and the impotent, as well as those who had been mutilated in the public service, and their widows and children.— "Fas est et ab hoste doceri." The true principles of the management of the poor are to be found in the report of the Committee of Public Salvation, and regular governments will never act so wisely for their own as well as their people's interest, as when they take this leaf out of the book of their enemies.* 38. Robespierre, shortly before his fall, thus summed up the principles of his administration: "I have spoken of the virtue of the people; but that virtue, demonstrated by the whole Revolution, would not alone suffice to defend us against the factions who never cease to corrupt and tear asunder the Republic. Why is that? Because there are two wholly different people in France-the mass of the citizens, pure, simple, loving justice, and friendly to liberty; that mass which has conquered its enemies within, and shaken the throne of tyrants: the other is an aggregation of rascals and intriguers, of aristocrats and charlatans, who would convert power and instruction to no other purpose but their own aggrandisement. As long as that impure race exists, the condition of the Republic will be unhappy and precarious. Let them reign for a day, and the country graceful to a republic, incompatible | of temporary destitution; and for the with a popular government. The permanent support of widows, the aged, shameful word beggar should be unknown in a republican dictionary, and the picture of mendicity on the earth has hitherto been nothing but that of constant conspiracies of the class of proprietors against that of non-proprietors. Let us leave to insolent despotism the construction of hospitals, to bury the unfortunates whom it has created, or to support for a moment the slaves whom it could not devour. That horrible generosity of the despot aids him in deceiving the people. Despotism has favoured the mendicants, only because they were base and suppliant. But what has it done for the general wide-spread indigence of the country? What for tottering age or helpless infancy? What for the bereaved widow or the weeping orphan? Nothing; because they were independent, and would rather perish than fall at its feet. The true principles of beneficence are to succour, in their own homes, infancy and youth, where it is destitute; manhood, where it is sick or without employment; old age, where it is impotent or infirm." In pursuance of these just and enlightened principles, a great variety of regulations were brought forward and decreed for the relief, in their own homes -not in hospitals or by money charity -of orphan and destitute children, and their education; for the succour of middle-aged men and women in a state *The provisions of this law, evidently drawn up by Robespierre, and agreed to by the Committee of Public Salvation and the Convention, are very remarkable, and may serve as a model for many governments, which in other respects with justice decry their proceedings. Its details are far too minute for a work of general history, but the principles on which they were founded were these-1. That the succour of the destitute, the orphans, and the impotent, is a duty of the state, and should be discharged by the public functionaries, and from the state funds. 2. That the distribution of relief should be made by a public officer, to be appointed for that purpose in each of the departments of the Republic. 3. That in each department there shall be opened a register, to be entitled "Book of National Beneficence," in which shall be a title, 1st, For infirm or aged cultivators; 2d, For infirm or aged artisans ; 3d, For mothers and widows. For these classes it was calculated that there would be required in all the departments For the first, in their own FRANCS. £ 7,144,000 or 285,760 a-year. 2,040,000.. 81,600 3,060,000.. 122,400 160,000.. 6,400 12,404,000.. 496,160 The sum allotted to each pauper receiving public aid was to be ten sous (4d.) a-day for each adult, and six sous (24d.) a-day for each child under ten years of age. The whole relief was to be given in the houses of the poor; and it was calculated that, in the first instance, the number of families in health receiving succour would be 106,000, or 425,000 individuals, and the sick 21,000. There can be no doubt that these numbers were below what would have been required; but these enactments contain the principles of all right legislation on the subject.-See Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution, xxxiii. 37, 68. is lost. It is for you to deliver your- | francs, or £235,920,000. So immense a mass of paper, amounting at the very lowest estimate to three times the whole present circulation of either France or England, taking both specie and banknotes into view, of course could not exist in circulation without producing a depreciation in its value to a ruinous extent, the more especially as the whole transactions between man and man in the country were at a stand, in conse law of the maximum; and foreign commerce, equally with domestic expenditure, was annihilated. But as the assignats bore a forced circulation, and the refusal to take them at par would probably lead to a denunciation at the nearest revolutionary committee, there was no alternative but to shun the pestilence as much as possible, and avoid either selling anything, or engaging in any transaction whatever in which money was employed. But creditors could not do this, and fraudulent debtors gladly bought up assignats, and forced a discharge of their debts for a fiftieth or hundredth part of their real value. selves from them by imposing energy and unchangeable concert. In saying these words, I am perhaps sharpening poniards against myself, and it is for that very reason that I pronounce them. You will persevere in your principles and your triumphant march; you will stifle crime and save your country. I have lived enough. I have seen the French people start from the depth of servitude and debasement to the sum-quence of the blasting operation of the mit of glory and of republican virtue. I have seen their fetters broken, and the guilty thrones which oppressed the earth shaken by their triumphant arms. I have seen-more marvellous still-a prodigy which the corruptions of the monarchy, and the inexperience of the first periods of the Revolution, could hardly have permitted us to hope-an assembly invested with the power of the French nation, marching with a firm and rapid step towards the completion of the public happiness-devoted to the people, and to the triumph of equality, worthy of giving to the world the signal of liberty and the example of every virtue. Complete, then, citizens, your sublime work! You have placed yourselves in the front rank, to sustain the first assault of the enemies of humanity. We will deserve that honour, and we will trace with our blood the path to immortality. May you ever display that unalterable energy, which is required to enable you to resist the monsters of the universe combined against you, and enjoy in peace the fruits of your virtues, and the blessings of the people!" 40. While the assignats were thus sweeping away the whole capital of the state, the march of the Revolution was equally devastating and relentless in the destruction of human life. The proceedings of the Revolutionary Tribunal, after the law of 22d Prairial had passed, were so brief as hardly to deserve the name of a trial; while the columns of the Moniteur of the following day exhibited fatal proof, that to be arraigned before that tribunal, and sent to the guillotine, were in general the same thing.* Bands of thirty, forty, and 39. But in the midst of these warm anticipations and eloquent declamations, the finances of the Republic were daily pidity came out subsequently on the trial of * A curious proof of this extraordinary rafalling into a more deplorable condition, Fouquier Tinville. Wolf, one of the clerks of and its prodigious expenditure, exter- the Revolutionary Tribunal, being asked how nal and internal, was sustained only by it happened that some persons had been executed whose sentences had not even been a ceaseless and constantly increasing signed, gave the following answer: "No issue of assignats. By a report of Cam- criminal could be executed without a certifibon, the minister of finance, on 16th cate of the sentence from the principal clerk of court, and the clerk, for his own safety, May 1794, it appeared that the assignats would not give the certificate till he had the which had been created up to that pe- sentence signed by the judge. But the time riod amounted to the enormous sum being too short for copying out these judgof 8,778,000,000 francs (£351,120,000 ments the same day, the clerk obtained the sterling); of which number there still fill up each day at his leisure, and in the judge's signature to a form, which he could remained in circulation 5,898,000,000 | mean time he ran no risk in giving the requi The following were the numbers daily the Reign of Terror :executed in Paris during the latter period of 17 Prairial or 5 June 1794 19 20 21 22 25 6 Exe cuted 27 fifty persons, were successively brought | victims understood, that no tears were up, often two sets in a day, composed shed, nor did mournful visages appear of men and women, old, middle-aged, even in the streets when the melancholy and young, generally wholly unconnect- procession proceeded along, conveying ed with each other, and who never knew them to the scaffold; and if a dead body of each other's existence till they heard was seen on the wayside, the traveller, each other's names in one accusation. as in the days recorded by Tacitus, Royalists, Dantonists, Anarchists, and averted his eyes lest he should be seen Constitutionalists, were all huddled to- to shudder, and denounced at the Jagether in one indictment, under a charge cobin Committee as a counter-revoluof "conspiracy against the Republic;" tionist.† and that fatal word was sufficient to warrant proceeding for life and death against a crowd of men and women, total strangers to each other, but who had all, from some ground or other, awakened the jealousy of the Decemvirs. 18 The slightest symptom of disapprobation at the existing régime-a word, a look, a gesture, a sigh, a tear, were sufficient, if deponed to by the most in- 23 famous witness, to secure an immediate 24 condemnation; and upon a charge of 26 conspiracy with others whose principles and connexions were diametrically opposed to theirs, thus included with them in the same doom. In this way crowds of Royalists and Anarchists were sent to the scaffold together, because the one had been connected with those who blamed the Revolution for going too far, the other for not going far enough. Even a declaration by women that they were pregnant often failed in procuring so much as a temporary suspension of 13 their fate.* A deplorable equality was observed between the number of per- 16 sons indicted one day before the Revo- 17 lutionary Tribunal, and that which appeared next day in the columns of the Moniteur as having perished on the 22 scaffold; and so generally was the dan- 23 ger of expressing sympathy with the 24 site certificate. But in this instance, where 27 the sentence produced is still blank, Legris, 28 the clerk who wrote it, was himself arrested 29 at five o'clock next morning, and executed at four o'clock in the afternoon.". - Procès de FOUQUIER TINVILLE, Bull. du Trib. Rév. No. 22. 27 28 29 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 Messidor 19 37 10 11 12 13 20 21 26 27 -Robespierre's fall 28-With Robespierre 29-Robespierre's party 73 de WOLF; Procès de FOUQUIER TINVILLE, -Compiled from the Moniteur of the above No. 22. dates, a few days after each. |