overthrow? Do you not know, does | macy, to appoint generals, admirals, not every one who hears me know, that that is an infallible test of real virtue? If the defender of liberty was not calumniated, it would be a proof that we had no longer either generals, or priests, or nobles to fear." He then demanded that all those who had anything to allege against Danton should come forward; but none, after such a declaration, ventured to say a word. Upon that, amidst the applause of the meeting, Danton received the fraternal embrace from the president. By this hypocritical conduct, Robespierre both ascertained the extent of the public feeling against his great rival, and threw him off his guard by feigned expressions of regard.

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85. On the very next day, a new decree, augmenting the despotic powers of the Committee of Public Salvation, was passed. Anarchy," said Billaud Varennes, in the preamble of the report on which the decree was founded, menaces every republic, alike in its cradle and its old age. Our part is to strive against it." On this preamble, the decree enacted that a bulletin of the laws should be drawn up; that four individuals should have the exclusive right of framing it; that it should be printed on a particular paper and type, and sent down to the provinces by post. The Convention was at the same time declared the "Centre of Impulsion of Government," a dubious phrase, under which was veiled the despotic authority of the committees. The authority of the departmental assemblies was abolished for everything except matters of local administration; and they were forbidden, under pain of death, to correspond on any political matter with each other, raise forces or taxes of their own authority, or correspond with or receive instructions from any body but the committees at Paris. Thus the liberties of the provinces were rapidly perishing under the despotic sway of the Committee of Public Salvation. All the powers of government, which by former decrees were vested in different bodies, were by this decree centred in that terrible committee. It alone was directed to conduct the foreign diplo

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and ambassadors, and the whole constituted authorities were ordered to correspond with it, and receive their instructions from it alone. Supported by the Jacobin Club, of which Robespierre had now got the entire direction, and by all the affiliated clubs over France, this despotic power was now established on a solid basis: for it rested on the ardent democrats, who at once directed the magistracies and influenced the armies. The government was powerful, for the time irresistible; for the executive was in harmony both with the legislature and the whole depositaries of local popular power. A despotism had grown up out of the very excess of liberty. France was already beginning to enter the bloody path which leads from democratic anarchy to regular government.

86. Meanwhile, the strife of the Dantonists and Anarchists became daily more conspicuous, and the sanguinary disposition of the latter seemed, if possible, to increase in violence. One of their number, Ronsin, had affixed over the walls of Paris a placard, in which he declared, that out of a hundred and forty thousand souls in Lyons, fifteen hundred only were not accomplices of the revolt in that city, and that before February all the guilty should perish, and their bodies be floated by the Rhone to Toulon. Chaumette loudly maintained that the gangrened part of the Convention should be lopped off, and sent numerous petitioners with demands to that effect to the Assembly. Camille Desmoulins vigorously attacked this atrocious faction, and in an especial manner fastened on the infamous Hébert, whom he accused of being a miserable intriguer, a caterer for the guillotine, a traitor paid by Pitt; a wretch who had received 200,000 francs at different times, from almost all the factions in the Republic, to calumniate their adversaries; a thief and robber, who had been expelled from being a lackey in the theatre for theft, and now aimed at drenching France with blood by means of his prostituted journal." Such was the man, on the testimony of the Revolutionists themselves, on whose

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evidence Marie Antoinette had been condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal. "It is vain," he added, "to think of stifling my voice by threats of arrest. We all know that the Anarchists are preparing a new revolt, like the 31st May; but we may say with Brutus and Cicero, 'We too much fear exile, poverty, and death.' When our soldiers are daily braving death in sight of the enemy's batteries in the cause of freedom, shall we, their unworthy leaders, be intimidated by the menaces of the Père Duchesne, or prevented by him from achieving a still greater victory over the ultra-Revolutionists, who would ruin the Revolution, by staining every step it makes with gore?"

view, they allowed Danton and Camille Desmoulins to imagine they were approximating to their principles, to gain their support in the destruction of the Anarchists, having previously resolved to follow it up by the ruin of themselves. This perfidious policy proved entirely successful, and this it was which afterwards drew from Danton the bitter exclamation-"To die is nothing; but to die the dupe of Robespierre !"

88. The Committee of Public Salvation proceeded with caution in acting against so powerful a faction as the Anarchists, headed by so weighty a body as the municipality of Paris. They began their operations by a purification, as it was called, of the Jacobin Club, which went on for several days in the middle of December. In the course of these discussions, Robespierre donounced Hébert in the most violent terms. He was at first expelled, and subsequently only re-admitted on his declaring that "the Gospel appeared to be a book of excellent morality; that all true Jacobins should follow its precepts; and that Jesus Christ was the founder of all popular societies." But Robespierre succeeded in excluding Anacharsis Clootz, a Prussian, who had acquired notoriety by styling himself the orator of the human race." He did so by the never-failing device of representing him as the secret agent of the Allies.* At the same time that the

87. While the parties were in this state of exasperation at each other, the Committee of Public Salvation boldly interposed between them, and resolved to make their discord the means of destroying both. Profiting with political dexterity by this singular situation of the parties, Robespierre and the members of the municipality came to an understanding, the condition of which was the mutual abandonment of their personal friends. Robespierre gave up Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and their supporters, to the vengeance of the municipality; and they surrendered" Hébert, Chaumette, Ronsin, Clootz, and their party, to the Decemvirs. By this arrangement more than one important object was gained-two formidable fac-leaders of the Anarchist faction were in tions were destroyed, and a rival to the reputation of the dictator was removed. It seemed impossible to accuse the government of tending towards anarchy, when it had destroyed the atheistical faction in the municipality; and equally hopeless to charge it with moderation, when it had struck down, for leaning towards a return to humanity, the authors of the massacres of September. In this way they proposed to tread the narrow and perilous path between two equally powerful parties, and realise their favourite expression of making terror and virtue the order of the day. But Hébert and the Anarchists were still powerful, and the Committee of Public Salvation had need of support to effect their overthrow. With this

this manner excluded by the all-powerful influence of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Salvation, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Panis, Colombel,

* "You have seen Clootz," said Robespierre, court, sometimes at the feet of the people. "sometimes at the feet of a tyrant and a When a faction fatal to liberty ruled among you, Clootz took the part of Brissot and Dumourier. The Prussian Clootz supported their to attack the whole world. Well then! Clootz, opinions with frantic eagerness, and proposed we know your proceedings and midnight plots. We know that, under the shades of night, you prepared with the Bishop Gobel with intriguers, English and Austrian. They this philosophic masquerade. Paris swarms sit in the midst of you, with the agents of Clootz is a Prussian. I have Frederick. This speech sealed his doom.-Journal des traced before you his public life. Pronounce!" Jacobins, December 15, 1793.

and all the other leaders of the Mode- | which we have to contend march under rate party, were admitted. By this de- different banners, and by different cisive measure the Anarchists were ren- routes; but their object is the samedered wholly powerless in the Jacobins; the disorganisation of the popular goand a severe blow was given to the vernment and the triumph of tyranny. weight of the municipality, by showing The one preaches fury, the other clethat its leading members were excluded mency; the one tends to this object by from the ruling club of the Revolution, its leaning to weakness, the other by while their determined enemies were its inclination to excess. The one would admitted, on the motion of Robespierre, change liberty into a bacchanal, the amidst loud acclamation. His speech other into a prostitute; the one would on proposing Camille Desmoulins, con- transport you into the torrid, the other sidering the awful tragedy which was into the frozen zone. But both alike fast approaching, is well worthy of con- keep aloof from courage, justice, magsideration,* as indicating the profound | nanimity of soul. It is not worth while perfidy by which he was animated. It to try to distinguish; what is really was by this Machiavelian policy that material is to appreciate them by their Robespierre succeeded in finally de- objects and their ends. In that respect, stroying both sets of his opponents. you will find that they are sufficiently near each other. The Republic must steer between these two shoals-impotence and excess. Tyrants have wished to throw us back into servitude by moderation; sometimes they aim at the same object by driving us into the opposite extreme. These two extremes terminate in the same point. Whether they fall short or overshoot the mark, they equally miss it. The friend of kings and the orator of the human race understand each other perfectly. fanatic covered with his relics, and the fanatic who preaches atheism, are closely allied. The democratic barons are twin brothers of those at Coblentz; and sometimes the bonnets rouges are nearer the talons rouges than would be at first imagined.

89. Robespierre first announced his project of double vengeance in the Convention. "Without," said he, "all the tyrants of the earth are conspiring against you; within, all their friends are aiding their efforts: they will continue to do so till hope is severed from crime. We must stifle the external and internal enemies of the Republic, or perish with it. In such circumstances, the only principles of government are to rule the people by the force of Reason, and their enemies by the force of Terror. The spring of a popular government in peace is Virtue; in a revolution, it is Virtue and TERROR: Virtue, without which Terror is fatalTerror, without which Virtue is impotent. The government of a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. The opposite factions with

"We must," said Robespierre, "consider Camille Desmoulins with his virtues and his weaknesses. Sometimes feeble and confiding, often courageous and ever Republican, he has been successively the friend of Lameth, of Mirabeau, of Dillon; but we have seen him contributing to crush these very idols whom he had raised. He sacrificed them on the altar he had erected to them, whenever he discovered their perfidy. In a word, he loved liberty from instinct and feeling, and loved nothing else, in spite of all the seductions of its betrayers. I exhort Camille Desmoulins to follow out his career; but in future not to be so versatile, and to endeavour to be no longer deceived as to the character of those who play a great part on the public stage."--Journal de Jacobins, Nos. 556, 558, December 15,

1793; and Hist. Parl. xxi. 340, 341.

The

90. "Foreign powers have vomited into France able villains, whom they retain in their pay. They deliberate in our administrations, insinuate themselves into our sections and our clubs, sit in the Convention, and eternally direct the counter-revolution by the same means. They flutter round us, extract by surprise our secrets, caress our pas sions, and seek to make us converts to their opinions. By turns they drive us to exaggeration or weakness; excite in Paris the fanaticism of the new worship, and in La Vendée resistance to the old; assassinate Marat and Lepelletier, and mingle with the group which would deify their remains: at one time spread plenty among the people, at another

reduce them to all the horrors of famine; | than the Republic.* You demand the circulate and withdraw the metallic cur- opening of the prisons you might as rency, and thus occasion the extraordi- well demand at once the misery and nary changes in the value of money; destruction of the people. The same profit, in fine, by every accident, to turn conspiracy is now striving to save the it against France and the Revolution." guilty which formerly strove to save Such is the invariable policy of revolu- the tyrant. A monarchy does not contionary parties, to impute to strangers, sist in a king, but in crime; a republic or the opposite faction, the natural not in a senate, but in virtue. Whoeffect of their own passions and vices. ever would spare crime is striving to This speech was ordered to be printed, restore the monarchy: spare the arisand circulated over all France. It was tocracy, and you will have thirty years followed by a decree, sending Biron, of civil war: those who make revolutions Custine's son, Dietrich, mayor of Strass by halves, only dig their own graves." burg, and all the friends of Dumourier, The Convention, awed by the tyrants, Custine, and Houchard, to the Revolu- invested the committees with full power tionary Tribunal, from whence they to crush the conspiracies. They decreed were soon after conducted to the scaf- in addition, that Terror and Virtue fold. should be the order of the day.

91. "Citizens," said St Just, some time after, "you wish a republic; if you are not prepared at the same time to wish for what constitutes it, you will be buried under its ruins. Now, what constitutes a republic is the destruction of everything which opposes it. You are culpable towards the Republic if you have pity on the captives; you are culpable if you do not support virtue; you are culpable if you do not support ter

ror.

92. The Anarchists were the first to feel the vengeance of their former supporters. They in vain endeavoured to rouse their ancient partisans in the commune to support their cause; terror had frozen every heart. As the danger became more menacing, they openly organised a revolt, and strove to the very uttermost to rouse the immense population of Paris for their support. Their leaders made extraordinary efforts to excite the people to insurrection; and innumerable placards, ascribing the whole public evils, and in particular the famine which prevailed, to the Convention, appeared in the markets, and in all the populous quarters of Paris. The statue of Liberty was covered with crape at the club of the Cordeliers, where they had taken refuge since their expulsion from the Jacobins; and insurrection openly prevailed on the 4th March. They even went so far as to propose that the whole Convention should be dissolved, a new one assembled, a dictator named, and an executive government organised. But all the efforts of Hébert, with his infamous journal-Momoro, with the resolutions of the Section Marat, which he had roused to espouse their cause-and Vincent, with his frenzied followers, could not produce a popular movement. The municipality held back; the Jacobins were ruled by the Committee of Public

What do you propose, you who would not strike terror into the wicked? What do you propose, you who would sever virtue from happiness? You shall perish, you who only act the patriot till bought by the stranger, or placed in office by the government; you of the indulgent faction, who would save the wicked; you of the foreign faction, who would be severe only on the friends of freedom. Measures are already taken; you are surrounded. Thanks to the genius of France, Liberty has risen victorious from one of the greatest dangers she ever encountered; the terror she will strike into her enemies will for ever purge the earth of the conspirators. We are accused of cruelty; but we are humane in comparison of other governments. A monarchy floats on the blood of thirty generations, and shall you hesitate to punish the guilty of one? Do we experience reverses? the indulgent prophesy calamities: Are we prosperous? they never mention our successes. * Alluding to the Vieux Cordelier of Camille You are more occupied with pamphlets | Desmoulins, recently published.