CH. III.]

CHAPTER III.

ELECTION OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.

THE METROPOLITAN POLICE COMMITTEE.-MARAT, MASSACRES OF THE 2ND AND 7TH SEPTEMBER.-THREATS AGAINST THE GIRONDISTS.-BOOTY OF THE MUNICIPALITY.-COMMUNISTIC DECREES.-ELECTIONS TO THE CONVENTION IN PARIS.-FAILURE OF THE DEMOCRATS IN THE PROVINCES.-REACTION AMONG THE BURGHERS OF PARIS.-PROCLAMATION OF THE REPUBLIC.

FOR the execution of their grand plot, the Revolutionists needed, in the first place, a visible presiding central authority. Neither Robespierre nor Danton were willing publicly to lend their names, or to allow the Municipality, or the Ministry of Justice, as such, to direct the general massacre. The first body which presented itself as adapted for their purpose was the Communal Comité de Surveillance, the proper organ of the higher revolutionary police. This body, it is true, existed at the time only in name, for the proceedings of Sergent and Panis were too bad for the majority even of this Committee, which had refused to take charge of any more money or valuables without formal registration. Whereupon Panis promptly procured a resolution from the Municipality which removed the conscientious members, as not being au niveau de la Revolution, and empowered the others to fill up their number by a free election. The chiefs of the party thus created a convenient organ of action, which willingly lent its name to the execution of any commands whatever. Round this centre were assembled Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Billaud, Manuel and Tallien, who deliberated on all the particulars of the impending butchery, and decided on the ways and means. Robespierre, impelled

by suspicion and party hatred, but not by lust of plunder, was for exterminating only the Noblesse and the Priests; but the others would have been ill satisfied by such half measures, and they therefore adhered to the more comprehensive plan. Danton, on the other hand, opposed Robespierre and Marat, when on the 30th they called on the Comité de Surveillance to arrest Brissot and Roland. Robespierre denounced them as mischievous enemies of the Revolution; but confessed that such a measure might bring danger to its originators. Marat would listen to no considerations, so that Danton cried out that he (Marat) would ruin them all. "If you were all fellows like me," answered Marat "ten thousand traitors would be cut to pieces." For the present, however, the order of arrest was torn up, but the idea was by no means abandoned by its two authors. There was no little strife with regard to the ways and means of effecting the massacre. Marat wished simply to set fire to the prisons; another proposed to drown the prisoners; but Billaud engaged to collect a sufficient number of assassins, and succeeded in negativing the other propositions. 1

The execution of the plot was fixed for the 2nd of September, as being a Sunday, on which day it was easier to

1 Prudhomme, Crimes, &c. There are neither external nor internal grounds for doubting these statements. If any body was likely to be wellinformed it was Prudhomme. Louis Blanc, indeed, ignores these facts, although he adopts other parts of the report into his narrative as perfectly trustworthy, in order to prove his proposition that Robespierre no doubt, acted very wrongly, but only in having listlessly allowed a butchery which he deplored. According to his view the September massacres were not the result of any prepared

plan, but of an universal outbreak of despair caused by the dangers of war. He abandons, on this occasion, his usual position, that in the Revolution the People always aimed at and accomplished what was great and noble, while only individual intriguers were guilty of crimes. He also forgets a whole series of wellauthenticated facts, which he himself subsequently brings forward, and which Ternaux (Terreur, III. 515) completes, and establishes their correctness beyond all dispute.

1

BASE TRUCKLING OF THE GIRONDE.

79

Cu. III.] assemble a restless crowd. From the large number of accomplices the secret was ill kept, and the dull pressure of anxious foreboding weighed upon the whole of Paris. All those who did not belong to the class of Jacobin Proletaries, remained in the silent concealment of their houses. The Section had been occupied since the 27th in the nomination of electors; the electoral meetings had never been so thinly attended, and it was certain that only Jacobins would be returned as Electors. The prisoners had expected an attack for many weeks past. The chiefs made use of the last day in liberating a few favoured individuals, partly rich men, like the Prince of Poix and Beaumarchais who bought their liberty, the former from Panis, and the latter from Manuel; and partly old acquaintances, who, like Daubigny, or Danton's cousin, Godot, had been arrested for embezzlement and theft. The Commune, in order to cloak the systematic preparations of their nefarious plot, caused the barriéres to be reopened; and Robespierre even brought forward a motion that the Municipality, in consideration of the prevailing distrust expressed against them, should abdicate, and appeal to the people. The proposal was, of course, negatived without a discussion. The National Assembly received the first intelligence that the Prussians were before Verdun, and occupied the sitting with insignificant military arrangements. The Gironde, it would seem, still hoped to come to a tolerable understanding with the Democrats, since they had again, on the previous day, given up their attack upon the Hôtel de Ville;-or did they make advances from fear? At all events they once more showed their anti-royal side. Roland published a circular, in which he made known to all the Communes of France, the alleged treasonable correspondence of Louis XVI., complained of the constitutional inviolability of the King, and recommended to the whole nation the formation of clubs and popular unions -a step which only excited the laughter of the Democrats. Their time was now fully come. The danger which threat

ened Verdun was an effectual means of heightening the anxious fears of the citizens, and their anger against the traitors to their country-and of deadening their feelings of compassion towards the victims. On Sunday morning, Manuel, from the Hôtel de Ville, summoned the People to arms. Verdun he said, was attacked, and could not be held; the whole of Paris must march out for its protection. It was resolved to call out all the citizens for the struggle, and to encamp them, in the interim, on the Champ de Mars. All suspected persons, and cowards were to be disarmed, and all the barrières closed; twenty-four Commissioners were to proceed to the armies and into the Departments, to extend the impulse given in the capital; the other members were to close their sitting in order to describe the dangers of the country in their respective Sections. Robespierre had already proposed this step on the 1st of Sept., which was now adopted; and these were the men who gave the signal in the Sections for the attack on the prisons, while the tocsin was clanging and the alarm guns booming through the streets. The citizens either remained timidly at home, or proceeded slowly to the rendez-vous of their battalions. In the meetingplaces of the Sections, no one was found but the well-prepared and willing mass of proletaries, who in several quarters passed a resolution not to quit Paris until all traitors had been exterminated. Meanwhile Panis, Sergent and their associates, constituted themselves, at the Hôtel de Ville, as the new Comité de Surveillance; and, in accordance with the decree issued by the Municipality two days before, associated Marat and five others with themselves as colleagues. From this quarter the bands of murderers received their special instructions, together with money and provisions; and the Committee further gave orders for the liberation of all those arrested for debt, that the blow might fall with greater certainty on the political prisoners. The National Assembly at first only heard of the decree of the municipality summoning all Paris to arms, and rewarded it, after a pa

CH. III.] DANTON “ELECTRIFIES" THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 81

thetic address of Vergniaud, with loud applause. The decree of the 30th of August, by which the Assembly had dissolved the Municipality, had just been recalled at the instance of the Dantonists, and only augmentation of the Municipal council by new elections was ordered. The Ministers, with the exception of Roland, now made their appearance for the purpose-to use the expression of Danton-of electrifying the Assembly; i. e. of asking it to entrust them with an unlimited dictatorship. Lebrun began with the fabricated intelligence that Russia was preparing to make war on France, and sending out an army and a fleet. Servan followed with a demand of four million francs for extraordinary war expenses. The minds of the Assembly were prepared for what was coming. Danton rose and said; "The country is about to save itself; the Commune has given a grand example, it is for you to support the sublime movement of the People. We demand sentence of death against every one who refuses to march. We demand sentence of death against every one who directly or indirectly throws obstacles in the way of the Government. Boldness! boldness! and again I say boldness!-and the country is saved." All demands were granted, and the required orders given, and with such unheard-of powers the Ministers left the Assembly. Meanwhile some of the Sections (Poissonière, Luxembourg), at the instigation of the Hôtel de Ville, passed a resolution that, in consideration of the danger of the country, the prisons should be purged, and the arrested Priests and other suspected persons put to death in the dungeons of Paris, Orleans, and other places; and that, with a view to uniformity of proceeding, the necessary regulations should be procured from the Municipal Council. While blood was flowing in streams in every prison, Danton, with his associates, Desmoulins, Robert, Favre d'Eglantine, and their wives, sat down to a splendid banquet.2