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[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 195. (Report of Couthon and decree in conformity therewith, Prairial 22, year II.) "The revolutionary tribunal is organised for the punishment of the people's enemies.. .. The penalty for all offences within its jurisdiction is death. Those are held to be enemies of the people who shall have misled the people, or the representatives of the people, into measures opposed to the interests of liberty; those who shall have sought to create discouragement by favoring the undertakings of tyrants leagued against the Republic; those who shall have spread false reports to divide or disturb the people; those who shall have sought to misdirect opinion and impede popular instruction, produce depravity and corrupt the public conscience, diminish the energy and purity of revolutionary and republican principles, or stay their progress Those who, charged with public functions, abuse them to serve the enemies of the Revolution, vex patriots, oppress the people, etc.">[
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[ Buchez et Roux, XXXV., 290. (" Institutions," by Saint-Just.) "The Revolution is chilled. Principles have lost their vigor. Nothing remains but red-caps worn by intrigue."—Report by Courtois, "Pièces justificatives" No.20. (Letter of Pays and Rompillon, president and secretary of the committee of Surveillance of Saint-Calais, to Robespierre, Nivôse 15, year II.) "The Mountain here is composed of only a dozen or fifteen men on whom you can rely as on yourself; the rest are either deceived, seduced, corrupted or enticed away. Public opinion is debauched by the gold and intrigues of honest folks.">[
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[ Report by Courtois, N. 43.—Cf. Hamel, III., 43, 71.—(The following important document is on file in the Archives Nationales, F 7, 4446, and consists of two notes written by Robespierre in June and July, 1793): "Who are our enemies? The vicious and the rich.... How may the civil war be stopped? Punish traitors and conspirators, especially guilty deputies and administrators.... make terrible examples.... proscribe perfidious writers and anti-revolutionaries.... Internal danger comes from the bourgeois; to overcome the bourgeois, rally the people. The present insurrection must be kept up.... The insurrection should gradually continue to spread out... The sans-culottes should be paid and remain in the towns. They ought to be armed, worked up, taught.">[
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[ The committee of Public Safety, and Robespierre especially, knew of and commanded the drownings of Nantes, as well as the principal massacres by Carrier, Turreau, etc. (De Martel, "Etude sur Fouché," 257-265.)—Ibid., ("Types revolutionnaires," 41-49.)—Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 101 (May 26, 1794.) Report by Barère and decree of the convention ordering that "No English prisoners should be taken." Robespierre afterwards speaks in the same sense. Ibid., 458. After the capture of Newport, where they took five thousand English prisoners, the French soldiers were unwilling to execute the convention's decree, on which Robespierre (speech of Thermidor 8) said: "I warn you that your decree against the English has constantly been violated; England, so ill-treated in our speeches, is spared by our arms.">[
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[ On the Girondists, Cf. "The Revolution," II., 216.]