CHAP. XI. 1793. come when we must organise the despotism of liberty to overturn the despotism of kings." Loud applause from the galleries and the extreme left followed these words, and amidst the general transport, the awful Committee of Public Salvation was established.* On the same dayan ominous conjunction!-the new Revolutionary Tribunal commenced its sittings, and immediately condemned Louis Guizot Dumollans, an emigrant, accused of having du Tribunal been found in arms in France contrary to the law of 23d No.1. Hist. October, to the punishment of death. He was executed 299, 394. four hours afterwards, protesting he had never heard of the law till his sentence was pronounced.1 J Bulletin Révolution. Parl. xxv. 39. dists are Alarmed by the commencement of punishment by this The Giron- formidable tribunal, and by the constant succession of denounced orators of the sections of Paris, who loudly demanded at by Robesthe bar the immediate denunciation of Vergniaud, Guadet, pierre. Gensonné, Brissot, Barbaroux, Louvet, and all the leaders of the Gironde, with threats of instant insurrection if they were not forthwith arrested and sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal,† the Girondists resolved on a last effort to rescue their party from the destruction with which it was menaced. Meanwhile, however, they were anticipated by the Jacobins, who brought forward a motion for the denunciation of the Duke of Orleans and the whole Hist. Parl. Girondists as guilty of high treason, along with Dumourier. This was the commencement of the terrible strife which ended with the fall of the latter party.2 April 8. xxv. 320, 337. "A powerful faction," said Robespierre, in the Convention," combines with the tyrants of Europe to give us a king, with a species of aristocratic constitution. It pro *The persons chosen for this committee were Barère, Delmas, Bréard, Cambon, Jean Debrez, Danton, Guyton-Morveau, Treilhard, and Delacroix. -Hist. Parl. xxv. 307. "L'orateur de la Section Mauconseil :-Depuis assez longtemps la voix publique vous désigne les Vergniaud, les Guadet, les Gensonné, les Brissot, les Barbaroux, les Louvet, les Buzot, &c. Qu'attendez-vous pour les frapper du décret d'accusation? Vous mettez Dumourier hors la loi, mais vous laissez assis parmi vous ses complices. Vous manque-t-il des preuves? Les calomnies qu'ils ont vomies contre Paris déposent contre eux. Patriotes XI. 40. speech Girondists. poses to bring us back to that shameful compromise by CHAP. the force of foreign armies, and the effect of internal intrigues. A republic suits only the people, and those 1793. few in the higher conditions who have pure and upright Robes minds. External warfare is the system of Pitt, who is pierre's the soul of the coalition; it suits all the ambitious; it against the suits the burgher aristocracy, ever trembling for their property, and filled with horror at real equality; it pleases the nobles-too happy to find in a representation based on the aristocracy, and in the court of a new king, the distinctions which have slipped from their hands. The aristocratic system is that of Lafayette, and all such persons as are known under the name of Feuillans or Moderates; it is the system of those who have succeeded in their place. Persons have changed, but the end is the same the means even are the same, with this difference, that their successors have augmented their resources and increased the number of their partisans. This ambitious faction has never made use of the people, except to serve its own purposes; it has never coalesced with the Jacobins, but to elevate itself. On the 10th August it strove to shield the tyrant from the just vengeance of the people; it strove to bring us back to royalty, by giving a preceptor to his son. I need not designate this party; it is to the Brissots, the Guadets, the Vergniauds, the Gensonnés, and the other hypocrites of their faction alone, that the description applies. 66 Every step of theirs has been marked by a departure from the principles of the Revolution: never have they marched with it, except when constrained by necessity. They appropriated to themselves the whole fruits of the victory of the 10th August, by restoring their minions, de la Montagne! c'est sur vous que se repose la patrie du soin de désigner les traîtres. Il est temps de les dépouiller de l'inviolabilité liberticide: sortez de ce sommeil qui tue la liberté: levez-vous! livrez aux tribunaux les hommes que l'opinion publique accuse; déclarez la guerre à tous les Modérés, aux Feuillans-à tous ces agens de la ci-devant cour des Tuileries. Paraissez à cette tribune, ardens patriotes !-appelez le glaive de la loi sur la tête de ces inviolables conspirateurs, et alors la postérité bénira le temps où vous avez existé."-Hist. Parl., xxv. 311, 312; 8 Avril 1793. XI. 1793. CHAP. Roland, Servan, and Clavière, to office; but, with the same breath, they began to calumniate the municipality of Paris, which alone had in reality gained the victory. To destroy the vast centre of public intelligence and republican virtue which exists in this immortal city, they incessantly slandered the citizens of Paris, representing them as a mere band of sanguinary assassins, of bloodthirsty vultures. Hence their eternal declamations against the revolutionary justice which punished the Montmorins, the Lessarts, and their brother conspirators, at the moment when the people and the fédérés were rising in a mass to repel the Prussians, whom their weak and treacherous administration had brought almost to the gates of the capital. Louis would have been brought to justice the very day the Convention met, if it had not been for their exertions. During four months they protracted the proceedings against the tyrant. Who can reflect without shuddering on the arts, the shuffling, the chicane to which they had recourse to avert the uplifted sword of national vengeance; or on the perfidious audacity with which they have sheltered the emigrants, and favoured their return to light the flames of that civil war which even now burns so fiercely in la Vendée and the western provinces ? This just punishment of the tyrant-the single and glorious triumph of the Republic-has postponed only for a moment their unwearied activity against the sovereignty of the people. Won by their arts, the very generals of the Republic have betrayed us. Where are now Lafayette and Dumourier? How often have they been denounced as traitors in the patriotic clubs!-how often have been predicted the disasters which they would bring upon the arms of the Republic! They alone, leagued with the court, dragged us into the war; the Jacobins uniformly opposed it. Who does not now see their object in so doing? what other was it but to bring the foreigners into our bosom, to light a civil war on our hearths, to deliver over our allies to their vengeance? But for the revolt of XI. 1793. the 10th August, all their objects would have been gained, CHAP. and the counter - revolution, aided by foreign bayonets and domestic treachery, would now have been triumphant. Dumourier, their creature, was impelled by the vigour of the Republic to a brilliant success; and after the battle of Jemappes, if he had pushed on at once into Holland, and raised the standard of Republicanism in that country, England was ruined and Europe revolutionised. Instead of this, he halted in the midst of victory and why? Because he was restrained by the Executive Council. He did, by their orders, everything in his power to prevent the execution of the decrees of 19th November and 15th December, which could alone consolidate the external conquests of the Republic. Would you ally yourselves with anarchy and murder? was the constant exclamation of the Guadets and the Gensonnés; and thus it was that they damped the ardour of the Allies who were joining us in Flanders, and arrested our victorious legions till the enemy had again collected sufficient forces to threaten our frontiers. All the measures of Dumourier in the Low Countries were calculated to favour the counter-revolution; until at length, gorged with the wealth which he had acquired in Belgium, and rampant with his support in the foreign alliances, he openly avowed his intention to restore royalty, and hoisted the standard of treason in the republican camp. And who accompanied him in his flight to the stranger? Was it not young Egalité, the son of d'Orleans? During all this time the Committee of General Safety, with Vergniaud at their head, have constantly retarded every measure calculated to promote the general safety, to give Dumourier time to complete his detestable projects. I demand that 'Hist. Parl. all the individuals of the family of Orleans should be sent 361. Moniteur, April to the Revolutionary Tribunal, as well as Sillery and his 9. wife,* Vergniaud, Guadet, and their accomplices." 1 † * Madame Genlis. In making these accusations, Robespierre was only giving public vent to xxv. 337, CHAP. XI. Vergniaud immediately rose to reply; but he could not be heard for some time for the loud applauses from 1793. the Mountain and the galleries at the conclusion of Vergniaud's Robespierre's address. "It is," said he, " with a heart reply. 41. penetrated with grief that I rise to reply to accusations, the absurdity of which is only equalled by their malignity, at a time when the dangers of the country require all our united efforts. I will show who are the real accomplices of Dumourier. If we strove to moderate the movement on the 10th August, which, ill-directed, might have led to a regency, or a new sovereign, were we enemies to liberty? Did not we propose a republic in lieu of that royalty under which France had groaned for so many centuries? Did we not suspend the King amidst the clang of the tocsin on the 10th August? Robespierre, doubtless, knew nothing of these things, for he prudently hid himself in a cellar during the whole conflict. When the father was suspended from all authority, was there anything hostile to liberty in appointing a preceptor for his son, to preserve him from the courtly ideas he might otherwise have imbibed? The thing is too ridiculous to require a serious answer. "We have praised Lafayette, and this is now brought as a charge against us: is there any one in the Convention who has not done the same? We entered into the war with Austria; was not that measure unanimously supported by the Legislative Assembly? Was not war de facto declared by the accumulation of Austrian and Prussian forces on our frontier; and did we not judge the opinions on the Girondists which, in common with the whole Jacobins, he had long entertained. This appears in a striking way from the following private conversation he had with Garat about this time, which the latter has recounted in his memoirs. "All the deputies of the Gironde," said Robespierre," your Brissot, your Louvet, your Barbaroux, are counter-revolutionists and conspirators." "Where do they conspire?" asked Garat. Everywhere," rejoined Robespierre; " in Paris, throughout France, over Europe. The Girondists have for long formed the design of separating the southern provinces from France, to reinstate the ancient principality of Guienne, and form an alliance with England. Gensonné says openly, We are not here as the representatives, but the plenipotentiaries of the Gironde.' Brissot aids the conspiracy by his journal, which is |