VII. 1791. ardent, able, and ambitious of the middle class, to whom CHAP. the privileges of the highest were most obnoxious, and who were most desirous to occupy their place,-the advocate, or attorney, who was devoured with anxiety to crush the magistrate who had long insulted him by his pride the village surgeon, anxious to rise to the station of the physician-the priest, who envied the professor or the bishop. The Jacobin Club, at the outset, comprised the quintessence of the professional ambition and talent of France thence its early and lasting influence. By degrees, however, as the Revolution rolled on-and serious crimes marked its progress-it acquired a darker character, and became distinguished chiefly by the violence of its proceedings, and the concourse from all parts of France of all who were actuated by the fervour or compromised by the crimes of the Revolution. Fifteen hundred members usually attended its meetings; a few lamps only lighted the vast extent of the room; the members appeared for the most part in shabby attire, and the galleries were filled with the lowest of the populace. In this den of darkness were prepared the bloody lists of proscription and massacre; the meetings were opened with revolutionary songs, and shouts of applause followed each addition to the list of murder, each account of its perpetration by the affiliated societies. Never was a man of honour-seldom a man of virtue-admitted within this society; it had an innate horror of every one who was not attached to its fortunes by the hellish bond of committed wickedness. A robber, an assassin, was certain of admission-as sure as the victim of their violence was of rejection. The well-known question put to the en-1 Hist. de la trants, "What have you done to be hanged if the ancient 110, 112. régime is restored?" exemplifies at once the tie which Duval, held together its members. The secret sense of deserved Terreur, ii. punishment constituted the bond of their unholy alliance.1 Mich. Hist. Their place of meeting was adorned with anarchical ii. 295. symbols, tricolor flags, and busts of the leading revolu Conv. i. No. Souv. de la 42, 74. de la Rév. CHAP. tionists of former times. Long before the death of VII. Louis XVI., two portraits, adorned with garlands, of 1791. Jacques Clément and Ravaillac, were hung on the walls; 22. of their success. immediately below was the date of the murder which each had committed, with the words, "He was fortunate; he killed a king." Inferior to their adversaries in learning, eloquence, and The secret taste, they were infinitely their superiors in the arts of acquiring popularity; they succeeded with the mob, because they knew by experience the means of moving the mass from which they sprang. Reason, justice, humanity, were never appealed to: flattery, agitation, and terror, constituted their never-failing methods of seduction. Incessant fabrications or denunciations of counter-revolutionary plots, and fearful pictures of the dangers to which, if successful, they would expose the whole revolutionary party, were their favourite engines for moving the popular mind. They embraced, and established over all France, a system of espionage as widespread as that of Fouché under the imperial régime -more searching than that of the Inquisition in the plenitude of papal tyranny. Mutual surveillance, public watching, private denunciation, constituted their constant methods of intimidation. More even than Italy in the days of Tiberius, France was, by their agency, overspread with a host of informers, who were only the more formidable that they were at once the accusers, the judges, the jury, and the gainers by denunciation. As strongly as Napoleon himself, and for a similar reason, they felt that conquest was essential to existence; they were all aware, and constantly maintained, that the Revolution must advance and crush its enemies, or it would recoil and crush themselves. The extreme of democracy was the form of Government which they supported, because it was most grateful to the indigent class on whom they depended; but nothing was farther from their intentions than to share with others the power which they so VII. 1791. 1 Toul. v. ii. 10. Mig. strenuously sought for themselves. The greatest levellers CHAP. in theory, they became the most absolute tyrants in practice; having nothing to lose, they were utterly reckless in their measures of aggrandisement; restrained by no feelings of conscience, they reaped for a time the fruits of audacious wickedness. The leaders of this party 139. Lac. were Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Billaud Varennes, St. 214. Just, and Collot d'Herbois-names destined to acquire 84. Hist. an execrable celebrity in French annals, whose deeds will de la Conv never be forgotten so long as the voice of conscience is Chateaub. heard in the human heart-who have done more to injure Mich. Hist. the cause of freedom than all the tyrants who have ii. 297, 298. preceded them.1 Buzot, 72, i. 110, 112. Mém. 76. de la Rév. 23. tory of Danton was born at Arcis-sur-Aube on the 28th October 1759. His father was a small proprietor in its neighbour- Early hishood, who cultivated his little domain with his own hands, Danton. but had sufficient property and intelligence to give his son a good education. He died early, and Danton's mother married M. Recorder, a humble manufacturer, who completed his stepson's education by sending him to Troyes. There his talents were so great, his indolence so invincible, that his companions called him Catiline. Nature seemed to have expressly created him for the terrible part which he played in the Revolution. His figure was colossal, his health unbroken, his strength extraordinary: a countenance ravaged by the small-pox, with small eyes, thick lips, a turned-up nose, a libertine look, but a lofty forehead, at once fascinated and terrified the beholder. A commanding air, dauntless intrepidity, a voice of thunder, soon gave him the ascendancy in any assembly which he addressed. He was bred to the bar, but never got any practice; and was already drowned in debt when the Revolution in 1789 drew him to Paris, as the great centre of attraction for towering ambition and ruined fortunes. Mirabeau there early discerned his value, and made use of him, as he himself said, "as a huge blast-bellows to inflame the popular passions." In July 1789 he was |