The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 14

by Unknown

The same terror also, and the same atrocities which desolated the West, reigned in the North and the South. In the Department of Vaucluse, Maignet, in the Pas-de-Calais, Joseph Lebon, had obtained the erection of local revolutionary tribunals. "The arrests which I have ordered in the Departments of Vaucluse and the Bouches-du-Rhône amount to twelve or fifteen thousand," wrote Maignet to his friend Couthon. "It would require an army to conduct them to Paris; besides, it is necessary to appal, and the blow is only terrifying when struck in the sight of those who have lived with the guilty." They had felled the tree of liberty in the little town of Bédouin; sixty-three of the inhabitants were executed; the rest fled. "I have wished to give the national vengeance a grand character," wrote Maignet to the Committee of Public Safety, "and I have ordered that the town should be given to the flames. If you think this new measure too rigorous, let me know your wishes, and do not read my letter to the Convention." To the complaints of Rovère, representative of Vaucluse, Robespierre replied, "We are content with Maignet; he knows well how to guillotine." Joseph Lebon established an orchestra close by the guillotine; he caused the Ça ira[44] to be sung during the executions, which he witnessed from his balcony. Formerly a priest and well esteemed, he was moderate at the outburst of the Revolution, but his reason had yielded to the dizziness of despotic power; it was of a veritable madman that Barère said: "Lebon has completely beaten the aristocrats, and he has protected Cambrai against the approaches of the enemy; besides, what is there that is not permitted to the hatred of a republican against the aristocracy? The Revolution and revolutionary measures must only be spoken of with respect. Liberty is a virgin whose veil it is culpable to raise."

For some time Robespierre had appeared but rarely at the Committee of Public Safety; he reserved himself for the department of general police, that is to say, the direction of the "Terror" throughout France. Underhand dissensions and jealousies began to creep in among these criminals, secretly disquieted by projects of which they were reciprocally suspicious. Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois dreaded Robespierre and began to conspire against him. Robespierre established himself with the Jacobins, as in an impregnable fortress. The President and Vice-President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the commandant of the armed forces, Henriot, awaited his orders. They pressed him to take action against the enemies whom he had himself denounced to the Jacobins. "Formerly," said he, "on the 13th Messidor [July 1st], the underhand faction that has sprung from the remnant of the followers of Danton and Camille Desmoulins attacked the committees en masse; now they prefer to attack a few members in particular; in order to succeed in breaking the bundle, they attribute to a single individual that which appertains to the whole Government. They dare not say that the Revolutionary Tribunal has been instituted in order to swallow up the National Convention; they have spoken of a dictator, and named him; it is I who have been thus designated, and you would tremble if I told you in what place."

A dictatorship had, in fact, been spoken of, but it was Saint-Just, on returning from the army, who had uttered this terrible word, in a conference of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security expressly convoked by Robespierre. The latter had proposed the institution of four great revolutionary tribunals, in order to forge new weapons for himself; but the conference refused. Robespierre went out irritated and gloomy. "Misfortune has reached a climax," cried Saint-Just. "You are in a state of anarchy. The Convention is inundating France with laws inoperative and often impracticable. The representatives accompanying the armies dispose at their will of the public fortune and our military destinies; the representatives sent as Commissioners to the Provinces usurp all power and amass gold for which they substitute assignats. How can such political and legislative disorder be regulated? I declare upon my honor and my conscience, I see only one means of safety; and that is the concentration of power in the hands of one man who has enough genius, force, patriotism, and generosity to become the embodiment of public authority. It is necessary, above all, to have a man endowed with long practical knowledge of the Revolution, its principles, its phases, its modes of action, and its agents. Finally, he must be a man who has the general good-will and confidence of the people in his favor, and who is at once a virtuous and inflexible as well as an incorruptible citizen. That man is Robespierre; it is he only who can save the State. I ask that he be invested with the dictatorship, and that the committees make a proposition to this effect at the Convention to-morrow."

The imprudence of the speech equalled the audacity of the act. The members of the two councils looked at each other, hesitating to accept the declaration of war. A few of them contended for their lives against the vengeance of Robespierre and his friends. "This Robespierre is insatiable," said Barère, with anger. "Let him ask for Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, Thuriot, Guffroy, Rovère, Lecointre, Panis, Barras, Fréron, Legendre, Monestier, Dubois Crancé, Fouché, Cambon, and all the Dantonist remnant, well and good; but to Duval, Audouin, Léonard Bourdon, Vadier, Vauland, it is impossible to consent."

The two parties waited face to face, shrinking from the blows they were about to exchange, counting on the impatience or temerity of their adversaries. The boldest among the opposition ventured on a circuitous attack by denouncing the sect of mystic dreamers led by a demented woman, Catherine Théot, styled by her followers, Mother of God. Her principal disciple was Gerle, formerly prior of the Chartreuse, and a member of the Constituent Assembly. When the papers of this handful of maniacs were seized, the copy of a letter to Robespierre was found; he was to have been the Messiah of the sect. Vadier denounced at the Convention this elementary school of fanaticism, discovered on a third floor in the Rue Contrescarpe, and who were connected, he said, with the machinations of Pitt; but he dared not speak of the letter to Robespierre. The latter undoubtedly took some interest in Catherine Théot, for he did not allow the affair to be followed up; the prophetess died in prison soon after.

Robespierre had said to a deputation from Aisne: "In the situation in which it now is, gangrened by corruption, and without power to remedy it, the Convention can no longer save the Republic: both will perish together. The proscription of patriots is the order of the day. For myself, I have already one foot in the tomb, in a few days I shall place the other there; the rest is in the hands of Providence."

Nevertheless he began the attack, urged forward by men who had attached their fortunes to his own, and by the disquietudes which agitated his sour and dissatisfied spirit. He could no longer put up with advice even from his most faithful friends, and the inflexible Saint-Just told him to calm himself; "Empire is for the phlegmatic." A menacing petition from the Jacobins preceded by a few hours a grand discourse from the dictator. He always reckoned on the effect of his discourses, and all the committees, one after another, had suffered from the asperity of his attacks. "The accusations are all concentrated upon me," said he; "if anyone casts patriots into prison in place of shutting up the aristocrats there, it is said that Robespierre wills it. If the numerous agents of the Committee of General Security extend their vexations and rapine in all directions, it is said that Robespierre has sent them; if a new law irritates the property-holders, it is Robespierre who is ruining them; and meanwhile, in what hands are your finances? In the hands of feuillants, of known cheats, of the Cambons, Mallarmés and Ramels. Survey the field of victory, look at Belgium; dissensions have been sown among our generals, the military aristocracy is protected, faithful generals are persecuted, the military administration is enveloped with a suspicious authority; they talk to you of war with academic lightness, as if it cost neither blood nor labor. The truths that I bring you are surely equal to epigrams.

"There exists a conspiracy against public liberty; it owes its force to a criminal coalition which intrigues in the very bosom of the Convention. That coalition has its accomplices in the Committee of General Security, and in the bureaux, which they control. Some members of the Committee of Public Safety are implicated in this plot; the coalition thus formed seeks to ruin patriots and the country. What is the remedy for this evil? To punish the traitors, to purify the Committee of General Security, and subordinate it to the Committee of Public Safety; to purify this committee itself, and constitute it the Government under the authority of the National Convention, which is the centre of authority and the chief judicial power. Thus would all the factions be crushed by raising on their ruins the power of justice and liberty. If it is impossible to advocate these principles without being set down as ambitious, I shall conclude that tyranny reigns among us, but not that I ought to hold my tongue; for what can be objected to a man who is right, and who knows how to die for his country? I am put here in order to combat crime, not to govern it. The time has not yet come when good men can serve their country with impunity."

They listened in silence; no applause, no complaint had interrupted the orator. For a long time the Convention had been unaccustomed to see the masters of their fortunes and their lives making appeal to their supreme authority. Their rôle had long been limited to taking part in oratorical tournaments and voting decrees. They did not yield, however, to the seduction, and their faces remained grave and sombre. No one rose to speak, but they began to exchange a few remarks, and a murmur ran from bench to bench. The glove was thrown down, but as yet no champion advanced to take it up. At length, and as if the courage of all was reanimated at once by the same resolution, Vadier, Cambon, and Billaud-Varennes rose together to mount the tribune. Cambon had been wounded in his just pride as a financier and an honest man; he could scarcely wait his turn.

"It is time," cried he, "to speak the entire truth. Is it I who need to be accused of making myself master in any respect? The man who has made himself master of everything, the man who paralyzes our will, is he who has just spoken—Robespierre." At the same moment and from all lips came the same cries. "It is Robespierre," said Billaud-Varennes. "It is Robespierre," repeated Panis and Vadier. "Let him give an account of the crimes of the deputies whose death he demanded from the Jacobins." And as he hesitated, troubled by the vehemence of the attacks, "You who pretend to have the courage of virtue, have the courage of truth," cried Charlier to him; "name, name the individuals." In the midst of a growing confusion the Assembly revoked the order to print the discourse of Robespierre. It was to the two committees, filled with his enemies, that the denunciation of the dictator was referred.