of la 1 XIV. 1793. Rapport Aug. 15. par Cambon, Th. viii. 103, Hist. Parl. xxxi. 445. 56. deprecia hundred francs, or £8 sterling in gold or silver-a smaller CHAP. sum than the pay of an English lieutenant; and Hoche, the commander of a hundred thousand men, the army Vendée, besought the government to send him a horse, as he was unable to purchase one, and the military requisitions had exhausted all those in the country where he commanded. If such was the condition of the superior, it may be imagined what was the situation of the inferior officers and private soldiers. While in their own country, and deprived of the resource of foreign plunder, they were literally starving; and the necessity of conquest was felt as strongly, 115, 446. to enable them to live on the spoils of their enemies, as to avert the sword of desolation from the frontiers of France.1 This constant and increasing depreciation of the assignats produced its natural and unavoidable effect in an unpre- Their rapid cedented enhancement of the price of provisions and all tion. the articles of human consumption. The assignats were not absorbed in the purchase of the national domains, because the holders were distrustful of the security of the revolutionary title, which they could alone receive; and as their issue continued at the rate of £10,000,000 sterling a-month, of course the market became gorged, and the value of these securities rapidly declined. Though this depreciation was unavoidable, the Convention endeavoured to arrest it, and enacted the punishment of six years in irons against any who should exchange any quantity of silver or gold for a greater nominal value of assignats; or should ask a larger price for any articles of merchandise, if the price was paid in paper, than if paid in the precious metals. It is needless to say, that this forced attempt to sustain the value of the assignats proved totally nugatory; and the consequences soon became fatal to many classes of persons. Debtors of every description hastened to discharge their obligations; and the creditors, compelled to accept paper at par, which was not worth a fifth or tenth, at last not a hundredth, of its nominal value, were defrauded of nearly the whole of their property. But XIV. 1793. CHAP. their outcries were speedily drowned in the shout of the far more numerous body of debtors liberated from their demands. These transports, however, were of short duration, and the labouring classes from the very first were ruined beyond redemption. Their wages, in consequence of the total destruction of credit, general decline of consumption, and universal stagnation of industry, had by no means risen in proportion to this fall in the value of the assignats, and they found themselves miserably off for the necessaries of life; while the farmers, raising the price of their provisions in proportion to the fall in the value of paper, soon elevated them beyond the reach of the labouring poor. This state of things, so opposite to what they had been led to expect as the result of a revolution, excited the most vehement discontent among the working classes; they ascribed it all, as is always the case in similar circumstances, to the efforts of aristocrats and forestallers, and demanded with loud cries that they should be led out to the guillotine.1 1 Deux Amis, x. 282, 284. Th. v. 147, 149. 57. law of the maximum on prices. May 4. It became then absolutely necessary to have recourse Origin of the to a maximum: powerful as the Committee of Public Salvation was, a longer continuance of the public discontents would have endangered its existence. Corn, indeed, was not wanting; but the farmers, dreading the tumult and violence of the markets, and unwilling to part with their produce at the nominal value of the assignats, refused to bring it to the towns. To such a pitch did this evil arise in the beginning of May 1793, that the Convention was forced to issue a decree, compelling the farmers and grain-merchants to declare what stock they had in their possession, and to bring it to the public markets at a price fixed by each commune. Domiciliary visits were authorised, to inspect the stock of each holder of corn, and false returns were punished by a forfeiture of the whole. In addition to this, the distribution of bread by the bakers was provided for in the most minute manNo one could obtain it without producing a carte de sûreté, issued by the revolutionary committees; and ner. XIV. 1793. on that carte was inscribed the number of his family, and CHAP. the quantity to be delivered to each member. Finally, to put an end to the scandalous scenes which generally took place at the bakers' doors, it was enacted that every bread shop should have a rope attached to it; each person, as he arrived, was obliged to take it in his hand, and remain quietly there till all before him were served. But in the struggles of discontent and famine, the cord was frequently broken, fierce conflicts ensued, and nothing but a prompt interposition of military force was able to restore tranquillity. To such minute and vexatious regula-1 Th. v. 151. tions are governments reduced when they once violate Decree, May the freedom of human action; and to such a load of teur, 5 Mai, p. 551. Th. fetters do the people in the end subject themselves, when V. 151. they give way to the insane passion for democratic power.1 4. Moni 58. disorders Fright- and gamb which the rapid ling from change of All the other articles of subsistence as well as corn speedily rose with the increased issue of the assignats, Great inand the people persisted in ascribing to forestallers the crease of natural consequences of a depreciated circulation. ful tumults in consequence arose; the boats descended the Seine with groceries, fruits, and wood, were prices. seized and plundered. Terrified at the continual recurrence of these disorders, the capitalists declined investing their money in purchases of any sort; and the shares in foreign mercantile companies rose rapidly from the increased demand for them, as the only investment affording a tolerable degree of security; another striking proof of the disastrous influence of the disorders consequent on popular ambition, and their tendency to turn from the people the reservoirs by which their industry is maintained. During the perils and chances of a revolution, the tendency to gambling of every sort prodigiously increased. Men, who had the sword of Damocles continually suspended over their heads, sought to make the most of the numerous chances of making money, which the rapid issue and fall of the assignats, and the boundless profusion of articles of luxury, brought into the market by the ruin of their XIV. 1793. CHAP. owners, naturally occasioned. So enormous did these evils become, that on 26th July 1793, the forestalling of provisions was declared a capital crime, and the penalty of death was in like manner extended to all those who retained articles of subsistence without bringing them to daily sale, or who did not, within eight days from the publication of the decree, make a declaration to the municipal officers of their district, of the amount of provisions, including wine and oil, they had on hand, with a specification of the proportions in which they were going to bring them to market.1 1 Decree, July 26. Moniteur, 27 Juillet. Th. v. 152. 59. which every vailed. The bourse of Paris was crowded with bankers, revoluProfligacy tionists, ci-devant priests, ruined nobles, and adventurers where pre- of every description, who sometimes made enormous gains, and passed a life of debauchery with actresses, operadancers, and abandoned women of every description, whom the dissolution of society had brought in contact with those who had risen for the moment on the wheels of fortune. Such was the universal profligacy of manners, arising from the dread of popular jealousy, that almost all the members of the Convention lived publicly with mistresses, who became possessed of much of their influence in the state. To have done otherwise would have exposed them to the blasting suspicion of being Christians and Royalists. This prevailing profligacy appeared in the most striking manner, in the great number of divorces which took place during this calamitous period of French history. They were owing, partly to marriage being now declared a civil contract, which might be dissolved at any time at the pleasure of the contracting parties; partly to the irreligion and lax morality of the age; and partly to the dreadful uncertainty of life, and the thirst for immediate enjoyment, which had seized all classes from that uncertainty. From these combined causes, the morality of the age, as measured by the relations of the sexes, sank lower in revolutionary France than it had ever done in modern XIV. 1794. Europe; and the number of divorces,* in the first burst CHAP. of social regeneration, exceeded what had been known in Rome under the despotism of the Cæsars. So far did the universal fervour and the license of passion proceed, that it led to the institution of clubs for women, where political subjects of all sorts were discussed with all the vehemence and impassioned feeling which characterise the softer sex. One of these female clubs was held in a hall adjoining that of the Jacobins, and speedily became the favourite resort of the most noted actresses and courtezans in Paris. One of the former, named Rose Lacombe, acquired great celebrity by her fearless demeanour, her beauty, and ardent declamations in favour of republican principles. The disorders consequent on these female assemblies, which had six thousand members, at length became so flagrant, that they attracted the notice of the Convention and municipality. Chaumette had the 1 Lam. Hist. address to persuade the female patriots who had forced their way into the hall of the municipality, that they had mistaken the real theatre of their power, and that, instead des Gir. vii. of aiming at dividing the government of the state with 349, 353. men, they would do better to acquire an undivided 161. Hist. dominion by ruling the men. The female clubs were iv. 81, 82. soon after closed by order of the Convention.1 * The following Table-one of the most curious records of the Revolution -compiled from the Moniteur of the dates under mentioned, shows the marriages and divorces in Paris during part of the Reign of Terror : Th. v. 152, de la Conv. The marriages and divorces-or "état civil," as it is called-are published very irregularly in the Moniteur. +"La Nature,'" said Chaumette, 'a dit à l'homme sois homme, et à la femme sois femme, et tu seras la divinité du sanctuaire intérieur. Femmes imprudentes, qui voulez devenir hommes ! n'êtes-vous pas assez bien partagées? Vous dominez sur tous nos sens. Votre despotisme est celui de l'amour, et par conséquent celui de la nature.' A ces mots les femmes enlèvent de leurs fronts le bonnet rouge."-LAMARTINE, Histoire des Girondins, vii. 355. VOL. III. N |