CHAP. IX. England, Spain, and Holland ;-against England, as 1793. having already virtually declared war by the dismisFeb.1,1793. sal of the French ambassador; against Holland, as in reality influenced by England; against Spain, as already a secret enemy. These declarations were followed by an order for the immediate levy of 300,000 1 Lac. Pr. men.1 Hist. i. 51. 14. Effect of this The effect of these measures throughout France was prodigious. "We thank you for having reduced us to the necessity of conquering," was the answer of one of the armies to the Convention in reply to the announcement of the death of the King, and the declaration of war. And, in truth, these sentiments were universal in the armies, general among the people. The feeling of national honour, in all ages so Prodigious powerful among the French, was awakened; the doEvent. minant party of the Jacobins at Paris no longer appeared in the light of a relentless faction, contending for power, but as a band of patriots, bravely struggling for national independence; resistance to their mandates seemed nothing short of treason to the commonwealth in its hour of danger. Every species of requisition was cheerfully furnished under the pressure of impending calamity; in the dread of foreign subjugation, the loss of fortune or employment was forgotten; one only path, that of honour, was open to the brave; one only duty, that of submission, remained to the good; and even the blood which streamed from the scaffold, seemed a sacrifice justly due to the offended Genius of patriotism, indignant at the defection of some of its votaries.2 2 Toul. iii. 236, 237. Th. iv. 4, 5. The Royalist, Constitutional, and Moderate, parIts prejudi- ties, were never again able to separate the cause of on the Roy- France from that of the Jacobins, who then ruled its destinies. The people, ever led by their feelings, and cial Effect alist and often incapable of just discrimination, though when CHAP. IX. not actuated by wicked leaders, in the end generally 1793. true to the cause of virtue, constantly associated Constituthe adherents of these parties with the enemies of the tional cause. Republic; the Royalists, because they fought in the ranks of the Allies, and combated the Republic in La Vendée; the Constitutionalists, because they entered into negotiations with the enemies of the state, and sought the aid of foreign armies to restore the balance of domestic faction; the Moderate, because they raised their voices against internal tyranny, and sought to arrest the arm of power in the effusion of human blood. The party which becomes associated in the mind of the people, with indifference to the fate of the country in periods of danger, can never, during the subsistence of that generation, regain its influence; and the opposition to the ruling power during such a crisis, can hardly avoid such an imputation. By a singular coincidence, but from the influence of the same principle, the opposition, both in France and England, at this period, lost their hold of the influential part of the nation, from the same cause; the French Royalists, because they were accused of coalescing with foreign powers against the integrity of France; the English Whigs, because they were suspected of indifference to national glory in the contest with continental ambition.1 1 Lac. iii. 237. The French leaders were not insensible to the Mig. i. 248. danger arising from the attack of so formidable a coa- Plan of the lition; but retreat was become impossible. By the Jacobins for resisting the execution of Louis, they had come to a final rupture Allies. with all established governments. The revolt of the 10th August, the massacres in the prisons, the death of the King, had excited the most profound indignation among all the aristocratic portion of society 1793. CHAP. IX. throughout Europe, and singularly cooled the ardour of the middling ranks in favour of the Revolution. The Jacobins were no longer despised by the European powers, but feared; and terror prompts more vigorous efforts than contempt. But the republican leaders at Paris did not despair of saving the cause of democracy. The extraordinary movement which agitated France gave them good grounds for hoping that they might succeed in raising the whole male population for its defence, and that thus a much greater body might be brought into the field than the Allies could possibly assemble for their subjugation. The magnitude of the expense was to them a matter of no consequence. The estates of the emigrants afforded a vast and increasing fund, which greatly exceeded the amount of the public debt; while the boundless issue of assignats, at whatever rate of discount they might pass, amply provided for all the preTh. iv. 16, sent or probable wants of the treasury.1 18. The difficulty of procuring subsistence, and the total stagnation of commerce, the unavoidable result of revolutionary convulsions, increased to a most alarming degree during the months of February and March 1793. Dread of pillage, repugnance on the part of the cultivators to sell their produce for payment in the depreciated currency, which necessarily resulted from the unlimited issues of assignats, rendered abortive all the efforts of the government to supply the public necessities. At the same time, the price of every article of consumption increased so immensely, as excited the most vehement clamours among the people. The price, not only of bread, but of sugar, coffee, candles, and soap, had more than doubled since the Revolution commenced. Innumerable petitions on this subject succeeded each other at the bar of the 1793. Assembly. The most violent of the Jacobins had a CHAP. IX. remedy ready; it was to proclaim a maximum for the price of every article, lay a forced tax on the rich, and hang all persons who sold at a higher price than that fixed by law. In vain Thuriot and a few of the more educated of the party, raised their voices against these extreme measures; they were assailed with cries against the shopkeeper aristocracy, their voices drowned by hisses from the galleries; and the Mountain itself found that resisting such proceedings would speedily render them as unpopular as the Girondists had already become. The people now declared that the leaders they had selected were as bad as the old nobles. Perhaps the greatest and most ruinous delusion in such convulsions is the common opinion, that, by selecting their rulers from their own body, the labouring classes will find them more inclined to sympathize with their distresses, than if taken from a more elevated class; a natural but pernicious opinion, which all history proves to be fallacious, and which the common proverb, as to the effect of setting a beggar on horseback, shows to be adverse to the common experience of mankind.1 1 Th. iv. 39, 41. 164. At length the extreme difficulty of procuring sub- Hist. de la sistence, roused the people to a perfect fury. A tu- Conv. ii. multuous mob surrounded the hall of the Jacobins, and treated that body as they had so often treated the Assembly. The object was to procure a petition from them to the Convention, to procure the imposition of a maximum. The demand was refused ;-instantly, cries of, "Down with the forestallers, down with the rich," resounded on all sides; and the Jacobins were threatened as they had threatened the Convention. Marat, the following morning, published a number of his Journal, in which, raising his powerful voice 1793. CHAP. IX. against what he called "the monopolists, the merchants of luxury, the supporters of fraud, the exnobles;" he added, "In every country where the rights of the people are not a vain title, the pillage of a few shops, at the doors of which they hung their forestalling owners, would put an end to an evil which reduces five millions of men to despair, and daily causes thousands to die of famine. When will the deputies of the people learn to act, without eternally harang la Repub lique, 25th Feb. 1793. 44. ! Journal de uing on evils they know not how to remedy ?”1 Encouraged by these exhortations, the populace Th. iv. 43, were not slow in taking the redress of their wrongs into their own hands. A mob assembled, and pillaged a number of shops in the streets of La Veille Monnaie, Cinq Diamans, and Lombards. They next insisted that every article of commerce should be sold at half its present price, and large quantities were seized in that manner at a ruinous loss to the owners. Speedily, however, they became tired of paying at all, and the shops were openly pillaged, without any 2 Th. iv. 46. equivalent.2 All the public bodies were filled with consternation at these disorders. The shopkeepers, in particular, whose efforts in favour of the Revolution had been so decided at its commencement, were in despair at the approach of anarchy to their own doors. The Girondists, who were for the most part the representatives of the commercial cities of France, were fully alive to the disastrous effects of a maximum in prices; but when they attempted to enforce their principles, they were universally assailed by the populace, and their efforts in this particular destroyed all the little consideration which still remained to them. Nor were the Jacobins more successful in their exertions in this respect. The suffering was real and universal: no |