NOTE II.
"The Convention was established in September, 1792, and terminated in October, 1795, Its reign, which lasted nearly three years, presents four eras.
"The 1st, from its commencement to the 31st of May 1793—epoch of the destruction of the Girondists.
"The 2nd, to March 1794—overthrow of the Commune of Paris.
"The 3rd, to July, 1794—fall of Robespierre.
"The 4th to the 14th Vendémiaire (4th October, 1795)—installation of the Government of the Directory.
"Its first era consisted of eight months, its second of ten, its third of four, its fourth of fourteen. Total, three years.
"During its first era the Convention was constantly divided between the parties of the Mountain and the Gironde.
"Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Collot-d’Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Carnot, Heraut de Sechelles, were the leaders of the party of the Mountain.
"Brissot, Condorcet, Vergniaud[Vergniaud], Gaudet, Gensonnè, Péthion, Lasource, Barbaroux, headed the party of the Gironde.
"The two parties were equally hostile to the Bourbons and the royalists.
"The men of the first were distinguished for superior energy, those of the second for superior talents. They were both the partisans of a republican establishment. The Mountaineers were desirous of a Republic, for the purpose of destroying what was in existence before the Revolution, both men and things. The Girondists were animated by the infatuation of youthful feeling, which presented at once Athens and Rome to their view, and revived recollections of sublime antiquity.
"The existence of the mountaineers may be dated from the time of the Constituent Assembly. They were the firebrands of the clubs so generally known by the name of Jacobin. The insurrection of the Field of Mars was planned by them.
"This party did not obtain admission into the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies.
"The Girondists, who predominated in the legislative, were hostile to the Constitution of 1794 and to the King. They would not undertake his defence, and suffered him to be sacrificed to the efforts of the Mountain, which, however, was also their enemy. It was the Mountaineers who caused the atrocities of the 20th of June, of the 10th of August, and of the 2nd of September; they had then no party in the assembly; but they compelled the Girondists to join them after their victory.
"The first era of the Convention presents the struggle of the Girondists and Mountaineers; the Girondists prevailed at that time in consequence of their superior talents, their eloquence, and their already acquired reputation. The presidents were nearly all Girondists; they charged the Mountain with the design of destroying the National Assembly, and substituting in its place a Parisian Dictatorship. They also reproached it with the massacre of September.
"The Mountain, in its turn, charged them with wishing for a federative republic like Switzerland, with being hostile to the capital, and with having, without cause, placed the republic in a state of warfare with the whole of Europe.
"The Mountain had at its command the Jacobins of Paris, and the greatest part of the popular societies of the republic; the commune of Paris, the sections, the revolutionary tribunal, and the lower classes of the people of the capital were devoted to its interests.
"The Girondists possessed great influence over the departments in general and the enlightened part of the nation; their partizans were more numerous among the upper class of society. The Girondists, who had occupied the left side in the Legislative Assembly, and had shewn such animosity against the King, the ministers, and the right side, or moderate party, were forced to shift places, and become in their turn the right side or moderate party, opposed to the vehement and overbearing Mountain, which henceforth formed the left side.
"The Mountaineers, working on the plan they had adopted under the Constituent Assembly, enlisted all the passions in their service, and demanded, with loud cries, the death of the King. The Girondists might, by openly defending him, have preserved his life; they had recourse to the singular system of condemning him, and, after having thus destroyed the monarchy, they wished the sentence to be confirmed by an appeal to the people: in other words, they wished to destroy France by the horrors of a civil war. This false combination ruined them.—Vergniaud, one of the pillars of their party, proclaimed the sentence of death passed upon the King.
"The Girondists were so powerful in the Assembly, that several months’ labour and several days’ insurrection were necessary to destroy their influence in the Convention.
"This party would have governed the Convention and crushed the Mountain, had its system of conduct been more direct and candid. The metaphysicians had too weighty a preponderance in it.
"The second era of the Convention is the reign of the Mountain. Twenty-two of the principal Girondists perished on the scaffold, or fell by their own hands; seventy-three were thrown into prison. The Mountain, ruled with absolute power; it created the revolutionary government, and the Convention in a mass placed itself, of its own accord, under the yoke of the Committee of Public Safety and of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
"In this second era, the sittings of the Convention no longer resembled those of the first; there was an end of discussion and of liberty; it was the despotism of the Decemvirs. Some of the Deputies governed the Committees of General Security, of Finance, &c. Others were dispatched by the Committee of Public Safety to the Armies and the Departments, and became real Pro-consuls.
"Every month, every week, every day, the government became more ferocious and sanguinary. All those,[those,] in the higher classes of society who had not emigrated were crowded together in the prisons, as objects of suspicion, and sent by hundreds to the scaffold.
"After treating in this way every one who was of a noble family, a priest, a merchant, or a considerable proprietor, the excesses of the party recoiling upon itself, it ruled the Jacobins and the Commune of Paris with an iron hand: it enslaved the Convention, and threatened it with absolute annihilation; it preached up Atheism, and proscribed the arts, the sciences, and every species of talent. The artists and men of science were thrown into prison, as objects of suspicion, and there was a time when the National Library and the Garden of Plants were on the point of being burnt and laid waste.
"Robespierre and Danton, filled with indignation at these outrages, united their efforts to put a stop to the frightful progress of the popular madness. The capuchin Chabot, Bazire, Fabre d’Eglantine, Hebert, Chaumet, Vincent, and all their associates perished on the scaffold.
"For the first time since the commencement of the Revolution, the people saw persons put to death as ultra-revolutionary, and no longer as having wished to stop the Revolution. Their ideas were turned up-side down, and underwent a real revolution.
"The prisons were filled with sans-culottes, and with all that was basest in society. It was remarked, that the apostate priests were numerous in that class.
"The people beheld, without surprise and with joy, the punishment of those who had until then governed them, and that feeling was a revolution, which escaped the observation of Robespierre and Danton, and which they knew not how to convert to their advantage.
"The third era presents a spectacle different from the other two. Danton and Robespierre had without effort stopped the Revolution, and put a period to the power of the Commune of Paris; but after their success they fell out between themselves.
"Danton, Camille des Moulins, Heraut de Sechelles, and Lacroix, were desirous of going a step farther, and putting an end to the assassinations of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Danton and Lacroix had enriched themselves in their mission to Belgium. Camille des Moulins, who, from the beginning of the Revolution had given himself the title of the Attorney-General of the Lantern, was captivated and softened down by a young wife. They had the boldness to demand, that the blow which had been just struck against Hebert, or the rest of Marat’s party, should be turned to the benefit of the whole Republic—that no innocent person should in future be condemned—that the system of terror should be abolished—and that a Committee of Clemency should be established.
"Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois, who took the lead in the Committee of Public Safety and among the great body of Jacobins, rejected these demands with indignation and fury; and Robespierre, after some hesitation, did not dare to support Danton, and made a sacrifice of him. Danton, Camille des Moulins, Heraut de Sechelles, &c. perished on the scaffold, to which they were dragged by the whole Committee of Public Safety, and by the enraged Jacobins. The people were struck with consternation, and for the first time expressed no sign of satisfaction.
"What Robespierre, however, had not dared to do, and what he could have easily effected had he supported Danton, he had the presumption to undertake after the death of Danton. In order to put a period to Atheism, he caused the existence of God to be proclaimed, and he endeavoured to reinstate the virtues, the sciences, and the arts. Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d’Herbois, and Barrere, were struck with horror at seeing the termination of the revolutionary government. They formed a coalition with all the representatives, who, in their missions, had caused the effusion of human blood, and with all the numerous friends whom Danton had in the Convention, such as Tallien, Fréron, Legendre; and when Robespierre was bold enough to give a glimpse of his plan for suppressing the administration of the pro-consuls, and for the necessity of bringing to justice the base characters, who had rendered the Revolution odious in the provinces, he was consigned to the scaffold.
"The transactions of the 9th Thermidor constituted, in reality, the triumph of Collot-d’Herbois and Billaud-Varennes, men more horrible and bloodthirsty than Robespierre; but that victory could not be obtained over the Jacobins and the commune, without calling into action the whole of the citizens; so that, with respect to the middling classes and the people, the death of Robespierre was the death of the revolutionary government; and after various oscillations, those who wished to continue the system of terror and had sacrificed Robespierre, as he had sacrificed Danton, because he was desirous of softening down and moderating the revolution, found themselves drawn along with, and overpowered by, the public opinion.
“During the last ten months, Robespierre frequently complained that he was rendered odious by having all the massacres, which were perpetrated, attributed to him. The men who caused his destruction were more sanguinary and dreadful than he, but the whole nation, which had for a long time imputed all the assassinations to Robespierre, exclaimed that it was a triumph over tyranny, and that belief put an end to it.”
Here the dictation ended; the Emperor joined in common conversation, and as he never resumed it, we are deprived of the fourth era.