СНАР. two Robespierres, Couthon, and St. Just, joined the council at the Hôtel de Ville. When the convention met for its evening sitting, the members were informed that the municipality was in insurrection, headed by the proscribed members; that a large sectional force occupied the Place de Grève; and that Henriot, restored to liberty and command, was preparing to attack the convention. However late, urgent and important measures were taken. Certain deputies were commissioned to proceed to the sections, such as had not adhered to the commune, and claim their support. Two important suburbs, the Faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau, hesitated; the former had been disgusted by the daily passage of carts of from fifty to a hundred victims for the guillotine. The absence of these, the most energetic of the Parisian population, discouraged those who had declared for the commune; and when Henriot brought them and their guns in front of the Tuileries, they refused to fire. The members had shown signal courage at the critical moment. Collot took the chair, and each member his seat, to abide bravely the assault. The disobedience of Henriot's gunners saved them, and allowed time for the forces of the friendly sections to come to their guard and rescue. The convention passed votes, declaring its enemies of the commune hors la loi. And this was forthwith proclaimed in the streets. The triumvirate at the Hôtel de Ville showed no such vigour. Indeed the commune was more benumbed nounced the fatal fact to the assembled insurrectionists above. Coffinhal immediately flung the drunken commandant out of the window. The grand saloon, where the council sat, was soon broken into by the invaders. Two shots were instantly heard. Lebas had blown out his brains with the one, Robespierre had his jaw broken by the other. More than one person boasted to have fired the shot. But from the nature of the wound, which was not fatal, it was more probably an attempt at suicide on the part of Robespierre himself. St. Just had a poignard, but he allowed himself to be captured, as did Couthon. The younger Robespierre had flung himself from a window. All were brought to the apartments of the committee of public safety, where Robespierre's wound was dressed, and were thence transferred to the Conciergerie, to the number of twenty-one. The triumvirs and their followers were identified on the following day at the revolutionary tribunal by Fouquier Tinville, and thence led straight to the guillotine, brought back for the occasion from the gate of St. Antoine to the Place de la Révolution. Loud acclamations of satisfaction from the crowd followed each fall of the axe.* With Robespierre expired what has been so significantly called the Reign of Terror. The enormous subversion of society, the subjection of the lives, properties, and even ideas of the middle class, as well as all above it, to the rabble and their chiefs, could not have been accomplished or maintained except by general terror, nor that terror rendered universal save by daily holocausts of human victims. Had such a system been invented and put in activity solely by ruffians, it could not have borne up against the general disgust. But Robespierre lent it the support and sanction of a grave, philosophic, and upright character. And whilst others could merely defend terror as expedient, Robespierre made it one of *Courtois' Rapport sur le 9 Méda. Lecointre à la Convention thermidor. Récits de Dulac et de Nationale. Mémoires de Barère, &c. CHAP. XLI. CHAP. the attributes of his Supreme Being, and caused it to be respected as a religion. His virtues were as fatal to his kind as were his vices. His austerity and integrity gave more impulse to spoliation and murder than the corrupt morals or greedy passions of so many of his brother terrorists. Yet even in our days Robespierre has his admirers, and terror has found apologists even amongst very conservative French writers. That the country succeeded in resisting foreign invasion, and thus avoided not only the loss or division of territory, but the reimposition of old shackles, burdens, and oppressions, is attributed to the salutary effects of terror. All its excesses, and even the blood which it spilled, are considered to be condoned by its supposed efficiency in saving the revolution, whilst Pitt, in his efforts to preserve English monarchy and society by a somewhat severe legislation, is denounced by these same writers as a treacherous and intolerable tyrant. An able and a liberal French writer has, however, amply shown, that all the elements and means of defence, and even conquest, existed independent of terror, and triumphed, not by its aid, but in its despite. Benjamin Constant depicts the terror as springing into life by the destruction of the Girondists, and swelling to its gigantic dimensions on their tombs. It would be impossible to attribute the victory of Hondschoote, the reduction of Toulon, or the submission of the Vendeans to terror. For the terrorists contributed largely to the difficulties in the way of victory. The multitude forced into the field were always the first to run; and Carnot, when he brought overwhelming masses upon weak points of the enemy, did so by the rapid transport of real and veteran soldiers from point to point, not by the attack of a tumultuous or revolutionary army. Indeed, during the actual period of the terror, the French were rather * Benjamin Constant, De la Terreur, the menacing than the menaced party in the field. The forced retreat of the Duke of York from Ostend, and of the Austro-Prussians on the more eastern frontier, had altogether changed the aspect of the war. And in 1794 the allies stood on their defence instead of threatening invasion. In the middle of June, Jourdan at the head of the French army passed the Sambre, with the intention of capturing Charleroi, as he had already done Ypres. The Prince of Orange, opposed to him, attacked his enemies gallantly on the 16th, and compelled them to repass the river. was not aware. At that time no French general could repose under a recent defeat. Jourdan again advanced, invested Charleroi, and pressed the siege so vigorously that he was master of the town ere the Prince of Coburg came to its deliverance. When the two armies, some 80,000 strong on either side, fought the battle of Fleurus on the 26th of June, the French lines were in advance of Charleroi, which was in their possession, a fact of which Coburg He ordered a general attack to prevent its capture. The Austrians, as on the 16th, had the advantage at the commencement of the battle, driving in their antagonists at almost all points, compelling the French commanders, Kleber, Marceau, and Jourdan himself, to make prodigious efforts of activity and valour to rally their men. In the midst of the combat the Austrians perceived that what they fought for was lost. Charleroi had surrendered. Still it behoved them to remain masters of the field, for if the French could not be definitively repulsed, Brussels and Belgium were theirs. The combat continued most fierce at a village called Lambussart, which was frequently taken and retaken, and which if the French lost they must have again repassed the Sambre. Marceau succeeded in holding it, and the Prince of Coburg beat a retreat. The occupa tion of Brussels by the French was the result of this CHAP. XLI. CHAP. victory. victory. Belgium was once more theirs, its frontier fortresses surrendering one after the other.* XLI. Thus the evaporation of the sole remaining pretext for terror preceded, and no doubt contributed to, the fall of the system and its chief supporters. Yet certain members of the governing committee, who had worked the defeat of Robespierre, had no intention of putting an end to tyranny. Not only were Billaud and Collot of this opinion, but Barère adhered to it. The convention, however, in electing members to fill the places in the committee left void, chose Dantonists, such as Tallien and Thuriot, whilst Carrier and the extreme terrorists, Fouquier-Tinville, Lebon, and others, were placed under arrest and ordered for trial. The revolutionary tribunal was remodelled, and the terrorist laws connected with it repealed. The prisons were ordered to be opened for all those not detained for causes set down in the list of suspects. These were, heaven knows, sufficiently arbitrary and severe. Yet thousands of prisoners were set free. Legendre principally flung open the doors, and the capital resounded with rejoicing; fathers, mothers, brothers, children embracing their long immured relatives, whom they had never hoped to behold again. Protests were not wanting. The remaining members of the Mountain denounced a sweeping measure of clemency, and demanded the re-incarceration of many who had been liberated. Tallien showed admirable address in combating the extravagance of the two parties, and bringing them to neutralise each other. One was for publishing lists of prisoners, the other for publishing a list of their accusers. Tallien showed the danger. Taken together, they were civil war, and he moved and carried the rejection of both. He had been a cruel proconsul at Bordeaux, after having been secretary of the Paris commune during the epoch of popular *Jourdan's own account of the battle of Fleurus is given by Louis Blanc, to xi. Levasseur was also present at the battle.-See his Mémoires. |