sions of the multitude which in all ages and countries CHAP. produces such effects. VIII. 37. duct of the During these terrific scenes, the National Assembly, 1792. however anxious to arrest the disorders, did nothing; the Feeble conministry were equally impotent: the terrible municipality Assembly. ruled triumphant. At the worst period of the massacres, the legislature was engaged in discussing a decree for the punishment of persons guilty of coining bad money. Two municipal officers intimated, upon the 2d of September, that the people were crowding round the gates of the prisons, and praying for instructions; but they did nothing. Even the announcement by Fauchet, that two hundred priests had been massacred in the prison of Carmes, led to no measure being adopted. When the slaughter of the priests at that place of confinement could no longer be concealed, they sent a deputation to endeavour to save the victims; but they only succeeded in rescuing one. On the following day the commissioners of the magistracy appeared at the bar of the Assembly, and assured the deputies that Paris was in the most complete tranquillity, though the murders continued for four days afterwards. The national guard, divided in opinion, hesitated to act; and Santerre, their new commander, refused to call them out. Roland alone had the courage, at the bar of the Assembly, to exert his talents in the cause of humanity. A few days afterwards, the eloquence of Vergniaud roused Sept. 7. the legislature from their stupor; and he had the resolution to propose, and the influence to carry, a decree, rendering 1 Hist. Parl. the members of the municipality responsible with their 351, 430. heads for the safety of their prisoners. But it was too Lac. i. 295, late; the prisoners were all killed. This tardy act of de France, vigour only rendered the more inexcusable their former Mig. ii. 205. Th. ii. 76, treason to the King, and supineness in their duty to the people.1 The small number of those who perpetrated these murders in the French capital, under the eyes of the legislature, is one of the most instructive facts in the history of 1 296. Hist. ix. 369. 77, 79. VIII. 1792. 38. Small num sons who all these murders, and ineffi national guard. CHAP. revolutions. Marat had long before said, that with two hundred assassins at a louis a-day, he would govern France, and cause three hundred thousand heads to fall; and the events of the 2d September seemed to justify the ber of per- opinion. The number of those actually engaged in the perpetrated massacres did not exceed three hundred, and twice as many more witnessed and encouraged their proceedings ciency of the at each jail; yet this handful of men governed Paris and France, with a despotism which three hundred thousand armed warriors afterwards strove in vain to effect. The immense majority of the well-disposed citizens, divided in opinion, irresolute in conduct, and dispersed in different quarters, were incapable of arresting a band of assassins engaged in the most atrocious cruelties of which modern Europe has yet afforded an example, an important warning to the strenuous and the good in every succeeding age, to combine for defence the moment that the aspiring and the desperate have begun to agitate the public mind; and never to trust that mere smallness of numbers can be relied on for preventing reckless ambition from destroying irresolute virtue. It is not less worthy of observation, that these atrocious massacres took place in the heart of a city where above fifty thousand men were enrolled in the national guard, and had arms in their hands; a force specially destined to prevent insurrectionary movements, and support under all changes the majesty of the law. They were so divided in opinion, and the Revolutionists composed so large a part of their number, that nothing whatever was done by them, either on the 10th August, when the King was dethroned, or on the 2d September, when the prisoners were massacred. This puts in a forcible point of view the weakness of such a body, which, being composed of citizens, is distracted by their feelings and actuated by their passions. In ordinary times it may exhibit an imposing array, and be adequate to the repression of smaller disorders;1 but it is paralysed by the events which throw society into convulsion, and 1 Barbar. 57. Louvet, Rév. Mém. xlvi. 73. generally fails at the decisive moment when its aid is CHAP. most required. VIII. 1792. 39. cular of the and mas at Ver coming from The municipality of Paris wrote an infernal circular to the magistrates of the other cities of France, inviting them Infernal cirto imitate the massacres of the capital.* The advice municipawas not generally followed; but the combined influence lity of Paris, of this circular, and of the universal excitement produced sailles of the by the overthrow of the throne, occasioned in some places prisoners tragedies more frightful than had yet stained the progress Orleans. of the Revolution. On the 30th of August, the magistrates of Paris presented a petition to the Assembly, praying for the transference of the state prisoners in jail at Orleans, with a view to their trial before the high court there, to the capital. This petition, evidently intended, as it afterwards appeared, to bring them within the sphere of the massacres, was ultimately agreed to, and a part of the armed force of Paris, with seven pieces of cannon, was despatched under a vehement Jacobin, named Fournier, to Orleans, where he met with Leonard Bourdon, the commissioner of the Assembly. They immediately entered the prison. On arriving there, they plundered the captives of the whole little property which they still had on their persons, and on the 2d September these unfortunates set out, under the guard of the armed force sent from Paris, for the capital. When they arrived at Versailles, the vast accumulation of people in the streets, and * The circular sent on this occasion to the other municipalities of France by that of Paris, is one of the most curious monuments of the Revolution. It concluded with these words,-" Being informed that hordes of barbarians are advancing against this city, the municipality of Paris loses no time in informing its brethren in all the other departments, that part of the conspirators confined in the prisons have been put to death by the people; an act of justice which appeared indispensable to retain in due subjection the legions of traitors within its walls, at the moment when the principal forces in the city were about to march against the enemy. Without doubt the nation at large, after the long series of treasons which have brought it to the edge of the abyss, will adopt the same means, at once so useful and so necessary, and all the French will be able to say, like the people of Paris, 'We march against the enemy, and we leave none behind us to massacre our wives and children.' (Signed) Duplain, Panis, Sergent, Lenfant, Marat, Léfort, Jordeuil, administrators of the Committee of Surveillance established at the Hotel de Ville. Paris, 3d Sept. 1792."-See Histoire Parlementaire, xvii. 433. VIII. CHAP. the hollow murmur amongst the crowd, announced to the wretched captives that some horrid scheme was in con1792. templation, which was speedily put in execution. The carriages of the prisoners were stopped in the Rue de l'Orangerie, the troops and guns drawn up in battle array, and the mob then fell on the victims. Several, among whom was the Duke de Brissac, formerly governor of Paris, long defended themselves vigorously, but they were all at last destroyed, to the number of fifty-seven. De Lessart, formerly minister of the interior, perished here. At the same time, the philanthropic and enlightened Larochefoucauld, who had entirely retired from political life, was dragged out of his carriage near Gisors, and murdered in the arms of his wife and mother. Not content with this butchery, the assassins next broke into the prisons at Versailles, and murdered twenty-one prisoners confined there. The whole victims were torn in pieces, and their remains affixed on the tops of the rails of the Orangery. 321. Prud To their eternal disgrace, the national guard of Versailles 184. Lac. i. took a part in these massacres; and Danton, minister of Deux Amis, justice, refused to interfere when informed of the preparation for them, saying " The people were resolved on vengeance, and must have it.1" 1 Bert. de Moll.ix.316, hom.iv.170, 296, 298. viii. 336, 337. 40. Meaux and A similar massacre, provoked and headed by the comMassacres at missioners of the Paris municipality, took place at Meaux Lyons. on 5th September. They proceeded with a furious band to the prison of the town, broke it open, and dragged out fourteen captives, including eight aged ecclesiastics, who were all hewn in pieces in the court of the building. At Lyons, on the 9th, a similar mob, stimulated in the same way, attacked the prisons, and the magistrates, to save the prisoners, ordered them to be removed to Roanne ; but the escort was overpowered, and they were all murdered on the road, except one who perished in the river, into which he had thrown himself in an agony of terror. The band of assassins went on to the prison of Roanne, which they also broke open, and there they murdered VIII. 1792. seven persons. Among them was the Abbé Lanoix, curé CHAP. of the parish of St Nizier, a man of a mild and benevolent character, who was cut into pieces, which were brought back by the assassins to Lyons, and suspended in triumph to the trees in the Place Bellecour. No attempt was made by the national guard, or any of the authorities, to prevent or punish these disorders. Elected by the people, they were as impotent to restrain their excesses as the satraps of an eastern despot are to coerce his acts of vengeance.1 1 Prudhom. 184, 189. iv. 165, 170, barbarities But all these horrors, dark as they are, sink into insig- 41. nificance compared with the frightful barbarities which Frightful took place at Rheims on the 2d and 3d September. On at Rheims. the first of these days M. Guerin, postmaster, and his deputy, were beheaded by the mob, and their bloody limbs distributed among the people; while the Abbé de Lescar, and eleven other curés in the environs, who had refused to take the oath to the constitution, were massacred with refined cruelty, and their mangled limbs carried about in triumph. But their fate was merciful compared with that which overtook their brethren on the following day. The mob loudly declared that they would burn alive the priests who did not take the oath; and for this purpose they erected a huge pile of fagots in the principal square of the town, in the construction of which they obliged all the citizens to assist. Next day two priests, the Abbé Romain and the Abbé Alexandre, dean of the cathedral, were brought to the edge of the pile, and desired to take the oath. Both refused, with the constancy of ancient martyrs. Upon this Romain was thrown alive into the flames, and burned to death, his cries being 189, 195. drowned by shouts of " Vive la Nation !"2 2 Prudhom. Crimes de la Rév. iv. 42. The Abbé Alexandre, overwhelmed with the horrors of the spectacle, now declared he would take the oath; they Burning of nevertheless threw him into the fire, and actually sent for his nephew, Heyberger, who lived with him, whom they compelled to bring fagots to feed the flames. The unhappy others there. |