Chapter VI: Part 6

On Thermidor 10, about five in the evening, he ascended the death-cart, placed between Henriot and Couthon, mutilated like himself. His head was enveloped in linen, saturated with blood; his face was livid, his eyes were almost visionless. An immense crowd thronged round the cart, manifesting the most boisterous and exulting joy. He ascended the scaffold last. When his head fell, shouts of applause arose in the air, and lasted for some minutes.

Thermidor 9 was the first day of the revolution it which those fell who attacked. This indication alone manifested that the ascendant revolutionary movement had reached its term. From that day the contrary movement necessarily began.

From Thermidor 9, 1794, to the summer of 1795, the radical Mountain, in its turn, underwent the destiny it had imposed on others--for in times when the passions are called into play parties know not how to come to terms, and seek only to conquer. From that period the middle class resumed the management of the revolution, and the experiment of pure democracy had failed.

* * * * *

THOMAS CARLYLE

History of the French Revolution

Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution" appeared in 1837,
some three years after the author had established himself in
London. Never has the individuality of a historian so
completely permeated his work; it is inconceivable that any
other man should have written a single paragraph, almost a
single sentence, of the history. To Carlyle, the story
presents itself as an upheaval of elemental forces, vast
elemental personalities storming titanically in their midst,
vividly picturesque as a primeval mountain landscape illumined
by the blaze of lightning, in a night of storms, with
momentary glimpses of moon and stars. Although it was
impossible for Carlyle to assimilate all the wealth of
material even then extant, the "History," considered as a
prose epic, has a permanent and unique value. His convictions,
whatever their worth, came, as he himself put it, "flamingly
from the heart." (Carlyle, biography: see vol. ix.)

_I.---The End of an Era_

On May 10, 1774, "with a sound absolutely like thunder," has the horologe of time struck, and an old era passed away. Is it the healthy peace or the ominous unhealthy, that rests on France for the next ten years? Dubarrydom and its D'Aiguillons are gone for ever. There is a young, still docile, well-intentioned king; a young, beautiful and bountiful, well-intentioned queen; and with them all France, as it were, become young. For controller-general, a virtuous, philosophic Turgot. Philosophism sits joyful in her glittering salons; "the age of revolutions approaches" (as Jean Jacques wrote), but then of happy, blessed ones.

But with the working people it is not so well, whom we lump together into a kind of dim, compendious unity, monstrous but dim, far off, as the _canaille_. Singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided you do not handle it roughly. Visible in France is no such thing as a government. But beyond the Atlantic democracy is born; a sympathetic France rejoices over the rights of man. Rochambeaus, Lameths, Lafayettes have drawn their swords in this sacred quarrel; return, to be the missionaries of freedom. But, what to do with the finances, having no Fortunatus purse?

For there is the palpablest discrepancy between revenue and expenditure. Are we breaking down, then, into the horrors of national bankruptcy? Turgot, Necker, and others have failed. What apparition, then, could be welcomer than that of M. de Calonne? A man of indisputable genius, even fiscal genius, more or less; of intrinsically rich qualities! For all straits he has present remedy. Calonne also shall have trial! With a genius for persuading--before all things for borrowing; after three years of which, expedient heaped on expedient, the pile topples perilous.

Whereupon a new expedient once more astonishes the world, unheard of these hundred and sixty years--_Convocation of the Notables_. A round gross of notables, meeting in February, 1787; all privileged persons. A deficit so enormous! Mismanagement, profusion, is too clear; peculation itself is hinted at. Calonne flies, storm-driven, over the horizon. To whom succeeds Loménie-Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse--adopting Calonne's plans, as Calonne had proposed to adopt Turgot's; and the notables are, as it were, organed out in kind of choral anthem of thanks, praises, promises.

Loménie issues conciliatory edicts, fiscal edicts. But if the Parlement of Paris refuse to register them? As it does, entering complaints instead. Loménie launches his thunderbolt, six score _lettres de cachet;_ the Parlement is trundled off to Troyes, in Champagne, for a month. Yet two months later, when a royal session is held, to have edicts registered, there is no registering. Orleans, "Equality" that is to be, has made the protest, and cut its moorings.

The provincial parlements, moreover, back up the Paris Parlement with its demand for a States-General. Loménie hatches a cockatrice egg; but it is broken in premature manner; the plot discovered and denounced. Nevertheless, the Parlement is dispersed by D'Agoust with Gardes Françaises and Gardes Suisses. Still, however, will none of the provincial parlements register.

Deputations coming from Brittany meet to take counsel, being refused audience; become the _Breton Club_, first germ of the _Jacobins' Society_. Loménie at last announces that the States-General shall meet in the May of next year (1789). For the holding of which, since there is no known plan, "thinkers are invited" to furnish one.

_II.---The States-General_

Wherewith Loménie departs; flimsier mortal was seldom fated to do as weighty a mischief. The archbishop is thrown out, and M. Necker is recalled. States-General will meet, if not in January, at least in May. But how to form it? On the model of the last States-General in 1614, says the Parlement, which means that the _Tiers Etat_ will be of no account, if the noblesse and the clergy agree. Wherewith terminates the popularity of the Parlement. As for the "thinkers," it is a sheer snowing of pamphlets. And Abbé Sieyès has come to Paris to ask three questions, and answer them: _What is the Third Estate? All. What has it hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become something_.

The grand questions are: Shall the States-General sit and vote in three separate bodies, or in one body, wherein the _Tiers Etat_ shall have double representation? The notables are again summoned to decide, but vanish without decision. With those questions still unsettled, the election begins. And presently the national deputies are in Paris. Also there is a sputter; drudgery and rascality rising in Saint-Antoine, finally repressed by Gardes Suisses and grapeshot.

On Monday, May 4, is the baptism day of democracy, the extreme unction day of feudalism. Behold the procession of processions advancing towards Notre--our commons, noblesse, clergy, the king himself. Which of these six hundred individuals in plain white cravat might one guess would become their king? He with the thick black locks, shaggy beetle-brows and rough-hewn face? Gabriel Honoré Riqueti de Mirabeau, the world-compeller, the type Frenchman of this epoch, as Voltaire of the last. And if Mirabeau is the greatest, who of these six hundred may be the meanest? Shall we say that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man, under thirty, in spectacles; complexion of an atrabiliar shade of pale sea-green, whose name is Maximilien Robespierre?

Coming into their hall on the morrow, the commons deputies perceive that they have it to themselves. The noblesse and the clergy are sitting separately, which the noblesse maintain to be right; no agreement is possible. After six weeks of inertia the commons deputies, on their own strength, are getting under way; declare themselves not _Third Estate_, but _National Assembly_. On June 20, shut out of their hall "for repairs," the deputies find refuge in the tennis court! take solemn oath that they will continue to meet till they have made the constitution. And to these are joined 149 of the clergy. A royal session is held; the king propounds thirty-five articles, which if the estates do not confirm he will himself enforce. The commons remain immovable, joined now by the rest of the clergy and forty-eight noblesse. So triumphs the Third Estate.

War-god Broglie is at work, but grapeshot is good on one condition! The Gardes Françaises, it seems, will not fire; nor they only. Other troops, then? Rumour declares, and is verified, that Necker, people's minister, is dismissed. "To arms!" cries Camille Desmoulins, and innumerable voices yell responsive. Chaos comes. The Electoral Club, however, declares itself a provisional municipality, sends out parties to keep order in the streets that night, enroll a militia, with arms collected where one may. Better to name it _National Guard_! And while the crisis is going on, Mirabeau is away, sad at heart for the dying, crabbed old father whom he loved.

Muskets are to be got from the Invalides; 28,000 National Guards are provided with matchlocks. And now to the Bastile! But to describe this siege perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. After four hours of world-bedlam, it surrenders. The Bastile is down. "Why," said poor Louis, "that is a revolt." "Sire," answered Liancourt, "it is not a revolt; it is a revolution."

On the morrow, Louis paternally announces to the National Assembly reconciliation. Amid enthusiasm, President Bailly is proclaimed Maire of Paris, Lafayette general of the National Guard. And the first emigration of aristocrat irreconcilables takes place. The revolution is sanctioned.

Nevertheless, see Saint-Antoine, not to be curbed, dragging old Foulon and Berthier to the lantern, after which the cloud disappears, as thunder-clouds do.

_III.---Menads and Feast of Pikes_

French Revolution means here the open, violent rebellion and victory of disemprisoned anarchy against corrupt, worn-out authority; till the frenzy working itself out, the uncontrollable be got harnessed. A transcendental phenomenon, overstepping all rules and experience, the crowning phenomenon of our modern time.

The National Assembly takes the name Constituent; with endless debating, gets the rights of man written down and promulgated. A memorable night is August 4, when they abolish privilege, immunity, feudalism, root and branch, perfecting their theory of irregular verbs. Meanwhile, seventy-two châteaus have flamed aloft in the Maçonnais and Beaujolais alone. Ill stands it now with some of the seigneurs. And, glorious as the meridian, M. Necker is returning from Bâle.

Pamphleteering, moreover, opens its abysmal throat wider and wider, never to close more. A Fourth Estate of able editors springs up, increases and multiplies, irrepressible, incalculable.

No, this revolution is not of the consolidating kind. Lafayette maintains order by his patrols; we hear of white cockades, and, worse still, black cockades; and grain grows still more scarce. One Monday morning, maternity awakes to hear children weeping for bread, must forth into the streets. _Allons_! Let us assemble! To the Hôtel de Ville, to Versailles, to the lantern! All women gather and go; crowds storm all stairs, force out all women; there is a universal "press of women." Who will storm the Hôtel de Ville, but for shifty usher Maillard, who snatches a drum, beats his Rogues' March to Versailles! And after them the National Guard, resolute in spite of _Mon Général,_ who, indeed, must go with them--Saint-Antoine having already gone. Maillard and his menads demand at Versailles bread; speech with the king for a deputation. The king speaks words of comfort. Words? But they want "bread, not so much discoursing!"

Towards midnight comes Lafayette; seems to have saved the situation; gets to bed about five in the morning. But rascaldom, gathering about the château, breaks in. One of the royal bodyguard fires, whereupon the deluge pours in, would deal utter destruction but for the coming of the National Guard. The bodyguard mount the tri-colour. There is no choice now. The king must from Versailles to Paris, in strange procession; finally reaches the long-deserted Palace of the Tuileries. It is Tuesday, October 6, 1789.

And so again, on clear arena under new conditions, with something even of a new stateliness, we begin a new course of action. Peace of a father restored to his children? Not only shall Paris be fed, but the king's hand be seen in that work--_King Louis, restorer of French liberty!_

Alone of men, Mirabeau may begin to discern clearly whither all this is tending. Patriotism, accordingly, regrets that his zeal seems to be getting cool. A man stout of heart, enigmatic, difficult to unmask! Meanwhile, finances give trouble enough. To appease the deficit we venture on a hazardous step, sale of the clergy's lands; a paper-money of _assignats_, bonds secured on that property is decreed; and young Sansculottism thrives bravely, growing by hunger. Great and greater waxes President Danton in his Cordeliers section. This man also, like Mirabeau, has a natural _eye_.

And with the whole world forming itself into clubs, there is one club growing ever stronger, till it becomes immeasurably strong; which, having leased for itself the hall of the Jacobins' Convent, shall, under the title of the Jacobins' Club, become memorable to all times and lands; has become the mother society, with 300 shrill-tongued daughters in direct correspondence with her, has also already thrown off the mother club of the Cordeliers and the monarchist Feuillans.

In the midst of which a hopeful France on a sudden renews with enthusiasm the national oath; of loyalty to the king, the law, the constitution which the National Assembly shall make; in Paris, repeated in every town and district of France! Freedom by social contract; such was verily the gospel of that era.

From which springs a new idea: "Why all France has not one federation and universal oath of brotherhood once for all?" other places than Paris having first set example or federation. The place for it, Paris; the scene to be worthy of it. Fifteen thousand men are at work on the Champs de Mars, hollowing it out into a national amphitheatre. One may hope it will be annual and perennial; a feast of pikes, notable among the high tides of the year!

Workmen being lazy, all Paris turns out to complete the preparations, her daughters with the rest. From all points of the compass federates are arriving. On July 13, 1790, 200,000 patriotic men and 100,000 patriotic women sit waiting in the Champs de Mars. The generalissimo swears in the name of armed France; the National Assembly swears; the king swears; be the welkin split with vivats! And the feast of pikes dances itself off and becomes defunct.

_IV.--The End of Mirabeau_

Of journals there are now some 133; among which, Marat, the People's Friend, unseen, croaks harsh thunder. Clubbism thrives and spreads, the Mother of Patriotism, sitting in the Jacobins, shining supreme over all. The pure patriots now, sitting on the extreme tip of the left, count only some thirty, Mirabeau not among the chosen; a virtuous Pétion; an incorruptible Robespierre; conspicuous, if seldom audible, Philippe d'Orleans; and Barnave triumvirate.

The plan of royalty, if it have any, is that of flying over the frontiers; does not abandon the plan, yet never executes it. Nevertheless, Mirabeau and the Queen of France have met, have parted with mutual trust. It is strange, secret as the mysterious, but indisputable. "Madame," he has said, "the monarchy is saved." Possible--if Fate intervene not. Patriotism suspects the design of flight; barking this time not at nothing. Suspects also the repairing of the castle of Vincennes; General Lafayette has to wrestle persuasively with Saint-Antoine.

On one royal person only can Mirabeau place dependence--the queen. Had Mirabeau lived one other year! But man's years are numbered, and the tale of Mirabeau's is complete. The giant oaken strength of him is wasted; excess of effort, of excitement of all kinds; labour incessant, almost beyond credibility. "When I am gone," he has said, "the miseries I have held back will burst from all sides upon France." On April 2 he feels that the last of the days has risen for him. His death is Titanic, as his life has been. On the third evening is solemn public funeral. The chosen man of France is gone.

The French monarchy now is, in all human probability, lost. Many things invite to flight; but if the king fly, will there not be aristocrat Austrian invasion, butchery, replacement of feudalism, wars more than civil? The king desires to go to St. Cloud, but shall not; patriots will not let the horses go. But Count Fersen, an alert young Swedish soldier, has business on hand; has a new coach built, of the kind called Berline; has made other purchases. On the night of Monday, June 20, certain royal individuals are in a glass coach; Fersen is the coachman; out by the Barrier de Clichy, till we find the waiting Berline; then to Bondy, where is a chaise ready; and deft Fersen bids adieu.

With morning, and discovery, National Assembly adopts an attitude of sublime calm; Paris also; yet messages are flying. Moreover, at Sainte Menehould, on the route of the Berline, suspicious patriots are wondering what certain lounging dragoons mean; while the Berline arrives not. At last it comes; but Drouet, village postmaster, seeks a likeness; takes horse in swift pursuit. So rolls on the Berline, and the chase after it; till it comes to a dead stop in Varennes, where Drouet finds it--in time to stop departure. Louis, the poor, phlegmatic man, steps out; all step out. The flight is ended, though not the spurring and riding of that night of spurs.

_V.---Constitution Will Not March_

In the last nights of September, Paris is dancing and flinging fireworks; the edifice of the constitution is completed, solemnly proffered to his majesty, solemnly accepted by him, to the sound of cannon salvoes. There is to be a new Legislative Assembly, biennial; no members of the Constituent Assembly to sit therein, or for four years to be a minister, or hold a court appointment. So they vanish.

Among this new legislative see Condorcet, Brissot; most notable, Carnot. An effervescent, well intentioned set of senators; too combustible where continual sparks are flying, ordered to make the constitution march for which marching three things bode ill--the French people, the French king, the French noblesse and the European world.

For there are troubles in cities of the south. Avignon, where Jourdan _coupe-tête_ makes lurid appearance; Perpignan, northern Caen also. With factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what they call _déchiré,_ torn asunder, this poor country. And away over seas the Plain of Cap Français one huge whirl of smoke and flame; one cause of the dearth of sugar. What King Louis is and cannot help being, we already know.

And, thirdly, there is the European world. All kings and kinglets are astir, their brows clouded with menace. Swedish Gustav will lead coalised armies, Austria and Prussia speak at Pilnitz, lean Pitt looks out suspicious. Europe is in travail, the birth will be WAR. Worst feature of all, the emigrants at Coblentz, an extra-national Versailles. We shall have war, then!

Our revenue is assignats, our army wrecked disobedient, disorganised; what, then, shall we do? Dumouriez is summoned to Paris, quick, shifty, insuppressible; while royalist seigneurs cajole, and, as you turn your legislative thumbscrew, king's veto steps in with magical paralysis. Yet let not patriotism despair. Have we not a virtuous Pétion, Mayor of Paris, a wholly patriotic municipality? Patriotism, moreover, has her constitution that can march, the mother-society of the Jacobins; where may be heard Brissot, Danton, Robespierre, the long-winded, incorruptible man.

Hope bursts forth with appointment of a patriot ministry, this also his majesty will try. Roland, perchance Wife Roland, Dumouriez, and others. Liberty is never named with another word, Equality. In April poor Louis, "with tears in his eyes," proposes that the assembly do now decree war. Let our three generals on the frontier look to it therefore, since Duke Brunswick has his drill-sergeants busy. We decree a camp of twenty thousand National Volunteers; the hereditary representative answers _veto_! Strict Roland, the whole Patriot ministry, finds itself turned out.

Barbaroux writes to Marseilles for six hundred men who know how to die. On June 20 a tree of Liberty appears in Saint-Antoine--a procession with for standard a pair of black breeches---pours down surging upon the Tuileries, breaks in. The king, the little prince royal, have to don the cap of liberty. Thus has the age of Chivalry gone, and that of Hunger come. On the surface only is some slight reaction of sympathy, mistrust is too strong.

Now from Marseilles are marching the six hundred men who know how to die, marching to the hymn of the Marseillaise. The country is in danger! Volunteer fighters gather. Duke Brunswick shakes himself, and issues his manifesto; and in Paris preternatural suspicion and disquietude. Demand is for forfeiture, abdication in favour of prince royal, which Legislature cannot pronounce. Therefore on the night of August 9 the tocsin sounds; of Insurrection.

On August 18 the grim host is marching, immeasurable, born of the night. Of the squadrons of order, not one stirs. At the Tuileries the red Swiss look to their priming. Amid a double rank of National Guards the royal family "marches" to the assembly. The Swiss stand to their post, peaceable yet immovable. Three Marseillaise cannon are fired; then the Swiss also fire. One strangest patriot onlooker thinks that the Swiss, had they a commander, would beat; the name of him, Napoleon Bonaparte. Having none----Honour to you, brave men, not martyrs, and yet almost more. Your work was to die, and ye did it.

Our old patriot ministry is recalled; Roland; Danton Minister of Justice! Also, in the new municipality, Robespierre is sitting. Louis and his household are lodged in the Temple. The constitution is over! Lafayette, whom his soldiers will not follow, rides over the border to an Austrian prison. Dumouriez is commander-in-chief.

_VI.--Regicide_

In this month of September 1792 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; all of black on one side, all of bright on the other. France crowding to the frontiers to defend itself from foreign despots, to town halls to defend itself from aristocrats, an insurrectionary improvised Commune of Paris actual sovereign of France.

There is a new Tribunal of Justice dealing with aristocrats; but the Prussians have taken Longwi, and La Vendée is in revolt against the Revolution. Danton gets a decree to search for arms and to imprison suspects, some four hundred being seized. Prussians have Verdun also, but Dumouriez, the many-counseled, has found a possible Thermopylæ--if we can secure Argonne; for which one had need to be a lion-fox and have luck on one's side.

But Paris knows not Argonne, and terror is in her streets, with defiance and frenzy. From a Sunday night to Thursday are a hundred hours, to be reckoned with the Bartholomew butchery; prisoners dragged out by sudden courts of wild justice to be massacred. These are the September massacres, the victims one thousand and eighty-nine; in the historical _fantasy_ "between two and three thousand"--nay, six, even twelve. They have been put to death because "we go to fight the enemy; but we will not leave robbers behind us to butcher our wives and children." Horrible! But Brunswick is within a day's journey of us. "We must put our enemies in fear." Which has plainly been brought about.

Our new National Convention is getting chosen; already we date First Year of the Republic. And Dumouriez has snatched the Argonne passes; Brunswick must laboriously skirt around; Dumouriez with recruits who, once drilled and inured, will one day become a phalanxed mass of fighters, wheels, always fronting him. On September 20, Brunswick attacks Valmy, all day cannonading Alsatian Kellerman with French Sansculottes, who do _not_ fly like poultry; finally retires; a day precious to France!

On the morrow of our new National Convention first sits; old legislative ending. Dumouriez, after brief appearance in Paris, returns to attack Netherlands, winter though it be.

France, then, has hurled back the invaders, and shattered her own constitution; a tremendous change. The nation has stripped itself of the old vestures; patriots of the type soon to be called Girondins have the problem of governing this naked nation. Constitution-making sets to work again; more practical matters offer many difficulties; for one thing, lack of grain; for another, what to do with a discrowned Louis Capet--all things, but most of all fear, pointing one way. Is there not on record a trial of Charles I.?

Twice our Girondin friends have attacked September massacres, Robespierre dictatorship; not with success. The question of Louis receives further stimulus from the discovery of hidden papers. On December 11, the king's trial has _emerged_, before the Convention; fifty-seven questions are put to him. Thereafter he withdraws, having answered--for the most part on the simple basis of _No_. On December 26, his advocate, Deséze, speaks for him. But there is to be debate. Dumouriez is back in Paris, consorting with Girondins; suspicious to patriots. The outcome, on January 15--Guilty. The sentence, by majority of fifty-three, among them Egalité, once Orleans--Death. Lastly, no delay.

On the morrow, in the Place de la Revolution, he is brought to the guillotine; beside him, brave Abbé Edgeworth says, "Son of St. Louis, ascend to Heaven"; the axe clanks down; a king's life is shorn away. At home, this killing of a king has divided all friends; abroad it has united all enemies. England declares war; Spain declares war; they all declare war. "The coalised kings threaten us; we hurl at their feet, as gage of battle, the head of a king."

_VII.--Reign of Terror_

Five weeks later, indignant French patriots rush to the grocers' shops; distribute sugar, weighing it out at a just rate of eleven-pence; other things also; the grocer silently wringing his hands. What does this mean? Pitt has a hand in it, the gold of Pitt, all men think; whether it is Marat he has bought, as the Girondins say; or the Girondins, as the Jacobins say. This battle of Girondins and Mountain let no man ask history to explicate.

Moreover, Dumouriez is checked; Custine also in the Rhine country is checked; England and Spain are also taking the field; La Vendée has flamed out again with its war cry of _God and the King_. Fatherland is in danger! From our own traitors? "Set up a tribunal for traitors and a Maximum for grain," says patriot Volunteers. Arrest twenty-two Girondins!--though not yet. In every township of France sit revolutionary committees for arrestment of suspects; notable also is the _Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, and our Supreme Committee of Public Safety, of nine members. Finally, recalcitrant Dumouriez finds safety in flight to the Austrian quarters, and thence to England.

Before which flight, the Girondins have broken with Danton, ranged him against them, and are now at open war with the Mountain. Marat is attacked, acquitted with triumph. On Friday, May 31, we find a new insurrectionary general of the National Guard enveloping the Convention, which in three days, being thus surrounded by friends, ejects under arrestment thirty-two Girondins. Surely the true reign of Fraternity is now not far?

The Girondins are struck down, but in the country follows a ferment of Girondist risings. And on July 9, a fair Charlotte Corday is starting for Paris from Caen, with letters of introduction from Barbaroux to Dupernet, whom she sees, concerning family papers. On July 13, she drives to the residence of Marat, who is sick--a citoyenne who would do France a service; is admitted, plunges a knife into Marat's heart. So ends Peoples'-Friend Marat. She submits, stately, to inevitable doom. In this manner have the beautifulest and the squalidest come into collision, and extinguished one another.

At Paris is to be a new feast of pikes, over yet a new constitution; statue of Nature, statue of Liberty, unveiled! _Republic one and indivisible_--_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death_! A new calendar also, with months new-named. But Toulon has thrown itself into the hands of the English, who will make a new Gibraltar of it! We beleaguer Toulon; having in our army there remarkable Artillery-Major Napoleon Bonaparte. Lyons also we beleaguer.

Committee of Public Safety promulgates levy _en masse;_ heroically daring against foreign foes. Against domestic foes it issues the law of the suspects--none frightfuller ever ruled in a nation of men. The guillotine gets always quicker motion. Bailly, Brissot, are in prison. Trial of the "Widow Capet"; whence Marie Antoinette withdraws to die--not wanting to herself, the imperial woman! After her, the scaffold claims the twenty-two Girondins.

Terror is become the order of the day. Arrestment on arrestment follows quick, continual; "The guillotine goes not ill."

_VIII.--Climax and Reaction_

The suspect may well tremble; how much more the open rebels--the Girondin cities of the south! The guillotine goes always, yet not fast enough; you must try fusillading, and perhaps methods still frightfuller. Marseilles is taken, and under martial law. At Toulon, veteran Dugommier suffers a young artillery officer whom we know to try his plan--and Toulon is once more the Republic's. Cannonading gives place to guillotining and fusillading. At Nantes, the unspeakable horror of the _noyades_.

Beside which, behold destruction of the Catholic religion; indeed, for the time being, of religion itself; a new religion promulgated of the Goddess of Reason, with the first of the Feasts of Reason, ushered in with carmagnole dance.

Committee of Public Salvation ride this whirlwind; stranger set of cloud-compellors Earth never saw. Convention commissioners fly to all points of the territory, powerfuller than king or kaiser; frenzy of patriotism drives our armies victorious, one nation against the whole world; crowned by the _Vengeur_, triumphant in death; plunging down carrying _vive la République_ along with her into eternity, in Howe's victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the world itself, on _Nothing_!

Of massacring, altar-robbing, Hébertism, is there beginning to be a sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the Hébertists themselves are smitten; nineteen of them travel their last road in the tumbrils. "We should not strike save where it is useful to the Republic," says Danton; quarrels with Robespierre; Danton, Camille, others of the friends of mercy are arrested. At the trial, he shivers the witnesses to ruin thunderously; nevertheless, sentence is passed. On the scaffold he says, "Danton, no weakness! Thou wilt show my head to the people--it is worth showing." So passes this Danton; a very man; fiery-real, from the great fire-bosom of nature herself.

Foul Hébert and the Hébertists, great Danton and the Dantonists, are gone, swift, ever swifter, goes the axe of Samson; Death pauses not. But on Prairial 20, the world is in holiday clothes in the Jardin National. Incorruptible Robespierre, President of the Convention, has decreed the existence of the Supreme Being; will himself be priest and prophet; in sky-blue coat and black breeches! Nowise, however, checking the guillotine, going ever faster.

On July 26, when the Incorruptible addresses the Convention, there is dissonance. Such mutiny is like fire sputtering in the ship's powder-room. The Convention then must be purged, with aid of Henriot. But next day, amid cries of _Tyranny! Dictatorship_! the Convention decrees that Robespierre "is accused"; with Couthon and St. Just; decreed "out of law"; Paris, after brief tumult, sides with the Convention. So on July 28, 1794, the tumbrils go with this motley batch of outlaws. This is the end of the Reign of Terror. The nation resolves itself into a committee of mercy.

Thenceforth, writ of accusation and legal proof being decreed necessary, Fouquier's trade is gone; the prisons deliver up suspects. For here was the end of the revolution system. The keystone being struck out, the whole arch-work of Sansculottism began to crack, till the abyss had swallowed it all.

And still there is no bread, and no constitution; Paris rises once again, flowing towards the Tuileries; checked in one day with two blank cannon-shots, by Pichegru, conqueror of Holland. Abbé Sieyès provides yet another constitution; unpleasing to sundry who will not be dispersed. To suppress whom, a young artillery officer is named commandant; who with whiff of grapeshot does very promptly suppress them; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space.

* * * * *

LAMARTINE

History of the Girondists

Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, poet, historian, statesman,
was born at Macon, in Burgundy, on October 21, 1790. Early in
the nineteenth century he held a diplomatic appointment at
Naples, and in 1820 succeeded after many difficulties, in
finding a publisher for his first volume of poems, "Nouvelles
Méditations." The merits of the work were at once recognised,
and the young author soon found himself one of the most
popular of the younger generation of French poets. He next
adopted politics, and, with the Revolution of February, became
for a brief time the soul of political life in France. But the
triumph of imperialism and of Napoleon III. drove him into the
background, whereupon he retired from public life, and devoted
his remaining years to literature. He died on March I, 1869.
The publication, in 1847, of his "History of the Girondists,
or Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution,
from Unpublished Sources," was in the nature of a political
event in France. Brilliant in its romantic portraiture, the
work, like many other French histories, served the purposes of
a pamphlet as well as those of a chronicle.

_I.--The War-Seekers of the South_

The French Revolution had pursued its rapid progress for two full years. Mirabeau, the first democratic leader, was dead. The royal family had attempted flight and failed. War with Europe threatened and, in the autumn of 1791, a new parliament was elected and summoned.

At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to, display itself in the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_, was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of Ducos, Gaudet, Lafondladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonné, Vergniaud, were about to rise into notice and renown with the storms and the disasters of their country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, which was to precipitate it into a republic.

In the new parliament Brissot, the inspirer of the Gironde, the dogmatic statesman of a party which needed ideas and a leader, ascended the tribune in the midst of anticipated plaudits which betokened his importance in the new Assembly. His voice was for war, as the most efficacious of laws.

It was evident that a party, already formed, took possession of the tribune, and was about to arrogate to itself the dominion of the assembly. Brissot was its conspirator, Condorcet its philosopher, Vergniaud its orator. Vergniaud mounted the tribune, with all the prestige of his marvellous eloquence. The eager looks of the Assembly, the silence that prevailed, announced in him one of the great actors of the revolutionary drama, who only appear on the stage to win themselves popularity, to intoxicate themselves with applause, and--to die.

Vergniaud, born at Limoges, and an advocate of the Bar of Bordeaux, was now in his thirty-third year, for the revolutionary movement had seized on and borne him along with its currents when very young. His dignified, calm, and unaffected features announced the conviction of his power. Facility, that agreeable concomitant of genius, had rendered alike pliable his talents, his character, and even the position he assumed.

At the foot of the tribune he was loved with familiarity; as he ascended it each man was surprised to find that he inspired him with admiration and respect; but at the first words that fell from the speaker's lips they felt the immense distance between the man and the orator. He was an instrument of enthusiasm, whose value and whose place was in his inspiration.

Pétion was the son of a procureur at Chartres, and a townsman of Brissot; was brought up in the same way as he, in the same studies, same philosophy, same hatreds. They were two men of the same mind. The revolution, which had been the ideal of their youth, had called them on the scene on the same day, but to play very different parts. Brissot, the scribe, political adventurer, journalist, was the man of theory; Pétion, the practical man. He had in his countenance, in his character, and his talents, that solemn mediocrity which is of the multitude, and charms it; at least he was a sincere man, a virtue which the people appreciate beyond all others in those who are concerned in public affairs.

The nomination of Pétion to the office of _maire_ of Paris gave the Girondists a constant _point d'appui_ in the capital. Paris, as well as the Assembly, escaped from the king's hands.

A report praised by Brissot in his journal, and by the Girondists in the Assembly, afforded no longer any pretext for delaying the war. France felt that her strength was equal to her indignation, and she could be restrained no longer. The increasing unpopularity of the king augmented the popular excitement. Twice had he already arrested, by his royal veto, the energetic measures of the Assembly--the decree against the _emigres_ and the decree against the priests who had not taken the oath. These two vetoes, the one dictated by his honour, the other by his conscience, were two terrible weapons placed in his hand by the constitution, yet which he could not wield without wounding himself. The Girondists revenged themselves for this resistance by compelling him to make war on the princes, who were his brothers, and the emperor, whom they believed to be his accomplice.

The war thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in April, 1792. Their enemies, the extreme radical party called "Jacobins," had opposed the war, and when the campaign opened in disaster the beginning of their ascendancy and the Girondin decline had appeared.

These disasters were followed by a proclamation from the enemy that the work of the revolution would be undone, and the town of Paris threatened with military execution unless the king's power were fully restored. By way of answer the populace of Paris stormed the royal palace, deposed the king, and established a Radical government. Under this, a third parliament, the most revolutionary of all, called the "Convention," was summoned to carry on the war, the king was imprisoned, and on September 21, 1792, the day on which the invading armies were checked at Valmy, a republic was declared.

_II.---the Fall of La Gironde_

The proclamation of the republic was hailed with the utmost joy in the capital, the departments, and the army; to philosophers it was the type of government found under the ruins of fourteen ages of prejudice and tyranny; to patriots it was the declaration of war of a whole nation, proclaimed on the day of the victory of Valmy, against the thrones united to crush liberty; while to the people it was an intoxicating novelty.

Those who most exulted were the Girondists. They met at Madame Roland's that evening, and celebrated almost religiously the entrance of their creation into the world; and voluntarily casting the veil of illusion over the embarrassments of the morrow and the obscurities of the future, gave themselves up to the greatest enjoyment God has permitted man on earth--the birth of his idea, the contemplation of his work, and the embodied possession of his desires.

The republic had at first great military successes, but they were not long lived. After the execution of the king in January 1793, all Europe banded together against France, the French armies were crushingly defeated, their general, Dumouriez, fled to the enemy, and the Girondins, who had been in power all this while, were fatally weakened. Moreover, their attempt to save the king had added to their growing unpopularity when, after Dumouriez's treason in March 1793 Danton attacked them in the Convention.

The Jacobins comprehended that Danton, at last forced from his long hesitation, decided for them, and was about to crush their enemies. Every eye followed him to the tribune.

His loud voice resounded like a tocsin above the murmurs of the Girondists. "It is they," he said, "who had the baseness to wish to save the tyrant by an appeal to the people, who have been justly suspected of desiring a king. It is they only who have manifestly desired to punish Paris for its heroism by raising the departments against her; it is they only who have supped clandestinely with Dumouriez when he was at Paris; yes, it is they only who are the accomplices of this conspiracy."

The Convention oscillated during the struggle between the Girondins and their Radical opponents with every speech.

Isnard, a Girondin, was named president by a strong majority. His nomination redoubled the confidence of La Gironde in its force. A man extravagant in everything, he had in his character the fire of his language. He was the exaggeration of La Gironde--one of those men whose ideas rush to their head when the intoxication of success or fear urges them to rashness, and when they renounce prudence, that safeguard of party.

The strain between the Girondists, with their parliamentary majority, and the populace of Paris, who were behind the Radicals, or Jacobins, increased, until, towards the end of May, the mob rose to march on the parliament. The alarm-bells rang, and the drums beat to arms in all the quarters of Paris.

The Girondists, at the sound of the tocsin and the drums, met for the last time, not to deliberate, but to prepare and fortify themselves against their death. They supped in an isolated mansion in the Rue de Clichy, amidst the tolling of bells, the sound of the drums, and the rattling of the guns and tumbrils. All could have escaped; none would fly. Pétion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he faced death; Gensonné, accustomed to the sight of war; Buzot, whose heart beat with the heroic impressions of his unfortunate friend, Madame Roland, wished them to await their death in their places in the Convention, and there invoke the vengeance of the departments.

Some hours later the armed mob, Henriot, their general, at their head, appeared before the parliament. The gates were opened at the sight of the president, Hérault de Séchelles, wearing the tricoloured scarf. The sentinels presented arms, the crowd gave free passage to the representatives. They advanced towards the Carrousel. The multitude which were on this space saluted the deputies. Cries of "Vive la Convention! Deliver up the twenty-two! Down with the Girondists!" mingled sedition with respect.

The Convention, unmoved by these shouts, marched in procession towards the cannon by which Henriot, the commandant-general, in the midst of his staff, seemed to await them. Hérault de Séchelles ordered Henriot to withdraw this formidable array, and to grant a free passage to the national representations. Henriot, who felt in himself the omnipotence of armed insurrection, caused his horse to prance, while receding some paces, and then said in an imperative tone to the Convention, "You will not leave this spot until you have delivered up the twenty-two!"

"Seize this rebel!" said Hérault de Séchelles, pointing with his finger to Henriot. The soldiers remained immovable.

"Gunners, to your pieces! Soldiers, to arms!" cried Henriot to the troops. At these words, repeated by the officers along the line, a motion of concentration around the guns took place. The Convention retrograded.

Barbaroux, Lanjuinais, Vergniaud, Mollevault, and Gardien remained, vainly expecting the armed men who were to secure their persons, but not seeing them arrive, they retired to their own homes.

There followed the rising of certain parts of the country in favour of the Girondins and against Paris. It failed. The Girondins were prisoners, and after this failure of the insurrection the revolutionary government proceeded to their trial. When their trial was decided on, this captivity became more strict. They were imprisoned for a few days in the Carmelite convent in the Rue de Vaugeraud, a monastery converted into a prison, and rendered sinister by the bloody traces of the massacres of September.

_III.--The Judges at the Bar_

On October 22, their _acte d'accusation_ was read to them, and their trial began on the 26th. Never since the Knights Templars had a party appeared more numerous, more illustrious, or more eloquent. The renown of the accused, their long possession of power, their present danger, and that love of vengeance which arises in men's hearts at mighty reverses of fortune, had collected a crowd in the precincts of the revolutionary tribunal.

At ten o'clock the accused were brought in. They were twenty-two; and this fatal number, inscribed in the earliest lists of the proscription, on May 31, at eleven o'clock, entered the _salle d'audience,_ between two files of _gens d'armes,_ and took their places in silence on the prisoners' bench.

Ducos was the first to take his seat: scarcely twenty-eight years of age, his black and piercing eyes, the flexibility of his features, and the elegance of his figure revealed one of those ardent temperaments in whom everything is light, even heroism.

Mainveille followed him, the youthful deputy of Marseilles, of the same age as Ducos, and of an equally striking but more masculine beauty than Barbaroux. Duprat, his countryman and friend, accompanied him to the tribunal. He was followed by Duchâtel, deputy of Deux Sévres, aged twenty-seven years, who had been carried to the tribunal almost in a dying state wrapped in blankets, to vote against the death of the "Tyrant," and who was termed, from this act and this costume, the "Spectre of Tyranny."

Carra, deputy of Sâone and Loire at the Convention, sat next to Duchâtel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his large head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of Duchâtel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the excesses of the people.

A man of rustic appearance and garb, Duperret, the involuntary victim of Charlotte Corday, sat next to Carra. He was of noble birth, but cultivated with his own hands the small estate of his forefathers.

Gensonné followed them: he was a man of five-and-thirty, but the ripeness of his intellect, and the resolution that dictated his opinions gave his features that look of energy and decision that belongs to maturer age.

Next came Lasource, a man of high-flown language and tragical imagination. His unpowdered and closely-cut hair, his black coat, his austere demeanour, and grave and ascetic features, recalled the minister of the Holy Gospel and those Puritans of the time of Cromwell who sought for God in liberty, and in their trial, martyrdom.

Valazé seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him it was his duty to die, and he died.

The Abbé Fauchet came immediately after Valazé. He was in his fiftieth year, but the beauty of his features, the elevation of his stature, and the freshness of his colour, made him appear much younger. His dress, from its colour and make, befitted his sacred profession, and his hair was so cut as to show the tonsure of the priest, so long covered by the red bonnet of the revolutionist.

Brissot was the last but one.

Last came Vergniaud, the greatest and most illustrious of them all. All Paris knew, and had beheld him in the tribune, and was now curious to gaze not only on the orator on a level with his enemies, but the man reduced to take his place on the bench of the accused. His prestige still followed him, and he was one of those men from whom everything, even impossibilities, are expected.

_IV.--The Banquet of Death_

The jury closed the debate on October 30, at eight o'clock in the evening. All the accused were declared guilty of having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and condemned to death. One of them, who had made a motion with his hand as though to tear his garments, slipped from his seat on to the floor. It was Valazé.

"What, Valazé, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot, striving to support him.

"No, I am dying," returned Valazé. And he expired, his hand on the poignard with which he had pierced his heart.

At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of Valazé made the young Girondists blush for their momentary weakness.

It was eleven o'clock at night. After a moment's pause, occasioned by the unexpectedness of the sentence and the emotion of the prisoners, the sitting was closed amidst cries of "Vive la République!"

The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We die innocent! Vive la République!"

They were all confined for this their last night on earth in the large dungeon, the waiting room of death.

The deputy Bailleul, their colleague at the Assembly, proscribed like them, but who had escaped the proscription, and was concealed in Paris, had promised to send them from without on the day of their trial a last repast, triumphant or funeral, according to the sentence. Bailleul, though invisible, kept his promise through the agency of a friend. The funeral supper was set out in the large dungeon; the daintiest meats, the choicest wines, the rarest flowers, and numerous flambeaux decked the oaken table--prodigality of dying men who have no need to save aught for the following day.

The repast was prolonged until dawn. Vergniaud, seated at the centre of the table, presided, with the same calm dignity he had presided at the Convention on the night of August 10. The others formed groups, with the exception of Brissot, who sat at the end of the table, eating but little, and not uttering a word. For a long time nothing in their features or conversation indicated that this repast was the prelude to death. They ate and drank with appetite, but sobriety; but when the table was cleared, and nothing left except the fruit, wine, and flowers, the conversation became alternately animated, noisy and grave, as the conversation of careless men, whose thoughts and tongues are freed by wine.

Towards the morning the conversation became more solemn. Brissot spoke prophetically of the misfortunes of the republic, deprived of her most virtuous and eloquent citizens. "How much blood will it require to wash out our own?" cried he. They were silent, and appeared terrified at the phantom of the future evoked by Brissot.

"My friends," replied Vergniaud, "we have killed the tree by pruning it. It was too aged. Robespierre cuts it. Will he be more fortunate than ourselves? No, the soul is too weak to nourish the roots of civic liberty; this people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting itself. We were deceived as to the age in which we were born, and in which we die for the freedom of the world."

A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud's, and the conversation turned from earth to heaven.

"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" said Ducos, who always mingled mirth with the most serious subjects. Each replied according to his nature.

Vergniaud reconciled in a few words all the different opinions. "Let us believe what we will," said he, "but let us die certain of our life and the price of our death. Let us each sacrifice what we possess, the one his doubt, the other his faith, all of us our blood, for liberty. When man offers himself a victim to Heaven, what more can he give?"

When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones of the dungeon, the executioners and _gens d'armes_ made the condemned march in a column to the court of the palace, where five carts, surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them. The moment they emerged from the Conciergerie, the Girondists burst into the "Marseillaise," laying stress on these verses, which contained a double meaning:

_Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé._

From this moment they ceased to think of themselves, in order to think of the example of the death of republicans they wished to leave the people. Their voices sank at the end of each verse, only to rise more sonorous at the first line of the next verse. On their arrival at the scaffold they all embraced, in token of community in liberty, life, and death, and then resumed their funeral chant.

All died without weakness. The hymn became feebler at each fall of the axe; one voice still continued it, that of Vergniaud. Like his companions, he did not die, but passed in enthusiasm, and his life, begun by immortal orations, ended in a hymn to the eternity of the revolution.

* * * * *

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The Modern Régime