The World's Greatest Books - Volume 12 Part 15

The Girondins are struck down, but in the country follows a ferment of Girondist risings. And on July 9, a fair Charlotte Corday is starting for Paris from Caen, with letters of introduction from Barbaroux to Dupernet, whom she sees, concerning family papers. On July 13, she drives to the residence of Marat, who is sick--a citoyenne who would do France a service; is admitted, plunges a knife into Marat's heart. So ends Peoples'-Friend Marat. She submits, stately, to inevitable doom. In this manner have the beautifulest and the squalidest come into collision, and extinguished one another.

At Paris is to be a new feast of pikes, over yet a new const.i.tution; statue of Nature, statue of Liberty, unveiled! _Republic one and indivisible_--_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death_! A new calendar also, with months new-named. But Toulon has thrown itself into the hands of the English, who will make a new Gibraltar of it! We beleaguer Toulon; having in our army there remarkable Artillery-Major Napoleon Bonaparte. Lyons also we beleaguer.

Committee of Public Safety promulgates levy _en ma.s.se;_ heroically daring against foreign foes. Against domestic foes it issues the law of the suspects--none frightfuller ever ruled in a nation of men. The guillotine gets always quicker motion. Bailly, Brissot, are in prison.

Trial of the "Widow Capet"; whence Marie Antoinette withdraws to die--not wanting to herself, the imperial woman! After her, the scaffold claims the twenty-two Girondins.

Terror is become the order of the day. Arrestment on arrestment follows quick, continual; "The guillotine goes not ill."

_VIII.--Climax and Reaction_

The suspect may well tremble; how much more the open rebels--the Girondin cities of the south! The guillotine goes always, yet not fast enough; you must try fusillading, and perhaps methods still frightfuller. Ma.r.s.eilles is taken, and under martial law. At Toulon, veteran Dugommier suffers a young artillery officer whom we know to try his plan--and Toulon is once more the Republic's. Cannonading gives place to guillotining and fusillading. At Nantes, the unspeakable horror of the _noyades_.

Beside which, behold destruction of the Catholic religion; indeed, for the time being, of religion itself; a new religion promulgated of the G.o.ddess of Reason, with the first of the Feasts of Reason, ushered in with carmagnole dance.

Committee of Public Salvation ride this whirlwind; stranger set of cloud-compellors Earth never saw. Convention commissioners fly to all points of the territory, powerfuller than king or kaiser; frenzy of patriotism drives our armies victorious, one nation against the whole world; crowned by the _Vengeur_, triumphant in death; plunging down carrying _vive la Republique_ along with her into eternity, in Howe's victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the world itself, on _Nothing_!

Of ma.s.sacring, altar-robbing, Hebertism, is there beginning to be a sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the Hebertists themselves are smitten; nineteen of them travel their last road in the tumbrils. "We should not strike save where it is useful to the Republic," says Danton; quarrels with Robespierre; Danton, Camille, others of the friends of mercy are arrested. At the trial, he s.h.i.+vers the witnesses to ruin thunderously; nevertheless, sentence is pa.s.sed. On the scaffold he says, "Danton, no weakness! Thou wilt show my head to the people--it is worth showing." So pa.s.ses this Danton; a very man; fiery-real, from the great fire-bosom of nature herself.

Foul Hebert and the Hebertists, great Danton and the Dantonists, are gone, swift, ever swifter, goes the axe of Samson; Death pauses not. But on Prairial 20, the world is in holiday clothes in the Jardin National.

Incorruptible Robespierre, President of the Convention, has decreed the existence of the Supreme Being; will himself be priest and prophet; in sky-blue coat and black breeches! Nowise, however, checking the guillotine, going ever faster.

On July 26, when the Incorruptible addresses the Convention, there is dissonance. Such mutiny is like fire sputtering in the s.h.i.+p's powder-room. The Convention then must be purged, with aid of Henriot.

But next day, amid cries of _Tyranny! Dictators.h.i.+p_! the Convention decrees that Robespierre "is accused"; with Couthon and St. Just; decreed "out of law"; Paris, after brief tumult, sides with the Convention. So on July 28, 1794, the tumbrils go with this motley batch of outlaws. This is the end of the Reign of Terror. The nation resolves itself into a committee of mercy.

Thenceforth, writ of accusation and legal proof being decreed necessary, Fouquier's trade is gone; the prisons deliver up suspects. For here was the end of the revolution system. The keystone being struck out, the whole arch-work of Sansculottism began to crack, till the abyss had swallowed it all.

And still there is no bread, and no const.i.tution; Paris rises once again, flowing towards the Tuileries; checked in one day with two blank cannon-shots, by Pichegru, conqueror of Holland. Abbe Sieyes provides yet another const.i.tution; unpleasing to sundry who will not be dispersed. To suppress whom, a young artillery officer is named commandant; who with whiff of grapeshot does very promptly suppress them; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into s.p.a.ce.

LAMARTINE

History of the Girondists

Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, poet, historian, statesman, was born at Macon, in Burgundy, on October 21, 1790. Early in the nineteenth century he held a diplomatic appointment at Naples, and in 1820 succeeded after many difficulties, in finding a publisher for his first volume of poems, "Nouvelles Meditations." The merits of the work were at once recognised, and the young author soon found himself one of the most popular of the younger generation of French poets. He next adopted politics, and, with the Revolution of February, became for a brief time the soul of political life in France. But the triumph of imperialism and of Napoleon III. drove him into the background, whereupon he retired from public life, and devoted his remaining years to literature. He died on March I, 1869.

The publication, in 1847, of his "History of the Girondists, or Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution, from Unpublished Sources," was in the nature of a political event in France. Brilliant in its romantic portraiture, the work, like many other French histories, served the purposes of a pamphlet as well as those of a chronicle.

_I.--The War-Seekers of the South_

The French Revolution had pursued its rapid progress for two full years.

Mirabeau, the first democratic leader, was dead. The royal family had attempted flight and failed. War with Europe threatened and, in the autumn of 1791, a new parliament was elected and summoned.

At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to, display itself in the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_, was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of Ducos, Gaudet, Lafondladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonne, Vergniaud, were about to rise into notice and renown with the storms and the disasters of their country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, which was to precipitate it into a republic.

In the new parliament Brissot, the inspirer of the Gironde, the dogmatic statesman of a party which needed ideas and a leader, ascended the tribune in the midst of antic.i.p.ated plaudits which betokened his importance in the new a.s.sembly. His voice was for war, as the most efficacious of laws.

It was evident that a party, already formed, took possession of the tribune, and was about to arrogate to itself the dominion of the a.s.sembly. Brissot was its conspirator, Condorcet its philosopher, Vergniaud its orator. Vergniaud mounted the tribune, with all the prestige of his marvellous eloquence. The eager looks of the a.s.sembly, the silence that prevailed, announced in him one of the great actors of the revolutionary drama, who only appear on the stage to win themselves popularity, to intoxicate themselves with applause, and--to die.

Vergniaud, born at Limoges, and an advocate of the Bar of Bordeaux, was now in his thirty-third year, for the revolutionary movement had seized on and borne him along with its currents when very young. His dignified, calm, and unaffected features announced the conviction of his power.

Facility, that agreeable concomitant of genius, had rendered alike pliable his talents, his character, and even the position he a.s.sumed.

At the foot of the tribune he was loved with familiarity; as he ascended it each man was surprised to find that he inspired him with admiration and respect; but at the first words that fell from the speaker's lips they felt the immense distance between the man and the orator. He was an instrument of enthusiasm, whose value and whose place was in his inspiration.

Petion was the son of a procureur at Chartres, and a townsman of Brissot; was brought up in the same way as he, in the same studies, same philosophy, same hatreds. They were two men of the same mind. The revolution, which had been the ideal of their youth, had called them on the scene on the same day, but to play very different parts. Brissot, the scribe, political adventurer, journalist, was the man of theory; Petion, the practical man. He had in his countenance, in his character, and his talents, that solemn mediocrity which is of the mult.i.tude, and charms it; at least he was a sincere man, a virtue which the people appreciate beyond all others in those who are concerned in public affairs.

The nomination of Petion to the office of _maire_ of Paris gave the Girondists a constant _point d'appui_ in the capital. Paris, as well as the a.s.sembly, escaped from the king's hands.

A report praised by Brissot in his journal, and by the Girondists in the a.s.sembly, afforded no longer any pretext for delaying the war. France felt that her strength was equal to her indignation, and she could be restrained no longer. The increasing unpopularity of the king augmented the popular excitement. Twice had he already arrested, by his royal veto, the energetic measures of the a.s.sembly--the decree against the _emigres_ and the decree against the priests who had not taken the oath.

These two vetoes, the one dictated by his honour, the other by his conscience, were two terrible weapons placed in his hand by the const.i.tution, yet which he could not wield without wounding himself. The Girondists revenged themselves for this resistance by compelling him to make war on the princes, who were his brothers, and the emperor, whom they believed to be his accomplice.

The war thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in April, 1792. Their enemies, the extreme radical party called "Jacobins,"

had opposed the war, and when the campaign opened in disaster the beginning of their ascendancy and the Girondin decline had appeared.

These disasters were followed by a proclamation from the enemy that the work of the revolution would be undone, and the town of Paris threatened with military execution unless the king's power were fully restored. By way of answer the populace of Paris stormed the royal palace, deposed the king, and established a Radical government. Under this, a third parliament, the most revolutionary of all, called the "Convention," was summoned to carry on the war, the king was imprisoned, and on September 21, 1792, the day on which the invading armies were checked at Valmy, a republic was declared.

_II.---the Fall of La Gironde_

The proclamation of the republic was hailed with the utmost joy in the capital, the departments, and the army; to philosophers it was the type of government found under the ruins of fourteen ages of prejudice and tyranny; to patriots it was the declaration of war of a whole nation, proclaimed on the day of the victory of Valmy, against the thrones united to crush liberty; while to the people it was an intoxicating novelty.

Those who most exulted were the Girondists. They met at Madame Roland's that evening, and celebrated almost religiously the entrance of their creation into the world; and voluntarily casting the veil of illusion over the embarra.s.sments of the morrow and the obscurities of the future, gave themselves up to the greatest enjoyment G.o.d has permitted man on earth--the birth of his idea, the contemplation of his work, and the embodied possession of his desires.

The republic had at first great military successes, but they were not long lived. After the execution of the king in January 1793, all Europe banded together against France, the French armies were crus.h.i.+ngly defeated, their general, Dumouriez, fled to the enemy, and the Girondins, who had been in power all this while, were fatally weakened.

Moreover, their attempt to save the king had added to their growing unpopularity when, after Dumouriez's treason in March 1793 Danton attacked them in the Convention.

The Jacobins comprehended that Danton, at last forced from his long hesitation, decided for them, and was about to crush their enemies.

Every eye followed him to the tribune.

His loud voice resounded like a tocsin above the murmurs of the Girondists. "It is they," he said, "who had the baseness to wish to save the tyrant by an appeal to the people, who have been justly suspected of desiring a king. It is they only who have manifestly desired to punish Paris for its heroism by raising the departments against her; it is they only who have supped clandestinely with Dumouriez when he was at Paris; yes, it is they only who are the accomplices of this conspiracy."

The Convention oscillated during the struggle between the Girondins and their Radical opponents with every speech.

Isnard, a Girondin, was named president by a strong majority. His nomination redoubled the confidence of La Gironde in its force. A man extravagant in everything, he had in his character the fire of his language. He was the exaggeration of La Gironde--one of those men whose ideas rush to their head when the intoxication of success or fear urges them to rashness, and when they renounce prudence, that safeguard of party.

The strain between the Girondists, with their parliamentary majority, and the populace of Paris, who were behind the Radicals, or Jacobins, increased, until, towards the end of May, the mob rose to march on the parliament. The alarm-bells rang, and the drums beat to arms in all the quarters of Paris.

The Girondists, at the sound of the tocsin and the drums, met for the last time, not to deliberate, but to prepare and fortify themselves against their death. They supped in an isolated mansion in the Rue de Clichy, amidst the tolling of bells, the sound of the drums, and the rattling of the guns and tumbrils. All could have escaped; none would fly. Petion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he faced death; Gensonne, accustomed to the sight of war; Buzot, whose heart beat with the heroic impressions of his unfortunate friend, Madame Roland, wished them to await their death in their places in the Convention, and there invoke the vengeance of the departments.

Some hours later the armed mob, Henriot, their general, at their head, appeared before the parliament. The gates were opened at the sight of the president, Herault de Sech.e.l.les, wearing the tricoloured scarf. The sentinels presented arms, the crowd gave free pa.s.sage to the representatives. They advanced towards the Carrousel. The mult.i.tude which were on this s.p.a.ce saluted the deputies. Cries of "Vive la Convention! Deliver up the twenty-two! Down with the Girondists!"