It is a desperate resource, but the only one. For, besides the madmen belonging to the Convention, they have against them the madmen in the galleries, and these likewise are September murderers. The vilest Jacobin rabble purposely takes its stand near them, at first in the old Riding-school, and then in the new hall in the Tuileries. They see above and in a circle around them drilled adversaries, eight or nine hundred heads packed "in the great gallery at the bottom, under a deep and silent vault," and, besides these, on the sides, a thousand or fifteen hundred more, two immense tribunes completely filled.[3425] The galleries of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, compared with these, were calm. Nothing is more disgraceful to the Convention, writes a foreign spectator,[3426] than the insolence of the audience. One of the regulations prohibits, indeed, any mark of approval or disapproval, "but it is violated every day, and nobody is ever punished for this delinquency." The majority in vain expresses its indignation at this "gang of hired ruffians," who beset and oppress it, while at the very time that it utters its complaints, it endures and tolerates it. "The struggle is frightful," says a deputy,[3427] "screams, murmurs, stampings, shouts... The foulest insults were launched from the galleries." "For a long time," says another, "no one can speak here without obtaining their permission."[3428] The day that Buzot obtains the floor to speak against Marat, "they break out furiously, yelling, stamping, and threatening";[3429] every time that Buzot tries to begin his voice is drowned in the clamor, while he remains half an hour in the tribune without completing a sentence. On the calls of the House, especially, their cries resemble those of the excited crowd at a Spanish bull-fight, with their eager eyes and heaving breasts, watching the contest between the bull and the picadores; every time that a deputy votes against the death of the King or for an appeal to the people, there are the "vociferations of cannibals," and "interminable yells" every time that one votes for the indictment of Marat. "I declare," say deputies in the tribune, "that I am not free here; I declare that I am forced to debate under the knife."[3430] Charles Villette is told at the entrance that "if he does not vote for the King's death he will be massacred."—And these are not empty threats. On the 10th of March, awaiting the promised riot, "the tribunes, duly advised,... had already loaded their pistols."[3431] In the month of May, the tattered women hired for the purpose, under the title of "Ladies of the Fraternity," formed a club, came daily early in the morning to mount guard, with arms in their hands, in the corridors of the Convention; they tear up all tickets given to men or women not of their band; they take possession of all the seats, show pistols and daggers, and declare that "eighteen hundred heads must be knocked off to make things go on right."
Behind these two first rows of assailants is a third, much more compact, the more fearful because it is undefined and obscure, namely, the vague multitude forming the anarchical set, scattered throughout Paris, and always ready to renew the 10th of August and 2nd of September against the obstinate majority. Incendiary motions and demands for riots come incessantly from the Commune, and Jacobin, Cordeliers, and l'Evêché clubs; from the assemblies of the sections and groups stationed at the Tuileries and in the streets. "Yesterday," writes the president of the Tuileries section,[3433] "at the same moment, at various points about Paris, the Rue du Bac, at the Marais, in the Church of St. Eustache, at the Palace of the Revolution, on the Feuillants terrace, scoundrels were preaching pillage and assassination."—On the following day, again on the Feuillants terrace, that is to say, right under the windows of the Convention, "they urge the assassination of Louvel for having denounced Robespierre. "—Minister Roland writes: "I hear of nothing but conspiracy and plans to murder."—Three weeks later, for several days, "an up-rising is announced in Paris";[3434] the Minister is warned that "alarm guns would be fired," while the heads are designated beforehand on which this ever muttering insurrection will burst. In the following month, in spite of the recent precise law, "the electoral assembly prints and circulates gratis the list of members of the Feuillants and Sainte-Chapelle clubs; it likewise orders the printing and circulation of the list of the eight thousand, and of the twenty thousand, as well as of the clubs of 1789 and of Montaigu."[3435] In January, "hawkers cry through the streets a list of the aristocrats and royalists who voted for an appeal to the people."[3436] Some of the appelants are singled out by name through placards; Thibaut, bishop of Cantal, while reading the poster on the wall relating to him, hears some one along side of him say: "I should like to know that bishop of Cantal; I would make bread tasteless to him." Roughs point out certain deputies leaving the Assembly, and exclaim: "Those are the beggars to cut up!"—From week to week signs of insurrection increase and multiply, like flashes of lightning in a coming tempest. On the 1st of January, "it is rumored that the barriers are to be closed at night, and that domiciliary visits are going to begin again."[3437] On the 7th of January, on the motion of the Gravilliers section, the Commune demands of the Minister of War 132 cannon stored at Saint Denis, to divide among the sections. On the 15th of January the same section proposes to the other forty-seven to appoint, as on the 10th of August, special commissaries to meet at the Evêché and watch over public safety. That same day, to prevent the Convention from misunderstanding the object of these proceedings, it is openly stated in the tribunes that the cannon brought to Paris "are for another 10th of August against that body." The same day, military force has to be employed to prevent bandits from going to the prisons "to renew the massacres." On the 28th of January the Palais-Royal, the resort of the pleasure-seeking, is surrounded by Santerre, at eight o'clock in the evening, and "about six thousand men, found without a certificate of civism," are arrested, subject to the decision one by one of their section.—Not only does the lightning flash, but already the bolt descends in isolated places.[3438] On the 31st of December a man named Louvain, formerly denounced by Marat as Lafayette's agent, is slain in the faubourg St. Antoine, and his corpse dragged through the streets to the Morgue. On the 25th of February, the grocer shops are pillaged at the instigation of Marat, with the connivance or sanction of the Commune. On the 9th of March the printing establishment of Gorsas is sacked by two hundred men armed with sabers and pistols. The same evening and on the next morning the riot extends to the Convention itself; "the committee of the Jacobin club summons every section in Paris to arms to "get rid" of the appelant deputies and the ministers; the Cordeliers club requests the Parisian authorities "to take sovereignty into their own hands and place the treacherous deputies under arrest"; Fournier, Varlet, and Champion ask the Commune "to declare itself in insurrection and close the barriers"; all the approaches to the Convention are occupied by the "dictators of massacre," Pétion[3439] and Beurnonville being recognized on their passing, pursued and in danger of death, while furious mobs gather on the Feuillants terrace "to award popular judgment," "to cut off heads" and "send them into the departments."—Luckily, it rains, which always cools down popular effervescence. Kervélegan, a deputy from Finistère, who escapes, finds means of sending to the other end of the faubourg St. Marceau for a battalion of volunteers from Brest that had arrived a few days before, and who were still loyal; these come in time and save the Convention.—Thus does the majority live under the triple pressure of the "Mountain," the galleries and the outside populace, and from month to month, especially after March 10, the pressure gets to be worse and worse.
III. Physical fear and moral cowardice.
Defection among the majority.—Effect of physical fear.
—Effect of moral cowardice.—Effect of political necessity.
—Internal weakness of the Girondins.—Accomplices in
principle of the Montagnards.
Month by month the majority relents under this pressure.—Some are simply overcome by physical fear. On the King's trial, at the third call of the House, as the deputies on the upper benches voted one by one for his death, the deputy alongside Daunou "showed in a most energetic manner his disapproval of this." On his turn coming, "the galleries, which had undoubtedly noticed his attitude," burst out in such violent threats that for some minutes his voice could not be heard; "silence was at length restored, and he voted—death."[3440]—Others, like Durand-Maillane, "warned by Robespierre that the strongest party is the safest," say to themselves "that it is prudent, and necessary not to annoy the people in their furor," make up their minds "to keep aloof shielded by their silence and insignificance."[3441] Among the five hundred deputies of the Plain, many are of this stamp. They begin to be called "the Marsh Frogs." In six months they settle down of themselves into so many silent onlookers, or, rather, homicidal puppets, "whose hearts, shrunk through fear, rise in their throats"[3442] every time that Robespierre looks at them. Long before the fall of the Girondists, "downcast at the present state of things, and no longer finding any inspiration in their heart," their faces already disclosing "the pallor of fear or the resignation of despair.[3443] Cambacérès hedges to find shelter in his Committee on Legislation.[3444] Barrère, born a valet, and a valet ready for anything, places his southern mode of doing things at the service of the probable majority, up to the time of devoting his cruel rhetoric to the service of the dominant minority. Sièyes, after casting his vote for death, maintains an obstinate silence, as much through disgust as through prudence:
"What does my glass of wine matter in this torrent of booze?"[3445]
Many, even among the Girondists, use sophistry to color their concessions in their own eyes. Some among these "think that they enjoy some degree of popularity, and fear that this will be compromised.[3446] Again, they put forth the pretext of the necessity of maintaining one's influence for important occasions. Occasionally, they affect to say, or say it in good faith, Let them (the extravagant) keep on, they will find each other out and use themselves up."—Frequently, the motives alleged are scandalous or grotesque. According to Barbaroux, immediate execution must be voted, because that is the best way to exculpate the Gironde and shut the mouths of their Jacobin calumniators.[3447] According to Berlier, it is essential to vote death for, why vote for exile? Louis XVI. would be torn to pieces before reaching the frontier.[3448]—On the eve of the verdict, Vergniaud says to M. de Ségur: "I vote Death? It is an insult to suppose me capable of such a disgraceful act!" And, "he sets forth the frightful iniquity of such a course, its uselessness, and even its danger." "I would rather stand alone in my opinion than vote Death!"[3449] The next day, having voted Death, he excuses himself by saying "that he did not think he ought to put the life of one man in the scale against the public welfare."[3450] Fifteen or twenty deputies, influenced by his example, voted as he did, which was enough to turn the majority.[3451] The same weakness is found at other decisive moments. Charged with the denunciation of the conspiracy of the 10th of March, Vergniaud attributes it to the aristocrats, and admits to Louvet that "he did not wish to name the real conspirators for fear of embittering violent men already pushing things to excess."[3452] The truth is, the Girondists, as formerly the Constitutionalists, are too civilized for their adversaries, and submit to force for lack of resolution to employ it themselves.
"To put down the faction," says one of them,[3453] "can be done only by cutting its throat, which, perhaps, would not be difficult to do. All Paris is as weary as we are of its yoke, and if we had any liking for or knowledge how to deal with insurrections, we could soon throw it off. But how can we make men adopt such necessary atrocious measures when they are criticizing their adversaries for taking these? And yet they would have saved the country." Consequently, incapable of action, able only to talk, reduced to protests, to barring the way to revolutionary decrees, to making appeals to the department against Paris, they stand as an obstacle to all the practical people who are heartily engaged in the brunt of the action.—"There is no doubt that Carnot is as honest as they are, as honest as a fanatic spectator can be."[3454] Cambon, undoubtedly with as much integrity as Roland, spoke as loudly up as he against the 2nd of September, the Commune, and anarchy.[3455]—But, to Carnot and Cambon, who pass their nights, one in establishing his budgets, and the other in studying his military maps, they require, first of all, a government which will provide them with money and with soldiers, and, therefore, an unscrupulous and unanimous Convention; that is to say, there being no other expedient, a Convention under compulsion, i.e. a Convention purged of troublesome some, dissentient speakers;[3456] in other words, the dictatorship of the Parisian proletariat. After the 15th of December, 1792, Cambon completely accepts this, and even erects the dictatorship of the proletariat into an European system. From that time[3457] he preaches universal sans-culotterie, a form of government in which the poor will rule and the rich will pay, in short, the restoration of privileges in an inverse sense. The later expression of Siéyès which has already come true: the problem is no longer how to apply the principles of the Revolution, but the salvation of its men. Faced with this more and more distressing imperative, many of undecided deputies go with the tide, letting the Montagnards have their own way and separate themselves from the Girondists.
And, what is graver still, the Girondists, apart from all these defections, are untrue to themselves. Not only are they ignorant of how to draw a line, of how to form themselves into a compact body: not only "is the very idea of a collective proceeding repulsive, each member desiring to keep himself independent. and act as he thinks best,"[3458] make motions without consulting others, and vote as the occasion calls for against his party, but, through its abstract principle, they are in accord with their adversaries, and, on the fatal declivity whereon their honorable and humane instincts still retain them, this common dogma, like a concealed weight, causes them to sink lower and lower down, even into the bottomless pit, where the State, according to the formula of Jean Jacques, omnipotent, philosophic, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, despotic, leveling, intolerant, and propagandist, seizes education, levels fortunes, persecutes the Church, oppresses consciences, crushes out the individual, and, by military foice, imposes its structures abroad.[3459] Basically, apart from the Jacobin excess of brutality and of precipitation, the Girondists, setting out from the same principles as the Jacobin "Mountain," march forward to the same end along with them. Hence the effect of ideological prejudice on them in weakening their moral attitudes. Secretly, in their hearts, revolutionary desires conspire with those of their enemies, and, on many occasions, make them betray themselves.—Through these devices and multiplied weaknesses, on the one hand, the majority diminishes so as to present but 279 votes against 228.[3460] And, on the other hand, through frequent failures, it surrenders to the besiegers one by one every commanding post of the public citadel. Now, at the first attack, nothing remains but to fly, or to beg for mercy.