Most of them follow this course, some instinctively and through lassitude, and others because the display they make adds to their authority. "Dragged along in Carriages with six horses, surrounded by guards, seated at sumptuous tables set for thirty persons, eating to the sound of music along with a Cortege of actors, courtesans and praetorians,"32135 they impress the imagination with an idea of their omnipotence, and people bow all the lower because they make a grand show.—At Troyes, on the arrival of young Rousselin, cannon are discharged as if for the entry of a prince. The entire population of Nevers is called upon to honor the birth of FouchÉ's child; the civil and military authorities pay their respects to him, and the National Guards are under arms.32136 At Lyons, "The imposing display of Collot d'Herbois resembles that of the Grand Turk. It requires three successive applications to obtain an audience; nobody approaches nearer than a distance of fifteen feet; two sentinels with muskets stand on each side of him, with their eyes fixed on the petitioners."32137—Less menacing, but not less imposing, is the pomp which surrounds the representatives at Bordeaux; to approach them, requires "a pass from the captain of the guards,"32138 through several squads of sentinels. One of them, Ysabeau, who, after having guillotined to a considerable extent, has become almost tractable, allows adulation, and, like a Duc de Richelieu coming down from Versailles, tries to play the popular potentate, with all the luxuries which the situation affords. At the theaters, in his presence, they give a ballet in which shepherds form with garlands of flowers the words "Ysabeau, Liberty, Equality." He allows his portrait to pass from hand to hand, and condescendingly smiles on the artist who inscribes these words at the bottom of an engraving of the day: "An event which took place under Ysabeau, representative of the people." "When he passes in the street people take off their hats to him, cheer him, and shout 'Hurrah for Ysabeau! Hurrah for the savior of Bordeaux, our friend and father!' The children of aristocrats come and apostrophize him in this way, even at the doors of his carriage; for he has a Carriage, and several of them, with a coachman, horses, and the equipage of a former noble, gendarmes preceding him everywhere, even on excursions into the country," where his new courtiers call him "great man," and welcome him with "Asiatic magnificence." There is good cheer at his table, "superb white bread," called "representatives' bread," whilst the country folk of the neighborhood live on roots, and the inhabitants of Bordeaux can scarcely obtain more than four ounces of musty bread per day.—There is the same feasting with the representatives at Lyons, in the midst of similar distress. In the reports made by Collot we find a list of bottles of brandy at four francs each, along with partridges, capons, turkeys, chickens, pike, and crawfish, note also the white bread, the other kind, called "equality bread," assigned to simple mortals, offends this august palate. Add to this the requisitions made by Albitte and FouchÉ, seven hundred bottles of fine wine, in one lot, another of fifty pounds of coffee, one hundred and sixty ells of muslin, three dozen silk handkerchiefs for cravats, three dozen pairs of gloves, and four dozen pairs of stockings: they provide themselves with a good stock.32139—Among so many itinerant tyrants, the most audaciously sensual is, I believe, Tallien, the Septembriseur at Paris and guillotineur at Bordeaux, but still more rake and robber, caring mostly for his palate and stomach. Son of the cook of a grand seignior, he is doubtless swayed by family traditions: for his government is simply a larder where, like the head-butler in "Gil Blas," he can eat and turn the rest into money. At this moment, his principal favorite is Teresa Cabarrus, a woman of society, or one of the demi-monde, whom he took out of prison; he rides about the streets with her in an open carriage, "with a courier behind and a courier in front," sometimes wearing the red cap and holding a pike in her hand,32140 thus exhibiting his goddess to the people. And this is the sentiment which does him the most credit; for, when the crisis comes, the imminent peril of his mistress arouses his courage against Robespierre, and this pretty woman, who is good-natured, begs him, not for murders, but for pardons.32141—Others, as gallant as he is, but with less taste, obtain recruits for their pleasures in a rude way, either as fast-livers on the wing, or because fear subjects the honor of women to their caprices, or because the public funds defray the expenses of their guard-room habits. At Blois, for this kind of expenditure, Guimberteau discharges his obligations by drafts on the proceeds of the revolutionary tax.32142 Carrier, at Nantes, appropriates to himself the house and garden of a private person for "his seraglio"; the reader may judge whether, on desiring to be a third party in the household, the husband would make objections. At other times, in the hotel Henry IV., "with his friends and prostitutes brought under requisition, he has an orgy;" he allows himself the same indulgence on the galiot during the drownings; there at the end of a drunken frolic, he is regaled with merry songs, for example, "la gamelle":32143 he needs his amusements.

Some, who are shrewd, think of the more substantial and look out for the future. Foremost among these is Tallien, the king of robbers, but prodigal, whose pockets, full of holes, are only filled to be at once emptied; Javogues, who makes the most of Montbrison; RovÈre, who, for eighty thousand francs in assignats, has an estate adjudged to him worth five hundred thousand francs in coin; FouchÉ, who, in NiÈvre, begins to amass the twelve or fourteen millions which he secures later on;32144 and so many others, who were either ruined or impoverished previous to the outbreak of the Revolution, and who are rich when it ends: Barras with his domain of Gros Bois; AndrÉ Dumont, with the Hotel de Plouy, its magnificent furniture, and an estate worth four hundred thousand livres; Merlin de Thionville, with his country-houses, equipages, and domain of Mont-ValÉrien, and other domains; Salicetti, Reubell, Rousselin, Chateauneuf-Randon, and the rest of the gluttonous and corrupted members of the Directory. Without mentioning the taxes and confiscations of which they render no account, they have, for their hoard, the ransoms offered underhandedly by "suspects" and their families; what is more convenient?32145 And all the more, because the Committee of General Security, even when informed, let things take their course: to prosecute "Montagnards," would be "making the Revolution take a step backward." One is bound to humor useful servants who have such hard work, like that of the September killings, to do. Irregularities, as with these September people, must be overlooked; it is necessary to allow them a few perquisites and give them gratuities.32146

All this would not suffice to keep them at work if they had not been held by an even greater attraction.—To the common run of civilized men, the office of Septembriseur is at first disagreeable; but, after a little practice, especially with a tyrannical nature, which, under cover of the theory, or under the pretext of public safety, can satiate its despotic instincts, all repugnance subsides. There is keen delight in the exercise of absolute power; one is glad, every hour, to assert one's omnipotence and prove it by some act, the most conclusive of all acts being some act of destruction. The more complete, radical and prompt the destruction is, the more conscious one is of one's strength. However great the obstacle, one is not disposed to recede or stand still; one breaks away all the barriers which men call good sense, humanity, justice, and the satisfaction of breaking them down is great. To crush and to subdue becomes voluptuous pleasure, to which pride gives keener relish, affording a grateful incense of the holocaust which the despot consumes on his own altar; at this daily sacrifice, he is both idol and priest, offering up victims to himself that he may be conscious of his divinity.—Such is Saint-Just, all the more a despot because his title of representative on mission is supported by his rank on the Committee of Public Safety: to find natures strained to the same pitch as his, we must leave the modern world and go back to a Caligula, or to a caliph Hakem in Egypt in the tenth century.32147 He also, like these two monsters, but with different formulae, regards himself as a God, or God's vicegerent on earth, invested with absolute power through Truth incarnated in him, the representative of a mysterious, limitless and supreme power, known as the People; to worthily represent this power, it is essential to have a soul of steel.32148 Such is the soul of Saint-Just, and only that. All other sentiments merely serve to harden it; all the metallic agencies that compose it—sensuality, vanity, every vice, every species of ambition, all the frantic outbursts and melancholy vaporings of his youth—are violently commingled and fused together in the revolutionary mold, so that his soul may take the form and rigidity of trenchant steel. Suppose this an animated blade, feeling and willing in conformity with its temper and structure; it would delight in being brandished, and would need to strike; such is the need of Saint-Just. Taciturn, impassible, keeping people at a distance, as imperious as if the entire will of the people and the majesty of transcendent reason resided in his person, he seems to have reduced his passions to the desire of dashing everything to atoms, and to creating dismay. It may be said of him that, like the conquering Tartars, he measures his self-attributed grandeur by what he fells; no other has so extensively swept away fortunes, liberties and lives; no other has so terrifically heightened the effect of his deeds by laconic speech and the suddenness of the stroke. He orders the arrest and close confinement of all former nobles, men and women, in the four departments, in twenty-four hours; he orders the bourgeoisie of Strasbourg to pay over nine millions in twenty-four hours; ten thousand persons in Strasbourg must give up their shoes in twenty-four hours; random and immediate discharges of musketry on the officers of the Rhine army—such are the measures.32149 So much the worse for the innocent; there is no time to discern who they are; "a blind man hunting for a pin in a dust-heap takes the whole heap."32150—And, whatever the order, even when it cannot be executed, so much the worse for him to whom it is given, for the captain who, directed by the representative to establish this or that battery in a certain time, works all night with all his forces, "with as many men as the place will hold."32151 The battery not being ready at the hour named, Saint-Just sends the captain to the guillotine.—The sovereign having once given an order it cannot be countermanded; to take back his words would be weakening himself;32152 in the service of omnipotence, pride is insatiable, and, to mollify it, no barbaric act is too great.—The same appetite is visible in Collot d'Herbois, who, no longer on the stage, plays before the town the melo-dramatic tyrant with all becoming ostentation. One morning, at Lyons, he directs the revolutionary Tribunal to arrest, examine and sentence a youthful "suspect" before the day is over. "Towards six o'clock,32153 Collot being at table enjoying an orgy with prostitutes, buffoons and executioners, eating and drinking to choice music, one of the judges of the Tribunal enters; after the usual formalities, he is led up to the Representative, and informs him that the young man had been arrested and examined, and the strictest inquiries made concerning him; he is found irreproachable and the Court decided to set him free. Collot, without looking at the judge, raises his voice and says to him:

"I ordered you to punish that young man and I want him out of the way before night. If the innocent are spared, too many of the guilty will escape. Go."

The music and gaiety begin again, and in an hour the young man is shot."—And so in most of the other pachalics; if any head mentally condemned by the pacha escapes or does not fall soon enough, the latter is indignant at the delays and forms of justice, also against the judges and juries, often selected by himself. Javogues writes an insulting letter to the commission of Feurs which has dared acquit two former nobles. Laignelot, Lecarpentier, Michaud, Monestier, Lebon, dismiss, recompose, or replace the commissions of Fontenoy, Saint-Malo, and Perpignan, and the tribunals of Pau, NÎmes, and Arras, whose judgments did not please them.32154 Lebon, Bernard de Saintes, Dartigoyte and FouchÉ re-arrest prisoners on the same charge, solemnly acquitted by their own tribunals. BÔ, Prieur de la Marne, and Lebon, send judges and juries to prison that do not always vote death.32155 Barras and FrÉron dispatch, from brigade to brigade, to the revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, the public prosecutor and president of the revolutionary Tribunal of Marseilles, for being indulgent to anti-revolutionaries, because, out of five hundred and twenty-eight prisoners, they guillotined only one hundred and sixty-two.32156—To contradict the infallible Representative! That of itself is an offense. He owes it to himself to punish those who are not docile, to re-arrest absolved delinquents, and to support cruelty with cruelty.

When for a long time someone has been imbibing a strong and nauseating drink, not only does the palate get accustomed, but it often acquires a taste for it; it soon wants to have it stronger; finally, it swallows it pure, completely raw, with no admixture or condiment to disguise its repulsiveness—Such, to certain imaginations, is the spectacle of human gore; after getting accustomed to it they take delight in seeing it. Lequinio, Laignelot and Lebon invite the executioner to dine with them;32157 Monestier, "with his cut-throats, is going himself in search of prisoners in the dungeons, so that he may accompany them to the Tribunal and overwhelm them with charges, if they are disposed to defend themselves; after their condemnation, he attends in uniform" at their execution.32158 FouchÉ, lorgnette in hand, looks out of his window upon a butchery of two hundred and ten Lyonnese. Collot, Laporte and FouchÉ feast together in a large company on the days when executions by shooting takes place, and, at each discharge, stand up and cheer lustily, waving their hats.32159 At Toulon, FrÉron, in person, orders and sees executed, the first grand massacre on the Champ de Mars.32160—On the Place d'Arras, M. de Vielfort, already tied and stretched out on the plank, awaits the fall of the knife. Lebon appears on the balcony of the theatre, makes a sign to the executioner to stop, opens the newspaper, and, in a loud voice, reads off the recent successes of the French armies; then, turning to the condemned man, exclaims: "Go, wretch, and take the news of our victories to your brethren."32161 At Feurs, where the shootings take place at the house of M. du Rosier, in the great avenue of the park, his daughter, quite a young woman, advances in tears to Javogues, and asks for the release of her husband. "Oh, yes, my dear," replies Javogues, "you shall have him home to-morrow." In effect, the next day, her husband is shot, and buried in the avenue.32162—It is evident that they get to liking the business. Like their September predecessors, they find amusement in murdering: people around them allude gaily to "the red theater" and "the national razor." An aristocrat is said to be "putting his head at the national window," and "he has put his head through the cathole."32163 They themselves have the style and humor of their trade. "To-morrow, at seven o'clock," writes Hugues, "let the sacred guillotine be erected!"—"The demoiselle guillotine," writes Lecarlier, "keeps steadily agoing."32164—"The relatives and friends of emigrÉs and of refractory priests," writes Lebon, "monopolize the guillotine.. .32165 Day before yesterday, the sister of the former Comte de Bethune sneezed in the sack." Carrier loudly proclaims "the pleasure he has derived" from seeing priests executed: "I never laughed in my life as I did at the faces they made in dying."32166 This is the extreme perversity of human nature, that of a Domitian who watches the features of the condemned, to see the effect of suffering, or, better still, that of the savage who holds his sides with laughter at the aspect of a man being impaled. And this delight of contemplating death throes, Carrier finds it in the sufferings of children. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the revolutionary Tribunal and the entreaties of President PhÉlippes-Tronjolly,32167 he signs on the 29th of Frimaire, year II., a positive order to guillotine without trial twenty-seven persons, of whom seven are women, and, among these, four sisters, Mesdemoiselles de la Metayrie, one of these twenty-eight years old, another twenty-seven, the third twenty-six, and the fourth seventeen. Two days before, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the same tribunal and the entreaties of the same president, he signed a positive order to guillotine twenty-six artisans and farm-hands, among them two boys of fourteen, and two of thirteen years of age. He was driven "in a cab to the place of execution and he followed it up in detail. He could hear one of the children of thirteen, already bound to the board, but too small and having only the top of the head under the knife, ask the executioner, "Will it hurt me much?" What the triangular blade fell upon may be imagined! Carrier saw this with his own eyes, and whilst the executioner, horrified at himself, died a few days after in consequence of what he had done, Carrier put another in his place, began again and continued operations.

3201 (return)
[ Thibaudeau: "MÉmoires," I., 47, 70.—Durand-Maillane, "MÉmoires," 183.—Vatel, "Charlotte Corday et les Girondins," II., 269. Out of the seventy-six presidents of the convention eighteen were guillotined, eight deported, twenty-two declared outlaws, six incarcerated, three who committed suicide, and four who became insane, in all sixty-one. All who served twice perished by a violent death.]

3202 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 38. (Speech by Amar, reporter, Oct. 3. '793.) "The apparently negative behavior of the minority in the convention, since the 2nd of June, is a new plot hatched by Barbaroux."]

3203 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 44. Election of Collot d'Herbois as president by one hundred and fifty-one out of two hundred and forty-one votes, June 13, 1793.-Moniteur, XVII., 366. Election of HÉrault-Sechelles as president by one hundred and sixty-five out of two hundred and thirty-six votes, Aug. 3, 1793.]

3204 (return)
[ "The Revolution," vol. III., ch. I.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VII., 435. (The three substitutes obtain, the first, nine votes, the second, six votes, and the third, five votes.)]

3205 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d' Auvergne," 206.]

3206 (return)
[ Le Marais or the Swamp (moderate party in the French Revolution). SR.]

3207 (return)
[ Dussault: "Fragment pour servir a' l'histoire de la convention."]

3208 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve "causeries du Lundi," V., 216. (According to the unpublished papers of SiÉyÈs.)]

3209 (return)
[ Words of Michelet.]

3210 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 95, 135. (Sessions of Germinal II. in the Convention and at the Jacobin club.)]

3211 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 17. (Sessions of VentÔse 26, year II. Speech of Robespierre.) "In what country has a powerful senate ever sought in its own bosom for the betrayers of the common cause and handed them over to the sword of the law? Who has ever furnished the world with this spectacle? You, my fellow citizens."]

3212 (return)
[ Miot de Melito, "MÉmoires," I. 44. Danton, at table in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, remarked: "The RÉvolution, like Saturn, eats its own children." As to Camille Desmoulins, "His melancholy already indicated a presentiment of his fate; the few words he allowed to escape him always turned on questions and observations concerning the nature of punishment, inflicted on those condemned by the revolutionary Tribunal and the best way of preparing oneself for that event and enduring it."]

3213 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 363.357. (Police reports on the deputies, Messidor 4, and following days.)—Vilate: "coups secrÈtes de la Revolution du 9 et 10 Thermidor," a list designated by BarÈre.—Denunciation by Lecointre. (2nd ed. p.13.)]

3214 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, I., 47. "Just as in ordinary times one tries to elevate oneself, so does one strive in these times of calamity to lower oneself and be forgotten, or atone for one's inferiority by seeking to degrade oneself."]

3215 (return)
[ Madame Roland: "MÉmoires," I., 23.]

3216 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. This set of papers contains five hundred and thirty-seven police reports, especially those of NivÔse, year II. The following is a sample Report of NivÔse 25, year II. "Being on a deputation to the convention, some colleagues took me to dine in the old Breteuil gardens, in a large room with a nice floor.... The bill-of-fare was called for, and I found that after having eaten a ritz soup, some meat, a bottle of wine and two potatoes, I had spent, as they told me, eight francs twelve sous, because I am not rich. 'Foutre!' I say to them how much do the rich pay here?... It is well to state that I saw some deputies come into this large hall, also former marquises, counts and knights of the poniard of the ancient regime... but I confess that I cannot remember the true names of these former nobles.... for the devil himself could not recognize those bastards, disguised like sans-culottes."]

3217 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 237, 308. (July 5 and 14, 1793.)—Moniteur, XIX., 716. (VentÔse 26, year II.) Danton secures the passage of a decree "that nothing but prose shall be heard at the bar." Nevertheless, after his execution, this sort of parade begins again. On the 12th of Messidor, "a citizen admitted to the bar reads a poem composed by him in honor of the success of our arms on the Sambre." (Moniteur, XVI., 101.)]

3218 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII. 369, 397, 399, 420, 455, 469, 471, 479, 488, 492, 500, etc.—Mercier, "Le Nouveau Paris," II., 96.—Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," 500, 505. (Articles by Prudhomme and Diurnal by Beaulieu.)]

3219 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 420, 399.—"Ah, le bel oiseau," was a song chosen for its symbolic and double meaning, one pastoral and the other licentious.]

3220 (return)
[ De Goncourt, "La SocietÉ franÇaise pendant la RÉvolution," 418. (Article from" PÊre Duchesne ".)—Dauban, ibid., 506. (Article by Prud'homme.) "Liberty on a seat of verdure, receives the homage of republicans, male and female,... and then.... she turns and bestows a benevolent regard on her friends."]

3221 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 399. Session of Brumaire 20, on motion of Thuriot: "I move that the convention attends the temple of Reason to sing the hymn to Liberty."—"The motion of Thuriot is decreed."]

3222 (return)
[ Mercier, ibid., 99. (Similar scenes in the churches of St. Eustache and St. Gervais.)]

3223 (return)
[ Durand-Maillane, '"MÉmoires," 182.—Gregoire, "MÉmoires," II., 34. On the 7th of November, 1793, in the great scene of the abjurations, GrÉgoire alone resisted, declaring: "I remain a bishop; I invoke freedom of worship." "Outcries burst forth to stifle my voice the pitch of which I raised proportionately.... A demoniac scene occurred, worthy of Milton.... I declare that in making this speech I thought I was pronouncing sentence of death on myself." For several days, emissaries were sent to him, either deputies or bandits, to try and make him retract. On the 11th of November a placard posted throughout Paris declared him responsible for the continuance of fanaticism. "For about two years, I was almost the only one in Paris who wore the ecclesiastical costume."]

3224 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 480. (Session of Brumaire 30.) N...."I must make known the ceremony which took place here to-day. I move that the speeches and details of this day be inserted in full in the bulletin, and sent to all the departments." (Another deputy): "And do not neglect to state that the Right was never so well furnished." (Laughter and applause.)]

3225 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 103. (Germinal 11.)—Moniteur, XX., 124. (Germinal 15.) Decree for cutting short the defense of Danton and his accused associates.]

3226 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 226. (Germinal 26. Report by Saint-Just and decree on the police.)—Ibid., XIX., 54. (Report by Robespierre, and decree on the principles of revolutionary government, NivÔse 5.)—Ibid., XX., 567, 589. Prairial 6, (Decree forbidding the imprisonment of any Englishman or Hanoverian), and XXI., 13. (Messidor 16.)]

3227 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 544. After the effort of L'Admiral against Collot d'Herbois, the latter appears in the tribune. "The loudest applause greets him from all sides of the house."—Ibid., XXI., 173. (Messidor 21.) On the report of BarÈre who praises the conduct of Joseph Lebon, criticizing nothing but "somewhat harsh formalities," a decree is passed to the order of the day, which is "adopted unanimously with great applause."]

3228 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 698, 715, 716, 719. (Prairial 22 and 24.) After the speeches of Robespierre and Couthon "Loud and renewed applause; the plaudits begin over again and are prolonged." Couthon, having declared that the Committee of Public Safety was ready to resign, "on all sides there were cries of No, No."—Ibid., XXI., 268. (Thermidor 2.) Eulogy of the revolutionary government by BarÈre and decree of the police "unanimously adopted amidst the loudest applause."]

3229 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 329.]

3230 (return)
[ Lafayette, "MÉmoires," IV., 330. "At last came the 9th of Thermidor. It was not due to people of common sense. Their terror was so great that an estimable deputy, to whom one of his colleagues put the question, no witness being present, 'how long must we endure this tyranny?' was upset by it to such a degree as to denounce him."]

3231 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," V., 209. (SiÉyÈs' unpublished papers.)—Moniteur, XVIII., 631, containing an example of both the terror and style of the most eminent men, among others of Fourcroy the celebrated chemist, then deputy, and later, Counselor of State and Minister of Public Instruction. He is accused in the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 18, year II., of not addressing the Convention often enough, to which he replies: "After twenty years' devotion to the practice of medicine I have succeeded in supporting my sans-culotte father and my sans-culottes sisters.... As to the charge made by a member that I have given most of my time to science. ... I have attended the LycÉe des Arts but three times, and then only for the purpose of sans-culotteising it."]

3232 (return)
[ Michelet, (1798-1874), "Histoire de la RÉvolution," V., preface XXX (3rd ed.). "When I was young and looking for a job, I was referred to an esteemed Review, to a well-known philanthropist, devoted to education, to the people, and to the welfare of humanity. I found a very small man of a melancholic, mild and tame aspect. We were in front of the fire, on which he fixed his eyes without looking at me. He talked a long time, in a didactic, monotonous tone of voice. I felt ill at ease and sick at heart, and got away as soon as I could. It was this little man, I afterwards learned, who hunted down the Girondists, and had them guillotined, and which he accomplished at the age of twenty."—This man's name was Julien de la DrÔme. I (Taine) saw him once when quite young. He is well known; first, through his correspondence, and next, by his mother's diary. ("Journal d'une bourgeoise pendant la Revolution," ed. Locroy.)—We have a sketch of David ("La Demagogie À Paris en 1793," by Dauban, a fac-simile at the beginning of the volume), representing Queen Marie Antoinette led to execution. Madame Julien was at a window along with David looking at the funeral convoy, whilst he made the drawing.—Madame Julien writes in her "Journal," September 3, 1792: "To attain this end we must will the means. No barbarous humanity! The people are aroused, the people are avenging the crimes of the past three years."—Her son, a sort of raw, sentimental Puritan, fond of bloodshed, was one of Robespierre's most active agents. He remembered what he had done, as is evident by Michelet's narrative, and cast his eyes down, well knowing that his present philanthropy could not annihilate past acts.]

3233 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. Register of the Acts of the Committee of Public Safety, vol. II., orders of August 3, 1793.]

3234 (return)
[ On the concentration and accumulation of business, cf. Archives Nationales, ibid., acts of Aug. 4, 5, 6, 1793; and AF. II., 23, acts of Brumaire I and 15, year II.—On the distribution and dispatch of business in the Committee and the hours devoted to it, see Acts of April 6, June 13, 17, 18, Aug. 3, 1793, and Germinal 27, year II.—After August 3, two sessions were held daily, from 8 o'clock in the morning to 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and from 7 to 10 o'clock in the evening; at 10 o'clock, the Executive Council met with the Committee of Public Safety, and papers were signed about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.—The files of AF. II., 23 to 42, contain an account of the doings of the Committee, the minutes of its meetings and of its correspondence. A perusal of these furnishes full details concerning the initiative and responsibility of the Committee. For example, (NivÔse 4, year II., letters to Freron and Barras, at Marseilles,) "The Committee commend the vigorous measures you have sanctioned in your orders at Marseilles.—Marseilles, through you, affords a great example. Accustomed, as you are, to wielding thunderbolts, you are best calculated for still governing it... How glorious, citizen colleagues, to be able like you, after long continued labors and immortal fame, how gratifying, under such auspices, to return to the bosom of the National Convention!"—(AF. II., 36, PluviÔse 7, year II., letter to the representatives on mission at Bordeaux, approving of the orders issued by them against merchants.) "concealed behind the obscurity of its complots, mercantilism cannot support the ardent, invigorating atmosphere of Liberty; Sybaritic indolence quails before Spartan virtue. "—(AF. II., 37, PluviÔse 20, letter to Prieur de la Marne, sent to Nantes to replace Carrier.) "Carrier, perhaps, has been badly surrounded;.... his ways are harsh, the means he employs are not well calculated to win respect for the national authority;... he is used up in that city. He is to leave and go elsewhere."—(AF. II., 36, NivÔse 21, letter to FouchÉ, Laporte, and Albitte, at Commune-affranchie, signed by Billaud-Varennes and composed by him.) "The convention, NivÔse I, has approved of the orders and other measures taken by you. We can add nothing to its approval. The Committee of Public Safety subjects all operations to the same principles, that is to say, it conforms to yours and acts with you."]

3235 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VIII., 105. (Unpublished report by Vice-admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, May 28, 1794.)]

3236 (return)
[ Carnot, "MÉmoires," I., 107.]

3237 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 450, 523, 527, "we often ate only a morsel of dry bread on the Committee's table."]

3238 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 362. (Speech by Cambon, Session of Thermidor 11, year II.)]

3239 (return)
[ Beugnot, "MÉmoires," II., 15. (Stated by Jean Bon himself in a conversation at Mayence in 1813.)]

3240 (return)
[ Gaudia, duc de GaÉte, "MÉmoires," I., 16, 28. "I owed my life to Cambon personally, while, through his firmness, he preserved the whole Treasury department, continually attacked by the all-powerful Jacobin club."—On the 8th of Thermidor, Robespierre was "very severe on the administration of the Treasury, which he accused of an aristocratic and anti-revolutionary spirit.... Under this pretext, it was known that the orator meant to propose an act of accusation against the representative charged with its surveillance, as well as against the six commissioners, and bring them before the Revolutionary Tribunal, whose verdict could not be doubtful."—Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 431, 436, 441. Speech by Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year II... ". Machiavellian designs against the small fund-holders of the State.. .. A contemptible financial system, wasteful, irritating, devouring, absolutely independent of your supreme oversight.... Anti-revolution exists in the financial department.... Who are its head administrators? Brissotins, Feuillants, aristocrats and well-known knaves—the Cambons, the MallarmÉs, the Ramels!"]

3241 (return)
[ Carnot, "MÉmoires," I., 425.]

3242 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 47, 50. (Session of Germinal 2, year II.) Speeches by Lindet and Carnot with confirmatory details.—Lindet says that he had signed twenty thousand papers.—Ibid., XXXIII., 591. (Session of VentÔse 12, year III. Speech by BarÈre.) "The labor of the Committee was divided amongst the different members composing it, but all, without distinction, signed each other's work. I, myself, knowing nothing of military affairs, have perhaps, in this matter, given four thousand signatures."—Ibid., XXIV., 74. (Session of Germinal 6, year III.) Speech of Lavesseur, witness of an animated scene between Carnot and Robespierre concerning two of Carnot's clerks, arrested by order of Robespierre.—Carnot adds "I had myself signed this order of arrest without knowing it."—Ibid., XXII., 116. (Session of VendÉmiaire 8, year II., speech by Carnot in narrating the arrest of General Huchet for his cruelties in VendÉe.) On appearing before the committee of Public Safety, Robespierre defended him and he was sent back to the army and promoted to a higher rank; I was obliged to sign in spite of my opposition."]

3243 (return)
[ Carnot, "MÉmoires," I., 572. (Speech by Carnot, Germinal 2, year III.)]

3244 (return)
[ SÉnart, "MÉmoires," 145, 153. (Details on the members of the two Committees.)]

3245 (return)
[ Reports by Billaud on the organization of the revolutionary government, November 18, 1793 and on the theory of democratic government, April 20, 1794.—Reports by Robespierre on the political situation of the Republic, November 17, 1793; and on the principles of revolutionary government, December 5, 1793.—Information on the genius of revolutionary laws, signed principally by Robespierre and Billaud, November 29, 1793.—Reports by Robespierre on the principles of political morality which ought to govern the Convention, February 5, 1794; and on the relationship between religious and moral ideas and republican principles, May 7, 1794.]

3246 (return)
[ Billaud no longer goes on mission after he becomes one of the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre never went. BarÈre, who is of daily service, is likewise retained at Paris.—All the others serve on the missions and several repeatedly, and for a long time.]

3247 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 60. The words of Carnot, session of Germinal 2, year III.—Ibid., XXII., 138, words of Collot, session of VendÉmiaire 12, year III. "Billaud and myself have sent into the departments three hundred thousand written documents, and have made at least ten thousand minutes (of meetings) with our own hand."]

3248 (return)
[ Dussault "Fragment pour servir À l'histoire de la Convention."]

3249 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, I., 49.]

3250 (return)
[ Arnault, "Souvenirs d'un Sexagenaire," II., 78.]

3251 (return)
[ "MÉmoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Veron, II., 14. (July 7, 1815.)]

3252 (return)
[ Cf. Thibaudeau, "MÉmoires," I., 46. "It seemed, then, that to escape imprisonment, or the scaffold, there was no other way than to put others in your place."]

3253 (return)
[ Carnot, "MÉmoires." I., 508.]

3254 (return)
[ Carnot, I., 527. (Words of Prieur de la CÔte d'Or.)]

3255 (return)
[ Carnot, ibid., 527. (The words of Prieur.)]

3256 (return)
[ "La Nouvelle Minerve," I., 355, (Notes by Billaud-Varennes, indited at St. Domingo and copied by Dr. Chervin.) "We came to a decision only after being wearied out by the nightly meetings of our Committee."]

3257 (return)
[ Decree of September 17, 1793, on "Suspects." Ordinance of the Paris Commune, October 10, 1793, extending it so as to include "those who, having done nothing against the Revolution, do nothing for it."—Cf. "Papers seized in Robespierre's apartments," II., 370, letter of Payan. "Every man who has not been for the Revolution has been against it, for he has done nothing for the country.... In popular commissions, individual humanity, the moderation which assumes the veil of justice, is criminal."]

3258 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 394, and following pages; 414 and following pages, (on the successive members of the two Committees).]

3259 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal RÉvolutionaire," III., 129-131. HÉrault de Sechelles, allied with Danton, and accused of being indulgent, had just given guarantees, however, and applied the revolutionary regime in Alsace with a severity worthy of Billaud. (Archives des Affaires ÉtrangÈres, vol. V., 141.) "Instructions for civil commissioners by HÉrault, representative of the people," (Colmar, Frimaire 2, year II.,) with suggestions as to the categories of persons that are to be "sought for, arrested and immediately put in jail," probably embracing nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants.]

3260 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris" en 1794, 285, and following pages. (Police Reports, Germinal, year II.) Arrest of HÉbert and associates "Nothing was talked about the whole morning but the atrocious crimes of the conspirators. They were regarded as a thousand times more criminal than Capet and his wife. They ought to be punished a thousand times over.... The popular hatred of HÉbert is at its height... . The people cannot forgive HÉbert for having deceived them.... Popular rejoicings were universal on seeing the conspirators led to the scaffold."]

3261 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 53. (Session of Germinal 2, year III.) Words of Prieur de la CÔte-d'Or: "The first quarrel that occurred in the Committee was between Saint-Just and Carnot; the latter says to the former, 'I see that you and Robespierre are after a dictatorship.'"—Ibid., 74. Levasseur makes a similar statement.-Ibid., 570. (Session of Germinal 2, year III., words of Carnot): "I had a right to call Robespierre a tyrant every time I spoke to him. I did the same with Saint-Just and Couthon."]

3262 (return)
[ Carnot, I., 525. (Testimony of Prieur.) Ibid., 522. Saint-Just says to Carnot: "You are in league with the enemies of the patriots. It is well for you to know that a few lines from me could send you to the guillotine in two days."]

3263 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXX., 185. (Reply of Billaud, Collot, Vadier and BarÈre to the renewed charges against them by Lecointre.)—Moniteur, XXIV., 84. (Session of Germinal 7, year III.) Words of BarÈre: "On the 4th of Thermidor, in the Committee, Robespierre speaks like a man who had orders to give and victims to point out."—"And you, BarÈre," he replies, "remember the report you made on the 2nd of Thermidor,"]

3264 (return)
[ Heraclitus ( c. 540-480 BC) pre-Socratic philosopher, who believed in a cosmic justice where sinners would be punished and haunted by the Erinyes, (the furies) the handmaids of justice. (SR).]

3265 (return)
[ Saint-Just, report on the Girondists, July 8, 1793; on the necessity of imprisoning persons inimical to the Revolution, Feb.26, 1794; on the HÉbertists, March 13; on the arrest of Herault-SÉchelles and Simond, March 17; on the arrest of Danton and associates March 31; on a general policy, April 15.—Cf., likewise, his report on declaring the government revolutionary until peace is declared, Oct. 10, 1793, and his report of the 9th of Thermidor, year II.]

3266 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 346. (Report of March 13, 1794.)—XXXII., 314. (Report of April 15.)]

3267 (return)
[ See "The Revolution," II., 313.]

3268 (return)
[ A single phrase often suffices to give the measure of a man's intellect and character. The following by Saint-Just has this merit. (Apropos of Louis XVI. who, refraining from defending himself, left the Tuileries and took refuge in the Assembly on the 10th of August.) "He came amongst you; he forced his way here.... He resorted to the bosom of the legislature; his soldiers burst into the asylum.. .. He made his way, so to say, by sword thrusts into the bowels of his country that he might find a place of concealment."]

3269 (return)
[ Particularly in the long report on Danton containing a historic survey of the factions, (Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 76,) and the report on the general police, (Ibid., 304,) with another historic document of the same order. "Brissot and Ronsin (were) recognized royalists.. .. Since Necker a system of famine has been devised.... Necker had a hand in the Orleans faction.... Double representation (of the Third Estate) was proposed for it." Among other charges made against Danton; after the fusillade on the Champ de Mars in July, 1791 "You went to pass happy days at Arcis-sur-Aube, if it is possible for a conspirator against his country to be happy.... When you knew that the tyrant's fall was prepared and inevitable you returned to Paris on the 9th of August. You wanted to go to bed on that evil night.... Hatred, you said, is insupportable to me and (yet) you said to us 'I do not like Marat,' etc." There is an apostrophe of nine consecutive pages against Danton, who is absent.]

3270 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, Ibid., 312. "Liberty emanated from the bosom of tempests; its origin dates with that of the world issuing out of chaos along with man, who is born dissolved in tears." (Applause.)—Ibid., 308. Cf. his portrait, got up for effect, of the "revolutionary who is a treasure of good sense and probity."]

3271 (return)
[ Ibid., 312. "Liberty is not the chicanery of a palace; it is rigidity towards evil."]

3272 (return)
[ BarÈre, "MÉmoires," I. 347. "Saint-Just... discussed like a vizier."]

3273 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 314. "Are the lessons furnished by history, the examples afforded by all great men, lost to the universe? These all counsel us to lead obscure lives; the lowly cot and virtue form the grandeurs of this world. Let us seek our habitations on the banks of streams, rock the cradles of our children and educate them in Disinterestedness and Intrepidity."—As to his political or economic capacity and general ideas, read his speeches and his "Institutions," (Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 133; XXX., 305, XXXV., 369,) a mass of chemical and abstract rant.]

3274 (return)
[ Carnot, I., 527. (Narrated by Prieur.) "Often when hurriedly eating a bit of dry bread at the Committee table, BarÈre with a jest, brought a smile on our lips."]

3275 (return)
[ Veron, II., 14.-Arnault, II., 74.—Cf., passim, "MÉmoires de BarÈre," and the essay on BarÈre by Macaulay.]

3276 (return)
[ Vilate, BarÈre Edition, 184, 186, 244. "Fickle, frank, affectionate, fond of society, especially that of women, in quest of luxuries and knowing how to spend money."—Carnot, II. 511. In Prieur's eyes, BarÈre was simply "a good fellow."]

3277 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 173. (Justification of Joseph Lebon and "his somewhat harsh ways.") "The Revolution is to be spoken of with respect, and revolutionary measures with due regard. Liberty is a virgin, to raise whose veil is a crime."—And again: "The tree of Liberty grows when watered with the blood of tyrants."]

3278 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 580, 582, 583, 587.—"Campagnes de la RÉvolution FranÇaise dans les PyrÉnÉes-Orientales," by Fervel, II., 36 and following pages.—General Dugommier, after the capture of Toulouse, spared the English general O'Hara, taken prisoner in spite of the orders of the Convention. and received the following letter from the committee of Public Safety. "The Committee accepts your victory and your wound as compensations." On the 24th of December, Dugommier, that he may not be present at the Toulon massacres, asks to return to the convention and is ordered off to the army of the eastern Pyrenees.—In 1797, there were thirty thousand French prisoners in England.]

3279 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 291. (Speech by BarÈre, session of Brumaire 8, year II.) At this rate, there are one hundred and forty deputies on mission to the armies and in the departments.—Before the institution of the Committee of Public Safety, (April 7, 1793) there were one hundred and sixty representatives in the departments, sent there to hasten the levy of two hundred thousand men. (Moniteur, XVII., 99, speech by Cambon, July 11, 1793.) The Committee gradually recalled most of these representatives and, on the 16th July, only sixty-three were on mission.—(Ibid., XVII., 152, speech by Gossuin, July 16.)—On the 9th of NivÔse, the committee designated fifty-eight representatives to establish the revolutionary government in certain places and fixing the limits of their jurisdictions. (Archives Nationales, AF., II., 22.) Subsequently, several were recalled, and replaced by others.—The letters and orders of the representatives on mission are filed in the National Archives according to departments, in two series, one of which comprises missions previous to Thermidor 9, and the other missions after that date.]

3280 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, "Histoire du Terrorisme dans le department de la Vienne," p.4. "Paris, Brumaire 15, the sans-culotte Piorry, representative of the people to the sans-culottes composing the popular club of Poitiers."]

3281 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 116. (Letter of Laplanche, Orleans, September 10, 1793.—"Also procÈs-verbaux of the Orleans sections, September 7.) "I organized them, after selecting them from the popular club, into a revolutionary committee. They worked under my own eye, their bureau being in an adjoining chamber... I required sure, local information, which I could not have had without collaborators of the country.... The result is that I have arrested this night more than sixty aristocrats, strangers or 'suspects."—"De Martel, Études sur Fouche," 84. Letter of Chaumette, who posted FouchÉ concerning the Nevers Jacobins. "Surrounded by royalists, federalists and fanatics, representative FouchÉ had only 3 or 4 persecuted patriots to advise him."]

3282 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 88. Speech by Rousselin, Frimaire 9—Ibid., F.7, 4421. Speech and orders issued by Rousselin, Brumaire 25.—Cf.. Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes pendant la Revolution," vol. II. Missions of Gamier de Rousselin and BÔ.]

3283 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 145. (Order of Maignet, Avignon, Floreal 13, year II., and proclamation of FlorÉal 14.)—Ibid., AF., II., 111, Grenoble. Prairial 8, year II. Similar orders issued by Albitte and Laporte, for renewing all the authorities of Grenoble.—Ibid, AF., II., 135. Similar order of Ricord at Grasse, PluviÔse 28, and throughout the Var.—Ibid., AF., II., 36. Brumaire, year II., circular of the Committee of Public Safety to the representatives on mission in the departments: "Before quitting your post, you are to effect the most complete purification of the constituted authorities and public functionaries."]

3284 (return)
[ Decrees of Frimaire 6 and 14, year II.]

3285 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 22. Acts of the committee of Public Safety, NivÔse 9, year II.]

3286 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 37. Letter to the Committee on the War, signed by BarÈre and Billaud-Varennes, PluviÔse 23,, year II.]

3287 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 36. Letter of the Committee of Public Safety to Le Carpentier, on mission in l'Orne, Brumaire 19, year II. "The administrative bodies of AlenÇon, the district excepted, are wholly gangrened; all are Feuillants, or infected with a no less pernicious spirit.... For the choice of subjects, and the incarceration of individuals, you can refer to the sans-culottes: the most nervous are Symaroli and PrÉval.—At Montagne, the administration must be wholly removed, as well as the collector of the district, and the post-master;... purify the popular club, expel nobles and limbs of the law, those that have been turned out of office, priests, muscadins, etc.... Dissolve two companies, one the grenadiers and the other the infantry who are very muscadin and too fond of processions.... Re-form the staff and officers of the National Guard. To secure more prompt and surer execution of these measures of security you may refer to the present municipality, the Committee of Surveillance and the Cannoneers.]

3288 (return)
[ Ibid., AF.,II., 37. To Ricord, on mission at Marseilles, PluviÔse 7, year II, a strong and rude admonition: he is going soft, he has gone to live with Saint-MÊme, a suspect; he is too biased in favor of the Marseilles people who, during the siege "made sacrifices to procure subsistences;" he blamed their arrest, etc.—FlorÉal 13, year II., to Bouret on mission in the Manche and at Calvados. "The Committee are under the impression that you are constantly deceived by an insidious secretary who, by the bad information he has given you, has often led you to give favorable terms to the aristocracy, etc."—VentÔse 6, year II., to Guimberteau, on mission near the army on the coasts of Cherbourg: "The committee is astonished to find that the military commission established by you, undoubtedly for striking off the heads of conspirators, was the first to let them off. Are you not acquainted with the men who compose it? For what have you chosen them? If you do not know them, how does it happen that you have summoned them for such duties?"—Ibid., and VentÔse 23, order to Guimberteau to investigate the conduct of his secretary]

3289 (return)
[ See especially in the "Archives des Affaires ÉtrangÈres," vols. 324 to 334, the correspondence of secret agents sent into the interior.]

3290 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 37, to Fromcastel on mission in Indre-et-Loire, FlorÉal 13, year II. "The Committee sends you a letter from the people's club of Chinon, demanding the purging and organization of all the constituted authorities of this district. The committee requests you to proceed at once to carry out this important measure."]

3291 (return)
[ Words of Robespierre, session of the convention September 24, 1793.—On another representative, Merlin de Thionville, who likewise stood fire, Robespierre wrote as follows: "Merlin de Thionville, famous for surrendering Mayence, and more than suspected of having received his reward."]

3292 (return)
[ Guillon, II., 207.—"FouchÉ," by M. de Martel, 292.]

3293 (return)
[ Hamel, III., 395, and following pages.—Buchez et Roux, XXX., 435. (Session of the Jacobin club, NivÔse 12, year II. Speech of Collot d'Herbois.) "To-day I no longer recognize public opinion; had I reached Paris three days later, I should probably have been indicted."]

3294 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d'Auvergne," 438. (Unpublished memoir of Maignet.)]

3295 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 165, 191. (Evidence of witnesses on the trial of Carrier.)—Paris, II., 113, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon." "The prisons," says Le Bon, "overflowed at Saint-Pol. I was there and released two hundred persons. Well, in spite of my orders, several were put back by the committee of Surveillance, authorised by Lebas, a friend of DarthÉ. What could I do against DarthÉ supported by Saint-Just and Lebas? He would have denounced me."—Ibid., 128, apropos of a certain LefÈvre, "veteran of the Revolution," arrested and brought before the revolutionary tribunal by order of Lebon. "It was necessary to take the choice of condemning him, or of being denounced and persecuted myself, without saving him."—Beaulieu, "Essai," V., 233. "I am afraid and I cause fear was the principle of all the revolutionary atrocities."]

3296 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, "Histoire de la Constitution civile du ClergÉ," IV., 136. (Orders of PinÉt and Cavaignac, PluviÔse 22, and VentÔse 2.)—Moniteur, XXIV., 469. (Session of Prairial 30, year III., denunciation of representative Laplanche at the bar of the house, by Boismartin.) On the 24th of Brumaire, year II., Laplanche and General Seepher installed themselves at St. LÔ in the house of an old man of seventy, a M. Lemonnier then under arrest. "Scarcely had they entered the house when they demanded provisions of every kind, linen, clothes, furniture, jewelry, plate, vehicles and title-deeds—all disappeared." Whilst the inhabitants of St. LÔ were living on a few ounces of brown bread, "the best bread, the choicest wines, pillaged in the house of Lemonnier, were lavishly given in pans and kettles to General Seepher's horses, also to those of representative Laplanche." Lemonnier, set at liberty, could not return to his emptied dwelling then transformed into a storehouse. He lived at the inn, stripped of all his possessions, valued at sixty thousand livres, having saved from his effects only one silver table-service, which he had taken with him into prison.]

3297 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, 446. (Notes of M. Ignace de Barante.) Also 440. (Unpublished memoir of Maignet).]

3298 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 59. Extract from the minutes of the meetings of the People's club of Metz, and depositions made before the committee of Surveillance of the club, Floreal 12, year II., on the conduct of representative Duquesnoy, arrived at Metz the evening before at six o'clock.—There are thirty-two depositions, and among others those of M. Altmayer, Joly and ClÉdat. One of the witnesses states: "As to these matters, I regarded this citizen (Duquesnoy) as tipsy or drunk, or as a man beside himself."—This is customary with Duquesnoy.—Cf. Paris, "His. de Joseph Lebon," I., 273, 370.-"Archives des Affaires ÉtrangÈres," vol. 329. Letter of Gadolle, September 11, 1793. "I saw Duquesnoy, the deputy, dead drunk at Bergues, on Whit-Monday, at 11 o'clock in the evening."—"Un SÉjour en France, 1792 to 1796, p. 136. "His naturally savage temper is excited to madness by the abuse of strong drink. General de .....assures us that he saw him seize the mayor of Avesnes, a respectable old man, by the hair on his presenting him with a petition relating to the town, and throw him down with the air of a cannibal." "He and his brother were dealers in hops at retail, at Saint Pol. He made this brother a general."]

3299 (return)
[ Alexandrine des Echerolles, "Une famile noble sous la Terreur," 209. At Lyons, Marin, the commissioner, "a tall, powerful, robust man with stentorian lungs," opens his court with a volley of "republican oaths... ".. The crowd of supplicants melts away. One lady alone dared present her petition. "Who are you?" She gives her name. "What! You have the audacity to mention a traitor's name in this place?" Get away and, giving her a push, he put her outside the door with a kick.]

32100 (return)
[ Ibid. A mass of evidence proves, on the contrary, that people of every class gave their assistance, owing to which the fire was almost immediately extinguished.]

32101 (return)
[ Ibid. The popular club unanimously attests these facts, and despatches six delegates to enter a protest at the convention. Up to the 9th of Thermidor, no relief is granted, while the tax imposed by Duquesnoy is collected. On the 5th Fructidor, year II., the order of Duquesnoy is cancelled by the committee of Public Safety, but the money is not paid back.]

32102 (return)
[ Paris, I., 370. (Words of Duquesnoy to Lebon.)]

32103 (return)
[ Carnot, "MÉmoires," I., 414. (Letter of Duquesnoy to the central bureau of representatives at Arras.) The import of these untranslatable profanities being sufficiently clear I let them stand as in the original.-Tr.]

32104 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en France," 158, 171.—Manuscript journal of Mallet du Pan (January, 1795).—Cf. his letters to the convention, the jokes of jailors and sbirri, for instance.—(Moniteur, XVIII., 214, Brumaire I, year II.)—Lacretelle, "Dix AnnÉes d'Epreuves," 178. "He ordered that everybody should dance in his fief of Picardy. They danced even in prison. Whoever did not dance was "suspect." He insisted on a rigid observance of the fÊtes in honor of Reason, and that everybody should visit the temple of the Goddess each decadi, which was the cathedral (at Noyon). Ladies, bourgeoises, seamstresses, and cooks, were required to form what was called the chain of Equality. We dragoons were forced to be performers in this strange ballet."]

32105 (return)
[ De Martel, "FouchÉ," 418. (Orders of Albitte and Collot, NivÔse 13, year II.)]

32106 (return)
[ Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," 225. Letter of Vacheron, Frimaire 15, year II.) "Republiquain, it is absolutely necessary, immediately, that you have sent or brought into the house of the representatives, a lot of red wine, of which the consumption is greater than ever. People have a right to drink to the Republic when they have helped to preserve the commune you and yours live in. I hold you responsible for my demand." Signed, "le republiquain, Vacheron."]

32107 (return)
[ Ibid., 210. Deposition of Madame Edin, apropos of Quesnoy, a prostitute, aged twenty-six, Brumaire 12, year III.; and of Rose, another prostitute. Similar depositions by Benaben and Scotty.]

32108 (return)
[ Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," p.369. (Extracts from the unpublished memoirs of Mercier de Rocher.)—Ibid., 370. "Bourdon de l'Oise had lived with Tuncq at Chantonney, where they kept busy emptying bottles of fine wine. Bourdon is an excellent patriot, a man of sensibility, but, in his fits of intoxication, he gives himself up to impracticable views. "Let those rascally administrators," he says, "be arrested!" Then, going to the window,—he heard a runaway horse galloping in the street—"That's another anti-revolutionary! Let 'em all be arrested!"—Cf. "Souvenirs," by General PÉlleport, p.21. At Perpignan, he attended the fÊte of Reason. "The General in command of the post made an impudent speech, even to the most repulsive cynicisim. Some prostitutes, well known to this wretch, filled one of the tribunes; they waved their handkerchiefs and shouted "Vive la Raison!" After listening to similar harangues by representatives Soubrang and Michaud, PÉlleport, although half cured (of his wound) returns to camp: "I could not breathe freely in town, and did not think that I was safe until facing the enemy along with my comrades."]

32109 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires ÉtrangÈres, vol.332; correspondence of secret agents, October, 1793. "Citizen Cusset, representative of the people, shows no dignity in his mission; he drinks like a Lapithe, and when intoxicated commits the arbitrary acts of a vizier." For the style and orthography of Cusset, see one of his letters. (Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p 14.)—Berryat St. Prix, "La Justice RÉvolutionnaire," (2nd ed.) 339.]

32110 (return)
[ Ibid., 371. (According to "PiecÈs et Documents" published by M. Fajon.)—Moniteur, XXIV., 453. (Session of FlorÉal 24, year III.) Address of the commune of Saint-Jean du Gard.—XXI., 528. (Session of Fructidor 2, year III.) Address of the Popular club of NÎmes.]

32111 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 602. (Session of Prairial 13, year III.) Report of Durand Meillan: "This denunciation is only too well supported by documents. It is for the convention to say whether it will hear them read. I have to state beforehand that it can hear nothing more repulsive nor better authenticated."—De Martel, "FouchÉ, 246. (Report of the constituted authorities of la NiÈvre on the missions of Collot d'Herbois, Laplanche, FouchÉ and Pointe, Prairial 19, year III.) Laplanche, a former Benedictine, is the most foul-mouthed." In his speech to the people of Moulins-Engelbert, St. Pierre-le-Montier, and Nevers, Laplanche asked girls to surrender themselves and let modesty go. "Beget children," he exclaims, "the Republic needs them. continence is the virtue of fools." Bibliotheque Nationale, Lb. 41, No. 1802. (Denunciation, by the six sections of the Dijon commune to the convention, of Leonard Bourdon and Piochefer Bernard de Saintes, during their mission in CÔte-d'Or.) Details on the orgies of Bernard with the municipality, and on the drunkenness and debaucheries of Bourdon with the riff-raff~ of the country; authentic documents proving the robberies and assassinations committed by Bernard. He pillaged the house of M. Micault, and, in four hours, had this person arrested, tried and guillotined; he attended the execution himself, and that evening, in the dead man's house, danced and sang before his daughter with his acolytes.]

32112 (return)
[ "Souvenirs," by General PÉlleport, p.8. He, with his battalion, is inspected in the Place du Capitale, at Toulouse, by the representative on mission. "It seems as if I can still see that charlatan: He shook his ugly plumed head and dragged along his saber like a merry soldier, wishing to appear brave. It made me feel sad."]

32113 (return)
[ Fervel, "Campagnes des FranÇais dans les Pyrenees Orientals," I., 169. (October, 1793.)—Ibid., 201, 206.—Cf. 188. Plan of Fabre for seizing Roses and FiguiÈres, with eight thousand men, without provisions or transports. "Fortune is on the side of fools," he said. Naturally the scheme fails. Collioure is lost, and disasters accumulate. As an offset to this the worthy general Dagobert is removed. Commandant Delatre and chief-of-staff Ramel are guillotined. In the face of the impracticable orders of the representatives the commandant of artillery commits suicide. On the devotion of the officers and enthusiasm of the troops, Ibid., 105, 106, 130, 131, 162.]

32114 (return)
[ Sybel (Dosquet's translation, French:), II., 435; III., 132, 140. (For details and authorities, cf. the Memoirs of Marshal Soult.)]

32115 (return)
[ Gouvion St. Cyr, "MÉmoires sur les campagnes de 1792 À la paix de Campio-Formio," I., pp.91 to 139.—Ibid., 229. "The effect of this was to lead men who had any means to keep aloof from any sort of promotion."—Cf., ibid., II., 131 (November, 1794,) the same order of things still kept up. By order of the representatives the army encamps during the winter in sheds on the left bank of the Rhine, near Mayence, a useless proceeding and mere literary parade. "They would listen to no reason; a fine army and well-mounted artillery were to perish with cold and hunger, for no object whatever, in quarters that might have been avoided." The details are heart-rending. Never was military heroism so sacrificed to the folly of civilian commanders.]

32116 (return)
[ See Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., ch. I, for biographical details and traits of character.]

32117 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 13.—His mother became crazy and was put in an asylum. Her derangement, he says, was due to "her indignation at his oath of allegiance (to the Republic) and at his appointment to the curacy of Nouvelle-Vitasse."]

32118 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 123. Speech by Lebon in the church of Beaurains.]

32119 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 71, 72.—Cf. 85. "Citizen Chamonart, wine-dealer, standing at the entrance of his cellar, sees the representative pass, looks at him and does not salute him. Lebon steps up to him, arrests him, treats him as an agent of Pitt and Cobourg."...."They search him, take his pocket-book and lead him off to the Anglaises (a prison)."]

32120 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 84.]

32121 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXV., 201. (Session of Messidor 22, year III.) "When in the tribune (of the Convention) prison conspiracies were announced. ... my dreams were wholly of prison conspiracies."]

32122 (return)
[ Ibid., 211. (Explanations given by Lebon to the Convention.)—Paris, II., 350, 351. (Verdict of the jury.)]

32123 (return)
[ Paris, II., 85.]

32124 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 181. (Depositions of Monneron, a merchant.)]

32125 (return)
[ Ibid., 184. (Deposition of Chaux.)—Cf. 200. (Depositions of Monneron and Villemain, merchants.)]

32126 (return)
[ Ibid., 204. (Deposition of Lamarie, administrator of the department.)]

32127 (return)
[ Ibid., 173. (Deposition of Erard, a copyist.)—168. (Deposition of Thomas, health officer.) "To all his questions, Carrier replied in the grossest language."]

32128 (return)
[ Ibid., 203. (Deposition of Bonami, merchant.)]

32129 (return)
[ Ibid., 156. (Deposition of Vaujois, public prosecutor to the military commission.)]

32130 (return)
[ Ibid., 169. (Deposition of Thomas.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, pp. 34, 35..—Buchez et Roux, 118. "He received the members of the popular club with blows, also the municipal officers with saber thrusts, who came to demand supplies"...."He draws his saber (against the boatman) and strikes at him, which he avoids only by running away."]

32131 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 196. (Deposition of Julien.) "Carrier said to me in a passion: 'It is you, is it, you damned beggar, who presumes to denounce me to the Committee of Public Safety.... As it is sometimes necessary for the public interests to get rid of certain folks quickly, I won't take the trouble to send you to the guillotine, I'll be your executioner myself!"]

32132 (return)
[ Ibid., 175. (Deposition of Tronjolly.) 295. (Depositions of Jean Lavigne, a shopkeeper; of Arnandan, civil commissioner; also of Corneret, merchant.) 179. (Deposition of Villemain).—Berryat Saint-Prix, 34. "Carrier, says the gendarme Desquer, who carried his letters, was a roaring lion rather than an officer of the people." "He looked at once like a charlatan and a tiger," says another witness.]

32133 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXIV., 204. (Deposition of Lamarie.)]

32134 (return)
[ Ibid., 183. (Deposition of Caux.)]

32135 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, "MÉmoires," II., 6. (Memorial of Feb. I, 1794.) On AndrÉ Dumont, "Un SÉjour en France," 158, 171.—On Merlin de Thionville, Michelet, VI., 97.]

32136 (return)
[ De Martel, "FouchÉ" 100.]

32137 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II., 46.]

32138 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 413, 423. (Letter of Julien to Robespierre.)]

32139 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., III. An order issued by Bourbotte, Tours, Messidor 5, year II., "requiring the district administration to furnish him personally, as well as for the citizens attached to his commission, forty bottles of red wine and thirty of white wine, to be taken from the cellars of emigrÉs, or from those of persons condemned to death; and, besides this, fifty bottles of common wine other than white or red."—On the 2nd of Messidor, ale is drunk and there is a fresh order for fifty bottles of red wine, fifty of common wine, and two bottles of brandy.—De Martel, "FouchÉ," 419, 420.—Moniteur, XXIV., 604. (Session of Prairial 13, par III.) "DuguÉ reads the list of charges brought against MallarmÉ. He is accused.... of having put in requisition whatever pleased him for his table and for other wants, without paying for anything, not even for the post-horses and postillions that carried him."—Ibid. 602. Report of PerÈs du Gers. "He accuses Dartigoyte... of having taken part with his secretaries in the auction of the furniture of Daspe, who had been condemned; of having kept the most valuable pieces for himself, and afterwards fixing their price; of having warned those who had charge of the sale that confinement awaited whoever should bid on the articles he destined for himself."—Laplanche, ex-Benedictine, said in his mission in Loiret, that "those who did not like the Revolution must pay those who make it."]

32140 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 426. (Extract from the Memoirs of SÉnart.)—Hamel, III., 565. (Description of Teresa's domicile by the Marquis de Paroy, a petitioner and eye-witness.)]

32141 (return)
[ The reader might read about Tallien in the book written by ThÉrÈse Chatrles-Vallin: "Tallien," "Le mal-aimÉ de la RÉvolution", Ed. Jean Picollec, Paris 1997. (SR).]

32142 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 12. (Extract from the Memoirs of SÉnart.) "The certified copies of these drafts are on file with the committee of General Security."]

32143 (return)
[ Report of Courtois, 360. (Letters of Julien to Robespierre, PluviÔse 15 and 16, year II.)—Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 199, 200, 202, 203, 211. (Depositions of Villemain, Monneron, Legros, Robin.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, 35. (Depositions of Fourrier, and of Louise Courant, sempstress.)]

32144 (return)
[ See, on Tallien," MÉmoires de SÉnart."—On Javogues, Moniteur, XXIV., 461, Floreal 24, III. Petition against Javogues, with several pages of signatures, especially those of the inhabitants of Montbrison: "In the report made by him to the Convention he puts down coin and assignats at seven hundred and seventy-four thousand six hundred and ninety-six francs, while the spoils of one person provided him with five hundred thousand francs in cash."—On FouchÉ, De Martel, 252.—On Dumont, Mallet-Dupan, "Manuscript notes." (January, 1795.) On RovÈre, Michelet, VI., 256.—Carnot, II., 87. (According to the Memoirs of the German Olsner, who was in Paris under the Directory:) "The tone of Barras' Salon was that of a respectable gambling house; the house of Reubell resembled the waiting-room of an inn at which the mail-coach stops."]

32145 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 391, and XXXIII., 9. (Extracts from the Memoirs of SÉnart.)]

32146 (return)
[ Carnot, "MÉmoires," I. 416. Carnot, having shown to the Committee of Public Safety, proofs of the depredations committed on the army of the North, Saint-Just got angry and exclaimed: "It is only an enemy of the Republic that would accuse his colleagues of depredations, as if patriots hadn't a right to everything!"]

32147 (return)
[ As to Caligula see Suetonius and Philo.—With respect to Hakem, see "L'ExposÉ de la Religion des Druses," by M. de Sacy.]

32148 (return)
[ Saint-Just, speaking in the Convention, says: "What constitutes a republic is the utter destruction of whatever is opposed to it."]

32149 (return)
[ Orders issued by Saint-Just and Lebas for the departments of Pas-de-Calais, Nord, la Somme et l'Aisne.—Cf. "Histoire de l'Alsace," by Stroebel, and "Recueil de pieces authentiques pour servir À l'histoire de la RÉvolution À Strasbourg," 3 vols.-Archives Nationales AF., II., 135, orders issued Brumaire 10, year II., and list of the one hundred and ninety-three persons taxed.]

32150 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 32. (Saint-Just's reply to Mayor Monet.)—De Sybel, II., 447, 448. At the first interview Saint-Just said to Schneider: "Why use so much ceremony? You know the crimes of the aristocrats? In the twenty-four hours taken for one investigation you might have twenty-four condemned."]

32151 (return)
[ "Journal de marche du sergent Fricasse," p.34. (Narrative by Marshal Soult.)]

32152 (return)
[ Cf. in the Bible, the story of Ahasuerus who, out of respect for his own majesty, can-not retract the order he has issued against the Jews, but he turns the difficulty by allowing them to defend themselves.]

32153 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II., 47.]

32154 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Revolutionnaire," XVII.-Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels d'Auvergne," 269.—Moniteur, Brumaire 27, year III., report by CalÈs.]

32155 (return)
[ Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., 371; II., 341, 344.-De Martel, "FouchÉ," 153.—Berryat Saint-Prix, 347, 348.]

32156 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix, 390.—Ibid., 404. (On SoubriÉ, executioner at Marseilles, letter of Lazare Giraud, public prosecutor): "I put him in the dungeon for having shed tears on the scaffold, in executing the anti-revolutionists we sent to be executed."]

32157 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 413. (Session of the Convention, letter of Lequinio and Laignelot, Rochefort, Brumaire 17, year II.) "We have appointed the patriot Anse guilloteneur and we have invited him, in dining with us, to come and assume his prescribed powers, and water them with a libation in honor of the Republic."—Paris, II., 72.]

32158 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, 270. (Testimony of BardanÈche de Bayonne.)]

32159 (return)
[ Guil1on, "Histoire de la ville de Lyons pendant la Revolution," II., 427, 431, 433.]

32160 (return)
[ "MÉmoire du Citoyen FrÉron," (in the BarriÈre collection,) p.357. (Testimony of a survivor.)]

32161 (return)
[ Paris, II., 32]

32162 (return)
[ Delandine, "Tableaux des prisons de Lyons," p.14.]

32163 (return)
[ Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," 164. (Letter of Boniface, ex-Benedictine, president of the Revolutionary committee, to Representative Richard, Brumaire 3, year II.) "We send you the said Henri Verdier, called de la SauriniÈre.... It will not be long before you will see that we make the guillotine a present.... The Committee begs you to send him sacram sanctam guillotinam, and the republican minister of his worship... Not an hour of the day passes that new members do not come to us whom we desire to initiate in its mysteries, (sic)."]

32164 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, "Histoire du Terrorisme dans le dÉpartment de la Vienne," 34, 48.—Berryat Saint-Prix, 239.]

32165 (return)
[ Archives Nationales F.7, 4435. (Letter of Lebon, FlorÉal 23, year II.)—Paris, I. 241.]

32166 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 184, 200. (Depositions of Chaux, Monneron and Villemain.)]

32167 (return)
[ Register of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Nantes, copied by M. Chevrier. (M. Chevrier has kindly sent me his manuscript copy.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, 94.—Archives Nationales, F7. 4591. (Extract from the acts of the Legislative Committee, session of FlorÉal 3, year III. Restitution of the confiscated property of Alexander Long to his son.) Dartigoyte, at Auch, did what Carrier did at Nantes. "It follows from the above abstract duly signed that on the 27th Germinal, year II., between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, Alexandre Long, Sr., was put to death on the public square of the commune of Auch by the executioner of criminal sentences, without any judgment having been rendered against the said Long."—In many places an execution becomes a spectacle for the Jacobins of the town and a party of pleasure. For instance, at Arras, on the square devoted to executions, a gallery was erected for spectators with a room for the sale of refreshments, and, during the execution of M. de Montgon, the "Ça ira" is played on the bass drum. (Paris, II., 158, and I., 159.) A certain facetious representative has rehearsals of the performance in his own house. "Lejeune, to feed his bloodthirsty imagination, had a small guillotine put up, on which he cut off the heads of all the poultry consumed at his table.... Often, in the middle of the repast, he had it brought in and set to work for the amusement of his guests." (Moniteur, XXIV., 607, session of June 1, 1795, letter from the district of BesanÇon, and with the letter, the confirmatory document.) "This guillotine, says the reporter, is deposited with the Committee of Legislation."]