The immediate object of the Convention in instituting the Committee of Public Safety was to have an executive sufficiently strong to bring large armies rapidly into the field. About 200,000 men were now under arms. For the ensuing campaign it was determined to raise the number to 500,000; 300,000 had, therefore, to be found in the course of a few weeks. All national guards between the ages of eighteen and forty were put in requisition. Every department had to furnish a definite contingent; if the voluntary system failed to make up the required number, conscription was resorted to. In most departments the call for soldiers was responded to with enthusiasm, but in a few zeal was wanting, and there was great difficulty everywhere in obtaining money and arms. In order to bring local authorities under the immediate control of the Government, the Convention took direct part in the administration, and sent deputies into every department, authorised to take all measures necessary for hastening the levy of recruits and for providing supplies for the armies. These men established special committees to act as their agents, compelled the sale of corn, horses, and arms, and dismissed administrative officers whose attachment to the republic was held in question. When they had completed their work they returned to Paris, but the Convention continued to pursue the system of sending its members into the departments, invested with arbitrary and absolute power for carrying out the work entrusted to them. Deputies were always present with the armies, to superintend commissariat arrangements and to keep a watchful eye on the conduct of general officers. They were responsible only to the Convention and to the Committee of Public Safety, under whose immediate direction they acted. Agents of the central government were thus established by the side of the independent local authorities, and the way was prepared for the complete submission of the country to whichever party triumphed at Paris. For the first time since the fall of the old system of the monarchy there was a Government in France.
Laws against emigrants and nonjurors.
As the situation grew more perilous, legislation assumed an increasingly harsh and tyrannical character. In March, at the very time when the retreat of Dumouriez from Belgium offered an opportunity to the allies of attempting a march on Paris, a dangerous insurrection, excited by the forced recruitment, broke out amongst the peasants of La Vendée. The Convention, enraged against its adversaries, and frightened at the unexpected danger, struck at random, regardless of the fact that it was crushing the innocent along with the guilty. Those who instigated resistance to the recruitment of the army were punished by death. Priests, subject to banishment, who had remained in the country, were to be transported to French Guiana. Banished priests who returned were to be executed within twenty-four hours. The Legislative Assembly had made it a crime to quit the country, and had confiscated the property of the emigrants. The Convention laid a firmer grip on their property by banishing them for ever from the republic, and by forbidding them to return under penalty of death. Although many of the exiles had had no intention of fighting against their country, but had merely quitted France because their lives were in danger, no exceptions were made, and no account taken of sex or circumstance.
Policy of the Mountain.
In the midst of internal strife and preparation for defence the Convention was engaged on the task of framing a new constitution. When abstract questions were under discussion but little difference of view arose. In fact, the contention between the two parties did not concern principles, but their immediate application. The Girondists were prepared, without heed of circumstances, to carry into action principles of decentralisation, popular election, and free trade, and contended that the republic must rest upon the political virtue and public spirit of the mass of the population. The Montagnards regarded facts only. They recognised that active support to the republic was to be looked for from the mob alone; that attempts to enforce principles of free trade against the will of their own supporters must lead to the overthrow of the Convention; that under the circumstances popular election was a farce, and that amid the strife of parties and factions decentralisation meant, as the experience of the past two years had shown, that France would be without an effective Government at a time when a powerful coalition was formed against her. A far lower motive impelled them in the same direction. The safety of their country appeared to them dependent on the triumph of their own party, and to secure this they were prepared to act in the teeth of their theoretical opinions. They denied liberty to the press. They sacrificed freedom of trade to the clamours of the populace. They not only maintained the right of Paris to act for the whole of France, but, in order the more effectually to secure submission, sought by the agency of clubs and special committees to stamp out all vestiges of public spirit that yet remained in the departments, and were indifferent to the character of their instruments, or to the commission of acts of injustice and cruelty, so long as their own ascendancy was secured.
Economical situation.
The Girondists denounced the policy of their adversaries with eloquence and fervent indignation. But the issue of the struggle was dependent, not on their power of speech, but on the support which they could obtain in Paris. Affection for the Convention was nowhere to be found. The middle classes were alienated by the death of the King, the lower classes by the dearness of food, while large numbers were estranged by the indifference manifested by the Convention towards the Catholic faith. The actual hostility of the working classes was excited in consequence of the strenuous opposition made by the Girondists to the economic theories which found favour in the streets. In July 1792, the nominal value of assignats in circulation was about 87,500,000l. In May 1793, it had risen, owing to the war expenditure, to about 131,250,000l. The Church lands, the security on which the assignats were first issued, were already sold. A new security had been found in the property of emigrants, which was now in course of sale. This was conveniently estimated to be worth the exact amount of the assignats in circulation, 131,250,000l. The Government, however, remained no better off. It had no credit on which to borrow, and taxes were only partially paid. All foresaw that, to cover the war expenses, it would be necessary to have recourse to new issues of assignats, and hence in spite of the large security offered the paper money fell rapidly in value. In March 1793, assignats could be exchanged for silver at about half their nominal value. To supply the deficiency of small change the Legislative Assembly had created notes for very small sums. Hence the depreciation of the paper money inflicted great suffering on men living on wages, who had nothing but these small notes on their hands. Since the autumn of 1791 prices had been rising rapidly all over France, while special causes contributed to produce dearness and scarcity of food in Paris. In proportion as assignats were multiplied all persons disliked to hold them. While purchasers were eager to pay with them, sellers pressed for coin in exchange for their wares. The consequence was that trade deserted Paris, where paper money was most abundant, and where it was more difficult to get payment in gold and silver than in the country. Corn-growers kept their corn in store or sent it elsewhere. Few cattle came to market. Bread, meat, fish, wine, wood—in short, all articles rose in price, some trebling in cost in the course of six months. In the spring of 1793 the drawing off of men to the frontier caused a rapid rise in wages, which before had not advanced in proportion to prices. Nevertheless, real want existed amongst the lower classes, and a not unfounded fear of want even amongst the upper classes. Those who had money laid in stores, thus increasing the scarcity; while wholesale dealers held back supplies, either because they were unwilling to take paper money, or calculated on an increased rise in prices.
Under this condition of things, while there were many sufferers, some made large gains, more especially capitalists, speculators, wholesale dealers, and contractors engaged in large transactions with the Government and foreign countries. The depreciation of the paper money benefited also to a certain extent the taxpayer and the purchaser of State lands. But in proportion as individuals gained the State lost, for while its revenue was received in assignats at their nominal value, when it made purchases it was compelled to find hard cash or else to pay in assignats at their depreciated value.
How to raise the value of the paper money and to lower prices was the question that pressed hardest on the Convention during the spring of 1793. The people, accustomed under the monarchy to arbitrary interference with trade, were now raising all through France a clamorous cry for compelling farmers to bring corn to market, and for fixing the prices of articles of ordinary use and consumption. In the capital a draconian code was proposed as the best means of keeping assignats at par and ensuring plenty. Persons who exchanged assignats for money, who speculated on variations in price, who held back goods from sale, were to suffer the penalty of death. A special tax was to be imposed for the maintenance of the war, a special rate for supplying Paris with cheap bread. Petition followed petition, from the sections, the clubs, and the Commune, calling on the Convention, under the threat of insurrection, to legislate to such effect.
Popular remedies opposed by Girondists.