3164 (return)[ Madame Roland, "Lettres autographes, etc.," Sept. 5, 1792. "We are here under the knives of Marat and Robespierre. These fellows are striving to excite the people and turn them against the National Assembly and the council. They have organized a Star Chamber and they have a small army under pay, aided by what they found or stole in the palace and elsewhere, or by supplies purchased by Danton, who is underhandedly the chieftain of this horde."—Dusaulx, "Mémoires," 441. "On the following day (Sept. 3) I went to see one of the most estimated personalities at this epoch. 'You know,' said I to him, 'what is going on?'—'Very well; but keep quiet; it will soon be over. A little more blood is still necessary.'—I saw others who explained themselves much more definitely. "—Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 445.]
3165 (return)[ Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la Révolution Française," 3rd part, ch. X.]
3166 (return)[ Prudhomme, "Les Révolutions de Paris" (number for Sept. 22). At one of the last sessions of the commune "M. Panis spoke of Marat as of a prophet, another Siméon Stylite. 'Marat,' said he, 'remained six weeks sitting on one thigh in a dungeon.' "—Barbaroux, 64.]
3167 (return)[ Weber, II. 348. Collot dwells at length, "in cool-blooded gaiety," on the murder of Madame de Lamballe and on the abominations to which her corpse was subjected. "He added, with a sigh of regret, that if he had been consulted he would have had the head of Madame de Lamballe served in a covered dish for the queen's supper."]
3168 (return)[ On the part played by Robespierre and his presence constantly at the Commune see Granier de Cassagnac, II. 55.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 205. Speech by Robespierre at the commune, Sept. 1: "No one dares name the traitors. Well, I give their names for the safety of the people: I denounce the libertycide Brissot, the Girondist factionists, the rascally commission of the Twenty-One in the National Assembly; I denounce them for having sold France to Brunswick, and for having taken in advance the reward for their dastardly act." On the 2nd of September he repeats his denunciation, and consequently on that day warrants are issued by the committee of supervision against thirty deputies and against Brissot and Roland (Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 216, 247).]
3169 (return)[ "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 30.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 217 (resolutions of the sections Poissonnière and Luxembourg).—Granier de Cassagnac, II. 104 (adhesion of the sections Mauconseil, Louvre, and Quinze-Vingt).]
3170 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 156.]
3171 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 265.—Granier de Cassagnac, XII. 402. (The other five judges were also members of the commune.)]
3172 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 313. Register of the General Assembly of the sans-culottes, section, Sept. 2.—"Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre," 151 (declaration of Jourdan).]
3173 (return)[ "Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre," narrative of Abbé Sicard, 111.]
3174 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 109, 178. ("La vérite tout entière," by Méhée, Jr.)—Narrative of Abbé Sicard, 132, 134.]
3175 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 92, 93.—On the presence and complicity of Santerre. Ibid, 89-99.]
3176 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 277 and 299 (Sept. 3).—Granier de Cassagnac, II. 257. A commissary of the section of the Quatre-Nations states in his report that "the section authorized them to pay expenses out of the affair."—Declaration of Jourdan, 151.—Lavalette, "Mémoires," I. 91. The initiative of the commune is further proved by the following detail: "Towards five o'clock (Sept. 2) city officials on horseback, carrying a flag, rode through the streets crying: 'To arms! To arms!' They added: 'The enemy is coming; you are all lost; the city will be burnt and given up to pillage. Have no fear of the traitors or conspirators behind your backs. They are in the hands of the patriots, and before you leave the thunderbolt of national justice will fall on them!"—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 105. Letter of Chevalier Saint-Dizier, member of the first committee of supervision, Sept. 10. "Marat, Duplain, Fréron, etc., generally do no more in their supervision of things than wreak private vengeance... Marat states openly that 40,000 heads must still be knocked off to ensure the success of the revolution."]
3177 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 146. "Ma Résurrection," by Mathon de la Varenne. "The evening before half-intoxicated women said publicly on the Feuillants terrace: 'To-morrow is the day when their souls will be turned inside out in the prisons."]
3178 (return)[ "Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre. Mon agonie," by Journiac de Saint-Méard.—Madame de la Fausse-Landry, 72. The 29th of August she obtained permission to join her uncle in prison: "M. Sergent and others told me that I was acting imprudently; that the prisons were not safe."]
3179 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac,—II. 27. According to Roch Marcandier their number "did not exceed 300." According to Louvet there were "200, and perhaps not that number." According to Brissot, the massacres were committed by about "a hundred unknown brigands."—Pétion, at La Force (Ibid., 75), on September 6, finds only about a dozen executioners. According to Madame Roland (II. 35), "there were not fifteen at the Abbaye." Lavalette the first day finds only about fifty killers at the La Force prison.]
3180 (return)[ Mathon de la Varenne, ibid., 137.]
3181 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 183 (session of the Jacobin Club, Aug. 27). Speech by a federate from Tarn.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 126.]
3182 (return)[ Sicard, 80.—Méhée, 187.—Weber, II. 279.—Cf., in Journiac de Saint-Méard, his conversation with a Provençal.—Rétif de la Bretonne, "Les Nuits de Paris," 375. "About 2 o'clock in the morning (Sept. 3) I heard a troop of cannibals passing under my window, none of whom appeared to have the Parisian accent; they were all strangers."]
3183 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 164, 502.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 530.—Maillard's assessors at the Abbaye were a watchmaker living in the Rue Childebert, a fruit-dealer in the Rue Mazarine, a keeper of a public house in the Rue du Four-Saint-Germain, a journeyman hatter in the Rue Sainte-Marguerite, and two others whose occupation is not mentioned.—On the composition of the tribunal at La Force, Cf. Journiac de Saint-Méard, 120, and Weber, II. 261.]
3184 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 507 (on Damiens), 513 (on L'empereur).—Meillan, 388 (on Laforet and his wife, old-clothes dealers on the Quai du Louvre, who on the 31st of May prepare for a second blow, and calculate this time on having for their share the pillaging of fifty houses).]
3185 (return)[ Sicard, 98]
3186 (return)[ De Ferrières (Ed. Berville et Barrière), III. 486.—Rétif de la Bretonne, 381. At the end of the Rue des Ballets a prisoner had just been killed, while the next one slipped through the railing and escaped. "A man not belonging to the butchers, but one of those thoughtless machines of which there are so many, interposed his pike and stopped him... The poor fellow was arrested by his pursuers and massacred. The pikeman coolly said to us: 'I couldn't know they wanted to kill him.'"]
3187 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 511.]
3188 (return)[ The judges and slaughterers at the Abbaye, discovered in the trial of the year IV., almost all lived in the neighborhood, in the rues Dauphine, de Nevers, Guégénaud, de Bussy, Childebert, Taranne, de l'Egoût, du Vieux Colombier, de l'Echaudé-Saint-Benoit, du Four-Saint-Germain, etc.]
3189 (return)[ Sicard, 86, 87, 101.—Jourdan, 123. "The president of the committee of supervision replied to me that these were very honest persons; that on the previous evening or the evening before that, one of them, in a shirt and wooden shoes, presented himself before their committee all covered with blood, bringing with him in his hat twenty-five louis in gold, which he had found on the person of a man he had killed."—Another instance of probity may be found in the "Procès-verbaux du conseil-général de la Commune de Versailles," 367, 371.—On the following day, Sept. 3, robberies commence and go on increasing.]
3190 (return)[ Méhée, 179. "'Would you believe that I have earned only twenty-four francs?' said a baker's boy armed with a club. 'I killed more than forty for my share.'"]
3191 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac. II. 153.—Cf. Ibid., 202-209, details on the meals of the workmen and on the more delicate repast of Maillard and his assistants.]
3192 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 175-176.—Granier de Cassagnac. II. 84.——Jourdan, 222.—Méhée, 179. "At midnight they came back swearing, cursing, and foaming with rage, threatening to cut the throats of the committee in a body if they were not instantly paid."]
3193 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 320. Speech by Pétion on the charges preferred against Robespierre.]
3194 (return)[ Mathon de la Varenne, 156.—Journiac de Saint-Méard, 129.—Moore, 267.]
3195 (return)[ Journiac de Saint-Méard, 115.]
3196 (return)[ Weber, II. 265.—Journiac de Saint-Méard, 129.—Mathon de la Varenne, 155.]
3197 (return)[ Moore, 267.—Cf. Malouet, II. 240. Malouet, on the evening of Sept. 1, was at his sister-in-law's; there is a domiciliary visit at midnight; she faints on hearing the patrol mount the stairs. "I begged them not to enter the drawing-room, so as not to disturb the poor sufferer. The sight of a woman in a swoon and pleasing in appearance affected them, and they at once withdrew, leaving me alone with her."—Beaulieu, "Essais," I. 108. (Regarding the two Abbaye butchers he meets in the house of Journiac-de-Saint-Méard, and who chat with him while issuing him with a safe-conduct): "What struck me was to detect generous sentiments through their ferocity, those of men determined to protect any one whose cause they adopted."]
3198 (return)[ Weber, II. 265, 348.]
3199 (return)[ Sicard, 101. Billaud-Varennes, addressing the slaughterers.—Ibid.75. "Greater power," replied a member of the committee of supervision, "what are you thinking of? To give you greater power would be limiting those you have already. Have you forgotten that you are sovereigns? That the sovereignty of the people is confided to you, and that you are now in full exercise of it?"]
31100 (return)[ Méhée, 171.]
31101 (return)[ Sicard, 81. At the beginning the Marseilles men themselves were averse to striking the disarmed, and exclaimed to the crowd: "Here, take our swords and pikes and kill the monsters!"]
31102 (return)[ Macbeth by Shakespeare: "I have supped full with horrors."]
31103 (return)[ Observe children drowning a dog or killing a snake. Tenacity of life irritates them, as if it were a rebellion against their despotism, the effect of which is to render them only the more violent against their victim.]
31104 (return)[ One may recall to mind the effect of bull-fights, also the irresistible fascination which Saint-Augustin experienced on first hearing the death-cry of a gladiator in the amphitheater.]
31105 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 131. Trial of the September actors; the judge's summing up. "The third and forty-sixth witnesses stated that they saw Monneuse (member of the commune) go to and come from la Force, express his delight at those sad events that had just occurred, acting very immorally in relation thereto, adding that there was violin playing in his presence, and that his colleague danced."—Sicard, 88.]
31106 (return)[ Sicard, 87, 91. This expression by a wine-merchant, who wants the custom of the murderers.—Granier de Cassagnac, II. 197-200. The original bills for wine, straw, and lights have been found.]
31107 (return)[ Sicard, 91.—Maton de la Varenne, 150.]
31108 (return)[ Mathon de la Varenne, 154. A man from the suburbs said to him (Mathon is an advocate): "All right, Monsieur Fine-skin; I shall treat myself to a glass of your blood."]
31109 (return)[ Rétif de la Bretonne, "Les Nuits de Paris," 9th night, p.388. "She screamed horribly, whilst the brigands amused themselves with their disgraceful acts. Her body even after death was not exempt. These people had heard that she had been beautiful."]
31110 (return)[ Prudhomme, "Les Révolutions de Paris," number for Sept. 8, 1792. "The people subjected the flower-girl of the Palais-Royal to the law of retaliation."—Granier de Cassagnac, II. 329. According to the bulletin of the revolutionary tribunal, number for Sept. 3.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 291. Deposition of the caretaker's office of the Conciergerie prison.—Buchez et Roux, XVII.198. "Histoire des hommes de proi," by Roch Marcandier.]
31111 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux III, 257. Trial of the September murderers; deposition of Roussel.—Ib., 628.]
31112 (return)[ Deposition of the woman Millet, ibid., 63.—Weber, II. 350.——Roch Marcandier, 197, 198.—Rétif de la Bretonne, 381.]
31113 (return)[ Deposition of the woman Millet, ibid., 63.—Weber, II. 350.——Roch Marcandier, 197, 198.—Rétif de la Bretonne, 381.]
31114 (return)[ On this mechanical and murderous action Cf: Dusaulx, "Mémoires," 440. He addresses the bystanders in favor of the prisoners, and, affected by his words, they hold out their hands to him. "But before this the executioners had struck me on the cheeks with the points of their pikes, from which hung pieces of flesh. Others wanted to cut off my head, which would have been done if two gendarmes had not kept them back."]
31115 (return)[ Jourdan, 219.]
31116 (return)[ Méhée, 179.]
31117 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 558. The same idea is found among the federates and Parisians composing the company of the Egalité, which brought the Orleans prisoners to Versailles and then murdered them. They explain their conduct by saying that they "hoped to put an end to the excessive expenditure to which the French empire was subject through the prolonged detention of conspirators."]
31118 (return)[ Rétif de la Bretonne, 388.]
31119 (return)[ Méhée, 177.]
31120 (return)[ Prudhomme, "Les Crimes de la Révolution." III. 272.]
31121 (return)[ Rétif de la Bretonne, 388. There were two sorts of women at the Salpétrière, those who were banded and young girls brought in the prison. Hence the two alternatives.]
31122 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 295. See list of names, ages, and occupations.]
31123 (return)[ Barthélemy Maurice, "Histoire politique and anecdotique des prisons de la Seine," 329.]
31124 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 295. See list of names, ages, and occupations.]
31125 (return)[ The Encyclopedia "QUID" (ROBERT LAFONT, PARIS 1998) advises us that the number of victims killed with "cold steel and clubs" etc total 1395 persons. The total number of French victims due to the Revolution is considered to be between 600,000 and 800,000 dead. (SR)]
31126 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 399, 592, 602-606.—"Procès-verbal des 8, 9, 10 Septembre, extrait des registres de la municipalité de Versailles." (In the "Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre"), p. 358 and following pages.—Granier de Cassagnac, II. 483. Bonnet's exploit at Orleans, pointed out to Fournier, Sept. I. Fournier replies: "In God's name, I am not to be ordered; when the bloody beggars have had their heads cut off the trial may be held later!"]
31127 (return)[ Roch Marcandier, 210. Speech by Lazowski to the section of Finistère, fauborg Saint-Marceau. Lazowski had, in addition, set free the assassins of the mayor of Etampes, and laid their manacles on the bureau table.]
31128 (return)[ Malouet, II. 243 (Sept. 2).—Moniteur, XIII. 48 (session of Sept. 27, 1792). We see in the speech of Panis that analogous scenes took place in the committee of supervision. "Imagine our situation. We were surrounded by citizens irritated against the treachery of the court. We were told: 'Here is an aristocrat who is going to fly; you must stop him, or your yourselves are traitors!' Pistols were pointed at us and we found ourselves obliged to sign warrants, not so much for our own safety as for that of the persons denounced."]
31129 (return)[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 258.—Prudhomme, "Les Crimes de la Révolution," III. 272.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 631.—De Ferrière, III. 391.—(The expression quoted was recorded by Rétif de la Bretonne.)]
31130 (return)[ That is how to do it, must any anarchist or hopeful revolutionary have thought, upon reading Taine's livid description.-But also: "Do not let the bourgeois read this, it might scare them and make our task more difficult." (SR).]
31131 (return)[ Moniteur, XIII. 698, 698 (numbers for Sept. 15 and 16). Ibid., Letter of Roland, 701; of Pétion, 711.—Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 33. 34.—Prudhomme's journal contains an engraving of this subject (Sept. 14)—"An Englishman admitted to the bar of the house denounces to the National Assembly a robbery committed in a house occupied by him at Chaillot by two bailiffs and their satellites. The robbery consisted of twelve louis, five guineas, five thousand pounds in assignats, and several other objects." The courts before which he appeared did not dare take up his case (Buchez et Roux, XVII. P. 1, Sept. 18).]
31132 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 461.—Prudhomme, "Les Révolutions de Paris," number for Sept. 22, 1792.]
31133 (return)[ Moniteur, XIII. 711 (session of Sept. 16). Letter of Roland to the National Assembly.—Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 42.—Moniteur, XIII. 731 (session of Sept. 17). Speech by Pétion: "Yesterday there was some talk of again visiting the prisons, and particularly the Conciergerie."]
31134 (return)[ Perhaps Mao read this and later coined his famous slogan "that all political power emanates from the barrels of guns." (SR).]
31135 (return)[ "Archives Nationales," II. 58 to 76. Official reports of the Paris electoral assembly.—Robespierre is elected the twelfth (Sept. 5), then Danton and Collot d'Herbois (Sept. 6) then Manuel and Billaud-Varennes (Sept. 7), next C. Desmoulins (Sept. 8), Marat (Sept. 9) etc.—Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 35 (act passed by the commune at the instigation of Robespierre for the regulation of electoral operations).—Louvet, "Mémoires." Louvet, in the electoral assembly asks to be heard on the candidacy of Marat, but is unsuccessful. "On going out I was surrounded by those men with big clubs and sabers by whom the future dictator was always attended, Robespierre's body-guard. They threatened me and told me in very concise terms: 'Before long you shall have your turn. This is the freedom of that assembly in which one declared his vote under a dagger pointed at him."']
31136 (return)[ In reading this all socialist and communists and other potential manipulators of democracy would have taken and will continue to take note. Once the hidden combination can manage to invest all the different, in theory opponent, parties with their own men, an eternal control by a hidden mafia can now take place. (SR).]
31137 (return)[ Such procedures set a precedence for 200 years of 'guided democracy' in many trade unions and elsewhere. (SR).]
THE EPIDEMIC AND CONTAGIOUS CHARACTER OF THEREVOLUTIONARY DISEASE.
In the departments, it is by hundreds that we enumerate days like the 20th of June, August 10, September 2. The body has its epidemic, its contagious diseases; the mind has the same; the revolutionary malady is one of them. It appears throughout the country at the same time; each infected point infects others. In each city, in each borough, the club is a Center of inflammation which disorganizes the sound parts; and the example of each disorganized Center spreads afar like contagious fumes.3201Everywhere the same fever, delirium, and convulsions mark the presence of the same virus. That virus is the Jacobin dogma. By virtue of the Jacobin dogma, theft, usurpation, murder, take on the guise of political philosophy, and the gravest crimes against persons, against public or private property, become legitimate; for they are the acts of the legitimate supreme power, the power that has the public welfare in its keeping.
Its principle is the Jacobin dogma of the sovereignty of thepeople.——The new right is officially proclaimed.—Publicstatement of the new régime.—Its object, its opponents, itsmethods.—Its extension from Paris to the provinces.
That each Jacobin band should be invested with the local dictatorship in its own canton is, according to the Jacobins, a natural right. It becomes the written law from the day that the National Assembly declares the country in danger. "From that date," says their most widely read Journal,3202and by the mere fact of that declaration, "the people of France are assembled and insurgent. They have repossessed themselves of the sovereign power." Their magistrates, their deputies, all constituted authorities, return to nothingness, their essential state. And you, temporary and revocable representatives, "you are nothing but presiding officers for the people; you have nothing to do but to collect their votes, and to announce the result when these shall have been cast with due solemnity."—Nor is this the theory of the Jacobins only; it is also official theory. The National Assembly approves of the insurrection, recognizes the Commune, keeps in the background, abdicates as far as possible, and only remains provisionally in office in order that the place may not be left vacant. It abstains from exercising power, even to provide its own successors; it merely "invites" the French people to organize a national convention; it confesses that it has "no right to put the exercise of sovereign power under binding rules"; it does no more than "indicate to citizens" the rules for the elections "to which it invites them to conform." Meanwhile it is subject to the will of the sovereign people, then so-called; it dares not resist their crimes; it interferes with assassins only by entreaties.—Much more; it authorizes them, either by ministerial signature or counter-signature, to begin their work elsewhere. Roland has signed Fournier's commission to Orleans; Danton has sent the circular of Marat over all France. To reconstruct the departments the council of ministers sends the most infuriated members of the Commune and the party, Chaumette, Fréron, Westerman, Auduoin, Huguenin, Momoro, Couthon, Billaud-Varennes,3204and others still more tainted and brutal, who preach the purest Jacobin doctrine. "They announce openly3205that laws no longer exist; that since the people are sovereign, every one is master; that each fraction of the nation can take such measures as suit it, in the name of the country's safety; that they have the right to tax corn, to seize it in the laborer's fields, to cut off the heads of the farmers who refuse to bring their grain to market." At Lisieux, agrarian law is preached by Fufour and Momoro. At Douai, other preachers from Paris say to the popular club, "Prepare scaffolds; let the walls of the city bristle with gallows, and hang upon them every man who does not accept our opinions."—Nothing is more logical, more in conformity with their principles. The journals, deducing their consequences, explain to the people the use they ought to make of their reconquered sovereignty.3206"Under the present circumstances, community of property is the law; everything belongs to everybody." Besides, "an equalizing of fortunes must be brought about, a leveling, which shall abolish the vicious principle of the domination of the rich over the poor." This reform is all the more pressing because "the people, the real sovereign people, have nearly as many enemies as there are proprietors, large merchants, financiers, and wealthy men. In a time of revolution, we must regard all men who have more than enough as the enemies, secret or avowed, of popular government." Therefore, "let the people of each commune, before they quit their homes" for the army, "put all those who are suspected of not loving liberty in a secure place, and under the safe-keeping of the law; let them be kept shut up until war is over; let them be guarded with pikes," and let each one of their guardians receive thirty sous per day.
* As for the partisans of the fallen government, the members of the Paris directory, "with Roederer and Blondel at their head,"
* as for the general officers, "with Lafayette and d'Affry at their head,"
* as for "the critical deputies of the Constituent Assembly, with Barnave and Lameth at their head,"
* as for the Feuillant deputies of the Legislative Assembly, "with Ramond and Jaucourt at their head,"3207
* as for "all those who consented to soil their hands with the profits of the civil list,"
* as for "the 40,000 hired assassins who were gathered at the palace on the night of August 9-10,
they are all (say the Jacobins) furious monsters, who ought to be strangled to the last one. People! you have risen to your feet; stand firm until not one of these conspirators remains alive. Your humanity requires you for once to show yourselves inexorable. Strike terror to the wicked. The proscriptions which we impose on you as a duty, are the sacred wrath of your country."
There is no mistaking this; it is a tocsin sounding against all the powers that be, against all social superiority, against priests and nobles, proprietors, capitalists, the leaders of business and industry; it is sounding, in short, against the whole élite of France, whether of old or recent origin. The Jacobins of Paris, by their journals, their examples, their missionaries, give the signal; and in the provinces their kindred spirits, imbued with the same principles, only wait the summons to hurl themselves forward.