3358 (return)[ Lagros: "La Révolution telle qu'elle est." (Unpublished correspondence of the committee of Public Safety, I., 366. Letter of Prieur de la Marne.) "In general, the towns are patriotic; but the rural districts are a hundred leagues removed from the Revolution.. .. Great efforts will be necessary to bring them up to the level of the Revolution."]
3359 (return)[ According to the statistics of 1866 (published in 1869) a district of one thousand square kilometres contains on an average, thirty-three communes above five hundred souls, twenty-three from five hundred to one thousand, seventeen bourgs and small towns from one thousand to five thousand, and one average town, or very large one, about five thousand. Taking into account the changes that have taken place in seventy years, one may judge from these figures of the distribution of the population in 1793. This distribution explains why, instead of forty-five thousand revolutionary committees, there were only twenty-one thousand five hundred.]
3360 (return)[ "Souvenirs des M. Hua," 179. "This country (Coucy-le-Chateau) protected by its bad roads and still more by its nullity, belonged to that small number in which the revolutionary turmoil was least felt."]
3361 (return)[ Among other documents of use in composing this picture I must cite, as first in importance, the five files containing all the documents referring to the mission of the representative Albert, in Aisne and Marne. (Ventôse and Germinal, year III.) Nowhere do we find more precise details of the sentiments of the peasant, of the common laborer and of the lower bourgeois from 1792 to 1795. (Archives Nationales, D. PP 2 to 5.)]
3362 (return)[ Daubari, "La Demagogie en 1793," XII. (The expression of an old peasant, near Saint-Émilion, to M. Vatel engaged in collecting information on the last days of Petion, Guadet and Buzot.)]
3363 (return)[ Archives Nationales, D. p I., 5. (Petition of Claude Defert, miller, and national agent of Turgy.) Numbers of mayors, municipal officers, national agents, administrators and notables of districts and departments solicit successors, and Albert compels many of them to remain in office.—(Joint letter of the entire municipality of Landreville; letter of Charles, stone-cutter, mayor of Trannes; Claude Defert, miller, national agent of Turgy; of Elegny, meat-dealer; of a wine-grower; municipal official at Merrex, etc.) The latter writes: "The Republic is great and generous; it does not desire that its children should ruin themselves in attending to its affairs; on the contrary, its object is to give salaried (emolumentaires) places to those who have nothing to live on."—Another, Mageure, appointed mayor of Bar-sur-Seine writes, Pluviôse 29, year III.: "I learned yesterday that some persons of this community would like to procure for me the insidious gift of the mayoralty," and he begs Albert to turn aside this cup.]
3364 (return)[ "Souvenirs de M. Hua," 178-205. "M. P..., mayor of Crépy-au-Mont, knew how to restrain some low fellows who would have been only too glad to revolutionize his village.... And yet he was a republican.... One day, speaking of the revolutionary system, he said: 'They always say that it will not hold on; meanwhile, it sticks like lice.' "—"A general assembly of the inhabitants of Coucy and its outskirts was held, in which everybody was obliged to undergo an examination, stating his name, residence, birth-place, present occupation, and what he had done during the Revolution." Hua avoids telling that he had been a representative in the Legislative Assembly, a recognized fact in the neighborhood: "Not a voice was raised to compromise me."—Ibid., 183. (Reply of the Coucy Revolutionary Committee to that of Meaux.)]
3365 (return)[ "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 175. (Letter of Pajot, member of the Revolutionary committee of Troyes, Vendémiaire, year III.)—Archives Nationales, F.7, 4421. (Register of the Revolutionary committee of Troyes.) Brumaire 27, year II. Incarceration of various suspects, among others of "Lerouge, former lawyer, under suspicion of having constantly and obstinately refused revolutionary offices." Also, a person named Corps, for "having refused the presidency of the district tribunal at the time of its organization, under the pretext of consulting the Chambre des Comptes; also for being the friend of suspects, and for having accepted office only after the Revolution had assumed an imposing character."]
3366 (return)[ Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d'Auvergne," 161. (Justification of Etienne Bonarmé, the last months of 1794.)]
3367 (return)[ Pans, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," II., 92. (Declaration by Guérard, lawyer, appointed judge at Cambrai, by the Cambrai Revolutionary committee.)—Ibid., 54. (Declaration by Lemerre, appointed juryman without his knowledge, in the Cambrai court.) "What was my surprise, I, who never was on a jury in my life! The summons was brought to me at a quarter to eleven (à onze heur moin un car—specimen of the orthography) and I had to go at eleven without having time to say good-by to my family."]
3368 (return)[ Report by Courtois on the papers found in Robespierre's domicile, 370. (Letter of Maignet to Payan, administrator of the department of Drôme, Germinal 20, year II.) "You know the dearth of subjects here. .. Give me the names of a dozen outspoken republicans... . If you cannot find them in this department (Vaucluse) hunt for them either in the Drôme or the Isère, or in any other. I should like those adapted to a revolutionary tribunal. I should even like, in case of necessity, to have some that are qualified to act as national agents."]
3369 (return)[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vols. 322 to 334, and 1409 to 1411.—These agents reside in Nîmes, Marseilles, Toulouse, Tarbes, Bordeaux, Auch, Rochefort, Brest, Bergues, Givet, Metz, Thionville, Strasbourg, Colmar, Belfort and Grenoble, and often betake themselves to towns in the vicinity.—The fullest reports are those of Chepy, at Grenoble, whose correspondence is worthy of publication; although an ultra Jacobin, he was brought before the revolutionary Tribunal as a moderate, in Ventôse, year II. Having survived (the Revolution) he became under the Empire a general commissary of Police at Brest. Almost all of them are veritable Jacobins, absolutist at bottom, and they became excellent despotic tools.]
3370 (return)[ Buchez et Roux, XXX., 425.—Twenty-four commissioners, drawn by lot from the Jacobins of Paris, are associated with Collot d'Herbois. One of them, Marino, becomes president of the temporary Committee of Surveillance, at Lyons. Another, Parrien, is made president of the Revolutionary Committee.—Archives Nationales, AF., II., 59. (Deliberations in the Paris Jacobin club, appointing three of their number to go to Tonnerre and request the Committee of Public Safety "to give them the necessary power, to use it as circumstances may require, for the best good of the Republic." Frimaire 6, year II.)—"Order of the Committee of Public Safety, allowing two thousand francs to the said parties for their traveling expenses."—Archives des Affaires Étrangères, vol. 333. The agents sent to Marseilles affix their signatures, "sans-culottes, of Paris," and one of them, Brutus, becomes president of the Marseilles revolutionary tribunal.]
3371 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 49. Papers relating to the revolutionary tax of Belfort, giving all the amounts and names. (Brumaire 30, year II.) Here is the formula: "citizen X... (male or female) will pay in one hour the sum of—, under penalty of being considered suspect and treated as such."—"Recueil des Pièces Authentiques concernant la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 128, 187. (Expressions of the representative Baudot in a letter dated Brumaire 29, year II.)]
3372 (return)[ Archives Nationales: the acts and letters of the representatives on mission are classed by departments.—On the delegates of the representatives on mission, I will cite but one text. (Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 333, letter of Garrigues, Auch, Pluviôse 24, year II.): "A delegate of Dartigoyte goes to l'Isle and, in the popular club, wants the curé of the place to get rid of his priestly attributes. The man answers, so they tell me, that he would cheerfully abstain from his duties, but that, if, in addition to this, they used force he would appeal to the convention, which had no idea of interfering with freedom of opinion. 'Very well,' replied Dartigoyte emissary, 'I appeal to a gendarme,' and he at once ordered his arrest."]
3373 (return)[ Lallier, "Une commission D'énquete et de Propagande," p.7. (It is composed of twelve members, selected by the club of Nantes, who overrun the district of Ancenis, six thousand francs of fees being allowed it.)—Babeau, II., 280. (Dispatch of sixty commissioners, each at six francs a day by the Troyes administration, to ascertain the state of the supplies on hand, Prairial, year II.)]
3374 (return)[ For example, at Bordeaux and at Troyes.—Archives Nationales F7, 4421. Register of the Revolutionary committee of Troyes, fol. 164. Two members of the committee travel to the commune of Lusigny, dismiss the mayor and justice, and appoint in the place of the latter "the former curé of the country, who, some time ago, abjured sacerdotal fanaticism."—Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.332. (Letter of Desgranges, Bordeaux, Brumaire 15, year II.) The representatives have just instituted "a revolutionary committee of surveillance composed of twelve members, selected with the greatest circumspection. All the committees established in the department are obliged to correspond with it, and fulfill its requisitions."]
3375 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II, 58. (Letter of Javogues to Collot d'Herbois, Brumaire 28, year II.)]
3376 (return)[ "Recueil des Pièces Authentiques," etc., I., 195. (Acts passed Jan.21, 1793.)]
3377 (return)[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 326. (Letters from Brutus, September 24; from Topino-Lebrun, jr., September 25 and October 6, 1793.—Vol. 330. Letters from Brutus, Nivôse 6, year II.) The character of the agent is often indicated orthographically. For example, vol.334, letter from Galon-Boyer, Brumaire 18, year II. "The public spirit is generally bad. Those who claim to be patriots know no restraint. The rest are lethargic and federalism appears innate."]
3378 (return)[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.1411. (Letter of Haupt, Brumaire 26, year II.)—Vol. 333. (Letter of Blessman and Haüser, Pluviôse 4, year II.)]
3379 (return)[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 333. (Letter of Chartres and of Caillard, Cornmune Aifranchie, Nivôse 21.)—Vol. 331. (Letters of Desgranges, at Bordeaux, Brumaire 8 and Frimaire 3.) "The offerings in plate and coin multiply indefinitely; all goes right. The court-martial has condemned Dudon to death, son of the ex-procureur-général in the former parliament at Bordeaux, Roullat, procureur-syndic of the department, Sallenave, merchant. These executions excite sympathy, but nobody murmurs."]
3380 (return)[ Ibid., vol. 333. (Letter of Cuny, sr., Nivôse 20.) Vols. 331, 332. (Letters of Chepy, passim, and especially those dated Frimaire II.)—Vol. 329. (Letter of Chépy, August 24, 1793.) "At Annecy, the women have cut down the liberty-pole and burnt the archives of the club and of the commune. At Chambéry, the people wanted to do the same thing."—Ibid. (September 18, 1793.) "The inhabitants around Mont Blanc show neither spirit nor courage; the truth is, an anti-revolutionary spirit animates all minds."—Ibid. (Letter of August 8, 1793.) "Not only have the citizens of Grenoble, who were drawn by lot, not set out on the expedition to Lyons, but, even of those who have obeyed the laws, several have returned with their arms and baggage. No commune between St. Laurent and Lyons would march. The rural municipalities, badly tainted with the federal malady, ventured to give the troops very bad quarters, especially those who had been drafted."]
3381 (return)[ Ibid. (Letter of Cuny, jr., Brest, Brumaire 6.) "There are, in general, very few patriots at Brest; the inhabitants are nearly all moderates."—(Letter of Gadolle, Dunkirk, July 26, 1793.)—(Letter of Simon, Metz, Nivôse, year II.) "Yesterday, on the news of the capture of Toulon being announced in the theatre,... I noticed that only about one-third of the spectators gave way to patriotic enthusiasm; the other two-thirds remained cold, or put on a long face."]
3382 (return)[ Ibid. (Letter of Haupt, Belfort, September 1, 1793.)]
3383 (return)[ Report by Courtois on the papers found in Robespierre's domicile, p. 274. (Letter of Darthé, Ventôse 29, year II.)]
3384 (return)[ "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by citizen Pescayre (published in year III.), p.101.]
3385 (return)[ Archives Nationales, F.7, 4421. (Register of the Revolutionary Committee, established at Troyes, Brumaire II, year II.)—Albert Babeau, vol. II., passim.—Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 332, Chépy (letter, Brumaire 6, Grenoble). "The sections had appointed seven committees of surveillance. Although weeded out by the club, they nevertheless alarmed the sans-culottes.... Representative Petit-Jean has issued an order, directing that there shall be but one committee at Grenoble composed of twenty-one members. This measure is excellent and ensures the triumph of sans-culotteism."—Archives Nationales, F.7, 4434. (Letter of Pérrieu to Brissot, Bordeaux, March 9, 1793.) Before June 2, the national club "of Bordeaux, composed of Maratists, did not comprise more than eight or ten individuals at most."—Moniteur, XXII., 133. (Speech by Thibeaudeau on the popular club of Poitiers, Vendémiaire II, year III.)—Ibid. (Session of Brumaire 5, year III., letter of Calès, and session of Brumaire 17, year III., report by Calès.) "The popular club of Dijon made all neighboring administrative bodies, citizens and districts tremble. All were subject to its laws, and three or four men in it made them. This club and the municipality were one body." "The Terror party does not exist here, or, if it does exist, it does not amount to much: out of twenty thousand inhabitants there are not six who can legitimately be suspected of belonging to it."]
3386 (return)[ Baroly, "Les Jacobins Demasqués," (IV. 8vo., of 8pp., year II). "The Jacobin club, with its four hundred active members at Paris, and the four thousand others in the provinces, not less devoted, represent the living force of the Revolution."]
3387 (return)[ Archives Nationales, D. P I., 10. (Orders of representatives Delacroix, Louchet, and Legendre, Nivôse 12, year II.) "On the petition of the Committee of Surveillance of Evreux, which sets forth that all its members are without means, and that it will be impossible for them to continue their duties since they are without resources for supporting their families," the representatives allow three of them two hundred and seventy francs each, and a fourth one hundred and eighty francs, as a gratuity (outside of the three francs a day.)]
3388 (return)[ Ibid. AF., II., 111. (Order of Albitte and La Porte, Prairial 18, year II.)]
3389 (return)[ Albert Babeau, II., 154-157.—Moniteur, XXII. 425. (Session of Brumaire 13, year III. Speech by Cambon.) "A government was organized in which surveillance alone cost 591 millions per annum. Every man who tilled the ground or worked in a shop, at once abandoned his pursuit for a place on the Revolutionary Committees... where he got five francs a day."]
3390 (return)[ "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by citizen Pescare, 162, 166, 435.]
3391 (return)[ Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionaire," (second edition) p. XIX.—Ibid., XIV. At Rochefort there is on the revolutionary tribunal a mason, a shoemaker, a caulker, and a cook; at Bordeaux, on the military commission, an actor, a wine-clerk, a druggist, a baker, a journeyman-gilder, and later, a cooper and a leather-dresser.]
3392 (return)[ I heard these expressions during my conversations with old peasants.—Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 111. (Order of the Representative Ichon, Messidor 18, year II.) "The popular club of Chinon will be immediately regenerated. Citizens (I omit their names), the following showing their occupations: shoemaker, policeman. sabot-maker, cooper, carter, shoemaker, joiner, butcher carpenter and mason, will form the committee which is to do the weeding-out and choose successors among those that offer to become members of the club."? Ibid., D., PI, 10. (Orders of the Representatives Delacroix, Louchet and Legendre, on mission in the department of Seine-Inférieure for the purpose of removing, at Conchez, the entire administration, and for forming there a new revolutionary committee, with full powers, Frimaire 9, year II.) The members of the committee, the nature of which is indicated, are two coopers, one gardener, two carpenters, one merchant, a coach-driver and a tailor. (One finds in the archives, in the correspondence of the representatives, plenty of orders appointing authorities of the same sort.)]
3393 (return)[ Albert Babeau, II., 296.]
3394 (return)[ The French text reads: "Sa profession est fame de Paillot-Montabert; son revenu est vivre de ses revenus; ces relation son d'une fame nous ny portons point d'atantion; ces opignons nous les présumons semblable à ceux de son mary."]
3395 (return)[ Archives Nationales, F7, 4421. Order of the Committee of Surveillance of the third section of Troyes, refusing civic certificates to seventy-two persons, or sending them before the central committee as "marchands d'argant, aristocrate, douteux, modére, intrigant, egoiste fanatique. Fait et areté par nous, membre du Comité."—Ib., Mémoire des Commissaires de la 5e seiscion dite de la liberté nommé par le citoyen de Baris (Paris) pour faire les visite de l'argenteri ché les citoyens de la liste fait par les citoyens Diot et Bailly et Jaquin savoir depence du 13 et 14 et 15 Frimaire pour leur nouriture du troyes jour monte à 24 fr.]
3396 (return)[ Albert Babeau, II., 154.]
3397 (return)[ Archives Nationales, D., PI, 5. (Mission of Representative Albert, in Aube and in Marne.)—These notes are made on the spot, with a thorough knowledge of the situation, by zealous republicans who are not without common-sense and of average honesty, (chiefly in Pluviôse and Ventôse, year III).—Letter of Albert to the directories of the two departments, Prairial 3, year II. "I am satisfied, during the course of my mission, of the necessity of reorganizing the municipalities throughout both departments."]
3398 (return)[ Ibid. Orders of Albert, Ventôse 5, and Pluviôse 29, year III., reorganizing the courts and administrations in the districts of Ervy, Arcis and Nogent-sur-Seine, with a tabular statement of the names of those removed and the reasons for so doing.]
3399 (return)[ Petition of Jean Nicolas Antoine, former member of the Directory of the district of Troyes for twenty-eight months. (Ventose 9, year II I.) Shut up in Troyes, he asks permission to go to Paris, "I have a small lot of goods which it is necessary for me to sell in Paris. It is my native town and I know more people there than anywhere else."-Ibid. Information furnished on Antoine by the Conseil-general of the Commune of Troyes.]
33100 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 59. (Memorials dated Messidor 28, year II., by an emissary of the Committee of Public Safety, sent to Troyes, Prairial 29, to report on the situation of things and on the troubles in Troyes.)—Albert Babeau, II., 203, 205 and 112, 122.—Cf. 179. "Gachez, intoxicated, about eleven o'clock at night, with several women as drunk as himself, compelled the keeper of the Temple of Reason to open the doors, threatening him with the guillotine."—Ibid., 166. He addressed the sans-culottes in the popular club: "Now is the time to put yourselves in the place of the rich. Strike, and don't put it off!"—Ibid., 165." 42,633 livres were placed in the hands of Gachez and the committee, as secret revolutionary service money.... Between December 4 and 10 Gachez received 20,000 livres, in three orders, for revolutionary expenses and provisional aid.... The leaders of the party disposed of these sums without control and, it may be added, without scruple; Gachez hands over only four thousand livres to the sectional poor-committee. On Nivôse 12, there remains in the treasury of the poor fund only 3738 livres, 12 000 having been diverted or squandered."]
33101 (return)[ "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 172. (Letter of Pajot, member of the revolutionary committee of Aignay-le-Duc.) "Denunciations occupied most of the time at our meetings, and it is there that one could see the hatreds and vengeance of the colleagues who ruled us."]
33102 (return)[ Archives Nationales, D., P I, No.4. The following is a sample among others of the impositions of the revolutionary committees. (Complaint of Mariotte, proprietor, former mayor of Chatillon-sur-Seine, Floréal 27, year II.) "On Brumaire 23, year II., I was stopped just as I was taking post at Mussy, travelling on business for the Republic, and provided with a commission and passport from the Minister of war.... I was searched in the most shameful manner; citizen Ménétrier, member of the committee, used towards me the foulest language.... I was confined in a tavern; instead of two gendarmes which would have been quite sufficient to guard me, I had the whole brigade, who passed that night and the next day drinking, until, in wine and brandy the charge against me in the tavern amounted to sixty francs. And worse still, two members of the same committee passed a night guarding me and made me pay for it. Add to this, they said openly before me that I was a good pigeon to pluck. ... They gave me the escort of a state criminal of the highest importance, three national gendarmes, mounted, six National Guards, and even to the Commandant of the National Guard; citizen Mièdan, member of the revolutionary committee, put himself at the head of the cortege, ten men to conduct one!.... I was obliged to pay my torturers, fifty francs to the commandant, and sixty to his men."]
33103 (return)[ Moniteur, XXI., 261. (Speech by an inhabitant of Troyes in the Jacobin Club, Paris, Messidor 26, year II.)]
33104 (return)[ Albert Babeau, II., 164. (Depositions of the tavern-keeper and of the commissioner, Garnier.)]
33105 (return)[ "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 170, 172. (Letter by Pajot and petition of the Aignay municipality, March 10, 1795.)—Bibliotheque Nationale, L., 41. No.1802. (Denunciation by six sections of the commune of Dijon to the National Convention.)]
33106 (return)[ "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution de Strasbourg," I., 187, and letter of Burger, Thermidor 25, year II.]
33107 (return)[ Archives Nationales, D., P I, 6 (file 37)—Letter of the members of the Strasbourg revolutionary committee, Ventôse 13, year III., indicating to the mayor and municipal officers of Chalons-sur-Marne certain Jacobins of the town as suitable members of the Propaganda at Strasbourg.]
33108 (return)[ "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques concernant la Révolution à Strasbourg," I.,71. Deposition of the recorder Weis on the circuit of the Revolutionary Tribunal, composed of Schneider, Clavel and Taffin. "The judges never left the table without having become intoxicated with everything of the finest, and, in this state, they gathered in the tribunal and condemned the accused to death."—Free living and "extravagant expenditure" were common even "among the employees of the government." "I encountered," says Meissner, "government carters served with chickens, pastry and game, whilst at the traveler's table there was simply an old leg of mutton and a few poor side-dishes." ("Voyage en France," toward the end of 1795, p.371.)]
33109 (return)[ Some of them, nevertheless, are not ugly, but merely sots. The following is a specimen. A certain Velu, a born vagabond, formerly in the alms-house and brought up there, then a shoemaker or a cobbler, afterwards teaching school in the faubourg de Vienne, and at last a haranguer and proposer of tyrannicide motions, short, stout and as rubicund as his cap, is made President of the Popular club at Blois, then delegate for domiciliary visits, and, throughout the reign of Terror, he is a principal personage in the town, district and department. (Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," (MS.) March 21, 1793 and June, 1793.) In June, 1793, this Velu is ordered to visit the chateau de Cheverney, to verify the surrender of all feudal documents. He arrives unexpectedly, meets the steward, Bambinet, enters the mayor's house, who keeps an inn, and drinks copiously, which gives Bambinet time to warn M. Dufort de Cheverney and have the suspicious registers concealed.—This done, "Velu is obliged to leave his bottle and march to the chateau.—He assumed haughtiness and aimed at familiarity; he would put his hand on his breast and, taking yours, address you: "Good day, brother."—He came there at nine o'clock in the morning, advanced, took my hand and said: "Good-day, brother, how are you?" "Very well, citizen, and how are you?" "You do not tutoyer—you are not up to the Revolution?"We'll see—will you step in the parlor?" "Yes, brother, I'll follow you."—We enter; he sees my wife who, I may say, has an imposing air. He boldly embraces her and, repeating his gesture on the breast, takes her hand and says: "Good-day, sister." "Come," I interpose, "let us take breakfast, and, if you please, you shall dine with me." "Yes, but on one condition, that tu me tutoie." "I will try, but I am not in the habit of it." After warming up his intellect and heart with a bottle of wine, we get rid of him by sending him to inspect the archives-room, along with my son and Bambinet. It is amusing, for he can only read print... Bambinet, and the procureur, read the titles aloud, and pass over the feudalisms. Velu does not notice this and always tells them to go on.—After an hour, tired out, he comes back: "All right," he says, "now let me see your chateau, which is a fine one." He had heard about a room where there were fantocini, in the attic. He goes up, opens some play-books, and, seeing on the lists of characters the name of King and Prince, he, says to me: "You must scratch those out, and play only republican pieces." The descent is by a back-stairs. On the way down he encounters a maid of my wife's, who is very pretty; he stops and, regarding my son, says: "You must as a good Republican, sleep with that girl and marry her." I look at him and reply: "Monsieur Velu, listen; we are well behaved here, and such language cannot be allowed. You must respect the young people in my house." A little disconcerted, he tames down and is quite deferential to Madame de Cheverney.—"You have pen and ink on your table," he says, "bring them here." "What for," I ask, "to take my inventory?" "No, but I must make a procès-verbal. You help me; it will be better for you, as you can fix it to suit you" This was not badly done, to conceal his want of knowledge.—We go in to dinner. My servants waited on the table; I had not yielded to the system of a general table for all of us, which would not have pleased my servants any more than myself. Curiosity led them all to come in and see us dining together.—"Brother," says Velu to me, "don't these people eat with you?" (He saw the table set for only four persons.) I reply: "Brother, that would not be any more agreeable to them than to myself. Ask them."—He ate little, drank like an ogre, and was talkative about his amours; getting carried away he got so close to being naughty that he upset my wife, without actually going to far. Apropos of the Revolution, and the danger we incurred, he said innocently: "Don't I run as much risk as anybody? It is my opinion that, in three months, I shall have my head off! But we must all take our chance!"—Now and then, he indulged in sans-culottisms. He seized the servant's hand, who changed his plate: "Brother, I beg you to take my place, and let me wait on you in my turn "—He drank the cordials, and finally left, pleased with his reception.—Returning to the inn, he stays until nine o'clock at night and stuffs himself, but is not intoxicated. One bottle had no effect on him; he could empty a cask and show no signs of it.]
33110 (return)[ Moniteur, XXII., 425. (Session of Brumaire 13, year III.) Cambon, in relation to the revolutionary committees, says: "I would observe to the Assembly that they were never paid." A member replies: "They took their pay themselves." ("Yes, yes."—Applause.)]
33111 (return)[ Moniteu, XXII., 711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)—Cambon stated, indeed, Frimaire 26, year II., (Moniteur, XVIII., 680), concerning these taxes "Not one word, not one sou has yet reached the Treasury; they want to override the Convention which made the Revolution."]
33112 (return)[ Ibid., 720. "The balances reported, of which the largest portion is already paid into the vaults of the National Treasury, amount to twenty millions one hundred and sixty-six thousand three hundred and thirty livres."—At Paris, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, in the large towns where tens of millions were raised in three-quarters of the districts, Cambon, three months after Thermidor, could not yet obtain, I will not say the returns, but a statement of the sums raised. The national agents either did not reply to him, or did it vaguely, or stated that in their districts there was neither civic donation nor revolutionary tax, and particularly at Marseilles, where a forced loan had been made of four millions.—Cf. De Martel, "Fouché," P.245. (Memorial of the central administration of Nièvre, Prairial 19, year III.) "The account returned by the city of Nevers amounts to eighty thousand francs, the use of which has never been verified.... This tax, in part payment of the war subsidy, was simply a trap laid by the political actors in order to levy a contribution on honest, credulous citizens."—Ibid., 217. On voluntary gifts and forced taxation cf. at Nantes, the use made of revolutionary taxes, brought out on the trial of the revolutionary committee.]
33113 (return)[ Ludovic Sciout, IV., 19. Report of Representative Becker. (Journal des Débats et Décrets, p.743, Prairial, year III.) He returns from a mission to Landau and renders an account of the executions committed by the Jacobin agents in the Rhenish provinces. They levied taxes, sword in hand, and threatened the refractory with the guillotine at Strasbourg. The receipts which passed under the reporter's eyes "presented the sum of three millions three hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-five livres, two deniers, whilst our colleague, Cambon, reports only one hundred and thirty-eight thousand paid in."]
33114 (return)[ Moniteur, XXII., 754. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.) "Rascallery—this word recalls the old revolutionary committees, most of which formed the scum of society and which showed so many aptitudes for the double function of robber and persecutor."]
33115 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 107. (Orders of Representatives Ysabeau and Tallien, Bordeaux, Brumaire 11 and 17, year II.)—Third order, promulgated by the same parties, Frimaire 2, year II., replacing this committee by another of twelve members and six deputies, each at two hundred francs a month. Fourth order, Pluviôse 16, year II., dismissing the members of the foregoing committee, as exagérés and disobedient. It is because they regard their local royalty in quite a serious light.-Ibid., AF., II., 46. ("Extracts from the minutes of the meetings of the revolutionary committee of Bordeaux," Prairial, year II.) This extract, consisting of eighteen pages, shows in detail the inside workings of a revolutionary committee the number of arrested goes on increasing; on the 27th of Prairial there are 1524. The committee is essentially a police office; it delivers certificates of civism, issues warrants of arrest, corresponds with other committees, even very remote, at Limoges, and Clermont-Ferrand, delegates any of its members to make investigations or domicialiary searches, to affix seals, and it receives and transmits denunciations, summons the denounced to appear before it, reads interrogations, writes to the Committee of Public Safety, etc. The following are samples of its warrants of arrest: "Muller, a riding-master, will be confined in the former Petit Seminaire, under suspicion of aristocracy, according to public opinion."—Another example, (Archives Nationales, F.7, 2475. Register of the procès-verbaux of the revolutionary committee of the Piques section, Paris, June 3, 1793.) Warrant of arrest against Boucher, grocer, rue Neuve du Luxembourg, "suspect" of incivisme and "having cherished wicked and perfidious intentions against his wife." Boucher, arrested, declares that, "what he said and did in his own house, concerned nobody but himself." On which he was led to prison.]
33116 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 30 (No.105). Examination of Jean Davilliers, and other ransomed parties.]
33117 (return)[ Berryat Saint-Prix, 313. (Trial of Lacombe and his accomplices after Thermidor.)]
33118 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 46. (Letter of Julien to the Committee of Public Safety, Bordeaux, Messidor 12, year II.)—Moniteur, XXII., 713. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.) At Verins, citizens were imprisoned and then set at liberty "on consideration of a fee."—Albert Babeau, II., 164, 165, 206. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year II.) "Citoyenne (madame) Deguerrois, having come to procure the release of her husband, a public functionary demanded of her ten thousand livres, which he reduced to six thousand for doing what she desired."—"One document attests that Massey paid two thousand livres, and widow Delaporte six hundred livres, to get out of prison."]
33119 (return)[ Mallet-Dupan, "First letter to a Genoa merchant," (March I, 1796), pp.33-35. "One of the wonders of the reign of Terror is the slight attention given to the trafficking in life and death, characteristic of terrorism.... We scarcely find a word on the countless bargains through which 'suspect' citizens bought themselves out of captivity, and imprisoned citizens bought off the guillotine. ... Dungeons and executions were as much matters of trade as the purchase of cattle at a fair." This traffic "was carried on in all the towns, bourgs and departments surrendered to the Convention and Revolutionary Committees.".... "It has been established since the 10th of August." "I will only cite among a multitude of instances the unfortunate Duc du Châtelet: never did anybody pay more for his execution!"—Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris," VI., 88. (Denunciation of Fouquier-Tinville, signed Saulnie.) According to Saulnie he dined regularly twice a week at No 6 rue Serpente, with one Demay, calling himself a lawyer and living with a woman named Martin. In this death-trap, in the middle of orgies, the freedom or death of those in prison was bargained for in money with impunity. One head alone, belonging to the house of Boufflers, escaping the scaffold through the intrigues of these vampires, was worth to them thirty thousand livres, of which one thousand were paid down and a bond given for the rest, payable on being set at liberty.—Morellet, "Memoires," II., 32. The agent of Mesdames de Bouffiers was Abbé Chevalier, who had formerly known Fouquier-Tinville in the office of a procureur an Parliament and who, renewing the acquaintance, came and drank with Fouquier. "He succeeded in having the papers of the ladies Bouffiers, which were ready to be sent to the Tribunal, placed at the bottom of the file."—Mallet-Dupan, " Memoires," II., 495. "Fouquier-Tinville received a pension of one thousand crowns a month from Mesdames de Bouffiers; the ransom increased one quarter each month on account of the atrocity of the circumstances. This method saved these ladies, whilst those who paid a sum in gross lost their lives... It was Du Vaucel, fermier-general, who saved the Princess of Tarente....for five hundred louis, after having saved two other ladies for three hundred louis, given to one of the Jacobin leaders."]
33120 (return)[ "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 324. Coudert, of the Municipal Council, shoemaker, charged with the duty of taking silver-plate from the accused, did not know how, or was unwilling, to draw up any other than an irregular and valueless procès-verbal. On this, an accused party objected and refused to sign. "Take care, you," exclaims Coudert in a rage, "with your damned cleverness, you are playing the stubborn. You are nothing but a bloody fool! You are getting into a bad box! If you don't sign, I'll have you guillotined." Frequently, there are no papers at all. (De Martel, "Fouché," p.236. Memorial by the authorities of Allier, addressed to the Convention, document 9.) October 30, 1793. Order of the revolutionary committee enjoining nocturnal visits in all "suspect" houses in Moulins, to remove all gold, silver and copper. "Eleven parties are made up.. .. each to visit eight or ten houses. Each band is headed by one of the committee, with one municipal officer, accompanied by locksmiths and a revolutionary guard. The dwellings of the accused and other private individuals are searched. They force secretaries and wardrobes of which they do not find the keys. They pillage the gold and silver coin. They carry off plate, jewels, copper utensils and other effects, bed-clothes, docks, vehicles, etc. No receipt is given. No statement is made of what is carried off. They rest content by at the end of the month, reporting, in a sort of procès-verbal drawn up at a meeting of the committee, that, according to returns of the visits made, very little plate was found, and only a little money in gold and silver, all without any calculation or enumeration."—"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.93. (February 25, 1795.) The meetings of the popular club "were largely devoted to reading the infamous doings and robberies of the revolutionary committee.... The members who designated 'suspects' often arrested them themselves, and drew up a procès-verbal in which they omitted to state the jewels and gold they found."]
33121 (return)[ Ibid., 461. (Vendemaire 24, year III. Visit of Representative Malarmé.) The former Duc de Narbonne-Lorra aged eighty-four, says to Malarmé: "Citizen representative, excuse me if I keep my cap on; I lost my hair in that prison, without having been able to get permission to have a wig made; it is worse than being robbed on the road." "Did they steal anything from you?" "They stole one hundred and forty five louis d'or and paid me with an acquittance for a tax for the sans-culottes, which is another robbery done to the citizens of this commune where I have neither home nor possessions." "Who committed this robbery?" "It was Citizen Berger, of the municipal council." "Was nothing else taken from you?" "They took a silver coffee-pot, two soap-cases and a silver shaving-dish" "Who took those articles?" "It was Citizen Miot (a notable of the council)." Miot confesses to having kept these objects and not taken them to the Mint.-Ibid., 178. (Ventôse 20, year II.) Prisoners all have their shoes taken, even those who had but one pair, a promise being made that they should have sabots in exchange, which they never got. Their cloaks also were taken with a promise to pay for them, which was never done.—"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.92. (February 25, 1795.) "The sessions of the popular club were largely devoted to reading the infamies and robberies of the revolutionary committee. Its members, who designated the suspects, often arrested them themselves; they made levies and reports of these in which they omitted the gold and jewels found."]
33122 (return)[ Moniteur, XXII. 133. (Session of Vendémiaire II, year III.) Report by Thibaudeau. "These seven individuals are reprobates who were dismissed by the people's representatives for having stolen the effects of persons arrested. A document is on record in which they make a declaration that, not remembering the value of the effects embezzled, they agree to pay damages to the nation of twenty-two francs each."]
33123 (return)[ Berryat Saint-Prix, 447. Judge Ragot was formerly a joiner at Lyons, and Viot, the public prosecutor, a former deserter from the Penthièvre regiment. "Other accused persons were despoiled. Little was left them other than their clothes, which were in a bad state. Nappier, the bailiff, was, later, (Messidor, year III.), condemned to irons for having appropriated a part of the effects, jewels and assignats belonging to persons under accusation."]
33124 (return)[ The words of Camille Desmoulins in "La France Libre," (August, 1782).]
33125 (return)[ De Martel, "Fouché," 362.-Ibid.,, 132, 162, 179, 427, 443.—Lecarpentier, in La Manche, constantly stated: "Those who do not like the Revolution, must pay those who make it."]
33126 (return)[ Marcelin Boudet, 175. (Address of Monestier to the popular clubs of Puy-de-Dome, February 23, 1793.)]
33127 (return)[ Alexandrine des Echerolles, "Une famille noble sous la Terreur."]
33128 (return)[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan to the president of the committee of Public Safety, Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]
33129 (return)[ Report by Courtois, "Sur les papiers de Robespierre," (Pieces justificatives, pp. 312-324), Letters of Reverchon, Germinal 29, Floréal 7 and 23, and by La Porte, Germinal 24, year II.]
33130 (return)[ Ibid. Letter by La Porte "I do not know what fatality induces patriots here not to tolerate their brethren whom they call strangers ... They have declared to us that they would not suffer any of them to hold office." The representatives dared arrest but two robbers and despoilers, who are now free and declaiming against them at Paris. "Countless grave and even atrocious circumstances are daily presented to us on which we hesitate to act, lest we should strike patriots, or those who call themselves such... Horrible depredations are committed."]
33131 (return)[ Ibid. Letter by Reverchon: "These fanatics all want the Republic simply for themselves."... "They call themselves patriots only to cut the throats of their brethren and get rich."—Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la ville de Lyons Pendant la Révolution III.", 166. (Report by Fouché, April, 1794.) "Innocent persons, acquitted by the terrible tribunal of the Revolutionary committee, were again consigned to the dungeons of criminals through the despotic orders of the thirty-two committees, because they were so unfortunate as to complain that, on returning home, they could not find the strictly necessary objects they had left there."]
33132 (return)[ Meissner, "Voyage en France dans les Derniers Mois de 1795," p.343. "A certain domain was handed over to one of their creatures by the revolutionary departments for almost nothing, less than the proceeds of the first cut of wood."—Moniteur, XXIII., 397. (Speech by Bourdon de l'Oise, May 6, 1795.) "A certain farmer paid for his farm worth five thousand francs by the sale of one horse."]
33133 (return)[ Moniteur, XXII., 82. (Report by Grégoire, Fructidor 14, year II.) Ibid., 775. (Report by Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)]
33134 (return)[ "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," II., p. I. (Procès-verbal, drawn up in the presence of the elder Mouet and signed by him.)]
33135 (return)[ Moniteur, XXII., 775. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)—Ibid., 711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)—Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan, Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]
33136 (return)[ "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 184. (Visit of Ventôse 27, year II.)]
33137 (return)[ Archives Nationales, F.7, 7164. (Department of Var "Ideé générale et appréciation avec détails sur chaque canton," year V.)]
33138 (return)[ Ibid., F.7, 7171 (No. 7915).—(Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, "Ideé générale," year V.)—(Letters of Miollis, commissioner of the Directory in the department, Ventôse 14 and 16, year V. Letter of Gen. Willot to the Minister, Ventôse 10, and of Gen. Merle to Gen. Willot, Ventôse 17, year V.) "Several sections of anarchists travel from one commune to another exciting weak citizens to riots and getting them to take part in the horrors they are meditating."—Ibid., F 7, 7164. Letter of Gen. Willot to the Minister, Aries, Pluviôse 12, year V., with supporting documents, and especially a letter of the director of the jury, on the violence committed by, and the reign of, the Jacobins in Aries.) Their party "is composed of the vilest artisans and nearly all the sailors." The municipality recruited amongst former terrorists, "has enforced for a year back the agrarian law, devastation of the forests, pillage of the wheat-crops, by bands of armed men under pretext of the right of gleaning, the robbery of animals at the plough as well as of the flocks," etc.]
33139 (return)[ Ibid., F.7, 7171. "These commissioners (of the quarter) notify the exclusives, and even swindlers, when warrants are out against them.... The same measures carried out in the primary assemblies on the 1st of Thermidor last, in the selection of municipal officers, have been successfully revived in the organization of the National Guard—threats, insults, shouting, assaults, compulsory ejection from meetings then governed by the amnestied, finally, the appointment of the latter to the principal offices. In effect, all, beginning with the places of battalion leaders and reaching to those of corporals, are exclusively filled by their partisans. The result is that the honest, to whom serving with men regarded by them with aversion is repugnant, employ substitutes instead of mounting guard themselves, the security of the town being in the hands of those who themselves ought to be watched."]
33140 (return)[ Archives Nationales, F.7, 3273. (Letter of Mérard, former administrator and judge in 1790 and 1791, in years III., IV. and V., to the Minister, Apt, Pluviôse 15, year III., with personal references and documentary evidence.) "I can no longer refrain at the sight of so many horrors.... The justices of the peace and the director of the jury excuse themselves on the ground that no denunciations or witnesses are brought forward. Who would dare appear against men arrogating to themselves the title of superior patriots, foremost in every revolutionary crisis, and with friends in every commune and protectors in all high places? The favor they enjoyed was such that the commune of Gordes was free of any levy of conscripts and from all requisitions. People thus disposed, they said, to second civic and administrative views, could not be humored too much..... This discouraging state of things simply results from the weakness, inexperience, ignorance, apathy and immorality of the public functionaries who, since the 18th of Fructidor, year V., swarm, with a few exceptions only, among the constituted authorities. Whatever is most foul and incompetent is in office, every good citizen being frightened to death."—Ibid. (Letter of Montauban, director of the registry since 1793 to the Minister of the Interior, a compatriot, Avignon, Pluviôse 7, year VII.) "Honest folks are constantly annoyed and put down by the authors and managers of the 'Glaciere'.... . by the tools of the bloody tribunal of Orange and the incendiaries of Bedouim." He enjoins secrecy on this letter, which, "if known to the Glacièrists, or Orangeists, would cost him his life."]
33141 (return)[ Ibid., F.7, 7164. (Department of Var, year V., "Ideé Générale.") "National character is gone; it is even demoralized: an office-holder who has not made his fortune quickly is regarded as a fool."]
33142 (return)[ Moniteur, XXII., 240. (Indictment of the fourteen members of the Revolutionary committee of Nantes, and the summing-up of the examination, Vendémiaire 23, year II.) When there is no special information concerning the other committees the verdict, on the whole, is nearly always as overwhe1ming.-Ibid. (Session of Vendémiaire 12, year III. complaint of a deputation from Ferney-Voltaire.) "The Gex district was, for over a year, a prey to five or six scoundrels who took refuge there. Under the mask of patriotism they succeeded in getting possession of all the offices. Vexations of every kind, robberies of private houses, squandering of public money, were committed by these monsters." (The Ferney deputies brought with them the testimony of witnesses.)—Ibid., 290. (Letters of Representative Goupilleau, Beziers, Vendémiaire 28, year III. on the terrorists of Vaucluse.) "These carnivorous fellows, regretting the times when they could rob and massacre with impunity.... Who, six months ago, were starving and who now live in the most scandalous opulence... Squanderers of the public funds, robbers of private fortunes... Guilty of rapine, of forced contributions, of extortions," etc.—Prudhomme, "Les crimes de la Révolution," VI., 79. (On the Revolutionary committee installed by Fouché at Nevers.) The local investigation shows that the eleven leaders were men of vile character, unfrocked and disreputable priests, lawyers and notaries driven out of their professional bodies, and even from the popular clubs, on account of their dishonesty, penniless actors, surgeons without patients, depraved, ruined, incapable men, and two jail-birds.]
33143 (return)[ Beaulieu, III., 754.—Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II., ch. I., P 9.]
33144 (return)[ "Recueil de pièces authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 21.—Archives Nationales D., I., P 6. (Orders by Rousselin, Frimaire II, year II.)]
33145 (return)[ "Un Sejour en France de 1792 à 1795," p.409.]
33146 (return)[ I have not found a complete list of the towns and departments which had a revolutionary army. The correspondence of representatives on mission and published documents verify the presence of revolutionary armies in the towns mentioned.]
33147 (return)[ De Martel, "Fouché," 338. (Text of the orders of the commissioners of Public Safety.) The detachment sent to Lyons comprises twelve hundred fusiliers, six hundred gunners, one hundred and fifty horses. Three hundred thousand livres are remitted as traveling expenses to the commissary, fifty thousand to Collot d'Herbois, and nineteen thousand two hundred to the Jacobin civilians accompanying them.]
33148 (return)[ Moniteur. (Session of Brumaire 17 year III.) Letter of Representative Calès to the Convention. "Under the pretext of guarding the prisons, the municipality (of Dijon) had a revolutionary army which I broke up two days ago, as it cost six thousand francs a month, and would not obey the commander of the armed force, and served as a support to intriguers. These soldiers, who were all workmen out of employment, do nothing but post themselves in the tribunes of the clubs, where they, with the women they bring along with them, applaud the leaders, and so threaten citizens who are disposed to combat them, and force these to keep their mouths shut."??De Martel, "Fouché," 425. "Javogues, to elude a decree of the Convention (Frimaire 14) suppressing the revolutionary army in the departments, converted the twelve hundred men he had embodied in it in the Loire into paid soldiers."? Ibid., 132. (Letter of Goulin, Bourg, Frimaire 23.) "Yesterday, at Bourg-Régeriéré, I found Javogues with about four hundred men of the revolutionary army whom he had brought with him on the 20th instant."]