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[1] Moniteur, X. 39 and following pages (sessions of Oct. 5 and 6,
1791). Speeches by Chabot, Couthon, Lequinio, and Vergniaud. - Mercure
de France, Oct. 15. Speech by Robespierre, May 17, 1790. "The king is
not the nation's representative, but its clerk. - Cf. Ernest Hamel,
"Vie de Robespierre."
[2] Moniteur, XIII. 97 (session of July 6, 1792)
[3] Buchez et Roux, XIII. 61, Jan.28, 1792. The King in his usually
mild way calls the attention of the Assembly to the usurpation it is
committing. "The form adopted by you is open to important
observations. I shall not extend these to-day; the gravity of the
situation demands that I concern myself much more with maintaining
harmonious sentiments than with continually discussing my rights."
[4] Sauzay, II. 99. Letter of the deputy Vernerey to the Directory of
Doubs: "The Directory of the department may always act with the
greatest severity against the seditious, and, apart from the article
relating to their pension, follow the track marked out in the decree.
If the executive desires to impede the operations of the Directory. .
. the latter has its recourse in the National Assembly, which in all
probability will afford it a shelter against ministerial attacks." --
Moniteur, XII. 202 (session of April 23). Report of Roland, Minister
of the Interior. Already at this date forty-two departments had
expelled or interned the unsworn ecclesiastics.
[5] Mercure-de-France, Feb.25.
[6] Moniteur, X. 440 (session of Nov.22, 1791). A letter to M.
Southon, Director of the Mint at Paris, is read, "complaining of an
arbitrary order, that of the Minister of the Interior, to report
himself at Pau on the 25th of this month, under penalty of dismissal."
Isnard supports the charge: "M. Southon," he says, "is here at work on
a very circumstantial denunciation of the Minister of the Interior
[Applause from the galleries.] If citizens who are zealous enough to
make war on abuses are sent back to their departments we shall never
have denunciations" [The applause is renewed.] - Ibid., X, 504
(session of Nov. 29). Speech by Isnard: "Our ministers must know that
we are not fully satisfied with the conduct of each of them [repeated
applause]; that henceforth they must simply choose between public
gratitude and the vengeance of the law, and that our understanding of
the word responsibility is death." [The applause is renewed.] -- The
Assembly orders this speech to be printed and sent into the
departments. - Cf. XII, 73, 138, etc.
[7] Moniteur, XI. 603. (Session of March 10. Speech by Brissot, to
secure a decree of accusation against M. Delessart, Minister of
Foreign Affairs.) M. Delessart is a "perfidious man," for having
stated in a dispatch that "the Constitution, with the great majority
of the nation, has become a sort of religion which is embraced with
the greatest enthusiasm." Brissot denounces these two expressions as
inadequate and anti-patriotic.-Ibid., XII. 438 (session of May 20).
Speech by Guadet: "Larivière, the juge-de-paix, has convicted himself
of the basest and most atrocious of passions, in having desired to
usurp the power which the Constitution has placed in the hands of the
National Assembly." -- I do not believe that Laubardemont himself
could have composed anything equal to these two speeches. -- Cf. XII.
462 (session of May 23). Speech by Brissot and one by Gonsonné on the
Austrian committee. The feebleness and absurdity of their argument is
incredible.
[8] Affairs of the Minister Duport-Dutertre and of the Ambassador to
Vienna, M. de Noailles.
[9] Mercure de France, March 10, 1792.
[10] Moniteur, XI. 607 (session of March 10).
[11] Moniteur, XII .396 (session of May 15). Isnard's address is the
ground-plan of Roland's famous letter. -- Cf. passim, the sessions of
the Assembly during the Girondist ministry, especially those of May 19
and 20, June 5, etc.
[12] Dumouriez, "Mémoires," book III. ch. VI.
[13] "Letter of a young mechanician," proposing to make a
constitutional king, which, "by means of a spring, would receive from
the hands of the president of the Assembly a list of ministers
designated by the majority" (1791).
[14] Servan, who was Girondist minister of war, proposed to let 20 000
fédérés or provincial National guards establish themselves outside
Paris. (SR).
[15] You will meet this sinister expression later on when the
Government ceased killing in France but simply sent undesirables and
imaginary or real opponents overseas to death-camps. Transportation
was used by Stalin and Hitler only their extermination took place in
their own countries not overseas. (SR).
[16] Moniteur, XI. 426 (session of May 19). Speech by Lasource: "Could
not things be so arranged as to have a considerable force near enough
to the capital to terrify and keep inactive the factions, the
intriguers, the traitors who are plotting perfidious plans in its
bosom, simultaneously with the maneuvers of outside enemies?"
[17] 'Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires." I. 303. Letter of Malouet, June 29:
"The king is calm and perfectly resigned. On the 19th he wrote to his
confessor: "Come, sir; never have I had so much need of your
consolations. I am done with men; I must now turn my eyes to heaven.
Sad events are announced for to-morrow. I shall have courage.' " --
"Lettres de Coray au Protopsalte de Smyrne" (translated by M. de Queux
de Saint-Hilaire,) 145, May 1st: "The court is in peril every moment.
Do not be surprised if I write you some day that his unhappy king and
his wife are assassinated."."
[18] Rétif de la Bretonne, "Nuits de Paris," VoL XVI. (analyzed by
Lacroix in "Bibliothèque de Rétif de la Bretonne" ). --Rétif is the
man in Paris who lived the most in the streets and had the most
intercourse with the low class.
[19] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3276. Letter from the Directory of
Clamecy, March 27, and official report of the civil commissioners,
March 31, 1792, on the riot of the raftsmen. Tracu, their captain,
armed with a cudgel ten feet long, compelled peaceful people to march
along with him, threatening to knock them down; he tried to get the
head of Peynier, the clerk of the Paris dealers in wood. "I shall have
a good supper to-night," he exclaimed "(or the head of that bastard
Peynier is a fat one, and I'll stick it in my Pot!"
[20] Letters of Coray, 126. "This pillaging has lasted three days,
Jan. 22, 23 and 24, and we expect from hour to hour similar riots
still more terrible."
[21] Mercier (" Tableau de Paris") had already noticed before the
Revolution this habit of the Parisian workman, especially among the
lowest class of workmen.
[22] Mortimer-Ternaux, 1.346 (letter of June 21, 1792).
[23] Buchez et Roux, VIII. 25 (session of the National Assembly,
Nov.10, 1790). Petition presented by Danton in the name of the forty-
eight sections of Paris.
[24] Buchez et Roux, XIV. 268 (May. 1792). Article by Robespierre
against the fête decreed in honor of Simonneau, Mayor of Etampes,
assassinated in a riot: "Simonneau was guilty before he became a
victim."
[25] How can one forget that great seducer of the masses Hitler? In
his book "Hitler Speaks" page 208 Rauschning reports Hitler as saying:
"It is true that the masses are uncritical, but not in the way these
idiots of Marxists and reactionaries imagine. The masses have their
critical faculties, too, but they function differently from those of
the private individual. The masses are like an animal they obeys
instincts. They do not reach conclusions by reasoning. My success in
initiating the greatest people's movement of all time is due to my
never having done anything in violation of the vital laws and feelings
of the mass. These feelings may be primitive, but they have the
resistance and indestructibility of natural qualities. A once
intensely felt experience in the life of the masses, like ration cards
and inflation, will never again be driven out of their blood. The
masses have a simple system of thinking and feeling, and anything that
cannot be fitted into it disturbs them. It is only because I take
their vital laws into consideration that I can rule them."
[26] Moniteur, XII. 254. - According to the royal almanac of 1792
the Paris national guard comprises 32,000 men, divided into sixty
battalions, to which must be added the battalions of pikemen,
spontaneously organized and composed, especially of the non-active
citizens. - Cf. in "Les Révolutions de Paris," Prudhomme's Journal,
the engravings which represent this sort of procession.
[27] Buchez et Roux, XV. 122. Declaration of Lareynie, a volunteer
soldier in the Ile Saint-Louis battalion. -- To those which he names I
add Huguenin, because on the 20th of June it was his duty to read the
petition of the rioters; also Saint-Huruge, because he led the mob
with Santerre. -- About Rossignol, Cf. Dauban, "La Demagogie à Paris,"
369 (according to the manuscript memoirs of Mercier du Rocher). He
reaches Fontenay Aug.21, 1793, with the representative Bourbotte,
Momoro, commissary-general, three adjutants, Moulins, Hasard, the ex-
priest, Grammont, an ex-actor and several prostitutes. "The prettiest
shared her bed with Bourbotte and Rossignol." They lodge in a mansion
to which seals are affixed. "The seals were broken, and jewelry,
dresses, and female apparel were confiscated for the benefit of the
general and his followers. There was nothing, even down to the
crockery, which did not become the booty of these self-styled
republicans"
[28] Mathon de la Varenne, "Histoire particulière des événements qui
ont eu lieu en juin, juillet, août, et septembre, 1792," p. 23. (He
knew Saint-Huruge personally.) Saint-Huruge had married an actress at
Lyons in 1778. On returning to Paris he learned through the police
that his wife was a trollop, and he treated her accordingly. Enraged,
she looked up Saint-Huruge's past career, and found two charges
against him, one for the robbery and assassination of an alien
merchant, and the other for infanticide; she obtained his
incarceration by a lettre-de-cachet. He was shut in Charenton from
Jan. 14, 1781, to December, 1784, when he was transferred to another
prison and afterwards exiled to his estates, from which he fled to
England. He returned to France on the outbreak of the Revolution.
[29] With respect to connivance, Cf. Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 132 and the
following pages. - Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," I. 300. Letter of the
Abbé de Pradt, June 21, 1795. "The insurrection had been announced for
several days. . . The evening before, 150 deputies so many Jacobins,
had dined at their great table in the Champs-Elysées, and distributed
presents of wine and food."
[30] Moniteur, XII. 642 (session of June 12, 1792, narrative of M.
Delfaux, deputy). - The execution of Damiens was witnessed by
Parisians still living, while "Charles IX.,," by Marie Chénier, was at
this time the most popular tragedy. -- The French people," says M.
Ferières (I. 35), "went away from its representation eager for
vengeance and tormented with a thirst for blood. At the end of the
fourth act a lugubrious bell announces the moment of the massacre, and
the audience, drawing in its breath sighing and groaning, furiously
exclaims silence! silence! as if fearing that the sound of this death-
knell had not stirred the heart to its very depths." -- " Révolutions
de Paris," number for June 23, 1792. "The speakers, under full sail,
distributed their parts amongst themselves," one against the staffs,
another against priests, another against judges, department, and the
ministers, and especially the king. "Some there are, and we agree in
this with the sieur Delfaux, who pass the measure and advise murder
through gestures, eyes, and speech."
[31] Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 133. -- There is the same calculation and
the same work-shop in the faubourg Saints-Marcel (report of Saint-
Prix, commandant of the Val-de-Grâce battalion). "Minds remained
tranquil until a club was opened at the Porte Saint-Marcel; now they
are all excited and divided. This dub, which is in contact with that
of Santerre, urges citizens to go armed to-morrow (June 20) to the
National Assembly and to the king's Palace, notwithstanding the acts
of the constituted authorities."
[32] Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 136. This program is first presented to the
council-general of the commune by Lazowski and nine others (June 16).
The council-general rejects it and refers to the law. "The
petitioners, on learning this decision, loudly declare that it shall
not prevent them from assembling in arms" (Buchez et Roux, XV. 120,
official report by M. Borie). -- The bibliography of documents
relating to the 20th of June is given by Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 397 and
following pages. The principal documents are found in Mortimer-
Ternaux, in "L'Histoire Parlementaire" of Buchez et Roux, and in the
Revue Rétrospective.
[33] "Correspondance de Mirabeau et M. de la Marck," III. 319. Letter
of the Count de Montmorin, June 21, 1792. "The Paris bandits not being
sufficient, they have invited in these of the neighboring villages."
[34] Reports of the municipal officers Perron (7 o'clock in the
morning), Sergent (8 o'clock), Mouchet, Gujard, and Thomas (9
o'clock).
[35] Report of Saint Prix, commandant of the Val-de-Grâce battalion
(10 o'clock In the morning). -- Report of Alexandre, commanding the
Saint-Marcel battalion. "The whole battalion was by no means ready to
march." -- Official report of the Montreuil section. Bonneau, the
commander concludes to march only under protest and to avoid spilling
blood.
[36] Deposition of Lareyrnie, a volunteer soldier of the Ile Saint-
Louis battalion.
[37] Deposition of M. Witinghof, lieutenant-general. --
"Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck." Letter of M. de
Montmorin, June 21. "At two o'clock the gathering amounted to 8,000 or
10,000 persons."
[38] Moniteur, XII. 717. "What a misfortune for the freemen who have
transferred their powers to you, to find themselves reduced to the
cruel necessity of dipping their hands in the blood of conspirators!"
etc. -- The character of the leaders is apparent in their style. The
incompetent copyist who drew up the address did not even know the
meaning of words. "The people so wills it, and its head is of more
account than that of crowned despots. That head is the genealogical
tree of the nation, and before that robust head the feeble reed must
bend!" He has already recited the fable of "The Oak and the Bulrush,"
and he knows the names of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Catiline. It seems
to be the composition of a school master turned public letter writer,
at a penny a page.
[39] Hua, "Mémoires," 134.
[40] Moniteur, XII. 718.
[41] "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Rœderer, syndic-attorney of
the department.
[42] Hua, 134. -- Bourrienne, "Mémoires," I. 49. (He was with
Bonaparte in a restaurant, rue Saint-Honoré, near the Palais-Royal.)
"On going out we saw a troop coming from the direction of the market,
which Bonaparte estimated at from 5,000 to 6,000 men, all in rags and
armed in the oddest manner, yelling and shouting the grossest
provocations, and turning towards the Tuileries. It was certainly the
vilest and most abject lot that could be found in the faubourgs. 'Let
us follow that rabble,' said Bonaparte to me." They ascend the terrace
on the river bank. "I could not easily describe the surprise and
indignation which these scenes excited in him. He did not like so much
weakness and forbearance. 'Che coglione! he exclaimed in a loud tone.
'How could they let those rascals in? Four or five hundred of them
ought to have been swept off with cannon, and the rest would still be
running!'"
[43] "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Rœderer. - Deposition of
Lareynie.
[44] Deposition of Lareynie.
[45] Report of Saint-Prix.
[46] Report by Mouchet. -- Deposition of Lareynie. (The interference
of Sergent and Boucher-Réne is contested, but Raederer thinks it very
probable.)
[47] M. Pinon, in command of the 5th legion, and M. Vannot, commanding
a battalion, tried to shut the iron gate of the archway, but are
driven back and told: "You want thousands to perish, do you, to save
one man?" This significant expression is heard over and over again
during the Revolution, and it explains the success of the
insurrections. -- Alexandre, in command of the Saint-Marcel battalion,
says in his report: "Why make a resistance which can be of no
usefulness to the public, one which may even compromise it a great
deal more?..."
[48] Deposition of Lareynie. The attitude of Santerre is here clearly
defined. At the foot of the staircase in the court he is stopped by a
group of citizens, who threaten "to make him responsible for any harm
done," and tell him: "You alone are the author of this
unconstitutional assemblage; it is you alone who have led away these
worthy people. You are a rascal!" - "The tone of these honest citizens
in addressing the sieur Santerre made him turn pale. But, encouraged
by a glance from the sieur Legendre, he resorted to a hypocritical
subterfuge, and addressing the troop, he said: 'Gentlemen, draw up a
report, officially stating that I refuse to enter the king's
apartments.' The only answer the crowd made, accustomed to divining
what Santerre meant, was to hustle the group of honest citizens out of
the way.
[49] Depositions of four of the national guard, Lecrosnier, Gossé,
Bidault, and Guiboult. -- Reports of Acloque and de Lachesnaye,
commanding officers of the legion. -- "Chronique des cinquante jours,"
by Rœderer. - Ibid. p.65: "I have to state that, during the
Convention, the butcher Legendre declared to Boissy d'Anglas, from
whom I had it, that the plan was to kill the king." -- Prudhomme,
"Crimes de la Révolution," III.43. "The king was to be assassinated.
We heard citizens all in rags say that it was a pity; he looks like a
good sort of a bastard."
[50] Madame Campan, "Mémoires," II. 212. "M. Vannot, commander of the
battalion, had turned aside a weapon aimed at the king. One of the
grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas warded off a blow with a sword,
aimed in the same direction with the same intention."
[51] Declaration of Lachesnaye, in command of the legion. - Moniteur,
XII. 719 (evening session of June 20). Speech of M. Alos, an eye-
witness. (The king does this twice, using about the same words, the
first time immediately on the irruption of the crowd, and the second
time probably after Vergniaud's harangue.) Declaration of Lachesnaye,
in command of the legion. - Moniteur, XII. 719 (evening session of
June 20). Speech of M. Alos, an eye-witness. (The king does this
twice, using about the same words, the first time immediately on the
irruption of the crowd, and the second time probably after Vergniaud's
harangue.)
[52] The engraving in the "Révolutions de Paris" represents him
seated, and separated from the crowd by an empty space; that is a
falsehood of the party..
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