History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814

by M. Mignet

It would, perhaps, have been wise on the part of the Girondists, since they were really not the strongest party, to have made no recurrence to this matter. The movement of the preceding day would have had no other result than the suppression of the Twelve, if other causes had not prolonged it. But animosity had attained such a height, that it had become necessary to bring the quarrel to an issue; since the two parties could not endure each other, the only alternative was for them to fight; they must needs go on from victory to defeat, and from defeat to victory, growing more and more excited every day, until the stronger finally triumphed over the weaker party. Next day, the Right regained its position in the convention, and declared the decree of the preceding day illegally passed, in tumult and under compulsion, and the commission was re- established. "You yesterday," said Danton, "did a great act of justice; but I declare to you, if the commission retains the tyrannical power it has hitherto exercised; if the magistrates of the people are not restored to their functions; if good citizens are again exposed to arbitrary arrest; then, after having proved to you that we surpass our enemies in prudence, in wisdom, we shall surpass them in audacity and revolutionary vigour." Danton feared to commence the attack; he dreaded the triumph of the Mountain as much as he did that of the Girondists: he accordingly sought, by turns, to anticipate the 31st of May, and to moderate its results. But he was reduced to join his own party during the conflict, and to remain silent after the victory.

The agitation, which had been a little allayed by the suppression of the Twelve, became threatening at the news of their restoration. The benches of the sections and popular societies resounded with invectives, with cries of danger, with calls to insurrection. Hébert, having quitted his prison, reappeared at the commune. A crown was placed on his brow, which he transferred to the bust of Brutus, and then rushed to the Jacobins to demand vengeance on the Twelve. Robespierre, Marat, Danton, Chaumette, and Pache then combined in organising a new movement. The insurrection was modelled on that of the 10th of August. The 29th of May was occupied in preparing the public mind. On the 30th, members of the electoral college, commissioners of the clubs, and deputies of sections assembled at the Evêché, declared themselves in a state of insurrection, dissolved the general council of the commune, and immediately reconstituted it, making it take a new oath; Henriot received the title of commandant-general of the armed force, and the sans-culottes were assigned forty sous a day while under arms. These preparations made, early on the morning of the 31st the tocsin rang, the drums beat to arms, the troops were assembled, and all marched towards the convention, which for some time past had held its sittings at the Tuileries.

The assembly had met at the sound of the tocsin. The minister of the interior, the administrators of the department, and the mayor of Paris had been summoned, in succession, to the bar. Garat had given an account of the agitated state of Paris, but appeared to apprehend no dangerous result. Lhuillier, in the name of the department, declared it was only a moral insurrection. Pache, the mayor, appeared last, and informed them, with an hypocritical air, of the operations of the insurgents; he pretended that he had employed every means to maintain order; assured them that the guard of the convention had been doubled, and that he had prohibited the firing of the alarm cannon; yet, at the same moment, the cannon was heard in the distance. The surprise and excitement of the assembly were extreme. Cambon exhorted the members to union, and called upon the people in the strangers' gallery to be silent. "Under these extraordinary circumstances," said he, "the only way of frustrating the designs of the malcontents is to make the national convention respected." "I demand," said Thuriot, "the immediate abolition of the Commission of Twelve." "And I," cried Tallien, "that the sword of the law may strike the conspirators who profane the very bosom of the convention." The Girondists, on their part, required that the audacious Henriot should be called to the bar, for having fired the alarm cannon without the permission of the convention. "If a struggle take place," said Vergniaud, "be the success what it may, it will be the ruin of the republic. Let every member swear to die at his post." The entire assembly rose, applauding the proposition. Danton rushed to the tribune: "Break up the Commission of Twelve! you have heard the thunder of the cannon. If you are politic legislators, far from blaming the outbreak of Paris, you will turn it to the profit of the republic, by reforming your own errors, by dismissing your commission.—I address those," he continued, on hearing murmurs around him, "who possess some political talent, not dullards, who can only act and speak in obedience to their passions.—Consider the grandeur of your aim; it is to save the people from their foes, from the aristocrats, to save them from their own blind fury. If a few men, really dangerous, no matter to what party they belong, should then seek to prolong a movement, become useless, by your act of justice, Paris itself will hurl them back into their original insignificance. I calmly, simply, and deliberately demand the suppression of the commission, on political grounds." The commission was violently attacked on one side, feebly defended on the other; Barrère and the committee of public safety, who were its creators proposed its suppression, in order to restore peace, and to save the assembly from being left to the mercy of the multitude. The moderate portion of the Mountain were about to adopt this concession, when the deputations arrived. The members of the department, those of the municipality, and the commissaries of sections, being admitted to the bar, demanded not merely the suppression of the Twelve, but also the punishment of the moderate members, and of all the Girondist chiefs.

The Tuileries was completely blockaded by the insurgents; and the presence of their commissaries in the convention emboldened the extreme Mountain, who were desirous of destroying the Girondist party. Robespierre, their leader and orator, spoke: "Citizens, let us not lose this day in vain clamours and unnecessary measures; this is, perhaps, the last day in which patriotism will combat with tyranny. Let the faithful representatives of the people combine to secure their happiness." He urged the convention to follow the course pointed out by the petitioners, rather than that proposed by the committee of public safety. He was thundering forth a lengthened declamation against his adversaries, when Vergniaud interfered: "Conclude this!"—"I am about to conclude, and against you! Against you, who, after the revolution of the 10th of August, sought to bring to the scaffold those who had effected it. Against you, who have never ceased in a course which involved the destruction of Paris. Against you, who desired to save the tyrant. Against you, who conspired with Dumouriez. Against you, who fiercely persecuted the same patriots whose heads Dumouriez demanded. Against you, whose criminal vengeance provoked those cries of vengeance which you seek to make a crime in your victims. I conclude my conclusion is—I propose a decree of accusation against all the accomplices of Dumouriez, and against those who are indicated by the petitioners." Notwithstanding the violence of this outbreak, Robespierre's party were not victorious. The insurrection had only been directed against the Twelve, and the committee of public safety, who proposed their suppression prevailed over the commune. The assembly adopted the decree of Barrère, which dissolved the Twelve, placed the public force in permanent requisition, and, to satisfy the petitioners, directed the committee of public safety to inquire into the conspiracies which they denounced. As soon as the multitude surrounding the assembly was informed of these measures, it received them with applause, and dispersed.

But the conspirators were not disposed to rest content with this half triumph: they had gone further on the 30th of May than on the 29th; and on the 2nd of June they went further than on the 31st of May. The insurrection, from being moral, as they termed it, became personal; that is to say, it was no longer directed against a power, but against the deputies; it passed from Danton and the Mountain, to Robespierre, Marat, and the commune. On the evening of the 31st, a Jacobin deputy said: "We have had but half the game yet; we must complete it, and not allow the people to cool." Henriot offered to place the armed force at the disposition of the club. The insurrectional committee openly took up its quarters near the convention. The whole of the 1st of June was devoted to the preparation of a great movement. The commune wrote to the sections: "Citizens, remain under arms: the danger of the country renders this a supreme law." In the evening, Marat, who was the chief author of the 2nd of June, repaired to the Hôtel de Ville, ascended the clock-tower himself, and rang the tocsin; he called upon the members of the council not to separate till they had obtained a decree of accusation against the traitors and the "statesmen." A few deputies assembled at the convention, and the conspirators came to demand the decree against the proscribed parties; but they were not yet sufficiently strong to enforce it from the convention.

The whole night was spent in making preparations; the tocsin rang, drums beat to arms, the people gathered together. On Sunday morning, about eight o'clock, Henriot presented himself to the general council, and declared to his accomplices, in the name of the insurrectionary people, that they would not lay down their arms until they had obtained the arrest of the conspiring deputies. He then placed himself at the head of the vast crowd assembled in the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, harangued them, and gave the signal for their departure. It was nearly ten o'clock when the insurgents reached the Place du Carrousel. Henriot posted round the château bands of the most devoted men, and the convention was soon surrounded by eighty thousand men, the greater part ignorant of what was required of them and more disposed to defend than to attack the deputation.

The majority of the proscribed members had not proceeded to the assembly. A few, courageous to the last, had come to brave the storm for the last time. As soon as the sitting commenced, the intrepid Lanjuinais ascended the tribune. "I demand," said he, "to speak respecting the general call to arms now beating throughout Paris." He was immediately interrupted by cries of "Down! down! He wants civil war! He wants a counter-revolution! He calumniates Paris! He insults the people." Despite the threats, the insults, the clamours of the Mountain and the galleries, Lanjuinais denounced the projects of the commune and of the malcontents; his courage rose with the danger. "You accuse us," he said, "of calumniating Paris! Paris is pure; Paris is good; Paris is oppressed by tyrants who thirst for blood and dominion." These words were the signal for the most violent tumult; several Mountain deputies rushed to the tribune to tear Lanjuinais from it; but he, clinging firmly to it, exclaimed, in accents of the most lofty courage, "I demand the dissolution of all the revolutionist authorities in Paris. I demand that all they have done during the last three days may be declared null. I demand that all who would arrogate to themselves a new authority contrary to law, be placed without the law, and that every citizen be at liberty to punish them." He had scarcely concluded, when the insurgent petitioners came to demand his arrest, and that of his colleagues. "Citizens," said they, "the people are weary of seeing their happiness still postponed; they leave it once more in your hands; save them, or we declare that they will save themselves."

The Right moved the order of the day on the petition of the insurgents, and the convention accordingly proceeded to the previous question. The petitioners immediately withdrew in a menacing attitude; the strangers quitted the galleries; cries to arms were shouted, and a great tumult was heard without: "Save the people!" cried one of the Mountain. "Save your colleagues, by decreeing their provisional arrest." "No, no!" replied the Right, and even a portion of the Left. "We will all share their fate!" exclaimed La Réveillère-Lépaux. The committee of public safety, called upon to make a report, terrified at the magnitude of the danger, proposed, as on the 31st of May, a measure apparently conciliatory, to satisfy the insurgents, without entirely sacrificing the proscribed members. "The committee," said Barrère, "appeal to the generosity and patriotism of the accused members. It asks of them the suspension of their power, representing to them that this alone can put an end to the divisions which afflict the republic, can alone restore to it peace." A few among them adopted the proposition. Isnard at once gave in his resignation; Lanthénas, Dussaulx, and Fauchet followed his example; Lanjuinais would not. He said: "I have hitherto, I believe, shown some courage; expect not from me either suspension or resignation. When the ancients," he continued, amidst violent interruption, "prepared a sacrifice, they crowned the victim with flowers and chaplets, as they conducted it to the altar; but they did not insult it." Barbaroux was as firm as Lanjuinais. "I have sworn," he said, "to die at my post; I will keep my oath." The conspirators of the Mountain themselves protested against the proposition of the committee. Marat urged that those who make sacrifices should be pure; and Billaud-Varennes demanded the trial of the Girondists, not their suspension.

While this was going on, Lacroix, a deputy of the Mountain, rushed into the house, and to the tribune, and declared that he had been insulted at the door, that he had been refused egress, and that the convention was no longer free. Many of the Mountain expressed their indignation at Henriot and his troops. Danton said it was necessary vigorously to avenge this insult to the national majesty. Barrère proposed to the convention to present themselves to the people. "Representatives," said he, "vindicate your liberty; suspend your sitting; cause the bayonets that surround you to be lowered." The whole convention arose, and set forth in procession, preceded by its sergeants, and headed by the president, who was covered, in token of his affliction. On arriving at a door on the Place du Carrousel, they found there Henriot on horseback, sabre in hand. "What do the people require?" said the president, Hérault de Séchelles; "the convention is wholly engaged in promoting their happiness." "Hérault," replied Henriot, "the people have not risen to hear phrases; they require twenty-four traitors to be given up to them." "Give us all up!" cried those who surrounded the president. Henriot then turned to his people, and exclaimed: "Cannoneers, to your guns." Two pieces were directed upon the convention, who, retiring to the gardens, sought an outlet at various points, but found all the issues guarded. The soldiers were everywhere under arms. Marat ran through the ranks, encouraging and exciting them. "No weakness," said he; "do not quit your posts till they have given them up." The convention then returned within the house, overwhelmed with a sense of their powerlessness, convinced of the inutility of their efforts, and entirely subdued. The arrest of the proscribed members was no longer opposed. Marat, the true dictator of the assembly, imperiously decided the fate of its members. "Dussaulx," said he, "is an old twaddler, incapable of leading a party; Lathénas is a poor creature, unworthy of a thought; Ducos is merely chargeable with a few absurd notions, and is not at all a man to become a counter-revolutionary leader. I require that these be struck out of the list, and their names replaced by that of Valazé." These names were accordingly struck out, and that of Valazé substituted, and the list thus altered was agreed to, scarcely one half of the assembly taking part in the vote.

These are the names of the illustrious men proscribed: the Girondists Gensonné, Guadet, Brissot, Gorsas, Pétion, Vergniaud, Salles, Barbaroux, Chambon, Buzot, Birotteau, Lidon, Rabaud, Lasource, Lanjuinais, Grangeneuve, Lehardy, Lesage, Louvet, Valazé, Lebrun, minister of foreign affairs, Clavières, minister of taxes; and the members of the Council of Twelve, Kervelegan, Gardien, Rabaud Saint-Etienne, Boileau, Bertrand, Vigée, Molleveau, Henri La Rivière, Gomaire, and Bergoing. The convention placed them under arrest at their own houses, and under the protection of the people. The order for keeping the assembly itself prisoners was at once withdrawn, and the multitude dispersed, but from that moment the convention ceased to be free.