In preparing the insurrection of the 10th August Danton had taken a prominent part. He was rewarded by a high post in the Government, and his action during the crisis which ensued is characteristic of the man. He threw himself, heart and soul, into the national defence. He felt that the one pressing necessity was to hold Paris against the invaders. He knew that his party were a small minority, and that Paris and France alike were full of men who would be ready enough to turn against them and to compromise with the Allies. If France were to be saved and the Revolution vindicated, he believed that violent measures might be needed, and those violent measures he was prepared to face. 'We must make,' he cried, 'the Royalists afraid.' All the Jacobin leaders agreed in this. They saw that their only chance of safety lay in paralysing their enemies by terror. But some of them naturally hesitated as to the means. As the days went on, the danger increased. On the 20th August, Lafayette, after a vain attempt to induce his army to march on Paris, fled across the frontier. The Allies rapidly advanced. On the 23rd August, Longwy, one of the great frontier fortresses, surrendered with ignominious haste. On the 2nd September, Verdun surrendered too, and the road to Paris lay open to the invaders.
In that time of terrible excitement, Danton and his colleagues carried all before them. A special tribunal to try traitors was established on Robespierre's demand. The property of the Emigrants was confiscated. The refractory priests were condemned to transportation. Urgent measures were taken to raise troops, and all citizens, whether active or passive, were admitted to the National Guard. Under the auspices of the Insurrectionary Commune, houses were searched, arms seized, and suspected persons thrown into prison. While the tocsin in the city sounded, Danton roused the spirit of the Assembly. 'The alarm bell you hear rings no signal of danger. It sounds the charge against the enemies of your country. To conquer them, you must dare and dare and dare again, till France be saved.' The Insurrectionary Commune, which still wielded the powers which it had usurped on the 10th August, assumed dictatorial authority, overawed the Ministers and the Assembly, and translated Danton's warning into action. A frenzy of panic swept over Paris, and the answer to the shameful surrender of Verdun was the famous massacre in the prisons in September.
The exact responsibility for the massacre it is not easy to fix. Its immediate cause was unquestionably the panic into which Paris was thrown by the advance of the Allies. The terror of the moment produced a civil war between those who felt that they were fighting for their lives, and those who were supposed to be the friends of the invaders. In that war the more desperate conquered, and the weaker party fell. No doubt, the conquest was achieved by the aid of ruffians. A crisis of extreme peril, when rumour is busy and suspicion rife, brings to the surface many elements of disorder. The Ancien Régime had left in Paris ample material for crime. It had taught the poor to be ignorant and brutal. It had created a class of men to whom pity and prosperity were equally unknown. Historians have long disputed whether the Insurrectionary Commune was responsible, or whether the movement was spontaneous. No doubt, the leaders of the Commune, Panis, Sergent, Hébert, Billaud-Varennes, and their guide and coadjutor Marat, gave it at least encouragement and approval. It was Marat's policy triumphing at last. But the truth is, Paris must share the responsibility, for during those days of bloodshed, although the number of murderers was very small, no one interfered. The Legislative Assembly looked on, no doubt with grave compunction, but for all effective purposes with indifference. The volunteers, the National Guards, the great body of Parisian citizens stood by, apathetic or cowed. Robespierre may have found it difficult to reconcile the massacre with his sentimental love of virtue; but, though he was then a member of the Commune, he did nothing to arrest its course. He could always persuade himself in the last resort that murder was the justice of the people. Danton, with sterner logic and audacity, believed it to be necessary to paralyse the Royalists, and deliberately declined to interfere. Some of the Girondists were horrified, and made honest attempts to check the bloodshed, but attempts of an ineffectual kind. Others of the Girondists seem to have regarded it as inevitable, if the Republic were to be secured. Roland afterwards weakly tried to palliate it. Pétion offered the murderers refreshment. The fact is that the Girondist leaders were themselves exposed to the suspicious hostility of the Commune, and were powerless or disinclined to act[9].
The outbreak in Paris was followed by similar outbreaks elsewhere. But the sequel of the massacre showed the Jacobin leaders in a better light. Under the guidance of Danton, a new spirit was infused into the Government. Thousands of recruits poured into the French camp, and the Assembly appointed to the chief command a soldier of genius in the person of Dumouriez. The rapid success of the invaders had been largely delusive. The fall of the French fortresses was due less to the prowess of the enemy than to treachery among the defenders. The Allied Powers were by no means at one upon all points. Their generals and counsellors had neither brilliancy nor dash. The Duke of Brunswick was already weary of the campaign. Distinguished as he was, he belonged to an old school of soldiers, and he had never wished to march direct on Paris, leaving his communications unprotected. He had little sympathy with the Emigrants. He was in bad health and half-hearted in the war. The Austrians had not supported him as strongly as they had promised to do. His troops had suffered severely from illness and bad weather. Even after the fall of Verdun, he was disinclined to persevere. Accordingly, when Dumouriez gathered his forces at Valmy, and risking an engagement on the 20th September, succeeding in checking the enemy's advance, the Duke took the opportunity to retire, the campaign was abandoned, and Paris was saved.
From Valmy the tide of victory rolled on. Dumouriez followed up his success by the battle of Jemappes and the conquest of Belgium. But in the spring of 1793, fortune turned against him, and Dumouriez, like Lafayette, threw up his post and fled. Once again, in the summer of 1793, the Allies threatened to advance on Paris. Once again the fear of invasion strengthened the hands of the Terrorist party. Once again a new general was discovered, and the vigour of the Jacobins carried the day. Once again the young Republic triumphed, and after the winter of 1793 all danger from the frontiers disappeared. The war assumed a new character. It became a war of propaganda, and swept over Europe. It found upon its borders an ancient society, already in a state of dissolution, which, devoid of patriotism, enthusiasm or popularity, fell to pieces before its attack. Then, forgetting its philanthropic principles, it returned to the practices of the past, and in its dealings with Europe, adopted the spirit of the system which it assailed. In the end, the French Revolutionary war did not abolish tyrants or unite the human race. It obliterated many old landmarks. It broke down many feudal barriers. It swept many little despotisms away. It drew more sharply the divisions between the different nations. It rallied them more closely round their sovereigns. It cleared the ground for modern Europe to grow up. Unconsciously, and cruelly, it laid the foundations of that united German Empire, which was one day to take a terrible revenge on France. But the old order, thus improved and altered, was too strong to die. Ultimately it subdued its conquerors, and the hero of the victorious Revolution married the niece of Marie Antoinette.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Some contemporary writers estimate the numbers of Condé's army very low, at not more than 3000 or 4000. M. Sorel, who is always a valuable authority, reckons them at 10,000 in October, 1791. Mr. Morse Stephens gives a much higher figure.
[9] It cannot be proved decisively that the Insurrectionary Commune organised or paid for the massacre, but several facts seem to point in that direction. The subject is fully discussed in M. Mortimer-Ternaux's Histoire de la Terreur, vol. iii. Appendix XVIII, and by M. Louis Blanc, in the note to the second chapter of the eighth book of his history.