Chapter III (2)

[Footnote 2327: The words of Brissot (Patriote Français), number 887.--Letter addressed Jan. 5 to the club of Brest, by Messrs. Cavalier and Malassis, deputies to the National Assembly: "As to the matter of the sieur Lajaille, even though we would have taken an interest in him, that decorated aristocrat only deserved what he got... We shall not remain idle until all these traitors, these perjurers, whom we have spared so long, shall be exterminated" (Mercure de France, Feb. 4).--This Jaille affair is one of the most instructive, and the best supported by documents (Mercure de France, Dec.10 and 17).--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, official report of the district administrators, and of the municipal officers of Brest, Nov. 27, 1791.--Letter by M. de Marigny, commissary in the navy, at Brest, Nov. 28.--Letters by M. de la Jaille, etc.--M. de la Jaille, sent to Brest to take command of the Dugay-Trouin, arrives there Nov.27. While at dinner, twenty persons enter the room, and announce to him, "in the name of many others," that his presence in Brest is causing trouble, that he must leave, and that "he will not be allowed to take command of a vessel." He replies, that he will leave the town, as soon as he has finished his dinner. Another deputation follows, more numerous than the first one, and insists on his leaving at once; and they act as his escort. He submits, is conducted to the city gates, and there the escort leaves him. A mob attacks him, and "his body is covered with contusions. He is rescued, with great difficulty, by six brave fellows, of whom one is a pork-dealer, sent to bleed him on the spot. "This insurrection is due to an extra meeting of 'The Friends of the constitution,' held the evening before in the theater, to which the public were invited." M. de la Jaille, it must be stated, is not a proud aristocrat, but a sensible man, in the style of Florian's and Berquin's heroes. But just pounded to a jelly, he writes to the president of the "Friends of the Constitution," that, "could he have flown into the bosom of the club, he would have gladly done so, to convey to it his grateful feelings. He had accepted his command only at the solicitation of the Americans in Paris, and of the six commissioners recently arrived from St. Domingo."--Mercure de France, April 14, article by Mallet du Pan "I have asked in vain for the vengeance of the law against the assassins of M. de la Jaille. The names of the authors of this assault in full daylight, to which thousands can bear witness, are known to everybody in Brest. Proceedings have been ordered and begun, but the execution of the orders is suspended. More potent than the law, the motionnaires, protectors of assassins, frighten or paralyze its ministrants."]

[Footnote 2328: Mercure de France, Nov. 12 (session of Oct. 31st, 1792).]

[Footnote 2329: Decree of Feb. 8, and others like it, on the details, as, for instance, that of Feb. 7.]

[Footnote 2330: April 9, at the Jacobin Club, Vergniaud, the president, welcomes and compliments the convicts of Chateau-vieux.]

[Footnote 2331: Mortimer-Ternaux, book I, vol. I. (especially the session of April 15).]

[Footnote 2332: Comtat (or comtat Venaisssin) ancient region in France under papal authority from 1274 to 1791.(SR)]

[Footnote 2333: Moniteur, XII. 335.--Decree of March 20 (the triumphal entry of Jourdan and his associates belongs to the next month).]

[Footnote 2334: Moniteur, XII. 730 (session of June 23).]

[Footnote 2335: Moniteur, XII. 230 (session of April 12).]

[Footnote 2336: Moniteur. XI. 6, (session of March 6).]

[Footnote 2337: Moniteur, XI. 123, (session of Jan. 14)]

[Footnote 2338: 150 years later these rights were written into the International Declaration of Human Rights in Paris in 1948. (SR).]

[Footnote 2339: Mercure de France, Dec. 23 (session of Dec. 23), p.98.]

[Footnote 2340: Moniteur, X. 178 (session of Oct. 20, 1791). Information supplied by the deputies of the Upper and Lower Rhine departments.--M. Koch says: "An army of émigrés never existed, unless it be a petty gathering, which took place at Ettenheim, a few leagues from Strasbourg... (This troop) encamped in tents, but only because it lacked barracks and houses."--M.--, deputy of the lower Rhine, says: "This army at Ettenheim is composed of about five or six hundred poorly-clad, half-paid men, deserters of all nations, sleeping in tents, for lack of other shelter, and armed with clubs, for lack of fire-arms and deserting every day, because money is getting scarce. The second army, at Worms, under the command of a Condé, is composed of three hundred gentlemen, and as many valets and grooms. I have to add, that the letters which reach me from Strasbourg, containing extracts of inside information from Frankfort, Munich, Regensburg, and Vienna, announce the most pacific intentions on the part of the different courts, since receiving the notification of the king's submission." The number of armed emigrants increases, but always remain very small (Moniteur, X. 678, letter of M. Delatouche, an eyewitness, Dec. 10). "I suppose that the number of emigrants scattered around on the territories of the grand-duke of Baden, the bishop of Spires, the electorates, etc., amounts to scarcely 4,000 men."]

[Footnote 2341: Moniteur, X. 418 (session of Nov. 15, 1791). Report by the minister Delessart. In August, the emperor issued orders against enlistments, and to send out of the country all Frenchmen under suspicion; also, in October, to send away the French who formed too numerous a body at Ath and at Tournay (Now in Belgium).--Buchez et Roux, XII. 395, demands of the king, Dec. 14,--Ibid., XIII. 15, 16, 19, 52, complete satisfaction given by the Elector of Trèves, Jan. 1, 1792, communicated to the Assembly Jan. 6; publication of the elector's orders in the electorate, Jan. 3. The French envoy reports that they are fully executed, which news with the documents, are communicated to the Assembly, on the 8th, 16, and 19th of January.--" Correspondance de Mirabeau et M. de la Marck," III.287. Letter of M. de Mercy-Argenteau, Jan. 9, 1792. "The emperor has promised aid to the elector, under the express stipulation that he should begin by yielding to the demands of the French, as otherwise no assistance would be given to him in case of attack."]

[Footnote 2342: Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," I. 254 (February, 1792).--" Correspondance de Mirabeau et du M. de la Marck," III. 232 (note of M. de Bacourt). On the very day and at the moment of signing the treaty at Pilnitz, at eleven o'clock in the evening, the Emperor Leopold wrote to his prime minister, M. de Kaunitz, "that the convention which he had just signed does not really bind him to anything; that it only contains insignificant declarations, extorted by the Count d'Artois." He ends by assuring him that "neither himself nor his government is in any way bound by this instrument."]

[Footnote 2343: Words of M. de Kaunitz, Sept. 4, 1791 ("Recueil," by Vivenot, I. 242).]

[Footnote 2344: Moniteur, XI. 142 (session of Jan. 17).--Speech by M. Delessart.--Decree of accusation against him March 10.--Declaration of war, April 20.--On the real intentions of the King, cf. Malouet, "Malouet, Mémoires" II. 199-209; Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 441 (note 3); Bertrand de Molleville, "Mémoires," VI. 22; Governor Morris, II. 242, letter of Oct. 23, 1792.]

[Footnote 2345: Moniteur, X. 172 (session of Oct. 20, 1791). Speech by Brissot.----Lafayette, I. 441. "It is the Girondists who, at this time, wanted a war at any price"--Malouet, II. 209. "As Brissot has since boasted, it was the republican party which wanted war, and which provoked it by insulting all the powers."]

[Footnote 2346: Buchez et Roux, XII. 402 (session of the Jacobin Club, Nov. 28, 1791).]

[Footnote 2347: Gustave III., King of Sweden, assassinated by Ankerstrom, says: "I should like to know what Brissot will say."]

[Footnote 2348: On Brissot's antecedents, cf. Edmond Biré, "La Légende des Girondins." Personally, Brissot was honest, and remained poor. But he had passed through a good deal of filth, and bore the marks of it. He had lent himself to the diffusion of an obscene book, "Le Diable dans un bénitier," and, in 1783, having received 13,355 francs to found a Lyceum in London, not only did not found it, but was unable to return the money.]

[Footnote 2349: Moniteur, XI. 147. Speech by Brissot, Jan. 17. Examples from whom he borrows authority, Charles XII., Louis XIV., Admiral Blake, Frederic II., etc.]

[Footnote 2350: Moniteur. X. 174. "This Venetian government, which is nothing but a farce... Those petty German princes, whose insolence in the last century despotism crushed out... Geneva, that atom of a republic...That bishop of Liège, whose yoke bows down a people that ought to be free... I disdain to speak of other princes... That King of Sweden, who has only twenty-five millions income, and who spends two-thirds of it in poor pay for an army of generals and a small number of discontented soldiers... As to that princess (Catherine II.), whose dislike of the French constitution is well known, and who is about as good looking as Elizabeth, she cannot expect greater success than Elizabeth in the Dutch revolution." (Brissot, in this last passage, tries to appear at once witty and well read.)]

[Footnote 2351: Letter of Roland to the king, June 10, 1792, and letter of the executive council to the pope, Nov. 25, 1792. Letter of Madame Roland to Brissot, Jan. 7, 1791. "Briefly, adieu. Cato's wife need not gratify herself by complimenting Brutus."]

[Footnote 2352: Buchez et Roux, XII. 410 (meeting of the Jacobin club, Dec. 10, 1791). "A Louis XIV. declares war against Spain, because his ambassador had been insulted by the Spanish ambassador. And we, who are free, might hesitate for an instant!"]

[Footnote 2353: Moniteur, X, 503 (session of Nov.29). The Assembly orders this speech to be printed and distributed in the departments.]

[Footnote 2354: Moniteur, X. 762 (session of Dec. 28).]

[Footnote 2355: Moniteur, XI. 147, 149 (session of Jan.17); X. 759 (session of Dec. 28).--Already, on the 10th of December, he had declared at the Jacobin club: "A people that has conquered its freedom, after ten centuries of slavery, needs war. War is essential to it for its consolidation." (Buchez et Roux, XII. 410).--On the 17th of January, in the tribune, he again repeats: "I have only one fear, and that is, that we may not have war."]

[Footnote 2356: Moniteur, XI. 119 (session of Jan.13). Speech by Gensonné, in the name of the diplomatic committee, of which he is the reporter.]

[Footnote 2357: Moniteur, XI. 158 (session of Jan. 18). The Assembly orders the printing of this speech.]

[Footnote 2358: Moniteur, XI. 760 (session of Dec. 28).]

[Footnote 2359: Moniteur, XI. 149 (session of Jan. 17). Speech by Brissot.]

[Footnote 2360: Moniteur, XI. 178 (session of Jan.20). Fauchet proposes the following decree: "All partial treaties actually existent are declared void. The National Assembly substitutes in their place alliances with the English, the Anglo-American, the Swiss, Polish, and Dutch nations, as long as they will be free.. When other nations want our alliance, they have only to conquer their freedom to have it. Meanwhile, this will not prevent us from having relations with them, as with good natured savages... Let us occupy the towns in the neighborhood which bring our adversaries too near us... Mayence, Coblentz, and Worms are sufficient"--Ibid.,, p.215 (session of Jan.25). One of the members, supporting himself with the authority of Gélon, King of Syracuse, proposes an additional article: "We declare that we will not lay down our arms until we shall have established the freedom of all peoples." These stupidities show the mental condition of the Jacobin party.]

[Footnote 2361: The decree is passed Jan. 25. The alliance between Prussia and Austria takes place Feb. 7 (De Bourgoing, "Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe pendant la Révolution Française," I. 457).]

[Footnote 2362: Albert Sorel, "La Mission du Comte de Ségur à Berlin" (published in the Temps, Oct. 15, 1878). Dispatch of M. de Ségur to M. Delessart, Feb. 24, 1792. "Count Schulemburg repeated to me that they had no desire whatever to meddle with our constitution. But, said he with singular animation, we must guard against gangrene. Prussia is, perhaps, the country which should fear it least; nevertheless, however remote a gangrened member may be, it is better to it off than risk one's life. How can you expect to secure tranquility, when thousands of writers every day... mayors, office-holders, insult kings, and publish that the Christian religion has always supported despotism, and that we shall be free only by destroying it, and that all princes must be exterminated because they are all tyrants?"]

[Footnote 2363: A popular jig of these revolutionary times, danced in the streets and on the public squares.--TR.]

[Footnote 2364: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 203 (session of April 3, 1793). Speech by Brissot.--Ibid., XX. 127. "A tous les Républicains de France, par Brissot," Oct. 24, 1792. "In declaring war, I had in view the abolition of royalty." He refers, in this connection, to his speech of Dec. 30, 1791, where he says, "I fear only one thing, and that is, that we shall not be betrayed. We need treachery, for strong doses of poison still exist in the heart of France, and heavy explosions are necessary to clear it out."]

[Footnote 2365: Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," I. 260 (April, 1792), and I. 439 (July, 1792).]

[Footnote 2366: Any revolutionary leader, from Lenin, through Stalin to Andropov may confirm the advantage of acting in secret. (SR).]

[Footnote 2367: "The French Revolution," I. 262 and following pages.]

[Footnote 2368: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 92-99 (January, 1792); (February).--Coral, "Lettres inédites," 33. (One of these days, out of curiosity, he walked along as far as the Rue des Lombards.) "Witness of such crying injustice, and indignant at not being able to seize any of the thieves that were running along the street, loaded with sugar and coffee to sell again, I suddenly felt a feverish chill over all my body." (The letter is not dated. The editors conjectures that the year was 1791. I rather think that it was 1792.)]

[Footnote 2369: Moniteur, XI. 45 and 46 (session of Jan. 5). The whole of Isnard's speech should be read.]

[Footnote 2370: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 177. Letter by Pétion, Feb. 10.]

[Footnote 2371: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 252. Letter of André Chénier, in the Journal de Paris, Feb. 26.--Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution Franaise," I. 76. Reply of the Directory of the Department of the Seine to a circular by Roland, June 12, 1792. The contrast between the two classes is here clearly defined. "We have not resorted to those assemblages of men, most of them foreigners, for the opinion of the people, among the enemies of labor and repose standing by themselves and having no part in common interests, already inclined to vice through idleness, and who prefer the risks of disorder to the honorable resources of indigence. This class of men, always large in large cities, is that whose noisy harangues fill the streets, Squares, and public gardens of the capital, that which excites seditious gatherings, that which constantly fosters anarchy and contempt for the laws--that, in fine, whose clamor, far from reflecting public Opinion, indicates the extreme effort made to prevent the expression of public opinion... We have studied the opinion of the people of Paris among those useful and laborious men warmly attached to the State at all points of their existence through every object of their affection, among owners of property, tillers of the soil, tradesmen and workers... An inviolable attachment... to the constitution, and mainly to national Sovereignty, to political equality and constitutional monarchy, which are its most important characteristics and their almost unanimous sentiment."]

[Footnote 2372: Governor Morris, letter of June 20, 1792.]

[Footnote 2373: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. page 84.]

[Footnote 2374: Malouet, II. 203. "Every report that came in from the provinces announced (to the King and Queen) a perceptible amelioration of public opinion, which was becoming more and more perverted. That which reached them was uninfluenced, whilst the opinions of clubs, taverns, and street-corners gained enormous power, the time being at hand when there was to be no other power." The figures given above are by Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," II. 120.]

[Footnote 2375: Moniteur, XII. 776 (session of June 28). Speech by M. Lamarque, in a district court: "The incivism of the district courts in general is well known."]

[Footnote 2376: Bertand de Molleville, "Mémoires," VI. 22.--After having received the above instructions from the King, Bertrand calls on the Queen, who makes the same remark: "Do you not think that fidelity to one's oath is the only plan to pursue?" "Yes, Madame, certainly." "Very well; rest assured that we shall not waver. Come, M. Bertrand, take courage; I hope that with firmness, patience, and what comes of that, all is not yet lost."]

[Footnote 2377: M. de Lavalette, "Mémoires," I. 100.--Lavalette, in the beginning of September, 1792, enlists as a volunteer and sets out, along with two friends, carrying his knapsack on his back, dressed in a short and wearing a forage cap. The following shows the sentiments of the peasantry: In a village of makers of wooden shoes, near Vermanton (in the vicinity of Autun), "two days before our arrival a bishop and two vicars, who were escaping in a carriage, were stopped by them. They rummaged the vehicle and found some hundreds of francs, and, to avoid returning these, they thought it best to massacre their unfortunate owners. This sort of occupation seeming more lucrative to these good people than the other one, they were on the look-out for all wayfarers." The three volunteers are stopped by a little hump-backed official and conducted to the municipality, a sort of market, where their passports are read and their knapsacks are about to be examined. "We were lost, when d'Aubonnes, who was very tall jumped on the table... and began with a volley of imprecations and market slang which took his hearers by surprise. Soon raising his style, he launched out in patriotic terms, liberty, sovereignty of the people, with such vehemence and in so loud a voice, as to suddenly effect a great change and bring down thunders of applause. But the crazy fellow did not stop there. Ordering Leclerc de la Ronde imperiously to mount on the table, he addressed the assemblage: "You shall see whether we are not Paris republicans. Now, sir, say your republican catechism--'What is God? what are the People? and what is a King?' His friend, with an air of contrition and in a nasal tone of voice, twisting himself about like a harlequin, replies: 'God is matter, the People are the poor, and the King is a lion, a tiger, an elephant who tears to pieces, devours, and crushes the people down.'"--"They could no longer restrain themselves. The shouts, cries, and enthusiasm were unbounded. They embraced the actors, hugged them, and bore them away. Each strove to carry us home with him, and we had to drink all round."]

[Footnote 2378: The reader will meet the French expression sans-culottes again and again in Taine's or any other book about the French revolution. The nobles wore a kind of breeches terminating under the knee while tight long stockings, fastened to the trousers, exposed their calves. The male leg was as important an adornment for the nobles as it was to be for the women in the 20th Century. The poor, on the other hand, wore crude long trousers, mostly without a crease, often without socks or shoes, barefoot in the summer and wooden shoed in the winter. (SR).]

[Footnote 2379: The song of "Veillons au salut de l'empire" belongs to the end of 1791. The "Marseillaise" was composed in April, 1792.]

[Footnote 2380: Mercure de France, Nov. 23, 1791.]

[Footnote 2381: Philippe de Ségur, "Mémoires," I. (at Fresnes, a village situated about seven leagues from Paris, a few days after Sep. 2, 1792). "A band of these demagogues pursued a large farmer of this place, suspected of royalism and denounced as a monopoliser because he was rich. These madmen had seized him, and, without any other form of trial, were about to put an end to him, when my father ran up to them. He addressed them, and so successfully as to change their rage into a no less exaggerated enthusiasm for humanity. Animated by their new transports, they obliged the poor farmer, still pale and trembling, and whom they were just going to hang on its branches, to drink and dance along with them around the tree of liberty."]

[Footnote 2382: Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'Epreuves," 78. "The Girondists wanted to fashion a Roman people out of the dregs of Romulus, and, what is worse, out of the brigands of the 5th of October."]

[Footnote 2383: These pages must have made a strong impression upon Lenin when he read them in the National Library in Paris around 1907. (SR).]

[Footnote 2384: Lafayette, I. 442. "The Girondists sought in the war an opportunity for attacking with advantage, the constitutionalists of 1791 and their institutions."--Brissot (Address to my constituents). "We sought in the war an opportunity to set traps for the king, to expose his bad faith and his relationship with the emigrant princes."--Moniteur, (session of April 3, 1793). Speech by Brissot: "'I had told the Jacobins what my opinion was, and had proved to them that war was the sole means of unveiling the perfidy of Louis XVI. The event has justified my opinion."--Buchez et Roux, VIII. 60, 216, 217. The decree of the Legislative Assembly is dated Jan. 25, the first money voted by a club for the making of pikes is on Jan. 31, and the first article by Brissot, on the red cap, is on Feb. 6.]

[Footnote 2385: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 217 (proposal of a woman, member of the club of l'Evêché, Jan. 31, 1792).--Articles in the Gazette Universelle, Feb.11, and in the Patriote Français, Feb. 13.--Moniteur, XI. 576 (session of March 6).--Buchez et Roux, XV. (session of June 10). Petition of 8,000 national guards in Paris: "This faction which stirs up popular vengeance... which seeks to put the caps of labor in conflict with the military casques, the pike with the gun, the rustic's dress with the uniform."]

[Footnote 2386: Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," II 429 (note of July, 1792).--Mercure de France, March 10, 1792, article by Mallet du Pan.]