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XI.

1793.

French, was awakened; the dominant party of the CHAP. Jacobins at Paris no longer appeared in the light of a relentless faction contending for power, but as a band of patriots bravely struggling for national independence. Resistance to their mandates seemed nothing short of treason to the commonwealth in its hour of danger. Every species of requisition was cheerfully furnished under the pressure of impending calamity in the dread of foreign subjugation, the loss of fortune or employment was forgotten. One only path, that of honour, was open 1 Hist. Parl. to the brave; one only duty, that of submission, remained xxiv. 181, to the good; and even the blood which streamed from iii. 236, 237. the scaffold seemed a sacrifice justly due to the offended genius of patriotism, indignant at the defection of some ix. 71, 72. of its votaries.1

182. Toul.

Th. iv. 4, 5.

Lac. ii. 51.

Deux Amis,

dicial effect

on the

Royalist and

The Royalist, Constitutional, and Moderate parties 11. were never again able to separate the cause of France Their prejufrom that of the Jacobins, who then ruled its destinies. The people, ever led by their feelings, and often incapable Constituof just discrimination, though more powerfully influenced tional cause. by generous than selfish sentiments, and, when not swayed by wicked leaders, in the end generally true to the cause of virtue, constantly associated the adherents of these parties with the enemies of the Republic. They condemned the Royalists, because they fought in the ranks of the Allies, and combated the Republic in La Vendée ; the Constitutionalists, because they had entered into negotiations with the enemies of the state, and sought the aid of foreign armies to restore the balance of domestic faction; the Moderates, because they had raised their voices against internal tyranny, and sought to arrest the arm of power in the effusion of human blood. The party which becomes associated in the mind of the people with indifference to the fate of the country in periods of danger, can scarcely ever, during the subsistence of that generation, regain its influence; and opposition to the ruling power, during such a crisis, seldom escapes such an

XI.

1793.

CHAP. imputation. By a singular coincidence, the Opposition, both in France and England, at this period, lost their hold of the influential part of the nation from the same cause the French Royalists, because they were accused of coalescing with foreign powers against the integrity of 1 Lac. iii. France; the English Whigs, because they were suspected of indifference to the national glory in the contest with Continental ambition.1

237. Mig. i. 248.

12.

Jacobins for

Allies.

The French leaders were not insensible to the danger Plan of the arising from the attack of so formidable a coalition of resisting the foreign powers as was now prepared to attack them; but retreat had become impossible. By the execution of Louis, they had come to a final rupture with all established governments. The revolt of the 10th August, the massacres in the prisons, the death of the King, had excited the most profound indignation among all the aristocratic portion of society throughout Europe, and singularly cooled the ardour of the middle ranks in favour of the Revolution. The Jacobins were no longer despised by the European powers, but feared; and terror prompts more vigorous efforts than contempt. But the republican leaders at Paris did not despair of saving the cause of democracy. The extraordinary movement which agitated France gave them good grounds for hoping that they might succeed in raising the whole male population for its defence, and that thus a much greater body might be brought into the field than the Allies could possibly assemble for its subjugation. The magnitude of the expense was to them a matter of no consequence. The estates of the emigrants afforded a vast and increasing fund, which greatly exceeded the amount of the public debt; while the unlimited issues of assignats, at whatever rate of discount they might pass, amply provided for all the present or probable wants of 18. Deux the treasury. Nor did these hopes prove fallacious; for, 73. such was the misery produced in France by the stoppage of all pacific employment consequent on the Revolution,

2 Th. iv. 16.

Amis, x. 72.

XI.

1793.

and such the terror produced by the Jacobin clubs and CHAP. democratic municipalities in the interior, that the armies were filled without difficulty, and the republic derived additional external strength from the very intensity of its internal suffering.

13.

Great dis-
Paris and

tress in

over France.

But although the armies of the Republic might be supplied by the misery which prevailed in its interior, and the terrors of its government increased by the merciless severity with which the measures taken for filling up its ranks were enforced, yet the great mass of the citizens necessarily remained at home, and it was daily becoming a more difficult matter to provide them with bread, in the midst of bankrupt fortunes, ruined credit, confiscated estates, depreciated assignats, and an insolvent government. The care of this, especially in the capital, where the armed force of the multitude was so great, had long constituted one of the most arduous duties of the Convention. A committee, charged with this matter, with Roland the minister of the interior at its head, had sat daily in Paris during the whole winter; but though they had tried everything that zeal or experience could suggest, nothing had been found capable of arresting the public distress. The universal suffering did not arise from scarcity or natural causes; the weather had been fine, the season propitious, the harvest good. It was entirely 1 Hist. Parl. the result of the destruction of fortunes and ruin of credit xxii. 163, which had arisen from the Revolution, and the prodigious Amis, ix. issue of assignats, bearing a forced circulation, which had iv. 39, 41. been made to sustain its fortunes.1

187. Deux

81, 82. Th.

14.

a maximum.

Dread of pillage, repugnance on the part of the cultivators to sell their produce for payment in the depreciated Popular currency, which necessarily resulted from the unlimited demands for issue of assignats, rendered abortive all the efforts of government to supply the public necessities. At the same time, the price of every article of consumption increased so immensely, as to excite the most vehement clamours among the people. The price, not only of bread,

XI.

1793.

CHAP. but of sugar, coffee, candles, and soap, had more than doubled since the Revolution commenced. Innumerable petitions on this subject succeeded each other at the bar of the Convention. The more violent of the Jacobins had a remedy ready; it was to proclaim a maximum for the price of every article, lay a forced tax on the rich, and hang all persons who sold at a higher price than that fixed by law. In vain Thuriot, and a few of the more educated of the party, raised their voices against these extreme measures; they were assailed with cries against the "shopkeeper aristocracy;" their voices were drowned by hisses from the galleries; and the Mountain itself found that resisting such proceedings would speedily render them as unpopular as the Girondists had already become. The people now declared that the leaders they had selected were as bad as the old nobles. Perhaps the greatest and most ruinous delusion in such convulsions, is the common opinion, that, by selecting their rulers from their own body, the labouring classes will find them more inclined to sympathise with their distresses than if taken from a more elevated class-a natural but pernicious Amis, x. 18, opinion, which all history proves to be fallacious, and 39,41. Hist. which the common proverb, as to the effect of setting a ii. 164. beggar on horseback, shows to be adverse to the experience, in ordinary times, of mankind.1

1 Deux

21. Th. iv.

de la Conv.

15.

Paris from the high prices.

Feb. 24.

At length the extreme difficulty of procuring subsisTumult in tence roused the people to a perfect fury. A tumultuous mob surrounded the hall of the Jacobins, and treated that body as they had so often treated the legislature. The object was to procure a petition from them to the Convention, to affix a maximum on the price of provisions. The demand was refused. Instantly, cries of “Down Iwith the forestallers! down with the rich!" resounded on all sides; and the Jacobins were threatened as they had threatened the Convention. Marat, the following morning, published a number of his journal, in which, raising his powerful voice against what he called "the

XI.

1793.

lique, 25th

monopolists, the merchants of luxury, the supporters of CHAP. fraud, the ex-nobles," he added" In every country where the rights of the people are not a vain title, the pillage of a few shops, at the door of which they hang their forestalling owners, would put an end to an evil which reduces five millions of men to despair, and daily causes thousands to die of famine. When will the 1 Journal de deputies of the people learn to act, without eternally la Repubharanguing on evils they know not how to remedy ?"1* Feb. Encouraged by these exhortations, the populace were not slow in taking the redress of their wrongs into their own hands. A mob assembled, and pillaged a number of shops in the streets of La Vieille-Monnaie, Cinq-Diamans, and Lombards. They next insisted that every article of commerce should be sold at half its present price, and large quantities were seized in that manner at a ruinous 2 Th. iv. 43, loss to the owners. Speedily, however, they became tired 46. Deux of paying at all, and the shops were openly pillaged, 21. without any equivalent being given.2

Amis, x. 20,

consterna

Feb. 26.

All the public bodies were filled with consternation 16. at these disorders. The shopkeepers, in particular, whose Universal efforts in favour of the Revolution had been so decided tion in Paris. at its commencement, were in despair at the approach of anarchy to their own doors. The Girondists, who were for the most part the representatives of the commercial cities of France, were fully alive to the disastrous effects of a maximum in prices. But when they attempted to enforce their principles, they were universally assailed by the populace, and their efforts in this particular destroyed

"En attendant que la nation, fatiguée de ces désordres révoltans, prenne elle-même le parti de purger la terre de la liberté de cette race criminelle que ses lâches mandataires encouragent au crime par l'impunité, on ne doit pas trouver étrange que le peuple dans chaque ville, poussé au désespoir, se fasse lui-même justice. Dans tout pays où les droits du peuple ne sont pas des vains titres consignés fastueusement dans un temple, le pillage de quelques magasins, à la porte desquels on pendrait les accapareurs, mettrait bientôt fin à ces malversations, qui réduisent cinq millions d'hommes au désespoir, et qui font périr des milliers de misère. Les députés du peuple ne sauront-ils done jamais que bavarder sur des maux, sans en présenter jamais le remède ?”— MARAT, Journal de la République, No. 133.

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