CHAPTER I. THE JACOBINS COME INTO IN POWER. - THE ELECTIONS OF 1791. - PROPORTION OF PLACES GAINED BY THEM.
In June, 1791, and during the five following months, the class of active citizens[1] are convoked to elect their representatives, which, as we know, according to the law, are of every kind and degree. In the first place, there are 40,000 members of electoral colleges of the second degree and 745 deputies. Next, there are one-half of the administrators of 83 departments, one-half of the administrators of 544 districts, one-half of the administrators of 41,000 communes, and finally, in each municipality, the mayor and syndic-attorney. Then in each department they have to elect the president of the criminal court and the prosecuting-attorney, and, throughout France, officers of the National Guard; in short, almost the entire body of the agents and depositories of legal authority. The garrison of the public citadel is to be renewed, which is the second and even the third time since 1789. - At each time the Jacobins have crept into the place, in small bands, but this time they enter in large bodies. Pétion becomes mayor of Paris, Manual, syndic-attorney, and Danton the deputy of Manuel. Robespierre is elected prosecuting-attorney in criminal cases. The very first week,[2] 136 new deputies enter their names on the club's register. In the Assembly the party numbers about 250 members. On passing all the posts of the fortress in review, we may estimate the besiegers as occupying one-third of them, and perhaps more. Their siege for two years has been carried on with unerring instinct, the extraordinary spectacle presenting itself of an entire nation legally overcome by a troop of insurgents.[3]
I.
Their siege operations. - Means used by them to discourage the majority of electors and conservative candidates. - Frequency of elections. - Obligation to take the oath.
First of all, they clear the ground, and through the decrees forced out of the Constituent Assembly, they keep most of the majority away from the polls. - On the one hand, under the pretext of better ensuring popular sovereignty, the elections are so multiplied, and held so near together, as to demand of each active citizen one-sixth of his time; such an exaction is very great for hard-working people who have a trade or any occupation,[4] which is the case with the great mass; at all events, with the useful and sane portion of the population. Accordingly, as we have seen, it stays away from the polls, leaving the field open to idlers or fanatics.[5] - On the other hand, by virtue of the constitution, the civic oath, which includes the ecclesiastical oath, is imposed on all electors, for, if any one takes the former and reserves the latter, his vote is thrown out: in November, in the Doubs, the municipal elections of thirty- three communes are invalidated solely on this pretext.[6] Not only forty thousand ecclesiastics are thus rendered unsworn (insermentés), but again, all scrupulous Catholics lose the right of suffrage, these being by far the most numerous in Artois, Doubs and the Jura, in the Lower and Upper Rhine district,[7] in the two Sévres and la Vendée, in the Lower Loire, Morbihan, Finisterre and Côtes du Nord, in Lozère and Ardèche, without mentioning the southern departments.[8] Thus, aided by the law which they have rendered impracticable, the Jacobins, on the one hand, are rid of all sensible voters in advance, counting by millions; and, on the other, aided by a law which they have rendered intolerant, they are rid of the Catholic vote which counts by hundreds of thousands. On entering the electoral lists, consequently, thanks to this double exclusion, they find themselves confronted by only the smallest number of electors.
II.
Annoyances and dangers of public elections. - The constituents excluded from the Legislative body.
Operations must now be commenced against these, and a first expedient consists in depriving them of their candidates. The obligation of taking the oath has already partly provided for this, in Lozère all the officials send in their resignations rather than take the oath;[9] here are men who will not be candidates at the coming elections, for nobody covets a place which he was forced to abandon; in general, the suppression of all party candidatures is effected in no other way than by making the post of a magistrate distasteful. - The Jacobins have successfully adhered to this principle by promoting and taking the lead in innumerable riots against the King, the officials and the clerks, against nobles, ecclesiastics, corn-dealers and land-owners, against every species of public authority whatever its origin. Everywhere the authorities are constrained to tolerate or excuse murders, pillage and arson, or, at the very least, insurrections and disobedience. For two years a mayor runs the risk of being hung on proclaiming martial law; a captain is not sure of his men on marching to protect a tax levy; a judge on the bench is threatened if he condemns the marauders who devastate the national forests. The magistrate, whose duty it is to see that the law is respected, is constantly obliged to strain the law, or allow it to be strained; if refractory, a summary blow dealt by the local Jacobins forces his legal authority to yield to their illegal dictate, so that he has to resign himself to being either their accomplice or their puppet. Such a rôle is intolerable to a man of feeling or conscience. Hence, in 1790 and 1791, nearly all the prominent and reputable men who, in 1789, had seats in the Hôtels-de-villes, or held command in the National Guard, all country-gentlemen, chevaliers of St. Louis, old parliamentarians, the upper bourgeoisie and large landed-proprietors, retire into private life and renounce public functions which are no longer tenable. Instead of offering themselves to public suffrage they avoid it, and the party of order, far from electing the magistracy, no longer even finds candidates for it.
Through an excess of precaution, its natural leaders have been legally disqualified, the principal offices, especially those of deputy and minister, being interdicted beforehand to the influential men in whom we find the little common sense gained by the French people during the past two years.-In the month of June, 1779, even after the irreconcilables had parted company with the "Right," there still remained in the Assembly about 700 members who, adhering to the constitution but determined to repress disorder, would have formed a sensible legislature had they been re-elected. All of these, except a very small group of revolutionaries, had learned something by experience, and, in the last days of their session, two serious events, the king's flight and the riot in the Champ de Mars, had made them acquainted with the defects of their machinery. With this executive instrument in their hands for three months, they see that it is racked, that things are tottering, and that they themselves are being run over by fanatics and the crowd. They accordingly attempt to put on a drag, and several even think of retracing their steps.[10] They cut loose from the Jacobins; of the three or four hundred deputies on the club list in the Rue St. Honoré[11] but seven remain; the rest form at the Feuillants a distinct opposition club, and at their head are the first founders, Duport, the two Lameths, Barnave, the authors of the constitution, all the fathers of the new régime.[12] In the last decree of the Constituent Assembly they loudly condemn the usurpations of popular associations, and not only interdict to these all meddling in administrative or political matters, but likewise any collective petition or deputation.[13] - Here may the friends of order find candidates whose chances are good, for, during two years and more, each in his own district is the most conspicuous, the best accredited, and the most influential man there; he stands well with his electors on account of the popularity of the constitution he has made, and it is very probable that his name would rally to it a majority of votes.-The Jacobins, however, have foreseen this danger: Four months earlier,[14] with the aid of the Court, which never missed an opportunity to ruin itself and everything else,[15] they made the most of the grudges of the conservatives and the wearyness of the Assembly. Tired and disgusted, in a fit of mistaken selflessness, the Assembly, through enthusiasm and taken by surprise, passes an act declaring all its members ineligible for election to the next Assembly dismissing in advance the leaders of the gentlemen's party.
III.
The friends of order deprived of the right of free assemblage. - Violent treatment of their clubs in Paris and the provinces. - Legal prevention of conservative associations.
If the latter (the honest men of the Right), in spite of so many drawbacks, attempt a struggle, they are arrested at the very first step. For, to enter upon an electoral campaign, requires preliminary meetings for conference and to understand each other, while the faculty of forming an association, which the law grants them as a right, is actually withheld from them by their adversaries. As a beginning, the Jacobins hooted at and "stone" the members of the "Right"[16] holding their meetings in the Salon français of the Rue Royale, and, according to the prevailing rule, the police tribunal, "considering that this assemblage is a cause of disturbance, that it produces gatherings in the street, that only violent means can be employed to protect it," orders its dissolution.[17] - Towards the month of August, 1790, a second club is organized, and, this time, composed of the wisest and most liberal men. Malouet and Count Clermont-Tonnerre are at the head of it. It takes the name of "Friends of a Monarchical Constitution," and is desirous of restoring public order by maintaining the reforms which have been reached. All formalities on its part have been complied with. There are already about 800 members in Paris. Subscriptions flow into its treasury. The provinces send in numerous adhesions, and, what is worse than all, bread is distributed by them at a reduced price, by which the people, probably, will be conciliated. Here is a center of opinion and influence, analogous to that of the Jacobin club, which the Jacobins cannot tolerate.[18] M. de Clermont-Tonnerre having leased the summer Vauxhall, a captain in the National Guard notifies the proprietor of it that if he rents it, the patriots of the Palais-Royal will march to it in a body, and close it; fearing that the building will be damaged, he cancels the lease, while the municipality, which fears skirmishes, orders a suspension of the meetings. The club makes a complaint and follows it up, while the letter of the law is so plain that an official authorization of the club is finally granted. Thereupon the Jacobin newspapers and stump- speakers let loose their fury against a future rival that threatens to dispute their empire. On the 23rd of January, 1791, Barnave, in the National Assembly, employing metaphorical language apt to be used as a death-shout, accuses the members of the new club "of giving the people bread that carries poison with it." Four days after this, M. Clermont-Tonnerre's dwelling is assailed by an armed throng. Malouet, on leaving it, is almost dragged from his carriage, and the crowd around him cry out, "There goes the bastard who denounced the people! "- At length, its founders, who, out of consideration for the municipality, have waited two months, hire another hall in the Rue des Petites-Ecuries, and on the 28th of March begin their sessions. "On reaching it," writes one of them, "we found a mob composed of drunkards, screaming boys, ragged women, soldiers exciting them on, and especially those frightful hounds, armed with stout, knotty cudgels, two feet long, which are excellent skull-crackers."[19] The thing was made up beforehand. At first there were only three or four hundred of them, and, ten minutes after, five or six hundred; in a quarter of an hour, there are perhaps four thousand flocking in from all sides; in short, the usual make-up of an insurrection. "The people of the quarter certified that they did not recognize one of the faces." Jokes, insults, cuffs, clubbings, and saber-cuts, - the members of the club "who agreed to come unarmed" being dispersed, while several are knocked down, dragged by the hair, and a dozen or fifteen more are wounded. To justify the attack, white cockades are shown, which, it is pretended, were found in their pockets. Mayor Bailly arrives only when it is all over, and, as a measure of "public order," the municipal authorities have the club of Constitutional Monarchists closed for good.
Owing to these outrages by the faction, with the connivance of the authorities, other similar clubs are suppressed in the same way. There are a good many of them, and in the principal towns - "Friends of Peace," "Friends of the Country," "Friends of the King, of Peace, and of Religion," "Defenders of Religion, Persons, and Property". Magistrates and officers, the most cultivated and polished people, are generally members; in short, the élite of the place. Formerly, meetings took place for conversation and debate, and, being long- established, the club naturally passes over from literature to politics. - The watch-word against all these provincial clubs is given from the Rue St. Honoré.[20] "They are centers of conspiracy, and must be looked after" forthwith, and be at once trodden out. - At one time, as at Cahors,[21] a squad of the National Guard, on its return from an expedition against the neighboring gentry, and to finish its task breaks in on the club, "throws its furniture out of the windows and demolishes the house." - At another time, as at Perpignan, the excited mob surrounds the club, dancing a fandango, and yell out, to the lantern! The club-house is sacked, while eighty of its members, covered with bruises, are shut up in the citadel for their safety.[22] - At another time, as at Aix, the Jacobin club insults its adversaries on their own premises and provokes a scuffle, whereupon the municipality causes the doors of the assailed club to be walled up and issues warrants of arrest against its members. - Always punishment awaits them for whatever violence they have to submit to. Their mere existence seems an offense. At Grenoble, they scarcely assemble before they are dispersed. The fact is, they are suspected of "incivism;" their intentions may not be right; in any event, they cause a division of the place into two camps, and that is enough. In the department of Gard, their clubs are all broken up, by order of the department, because "they are centers of malevolence." At Bordeaux, the municipality, considering that "alarming reports are current of priests and privileged persons returning to town," prohibits all reunions, except that of the Jacobin club. - Thus, "under a system of liberty of the most exalted kind, in the presence of the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man which legitimates whatever is not unlawful," and which postulates equality as the principle of the French constitution, whoever is not a Jacobin is excluded from common rights. An intolerant club sets itself up as a holy church, and proscribes others which have not received from it "orthodox baptism, civic inspiration, and the aptitude of languages." To her alone belongs the right of assemblage, and the right of making proselytes. Conservative, thoughtful men in all towns throughout the kingdom are forbidden to form electoral committees, to possess a tribune, a fund, subscribers and adherents, to cast the weight of their names and common strength into the scale of public opinion, to gather around their permanent nucleus the scattered multitude of sensible people, who would like to escape from the Revolution without falling back into the ancient régime. Let them whisper amongst themselves in corners, and they may still be tolerated, but woe to them if they would leave their lonely retreat to act in concert, to canvass voters, and support a candidate. Up to the day of voting they must remain in the presence of their combined, active, and obstreperous adversaries, scattered, inert, and mute.
IV. Turmoil of the elections of 1790. - Elections in 1791. - Effect of the King's flight. - Domiciliary visits. - Montagne during the electoral period.
Will they at least be able to vote freely on that day? They are not sure of it, and, judging by occurrences during the past year, it is doubtful. - In April, 1790, at Bois d'Aisy, in Burgundy, M. de Bois d'Aisy, a deputy, who had returned from Paris to deposit his vote,[23] was publicly menaced. He was informed that nobles and priests must take no part m the elections, while many were heard to say, in his hearing, that in order to prevent this it would be better to hang him. Not far off; at Ste. Colombe, M. de Viteaux was driven out of the electoral assembly, and then put to death after three hours of torture. The same thing occurred at Semur; two gentlemen were knocked down with clubs and stones, another saved himself with difficulty, and a curé died after being stabbed six times. - A warning for priests and for gentlemen: they had better not vote, and the same good advice may be given to dealers in grain, to land-owners, and every other suspected person. For this is the day on which the people recover their sovereignty; the violent believe that they have the right to do exactly what suits them, nothing being more natural than to exclude candidates in advance who are distrusted, or electors who do not vote as they ought to. - At Villeneuve-St.-Georges, near Paris,[24] a barrister, a man of austere and energetic character, is about to be elected judge by the district electors; the proletariat, however, mistrust a judge likely to condemn marauders, and forty or fifty vagabonds collect together under the windows and cry out: "We don't want him elected." The curé of Crosne, president of the electoral assembly, informs them in vain that the assembled electors represent 90 communes, nearly 100,000 inhabitants, and that "40 persons should not prevail against 100,000. Shouts redouble and the electors renounce their candidate.- At Pau, patriots among the militia[25] forcibly release one of their imprisoned leaders, circulate a list for proscriptions, attack a poll-teller with their fists and afterwards with sabers, until the proscribed hide themselves away; on the following day "nobody is disposed to attend the electoral assembly." - - Things are much worse in 1791. In the month of June, just at the time of the opening of the primary meetings, the king has fled to Varennes, the Revolution seems compromised, civil war and a foreign war loom up on the horizon like two ghosts; the National Guard had everywhere taken up arms, and the Jacobins were making the most of the universal panic for their own advantage. To dispute their votes is no longer the question; it is not well to be visible: among so many turbulent gatherings a popular execution is soon over. The best thing now for royalists, constitutionalists, conservatives and moderates of every kind, for the friends of law and of order, is to stay at home - too happy if they may be allowed to remain there, to which the armed rabble agrees; on the condition of frequently paying them visits.
Consider their situation during the whole of the electoral period, in a calm district, and judge of the rest of France by this corner of it. At Mortagne,[26] a small town of 6,000 souls, the laudable spirit of 1789 still existed up to the journey to Varennes. Among the forty or fifty noble families were a good many liberals. Here, as elsewhere among the gentry, the clergy and the middle class, the philosophic education of the eighteenth century had revived the old provincial spirit of initiative, and the entire upper class had zealously and gratuitously undertaken the public duties which it alone could perform well. District presidents, mayors, and municipal officers, were all chosen from among ecclesiastics and the nobles; the three principal officers of the National Guard were chevaliers of St. Louis, while other grades were filled by the leading people of the community. Thus had the free elections placed authority in the hands of the socially superior, the new order of things resting on the legitimate hierarchy of conditions, educations, and capacities. - But for six months the club, formed out of "a dozen hot-headed, turbulent fellows, under the presidency and in the hands of a certain Rattier, formerly a cook," worked upon the population and the rural districts. Immediately on the receipt of the news of the King's flight, the Jacobins "give out that nobles and priests had supplied him with money for his departure, to bring about a counter-revolution." One family had given such an amount, and another so much; there was no doubt about it; the precise figures are given, and given for each family according to its known resources. - Forthwith, "the principal clubbists, associated with the dubious part of the National Guard," spread through the streets in squads: the houses of the nobles and of other suspected persons are invaded. All the arms, "guns, pistols, swords, hunting-knives, and sword-canes," are carried off. Every hole and corner is ransacked; they make the inmates open, or they force open, secretaries and clothes-presses in search of ammunition, the search extending "even to the ladies' toilette-tables". By way of precaution "they break sticks of pomatum in two, presuming that musket-balls are concealed in them, and they take away hair-powder under the pretext that it is either colored or masked gunpowder." Then, without disbanding, the troop betakes itself to the environs and into the country, where it operates with the same promptness in the chateaux, so that "in one day all honest citizens, those with the most property and furniture to protect, are left without arms at the mercy of the first robber that comes along." All reputed aristocrats are disarmed. As such are considered those who "disapprove of the enthusiasm of the day, or who do not attend the club, or who harbor any unsworn ecclesiastic," and, first of all, "the officers of the National Guard who are nobles, beginning with the commander and his entire staff." - The latter allow their swords to be taken without resistance, and with a forbearance and patriotic spirit of which their brethren everywhere furnish an example "they are obliging enough to remain at their posts so as not to disorganize the army, hoping that this frenzy will soon come to an end," contenting themselves with making their complaint to the department. - But in vain the department orders their arms to be restored to them. The clubbists refuse to give them up so long as the king refuses to accept the Constitution; meanwhile they do not hesitate to say that "at the very first gun on the frontier, they will cut the throats of all the nobles and unsworn priests." - After the royal oath to the Constitution is taken, the department again insists, but no attention is paid to it. On the contrary, the National Guard, dragging cannons along with them, purposely station themselves before the mansions of the unarmed gentry; the ladies of their families are followed in the streets by urchins who sing ÇA IRA[27] in their faces, and, in the final refrain, they mention them by name and promise them the lantern; "not one of them could invite a dozen of his friends to supper without incurring the risk of an uproar." - On the strength of this, the old chiefs of the National Guard resign, and the Jacobins turn the opportunity to account. In contempt of the law the whole body of officers is renewed, and, as peaceable folks dare not deposit their votes, the new staff "is composed of maniacs, taken for the most part, from the lowest class." With this purged militia the club expels nuns, drives off unsworn priests, organizes expeditions in the neighborhood, and goes so far as to purify suspected municipalities.[28] - So many acts of violence committed in town and country, render town and country uninhabitable, and for the élite of the propriety owners, or for well-bred persons, there is no longer any asylum but Paris. After the first disarmament seven or eight families take refuge there, and a dozen or fifteen more join them after a threat of having their throats cut; after the religious persecution, unsworn ecclesiastics, the rest of the nobles, and countless other townspeople, "even with little means," betake themselves there in a mass. There, at least, one is lost in the crowd; one is protected by an incognito against the outrages of the commonalty; one can live there as a private individual. In the provinces even civil rights do not exist; how could any one there exercise political rights? "All honest citizens are kept away from the primary meetings by threats or maltreatment . . . The electoral battlefield is left for those who pay forty-five sous of taxes, more than one-half of them being registered on the poor list." - Thus the elections are decided beforehand! The former cook is the one who authorizes or creates candidatures, and on the election of the department deputies at the county town, the electors elected are, like himself, true Jacobins.[29]
V.
Intimidation and withdrawal of the Conservatives. - Popular outbreaks in Burgundy, Lyonnais, Provence, and the large cities. - Electoral proceedings of the Jacobins; examples at Aix, Dax, and Montpellier. - Agitators go unpunishes - Denunciations by name. - Manoeuvres with the peasantry. - General tactics of the Jacobins.
Such is the pressure under which voting takes place in France during the summer and fall of 1791. Domiciliary visits[30] and disarmament everywhere force nobles and ecclesiastics, landed proprietors and people of culture, to abandon their homes, to seek refuge in the large towns and to emigrate,[31] or, at least, confine themselves strictly to private life, to abstain from all propaganda, from every candidature, and from all voting. It would be madness to be seen in so many cantons where searches end in a riot; in Burgundy and the Lyonnais, where castles are sacked, where aged gentlemen are mauled and left for dead, where M. de Guillin has just been assassinated and cut to pieces; at Marseilles, where conservative party leaders are imprisoned, where a regiment of Swiss guards under arms scarcely suffices to enforce the verdict of the court which sets them at liberty, where, if any indiscreet person opposes Jacobin resolutions his mouth is closed by being notified that he will be buried alive; at Toulon, where the Jacobins shoot down all conservatives and the regular troops, where M. de Beaucaire, captain in the navy, is killed by a shot in the back, where the club, supported by the needy, by sailors, by navvies, and "vagabond peddlers," maintains a dictatorship by right of conquest; at Brest, at Tulle, at Cahors, where at this very moment gentlemen and officers are massacred in the street. It is not surprising that honest people turn away from the ballot-box as from a center of cut-throats. - Nevertheless, let them come if they like; it will be easy to get rid of them. At Aix, the assessor whose duty it is to read the electors' names is informed that "the names should be called out by an unsullied mouth, that, being an aristocrat and fanatical, he could neither speak nor vote," and, without further ceremony, they put him out of the room.[32] The process is an admirable one for converting a minority into a majority and yet here is another, still more effective. - At Dax, the Feuillants, taking the title of "Friends of the French Constitution," have split up with the Jacobins,[33] and, moreover, they insist on excluding from the National Guard "foreigners without property or position," the passive citizens who are admitted into it in spite of the law, who usurp the right of voting and who "daily affront tranquil inhabitants." Consequently, on election day, in the church where the primary meeting is held, two of the Feuillants, Laurède, formerly collector of the vingtièmes,, and Brunache, a glazier, propose to exclude an intruder, a servant on wages. The Jacobins at once rush forward. Laurède is pressed back on the holy-water basin and wounded on the head; on trying to escape he is seized by the hair, thrown down, pierced in the arm with a bayonet, put in prison, and Brunache along with him. Eight days afterwards, at the second meeting none are present but Jacobins; naturally, "they are all elected". They form the new municipality, which, notwithstanding the orders of the department, not only refuses to liberate the two prisoners, but throws them into a dungeon. - At Montpellier, the delay in the operation is greater, but it is only the more complete. The votes are deposited, the ballot-boxes closed and sealed up and the conservatives obtain a majority. Thereupon the Jacobin club, with the Society of the "iron-clubs," calling itself the Executive power, betake themselves in force to the sectional meetings, burn one of the ballots, use firearms and kill two men. To restore order the municipality stations each company of the National Guard at its captain's door, The moderates among them naturally obey orders, but the violent party do not. They overrun the town, numbering about 2,000 inhabitants, enter the houses, kill three men in the street or in their domiciles, and force the administrative body to suspend its electoral assemblies. In addition to this they require the disarmament "of the aristocrats," and this not being done soon enough, they kill an artisan who is walking in the street with his mother, cut off his head, bear it aloft in triumph, and suspend it in front of his dwelling. The authorities are now convinced and accordingly decree a disarmament, and the victors parade the streets in a body. In exuberance or as a precaution, they fire, as they pass along, at the windows of suspected houses and happen to kill an additional man and woman. During the three following days six hundred families emigrate, while the authorities report that everything is going on well, and that order is restored. "The elections," they say, "are now proceeding in the quietest manner since the ill-intentioned voluntarily keeping away from them, a large number having left the town. "[34] A void is created around the ballot-box and this is called the unanimity of voters. - The effect of such assassinations is great and only a few are required; especially when they go unpunished, which is always the case. Henceforth all that the Jacobins have to do is to threaten; people no longer resist them for they know that it costs too much to face them down. They do not care to attend electoral meetings where they meet insult and danger; they acknowledge defeat at the start. Have not the Jacobins irresistible arguments, without taking blows into account? At Paris,[35] Marat in three successive numbers of his paper has just denounced by name "the rascals and thieves" who canvass for electoral nominations, not the nobles and priests but ordinary citizens, lawyers, architects, physicians, jewellers, stationers, printers, upholsterers and other artisans, each name being given in full with the professions, addresses and one of the following qualifications, "hypocrite (tartufe), immoral, dishonest, bankrupt, informer, usurer, cheat," not to mention others that I cannot write down. It must be noted that this slanderous list may become a proscriptive list, and that in every town and village in France similar lists are constantly drawn up and circulated by the local dub, which enables us to judge whether the struggle between it and its adversaries is a fair one.-As to rural electors, it has suitable means for persuading them, especially in the innumerable cantons ravaged or threatened by the jacqueries, (country- riots) or, for example, in Corrèze, where "the whole department is smattered with insurrections and devastation's, and where nobody talks of anything but of hanging the officers who serve papers."[36] Through-out the electoral operations the sittings of the dub are permanent; "its electors are incessantly summoned to its meetings; " at each of these "the main question is the destruction of fish-ponds and rentals, their principal speakers summing it all up by saying that none ought to be paid." The majority of electors, composed of rustics, are found to be sensitive to speeches like this; all its candidates are obliged to express themselves against fishponds and rentals; its deputies and the public prosecuting attorney are nominated on this profession of faith; in other words, to be elected, the Jacobins promise to greedy tenants the incomes and property of their owners. - We already see in the proceedings by which they secure one-third of the offices in 1791 the germ of the methods by which they will secure the whole of them in 1792; in this first electoral campaign their acts indicate not merely their maxims and policy but, again, the condition, education, spirit and character of the men whom they place in power locally as well as at the capital.
NOTES:
[1] Law of May 28, 29, 1791 (according to official statements, the total of active citizens amounted to 4,288,360). - Laws of July 23, Sept. 12, Sept. 29, 1791. - Buchez et Roux, XII. 310.
[2] Bucher Ct Roux, XII. 33. - Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire de la Terreur," II. 205, 348. - Sauzay, II. ch. XVIII - AIbert Babeau, I. ch. XX.
[3] Lenin repeated this performance in 1917 and Stalin attempted to do the same in the rest of the World. (SR)..
[4] The following letter, by Camille Desmoulins (April 3, 1792), shows at once the time consumed by public affairs, the sort of attraction they had, and the kind of men which they diverted from their business. "I have gone back to my old profession of the law, to which I give nearly all the time which my municipal or electoral functions, and the Jacobins (club), allow me - that is to say, very little. It is very disagreeable to me to come down to pleading bourgeois cases after having managed interests of such importance, and the affairs of the government, in the face of all Europe."
[5] I cannot help but think of the willful proliferation of idle functionaries, pensioners and other receivers of public funds which today vote for the party which represents their interests. (SR.)
[6] Sauzay, II. 83-89 and 123. A resolution of the inhabitants of Chalèze, who, headed by their municipal officers, declare themselves unanimously "non-conformists," and demand "the right of using a temple for the exercise of their religious opinions, belonging to them and built with their contributions" On the strength of this, the municipal officers of Chalèze are soundly rated by the district administration, which thus states what principles are: "Liberty, indefinite for the private individual, must be restricted for the public man whose opinions must conform to the law: otherwise, . . he must renounce all public functions."
[7] Archives Nationales," F7, 3,253 (letter of the department directory, April 7, 1792). "On the 25th of January, in our report to the National Assembly, we stated the almost general opposition which the execution of the laws relating to the clergy has found in this department . . . nine-tenths, at least, of the Catholics refusing to recognize the sworn priests. The teachers, influenced by their old curés or vicars, are willing to take the civic oath, but they refuse to recognize their legitimate pastors and attend their services. We are, therefore, obliged to remove them, and to look out for others to replace them. The citizens of a large number of the communes, persisting in trusting these, will lend no assistance whatever to the election of the new ones; the result is, that we are obliged, in selecting these people, to refer the matter to persons whom we scarcely know, and who are scarcely better known to the directories of the district. As they are elected against the will of the citizens, they do not gain their confidence, and draw their salaries from the commune treasury, without any advantage to public instruction,"
[8] Mercure de France, Sep. 3, 1791. "The right of attending primary meetings is that of every citizen who pays a tax of three livres; owing to the violence to which opinions are subject, more than one- half of the French are compelled to stay away from these reunions, which are abandoned to persons who have the least interest in maintaining public order and in securing stable laws, with the least property, and who pay the fewest taxes."
[9] "The French Revolution," Vol. I. p. 182 and following pages.
[10] "Correspondence of M. de Staël" (manuscript), Swedish ambassador, with his court, Sept 4, 1791. "The change in the way of thinking of the democrats is extraordinary; they now seem convinced that it is impossible to make the Constitution work. Barnave, to my own knowledge, has declared that the influence of assemblies in the future should be limited to a council of notables, and that all power should be in the government"
[11] Ibid. Letter of July 17, 1791. "All the members of the Assembly, with the exception of three or four, have passed a resolution to separate from the Jacobins; they number about 3oo." - The seven deputies who remain at the Jacobin Club, are Robespierre, Pétion, Grégoire, Buzot, Coroller, and Abbé Royer.
[12] "Les Feuillants" Was a political club consisting of constitutional monarchists who held their meetings in the former Feuillants monastery in Paris from 1791 to 1792. (SR).
[13] Decree of Sept 29, 30, 1791, with report and instructions of the Committee on the Constitution.
[14] Decree of May 17, 1791. - Malouet, XII. 161. 'There was nothing left to us but to make one great mistake, which we did not fail to do."
[15] A few months after this, on the election of a mayor for Paris, the court voted against Lafayette, and for Pétion
[16] M. de Montlosier, "Mémoires," II. 309. "As far as concerns myself, truth compels me to say, that I was stuck on the head by three carrots and two cabbages only." - Archives of the prefecture of police (decisions of the police court, May 15, 1790). Moniteur, V. 427. "The prompt attendance of the members at the hour of meeting, in spite of the hooting and murmurings of the crowd, seemed to convince the people that this was yet another conspiracy against liberty."
[17] This is what is, today in 1998, taking place whenever any political faction, disliked by the Socialists, try to arrange a meeting. (SR).
[18] Malout, II. 50. - Mercure de France, Jan. 7, Feb. 5, and April 9, 1791 (letter of a member of the Monarchical Club
[19] Ferrières, II. 222. "The Jacobin Club sent five or six hundred trusty men, armed with clubs," besides "about a hundred national guards, and some of the Palais-Royal prostitutes."
[20] Journal des Amis de la Constitution." Letter of the Café National! Club at Bordeaux, Jan. 20, 1791. - Letters of the "Friends of the Constitution," at Brives and Cambray, Jan. 19, 1791.
[21] "The French Revolution," I. pp. 243, 324.
[22] Mercure de France, Dec.18, 1790, Jan. 17, June 8, and July 14, 1791. - Moniteur, VI. 697. - "Archives Nationales," F7, 3,193. Letter from the Directory of the department of Aveyron, April 20, 1792. Narrative of events after the end of 1790. - May 22, 1791, the club of "The Friends of Order and Peace" is burned by the Jacobins, the fire lasting all night and a part of the next day. (Official report of the Directory of Milhau, May 22, 1791).
[23] "The French Revolution," I. 256, 307.
[24] Mercure de France, Dec. 14, 1790 (letter from Villeneuve-St.- Georges, Nov.29).
[25] "Archives Nationales," II. 1,453. Correspondence of M. Bercheny. Letter from Pau, Feb. 7, 1790. "No one has any idea of the actual state of things, in this once delightful town. People are cutting each other's throats. Four duels have taken place within 48 hours, and ten or a dozen good citizens have been obliged to hide themselves for three days past"
[26] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3,249. Memorial on the actual condition of the town and district of Mortagne, department of Orne (November, 1791).
[27] Revolutionary song with the refrain: "Les aristocrates, à la lanterne, tous les aristocrates on les pendra" (all the aristocrats will hang). (SR)
[28] On the 15th of August, 1791, the mother-superior of the Hôtel- Dieu hospital is forcibly carried off and placed in a tavern, half a league from the town, while the rest of the nuns are driven out and replaced by eight young girls from the town. Among other motives that require notice is the hostility of two pharmacists belonging to the club; in the Hotel-Dieu the nuns, keeping a pharmacy from which they sold drugs at cost and thereby brought themselves into competition with the two pharmacists.
[29] Cf. "Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 13. Letter of the municipal officers and notables of Champceuil to the administrators of Seine-et- Oise, concerning elections, June 17, 1791. - Similar letters, from various other parishes, among them that of Charcon, June 16: "They have the honor to inform you that, at the time of the preceding primary meetings, they were exposed to the greatest danger; that the curé of Charcon, their pastor, was repeatedly stabbed with a bayonet, the marks of which he will carry to his grave. The mayor, and several other inhabitants of Charcon, escaped the same peril with difficulty." - Ibid., letters from the administrators of Hautes-Alpes to the National Assembly (September, 1791), on the disturbances in the electoral assembly of Gap, August 29, 1791.
[30] Police searches of private homes. (SR).
[31] "The French Revolution," pp. 159, 160, 310, 323, 324. - Lauvergne, "Histoire du département du Var," (August 23).
[32] '"Archives Nationales," F7, 3,198, deposition of Vérand-Icard, an elector at Arles, Sep. 8, 1791. - Ibid., F7, 3,195. Letter of the administrators of the Tarascon district, Dec. 8, 1791. Two parties confront each other at the municipal elections of Barbantane, one headed by the Abbé Chabaud, brother of one of the Avignon brigands, composed of three or four townsmen, and of "the most impoverished in the country," and the other, three times as numerous, comprising all the land-owners, the substantial métayers and artisans, and all "who are most interested in a good administration" The question is, whether the Abbé Chabaud is to be mayor. The elections took place Dec.5th, 1791. Here is the official report of the acting mayor: mayor: "We, Pierre Fontaine, mayor, addressed the rioters, to induce them to keep the peace. At this very moment, the said Claude Gontier, alias Baoque, struck us with his fist on the left eye, which bruised us considerably, and on account of which we are almost blind, and, conjointly with others, jumped upon us, threw us down, and dragged us by the hair, continuing to strike us, from in front of the church door, till we came in front of the door a, the town hall."
[33] Ibid., F7, 3,229. Letters of M. de Laurède, June 18, 1791; from the directory of the department, June 8, July 31, and Sept. 22, 1791; from the municipality, July 15, 1791. The municipality "leaves the release of the prisoners in suspense," for six months, because, it says, the people is disposed to "insurrectionise against their discharge." - Letter of many of the national guard, stating that the factions form only a part of it.
[34] Mercure de France, Dec. 10, 1791, letter from Montpellier, dated Nov. 17, 1791. - " Archives Nationales," F7, 3,223. Extracts from letters, on the incidents of Oct. 9 and 12, 1791. Petition by Messrs. Théri and Devon, Nov. 17, 1791. Letter addressed them to the Minister, Oct. 25. Letters of M. Dupin, syndical attorney of the department, to the Minister, Nov.14 and 15, and Dec. 26, 1791 (with official reports). - Among those assassinated on the 14th and 15th of November, we find a jeweler, an attorney, a carpenter, and a dyer. "This painful Scene," writes the syndic attorney, "has restored quiet to the town."
[35] Buchez et Roux, X. 223 (1'Ami du Peuple, June 17, 19, 21, 1791)
[36] "'Archives Nationales,' F7, 3204. letter by M. Melon de Tradou, royal commissary at Tulle, Sept. 8, 1791