66 CHAP. XIX. 1795. appeared the cannoneers of the Convention, as soon as they saw the guns of the faubourgs charged, went over to the mob, and, both united, pointed their pieces, with the matches lighted, against the Assembly. All seemed lost : a similar defection the other way had ruined Robespierre. But, in that extremity, the conduct of the President Legendre proved the salvation of the country. Representatives!" cried he, "remain at your posts; be steady. Nature has destined us all to death: a little sooner or later is of trifling moment; but an instant's vacillation would ruin you for ever." Awed by these words, they resumed their seats, and awaited in silence the enemies who surrounded the hall. Their defenders soon arrived. The Jeunesse Dorée appeared in strength: arms were distributed to thirty thousand men ; the cavalry drew around them in imposing numbers: the Sections Lepelletier and La Butte-des-moulins ranged themselves on the side of the Convention; cannon were planted, and platoons ready to discharge on both sides. Intimidated by a resistance they had not expected, the chiefs of the insurgents paused and the Convention, taking advantage of their hesitation, entered into a negotiation with their leaders, who prevailed on the people to retire, after receiving the assurance that the supply of provisions for the capital should be attended to, and the laws of the constitution xxxvi. 366, of 1793 enforced. The result of that day demonstrated 372. Deux that the physical force of the populace, however formid- 147, 149. able, being deprived of the guidance of leaders of ability, Hist. de la could not contend with the permanent influence of the 349, 350. government.1 1 Hist. Parl. Amis, xiv. Mig. ii. 372. Conv. iv. 33. condemna Romme and Instructed by so many disasters, and such narrow escapes from utter ruin, the Convention resolved on the Trial and most decisive measures. Eleven of the most obnoxious tion of members of the Mountain-viz., Rhul, Romme, Goujon, the Jacobin Duquesnoy, Duroy, Soubrani, Bourbotte, Peyssard, For- remnant. restier, Albitte, and Prieur-de-la-Marne, were delivered over to a military commission, or the ordinary tribunals, XIX. 1795. CHAP. by whom they were all condemned, except the three last, who escaped. Three of them, Romme, Goujon, and Duquesnoy, stabbed themselves at the bar on receiving sentence, and expired in presence of the judges; several of the others mortally wounded themselves, and were led, still bleeding, to the scaffold. They all died with a stoical firmness, so often displayed, during those days of Mig anarchy, by the victims of political, worse than any ii.373. The religious fanaticism. Barère, Collot-d'Herbois, BillaudHist. de la Varennes, and Vadier, were ordered to be tried by the 351. Hist. criminal tribunal of Charente-Inferieure ; but before the decree arrived at Rochefort, they had all, except Barère, been transported or escaped.1 June 17. 1 Lac. xii. 230. vii. 407,408. Conv. iv. Parl. xxxvi. 379. 34. aud's mur arming of the Faubourg-StAntoine, and termi reign of the May 24. At length the period had arrived when the faubourgs, Condemna- whose revolts had so often proved fatal to the tranquillity tion of Fér- of France, were to be finally subdued. The murderer of derer. Dis- the deputy Féraud had been discovered, and condemned by a military commission. When the day of his punishment approached, the Convention, to prevent another nation of the revolt, ordered the disarming of the faubourgs. A band multitude of the most intrepid of the Troupe Dorée imprudently advanced into that thickly-peopled quarter; and, after seizing some guns, found themselves surrounded by its immense population. They owed their safety to the humanity or prudence of the leaders of the revolt, who hesitated to imbrue their hands in the blood of the best families of Paris. But no sooner were they permitted to retire, than the national guard, thirty thousand strong, supported by four thousand troops of the line, surrounded the revolutionary quarter; the avenues leading to it were planted with cannon, and mortars disposed on conspicuous situations to terrify the inhabitants into submission. Alarmed at the prospect of a bombardment, by which their property would have been endangered, the master manufacturers, and chiefs of the revolt, had a conference, at which it was resolved to make an unconditional surrender. They submitted without restriction to the CHAP. XIX. 1795. terms of the Convention. Their cannon were taken from them, the artillerymen disbanded; the revolutionary committees suppressed; the constitution of 1793 abolished; and the formidable pikes, which since the 14th July 1789 had so often struck terror into Paris, finally given up. Shortly after, the military force was taken out of the hands of the populace. The national guards were organised on a new footing; the workmen, the valets, the indigent citizens, were excluded from their ranks; and the new members, regularly organised by battalions and brigades, were subjected to the orders of the Military Committee. At the same time, in accordance with an earnest petition from the few remaining Amis, xii. Catholics, they were permitted to make use of the Hist. Parl. churches, on condition of maintaining them at their own 207. expense.1 1 Deux 150, 153. xxxvi. 206, Thus TERMINATED THE REIGN OF THE MULTITUDE, six years after it had been first established by the storming of the Bastille. From the period of their being disarmed, the populace took no further share in the changes of government; these were brought about solely by the middle classes and the army. It is the arming of the people in troubled times which is the fatal step; for it at once renders the mob of the capital the masters of the state. After the populace were disarmed, the grand source of disorder and suffering was closed. The Revolution, Th. vii. 410, 420. Lac. considered as a movement of the people, was thereafter xii. 227. at an end; the subsequent struggles were merely the 261. Hist. contests of other powers for the throne which they had iv. 351, 352. made vacant.2 The gradual relaxation of the extraordinary rigour of government erected by the Convention presents an interesting epoch in the history of the Revolution. After the overthrow of Robespierre, the Convention endeavoured to retrace their steps towards the natural order of society; but they experienced the utmost May 24: "Mig. ii.373. Toul. v. 260, de la Conv. CHAP. difficulty in the attempt. XIX. To go on with the maximum, forced requisitions, and general distribution of food, was 1795. impossible; but how to relax these extreme measures was Measures of the question, when the general industry of the country tion after was so grievously reduced, and the usual supplies so much. the fall of straitened, both by the abstraction of agricultural labour 35. the Conven Robes pierre. ers, the terror excited by the requisitionists, and the forced sales at a nominal and ruinous price. The first step towards a return to the natural state was an augmentation of the price fixed as a maximum by two-thirds, and a limitation of the right of making forced requisitions. But these oppressive exactions were in fact abandoned by the reaction in the public feeling, and the cessation of terror, after the fall of the Dictatorial government. The assignats going on continually declining, the aversion of all the industrial classes to the maximum was constantly increasing, because the losses they sustained through the forced sales were thereby daily augmented; and the persons intrusted with the administration of the laws, being of a more moderate and humane character, were averse to have recourse to the sanguinary means which still remained at their disposal. Thus there was every where in France a general endeavour to elude the maximum, and the newly constituted authorities winked at frauds which Amis, xii. they felt to be the necessary consequence of so unjust a Hist. Parl. law. No one, during the Reign of Terror, ventured Mig. ii. 402. openly to resist regulations which rendered the industrial and commercial classes tributary to the soldiers Th. vii. 66, and the multitude; but when the danger of the guillotine was at an end, the reaction against them was irresistible.1 1 Deux 137, 139. xxxvi. 207. Hist. de la 257,258. 139, 224, 225. 36. Reaction against the Many months had not elapsed after the 9th Thermidor, before the total abolition of the maximum and forced violent mea- requisitions was demanded in the Convention. Public sures of the feeling revolted against their continuance, and they were put an end to almost by acclamation. The powers of the Committee of Subsistence and Provisions were greatly Reign of Terror. circumscribed; the right of making forced requisitions was continued only for a month, and its army of ten thousand employés restricted to a few hundred. At the same time, the free circulation of gold and silver, which had been arrested by the Revolutionary government, was again permitted. The inextricable question of the assignats next occupied the attention of the Convention; for the suffering produced by their depreciation had become absolutely intolerable to a large portion of the people. Being still a legal tender at par, all those who had money CHAP. XIX. 1795. 112. Th. to receive lost eleven-twelfths of their property. The 1 Hist. Parl. salaries of the public functionaries, and the payments to xxxvi. 83, the public creditors, were to a certain degree augmented, vii. 236,240. but by no means in proportion to the depreciation of the Rapport de paper. But this was a trifling remedy; the great evil la situation still remained unmitigated in all payments between man de la Rep. and man over the whole country.1 Lindet sur intérieure difficulty in contracting the assig nats. The only way of withdrawing the assignats from cir- 37. culation, and in consequence enhancing their value, was by Inextricable the sale of the national domains, when, according to the theory of their formation, they should be retired by the a government, and destroyed. But how were purchasers to be found? That was the eternal question which constantly recurred, and never could be answered. The same national convulsion which had confiscated two-thirds of the land of France belonging to the emigrants, the clergy, and the crown, had destroyed almost all the capital which could be employed in its purchase. Sales to any considerable extent were thus totally out of the question, the more especially as the estates thus brought all at once to sale, consisted in great part of sumptuous palaces, woods, parks, and other domains, in circumstances, of all others, the worst adapted for a division among the industrial classes. It was not the capitals of a few shopkeepers and farmers which had escaped the general wreck that could produce any impression on such immense possessions. difficulty, in truth, was inextricable.2 No sales to 2 Hist. Parl. Th. vii. 241, 242. Mig.ii. The 403. xxxvi. 212. any |