XV. 1794. whole Republic," had agreed to a decree appointing four CHAP. popular commissions, to try without juries the whole prisoners in the different jails in the departments.* The name of Robespierre is not affixed to this resolution; but it was entirely in conformity with a plan which Payan, his intimate friend, proposed to him, in order to dispose of nine thousand prisoners at Orange, who were summarily judged by a commission sent down from Paris, which destroyed them with unheard-of rapidity.+ And from a manuscript note in his own handwriting, found among Robespierre's papers after his death, there is one which openly announces the intention of cutting off the whole middle classes, and for that purpose arming against them the lower.t Vadier, Amar, Vouland, and the other SEUR, iv. 110, 111. If this be true, it only augments the weight of the moral lesson to be derived from their history-that, even by such men, a return to order and justice was found to be indispensable, but that even to them the attempt at such a return was fatal.-LAMARTINE, Hist. des Girondins, viii. 241. * Les Comités de Salut Public et de Sûreté Générale arrêtent 1. Il sera nommé dans trois jours des citoyens chargés de remplir les fonctions de quatre commissions populaires créées par décret du 13 Ventose. 2. Elles jugeront tous les détenus dans les maisons d'arrêt des départements. 3. Elles seront sédentaires à Paris. 4. Les jugemens de ces commissions seront revisés par les Comités du Salut Public et de Sûreté Générale. 5. Il sera distribué à chaque commission un arrondissement de plusieurs départements. (Signé) B. Barère, Dubarran, C. A. Prieur, Louis du Bas Rhin, Lavicomterie, Collot d'Herbois, Carnot, Couthon, R. Lindet, Saint Just, Billaud Varennes, Vouland, Vadier, Amar, M. Bayle."-Hist. Parl. xxxiii. 395. + “Neuf à dix mille personnes à mettre en jugement à Orange; impossibilité de les transférer à Paris. On propose, 1. Créer un Tribunal Révolutionnaire, qui siégera à Orange à l'effet de juger les contre-révolutionnaires du département de Vaucluse, et ceux des Bouches du Rhône. 2. Le composer d'un accusateur public et de six juges. 3. L'autorité se divisera en deux sections. 4. Il jugera révolutionnairement, sans instruction écrite, et sans assistance du jury." This Tribunal accordingly was instituted, and the president in a few days wrote to Payan-" Nous avons plus fait dans les six premiers jours de notre activité que n'a fait dans un mois le Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Nîmes; nous avons rendu 197 jugemens dans 18 jours."-Deux Amis, xii. 344, 345; and Papiers Inédits trouvés chez ROBESPIERRE, i. 77, 372. Il faut une volonté une. Les dangers intérieurs viennent des bourgeois— il faut rallier le peuple. Il faut que les Sans-culottes soient payés et restent dans les villes. Il faut leur procurer des armes, les éclairer en ce que l'insurrection s'étende de proche en proche et sur le même plan. Il faut proscrire les écrivains comme les plus dangereux ennemis de la patrie, et punir surtout le députés et les administrateurs coupables. Si les députés sont envoyés, la République est perdue."-Note écrite de la main de ROBESPIERRE ; Deux Amis, xii. 353. Papiers trouvés chez ROBESPIERRE, i. 36, and ii. 15. XV. 1794. CHAP. members of the Committee of General Safety, vied with Collot d'Herbois and Billaud Varennes in that of Public Salvation, in measures of extermination. So familiar had the work of destruction become, that it had grown into a subject of merriment. "This is well; the crop is large; the baskets will be filled," said one when signing a long list "for execution." "I could not help laughing at the figure these wretches cut on the scaffold," exclaimed another. "I often go to see the executions," Amis, xii. said a third; "come to-morrow, there will be a grand Lam. Hist. display." In effect, the members of the committees somedes Gir. viii. times went to contemplate the last moments of their victims from some of the neighbouring windows.1 1 Papiers trouvé pierre, No. chez Robes 94. Deux 344, 350. 240. 64. begins in Robespierre's last speech. At length, on the 8th Thermidor, (26th July,) the The contest contest began in the National Convention. The discourse Convention. of Robespierre, which he had composed the day before in the solitudes of the forest of Montmorency, under the inspiration of the genius of Rousseau, was dark and enigmatical, but earnest and eloquent. He wore the dress in which he had appeared at the fête of the Supreme Being on the 7th June. "Citizens," said he, "let others lay before you flattering pictures; I will unveil the real truth. I come not to increase terrors spread abroad by perfidy; I come to defend your outraged authority, and violated independence: I will also defend myself. You will not be taken by surprise, for you have nothing in common with the tyrants who attack me. The cries of oppressed innocence will not offend your ears; their cause cannot be alien to you. Tyrants seek to destroy the cause of freedom, by giving it the name of tyranny ; patriots reply only by the force of truth. Think not I am here to prefer accusations; I am coming to discharge duty-to unfold the hideous plots which threaten the ruin of the Republic. We have not been too severe. I call to witness the Republic, which yet breathes-the Convention, surrounded by the respect of the people-the patriots, who groan in the dungeons which wretches have XV. 1794. opened for them. It is not we who have plunged the CHAP. patriots into prisons; it is the monsters whom we have accused. It is not we who, forgetting the crimes of the aristocracy, and protecting the traitors, have declared war against peaceable citizens, and erected into crimes. things indifferent, to find guilty persons every where, and render the Revolution terrible even to the people; it is the monsters whom we have to accuse. "They call me a tyrant. If I were so, they would fall at my feet: I should have gorged them with gold, assured them of impunity to their crimes, and they would have worshipped me. Had I been so, the kings whom we have conquered would have been my most cordial supporters. It is by the aid of scoundrels you arrive at tyranny. Whither tend those who combat them? To the tomb and immortality! Who is the tyrant that protects me? What is the faction to which I belong? It is yourselves! What is the party which, since the commencement of the Revolution, has crushed all other factions has annihilated so many specious traitors? It is yourselves; it is the people; it is the force of principles! This is the party to which I am devoted, and against which crime is every where leagued. "I am ready to lay down my life without regret. I have seen the past; I foresee the future. What lover of his country would wish to live when he can no longer succour oppressed innocence? Why should he desire to remain in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is deemed an imposture; where the vilest passions, the most ridiculous fears, fill every heart, instead of the sacred interests of humanity? Who can bear the punishment of seeing that horrible succession of traitors more or less skilful in concealing their hideous vices under the mask of virtue, and who will leave to posterity the difficult task of determining which was the most atrocious? In contemplating the multitude of vices which the Revolution has let loose XV. 1794. 6 CHAP. pell-mell with the civic virtues, I own I sometimes fear I shall be sullied in the eyes of posterity by their calumnies. But I am consoled by the reflection that, if I have seen in history all the defenders of liberty overwhelmed by calumny, I have seen their oppressors die also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. No, Chaumette! Death is not an eternal sleep!'-Citizens, efface from the tombs that maxim engraven by sacrilegious hands, which throws a funereal pall over nature, which discourages oppressed innocence write rather, Death is the commencement of immortality!' I leave to the oppressors of the people a terrible legacy, which well becomes the situation in which I am placed it is the awful truth, Thou shalt die!' "We no longer tread on roses; we are marching on a volcano. For six weeks I have been reduced to a state of impotence in the Committee of Public Salvation; during that time has faction been better restrained, or the country more happy? Representatives of the people, the time has arrived when you should assume the attitude which befits you; you are not placed here to be governed, but to govern the depositaries of your confidence. Let it be spoken out at once a conspiracy exists against the public freedom; it springs from a criminal intrigue in the bosom of the Convention; that intrigue is conducted by the members of the Committee of General Safety; the enemies of the Republic have contrived to array that Committee against that of Public Salvation; even some members of this latter have been infected; and the coalition thus formed seeks to ruin the country. What is the remedy for the evil? To punish the traitors; to purge the committees of their unworthy members; to place the Committee of General Safety under the control of that of Public Salvation; to establish the unity of government 1 Hist. Parl. under the auspices of the Convention; and thus to crush faction under the weight of the national representation, and raise on its ruins the power of justice and freedom." xxxiii. 406, 446. CHAP. 1794. 65. this speech. This speech was received with breathless attention ; not a sound was heard during its delivery; not a whisper of applause followed its close. At the proposal that it should be printed, the first symptoms of resistance began. Vehement Bourdon de l'Oise opposed its publication; but, Barère debate on having supported it, the Convention, fearful of committing itself openly with its enemies, agreed to the proposal. The members of the Committee of General Safety, seeing the majority wavering, deemed it now necessary to take decisive steps. "It is no longer time,” said Cambon, “for dissembling one man paralyses the Assembly, and that man is Robespierre."-" We must pull the mask off any countenance on which it is placed," said Billaud Varennes; "I would rather that my carcass served for a throne to the tyrant, than render myself by my silence the accomplice of his crimes."" It is not enough," said Vadier, "for him to be a tyrant; he aims further, like a second Mahomet, at being proclaimed the envoy of God." Fréron proposed to throw off the hated yoke of the committees. "The moment is at last arrived," said he, "to revive the liberty of opinion. I propose that the Assembly shall reverse the decree which permitted the arrest of the representatives of the people; who can debate with freedom when imprisonment is hanging over his head?" Some applause followed this proposal; but Robespierre was felt to be too powerful to be overthrown by the Convention, unaided by the committees: this extreme measure therefore was rejected, and the Assembly contented itself with reversing the decree which ordered the publication of his address, and sent it to the committees for examination. "Had Robespierre," said Barère," for 1 Hist. Parl. the last four decades attended the committee, or attended xxxiii. 449, to its operations, he would have suppressed his address. de la Mont. You must banish from your thoughts the word accused."1 midor, vol. In the end Robespierre retired, surprised at the resistance Lac. xi. 79, he had experienced, but still confident of success on the 421, 424. following day, from the contemplated insurrection of the 452. Journ. 9 Ther vi. No. 91. 80. Th. vi. |