* and break the sword presented at their throats by the three conspiring Directors.
In the Directory, they have only passive or neutral allies, Barthélémy, who had rather be assassinated than murder, Carnot, the servant of his legal pass-word, fearing to risk his Republic, and, moreover, calling to mind that he had voted for the King's death. Among the "Five Hundred" and the "Ancients," Thibaudeau and Tronçon-Ducoudray, the two leaders "du ventre," arrest the arms of Pichegru and other energetic men, prevent them from striking, allow them only to ward off the blow, and always too late. Three days after the 10th of Fructidor, when, as everybody knew and saw, the final blow was to be struck, the eighty deputies, who change their quarters so as not to be seized in their beds, cannot yet make up their minds to take the offensive. On that day, an eye-witness[5164] came to Mathieu Dumas and told him that, the evening before, in Barras' house, they discussed the slaughter or transportation to Cayenne of about forty members of the two Councils, and that the second measure was adopted. On which a commandant of the National Guard, having led Dumas at night into the Tuileries garden, showed him his men concealed behind the trees, armed and ready to march at the first signal. He is to possess himself at once of the Luxembourg (palace)[5165] which is badly guarded, and put an end to Barras and Reubell on the spot: in war one kills so as not to be killed, and, when the enemy takes aim, you have the right to fire without waiting. "Only," says the commandant, "promise me that you will state in the tribune that you ordered this attack, and give me your word of honor."[5166] Mathieu Dumas refuses, simply because he is a man of honor. "You were a fool," Napoleon afterwards said to him in this connection, "you know nothing about revolutions."—In effect, honor, loyalty, horror of blood, respect for the law, such are the weak points of the party.
The opposite sentiments form the strong points of the other party. On the side of the triumvirs nobody knows twinges of conscience, neither Barras, a condottiere open to the highest bidder, and who understands the value of blows, nor Reubell, a sort of bull, who, becoming excited, sees red, nor Merlin de Douai, the terrible legist, lay inquisitor and executioner in private.[5167] As usual with the Jacobins, these men have unsheathed the sword and brandished it. In contempt of the constitution, they provoked discussions in the army and let the Legislative Corps see that, if it did not yield, it would be put out at the point of the bayonet. They let loose against it, "as in the good old times,"[5168] their executive riff-raff, and line the avenues and tribunes with "their bandits of both sexes." They collect together their gangs of roughs, five or six thousand terrorists from Paris and the departments, and two thousand officers awaiting orders or on half-pay. In default of Hoche, whose unconstitutional approach was reported and then prevented, they have Augereau, arrived expressly from Italy, and who states publicly, "I am sent for to kill the royalists." It is impossible to find a more narrow-minded and greater military bully; Reubell, himself, on seeing him, could not help but exclaim: What a sturdy brigand!"—On the 18th of Fructidor this official swordsman, with eight or ten thousand troops, surrounds and invades the Tuileries. The representatives are arrested in their committee-rooms or domiciles, or pursued, tracked and hunted down, while the rest of their opponents, notables, officers, heads of bureaux, journalists, former ministers and directors, Barthélémy and Carnot, are treated in the same way. Barbé-Marbois, on demanding by virtue of what law they were arrested,[5169] is told, "by the law of the saber," while Sotin, Minister of the Police, adds with a smile, "You may be sure that after what I have taken on myself, it matters little whether one is more or less compromised."—Thus purged, the two Councils complete themselves their purgation; they cancel, in forty-nine departments, the election of their colleagues; through this decree and transportation, through forced and voluntary resignations, two hundred and fourteen representatives are withdrawn from the Legislative Corps, while one hundred and eighty others, through fear or disgust, cease to attend its meetings.[5170] Nothing remains of the two Councils, except, as in the English Parliament under Cromwell, a "rump," which rump does business under drawn swords. In the Council of the Ancients, which, on the 18th of Fructidor, discussed at midnight[5171] the decree of transportation, "groups of grenadiers, with a haggard look, in brusque language, with threatening gestures" and fixed bayonets, surround the amphitheatre, and, mingled with the soldiers and civil cut-throats, shout out their orders. Such are the supporters of the slanderous tale cooked up by the Directory. The voters need such arguments to make themselves believe in the grand conspiracy which it denounces, to associate Barthélemy, Carnot, Siméon, Barbé-Marbois, Boissy d'Anglas, Mathieu Dumas, Pastoret, Tronson du Coudray as accomplices with a knot of subordinate intriguers, contemptible "monkeys" (marmosets), dolts or spies, whose papers have been in the hands of the police for six months, and whom it forces to speak under lock and key.[5172] All are enveloped in the same net, all are confounded together under the same title, all are condemned en masse without evidence or formality. "Proofs!" exclaims an orator, "none are necessary against the royalist faction. I have my own convictions."[5173]—"Formalities!" exclaims another, "the enemies of the country cannot invoke formalities which they would have despised had they triumphed."—"The people are there," says a third, pointing to a dozen ill-looking men who are present; "the whole people ought to prevail against a few individuals!"—"Hurry up!" shouts a soldier, who wants the discussion ended, "patriots, march, double-quick!"—The debate, nevertheless, drags along, and the Government, growing impatient, is obliged to intervene with a message: "The people," says the message, "want to know what has become of the Republic, what you have done with it..... The conspirators have agents, even among yourselves." The message is understood, and the representatives now understand that if they do not transport, they themselves will be deported. Therefore, "about fourteen or fifteen stand up for the decree, while seven are against it; the rest remain motionless:" it is thus that the decree to save the Constitution is freely and legally passed. Four years before this a similar decree had passed to expel the Girondists, in just the same manner, with the exception that, at that time, the Mountain made use of the populace, while now the army is employed; but save the difference in the figurants, the performance is simply a repetition of the same drama that was played on the 2nd of June, and is now again played on the 18th of Fructidor.[5174]
VI. The Directory.
Dictatorship of the Directory.—Its new prerogatives.—Purge
of the Legislative Corps.—Purification of the
administrative and judicial authorities.—Military
commissions in the provinces.—Suppression of newspapers.
—The right of voting reserved to Jacobins alone.—Despotism
of the Directory.—Revival of Terror.—Transportation
substituted for the guillotine.—Treatment of the deported
on the way, in Guyana, and on the islands of Rhé and
Oléron.—Restoration of Jacobin feudalism.
This is the way in which the government of 1793 is brought back to life:
The concentration of all public powers in the hands of an oligarchy, a dictatorship exercised by about a hundred men grouped around five or six leaders.
More independent, more despotic and less provisional than any Committee of Public Safety, the Directory has arrogated to itself the legal right of placing a commune in a state of siege, of introducing troops within the constitutional circle[5175] in such a way that it may, at its discretion, violate Paris and the Legislative Corps. In this body, mutilated by it and watched by its hireling assassins,[5176] sit the passive mutes who feel themselves "morally proscribed and half-deported,"[5177] who abandon debate, and vote with its stipendiaries and valets.[5178] As a matter of fact, the two councils have, as formerly the Convention, become chambers "of registry" of legislative mechanism charged with the duty of countersigning its orders.—Its sway over the subordinate authorities is still more absolute. In forty-nine departments, specially designated by decree, all the administrators of departments, cantons and municipalities, all mayors, civil and criminal judges, all justices of the peace, all elected by popular suffrage, are dismissed en masse,[5179] while the cleaning out in the rest of France is almost as sweeping. We can judge by one example: in the department of Doubs, which is not put down among those to be purged, five hundred and thirty administrators or municipal magistrates are dismissed in 1797, and, in addition, forty-nine others in 1798. The Directory puts its creatures in their places: suddenly, the departmental, cantonal, municipal and judicial system, which was American, becomes Napoleonic so that the local officials, instead of being delegates of the people, are government delegates.—Note, especially, the most threatening of all usurpations, the way in which this government takes justice into its hands and attributes to itself the right of life and death over persons: not only does it break up common criminal courts and reorganize them as it pleases, not only does it renew and select among the purest Jacobins judges of the court of appeals, but again, in each military division, it institutes a special and expeditious court without appeal, composed of docile officers, sub-officers and soldiers, which is to condemn and execute within twenty-four hours, under pretext of emigration or priesthood, every man who is obnoxious to the ruling factions.—As to the twenty-five millions of subjects it has just acquired, there is no refuge: it is forbidden even to complain. Forty-two opposition or "suspect" journals are silenced at one stroke, their stock plundered, or their presses broken up; three months after this, sixteen more take their turn, and, in a year, eleven others; the proprietors, editors, publishers and contributors, among whom are La Harpe, Fontanes, Fièvé, Michaud and Lacretelle, a large body of honorable or prominent writers, the four or five hundred men who compose the staff of the profession, all condemned without trial to banishment,[5180] or to imprisonment, are arrested, take flight, conceal themselves, or keep silent. The only voice now heard in France is the mega-phone of the government.
Naturally, the faculty of voting is as restricted as the faculty of writing, so that the victors of Fructidor, together with the right to speak, now also monopolize the right of electing.—Right away the government renewed the decree which the expiring Convention had rendered against allies or relations of émigrés. moreover, it excluded all relatives or supporters of the members of the primary assemblies, and forbade the primary assemblies to choose any of these for electors. Henceforth, all upright or even peaceful citizens consider themselves as warned and stay at home. Voting is the act of a ruler, and therefore a privilege of the new sovereigns, which is the view of it entertained by both sovereigns and subjects:[5181] "a republican minority operating legally must prevail against a majority influenced by royalism."[5182] They are to see the government on election days, launching forth "in each department its commission agents, and controlling votes by threats and all sorts of promises and seductions,[5183] arresting the electors and presidents of the primary assemblies," even pouncing on refractory Jacobins, invalidating the returns of a majority when not satisfactory to them, and rendering the choice of a minority valid, if it suited them, in short, constituting itself the chief elector of all local and central authorities.—Finally, all institutions, laws, public and private rights, are down, and the nation, body and soul, again becomes, as under Robespierre, the property of its rulers with this sole difference, that the kings of Terror, postponing their constitution, openly proclaim their omnipotence, whilst the others hypocritically rule under a constitution which they have themselves destroyed, and reign by virtue of a title which interdicts royalty to them.