XIV. 1793. May 29. CHAP. observed, into the hands of the Jacobins, who were supported by the parent club at Paris and the Executive; while the armed sections were attached to the opposite views. The catastrophe of the Girondists at Paris brought these conflicting powers almost every where into collision. At Evreux, the Jacobin authorities were put under arrest, and an armed force of four thousand men was organised; at Marseilles, the sections rose against the municipality, and violently seized possession of the magistracy; at Lyons, a furious combat took place the sections took the Hôtel de Ville by assault, dispossessed the magistracy, shut up the Jacobin Club, and gained the command of the city. At Bordeaux, the arrest of the Girondists, of whose talents the inhabitants were justly proud, excited the most violent sensation, which was brought to a crisis by the arrival of several of the fugitive deputies, who announced that their illustrious brethren were in fetters, and in hourly expectation of death. Cries of fury were immediately heard in all the streets; a general feeling of indignation and of despair impelled the citizens to their several rallying-points. The armed sections were quickly in motion, and the municipal authorities, elected during xxviii. 147, the first fervour of the Revolution, wrote to the executive council at Paris that they were deprived of all power, and unable to say what events a day might bring forth.1 June 5. 1 Hist. Parl. 149. Th. v. 8, 10, 11. 11. mencement of an insur rection. June 13. On the 13th June the department of Eure gave the And com- signal of insurrection. The plan agreed on was, that four thousand men should march upon Paris to liberate the Convention. Great part of Normandy soon followed the example, and all the departments of Brittany were ere long in arms. The whole valley of the Loire, with the exception of that which was the theatre of the war of la Vendée, proposed to send deputies to Bourges to depose the usurping faction at Paris. At Bordeaux, the sensation was extreme. All the constituted authorities assembled together; erected themselves into a committee styled of Public Salvation; declared that the Conven XIV. 1793. tion was no longer free; appointed an armed force, and CHAP. despatched couriers into all the neighbouring departments. Marseilles sent forth a determined petition; the whole mountaineers of the Jura were in a ferment; and the departments of the Rhone, the Garonne, and the Pyrenees, joined themselves to the vast confederacy. So far did the spirit of revolt proceed, that at Lyons, as already detailed, a prosecution was instituted against Chalier and the leaders of the Jacobin Club, whose projects for a repetition of the massacres of September at Paris had now been fully brought to light; and deputies, to concert measures for their common safety, were received from Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Caen. Seventy departments xxviii, 148, were in a state of insurrection; and fifteen only remained Amis,x.324, wholly devoted to the faction which had mastered the 13, 14. Convention.1 1 Hist. Parl. 151. Deux 326. Th. v. measures of at Paris to danger. Opinions were divided at Paris how to meet so formi- 12. dable a danger. Barère proposed, in the name of the Energetic Committee of Public Salvation, that the revolutionary the Jacobins committees, which had become so formidable throughout meet the France, from their numerous arrests, should be every Jango. where annulled; that the primary assemblies should be assembled at Paris to name a commander of the armed force, in lieu of Henriot, who had been denounced by the insurgents; and that thirty deputies should be sent as hostages to the provinces. But the Jacobins were not disposed to any measures of conciliation. Robespierre adjourned the consideration of the report of the committee; and Danton, raising the voice so well known in all the perils of the Revolution, exclaimed-" The Revolution has passed through many crises, and it will survive this as it has done the others. It is in the moments of a great production that political, like physical bodies, seem menaced by an approaching destruction. The thunder rolls, but it is in the midst of its roar that the great work which is to consummate the happiness of twenty-five millions of men will be accomplished. Recol VOL. III. K XIV. 1793. CHAP. lect what happened at the time of the conspiracy of Lafayette. In what state were we then? The patriots proscribed or oppressed; civil war threatening every where. Now we are in the same situation. It is said the insurrection in Paris has occasioned disturbances in the departments! Let us declare in the face of the universe, that Paris glories in the revolt of 31st May, and that, without the cannon of that day, the conspirators would have triumphed, and we should have been slaves!" In this spirit the Convention, instead of yielding, adopted the most vigorous measures, and spoke in the most menacing strain. They declared that Paris, in placing itself in a state of insurrection, had deserved well of the country; that the arrested deputies should forthwith be lodged in prison like ordinary criminals; that a call of the Convention should be made, and all those absent without excuse be instantly expelled, and their place supplied by new representatives; that all attempts at correspondence or coalition among the departmental authorities were illegal, and that those who presided in them should forthwith be sent to Paris. They annulled the resolution of the department of the Eure, ordered all the refractory xxviii. 200, authorities to be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and teur, 11 Juin. sent the most ardent Jacobins into the provinces to enforce submission to the central government.1 1 Hist. Parl. 201. Moni 13. These vigorous measures effectually broke this formiThe Giron- dable league. The departments, little accustomed to resist bination is the authority of the government at Paris, returned one by dissolved. one to submission. Hostile preparations were made at dist com Bordeaux, Lyons, Rouen, and Marseilles; but the insurgents, without a leader or central point of union, and destitute of all support from the nobility and natural chiefs of the country, were unable in most places to struggle with the energetic Committee of Public Salvation, wielding at will the army, the Jacobin clubs, and the municipalities. France now felt the fatal consequences of the centralisation of all power in Paris by the Constituent Assembly, 1 XIV. 1793. 18, 27, 61, Th. v. 10, 75. Deux 326, 327. xxviii. 352. Amis, x. Hist. Parl. 14. Great effect of the Fede puted to the of the democratic election of all the provincial authorities CHAP. by universal suffrage, and of the general desertion of their country by the emigrant noblesse. These causes had utterly prostrated the strength of the provinces, and already every where established in absolute force the despotism of the capital. They continued their preparations, however, and refused to send the proscribed authorities to Paris; but their ardour gradually cooled, and in two months the germ of revolt existed only in vigour at Lyons, Toulon, and Marseilles, where it brought about those bloody catastrophes which have been already recorded.1 The great engine which the Jacobins made use of to inflame the popular passions against their opponents, and counteract the general burst of indignation which followed ralism imin the departments the proscription of the Girondists, Girondists. was the charging them with the project of destroying the unity of the Republic, and establishing, instead of one mighty state, a federal union of small republics. That this project was entertained by many of the Girondists, is certain; nor indeed could they well avoid anxiously wishing for the establishment of such a system, considering the incalculable evils which they saw coming on their country and themselves, by the centralisation of all power in the hands of a violent and sanguinary faction. at Paris, and the apparent prosperity and happiness which, under the federal system, the United States were enjoying. But the Jacobins, by incessantly representing that design as amounting, as in fact it did, to a partition of France, and as rendering it wholly unable to resist the attacks of the European monarchies, succeeded in generally rousing the national spirit against the fallen party, and cooling the ardour of those in the departments who had taken up arms in their defence. On the other hand, the leading principle of the Jacobins, which in a great degree produced their popularity in Paris, was the constant determination they evinced and acted on, to centralise every thing in the capital, and render it all in XIV. 1793. Lyons, No. Hist. Parl. and xxviii. Deux Amis, CHAP. all over France. Meanwhile the reaction at Lyons, where, during the first burst of public indignation at the arrest of the Girondists, the federal party had gained an entire ascendency, became terrible. The Revolutionary Tribunal, established by the Jacobins for the destruction of their enemies, now seized by another party, was worked with fearful efficacy against themselves. Numerous arrests took place; and in July alone, eighty-three persons were ordered to be brought to trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal at Lyons; and though one only of these, Journ. de Chalier, suffered death, yet it was attended with circum100 and 109. stances of a very shocking kind. Though his crimes xxiv. 388; richly deserved that punishment, yet was his execution 353, 354. peculiarly horrible. Four times the guillotine (as yet a novel x. 327, 329. instrument in that region) missed its blow, and his head was at length severed from his body by means of a knife.1 The Convention shortly after, now wholly under the Formation power of the Jacobins, proceeded to the formation of a constitution, the most democratic that ever existed upon earth. Eight days completed the work. Every Frenchman of twenty-one years of age was entitled to exercise the rights of a citizen; a deputy was named by every fifty thousand citizens. On the 1st of May of every year, the primary assemblies were to meet, without any convocation, to renew the deputies. It was adopted without discussion, and instantly circulated over all France. "The most democratic constitution that ever existed," said Robespierre in the Jacobins, has issued from the bosom of an assembly composed of counter-revolutionists, now purged of its unworthy members. We can now offer to the universe a constitutional code, infinitely superior to any that ever existed, which exhibits the sublime and majestic image of French regeneration. We 15. of a new constitu tion. June 10. 66 Développer l'idée que Paris n'est que le quartier-général de la République, le centre du gouvernement, une armée sans cesse existante: qu'elle n'existe, qu'elle ne vit, que par les revenus qu'elle fait dans les départemens." -Notes de PAYAN, agent de ROBESPIERRE. Papiers Inédits trouvés chez ROBESPIERRE, ii. 388. |