To these preparations Girondists had nothing to oppose. They too must have realised that the question had come to be one of force, and yet they took no steps to gather forces for themselves. They inspired no enthusiasm in the capital. There was no class in Paris on whom they could rely. The National Guard would not rise to defend them. They had no guard or organisation of their own. Neither the aristocrats nor the bourgeois recognised them as leaders, and they made few efforts to rally the partisans of order round them. The Girondists, it is true, had eloquence and parliamentary battalions, and they were probably right in believing that the majority of citizens preferred their policy and conduct to those of their opponents. But these advantageswere of little weight or value when physical force lay in the other scale.
At last, however, the Girondists began to recognise their danger. In April they attacked Marat, and sent him before the Revolutionary Tribunal. But Marat was triumphantly acquitted. They denounced the insurrectionary plots in the Sections. But the plots went merrily on. They refused to listen to Danton's overtures of conciliation. They obtained addresses of confidence from the departments. They proposed to appeal to the country against Paris. They suggested that the Convention should be moved to Versailles or Bourges. But all these proposals were without result. Later still, as their apprehensions increased, they boldly talked of dissolving the Commune, and on the 18th May they carried a motion appointing an extraordinary Commission of Twelve, to enquire into the conspiracies against the Convention. At the end, though they lacked unity, they did not lack vigour. The Commission intrepidly challenged the plotters, and struck at the chief by arresting Hébert. Hébert's arrest precipitated the crisis, and the alarm which it caused in the camp of the Commune showed that the Jacobins felt the gravity of the Girondist attack. But in order to make their attack effective, the Girondists must have had a force behind them, and this they had not the penetration to perceive or the power or resolution to create.
Yet it cannot be said that their leaders were unwarned. Garat, their principal representative in the Ministry, complacently shut his eyes to the danger, and to the last moment assured his colleagues that Paris was quiet andthat nothing need be feared. And yet Garat had at the time in his service a small staff of secret police, who were daily reporting to him on the condition of Paris, and among them one, Dutard, an observer of singular acuteness, whose reports the minister apparently laid on the shelf unread, but whose name and counsels deserve to be rescued from oblivion. In Dutard's reports we have striking evidence of the apathy of the great mass of the Parisians, of their indifference to Girondists and Jacobins alike. If Dutard's opinion is to be trusted, most of the small traders and working people, who had welcomed the Revolution with enthusiasm and who had acquiesced in the downfall of the throne, had since passed into the ranks of disaffection. The butchers, the tailors, the shoemakers, the wine-dealers, even the market-women and the better artisans had ceased to belong to the advanced party. The recruits of the Commune in May were drawn from a lower and more reckless class, from unemployed or idle workmen, from porters, hucksters, foreigners and domestic servants, reinforced by criminals and outcasts, and swelled by the social refuse of great cities, which no legislation or philanthropy has yet been able to remove. This ignorant and undisciplined body, easily led and easily misled, very sensitive to want and panic, not very sensitive to principle or order, formed a force on which the party of violence could depend, and the agents of the Commune were busily appealing to its interests, drilling it into battalions, and rousing it to act. But after all, compared with the population of Paris, this force was small. The great mass of Parisian citizens dreaded and disliked it. They hated its doctrines.They shuddered at the recollection of its outbreak in September, and were cowed by the fear lest that outbreak should recur. The aristocrats held themselves aloof, provoked opposition and made mischief. The bourgeois declined all public duties, and shunned the assemblies of the Sections, the debates of the clubs, the gatherings and demonstrations in the streets, the political discussions in the cafés. They only wanted to be left alone, to amuse themselves, to gather in the Champs Elysées or in the Gardens of the dismantled Tuileries, to enjoy the sunshine and the summer breezes, to attend to their own small affairs, and to escape the bewildering and dangerous vicissitudes of public life. They had no union, no rallying-point, no leaders. Worst of all, they had for the most part little courage, and had not learned, as they learned later, that if they wished to be delivered they must assert themselves and act.
Yet at times there were traces of a better spirit among them. The first attempts made to raise the forced loan from the rich and to compel them to enlist for service in La Vendée seem to have stirred them to resistance, and in the course of May, Dutard reported signs of a rally of moderate politicians, and the reappearance of the majority in the Sections. Could the Girondists have taken advantage of this spirit, could they have used their influence in the Government and in the Convention to bring troops to Paris, to shut the clubs, to overawe the Commune, to enlist and draft off to La Vendée some of the destitute and unemployed, to appeal to the instincts of property and order which every civilized community retains, and to encourage those instincts to assertthemselves by an adequate display of force, they might yet have won the day. But the Girondists could not seize the opportunity. Very few of them saw as clearly as Garat's clever agent what was wanted. They had not the authority, the union or the promptitude to induce the Convention to take the necessary steps. So the majority relapsed into submission, and the minority, helped by force and terror, secured the lead again.
The arrest of Hébert, on the 24th May, marked the climax of the struggle. It startled the Commune and it forced them to act. Their plans had long been maturing, and in the days which followed they were rapidly completed. On the one hand the insurrectionary leaders organised their forces in the Section of the Evêché, and elected a variety of committees and commissioners to direct the operations of the insurgents. On the other hand the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety hesitated and trimmed between the rival parties, while the bolder spirits among the Gironde persevered in their attack. Some of the more desperate Jacobins proposed the murder of the unpopular deputies, but the responsible leaders insisted that the Girondists should be disposed of by more legitimate means. In the end, the tactics of the 10th August were closely followed. An insurrectionary municipal body, elected by the most extreme Sections, met at night on the 30th May, declared the regular authorities of the Commune superseded, appointed Hanriot Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard, ordered the tocsin to be rung, and proceeded to recruit the battalions which were to intimidatethe Convention into proscribing the Gironde. Even then the result was very doubtful. The insurrectionary leaders found it difficult to raise the force which they required. Some of the Sections and of the National Guards showed a disposition to take the other side. On Friday, the 31st May, and again on Saturday, the 1st June, the insurrectionary leaders failed to obtain their objects, and although they induced the Convention to cancel the Commission of Twelve, they were unable to secure the proscription of their opponents. It was not until the third attempt, on Sunday, the 2nd June, that Hanriot's Sansculottes, aided by the artillerymen of the National Guard and by a disorderly battalion of foreigners, which was then leaving Paris under orders for La Vendée, were able to muster in sufficient force to overawe the Convention, and to induce it to vote the arrest of the twenty-two leaders of the Gironde.
The fall of the Girondists was thus accomplished in Paris after a close and doubtful struggle, in which with energy and union they might very possibly have saved themselves. It produced a general outbreak in France. Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulon, Grenoble, Caen, many of the greatest cities in the country, declared against the Jacobin Government in Paris. The great majority of the departments prepared to raise the standard of revolt. On the Northern and Eastern frontiers the Allies took Condé, Valenciennes, Mayence, and again threatened to advance on Paris. In the South-West the Spaniards, in the South-East the Sardinians made way against the French. On the Loire the insurgents of La Vendée beat the troops of the Republic in battle after battle,and threw themselves on Nantes. The English fleet blockaded the French ports. All the enemies of the Revolution hurried to enlist on the same side. Some of the Girondists escaped from Paris, and began to organise resistance in the North; and Charlotte Corday, determined to avenge their injuries, travelled up alone from Caen, and assassinated the famous Jacobin leader who had made himself the apostle of assassination as a method of political advance.
In the midst of these perils the Jacobin Government displayed undaunted vigour and resource. The threatened resistance of the departments, which had little union or organisation, was averted by vigorous and prudent measures. The revolted cities were isolated and gradually reduced. New generals were found and new levies raised for the war. The appointment in turn of Houchard and Jourdan to the chief command resulted in victories at Hondschöten and Wattignies, and from the beginning of September onwards, the tide turned in favour of the French. The Allies, always divided and lethargic, gradually fell back before their enemies. After the autumn of 1793, all serious danger of invasion passed away. The French army began to learn the uses of discipline and the secrets of conquest, and under its great commanders entered on its irresistible career. In the West the Vendéans were at last defeated, and their heroic insurrection crushed. The Girondists in the provinces failed, as they had failed in Paris, to raise the forces essential to success, and one by one they were hunted down, or disappeared. Before the end of October, the Jacobins were everywhere triumphant, the Terrorwas established, and the Revolutionary Tribunal was busily at work.
It is not necessary to linger here over the fate of the victims. The Girondist ideals will always command sympathy. Their eloquent hopes, their courage and disasters will always win respect. But when they are tried as statesmen, their lamentable incompetence stands clear, and their failure, though pitiable, seems scarcely undeserved. The triumph of the Jacobins was celebrated by the death of their opponents. They dealt their blows on all parties alike. Many of the Girondist leaders perished in the provinces, and in the autumn and winter of 1793, a long train of illustrious prisoners mounted the scaffold in Paris. Marie Antoinette, undaunted to the last, expiated her rank and ended her misfortunes. Madame Roland, with equal bravery, followed in the steps of the unhappy queen whom she had so unsparingly assailed. A few weeks later, the sinister irony of their judges sent to the guillotine another woman, who like them had for a brief time tried to rule the destinies of France, the once omnipotent Madame Dubarry. Vergniaud and Brissot, once the heroes of the Republic, Bailly, once the hero of the Parisians, Barnave, once the hero of the Assembly, Philippe Egalité, once the hero of the mob, Houchard, only a few weeks before the hero of the army, atoned by suffering the same indignity for the many different parts which they had played. But to the last the Girondist enthusiasts, with the tranquil courage of the Ancients whom they loved, bore witness to their republican ideals, and as they passed from their prison to the scaffold chanted the Marseillaise.
FOOTNOTES:[10]The only authority for this statement that I know of is theChronique de Paris, of Dec. 26, 1792, quoted and accepted by Von Sybel (Eng. Tr.), ii. 287. Whether entirely accurate or not, it serves to illustrate the undoubted panic in Paris.
FOOTNOTES:
[10]The only authority for this statement that I know of is theChronique de Paris, of Dec. 26, 1792, quoted and accepted by Von Sybel (Eng. Tr.), ii. 287. Whether entirely accurate or not, it serves to illustrate the undoubted panic in Paris.
[10]The only authority for this statement that I know of is theChronique de Paris, of Dec. 26, 1792, quoted and accepted by Von Sybel (Eng. Tr.), ii. 287. Whether entirely accurate or not, it serves to illustrate the undoubted panic in Paris.
CHAPTER IX.
The Jacobins in Power.
Thefirst step taken by the Jacobins, after the defeat of their opponents in the Convention, to conciliate public opinion in France, was the proclamation of a new constitution. The 'Constitution of '93,' which was destined never to come into force, was prepared under the guidance of Hérault de Séchelles, and was hurried through the Convention in the course of two or three weeks. More than any other of the revolutionary constitutions, it was conceived in the spirit of Rousseau, and embodied the Jacobin belief. In it the passion for electoral devices, the suspicious dread of executive power, the desire to refer every question to the immediate judgment of the people, already familiar to the Jacobin ideal, found their most positive expression. All rights, abstract and concrete, all arrangements, legislative and executive, administrative and judicial, military and financial, were restated and recast. All rulers, even the executive council of state, were to be nominated by popular election. All officials were limited to a very brief period of power. The qualification for the exercise of the suffrage was made as simple and as slight as possible, but by a somewhat curious exception to the theory of direct popularcontrol, the system of double election in the case of most administrative officers was retained. Further, the powers both of the Executive and of the legislature were jealously guarded by a series of provisions, which gave the nation a veto on all important measures, by directing that every question of moment should be submitted to the assembled people. Never did any Parliament labour with more misplaced ingenuity to reduce its governors to impotence and to make their task impossible. 'The law,' declared the new constitution, 'must protect public and private liberties against the oppression of those who govern. When the Government violates the people's rights, insurrection is for the people, and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.'
It is instructive to notice what followed. No doubt, the new constitution was partly a tactical device invented to conciliate opinion. But it also genuinely set forth the doctrine which the Jacobins as followers of Rousseau held. It is one thing, however, to cherish a theory, and quite another thing to carry it out. At the moment when the Jacobins were proposing their extremely democratic system, which would have made a strong Government impossible, they found themselves confronted with a situation in which a strong Government was imperatively required. At the moment when they were proposing to the French people to annihilate all executive authority, they found themselves compelled to establish a despotic Executive, if they wished to save France and to preserve themselves. The conflict between Jacobin theory and the stern necessity of actual fact, could not have beenbetter pointed. Forced to choose between the two, the Jacobins cast their theory to the winds, and the men who had for years been preaching that the rights of the governed were everything and the rights of the governors nothing, set to work to found a system, in which the governors claimed a power never paralleled before, and in which the governed could not establish even their right to live. The constitution passed the Convention before the end of June. In the next few weeks, by dint of great pressure, and in the face of the usual apathy among the voters, its ratification by the primary assemblies was secured. It seems that many voters voted for it, hoping that its adoption would necessitate a general election, and thus end the faction fights in Paris, and oust the Jacobins from power. The delegates of the primary assemblies were then convoked to Paris, and induced by careful management to ask that the dissolution of the Convention should be postponed till the end of the war. The Convention accepted the invitation of the patriots. The delegates returned full of enthusiasm to their homes, to rouse all Frenchmen to serve for the Republic. The democratic constitution was suspended, and the despotism of the Committee of Public Safety began.
Nominally, the Convention was still the chief authority in the State. But after the summer of 1793, it abdicated most of its powers. Its committees still did a great deal of work. The influence of certain members, of Cambon on questions of finance, and of Dubois-Crancé on questions of military organisation, was always very considerable. The great scheme of public education, which theConvention established on a generous scale, is a worthy monument of its labours. Its efforts to provide for the relief of the poor, to promote technical instruction, to develop science and art, to improve agriculture, to spread the knowledge of the French language, to found the telegraph system in France, to inaugurate the decimal system, and to establish uniformity of weights and measures, bear witness to the activity of the advanced party. Its bold attempt to reduce to order the chaos of French laws laid the foundations of the Civil Code. These points ought not to be forgotten in judging of the work of the Convention, for they show that there were zealous and useful reformers in its ranks. But still it must be admitted that the majority of members succumbed to the Terror as time went on. As far as possible they abstained from voting or from expressing any opinions at all. Their one endeavour was to escape notice, and to give a cordial acquiescence to any conditions which their masters imposed. Sieyès, once the busiest leader of the Assembly and inexhaustibly fertile in debate, lived by remaining obstinately mute. When an enemy denounced him at the Jacobin Club, his shoemaker saved his life by protesting that Sieyès never meddled with politics and did nothing but read his books. In the same way all other competitors for power were crushed. The administrative officials were rigorously sifted, and were deprived of political influence and of their more important functions. Municipal elections were suspended. The public service was filled with Sansculottes, and an immense number of new places were created for the supporters of the victorious party. Theexisting authorities having been thus reduced, the Revolutionary Government was organised in their stead. In September, after some vicissitudes, the new system was completed, and Terror was decreed to be 'the order of the day.'
The form of the Revolutionary Government was simple. At its head stood the Committee of Public Safety, the twelve kings of France. The members of this Committee were supreme in all matters foreign or domestic. They used the ministers as clerks and subordinates. They resorted only as a matter of form to the Convention. They were superior to all existing authorities, with unlimited powers, above the law. Immediately subordinate to the Great Committee were the two chief engines of its power—the Committee of General Security, under Amar and Vadier, Panis and Rühl, which superintended the police work of the Government, filled the prisons of Paris, and chose the victims for the scaffold, and the Revolutionary Tribunal, organised afresh in September upon a larger scale, ruled by such men as Herman, Coffinhal and Fouquier-Tinville, and acting through the guillotine. Behind these three important bodies were the various other agencies of the Terror. First, in Paris, there was the redoubtable Commune, directed by Pache, Hébert and Chaumette; the battalions of the Sections, once the National Guard, but now represented chiefly by their cannoneers, and placed under the command of Hanriot; the new Revolutionary Army of Sansculottes, formed in September, 1793, and supplying an additional force of six or seven thousand men; the Revolutionary Committees of theforty-eight Sections, carefully sifted, organised and paid; the Sectional meetings, now limited to two a week, and governed by a paid majority of Sansculottes; and the great organisation of the Jacobin Club. Then in the provinces, the Government was maintained by a similar system of close centralisation. Special Representatives on Mission were sent out armed with absolute powers to establish the terror in the great cities of France. Subordinate officers, organised later under the title of National Agents, were appointed to exercise similar powers in the less important towns. Revolutionary Committees, organised and paid, in every borough and considerable village, acted under the National Agents, and in close co-operation with the local clubs. And in some places revolutionary tribunals and revolutionary armies were formed on the model of those in Paris.
The heads of this extraordinary system were the Committee of Public Safety in Paris and the Representatives on Mission in the Departments. They were the men who created the Terror, and on them the chief responsibility rests. The Committee of Public Safety contained several different groups. Three of its most conspicuous members, who acted closely and consistently together, were Robespierre, Couthon and St. Just. These men were the idealists of the Committee, all fanatical disciples of Rousseau, all aiming at the regeneration of society and determined to secure the triumph of their principles by any means. Robespierre's wide popularity with the Jacobins, his character for respectability and virtue, and his position as the typical exponent of the party creed, made him an indispensable ally, althoughthe more practical among his colleagues regarded his administrative capacities with contempt. Couthon, with his sweet voice and crippled body, and St. Just, with his handsome face and stern demeanour, supported Robespierre's schemes, with the same singular mixture of cruelty and sentiment, of shallow pedantry and deep conviction. But though the triumvirate afterwards grasped at power, and though they all took part in shaping the principles and policy of the Terror, their influence at first was by no means predominant, but was surpassed by that of many of their colleagues. Allied with them in the political work of the Committee, but more effective than they in securing its triumph, were Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois, the real organisers of the Terror, and among the fiercest of the ruthless men whom that system raised to power. Beside them stood the impressionable Barère, in some respects the most important member of the Government, who represented the Committee in the Convention, where his fluent tongue and easy temper made him popular, and Hérault de Séchelles the least important of the twelve, pre-eminent in courtliness and breeding, but most pre-eminent in society and love. The other five members of the Committee were men whose names with one exception are little known to-day, Lindet and Prieur of the Marne, charged with the work of provisioning the country, Jean Bon St. André, the reorganiser of the navy, and Carnot and Prieur of the Côte-d'Or, the organisers of the great campaigns, which did so much to save the Committee's reputation, and which in the eyes of many Frenchmen have half excused its faults.
In judging of this celebrated despotism no one should be permitted to forget its arduous labours, its intrepid patriotism, its devotion and success. The members of the Committee did not spare themselves. Those who had special departments to attend to, like Carnot and the Prieurs, Jean Bon St. André and Lindet, gave themselves up heart and soul to business, worked day and night, lived in their offices, dined sometimes on bread and water, and, engrossed in their overwhelming duties, left to others the field of political intrigue. All their vigour and abilities were thrown into the public service. They accepted the Terror, as a system which it was hopeless to resist, from necessity rather than from desire. But still they signed whatever their colleagues put before them, and they must share the responsibility with the rest. All the members of the Government lived at terrible pressure. The sword hung constantly over their heads. Universal distrust was the Jacobin shibboleth, and the genius of suspicion ruled in their camp. Every man knew that he was watched by his colleagues. Every man knew that his own turn might come next. 'You had your neighbour guillotined,' said Barère afterwards, 'in order to prevent his guillotining you.'
Under the control of the Committee of Public Safety and the direct supervision of Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois, the Representatives on Mission carried the Terror over France. The system of sending out members of the Convention on special missions to the army and the provinces had been freely adopted after the 10th August, and was widely developed by Jacobin rule. The deputies received the widest instructions from theCommittee, which supported them through thick and thin. They had absolute power over life and property. They could remove and appoint officials, impose fines, levy taxes, imprison on suspicion, try, punish and execute their prisoners, and take any steps which they thought advisable to spread the Terror in the districts where they ruled. Such powers in the best hands would at all times be dangerously excessive; but confided, as they often were, to men without principle or moderation, at a time when political passion was furious, when suspicion was widespread and violence supreme, they were abused to an extent which even the authors of the system hardly contemplated, and which has rendered the annals of the Terror a black page in the history of mankind.
It is true that the character of their government was in some places milder than in others. Certain parts of France escaped. In several important towns there were no executions, though prisoners were sent up to be tried in Paris. In cities like Lyons, Marseilles and Toulon, which had raised the standard of revolt, there was a colourable pretext for severity. Some of the Commissioners, like Bô and Gouly, Lakanal and André Dumont, while indulging in ferocious language, contrived to mingle mercy with their bluster, and spared lives as often as they dared. Some, like Ysabeau, Lecarpentier and Albitte, were averse to wholesale executions, counted their victims by tens and not by hundreds, and were content in their excesses to be less sanguinary than absurd. Some, like Tallien, valued the dictatorship chiefly for the opportunities of spoil which it afforded. Some, like St. Just, were arbitrary only ininsisting on conformity to their political ideals, or like Couthon, mitigated the justice of the Terror with schemes of benevolent philanthropy. Many of them seemed to act in a delirium. They all ran the risk of denunciation and lived in fear of death.
But when all exceptions are admitted, there remain only too many examples of the license and brutality by which the commissioners rendered their power supreme. Some of them seemed to take pleasure in showing how detestable tyranny could be. Even the wholesale executions were not always the worst feature of their rule. Collot d'Herbois and Fouché in Lyons, Lebon at Arras, Javoges at St. Etienne, and Carrier at Nantes, acquired an infamous celebrity above the rest. Others, like Lacombe in Bordeaux, Barras and Fréron in Marseilles and Toulon, Reynaud and Guyardin in the department of the Haute-Loire, Maignet in the Vaucluse, Dartigoyte in the Gers and the Landes, Borie in the Gard, and Bernard de Saintes and Léonard Bourdon in the Côte-d'Or, fell in demerit only behind the worst. Their despotism was less prodigal of life; but in contempt for decency, humanity and justice, few of their colleagues surpassed them. The first fury of the Terror was directed against the suspected and the wealthy, against priests, capitalists and aristocrats. But it rapidly passed on to others; and tradesmen and farmers, working men and working women supplied their tale of victims for the guillotine. 'I will convert this people into patriots,' cried Baudot; 'either they or I must die.' 'We will make France a cemetery,' echoed Carrier, 'rather than not regenerate it in our own way.'
More interesting, however, than the iniquities of the proconsuls of the Terror, are the principles which those iniquities were intended to enforce. There were always differences of view among the Jacobins, and no very consistent rules governed their legislation. But still it is possible to point to certain maxims as influencing their conduct, maxims which, set in a different light and approached in a different spirit, have in other ages roused enthusiasm and won respect. These maxims found their strongest supporters in the politicians of the Commune. Their adoption was largely due to the municipality of Paris; and the ascendency of that party, which reached its height in November, 1793, marks the climax of the Revolution and, as regards political doctrine, the furthest point of the democratic advance.
The chief point for which the Terrorists contended was the absolute supremacy of the State and the entire subordination to it of individual rights. The supremacy of the State, in the Jacobin theory, extended over life and property alike. It was the duty of every member of the State to work for it. It was the right of every member of the State to be supported by it. In pursuance of these ideas the Republic asserted its title not only to the estates of the Crown, of the Church, of the Emigrants and the suspected, but to corporate property of every kind, to the estates of hospitals, of scientific bodies, of educational and benevolent institutions. It resumed all lands alienated by the Crown during the past three hundred years. It claimed the right of appropriating for public purposes, under the name of requisition and atsuch prices as it chose to fix, all the products of commerce, agriculture and manufacture. 'Whatever is essential to preserve life,' said Robespierre, 'is common property to Society at large.' 'When the public needs require it,' argued another deputy, 'all belongs to the people and nothing to individuals.' Thus every man between eighteen and twenty-five was required to serve in the armies of the Republic. Thus, in order to clothe and shoe the army, tailors and shoemakers were summoned to headquarters and required to work for the servants of the State. In some districts all blue and green cloaks were confiscated to the service of the Republic. Thus, too, all millers, farmers and labourers, all who prepared food for the people, were required to labour at the command of the State. On one occasion the Government ordered that all the oats in the territories of the Republic should be deposited within a week at certain specified places and surrendered to the local authorities at the price fixed by the State. On other occasions the authorities ordered all specie and gold and silver articles to be surrendered for public purposes under penalty of death.
But these far-reaching claims involved very arbitrary measures. In order to secure obedience to its commands, the State must be able to rely upon its servants, and accordingly it imposed offices and duties, wherever it found convenient nominees. All whom it appointed were forced to accept, and no disclaimer was permitted. Further, the State undertook to supervise everyone who worked for the community, all manufacturers, cultivators and dealers. It discussed the feasibility of convertingits retail-traders into salaried servants. All those whom it required to work had to work, whether they liked or not, or else be denounced as 'Muscadins' and heavily punished and fined. The State undertook to provide them with work and to settle the rate of their wages. In certain districts the authorities were required to draw up lists of labourers out of employment and of farms in need of labour. The men were then supplied to the farmers, and their wages fixed by the State. If any labourer did not have his name put down, or asked for more than the wages fixed, he was sentenced to imprisonment in irons. Every man had to give his services when the State demanded it, or be punished as egoistic and refractory. If he were ruined by compliance it was his fault, for the State could do no wrong. The State compelled for good, and all men must obey.
In return for this implicit obedience to its calls, the State undertook to watch over the welfare of its subjects. 'Society,' cried Robespierre, 'must provide for the support of all its members.' A few enthusiasts, like St. Just and Babœuf, suggested the abolition of private property; but that view was not very widely accepted, and the general tendency of Jacobin legislation was to distribute property and not to forbid it. 'In a well-ordered republic,' said Barère, 'nobody should be without some property.' Accordingly, two broad rules were adopted, first, that no man must have too much, and secondly, that every man must have enough. In order to secure the first of these principles drastic measures were needed. The rich were taxed and proscribed. Fines of enormous amount were levied onthem, recklessly imposed by any authority which had the power to enforce payment. At the same time confiscations multiplied, and lands, houses, plate and art treasures were swept into the coffers of the Republic. A distinction was drawn between what was essential and what was surplus. The essential was fixed at forty pounds a year a head. Beyond that it was proposed that the wealthiest families should keep only an income of a hundred and eighty pounds. 'Opulence,' declared St. Just, 'is infamous.' 'The richest of Frenchmen,' cried Robespierre, 'ought not to have more than a hundred and twenty pounds a year.' To guard against inequalities of wealth in the future, freedom of bequest was abolished, and the rights of testators were strictly limited so that their property might be divided on their death. If a man had no children, the State encouraged him to adopt some, in order that his estate might be distributed amongst them. 'Equal rights,' said a deputy, 'could only be maintained by a persistent tendency to uniformity of fortunes.'
'But,' said Barère, 'it is not enough to bleed the rich and to pull down colossal fortunes. The slavery of poverty must be made to disappear from the soil of the Republic.' Accordingly, for those who had no means of subsistence the State provided in a variety of ways. It allotted to them confiscated lands. It enrolled them in the Revolutionary Army. It provided for them in the public service, or paid them to attend committees, meetings and clubs. Communes were required to draw up lists of all citizens who had no property of their own, in order that the State might come to their relief. A 'bigledger of national beneficence' was instituted in each department for the old, the widowed and the infirm, so that they might receive pensions from the State. 'Every citizen,' wrote St. Just, one of the law-givers of the Terrorist Utopia, 'must have his own bread, his own roof, and all that is indispensable for life. He must live independently, respect himself, have a tidy wife and healthy and robust children.' But should he decline to conform to this ideal, the penalty was death.
But it was not enough to furnish incomes for all; it was necessary to take further measures to provide that the prices of necessaries should be such that every man could buy them. Accordingly, by the Maximum laws the State proceeded to fix a limit for the price of bread; and from that it rapidly passed on to limit the prices of other necessaries, of meat and vegetables, of soap and firewood, of butter, tobacco, sugar, beer, even of manufactured articles and of raw material as well. On the same grounds, in order to make things plentiful and cheap, the State watched jealously over all dealers and producers. Monopoly was made a capital crime. Manufacturers, agriculturists and tradesmen were freely denounced as public enemies. Capitalists and usurers were held up to public execration. The Bourse was closed. Financial associations were suppressed. Bankers, stock-brokers, and silver dealers were forbidden to exercise their calling. Heavy restrictions limited the import and export trade of the country, and the investment of capital abroad. Hébert declared that all tradesmen were 'essentially anti-revolutionists, and would sell their country for a few halfpence.' OtherJacobins maintained that 'nearly all farmers were aristocrats,' and proscribed the butchers in particular as 'an intolerable aristocracy.' The more these arbitrary measures failed, the more implacably did their authors enforce them. Farmers were forbidden to sell their produce privately. Shopkeepers were compelled to offer to the public all that they had in their shops. Penalty of death was denounced against the manufacturer who did not make full use of his materials, penalty of death against the dealer who did not post up a list of all that he had in stock, penalty of death against the cultivator who did not bring his grain to market, penalty of death against any person who kept more bread on hand than he required for his own subsistence. Similar heavy penalties followed for all who infringed the Maximum laws, and who would not accept the prices that the State had fixed. Among the records of the punishments inflicted, the State is sometimes found resorting to ruthless acts of petty tyranny, condemning in one case to a fine of one thousand francs a woman who had ventured to sell a candle for fivepence, sentencing to a fine of forty thousand francs a bar-keeper who had charged tenpence for a glass of wine, and ordering a grocer who had sold sugar-candy at a lower rate than the authorities approved, to pay one hundred thousand francs as penalty, and to be imprisoned until the end of the war!
Of course these arbitrary measures defeated their own ends. Instead of making food and clothing plentiful, instead of keeping prices down, they destroyed credit, ruined enterprise, and resulted in scarcity and dearth.In spite of all the efforts of the Government, the value of the Assignats steadily declined. Everyone was compelled to use them, and to accept them at their nominal value; but everyone knew that they were really worthless. For a time commercial prosperity disappeared. On all sides factories failed, and workmen fell out of employment. Arthur Young declared that the Revolution did more harm to manufactures than to any other branch of industry in France. The proscription of the rich wrought havoc with the industries of Paris and Lyons. The disturbances in the West Indies dealt a heavy blow at colonial trade. The war with England closed French ports and damaged French shipping. The war with the other Powers shut the Continent to French goods. Observers in Bordeaux, in Nantes and in Strasbourg, echoed the same complaints. 'Commerce here is annihilated,' wrote a Swiss banker from Paris in November, 1793.
And as it was with the capitalists, so it was with the tradesmen, the farmers and labourers too. No one would bow to regulations which cut at the profits of his calling. All sorts of devices were resorted to to evade them. Shopmen kept only a limited stock on hand, or disposed of their goods secretly to customers who would pay a handsome price. Smuggling steadily increased. Farmers and peasants refused to bring their grain to market for the prices fixed by the State. They sold it privately or hoarded it up. If defeated in these devices, they refused to work at all, and let their crops stand unharvested in the fields. 'The bakers,' wrote a Jacobin agent from Grenoble in the winter of 1793,'have stopped baking altogether.' 'The fishermen,' wrote another from Marseilles, 'no longer go to sea.' Of course the State punished them severely for their contumacy, but they would rather go to prison than labour for no adequate reward. And so the working classes passed into the ranks of the suspected, and the 'aristocrats and fanatics' arrested consisted largely of shopkeepers and working men. One list of prisoners at Strasbourg, for instance, contained the names of a number of women whose husbands were tailors, upholsterers and chimney-sweeps, while in country districts the farmers and peasants took the place of the mechanics and tradesmen in the towns. In the summer of 1794, the prisons of France were so full of country people that the Convention became alarmed at the neglect of the land, and ordered the provisional release in view of the harvest of large numbers of labouring men.
The effect of the reckless action of the State and of the resistance which it provoked was to produce a general dearth. In 1792 and 1793 the harvests were by no means bad. But the utter depreciation of the currency, the insecurity of property, the frequent seizure of grain, and the attempts of the authorities, especially in Paris, to fix wages and to manipulate prices, all tended to lessen the supply and to check the free circulation of food. In the winter of 1793-94 the signs of distress became alarming. From Lyons and Marseilles, from Rouen and Bordeaux, there came nothing but reports of famine. 'In the district of Cadillac,' said Tallien in March, 1794, 'absolute dearth prevails; the citizens fight for the grass in the fields.' 'In many of the Indredistricts,' wrote another representative, 'food is entirely wanting.' In Paris, where so many indigent were gathered, the danger, in spite of the efforts of the municipality, was more noticeable still. Bread was bad and scanty. Meat was terribly scarce. Vegetables and groceries were exceedingly dear. The longqueuesof hungry men and women, which formed every night outside the provision-shops of Paris, waiting for the dawn, added a grim feature to Parisian life. 'If this lasts,' said the workmen, according to the testimony of one observer, 'we shall have to cut each other's throats, since there is nothing left to live on.' Beggars multiplied on every side. Those who knew the streets of Paris spoke of the crowds of famished faces, 'everywhere presenting an image of despair,'—into such misery had the all-governing State reduced them, the State which only wished to be omnipotent for the noble purpose of regenerating man.
But the State did not confine its interference to questions of property and labour. It undertook to regulate private conduct too. The old codes of faith and morality were swept aside. The old notions of family life were rejected. Robespierre protested against 'the domestic federalism which narrows the soul by keeping it isolated.' Marriages were made the loosest contracts. 'A man and woman who love each other are married,' cried St. Just. Paternal rights and duties were abolished. Patriots regarded it as contrary to liberty for a father to correct his child. The State undertook to educate its children on the most minute and rigid system, to see to their support, to carve out their inheritance, to dictate their morals, to form their opinions, to point out theirGod. Under the influence of the materialistic school which ruled in the Commune of Paris, and in particular of Chaumette, Hébert and Clootz, Christianity was proscribed. 'It will not be long,' cried an enthusiastic deputy, 'before the religion of Socrates, of Marcus Aurelius and Cicero will be the religion of the world.' With the sanction of the Convention, Reason was established as the faith of the Republic. On the 10th November, 1793, the Goddess of Reason was installed in the cathedral of Notre Dame. The churches were closed and plundered. Priests were compelled, on pain of persecution, to abdicate or to abjure their faith, and many scenes of license and disorder signalised the triumph of the rationalistic creed. The action of the Commune in Paris and of its representatives in the country districts created widespread indignation. 'The mischief is grave, and the wound deep,' wrote a Jacobin politician to Robespierre from Lyons. 'Stupor, grief and consternation are depicted upon every face. The dying man sends for the minister of religion to speak the words of peace and consolation, and the minister is threatened with the guillotine if he goes to perform this duty of humanity. Such is the reality of our freedom!'
Besides the Christian religion the Terrorists repudiated the Christian era. The new Calendar dated from the 22nd September, 1792, the day of the proclamation of the French Republic, which became the first day of the first year of Liberty. The old months, weeks and days were abolished. The year was divided into twelve new months, each consisting of thirty days,—Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire for the autumn; Nivôse,Pluviôse, Ventôse for the winter; Germinal, Floréal, Prairial for the spring; and Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor for the summer. Each month was divided into three decades, and the five days over at the end of the year were consecrated to public festivals. With the customs of the old world its manners disappeared. In order to enforce social equality, all classes were compelled to adopt the habits, dress and language of the Sansculottes. Red caps, sabots and rough clothing became essential signs of patriotism. The graces and courtesies of life were penal. 'It is not safe,' wrote a Parisian, as early as September, 1792, 'to walk the streets in decent clothes.' The old forms of address disappeared and gave place to fraternal greetings. The real aristocracy of nature and education shared the proscription of the accidental aristocracy of birth. 'The French people,' boasted Robespierre, 'have outstripped the rest of humanity by two thousand years.... In the rest of Europe a ploughman or artisan is an animal formed for the pleasures of the noble. In France the nobles are trying to transform themselves into ploughmen and artisans, but do not succeed in obtaining that honour.' Among other strange and trivial changes, the adoption of new names came into fashion, names borrowed often from the heroes of antiquity. Brutus, Anaxagoras and Scipio-Solon figured in the popular nomenclature of the day. On the staff of the Revolutionary Tribunal one member took the name of Tenth-of-August; another styled himself Mucius Scaevola; and a third became Sempronius Gracchus.
Apart from these absurdities, which are only worthrecording because they illustrate the extraordinary character of the times, the natural consequences attended the Terrorists' interference with the rules of private conduct. No nation can with impunity cast its prejudices and beliefs behind it. No nation can accept without suffering a brand new code of morality and ethics even at the hands of well-intentioned men. The result was moral disorder. When respect for conventions was proscribed, respect for discipline and self-restraint went with it. Parents lamented the insubordination of their children. Vice showed itself more often unashamed. Encouraged by the legislation of the Terror, the statistics of illegitimacy enormously increased. In the year VI of the Republic there were more divorces than marriages in France.
No doubt in many cases the action of the Terrorists was based upon honest conviction. Certain members of the Government, like St. Just and Robespierre, were idealists convinced that their tyranny was needed to secure the reign of virtue in the world. Even among the politicians of the Commune, from whom emanated most of the socialist experiments and most of the extreme measures of the Terror, and with whom many of its worst instruments were closely allied, there were, no doubt, some men who, like Chaumette, meditated projects of benevolent philanthropy for the reform of criminals, the alleviation of suffering and the suppression of vice. These men saw round about them grave inequalities and serious distress. They wished to render social wrong impossible, and to make all men happy, patriotic and enlightened on the spot. They wished to break downconventions which sometimes worked hardship, and to banish what they regarded as the superstitions of the past. And thus, having seized on absolute power, they used it to found their dimly-seen ideal by desperate measures and in desperate haste.
But while making full allowance for the intentions of these men, and passing over for the moment their ruinous unwisdom, we cannot shut our eyes to the methods which they used. Political passion warps history to its uses, and writers who have sympathised with the Terrorist ideals, have too often refused to consider anything else. But after all, these men were a small minority, whose maxims their colleagues adopted, but whose scruples they pushed aside. It is not by the hopes of a few theorists, but by the actions and character of the practical agents of the Terror that that system must be judged. And it is on the ground of their actions and character that the Terrorists as a party stand condemned. The overwhelming evidence of their own statements, of official papers and of judicial reports cannot be rejected as idle slander. No doubt some of them acted in a delirium, under an imminent sense of peril and at the risk of death. No doubt they all suffered from that blunting of the moral sense, which the reckless excitement of the Revolution seems to have produced in many minds, which alone rendered the Terror possible, and which is so conspicuous in Napoleon, the Revolution's conqueror and child. But still, admitting all excuses, the record of the Terrorists is dark. Some of them, at the head, were dangerous zealots, and some were colourless or unwilling assistants. But many ofthem, especially the subordinate agents and those who were ranked among the followers of Hébert, were ignorant and unprincipled, cruel and corrupt.
One characteristic of the party was the license which marked their speech and conduct. Coarseness of language was not uncommon among Jacobin politicians, and even the greatest of them, like Danton, shared it. In many cases the habit was not natural, but was deliberately affected for a political purpose, and cultivated as a sign of democracy and in order to win popularity with the mob. It was in men like Hébert and his allies that this contemptible fashion reached its climax. Hébert made his political reputation by it. His journal, thePère Duchesne, which raised him to notoriety and power, was started with the express intention of appealing to the obscene tastes of the multitude, and its scandalous impurity has probably never been surpassed. Of what calibre must the men have been who were driven to such methods of acquiring fame? Their language, however, would have mattered little, had it not been so often reflected in their conduct, and had they not possessed the power to abolish, with the aid of the guillotine, all those laws and decorums by which society protects itself. Hébert had no lack of imitators among the men whom the Terror raised to power. Guffroy, a member of the Committee of General Security, started a paper in the same style. Javogues and Dartigoyte, Vacheron, Laplanche and others preached and adopted in the departments the morality of Père Duchesne, and those below them in the hierarchy of the Terror rivalled or exceeded the example of their chiefs. Nor can oneoverlook the ferocity which so many Terrorists displayed. The records of despotism contain few things which surpass the sanguinary rigour of Collot d'Herbois, Fréron and Lebon, the iniquities permitted by Ronsin, the hero of the Revolutionary Army, and by Fouquier-Tinville, the hero of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the cynical cruelty of a Fouché watching a massacre from a window, lorgnette in hand, the savagery of a Carrier, who declared that he had never laughed so much in his life as he did at the contortions of his victims, the pitiless fanaticism of a Robespierre, who, after ten months of the Terror, insisted on fresh legislation for simplifying trials and facilitating death, the terrible ingenuity of a Vadier, who invented the idea of getting up conspiracies in the prisons so as to furnish more victims for the scaffold, or the barbarity of a Government which, while endorsing this iniquitous device, proposed to shoot all its prisoners of war, and would have done so, had not its own officers refused to carry the order out.
But if some of the leading Terrorists were worthless, many of their subordinates were worse. The character of the men who carried out the system in the Sections of Paris and in the towns and villages of France, who governed the clubs, ruled the committees and composed the armed force, was generally unredeemed by any larger public motives. Not only were they very rough and ignorant, but they were necessarily men without scruples. No others would perform the duties of the Terror or execute the orders that came from above. Their powers being enormous, their opportunities for tyranny and plunder were unlimited, and those opportunities were constantly abused. Money levied recklessly upon the rich never reached the coffers of the State. Salaries were multiplied to an extraordinary degree. Cambon, speaking for the Treasury, bore witness to the wholesale peculation. A hundred other witnesses have brought forward instances of corruption and excess, and even of debauchery and crime. The armed force on which the small minority of Terrorists relied to maintain their precarious authority, freely enlisted the most ruffianly recruits. Their own general described them as 'scoundrels and brigands,' and excused himself by pleading that 'honest men could not be found to undertake such work.' Such a class exists in every country, especially in countries that have been long mis-ruled; but civilised communities place it under strict restraint. The Jacobins, on the other hand, invited it to govern, and invested it with despotic powers. It is noticeable that many of the Jacobin agents were men who had failed in the ordinary walks of life, and who were consequently bitter against social laws. In their compassion for suffering and their contempt for the magic of wealth, the Jacobins fell into the opposite excess, professed to find magic in poverty, and regarded ignorance and destitution as entitled to honour in themselves. Recalling the doctrine of their master, that in a state of Nature men's instincts are good, they refused to recognise the frailty of humanity, and forgot that misfortune is sometimes due to fault. Strange as the truth appears, it would seem to be indisputably proved that under the Terror the Government of France fell largely into the hands of the unscrupulous and worthless, and that the doctrine of thesovereignty of the people, once welcomed with such pure enthusiasm, came to mean the tyranny of the lowest of the people, not only of the lowest in wealth and station—that would not have mattered—but of the lowest in education and capacity, in nature and in morals too.
It is difficult to believe that Carnot and Lindet, or even Robespierre and St. Just, could have cordially approved of such a system. But that they sanctioned it is clear. Some, like Carnot, shut their eyes, feeling that it was no use to interfere. Others, like St. Just and Robespierre, took refuge in their resolutely blind fanaticism. 'Patriots' could not do wrong, and if their own friends brought them proof to the contrary, they refused, except in the grossest cases, to listen or believe. They had to use such weapons as they could find, and they comforted their consciences with general declarations. 'The Jacobins,' cried Collot d'Herbois, 'are compassionate, humane and generous. These virtues, however, they reserve for patriots who are their brethren, and not for aristocrats.' Most of them believed the Terror to be needed. 'It is necessary,' said Billaud, 'that the people should be created anew.' Even Jean Bon St. André insisted that, in order to establish the ideal Republic, half the population of France must be destroyed. 'Our purpose,' Robespierre steadily protested, 'is to substitute morality for egotism, honesty for honour, principles for usages, ... the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, ... nobleness for vanity, love of glory for the love of gain,' but in order to fulfil their virtuous purpose, the Terrorists called in the help of the depraved.
These considerations may serve to explain the catastrophe of the leaders of the Terror. So far as their experiments were honest and high-motived, they will always be of interest to the world. But even as reformers their failure was complete. The effects of their desperate action were disastrous. Their methods utterly discredited their cause, and occasioned an infinite amount of suffering to France. And while in part, no doubt, they failed through ignorance, they failed chiefly because so many of them were bad men. In the end, the Terrorists did little materially or morally to raise the level of life, little to advance the equality which they longed for, and to which men march through order, not through crime. Of all their work, strenuous and heroic as it often was, only one part, the war, entirely prospered. For under the Terror Frenchmen threw into the war the irresistible enthusiasm which the Revolution had created, and which they could no longer feel for politics at home. The Terror was never sanctioned by France, and it never will receive the sanction of posterity. To assume that it was necessary is only one among the many sophisms which weak and well-intentioned men advance for palliating wrong. Even the excuse of national peril was wanting, for the ease with which the Jacobins in Paris subdued their enemies in the summer of 1793, shows how powerful their position was, and in the winter of that year all serious danger of invasion disappeared. The Terror was necessary to keep the Terrorists in power, and to enable them to carry out their views. But it was necessary for no other purpose, and certainly not for the salvation of France.
CHAPTER X.
The Struggle of Parties and the Ascendency of Robespierre.
Itwas in November, 1793, and under the influence of the Commune of Paris, that the Revolution reached its climax. The party of the Commune was undoubtedly strong. It had behind it the elaborate organisation of the Parisian municipality. It had many supporters in the Jacobin Club. It had complete possession of the Cordeliers, once the scene of Danton's triumphs. It had friends on the Committee of General Security. It was countenanced by Pache, the Mayor, and by Bouchotte, the Minister of War. On the Committee of Public Safety it had a powerful champion in the person of Collot d'Herbois, and in Carrier, Fouché, and other proconsuls of the Terror it had agents on whom it could rely. Hébert, its most ambitious leader, enjoyed, as the editor ofPère Duchesne, a commanding influence in the Press. Chaumette, a worthier disciple, held an important post in the Commune. Vincent, another of its representatives, held an important post in the Ministry of War. Ronsin, the commander of the Revolutionary Army, lent it the assistance of an effective force. Other politicians of less note, Clootzand Momoro, Desfieux and Proli, Maillard, Chabot and Bazire, were sometimes associated with it, and contributed to it their strange enthusiasm, their doubtful services, and their discreditable intrigues. Before long the objects of the Commune appeared without disguise—to destroy the power of the Convention, to usurp the place of the Government, and to make its own views and heroes the chief authority in the State.
The proclamation of the worship of Reason marked the ascendency of this party, and from that moment its decline began. The orgies which accompanied its triumph, the tyranny which it had established in Paris, and the license and brutality which distinguished its representatives in the departments caused grave dissatisfaction in the Jacobin ranks. The majority of the Convention submitted, but they submitted with indignation and disgust, and though they had not the courage to rebel, they were prepared to welcome anyone who would give voice to the resentment which they felt. Under these circumstances a second party raised its head among the forces of the time. Philippeaux and Fabre d'Églantine, two well-known deputies of the Mountain believed to be on terms of intimacy with Danton, came forward to attack the proceedings of the Hébertists. Others, like Westermann and Bourdon de l'Oise, Legendre, Lecointre, Lacroix and many others, joined in the attack with more or less reserve. On the same side Camille Desmoulins threw himself into the battle with all his impetuous eloquence and ardour; and behind the attacking forces there rose, impressive and conspicuous as ever, the figure of the man whom all regarded as a leader, andwhom the rising opposition hoped to make the spokesman of their protest against the Commune and the Terror alike.
Danton, like so many of his contemporaries, had soon wearied of the system of the Terror. He watched with repugnance the ruin which it spread. He had no liking for political intrigue. He felt strongly the need of stability and order, if there were ever again to be a settled government in France. It is true that in the earlier days Danton had taken a chief part in securing the Jacobin triumph. In the heat of the revolutionary struggle, in the moment of national danger, no one had been readier to act. He had encouraged and organised the insurrection of the 10th August. He had grasped the helm of State during the perilous days which followed. Many of the characteristic Jacobin measures—the wholesale arrest of the suspected in September, the foundation of the Committee of Public Safety, the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal, of the Maximum and of the tax on the rich, the formation of the Revolutionary Army, the proclamation of the Terror, the conscription and the defence of France—had been largely due to his initiative or support. In common with the rest of his party, Danton had opposed the declaration of war, but as soon as the invaders appeared upon the frontier, he had thrown himself into the battle heart and soul. He cared little for party jangles; but he cared intensely for the honour and greatness of his country. Free alike from narrow theories, from absorbing jealousies and from morbid ambition, Danton had always viewed events with a statesman's eye. He hadseen Dumouriez' failings, but he had seen also his conspicuous ability, and he had supported him staunchly to the end. He had seen, as Mirabeau had seen before him, that the government of the country could never prosper until a strong Executive were formed, and accordingly, like Mirabeau, he had endeavoured to induce the Convention to give the Ministers seats in the House. Only when that scheme had failed, had he fallen back on the device of a powerful committee. He had realised much sooner than his colleagues the folly of the reckless decree by which, in November, 1792, the Convention had declared war on all the kings of Europe, and four months later he had secured its repeal. He had discerned the uses of diplomacy, had negotiated the withdrawal of Brunswick, had tried to detach Prussia from the coalition, had secured an alliance with Sweden, and had steadily laboured, in spite of the wild talk of his colleagues, to bring France back into the comity of nations. From the time of the king's death, Danton had done all that eloquent persuasion could do to heal divisions and to unite parties in the work of defending the Republic. He would gladly have worked with the Girondists, had they not driven him by their intemperate charges into the opposing camp. 'If we must shed blood,' he once pleaded nobly, 'let us shed the blood of the enemies of our country.'
But when the danger of invasion passed away, Danton's energies passed with it. When the Jacobins had conquered and the State was saved, he felt that he had no employment left. He had little sympathy with the Government of the Terror. He wearied of the longtale of violence and outrage. Unscrupulous and hardened as he was, he turned disgusted from the methods of Carrier and Hébert. After his second marriage, in June, 1793, his young wife and the delights of home called him away to purer things than politics. He knew the limits of his own capacity, and that he could not bring to the work of political manœuvring the irresistible vigour and conviction by which he had roused the country and had swept his colleagues into power. Even to the last, when Philippeaux and Desmoulins forced him to the front, and made him the unwilling leader round whom the party of reaction gathered, he was inclined to urge them to put up their weapons, and to fall back on his old plea for unity. He hated personal animosities and was not made to be a faction chief. But he was too conspicuous and too honest to remain altogether in the background, when his comrades were risking their lives in a cause which he knew to be the cause of mercy, and believed to be the cause of France.
Between Hébert and his adherents in the Commune, and the party which gradually ranged itself behind Danton in opposition to the whole system of the Terror, there stood, as a third party, the Government of the day. The Government, that is the Committee of Public Safety, was not, it is true, entirely united. Some of its members, like Collot d'Herbois and in a lesser degree Billaud-Varennes, approved of the methods of the Commune, and were closely leagued with its chiefs. On the other hand, Robespierre detested the brutal license of many of the Communist party, and his feelings wereshared by Couthon and St. Just. Others, again, like Carnot, had little liking for either Robespierre or Hébert. Hérault de Séchelles was a friend of Danton and sympathised with his ideas. But, divided as they were, most of the members of the Committee felt that things were going too far. They were responsible for the government of the country, and they could not, therefore, view with unconcern the anarchy and public plunder which marked the course of the agents of the Commune. They were for the moment kings of France, and they had no intention of surrendering their throne to the ambitious municipality of Paris, or of permitting any reaction in the Convention which would deprive them of the power which it had suffered them to usurp.
Accordingly, in the month of November, when Collot d'Herbois was absent in Lyons, a decided movement against the Commune appeared. Robespierre, with his strong sense of decorum and his reverence for the sentimental theology of Rousseau, was shocked by the excesses of the materialist party, and encouraged by the signs of opposition in the Convention, he began to make his opinions felt. As usual, he proceeded with great caution, but by significant hints and phrases he showed his resentment at the conduct of Hébert. On the 17th November, in a long report upon the foreign policy of France, he took occasion to denounce both the 'cruel moderantism and the systematic exaggeration of false patriots.' Four days later, at the Jacobin Club, in answer to a challenge from Hébert, he delivered a singular speech on the religious question, and ended by proposing the purging of the Club. The grounds onwhich Robespierre attacked his enemies were characteristically circuitous and astute. 'Atheism,' he argued, 'is aristocratic. The idea of a Supreme Being, who watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime, is essentially the idea of the people.'
Cautious as Robespierre's action was, the majority quickly rallied round him. Danton returned to Paris and ranged himself at Robespierre's side. 'We did not destroy superstition,' he cried, 'in order to establish the rule of the atheist.' In the Convention he pleaded for milder measures, and urged that the sword of the Terror should be pointed only at those convicted of crime. As the scrutiny at the Jacobins proceeded, the victory of the opponents of the Commune became more distinct. The attacks made upon Danton and Desmoulins collapsed. Robespierre defended them with spirit and enthusiasm, and asked to be judged by Danton's side. On the 4th December, a new law was adopted by the Convention, consolidating the power of the Committee of Public Safety, bringing all constituted authorities more directly under its control, suppressing the revolutionary armies and the agents of the Commune in the departments, forbidding the raising of taxes except by decree of the Assembly, and extending the Government's supervision over the committees in the Sections of Paris. The effect of this decisive measure was largely to increase the authority of the Committee, and to diminish the influence of the Commune both in the provinces and in the capital itself.
The reaction against the Commune had unmistakably begun. On the day after the decree of the Convention the first number of theVieux Cordelierappeared. TheHébertists, defeated in the Jacobins, had made their headquarters at the Cordeliers Club; and in order to emphasise the difference between the new doctrines and the spirit which had inspired the Cordeliers in their earlier days, Camille Desmoulins gave to his protest the title of the club, where his wit and Danton's eloquence had once held undisputed sway. Danton and his friends were known to sympathise with the opinions of the new journal. Robespierre corrected the first number in proof. Desmoulins began by denouncing the Hébertists, but as the tide of reaction rose and the friends of moderation gathered courage, he passed on to attack the whole system of the Terror, and in the famous third number of his paper he boldly arraigned its tyranny and crimes. Two days later, on the 17th December, the Convention, on the motion of Danton's adherents, decreed the arrest of three agents of the Commune, Vincent, Ronsin and Maillard. Proposals were freely put forward for renewing and remodelling the Government itself. Bodies of petitioners appeared at the bar of the Convention asking for mercy towards the suspects. Robespierre proposed the appointment of a commission to consider all cases of unjust arrest. Camille Desmoulins appealed to Robespierre and passionately urged the cause of mercy. 'The liberty I worship is no unknown God.... It is happiness, reason, equality, justice.... Robespierre, friend and comrade of my schooldays, whose eloquent words our children will read often, recall the history and philosophy that we learned. Remember that love is stronger and lives longer than fear, that reverence and religion spring from kindly treatment ... and that no men can mount on blood-stained steps to heaven. Why,' cried the writerbitterly, as he wound up his powerful appeal, 'why has compassion become a crime in France?'
To such a height had the reaction attained, when, on the 21st December, Collot d'Herbois suddenly arrived in Paris. He was welcomed by the Hébertists as a deliverer. 'The giant has arrived,' cried Hébert gladly, 'the faithful defender of the Sansculottes,' and Collot at once espoused the cause of his allies. Full of vigour and self-confidence, the executioner of Lyons entertained no scruples about the Terror. He denounced all ideas of moderation. His presence reanimated the Committee, cheered the party of the Commune, and abashed the hopes of the reaction. The capture of Toulon, which occurred about the same time, served to increase the prestige of the Government. Many who had welcomed Desmoulins' appeal began to feel that they had been too precipitate. The Commune, gathering courage, demanded and obtained the release of its imprisoned agents. The commission to enquire into cases of unjust arrest was cancelled. Collot d'Herbois quickly made his influence felt at the Jacobins and in the Committee, and all the waverers, as usual, rallied to the stronger side. Robespierre, alarmed at the turn events were taking, began to dissociate himself from his new allies, lamented the bitterness of party feeling, and declared that his object was 'to overwhelm factions, foreigners and moderates, but not to ruin patriots.' Even Danton took occasion to declare his loyalty to the Government, and endeavoured to restrain the incautious declarations of his friends.
All through January and February, 1794, the struggle of parties continued, and the fiercest animosities prevailed.At the Jacobins, Desmoulins' colleagues renewed their onslaught on the followers of Hébert, but no longer with the same success. Robespierre laboured steadily by perpetual speeches to secure his ascendency in the club, and studiously avoided committing himself to either side. But his position changed. He began to display undisguised hostility towards Philippeaux and Fabre d'Églantine, the most outspoken members of the moderate party. He assumed a tone of paternal reproach towards Camille Desmoulins, and proposed that theVieux Cordelier, which he had once cordially welcomed, should be burned. Danton, disheartened, and embarrassed, relapsed into listless inactivity, and contented himself with deprecating personal attacks. The chances of a reaction against the Terror passed away, and the Government daily offered a stronger front to the enmity of Hébertists and Dantonists alike.