1793. more strongly demonstrated than in France during CHAP. IX. the progress of the Revolution. Rank, influence, talent, patriotism, abandoned the field of combat, or sunk in the struggle; daring ambition, reckless audacity, vanquished every opponent. The Girondists maintained that the force of reason, and of the people, was the same thing; and flattered themselves, that by their eloquence, they could curb the Revolution when its excesses became dangerous; they lived to experience their utter inability to contend with popular violence, and sunk under the fury of the tempest they had created. The maxim, "Vox populi vox Dei," is true only of the calm result of human reflection, when the period of agitation is passed, and reason has resumed its sway so predominant is passion in moments of excitation, that it would be nearer the truth then to say, that the voice of the people is that of the demons who direct them. A horse, maddened by terror, does not rush more certainly on its own destruction, than the populace, when excited by revolutionary ambition. It is this law of Nature which provides its slow but certain punishment. To scourge each successive faction which attains the head of affairs, another more hardy than itself arises, until the punishment has reached all the guilty classes, and the nation, in sackcloth and ashes, has expiated its offences. Consterna Death of The death of the King roused numbers, when too General late, to the dangers of popular rule. Scarcely had tion at the his head fallen from the scaffold, when the public Louis. grief became visible: the brigands who were hired to raise cries of triumph, failed in rousing a voice among the spectators. The name of Santerre was universally "execrated : "The King was about to appeal to us," said the people, " and we would have 1793. CHAP. IX. delivered him." Many dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victim; his hair was religiously gathered and placed with the relics of saints, by the few who retained religious sentiments. The National Guards, silent and depressed, returned to their homes; throwing aside their arms, they gave vent, in the bosom of their families, to feelings which they did not venture to display in public. "Alas! if I had been sure of my comrades!" was the general expression; fatal effect of civil dissension, to paralyze the good from mutual distrust, and elevate the wicked from 1 Lac. x. 256. conscious audacity.1 Th. iv. 2. The execution was over at half-past ten; but the shops continued shut, and the streets deserted, during the whole day. Paris resembled a city desolated by an earthquake. Groups of assassins alone were to be seen, singing revolutionary songs, the same as those which preceded the massacre of September. Their voices, re-echoed by the silent walls, reached the prison of the Temple, and first informed the royal family of the fate of the Sovereign. The Queen, with her orphan son, fell on their knees, and prayed that they 2 Lac. x.257. might soon join the martyr in the regions of Heaven.2 The death of the King not only rendered the parably ruined ties irreconcilable, but weakened the influence of the It irrecover the Giron dists. Girondists with the people. The Jacobins incessantly taunted them with having endeavoured to save the tyrant; the generous design could not be denied, and constituted an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the democratical party. They accused them of being enemies of the people, because they deprecated their excesses; accomplices of the tyrant, because they strove to save his life; traitors to the Republic, because they recommended moderation towards its opponents. Lest the absurdity of these reproaches should become mani 1793. fest by the return of reason to the public mind, they CHAP. IX• adopted every means of continuing the popular agitation. To strike terror into the enemies of the Revolution; to keep awake the revolutionary fervour, by the exhibition of danger, and the fury of insurrections; to represent the safety of the Republic as solely dependent on their exertions; to electrify the departments by the aid of affiliated societies; such was the system which they incessantly pursued, till all their enemies were destroyed.' 1 Mignet. i. 242. A temporary union of the contending parties took Th. iv. 2, 3. place, in consequence of the consternation produced Retirement by the death of one of the deputies, Lepelletier St Far- of Roland. geau, who was murdered for voting against the life of the King, by an old member of the Garde du Corps, named Paris. The condition of the truce was the dismissal of the upright and intrepid Roland from the Ministry of the Interior. He was succeeded by Garat, a man of a benevolent disposition, but no firmness of character, and totally disqualified for the perilous times in which his official duties commenced. By the retirement of Roland, the Girondists lost the only firm support of their party.2 The Jacobins, to the last moment, were doubtful of Mignet. i. the success of their attack upon the King. The mag- Toul. iii. nitude of the attempt, the enormity of the crime, startled 235. even their sanguinary minds; and their exultation was proportionally great at their unlooked for success. The Girondists, on the other hand, grieved for the illustrious victim, and, alarmed at the appalling success of their adversaries, perceived in the martyrdom of Louis the prelude to long and bloody feuds, and the first step in the inexorable system which so soon followed. They had abandoned Louis to his fate, to show that they were not Royalists; but the humiliating weak 2 Lac. Pr. Hist. ii. 50. 243, 244. Th. iv. 3. 1793. CHAP. IX. ness deceived no one in the Republic. All were aware that they did so from necessity, not inclination; that fear had mastered their resolution; and that the appeal to the people was an attempt to devolve upon others a danger which they had not the vigour to face themselves. They lost in this way the confidence of every party; of the Royalists, because they had been the original authors of the revolt which dethroned the King; of the Jacobins, because they had recoiled from his execution. Roland, completely discouraged, not by personal danger, but the impossibility of stemming the progress of disaster, was too happy at the prospect of escaping from his perilous eminence into the tranquillity of private life.1 1Th. iv. 2, 3. Buzot, 10 13. All parties were disappointed in the effect which they had anticipated from the death of the King. The Girondists, whose culpable declamations had roused the spirit which brought him to the block, had imagined that their ascendency over the populace would be regained by their concurrence in this great sacrifice, and that they would prefer their conservative and moderate counsels to the fierce designs of their dreaded rivals, the Jacobins; but they were soon undeceived, and found to their cost that this act of iniquity, like all other misdeeds, rendered their situation worse than it had formerly been. The Orleanists lost by this terrible event the little consideration which they still possessed, and Philippe Egalité, who had flattered himself that, by agreeing to it, he would secure the crown to himself and his descendants, was speedily overwhelmed in the shock of the more energetic and extreme factions who disputed the lead in public affairs. The Jacobins, with more reason, expected that the destruction of the throne would secure to them a long lease of power: and they did not enjoy it for 1793. 1 Hist de la Conv. ii. eighteen months. France, overwhelmed by their ty- CHAP. IX. ranny, sought refuge from its horror, not in the vacillating hands of a benevolent monarch, but the stern grasp of a relentless warrior. Such is the march of revolutions: they never recede when their leaders obtain unresisted ascendency, but are precipitated on, like the career of guilt in an individual, from one excess to another, till the extremity of suffering restores the lead to the classes qualified to take it, and expels the deadly poison of democracy from the social system.1 The Girondists exerted themselves to the utmost 152, 115, to prevent Roland from retiring from the ministry of the Interior, but all their efforts were in vain. Even the influence of his beautiful and gifted wife was unable to retain him at his post. He declared that death would be preferable to the mortification he was daily obliged to endure. His party were in despair at his retirement, because they saw clearly the impossibility of supplying his place: they had become sensible of the ruinous tendency of their measures to their country and themselves, when it was no longer possible to remeasure their steps.2 116. 2 Hist. de la Conv. ii. External events, of no ordinary importance, occur- 153. red at this time, which precipitated the fall of this celebrated party, and accelerated the approach of the Reign of Terror. The first of these was the accession of England to War with England. the league of the Allied Sovereigns against the Republic. The execution of the King, as Vergniaud had predicted, at once dissolved the species of neutrality which subsisted between the rival states; Chauvelin, the French ambassador, received orders immediately to leave London, and this was succeeded, in a few days, by a declaration of war by the Convention against |