vengeance of the Convention, to answer for a revolt which CHAP. they had so evidently excited. XIX. 1795. 24. midorians victory. are only The Thermidorians made a humane use of their victory. They were fearful of making too large chasms Humanity in the ranks of the allies by whose assistance they had of the Therso recently been delivered from the tyranny of Robes- after their pierre; and they justly feared a reaction in the public The accused mind, if they themselves put in practice, on their first transported. triumph, the bloody maxims which they had so severely condemned in their adversaries. By concert with the leaders of the Girondists, Billaud-Varennes, Collotd'Herbois, and Barère, were condemned to the limited punishment of transportation; and seventeen members of the Mountain, who had seemed most favourable to the revolt, were put under arrest, and the next day conducted to the chateau of Ham. The persons thus put in confinement included Cambon, Ruamps, Thuriot, Amar, and the whole strength of the Jacobin party. The transference of the condemned deputies to the Chateau of Ham was not accomplished without some difficulty. They were once rescued by the insurgent populace; but Pichegru having arrived at the head of three hundred of the Troupe Dorée, the mob was dis- Deux persed, and the prisoners were again seized and conducted 108. Hist. to the place of their confinement. Nothing is more 274, 300. instructive in the history of the French Revolution than 200. Mig." the important consequences which, in all its stages, Toul. v. 213. attended the efforts of even the smallest body, acting 300. energetically in the cause of order.1 1 Amis, xiii. Parl, xxxvi. Lac.xii. 198, ii. 367. Th. vii. 290, 25. sequent fate The fate of these revolutionary leaders was commensurate to their crimes, in the colony to which they were ultimately Their subconveyed. Their lives, which were in the first instance at Cayenne. threatened by the burning climate of Cayenne, were saved by the generous kindness of the Sisters of Charity who, in the hospital on that distant shore, continued practise towards the most depraved of mankind the lime principles of forgiveness of injuries. Collot-d' XIX. CHAP. by a similar chaos of crimes and abominations." Instigated by such sufferings, a formidable band soon surrounded 1795. the Convention. Speedily they forced their way in; 1 Hist. Parl. drunken women, abandoned prostitutes, formed the revolt262. Hist. ing advanced guard; but speedily a more formidable ii. 215, 216. band of petitioners, with pikes in their hands, filled every vacant space.1 xxxvi. 260, de la Conv. 23. Defeat of the insur gents. Having penetrated to the bar, they commenced the most seditious harangues. "You see before you," said they," the men of the 14th July, the 10th August, and the 31st May. They have sworn to conquer or die: they will maintain the constitution of 1793, and the Declaration of Rights. It is high time that the workingclasses should cease to be the victims of the selfishness of the rich, and the cupidity of merchants. Where is the abundant harvest of the last year? Have we destroyed the Bastille to raise up a thousand others for the imprisonment of the patriots? Public misery is at its height : the assignats are worth nothing; for you have passed decrees which have destroyed their value and you, sacred Mountain, the men of the 14th July invoke your aid in this crisis to save the country." With these words, ascending the benches of the members, they seated themselves with the deputies of the Mountain. Every thing announced the approach of a crisis; the Jacobins were recovering their former audacity, and the majority of the Convention, labouring under severe apprehension, were on the point of withdrawing, when, fortunately, a large body of the Troupe Dorée, who had assembled at the sound of the tocsin, entered the hall, under the command of Pichegru, chanting in loud strains the "Réveil du Peuple." 2 Hist. Parl. The insurgents knew their masters; and that formidable xxxvi. 269, body, before whom the strength of the monarchy had so often trembled, yielded to the courage of a few hundred Hist. de la half-disciplined young men. The crowd, lately so clamorous, gradually withdrew from the bar, and in a short time the accused members were left alone to the 274. Lac. xii. 198. Mig. ii. 365. Conv. iv. 295, 305. vengeance of the Convention, to answer for a revolt which they had so evidently excited. CHAP. 1795. 24. of the Ther midorians victory. are only The Thermidorians made a humane use of their victory. They were fearful of making too large chasms Humanity in the ranks of the allies by whose assistance they had more so recently been delivered from the tyranny of Robes- after their pierre; and they justly feared a reaction in the public The accused mind, if they themselves put in practice, on their first transported. triumph, the bloody maxims which they had so severely condemned in their adversaries. By concert with the leaders of the Girondists, Billaud-Varennes, Collotd'Herbois, and Barère, were condemned to the limited punishment of transportation; and seventeen members of the Mountain, who had seemed most favourable to the revolt, were put under arrest, and the next day conducted to the chateau of Ham. The persons thus put in confinement included Cambon, Ruamps, Thuriot, Amar, and the whole strength of the Jacobin party. The transference of the condemned deputies to the Chateau of Ham was not accomplished without some difficulty. They were once rescued by the insurgent populace; but Pichegru having arrived at the head of three hundred of the Troupe Dorée, the mob was dis- Deux persed, and the prisoners were again seized and conducted to the place of their confinement. Nothing is instructive in the history of the French Revolution the important consequences which, in all its stages, attended the efforts of even the smallest body, acting 300. energetically in the cause of order.1 1 Amis, xiii. 108. Hist. more 274, 300. Parl. xxxvi. Lac.xii. 198, than 200. Mig. ii. 367. Toul. v.213. Th. vii. 290, 25. The fate of these revolutionary leaders was commensurate to their crimes, in the colony to which they were ultimately Their subconveyed. Their lives, which were in the first instance sequent fate threatened by the burning climate of Cayenne, were saved by the generous kindness of the Sisters of Charity, who, in the hospital on that distant shore, continued to practise towards the most depraved of mankind the sublime principles of forgiveness of injuries. Collot-d'Her XIX. 1795. CHAP. bois, shortly after his recovery, endeavoured to engage the slaves of the colony in a revolt; being defeated in the attempt, he was confined in the fort of Sinumari, where he died from the effects of a bottle of spirits, which he swallowed in a moment of despair. Billaud-Varennes survived long the other companions of his exile; his hardened mind prevented him from feeling the pangs of remorse, and his favourite occupation was teaching a parrot, which he had tamed, the jargon and the indecencies of the revolutionary language. His punishment, and it was a dreadful one, consisted in the tempest of passion which his depraved disposition had roused within his own breast. 1 Lac. xii. "Nullo martiro fuor che la tua rabbia, Barère had nearly died, shortly after his sentence, of a loathsome malady which he had contracted at Rochefort; but he survived that disease, escaped from prison, and was restored to France by Napoleon in 1800, where he 201, 202. lingered out his life an obscure pamphleteer in the impeBarère, rial pay. Before the expiry of his exile, Billaud-Varennes 100. Deux beheld the arrival, in the hut next his own, of the illustrious Pichegru, whose vigour had been so instrumental in conducting him thither.1 Mém. de Introd. 87, Amis, xiii. 108, 109. By these successive blows, the Jacobins were broken, but not subdued. By the fall of Robespierre, and the + Barère was employed in obscure situations by Napoleon, and was alive at Brussels, where he was living in great poverty, in 1831. It was one of his favourite positions at that time, "that the world could never be civilised till the punishment of death was utterly abolished, and that no human being had a right to take away the life of another." This was the man who said in 1793, "the Tree of Liberty cannot flourish if it is not watered by the blood of a king;" and "Il n'y a que les morts qui ne reviennent pas." So completely does a Revolution unhinge the human mind, that no reliance can be placed, in its vicissitudes, on any thing but the sense of duty which religion inspires. Before the Revolution he was the Marquis de Vieussac, with an ample fortune. He died at Brussels on the 13th January 1841.-See SIR ARTHUR BROOKE FALKNER'S Travels in Germany, i. 196. СНАР. XIX. 1795. 26. efforts of cessive Paris. execution of his associates in the Municipality, they had lost the Commune; the closing of their place of debate had deprived them of their centre of operations; by the exile of so many members of the Convention, they were Renewed Still there remained to the Jacobereft of their ablest leaders. them the forces of the faubourgs, the inhabitants of which bis Exretained the arms which they had received at an early misery at period of the revolutionary troubles; while their needy circumstances, the general suffering produced by the Revolution, and the universal exasperation felt at the high price of provisions, rendered them ready for the most desperate enterprises. In the Annales Patriotiques of 19th May 1795, it was stated-"It would be difficult to May 19. find a people upon the face of the globe so unhappy as that of Paris. Yesterday we received each a ration of two ounces of bread; that pittance, small as it is, has been diminished to-day. This measure has spread consternation among the people, who now murmur louder than ever. All our streets resound with the cries of those who are dying of famine." The failure of the revolt on 1st April did not discourage their leaders; they saw in it only a proof of the necessity of making a greater effort with more formidable forces. A general insurrection of the faubourgs was agreed on for the 20th May; above thirty 1 Deux thousand men, armed with pikes, were then to march mix. against the Convention—a greater force than that had proved victorious on many former occasions, never before had they been animated by so ferocious spirit. Their rallying cry was, "Bread, and the consti- 1795. tution of 1793,"1 1 125, 129. which Hist. Parl. and 312. xxxvi. 310, An nales Pa a triotiques. March 19, 27. misery at The misery at Paris at this time, in consequence of the famine which the Reign of Terror had brought upon Excessive France, and the general failure of agricultural exertion, Paris. in consequence of the forced requisitions and the law of the maximum, had now risen to the very highest pitch. A contemporary republican writer gives the following energetic picture of the public suffering: "The ConvenNEW YORK FALE HARLEY SPARCH CHARY |