The French Revolution 1789-1795

by Bertha Meriton Gardiner

From the opening of the Convention irreconcilable hostility was declared between the Girondists and the Mountain. To secure the independence of the Convention and supremacy for their own party, the Girondists sought to bring to justice the contrivers of the massacres, and to destroy the ascendancy of the Commune. They resented the stain cast on the revolution, and were eager to prove to Europe that the massacres were the work of a few hired assassins, and not, as the deputies of Paris strove to represent, of the people of the capital rising spontaneously to take vengeance on traitors. In appearance their position was strong. Through their supporters, who occupied the ministries, they directed the government and foreign relations. They were enthusiastic, brilliant, eloquent; they had right on their side, and both the country and the Convention shared their abhorrence of the crimes committed. Yet the difficulties in their way were not to be easily overcome. The Commune ruled the capital and had in its pay bands of thieves and assassins, whose crimes bound them to its support. The departments had taken no part in the insurrection of August 10, yet had accepted without question the result, and the predominance of Paris over them had thus acquired all the strength of uncontested fact. Public spirit, moreover, no longer existed amongst large masses of men. Primary assemblies were nearly deserted, and few of the many thousands whose names were inscribed as national guards rendered active service. Under such circumstances the task of crushing the criminal band which, through the Commune and the sections, ruled the city, was in any case difficult, and for the Girondists especially impracticable. They were unversed in the conduct of affairs and were strong party men, intensely credulous and suspicious in relation to all that was outside their own circle. They stood on very narrow ground. Republican fervour and hatred of Catholicism rendered them harsh and intolerant towards whatever savoured of reaction. Abhorrence of crime and pride in their own cause made them averse to compromise, and to having dealings with men whose hands they believed to be soiled with the blood of the September massacres. They had neither the traditions of office nor the large capacity which creates a government by its power of taking the lead in a distracted nation. Hence they did not attempt to conciliate constitutionalists, nor yet to break the power of the Commune by dividing its leaders, and bribing its followers with money and office. As a party they did not inspire confidence. They were without organisation or union, and being constantly divided in opinion amongst themselves, they often voted on contrary sides. Their chief orator, Vergniaud, possessed talent of a high order, and qualities in which the party, as a body, was notably deficient—moderation and foresight; but he was a man of retired habits and unassuming disposition, who had neither taste nor inclination for the position of a party leader. Hence the Girondists never brought forward any series of well-concerted measures for gaining their objects, nor were they ever able to obtain a working majority in the Convention. Impetuous orators vaguely threatened to bring the Commune to justice, made vehement attacks on the whole Paris deputation, and, singling out the two most powerful men belonging to it, Robespierre and Danton, accused them of aspiring, in conjunction with Marat, to form a triumvirate, and Robespierre especially of aiming at a dictatorship. General charges of this character could not be substantiated and were easily repelled. Where, asked Robespierre, were the arms and the men by which he could obtain a dictatorship, while he accused the Girondists of seeking to sow disunion by calumniating Paris. It was no easy matter to fix even on him the charge of being an author of the massacres. All members of the Commune were, without doubt, immediately responsible for what had taken place, but to allege mere inaction as proof of guilt was hardly befitting to men who had formed part of the legislature at the time Robespierre had been at the Hôtel de Ville, and had expressed hostility towards the Girondists; but to this day it is a matter of dispute how deeply he was implicated. Danton, though not a member of the insurrectionary Commune, had been Minister of Justice. He, indeed, had made no effort to stay the assassins’ hands, but there is no proof whatever that it was he who gave the signal for the shedding of blood, and officially he was no more responsible than Roland, who was Minister of the Interior. It was, however, Danton whom the Girondists regarded with most suspicion and distrust, whom they were readiest to attack, and most eager to crush. To them he was vice personified. His language was cynical; he affected to despise scruples of conscience in action; crime could not revolt him; they believed him corrupt and blood-stained, while he despised them as squeamish politicians, who did not comprehend the conditions under which they worked, and who, from being over-scrupulous in their choice of tools, let power slip from their grasp. Nevertheless, he desired reconciliation with them. He recognised the value of their disinterestedness and patriotism, and was aware that the more narrow and criminal the base on which the republic rested, the less would be its power of endurance, and the less room would there be for himself to exert influence. Not easily moved by petty considerations, and devoid of envy and resentment, Danton was the one man on the left, as Vergniaud on the right, whose speeches bore no trace of personal animosity.

Policy of the Centre.

The Centre of the Convention, often styled the Plain, consisted mainly of new-comers from the departments, who abhorred Marat and his doctrines, and resented the tyranny exercised by the Commune. But in place of giving undisputed victory to the right, they followed the safer course of a temporising policy between the two parties. They feared to come into violent collision with the unscrupulous Commune, and regarded the exaggerated charges brought against Robespierre and Danton as what in fact they were—the fruits of violent party hate. It was, indeed, no wonder that men who accepted the results of the last insurrection should hesitate to send Danton to the scaffold, or should doubt whether the revolution, having gone on thus far, could sustain itself without him. The services that he had rendered in organising the national defence were undoubted. There was no man so capable, with his stentorian voice, his violent gesticulations, his abrupt vigorous language, of rousing popular enthusiasm. The Girondists were no mob orators, but Danton was at home alike in the Convention and in the streets.

Re-election of the Commune.

The contest, incessantly renewed by the Girondists but never ending in victory, resulted in strengthening the position of the Mountain. The galleries of the House were ordinarily occupied by adherents of the Jacobins, who applauded the deputies on the left and hooted those on the right. Petitioners, often accompanied by armed mobs, invaded the Convention, menacing insurrection unless their demands were complied with. A project was brought forward by the Girondists for giving the Convention a paid guard of 4,000 men, drawn in equal proportions from the departments. But it never became law; and in case of a breach with the Commune, the Convention had nothing to rely on except recruits passing through Paris on their way to the frontier. A law was finally carried for the re-election of the Commune. As, however, the inhabitants of the city, through fear or indifference, did not attend the sections, the result of the elections was merely to confirm the existing party in power. Although since August 10 manhood suffrage had prevailed, in many sections there were no more than 150 or 200 voters present out of the many thousands who had the right to take part in the elections. Chaumette and Hébert, as well as other members of the revolutionary Commune, were re-elected. This new Commune was not fully organised until July 1793. In the meantime its Council at the Hôtel de Ville, often reduced to twenty members in place of its full complement of ninety-six, ruled Paris under the guidance of Chaumette and Hébert.

Conquest of Savoy, Mainz, and Belgium.

The war increased the difficulties of the internal situation. Success at first attended the French arms. During September French troops occupied Nice and Savoy, part of the dominions of the King of Sardinia, whose unconcealed hostility had given France a pretext for a declaration of war. At the time when the Austrians and Prussians invaded Lorraine, the French General Custine, with 18,000 men, marched from Alsace against the smaller lay and ecclesiastical states on the Rhine. Nowhere was serious opposition attempted. The petty rulers proclaimed their neutrality, or fled to Coblentz. The important fortress of Mainz surrendered. From this point it was open to Custine to intercept the retreat of the Prussians from Lorraine; but, eager to push his conquests further, he crossed the Rhine and took Frankfort, whence he commanded the surrounding country (November). After the retreat of the allied army through the Argonnes, Dumouriez hastened to carry out the project of invading Belgium, where the fortresses were out of repair, and little preparation for resistance had been made. A battle was fought near the village of Jemmapes (November 6), in which the Austrians were defeated. They retreated behind the Meuse, leaving the French in undisputed possession of the country.

Foreign policy of the Convention.

The victory of Jemmapes, the first pitched battle fought, was greeted with a burst of applause from one end of France to the other. When the Legislative Assembly had declared war on Austria, it had represented France as acting on a purely defensive policy, and had repudiated wars of conquest as contrary to the right of each people to shape its own destinies. Now that France was in possession of conquered territories, the question of the manner in which they were to be dealt with necessarily arose. The idea of making a merely diplomatic use of them, and of restoring them in case of convenience to their former rulers without regard to the wishes of the inhabitants, found no supporters. The point at issue was whether the inhabitants were to be left really free to select their own form of government, or whether France should influence their decision.

Since the commencement of the war the Convention had become inflamed with the desire of spreading the principles of the revolution far beyond the frontiers of France. With the advance of French armies it hoped that peoples would rise against their rulers, and that not only the Continental countries in which the old aristocratic institutions were in full play would willingly accept French aid for the constitution of society and government upon a new basis, but that even in constitutional England the people would insist upon the establishment of the French system. Exultant in what they had already achieved, French enthusiasts underestimated the strength of the forces opposed to them, and overlooked the fact that a strong sense of nationality was to be found in England; and that, under circumstances favourable to its development, it might spring into activity even in countries where it seemed most dead, as in Germany and in Italy. Under the influence of such crude impulses the Convention gave wanton offence to governments at peace with France by the issue of a proclamation, proffering assistance to all peoples desirous of obtaining their freedom (November 19).