Chapter I: The Oppressed (4)

[Footnote 41106: Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," p. 419.--Archives Nationales, AF., II., 145. (Orders issued by Representative Maignet, Floréal 14, 15 and 17, year II.) "The criminal court will try and execute the principal criminals; the rest of the inhabitants will abandon their houses in twenty-four hours, and take their furniture along with them. The town will then be burnt. All rebuilding or tillage of the soil is forbidden. The inhabitants will be apportioned among neighboring communes; nobody is allowed to leave the commune assigned to him under penalty of being treated as an emigré. All must appear once every ten days at the municipality under penalty of being declared 'suspect' and imprisoned."]

[Footnote 41107: "Recueil de Piecès, etc.," I., 52. (Carret de Beudot and La Coste, Pluviôse 6, year II.) "Whereas, it being impossible to find jurors within an extent of one hundred leagues, two-thirds of the inhabitants having emigrated."--Moniteur, Aug.28 and 29, 1797. (Report by Harmand de la Meuse.)--Ibid., XIX., 714. (Session of Ventôse 26, year II., speech by Baudot.) "Forty thousand persons of all ages and both sexes in the districts alone of Haguenau and Wissembourg, fled from the French territory on the lines being retaken. The names are in our hands, their furniture in the depot at Saverne and their property is made over to the Republic."]

[Footnote 41108: Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," II., 160. "A gardener had carefully accumulated eight thousand two hundred and twenty-three livres in gold, the fruit of his savings; threatened with imprisonment, he was obliged to give them up."]

[Footnote 41109: Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 116. (Orders of Representative Paganel, Toulouse, Brumaire 12, year II.) "The day has arrived when apathy is an insult to patriotism, and indifference a crime. We no longer reply to the objections of avarice; we will force the rich to fulfill the duties of fraternity which they have abjured."--Ibid. (Extract from the minutes of the meetings of the Central committee of Montauban, April II, 1793, with the approval of the representative, Jeanbon-Saint-André.) "The moment has at length come when moderatism, royalism and pusillanimity, and all other traitorous or useless sects to the country, should disappear from the soil of Liberty." All opinions opposed to those of sans-culotterie are blamable and merit punishment.]

[Footnote 41110: Archives Nationales, F.7, 2471. (Minutes of the Revolutionary Committee of the Tuileries section, meeting of September 17, 1793.) List of seventy-four persons put under arrest and among them, M. de Noailles, with the following note opposite his name: "The entire family to be arrested, including their heir Guy, and Hervet, their old intendant, rue St. Honoré."]

[Footnote 41111: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 322. (Letters of Ladonay, Chalons, September 17 and 20, 1792.) "At Meaux, the brigands have cut the throats of fifteen prisoners, seven of whom are priests whose relations belong to the town or its environs. Hence an immense number of malcontents."--Sauzay, I., 97. "The country curés are generally recruited from among the rural bourgeoisie and the most respected farmers' families."]

[Footnote 41112: Sauzay, passim, especially vols. 3, 4, 5, and 6.]

[Footnote 41113: Archives Nationales, F.7, 4437. Address of the popular club of Clavisson (Gard.), Messidor 7, year II.--Rodolphe Reuss, "Séligman Alexandre, sur les Tribulations d'un Israelite Strasbourgeois Pendant la Terreur," p. 37. Order issued by General Diéche to Coppin, in command of the "Seminaire" prison. "Strive with the utmost zeal to suppress the cackle of aristocrats." Such is the sum of the instructions to jail keepers.]

[Footnote 41114: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 88. (Edict issued by Representative Milhaud, Narbonne, Ventôse 9, year II.) Article II. "The patriotic donation will be doubled if, in three days, all boats are not unloaded and all carts loaded as fast as they arrive." Article IV. "The municipality is charged, on personal responsibility, to proportion the allotment on the richest citizens of Narbonne." Article VII. "If this order is not executed within twenty-four hours, the municipality will designate to the commandant of the post the rich egoists who may have refused to furnish their contingent, etc." Article VIII. "The commandant is specially charged to report (the arrests of the refractory rich) to the representative of the people within twenty-four hours, he being responsible on his head for the punctual execution of the present order."--Ibid., AF., II. 135. (Orders of Saint-Just and Lebas, Strasbourg, Brumaire 10, year II.) The following is equally ironical; the rich of Strasbourg are represented as "soliciting a loan on opulent persons and severe measures" against refractory egoists.]

[Footnote 41115: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 92. Orders of Representative Taillefer, Villefranche, Aveyron, Brumaire 3, year II., and of his delegate, Deitheil, Brumaire 11, year II.]

[Footnote 41116: This is the case in Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and at Paris, as we see in the signatures of the petition of the eight thousand, or that of the twenty thousand, and for members of the Feuillants clubs, etc.]

[Footnote 41117: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 116. (Minutes of the public session of Ventôse 20, year II., held at Montargis, in the Temple of Reason, by Benon, "national agent of the commune and special agent of the people's representative." Previous and subsequent orders, by Representative Lefert.) Eighty-six persons signed, subject to public penance, among them twenty-four wives or widows, which, with the four names sent to the Paris tribunal and the thirty-two imprisoned, makes one hundred and twenty-two. It is probable that the one hundred and six who are wanting to complete the list of two hundred and twenty-eight had emigrated, or been banished in the interval as unsworn priests.--Ibid., D.S., I., 10. (Orders by Delacroix, Bouchet and Legendre, Conches, Frimaire 8 and 9, year II.) The incarceration of the municipal officers of Conches for an analogous petition and other marks of Feuillantism.]

[Footnote 41118: The real sentiments and purposes of the Jacobins are well shown at Strasbourg. ("Recueil de Pieces, etc.," I., 77. Public meeting of the municipal body, and speech by Bierlyn, Prairial 25, year II.) " How can the insipid arrogance of these (Strasbourg) people be represented to you, their senseless attachment to the patrician families in their midst, the absurd feuil1antism of some and the vile sycophancy of others? How is it, they say, that moneyless interlopers, scarcely ever heard of before, dare assume to have credit in a town of sensible inhabitants and honest families, from father to son, accustomed to governing and renowned for centuries?"--Ibid., 113. (Speech of the mayor Mouet, Floréal 21, year II.) "Moral purification (in Strasbourg) has become less difficult through the reduction of fortunes and the salutary terror excited among those covetous men.. . Civilization has encountered mighty obstacles in this great number of well-to-do families who have nourished souvenirs of, and who regret the privileges enjoyed by, these families under the Emperors; they have formed a caste apart from the State carefully preserving the gothic pictures of their ancestors they were united only amongst themselves. They are excluded from all public functions. Honest artisans, now taken from all pursuits, impel the revolutionary cart with a vigorous hand."]

[Footnote 41119: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1411. (Instructions for the civil commissioners by Hérault, representative of the people, Colmar, Frimaire 2, year II.) He enumerates the diverse categories of persons who were to be arrested, which categories are so large and numerous as to include nine out of ten of the inhabitants.]

[Footnote 41120: Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p.264. (Report of Pourveyeur, Ventôse 29.) "They remark (sic) that one is not (sic) a patriot with twenty-thousand livres (sic) income, and especially a former advocate-general."]

[Footnote 41121: De Martel, "Fouché," p.226, 228. For instance, at Nevers, a man of sixty-two years of age, is confined "as rich, egoist, fanatic, doing nothing for the Revolution, a proprietor, and having five hundred livres revenue."]

[Footnote 41122: Buchez et Roux, XXVI., '77. (Speech by Cambon, April 27, 1793.)]

[Footnote 41123: "Who are our enemies? The vicious and the rich."--"All the rich are vicious, in opposition to the Revolution." (Notes made by Robespierre in June and July, 1793, and speech by him in the Jacobin club, May 10, 1793.)]

[Footnote 41124: Guillon, II., 355. (Instructions furnished by Collot d'Herbois and Fouché, Brumaire 26, year II.)]

[Footnote 41125: De Martel, 171, 181. (Orders of Fouché, Nevers, August 25 and October 8, 1793.)]

[Footnote 41126: Guillon.-Archives des Affaires étrangères, F. 1411. Reports by observers at Paris, Aug. 12 and 13, 1793. "The rich man is the sworn enemy of the Revolution."]

[Footnote 41127: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 135. (Orders of Saint-Just and Lebas, Strasbourg, Brumaire 10, year II., with the list of names of one hundred and ninety-three persons taxed, together with their respective amounts of taxation.)--Among others, "a widow Franck, banker, two hundred thousand livres."--Ibid., AF., II., 49. (Documents relating to the revolutionary tax at Belfort.) "Vieillard, Moderate and egoist, ten thousand francs; Keller, rich egoist, seven thousand; as aristocrats, of whom the elder and younger brother are imprisoned, Barthélémy the younger ten thousand, Barthélémy senior, three thousand five hundred, Barthelemy junior seven thousand, citoyenne Barthélémy, mother, seven thousand, etc."]

[Footnote 41128: "Recueil de Pièces, etc.," I., 22. (Letter of the Strasbourg authorities.) De Martel, p. 288. (Letter of the authorities of Allier.) "Citizens Sainay, Balome, Heulard and Lavaleisse were exposed on the scaffold in the most rigorous season for six hours (at Moulins) with this inscription--'bad citizen who has given nothing to the charity-box.'"]

[Footnote 41129: "Recueil de Pièces, etc.," I., 16.]

[Footnote 41130: Ibid., I., 159. (Orders of Brumaire 15, year II.)]

[Footnote 41131: Archives Nationales, F.7, 2475. (Minutes of the Revolutionary committee of the Piques section.) September 9, 1793, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the committee declares that, for its part, "it has arrested twenty-one persons of the category below stated." October 8, it places two sans-culottes as guards in the houses of all those named below, in the quarter, even those who could not be arrested on account of absence. "It is time to take steps to make sure of all whose indifference (sic) and moderatism is ruining the country."]

[Footnote 41132: Berryat Saint-Prix, pp.36, 38. carrier declares suspect "merchants and the rich."]

[Footnote 41133: Moniteur, XVIII., 641. (Letter of the representatives imprisoned at Bordeaux, Frimaire 10, year II.)]

[Footnote 41134: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.329. (Letter of Brutus, October 3, 1793.)]

[Footnote 41135: Ibid., vol.329. (Letter of Charles Duvivier, Lille, Vendémiaire 15, year II.)]

[Footnote 41136: Speech by Barère, Ventôse 17, year II.]

[Footnote 41137: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 331. Letter by Darbault, political agent, Tarbes, Frimaire II, year II. (Project for doing away with middle men in trade, brokers and bankers.) "The profession of a banker is abolished. All holders of public funds are forbidden to sell them under a year and one day after the date of their purchase. No one must be at the same time wholesale and retail dealer, etc." Projects of this sort are numerous. As to the establishment of a purely agricultural and military Republic, see the papers of Saint-Just, and the correspondence of the Lyons Terrorists. According to them the new France needs no silk-weavers. The definite formulas of the system are always found among the Babeuvists. "Let the arts perish, if it must be so, provided real Equality remains." (Sylvain Maréchal," Maniféste des Egaux.")]

[Footnote 41138: "Revue Historique," November, 1878. (Letter of M. Falk, Paris, Oct.19, 1795.)]

[Footnote 41139: "Etude sur l'histoire de Grenoble Pendant la Terreur," by Paul Thibault. (List of notorious "suspects" and of ordinary "suspects" for each district in the Isere, April and May, 1793.)--Cf. the various lists of Doubs in Sauzay, and of Troyes, in Albert Babeau.]

[Footnote 41140: "Recueil de Pièces, etc.," I., 19, and the second letter of Frederic Burger, Thermidor 25.--Archives Nationales, AF., II.,111.(Order of Representatives Merlincourt and Amar, Grenoble, April 27, 1793.) "The persons charged with the actual government of and instruction in the public establishments known in this town under the titles of, 1st, Orphelines; 2nd Presentins; 3rd Capuchins; 4th, Le Propagation; 5th, Hospice for female servants.... are put under arrest and are forbidden to take any part whatever in the functions relating to teaching, education or instruction."]

[Footnote 41141: Moniteur, XXI., 645. (Session of the Convention, Fructidor 14, year II.)--"Bibliotèque nationale," LB41, 1802, (Denounciation of the six sections of the commune of Dijon), 3: "Woe betide those are seen in any way, either due to an honest affluence, a good education, an elegant dress or some talent or other, as being different from their fellow citizens! They are likely to be persecuted or to be killed."]

[Footnote 41142: Perhaps there is a connection with Mao Zedong and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. (SR.)]

[Footnote 41143: Moniteur, XVIII., 51. (Letter by Carrier, Brumaire 17, year II.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, pp.36 and 38.]

[Footnote 41144: Berriat-Saint-Prix, 240 (The imprisoned at Brest.)--Duchaltelier ("Brest pendant la Terreur," 205). "Of the 975 prisoners, 106 were former nobles, 239 female nobles, 174 priests or monks, 206 nuns, 111 seamstresses, female workers etc, 56 were farmers, 46 artisans or workers, 17 merchants, 3 with a liberal profession. One is imprisoned for having secret opinions, a girl, for being witty and laughing at the patriots."]

[Footnote 41145: Mallet-Dupan, "Correspondance Politique." Introduction, p. VIII. (Hamburg, 1796.)]

[Footnote 41146: Portalis, "De la Révision des Jugements," 1795. (Saint-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," V., 452.)--Moniteur. XXII, 86 (Report of Grégoire, 14 Fructidor, year II): "Dumas said that all clever men (les hommes d'esprit) should be sent to the guillotine... Henriot proposed to burn the National Library.... and his proposal is repeated in Marseille... The systematic persecution of talented persons was organized.... Shouts had been heard in the sections: Beware of that man as he as written a book."]

[Footnote 41147: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse" by Pescayre, prisoner, year III, p. 317 ( Messidor 22nd, year II). Pinson, secretary of the reception, indoctrinated as follows the old duke de Lesparre: "Citoyen, your detention is used by your country as a means of conversion. Eight of your immediate family have, because they did not take advantage of his opportunity, carried their heads to the scaffold. What have you done to avoid the sword of justice? Speak! What are your feelings? Let us hear your principles. Have you at last renounced the arrogance of the ancient regime? Do you believe in equality established by nature and ordained by the Convention? Who are the sans-culottes you associate with? Is your cell not a meeting place for the aristocrats?... It is I, who in the future will be your company; I, who will make you familiar with the republican principles, who will make you love them, and who will take care of your improvement."]

[Footnote 41148: Taillandier, Mémoires écrits par Daunau, à Port-Libre, in Aug. 1794, p.51, 52.]

[Footnote 41149: Granier du Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," i., 107. (Trial of Babeuf, extracts from Buonarotti, programme des "Egaux.") "All literature in favor of Revelation must be prohibited: children are to be brought up in common; the child will no longer bear his father's name; no Frenchman shall leave France; towns shall be demolished, chateaux torn down and books proscribed; all Frenchmen shall wear one special costume; armies shall be commanded by civil magistrates; the dead shall be prosecuted and obtain burial only according to the favorable decision of the court; no written document shall be published without the consent of the government, etc."--Cf. "Les Meditations de Saint-Just."]

[Footnote 41150: Guillon de Montléon, II., 174.]

[Footnote 41151: "Memoires sur les Prisons," I., 211, II., 187.--Beaulieu, "Essais," V., 320. "The prisons became the rendezvous of good society."]

[Footnote 41152: "The Revolution," vol.3, ch. 6, ante.]

[Footnote 41153: Chateaubriand: "Génie du Christianisme," part 4, book II., notes on the exhumations at St. Denis taken by a monk, an eye-witness. Destruction, August 6 and 8, 1793, of fifty-one monuments. Exhumation of bodies, October 12 and 25, 1793.--Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," p.223. (Testimony of Bordier-Langlois.) "I saw the head of our good Duke Réné, deposited in the chapel of St. Bernardin, in the Cordéliers at Angers, tossed like a ball by some laborers from one to the other."]

[Footnote 41154: R. Chantelauze, "Louis XVII.," (according to unpublished documents). This book, free of declamation and composed according to the critical method, sets this question at rest.]

[Footnote 41155: Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire," III., 285.--Campardon, "Hist. du Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris," I., 306. Brochet, one of the jury, was formerly a lackey.]

[Footnote 41156: The above simply conveys the sense of the document, which is here given in the original: "Si tu n'est pas toute seulle et que le compagnion soit a travailier tu peus ma chaire amie venir voir juger 24 mesieurs tous si-deven président on conselier au parlement de Paris et de Toulouse. Je t' ainvite a prendre quelque choge aven de venir parcheque nous naurons pas fini de 3 hurres. Je tembrase ma chère amie et épouge." (TR).]

[Footnote 41157: Wallon, III., 402.]

[Footnote 41158: Campardon, II., 350.--Cf. Causeries du Lundi," II., 164. Saint-Beuve's comment on the examination. "André Chénier, natife de Constantinoble....son frère vice-consulte en Espagne. "Remark the questions on his health and correspondence and the cock-and-bull story about the 'maison a cotté.' "--They ask him where his servant was on the 10th of August, 1792, and he replies that he could not tell. "A lui representé qua lepoque de cette journee que touts les bons citoyent ny gnoroit point leurs existence et quayant enttendue batte la générale cettait un motife de plus pour reconnoitre tous les bons citoyent et le motife au quelle il setait employée pour sauvee la Republique. A repondue quil avoit dite l'exacte véritée. A lui demandée quel etoit dite l'exacte veritée--a repondue que cetoit toutes ce qui etoit cy dessue."]