Chapter X: Royalty Abolished

Tallien, in his account of the times, traces the events leading up to these September days; he marks among the causes of the public indignation the scandalous acquittals of the Orleans High Court, and the approach of the foreign armies, after the capture of Longwy and Verdun. Then he proceeds:

"At the same time, a criminal exposed in the public place had the temerity to cry on the scaffold, 'Long live the King! Long live the Queen! Long live Lafayette! Long live the Prussians! To the devil with the Nation!' These utterances provoked the anger of the people, and the wretch would have perished on the instant had not the attorney of the Commune shielded him with his own body, and had him taken back to prison to be turned over to the judges. In the course of his examination he declared that for several days money had been scattered profusely in the prisons, and that, at the first opportunity, the brigands there held in durance were to be armed in the service of the counter-revolutionists!

"Moreover, no one is ignorant that it was in the prisons that the false notes put in circulation were forged; and, in fact, during the expedition of the 2nd of September, there were found in the prisons plates, paper, and all the necessary apparatus for issuing the notes. These articles are in existence now, and are deposited in the archives of the courts....

"Soon thousands of citizens were assembled under the banners of liberty, ready to march. But before their departure, a simple and natural reflection occurred to them:

"'At the very moment that we march against the enemy,' they said, 'when we go to shed our blood in defense of the country, we do not wish to leave our fathers, our wives, our children, our old folks, exposed to the onslaughts of the reprobates shut up in the prisons. Before setting out against the foreign enemies, we must first wipe out those in our midst.'

"Such was the language of these citizens, when two refractory priests whom they were taking to the Abbey Prison, hearing some seditious cries, offered insults to the Revolution. The rage of the people was at white heat....

"The Swiss, the assassins of the people on the 10th of August, imprisoned to the number of some three hundred, were set free and incorporated in the national battalions....

"Such were the circumstances which preceded and provoked the events of September, events unquestionably terrible, and which, in time of peace would demand legal vengeance, but which, in a period of agitation, it is better to draw the veil over, leaving to the historian the task of appreciating this period of the Revolution, which, however, had many more uses than one thinks."

To wind up the portrayal of this redoubtable evolution, I take this extract from a speech of Robespierre's:

"They have spoken to you often of the events of September 2. That is the subject at which I am impatient to arrive. I shall treat it in an absolutely disinterested manner....

"The general council of the Commune, far from exciting the events of September, did its levellest to prevent them. In order to form a just idea of these occurrences, one must seek for truth not alone in calumnious orations in which they are distorted, but in the history of the Revolution. If you have the idea that the mental impulse given by the insurrection of August 10 had not entirely subsided by the beginning of September, you are mistaken. There is not a single likeness between the two periods....

"The greatest conspirators of August 10 were withdrawn from the wrath of the victorious people, who had consented to place them in the hands of a new tribunal. Nevertheless, after judging three or four minor criminals, the tribunal rested. Montmorin was acquitted, the Prince of Poix and other conspirators of like importance were fraudulently set free. Vast impositions of this character were coming to light, new proofs of the conspiracy of the court were developing daily. Nearly all the patriots wounded at the Tuileries died in the arms of their brother Parisians. Indignation was smouldering in all hearts. A new cause burst it into flame. Many citizens had believed that the 10th of August would break the thread of the royalist conspiracies, they considered the war closed. Suddenly the news of the taking of Longwy hurtled through Paris; Verdun had been given up, Brunswick with his army was headed for Paris. No fortified place interposed between us and our enemies. Our army, divided, almost ruined by the treasons of Lafayette, was lacking in everything. Arms had to be found, camp equipments, provisions, men. The Executive Council dissimulated neither its fears nor embarrassment. Danton appeared before the Assembly, graphically pictured to it its perils and resources, and besought it to take vigorous measures. He went to the City Hall, rang the alarm bell, fired the guns, and declared the country in danger. In an instant forty thousand men, armed and equipped, were on the march to Chalons. In the midst of this universal enthusiasm the approach of the out-land armies reawakened in every breast sentiments of indignation and vengeance against the traitors who had beckoned in the enemy. Before leaving their wives and children, the citizens, the vanquishers of the Tuileries, desired the punishment of the conspirators, which had been promised them. They ran to the prisons. Could the magistrates halt the people! for it was a movement of the people; not, as some have ridiculously supposed, a fragmentary sedition of a few rascals paid to assassinate their fellows. The Commune, they say, should have proclaimed martial law. Martial law against the people, with the enemy drawing nigh! Martial law after the 10th of August! Martial law in favor of the accomplices of a tyranny dethroned by the people! What could the magistrates do against the determined will of an indignant population, which opposed to the magistrates' talk the memory of its own heroism on August 10, its present devotion in rushing to the front, and the long-drawn-out immunity from punishment enjoyed by the traitors?...

"They protest that innocent persons perished in these executions; they have been pleased to exaggerate the number of these. Even one, no doubt, is too many, citizens! Mourn that cruel mistake, as we have for long mourned it! Mourn even the guilty ones reserved for the law's retribution, who fell under the sword of popular justice!"

The volunteers, who in those September days enrolled in multitudes, were sent first to the intermediary camps, where they received the rudiments of military training. Thence they were sent to the army. Their courage saved France and inaugurated the victories of the Republic.

Thanks, O, God! To-day I have seen the triumph which crowns fifteen centuries of struggle maintained by our oppressed fathers against their oppressors; by slaves, serfs, and vassals against Kings, nobles and clergy; by the descendants of the conquered Gauls against the descendants of the Frankish conquerors.

Gaul was a slave--I see her sovereign! Her casqued and mitred tyrants are cut off.

The new National Convention assembled at the palace of the Tuileries, and went into session on Friday, September 21, 1792, at quarter past twelve.

Petion presided; the secretaries were Condorcet, Rabaud St. Etienne, Vergniaud, Camus, and Lassource.

Couthon took the floor, and exhorted his colleagues: "Citizens, our mission is sublime! The people has reposed its confidence in us--let us approve ourselves worthy of it!"

"There is one act which you can not put off till to-morrow, without betraying the will of the nation," declared Collot D'Herbois. "That is the abolition of royalty."

"Certes," assented Abbot Gregory, "no one intends to preserve the race of Kings in France. We know that all dynasties are but broods of vampires; we must reassure the friends of liberty; we must destroy this talisman, whose magic power is still capable of stupefying so many. I ask, then, that by a solemn law, you consecrate the abolition of royalty."

The whole Assembly rose with a spontaneous movement, and with cheers acclaimed the motion of Gregory, who continued:

"Kings are to the moral order what monsters are to the physical. Courts are the smithy of crimes and the fastness of tyrants. The history of Kings is the martyrdom of nations. We are all penetrated with this truth--why further discuss it? I ask that my motion be put to a vote, after it shall have been drafted with a preamble comportable to the solemnity of the decision."

"The preamble of your motion, citizen, is the history of the crimes of Louis XVI," said Ducot.

The president rose and read:

"THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DECREES:

"ROYALTY IS ABOLISHED IN FRANCE."

Shouts of joy, cries of "Long live the Nation! Long live the Republic!" rang from every throat, members of the Convention and spectators in the galleries alike. The tumultuous rejoicing lasted for several minutes.

The session adjourned.

The members of the Convention passed out to cries of:

"Long live the Nation!"

"Long live the Republic!"

"Down with Kings and nobles!"