The massacre began about 3 o'clock with the murder of twenty priests, who were being transported from the Hôtel de Ville to the Abbey, and were cut down by the mob, incited by the Fédérés, who served as their escort. After this, one band of about sixty men occupied the Abbey, another the gaol of the Carmelites, a third the Conciergerie, a fourth the prison of the Chatelet, and a fifth that of La Force. These men demanded a register of the prisoners, took them for the most part singly from their cells, brought them before a popular tribunal, which the leaders of the bands had formed by order of the Comité de Surveillance,1 and pronounced judgment on them after a short examination. All the accused were compelled first of all to empty their pockets; these who were condemned were thrust out into the court of the house, and immediately slaughtered. Horrible shouts of joy accompanied every stroke; the murderers sometimes agreed not to strike with the edge of the sword, that they might prolong the pleasure of their bloody work. The Commune provided wine, the women mutilated the corpses, and children were made to drink the blood of the Aristocrats. Manuel, Billaud, and the members of the Comité de Surveillance went about praising and encouraging the assassins; the different gangs mutually sent from the prisons to enquire whether all was going on well, and received the desired answer amidst thundering shouts of "Vive le Peuple!" Thus matters went on during the afternoon and the whole of the night.

The feeling which prevailed in the city is difficult to describe. Even in the democratic quarters men shuddered at the horrible details which reached their ears; "But after all," they said, "it is necessary; the Aristocrats would have butchered our wives and children, if we had not got the

1 Copied in Granier de Cassagnac, Les Girondins, &c., II. 156. 2 Granier de Cassagnac, II, 35 has collected these details of their proceedings from the minutes of the Municipality.

CH. III.]

THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRE.

83

start of them." In the wealthier Sections, consternation, abhorrence and grief agitated the mind in turn; many thousand families were in a state of deadly anxiety about their kindred, and awaited with eagerness the requisition of the armed force, which, as they imagined, could not possibly be long deferred. They were not yet aware that all the Authorities were at the head of the bloody enterprise; that the Mayor Péthion, with prudent selfishness, took the greatest care not to draw the fury of the murderers on himself; and that Santerre, the Commander of the National Guard, was entirely at the beck of his brother-in-law Panis, and Robespierre. And for advancing by themselves, and trying their fortune against the murderous gangs, the National guard had been too thoroughly cowed and subdued, ever since the 10th of August. When a courageous advocate, named Lavaux, undertook to rouse the men of his Section, he could only collect a strong patrol; when they arrived at the nearest prison they had dwindled down to nine!

In spite of the tidings which reached them in quick succession, the National Assembly obstinately proceeded with the order of the day. Late in the everning they did indeed send a deputation to the Abbey, who returned with the report that they had not been able to make their way through the crowd, and owing to the darkness had not been able to see what was going on. With many of the members it was fear that kept them silent; but there was also, among the Left, a large number of participators in the plot, and a crowd of servile zealous spirits, who, after the speeches of the three Ministers, feared by censuring the massacres to injure the welfare of their country; and lastly, the Girondists had, up to this time, no objection to make to the massacre. For the present they heard only of murdered Priests, Swissguards, and the noble young Sicarii; and these were as much the opponents of the Gironde as of the Sansculottes. To inspire the incorrigible royalist with profound terror seemed to them conducive to the public weal. The journalists of

the party, therefore, Louvet, Brissot and Gorsas, prepared to speak on the following day of "the sad, but wholesome and necessary jurisdiction of the people." The National Assembly preserved an utter silence with singular unanimity.

At the Hôtel de Ville, on the contrary, the storm raged fiercely. The Municipality reassembled at 4 o'clock, and news was brought that the People were storming the prisons. The excitement was tremendous; for even in this assembly there was a number of uninitiated, who indignantly raised their voices against bloodshed. In deference to these, it was resolved to send Commissioners to the prison, in the first place to liberate the prisoners for debt, but also to recall the People to a sense of law and duty. But here again the democratic leaders were careful to name the proper persons; the very men who were sent to arrest the massacre were seated at midnight in La Force as chief judges of the People, and leaders in the bloody work. Robespierre at the same time recurred to his hatred of the Girondists. BillaudVarennes depicted in a circumstantial oration the position of the Kingdom, which was threatened by foreign enemies, and torn by domestic traitors. Whereupon Robespierre declared that as no one dared to name the leaders of the conspiracy, he came forward to impeach the majority of the Ministers, Roland, Brissot, and the whole Girondist faction, and the wicked Committee of Twenty-one; and said that he would bring forward proofs on the following day, that they had all of them sold themselves to the Duke of Brunswick. The Municipality without hesitation decreed that the Ministers had forfeited the confidence of the People.1 The object was, no doubt, to unite the whole power of the Government in the hands of Danton and the leaders of the Communal Council. This decree was also adopted in some

This does not appear in the protocol of the Commune, but is mentioned on the 3rd in the sitting of the Nat. Assembly. Ternaux (III. 205) refers Robespierre's speech to the 1st of Sept.

CH. III.]

ROBESPIERRE DENOUNCES THE GIRONDE.

85

of the Sections; some hundred armed men endeavoured to force their way into Roland's house, and the Comité de Surveillance issued a warrant for the arrest of the Minister Brissot, and eight of the Girondists.2 This was equivalent to a sentence of death against them all; but Danton once more interfered, because he apprehended evil consequences to his own party. It was finally agreed to rest satisfied with searching Brissot's house, and only to proceed further in case his papers should afford sufficient grounds for so doing. Nothing whatever was found; yet Robespierre continually returned to his charges against the Twenty-one and Brissot, and the secret understanding of the Gironde with the Prussians. He especially depicted in the most glaring colours the sinister influence of Roland on the approaching elections for the Convention.

These occurrences lit up, as by a flash of lightning, the abyss which yawned at the feet of the Girondists. Henceforward an amalgamation of their own party with the Democrats was impossible. Immediate danger to their own lives was needed to force this conviction upon them, and even now it made its way but slowly into the minds of some among them. Roland took the lead. His journalist, Louvet, was directed to publish on the 3rd of Sept. a new edition of the journal of the 2nd. of Sept., in which the warm approval of the murders was exchanged for equally emphatic censure." In a letter to the National Assembly he denounced

the attacks made upon the Ministers, referred in covert language to the prison murders, and induced that body to issue a proclamation exhorting the People to respect the laws. No farther action however was taken, and on the 3rd, at Roland's own table, his wife discussed the events of the day with calm indifference. The feeling of anger began to spread very slowly through the National Assembly, when the execution did not end with the death of the priests and the Swiss, but the bloody work was vigorously carried on on the morning of the 3rd, and the slaughter was extended to all the other prisons of the capital,-in some cases under the express authority of the Police. "If you wish," cried the impetuous Cambon in the National Assembly, on the 4th, "that the Municipality of Paris should rule the whole Empire, as ancient Rome once did, then lay your heads on the block; if not, then fulfil your oaths; enforce the national will, and chastise the intriguers, whose secret aim is to control the Conventional elections." The indignation of the great mass of the Bourgeoisie was likewise hourly increasing. The Presidents of all the Sections held a meeting on the evening of the 2nd, at which Péthion attended, and military measures were discussed. On this occasion violent invectives and accusations were exchanged between the Girondists and the Democrats. It became evident that no end of the outrages could be looked for unless vigorous measures were adopted to put a stop to them. A body of National guards was collected, and Péthion, in answer to repeated inquiry, declared that the Commander Santerre had given the requisite orders; but these orders were still wanting,2 and without them every man was afraid to make use of his weapons. The Presidents then appealed to Danton, as the indubitable chief of the Ministerial council. He summoned them for the evening to

1 Roland's letter to the Nat. Assembly of the 3d of Sept. 2 Evidence of the Presidents of Sections before the Committee of Twenty-one, in Louvet, 133. Conf. Péthion's evidence in Buchez, XXI. 104.