The Reign of Committees.—The Jeunesse Dorée.—The Reaction.—Motion against Fouquier Tinville.—Apotheosis of Rousseau.—Battle of Fleurus.—Brutal Order of the Committee of Public Welfare.—Composition of the two Parties.—Speech of Billaud Varennes.—Speech of Légendre.—The Club-house of the Jacobins closed.—Victories of Pichegru.—Alliance between Holland and France.—Advance of Kleber.—Peace with Prussia.—Quiberon.—Riot in Lyons.
The fall of Robespierre was hailed with general enthusiasm, for he was believed to be the chief instigator of that carnage which, in reality, at the time of his fall, he was struggling to repress. There were now in the Convention the headless remains of four parties, the Girondists, Hebertists, Dantonists, and Robespierrians. The able leaders of all these parties had, each in their turn, perished upon the scaffold. There now arose from these ruins a party, which was called, as we have before remarked, Thermidorians, from the month Thermidor (July), in which its supremacy commenced. A new government was immediately and noiselessly evolved, the result of necessity. The extreme concentration of power in the Committee of Public Safety, over which Robespierre had been supposed to rule as a dictator, was now succeeded by a dissemination of power, wide and ineffective. Sixteen committees became the executive of France; one Assembly its legislative power. These committees were composed of members numbering from twelve to fifty. The Committee of Public Welfare contained twelve, and superintended military and diplomatic operations; that of General Safety sixteen, and had the direction of the police; that of Finance forty-eight. Such was the new government, under which, after the fall of Robespierre, the Republic struggled along.
The horrors of the Reign of Terror were now producing a decided reaction. Many of the young men of Paris, who abhorred the past scenes of violence, organized themselves into a band called the Jeunesse Dorée, or Gilded Youth, and commenced vigorous opposition to the Jacobins. They wore a distinctive dress, and armed themselves with a short club loaded with lead. Frequent conflicts took place in the streets between the two parties, in which the Jeunesse Dorée were generally victorious. The Terrorists having become unpopular, and being in the decided minority, the guillotine was soon allowed to rest. Mercy rapidly succeeded cruelty. The captives who crowded the prisons of Paris were gradually liberated, and even the Revolutionary Tribunal was first modified and then abolished.
APOTHEOSIS OF ROUSSEAU, OCTOBER 11, 1794.
The reaction was so strong, annulling past decrees, liberating suspected Loyalists, and punishing violent Revolutionists, that even many of the true friends of popular rights were alarmed lest the nation should drift back again under the sway of old feudal despotism. M. Fréron, in the following terms, moved, in the Convention, an act of accusation against the execrable Fouquier Tinville, who had been public accuser:
"I demand that the earth be at length delivered from that monster, and that Fouquier be sent to hell, there to wallow in the blood he has shed."
The decree was passed by acclamation. In the space of eight or ten days after the fall of Robespierre, out of ten thousand suspected persons not one remained in the prisons of Paris.[434] For many weeks nothing of moment occurred in the Convention but the petty strife of factions. On the 11th of October the remains of Rousseau were transferred to the Pantheon with all the accompaniments of funeral pageantry. They were deposited by the side of the remains of Voltaire. Upon his tomb were inscribed the words, "Here reposes the man of nature and of truth."
