*

XIV.

1793.

confer without hazard to their liberty, and even to their CHAP. lives. Numbers scarcely credible have been executed, and their property confiscated. At Paris, and in most other towns, the bread they buy is a daily dole, which they cannot obtain without a daily ticket delivered to them by their masters. Multitudes of all ages and sexes are actually imprisoned. I have reason to believe, that in France there are not, for various state crimes, so few as twenty thousand actually in jail-a large proportion of people of property in any state. If a father of a family should show any disposition to resist, or to withdraw himself from their power, his wife and children are cruelly to answer for it. It is by means of these hostages that they keep the troops, which they force by masses (as they call it) into the field, true to their colours. Another of their resources is not to be forgotten. They have lately found a way of giving a sort of ubiquity to the supreme sovereign authority, which no monarch has been able yet to give to any representative of his. The commissioners of the National Convention, who are the members of the Convention itself, and really exercise all its powers, make continual circuits through every province, and visits to every army. There they supersede all the ordinary authorities, civil and military, and change and alter every thing at their pleasure. So that, in effect, no 1 Burke's deliberative capacity exists in any portion of the inhabi- Works, vii. tants."1+

135.

74.

In the midst of all these extraordinary and unprecedented changes in society, however, the moral laws of Mutual nature were unceasingly working, and preparing, amid the estrangepresent triumph of wickedness, its final and condign Dantonists punishment. Divisions, as usual, had sprung up in the power.

How much was this within the truth! When Mr Burke said this, in spring 1794, the prisoners in France exceeded 200,000. Even his ardent imagination fell immeasurably short of the real atrocities of the Reign of Terror.

ment of the

and ruling

XIV.

1793.

CHAP. victorious body on the destruction of their opponents. Two parties remained opposed, on different principles, to the Decemvirs, whose destruction was indispensable to the full establishment of their despotic authority. These parties were the Moderates and the Anarchists. At the head of the former were Danton and Camille Desmoulins; the latter was supported by the powerful municipality of Paris. It has been already observed, that Danton and his party were strangers to the real objects of the revolt on 31st May. They aided the populace in the struggle with the Convention; but they had no intention of establishing the oligarchy which directed, and finally triumphed by their exertions. After the overthrow of the Girondists, Robespierre urged Danton to retire to the country. "A tempest is arising," said he; "the Jacobins have not forgot your relations with Dumourier. They hate your manners; your voluptuous and indolent habits are at variance with their austere disposition and undying energy. Withdraw for a little; trust to a friend, who will watch over your danger, and warn you of the first moment to return." Danton followed his Hist. ii. 91. advice, nothing loath to get quit of a faction of which he began to dread the excesses; and his party was entirely excluded from the Dictatorial Government.1

1 Lac. Pr.

Mig. ii. 300, 301.

75.

The leaders of the Moderates were Danton, Phillippeaux, Principles of Camille Desmoulins, Fabre d'Eglantine, and Westermann, the Danton- the tried commander on 10th August. Their principles

ists.

were, that terror was to be used only for the establishment of freedom, not made an instrument of oppression in the hands of those who had gained it; they wished above all things that the Republicans should remain masters of the field of battle, but, having done so, they proposed to use their victory with moderation. In pursuance of these principles, they reprobated the violent proceedings of the Dictators, after the victory of 31stMay had insured the triumph of the populace; desired to humble the Anarchists of the municipality, to put an

CHAP.

XIV.

1793.

end to the Revolutionary Tribunal, discharge from confinement those imprisoned as suspected persons, and dissolve the despotic committees of government. They had been all-powerful with the multitude, as long as they urged on their excesses, but their influence had sensibly declined since they had withdrawn from an active part in public life, and were no longer to be seen, at the Jaco-1Deux bins or the Cordeliers, hounding on the people to deeds 127, 129. of violence or murder. The blasting reputation of moderatism had not only already undermined their power, but threatened to bring them to the scaffold.1

Amis, xii.

Th. vi. 6, 7.
Lac. Pr.

Hist. ii. 91.

Mig. ii. 301.

76.

the Anarch

The other party, that of the municipality, carried their ambition and extravagance even beyond the Decemvirs. Principles of Instead of government, they professed a desire to establish Hebert and an extreme local democracy; instead of religion, the ists. consecration of materialism. As usual, in democratic contests, they pushed their revolutionary principles beyond the dominant faction, and strove thus to supplant them in the affections of the populace. They had witnessed, with extreme dissatisfaction, the committees usurp all the powers of government after the revolt of 31st May, and thus reap for themselves all the fruits of the victory which the forces of their opponents had mainly contributed to achieve. They had flattered themselves that their weight, as the head of the powerful municipality of Paris, having the whole armed force of the capital at their command, would have been sufficient to have established them in all the offices of government; but they had been outwitted by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Salvation, who, equal to themselves in democratic energy and popular arts, were far their superiors in talent, and had the great advantage of being in possession of a prepon- xxx. 206. derating influence in the Convention. Hence they strove 207. Th. ii. to supplant them in the favour of the people by still 298. Toul. louder professions of popular zeal, and the open avowal Journal de la of irreligious opinions.2 Hence the orgies of the Goddess No. 158. of Reason, and other indecent mummeries, with which they

2 Hist. Parl.

298. Mig. ii.

vii. 286.

Montagne,

XIV.

1793.

CHAP. captivated the populace of Paris, but, in the eyes of its abler and less selfish leaders, disgraced the Revolution. In cruelty, obscenity, and atheism, they exceeded the Dictatorial Government; but these were only means to an end. In the passion for tyrannical power, they yielded to none, provided only it was wielded by themselves.

77.

Mutual reproaches of

archists.

These two parties, as usual in civil dissensions, mutually reproached each other with the public calamities. the Danton- The Anarchists incessantly charged the Moderates with ists and An- corruption, and being the secret agents of foreign courts. The treason of Dumourier, who had been on terms of intimacy with Danton, was also made the subject of impassioned invective. "It is you," replied the Dantonists, "who are the real accomplices of the stranger; every thing draws you towards them, both the common violence of your language, and the joint design to overturn the whole institutions of France. Behold the magistracy, which arrogates to itself more than legislative authority; which regulates exery thing-police, subsistence, worship; which has substituted a new religion for the old one; replaced one superstition by another still more absurd; which openly preaches atheism, and causes itself to be imitated by all the municipalities in France. Consider those war-offices, from whence so many extortioners issue, who carry desolation into the provinces, and discredit the Revolution by their conduct. Observe the municipality and the committees what do Hist. Parl. they propose to themselves, if it is not to usurp the executive and legislative authority, to dispossess the Convention, and dissolve the government? Who could suggest such a design but the external enemies of France ?"1

xxx. 215, 217. Th.

vi. 10, 11.

Deux Amis,

xii. 84, 86.

78.

Camille Desmoulins, in his celebrated publication, enPublication titled " Le Vieux Cordelier," drew, under a professed deCordelier. scription of Rome under the Emperors, a striking picture of the horrors of that gloomy period. "Every thing," said

of the Vieux

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1793.

he, "under that terrible government was made the ground- CHAP. work of suspicion. Has a citizen popularity? He is a rival of the Dictator, who might create disturbances. Does he avoid society, and live retired by his fireside? That is to ruminate in private on sinister designs. Is he rich? That renders the danger the greater, that he will corrupt the citizens by his largesses. Is he poor? None so dangerous as those who have nothing to lose. Is he thoughtful and melancholy? He is revolving what he calls the calamities of his country. Is he gay and dissipated? He is concealing, like Cæsar, ambition under the mask of pleasure. Is he virtuous and austere ? He has constituted himself the censor of the government. Is he a philosopher, an orator, and a poet? He will soon acquire more consideration than the rulers of the state. Has he acquired reputation in war? His talents only render him the more formidable, and make it indispensable to get quit of his authority. The natural death of a celebrated man is become so rare, that historians transmit it as a matter worthy of record to future ages. the loss of so many great and good citizens seems a less calamity than the insolence and scandalous fortune of their denouncers. Every day the accuser makes his triumphal entry into the palace of death, and reaps the rich harvest which is presented to his hands. The tribunals, once the protectors of life and property, have become the organs of butchery, where robbery and murder have usurped the names of confiscation and punishment."1 Such is the picture drawn of the result 1 Vieux of popular government by the man who was called the Rev. Mem. first apostle of liberty! And how striking the coincidence, xlii. p. 50, that in drawing with the pencil of Tacitus a picture of Roman servitude under Nero and Caligula, he was exhibiting a portrait, which none could fail to recognise, of France, under the government which his own democratic transports had contributed to impose upon its inhabitants.

Even

Cordelier,

51, 53.