Chapter III: THE RULERS. (continued) (4)

[Footnote 33102: Archives Nationales, D., P I, No.4. The following is a sample among others of the impositions of the revolutionary committees. (Complaint of Mariotte, proprietor, former mayor of Chatillon-sur-Seine, Floréal 27, year II.) "On Brumaire 23, year II., I was stopped just as I was taking post at Mussy, travelling on business for the Republic, and provided with a commission and passport from the Minister of war.... I was searched in the most shameful manner; citizen Ménétrier, member of the committee, used towards me the foulest language.... I was confined in a tavern; instead of two gendarmes which would have been quite sufficient to guard me, I had the whole brigade, who passed that night and the next day drinking, until, in wine and brandy the charge against me in the tavern amounted to sixty francs. And worse still, two members of the same committee passed a night guarding me and made me pay for it. Add to this, they said openly before me that I was a good pigeon to pluck. ... They gave me the escort of a state criminal of the highest importance, three national gendarmes, mounted, six National Guards, and even to the Commandant of the National Guard; citizen Mièdan, member of the revolutionary committee, put himself at the head of the cortege, ten men to conduct one!.... I was obliged to pay my torturers, fifty francs to the commandant, and sixty to his men."]

[Footnote 33103: Moniteur, XXI., 261. (Speech by an inhabitant of Troyes in the Jacobin Club, Paris, Messidor 26, year II.)]

[Footnote 33104: Albert Babeau, II., 164. (Depositions of the tavern-keeper and of the commissioner, Garnier.)]

[Footnote 33105: "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 170, 172. (Letter by Pajot and petition of the Aignay municipality, March 10, 1795.)--Bibliotheque Nationale, L., 41. No.1802. (Denunciation by six sections of the commune of Dijon to the National Convention.)]

[Footnote 33106: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution de Strasbourg," I., 187, and letter of Burger, Thermidor 25, year II.]

[Footnote 33107: Archives Nationales, D., P I, 6 (file 37)--Letter of the members of the Strasbourg revolutionary committee, Ventôse 13, year III., indicating to the mayor and municipal officers of Chalons-sur-Marne certain Jacobins of the town as suitable members of the Propaganda at Strasbourg.]

[Footnote 33108: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques concernant la Révolution à Strasbourg," I.,71. Deposition of the recorder Weis on the circuit of the Revolutionary Tribunal, composed of Schneider, Clavel and Taffin. "The judges never left the table without having become intoxicated with everything of the finest, and, in this state, they gathered in the tribunal and condemned the accused to death."--Free living and "extravagant expenditure" were common even "among the employees of the government." "I encountered," says Meissner, "government carters served with chickens, pastry and game, whilst at the traveler's table there was simply an old leg of mutton and a few poor side-dishes." ("Voyage en France," toward the end of 1795, p.371.)]

[Footnote 33109: Some of them, nevertheless, are not ugly, but merely sots. The following is a specimen. A certain Velu, a born vagabond, formerly in the alms-house and brought up there, then a shoemaker or a cobbler, afterwards teaching school in the faubourg de Vienne, and at last a haranguer and proposer of tyrannicide motions, short, stout and as rubicund as his cap, is made President of the Popular club at Blois, then delegate for domiciliary visits, and, throughout the reign of Terror, he is a principal personage in the town, district and department. (Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," (MS.) March 21, 1793 and June, 1793.) In June, 1793, this Velu is ordered to visit the chateau de Cheverney, to verify the surrender of all feudal documents. He arrives unexpectedly, meets the steward, Bambinet, enters the mayor's house, who keeps an inn, and drinks copiously, which gives Bambinet time to warn M. Dufort de Cheverney and have the suspicious registers concealed.--This done, "Velu is obliged to leave his bottle and march to the chateau.--He assumed haughtiness and aimed at familiarity; he would put his hand on his breast and, taking yours, address you: "Good day, brother."--He came there at nine o'clock in the morning, advanced, took my hand and said: "Good-day, brother, how are you?" "Very well, citizen, and how are you?" "You do not tutoyer--you are not up to the Revolution?"We'll see--will you step in the parlor?" "Yes, brother, I'll follow you."--We enter; he sees my wife who, I may say, has an imposing air. He boldly embraces her and, repeating his gesture on the breast, takes her hand and says: "Good-day, sister." "Come," I interpose, "let us take breakfast, and, if you please, you shall dine with me." "Yes, but on one condition, that tu me tutoie." "I will try, but I am not in the habit of it." After warming up his intellect and heart with a bottle of wine, we get rid of him by sending him to inspect the archives-room, along with my son and Bambinet. It is amusing, for he can only read print... Bambinet, and the procureur, read the titles aloud, and pass over the feudalisms. Velu does not notice this and always tells them to go on.--After an hour, tired out, he comes back: "All right," he says, "now let me see your chateau, which is a fine one." He had heard about a room where there were fantocini, in the attic. He goes up, opens some play-books, and, seeing on the lists of characters the name of King and Prince, he, says to me: "You must scratch those out, and play only republican pieces." The descent is by a back-stairs. On the way down he encounters a maid of my wife's, who is very pretty; he stops and, regarding my son, says: "You must as a good Republican, sleep with that girl and marry her." I look at him and reply: "Monsieur Velu, listen; we are well behaved here, and such language cannot be allowed. You must respect the young people in my house." A little disconcerted, he tames down and is quite deferential to Madame de Cheverney.--"You have pen and ink on your table," he says, "bring them here." "What for," I ask, "to take my inventory?" "No, but I must make a procès-verbal. You help me; it will be better for you, as you can fix it to suit you" This was not badly done, to conceal his want of knowledge.--We go in to dinner. My servants waited on the table; I had not yielded to the system of a general table for all of us, which would not have pleased my servants any more than myself. Curiosity led them all to come in and see us dining together.--"Brother," says Velu to me, "don't these people eat with you?" (He saw the table set for only four persons.) I reply: "Brother, that would not be any more agreeable to them than to myself. Ask them."--He ate little, drank like an ogre, and was talkative about his amours; getting carried away he got so close to being naughty that he upset my wife, without actually going to far. Apropos of the Revolution, and the danger we incurred, he said innocently: "Don't I run as much risk as anybody? It is my opinion that, in three months, I shall have my head off! But we must all take our chance!"--Now and then, he indulged in sans-culottisms. He seized the servant's hand, who changed his plate: "Brother, I beg you to take my place, and let me wait on you in my turn "--He drank the cordials, and finally left, pleased with his reception.--Returning to the inn, he stays until nine o'clock at night and stuffs himself, but is not intoxicated. One bottle had no effect on him; he could empty a cask and show no signs of it.]

[Footnote 33110: Moniteur, XXII., 425. (Session of Brumaire 13, year III.) Cambon, in relation to the revolutionary committees, says: "I would observe to the Assembly that they were never paid." A member replies: "They took their pay themselves." ("Yes, yes."--Applause.)]

[Footnote 33111: Moniteu, XXII., 711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)--Cambon stated, indeed, Frimaire 26, year II., (Moniteur, XVIII., 680), concerning these taxes "Not one word, not one sou has yet reached the Treasury; they want to override the Convention which made the Revolution."]

[Footnote 33112: Ibid., 720. "The balances reported, of which the largest portion is already paid into the vaults of the National Treasury, amount to twenty millions one hundred and sixty-six thousand three hundred and thirty livres."--At Paris, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, in the large towns where tens of millions were raised in three-quarters of the districts, Cambon, three months after Thermidor, could not yet obtain, I will not say the returns, but a statement of the sums raised. The national agents either did not reply to him, or did it vaguely, or stated that in their districts there was neither civic donation nor revolutionary tax, and particularly at Marseilles, where a forced loan had been made of four millions.--Cf. De Martel, "Fouché," P.245. (Memorial of the central administration of Nièvre, Prairial 19, year III.) "The account returned by the city of Nevers amounts to eighty thousand francs, the use of which has never been verified.... This tax, in part payment of the war subsidy, was simply a trap laid by the political actors in order to levy a contribution on honest, credulous citizens."--Ibid., 217. On voluntary gifts and forced taxation cf. at Nantes, the use made of revolutionary taxes, brought out on the trial of the revolutionary committee.]

[Footnote 33113: Ludovic Sciout, IV., 19. Report of Representative Becker. (Journal des Débats et Décrets, p.743, Prairial, year III.) He returns from a mission to Landau and renders an account of the executions committed by the Jacobin agents in the Rhenish provinces. They levied taxes, sword in hand, and threatened the refractory with the guillotine at Strasbourg. The receipts which passed under the reporter's eyes "presented the sum of three millions three hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-five livres, two deniers, whilst our colleague, Cambon, reports only one hundred and thirty-eight thousand paid in."]

[Footnote 33114: Moniteur, XXII., 754. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.) "Rascallery--this word recalls the old revolutionary committees, most of which formed the scum of society and which showed so many aptitudes for the double function of robber and persecutor."]

[Footnote 33115: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 107. (Orders of Representatives Ysabeau and Tallien, Bordeaux, Brumaire 11 and 17, year II.)--Third order, promulgated by the same parties, Frimaire 2, year II., replacing this committee by another of twelve members and six deputies, each at two hundred francs a month. Fourth order, Pluviôse 16, year II., dismissing the members of the foregoing committee, as exagérés and disobedient. It is because they regard their local royalty in quite a serious light.-Ibid., AF., II., 46. ("Extracts from the minutes of the meetings of the revolutionary committee of Bordeaux," Prairial, year II.) This extract, consisting of eighteen pages, shows in detail the inside workings of a revolutionary committee the number of arrested goes on increasing; on the 27th of Prairial there are 1524. The committee is essentially a police office; it delivers certificates of civism, issues warrants of arrest, corresponds with other committees, even very remote, at Limoges, and Clermont-Ferrand, delegates any of its members to make investigations or domicialiary searches, to affix seals, and it receives and transmits denunciations, summons the denounced to appear before it, reads interrogations, writes to the Committee of Public Safety, etc. The following are samples of its warrants of arrest: "Muller, a riding-master, will be confined in the former Petit Seminaire, under suspicion of aristocracy, according to public opinion."--Another example, (Archives Nationales, F.7, 2475. Register of the procès-verbaux of the revolutionary committee of the Piques section, Paris, June 3, 1793.) Warrant of arrest against Boucher, grocer, rue Neuve du Luxembourg, "suspect" of incivisme and "having cherished wicked and perfidious intentions against his wife." Boucher, arrested, declares that, "what he said and did in his own house, concerned nobody but himself." On which he was led to prison.]

[Footnote 33116: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 30 (No.105). Examination of Jean Davilliers, and other ransomed parties.]

[Footnote 33117: Berryat Saint-Prix, 313. (Trial of Lacombe and his accomplices after Thermidor.)]

[Footnote 33118: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 46. (Letter of Julien to the Committee of Public Safety, Bordeaux, Messidor 12, year II.)--Moniteur, XXII., 713. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.) At Verins, citizens were imprisoned and then set at liberty "on consideration of a fee."--Albert Babeau, II., 164, 165, 206. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year II.) "Citoyenne (madame) Deguerrois, having come to procure the release of her husband, a public functionary demanded of her ten thousand livres, which he reduced to six thousand for doing what she desired."--"One document attests that Massey paid two thousand livres, and widow Delaporte six hundred livres, to get out of prison."]

[Footnote 33119: Mallet-Dupan, "First letter to a Genoa merchant," (March I, 1796), pp.33-35. "One of the wonders of the reign of Terror is the slight attention given to the trafficking in life and death, characteristic of terrorism.... We scarcely find a word on the countless bargains through which 'suspect' citizens bought themselves out of captivity, and imprisoned citizens bought off the guillotine. ... Dungeons and executions were as much matters of trade as the purchase of cattle at a fair." This traffic "was carried on in all the towns, bourgs and departments surrendered to the Convention and Revolutionary Committees.".... "It has been established since the 10th of August." "I will only cite among a multitude of instances the unfortunate Duc du Châtelet: never did anybody pay more for his execution!"--Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris," VI., 88. (Denunciation of Fouquier-Tinville, signed Saulnie.) According to Saulnie he dined regularly twice a week at No 6 rue Serpente, with one Demay, calling himself a lawyer and living with a woman named Martin. In this death-trap, in the middle of orgies, the freedom or death of those in prison was bargained for in money with impunity. One head alone, belonging to the house of Boufflers, escaping the scaffold through the intrigues of these vampires, was worth to them thirty thousand livres, of which one thousand were paid down and a bond given for the rest, payable on being set at liberty.--Morellet, "Memoires," II., 32. The agent of Mesdames de Bouffiers was Abbé Chevalier, who had formerly known Fouquier-Tinville in the office of a procureur an Parliament and who, renewing the acquaintance, came and drank with Fouquier. "He succeeded in having the papers of the ladies Bouffiers, which were ready to be sent to the Tribunal, placed at the bottom of the file."--Mallet-Dupan, " Memoires," II., 495. "Fouquier-Tinville received a pension of one thousand crowns a month from Mesdames de Bouffiers; the ransom increased one quarter each month on account of the atrocity of the circumstances. This method saved these ladies, whilst those who paid a sum in gross lost their lives... It was Du Vaucel, fermier-general, who saved the Princess of Tarente....for five hundred louis, after having saved two other ladies for three hundred louis, given to one of the Jacobin leaders."]

[Footnote 33120: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 324. Coudert, of the Municipal Council, shoemaker, charged with the duty of taking silver-plate from the accused, did not know how, or was unwilling, to draw up any other than an irregular and valueless procès-verbal. On this, an accused party objected and refused to sign. "Take care, you," exclaims Coudert in a rage, "with your damned cleverness, you are playing the stubborn. You are nothing but a bloody fool! You are getting into a bad box! If you don't sign, I'll have you guillotined." Frequently, there are no papers at all. (De Martel, "Fouché," p.236. Memorial by the authorities of Allier, addressed to the Convention, document 9.) October 30, 1793. Order of the revolutionary committee enjoining nocturnal visits in all "suspect" houses in Moulins, to remove all gold, silver and copper. "Eleven parties are made up.. .. each to visit eight or ten houses. Each band is headed by one of the committee, with one municipal officer, accompanied by locksmiths and a revolutionary guard. The dwellings of the accused and other private individuals are searched. They force secretaries and wardrobes of which they do not find the keys. They pillage the gold and silver coin. They carry off plate, jewels, copper utensils and other effects, bed-clothes, docks, vehicles, etc. No receipt is given. No statement is made of what is carried off. They rest content by at the end of the month, reporting, in a sort of procès-verbal drawn up at a meeting of the committee, that, according to returns of the visits made, very little plate was found, and only a little money in gold and silver, all without any calculation or enumeration."--"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.93. (February 25, 1795.) The meetings of the popular club "were largely devoted to reading the infamous doings and robberies of the revolutionary committee.... The members who designated 'suspects' often arrested them themselves, and drew up a procès-verbal in which they omitted to state the jewels and gold they found."]

[Footnote 33121: Ibid., 461. (Vendemaire 24, year III. Visit of Representative Malarmé.) The former Duc de Narbonne-Lorra aged eighty-four, says to Malarmé: "Citizen representative, excuse me if I keep my cap on; I lost my hair in that prison, without having been able to get permission to have a wig made; it is worse than being robbed on the road." "Did they steal anything from you?" "They stole one hundred and forty five louis d'or and paid me with an acquittance for a tax for the sans-culottes, which is another robbery done to the citizens of this commune where I have neither home nor possessions." "Who committed this robbery?" "It was Citizen Berger, of the municipal council." "Was nothing else taken from you?" "They took a silver coffee-pot, two soap-cases and a silver shaving-dish" "Who took those articles?" "It was Citizen Miot (a notable of the council)." Miot confesses to having kept these objects and not taken them to the Mint.-Ibid., 178. (Ventôse 20, year II.) Prisoners all have their shoes taken, even those who had but one pair, a promise being made that they should have sabots in exchange, which they never got. Their cloaks also were taken with a promise to pay for them, which was never done.--"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.92. (February 25, 1795.) "The sessions of the popular club were largely devoted to reading the infamies and robberies of the revolutionary committee. Its members, who designated the suspects, often arrested them themselves; they made levies and reports of these in which they omitted the gold and jewels found."]

[Footnote 33122: Moniteur, XXII. 133. (Session of Vendémiaire II, year III.) Report by Thibaudeau. "These seven individuals are reprobates who were dismissed by the people's representatives for having stolen the effects of persons arrested. A document is on record in which they make a declaration that, not remembering the value of the effects embezzled, they agree to pay damages to the nation of twenty-two francs each."]

[Footnote 33123: Berryat Saint-Prix, 447. Judge Ragot was formerly a joiner at Lyons, and Viot, the public prosecutor, a former deserter from the Penthièvre regiment. "Other accused persons were despoiled. Little was left them other than their clothes, which were in a bad state. Nappier, the bailiff, was, later, (Messidor, year III.), condemned to irons for having appropriated a part of the effects, jewels and assignats belonging to persons under accusation."]

[Footnote 33124: The words of Camille Desmoulins in "La France Libre," (August, 1782).]

[Footnote 33125: De Martel, "Fouché," 362.-Ibid.,, 132, 162, 179, 427, 443.--Lecarpentier, in La Manche, constantly stated: "Those who do not like the Revolution, must pay those who make it."]

[Footnote 33126: Marcelin Boudet, 175. (Address of Monestier to the popular clubs of Puy-de-Dome, February 23, 1793.)]

[Footnote 33127: Alexandrine des Echerolles, "Une famille noble sous la Terreur."]

[Footnote 33128: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan to the president of the committee of Public Safety, Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]

[Footnote 33129: Report by Courtois, "Sur les papiers de Robespierre," (Pieces justificatives, pp. 312-324), Letters of Reverchon, Germinal 29, Floréal 7 and 23, and by La Porte, Germinal 24, year II.]

[Footnote 33130: Ibid. Letter by La Porte "I do not know what fatality induces patriots here not to tolerate their brethren whom they call strangers ... They have declared to us that they would not suffer any of them to hold office." The representatives dared arrest but two robbers and despoilers, who are now free and declaiming against them at Paris. "Countless grave and even atrocious circumstances are daily presented to us on which we hesitate to act, lest we should strike patriots, or those who call themselves such... Horrible depredations are committed."]

[Footnote 33131: Ibid. Letter by Reverchon: "These fanatics all want the Republic simply for themselves."... "They call themselves patriots only to cut the throats of their brethren and get rich."--Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la ville de Lyons Pendant la Révolution III.", 166. (Report by Fouché, April, 1794.) "Innocent persons, acquitted by the terrible tribunal of the Revolutionary committee, were again consigned to the dungeons of criminals through the despotic orders of the thirty-two committees, because they were so unfortunate as to complain that, on returning home, they could not find the strictly necessary objects they had left there."]

[Footnote 33132: Meissner, "Voyage en France dans les Derniers Mois de 1795," p.343. "A certain domain was handed over to one of their creatures by the revolutionary departments for almost nothing, less than the proceeds of the first cut of wood."--Moniteur, XXIII., 397. (Speech by Bourdon de l'Oise, May 6, 1795.) "A certain farmer paid for his farm worth five thousand francs by the sale of one horse."]

[Footnote 33133: Moniteur, XXII., 82. (Report by Grégoire, Fructidor 14, year II.) Ibid., 775. (Report by Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)]

[Footnote 33134: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," II., p. I. (Procès-verbal, drawn up in the presence of the elder Mouet and signed by him.)]

[Footnote 33135: Moniteur, XXII., 775. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)--Ibid., 711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)--Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan, Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]

[Footnote 33136: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 184. (Visit of Ventôse 27, year II.)]

[Footnote 33137: Archives Nationales, F.7, 7164. (Department of Var "Ideé générale et appréciation avec détails sur chaque canton," year V.)]

[Footnote 33138: Ibid., F.7, 7171 (No. 7915).--(Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, "Ideé générale," year V.)--(Letters of Miollis, commissioner of the Directory in the department, Ventôse 14 and 16, year V. Letter of Gen. Willot to the Minister, Ventôse 10, and of Gen. Merle to Gen. Willot, Ventôse 17, year V.) "Several sections of anarchists travel from one commune to another exciting weak citizens to riots and getting them to take part in the horrors they are meditating."--Ibid., F 7, 7164. Letter of Gen. Willot to the Minister, Aries, Pluviôse 12, year V., with supporting documents, and especially a letter of the director of the jury, on the violence committed by, and the reign of, the Jacobins in Aries.) Their party "is composed of the vilest artisans and nearly all the sailors." The municipality recruited amongst former terrorists, "has enforced for a year back the agrarian law, devastation of the forests, pillage of the wheat-crops, by bands of armed men under pretext of the right of gleaning, the robbery of animals at the plough as well as of the flocks," etc.]

[Footnote 33139: Ibid., F.7, 7171. "These commissioners (of the quarter) notify the exclusives, and even swindlers, when warrants are out against them.... The same measures carried out in the primary assemblies on the 1st of Thermidor last, in the selection of municipal officers, have been successfully revived in the organization of the National Guard--threats, insults, shouting, assaults, compulsory ejection from meetings then governed by the amnestied, finally, the appointment of the latter to the principal offices. In effect, all, beginning with the places of battalion leaders and reaching to those of corporals, are exclusively filled by their partisans. The result is that the honest, to whom serving with men regarded by them with aversion is repugnant, employ substitutes instead of mounting guard themselves, the security of the town being in the hands of those who themselves ought to be watched."]

[Footnote 33140: Archives Nationales, F.7, 3273. (Letter of Mérard, former administrator and judge in 1790 and 1791, in years III., IV. and V., to the Minister, Apt, Pluviôse 15, year III., with personal references and documentary evidence.) "I can no longer refrain at the sight of so many horrors.... The justices of the peace and the director of the jury excuse themselves on the ground that no denunciations or witnesses are brought forward. Who would dare appear against men arrogating to themselves the title of superior patriots, foremost in every revolutionary crisis, and with friends in every commune and protectors in all high places? The favor they enjoyed was such that the commune of Gordes was free of any levy of conscripts and from all requisitions. People thus disposed, they said, to second civic and administrative views, could not be humored too much..... This discouraging state of things simply results from the weakness, inexperience, ignorance, apathy and immorality of the public functionaries who, since the 18th of Fructidor, year V., swarm, with a few exceptions only, among the constituted authorities. Whatever is most foul and incompetent is in office, every good citizen being frightened to death."--Ibid. (Letter of Montauban, director of the registry since 1793 to the Minister of the Interior, a compatriot, Avignon, Pluviôse 7, year VII.) "Honest folks are constantly annoyed and put down by the authors and managers of the 'Glaciere'.... . by the tools of the bloody tribunal of Orange and the incendiaries of Bedouim." He enjoins secrecy on this letter, which, "if known to the Glacièrists, or Orangeists, would cost him his life."]

[Footnote 33141: Ibid., F.7, 7164. (Department of Var, year V., "Ideé Générale.") "National character is gone; it is even demoralized: an office-holder who has not made his fortune quickly is regarded as a fool."]

[Footnote 33142: Moniteur, XXII., 240. (Indictment of the fourteen members of the Revolutionary committee of Nantes, and the summing-up of the examination, Vendémiaire 23, year II.) When there is no special information concerning the other committees the verdict, on the whole, is nearly always as overwhe1ming.-Ibid. (Session of Vendémiaire 12, year III. complaint of a deputation from Ferney-Voltaire.) "The Gex district was, for over a year, a prey to five or six scoundrels who took refuge there. Under the mask of patriotism they succeeded in getting possession of all the offices. Vexations of every kind, robberies of private houses, squandering of public money, were committed by these monsters." (The Ferney deputies brought with them the testimony of witnesses.)--Ibid., 290. (Letters of Representative Goupilleau, Beziers, Vendémiaire 28, year III. on the terrorists of Vaucluse.) "These carnivorous fellows, regretting the times when they could rob and massacre with impunity.... Who, six months ago, were starving and who now live in the most scandalous opulence... Squanderers of the public funds, robbers of private fortunes... Guilty of rapine, of forced contributions, of extortions," etc.--Prudhomme, "Les crimes de la Révolution," VI., 79. (On the Revolutionary committee installed by Fouché at Nevers.) The local investigation shows that the eleven leaders were men of vile character, unfrocked and disreputable priests, lawyers and notaries driven out of their professional bodies, and even from the popular clubs, on account of their dishonesty, penniless actors, surgeons without patients, depraved, ruined, incapable men, and two jail-birds.]

[Footnote 33143: Beaulieu, III., 754.--Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II., ch. I., P 9.]

[Footnote 33144: "Recueil de pièces authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 21.--Archives Nationales D., I., P 6. (Orders by Rousselin, Frimaire II, year II.)]

[Footnote 33145: "Un Sejour en France de 1792 à 1795," p.409.]

[Footnote 33146: I have not found a complete list of the towns and departments which had a revolutionary army. The correspondence of representatives on mission and published documents verify the presence of revolutionary armies in the towns mentioned.]

[Footnote 33147: De Martel, "Fouché," 338. (Text of the orders of the commissioners of Public Safety.) The detachment sent to Lyons comprises twelve hundred fusiliers, six hundred gunners, one hundred and fifty horses. Three hundred thousand livres are remitted as traveling expenses to the commissary, fifty thousand to Collot d'Herbois, and nineteen thousand two hundred to the Jacobin civilians accompanying them.]

[Footnote 33148: Moniteur. (Session of Brumaire 17 year III.) Letter of Representative Calès to the Convention. "Under the pretext of guarding the prisons, the municipality (of Dijon) had a revolutionary army which I broke up two days ago, as it cost six thousand francs a month, and would not obey the commander of the armed force, and served as a support to intriguers. These soldiers, who were all workmen out of employment, do nothing but post themselves in the tribunes of the clubs, where they, with the women they bring along with them, applaud the leaders, and so threaten citizens who are disposed to combat them, and force these to keep their mouths shut."??De Martel, "Fouché," 425. "Javogues, to elude a decree of the Convention (Frimaire 14) suppressing the revolutionary army in the departments, converted the twelve hundred men he had embodied in it in the Loire into paid soldiers."? Ibid., 132. (Letter of Goulin, Bourg, Frimaire 23.) "Yesterday, at Bourg-Régeriéré, I found Javogues with about four hundred men of the revolutionary army whom he had brought with him on the 20th instant."]

[Footnote 33149: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 45.--Moniteur, XX., 67. (Report of Barère, Germinal 7.)--Sauzay, IV., 303. (Orders of Representative Bassal at Bésançon.)]

[Footnote 33150: We see by Barère's report (Germinal 7, year II.) that the revolutionary army of Paris, instead of being six thousand men, was only four thousand, which is creditable to Paris.--Mallet-Dupan, II., 52. (cf. "The Revolution," II., 353.)--Gouvion St. Cyr, I., 137. "In these times, the representatives had organized in Haut-Rhin what they called a revolutionary army, composed of deserters and all the vagabonds and scamps they could pick up who had belonged to the popular club; they dragged along after it what they called judges and a guillotine."--"Hua, Souvenirs d'un Avocat," 196.]

[Footnote 33151: Riouffe, "Memoires d'un deténue." P.31.]

[Footnote 33152: Ibid., "These balls were brought out ostentatiously and shown to the people beforehand. The tying of our hands and passing three ropes around our waists did not seem to him sufficient. We kept these irons on the rest of the route, and they were so heavy that, if the carriage had tilted to one side, we should inevitably have had our legs broken. The gate-keepers of the conciergerie of Paris, who had held their places nine-teen years, were astonished at it."]

[Footnote 33153: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.331. (Letter of Haupt, Belfort, Frimaire 13, year II.)]

[Footnote 33154: Ibid. (Letter by Desgranges, Bordeaux, Frimaire 10.)]

[Footnote 33155: Ibid., vol.332. (Letter of Thiberge, Marseilles, Frimaire 14.) "I surrounded the town with my small army."]

[Footnote 33156: Ibid., 331. (Orders of Representative Bassal, Besançon Frimaire 5.) "No citizen shall keep in his house more than four months' supplies.... Every citizen with more than this will deposit the surplus in the granary 'd'abondance' provided for the purpose... . Immediately on receipt of the present order, the municipality will summon all citizens that can thresh and proceed immediately, without delay, to the threshing-ground, under penalty of being prosecuted as refractory to the law.... The revolutionary army is specially charged with the execution of the articles of this order, and the revolutionary tribunals, following this army with the enforcement of the penalties inflicted according to this order."--Other documents show us that the revolutionary army, organized in the department of Doubs and in the five neighboring departments, comprises, in all, two thousand four hundred men. (Ibid., vol., 1411. Letter of Meyenfeld to Minister Desforges, Brumaire 27, year II.)--Archives Nationales, AF., II., 111. (Order of Couthon, Maignet, Chateauneuf, Randon, La Porte and Albitte, Commune-Affranchie, Brumaire 9, year II., establishing in the ten surrounding departments a revolutionary army of one thousand men per department, for the conscription of grain. Each army is to be directed by commissioners, strangers to the department, and is to operate in other departments than in the one where it is raised.)]

[Footnote 33157: Archives des Affaires étrangères, 331. (Letter of Chépy, Frimaire II.)--Writing one month before this, (Brumaire 6) he says: "The farmers show themselves very hostile against the towns and the law of the maximum. Nothing can be done without a revolutionary army."]

[Footnote 33158: Mercier, "Paris Pendant la Révolution," I., 357.]

[Footnote 33159: Hua, 197. I do not find in any printed or manuscript document but one case of resistance, that of the brothers Chaperon, in the hamlet of Leges, near Sens, who declare that they have no wheat except for their own use, and who defend themselves by the use of a gun. The gendarmerie not being strong enough to overcome them, the tocsin is sounded and the National Guard of Sens and the neighborhood is summoned; bringing cannon, the affair ends with the burning of the house. The two brothers are killed. Before being overcome, however, they had struck down the captain of the National Guard of Sens and killed or wounded nearly forty of their assailants. A surviving brother and a sister are guillotined. (June, 1794. Wallon, IV., 352.)]

[Footnote 33160: Moniteur, XVIII., 663. (Session of Frimaire 24, report by Lecointre.) "The communes of Thieux, Jully and many others were victims to their brigandage."--"The stupor in the country is such that the poor sufferers dare not complain of these vexations because, they say, they are only too lucky to have escaped with their lives."--This time, however, these public brigands made a mistake. Gibbon's son happens to be Lecointre's tenant farmer. Moreover, it is only accidentally that he mentions the circumstance to his landlord; "he came to see him for another purpose."--Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II., 302. (There is a similar scene in the house of one Ruelle, a farmer, in the commune of Lisse.)]

[Footnote 33161: Passim Alfred Lallier, "Le sans-culotte Goullin."--Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris," V., 368. (Deposition of Lacaille.)--In addition to this, the most extraordinary monsters are met with in other administrative bodies, for example, in Nantes, a Jean d'Héron, tailor, who becomes inspector of military stores. "After the rout at Clisson, says the woman Laillet, he appeared in the popular club with a brigand's ear attached to his hat by way of cockade. His pockets were full of ears, which he took delight in making the women kiss. He exposed other things which he made them kiss and the woman Laillet adds certain details which I dare not transcribe." (" Le patriote d'Héron," by L. de la Sicotière, pp.9 and 10. Deposition of the woman Laillet, fish-dealer, also the testimony of Mellinet, vol. VIII., p.256.)]

[Footnote 33162: Wallon, V., 368. (Deposition of de Laillet.)]

[Footnote 33163: Ibid., V., 37'. (Deposition of Tabouret.)]

[Footnote 33164: Ibid., V., 373. (Deposition of Mariotte.)]

[Footnote 33165: Monieur, XXII., 321. (Deposition of Philippe Troncjolly.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," 39.]

[Footnote 33166: Campardon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionnaire," II., 30. They have ten francs a day, and full powers conferred on them. (Orders of Carrier and Francastel, October 28, 1793.) "The representatives.... confer collectively and individually, on each member of the revolutionary company, the right of surveillance over all 'suspect' citizens in Nantes, over strangers who come to or reside there, over monopolists of every sort.... The right to make domiciliary visits wherever they may deem it advisable.... The armed force will everywhere respond to the demands made upon it in the name of the company, or of any individual member composing it."--Berryat Saint-Prix, p. 42.--Alfred Lallier, "Les Noyades de Nantes," p.20. (Deposition of Gauthier.) Ibid., p.22. "Damn," exclaims Carrier, "I kept that execution for Lamberty. I'm sorry that it was done by others."]

[Footnote 33167: Alfred Lallier, ibid., pp.21 and 90.--Cf. Moniteur, XXII., 331. (Deposition of Victoire Abraham.) "The drowners made quite free with the women, even using them for their own purposes when pleased with them, which women, in token of their kindness, enjoyed the precious advantage of not being drowned."]

[Footnote 33168: Campardon, II., 8. (Deposition of Commeret.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, p. 42.-Ibid., p.28. Other agents of Carrier, Fouquet and Lamberty, were condemned specially, "for having saved from national vengeance Madame de Martilly and her maid... They shared the woman Martilly and the maid between them." In connection with the "dainty taste" of Jacobins for silk dresses M. Berryat Saint-Prix cites the following answer of a Jacobin of 1851 to the judge d'instruction of Rheims; on the objection being made to him that the Republic, as he understood it, could not last long, he replied: "Possibly, but say it lasts three months. That's long enough to fill one's pocket and belly and rumple silk dresses?" Another of the same species said in 1871: "We shall anyhow have a week's use of it." Observers of human nature will find analogous details in the history of the Sepoy rebellion in India against the English in 1803, also in the history of the Indians in the United States. The September massacres in Paris and the history of the combat of 1791 and 1792 have already provided us with the same characteristic documents.]

[Footnote 33169: Alfred Lallier, "Les Fusillades de Nantes," P.23. (Depositions of Picard, commander of the National Guards of the escort.--Cf. the depositions of Jean Jounet, paver, and of Henri Ferdinand, joiner.)]

[Footnote 33170: Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le Département du Doubs," VII., 687. (Letter of Grégoire, December 24, 1796.) "An approximative calculation makes the number of the authors of so many crimes three hundred thousand, for in each commune there were about five or six of these ferocious brutes who, named Brutus, perfected the art of removing seals, drowning and cutting throats. They consumed immense amounts in constructing 'Mountains,' in reveling, and in fetes every three months which, after the first parade, became parodies, represented by three or four actors in them, and with no audience. These consisted, finally, of a drum-beater and the musical officer; and the latter, ashamed of himself, often concealed his scarf in his pocket, on his way to the Temple of Reason. ... But these 300 000 brigands had 2 or 300 directors, members of the National convention, who cannot be called anything but scoundrels, since the language provides no other epithet so forcible."]

BOOK FOURTH. THE GOVERNED.