CHAP. 86. of Terror, In with the prodigious its victims. of crimes," says Sir James Mackintosh, "perhaps, in history, which, in spite of the common disposition to exaggerate extraordinary facts, has been beyond measure under- 1794. rated in public opinion."* It is an epoch fraught with Reflections greater political instruction than any of equal duration on the Reign which has existed since the beginning of the world. no former period had the efforts of the people so com- number of pletely triumphed, or the higher orders been so thoroughly crushed by the lower. The throne had been overturned, the altar destroyed, the aristocracy levelled with the dust; the nobles were in exile, the clergy in captivity, the gentry in affliction. A merciless sword had waved over the state, destroying alike the dignity of rank, the splendour of talent, and the graces of beauty. All that excelled the labouring classes in situation, fortune, or acquirement, had been removed; they had triumphed over their oppressors, seized their possessions, and risen into their stations. And what was the consequence? The establishment of a more cruel and revolting tyranny than any which mankind had yet witnessed; the destruction of all the charities and enjoyments of life; the dreadful spectacle of streams of blood flowing through every part of France. With truth did the warmest apologists and ablest advocates of the Revolution now admit that it had produced "the most indefatigable, searching, multiform, and omnipresent tyranny that ever existed, which pervaded every class of society, which had ministers and victims in every village of France."+ The earliest friends, the warmest advocates, the firmest supporters of the people, were swept off indiscriminately with their bitterest enemies; in the unequal struggle, virtue and philanthropy sank under ambition and violence; and society returned to a state of chaos, when all the elements of private or public happiness were scattered to the winds. Such are the results of unchaining the passions of the * MACKINTOSH's Works, iii. 295. + Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH, (Author of the Vindicia Gallica,) Works, iii. 263. CHAP. multitude; such the peril of suddenly admitting the light upon a benighted people,* XV. 1794. "The will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left them at large to their own dark designs, Heap on themselves damnation, whilst they sought Evil to others, and, enraged, might see How all their malice served but to bring forth On man by them seduced; but on themselves Paradise Lost, i. 212. The facility with which a faction, composed of a * The extent to which blood was shed in France during this melancholy period will hardly be credited by future ages. The Republican Prudhomme, whose prepossessions led him to any thing rather than exaggeration of the horrors of the popular rule, has given the following appalling account of the victims of the Revolution. Its value will not be duly appreciated unless it is recollected that the author who compiled it was an ardent supporter of the Revolution-an intimate friend and political agent of Danton's; and that, in his well-known revolutionary journal, the "Révolutions de Paris," he had justified the massacres in the prisons in September 1792. See No., September 10, 1792. XV. 87. which these massacres few of the most audacious and reckless of the nation, CHAP. triumphed over the immense majority of all the holders of property in the kingdom, and led them 1794. forth like victims to the sacrifice, is not the least extra- Ease with ordinary or memorable fact of that eventful period. The active part of the bloody faction at Paris never were perexceeded a few thousand men; their talents were by no means of the highest order, nor their weight in society considerable; yet they trampled under foot all the influential classes, ruled mighty armies with absolute sway, kept two hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens in petrated. TOULON. Pendant le siège, Egorgés ou noyés à la fuite des Anglais, Morts en prison, Fusillés, Femmes et enfans tombés à la mer, Total, BÉDOIN. Destruction et dispersion des habitans de cette ville, dont le nombre des maisons se porte à plus de, MIDI. Individus égorgés dans tout le Midi, après la réaction du 9 Thermidor, Conspirations, Insurrections, GUERRE DE LA VENDEE. En rapprochant les massacres, égorgemens, fusillades, noyades, et les morts dans les différens combats, entre Français, la perte s'évalue à peu près au nombre de (individus,) 9000 3100 160 800 1265 14,325 1600 750 360 140 900,000 XV. 1794. CHAP. captivity, and daily led out several hundred, and at last, perhaps, taking the whole country together, some thousand persons, of the best blood in France, to execution. Such is the effect of the unity of action which atrocious wickedness produces; such the consequence of rousing the cupidity of the lower orders; such the ascendency which, in periods of anarchy, is acquired by the most savage and lawless of the people. The peaceable and inoffensive citizens lived and wept in silence; terror crushed every attempt at combination; the extremity of grief subdued even the firmest hearts. Isque habitus animorum fuit, ut pessimum facinus auderent pauci, plures vellent, omnes paterentur.' In despair at effecting any alleviation of the general sufferings, apathy universally prevailed, the most sacred domestic ties were often for Brought over, Nota.-Les individus guillotinés à Lyon, Marseille, INDIVIDUS qui se sont suicidés, pendus, noyés, ou jetés Femmes mortes par suite de couches prématurées, 1 Prudhom. Individus devenus fous par la Révolution, 1550, Vict. de la Table N. 522. En tout, Morts. 998,916 4790 3400 20,000 1,027,1061 In this enumeration are not comprehended the massacres at Versailles, at the Abbaye, the Carmes, or other prisons, on September 2d, the victims of the Glacière of Avignon, those shot at Toulon and Marseilles, or the persons slain in the little town of Bédoin, of which the whole population perished. Those contained in the "Liste des Condamnés," a very curious work, down to the 12th Thermidor, (30th July 1794,) are 2741. See Supplement à No. IX. Liste des Condamnés, p. 15.—The additional 99 contained in the Moniteur are those condemned and executed after the fall of Robespierre, and are also in the Liste des Condamnés, Nos. X. and XI. It is in an especial manner remarkable, in this dismal catalogue, how large a proportion of the victims of the Revolution were persons in the middle and lower ranks of life. The priests and nobles guillotined are only 2413, while the persons of plebeian origin exceed 13,000! The nobles and priests put to death at Nantes were only 2160; while the infants drowned and shot are 2000, the women 764, and the artisans 5300! So rapidly in revolutionary convulsions does the career of cruelty reach the lower orders, and so wide-spread is the carnage dealt out to them, compared with that which they have sought to inflict on their superiors. * "And this was the state of men's minds, that extreme wickedness was dared by a few, wished by many, endured by all."-TACITUS, Hist. i. 28. XV. 1794. 1 Louvet, gotten, selfishness became general. The people sought CHAP. to forget their sorrows in the delirium of present enjoyments; and the theatres were never fuller than during the whole duration of the Reign of Terror. Ignorance of human nature can alone lead us to ascribe this to any 124 peculiarity in the French character; the same effects have Mercier, been observed in all parts and ages of the world, as inva- Paris, and riably attending a state of extreme and long-continued throughout. distress.1* Tableau de Moniteur, 88. which led to of the Revo How, then, did a faction, whose leaders were so extremely contemptible in point of numbers, obtain the power Principle to rule France with such absolute sway? The answer is the triumph simple. It was by an expedient of the plainest kind, and lution. by steadily following out one principle, so obvious that few have sought for the cause of such terrible phenomena in its application. This was by promoting, and to a great extent actually giving to the working-classes the influence and the possessions of all the other orders in the state. Egestas cupida novarum rerum,+ was the maxim on which they acted: it was toward this point-the cupidity and ambition of those to whom fortune had proved adverse that all their measures were directed. Their principle was to keep the revolutionary passions of the people constantly awake by the display of fresh objects of desire; to represent all the present misery Appearances precisely similar are recorded by Boccaccio to have been observed in Florence during the dreadful pestilence of 1348.-"L'uno cittadino l'altro schifasse, e quasi ninno vicino aresse dell 'altro cura, e i parenti insieme rade volte, o non mai si vitassero, e di lontano, era con si falto spavento questa tribulazione enbrata nè petti degli uomini e delle donne, che l'un fratello l'altro abandonaon, e il zio il inpote, e la sorella il fratello, e spesse volte la donna il suo marito; e che maggior cosa è, e quasi incredibile, li padri, e le madri, e figlinoli, quasi loco non fossero, di visitare e di servire schifavane *** Et quegli cotali, senza fare distinzione alcuna dalle cose oneste a quelle che oneste non sono, solo che l'appetito le chieggia, e soli et accompagnati, e di di è di notte quelle fare che piu di diletto lor porgono. E non che le solute persone, ma ancora le racchiuse ne monisteri, faccendosi a credere che quello a lor si convenga, e non si disdica, che all' altre rotte della obedienza le leggi, datesi a' diletti carnali, in tal guisa avvisando scampare, son divenute lascive e dissolute."-BoCCACCIO, Giornata Prima Introdusione. The same will appear amidst the horrors of the Moscow retreat. +"Indigence covetous of change." |