XIV. 1794. CHAP. civil war, to arm the citizens against each other, and against the lawful authority; in virtue of which they proposed, in the present month, to dissolve the national representation, assassinate its members, destroy the republican government, gain possession of the sovereignty of the people, and give a tyrant to the state." The absurdity of thus charging, as in one conspiracy, the leaders of two opposite factions, so recently at daggers-drawing with each other-Gobel and Chaumette, the partisans of anarchy and blood, with Dillon and the widow of Desmoulins, who had been exposing their lives to procure a return to humanity-produced no impression on the inexorable tribunal. They were all condemned, after a long trial, and the vital difference between them appeared in their last moments. The infamous Gobel wept from Weakness; the atrocious Chaumette was almost lifeless from terror; but the widow of Desmoulins exhibited on the scaffold the heroism of Madame Roland and Charlotte viii. 40, 44, Corday, and died rejoicing in the hope of rejoining her lost husband.1* She did not appear with the undaunted 1 Bull. du Trib. Rev. Hist. Parl. xxxii. 245. Lam. Hist. des Gir. 77. * The letters written by Camille Desmoulins during his imprisonment, and the night before his execution, to his wife, a young and elegant woman who had married him for love two years before, during the first fervour of the Revolution, are among the most interesting and pathetic monuments of the Revolution, opening as it were a glance into that awful amount of sorrow and wretchedness which that convulsion brought even upon its earliest and most ardent supporters. They are preserved in the Histoire Parlementaire, and the following extracts will convey some idea of their heart-rending affection :-Ma chère Lucile, ma Vesta, mon ange, ma destinée ramène dans ma prison mes yeux sur ce jardin où je passai huit années de ma vie à te voir-un coin de vue sur le Luxembourg me rappelle une foule de souvenirs de nos amours. Je suis au secret, mais jamais je n'ai été par la pensée, par l'imagination, presque par le toucher, plus près de toi, de ta mère, de mon petit Horace. Ma justification est tout entière, dans mes huit volumes républicains. O ma bonne Lulotte parlons d'autres choses. Je me jette à tes génoux; j'étends les bras pour t'embrasser-je ne trouve plus ma pauvre Lulotte! [Ici on remarque la trace d'une larme.] Envoie-moi le verre où il y a un C et un Dnos deux noms-un livre in-12 que j'ai acheté à Charpentier : ce livre roule sur l'immortalité de l'âme. J'ai besoin de me persuader qu'il y a un Dieu plus juste que les hommes, et que je ne puis manquer à te revoir. Adieu, Lucile ! -adieu! Je ne puis pas t'embrasser; mais aux larmes que je verse, il me semble que je te tiens encore contre mon sein." [Ici se trouve la trace d'une seconde larme.] Seconde Lettre.-"Je suis malade: je n'ai mangé que ta soupe depuis hier. Le Ciel a eu pitié de mon innocence; il m'a envoyé un XIV. 1794. air of those heroines, but she showed equal firmness. She CHAP. died not for her country, but for her husband; love, not patriotism, inspired her last moments. Her beauty, her innocence, the knowledge that she was the victim of her humanity, produced universal commiseration. Thus perished the tardy but last defenders of humanity and moderation-the last who sought for peace, and advocated clemency toward those who had been vanquish ed in the Revolution. For long after their fall, no voice was heard against the Reign of Terror. Silent and unopposed, the tyrants struck redoubted blows from one end of France to the other. The Girondists had sought to prevent that fatal rule, the Dantonists to arrest it: both perished in the attempt. They perished, because they were inferior in wickedness to their opponents; they fell, the victims of the little humanity which yet lingered in their bosoms. The combination of wicked men who thereafter governed France, is without a parallel in the cœur. songe, où je vous ai vus tous; envoie-moi tes cheveux et ton portrait-oh, je t'en prie! car je pense uniquement à toi, et jamais à l'affaire qui m'amène ici !" -Dernière Lettre.-"Je te conjure, Lulotte, par nos éternelles amours, envoie-moi ton portrait ! Dans l'horreur de ma prison, ce sera pour moi une fête, un jour d'ivresse et de ravissement-celui où je reverrai ton portrait. En attendant envoie-moi de tes cheveux, que je puisse les mettre contre mon Ma chère Lucile ! me voilà revenu au temps de nos premières amours, où quelqu'un m'intéressait par cela seul qu'il sortait de chez toi. Hier, quand le citoyen qui t'a porté ma lettre fut revenu, je me surprenais à le regarder comme s'il fût resté sur ces habits quelque chose de ta présence, quelque chose de toi. Hier j'ai découvert une fente dans mon appartement; j'ai appliqué mon oreille j'ai entendu la voix d'un malade qui souffrait. Il m'a demandé mon nom je le lui ai dit. 'O mon Dieu !' s'écrie-t-il ; et j'ai reconnu distinctement la voix de Fabre d'Eglantine! Si c'était Pitt ou Cobourg qui me traitassent si durement ! mais mes collègues, mais Robespierre, qui m'a signé l'ordre de mon cachot! mais la République, après tout ce que j'ai fait pour elle ! C'est le prix que je reçois de tout ce que j'ai fait pour elle ! J'avais rêvé une république que tout le monde eût adorée. Je n'ai pu croire que les hommes fussent si féroces et si injustes. Malgré mon supplice, je crois qu'il y a un Dieu. Je te reverrai un jour, O Lucile ! O Annette! Sensible comme je l'étais, la mort qui me délivre de la vue de tant de crimes, est-elle un si grand malheur? Adieu, Lucile! Adieu, ma vie !-mon âme !-ma divinité sur la terre! Je te laisse de bons amis, tout ce qu'il y a d'hommes vertueux et sensibles. Adieu, Lucile ! ma Lucile ! ma chère Lucile !-Adieu, Horace !-Adieu, Adèle !---Adieu, mon père ! Je sens fuir devant moi le rivage de la vie. Je vois encore Lucile ! Je te vois, ma bien-aimée-ma Lucile! Mes mains liées t'embrassent, et ma tête séparée repose encore sur toi ses yeux mourans !" Here is the pathos of 105. silent pro the Reign of Terror. scriptions of XIV. 1794. power, CHAP. history of the world.* Their based on the organised weight of the multitude, and the ardent co-operation of the municipalities, every where installed by them in the possession of power, was irresistible. By them opulent cities were overturned; hundreds of thousands of deluded artisans reduced to beggary; agriculture, commerce, the arts destroyed; the foundations of every species of property shaken, and all the youth of the kingdom driven to the frontier, less to uphold the integrity of France, than to protect themselves from the just vengeance which awaited them from within and without. All bowed the neck before this gigantic assemblage of wickedness. The revolutionary excesses daily increased, in consequence of the union which the constant dread of retribution produced among their perpetrators. There was no medium between taking a part in these atrocities, and falling a victim to them. Virtue seemed powerless : energy appeared only in the extremity of resignation; religion in the heroism with which death was endured. There was not a hope left for France, had it not been for the dissensions which, as the natural result of their wickedness, sprang up among the authors of the public calamities.1 1 Deux Amis, xii. 184, 192. Hist. de la Conv. iii. 230. 106. flections on the succes It is impossible not to be struck, in looking back on General re- the fate of these different parties, with the singular and providential manner in which their crimes brought about sive destruc- their own punishment. No foreign interposition was necessary; no avenging angel was required to vindicate the justice of the Divine administration. They fell the tion of the Revolution ists. nature! When will romance or poetry figure any thing so touching?-See * Terrore accresce, e più superbo il rende; Gerusalemme Liberata, iv. 7. XIV. 1794. victims of their own atrocity, of the passions which they CHAP. themselves had let loose, of the injustice of which they had given the first example to others. The Constitutionalists overthrew the ancient monarchy, and raised a throne surrounded by republican institutions; but their imprudence in rousing popular ambition paved the way for the 10th August, and speedily brought themselves to the scaffold. The Girondists established their favourite dream of a Republic, and were the first victims of the fury which it excited: the Dantonists roused the populace against the Gironde, and soon fell under the axe which they had prepared for their rivals: the Anarchists defied the powers of Heaven itself; but scarcely were their blasphemies uttered when they were swept off by the partners of their bloody triumphs. One only power remained, alone, terrible, irresistible. This was the power of DEATH, wielded by a faction steeled against every feeling of humanity, dead to every principle of justice. In their iron hands, order resumed its sway from the influence of terror; obedience became universal from the extinction of hope. Silent and unresisted they led their victims to the scaffold, dreaded alike by the soldiers who crouched, the people who trembled, and the victims who suffered. The history of the world has no parallel to the horrors of that long night of suffering, because it has none to the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed so hideous a form, because licentiousness never required so severe a punishment. CHAPTER XV. XV. 1794. 1. Efforts of ceal its own REIGN OF TERROR-FROM THE DEATH OF DANTON TO THE "ALL bad actions," says Sallust, "spring from good CHAP. beginnings ;"-" And the progress of these events," says Machiavel, "is this, that in their efforts to avoid fear, men inspire it in others, and that injury which they seek to ward off themselves they throw upon their neighbours, so vice to con- that it seems inevitable either to give or receive offence."* deformity. "You are quite wrong," said Napoleon to Talma, in the representation of Nero; you should conceal the tyrant; no man admits his wickedness either to others or himself. You and I speak history, but we speak it like other men."1 The words which Sallust puts into the mouth of Cæsar, and Napoleon addressed to the actor of Nero, point to the same, and one of the most important principles of human nature. When vice appears in its native deformity, it is universally shunned-its features are horrible alike to others and itself. It is by borrowing the language, and rousing the passions of virtue, that it insinuates itself into the minds, not only of the specta 1 Napoleon, ii. p. 274. * "Omnia mala exampla," says Sallust, "bonis initiis orta sunt."—" E l'ordine di questi accidenti," says Machiavel, "è che mentre che gli uomini cercano di non temere, cominciano a fare temere altrui, e quella injuria che gli scacciano di loro, la pongono sopra un altro, come se fusse necessario, offendere o esser offeso." "Vice is a monster of such hideous mien, But seen too oft, familiar with his face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."-POPE. |