Article 8.—Eight days from the publication and proclamation of the present law, those who have not made the prescribed declarations shall be held to be monopolists, and, as such, be punished with death; their goods shall be confiscate, and also the merchandise and food-stuffs seized in their possession.
AUGUST 7, 1793.—The law against monopolies has had its effect upon the produce and stock jobbers. All food-stuffs have fallen considerably in price.
With redoubled energy the Convention is turning its attention to the dangers which threaten the Republic. News is brought that among the Vendeans have been uncovered the widow of Louis Capet, a large number of non-juring priests, and several imprisoned ex-nobles. The following decrees are passed:
The National Assembly denounces, in the name of the outraged humanity of all nations, and even of the English people, the cowardly, perfidious and atrocious conduct of the British government, which is instigating and paying for the employment of assassination, poison, arson, and every imaginable crime, for the triumph of tyranny and the annihilation of the rights of man.
Marie Antoinette is taken before the tribunal extraordinary. From there she is at once transferred to the Conciergerie Prison:
All the individuals of the Capet family are to be deported outside of the territory of the Republic, with the exception of the two children of Louis Capet and those members of the family who are under the sword of the law. Elizabeth Capet may not be deported until after the trial of Marie Antoinette.
Also:
The tombs and mausoleums of the old Kings, erected in the Church of St. Denis, in the temples, and in other places throughout the whole extent of the Republic, shall be destroyed on the 10th of August next, and their ashes thrown to the winds.
AUGUST 8, 1793.—Up to date Victoria, true to her promise, has written me regularly every week in her own name and that of Oliver. He, she says, is treading with firm step the path of duty. My sister raises not the veil of mystery in which she has enshrouded herself since she quit our house. She announces that she is going to suspend her correspondence, but that if anything untoward intervenes she will inform me of it at once.
AUGUST 23, 1793.—Allied Europe is increasing the masses of troops she is hurling on our frontiers, here menaced, there already invaded. O Fatherland! you appeal to the heroism of your children; your call shall be heard. The Committee of Public Safety, among whose most influential members are Robespierre, St. Just and Couthon, increases its vigilance. The Convention passes decree upon decree, brief, pointed, courageous, like the roll of the drum beating the charge: