XL. CHAP. designs of the anarchists from the convention. They turned their fury, however, against the Girondist press. In the evening they forced their way into the establishment of Gorsas, a deputy, and printer of Brissot's Patriote," and subsequently into that of Fievée, both of which they completely devastated and destroyed. Gorsas himself escaped with difficulty. The convention had resumed its sitting in the evening when word was brought of these acts of violence. The panic of the morning still depressed them. No one raised his voice against the outrages; on the contrary, a decree was passed in accordance with them, declaring that the functions of deputy were incompatible with the profession of journalist. This was the expulsion of Gorsas after his presses had been burnt. The decree, however, also ejected Marat; and this demagogue, in consequence, declared against the movement, and denounced Fournier, with his fellow-Mountaineers in the sections.* It was not Marat alone who opposed these innovations, but Santerre, and they proposed replacing him by Fournier. Thus the old batch of the Septembrists opposed the new one, which wished to tread in their steps; and Varlet and Deffieux, when they strove to get up a popular movement on the 10th, found themselves baffled. Although they hawked about a petition for prosecuting the Girondins, for which they alleged the sanction of the Jacobins, the authority of the document was disputed. The commune refused to close the barriers at their demand, and sent round an address to the sections against the insurrectionists. These accordingly failed of their aim so far as to find it impossible to march upon the convention, or at least to penetrate into it and slaughter the Girondists as they intended. But although the vulgar instruments of trouble thus failed, and the murderers were for a time baulked of * Barère denounced Fournier as chief of the Orleans plot. their victims, the leaders fully profited by the émeute. The convention, terrorised, shook off the influence of the Gironde altogether, and gave itself for an entire sitting to the dictation of the Mountain. Robespierre, in his absurd but popular language, declared that all their reverses in Flanders were owing to the laxity in punishing traitors. The remedy which he proposed was, the revolutionary tribunal first, and then a complete change in the system and organisation of the government. To concentrate it in the convention or in a committee of its members was his aim. Vergniaud protested against what would be worse than the inquisition at Venice. "Give us the tribunal," exclaimed Amar, "or you shall have an insurrection." Still the Plain hesitated. Cambacerés and Barère both objected at first to the tribunal. To allay their fears Billaud proposed that there should be a jury annexed to it, but that it should be named by the sections. "By the departments, rather," exclaimed Fonfrède. It was decreed that both judge and jury should be named by the convention-and, more important still, that every act of accusation should be submitted and consented to by a committee of the convention.* The revolutionary tribunal thus seemed harmless, but the anarchists knew well that once they obtained the principle, they could soon get rid of the constitutional fetters. that bound it. This, indeed, was soon proved, for on the 8th of April the revolutionary tribunal was allowed to prosecute without the intervention of the committee, except in the case of deputies. What gave the Jacobins power to carry their measure without opposition was undoubtedly the panic occasioned by the loss of the battle of Neerwinden and the defection of Dumouriez. Neither Danton nor yet the Centre had a word to say in support of moderation, lest they should be accused of connivance with the traitors. Dumouriez's defection. *That confiscation followed condemnation was also voted. CHAP. XL. CHAP. XL. was the more serious from the Duke de Chartres having fled with him, and the suspicion being thus excited that his plan had been to enthrone the family of Orleans. Barère accused Fournier the American of having had no other object in the insurrectionary movements of March. If the establishment of the revolutionary tribunal was necessary to satisfy the people's craving for blood, the reorganisation of the executive was most at heart with the Mountain. To drive the Gironde from it and occupy it themselves was the object of the Jacobins. Their ministry was already formed-Danton, foreign affairs; Dubois Crancé, war; Fabre, home; Collot d'Herbois, finance; Bon St. André, marine. But Robespierre more wisely deprecated the word and the thing ministry as unpopular. He was, indeed, for preserving ministers as screens, but real power he purposed to lodge in the hands of a committee. This, the comité de salut public, was decreed on the 30th of March, Cambacerés at the same time completing revolutionary laws by establishing that the vote declaring any one hors la loi was a condemnation to death. On the 6th of April the committee of public safety was elected, the members being Barère, Cambon, Treilhard, Danton, Delacroix, Debry, Guyton, Delmas, and Bréard. The selection speaks the inclination of the Centre, which formed the majority of the assembly. Robespierre was not elected, nor any violent member of the Mountain. The Girondists were at the same time set aside as unpopular. Danton, who had in some degree favoured Dumouriez, was the leading spirit; and Robespierre in pressing the election of the committee of public safety had promoted an enemy and a rival. But if the ultra-revolutionists were thus disappointed in getting possession of the executive committee, they took efficient steps to render their faction powerful in the provinces. Almost all the commissaries of the XL. convention sent thither belonged to the Mountain, the СНАР. Girondists fearing to lose the majority by absenting themselves. The first act of these commissaries was to depose the moderate municipalities and magistrates in every town, and substitute for them fierce Jacobins. This was not effected without exciting resistance. At Orleans the exasperated citizens fell upon the commissary, and left him for dead; he survived, however, and the vengeance which he took may be imagined. At Lyons the task of the Montagnards was still more difficult. They came to introduce the principles of war to the rich, and government by the beggars, into a town of capitalists and manufacturers. In support of such doctrines the Jacobins could appeal but to the workmen; but by the very act of their starting up to insurrection their means of livelihood were gone. Spoliation and a tax on the rich could alone supply their daily earnings. But the rich themselves became poor by the suspension of industry and works; hence mutual recriminations, quarrels, and the reduction of humanity to the brute state—a struggle to devour or avoid being devoured. Such was the inevitable result of the principles of the convention. The first struggle took place at Lyons, in February; the arrival of a commissary from the capital turned the scale in favour of the Jacobins. What was the result of this ascendency may be supposed from the fact that the president, Chalier, was in every respect a second Marat. But whilst the contest between the ultra-revolutionists and the more moderate and humane was thus carried on, without as yet a certainty in whose favour it would terminate, there sprang up, not indeed a new party, but one thought to be defunct, whose resuscitation and successes did not, indeed, procure its own final triumph, yet proved the ruin of the Girondists. This was the party of the royalists. Their abandonment of the king and his cause in 1789 save by futile gatherings CHAP. XL. on the frontier, had covered them with contempt. From this, at least, the peasantry of La Vendée freed them. The remote region between the Loire and the sea, into which Protestantism had once penetrated, and whence it had been driven by proscription and blood, was a country of landlord and tenant, the former not rich or endowed with large domains, not attached to court, and not estranged from the peasants. The curé and the seigneur attracted all the respect of the population, and both commanded loyalty to the king as a portion of their religion. Still, had not the clergy been compelled to take a revolutionary oath, and punished for refusing it, they might not have meditated rebellion. And had the peasantry been left to their hearths and their fields they might not have quarrelled with what was doing in Paris. But in addition to the proscription of the clergy, the law devoting all men from 18 to 40 to the army, with the immediate instalment demanded of 300,000 youths, shook the equanimity of the Vendeans. It was a clean sweep of all the young and valid of the population. The recruits met at the chef-lieu St. Florent on the appointed day, the 10th of March, but not to enrol themselves: they broke into murmurs. The gendarmes coming to threaten with a cannon, the peasants captured the latter with their sticks, beat the gendarmes, and chose Cathelineau the waggoner for their chief. They took the town of Chollet, and finally raised the standard of revolt.* The population of the districts near the sea acted almost similarly at the same time, appointed Charette their leader, and installed themselves at Machecoul. There were some 40,000 insurgents in arms, royalists all, who started up to the cry of God and their king.' This remarkable rising gave new life to the royalists everywhere; and whilst, especially in great cities, such as Lyons and Bordeaux, they took the lead in denouncing * Mémoires de la Rochejacquelein; Mémoires sur La Vendée. |