who accomplished the revolution of the 9th of Ther- general hatred against the unfortunate king. He was moderate and humane when employed on missions. Few of the Conventionals left behind them a character so free from reproach. CHAPTER L. THE REACTION. THE tumult of the night of the 9th of Thermidor party began to consider what they could get by was heard in the prisons. Hundreds were trembling for their fate, who knew not whether the morrow might not be the day of their doom. On the 8th of Thermidor (July 26th), while Robespierre was delivering his last speech, fifty-three persons were condemned to death; and on the 9th, the day on which his own fate was sealed, forty-five more were condemned to die. Such was the opinion of Robespierre's power and his cruelty, that he was supposed to be directing the bloody tribunal even while he was struggling for his own life. "There were," says Thibaudeau, himself a member of the Convention, "revolutionary executions at Paris even after the death of Robespierre, as if his manes had still retained some power and required these atrocious sacrifices." This absurd expression is corrected and explained by what follows: "The chief of the terrorists had disappeared; but the party still existed the Committee of Public Safety had rid itself of Robespierre; the Convention had not rid itself of the Committee of Public Safety-the Collot d'Herbois and the Billaud-Varennes had only overthrown the tyrant in order to reign in his place; they had not for a moment thought of destroying tyranny; for before the 9th of Thermidor the factions of Danton and of Robespierre mutually accused one another of aiming at the destruction of the Revolutionary government and the establishment of indulgence."* Great were the rejoicings in the prisons on the morning of the 10th, when the " tyrant's" fall was known, and hope of life revived in those who had resigned themselves to despair. Many of the prisoners, who had friends, obtained their release immediately. Legendre, Bourdon de l'Oise, and others, went through the prisons, and assumed the gracious office of pardoning. It does not appear what proportion of the prisoners were released, but the number was large. Legendre, who had been one of the vilest flatterers of Robespierre, and had crouched before his menaces on the occasion of Danton's arrest, was one of those who insulted him after his fall. On the night of the 9th, he went, according to his own account, to the Jacobins, broke up the meeting, and brought away the key of the place, which he produced before the Convention. The Convention were unanimous until they had secured their victory by the punishment of the members of the Commune, but as soon as this was accomplished, each it. The Hébertistes acted as if they must have the power as a matter of course, and on the 29th of July, Barrère, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, proposed Fouquier Tinville as public accuser at the Revolutionary Tribunal, which it was proposed to remodel. Yet Robespierre's enemies have said that Fouquier Tinville was Robespierre's tool, though he always denied it himself, and Barrère's proposal seems to show that the Committee of Public Safety considered him as their tool. Lacoste on the same day moved that the Revolutionary Tribunal should be suppressed, because it was composed in a great part of Robespierre's creatures, and that its place should be supplied by a provisional commission, and this was decreed. But on the motion of Billaud-Varennes, the operation of the decree was deferred, "in order that the action of the Tribunal might not be suspended." Again Barrère, in giving an account of the conspiracy of Robespierre and the Commune, said that the Communal committee of execution had determined to shoot all the members of the Revolutionary Tribunal. This was probably a lie of Barrère's invention; but there is a manifest inconsistency in calling the members of the Tribunal Robespierre's creatures, and also asserting that those with whom he was conspiring intended to shoot them. On the 1st of August, Robespierre's law of the 22nd of Prairial was repealed on the motion of Lecointre, and Fouquier Tinville was put under arrest, as a preliminary to his being sent before his own Revolutionary Tribunal. Barrère proposed three new members of the Committee of Public Safety, in place of Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon; and he expected, as a matter of course, that his nominees would be accepted, and that the Committee of Public Safety would thus retain its power. But he was disappointed, and on the 31st of July the members of the Convention voted severally for six new members of the Committee, for the place of Hérault-Séchelles had to be filled up, and those of Jean-Bon-Saint-André and Prieur (de la Marne), who were on missions. The six new members were Tallien, Treilhard, Eschassériaux, Bréard and Thuriot. Of these six Eschassériaux was the only one whom Barrère had proposed. Carnot, Prieur (de la Côte d'Or), Barrère, Robert Lindet, Billaud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois, still remained members of the Committee. The Committee of General Security, after the 1st of August, were Amar, Voulland, Panis, Vadier, Boucher-Saint-Sauveur, Louis (du Bas-Rhin), Moïse, Bayle, and Rhül, all members of the old committee, to | On the 2nd of August, Lebon, David, Héron, and whom were added Legendre of Paris, Goupilleau, Rossignol, were impeached. David had the meanness Merlin de Thionville, André Dumont, Bernard de to declare that it was impossible to conceive how far he Saintes, and Rewbell. David, Jagot, Lavicomterie, and had been deceived by that "unfortunate Robespierre ;" Lebon, ceased to be members. It was decreed that one- and he swore that henceforth he would not attach fourth of the members of the Committees of Govern- himself to men, but to principles. Lebon had been ment should be changed every month. Two decrees shortly before the 9th of Thermidor defended by Barwere repealed with the view of destroying the dictato- rère, and now he was given up as a scapegoat. Yet rial power which the Committees had exercised: one of he was not the great criminal; the guilty were the these decrees gave the two Committees power to arrest Committee of Public Safety, and Robespierre was the representatives of the people without any previous involved in the guilt, as it has been shown. There report, and the other required the representatives who are two letters of the Committee of Public Safety, obtained leave of absence to have it approved by the written to Lebon, which cover with infamy the men Committees. who signed them; but Robespierre's name is not The fall of Robespierre allowed the various elements there. One letter is dated the 16th of November, of the Convention to display themselves. There were 1793, and signed by Billaud-Varennes, Carnot, and Girondins, Dantonists, Hébertistes, and Jacobins, who, Barrère: "Go on, citizen colleague, in the revoluthough approving of Robespierre's moral and political tionary line which you courageously follow; the Comideas, had allowed him to perish, chiefly, perhaps, mittee applaud your labours." The second, written through personal dislike. But there was a new party about the same time, is signed by Billaud-Varennes, which sprung into existence on the 9th of Thermidor, Carnot, Barrère, and Robert Lindet: "All these formed by Tallien and his friends, sometimes called the measures are not only permitted, but commanded by Thermidorian party. As to the Convention itself, the your mission: nothing ought to stand in the way of members, or the majority, could say nothing against the your revolutionary progress; abandon yourself to your past system of Terror, for they had sanctioned it them-energy: your powers are unlimited: whatever you selves. The great culprit was the whole Convention, shall judge necessary for the safety of your country, and justice required the punishment of all. The Con- you may, you must execute it immediately." Could vention sacrificed some of the great agents of Terror, a sanguinary madman be told in plainer terms to go who justly said that the Convention was as guilty as on murdering? * themselves. There was no hope of any good from such a body. The Thermidorian party, properly so called, the party which planned the ruin of Robespierre, consisted chiefly of Dantonists, a term which means little more than that they were faithful to the principles of him whose name they bore: they were united by their common immorality, their greediness of money, their profuse expenditure; their sole object was the same as that of a large body of men which exists in all governments, to live on the industry of others. "These were the men who were the first to set the example of that abominable immorality which disgraced the close of the Convention and the Directory, and who displayed in the governing class of that period more shamelessness and corruption than there had ever been in the nobility and in the clergy under the two last kings." The service which these men had done by the overthrow of Robespierre gave them the command of a majority in the Convention, which they The Jacobin club, after Robespierre's death, was at managed with great skill. Robespierre and his parti- first guided by Thermidorian leaders, Tallien, Legendre, sans, Couthon, St. Just, and others, had preached and Dubois Crance. All the chief personages whom morality, and enforced it by the guillotine: they Robespierre had caused to be expelled from the club made morality the order of the day; and though not were restored. But some of the Jacobins soon began hypocrites in the matter themselves, they established with the Reign of Terror the reign of hypocrisy. Tallien, Fréron, Rovère, and others, hated morality and the restraint of hypocrisy: they were opposed to the re-establishment of the ancient régime from which they could hope nothing, as well as to the establishment of a new one, which would be the termination of their own power. On the 10th of August, Merlin of Douay read the draft of a decree for the re-organization of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He said there was not in the new decree a single provision which was not taken either word for word from or founded on the laws relating to the Revolutionary Tribunal, as it existed before the law of the 22nd of Prairial. If that is so, said Duhem, let us keep to the organization as it was before the law of the 22nd of Prairial; and his motion was carried. Duhem's real objection was, that Merlin's measure contained some articles which had the appearance of moderation: he said that he met in the streets nothing but aristocrats set at liberty. Though the prisons had been cleared of a great number, there had been many fresh arrests. A new set of men were named as president, vice-presidents, judges, and jury, of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The new public accuser was Leblois. * Carnot seems to have said little in the Convention; and perhaps this may partly explain how he has escaped the general execration pronounced against the directors of Terror. It was said of him, that "he was employed in organizing victories:" but he was also employed in organizing murders. He was either a zealous co-operator with Barrère and Billaud-Varennes, or too timid to oppose them. Either way his character must suffer. the revolutionary party, because they saw that all their enemies, Girondins, royalists, the suspected who had been released from prison, and all the various shades of the Thermidorian party were in favour of it. Fréron, who now resumed his 'Orateur du Peuple,' which had been suspended in November, 1792, read at the tribune of the Convention a long discourse in favour of the unlimited freedom of the press, which the Convention ordered to be printed and referred to the Committee of Legislation. He said that so many cruelties, so many calamities, would not have happened, if the press had remained free, if the tyrant (Robespierre) had not stifled every voice which would have spoken of his innumerable crimes. to complain; and on the 13th of August, Chasles said, | lution was to be maintained in spite of a majority. "In all the great communes, the exquisites and the The unlimited liberty of printing was also dreaded by women with big bonnets, who had deserted the clubs for six months, have returned in crowds since the 11th and 12th of Thermidor; more than six hundred patriots denounced by these messieurs have been arrested; they cover their aristocracy under the false name of hatred of Robespierre." On the 19th of August, Louchet, a man who had hitherto only distinguished himself by moving for the arrest of Robespierre, made a proposition which was equivalent to the restoration of the Reign of Terror: "To feel compassion," he said, "for the fate of the former privileged class is a crime, and to punish them is a duty." His proposal consisted of three articles, one of which was, that "all former nobles, and all fathers and mothers of emigrants, should be immediately lodged again in prison." Tallien said Lecointre of Versailles, who was a man of courage, that terror was the arm of tyranny: "Robespierre also and had some honesty, attempted to do an act of was continually saying that terror should be the order justice. On the 29th of August he said: "Citizen of the day, and while he incarcerated and sent patriots colleagues, I undertake to prove to the National to the scaffold, he protected the knaves who were his Convention, both by authentic documents and by tools." The Convention decreed that Louchet's motion witnesses, that our colleagues, Billaud-Varennes, should be printed and referred to the Committee of Collot d'Herbois, and Barrère, members of the ComPublic Safety. This move of the Jacobins in the mittee of Public Safety, and Vadier, Amar, Voulland, Convention was supported by the Jacobin club, who and David, members of the Committee of General resolved that the society should go in a body to the Security, are chargeable on the following heads. He Convention, to petition that a list should be made of read twenty-six articles of complaint. Most of them all the prisoners who had been released, and that the were distinct and precise, and many of them were Revolutionary Government should be maintained in all notoriously true. It was a much fairer acte d'accuits energy, but free from the abuses which the horrible sation than these unprincipled men had ever produced faction of the triumvirs had introduced into it. The against any of their victims. A member cried out, society came to the bar of the Convention, and read that "the man at the tribune was a villain ;" and this their address, to which the Convention replied by member was Carrier. Billaud-Varennes defied Lepassing to the order of the day. The treatment which cointre to prove his charges. This was impudent the Jacobins received from the Convention was followed enough, for the Convention knew that many of them by a stormy discussion in their club; but they sub- were true. Thuriot, who had become a kind of peacemitted to the will of the Convention. Good patriots, maker, moved, and it was carried, "that the deputies as they were called, were however alarmed at certain who had been accused had always behaved conformably suspicious movements which followed the release of to the wishes of the Nation and of the Convention, the "suspected" from their prisons. Dufourny, at and that accordingly the Convention rejected with the the Jacobins denounced the electoral club, commonly most profound indignation the denunciation of Lecalled the club of the Évêché, for intending to propose cointre, and passed to the order of the day." Cambon, this question to the sections, "Shall the people have who was an honest man up to a certain point, said the right of election restored to them?" If this ques- that if these deputies could be charged with such tion were answered in the affirmative, it would be the offences, the charge would apply of necessity to all the same thing as calling for the dissolution of the Con- members of the Convention; and he told the aristovention, the immediate convocation of the primary crats that their trick was seen through. The more assemblies and the election of a new legislature. The honest part of the revolutionists saw they could not club of the Évêché in fact did petition the Convention put these men on their trial, for thus the Convention (6th of September) for the unlimited freedom of the would be put on its trial, and the Revolution itself press and the election of public functionaries by the called in question. This decision did not satisfy either people; and the Convention passed to the order of the party. It was the subject of talk all over Paris. The day. Billaud-Varennes remarked that this club had young men, who soon obtained the name of La Jeualways been the centre of counter-revolution. The nesse dorée, to whom Fréron's journal was addressed, Jacobins were opposed to the move of the club of the said that they would soon force the Convention to Évêché, which they considered a sign of counter-consider this affair; and the following day the hall of revolution. A new election at this time might pro- the Assembly was crowded with spectators who came bably have shown that there was a great re-action in opinion. But the principle of the Jacobins was not to allow the nation to express their opinion: the Revo to see what further would be done. A contemporary gives a picture of the deputies who were denounced. Their complexion and physiognomy bore traces of labour and nightly vigils, for undoubtedly they had which favoured the conspiracy, and that Tallien was worked hard. The habitude and the necessity of the head of it. Another member said that Fréron and secrecy had imprinted on their countenance the sombre Tallien had instigated Lecointre to make an attack on character of dissimulation. Their hollow, blood-shot the Convention by attacking the members of the Comeyes had a sinister expression. Their conscience, mittees, and he moved their expulsion from the society. though seared with a hot iron, could not have lost all Tallien now used the language of an honest man, whatits sensitiveness. The haggard look of some of them ever his motives might have been: he said that he might be partly the effect of their debauchery. Collot had only required that the Revolutionary government d'Herbois, it is said, indulged freely in brandy, and should be freed from the harsh forms which surrounded was generally half drunk. "The long exercise of it, that innocent families should not be attacked, that power had given to their expression and bearing some- vigorous measures should be taken, but such as pruthing of a proud and disdainful air: the members of dence and virtue dictated; and these were the printhe Committee of General Security looked like the ciples which he would support as long as he lived. old lieutenants-general of police, and those of the Tallien and Fréron were obliged to lay down their Committee of Public Safety like the former ministers cards of membership, and they left the Jacobins, emof state." When the secretary read the formal minute bracing one another. The Jacobins had renewed their of the decree of the day before on the denunciation of correspondence with the departments, and addresses Lecointre, a violent discussion commenced. Nobody both to the Convention and the club flowed in, which took Lecointre's part. Some said that he ought to be called for the organization of Revolutionary Commitsent to a mad-house. Collot d'Herbois concluded tees, the arrest of suspected persons, and the vigorous some remarks by saying that he and his colleagues maintenance of the Revolutionary government. hoped, by doing good, to increase every moment that regret which Lecointre must in his heart feel for having denounced them. This was rather a sign that he and his colleagues were afraid. Cambon at last moved that Lecointre's denunciation be declared calumnious, which was unanimously agreed to in the midst of great applause. On the 9th of September, about midnight, as Tallien was going home to his mother's, he received a pistolshot, which stretched him on the ground. The assassin escaped; a circumstance which, combined with the slightness of the wound, made some people think that the affair was merely a contrivance to throw odium on the Jacobins. But the surgeon's evidence shows that The Jacobins now began to be louder in their com- there was a real wound, and that a ball had passed plaints. They said that when the houses of detention through Tallien's clothes. The Convention were now were established, one could scarcely find a single receiving addresses from the popular societies, full of patriot among a hundred prisoners: now it would be complaints against moderantism and aristocracy. Collot difficult to find a single aristocrat among as many d'Herbois said that it was time to open their eyes, to prisoners: all the prisoners were patriots. Carrier seize again the reins of government with a firm and accused Tallien at the Jacobins of being a partisan of bold hand, to restore to the patriots their energy, and Lecointre, and of having urged him to denounce the to silence the aristocrats. A deputation from the Jacomembers of the two Committees. The party of Tallien bins followed, with loud complaints of the incarceration and the Jacobins were daily becoming more hostile, and of patriots all over the Republic, and the release of the Jacobins were recovering their strength, when two aristocrats and suspected persons. On this occasion events happened which helped to ruin them in public the deputation received the honours of the sitting. opinion. On the 31st of August the powder-magazine The Convention was tossed about between the Jacobins of Grenelle exploded with a terrific noise, which was and the Thermidorians; but the Jacobins had no head heard all through Paris and the neighbourhood. Fifty to guide them, no influence with the Committees of or sixty persons were killed, and as many seriously government, and very little over public opinion. The hurt. The Jacobins were suspected of having caused Committee of General Security, which had the duties this mischief, but no proof was ever produced, nor any of police, still went on releasing and imprisoning in reason given why they should be accused of it. On accordance with the views of the Thermidorians, of the same day, Barrère, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud- whom the Committee was composed. Opinion was Varennes went out of the Committee of Public Safety: daily becoming more decided against the Jacobins. Tallien also resigned. The four members were sup- The Revolutionary Committee of Nantes had sent to plied by Delmas, Cochon, Merlin of Douay, and Four- Paris, in November, 1793, one hundred and thirty-two croy. persons to be tried. Only ninety-seven reached Paris in January, 1794, and they were not tried till September in the same year.' They were charged with conspiring against the people, encouraging federalism, corresponding with the emigrants, and other counter Tallien could not keep his place; for besides his alleged dealing with Lecointre, the party of which he was the head was charged with having been the most active in releasing prisoners and filling the streets of Paris with suspected persons. The Jacobins attacked Tallien at their club. Carrier said that the late explosion of the powder-magazine, the release of a great number of former nobles and priests, and other things, would show that there was a conspiracy, a faction *Their sufferings are told in the 'Voyage de Cent trentedeux Nantois, envoyés à Paris, par le Comité Révolutionnaire de Nantes;' 'Mém. sur les Prisons,' vol. ii. A A revolutionary measures. They were acquitted on the 14th of September; and their acquittal made people call more eagerly for the trial of the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes, and of Carrier, whom the Jacobins defended to the last. The Jacobins were assailed with pamphlets, which recommended the destruction of their club. One of the pamphlets, entitled 'La Queue de Robespierre,' or, The Dangers of the Liberty of the Press,' had a great vogue, though it has no merit. It is, as its title shows, a piece of irony. The Muscadins, as they had been called, and now the Jeunesse dorée, many of whom were young men who had contrived to evade the military service, or had made their way back from the frontiers as soon as they could, were the enemies of the Revolution, and, it is said, the most depraved and turbulent part of the population of Paris. They began to parade the streets in bodies; and on the 18th of September a great number of them being assembled at the Palais Royal maltreated some Jacobins. The rallying cry of the Muscadins was, "Live the Convention; down with the Jacobins." The reign of the Jacobins was drawing to a close. The Committees of government had hitherto said little; but on the 20th of September, Robert Lindet, in the names of the Committees of Public Safety, General Security, and Legislation, made a long report on the internal condition of the Republic.* On the whole it is a piece not without some merit. It imputed, of course, much of the past evil to Robespierre. One of Robespierre's old colleagues, who had joined him in signing many orders, could not now do less than throw all the blame on the man who was not there to answer for himself, and who had not left even one behind him to defend his name. According to Lindet, Robespierre wished to destroy the arts, the sciences, and commerce. The report was well received, and several decrees were passed in conformity to the recommendations contained in it. One provided for the immediate examination of the case of fathers and mothers of defenders of the country, and of all agriculturists, artists, and persons in trade, who had been arrested; another for the institution of normal schools; and a third was designed for the improvement of the finances, commerce, and agriculture. of having assisted Marat in the Ami du Peuple.' Just at the moment when the coffin of Marat was taken from the car, the "impure remains of the royalist Mirabeau were ejected from the temple of great men by a side door." After the ceremony of Marat's removal to the Pantheon, all the theatres were opened to the people, and pieces were represented which were adapted to cherish the love of liberty, and the hatred of tyrants and of tyranny. The transfer of Rousseau's remains to the Pantheon took place on the 11th of October, with the ceremonies usual at this period. A group of musicians led the procession, and executed one of Rousseau's airs, which, "simple and full of expression, excited a religious feeling well-suited to the circumstances." The procession was closed by the Convention, at whose head figured "the Social Contract, the Pharos of legislators," to use the language of the day; the rock which they must avoid, to use the language of reason and of experience. Two days after this apotheosis of Rousseau, the Convention did an act of justice. The Revolutionary Tribunal was instructed to try without delay the members of the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes. This trial brought to light a mass of crimes such as were never committed in any age nor in any country;* and it increased the hostile feeling against the Jacobins, who had neither the decency nor the prudence to separate their cause from that of Carrier. The fourteen men who were tried admitted the crimes with which they were charged, but they threw all the blame on Carrier. The Convention, upon hearing a report of the evidence given at this trial, appointed a committee of twenty-one members to inquire into the conduct of Carrier, and to report upon it. Marat had received his honours, but the Thermidorians and the Jacobins were still in hostile attitude to one another. The club of the Jacobins published an address to all the popular societies of the Republic, which began : "Brothers and Friends, the triumvirs, struck by the sword of the law, and whose memory is devoted to anathema, teach us all this great lesson, that principles and country are everything, and that men are nothing; that the idolatry of men is a public crime, which kills liberty and equality." The address declared that there was a design to destroy the fraOn the following day the remains of Marat were at ternal union maintained by the parent society, and last transferred to the Pantheon, pursuant to a decree that aristocracy and moderantism were raising their of the Convention, who appeared in the procession. audacious head: "The dangerous reaction caused by It might be supposed that this honour paid to the the fall of the triumvirs still continues; and out of the Friend of the People was the work of the Jacobins storms, raised by all the enemies of the people openly only; but though the Jacobins could not object to see united against liberty, has sprung a new faction which Marat removed to the Pantheon, the Thermidorians tends to the dissolution of all the popular societies." were active in the matter also. They wished to main- To this declaration of war the Convention responded tain a revolutionary reputation, as it appears, in order on the 9th of October, by an address to the French to protect themselves against the charges of the Jaco-people. If this address had been made in good faith, bins; and they could hardly have had any other and if it had proceeded from a body which was entitled motive. Fréron, in his Journal, affected to call himself" the cherished disciple" of Marat, and he boasted * Extraits de la procédure du Comité Révolutionnaire de Nantes, Hist. Pari.,' xxxv., 147, &c.; and xxxiv., 149, &c., the trial of Carrier and the rest. |