Such is the pressure under which voting takes place in France during the summer and fall of 1791. Domiciliary visits2130 and disarmament everywhere force nobles and ecclesiastics, landed proprietors and people of culture, to abandon their homes, to seek refuge in the large towns and to emigrate,2131 or, at least, confine themselves strictly to private life, to abstain from all propaganda, from every candidature, and from all voting. It would be madness to be seen in so many cantons where searches end in a riot; in Burgundy and the Lyonnais, where castles are sacked, where aged gentlemen are mauled and left for dead, where M. de Guillin has just been assassinated and cut to pieces; at Marseilles, where conservative party leaders are imprisoned, where a regiment of Swiss guards under arms scarcely suffices to enforce the verdict of the court which sets them at liberty, where, if any indiscreet person opposes Jacobin resolutions his mouth is closed by being notified that he will be buried alive; at Toulon, where the Jacobins shoot down all conservatives and the regular troops, where M. de Beaucaire, captain in the navy, is killed by a shot in the back, where the club, supported by the needy, by sailors, by navvies, and "vagabond peddlers," maintains a dictatorship by right of conquest; at Brest, at Tulle, at Cahors, where at this very moment gentlemen and officers are massacred in the street. It is not surprising that honest people turn away from the ballot-box as from a center of cut-throats.—Nevertheless, let them come if they like; it will be easy to get rid of them. At Aix, the assessor whose duty it is to read the electors' names is informed that "the names should be called out by an unsullied mouth, that, being an aristocrat and fanatical, he could neither speak nor vote," and, without further ceremony, they put him out of the room.2132 The process is an admirable one for converting a minority into a majority and yet here is another, still more effective.—At Dax, the Feuillants, taking the title of "Friends of the French Constitution," have split up with the Jacobins,2133 and, moreover, they insist on excluding from the National Guard "foreigners without property or position," the passive citizens who are admitted into it in spite of the law, who usurp the right of voting and who "daily affront tranquil inhabitants." Consequently, on election day, in the church where the primary meeting is held, two of the Feuillants, LaurÈde, formerly collector of the vingtiÈmes,, and Brunache, a glazier, propose to exclude an intruder, a servant on wages. The Jacobins at once rush forward. LaurÈde is pressed back on the holy-water basin and wounded on the head; on trying to escape he is seized by the hair, thrown down, pierced in the arm with a bayonet, put in prison, and Brunache along with him. Eight days afterwards, at the second meeting none are present but Jacobins; naturally, "they are all elected". They form the new municipality, which, notwithstanding the orders of the department, not only refuses to liberate the two prisoners, but throws them into a dungeon.—At Montpellier, the delay in the operation is greater, but it is only the more complete. The votes are deposited, the ballot-boxes closed and sealed up and the conservatives obtain a majority. Thereupon the Jacobin club, with the Society of the "iron-clubs," calling itself the Executive power, betake themselves in force to the sectional meetings, burn one of the ballots, use firearms and kill two men. To restore order the municipality stations each company of the National Guard at its captain's door, The moderates among them naturally obey orders, but the violent party do not. They overrun the town, numbering about 2,000 inhabitants, enter the houses, kill three men in the street or in their domiciles, and force the administrative body to suspend its electoral assemblies. In addition to this they require the disarmament "of the aristocrats," and this not being done soon enough, they kill an artisan who is walking in the street with his mother, cut off his head, bear it aloft in triumph, and suspend it in front of his dwelling. The authorities are now convinced and accordingly decree a disarmament, and the victors parade the streets in a body. In exuberance or as a precaution, they fire, as they pass along, at the windows of suspected houses and happen to kill an additional man and woman. During the three following days six hundred families emigrate, while the authorities report that everything is going on well, and that order is restored. "The elections," they say, "are now proceeding in the quietest manner since the ill-intentioned voluntarily keeping away from them, a large number having left the town. "2134 A void is created around the ballot-box and this is called the unanimity of voters.—The effect of such assassinations is great and only a few are required; especially when they go unpunished, which is always the case. Henceforth all that the Jacobins have to do is to threaten; people no longer resist them for they know that it costs too much to face them down. They do not care to attend electoral meetings where they meet insult and danger; they acknowledge defeat at the start. Have not the Jacobins irresistible arguments, without taking blows into account? At Paris,2135 Marat in three successive numbers of his paper has just denounced by name "the rascals and thieves" who canvass for electoral nominations, not the nobles and priests but ordinary citizens, lawyers, architects, physicians, jewellers, stationers, printers, upholsterers and other artisans, each name being given in full with the professions, addresses and one of the following qualifications, "hypocrite (tartufe), immoral, dishonest, bankrupt, informer, usurer, cheat," not to mention others that I cannot write down. It must be noted that this slanderous list may become a proscriptive list, and that in every town and village in France similar lists are constantly drawn up and circulated by the local dub, which enables us to judge whether the struggle between it and its adversaries is a fair one.-As to rural electors, it has suitable means for persuading them, especially in the innumerable cantons ravaged or threatened by the jacqueries, (country-riots) or, for example, in CorrÈze, where "the whole department is smattered with insurrections and devastation's, and where nobody talks of anything but of hanging the officers who serve papers."2136 Through-out the electoral operations the sittings of the dub are permanent; "its electors are incessantly summoned to its meetings;" at each of these "the main question is the destruction of fish-ponds and rentals, their principal speakers summing it all up by saying that none ought to be paid." The majority of electors, composed of rustics, are found to be sensitive to speeches like this; all its candidates are obliged to express themselves against fishponds and rentals; its deputies and the public prosecuting attorney are nominated on this profession of faith; in other words, to be elected, the Jacobins promise to greedy tenants the incomes and property of their owners.—We already see in the proceedings by which they secure one-third of the offices in 1791 the germ of the methods by which they will secure the whole of them in 1792; in this first electoral campaign their acts indicate not merely their maxims and policy but, again, the condition, education, spirit and character of the men whom they place in power locally as well as at the capital.

2101 (return)
[ Law of May 28, 29, 1791 (according to official statements, the total of active citizens amounted to 4,288,360).—Laws of July 23, Sept. 12, Sept. 29, 1791.—Buchez et Roux, XII. 310.]

2102 (return)
[ Bucher Ct Roux, XII. 33.—Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire de la Terreur," II. 205, 348.—Sauzay, II. ch. XVIII—Albert Babeau, I. ch. XX.]

2103 (return)
[ Lenin repeated this performance in 1917 and Stalin attempted to do the same in the rest of the World. (SR)..]

2104 (return)
[ The following letter, by Camille Desmoulins (April 3, 1792), shows at once the time consumed by public affairs, the sort of attraction they had, and the kind of men which they diverted from their business. "I have gone back to my old profession of the law, to which I give nearly all the time which my municipal or electoral functions, and the Jacobins (club), allow me—that is to say, very little. It is very disagreeable to me to come down to pleading bourgeois cases after having managed interests of such importance, and the affairs of the government, in the face of all Europe."]

2105 (return)
[ I cannot help but think of the willful proliferation of idle functionaries, pensioners and other receivers of public funds which today vote for the party which represents their interests. (SR.)]

2106 (return)
[ Sauzay, II. 83-89 and 123. A resolution of the inhabitants of ChalÈze, who, headed by their municipal officers, declare themselves unanimously "non-conformists," and demand "the right of using a temple for the exercise of their religious opinions, belonging to them and built with their contributions" On the strength of this, the municipal officers of ChalÈze are soundly rated by the district administration, which thus states what principles are: "Liberty, indefinite for the private individual, must be restricted for the public man whose opinions must conform to the law: otherwise,.. he must renounce all public functions."]

2107 (return)
[ Archives Nationales," F7, 3,253 (letter of the department directory, April 7, 1792). "On the 25th of January, in our report to the National Assembly, we stated the almost general opposition which the execution of the laws relating to the clergy has found in this department... nine-tenths, at least, of the Catholics refusing to recognize the sworn priests. The teachers, influenced by their old curÉs or vicars, are willing to take the civic oath, but they refuse to recognize their legitimate pastors and attend their services. We are, therefore, obliged to remove them, and to look out for others to replace them. The citizens of a large number of the communes, persisting in trusting these, will lend no assistance whatever to the election of the new ones; the result is, that we are obliged, in selecting these people, to refer the matter to persons whom we scarcely know, and who are scarcely better known to the directories of the district. As they are elected against the will of the citizens, they do not gain their confidence, and draw their salaries from the commune treasury, without any advantage to public instruction,"]

2108 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Sep. 3, 1791. "The right of attending primary meetings is that of every citizen who pays a tax of three livres; owing to the violence to which opinions are subject, more than one-half of the French are compelled to stay away from these reunions, which are abandoned to persons who have the least interest in maintaining public order and in securing stable laws, with the least property, and who pay the fewest taxes."]

2109 (return)
[ "The French Revolution," Vol. I. p. 182 and following pages.]

2110 (return)
[ "Correspondence of M. de StaËl" (manuscript), Swedish ambassador, with his court, Sept 4, 1791. "The change in the way of thinking of the democrats is extraordinary; they now seem convinced that it is impossible to make the Constitution work. Barnave, to my own knowledge, has declared that the influence of assemblies in the future should be limited to a council of notables, and that all power should be in the government"]

2111 (return)
[ Ibid. Letter of July 17, 1791. "All the members of the Assembly, with the exception of three or four, have passed a resolution to separate from the Jacobins; they number about 300."—The seven deputies who remain at the Jacobin Club, are Robespierre, PÉtion, GrÉgoire, Buzot, Coroller, and AbbÉ Royer.]

2112 (return)
[ "Les Feuillants" Was a political club consisting of constitutional monarchists who held their meetings in the former Feuillants monastery in Paris from 1791 to 1792. (SR).]

2113 (return)
[ Decree of Sept 29, 30, 1791, with report and instructions of the Committee on the Constitution.]

2114 (return)
[ Decree of May 17, 1791.—Malouet, XII. 161. "There was nothing left to us but to make one great mistake, which we did not fail to do."]

2115 (return)
[ A few months after this, on the election of a mayor for Paris, the court voted against Lafayette, and for PÉtion]

2116 (return)
[ M. de Montlosier, "MÉmoires," II. 309. "As far as concerns myself, truth compels me to say, that I was stuck on the head by three carrots and two cabbages only."—Archives of the prefecture of police (decisions of the police court, May 15, 1790). Moniteur, V. 427. "The prompt attendance of the members at the hour of meeting, in spite of the hooting and murmurings of the crowd, seemed to convince the people that this was yet another conspiracy against liberty."]

2117 (return)
[ This is what is, today in 1998, taking place whenever any political faction, disliked by the Socialists, try to arrange a meeting. (SR).]

2118 (return)
[ Malout, II. 50.—Mercure de France, Jan. 7, Feb. 5, and April 9, 1791 (letter of a member of the Monarchical Club)]

2119 (return)
[ FerriÈres, II. 222. "The Jacobin Club sent five or six hundred trusty men, armed with clubs," besides "about a hundred national guards, and some of the Palais-Royal prostitutes."]

2120 (return)
[ "Journal des Amis de la Constitution." Letter of the CafÉ National! Club at Bordeaux, Jan. 20, 1791.—Letters of the "Friends of the Constitution," at Brives and Cambray, Jan. 19, 1791.]

2121 (return)
[ "The French Revolution," I. pp. 243, 324.]

2122 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Dec.18, 1790, Jan. 17, June 8, and July 14, 1791.—Moniteur, VI. 697.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3,193. Letter from the Directory of the department of Aveyron, April 20, 1792. Narrative of events after the end of 1790.—May 22, 1791, the club of "The Friends of Order and Peace" is burned by the Jacobins, the fire lasting all night and a part of the next day. (Official report of the Directory of Milhau, May 22, 1791).]

2123 (return)
[ "The French Revolution," I. 256, 307.]

2124 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Dec. 14, 1790 (letter from Villeneuve-St.-Georges, Nov.29).]

2125 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," II. 1,453. Correspondence of M. Bercheny. Letter from Pau, Feb. 7, 1790. "No one has any idea of the actual state of things, in this once delightful town. People are cutting each other's throats. Four duels have taken place within 48 hours, and ten or a dozen good citizens have been obliged to hide themselves for three days past"]

2126 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," F7, 3,249. Memorial on the actual condition of the town and district of Mortagne, department of Orne (November, 1791).]

2127 (return)
[ Revolutionary song with the refrain: "Les aristocrates, À la lanterne, tous les aristocrates on les pendra" (all the aristocrats will hang). (SR)]

2128 (return)
[ On the 15th of August, 1791, the mother-superior of the HÔtel-Dieu hospital is forcibly carried off and placed in a tavern, half a league from the town, while the rest of the nuns are driven out and replaced by eight young girls from the town. Among other motives that require notice is the hostility of two pharmacists belonging to the club; in the Hotel-Dieu the nuns, keeping a pharmacy from which they sold drugs at cost and thereby brought themselves into competition with the two pharmacists.]

2129 (return)
[ Cf. "Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 13. Letter of the municipal officers and notables of Champoeuil to the administrators of Seine-et-Oise, concerning elections, June 17, 1791.—Similar letters, from various other parishes, among them that of Charcon, June 16: "They have the honor to inform you that, at the time of the preceding primary meetings, they were exposed to the greatest danger; that the curÉ of Charcon, their pastor, was repeatedly stabbed with a bayonet, the marks of which he will carry to his grave. The mayor, and several other inhabitants of Charcon, escaped the same peril with difficulty."—Ibid., letters from the administrators of Hautes-Alpes to the National Assembly (September, 1791), on the disturbances in the electoral assembly of Gap, August 29, 1791.]

2130 (return)
[ Police searches of private homes. (SR).]

2131 (return)
[ "The French Revolution," pp. 159, 160, 310, 323, 324.—Lauvergne, "Histoire du dÉpartement du Var," (August 23).]

2132 (return)
[ '"Archives Nationales," F7, 3,198, deposition of VÉrand-Icard, an elector at Arles, Sep. 8, 1791.—Ibid., F7, 3,195. Letter of the administrators of the Tarascon district, Dec. 8, 1791. Two parties confront each other at the municipal elections of Barbantane, one headed by the AbbÉ Chabaud, brother of one of the Avignon brigands, composed of three or four townsmen, and of "the most impoverished in the country," and the other, three times as numerous, comprising all the land-owners, the substantial mÉtayers and artisans, and all "who are most interested in a good administration" The question is, whether the AbbÉ Chabaud is to be mayor. The elections took place Dec.5th, 1791. Here is the official report of the acting mayor: mayor: "We, Pierre Fontaine, mayor, addressed the rioters, to induce them to keep the peace. At this very moment, the said Claude Gontier, alias Baoque, struck us with his fist on the left eye, which bruised us considerably, and on account of which we are almost blind, and, conjointly with others, jumped upon us, threw us down, and dragged us by the hair, continuing to strike us, from in front of the church door, till we came in front of the door, the town hall."]

2133 (return)
[ Ibid., F7, 3,229. Letters of M. de LaurÈde, June 18, 1791; from the directory of the department, June 8, July 31, and Sept. 22, 1791; from the municipality, July 15, 1791. The municipality "leaves the release of the prisoners in suspense," for six months, because, it says, the people is disposed to "insurrectionise against their discharge."—Letter of many of the national guard, stating that the factions form only a part of it.]

2134 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Dec. 10, 1791, letter from Montpellier, dated Nov. 17, 1791.—" Archives Nationales," F7, 3,223. Extracts from letters, on the incidents of Oct. 9 and 12, 1791. Petition by Messrs. ThÉri and Devon, Nov. 17, 1791. Letter addressed them to the Minister, Oct. 25. Letters of M. Dupin, syndical attorney of the department, to the Minister, Nov.14 and 15, and Dec. 26, 1791 (with official reports).—Among those assassinated on the 14th and 15th of November, we find a jeweler, an attorney, a carpenter, and a dyer. "This painful Scene," writes the syndic attorney, "has restored quiet to the town."]

2135 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, X. 223 (l'Ami du Peuple, June 17, 19, 21, 1791)]

2136 (return)
[ "'Archives Nationales,' F7, 3204. letter by M. Melon de Tradou, royal commissary at Tulle, Sept. 8, 1791]