OF GREAT BRITAIN, FROM THE ASCENSION OF GEORGE 111 TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS. CHAP. XXVIII. Inhuman decree of the Convention against the suspected. ... Execution of General Custine.... of the queen of France.... of 22 deputies of the Gironde.... Vendean war.... Atroci ties at Lyons.... Recovery of Toulon by the Republicans. THE faction of the mountain were now masters CHAP. XXVIII. of France. A committee, whose object was ill defined by its title, the committee of public safety, was the central organ of this despotic government. Danton, as we have seen, was the original leader of this body; but the power of this demagogue was already on its decline. Roberspierre, Collot D. Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, recognizing no longer, in their comrade of the September butcheries, the same activity of spirit, resolved to detach him from their party. Roberspierre, addressing him in the confidential manner of a friend, informed him that the mountain had begun to suspect him, that they looked with contempt on his weakness, and had not forgot to report his old conVol. III. A 1793. CHAP. nections with Dumourier. Retire, said he, for a XXVIII. while, and repose upon me as a friend, who will watch over all dangers in your absence, and give 1793. you the signal when you may with safety return. Danton, perceiving that his rival had at least the power if not the inclination to destroy him, submitted to his injunction; he retired to the country, where he lost his revolutionary energy, and with that his consequence and his safety. His three rivals usurped the power which he had relinquished, and used Barrere as a flexible instrument, whom they could destroy at pleasure. One of the earliest measures of the committee of public safety was the law which they recommended to the convention, and which was passed under the name of the law of the suspected. A decree which was rendered still more dreadful by the agents to whom its execution was entrusted. Revolutionary committees were established to be the judges of the suspected, and the power of imprisoning and putting to death was delegated through a thousand channels. Every village had its revolutionary committee. Paris had forty-eight of them-the most abandoned wretches were selected to compose them, and these in their turn erected new ones. Among them there were some men who had no means of escaping the title of suspected, but by soliciting for the office of arrestation. A strange, a salutary generosity inspired others to accept this employment that they might render it void; so merciful a fraud could not long pass either undiscovered or unpunished. But to fill up the great mass of those revolutionary committees, whose members amounted to 200,000, the lowest refuse of society were generally picked out to sit in judgment on the lives and liberties of the flower of the French nation. These ministers of vengeance had still others subservient XXVIII. 1793. to them; beings whose capacity was only fitted for CHAP. the place of informers, and these were retained in the service of the convention by a regular salary. All whom misery or domestic dependence had spited at their superiors, could enrich themselves by the ruin of those to whom they owed a grudge. Every low and resentful sentiment which want and humiliation breed in the human bosom, had its full scope; but gratitude and fidelity had also their prodigies. Hitherto the revolutionary tribunal had only directed its vengeance against obscure individuals,' and almost all selected from that class of the people whom the demagogues affected to flatter. In the months of September and October, the committee of public safety delivered in succession to execution the illustrious General Custine, the queen of France, and 22 deputies of the Girondine party. The execution of Custine was the last crime in which Danton took any share. All his military operations were submitted to the scrutiny of judges and juries, who were better acquainted with massacres than with battles, and his difficulty before such a tribunal was not so much to justify his conduct, as to make it level to their comprehension. The juries of the revolutionary tribunal could not find a verdict that Custine had betrayed his country; but they received new orders, and he was at fast condemned. For six months past the Austrians had been victorious in all their actions: and, after three pitched battles of the first importance, had opened their way for marching to Paris, when the widow of the last king of France was destined to the scaffold; either because the Jacobins wished to shew their contempt for their enemies, by depriving themselves of such a hostage, or that they found a consolation for their reverses in the shedding of blood. In searching for witnesses against L CHAP. Mary Antoinette, the most revolting choice was XXVIII. made on the one hand, of the supporters of the 1793. present tyranny, and on the other, of those who had been already proscribed, and who waited for the hour of sacrifice in their dungeons; the latter description were given to understand, that their own fate would depend upon the evidence which they delivered, Among the condemned deputies, there were two who were called in evidence, but they did not choose to attest their republicanism by accusing the queen. They tried also to make the queen an accuser in her turn; and brought Bailli into her presence, in hopes that she would yield to the implacable resentment which she was known to have cherished against the first constitutionists. But when repeatedly interrogated, whether LaFayette and Bailli had been accomplices in the flight to Varrennes, she constantly denied it. Latour Dupin, who had been minister of war during the constituent assembly, was called as a witness. At the words, do you know the accused? he bowed in her presence, penetrated with grief and respect. Ah! yes, (said he), I have the honour to know Madame. The revolutionary tribunal wished to drive her by terror to ingratitude, and presented to her the small number of commissaries of the commune who had respected the misfortunes of the prisoners of the temple; but the queen employed all the dexterous address of a female mind to screen them from the forfeit of their humanity. A calumny, revolting to nature, was brought as one of the articles of accusation: she heard this atrocious fiction, and allowed it to pass in silence. One of the jury asked her to explain herself on this subject: she hesitated a moment, but rising on a sudden, with new animation and dignity, she turned to the audience, and, in an accent of inexpressible grief, pronounced these words,-I appeal to all the XXVIII. 1793. mothers who hear me, whether one of them be- CHAP. lieves in the possibility of the crime? She spoke to furies, and furies could only answer her with their tears. During the whole scene of her trial, which lasted for several days, she supported herself with unvaried, yet dignified composure. At the sight of the place where Louis had suffered, she seemed impatient to present herself for execution. She suffered on the 26th of October. The Girondists were next called to their condemnation. Before reading to the convention the act of accusation against those of the party who had already been arrested, the reporter, Amar, cast a ferocious look to the right side of the assembly, where some deputies of the proscribed party continued to sit, with an honourable constancy. First of all, said he, it is our duty to arrest those traitors who are present the cowards who now meditate their escape. Let the convention shut them up, and consign them over to justice, in this hall. The convention passed the decree, and forty deputies, the last remnant of the party, were consigned to the revolutionary tribunal. The most of them were arrested on the spot: twenty, who had already fled, were outlawed. A few days after, the same savage, Amar, mounted the tribune, and demanded the heads of the 73 whose names were attached to the protest against the Jacobins, which we have already had occasion to mention. A silence of terror filled the assembly. A defender rose to plead in their behalf, can we believe it! it was Roberspierre. Either the sentiment of pity had for once come across the heart of this barbarian, or his clemency, which is more probable, arose out of dark and distant views of policy, and a fear of being rivalled by the men of blood whom he had trained to his policy. None of the deputies found pardon; none of |