The French Revolution 1789-1795

by Bertha Meriton Gardiner

Disorganisation of Government.

Despotic as it was, the Government was also exceedingly disorganised, and this cause rendered it the more sanguinary and aggressive. It consisted of a number of separate and independent authorities, each striving for mastery. They were composed in part of the same men, but in part also of men whose characters, ideas, and aims were often at variance with each other. The Convention, the Jacobins, the Deputies in mission, the Committees of Public Safety and General Security, now commonly called the two Committees of Government, and finally the Commune of Paris, directed between them the affairs of France. Of all these authorities the Convention, nominally representative of France, was the weakest. It had lost the respect alike of the country and of the populace of Paris, which had so often converted it into its tool. The contempt in which it was held reacted on the position of the Mountain, which after the expulsion of the Girondists was powerless to adopt any measures that gave offence either to the Commune of Paris or to the Committee of Public Safety, and was equally powerless to reject measures which either of these bodies desired that it should adopt. The authority once possessed by the Convention was now transferred to the Committee of Public Safety, which continued to gather strength in proportion as the Mountain grew weaker. At first composed of Dantonists and seceders from the Plain, it became converted into the organ of the extreme faction which had urged on the insurrection against the Girondists. In July, Robespierre entered it with two adherents—Couthon and St. Just. In September were added Billaud-Varennes and Collot d’Herbois, who were allied with the leaders of the Commune. On special occasions this Committee consulted in common with the Committee of General Security, which, however, always occupied a position subordinate to it. It was now composed of twelve members, but the five men just named were those who directed the general action of the Government. In the persons of Robespierre and his supporters the Committee represented the Jacobins; in the persons of Billaud and Collot it represented the Commune; and so complete did the subserviency of the Montagnards become, that although the Committee was legally subject to re-election every month, they never dared to avail themselves of this opportunity for naming fresh members in the place of those who had made themselves their masters.

The Commune of Paris.

By the side of the Committee of Public Safety, the Commune of Paris occupied an independent position. Although nominally merely the body administering the affairs of the capital, it in reality took the lead in directing the general affairs of France. After it had accomplished the insurrection against the Girondists, it was the strongest power in Paris. It had armed bands of ruffians in its pay; the national guard was under its orders; the revolutionary and civil committees of the sections were its tools; and, for the time, it had the support of the populace, which it supplied with bread. The Committee of Public Safety dared as little as the Mountain risk collision with it. It forced its supporters into the government offices; sent agents into the departments; exerted influence over deputies in mission, and compelled the Convention to appoint ministers and generals of its selection, and to make laws in accordance with its wishes.

The action of the Commune had for long been mainly directed by two men, Chaumette and Hébert. They had both been members of the insurrectionary Commune which had driven Louis from the Tuileries in 1792, and after its re-election had been ordered by the Convention in the autumn of the same year, they had reappeared at the Hôtel de Ville, where they filled the influential position of law officers to the new Commune, which was made up in part of the same men, and was animated by the same spirit as its predecessor. Their ascendancy was now signalised by an extraordinary outburst of cruelty and fanaticism. Not content with the abolition of political and civil distinctions between man and man, they sought to destroy all superiorities and to put men socially and intellectually on the same level. The superiority of wealth was a special object of their attack. Capitalists, bankers, speculators, large landowners, were by them and their followers classed along with federalists, Girondists, nobles, priests, and royalists, as enemies to the republic. Intellectual superiority and culture became a crime in their possessors. Equality, in short, was to be produced not by the raising of the lower, but by the degradation of the higher. If Hébert demanded the establishment of a primary school in every village, he was actuated not so much by a regard for the moral and intellectual results of education as by the wish to make the working classes independent of the upper. Higher education, more especially classical education, was decried. Valuable books, statues, and works of art which bore trace of having been produced under the monarchy, were wantonly destroyed. Ignorance and rags were put forward as in themselves giving a claim to respect, and the term ‘sans-culotte,’ ‘the breechless’ (applied to the poor from their wearing trowsers in place of knee-breeches), was held synonymous with that of ‘patriot.’ The words ‘Monsieur’ and ‘Madame’ were replaced by ‘citoyen’ and ‘citoyenne,’ and an untidy dress, a rough manner, and rude language were adopted as symbols of a patriotic spirit.

Despite the violence and brutality of which they were guilty, neither the leaders of the Commune, nor yet many of those who followed in their track or spurred them on, were without enlightened ideas. The humane philosophy of the century had left its impression, though it might be but a superficial one, on the hardest and most selfish natures. Thus, while they sought by terror to destroy the existing bases of society, Chaumette and Hébert sought also to figure in the light of philanthropists and guardians of public morality. Acting under their impulse, the Commune brought forward projects for the reform of youthful criminals, and for the alleviation of the sufferings of the sick in hospitals, as well as others of like character, and incessantly urged on the Convention the suppression of state lotteries, by which the poor were led to gamble away their sous. Even at their best, however, the members of the Commune were mainly actuated by personal motives. They sought to obtain some moral support to their position, without which it would in the end be impossible for them to retain power for long. Of their philanthropic schemes, moreover, very few were carried out in practice. It was the inevitable result of the conditions under which the Commune had grasped authority, that the better men should be thrust into the background by the more selfish and more unscrupulous. Thus Chaumette by the side of Hébert soon sank into comparative insignificance. For while Chaumette cared for the accomplishment of ideal aims, Hébert cared alone for the retention of power by himself, and was entirely indifferent as to the means by which he secured this end. He was a coarse and low-minded adventurer. Before the revolution he had been dismissed from an inferior office at a theatre for dishonest practices. After the revolution began, he had sought notoriety by the publication of a paper, Le Père Duchesne, written in language coarse even for that time, and advocating atheism. Around him and the Commune now rallied all the worst ruffians and scoundrels in Paris. Assassins were appointed to the command of armed forces, and thieves and rogues were placed on civil and revolutionary committees which had at their disposition the property and liberty of their fellow-citizens. In short, so far as the administration was concerned, the prevailing characteristics of the rule of the Commune under Hébert’s leadership were anarchy and licence.

The Conscription.

All authorities were equally interested in preserving France from invasion, and all concurred in making exertions to put soldiers in the field, and to provide them with the necessary arms and supplies. The Convention had at once to find forces to besiege the still revolted towns of Lyons and Toulon, to suppress the rebellious Vendeans in the east, to fight the Spaniards in the Pyrenees, the Piedmontese in the Alps, the English and Austrians in the Netherlands, and the Austrians and the Prussians on the Rhine. None of the usual motives which cause men to shrink from adopting extraordinary measures were felt by the existing rulers of France. To recruit the armies, they resorted to a conscription. All citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were called on to serve in person. Urged on by the Commune, the Convention further decreed a levy of the whole male population capable of bearing arms (August 23). Such a measure was of course impracticable, but it enabled the deputies in mission to bring together large bodies of men to act against Lyons and Toulon, and to hold in check the insurgent Vendeans.

Maximum laws.

Between July and October laws were passed fixing prices and carrying out the economical system long since demanded in the streets. A small minority, however, alone of those who were willing to adopt them, regarded them as economically good. Their framers had in reality ulterior objects in view. The Hébertists desired to ruin the upper commercial classes. The Montagnards, as a body, hoped to avert a State bankruptcy by maintaining the value of the assignats in spite of new issues, and to provide for the armies by putting at the disposition of the Government the entire resources of the country—its revenue, its capital, its stock, and its labour. In the spring a decree had been passed fixing a maximum price for corn, but variable in the different departments (p. 152). A maximum price for corn and meal was now fixed without variation for the whole republic. Neither article might be sold except at fairs and markets, and the trade in both was put under the supervision of the municipal bodies. Nearly all articles of consumption, many manufactured articles, and most raw materials, were also subjected to a maximum price, which was fixed in each department at the price that the article sold at in 1790, with the addition of a third as much again (September 17). In order to prevent wholesale or retail dealers from keeping back goods from sale, they were required to expose over their shop doors a list of all articles that they had in stock, and even private individuals were prohibited from laying in stores. The practice of supplying the army through contractors was entirely abandoned. Corn, cloth, butter, flour, meat, fodder, cattle, carts, horses, vessels, and, in a word, all raw materials, manufactured articles, or live stock immediately or remotely connected with the service of the armies, were put in requisition, which meant that their owners were compelled to sell to the Government at the maximum price, and to take in payment assignats at their nominal value. Exactly the same course was pursued with regard to labour. A maximum was fixed for wages, the most the workman might demand being the wage he received in 1790, with the addition of half as much again. Workmen, like goods, were then put in requisition, and employed by thousands in making of arms, building of ships, repairing of roads, and other services of the same character. In every transaction the State thus gained at the expense of individuals, since the assignats, in which all payments were made, were now worth only 33 per cent. of their nominal value.