XIX. 1795. lay their complaints before the Convention, but Rewbell, CHAP. who drew up the report on their complaints, pronounced their doom in the following words :-"Where was the Reign of Terror organised? At the club of the Jacobins. Where did it find its supporters and satellites? Among the Jacobins. Who are they who have covered France with mourning; peopled its soil with Bastilles; and rendered the Republican yoke so odious, that a slave bent beneath its fetters would refuse to live under it? The Jacobins. Who now regret the hideous yoke from which we have so recently escaped? The Jacobins. If you want courage to pronounce on their fate at this moment, you have no longer a Republic, since you have the Jacobins." The Convention provisionally suspended their sittings; but the club having resumed their meetings on the following day, they were again assailed by the Troupe Dorée, with the cry, "Vive la Convention! à bas les Jacobins !" After an ineffectual struggle, they 359. Toul.' were finally dispersed, with every mark of ignominy and . 135, 136. contempt; and on the following day, the commissioners 115, 116, of the Convention put a seal on their papers and ter- 159, 164. minated their existence.1 Sept. 8. Amis, Lac. xii. 116,155. Mig. ii. 357, Th. vii. 135, 151, 13. overthrow. Thus fell the club of the Jacobins, the victim of the crimes it had sanctioned, and the reaction these had pro- Universal duced. Within its walls all the great changes of the joy at their Revolution had been prepared, and all its principal scenes rehearsed; from its energy the triumph of the democracy had sprung, and from its atrocity its destruction arose a signal proof of the tendency of revolutionary violence to precipitate its supporters into crime, and render them at last the victims of the atrocities which they have committed. A contemporary journalist has preserved a striking account of the universal transports at the closing of this terrible club, which, with its affiliated societies, had so long covered all France with mourning. "It was a truly touching spectacle to behold the joy of the people at the extinction of the Jacobins. XIX. 1795. CHAP. All hearts were opened at the news of the salutary decree of the Convention. In the evening the streets aud public places resounded with cries of joy, with almost childish mirth, with games and dances. Every one pressed his friend's hand, without mentioning why: all understood what was meant. In the coffee-houses, in the cabarets, toasts were universal to the health of the National Convention; in the public gardens they parodied a stanza of the Carmagnole with the words — 'Les Jacobins avaient promis De faire égorger tout Paris.'* Many citizens spontaneously illuminated their windows; a sweeter, a more cordial joy was universal than had appeared during the noisy fêtes conceived by the Committee of Public Salvation, to strew with flowers the bloody avenue to slavery, and adorn the victims whom they were about to sacrifice to their ambition. Is there one amongst you who, during those odious fêtes, did not feel his heart sink within him, his flesh creep, and who, in the enchantment of that compulsory illumination, in the du Peuple, Whirl of bought dances, cries of joy, and strains of music in those gardens, decked with so much care, did not Hist. Parl. withdraw within himself in the midst of the intoxicated multitude, to weep over the present, and mourn over the future? Very different is the spontaneous joy, the unbought entrancement, of this auspicious moment." I L'Orateur No. xxxi. See also xxxvi. 179. L'Ami des Citoyens, 14. prisoners from Nantes. Another event, which contributed in the most powerTrial of the ful manner to influence the public mind, was the trial of the prisoners from Nantes, who had been brought up to Paris under the reign of Robespierre. These captives, who were one hundred and thirty in number when they left the banks of the Loire, were reduced to ninety-four by the barbarous treatment they experienced on the road. Their trial was permitted to proceed by the Thermidorian party, in hopes that the detail of the * The Jacobins had promised To massacre all Paris. CHAP. XIX. 1795. du Trib. faire de Toul. v. 101, 105, 114. Th. vii. 144, 146. atrocities of the Jacobin leaders would increase the horror already existent in the public mind. It proceeded slowly, and the series of cruelties which it developed exceeded even what the imagination of poets had figured of the most terrible. The exposure of these, and similar cruelties, could not fail in increasing the public indignation against the society of the Jacobins, from whose emissaries they had all proceeded. The prisoners were acquitted amidst the acclamations of the people; and the public voice, wrought up to the highest pitch by the recital of these barbarities, loudly demanded 1 Bulletin the punishment of their authors. Pressed by the force Rev. No. 20, of public opinion, the Convention was obliged to authorise 21. L'Afthe accusation of Carrier, the head of the Revolutionary Nantes. Committee of Nantes, how unwilling soever they might be to sanction a proceeding which they were conscious might be drawn into an example fatal to many of themselves.1 The trial of this infamous man developed a still more dreadful series of iniquities, and contributed perhaps Trial and more than any other circumstance to confirm the incli- Carrier, and nation of the public mind. One of the witnesses deponed atrocities "that he had obtained permission to visit a chamber in divulged in the prisons where three hundred infants were confined; he found them groaning amidst filth, and shivering with cold; on the following morning he returned, but they were all gone; they had been drowned the preceding night in the Loire." Many thousand persons of both sexes, and all ages, including an extraordinary number of children, had perished in this inhuman manner. Carrier did not deny these atrocities, but sought to justify himself by alleging the orders of the Committee of Public Salvation at Paris, and the necessity of making reprisals against the fanatical cruelty of the insurgents of la Vendée. The massacres of the children, of the women, and the noyades of the priests, which could not be vindicated on that ground, he alleged he had not commanded; although he could not dispute that he had per 15. execution of dreadful its progress. XIX. 1795. CHAP. mitted them, in a district where his authority was unbounded. After a long trial, this infamous wretch was found guilty of numerous noyades and illegal massacres, condemned and executed. With him were also 1 Bulletin du convicted Grand-Maison and Pinard, members of the TriRev. Revolutionary Committee of Nantes. The acquittal of 77. Lac. xii. the others excited the public indignation so strongly, Toul. v. 129, that the Convention ordered that they should be arrested anew, and the Tribunal which had absolved them abolished.1 No. 20, p. 167, 168. 130. Th. vii. 169. 16. Return to humanity vention. Dec. 8. Yielding to the growing influence of public opinion, which daily pronounced itself more strongly in favour of in the Con- humane measures, the Convention at length revoked the decree which had expelled the nobles and priests; and Cambacérès, taking advantage of a moment of enthusiasm, proposed a general amnesty for all revolutionary offences other than those declared capital by the criminal code. The proposition was favourably received, and remitted to a committee. On the following day, Tallien proposed the suppression of all the Revolutionary Tribunals; the Jacobins vehemently opposed the proposal, and the Convention, 143. Hist. fearful of precipitating matters by too hasty measures, 188, 189. contented themselves for the present with abridging their power. 2 2 Toul. v. Parl. xxxvi. 17. ners during this period. The manners of the people, during those days of reviving Public man- order, exhibited an extraordinary mixture of revolutionary recklessness with the reviving gaiety and elegance of the French character. The captives recently delivered from prison comprised almost all the higher classes in Paris, and their habits gave the tone to the general manners of the day. Never was seen a more remarkable union than their circles afforded of grief and joy, of resentment and forgetfulness, of prudence and recklessness, of generous exaltation and blamable indifference, of Jacobin vulgarity and reviving elegance. The first attempt made was to return to gentleness of feeling and social enjoyment; any approach to luxury, in the dilapidated state of their fortunes, was out XIX. 1795. of the question. The barbarous retaliation of severity CHAP. for cruelty, which produced such a frightful reaction in the south of France, was unknown in the metropolis in the saloons of the Thermidorians, nothing but the most humane measures were proposed, or the most generous sentiments uttered. Minds subdued by misfortune, and influenced by the approach of death with religious feeling, breathed, on their first return into the world, much of that benevolent and Christian spirit which had been awakened in many cases for the first time in their minds. Nor was the transformation less violent and immediate in the dresses generally worn; but in the tumult of reviving enjoyment, pleasure, as is always the case in such circumstances, was sought after with an avidity inconsistent with decorum, fatal to morals. The ladies, in their desire to attract admiration, outstripped the bounds of decency in their attire. * The hideous unwashed Jacobins, with their long black uncombed locks, their haggard eyes and revolting stare, disappeared. Their filthy rags, assumed to please the mob, were exchanged for elegant attire; out of the secret deposits of their plunder were brought out stores of wealth furniture, dresses, pictures, all of the most costly 1 Deux description, suddenly made their appearance; the removal Amis, xiv. of the necessity of assuming the appearance of incorrupti- xii. 172,173. bility revealed at once the extent of their cupidity, and 218, 223. the magnitude of their spoliations.1 The two centres of the society of Paris were the Faubourg St Germain and the quarter of the Chaussée d'Antin; the first comprising the residence of the remains of the nobility, the last of the bankers and merchants who had risen to wealth during the recent troubles. Rigid economy pre * "Le libertinage était pris pour la galanterie, et l'indécence la plus condamnable pour un raffinement d'élégance. La licence dans la parure fut portée à un tel point que les femmes ne se montraient plus dans les assemblées, et dans les promenades publiques, que la gorge absolument nue, les bras totalement découverts; un seul voile de gaze cachait si foiblement le reste de leur corps, que non seulement toutes leurs formes étaient nécessairement indiquées par la légèreté de leur vêtement, mais que sa transparence laissait souvent apercevoir la nudité."-Deux Amis, xiv. 33, 34. 30,34. Lac. Th. vii. 18. Bals des and other Victimes, the public indications of the manners. |