XIV. 1793. may now despise the efforts of calumny; we can say— CHAP. There is the answer of the patriot deputies; there is the work of the Mountain." Chabot answered-" In this constitution, so loudly praised, I see a power at once colossal and libertine. When you establish so powerful an executive, you sow anew the seeds of royalty. I am 1 Journ. des told that this power has no veto; but what does that Jacobins, signify? I am asked, what will be the guarantee of No. 431. liberty? I answer, the guillotine." 12 Juin, 16. of the Com Public Sal But there never was a greater mistake than to imagine, that this constitution, so republican in form, conferred Vast powers any real liberties on the people. Its only effect was to mittee of concentrate the whole authority of the state in the hands vation. of a few popular leaders. Thenceforward the Committee of Public Salvation at Paris exercised, without opposition, all the powers of government. It named and dismissed the generals, the judges, and the juries, appointed the provincial authorities, brought forward all public measures in the Convention, and launched its thunder against every opposing faction. By means of its commissioners it ruled the provinces, generals, and armies, with absolute sway; and soon after the Law of Suspected Persons placed the personal freedom of every subject at its disposal; the Revolutionary Tribunal rendered it the master of every life; the requisitions and the maximum, of every fortune; the accusations in the Convention, of every member of the legislature. The Law of the Suspected, which augmented so prodigiously this tremendous power of the Decemvirs, passed on the 17th September. Sept. 17. It declared all persons liable to arrest, who, " either by their conduct, their relations, their conversation, or their writing, have shown themselves the partisans of tyranny Lac. ii. 92. or of federation, or the enemies of freedom; all persons Hist. Parl. who have not discharged their debts to the country; all 112. Moninobles, the husbands, wives, parents, children, brothers, Sept. Lac. sisters, or agents of emigrants, who have not incessantly. 296, 297. manifested their devotion to the Revolution."2 Under this 2 Mig. ii. Th. v. 59, 296, 297. 93, 94, 95. teur, 18 ii. 92. Mig. CHAP. law, no person had any chance of safety, but in going the utmost length of revolutionary fury.* XIV. 1793. 17. of revolu tionary Committees over all France. The established revolutionary committees were declared Formation the judges of the persons liable to arrest. Their number augmented with frightful rapidity; Paris had soon fortyeight. Every village throughout the country followed its example in instituting them. The number of revolutionary committees, which sprang up in every part of the kingdom to carry into execution this terrible law, was almost incredible. Fifty thousand were soon in operation, from Calais to Bayonne. Five hundred thousand persons, drawn from the dregs of society, disposed in these committees of the lives and liberties of every man in France. With generous resolution, some men entered them with the design of arresting their oppression they were soon expelled to make way for more obedient ministers of the will of the dictators. Every member of these committees received three francs a-day, and their number was no less than 540,000. It may readily be conceived that, in a starving community thirsting for gold, the revolutionary committees were not long of being filled up, with such encouragement. According to the calculations of Cambon, the finance minister to the Convention, they cost the nation annually 591,000,000 2-4. Hist. of francs in assignats, or about £24,000,000 sterling.1 In the immense number of the most active, ambitious, and wicked of the people who were enlisted on the side of 1 Deux Amis, x. Parl. xxix. 47, 48. * This atrocious law, as explained by a decree of the municipality of Paris, which was circulated over all France, gave the following definition of suspected persons:-1. All those who, in the assemblies of the people, attest their enthusiasm by cries, menaces, or crafty discourses. 2. All those who more prudently speak only of the misfortunes of the Republic, and are always ready to spread bad news with an affected air of sorrow. 3. All those who have changed their conduct and language according to the course of events, who were mute on the crimes of the Royalists and Federalists, and loudly exclaim against the slight faults of the Republicans. 4. All those who bewail the situation of the farmers or avaricious merchants who have had their property taken from them by the forced requisitions. 5. Those who have the words "Liberty," "Country," and "Republic" in their mouths, who frequent the society of priests, gentlemen, Feuillants, Moderates, or Aristocrats, or take an interest in their sufferings. 6. Those who have not taken an active part in supporting the cause of the people, and excuse themselves for their lukewarmness by alleging their patriotic gifts, or services in the national guard. 7. Those who testified indifference XIV. the revolutionary government, and personally interested CHAP. in its preservation, is to be found the real secret of the firm establishment and long continuance of the Reign of Terror. 1793. 18. calculations ferior agents The calculations of these inferior agents of cruelty soon outstripped those of their masters. Marat had asserted that Atrocious 260,000 heads must fall before freedom was secure. The of these inrevolutionary committees discovered that 700,000 persons of the Revomust be sacrificed. The prisons were ere long crowded lution. with victims in every town in France. A more speedy mode of disposing of them was proposed than the massacre of 2d September. "Let them quake in their cells," said Collot d'Herbois in the Convention: "let the base traitors tremble at the successes of our enemies: let a mine be dug under the prisons, and at the approach of those whom they call liberators, let a spark blow them into the air." The retreat of the Allied armies rendered unnecessary the inhuman proposal at that moment ; and famine, pestilence, and the guillotine, soon made its renewal superfluous. Such was the rapidity of the executions, that it exceeded not only any thing ever witnessed, but any thing hitherto 1 Deux Amis, x. 2; xi. 45, 47. deemed possible. "In the name of equality," says the Th. v. 353. xxix. 47. 94. Châ Republican annalist, "they established a band of perma- Hist. Parl. nent assassins; in the name of liberty, they transformed Lac. ii. 93, our cities into bastilles; in the name of justice, they every teaub. Etud. where erected a tribunal to consummate murders ;1 in the 97, 98. name of humanity, they poured forth every where rivers on the proclamation of the Republican constitution, or have expressed vain fears as to its durability. 8. All those who, if they have done nothing against liberty, have done nothing for it. 9. All who do not attend regularly the meetings of their sections, and allege, as an excuse, that they do not like to speak in public, or that their time is occupied by their private affairs. 10. Those who speak with contempt of the constituted authorities, the insignia of the law, the popular societies, or the defenders of liberty. 11. Those who have signed any anti-revolutionary petitions, or frequented societies or clubs of the higher classes. 12. All who were partisans of Lafayette, or served under him in the execution of the Champ de Mars.-Under these ample clauses, every one was embraced who was obnoxious to the Revolutionists; and the number of prisoners in Paris alone was raised in a few days from three hundred to three thousand, embracing all that remained of the elegance of the Faubourg St Germaine.-Hist. Parl. xxix. 108-112. Hist. Préf. XIV. CHAP. of blood. Robbery was unpunished, spoliation decreed, divorce encouraged, prostitution pensioned, irreligion 1793. lauded, falsehood rewarded, tears interdicted. An eye 19. This power was every on the port of the multitude. wet with pity led to the scaffold. Infancy, old age, grace, beauty, genius, worth, were alike conducted to the guillotine. A general torpor paralysed France: the fear of death froze every heart; its name was inscribed on every door." This terrible power was every where based upon the co-operation of the multitude. That formidable body where based generally aided in extending the Reign of Terror in the clubs, by incessant denunciations of the opulent or respectable classes; in the committees, by multiplying the number of vindictive committals. They supported the sword of the Decemvirs, because it fell upon the class above themselves, and opened to the indigent the wealth and the employments of the better ranks in the state because it flattered them by the possession of power which they were wholly disqualified to exercise, and ruined the higher ranks, whom they had been taught to regard as their natural enemies. These revolutionary measures were executed over the whole extent of France with the last severity. Conceived by the most ardent minds, they were violent in principle; carried into effect far from the leaders who framed them, they were rendered still more oppressive by the brutal character of the agents to whom their execution was intrusted. Part of the citizens were compelled to quit their homes; others were immured in dungeons as suspected; the barn-yards of the farmers, the warehouses of the merchants, the shops of the tradesmen, were forcibly emptied for the use of the armies or the government, and nothing but an elusory paper was given in exchange. The forced loans were exacted with the utmost rigour. To one the commissioners said, “You are worth 10,000 livres a-year;" to another, "You have 20,000 ;" and, to save their heads from the guillotine, they were happy to surrender their property to these XIV. 1793. demands. No better picture can be desired of the tyranny CHAP. of these despotic commissioners than is furnished by the report of one of their number to the Convention. "Every where," said Laplanche, who had been sent to the department of Cher, "I have made terror the order of the day; every where I have imposed heavy contributions on the rich and the aristocrats. From Orleans I have extracted fifty thousand francs; and in two days, at Bourges, I raised two millions: where I could not appear in person, my delegates have amply supplied my place. I have dismissed all federalists, imprisoned all the suspected, put all the Sans-culottes in authority. I have forcibly married all the priests, every where electrified the hearts and inflamed the courage of the people. I have passed in review numerous battalions of the national guard, to confirm their republican spirit, and guillotined numbers of Royalists. In a word, I have completely fulfilled my imperial man- tur, 29 date, and acted every where as a warm partisan of the Sept. Th. v. Mountain, and faithful representative of the Revolution." Mig. ii. 297. The Convention approved of his proceedings. 1 Journ.de la No. 140, p. Montagne, 1020. Moni 353, 354. established; abolished; volutionary and decree lish com To obliterate as far as possible all former recollections, a 20. new era was established. They changed the divisions of the New era year, the names of the months and weeks. The ancient and Sunday venerable institution of Sunday was abolished; the period new division of rest fixed at every tenth day; time was measured by of the Redivisions of ten days; and the year was divided into twelve Tribunal; equal months, beginning on the 22d September. These against Engchanges were preparatory to a general abolition of the merce. Christian religion, and substitution of the worship of Sept. 12. Reason in its stead. About the same time, Mr Pitt was, by a decree of the Convention, declared an "enemy of the human race." In the same sitting, it was ordered that all the castles and chateaus in the interior should be demolished. The splendid pile of Versailles narrowly escaped destruction; as it was, the whole magnificent furniture it contained, the accumulation of centuries, was broken up and sold, and the royal apartments were converted into barracks |