Common workers.—Their numbers.—Their condition.—Theirsentiments.—Effect of murder on the murderers.—Theirdegradation.—Their insensibility.
Two kinds of men make up the recruits, and it is especially on their crude brains that we have to admire the effect of the revolutionary dogma.
First, there are the Federates of the South, lusty fellows, former soldiers or old bandits, deserters, bohemians, and scoundrels of all lands and from every source, who, after finishing their work at Marseilles and Avignon, have come to Paris to begin over again. "Triple nom de Dieu!" exclaims one of them, "I didn't come a hundred and eighty leagues to restrain myself from sticking a hundred and eighty heads on the end of my pike!"3180Accordingly, they form in themselves a special, permanent, resident body, allowing no one to divert them from their adopted occupation. "They turn a deaf ear to the excitements of spurious patriotism";3181they are not going to be sent off to the frontier. Their post is at the capital; they have sworn "to defend liberty"; neither before nor after September make them deviate from this end. When, after having drawn money on every treasury and under every pretext, they at last consent to leave Paris, it is only on the condition that they return to Marseilles. Their operations are limited to the interior of France, and only against political adversaries. But their zeal in this field is only the greater; it is their band which, first of all, takes the twenty-four priests from the town hall, and, on the way, begins the massacre with their own hands.3182
Then there are the "enragés" of the Paris proletariat, a few of them clerks or shopkeepers, most of them artisans of all the trades; locksmiths, masons, butchers, wheelwrights, tailors, shoemakers, waggoners, especially dockers working in the harbor, market-porters, and, above all, journeymen and apprentices of all kinds, in short, manual workers on the bottom of the social ladder.3183Among these we find beasts of prey, murderers by instinct, or simple robbers.3184Others who, like one of the disciples of Abbé Sicard, whom he loves and venerates, confess that they never stirred except under constraint.3185Others are simple machines, who let themselves be driven: for instance the local forwarding agent, a good sort of man, but who, dragged along, plied with liquor, and then made crazy, kills twenty priests for his share, and dies at the end of the month, still drinking, unable to sleep, frothing at the mouth and trembling in every limb.3186And finally the few, who, with good intentions, are carried away by the bloody whirlwind, and, struck by the grace of Revolution, become converted to the religion of murder. One of them a certain Grapin, deputized by his section to save two prisoners, seats himself alongside of Maillard, sits in judgment at his side during sixty-three hours, and demands a certificate from him.3187The majority, however, entertain the same opinions as the cook, who, after taking the Bastille, finding himself on the spot and having cut off M. de Launay's head, regards it as a "patriotic" action, and deems himself worthy of a "medal for having destroyed a monster." These people are not common criminals, but well-disposed persons living in the vicinity, who, seeing a public service established in their neighborhood,3188issue from their homes to give a hand; their degree of probity is about the same as we find nowadays among people of the same condition in life.
At the outset, especially, no one considers filling his pockets. At the Abbaye prison, they come honorably and place on the table in the room of the civil committee the purses and jewels of the dead.3189If they appropriate anything to themselves, it is shoes to cover their naked feet, and then only after asking permission. As to pay, all rough work deserves it, and, moreover, between them and their recruiters, the answer is obvious. With nothing but their own hands to rely on, they cannot work for nothing,3190and, as the work is hard, they ought to be paid double time. They require six francs a day, besides their meals and as much wine as they want. One caterer alone furnished the men at the Abbaye with 346 pints:3191when working incessantly day and night with a task like that of sewer-cleaners and miners, nothing else will keep their courage up.—Food and wages must be paid for by the nation; the work is done for the nation, and, naturally, on interposing formalities, they get out of temper and betake themselves to Roland, to the City treasurer, to the section committees, to the Committee of Supervision,3192murmuring, threatening, and showing their bloody pikes. That is the evidence of having done their work well. They boast of it to Pétion, impress upon him how "just and attentive" they were,3193their discernment, the time given to the work, so many days and so many hours; they ask only for what is "due to them"; when the treasurer, on paying them, demands their names, they give them without the slightest hesitation. Those who escort a dismissed prisoner; masons, hairdressers, federates, require no recompense but "something to drink"; "we do not carry on this business for money," they say; "here is your friend; he promised us a glass of brandy, which we will take and then go back to our work."3194—Outside of their business they possess the expansive cordiality and ready sensitivity of the Parisian workman. At the Abbaye, a federate,3195on learning that the prisoners had been kept without water for twenty-six hours, wanted to "exterminate" the turnkey for his negligence, and would have done it if "the prisoners themselves had not pleaded for him." On the acquittal of a prisoner, the guards and the butchers, everybody, embraces him with enthusiasm; Weber is greeted again and again for more than a hundred yards; they cheer to excess. Each wants to escort the prisoner; the cab of Mathon de la Varenne is invaded; "they perch themselves on the driver's seat, at the doors, on top, and behind."3196—A few even display strange fits of tact. Two of the butchers, still covered with blood, who lead the chevalier de Bertrand home, insist on going up stairs with him to witness the joy of his family; after their terrible task they need the relaxation of tender emotion. On entering, they wait discreetly in the drawing-room until the ladies have been prepared; the happiness of which they are witnesses melts them; they remain some time, refuse money, expressing their gratitude and depart.3197—Still more extraordinary are the vestiges of innate politeness. A market-porter desirous of embracing a discharged prisoner, first asks his permission. Old "hags," who had just clapped their hands at the slaughtering, stop the guards "violently" as they hurry Weber along, in white silk stockings, across pools of blood: "Hey, guard, look out, you are making Monsieur walk in the gutter!"3198In short, they display the permanent qualities of their race and class; they seem to be neither above nor below the average of their brethren, Most of them, probably, would never have done anything very monstrous had a rigid police, like that which maintains order in ordinary times, kept them in their shops or at home in their lodgings or in their tap-rooms.
But, in their own eyes, they are so many kings; "sovereignty is committed to their hands,"3199their powers are unlimited; whoever doubts this is a traitor, and is properly punished; he must be put out of the way; while, for royal councillors, they take maniacs and rascals, who, through monomania or calculation, have preach all that to them: just like a Negro king surrounded by white slave-dealers, who urge him into raids, and by black sorcerers, who prompt him to massacre. How could such a man with such guides, and in such an office, be retarded by the formalities of justice, or by the distinctions of equity? Equity and justice are the elaborate products of civilization, while he is merely a political savage. In vain are the innocent recommended to his mercy!
"Look here, citizen,31100do you, too, want to put us to sleep? Suppose that those cursed Prussian and Austrian beggars were in Paris, would they pick out the guilty? Wouldn't they strike right and left, the same as the Swiss did on the 10th of August? Very well, I can't make speeches, but I don't put anybody to sleep. I say, I am the father of a family—I have a wife and five children that I mean to leave here for the section to look after, while I go and fight the enemy. But I have no intention that while I am gone these villains here in prison, and other villains who would come and let them out, should cut the throats of my wife and children. I have three boys who I hope will some day be more useful to their country than those rascals you want to save. Anyhow, all that can be done is to let 'em out and give them arms, and we will fight 'em on an equal footing. Whether I die here or on the frontiers, scoundrels would kill me all the same, and I will sell my life dearly. But, whether it is done by me or by someone else, the prison shall be cleaned out of those cursed beggars, there, now!" At this a general cry is heard: "He's right! No mercy! Let us go in!"
All that the crowd assent to is an improvised tribunal, the reading of the jailer's register, and prompt judgment; condemnation and slaughter must follow, according to the famous Commune, which simplifies things—There is another simplification still more formidable, which is the condemnation and slaughter by categories. Any title suffices, Swiss, priest, officer, or servant of the King, "the 'worms' on the civil list"; wherever a lot of priests or Swiss are found, it is not worth while to have a trial, the throats of the lot can be slit.—Reduced to this, the operation is adapted to the operators; the arms of the new sovereign are as strong as his mind is weak, and, through an inevitable adaptation, he degrades his work to the level of his faculties.
His work, in its turn, degrades and perverts him. No man, and especially a man of the people, rendered pacific by an old civilization, can, with impunity, become at one stroke both sovereign and executioner. In vain does he work himself up against the condemned and heap insults on them to augment his fury;31101I he is dimly conscious of committing a great crime, and his soul, like that of Macbeth, "is full of scorpions." Through a terrible tightening up, he hardens himself against the inborn, hereditary impulses of humanity; these resist while he becomes exasperated, and, to stifle them, there is no other way but to "gorge himself on horrors,"31102by adding murder to murder. For murder, especially as he practices it, that is to say, with a naked sword on defense-less people, introduces into his animal and moral machine two extraordinary and disproportionate emotions which unsettle it, on the one hand, a sensation of omnipotence exercised uncontrolled, unimpeded, without danger, on human life, on throbbing flesh31103and, on the other hand, an interest in bloody and diversified death, accompanied with an ever new series of contortions and exclamations;31104formerly, in the Roman circus, one could not tear one's self away from it; the spectacle once seen, the spectator always returned to see it again. Just at this time each prison court is a circus, and what makes it worse is that the spectators are likewise actors.—Thus, for them, two fiery liquids mingle together in one draught. To moral intoxication is added physical intoxication, wine in profusion, bumpers at every pause, revelry over corpses; and we see rising out of this unnatural creature the demon of Dante, at once brutal and refined, not merely a destroyer, but, again, an executioner, instigator and calculator of suffering, and radiant and joyous over the evil it accomplishes.
They are merry; they dance around each new corpse, and sing the carmagnole;31105they arouse the people of the quarter "to amuse them," and that they may have their share of "the fine fête."31106Benches are arranged for "gentlemen" and others for "ladies": the latter, with greater curiosity, are additionally anxious to contemplate at their ease "the aristocrats" already slain; consequently, lights are required, and one is placed on the breast of each corpse.—Meanwhile, the slaughter continues, and is carried to perfection. A butcher at the Abbaye31107complains that "the aristocrats die too quick, and that those only who strike first have the pleasure of it"; henceforth they are to be struck with the backs of the swords only, and made to run between two rows of their butchers, like soldiers formerly running a gauntlet. If there happens to be well-known person, it is agreed to take more care in prolonging the torment. At La Force, the Federates who come for M. de Rulhières swear "with frightful imprecations that they will cut the head of anyone daring to end his sufferings with a thrust of his pike"; the first thing is to strip him naked, and then, for half an hour, with the flat of their sabers, they cut and slash him until he drips with blood and is "skinned to his entrails."—All the monstrous instincts who grovels chained up in the dregs of the human heart, not only cruelty with its bared fangs,31108but also the slimier desires, unite in fury against women whose noble or infamous repute makes them conspicuous; against Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; against Madame Desrues, widow of the famous poisoner; against the flower-girl of the Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover, a French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy. Ferocity here is associated with lewdness to add debasement to torture, while life is violated through outrages on modesty. In Madame de Lamballe, killed too quickly, the libidinous butchers could outrage only a corpse, but for the widow,31109and especially the flower-girl, they revive, like so many Neros, the fire-circle of the Iroquois.31110—From the Iroquois to the cannibal, the gulf is small, and some of them jump across it. At the Abbaye, an old soldier named Damiens, buries his saber in the side of the adjutant-general la Leu, thrusts his hand into the opening, tears out the heart "and puts it to his mouth as if to eat it"; "the blood," says an eye-witness, "trickled from his mouth and formed a sort of mustache for him."31111At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is carved up. What Charlot, the wig-maker, who carried her head did, I to it, should not be described. I merely state that another wretch, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, bore off her heart and "ate it."31112
They kill and they drink, and drink and kill again. Weariness comes and stupor begins. One of them, a wheelwright's apprentice, has dispatched sixteen for his share; another "has labored so hard at this merchandise as to leave the blade of his saber sticking in it"; "I was more tired," says a Federate, "with two hours pulling limbs to pieces, right and left, than any mason who for two days has been plastering a wall."31113The first excitement is gone, and now they strike automatically.31114Some of them fall asleep stretched out on benches. Others, huddled together, sleep off the fumes of their wine, removed on one side. The exhalation from the carnage is so strong that the president of the civil committee faints in his chair,31115the fumes of the tavern blending with those from the charnel-house. A heavy, dull state of torpor gradually overcomes their clouded brains, the last glimmerings of reason dying out one by one, like the smoky lights on the already cold breasts of the corpses lying around them. Through the stupor spreading over the faces of butchers and cannibals, we see appearing that of the idiot. It is the revolutionary idiot, in which all conceptions, save two, have vanished, two fixed, rudimentary, and mechanical ideas, one destruction and the other that of public safety. With no others in his empty head, these blend together through an irresistible attraction, and the effect proceeding from their contact may be imagined. "Is there anything else to do?" asks one of these butchers in the deserted court.—"If there is no more to do," reply a couple of women at the gate, "you will have to think of something,"31116and, naturally, this is done.
As the prisons are to be cleaned out, it is as well to clean them all out, and do it at once. After the Swiss, priests, the aristocrats, and the "white-skinned gentlemen," there remain convicts and those confined through the ordinary channels of justice, robbers, assassins, and those sentenced to the galleys in the Conciergerie, in the Châtelet, and in the Tour St. Bernard, with branded women, vagabonds, old beggars, and boys confined in Bicêtre and the Salpétrière. They are good for nothing, cost something to feed,31117and, probably, cherish evil designs. At the Salpétrière, for example, the wife of Desrues, the poisoner, is, assuredly, like himself, "cunning, wicked, and capable of anything"; she must be furious at being in prison; if she could, she would set fire to Paris; she must have said so; she did say it31118—one more sweep of the broom.—This time, as the job is more foul, the broom is wielded by fouler hands; among those who seize the handle are the frequenters of jails. The butchers at the Abbaye prison, especially towards the close, had already committed thefts;31119here, at the Châtelet and the Conciergerie prisons, they carry away "everything which seems to them suitable," even to the clothes of the dead, prison sheets and coverlids, even the small savings of the jailers, and, besides this, they enlist their cronies. "Out of 36 prisoners set free, many were assassins and robbers, the killers attached them to their group. There were also 75 women, confined in part for larceny, who promised to faithfully serve their liberators." Later on, indeed, these are to become, at the Jacobin and Cordeliers clubs, the tricoteuses (knitters) who fill their tribunes.31120—At the Salpétrière prison, "all the pimps of Paris, former spies,... libertines, the rascals of France and all Europe, prepare beforehand for the operation," and rape alternates with massacre.31121—Thus far, at least, slaughter has been seasoned with robbery, and the grossness of eating and drinking; at Bicétre, however, it is crude butchery, the carnivorous instinct alone satisfying itself. Among other prisoners are 43 youths of the lowest class, from 17 to 19 years of age, placed there for correction by their parents, or by those to whom they are bound;31122one need only look at them to see that they are genuine Parisian scamps, the apprentices of vice and misery, the future recruits for the reigning band, and these the band falls on, beating them to death with clubs. At this age life is tenacious, and, no life being harder to take, it requires extra efforts to dispatch them. "In that corner," said a jailer, "they made a mountain of their bodies. The next day, when they were to be buried, the sight was enough to break one's heart. One of them looked as if he were sleeping like one of God's angels, but the rest were horribly mutilated."31123—Here, man has sunk below himself, down into the lowest strata of the animal kingdom, lower that the wolf; for wolves do not strangle their young.
Effect of the massacre on the public.—General dejection andthe dissolution of society.—The ascendancy of the Jacobinsassured in Paris.—The men of September upheld in theCommune and elected to the Convention.
There are six days and five nights of uninterrupted butchery,31124171 murders at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 223 at the Châtelet, 328 at the Consciergerie, 73 at the Tour-Saint-Bernard, 120 at the Carmelites, 79 at Saint Firmin, 170 at Bicêtre, 35 at the Salpétrière; among the dead,31125250 priests, 3 bishops or archbishops, general officers, magistrates, one former minister, one royal princess, belonging to the best names in France, and, on the other side, one Negro, several working class women, kids, convicts, and poor old men: What man now, little or big, does not feel himself threatened?—And all the more because the band has grown larger. Fournier, Lazowski, and Bécard, the chiefs of robbers and assassins, return from Orleans with fifteen hundred cut-throats.31126One the way they kill M. de Brissac, M. de Lessart, and 42 others accused of lése-nation, whom they wrested from their judges' hands, and then, by the way of surplus, "following the example of Paris," twenty-one prisoners taken from the Versailles prisons. At Paris the Minister of Justice thanks them, the Commune congratulates them, and the sections feast them and embrace them.31127—Can anybody doubt that they were ready to begin again? Can a step be taken in or out of Paris without being subject to their oppression or encountering their despotism? Should one leave the city, sentinels of their species are posted at the barriers and on the section committees in continuous session. Malouet, led before that of Roule,31128sees before him a pandemonium of fanatics, at least a hundred individuals in the same room, the suspected, those denouncing them, collaborators, attendants, a long, green table in the center, covered with swords and daggers, with the committee around it, "twenty patriots with their shirt sleeves rolled up, some holding pistols and others pens," signing warrants of arrest, "quarreling with and threatening each other, all talking at once, and shouting: Traitor!—Conspirator!—Off to prison with him!—Guillotine him!—and behind these, a crowd of spectators, pell-mell, yelling, and gesticulating" like wild beasts pressed against each other in the same cage, showing their teeth and trying to spring at each other. "One of the most excited, brandishing his saber in order to strike an antagonist, stopped on seeing me, and exclaimed, 'There's Malouet!'—The other, however, less occupied with me than with his enemy, took advantage of the opportunity, and with a blow of his club, knocked him down." Malouet had a close shave, in Paris escapes take place by such accidents.—If one remains in the city, one is beset with lugubrious fears by,
1. the hurrying step of squads of men in each street, leading the suspected to prison or before the committee;
2. around each prison the crowds that have come "to see the disasters";
3. in the court of the Abaye the cry of the auctioneer selling the clothes of the dead;
4. the rumbling of carts on the pavement bearing away 1,300 corpses;
5. the songs of the women mounted aloft on the carts, beating time on the naked bodies.31129
Is there a man who, after one of these encounters, does not see himself in imagination before the green table of the section committee, after this, in prison with sabers over his head, and then in the cart in the midst of the bloody pile?
Courage falters before a vision like this. All the journals approve, palliate, or keep silent; nobody dares offer resistance.31130Property as well as lives belong to whoever wants to take them. At the barriers, at the markets, on the boulevard of the Temple, thieves, decked with the tricolor ribbon, stop people as they pass along, seize whatever they carry, and, under the pretext that jewels should be deposited on the altars of Patriotism, take purses, watches, rings, and other articles, so rudely that women who are not quick enough, have the lobes of their ears torn in unhooking their earrings31131. Others, installed in the cellars of the Tuileries, sell the nation's wine and oil for their own profit. Others, again, given their liberty eight days before by the people, scent out a bigger job by finding their way into the Garde-meuble and stealing diamonds to the value of thirty millions.31132
Like a man struck on the head with a mallet, Paris, felled to the ground, lets things go; the authors of the massacre have fully attained their ends. The faction has fast hold of power, and will maintain its hold. Neither in the Legislative Assembly nor in the Convention will the aims of the Girondins be successful against its tenacious usurpation. It has proved by a striking example that it is capable of anything, and boasts of it; it is still armed, it stands there ever prepared and anonymous on its murderous basis, with its speedy modes of operation, its own group of fanatical agents and bravos, with Maillard and Fournier, with its cannon and its pikes. All that does not live within it lives only through its favor from day to day, through its good will. Everybody knows that. The Assembly no longer thinks of dislodging people who meet decrees of expulsion with massacre; it is no longer a question of auditing their accounts, or of keeping them within the confines of the law. Their dictatorship is not to be disputed, and their purification continue. From four to five hundred new prisoners, arrested within eleven days, by order of the municipality, by the sections, and by this or that individual Jacobin, are crowded into cells still dripping with blood, and the report is spread that, on the 20th of September, the prisons will be emptied by a second massacre.31133—Let the Convention, if it pleases, pompously install itself as sovereign, and grind out decrees—it makes no difference; regular or irregular, the government still marches on in the hands of those who hold the sword.31134The Jacobins, through sudden terror, have maintained their illegal authority; through a prolongation of terror they are going to establish their legal authority. A forced suffrage is going to put them in office at the Hôtel-de-ville, in the tribunals, in the National Guard, in the sections, and in the various administrations, while they have already elected to the Convention, Marat, Danton, Fabre d'Eglantine, Camille Desmoulins, Manuel, Billaud-Varennes, Panis, Sergent, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Legendre, Osselin, Fréron, David, Robert, Lavicourterie, in short, the instigators, leaders and accomplices of the massacre.31135Nothing that could force or falsify voting is omitted.31136In the first place the presence of the people is imposed on the electoral assembly, and, to this end, it is transferred to the large hall of the Jacobin club, under the pressure of the Jacobin galleries. As a second precaution, every opponent is excluded from voting, every Constitutionalist, every former member of the monarchical club, of the Feuillants, and of the Sainte-Chapelle club, of the Feuillants, and of the Sainte-Chapelle club, every signer of the petition of the 20,000, or of that of the 8,000, and, on the sections protesting against this, their protest is thrown out on the ground of its being the fruit of "an intrigue." Finally, at each balloting, each elector's vote is called out, which ensures the right vote beforehand, the warnings he has received being very explicit.31137On the 2nd of September, during the first meeting of the electoral body, held at the bishop's palace, the Marseilles troop, 500 yards away, came and took the twenty-four priests from the town-hall, and, on the way, hacked them to pieces on the Pont-Neuf. Throughout the evening and all night the agents of the municipality carried on their work at the Abbaye, at the Carmelites, and at La Force, and, on the 3rd of September, on the electoral assembly transferring itself to the Jacobin club, it passed over the Pont-au-Change between two rows of corpses, which the slaughterers had brought there from the Châtelet and the Conciergerie prisons.
3101 (return)[ Thierry, son of Clovis, unwilling to take part in an expedition of his brothers into Burgundy, was told by his men: "If thou art unwilling to march into Burgundy with thy brothers, we will leave thee and follow them in thy place."—Clotaire, another of his sons, disposed to make peace with the Saxons, "the angry Francs rush upon him, revile him, and threaten to kill him if he declines to accompany them. Upon which he puts himself at their head."]
3102 (return)[ Social condition and degree of culture are often indicated orthographically.—Granier de Cassagnac, II..480. Bécard, commanding the expedition which brought back the prisoners from Orleans, signs himself: "Bécard, commandant congointement aveque M. Fournier generalle. "—"Archives Nationales," F7, 4426. Letter of Chemin, commissioner of the Gravilliers section, to Santerre, Aug.11, 1792. "Mois Charles Chemin commissaire... fait part à Monsieur Santaire générale de la troupe parisiene que le nommé Hingray cavaliers de la gendarmeris nationalle.. me délarés qu'ille sestes trouvés aux jourduis 11 aoux avec une home attachés à la cours aux Equris; quille lui aves dis quiere 800 home a peupres des sidevant garde du roy étes tous près a fondre sure Paris pour donaire du sécour a naux rébelle et a signer avec moi la presante."]
3103 (return)[ On the 19th of March, 1871, I met in the Rue de Varennes a man with two guns on his shoulder who had taken part in the pillage of the Ecole d'Etat-major and was on his way home. I said to him: "But this is civil war, and you will let the Prussians in Paris."—"I'd rather have the Prussians than Thiers. Thiers is Prussian on the inside!"]
3104 (return)[ Today, 115 years after these words were written, we have seen others, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, etc following in the Jacobin's footsteps. Nobles, Bourgeois, Jews and other undesirables have been methodically put away. The sheeplike majority did not read Taine or did not profit from his warnings while most of the great tyrants learned from him or from the events he described (SR.)]
3105 (return)[ Moniteur, Nov. 14, 1792.]
3106 (return)[ "Archives Nationales," F7, 4426. Letter of the police administrators, Aug. 11. Declaration of Delaunay, Aug. 12.]
3107 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 59 (session of Aug. 12) Speech by Leprieur at the bar of the house.]
3108 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 47.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 31. Speech by Robespierre at the bar of the Assembly in the name of the commune, Aug. 15.]
3109 (return)[ Brissot, in his report on Robespierre's petition.—The names of the principal judges elected show its character: Fouquier-Tinville, Osselin, Coffinhal.]
3110 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII.91 (Aug. 17).]
3111 (return)[ Stated by Pétion in his speech (Moniteur, Nov. 10, 1792).]
3112 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 116 (session of Aug. 23).]
3113 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 461.—Moore, I. 273 (Aug. 31).]
3114 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 267 (article by Prudhomme in the "Révolutions de Paris").]
3115 (return)[ "Les Révolutions de Paris," Ibid., "A number of sans-culottes were there with their pikes; but these were largely outnumbered by the multitude of uniforms of the various battalions."—Moore, Aug, 31: "At present the inhabitants of the faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau are all that is felt of the sovereign people in Paris."]
3116 (return)[ More, Aug. 26.]
3117 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 471. Indictment against Jean-Julien.—In referring to M. Mortimer-Ternaux we do so because, like a true critic, he cites authentic and frequently unedited documents.]
3118 (return)[ Rétif de la Bretonne, "les Nuits de Paris," 11th night, p. 372.]
3119 (return)[ Moore, Sept. 2.]
3120 (return)[ Moore, Sept. 3.—Buchez et Roux, XVI. 159 (narrative by Tallien).—Official report of the Paris commune, Sept. 4 (in the collection of Barrière and Berville, the volume entitled "Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre"). The commune adopts and expands the fable, probably invented by it. Prudhomme well says that the story of the prison plot, so scandalously circulated during the Reign of Terror, appears for the first time on the 2d of September. The same report was spread through the rural districts. At Gennevilliers, a peasant while lamenting the massacres, said to Malouet: "It is, too, a terrible thing for the aristocrats to want to kill all the people by blowing up the city" (Malouet, II. 244).]
3121 (return)[ Official reports of the commune, Aug. 11.]
3122 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 446. List of the section commissioners sitting at the Hôtel-de-ville, Aug. 10, before 9 o'clock in the morning.]
3123 (return)[ Official reports of the commune, Aug. 21. "Considering that, to ensure public safety and liberty, the council-general of the commune required all the power delegated to it by the people, at the time it was compelled to resume the exercise of its rights," sends a deputation to the National Assembly to insist that "the new department be converted, pure and simple, into a tax-commissioners' office."—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 25. Speech of Robespierre in the name of the commune: "After the people have saved the country, after decreeing a National Convention to replace you, what remains for you to do but to gratify their wishes?... The people, forced to see to its own salvation, has provided for this through its delegates... It is essential that those chosen by itself for its magistrates should enjoy the plenary powers befitting the sovereign."]
3124 (return)[ Official reports of the commune, Aug. 10.—Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 155. Letter of the Minister Servan, Aug. 30.-Ibid., 149.—Ibid., 148. The commission on supplies having been broken up by the commune, Roland, the Minister of the Interior, begs the Assembly to act promptly, for "he will no longer be responsible for the supplies of Paris."]
3125 (return)[ Official reports of the commune, Aug. 21. A resolution requiring that, on trials for lésé-nation, those who appear for the defendants should be provided with a certificate of their integrity, issued by their assembled section, and that the interviews between them and the accused be public.—Ibid., Aug.17, a resolution to suspend the execution of the two assassins of mayor Simonneau, condemned to death by the tribunal of Seine-et-Oise.]
3126 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 11. Decree of Aug.11.]
3127 (return)[ Prudhomme, "Révolutions de Paris" (number for Sep. 22).. Report by Roland to the National Assembly (Sept. 16, at 9 o'clock in the morning).]
3128 (return)[ Madame Roland, "Mémoires," II. 414 (Ed. Barrière et Berville). Report by Roland Oct. 29. The seizure in question tool place Aug.27.]
3129 (return)[ "Mémoirs sur les journées de Septembre" (Ed. Barrière et Berville, pp. 307-322). List of sums paid by the treasurer of the commune.—See, on the prolongation of this plundering, Roland's report, Oct. 29, of money, plate, and assignats taken from the Senlis Hospital (Sept. 13), the Hotel de Coigny emptied, and sale of furniture in the Hotel d'Egmont, etc.]
3130 (return)[ Official reports of the commune, Aug. 17 and 20.—List of sums paid by the treasurer of the commune, p. 321.—On the 28th of August a "Saint-Roch in silver is brought to the bar of the National Assembly."]
3131 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 150, 161, 511.—Report by Roland, Oct. 29. P. 414.]
3132 (return)[ Moniteur.514, 542 (sessions of Aug. 23 and 26).]
3133 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 99 (sessions of Aug.15 and 23). "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 18, a resolution to obtain a law authorizing the commune "to collect together with wives and children of the émigrés in places of security, and to make use of the former convents for this purpose."]
3134 (return)[ "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 12.—Ibid., Aug. 18. Not being able to find M. Geoffrey, the journalist, the commune "passes a resolution that seals be affixed to Madame Geoffroy's domicile and that she be placed in arrest until her husband appears to release her."]
3135 (return)[ "Procès-verbaux de la Commune." Aug.17 and 18. Another resolution, again demanding of the National Assembly a list of the signers for publication.]
3136 (return)[ "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 18, 19, 20.—On the 20th of August the commune summons before it and examines the Venetian Ambassador. "A citizen claims to be heard against the ambassador, and states that several carriages went out of Paris in his name. The name of this citizen is Chevalier, a horse-shoer's assistant... The Council decrees that honorable mention be made of the affidavits brought forward in the accusation." On the tone of these examinations read Weber ("Mémoires," II. 245), who narrates his own.]
3137 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XVII. 215. Narration by Peltier.—In spite of the orders of the National Assembly the affair is repeated on the following day, and it lasts from the 19th to the 31st of August, in the evening.—Moore, Aug.31. The stupid, sheep-like vanity of the bourgeois enlisted as a gendarme for the sans-culottes is here well depicted. The keeper of the Hôtel Meurice, where Moore and Lord Lauderdale put up, was on guard and on the chase the night before: "He talked a good deal of the fatigue he had undergone, and hinted a little of the dangers to which he had been exposed in the course of this severe duty. Being asked if he had been successful in his search after suspected persons—'Yes my lord, infinitely; our battalion arrested four priests.' He could not have looked more lofty if he had taken the Duke of Brunswick,"]
3138 (return)[ According to Roederer, the number arrested amounted to from 5,000 to 6,000 persons.]
3139 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III.147, 148, Aug.28 and 29.—Ibid., 176. Other sections complain of the Commune with some bitterness.—Buchez et Roux, XVII. 358.—"Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Sept. 1. "The section of the Temple sends a deputation which declares that by virtue of a decree of the National Assembly it withdraws its powers entrusted to the commissioners elected by it to the council-general."]
3140 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 154 (session of Aug. 30).]
3141 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 171 (session of Aug. 31).—Ibid., 208.——On the following day, Sept. 1, at the instigation of Danton, Thuriot obtains from the National Assembly an ambiguous decree which seems to allow the members of the commune to keep their places, provisionally at least, at the Hotel-de-ville.]
3142 (return)[ "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Sept. 1.]
3143 (return)[ "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Sept. 1. "It is resolved that whatever effects fell into the hands of the citizens who fought for liberty and equality on the 10th of August shall remain in their possession; M. Tallien, secretary-general, is therefore authorized to return a gold watch to M. Lecomte, a gendarme."]
3144 (return)[ Four circumstances, simultaneous and in full agreement with each other, indicate this date: 1. On the 23d of August the council-general resolves "that a tribune shall be arranged in the chamber for a journalist (M. Marat), whose duty it shall be to conduct a journal giving the acts passed and what goes on in the commune" ("Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug.23) 2. On the same day, "on the motion of a member with a view to separate the prisoners of lése-nation from those of the nurse's hospital and others of the same stamp in the different prisons, the council has adopted this measure" (Granier de Cassagnac, II. 100). 3. The same day the commune applauds the deputies of a section, which "in warm terms" denounce before it the tardiness of justice and declare to it that the people will "immolate" the prisoners in their prisons (Moniteur, Nov. 10, 1793, Narrative of Pétion). The same day it sends a deputation to the Assembly to order a transfer of the Orleans prisoners to Paris (Buchez et Roux, XVII. 116). The next day, in spite of the prohibitions of the Assembly, It sends Fournier and his band to Orleans (Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 364), and each knows beforehand that Fournier is commissioned to kill them on the way. (Balleydier, "Histoire politique et militaire du people de Lyon," I.79. Letter of Laussel, dated at Paris, Aug.28): "Our volunteers are at Orleans for the past two or three days to bring the anti-revolutionary prisoners here, who are treated too well there." On the day of Fournier's departure (Aug. 24) Moore observes in the Palais Royal and at the Tuileries "a greater number than usual of stump-speakers of the populace, hired for the purpose of inspiring the people with a horror of monarchy."]
3145 (return)[ Moniteur, Sept. 25,1792, speech by Marat in the Convention.]
3146 (return)[ See his two journals, "L'Ami du people" and the "Journal de la Républic Française," especially for July and October 1792.—The number for August 16 is headed: "Development of the vile plot of the court to destroy all patriots with fire and sword."—That of August 19: "The infamous conscript Fathers of the Circus, betraying the people and trying to delay the conviction of traitors until Mottié arrives, is marching with his army on Paris to destroy all patriots!"—That of Aug. 21: "The rotters of the Assembly, the perfidious accomplices of Mottié arranging for flight... The conscript Fathers, the assassins of patriots at Nancy, the Champ de Mars and in the Tuileries, etc."—All this was yelled out daily every morning by those who hawked these journals through the streets.]
3147 (return)[ Ami du Peuple, Aug.19 and 21.]
3148 (return)[ "Lettres autographs de Madame Roland," published by Madame Bancal des Issarts, Sept. 9. "Danton leads all; Robespierre is his puppet; Marat holds his torch and dagger."]
3149 (return)[ Madame Roland "Mémoires," II. 19 (note by Roland).—Ibid., 21, 23, 24. Monge says: "Danton wants to have it so; if I refuse he will denounce me to the Commune and at the Cordeliers, and have me hung." Fournier's commission to Orleans was all in order, Roland probably having signed it unawares, like those of the commissioners sent into the departments by the executive council (Cf. Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 368.)]
3150 (return)[ The person who gives me the following had it from the king, Louis Philippe, then an officer in Kellerman's corps: On the evening of the battle of Valmy the young officer is sent to Paris to carry the news. On his arrival (Sept. 22 or 23. 1792) he learns that he is removed from his post and appointed governor of Strasbourg. He goes to Servan's house, Minister of War, and at first they refuse to let him in. Servan is unwell and in bed, with the ministers in his room. The young man states that he comes from the army and is the bearer of dispatches. He is admitted, and finds, indeed, Servan in bed with various personages around him, and he announces the victory.—They question him and he gives the details.—He then complains of having been displaced, and, stating that he is too young to command with any authority at Strasbourg, requests to be reinstated with the army in the field. "Impossible," replies Servan; "your place is given to another." Thereupon one of the personages present, with a peculiar visage and a rough voice, takes him aside and says to him: "Servan is a fool! Come and see me to-morrow and I will arrange the matter." "Who are you?" "I am Danton, the Minister of Justice."—The next day he calls on Danton, who tells him: "It is all right; you shall have your post back—not under Kellerman, however, but under Dumouriez; are you content?" The young man, delighted, thanks him. Danton resumes: "Let me give you one piece of advice before you go: You have talent and will succeed. But get rid of one fault. You talk too much. You have been in Paris twenty-four hours, and already you have repeatedly criticized the affair of September. I know this; I have been informed of it" "But that was a massacre; how can one help calling it horrible?" "I did it," replies Danton, "The Parisians are all so many j—f—. A river of blood had to flow between them and the émigrés. You are too young to understand these matters. Return to the army; it is the only place nowadays for a young man like you and of your rank. You have a future before you; but mind this—keep your mouth shut!"]
3151 (return)[ Hua, 167.. Narrative by his guest, the physician Lambry, an intimate friend of Danton ultra-fanatical and member of a committee in which the question came up whether the members of the "Right" should likewise be put out of the way. "Danton had energetically repelled this sanguinary proposal. 'Everybody knows,' he said, 'that I do not shrink from a criminal act when necessary; but I disdain to commit a useless one."']
3152 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, Iv. 437. Danton exclaims, in relation to the hot-headed commissioners sent by him into the department: "Eh! damn it, do you suppose that we would send you young ladies?"]
3153 (return)[ Philippe de Ségur, "Mémoires,"I.12. Danton, in a conversation with his father, a few weeks after the 2nd of September.]
3154 (return)[ See above, narrative of the king, louis Philippe.]
3155 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, xvii. 347. The words of Danton in the National Assembly, Sept. 2nd a little before two o'clock, just as the tocsin and cannon gave the signal of alarm agreed upon. Already on the 31st of August, Tailien, his faithful ally, had told the National Assembly: "We have arrested the priests who make so much trouble. They are in confinement in a certain domicile, and in a few days the soil of liberty will be purged of their presence."]
3156 (return)[ Meillan, "Mémoires," 325 (Ed. Barrière et Berville). Speech by Fabre d'Eglantine at the Jacobin Club, sent around among the affiliated clubs, May 1, 1793.]
3157 (return)[ Robinet, "Procès des Dantonistes," 39, 45 (words of Danton in the committee on general defense).—Madame Roland, "Mémoires," II. 30. On the 2nd of September Grandpré ordered to report to the Minister of the Interior on the state of the prisons, waits for Danton as he leaves the council and tells him his fears. "Danton, irritated by the description, exclaims in his bellowing way, suiting his word to the action. 'I don't give a damn about the prisoners! Let them take care of themselves! And he proceeded on in an angry mood. This took place in the second ante-room, in the presence of twenty persons."—Arnault, II. 101. About the time of the September massacres "Danton, in the presence of one of my friends, replied to someone that urged him to use his authority in stopping the spilling of blood: 'Isn't it time for the people to take their revenge?' "]
3158 (return)[ Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution," iv. 90. On the 2nd of September, at the alarm given by the tocsin and cannon, Prudhomme calls on Danton at his house for information. Danton gives him the agreed story and adds: "The people, who are now aroused and know what to do, want to administer justice themselves on the nasty imprisoned persons."—Camille Desmoulins enters: "Look here," says Danton, "Prudhomme has come to ask what is going to be done?"—"Didn't you tell him that the innocent would not be confounded with the guilty? All those that are demanded by their Sections will be given up."—On the 4th, Desmoulins calls at the office of the journal and says to the editors: "Well, everything has gone off in the most perfect order. The people even set free a good many aristocrats against whom there was no direct proof. I trust that you will state all this exactly, because the Journal des Révolutions is the compass of public opinion."]
3159 (return)[ Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution," IV. 123. According to the statements of Théophile Mandar, vice-president of a section, witness and actor in the scene; he authorizes Prudhomme to mention his name.——Afterwards, in the next room, Mandar proposes to Pétion and Robespierre to attend the Assembly the next day and protest against the massacre; if necessary, the Assembly may appoint a director for one day. "Take care not to do that," replied Robespierre; "Brissot would be the dictator."—Pétion says nothing. "The ministers were in perfect agreement to let the massacres continue."]
3160 (return)[ Madame Roland, II. 37.—"Angers et le départment de Maine-et-Loire de 1787 à 1830," by Blordier Langlois. Appended to the circular was a printed address bearing the title of Compte rendu au peuple souverain, "countersigned by the Minister of Justice and with the Minister's seal on the package," and addressed to the Jacobin Clubs of the departments, that they, too, might preach massacre.]
3161 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 391, 398.—Warned by Alquier, president of the criminal court of Versailles, of the danger to which the Orleans prisoners were exposed, Danton replied: "What is that to you? That affair does not concern you. Mind your own business, and do not meddle with things outside of it!"—"But, Monsieur, the law says that prisoners must be protected."—"What do you care? Some among them are great criminals, and nobody knows yet how the people will regard them and how far their indignation will carry them." Alquier wished to pursue the matter, but Danton turned his back on him]
3162 (return)[ Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 217]
3163 (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.]