The Girondist leaders, still undecided between the republic and the monarchy, thus felt the pulse of power—sometimes of the Assembly, sometimes of the king; ready to seize it wherever they should find it; but discovering it on the side of the king, they judged that there was more certainty in sapping than in consolidating the throne, and they inclined more than ever to a factious policy.
XVIII.
Still, half-masters of the council through Roland, Clavière, and Servan, who had succeeded De Grave, they bore to a certain extent the responsibility of these three ministers. The Jacobins began to require from them an account of the acts of a ministry which was in their hands, and bore their name. Dumouriez, placed between the king and the Girondists, saw daily the increasing want of confidence between his colleagues and himself; they suspected his probity equally with his patriotism. He had profited by his popularity and ascendency over the Jacobins to demand of the Assembly a sum of 6,000,000 (240,000l.) of secret service money on his accession to the ministry. The apparent destination of this money was to bribe foreign cabinets, and to detach venal powers from the coalition, and to foment revolutionary symptoms in Belgium. Dumouriez alone knew the channels by which this money was to flow. His exhausted personal fortune, his costly tastes, his attachment to a seductive woman, Madame de Beauvert, sister to Rivarol; his intimacy with men of unprincipled character and irregular habits,—reports of extortion charged on his ministry, and falling, if not on him on those he trusted, tarnished his character in the eyes of Madame Roland and her husband. Probity is the virtue of democrats, for the people look first at the hands of those who govern them. The Girondists, pure as men of the ancient time, feared the shadow of a suspicion of this nature on their characters, and Dumouriez's carelessness on this point annoyed them. They complained. Gensonné and Brissot insinuated their feelings to him on this point at Roland's. Roland himself, authorised by his age and austerity of manners, took upon himself to remind Dumouriez that a public man owes respect to decorum and revolutionary manners. The warrior turned the remonstrance into pleasantry, replied to Roland that he owed his blood to the nation, but neither owed it the sacrifice of his tastes nor his amours; that he understood patriotism as a hero, and not as a puritan. The bitterness of his language left venom behind, and they separated with mutual ill-feeling.
From this day forth he no longer visited at Roland's evening meetings. Madame Roland, who understood the human heart by the superior instinct of her genius and her sex, was not deceived by the general's tactics. "The hour is come to destroy Dumouriez," she said boldly to her friends. "I know very well," she added, addressing Roland, "that you are incapable of descending either to intrigue or revenge; but remember that Dumouriez must conspire in his heart against those who have wounded him. When such daring remonstrances have been made to such a man, and uselessly made, it is necessary to strike the blow if we would not be struck ourselves." She felt truly, and spoke sagaciously. Dumouriez, whose rapid glance had seen behind the Girondists a party stronger and bolder than their own, began from this time to connect himself with the leaders of the Jacobins. He thought, and with reason, that party hatred would be more potent than patriotism, and that by flattering the rivalry of Robespierre and Danton against Brissot, Pétion, and Roland, he should find in the Jacobins themselves a support for the government. He liked the king, pitied the queen, and all his prejudices were in favour of the monarchy. He would have been as proud to restore the throne as to save the republic. Skilful in handling men, every instrument was good that was available; to get rid of the Girondists, who, by oppressing the king menaced himself, and to go and seek further off and lower than these rhetoricians, that popularity which was necessary to him when opposed to them, was a master-stroke of genius: he tried it, and succeeded. From this epoch may be dated his connection with Camille Desmoulins and Danton.
Danton and Dumouriez came to an understanding the sooner, because in their vices, like their good qualities, they closely resembled each other. Danton, like Dumouriez, only wanted the impulse of the Revolution. Principles were trifles with him; what suited his energy and his ambition was that tumultuous turmoil which cast down and elevated men, from the throne to nothing, from nothing to fortune and power. The intoxication of movement was to Danton, as to Dumouriez, the continual need of their disposition: the Revolution was to them a battle field, whose whirl charmed and promoted them.
Yet any other revolution would have suited them as well; despotism or liberty, king or people. There are men whose atmosphere is the whirlwind of events—who only breathe easily in a storm of agitation. Moreover, if Dumouriez had the vices or levities of courts, Danton had the vices and licentiousness of the mob. These vices, how different soever in form, are the same at bottom; they understand each other, they are a point of contact between the weaknesses of the great and the corruption of the small. Dumouriez understood Danton at the first glance, and Danton allowed himself to be approached and tamed by Dumouriez. Their connection, often suspected of bribery on the one hand, and venality on the other, subsisted secretly or publicly until the exile of Dumouriez and the death of Danton. Camille Desmoulins, freed of Danton and Robespierre, attached himself also to Dumouriez, and brought his name constantly forward in his pamphlets. The Orleans party, who held on with the Jacobins by Sillery, Laclos, and Madame de Genlis, also sought the friendship of the new minister. As to Robespierre, whose policy was perpetual reserve with all parties, he affected neither liking nor dislike towards Dumouriez, but was secretly delighted at seeing him become a rival to his enemies. At least he never accused him. It is difficult long to hate the enemy of those whom we hate.
XIX.
The growing hatred of Robespierre and Brissot became daily more deadly. The sittings of the Jacobins and the newspapers were the continual theatre of the struggles and reconciliations of these two men. Equal in strength in the nation—equal in talent in the tribune—it was evident that they were afraid of each other in their attacks. They affected mutual respect, even when most offensive; but this repressed animosity only corroded their hearts more deeply, and it burst forth occasionally beneath the politeness of their language, like death beneath the glance of steel.
All these fermentations of division, rivalry, and resentment, boiled over in the April sittings. They were like a general review of two great parties who were about to destroy the empire in disputing their own ascendency. The Feuillants or moderate constitutionalists were the victims, that each of the two popular parties mutually immolated to the suspicions and rage of parties. Ræderer, a moderate Jacobin, was accused of having dined with the Feuillants, friends of La Fayette. "I do not only inculpate Ræderer," exclaimed Tallien, "I denounce Condorcet and Brissot. Let us drive from our society the ambitious and the Cromwellites."
"The moment for unmasking traitors will soon arrive," said Robespierre in his turn. "I do not desire to unmask them to-day. The blow when struck must be decisive. I wish that all France heard me now. I wish that the culpable chief of these factions, La Fayette, was here with all his army; I would say to his soldiers, whilst I presented my breast,—Strike! That moment would be the last of La Fayette and the intrigants" (this name had been invented by Robespierre for the Girondists). Fauchet excused himself for having said that Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, and Brissot might be, advantageously for the country, placed at the head of the government. The Girondists were accused of dreaming of a protector, the Jacobins a tribune of the people.