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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20733-8.txt b/20733-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..276c0a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/20733-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3625 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3), by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) + Essay 1: Robespierre + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: March 3, 2007 [EBook #20733] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +CRITICAL +MISCELLANIES + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + +VOL. I. Essay 1: Robespierre + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED +NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1904 + +CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + +ROBESPIERRE. + +I. + + PAGE + +Introduction 1 + +Different views of Robespierre 4 + +His youthful history 5 + +An advocate at Arras 7 + +Acquaintance with Carnot 10 + +The summoning of the States-General 11 + +Prophecies of revolution 12 + +Reforming Ministers tried and dismissed 13 + +Financial state of France 14 + +Impotence of the Monarchy 17 + +The Constituent Assembly 19 + +Robespierre interprets the revolutionary movement rightly 21 + +The Sixth of October 1789 23 + +Alteration in Robespierre's position 25 + +Character of Louis XVI. 28 + +And of Marie Antoinette 29 + +The Constitution and Robespierre's mark upon it 34 + +Instability of the new arrangements 37 + +Importance of Jacobin ascendancy 41 + +The Legislative Assembly 42 + +Robespierre's power at the Jacobin Club 44 + +His oratory 45 + +The true secret of his popularity 48 + +Aggravation of the crisis in the spring of 1792 50 + +The Tenth of August 1792 52 + +Danton 53 + +Compared with Robespierre 55 + +Robespierre compared with Marat and with Sieyès 57 + +Character of the Terror 58 + + +II. + +Fall of the Girondins indispensable 60 + +France in desperate peril 61 + +The Committee of Public Safety 65 + +At the Tuileries 67 + +The contending factions 70 + +Reproduced an older conflict of theories 72 + +Robespierre's attitude 73 + +The Hébertists 77 + +Chaumette and his fundamental error 80 + +Robespierre and the atheists 82 + +His bitterness towards Anacharsis Clootz 86 + +New turn of events (March 1794) 90 + +First breach in the Jacobin ranks: the Hébertists 90 + +Robespierre's abandonment of Danton 91 + +Second breach: the Dantonians (April 1794) 95 + +Another reminiscence of this date 97 + +Robespierre's relations to the Committees changed 98 + +The Feast of the Supreme Being 101 + +Its false philosophy 103 + +And political inanity 104 + +The Law of Prairial 106 + +Robespierre's motive in devising it 107 + +It produces the Great Terror 109 + +Robespierre's chagrin at its miscarriage 112 + +His responsibility not to be denied 112 + + (1) Affair of Catherine Théot 113 + + " Cécile Renault 114 + + (2) Robespierre stimulated popular commissions 115 + +The drama of Thermidor: the combatants 117 + +Its conditions 118 + +The Eighth Thermidor 119 + +Inefficiency of Robespierre's speech 121 + +The Ninth Thermidor 123 + +Famous scene in the Convention 125 + +Robespierre a prisoner 127 + +Struggle between the Convention and the Commune 129 + +Death of Robespierre 131 + +Ultimate issue of the struggle between the Committees +and the Convention 132 + + + + +ROBESPIERRE. + + + + +I. + +A French writer has recently published a careful and interesting volume +on the famous events which ended in the overthrow of Robespierre and the +close of the Reign of Terror.[1] These events are known in the historic +calendar as the Revolution of Thermidor in the Year II. After the fall +of the monarchy, the Convention decided that the year should begin with +the autumnal equinox, and that the enumeration should date from the +birth of the Republic. The Year I. opens on September 22, 1792; the Year +II. opens on the same day of 1793. The month of Thermidor begins on July +19. The memorable Ninth Thermidor therefore corresponds to July 27, +1794. This has commonly been taken as the date of the commencement of a +counter-revolution, and in one sense it was so. Comte, however, and +others have preferred to fix the reaction at the execution of Danton +(April 5, 1794), or Robespierre's official proclamation of Deism in the +Festival of the Supreme Being (May 7, 1794). + +[Footnote 1: _La Révolution de Thermidor_. Par Ch. D'Héricault. Paris: +Didier, 1876.] + +M. D'Héricault does not belong to the school of writers who treat the +course of history as a great high road, following a firmly traced line, +and set with plain and ineffaceable landmarks. The French Revolution has +nearly always been handled in this way, alike by those who think it +fruitful in blessings, and by their adversaries, who pronounce it a +curse inflicted by the wrath of Heaven. Historians have looked at the +Revolution as a plain landsman looks at the sea. To the landsman the +ocean seems one huge immeasurable flood, obeying a simple law of ebb and +flow, and offering to the navigator a single uniform force. Yet in truth +we know that the oceanic movement is the product of many forces; the +seeming uniformity covers the energy of a hundred currents and +counter-currents; the sea-floor is not even nor the same, but is subject +to untold conditions of elevation and subsidence; the sea is not one +mass, but many masses moving along definite lines of their own. It is +the same with the great tides of history. Wise men shrink from summing +them up in single propositions. That the French Revolution led to an +immense augmentation of happiness, both for the French and for mankind, +can only be denied by the Pope. That it secured its beneficent results +untempered by any mixture of evil, can only be maintained by men as mad +as Doctor Pangloss. The Greek poetess Corinna said to the youthful +Pindar, when he had interwoven all the gods and goddesses in the Theban +mythology into a single hymn, that we should sow with the hand and not +with the sack. Corinna's monition to the singer is proper to the +interpreter of historical truth: he should cull with the hand, and not +sweep in with the scythe. It is doubtless mere pedantry to abstain from +the widest conception of the sum of a great movement. A clear, definite, +and stable idea of the meaning in the history of human progress of such +vast groups of events as the Reformation or the Revolution, is +indispensable for any one to whom history is a serious study of society. +It is just as important, however, not to forget that they were really +groups of events, and not in either case a single uniform movement. The +World-Epos is after all only a file of the morning paper in a state of +glorification. A sensible man learns, in everyday life, to abstain from +praising and blaming character by wholesale; he becomes content to say +of this trait that it is good, and of that act that it was bad. So in +history, we become unwilling to join or to admire those who insist upon +transferring their sentiment upon the whole to their judgment upon each +part. We seek to be allowed to retain a decided opinion as to the final +value to mankind of a long series of transactions, and yet not to commit +ourselves to set the same estimate on each transaction in particular, +still less on each person associated with it. Why shall we not prize the +general results of the Reformation, without being obliged to defend John +of Leyden and the Munster Anabaptists? + +M. D'Héricault's volume naturally suggests such reflections as these. Of +all the men of the Revolution, Robespierre has suffered most from the +audacious idolatry of some writers, and the splenetic impatience of +others. M. Louis Blanc and M. Ernest Hamel talk of him as an angel or a +prophet, and the Ninth Thermidor is a red day indeed in their +martyrology. Michelet and M. D'Héricault treat him as a mixture of +Cagliostro and Caligula, both a charlatan and a miscreant. We are +reminded of the commencement of an address of the French Senate to the +first Bonaparte: 'Sire,' they began, 'the desire for perfection is one +of the worst maladies that can afflict the human mind.' This bold +aphorism touches one of the roots of the judgments we pass both upon men +and events. It is because people so irrationally think fit to insist +upon perfection, that Robespierre's admirers would fain deny that he +ever had a fault, and the tacit adoption of the same impracticable +standard makes it easier for Robespierre's wholesale detractors to deny +that he had a single virtue or performed a single service. The point of +view is essentially unfit for history. The real subject of history is +the improvement of social arrangements, and no conspicuous actor in +public affairs since the world began saw the true direction of +improvement with an absolutely unerring eye from the beginning of his +career to the end. It is folly for the historian, as it is for the +statesman, to strain after the imaginative unity of the dramatic +creator. Social progress is an affair of many small pieces and slow +accretions, and the interest of historic study lies in tracing, amid the +immense turmoil of events and through the confusion of voices, the +devious course of the sacred torch, as it shifts from bearer to bearer. +And it is not the bearers who are most interesting, but the torch. + + * * * * * + +In the old Flemish town of Arras, known in the diplomatic history of the +fifteenth century by a couple of important treaties, and famous in the +industrial history of the Middle Ages for its pre-eminence in the +manufacture of the most splendid kind of tapestry hangings, Maximilian +Robespierre was born in May 1758. He was therefore no more than five and +thirty years old when he came to his ghastly end in 1794. His father was +a lawyer, and, though the surname of the family had the prefix of +nobility, they belonged to the middle class. When this decorative prefix +became dangerous, Maximilian Derobespierre dropped it. His great rival, +Danton, was less prudent or less fortunate, and one of the charges made +against him was that he had styled himself Monsieur D'Anton. + +Robespierre's youth was embittered by sharp misfortune. His mother died +when he was only seven years old, and his father had so little courage +under the blow that he threw up his practice, deserted his children, and +died in purposeless wanderings through Germany. The burden that the weak +and selfish throw down, must be taken up by the brave. Friendly +kinsfolk charged themselves with the maintenance of the four orphans. +Maximilian was sent to the school of the town, whence he proceeded with +a sizarship to the college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He was an apt and +studious pupil, but austere, and disposed to that sombre cast of spirits +which is common enough where a lad of some sensibility and much +self-esteem finds himself stamped with a badge of social inferiority. +Robespierre's worshippers love to dwell on his fondness for birds: with +the universal passion of mankind for legends of the saints, they tell +how the untimely death of a favourite pigeon afflicted him with anguish +so poignant, that, even sixty long years after, it made his sister's +heart ache to look back upon the pain of that tragic moment. Always a +sentimentalist, Robespierre was from boyhood a devout enthusiast for the +great high priest of the sentimental tribe. Rousseau was then passing +the last squalid days of his life among the meadows and woods at +Ermenonville. Robespierre, who could not have been more than twenty at +the time, for Rousseau died in the summer of 1778, is said to have gone +on a reverential pilgrimage in search of an oracle from the lonely sage, +as Boswell and as Gibbon and a hundred others had gone before him. +Rousseau was wont to use his real adorers as ill as he used his +imaginary enemies. Robespierre may well have shared the discouragement +of the enthusiastic father who informed Rousseau that he was about to +bring up his son on the principles of _Emilius_. 'Then so much the +worse,' cried the perverse philosopher, 'both for you and your son.' If +he had been endowed with second sight, he would have thought at least as +rude a presage due to this last and most ill-starred of a whole +generation of neophytes. + +In 1781 Robespierre returned to Arras, and amid the welcome of his +relatives and the good hopes of friends began the practice of an +advocate. For eight years he led an active and seemly life. He was not +wholly pure from that indiscretion of the young appetite, about which +the world is mute, but whose better ordering and governance would give a +diviner brightness to the earth. Still, if he did not escape the ordeal +of youth, Robespierre was frugal, laborious, and persevering. His +domestic amiability made him the delight of his sister, and his zealous +self-sacrifice for the education and advancement in life of his younger +brother was afterwards repaid by Augustin Robespierre's devotion through +all the fierce and horrible hours of Thermidor. Though cold in +temperament, extremely reserved in manners, and fond of industrious +seclusion, Robespierre did not disdain the social diversions of the +town. He was a member of a reunion of Rosati, who sang madrigals and +admired one another's bad verses. Those who love the ironical surprises +of fate, may picture the young man who was doomed to play so terrible a +part in terrible affairs, going through the harmless follies of a +ceremonial reception by the Rosati, taking three deep breaths over a +rose, solemnly fastening the emblem to his coat, emptying a glass of +rose-red wine at a draught to the good health of the company, and +finally reciting couplets that Voltaire would have found almost as +detestable as the Law of Prairial or the Festival of the Supreme Being. +More laudable efforts of ambition were prize essays, in which +Robespierre has the merit of taking the right side in important +questions. He protested against the inhumanity of laws that inflicted +civil infamy upon the innocent family of a convicted criminal. And he +protested against the still more horrid cruelty which reduced +unfortunate children born out of wedlock to something like the status of +the mediæval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise +above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a +manhood of benignity and enlightenment. To compose prize essays on +political reforms was better than to ignore or to oppose political +reform. But the course of events afterwards owed their least desirable +bias to the fact that such compositions were the nearest approach to +political training that so many of the revolutionary leaders underwent. +One is inclined to apply to practical politics Arthur Young's sensible +remark about the endeavour of the French to improve the quality of their +wool: 'A cultivator at the head of a sheep-farm of 3000 or 4000 acres, +would in a few years do more for their wools than all the academicians +and philosophers will effect in ten centuries.' + +In his profession he distinguished himself in one or two causes of local +celebrity. An innovating citizen had been ordered by the authorities to +remove a lightning-conductor from his house within three days, as being +a mischievous practical paradox, as well as a danger and an annoyance to +his neighbours. Robespierre pleaded the innovator's case on appeal, and +won it. He defended a poor woman who had been wrongfully accused by a +monk belonging to the powerful corporation of a great neighbouring +abbey. The young advocate did not even shrink from manfully arguing a +case against the august Bishop of Arras himself. His independence did +him no harm. The Bishop afterwards appointed him to the post of judge or +legal assessor in the episcopal court. This tribunal was a remnant of +what had once been the sovereign authority and jurisdiction of the +Bishops of Arras. That a court with the power of life and death should +thus exist by the side of a proper corporation of civil magistrates, is +an illustration of the inextricable labyrinth of the French law and its +administration on the eve of the Revolution. Robespierre did not hold +his office long. Every one has heard the striking story, how the young +judge, whose name was within half a dozen years to take a place in the +popular mind of France and of Europe with the bloodiest monsters of myth +or history, resigned his post in a fit of remorse after condemning a +murderer to be executed. 'He is a criminal, no doubt,' Robespierre kept +groaning in reply to the consolations of his sister, for women are more +positive creatures than men: 'a criminal, no doubt; but to put a man to +death!' Many a man thus begins the great voyage with queasy +sensibilities, and ends it a cannibal. + +Among Robespierre's associates in the festive mummeries of the Rosati +was a young officer of Engineers, who was destined to be his colleague +in the dread Committee of Public Safety, and to leave an important name +in French history. In the garrison of Arras, Carnot was quartered,--that +iron head, whose genius for the administrative organisation of war +achieved even greater things for the new republic than the genius of +Louvois had achieved for the old monarchy. Carnot surpassed not only +Louvois, but perhaps all other names save one in modern military +history, by uniting to the most powerful gifts for organisation, both +the strategic talent that planned the momentous campaign of 1794, and +the splendid personal energy and skill that prolonged the defence of +Antwerp against the allied army in 1814 Partisans dream of the +unrivalled future of peace, glory, and freedom that would have fallen to +the lot of France, if only the gods had brought about a hearty union +between the military genius of Carnot and the political genius of +Robespierre. So, no doubt, after the restoration of Charles II. in +England, there were good men who thought that all would have gone very +differently, if only the genius of the great creator of the Ironsides +had taken counsel with the genius of Venner, the Fifth-Monarchy Man, and +Feak, the Anabaptist prophet. + +The time was now come when such men as Robespierre were to be tried with +fire, when they were to drink the cup of fury and the dregs of the cup +of trembling. Sybils and prophets have already spoken their inexorable +decree, as Goethe has said, on the day that first gives the man to the +world; no time and no might can break the stamped mould of his +character; only as life wears on, do all its aforeshapen lines come into +light. He is launched into a sea of external conditions, that are as +independent of his own will as the temperament with which he confronts +them. It is action that tries, and variation of circumstance. The leaden +chains of use bind many an ugly unsuspected prisoner in the soul; and +when the habit of their lives has been sundered, the most immaculate are +capable of antics beyond prevision. A great crisis of the world was +prepared for Robespierre and those others, his allies or his destroyers, +who with him came like the lightning and went like the wind. + +At the end of 1788 the King of France found himself forced to summon the +States-General. It was their first assembly since 1614. On the memorable +Fourth of May, 1789, Robespierre appeared at Versailles as one of the +representatives of the third estate of his native province of Artois. +The excitement and enthusiasm of the elections to this renowned +assembly, the immense demands and boundless expectations that they +disclosed, would have warned a cool observer of events, if in that +heated air a cool observer could have been found, that the hour had +struck for the fulfilment of those grim apprehensions of revolution that +had risen in the minds of many shrewd men, good and bad, in the course +of the previous half century. No great event in history ever comes +wholly unforeseen. The antecedent causes are so wide-reaching, many, and +continuous, that their direction is always sure to strike the eye of one +or more observers in all its significance. Lewis the Fifteenth, whose +invincible weariness and heavy disgust veiled a penetrating discernment, +measured accurately the scope of the conflict between the crown and the +parlements: but, said he, things as they are will last my time. Under +the roof of his own palace at Versailles, in the apartment of Madame de +Pompadour's famous physician, one of Quesnai's economic disciples had +cried out, 'The realm is in a sore way; it will never be cured without a +great internal commotion; but woe to those who have to do with it; into +such work the French go with no slack hand.' Rousseau, in a passage in +the Confessions, not only divines a speedy convulsion, but with striking +practical sagacity enumerates the political and social causes that were +unavoidably drawing France to the edge of the abyss. Lord Chesterfield, +so different a man from Rousseau, declared as early as 1752, that he saw +in France every symptom that history had taught him to regard as the +forerunner of deep change; before the end of the century, so his +prediction ran, both the trade of king and the trade of priest in France +would be shorn of half their glory. D'Argenson in the same year declared +a revolution inevitable, and with a curious precision of anticipation +assured himself that if once the necessity arose of convoking the +States-General, they would not assemble in vain: _qu'on y prenne, garde! +ils seraient fort sérieux!_ Oliver Goldsmith, idly wandering through +France, towards 1755, discerned in the mutinous attitude of the judicial +corporations, that the genius of freedom was entering the kingdom in +disguise, and that a succession of three weak monarchs would end in the +emancipation of the people of France. The most touching of all these +presentiments is to be found in a private letter of the great Empress, +the mother of Marie Antoinette herself. Maria Theresa describes the +ruined state of the French monarchy, and only prays that if it be doomed +to ruin still more utter, at least the blame may not fall upon her +daughter. The Empress had not learnt that when the giants of social +force are advancing from the sombre shadow of the past, with the thunder +and the hurricane in their hands, our poor prayers are of no more avail +than the unbodied visions of a dream. + +The old popular assembly of the realm was not resorted to before every +means of dispensing with so drastic a remedy had been tried. Historians +sometimes write as if Turgot were the only able and reforming minister +of the century. God forbid that we should put any other minister on a +level with that high and beneficent figure. But Turgot was not the first +statesman, both able and patriotic, who had been disgraced for want of +compliance with the conditions of success at court; he was only the last +of a series. Chauvelin, a man of vigour and capacity, was dismissed +with ignominy in 1736. Machault, a reformer, at once courageous and +wise, shared the same fate twenty years later; and in his case +revolution was as cruel and as heedless as reaction, for, at the age of +ninety-one, the old man was dragged, blind and deaf, before the +revolutionary tribunal and thence despatched to the guillotine. Between +Chauvelin and Machault, the elder D'Argenson, who was greater than +either of them, had been raised to power, and then speedily hurled down +from it (1747), for no better reason than that his manners were uncouth, +and that he would not waste his time in frivolities that were as the +breath of life in the great gallery at Versailles and on the +smooth-shaven lawns of Fontainebleau. + +Not only had wise counsellors been tried; consultative assemblies had +been tried also. Necker had been dismissed in 1781, after publishing the +memorable Report which first initiated the nation in the elements of +financial knowledge. The disorder waxed greater, and the monarchy drew +nearer to bankruptcy each year. The only modern parallel to the state of +things in France under Lewis the Sixteenth is to be sought in the state +of things in Egypt or in Turkey. Lewis the Fourteenth had left a debt of +between two and three thousand millions of livres, but this had been +wiped out by the heroic operations of Law; operations, by the way, which +have never yet been scientifically criticised. But the debt soon grew +again, by foolish wars, by the prodigality of the court, and by the +rapacity of the nobles. It amounted in 1789 to something like two +hundred and forty millions sterling; and it is interesting to notice +that this was exactly the sum of the public debt of Great Britain at the +same time. The year's excess of expenditure over receipts in 1774 was +about fifty millions of livres: in 1787 it was one hundred and forty +millions, or according to a different computation even two hundred +millions. The material case was not at all desperate, if only the court +had been less infatuated, and the spirit of the privileged orders had +been less blind and less vile. The fatality of the situation lay in the +characters of a handful of men and women. For France was abundant in +resources, and even at this moment was far from unprosperous, in spite +of the incredible trammels of law and custom. An able financier, with +the support of a popular chamber and the assent of the sovereign, could +have had no difficulty in restoring the public credit. But the +conditions, simple as they might seem to a patriot or to posterity, were +unattainable so long as power remained with a caste that were anything +we please except patriots. An Assembly of Notables was brought together, +but it was only the empty phantasm of national representation. Yet the +situation was so serious that even this body, of arbitrary origin as it +was, still was willing to accept vital reforms. The privileged order, +who were then as their descendants are now, the worst conservative party +in Europe, immediately persuaded the magisterial corporation to resist +the Notables. The judicial corporation or Parlement of Paris had been +suppressed under Lewis the Fifteenth, and unfortunately revived again at +the accession of his grandson. By the inconvenient constitution of the +French government, the assent of that body was indispensable to fiscal +legislation, on the ground that such legislation was part of the general +police of the realm. The king's minister, now Loménie de Brienne, +devised a new judicial constitution. But the churchmen, the nobles, and +the lawyers all united in protestations against such a blow. The common +people are not always the best judges of a remedy for the evils under +which they are the greatest sufferers, and they broke out in disorder +both in Paris and the provinces. They discerned an attack upon their +local independence. Nobody would accept office in the new courts, and +the administration of justice was at a standstill. A loan was thrown +upon the market, but the public could not be persuaded to take it up. It +was impossible to collect the taxes. The interest on the national debt +was unpaid, and the fundholder was dismayed and exasperated by an +announcement that only two-fifths would be discharged in cash. A very +large part of the national debt was held in the form of annuities for +lives, and men who had invested their savings on the credit of the +government, saw themselves left without a provision. The total number of +fundholders cannot be ascertained with any precision, but it must have +been very considerable, especially in Paris and the other great cities. +Add to these all the civil litigants in the kingdom, who had portions of +their property virtually sequestrated by the suspension of the courts +into which the property had been taken. The resentment of this immense +body of defrauded public creditors and injured private suitors explains +the alienation of the middle class from the monarchy. In the convulsions +of our own time, the moneyed interests have been on one side, and the +population without money on the other. But in the first and greatest +convulsion, those who had nothing to lose found their animosities shared +by those who had had something to lose, and had lost it. + +Deliberative assemblies, then, had been tried, and ministers had been +tried; both had failed, and there was no other device left, except one +which was destructive to absolute monarchy. Lewis the Sixteenth was in +1789 in much the same case as that of the King of England in 1640. +Charles had done his best to raise money without any parliament for +twelve years: he had lost patience with the Short Parliament; finally, +he was driven without choice or alternative to face as he best could the +stout resolution and the wise patriotism of the Long Parliament. Men +sometimes wonder how it was that Lewis, when he came to find the +National Assembly unmanageable, and discovering how rapidly he was +drifting towards the thunders of the revolutionary cataract, did not +break up a Chamber over which neither the court, nor even a minister so +popular as Necker, had the least control. It is a question whether the +sword would not have broken in his hand. Even supposing, however, that +the army would have consented to a violent movement against the +Assembly, the King would still have been left in the same desperate +straits from which he had looked to the States-General to extricate him. +He might perhaps have dispersed the Assembly; he could not disperse debt +and deficit. Those monsters would have haunted him as implacably as +ever. There was no new formula of exorcism, nor any untried enchantment. +The success of violent designs against the National Assembly, had +success been possible, could, after all, have been followed by no other +consummation than the relapse of France into the raging anarchy of +Poland, or the sullen decrepitude of Turkey. + +This will seem to some persons no better than fatalism. But, in truth, +there are two popular ways of reading the history of events between 1789 +and 1794, and each of them seems to us as bad as the other. According to +one, whatever happened in the Revolution was good and admirable, because +it happened. According to the other, something good and admirable was +always attainable, and, if only bad men had not interposed, always ready +to happen. Of course, the only sensible view is that many of the +revolutionary solutions were detestable, but no other solution was +within reach. This is undoubtedly the best of possible worlds; if the +best is not so good as we could wish, that is the fault of the +possibilities. Such a doctrine is neither fatalism nor optimism, but an +honest recognition of long chains of cause and effect in human affairs. + +The great gathering of chosen men was first called States-General; then +it called itself National Assembly; it is commonly known in history as +the Constituent Assembly. The name is of ironical association, for the +constitution which it framed after much travail endured for no more than +a few months. Its deliberations lasted from May 1789 until September +1791. Among its members were three principal groups. There was, first, a +band of blind adherents of the old system of government with all or most +of its abuses. Second, there was a Centre of timid and one-eyed men, who +were for transforming the old absolutist system into something that +should resemble the constitution of our own country. Finally, there was +a Left, with some differences of shade, but all agreeing in the +necessity of a thorough remodelling of every institution and most of the +usages of the country. 'Silence, you thirty votes!' cried Mirabeau one +day, when he was interrupted by the dissents of the Mountain. This was +the original measure of the party that in the twinkling of an eye was to +wield the destinies of France. In our own time we have wondered at the +rapidity with which a Chamber that was one day on the point of bringing +back the grandnephew of Lewis the Sixteenth, found itself a little later +voting that Republic which has since been ratified by the nation, and +has at this moment the ardent good wishes of every enlightened +politician in Europe. In the same way it is startling to think that +within three years of the beheading of Lewis the Sixteenth, there was +probably not one serious republican in the representative assembly of +France. Yet it is always so. We might make just the same remark of the +House of Commons at Westminster in 1640, and of the Assembly of +Massachusetts or of New York as late as 1770. The final flash of a long +unconscious train of thought or intent is ever a surprise and a shock. +It is a mistake to set these swift changes down to political levity; +they were due rather to quickness of political intuition. It was the +King's attempt at flight in the summer of 1791 that first created a +republican party. It was that unhappy exploit, and no theoretical +preferences, that awoke France to the necessity of choosing between the +sacrifice of monarchy and the restoration of territorial aristocracy. + +Political intuition was never one of Robespierre's conspicuous gifts. +But he had a doctrine that for a certain time served the same purpose. +Rousseau had kindled in him a fervid democratic enthusiasm, and had +penetrated his mind with the principle of the Sovereignty of the People. +This famous dogma contained implicitly within it the more indisputable +truth that a society ought to be regulated with a view to the happiness +of the people. Such a principle made it easier for Robespierre to +interpret rightly the first phases of the revolutionary movement. It +helped him to discern that the concentrated physical force of the +populace was the only sure protection against a civil war. And if a +civil war had broken out in 1789, instead of 1793, all the advantages of +authority would have been against the popular party. The first +insurrection of Paris is associated with the harangue of Camille +Desmoulins at the Palais Royal, with the fall of the Bastille, with the +murder of the governor, and a hundred other scenes of melodramatic +horror and the blood-red picturesque. The insurrection of the Fourteenth +of July 1789 taught Robespierre a lesson of practical politics, which +exactly fitted in with his previous theories. In his resentment against +the oppressive disorder of monarchy and feudalism, he had accepted the +counter principle that the people can do no wrong, and nobody of sense +now doubts that in their first great act the people of Paris did what +was right. Six days after the fall of the Bastille, the Centre were for +issuing a proclamation denouncing popular violence and ordering rigorous +vigilance. Robespierre was then so little known in the Assembly that +even his name was usually misspelt in the journals. From his obscure +bench on the Mountain he cried out with bitter vehemence against the +proposed proclamation:--'Revolt! But this revolt is liberty. The battle +is not at its end. Tomorrow, it may be, the shameful designs against us +will be renewed; and who will there then be to repulse them, if +beforehand we declare the very men to be rebels, who have rushed to +arms for our protection and safety?' This was the cardinal truth of the +situation. Everybody knows Mirabeau's saying about Robespierre:--'That +man will go far: he believes every word that he says!' This is much, but +it is only half. It is not only that the man of power believes what he +says; what he believes must fit in with the facts and with the demands +of the time. Now Robespierre's firmness of conviction happened at this +stage to be rightly matched by his clearness of sight. + +It is true that a passionate mob, its unearthly admixture of laughter +with fury, of vacancy with deadly concentration, is as terrible as some +uncouth antediluvian, or the unfamiliar monsters of the sea, or one of +the giant plants that make men shudder with mysterious fear. The history +of our own country in the eighteenth century tells of the riots against +meeting-houses in Doctor Sacheverell's time, and the riots against +papists and their abettors in Lord George Gordon's time, and +Church-and-King riots in Doctor Priestley's time. It would be too +daring, therefore, to maintain that the rabble of the poor have any more +unerring political judgment than the rabble of the opulent. But, in +France in 1789, Robespierre was justified in saying that revolt meant +liberty. If there had been no revolt in July, the court party would have +had time to mature their infatuated designs of violence against the +Assembly. In October these designs had come to life again. The royalists +at Versailles had exultant banquets, at which, in the presence of the +Queen, they drank confusion to all patriots, and trampled the new emblem +of freedom passionately underfoot. The news of this odious folly soon +travelled to Paris. Its significance was speedily understood by a +populace whose wits were sharpened by famine. Thousands of fire-eyed +women and men tramped intrepidly out towards Versailles. If they had +done less, the Assembly would have been dispersed or arbitrarily +decimated, even though such a measure would certainly have left the +government in desperation. + +At that dreadful moment of the Sixth of October, amid the slaughter of +guards and the frantic yells of hatred against the Queen, it is no +wonder that some were found to urge the King to flee to Metz. If he had +accepted the advice, the course of the Revolution would have been +different; but its march would have been just as irresistible, for +revolution lay in the force of a hundred combined circumstances. Lewis, +however, rejected these counsels, and suffered the mob to carry him in +bewildering procession to his capital and his prison. That great man who +was watching French affairs with such consuming eagerness from distant +Beaconsfield in our English Buckinghamshire, instantly divined that this +procession from Versailles to the Tuileries marked the fall of the +monarchy. 'A revolution in sentiment, manners, and moral opinions, the +most important of all revolutions in a word,' was in Burke's judgment to +be dated from the Sixth of October 1789. + +The events of that day did, indeed, give its definite cast to the +situation. The moral authority of the sovereign came to an end, along +with the ancient and reverend mystery of the inviolability of his +person. The Count d'Artois, the King's second brother, one of the most +worthless of human beings, as incurably addicted to sinister and +suicidal counsels in 1789 as he was when he overthrew his own throne +forty years later, had run away from peril and from duty after the +insurrection of July. After the insurrection of October, a troop of the +nobles of the court followed him. The personal cowardice of the +Emigrants was only matched by their political blindness. Many of the +most unwise measures in the Assembly were only passed by small +majorities, and the majorities would have been transformed into +minorities, if in the early days of the Revolution these unworthy men +had only stood firm at their posts. Selfish oligarchies have scarcely +ever been wanting in courage. The emigrant noblesse of France are almost +the only instance of a great privileged and territorial caste that had +as little bravery as they had patriotism. The explanation is that they +had been an oligarchy, not of power or duty, but of self-indulgence. +They were crushed by Richelieu to secure the unity of the monarchy. They +now effaced themselves at the Revolution, and this secured that far +greater object, the unity of the nation. + +The disappearance of so many of the nobles from France was not the only +abdication on the part of the conservative powers. Cowed and terrified +by the events of October, no less than three hundred members of the +Assembly sought to resign. The average attendance even at the most +important sittings was often incredibly small. Thus the Chamber came to +have little more moral authority in face of the people of Paris than had +the King himself. The people of Paris had themselves become in a day the +masters of France. + +This immense change led gradually to a decisive alteration in the +position of Robespierre. He found the situation of affairs at last +falling into perfect harmony with his doctrine. Rousseau had taught him +that the people ought to be sovereign, and now the people were being +recognised as sovereign _de facto_ no less than _de jure_. Any +limitations on the new divine right united the horror of blasphemy to +the secular wickedness of political treason. After the Assembly had come +to Paris, a famishing mob in a moment of mad fury murdered an +unfortunate baker, who was suspected of keeping back bread. These +paroxysms led to the enactment of a new martial law. Robespierre spoke +vehemently against it; such a law implied a wrongful distrust of the +people. Then discussions followed as to the property qualification of an +elector. Citizens were classed as active and passive. Only those were to +have votes who paid direct taxes to the amount of three days' wages in +the year. Robespierre flung himself upon this too famous distinction +with bitter tenacity. If all men are equal, he cried, then all men +ought to have votes: if he who only pays the amount of one day's work, +has fewer rights than another who pays the amount of three days, why +should not the man who pays ten days have more rights than the other who +only pays the earnings of three days? This kind of reasoning had little +weight with the Chamber, but it made the reasoner very popular with the +throng in the galleries. Even within the Assembly, influence gradually +came to the man who had a parcel of immutable axioms and postulates, and +who was ready with a deduction and a phrase for each case as it arose. +He began to stand out like a needle of sharp rock, amid the flitting +shadows of uncertain purpose and the vapoury drift of wandering aims. + +Robespierre had no social conception, and he had nothing which can be +described as a policy. He was the prophet of a sect, and had at this +period none of the aims of the chief of a political party. What he had +was democratic doctrine, and an intrepid logic. And Robespierre's +intrepid logic was the nearest approach to calm force and coherent +character that the first three years of the Revolution brought into +prominence. When the Assembly met, Necker was the popular idol. Almost +within a few weeks, this well-meaning, but very incompetent divinity had +slipped from his throne, and Lafayette had taken his place. Mirabeau +came next. The ardent and animated genius of his eloquence fitted him +above all men to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm. And on the +memorable Twenty-third of June '89, he had shown the genuine audacity +and resource of a revolutionary statesman, when he stirred the Chamber +to defy the King's demand, and hailed the royal usher with the +resounding words:--'You, sir, have neither place nor right of speech. Go +tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people, and +only bayonets shall drive us hence!' But Mirabeau bore a tainted +character, and was always distrusted. 'Ah, how the immorality of my +youth,' he used to say, in words that sum up the tragedy of many a +puissant life, 'how the immorality of my youth hinders the public good!' +The event proved that the popular suspicion was just: the patriot is now +no longer merely suspected, but known, to have sullied his hands with +the money of the court. He did not sell himself, it has been said; he +allowed himself to be paid. The distinction was too subtle for men doing +battle for their lives and for freedom, and Mirabeau's popularity waned +towards the middle of 1790. The next favourite was Barnave, the generous +and high-minded spokesman of those sanguine spirits who to the very end +hoped against hope to save both the throne and its occupant. By the +spring of 1791 Barnave followed his predecessors into disfavour. The +Assembly was engaged on the burning question of the government of the +colonies. Were the negro slaves to be admitted to citizenship, or was a +legislature of planters to be entrusted with the task of social +reformation? Our own generation has seen in the republic of the West +what strife this political difficulty is capable of raising. Barnave +pronounced against the negroes. Robespierre, on the contrary, declaimed +against any limitation of the right of the negro, as a compromise with +the avarice, pride, and cruelty of a governing race, and a guilty +trafficking with the rights of man. Barnave from that day saw that his +laurel crown had gone to Robespierre. + +If the people 'called him noble that was now their hate, him vile that +was their garland,' they did not transfer their affections without sound +reason. Barnave's sensibility was too easily touched. There are many +politicians in every epoch whose principles grow slack and flaccid at +the approach of the golden sun of royalty. Barnave was one of those who +was sent to bring back the fugitive King and Queen from Varennes, and +the journey by their side in the coach unstrung his spirit. He became +one of the court's clandestine advisers. Men of this weak susceptibility +of imagination are not fit for times of revolution. To be on the side of +the court was to betray the cause of the nation. We cannot take too much +pains to realise that the voluntary conversion of Lewis the Sixteenth to +a popular constitution and the abolition of feudalism, was practically +as impossible as the conversion of Pope Pius the Ninth to the doctrine +of a free church in a free state. Those who believe in the miracle of +free will may think of this as they please. Sensible people who accept +the scientific account of human character, know that the sudden +transformation of a man or a woman brought up to middle age as the heir +to centuries of absolutist tradition, into adherents of a government +that agreed with the doctrines of Locke and Milton, was only possible on +condition of supernatural interference. The King's good nature was no +substitute for political capacity or insight. An instructive measure of +the degree in which he possessed these two qualities may be found in +that deplorable diary of his, where on such days as the Fourteenth of +July, when the Bastille fell, and the Sixth of October, when he was +carried in triumph from Versailles to the Tuileries, he made the simple +entry, '_Rien_.' And he had no firmness. It was as difficult to keep the +King to a purpose, La Marck said to Mirabeau, as to keep together a +number of well-oiled ivory balls. Lewis, moreover, was guided by a more +energetic and less compliant character than his own. + +Marie Antoinette's high mien in adversity, and the contrast between the +dazzling splendour of her first years and the scenes of outrage and +bloody death that made the climax of her fate, could not but strike the +imaginations of men. Such contrasts are the very stuff of which Tragedy, +the gorgeous muse with scepter'd pall, loves to weave her most imposing +raiment. But history must be just; and the character of the Queen had +far more concern in the disaster of the first five years of the +Revolution than had the character of Robespierre. Every new document +that comes to light heaps up proof that if blind and obstinate choice +of personal gratification before the common weal be enough to constitute +a state criminal, then the Queen of France was one of the worst state +criminals that ever afflicted a nation. The popular hatred of Marie +Antoinette sprang from a sound instinct. We shall never know how much or +how little truth there was in those frightful charges against her, that +may still be read in a thousand pamphlets. These imputed depravities far +surpass anything that John Knox ever said against Mary Stuart, or that +Juvenal has recorded against Messalina; and, perhaps, for the only +parallel we must look to the hideous stories of the Byzantine secretary +against Theodora, the too famous empress of Justinian and the persecutor +of Belisarius. We have to remember that all the revolutionary portraits +are distorted by furious passion, and that Marie Antoinette may no more +deserve to be compared to Mary Stuart than Robespierre deserves to be +compared to Ezzelino or to Alva. The aristocrats were the libellers, if +libels they were. It is at least certain that, from the unlucky hour +when the Austrian archduchess crossed the French frontier, a childish +bride of fourteen, down to the hour when the Queen of France made the +attempt to recross it in resentful flight one and twenty years +afterwards, Marie Antoinette was ignorant, unteachable, blind to events +and deaf to good counsels, a bitter grief to her heroic mother, the evil +genius of her husband, the despair of her truest advisers, and an +exceedingly bad friend to the people of France. When Burke had that +immortal vision of her at Versailles--'just above the horizon, +decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, +glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and +joy'--we know from the correspondence between Maria Theresa and her +minister at Versailles, that what Burke really saw was no divinity, but +a flighty and troublesome schoolgirl, an accomplice in all the ignoble +intrigues, and a sharer of all the small busy passions, that convulse +the insects of a court. The levity that came with her Lorraine blood, +broke out in incredible dissipations; in indiscreet visits to the masked +balls at the opera, in midnight parades and mystifications on the +terrace at Versailles, in insensate gambling. 'The court of France is +turned into a gaming-hell,' said the Emperor Joseph, the Queen's own +brother: 'if they do not amend, the revolution will be cruel.' These +vices or follies were less mischievous than her intervention in affairs +of state. Here her levity was as marked as in the paltry affairs of the +boudoir and the ante-chamber, and here to levity she added both +dissimulation and vindictiveness. It was the Queen's influence that +procured the dismissal of the two virtuous ministers by whose aid the +King was striving to arrest the decay of the government of his kingdom. +Malesherbes was distasteful to her for no better reason than that she +wanted his post for some favourite's favourite. Against Turgot she +conspired with tenacious animosity, because he had suppressed a +sinecure which she designed for a court parasite, and because he would +not support her caprice on behalf of a worthless creature of her +faction. These two admirable men were disgraced on the same day. The +Queen wrote to her mother that she had not meddled in the affair. This +was a falsehood, for she had even sought to have Turgot thrown into the +Bastille. 'I am as one dashed to the ground,' cried the great Voltaire, +now nearing his end. 'Never can we console ourselves for having seen the +golden age dawn and vanish. My eyes see only death in front of me, now +that Turgot is gone. The rest of my days must be all bitterness.' What +hope could there be that the personage who had thus put out the light of +hope for France in 1776, would welcome that greater flame which was +kindled in the land in 1789? + +When people write hymns of pity for the Queen, we always recall the poor +woman whom Arthur Young met, as he was walking up a hill to ease his +horse near Mars-le-Tour. Though the unfortunate creature was only +twenty-eight, she might have been taken for sixty or seventy, her figure +was so bent, her face so furrowed and hardened by toil. Her husband, she +said, had a morsel of land, one cow, and a poor little horse, yet he had +to pay forty-two pounds of wheat and three chickens to one Seigneur, and +one hundred and sixty pounds of oats, one chicken, and one franc to +another, besides very heavy tailles and other taxes; and they had seven +children. She had heard that 'something was to be done by some great +folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how, but God send +us better, for the tailles and the dues grind us to the earth.' It was +such hapless drudges as this who replenished the Queen's gaming tables +at Versailles. Thousands of them dragged on the burden of their harassed +and desperate days, less like men and women than beasts of the field +wrung and tortured and mercilessly overladen, in order that the Queen +might gratify her childish passion for diamonds, or lavish money and +estates on worthless female Polignacs and Lamballes, or kill time at a +cost of five hundred louis a night at lansquenet and the faro bank. The +Queen, it is true, was in all this no worse than other dissipated women +then and since. She did not realise that it was the system to which she +had stubbornly committed herself, that drove the people of the fields to +cut their crops green to be baked in the oven, because their hunger +could not wait; or made them cower whole days in their beds, because +misery seemed to gnaw them there with a duller fang. That she was +unconscious of its effect, makes no difference in the real drift of her +policy; makes no difference in the judgment that we ought to pass upon +it, nor in the gratitude that is owed to the stern men who rose up to +consume her and her court with righteous flame. The Queen and the +courtiers, and the hard-faring woman of Mars-le-Tour, and that whole +generation, have long been dust and shadow; they have vanished from the +earth, as if they were no more than the fire-flies that the peasant of +the Italian poet saw dancing in the vineyard, as he took his evening +rest on the hillside. They have all fled back into the impenetrable +shade whence they came; our minds are free; and if social equity is not +a chimera, Marie Antoinette was the protagonist of the most barbarous +and execrable of causes. + + * * * * * + +Let us return to the shaping of the Constitution, not forgetting that +its stability was to depend upon the Queen. Robespierre left some +characteristic marks on the final arrangements. He imposed upon the +Assembly a motion prohibiting any member of it from accepting office +under the Crown for a period of four years after the dissolution. +Robespierre from this time forth constantly illustrated a very singular +truth; namely, that the most ostentatious faith in humanity in general +seems always to beget the sharpest distrust of all human beings in +particular. He proceeded further in the same direction. It was +Robespierre who persuaded the Chamber to pass a self-denying ordinance. +All its members were declared ineligible for a seat in the legislature +that was to replace them. The members of the Right on this occasion went +with their bitter foes of the Extreme Left, and to both parties have +been imputed sinister and Machiavellian motives. The Right, aware that +their own return to the new Assembly was impossible, were delighted to +reduce the men with whom they had been carrying on incensed battle for +two long years, to their own obscurity and impotence. Robespierre, on +the other hand, is accused of a jealous desire to exclude Barnave from +power. He is accused also of a deliberate intention to weaken the new +legislature, in order to secure the preponderance of the Parisian clubs. +There is no evidence that these malignant feelings were in Robespierre's +mind. The reasons he gave were exactly of the kind that we should have +expected to weigh with a man of his stamp. There is even a certain truth +in them, that is not inconsistent with the experience of a parliamentary +country like our own. To talk, he said, of the transmission of light and +experience from one assembly to another, was to distrust the public +spirit. The influence of opinion and the general good grows less, as the +influence of parliamentary orators grows greater. He had no taste, he +proceeded with one of his chilly sneers, for that new science which was +styled the tactics of great assemblies; it was too like intrigue. +Nothing but truth and reason ought to reign in a legislature. He did not +like the idea of clever men becoming dominant by skilful tactics, and +then perpetuating their empire from one assembly to another. He wound up +his discourse with some theatrical talk about disinterestedness. When he +sat down, he was greeted with enthusiastic acclamations, such as a few +months before used to greet the stormful Mirabeau, now wrapped in +eternal sleep amid the stillness of the new Pantheon. The folly of +Robespierre's inferences is obvious enough. If only truth and reason +ought to weigh in a legislature, then it is all the more important not +to exclude any body of men through whom truth and reason may possibly +enter. Robespierre had striven hard to remove all restrictions from +admission to the electoral franchise. He did not see that to limit the +choice of candidates was in itself the most grievous of all +restrictions. + +The common view has been that the Constitution of 1791 perished because +its creators were thus disabled from defending the work of their hands. +This view led to a grave mistake four years later, after Robespierre had +gone to his grave. The Convention, framing the Constitution of the Year +III., decided that two-thirds of the existing assembly should keep their +places, and that only one-third should be popularly elected. This led to +the revolt of the Thirteenth Vendémiaire, and afterwards to the coup +d'état of the Eighteenth Fructidor. In that sense, no doubt, +Robespierre's proposal was the indirect root of much mischief. But it is +childish to believe that if a hundred of the most prominent members of +the Constituent had found seats in the new assembly, they would have +saved the Constitution. Their experience, the loss of which it is the +fashion to deplore, could have had no application to the strange +combinations of untoward circumstance that were now rising up with such +deadly rapidity in every quarter of the horizon, like vast sombre banks +of impenetrable cloud. Prudence in new cases, as has been somewhere +said, can do nothing on grounds of retrospect. The work of the +Constituent was doomed by the very nature of things. Their assumption +that the Revolution was made, while all France was still torn by fierce +and unappeasable disputes as to seignorial rights, was one of the most +striking pieces of self-deception in history. It is told how in the +eleventh century, when the fervent hosts of the Crusaders tramped across +Europe on their way to deliver the Holy City from the hands of the +unbelievers, the wearied children, as they espied each new town that lay +in their interminable march, cried out with joyful expectation, 'Is not +this, then, Jerusalem?' So France had set out on a portentous journey, +little knowing how far off was the end; lightly taking each poor +halting-place for the deeply longed-for goal; and waxing more fiercely +disappointed, as each new height that they gained only disclosed yet +farther and more unattainable horizons. 'Alas,' said Burke, 'they little +know how many a weary step is to be taken, before they can form +themselves into a mass which has a true political personality.' + +An immense revolution had been effected, but by what force were its +fruits to be guarded? Each step in the revolution had raised a host of +irreconcilable enemies. The rights of property, the old and jealous +associations of local independence, the traditions of personal dignity, +the relations of the civil to the spiritual power--these were the +momentous matters about which the lawmakers of the Constituent had +exercised themselves. The parties of the Chamber had for these two +years past been laying mine and countermine among the very deepest +foundations of society. One by one each great corporation of the old +order had been alienated from the new order. It was inevitable that it +should be so. Let us look at one or two examples of this. The monarchy +had imposed administrative centralisation upon France without securing +national unity. Thus the great provinces that had been slowly added one +after the other to the monarchy, while becoming members of the same +kingdom, still retained different institutions and isolated usages. The +time was now come when France should be France, and its inhabitants +Frenchmen, and no longer Bretons, Normans, Gascons, Provençals. The +Assembly by a single decree (1790) redivided the country into +eighty-three departments. It wiped out at a stroke the separate +administrations, the separate parlements, the peculiar privileges, and +even the historic names of the old provinces. We need not dwell on the +significance of this change here, but will only remark in passing that +the stubborn disputes from the time of the Regency downwards between the +Crown and the provincial parlements turned, under other names and in +other forms, upon this very issue of the unification of the law. The +Crown was with the progressive party, but it lacked the strength and +courage to set aside retrograde local sentiment as the Constituent +Assembly was able to set it aside. + +Then this prodigious change in the distribution of government was +accompanied by no less prodigious a change in the source of power. +Popular election replaced the old system of territorial privilege and +aristocratic prerogative. The effect of this vital innovation, followed +as it was a few months later by a decree abolishing titles and armorial +bearings, was to complete the estrangement of the old privileged classes +from the revolutionary movement. All that they had meant to concede was +the payment of an equal land tax. What was life worth to the noble, if +common people were to be allowed to wear arms and to command a company +of foot or a troop of horse; if he was no longer to have thousands of +acres left waste for the chase; if he was compelled to sue for a vote +where he had only yesterday reigned as manorial lord; if, in short, he +was at a stroke to lose all those delights of insolence and vanity which +had made, not the decoration, but the very substance, of his days? + +Nor were the nobles of the sword and the red-heeled slipper the only +outraged class. The magistracy of the provincial parliaments were +inflamed with resentment against changes that stripped them of the power +of exciting against the new government the same factious and +impracticable spirit with which they had on so many occasions +embarrassed the old. The clergy were thrown even still more violently +into opposition. The Assembly, sorely pressed for resources, declared +the property held by ecclesiastics, amounting to a revenue of not less +than eight million pounds sterling a year, or double that amount in +modern values, to be the property of the nation. Talleyrand carried a +measure decreeing the sale of the ecclesiastical domain. The clergy were +as intensely irritated as laymen would have been by a similar assertion +of sovereign right. And their irritation was made still more dangerous +by the next set of measures against them. + +The Assembly withdrew all recognition of Catholicism as the religion of +the State; monastic vows were abolished, and orders and congregations +suppressed; the ecclesiastical divisions were made to coincide with the +civil divisions, a bishop being allotted to each department. What was a +more important revolution than all, bishops and incumbents were +henceforth to be appointed by popular election. The Assembly, who had +always the institutions of our own country before them, meant to +introduce into France the system of the Church of England, which was +even then an anachronism in the land of its birth; much worse was such a +system an anachronism, after belief had been sapped by a Voltaire and an +Encyclopædia. The clergy both showed and excited a mutinous spirit. The +Assembly, by way of retort, decreed that all ecclesiastics should take +the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy, on pain +of forfeiture of their benefices. Five-sixths of the clergy refused, and +the result was an outbreak of religious fury in the great towns of the +south and elsewhere, which recalled the violence of the sixteenth +century and the Reformation. + +Thus when the Constituent Assembly ceased from its labours, the popular +party had to face the mocking and defiant privileged classes; the +magistracy, whose craft and calling were gone; and the clergy and as +many of the flocks as shared the holy vindictiveness of their pastors. +Immense material improvements had been made, but who was to guard them +against all these powerful and exasperated bands? No chamber could +execute so portentous an office, least of all a chamber that was bound +to work in accord with a King, who at the very moment when he was +swearing fidelity to the new order of things, was sending entreaties to +the King of Prussia and to the Emperor, his brother-in-law, to overthrow +the new order and bring back the old. If the Revolution had achieved +priceless gains for France, they could only be preserved on condition +that public action was directed by those who valued these gains for +themselves and for their children above all things else--above the +monarchy, above the constitution, above peace, above their own sorry +lives. There was only one party who showed this passionate devotion, +this fanatical resolution not to suffer the work that had been done to +be undone, and never to allow France to sink back from exalted national +life into the lethargy of national death. That party was the Jacobins, +and, above all, the austere and rigorous Jacobins of Paris. On their +ascendancy depended the triumph of the Revolution, and on the triumph of +the Revolution depended the salvation of France. Their ascendancy meant +a Jacobin dictatorship, and against this, as against dictatorship in all +its forms, many things have been said, and truly said. But the one most +important thing that can be said about Jacobin dictatorship is that, in +spite of all the dolorous mishaps and hateful misdeeds that marked its +course, it was still the only instrument capable of concentrating and +utilising the dispersed social energy of the French people. The crisis +was not a crisis of logic but of force, and the Jacobins alone +understood, as the old Covenanters had understood, that problems of +force are not solved by phrases, but by mastery and the sword. + +The great popular club of Paris was the centre of all those who looked +at events in this spirit. The Legislative Assembly, the successor of the +Constituent, met in the month of October 1791. Like its predecessor, the +Legislative contained a host of excellent and patriotic men, and they at +once applied themselves to the all-important task, which the Constituent +had left so deplorably incomplete, of finally breaking down the old +feudal rights. The most important group in the new chamber were the +deputies from the Gironde. Events soon revealed violent dissents between +the Girondins and the Jacobins, but, for some months after the meeting +of the Legislative, Girondins and Jacobins represented together in +unbroken unity the great popular party. From this time until the fall of +the monarchy, the whole of this popular party in all its branches found +their rallying-place, not in the Assembly, but in the Jacobin Club; and +the ascendancy of the Jacobin Club embodied the dictatorship of Paris. +It was only from Paris that the whole circle of events could be +commanded. When the peasants had got what they wanted, that is to say +the emancipation of the land, they were ready to think that the +Revolution was in safety and at an end. They were in no position to see +the enmity of the exiles, the dangerous selfishness of Austria and +Prussia, the disloyal machinations of the court, the reactionary +sentiment of La Vendée, the absolute unworkableness of the new +constitution. Arthur Young, in the height of the agitations of the +Constituent Assembly, found himself at Moulins, the capital of the +Bourbonnais, and on the great post-road to Italy. He went to the best +coffee-house in the town, and found as many as twenty tables spread for +company, but as for a newspaper, he says he might as well have asked for +an elephant. In the capital of a great province, the seat of an +intendant, at a moment like that, with a National Assembly voting a +revolution, and not a newspaper to tell the people whether Fayette, +Mirabeau, or Lewis XVI. were on the throne! Could such a people as this, +he cries, ever have made a revolution or become free? 'Never in a +thousand centuries: the enlightened mob of Paris have done the whole.' +And that was the plain truth. What was involved in such a truth, we +shall see presently. + +Robespierre had now risen to be one of the foremost men in France. To +borrow the figure of an older chief of French faction, from trifling +among the violins in the orchestra, he had ascended to the stage itself, +and had a right to perform leading parts. Disqualified for sitting in +the Assembly, he wielded greater power than ever in the Club. The +Constituent had been full of his enemies. 'Alone with my own soul,' he +once cried to the Jacobins, 'how could I have borne struggles that were +beyond any human strength, if I had not raised my spirit to God?' This +isolation marked him with a kind of theocratic distinction. These +communings with the unseen powers gave a certain indefinable prerogative +to a man, even among the children of the century of Voltaire. Condorcet, +the youngest of the intimates and disciples of Voltaire, of D'Alembert, +of Turgot, was the first to sound bitter warning that Robespierre was at +heart a priest. The suggestion was more than a gibe. Robespierre had the +typic sacerdotal temperament, its sense of personal importance, its thin +unction, its private leanings to the stake and the cord; and he had one +of those deplorable natures that seem as if they had never in their +lives known the careless joys of a springtime. By and by, from mere +priest he developed into the deadlier carnivore, the Inquisitor. + +The absence of advantages of bodily presence has never been fatal to the +pretensions of the pontiff. Robespierre was only a couple of inches +above five feet in height, but the Grand Monarch himself was hardly +more. His eyes were small and weak, and he usually wore spectacles; his +face was pitted by the marks of small-pox; his complexion was dull and +sometimes livid; the tones of his voice were dry and shrill; and he +spoke with the vulgar accent of his province. Such is the accepted +tradition, and there is no reason to dissent from it. It is fair, +however, to remember that Robespierre's enemies had command of his +historic reputation at its source, and this is always a great advantage +for faction, if not for truth. So Robespierre's voice and person may +have been maligned, just as Aristophanes may have been a calumniator +when he accused Cleon of having an intolerably loud voice and smelling +of the tanyard. What is certain is that Robespierre was a master of +effective oratory adapted for a violent popular audience, to impress, to +persuade, and to command. The Convention would have yawned, if it had +not trembled under him, but the Jacobin Club never found him tedious. +Robespierre's style had no richness either of feeling or of phrase; no +fervid originality, no happy violences. If we turn from a page of +Rousseau to a page of Robespierre, we feel that the disciple has none of +the thrilling sonorousness of the master; the glow and the ardour have +become metallic; the long-drawn plangency is parodied by shrill notes of +splenetic complaint. The rhythm has no broad wings; the phrases have no +quality of radiance; the oratorical glimpses never lift the spirit into +new worlds. We are never conscious of those great pulses of strong +emotion that shake and vibrate through the nobly-measured periods of +Cicero or Bossuet or Burke. Robespierre could not rival the vivid and +highly-coloured declamation of Vergniaud; his speeches were never heated +with the ardent passion that poured like a torrent of fire through some +of the orations of Isnard; nor, above all, had he any mastery of that +dialect of the Titans, by which Danton convulsed an audience with fear, +with amazement, or with the spirit of defiant endeavour. The absence of +these intenser qualities did not make Robespierre's speeches less +effective for their own purpose. On the contrary, when the air has +become torrid, and passionate utterance is cheap, then severity in form +is very likely to pass for good sense in substance. That Robespierre had +decent fluency, copiousness, and finish, need hardly be said. The French +have an artistic sense; they have never accepted our own whimsical +doctrine, that a man's politics must be sagacious, if his speaking is +only clumsy enough. Robespierre more than once showed himself ready with +a forcible reply on critical occasions: this only makes him an +illustration the more of the good oratorical rule, that he is most +likely to come well out of the emergency of an improvisation, who is +usually most careful to prepare. Robespierre was as solicitous about the +correctness of his speech, as he was about the neatness of his clothes; +he no more grudged the pains given to the polishing of his discourses +than he grudged the time given every day to the powdering of his hair. + +Nothing was more remarkable than his dexterity in presenting his case. +James Mill used to point out to his son among other skilful arts of +Demosthenes, these two: first, that he said everything important to his +purpose at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his hearers +into the state most fitted to receive it; second, that he insinuated +gradually and indirectly into their minds ideas which would have roused +opposition if they had been expressed more directly. Mr. Mill once +called the attention of the present writer to exactly the same kind of +rhetorical skill in the speeches of Robespierre. The reader may do well +to turn, for excellent specimens of this, to the speech of January 11, +1792, against the war, or that of May 1794 against atheism. The logic is +stringent, but the premises are arbitrary. Robespierre is as one who +should iterate indisputable propositions of abstract geometry and +mechanics, while men are craving an architect who shall bridge the gulf +of waters. Exuberance of high words no longer conceals the sterility of +his ideas and the shallowness of his method. We should say of his +speeches, as of so much of the speaking and writing of the time, that it +is transparent and smooth, but there is none of that quality which the +critics of painting call Texture. + +His listeners, however, in the old refectory of the Convent of the +Jacobins took little heed of these things; the matter was too absorbing, +the issue too vital. A hundred years before, the hunted Covenanters of +the Western Lowlands, with Claverhouse's dragoons a few miles off, +exulted in the endless exhortations and expositions of their hill +preachers: they relished nothing so keenly as three hours of +Mucklewrath, followed by three hours more of Peter Poundtext. We now +find the jargon of the Mucklewraths and the Poundtexts of the Solemn +League and Covenant, dead as it is, still not devoid of the picturesque +and the impressive. If we cannot say the same of the great preacher of +the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the reason is partly that time has +not yet softened the tones, and partly that there is no one in all the +world with whom it is so difficult to sympathise, as with the narrower +fanatics of our own particular faith. + +We have still to mark the trait that above everything else gave to +Robespierre the trust and confidence of Paris. As men listened to him, +they had full faith in the integrity of the speaker. And Robespierre in +one way deserved this confidence. He was eminently the possessor of a +conscience. When the strain of circumstance in the last few months of +his life pressed him towards wrong, at least before doing wrong he was +forced to lie to his own conscience. This is a kind of honesty, as the +world goes. In the Salon of 1791 an artist exhibited Robespierre's +portrait, simply inscribing it, _The Incorruptible_. Throngs passed +before it every day, and ratified the honourable designation by eager +murmurs of approval. The democratic journals were loud in panegyric on +the unsleeping sentinel of liberty. They loved to speak of him as the +modern Fabricius, and delighted to recall the words of Pyrrhus, that it +is easier to turn the sun from its course, than to turn Fabricius from +the path of honour. Patriotic parents eagerly besought him to be sponsor +for their children. Ladies of wealth, including at least one +countrywoman of our own, vainly entreated him to accept their purses, +for women are quick to recognise the temperament of the priest, and +recognising they adore. A rich widow of Nantes besought him with +pertinacious tenderness to accept not only her purse but her hand. +Mirabeau's sister hailed him as an eagle floating through the blue +heavens. + +Robespierre's life was frugal and simple, as must always be seemly in +the spokesman of the dumb multitude whose lives are very hard. He had a +single room in the house of Duplay, at the extreme west end of the long +Rue Saint Honoré, half a mile from the Jacobin Club, and less than that +from the Riding School of the Tuileries, where the Constituent and +Legislative Assemblies held session. His room, which served him for +bed-chamber as well as for the uses of the day, was scantily furnished, +and he shared the homely fare of his host. Duplay was a carpenter, a +sworn follower of Robespierre, and the whole family cherished their +guest as if he had been a son and a brother. Between him and the eldest +daughter of the house there grew up a more tender sentiment, and +Robespierre looked forward to the joys of the hearth, so soon as his +country should be delivered from the oppressors without and the traitors +within. + +Eagerly as Robespierre delighted in his popularity, he intended it to +be a force and not a decoration. An occasion of testing his influence +arose in the winter of 1791. The situation had become more and more +difficult. The court was more disloyal and more perverse, as its hopes +that the nightmare would come to an end became fainter. In the summer of +1791, the German Emperor, the King of Prussia, and minor champions of +retrograde causes issued the famous Declaration of Pilnitz. The menace +of intervention was the one element needed to make the position of the +monarchy desperate. It roused France to fever heat. For along with the +foreign kings were the French princes of the blood and the French +nobles. In the spring of 1792, the Assembly forced the King to declare +war against Austria. Robespierre, in spite of the strong tide of warlike +feeling, led the Jacobin opposition to the war. This is one of the most +sagacious acts of his career, for the hazards of the conflict were +terrible. If the foreigners and the emigrant nobles were victorious, all +that the Revolution had won would be instantly and irretrievably lost. +If, on the other hand, the French armies were victorious, one of two +disasters might follow. Either the troops might become a weapon in the +hands of the court and the reactionary party, for the suppression of all +the progressive parties alike; or else their general might make himself +supreme. Robespierre divined, what the Girondins did not, that Narbonne +and the court, in accepting the cry for war, were secretly designing, +first, to crush the faction of emigrant nobles, then to make the King +popular at home, and thus finally to construct a strong royalist army. +The Constitutional party in the Legislative Assembly had the same ideas +as Narbonne. The Girondins sought war; first, from a genuine, if not a +profoundly wise, enthusiasm for liberty, which they would fain have +spread all over the world; and next, because they thought that war would +increase their popularity, and give them decisive control of the +situation. + +The first effect of the war declared in April 1792 was to shake down the +throne. Operations had no sooner begun than the King became an object of +bitter and amply warranted suspicion. Neither the leaders nor the people +had forgotten his flight a year before to place himself at the head of +the foreign invaders, nor the letter that he had left behind him for the +National Assembly, protesting against all that had been done. They were +again reminded of what short shrift they might expect if the King's +friends should come back. The Duke of Brunswick at the head of the +foreign army set out on his march, and issued his famous proclamation to +the inhabitants of France. He demanded immediate and unconditional +submission; he threatened with fire and sword every town, village, or +hamlet, that should dare to defend itself; and finally, he swore that if +the smallest violence or insult were done to the King or his family, the +city of Paris should be handed over to military execution and absolute +destruction. This insensate document bears marks in every line of the +implacable hate and burning thirst for revenge that consumed the +aristocratic refugees. Only civil war can awaken such rage as +Brunswick's manifesto betrayed. It was drawn up by the French nobles at +Coblenz. He merely signed it. The reply to it was the memorable +insurrection of the Tenth of August 1792. The King was thrown into +prison, and the Legislative Assembly made way for the National +Convention. + +Robespierre's part in the great rising of August was only secondary. +Only a few weeks before he had started a journal and written articles in +a constitutional sense. M. d'Héricault believes a story that +Robespierre's aim in this had been to have himself accepted as tutor for +the young Dauphin. It is impossible to prove a negative, but we find +great difficulty in believing that such a post could ever have been an +object of Robespierre's ambition. Now and always he showed a rather +singular preference for the substance of power over its glitter. He was +vain and an egoist, but in spite of this, and in spite of his passion +for empty phrases, he was not without a sense of reality. + +The insurrection of the 10th of August, however, was the idea, not of +Robespierre, but of a more commanding personage, who now became one of +the foremost of the Jacobin chiefs. De Maistre, that ardent champion of +reaction, found a striking argument for the presence of the divine hand +in the Revolution, in the intense mediocrity of the revolutionary +leaders. How could such men, he asked, have achieved such results, if +they had not been instruments of the directing will of heaven? Danton at +any rate is above this caustic criticism. Danton was of the Herculean +type of a Luther, though without Luther's deep vision of spiritual +things; or a Chatham, though without Chatham's august majesty of life; +or a Cromwell, though without Cromwell's calm steadfastness of patriotic +purpose. His visage and port seemed to declare his character: dark +overhanging brows; eyes that had the gleam of lightning; a savage mouth; +an immense head; the voice of a Stentor. Madame Roland pictured him as a +fiercer Sardanapalus. Artists called him Jove the Thunderer. His enemies +saw in him the Satan of the Paradise Lost. He was no moral regenerator; +the difference between him and Robespierre is typified in Danton's +version of an old saying, that he who hates vices hates men. He was not +free from that careless life-contemning desperation, which sometimes +belongs to forcible natures. Danton cannot be called noble, because +nobility implies a purity, an elevation, and a kind of seriousness which +were not his. He was too heedless of his good name, and too blind to the +truth that though right and wrong may be near neighbours, yet the line +that separates them is of an awful sacredness. If Robespierre passed for +a hypocrite by reason of his scruple, Danton seemed a desperado by his +airs of 'immoral thoughtlessness.' But the world forgives much to a +royal size, and Danton was one of the men who strike deep notes. He had +that largeness of motive, fulness of nature, and capaciousness of mind, +which will always redeem a multitude of infirmities. + +Though the author of some of the most tremendous and far-sounding +phrases of an epoch that was only too rich in them, yet phrases had no +empire over him; he was their master, not their dupe. Of all the men who +succeeded Mirabeau as directors of the unchained forces, we feel that +Danton alone was in his true element. Action, which poisoned the blood +of such men as Robespierre, and drove such men as Vergniaud out of their +senses with exaltation, was to Danton his native sphere. When France was +for a moment discouraged, it was he who nerved her to new effort by the +electrifying cry, '_We must dare, and again dare, and without end +dare!_' If his rivals or his friends seemed too intent on trifles, too +apt to confound side issues with the central aim of the battle, Danton +was ever ready to urge them to take a juster measure:--'_When the +edifice is all ablaze, I take little heed of the knaves who are +pilfering the household goods; I rush to put out the flames._' When base +egoism was compromising a cause more priceless than the personality of +any man, it was Danton who made them ashamed by the soul-inspiring +exclamation, '_Let my name be blotted out and my memory perish, if only +France may be free._' The Girondins denounced the popular clubs of Paris +as hives of lawlessness and outrage. Danton warned them that it were +wiser to go to these seething societies and to guide them, than to waste +breath in futile denunciation. 'A nation in revolution,' he cried to +them, in a superb figure, 'is like the bronze boiling and foaming and +purifying itself in the cauldron. Not yet is the statue of Liberty cast. +Fiercely boils the metal; have an eye on the furnace, or the flame will +surely scorch you.' If there was murderous work below the hatches, that +was all the more reason why the steersman should keep his hand strong +and ready on the wheel, with an eye quick for each new drift in the +hurricane, and each new set in the raging currents. This is ever the +figure under which one conceives Danton--a Titanic shape doing battle +with the fury of the seas, yielding while flood upon flood sweeps wildly +over him, and then with unshaken foothold and undaunted front once more +surveying the waste of waters, and striving with dexterous energy to +force the straining vessel over the waters of the bar. + +La Fayette had called the huge giant of popular force from its squalid +lurking-places, and now he trembled before its presence, and fled from +it shrieking, with averted hands. Marat thrust swords into the giant's +half-unwilling grasp, and plied him with bloody incitement to slay hip +and thigh, and so filled the land with a horror that has not faded from +out of men's minds to this day. Danton instantly discerned that the +problem was to preserve revolutionary energy, and still to persuade the +insurgent forces to retire once more within their boundaries. +Robespierre discerned this too, but he was paralysed and bewildered by +his own principles, as the convinced doctrinaire is so apt to be amid +the perplexities of practice. The teaching of Rousseau was ever pouring +like thin smoke among his ideas, and clouding his view of actual +conditions. The Tenth of August produced a considerable change in +Robespierre's point of view. It awoke him to the precipitous steepness +of the slope down which the revolutionary car was rushing headlong. His +faith in the infallibility of the people suffered no shock, but he was +in a moment alive to the need of walking warily, and his whole march +from now until the end, twenty-three months later, became timorous, +cunning, and oblique. His intelligence seemed to move in subterranean +tunnels, with the gleam of an equivocal premiss at one end, and the mist +of a vague conclusion at the other. + +The enthusiastic pedant, with his narrow understanding, his thin purism, +and his idyllic sentimentalism, found that the summoning archangel of +his paradise proved to be a ruffian with a pike. The shock must have +been tremendous. Robespierre did not quail nor retreat; he only revised +his notion of the situation. A curious interview once took place between +him and Marat. Robespierre began by assuring the Friend of the People +that he quite understood the atrocious demands for blood with which the +columns of Marat's newspaper were filled, to be merely useful +exaggerations of his real designs. Marat repelled the disparaging +imputation of clemency and common sense, and talked in his familiar vein +of poniarding brigands, burning despots alive in their palaces, and +impaling the traitors of the Assembly on their own benches. +'Robespierre,' says Marat, 'listened to me with affright; he turned pale +and said nothing. The interview confirmed the opinion I had always had +of him, that he united the integrity of a thoroughly honest man and the +zeal of a good patriot, with the enlightenment of a wise senator, but +that he was without either the views or the audacity of a real +statesman.' The picture is instructive, for it shows us Robespierre's +invariable habit of leaving violence and iniquity unrebuked; of +conciliating the practitioners of violence and iniquity; and of +contenting himself with an inward hope of turning the world into a right +course by fine words. He had no audacity in Marat's sense, but he was no +coward. He knew, as all these men knew, that almost from hour to hour he +carried his life in his hand, yet he declined to seek shelter in the +obscurity which saved such men as Sieyès. But if he had courage, he had +not the initiative of a man of action. He invented none of the ideas or +methods of the Revolution, not even the Reign of Terror, but he was very +dexterous in accepting or appropriating what more audacious spirits than +himself had devised and enforced. The pedant, cursed with the ambition +to be a ruler of men, is a curious study. He would be glad not to go too +far, and yet his chief dread is lest he be left behind. His +consciousness of pure aims allows him to become an accomplice in the +worst crimes. Suspecting himself at bottom to be a theorist, he hastens +to clear his character as man of practice by conniving at an enormity. +Thus, in September 1792, a band of miscreants committed the grievous +massacres in the prisons of Paris. Robespierre, though the best evidence +goes to show that he not only did not abet the prison murders, but in +his heart deplored them, yet after the event did not scruple to justify +what had been done. This was the beginning of a long course of +compliance with sanguinary misdeeds, for which Robespierre has been as +hotly execrated as if he prompted them. We do not, for the moment, +measure the relative degrees of guilt that attached to mere compliance +on the one hand, and cruel origination on the other. But his position in +the Revolution is not rightly understood, unless we recognise him as +being in almost every case an accessory after the fact. + +Between the fall of Lewis in 1792 and the fall of Robespierre in 1794, +France was the scene of two main series of events. One set comprises the +repulse of the invaders, the suppression of an extensive civil war, and +the attempted reconstruction of a social framework. The other comprises +the rapid phases of an internecine struggle of violent and short-lived +factions. By an unhappy fatality, due partly to anti-democratic +prejudice, and partly to men's unfailing passion for melodrama, the +Reign of Terror has been popularly taken for the central and most +important part of the revolutionary epic. This is nearly as absurd as it +would be to make Gustave Flourens' manifestation of the Fifth of +October, or the rising of the Thirty-first of October, the most +prominent features in a history of the war of French defence in our own +day. In truth, the Terror was a mere episode; and just as the rising of +October 1870 was due to Marshal Bazaine's capitulation at Metz, it is +easy to see that, with one exception, every violent movement in Paris, +from 1792 to 1794, was due to menace or disaster on the frontier. Every +one of the famous days of Paris was an answer to some enemy without. The +storm of the Tuileries on the Tenth of August, as we have already said, +was the response to Brunswick's proclamation. The bloody days of +September were the reaction of panic at the capture of Longwy and Verdun +by the Prussians. The surrender of Cambrai provoked the execution of +Marie Antoinette. The defeat of Aix-la-Chapelle produced the abortive +insurrection of the Tenth of March; and the treason of Dumouriez, the +reverses of Custine, and the rebellion in La Vendée, produced the +effectual insurrection of the Thirty-first of May 1793. The last of +these two risings of Paris, headed by the Commune, against the +Convention which was until then controlled by the Girondins, at length +gave the government of France and the defence of the Revolution +definitely over to the Jacobins. Their patriotic dictatorship lasted +unbroken for a short period of ten months, and then the great party +broke up into factions. The splendid triumphs of the dictatorship have +been, in England at any rate, too usually forgotten, and only the crimes +of the factions remembered. Robespierre's history unfortunately belongs +to the less important battle. + + +II + +The Girondins were driven out of the Convention by the insurgent +Parisians at the beginning of June 1793. The movement may be roughly +compared to that of the Independents in our own Rebellion, when the army +compelled the withdrawal of eleven of the Presbyterian leaders from the +parliament; or, it may recall Pride's memorable Purge of the same famous +assembly. Both cases illustrate the common truth that large deliberative +bodies, be they never so excellent for purposes of legislation, and even +for a general control of the executive government in ordinary times, are +found to be essentially unfit for directing a military crisis. If there +are any historic examples that at first seem to contradict such a +proposition, it will be found that the bodies in question were close +aristocracies, like the Great Council of Venice, or the Senate of Rome +in the strong days of the Commonwealth; they were never the creatures of +popular election, with varying aims and a diversified political spirit. +Modern publicists have substituted the divine right of assemblies for +the old divine right of monarchies. Those who condone the violence done +to the King on the Tenth of August, and even acquiesce in his execution +five months afterwards, are relentless against the violence done to the +Convention on the Thirty-first of May. We confess ourselves unable to +follow this transfer of the superstition of sacrosanctity from a king to +a chamber. No doubt, the sooner a nation acquires a settled government, +the better for it, provided the government be efficient. But if it be +not efficient, the mischief of actively suppressing it may well be fully +outweighed by the mischief of retaining it. We have no wish to smooth +over the perversities of a revolutionary time; they cost a nation very +dear; but if all the elements of the state are in furious convulsion and +uncontrollable effervescence, then it is childish to measure the march +of events by the standard of happier days of social peace and political +order. The prospect before France at the violent close of Girondin +supremacy was as formidable as any nation has ever yet had to confront +in the history of the world. Rome was not more critically placed when +the defeat of Varro on the plain of Cannæ had broken up her alliances +and ruined her army. The brave patriots of the Netherlands had no +gloomier outlook at that dolorous moment when the Prince of Orange had +left them, and Alva had been appointed to bring them back by rapine, +conflagration, and murder, under the loathed yoke of the Spanish tyrant. + +Let us realise the conditions that Robespierre and Danton and the other +Jacobin leaders had now to face. In the north-west one division of the +fugitive Girondins was forming an army at Caen; in the south-west +another division was doing the same at Bordeaux. Marseilles and Lyons +were rallying all the disaffected and reactionary elements in the +south-east. La Vendée had flamed out in wild rebellion for Church and +King. The strong places on the north frontier, and the strong places on +the east, were in the hands of the foreign enemy. The fate of the +Revolution lay in the issue of a struggle between Paris, with less than +a score of departments on her side, and all the rest of France and the +whole European coalition marshalled against her. And even this was not +the worst. In Paris itself a very considerable proportion of its +half-million of inhabitants were disaffected to the revolutionary cause. +Reactionary historians dwell on the fact that such risings as that of +the Tenth of August were devised by no more than half of the sections +into which Paris was divided. It was common, they say, for half a dozen +individuals to take upon themselves to represent the fourteen or fifteen +hundred other members of a section. But what better proof can we have +that if France was to be delivered from restored feudalism and foreign +spoliation, the momentous task must be performed by those who had sense +to discern the awful peril, and energy to encounter it? + +The Girondins had made their incapacity plain. The execution of the King +had filled them with alarm, and with hatred against the ruder and more +robust party who had forced that startling act of vengeance upon them. +Puny social disgusts prevented them from co-operating with Danton or +with Robespierre. Prussia and Austria were not more redoubtable or more +hateful to them than was Paris, and they wasted, in futile +recriminations about the September massacres or the alleged peculations +of municipal officers, the time and the energy that should have been +devoted without let or interruption to the settlement of the +administration and the repulse of the foe. It is impossible to think of +such fine characters as Vergniaud or Madame Roland without admiration, +or of their untimely fate without pity. But the deliverance of a people +beset by strong and implacable enemies could not wait on mere good +manners and fastidious sentiments, when these comely things were in +company with the most stupendous want of foresight ever shown by a +political party. How can we measure the folly of men who so missed the +conditions of the problem as to cry out in the Convention itself, almost +within earshot of the Jacobin Club, that if any insult were offered to +the national representation, the departments would rise, 'Paris would be +annihilated; and men would come to search on the banks of the Seine +whether such a city had ever existed!' It was to no purpose that Danton +urgently rebuked the senseless animosity with which the Right poured +incessant malediction on the Left, and the wild shrieking hate with +which the Left retaliated on the Right. The battle was to the death, and +it was the Girondins who first menaced their political foes with +vengeance and the guillotine. As it happened, the treason of Dumouriez +and their own ineptitude destroyed them before revenge was within reach. +Such a consummation was fortunate for their country. It was the +Girondins whose want of union and energy had by the middle of 1793 +brought France to distraction and imminent ruin. It was a short year of +Jacobin government that by the summer of 1794 had welded the nation +together again, and finally conquered the invasion. The city of the +Seine had once more shown itself what it had been for nine centuries, +ever since the days of Odo, Count of Paris and first King of the French, +not merely a capital, but France itself, 'its living heart and surest +bulwark.' + +The immediate instrument of so rapid and extraordinary an achievement +was the Committee of Public Safety. The French have never shown their +quick genius for organisation with more triumphant vigour. While the +Girondins were still powerful, nine members of the Convention had been +constituted an executive committee, April 6, 1793. They were in fact a +kind of permanent cabinet, with practical irresponsibility. In the +summer of 1793 the number was increased from nine to twelve, and these +twelve were the centre of the revolutionary government. They fell into +three groups. First, there were the scientific or practical +administrators, of whom the most eminent was Carnot. Next came the +directors of internal policy, the pure revolutionists, headed by Billaud +de Varennes. Finally, there was a trio whose business it was to +translate action into the phrases of revolutionary policy. This famous +group was Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint Just. + +Besides the Committee of Public Safety there was another chief +governmental committee, that of General Security. Its functions were +mainly connected with the police, the arrests, and the prisons, but in +all serious affairs the two Committees deliberated in common. There were +also fourteen other groups of various size, taken from the Convention; +they applied themselves with admirable zeal, and usually not with more +zeal than skill, to schemes of public instruction, of finance, of +legislation, of the administration of justice, and a host of other civil +reforms, of all of which Napoleon Bonaparte was by and by to reap the +credit. These bodies completed the civil revolution, which the +Constituent and the Legislative Assemblies had left so mischievously +incomplete that, as soon as ever the Convention had assembled, it was +besieged by a host of petitioners praying them to explain and to pursue +the abolition of the old feudal rights. Everything had still been left +uncertain in men's minds, even upon that greatest of all the +revolutionary questions. The feudal division of the committee of general +legislation had in this eleventh hour to decide innumerable issues, from +those of the widest practical importance, down to the prayer of a remote +commune to be relieved from the charge of maintaining a certain mortuary +lamp which had been a matter of seignorial obligation. The work done by +the radical jurisconsults was never undone. It was the great and +durable reward of the struggle. And we have to remember that these +industrious and efficient bodies, as well as all other public bodies and +functionaries whatever, were placed by the definite revolutionary +constitution of 1793 under the direct orders of the Committee of Public +Safety. + + * * * * * + +It is hardly possible even now for any one who exults in the memory of +the great deliverance of a brilliant and sociable people, to stand +unmoved before the walls of that palace which Philibert Delorme reared +for Catherine de' Medici, and which was thrown into ruin by the madness +of a band of desperate men in our own days. Lewis had walked forth from +the Tuileries on the fatal morning of the Tenth of August, holding his +children by the hand, and lightly noticing, as he traversed the gardens, +how early that year the leaves were falling. Lewis had by this time +followed the fallen leaves into nothingness. The palace of the kings was +now styled the Palace of the Nation, and the new republic carried on its +work surrounded by the outward associations of the old monarchy. The +Convention after the spring of 1793 held its sittings in what had +formerly been the palace theatre. Fierce men from the Faubourgs of St. +Antoine and St. Marceau, and fiercer women from the markets, shouted +savage applause or menace from galleries, where not so long ago the +Italian buffoons had amused the perpetual leisure of the finest ladies +and proudest grandees of France. The Committee of General Security +occupied the Pavillon de Marsan, looking over a dingy space that the +conqueror at Rivoli afterwards made the most dazzling street in Europe. +The Committee of Public Safety sat in the Pavillon de Flore, at the +opposite end of the Tuileries on the river bank. The approaches were +protected by guns and by a bodyguard, while inside there flitted to and +fro a cloud of familiars, who have been compared by the enemies of the +great Committee to the mutes of the court of the Grand Turk. Any one who +had business with this awful body had to grope his way along gloomy +corridors, that were dimly lighted by a single lamp at either end. The +room in which the Committee sat round a table of green cloth was +incongruously gay with the clocks, the bronzes, the mirrors, the +tapestries, of the ruined court. The members met at eight in the morning +and worked until one; from one to four they attended the sitting of the +Convention. In the evening they met again, and usually sat until night +was far advanced. It was no wonder if their hue became cadaverous, their +eyes hollow and bloodshot, their brows stern, their glance preoccupied +and sinister. Between ten and eleven every evening a sombre piece of +business was transacted, which has half effaced in the memory of +posterity all the heroic industry of the rest of the twenty-four hours. +It was then that Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, brought an +account of his day's labour; how the revolutionary tribunal was working, +how many had been convicted and how many acquitted, how large or how +small had been the batch of the guillotine since the previous night. +Across the breadth of the gardens, beyond their trees and fountains, +stood the Monster itself, with its cruel symmetry, its colour as of the +blood of the dead, its unheeding knife, neutral as the Fates. + +Robespierre has been held responsible for all the violences of the +revolutionary government, and his position on the Committee appeared to +be exceedingly strong. It was, however, for a long time much less strong +in reality than it seemed: all depended upon successfully playing off +one force against another, and at the same time maintaining himself at +the centre of the see-saw. Robespierre was the literary and rhetorical +member of the band; he was the author of the strident manifestoes in +which Europe listened with exasperation to the audacious hopes and +unfaltering purpose of the new France. This had the effect of investing +him in the eyes of foreign nations with supreme and undisputed authority +over the government. The truth is, that Robespierre was both disliked +and despised by his colleagues. They thought of him as a mere maker of +useful phrases; he in turn secretly looked down upon them, as the man +who has a doctrine and a system in his head always looks down upon the +man who lives from hand to mouth. If the Committee had been in the place +of a government which has no opposition to fear, Robespierre would have +been one of its least powerful members. But although the government was +strong, there were at least three potent elements of opposition even +within the ranks of the dominant revolutionary party itself. + +Three bodies in Paris were, each of them, the centre of an influence +that might at any moment become the triumphant rival of the Committee of +Public Safety. These bodies were, first, the Convention; second, the +Commune of Paris; and thirdly, the Jacobin Club. The jealousy thus +existing outside the Committee would have made any failure instantly +destructive. At one moment, at the end of 1793, it was only the +surrender of Toulon that saved the Committee from a hostile motion in +the Convention, and such a motion would have sent half of them to the +guillotine. They were reviled by the extreme party who ruled at the Town +Hall for not carrying the policy of extermination far enough. They were +reproached by Danton and his powerful section for carrying that policy +too far. They were discredited by the small band of intriguers, like +Bazire, who identified government with peculation. Finally, they were +haunted by the shadow of a fear, which events were by and by to prove +only too substantial, lest one of their military agents on the frontier +should make himself their master. The key to the struggle of the +factions between the winter of 1793 and the revolution of the summer of +1794 is the vigorous resolve of the governing Committees not to part +with power. The drama is one of the most exciting in the history of +faction; it abounds in rapid turns and unexpected shifts, upon which the +student may spend many a day and many a night, and after all he is +forced to leave off in despair of threading an accurate way through the +labyrinth of passion and intrigue. The broad traits of the situation, +however, are tolerably simple. The difficulty was to find a principle of +government which the people could be induced to accept. 'The rights of +men and the new principles of liberty and equality,' Burke said, 'were +very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of +tranquillity and order. The factions,' he added with fierce sarcasm, +'were to accomplish the purposes of order, morality, and submission to +the laws, from the principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. They +endeavoured to establish distinctions, by the belief of which they hoped +to keep the spirit of murder safely bottled up and sealed for their own +purposes, without endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison +which they prepared for their enemies.' This is a ferocious and +passionate version, but it is substantially not an unreal account of the +position. + +Upon one point all parties agreed, and that was the necessity of +founding the government upon force, and force naturally meant Terror. +Their plea was that of Dido to Ilioneus and the stormbeaten sons of +Dardanus, when they complained that her people had drawn the sword upon +them, and barbarously denied the hospitality of the sandy shore:-- + + Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri. + +And that pithy chapter in Machiavelli's _Prince_ which treats of cruelty +and clemency, and whether it be better to be loved or feared, +anticipates the defence of the Terrorists, in the maxim that for a new +prince it is impossible to avoid the name of cruel, because all new +states abound in many perils. The difference arose on the question when +Terror should be considered to have done as much of its work as it could +be expected to do. This difference again was connected with difference +of conception as to the type of the society which was ultimately to +emerge from the existing chaos. Billaud-Varennes, the guiding spirit of +the Committees, was without any conception of this kind. He was a man of +force pure and simple. Danton was equally untouched by dreams of social +transformation; his philosophy, so far as he had a definite philosophy, +was, in spite of one or two inconsistent utterances, materialistic: and +materialism, when it takes root in a sane, perspicacious, and indulgent +character, as in the case of Danton, and, to take a better-known +example, in the case of Jefferson, usually leads to a sound and positive +theory of politics; chimeras have no place in it, though a rational +social hope has the first place of all. Neither Danton nor Billaud +expected a millennium; their only aim was to shape France into a +coherent political personality, and the war between them turned upon the +policy of prolonging the Terror after the frontiers had been saved and +the risings in the provinces put down. There were, however, two parties +who took the literature of the century in earnest; they thought that the +hour had struck for translating, one of them, the sentimentalism of +Rousseau, the other of them, the rationality of Voltaire and Diderot, +into terms of politics that should form the basis of a new social life. +The strife between the faction of Robespierre and the faction of +Chaumette was the reproduction, under the shadow of the guillotine, of +the great literary strife of a quarter of a century before between Jean +Jacques and the writers whom he contemptuously styled Holbachians. The +battle of the books had become a battle between bands of infuriated men. +The struggle between Hébert and Chaumette and the Common Council of +Paris on the one part, and the Committee and Robespierre on the other, +was the concrete form of the deepest controversy that lies before modern +society. Can the social union subsist without a belief in God? Chaumette +answered Yes, and Robespierre cried No. Robespierre followed Rousseau in +thinking that any one who should refuse to recognise the existence of a +God, should be exiled as a monster devoid of the faculties of virtue and +sociability. Chaumette followed Diderot, and Diderot told Samuel Romilly +in 1783 that belief in God, as well as submission to kings, would be at +an end all over the world in a very few years. The Hébertists might have +taken for their motto Diderot's shocking couplet, if they could have +known it, about using + + Les entrailles du prêtre + Au défaut d'un cordon pour étrangler les rois. + +The theists and the atheists, Chaumette and Robespierre, each of them +accepted the doctrine that it was in the power of the armed legislator +to impose any belief and any rites he pleased upon the country at his +feet. The theism or the atheism of the new France depended, as they +thought, on the issue of the war for authority between the Hébertists in +the Common Council of Paris, and the Committee of Public Safety. That +was the religious side of the attitude of the government to the +opposition, and it is the side that possesses most historic interest. +Billaud cared very little for religion in any way; his quarrel with the +Commune and with Hébert was political. What Robespierre's drift appears +to have been, was to use the political animosity of the Committee as a +means of striking foes, against whom his own animosity was not only +political but religious also. + +It would doubtless show a very dull apprehension of the violence and +confusion of the time, to suppose that even Robespierre, with all his +love for concise theories, was accustomed to state his aim to himself +with the definite neatness in which it appears when reduced to literary +statement. Pedant as he was, he was yet enough of a politician to see +the practical urgency of restoring material order, whatever spiritual +belief or disbelief might accompany it. The prospect of a rallying point +for material order was incessantly changing; and Robespierre turned to +different quarters in search of it almost from week to week. He was only +able to exert a certain limited authority over his colleagues in the +government, by virtue of his influence over the various sections of +possible opposition, and this was a moral, and not an official, +influence. It was acquired not by marked practical gifts, for in truth +Robespierre did not possess them, but by his good character, by his +rhetoric, and by the skill with which he kept himself prominently before +the public eye. The effective seat of his power, notwithstanding many +limits and incessant variations, was the Jacobin Club. There a speech +from him threw his listeners into ecstasies, that have been +disrespectfully compared to the paroxysms of Jansenist convulsionaries, +or the hysterics of Methodist negroes on a cotton plantation. We +naturally think of those grave men who a few years before had founded +the republic in America. Jefferson served with Washington in the +Virginian legislature and with Franklin in Congress, and he afterwards +said that he never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time; +while John Adams declared that he never heard Jefferson utter three +sentences together. Of Robespierre it is stated on good authority that +for eighteen months there was not a single evening on which he did not +make to the assembled Jacobins at least one speech, and that never a +short one. + +Strange as it may seem, Robespierre's credit with this grim assembly was +due to his truly Philistine respectability and to his literary faculty. +He figured as the philosopher and bookman of the party: the most +iconoclastic politicians are usually willing to respect the scholar, +provided they are sure of his being on their side. Robespierre had from +the first discountenanced the fantastic caprices of some too excitable +allies. He distrusted the noisy patriots of the middle class, who +curried favour with the crowd by clothing themselves in coarse garments, +clutching a pike, and donning the famous cap of red woollen, which had +been the emblem of the emancipation of a slave in ancient Rome. One +night at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre mounted the tribune, dressed with +his usual elaborate neatness, and still wearing powder in his hair. An +onlooker unceremoniously planted on the orator's head the red cap +demanded by revolutionary etiquette. Robespierre threw the sacred symbol +on the ground with a severe air, and then proceeded with a discourse of +much austerity. Not that he was averse to a certain seemly decoration, +or to the embodiment of revolutionary sentiment by means of a symbolism +that strikes our cooler imagination as rather puerile. He was as ready +as others to use the arts of the theatre for the liturgy of patriots. +One of the most touching of all the minor dramatic incidents of the +Revolution was the death of Barra. This was a child of thirteen who +enrolled himself as a drummer, and marched with the Blues to suppress +the rebel Whites in La Vendée. One day he advanced too close to the +enemy's post, intrepidly beating the charge. He was surrounded, but the +peasant soldiers were loth to strike, 'Cry _Long live the King!_' they +shouted, 'or else death!' 'Long live the Republic!' was the poor little +hero's answer, as a ball pierced his heart. Robespierre described the +incident to the Convention, and amid prodigious enthusiasm demanded that +the body of the young martyr of liberty should be transported to the +Pantheon with special pomp, and that David, the artist of the +Revolution, should be charged with the duty of devising and embellishing +the festival. As it happened, the arrangements were made for the +ceremony to take place on the Tenth of Thermidor--a day on which +Robespierre and all Paris were concerned about a celebration of bloodier +import. Thermidor, however, was still far off; and the red sun of +Jacobin enthusiasm seemed as if it would shine unclouded for ever. + +Even at the Jacobins, however, popular as he was, Robespierre felt every +instant the necessity of walking cautiously. He was as far removed as +possible from that position of Dictator which some historians with a +wearisome iteration persist in ascribing to him, even at the moment when +they are enumerating the defeats which the party of Hébert was able to +inflict upon him in the very bosom of the Mother Club itself. They make +him the sanguinary dictator in one sentence, and the humiliated +intriguer in the next. The latter is much the more correct account of +the two, if we choose to call a man an intriguer who was honestly +anxious to suppress what he considered a wicked faction, and yet had +need of some dexterity to keep his own head upon his shoulders. + + * * * * * + +In the winter of 1793 the Municipal party, guided by Hébert and +Chaumette, made their memorable attempt to extirpate Christianity in +France. The doctrine of D'Holbach's supper-table had for a short space +the arm of flesh and the sword of the temporal power on its side. It was +the first appearance of dogmatic atheism in Europe as a political force. +This makes it one of the most remarkable moments in the Revolution, just +as it makes the Revolution itself the most remarkable moment in modern +history. The first political demonstration of atheism was attended by +some of the excesses, the folly, the extravagances that stained the +growth of Christianity. On the whole it is a very mild story compared +with the atrocities of the Jewish records or the crimes of Catholicism. +The worst charge against the party of Chaumette is that they were +intolerant, and the charge is deplorably true; but this charge cannot +lie in the mouth of persecuting churches. + +Historical recriminations, however, are not very edifying. It is +perfectly fair when Catholics talk of the atheist Terror, to rejoin that +the retainers of Anjou and Montpensier slew more men and women on the +first day of the Saint Bartholomew than perished in Paris through the +Years I. and II. But the retort does us no good beyond the region of +dialectic; it rather brings us down to the level of the poor sectaries +whom it crushes. Let us raise ourselves into clearer air. The fault of +the atheist is that they knew no better than to borrow the maxims of the +churchmen; and even those who agree with the dogmatic denials of the +atheists--if such there be--ought yet to admit that the mere change from +superstition to reason is a small gain, if the conclusions of reason are +still to be enforced by the instruments of superstition. Our opinions +are less important than the spirit and temper with which they possess +us, and even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in +a broad, intelligent, and spacious way. Now some of the opinions of +Chaumette were full of enlightenment and hope. He had a generous and +vivid faith in humanity, and he showed the natural effect of abandoning +belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for +improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to +share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like +the Bishop in Victor Hugo's _Misérables_, than to hold those good +opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a +reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow +forgetfulness of all that great and precious part of our natures that +lies out of the immediate domain of the logical understanding. One can +understand how an honest man would abhor the darkness and tyranny of the +Church. But then to borrow the same absolutism in the interests of new +light, was inevitably to bring the new light into the same abhorrence +as had befallen the old system of darkness. And this is exactly what +happened. In every family where a mother sought to have her child +baptized, or where sons and daughters sought to have the dying spirit of +the old consoled by the last sacrament, there sprang up a bitter enemy +to the government which had closed the churches and proscribed the +priests. + +How could a society whose spiritual life had been nourished in the +solemn mysticism of the Middle Ages, suddenly turn to embrace a gaudy +paganism? The common self-respect of humanity was outraged by apostate +priests who, whether under the pressure of fear of Chaumette, or in a +very superfluity of folly and ecstasy of degradation, hastened to +proclaim the charlatanry of their past lives, as they filed before the +Convention, led by the Archbishop of Paris, and accompanied by rude +acolytes bearing piles of the robes and the vessels of silver and gold +with which they had once served their holy offices. 'Our enemies,' +Voltaire had said, 'have always on their side the fat of the land, the +sword, the strong box, and the _canaille_.' For a moment all these +forces were on the other side, and it is deplorable to think that they +were as much abused by their new masters as by the old. The explanation +is that the destructive party had been brought up in the schools of the +ecclesiastical party, and their work was a mere outbreak of mutiny, not +a grave and responsible attempt to lead France to a worthier faith. If, +as Chaumette believed, mankind are the only Providence of men, surely +in that faith more than in any other are we bound to be very solicitous +not to bring the violent hand of power on any of the spiritual +acquisitions of the race, and very patient in dealing with the slowness +of the common people to leave their outworn creeds. + +Instead of defying the Church by the theatrical march of the Goddess of +Reason under the great sombre arches of the Cathedral of Our Lady, +Chaumette should have found comfort in a firm calculation of the +conditions. 'You,' he might have said to the priests,--'you have so +debilitated the minds of men and women by your promises and your dreams, +that many a generation must come and go before Europe can throw off the +yoke of your superstition. But we promise you that they shall be +generations of strenuous battle. We give you all the advantages that you +can get from the sincerity and pious worth of the good and simple among +you. We give you all that the bad among you may get by resort to the +poisoned weapons of your profession and its traditions,--its bribes to +mental indolence, its hypocritical affectations in the pulpit, its +tyranny in the closet, its false speciousness in the world, its menace +at the deathbed. With all these you may do your worst, and still +humanity will escape you; still the conscience of the race will rise +away from you; still the growth of brighter ideals and a nobler purpose +will go on, leaving ever further and further behind them your dwarfed +finality and leaden moveless stereotype. We shall pass you by on your +flank; your fieriest darts will only spend themselves on air. We will +not attack you as Voltaire did; we will not exterminate you; we shall +explain you. History will place your dogma in its class, above or below +a hundred competing dogmas, exactly as the naturalist classifies his +species. From being a conviction, it will sink to a curiosity; from +being the guide to millions of human lives, it will dwindle down to a +chapter in a book. As History explains your dogma, so Science will dry +it up; the conception of law will silently make the conception of the +daily miracle of your altars seem impossible; the mental climate will +gradually deprive your symbols of their nourishment, and men will turn +their backs on your system, not because they have confuted it, but +because, like witchcraft or astrology, it has ceased to interest them. +The great ship of your Church, once so stout and fair and well laden +with good destinies, is become a skeleton ship; it is a phantom hulk, +with warped planks and sere canvas, and you who work it are no more than +ghosts of dead men, and at the hour when you seem to have reached the +bay, down your ship will sink like lead or like stone to the deepest +bottom.' + +Alas, the speculation of the century had not rightly attuned men's minds +to this firm confidence in the virtue of liberty, sounding like a bell +through all distractions. None of these high things were said. The +temples were closed, the sacred symbols defiled, the priests +maltreated, the worshippers dispersed. The Commune of Paris imitated the +policy of the King of France who revoked the Edict of Nantes, and +democratic atheism parodied the dragonnades of absolutist Catholicism. + + * * * * * + +Robespierre was unutterably outraged by the proceedings of the atheists. +They perplexed him as a politician intent upon order, and they afflicted +him sorely as an ardent disciple of the Savoyard Vicar. Hébert, however, +was so strong that it needed some courage to attack him, nor did +Robespierre dare to withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch +from making an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its +partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the Twenty-first of +November one of the most admirable of his oratorical successes. The +Sphinx still sits inexorable at our gates, and his words have lost none +of their interest. 'Every philosopher and every individual,' he said, +'may adopt whatever opinion he pleases about atheism. Any one who wishes +to make such an opinion into a crime is an insensate; but the public man +or the legislator who should adopt such a system, would be a hundred +times more insensate still. The National Convention abhors it. The +Convention is not the author of a scheme of metaphysics. It was not to +no purpose that it published the Declaration of the Rights of Man in +presence of the Supreme Being. I shall be told perhaps that I have a +narrow intelligence, that I am a man of prejudice, and a fanatic. I +have already said that I spoke neither as an individual nor as a +philosopher with a system, but as a representative of the people. +_Atheism is aristocratic. The idea of a great being who watches over +oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is essentially the +idea of the people._ This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; +it is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached +neither to priests, nor to superstition, nor to ceremonies; it is +attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to the idea of an +incomprehensible Power, the terror of wrongdoers, the stay and comfort +of virtue, to which it delights to render words of homage that are all +so many anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.' + +This is Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as +statesman. Like others, he declares the Supreme Power incomprehensible, +and then describes him in terms of familiar comprehension. He first +declares atheism an open choice, and then he brands it with the most +odious epithet in the accepted vocabulary of the hour. Danton followed +practically the same line, though saying much less about it. 'If +Greece,' he said in the Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too +shall solemnise her sans-culottid days. The people will have high +festivals; they will offer incense to the Supreme Being, to the master +of nature; for we never intended to annihilate the reign of superstition +in order to set up the reign of atheism.... If we have not honoured the +priest of error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to honour the priest +of incredulity: we wish to serve the people. I demand that there shall +be an end of these anti-religious masquerades in the Convention.' + +There was an end of the masquerading, but the Hébertists still kept +their ground. Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally +impotent against them for some months longer. The revolutionary force +had been too strong to be resisted by any government since the Paris +insurgents had carried both King and Assembly in triumph from Versailles +in the October of 1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to +strive with all their might to build a new government out of the +agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months the +battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance against +atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of masked skirmishes. +The battle-ground of rival principles was overshadowed by the baleful +wings of the genius of demonic Hate. _Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni_; +the banners of the King of the Pit came forth. The scene at the +Cordeliers for a time became as frantic as a Council of the Early Church +settling the true composition of the Holy Trinity. Or it recalls the +fierce and bloody contentions between Demos and Oligarchy in an old +Greek town. We think of the day in the harbour of Corcyra when the +Athenian admiral who had come to deliver the people, sailed out to meet +the Spartan enemy, and on turning round to see if his Corcyrean allies +were following, saw them following indeed, but the crew of every ship +striving in enraged conflict with one another. Collot D'Herbois had come +back in hot haste from Lyons, where, along with Fouché, he had done his +best to carry out the decree of the Convention, that not one stone of +the city should be left on the top of another, and that even its very +name should cease from the lips of men. Carrier was recalled from +Nantes, where his feats of ingenious massacre had rivalled the exploits +of the cruellest and maddest of the Roman Emperors. The presence of +these men of blood gave new courage and resolution to the Hébertists. +Though the alliance was informal, yet as against Danton, Camille +Desmoulins, and the rest of the Indulgents, as well as against +Robespierre, they made common cause. + +Camille Desmoulins attacked Hébert in successive numbers of a journal +that is perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the +revolution. Hébert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of Desmoulins +in the Club, and the unfortunate wit, notwithstanding the efforts of +Robespierre on his behalf, was for a while turned out of the sacred +precincts. The power of the extreme faction was shown in relation to +other prominent members of the party whom they loved to stigmatise by +the deadly names of Indulgent and Moderantist. Even Danton himself was +attacked (December 1793), and the integrity of his patriotism brought +into question. Robespierre made an energetic defence of his great rival +in the hierarchy of revolution, and the defence saved Danton from the +mortal ignominy of expulsion from the communion of the orthodox. On the +other hand, Anacharsis Clootz, that guileless ally of the party of +delirium, was less fortunate. Robespierre assailed the cosmopolitan for +being a German baron, for having four thousand pounds a year, and for +striking his sans-culottism some notes higher than the regular pitch. +Even M. Louis Blanc calls this an iniquity, and sets it down as the +worst page in Robespierre's life. Others have described Robespierre as +struck at this time by the dire malady of kings--hatred of the Idea. It +seems, however, a hard saying that devotion to the Idea is to extinguish +common sense. Clootz, notwithstanding his simple and disinterested +character, and his possession of some rays of the modern illumination, +was one of the least sane of all the men who in the exultation of their +silly gladness were suddenly caught up by that great wheel of fire. All +we can say is that Robespierre's bitter demeanour towards Clootz was +ungenerous; but then this is only natural in him. Robespierre often +clothed cool policy in the semblance of clemency, but I cannot hear in +any phrase he ever used, or see in any measure he ever proposed, the +mark of true generosity; of kingliness of spirit, not a trace. He had no +element of ready and cordial propitiation, an element that can never be +wanting in the greatest leaders in time of storm. If he resisted the +atrocious proposals to put Madame Elizabeth to death, he was thinking +not of mercy or justice, but of the mischievous effect that her +execution would have upon the public opinion of Europe, and he was so +unmanly as to speak of her as _la méprisable soeur de Louis XVI_. Such +a phrase is the disclosure of an abject stratum in his soul. + +Yet this did not prevent him from seeing and denouncing the bloody +extravagances of the Proconsuls, the representatives of Parisian +authority in the provinces; nor from standing firm against the execution +of the Seventy-Three, who had been bold enough to question the purgation +of the National Convention on the Thirty-first of May. But the return of +Collot d'Herbois made the situation more intricate. Collot was by his +position the ally of Billaud, and to attack him, therefore, was to +attack the most powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety. +Billaud was too formidable. He was always the impersonation of the ruder +genius of the Revolution, and the incarnation of the philosophy of the +Terror, not as a delirium, but as a piece of deliberate policy. His +pale, sober, and concentrated physiognomy seemed a perpetual menace. He +had no gifts of speech, but his silence made people shudder, like the +silence of the thunder when the tempest rages at its height. It was said +by contemporaries that if Vadier was a hyæna, Barère a jackal, and +Robespierre a cat, Billaud was a tiger. + +The cat perceived that he was in danger of not having the tiger, jackal, +and hyæna, on his side. Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and +timidity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had been +premature; and a convenient illness, which some suppose to have been +feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks from a scene where he +felt that he could no longer see clear. We cannot doubt that both he and +Danton were perfectly assured that the anarchic party must unavoidably +roll headlong into the abyss. But the hour of doom was uncertain. To +make a mistake in the right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant +death. Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. We must not +confound his thin and querulous reserve with that stout and deep-browed +patience, which may imply as superb a fortitude, and may demand as much +iron control in a statesman, as the most heroic exploits of political +energy. But his habit of waiting on force, instead of, like the other, +taking the initiative with force, had trained his sight. The mixture of +astuteness with his scruple, of egoistic policy with his stiffness for +doctrine, gave him an advantage over Danton, that made his life worth +exactly three months' more purchase than Danton's. It has been said that +Spinozism or Transcendentalism in poetic production becomes +Machiavellism in reflection: for the same reasons we may always expect +sentimentalism in theory to become under the pressure of action a very +self-protecting guile. Robespierre's mind was not rich nor flexible +enough for true statesmanship, and it is a grave mistake to suppose that +the various cunning tacks in which his career abounds, were any sign of +genuine versatility or resource or political growth and expansion. They +were, in fact, the resort of a man whose nerves were weaker than his +volition. Robespierre was a kind of spinster. Force of head did not +match his spiritual ambition. He was not, we repeat, a coward in any +common sense; in that case he would have remained quiet among the +croaking frogs of the Marsh, and by and by have come to hold a portfolio +under the first Consul. He did not fear death, and he envied with +consuming envy those to whom nature had given the qualities of +initiative. But his nerves always played him false. The consciousness of +having to resolve to take a decided step alone, was the precursor of a +fit of trembling. His heart did not fail, but he could not control the +parched voice, nor the twitching features, not the ghastly palsy of +inner misgiving. In this respect Robespierre recalls a more illustrious +man; we think of Cicero tremblingly calling upon the Senate to decide +for him whether he should order the execution of the Catilinarian +conspirators. It is to be said, however, in his favour that he had the +art, which Cicero lacked, to hide his pusillanimity. Robespierre knew +himself, and did his best to keep his own secret. + +His absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed events +to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in dangerous action +which he had dreaded on the Tenth of August, as he dreaded it on every +other decisive day of this burning time. The party of the Commune +became more and more daring in their invectives against the Convention +and the Committees. At length they proclaimed open insurrection. But +Paris was cold, and opinion was divided. In the night of the Thirteenth +of March, Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day +Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin Club. He +joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public Safety in striking the +blow. On the Twenty-fourth of March the Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were +beheaded. + +The first bloody breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by +the second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon +followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the execution of the +Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest of the Moderates. When the +seizure of Danton had once before been discussed in the Committee, +Robespierre resisted the proposal violently. We have already seen how he +defended Danton at the Jacobin Club, when the Club underwent the process +of purification in the winter. What produced this sudden tack? How came +Robespierre to assent in March to a violence which he had angrily +discountenanced in February? There had been no change in the policy or +attitude of Danton himself. The military operations against the domestic +and foreign enemies were no sooner fairly in the way of success, than +Danton began to meditate in serious earnest the consolidation of a +republican system of law and justice. He would fain have stayed the +Terror. 'Let us leave something,' he said, 'to the guillotine of +opinion.' He aided, no doubt, in the formation of the Revolutionary +Tribunal, but this was exactly in harmony with his usual policy of +controlling popular violence without alienating the strength of popular +sympathy. The process of the tribunal was rough and summary, but it was +fairer--until Robespierre's Law of Prairial--than people usually +suppose, and it was the very temple of the goddess of Justice herself +compared with the September massacres. 'Let us prove ourselves +terrible,' Danton said, 'to relieve the people from the necessity of +being so.' His activity had been incessant in urging and superintending +the great levies against the foreigner; he had gone repeatedly on +distant and harassing expeditions, as the representative of the +Convention at the camps on the frontier. In the midst of all this he +found time to press forward measures for the instruction of the young, +and for the due appointment of judges, and his head was full of ideas +for the construction of a permanent executive council. It was this which +made him eager for a cessation of the method of Terror, and it was this +which made the Committee of Public Safety his implacable enemy. + +Why, then, did Robespierre, who also passed as a man of order and +humanity, not continue to support Danton after the suppression of the +Hébertists, as he had supported him before? The common and facile answer +is that he was moved by a malignant desire to put a rival out of the +way. On the whole, the evidence seems to support Napoleon's opinion that +Robespierre was incapable of voting for the death of anybody in the +world on grounds of personal enmity. And his acquiescence in the ruin of +Danton is intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The +Committee hated Danton for the good reason that he had openly attacked +them, and his cry for clemency was an inflammatory and dangerous protest +against their system. Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up +his mind that the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, +he could work out his own vague schemes of power and reconstruction. +And, in any case, how could he resist the Committee? The famous +insurrectionary force of Paris, which Danton had been the first to +organise against a government, had just been chilled by the fall of the +Hébertists. Least of all could this force be relied upon to rise in +defence of the very chief whose every word for many weeks past had been +a protest against the Communal leaders. In separating himself from the +Ultras, Danton had cut off the great reservoir of his peculiar strength. + +It may be said that the Convention was the proper centre of resistance +to the designs of the Committee, and that if Danton and Robespierre had +united their forces in the Convention they would have defeated Billaud +and his allies. This seems to us more than doubtful. The Committee had +acquired an immense preponderance over the Convention. They had been +eminently successful in the immense tasks imposed upon them. They had +the prestige not only of being the government--so great a thing in a +country that had just emerged from the condition of a centralised +monarchy; they had also the prestige of being a government that had done +its work triumphantly. We are now in March. In July we shall find that +Robespierre adopted the very policy that we are now discussing, of +playing off the Convention against the Committee. In July that policy +ended in his headlong fall. Why should it have been any more successful +four months earlier? + +What we may say is, that Robespierre was bound in all morality to defend +Danton in the Convention at every hazard. Possibly so; but then to run +risks for chivalry's sake was not in Robespierre's nature, and no man +can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. His narrow +head and thin blood and instable nerve, his calculating humour and his +frigid egoism, disinclined him to all games of chance. His apologists +have sought to put a more respectable colour on his abandonment of +Danton. The precisian, they say, disapproved of Danton's lax and +heedless courses. Danton said to him one day:--'What do I care? Public +opinion is a strumpet, and posterity a piece of nonsense.' How should +the puritanical lawyer endure such cynicism as this? And Danton +delighted in inflicting these coarse shocks. Again, Danton had given +various gross names of contempt to Saint Just. Was Robespierre not to +feel insults offered to the ablest and most devoted of his lieutenants? +What was more important than all, the acclamations with which the +partisans of reaction greeted the fall of the Ultras, made it necessary +to give instant and unmistakable notice to the foes of the Revolution +that the goddess of the scorching eye and fiery hand still grasped the +axe of her vengeance. + +These are pleas invented after the fact. All goes to show that +Robespierre was really moved by nothing more than his invariable dread +of being left behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not +seeming practical and political enough. And having made up his mind that +the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the Dantonists, he +became fiercer than Billaud himself. It is constantly seen that the +waverer, of nervous atrabiliar constitution, no sooner overcomes the +agony of irresolution, than he flings himself on his object with a +vindictive tenacity that seems to repay him for all the moral +humiliation inflicted on him by his stifled doubts. He redeems the +slowness of his approach by the fury of his spring. 'Robespierre,' says +M. d'Héricault, 'precipitated himself to the front of the opinion that +was yelling against his friends of yesterday. In order to keep his usual +post in the van of the Revolution, in order to secure the advantage to +his own popularity of an execution which the public voice seemed to +demand, he came forward as the author of that execution, though only the +day before he had hesitated about its utility, and though it was, in +truth far less useful to him than it proved to be to his future +antagonists.' + +Robespierre first alarmed Danton's friends by assuming a certain icy +coldness of manner, and by some menacing phrases about the faction of +the so-called Moderates. Danton had gone, as he often did, to his native +village of Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of +sight in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal +ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles. His, +again, was the temperament of violent force, and in such types the +reaction is always tremendous. The indomitable activity of the last +twenty months had bred weariness of spirit. The nemesis of a career of +strenuous Will in large natures is apt to be a sudden sense of the irony +of things. In Danton, as with Byron it happened afterwards, the +vehemence of the revolutionary spirit was touched by this desolating +irony. His friends tried to rouse him. It is not clear that he could +have done anything. The balance of force, after the suppression of the +Hébertists, was irretrievably against him, as calculation had already +revealed to Robespierre. + +There are various stories of the pair having met at dinner almost on the +eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both +sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of +sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged +details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere +Trieb,' says Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, +into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was warned that +Robespierre was plotting his arrest. 'If I thought he had the bare +idea,' said Danton with something of Gargantuan hyperbole, 'I would eat +his bowels out.' Such was the disdain with which the 'giant of the +mighty bone and bold emprise' thought of our meagre-hearted pedant. The +truth is that in the stormy and distracted times of politics, and +perhaps in all times, contempt is a dangerous luxury. A man may be a +very poor creature, and still have a faculty for mischief. And +Robespierre had this faculty in the case of Danton. With singular +baseness, he handed over to Saint Just a collection of notes, to serve +as material for the indictment which Saint Just was to present to the +Convention. They comprised everything that suspicion could interpret +malignantly, from the most conspicuous acts of Danton's public life, +down to the casual freedom of private discourse. + +Another infamy was to follow. After the arrest, and on the proceedings +to obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and others +of its members, one only of their friends had the courage to rise and +demand that they should be heard at the bar. Robespierre burst out in +cold rage; he asked whether they had undergone so many heroic +sacrifices, counting among them these acts of 'painful severity,' only +to fall under the yoke of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried +out impatiently that they would brook no claim of privilege, and suffer +no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for the Convention +dreaded to have its independence suspected, and it dreaded this all the +more because at this time its independence did not really exist. The +vote against Danton was unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the +deepest stain on the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the +Sixteenth Germinal (April 5, 1794) Paris in amazement and some +stupefaction saw the once-dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast bound in +the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging knife. 'I leave it +all in a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a man +of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow me; he is +dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the +governing of men!' + + * * * * * + +Let us pause for a moment over a calmer reminiscence. This was the very +day on which the virtuous and high-minded Condorcet quitted the friendly +roof that for nine months had concealed him from the search of +proscription. The same week he was found dead in his prison. While +Danton was storming with impotent thunder before the tribunal, Condorcet +was writing those closing words of his Sketch of Human Progress, which +are always so full of strength and edification. 'How this picture of the +human race freed from all its fetters,--withdrawn from the empire of +chance, as from that of the enemies of progress, and walking with firm +and assured step in the way of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents +to the philosopher a sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, +the injustice, with which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is +not seldom the victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that +he receives the reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for +the defence of liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain +of the destinies of man: it is there he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good; fate can no longer +undo it, by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy: it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.' + + * * * * * + +In following the turns of the drama which was to end in the tragedy of +Thermidor, we perceive that after the fall of the anarchists and the +death of Danton, the relations between Robespierre and the Committees +underwent a change. He, who had hitherto been on the side of government, +became in turn an agency of opposition. He did this in the interest of +ultimate stability, but the difference between the new position and the +old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable republic +with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions. How far the +ascendency of his own personality was involved, we have no means of +judging. The vulgar accusation against him is that he now deliberately +aimed at a dictatorship, and began to plot with that end in view. It is +always the most difficult thing in the world to draw a line between mere +arrogant egoism on the one hand, and on the other the identification of +a man's personal elevation with the success of his public cause. The two +ends probably become mixed in his mind, and if the cause be a good one, +it is the height of pharisaical folly to quarrel with him, because he +desires that his authority and renown shall receive some of the lustre +of a far-shining triumph. What we complain of in Napoleon Bonaparte, for +instance, is not that he sought power, but that he sought it in the +interests of a coarse, brutal, and essentially unmeaning personal +ambition. And so of Robespierre. We need not discuss the charge that he +sought to make himself master. The important thing is that his mastery +could have served no great end for France; that it would have been like +himself, poor, barren, and hopelessly mediocre. And this would have been +seen on every side. France had important military tasks to perform +before her independence was assured. Robespierre hated war, and was +jealous of every victory. France was in urgent need of stable +government, of new laws, of ordered institutions. Robespierre never said +a word to indicate that he had a single positive idea in his head on any +of these great departments. And, more than this, he was incapable of +making use of men who were more happily endowed than himself. He had +never mastered that excellent observation of De Retz, that of all the +qualities of a good party chief, none is so indispensable as being able +to suppress on many occasions, and to hide on all, even legitimate +suspicions. He was corroded by suspicion, and this paralyses able +servants. Finally, Robespierre had no imperial quality of soul, but only +that very sorry imitation of it, a lively irritability. + +The base of Robespierre's schemes of social reconstruction now came +clearly into view; and what a base! An official Supreme Being, and a +regulated Terror. The one was to fill up the spiritual void, and the +other to satisfy all the exigencies of temporal things. It is to the +credit of Robespierre's perspicacity that he should have recognised the +human craving for religion, but this credit is as naught when we +contemplate the jejune thing that passed for religion in his dim and +narrow understanding. Rousseau had brought a new soul into the +eighteenth century by the Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith, the most +fervid and exalted expression of emotional deism that religious +literature contains; vague, irrational, incoherent, cloudy; but the +clouds are suffused with glowing gold. When we turn from that to the +political version of it in Robespierre's discourse on the relations of +religious and moral ideas with republican principles, we feel as one who +revisits a landscape that had been made glorious to him by a summer sky +and fresh liquid winds from the gates of the evening sun, only to find +it dead under a gray heaven and harsh blasts from the northeast. +Robespierre's words on the Supreme Being are never a brimming stream of +deep feeling; they are a literary concoction: never the self-forgetting +expansion of the religious soul, but only the composite of the +rhetorician. He thought he had a passion for religion; what he took for +religion was little more than mental decorum. We do not mean that he was +insincere, or that he was without a feeling for high things. But here, +as in all else, his aspiration was far beyond his faculty; he yearned +for great spiritual emotions, as he had yearned for great thoughts and +great achievements, but his spiritual capacity was as scanty and obscure +as his intelligence. And where unkind Nature thus unequally yokes lofty +objects in a man with a short mental reach, she stamps him with the very +definition of mediocrity. + +How can we speak with decent patience of a man who seriously thought +that he should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of +the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the Feast of +the Supreme Being? This was designed as a triumphant ripost to the Feast +of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends had celebrated in the winter. +The energumens of the Goddess of Reason had now been some weeks in +their bloody graves; by this time, if they had given the wrong answer to +the supreme enigma, their eyes would perhaps be opened. Robespierre +persuaded the Convention to decree an official recognition of the +Supreme Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of their +mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for the decade in +which the festival would fall. When the day came (20th Prairial, June 8, +1794), he clothed himself with more than even his usual care. As he +looked out from the windows of the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in +the gardens, he was intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, +'how sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow pale +at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical pride he walked +at the head of the procession, with flowers and wheat-ears in his hand, +to the sound of chants and symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the +first of the great basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised +an allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was prepared. +Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the midst of an amiable +group of human Vices, with Madness by her side, and Wisdom menacing them +with lofty wrath. Great are the perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied +a torch to Atheism, but alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and +Madness were damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was +hapless Wisdom who took fire. Her face, all blackened by smoke, grinned +a hideous ghastly grin at her sturdy rivals. The miscarriage of the +allegory was an evil omen, and men probably thought how much better the +churchmen always managed their conjurings and the art of spectacle. +There was a great car drawn by milk-white oxen; in the front were ranged +sheaves of golden grain, while at the back shepherds and shepherdesses +posed with scenic graces. The whole mummery was pagan. It was a bringing +back of Cerealia and Thesmophoria to earth. It stands as the most +disgusting and contemptible anachronism in history. + +The famous republican Calendar, with its Prairials and Germinals, its +Ventoses and Pluvioses, was an anachronism of the same kind, though it +was less despicable in its manifestation. Its philosophic base was just +as retrograde and out of season as the fooleries of the Feast of the +Supreme Being. The association of worship and sacredness with the fruits +of the earth, with the forces of nature, with the power and variety of +the elements, could only be sincere so long as men really thought of all +these things as animated each by a special will of its own. Such an +association became mere charlatanry, when knowledge once passed into the +positive stage. How could men go back to adore an outer world, after +they had found out the secret that it is a mere huge group of phenomena, +following fixed courses, and not obeying spontaneous and unaccountable +volitions of their own? And what could be more puerile than the fanciful +connection of the Supreme Being with a pastoral simplicity of life? This +simplicity was gone, irrecoverably gone, with the passage from nomad +times to the complexities of a modern society. To typify, therefore, the +Supreme Being as specially interested in shocks of grain and in +shepherds and shepherdesses was to make him a mere figure in an idyll, +the ornament of a rural mask, a god of the garden, instead of the +sovereign director of the universal forces, and stern master of the +destinies of men. Chaumette's commemoration of the Divinity of Reason +was a sensible performance, compared with Robespierre's farcical +repartee. It was something, as Comte has said, to select for worship +man's most individual attribute. If they could not contemplate society +as a whole, it was at least a gain to pay homage to that faculty in the +human rulers of the world, which had brought the forces of nature--its +pluviosity, nivosity, germinality, and vendemiarity--under the yoke for +the service of men. + +If the philosophy of Robespierre's pageant was so retrograde and false, +its politics were still more inane. It is a monument of presumptuous +infatuation that any one should feel so strongly as he did that order +could only be restored on condition of coming to terms with religious +use and prejudice, and then that he should dream that his Supreme +Being--a mere didactic phrase, the deity of a poet's georgic--should +adequately replace that eternal marvel of construction, by means of +which the great churchmen had wrought dogma and liturgy and priest and +holy office into every hour and every mood of men's lives. There is no +binding principle of human association in a creed with this one bald +article. 'In truth,' as I have said elsewhere of such deism as +Robespierre's, 'one can scarcely call it a creed. It is mainly a name +for a particular mood of fine spiritual exaltation; the expression of a +state of indefinite aspiration and supreme feeling for lofty things. Are +you going to convert the new barbarians of our western world with this +fair word of emptiness? Will you sweeten the lives of suffering men, and +take its heaviness from that droning piteous chronicle of wrong and +cruelty and despair, which everlastingly saddens the compassionating ear +like moaning of a midnight sea; will you animate the stout of heart with +new fire, and the firm of hand with fresh joy of battle, by the thought +of a being without intelligible attributes, a mere abstract creation of +metaphysic, whose mercy is not as our mercy, nor his justice as our +justice, nor his fatherhood as the fatherhood of men? It was not by a +cold, a cheerless, a radically depraving conception such as this, that +the church became the refuge of humanity in the dark times of old, but +by the representation, to men sitting in bondage and confusion, of +godlike natures moving among them, under figure of the most eternally +touching of human relations,--a tender mother ever interceding for them, +and an elder brother laying down his life that their burdens might be +loosened.' + + * * * * * + +On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine was +concealed in the folds of rich hangings. It was the Twentieth of +Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention the +memorable Law of the Twenty-second Prairial. Robespierre was the +draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own writing. This +monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation of all law. Of all laws +ever passed in the world it is the most nakedly iniquitous. Tyrants have +often substituted their own will for the ordered procedure of a +tribunal, but no tyrant before ever went through the atrocious farce of +deliberately making a tribunal the organised negation of security for +justice. Couthon laid its theoretic base in a fallacy that must always +be full of seduction to shallow persons in authority: 'He who would +subordinate the public safety to the inventions of jurisconsults, to the +formulas of the Court, is either an imbecile or a scoundrel.' As if +public safety could mean anything but the safety of the public. The +author of the Law of Prairial had forgotten the minatory word of the +sage to whom he had gone on a pilgrimage in the days of his youth. 'All +becomes legitimate and even virtuous,' Helvétius had written, 'on behalf +of the public safety.' Rousseau inscribed on the margin, 'The public +safety is nothing, unless individuals enjoy security.' What security was +possible under the Law of Prairial? + +After the probity and good judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal +guarantees in state trials are accurate definition, and proof. The +offence must be capable of precise description, and the proof against +an offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial violently +infringed all three of these essential conditions of judicial equity. +First, the number of the jury who had power to convict was reduced. +Second, treason was made to consist in such vague and infinitely elastic +kinds of action as inspiring discouragement, misleading opinion, +depraving manners, corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the +Revolution by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the +conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary inquiry, of +witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the accused. Any kind of +testimony was evidence, whether material or moral, verbal or written, if +it was of a kind 'likely to gain the assent of a man of reasonable +mind.' + +Now what was Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? +The theory that he loved judicial murder for its own sake, can only be +held by the silliest of royalist or clerical partisans. It is like the +theory of the vulgar kind of Protestantism, that Mary Tudor or Philip of +Spain had a keen delight in shedding blood. Robespierre, like Mary and +like Philip, would have been as well pleased if all the world would have +come round to his mind without the destruction of a single life. The +true inquisitor is a creature of policy, not a man of blood by taste. +What, then, was the policy that inspired the Law of Prairial? To us the +answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim in Robespierre's +mind at this point in the history of the Revolution. His brother +Augustin was then the representative of the Convention with the army of +Italy, and General Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. +Bonaparte said long afterwards, when he was expiating a life of iniquity +on the rock of Saint Helena, that he saw long letters from Maximilian to +Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the Conventional Commissioners--Tallien, +Fouché, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they perpetrated, +and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by their atrocities. Again, +there is abundant testimony that Robespierre did his best to induce the +Committee of Public Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. +The text of the Law itself discloses the same object. The vague phrases of +depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles perfidiously, were +exactly calculated to smite the band of violent men whose conduct was to +Robespierre the scandal of the Revolution. And there was a curious clause +in the law as originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the +right of preventing measures against its own members. Robespierre's general +design in short was to effect a further purgation of the Convention. There +is no reason to suppose that he deliberately aimed at any more general +extermination. On the other hand, it is incredible that, as some have +maintained, he should merely have had in view the equalisation of rich and +poor before the tribunals, by withdrawing the aid of counsel and testimony +to civic character from both rich and poor alike. + +If Robespierre's design was what we believe it to have been, the result +was a ghastly failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent +to apply his law against the men for whom he had specially designed it. +The frightful weapon which he had forged was seized by the Committee of +General Security, and Paris was plunged into the fearful days of the +Great Terror. The number of persons put to death by the Revolutionary +Tribunal before the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. +From the creation of the tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution +of the Hébertists in March 1794, the number of persons condemned to +death was 505. From the death of the Hébertists down to the death of +Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2158. One half of the +entire number of victims, namely, 1356, were guillotined after the Law +of Prairial. No deadlier instrument was ever invented by the cruelty of +man. Innocent women no less than innocent men, poor no less than rich, +those in whom life was almost spent, no less than those in whom its +pulse was strongest, virtuous no less than vicious, were sent off in +woe-stricken batches all those summer days. A man was informed against; +he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at seven he was taken +to the Conciergerie; at nine he received information of the charge +against him; at ten he went into the dock; by two in the afternoon he +was condemned; by four his head lay in the executioner's basket. + +What stamps the system of the Terror at this date with a wickedness +that cannot be effaced, is that at no moment was the danger from foreign +or domestic foe less serious. We may always forgive something to +well-grounded panic. The proscriptions of an earlier date in Paris were +not excessively sanguinary, if we remember that the city abounded in +royalists and other reactionists, who were really dangerous in fomenting +discouragement and spreading confusion. If there ever is an excuse for +martial law, and it must be rare, the French government were warranted +in resorting to it in 1793. Paris in those days was like a city +beleaguered, and the world does not use very harsh words about the +commandant of a besieged town who puts to death traitors found within +his walls. Opinion in England at this very epoch encouraged the Tory +government to pass a Treason Bill, which introduced as vague a +definition of treasonable offence as even the Law of Prairial itself. +Windham did not shrink from declaring in parliament that he and his +colleagues were determined to exact 'a rigour beyond the law.' And they +were as good as their word. The Jacobins had no monopoly either of cruel +law or cruel breach of law in the eighteenth century. Only thirty years +before, opinion in Pennsylvania had prompted a hideous massacre of +harmless Indians as a deed acceptable to God, and the grandson of +William Penn proclaimed a bounty of fifty dollars for the scalp of a +female Indian, and three times as much for a male. A man would have had +quite as good a chance of justice from the Revolutionary Tribunal, as +at the hands of Braxfield, the Scotch judge, who condemned Muir and +Palmer for sedition in 1793, and who told the government, with a brazen +front worthy of Carrier or Collot d'Herbois themselves, that, if they +would only send him prisoners, he would find law for them. + +We have no sympathy with the spirit of paradox that has arisen in these +days, amusing itself by the vindication of bad men. We think that the +author of the Law of Prairial was a bad man. But it is time that there +should be an end of the cant which lifts up its hands at the crimes of +republicans and freethinkers, and shuts its eyes to the crimes of kings +and churches. Once more, we ought to rise into a higher air; we ought to +condemn, wherever we find it, whether on the side of our adversaries or +on our own, all readiness to substitute arbitrary force for the +processes of ordered justice. There are moments when such a readiness +may be leniently judged, but Prairial of 1794 was not one of them either +in France or in England. And what makes the crime of this law more +odious, is its association with the official proclamation of the State +worship of a Supreme Being. The scene of Robespierre's holy festival +becomes as abominable as a catholic Auto-da-fé, where solemn homage was +offered to the God of pity and loving-kindness, while flame glowed round +the limbs of the victims. + + * * * * * + +Robespierre was inflamed with resentment, not because so many people +were guillotined every day, but because the objects of his own enmity +were not among them. He was chagrined at the miscarriage of his scheme; +but the chagrin had its root in his desire for order, and not in his +humanity. A good man--say so imperfectly good a man as Danton--could not +have endured life, after enacting such a law, and seeing the ghastly +work that it was doing. He could hardly have contented himself with +drawing tears from the company in Madame Duplay's little parlour, by his +pathetic recitations from Corneille and Racine, or with listening to +melting notes from the violin of Le Bas. It is commonly said by +Robespierre's defenders that he withdrew from the Committee of Public +Safety, as soon as he found out that he was powerless to arrest the +daily shedding of blood. The older assumption used to be that he left +Paris, and ceased to be cognisant of the Committee's deliberations. The +minutes, however, prove that this was not the case. Robespierre signed +papers nearly every day of Messidor--(June 19 to July 18) the +blood-stained month between Prairial and Thermidor--and was thoroughly +aware of the doings of the Committee. His partisans have now fallen back +on the singular theory of what they style moral absence. He was present +in the flesh, but standing aloof in the spirit. His frowning silence was +a deadlier rebuke to the slayers and oppressors than secession. +Unfortunately for this ingenious explanation of the embarrassing fact of +a merciful man standing silent before merciless doings, there are at +least two facts that show its absurdity. + +First, there is the affair of Catherine Théot. Catherine Théot was a +crazy old woman of a type that is commoner in protestant than in +catholic countries. She believed herself to have special gifts in the +interpretation of the holy writings, and a few other people as crazy as +herself chose to accept her pretensions. One revelation vouchsafed to +her was to the effect that Robespierre was a Messiah and the new +redeemer of the human race. The Committee of General Security resolved +to indict this absurd sect. Vadier,--one of the roughest of the men whom +the insurrections of Paris had brought to the front--reported on the +charges to the Convention (27 Prairial, June 15), and he took the +opportunity to make Robespierre look profoundly ridiculous. The +unfortunate Messiah sat on his bench, gnawing his lips with bitter rage, +while, amid the sneers and laughter of the Convention, the officers +brought to the bar the foolish creatures who had called him the Son of +God. His thin pride and prudish self-respect were unutterably affronted, +and he quite understood that the ridicule of the mysticism of Théot was +an indirect pleasantry upon his own Supreme Being. He flew to the +Committee of Public Safety, angrily reproached them for permitting the +prosecution, summoned Fouquier-Tinville, and peremptorily ordered him to +let the matter drop. In vain did the public prosecutor point out that +there was a decree of the Convention ordering him to proceed. +Robespierre was inexorable. The Committee of General Security were +baffled, and the prosecution ended. 'Lutteur impuissant et fatigué,' +says M. Hamel, the most thoroughgoing defender of Robespierre, upon +this, 'il va se retirer, moralement du moins.' Impotent and wearied! But +he had just won a most signal victory for good sense and humanity. Why +was it the only one? If Robespierre was able to save Théot, why could he +not save Cécile Renault? + +Cécile Renault was a young seamstress who was found one evening at the +door of Robespierre's lodging, calling out in a state of exaltation that +she would fain see what a tyrant looked like. She was arrested, and upon +her were found two little knives used for the purposes of her trade. +That she should be arrested and imprisoned was natural enough. The times +were charged with deadly fire. People had not forgotten that Marat had +been murdered in his own house. Only a few days before Cécile Renault's +visit to Robespierre, an assassin had fired a pistol at Collot d'Herbois +on the staircase of his apartment. We may make allowance for the +excitement of the hour, and Robespierre had as much right to play the +martyr, as had Lewis the Fifteenth after the incident of Damiens' rusty +pen-knife. But the histrionic exigencies of the chief of a faction ought +not to be pushed too far. And it was a monstrous crime that because +Robespierre found it convenient to pose as sacrificial victim at the +Club, therefore he should have had no scruple in seeing not only the +wretched Cécile, but her father, her aunt, and one of her brothers, all +despatched to the guillotine in the red shirt of parricide, as agents of +Pitt and Coburg, and assassins of the father of the land. This was +exactly two days after he had shown his decisive power in the affair of +the religious illuminists. The only possible conclusion open to a plain +man after weighing and putting aside all the sophisms with which this +affair has been obscured, is that Robespierre interfered in the one case +because its further prosecution would have tended to make him +ridiculous, and he did not interfere in the other, because the more +exaggerated, the more melodramatic, the more murderous it was made, the +more interesting an object would he seem in the eyes of his adorers. + +The second fact bearing on Robespierre's humanity is this. He had +encouraged the formation and stimulated the activity of popular +commissions, who should provide victims for the Revolutionary Tribunal. +On the Second of Messidor (June 20) a list containing one hundred and +thirty-eight names was submitted for the ratification of the Committee. +The Committee endorsed the bloody document, and the last signature of +the endorsement is that of him, who had resigned a post in his youth +rather than be a party to putting a man to death. As was observed at the +time, Robespierre in doing this, suppressed his pique against his +colleagues, in order to take part in a measure, that was a sort of +complement to his Law of Prairial. + +From these two circumstances, then, even if there were no other, we are +justified in inferring that Robespierre was struck by no remorse at the +thought that it was his law which had unbound the hands of the horrible +genie of civil murder. His mind was wholly absorbed in the calculations +of a frigid egoism. His intelligence, as we have always to remember, was +very dim. He only aimed at one thing at once, and that was seldom +anything very great or far-reaching. He was a man of peering and +obscured vision in face of practical affairs. In passing the Law of +Prairial, his designs--and they were meritorious and creditable designs +enough in themselves--had been directed against the corrupt chiefs, such +as Tallien and Fouché, and against the fierce and coarse spirits of the +Committee of General Security, such as Vadier and Voulland. Robespierre +was above all things a precisian. He had a sentimental sympathy with the +common people in the abstract, but his spiritual pride, his pedantry, +his formalism, his personal fastidiousness, were all wounded to the very +quick by the kind of men whom the Revolution had thrown to the surface. +Gouverneur Morris, then the American minister, describes most of the +members of the two Committees as the very dregs of humanity, with whom +it is a stain to have any dealings; as degraded men only worthy of the +profoundest contempt. Danton had said: 'Robespierre is the least of a +scoundrel of any of the band.' The Committee of General Security +represented the very elements by which Robespierre was most revolted. +They offended his respectability; their evil manners seemed to tarnish +that good name which his vanity hoped to make as revered all over +Europe, as it already was among his partisans in France. It was +indispensable therefore to cut them off from the revolutionary +government, just as Hébert and as Danton had been cut off. His +colleagues of Public Safety refused to lend themselves to this. +Henceforth, with characteristically narrow tenacity, he looked round for +new combinations, but, so far as I can see, with no broader design than +to enable him to punish these particular objects of his very just +detestation. + +The position of sections and interests which ended in the Revolution of +Thermidor, is one of the most extraordinarily intricate and entangled in +the history of faction. It would take a volume to follow out all the +peripeteias of the drama. Here we can only enumerate in a few sentences +the parties to the contest and the conditions of the game. The reader +will easily discern the difficulty in Robespierre's way of making an +effective combination. First, there were the two Committees. Of these +the one, the General Security, was thoroughly hostile to Robespierre; +its members, as we have said, were wild and hardy spirits, with no +political conception, and with a great contempt for fine phrases and +philosophical principles. They knew Robespierre's hatred for them, and +they heartily returned it. They were the steadfast centre of the +changing schemes which ended in his downfall. The Committee of Public +Safety was divided. Carnot hated Saint Just, and Collot d'Herbois hated +Robespierre, and Billaud had a sombre distrust of Robespierre's +counsels. Shortly speaking, the object of the Billaudists was to retain +their power, and their power was always menaced from two quarters, the +Convention and Paris. If they let Robespierre have his own way against +his enemies, would they not be at his mercy whenever he chose to devise +a popular insurrection against them? Yet if they withstood Robespierre, +they could only do so through the agency of the Convention, and to fall +back upon the Convention would be to give that body an express +invitation to resume the power that had, in the pressure of the crisis a +year before, been delegated to the Committee, and periodically renewed +afterwards. The dilemma of Billaud seemed desperate, and events +afterwards proved that it was so. + +If we turn to the Convention, we find the position equally distracting. +They, too, feared another insurrection and a second decimation. If the +Right helped Robespierre to destroy the Fouchés and Vadiers, he would be +stronger than ever; and what security had they against a repetition of +the violence of the Thirty-first of May? If the Dantonists joined in +destroying Robespierre, they would be helping the Right, and what +security had they against a Girondin reaction? On the other hand, the +Centre might fairly hope, just what Billaud feared, that if the +Committee came to the Convention to crush Robespierre, that would end in +a combination strong enough to enable the Convention to crush the +Committees. + +Much depended on military success. The victories of the generals were +the great strength of the Committee. For so long it would be difficult +to turn opinion against a triumphant administration. 'At the first +defeat,' Robespierre had said to Barère, 'I await you.' But the defeat +did not come. The plotting went on with incessant activity; on one hand, +Robespierre, aided by Saint Just and Couthon, strengthening himself at +the Jacobin Club, and through that among the sections; on the other, the +Mountain and the Committee of General Security trying to win over the +Right, more contemptuously christened the Marsh or the Belly, of the +Convention. The Committee of Public Safety was not yet fully decided how +to act. + +At the end of the first week of Thermidor, Robespierre could endure the +tension no longer. He had tried to fortify his nerves for the struggle +by riding, but with so little success that he was lifted off his horse +fainting. He endeavoured to steady himself by diligent pistol-practice. +But nothing gave him initiative and the sinews of action. Saint Just +urged him to raise Paris. Some bold men proposed to carry off the +members of the Committee bodily from their midnight deliberations. +Robespierre declined, and fell back on what he took to be his greatest +strength and most unfailing resource; he prepared a speech. On the +Eighth of Thermidor he delivered it to the Convention, amid intense +excitement both within its walls and without. All Paris knew that they +were now on the eve of one more of the famous Days; the revolution of +Thermidor had begun. + +The speech of the Eighth Thermidor has seemed to men of all parties +since a masterpiece of tactical ineptitude. If Robespierre had been a +statesman instead of a phrasemonger, he had a clear course. He ought to +have taken the line of argument that Danton would have taken. That is to +say, he ought to have identified himself fully with the interests and +security of the Convention; to have accepted the growing resolution to +close the Terror; to have boldly pressed the abolition of the Committee +of General Security, and the removal from the Committee of Public Safety +of Billaud, Collot, Barère; to have proposed to send about fifty persons +to Cayenne for life; and to have urged a policy of peace with the +foreign powers. This was the substantial wisdom and real interest of the +position. The task was difficult, because his hearers had the best +possible reasons for knowing that the author of the Law of Prairial was +a Terrorist on principle. And in truth we know that Robespierre had no +definite intention of erecting clemency into a rule. He had not mental +strength enough to throw off the profound apprehension, which the +incessant alarms of the last five years had engendered in him; and the +only device, that he could imagine for maintaining the republic against +traitors, was to stimulate the rigour of the Revolutionary Tribunal. + +If, however, Robespierre lacked the grasp which might have made him the +representative of a broad and stable policy, it was at least his +interest to persuade the men of the Plain that he entertained no designs +against them. And this is what in his own mind he intended. But to do it +effectively, it was clearly best to tell his hearers, in so many words, +whom he really wished them to strike. That would have relieved the +majority, and banished the suspicion which had been busily fomented by +his enemies, that he had in his pocket a long list of their names, for +proscription. But Robespierre, having for the first time in his life +ventured on aggressive action without the support of a definite party, +faltered. He dared not to designate his enemies face to face and by +name. Instead of that, he talked vaguely of conspirators against the +republic, and calumniators of himself. There was not a single bold, +definite, unmistakable sentence in the speech from first to last. The +men of the Plain were insecure and doubtful; they had no certainty that +among conspirators and calumniators he did not include too many of +themselves. People are not so readily seized by grand phrases, when +their heads are at stake. The sitting was long, and marked by changing +currents and reverses. When they broke up, all was left uncertain. +Robespierre had suffered a check. Billaud felt that he could no longer +hesitate in joining the combination against his colleague. Each party +was aware that the next day must seal the fate of one or other of them. +There is a legend that in the evening Robespierre walked in the Champs +Elysées with his betrothed, accompanied as usual by his faithful dog, +Brount. They admired the purple of the sunset, and talked of the +prospect of a glorious to-morrow. But this is apocryphal. The evening +was passed in no lover's saunterings, but amid the storm and uproar of +the Club. He went to the Jacobins to read over again his speech of the +day. 'It is my testament of death,' he said, amid the passionate +protestations of his devoted followers. He had been talking for the last +three years of his willingness to drink the hemlock, and to offer his +breast to the poniards of tyrants. That was a fashion of the speech of +the time, and in earlier days it had been more than a fashion of speech, +for Brunswick would have given them short shrift. But now, when he +talked of his last testament, Robespierre did not intend it to be so if +he could prevent it. When he went to rest that night, he had a tolerably +calm hope that he should win the next day's battle in the Convention, +when he was aware that Saint Just would attack the Committees openly and +directly. If he would have allowed his band to invade the Pavillon de +Flore, and carry off or slay the Committees who sat up through the +night, the battle would have been won when he awoke. His friends are +justified in saying that his strong respect for legality was the cause +of his ruin. + +Men in all ages have had a superstitious fondness for connecting awful +events in their lives with portents and signs among the outer elements. +It was noticed that the heat during the terrible days of Thermidor was +more intense than had been known within the memory of man. The +thermometer never fell below sixty-five degrees in the coolest part of +the night, and in the daytime men and women and beasts of burden fell +down dead in the streets. By five o'clock in the morning of the Ninth +Thermidor, the galleries of the Convention were filled by a boisterous +and excited throng. At ten o'clock the proceedings began as usual with +the reading of correspondence from the departments and from the armies. +Robespierre, who had been escorted from his lodgings by the usual body +of admirers, instead of taking his ordinary seat, remained standing by +the side of the tribune. It is a familiar fact that moments of appalling +suspense are precisely those in which we are most ready involuntarily to +note a trifle; everybody observed that Robespierre wore the coat of +violet-blue silk and the white nankeens in which a few weeks previously +he had done honour to the Supreme Being. + +The galleries seemed as enthusiastic as ever. The men of the Plain and +the Marsh had lost the abject mien with which they usually cowered +before Robespierre's glance; they wore a courageous air of judicial +reserve. The leaders of the Mountain wandered restlessly to and fro +among the corridors. At noon Tallien saw that Saint Just had ascended +the tribune. Instantly he rushed down into the chamber, knowing that +the battle had now begun in fierce earnest. Saint Just had not got +through two sentences, before Tallien interrupted him. He began to +insist with energy that there should be an end to the equivocal phrases +with which Paris had been too long alarmed by the Triumvirate. Billaud, +fearing to be outdone in the attack, hastily forced his way to the +tribune, broke into what Tallien was saying, and proceeded dexterously +to discredit Robespierre's allies without at once assailing Robespierre +himself. Le Bas ran in a fury to stop him; Collot d'Herbois, the +president, declared Le Bas out of order; the hall rang with cries of 'To +prison! To the Abbey!' and Le Bas was driven from the tribune. This was +the beginning of the tempest. Robespierre's enemies knew that they were +fighting for their lives, and this inspired them with a strong and +resolute power that is always impressive in popular assemblies. He still +thought himself secure. Billaud pursued his accusations. Robespierre, at +last, unable to control himself, scaled the tribune. There suddenly +burst forth from Tallien and his partisans vehement shouts of 'Down with +the tyrant! down with the tyrant!' The galleries were swept by a wild +frenzy of vague agitation; the president's bell poured loud incessant +clanging into the tumult; the men of the Plain held themselves firm and +silent; in the tribune raged ferocious groups, Tallien menacing +Robespierre with a dagger, Billaud roaring out proposals to arrest this +person and that Robespierre gesticulating, threatening, yelling, +shrieking. His enemies knew that if he were once allowed to get a +hearing, his authority might even yet overawe the waverers. A +penetrative word or a heroic gesture might lose them the day. The +majority of the chamber still hesitated. They called for Barère, in +whose adroit faculty for discovering the winning side they had the +confidence of long experience. Robespierre, recovering some of his calm, +and perceiving now that he had really to deal with a serious revolt, +again asked to be heard before Barère. But the cries for Barère were +louder than ever. Barère spoke, in a sense hostile to Robespierre, but +warily and without naming him. + +Then there was a momentary lull. The Plain was uncertain. The battle +might even now turn either way. Robespierre made another attempt to +speak, but Tallien with intrepid fury broke out into a torrent of louder +and more vehement invective. Robespierre's shrill voice was heard in +disjected snatches, amidst the violent tones of Tallien, the yells of +the president calling Robespierre to order, the murderous clanging of +the bell. Then came that supreme hour of the struggle, whose tale has +been so often told, when Robespierre turned from his old allies of the +Mountain, and succeeded in shrieking out an appeal to the probity and +virtue of the Right and the Plain. To his horror, even these despised +men, after a slight movement, remained mute. Then his cheeks blanched, +and the sweat ran down his face. But anger and scornful impatience +swiftly came back and restored him. _President of assassins_, he cried +out to Thuriot, _for the last time I ask to be heard. Thou canst not +speak_, called one, _the blood of Danton chokes thee_. He flung himself +down the steps of the tribune, and rushed towards the benches of the +Right. _Come no further_, cried another, _Vergniaud and Condorcet sat +here_. He regained the tribune, but his speech was gone. He was reduced +to the dregs of an impotent and gasping voiceless gesticulation, like +the strife of one in a nightmare. + +The day was lost. The tension of a passionate and violent struggle +prolonged for many hours always at length exasperates onlookers with +something of the brute ferocity of the actors. The physical strain stirs +the tiger in the blood; they conceive a cruel hatred against weakness, +just as the heated throng of a Roman amphitheatre turned up their thumbs +for the instant despatch of the unfortunate swordsman who had been too +ready to lower his arms. The Right, the Plain, even the galleries, +despised the man who had succumbed. If Robespierre had possessed the +physical strength of Mirabeau or Danton, the Ninth Thermidor would have +been another of his victories. He was crushed by the relentless ferocity +and endurance of his antagonists. A decree for his arrest was resolved +upon by acclamation. He cast a glance at the galleries, as marvelling +that they should remain passive in face of an outrage on his person. +They were mute. The ushers advanced with hesitation to do their duty, +and not without trembling carried him away, along with Couthon and +Saint Just. The brother, for whom he had made honourable sacrifices in +days that seemed to be divided from the present by an abyss of +centuries, insisted with fine heroism on sharing his fate, and Augustin +Robespierre and Le Bas were led off to the prisons along with their +leader and idol. + +It was now a little after four o'clock. The Convention, with the +self-possession that so often amazes us in its proceedings, went on with +formal business for another hour. At five they broke up. For life, as +the poets tell, is a daily stage-play; men declaim their high heroic +parts, then doff the buskin or the sock, wash away the paint from their +cheeks, and gravely sit down to meat. The Conventionals, as they ate +their dinners, were unconscious, apparently, that the great crisis of +the drama was still to come. The next twelve hours were to witness the +climax. Robespierre had been crushed by the Convention; it remained to +be seen whether the Convention would not now be crushed by the Commune +of Paris. + +Robespierre was first conducted to the prisons of the Luxembourg. The +gaoler, on some plea of informality, refused to receive him. The +terrible prisoner was next taken to the Mairie, where he remained among +joyful friends from eight in the evening until eleven. Meanwhile the old +insurrectionary methods of the nights of June and of August in '92, of +May and of June in '93, were again followed. The beating of the _rappel_ +and the _générale_ was heard in all the sections; the tocsin sounded its +dreadful note, reminding all who should hear it that insurrection is +the most sacred and the most indispensable of duties. Hanriot, the +commandant of the forces, had been arrested in the evening, but he was +speedily released by the agents of the Commune. The Council issued +manifestoes and decrees from the Common Hall every moment. The barriers +were closed. Cannon were posted opposite the doors of the hall of the +Convention. The quays were thronged. Emissaries sped to and fro between +the Jacobin Club and the Common Hall, and between these two centres and +each of the forty-eight sections. It is one of the inscrutable mysteries +of this delirious night, that Hanriot did not at once use the force at +his command to break up the Convention. There is no obvious reason why +he should not have done so. The members of the Convention had +re-assembled after their dinner, towards seven o'clock. The hall which +had resounded with the shrieks and yells of the furious gladiators of +the factions all day, now lent a lugubrious echo to gloomy reports which +one member after another delivered from the shadow of the tribune. +Towards nine o'clock the members of the two dread Committees came in +panic to seek shelter among their colleagues, 'as dejected in their +peril,' says an eyewitness, 'as they had been cruel and insolent in the +hour of their supremacy.' When they heard that Hanriot had been +released, and that guns were at their door, all gave themselves up for +lost and made ready for death. News came that Robespierre had broken his +arrest and gone to the Common Hall. Robespierre, after urgent and +repeated solicitations, had been at length persuaded about an hour +before midnight to leave the Mairie and join his partisans of the +Commune. This was an act of revolt against the Convention, for the +Mairie was a legal place of detention, and so long as he was there, he +was within the law. The Convention with heroic intrepidity declared both +Hanriot and Robespierre beyond the pale of the law. This prompt measure +was its salvation. Twelve members were instantly named to carry the +decree to all the sections. With the scarf of office round their waists, +and a sabre in hand, they sallied forth. Mounting horses, and escorted +by attendants with flaring torches, they scoured Paris, calling all good +citizens to the succour of the Convention, haranguing crowds at the +street corners with power and authority, and striking the imaginations +of men. At midnight heavy rain began to fall. + +The leaders of the Commune meanwhile, in full confidence that victory +was sure, contented themselves with incessant issue of paper decrees, to +each of which the Convention replied by a counter-decree. Those who have +studied the situation most minutely, are of opinion that even so late as +one o'clock in the morning, the Commune might have made a successful +defence, although it had lost the opportunity, which it had certainly +possessed up to ten o'clock, of destroying the Convention. But on this +occasion the genius of insurrection slumbered. And there was a genuine +division of opinion in the eastern quarters of Paris, the result of a +grim distrust of the man who had helped to slay Hébert and Chaumette. At +a word this distrust began to declare itself. The opinion of the +sections became more and more distracted. One armed group cried, _Down +with the Convention!_ Another armed group cried, _The Convention for +ever, and down with the Commune!_ The two great faubourgs were all +astir, and three battalions were ready to march. Emissaries from the +Convention actually succeeded in persuading them--such the dementia of +the night--that Robespierre was a royalist agent, and that the Commune +were about to deliver the little Lewis from his prison in the Temple. +One body of communist partisans after another was detached from its +allegiance. The deluge of rain emptied the Place de Grève, and when +companies came up from the sections in obedience to orders from Hanriot +and the Commune, the silence made them suspect a trap, and they withdrew +towards the great metropolitan church or elsewhere. + +Barras, whom the Convention had charged with its military defence, +gathered together some six thousand men. With the right instinct of a +man who had studied the history of Paris since the July of 1789, he +foresaw the advantage of being the first to make the attack. He arranged +his forces into two divisions. One of them marched along the quays to +take the Common Hall in front; the other along the Rue Saint Honoré to +take it in flank. Inside the Common Hall the staircases and corridors +were alive with bustling messengers, and those mysterious busybodies who +are always found lingering without a purpose on the skirts of great +historic scenes. Robespierre and the other chiefs were in a small room, +preparing manifestoes and signing decrees. They were curiously unaware +of the movements of the Convention. An aggressive attack by the party of +authority upon the party of insurrection was unknown in the tradition of +revolt. They had an easy assurance that at daybreak their forces would +be prepared once more to tramp along the familiar road westwards. It was +now half-past two. Robespierre had just signed the first two letters of +his name to a document before him, when he was startled by cries and +uproar in the Place below. In a few instants he lay stretched on the +ground, his jaw shattered by a pistol-shot. His brother had either +fallen or had leaped out of the window. Couthon was hurled over a +staircase, and lay for dead. Saint Just was a prisoner. + +Whether Robespierre was shot by an officer of the Conventional force, or +attempted to blow out his own brains, we shall never know, any more than +we shall ever be quite assured how Rousseau, his spiritual master, came +to an end. The wounded man was carried, a ghastly sight, first to the +Committee of Public Safety, and then to the Conciergerie, where he lay +in silent stupefaction through the heat of the summer day. As he was an +outlaw, the only legal preliminary before execution was to identify +him. At five in the afternoon, he was raised into the cart Couthon and +the younger Robespierre lay, confused wrecks of men, at the bottom of +it. Hanriot and Saint Just, bruised, begrimed, and foul, completed the +band. One who walks from the Palace of Justice, over the bridge, along +the Rue Saint Honoré, into the Rue Royale, and so to the Luxor column, +retraces the _via dolorosa_ of the Revolution on the afternoon of the +Tenth of Thermidor. + + * * * * * + +The end of the intricate manoeuvres known as the Revolution of +Thermidor was the recovery of authority by the Convention. The +insurrections, known as the days of the Twelfth Germinal, First +Prairial, and Thirteenth Vendémiaire, all ended in the victory of the +Convention over the revolutionary forces of Paris. The Committees, on +the other hand, had beaten Robespierre, but they had ruined themselves. +Very gradually the movement towards order, which had begun in the mind +of Danton, and had gone on in the cloudy purposes of Robespierre, became +definite. But it was in the interest of very different ideas from those +of either Danton or of Robespierre. A White Terror succeeded the Red +Terror. Not at once, however; it was not until nine months after the +death of Robespierre, that the reaction was strong enough to smite his +colleagues of the two Committees. The surviving Girondins had come back +to their seats in the Convention: the Dantonians had not forgiven the +execution of their chief. These two parties were bent on vengeance. In +April, 1795, a decree was passed banishing Billaud de Varennes, Collot +d'Herbois, and Barère. In the following month the leaders of the +Committee of General Security were thrown into prison. The revolution +had passed into new currents. We cannot see any reasons for thinking +that those currents would have led to any happier results if Robespierre +had won the battle. Tallien, Fouché, Barras, and the rest may have been +thoroughly bad men. But then what qualities had Robespierre for building +up a state? He had neither strength of practical character, nor firm +breadth of political judgment, nor a sound social doctrine. When we +compare him,--I do not say with Frederick of Prussia, with Jefferson, +with Washington,--but with the group of able men who made the closing +year of the Convention honourable and of good service to France, we have +a measure of Robespierre's profound and pitiable incompetence. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE *** + +***** This file should be named 20733-8.txt or 20733-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/3/20733/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) + Essay 1: Robespierre + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: March 3, 2007 [EBook #20733] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1> +CRITICAL<br /> +MISCELLANIES</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JOHN MORLEY</h2> + +<h4>VOL. I. Essay 1: Robespierre</h4> + +<p style="margin-top: 5em;" class='center'><small>London<br /> +MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br /> +NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +1904</small> +</p> + +<h4>CONTENTS OF VOL. I.</h4> + + + + + + +<h4>ROBESPIERRE.</h4> + +<h4><a href="#I">I.</a></h4> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 32.5em;">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +Introduction <span style="margin-left: 30em;"> <a href="#Page_1">1</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Different views of Robespierre <span style="margin-left: 23em;"> <a href="#Page_4">4</a></span><br /> +<br /> +His youthful history <span style="margin-left: 27.25em;"> <a href="#Page_5">5</a></span><br /> +<br /> +An advocate at Arras <span style="margin-left: 26.5em;"> <a href="#Page_7">7</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Acquaintance with Carnot <span style="margin-left: 24.25em;"> <a href="#Page_10">10</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The summoning of the States-General <span style="margin-left: 20em;"> <a href="#Page_11">11</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Prophecies of revolution <span style="margin-left: 25em;"> <a href="#Page_12">12</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Reforming Ministers tried and dismissed <span style="margin-left: 19.25em;"> <a href="#Page_13">13</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Financial state of France <span style="margin-left: 25em;"> <a href="#Page_14">14</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Impotence of the Monarchy <span style="margin-left: 23.75em;"> <a href="#Page_17">17</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Constituent Assembly <span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"> <a href="#Page_19">19</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre interprets the revolutionary movement rightly <span style="margin-left: 13em;"> <a href="#Page_21">21</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +The Sixth of October 1789 <span style="margin-left: 24.25em;"> <a href="#Page_23">23</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Alteration in Robespierre's position <span style="margin-left: 21.25em;"> <a href="#Page_25">25</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Character of Louis XVI. <span style="margin-left: 25.25em;"> <a href="#Page_28">28</a></span><br /> +<br /> +And of Marie Antoinette <span style="margin-left: 25.25em;"> <a href="#Page_29">29</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Constitution and Robespierre's mark upon it <span style="margin-left: 16.25em;"> <a href="#Page_34">34</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Instability of the new arrangements <span style="margin-left: 21.5em;"> <a href="#Page_37">37</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Importance of Jacobin ascendancy <span style="margin-left: 21.5em;"> <a href="#Page_41">41</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Legislative Assembly <span style="margin-left: 25em;"> <a href="#Page_42">42</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre's power at the Jacobin Club <span style="margin-left: 19.25em;"> <a href="#Page_44">44</a></span><br /> +<br /> +His oratory <span style="margin-left: 30.25em;"> <a href="#Page_45">45</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The true secret of his popularity <span style="margin-left: 22.75em;"> <a href="#Page_48">48</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Aggravation of the crisis in the spring of 1792 <span style="margin-left: 17.5em;"> <a href="#Page_50">50</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Tenth of August 1792 <span style="margin-left: 24.75em;"> <a href="#Page_52">52</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Danton <span style="margin-left: 32em;"> <a href="#Page_53">53</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Compared with Robespierre<span style="margin-left: 24em;"> <a href="#Page_55">55</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre compared with Marat and with Sieyès <span style="margin-left: 15.5em;"> <a href="#Page_57">57</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Character of the Terror <span style="margin-left: 26em;"> <a href="#Page_58">58</a></span><br /> +<br /> +</p> +<h4><a href="#II">II.</a></h4> +<p> +Fall of the Girondins indispensable <span style="margin-left: 22em;"> <a href="#Page_60">60</a></span><br /> +<br /> +France in desperate peril <span style="margin-left: 25.5em;"> <a href="#Page_61">61</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Committee of Public Safety <span style="margin-left: 22.75em;"> <a href="#Page_65">65</a></span><br /> +<br /> +At the Tuileries <span style="margin-left: 29em;"> <a href="#Page_67">67</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The contending factions <span style="margin-left: 25.75em;"> <a href="#Page_70">70</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Reproduced an older conflict of theories<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;"> <a href="#Page_72">72</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre's attitude <span style="margin-left: 26.5em;"> <a href="#Page_73">73</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Hébertists <span style="margin-left: 29.25em;"> <a href="#Page_77">77</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Chaumette and his fundamental error <span style="margin-left: 21em;"> <a href="#Page_80">80</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre and the atheists <span style="margin-left: 24.25em;"> <a href="#Page_82">82</a></span><br /> +<br /> +His bitterness towards Anacharsis Clootz <span style="margin-left: 19.5em;"> <a href="#Page_86">86</a></span><br /> +<br /> +New turn of events (March 1794) <span style="margin-left: 22.25em;"> <a href="#Page_90">90</a></span><br /> +<br /> +First breach in the Jacobin ranks: the Hébertists <span style="margin-left: 17.25em;"> <a href="#Page_90">90</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre's abandonment of Danton <span style="margin-left: 20.5em;"> <a href="#Page_91">91</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Second breach: the Dantonians (April 1794) <span style="margin-left: 18.25em;"> <a href="#Page_95">95</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Another reminiscence of this date <span style="margin-left: 22.5em;"> <a href="#Page_97">97</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre's relations to the Committees changed <span style="margin-left: 16em;"> <a href="#Page_98">98</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Feast of the Supreme Being <span style="margin-left: 22.5em;"> <a href="#Page_101">101</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Its false philosophy <span style="margin-left: 27.5em;"> <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br /> +<br /> +And political inanity <span style="margin-left: 27.25em;"> <a href="#Page_104">104</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Law of Prairial<span style="margin-left: 27.5em;"> <a href="#Page_106">106</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre's motive in devising it <span style="margin-left: 22em;"> <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +It produces the Great Terror <span style="margin-left: 24em;"> <a href="#Page_109">109</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre's chagrin at its miscarriage <span style="margin-left: 20.25em;"> <a href="#Page_112">112</a></span><br /> +<br /> +His responsibility not to be denied <span style="margin-left: 22em;"> <a href="#Page_112">112</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(1) Affair of Catherine Théot</span><span style="margin-left: 23em;"> <a href="#Page_113">113</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">" Cécile Renault</span><span style="margin-left: 23.5em;"> <a href="#Page_114">114</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(2) Robespierre stimulated popular commissions</span><span style="margin-left: 15.75em;"> <a href="#Page_115">115</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The drama of Thermidor: the combatants <span style="margin-left: 19.5em;"> <a href="#Page_117">117</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Its conditions <span style="margin-left: 29.75em;"> <a href="#Page_118">118</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Eighth Thermidor <span style="margin-left: 26.5em;"> <a href="#Page_119">119</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Inefficiency of Robespierre's speech <span style="margin-left: 21.25em;"> <a href="#Page_121">121</a></span><br /> +<br /> +The Ninth Thermidor <span style="margin-left: 27em;"> <a href="#Page_123">123</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Famous scene in the Convention <span style="margin-left: 22.75em;"> <a href="#Page_125">125</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Robespierre a prisoner <span style="margin-left: 26.25em;"> <a href="#Page_127">127</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Struggle between the Convention and the Commune <span style="margin-left: 15.25em;"> <a href="#Page_129">129</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Death of Robespierre <span style="margin-left: 26.75em;"> <a href="#Page_131">131</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Ultimate issue of the struggle between the Committees<br /> +and the Convention <span style="margin-left: 27.5em;"> <a href="#Page_132">132</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ROBESPIERRE.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> + + +<p>A French writer has recently published a careful and interesting volume +on the famous events which ended in the overthrow of Robespierre and the +close of the Reign of Terror.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> These events are known in the historic +calendar as the Revolution of Thermidor in the Year II. After the fall +of the monarchy, the Convention decided that the year should begin with +the autumnal equinox, and that the enumeration should date from the +birth of the Republic. The Year I. opens on September 22, 1792; the Year +II. opens on the same day of 1793. The month of Thermidor begins on July +19. The memorable Ninth Thermidor therefore corresponds to July 27, +1794. This has commonly been taken as the date of the commencement of a +counter-revolution, and in one sense it was so. Comte, however, and +others have preferred to fix the reaction at the execution of Danton +(April 5, 1794), or Robespierre's official<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> proclamation of Deism in the +Festival of the Supreme Being (May 7, 1794).</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>La Révolution de Thermidor</i>. Par Ch. D'Héricault. Paris: +Didier, 1876.</p></div> + +<p>M. D'Héricault does not belong to the school of writers who treat the +course of history as a great high road, following a firmly traced line, +and set with plain and ineffaceable landmarks. The French Revolution has +nearly always been handled in this way, alike by those who think it +fruitful in blessings, and by their adversaries, who pronounce it a +curse inflicted by the wrath of Heaven. Historians have looked at the +Revolution as a plain landsman looks at the sea. To the landsman the +ocean seems one huge immeasurable flood, obeying a simple law of ebb and +flow, and offering to the navigator a single uniform force. Yet in truth +we know that the oceanic movement is the product of many forces; the +seeming uniformity covers the energy of a hundred currents and +counter-currents; the sea-floor is not even nor the same, but is subject +to untold conditions of elevation and subsidence; the sea is not one +mass, but many masses moving along definite lines of their own. It is +the same with the great tides of history. Wise men shrink from summing +them up in single propositions. That the French Revolution led to an +immense augmentation of happiness, both for the French and for mankind, +can only be denied by the Pope. That it secured its beneficent results +untempered by any mixture of evil, can only be maintained by men as mad +as Doctor Pangloss. The Greek poetess Corinna said to the youthful +Pindar, when he had interwoven all the gods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> and goddesses in the Theban +mythology into a single hymn, that we should sow with the hand and not +with the sack. Corinna's monition to the singer is proper to the +interpreter of historical truth: he should cull with the hand, and not +sweep in with the scythe. It is doubtless mere pedantry to abstain from +the widest conception of the sum of a great movement. A clear, definite, +and stable idea of the meaning in the history of human progress of such +vast groups of events as the Reformation or the Revolution, is +indispensable for any one to whom history is a serious study of society. +It is just as important, however, not to forget that they were really +groups of events, and not in either case a single uniform movement. The +World-Epos is after all only a file of the morning paper in a state of +glorification. A sensible man learns, in everyday life, to abstain from +praising and blaming character by wholesale; he becomes content to say +of this trait that it is good, and of that act that it was bad. So in +history, we become unwilling to join or to admire those who insist upon +transferring their sentiment upon the whole to their judgment upon each +part. We seek to be allowed to retain a decided opinion as to the final +value to mankind of a long series of transactions, and yet not to commit +ourselves to set the same estimate on each transaction in particular, +still less on each person associated with it. Why shall we not prize the +general results of the Reformation, without being obliged to defend John +of Leyden and the Munster Anabaptists?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>M. D'Héricault's volume naturally suggests such reflections as these. Of +all the men of the Revolution, Robespierre has suffered most from the +audacious idolatry of some writers, and the splenetic impatience of +others. M. Louis Blanc and M. Ernest Hamel talk of him as an angel or a +prophet, and the Ninth Thermidor is a red day indeed in their +martyrology. Michelet and M. D'Héricault treat him as a mixture of +Cagliostro and Caligula, both a charlatan and a miscreant. We are +reminded of the commencement of an address of the French Senate to the +first Bonaparte: 'Sire,' they began, 'the desire for perfection is one +of the worst maladies that can afflict the human mind.' This bold +aphorism touches one of the roots of the judgments we pass both upon men +and events. It is because people so irrationally think fit to insist +upon perfection, that Robespierre's admirers would fain deny that he +ever had a fault, and the tacit adoption of the same impracticable +standard makes it easier for Robespierre's wholesale detractors to deny +that he had a single virtue or performed a single service. The point of +view is essentially unfit for history. The real subject of history is +the improvement of social arrangements, and no conspicuous actor in +public affairs since the world began saw the true direction of +improvement with an absolutely unerring eye from the beginning of his +career to the end. It is folly for the historian, as it is for the +statesman, to strain after the imaginative unity of the dramatic +creator. Social progress is an affair of many small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> pieces and slow +accretions, and the interest of historic study lies in tracing, amid the +immense turmoil of events and through the confusion of voices, the +devious course of the sacred torch, as it shifts from bearer to bearer. +And it is not the bearers who are most interesting, but the torch.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the old Flemish town of Arras, known in the diplomatic history of the +fifteenth century by a couple of important treaties, and famous in the +industrial history of the Middle Ages for its pre-eminence in the +manufacture of the most splendid kind of tapestry hangings, Maximilian +Robespierre was born in May 1758. He was therefore no more than five and +thirty years old when he came to his ghastly end in 1794. His father was +a lawyer, and, though the surname of the family had the prefix of +nobility, they belonged to the middle class. When this decorative prefix +became dangerous, Maximilian Derobespierre dropped it. His great rival, +Danton, was less prudent or less fortunate, and one of the charges made +against him was that he had styled himself Monsieur D'Anton.</p> + +<p>Robespierre's youth was embittered by sharp misfortune. His mother died +when he was only seven years old, and his father had so little courage +under the blow that he threw up his practice, deserted his children, and +died in purposeless wanderings through Germany. The burden that the weak +and selfish throw down, must be taken up by the brave. Friendly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +kinsfolk charged themselves with the maintenance of the four orphans. +Maximilian was sent to the school of the town, whence he proceeded with +a sizarship to the college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He was an apt and +studious pupil, but austere, and disposed to that sombre cast of spirits +which is common enough where a lad of some sensibility and much +self-esteem finds himself stamped with a badge of social inferiority. +Robespierre's worshippers love to dwell on his fondness for birds: with +the universal passion of mankind for legends of the saints, they tell +how the untimely death of a favourite pigeon afflicted him with anguish +so poignant, that, even sixty long years after, it made his sister's +heart ache to look back upon the pain of that tragic moment. Always a +sentimentalist, Robespierre was from boyhood a devout enthusiast for the +great high priest of the sentimental tribe. Rousseau was then passing +the last squalid days of his life among the meadows and woods at +Ermenonville. Robespierre, who could not have been more than twenty at +the time, for Rousseau died in the summer of 1778, is said to have gone +on a reverential pilgrimage in search of an oracle from the lonely sage, +as Boswell and as Gibbon and a hundred others had gone before him. +Rousseau was wont to use his real adorers as ill as he used his +imaginary enemies. Robespierre may well have shared the discouragement +of the enthusiastic father who informed Rousseau that he was about to +bring up his son on the principles of <i>Emilius</i>. 'Then so much the +worse,' cried the per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>verse philosopher, 'both for you and your son.' If +he had been endowed with second sight, he would have thought at least as +rude a presage due to this last and most ill-starred of a whole +generation of neophytes.</p> + +<p>In 1781 Robespierre returned to Arras, and amid the welcome of his +relatives and the good hopes of friends began the practice of an +advocate. For eight years he led an active and seemly life. He was not +wholly pure from that indiscretion of the young appetite, about which +the world is mute, but whose better ordering and governance would give a +diviner brightness to the earth. Still, if he did not escape the ordeal +of youth, Robespierre was frugal, laborious, and persevering. His +domestic amiability made him the delight of his sister, and his zealous +self-sacrifice for the education and advancement in life of his younger +brother was afterwards repaid by Augustin Robespierre's devotion through +all the fierce and horrible hours of Thermidor. Though cold in +temperament, extremely reserved in manners, and fond of industrious +seclusion, Robespierre did not disdain the social diversions of the +town. He was a member of a reunion of Rosati, who sang madrigals and +admired one another's bad verses. Those who love the ironical surprises +of fate, may picture the young man who was doomed to play so terrible a +part in terrible affairs, going through the harmless follies of a +ceremonial reception by the Rosati, taking three deep breaths over a +rose, solemnly fastening the emblem to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> coat, emptying a glass of +rose-red wine at a draught to the good health of the company, and +finally reciting couplets that Voltaire would have found almost as +detestable as the Law of Prairial or the Festival of the Supreme Being. +More laudable efforts of ambition were prize essays, in which +Robespierre has the merit of taking the right side in important +questions. He protested against the inhumanity of laws that inflicted +civil infamy upon the innocent family of a convicted criminal. And he +protested against the still more horrid cruelty which reduced +unfortunate children born out of wedlock to something like the status of +the mediæval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise +above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a +manhood of benignity and enlightenment. To compose prize essays on +political reforms was better than to ignore or to oppose political +reform. But the course of events afterwards owed their least desirable +bias to the fact that such compositions were the nearest approach to +political training that so many of the revolutionary leaders underwent. +One is inclined to apply to practical politics Arthur Young's sensible +remark about the endeavour of the French to improve the quality of their +wool: 'A cultivator at the head of a sheep-farm of 3000 or 4000 acres, +would in a few years do more for their wools than all the academicians +and philosophers will effect in ten centuries.'</p> + +<p>In his profession he distinguished himself in one or two causes of local +celebrity. An innovating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> citizen had been ordered by the authorities to +remove a lightning-conductor from his house within three days, as being +a mischievous practical paradox, as well as a danger and an annoyance to +his neighbours. Robespierre pleaded the innovator's case on appeal, and +won it. He defended a poor woman who had been wrongfully accused by a +monk belonging to the powerful corporation of a great neighbouring +abbey. The young advocate did not even shrink from manfully arguing a +case against the august Bishop of Arras himself. His independence did +him no harm. The Bishop afterwards appointed him to the post of judge or +legal assessor in the episcopal court. This tribunal was a remnant of +what had once been the sovereign authority and jurisdiction of the +Bishops of Arras. That a court with the power of life and death should +thus exist by the side of a proper corporation of civil magistrates, is +an illustration of the inextricable labyrinth of the French law and its +administration on the eve of the Revolution. Robespierre did not hold +his office long. Every one has heard the striking story, how the young +judge, whose name was within half a dozen years to take a place in the +popular mind of France and of Europe with the bloodiest monsters of myth +or history, resigned his post in a fit of remorse after condemning a +murderer to be executed. 'He is a criminal, no doubt,' Robespierre kept +groaning in reply to the consolations of his sister, for women are more +positive creatures than men: 'a criminal, no doubt; but to put a man to +death!' Many a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> thus begins the great voyage with queasy +sensibilities, and ends it a cannibal.</p> + +<p>Among Robespierre's associates in the festive mummeries of the Rosati +was a young officer of Engineers, who was destined to be his colleague +in the dread Committee of Public Safety, and to leave an important name +in French history. In the garrison of Arras, Carnot was quartered,—that +iron head, whose genius for the administrative organisation of war +achieved even greater things for the new republic than the genius of +Louvois had achieved for the old monarchy. Carnot surpassed not only +Louvois, but perhaps all other names save one in modern military +history, by uniting to the most powerful gifts for organisation, both +the strategic talent that planned the momentous campaign of 1794, and +the splendid personal energy and skill that prolonged the defence of +Antwerp against the allied army in 1814 Partisans dream of the +unrivalled future of peace, glory, and freedom that would have fallen to +the lot of France, if only the gods had brought about a hearty union +between the military genius of Carnot and the political genius of +Robespierre. So, no doubt, after the restoration of Charles II. in +England, there were good men who thought that all would have gone very +differently, if only the genius of the great creator of the Ironsides +had taken counsel with the genius of Venner, the Fifth-Monarchy Man, and +Feak, the Anabaptist prophet.</p> + +<p>The time was now come when such men as Robespierre were to be tried with +fire, when they were to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> drink the cup of fury and the dregs of the cup +of trembling. Sybils and prophets have already spoken their inexorable +decree, as Goethe has said, on the day that first gives the man to the +world; no time and no might can break the stamped mould of his +character; only as life wears on, do all its aforeshapen lines come into +light. He is launched into a sea of external conditions, that are as +independent of his own will as the temperament with which he confronts +them. It is action that tries, and variation of circumstance. The leaden +chains of use bind many an ugly unsuspected prisoner in the soul; and +when the habit of their lives has been sundered, the most immaculate are +capable of antics beyond prevision. A great crisis of the world was +prepared for Robespierre and those others, his allies or his destroyers, +who with him came like the lightning and went like the wind.</p> + +<p>At the end of 1788 the King of France found himself forced to summon the +States-General. It was their first assembly since 1614. On the memorable +Fourth of May, 1789, Robespierre appeared at Versailles as one of the +representatives of the third estate of his native province of Artois. +The excitement and enthusiasm of the elections to this renowned +assembly, the immense demands and boundless expectations that they +disclosed, would have warned a cool observer of events, if in that +heated air a cool observer could have been found, that the hour had +struck for the fulfilment of those grim apprehensions of revolution that +had risen in the minds of many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> shrewd men, good and bad, in the course +of the previous half century. No great event in history ever comes +wholly unforeseen. The antecedent causes are so wide-reaching, many, and +continuous, that their direction is always sure to strike the eye of one +or more observers in all its significance. Lewis the Fifteenth, whose +invincible weariness and heavy disgust veiled a penetrating discernment, +measured accurately the scope of the conflict between the crown and the +parlements: but, said he, things as they are will last my time. Under +the roof of his own palace at Versailles, in the apartment of Madame de +Pompadour's famous physician, one of Quesnai's economic disciples had +cried out, 'The realm is in a sore way; it will never be cured without a +great internal commotion; but woe to those who have to do with it; into +such work the French go with no slack hand.' Rousseau, in a passage in +the Confessions, not only divines a speedy convulsion, but with striking +practical sagacity enumerates the political and social causes that were +unavoidably drawing France to the edge of the abyss. Lord Chesterfield, +so different a man from Rousseau, declared as early as 1752, that he saw +in France every symptom that history had taught him to regard as the +forerunner of deep change; before the end of the century, so his +prediction ran, both the trade of king and the trade of priest in France +would be shorn of half their glory. D'Argenson in the same year declared +a revolution inevitable, and with a curious precision of anticipation +assured himself that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> if once the necessity arose of convoking the +States-General, they would not assemble in vain: <i>qu'on y prenne, garde! +ils seraient fort sérieux!</i> Oliver Goldsmith, idly wandering through +France, towards 1755, discerned in the mutinous attitude of the judicial +corporations, that the genius of freedom was entering the kingdom in +disguise, and that a succession of three weak monarchs would end in the +emancipation of the people of France. The most touching of all these +presentiments is to be found in a private letter of the great Empress, +the mother of Marie Antoinette herself. Maria Theresa describes the +ruined state of the French monarchy, and only prays that if it be doomed +to ruin still more utter, at least the blame may not fall upon her +daughter. The Empress had not learnt that when the giants of social +force are advancing from the sombre shadow of the past, with the thunder +and the hurricane in their hands, our poor prayers are of no more avail +than the unbodied visions of a dream.</p> + +<p>The old popular assembly of the realm was not resorted to before every +means of dispensing with so drastic a remedy had been tried. Historians +sometimes write as if Turgot were the only able and reforming minister +of the century. God forbid that we should put any other minister on a +level with that high and beneficent figure. But Turgot was not the first +statesman, both able and patriotic, who had been disgraced for want of +compliance with the conditions of success at court; he was only the last +of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> series. Chauvelin, a man of vigour and capacity, was dismissed +with ignominy in 1736. Machault, a reformer, at once courageous and +wise, shared the same fate twenty years later; and in his case +revolution was as cruel and as heedless as reaction, for, at the age of +ninety-one, the old man was dragged, blind and deaf, before the +revolutionary tribunal and thence despatched to the guillotine. Between +Chauvelin and Machault, the elder D'Argenson, who was greater than +either of them, had been raised to power, and then speedily hurled down +from it (1747), for no better reason than that his manners were uncouth, +and that he would not waste his time in frivolities that were as the +breath of life in the great gallery at Versailles and on the +smooth-shaven lawns of Fontainebleau.</p> + +<p>Not only had wise counsellors been tried; consultative assemblies had +been tried also. Necker had been dismissed in 1781, after publishing the +memorable Report which first initiated the nation in the elements of +financial knowledge. The disorder waxed greater, and the monarchy drew +nearer to bankruptcy each year. The only modern parallel to the state of +things in France under Lewis the Sixteenth is to be sought in the state +of things in Egypt or in Turkey. Lewis the Fourteenth had left a debt of +between two and three thousand millions of livres, but this had been +wiped out by the heroic operations of Law; operations, by the way, which +have never yet been scientifically criticised. But the debt soon grew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +again, by foolish wars, by the prodigality of the court, and by the +rapacity of the nobles. It amounted in 1789 to something like two +hundred and forty millions sterling; and it is interesting to notice +that this was exactly the sum of the public debt of Great Britain at the +same time. The year's excess of expenditure over receipts in 1774 was +about fifty millions of livres: in 1787 it was one hundred and forty +millions, or according to a different computation even two hundred +millions. The material case was not at all desperate, if only the court +had been less infatuated, and the spirit of the privileged orders had +been less blind and less vile. The fatality of the situation lay in the +characters of a handful of men and women. For France was abundant in +resources, and even at this moment was far from unprosperous, in spite +of the incredible trammels of law and custom. An able financier, with +the support of a popular chamber and the assent of the sovereign, could +have had no difficulty in restoring the public credit. But the +conditions, simple as they might seem to a patriot or to posterity, were +unattainable so long as power remained with a caste that were anything +we please except patriots. An Assembly of Notables was brought together, +but it was only the empty phantasm of national representation. Yet the +situation was so serious that even this body, of arbitrary origin as it +was, still was willing to accept vital reforms. The privileged order, +who were then as their descendants are now, the worst conservative party +in Europe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> immediately persuaded the magisterial corporation to resist +the Notables. The judicial corporation or Parlement of Paris had been +suppressed under Lewis the Fifteenth, and unfortunately revived again at +the accession of his grandson. By the inconvenient constitution of the +French government, the assent of that body was indispensable to fiscal +legislation, on the ground that such legislation was part of the general +police of the realm. The king's minister, now Loménie de Brienne, +devised a new judicial constitution. But the churchmen, the nobles, and +the lawyers all united in protestations against such a blow. The common +people are not always the best judges of a remedy for the evils under +which they are the greatest sufferers, and they broke out in disorder +both in Paris and the provinces. They discerned an attack upon their +local independence. Nobody would accept office in the new courts, and +the administration of justice was at a standstill. A loan was thrown +upon the market, but the public could not be persuaded to take it up. It +was impossible to collect the taxes. The interest on the national debt +was unpaid, and the fundholder was dismayed and exasperated by an +announcement that only two-fifths would be discharged in cash. A very +large part of the national debt was held in the form of annuities for +lives, and men who had invested their savings on the credit of the +government, saw themselves left without a provision. The total number of +fundholders cannot be ascertained with any precision, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> it must have +been very considerable, especially in Paris and the other great cities. +Add to these all the civil litigants in the kingdom, who had portions of +their property virtually sequestrated by the suspension of the courts +into which the property had been taken. The resentment of this immense +body of defrauded public creditors and injured private suitors explains +the alienation of the middle class from the monarchy. In the convulsions +of our own time, the moneyed interests have been on one side, and the +population without money on the other. But in the first and greatest +convulsion, those who had nothing to lose found their animosities shared +by those who had had something to lose, and had lost it.</p> + +<p>Deliberative assemblies, then, had been tried, and ministers had been +tried; both had failed, and there was no other device left, except one +which was destructive to absolute monarchy. Lewis the Sixteenth was in +1789 in much the same case as that of the King of England in 1640. +Charles had done his best to raise money without any parliament for +twelve years: he had lost patience with the Short Parliament; finally, +he was driven without choice or alternative to face as he best could the +stout resolution and the wise patriotism of the Long Parliament. Men +sometimes wonder how it was that Lewis, when he came to find the +National Assembly unmanageable, and discovering how rapidly he was +drifting towards the thunders of the revolutionary cataract, did not +break up a Chamber over which neither the court,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> nor even a minister so +popular as Necker, had the least control. It is a question whether the +sword would not have broken in his hand. Even supposing, however, that +the army would have consented to a violent movement against the +Assembly, the King would still have been left in the same desperate +straits from which he had looked to the States-General to extricate him. +He might perhaps have dispersed the Assembly; he could not disperse debt +and deficit. Those monsters would have haunted him as implacably as +ever. There was no new formula of exorcism, nor any untried enchantment. +The success of violent designs against the National Assembly, had +success been possible, could, after all, have been followed by no other +consummation than the relapse of France into the raging anarchy of +Poland, or the sullen decrepitude of Turkey.</p> + +<p>This will seem to some persons no better than fatalism. But, in truth, +there are two popular ways of reading the history of events between 1789 +and 1794, and each of them seems to us as bad as the other. According to +one, whatever happened in the Revolution was good and admirable, because +it happened. According to the other, something good and admirable was +always attainable, and, if only bad men had not interposed, always ready +to happen. Of course, the only sensible view is that many of the +revolutionary solutions were detestable, but no other solution was +within reach. This is undoubtedly the best of possible worlds; if the +best is not so good as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> we could wish, that is the fault of the +possibilities. Such a doctrine is neither fatalism nor optimism, but an +honest recognition of long chains of cause and effect in human affairs.</p> + +<p>The great gathering of chosen men was first called States-General; then +it called itself National Assembly; it is commonly known in history as +the Constituent Assembly. The name is of ironical association, for the +constitution which it framed after much travail endured for no more than +a few months. Its deliberations lasted from May 1789 until September +1791. Among its members were three principal groups. There was, first, a +band of blind adherents of the old system of government with all or most +of its abuses. Second, there was a Centre of timid and one-eyed men, who +were for transforming the old absolutist system into something that +should resemble the constitution of our own country. Finally, there was +a Left, with some differences of shade, but all agreeing in the +necessity of a thorough remodelling of every institution and most of the +usages of the country. 'Silence, you thirty votes!' cried Mirabeau one +day, when he was interrupted by the dissents of the Mountain. This was +the original measure of the party that in the twinkling of an eye was to +wield the destinies of France. In our own time we have wondered at the +rapidity with which a Chamber that was one day on the point of bringing +back the grandnephew of Lewis the Sixteenth, found itself a little later +voting that Republic which has since been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> ratified by the nation, and +has at this moment the ardent good wishes of every enlightened +politician in Europe. In the same way it is startling to think that +within three years of the beheading of Lewis the Sixteenth, there was +probably not one serious republican in the representative assembly of +France. Yet it is always so. We might make just the same remark of the +House of Commons at Westminster in 1640, and of the Assembly of +Massachusetts or of New York as late as 1770. The final flash of a long +unconscious train of thought or intent is ever a surprise and a shock. +It is a mistake to set these swift changes down to political levity; +they were due rather to quickness of political intuition. It was the +King's attempt at flight in the summer of 1791 that first created a +republican party. It was that unhappy exploit, and no theoretical +preferences, that awoke France to the necessity of choosing between the +sacrifice of monarchy and the restoration of territorial aristocracy.</p> + +<p>Political intuition was never one of Robespierre's conspicuous gifts. +But he had a doctrine that for a certain time served the same purpose. +Rousseau had kindled in him a fervid democratic enthusiasm, and had +penetrated his mind with the principle of the Sovereignty of the People. +This famous dogma contained implicitly within it the more indisputable +truth that a society ought to be regulated with a view to the happiness +of the people. Such a principle made it easier for Robespierre to +interpret rightly the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> phases of the revolutionary movement. It +helped him to discern that the concentrated physical force of the +populace was the only sure protection against a civil war. And if a +civil war had broken out in 1789, instead of 1793, all the advantages of +authority would have been against the popular party. The first +insurrection of Paris is associated with the harangue of Camille +Desmoulins at the Palais Royal, with the fall of the Bastille, with the +murder of the governor, and a hundred other scenes of melodramatic +horror and the blood-red picturesque. The insurrection of the Fourteenth +of July 1789 taught Robespierre a lesson of practical politics, which +exactly fitted in with his previous theories. In his resentment against +the oppressive disorder of monarchy and feudalism, he had accepted the +counter principle that the people can do no wrong, and nobody of sense +now doubts that in their first great act the people of Paris did what +was right. Six days after the fall of the Bastille, the Centre were for +issuing a proclamation denouncing popular violence and ordering rigorous +vigilance. Robespierre was then so little known in the Assembly that +even his name was usually misspelt in the journals. From his obscure +bench on the Mountain he cried out with bitter vehemence against the +proposed proclamation:—'Revolt! But this revolt is liberty. The battle +is not at its end. Tomorrow, it may be, the shameful designs against us +will be renewed; and who will there then be to repulse them, if +beforehand we declare the very men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> to be rebels, who have rushed to +arms for our protection and safety?' This was the cardinal truth of the +situation. Everybody knows Mirabeau's saying about Robespierre:—'That +man will go far: he believes every word that he says!' This is much, but +it is only half. It is not only that the man of power believes what he +says; what he believes must fit in with the facts and with the demands +of the time. Now Robespierre's firmness of conviction happened at this +stage to be rightly matched by his clearness of sight.</p> + +<p>It is true that a passionate mob, its unearthly admixture of laughter +with fury, of vacancy with deadly concentration, is as terrible as some +uncouth antediluvian, or the unfamiliar monsters of the sea, or one of +the giant plants that make men shudder with mysterious fear. The history +of our own country in the eighteenth century tells of the riots against +meeting-houses in Doctor Sacheverell's time, and the riots against +papists and their abettors in Lord George Gordon's time, and +Church-and-King riots in Doctor Priestley's time. It would be too +daring, therefore, to maintain that the rabble of the poor have any more +unerring political judgment than the rabble of the opulent. But, in +France in 1789, Robespierre was justified in saying that revolt meant +liberty. If there had been no revolt in July, the court party would have +had time to mature their infatuated designs of violence against the +Assembly. In October these designs had come to life again. The royalists +at Versailles had exultant banquets, at which, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> presence of the +Queen, they drank confusion to all patriots, and trampled the new emblem +of freedom passionately underfoot. The news of this odious folly soon +travelled to Paris. Its significance was speedily understood by a +populace whose wits were sharpened by famine. Thousands of fire-eyed +women and men tramped intrepidly out towards Versailles. If they had +done less, the Assembly would have been dispersed or arbitrarily +decimated, even though such a measure would certainly have left the +government in desperation.</p> + +<p>At that dreadful moment of the Sixth of October, amid the slaughter of +guards and the frantic yells of hatred against the Queen, it is no +wonder that some were found to urge the King to flee to Metz. If he had +accepted the advice, the course of the Revolution would have been +different; but its march would have been just as irresistible, for +revolution lay in the force of a hundred combined circumstances. Lewis, +however, rejected these counsels, and suffered the mob to carry him in +bewildering procession to his capital and his prison. That great man who +was watching French affairs with such consuming eagerness from distant +Beaconsfield in our English Buckinghamshire, instantly divined that this +procession from Versailles to the Tuileries marked the fall of the +monarchy. 'A revolution in sentiment, manners, and moral opinions, the +most important of all revolutions in a word,' was in Burke's judgment to +be dated from the Sixth of October 1789.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>The events of that day did, indeed, give its definite cast to the +situation. The moral authority of the sovereign came to an end, along +with the ancient and reverend mystery of the inviolability of his +person. The Count d'Artois, the King's second brother, one of the most +worthless of human beings, as incurably addicted to sinister and +suicidal counsels in 1789 as he was when he overthrew his own throne +forty years later, had run away from peril and from duty after the +insurrection of July. After the insurrection of October, a troop of the +nobles of the court followed him. The personal cowardice of the +Emigrants was only matched by their political blindness. Many of the +most unwise measures in the Assembly were only passed by small +majorities, and the majorities would have been transformed into +minorities, if in the early days of the Revolution these unworthy men +had only stood firm at their posts. Selfish oligarchies have scarcely +ever been wanting in courage. The emigrant noblesse of France are almost +the only instance of a great privileged and territorial caste that had +as little bravery as they had patriotism. The explanation is that they +had been an oligarchy, not of power or duty, but of self-indulgence. +They were crushed by Richelieu to secure the unity of the monarchy. They +now effaced themselves at the Revolution, and this secured that far +greater object, the unity of the nation.</p> + +<p>The disappearance of so many of the nobles from France was not the only +abdication on the part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> the conservative powers. Cowed and terrified +by the events of October, no less than three hundred members of the +Assembly sought to resign. The average attendance even at the most +important sittings was often incredibly small. Thus the Chamber came to +have little more moral authority in face of the people of Paris than had +the King himself. The people of Paris had themselves become in a day the +masters of France.</p> + +<p>This immense change led gradually to a decisive alteration in the +position of Robespierre. He found the situation of affairs at last +falling into perfect harmony with his doctrine. Rousseau had taught him +that the people ought to be sovereign, and now the people were being +recognised as sovereign <i>de facto</i> no less than <i>de jure</i>. Any +limitations on the new divine right united the horror of blasphemy to +the secular wickedness of political treason. After the Assembly had come +to Paris, a famishing mob in a moment of mad fury murdered an +unfortunate baker, who was suspected of keeping back bread. These +paroxysms led to the enactment of a new martial law. Robespierre spoke +vehemently against it; such a law implied a wrongful distrust of the +people. Then discussions followed as to the property qualification of an +elector. Citizens were classed as active and passive. Only those were to +have votes who paid direct taxes to the amount of three days' wages in +the year. Robespierre flung himself upon this too famous distinction +with bitter tenacity. If all men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> are equal, he cried, then all men +ought to have votes: if he who only pays the amount of one day's work, +has fewer rights than another who pays the amount of three days, why +should not the man who pays ten days have more rights than the other who +only pays the earnings of three days? This kind of reasoning had little +weight with the Chamber, but it made the reasoner very popular with the +throng in the galleries. Even within the Assembly, influence gradually +came to the man who had a parcel of immutable axioms and postulates, and +who was ready with a deduction and a phrase for each case as it arose. +He began to stand out like a needle of sharp rock, amid the flitting +shadows of uncertain purpose and the vapoury drift of wandering aims.</p> + +<p>Robespierre had no social conception, and he had nothing which can be +described as a policy. He was the prophet of a sect, and had at this +period none of the aims of the chief of a political party. What he had +was democratic doctrine, and an intrepid logic. And Robespierre's +intrepid logic was the nearest approach to calm force and coherent +character that the first three years of the Revolution brought into +prominence. When the Assembly met, Necker was the popular idol. Almost +within a few weeks, this well-meaning, but very incompetent divinity had +slipped from his throne, and Lafayette had taken his place. Mirabeau +came next. The ardent and animated genius of his eloquence fitted him +above all men to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> And on the +memorable Twenty-third of June '89, he had shown the genuine audacity +and resource of a revolutionary statesman, when he stirred the Chamber +to defy the King's demand, and hailed the royal usher with the +resounding words:—'You, sir, have neither place nor right of speech. Go +tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people, and +only bayonets shall drive us hence!' But Mirabeau bore a tainted +character, and was always distrusted. 'Ah, how the immorality of my +youth,' he used to say, in words that sum up the tragedy of many a +puissant life, 'how the immorality of my youth hinders the public good!' +The event proved that the popular suspicion was just: the patriot is now +no longer merely suspected, but known, to have sullied his hands with +the money of the court. He did not sell himself, it has been said; he +allowed himself to be paid. The distinction was too subtle for men doing +battle for their lives and for freedom, and Mirabeau's popularity waned +towards the middle of 1790. The next favourite was Barnave, the generous +and high-minded spokesman of those sanguine spirits who to the very end +hoped against hope to save both the throne and its occupant. By the +spring of 1791 Barnave followed his predecessors into disfavour. The +Assembly was engaged on the burning question of the government of the +colonies. Were the negro slaves to be admitted to citizenship, or was a +legislature of planters to be entrusted with the task of social +reformation? Our own generation has seen in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> the republic of the West +what strife this political difficulty is capable of raising. Barnave +pronounced against the negroes. Robespierre, on the contrary, declaimed +against any limitation of the right of the negro, as a compromise with +the avarice, pride, and cruelty of a governing race, and a guilty +trafficking with the rights of man. Barnave from that day saw that his +laurel crown had gone to Robespierre.</p> + +<p>If the people 'called him noble that was now their hate, him vile that +was their garland,' they did not transfer their affections without sound +reason. Barnave's sensibility was too easily touched. There are many +politicians in every epoch whose principles grow slack and flaccid at +the approach of the golden sun of royalty. Barnave was one of those who +was sent to bring back the fugitive King and Queen from Varennes, and +the journey by their side in the coach unstrung his spirit. He became +one of the court's clandestine advisers. Men of this weak susceptibility +of imagination are not fit for times of revolution. To be on the side of +the court was to betray the cause of the nation. We cannot take too much +pains to realise that the voluntary conversion of Lewis the Sixteenth to +a popular constitution and the abolition of feudalism, was practically +as impossible as the conversion of Pope Pius the Ninth to the doctrine +of a free church in a free state. Those who believe in the miracle of +free will may think of this as they please. Sensible people who accept +the scientific account of human character, know that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> sudden +transformation of a man or a woman brought up to middle age as the heir +to centuries of absolutist tradition, into adherents of a government +that agreed with the doctrines of Locke and Milton, was only possible on +condition of supernatural interference. The King's good nature was no +substitute for political capacity or insight. An instructive measure of +the degree in which he possessed these two qualities may be found in +that deplorable diary of his, where on such days as the Fourteenth of +July, when the Bastille fell, and the Sixth of October, when he was +carried in triumph from Versailles to the Tuileries, he made the simple +entry, '<i>Rien</i>.' And he had no firmness. It was as difficult to keep the +King to a purpose, La Marck said to Mirabeau, as to keep together a +number of well-oiled ivory balls. Lewis, moreover, was guided by a more +energetic and less compliant character than his own.</p> + +<p>Marie Antoinette's high mien in adversity, and the contrast between the +dazzling splendour of her first years and the scenes of outrage and +bloody death that made the climax of her fate, could not but strike the +imaginations of men. Such contrasts are the very stuff of which Tragedy, +the gorgeous muse with scepter'd pall, loves to weave her most imposing +raiment. But history must be just; and the character of the Queen had +far more concern in the disaster of the first five years of the +Revolution than had the character of Robespierre. Every new document +that comes to light heaps up proof that if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> blind and obstinate choice +of personal gratification before the common weal be enough to constitute +a state criminal, then the Queen of France was one of the worst state +criminals that ever afflicted a nation. The popular hatred of Marie +Antoinette sprang from a sound instinct. We shall never know how much or +how little truth there was in those frightful charges against her, that +may still be read in a thousand pamphlets. These imputed depravities far +surpass anything that John Knox ever said against Mary Stuart, or that +Juvenal has recorded against Messalina; and, perhaps, for the only +parallel we must look to the hideous stories of the Byzantine secretary +against Theodora, the too famous empress of Justinian and the persecutor +of Belisarius. We have to remember that all the revolutionary portraits +are distorted by furious passion, and that Marie Antoinette may no more +deserve to be compared to Mary Stuart than Robespierre deserves to be +compared to Ezzelino or to Alva. The aristocrats were the libellers, if +libels they were. It is at least certain that, from the unlucky hour +when the Austrian archduchess crossed the French frontier, a childish +bride of fourteen, down to the hour when the Queen of France made the +attempt to recross it in resentful flight one and twenty years +afterwards, Marie Antoinette was ignorant, unteachable, blind to events +and deaf to good counsels, a bitter grief to her heroic mother, the evil +genius of her husband, the despair of her truest advisers, and an +exceedingly bad friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> to the people of France. When Burke had that +immortal vision of her at Versailles—'just above the horizon, +decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, +glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and +joy'—we know from the correspondence between Maria Theresa and her +minister at Versailles, that what Burke really saw was no divinity, but +a flighty and troublesome schoolgirl, an accomplice in all the ignoble +intrigues, and a sharer of all the small busy passions, that convulse +the insects of a court. The levity that came with her Lorraine blood, +broke out in incredible dissipations; in indiscreet visits to the masked +balls at the opera, in midnight parades and mystifications on the +terrace at Versailles, in insensate gambling. 'The court of France is +turned into a gaming-hell,' said the Emperor Joseph, the Queen's own +brother: 'if they do not amend, the revolution will be cruel.' These +vices or follies were less mischievous than her intervention in affairs +of state. Here her levity was as marked as in the paltry affairs of the +boudoir and the ante-chamber, and here to levity she added both +dissimulation and vindictiveness. It was the Queen's influence that +procured the dismissal of the two virtuous ministers by whose aid the +King was striving to arrest the decay of the government of his kingdom. +Malesherbes was distasteful to her for no better reason than that she +wanted his post for some favourite's favourite. Against Turgot she +conspired with tenacious animosity, because he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> suppressed a +sinecure which she designed for a court parasite, and because he would +not support her caprice on behalf of a worthless creature of her +faction. These two admirable men were disgraced on the same day. The +Queen wrote to her mother that she had not meddled in the affair. This +was a falsehood, for she had even sought to have Turgot thrown into the +Bastille. 'I am as one dashed to the ground,' cried the great Voltaire, +now nearing his end. 'Never can we console ourselves for having seen the +golden age dawn and vanish. My eyes see only death in front of me, now +that Turgot is gone. The rest of my days must be all bitterness.' What +hope could there be that the personage who had thus put out the light of +hope for France in 1776, would welcome that greater flame which was +kindled in the land in 1789?</p> + +<p>When people write hymns of pity for the Queen, we always recall the poor +woman whom Arthur Young met, as he was walking up a hill to ease his +horse near Mars-le-Tour. Though the unfortunate creature was only +twenty-eight, she might have been taken for sixty or seventy, her figure +was so bent, her face so furrowed and hardened by toil. Her husband, she +said, had a morsel of land, one cow, and a poor little horse, yet he had +to pay forty-two pounds of wheat and three chickens to one Seigneur, and +one hundred and sixty pounds of oats, one chicken, and one franc to +another, besides very heavy tailles and other taxes; and they had seven +children. She had heard that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> 'something was to be done by some great +folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how, but God send +us better, for the tailles and the dues grind us to the earth.' It was +such hapless drudges as this who replenished the Queen's gaming tables +at Versailles. Thousands of them dragged on the burden of their harassed +and desperate days, less like men and women than beasts of the field +wrung and tortured and mercilessly overladen, in order that the Queen +might gratify her childish passion for diamonds, or lavish money and +estates on worthless female Polignacs and Lamballes, or kill time at a +cost of five hundred louis a night at lansquenet and the faro bank. The +Queen, it is true, was in all this no worse than other dissipated women +then and since. She did not realise that it was the system to which she +had stubbornly committed herself, that drove the people of the fields to +cut their crops green to be baked in the oven, because their hunger +could not wait; or made them cower whole days in their beds, because +misery seemed to gnaw them there with a duller fang. That she was +unconscious of its effect, makes no difference in the real drift of her +policy; makes no difference in the judgment that we ought to pass upon +it, nor in the gratitude that is owed to the stern men who rose up to +consume her and her court with righteous flame. The Queen and the +courtiers, and the hard-faring woman of Mars-le-Tour, and that whole +generation, have long been dust and shadow; they have vanished from the +earth, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> they were no more than the fire-flies that the peasant of +the Italian poet saw dancing in the vineyard, as he took his evening +rest on the hillside. They have all fled back into the impenetrable +shade whence they came; our minds are free; and if social equity is not +a chimera, Marie Antoinette was the protagonist of the most barbarous +and execrable of causes.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let us return to the shaping of the Constitution, not forgetting that +its stability was to depend upon the Queen. Robespierre left some +characteristic marks on the final arrangements. He imposed upon the +Assembly a motion prohibiting any member of it from accepting office +under the Crown for a period of four years after the dissolution. +Robespierre from this time forth constantly illustrated a very singular +truth; namely, that the most ostentatious faith in humanity in general +seems always to beget the sharpest distrust of all human beings in +particular. He proceeded further in the same direction. It was +Robespierre who persuaded the Chamber to pass a self-denying ordinance. +All its members were declared ineligible for a seat in the legislature +that was to replace them. The members of the Right on this occasion went +with their bitter foes of the Extreme Left, and to both parties have +been imputed sinister and Machiavellian motives. The Right, aware that +their own return to the new Assembly was impossible, were delighted to +reduce the men with whom they had been carrying on incensed battle for +two long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> years, to their own obscurity and impotence. Robespierre, on +the other hand, is accused of a jealous desire to exclude Barnave from +power. He is accused also of a deliberate intention to weaken the new +legislature, in order to secure the preponderance of the Parisian clubs. +There is no evidence that these malignant feelings were in Robespierre's +mind. The reasons he gave were exactly of the kind that we should have +expected to weigh with a man of his stamp. There is even a certain truth +in them, that is not inconsistent with the experience of a parliamentary +country like our own. To talk, he said, of the transmission of light and +experience from one assembly to another, was to distrust the public +spirit. The influence of opinion and the general good grows less, as the +influence of parliamentary orators grows greater. He had no taste, he +proceeded with one of his chilly sneers, for that new science which was +styled the tactics of great assemblies; it was too like intrigue. +Nothing but truth and reason ought to reign in a legislature. He did not +like the idea of clever men becoming dominant by skilful tactics, and +then perpetuating their empire from one assembly to another. He wound up +his discourse with some theatrical talk about disinterestedness. When he +sat down, he was greeted with enthusiastic acclamations, such as a few +months before used to greet the stormful Mirabeau, now wrapped in +eternal sleep amid the stillness of the new Pantheon. The folly of +Robespierre's inferences is obvious enough. If only truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and reason +ought to weigh in a legislature, then it is all the more important not +to exclude any body of men through whom truth and reason may possibly +enter. Robespierre had striven hard to remove all restrictions from +admission to the electoral franchise. He did not see that to limit the +choice of candidates was in itself the most grievous of all +restrictions.</p> + +<p>The common view has been that the Constitution of 1791 perished because +its creators were thus disabled from defending the work of their hands. +This view led to a grave mistake four years later, after Robespierre had +gone to his grave. The Convention, framing the Constitution of the Year +III., decided that two-thirds of the existing assembly should keep their +places, and that only one-third should be popularly elected. This led to +the revolt of the Thirteenth Vendémiaire, and afterwards to the coup +d'état of the Eighteenth Fructidor. In that sense, no doubt, +Robespierre's proposal was the indirect root of much mischief. But it is +childish to believe that if a hundred of the most prominent members of +the Constituent had found seats in the new assembly, they would have +saved the Constitution. Their experience, the loss of which it is the +fashion to deplore, could have had no application to the strange +combinations of untoward circumstance that were now rising up with such +deadly rapidity in every quarter of the horizon, like vast sombre banks +of impenetrable cloud. Prudence in new cases, as has been somewhere +said, can do nothing on grounds of retro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>spect. The work of the +Constituent was doomed by the very nature of things. Their assumption +that the Revolution was made, while all France was still torn by fierce +and unappeasable disputes as to seignorial rights, was one of the most +striking pieces of self-deception in history. It is told how in the +eleventh century, when the fervent hosts of the Crusaders tramped across +Europe on their way to deliver the Holy City from the hands of the +unbelievers, the wearied children, as they espied each new town that lay +in their interminable march, cried out with joyful expectation, 'Is not +this, then, Jerusalem?' So France had set out on a portentous journey, +little knowing how far off was the end; lightly taking each poor +halting-place for the deeply longed-for goal; and waxing more fiercely +disappointed, as each new height that they gained only disclosed yet +farther and more unattainable horizons. 'Alas,' said Burke, 'they little +know how many a weary step is to be taken, before they can form +themselves into a mass which has a true political personality.'</p> + +<p>An immense revolution had been effected, but by what force were its +fruits to be guarded? Each step in the revolution had raised a host of +irreconcilable enemies. The rights of property, the old and jealous +associations of local independence, the traditions of personal dignity, +the relations of the civil to the spiritual power—these were the +momentous matters about which the lawmakers of the Constituent had +exercised themselves. The parties of the Chamber<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> had for these two +years past been laying mine and countermine among the very deepest +foundations of society. One by one each great corporation of the old +order had been alienated from the new order. It was inevitable that it +should be so. Let us look at one or two examples of this. The monarchy +had imposed administrative centralisation upon France without securing +national unity. Thus the great provinces that had been slowly added one +after the other to the monarchy, while becoming members of the same +kingdom, still retained different institutions and isolated usages. The +time was now come when France should be France, and its inhabitants +Frenchmen, and no longer Bretons, Normans, Gascons, Provençals. The +Assembly by a single decree (1790) redivided the country into +eighty-three departments. It wiped out at a stroke the separate +administrations, the separate parlements, the peculiar privileges, and +even the historic names of the old provinces. We need not dwell on the +significance of this change here, but will only remark in passing that +the stubborn disputes from the time of the Regency downwards between the +Crown and the provincial parlements turned, under other names and in +other forms, upon this very issue of the unification of the law. The +Crown was with the progressive party, but it lacked the strength and +courage to set aside retrograde local sentiment as the Constituent +Assembly was able to set it aside.</p> + +<p>Then this prodigious change in the distribution of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> government was +accompanied by no less prodigious a change in the source of power. +Popular election replaced the old system of territorial privilege and +aristocratic prerogative. The effect of this vital innovation, followed +as it was a few months later by a decree abolishing titles and armorial +bearings, was to complete the estrangement of the old privileged classes +from the revolutionary movement. All that they had meant to concede was +the payment of an equal land tax. What was life worth to the noble, if +common people were to be allowed to wear arms and to command a company +of foot or a troop of horse; if he was no longer to have thousands of +acres left waste for the chase; if he was compelled to sue for a vote +where he had only yesterday reigned as manorial lord; if, in short, he +was at a stroke to lose all those delights of insolence and vanity which +had made, not the decoration, but the very substance, of his days?</p> + +<p>Nor were the nobles of the sword and the red-heeled slipper the only +outraged class. The magistracy of the provincial parliaments were +inflamed with resentment against changes that stripped them of the power +of exciting against the new government the same factious and +impracticable spirit with which they had on so many occasions +embarrassed the old. The clergy were thrown even still more violently +into opposition. The Assembly, sorely pressed for resources, declared +the property held by ecclesiastics, amounting to a revenue of not less +than eight million<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> pounds sterling a year, or double that amount in +modern values, to be the property of the nation. Talleyrand carried a +measure decreeing the sale of the ecclesiastical domain. The clergy were +as intensely irritated as laymen would have been by a similar assertion +of sovereign right. And their irritation was made still more dangerous +by the next set of measures against them.</p> + +<p>The Assembly withdrew all recognition of Catholicism as the religion of +the State; monastic vows were abolished, and orders and congregations +suppressed; the ecclesiastical divisions were made to coincide with the +civil divisions, a bishop being allotted to each department. What was a +more important revolution than all, bishops and incumbents were +henceforth to be appointed by popular election. The Assembly, who had +always the institutions of our own country before them, meant to +introduce into France the system of the Church of England, which was +even then an anachronism in the land of its birth; much worse was such a +system an anachronism, after belief had been sapped by a Voltaire and an +Encyclopædia. The clergy both showed and excited a mutinous spirit. The +Assembly, by way of retort, decreed that all ecclesiastics should take +the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy, on pain +of forfeiture of their benefices. Five-sixths of the clergy refused, and +the result was an outbreak of religious fury in the great towns of the +south and elsewhere, which recalled the violence of the sixteenth +century and the Reformation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus when the Constituent Assembly ceased from its labours, the popular +party had to face the mocking and defiant privileged classes; the +magistracy, whose craft and calling were gone; and the clergy and as +many of the flocks as shared the holy vindictiveness of their pastors. +Immense material improvements had been made, but who was to guard them +against all these powerful and exasperated bands? No chamber could +execute so portentous an office, least of all a chamber that was bound +to work in accord with a King, who at the very moment when he was +swearing fidelity to the new order of things, was sending entreaties to +the King of Prussia and to the Emperor, his brother-in-law, to overthrow +the new order and bring back the old. If the Revolution had achieved +priceless gains for France, they could only be preserved on condition +that public action was directed by those who valued these gains for +themselves and for their children above all things else—above the +monarchy, above the constitution, above peace, above their own sorry +lives. There was only one party who showed this passionate devotion, +this fanatical resolution not to suffer the work that had been done to +be undone, and never to allow France to sink back from exalted national +life into the lethargy of national death. That party was the Jacobins, +and, above all, the austere and rigorous Jacobins of Paris. On their +ascendancy depended the triumph of the Revolution, and on the triumph of +the Revolution depended the salvation of France.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Their ascendancy meant +a Jacobin dictatorship, and against this, as against dictatorship in all +its forms, many things have been said, and truly said. But the one most +important thing that can be said about Jacobin dictatorship is that, in +spite of all the dolorous mishaps and hateful misdeeds that marked its +course, it was still the only instrument capable of concentrating and +utilising the dispersed social energy of the French people. The crisis +was not a crisis of logic but of force, and the Jacobins alone +understood, as the old Covenanters had understood, that problems of +force are not solved by phrases, but by mastery and the sword.</p> + +<p>The great popular club of Paris was the centre of all those who looked +at events in this spirit. The Legislative Assembly, the successor of the +Constituent, met in the month of October 1791. Like its predecessor, the +Legislative contained a host of excellent and patriotic men, and they at +once applied themselves to the all-important task, which the Constituent +had left so deplorably incomplete, of finally breaking down the old +feudal rights. The most important group in the new chamber were the +deputies from the Gironde. Events soon revealed violent dissents between +the Girondins and the Jacobins, but, for some months after the meeting +of the Legislative, Girondins and Jacobins represented together in +unbroken unity the great popular party. From this time until the fall of +the monarchy, the whole of this popular party in all its branches found +their rallying-place, not in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> the Assembly, but in the Jacobin Club; and +the ascendancy of the Jacobin Club embodied the dictatorship of Paris. +It was only from Paris that the whole circle of events could be +commanded. When the peasants had got what they wanted, that is to say +the emancipation of the land, they were ready to think that the +Revolution was in safety and at an end. They were in no position to see +the enmity of the exiles, the dangerous selfishness of Austria and +Prussia, the disloyal machinations of the court, the reactionary +sentiment of La Vendée, the absolute unworkableness of the new +constitution. Arthur Young, in the height of the agitations of the +Constituent Assembly, found himself at Moulins, the capital of the +Bourbonnais, and on the great post-road to Italy. He went to the best +coffee-house in the town, and found as many as twenty tables spread for +company, but as for a newspaper, he says he might as well have asked for +an elephant. In the capital of a great province, the seat of an +intendant, at a moment like that, with a National Assembly voting a +revolution, and not a newspaper to tell the people whether Fayette, +Mirabeau, or Lewis XVI. were on the throne! Could such a people as this, +he cries, ever have made a revolution or become free? 'Never in a +thousand centuries: the enlightened mob of Paris have done the whole.' +And that was the plain truth. What was involved in such a truth, we +shall see presently.</p> + +<p>Robespierre had now risen to be one of the foremost men in France. To +borrow the figure of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> older chief of French faction, from trifling +among the violins in the orchestra, he had ascended to the stage itself, +and had a right to perform leading parts. Disqualified for sitting in +the Assembly, he wielded greater power than ever in the Club. The +Constituent had been full of his enemies. 'Alone with my own soul,' he +once cried to the Jacobins, 'how could I have borne struggles that were +beyond any human strength, if I had not raised my spirit to God?' This +isolation marked him with a kind of theocratic distinction. These +communings with the unseen powers gave a certain indefinable prerogative +to a man, even among the children of the century of Voltaire. Condorcet, +the youngest of the intimates and disciples of Voltaire, of D'Alembert, +of Turgot, was the first to sound bitter warning that Robespierre was at +heart a priest. The suggestion was more than a gibe. Robespierre had the +typic sacerdotal temperament, its sense of personal importance, its thin +unction, its private leanings to the stake and the cord; and he had one +of those deplorable natures that seem as if they had never in their +lives known the careless joys of a springtime. By and by, from mere +priest he developed into the deadlier carnivore, the Inquisitor.</p> + +<p>The absence of advantages of bodily presence has never been fatal to the +pretensions of the pontiff. Robespierre was only a couple of inches +above five feet in height, but the Grand Monarch himself was hardly +more. His eyes were small and weak, and he usually wore spectacles; his +face was pitted by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> marks of small-pox; his complexion was dull and +sometimes livid; the tones of his voice were dry and shrill; and he +spoke with the vulgar accent of his province. Such is the accepted +tradition, and there is no reason to dissent from it. It is fair, +however, to remember that Robespierre's enemies had command of his +historic reputation at its source, and this is always a great advantage +for faction, if not for truth. So Robespierre's voice and person may +have been maligned, just as Aristophanes may have been a calumniator +when he accused Cleon of having an intolerably loud voice and smelling +of the tanyard. What is certain is that Robespierre was a master of +effective oratory adapted for a violent popular audience, to impress, to +persuade, and to command. The Convention would have yawned, if it had +not trembled under him, but the Jacobin Club never found him tedious. +Robespierre's style had no richness either of feeling or of phrase; no +fervid originality, no happy violences. If we turn from a page of +Rousseau to a page of Robespierre, we feel that the disciple has none of +the thrilling sonorousness of the master; the glow and the ardour have +become metallic; the long-drawn plangency is parodied by shrill notes of +splenetic complaint. The rhythm has no broad wings; the phrases have no +quality of radiance; the oratorical glimpses never lift the spirit into +new worlds. We are never conscious of those great pulses of strong +emotion that shake and vibrate through the nobly-measured periods of +Cicero or Bossuet or Burke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> Robespierre could not rival the vivid and +highly-coloured declamation of Vergniaud; his speeches were never heated +with the ardent passion that poured like a torrent of fire through some +of the orations of Isnard; nor, above all, had he any mastery of that +dialect of the Titans, by which Danton convulsed an audience with fear, +with amazement, or with the spirit of defiant endeavour. The absence of +these intenser qualities did not make Robespierre's speeches less +effective for their own purpose. On the contrary, when the air has +become torrid, and passionate utterance is cheap, then severity in form +is very likely to pass for good sense in substance. That Robespierre had +decent fluency, copiousness, and finish, need hardly be said. The French +have an artistic sense; they have never accepted our own whimsical +doctrine, that a man's politics must be sagacious, if his speaking is +only clumsy enough. Robespierre more than once showed himself ready with +a forcible reply on critical occasions: this only makes him an +illustration the more of the good oratorical rule, that he is most +likely to come well out of the emergency of an improvisation, who is +usually most careful to prepare. Robespierre was as solicitous about the +correctness of his speech, as he was about the neatness of his clothes; +he no more grudged the pains given to the polishing of his discourses +than he grudged the time given every day to the powdering of his hair.</p> + +<p>Nothing was more remarkable than his dexterity in presenting his case. +James Mill used to point out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> to his son among other skilful arts of +Demosthenes, these two: first, that he said everything important to his +purpose at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his hearers +into the state most fitted to receive it; second, that he insinuated +gradually and indirectly into their minds ideas which would have roused +opposition if they had been expressed more directly. Mr. Mill once +called the attention of the present writer to exactly the same kind of +rhetorical skill in the speeches of Robespierre. The reader may do well +to turn, for excellent specimens of this, to the speech of January 11, +1792, against the war, or that of May 1794 against atheism. The logic is +stringent, but the premises are arbitrary. Robespierre is as one who +should iterate indisputable propositions of abstract geometry and +mechanics, while men are craving an architect who shall bridge the gulf +of waters. Exuberance of high words no longer conceals the sterility of +his ideas and the shallowness of his method. We should say of his +speeches, as of so much of the speaking and writing of the time, that it +is transparent and smooth, but there is none of that quality which the +critics of painting call Texture.</p> + +<p>His listeners, however, in the old refectory of the Convent of the +Jacobins took little heed of these things; the matter was too absorbing, +the issue too vital. A hundred years before, the hunted Covenanters of +the Western Lowlands, with Claverhouse's dragoons a few miles off, +exulted in the endless exhortations and expositions of their hill +preachers:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> they relished nothing so keenly as three hours of +Mucklewrath, followed by three hours more of Peter Poundtext. We now +find the jargon of the Mucklewraths and the Poundtexts of the Solemn +League and Covenant, dead as it is, still not devoid of the picturesque +and the impressive. If we cannot say the same of the great preacher of +the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the reason is partly that time has +not yet softened the tones, and partly that there is no one in all the +world with whom it is so difficult to sympathise, as with the narrower +fanatics of our own particular faith.</p> + +<p>We have still to mark the trait that above everything else gave to +Robespierre the trust and confidence of Paris. As men listened to him, +they had full faith in the integrity of the speaker. And Robespierre in +one way deserved this confidence. He was eminently the possessor of a +conscience. When the strain of circumstance in the last few months of +his life pressed him towards wrong, at least before doing wrong he was +forced to lie to his own conscience. This is a kind of honesty, as the +world goes. In the Salon of 1791 an artist exhibited Robespierre's +portrait, simply inscribing it, <i>The Incorruptible</i>. Throngs passed +before it every day, and ratified the honourable designation by eager +murmurs of approval. The democratic journals were loud in panegyric on +the unsleeping sentinel of liberty. They loved to speak of him as the +modern Fabricius, and delighted to recall the words of Pyrrhus, that it +is easier to turn the sun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> from its course, than to turn Fabricius from +the path of honour. Patriotic parents eagerly besought him to be sponsor +for their children. Ladies of wealth, including at least one +countrywoman of our own, vainly entreated him to accept their purses, +for women are quick to recognise the temperament of the priest, and +recognising they adore. A rich widow of Nantes besought him with +pertinacious tenderness to accept not only her purse but her hand. +Mirabeau's sister hailed him as an eagle floating through the blue +heavens.</p> + +<p>Robespierre's life was frugal and simple, as must always be seemly in +the spokesman of the dumb multitude whose lives are very hard. He had a +single room in the house of Duplay, at the extreme west end of the long +Rue Saint Honoré, half a mile from the Jacobin Club, and less than that +from the Riding School of the Tuileries, where the Constituent and +Legislative Assemblies held session. His room, which served him for +bed-chamber as well as for the uses of the day, was scantily furnished, +and he shared the homely fare of his host. Duplay was a carpenter, a +sworn follower of Robespierre, and the whole family cherished their +guest as if he had been a son and a brother. Between him and the eldest +daughter of the house there grew up a more tender sentiment, and +Robespierre looked forward to the joys of the hearth, so soon as his +country should be delivered from the oppressors without and the traitors +within.</p> + +<p>Eagerly as Robespierre delighted in his popularity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> he intended it to +be a force and not a decoration. An occasion of testing his influence +arose in the winter of 1791. The situation had become more and more +difficult. The court was more disloyal and more perverse, as its hopes +that the nightmare would come to an end became fainter. In the summer of +1791, the German Emperor, the King of Prussia, and minor champions of +retrograde causes issued the famous Declaration of Pilnitz. The menace +of intervention was the one element needed to make the position of the +monarchy desperate. It roused France to fever heat. For along with the +foreign kings were the French princes of the blood and the French +nobles. In the spring of 1792, the Assembly forced the King to declare +war against Austria. Robespierre, in spite of the strong tide of warlike +feeling, led the Jacobin opposition to the war. This is one of the most +sagacious acts of his career, for the hazards of the conflict were +terrible. If the foreigners and the emigrant nobles were victorious, all +that the Revolution had won would be instantly and irretrievably lost. +If, on the other hand, the French armies were victorious, one of two +disasters might follow. Either the troops might become a weapon in the +hands of the court and the reactionary party, for the suppression of all +the progressive parties alike; or else their general might make himself +supreme. Robespierre divined, what the Girondins did not, that Narbonne +and the court, in accepting the cry for war, were secretly designing, +first, to crush the faction of emi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>grant nobles, then to make the King +popular at home, and thus finally to construct a strong royalist army. +The Constitutional party in the Legislative Assembly had the same ideas +as Narbonne. The Girondins sought war; first, from a genuine, if not a +profoundly wise, enthusiasm for liberty, which they would fain have +spread all over the world; and next, because they thought that war would +increase their popularity, and give them decisive control of the +situation.</p> + +<p>The first effect of the war declared in April 1792 was to shake down the +throne. Operations had no sooner begun than the King became an object of +bitter and amply warranted suspicion. Neither the leaders nor the people +had forgotten his flight a year before to place himself at the head of +the foreign invaders, nor the letter that he had left behind him for the +National Assembly, protesting against all that had been done. They were +again reminded of what short shrift they might expect if the King's +friends should come back. The Duke of Brunswick at the head of the +foreign army set out on his march, and issued his famous proclamation to +the inhabitants of France. He demanded immediate and unconditional +submission; he threatened with fire and sword every town, village, or +hamlet, that should dare to defend itself; and finally, he swore that if +the smallest violence or insult were done to the King or his family, the +city of Paris should be handed over to military execution and absolute +destruction. This insensate document bears marks in every line of the +implacable hate and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> burning thirst for revenge that consumed the +aristocratic refugees. Only civil war can awaken such rage as +Brunswick's manifesto betrayed. It was drawn up by the French nobles at +Coblenz. He merely signed it. The reply to it was the memorable +insurrection of the Tenth of August 1792. The King was thrown into +prison, and the Legislative Assembly made way for the National +Convention.</p> + +<p>Robespierre's part in the great rising of August was only secondary. +Only a few weeks before he had started a journal and written articles in +a constitutional sense. M. d'Héricault believes a story that +Robespierre's aim in this had been to have himself accepted as tutor for +the young Dauphin. It is impossible to prove a negative, but we find +great difficulty in believing that such a post could ever have been an +object of Robespierre's ambition. Now and always he showed a rather +singular preference for the substance of power over its glitter. He was +vain and an egoist, but in spite of this, and in spite of his passion +for empty phrases, he was not without a sense of reality.</p> + +<p>The insurrection of the 10th of August, however, was the idea, not of +Robespierre, but of a more commanding personage, who now became one of +the foremost of the Jacobin chiefs. De Maistre, that ardent champion of +reaction, found a striking argument for the presence of the divine hand +in the Revolution, in the intense mediocrity of the revolutionary +leaders. How could such men, he asked, have achieved such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> results, if +they had not been instruments of the directing will of heaven? Danton at +any rate is above this caustic criticism. Danton was of the Herculean +type of a Luther, though without Luther's deep vision of spiritual +things; or a Chatham, though without Chatham's august majesty of life; +or a Cromwell, though without Cromwell's calm steadfastness of patriotic +purpose. His visage and port seemed to declare his character: dark +overhanging brows; eyes that had the gleam of lightning; a savage mouth; +an immense head; the voice of a Stentor. Madame Roland pictured him as a +fiercer Sardanapalus. Artists called him Jove the Thunderer. His enemies +saw in him the Satan of the Paradise Lost. He was no moral regenerator; +the difference between him and Robespierre is typified in Danton's +version of an old saying, that he who hates vices hates men. He was not +free from that careless life-contemning desperation, which sometimes +belongs to forcible natures. Danton cannot be called noble, because +nobility implies a purity, an elevation, and a kind of seriousness which +were not his. He was too heedless of his good name, and too blind to the +truth that though right and wrong may be near neighbours, yet the line +that separates them is of an awful sacredness. If Robespierre passed for +a hypocrite by reason of his scruple, Danton seemed a desperado by his +airs of 'immoral thoughtlessness.' But the world forgives much to a +royal size, and Danton was one of the men who strike deep notes. He had +that largeness of motive, fulness of nature,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> and capaciousness of mind, +which will always redeem a multitude of infirmities.</p> + +<p>Though the author of some of the most tremendous and far-sounding +phrases of an epoch that was only too rich in them, yet phrases had no +empire over him; he was their master, not their dupe. Of all the men who +succeeded Mirabeau as directors of the unchained forces, we feel that +Danton alone was in his true element. Action, which poisoned the blood +of such men as Robespierre, and drove such men as Vergniaud out of their +senses with exaltation, was to Danton his native sphere. When France was +for a moment discouraged, it was he who nerved her to new effort by the +electrifying cry, '<i>We must dare, and again dare, and without end +dare!</i>' If his rivals or his friends seemed too intent on trifles, too +apt to confound side issues with the central aim of the battle, Danton +was ever ready to urge them to take a juster measure:—'<i>When the +edifice is all ablaze, I take little heed of the knaves who are +pilfering the household goods; I rush to put out the flames.</i>' When base +egoism was compromising a cause more priceless than the personality of +any man, it was Danton who made them ashamed by the soul-inspiring +exclamation, '<i>Let my name be blotted out and my memory perish, if only +France may be free.</i>' The Girondins denounced the popular clubs of Paris +as hives of lawlessness and outrage. Danton warned them that it were +wiser to go to these seething societies and to guide them, than to waste +breath in futile denunciation. 'A nation in revolution,' he cried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> to +them, in a superb figure, 'is like the bronze boiling and foaming and +purifying itself in the cauldron. Not yet is the statue of Liberty cast. +Fiercely boils the metal; have an eye on the furnace, or the flame will +surely scorch you.' If there was murderous work below the hatches, that +was all the more reason why the steersman should keep his hand strong +and ready on the wheel, with an eye quick for each new drift in the +hurricane, and each new set in the raging currents. This is ever the +figure under which one conceives Danton—a Titanic shape doing battle +with the fury of the seas, yielding while flood upon flood sweeps wildly +over him, and then with unshaken foothold and undaunted front once more +surveying the waste of waters, and striving with dexterous energy to +force the straining vessel over the waters of the bar.</p> + +<p>La Fayette had called the huge giant of popular force from its squalid +lurking-places, and now he trembled before its presence, and fled from +it shrieking, with averted hands. Marat thrust swords into the giant's +half-unwilling grasp, and plied him with bloody incitement to slay hip +and thigh, and so filled the land with a horror that has not faded from +out of men's minds to this day. Danton instantly discerned that the +problem was to preserve revolutionary energy, and still to persuade the +insurgent forces to retire once more within their boundaries. +Robespierre discerned this too, but he was paralysed and bewildered by +his own principles, as the convinced doctrinaire is so apt to be amid +the perplexities of practice. The teaching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> of Rousseau was ever pouring +like thin smoke among his ideas, and clouding his view of actual +conditions. The Tenth of August produced a considerable change in +Robespierre's point of view. It awoke him to the precipitous steepness +of the slope down which the revolutionary car was rushing headlong. His +faith in the infallibility of the people suffered no shock, but he was +in a moment alive to the need of walking warily, and his whole march +from now until the end, twenty-three months later, became timorous, +cunning, and oblique. His intelligence seemed to move in subterranean +tunnels, with the gleam of an equivocal premiss at one end, and the mist +of a vague conclusion at the other.</p> + +<p>The enthusiastic pedant, with his narrow understanding, his thin purism, +and his idyllic sentimentalism, found that the summoning archangel of +his paradise proved to be a ruffian with a pike. The shock must have +been tremendous. Robespierre did not quail nor retreat; he only revised +his notion of the situation. A curious interview once took place between +him and Marat. Robespierre began by assuring the Friend of the People +that he quite understood the atrocious demands for blood with which the +columns of Marat's newspaper were filled, to be merely useful +exaggerations of his real designs. Marat repelled the disparaging +imputation of clemency and common sense, and talked in his familiar vein +of poniarding brigands, burning despots alive in their palaces, and +impaling the traitors of the Assembly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> on their own benches. +'Robespierre,' says Marat, 'listened to me with affright; he turned pale +and said nothing. The interview confirmed the opinion I had always had +of him, that he united the integrity of a thoroughly honest man and the +zeal of a good patriot, with the enlightenment of a wise senator, but +that he was without either the views or the audacity of a real +statesman.' The picture is instructive, for it shows us Robespierre's +invariable habit of leaving violence and iniquity unrebuked; of +conciliating the practitioners of violence and iniquity; and of +contenting himself with an inward hope of turning the world into a right +course by fine words. He had no audacity in Marat's sense, but he was no +coward. He knew, as all these men knew, that almost from hour to hour he +carried his life in his hand, yet he declined to seek shelter in the +obscurity which saved such men as Sieyès. But if he had courage, he had +not the initiative of a man of action. He invented none of the ideas or +methods of the Revolution, not even the Reign of Terror, but he was very +dexterous in accepting or appropriating what more audacious spirits than +himself had devised and enforced. The pedant, cursed with the ambition +to be a ruler of men, is a curious study. He would be glad not to go too +far, and yet his chief dread is lest he be left behind. His +consciousness of pure aims allows him to become an accomplice in the +worst crimes. Suspecting himself at bottom to be a theorist, he hastens +to clear his character as man of practice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> by conniving at an enormity. +Thus, in September 1792, a band of miscreants committed the grievous +massacres in the prisons of Paris. Robespierre, though the best evidence +goes to show that he not only did not abet the prison murders, but in +his heart deplored them, yet after the event did not scruple to justify +what had been done. This was the beginning of a long course of +compliance with sanguinary misdeeds, for which Robespierre has been as +hotly execrated as if he prompted them. We do not, for the moment, +measure the relative degrees of guilt that attached to mere compliance +on the one hand, and cruel origination on the other. But his position in +the Revolution is not rightly understood, unless we recognise him as +being in almost every case an accessory after the fact.</p> + +<p>Between the fall of Lewis in 1792 and the fall of Robespierre in 1794, +France was the scene of two main series of events. One set comprises the +repulse of the invaders, the suppression of an extensive civil war, and +the attempted reconstruction of a social framework. The other comprises +the rapid phases of an internecine struggle of violent and short-lived +factions. By an unhappy fatality, due partly to anti-democratic +prejudice, and partly to men's unfailing passion for melodrama, the +Reign of Terror has been popularly taken for the central and most +important part of the revolutionary epic. This is nearly as absurd as it +would be to make Gustave Flourens' manifestation of the Fifth of +October, or the rising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> of the Thirty-first of October, the most +prominent features in a history of the war of French defence in our own +day. In truth, the Terror was a mere episode; and just as the rising of +October 1870 was due to Marshal Bazaine's capitulation at Metz, it is +easy to see that, with one exception, every violent movement in Paris, +from 1792 to 1794, was due to menace or disaster on the frontier. Every +one of the famous days of Paris was an answer to some enemy without. The +storm of the Tuileries on the Tenth of August, as we have already said, +was the response to Brunswick's proclamation. The bloody days of +September were the reaction of panic at the capture of Longwy and Verdun +by the Prussians. The surrender of Cambrai provoked the execution of +Marie Antoinette. The defeat of Aix-la-Chapelle produced the abortive +insurrection of the Tenth of March; and the treason of Dumouriez, the +reverses of Custine, and the rebellion in La Vendée, produced the +effectual insurrection of the Thirty-first of May 1793. The last of +these two risings of Paris, headed by the Commune, against the +Convention which was until then controlled by the Girondins, at length +gave the government of France and the defence of the Revolution +definitely over to the Jacobins. Their patriotic dictatorship lasted +unbroken for a short period of ten months, and then the great party +broke up into factions. The splendid triumphs of the dictatorship have +been, in England at any rate, too usually forgotten, and only the crimes +of the factions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> remembered. Robespierre's history unfortunately belongs +to the less important battle.</p> + + +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<p>The Girondins were driven out of the Convention by the insurgent +Parisians at the beginning of June 1793. The movement may be roughly +compared to that of the Independents in our own Rebellion, when the army +compelled the withdrawal of eleven of the Presbyterian leaders from the +parliament; or, it may recall Pride's memorable Purge of the same famous +assembly. Both cases illustrate the common truth that large deliberative +bodies, be they never so excellent for purposes of legislation, and even +for a general control of the executive government in ordinary times, are +found to be essentially unfit for directing a military crisis. If there +are any historic examples that at first seem to contradict such a +proposition, it will be found that the bodies in question were close +aristocracies, like the Great Council of Venice, or the Senate of Rome +in the strong days of the Commonwealth; they were never the creatures of +popular election, with varying aims and a diversified political spirit. +Modern publicists have substituted the divine right of assemblies for +the old divine right of monarchies. Those who condone the violence done +to the King on the Tenth of August, and even acquiesce in his execution +five months afterwards, are relentless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> against the violence done to the +Convention on the Thirty-first of May. We confess ourselves unable to +follow this transfer of the superstition of sacrosanctity from a king to +a chamber. No doubt, the sooner a nation acquires a settled government, +the better for it, provided the government be efficient. But if it be +not efficient, the mischief of actively suppressing it may well be fully +outweighed by the mischief of retaining it. We have no wish to smooth +over the perversities of a revolutionary time; they cost a nation very +dear; but if all the elements of the state are in furious convulsion and +uncontrollable effervescence, then it is childish to measure the march +of events by the standard of happier days of social peace and political +order. The prospect before France at the violent close of Girondin +supremacy was as formidable as any nation has ever yet had to confront +in the history of the world. Rome was not more critically placed when +the defeat of Varro on the plain of Cannæ had broken up her alliances +and ruined her army. The brave patriots of the Netherlands had no +gloomier outlook at that dolorous moment when the Prince of Orange had +left them, and Alva had been appointed to bring them back by rapine, +conflagration, and murder, under the loathed yoke of the Spanish tyrant.</p> + +<p>Let us realise the conditions that Robespierre and Danton and the other +Jacobin leaders had now to face. In the north-west one division of the +fugitive Girondins was forming an army at Caen; in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> south-west +another division was doing the same at Bordeaux. Marseilles and Lyons +were rallying all the disaffected and reactionary elements in the +south-east. La Vendée had flamed out in wild rebellion for Church and +King. The strong places on the north frontier, and the strong places on +the east, were in the hands of the foreign enemy. The fate of the +Revolution lay in the issue of a struggle between Paris, with less than +a score of departments on her side, and all the rest of France and the +whole European coalition marshalled against her. And even this was not +the worst. In Paris itself a very considerable proportion of its +half-million of inhabitants were disaffected to the revolutionary cause. +Reactionary historians dwell on the fact that such risings as that of +the Tenth of August were devised by no more than half of the sections +into which Paris was divided. It was common, they say, for half a dozen +individuals to take upon themselves to represent the fourteen or fifteen +hundred other members of a section. But what better proof can we have +that if France was to be delivered from restored feudalism and foreign +spoliation, the momentous task must be performed by those who had sense +to discern the awful peril, and energy to encounter it?</p> + +<p>The Girondins had made their incapacity plain. The execution of the King +had filled them with alarm, and with hatred against the ruder and more +robust party who had forced that startling act of vengeance upon them. +Puny social disgusts prevented them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> from co-operating with Danton or +with Robespierre. Prussia and Austria were not more redoubtable or more +hateful to them than was Paris, and they wasted, in futile +recriminations about the September massacres or the alleged peculations +of municipal officers, the time and the energy that should have been +devoted without let or interruption to the settlement of the +administration and the repulse of the foe. It is impossible to think of +such fine characters as Vergniaud or Madame Roland without admiration, +or of their untimely fate without pity. But the deliverance of a people +beset by strong and implacable enemies could not wait on mere good +manners and fastidious sentiments, when these comely things were in +company with the most stupendous want of foresight ever shown by a +political party. How can we measure the folly of men who so missed the +conditions of the problem as to cry out in the Convention itself, almost +within earshot of the Jacobin Club, that if any insult were offered to +the national representation, the departments would rise, 'Paris would be +annihilated; and men would come to search on the banks of the Seine +whether such a city had ever existed!' It was to no purpose that Danton +urgently rebuked the senseless animosity with which the Right poured +incessant malediction on the Left, and the wild shrieking hate with +which the Left retaliated on the Right. The battle was to the death, and +it was the Girondins who first menaced their political foes with +vengeance and the guillotine. As it happened, the treason of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Dumouriez +and their own ineptitude destroyed them before revenge was within reach. +Such a consummation was fortunate for their country. It was the +Girondins whose want of union and energy had by the middle of 1793 +brought France to distraction and imminent ruin. It was a short year of +Jacobin government that by the summer of 1794 had welded the nation +together again, and finally conquered the invasion. The city of the +Seine had once more shown itself what it had been for nine centuries, +ever since the days of Odo, Count of Paris and first King of the French, +not merely a capital, but France itself, 'its living heart and surest +bulwark.'</p> + +<p>The immediate instrument of so rapid and extraordinary an achievement +was the Committee of Public Safety. The French have never shown their +quick genius for organisation with more triumphant vigour. While the +Girondins were still powerful, nine members of the Convention had been +constituted an executive committee, April 6, 1793. They were in fact a +kind of permanent cabinet, with practical irresponsibility. In the +summer of 1793 the number was increased from nine to twelve, and these +twelve were the centre of the revolutionary government. They fell into +three groups. First, there were the scientific or practical +administrators, of whom the most eminent was Carnot. Next came the +directors of internal policy, the pure revolutionists, headed by Billaud +de Varennes. Finally, there was a trio whose business it was to +translate action into the phrases of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> revolutionary policy. This famous +group was Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint Just.</p> + +<p>Besides the Committee of Public Safety there was another chief +governmental committee, that of General Security. Its functions were +mainly connected with the police, the arrests, and the prisons, but in +all serious affairs the two Committees deliberated in common. There were +also fourteen other groups of various size, taken from the Convention; +they applied themselves with admirable zeal, and usually not with more +zeal than skill, to schemes of public instruction, of finance, of +legislation, of the administration of justice, and a host of other civil +reforms, of all of which Napoleon Bonaparte was by and by to reap the +credit. These bodies completed the civil revolution, which the +Constituent and the Legislative Assemblies had left so mischievously +incomplete that, as soon as ever the Convention had assembled, it was +besieged by a host of petitioners praying them to explain and to pursue +the abolition of the old feudal rights. Everything had still been left +uncertain in men's minds, even upon that greatest of all the +revolutionary questions. The feudal division of the committee of general +legislation had in this eleventh hour to decide innumerable issues, from +those of the widest practical importance, down to the prayer of a remote +commune to be relieved from the charge of maintaining a certain mortuary +lamp which had been a matter of seignorial obligation. The work done by +the radical jurisconsults was never undone. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the great and +durable reward of the struggle. And we have to remember that these +industrious and efficient bodies, as well as all other public bodies and +functionaries whatever, were placed by the definite revolutionary +constitution of 1793 under the direct orders of the Committee of Public +Safety.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is hardly possible even now for any one who exults in the memory of +the great deliverance of a brilliant and sociable people, to stand +unmoved before the walls of that palace which Philibert Delorme reared +for Catherine de' Medici, and which was thrown into ruin by the madness +of a band of desperate men in our own days. Lewis had walked forth from +the Tuileries on the fatal morning of the Tenth of August, holding his +children by the hand, and lightly noticing, as he traversed the gardens, +how early that year the leaves were falling. Lewis had by this time +followed the fallen leaves into nothingness. The palace of the kings was +now styled the Palace of the Nation, and the new republic carried on its +work surrounded by the outward associations of the old monarchy. The +Convention after the spring of 1793 held its sittings in what had +formerly been the palace theatre. Fierce men from the Faubourgs of St. +Antoine and St. Marceau, and fiercer women from the markets, shouted +savage applause or menace from galleries, where not so long ago the +Italian buffoons had amused the perpetual leisure of the finest ladies +and proudest grandees of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> France. The Committee of General Security +occupied the Pavillon de Marsan, looking over a dingy space that the +conqueror at Rivoli afterwards made the most dazzling street in Europe. +The Committee of Public Safety sat in the Pavillon de Flore, at the +opposite end of the Tuileries on the river bank. The approaches were +protected by guns and by a bodyguard, while inside there flitted to and +fro a cloud of familiars, who have been compared by the enemies of the +great Committee to the mutes of the court of the Grand Turk. Any one who +had business with this awful body had to grope his way along gloomy +corridors, that were dimly lighted by a single lamp at either end. The +room in which the Committee sat round a table of green cloth was +incongruously gay with the clocks, the bronzes, the mirrors, the +tapestries, of the ruined court. The members met at eight in the morning +and worked until one; from one to four they attended the sitting of the +Convention. In the evening they met again, and usually sat until night +was far advanced. It was no wonder if their hue became cadaverous, their +eyes hollow and bloodshot, their brows stern, their glance preoccupied +and sinister. Between ten and eleven every evening a sombre piece of +business was transacted, which has half effaced in the memory of +posterity all the heroic industry of the rest of the twenty-four hours. +It was then that Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, brought an +account of his day's labour; how the revolutionary tribunal was working, +how many had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> been convicted and how many acquitted, how large or how +small had been the batch of the guillotine since the previous night. +Across the breadth of the gardens, beyond their trees and fountains, +stood the Monster itself, with its cruel symmetry, its colour as of the +blood of the dead, its unheeding knife, neutral as the Fates.</p> + +<p>Robespierre has been held responsible for all the violences of the +revolutionary government, and his position on the Committee appeared to +be exceedingly strong. It was, however, for a long time much less strong +in reality than it seemed: all depended upon successfully playing off +one force against another, and at the same time maintaining himself at +the centre of the see-saw. Robespierre was the literary and rhetorical +member of the band; he was the author of the strident manifestoes in +which Europe listened with exasperation to the audacious hopes and +unfaltering purpose of the new France. This had the effect of investing +him in the eyes of foreign nations with supreme and undisputed authority +over the government. The truth is, that Robespierre was both disliked +and despised by his colleagues. They thought of him as a mere maker of +useful phrases; he in turn secretly looked down upon them, as the man +who has a doctrine and a system in his head always looks down upon the +man who lives from hand to mouth. If the Committee had been in the place +of a government which has no opposition to fear, Robespierre would have +been one of its least powerful members.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> But although the government was +strong, there were at least three potent elements of opposition even +within the ranks of the dominant revolutionary party itself.</p> + +<p>Three bodies in Paris were, each of them, the centre of an influence +that might at any moment become the triumphant rival of the Committee of +Public Safety. These bodies were, first, the Convention; second, the +Commune of Paris; and thirdly, the Jacobin Club. The jealousy thus +existing outside the Committee would have made any failure instantly +destructive. At one moment, at the end of 1793, it was only the +surrender of Toulon that saved the Committee from a hostile motion in +the Convention, and such a motion would have sent half of them to the +guillotine. They were reviled by the extreme party who ruled at the Town +Hall for not carrying the policy of extermination far enough. They were +reproached by Danton and his powerful section for carrying that policy +too far. They were discredited by the small band of intriguers, like +Bazire, who identified government with peculation. Finally, they were +haunted by the shadow of a fear, which events were by and by to prove +only too substantial, lest one of their military agents on the frontier +should make himself their master. The key to the struggle of the +factions between the winter of 1793 and the revolution of the summer of +1794 is the vigorous resolve of the governing Committees not to part +with power. The drama is one of the most exciting in the history<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of +faction; it abounds in rapid turns and unexpected shifts, upon which the +student may spend many a day and many a night, and after all he is +forced to leave off in despair of threading an accurate way through the +labyrinth of passion and intrigue. The broad traits of the situation, +however, are tolerably simple. The difficulty was to find a principle of +government which the people could be induced to accept. 'The rights of +men and the new principles of liberty and equality,' Burke said, 'were +very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of +tranquillity and order. The factions,' he added with fierce sarcasm, +'were to accomplish the purposes of order, morality, and submission to +the laws, from the principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. They +endeavoured to establish distinctions, by the belief of which they hoped +to keep the spirit of murder safely bottled up and sealed for their own +purposes, without endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison +which they prepared for their enemies.' This is a ferocious and +passionate version, but it is substantially not an unreal account of the +position.</p> + +<p>Upon one point all parties agreed, and that was the necessity of +founding the government upon force, and force naturally meant Terror. +Their plea was that of Dido to Ilioneus and the stormbeaten sons of +Dardanus, when they complained that her people had drawn the sword upon +them, and barbarously denied the hospitality of the sandy shore:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>—</p> + +<p class='center'> +Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri.<br /> +</p> + +<p>And that pithy chapter in Machiavelli's <i>Prince</i> which treats of cruelty +and clemency, and whether it be better to be loved or feared, +anticipates the defence of the Terrorists, in the maxim that for a new +prince it is impossible to avoid the name of cruel, because all new +states abound in many perils. The difference arose on the question when +Terror should be considered to have done as much of its work as it could +be expected to do. This difference again was connected with difference +of conception as to the type of the society which was ultimately to +emerge from the existing chaos. Billaud-Varennes, the guiding spirit of +the Committees, was without any conception of this kind. He was a man of +force pure and simple. Danton was equally untouched by dreams of social +transformation; his philosophy, so far as he had a definite philosophy, +was, in spite of one or two inconsistent utterances, materialistic: and +materialism, when it takes root in a sane, perspicacious, and indulgent +character, as in the case of Danton, and, to take a better-known +example, in the case of Jefferson, usually leads to a sound and positive +theory of politics; chimeras have no place in it, though a rational +social hope has the first place of all. Neither Danton nor Billaud +expected a millennium; their only aim was to shape France into a +coherent political personality, and the war between them turned upon the +policy of prolonging the Terror after the frontiers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> had been saved and +the risings in the provinces put down. There were, however, two parties +who took the literature of the century in earnest; they thought that the +hour had struck for translating, one of them, the sentimentalism of +Rousseau, the other of them, the rationality of Voltaire and Diderot, +into terms of politics that should form the basis of a new social life. +The strife between the faction of Robespierre and the faction of +Chaumette was the reproduction, under the shadow of the guillotine, of +the great literary strife of a quarter of a century before between Jean +Jacques and the writers whom he contemptuously styled Holbachians. The +battle of the books had become a battle between bands of infuriated men. +The struggle between Hébert and Chaumette and the Common Council of +Paris on the one part, and the Committee and Robespierre on the other, +was the concrete form of the deepest controversy that lies before modern +society. Can the social union subsist without a belief in God? Chaumette +answered Yes, and Robespierre cried No. Robespierre followed Rousseau in +thinking that any one who should refuse to recognise the existence of a +God, should be exiled as a monster devoid of the faculties of virtue and +sociability. Chaumette followed Diderot, and Diderot told Samuel Romilly +in 1783 that belief in God, as well as submission to kings, would be at +an end all over the world in a very few years. The Hébertists might have +taken for their motto Diderot's shocking couplet, if they could have +known it, about using<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p class='center'> +Les entrailles du prêtre<br /> +Au défaut d'un cordon pour étrangler les rois.<br /> +</p> + +<p>The theists and the atheists, Chaumette and Robespierre, each of them +accepted the doctrine that it was in the power of the armed legislator +to impose any belief and any rites he pleased upon the country at his +feet. The theism or the atheism of the new France depended, as they +thought, on the issue of the war for authority between the Hébertists in +the Common Council of Paris, and the Committee of Public Safety. That +was the religious side of the attitude of the government to the +opposition, and it is the side that possesses most historic interest. +Billaud cared very little for religion in any way; his quarrel with the +Commune and with Hébert was political. What Robespierre's drift appears +to have been, was to use the political animosity of the Committee as a +means of striking foes, against whom his own animosity was not only +political but religious also.</p> + +<p>It would doubtless show a very dull apprehension of the violence and +confusion of the time, to suppose that even Robespierre, with all his +love for concise theories, was accustomed to state his aim to himself +with the definite neatness in which it appears when reduced to literary +statement. Pedant as he was, he was yet enough of a politician to see +the practical urgency of restoring material order, whatever spiritual +belief or disbelief might accompany it. The prospect of a rallying point +for material order was incessantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> changing; and Robespierre turned to +different quarters in search of it almost from week to week. He was only +able to exert a certain limited authority over his colleagues in the +government, by virtue of his influence over the various sections of +possible opposition, and this was a moral, and not an official, +influence. It was acquired not by marked practical gifts, for in truth +Robespierre did not possess them, but by his good character, by his +rhetoric, and by the skill with which he kept himself prominently before +the public eye. The effective seat of his power, notwithstanding many +limits and incessant variations, was the Jacobin Club. There a speech +from him threw his listeners into ecstasies, that have been +disrespectfully compared to the paroxysms of Jansenist convulsionaries, +or the hysterics of Methodist negroes on a cotton plantation. We +naturally think of those grave men who a few years before had founded +the republic in America. Jefferson served with Washington in the +Virginian legislature and with Franklin in Congress, and he afterwards +said that he never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time; +while John Adams declared that he never heard Jefferson utter three +sentences together. Of Robespierre it is stated on good authority that +for eighteen months there was not a single evening on which he did not +make to the assembled Jacobins at least one speech, and that never a +short one.</p> + +<p>Strange as it may seem, Robespierre's credit with this grim assembly was +due to his truly Philistine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> respectability and to his literary faculty. +He figured as the philosopher and bookman of the party: the most +iconoclastic politicians are usually willing to respect the scholar, +provided they are sure of his being on their side. Robespierre had from +the first discountenanced the fantastic caprices of some too excitable +allies. He distrusted the noisy patriots of the middle class, who +curried favour with the crowd by clothing themselves in coarse garments, +clutching a pike, and donning the famous cap of red woollen, which had +been the emblem of the emancipation of a slave in ancient Rome. One +night at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre mounted the tribune, dressed with +his usual elaborate neatness, and still wearing powder in his hair. An +onlooker unceremoniously planted on the orator's head the red cap +demanded by revolutionary etiquette. Robespierre threw the sacred symbol +on the ground with a severe air, and then proceeded with a discourse of +much austerity. Not that he was averse to a certain seemly decoration, +or to the embodiment of revolutionary sentiment by means of a symbolism +that strikes our cooler imagination as rather puerile. He was as ready +as others to use the arts of the theatre for the liturgy of patriots. +One of the most touching of all the minor dramatic incidents of the +Revolution was the death of Barra. This was a child of thirteen who +enrolled himself as a drummer, and marched with the Blues to suppress +the rebel Whites in La Vendée. One day he advanced too close to the +enemy's post, intrepidly beating the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> charge. He was surrounded, but the +peasant soldiers were loth to strike, 'Cry <i>Long live the King!</i>' they +shouted, 'or else death!' 'Long live the Republic!' was the poor little +hero's answer, as a ball pierced his heart. Robespierre described the +incident to the Convention, and amid prodigious enthusiasm demanded that +the body of the young martyr of liberty should be transported to the +Pantheon with special pomp, and that David, the artist of the +Revolution, should be charged with the duty of devising and embellishing +the festival. As it happened, the arrangements were made for the +ceremony to take place on the Tenth of Thermidor—a day on which +Robespierre and all Paris were concerned about a celebration of bloodier +import. Thermidor, however, was still far off; and the red sun of +Jacobin enthusiasm seemed as if it would shine unclouded for ever.</p> + +<p>Even at the Jacobins, however, popular as he was, Robespierre felt every +instant the necessity of walking cautiously. He was as far removed as +possible from that position of Dictator which some historians with a +wearisome iteration persist in ascribing to him, even at the moment when +they are enumerating the defeats which the party of Hébert was able to +inflict upon him in the very bosom of the Mother Club itself. They make +him the sanguinary dictator in one sentence, and the humiliated +intriguer in the next. The latter is much the more correct account of +the two, if we choose to call a man an intriguer who was honestly +anxious to suppress what he considered a wicked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> faction, and yet had +need of some dexterity to keep his own head upon his shoulders.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the winter of 1793 the Municipal party, guided by Hébert and +Chaumette, made their memorable attempt to extirpate Christianity in +France. The doctrine of D'Holbach's supper-table had for a short space +the arm of flesh and the sword of the temporal power on its side. It was +the first appearance of dogmatic atheism in Europe as a political force. +This makes it one of the most remarkable moments in the Revolution, just +as it makes the Revolution itself the most remarkable moment in modern +history. The first political demonstration of atheism was attended by +some of the excesses, the folly, the extravagances that stained the +growth of Christianity. On the whole it is a very mild story compared +with the atrocities of the Jewish records or the crimes of Catholicism. +The worst charge against the party of Chaumette is that they were +intolerant, and the charge is deplorably true; but this charge cannot +lie in the mouth of persecuting churches.</p> + +<p>Historical recriminations, however, are not very edifying. It is +perfectly fair when Catholics talk of the atheist Terror, to rejoin that +the retainers of Anjou and Montpensier slew more men and women on the +first day of the Saint Bartholomew than perished in Paris through the +Years I. and II. But the retort does us no good beyond the region of +dialectic; it rather brings us down to the level of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> poor sectaries +whom it crushes. Let us raise ourselves into clearer air. The fault of +the atheist is that they knew no better than to borrow the maxims of the +churchmen; and even those who agree with the dogmatic denials of the +atheists—if such there be—ought yet to admit that the mere change from +superstition to reason is a small gain, if the conclusions of reason are +still to be enforced by the instruments of superstition. Our opinions +are less important than the spirit and temper with which they possess +us, and even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in +a broad, intelligent, and spacious way. Now some of the opinions of +Chaumette were full of enlightenment and hope. He had a generous and +vivid faith in humanity, and he showed the natural effect of abandoning +belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for +improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to +share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like +the Bishop in Victor Hugo's <i>Misérables</i>, than to hold those good +opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a +reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow +forgetfulness of all that great and precious part of our natures that +lies out of the immediate domain of the logical understanding. One can +understand how an honest man would abhor the darkness and tyranny of the +Church. But then to borrow the same absolutism in the interests of new +light, was inevitably to bring the new light into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> same abhorrence +as had befallen the old system of darkness. And this is exactly what +happened. In every family where a mother sought to have her child +baptized, or where sons and daughters sought to have the dying spirit of +the old consoled by the last sacrament, there sprang up a bitter enemy +to the government which had closed the churches and proscribed the +priests.</p> + +<p>How could a society whose spiritual life had been nourished in the +solemn mysticism of the Middle Ages, suddenly turn to embrace a gaudy +paganism? The common self-respect of humanity was outraged by apostate +priests who, whether under the pressure of fear of Chaumette, or in a +very superfluity of folly and ecstasy of degradation, hastened to +proclaim the charlatanry of their past lives, as they filed before the +Convention, led by the Archbishop of Paris, and accompanied by rude +acolytes bearing piles of the robes and the vessels of silver and gold +with which they had once served their holy offices. 'Our enemies,' +Voltaire had said, 'have always on their side the fat of the land, the +sword, the strong box, and the <i>canaille</i>.' For a moment all these +forces were on the other side, and it is deplorable to think that they +were as much abused by their new masters as by the old. The explanation +is that the destructive party had been brought up in the schools of the +ecclesiastical party, and their work was a mere outbreak of mutiny, not +a grave and responsible attempt to lead France to a worthier faith. If, +as Chaumette<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> believed, mankind are the only Providence of men, surely +in that faith more than in any other are we bound to be very solicitous +not to bring the violent hand of power on any of the spiritual +acquisitions of the race, and very patient in dealing with the slowness +of the common people to leave their outworn creeds.</p> + +<p>Instead of defying the Church by the theatrical march of the Goddess of +Reason under the great sombre arches of the Cathedral of Our Lady, +Chaumette should have found comfort in a firm calculation of the +conditions. 'You,' he might have said to the priests,—'you have so +debilitated the minds of men and women by your promises and your dreams, +that many a generation must come and go before Europe can throw off the +yoke of your superstition. But we promise you that they shall be +generations of strenuous battle. We give you all the advantages that you +can get from the sincerity and pious worth of the good and simple among +you. We give you all that the bad among you may get by resort to the +poisoned weapons of your profession and its traditions,—its bribes to +mental indolence, its hypocritical affectations in the pulpit, its +tyranny in the closet, its false speciousness in the world, its menace +at the deathbed. With all these you may do your worst, and still +humanity will escape you; still the conscience of the race will rise +away from you; still the growth of brighter ideals and a nobler purpose +will go on, leaving ever further and further behind them your dwarfed +finality and leaden moveless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> stereotype. We shall pass you by on your +flank; your fieriest darts will only spend themselves on air. We will +not attack you as Voltaire did; we will not exterminate you; we shall +explain you. History will place your dogma in its class, above or below +a hundred competing dogmas, exactly as the naturalist classifies his +species. From being a conviction, it will sink to a curiosity; from +being the guide to millions of human lives, it will dwindle down to a +chapter in a book. As History explains your dogma, so Science will dry +it up; the conception of law will silently make the conception of the +daily miracle of your altars seem impossible; the mental climate will +gradually deprive your symbols of their nourishment, and men will turn +their backs on your system, not because they have confuted it, but +because, like witchcraft or astrology, it has ceased to interest them. +The great ship of your Church, once so stout and fair and well laden +with good destinies, is become a skeleton ship; it is a phantom hulk, +with warped planks and sere canvas, and you who work it are no more than +ghosts of dead men, and at the hour when you seem to have reached the +bay, down your ship will sink like lead or like stone to the deepest +bottom.'</p> + +<p>Alas, the speculation of the century had not rightly attuned men's minds +to this firm confidence in the virtue of liberty, sounding like a bell +through all distractions. None of these high things were said. The +temples were closed, the sacred symbols defiled, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> priests +maltreated, the worshippers dispersed. The Commune of Paris imitated the +policy of the King of France who revoked the Edict of Nantes, and +democratic atheism parodied the dragonnades of absolutist Catholicism.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Robespierre was unutterably outraged by the proceedings of the atheists. +They perplexed him as a politician intent upon order, and they afflicted +him sorely as an ardent disciple of the Savoyard Vicar. Hébert, however, +was so strong that it needed some courage to attack him, nor did +Robespierre dare to withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch +from making an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its +partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the Twenty-first of +November one of the most admirable of his oratorical successes. The +Sphinx still sits inexorable at our gates, and his words have lost none +of their interest. 'Every philosopher and every individual,' he said, +'may adopt whatever opinion he pleases about atheism. Any one who wishes +to make such an opinion into a crime is an insensate; but the public man +or the legislator who should adopt such a system, would be a hundred +times more insensate still. The National Convention abhors it. The +Convention is not the author of a scheme of metaphysics. It was not to +no purpose that it published the Declaration of the Rights of Man in +presence of the Supreme Being. I shall be told perhaps that I have a +narrow intelligence, that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> am a man of prejudice, and a fanatic. I +have already said that I spoke neither as an individual nor as a +philosopher with a system, but as a representative of the people. +<i>Atheism is aristocratic. The idea of a great being who watches over +oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is essentially the +idea of the people.</i> This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; +it is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached +neither to priests, nor to superstition, nor to ceremonies; it is +attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to the idea of an +incomprehensible Power, the terror of wrongdoers, the stay and comfort +of virtue, to which it delights to render words of homage that are all +so many anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.'</p> + +<p>This is Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as +statesman. Like others, he declares the Supreme Power incomprehensible, +and then describes him in terms of familiar comprehension. He first +declares atheism an open choice, and then he brands it with the most +odious epithet in the accepted vocabulary of the hour. Danton followed +practically the same line, though saying much less about it. 'If +Greece,' he said in the Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too +shall solemnise her sans-culottid days. The people will have high +festivals; they will offer incense to the Supreme Being, to the master +of nature; for we never intended to annihilate the reign of superstition +in order to set up the reign of atheism.... If we have not honoured the +priest of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to honour the priest +of incredulity: we wish to serve the people. I demand that there shall +be an end of these anti-religious masquerades in the Convention.'</p> + +<p>There was an end of the masquerading, but the Hébertists still kept +their ground. Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally +impotent against them for some months longer. The revolutionary force +had been too strong to be resisted by any government since the Paris +insurgents had carried both King and Assembly in triumph from Versailles +in the October of 1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to +strive with all their might to build a new government out of the +agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months the +battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance against +atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of masked skirmishes. +The battle-ground of rival principles was overshadowed by the baleful +wings of the genius of demonic Hate. <i>Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni</i>; +the banners of the King of the Pit came forth. The scene at the +Cordeliers for a time became as frantic as a Council of the Early Church +settling the true composition of the Holy Trinity. Or it recalls the +fierce and bloody contentions between Demos and Oligarchy in an old +Greek town. We think of the day in the harbour of Corcyra when the +Athenian admiral who had come to deliver the people, sailed out to meet +the Spartan enemy, and on turning round to see if his Corcyrean allies +were following,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> saw them following indeed, but the crew of every ship +striving in enraged conflict with one another. Collot D'Herbois had come +back in hot haste from Lyons, where, along with Fouché, he had done his +best to carry out the decree of the Convention, that not one stone of +the city should be left on the top of another, and that even its very +name should cease from the lips of men. Carrier was recalled from +Nantes, where his feats of ingenious massacre had rivalled the exploits +of the cruellest and maddest of the Roman Emperors. The presence of +these men of blood gave new courage and resolution to the Hébertists. +Though the alliance was informal, yet as against Danton, Camille +Desmoulins, and the rest of the Indulgents, as well as against +Robespierre, they made common cause.</p> + +<p>Camille Desmoulins attacked Hébert in successive numbers of a journal +that is perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the +revolution. Hébert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of Desmoulins +in the Club, and the unfortunate wit, notwithstanding the efforts of +Robespierre on his behalf, was for a while turned out of the sacred +precincts. The power of the extreme faction was shown in relation to +other prominent members of the party whom they loved to stigmatise by +the deadly names of Indulgent and Moderantist. Even Danton himself was +attacked (December 1793), and the integrity of his patriotism brought +into question. Robespierre made an energetic defence of his great rival +in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> hierarchy of revolution, and the defence saved Danton from the +mortal ignominy of expulsion from the communion of the orthodox. On the +other hand, Anacharsis Clootz, that guileless ally of the party of +delirium, was less fortunate. Robespierre assailed the cosmopolitan for +being a German baron, for having four thousand pounds a year, and for +striking his sans-culottism some notes higher than the regular pitch. +Even M. Louis Blanc calls this an iniquity, and sets it down as the +worst page in Robespierre's life. Others have described Robespierre as +struck at this time by the dire malady of kings—hatred of the Idea. It +seems, however, a hard saying that devotion to the Idea is to extinguish +common sense. Clootz, notwithstanding his simple and disinterested +character, and his possession of some rays of the modern illumination, +was one of the least sane of all the men who in the exultation of their +silly gladness were suddenly caught up by that great wheel of fire. All +we can say is that Robespierre's bitter demeanour towards Clootz was +ungenerous; but then this is only natural in him. Robespierre often +clothed cool policy in the semblance of clemency, but I cannot hear in +any phrase he ever used, or see in any measure he ever proposed, the +mark of true generosity; of kingliness of spirit, not a trace. He had no +element of ready and cordial propitiation, an element that can never be +wanting in the greatest leaders in time of storm. If he resisted the +atrocious proposals to put Madame Elizabeth to death, he was thinking +not of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> mercy or justice, but of the mischievous effect that her +execution would have upon the public opinion of Europe, and he was so +unmanly as to speak of her as <i>la méprisable sœur de Louis XVI</i>. Such +a phrase is the disclosure of an abject stratum in his soul.</p> + +<p>Yet this did not prevent him from seeing and denouncing the bloody +extravagances of the Proconsuls, the representatives of Parisian +authority in the provinces; nor from standing firm against the execution +of the Seventy-Three, who had been bold enough to question the purgation +of the National Convention on the Thirty-first of May. But the return of +Collot d'Herbois made the situation more intricate. Collot was by his +position the ally of Billaud, and to attack him, therefore, was to +attack the most powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety. +Billaud was too formidable. He was always the impersonation of the ruder +genius of the Revolution, and the incarnation of the philosophy of the +Terror, not as a delirium, but as a piece of deliberate policy. His +pale, sober, and concentrated physiognomy seemed a perpetual menace. He +had no gifts of speech, but his silence made people shudder, like the +silence of the thunder when the tempest rages at its height. It was said +by contemporaries that if Vadier was a hyæna, Barère a jackal, and +Robespierre a cat, Billaud was a tiger.</p> + +<p>The cat perceived that he was in danger of not having the tiger, jackal, +and hyæna, on his side. Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and +timid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>ity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had been +premature; and a convenient illness, which some suppose to have been +feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks from a scene where he +felt that he could no longer see clear. We cannot doubt that both he and +Danton were perfectly assured that the anarchic party must unavoidably +roll headlong into the abyss. But the hour of doom was uncertain. To +make a mistake in the right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant +death. Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. We must not +confound his thin and querulous reserve with that stout and deep-browed +patience, which may imply as superb a fortitude, and may demand as much +iron control in a statesman, as the most heroic exploits of political +energy. But his habit of waiting on force, instead of, like the other, +taking the initiative with force, had trained his sight. The mixture of +astuteness with his scruple, of egoistic policy with his stiffness for +doctrine, gave him an advantage over Danton, that made his life worth +exactly three months' more purchase than Danton's. It has been said that +Spinozism or Transcendentalism in poetic production becomes +Machiavellism in reflection: for the same reasons we may always expect +sentimentalism in theory to become under the pressure of action a very +self-protecting guile. Robespierre's mind was not rich nor flexible +enough for true statesmanship, and it is a grave mistake to suppose that +the various cunning tacks in which his career abounds, were any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> sign of +genuine versatility or resource or political growth and expansion. They +were, in fact, the resort of a man whose nerves were weaker than his +volition. Robespierre was a kind of spinster. Force of head did not +match his spiritual ambition. He was not, we repeat, a coward in any +common sense; in that case he would have remained quiet among the +croaking frogs of the Marsh, and by and by have come to hold a portfolio +under the first Consul. He did not fear death, and he envied with +consuming envy those to whom nature had given the qualities of +initiative. But his nerves always played him false. The consciousness of +having to resolve to take a decided step alone, was the precursor of a +fit of trembling. His heart did not fail, but he could not control the +parched voice, nor the twitching features, not the ghastly palsy of +inner misgiving. In this respect Robespierre recalls a more illustrious +man; we think of Cicero tremblingly calling upon the Senate to decide +for him whether he should order the execution of the Catilinarian +conspirators. It is to be said, however, in his favour that he had the +art, which Cicero lacked, to hide his pusillanimity. Robespierre knew +himself, and did his best to keep his own secret.</p> + +<p>His absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed events +to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in dangerous action +which he had dreaded on the Tenth of August, as he dreaded it on every +other decisive day of this burning time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> The party of the Commune +became more and more daring in their invectives against the Convention +and the Committees. At length they proclaimed open insurrection. But +Paris was cold, and opinion was divided. In the night of the Thirteenth +of March, Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day +Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin Club. He +joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public Safety in striking the +blow. On the Twenty-fourth of March the Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were +beheaded.</p> + +<p>The first bloody breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by +the second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon +followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the execution of the +Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest of the Moderates. When the +seizure of Danton had once before been discussed in the Committee, +Robespierre resisted the proposal violently. We have already seen how he +defended Danton at the Jacobin Club, when the Club underwent the process +of purification in the winter. What produced this sudden tack? How came +Robespierre to assent in March to a violence which he had angrily +discountenanced in February? There had been no change in the policy or +attitude of Danton himself. The military operations against the domestic +and foreign enemies were no sooner fairly in the way of success, than +Danton began to meditate in serious earnest the consolidation of a +republican system of law and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> justice. He would fain have stayed the +Terror. 'Let us leave something,' he said, 'to the guillotine of +opinion.' He aided, no doubt, in the formation of the Revolutionary +Tribunal, but this was exactly in harmony with his usual policy of +controlling popular violence without alienating the strength of popular +sympathy. The process of the tribunal was rough and summary, but it was +fairer—until Robespierre's Law of Prairial—than people usually +suppose, and it was the very temple of the goddess of Justice herself +compared with the September massacres. 'Let us prove ourselves +terrible,' Danton said, 'to relieve the people from the necessity of +being so.' His activity had been incessant in urging and superintending +the great levies against the foreigner; he had gone repeatedly on +distant and harassing expeditions, as the representative of the +Convention at the camps on the frontier. In the midst of all this he +found time to press forward measures for the instruction of the young, +and for the due appointment of judges, and his head was full of ideas +for the construction of a permanent executive council. It was this which +made him eager for a cessation of the method of Terror, and it was this +which made the Committee of Public Safety his implacable enemy.</p> + +<p>Why, then, did Robespierre, who also passed as a man of order and +humanity, not continue to support Danton after the suppression of the +Hébertists, as he had supported him before? The common and facile answer +is that he was moved by a malignant desire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> to put a rival out of the +way. On the whole, the evidence seems to support Napoleon's opinion that +Robespierre was incapable of voting for the death of anybody in the +world on grounds of personal enmity. And his acquiescence in the ruin of +Danton is intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The +Committee hated Danton for the good reason that he had openly attacked +them, and his cry for clemency was an inflammatory and dangerous protest +against their system. Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up +his mind that the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, +he could work out his own vague schemes of power and reconstruction. +And, in any case, how could he resist the Committee? The famous +insurrectionary force of Paris, which Danton had been the first to +organise against a government, had just been chilled by the fall of the +Hébertists. Least of all could this force be relied upon to rise in +defence of the very chief whose every word for many weeks past had been +a protest against the Communal leaders. In separating himself from the +Ultras, Danton had cut off the great reservoir of his peculiar strength.</p> + +<p>It may be said that the Convention was the proper centre of resistance +to the designs of the Committee, and that if Danton and Robespierre had +united their forces in the Convention they would have defeated Billaud +and his allies. This seems to us more than doubtful. The Committee had +acquired an immense preponderance over the Convention. They had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +eminently successful in the immense tasks imposed upon them. They had +the prestige not only of being the government—so great a thing in a +country that had just emerged from the condition of a centralised +monarchy; they had also the prestige of being a government that had done +its work triumphantly. We are now in March. In July we shall find that +Robespierre adopted the very policy that we are now discussing, of +playing off the Convention against the Committee. In July that policy +ended in his headlong fall. Why should it have been any more successful +four months earlier?</p> + +<p>What we may say is, that Robespierre was bound in all morality to defend +Danton in the Convention at every hazard. Possibly so; but then to run +risks for chivalry's sake was not in Robespierre's nature, and no man +can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. His narrow +head and thin blood and instable nerve, his calculating humour and his +frigid egoism, disinclined him to all games of chance. His apologists +have sought to put a more respectable colour on his abandonment of +Danton. The precisian, they say, disapproved of Danton's lax and +heedless courses. Danton said to him one day:—'What do I care? Public +opinion is a strumpet, and posterity a piece of nonsense.' How should +the puritanical lawyer endure such cynicism as this? And Danton +delighted in inflicting these coarse shocks. Again, Danton had given +various gross names of contempt to Saint Just. Was Robespierre not to +feel insults<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> offered to the ablest and most devoted of his lieutenants? +What was more important than all, the acclamations with which the +partisans of reaction greeted the fall of the Ultras, made it necessary +to give instant and unmistakable notice to the foes of the Revolution +that the goddess of the scorching eye and fiery hand still grasped the +axe of her vengeance.</p> + +<p>These are pleas invented after the fact. All goes to show that +Robespierre was really moved by nothing more than his invariable dread +of being left behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not +seeming practical and political enough. And having made up his mind that +the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the Dantonists, he +became fiercer than Billaud himself. It is constantly seen that the +waverer, of nervous atrabiliar constitution, no sooner overcomes the +agony of irresolution, than he flings himself on his object with a +vindictive tenacity that seems to repay him for all the moral +humiliation inflicted on him by his stifled doubts. He redeems the +slowness of his approach by the fury of his spring. 'Robespierre,' says +M. d'Héricault, 'precipitated himself to the front of the opinion that +was yelling against his friends of yesterday. In order to keep his usual +post in the van of the Revolution, in order to secure the advantage to +his own popularity of an execution which the public voice seemed to +demand, he came forward as the author of that execution, though only the +day before he had hesitated about its utility, and though it was, in +truth far less use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>ful to him than it proved to be to his future +antagonists.'</p> + +<p>Robespierre first alarmed Danton's friends by assuming a certain icy +coldness of manner, and by some menacing phrases about the faction of +the so-called Moderates. Danton had gone, as he often did, to his native +village of Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of +sight in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal +ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles. His, +again, was the temperament of violent force, and in such types the +reaction is always tremendous. The indomitable activity of the last +twenty months had bred weariness of spirit. The nemesis of a career of +strenuous Will in large natures is apt to be a sudden sense of the irony +of things. In Danton, as with Byron it happened afterwards, the +vehemence of the revolutionary spirit was touched by this desolating +irony. His friends tried to rouse him. It is not clear that he could +have done anything. The balance of force, after the suppression of the +Hébertists, was irretrievably against him, as calculation had already +revealed to Robespierre.</p> + +<p>There are various stories of the pair having met at dinner almost on the +eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both +sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of +sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged +details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere +Trieb,' says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, +into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was warned that +Robespierre was plotting his arrest. 'If I thought he had the bare +idea,' said Danton with something of Gargantuan hyperbole, 'I would eat +his bowels out.' Such was the disdain with which the 'giant of the +mighty bone and bold emprise' thought of our meagre-hearted pedant. The +truth is that in the stormy and distracted times of politics, and +perhaps in all times, contempt is a dangerous luxury. A man may be a +very poor creature, and still have a faculty for mischief. And +Robespierre had this faculty in the case of Danton. With singular +baseness, he handed over to Saint Just a collection of notes, to serve +as material for the indictment which Saint Just was to present to the +Convention. They comprised everything that suspicion could interpret +malignantly, from the most conspicuous acts of Danton's public life, +down to the casual freedom of private discourse.</p> + +<p>Another infamy was to follow. After the arrest, and on the proceedings +to obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and others +of its members, one only of their friends had the courage to rise and +demand that they should be heard at the bar. Robespierre burst out in +cold rage; he asked whether they had undergone so many heroic +sacrifices, counting among them these acts of 'painful severity,' only +to fall under the yoke of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried +out impatiently that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> would brook no claim of privilege, and suffer +no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for the Convention +dreaded to have its independence suspected, and it dreaded this all the +more because at this time its independence did not really exist. The +vote against Danton was unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the +deepest stain on the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the +Sixteenth Germinal (April 5, 1794) Paris in amazement and some +stupefaction saw the once-dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast bound in +the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging knife. 'I leave it +all in a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a man +of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow me; he is +dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the +governing of men!'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let us pause for a moment over a calmer reminiscence. This was the very +day on which the virtuous and high-minded Condorcet quitted the friendly +roof that for nine months had concealed him from the search of +proscription. The same week he was found dead in his prison. While +Danton was storming with impotent thunder before the tribunal, Condorcet +was writing those closing words of his Sketch of Human Progress, which +are always so full of strength and edification. 'How this picture of the +human race freed from all its fetters,—withdrawn from the empire of +chance, as from that of the enemies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of progress, and walking with firm +and assured step in the way of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents +to the philosopher a sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, +the injustice, with which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is +not seldom the victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that +he receives the reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for +the defence of liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain +of the destinies of man: it is there he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good; fate can no longer +undo it, by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy: it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In following the turns of the drama which was to end in the tragedy of +Thermidor, we perceive that after the fall of the anarchists and the +death of Danton, the relations between Robespierre and the Committees +underwent a change. He, who had hitherto been on the side of government, +became in turn an agency of opposition. He did this in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> interest of +ultimate stability, but the difference between the new position and the +old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable republic +with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions. How far the +ascendency of his own personality was involved, we have no means of +judging. The vulgar accusation against him is that he now deliberately +aimed at a dictatorship, and began to plot with that end in view. It is +always the most difficult thing in the world to draw a line between mere +arrogant egoism on the one hand, and on the other the identification of +a man's personal elevation with the success of his public cause. The two +ends probably become mixed in his mind, and if the cause be a good one, +it is the height of pharisaical folly to quarrel with him, because he +desires that his authority and renown shall receive some of the lustre +of a far-shining triumph. What we complain of in Napoleon Bonaparte, for +instance, is not that he sought power, but that he sought it in the +interests of a coarse, brutal, and essentially unmeaning personal +ambition. And so of Robespierre. We need not discuss the charge that he +sought to make himself master. The important thing is that his mastery +could have served no great end for France; that it would have been like +himself, poor, barren, and hopelessly mediocre. And this would have been +seen on every side. France had important military tasks to perform +before her independence was assured. Robespierre hated war, and was +jealous of every victory. France was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> urgent need of stable +government, of new laws, of ordered institutions. Robespierre never said +a word to indicate that he had a single positive idea in his head on any +of these great departments. And, more than this, he was incapable of +making use of men who were more happily endowed than himself. He had +never mastered that excellent observation of De Retz, that of all the +qualities of a good party chief, none is so indispensable as being able +to suppress on many occasions, and to hide on all, even legitimate +suspicions. He was corroded by suspicion, and this paralyses able +servants. Finally, Robespierre had no imperial quality of soul, but only +that very sorry imitation of it, a lively irritability.</p> + +<p>The base of Robespierre's schemes of social reconstruction now came +clearly into view; and what a base! An official Supreme Being, and a +regulated Terror. The one was to fill up the spiritual void, and the +other to satisfy all the exigencies of temporal things. It is to the +credit of Robespierre's perspicacity that he should have recognised the +human craving for religion, but this credit is as naught when we +contemplate the jejune thing that passed for religion in his dim and +narrow understanding. Rousseau had brought a new soul into the +eighteenth century by the Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith, the most +fervid and exalted expression of emotional deism that religious +literature contains; vague, irrational, incoherent, cloudy; but the +clouds are suffused with glowing gold. When we turn from that to the +political version of it in Robes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>pierre's discourse on the relations of +religious and moral ideas with republican principles, we feel as one who +revisits a landscape that had been made glorious to him by a summer sky +and fresh liquid winds from the gates of the evening sun, only to find +it dead under a gray heaven and harsh blasts from the northeast. +Robespierre's words on the Supreme Being are never a brimming stream of +deep feeling; they are a literary concoction: never the self-forgetting +expansion of the religious soul, but only the composite of the +rhetorician. He thought he had a passion for religion; what he took for +religion was little more than mental decorum. We do not mean that he was +insincere, or that he was without a feeling for high things. But here, +as in all else, his aspiration was far beyond his faculty; he yearned +for great spiritual emotions, as he had yearned for great thoughts and +great achievements, but his spiritual capacity was as scanty and obscure +as his intelligence. And where unkind Nature thus unequally yokes lofty +objects in a man with a short mental reach, she stamps him with the very +definition of mediocrity.</p> + +<p>How can we speak with decent patience of a man who seriously thought +that he should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of +the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the Feast of +the Supreme Being? This was designed as a triumphant ripost to the Feast +of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends had celebrated in the winter. +The energumens of the Goddess of Reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> had now been some weeks in +their bloody graves; by this time, if they had given the wrong answer to +the supreme enigma, their eyes would perhaps be opened. Robespierre +persuaded the Convention to decree an official recognition of the +Supreme Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of their +mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for the decade in +which the festival would fall. When the day came (20th Prairial, June 8, +1794), he clothed himself with more than even his usual care. As he +looked out from the windows of the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in +the gardens, he was intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, +'how sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow pale +at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical pride he walked +at the head of the procession, with flowers and wheat-ears in his hand, +to the sound of chants and symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the +first of the great basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised +an allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was prepared. +Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the midst of an amiable +group of human Vices, with Madness by her side, and Wisdom menacing them +with lofty wrath. Great are the perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied +a torch to Atheism, but alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and +Madness were damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was +hapless Wisdom who took fire. Her face, all blackened by smoke, grinned +a hideous ghastly grin at her sturdy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> rivals. The miscarriage of the +allegory was an evil omen, and men probably thought how much better the +churchmen always managed their conjurings and the art of spectacle. +There was a great car drawn by milk-white oxen; in the front were ranged +sheaves of golden grain, while at the back shepherds and shepherdesses +posed with scenic graces. The whole mummery was pagan. It was a bringing +back of Cerealia and Thesmophoria to earth. It stands as the most +disgusting and contemptible anachronism in history.</p> + +<p>The famous republican Calendar, with its Prairials and Germinals, its +Ventoses and Pluvioses, was an anachronism of the same kind, though it +was less despicable in its manifestation. Its philosophic base was just +as retrograde and out of season as the fooleries of the Feast of the +Supreme Being. The association of worship and sacredness with the fruits +of the earth, with the forces of nature, with the power and variety of +the elements, could only be sincere so long as men really thought of all +these things as animated each by a special will of its own. Such an +association became mere charlatanry, when knowledge once passed into the +positive stage. How could men go back to adore an outer world, after +they had found out the secret that it is a mere huge group of phenomena, +following fixed courses, and not obeying spontaneous and unaccountable +volitions of their own? And what could be more puerile than the fanciful +connection of the Supreme Being with a pastoral simplicity of life? This +simplicity was gone, irrecoverably gone, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> the passage from nomad +times to the complexities of a modern society. To typify, therefore, the +Supreme Being as specially interested in shocks of grain and in +shepherds and shepherdesses was to make him a mere figure in an idyll, +the ornament of a rural mask, a god of the garden, instead of the +sovereign director of the universal forces, and stern master of the +destinies of men. Chaumette's commemoration of the Divinity of Reason +was a sensible performance, compared with Robespierre's farcical +repartee. It was something, as Comte has said, to select for worship +man's most individual attribute. If they could not contemplate society +as a whole, it was at least a gain to pay homage to that faculty in the +human rulers of the world, which had brought the forces of nature—its +pluviosity, nivosity, germinality, and vendemiarity—under the yoke for +the service of men.</p> + +<p>If the philosophy of Robespierre's pageant was so retrograde and false, +its politics were still more inane. It is a monument of presumptuous +infatuation that any one should feel so strongly as he did that order +could only be restored on condition of coming to terms with religious +use and prejudice, and then that he should dream that his Supreme +Being—a mere didactic phrase, the deity of a poet's georgic—should +adequately replace that eternal marvel of construction, by means of +which the great churchmen had wrought dogma and liturgy and priest and +holy office into every hour and every mood of men's lives. There is no +binding principle of human association in a creed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> with this one bald +article. 'In truth,' as I have said elsewhere of such deism as +Robespierre's, 'one can scarcely call it a creed. It is mainly a name +for a particular mood of fine spiritual exaltation; the expression of a +state of indefinite aspiration and supreme feeling for lofty things. Are +you going to convert the new barbarians of our western world with this +fair word of emptiness? Will you sweeten the lives of suffering men, and +take its heaviness from that droning piteous chronicle of wrong and +cruelty and despair, which everlastingly saddens the compassionating ear +like moaning of a midnight sea; will you animate the stout of heart with +new fire, and the firm of hand with fresh joy of battle, by the thought +of a being without intelligible attributes, a mere abstract creation of +metaphysic, whose mercy is not as our mercy, nor his justice as our +justice, nor his fatherhood as the fatherhood of men? It was not by a +cold, a cheerless, a radically depraving conception such as this, that +the church became the refuge of humanity in the dark times of old, but +by the representation, to men sitting in bondage and confusion, of +godlike natures moving among them, under figure of the most eternally +touching of human relations,—a tender mother ever interceding for them, +and an elder brother laying down his life that their burdens might be +loosened.'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine was +concealed in the folds of rich hangings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> It was the Twentieth of +Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention the +memorable Law of the Twenty-second Prairial. Robespierre was the +draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own writing. This +monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation of all law. Of all laws +ever passed in the world it is the most nakedly iniquitous. Tyrants have +often substituted their own will for the ordered procedure of a +tribunal, but no tyrant before ever went through the atrocious farce of +deliberately making a tribunal the organised negation of security for +justice. Couthon laid its theoretic base in a fallacy that must always +be full of seduction to shallow persons in authority: 'He who would +subordinate the public safety to the inventions of jurisconsults, to the +formulas of the Court, is either an imbecile or a scoundrel.' As if +public safety could mean anything but the safety of the public. The +author of the Law of Prairial had forgotten the minatory word of the +sage to whom he had gone on a pilgrimage in the days of his youth. 'All +becomes legitimate and even virtuous,' Helvétius had written, 'on behalf +of the public safety.' Rousseau inscribed on the margin, 'The public +safety is nothing, unless individuals enjoy security.' What security was +possible under the Law of Prairial?</p> + +<p>After the probity and good judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal +guarantees in state trials are accurate definition, and proof. The +offence must be capable of precise description, and the proof against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +an offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial violently +infringed all three of these essential conditions of judicial equity. +First, the number of the jury who had power to convict was reduced. +Second, treason was made to consist in such vague and infinitely elastic +kinds of action as inspiring discouragement, misleading opinion, +depraving manners, corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the +Revolution by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the +conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary inquiry, of +witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the accused. Any kind of +testimony was evidence, whether material or moral, verbal or written, if +it was of a kind 'likely to gain the assent of a man of reasonable +mind.'</p> + +<p>Now what was Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? +The theory that he loved judicial murder for its own sake, can only be +held by the silliest of royalist or clerical partisans. It is like the +theory of the vulgar kind of Protestantism, that Mary Tudor or Philip of +Spain had a keen delight in shedding blood. Robespierre, like Mary and +like Philip, would have been as well pleased if all the world would have +come round to his mind without the destruction of a single life. The +true inquisitor is a creature of policy, not a man of blood by taste. +What, then, was the policy that inspired the Law of Prairial? To us the +answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim in Robespierre's +mind at this point in the history of the Revolution. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> brother +Augustin was then the representative of the Convention with the army of +Italy, and General Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. +Bonaparte said long afterwards, when he was expiating a life of iniquity +on the rock of Saint Helena, that he saw long letters from Maximilian to +Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the Conventional Commissioners—Tallien, +Fouché, Barras, Collot, and the rest—for the horrors they perpetrated, +and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by their atrocities. Again, +there is abundant testimony that Robespierre did his best to induce the +Committee of Public Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. +The text of the Law itself discloses the same object. The vague phrases of +depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles perfidiously, were +exactly calculated to smite the band of violent men whose conduct was to +Robespierre the scandal of the Revolution. And there was a curious clause +in the law as originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the +right of preventing measures against its own members. Robespierre's general +design in short was to effect a further purgation of the Convention. There +is no reason to suppose that he deliberately aimed at any more general +extermination. On the other hand, it is incredible that, as some have +maintained, he should merely have had in view the equalisation of rich and +poor before the tribunals, by withdrawing the aid of counsel and testimony +to civic character from both rich and poor alike.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>If Robespierre's design was what we believe it to have been, the result +was a ghastly failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent +to apply his law against the men for whom he had specially designed it. +The frightful weapon which he had forged was seized by the Committee of +General Security, and Paris was plunged into the fearful days of the +Great Terror. The number of persons put to death by the Revolutionary +Tribunal before the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. +From the creation of the tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution +of the Hébertists in March 1794, the number of persons condemned to +death was 505. From the death of the Hébertists down to the death of +Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2158. One half of the +entire number of victims, namely, 1356, were guillotined after the Law +of Prairial. No deadlier instrument was ever invented by the cruelty of +man. Innocent women no less than innocent men, poor no less than rich, +those in whom life was almost spent, no less than those in whom its +pulse was strongest, virtuous no less than vicious, were sent off in +woe-stricken batches all those summer days. A man was informed against; +he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at seven he was taken +to the Conciergerie; at nine he received information of the charge +against him; at ten he went into the dock; by two in the afternoon he +was condemned; by four his head lay in the executioner's basket.</p> + +<p>What stamps the system of the Terror at this date<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> with a wickedness +that cannot be effaced, is that at no moment was the danger from foreign +or domestic foe less serious. We may always forgive something to +well-grounded panic. The proscriptions of an earlier date in Paris were +not excessively sanguinary, if we remember that the city abounded in +royalists and other reactionists, who were really dangerous in fomenting +discouragement and spreading confusion. If there ever is an excuse for +martial law, and it must be rare, the French government were warranted +in resorting to it in 1793. Paris in those days was like a city +beleaguered, and the world does not use very harsh words about the +commandant of a besieged town who puts to death traitors found within +his walls. Opinion in England at this very epoch encouraged the Tory +government to pass a Treason Bill, which introduced as vague a +definition of treasonable offence as even the Law of Prairial itself. +Windham did not shrink from declaring in parliament that he and his +colleagues were determined to exact 'a rigour beyond the law.' And they +were as good as their word. The Jacobins had no monopoly either of cruel +law or cruel breach of law in the eighteenth century. Only thirty years +before, opinion in Pennsylvania had prompted a hideous massacre of +harmless Indians as a deed acceptable to God, and the grandson of +William Penn proclaimed a bounty of fifty dollars for the scalp of a +female Indian, and three times as much for a male. A man would have had +quite as good a chance of justice from the Revolutionary Tribunal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> as +at the hands of Braxfield, the Scotch judge, who condemned Muir and +Palmer for sedition in 1793, and who told the government, with a brazen +front worthy of Carrier or Collot d'Herbois themselves, that, if they +would only send him prisoners, he would find law for them.</p> + +<p>We have no sympathy with the spirit of paradox that has arisen in these +days, amusing itself by the vindication of bad men. We think that the +author of the Law of Prairial was a bad man. But it is time that there +should be an end of the cant which lifts up its hands at the crimes of +republicans and freethinkers, and shuts its eyes to the crimes of kings +and churches. Once more, we ought to rise into a higher air; we ought to +condemn, wherever we find it, whether on the side of our adversaries or +on our own, all readiness to substitute arbitrary force for the +processes of ordered justice. There are moments when such a readiness +may be leniently judged, but Prairial of 1794 was not one of them either +in France or in England. And what makes the crime of this law more +odious, is its association with the official proclamation of the State +worship of a Supreme Being. The scene of Robespierre's holy festival +becomes as abominable as a catholic Auto-da-fé, where solemn homage was +offered to the God of pity and loving-kindness, while flame glowed round +the limbs of the victims.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Robespierre was inflamed with resentment, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> because so many people +were guillotined every day, but because the objects of his own enmity +were not among them. He was chagrined at the miscarriage of his scheme; +but the chagrin had its root in his desire for order, and not in his +humanity. A good man—say so imperfectly good a man as Danton—could not +have endured life, after enacting such a law, and seeing the ghastly +work that it was doing. He could hardly have contented himself with +drawing tears from the company in Madame Duplay's little parlour, by his +pathetic recitations from Corneille and Racine, or with listening to +melting notes from the violin of Le Bas. It is commonly said by +Robespierre's defenders that he withdrew from the Committee of Public +Safety, as soon as he found out that he was powerless to arrest the +daily shedding of blood. The older assumption used to be that he left +Paris, and ceased to be cognisant of the Committee's deliberations. The +minutes, however, prove that this was not the case. Robespierre signed +papers nearly every day of Messidor—(June 19 to July 18) the +blood-stained month between Prairial and Thermidor—and was thoroughly +aware of the doings of the Committee. His partisans have now fallen back +on the singular theory of what they style moral absence. He was present +in the flesh, but standing aloof in the spirit. His frowning silence was +a deadlier rebuke to the slayers and oppressors than secession. +Unfortunately for this ingenious explanation of the embarrassing fact of +a merciful man standing silent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> before merciless doings, there are at +least two facts that show its absurdity.</p> + +<p>First, there is the affair of Catherine Théot. Catherine Théot was a +crazy old woman of a type that is commoner in protestant than in +catholic countries. She believed herself to have special gifts in the +interpretation of the holy writings, and a few other people as crazy as +herself chose to accept her pretensions. One revelation vouchsafed to +her was to the effect that Robespierre was a Messiah and the new +redeemer of the human race. The Committee of General Security resolved +to indict this absurd sect. Vadier,—one of the roughest of the men whom +the insurrections of Paris had brought to the front—reported on the +charges to the Convention (27 Prairial, June 15), and he took the +opportunity to make Robespierre look profoundly ridiculous. The +unfortunate Messiah sat on his bench, gnawing his lips with bitter rage, +while, amid the sneers and laughter of the Convention, the officers +brought to the bar the foolish creatures who had called him the Son of +God. His thin pride and prudish self-respect were unutterably affronted, +and he quite understood that the ridicule of the mysticism of Théot was +an indirect pleasantry upon his own Supreme Being. He flew to the +Committee of Public Safety, angrily reproached them for permitting the +prosecution, summoned Fouquier-Tinville, and peremptorily ordered him to +let the matter drop. In vain did the public prosecutor point out that +there was a decree of the Convention ordering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> him to proceed. +Robespierre was inexorable. The Committee of General Security were +baffled, and the prosecution ended. 'Lutteur impuissant et fatigué,' +says M. Hamel, the most thoroughgoing defender of Robespierre, upon +this, 'il va se retirer, moralement du moins.' Impotent and wearied! But +he had just won a most signal victory for good sense and humanity. Why +was it the only one? If Robespierre was able to save Théot, why could he +not save Cécile Renault?</p> + +<p>Cécile Renault was a young seamstress who was found one evening at the +door of Robespierre's lodging, calling out in a state of exaltation that +she would fain see what a tyrant looked like. She was arrested, and upon +her were found two little knives used for the purposes of her trade. +That she should be arrested and imprisoned was natural enough. The times +were charged with deadly fire. People had not forgotten that Marat had +been murdered in his own house. Only a few days before Cécile Renault's +visit to Robespierre, an assassin had fired a pistol at Collot d'Herbois +on the staircase of his apartment. We may make allowance for the +excitement of the hour, and Robespierre had as much right to play the +martyr, as had Lewis the Fifteenth after the incident of Damiens' rusty +pen-knife. But the histrionic exigencies of the chief of a faction ought +not to be pushed too far. And it was a monstrous crime that because +Robespierre found it convenient to pose as sacrificial victim at the +Club, therefore he should have had no scruple in seeing not only the +wretched Cécile, but her father,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> her aunt, and one of her brothers, all +despatched to the guillotine in the red shirt of parricide, as agents of +Pitt and Coburg, and assassins of the father of the land. This was +exactly two days after he had shown his decisive power in the affair of +the religious illuminists. The only possible conclusion open to a plain +man after weighing and putting aside all the sophisms with which this +affair has been obscured, is that Robespierre interfered in the one case +because its further prosecution would have tended to make him +ridiculous, and he did not interfere in the other, because the more +exaggerated, the more melodramatic, the more murderous it was made, the +more interesting an object would he seem in the eyes of his adorers.</p> + +<p>The second fact bearing on Robespierre's humanity is this. He had +encouraged the formation and stimulated the activity of popular +commissions, who should provide victims for the Revolutionary Tribunal. +On the Second of Messidor (June 20) a list containing one hundred and +thirty-eight names was submitted for the ratification of the Committee. +The Committee endorsed the bloody document, and the last signature of +the endorsement is that of him, who had resigned a post in his youth +rather than be a party to putting a man to death. As was observed at the +time, Robespierre in doing this, suppressed his pique against his +colleagues, in order to take part in a measure, that was a sort of +complement to his Law of Prairial.</p> + +<p>From these two circumstances, then, even if there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> were no other, we are +justified in inferring that Robespierre was struck by no remorse at the +thought that it was his law which had unbound the hands of the horrible +genie of civil murder. His mind was wholly absorbed in the calculations +of a frigid egoism. His intelligence, as we have always to remember, was +very dim. He only aimed at one thing at once, and that was seldom +anything very great or far-reaching. He was a man of peering and +obscured vision in face of practical affairs. In passing the Law of +Prairial, his designs—and they were meritorious and creditable designs +enough in themselves—had been directed against the corrupt chiefs, such +as Tallien and Fouché, and against the fierce and coarse spirits of the +Committee of General Security, such as Vadier and Voulland. Robespierre +was above all things a precisian. He had a sentimental sympathy with the +common people in the abstract, but his spiritual pride, his pedantry, +his formalism, his personal fastidiousness, were all wounded to the very +quick by the kind of men whom the Revolution had thrown to the surface. +Gouverneur Morris, then the American minister, describes most of the +members of the two Committees as the very dregs of humanity, with whom +it is a stain to have any dealings; as degraded men only worthy of the +profoundest contempt. Danton had said: 'Robespierre is the least of a +scoundrel of any of the band.' The Committee of General Security +represented the very elements by which Robespierre was most revolted. +They offended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> his respectability; their evil manners seemed to tarnish +that good name which his vanity hoped to make as revered all over +Europe, as it already was among his partisans in France. It was +indispensable therefore to cut them off from the revolutionary +government, just as Hébert and as Danton had been cut off. His +colleagues of Public Safety refused to lend themselves to this. +Henceforth, with characteristically narrow tenacity, he looked round for +new combinations, but, so far as I can see, with no broader design than +to enable him to punish these particular objects of his very just +detestation.</p> + +<p>The position of sections and interests which ended in the Revolution of +Thermidor, is one of the most extraordinarily intricate and entangled in +the history of faction. It would take a volume to follow out all the +peripeteias of the drama. Here we can only enumerate in a few sentences +the parties to the contest and the conditions of the game. The reader +will easily discern the difficulty in Robespierre's way of making an +effective combination. First, there were the two Committees. Of these +the one, the General Security, was thoroughly hostile to Robespierre; +its members, as we have said, were wild and hardy spirits, with no +political conception, and with a great contempt for fine phrases and +philosophical principles. They knew Robespierre's hatred for them, and +they heartily returned it. They were the steadfast centre of the +changing schemes which ended in his downfall. The Committee of Public +Safety<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> was divided. Carnot hated Saint Just, and Collot d'Herbois hated +Robespierre, and Billaud had a sombre distrust of Robespierre's +counsels. Shortly speaking, the object of the Billaudists was to retain +their power, and their power was always menaced from two quarters, the +Convention and Paris. If they let Robespierre have his own way against +his enemies, would they not be at his mercy whenever he chose to devise +a popular insurrection against them? Yet if they withstood Robespierre, +they could only do so through the agency of the Convention, and to fall +back upon the Convention would be to give that body an express +invitation to resume the power that had, in the pressure of the crisis a +year before, been delegated to the Committee, and periodically renewed +afterwards. The dilemma of Billaud seemed desperate, and events +afterwards proved that it was so.</p> + +<p>If we turn to the Convention, we find the position equally distracting. +They, too, feared another insurrection and a second decimation. If the +Right helped Robespierre to destroy the Fouchés and Vadiers, he would be +stronger than ever; and what security had they against a repetition of +the violence of the Thirty-first of May? If the Dantonists joined in +destroying Robespierre, they would be helping the Right, and what +security had they against a Girondin reaction? On the other hand, the +Centre might fairly hope, just what Billaud feared, that if the +Committee came to the Convention to crush Robespierre, that would end in +a combination strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> enough to enable the Convention to crush the +Committees.</p> + +<p>Much depended on military success. The victories of the generals were +the great strength of the Committee. For so long it would be difficult +to turn opinion against a triumphant administration. 'At the first +defeat,' Robespierre had said to Barère, 'I await you.' But the defeat +did not come. The plotting went on with incessant activity; on one hand, +Robespierre, aided by Saint Just and Couthon, strengthening himself at +the Jacobin Club, and through that among the sections; on the other, the +Mountain and the Committee of General Security trying to win over the +Right, more contemptuously christened the Marsh or the Belly, of the +Convention. The Committee of Public Safety was not yet fully decided how +to act.</p> + +<p>At the end of the first week of Thermidor, Robespierre could endure the +tension no longer. He had tried to fortify his nerves for the struggle +by riding, but with so little success that he was lifted off his horse +fainting. He endeavoured to steady himself by diligent pistol-practice. +But nothing gave him initiative and the sinews of action. Saint Just +urged him to raise Paris. Some bold men proposed to carry off the +members of the Committee bodily from their midnight deliberations. +Robespierre declined, and fell back on what he took to be his greatest +strength and most unfailing resource; he prepared a speech. On the +Eighth of Thermidor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> he delivered it to the Convention, amid intense +excitement both within its walls and without. All Paris knew that they +were now on the eve of one more of the famous Days; the revolution of +Thermidor had begun.</p> + +<p>The speech of the Eighth Thermidor has seemed to men of all parties +since a masterpiece of tactical ineptitude. If Robespierre had been a +statesman instead of a phrasemonger, he had a clear course. He ought to +have taken the line of argument that Danton would have taken. That is to +say, he ought to have identified himself fully with the interests and +security of the Convention; to have accepted the growing resolution to +close the Terror; to have boldly pressed the abolition of the Committee +of General Security, and the removal from the Committee of Public Safety +of Billaud, Collot, Barère; to have proposed to send about fifty persons +to Cayenne for life; and to have urged a policy of peace with the +foreign powers. This was the substantial wisdom and real interest of the +position. The task was difficult, because his hearers had the best +possible reasons for knowing that the author of the Law of Prairial was +a Terrorist on principle. And in truth we know that Robespierre had no +definite intention of erecting clemency into a rule. He had not mental +strength enough to throw off the profound apprehension, which the +incessant alarms of the last five years had engendered in him; and the +only device, that he could imagine for maintaining the republic against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +traitors, was to stimulate the rigour of the Revolutionary Tribunal.</p> + +<p>If, however, Robespierre lacked the grasp which might have made him the +representative of a broad and stable policy, it was at least his +interest to persuade the men of the Plain that he entertained no designs +against them. And this is what in his own mind he intended. But to do it +effectively, it was clearly best to tell his hearers, in so many words, +whom he really wished them to strike. That would have relieved the +majority, and banished the suspicion which had been busily fomented by +his enemies, that he had in his pocket a long list of their names, for +proscription. But Robespierre, having for the first time in his life +ventured on aggressive action without the support of a definite party, +faltered. He dared not to designate his enemies face to face and by +name. Instead of that, he talked vaguely of conspirators against the +republic, and calumniators of himself. There was not a single bold, +definite, unmistakable sentence in the speech from first to last. The +men of the Plain were insecure and doubtful; they had no certainty that +among conspirators and calumniators he did not include too many of +themselves. People are not so readily seized by grand phrases, when +their heads are at stake. The sitting was long, and marked by changing +currents and reverses. When they broke up, all was left uncertain. +Robespierre had suffered a check. Billaud felt that he could no longer +hesitate in joining the combination against his colleague.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Each party +was aware that the next day must seal the fate of one or other of them. +There is a legend that in the evening Robespierre walked in the Champs +Elysées with his betrothed, accompanied as usual by his faithful dog, +Brount. They admired the purple of the sunset, and talked of the +prospect of a glorious to-morrow. But this is apocryphal. The evening +was passed in no lover's saunterings, but amid the storm and uproar of +the Club. He went to the Jacobins to read over again his speech of the +day. 'It is my testament of death,' he said, amid the passionate +protestations of his devoted followers. He had been talking for the last +three years of his willingness to drink the hemlock, and to offer his +breast to the poniards of tyrants. That was a fashion of the speech of +the time, and in earlier days it had been more than a fashion of speech, +for Brunswick would have given them short shrift. But now, when he +talked of his last testament, Robespierre did not intend it to be so if +he could prevent it. When he went to rest that night, he had a tolerably +calm hope that he should win the next day's battle in the Convention, +when he was aware that Saint Just would attack the Committees openly and +directly. If he would have allowed his band to invade the Pavillon de +Flore, and carry off or slay the Committees who sat up through the +night, the battle would have been won when he awoke. His friends are +justified in saying that his strong respect for legality was the cause +of his ruin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Men in all ages have had a superstitious fondness for connecting awful +events in their lives with portents and signs among the outer elements. +It was noticed that the heat during the terrible days of Thermidor was +more intense than had been known within the memory of man. The +thermometer never fell below sixty-five degrees in the coolest part of +the night, and in the daytime men and women and beasts of burden fell +down dead in the streets. By five o'clock in the morning of the Ninth +Thermidor, the galleries of the Convention were filled by a boisterous +and excited throng. At ten o'clock the proceedings began as usual with +the reading of correspondence from the departments and from the armies. +Robespierre, who had been escorted from his lodgings by the usual body +of admirers, instead of taking his ordinary seat, remained standing by +the side of the tribune. It is a familiar fact that moments of appalling +suspense are precisely those in which we are most ready involuntarily to +note a trifle; everybody observed that Robespierre wore the coat of +violet-blue silk and the white nankeens in which a few weeks previously +he had done honour to the Supreme Being.</p> + +<p>The galleries seemed as enthusiastic as ever. The men of the Plain and +the Marsh had lost the abject mien with which they usually cowered +before Robespierre's glance; they wore a courageous air of judicial +reserve. The leaders of the Mountain wandered restlessly to and fro +among the corridors. At noon Tallien saw that Saint Just had ascended +the tribune.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Instantly he rushed down into the chamber, knowing that +the battle had now begun in fierce earnest. Saint Just had not got +through two sentences, before Tallien interrupted him. He began to +insist with energy that there should be an end to the equivocal phrases +with which Paris had been too long alarmed by the Triumvirate. Billaud, +fearing to be outdone in the attack, hastily forced his way to the +tribune, broke into what Tallien was saying, and proceeded dexterously +to discredit Robespierre's allies without at once assailing Robespierre +himself. Le Bas ran in a fury to stop him; Collot d'Herbois, the +president, declared Le Bas out of order; the hall rang with cries of 'To +prison! To the Abbey!' and Le Bas was driven from the tribune. This was +the beginning of the tempest. Robespierre's enemies knew that they were +fighting for their lives, and this inspired them with a strong and +resolute power that is always impressive in popular assemblies. He still +thought himself secure. Billaud pursued his accusations. Robespierre, at +last, unable to control himself, scaled the tribune. There suddenly +burst forth from Tallien and his partisans vehement shouts of 'Down with +the tyrant! down with the tyrant!' The galleries were swept by a wild +frenzy of vague agitation; the president's bell poured loud incessant +clanging into the tumult; the men of the Plain held themselves firm and +silent; in the tribune raged ferocious groups, Tallien menacing +Robespierre with a dagger, Billaud roaring out proposals to arrest this +person and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> Robespierre gesticulating, threatening, yelling, +shrieking. His enemies knew that if he were once allowed to get a +hearing, his authority might even yet overawe the waverers. A +penetrative word or a heroic gesture might lose them the day. The +majority of the chamber still hesitated. They called for Barère, in +whose adroit faculty for discovering the winning side they had the +confidence of long experience. Robespierre, recovering some of his calm, +and perceiving now that he had really to deal with a serious revolt, +again asked to be heard before Barère. But the cries for Barère were +louder than ever. Barère spoke, in a sense hostile to Robespierre, but +warily and without naming him.</p> + +<p>Then there was a momentary lull. The Plain was uncertain. The battle +might even now turn either way. Robespierre made another attempt to +speak, but Tallien with intrepid fury broke out into a torrent of louder +and more vehement invective. Robespierre's shrill voice was heard in +disjected snatches, amidst the violent tones of Tallien, the yells of +the president calling Robespierre to order, the murderous clanging of +the bell. Then came that supreme hour of the struggle, whose tale has +been so often told, when Robespierre turned from his old allies of the +Mountain, and succeeded in shrieking out an appeal to the probity and +virtue of the Right and the Plain. To his horror, even these despised +men, after a slight movement, remained mute. Then his cheeks blanched, +and the sweat ran down his face. But anger and scornful im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>patience +swiftly came back and restored him. <i>President of assassins</i>, he cried +out to Thuriot, <i>for the last time I ask to be heard. Thou canst not +speak</i>, called one, <i>the blood of Danton chokes thee</i>. He flung himself +down the steps of the tribune, and rushed towards the benches of the +Right. <i>Come no further</i>, cried another, <i>Vergniaud and Condorcet sat +here</i>. He regained the tribune, but his speech was gone. He was reduced +to the dregs of an impotent and gasping voiceless gesticulation, like +the strife of one in a nightmare.</p> + +<p>The day was lost. The tension of a passionate and violent struggle +prolonged for many hours always at length exasperates onlookers with +something of the brute ferocity of the actors. The physical strain stirs +the tiger in the blood; they conceive a cruel hatred against weakness, +just as the heated throng of a Roman amphitheatre turned up their thumbs +for the instant despatch of the unfortunate swordsman who had been too +ready to lower his arms. The Right, the Plain, even the galleries, +despised the man who had succumbed. If Robespierre had possessed the +physical strength of Mirabeau or Danton, the Ninth Thermidor would have +been another of his victories. He was crushed by the relentless ferocity +and endurance of his antagonists. A decree for his arrest was resolved +upon by acclamation. He cast a glance at the galleries, as marvelling +that they should remain passive in face of an outrage on his person. +They were mute. The ushers advanced with hesitation to do their duty, +and not without trembling carried him away, along with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> Couthon and +Saint Just. The brother, for whom he had made honourable sacrifices in +days that seemed to be divided from the present by an abyss of +centuries, insisted with fine heroism on sharing his fate, and Augustin +Robespierre and Le Bas were led off to the prisons along with their +leader and idol.</p> + +<p>It was now a little after four o'clock. The Convention, with the +self-possession that so often amazes us in its proceedings, went on with +formal business for another hour. At five they broke up. For life, as +the poets tell, is a daily stage-play; men declaim their high heroic +parts, then doff the buskin or the sock, wash away the paint from their +cheeks, and gravely sit down to meat. The Conventionals, as they ate +their dinners, were unconscious, apparently, that the great crisis of +the drama was still to come. The next twelve hours were to witness the +climax. Robespierre had been crushed by the Convention; it remained to +be seen whether the Convention would not now be crushed by the Commune +of Paris.</p> + +<p>Robespierre was first conducted to the prisons of the Luxembourg. The +gaoler, on some plea of informality, refused to receive him. The +terrible prisoner was next taken to the Mairie, where he remained among +joyful friends from eight in the evening until eleven. Meanwhile the old +insurrectionary methods of the nights of June and of August in '92, of +May and of June in '93, were again followed. The beating of the <i>rappel</i> +and the <i>générale</i> was heard in all the sections; the tocsin sounded its +dreadful note, remind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>ing all who should hear it that insurrection is +the most sacred and the most indispensable of duties. Hanriot, the +commandant of the forces, had been arrested in the evening, but he was +speedily released by the agents of the Commune. The Council issued +manifestoes and decrees from the Common Hall every moment. The barriers +were closed. Cannon were posted opposite the doors of the hall of the +Convention. The quays were thronged. Emissaries sped to and fro between +the Jacobin Club and the Common Hall, and between these two centres and +each of the forty-eight sections. It is one of the inscrutable mysteries +of this delirious night, that Hanriot did not at once use the force at +his command to break up the Convention. There is no obvious reason why +he should not have done so. The members of the Convention had +re-assembled after their dinner, towards seven o'clock. The hall which +had resounded with the shrieks and yells of the furious gladiators of +the factions all day, now lent a lugubrious echo to gloomy reports which +one member after another delivered from the shadow of the tribune. +Towards nine o'clock the members of the two dread Committees came in +panic to seek shelter among their colleagues, 'as dejected in their +peril,' says an eyewitness, 'as they had been cruel and insolent in the +hour of their supremacy.' When they heard that Hanriot had been +released, and that guns were at their door, all gave themselves up for +lost and made ready for death. News came that Robespierre had broken his +arrest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and gone to the Common Hall. Robespierre, after urgent and +repeated solicitations, had been at length persuaded about an hour +before midnight to leave the Mairie and join his partisans of the +Commune. This was an act of revolt against the Convention, for the +Mairie was a legal place of detention, and so long as he was there, he +was within the law. The Convention with heroic intrepidity declared both +Hanriot and Robespierre beyond the pale of the law. This prompt measure +was its salvation. Twelve members were instantly named to carry the +decree to all the sections. With the scarf of office round their waists, +and a sabre in hand, they sallied forth. Mounting horses, and escorted +by attendants with flaring torches, they scoured Paris, calling all good +citizens to the succour of the Convention, haranguing crowds at the +street corners with power and authority, and striking the imaginations +of men. At midnight heavy rain began to fall.</p> + +<p>The leaders of the Commune meanwhile, in full confidence that victory +was sure, contented themselves with incessant issue of paper decrees, to +each of which the Convention replied by a counter-decree. Those who have +studied the situation most minutely, are of opinion that even so late as +one o'clock in the morning, the Commune might have made a successful +defence, although it had lost the opportunity, which it had certainly +possessed up to ten o'clock, of destroying the Convention. But on this +occasion the genius of insurrection slumbered. And there was a genuine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +division of opinion in the eastern quarters of Paris, the result of a +grim distrust of the man who had helped to slay Hébert and Chaumette. At +a word this distrust began to declare itself. The opinion of the +sections became more and more distracted. One armed group cried, <i>Down +with the Convention!</i> Another armed group cried, <i>The Convention for +ever, and down with the Commune!</i> The two great faubourgs were all +astir, and three battalions were ready to march. Emissaries from the +Convention actually succeeded in persuading them—such the dementia of +the night—that Robespierre was a royalist agent, and that the Commune +were about to deliver the little Lewis from his prison in the Temple. +One body of communist partisans after another was detached from its +allegiance. The deluge of rain emptied the Place de Grève, and when +companies came up from the sections in obedience to orders from Hanriot +and the Commune, the silence made them suspect a trap, and they withdrew +towards the great metropolitan church or elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Barras, whom the Convention had charged with its military defence, +gathered together some six thousand men. With the right instinct of a +man who had studied the history of Paris since the July of 1789, he +foresaw the advantage of being the first to make the attack. He arranged +his forces into two divisions. One of them marched along the quays to +take the Common Hall in front; the other along the Rue Saint Honoré to +take it in flank. Inside the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Common Hall the staircases and corridors +were alive with bustling messengers, and those mysterious busybodies who +are always found lingering without a purpose on the skirts of great +historic scenes. Robespierre and the other chiefs were in a small room, +preparing manifestoes and signing decrees. They were curiously unaware +of the movements of the Convention. An aggressive attack by the party of +authority upon the party of insurrection was unknown in the tradition of +revolt. They had an easy assurance that at daybreak their forces would +be prepared once more to tramp along the familiar road westwards. It was +now half-past two. Robespierre had just signed the first two letters of +his name to a document before him, when he was startled by cries and +uproar in the Place below. In a few instants he lay stretched on the +ground, his jaw shattered by a pistol-shot. His brother had either +fallen or had leaped out of the window. Couthon was hurled over a +staircase, and lay for dead. Saint Just was a prisoner.</p> + +<p>Whether Robespierre was shot by an officer of the Conventional force, or +attempted to blow out his own brains, we shall never know, any more than +we shall ever be quite assured how Rousseau, his spiritual master, came +to an end. The wounded man was carried, a ghastly sight, first to the +Committee of Public Safety, and then to the Conciergerie, where he lay +in silent stupefaction through the heat of the summer day. As he was an +outlaw, the only legal preliminary before execution was to identify +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> At five in the afternoon, he was raised into the cart Couthon and +the younger Robespierre lay, confused wrecks of men, at the bottom of +it. Hanriot and Saint Just, bruised, begrimed, and foul, completed the +band. One who walks from the Palace of Justice, over the bridge, along +the Rue Saint Honoré, into the Rue Royale, and so to the Luxor column, +retraces the <i>via dolorosa</i> of the Revolution on the afternoon of the +Tenth of Thermidor.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The end of the intricate manœuvres known as the Revolution of +Thermidor was the recovery of authority by the Convention. The +insurrections, known as the days of the Twelfth Germinal, First +Prairial, and Thirteenth Vendémiaire, all ended in the victory of the +Convention over the revolutionary forces of Paris. The Committees, on +the other hand, had beaten Robespierre, but they had ruined themselves. +Very gradually the movement towards order, which had begun in the mind +of Danton, and had gone on in the cloudy purposes of Robespierre, became +definite. But it was in the interest of very different ideas from those +of either Danton or of Robespierre. A White Terror succeeded the Red +Terror. Not at once, however; it was not until nine months after the +death of Robespierre, that the reaction was strong enough to smite his +colleagues of the two Committees. The surviving Girondins had come back +to their seats in the Convention: the Dantonians had not forgiven the +execution of their chief. These two parties were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> bent on vengeance. In +April, 1795, a decree was passed banishing Billaud de Varennes, Collot +d'Herbois, and Barère. In the following month the leaders of the +Committee of General Security were thrown into prison. The revolution +had passed into new currents. We cannot see any reasons for thinking +that those currents would have led to any happier results if Robespierre +had won the battle. Tallien, Fouché, Barras, and the rest may have been +thoroughly bad men. But then what qualities had Robespierre for building +up a state? He had neither strength of practical character, nor firm +breadth of political judgment, nor a sound social doctrine. When we +compare him,—I do not say with Frederick of Prussia, with Jefferson, +with Washington,—but with the group of able men who made the closing +year of the Convention honourable and of good service to France, we have +a measure of Robespierre's profound and pitiable incompetence.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE *** + +***** This file should be named 20733-h.htm or 20733-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/3/20733/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) + Essay 1: Robespierre + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: March 3, 2007 [EBook #20733] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +CRITICAL +MISCELLANIES + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + +VOL. I. Essay 1: Robespierre + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED +NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1904 + +CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + +ROBESPIERRE. + +I. + + PAGE + +Introduction 1 + +Different views of Robespierre 4 + +His youthful history 5 + +An advocate at Arras 7 + +Acquaintance with Carnot 10 + +The summoning of the States-General 11 + +Prophecies of revolution 12 + +Reforming Ministers tried and dismissed 13 + +Financial state of France 14 + +Impotence of the Monarchy 17 + +The Constituent Assembly 19 + +Robespierre interprets the revolutionary movement rightly 21 + +The Sixth of October 1789 23 + +Alteration in Robespierre's position 25 + +Character of Louis XVI. 28 + +And of Marie Antoinette 29 + +The Constitution and Robespierre's mark upon it 34 + +Instability of the new arrangements 37 + +Importance of Jacobin ascendancy 41 + +The Legislative Assembly 42 + +Robespierre's power at the Jacobin Club 44 + +His oratory 45 + +The true secret of his popularity 48 + +Aggravation of the crisis in the spring of 1792 50 + +The Tenth of August 1792 52 + +Danton 53 + +Compared with Robespierre 55 + +Robespierre compared with Marat and with Sieyes 57 + +Character of the Terror 58 + + +II. + +Fall of the Girondins indispensable 60 + +France in desperate peril 61 + +The Committee of Public Safety 65 + +At the Tuileries 67 + +The contending factions 70 + +Reproduced an older conflict of theories 72 + +Robespierre's attitude 73 + +The Hebertists 77 + +Chaumette and his fundamental error 80 + +Robespierre and the atheists 82 + +His bitterness towards Anacharsis Clootz 86 + +New turn of events (March 1794) 90 + +First breach in the Jacobin ranks: the Hebertists 90 + +Robespierre's abandonment of Danton 91 + +Second breach: the Dantonians (April 1794) 95 + +Another reminiscence of this date 97 + +Robespierre's relations to the Committees changed 98 + +The Feast of the Supreme Being 101 + +Its false philosophy 103 + +And political inanity 104 + +The Law of Prairial 106 + +Robespierre's motive in devising it 107 + +It produces the Great Terror 109 + +Robespierre's chagrin at its miscarriage 112 + +His responsibility not to be denied 112 + + (1) Affair of Catherine Theot 113 + + " Cecile Renault 114 + + (2) Robespierre stimulated popular commissions 115 + +The drama of Thermidor: the combatants 117 + +Its conditions 118 + +The Eighth Thermidor 119 + +Inefficiency of Robespierre's speech 121 + +The Ninth Thermidor 123 + +Famous scene in the Convention 125 + +Robespierre a prisoner 127 + +Struggle between the Convention and the Commune 129 + +Death of Robespierre 131 + +Ultimate issue of the struggle between the Committees +and the Convention 132 + + + + +ROBESPIERRE. + + + + +I. + +A French writer has recently published a careful and interesting volume +on the famous events which ended in the overthrow of Robespierre and the +close of the Reign of Terror.[1] These events are known in the historic +calendar as the Revolution of Thermidor in the Year II. After the fall +of the monarchy, the Convention decided that the year should begin with +the autumnal equinox, and that the enumeration should date from the +birth of the Republic. The Year I. opens on September 22, 1792; the Year +II. opens on the same day of 1793. The month of Thermidor begins on July +19. The memorable Ninth Thermidor therefore corresponds to July 27, +1794. This has commonly been taken as the date of the commencement of a +counter-revolution, and in one sense it was so. Comte, however, and +others have preferred to fix the reaction at the execution of Danton +(April 5, 1794), or Robespierre's official proclamation of Deism in the +Festival of the Supreme Being (May 7, 1794). + +[Footnote 1: _La Revolution de Thermidor_. Par Ch. D'Hericault. Paris: +Didier, 1876.] + +M. D'Hericault does not belong to the school of writers who treat the +course of history as a great high road, following a firmly traced line, +and set with plain and ineffaceable landmarks. The French Revolution has +nearly always been handled in this way, alike by those who think it +fruitful in blessings, and by their adversaries, who pronounce it a +curse inflicted by the wrath of Heaven. Historians have looked at the +Revolution as a plain landsman looks at the sea. To the landsman the +ocean seems one huge immeasurable flood, obeying a simple law of ebb and +flow, and offering to the navigator a single uniform force. Yet in truth +we know that the oceanic movement is the product of many forces; the +seeming uniformity covers the energy of a hundred currents and +counter-currents; the sea-floor is not even nor the same, but is subject +to untold conditions of elevation and subsidence; the sea is not one +mass, but many masses moving along definite lines of their own. It is +the same with the great tides of history. Wise men shrink from summing +them up in single propositions. That the French Revolution led to an +immense augmentation of happiness, both for the French and for mankind, +can only be denied by the Pope. That it secured its beneficent results +untempered by any mixture of evil, can only be maintained by men as mad +as Doctor Pangloss. The Greek poetess Corinna said to the youthful +Pindar, when he had interwoven all the gods and goddesses in the Theban +mythology into a single hymn, that we should sow with the hand and not +with the sack. Corinna's monition to the singer is proper to the +interpreter of historical truth: he should cull with the hand, and not +sweep in with the scythe. It is doubtless mere pedantry to abstain from +the widest conception of the sum of a great movement. A clear, definite, +and stable idea of the meaning in the history of human progress of such +vast groups of events as the Reformation or the Revolution, is +indispensable for any one to whom history is a serious study of society. +It is just as important, however, not to forget that they were really +groups of events, and not in either case a single uniform movement. The +World-Epos is after all only a file of the morning paper in a state of +glorification. A sensible man learns, in everyday life, to abstain from +praising and blaming character by wholesale; he becomes content to say +of this trait that it is good, and of that act that it was bad. So in +history, we become unwilling to join or to admire those who insist upon +transferring their sentiment upon the whole to their judgment upon each +part. We seek to be allowed to retain a decided opinion as to the final +value to mankind of a long series of transactions, and yet not to commit +ourselves to set the same estimate on each transaction in particular, +still less on each person associated with it. Why shall we not prize the +general results of the Reformation, without being obliged to defend John +of Leyden and the Munster Anabaptists? + +M. D'Hericault's volume naturally suggests such reflections as these. Of +all the men of the Revolution, Robespierre has suffered most from the +audacious idolatry of some writers, and the splenetic impatience of +others. M. Louis Blanc and M. Ernest Hamel talk of him as an angel or a +prophet, and the Ninth Thermidor is a red day indeed in their +martyrology. Michelet and M. D'Hericault treat him as a mixture of +Cagliostro and Caligula, both a charlatan and a miscreant. We are +reminded of the commencement of an address of the French Senate to the +first Bonaparte: 'Sire,' they began, 'the desire for perfection is one +of the worst maladies that can afflict the human mind.' This bold +aphorism touches one of the roots of the judgments we pass both upon men +and events. It is because people so irrationally think fit to insist +upon perfection, that Robespierre's admirers would fain deny that he +ever had a fault, and the tacit adoption of the same impracticable +standard makes it easier for Robespierre's wholesale detractors to deny +that he had a single virtue or performed a single service. The point of +view is essentially unfit for history. The real subject of history is +the improvement of social arrangements, and no conspicuous actor in +public affairs since the world began saw the true direction of +improvement with an absolutely unerring eye from the beginning of his +career to the end. It is folly for the historian, as it is for the +statesman, to strain after the imaginative unity of the dramatic +creator. Social progress is an affair of many small pieces and slow +accretions, and the interest of historic study lies in tracing, amid the +immense turmoil of events and through the confusion of voices, the +devious course of the sacred torch, as it shifts from bearer to bearer. +And it is not the bearers who are most interesting, but the torch. + + * * * * * + +In the old Flemish town of Arras, known in the diplomatic history of the +fifteenth century by a couple of important treaties, and famous in the +industrial history of the Middle Ages for its pre-eminence in the +manufacture of the most splendid kind of tapestry hangings, Maximilian +Robespierre was born in May 1758. He was therefore no more than five and +thirty years old when he came to his ghastly end in 1794. His father was +a lawyer, and, though the surname of the family had the prefix of +nobility, they belonged to the middle class. When this decorative prefix +became dangerous, Maximilian Derobespierre dropped it. His great rival, +Danton, was less prudent or less fortunate, and one of the charges made +against him was that he had styled himself Monsieur D'Anton. + +Robespierre's youth was embittered by sharp misfortune. His mother died +when he was only seven years old, and his father had so little courage +under the blow that he threw up his practice, deserted his children, and +died in purposeless wanderings through Germany. The burden that the weak +and selfish throw down, must be taken up by the brave. Friendly +kinsfolk charged themselves with the maintenance of the four orphans. +Maximilian was sent to the school of the town, whence he proceeded with +a sizarship to the college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He was an apt and +studious pupil, but austere, and disposed to that sombre cast of spirits +which is common enough where a lad of some sensibility and much +self-esteem finds himself stamped with a badge of social inferiority. +Robespierre's worshippers love to dwell on his fondness for birds: with +the universal passion of mankind for legends of the saints, they tell +how the untimely death of a favourite pigeon afflicted him with anguish +so poignant, that, even sixty long years after, it made his sister's +heart ache to look back upon the pain of that tragic moment. Always a +sentimentalist, Robespierre was from boyhood a devout enthusiast for the +great high priest of the sentimental tribe. Rousseau was then passing +the last squalid days of his life among the meadows and woods at +Ermenonville. Robespierre, who could not have been more than twenty at +the time, for Rousseau died in the summer of 1778, is said to have gone +on a reverential pilgrimage in search of an oracle from the lonely sage, +as Boswell and as Gibbon and a hundred others had gone before him. +Rousseau was wont to use his real adorers as ill as he used his +imaginary enemies. Robespierre may well have shared the discouragement +of the enthusiastic father who informed Rousseau that he was about to +bring up his son on the principles of _Emilius_. 'Then so much the +worse,' cried the perverse philosopher, 'both for you and your son.' If +he had been endowed with second sight, he would have thought at least as +rude a presage due to this last and most ill-starred of a whole +generation of neophytes. + +In 1781 Robespierre returned to Arras, and amid the welcome of his +relatives and the good hopes of friends began the practice of an +advocate. For eight years he led an active and seemly life. He was not +wholly pure from that indiscretion of the young appetite, about which +the world is mute, but whose better ordering and governance would give a +diviner brightness to the earth. Still, if he did not escape the ordeal +of youth, Robespierre was frugal, laborious, and persevering. His +domestic amiability made him the delight of his sister, and his zealous +self-sacrifice for the education and advancement in life of his younger +brother was afterwards repaid by Augustin Robespierre's devotion through +all the fierce and horrible hours of Thermidor. Though cold in +temperament, extremely reserved in manners, and fond of industrious +seclusion, Robespierre did not disdain the social diversions of the +town. He was a member of a reunion of Rosati, who sang madrigals and +admired one another's bad verses. Those who love the ironical surprises +of fate, may picture the young man who was doomed to play so terrible a +part in terrible affairs, going through the harmless follies of a +ceremonial reception by the Rosati, taking three deep breaths over a +rose, solemnly fastening the emblem to his coat, emptying a glass of +rose-red wine at a draught to the good health of the company, and +finally reciting couplets that Voltaire would have found almost as +detestable as the Law of Prairial or the Festival of the Supreme Being. +More laudable efforts of ambition were prize essays, in which +Robespierre has the merit of taking the right side in important +questions. He protested against the inhumanity of laws that inflicted +civil infamy upon the innocent family of a convicted criminal. And he +protested against the still more horrid cruelty which reduced +unfortunate children born out of wedlock to something like the status of +the mediaeval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise +above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a +manhood of benignity and enlightenment. To compose prize essays on +political reforms was better than to ignore or to oppose political +reform. But the course of events afterwards owed their least desirable +bias to the fact that such compositions were the nearest approach to +political training that so many of the revolutionary leaders underwent. +One is inclined to apply to practical politics Arthur Young's sensible +remark about the endeavour of the French to improve the quality of their +wool: 'A cultivator at the head of a sheep-farm of 3000 or 4000 acres, +would in a few years do more for their wools than all the academicians +and philosophers will effect in ten centuries.' + +In his profession he distinguished himself in one or two causes of local +celebrity. An innovating citizen had been ordered by the authorities to +remove a lightning-conductor from his house within three days, as being +a mischievous practical paradox, as well as a danger and an annoyance to +his neighbours. Robespierre pleaded the innovator's case on appeal, and +won it. He defended a poor woman who had been wrongfully accused by a +monk belonging to the powerful corporation of a great neighbouring +abbey. The young advocate did not even shrink from manfully arguing a +case against the august Bishop of Arras himself. His independence did +him no harm. The Bishop afterwards appointed him to the post of judge or +legal assessor in the episcopal court. This tribunal was a remnant of +what had once been the sovereign authority and jurisdiction of the +Bishops of Arras. That a court with the power of life and death should +thus exist by the side of a proper corporation of civil magistrates, is +an illustration of the inextricable labyrinth of the French law and its +administration on the eve of the Revolution. Robespierre did not hold +his office long. Every one has heard the striking story, how the young +judge, whose name was within half a dozen years to take a place in the +popular mind of France and of Europe with the bloodiest monsters of myth +or history, resigned his post in a fit of remorse after condemning a +murderer to be executed. 'He is a criminal, no doubt,' Robespierre kept +groaning in reply to the consolations of his sister, for women are more +positive creatures than men: 'a criminal, no doubt; but to put a man to +death!' Many a man thus begins the great voyage with queasy +sensibilities, and ends it a cannibal. + +Among Robespierre's associates in the festive mummeries of the Rosati +was a young officer of Engineers, who was destined to be his colleague +in the dread Committee of Public Safety, and to leave an important name +in French history. In the garrison of Arras, Carnot was quartered,--that +iron head, whose genius for the administrative organisation of war +achieved even greater things for the new republic than the genius of +Louvois had achieved for the old monarchy. Carnot surpassed not only +Louvois, but perhaps all other names save one in modern military +history, by uniting to the most powerful gifts for organisation, both +the strategic talent that planned the momentous campaign of 1794, and +the splendid personal energy and skill that prolonged the defence of +Antwerp against the allied army in 1814 Partisans dream of the +unrivalled future of peace, glory, and freedom that would have fallen to +the lot of France, if only the gods had brought about a hearty union +between the military genius of Carnot and the political genius of +Robespierre. So, no doubt, after the restoration of Charles II. in +England, there were good men who thought that all would have gone very +differently, if only the genius of the great creator of the Ironsides +had taken counsel with the genius of Venner, the Fifth-Monarchy Man, and +Feak, the Anabaptist prophet. + +The time was now come when such men as Robespierre were to be tried with +fire, when they were to drink the cup of fury and the dregs of the cup +of trembling. Sybils and prophets have already spoken their inexorable +decree, as Goethe has said, on the day that first gives the man to the +world; no time and no might can break the stamped mould of his +character; only as life wears on, do all its aforeshapen lines come into +light. He is launched into a sea of external conditions, that are as +independent of his own will as the temperament with which he confronts +them. It is action that tries, and variation of circumstance. The leaden +chains of use bind many an ugly unsuspected prisoner in the soul; and +when the habit of their lives has been sundered, the most immaculate are +capable of antics beyond prevision. A great crisis of the world was +prepared for Robespierre and those others, his allies or his destroyers, +who with him came like the lightning and went like the wind. + +At the end of 1788 the King of France found himself forced to summon the +States-General. It was their first assembly since 1614. On the memorable +Fourth of May, 1789, Robespierre appeared at Versailles as one of the +representatives of the third estate of his native province of Artois. +The excitement and enthusiasm of the elections to this renowned +assembly, the immense demands and boundless expectations that they +disclosed, would have warned a cool observer of events, if in that +heated air a cool observer could have been found, that the hour had +struck for the fulfilment of those grim apprehensions of revolution that +had risen in the minds of many shrewd men, good and bad, in the course +of the previous half century. No great event in history ever comes +wholly unforeseen. The antecedent causes are so wide-reaching, many, and +continuous, that their direction is always sure to strike the eye of one +or more observers in all its significance. Lewis the Fifteenth, whose +invincible weariness and heavy disgust veiled a penetrating discernment, +measured accurately the scope of the conflict between the crown and the +parlements: but, said he, things as they are will last my time. Under +the roof of his own palace at Versailles, in the apartment of Madame de +Pompadour's famous physician, one of Quesnai's economic disciples had +cried out, 'The realm is in a sore way; it will never be cured without a +great internal commotion; but woe to those who have to do with it; into +such work the French go with no slack hand.' Rousseau, in a passage in +the Confessions, not only divines a speedy convulsion, but with striking +practical sagacity enumerates the political and social causes that were +unavoidably drawing France to the edge of the abyss. Lord Chesterfield, +so different a man from Rousseau, declared as early as 1752, that he saw +in France every symptom that history had taught him to regard as the +forerunner of deep change; before the end of the century, so his +prediction ran, both the trade of king and the trade of priest in France +would be shorn of half their glory. D'Argenson in the same year declared +a revolution inevitable, and with a curious precision of anticipation +assured himself that if once the necessity arose of convoking the +States-General, they would not assemble in vain: _qu'on y prenne, garde! +ils seraient fort serieux!_ Oliver Goldsmith, idly wandering through +France, towards 1755, discerned in the mutinous attitude of the judicial +corporations, that the genius of freedom was entering the kingdom in +disguise, and that a succession of three weak monarchs would end in the +emancipation of the people of France. The most touching of all these +presentiments is to be found in a private letter of the great Empress, +the mother of Marie Antoinette herself. Maria Theresa describes the +ruined state of the French monarchy, and only prays that if it be doomed +to ruin still more utter, at least the blame may not fall upon her +daughter. The Empress had not learnt that when the giants of social +force are advancing from the sombre shadow of the past, with the thunder +and the hurricane in their hands, our poor prayers are of no more avail +than the unbodied visions of a dream. + +The old popular assembly of the realm was not resorted to before every +means of dispensing with so drastic a remedy had been tried. Historians +sometimes write as if Turgot were the only able and reforming minister +of the century. God forbid that we should put any other minister on a +level with that high and beneficent figure. But Turgot was not the first +statesman, both able and patriotic, who had been disgraced for want of +compliance with the conditions of success at court; he was only the last +of a series. Chauvelin, a man of vigour and capacity, was dismissed +with ignominy in 1736. Machault, a reformer, at once courageous and +wise, shared the same fate twenty years later; and in his case +revolution was as cruel and as heedless as reaction, for, at the age of +ninety-one, the old man was dragged, blind and deaf, before the +revolutionary tribunal and thence despatched to the guillotine. Between +Chauvelin and Machault, the elder D'Argenson, who was greater than +either of them, had been raised to power, and then speedily hurled down +from it (1747), for no better reason than that his manners were uncouth, +and that he would not waste his time in frivolities that were as the +breath of life in the great gallery at Versailles and on the +smooth-shaven lawns of Fontainebleau. + +Not only had wise counsellors been tried; consultative assemblies had +been tried also. Necker had been dismissed in 1781, after publishing the +memorable Report which first initiated the nation in the elements of +financial knowledge. The disorder waxed greater, and the monarchy drew +nearer to bankruptcy each year. The only modern parallel to the state of +things in France under Lewis the Sixteenth is to be sought in the state +of things in Egypt or in Turkey. Lewis the Fourteenth had left a debt of +between two and three thousand millions of livres, but this had been +wiped out by the heroic operations of Law; operations, by the way, which +have never yet been scientifically criticised. But the debt soon grew +again, by foolish wars, by the prodigality of the court, and by the +rapacity of the nobles. It amounted in 1789 to something like two +hundred and forty millions sterling; and it is interesting to notice +that this was exactly the sum of the public debt of Great Britain at the +same time. The year's excess of expenditure over receipts in 1774 was +about fifty millions of livres: in 1787 it was one hundred and forty +millions, or according to a different computation even two hundred +millions. The material case was not at all desperate, if only the court +had been less infatuated, and the spirit of the privileged orders had +been less blind and less vile. The fatality of the situation lay in the +characters of a handful of men and women. For France was abundant in +resources, and even at this moment was far from unprosperous, in spite +of the incredible trammels of law and custom. An able financier, with +the support of a popular chamber and the assent of the sovereign, could +have had no difficulty in restoring the public credit. But the +conditions, simple as they might seem to a patriot or to posterity, were +unattainable so long as power remained with a caste that were anything +we please except patriots. An Assembly of Notables was brought together, +but it was only the empty phantasm of national representation. Yet the +situation was so serious that even this body, of arbitrary origin as it +was, still was willing to accept vital reforms. The privileged order, +who were then as their descendants are now, the worst conservative party +in Europe, immediately persuaded the magisterial corporation to resist +the Notables. The judicial corporation or Parlement of Paris had been +suppressed under Lewis the Fifteenth, and unfortunately revived again at +the accession of his grandson. By the inconvenient constitution of the +French government, the assent of that body was indispensable to fiscal +legislation, on the ground that such legislation was part of the general +police of the realm. The king's minister, now Lomenie de Brienne, +devised a new judicial constitution. But the churchmen, the nobles, and +the lawyers all united in protestations against such a blow. The common +people are not always the best judges of a remedy for the evils under +which they are the greatest sufferers, and they broke out in disorder +both in Paris and the provinces. They discerned an attack upon their +local independence. Nobody would accept office in the new courts, and +the administration of justice was at a standstill. A loan was thrown +upon the market, but the public could not be persuaded to take it up. It +was impossible to collect the taxes. The interest on the national debt +was unpaid, and the fundholder was dismayed and exasperated by an +announcement that only two-fifths would be discharged in cash. A very +large part of the national debt was held in the form of annuities for +lives, and men who had invested their savings on the credit of the +government, saw themselves left without a provision. The total number of +fundholders cannot be ascertained with any precision, but it must have +been very considerable, especially in Paris and the other great cities. +Add to these all the civil litigants in the kingdom, who had portions of +their property virtually sequestrated by the suspension of the courts +into which the property had been taken. The resentment of this immense +body of defrauded public creditors and injured private suitors explains +the alienation of the middle class from the monarchy. In the convulsions +of our own time, the moneyed interests have been on one side, and the +population without money on the other. But in the first and greatest +convulsion, those who had nothing to lose found their animosities shared +by those who had had something to lose, and had lost it. + +Deliberative assemblies, then, had been tried, and ministers had been +tried; both had failed, and there was no other device left, except one +which was destructive to absolute monarchy. Lewis the Sixteenth was in +1789 in much the same case as that of the King of England in 1640. +Charles had done his best to raise money without any parliament for +twelve years: he had lost patience with the Short Parliament; finally, +he was driven without choice or alternative to face as he best could the +stout resolution and the wise patriotism of the Long Parliament. Men +sometimes wonder how it was that Lewis, when he came to find the +National Assembly unmanageable, and discovering how rapidly he was +drifting towards the thunders of the revolutionary cataract, did not +break up a Chamber over which neither the court, nor even a minister so +popular as Necker, had the least control. It is a question whether the +sword would not have broken in his hand. Even supposing, however, that +the army would have consented to a violent movement against the +Assembly, the King would still have been left in the same desperate +straits from which he had looked to the States-General to extricate him. +He might perhaps have dispersed the Assembly; he could not disperse debt +and deficit. Those monsters would have haunted him as implacably as +ever. There was no new formula of exorcism, nor any untried enchantment. +The success of violent designs against the National Assembly, had +success been possible, could, after all, have been followed by no other +consummation than the relapse of France into the raging anarchy of +Poland, or the sullen decrepitude of Turkey. + +This will seem to some persons no better than fatalism. But, in truth, +there are two popular ways of reading the history of events between 1789 +and 1794, and each of them seems to us as bad as the other. According to +one, whatever happened in the Revolution was good and admirable, because +it happened. According to the other, something good and admirable was +always attainable, and, if only bad men had not interposed, always ready +to happen. Of course, the only sensible view is that many of the +revolutionary solutions were detestable, but no other solution was +within reach. This is undoubtedly the best of possible worlds; if the +best is not so good as we could wish, that is the fault of the +possibilities. Such a doctrine is neither fatalism nor optimism, but an +honest recognition of long chains of cause and effect in human affairs. + +The great gathering of chosen men was first called States-General; then +it called itself National Assembly; it is commonly known in history as +the Constituent Assembly. The name is of ironical association, for the +constitution which it framed after much travail endured for no more than +a few months. Its deliberations lasted from May 1789 until September +1791. Among its members were three principal groups. There was, first, a +band of blind adherents of the old system of government with all or most +of its abuses. Second, there was a Centre of timid and one-eyed men, who +were for transforming the old absolutist system into something that +should resemble the constitution of our own country. Finally, there was +a Left, with some differences of shade, but all agreeing in the +necessity of a thorough remodelling of every institution and most of the +usages of the country. 'Silence, you thirty votes!' cried Mirabeau one +day, when he was interrupted by the dissents of the Mountain. This was +the original measure of the party that in the twinkling of an eye was to +wield the destinies of France. In our own time we have wondered at the +rapidity with which a Chamber that was one day on the point of bringing +back the grandnephew of Lewis the Sixteenth, found itself a little later +voting that Republic which has since been ratified by the nation, and +has at this moment the ardent good wishes of every enlightened +politician in Europe. In the same way it is startling to think that +within three years of the beheading of Lewis the Sixteenth, there was +probably not one serious republican in the representative assembly of +France. Yet it is always so. We might make just the same remark of the +House of Commons at Westminster in 1640, and of the Assembly of +Massachusetts or of New York as late as 1770. The final flash of a long +unconscious train of thought or intent is ever a surprise and a shock. +It is a mistake to set these swift changes down to political levity; +they were due rather to quickness of political intuition. It was the +King's attempt at flight in the summer of 1791 that first created a +republican party. It was that unhappy exploit, and no theoretical +preferences, that awoke France to the necessity of choosing between the +sacrifice of monarchy and the restoration of territorial aristocracy. + +Political intuition was never one of Robespierre's conspicuous gifts. +But he had a doctrine that for a certain time served the same purpose. +Rousseau had kindled in him a fervid democratic enthusiasm, and had +penetrated his mind with the principle of the Sovereignty of the People. +This famous dogma contained implicitly within it the more indisputable +truth that a society ought to be regulated with a view to the happiness +of the people. Such a principle made it easier for Robespierre to +interpret rightly the first phases of the revolutionary movement. It +helped him to discern that the concentrated physical force of the +populace was the only sure protection against a civil war. And if a +civil war had broken out in 1789, instead of 1793, all the advantages of +authority would have been against the popular party. The first +insurrection of Paris is associated with the harangue of Camille +Desmoulins at the Palais Royal, with the fall of the Bastille, with the +murder of the governor, and a hundred other scenes of melodramatic +horror and the blood-red picturesque. The insurrection of the Fourteenth +of July 1789 taught Robespierre a lesson of practical politics, which +exactly fitted in with his previous theories. In his resentment against +the oppressive disorder of monarchy and feudalism, he had accepted the +counter principle that the people can do no wrong, and nobody of sense +now doubts that in their first great act the people of Paris did what +was right. Six days after the fall of the Bastille, the Centre were for +issuing a proclamation denouncing popular violence and ordering rigorous +vigilance. Robespierre was then so little known in the Assembly that +even his name was usually misspelt in the journals. From his obscure +bench on the Mountain he cried out with bitter vehemence against the +proposed proclamation:--'Revolt! But this revolt is liberty. The battle +is not at its end. Tomorrow, it may be, the shameful designs against us +will be renewed; and who will there then be to repulse them, if +beforehand we declare the very men to be rebels, who have rushed to +arms for our protection and safety?' This was the cardinal truth of the +situation. Everybody knows Mirabeau's saying about Robespierre:--'That +man will go far: he believes every word that he says!' This is much, but +it is only half. It is not only that the man of power believes what he +says; what he believes must fit in with the facts and with the demands +of the time. Now Robespierre's firmness of conviction happened at this +stage to be rightly matched by his clearness of sight. + +It is true that a passionate mob, its unearthly admixture of laughter +with fury, of vacancy with deadly concentration, is as terrible as some +uncouth antediluvian, or the unfamiliar monsters of the sea, or one of +the giant plants that make men shudder with mysterious fear. The history +of our own country in the eighteenth century tells of the riots against +meeting-houses in Doctor Sacheverell's time, and the riots against +papists and their abettors in Lord George Gordon's time, and +Church-and-King riots in Doctor Priestley's time. It would be too +daring, therefore, to maintain that the rabble of the poor have any more +unerring political judgment than the rabble of the opulent. But, in +France in 1789, Robespierre was justified in saying that revolt meant +liberty. If there had been no revolt in July, the court party would have +had time to mature their infatuated designs of violence against the +Assembly. In October these designs had come to life again. The royalists +at Versailles had exultant banquets, at which, in the presence of the +Queen, they drank confusion to all patriots, and trampled the new emblem +of freedom passionately underfoot. The news of this odious folly soon +travelled to Paris. Its significance was speedily understood by a +populace whose wits were sharpened by famine. Thousands of fire-eyed +women and men tramped intrepidly out towards Versailles. If they had +done less, the Assembly would have been dispersed or arbitrarily +decimated, even though such a measure would certainly have left the +government in desperation. + +At that dreadful moment of the Sixth of October, amid the slaughter of +guards and the frantic yells of hatred against the Queen, it is no +wonder that some were found to urge the King to flee to Metz. If he had +accepted the advice, the course of the Revolution would have been +different; but its march would have been just as irresistible, for +revolution lay in the force of a hundred combined circumstances. Lewis, +however, rejected these counsels, and suffered the mob to carry him in +bewildering procession to his capital and his prison. That great man who +was watching French affairs with such consuming eagerness from distant +Beaconsfield in our English Buckinghamshire, instantly divined that this +procession from Versailles to the Tuileries marked the fall of the +monarchy. 'A revolution in sentiment, manners, and moral opinions, the +most important of all revolutions in a word,' was in Burke's judgment to +be dated from the Sixth of October 1789. + +The events of that day did, indeed, give its definite cast to the +situation. The moral authority of the sovereign came to an end, along +with the ancient and reverend mystery of the inviolability of his +person. The Count d'Artois, the King's second brother, one of the most +worthless of human beings, as incurably addicted to sinister and +suicidal counsels in 1789 as he was when he overthrew his own throne +forty years later, had run away from peril and from duty after the +insurrection of July. After the insurrection of October, a troop of the +nobles of the court followed him. The personal cowardice of the +Emigrants was only matched by their political blindness. Many of the +most unwise measures in the Assembly were only passed by small +majorities, and the majorities would have been transformed into +minorities, if in the early days of the Revolution these unworthy men +had only stood firm at their posts. Selfish oligarchies have scarcely +ever been wanting in courage. The emigrant noblesse of France are almost +the only instance of a great privileged and territorial caste that had +as little bravery as they had patriotism. The explanation is that they +had been an oligarchy, not of power or duty, but of self-indulgence. +They were crushed by Richelieu to secure the unity of the monarchy. They +now effaced themselves at the Revolution, and this secured that far +greater object, the unity of the nation. + +The disappearance of so many of the nobles from France was not the only +abdication on the part of the conservative powers. Cowed and terrified +by the events of October, no less than three hundred members of the +Assembly sought to resign. The average attendance even at the most +important sittings was often incredibly small. Thus the Chamber came to +have little more moral authority in face of the people of Paris than had +the King himself. The people of Paris had themselves become in a day the +masters of France. + +This immense change led gradually to a decisive alteration in the +position of Robespierre. He found the situation of affairs at last +falling into perfect harmony with his doctrine. Rousseau had taught him +that the people ought to be sovereign, and now the people were being +recognised as sovereign _de facto_ no less than _de jure_. Any +limitations on the new divine right united the horror of blasphemy to +the secular wickedness of political treason. After the Assembly had come +to Paris, a famishing mob in a moment of mad fury murdered an +unfortunate baker, who was suspected of keeping back bread. These +paroxysms led to the enactment of a new martial law. Robespierre spoke +vehemently against it; such a law implied a wrongful distrust of the +people. Then discussions followed as to the property qualification of an +elector. Citizens were classed as active and passive. Only those were to +have votes who paid direct taxes to the amount of three days' wages in +the year. Robespierre flung himself upon this too famous distinction +with bitter tenacity. If all men are equal, he cried, then all men +ought to have votes: if he who only pays the amount of one day's work, +has fewer rights than another who pays the amount of three days, why +should not the man who pays ten days have more rights than the other who +only pays the earnings of three days? This kind of reasoning had little +weight with the Chamber, but it made the reasoner very popular with the +throng in the galleries. Even within the Assembly, influence gradually +came to the man who had a parcel of immutable axioms and postulates, and +who was ready with a deduction and a phrase for each case as it arose. +He began to stand out like a needle of sharp rock, amid the flitting +shadows of uncertain purpose and the vapoury drift of wandering aims. + +Robespierre had no social conception, and he had nothing which can be +described as a policy. He was the prophet of a sect, and had at this +period none of the aims of the chief of a political party. What he had +was democratic doctrine, and an intrepid logic. And Robespierre's +intrepid logic was the nearest approach to calm force and coherent +character that the first three years of the Revolution brought into +prominence. When the Assembly met, Necker was the popular idol. Almost +within a few weeks, this well-meaning, but very incompetent divinity had +slipped from his throne, and Lafayette had taken his place. Mirabeau +came next. The ardent and animated genius of his eloquence fitted him +above all men to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm. And on the +memorable Twenty-third of June '89, he had shown the genuine audacity +and resource of a revolutionary statesman, when he stirred the Chamber +to defy the King's demand, and hailed the royal usher with the +resounding words:--'You, sir, have neither place nor right of speech. Go +tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people, and +only bayonets shall drive us hence!' But Mirabeau bore a tainted +character, and was always distrusted. 'Ah, how the immorality of my +youth,' he used to say, in words that sum up the tragedy of many a +puissant life, 'how the immorality of my youth hinders the public good!' +The event proved that the popular suspicion was just: the patriot is now +no longer merely suspected, but known, to have sullied his hands with +the money of the court. He did not sell himself, it has been said; he +allowed himself to be paid. The distinction was too subtle for men doing +battle for their lives and for freedom, and Mirabeau's popularity waned +towards the middle of 1790. The next favourite was Barnave, the generous +and high-minded spokesman of those sanguine spirits who to the very end +hoped against hope to save both the throne and its occupant. By the +spring of 1791 Barnave followed his predecessors into disfavour. The +Assembly was engaged on the burning question of the government of the +colonies. Were the negro slaves to be admitted to citizenship, or was a +legislature of planters to be entrusted with the task of social +reformation? Our own generation has seen in the republic of the West +what strife this political difficulty is capable of raising. Barnave +pronounced against the negroes. Robespierre, on the contrary, declaimed +against any limitation of the right of the negro, as a compromise with +the avarice, pride, and cruelty of a governing race, and a guilty +trafficking with the rights of man. Barnave from that day saw that his +laurel crown had gone to Robespierre. + +If the people 'called him noble that was now their hate, him vile that +was their garland,' they did not transfer their affections without sound +reason. Barnave's sensibility was too easily touched. There are many +politicians in every epoch whose principles grow slack and flaccid at +the approach of the golden sun of royalty. Barnave was one of those who +was sent to bring back the fugitive King and Queen from Varennes, and +the journey by their side in the coach unstrung his spirit. He became +one of the court's clandestine advisers. Men of this weak susceptibility +of imagination are not fit for times of revolution. To be on the side of +the court was to betray the cause of the nation. We cannot take too much +pains to realise that the voluntary conversion of Lewis the Sixteenth to +a popular constitution and the abolition of feudalism, was practically +as impossible as the conversion of Pope Pius the Ninth to the doctrine +of a free church in a free state. Those who believe in the miracle of +free will may think of this as they please. Sensible people who accept +the scientific account of human character, know that the sudden +transformation of a man or a woman brought up to middle age as the heir +to centuries of absolutist tradition, into adherents of a government +that agreed with the doctrines of Locke and Milton, was only possible on +condition of supernatural interference. The King's good nature was no +substitute for political capacity or insight. An instructive measure of +the degree in which he possessed these two qualities may be found in +that deplorable diary of his, where on such days as the Fourteenth of +July, when the Bastille fell, and the Sixth of October, when he was +carried in triumph from Versailles to the Tuileries, he made the simple +entry, '_Rien_.' And he had no firmness. It was as difficult to keep the +King to a purpose, La Marck said to Mirabeau, as to keep together a +number of well-oiled ivory balls. Lewis, moreover, was guided by a more +energetic and less compliant character than his own. + +Marie Antoinette's high mien in adversity, and the contrast between the +dazzling splendour of her first years and the scenes of outrage and +bloody death that made the climax of her fate, could not but strike the +imaginations of men. Such contrasts are the very stuff of which Tragedy, +the gorgeous muse with scepter'd pall, loves to weave her most imposing +raiment. But history must be just; and the character of the Queen had +far more concern in the disaster of the first five years of the +Revolution than had the character of Robespierre. Every new document +that comes to light heaps up proof that if blind and obstinate choice +of personal gratification before the common weal be enough to constitute +a state criminal, then the Queen of France was one of the worst state +criminals that ever afflicted a nation. The popular hatred of Marie +Antoinette sprang from a sound instinct. We shall never know how much or +how little truth there was in those frightful charges against her, that +may still be read in a thousand pamphlets. These imputed depravities far +surpass anything that John Knox ever said against Mary Stuart, or that +Juvenal has recorded against Messalina; and, perhaps, for the only +parallel we must look to the hideous stories of the Byzantine secretary +against Theodora, the too famous empress of Justinian and the persecutor +of Belisarius. We have to remember that all the revolutionary portraits +are distorted by furious passion, and that Marie Antoinette may no more +deserve to be compared to Mary Stuart than Robespierre deserves to be +compared to Ezzelino or to Alva. The aristocrats were the libellers, if +libels they were. It is at least certain that, from the unlucky hour +when the Austrian archduchess crossed the French frontier, a childish +bride of fourteen, down to the hour when the Queen of France made the +attempt to recross it in resentful flight one and twenty years +afterwards, Marie Antoinette was ignorant, unteachable, blind to events +and deaf to good counsels, a bitter grief to her heroic mother, the evil +genius of her husband, the despair of her truest advisers, and an +exceedingly bad friend to the people of France. When Burke had that +immortal vision of her at Versailles--'just above the horizon, +decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, +glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and +joy'--we know from the correspondence between Maria Theresa and her +minister at Versailles, that what Burke really saw was no divinity, but +a flighty and troublesome schoolgirl, an accomplice in all the ignoble +intrigues, and a sharer of all the small busy passions, that convulse +the insects of a court. The levity that came with her Lorraine blood, +broke out in incredible dissipations; in indiscreet visits to the masked +balls at the opera, in midnight parades and mystifications on the +terrace at Versailles, in insensate gambling. 'The court of France is +turned into a gaming-hell,' said the Emperor Joseph, the Queen's own +brother: 'if they do not amend, the revolution will be cruel.' These +vices or follies were less mischievous than her intervention in affairs +of state. Here her levity was as marked as in the paltry affairs of the +boudoir and the ante-chamber, and here to levity she added both +dissimulation and vindictiveness. It was the Queen's influence that +procured the dismissal of the two virtuous ministers by whose aid the +King was striving to arrest the decay of the government of his kingdom. +Malesherbes was distasteful to her for no better reason than that she +wanted his post for some favourite's favourite. Against Turgot she +conspired with tenacious animosity, because he had suppressed a +sinecure which she designed for a court parasite, and because he would +not support her caprice on behalf of a worthless creature of her +faction. These two admirable men were disgraced on the same day. The +Queen wrote to her mother that she had not meddled in the affair. This +was a falsehood, for she had even sought to have Turgot thrown into the +Bastille. 'I am as one dashed to the ground,' cried the great Voltaire, +now nearing his end. 'Never can we console ourselves for having seen the +golden age dawn and vanish. My eyes see only death in front of me, now +that Turgot is gone. The rest of my days must be all bitterness.' What +hope could there be that the personage who had thus put out the light of +hope for France in 1776, would welcome that greater flame which was +kindled in the land in 1789? + +When people write hymns of pity for the Queen, we always recall the poor +woman whom Arthur Young met, as he was walking up a hill to ease his +horse near Mars-le-Tour. Though the unfortunate creature was only +twenty-eight, she might have been taken for sixty or seventy, her figure +was so bent, her face so furrowed and hardened by toil. Her husband, she +said, had a morsel of land, one cow, and a poor little horse, yet he had +to pay forty-two pounds of wheat and three chickens to one Seigneur, and +one hundred and sixty pounds of oats, one chicken, and one franc to +another, besides very heavy tailles and other taxes; and they had seven +children. She had heard that 'something was to be done by some great +folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how, but God send +us better, for the tailles and the dues grind us to the earth.' It was +such hapless drudges as this who replenished the Queen's gaming tables +at Versailles. Thousands of them dragged on the burden of their harassed +and desperate days, less like men and women than beasts of the field +wrung and tortured and mercilessly overladen, in order that the Queen +might gratify her childish passion for diamonds, or lavish money and +estates on worthless female Polignacs and Lamballes, or kill time at a +cost of five hundred louis a night at lansquenet and the faro bank. The +Queen, it is true, was in all this no worse than other dissipated women +then and since. She did not realise that it was the system to which she +had stubbornly committed herself, that drove the people of the fields to +cut their crops green to be baked in the oven, because their hunger +could not wait; or made them cower whole days in their beds, because +misery seemed to gnaw them there with a duller fang. That she was +unconscious of its effect, makes no difference in the real drift of her +policy; makes no difference in the judgment that we ought to pass upon +it, nor in the gratitude that is owed to the stern men who rose up to +consume her and her court with righteous flame. The Queen and the +courtiers, and the hard-faring woman of Mars-le-Tour, and that whole +generation, have long been dust and shadow; they have vanished from the +earth, as if they were no more than the fire-flies that the peasant of +the Italian poet saw dancing in the vineyard, as he took his evening +rest on the hillside. They have all fled back into the impenetrable +shade whence they came; our minds are free; and if social equity is not +a chimera, Marie Antoinette was the protagonist of the most barbarous +and execrable of causes. + + * * * * * + +Let us return to the shaping of the Constitution, not forgetting that +its stability was to depend upon the Queen. Robespierre left some +characteristic marks on the final arrangements. He imposed upon the +Assembly a motion prohibiting any member of it from accepting office +under the Crown for a period of four years after the dissolution. +Robespierre from this time forth constantly illustrated a very singular +truth; namely, that the most ostentatious faith in humanity in general +seems always to beget the sharpest distrust of all human beings in +particular. He proceeded further in the same direction. It was +Robespierre who persuaded the Chamber to pass a self-denying ordinance. +All its members were declared ineligible for a seat in the legislature +that was to replace them. The members of the Right on this occasion went +with their bitter foes of the Extreme Left, and to both parties have +been imputed sinister and Machiavellian motives. The Right, aware that +their own return to the new Assembly was impossible, were delighted to +reduce the men with whom they had been carrying on incensed battle for +two long years, to their own obscurity and impotence. Robespierre, on +the other hand, is accused of a jealous desire to exclude Barnave from +power. He is accused also of a deliberate intention to weaken the new +legislature, in order to secure the preponderance of the Parisian clubs. +There is no evidence that these malignant feelings were in Robespierre's +mind. The reasons he gave were exactly of the kind that we should have +expected to weigh with a man of his stamp. There is even a certain truth +in them, that is not inconsistent with the experience of a parliamentary +country like our own. To talk, he said, of the transmission of light and +experience from one assembly to another, was to distrust the public +spirit. The influence of opinion and the general good grows less, as the +influence of parliamentary orators grows greater. He had no taste, he +proceeded with one of his chilly sneers, for that new science which was +styled the tactics of great assemblies; it was too like intrigue. +Nothing but truth and reason ought to reign in a legislature. He did not +like the idea of clever men becoming dominant by skilful tactics, and +then perpetuating their empire from one assembly to another. He wound up +his discourse with some theatrical talk about disinterestedness. When he +sat down, he was greeted with enthusiastic acclamations, such as a few +months before used to greet the stormful Mirabeau, now wrapped in +eternal sleep amid the stillness of the new Pantheon. The folly of +Robespierre's inferences is obvious enough. If only truth and reason +ought to weigh in a legislature, then it is all the more important not +to exclude any body of men through whom truth and reason may possibly +enter. Robespierre had striven hard to remove all restrictions from +admission to the electoral franchise. He did not see that to limit the +choice of candidates was in itself the most grievous of all +restrictions. + +The common view has been that the Constitution of 1791 perished because +its creators were thus disabled from defending the work of their hands. +This view led to a grave mistake four years later, after Robespierre had +gone to his grave. The Convention, framing the Constitution of the Year +III., decided that two-thirds of the existing assembly should keep their +places, and that only one-third should be popularly elected. This led to +the revolt of the Thirteenth Vendemiaire, and afterwards to the coup +d'etat of the Eighteenth Fructidor. In that sense, no doubt, +Robespierre's proposal was the indirect root of much mischief. But it is +childish to believe that if a hundred of the most prominent members of +the Constituent had found seats in the new assembly, they would have +saved the Constitution. Their experience, the loss of which it is the +fashion to deplore, could have had no application to the strange +combinations of untoward circumstance that were now rising up with such +deadly rapidity in every quarter of the horizon, like vast sombre banks +of impenetrable cloud. Prudence in new cases, as has been somewhere +said, can do nothing on grounds of retrospect. The work of the +Constituent was doomed by the very nature of things. Their assumption +that the Revolution was made, while all France was still torn by fierce +and unappeasable disputes as to seignorial rights, was one of the most +striking pieces of self-deception in history. It is told how in the +eleventh century, when the fervent hosts of the Crusaders tramped across +Europe on their way to deliver the Holy City from the hands of the +unbelievers, the wearied children, as they espied each new town that lay +in their interminable march, cried out with joyful expectation, 'Is not +this, then, Jerusalem?' So France had set out on a portentous journey, +little knowing how far off was the end; lightly taking each poor +halting-place for the deeply longed-for goal; and waxing more fiercely +disappointed, as each new height that they gained only disclosed yet +farther and more unattainable horizons. 'Alas,' said Burke, 'they little +know how many a weary step is to be taken, before they can form +themselves into a mass which has a true political personality.' + +An immense revolution had been effected, but by what force were its +fruits to be guarded? Each step in the revolution had raised a host of +irreconcilable enemies. The rights of property, the old and jealous +associations of local independence, the traditions of personal dignity, +the relations of the civil to the spiritual power--these were the +momentous matters about which the lawmakers of the Constituent had +exercised themselves. The parties of the Chamber had for these two +years past been laying mine and countermine among the very deepest +foundations of society. One by one each great corporation of the old +order had been alienated from the new order. It was inevitable that it +should be so. Let us look at one or two examples of this. The monarchy +had imposed administrative centralisation upon France without securing +national unity. Thus the great provinces that had been slowly added one +after the other to the monarchy, while becoming members of the same +kingdom, still retained different institutions and isolated usages. The +time was now come when France should be France, and its inhabitants +Frenchmen, and no longer Bretons, Normans, Gascons, Provencals. The +Assembly by a single decree (1790) redivided the country into +eighty-three departments. It wiped out at a stroke the separate +administrations, the separate parlements, the peculiar privileges, and +even the historic names of the old provinces. We need not dwell on the +significance of this change here, but will only remark in passing that +the stubborn disputes from the time of the Regency downwards between the +Crown and the provincial parlements turned, under other names and in +other forms, upon this very issue of the unification of the law. The +Crown was with the progressive party, but it lacked the strength and +courage to set aside retrograde local sentiment as the Constituent +Assembly was able to set it aside. + +Then this prodigious change in the distribution of government was +accompanied by no less prodigious a change in the source of power. +Popular election replaced the old system of territorial privilege and +aristocratic prerogative. The effect of this vital innovation, followed +as it was a few months later by a decree abolishing titles and armorial +bearings, was to complete the estrangement of the old privileged classes +from the revolutionary movement. All that they had meant to concede was +the payment of an equal land tax. What was life worth to the noble, if +common people were to be allowed to wear arms and to command a company +of foot or a troop of horse; if he was no longer to have thousands of +acres left waste for the chase; if he was compelled to sue for a vote +where he had only yesterday reigned as manorial lord; if, in short, he +was at a stroke to lose all those delights of insolence and vanity which +had made, not the decoration, but the very substance, of his days? + +Nor were the nobles of the sword and the red-heeled slipper the only +outraged class. The magistracy of the provincial parliaments were +inflamed with resentment against changes that stripped them of the power +of exciting against the new government the same factious and +impracticable spirit with which they had on so many occasions +embarrassed the old. The clergy were thrown even still more violently +into opposition. The Assembly, sorely pressed for resources, declared +the property held by ecclesiastics, amounting to a revenue of not less +than eight million pounds sterling a year, or double that amount in +modern values, to be the property of the nation. Talleyrand carried a +measure decreeing the sale of the ecclesiastical domain. The clergy were +as intensely irritated as laymen would have been by a similar assertion +of sovereign right. And their irritation was made still more dangerous +by the next set of measures against them. + +The Assembly withdrew all recognition of Catholicism as the religion of +the State; monastic vows were abolished, and orders and congregations +suppressed; the ecclesiastical divisions were made to coincide with the +civil divisions, a bishop being allotted to each department. What was a +more important revolution than all, bishops and incumbents were +henceforth to be appointed by popular election. The Assembly, who had +always the institutions of our own country before them, meant to +introduce into France the system of the Church of England, which was +even then an anachronism in the land of its birth; much worse was such a +system an anachronism, after belief had been sapped by a Voltaire and an +Encyclopaedia. The clergy both showed and excited a mutinous spirit. The +Assembly, by way of retort, decreed that all ecclesiastics should take +the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy, on pain +of forfeiture of their benefices. Five-sixths of the clergy refused, and +the result was an outbreak of religious fury in the great towns of the +south and elsewhere, which recalled the violence of the sixteenth +century and the Reformation. + +Thus when the Constituent Assembly ceased from its labours, the popular +party had to face the mocking and defiant privileged classes; the +magistracy, whose craft and calling were gone; and the clergy and as +many of the flocks as shared the holy vindictiveness of their pastors. +Immense material improvements had been made, but who was to guard them +against all these powerful and exasperated bands? No chamber could +execute so portentous an office, least of all a chamber that was bound +to work in accord with a King, who at the very moment when he was +swearing fidelity to the new order of things, was sending entreaties to +the King of Prussia and to the Emperor, his brother-in-law, to overthrow +the new order and bring back the old. If the Revolution had achieved +priceless gains for France, they could only be preserved on condition +that public action was directed by those who valued these gains for +themselves and for their children above all things else--above the +monarchy, above the constitution, above peace, above their own sorry +lives. There was only one party who showed this passionate devotion, +this fanatical resolution not to suffer the work that had been done to +be undone, and never to allow France to sink back from exalted national +life into the lethargy of national death. That party was the Jacobins, +and, above all, the austere and rigorous Jacobins of Paris. On their +ascendancy depended the triumph of the Revolution, and on the triumph of +the Revolution depended the salvation of France. Their ascendancy meant +a Jacobin dictatorship, and against this, as against dictatorship in all +its forms, many things have been said, and truly said. But the one most +important thing that can be said about Jacobin dictatorship is that, in +spite of all the dolorous mishaps and hateful misdeeds that marked its +course, it was still the only instrument capable of concentrating and +utilising the dispersed social energy of the French people. The crisis +was not a crisis of logic but of force, and the Jacobins alone +understood, as the old Covenanters had understood, that problems of +force are not solved by phrases, but by mastery and the sword. + +The great popular club of Paris was the centre of all those who looked +at events in this spirit. The Legislative Assembly, the successor of the +Constituent, met in the month of October 1791. Like its predecessor, the +Legislative contained a host of excellent and patriotic men, and they at +once applied themselves to the all-important task, which the Constituent +had left so deplorably incomplete, of finally breaking down the old +feudal rights. The most important group in the new chamber were the +deputies from the Gironde. Events soon revealed violent dissents between +the Girondins and the Jacobins, but, for some months after the meeting +of the Legislative, Girondins and Jacobins represented together in +unbroken unity the great popular party. From this time until the fall of +the monarchy, the whole of this popular party in all its branches found +their rallying-place, not in the Assembly, but in the Jacobin Club; and +the ascendancy of the Jacobin Club embodied the dictatorship of Paris. +It was only from Paris that the whole circle of events could be +commanded. When the peasants had got what they wanted, that is to say +the emancipation of the land, they were ready to think that the +Revolution was in safety and at an end. They were in no position to see +the enmity of the exiles, the dangerous selfishness of Austria and +Prussia, the disloyal machinations of the court, the reactionary +sentiment of La Vendee, the absolute unworkableness of the new +constitution. Arthur Young, in the height of the agitations of the +Constituent Assembly, found himself at Moulins, the capital of the +Bourbonnais, and on the great post-road to Italy. He went to the best +coffee-house in the town, and found as many as twenty tables spread for +company, but as for a newspaper, he says he might as well have asked for +an elephant. In the capital of a great province, the seat of an +intendant, at a moment like that, with a National Assembly voting a +revolution, and not a newspaper to tell the people whether Fayette, +Mirabeau, or Lewis XVI. were on the throne! Could such a people as this, +he cries, ever have made a revolution or become free? 'Never in a +thousand centuries: the enlightened mob of Paris have done the whole.' +And that was the plain truth. What was involved in such a truth, we +shall see presently. + +Robespierre had now risen to be one of the foremost men in France. To +borrow the figure of an older chief of French faction, from trifling +among the violins in the orchestra, he had ascended to the stage itself, +and had a right to perform leading parts. Disqualified for sitting in +the Assembly, he wielded greater power than ever in the Club. The +Constituent had been full of his enemies. 'Alone with my own soul,' he +once cried to the Jacobins, 'how could I have borne struggles that were +beyond any human strength, if I had not raised my spirit to God?' This +isolation marked him with a kind of theocratic distinction. These +communings with the unseen powers gave a certain indefinable prerogative +to a man, even among the children of the century of Voltaire. Condorcet, +the youngest of the intimates and disciples of Voltaire, of D'Alembert, +of Turgot, was the first to sound bitter warning that Robespierre was at +heart a priest. The suggestion was more than a gibe. Robespierre had the +typic sacerdotal temperament, its sense of personal importance, its thin +unction, its private leanings to the stake and the cord; and he had one +of those deplorable natures that seem as if they had never in their +lives known the careless joys of a springtime. By and by, from mere +priest he developed into the deadlier carnivore, the Inquisitor. + +The absence of advantages of bodily presence has never been fatal to the +pretensions of the pontiff. Robespierre was only a couple of inches +above five feet in height, but the Grand Monarch himself was hardly +more. His eyes were small and weak, and he usually wore spectacles; his +face was pitted by the marks of small-pox; his complexion was dull and +sometimes livid; the tones of his voice were dry and shrill; and he +spoke with the vulgar accent of his province. Such is the accepted +tradition, and there is no reason to dissent from it. It is fair, +however, to remember that Robespierre's enemies had command of his +historic reputation at its source, and this is always a great advantage +for faction, if not for truth. So Robespierre's voice and person may +have been maligned, just as Aristophanes may have been a calumniator +when he accused Cleon of having an intolerably loud voice and smelling +of the tanyard. What is certain is that Robespierre was a master of +effective oratory adapted for a violent popular audience, to impress, to +persuade, and to command. The Convention would have yawned, if it had +not trembled under him, but the Jacobin Club never found him tedious. +Robespierre's style had no richness either of feeling or of phrase; no +fervid originality, no happy violences. If we turn from a page of +Rousseau to a page of Robespierre, we feel that the disciple has none of +the thrilling sonorousness of the master; the glow and the ardour have +become metallic; the long-drawn plangency is parodied by shrill notes of +splenetic complaint. The rhythm has no broad wings; the phrases have no +quality of radiance; the oratorical glimpses never lift the spirit into +new worlds. We are never conscious of those great pulses of strong +emotion that shake and vibrate through the nobly-measured periods of +Cicero or Bossuet or Burke. Robespierre could not rival the vivid and +highly-coloured declamation of Vergniaud; his speeches were never heated +with the ardent passion that poured like a torrent of fire through some +of the orations of Isnard; nor, above all, had he any mastery of that +dialect of the Titans, by which Danton convulsed an audience with fear, +with amazement, or with the spirit of defiant endeavour. The absence of +these intenser qualities did not make Robespierre's speeches less +effective for their own purpose. On the contrary, when the air has +become torrid, and passionate utterance is cheap, then severity in form +is very likely to pass for good sense in substance. That Robespierre had +decent fluency, copiousness, and finish, need hardly be said. The French +have an artistic sense; they have never accepted our own whimsical +doctrine, that a man's politics must be sagacious, if his speaking is +only clumsy enough. Robespierre more than once showed himself ready with +a forcible reply on critical occasions: this only makes him an +illustration the more of the good oratorical rule, that he is most +likely to come well out of the emergency of an improvisation, who is +usually most careful to prepare. Robespierre was as solicitous about the +correctness of his speech, as he was about the neatness of his clothes; +he no more grudged the pains given to the polishing of his discourses +than he grudged the time given every day to the powdering of his hair. + +Nothing was more remarkable than his dexterity in presenting his case. +James Mill used to point out to his son among other skilful arts of +Demosthenes, these two: first, that he said everything important to his +purpose at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his hearers +into the state most fitted to receive it; second, that he insinuated +gradually and indirectly into their minds ideas which would have roused +opposition if they had been expressed more directly. Mr. Mill once +called the attention of the present writer to exactly the same kind of +rhetorical skill in the speeches of Robespierre. The reader may do well +to turn, for excellent specimens of this, to the speech of January 11, +1792, against the war, or that of May 1794 against atheism. The logic is +stringent, but the premises are arbitrary. Robespierre is as one who +should iterate indisputable propositions of abstract geometry and +mechanics, while men are craving an architect who shall bridge the gulf +of waters. Exuberance of high words no longer conceals the sterility of +his ideas and the shallowness of his method. We should say of his +speeches, as of so much of the speaking and writing of the time, that it +is transparent and smooth, but there is none of that quality which the +critics of painting call Texture. + +His listeners, however, in the old refectory of the Convent of the +Jacobins took little heed of these things; the matter was too absorbing, +the issue too vital. A hundred years before, the hunted Covenanters of +the Western Lowlands, with Claverhouse's dragoons a few miles off, +exulted in the endless exhortations and expositions of their hill +preachers: they relished nothing so keenly as three hours of +Mucklewrath, followed by three hours more of Peter Poundtext. We now +find the jargon of the Mucklewraths and the Poundtexts of the Solemn +League and Covenant, dead as it is, still not devoid of the picturesque +and the impressive. If we cannot say the same of the great preacher of +the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the reason is partly that time has +not yet softened the tones, and partly that there is no one in all the +world with whom it is so difficult to sympathise, as with the narrower +fanatics of our own particular faith. + +We have still to mark the trait that above everything else gave to +Robespierre the trust and confidence of Paris. As men listened to him, +they had full faith in the integrity of the speaker. And Robespierre in +one way deserved this confidence. He was eminently the possessor of a +conscience. When the strain of circumstance in the last few months of +his life pressed him towards wrong, at least before doing wrong he was +forced to lie to his own conscience. This is a kind of honesty, as the +world goes. In the Salon of 1791 an artist exhibited Robespierre's +portrait, simply inscribing it, _The Incorruptible_. Throngs passed +before it every day, and ratified the honourable designation by eager +murmurs of approval. The democratic journals were loud in panegyric on +the unsleeping sentinel of liberty. They loved to speak of him as the +modern Fabricius, and delighted to recall the words of Pyrrhus, that it +is easier to turn the sun from its course, than to turn Fabricius from +the path of honour. Patriotic parents eagerly besought him to be sponsor +for their children. Ladies of wealth, including at least one +countrywoman of our own, vainly entreated him to accept their purses, +for women are quick to recognise the temperament of the priest, and +recognising they adore. A rich widow of Nantes besought him with +pertinacious tenderness to accept not only her purse but her hand. +Mirabeau's sister hailed him as an eagle floating through the blue +heavens. + +Robespierre's life was frugal and simple, as must always be seemly in +the spokesman of the dumb multitude whose lives are very hard. He had a +single room in the house of Duplay, at the extreme west end of the long +Rue Saint Honore, half a mile from the Jacobin Club, and less than that +from the Riding School of the Tuileries, where the Constituent and +Legislative Assemblies held session. His room, which served him for +bed-chamber as well as for the uses of the day, was scantily furnished, +and he shared the homely fare of his host. Duplay was a carpenter, a +sworn follower of Robespierre, and the whole family cherished their +guest as if he had been a son and a brother. Between him and the eldest +daughter of the house there grew up a more tender sentiment, and +Robespierre looked forward to the joys of the hearth, so soon as his +country should be delivered from the oppressors without and the traitors +within. + +Eagerly as Robespierre delighted in his popularity, he intended it to +be a force and not a decoration. An occasion of testing his influence +arose in the winter of 1791. The situation had become more and more +difficult. The court was more disloyal and more perverse, as its hopes +that the nightmare would come to an end became fainter. In the summer of +1791, the German Emperor, the King of Prussia, and minor champions of +retrograde causes issued the famous Declaration of Pilnitz. The menace +of intervention was the one element needed to make the position of the +monarchy desperate. It roused France to fever heat. For along with the +foreign kings were the French princes of the blood and the French +nobles. In the spring of 1792, the Assembly forced the King to declare +war against Austria. Robespierre, in spite of the strong tide of warlike +feeling, led the Jacobin opposition to the war. This is one of the most +sagacious acts of his career, for the hazards of the conflict were +terrible. If the foreigners and the emigrant nobles were victorious, all +that the Revolution had won would be instantly and irretrievably lost. +If, on the other hand, the French armies were victorious, one of two +disasters might follow. Either the troops might become a weapon in the +hands of the court and the reactionary party, for the suppression of all +the progressive parties alike; or else their general might make himself +supreme. Robespierre divined, what the Girondins did not, that Narbonne +and the court, in accepting the cry for war, were secretly designing, +first, to crush the faction of emigrant nobles, then to make the King +popular at home, and thus finally to construct a strong royalist army. +The Constitutional party in the Legislative Assembly had the same ideas +as Narbonne. The Girondins sought war; first, from a genuine, if not a +profoundly wise, enthusiasm for liberty, which they would fain have +spread all over the world; and next, because they thought that war would +increase their popularity, and give them decisive control of the +situation. + +The first effect of the war declared in April 1792 was to shake down the +throne. Operations had no sooner begun than the King became an object of +bitter and amply warranted suspicion. Neither the leaders nor the people +had forgotten his flight a year before to place himself at the head of +the foreign invaders, nor the letter that he had left behind him for the +National Assembly, protesting against all that had been done. They were +again reminded of what short shrift they might expect if the King's +friends should come back. The Duke of Brunswick at the head of the +foreign army set out on his march, and issued his famous proclamation to +the inhabitants of France. He demanded immediate and unconditional +submission; he threatened with fire and sword every town, village, or +hamlet, that should dare to defend itself; and finally, he swore that if +the smallest violence or insult were done to the King or his family, the +city of Paris should be handed over to military execution and absolute +destruction. This insensate document bears marks in every line of the +implacable hate and burning thirst for revenge that consumed the +aristocratic refugees. Only civil war can awaken such rage as +Brunswick's manifesto betrayed. It was drawn up by the French nobles at +Coblenz. He merely signed it. The reply to it was the memorable +insurrection of the Tenth of August 1792. The King was thrown into +prison, and the Legislative Assembly made way for the National +Convention. + +Robespierre's part in the great rising of August was only secondary. +Only a few weeks before he had started a journal and written articles in +a constitutional sense. M. d'Hericault believes a story that +Robespierre's aim in this had been to have himself accepted as tutor for +the young Dauphin. It is impossible to prove a negative, but we find +great difficulty in believing that such a post could ever have been an +object of Robespierre's ambition. Now and always he showed a rather +singular preference for the substance of power over its glitter. He was +vain and an egoist, but in spite of this, and in spite of his passion +for empty phrases, he was not without a sense of reality. + +The insurrection of the 10th of August, however, was the idea, not of +Robespierre, but of a more commanding personage, who now became one of +the foremost of the Jacobin chiefs. De Maistre, that ardent champion of +reaction, found a striking argument for the presence of the divine hand +in the Revolution, in the intense mediocrity of the revolutionary +leaders. How could such men, he asked, have achieved such results, if +they had not been instruments of the directing will of heaven? Danton at +any rate is above this caustic criticism. Danton was of the Herculean +type of a Luther, though without Luther's deep vision of spiritual +things; or a Chatham, though without Chatham's august majesty of life; +or a Cromwell, though without Cromwell's calm steadfastness of patriotic +purpose. His visage and port seemed to declare his character: dark +overhanging brows; eyes that had the gleam of lightning; a savage mouth; +an immense head; the voice of a Stentor. Madame Roland pictured him as a +fiercer Sardanapalus. Artists called him Jove the Thunderer. His enemies +saw in him the Satan of the Paradise Lost. He was no moral regenerator; +the difference between him and Robespierre is typified in Danton's +version of an old saying, that he who hates vices hates men. He was not +free from that careless life-contemning desperation, which sometimes +belongs to forcible natures. Danton cannot be called noble, because +nobility implies a purity, an elevation, and a kind of seriousness which +were not his. He was too heedless of his good name, and too blind to the +truth that though right and wrong may be near neighbours, yet the line +that separates them is of an awful sacredness. If Robespierre passed for +a hypocrite by reason of his scruple, Danton seemed a desperado by his +airs of 'immoral thoughtlessness.' But the world forgives much to a +royal size, and Danton was one of the men who strike deep notes. He had +that largeness of motive, fulness of nature, and capaciousness of mind, +which will always redeem a multitude of infirmities. + +Though the author of some of the most tremendous and far-sounding +phrases of an epoch that was only too rich in them, yet phrases had no +empire over him; he was their master, not their dupe. Of all the men who +succeeded Mirabeau as directors of the unchained forces, we feel that +Danton alone was in his true element. Action, which poisoned the blood +of such men as Robespierre, and drove such men as Vergniaud out of their +senses with exaltation, was to Danton his native sphere. When France was +for a moment discouraged, it was he who nerved her to new effort by the +electrifying cry, '_We must dare, and again dare, and without end +dare!_' If his rivals or his friends seemed too intent on trifles, too +apt to confound side issues with the central aim of the battle, Danton +was ever ready to urge them to take a juster measure:--'_When the +edifice is all ablaze, I take little heed of the knaves who are +pilfering the household goods; I rush to put out the flames._' When base +egoism was compromising a cause more priceless than the personality of +any man, it was Danton who made them ashamed by the soul-inspiring +exclamation, '_Let my name be blotted out and my memory perish, if only +France may be free._' The Girondins denounced the popular clubs of Paris +as hives of lawlessness and outrage. Danton warned them that it were +wiser to go to these seething societies and to guide them, than to waste +breath in futile denunciation. 'A nation in revolution,' he cried to +them, in a superb figure, 'is like the bronze boiling and foaming and +purifying itself in the cauldron. Not yet is the statue of Liberty cast. +Fiercely boils the metal; have an eye on the furnace, or the flame will +surely scorch you.' If there was murderous work below the hatches, that +was all the more reason why the steersman should keep his hand strong +and ready on the wheel, with an eye quick for each new drift in the +hurricane, and each new set in the raging currents. This is ever the +figure under which one conceives Danton--a Titanic shape doing battle +with the fury of the seas, yielding while flood upon flood sweeps wildly +over him, and then with unshaken foothold and undaunted front once more +surveying the waste of waters, and striving with dexterous energy to +force the straining vessel over the waters of the bar. + +La Fayette had called the huge giant of popular force from its squalid +lurking-places, and now he trembled before its presence, and fled from +it shrieking, with averted hands. Marat thrust swords into the giant's +half-unwilling grasp, and plied him with bloody incitement to slay hip +and thigh, and so filled the land with a horror that has not faded from +out of men's minds to this day. Danton instantly discerned that the +problem was to preserve revolutionary energy, and still to persuade the +insurgent forces to retire once more within their boundaries. +Robespierre discerned this too, but he was paralysed and bewildered by +his own principles, as the convinced doctrinaire is so apt to be amid +the perplexities of practice. The teaching of Rousseau was ever pouring +like thin smoke among his ideas, and clouding his view of actual +conditions. The Tenth of August produced a considerable change in +Robespierre's point of view. It awoke him to the precipitous steepness +of the slope down which the revolutionary car was rushing headlong. His +faith in the infallibility of the people suffered no shock, but he was +in a moment alive to the need of walking warily, and his whole march +from now until the end, twenty-three months later, became timorous, +cunning, and oblique. His intelligence seemed to move in subterranean +tunnels, with the gleam of an equivocal premiss at one end, and the mist +of a vague conclusion at the other. + +The enthusiastic pedant, with his narrow understanding, his thin purism, +and his idyllic sentimentalism, found that the summoning archangel of +his paradise proved to be a ruffian with a pike. The shock must have +been tremendous. Robespierre did not quail nor retreat; he only revised +his notion of the situation. A curious interview once took place between +him and Marat. Robespierre began by assuring the Friend of the People +that he quite understood the atrocious demands for blood with which the +columns of Marat's newspaper were filled, to be merely useful +exaggerations of his real designs. Marat repelled the disparaging +imputation of clemency and common sense, and talked in his familiar vein +of poniarding brigands, burning despots alive in their palaces, and +impaling the traitors of the Assembly on their own benches. +'Robespierre,' says Marat, 'listened to me with affright; he turned pale +and said nothing. The interview confirmed the opinion I had always had +of him, that he united the integrity of a thoroughly honest man and the +zeal of a good patriot, with the enlightenment of a wise senator, but +that he was without either the views or the audacity of a real +statesman.' The picture is instructive, for it shows us Robespierre's +invariable habit of leaving violence and iniquity unrebuked; of +conciliating the practitioners of violence and iniquity; and of +contenting himself with an inward hope of turning the world into a right +course by fine words. He had no audacity in Marat's sense, but he was no +coward. He knew, as all these men knew, that almost from hour to hour he +carried his life in his hand, yet he declined to seek shelter in the +obscurity which saved such men as Sieyes. But if he had courage, he had +not the initiative of a man of action. He invented none of the ideas or +methods of the Revolution, not even the Reign of Terror, but he was very +dexterous in accepting or appropriating what more audacious spirits than +himself had devised and enforced. The pedant, cursed with the ambition +to be a ruler of men, is a curious study. He would be glad not to go too +far, and yet his chief dread is lest he be left behind. His +consciousness of pure aims allows him to become an accomplice in the +worst crimes. Suspecting himself at bottom to be a theorist, he hastens +to clear his character as man of practice by conniving at an enormity. +Thus, in September 1792, a band of miscreants committed the grievous +massacres in the prisons of Paris. Robespierre, though the best evidence +goes to show that he not only did not abet the prison murders, but in +his heart deplored them, yet after the event did not scruple to justify +what had been done. This was the beginning of a long course of +compliance with sanguinary misdeeds, for which Robespierre has been as +hotly execrated as if he prompted them. We do not, for the moment, +measure the relative degrees of guilt that attached to mere compliance +on the one hand, and cruel origination on the other. But his position in +the Revolution is not rightly understood, unless we recognise him as +being in almost every case an accessory after the fact. + +Between the fall of Lewis in 1792 and the fall of Robespierre in 1794, +France was the scene of two main series of events. One set comprises the +repulse of the invaders, the suppression of an extensive civil war, and +the attempted reconstruction of a social framework. The other comprises +the rapid phases of an internecine struggle of violent and short-lived +factions. By an unhappy fatality, due partly to anti-democratic +prejudice, and partly to men's unfailing passion for melodrama, the +Reign of Terror has been popularly taken for the central and most +important part of the revolutionary epic. This is nearly as absurd as it +would be to make Gustave Flourens' manifestation of the Fifth of +October, or the rising of the Thirty-first of October, the most +prominent features in a history of the war of French defence in our own +day. In truth, the Terror was a mere episode; and just as the rising of +October 1870 was due to Marshal Bazaine's capitulation at Metz, it is +easy to see that, with one exception, every violent movement in Paris, +from 1792 to 1794, was due to menace or disaster on the frontier. Every +one of the famous days of Paris was an answer to some enemy without. The +storm of the Tuileries on the Tenth of August, as we have already said, +was the response to Brunswick's proclamation. The bloody days of +September were the reaction of panic at the capture of Longwy and Verdun +by the Prussians. The surrender of Cambrai provoked the execution of +Marie Antoinette. The defeat of Aix-la-Chapelle produced the abortive +insurrection of the Tenth of March; and the treason of Dumouriez, the +reverses of Custine, and the rebellion in La Vendee, produced the +effectual insurrection of the Thirty-first of May 1793. The last of +these two risings of Paris, headed by the Commune, against the +Convention which was until then controlled by the Girondins, at length +gave the government of France and the defence of the Revolution +definitely over to the Jacobins. Their patriotic dictatorship lasted +unbroken for a short period of ten months, and then the great party +broke up into factions. The splendid triumphs of the dictatorship have +been, in England at any rate, too usually forgotten, and only the crimes +of the factions remembered. Robespierre's history unfortunately belongs +to the less important battle. + + +II + +The Girondins were driven out of the Convention by the insurgent +Parisians at the beginning of June 1793. The movement may be roughly +compared to that of the Independents in our own Rebellion, when the army +compelled the withdrawal of eleven of the Presbyterian leaders from the +parliament; or, it may recall Pride's memorable Purge of the same famous +assembly. Both cases illustrate the common truth that large deliberative +bodies, be they never so excellent for purposes of legislation, and even +for a general control of the executive government in ordinary times, are +found to be essentially unfit for directing a military crisis. If there +are any historic examples that at first seem to contradict such a +proposition, it will be found that the bodies in question were close +aristocracies, like the Great Council of Venice, or the Senate of Rome +in the strong days of the Commonwealth; they were never the creatures of +popular election, with varying aims and a diversified political spirit. +Modern publicists have substituted the divine right of assemblies for +the old divine right of monarchies. Those who condone the violence done +to the King on the Tenth of August, and even acquiesce in his execution +five months afterwards, are relentless against the violence done to the +Convention on the Thirty-first of May. We confess ourselves unable to +follow this transfer of the superstition of sacrosanctity from a king to +a chamber. No doubt, the sooner a nation acquires a settled government, +the better for it, provided the government be efficient. But if it be +not efficient, the mischief of actively suppressing it may well be fully +outweighed by the mischief of retaining it. We have no wish to smooth +over the perversities of a revolutionary time; they cost a nation very +dear; but if all the elements of the state are in furious convulsion and +uncontrollable effervescence, then it is childish to measure the march +of events by the standard of happier days of social peace and political +order. The prospect before France at the violent close of Girondin +supremacy was as formidable as any nation has ever yet had to confront +in the history of the world. Rome was not more critically placed when +the defeat of Varro on the plain of Cannae had broken up her alliances +and ruined her army. The brave patriots of the Netherlands had no +gloomier outlook at that dolorous moment when the Prince of Orange had +left them, and Alva had been appointed to bring them back by rapine, +conflagration, and murder, under the loathed yoke of the Spanish tyrant. + +Let us realise the conditions that Robespierre and Danton and the other +Jacobin leaders had now to face. In the north-west one division of the +fugitive Girondins was forming an army at Caen; in the south-west +another division was doing the same at Bordeaux. Marseilles and Lyons +were rallying all the disaffected and reactionary elements in the +south-east. La Vendee had flamed out in wild rebellion for Church and +King. The strong places on the north frontier, and the strong places on +the east, were in the hands of the foreign enemy. The fate of the +Revolution lay in the issue of a struggle between Paris, with less than +a score of departments on her side, and all the rest of France and the +whole European coalition marshalled against her. And even this was not +the worst. In Paris itself a very considerable proportion of its +half-million of inhabitants were disaffected to the revolutionary cause. +Reactionary historians dwell on the fact that such risings as that of +the Tenth of August were devised by no more than half of the sections +into which Paris was divided. It was common, they say, for half a dozen +individuals to take upon themselves to represent the fourteen or fifteen +hundred other members of a section. But what better proof can we have +that if France was to be delivered from restored feudalism and foreign +spoliation, the momentous task must be performed by those who had sense +to discern the awful peril, and energy to encounter it? + +The Girondins had made their incapacity plain. The execution of the King +had filled them with alarm, and with hatred against the ruder and more +robust party who had forced that startling act of vengeance upon them. +Puny social disgusts prevented them from co-operating with Danton or +with Robespierre. Prussia and Austria were not more redoubtable or more +hateful to them than was Paris, and they wasted, in futile +recriminations about the September massacres or the alleged peculations +of municipal officers, the time and the energy that should have been +devoted without let or interruption to the settlement of the +administration and the repulse of the foe. It is impossible to think of +such fine characters as Vergniaud or Madame Roland without admiration, +or of their untimely fate without pity. But the deliverance of a people +beset by strong and implacable enemies could not wait on mere good +manners and fastidious sentiments, when these comely things were in +company with the most stupendous want of foresight ever shown by a +political party. How can we measure the folly of men who so missed the +conditions of the problem as to cry out in the Convention itself, almost +within earshot of the Jacobin Club, that if any insult were offered to +the national representation, the departments would rise, 'Paris would be +annihilated; and men would come to search on the banks of the Seine +whether such a city had ever existed!' It was to no purpose that Danton +urgently rebuked the senseless animosity with which the Right poured +incessant malediction on the Left, and the wild shrieking hate with +which the Left retaliated on the Right. The battle was to the death, and +it was the Girondins who first menaced their political foes with +vengeance and the guillotine. As it happened, the treason of Dumouriez +and their own ineptitude destroyed them before revenge was within reach. +Such a consummation was fortunate for their country. It was the +Girondins whose want of union and energy had by the middle of 1793 +brought France to distraction and imminent ruin. It was a short year of +Jacobin government that by the summer of 1794 had welded the nation +together again, and finally conquered the invasion. The city of the +Seine had once more shown itself what it had been for nine centuries, +ever since the days of Odo, Count of Paris and first King of the French, +not merely a capital, but France itself, 'its living heart and surest +bulwark.' + +The immediate instrument of so rapid and extraordinary an achievement +was the Committee of Public Safety. The French have never shown their +quick genius for organisation with more triumphant vigour. While the +Girondins were still powerful, nine members of the Convention had been +constituted an executive committee, April 6, 1793. They were in fact a +kind of permanent cabinet, with practical irresponsibility. In the +summer of 1793 the number was increased from nine to twelve, and these +twelve were the centre of the revolutionary government. They fell into +three groups. First, there were the scientific or practical +administrators, of whom the most eminent was Carnot. Next came the +directors of internal policy, the pure revolutionists, headed by Billaud +de Varennes. Finally, there was a trio whose business it was to +translate action into the phrases of revolutionary policy. This famous +group was Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint Just. + +Besides the Committee of Public Safety there was another chief +governmental committee, that of General Security. Its functions were +mainly connected with the police, the arrests, and the prisons, but in +all serious affairs the two Committees deliberated in common. There were +also fourteen other groups of various size, taken from the Convention; +they applied themselves with admirable zeal, and usually not with more +zeal than skill, to schemes of public instruction, of finance, of +legislation, of the administration of justice, and a host of other civil +reforms, of all of which Napoleon Bonaparte was by and by to reap the +credit. These bodies completed the civil revolution, which the +Constituent and the Legislative Assemblies had left so mischievously +incomplete that, as soon as ever the Convention had assembled, it was +besieged by a host of petitioners praying them to explain and to pursue +the abolition of the old feudal rights. Everything had still been left +uncertain in men's minds, even upon that greatest of all the +revolutionary questions. The feudal division of the committee of general +legislation had in this eleventh hour to decide innumerable issues, from +those of the widest practical importance, down to the prayer of a remote +commune to be relieved from the charge of maintaining a certain mortuary +lamp which had been a matter of seignorial obligation. The work done by +the radical jurisconsults was never undone. It was the great and +durable reward of the struggle. And we have to remember that these +industrious and efficient bodies, as well as all other public bodies and +functionaries whatever, were placed by the definite revolutionary +constitution of 1793 under the direct orders of the Committee of Public +Safety. + + * * * * * + +It is hardly possible even now for any one who exults in the memory of +the great deliverance of a brilliant and sociable people, to stand +unmoved before the walls of that palace which Philibert Delorme reared +for Catherine de' Medici, and which was thrown into ruin by the madness +of a band of desperate men in our own days. Lewis had walked forth from +the Tuileries on the fatal morning of the Tenth of August, holding his +children by the hand, and lightly noticing, as he traversed the gardens, +how early that year the leaves were falling. Lewis had by this time +followed the fallen leaves into nothingness. The palace of the kings was +now styled the Palace of the Nation, and the new republic carried on its +work surrounded by the outward associations of the old monarchy. The +Convention after the spring of 1793 held its sittings in what had +formerly been the palace theatre. Fierce men from the Faubourgs of St. +Antoine and St. Marceau, and fiercer women from the markets, shouted +savage applause or menace from galleries, where not so long ago the +Italian buffoons had amused the perpetual leisure of the finest ladies +and proudest grandees of France. The Committee of General Security +occupied the Pavillon de Marsan, looking over a dingy space that the +conqueror at Rivoli afterwards made the most dazzling street in Europe. +The Committee of Public Safety sat in the Pavillon de Flore, at the +opposite end of the Tuileries on the river bank. The approaches were +protected by guns and by a bodyguard, while inside there flitted to and +fro a cloud of familiars, who have been compared by the enemies of the +great Committee to the mutes of the court of the Grand Turk. Any one who +had business with this awful body had to grope his way along gloomy +corridors, that were dimly lighted by a single lamp at either end. The +room in which the Committee sat round a table of green cloth was +incongruously gay with the clocks, the bronzes, the mirrors, the +tapestries, of the ruined court. The members met at eight in the morning +and worked until one; from one to four they attended the sitting of the +Convention. In the evening they met again, and usually sat until night +was far advanced. It was no wonder if their hue became cadaverous, their +eyes hollow and bloodshot, their brows stern, their glance preoccupied +and sinister. Between ten and eleven every evening a sombre piece of +business was transacted, which has half effaced in the memory of +posterity all the heroic industry of the rest of the twenty-four hours. +It was then that Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, brought an +account of his day's labour; how the revolutionary tribunal was working, +how many had been convicted and how many acquitted, how large or how +small had been the batch of the guillotine since the previous night. +Across the breadth of the gardens, beyond their trees and fountains, +stood the Monster itself, with its cruel symmetry, its colour as of the +blood of the dead, its unheeding knife, neutral as the Fates. + +Robespierre has been held responsible for all the violences of the +revolutionary government, and his position on the Committee appeared to +be exceedingly strong. It was, however, for a long time much less strong +in reality than it seemed: all depended upon successfully playing off +one force against another, and at the same time maintaining himself at +the centre of the see-saw. Robespierre was the literary and rhetorical +member of the band; he was the author of the strident manifestoes in +which Europe listened with exasperation to the audacious hopes and +unfaltering purpose of the new France. This had the effect of investing +him in the eyes of foreign nations with supreme and undisputed authority +over the government. The truth is, that Robespierre was both disliked +and despised by his colleagues. They thought of him as a mere maker of +useful phrases; he in turn secretly looked down upon them, as the man +who has a doctrine and a system in his head always looks down upon the +man who lives from hand to mouth. If the Committee had been in the place +of a government which has no opposition to fear, Robespierre would have +been one of its least powerful members. But although the government was +strong, there were at least three potent elements of opposition even +within the ranks of the dominant revolutionary party itself. + +Three bodies in Paris were, each of them, the centre of an influence +that might at any moment become the triumphant rival of the Committee of +Public Safety. These bodies were, first, the Convention; second, the +Commune of Paris; and thirdly, the Jacobin Club. The jealousy thus +existing outside the Committee would have made any failure instantly +destructive. At one moment, at the end of 1793, it was only the +surrender of Toulon that saved the Committee from a hostile motion in +the Convention, and such a motion would have sent half of them to the +guillotine. They were reviled by the extreme party who ruled at the Town +Hall for not carrying the policy of extermination far enough. They were +reproached by Danton and his powerful section for carrying that policy +too far. They were discredited by the small band of intriguers, like +Bazire, who identified government with peculation. Finally, they were +haunted by the shadow of a fear, which events were by and by to prove +only too substantial, lest one of their military agents on the frontier +should make himself their master. The key to the struggle of the +factions between the winter of 1793 and the revolution of the summer of +1794 is the vigorous resolve of the governing Committees not to part +with power. The drama is one of the most exciting in the history of +faction; it abounds in rapid turns and unexpected shifts, upon which the +student may spend many a day and many a night, and after all he is +forced to leave off in despair of threading an accurate way through the +labyrinth of passion and intrigue. The broad traits of the situation, +however, are tolerably simple. The difficulty was to find a principle of +government which the people could be induced to accept. 'The rights of +men and the new principles of liberty and equality,' Burke said, 'were +very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of +tranquillity and order. The factions,' he added with fierce sarcasm, +'were to accomplish the purposes of order, morality, and submission to +the laws, from the principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. They +endeavoured to establish distinctions, by the belief of which they hoped +to keep the spirit of murder safely bottled up and sealed for their own +purposes, without endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison +which they prepared for their enemies.' This is a ferocious and +passionate version, but it is substantially not an unreal account of the +position. + +Upon one point all parties agreed, and that was the necessity of +founding the government upon force, and force naturally meant Terror. +Their plea was that of Dido to Ilioneus and the stormbeaten sons of +Dardanus, when they complained that her people had drawn the sword upon +them, and barbarously denied the hospitality of the sandy shore:-- + + Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri. + +And that pithy chapter in Machiavelli's _Prince_ which treats of cruelty +and clemency, and whether it be better to be loved or feared, +anticipates the defence of the Terrorists, in the maxim that for a new +prince it is impossible to avoid the name of cruel, because all new +states abound in many perils. The difference arose on the question when +Terror should be considered to have done as much of its work as it could +be expected to do. This difference again was connected with difference +of conception as to the type of the society which was ultimately to +emerge from the existing chaos. Billaud-Varennes, the guiding spirit of +the Committees, was without any conception of this kind. He was a man of +force pure and simple. Danton was equally untouched by dreams of social +transformation; his philosophy, so far as he had a definite philosophy, +was, in spite of one or two inconsistent utterances, materialistic: and +materialism, when it takes root in a sane, perspicacious, and indulgent +character, as in the case of Danton, and, to take a better-known +example, in the case of Jefferson, usually leads to a sound and positive +theory of politics; chimeras have no place in it, though a rational +social hope has the first place of all. Neither Danton nor Billaud +expected a millennium; their only aim was to shape France into a +coherent political personality, and the war between them turned upon the +policy of prolonging the Terror after the frontiers had been saved and +the risings in the provinces put down. There were, however, two parties +who took the literature of the century in earnest; they thought that the +hour had struck for translating, one of them, the sentimentalism of +Rousseau, the other of them, the rationality of Voltaire and Diderot, +into terms of politics that should form the basis of a new social life. +The strife between the faction of Robespierre and the faction of +Chaumette was the reproduction, under the shadow of the guillotine, of +the great literary strife of a quarter of a century before between Jean +Jacques and the writers whom he contemptuously styled Holbachians. The +battle of the books had become a battle between bands of infuriated men. +The struggle between Hebert and Chaumette and the Common Council of +Paris on the one part, and the Committee and Robespierre on the other, +was the concrete form of the deepest controversy that lies before modern +society. Can the social union subsist without a belief in God? Chaumette +answered Yes, and Robespierre cried No. Robespierre followed Rousseau in +thinking that any one who should refuse to recognise the existence of a +God, should be exiled as a monster devoid of the faculties of virtue and +sociability. Chaumette followed Diderot, and Diderot told Samuel Romilly +in 1783 that belief in God, as well as submission to kings, would be at +an end all over the world in a very few years. The Hebertists might have +taken for their motto Diderot's shocking couplet, if they could have +known it, about using + + Les entrailles du pretre + Au defaut d'un cordon pour etrangler les rois. + +The theists and the atheists, Chaumette and Robespierre, each of them +accepted the doctrine that it was in the power of the armed legislator +to impose any belief and any rites he pleased upon the country at his +feet. The theism or the atheism of the new France depended, as they +thought, on the issue of the war for authority between the Hebertists in +the Common Council of Paris, and the Committee of Public Safety. That +was the religious side of the attitude of the government to the +opposition, and it is the side that possesses most historic interest. +Billaud cared very little for religion in any way; his quarrel with the +Commune and with Hebert was political. What Robespierre's drift appears +to have been, was to use the political animosity of the Committee as a +means of striking foes, against whom his own animosity was not only +political but religious also. + +It would doubtless show a very dull apprehension of the violence and +confusion of the time, to suppose that even Robespierre, with all his +love for concise theories, was accustomed to state his aim to himself +with the definite neatness in which it appears when reduced to literary +statement. Pedant as he was, he was yet enough of a politician to see +the practical urgency of restoring material order, whatever spiritual +belief or disbelief might accompany it. The prospect of a rallying point +for material order was incessantly changing; and Robespierre turned to +different quarters in search of it almost from week to week. He was only +able to exert a certain limited authority over his colleagues in the +government, by virtue of his influence over the various sections of +possible opposition, and this was a moral, and not an official, +influence. It was acquired not by marked practical gifts, for in truth +Robespierre did not possess them, but by his good character, by his +rhetoric, and by the skill with which he kept himself prominently before +the public eye. The effective seat of his power, notwithstanding many +limits and incessant variations, was the Jacobin Club. There a speech +from him threw his listeners into ecstasies, that have been +disrespectfully compared to the paroxysms of Jansenist convulsionaries, +or the hysterics of Methodist negroes on a cotton plantation. We +naturally think of those grave men who a few years before had founded +the republic in America. Jefferson served with Washington in the +Virginian legislature and with Franklin in Congress, and he afterwards +said that he never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time; +while John Adams declared that he never heard Jefferson utter three +sentences together. Of Robespierre it is stated on good authority that +for eighteen months there was not a single evening on which he did not +make to the assembled Jacobins at least one speech, and that never a +short one. + +Strange as it may seem, Robespierre's credit with this grim assembly was +due to his truly Philistine respectability and to his literary faculty. +He figured as the philosopher and bookman of the party: the most +iconoclastic politicians are usually willing to respect the scholar, +provided they are sure of his being on their side. Robespierre had from +the first discountenanced the fantastic caprices of some too excitable +allies. He distrusted the noisy patriots of the middle class, who +curried favour with the crowd by clothing themselves in coarse garments, +clutching a pike, and donning the famous cap of red woollen, which had +been the emblem of the emancipation of a slave in ancient Rome. One +night at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre mounted the tribune, dressed with +his usual elaborate neatness, and still wearing powder in his hair. An +onlooker unceremoniously planted on the orator's head the red cap +demanded by revolutionary etiquette. Robespierre threw the sacred symbol +on the ground with a severe air, and then proceeded with a discourse of +much austerity. Not that he was averse to a certain seemly decoration, +or to the embodiment of revolutionary sentiment by means of a symbolism +that strikes our cooler imagination as rather puerile. He was as ready +as others to use the arts of the theatre for the liturgy of patriots. +One of the most touching of all the minor dramatic incidents of the +Revolution was the death of Barra. This was a child of thirteen who +enrolled himself as a drummer, and marched with the Blues to suppress +the rebel Whites in La Vendee. One day he advanced too close to the +enemy's post, intrepidly beating the charge. He was surrounded, but the +peasant soldiers were loth to strike, 'Cry _Long live the King!_' they +shouted, 'or else death!' 'Long live the Republic!' was the poor little +hero's answer, as a ball pierced his heart. Robespierre described the +incident to the Convention, and amid prodigious enthusiasm demanded that +the body of the young martyr of liberty should be transported to the +Pantheon with special pomp, and that David, the artist of the +Revolution, should be charged with the duty of devising and embellishing +the festival. As it happened, the arrangements were made for the +ceremony to take place on the Tenth of Thermidor--a day on which +Robespierre and all Paris were concerned about a celebration of bloodier +import. Thermidor, however, was still far off; and the red sun of +Jacobin enthusiasm seemed as if it would shine unclouded for ever. + +Even at the Jacobins, however, popular as he was, Robespierre felt every +instant the necessity of walking cautiously. He was as far removed as +possible from that position of Dictator which some historians with a +wearisome iteration persist in ascribing to him, even at the moment when +they are enumerating the defeats which the party of Hebert was able to +inflict upon him in the very bosom of the Mother Club itself. They make +him the sanguinary dictator in one sentence, and the humiliated +intriguer in the next. The latter is much the more correct account of +the two, if we choose to call a man an intriguer who was honestly +anxious to suppress what he considered a wicked faction, and yet had +need of some dexterity to keep his own head upon his shoulders. + + * * * * * + +In the winter of 1793 the Municipal party, guided by Hebert and +Chaumette, made their memorable attempt to extirpate Christianity in +France. The doctrine of D'Holbach's supper-table had for a short space +the arm of flesh and the sword of the temporal power on its side. It was +the first appearance of dogmatic atheism in Europe as a political force. +This makes it one of the most remarkable moments in the Revolution, just +as it makes the Revolution itself the most remarkable moment in modern +history. The first political demonstration of atheism was attended by +some of the excesses, the folly, the extravagances that stained the +growth of Christianity. On the whole it is a very mild story compared +with the atrocities of the Jewish records or the crimes of Catholicism. +The worst charge against the party of Chaumette is that they were +intolerant, and the charge is deplorably true; but this charge cannot +lie in the mouth of persecuting churches. + +Historical recriminations, however, are not very edifying. It is +perfectly fair when Catholics talk of the atheist Terror, to rejoin that +the retainers of Anjou and Montpensier slew more men and women on the +first day of the Saint Bartholomew than perished in Paris through the +Years I. and II. But the retort does us no good beyond the region of +dialectic; it rather brings us down to the level of the poor sectaries +whom it crushes. Let us raise ourselves into clearer air. The fault of +the atheist is that they knew no better than to borrow the maxims of the +churchmen; and even those who agree with the dogmatic denials of the +atheists--if such there be--ought yet to admit that the mere change from +superstition to reason is a small gain, if the conclusions of reason are +still to be enforced by the instruments of superstition. Our opinions +are less important than the spirit and temper with which they possess +us, and even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in +a broad, intelligent, and spacious way. Now some of the opinions of +Chaumette were full of enlightenment and hope. He had a generous and +vivid faith in humanity, and he showed the natural effect of abandoning +belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for +improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to +share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like +the Bishop in Victor Hugo's _Miserables_, than to hold those good +opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a +reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow +forgetfulness of all that great and precious part of our natures that +lies out of the immediate domain of the logical understanding. One can +understand how an honest man would abhor the darkness and tyranny of the +Church. But then to borrow the same absolutism in the interests of new +light, was inevitably to bring the new light into the same abhorrence +as had befallen the old system of darkness. And this is exactly what +happened. In every family where a mother sought to have her child +baptized, or where sons and daughters sought to have the dying spirit of +the old consoled by the last sacrament, there sprang up a bitter enemy +to the government which had closed the churches and proscribed the +priests. + +How could a society whose spiritual life had been nourished in the +solemn mysticism of the Middle Ages, suddenly turn to embrace a gaudy +paganism? The common self-respect of humanity was outraged by apostate +priests who, whether under the pressure of fear of Chaumette, or in a +very superfluity of folly and ecstasy of degradation, hastened to +proclaim the charlatanry of their past lives, as they filed before the +Convention, led by the Archbishop of Paris, and accompanied by rude +acolytes bearing piles of the robes and the vessels of silver and gold +with which they had once served their holy offices. 'Our enemies,' +Voltaire had said, 'have always on their side the fat of the land, the +sword, the strong box, and the _canaille_.' For a moment all these +forces were on the other side, and it is deplorable to think that they +were as much abused by their new masters as by the old. The explanation +is that the destructive party had been brought up in the schools of the +ecclesiastical party, and their work was a mere outbreak of mutiny, not +a grave and responsible attempt to lead France to a worthier faith. If, +as Chaumette believed, mankind are the only Providence of men, surely +in that faith more than in any other are we bound to be very solicitous +not to bring the violent hand of power on any of the spiritual +acquisitions of the race, and very patient in dealing with the slowness +of the common people to leave their outworn creeds. + +Instead of defying the Church by the theatrical march of the Goddess of +Reason under the great sombre arches of the Cathedral of Our Lady, +Chaumette should have found comfort in a firm calculation of the +conditions. 'You,' he might have said to the priests,--'you have so +debilitated the minds of men and women by your promises and your dreams, +that many a generation must come and go before Europe can throw off the +yoke of your superstition. But we promise you that they shall be +generations of strenuous battle. We give you all the advantages that you +can get from the sincerity and pious worth of the good and simple among +you. We give you all that the bad among you may get by resort to the +poisoned weapons of your profession and its traditions,--its bribes to +mental indolence, its hypocritical affectations in the pulpit, its +tyranny in the closet, its false speciousness in the world, its menace +at the deathbed. With all these you may do your worst, and still +humanity will escape you; still the conscience of the race will rise +away from you; still the growth of brighter ideals and a nobler purpose +will go on, leaving ever further and further behind them your dwarfed +finality and leaden moveless stereotype. We shall pass you by on your +flank; your fieriest darts will only spend themselves on air. We will +not attack you as Voltaire did; we will not exterminate you; we shall +explain you. History will place your dogma in its class, above or below +a hundred competing dogmas, exactly as the naturalist classifies his +species. From being a conviction, it will sink to a curiosity; from +being the guide to millions of human lives, it will dwindle down to a +chapter in a book. As History explains your dogma, so Science will dry +it up; the conception of law will silently make the conception of the +daily miracle of your altars seem impossible; the mental climate will +gradually deprive your symbols of their nourishment, and men will turn +their backs on your system, not because they have confuted it, but +because, like witchcraft or astrology, it has ceased to interest them. +The great ship of your Church, once so stout and fair and well laden +with good destinies, is become a skeleton ship; it is a phantom hulk, +with warped planks and sere canvas, and you who work it are no more than +ghosts of dead men, and at the hour when you seem to have reached the +bay, down your ship will sink like lead or like stone to the deepest +bottom.' + +Alas, the speculation of the century had not rightly attuned men's minds +to this firm confidence in the virtue of liberty, sounding like a bell +through all distractions. None of these high things were said. The +temples were closed, the sacred symbols defiled, the priests +maltreated, the worshippers dispersed. The Commune of Paris imitated the +policy of the King of France who revoked the Edict of Nantes, and +democratic atheism parodied the dragonnades of absolutist Catholicism. + + * * * * * + +Robespierre was unutterably outraged by the proceedings of the atheists. +They perplexed him as a politician intent upon order, and they afflicted +him sorely as an ardent disciple of the Savoyard Vicar. Hebert, however, +was so strong that it needed some courage to attack him, nor did +Robespierre dare to withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch +from making an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its +partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the Twenty-first of +November one of the most admirable of his oratorical successes. The +Sphinx still sits inexorable at our gates, and his words have lost none +of their interest. 'Every philosopher and every individual,' he said, +'may adopt whatever opinion he pleases about atheism. Any one who wishes +to make such an opinion into a crime is an insensate; but the public man +or the legislator who should adopt such a system, would be a hundred +times more insensate still. The National Convention abhors it. The +Convention is not the author of a scheme of metaphysics. It was not to +no purpose that it published the Declaration of the Rights of Man in +presence of the Supreme Being. I shall be told perhaps that I have a +narrow intelligence, that I am a man of prejudice, and a fanatic. I +have already said that I spoke neither as an individual nor as a +philosopher with a system, but as a representative of the people. +_Atheism is aristocratic. The idea of a great being who watches over +oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is essentially the +idea of the people._ This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; +it is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached +neither to priests, nor to superstition, nor to ceremonies; it is +attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to the idea of an +incomprehensible Power, the terror of wrongdoers, the stay and comfort +of virtue, to which it delights to render words of homage that are all +so many anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.' + +This is Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as +statesman. Like others, he declares the Supreme Power incomprehensible, +and then describes him in terms of familiar comprehension. He first +declares atheism an open choice, and then he brands it with the most +odious epithet in the accepted vocabulary of the hour. Danton followed +practically the same line, though saying much less about it. 'If +Greece,' he said in the Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too +shall solemnise her sans-culottid days. The people will have high +festivals; they will offer incense to the Supreme Being, to the master +of nature; for we never intended to annihilate the reign of superstition +in order to set up the reign of atheism.... If we have not honoured the +priest of error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to honour the priest +of incredulity: we wish to serve the people. I demand that there shall +be an end of these anti-religious masquerades in the Convention.' + +There was an end of the masquerading, but the Hebertists still kept +their ground. Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally +impotent against them for some months longer. The revolutionary force +had been too strong to be resisted by any government since the Paris +insurgents had carried both King and Assembly in triumph from Versailles +in the October of 1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to +strive with all their might to build a new government out of the +agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months the +battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance against +atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of masked skirmishes. +The battle-ground of rival principles was overshadowed by the baleful +wings of the genius of demonic Hate. _Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni_; +the banners of the King of the Pit came forth. The scene at the +Cordeliers for a time became as frantic as a Council of the Early Church +settling the true composition of the Holy Trinity. Or it recalls the +fierce and bloody contentions between Demos and Oligarchy in an old +Greek town. We think of the day in the harbour of Corcyra when the +Athenian admiral who had come to deliver the people, sailed out to meet +the Spartan enemy, and on turning round to see if his Corcyrean allies +were following, saw them following indeed, but the crew of every ship +striving in enraged conflict with one another. Collot D'Herbois had come +back in hot haste from Lyons, where, along with Fouche, he had done his +best to carry out the decree of the Convention, that not one stone of +the city should be left on the top of another, and that even its very +name should cease from the lips of men. Carrier was recalled from +Nantes, where his feats of ingenious massacre had rivalled the exploits +of the cruellest and maddest of the Roman Emperors. The presence of +these men of blood gave new courage and resolution to the Hebertists. +Though the alliance was informal, yet as against Danton, Camille +Desmoulins, and the rest of the Indulgents, as well as against +Robespierre, they made common cause. + +Camille Desmoulins attacked Hebert in successive numbers of a journal +that is perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the +revolution. Hebert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of Desmoulins +in the Club, and the unfortunate wit, notwithstanding the efforts of +Robespierre on his behalf, was for a while turned out of the sacred +precincts. The power of the extreme faction was shown in relation to +other prominent members of the party whom they loved to stigmatise by +the deadly names of Indulgent and Moderantist. Even Danton himself was +attacked (December 1793), and the integrity of his patriotism brought +into question. Robespierre made an energetic defence of his great rival +in the hierarchy of revolution, and the defence saved Danton from the +mortal ignominy of expulsion from the communion of the orthodox. On the +other hand, Anacharsis Clootz, that guileless ally of the party of +delirium, was less fortunate. Robespierre assailed the cosmopolitan for +being a German baron, for having four thousand pounds a year, and for +striking his sans-culottism some notes higher than the regular pitch. +Even M. Louis Blanc calls this an iniquity, and sets it down as the +worst page in Robespierre's life. Others have described Robespierre as +struck at this time by the dire malady of kings--hatred of the Idea. It +seems, however, a hard saying that devotion to the Idea is to extinguish +common sense. Clootz, notwithstanding his simple and disinterested +character, and his possession of some rays of the modern illumination, +was one of the least sane of all the men who in the exultation of their +silly gladness were suddenly caught up by that great wheel of fire. All +we can say is that Robespierre's bitter demeanour towards Clootz was +ungenerous; but then this is only natural in him. Robespierre often +clothed cool policy in the semblance of clemency, but I cannot hear in +any phrase he ever used, or see in any measure he ever proposed, the +mark of true generosity; of kingliness of spirit, not a trace. He had no +element of ready and cordial propitiation, an element that can never be +wanting in the greatest leaders in time of storm. If he resisted the +atrocious proposals to put Madame Elizabeth to death, he was thinking +not of mercy or justice, but of the mischievous effect that her +execution would have upon the public opinion of Europe, and he was so +unmanly as to speak of her as _la meprisable soeur de Louis XVI_. Such +a phrase is the disclosure of an abject stratum in his soul. + +Yet this did not prevent him from seeing and denouncing the bloody +extravagances of the Proconsuls, the representatives of Parisian +authority in the provinces; nor from standing firm against the execution +of the Seventy-Three, who had been bold enough to question the purgation +of the National Convention on the Thirty-first of May. But the return of +Collot d'Herbois made the situation more intricate. Collot was by his +position the ally of Billaud, and to attack him, therefore, was to +attack the most powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety. +Billaud was too formidable. He was always the impersonation of the ruder +genius of the Revolution, and the incarnation of the philosophy of the +Terror, not as a delirium, but as a piece of deliberate policy. His +pale, sober, and concentrated physiognomy seemed a perpetual menace. He +had no gifts of speech, but his silence made people shudder, like the +silence of the thunder when the tempest rages at its height. It was said +by contemporaries that if Vadier was a hyaena, Barere a jackal, and +Robespierre a cat, Billaud was a tiger. + +The cat perceived that he was in danger of not having the tiger, jackal, +and hyaena, on his side. Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and +timidity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had been +premature; and a convenient illness, which some suppose to have been +feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks from a scene where he +felt that he could no longer see clear. We cannot doubt that both he and +Danton were perfectly assured that the anarchic party must unavoidably +roll headlong into the abyss. But the hour of doom was uncertain. To +make a mistake in the right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant +death. Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. We must not +confound his thin and querulous reserve with that stout and deep-browed +patience, which may imply as superb a fortitude, and may demand as much +iron control in a statesman, as the most heroic exploits of political +energy. But his habit of waiting on force, instead of, like the other, +taking the initiative with force, had trained his sight. The mixture of +astuteness with his scruple, of egoistic policy with his stiffness for +doctrine, gave him an advantage over Danton, that made his life worth +exactly three months' more purchase than Danton's. It has been said that +Spinozism or Transcendentalism in poetic production becomes +Machiavellism in reflection: for the same reasons we may always expect +sentimentalism in theory to become under the pressure of action a very +self-protecting guile. Robespierre's mind was not rich nor flexible +enough for true statesmanship, and it is a grave mistake to suppose that +the various cunning tacks in which his career abounds, were any sign of +genuine versatility or resource or political growth and expansion. They +were, in fact, the resort of a man whose nerves were weaker than his +volition. Robespierre was a kind of spinster. Force of head did not +match his spiritual ambition. He was not, we repeat, a coward in any +common sense; in that case he would have remained quiet among the +croaking frogs of the Marsh, and by and by have come to hold a portfolio +under the first Consul. He did not fear death, and he envied with +consuming envy those to whom nature had given the qualities of +initiative. But his nerves always played him false. The consciousness of +having to resolve to take a decided step alone, was the precursor of a +fit of trembling. His heart did not fail, but he could not control the +parched voice, nor the twitching features, not the ghastly palsy of +inner misgiving. In this respect Robespierre recalls a more illustrious +man; we think of Cicero tremblingly calling upon the Senate to decide +for him whether he should order the execution of the Catilinarian +conspirators. It is to be said, however, in his favour that he had the +art, which Cicero lacked, to hide his pusillanimity. Robespierre knew +himself, and did his best to keep his own secret. + +His absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed events +to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in dangerous action +which he had dreaded on the Tenth of August, as he dreaded it on every +other decisive day of this burning time. The party of the Commune +became more and more daring in their invectives against the Convention +and the Committees. At length they proclaimed open insurrection. But +Paris was cold, and opinion was divided. In the night of the Thirteenth +of March, Hebert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day +Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin Club. He +joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public Safety in striking the +blow. On the Twenty-fourth of March the Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were +beheaded. + +The first bloody breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by +the second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon +followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the execution of the +Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest of the Moderates. When the +seizure of Danton had once before been discussed in the Committee, +Robespierre resisted the proposal violently. We have already seen how he +defended Danton at the Jacobin Club, when the Club underwent the process +of purification in the winter. What produced this sudden tack? How came +Robespierre to assent in March to a violence which he had angrily +discountenanced in February? There had been no change in the policy or +attitude of Danton himself. The military operations against the domestic +and foreign enemies were no sooner fairly in the way of success, than +Danton began to meditate in serious earnest the consolidation of a +republican system of law and justice. He would fain have stayed the +Terror. 'Let us leave something,' he said, 'to the guillotine of +opinion.' He aided, no doubt, in the formation of the Revolutionary +Tribunal, but this was exactly in harmony with his usual policy of +controlling popular violence without alienating the strength of popular +sympathy. The process of the tribunal was rough and summary, but it was +fairer--until Robespierre's Law of Prairial--than people usually +suppose, and it was the very temple of the goddess of Justice herself +compared with the September massacres. 'Let us prove ourselves +terrible,' Danton said, 'to relieve the people from the necessity of +being so.' His activity had been incessant in urging and superintending +the great levies against the foreigner; he had gone repeatedly on +distant and harassing expeditions, as the representative of the +Convention at the camps on the frontier. In the midst of all this he +found time to press forward measures for the instruction of the young, +and for the due appointment of judges, and his head was full of ideas +for the construction of a permanent executive council. It was this which +made him eager for a cessation of the method of Terror, and it was this +which made the Committee of Public Safety his implacable enemy. + +Why, then, did Robespierre, who also passed as a man of order and +humanity, not continue to support Danton after the suppression of the +Hebertists, as he had supported him before? The common and facile answer +is that he was moved by a malignant desire to put a rival out of the +way. On the whole, the evidence seems to support Napoleon's opinion that +Robespierre was incapable of voting for the death of anybody in the +world on grounds of personal enmity. And his acquiescence in the ruin of +Danton is intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The +Committee hated Danton for the good reason that he had openly attacked +them, and his cry for clemency was an inflammatory and dangerous protest +against their system. Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up +his mind that the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, +he could work out his own vague schemes of power and reconstruction. +And, in any case, how could he resist the Committee? The famous +insurrectionary force of Paris, which Danton had been the first to +organise against a government, had just been chilled by the fall of the +Hebertists. Least of all could this force be relied upon to rise in +defence of the very chief whose every word for many weeks past had been +a protest against the Communal leaders. In separating himself from the +Ultras, Danton had cut off the great reservoir of his peculiar strength. + +It may be said that the Convention was the proper centre of resistance +to the designs of the Committee, and that if Danton and Robespierre had +united their forces in the Convention they would have defeated Billaud +and his allies. This seems to us more than doubtful. The Committee had +acquired an immense preponderance over the Convention. They had been +eminently successful in the immense tasks imposed upon them. They had +the prestige not only of being the government--so great a thing in a +country that had just emerged from the condition of a centralised +monarchy; they had also the prestige of being a government that had done +its work triumphantly. We are now in March. In July we shall find that +Robespierre adopted the very policy that we are now discussing, of +playing off the Convention against the Committee. In July that policy +ended in his headlong fall. Why should it have been any more successful +four months earlier? + +What we may say is, that Robespierre was bound in all morality to defend +Danton in the Convention at every hazard. Possibly so; but then to run +risks for chivalry's sake was not in Robespierre's nature, and no man +can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. His narrow +head and thin blood and instable nerve, his calculating humour and his +frigid egoism, disinclined him to all games of chance. His apologists +have sought to put a more respectable colour on his abandonment of +Danton. The precisian, they say, disapproved of Danton's lax and +heedless courses. Danton said to him one day:--'What do I care? Public +opinion is a strumpet, and posterity a piece of nonsense.' How should +the puritanical lawyer endure such cynicism as this? And Danton +delighted in inflicting these coarse shocks. Again, Danton had given +various gross names of contempt to Saint Just. Was Robespierre not to +feel insults offered to the ablest and most devoted of his lieutenants? +What was more important than all, the acclamations with which the +partisans of reaction greeted the fall of the Ultras, made it necessary +to give instant and unmistakable notice to the foes of the Revolution +that the goddess of the scorching eye and fiery hand still grasped the +axe of her vengeance. + +These are pleas invented after the fact. All goes to show that +Robespierre was really moved by nothing more than his invariable dread +of being left behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not +seeming practical and political enough. And having made up his mind that +the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the Dantonists, he +became fiercer than Billaud himself. It is constantly seen that the +waverer, of nervous atrabiliar constitution, no sooner overcomes the +agony of irresolution, than he flings himself on his object with a +vindictive tenacity that seems to repay him for all the moral +humiliation inflicted on him by his stifled doubts. He redeems the +slowness of his approach by the fury of his spring. 'Robespierre,' says +M. d'Hericault, 'precipitated himself to the front of the opinion that +was yelling against his friends of yesterday. In order to keep his usual +post in the van of the Revolution, in order to secure the advantage to +his own popularity of an execution which the public voice seemed to +demand, he came forward as the author of that execution, though only the +day before he had hesitated about its utility, and though it was, in +truth far less useful to him than it proved to be to his future +antagonists.' + +Robespierre first alarmed Danton's friends by assuming a certain icy +coldness of manner, and by some menacing phrases about the faction of +the so-called Moderates. Danton had gone, as he often did, to his native +village of Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of +sight in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal +ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles. His, +again, was the temperament of violent force, and in such types the +reaction is always tremendous. The indomitable activity of the last +twenty months had bred weariness of spirit. The nemesis of a career of +strenuous Will in large natures is apt to be a sudden sense of the irony +of things. In Danton, as with Byron it happened afterwards, the +vehemence of the revolutionary spirit was touched by this desolating +irony. His friends tried to rouse him. It is not clear that he could +have done anything. The balance of force, after the suppression of the +Hebertists, was irretrievably against him, as calculation had already +revealed to Robespierre. + +There are various stories of the pair having met at dinner almost on the +eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both +sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of +sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged +details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere +Trieb,' says Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, +into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was warned that +Robespierre was plotting his arrest. 'If I thought he had the bare +idea,' said Danton with something of Gargantuan hyperbole, 'I would eat +his bowels out.' Such was the disdain with which the 'giant of the +mighty bone and bold emprise' thought of our meagre-hearted pedant. The +truth is that in the stormy and distracted times of politics, and +perhaps in all times, contempt is a dangerous luxury. A man may be a +very poor creature, and still have a faculty for mischief. And +Robespierre had this faculty in the case of Danton. With singular +baseness, he handed over to Saint Just a collection of notes, to serve +as material for the indictment which Saint Just was to present to the +Convention. They comprised everything that suspicion could interpret +malignantly, from the most conspicuous acts of Danton's public life, +down to the casual freedom of private discourse. + +Another infamy was to follow. After the arrest, and on the proceedings +to obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and others +of its members, one only of their friends had the courage to rise and +demand that they should be heard at the bar. Robespierre burst out in +cold rage; he asked whether they had undergone so many heroic +sacrifices, counting among them these acts of 'painful severity,' only +to fall under the yoke of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried +out impatiently that they would brook no claim of privilege, and suffer +no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for the Convention +dreaded to have its independence suspected, and it dreaded this all the +more because at this time its independence did not really exist. The +vote against Danton was unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the +deepest stain on the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the +Sixteenth Germinal (April 5, 1794) Paris in amazement and some +stupefaction saw the once-dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast bound in +the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging knife. 'I leave it +all in a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a man +of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow me; he is +dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the +governing of men!' + + * * * * * + +Let us pause for a moment over a calmer reminiscence. This was the very +day on which the virtuous and high-minded Condorcet quitted the friendly +roof that for nine months had concealed him from the search of +proscription. The same week he was found dead in his prison. While +Danton was storming with impotent thunder before the tribunal, Condorcet +was writing those closing words of his Sketch of Human Progress, which +are always so full of strength and edification. 'How this picture of the +human race freed from all its fetters,--withdrawn from the empire of +chance, as from that of the enemies of progress, and walking with firm +and assured step in the way of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents +to the philosopher a sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, +the injustice, with which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is +not seldom the victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that +he receives the reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for +the defence of liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain +of the destinies of man: it is there he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good; fate can no longer +undo it, by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy: it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.' + + * * * * * + +In following the turns of the drama which was to end in the tragedy of +Thermidor, we perceive that after the fall of the anarchists and the +death of Danton, the relations between Robespierre and the Committees +underwent a change. He, who had hitherto been on the side of government, +became in turn an agency of opposition. He did this in the interest of +ultimate stability, but the difference between the new position and the +old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable republic +with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions. How far the +ascendency of his own personality was involved, we have no means of +judging. The vulgar accusation against him is that he now deliberately +aimed at a dictatorship, and began to plot with that end in view. It is +always the most difficult thing in the world to draw a line between mere +arrogant egoism on the one hand, and on the other the identification of +a man's personal elevation with the success of his public cause. The two +ends probably become mixed in his mind, and if the cause be a good one, +it is the height of pharisaical folly to quarrel with him, because he +desires that his authority and renown shall receive some of the lustre +of a far-shining triumph. What we complain of in Napoleon Bonaparte, for +instance, is not that he sought power, but that he sought it in the +interests of a coarse, brutal, and essentially unmeaning personal +ambition. And so of Robespierre. We need not discuss the charge that he +sought to make himself master. The important thing is that his mastery +could have served no great end for France; that it would have been like +himself, poor, barren, and hopelessly mediocre. And this would have been +seen on every side. France had important military tasks to perform +before her independence was assured. Robespierre hated war, and was +jealous of every victory. France was in urgent need of stable +government, of new laws, of ordered institutions. Robespierre never said +a word to indicate that he had a single positive idea in his head on any +of these great departments. And, more than this, he was incapable of +making use of men who were more happily endowed than himself. He had +never mastered that excellent observation of De Retz, that of all the +qualities of a good party chief, none is so indispensable as being able +to suppress on many occasions, and to hide on all, even legitimate +suspicions. He was corroded by suspicion, and this paralyses able +servants. Finally, Robespierre had no imperial quality of soul, but only +that very sorry imitation of it, a lively irritability. + +The base of Robespierre's schemes of social reconstruction now came +clearly into view; and what a base! An official Supreme Being, and a +regulated Terror. The one was to fill up the spiritual void, and the +other to satisfy all the exigencies of temporal things. It is to the +credit of Robespierre's perspicacity that he should have recognised the +human craving for religion, but this credit is as naught when we +contemplate the jejune thing that passed for religion in his dim and +narrow understanding. Rousseau had brought a new soul into the +eighteenth century by the Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith, the most +fervid and exalted expression of emotional deism that religious +literature contains; vague, irrational, incoherent, cloudy; but the +clouds are suffused with glowing gold. When we turn from that to the +political version of it in Robespierre's discourse on the relations of +religious and moral ideas with republican principles, we feel as one who +revisits a landscape that had been made glorious to him by a summer sky +and fresh liquid winds from the gates of the evening sun, only to find +it dead under a gray heaven and harsh blasts from the northeast. +Robespierre's words on the Supreme Being are never a brimming stream of +deep feeling; they are a literary concoction: never the self-forgetting +expansion of the religious soul, but only the composite of the +rhetorician. He thought he had a passion for religion; what he took for +religion was little more than mental decorum. We do not mean that he was +insincere, or that he was without a feeling for high things. But here, +as in all else, his aspiration was far beyond his faculty; he yearned +for great spiritual emotions, as he had yearned for great thoughts and +great achievements, but his spiritual capacity was as scanty and obscure +as his intelligence. And where unkind Nature thus unequally yokes lofty +objects in a man with a short mental reach, she stamps him with the very +definition of mediocrity. + +How can we speak with decent patience of a man who seriously thought +that he should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of +the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the Feast of +the Supreme Being? This was designed as a triumphant ripost to the Feast +of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends had celebrated in the winter. +The energumens of the Goddess of Reason had now been some weeks in +their bloody graves; by this time, if they had given the wrong answer to +the supreme enigma, their eyes would perhaps be opened. Robespierre +persuaded the Convention to decree an official recognition of the +Supreme Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of their +mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for the decade in +which the festival would fall. When the day came (20th Prairial, June 8, +1794), he clothed himself with more than even his usual care. As he +looked out from the windows of the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in +the gardens, he was intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, +'how sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow pale +at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical pride he walked +at the head of the procession, with flowers and wheat-ears in his hand, +to the sound of chants and symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the +first of the great basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised +an allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was prepared. +Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the midst of an amiable +group of human Vices, with Madness by her side, and Wisdom menacing them +with lofty wrath. Great are the perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied +a torch to Atheism, but alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and +Madness were damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was +hapless Wisdom who took fire. Her face, all blackened by smoke, grinned +a hideous ghastly grin at her sturdy rivals. The miscarriage of the +allegory was an evil omen, and men probably thought how much better the +churchmen always managed their conjurings and the art of spectacle. +There was a great car drawn by milk-white oxen; in the front were ranged +sheaves of golden grain, while at the back shepherds and shepherdesses +posed with scenic graces. The whole mummery was pagan. It was a bringing +back of Cerealia and Thesmophoria to earth. It stands as the most +disgusting and contemptible anachronism in history. + +The famous republican Calendar, with its Prairials and Germinals, its +Ventoses and Pluvioses, was an anachronism of the same kind, though it +was less despicable in its manifestation. Its philosophic base was just +as retrograde and out of season as the fooleries of the Feast of the +Supreme Being. The association of worship and sacredness with the fruits +of the earth, with the forces of nature, with the power and variety of +the elements, could only be sincere so long as men really thought of all +these things as animated each by a special will of its own. Such an +association became mere charlatanry, when knowledge once passed into the +positive stage. How could men go back to adore an outer world, after +they had found out the secret that it is a mere huge group of phenomena, +following fixed courses, and not obeying spontaneous and unaccountable +volitions of their own? And what could be more puerile than the fanciful +connection of the Supreme Being with a pastoral simplicity of life? This +simplicity was gone, irrecoverably gone, with the passage from nomad +times to the complexities of a modern society. To typify, therefore, the +Supreme Being as specially interested in shocks of grain and in +shepherds and shepherdesses was to make him a mere figure in an idyll, +the ornament of a rural mask, a god of the garden, instead of the +sovereign director of the universal forces, and stern master of the +destinies of men. Chaumette's commemoration of the Divinity of Reason +was a sensible performance, compared with Robespierre's farcical +repartee. It was something, as Comte has said, to select for worship +man's most individual attribute. If they could not contemplate society +as a whole, it was at least a gain to pay homage to that faculty in the +human rulers of the world, which had brought the forces of nature--its +pluviosity, nivosity, germinality, and vendemiarity--under the yoke for +the service of men. + +If the philosophy of Robespierre's pageant was so retrograde and false, +its politics were still more inane. It is a monument of presumptuous +infatuation that any one should feel so strongly as he did that order +could only be restored on condition of coming to terms with religious +use and prejudice, and then that he should dream that his Supreme +Being--a mere didactic phrase, the deity of a poet's georgic--should +adequately replace that eternal marvel of construction, by means of +which the great churchmen had wrought dogma and liturgy and priest and +holy office into every hour and every mood of men's lives. There is no +binding principle of human association in a creed with this one bald +article. 'In truth,' as I have said elsewhere of such deism as +Robespierre's, 'one can scarcely call it a creed. It is mainly a name +for a particular mood of fine spiritual exaltation; the expression of a +state of indefinite aspiration and supreme feeling for lofty things. Are +you going to convert the new barbarians of our western world with this +fair word of emptiness? Will you sweeten the lives of suffering men, and +take its heaviness from that droning piteous chronicle of wrong and +cruelty and despair, which everlastingly saddens the compassionating ear +like moaning of a midnight sea; will you animate the stout of heart with +new fire, and the firm of hand with fresh joy of battle, by the thought +of a being without intelligible attributes, a mere abstract creation of +metaphysic, whose mercy is not as our mercy, nor his justice as our +justice, nor his fatherhood as the fatherhood of men? It was not by a +cold, a cheerless, a radically depraving conception such as this, that +the church became the refuge of humanity in the dark times of old, but +by the representation, to men sitting in bondage and confusion, of +godlike natures moving among them, under figure of the most eternally +touching of human relations,--a tender mother ever interceding for them, +and an elder brother laying down his life that their burdens might be +loosened.' + + * * * * * + +On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine was +concealed in the folds of rich hangings. It was the Twentieth of +Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention the +memorable Law of the Twenty-second Prairial. Robespierre was the +draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own writing. This +monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation of all law. Of all laws +ever passed in the world it is the most nakedly iniquitous. Tyrants have +often substituted their own will for the ordered procedure of a +tribunal, but no tyrant before ever went through the atrocious farce of +deliberately making a tribunal the organised negation of security for +justice. Couthon laid its theoretic base in a fallacy that must always +be full of seduction to shallow persons in authority: 'He who would +subordinate the public safety to the inventions of jurisconsults, to the +formulas of the Court, is either an imbecile or a scoundrel.' As if +public safety could mean anything but the safety of the public. The +author of the Law of Prairial had forgotten the minatory word of the +sage to whom he had gone on a pilgrimage in the days of his youth. 'All +becomes legitimate and even virtuous,' Helvetius had written, 'on behalf +of the public safety.' Rousseau inscribed on the margin, 'The public +safety is nothing, unless individuals enjoy security.' What security was +possible under the Law of Prairial? + +After the probity and good judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal +guarantees in state trials are accurate definition, and proof. The +offence must be capable of precise description, and the proof against +an offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial violently +infringed all three of these essential conditions of judicial equity. +First, the number of the jury who had power to convict was reduced. +Second, treason was made to consist in such vague and infinitely elastic +kinds of action as inspiring discouragement, misleading opinion, +depraving manners, corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the +Revolution by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the +conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary inquiry, of +witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the accused. Any kind of +testimony was evidence, whether material or moral, verbal or written, if +it was of a kind 'likely to gain the assent of a man of reasonable +mind.' + +Now what was Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? +The theory that he loved judicial murder for its own sake, can only be +held by the silliest of royalist or clerical partisans. It is like the +theory of the vulgar kind of Protestantism, that Mary Tudor or Philip of +Spain had a keen delight in shedding blood. Robespierre, like Mary and +like Philip, would have been as well pleased if all the world would have +come round to his mind without the destruction of a single life. The +true inquisitor is a creature of policy, not a man of blood by taste. +What, then, was the policy that inspired the Law of Prairial? To us the +answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim in Robespierre's +mind at this point in the history of the Revolution. His brother +Augustin was then the representative of the Convention with the army of +Italy, and General Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. +Bonaparte said long afterwards, when he was expiating a life of iniquity +on the rock of Saint Helena, that he saw long letters from Maximilian to +Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the Conventional Commissioners--Tallien, +Fouche, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they perpetrated, +and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by their atrocities. Again, +there is abundant testimony that Robespierre did his best to induce the +Committee of Public Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. +The text of the Law itself discloses the same object. The vague phrases of +depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles perfidiously, were +exactly calculated to smite the band of violent men whose conduct was to +Robespierre the scandal of the Revolution. And there was a curious clause +in the law as originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the +right of preventing measures against its own members. Robespierre's general +design in short was to effect a further purgation of the Convention. There +is no reason to suppose that he deliberately aimed at any more general +extermination. On the other hand, it is incredible that, as some have +maintained, he should merely have had in view the equalisation of rich and +poor before the tribunals, by withdrawing the aid of counsel and testimony +to civic character from both rich and poor alike. + +If Robespierre's design was what we believe it to have been, the result +was a ghastly failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent +to apply his law against the men for whom he had specially designed it. +The frightful weapon which he had forged was seized by the Committee of +General Security, and Paris was plunged into the fearful days of the +Great Terror. The number of persons put to death by the Revolutionary +Tribunal before the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. +From the creation of the tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution +of the Hebertists in March 1794, the number of persons condemned to +death was 505. From the death of the Hebertists down to the death of +Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2158. One half of the +entire number of victims, namely, 1356, were guillotined after the Law +of Prairial. No deadlier instrument was ever invented by the cruelty of +man. Innocent women no less than innocent men, poor no less than rich, +those in whom life was almost spent, no less than those in whom its +pulse was strongest, virtuous no less than vicious, were sent off in +woe-stricken batches all those summer days. A man was informed against; +he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at seven he was taken +to the Conciergerie; at nine he received information of the charge +against him; at ten he went into the dock; by two in the afternoon he +was condemned; by four his head lay in the executioner's basket. + +What stamps the system of the Terror at this date with a wickedness +that cannot be effaced, is that at no moment was the danger from foreign +or domestic foe less serious. We may always forgive something to +well-grounded panic. The proscriptions of an earlier date in Paris were +not excessively sanguinary, if we remember that the city abounded in +royalists and other reactionists, who were really dangerous in fomenting +discouragement and spreading confusion. If there ever is an excuse for +martial law, and it must be rare, the French government were warranted +in resorting to it in 1793. Paris in those days was like a city +beleaguered, and the world does not use very harsh words about the +commandant of a besieged town who puts to death traitors found within +his walls. Opinion in England at this very epoch encouraged the Tory +government to pass a Treason Bill, which introduced as vague a +definition of treasonable offence as even the Law of Prairial itself. +Windham did not shrink from declaring in parliament that he and his +colleagues were determined to exact 'a rigour beyond the law.' And they +were as good as their word. The Jacobins had no monopoly either of cruel +law or cruel breach of law in the eighteenth century. Only thirty years +before, opinion in Pennsylvania had prompted a hideous massacre of +harmless Indians as a deed acceptable to God, and the grandson of +William Penn proclaimed a bounty of fifty dollars for the scalp of a +female Indian, and three times as much for a male. A man would have had +quite as good a chance of justice from the Revolutionary Tribunal, as +at the hands of Braxfield, the Scotch judge, who condemned Muir and +Palmer for sedition in 1793, and who told the government, with a brazen +front worthy of Carrier or Collot d'Herbois themselves, that, if they +would only send him prisoners, he would find law for them. + +We have no sympathy with the spirit of paradox that has arisen in these +days, amusing itself by the vindication of bad men. We think that the +author of the Law of Prairial was a bad man. But it is time that there +should be an end of the cant which lifts up its hands at the crimes of +republicans and freethinkers, and shuts its eyes to the crimes of kings +and churches. Once more, we ought to rise into a higher air; we ought to +condemn, wherever we find it, whether on the side of our adversaries or +on our own, all readiness to substitute arbitrary force for the +processes of ordered justice. There are moments when such a readiness +may be leniently judged, but Prairial of 1794 was not one of them either +in France or in England. And what makes the crime of this law more +odious, is its association with the official proclamation of the State +worship of a Supreme Being. The scene of Robespierre's holy festival +becomes as abominable as a catholic Auto-da-fe, where solemn homage was +offered to the God of pity and loving-kindness, while flame glowed round +the limbs of the victims. + + * * * * * + +Robespierre was inflamed with resentment, not because so many people +were guillotined every day, but because the objects of his own enmity +were not among them. He was chagrined at the miscarriage of his scheme; +but the chagrin had its root in his desire for order, and not in his +humanity. A good man--say so imperfectly good a man as Danton--could not +have endured life, after enacting such a law, and seeing the ghastly +work that it was doing. He could hardly have contented himself with +drawing tears from the company in Madame Duplay's little parlour, by his +pathetic recitations from Corneille and Racine, or with listening to +melting notes from the violin of Le Bas. It is commonly said by +Robespierre's defenders that he withdrew from the Committee of Public +Safety, as soon as he found out that he was powerless to arrest the +daily shedding of blood. The older assumption used to be that he left +Paris, and ceased to be cognisant of the Committee's deliberations. The +minutes, however, prove that this was not the case. Robespierre signed +papers nearly every day of Messidor--(June 19 to July 18) the +blood-stained month between Prairial and Thermidor--and was thoroughly +aware of the doings of the Committee. His partisans have now fallen back +on the singular theory of what they style moral absence. He was present +in the flesh, but standing aloof in the spirit. His frowning silence was +a deadlier rebuke to the slayers and oppressors than secession. +Unfortunately for this ingenious explanation of the embarrassing fact of +a merciful man standing silent before merciless doings, there are at +least two facts that show its absurdity. + +First, there is the affair of Catherine Theot. Catherine Theot was a +crazy old woman of a type that is commoner in protestant than in +catholic countries. She believed herself to have special gifts in the +interpretation of the holy writings, and a few other people as crazy as +herself chose to accept her pretensions. One revelation vouchsafed to +her was to the effect that Robespierre was a Messiah and the new +redeemer of the human race. The Committee of General Security resolved +to indict this absurd sect. Vadier,--one of the roughest of the men whom +the insurrections of Paris had brought to the front--reported on the +charges to the Convention (27 Prairial, June 15), and he took the +opportunity to make Robespierre look profoundly ridiculous. The +unfortunate Messiah sat on his bench, gnawing his lips with bitter rage, +while, amid the sneers and laughter of the Convention, the officers +brought to the bar the foolish creatures who had called him the Son of +God. His thin pride and prudish self-respect were unutterably affronted, +and he quite understood that the ridicule of the mysticism of Theot was +an indirect pleasantry upon his own Supreme Being. He flew to the +Committee of Public Safety, angrily reproached them for permitting the +prosecution, summoned Fouquier-Tinville, and peremptorily ordered him to +let the matter drop. In vain did the public prosecutor point out that +there was a decree of the Convention ordering him to proceed. +Robespierre was inexorable. The Committee of General Security were +baffled, and the prosecution ended. 'Lutteur impuissant et fatigue,' +says M. Hamel, the most thoroughgoing defender of Robespierre, upon +this, 'il va se retirer, moralement du moins.' Impotent and wearied! But +he had just won a most signal victory for good sense and humanity. Why +was it the only one? If Robespierre was able to save Theot, why could he +not save Cecile Renault? + +Cecile Renault was a young seamstress who was found one evening at the +door of Robespierre's lodging, calling out in a state of exaltation that +she would fain see what a tyrant looked like. She was arrested, and upon +her were found two little knives used for the purposes of her trade. +That she should be arrested and imprisoned was natural enough. The times +were charged with deadly fire. People had not forgotten that Marat had +been murdered in his own house. Only a few days before Cecile Renault's +visit to Robespierre, an assassin had fired a pistol at Collot d'Herbois +on the staircase of his apartment. We may make allowance for the +excitement of the hour, and Robespierre had as much right to play the +martyr, as had Lewis the Fifteenth after the incident of Damiens' rusty +pen-knife. But the histrionic exigencies of the chief of a faction ought +not to be pushed too far. And it was a monstrous crime that because +Robespierre found it convenient to pose as sacrificial victim at the +Club, therefore he should have had no scruple in seeing not only the +wretched Cecile, but her father, her aunt, and one of her brothers, all +despatched to the guillotine in the red shirt of parricide, as agents of +Pitt and Coburg, and assassins of the father of the land. This was +exactly two days after he had shown his decisive power in the affair of +the religious illuminists. The only possible conclusion open to a plain +man after weighing and putting aside all the sophisms with which this +affair has been obscured, is that Robespierre interfered in the one case +because its further prosecution would have tended to make him +ridiculous, and he did not interfere in the other, because the more +exaggerated, the more melodramatic, the more murderous it was made, the +more interesting an object would he seem in the eyes of his adorers. + +The second fact bearing on Robespierre's humanity is this. He had +encouraged the formation and stimulated the activity of popular +commissions, who should provide victims for the Revolutionary Tribunal. +On the Second of Messidor (June 20) a list containing one hundred and +thirty-eight names was submitted for the ratification of the Committee. +The Committee endorsed the bloody document, and the last signature of +the endorsement is that of him, who had resigned a post in his youth +rather than be a party to putting a man to death. As was observed at the +time, Robespierre in doing this, suppressed his pique against his +colleagues, in order to take part in a measure, that was a sort of +complement to his Law of Prairial. + +From these two circumstances, then, even if there were no other, we are +justified in inferring that Robespierre was struck by no remorse at the +thought that it was his law which had unbound the hands of the horrible +genie of civil murder. His mind was wholly absorbed in the calculations +of a frigid egoism. His intelligence, as we have always to remember, was +very dim. He only aimed at one thing at once, and that was seldom +anything very great or far-reaching. He was a man of peering and +obscured vision in face of practical affairs. In passing the Law of +Prairial, his designs--and they were meritorious and creditable designs +enough in themselves--had been directed against the corrupt chiefs, such +as Tallien and Fouche, and against the fierce and coarse spirits of the +Committee of General Security, such as Vadier and Voulland. Robespierre +was above all things a precisian. He had a sentimental sympathy with the +common people in the abstract, but his spiritual pride, his pedantry, +his formalism, his personal fastidiousness, were all wounded to the very +quick by the kind of men whom the Revolution had thrown to the surface. +Gouverneur Morris, then the American minister, describes most of the +members of the two Committees as the very dregs of humanity, with whom +it is a stain to have any dealings; as degraded men only worthy of the +profoundest contempt. Danton had said: 'Robespierre is the least of a +scoundrel of any of the band.' The Committee of General Security +represented the very elements by which Robespierre was most revolted. +They offended his respectability; their evil manners seemed to tarnish +that good name which his vanity hoped to make as revered all over +Europe, as it already was among his partisans in France. It was +indispensable therefore to cut them off from the revolutionary +government, just as Hebert and as Danton had been cut off. His +colleagues of Public Safety refused to lend themselves to this. +Henceforth, with characteristically narrow tenacity, he looked round for +new combinations, but, so far as I can see, with no broader design than +to enable him to punish these particular objects of his very just +detestation. + +The position of sections and interests which ended in the Revolution of +Thermidor, is one of the most extraordinarily intricate and entangled in +the history of faction. It would take a volume to follow out all the +peripeteias of the drama. Here we can only enumerate in a few sentences +the parties to the contest and the conditions of the game. The reader +will easily discern the difficulty in Robespierre's way of making an +effective combination. First, there were the two Committees. Of these +the one, the General Security, was thoroughly hostile to Robespierre; +its members, as we have said, were wild and hardy spirits, with no +political conception, and with a great contempt for fine phrases and +philosophical principles. They knew Robespierre's hatred for them, and +they heartily returned it. They were the steadfast centre of the +changing schemes which ended in his downfall. The Committee of Public +Safety was divided. Carnot hated Saint Just, and Collot d'Herbois hated +Robespierre, and Billaud had a sombre distrust of Robespierre's +counsels. Shortly speaking, the object of the Billaudists was to retain +their power, and their power was always menaced from two quarters, the +Convention and Paris. If they let Robespierre have his own way against +his enemies, would they not be at his mercy whenever he chose to devise +a popular insurrection against them? Yet if they withstood Robespierre, +they could only do so through the agency of the Convention, and to fall +back upon the Convention would be to give that body an express +invitation to resume the power that had, in the pressure of the crisis a +year before, been delegated to the Committee, and periodically renewed +afterwards. The dilemma of Billaud seemed desperate, and events +afterwards proved that it was so. + +If we turn to the Convention, we find the position equally distracting. +They, too, feared another insurrection and a second decimation. If the +Right helped Robespierre to destroy the Fouches and Vadiers, he would be +stronger than ever; and what security had they against a repetition of +the violence of the Thirty-first of May? If the Dantonists joined in +destroying Robespierre, they would be helping the Right, and what +security had they against a Girondin reaction? On the other hand, the +Centre might fairly hope, just what Billaud feared, that if the +Committee came to the Convention to crush Robespierre, that would end in +a combination strong enough to enable the Convention to crush the +Committees. + +Much depended on military success. The victories of the generals were +the great strength of the Committee. For so long it would be difficult +to turn opinion against a triumphant administration. 'At the first +defeat,' Robespierre had said to Barere, 'I await you.' But the defeat +did not come. The plotting went on with incessant activity; on one hand, +Robespierre, aided by Saint Just and Couthon, strengthening himself at +the Jacobin Club, and through that among the sections; on the other, the +Mountain and the Committee of General Security trying to win over the +Right, more contemptuously christened the Marsh or the Belly, of the +Convention. The Committee of Public Safety was not yet fully decided how +to act. + +At the end of the first week of Thermidor, Robespierre could endure the +tension no longer. He had tried to fortify his nerves for the struggle +by riding, but with so little success that he was lifted off his horse +fainting. He endeavoured to steady himself by diligent pistol-practice. +But nothing gave him initiative and the sinews of action. Saint Just +urged him to raise Paris. Some bold men proposed to carry off the +members of the Committee bodily from their midnight deliberations. +Robespierre declined, and fell back on what he took to be his greatest +strength and most unfailing resource; he prepared a speech. On the +Eighth of Thermidor he delivered it to the Convention, amid intense +excitement both within its walls and without. All Paris knew that they +were now on the eve of one more of the famous Days; the revolution of +Thermidor had begun. + +The speech of the Eighth Thermidor has seemed to men of all parties +since a masterpiece of tactical ineptitude. If Robespierre had been a +statesman instead of a phrasemonger, he had a clear course. He ought to +have taken the line of argument that Danton would have taken. That is to +say, he ought to have identified himself fully with the interests and +security of the Convention; to have accepted the growing resolution to +close the Terror; to have boldly pressed the abolition of the Committee +of General Security, and the removal from the Committee of Public Safety +of Billaud, Collot, Barere; to have proposed to send about fifty persons +to Cayenne for life; and to have urged a policy of peace with the +foreign powers. This was the substantial wisdom and real interest of the +position. The task was difficult, because his hearers had the best +possible reasons for knowing that the author of the Law of Prairial was +a Terrorist on principle. And in truth we know that Robespierre had no +definite intention of erecting clemency into a rule. He had not mental +strength enough to throw off the profound apprehension, which the +incessant alarms of the last five years had engendered in him; and the +only device, that he could imagine for maintaining the republic against +traitors, was to stimulate the rigour of the Revolutionary Tribunal. + +If, however, Robespierre lacked the grasp which might have made him the +representative of a broad and stable policy, it was at least his +interest to persuade the men of the Plain that he entertained no designs +against them. And this is what in his own mind he intended. But to do it +effectively, it was clearly best to tell his hearers, in so many words, +whom he really wished them to strike. That would have relieved the +majority, and banished the suspicion which had been busily fomented by +his enemies, that he had in his pocket a long list of their names, for +proscription. But Robespierre, having for the first time in his life +ventured on aggressive action without the support of a definite party, +faltered. He dared not to designate his enemies face to face and by +name. Instead of that, he talked vaguely of conspirators against the +republic, and calumniators of himself. There was not a single bold, +definite, unmistakable sentence in the speech from first to last. The +men of the Plain were insecure and doubtful; they had no certainty that +among conspirators and calumniators he did not include too many of +themselves. People are not so readily seized by grand phrases, when +their heads are at stake. The sitting was long, and marked by changing +currents and reverses. When they broke up, all was left uncertain. +Robespierre had suffered a check. Billaud felt that he could no longer +hesitate in joining the combination against his colleague. Each party +was aware that the next day must seal the fate of one or other of them. +There is a legend that in the evening Robespierre walked in the Champs +Elysees with his betrothed, accompanied as usual by his faithful dog, +Brount. They admired the purple of the sunset, and talked of the +prospect of a glorious to-morrow. But this is apocryphal. The evening +was passed in no lover's saunterings, but amid the storm and uproar of +the Club. He went to the Jacobins to read over again his speech of the +day. 'It is my testament of death,' he said, amid the passionate +protestations of his devoted followers. He had been talking for the last +three years of his willingness to drink the hemlock, and to offer his +breast to the poniards of tyrants. That was a fashion of the speech of +the time, and in earlier days it had been more than a fashion of speech, +for Brunswick would have given them short shrift. But now, when he +talked of his last testament, Robespierre did not intend it to be so if +he could prevent it. When he went to rest that night, he had a tolerably +calm hope that he should win the next day's battle in the Convention, +when he was aware that Saint Just would attack the Committees openly and +directly. If he would have allowed his band to invade the Pavillon de +Flore, and carry off or slay the Committees who sat up through the +night, the battle would have been won when he awoke. His friends are +justified in saying that his strong respect for legality was the cause +of his ruin. + +Men in all ages have had a superstitious fondness for connecting awful +events in their lives with portents and signs among the outer elements. +It was noticed that the heat during the terrible days of Thermidor was +more intense than had been known within the memory of man. The +thermometer never fell below sixty-five degrees in the coolest part of +the night, and in the daytime men and women and beasts of burden fell +down dead in the streets. By five o'clock in the morning of the Ninth +Thermidor, the galleries of the Convention were filled by a boisterous +and excited throng. At ten o'clock the proceedings began as usual with +the reading of correspondence from the departments and from the armies. +Robespierre, who had been escorted from his lodgings by the usual body +of admirers, instead of taking his ordinary seat, remained standing by +the side of the tribune. It is a familiar fact that moments of appalling +suspense are precisely those in which we are most ready involuntarily to +note a trifle; everybody observed that Robespierre wore the coat of +violet-blue silk and the white nankeens in which a few weeks previously +he had done honour to the Supreme Being. + +The galleries seemed as enthusiastic as ever. The men of the Plain and +the Marsh had lost the abject mien with which they usually cowered +before Robespierre's glance; they wore a courageous air of judicial +reserve. The leaders of the Mountain wandered restlessly to and fro +among the corridors. At noon Tallien saw that Saint Just had ascended +the tribune. Instantly he rushed down into the chamber, knowing that +the battle had now begun in fierce earnest. Saint Just had not got +through two sentences, before Tallien interrupted him. He began to +insist with energy that there should be an end to the equivocal phrases +with which Paris had been too long alarmed by the Triumvirate. Billaud, +fearing to be outdone in the attack, hastily forced his way to the +tribune, broke into what Tallien was saying, and proceeded dexterously +to discredit Robespierre's allies without at once assailing Robespierre +himself. Le Bas ran in a fury to stop him; Collot d'Herbois, the +president, declared Le Bas out of order; the hall rang with cries of 'To +prison! To the Abbey!' and Le Bas was driven from the tribune. This was +the beginning of the tempest. Robespierre's enemies knew that they were +fighting for their lives, and this inspired them with a strong and +resolute power that is always impressive in popular assemblies. He still +thought himself secure. Billaud pursued his accusations. Robespierre, at +last, unable to control himself, scaled the tribune. There suddenly +burst forth from Tallien and his partisans vehement shouts of 'Down with +the tyrant! down with the tyrant!' The galleries were swept by a wild +frenzy of vague agitation; the president's bell poured loud incessant +clanging into the tumult; the men of the Plain held themselves firm and +silent; in the tribune raged ferocious groups, Tallien menacing +Robespierre with a dagger, Billaud roaring out proposals to arrest this +person and that Robespierre gesticulating, threatening, yelling, +shrieking. His enemies knew that if he were once allowed to get a +hearing, his authority might even yet overawe the waverers. A +penetrative word or a heroic gesture might lose them the day. The +majority of the chamber still hesitated. They called for Barere, in +whose adroit faculty for discovering the winning side they had the +confidence of long experience. Robespierre, recovering some of his calm, +and perceiving now that he had really to deal with a serious revolt, +again asked to be heard before Barere. But the cries for Barere were +louder than ever. Barere spoke, in a sense hostile to Robespierre, but +warily and without naming him. + +Then there was a momentary lull. The Plain was uncertain. The battle +might even now turn either way. Robespierre made another attempt to +speak, but Tallien with intrepid fury broke out into a torrent of louder +and more vehement invective. Robespierre's shrill voice was heard in +disjected snatches, amidst the violent tones of Tallien, the yells of +the president calling Robespierre to order, the murderous clanging of +the bell. Then came that supreme hour of the struggle, whose tale has +been so often told, when Robespierre turned from his old allies of the +Mountain, and succeeded in shrieking out an appeal to the probity and +virtue of the Right and the Plain. To his horror, even these despised +men, after a slight movement, remained mute. Then his cheeks blanched, +and the sweat ran down his face. But anger and scornful impatience +swiftly came back and restored him. _President of assassins_, he cried +out to Thuriot, _for the last time I ask to be heard. Thou canst not +speak_, called one, _the blood of Danton chokes thee_. He flung himself +down the steps of the tribune, and rushed towards the benches of the +Right. _Come no further_, cried another, _Vergniaud and Condorcet sat +here_. He regained the tribune, but his speech was gone. He was reduced +to the dregs of an impotent and gasping voiceless gesticulation, like +the strife of one in a nightmare. + +The day was lost. The tension of a passionate and violent struggle +prolonged for many hours always at length exasperates onlookers with +something of the brute ferocity of the actors. The physical strain stirs +the tiger in the blood; they conceive a cruel hatred against weakness, +just as the heated throng of a Roman amphitheatre turned up their thumbs +for the instant despatch of the unfortunate swordsman who had been too +ready to lower his arms. The Right, the Plain, even the galleries, +despised the man who had succumbed. If Robespierre had possessed the +physical strength of Mirabeau or Danton, the Ninth Thermidor would have +been another of his victories. He was crushed by the relentless ferocity +and endurance of his antagonists. A decree for his arrest was resolved +upon by acclamation. He cast a glance at the galleries, as marvelling +that they should remain passive in face of an outrage on his person. +They were mute. The ushers advanced with hesitation to do their duty, +and not without trembling carried him away, along with Couthon and +Saint Just. The brother, for whom he had made honourable sacrifices in +days that seemed to be divided from the present by an abyss of +centuries, insisted with fine heroism on sharing his fate, and Augustin +Robespierre and Le Bas were led off to the prisons along with their +leader and idol. + +It was now a little after four o'clock. The Convention, with the +self-possession that so often amazes us in its proceedings, went on with +formal business for another hour. At five they broke up. For life, as +the poets tell, is a daily stage-play; men declaim their high heroic +parts, then doff the buskin or the sock, wash away the paint from their +cheeks, and gravely sit down to meat. The Conventionals, as they ate +their dinners, were unconscious, apparently, that the great crisis of +the drama was still to come. The next twelve hours were to witness the +climax. Robespierre had been crushed by the Convention; it remained to +be seen whether the Convention would not now be crushed by the Commune +of Paris. + +Robespierre was first conducted to the prisons of the Luxembourg. The +gaoler, on some plea of informality, refused to receive him. The +terrible prisoner was next taken to the Mairie, where he remained among +joyful friends from eight in the evening until eleven. Meanwhile the old +insurrectionary methods of the nights of June and of August in '92, of +May and of June in '93, were again followed. The beating of the _rappel_ +and the _generale_ was heard in all the sections; the tocsin sounded its +dreadful note, reminding all who should hear it that insurrection is +the most sacred and the most indispensable of duties. Hanriot, the +commandant of the forces, had been arrested in the evening, but he was +speedily released by the agents of the Commune. The Council issued +manifestoes and decrees from the Common Hall every moment. The barriers +were closed. Cannon were posted opposite the doors of the hall of the +Convention. The quays were thronged. Emissaries sped to and fro between +the Jacobin Club and the Common Hall, and between these two centres and +each of the forty-eight sections. It is one of the inscrutable mysteries +of this delirious night, that Hanriot did not at once use the force at +his command to break up the Convention. There is no obvious reason why +he should not have done so. The members of the Convention had +re-assembled after their dinner, towards seven o'clock. The hall which +had resounded with the shrieks and yells of the furious gladiators of +the factions all day, now lent a lugubrious echo to gloomy reports which +one member after another delivered from the shadow of the tribune. +Towards nine o'clock the members of the two dread Committees came in +panic to seek shelter among their colleagues, 'as dejected in their +peril,' says an eyewitness, 'as they had been cruel and insolent in the +hour of their supremacy.' When they heard that Hanriot had been +released, and that guns were at their door, all gave themselves up for +lost and made ready for death. News came that Robespierre had broken his +arrest and gone to the Common Hall. Robespierre, after urgent and +repeated solicitations, had been at length persuaded about an hour +before midnight to leave the Mairie and join his partisans of the +Commune. This was an act of revolt against the Convention, for the +Mairie was a legal place of detention, and so long as he was there, he +was within the law. The Convention with heroic intrepidity declared both +Hanriot and Robespierre beyond the pale of the law. This prompt measure +was its salvation. Twelve members were instantly named to carry the +decree to all the sections. With the scarf of office round their waists, +and a sabre in hand, they sallied forth. Mounting horses, and escorted +by attendants with flaring torches, they scoured Paris, calling all good +citizens to the succour of the Convention, haranguing crowds at the +street corners with power and authority, and striking the imaginations +of men. At midnight heavy rain began to fall. + +The leaders of the Commune meanwhile, in full confidence that victory +was sure, contented themselves with incessant issue of paper decrees, to +each of which the Convention replied by a counter-decree. Those who have +studied the situation most minutely, are of opinion that even so late as +one o'clock in the morning, the Commune might have made a successful +defence, although it had lost the opportunity, which it had certainly +possessed up to ten o'clock, of destroying the Convention. But on this +occasion the genius of insurrection slumbered. And there was a genuine +division of opinion in the eastern quarters of Paris, the result of a +grim distrust of the man who had helped to slay Hebert and Chaumette. At +a word this distrust began to declare itself. The opinion of the +sections became more and more distracted. One armed group cried, _Down +with the Convention!_ Another armed group cried, _The Convention for +ever, and down with the Commune!_ The two great faubourgs were all +astir, and three battalions were ready to march. Emissaries from the +Convention actually succeeded in persuading them--such the dementia of +the night--that Robespierre was a royalist agent, and that the Commune +were about to deliver the little Lewis from his prison in the Temple. +One body of communist partisans after another was detached from its +allegiance. The deluge of rain emptied the Place de Greve, and when +companies came up from the sections in obedience to orders from Hanriot +and the Commune, the silence made them suspect a trap, and they withdrew +towards the great metropolitan church or elsewhere. + +Barras, whom the Convention had charged with its military defence, +gathered together some six thousand men. With the right instinct of a +man who had studied the history of Paris since the July of 1789, he +foresaw the advantage of being the first to make the attack. He arranged +his forces into two divisions. One of them marched along the quays to +take the Common Hall in front; the other along the Rue Saint Honore to +take it in flank. Inside the Common Hall the staircases and corridors +were alive with bustling messengers, and those mysterious busybodies who +are always found lingering without a purpose on the skirts of great +historic scenes. Robespierre and the other chiefs were in a small room, +preparing manifestoes and signing decrees. They were curiously unaware +of the movements of the Convention. An aggressive attack by the party of +authority upon the party of insurrection was unknown in the tradition of +revolt. They had an easy assurance that at daybreak their forces would +be prepared once more to tramp along the familiar road westwards. It was +now half-past two. Robespierre had just signed the first two letters of +his name to a document before him, when he was startled by cries and +uproar in the Place below. In a few instants he lay stretched on the +ground, his jaw shattered by a pistol-shot. His brother had either +fallen or had leaped out of the window. Couthon was hurled over a +staircase, and lay for dead. Saint Just was a prisoner. + +Whether Robespierre was shot by an officer of the Conventional force, or +attempted to blow out his own brains, we shall never know, any more than +we shall ever be quite assured how Rousseau, his spiritual master, came +to an end. The wounded man was carried, a ghastly sight, first to the +Committee of Public Safety, and then to the Conciergerie, where he lay +in silent stupefaction through the heat of the summer day. As he was an +outlaw, the only legal preliminary before execution was to identify +him. At five in the afternoon, he was raised into the cart Couthon and +the younger Robespierre lay, confused wrecks of men, at the bottom of +it. Hanriot and Saint Just, bruised, begrimed, and foul, completed the +band. One who walks from the Palace of Justice, over the bridge, along +the Rue Saint Honore, into the Rue Royale, and so to the Luxor column, +retraces the _via dolorosa_ of the Revolution on the afternoon of the +Tenth of Thermidor. + + * * * * * + +The end of the intricate manoeuvres known as the Revolution of +Thermidor was the recovery of authority by the Convention. The +insurrections, known as the days of the Twelfth Germinal, First +Prairial, and Thirteenth Vendemiaire, all ended in the victory of the +Convention over the revolutionary forces of Paris. The Committees, on +the other hand, had beaten Robespierre, but they had ruined themselves. +Very gradually the movement towards order, which had begun in the mind +of Danton, and had gone on in the cloudy purposes of Robespierre, became +definite. But it was in the interest of very different ideas from those +of either Danton or of Robespierre. A White Terror succeeded the Red +Terror. Not at once, however; it was not until nine months after the +death of Robespierre, that the reaction was strong enough to smite his +colleagues of the two Committees. The surviving Girondins had come back +to their seats in the Convention: the Dantonians had not forgiven the +execution of their chief. These two parties were bent on vengeance. In +April, 1795, a decree was passed banishing Billaud de Varennes, Collot +d'Herbois, and Barere. In the following month the leaders of the +Committee of General Security were thrown into prison. The revolution +had passed into new currents. We cannot see any reasons for thinking +that those currents would have led to any happier results if Robespierre +had won the battle. Tallien, Fouche, Barras, and the rest may have been +thoroughly bad men. But then what qualities had Robespierre for building +up a state? He had neither strength of practical character, nor firm +breadth of political judgment, nor a sound social doctrine. When we +compare him,--I do not say with Frederick of Prussia, with Jefferson, +with Washington,--but with the group of able men who made the closing +year of the Convention honourable and of good service to France, we have +a measure of Robespierre's profound and pitiable incompetence. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE *** + +***** This file should be named 20733.txt or 20733.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/3/20733/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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