CHAPTER XV
THE LAST DAYS OF THE CONVENTION
It is hard when considering the extraordinary features of the reign of terror, to realize that in some directions it was accomplishing a useful purpose. If the Revolution had been maintained so long, in the face of anarchy, of reaction and of foreign pressure, it was only by a policy of devouring flames and demented angels. And meanwhile, whatever might be the value or the fate of republican institutions, unconsciously the great social revolution had become an accomplished fact. In the short space of five years,—but such years,—social equality, freedom of opportunity, a new national attitude, a new national life, had become ineradicable custom; the assemblies, in their calmer moments, had passed laws for educating and humanizing the French people, and every six months snatched from time and from Bourbon reaction for this purpose was worth some sort of price. When France rubbed her eyes after Thermidor, drew {223} breath, and began to consider her situation, she found herself a vastly different France from that of 1789.
The whole course of the Revolution was like that of a rocket, rushing and whirring upwards, hesitating a moment, then bursting and scattering its fragments in a downward course to earth. Thermidor was the bursting point of the Revolution, and after Thermidor we enter into a descending period, when the shattered fragments gradually lose their flame, when the great inspiration of the Revolution dies out, and only the less grand, less terrible, less noble, less horrifying things remain. The track of those shattered fragments must now be followed.
The public interpreted the fall of Robespierre more accurately than did the Convention, and saw in it the end of the reign of terror rather than the end of an individual dictatorship. The nightmare was over; men began to breathe, to talk. From day to day, almost from hour to hour, the tide rose; rejoicing quickly showed signs of turning into reaction. Within two weeks of the fall of Robespierre it became necessary for the men who had pulled him down to affirm solemnly that the revolutionary government still existed, and would {224} continue to exist. This the Convention declared by a formal vote on the 12th of August.
At the same time the Convention was returning to life, its members to self-assertion; and if its measures were chiefly directed to preventing for the future any such preponderance as Robespierre had exercised, they also rapidly tended to get in line with the opinion now loudly proclaimed in all directions against terrorism. Within a few weeks the Committee of Public Safety was increased in numbers and changed in personnel—among its new members, Cambacérès, Sieyès, Rewbell. Other committees took over enlarged powers. The Commune was suppressed, Paris being ruled by officials chosen by the Convention. But the sections were allowed to remain, for it was their support had given Barras victory on the 9th of Thermidor, and no one foresaw as yet that it was from the sections that the next serious danger would come.
The national guards, by a series of measures, were purged, and converted into an exclusively middle class organization. The Revolutionary Tribunal, after disposing of several large batches from the Robespierrists and the Commune, was reorganized though not suppressed. Its worst judges and officials {225} were removed, its procedure was strictly legalized, and its activity was greatly moderated; it continued in existence, however, for about a year, and almost for lack of business came to an end in the spring of 1795.
The terrorists, who had really led the revolt against Robespierre, by gradual stages sank back. At the end of August, Collot, Billaud and Barère went off the Committee of Public Safety. Two weeks later Carrier's conduct at Nantes incidentally came before the Revolutionary Tribunal and a storm arose about him that finally destroyed any power the terrorists still retained. The press was seething with recovered freedom, and the horrors of Carrier gave the journalists a tremendous text. A long struggle was waged over him. In the Convention, Billaud and Collot, feeling that the attack on Carrier was in reality an attack against them and every other terrorist, tried hard to save him. It was not till December that the Convention finally decided to hand him over to justice and not till the 16th of that month that the Revolutionary Tribunal sent him to the guillotine.
Among the striking changes brought about by the reaction after Thermidor was that it put two extreme parties in violent antagonism, {226} with the Convention and reasonable public opinion as a great neutral ground between them. One of these was the party of the defeated Jacobins, raging at their downfall, convinced that without their guidance the Republic must perish. The other was that of the Muscadins, the scented and pampered golden youth, led by the conventionnel Fréron, asserting loudly their detestation of sans-culottism and democratic raggedness, breaking heads with their sticks when opportunity offered. During the excitement of Carrier's trial the Muscadins made such violent demonstrations against the Jacobins that the Committee of Public Safety ordered the closing of the club. But neither the Committee nor the Muscadins could destroy the Jacobin himself.
Fleurus had been followed by continued success. Jourdan and Pichegru drove the Austrians before them and overran the Low Countries to the Rhine. Then in October Pichegru opened a winter campaign, invaded Holland, and, pushing on through snow and ice, occupied Amsterdam in January and captured the Dutch fleet, caught in the ice, with his cavalry under Moreau. At the same time Jourdan was operating further east, and, sweeping up the valley of the Rhine, cleared {227} the Austrians from Köln and Coblenz. Further along the Rhine the Prussians now only held Mainz on the French side of that river. To the south the generals of the Republic occupied all the passes of the Alps into Italy, and pushed triumphantly into Spain. With their hand full of these successes the Committee of Public Safety opened peace negotiations at the turn of the year. With peace established the Committee would be able to transmit its power to a regular constitutional government.