XI. rightly in taking the initiative to remove the contest from CHAP. our own frontiers? But we are charged with having calumniated the council-general of the municipality of 1793. Paris. Have we done so? During its administration enormous dilapidations were committed on the national domains, on the movables of emigrants, on the houses of royalists, on the effects deposited in the municipality; and, to put an end to these dilapidations, I proposed a decree that they should give an account of the property they had acquired. Was that calumniating the municipality? Was it not rather furnishing them with an opportunity of establishing their innocence? Robespierre accuses us of calumniating Paris. So far from it, I have constantly maintained that the massacres which have disgraced the Revolution, were the work of a small band of assassins who had flocked there from all parts of the Republic; and it was to exculpate Paris that I wished to surrender the real assassins to the sword of the law. The real calumniators of Paris are those who, by striving to secure impunity to the brigands, confess that they belong to themselves. Which calumniates the people-the man who declares them innocent of the crimes of stranger assassins, or the man who obstinately persists in imputing, to the entire people, the odium of these scenes of blood? "We are accused of having wished to leave Paris when the Prussians were in Champagne. This comes with singular propriety from Robespierre, who at that period wished to fly to Marseilles. But the accusation is an infamous calumny. If driven from Paris, we constantly the tocsin of civil war. He has just gone to London-we know why: his friend Clavière has been a conspirator all his life. Roland is in correspondence with the traitor Montesquiou: they labour together to open Savoy and France to the Piedmontese forces. Servan was only named general of the army of the Pyrenees to open their gates to the Spaniards. Dumourier menaces Paris more than either Belgium or Holland. That heroic charlatan, whom I would instantly have arrested, dines every day with the Girondists. Ah! I am tired of the Revolution: I am sick at heart. Never was this country in such danger: I doubt much if it can be yet saved."-" Have you no doubts," said Garat, "of the truth of all you have said?"-" None in the world," replied Robespierre.— See GARAT, Memoirs, 112; LAMARTINE, Histoire des Girondins, iv. 235, 236. CHAP. maintained that the Revolution was lost it was there we XI. were determined to live or die. We have become mode1793. rate Feuillans! We were not so on the 10th August, when you, Robespierre, were in your cellar. We have heard much lately of the rights of insurrection, and I lament it. I understand insurrection where it has an object, when tyranny is there; but when the statue of liberty is on the throne, insurrection can be provoked only by the friends of royalty. Yes it is the friends of royalty, or of tyranny under some other name, who would now provoke an insurrection. You are seeking to consummate the Revolution by terror: I would complete it by love. But I have yet to learn that, like the priests and barbarous ministers of the Inquisition, who speak of the God of pity at the stake, we should speak of liberty in the midst of poniards and executioners. You will find 1 Hist. Parl. the real accomplices of Dumourier in the conspirators 364. Moni- against the Convention on the 10th March, and in those teur, April who have since rendered nugatory your decrees for their punishment." 1 xxv. 361, 11. 42. to the Revo lutionary Tribunal. April 13. The Girondists had still the majority in the ConvenMarat is sent tion, and this accusation of Robespierre was quashed. But the Jacobins were not discouraged; and, relying on the support of the armed sections of Paris, they published an address, on the instigation of Marat, and signed by him, from the Jacobins of Paris to the affiliated societies in the departments, in which they called on them to arm, and rise in insurrection against the Convention.* This address was read by Guadet in the Assembly; and it excited such consternation that the cries arose on all sides, "A l'Abbaye! a l'Abbaye!" and Marat was, by acclamation from three-fourths of the legislature, ordered to * "Amis, nous sommes trahis! Aux armes ! Aux armes ! Voici l'heure terrible où les défenseurs de la patrie doivent vaincre ou s'ensevelir sous les décombres de la République. Français jamais votre liberté ne fut en plus grand péril; nos ennemis ont enfin mis le sceau à leurs noires perfidies: et pour les consommer, Dumourier, leur complice, marche sur Paris. Frères et amis ! vos plus grands ennemis sont au milieu de vous; ils dirigent vos opérations, vos vengeances; ils conduisent vos moyens de défense. Oui! c'est dans le sénat que XI. 1793. be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal. Danton and the CHAP. Jacobins vehemently resisted this; but it was carried, after a furious altercation, by a large majority. This was the first instance of the inviolability of the Convention being broken through; and, as such, it afforded an unfortunate precedent, which the sanguinary party was not slow in following. Yet the accusation of Marat was in reality no violation of the privileges of the legislature. He was sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, not for what he said 430. Journ. or did in the Convention, but for a circular addressed to bins, April the departments as president of the Jacobin Club; and Toul. iv. was never supposed that the members were privileged to iv. 150. commit treason without its walls.1 it 1 Hist. Parl. xxv. 429, des Jaco 11. No. 184. 339. Th. agitation to this step. April 15. The Jacobins lost no time in adopting measures to 43. counteract this vigorous step. The clubs, the multitude, Vehement and the centre of insurrection, the municipality, were put counteract in motion. The whole force of popular agitation was called forth to save, as they expressed it, "that austere, profound philosopher, formed by meditation and misfortune, gifted with such profound sagacity, and so great a knowledge of the human heart, who alone penetrated the designs of traitors on their triumphal cars, at the moment when the stupid vulgar were still loading them with applause." Pache, the mayor of Paris, appeared at the bar of the Convention, to demand, in the name of five-and-thirty sections, and of the municipality, the expulsion of the leaders of the Gironde. The Parisians," said they, "first commenced the Revolution by overturning the Bastille, which was ready to thunder over their heads they have come to-day to destroy a new tyranny, because they are the first witnesses of it. They are the first to raise, in the heart of France, the cry of de parricides mains déchirent vos entrailles! Oui! la contre-revolution est dans la Convention Nationale. C'est là, c'est au centre de votre sûreté et de vos espérances, que de criminels délégués tiennent les fils de la trame qu'ils ont ourdie avec la horde des despotes qui viennent nous égorger. C'est là qu'une cabale dirigée par la cour d'Angleterre et autres Mais déjà l'indignation enflamme vos courageux cœurs. Allons, Républicains. armons-nous !"MARAT, Journal des Jacobins, 11 Avril, No. 174. XI. 1793. CHAP. indignation. We come not to accuse the majority of the Convention, which has shown its virtue by condemning the tyrant we come to specify the perfidious men, his allies in the Convention, who have never ceased striving to save him, and are now endeavouring to sell us to England, and bring us back to slavery. We have not destroyed hereditary tyranny only to make way for that which is elective already the departments are revoking your powers: hear now their demand. We call upon you to send this address of the majority of the sections of Paris to the departments; and that, as soon as they have intimated their adherence, the after-mentioned deputies be expelled from the Assembly."* The young and generous Boyer Fonfrède demanded to be included in the list of the proscribed an act of devotion which subsequently cost him his life. All the members of the right and centre rose, and insisted upon being joined with their xxvi. 3, 7. colleagues in the accusation. The petition was rejected, but the designs of its authors were gained; it accustomed Mig. i. 259. the people to the spectacle of the Convention being Lac. ii. 67. besieged by popular clamour, and impaired the majesty of the legislature by exhibiting the impunity with which its members might be assailed.' 1 Hist. Parl. Toul, iii. 339, 340. Th. iv. 150. Deux Amis, x. 247. 44. Marat is ac Marat was accompanied to the Revolutionary Tribunal by the whole leaders of the Jacobin party. His trial quitted. from the outset was a mere mockery, and certain to terminate in a triumph to his supporters; for how could a tribunal instituted to try crimes against the sovereignty of the people find one guilty who had been loudest in asserting it? He entered the court with the air of a conqueror. His first words wereHis first words were "Citizens! it is not a guilty person who appears before you; it is the apostle and martyr of liberty, against whom a handful of intriguers and factious men have obtained a decree of accu * Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Barbaroux, Salles, Birotteau, Ponte-Coulard, Pétion, Lanjuinais, Valazó, Hardy, le Hardi, Louvet, Gorsas, Fauchet, Lanthenas, la Source, Valady, Chambon. — Hist. Parl. xxvi. 7. XI. 1793. sation." He was acquitted, and brought back in triumph CHAP. to the Convention. An immense multitude came with him to the gates: the leaders of the mob entered, and exclaimed-" We bring you back the brave Marat, the tried friend of the people: they will never cease to espouse his cause!" A sapper broke off from the multitude, and exclaimed-" Marat was ever the friend of the people had his head fallen, the head of the sapper would have fallen with it!" At these words he brandished his axe in the air, amidst shouts of applause from the Mountain and the galleries. The mob insisted upon defiling in triumph through the hall before the president could consult the Convention on the subject the unruly body rushed in, bearing down all opposition, and, climbing over all the barriers, seated themselves in the vacant places of the deputies, who retired in disgust from such a scene of violence. The Convention beheld in silence the defeat of its measures; the Jacobins redoubled their efforts to improve the victory they had gained. The approaches were incessantly besieged by an unruly mob, who 1 Toul. 260. clamoured for vengeance against the proscribed deputies: Hist. Parl. the galleries were filled by partisans of the Jacobins, who xxvi. 129, stifled the arguments of their opponents, and loudly . 260, Th. applauded the most violent proposals: the clubs, at night, Bull. du resounded with demands of vengeance against the traitor April 15. faction.1 Lac. ii. 66. 130. Mig. iv. 151, 152. Trib. Rév. condemna Revolution Although, however, the most execrable character of the 45. Revolution, one who had never ceased for years to urge Numerous the people to deeds of atrocity and blood, was thus tions of the acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal; yet it was by ary Trino means equally indulgent to accused persons of another bunal. stamp, and it had already evinced that insatiate thirst for blood which subsequently rendered its proceedings so terrible. As fast as persons accused of royalist or moderate sentiments were brought before it, they were convicted without either distinction or mercy. Besides several persons of inferior note, who were condemned and |