contradictory efforts to try out what might be true.
|
|
Wherefore we will, at all events, call this Reign of Terror a very strange
one. Dominant Sansculottism makes, as it were, free arena; one of the
strangest temporary states Humanity was ever seen in. A nation of men,
full of wants and void of habits! The old habits are gone to wreck because
they were old: men, driven forward by Necessity and fierce Pythian
Madness, have, on the spur of the instant, to devise for the want the way
of satisfying it. The wonted [accustomed] tumbles down;
by imitation, by invention, the
Unwonted hastily builds itself up. What the French National head has in it
comes out: if not a great result, surely one of the strangest.
|
There is no order to fall back on, no order on which to build. Carlyle finds
it amazing that anything could rise from this disorder.
|
|
Neither shall the reader fancy that it was all blank, this Reign of Terror:
far from it. How many hammermen and squaremen, bakers and brewers, washers
and wringers, over this France, must ply their old daily work, let the
Government be one of Terror or one of Joy! In this Paris there are Twenty-
three Theatres nightly; some count as many as Sixty Places of Dancing.
(Mercier. ii. 124.) The Playwright manufactures:
pieces of a strictly
Republican character. Ever fresh Novel-garbage, as of old, fodders the
Circulating Libraries. (Moniteur of these months,
passim.) The 'Cesspool
of Agio,' now in the time of Paper Money, works with a vivacity unexampled,
unimagined; exhales from itself 'sudden fortunes,' like Alladin-Palaces:
really a kind of miraculous Fata-Morganas[190],
since you can
live in them, for
a time. Terror is as a sable ground, on which the most variegated of
scenes paints itself. In startling transitions, in colours all intensated,
the sublime, the ludicrous, the horrible succeed one another; or rather, in
crowding tumult, accompany one another.
|
But the outward forms of life go on in this political and moral chaos, much
as before.
|
|
Here, accordingly, if anywhere, the 'hundred tongues,' which the old Poets
often clamour for, were of supreme service! In defect of any such organ on
our part, let the Reader stir up his own imaginative organ: let us snatch
for him this or the other significant glimpse of things, in the fittest
sequence we can.
|
Carlyle proposes to complete Book V with vignettes of the chaotic time.
|
|
In the early days of November, there is one transient glimpse of things
that is to be noted: the last transit to his long home of Philippe
d'Orléans Égalité.
Philippe was 'decreed accused,' along with the
Girondins, much to his and their surprise; but not tried along with them.
They are doomed and dead, some three days, when Philippe, after his long
half-year of durance at Marseilles, arrives in Paris. It is, as we
calculate, the third of November 1793.
|
The former Duc d'Orléans, who had voted with the Mountain but was never
trusted by them, is returned to Paris from imprisonment at Marseilles.
|
|
On which same day, two notable Female Prisoners are also put in ward there:
Dame Dubarry?
and Josephine
Beauharnais?!
Dame whilom Countess Dubarry,
Unfortunate-female, had returned from London; they snatched her, not only
as Ex-harlot of a whilom Majesty, and therefore suspect; but as having
'furnished the Emigrants with money.' Contemporaneously with whom, there
comes the wife of Beauharnais, soon to be the widow: she that is Josephine
Tascher Beauharnais; that shall be Josephine Empress Buonaparte, for a
black Divineress of the Tropics prophesied long since that she should be a
Queen and more. Likewise, in the same hours, poor Adam
Lux?, nigh turned in
the head, who, according to Foster, 'has taken no food these three weeks,'
marches to the Guillotine for his Pamphlet on Charlotte Corday: he 'sprang
to the scaffold;' said he 'died for her with great joy.' Amid such
fellow-travellers does Philippe arrive.
For, be the month named Brumaire year 2
of Liberty, or November year 1793 of Slavery, the Guillotine goes always,
Guillotine va toujours.
|
Orléans is one of several "celebrity" prisoners.
|
|
Enough, Philippe's indictment is soon drawn, his jury soon convinced. He
finds himself made guilty of Royalism, Conspiracy and much else; nay, it is
a guilt in him that he voted Louis's Death, though he answers, "I voted in
my soul and conscience." The doom he finds is death forthwith; this
present sixth dim day of November is the last day that Philippe is to see.
Philippe, says Montgaillard, thereupon called for breakfast: sufficiency
of 'oysters, two cutlets, best part of an excellent bottle of claret;' and
consumed the same with apparent relish. A Revolutionary Judge, or some
official Convention Emissary, then arrived, to signify that he might still
do the State some service by revealing the truth about a plot or two.
Philippe answered that, on him, in the pass things had come to, the State
had, he thought, small claim; that nevertheless, in the interest of
Liberty, he, having still some leisure on his hands, was willing, were a
reasonable question asked him, to give reasonable answer. And so, says
Montgaillard, he lent his elbow on the mantel-piece, and conversed in an
under-tone, with great seeming composure; till the leisure was done, or the
Emissary went his ways.
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Orléans, who voted for the death of his own cousin, Louis XVI,
is quickly condemned.
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At the door of the Conciergerie, Philippe's attitude was erect and easy,
almost commanding. It is five years, all but a few days, since Philippe,
within these same stone walls, stood up with an air of graciosity, and
asked King Louis, "Whether it was a Royal Session, then, or a Bed of
Justice?" O Heaven!—Three poor blackguards were to ride and die with him:
some say, they objected to such company, and had to be flung in, neck and
heels; (Foster, ii. 628; Montgaillard, iv. 141-57.)
but it seems not true.
Objecting or not objecting, the gallows-vehicle gets under way. Philippe's
dress is remarked for its elegance; greenfrock, waistcoat of white pique,
yellow buckskins, boots clear as Warren: his air, as before, entirely
composed, impassive, not to say easy and
Brummellean?-polite.
Through
street after street; slowly, amid execrations;—past the Palais
Égalité
whilom Palais-Royal! The cruel Populace stopped him there, some minutes:
Dame de Buffon?,
it is said, looked out on him, in Jezebel head-tire; along
the ashlar [squared-stone] Wall,
there ran these words in huge tricolor print, REPUBLIC ONE
AND INDIVISIBLE; LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY OR DEATH: National
Property. Philippe's eyes flashed hellfire, one instant; but the next
instant it was gone, and he sat impassive, Brummellean-polite. On the
scaffold, Samson?
was for drawing of his boots: "tush," said Philippe,
"they will come better off after; let us have done,
dépêchons-nous!"
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Orléans goes calmly to his death.
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So Philippe was not without virtue, then? God forbid that there should be
any living man without it! He had the virtue to keep living for
five-and-forty years;—other virtues perhaps more than we know of. Probably no
mortal ever had such things recorded of him: such facts, and also such
lies. For he was a Jacobin Prince of the Blood; consider what a
combination! Also, unlike any Nero, any Borgia, he lived in the Age of
Pamphlets. Enough for us: Chaos has reabsorbed him; may it late or never
bear his like again!—Brave young Orléans Égalité,
deprived of all, only
not deprived of himself, is gone to Coire in the Grisons, under the name of
Corby, to teach Mathematics. The Égalité
Family is at the darkest depths
of the Nadir.
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Carlyle can find little good to say about a nobleman who betrayed his king.
But he admits he may be not as bad as he seems. His son, the future
King Louis-Philippe, is spared.
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A far nobler Victim follows; one who will claim remembrance from several
centuries: Jeanne-Marie
Philipon?,
the Wife of Roland?.
Queenly, sublime in
her uncomplaining sorrow, seemed she to
Riouffe?
in her Prison. 'Something
more than is usually found in the looks of women painted itself,' says
Riouffe, (Mémoires (Sur les Prisons, i.), pp.
55-7.) 'in those large black
eyes of hers, full of expression and sweetness. She spoke to me often, at
the Grate: we were all attentive round her, in a sort of admiration and
astonishment; she expressed herself with a purity, with a harmony and
prosody that made her language like music, of which the ear could never
have enough. Her conversation was serious, not cold; coming from the mouth
of a beautiful woman, it was frank and courageous as that of a great men.'
'And yet her maid said: "Before you, she collects her strength; but in her
own room, she will sit three hours sometimes, leaning on the window, and
weeping."' She had been in Prison, liberated once, but recaptured the same
hour, ever since the first of June: in agitation and uncertainty; which
has gradually settled down into the last stern certainty, that of death.
In the Abbaye Prison, she occupied Charlotte
Corday's?
apartment. Here in
the Conciergerie, she speaks with Riouffe, with Ex-Minister Clavière;
calls
the beheaded Twenty-two "Nos amis, our Friends,"—whom we are soon to
follow. During these five months, those Mémoirs of hers were written,
which all the world still reads.
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Madame Roland is also executed in November, 1793.
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But now, on the 8th of November, 'clad in white,' says Riouffe, 'with her
long black hair hanging down to her girdle,' she is gone to the Judgment
Bar. She returned with a quick step; lifted her finger, to signify to us
that she was doomed: her eyes seemed to have been wet.
Fouquier-Tinville's?
questions had been 'brutal;' offended female honour flung them
back on him, with scorn, not without tears. And now, short preparation
soon done, she shall go her last road. There went with her a certain
Lamarche, 'Director of Assignat printing;' whose dejection she endeavoured
to cheer. Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, she asked for pen and
paper, "to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her;"
(Mémoires
de Madame Roland (Introd.), i. 68.) a remarkable request; which was
refused. Looking at the Statue of Liberty which stands there, she says
bitterly: "O Liberty, what things are done in thy name!" For Lamarche's
seek, she will die first; shew him how easy it is to die: "Contrary to the
order" said Samson.—"Pshaw, you cannot refuse the last request of a Lady;"
and Samson yielded.
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She also went calmly and bravely.
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Noble white Vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud eyes, long
black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a heart as ever beat in
woman's bosom! Like a white Grecian Statue, serenely complete, she shines
in that black wreck of things;—long memorable. Honour to great Nature
who, in Paris City, in the Era of Noble-Sentiment and Pompadourism, can
make a Jeanne Phlipon, and nourish her to clear perennial Womanhood, though
but on Logics, Encyclopedies, and the Gospel according to Jean-Jacques!
Biography will long remember that trait of asking for a pen "to write the
strange thoughts that were rising in her." It is as a little light-beam,
shedding softness, and a kind of sacredness, over all that preceded: so in
her too there was an Unnameable; she too was a Daughter of the Infinite;
there were mysteries which Philosophism had not dreamt of!—She left long
written counsels to her little Girl; she said her Husband would not survive
her.
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Carlyle admires Madame Roland greatly, seeing in her an intelligent and
a religious spirit.
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Still crueller was the fate of poor
Bailly?,
First National President, First
Mayor of Paris: doomed now for Royalism, Fayettism; for that Red-Flag
Business of the Champ-de-Mars;—one may say in general, for leaving his
Astronomy to meddle with Revolution. It is the 10th of November 1793, a
cold bitter drizzling rain, as poor Bailly is led through the streets;
howling Populace covering him with curses, with mud; waving over his face a
burning or smoking mockery of a Red Flag. Silent, unpitied, sits the
innocent old man. Slow faring through the sleety drizzle, they have got to
the Champ-de-Mars: Not there! vociferates the cursing Populace; Such blood
ought not to stain an Altar of the Fatherland; not there; but on that
dungheap by the River-side! So vociferates the cursing Populace;
Officiality gives ear to them. The Guillotine is taken down, though with
hands numbed by the sleety drizzle; is carried to the River-side, is there
set up again, with slow numbness; pulse after pulse still counting itself
out in the old man's weary heart. For hours long; amid curses and bitter
frost-rain! "Bailly, thou tremblest," said one. "Mon ami, it is for
cold," said Bailly, "c'est de froid."
Crueller end had no mortal. (Vie de
Bailly (in Mémoires, i.), p. 29.)
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The astronomer Bailly, first President of the National Assembly, mayor
of Paris in the first years of the revolution, is also executed in
November.
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Some days afterwards,
Roland?
hearing the news of what happened on the 8th,
embraces his kind Friends at Rouen, leaves their kind house which had given
him refuge; goes forth, with farewell too sad for tears. On the morrow
morning, 16th of the month, 'some four leagues from Rouen, Paris-ward, near
Bourg-Baudoin, in M. Normand's Avenue,' there is seen sitting leant against
a tree, the figure of rigorous wrinkled man; stiff now in the rigour of
death; a cane-sword run through his heart; and at his feet this writing:
'Whoever thou art that findest me lying, respect my remains: they are
those of a man who consecrated all his life to being useful; and who has
died as he lived, virtuous and honest.' 'Not fear, but indignation, made
me quit my retreat, on learning that my Wife had been murdered. I wished
not to remain longer on an Earth polluted with crimes.'
(Mémoires de
Madame Roland (Introd.), i. 88.)
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A few days later, Roland commits suicide.
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Barnave's appearance at the Revolutionary Tribunal was of the bravest; but
it could not stead him. They have sent for him from Grenoble; to pay the
common smart, Vain is eloquence, forensic or other, against the dumb
Clotho?-shears
of Tinville. He is still but two-and-thirty, this Barnave,
and has known such changes. Short while ago, we saw him at the top of
Fortune's Wheel, his word a law to all Patriots: and now surely he is at
the bottom of the Wheel; in stormful altercation with a Tinville Tribunal,
which is dooming him to die! (Foster, ii. 629.)
And Pétion, once also of
the Extreme Left, and named Pétion Virtue, where is he?
Civilly dead; in
the Caves of Saint-Emilion; to be devoured of dogs. And Robespierre, who
rode along with him on the shoulders of the people, is in Committee of
Salut; civilly alive: not to live always.
So giddy-swift whirls and spins
this immeasurable tormentum of a Revolution; wild-booming; not to be
followed by the eye. Barnave, on the Scaffold, stamped his foot; and
looking upwards was heard to ejaculate, "This then is my reward?"
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Barnave is executed; Pétion dies in hiding.
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Deputy Ex-Procureur
Manuel?
is already gone; and Deputy
Osselin?,
famed also
in August and September, is about to go: and
Rabaut?,
discovered
treacherously between his two walls, and the Brother of Rabaut. National
Deputies not a few! And Generals: the memory of General
Custine?
cannot be
defended by his Son; his Son is already guillotined. Custine the Ex-Noble
was replaced by
Houchard?
the Plebeian: he too could not prosper in the
North; for him too there was no mercy; he has perished in the Place de la
Revolution, after attempting suicide in Prison. And Generals
Biron?,
Beauharnais?,
Brunet,
whatsoever General prospers not; tough old
Luckner?,
with his eyes grown rheumy; Alsatian
Westermann?,
valiant and diligent in La
Vendée: none of them can, as the Psalmist sings,
his soul from death deliver.
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Many leaders from the political and military successes of 1792 fall.
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How busy are the Revolutionary Committees; Sections with their Forty
Halfpence a-day![191]
Arrestment on arrestment falls quick, continual; followed
by death. Ex-Minister
Claviére?
has killed himself in Prison. Ex-Minister
Lebrun?,
seized in a hayloft, under the disguise of a working man, is
instantly conducted to death. (Moniteur, 11 Decembre,
30 Decembre, 1793; Louvet, p. 287.)
Nay, withal, is it not what
Barrère?
calls 'coining money
on the Place de la Révolution?'
For always the 'property of the guilty, if
property he have,' is confiscated. To avoid accidents, we even make a Law
that suicide shall not defraud us; that a criminal who kills himself does
not the less incur forfeiture of goods. Let the guilty tremble, therefore,
and the suspect, and the rich, and in a word all manner of culottic men!
Luxembourg Palace, once Monsieur's, has become a huge loathsome Prison;
Chantilly Palace too, once Condé's:—and their Landlords are at
Blankenberg, on the wrong side of the Rhine. In Paris are now some Twelve
Prisons; in France some Forty-four Thousand: thitherward, thick as brown
leaves in Autumn, rustle and travel the suspect; shaken down by
Revolutionary Committees, they are swept thitherward, as into their
storehouse,—to be consumed by Samson and Tinville. 'The Guillotine goes
not ill, La Guillotine ne va pas mal.'
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The rich are likely to be condemned for their fortunes. There are many
prisons, and they are full.
|
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The suspect may well tremble; but how much more the open rebels;—the
Girondin Cities of the South! Revolutionary Army is gone forth, under
Ronsin?
the Playwright; six thousand strong; in 'red nightcap, in tricolor
waistcoat, in black-shag trousers, black-shag spencer, with enormous
moustachioes, enormous sabre,—in carmagnole complete;' (See
Louvet, p. 301.)
and has portable guillotines. Representative
Carrier?
has got to
Nantes, by the edge of blazing La Vendée, which
Rossignol?
has literally set
on fire: Carrier will try what captives you make, what accomplices they
have, Royalist or Girondin: his guillotine goes always, va toujours;
and
his wool-capped 'Company of Marat.' Little children are guillotined, and
aged men. Swift as the machine is, it will not serve; the Headsman and all
his valets sink, worn down with work; declare that the human muscles can no
more. (Deux Amis, xii. 249-51.)
Whereupon you must try fusillading; to
which perhaps still frightfuller methods may succeed.
|
The central government goes on the offensive against centers of rebellion in
the south and east. A particular example of excess is
Deputy Carrier in Nantes.
|
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In Brest, to like purpose, rules Jean-Bon
Saint-André?;
with an Army of Red
Nightcaps. In Bourdeaux rules
Tallien?,
with his Isabeau and henchmen:
Guadets?,
Cussys?,
Salleses?,
may fall; the bloody Pike and Nightcap bearing
supreme sway; the Guillotine coining money. Bristly fox-haired Tallien,
once Able Editor, still young in years, is now become most gloomy, potent;
a Pluto on Earth, and has the keys of Tartarus. One remarks, however, that
a certain Senhorina
Cabarus?,
or call her rather Senhora and wedded not yet
widowed Dame de Fontenai, brown beautiful woman, daughter of Cabarus the
Spanish merchant,—has softened the red bristly countenance; pleading for
herself and friends; and prevailing. The keys of Tartarus, or any kind of
power, are something to a woman; gloomy Pluto himself is not insensible to
love. Like a new Proserpine, she, by this red gloomy Dis, is gathered;
and, they say, softens his stone heart a little.
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Deputies on mission to the trouble spots have power of life and death in
their assigned areas.
|
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Maignet?,
at Orange in the South;
Lebon?,
at Arras in the North, become
world's wonders. Jacobin Popular Tribunal, with its National
Representative, perhaps where Girondin Popular Tribunal had lately been,
rises here and rises there; wheresoever needed.
Fouchés?,
Maignets,
Barrases?,
Frérons?
scour the Southern Departments; like reapers, with their
guillotine-sickle. Many are the labourers, great is the harvest. By the
hundred and the thousand, men's lives are cropt; cast like brands into the
burning.
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The devastation of the Popular Tribunals afflicts much of France.
|
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Marseilles is taken, and put under martial law: lo, at Marseilles, what
one besmutted red-bearded corn-ear is this which they cut;—one gross Man,
we mean, with copper-studded face; plenteous beard, or beard-stubble, of a
tile-colour? By Nemesis and the Fatal Sisters, it is Jourdan
Coupe-téte!?
Him they have clutched, in these martial-law districts; him too, with their
'national razor,' their rasoir national,
they sternly shave away. Low now
is Jourdan the Headsman's own head;—low as Deshuttes's and Varigny's,
which he sent on pikes, in the Insurrection of Women! No more shall he, as
a copper Portent, be seen gyrating through the Cities of the South; no more
sit judging, with pipes and brandy, in the Ice-tower of Avignon. The all-
hiding Earth has received him, the bloated Tilebeard: may we never look
upon his like again!—Jourdan one names; the other Hundreds are not named.
Alas, they, like confused faggots, lie massed together for us; counted by
the cartload: and yet not an individual faggot-twig of them but had a Life
and History; and was cut, not without pangs as when a Kaiser dies!
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When the rebellious Marseilles falls, many federalists are executed including
Jourdan of Avignon-infamy. Carlyle issues a half-apology for treating the
deaths of so many men as statistics.
|
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Least of all cities can Lyons escape. Lyons, which we saw in dread
sunblaze, that Autumn night when the Powder-tower sprang aloft, was clearly
verging towards a sad end. Inevitable: what could desperate valour and
Précy? do;
Dubois-Crancé?,
deaf as Destiny, stern as Doom, capturing their
'redouts of cotton-bags;' hemming them in, ever closer, with his
Artillery-lava? Never would that ci-devant
d'Autichamp?
arrive; never any help from
Blankenberg. The Lyons Jacobins were hidden in cellars; the Girondin
Municipality waxed pale, in famine, treason and red fire.
Précy drew his
sword, and some Fifteen Hundred with him; sprang to saddle, to cut their
way to Switzerland. They cut fiercely; and were fiercely cut, and cut
down; not hundreds, hardly units of them ever saw Switzerland.
(Deux Amis,
xi. 145.) Lyons, on the 9th of October, surrenders at discretion; it is
become a devoted Town. Abbé
Lamourette?,
now Bishop Lamourette, whilom
Legislator, he of the old Baiser-l'Amourette or Delilah-Kiss, is seized
here, is sent to Paris to be guillotined: 'he made the sign of the cross,'
they say when Tinville intimated his death-sentence to him; and died as an
eloquent Constitutional Bishop. But wo now to all Bishops, Priests,
Aristocrats and Federalists that are in Lyons! The manes
of Chalier?
are to
be appeased; the Republic, maddened to the
Sibylline pitch[192]
has bared her
right arm. Behold! Representative Fouché,
it is Fouché of Nantes, a name
to become well known; he with a Patriot company goes duly, in wondrous
Procession, to raise the corpse of Chalier. An Ass, housed in Priest's
cloak, with a mitre on its head, and trailing the Mass-Books, some say the
very Bible, at its tail, paces through Lyons streets; escorted by
multitudinous Patriotism, by clangour as of the Pit; towards the grave of
Martyr Chalier. The body is dug up and burnt: the ashes are collected in
an Urn; to be worshipped of Paris Patriotism. The Holy Books were part of
the funeral pile; their ashes are scattered to the wind. Amid cries of
"Vengeance! Vengeance!"—which, writes Fouché, shall be satisfied.
(Moniteur (du 17 Novembre 1793), etc.)
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The violence visited on Lyons after its fall is terrible and widespread.
|
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Lyons in fact is a Town to be abolished; not Lyons henceforth but 'Commune
Affranchie, Township Freed;' the very name of it shall perish. It is to be
razed, this once great City, if Jacobinism prophesy right; and a Pillar to
be erected on the ruins, with this Inscription, Lyons rebelled against the
Republic; Lyons is no more. Fouché,
Couthon?,
Collot?,
Convention
Representatives succeed one another: there is work for the hangman; work
for the hammerman, not in building. The very Houses of Aristocrats, we
say, are doomed. Paralytic Couthon, borne in a chair, taps on the wall,
with emblematic mallet, saying, "La Loi te frappe,
The Law strikes thee;"
masons, with wedge and crowbar, begin demolition. Crash of downfall, dim
ruin and dust-clouds fly in the winter wind. Had Lyons been of soft stuff,
it had all vanished in those weeks, and the Jacobin prophecy had been
fulfilled. But Towns are not built of soap-froth; Lyons Town is built of
stone. Lyons, though it rebelled against the Republic, is to this day.
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The Jacobins wish Lyons razed, but in the end only some houses are torn down.
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Neither have the Lyons Girondins all one neck, that you could despatch it
at one swoop. Revolutionary Tribunal here, and Military Commission,
guillotining, fusillading, do what they can: the kennels of the Place des
Terreaux run red; mangled corpses roll down the Rhone. Collot d'Herbois,
they say, was once hissed on the Lyons stage: but with what sibilation, of
world-catcall or hoarse Tartarean Trumpet, will ye hiss him now, in this
his new character of Convention Representative,—not to be repeated! Two
hundred and nine men are marched forth over the River, to be shot in mass,
by musket and cannon, in the Promenade of the Brotteaux. It is the second
of such scenes; the first was of some Seventy. The corpses of the first
were flung into the Rhone, but the Rhone stranded some; so these now, of
the second lot, are to be buried on land. Their one long grave is dug;
they stand ranked, by the loose mould-ridge; the younger of them singing
the Marseillaise. Jacobin National Guards give fire; but have again to
give fire, and again; and to take the bayonet and the spade, for though the
doomed all fall, they do not all die;—and it becomes a butchery too
horrible for speech. So that the very Nationals, as they fire, turn away
their faces. Collot, snatching the musket from one such National, and
levelling it with unmoved countenance, says "It is thus a Republican ought
to fire."
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The guillotine is too slow for the number of executions. Crude and horrible
firing-squads, employing cannon as well as muskets, are arranged.
|
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This is the second Fusillade, and happily the last: it is found too
hideous; even inconvenient. They were Two hundred and nine marched out;
one escaped at the end of the Bridge: yet behold, when you count the
corpses, they are Two hundred and ten. Rede us this riddle, O Collot?
After long guessing, it is called to mind that two individuals, here in the
Brotteaux ground, did attempt to leave the rank, protesting with agony that
they were not condemned men, that they were Police Commissaries: which two
we repulsed, and disbelieved, and shot with the rest! (Deux
Amis, xii. 251-62.) Such is the vengeance of an enraged Republic.
Surely this,
according to Barrère's phrase, is Justice 'under rough forms,
sous des
formes acerbes.' But the Republic, as Fouché says,
must "march to Liberty
over corpses." Or again as Barrère has it:
"None but the dead do not come
back, Il n'y a que les morts qui ne reviennent pas."
Terror hovers far and
wide: 'The Guillotine goes not ill.'
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Rhetoric covers even these horrors.
|
|
But before quitting those Southern regions, over which History can cast
only glances from aloft, she will alight for a moment, and look fixedly at
one point: the Siege of Toulon[193].
Much battering and bombarding, heating of
balls in furnaces or farm-houses, serving of artillery well and ill,
attacking of Ollioules Passes, Forts Malbosquet, there has been: as yet to
small purpose. We have had General
Cartaux?
here, a whilom Painter elevated
in the troubles of Marseilles; General
Doppet?,
a whilom Medical man
elevated in the troubles of Piemont, who, under Crancé, took Lyons, but
cannot take Toulon. Finally we have General
Dugommier?,
a pupil of
Washington. Convention Représentans also we have had;
Barrases?,
Salicettis?,
Robespierres the
Younger?:—also
an Artillery Chef de brigade,
of extreme diligence, who often takes his nap of sleep among the guns; a
short taciturn, olive-complexioned young man, not unknown to us, by name
Buonaparte: one of the best Artillery-officers yet met with. And still
Toulon is not taken. It is the fourth month now; December, in slave-style;
Frostarious or Frimaire,
in new-style: and still their cursed Red-Blue
Flag flies there. They are provisioned from the Sea; they have seized all
heights, felling wood, and fortifying themselves; like the coney, they have
built their nest in the rocks.
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Things go less well for the central government at Toulon. The English take
the town and the French besiege it for 4 months.
|
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Meanwhile, Frostarious is not yet become Snowous or
Nivose, when a Council
of War is called; Instructions have just arrived from Government and Salut
Public.
Carnot?,
in Salut Public, has sent us a plan of siege: on which
plan General Dugommier has this criticism to make, Commissioner Salicetti
has that; and criticisms and plans are very various; when that young
Artillery Officer ventures to speak; the same whom we saw snatching sleep
among the guns, who has emerged several times in this History,—the name of
him Napoleon Buonaparte. It is his humble opinion, for he has been gliding
about with spy-glasses, with thoughts, That a certain Fort l'Eguillette can
be clutched, as with lion-spring, on the sudden; wherefrom, were it once
ours, the very heart of Toulon might be battered, the English Lines were,
so to speak, turned inside out, and Hood and our Natural Enemies must next
day either put to sea, or be burnt to ashes. Commissioners arch their
eyebrows, with negatory sniff: who is this young gentleman with more wit
than we all? Brave veteran Dugommier, however, thinks the idea worth a
word; questions the young gentleman; becomes convinced; and there is for
issue, Try it.
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A young Napoleon proposes a plan to take a key fort and end the siege.
|
|
On the taciturn bronze-countenance, therefore, things being now all ready,
there sits a grimmer gravity than ever, compressing a hotter central-fire
than ever. Yonder, thou seest, is Fort l'Eguillette; a desperate lion-spring,
yet a possible one; this day to be tried!—Tried it is; and found
good. By stratagem and valour, stealing through ravines, plunging fiery
through the fire-tempest, Fort l'Eguillette is clutched at, is carried; the
smoke having cleared, we see the Tricolor fly on it: the bronze-complexioned
young man was right. Next morning, Hood, finding the interior
of his lines exposed, his defences turned inside out, makes for his
shipping. Taking such Royalists as wished it on board with him, he weighs
anchor: on this 19th of December 1793, Toulon is once more the Republic's!
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The fort is taken by stratagem and force
(Napoleon is wounded by a bayonet thrust). The English occupation ends.
|
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Cannonading has ceased at Toulon; and now the guillotining and fusillading
may begin. Civil horrors, truly: but at least that infamy of an English
domination is purged away. Let there be Civic Feast universally over
France: so reports Barrère, or Painter David;
and the Convention assist in
a body. (Moniteur, 1793, Nos. 101 (31 Decembre), 95, 96, 98,
etc.) Nay, it
is said, these infamous English (with an attention rather to their own
interests than to ours) set fire to our store-houses, arsenals, warships in
Toulon Harbour, before weighing; some score of brave warships, the only
ones we now had! However, it did not prosper, though the flame spread far
and high; some two ships were burnt, not more; the very galley-slaves ran
with buckets to quench. These same proud Ships, Ship l'Orient and the
rest, have to carry this same young Man to Egypt first: not yet can they
be changed to ashes, or to Sea-Nymphs; not yet to sky-rockets, O Ship
l'Orient, nor became the prey of England,—before their
time![194]
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Again there is cruel repression, but repulsing the English creates a surge
of patriotic pride in France.
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And so, over France universally, there is Civic Feast and high-tide: and
Toulon sees fusillading, grape-shotting in mass, as Lyons saw; and 'death
is poured out in great floods, vomie à grands flots'
and Twelve thousand
Masons are requisitioned from the neighbouring country, to raze Toulon from
the face of the Earth. For it is to be razed, so reports Barrère;
all but
the National Shipping Establishments; and to be called henceforth not
Toulon, but Port of the Mountain.
There in black death-cloud we must leave
it;—hoping only that Toulon too is built of stone; that perhaps even
Twelve thousand Masons cannot pull it down, till the fit pass.
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One begins to be sick of 'death vomited in great floods.' Nevertheless
hearest thou not, O reader (for the sound reaches through centuries), in
the dead December and January nights, over Nantes Town,—confused noises,
as of musketry and tumult, as of rage and lamentation; mingling with the
everlasting moan of the Loire waters there? Nantes Town is sunk in sleep;
but Représentant Carrier
is not sleeping, the wool-capped Company of Marat
is not sleeping. Why unmoors that flatbottomed craft, that gabarre;
about
eleven at night; with Ninety Priests under hatches? They are going to
Belle Isle? In the middle of the Loire stream, on signal given, the
gabarre is scuttled; she sinks with all her cargo. 'Sentence of
Deportation,' writes Carrier, 'was executed vertically.' The Ninety
Priests, with their gabarre-coffin, lie deep! It is the first of the
Noyades, what we may call Drownages, of Carrier;
which have become famous forever.
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The cruellest and most notorious atrocities of the period occurred at
Nantes, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Carrier.
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Guillotining there was at Nantes, till the Headsman sank worn out: then
fusillading 'in the Plain of Saint-Mauve;' little children fusilladed, and
women with children at the breast; children and women, by the hundred and
twenty; and by the five hundred, so hot is La Vendée: till the very
Jacobins grew sick, and all but the Company of Marat cried, Hold!
Wherefore now we have got Noyading; and on the 24th night of Frostarious
year 2, which is 14th of December 1793, we have a second Noyade:
consisting of 'a Hundred and Thirty-eight persons.'
(Deux Amis, xii. 266-
72; Moniteur, du 2 Janvier 1794.)
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Excess prisoners from the Vendéan rebellion are sent out in boats to the
middle of the river Loire and drowned.
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Or why waste a gabarre, sinking it with them? Fling them out; fling them
out, with their hands tied: pour a continual hail of lead over all the
space, till the last struggler of them be sunk! Unsound sleepers of
Nantes, and the Sea-Villages thereabouts, hear the musketry amid the
night-winds; wonder what the meaning of it is.
And women were in that gabarre;
whom the Red Nightcaps were stripping naked; who begged, in their agony,
that their smocks might not be stript from them. And young children were
thrown in, their mothers vainly pleading: "Wolflings," answered the
Company of Marat, "who would grow to be wolves."
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By degrees, daylight itself witnesses Noyades: women and men are tied
together, feet and feet, hands and hands: and flung in: this they call
Mariage Republicain, Republican Marriage. Cruel is the panther of the
woods, the she-bear bereaved of her whelps: but there is in man a hatred
crueller than that. Dumb, out of suffering now, as pale swoln corpses, the
victims tumble confusedly seaward along the Loire stream; the tide rolling
them back: clouds of ravens darken the River; wolves prowl on the
shoal-places: Carrier writes, 'Quel torrent revolutionnaire,
What a torrent of
Revolution!' For the man is rabid; and the Time is rabid. These are the
Noyades of Carrier; twenty-five by the tale, for what is done in darkness
comes to be investigated in sunlight:
(Proces de Carrier (4 tomes, Paris,
1795.)
not to be forgotten for centuries. — We will turn to another aspect
of the Consummation of Sansculottism; leaving this as the blackest.
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But indeed men are all rabid; as the Time is. Representative
Lebon?,
at
Arras, dashes his sword into the blood flowing from the Guillotine;
exclaims, "How I like it!" Mothers, they say, by his order, have to stand
by while the Guillotine devours their children: a band of music is
stationed near; and, at the fall of every head, strikes up its ça-ira.
(Les Horreures des Prisons d'Arras (Paris, 1823).)
In the Burgh of
Bedouin, in the Orange region, the Liberty-tree has been cut down over
night. Representative
Maignet?,
at Orange, hears of it; burns Bedouin Burgh
to the last dog-hutch; guillotines the inhabitants, or drives them into the
caves and hills. (Montgaillard, iv. 200.)
Republic One and Indivisible!
She is the newest Birth of Nature's waste inorganic Deep, which men name
Orcus, Chaos, primeval Night; and knows one law, that of self-preservation.
Tigresse Nationale: meddle not with a whisker of her!
Swift-crushing is
her stroke; look what a paw she spreads;—pity has not entered her heart.
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In some places the Terror displayed the viciousness of the jungle.
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Prudhomme?,
the dull-blustering Printer and Able Editor, as yet a Jacobin
Editor, will become a renegade one, and publish large volumes on these
matters, Crimes of the Revolution; adding innumerable lies withal, as if
the truth were not sufficient. We, for our part, find it more edifying to
know, one good time, that this Republic and National Tigress is a New
Birth; a Fact of Nature among Formulas, in an Age of Formulas; and to look,
oftenest in silence, how the so genuine Nature-Fact will demean itself
among these. For the Formulas are partly genuine, partly delusive,
supposititious: we call them, in the language of metaphor, regulated
modelled shapes; some of which have
bodies and life still in them; most of
which, according to a German Writer, have only emptiness, 'glass-eyes
glaring on you with a ghastly affectation of life, and in their interior
unclean accumulation of beetles and spiders!' But the Fact, let all men
observe, is a genuine and sincere one; the sincerest of Facts: terrible in
its sincerity, as very Death. Whatsoever is equally sincere may front it,
and beard it; but whatsoever is not?—
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However deplorable and contradictory to the theory of the times, the Terror
was organic. Something else would have to grow out of the times to end it.
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Simultaneously with this
Tophet?-black
aspect, there unfolds itself another
aspect, which one may call a Tophet-red aspect: the Destruction of the
Catholic Religion; and indeed, for the time being of Religion itself. We
saw
Romme's?
New Calendar establish its Tenth Day of Rest; and asked, what
would become of the Christian Sabbath? The Calendar is hardly a month old,
till all this is set at rest. Very singular, as
Mercier?
observes: last
Corpus-Christi
Day 1792, the whole world, and Sovereign Authority itself,
walked in religious gala, with a quite devout air;—Butcher
Legendre?,
supposed to be irreverent, was like to be massacred in his Gig, as the
thing went by. A Gallican Hierarchy, and Church, and Church Formulas
seemed to flourish, a little brown-leaved or so, but not browner than of
late years or decades; to flourish, far and wide, in the sympathies of an
unsophisticated People; defying Philosophism, Legislature and the
Encyclopédie.
Far and wide, alas, like a brown-leaved
Vallombrosa[195];
which
waits but one whirlblast of the November wind, and in an hour stands bare!
Since that Corpus-Christi Day, Brunswick has come, and the Emigrants, and
La Vendée, and eighteen months of Time:
to all flourishing, especially to
brown-leaved flourishing, there comes, were it never so slowly, an end.
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A temporary casualty of the Terror is the Catholic Church.
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On the 7th of November, a certain Citoyen Parens, Curate of Boissise-le-
Bertrand, writes to the Convention that he has all his life been preaching
a lie, and is grown weary of doing it; wherefore he will now lay down his
Curacy and stipend, and begs that an august Convention would give him
something else to live upon. 'Mention honorable,'
shall we give him? Or
'reference to Committee of Finances?' Hardly is this got decided, when
goose
Gobel?,
Constitutional Bishop of Paris, with his Chapter, with
Municipal and Departmental escort in red nightcaps, makes his appearance,
to do as Parens has done. Goose Gobel will now acknowledge 'no Religion
but Liberty;' therefore he doffs his Priest-gear, and receives the
Fraternal embrace. To the joy of Departmental
Momoro?,
of Municipal
Chaumettes?
and Héberts,?
of Vincent?
and the Revolutionary Army! Chaumette
asks, Ought there not, in these circumstances, to be among our intercalary
Days Sans-breeches, a Feast of Reason? (Moniteur,
Séance du 17 Brumaire
(7th November), 1793.) Proper surely! Let Atheist
Maréchal?,
Lalande?,
and
little Atheist
Naigeon?
rejoice; let
Clootz?,
Speaker of Mankind, present to
the Convention his Evidences of the Mahometan Religion, 'a work evincing
the nullity of all Religions,'—with thanks. There shall be Universal
Republic now, thinks Clootz; and 'one God only, Le Peuple.'
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A fad for atheism develops in the winter of 1793-94.
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The French Nation is of gregarious imitative nature; it needed but a
fugle-motion [a signal] in this matter;
and goose Gobel, driven by Municipality and force of
circumstances, has given one. What Curé will be behind him of Boissise;
what Bishop behind him of Paris? Bishop Grégoire, indeed, courageously
declines; to the sound of "We force no one; let Grégoire consult his
conscience;" but Protestant and Romish by the hundred volunteer and assent.
From far and near, all through November into December, till the work is
accomplished, come Letters of renegation, come Curates who are 'learning to
be Carpenters,' Curates with their new-wedded Nuns: has not the Day of
Reason dawned, very swiftly, and become noon? From sequestered Townships
comes Addresses, stating plainly, though in Patois dialect, That 'they will
have no more to do with the black animal called Curay, animal noir,
appellé
Curay.'
[Analyse du Moniteur (Paris, 1801), ii. 280.]
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It quickly spreads.
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Above all things there come Patriotic Gifts, of Church-furniture. The
remnant of bells, except for tocsin, descend from their belfries, into the
National meltingpot, to make cannon. Censers and all sacred vessels are
beaten broad; of silver, they are fit for the poverty-stricken Mint; of
pewter, let them become bullets to shoot the 'enemies of du genre
humain.'
Dalmatics of plush make breeches for him who has none; linen stoles will
clip into shirts for the Defenders of the Country: old-clothesmen, Jew or
Heathen, drive the briskest trade.
Chalier's?
Ass Procession, at Lyons, was
but a type of what went on, in those same days, in all Towns. In all Towns
and Townships as quick as the guillotine may go, so quick goes the axe and
the wrench: sacristies, lutrins, altar-rails are pulled down; the Mass
Books torn into cartridge papers: men dance the Carmagnole all night about
the bonfire. All highways jingle with metallic Priest-tackle, beaten
broad; sent to the Convention, to the poverty-stricken Mint. Good Sainte
Genevieve's Chasse is let down: alas, to be burst open, this time, and
burnt on the Place de Grève. Saint Louis's shirt is burnt;—might not a
Defender of the Country have had it? At Saint-Denis Town, no longer
Saint-Denis but Franciade, Patriotism has been down among the Tombs,
rummaging;
the Revolutionary Army has taken spoil. This, accordingly, is what the
streets of Paris saw:
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There is another cycle of looting of church property for the furthering of the
Revolution.
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'Most of these persons were still drunk, with the brandy they had swallowed
out of chalices;—eating mackerel on the patenas [plates for the Eucharist]!
Mounted on Asses, which
were housed with Priests' cloaks, they reined them with Priests' stoles:
they held clutched with the same hand communion-cup and sacred wafer. They
stopped at the doors of Dramshops; held out ciboriums [goblet for holding
the Eucharist bread]: and the landlord,
stoop in hand, had to fill them thrice. Next came Mules high-laden with
crosses, chandeliers, censers, holy-water vessels, hyssops [fumigant
plants];—recalling to
mind the Priests of Cybele, whose panniers [saddle-packs],
filled with the instruments of
their worship, served at once as storehouse, sacristy and temple. In such
equipage did these profaners advance towards the Convention. They enter
there, in an immense train, ranged in two rows; all masked like mummers in
fantastic sacerdotal vestments; bearing on hand-barrows their heaped
plunder,—ciboriums, suns, candelabras, plates of gold and silver.'
(Mercier, iv. 134. See Moniteur,
Séance du 10 Novembre.)
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The plunder is sometimes carried to Paris in procession.
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The Address we do not give; for indeed it was in strophes, sung
vivâ voce,
with all the parts;—Danton glooming considerably, in his place; and
demanding that there be prose and decency in future. (See also
Moniteur, Séance du 26 Novembre.)
Nevertheless the captors of such spolia opima [plunder taken from an
enemy king]
crave, not untouched with liquor, permission to dance the Carmagnole also
on the spot: whereto an exhilarated Convention cannot but accede. Nay,
'several Members,' continues the exaggerative Mercier, who was not there to
witness, being in Limbo now, as one of
Duperret's Seventy-three [excluded members],
'several
Members, quitting their curule chairs, took the hand of girls flaunting in
Priest's vestures, and danced the Carmagnole along with them.' Such
Old-Hallow-tide have they, in this year, once named of Grace, 1793.
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The ceremonies take on Pagan tones.
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Out of which strange fall of Formulas, tumbling there in confused welter,
betrampled by the Patriotic dance, is it not passing strange to see a new
Formula arise? For the human tongue is not adequate to speak what
'triviality run distracted' there is in human nature. Black Mumbo-Jumbo of
the woods, and most Indian Wau-waus, one can understand: but this of
Procureur Anaxagoras whilom John-Peter Chaumette? We will say only: Man
is a born idol-worshipper, sight-worshipper, so sensuous-imaginative is he;
and also partakes much of the nature of the ape.
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Man, when denied Carlyle's True Worship, is capable of creating almost any
worship at all.
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For the same day, while this brave Carmagnole dance has hardly jigged
itself out, there arrive Procureur Chaumette and Municipals and
Departmentals, and with them the strangest freightage: a New Religion!
Demoiselle
Candeille?,
of the Opera; a woman fair to look upon, when well
rouged: she, borne on palanquin shoulder-high; with red woolen nightcap;
in azure mantle; garlanded with oak; holding in her hand the Pike of the
Jupiter-Peuple, sails in;
heralded by white young women girt in tricolor.
Let the world consider it! This, O National Convention wonder of the
universe, is our New Divinity; Goddess of Reason,
worthy, and alone worthy
of revering. Nay, were it too much to ask of an august National
Representation that it also went with us to the ci-devant
Cathedral called
of Notre-Dame, and executed a few strophes in worship of her?
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A bizarre example is the "Cult of Reason", with a godess represnted by an
aging Opera star.
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President and Secretaries give Goddess Candeille, borne at due height round
their platform, successively the fraternal kiss; whereupon she, by decree,
sails to the right-hand of the President and there alights. And now, after
due pause and flourishes of oratory, the Convention, gathering its limbs,
does get under way in the required procession towards Notre-Dame;—Reason,
again in her litter, sitting in the van of them, borne, as one judges, by
men in the Roman costume; escorted by wind-music, red nightcaps, and the
madness of the world. And so straightway, Reason taking seat on the
high-altar of Notre-Dame, the requisite worship or quasi-worship is, say the
Newspapers, executed; National Convention chanting 'the Hymn to Liberty,
words by
Chenier?,
music by Gossec?.'
It is the first of the Feasts of
Reason; first communion-service of the New Religion of Chaumette.
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One ceremony involves the Convention in a sort of anti-Te Deum at the
Cathedral of Notre Dame.
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'The corresponding Festival in the Church of Saint-Eustache,' says Mercier,
'offered the spectacle of a great tavern. The interior of the choir
represented a landscape decorated with cottages and boskets of trees.
Round the choir stood tables over-loaded with bottles, with sausages, pork-
puddings, pastries and other meats. The guests flowed in and out through
all doors: whosoever presented himself took part of the good things:
children of eight, girls as well as boys, put hand to plate, in sign of
Liberty; they drank also of the bottles, and their prompt intoxication
created laughter. Reason sat in azure mantle aloft, in a serene manner;
Cannoneers, pipe in mouth, serving her as acolytes. And out of doors,'
continues the exaggerative man, 'were mad multitudes dancing round the
bonfire of Chapel-balustrades, of Priests' and Canons' stalls; and the
dancers, I exaggerate nothing, the dancers nigh bare of breeches, neck and
breast naked, stockings down, went whirling and spinning, like those Dust-
vortexes, forerunners of Tempest and Destruction.' (Mercier,
iv. 127-146.)
At Saint-Gervais Church again there was a terrible 'smell of herrings;'
Section or Municipality having provided no food, no condiment, but left it
to chance. Other mysteries, seemingly of a Cabiric or even Paphian
character[196],
we heave under the Veil, which appropriately stretches itself
'along the pillars of the aisles,'—not to be lifted aside by the hand of
History.
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Carlyle delicately suggests that some of the ceremonies are too indelicate to
suggest.
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But there is one thing we should like almost better to understand than any
other: what Reason herself thought of it, all the while. What articulate
words poor Mrs. Momoro, for example, uttered; when she had become
ungoddessed again, and the Bibliopolist and she sat quiet at home, at
supper? For he was an earnest man, Bookseller
Momoro?;
and had notions of
Agrarian Law. Mrs. Momoro, it is admitted, made one of the best Goddesses
of Reason; though her teeth were a little defective. And now if the reader
will represent to himself that such visible Adoration of Reason went on
'all over the Republic,' through these November and December weeks, till
the Church woodwork was burnt out, and the business otherwise completed, he
will feel sufficiently what an adoring Republic it was, and without
reluctance quit this part of the subject.
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Carlyle ends his discussion of the Cult of Reason with a snort of disgust.
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Such gifts of Church-spoil are chiefly the work of the Armée
Révolutionnaire; raised, as we said, some time ago. It is an Army with
portable guillotine: commanded by Playwright
Ronsin?
in terrible
moustachioes; and even by some uncertain shadow of Usher
Maillard?,
the old
Bastille Hero, Leader of the Menads, September Man in Grey! Clerk
Vincent?
of the War-Office, one of
Pache's?
old Clerks, 'with a head heated by the
ancient orators,' had a main hand in the appointments, at least in the
staff-appointments.
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The Revolutionary Army, raised earlier in 1793, has some part in the
looting of the churches.
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But of the marchings and retreatings of these Six Thousand no Xenophon
exists. Nothing, but an inarticulate hum, of cursing and sooty frenzy,
surviving dubious in the memory of ages! They scour the country round
Paris; seeking Prisoners; raising Requisitions; seeing that Edicts are
executed, that the Farmers have thrashed sufficiently; lowering Church-bells
or metallic Virgins. Detachments shoot forth dim, towards remote
parts of France; nay new Provincial Revolutionary Armies rise dim, here and
there, as
Carrier's?
Company of Marat, as
Tallien's?
Bourdeaux Troop; like
sympathetic clouds in an atmosphere all electric. Ronsin, they say,
admitted, in candid moments, that his troops were the elixir of the
Rascality of the Earth. One sees them drawn up in market-places;
travel-plashed, rough-bearded, in carmagnole complete:
the first exploit is to
prostrate what Royal or Ecclesiastical monument, crucifix or the like,
there may be; to plant a cannon at the steeple, fetch down the bell without
climbing for it, bell and belfry together. This, however, it is said,
depends somewhat on the size of the town: if the town contains much
population, and these perhaps of a dubious choleric aspect, the
Revolutionary Army will do its work gently, by ladder and wrench; nay
perhaps will take its billet without work at all; and, refreshing itself
with a little liquor and sleep, pass on to the next stage.
(Deux Amis,
xii. 62-5.) Pipe in cheek, sabre on thigh; in carmagnole complete!
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Not much has been passed down about the Revolutionary Army. They were
something more than a nuisance, something less than a scourge, to the
citizens of France
|
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Such things have been; and may again be. Charles Second sent out his
Highland Host over the Western Scotch Whigs; Jamaica Planters got Dogs from
the Spanish Main to hunt their
Maroons with[196]:
France too is bescoured with
a Devil's Pack, the baying of which, at this distance of half a century,
still sounds in the mind's ear.
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Their civic inhumanity is by no means unprecedented.
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But the grand, and indeed substantially primary and generic aspect of the
Consummation of Terror remains still to be looked at; nay blinkard History
has for most part all but overlooked this aspect,
the soul of the whole:
that which makes it terrible to the Enemies of France. Let Despotism and
Cimmerian Coalitions consider. All French men and French things are in a
State of Requisition; Fourteen Armies are got on foot; Patriotism, with all
that it has of faculty in heart or in head, in soul or body or
breeches-pocket, is rushing to the frontiers, to prevail or die!
Busy sits Carnot?,
in Salut Public; busy for his share, in 'organising victory.'
Not swifter
pulses that Guillotine, in dread systole-diastole in the Place de la
Révolution, than smites the Sword of Patriotism,
smiting Cimmeria back to
its own borders, from the sacred soil.
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At the beginning of 1794 France is mobilized to its fullest extent and is
making headway against the Prussians, Austrians and English.
|
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In fact the Government is what we can call Revolutionary; and some men are
'à la hauteur,' on a level with the circumstances;
and others are not à la
hauteur,—so much the worse for them. But the Anarchy, we may say, has
organised itself: Society is literally overset; its old forces working
with mad activity, but in the inverse order; destructive and self-destructive.
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France has reorganized itself around an internal patriotic repression and
an external patriotic aggression.
|
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Curious to see how all still refers itself to some head and fountain; not
even an Anarchy but must have a centre to revolve round. It is now some
six months since the Committee of Salut Public came into existence:
some
three months since
Danton?
proposed that all power should be given it and 'a
sum of fifty millions,' and the 'Government be declared Revolutionary.' He
himself, since that day, would take no hand in it, though again and again
solicited; but sits private in his place on the Mountain. Since that day,
the Nine, or if they should even rise to Twelve have become permanent,
always re-elected when their term runs out; Salut Public,
Sûrété Généerale
have assumed their ulterior form and mode of operating.
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The reorganization centers around two standing committees: Public Safety
and General Security.
|
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Committee of Public Salvation, as supreme; of General Surety, as subaltern:
these like a Lesser and Greater Council, most harmonious hitherto, have
become the centre of all things. They ride this Whirlwind; they, raised by
force of circumstances, insensibly, very strangely, thither to that dread
height;—and guide it, and seem to guide it. Stranger set of Cloud-Compellers
the Earth never saw. A
Robespierre?,
a Billaud?,
a Collot?,
Couthon?,
Saint-Just?;
not to mention still meaner
Amars?,
Vadiers?,
in Sûrété
Générale:
these are your Cloud-Compellers. Small intellectual talent is
necessary: indeed where among them, except in the head of
Carnot, busied
organising victory, would you find any? The talent is one of instinct
rather. It is that of divining aright what this great dumb Whirlwind
wishes and wills; that of willing, with more frenzy than any one, what all
the world wills. To stand at no obstacles; to heed no considerations human
or divine; to know well that, of divine or human, there is one thing
needful, Triumph of the Republic, Destruction of the Enemies of the
Republic! With this one spiritual endowment, and so few others, it is
strange to see how a dumb inarticulately storming Whirlwind of things puts,
as it were, its reins into your hand, and invites and compels you to be
leader of it.
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The members of these committees have no particular strengths or virtues:
they just find themselves riding the whirlwind.
|
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Hard by, sits a Municipality of Paris; all in red nightcaps since the
fourth of November last: a set of men fully 'on a level with
circumstances,' or even beyond it. Sleek Mayor
Pache?, studious to be safe
in the middle;
Chaumettes?,
Héberts?,
Varlets?,
and Henriot?
their great
Commandant; not to speak of
Vincent?
the War-clerk, of
Momoros?,
Dobsents?,
and such like: all intent to have Churches plundered, to have Reason
adored, Suspects cut down, and the Revolution triumph. Perhaps carrying
the matter too far? Danton was heard to grumble at the civic strophes; and
to recommend prose and decency. Robespierre also grumbles that in
overturning Superstition we did not mean to make a religion of Atheism. In
fact, your Chaumette and Company constitute a kind of Hyper-Jacobinism, or
rabid 'Faction des Enragés;'
which has given orthodox Patriotism some
umbrage, of late months. To 'know a Suspect on the streets:' what is this
but bringing the Law of the Suspect itself into ill odour? Men half-frantic,
men zealous overmuch,—they toil there, in their red nightcaps,
restlessly, rapidly, accomplishing what of Life is allotted them.
|
The government of Paris, increasingly radical as the "Cult of Reason"
demonstrates, frequently finds itself in conflict with the new
Committees.
|
|
And the Forty-four Thousand other Townships, each with revolutionary
Committee, based on Jacobin Daughter Society; enlightened by the spirit of
Jacobinism; quickened by the Forty Sous a-day!—The French Constitution
spurned always at any thing like Two Chambers; and yet behold, has it not
verily got Two Chambers? National Convention, elected for one; Mother of
Patriotism, self-elected, for another! Mother of Patriotism has her
Debates reported in the Moniteur, as important state-procedures; which
indisputably they are. A Second Chamber of Legislature we call this Mother
Society;—if perhaps it were not rather comparable to that old Scotch Body
named Lords of the
Articles[146],
without whose origination, and signal given,
the so-called Parliament could introduce no bill, could do no work?
Robespierre himself, whose words are a law, opens his incorruptible lips
copiously in the Jacobins Hall. Smaller Council of Salut Public,
Greater
Council of Sûrété Générale,
all active Parties, come here to plead; to
shape beforehand what decision they must arrive at, what destiny they have
to expect. Now if a question arose, Which of those Two Chambers,
Convention, or Lords of the Articles, was the stronger? Happily they as
yet go hand in hand.
|
With the Jacobin Club as the upper house, the committees form a sort of
bicameral.
|
|
As for the National Convention, truly it has become a most composed Body.
Quenched now the old effervescence; the Seventy-three locked in ward; once
noisy Friends of the Girondins sunk all into silent men of the Plain,
called even 'Frogs of the Marsh,' Crapauds du Marais! Addresses come,
Revolutionary Church-plunder comes; Deputations, with prose, or strophes:
these the Convention receives. But beyond this, the Convention has one
thing mainly to do: to listen what Salut Public proposes, and say, Yea.
|
The Convention has become a rubber stamp for Robespierre's Committee of Public
Safety.
|
|
Bazire?
followed by
Chabot?,
with some impetuosity, declared, one morning,
that this was not the way of a Free Assembly. "There ought to be an
Opposition side, a Côte Droit," cried Chabot;
"if none else will form it, I
will: people say to me, You will all get guillotined in your turn, first
you and Bazire, then Danton, then Robespierre himself."
(Debats, du 10 Novembre, 1723.)
So spake the Disfrocked [Chabot], with a loud voice: next week,
Bazire and he lie in the Abbaye; wending, one may fear, towards Tinville
and the Axe; and 'people say to me'—what seems to be proving true!
Bazire's blood was all inflamed with Revolution fever; with coffee and
spasmodic dreams. (Dictionnaire des Hommes Marquans, i.
115.) Chabot,
again, how happy with his rich Jew-Austrian wife, late Fräulein Frey! But
he lies in Prison; and his two Jew-Austrian Brothers-in-Law, the Bankers
Frey, lie with him; waiting the urn of doom. Let a National Convention,
therefore, take warning, and know its function. Let the Convention, all as
one man, set its shoulder to the work; not with bursts of Parliamentary
eloquence, but in quite other and serviceable ways!
|
The few deputies who opposed their marginalization were dealt with summarily.
|
|
Convention Commissioners, what we ought to call Representatives,
'Représentans on mission,'
fly, like the Herald Mercury, to all points of
the Territory; carrying your behests far and wide. In their 'round hat
plumed with tricolor feathers, girt with flowing tricolor taffeta; in close
frock, tricolor sash, sword and jack-boots,' these men are powerfuller than
King or Kaiser. They say to whomso they meet, Do; and he must do it: all
men's goods are at their disposal; for France is as one huge City in Siege.
They smite with Requisitions, and Forced-loan; they have the power of life
and death.
Saint-Just?
and
Lebas?
order the rich classes of Strasburg to
'strip off their shoes,' and send them to the Armies where as many as 'ten
thousand pairs' are needed. Also, that within four and twenty hours, 'a
thousand beds' are to be got ready; (Moniteur, du 27 Novembre
1793.) wrapt
in matting, and sent under way. For the time presses!—Like swift bolts,
issuing from the fuliginous Olympus of Salut Public rush these men,
oftenest in pairs; scatter your thunder-orders over France; make France one
enormous Revolutionary thunder-cloud.
|
Deputies do have tremendous powers, however, when sent on mission under the
auspices of the Committee of Public Safety.
|
|
Accordingly alongside of these bonfires of Church balustrades, and sounds
of fusillading and noyading, there rise quite another sort of fires and
sounds: Smithy-fires and Proof-volleys for the manufacture of arms.
|
Along side the Terror, war production goes into high gear.
|
|
Cut off from Sweden and the world, the Republic must learn to make steel
for itself; and, by aid of Chemists, she has learnt it. Towns that knew
only iron, now know steel[198]:
from their new dungeons at Chantilly,
Aristocrats may hear the rustle of our new steel furnace there. Do not
bells transmute themselves into cannon; iron stancheons into the white-weapon
(arme blanche), by sword-cutlery? The wheels of Langres scream,
amid their sputtering fire halo; grinding mere swords. The stithies [anvils] of
Charleville ring with gun-making. What say we, Charleville? Two hundred
and fifty-eight Forges stand in the open spaces of Paris itself; a hundred
and forty of them in the Esplanade of the Invalides, fifty-four in the
Luxembourg Garden: so many Forges stand; grim Smiths beating and forging
at lock and barrel there. The Clockmakers have come, requisitioned, to do
the touch-holes, the hard-solder and filework. Five great Barges swing at
anchor on the Seine Stream, loud with boring; the great press-drills
grating harsh thunder to the general ear and heart. And deft Stock-makers
do gouge and rasp; and all men bestir themselves, according to their
cunning:—in the language of hope, it is reckoned that a 'thousand finished
muskets can be delivered daily.' (Choix des Rapports,
xiii. 189.)
Chemists of the Republic have taught us miracles of swift tanning;
(Ibid. xv. 360.)
the cordwainer bores and stitches;—not of 'wood and pasteboard,'
or he shall answer it to Tinville! The women sew tents and coats, the
children scrape surgeon's-lint, the old men sit in the market-places; able
men are on march; all men in requisition: from Town to Town flutters, on
the Heaven's winds, this Banner, THE FRENCH PEOPLE RISEN AGAINST TYRANTS.
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Almost anyone not not growing or distributing food is engaged in war
production.
|
|
All which is well. But now arises the question: What is to be done for
saltpetre? Interrupted Commerce and the English Navy shut us out from
saltpetre; and without saltpetre there is no gunpowder. Republican Science
again sits meditative; discovers that saltpetre exists here and there,
though in attenuated quantity: that old plaster of walls holds a
sprinkling of it;—that the earth of the Paris Cellars holds a sprinkling
of it, diffused through the common rubbish; that were these dug up and
washed, saltpetre might be had. Whereupon swiftly, see! the Citoyens, with
upshoved bonnet rouge, or with doffed bonnet, and hair toil-wetted; digging
fiercely, each in his own cellar, for saltpetre. The Earth-heap rises at
every door; the Citoyennes with hod and bucket carrying it up; the
Citoyens, pith in every muscle, shovelling and digging: for life and
saltpetre. Dig my braves; and right well speed ye. What of saltpetre is
essential the Republic shall not want.
|
France lacks concentrations of potassium nitrate, so great effort is spent
in recovering traces of it.
|
| |
|
Consummation of Sansculottism has many aspects and tints: but the
brightest tint, really of a solar or stellar brightness, is this which the
Armies give it. That same fervour of Jacobinism which internally fills
France with hatred, suspicions, scaffolds and Reason-worship, does, on the
Frontiers, shew itself as a glorious Pro patria mori. Ever since
Dumouriez's defection, three Convention Representatives attend every
General. Committee of Salut has sent them, often with this Laconic order
only: "Do thy duty, Fais ton devoir." It is strange, under what
impediments the fire of Jacobinism, like other such fires, will burn.
These Soldiers have shoes of wood and pasteboard, or go booted in hayropes,
in dead of winter; they skewer a bast mat round their shoulders, and are
destitute of most things. What then? It is for Rights of Frenchhood, of
Manhood, that they fight: the unquenchable spirit, here as elsewhere,
works miracles. "With steel and bread," says the Convention
Representative, "one may get to China." The Generals go fast to the
guillotine; justly and unjustly. From which what inference? This among
others: That ill-success is death; that in victory alone is life! To
conquer or die is no theatrical palabra, in these circumstances: but a
practical truth and necessity. All Girondism, Halfness, Compromise is
swept away. Forward, ye Soldiers of the Republic, captain and man! Dash
with your Gaelic impetuosity, on Austria, England, Prussia, Spain,
Sardinia; Pitt, Cobourg, York, and the Devil and the World! Behind us is
but the Guillotine; before us is Victory, Apotheosis and Millennium without
end!
|
The armies are motivated by patriotism and the Terror to move forward.
|
|
See accordingly, on all Frontiers, how the Sons of Night, astonished after
short triumph, do recoil;—the Sons of the Republic flying at them, with
wild Ça-ira or Marseillese Aux armes,
with the temper of cat-o'-mountain,
or demon incarnate; which no Son of Night can stand! Spain, which came
bursting through the Pyrenees, rustling with Bourbon banners, and went
conquering here and there for a season, falters at such cat-o'-mountain
welcome; draws itself in again; too happy now were the Pyrenees impassable.
Not only does
Dugommier?,
conqueror of Toulon, drive Spain back; he invades
Spain. General
Dugommier invades it by the Eastern Pyrenees; General Müller shall invade
it by the Western. Shall, that is the word:
Committee of Salut Public has
said it; Representative Cavaignac, on mission there, must see it done.
Impossible! cries Müller,—Infallible! answers Cavaignac. Difficulty,
impossibility, is to no purpose. "The Committee is deaf on that side of
its head," answers Cavaignac, "n'entend pas de cette oreille là.
How many
wantest thou, of men, of horses, cannons? Thou shalt have them.
Conquerors, conquered or hanged, forward we must." (There
is, in
Prudhomme, an atrocity à la Captain-Kirk
reported of this Cavaignac; which
has been copied into Dictionaries of Hommes Marquans, of Biographie
Universelle, etc.; which not only has no truth in it, but, much more
singular, is still capable of being proved to have none.)
[199]
Which things
also, even as the Representative spake them, were done. The Spring of the
new Year sees Spain invaded: and redoubts are carried, and Passes and
Heights of the most scarped description; Spanish Field-officerism struck
mute at such cat-o'-mountain spirit, the cannon forgetting to fire.
(Deux
Amis, xiii. 205-30; Toulongeon, etc.)
Swept are the Pyrenees; Town after
Town flies up, burst by terror or the petard. In the course of another
year, Spain will crave Peace; acknowledge its sins and the Republic; nay,
in Madrid, there will be joy as for a victory, that even Peace is got.
|
The situation is completely reversed on the Spanish frontier. In another
year French troops will be driving into Spain.
|
|
Few things, we repeat, can be notabler than these Convention
Representatives, with their power more than kingly. Nay at bottom are they
not Kings, Ablemen, of a sort; chosen from the Seven Hundred and Forty-nine
French Kings; with this order, Do thy duty? Representative
Levasseur?,
of
small stature, by trade a mere pacific Surgeon-Accoucheur, has mutinies to
quell; mad hosts (mad at the Doom of Custine) bellowing far and wide; he
alone amid them, the one small Representative,—small, but as hard as
flint, which also carries fire in it! So too, at Hondschooten, far in the
afternoon, he declares that the battle is not lost; that it must be gained;
and fights, himself, with his own obstetric hand;—horse shot under him, or
say on foot, 'up to the haunches in tide-water;' cutting stoccado and
passado there, in defiance of Water, Earth, Air and Fire, the choleric
little Representative that he was! Whereby, as natural, Royal Highness of
York had to withdraw,—occasionally at full gallop; like to be swallowed by
the tide: and his Siege of Dunkirk became a dream, realising only much
loss of beautiful siege-artillery and of brave lives.
(Levasseur, Mémoires, ii. c. 2-7.)
|
In September, 1793,
the Army of the North once again advances in Flanders, relieving
Dunkirk.
|
|
General
Houchard?,
it would appear, stood behind a hedge, on this
Hondschooten occasion; wherefore they have since guillotined him. A new
General
Jourdan?,
late Serjeant Jourdan, commands in his stead: he, in
long-winded Battles of Watigny, 'murderous artillery-fire mingling itself
with sound of Revolutionary battle-hymns,' forces Austria behind the Sambre
again; has hopes of purging the soil of Liberty. With hard wrestling, with
artillerying and ça-ira-ing, it shall be done.
In the course of a new
Summer, Valenciennes will see itself beleaguered; Condé beleaguered;
whatsoever is yet in the hands of Austria beleaguered and bombarded: nay,
by Convention Decree, we even summon them all 'either to surrender in
twenty-four hours, or else be put to the sword;'—a high saying, which,
though it remains unfulfilled, may shew what spirit one is of.
|
By summer of 1794, the French have pushed deep into the Spanish Netherlands.
|
|
Representative
Drouet?,
as an Old-Dragoon, could fight by a kind of second
nature; but he was unlucky. Him, in a night-foray at Maubeuge, the
Austrians took alive, in October last. They stript him almost naked, he
says; making a shew of him, as King-taker of Varennes. They flung him into
carts; sent him far into the interior of Cimmeria, to 'a Fortress called
Spitzberg' on the Danube River; and left him there, at an elevation of
perhaps a hundred and fifty feet, to his own bitter reflections.
Reflections; and also devices! For the indomitable Old-dragoon constructs
wing-machinery, of Paperkite; saws window-bars: determines to fly down.
He will seize a boat, will follow the River's course: land somewhere in
Crim Tartary, in the Black Sea or Constantinople region: a la Sindbad!
Authentic History, accordingly, looking far into Cimmeria, discerns dimly a
phenomenon. In the dead night-watches, the Spitzberg sentry is near
fainting with terror: Is it a huge vague Portent descending through the
night air? It is a huge National Representative Old-dragoon, descending by
Paperkite; too rapidly, alas! For Drouet had taken with him 'a small
provision-store, twenty pounds weight or thereby;' which proved
accelerative: so he fell, fracturing his leg; and lay there, moaning, till
day dawned, till you could discern clearly that he was not a Portent but a
Representative! (His narrative (in Deux Amis, xiv.
177-86).)
|
|
|
Or see
Saint-Just?,
in the Lines of Weissembourg, though physically of a
timid apprehensive nature, how he charges with his 'Alsatian Peasants armed
hastily' for the nonce; the solemn face of him blazing into flame; his
black hair and tricolor hat-taffeta flowing in the breeze; These our Lines
of Weissembourg were indeed forced, and Prussia and the Emigrants rolled
through: but we re-force the Lines of Weissembourg; and Prussia and the
Emigrants roll back again still faster,—hurled with bayonet charges and
fiery ça-ira-ing.
|
The Army of the Rhine, where Saint-Just is on mission, is holding its own
as well.
|
|
Ci-devant Serjeant
Pichegru?,
ci-devant Serjeant
Hoche?, risen now to be
Generals, have done wonders here. Tall Pichegru was meant for the Church;
was Teacher of Mathematics once, in Brienne School,—his remarkablest Pupil
there was the Boy Napoleon Buonaparte. He then, not in the sweetest
humour, enlisted exchanging ferula for musket; and had got the length of
the halberd, beyond which nothing could be hoped; when the Bastille
barriers falling made passage for him, and he is here. Hoche bore a hand
at the literal overturn of the Bastille; he was, as we saw, a Serjeant of
the Gardes Françaises,
spending his pay in rushlights and cheap editions of
books. How the Mountains are burst, and many an
Enceladus? is
disemprisoned: and Captains founding on Four parchments of Nobility, are
blown with their parchments across the Rhine, into Lunar
Limbo![132].
|
The old class of generals are now either emigrated or disgraced. The new men
like Jourdan, Pichegru, Hoche are a distinct improvement.
|
| |
|
What high feats of arms, therefore, were done in these Fourteen Armies; and
how, for love of Liberty and hope of Promotion, low-born valour cut its
desperate way to Generalship; and, from the central
Carnot?
in Salut Public
to the outmost drummer on the Frontiers, men strove for their Republic, let
readers fancy. The snows of Winter, the flowers of Summer continue to be
stained with warlike blood. Gaelic impetuosity mounts ever higher with
victory; spirit of Jacobinism weds itself to national vanity: the Soldiers
of the Republic are becoming, as we prophesied, very Sons of Fire.
Barefooted, barebacked: but with bread and iron you can get to China! It
is one Nation against the whole world; but the Nation has that within her
which the whole world will not conquer. Cimmeria, astonished, recoils
faster or slower; all round the Republic there rises fiery, as it were, a
magic ring of musket-volleying and ça-ira-ing.
Majesty of Prussia, as
Majesty of Spain, will by and by acknowledge his sins and the Republic:
and make a Peace of Bale.[200]
|
This time the French seem prepared and able to sustain their conquests.
|
|
Foreign Commerce, Colonies, Factories in the East and in the West, are
fallen or falling into the hands of sea-ruling
Pitt?,
enemy of human nature.
Nevertheless what sound is this that we hear, on the first of June, 1794;
sound of as war-thunder borne from the Ocean too; of tone most piercing?
War-thunder from off the Brest waters: Villaret-Joyeuse and English Howe,
after long manoeuvring have ranked themselves there; and are belching fire.
The enemies of human nature are on their own element; cannot be conquered;
cannot be kept from conquering. Twelve hours of raging cannonade; sun now
sinking westward through the battle-smoke: six French Ships taken, the
Battle lost; what Ship soever can still sail, making off! But how is it,
then, with that Vengeur Ship, she neither strikes nor makes off? She is
lamed, she cannot make off; strike she will not. Fire rakes her fore and
aft, from victorious enemies; the Vengeur is sinking. Strong are ye,
Tyrants of the Sea; yet we also, are we weak? Lo! all flags, streamers,
jacks, every rag of tricolor that will yet run on rope, fly rustling aloft:
the whole crew crowds to the upper deck; and, with universal soul-maddening
yell, shouts Vive la République, — sinking,
sinking. She staggers, she
lurches, her last drunk whirl; Ocean yawns abysmal: down rushes the
Vengeur, carrying Vive la République
along with her, unconquerable, into
Eternity! (Compare Barrère (Choix des Rapports,
xiv. 416-21); Lord Howe
(Annual Register of 1794, p. 86), etc.)
Let foreign Despots think of that.
There is an Unconquerable in man, when he stands on his Rights of Man: let
Despots and Slaves and all people know this, and only them that stand on
the Wrongs of Man tremble to know it. — So has History written, nothing
doubting, of the sunk Venguer.
|
Even at sea, where the English still have complete control, the French
lose well.
|
|
—— Reader! Mendez Pinto, Münchäusen, Cagliostro, Psalmanazar
have been great, but they are not the greatest. O Barrère,
Barrère, nacreon of the Guillotine! must inquisitive pictorial History,
in a new edition, ask again, "How is it wit the Vengeur", in this
its glorious suicidal sinking; and, with resentful brush, dash a bend-sinister
of contumelious lampblack through thee and it? Alas, alas! The Vengeur,
after fighting bravely, did sink altogether as other ships do, her captain
and above two-hundred of her crew escaping gladly in British boats,
and this same enormous inspiring Feat, the rumour "of sound most
piercing," turns out to be an enormous inspiring Non-entity, extant
nowhere save, as falsehood, in the brain of Barrère! Actually so.
Carlyle's Miscellanies, para Sinking of the
Vengeur. Founded, like the World itself, on Nothing; proved
by Convention Report, by solemn Convention Decree and Decrees, and wodden
"Model of the Vengeur"; believed, bewept, besung by the whole French
People to this hour, it may be regarded as Barrère's masterpiece; the
largest, most inspiring piece of blague [humbug] manufactured for
some centuries, by any man or nation. As such, and not otherwise, be it
henceforth memorable.
|
Carlyle added this paragraph in a later edition, presumably after having
discovered that Barrère's version was mainly propaganda.
|
|
In this manner, mad-blazing with flame of all imaginable tints, from the
red of
Tophet?
to the stellar-bright, blazes off this Consummation of
Sansculottism.
|
|
|
But the hundredth part of the things that were done, and the thousandth
part of the things that were projected and decreed to be done, would tire
the tongue of History. Statue of the Peuple Souverain,
high as Strasburg
Steeple; which shall fling its shadow from the Pont Neuf over Jardin
National and Convention Hall; — enormous, in Painter David's head! With
other the like enormous Statues not a few: realised in paper Decree. For,
indeed, the Statue of Liberty herself is still but Plaster in the Place de
la Revolution! Then Equalisation of Weights and Measures, with decimal
division; Institutions, of Music and of much else; Institute in general;
School of Arts, School of Mars, Elèves de la Patrie,
Normal Schools: amid
such Gun-boring, Altar-burning, Saltpetre-digging, and miraculous
improvements in Tannery!
|
Great things are accomplished during this national mobilization, and greater
things planned
|
|
What, for example, is this that Engineer
Chappe?
is doing, in the Park of
Vincennes? In the Park of Vincennes; and onwards, they say, in the Park of
Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau the assassinated Deputy; and still onwards to the
Heights of Ecouen and further, he has scaffolding set up, has posts driven
in; wooden arms with elbow joints are jerking and fugling in the air, in
the most rapid mysterious manner! Citoyens ran up suspicious. Yes, O
Citoyens, we are signaling: it is a device this, worthy of the Republic; a
thing for what we will call Far-writing without the aid of postbags; in
Greek, it shall be named Telegraph. — Télégraphe
sacré! answers Citoyenism:
For writing to Traitors, to Austria?—and tears it down. Chappe had to
escape, and get a new Legislative Decree. Nevertheless he has accomplished
it, the indefatigable Chappe: this Far-writer, with its wooden arms and
elbow-joints, can intelligibly signal; and lines of them are set up, to the
North Frontiers and elsewhither. On an Autumn evening of the Year Two,
Far-writer having just written that Condé Town has surrendered to us, we
send from Tuileries Convention Hall this response in the shape of Decree:
'The name of Condé is changed to Nord-Libre, North-Free.
The Army of the
North ceases not to merit well of the country.'—To the admiration of men!
For lo, in some half hour, while the Convention yet debates, there arrives
this new answer: 'I inform thee, je t'annonce, Citizen President,
that the
decree of Convention, ordering change of the name Condé into North-Free;
and the other declaring that the Army of the North ceases not to merit well
of the country, are transmitted and acknowledged by Telegraph. I have
instructed my Officer at Lille to forward them to North-Free by express.
Signed, CHAPPE.' (Choix des Rapports, xv. 378, 384.)
|
Communication with the northern front is greatly speeded by a chain of
signalling stations.
|
|
Or see, over Fleurus in the Netherlands, where General
Jourdan?,
having now
swept the soil of Liberty, and advanced thus far, is just about to fight,
and sweep or be swept, hangs there not in the Heaven's Vault, some
Prodigy, seen by Austrian eyes and spyglasses: in the similitude of an
enormous Windbag, with netting and enormous Saucer depending from it? A
Jove's Balance, O ye Austrian spyglasses? One saucer-hole of a Jove's
Balance; your poor Austrian scale having kicked itself quite aloft,
out of
sight? By Heaven, answer the spyglasses, it is a
Montgolfier?,
a Balloon,
and they are making signals! Austrian cannon-battery barks at this
Montgolfier; harmless as dog at the Moon: the Montgolfier makes its
signals; detects what Austrian ambuscade there may be, and descends at its
ease. (26th June, 1794 (see Rapport de Guyton-Morveau sur les
aérostats,
in Moniteur du 6 Vendémiaire, An 2).)
What will not these devils incarnate
contrive?
|
Balloons are used to get intelligence of enemy movements in Belgium.
|
|
On the whole, is it not, O Reader, one of the strangest Flame-Pictures that
ever painted itself; flaming off there, on its ground of Guillotine-black?
And the nightly Theatres are Twenty-three; and the Salons de danse are
sixty: full of mere Égalité, Fraternité and Carmagnole.
And Section
Committee-rooms are Forty-eight; redolent of tobacco and brandy: vigorous
with twenty-pence a-day, coercing the suspect. And the Houses of Arrest
are Twelve for Paris alone; crowded and even crammed. And at all turns,
you need your 'Certificate of Civism;' be it for going out, or for coming
in; nay without it you cannot, for money, get your daily ounces of bread.
Dusky red-capped Baker's-queues; wagging themselves; not in silence! For
we still live by Maximum, in all things; waited on by these two, Scarcity
and Confusion. The faces of men are darkened with suspicion; with
suspecting, or being suspect. The streets lie unswept; the ways unmended.
Law has shut her Books; speaks little, save impromptu, through the throat
of
Tinville?.
Crimes go unpunished: not crimes against the Revolution.
(Mercier, v. 25; Deux Amis, xii. 142-199.) 'The
number of foundling
children,' as some compute, 'is doubled.'
|
Everything is done to excess: entertainment, crime, patriotism, poverty.
|
|
How silent now sits Royalism; sits all Aristocratism; Respectability that
kept its Gig! The honour now, and the safety, is to Poverty, not to
Wealth. Your Citizen, who would be fashionable, walks abroad, with his
Wife on his arm, in red wool nightcap, black shag spencer, and carmagnole
complete. Aristocratism crouches low, in what shelter is still left;
submitting to all requisitions, vexations; too happy to escape with life.
Ghastly Châteaus stare on you by the wayside; disroofed, diswindowed; which
the National House-broker is peeling for the lead and ashlar [hewn stone].
The old
tenants hover disconsolate, over the Rhine with Condé;
a spectacle to men.
Ci-devant Seigneur, exquisite in palate, will become an exquisite
Restaurateur Cook in Hamburg; Ci-devant Madame, exquisite in dress, a
successful Marchande des Modes in London.
In Newgate-Street, you meet M.
le Marquis, with a rough deal on his shoulder, adze and jack-plane under
arm; he has taken to the joiner trade; it being necessary to live (faut
vivre). (See Deux Amis, xv. 189-192;
Mémoires de Genlis; Founders of the
French Republic, etc. etc.)—Higher than all Frenchmen the
domestic Stock-jobber flourishes,—in a day of Paper-money.
The Farmer also flourishes:
'Farmers' houses,' says Mercier, 'have become like Pawn-brokers' shops;'
all manner of furniture, apparel, vessels of gold and silver accumulate
themselves there: bread is precious. The Farmer's rent is Paper-money,
and he alone of men has bread: Farmer is better than Landlord, and will
himself become Landlord.
|
In an economy based mainly on in-kind payment (the assignat being much
debased), producers are the economic "winners".
|
|
And daily, we say, like a black Spectre, silently through that Life-tumult,
passes the Revolution Cart; writing on the walls its MENE, MENE, Thou art
weighed, and found wanting![202].
A Spectre with which one has grown familiar.
Men have adjusted themselves: complaint issues not from that Death-tumbril.
Weak women and ci-devants, their plumage and finery all
tarnished, sit there; with a silent gaze, as if looking into the Infinite
Black. The once light lip wears a curl of irony, uttering no word; and the
Tumbril fares along. They may be guilty before Heaven, or not; they are
guilty, we suppose, before the Revolution. Then, does not the Republic
'coin money' of them, with its great axe? Red Nightcaps howl dire
approval: the rest of Paris looks on; if with a sigh, that is much;
Fellow-creatures whom sighing cannot help;
whom black Necessity and Tinville have
clutched.
|
But the most prominent feature of France in the Terror is the constant flow
of prisoners through the Revolutionary Tribunal and to the guillotine.
|
|
One other thing, or rather two other things, we will still mention; and no
more: The Blond Perukes; the Tannery at Meudon. Great talk is of these
Perruques blondes: O Reader, they are made from the Heads of
Guillotined
women! The locks of a Duchess, in this way, may come to cover the scalp of
a Cordwainer: her blond German Frankism his black Gaelic poll, if it be
bald. Or they may be worn affectionately, as relics; rendering one
suspect? (Mercier, ii. 134.)
Citizens use them, not without mockery; of a
rather cannibal sort.
|
So lightly regarded are the corpses of the executed that wigs are made from
their hair.
|
|
Still deeper into one's heart goes that Tannery at Meudon; not mentioned
among the other miracles of tanning! 'At Meudon,' says Montgaillard with
considerable calmness, 'there was a Tannery of Human Skins; such of the
Guillotined as seemed worth flaying: of which perfectly good wash-leather
was made:' for breeches, and other uses. The skin of the men, he remarks,
was superior in toughness (consistance) and quality to shamoy; that of
women was good for almost nothing, being so soft in texture!
(Montgaillard, iv. 290.)—History
looking back over Cannibalism, through
Purchas's Pilgrims and all early and late Records, will perhaps find no
terrestrial Cannibalism of a sort on the whole so detestable. It is a
manufactured, soft-feeling, quietly elegant sort; a sort per fide! Alas
then, is man's civilisation only a wrappage, through which the savage
nature of him can still burst, infernal as ever? Nature still makes him;
and has an Infernal in her as well as a Celestial.
|
And in least one place, the skin of executed men is tanned for leather.
|
|
What then is this Thing, called La Révolution,
which, like an Angel of
Death, hangs over France, noyading, fusillading, fighting, gun-boring,
tanning human skins? La Révolution
is but so many Alphabetic Letters; a
thing nowhere to be laid hands on, to be clapt under lock and key: where
is it? what is it? It is the Madness that dwells in the hearts of men. In
this man it is, and in that man; as a rage or as a terror, it is in all
men. Invisible, impalpable; and yet no black
Azrael?,
with wings spread
over half a continent, with sword sweeping from sea to sea, could be a
truer Reality.
|
The revolution has become an incarnation of the angel of death.
|
|
To explain, what is called explaining, the march of this Revolutionary
Government, be no task of ours. Men cannot explain it. A paralytic
Couthon?,
asking in the Jacobins, 'what hast thou done to be hanged if the
Counter-Revolution should arrive;' a sombre
Saint-Just?,
not yet six-and-twenty, declaring that
'for Revolutionists there is no rest but in the
tomb;' a seagreen
Robespierre?
converted into vinegar and gall; much more an
Amar?
and Vadier?,
a Collot?
and Billaud?:
to inquire what thoughts,
predetermination or prevision, might be in the head of these men! Record
of their thought remains not; Death and Darkness have swept it out utterly.
Nay if we even had their thought, all they could have articulately spoken
to us, how insignificant a fraction were that of the Thing which realised
itself, which decreed itself, on signal given by them! As has been said
more than once, this Revolutionary Government is not a self-conscious but a
blind fatal one. Each man, enveloped in his ambient-atmosphere of
revolutionary fanatic Madness, rushes on, impelled and impelling; and has
become a blind brute Force; no rest for him but in the grave! Darkness and
the mystery of horrid cruelty cover it for us, in History; as they did in
Nature. The chaotic Thunder-cloud, with its pitchy black, and its tumult
of dazzling jagged fire, in a world all electric: thou wilt not undertake
to shew how that comported itself,—what the secrets of its dark womb were;
from what sources, with what specialities, the lightning it held did, in
confused brightness of terror, strike forth, destructive and
self-destructive, till it ended?
Like a Blackness naturally of Erebus [Hades], which by
will of Providence had for once mounted itself into dominion and the Azure:
is not this properly the nature of Sansculottism consummating itself? Of
which Erebus Blackness be it enough to discern that this and the other
dazzling fire-bolt, dazzling fire-torrent, does by small Volition and great
Necessity, verily issue,—in such and such succession; destructive so and
so, self-destructive so and so: till it end.
|
It drags along the men we call its leaders.
|
| |
|
Royalism is extinct, 'sunk,' as they say, 'in the mud of the Loire;'
Republicanism dominates without and within: what, therefore, on the 15th
day of March, 1794, is this? Arrestment, sudden really as a bolt out of
the Blue, has hit strange victims: Hébert Père
Duchene?,
Bibliopolist
Momoro?,
Clerk Vincent?,
General Ronsin?;
high Cordelier Patriots, redcapped
Magistrates of Paris, Worshippers of Reason, Commanders of Revolutionary
Army! Eight short days ago, their Cordelier Club was loud, and louder than
ever, with Patriot denunciations. Hébert Père Duchene
had "held his tongue
and his heart these two months, at sight of Moderates, Crypto-Aristocrats,
Camilles, Scélérats
in the Convention itself: but could not do it any
longer; would, if other remedy were not, invoke the Sacred right of
Insurrection." So spake Hébert in Cordelier Session;
with vivats, till the
roofs rang again. (Moniteur, du 17 Ventose (7th March)
1794.) Eight short
days ago; and now already! They rub their eyes: it is no dream; they find
themselves in the Luxembourg. Goose
Gobel?
too; and they that burnt
Churches!
Chaumette?
himself, potent Procureur, Agent National as they now
call it, who could 'recognise the Suspect by the very face of them,' he
lingers but three days; on the third day he too is hurled in. Most
chopfallen, blue, enters the National Agent this Limbo whither he has sent
so many. Prisoners crowd round, jibing and jeering: "Sublime National
Agent," says one, "in virtue of thy immortal Proclamation, lo there! I am
suspect, thou art suspect, he is suspect, we are suspect, ye are suspect,
they are suspect!"
|
The Hébertists are arrested in March, 1794.
|
|
The meaning of these things? Meaning! It is a Plot; Plot of the most
extensive ramifications; which, however, Barrère holds the threads of.
Such Church-burning and scandalous masquerades of Atheism, fit to make the
Revolution odious: where indeed could they originate but in the gold of
Pitt??
Pitt indubitably, as Preternatural Insight will teach one, did hire
this Faction of Enragé, to play their fantastic tricks;
to roar in their
Cordeliers Club about Moderatism; to print their Père Duchene;
worship
skyblue Reason in red nightcap; rob all Altars,—and bring the spoil to
us!—
|
They are accused of being in the pay of England to shame the Revolution.
|
|
Still more indubitable, visible to the mere bodily sight, is this: that
the Cordeliers Club sits pale, with anger and terror; and has 'veiled the
Rights of Man,'—without effect. Likewise that the Jacobins are in
considerable confusion; busy 'purging themselves, 's'epurant,'
as, in times
of Plot and public Calamity, they have repeatedly had to do. Not even
Camille Desmoulins but has given offence: nay there have risen murmurs
against Danton himself; though he bellowed them down, and Robespierre
finished the matter by 'embracing him in the Tribune.'
|
There is strong indication that the revolution will purge itself further.
|
|
Whom shall the Republic and a jealous Mother Society trust? In these times
of temptation, of Preternatural Insight! For there are Factions of the
Stranger, 'de l'étranger,'
Factions of Moderates, of Enraged; all manner of
Factions: we walk in a world of Plots; strings, universally spread, of
deadly gins and falltraps, baited by the gold of Pitt!
Clootz?,
Speaker of
Mankind so-called, with his Evidences of Mahometan Religion,
and babble of
Universal Republic, him an incorruptible Robespierre has purged away.
Baron Clootz, and
Paine?
rebellious Needleman lie, these two months, in the
Luxembourg; limbs of the Faction de l'étranger. Representative
Phélippeaux?
is purged out:
he came back from La Vendée with an ill report in his mouth
against rogue
Rossignol?,
and our method of warfare there. Recant it, O
Phélippeaux, we entreat thee! Phélippeaux
will not recant; and is purged
out. Representative Fabre
d'Eglantine?,
famed Nomenclator of Romme's
Calendar, is purged out; nay, is cast into the Luxembourg: accused of
Legislative Swindling 'in regard to monies of the India Company.' There
with his Chabots?,
Bazires?,
guilty of the like, let Fabre wait his destiny.
And Westermann?
friend of
Danton?,
he who led the Marseillese on the Tenth of
August, and fought well in La Vendée, but spoke not well of rogue
Rossignol, is purged out. Lucky, if he too go not to the Luxembourg. And
your Prolys?,
Guzmans?,
of the Faction of the Stranger, they have gone;
Peyreyra?,
though he fled is gone, 'taken in the disguise of a Tavern Cook.'
I am suspect, thou art suspect, he is suspect!—
|
Other are accused as Hébertists; for stealing from state interests;
or on general principals.
|
|
The great heart of Danton is weary of it. Danton is gone to native Arcis,
for a little breathing time of peace: Away, black Arachne-webs, thou world
of Fury, Terror, and Suspicion; welcome, thou everlasting Mother, with thy
spring greenness, thy kind household loves and memories; true art thou,
were all else untrue! The great Titan walks silent, by the banks of the
murmuring Aube, in young native haunts that knew him when a boy; wonders
what the end of these things may be.
|
Danton retires to his home region, not yet aware of is own danger.
|
|
But strangest of all, Camille
Desmoulins?
is purged out. Couthon gave as a
test in regard to Jacobin purgation the question, 'What hast thou done to
be hanged if Counter-Revolution should arrive?' Yet Camille, who could so
well answer this question, is purged out! The truth is, Camille, early in
December last, began publishing a new Journal, or Series of Pamphlets,
entitled the Vieux Cordelier, Old Cordelier. Camille, not afraid at one
time to 'embrace Liberty on a heap of dead bodies,' begins to ask now,
Whether among so many arresting and punishing Committees there ought not to
be a 'Committee of Mercy?' Saint-Just, he observes, is an extremely solemn
young Republican, who 'carries his head as if it were a Saint-Sacrement;
adorable Hostie, or divine Real-Presence! Sharply enough, this old
Cordelier, Danton and he were of the earliest primary Cordeliers,—shoots
his glittering war-shafts into your new Cordeliers, your Héberts,
Momoros,
with their brawling brutalities and despicabilities: say, as the Sun-god
(for poor Camille is a Poet) shot into that Python Serpent sprung of mud.
|
Even Camille, whose revolutionary credentials are impeccable, is thrown out
of the Jacobin club, mainly because the 4th number of Vieux Cordelier
was considered anti-Jacobin.
|
|
Whereat, as was natural, the Hébertist Python did hiss and writhe
amazingly; and threaten 'sacred right of Insurrection;'—and, as we saw,
get cast into Prison. Nay, with all the old wit, dexterity, and light
graceful poignancy, Camille, translating 'out of Tacitus,
from the Reign of
Tiberius,' pricks into the Law of the Suspect itself; making it odious!
Twice, in the Decade, his wild Leaves issue; full of wit, nay of humour, of
harmonious ingenuity and insight,—one of the strangest phenomenon of that
dark time; and smite, in their wild-sparkling way, at various
monstrosities, Saint-Sacrament heads, and Juggernaut idols, in a rather
reckless manner. To the great joy of
Josephine
Beauharnais?,
and the other
Five Thousand and odd Suspect, who fill the Twelve Houses of Arrest; on
whom a ray of hope dawns! Robespierre, at first approbatory, knew not at
last what to think; then thought, with his Jacobins, that Camille must be
expelled. A man of true Revolutionary spirit, this Camille; but with the
unwisest sallies; whom Aristocrats and Moderates have the art to corrupt!
Jacobinism is in uttermost crisis and struggle: enmeshed wholly in plots,
corruptibilities, neck-gins and baited falltraps of Pitt Ennemi du Genre
Humain. Camille's First Number begins with 'O Pitt!'—his last is
dated 15
Pluviose Year 2, 3d February 1794; and ends with these words of
Montezuma's, 'Les dieux ont soif, The gods are
athirst.'[203]
|
Frivolous but unthreatening, Camille is nonetheless expelled from the
Jacobins.
|
| |
|
Be this as it may, the Hébertists lie in Prison only some nine days. On
the 24th of March, therefore, the Revolution Tumbrils carry through that
Life-tumult a new cargo: Hébert,
Vincent, Momoro, Ronsin, Nineteen of them
in all; with whom, curious enough, sits Clootz Speaker of Mankind. They
have been massed swiftly into a lump, this miscellany of Nondescripts; and
travel now their last road. No help. They too must 'look through the
little window;' they too 'must sneeze into the sack,' éternuer
dans le sac;
as they have done to others so is it done to them. Sainte-Guillotine,
meseems, is worse than the old Saints of Superstition; a man-devouring
Saint? Clootz, still with an air of polished sarcasm, endeavours to jest,
to offer cheering 'arguments of Materialism;' he requested to be executed
last, 'in order to establish certain principles,'—which Philosophy has not
retained. General Ronsin too, he still looks forth with some air of
defiance, eye of command: the rest are sunk in a stony paleness of
despair. Momoro, poor Bibliopolist, no Agrarian Law yet realised,—they
might as well have hanged thee at Evreux, twenty months ago, when Girondin
Buzot hindered them. Hébert Père Duchene
shall never in this world rise in
sacred right of insurrection; he sits there low enough, head sunk on
breast; Red Nightcaps shouting round him, in frightful parody of his
Newspaper Articles, "Grand choler of the Père Duchene!"
Thus perish they;
the sack receives all their heads. Through some section of History,
Nineteen spectre-chimeras shall flit, speaking and gibbering; till Oblivion
swallow them.
|
The Hébertists are quickly executed.
|
|
In the course of a week, the Revolutionary Army itself is disbanded; the
General?
having become spectral. This Faction of Rabids, therefore, is also
purged from the Republican soil; here also the baited falltraps of that
Pitt have been wrenched up harmless; and anew there is joy over a Plot
Discovered. The Revolution then is verily devouring its own children. All
Anarchy, by the nature of it, is not only destructive but
self-destructive.
|
|
|
Danton, meanwhile, has been pressingly sent for from Arcis: he must return
instantly, cried Camille, cried
Phélippeaux?
and Friends, who scented danger
in the wind. Danger enough! A Danton, a Robespierre, chief-products of a
victorious Revolution, are now arrived in immediate front of one another;
must ascertain how they will live together, rule together. One conceives
easily the deep mutual incompatibility that divided these two: with what
terror of feminine hatred the poor seagreen Formula looked at the monstrous
colossal Reality, and grew greener to behold him;—the Reality, again,
struggling to think no ill of a chief-product of the Revolution; yet
feeling at bottom that such chief-product was little other than a chief
wind-bag, blown large by Popular air; not a man with the heart of a man,
but a poor spasmodic incorruptible pedant, with a logic-formula instead of
heart; of Jesuit or Methodist-Parson nature; full of sincere-cant,
incorruptibility, of virulence, poltroonery; barren as the east-wind! Two
such chief-products are too much for one Revolution.
|
Danton returns to Paris. The leading figures of the Revolution are now
he and Robespierre.
|
|
Friends, trembling at the results of a quarrel on their part, brought them
to meet. "It is right," said Danton, swallowing much indignation, "to
repress the Royalists: but we should not strike except where it is useful
to the Republic; we should not confound the innocent and the guilty."—"And
who told you," replied Robespierre with a poisonous look, "that one
innocent person had perished?"—"Quoi," said Danton, turning round to
Friend Paris self-named Fabricius, Juryman in the Revolutionary Tribunal:
"Quoi, not one innocent? What sayest thou of it, Fabricius!"
(Biographie
de Ministres, para Danton.)—Friends, Westermann, this Paris and others
urged him to shew himself, to ascend the Tribune and act. The man Danton
was not prone to shew himself; to act, or uproar for his own safety. A man
of careless, large, hoping nature; a large nature that could rest: he
would sit whole hours, they say, hearing Camille talk, and liked nothing so
well. Friends urged him to fly; his Wife urged him: "Whither fly?"
answered he: "If freed France cast me out, there are only dungeons for me
elsewhere. One carries not his country with him at the sole of his shoe!"
The man Danton sat still. Not even the arrestment of Friend
Hérault?,
a member of Salut, yet arrested by Salut,
can rouse Danton.—On the night of
the 30th of March, Juryman Paris came rushing in; haste looking through his
eyes: A clerk of the Salut Committee had told him Danton's warrant was
made out, he is to be arrested this very night! Entreaties there are and
trepidation, of poor Wife, of Paris and Friends: Danton sat silent for a
while; then answered, "Ils n'oseraient, They dare not;"
and would take no
measures. Murmuring "They dare not," he goes to sleep as usual.
|
Friends urge Danton to leave France before it is too late.
|
|
And yet, on the morrow morning, strange rumour spreads over Paris City:
Danton, Camille, Phélippeaux,
Lacroix?
have been arrested overnight! It is
verily so: the corridors of the Luxembourg were all crowded, Prisoners
crowding forth to see this giant of the Revolution among them.
"Messieurs," said Danton politely, "I hoped soon to have got you all out of
this: but here I am myself; and one sees not where it will end."—Rumour
may spread over Paris: the Convention clusters itself into groups; wide-eyed,
whispering, "Danton arrested!" Who then is safe?
Legendre?,
mounting
the Tribune, utters, at his own peril, a feeble word for him; moving that
he be heard at that Bar before indictment; but Robespierre frowns him down:
"Did you hear Chabot?,
or Bazire??
Would you have two weights and measures?"
Legendre cowers low; Danton, like the others, must take his doom.
|
Danton and his friends are arrested within weeks of the Hébertists'
execution.
|
|
Danton's Prison-thoughts were curious to have; but are not given in any
quantity: indeed few such remarkable men have been left so obscure to us
as this Titan of the Revolution. He was heard to ejaculate: "This time
twelvemonth, I was moving the creation of that same Revolutionary Tribunal.
I crave pardon for it of God and man. They are all Brothers Cain:
Brissot?
would have had me guillotined as Robespierre now will. I leave the whole
business in a frightful welter (gâchis êpouvantable):
not one of them
understands anything of government. Robespierre will follow me; I drag
down Robespierre. O, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle
with governing of men."—Camille's young beautiful Wife, who had made him
rich not in money alone, hovers round the Luxembourg, like a disembodied
spirit, day and night. Camille's stolen letters to her still exist;
stained with the mark of his tears. (Aperçus
sur Camille Desmoulins (in
Vieux Cordelier, Paris, 1825), pp. 1-29.)
"I carry my head like a Saint-Sacrament?" so Saint-Just was heard to mutter:
"Perhaps he will carry his
like a Saint-Dennis."[204]
|
Little is known about Danton's short imprisonment: just a few prophetic
remarks and Camille's letters to his wife.
|
| |
|
Unhappy Danton, thou still unhappier light Camille, once light Procureur de
la Lanterne, ye also have arrived, then, at the Bourne of Creation, where,
like Ulysses Polytlas at the limit and utmost Gades of his voyage, gazing
into that dim Waste beyond Creation, a man does see the Shade of his
Mother, pale, ineffectual[205];—and
days when his Mother nursed and wrapped him
are all-too sternly contrasted with this day! Danton, Camille, Hérault,
Westermann, and the others, very strangely massed up with Bazires, Swindler
Chabots, Fabre d'Eglantines, Banker Freys, a most motley Batch,
'Fournée' [ovenfull]
as such things will be called, stand ranked at the Bar of Tinville. It is
the 2d of April 1794. Danton has had but three days to lie in Prison; for
the time presses.
|
The trial of the Dantonists is almost immediate.
|
|
What is your name? place of abode? and the like, Fouquier asks; according
to formality. "My name is Danton," answers he; "a name tolerably known in
the Revolution: my abode will soon be Annihilation
(dans le Néant); but I
shall live in the Pantheon of History." A man will endeavour to say
something forcible, be it by nature or not! Hérault mentions
epigrammatically that he "sat in this Hall, and was detested of
Parlementeers." Camille makes answer, "My age is that of the bon
Sansculotte Jésus; an age fatal to Revolutionists."
O Camille, Camille!
And yet in that Divine Transaction, let us say, there did lie, among other
things, the fatallest Reproof ever uttered here below to Worldly
Right-honourableness; 'the highest Fact,' so devout Novalis calls it, 'in the
Rights of Man.' Camille's real age, it would seem, is thirty-four. Danton
is one year older.
|
The trial is short and manifestly unfair. The accused are too articulate to be
allowed to speak.
|
|
Some five months ago, the Trial of the Twenty-two Girondins was the
greatest that Fouquier had then done. But here is a still greater to do; a
thing which tasks the whole faculty of Fouquier; which makes the very heart
of him waver. For it is the voice of Danton that reverberates now from
these domes; in passionate words, piercing with their wild sincerity,
winged with wrath. Your best Witnesses he shivers into ruin at one stroke.
He demands that the Committee-men themselves come as Witnesses, as
Accusers; he "will cover them with ignominy." He raises his huge stature,
he shakes his huge black head, fire flashes from the eyes of him,—piercing
to all Republican hearts: so that the very Galleries, though we filled
them by ticket, murmur sympathy; and are like to burst down, and raise the
People, and deliver him! He complains loudly that he is classed with
Chabots, with swindling Stockjobbers; that his Indictment is a list of
platitudes and horrors. "Danton hidden on the Tenth of August?"
reverberates he, with the roar of a lion in the toils: "Where are the men
that had to press Danton to shew himself, that day? Where are these
high-gifted souls of whom he borrowed energy? Let them appear, these Accusers
of mine: I have all the clearness of my self-possession when I demand
them. I will unmask the three shallow scoundrels," les trois plats
coquins, Saint-Just, Couthon,
Lebas?,
"who fawn on Robespierre, and lead him
towards his destruction. Let them produce themselves here; I will plunge
them into Nothingness, out of which they ought never to have risen." The
agitated President agitates his bell; enjoins calmness, in a vehement
manner: "What is it to thee how I defend myself?" cries the other: "the
right of dooming me is thine always.
The voice of a man speaking for his
honour and his life may well drown the jingling of thy bell!" Thus Danton,
higher and higher; till the lion voice of him 'dies away in his throat:'
speech will not utter what is in that man. The Galleries murmur ominously;
the first day's Session is over.
|
Danton almost wins over the crowd on the first day of the trial.
|
|
O Tinville?,
President
Herman?,
what will ye do? They have two days more of
it, by strictest Revolutionary Law. The Galleries already murmur. If this
Danton were to burst your mesh-work!—Very curious indeed to consider. It
turns on a hair: and what a
Hoitytoity[206]
were there, Justice and Culprit
changing places; and the whole History of France running changed! For in
France there is this Danton only that could still try to govern France. He
only, the wild amorphous Titan;—and perhaps that other olive-complexioned
individual, the Artillery Officer at Toulon, whom we left pushing his
fortune in the South?
|
The prosecutor and judge realize they may not be able to control and crowd
and jury. Danton is known as one of the few great men of France.
|
|
On the evening of the second day, matters looking not better but worse and
worse, Fouquier and Herman, distraction in their aspect, rush over to Salut
Public. What is to be done? Salut Public rapidly
concocts a new Decree;
whereby if men 'insult Justice,' they may be 'thrown out of the Debates.'
For indeed, withal, is there not 'a Plot in the Luxembourg Prison?'
Ci-devant
General Dillon, and others of the Suspect, plotting with Camille's
Wife to distribute assignats; to force the Prisons,
overset the Republic?
Citizen
Laflotte?,
himself Suspect but desiring enfranchisement, has
reported said Plot for us:—a report that may bear fruit! Enough, on the
morrow morning, an obedient Convention passes this Decree. Salut rushes
off with it to the aid of Tinville, reduced now almost to extremities. And
so, Hors des Débats,
Out of the Debates, ye insolents! Policemen do your
duty! In such manner, with a deadlift effort, Salut, Tinville, Herman,
Leroi
Dix-Août?,
and all stanch jurymen setting heart and shoulder to it,
the Jury becomes 'sufficiently instructed;' Sentence is passed, is sent by
an Official, and torn and trampled on: Death this day. It is the 5th of
April, 1794. Camille's poor Wife may cease hovering about this Prison.
Nay let her kiss her poor children; and prepare to enter it, and to
follow!—
|
Robespierre has a decree pushed in the Convention to silence the Dantonists and
proceed directly to deliberation. They are of course condemned.
|
|
Danton carried a high look in the Death-cart. Not so Camille: it is but
one week, and all is so topsy-turvied; angel Wife left weeping; love,
riches, Revolutionary fame, left all at the Prison-gate; carnivorous Rabble
now howling round. Palpable, and yet incredible; like a madman's dream!
Camille struggles and writhes; his shoulders shuffle the loose coat off
them, which hangs knotted, the hands tied: "Calm my friend," said Danton;
"heed not that vile canaille (laissez là cette vile canaille)."
At the
foot of the Scaffold, Danton was heard to ejaculate: "O my Wife,
my well-beloved, I shall never see thee more then!"—but,
interrupting himself:
"Danton, no weakness!" He said to
Hérault-Séchelles stepping forward to
embrace him: "Our heads will meet there," in the Headsman's sack. His
last words were to Samson the Headsman himself: "Thou wilt shew my head to
the people; it is worth shewing."
|
Execution is the same day, April 5, 1794.
|
|
So passes, like a gigantic mass, of valour, ostentation, fury, affection
and wild revolutionary manhood, this Danton, to his unknown home. He was
of Arcis-sur-Aube; born of 'good farmer-people' there. He had many sins;
but one worst sin he had not, that of Cant. No hollow Formalist, deceptive
and self-deceptive, ghastly to the natural sense,
was this; but a very Man:
with all his dross he was a Man; fiery-real, from the great fire-bosom of
Nature herself. He saved France from Brunswick; he walked straight his own
wild road, whither it led him. He may live for some generations in the
memory of men.
|
Carlyle pays respect to Danton's memory.
|
|
Next week, it is still but the 10th of April, there comes a new Nineteen;
Chaumette?,
Gobel?,
Hébert's Widow, the Widow of Camille: these also roll
their fated journey; black Death devours them. Mean Hébert's Widow was
weeping, Camille's Widow tried to speak comfort to her. O ye kind Heavens,
azure, beautiful, eternal behind your tempests and Time-clouds, is there
not pity for all! Gobel, it seems, was repentant; he begged absolution of
a Priest; did as a Gobel best could. For Anaxagoras Chaumette, the sleek
head now stript of its bonnet rouge, what hope is there? Unless Death were
'an eternal sleep?' Wretched Anaxagoras, God shall judge thee, not I.
|
The next batch of high-profile executions includes the former Bishop of Paris,
the former chief prosecutor, and the widows of Hébert and Desmoulins.
|
|
Hébert, therefore, is gone, and the Hébertists;
they that robbed Churches,
and adored blue Reason in red nightcap. Great Danton, and the Dantonists;
they also are gone. Down to the catacombs; they are become silent men!
Let no Paris Municipality, no Sect or Party of this hue or that, resist the
will of Robespierre and Salut. Mayor
Pache?,
not prompt enough in
denouncing these Pitts Plots, may congratulate about them now. Never so
heartily; it skills not! His course likewise is to the Luxembourg. We
appoint one
Fleuriot-Lescot?
Interim-Mayor in his stead: an 'architect from
Belgium,' they say, this Fleuriot; he is a man one can depend on. Our new
Agent-National is
Payan?,
lately Juryman; whose cynosure also is
Robespierre.
|
Robespierre is now completely in control of the government of Paris.
|
|
Thus then, we perceive, this confusedly electric Erebus-cloud of
Revolutionary Government has altered its shape somewhat. Two masses, or
wings, belonging to it; an over-electric mass of Cordelier Rabids, and an
under-electric of Dantonist Moderates and Clemency-men,—these two masses,
shooting bolts at one another, so to speak, have annihilated one another.
For the Erebus-cloud, as we often remark, is of suicidal nature; and, in
jagged irregularity, darts its lightning withal into itself. But now these
two discrepant masses being mutually annihilated, it is as if the
Erebus-cloud had got to internal composure; and did only pour its hellfire
lightning on the World that lay under it. In plain words, Terror of the
Guillotine was never terrible till now. Systole, diastole, swift and ever
swifter goes the Axe of Samson. Indictments cease by degrees to have so
much as plausibility: Fouquier chooses from the Twelve houses of Arrest
what he calls Batches, 'Fournées,'
a score or more at a time; his Jurymen
are charged to make feu de file, fire-filing till the ground be
clear.
Citizen Laflotte's?
report of Plot in the Luxembourg is verily bearing
fruit! If no speakable charge exist against a man, or Batch of men,
Fouquier has always this: a Plot in the Prison. Swift and ever swifter
goes Samson; up, finally, to three score and more at a Batch! It is the
highday of Death: none but the Dead return not.
|
The pace of executions picks up, with dozens going to the guillotine every
day. Even the pretense of fair trial is dropped.
|
|
O dusky
D'Espréménil?,
what a day is this,
the 22d of April, thy last day!
The Palais Hall here is the same stone Hall, where thou, five years ago,
stoodest perorating, amid endless pathos of rebellious Parlement, in the
grey of the morning; bound to march with d'Agoust to the Isles of Hieres.
The stones are the same stones: but the rest, Men, Rebellion, Pathos,
Peroration, see! it has all fled, like a gibbering troop of ghosts, like
the phantasms of a dying brain! With d'Espréménil,
in the same line of
Tumbrils, goes the mournfullest medley.
Chapelier?
goes, ci-devant popular
President of the Constituent; whom the Menads and Maillard met in his
carriage, on the Versailles Road.
Thouret?
likewise, ci-devant President,
father of Constitutional Law-acts; he whom we heard saying, long since,
with a loud voice, "The Constituent Assembly has fulfilled its mission!"
And the noble old
Malesherbes?,
who defended Louis and could not speak, like
a grey old rock dissolving into sudden water: he journeys here now, with
his kindred, daughters, sons and grandsons, his Lamoignons,
Châteaubriands;
silent, towards Death.—One
young Châteaubriand?
alone is wandering amid the
Natchez, by the roar of Niagara Falls, the moan of endless forests:
Welcome thou great Nature, savage, but not false, not unkind, unmotherly;
no Formula thou, or rapid jangle of Hypothesis, Parliamentary Eloquence,
Constitution-building and the Guillotine; speak thou to me, O Mother, and
sing my sick heart thy mystic everlasting lullaby-song, and let all the
rest be far!—
|
Men great in memory go to the guillotine as "plotters".
|
|
Another row of Tumbrils we must notice: that which holds
Elizabeth?,
the
Sister of Louis. Her Trial was like the rest; for Plots, for Plots. She
was among the kindliest, most innocent of women. There sat with her, amid
four-and-twenty others, a once timorous Marchioness de
Crussol?;
courageous
now; expressing towards her the liveliest loyalty. At the foot of the
Scaffold, Elizabeth with tears in her eyes, thanked this Marchioness; said
she was grieved she could not reward her. "Ah, Madame, would your Royal
Highness deign to embrace me, my wishes were complete!"—"Right willingly,
Marquise de Crussol, and with my whole heart." (Montgaillard,
iv. 200.)
Thus they: at the foot of the Scaffold. The Royal Family is now reduced
to two: a girl and a little boy. The boy, once named Dauphin, was taken
from his Mother while she yet lived; and given to one Simon, by trade a
Cordwainer, on service then about the Temple-Prison, to bring him up in
principles of Sansculottism. Simon taught him to drink, to swear, to sing
the carmagnole. Simon is now gone to the Municipality: and the poor boy,
hidden in a tower of the Temple, from which in his fright and bewilderment
and early decrepitude he wishes not to stir out, lies perishing, 'his shirt
not changed for six months;' amid squalor and darkness, lamentably,
(Duchesse d'Angoulême, Captivité à
la Tour du Temple, pp. 37-71.)—so as
none but poor Factory Children and the like are wont to perish, unlamented!
|
The surviving adult of Louis XVI's family, his sister Elizabeth, is executed.
|
|
The Spring sends its green leaves and bright weather, bright May brighter
than ever: Death pauses not.
Lavoisier?
famed Chemist, shall die and not
live: Chemist Lavoisier was Farmer-General Lavoisier too, and now 'all the
Farmers-General are arrested;' all, and shall give an account of their
monies and incomings; and die for 'putting water in the tobacco' they sold.
(Tribunal Révolutionnaire, du 8 Mai 1794 (Moniteur, No. 231).) Lavoisier
begged a fortnight more of life, to finish some experiments: but "the
Republic does not need such;" the axe must do its work. Cynic
Chamfort?,
reading these Inscriptions of Brotherhood or Death, says "it is a
Brotherhood of Cain:" arrested, then liberated; then about to be arrested
again, this Chamfort cuts and slashes himself with frantic uncertain hand;
gains, not without difficulty, the refuge of death.
Condorcet?
has lurked
deep, these many months; Argus-eyes watching and searching for him. His
concealment is become dangerous to others and himself; he has to fly again,
to skulk, round Paris, in thickets and stone-quarries. And so at the
Village of Clamars, one bleared May morning, there enters a Figure, ragged,
rough-bearded, hunger-stricken; asks breakfast in the tavern there.
Suspect, by the look of him! "Servant out of place, sayest thou?"
Committee-President of Forty-Sous finds a Latin Horace on him: "Art thou
not one of those Ci-devants that were wont to keep servants?
Suspect!" He
is haled forthwith, breakfast unfinished, towards Bourg-la-Reine, on foot:
he faints with exhaustion; is set on a peasant's horse; is flung into his
damp prison-cell: on the morrow, recollecting him, you enter; Condorcet
lies dead on the floor. They die fast, and disappear: the Notabilities of
France disappear, one after one, like lights in a Theatre, which you are
snuffing out.
|
Nor are great literary and scientific figures immune.
|
| |
|
Under which circumstances, is it not singular, and almost touching, to see
Paris City drawn out, in the meek May nights, in civic ceremony, which they
call 'Souper Fraternel, Brotherly Supper? Spontaneous, or partially
spontaneous, in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth nights of this May
month, it is seen. Along the Rue Saint-Honoré, and main Streets and
Spaces, each Citoyen brings forth what of supper the stingy Maximum has
yielded him, to the open air; joins it to his neighbour's supper; and with
common table, cheerful light burning frequent, and what due modicum of
cut-glasses and other garnish and relish is convenient, they eat frugally
together, under the kind stars. (Tableaux de la
Révolution, para Soupers
Fraternels; Mercier, ii. 150.) See it O Night! With cheerfully pledged
wine-cup, hobnobbing to the Reign of Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood, with
their wives in best ribands, with their little ones romping round, the
Citoyens, in frugal Love-feast, sit there. Night in her wide empire sees
nothing similar. O my brothers, why is the reign of Brotherhood not come!
It is come, it shall come, say the Citoyens frugally hobnobbing.—Ah me!
these everlasting stars, do they not look down 'like glistening eyes,
bright with immortal pity, over the lot of man!'—
|
In contrast to the daily slaughter, May, 1794 sees a spontaneous street
supper in Paris.
|
|
One lamentable thing, however, is, that individuals will attempt
assassination—of Representatives of the People. Representative
Collot?,
Member even of Salut, returning home,
'about one in the morning,' probably
touched with liquor, as he is apt to be, meets on the stairs, the cry
"Scélérat!" and also the snap of a pistol:
which latter flashes in the
pan; disclosing to him, momentarily, a pair of truculent saucer-eyes, swart
grim-clenched countenance; recognisable as that of our little fellow-lodger,
Citoyen Amiral, formerly 'a clerk in the Lotteries!; Collot shouts
Murder, with lungs fit to awaken all the Rue Favart; Amiral snaps a second
time; a second time flashes in the pan; then darts up into his apartment;
and, after there firing, still with inadequate effect, one musket at
himself and another at his captor, is clutched and locked in Prison.
(Riouffe, p. 73; Deux Amis, xii. 298-302.)
An indignant little man this
Amiral, of Southern temper and complexion, of 'considerable muscular
force.' He denies not that he meant to "purge France of a tyrant;" nay
avows that he had an eye to the Incorruptible himself, but took Collot as
more convenient!
|
There was still some internal resistance to Robespierre and the Committee of
Public Safety.
|
|
Rumour enough hereupon; heaven-high congratulation of Collot, fraternal
embracing, at the Jacobins, and elsewhere. And yet, it would seem the
assassin-mood proves catching. Two days more, it is still but the 23d of
May, and towards nine in the evening, Cecile Renault, Paper-dealer's
daughter, a young woman of soft blooming look, presents herself at the
Cabinet-maker's in the Rue Saint-Honore; desires to see Robespierre.
Robespierre cannot be seen: she grumbles irreverently. They lay hold of
her. She has left a basket in a shop hard by: in the basket are female
change of raiment and two knives! Poor Cecile, examined by Committee,
declares she "wanted to see what a tyrant was like:" the change of raiment
was "for my own use in the place I am surely going to."—"What place?"—
"Prison; and then the Guillotine," answered she.—Such things come of
Charlotte Corday; in a people prone to imitation, and monomania! Swart
choleric men try Charlotte's feat, and their pistols miss fire; soft
blooming young women try it, and, only half-resolute, leave their knives in
a shop.
|
But Carlyle sees the few assassination attempts as imitative.
|
|
O Pitt, and ye Faction of the Stranger, shall the Republic never have rest;
but be torn continually by baited springs, by wires of explosive spring-guns?
Swart Amiral, fair young Cecile, and all that knew them, and many
that did not know them, lie locked, waiting the scrutiny of Tinville.
|
Not that they were not taken very seriously by the Revolutionary Tribunal.
|
|
But on the day they call Décadi, New-Sabbath, 20 Prairial,
8th June by old
style, what thing is this going forward, in the Jardin National, whilom
Tuileries Garden?
|
|
|
All the world is there, in holyday clothes: (Vilate,
Causes Secrètes de la Révolution de 9 Thermidor.)
foul linen went out with the Hébertists; nay
Robespierre, for one, would never once countenance that; but went always
elegant and frizzled, not without vanity even,—and had his room hung round
with seagreen Portraits and Busts. In holyday clothes, we say, are the
innumerable Citoyens and Citoyennes: the weather is of the brightest;
cheerful expectation lights all countenances. Juryman
Vilate?
gives
breakfast to many a Deputy, in his official Apartment, in the Pavillon
ci-devant of Flora; rejoices in the bright-looking multitudes, in the
brightness of leafy June, in the auspicious Décadi,
or New-Sabbath. This
day, if it please Heaven, we are to have, on improved Anti-Chaumette
principles: a New Religion.
|
June 8, 1794: the Festival of the Supreme Being.
|
|
Catholicism being burned out, and Reason-worship guillotined, was there not
need of one? Incorruptible Robespierre, not unlike the Ancients, as
Legislator of a free people will now also be Priest and Prophet. He has
donned his sky-blue coat, made for the occasion; white silk waistcoat
broidered with silver, black silk breeches, white stockings, shoe-buckles
of gold. He is President of the Convention; he has made the Convention
decree, so they name it, décréter
the 'Existence of the Supreme Being,' and
likewise 'ce principe consolateur of the Immortality of the Soul.'
These
consolatory principles, the basis of rational Republican Religion, are
getting decreed; and here, on this blessed Décadi,
by help of Heaven and
Painter David, is to be our first act of worship.
|
Robespierre as always opposed atheism, but there is no longer an
official organized
church in France.
|
|
See, accordingly, how after Decree passed, and what has been called 'the
scraggiest Prophetic Discourse ever uttered by man,'—Mahomet Robespierre,
in sky-blue coat and black breeches, frizzled and powdered to perfection,
bearing in his hand a bouquet of flowers and wheat-ears, issues proudly
from the Convention Hall; Convention following him, yet, as is remarked,
with an interval. Amphitheatre has been raised, or at least
Monticule or
Elevation; hideous Statues of Atheism, Anarchy and such like, thanks to
Heaven and Painter David, strike abhorrence into the heart. Unluckily
however, our Monticule is too small. On the top of it not half of us can
stand; wherefore there arises indecent shoving, nay treasonous irreverent
growling. Peace, thou Bourdon de
l'Oise?;
peace, or it may be worse for
thee!
|
The ceremony involves Robespierre as a sort of high priest, leading the
Convention to a plaster mountain on which they stand.
|
|
The seagreen Pontiff takes a torch, Painter David handing it; mouths some
other froth-rant of vocables, which happily one cannot hear; strides
resolutely forward, in sight of expectant France; sets his torch to Atheism
and Company, which are but made of pasteboard steeped in turpentine. They
burn up rapidly; and, from within, there rises 'by machinery' an
incombustible Statue of Wisdom, which, by ill hap, gets besmoked a little;
but does stand there visible in as serene attitude as it can.
|
|
|
And then? Why, then, there is other Processioning, scraggy Discoursing,
and—this is our Feast of the Être Suprême;
our new Religion, better or
worse, is come!—Look at it one moment, O Reader, not two. The Shabbiest
page of Human Annals: or is there, that thou wottest of, one shabbier?
Mumbo-Jumbo of the African woods to me seems venerable beside this new
Deity of Robespierre; for this is a conscious Mumbo-Jumbo, and knows that
he is machinery. O seagreen Prophet, unhappiest of windbags blown nigh to
bursting, what distracted Chimera among realities are thou growing to!
This then, this common pitch-link for artificial fireworks of turpentine
and pasteboard; this is the miraculous Aaron's Rod thou wilt stretch over a
hag-ridden hell-ridden France, and bid her plagues cease? Vanish, thou and
it!—"Avec ton Être Suprême," said
Billaud?,
"tu commences m'embêter: With
thy Être Supreme thou beginnest to be a bore to me."
(See Vilate, Causes
Secrètes. (Vilate's Narrative is very curious;
but is not to be taken as
true, without sifting; being, at bottom, in spite of its title, not a
Narrative but a Pleading).)
|
Carlyle heaps scorn on Robespierre and the idea of an invented religion.
|
|
Catherine Théot?,
on the other hand,
'an ancient serving-maid seventy-nine
years of age,' inured to Prophecy and the Bastille from of old, sits, in an
upper room in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe, poring over the Book of Revelations,
with an eye to Robespierre; finds that this astonishing thrice-potent
Maximilien really is the Man spoken of by Prophets, who is to make the
Earth young again. With her sit devout old Marchionesses, ci-devant
honourable women; among whom Old-Constituent Dom Gerle, with his addle
head, cannot be wanting. They sit there, in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe; in
mysterious adoration: Mumbo is Mumbo, and Robespierre is his Prophet. A
conspicuous man this Robespierre. He has his volunteer Bodyguard of
Tappedurs, let us say Strike-sharps,
fierce Patriots with feruled sticks; and
Jacobins kissing the hem of his garment. He enjoys the admiration of many,
the worship of some; and is well worth the wonder of one and all.
|
Robespierre is at the center of it all, and highly visible.
|
|
The grand question and hope, however, is: Will not this Feast of the
Tuileries Mumbo-Jumbo be a sign perhaps that the Guillotine is to abate?
Far enough from that! Precisely on the second day after it,
Couthon?,
one
of the 'three shallow scoundrels,' gets himself lifted into the Tribune;
produces a bundle of papers. Couthon proposes that, as Plots still abound,
the Law of the Suspect shall have extension, and Arrestment new vigour and
facility. Further that, as in such case business is like to be heavy, our
Revolutionary Tribunal too shall have extension; be divided, say, into Four
Tribunals, each with its President, each with its
Fouquier?
or Substitute of
Fouquier, all labouring at once, and any remnant of shackle or dilatory
formality be struck off: in this way it may perhaps still overtake the
work. Such is Couthon's Decree of the Twenty-second Prairial, famed in
those times. At hearing of which Decree the very Mountain gasped,
awestruck; and one Ruamps ventured to say that if it passed without
adjournment and discussion, he, as one Representative, "would blow his
brains out." Vain saying! The Incorruptible knit his brows; spoke a
prophetic fateful word or two: the Law of Prairial is Law;
Ruamps glad to
leave his rash brains where they are. Death, then, and always Death! Even
so. Fouquier is enlarging his borders; making room for Batches of a
Hundred and fifty at once;—getting a Guillotine set up, of improved
velocity, and to work under cover, in the apartment close by. So that
Salut itself has to intervene, and forbid him:
"Wilt thou demoralise the
Guillotine," asks
Collot?,
reproachfully, "démoraliser le supplice!"
|
The Law of 22 Prairial expands the Revolutionary Tribunal and sets even lower
standards for prosecution.
|
|
There is indeed danger of that; were not the Republican faith great, it
were already done. See, for example, on the 17th of June, what a Batch,
Fifty-four at once! Swart Amiral is here, he of the pistol that missed
fire; young Cécile Rénault,
with her father, family, entire kith and kin;
the widow of
d'Espréménil?;
old M. de Sombreuil?
of the Invalides, with his
Son,—poor old Sombreuil, seventy-three years old, his Daughter saved him
in September, and it was but for this.
Faction of the Stranger, fifty-four
of them! In red shirts and smocks, as Assassins and Faction of the
Stranger, they flit along there; red baleful Phantasmagory, towards the
land of Phantoms.
|
Suspects go to the guillotine in ever-increasing numbers.
|
|
Meanwhile will not the people of the Place de la Révolution, the
inhabitants along the Rue Saint-Honoré,
as these continual Tumbrils pass,
begin to look gloomy? Republicans too have bowels. The Guillotine is
shifted, then again shifted; finally set up at the remote extremity of the
South-East: (Montgaillard, iv. 237.)
Suburbs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau it is to be hoped,
if they have bowels, have very tough ones.
|
Paris begins to recoil from the slaughter.
|
|
It is time now, however, to cast a glance into the Prisons. When
Desmoulins moved for his Committee of Mercy, these Twelve Houses of Arrest
held five thousand persons. Continually arriving since then, there have
now accumulated twelve thousand. They are Ci-devants, Royalists; in far
greater part, they are Republicans, of various Girondin, Fayettish, Un-Jacobin
colour. Perhaps no human Habitation or Prison ever equalled in
squalor, in noisome horror, these Twelve Houses of Arrest. There exist
records of personal experience in them Mémoires sur les Prisons;
one of the
strangest Chapters in the Biography of Man.
|
The prisons are packed with suspects waiting trial. We know quite a bit about
conditions there from reports of survivors.
|
|
Very singular to look into it: how a kind of order rises up in all
conditions of human existence; and wherever two or three are gathered
together, there are formed modes of existing together, habitudes,
observances, nay gracefulnesses, joys! Citoyen
Coitant[207]
will explain fully
how our lean dinner, of herbs and carrion, was consumed not without
politeness and place-aux-dames: how Seigneur and Shoeblack, Duchess and
Doll-Tearsheet, flung pellmell into a heap, ranked themselves according to
method: at what hour 'the Citoyennes took to their needlework;' and we,
yielding the chairs to them, endeavoured to talk gallantly in a standing
posture, or even to sing and harp more or less. Jealousies, enmities are
not wanting; nor flirtations, of an effective character.
|
The mass cells, with men and women of all conditions crammed together,
became their own small societies.
|
|
Alas, by degrees, even needlework must cease: Plot in the Prison rises, by
Citoyen Laflotte?
and Preternatural Suspicion. Suspicious Municipality
snatches from us all implements; all money and possession, of means or
metal, is ruthlessly searched for, in pocket, in pillow and
paillasse [straw mattress], and
snatched away; red-capped Commissaries entering every cell! Indignation,
temporary desperation, at robbery of its very thimble, fills the gentle
heart. Old Nuns shriek shrill discord; demand to be killed forthwith. No
help from shrieking! Better was that of the two shifty male Citizens, who,
eager to preserve an implement or two, were it but a pipe-picker, or needle
to darn hose with, determined to defend themselves: by tobacco. Swift
then, as your fell Red Caps are heard in the Corridor rummaging and
slamming, the two Citoyens light their pipes and begin smoking. Thick
darkness envelops them. The Red Nightcaps, opening the cell, breathe but
one mouthful; burst forth into chorus of barking and coughing. "Quoi,
Messieurs," cry the two Citoyens, "You don't smoke? Is the pipe
disagreeable! Est-ce que vous ne fumez pas?"
But the Red Nightcaps have
fled, with slight search: "Vous n'aimez pas la pipe?"
cry the Citoyens, as
their door slams-to again. (Maison d'Arrêt
de Port-Libre, par Coittant,
etc. (Mémoires sur les Prisons, ii.)
My poor brother Citoyens, O surely, in
a reign of Brotherhood, you are not the two I would guillotine!
|
The prisoners are closely watched for "plots" among them.
|
|
Rigour grows, stiffens into horrid tyranny; Plot in the Prison getting ever
riper. This Plot in the Prison, as we said, is now the stereotype formula
of Tinville: against whomsoever he knows no crime, this is a ready-made
crime. His Judgment-bar has become unspeakable; a recognised mockery;
known only as the wicket one passes through, towards Death. His
Indictments are drawn out in blank; you insert the Names after. He has his
moutons [sheep], detestable traitor jackalls,
who report and bear witness; that
they themselves may be allowed to live,—for a time.
His Fournées [daily batches to the guillotine], says
the reproachful Collot, 'shall in no case exceed three-score;' that is his
maximum.
Nightly come his Tumbrils to the Luxembourg, with the fatal Roll-call;
list of the Fournée of to-morrow. Men rush towards the Grate;
listen, if their name be in it? One deep-drawn breath, when the name is
not in: we live still one day! And yet some score or scores of names were
in. Quick these; they clasp their loved ones to their heart, one last
time; with brief adieu, wet-eyed or dry-eyed, they mount, and are away.
This night to the Conciergerie; through the Palais misnamed of Justice,
to the Guillotine to-morrow.
|
Executions peak at 60 per day — the capacity of the Revolutionary Tribunal,
at about 10 minutes per trial.
|
|
Recklessness, defiant levity, the Stoicism if not of strength yet of
weakness, has possessed all hearts. Weak women and Ci-devants,
their locks
not yet made into blond perukes, their skins not yet tanned into breeches,
are accustomed to 'act the Guillotine' by way of pastime. In fantastic
mummery, with towel-turbans, blanket-ermine, a mock
Sanhedrim of Judges[208]
sits, a mock Tinville pleads; a culprit is doomed, is guillotined by the
oversetting of two chairs. Sometimes we carry it farther: Tinville
himself, in his turn, is doomed, and not to the Guillotine alone. With
blackened face, hirsute, horned, a shaggy Satan snatches him not
unshrieking; shews him, with outstretched arm and voice, the fire that is
not quenched, the worm that dies not; the monotony of Hell-pain, and the
What hour? answered by, It is Eternity! (Montgaillard,
iv. 218; Riouffe, p. 273.)
|
Prisoners purge their fears by acting out their coming executions.
|
|
And still the Prisons fill fuller, and still the Guillotine goes faster.
On all high roads march flights of Prisoners, wending towards Paris. Not
Ci-devants now; they, the noisy of them, are mown down;
it is Republicans
now. Chained two and two they march; in exasperated moments, singing their
Marseillaise.
A hundred and thirty-two men of Nantes for instance, march
towards Paris, in these same days: Republicans, or say even Jacobins to
the marrow of the bone; but Jacobins who had not approved Noyading.
(Voyage de Cent Trente-deux Nantais (Prisons, ii.
288-335.) Vive la
République rises from them in all streets of towns:
they rest by night, in
unutterable noisome dens, crowded to choking; one or two dead on the
morrow. They are wayworn, weary of heart; can only shout: Live the
Republic; we, as under horrid enchantment, dying in this way for it!
|
Most monarchists and federalists have fled or been arrested. New prisoners
are the less-rabid Jacobins.
|
|
Some Four Hundred Priests, of whom also there is record, ride at anchor,
'in the roads of the Isle of Aix,' long months; looking out on misery,
vacuity, waste Sands of Oleron and the ever-moaning brine. Ragged, sordid,
hungry; wasted to shadows: eating their unclean ration on deck,
circularly, in parties of a dozen, with finger and thumb; beating their
scandalous clothes between two stones; choked in horrible miasmata, closed
under hatches, seventy of them in a berth, through night; so that the 'aged
Priest is found lying dead in the morning, in the attitude of prayer!'
(Relation de ce qu'ont souffert pour la Religion les
Prêtres déportés en
1794, dans la rade de l'ile d'Aix (Prisons, ii. 387-485.)—How long, O
Lord!
|
Abominable treatment of prisoners is everywhere.
|
|
Not forever; no. All Anarchy, all Evil, Injustice, is, by the nature of
it, dragon's-teeth; suicidal, and cannot endure.
|
But the Terror will end.
|
|
It is very remarkable, indeed, that since the Être-Suprême
Feast, and the
sublime continued harangues on it, which
Billaud?
feared would become a bore
to him,
Robespierre?
has gone little to Committee; but held himself apart,
as if in a kind of pet [fit of peevishness].
Nay they have made a Report on that old Catherine
Théot?,
and her Regenerative Man spoken of by the Prophets; not in the best
spirit. This Théot mystery they affect to regard as a Plot; but have
evidently introduced a vein of satire, of irreverent banter, not against
the Spinster alone, but obliquely against her Regenerative Man!
Barrère's?
light pen was perhaps at the bottom of it: read through the solemn
snuffling organs of old
Vadier?
of the Sûreté
Générale, the Théot Report had
its effect; wrinkling the general Republican visage into an iron grin.
Ought these things to be?
|
Cracks begin to appear in the armor of Robespierre. One weapon is
ridicule.
|
|
We note further that among the Prisoners in the Twelve Houses of Arrest,
there is one whom we have seen before. Senhora
Fontenai?,
born Cabarus, the
fair Proserpine whom Representative
Tallien?
Pluto-like did gather at
Bourdeaux, not without effect on himself! Tallien is home, by recall, long
since, from Bourdeaux; and in the most alarming position. Vain that he
sounded, louder even than ever, the note of Jacobinism, to hide past
shortcomings: the Jacobins purged him out; two times has Robespierre
growled at him words of omen from the Convention Tribune. And now his fair
Cabarus, hit by denunciation, lies Arrested, Suspect, in spite of all he
could do!—Shut in horrid pinfold of death, the Senhora smuggles out to her
red-gloomy Tallien the most pressing entreaties and conjurings: Save me;
save thyself. Seest thou not that thy own head is doomed; thou with a too
fiery audacity; a Dantonist withal; against whom lie grudges? Are ye not
all doomed, as in the Polyphemus Cavern; the fawningest slave of you will
be but eaten last!—Tallien feels with a shudder that it is true. Tallien
has had words of omen,
Bourdon?
has had words,
Fréron?
is hated and
Barras?:
each man 'feels his head if it yet stick on his shoulders.'
|
Tallien and other Jacobins who took the Terror to the provinces find
themselves under attack.
|
|
Meanwhile Robespierre, we still observe, goes little to Convention, not at
all to Committee; speaks nothing except to his Jacobin House of Lords, amid
his bodyguard of Tappe-durs. These 'forty-days,' for we are now far in
July, he has not shewed face in Committee; could only work there by his
three shallow scoundrels, and the terror there was of him. The
Incorruptible himself sits apart; or is seen stalking in solitary places in
the fields, with an intensely meditative air; some say, 'with eyes
red-spotted,' (Deux Amis, xii. 347-73.)
fruit of extreme bile: the
lamentablest seagreen Chimera that walks the Earth that July! O hapless
Chimera; for thou too hadst a life, and a heart of flesh,—what is this the
stern gods, seeming to smile all the way, have led and let thee to! Art
not thou he who, few years ago, was a young Advocate of promise; and gave
up the Arras Judgeship rather than sentence one man to die?—
|
Robespierre seems to withdraw from affairs.
|
|
What his thoughts might be? His plans for finishing the Terror? One knows
not. Dim vestiges there flit of Agrarian Law; a victorious Sansculottism
become Landed Proprietor; old Soldiers sitting in National Mansions, in
Hospital Palaces of Chambord and Chantilly; peace bought by victory;
breaches healed by Feast of Être Suprême;—and
so, through seas of blood,
to Equality, Frugality, worksome Blessedness, Fraternity, and Republic of
the virtues! Blessed shore, of such a sea of Aristocrat blood: but how to
land on it? Through one last wave: blood of corrupt Sansculottists;
traitorous or semi-traitorous Conventionals, rebellious Talliens, Billauds,
to whom with my Être Suprême
I have become a bore; with my Apocalyptic Old
Woman a laughing-stock!—So stalks he, this poor Robespierre, like a
seagreen ghost through the blooming July. Vestiges of schemes flit dim.
But what his schemes or his thoughts were will never be known to man.
|
Some believe he is planning how to end the Revolution in another, greater,
purge.
|
|
New Catacombs, some say, are digging for a huge simultaneous butchery.
Convention to be butchered, down to the right pitch, by General Henriot and
Company: Jacobin House of Lords made dominant; and Robespierre Dictator.
(Deux Amis, xii. 350-8.)
There is actually, or else there is not actually,
a List made out; which the Hairdresser has got eye on, as he frizzled the
Incorruptible locks. Each man asks himself, Is it I?
|
There is rumored to be a list of those to be purged.
|
|
Nay, as Tradition and rumour of Anecdote still convey it, there was a
remarkable bachelor's dinner one hot day at Barrère's.
For doubt not, O
Reader, this Barrère and others of them gave dinners;
had 'country-house at
Clichy,' with elegant enough sumptuosities, and pleasures high-rouged!
(See Vilate.)
But at this dinner we speak of, the day being so hot, it is
said, the guests all stript their coats, and left them in the drawing-room:
whereupon Carnot glided out; groped in Robespierre's pocket; found a list
of Forty, his own name among them; and tarried not at the wine-cup that
day!—Ye must bestir yourselves, O Friends; ye dull Frogs of the Marsh,
mute ever since Girondism sank under, even ye now must croak or die!
Councils are held, with word and beck; nocturnal, mysterious as death.
Does not a feline Maximilien stalk there; voiceless as yet; his green eyes
red-spotted; back bent, and hair up? Rash Tallien, with his rash temper
and audacity of tongue; he shall bell the cat. Fix a day; and be it soon,
lest never!
|
Those who believe they are on the list are not willing to wait for the
blade to fall.
|
|
Lo, before the fixed day, on the day which they call Eighth of Thermidor,
26th July 1794, Robespierre himself reappears in Convention; mounts to the
Tribune! The biliary face seems clouded with new gloom; judge whether your
Talliens, Bourdons listened with interest. It is a voice bodeful of death
or of life. Long-winded, unmelodious as the screech-owl's, sounds that
prophetic voice: Degenerate condition of Republican spirit; corrupt
moderatism; Sûreté, Salut
Committees themselves infected; back-sliding on
this hand and on that; I, Maximilien, alone left incorruptible, ready to
die at a moment's warning. For all which what remedy is there? The
Guillotine; new vigour to the all-healing Guillotine: death to traitors of
every hue! So sings the prophetic voice; into its Convention sounding-board.
The old song this: but to-day, O Heavens! has the sounding-board
ceased to act? There is not resonance in this Convention; there is, so to
speak, a gasp of silence; nay a certain grating of one knows not
what!—Lecointre?,
our old Draper of Versailles, in these questionable
circumstances, sees nothing he can do so safe as rise, 'insidiously' or not
insidiously, and move, according to established wont, that the Robespierre
Speech be 'printed and sent to the Departments.' Hark: gratings, even of
dissonance! Honourable Members hint dissonance; Committee-Members,
inculpated in the Speech, utter dissonance; demand 'delay in printing.'
Ever higher rises the note of dissonance; inquiry is even made by Editor
Fréron:
"What has become of the Liberty of Opinions in this Convention?"
The Order to print and transmit, which had got passed, is rescinded.
Robespierre, greener than ever before, has to retire, foiled; discerning
that it is mutiny, that evil is nigh.
|
On 8 Thermidor (July 26, 1794), Robespierre makes a speech that comes close
to accusing members of the Convention and the Committees of General Security
and of Public Safety.
|
| |
|
Mutiny is a thing of the fatallest nature in all enterprises whatsoever; a
thing so incalculable, swift-frightful; not to be dealt with in fright.
But mutiny in a Robespierre Convention, above all,—it is like fire seen
sputtering in the ship's powder-room! One death-defiant plunge at it, this
moment, and you may still tread it out: hesitate till next moment,—ship
and ship's captain, crew and cargo are shivered far; the ship's voyage has
suddenly ended between sea and sky. If Robespierre can, to-night, produce
his Henriot and Company, and get his work done by them, he and
Sansculottism may still subsist some time; if not, probably not. Oliver
Cromwell, when that Agitator Serjeant stept forth from the ranks, with plea
of grievances, and began gesticulating and demonstrating, as the mouthpiece
of Thousands expectant there,—discerned, with those truculent eyes of his,
how the matter lay; plucked a pistol from his holsters; blew Agitator and
Agitation instantly out. Noll was a man fit for such things.
|
It is a time when only decisive action by Robespierre can carry the day.
|
|
Robespierre, for his part, glides over at evening to his Jacobin House of
Lords; unfolds there, instead of some adequate resolution, his woes, his
uncommon virtues, incorruptibilities; then, secondly, his rejected
screech-owl Oration;—reads this latter over again;
and declares that he is ready
to die at a moment's warning. Thou shalt not die! shouts Jacobinism from
its thousand throats. "Robespierre, I will drink the hemlock with thee,"
cries Painter David, "Je boirai la cigue avec toi;"—a thing
not essential
to do, but which, in the fire of the moment, can be said.
|
Robespierre reads the same speach that night at the Jacobins, again avoiding
direct accusations. There, the speech is highly approved.
|
|
Our Jacobin sounding-board, therefore, does act! Applauses heaven-high
cover the rejected Oration; fire-eyed fury lights all Jacobin features:
Insurrection a sacred duty; the Convention to be purged; Sovereign People
under Henriot and Municipality; we will make a new June-Second of it: to
your tents, O Israel! In this key pipes Jacobinism; in sheer tumult of
revolt. Let Tallien and all Opposition men make off.
Collot d'Herbois?,
though of the supreme Salut,
and so lately near shot, is elbowed, bullied;
is glad to escape alive. Entering Committee-room of Salut, all
dishevelled, he finds sleek sombre Saint-Just there, among the rest; who in
his sleek way asks, "What is passing at the Jacobins?"—"What is passing?"
repeats Collot, in the unhistrionic Cambyses' vein: "What is passing?
Nothing but revolt and horrors are passing. Ye want our lives; ye shall
not have them."
Saint-Just?
stutters at such Cambyses'-oratory; takes his
hat to withdraw. That report he had been speaking of, Report on Republican
Things in General we may say, which is to be read in Convention on the
morrow, he cannot shew it them this moment: a friend has it; he, Saint-Just,
will get it, and send it, were he once home. Once home, he sends not
it, but an answer that he will not send it; that they will hear it from the
Tribune to-morrow.
|
Saint-Just has prepared a speech, probably containing the accusations, which
he intends to deliver in the Convention on 9 Thermidor.
|
|
Let every man, therefore, according to a well-known good-advice, 'pray to
Heaven, and keep his powder dry!'[209]
Paris, on the morrow, will see a thing.
Swift scouts fly dim or invisible, all night, from Sûreté
and Salut; from
conclave to conclave; from Mother Society to Townhall. Sleep, can it fall
on the eyes of Talliens, Frérons, Collots? Puissant
Henriot?,
Mayor
Fleuriot?,
Judge
Coffinhal?,
Procureur Payan?,
Robespierre and all the
Jacobins are getting ready.
|
Rumor flies through the night of 8 Thermidor.
|
|
Tallien's eyes beamed bright, on the morrow, Ninth of Thermidor 'about nine
o'clock,' to see that the Convention had actually met. Paris is in rumour:
but at least we are met, in Legal Convention here; we have not been
snatched seriatim; treated with a
Pride's Purge[210]
at the door. "Allons,
brave men of the Plain," late Frogs of the Marsh! cried Tallien with a
squeeze of the hand, as he passed in; Saint-Just's sonorous organ being now
audible from the Tribune, and the game of games begun.
|
The morning of 9 Thermidor, Saint-Just rises to address the Convention.
|
|
Saint-Just is verily reading that Report of his; green Vengeance, in the
shape of Robespierre, watching nigh. Behold, however, Saint-Just has read
but few sentences, when interruption rises, rapid crescendo; when Tallien
starts to his feet, and Billaud, and this man starts and that,—and
Tallien, a second time, with his: "Citoyens, at the Jacobins last night, I
trembled for the Republic. I said to myself, if the Convention dare not
strike the Tyrant, then I myself dare; and with this I will do it, if need
be," said he, whisking out a clear-gleaming Dagger, and brandishing it
there: the Steel of Brutus, as we call it. Whereat we all bellow, and
brandish, impetuous acclaim. "Tyranny; Dictatorship! Triumvirat!" And the
Salut Committee-men accuse,
and all men accuse, and uproar, and impetuously
acclaim. And Saint-Just is standing motionless, pale of face; Couthon
ejaculating, "Triumvir?" with a look at his paralytic legs. And
Robespierre is struggling to speak, but President
Thuriot?
is jingling the
bell against him, but the Hall is sounding against him like an
Aeolus-Hall[211]:
and Robespierre is mounting the Tribune-steps and descending again; going
and coming, like to choke with rage, terror, desperation:—and mutiny is
the order of the day! (Moniteur, Nos. 311, 312; Débats,
iv. 421-42; Deux Amis, xii. 390-411.)
|
But Saint-Just is not allowed to speak. Agitation in the Convention,
and the connivance of the Chair, prevent him or Couthon or Robespierre from
being heard.
|
|
O President Thuriot, thou that wert Elector Thuriot, and from the Bastille
battlements sawest Saint-Antoine rising like the Ocean-tide, and hast seen
much since, sawest thou ever the like of this? Jingle of bell, which thou
jinglest against Robespierre, is hardly audible amid the Bedlam-storm; and
men rage for life. "President of Assassins," shrieks Robespierre, "I
demand speech of thee for the last time!" It cannot be had. "To you, O
virtuous men of the Plain," cries he, finding audience one moment, "I
appeal to you!" The virtuous men of the Plain sit silent as stones. And
Thuriot's bell jingles, and the Hall sounds like Aeolus's Hall.
Robespierre's frothing lips are grown 'blue;' his tongue dry, cleaving to
the roof of his mouth. "The blood of Danton chokes him," cry they.
"Accusation! Decree of Accusation!" Thuriot swiftly puts that question.
Accusation passes; the incorruptible Maximilien is decreed Accused.
|
A decree of accusation is quickly voted against Robespierre.
|
|
"I demand to share my Brother's fate, as I have striven to share his
virtues," cries Augustin, the Younger
Robespierre?:
Augustin also is
decreed. And Couthon, and Saint-Just, and
Lebas?,
they are all decreed; and
packed forth,—not without difficulty, the Ushers almost trembling to obey.
Triumvirat and Company are packed forth, into Salut Committee-room;
their
tongue cleaving to the roof of their mouth. You have but to summon the
Municipality; to cashier Commandant Henriot, and launch Arrest at him; to
regular formalities; hand Tinville his victims. It is noon: the Aeolus-Hall
has delivered itself; blows now victorious, harmonious, as one
irresistible wind.
|
Robespierre and his party, including his brother, are arrested and imprisoned
in the Tuileries.
|
|
And so the work is finished? One thinks so; and yet it is not so. Alas,
there is yet but the first-act finished; three or four other acts still to
come; and an uncertain catastrophe! A huge City holds in it so many
confusions: seven hundred thousand human heads; not one of which knows
what its neighbour is doing, nay not what itself is doing.—See,
accordingly, about three in the afternoon, Commandant Henriot, how instead
of sitting cashiered, arrested, he gallops along the Quais, followed by
Municipal Gendarmes, 'trampling down several persons!' For the Townhall
sits deliberating, openly insurgent: Barriers to be shut; no Gaoler to
admit any Prisoner this day;—and Henriot is galloping towards the
Tuileries, to deliver Robespierre. On the Quai de la Ferraillerie, a young
Citoyen, walking with his wife, says aloud: "Gendarmes, that man is not
your Commandant; he is under arrest." The Gendarmes strike down the young
Citoyen with the flat of their swords. (Precis des
événemens
du Neuf Thermidor, par C.A. Méda, ancien Gendarme (Paris, 1825).)
|
The Paris municipal, still under control of Robespierre's friends, dispatches
Henriot and the Paris Guard to rescue the prisoners.
|
|
Representatives themselves (as Merlin the
Thionviller?)
who accost him, this
puissant Henriot flings into guardhouses. He bursts towards the Tuileries
Committee-room, "to speak with Robespierre:" with difficulty, the Ushers
and Tuileries Gendarmes, earnestly pleading and drawing sabre, seize this
Henriot; get the Henriot Gendarmes persuaded not to fight; get Robespierre
and Company packed into hackney-coaches, sent off under escort, to the
Luxembourg and other Prisons. This then is the end? May not an exhausted
Convention adjourn now, for a little repose and sustenance, 'at five
o'clock?'
|
Henriot himself is arrested and the Robespierrists are sent off to the prisons.
|
|
An exhausted Convention did it; and repented it. The end was not come;
only the end of the second-act.
Hark, while exhausted Representatives sit
at victuals,—tocsin bursting from all steeples, drums rolling, in the
summer evening: Judge
Coffinhal?
is galloping with new Gendarmes to deliver
Henriot from Tuileries Committee-room; and does deliver him! Puissant
Henriot vaults on horseback; sets to haranguing the Tuileries Gendarmes;
corrupts the Tuileries Gendarmes too; trots off with them to Townhall.
Alas, and Robespierre is not in Prison: the Gaoler shewed his Municipal
order, durst not on pain of his life, admit any Prisoner; the Robespierre
Hackney-coaches, in confused jangle and whirl of uncertain Gendarmes, have
floated safe—into the Townhall! There sit Robespierre and Company,
embraced by Municipals and Jacobins, in sacred right of Insurrection;
redacting Proclamations; sounding tocsins; corresponding with Sections and
Mother Society. Is not here a pretty enough third-act of a natural Greek
Drama; catastrophe more uncertain than ever?
|
Coffinhal rescues Henriot; Robespierre and friends, instead of prison,
unexpectedly find themselves among friends at the Hôtel de Ville.
|
|
The hasty Convention rushes together again, in the ominous nightfall:
President Collot, for the chair is his, enters with long strides, paleness
on his face; claps on his hat; says with solemn tone: "Citoyens, armed
Villains have beset the Committee-rooms, and got possession of them. The
hour is come, to die at our post!" "Oui,"
answer one and all: "We swear
it!" It is no rhodomontade [bluster], this time, but a sad fact and necessity;
unless we do at our posts, we must verily die! Swift therefore,
Robespierre, Henriot, the Municipality, are declared Rebels; put Hors la
Loi, Out of Law. Better still, we appoint
Barras?
Commandant of what Armed-Force is to be had;
send Missionary Representatives to all Sections and
quarters, to preach, and raise force; will die at least with harness on our
back.
|
The Convention stiffens its back, attainting the Robespierrists and sending
to the Sections for support.
|
|
What a distracted City; men riding and running, reporting and hearsaying;
the Hour clearly in travail,—child not to be named till born! The poor
Prisoners in the Luxembourg hear the rumour; tremble for a new September.
They see men making signals to them, on skylights and roofs, apparently
signals of hope; cannot in the least make out what it is.
(Memoires sur
les Prisons, ii. 277.)
We observe however, in the eventide, as usual, the
Death-tumbrils faring South-eastward, through Saint-Antoine, towards their
Barrier du Trône. Saint-Antoine's tough bowels melt; Saint-Antoine
surrounds the Tumbrils; says, It shall not be. O Heavens, why should it!
Henriot and Gendarmes, scouring the streets that way, bellow, with waved
sabres, that it must. Quit hope, ye poor Doomed! The Tumbrils move on.
|
Even among the distraction, a last batch of prisoners heads to the Guillotine.
|
|
But in this set of Tumbrils there are two other things notable: one
notable person; and one want of a notable person. The notable person is
Lieutenant-General
Loiserolles,
a nobleman by birth, and by nature; laying
down his life here for his son. In the Prison of Saint-Lazare, the night
before last, hurrying to the Grate to hear the Death-list read, he caught
the name of his son. The son was asleep at the moment. "I am
Loiserolles," cried the old man: at Tinville's bar, an error in the
Christian name is little; small objection was made. The want of the
notable person, again, is that of Deputy Paine! Paine has sat in the
Luxembourg since January; and seemed forgotten; but Fouquier had pricked
him at last. The Turnkey, List in hand, is marking with chalk the outer
doors of to-morrow's Fournée.
Paine's outer door happened to be open,
turned back on the wall; the Turnkey marked it on the side next him, and
hurried on: another Turnkey came, and shut it; no chalk-mark now visible,
the Fournée went without Paine. Paine's life lay not there.—
|
By accident, Thomas Paine is not in this last batch.
|
|
Our fifth-act, of this natural Greek Drama, with its natural unities, can
only be painted in gross; somewhat as that antique Painter, driven
desperate, did the foam![212]
For through this blessed July night, there is
clangour, confusion very great, of marching troops; of Sections going this
way, Sections going that; of Missionary Representatives reading
Proclamations by torchlight; Missionary
Legendre?,
who has raised force
somewhere, emptying out the Jacobins, and flinging their key on the
Convention table: "I have locked their door; it shall be Virtue that re-
opens it." Paris, we say, is set against itself, rushing confused, as
Ocean-currents do; a huge Mahlstrom, sounding there, under cloud of night.
Convention sits permanent on this hand; Municipality most permanent on
that. The poor Prisoners hear tocsin and rumour; strive to bethink them of
the signals apparently of hope. Meek continual Twilight streaming up,
which will be Dawn and a To-morrow, silvers the Northern hem of Night; it
wends and wends there, that meek brightness, like a silent prophecy, along
the great Ring-Dial of the Heaven. So still, eternal! And on Earth all is
confused shadow and conflict; dissidence, tumultuous gloom and glare; and
Destiny as yet shakes her doubtful urn.
|
The night of 9 Thermidor is again wild with rumor, and with doubt.
|
|
About three in the morning, the dissident Armed-Forces have met.
Henriot's
Armed Force stood ranked in the Place de Grève;
and now Barras's, which he
has recruited, arrives there; and they front each other, cannon bristling
against cannon. Citoyens! cries the voice of Discretion, loudly enough,
Before coming to bloodshed, to endless civil-war, hear the Convention
Decree read: 'Robespierre and all rebels Out of Law!'—Out of Law? There
is terror in the sound: unarmed Citoyens disperse rapidly home; Municipal
Cannoneers range themselves on the Convention side, with shouting. At
which shout, Henriot descends from his upper room, far gone in drink as
some say; finds his Place de Gréve empty;
the cannons' mouth turned towards
him; and, on the whole,—that it is now the catastrophe!
|
The forces brought together to defend the Hôtel de Ville have little
stomach for a fight and drift off in the early morning.
|
|
Stumbling in again, the wretched drunk-sobered Henriot announces: "All is
lost!" "Misérable! it is thou that hast lost it,"
cry they: and fling
him, or else he flings himself, out of window: far enough down; into
masonwork and horror of cesspool; not into death but worse. Augustin
Robespierre follows him; with the like fate. Saint-Just called on Lebas to
kill him: who would not. Couthon crept under a table; attempting to kill
himself; not doing it.—On entering that Sanhedrim of Insurrection, we find
all as good as extinct; undone, ready for seizure. Robespierre was sitting
on a chair, with pistol shot blown through, not his head, but his under
jaw; the suicidal hand had failed. (Méda. p. 384.
(Méda asserts that it
was he who, with infinite courage, though in a lefthanded manner, shot
Robespierre. Méda got promoted for his services of this night; and died
General and Baron. Few credited Méda in what was otherwise
incredible.).)
With prompt zeal, not without trouble, we gather these wretched
Conspirators; fish up even Henriot and Augustin, bleeding and foul; pack
them all, rudely enough, into carts; and shall, before sunrise, have them
safe under lock and key. Amid shoutings and embracings.
|
The city hall is easily taken. Robespierre and his friends, several of them
badly wounded, are again prisoners.
|
|
Robespierre lay in an anteroom of the Convention Hall, while his Prison-escort
was getting ready; the mangled jaw bound up rudely with bloody
linen: a spectacle to men. He lies stretched on a table, a deal-box his
pillow; the sheath of the pistol is still clenched convulsively in his
hand. Men bully him, insult him: his eyes still indicate intelligence; he
speaks no word. 'He had on the sky-blue coat he had got made for the Feast
of the Être Suprême'—O reader,
can thy hard heart hold out against that?
His trousers were nankeen; the stockings had fallen down over the ankles.
He spake no word more in this world.
|
Robespierre, his jaw shattered and held in place with a rag, is exhibited
on a table.
|
|
And so, at six in the morning, a victorious Convention adjourns. Report
flies over Paris as on golden wings; penetrates the Prisons; irradiates the
faces of those that were ready to perish: turnkeys and moutons, fallen
from their high estate, look mute and blue. It is the 28th day of July,
called 10th of Thermidor, year 1794.
|
10 Thermidor — the Terror is over.
|
|
Fouquier had but to identify; his Prisoners being already Out of Law. At
four in the afternoon, never before were the streets of Paris seen so
crowded. From the Palais de Justice to the Place de la Révolution, for
thither again go the Tumbrils this time,
it is one dense stirring mass; all
windows crammed; the very roofs and ridge-tiles budding forth human
Curiosity, in strange gladness. The Death-tumbrils, with their motley
Batch of Outlaws, some Twenty-three or so, from Maximilien to Mayor
Fleuriot and
Simon the Cordwainer?,
roll on. All eyes are on Robespierre's
Tumbril, where he, his jaw bound in dirty linen, with his half-dead
Brother, and half-dead Henriot, lie shattered; their 'seventeen hours' of
agony about to end. The Gendarmes point their swords at him, to shew the
people which is he. A woman springs on the Tumbril; clutching the side of
it with one hand; waving the other Sibyl-like; and exclaims: "The death of
thee gladdens my very heart, m'enivre de joie;" Robespierre opened his
eyes; "Scélérat, go down to Hell,
with the curses of all wives and
mothers!"—At the foot of the scaffold, they stretched him on the ground
till his turn came. Lifted aloft, his eyes again opened; caught the bloody
axe. Samson?
wrenched the coat off him; wrenched the dirty linen from his
jaw: the jaw fell powerless, there burst from him a cry;—hideous to hear
and see. Samson, thou canst not be too quick!
|
Robespierre is executed in the afternoon, the guillotine having been moved
back to the Place de la Révolution for the occasion.
|
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Samson's work done, there burst forth shout on shout of applause. Shout,
which prolongs itself not only over Paris, but over France, but over
Europe, and down to this Generation. Deservedly, and also undeservedly. O
unhappiest Advocate of Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates?
Stricter man, according to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of
probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and such like, lived not in
that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, to have become one of
those incorruptible barren Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and
funeral-sermons! His poor landlord, the Cabinetmaker in the Rue
Saint-Honoré,
loved him; his Brother died for him. May God be merciful to him,
and to us.
|
Carlyle views Robespierre as a man perhaps not as bad as the times made him
seem.
|
|
This is end of the Reign of Terror; new glorious Revolution named of
Thermidor; of Thermidor 9th, year 2; which being interpreted into old
slave-style means 27th of July, 1794. Terror is ended; and death in the
Place de la Révolution, were the 'Tail of Robespierre'
once executed; which
service Fouquier in large Batches is swiftly managing.
|
There are still plenty of Robespierrists to be executed, but those done,
the mass executions are finished.
|
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How little did any one suppose that here was the end not of Robespierre
only, but of the Revolution System itself! Least of all did the mutinying
Committee-men suppose it; who had mutinied with no view whatever except to
continue the National Regeneration with their own heads on their shoulders.
And yet so it verily was. The insignificant stone they had struck out, so
insignificant anywhere else, proved to be the Keystone: the whole arch-work
and edifice of Sansculottism began to loosen, to crack, to yawn; and
tumbled, piecemeal, with considerable rapidity, plunge after plunge; till
the Abyss had swallowed it all, and in this upper world Sansculottism was
no more.
|
Te overthrow of Robespierre quickly ended the seemingly perpetual revolution.
|
|
For despicable as Robespierre himself might be, the death of Robespierre
was a signal at which great multitudes of men, struck dumb with terror
heretofore, rose out of their hiding places: and, as it were, saw one
another, how multitudinous they were; and began speaking and complaining.
They are countable by the thousand and the million; who have suffered cruel
wrong. Ever louder rises the plaint of such a multitude; into a universal
sound, into a universal continuous peal, of what they call Public Opinion.
Camille?
had demanded a 'Committee of Mercy,' and could not get it; but now
the whole nation resolves itself into a Committee of Mercy: the Nation has
tried Sansculottism, and is weary of it. Force of Public Opinion! What
King or Convention can withstand it? You in vain struggle: the thing that
is rejected as 'calumnious' to-day must pass as veracious with triumph
another day: gods and men have declared that Sansculottism cannot be.
Sansculottism, on that Ninth night of Thermidor suicidally 'fractured its
under jaw;' and lies writhing, never to rise more.
|
It released the suppressed dissatisfaction of a large part of the population
with the domestic policies of the revolutionary government.
|
|
Through the next fifteenth months, it is what we may call the death-agony
of Sansculottism. Sansculottism, Anarchy of the
Jean-Jacques?
Evangel,
having now got deep enough, is to perish in a new singular system of
Culottism and Arrangement. For Arrangement is indispensable to man;
Arrangement, were it grounded only on that old primary Evangel of Force,
with Sceptre in the shape of Hammer. Be there method, be there order, cry
all men; were it that of the Drill-serjeant! More tolerable is the drilled
Bayonet-rank, than that undrilled Guillotine, incalculable as the wind.—How
Sansculottism, writhing in death-throes, strove some twice, or even
three times, to get on its feet again; but fell always, and was flung
resupine, the next instant; and finally breathed out the life of it, and
stirred no more: this we are now, from a due distance, with due brevity,
to glance at; and then—O Reader!—Courage, I see land!
|
The rest of the story is one of searching for order of any sort, and of
suppressing a few attempts to return to the principals of 1793 and 1794.
|
| |
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Two of the first acts of the Convention, very natural for it after this
Thermidor, are to be specified here: the first is renewal of the Governing
Committees. Both Sûreté Générale
and Salut Public, thinned by the
Guillotine, need filling up: we naturally fill them up with
Talliens?,
Frérons?,
victorious Thermidorian men. Still more to the purpose, we
appoint that they shall, as Law directs, not in name only but in deed, be
renewed and changed from period to period; a fourth part of them going out
monthly. The Convention will no more lie under bondage of Committees,
under terror of death; but be a free Convention; free to follow its own
judgment, and the Force of Public Opinion. Not less natural is it to enact
that Prisoners and Persons under Accusation shall have right to demand some
'Writ of Accusation,' and see clearly what they are accused of. Very
natural acts: the harbingers of hundreds not less so.
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The National Convention quickly reforms the government committees and corrects
the most odious abuses of justice.
|
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For now Fouquier's?
trade, shackled by Writ of Accusation, and legal proof,
is as good as gone; effectual only against Robespierre's Tail. The Prisons
give up their Suspects; emit them faster and faster. The Committees see
themselves besieged with Prisoners' friends; complain that they are
hindered in their work: it is as with men rushing out of a crowded place;
and obstructing one another. Turned are the tables: Prisoners pouring out
in floods; Jailors, Moutons [prison spies] and
the Tail of Robespierre going now whither
they were wont to send!—The Hundred and thirty-two Nantese Republicans,
whom we saw marching in irons, have arrived; shrunk to Ninety-four, the
fifth man of them choked by the road. They arrive: and suddenly find
themselves not pleaders for life, but denouncers to death. Their Trial is
for acquittal, and more. As the voice of a trumpet, their testimony sounds
far and wide, mere atrocities of a Reign of Terror. For a space of
nineteen days; with all solemnity and publicity. Representative
Carrier?,
Company of Marat; Noyadings, Loire Marriages, things done in darkness, come
forth into light: clear is the voice of these poor resuscitated Nantese;
and Journals and Speech and universal Committee of Mercy reverberate it
loud enough, into all ears and hearts. Deputation arrives from Arras;
denouncing the atrocities of Representative
Lebon?.
A tamed Convention
loves its own life: yet what help? Representative Lebon, Representative
Carrier must wend towards the Revolutionary Tribunal; struggle and delay as
we will, the cry of a Nation pursues them louder and louder. Them also
Tinville must abolish;—if indeed Tinville himself be not abolished.
|
Many of those responsible for
the basest abuses of the Terror now have their turn at the guillotine.
|
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We must note moreover the decrepit condition into which a once omnipotent
Mother Society has fallen.
Legendre?
flung her keys on the Convention
table, that Thermidor night; her President was guillotined with
Robespierre. The once mighty Mother came, some time after, with a subdued
countenance, begging back her keys: the keys were restored her; but the
strength could not be restored her; the strength had departed forever.
Alas, one's day is done. Vain that the Tribune in mid air sounds as of
old: to the general ear it has become a horror, and even a weariness. By
and by, Affiliation is prohibited: the mighty Mother sees herself suddenly
childless; mourns, as so hoarse a
Rachel may[213].
|
The Jacobin Society is allowed to continue, but its adherents fall off, and it
loses the right to affiliate with societies in the provinces.
|
|
The Revolutionary Committees, without Suspects to prey upon, perish fast;
as it were of famine. In Paris the whole Forty-eight of them are reduced
to Twelve, their Forty sous are abolished: yet a little while, and
Revolutionary Committees are no more. Maximum will be abolished; let
Sansculottism find food where it can. (24th December 1794
(Moniteur, No. 97).)
Neither is there now any Municipality; any centre at the Townhall.
Mayor Fleuriot?
and Company perished; whom we shall not be in haste to
replace. The Townhall remains in a broken submissive state; knows not well
what it is growing to; knows only that it is grown weak, and must obey.
What if we should split Paris into, say, a Dozen separate Municipalities;
incapable of concert! The Sections were thus rendered safe to act with:—or
indeed might not the Sections themselves be abolished? You had then
merely your Twelve manageable pacific Townships, without centre or
subdivision; (October 1795 (Dulaure, viii. 454-6).)
and sacred right of
Insurrection fell into abeyance!
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The underpinnings of Sanscoulottism, the governments of Paris and the Sections,
are intentionally kept weak.
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So much is getting abolished; fleeting swiftly into the Inane. For the
Press speaks, and the human tongue; Journals, heavy and light, in Philippic
and Burlesque: a renegade Fréron, a renegade
Prudhomme?,
loud they as ever,
only the contrary way. And Ci-devants shew themselves, almost parade
themselves; resuscitated as from death-sleep; publish what death-pains they
have had. The very Frogs of the Marsh croak with emphasis. Your
protesting Seventy-three shall, with a struggle, be emitted out of Prison,
back to their seats; your
Louvets?,
Isnards?,
Lanjuinais?,
and wrecks of
Girondism, recalled from their haylofts, and caves in Switzerland, will
resume their place in the Convention: (Deux Amis,
xiii. 3-39.) natural
foes of Terror!
|
A freer press emerges. The legislators who were expelled (and who were not
yet dead) are reinstated.
|
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Thermidorian Talliens, and mere foes of Terror, rule in this Convention,
and out of it. The compressed Mountain shrinks silent more and more.
Moderatism rises louder and louder: not as a tempest, with threatenings;
say rather, as the rushing of a mighty organ-blast, and melodious deafening
Force of Public Opinion, from the Twenty-five million windpipes of a Nation
all in Committee of Mercy: which how shall any detached body of
individuals withstand?
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Moderatism triumphs. It is what the country demands.
|
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How, above all, shall a poor National Convention, withstand it? In this
poor National Convention, broken, bewildered by long terror, perturbations,
and guillotinement, there is no Pilot, there is not now even a Danton, who
could undertake to steer you anywhither, in such press of weather. The
utmost a bewildered Convention can do, is to veer, and trim, and try to
keep itself steady: and rush, undrowned, before the wind. Needless to
struggle; to fling helm a-lee, and make 'bout ship! A bewildered
Convention sails not in the teeth of the wind; but is rapidly blown round
again. So strong is the wind, we say; and so changed; blowing fresher and
fresher, as from the sweet South-West; your devastating North-Easters, and
wild tornado-gusts of Terror, blown utterly out! All Sansculottic things
are passing away; all things are becoming Culottic.
|
The trappings of militant Jacobism are blown away like storm clouds in a
sea-change.
|
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Do but look at the cut of clothes; that light visible Result, significant
of a thousand things which are not so visible. In winter 1793, men went in
red nightcaps; Municipals themselves in sabots [clogs]:
the very Citoyennes had to
petition against such headgear. But now in this winter 1794, where is the
red nightcap? With the thing beyond the Flood. Your monied Citoyen
ponders in what elegantest style he shall dress himself: whether he shall
not even dress himself as the Free Peoples of Antiquity. The more
adventurous Citoyenne has already done it. Behold her, that beautiful
adventurous Citoyenne: in costume of the Ancient Greeks, such Greek as
Painter David could teach; her sweeping tresses snooded by glittering
antique fillet; bright-eyed tunic of the Greek women; her little feet
naked, as in Antique Statues, with mere sandals, and winding-strings of
riband,—defying the frost!
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Part of the reaction is in fashion. Dressing up is once more
acceptable.
|
|
There is such an effervescence of Luxury. For your Emigrant
Ci-devants
carried not their mansions and furnitures out of the country with them; but
left them standing here: and in the swift changes of property, what with
money coined on the Place de la Révolution, what with Army-furnishings,
sales of Emigrant Domain and Church Lands and King's Lands, and then with
the Aladdin's-lamp of
Agio?
in a time of Paper-money, such mansions have
found new occupants. Old wine, drawn from Ci-devant bottles,
descends new
throats. Paris has swept herself, relighted herself; Salons, Soupers not
Fraternal, beam once more with suitable effulgence, very singular in
colour. The fair
Cabarus?
is come out of Prison;
wedded to her red-gloomy
Dis?,
whom they say she treats too loftily: fair Cabarus gives the most
brilliant soirées. Round her is gathered a new Republican Army, of
Citoyennes in sandals; Ci-devants or other: what remnants soever of the
old grace survive, are rallied there. At her right-hand, in this cause,
labours fair Josephine the Widow
Beauharnais?,
though in straitened
circumstances: intent, both of them, to blandish down the grimness of
Republican austerity, and recivilise mankind.
|
Among the wealthy, there is a resurrection of "Society".
|
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Recivilise, as of old they were civilised: by witchery of the Orphic
fiddle-bow, and Euterpean rhythm; by the Graces, by the Smiles!
Thermidorian Deputies are there in those soirées;
Editor
Fréron?,
Orateur du
Peuple;
Barras?,
who has known other dances than the
Carmagnole[214]. Grim
Generals of the Republic are there; in enormous horse-collar neckcloth,
good against sabre-cuts; the hair gathered all into one knot, 'flowing down
behind, fixed with a comb.' Among which latter do we not recognise, once
more, the little bronzed-complexioned Artillery-Officer of Toulon, home
from the Italian Wars! Grim enough; of lean, almost cruel aspect: for he
has been in trouble, in ill health; also in ill favour, as a man promoted,
deservingly or not, by the Terrorists and Robespierre Junior. But does not
Barras know him? Will not Barras speak a word for him? Yes,—if at any
time it will serve Barras so to do. Somewhat forlorn of fortune, for the
present, stands that Artillery-Officer; looks, with those deep earnest eyes
of his, into a future as waste as the most. Taciturn; yet with the
strangest utterances in him, if you awaken him, which smite home, like
light or lightning:—on the whole, rather dangerous? A 'dissociable' man?
Dissociable enough; a natural terror and horror to all Phantasms, being
himself of the genus Reality! He stands here, without work or outlook, in
this forsaken manner;—glances nevertheless, it would seem, at the kind
glance of Josephine Beauharnais; and, for the rest, with severe
countenance, with open eyes and closed lips, waits what will betide.
|
Napoleon meets his future wife Josephine among this new high Society.
|
| |
|
That the Balls, therefore, have a new figure this winter, we can see. Not
Carmagnoles, rude 'whirlblasts of rags,' as Mercier called them 'precursors
of storm and destruction:' no, soft Ionic motions; fit for the light
sandal, and antique Grecian tunic! Efflorescence of Luxury has come out:
for men have wealth; nay new-got wealth; and under the Terror you durst not
dance except in rags. Among the innumerable kinds of Balls, let the hasty
reader mark only this single one: the kind they call Victim Balls, Bals
à
Victime. The dancers, in choice costume, have all crape round the left
arm: to be admitted, it needs that you be a Victime;
that you have lost a
relative under the Terror. Peace to the Dead; let us dance to their
memory! For in all ways one must dance.
|
Formal dancing comes back in, and it becomes fashionable to claim relatives
lost to the guillotine.
|
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It is very remarkable, according to Mercier, under what varieties of figure
this great business of dancing goes on. 'The women,' says he, 'are Nymphs,
Sultanas; sometimes Minervas, Junos, even Dianas. In lightly-unerring
gyrations they swim there; with such earnestness of purpose; with perfect
silence, so absorbed are they. What is singular,' continues he, 'the
onlookers are as it were mingled with the dancers; form as it were a
circumambient element round the different contre-dances, yet without
deranging them. It is rare, in fact, that a Sultana in such circumstances
experience the smallest collision. Her pretty foot darts down, an inch
from mine; she is off again; she is as a flash of light: but soon the
measure recalls her to the point she set out from. Like a glittering comet
she travels her eclipse, revolving on herself, as by a double effect of
gravitation and attraction.' (Mercier, Nouveau Paris,
iii. 138, 153.)
Looking forward a little way, into Time, the same Mercier discerns
Merveilleuses in
'flesh-coloured drawers' with gold circlets; mere dancing
Houris of an artificial Mahomet's-Paradise: much too Mahometan.
Montgaillard, with his splenetic eye, notes a no less strange thing; that
every fashionable Citoyenne you meet is in an interesting situation. Good
Heavens, every! Mere pillows and stuffing! adds the acrid man;—such, in a
time of depopulation by war and guillotine, being the fashion.
(Montgaillard, iv. 436-42.)
No further seek its merits to disclose.
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Behold also instead of the old grim Tappe-durs of Robespierre, what new
street-groups are these? Young men habited not in black-shag Carmagnole
spencer, but in superfine habit carre or spencer with rectangular tail
appended to it; 'square-tailed coat,' with elegant antiguillotinish
specialty of collar; 'the hair plaited at the temples,' and knotted back,
long-flowing, in military wise:
young men of what they call the Muscadin
or Dandy species! Fréron, in his fondness names them
Jeunesse dorée,
Golden, or Gilt Youth. They have come out, these Gilt Youths, in a kind of
resuscitated state; they wear crape round the left arm, such of them as
were Victims. More they carry clubs loaded with lead; in an angry manner:
any Tappe-dur or remnant of Jacobinism they may fall in with, shall fare
the worse. They have suffered much: their friends guillotined; their
pleasures, frolics, superfine collars ruthlessly repressed: 'ware now the
base Red Nightcaps who did it! Fair Cabarus and the Army of Greek sandals
smile approval. In the Théâtre Feydeau,
young Valour in square-tailed coat
eyes Beauty in Greek sandals, and kindles by her glances: Down with
Jacobinism! No Jacobin hymn or demonstration, only Thermidorian ones,
shall be permitted here: we beat down Jacobinism with clubs loaded with
lead.
|
The change in fashion has a decidedly political, anti-Jacobin subtext.
|
|
But let any one who has examined the Dandy nature, how petulant it is,
especially in the gregarious state, think what an element, in sacred right
of insurrection, this Gilt Youth was! Broils and battery; war without
truce or measure! Hateful is Sansculottism, as Death and Night. For
indeed is not the Dandy culottic, habilatory, by law of existence; 'a
cloth-animal: one that lives, moves, and has his being in cloth?'—
|
Carlyle makes a small joke about why that should be.
|
| |
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So goes it, waltzing, bickering; fair Cabarus, by Orphic witchery,
struggling to recivilise mankind. Not unsuccessfully, we hear. What
utmost Republican grimness can resist Greek sandals, in Ionic motion, the
very toes covered with gold rings?
(Ibid., Mercier (ubi supra).) By
degrees the indisputablest new-politeness rises; grows, with vigour. And
yet, whether, even to this day, that inexpressible tone of society known
under the old Kings, when Sin had 'lost all its deformity' (with or without
advantage to us), and airy Nothing had obtained such a local habitation and
establishment as she never had,—be recovered? Or even, whether it be not
lost beyond recovery? (De Staël, Considérations,
iii. c. 10, etc.)—Either
way, the world must contrive to struggle on.
|
Carlyle considers whether the Revolution may have had a permanent
effect on the morality, if not the forms, of French society.
|
|
But indeed do not these long-flowing hair-queues of a Jeunesse
Dorée in
semi-military costume betoken, unconsciously, another still more important
tendency? The Republic, abhorrent of her Guillotine, loves her Army.
|
|
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And with cause. For, surely, if good fighting be a kind of honour, as it
is, in its season; and be with the vulgar of men, even the chief kind of
honour, then here is good fighting, in good season, if there ever was.
These Sons of the Republic, they rose, in mad wrath, to deliver her from
Slavery and Cimmeria. And have they not done it? Through Maritime Alps,
through gorges of Pyrenees, through Low Countries, Northward along the
Rhine-valley, far is Cimmeria hurled back from the sacred Motherland.
Fierce as fire, they have carried her Tricolor over the faces of all her
enemies;—over scarped heights, over cannon-batteries; down, as with the
Vengeur[215],
into the dead deep sea. She has 'Eleven hundred thousand fighters
on foot,' this Republic: 'At one particular moment she had,' or supposed
she had, 'seventeen hundred thousand.' (Toulongeon, iii. c. 7;
v. c. 10 (p. 194).)
Like a ring of lightning, they, volleying and ça-ira-ing,
begirdle her from shore to shore. Cimmerian Coalition of Despots recoils;
smitten with astonishment, and strange pangs.
|
The French army has been very successful in 1794 and 1795.
|
|
Such a fire is in these Gaelic Republican men; high-blazing; which no
Coalition can withstand! Not scutcheons, with four degrees of nobility;
but ci-devant Serjeants, who have had to clutch Generalship out of the
cannon's throat, a
Pichegru?, a
Jourdan?, a
Hoche?, lead them on. They have
bread, they have iron; 'with bread and iron you can get to China.'—See
Pichegru's soldiers, this hard winter, in their looped and windowed
destitution, in their 'straw-rope shoes and cloaks of bass-mat,' how they
overrun Holland, like a demon-host, the ice having bridged all waters; and
rush shouting from victory to victory! Ships in the Texel are taken by
huzzars on horseback: fled is York; fled is the Stadtholder, glad to
escape to England, and leave Holland to fraternise.
(19th January, 1795 (Montgaillard, iv. 287-311).)
Such a Gaelic fire, we say, blazes in this
People, like the conflagration of grass and dry-jungle; which no mortal can
withstand—for the moment.
|
In particular, Pichegru achieves what even Louis XIV could not: the conquest
of Holland.
|
|
And even so it will blaze and run, scorching all things; and, from Cadiz to
Archangel, mad Sansculottism, drilled now into Soldiership, led on by some
'armed Soldier of Democracy' (say, that Monosyllabic Artillery-Officer),
will set its foot cruelly on the necks of its enemies; and its shouting and
their shrieking shall fill the world!—Rash Coalised Kings, such a fire
have ye kindled; yourselves fireless, your fighters animated only by
drill-serjeants, messroom moralities, and the drummer's cat! However, it is
begun, and will not end: not for a matter of twenty years. So long, this
Gaelic fire, through its successive changes of colour and character, will
blaze over the face of Europe, and afflict and scorch all men:—till it
provoke all men; till it kindle another kind of fire, the Teutonic kind,
namely; and be swallowed up, so to speak, in a day! For there is a fire
comparable to the burning of dry-jungle and grass; most sudden, high-blazing:
and another fire which we liken to the burning of coal, or even
of anthracite coal; difficult to kindle, but then which nothing will put
out. The ready Gaelic fire, we can remark further, and remark not in
Pichegrus only, but in innumerable
Voltaires?,
Racines?,
Laplaces?, no less;
for a man, whether he fight, or sing, or think, will remain the same unity
of a man,—is admirable for roasting eggs, in every conceivable sense. The
Teutonic anthracite again, as we see in Luthers, Leibnitzes, Shakespeares,
is preferable for smelting metals. How happy is our Europe that has both
kinds!—
|
In reflecting on the French, then the German successes in Europe over the
first 40 years of the 19th century, Carlyle attempts to define their national
characters.
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|
But be this as it may, the Republic is clearly triumphing. In the spring
of the year Mentz Town again sees itself besieged; will again change
master: did not
Merlin
the Thionviller, 'with wild beard and look,' say it
was not for the last time they saw him there? The Elector of Mentz
circulates among his brother Potentates this pertinent query, Were it not
advisable to treat of Peace? Yes! answers many an Elector from the bottom
of his heart. But, on the other hand, Austria hesitates; finally refuses,
being subsidied by Pitt. As to Pitt, whoever hesitate, he, suspending his
Habeas-corpus, suspending his
Cash-payments[216],
stands inflexible,—spite of
foreign reverses; spite of domestic obstacles, of Scotch National
Conventions and English Friends of the
People[217],
whom he is obliged to
arraign, to hang, or even to see acquitted with jubilee: a lean inflexible
man. The Majesty of Spain, as we predicted, makes Peace; also the Majesty
of Prussia: and there is a Treaty of Bâle.
(5th April, 1795 (Montgaillard, iv. 319).)
Treaty with black Anarchists and Regicides!
Alas, what help? You cannot hang this Anarchy; it is like to hang you:
you must needs treat with it.
|
Austria and England remain hostile to France, but Spain and Prussia sign
peace treaties.
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Likewise, General
Hoche?
has even succeeded in pacificating La Vendée.
Rogue Rossignol?
and his 'Infernal Columns' have vanished: by firmness and
justice, by sagacity and industry, General Hoche has done it. Taking
'Movable Columns,' not infernal; girdling-in the Country; pardoning the
submissive, cutting down the resistive, limb after limb of the Revolt is
brought under.
La
Rochejacquelin?,
last of our Nobles, fell in battle;
Stofflet?
himself makes terms;
Georges-Cadoudal?
is back to Brittany, among
his Chouans[218]:
the frightful gangrene of La Vendée seems veritably
extirpated. It has cost, as they reckon in round numbers, the lives of a
Hundred Thousand fellow-mortals; with noyadings, conflagratings by infernal
column, which defy arithmetic. This is the La Vendée War.
(Histoire de la
Guerre de la Vendée, par M. le Comte de Vauban,
Mémoires de Madame de la Rochejacquelin, etc.)
|
By the middle of 1795, even the persistent Royalist
rebellion in the Vendée has been
suppressed.
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Nay in few months, it does burst up once more, but once only:—blown upon
by Pitt, by our Ci-devant
Puisaye?
of Calvados, and others.
In the month of
July 1795, English Ships will ride in Quiberon roads. There will be
debarkation of chivalrous Ci-devants, of volunteer Prisoners-of-war—eager
to desert; of fire-arms, Proclamations, clothes-chests, Royalists and
specie. Whereupon also, on the Republican side, there will be rapid stand-
to-arms; with ambuscade marchings by Quiberon beach, at midnight; storming
of Fort Penthievre; war-thunder mingling with the roar of the nightly main;
and such a morning light as has seldom dawned; debarkation hurled back into
its boats, or into the devouring billows, with wreck and wail;—in one
word, a Ci-devant Puisaye as totally ineffectual here as he was in
Calvados, when he rode from Vernon Castle without boots.
(Deux Amis, xiv. 94-106; Puisaye, Memoires, iii-vii.)
|
A last attempt to restart the Vendée uprising by landing a force of
French exiles from English ships at Quiberon fails miserably.
|
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Again, therefore, it has cost the lives of many a brave man. Among whom
the whole world laments the brave Son of
Sombreuil?.
Ill-fated family! The
father and younger son went to the guillotine; the heroic daughter
languishes, reduced to want, hides her woes from History: the elder son
perishes here; shot by military tribunal as an Emigrant; Hoche himself
cannot save him. If all wars, civil and other, are misunderstandings, what
a thing must right-understanding be!
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The Convention, borne on the tide of Fortune towards foreign Victory, and
driven by the strong wind of Public Opinion towards Clemency and Luxury, is
rushing fast; all skill of pilotage is needed, and more than all, in such a
velocity.
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The National Convention is aroused from its lethargy.
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Curious to see, how we veer and whirl, yet must ever whirl round again, and
scud before the wind. If, on the one hand, we re-admit the Protesting
Seventy-Three, we, on the other hand, agree to consummate the Apotheosis of
Marat; lift his body from the Cordeliers Church, and transport it to the
Pantheon of Great Men,—flinging out Mirabeau to make room for him. To no
purpose: so strong blows Public Opinion! A Gilt Youthhood, in plaited
hair-tresses, tears down his Busts from the Théâtre
Feydeau; tramples them
under foot; scatters them, with vociferation into the Cesspool of
Montmartre. (Moniteur, du 25 Septembre 1794,
du 4 Février 1795.) Swept is
his Chapel from the Place du Carrousel; the Cesspool of Montmartre will
receive his very dust. Shorter godhood had no divine man. Some four
months in this Pantheon, Temple of All the Immortals; then to the Cesspool,
grand Cloaca of Paris and the World!
'His Busts at one time amounted to
four thousand.' Between Temple of All the Immortals and Cloaca of the
World, how are poor human creatures whirled!
|
There is at first some attempt at balance: the delegates who protested the
exclusion of the Girondists are allowed to return; but also Marat is placed in
the Pantheon. Public opinion effectively vetoes the second declaration.
|
|
Furthermore the question arises, When will the Constitution of Ninety-three,
of 1793, come into action? Considerate heads surmise, in all
privacy, that the Constitution of Ninety-three will never come into action.
Let them busy themselves to get ready a better.
|
|
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Or, again, where now are the Jacobins? Childless, most decrepit, as we
saw, sat the mighty Mother; gnashing not teeth, but empty gums, against a
traitorous Thermidorian Convention and the current of things. Twice were
Billaud?,
Collot?
and Company accused in Convention, by a
Lecointre?,
by a
Legendre?;
and the second time, it was not voted calumnious. Billaud from
the Jacobin tribune says, "The lion is not dead, he is only sleeping."
They ask him in Convention, What he means by the awakening of the lion?
And bickerings, of an extensive sort, arose in the Palais-Égalité between
Tappe-durs and the Gilt Youthhood; cries of "Down with the Jacobins, the
Jacoquins," coquin meaning scoundrel!
The Tribune in mid-air gave battle-sound;
answered only by silence and uncertain gasps. Talk was, in
Government Committees, of 'suspending' the Jacobin Sessions.
Hark, there!—it is in Allhallow-time,
or on the Hallow-eve itself, month ci-devant
November, year once named of Grace 1794, sad eve for Jacobinism,—volley of
stones dashing through our windows, with jingle and execration! The female
Jacobins, famed Tricoteuses with knitting-needles, take flight;
are met at
the doors by a Gilt Youthhood and 'mob of four thousand persons;' are
hooted, flouted, hustled; fustigated, in a scandalous manner, cotillons
retroussés; [turned up petticoats]—and vanish in mere hysterics.
Sally out ye male Jacobins!
The male Jacobins sally out; but only to battle, disaster and confusion.
So that armed Authority has to intervene: and again on the morrow to
intervene; and suspend the Jacobin Sessions forever and a day.
(Moniteur,
Séances du 10-12 Novembre 1794: Deux Amis, xiii. 43-49.)
Gone are the
Jacobins; into invisibility; in a storm of laughter and howls. Their place
is made a Normal School, the first of the kind seen; it then vanishes into
a 'Market of Thermidor Ninth;' into a Market of Saint-Honoré,
where is now
peaceable chaffering for poultry and greens. The solemn temples, the great
globe itself; the baseless fabric! Are not we such stuff, we and this
world of ours, as Dreams are made of?[219]
|
The suddenly toothless Jacobins Club is attacked and eventually shuttered.
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Maximum being abrogated, Trade was to take its own free course. Alas,
Trade, shackled, topsyturvied in the way we saw, and now suddenly let go
again, can for the present take no course at all; but only reel and
stagger. There is, so to speak, no Trade whatever for the time being.
Assignats, long sinking, emitted in such quantities, sink now with an
alacrity beyond parallel. "Combien?" said one, to a Hackney-coachman,
"What fare?" "Six thousand livres," answered he: some three hundred
pounds sterling, in Paper-money. (Mercier, ii. 94.
('1st February, 1796:
at the Bourse of Paris, the gold louis,' of 20 francs in silver, 'costs
5,300 francs in assignats.' Montgaillard, iv. 419).)
Pressure of Maximum
withdrawn, the things it compressed likewise withdraw. 'Two ounces of
bread per day' in the modicum allotted: wide-waving, doleful are the
Bakers' Queues; Farmers' houses are become pawnbrokers' shops.
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Price controls are lifted with no transition, resulting in inflation and even
greater dearth.
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One can imagine, in these circumstances, with what humour Sansculottism
growled in its throat, "La Cabarus;"
beheld Ci-devants return dancing,
the
Thermidor effulgence of recivilisation, and Balls in flesh-coloured
drawers. Greek tunics and sandals; hosts of Muscadins [dandies]
parading, with their
clubs loaded with lead;—and we here, cast out, abhorred, 'picking offals
from the street;' (Fantin Desodoards,
Histoire de la Révolution, vii. c.
4.) agitating in Baker's Queue for our two ounces of bread! Will the
Jacobin lion, which they say is meeting secretly 'at the
Archevèché, in
bonnet rouge with loaded pistols,' not awaken?
Seemingly not. Our Collot,
our Billaud, Barrère,
Vadier?,
in these last days of March 1795,
are found
worthy of Déportation,
of Banishment beyond seas; and shall, for the
present, be trundled off to the Castle of Ham. The lion is dead;—or
writhing in death-throes!
|
But even lack of bread — so often the cause of unrest in the past, does not
move the sanscoulottes to further insurrection.
|
| |
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Behold, accordingly, on the day they call Twelfth of Germinal (which is
also called First of April, not a lucky day), how lively are these streets
of Paris once more! Floods of hungry women, of squalid hungry men;
ejaculating: "Bread, Bread and the Constitution of Ninety-three!" Paris
has risen, once again, like the Ocean-tide; is flowing towards the
Tuileries, for Bread and a Constitution. Tuileries Sentries do their best;
but it serves not: the Ocean-tide sweeps them away; inundates the
Convention Hall itself; howling, "Bread, and the Constitution!"
|
There is a rising, 12 Germinal of Year III, when the Paris mob marches on
the Convention.
|
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Unhappy Senators, unhappy People, there is yet, after all toils and broils,
no Bread, no Constitution. "Du pain, pas tant de longs discours,
Bread,
not bursts of Parliamentary eloquence!" so wailed the Menads of Maillard,
five years ago and more; so wail ye to this hour. The Convention, with
unalterable countenance, with what thought one knows not, keeps its seat in
this waste howling chaos; rings its stormbell from the Pavilion of Unity.
Section Lepelletier, old Filles Saint-Thomas,
who are of the money-changing
species; these and Gilt Youthhood fly to the rescue; sweep chaos forth
again, with levelled bayonets. Paris is declared 'in a state of siege.'
Pichegru, Conqueror of Holland, who happens to be here, is named
Commandant, till the disturbance end. He, in one day, so to speak, ends
it. He accomplishes the transfer of Billaud, Collot and Company;
dissipating all opposition 'by two cannon-shots,' blank cannon-shots, and
the terror of his name; and thereupon announcing, with a Laconicism which
should be imitated, "Representatives, your decrees are executed,"
(Moniteur, Séance du 13 Germinal (2d April)
1795.) lays down his
Commandantship.
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It is quickly put down.
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This Revolt of Germinal, therefore, has passed, like a vain cry. The
Prisoners rest safe in Ham, waiting for ships; some nine hundred 'chief
Terrorists of Paris' are disarmed. Sansculottism, swept forth with
bayonets, has vanished, with its misery, to the bottom of Saint-Antoine and
Saint-Marceau.—Time was when Usher Maillard with Menads could alter the
course of Legislation; but that time is not. Legislation seems to have got
bayonets; Section Lepelletier takes its firelock, not for us! We retire to
our dark dens; our cry of hunger is called a Plot of Pitt; the Saloons
glitter, the flesh-coloured Drawers gyrate as before. It was for "The
Cabarus" then, and her Muscadins and Money-changers, that we fought? It
was for Balls in flesh-coloured drawers that we took Feudalism by the
beard, and did, and dared, shedding our blood like water? Expressive
Silence, muse thou their praise!—
|
Carlyle thinks the underclass may justly ask "we did all this for what?"
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Representative
Carrier?
went to the Guillotine, in December last; protesting
that he acted by orders. The Revolutionary Tribunal, after all it has
devoured, has now only, as Anarchic things do, to devour itself. In the
early days of May, men see a remarkable thing:
Fouquier-Tinville?
pleading
at the Bar once his own. He and his chief Jurymen,
Leroi
August-Tenth?,
Juryman Vilate?,
a Batch of Sixteen; pleading hard, protesting that they
acted by orders: but pleading in vain. Thus men break the axe with which
they have done hateful things; the axe itself having grown hateful. For
the rest, Fouquier died hard enough: "Where are thy Batches?" howled the
People.—"Hungry canaille," asked Fouquier,
"is thy Bread cheaper, wanting them?"
|
Some of the most famous figures of the Revolution, including those who ran
the Revolutionary Tribunal, are themselves tried and executed in the year
following 9 Thermidor.
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Remarkable Fouquier; once but as other Attorneys and Law-beagles, which
hunt ravenous on this Earth, a well-known phasis of human nature; and now
thou art and remainest the most remarkable Attorney that ever lived and
hunted in the Upper Air! For, in this terrestrial Course of Time, there
was to be an Avatar of Attorneyism;
the Heavens had said, Let there be an
Incarnation, not divine, of the venatory [predacious] Attorney-spirit which keeps its
eye on the bond only;—and lo, this was it; and they have attorneyed it in
its turn. Vanish, then, thou rat-eyed Incarnation of Attorneyism; who at
bottom wert but as other Attorneys, and too hungry Sons of Adam! Juryman
Vilate had striven hard for life, and published, from his Prison, an
ingenious Book, not unknown to us; but it would not stead: he also had to
vanish; and this his Book of the Secret Causes of Thermidor,
full of lies,
with particles of truth in it undiscoverable otherwise, is all that remains
of him.
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Carlyle engages in attorney-bashing.
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Revolutionary Tribunal has done; but vengeance has not done.
Representative
Lebon?,
after long struggling, is handed over to the ordinary
Law Courts, and by them guillotined. Nay, at Lyons and elsewhere,
resuscitated Moderatism, in its vengeance, will not wait the slow process
of Law; but bursts into the Prisons, sets fire to the prisons; burns some
three score imprisoned Jacobins to dire death, or chokes them 'with the
smoke of straw.' There go vengeful truculent 'Companies of Jesus,'
'Companies of the Sun;' slaying Jacobinism wherever they meet with it;
flinging it into the Rhone-stream; which, once more, bears seaward a horrid
cargo. (Moniteur, du 27 Juin, du 31 Août, 1795;
Deux Amis, xiii. 121-9.)
Whereupon, at Toulon, Jacobinism rises in revolt; and is like to hang the
National Representatives.—With such action and reaction, is not a poor
National Convention hard bested? It is like the settlement of winds and
waters, of seas long tornado-beaten; and goes on with jumble and with
jangle. Now flung aloft, now sunk in trough of the sea, your Vessel of the
Republic has need of all pilotage and more.
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1795 sees reaction and counter-reaction to the Jacobin rule.
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What Parliament that ever sat under the Moon had such a series of
destinies, as this National Convention of France? It came together to make
the Constitution; and instead of that, it has had to make nothing but
destruction and confusion: to burn up Catholicisms, Aristocratisms, to
worship Reason and dig Saltpetre, to fight Titanically with itself and with
the whole world. A Convention decimated by the Guillotine; above the tenth
man has bowed his neck to the axe. Which has seen Carmagnoles danced
before it, and patriotic strophes sung amid Church-spoils; the wounded of
the Tenth of August defile in handbarrows; and, in the Pandemonial
Midnight, Égalité's dames in tricolor drink lemonade, and spectrum of
Sieyès mount, saying, Death sans phrase. A Convention which has
effervesced, and which has congealed; which has been red with rage, and
also pale with rage: sitting with pistols in its pocket, drawing sword (in
a moment of effervescence): now storming to the four winds, through a
Danton-voice, Awake, O France, and smite the tyrants; now frozen mute under
its Robespierre, and answering his dirge-voice by a dubious gasp.
Assassinated, decimated; stabbed at, shot at, in baths, on streets and
staircases; which has been the nucleus of Chaos. Has it not heard the
chimes at midnight? It has deliberated, beset by a Hundred thousand armed
men with artillery-furnaces and provision-carts. It has been betocsined,
bestormed; over-flooded by black deluges of Sansculottism; and has heard
the shrill cry, Bread and Soap. For, as we say, its the nucleus of Chaos;
it sat as the centre of Sansculottism; and had spread its pavilion on the
waste Deep, where is neither path nor landmark, neither bottom nor shore.
In intrinsic valour, ingenuity, fidelity, and general force and manhood, it
has perhaps not far surpassed the average of Parliaments: but in frankness
of purpose, in singularity of position, it seeks its fellow. One other
Sansculottic submersion, or at most two, and this wearied vessel of a
Convention reaches land.
|
Carlyle sees the National Convention as unique among all Parliaments, in part
because of what it did, but mainly because of what it went through.
|
| |
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Revolt of Germinal Twelfth ended as a vain cry; moribund Sansculottism was
swept back into invisibility. There it has lain moaning, these six weeks:
moaning, and also scheming. Jacobins disarmed, flung forth from their
Tribune in mid air, must needs try to help themselves, in secret conclave
under ground. Lo, therefore, on the First day of the Month Prairial,
20th
of May 1795, sound of the générale once more;
beating sharp, ran-tan, To
arms, To arms!
|
Shortly after the 12 Germinal rising, there is another. The main issue is
still hunger; the political aim is to finally implement the Constitution
of 1793.
|
|
Sansculottism has risen, yet again, from its death-lair; waste wild-flowing,
as the unfruitful Sea. Saint-Antoine is a-foot: "Bread and the
Constitution of Ninety-three," so sounds it; so stands it written with
chalk on the hats of men. They have their pikes, their firelocks; Paper of
Grievances; standards; printed Proclamation, drawn up in quite official
manner,—considering this, and also considering that, they, a much-enduring
Sovereign People, are in Insurrection; will have Bread and the Constitution
of Ninety-three. And so the Barriers are seized, and the
générale beats,
and tocsins discourse discord. Black deluges overflow the Tuileries; spite
of sentries, the Sanctuary itself is invaded: enter, to our Order of the
Day, a torrent of dishevelled women, wailing, "Bread! Bread!" President
may well cover himself; and have his own tocsin rung in 'the Pavilion of
Unity;' the ship of the State again labours and leaks; overwashed, near to
swamping, with unfruitful brine.
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This time the protesters make it into the Convention chambers.
|
|
What a day, once more! Women are driven out: men storm irresistibly in;
choke all corridors, thunder at all gates. Deputies, putting forth head,
obtest [entreat], conjure;
Saint-Antoine rages, "Bread and Constitution." Report has
risen that the 'Convention is assassinating the women:' crushing and
rushing, clangor and furor! The oak doors have become as oak tambourines,
sounding under the axe of Saint-Antoine; plaster-work crackles, woodwork
booms and jingles; door starts up;—bursts-in Saint-Antoine with frenzy and
vociferation, Rag-standards, printed Proclamation, drum-music:
astonishment to eye and ear. Gendarmes, loyal Sectioners charge through
the other door; they are recharged; musketry exploding: Saint-Antoine
cannot be expelled. Obtesting Deputies obtest vainly; Respect the
President; approach not the President!
Deputy
Féraud?,
stretching out his
hands, baring his bosom scarred in the Spanish wars, obtests vainly:
threatens and resists vainly. Rebellious Deputy of the Sovereign, if thou
have fought, have not we too? We have no bread, no Constitution! They
wrench poor Féraud; they tumble him, trample him, wrath waxing to see
itself work: they drag him into the corridor, dead or near it; sever his
head, and fix it on a pike. Ah, did an unexampled Convention want this
variety of destiny too, then? Féraud's bloody head goes on a pike.
Such a
game has begun; Paris and the Earth may wait how it will end.
|
Jean Féraud, a Deputy, is killed by the mob.
|
|
And so it billows free though all Corridors; within, and without, far as
the eye reaches, nothing but Bedlam, and the great Deep broken loose!
President Boissy
d'Anglas?
sits like a rock: the rest of the Convention is
floated 'to the upper benches;' Sectioners and Gendarmes still ranking
there to form a kind of wall for them. And Insurrection rages; rolls its
drums; will read its Paper of Grievances, will have this decreed, will have
that. Covered sits President Boissy, unyielding; like a rock in the
beating of seas. They menace him, level muskets at him, he yields not;
they hold up Féraud's bloody head to him,
with grave stern air he bows to
it, and yields not.
|
Though surrounded, the deputies do not yield to the protesters demands.
|
|
And the Paper of Grievances cannot get itself read for uproar; and the
drums roll, and the throats bawl; and Insurrection, like sphere-music, is
inaudible for very noise: Decree us this, Decree us that. One man we
discern bawling 'for the space of an hour at all intervals,' "Je demande
l'arrestation des coquins et des lâches." Really one of the most
comprehensive Petitions ever put up: which indeed, to this hour, includes
all that you can reasonably ask Constitution of the Year One, Rotten-Borough,
Ballot-Box, or other miraculous Political Ark of the Covenant to
do for you to the end of the world! I also demand arrestment of the Knaves
and Dastards, and nothing more whatever. National Representation, deluged
with black Sansculottism glides out; for help elsewhere, for safety
elsewhere: here is no help.
|
Many deputies slip out of the Convention chambers, leaving only the most
radical members.
|
|
About four in the afternoon, there remain hardly more than some Sixty
Members: mere friends, or even secret-leaders; a remnant of the Mountain-
crest, held in silence by Thermidorian thraldom. Now is the time for them;
now or never let them descend, and speak! They descend, these Sixty,
invited by Sansculottism:
Romme?
of the New Calendar,
Ruhl?
of the Sacred
Phial, Goujon?,
Duquesnoy?,
Soubrany?,
and the rest. Glad Sansculottism forms
a ring for them; Romme takes the President's chair; they begin resolving
and decreeing. Fast enough now comes Decree after Decree, in alternate
brief strains, or strophe and antistrophe,—what will cheapen bread, what
will awaken the dormant lion. And at every new Decree, Sansculottism
shouts, Decreed, Decreed; and rolls its drums.
|
For a moment it is like the old days: a Paris mob voting "legislation" with
the collaboration of the Mountain deputies.
|
|
Fast enough; the work of months in hours,—when see, a Figure enters, whom
in the lamp-light we recognise to be Legendre; and utters words: fit to be
hissed out! And then see, Section Lepelletier or other Muscadin Section
enters, and Gilt Youth, with levelled bayonets, countenances screwed to the
sticking-place! Tramp, tramp, with bayonets gleaming in the lamp-light:
what can one do, worn down with long riot, grown heartless, dark, hungry,
but roll back, but rush back, and escape who can? The very windows need to
be thrown up, that Sansculottism may escape fast enough. Money-changer
Sections and Gilt Youth sweep them forth, with steel besom, far into the
depths of Saint-Antoine. Triumph once more! The Decrees of that Sixty are
not so much as rescinded; they are declared null and non-extant. Romme,
Ruhl, Goujon and the ringleaders, some thirteen in all, are decreed
Accused. Permanent-session ends at three in the morning.
(Deux Amis,
xiii. 129-46.) Sansculottism, once more flung resupine, lies sprawling;
sprawling its last.
|
This time the insurrectionists are quickly driven out by the militias of
other sections, and the collaborating
Montanists are arrested.
|
|
Such was the First of Prairial, 20th May, 1795. Second and Third of
Prairial, during which Sansculottism still sprawled, and unexpectedly rang
its tocsin, and assembled in arms, availed Sansculottism nothing. What
though with our Rommes and Ruhls, accused but not yet arrested, we make a
new 'True National Convention' of our own, over in the East; and put the
others Out of Law? What though we rank in arms and march? Armed Force and
Muscadin Sections, some thirty thousand men, environ that old False
Convention: we can but bully one another: bandying nicknames,
"Muscadins," against "Blooddrinkers, Buveurs de Sang."
Féraud's Assassin,
taken with the red hand, and sentenced, and now near to Guillotine and
Place de Grève, is retaken; is carried back into Saint-Antoine: to no
purpose. Convention Sectionaries and Gilt Youth come, according to Decree,
to seek him; nay to disarm Saint-Antoine! And they do disarm it: by
rolling of cannon, by springing upon enemy's cannon; by military audacity,
and terror of the Law. Saint-Antoine surrenders its arms; Santerre even
advising it, anxious for life and brewhouse. Féraud's Assassin flings
himself from a high roof: and all is lost. (Toulongeon,
v. 297; Moniteur, Nos. 244, 5, 6.)
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There are after-shocks the next two days, but the government is only shaken.
At the end, the insurrectionists are suppressed and disarmed.
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Discerning which things, old Ruhl shot a pistol through his old white head;
dashed his life in pieces, as he had done the Sacred Phial of Rheims.
Romme, Goujon and the others stand ranked before a swiftly-appointed, swift
Military Tribunal. Hearing the sentence, Goujon drew a knife, struck it
into his breast, passed it to his neighbour Romme; and fell dead. Romme
did the like; and another all but did it; Roman-death rushing on there, as
in electric-chain, before your Bailiffs could intervene! The Guillotine
had the rest.
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The thirteen Mountain members accused in the uprising are either executed or
commit suicide.
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They were the Ultimi Romanorum [last of the Romans].
Billaud, Collot and Company are now
ordered to be tried for life; but are found to be already off, shipped for
Sinamarri, and the hot mud of Surinam. There let Billaud surround himself
with flocks of tame parrots; Collot take the yellow fever, and drinking a
whole bottle of brandy, burn up his entrails. (Dictionnaire
des Hommes
Marquans, paras Billaud, Collot.) Sansculottism sprawls no more. The
dormant lion has become a dead one; and now, as we see, any hoof may smite
him.
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This marks the end of Jacobinism, Sansculottism and the Mountain party which
supported these ideas in the National Convention.
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So dies Sansculottism, the body of Sansculottism, or is changed. Its
ragged Pythian Carmagnole-dance has transformed itself into a Pyrrhic, into
a dance of Cabarus Balls. Sansculottism is dead; extinguished by new isms
of that kind, which were its own natural progeny; and is buried, we may
say, with such deafening jubilation and disharmony of funeral-knell on
their part, that only after some half century or so does one begin to learn
clearly why it ever was alive.
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The rejection of Jacobinism is so complete that even what led to it is
forgotten.
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And yet a meaning lay in it: Sansculottism verily was alive, a New-Birth
of TIME; nay it still lives, and is not dead, but changed. The soul of it
still lives; still works far and wide, through one bodily shape into
another less amorphous, as is the way of cunning Time with his
New-Births:—till, in some perfected shape,
it embrace the whole circuit of the world!
For the wise man may now everywhere discern that he must found on his
manhood, not on the garnitures of his manhood. He who, in these Epochs of
our Europe, founds on garnitures, formulas, culottisms of what sort soever,
is founding on old cloth and sheep-skin, and cannot endure. But as for the
body of Sansculottism, that is dead and buried,—and, one hopes, need not
reappear, in primary amorphous shape, for another thousand years!
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The lesson of the French Revolution—that national institutions which do not
serve the nation are no longer viable—is well understood in Carlyle's Europe.
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It was the frightfullest thing ever borne of Time? One of the
frightfullest. This Convention, now grown Anti-Jacobin, did, with an eye
to justify and fortify itself, publish Lists of what the Reign of Terror
had perpetrated: Lists of Persons Guillotined. The Lists, cries splenetic
Abbé
Montgaillard?,
were not complete. They contain the names of,
How many
persons thinks the reader?—Two Thousand all but a few. There were above
Four Thousand, cries Montgaillard: so many were guillotined, fusilladed,
noyaded, done to dire death; of whom Nine Hundred were women.
(Montgaillard, iv. 241.)
It is a horrible sum of human lives, M. l'Abbé:—some
ten times as many shot rightly on a field of battle, and one might
have had his Glorious-Victory with Te-Deum. It is not far from the
two-hundredth part of what perished in the entire
Seven Years War[220]. By which
Seven Years War, did not the great Fritz wrench Silesia from the great
Theresa; and a
Pompadour?,
stung by epigrams, satisfy herself that she could
not be an
Agnes Sorel??[221]
The head of man is a strange vacant sounding-shell,
M. l'Abbé; and studies
Cocker?
to small purpose.
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The political deaths caused by the Revolution can't be accurately counted,
but are a small fraction of the toll of 18th century wars.
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But what if History, somewhere on this Planet, were to hear of a Nation,
the third soul of whom had not for thirty weeks each year as many third-rate
potatoes as would sustain him? (Report of the Irish Poor-Law
Commission, 1836.) History, in that case, feels bound to consider that
starvation is starvation; that starvation from age to age presupposes much:
History ventures to assert that the French Sansculotte of Ninety-three,
who, roused from long death-sleep, could rush at once to the frontiers, and
die fighting for an immortal Hope and Faith of Deliverance for him and his,
was but the second-miserablest of men! The Irish Sans-potato, had he not
senses then, nay a soul? In his frozen darkness, it was bitter for him to
die famishing; bitter to see his children famish. It was bitter for him to
be a beggar, a liar and a knave. Nay, if that dreary Greenland-wind of
benighted Want, perennial from sire to son, had frozen him into a kind of
torpor and numb callosity, so that he saw not, felt not, was this, for a
creature with a soul in it, some assuagement; or the cruellest wretchedness
of all?
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There have been worse social conditions; the famine in Ireland in Carlyle's
time was causing wide-spread starvation
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Such things were, such things are; and they go on in silence peaceably:
and Sansculottisms follow them. History, looking back over this France
through long times, back to Turgot's time for instance, when dumb Drudgery
staggered up to its King's Palace, and in wide expanse of sallow faces,
squalor and winged raggedness, presented hieroglyphically its Petition of
Grievances; and for answer got hanged on a 'new gallows forty feet
high,'—confesses
mournfully that there is no period to be met with, in which the
general Twenty-five Millions of France suffered less than in this period
which they name Reign of Terror! But it was not the Dumb Millions that
suffered here; it was the Speaking Thousands, and Hundreds, and Units; who
shrieked and published, and made the world ring with their wail, as they
could and should: that is the grand peculiarity. The frightfullest Births
of Time are never the loud-speaking ones, for these soon die; they are the
silent ones, which can live from century to century! Anarchy, hateful as
Death, is abhorrent to the whole nature of man; and must itself soon die.
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And even in France, conditions were rarely better than they were during the
Terror. It is not the suffering of the masses, but of the oligarchy that is
the core of the Terror. It is not that these things happened, but that they
were made known.
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Wherefore let all men know what of depth and of height is still revealed in
man; and, with fear and wonder, with just sympathy and just antipathy, with
clear eye and open heart, contemplate it and appropriate it; and draw
innumerable inferences from it. This inference, for example, among the
first: 'That if the gods of this lower world will sit on their glittering
thrones, indolent as Epicurus' gods, with the living Chaos of Ignorance and
Hunger weltering uncared for at their feet, and smooth Parasites preaching,
Peace, peace, when there is no peace,' then the dark Chaos, it would seem,
will rise; has risen, and O Heavens! has it not tanned their skins into
breeches for itself? That there be no second Sansculottism in our Earth
for a thousand years, let us understand well what the first was; and let
Rich and Poor of us go and do otherwise.—But to our tale.
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The course of the French Revolution was a natural one, springing from the
failure of the ruling oligarchy to care for those whom it ruled. Current
oligarchs must understand this to prevent its reoccurrance.
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The Muscadin Sections greatly rejoice; Cabarus Balls gyrate: the well-nigh
insoluble problem Republic without Anarchy, have we not solved
it?—Law of
Fraternity or Death is gone: chimerical Obtain-who-need has become
practical Hold-who-have.
To anarchic Republic of the Poverties there has
succeeded orderly Republic of the Luxuries; which will continue as long as
it can.
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But even in France, the essential lesson is quickly forgotten.
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On the Pont au Change, on the Place de Grève, in long sheds, Mercier, in
these summer evenings, saw working men at their repast. One's allotment of
daily bread has sunk to an ounce and a half. 'Plates containing each three
grilled herrings, sprinkled with shorn onions, wetted with a little
vinegar; to this add some morsel of boiled prunes, and lentils swimming in
a clear sauce: at these frugal tables, the cook's gridiron hissing near
by, and the pot simmering on a fire between two stones, I have seen them
ranged by the hundred; consuming, without bread, their scant messes, far
too moderate for the keenness of their appetite, and the extent of their
stomach.' (Nouveau Paris, iv. 118.)
Seine water, rushing plenteous by,
will supply the deficiency.
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Just as before the Revolution, there is dearth and hunger after.
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O man of Toil, thy struggling and thy daring, these six long years of
insurrection and tribulation, thou hast profited nothing by it, then? Thou
consumest thy herring and water, in the blessed gold-red evening. O why
was the Earth so beautiful, becrimsoned with dawn and twilight, if man's
dealings with man were to make it a vale of scarcity, of tears, not even
soft tears? Destroying of Bastilles, discomfiting of Brunswicks, fronting
of Principalities and Powers, of Earth and Tophet, all that thou hast dared
and endured,—it was for a Republic of the Cabarus Saloons? Patience; thou
must have patience: the end is not yet.
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But the revolution was not for nothing.
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In fact, what can be more natural, one may say inevitable, as a Post-
Sansculottic transitionary state, than even this? Confused wreck of a
Republic of the Poverties, which ended in Reign of Terror, is arranging
itself into such composure as it can. Evangel of Jean-Jacques, and most
other Evangels, becoming incredible, what is there for it but return to the
old Evangel of Mammon? Contrat-Social is true or untrue, Brotherhood is
Brotherhood or Death; but money always will buy money's worth: in the
wreck of human dubitations, this remains indubitable, that Pleasure is
pleasant. Aristocracy of Feudal Parchment has passed away with a mighty
rushing; and now, by a natural course, we arrive at Aristocracy of the
Moneybag. It is the course through which all European Societies are at
this hour travelling. Apparently a still baser sort of Aristocracy? An
infinitely baser; the basest yet known!
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Perhaps it is natural that a society that has failed to find a basis in ideas
finds one in money. It seemed a common trend in Carlyle's time.
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In which however there is this advantage, that, like Anarchy itself, it
cannot continue. Hast thou considered how Thought is stronger than
Artillery-parks, and (were it fifty years after death and martyrdom, or
were it two thousand years) writes and unwrites Acts of Parliament, removes
mountains; models the World like soft clay? Also how the beginning of all
Thought, worth the name, is Love; and the wise head never yet was, without
first the generous heart? The Heavens cease not their bounty: they send
us generous hearts into every generation. And now what generous heart can
pretend to itself, or be hoodwinked into believing, that Loyalty to the
Moneybag is a noble Loyalty? Mammon, cries the generous heart out of all
ages and countries, is the basest of known Gods, even of known Devils. In
him what glory is there, that ye should worship him? No glory discernable;
not even terror: at best, detestability, ill-matched with
despicability!—Generous hearts, discerning, on this hand,
widespread Wretchedness, dark
without and within, moistening its ounce-and-half of bread with tears; and
on that hand, mere Balls in fleshcoloured drawers, and inane or foul
glitter of such sort,—cannot but ejaculate, cannot but announce: Too
much, O divine Mammon; somewhat too much!—The voice of these, once
announcing itself, carries fiat and pereat in it,
for all things here
below.
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But in Carlyle's view, financial oligarchy contains the seeds of its own
destruction.
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Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse
than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy
is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but
which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise
nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it,
sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,—the
new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it
slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men
unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for
this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under
the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be
not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!—It
remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves
quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder:
wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends.
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By 1795 the time has come for the end of anarchy and
reestablishment of order on whatever basis.
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The Convention, driven such a course by wild wind, wild tide, and steerage
and non-steerage, these three years, has become weary of its own existence,
sees all men weary of it; and wishes heartily to finish. To the last, it
has to strive with contradictions: it is now getting fast ready with a
Constitution, yet knows no peace. Sieyès, we say, is making the
Constitution once more; has as good as made it. Warned by experience, the
great Architect alters much, admits much. Distinction of Active and
Passive Citizen, that is, Money-qualification for Electors: nay Two
Chambers, 'Council of Ancients,' as well as 'Council of Five Hundred;' to
that conclusion have we come! In a like spirit, eschewing that fatal
self-denying ordinance of your Old Constituents, we enact not only that actual
Convention Members are re-eligible, but that Two-thirds of them must be
re-elected. The Active Citizen Electors shall for this time have free choice
of only One-third of their National Assembly. Such enactment, of Two-thirds
to be re-elected, we append to our Constitution; we submit our
Constitution to the Townships of France, and say, Accept both, or reject
both. Unsavoury as this appendix may be, the Townships, by overwhelming
majority, accept and ratify. With Directory of Five; with Two good
Chambers, double-majority of them nominated by ourselves, one hopes this
Constitution may prove final. March it will; for the legs of it, the
re-elected Two-thirds, are already there, able to march.
Sieyès looks at his
Paper Fabric with just pride.
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A new Constitution is accepted, dissolving the National Convention but
preserving the jobs of most of its members. The new legislature is
bicameral, with a weak upper house and a 500-member lower house.
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But now see how the contumacious Sections, Lepelletier foremost, kick
against the pricks! Is it not manifest infraction of one's Elective
Franchise, Rights of Man, and Sovereignty of the People, this appendix of
re-electing your Two-thirds? Greedy tyrants who would perpetuate
yourselves!—For the truth is, victory over Saint-Antoine, and long right
of Insurrection, has spoiled these men. Nay spoiled all men. Consider too
how each man was free to hope what he liked; and now there is to be no
hope, there is to be fruition, fruition of this.
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Some of the sections of Paris, having felt the exhilaration of asserting
themselves, are reluctant to cede power to the new government.
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In men spoiled by long right of Insurrection, what confused ferments will
rise, tongues once begun wagging! Journalists declaim, your
Lacretelles?,
Laharpes?;
Orators spout. There is Royalism traceable in it, and
Jacobinism. On the West Frontier, in deep secrecy,
Pichegru?,
durst he
trust his Army, is treating with
Condé?:
in these Sections, there spout
wolves in sheep's clothing, masked Emigrants and Royalists!
(Napoleon, Las
Cases (Choix des Rapports, xvii. 398-411).)
All men, as we say, had hoped,
each that the Election would do something for his own side: and now there
is no Election, or only the third of one. Black is united with white
against this clause of the Two-thirds; all the Unruly of France, who see
their trade thereby near ending.
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Both royalists and jacobins oppose the new constitution and particularly
the article which preserves the power of the Conventionals.
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Section Lepelletier, after Addresses enough, finds that such clause is a
manifest infraction; that it, Lepelletier, for one, will simply not conform
thereto; and invites all other free Sections to join it, 'in central
Committee,' in resistance to oppression. (Deux Amis, xiii.
375-406.) The
Sections join it, nearly all; strong with their Forty Thousand fighting
men. The Convention therefore may look to itself! Lepelletier, on this
12th day of Vendémiaire, 4th of October 1795, is sitting in open
contravention, in its Convent of Filles Saint-Thomas, Rue Vivienne, with
guns primed. The Convention has some Five Thousand regular troops at hand;
Generals in abundance; and a Fifteen Hundred of miscellaneous persecuted
Ultra-Jacobins, whom in this crisis it has hastily got together and armed,
under the title Patriots of Eighty-nine. Strong in Law, it sends its
General Menou to disarm Lepelletier.
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The Lepelletier section openly opposes the Convention on 12 Vendémiaire,
year IV. The Convention sends General Menou against them.
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General Menou marches accordingly, with due summons and demonstration; with
no result. General Menou, about eight in the evening, finds that he is
standing ranked in the Rue Vivienne, emitting vain summonses; with primed
guns pointed out of every window at him; and that he cannot disarm
Lepelletier. He has to return, with whole skin, but without success; and
be thrown into arrest as 'a traitor.' Whereupon the whole Forty Thousand
join this Lepelletier which cannot be vanquished: to what hand shall a
quaking Convention now turn? Our poor Convention, after such voyaging,
just entering harbour, so to speak, has struck on the bar;—and labours
there frightfully, with breakers roaring round it, Forty thousand of them,
like to wash it, and its Sieyès Cargo and the whole future
of France, into
the deep! Yet one last time, it struggles, ready to perish.
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Section Lepelletier will not yield and for a moment it seems as if the
government will once again have to yield to the Paris masses.
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Some call for Barras to be made Commandant; he conquered in Thermidor.
Some, what is more to the purpose, bethink them of the Citizen Buonaparte,
unemployed Artillery Officer, who took Toulon. A man of head, a man of
action: Barras is named Commandant's-Cloak; this young Artillery Officer
is named Commandant. He was in the Gallery at the moment, and heard it; he
withdrew, some half hour, to consider with himself: after a half hour of
grim compressed considering, to be or not to be, he answers Yea.
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The job of preserving order falls to a young Corsican.
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And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, the whole matter gets
vital. Swift, to Camp of Sablons; to secure the Artillery, there are not
twenty men guarding it! A swift Adjutant, Murat is the name of him,
gallops; gets thither some minutes within time, for Lepelletier was also on
march that way: the Cannon are ours. And now beset this post, and beset
that; rapid and firm: at Wicket of the Louvre, in Cul de Sac Dauphin, in
Rue Saint-Honoré, from Pont Neuf all along the north Quays, southward to
Pont ci-devant Royal,—rank round the Sanctuary of the Tuileries,
a ring of steel discipline; let every gunner have his match burning,
and all men stand to their arms!
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Napoleon takes decisive action, seizing the artillery park and other strategic
Paris locations.
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Thus there is Permanent-session through night; and thus at sunrise of the
morrow, there is seen sacred Insurrection once again: vessel of State
labouring on the bar; and tumultuous sea all round her, beating
générale,
arming and sounding,—not ringing tocsin, for we have left no tocsin but
our own in the Pavilion of Unity. It is an imminence of shipwreck, for the
whole world to gaze at. Frightfully she labours, that poor ship, within
cable-length of port; huge peril for her. However, she has a man at the
helm. Insurgent messages, received, and not received; messenger admitted
blindfolded; counsel and counter-counsel: the poor ship
labours!—Vendémiaire 13th, year 4:
curious enough, of all days, it is the Fifth day
of October, anniversary of that Menad-march, six years ago; by sacred right
of Insurrection we are got thus far.
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On 13 Vendémiaire, the outcome is still uncertain.
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Lepelletier has seized the Church of Saint-Roch; has seized the Pont Neuf,
our piquet there retreating without fire. Stray shots fall from
Lepelletier; rattle down on the very Tuileries staircase. On the other
hand, women advance dishevelled, shrieking, Peace; Lepelletier behind them
waving its hat in sign that we shall fraternise. Steady! The Artillery
Officer is steady as bronze; can be quick as lightning. He sends eight
hundred muskets with ball-cartridges to the Convention itself; honourable
Members shall act with these in case of extremity: whereat they look grave
enough. Four of the afternoon is struck.
(Moniteur, Séance du 5 Octobre
1795.) Lepelletier, making nothing by messengers, by fraternity or
hat-waving, bursts out, along the Southern Quai Voltaire, along streets, and
passages, treble-quick, in huge veritable onslaught! Whereupon, thou
bronze Artillery Officer—? "Fire!" say the bronze lips. Roar and again
roar, continual, volcano-like, goes his great gun, in the Cul de Sac
Dauphin against the Church of Saint-Roch; go his great guns on the Pont
Royal; go all his great guns;—blow to air some two hundred men, mainly
about the Church of Saint-Roch! Lepelletier cannot stand such horse-play;
no Sectioner can stand it; the Forty-thousand yield on all sides, scour
towards covert. 'Some hundred or so of them gathered about the
Théâtre de la
République; but,' says he, 'a few shells dislodged them. It was all
finished at six.'
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Napoleon brings a quick end to the insurrection with cannon-shot, killing
perhaps 200 of the sectioners.
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The Ship is over the bar, then; free she bounds shoreward,—amid shouting
and vivats! Citoyen Buonaparte is 'named General of the Interior, by
acclamation;' quelled Sections have to disarm in such humour as they may;
sacred right of Insurrection is gone for ever! The Sieyès Constitution can
disembark itself, and begin marching. The miraculous Convention Ship has
got to land;—and is there, shall we figuratively say, changed, as Epic
Ships are wont, into a kind of Sea Nymph, never to sail more; to roam the
waste Azure, a Miracle in History!
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That ended insurrection for 50 years.
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'It is false,' says Napoleon, 'that we fired first with blank charge; it
had been a waste of life to do that.' Most false: the firing was with
sharp and sharpest shot: to all men it was plain that here was no sport;
the rabbets and plinths of Saint-Roch Church show splintered by it, to this
hour.—Singular: in old Broglie's time, six years ago, this Whiff of
Grapeshot was promised; but it could not be given then, could not have
profited then. Now, however, the time is come for it, and the man; and
behold, you have it; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution
is blown into space by it, and become a thing that was!—
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Order is imposed at gunpoint, and accepted.
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Homer's Epos, it is remarked, is like a Bas-relief sculpture: it does not
conclude, but merely ceases. Such, indeed, is the Epos of Universal
History itself. Directorates, Consulates, Emperorships, Restorations,
Citizen-Kingships succeed this Business in due series, in due genesis one
out of the other. Nevertheless the First-parent of all these may be said
to have gone to air in the way we see. A
Baboeuf?
Insurrection[222], next year,
will die in the birth; stifled by the Soldiery. A Senate, if tinged with
Royalism, can be purged by the Soldiery; and an Eighteenth of Fructidor
transacted by the mere shew of
bayonets[223]. (Moniteur, du 5
Septembre 1797.)
Nay Soldiers' bayonets can be used a posteriori on a Senate, and make it
leap out of window,—still bloodless; and produce an Eighteenth of
Brumaire[224].
(9th November 1799 (Choix des Rapports, xvii. 1-96).)
Such
changes must happen: but they are managed by intriguings, caballings, and
then by orderly word of command; almost like mere changes of Ministry. Not
in general by sacred right of Insurrection, but by milder methods growing
ever milder, shall the Events of French history be henceforth brought to
pass.
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The final acts of the Revolution play out with less violence and more order.
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It is admitted that this Directorate, which owned, at its starting, these
three things, an 'old table, a sheet of paper, and an ink-bottle,' and no
visible money or arrangement whatever, (Bailleul,
Examen critique des
Considérations de Madame de Staël, ii. 275.)
did wonders: that France,
since the Reign of Terror hushed itself, has been a new France, awakened
like a giant out of torpor; and has gone on, in the Internal Life of it,
with continual progress. As for the External form and forms of Life,—what
can we say except that out of the Eater there comes Strength; out of the
Unwise there comes not Wisdom!
Shams are burnt up; nay, what as yet is the
peculiarity of France, the very Cant of them is burnt up. The new
Realities are not yet come: ah no, only Phantasms, Paper models, tentative
Prefigurements of such! In France there are now Four Million Landed
Properties; that black portent of an Agrarian Law is as it were realised!
What is still stranger, we understand all Frenchmen have 'the right of
duel;' the Hackney-coachman with the Peer, if insult be given: such is the
law of Public Opinion. Equality at least in death! The Form of Government
is by Citizen King[225],
frequently shot at, not yet shot.
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Carlyle sees France as having come out the Revolution rather well, with
national prosperity and a mild and stable government.
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On the whole, therefore, has it not been fulfilled what was prophesied,
ex-postfacto indeed, by the Archquack
Cagliostro?,
or another? He, as he
looked in rapt vision and amazement into these things, thus spake:
(Diamond Necklace, p. 35.) 'Ha! What is this?
Angels, Uriel, Anachiel,
and the other Five; Pentagon of Rejuvenescence; Power that destroyed
Original Sin; Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo, which men name Hell!
Does the EMPIRE OF IMPOSTURE waver? Burst there, in starry sheen
updarting, Light-rays from out its dark foundations; as it rocks and
heaves, not in travail-throes, but in death-throes? Yea, Light-rays,
piercing, clear, that salute the Heavens,—lo, they kindle it;
their starry clearness becomes as red Hellfire!
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Carlyle closes with a prophesy attributed to the magician Cagliastro, a
figure from the court of Louis XVI.
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'IMPOSTURE is in flames, Imposture is burnt up: one Red-sea of Fire,
wild-bellowing enwraps the
World; with its fire-tongue, licks at the very Stars. Thrones are hurled
into it, and Dubois Mitres, and Prebendal Stalls that drop fatness, and—ha!
what see I?—all the Gigs of Creation; all, all! Wo is me! Never
since Pharaoh's Chariots, in the Red-sea of water, was there wreck of
Wheel-vehicles like this in the Sea of Fire. Desolate, as ashes, as gases,
shall they wander in the wind.
"Higher, higher yet flames the Fire-Sea;
crackling with new dislocated timber; hissing with leather and prunella.
The metal Images are molten; the marble Images become mortar-lime; the
stone Mountains sulkily explode. RESPECTABILITY, with all her collected
Gigs inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the earth: not to return
save under new Avatar. Imposture, how it burns, through generations: how
it is burnt up; for a time. The World is black ashes; which, ah, when will
they grow green? The Images all run into amorphous Corinthian brass; all
Dwellings of men destroyed; the very mountains peeled and riven, the
valleys black and dead: it is an empty World! Wo to them that shall be
born then!—A King, a Queen (ah me!) were hurled in; did rustle once; flew
aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll. Iscariot Égalité was hurled in; thou
grim De Launay, with thy grim Bastille; whole kindreds and peoples; five
millions of mutually destroying Men. For it is the End of the Dominion of
IMPOSTURE (which is Darkness and opaque Firedamp); and the burning up, with
unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs that are in the Earth." This Prophecy,
we say, has it not been fulfilled, is it not fulfilling?
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And so here, O Reader, has the time come for us two to part. Toilsome was
our journeying together; not without offence; but it is done. To me thou
wert as a beloved shade, the disembodied or not yet embodied spirit of a
Brother. To thee I was but as a Voice. Yet was our relation a kind of
sacred one; doubt not that! Whatsoever once sacred things become hollow
jargons, yet while the Voice of Man speaks with Man, hast thou not there
the living fountain out of which all sacrednesses sprang, and will yet
spring? Man, by the nature of him, is definable as 'an incarnated Word.'
Ill stands it with me if I have spoken falsely: thine also it was to hear
truly. Farewell.
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