THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION A POLITICAL HISTORY
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
A POLITICAL HISTORY
1789 — 1804
?v^yx<^.M 5 V, A. AULARD
PROFESSOR OF LETTERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE THIRD EDITION WITH A PREFACE, NOTES, AND HISTORICAL SUMMARY, BY
BERNARD MIALL
IN FOUR VOLUMES VOL. IV. THE BOURGEOIS REPUBLIC AND THE CONSULATE
1797— 1804
T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
I 9 I o
(All rights reserved.)
CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME
PAOX
Chronological Summary . . . . .11
Biographical Note , . . . .26
chapter i. Opinions, Parties, and Religious Policies before
THE I 8th of Fructidor . . . .29
I. The oaths and the parties. — II. The Directorial or bourgeois Repuhlicans. — III. The Democrats. Babeuf and Babeuvism. — IV. The RoyaHsts. — ^V. The religious policy : the national festivals ; Theophilanthropy. — VI. The re- ligious policy : Catholicism. — VII. The coup d'etat of the i8th of Fructidor.
CHAPTER II.
The Religious Policy, Opinions, and Parties after
THE i8th of Fructidor . . . .89
I. The religious poUcy : Catholicism. — II. The religious policy : the Decadal cult : Theophilanthropy. — III. RoyaUsm. — IV. Directorial Republicans and Democratic Republicans. The law of the 22nd of Floreal of the
CONTENTS
year VI (May ii, 1798). — V. Opposition to the Directory. The insurrection of the 30th of Prairial of the year VII (July 18, 1799). — VI. Reappearance of the Terror.— VII. Resurrection of the Jacobins.
chapter iii.
The Fall of the Executive Directory . . 133
I. General causes of the coup d'6tat of the i8th of Brumaire. — II. Popularity of Napoleon Bonaparte. His return from Egypt. — III. Preparations for the coup d'itat. —IV. The " day " of the iSth of Brumaire.~V . The 19th of Brumaire. — VI. Suppression and replacement of the Directory.
chapter iv.
The Provisional Consulate and the Constitution
OF the Year VIII ..... 152
I. The 18th of Brumaire and public opinion. — II. The policy of the Provisional Consuls. — III. The drafting of the Constitution of the year VIII. — IV. Analysis of this Constitution. — V. The acceptation by plebiscite.
CHAPTER V.
The Decennial Consulate .... 169
I. Installation of the public powers. — II. The conditions of the Press. — III. Administrative organisation. — IV. New manners and customs. — V. Effects of the victory of Marengo in [the interior. Crime, proscriptions, and the progress of despotism.
CONTENTS 7
CHAPTER VI.
PAGB
The Religious Policy ..... 192
I. The system of Separation of Church and State under the Consulate. The Decadal cult. Theophilanthropy. —
II. The two Catholic sects. — III. General results of the system of Separation. — IV. The causes of the destruction of this system. — V. The Concordat. — VI. Application of the Concordat. — VII. New advantages accorded to the Roman Church.
CHAPTER VII.
The Life-Consulate .... 228
I. The plebiscite of the year X. — II. The organic Senatus consultus of the i6th of Thermidor of the year X (August 4, 1802). — III. Return to monarchical forms. — IV. The Re- publican opposition. Military conspiracies. Bonapartism among the working-classes. — V. Royalism. — VI. Con- spiracies, actual and pretended : Cadoudal, Pichegru, and Moreau. The Due d'Enghien. — VII. The establishment of the Empire. — VIII. The organic Senatus consultus of the 28th of Floreal of the year XII (May 18, 1804).— IX. Disappearance of the Republic. — X. General remarks on the French Revolution.
IV
THE BOURGEOIS REPUBLIC AND THE CONSULATE
1797 — 1804
A CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS, SEPT., 1797, TO DEC. 2, 1804
BY THE TRANSLATOR
To avoid too frequent discursion in the following notes it may be brieHy stated that Napoleon's military exploits, from 1796 to 1799, were as follows :
1796. In March he marries Josephine and sets out for Italy. Joining the French troops near Savona, he lights his way to Milan ; inci- dentally forcing Sardinia to cede Nice, Savoy, and Tenda. He then beats the Austrians back to the Tyrol, and occupies Verona. Mantua is still Austrian, and Bonaparte leaves a siege train in front of the city while consoHdating his conquests. He fails on this occasion to get through the Tyrol, but finally reduces
1797. Mantua. Then, meeting Hoche and Moreau after traversing the Tyrol, he makes towards Vienna. Austria sues for peace ; ceding, after much delay, Belgium and the lonians, and recognis- ing Bonaparte's creation — the Cisalpine Republic — to which she cedes Lombardy. Bonaparte returns to Paris in December, having left behind him a Republican North Italy. He is feted and honoured by Paris ; but the Directory fears him, and des-
1798. patches him in May to Egypt, where he beats the Mamelukes and occupies Cairo. The French fleet being destroyed by Nelson, Bonaparte abandons the idea of an Eastern empire, and determines to return through Syria, hoping to overthrow the
1799. Turks. He is foiled at the long siege of Acre, and returns to Egypt. There, after defeating the Turks at Aboukir, he hears of events in Paris, and, hastily deserting his army, which he leaves to Kleber, he lands in France in October. In his absence Italy is lost ; perhaps its loss during his absence increases his prestige. He returns with an extraordinary reputation as a totally independent conqueror, an administrator, and a maker of States. Largely as a result of his campaigns, France was for a time at the head of a number of surrounding Republics, all constituted on the same model.
11
12 A CHRONOLOGICAL
1797
May. The elections of the year V (1797) unfortunately result in the return of many royalists as well as moderates. Hitherto the Directory and the Councils, consisting largely of ex- Conventionals, all actuated by the desire of giving France a good working government, and internal peace and prosperity, after so much intestine discord and external danger, have worked together with great good feeling, and with a notable amount of give and take. But the electoral assemblies having become swamped by royalists and moderates, the elections entirely change the character of the Councils, the opposition becoming quickly aggressive. 20. The Councils open their sittings. Pichegru, a royalist, is president of the 500 ; Barbe-Marbois, another royalist leader, of the Elders ; in the Directory Barthelemy, a moderate, replaces Le Tourneur. Barthelemy was absent from France throughout the whole Revolution ; he lacks an understanding of and sympathy with its aims.
Opposition attacks at once begin. The Directory is blamed for continuing the war against the Austrians : blamed also for the financial situation. The opposition demands peace, hoping to get the Republic to disarm ; and the liberty of the press, that the Directory may be attacked.
France, desiring a respite from the expense and deple- tion of war, half supports the opposition. But the return of priests and emigres determined upon by the Councils is not welcome.
Jordan, in a fulsomely sentimental and pseudo-pathetical speech, depicts all France as desolated by the loss of her church bells. He earns the nickname of Bell-Jordan {Jordan-Carillon), and his campaign fails.
Emigrant nobles and dissentient priests crowd back to France, making no secret of their anxiety to overthrow the Revolution. The opposition becomes so obviously anti-Revolutionary that the people forsake it.
The Directory and the constitutionalists of '91 form the club of Salm, as a rival to the club of Clichy. They quietly bring the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, under Hoche, close to Paris, thus violating the 36-mile radius. Their action being denounced, they feign ignorance or disbelief. The two parties, ready to spring, watch one another ; the nation watches them.
The Councils try to gain control of the Ministry by dismissing three Ministers — Merlin, Delacroix, and Ramel.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 13
The Directory dismisses and replaces those in favour with the Councils and retains the three named.
The conflict appears inevitable. The Directory desires it, since otherwise it can only postpone its ruin until the next elections. It causes the armies to threaten the Councils. Bonaparte has Lavalette in Paris to keep him informed of all that passes. Augereau too has arrived with manifestoes from Bonaparte's troops, who threaten to reach Paris by forced marches and crush the royalists. The Councils protest ; and the troops under Hoche are moved in to Versailles, Meudon, and Vincennes. July. Hitherto the Councils have been by no means eager to force the pace, as the next elections might see them victorious. Now, however, they begin to prepare. They decree the closing of the club of Salmj and the Inspectors of the Hall are greatly increased in strength, and the guard is placed under their orders.
Sieyes meanwhile makes an able attack on the Jacobins.
Lucien Bonaparte terrifies the 500 by a dreadful picture of
Aug. 10, the return of the Terror. Fouche, at Sieyes' bidding, closes
the Manege. The factitious panic does its work ; the
people sway to the moderate side.
Sept. 3 The Legislative Corps decrees the mobilisation of the
(I'jth of National Guard for the following day, when the Councils
Fructidor). will also pass a decree to the effect that the army of
Sambre-et-Meuse must be withdrawn. Three Directors —
Barras, Reubell, and La Revelliere— are to be impeached.
Unless this is done, and the other two Directors consent
to come over to the side of the Councils, the sections, with
Pichegru to lead them, will march upon the Directory
at noon. However, Pichegru hesitates, and the idea of
immediate force is abandoned.
Barras, La Revelliere, and Reubell decide to strike. During the night the troops, under Augereau, quietly enter the city and occupy the quays, the bridges, and the Champs Elysees. 12,000 men and 40 pieces of cannon Sept. 4. surround the Tuileries. At 4.0 a.m. Augereau demands admission.
In the gardens of the Tuileries are 800 grenadiers — the guard of the Legislative Corps. They do not oppose Augereau ; they cheer for the Directory. Augereau enters the Tuileries, arresting Pichegru, Willot, Ramel, and the Inspectors of the Hall. Such members of the hastily-convoked Councils as arrive later are arrested
14 A CHRONOLOGICAL
or turned away. The Odeon and the School of Medicine are appointed as their places of assembly.
At 6.0 a.m. Paris awakes to find the city in the hands of the troops. Everywhere are placards announcing the abortion of a dangerous conspiracy. Letters from Moreau and Conde containing details of the plot are also printed. Paris is exhorted to remain quiet, and in fact does so.
When the Councils are assembled the Directory hastens to give this military coup d'etat an appearance of legality. A message to the Councils states that had the blow not been struck that morning, the Republic would have been lost : the conspiracy being located in the place of session of the Councils. The Council of 500 appoints a Commission, consisting of Sieyes, Poulain-Granpre, Villers, Chazal, and Boulay, and instructs them to draw up a law of public safety. This law is simply an act of ostracism by which 41 members of the Council of 500 are sentenced to depor- tation ; 1 1 of the Elders ; two Directors, Barthelemy and Carnot ; various ex-officials ; and 35 editors or journalists.
The elections of 48 departments are declared void. Laws favourable to priests and emigres are repealed. The royalist party, in short, is ruined, broken, deprived of its weapons. This is its fourth great defeat.
(Of those deported some were sent to the lie de Re ; some further, to Cayenne. Some escaped deportation ; of these Carnot was one.
As a result of the coup d'etat, priests and nobles were excluded from the State. Non-juring priests were banished. The royalist outlaws ceased to fight. Ex-courtiers and ex- officials of the Monarchy were banished. Nobles could become citizens only after a term of seven years.
At this period — towards the end of 1797 — the Directory reached the summit of its power. It was victorious in its wars, and was now at peace. The treaty of Campo-Formio gave France Belgium and Lombardy at the price of a part of the Venetian Republic ; a treacherous and a foolish bargain, as it left the Austrians a foothold in Italy.
The congress of Rastadt was to conclude peace with the Empire. The Coalition of 1792-3 was a thing of the past. Even England treated for peace ; but insincerely. The cession of Belgium, Luxembourg, Nice, Savoy, and the left bank of the Rhine, and the suzerainty over Genoa, Milan, and Holland, was more than unwelcome to the English Government. Pressed by the opposition, however, it
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 15
despatched a plenipotentiary to France ; but the negotia- tions were abortive and war continued.
On the other hand, the Directory had no finances and suffered from this very peace. Its safety lay in continued victories. It dared not disband its huge army. Taxation and the reduction of the national debt, which ruined many investors, had caused the gravest discontent. Seeking an outlet for its military energies, it finally invaded Switzerland and Egypt.) December. Bonaparte returns to Paris ; welcomed by the people with the wildest enthusiasm ; feted, honoured, and flattered.
1798
The Directory sees his return with mingled feelings. It
wishes for war, and it does not desire his presence. He is
offered the " army of England " ; but the invasion of Egypt
is the undertaking actually reserved for him. He sails from
May. Toulon on May 19th, with a fleet of 400 sail.
The neutrality of Switzerland had already been violated in the matter of expelling emigres. Geneva and Vaud were imbued with French republican doctrines. Berne, the seat of the old Swiss aristocracy, was the headquarters of the emigtes and a nest of reactionary conspiracies ; and the policy of the Confederation was largely dictated by Berne. Now the Vaudois invite the French to free them from the yoke of Berne. This determines the Directory, and war breaks out. The Swiss are conquered with difficulty. Geneva is annexed, and the Constitution of the year III is forced on the Helvetian Republic ; leaving it the seat of two hostile factions.
Rome is the next State to be created a Republic. A riot, ending in the death of General Duphot, excuses this measure. France is now at the head of five Republics.
The elections of this year, however, are not favourable to the Directory. The effect of the cotip d'etat of Fructidor is to break the royalist party. The result is the undue strength of the ultra-republican party, which has re-established the old clubs under the new style of Constitutional Clubs. The extreme republicans, strong in the electoral assemblies, have to elect no less than 437 deputies : a result of the coup d'etat of Fructidor. The Directory, desiring to maintain a balance between the revolution and the reaction, and to avoid a relapse into Jacobinism, makes use of a law passed by the Councils in the previous spring ; a law permitting
16 A CHRONOLOGICAL
it to judge the operations of the electors. On the 22nd of Flo real the majority of elections are annulled ; thus breaking the power of the extremists.
1798-9
(Henceforth the Directory is no longer constitutional, and it has turned upon the two chief parties. Consequently it can hardly last ; and in fact it satisfies no one. It now consists of Merlin [Douai] and Treilhard, both lawyers; La Revelliere, absorbed in Theophilanthropy ; Barras, treacherous and dissipated ; and Reubell, courageous but narrow.
To make matters worse a general war breaks out again- The plenipotentiaries are still negotiating at Rastadt when the second Coalition opens the campaign ; Russian troops enter Germany and the Austrians advance. The French diplomatists receive twenty-four hours' notice and a safe conduct. But they have hardly left Rastadt when a party of Austrian hussars deliberately attacks them, although aware of their identity and the safe-conduct. Jean de Bry they leave half-dead in the road ; his two colleagues are killed outright. The Legislative Corps, horrified and indignant, declares war.
But already there has been fighting in Italy and on the Rhine, and the Directory, distrustful of Austria, has passed a law of conscription, raising 200,000 men. Naples has advanced upon Rome ; Sardinia upon Liguria. Both Powers were defeated, and the Parthenopian Republic was pro- claimed in Naples. Joubert held Turin. By the time the general campaign began Italy was reconquered.
The Coalition attacks France through Holland, Switzer- land, and Italy. An Austrian army enters Mantuan territory, defeating Scherer. Souvaroff joins the Austrians ; Moreau, replacing Scherer, is also defeated, and retreats in a north- westerly direction to join Macdonald in keeping the Apennines ; but the latter is overpowered on the Trebia. Austria and Russia then turn their attention to Switzerland. The Archduke Charles, after defeating Jourdan on the Rhine, is joined by some Russian troops and prepares to cross the Swiss frontier. The Duke of York lands in Holland with 40,000 English and Russian troops.)
1799
May. The elections of the year VII are republican, as were those of the year VI. The Directory is unable to stem the
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 17
flood of foreign disasters and domestic discontent. Reubell retires, and is replaced by Sieyes, an open enemy of Directorial methods. Both moderates and extremists demand an account of the condition of France. The Councils are in permanent session, desiring the dismissal of Treilhard, Merlin, and La Revelliere. Barras keeps out of the way. June i8. Treilhard is deposed on a constitutional point. Merlin and La ReveUiere finally retire, the Councils being insistent. They are replaced by the moderate Ducos and the republican Moulin. This amounts to a coup d'etat on the part of the Councils. The government is thus beyond the pale of constitutional law and utterly unsatisfactory to all parties.
Sieyes, who had been comparatively inactive since 1789, felt that his time had come. He knew the army to be the only possible instrument of reform ; he sought therefore for a soldier. Joubert had been sent to Italy in the hope that he might return a second Napoleon.
Against him in his attack upon the Constitution of the year III Sieyes had Gohier and Moulin, the 500, and the Manege, or extremists. Barras, whether in earnest or not, was conspiring with Louis XVIII ; and the royalist party was awake to its opportunities. Everywhere it looked as though the Republic would be defeated. The royalists hoped for the appearance of the Coalition and the restora- tion of the Monarchy. Already restive under the law of hostages and that of compulsory loans, the party took the field again in the south and south-west ; and the Chouan war also revived.
At this juncture, fortunately for the Republic, the French troops begin to recover their losses. Sept. 20. Italy is again lost, but Brune foils the invasion of Holland, forcing the Anglo- Russian army to re-embark, and Massena 25. opposes the progress of the Austro- Russian troops across Switzerland. Twelve days of able strategy and wonderful activity enable him to force the Russians to retreat, after beating Souvaroff and Korsakoff at Zurich. In Italy, how- ever, Joubert is killed at Novi, in the course of a defeat. Even here, however, the allies are forced back before long.
Still Sieyes seeks his general. Moreau is suspect ; Hoche and Joubert dead ; Massena only a first-class cavalry man. Jourdan and Bernadotte are of the Manege. Sieyes has to mark time. VOL. IV. 2
18 A CHRONOLOGICAL
But Bonaparte, on his disastrous return from Syria, has received his budget of news. Oct. 9. Hastily leaving his army, he lands at Frejus on October 9th. His passage across France is a triumph. Paris fetes him ; all seek his favour. Here is an independent conqueror ; an administrator ; one who can handle millions, and who, most rare of qualities, can leave himself free for greater efforts by delegating his authority to the right men. A man to handle almost any situation ; perhaps a man capable of handling this and Sieyes with it. So Sieyes fears. But there is no other choice ; he must have Bona- parte with him, for he cannot oppose him. He hangs back; their friends bring the two together. Nov. 6. On the 15th of Brumaire, Sieyes prepares the Councils by means of the Inspectors of the Halls. Bonaparte is to ^ sound the troops around Paris, and their generals. An
extraordinary meeting of the moderates of the Councils is arranged. The Councils are to be got out of Paris; the rest is for Bonaparte to perform. Nov, 9. The secret is kept. On the morning of the i8th of (18/// of Brumaire three of Sieyes' henchmen go down to the Elders, Brumaire.) who have been convoked by the Inspectors, as arranged. The business of the three is to alarm the Elders, or to afford an excellent pretext for pretended alarm. It; is stated that all the roads of France are thick with Jacobins making for Paris ; the Revolutionary Government will be re-established ; red ruin will return— if the Elders are not wise and courageous.
A fourth conspirator, Regnier, demands a decree ordain- ing the removal of the Legislative Corps to Saint-Cloud, Bonaparte, appointed to the 17th division of the Army, shall superintend their safe removal. The decree is im- mediately passed.
Bonaparte awaits the news in his own house, surrounded by general officers. Outside are three regiments of cavalry — about to be reviewed. At 8.30 he receives the news. The officers draw their swords in token of adhesion to his project ; he marches at their head to the Tuileries, takes the oath of fidelity at the bar of the Elders, and places an officer of his own at the head of the Directorial Guard.
Sieyes and Ducos hasten to the Tuileries and resign. This leaves only three Directors — Barras, Moulins, and Gohier. They find that their own Guard is loyal to Bona- parte. Barras resigns and goes to his country seat.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 19
Only the 500 are left to be reckoned with. The decree of the Elders is posted on the walls, as well as a proclama- tion of Bonaparte's. In this he speaks as a master, in a way to astonish and alarm the repubhcans. " What have you done," he says, " with the France I left in your hands ? I left you at peace, victorious ; I find you at war, de- feated. . . ." Nov. 10. The Councils proceed to Saint-Cloud ; Sieyes and Ducos {igih of accompany them. Sieyes wishes to arrest all but the Brumaire: moderates. Bonaparte is so used to the discipline of camp and field that he hardly as yet realises that a revolution cannot be effected by issuing orders ; he refuses to be a party to these arrests. The Elders are to meet in the Gallery of Mars ; the 500, in the Orangery. The re- publicans wait uneasily about the chateau, indignant at the display of force.
At 2 p.m. the Councils assemble. The campaign opens in the Orangery, where Lucien Bonaparte presides. Gaudin, a Bonapartist, proposes a vote of thanks to the Elders for the measures of safety decreed. A violent uproar follows. Finally one Delbred proposes the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the year III. The oath is taken.
Bonaparte, hearing of this scene, hastens to the Elders. He complains that he has done their bidding ; yet men are execrating him as a Cromwell. Yet, he says, how can he ignore his orders ? France has no government at this moment I Four Directors have resigned ; one is under police protection. Let the Elders decide what shall be done !
Here one Linglet proposes the oath that has just been taken in the younger Council. It is a critical moment : the oath once taken, the coup d'etat must fail. Bonaparte hastily declares that the Constitution does not exist : it is dead. Three times has it been over-ridden. All parties swear by it, yet violate it. A new social compact is called for. The Elders applaud, and rise to their feet in agreement.
Bonaparte now hastens to the other Council, guarded by a few grenadiers. At the sight of the waiting bayonets the deputies rise to their feet ; the advancing general is met with an outburst of cries : " Outlaw him I Outlaw him! Down with the despot!" He is roughly handled; the grenadiers close round him, and he retires, greatly
20 A CHRONOLOGICAL
agitated by his failure. Political tumult is so far more dreadful to him than shot and shell.
The Council continues its cries of "Outlaw him/" It proposes to sit " permanently" ; to return to Paris, guarded by part of Bonaparte's own division, commanded by Bernadotte. Lucien Bonaparte resigns his presidency and lays down the presidential insignia.
Bonaparte, surrounded by officers, is still not himself. Le Febvre sends a detachment to bring Lucien from the Council. Being thus rescued, Lucien mounts by his brother's side, and addresses the troops ; declaring that daggers have been drawn upon their general in the younger Council (a convenient invention) ; and that the majority of the Council is now in bodily fear of a small desperate minority. He will enter the assembly with the troops ; all members who refuse to follow him out are traitors.
Bonaparte himself speaks. It was hoped that the younger Council would save the country ; but it is a nest of conspiracy directed against him. May he rely on his soldiers ? They cheer him ; he gives the order to clear the Orangery. The order is executed with fixed bayonets, Leclerc crying out that the Legislature is dissolved. At 5.30 there is neither Council nor Directory. The coup d'etat of Brumaire is successful.
People do not foresee in this coup d'etat the end of the Revolution, but the restoration of order. The royalists hope that Bonaparte is merely clearing the way for Louis XVIII. The proscribed look for amnesties. No one an- ticipates a despotism. An exhausted nation looks for recuperation and order. Bonaparte the man of action, initiative, and ability, seems the man for the times. Nov. 12. A Provisional Government is appointed, of three Consuls and two Legislative Commissions — drawn chiefly from the late conspirators — and is entrusted with the formation of a Constitution, &c. For three months all parties are satisfied. The compulsory loans and the law of hostages are abolished to quiet the emigres. Certain shipwrecked emigres are released from prison, but banished ; many priests return. But 36 extreme republicans are to be sent to Guiana, and 21 are placed under supervision. The people considers the act unjust ; the Consuls accordingly commute the general sentence to one of supervision. Meanwhile there is conflict in the Consulate. Sieyes and
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 21
Bonaparte cannot agree as to the Constitution. Sieyes is all for institutions that shall prevent personal power ; Bonaparte wishes to rule as a master. Sieyes is in favour of the commune, department, and state. His constitution of the year VIII. is most able and ingenious, though com- plicated. It leaves Bonaparte the position of Grand Elector, with a revenue of six million francs, a guard of three thousand men, and Versailles for a residence. Bonaparte refuses to " fatten like a hog on a few millions." Ducos and the Committee of Constitution siding with Bonaparte, Sieyes does not insist. Dec. 24. In December the Constitution is proclaimed — a garbled wreck of Sieyes' work. The Government consists of three Consuls, a Council of State, a Senate, a Legislative Corps, and a Tribunate. The Senate is primarily appointed by the Consuls ; the Consuls only can propose laws. The Senate selects the two lower assemblies from the lists of candidates sent in by the nation. There are no more electoral assemblies. The people is politically wiped out. Bonaparte is first Consul ; Cambaceres second Consul ; Lebrun third Consul. Talleyrand is appointed to Foreign Affairs ; Fouche to the Police. By employing these four Bonaparte hopes to gain a hold over all the parties. The Constitution itself is accepted by a plebiscite of over three million voters.
1800
January. About this time the western troubles terminate. The leaders of La Vendee capitulate ; the Breton leaders are beaten, killed, or have laid down their arms.
By February all France is quiet.
Bonaparte makes overtures of peace to England and Austria, which are refused, to his secret relief. It is decided to continue the war. A proclamation calls the nation to arms in the name of honour ; England hopes to degrade France ; is said to be busily bribing the enemies of France, &c. The army of the Rhine (100,000) is under Moreau, whose lines are opposed to Kray's. Massena is with the army of Italy, opposed to Melas. Bonaparte leaves Moreau and Massena to do their best, and gathers a secret reserve near the Swiss frontier. Ostensibly Berthier is to command it. Many doubt its existence. Moreau having driven back Kray to a certain point. May. Bonaparte suddenly arrives in Geneva on the 9th of May.
22 A CHRONOLOGICAL
Taking certain divisions from Moreau, he does relieve Massena, as was to be expected ; he crosses the Alps by the St. Bernard pass and cuts off the Austrian line of retreat, occupying Milan. Establishing himself in Alessandria,
June 9. the Battle of Marengo is won on the 9th of June, On the 14. 14th of June Melas, owing to a risky piece of strategy, is able to defeat him at Marengo ; when a charge of cavalry, together vi/ith the return of a column under Desaix, turns the defeat to victory. Melas, on the 15th, signs a conven- tion abandoning tlae greater part of Italy ; though had he continued the battle it is said that he would have won. (Moreau, freed from his instructions, completed the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden in the following December, when treaty followed treaty until Napoleon could pose as the pacificator of Europe.)
July 2. Bonaparte is back in Paris in forty days, having regained Italy and struck the Austrians an almost mortal blow. The enthusiasm of his reception is unbounded. 14. Bonaparte is present at the Festival of the 14th.
His policy about this time is to pacify the defeated factions by employing them in the State. To leaders who abandon their causes he is generous.
Dec. 3. Moreau wins the battle of Hohenlinden.
In this month Bonaparte narrowly escapes from destruc- tion by a Breton-English conspiracy. Some Chouans hatch the plot in England. They land in France and repair to Paris ; a powder-barrel on a truck is exploded in a narrow street, but the fuse is timed a few seconds too late. The police attribute the plot to the democrats. 130 are deported by a senatns consultus. The true authors, being discovered, are executed, being condemned by illegal mihtary tribunals. The 130 deported are chiefly Jacobins, a party for which Napoleon has an especial enmity.
1801
Jan. 8. The treaty of Luneville is concluded by the Viennese cabinet, the Empire, and Austria. Austria lays down her arms, ceding Tuscany to the Duke of Parma. The Empire recognises the independence of the Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian Republics. Feb. 18. By the treaty of Florence, the King of Naples cedes Elba and Piombino, Sept. The treaty of Madrid is signed on the 29th.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 23
Oct. The treaty of Paris is signed with Portugal on the 8th. Treaties with Russia and the Porte follow.
1802
March. The treaty of Amiens completes the pacification of Europe, It is signed on the 25th of March.
The continental Powers thus yielding, England is forced for a time to discontinue the war. The Pitt Ministry falls. England restores the French colonies and recognises French conquests.
The French navy has been practically annihilated during the naval war with England. San Domingo revolting, Napoleon loses an army in attempting to subdue the revolution. He causes the death of Toussaint I'Ouverture by a peculiarly unpleasant piece of treachery.
During this period Bonaparte has been turning his attention to organising internal industry and prosperity. Nobles and clergy are allowed to return to France. Dis- sentient priests may resume their functions and draw their stipends by taking the oath. An act of pardon affects all but actual supporters of the Pretender.
Bonaparte travels through the departments ; builds roads and bridges, and cuts canals. He also gives attention to the civil, penal, and commercial codes. Civilisation makes enormous strides ; comfort and prosperity are the keynotes of French life.
(During this period Bonaparte conceives three projects : (i) To organise religion — to establish the Church (probably with a view to his coronation when Emperor). (2) To create the Legion of Honour — an organised military order permeating the Army. (3) To increase his own personal power — for life, if possible. He lives in the Tuileries, and gradually gathers a Court about him. Negotiations with Pius VII result in the Concordat, and the creation of chapters, bishoprics, and archbishoprics. The Church is established under the monarchy of the Pope.)
Bonaparte finding himself forced to break with the constitutional party, the more energetic tribunes are dis- missed by a senatus consulius, leaving only eighty. At the same time the Legislative Corps is similarly purged, leaving Bonaparte in the position of an uncontrolled despot. April 6. Bonaparte proposes the Concordat. The project is adopted by the Assemblies. Sunday is re-established.
The Concordat is celebrated in Notre Dame with great
24 A CHRONOLOGICAL
pomp. The first Consul arrives in a coach belonging to the Court of Louis XVI. May 6. On the motion of Chabot, proposing that Bonaparte shall be signally honoured by the nation, a senatus consultus appoints him Consul for a further period of ten years. Bonaparte, it is found, is not satisfied. 13. The Legion of Honour is instituted. July 16. The Concordat is signed in Paris. Aug. 2. The Senate, upon the decision of the two lower assemblies, and with the consent of the nation as expressed in a plebis- cite, passes a decree appointing Bonaparte for life. A statue of Peace is to be erected in his honour. 4. A senatus consultus makes permanent the Consular Con- stitution, thus excluding the people from the state pohtic. Electors are chosen for life.
15. The Concordat is ratified in Rome.
16. Elba is annexed. Sept. 16. Piedmont is annexed.
Oct. 9. Parma is annexed (the Duke having died).
21. Bonaparte marches 30,000 men into Switzerland, to support a federative act regulating the cantonal consti- tutions. This gives England a pretext for the rupture of peace. Bonaparte also is eager for another war, in order to increase his power. England has formed the Third Coalition.
1803
May 13. After much negotiation of an unfriendly nature, the British Ambassador in Paris leaves for England on the 13th. 26. By the 26th the French are in Hanover. The old Empire, nearly moribund, does not resist. In the meantime Bonaparte is making preparations for the invasion of England.
1809
The resumption of hostilities revives the hopes of the Chouans. Once more a conspiracy is formed, and en- couraged by the English Cabinet. Cadoudal and Pichegru arrange to land on the French coast and proceed to Paris. Moreau is implicated. Feb. In the middle of February the conspirators are arrested. Cadoudal is executed ; Pichegru is found strangled in prison ; Moreau, of whom Bonaparte is somewhat jealous, is exiled.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS 25
March. Bonaparte, wishing further to cripple the royalists, sends a squadron of cavalry to abduct the Due d'Enghien from
15. the castle of Ettenheim in Baden. Accused of directing the conspiracy, he is tried and shot in the trenches of Vincennes.
His escape renders Bonaparte's person dearer to the Army and the people. He is overwhelmed by congratu- latory addresses.
27, The Senate, hearing of the plot, sends Frangois at the head of a deputation, imploring Bonaparte to " perpetuate himself" ; and asking him to settle the institutions and mark out the destinies of France. April 25. Bonaparte replies from Saint-Cloud that he wishes the Senate to communicate its ideas on the subject of "the supreme hereditary magistracy." May 3. The Senate replies that the interests of France will be promoted by confiding the government to Bonaparte as hereditary Emperor.
Curee opens the debate on the subject in the Tribunate. Only Carnot opposes his motion. Bonaparte's monarchical and anti-Republican institutions being established, he can safely accept the supreme power. The Senate, Tribu- nate, and Legislative Corps all agreeing, the Empire
18. is proclaimed at Saint-Cloud on May i8th. A senatus consiiltus modifies the Constitution. Princes, marshals, chamberlains, &c., must be created. The liberty of the press exists no longer. The Tribunate and the Council of State will meet in secret. Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Kellermann, Le Febvre, Perignon, and Serurier are created marshals. Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte are styled princes of the Imperial family. Pope Pius VH comes to France to perform the ceremony of coronation. Dec. 2. At last, after months of preparation, Napoleon is crowned Emperor in Notre Dame and anointed by the Pope. For ten years the government of France remains despotic.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
BY THE TRANSLATOR
The Pretender.
Stanislas Xavier Louis, known as Louis XVIII, was a
younger brother of Louis XVL Born on November 17, 1755, he was known as the Comte de Provence. He married, in 1771, Marie Josephine Louise, daughter of Victor Amadeus HI, King of Sardinia. He is the prince referred to as Monsieur in the text.
A hopeless reactionary, opposing every measure of reform, he was one of Louis XVI's bad angels. He left Paris on the night of the flight to Varennes, and, making for Lille, took refuge in Belgium. From Coblentz, where he and his brother, the Comte d'Artois, held a kind of court, the two issued royalist proclamations, which made Louis XVI's position more than ever uncomfortable.
Louis XVni was with the emigres who accompanied the Prussians on the occasion of Brunswick's manifesto.
After the death of Louis XVI, the Comte de Provence proclaimed the Dauphin king. Upon the reported death of the latter in 1795 he proclaimed himself king. From that year until 1807 he frequently changed his place of residence, being often compelled to do so by Napoleon's enmity ; but in 1807 he settled in England, On April 26, 1814, he landed at Calais, under the protection of the allied armies. The Empress regent, upon the ascendancy of the legitimist party, was put aside for a provisional government ; and Louis XVIII claimed almost absolute power. He then granted a constitution establishing a House of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies ; and the ancien regime was resumed with all its evils. The clergy and aristocracy, as was to be expected, were easily able to influence Louis and persuade him to a persecution of their opponents. Consequently Napoleon was eagerly welcomed on his return from Elba. Louis and his family fied to Belgium until the fall of Napoleon. From Cambrai he acknow- ledged his errors, and promised an amnesty. The rest of his reign was
26
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 27
a time of disorder, persecution, and massacre. Upon his return he was advised to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, which was hopelessly reactionary and fanatical; the result was a series of royalist con- spiracies against him and his constitution. Nobles and priests gathered mobs of assassins and massacred the Protestant and revolutionary opposition in the provinces.
Louis died in September, 1829. His brother, the Due d'Artois, succeeded as Charles X.
Napoleon.
Napoleon Bonaparte, second son of Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Letizia de Ramolino, both of Ajaccio, Corsica, was born on August 15, 1769. Ten years later he was sent to the Royal Military College of Brienne le Chateau ; after live years he proceeded to the Mihtary School of Paris. Next year (1785) he was commissioned as second lieutenant in the artillery, and for some time was on garrison duty, spending his leave in Corsica. His father died in 1785. On the outbreak of the Revolution he first saw service in Corsica ; his ambition at the age of twenty seems to have been to play the part of local patriot and hero. Joining Paoli's party, he was afterwards elected colonel of the National Volunteers of Ajaccio. An attempt to seize that town failing, he returned to France. He had broken leave ; but revolution- ary officers were needed, and his commission was restored. Again he returned to Corsica, and took part in an expedition upon Sardinia, which failed. The French Government now attempting to crush Paoli and the patriot party, Napoleon (presumably seeing that his future lay in France, rather than in a futile struggle against her, and perhaps frightened by the temporary loss of his commission) now attempted to seize Ajaccio for the French. Faihng again, and so making Corsica impossible for himself, he and all his family took refuge in France.
A curious, half-educated youth of scant and uneven culture, but able in his profession of artillery ; of a mathematical, logical, and cynical type of mind, endowed with the hardy egoism of the island feudist, and a precocious knowledge of men drawn from years of brooding observation of his richer fellow-students and officers ; capable of intense application and patience ; it is probable that personal ambition led to an early conception of the role he intended to play. For the time being, however, there was nothing better to do than to serve under Carteaux against the rebellious Marseillais of Avignon, with the younger Robespierre on the spot as deputy on mission. Presently promoted as battalion leader, he served brilliantly at Toulon, and was the author of the plan which resulted in its capture. Promoted again, to the rank of brigadier, he then had a brief eclipse ; lately a Jacobin,
28 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
with the younger Robespierre at his side sending reports to Paris, the 9th of Fnididor was Hkely to be dangerous to him. However, he was offered a command of infantry in the Western Army. It is significant that he refused it, at the cost of being removed from the list of active generals. He thought of going to Turkey, in order to reorganise the artillery service ; but Barras, who had marked him at Toulon, appointed him second in command of the army of the Interior on the 12th of Vendemiaire. Next day he was virtually, for the time, military commander of Paris, and repelled the sections in their attack upon the Convention.
A man of decisive action, who knew his mind and had command of military power, was not a wholly convenient person at that time. Barras, too, had spoken highly of Napoleon's talents. Some four months later he was given his first great command — that of the army of Italy. On March 9th he married Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, a Creole, widow of General Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais. Two days later he left for Italy. By impressing his army, isolated and far from troublesome commissioners, with the hope of plunder and personal advancement, he gained a weapon for his own ambition ; while he himself began his career as a bold and independent administrator and maker of States ; disobeying the Directory almost completely, and keeping it contented and demoralised by a continual stream of wealth in the shape of "contributions" from conquered States, and works of art. His further career until the beginning of the Empire is to be found in the text.
CHAPTER I
OPINIONS, PARTIES, AND RELIGIOUS POLICIES BEFORE THE i8th of FRUCTIDOR
I. The oaths and the parties.— II. The Directorial or bourgeois RepubHcans. — III. The Democrats. Babeuf and Babeuvism. — IV. The RoyaHsts.— V. The rehgious policy: the national festivals : Theophilanthropy.— VI. The religious policy : Catho- licism.—VII. The coup d'etat of the i8th of Fructidor.
I.
The series of civic oaths established by law under the Directory gives an excellent idea of the vicissitudes of circumstances and of public opinion.
On the 23rd of Nivose of the year IV, the law which ordered the celebration of " the anniversary of the just punishment of the last king of the French " enacted also that on this day the members of the two Councils, " individually, and from the tribune, should swear their hatred of royalty." On the 19th of Ventose following all the members of the constituted authorities were com- pelled to take the same oath under penalty of deporta- tion. On the 24th of Nivose of the year V, in order to give the oath to be taken on January 21st " such a character as would simultaneously confirm the hatred of the French of the monarchical system and of anarchy, and their attachment to the Republic and the Constitu- tion," the formula was modified as follows : "I swear that I hate royalty and anarchy, I swear attachment
29
30 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
and fidelity to the Republic, and the Constitution 'of the year III." On the 30th of Ventose of the year V each elector, in the electoral assemblies, was compelled to make the following declaration : "I promise my attachment and fidelity to the Republic and the Con- stitution of the year III. I undertake to defend them with all my might against the assaults of royalty and of anarchy." The revolutionary law of the 19th of Fructidor of the year V (Article 32) substituted for this promise the oath established by the law of the 24th of Nivose of the year V. On the 12th of Thermidor of the year VII this new form of oath was introduced : " I swear fidelity to the Republic and the Constitution of the year III. I swear to oppose with all my might the re-establishment of royalty in France and of every kind of tyranny."
Thus, in the year IV the oath expressed merely hatred of royalty ; in the year V it also expresse;'d hatred of anarchy (which means the democratic Republic) ; in the year VII it no longer expresses this hatred of anarchy. Here we see clearly the oscillations of general politics and of public opinion. At the outset of the Directory the anti-royalist reaction which set in after the day of the 13th of Vendemiaire was pre- dominant. Then came the affair of Babeuf and the affair of the camp of Crenelle ; these led to an anti- democratic movement. Finally, at the time of the military losses in the year VII, there was a return to the forms of the Terror.
The great majority of Frenchmen capable of forming an opinion found themselves, on one pretext or another, able to accept these oaths, the succession and diversity of which enlighten us as to the general progress of the political revolution.
This was exactly what the Legislature had hoped for in establishing them ; it hoped in this way to institute some kind of unity of opinion in France, or at least
THE OATHS: THEIR FUTILITY 31
to compel the oppositions of the Right and Left to take refuge in abstention from poUtical life, rather than lie to their own consciences. This hope was disappointed ; the oppositions resigned themselves to taking the oaths ; these were finally regarded as mere formalities binding no man to anything. There was a little more hypocrisy in political manners, and rather more scepti- cism ; the opposing parties had to disguise themselves, but did not cease to exist nor to act.
This disguise, transparent though it was at the time, nevertheless adds to the obscurity and the confusion of a retrospective aspect of the parties and of their current opinions. Even to distinguish royalists from republicans one must look very closely. From 1798 to 1799 all Frenchmen, with rare exceptions, styled themselves republicans. Some did so from conviction, because they really were republicans ; others out of fear, on account of the law of the 27th of Germinal of the year IV ; ^ others as a matter of reason and of patriotism, because the Republic alone, the only form of government at that time possible, could ensure the independence of France and prevent the return of the ancien regime. Frenchmen were almost unanimous, firstly, in desiring military victories and peace, secondly, in wishing to maintain the Revolution.
Save when they throw off the mask, taking up arms in Poitou, Brittany, or Normandy, or where they are surprised in conspiracy, the royalists are extremely difficult to distinguish. But we may safely call royalists all whose words and actions tended to destroy all the principles of the Revolution, and to discredit all the men of the Revolution.
It is still more difficult to perceive in what the repub- licans differ among themselves . tWe see clearly enough that some defend the Directory while others attack it ; but they are not always consistent ; the meqaber ' Forbidding the proposal of the " agrarian law."
32 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
of the opposition on the Left will be " Directorial " to-morrow, or was so yesterday. But both have a com- mon meeting -ground, to which they incessantly return after their quarrels, there to march side by side. I mean that Directorials and anti-Directorials are all, to use the modern phrase, anti-clerical. They are in complete agreement as to the institution of the lay State ; as to the importance of preventing the Catholic religion from becoming dominant, and of developing rationalism by the progress of education and the celebration of non-religious festivals.
No republican was at that time " clerical." Even those who, while styling themselves republicans, de- manded a better position for the Catholic Church, did not require that the Church should resume the privi- leged position it occupied before 1789. They were royalists (Vendeeans, Chouans, or emigres), who made such demands ; but not all royalists made them.
It was the religious question which increasingly separated the royalists and the republicans. But it did not divide the republicans against themselves.
The question which did divide the republicans was that of political and social equality. There were bourgeois and democratic republicans. But the frontier between these two parties, the limits of their camps, were not well defined. There was a continual flux of persons and ideas. Their programmes were indefinite, their words were not ingenuous. The bourgeois or Directorial republicans did not call themselves anti- democratic ; some of them did not believe themselves so. Faithful to the ideas of the philosophers, they saiW the people only in that portion of the population which enlightenment and comparatively easy circumstances rendered independent ; this portion of the people was for them the true people, and the government of this people was democracy.' The democratic republicans ' It was in honour of this "true people" that a "festival of the
THE THREE PARTIES 33
did not definitely demand the re -establishment of universal suffrage. Sometimes, when they summoned up courage to defy the law of the 27th of Germinal of the year IV, or were skilful enough to elude it, they demanded the Constitution of 1793 ; but without insist- ing on universal suffrage. It would seem that while disowning the system of Terrorism they dreamed of a return to the forms of the year IT; of the reconstitu- tion of a. state of things in which distinguished men, in Paris, would govern France by means of the breech- less mob. If they did not definitely cry out for the universal suffrage, it was because they saw that the people were not eager to exercise electoral rights ; they hardly seemed aware, indeed, that they had been deprived of the rights in question. ^What did they want to-day? Simply a condition of general welfare. Seeing them sensible only of their own interests, the democrats allied themselves with the socialists (Babeu- vists, equalitarians. Communists) on two separate occa- sions— in the year IV and in the year VII.
To sum up : between 1795 and 1799 we can distin- guish three parties, if we can give the name to groups of men of whom neither the personal composition, nor the boundaries, nor the programme was definitely determined : the bourgeois or Directorial republicans, the democratic republicans, and the royalists.
II.
The bourgeois^ Directorial republicans are properly the partisans of the Constitution of the year III. Cer- tainly the other parties also uphold the Constitution, except in times of sedition ; but only as a matter of tactics ; the royalists make use of it to reproach the democrats, and vice versa. The Directorial republi-
Sovereignty of the People " was instituted in thel year VI. Sec farther on.
VOL. IV. 3
34 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
cans uphold it and love it for itself, so to speak, because they stand by the property-owners' suffrage, in which they see the basis, the means and form of their conservative-liberal policy.
This policy is liberal in so far as it tends to re- establish the liberty suspended by the revolutionary Dictatorship ; the first words of the Directory in its first proclamation are : Resolved to maintain liberty or to perish.
It is conservative in that it seeks to maintain the institution of property, threatened by Babeuf . Property being the basis of society as now established, to main- tain property is to uphold and preserve society.
The words which express these policies are now entering into common usage.
The word " conservative " is the oldest. It dates from the time when the Constitution of the year III was formed. We read, in a report of the 5th of Messidor of the year III, concerning the public opinion of Paris : " All are sighing for a powerful government dear to those who wish to conserve, and feared by the per- verted multitude whose order is disorder." In another report, dated the 1 8th of the following Thermidor, we read that the Parisian public is demanding " a tutelary and conservative government, in the shadow of which every one can live without trouble." From this time the word enters into the jargon of political life. Thus on the 18th of Floreal of the year VI, before the Five Hundred, Jean de Bry regrets that the last elections were not " republican and conservative." In his procla- mation of the 19th of Brumaire of the year VIII, at eleven o'clock at night, Bonaparte says : " Conservative, tutelary, and liberal ideas have regained their former place (have re-entered into their rights)."
As for the word liberal, this proclamation of Bona- parte's is the first text I have come across in which the word is used in the sense of what is favourable to
THE ANTI-CLERICAL PARTY 35
civil and political liberty. But Bonaparte would not employ a neologism in a proclamation ; hence the word liberal had for some time already been employed and understood in this sense.
This conservative-liberal party differed from the con- servative party such as we afterwards see it under Louis-Philippe in this : that although it based society upon property, it did not base it upon religion.
Ardently anti-clerical, it desired, as I have said, and will now repeat, to realise the secular state ; to govern by means of reason. It was frankly republican. Although it would have nothing to do with universal suffrage, it did desire to preserve some of the forms and customs of the democracy of the year II. For instance, it rigidly maintained the republican calendar, and made its employment obligatory to all Frenchmen. It proscribed the word monsieur and ordered the em- ployment of the word citizen. It made the wearing of the cockade compulsory, even for women. It republi- canised the names of streets. ' It compelled the directors of theatres to have republican songs chanted. It organised and celebrated, with extreme pains, the anni- versary festivals of the death of Louis XVI. It sur- rounded France with republican allies : the Dutch, Swiss, Cisalpine, Roman, and Parthenopean Republics. Above all, it brought about the coup d'etat of the 1 8th of Fructidor. One of its members only — Barras — was regarded as being secretly a royalist ; but only towards the end of his Directorial career ; not because his relations with the Pretender — if he ever had any — had ever appeared in the words and actions of the Directory, which exhibited, from the year IV to the
' Fans pendant la reaction, vol. iii. p. 60 ; vol. iv. pp. 67, 512 ; vol. v. pp. 42, 55, 61, 228. In Floreal of the year VI the central bureau of the canton of Paris, without fear of ridicule, saw to it that in drinking bars, &c., the proprietors should no longer offer " March " beer, but Germinal beer (vol. iv. p. 664).
36 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOB
year VIII, a republicanism as ardent as that which had appeared in the words and actions of the Committee of Public Safety.
The bourgeois republican party had a club, the Con- stitutional Club (or cercle), which, on the morrow of the reactionary elections of the year V, affirmed, by the mouth of Riouffe, its anti-Terrorist, anti-royalist, and anti -clerical opinions :
" O Terror," said Riouffe (on the 9th of Mcssidor), " thou who didst so deeply plunge thy dagger into the heart of the young, growing Republic ; thou whose lamentable effects have outlived thee in so bitter a manner, giving rise each moment to obstacles and dangers which obstruct republican feet ; thou, whose venom is found in all the plagues of the republic ; thou monster composed of anarchy, brigand- age, tyranny, and royalism : we consign thee to the execration of the ages ! Never strive to stretch thy bloody mantle over the republicans, to stifle them ; in vain ; they fling it off ! "
But the royalist peril was greater and more pressing than the Terrorist peril ; and at this period, according to Riouffe, it assumed the form of a league, a con- spiracy of anti-philosophical writers. They sought to " plunge the people back into the midst of superstitions in order to give them back to slavery " ; to lead the peasants to feudality and servitude and the burden of tithes, by means of the mass and the sound of bells. The Constitutional Club was accordingly about to undertake a propaganda against the clerical reaction.'
This party was the ruling party ; but it was unable to govern by itself alone. It was obliged to lean in succession, and according to the circumstances^ upon the democratic republicans and the njonarchists in dis- guise ; hence the term, the " see -saw policy " of the Directory. However, it leaned more often to the left than to the right ; firstly, because the men of the left were its natural allies in its an ti -clerical policy ; and
' Discours lu au Cercle constiiutionel Ic 9 Mcssidor an V, par Honord Riouffe.
THE DEMOCRAT REPUBLICANS 37
secondly, because on accasion, in the case of military- reverses, the democratic republicans alone were capable of evoking a popular patriotic movement against the foreigner allied with the royalists.
III.
Those whom we call democratic republicans, and who were then stigmatised as Jacobins, anarchists, or Terrorists, were so uncertain of what they desired, and so little sustained by public opinion, that they hesitated to style themselves democrats, or to call themselves the democratic party. In the year IV they called them- selves " exclusively patriots of '89," or " patriots par excellence " ; and, shortly afterward, *' the patriots of '92." At that time their adversaries Used to call them " the Exclusives." A police report of the ist of Thermidor of the year V mentions, among other poli- tical caricatures, the following: "The Exclusive, a man of sinister aspect, in the attitude of the Farnese gladiator, holding before him a dagger on which is inscribed : Fraternity ; in his other and foremost hand a levelled pistol, on the lock of which is the legend liberty; sticking out from his pocket are warrants, and a legend reading 2nd September.'''' Up to the period of the Consulate the police often employed the word " exclusives " to denote the opposition of the Left, which we now call the republican-democratic party.
They formed a party long without a head, since the leading democrats had perished on the scaffold. Their leaders in the year IV were well known, but not of the first rank ; notably F61ix Le Peletier (brother of the Conventional assassinated in January, 1793), and Anto- nelle ; two ex -nobles, of whom the latter was extremely wealthy. At the outset of the Directory there were hardly any republican -democrats in the Legislature. They attempted, almost immediately, to reconstitute the
38 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
old Jacobin Club, by founding the Pantheon Club, and another, the Reunion. The " Pantheonists " were of most importance. In Frimaire of the year IV they numbered 934. They tried to influence the depart- ments. As the Constitution (Article 362) prohibited correspondence between clubs and societies, they solved their dififtculty by meeting nightly at the Cafe Chretien, and by writing, as habitual customers of the cafe, to the " exclusives " of the provinces.
The Pantheonists had no very definite programme. They urged the Directory to take severer measures against the royalists ; and above all they demanded remedies for the sufferings of the people : the words subsistence, famine, were always on their lips.
At the Cafe Chretien they were more violent without being more definite. Robespierre was eulogised there ; and they read the journal of Babeuf, who demanded that the Directory should effect a coap-d' etat directed against the royalists.
We have seen that the Directory, by the order of the 8th of Ventose of the year IV, closed the Pantheon and some other clubs.
Forced to conceal themselves, the democrats began to conspire together ; and, as the people of Paris were troubled as to matters of provisions, as life in Paris was becoming extremely expensive, a portion of Paris made an alliance with Babeuf.
There was a " Babeuvist " conspiracy, which was betrayed by a certain Grisel, an agent provocateur. .On the 2 1 St of Floreat of the year IV the Directory had the leaders arrested : Babeuf, Buonarroti, Darthe, Germain, and Drouet.i Various ex-Conventionals were
' On the same day, in order to deprive the democrats of their leaders, a law was passed which forbade ex-Conventionals to reside or stay in the department of Seine unless they exercised public functions in that department. All ex-functionaries, all discharged or pensioned soldiers, all accused of emigration, all strangers, and persons
THE BABEUVIST CONSPIRACY 39
involved' : Drouet, Laignelot, Amar, Vadier, Robert Lindet, Ricord. The leading democrats were also im- plicated : Felix Le Peletier, Antonelle, the ex-General Rossignol, &c.
The lorigin of this conspiracy was a " Society of Equals " formed in the prisons, during the Thermi- dorian reaction, through the influence of Babeuf, with a view to effecting an alliance between the democrats and the socialists ; there was here, as we shall see, the outline of the formation of a radical-socialist party.
The papers seized at the conspirators' houses showed that they had formed a " secret Directory of Public Safety," composed of Babeuf, Antonelle, Sylvain Marechal, and Buonarroti, and a kind of " Military Committee," consisting of Fyon, Germain, Massart, Rossignol, and Grisel. The democratic ex-Conven- tionals were sounded. There was a meeting at Drouet's on the 19th of Floreal of the year IV ; the ex-Con- ventionals hesitated, and did not commit themselves. However, the very composition of the " secret Directory " shows that there was an alliance between the Babeuvists and some of the democrats. The Con- stitution of 1793 was the watchword and the bond of union.
The documents especially inform us as to what was Babeuf's doctrine, and what was the object of the conspiracy.
Firstly there is a written document entitled : Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf, which was printed
affected by the amnesty of the 4th of Brumaire of the year IV, were similarly inhibited, unless they obtained a permit of residence from the Directory, Those who did not obtain such permits were obliged to quit the department under three days, removing at least ten leagues from Paris, under penalty of deportation. On the 5th of Prairial following this law was extended to ex-Vendeeans and amnestied persons. The law of the 21st of Floreal was abrogated by those of the 9th of Prairial and the nth of Messidor of the year V.
40 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
and posted up. Babeuvism is very lucidly summed up in the following fifteen Articles :
" I. Nature has bestowed on every man an equal right to the enjoy- ment of all goods.
"2. The end of society is to defend this equality, often attacked by the strong and the wicked in a state of nature, and to augment, by the collaboration of all, the common happiness.
"3. Nature has imposed on every man the obligation of labour ; no one, without crime, can abstain from work.
"4. Work and happiness should be in common.
"5. There is oppression where men are exhausted by work and yet lack everything, while others wallow in abundance without doing any- thing.
" 6. No one can without crime appropriate exclusively the fruits of the earth or of industry.
"7. In a true society, there should be neither rich nor poor.
" 8. The rich who will not part with their superfluity in favour of the indigent are the enemies of the people.
"9. No one, by the accumulation of all the means thereof, may deprive another of the instruction requisite to his happiness ; in- struction should be in common.
" 10. The end of the Revolution is to destroy inequality and to es- tablish the common happiness.
"11. The Revolution is not at an end, because the rich absorb all goods of every kind and are in exclusive domination, while the poor labour as actual slaves, languishing in poverty, and are nothing in the eyes of the State.
"12. The Constitution of 1793 is the true law of the French, because the people have solemnly accepted it ; because the Convention had not the right to alter it ; because, in order to do so, it has shot down the people who demanded its execution ; because it has driven out and beheaded the deputies who did their duty in defending it ; because the fear of the people and the influence of the emigres greatly influenced the drafting and the pretended acceptance of the Constitution of 1795, which did not receive a fourth part of the suffrages given to that of 1793 ; because the Constitution of 1793 ratified the inalienable right of each citizen to consent to the laws, to exercise political rights, to assemble, to demand what he believes useful, to educate himself, and not to die of hunger ; rights which the counter-revolutionary act of 1795 has completely and openly violated.
" 13. Every citizen is required to establish and defend the will and welfare of the people in the Constitution of 1793.
BABEUVISM 41
" 14. All powers emanating from the pretended Constitution of 1795 are illegal and counter-revolutionary.
" 15. Those who have raised their hand against the Constitution of 1793 are guilty of Ihe-majesU against the people."
In another document, the Manifesto of Equals, a pretence was made of not violating the law of the 27th of Germinal of the year IV, which forbade the pro- posal of the Agrarian Law.
" The Agrarian Law, or the partition of the soil, was the unpremedi- tated desire of a few unprincipled soldiers, of a few groups of people moved by instinct rather than by reason. We intend something more sublime and more equitable ; the common good or community of goods. No more individual ownership of land : ihe earth is no man's. We demand, we desire the comfortable enjoyment of the fruits of the earth ; its fruits are every man's." '
Finally, there was a third document, emanating from the " Insurrectionary Committee of Public Safety," and entitled Act of Insurrection. This gave an account of what was about to be done. Here are some portions of it :
Article 10: "The two Councils and the Directory, usurpers of popular authority, will be dissolved. All the members composing them will be immediately judged by the people."
Article 18 : " Public and private property is placed in the custody of the people."
Article ig : " The duty of terminating the Revolution and of bestow- ing on the Republic liberty, equality, and the Constitution- of 1793 will be confided to a national assembly, composed of a democrat for each department, appointed by the insurgent people upon the nomination of the insurrectionary Committee."
Article 20: "'The insurrectionary Committee of Public Safety will remain in permanence until the total accomplishment of the insurrec- tion." »
These documents are enough tp give some idea not only qi the grganisation and gbjeqt of the plot, but
' Buonarroti's Conspiration de Babeuf, vol. i. p. 132. ■ The whole of this "Act of Insurrection" will be found in Buchez, vol. xxxvii. p. 158.
42 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
of the essential ideas of the system which Babeuf had developed in his periodical, the Tribune du peuple oa le Defenseur des droits de Vhomme ; which, commenced and interrupted during the Thermidorian period, had reappeared in Brumaire of the year IV. In this journal he loved to enunciate the following propositions' :
"AH that is possessed by those who have more than their propor- tionate part in the goods of society is held by theft and usurpation ; it is therefore just to take it from them."
" The very man who proves that by his own strength he can earn or do as much as four others is none the less in conspiracy against society, because he destroys the equilibrium by that very fact and destroys precious equality."
"Social institutions must progress to the point where they deprive every' one of the hope of ever becoming richer, or more powerful or more distinguished by his enlightenment and his talents than any of his equals."
" Discord is better than a horrible concord in which hunger strangles one."
" Let all go back to chaos, and from chaos let a new and regenerated earth emerge." '
Babeuf continually praised the equalitarian principles of the Declaration of Rights of 1789, and he called his doctrine the System of Equals.
How far was this doctrine popular in Paris? All we can say is that the people knew of it and gave it some attention. We read in the report of the Central Bureau (dated the 23rd of Germinal of the year IV)' :
"In the Faubourg Antoine, a considerable group was gathered about the placard entitled : Analyse de la doctrine de Babeuf. Farther on a woman was reading the same thing in a smaller bill ; a citizen, agent of the Central Bureau, took it fi'om her ; the group dispersed ; a few demanded if the liberty of the press no longer existed." "To-day, the 28th of Germinal," we read in another report, " we have again found in
' No. 35. For the bibliography of Babeuf s paper see Tourneux, Bibliographie de I'histoire de Paris, vol. ii. Nos. 10,940 and 10,951. On Babeuf in general see V. Advielle, Histoire de Babeuf et du babouvisme, Paris, 1883, and the article Babeuf in the Grande Encyclopedic.
BABEUVIST LITERATURE 43
the markets placards entitled : Doctrine de Babeuf. The inspector warned the commissary of police, who had them removed." '
According to the Courrier ripuhlicaln of the 24th of Germinal of the year IV, the women of the Tuileries distributed the " Analysis " in groups' : " One of them was seen to climb on a chair in the garden of the Tuileries and read aloud this seditious piece of litera- ture. The guard having come forward to put an end to such a scandalous proceeding, the officious Pantheonists contrived the female orator's escape." Nevertheless, the Tribune du peaple was read aloud to assemblages of the people. In Floreal and Germinal of the year IV another socialistic journal appeared : the Eclaireur ; which published a song " for the use of the Faubourgs," commencing thus' :
" Dying of hunger, ruined, bare, Tormented, crushed, what dost thou there.
People ! Thou pin'st away, nigh dead ! While the rich man, with brazen face. Whose wealth was gotten by thy grace,
Insults thee and is comforted."
The anonymous author (he was Sylvain Marechal) pro- ceeded to exalt " sacred equality." To what we to-day should call parliamentarianism he opposed Babeuvism' :
"You, law-machines, you, turning yet. Throw in the fire nor e'er regret
Your budgets all in white and black ! Let be, poor creatures ! Unafraid Equality, without your aid
Knows how to bring abundance back ! "
He also exhorted the soldiers to join the people in order to effect a revolution and realise " the common happiness."
These verses were sung and applauded in the cafes at least, if not the streets.
* These and the following citations are from Paris, &c., vol. iii.
U POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
When the conspiracy was discovered the news was received with scepticism at first, and then with a very- definite reprobation. Every ill-natured person was called Babeuf, as a term of abuse : especially if he did jiot enjoy the fruits of victory. In Pr atrial of the year IV a pamphlet was put in circulation with the object of winning the pity of the people on behalf of Babeuf : in vain. They were more interested in Drouet ; to the extent that in the streets of Perigueux a sentimental romance was sung, of which he was the hero. The personality of Babeuf left the public in- different. In Thermidor of the year IV a secret demo- cratic society, that of the Decius frangais, invited the people to rise in order to prevent a massacre ; but without naming Babeuf, and recommending respect for property. During the trial people murmured at its length ; but the sentence was received with indifference, and the police, so attentive in noting the manifestations of Parisian opinion, on this occasion related few instances or none. Two journals only ventured to ex- press themselves openly : an opposition journal of the Right, the Veridique, lamented a capital sentence based upon writings which had produced no effect ; and the democratic Journal des hommes litres called Babeuf and Darthe " martyrs of Liberty." The Parisian working classes were unmoved ; Babeuf had never won the kind of popularity that Marat had enjoyed ; had never perhaps been popular at all. People gave him! a passing attention when he spoke the language of the year J I ; when he spoke of creating abundance by Terrorist means ; when he fulminated against the Direc- tory. The political writer was not unpleasing ; the socialist, it seems, astonished and alarmed,
Babeuf and his accomplices were tried before the High Court of Vendome. The debates were long ; they lasted from thq 2nd of V^ntose to the 7th of Prairial, The accused were 64 in number ; 1 8, being absent,
THE TRIAL OF THE BABEUVISTS 45
were convicted of Contumacy ; among them Drouet (who had escaped from prison with the complicity, it was said, of the Director Barras), Robert Lindet, Felix Le Peletier, and Rossignol.
Neither in the " acts of accusation " nor in the ques- tions to the jury did the " socialistic " opinions of the accused appear. The questions put before the jury were divided into five categories, corresponding with the five categories of prisoners. They spoke of a con- spiracy to dissolve the Legislature, or to arm the citizens " against the exercise of the legitimate sovereignty." These questions were all resumed in that as to whether there had been an incitement to establish the Con- stitution of 1793. The reply was in the affirmative as regarded Babeuf and Darth^, who were consequently Condemned to death, and were executed on the following day (the 8th of Prairial of the year V) ; it was in the affirmative with extenuating circumstances as regarded Buonarroti, Germain, Moroy, Cazin, Blondeau, Bouin, and Menessier ; negative in the case of the 5 5 others, who were acquitted : among them were Fyon, Laig- nelot, Ricord, Amar, Vadier, the two Duplays, Anton- elle, Drouet, Robert Lindet, Felix Le Peletier, Rossignol, Chretien, Parrein, and Jorry.
The summing up of the President of the High Court gives a good idea of the inanity of the accusation brought against the ex-Conventionals. The debates demonstrated that Ricord and Laignelot, absolute strangers to the conspiracy, had merely assisted at a few conferences between the Babeuvists and the Democrats. No evidence was produced against Amar and Vadier, who had not taken part in any secret meeting. It was evident that Drouet was, at the bottom of his heart, in favour of the Constitution of 1793, and that a secret meeting had been held at his house ; but it was not proved that he had in any way partici- pated in the conspiracy. Grisel had denounced Robert
46 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Lindet as having been present at' the secret meeting of the 19th of Floreal; but being 'questioned as to Lindet's description, stated that his hair was white ; it was, as a matter of fact, entirely black.
But although the democratic ex-Conventionals (with the possible exception of Drouet) had no share in the conspiracy, there evidently was an alliance between the Babeuvists and a very considerable number of demo- crats, neither deputies nor ex-deputies, whose object was to overthrow the Constitution of the year III, 01! at least to ensure that it should be applied by men of the Left, in conformity with the policy of the Left ; not only was such an alliance obvious, but even before the trial one of its signs and one of its results had already been witnessed.
After the checkmate of the Babeuf conspiracy (but before the trial had opened) the democrats attempted to seize the reins of power by a sudden blow. They knew themselves in the minority ; but might not an insurgent minority carry the masses with it? These precursors of B Ian qui (if we may so call them) sounded the ground first : on the night of the i oth of Fructidor, at the very moment when the prisoners were about to leave for Vendome, Paris was filled with white cockades and royalist pamphlets, in order to excite a republican rising. The attempt was in vain. On the 23rd of the same month the democrats, to the number of six or seven hundred armed men, tried to incite the troops in the camp of Crenelle to rise, crying : " Vive la Republique! Vive la Constitution de 1793! A bas les Conseils! A bas les nouveaux tyrans!^^ The troops fired upon them. Many were arrested. The Directory obtained a law enabling them to be judged by a military commission, which pronounced, between the 27th of Fructidor of the year V and the 6th of Brumaire of the year VI, various sentences of death, notably against three ex-Conventionals' : Huguet, Cusset, and Javogues .
THE AFFAIR OF GRENELLE 47
IV.
The Babeuf affair, and that of the camp of Crenelle, led to a reaction by which the royalists profited ; that is to say, they brought about a state of things which was known as the Royalist Peril.
We have seen that at the time of the dissolution of the Convention the royalist party was in a state of decadence, both in those regions where it disguised itself and in those in which it was openly fighting. In Paris the victory of the 13th of Vendemiaire of the year IV had sent it to earth. In La Vendee Charette had taken up arms again ; but the Comte d'Artois,' after a short sojourn upon the He d'Yeu, had re- etobarked. Hoche set to work to pacify the country by skilful and efficacious methods, and the situation of the insurgent leaders became desperate. Stofflet and Charette were captured and shot ; the former on the 6th of Ventose of the year IV, the latter on the 9th of the following Germinal. The other leaders entered into negotiations ; there was no longer a " Royal Army." Brittany too was pacified ; Cadoudal sur- rendered on the 3rd of Messidor of the year IV. At the same time Frotte, who had commenced to excite an insurrection in Normandy, found himself abandoned by his supporters, and departed for London. Normandy remained quiet for more than a year.
Doubtless the resort to arms ordered by Louis XVIII at the moment when he declared himself King should not, in his own mind, have been confined to the departments of Poitou and Vendee. There were other insurrectionary movements also, but they broke out too late to profit the Vendeean insurgents. In Germinal of the year IV a royalist insurrection broke out in Indre,
' The Comte d'Artois went to Edinburgh, where he lived during the whole period of the Directory. It was from there that, more or less in agreement with Louis XVIII, he organised several risings in France.
48 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
at Palluau. General Ddsenfants quickly suppressed it. During this time a more serious 'revolt occurred in some of the communes of the former district of Sancerre which had not accepted the Constitution nor organised their municipalities. They formed a little country existing without laws ; the refuge of deserters and refractory priests. The rebellion broke out at Jars. A band of peasants wearing the white cockade sounded the tocsin, cut down the " Trees of Liberty," burned the administrative papers, and to cries of " Vive le roll Vive la religion! ^^ induced the whole country- side to march upon Sancerre. They occupied this town on the 13th of Germinal of the year IV. The Directory sent out troops under General Ch6rin. The rebels were defeated, and Sancerre retaken (on the 19th and 20th of Germinal). Order was restored almost immediately. But another blow was struck by the royalists almost at the gates of Paris : at Pierrefitte. We read in the Gazette frangais of the 25th of Germinal of the year IV' :
" On the i6th of Germinal a detachment of about a hundred men, armed with pikes, scythes, and pitchforks, marched into the commune of Pierrefitte, where they forced the municipality to collect and to deliver over to them its registers and other papers, as well as the decrees and accounts of compulsory loans and land taxes, which they burned. They then summoned citizen Douet, schoolmaster, to whom, as well as to the municipality, they read in the King's name an order annulling all republican statutes. The secretary to the municipality was forced to read this document aloud, and at the end to cry " Vive le roi ! Vive la religion ! " They then dragged the schoolmaster and the members of the municipality towards the Tree of Liberty. The schoolmaster, despite his refusal, was compelled, in order to avoid immediate death, to give the first blow of the axe to the tree ; he then passed the axe to the municipal officials, who also struck at the tree ; the brigands finished felling it, and the tree was dragged in the mud and burned. To complete their operations they fixed to the top of the belfry a white flag, on which they had forced the secretary of the municipality to write : Vive le roi et la sainfe religion ! "
I have found no document dealing with the sequel to this little rebellion ; but the very fact that the journals
ROYALIST INSURRECTIONS 49
had nothing more to say of the rebels of Pierrefitte shows that the re-estabhshment of order in that canton was not a long nor a difficult matter.
For the time being, then, the armed royalist insur- rections had been suppressed. There were only a few slight disturbances here and there.
The military and diplomatic victories of the Republic during the first year of the Directory compelled the French royalists to conceal themselves. Firstly, from Germinal to Messidor in the year IV, there was the German campaign, the victories of the army of the Rhine imder Moreau, and that of the Sambre-et-Meuse under Jourdan and Kleber. From' Germinal to Ther- 'midor of the same year there was the campaign in Italy and the victories of Bonaparte : Montenotte, Millessimo, Mondovij Lodi, the entrance into Milan, the siege of Mantua, and Castiglione. On the 29th of Thermidor and the 8th of Fractidor the French Re- public concluded peace with the Duke of Wurtemburg and the Margrave of Baden, who ceded their possessions on the left bank of the Rhine. In Vendemiaire of the year V the King of the Two Sicilies proclaimed himself neutral.
But at the beginning of the year V the situation changed. Although the successes of Bonaparte con- tinued in Italy (the creation of the Cisalpine Republic and the victories of Rivoli and La Favorita), in Germany there were serious checks ; the retreat of Jourdan, the death of Marceau, the retreat of Moreau, and the loss of Kehl and Huninguen. Most important in its effect on public opinion was the check upon the negotia- tions with England (in Vendemiaire and Frimaire of the year V) . The war, people said, would last for ever !
On the other hand, the alliance of the democrats with the Babeuvists had reawakened all the old hatred of the Jacobins, anarchists, and terrorists. The Papist clergy (of whom I shall speak again later) were intriguing
VOL. IV. 4:
50 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
in the country districts. A vague discontent jarose against the Directory, which had been unable either to obtain external peace or to maintain internal peace. This discontent was neither sufficiently keen nor suffi- ciently general to encourage the royalists to an immediate recourse to arms ; but the situation seemed a favourable one for the execution of a conspiracy.
The royalist party in its secret organisation had two agencies ; the one military, the other political. ' The military agency, directed by M. de Precy, took in Franche-Comt6, Lyonnais, Forez, Auvergne, and the entire Midi. The political agency, extending over the entire country, had its seat in Paris. Its leaders were the Abbe Brottier, Desponelles, La Villeumoy, and Du- verne de Presle. It established two associations, secret societies, with passwords and signs of recognition : firstly, the " Society of Friends of Order," of which the executive committee was the " coterie of legitimate sons " ; secondly, the " Philanthropic Institute," which was composed of timid, egoistical, and indifferent royalists, and which also recruited itself among the most ardent of the anti-Jacobins, anti-anarchists, and con- servatives. Here are the instructions which were given them' :
"(i) Bring honest men together, and let them form an alliance among themselves. (2) Oppose the influence of the anarchists in the primary assemblies. (3) Furnish the Legislature with pure and upright members ; assist the Government ; be its eye and its sentinel at all times over the anarchists ; be its reserve in critical circumstances."
Each confederate, in every canton, had to vote for the candidates denoted by the Institute.
The agents of the King must accept " no engagement
' As to the origin of this organisation, which antedated the 13th of Vendeniiaire, see Ch. L. Chassin, Les Pacificaiions de I'Ouest, vol. i. pp. 115-118, The details are obtained from the declarations of Duverne and Presle. See these declarations in Buchez and Roux, vol. xxxvii. pp. 437-445.
THE ROYALIST ORGANISATION 51
which might lead to the belief that the King's intention is to re-establish the monarchy on new foundations." The King will reform abuses, but " nothing can persuade him to alter the Constitution of the anclen regime''' However, it was permissible to negotiate with the King. It was Duverne de Presle who revealed these facts in the declaration he made when arrested. He added that in June, 1796 {Pralnal or Messidor of the year IV), a party " offered to serve the King on condition that there would be no change in the then existing Constitu- tion except the concentration of the executive power in his person. The King accepted the service, but wished to discuss the condition. He consequently requested that a legal agent should be sent him." i The party did not dare to obey. Duverne de Presle nevertheless believed that it counted 184 members in the two Councils ; but he adds that the royalists willingly de- luded themselves as to the number of their adherents ; when it came to facts they discovered how few they were.
Finally the King's agents endeavoured to corrupt two officers': Malo, the commandant of the 21st regi- ment of Dragoons, and Ramel, commandant of the Grenadiers of the Legislature, who pretended to be with them, ajid delivered them to justice. Brought before a Council of War, they were condemned only to im- prisonment. La Villeurnoy was deported on the i8th of Fructidor.
This conspiracy having failed,^ Louis XVIII seemed
' There were royalists who disliked even these hints at negotiation. Thus Puisaye protested on January i, 1797 (the 12th of Nivose of the year V).
^ The Prince de la TremoiUe was then entrusted with the direction of the King's affairs in Paris, but he did nothing, and left for London after the i8th of Fructidor. After this the Abbe d'Esgrigny and M. de Rochecot tried to reform the agency, but without instructions (La Sicotiere, Louis de Frotte ct les insurrections normandes, vol. ii, PP-95, 97. 114)-
52 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
ta renounce conspiracy and to resign himself to an " opportunist " policy. In his proclamation to the French of March lo, 1797 (the 20th of Ventose of the year V), he appeared to abandon the idea of regaining his throne by force, and, without denying his absolutist programme, he encouraged his partisans to take part in the coming elections and to obtain the election of moderates and anti -Terrorists.
" Direct men's suffrages," he said, " to men of substance, friends of order and of peace, but incapable of betraying the dignity of the French name, and whose virtues, enlightenment, and courage will be able to assist us to lead our people to happiness. Assure soldiers of all ranks, members of administrations who co-operate in the re-establishment of religion, the laws, and legitimate authority, of rewards commensurate with their services ; but beware of employing, in order to restore them, the atrocious means that were used to effect their overthrow. Expect from public opinion a success that it alone can render durable and solid ; or, if it is necessary to have recourse to arms, at all events do not make use of that cruel recourse except in the last extremity, and in order to give legitimate authority a just and necessary support."
In this way the Pretender encouraged the policy of the disguised and non-absolutist royalists in the two Councils ; who, provisionally resigned to the Republic, drew nearer to the Directory when the discovery of Babeuf's conspiracy rallied all the " conservators " against the " Socialist Peril " ; and among those who so rallied were Mathieu Dumas, Pastoret, and Muraire. The check of the Brottier conspiracy proved to all> whether absolutists, royalists, or constitutionalists, that in order to prepare the ground for royalty, it would be necessary for a certain time to maintain the Constitution of the year IIL : to destroy, by means of this Constitu- tion, the social peril resulting from the alliance of the democrats and the Babeuvists ; to enable ideas of order to prevail, and finally to bring back the monarchy by pacific and legal methods. Thus Frotte, who had returned to France in Germinal of the year V (but
THE ROYALIST OPPOSITION 53
without money and without instructions), stated that in Normandy there was no desire for further civil war ; that it was hoped " to attain the monarchy only by gentle impulses and the decrees of the two Councils."
The elections of the year V gave results in conformity with the advice and the desire of the Pretender. They were as " anti-Terrorist " in character as possible. Of the 2 1 6 Conventionals outgoing, hardly a dozen were re-elected. The malcontents were elected by prefer- ence ; the men who criticised the means and results of the Directory both at home and abroad, and in especial criticised its religious policy, such as the rigorous methods of dealing with the Papist priests, and the law forbidding the ringing of bells. We cannot say that the question " Monarchy or Republic? " was put at these elections. The hostility towards the Direc- tory and the ex-Conventionals was visible not only in the departments of the west and the north, which were noted for their moderatism ; it was also marked in fully half the departments of the south-east, which, we have seen, were formerly so strongly republican. Although the departments of Aude, Card, and Pyr^n^es-Orientales voted in favour of the Directory, those of Bouches-du- Rhone, H^rault, and Var gave their majority to the opposition of the Right. The 49 departments whose elections were annulled by the coup (V etat of the 1 8th of Fructidor were dispersed all over France ; and granting that royalism was really a living force only in Brittany, Normandy, Poitou, and Lozere, and among a few inhabitants of the large cities, this dispersion proves clearly that the deputies from those departments were elected not as royalists, but as forming an opposition.
But although none of those elected declared them- selves as royalists, there is no doubt that royalists were elected. Thus, in the department of Seine Fleurieli was elected : an ex -Minister of Marine under Louis XVI ; in
54 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
B ouches -du -Rhone General Willot, and in the Jura General Pichegru, who had dealings with the Pre- tender ; in Rhone, Imbert-Colomes, emigre and Bourbon agent.
The majority in the two Councils was immediately- altered. The Five Hundred elected as President, Jby 387 votes out of 404, General Pichegru, whose royalism had not as yet been revealed, but who was clearly hostile to the Directory. The Elders elected (by how many votes the proces-verbal does not say) an ex-diplomat of the ancieti regime, Barbe-Marbois. On the 5th of Prairial the Five Hundred had to draw up a tenfold list of candidates for the place of Director, left vacant by the resignation of Le Tourneur. We have seen that they elected to the first place, by 309 votes, a moderate and ex -noble, the Marquis de Barthelemy, ambassador to the Swiss. The other candidates elected were all members of the opposition of the Right (among others an ex -Minister of the monarchy, Tarbe) with the excep- tion of Charles Cochon, the only deputy whom the Directorial republicans had been able to elect, and who obtained 230 votes. In appointing Barthelemy Director by 138 votes against Cochon's 75, the Elders gave a very good idea of the new majority in their midst.
Here are the chief laws by which this majority affirmed its reactionary policy :
ist of Prairial, year V. The ex -deputies Aym'e, Mersan, Ferrand-Vaillant, Gau, and Polissart, lately excluded as ineligible, are recalled to the Legislature.
9th of Messidor. The law of the 3rd of Brumaire of the year IV is repealed.
22nd and 30th of Prairial. The deputies de Rumare arid Imbert-Colomes are expunged from the list of emigres.
7th of Thermidor . The Clubs are proscribed.
25th of Thermidor and 13th of Fructidor. The
REACTIONARY MEASURES 55
National Guard is reorganised in such a way as to eliminate the democratic elements which had succeeded in penetrating it,
2nd of Fructidor. The laws relating to deportation or the imprisonment of non-juring priests are repealed.
To sum up-: the renewed Legislature endeavoured to efface all that remained of the Revolutionary Govern- ment in the application of the Constitution of the year III, and suppressed a large number of the " laws of exception " which had formerly been enacted against the enemies of the Revolution. In the debates relating to these measures nothing occurred that would allow people to say that the new majority was royalist ; but there were royalists in that majority, and they were by no means without influence.
Faithful to the instructions of the Pretender, they supported the moderate, bourgeois republicans against the democratic or anti-clerical republicans. They were preoccupied atid drawn into groups by the interests of religion. Even outside the Legislature the more ardent royalists were supporting the new strategy. In a draft proclamation, on August i, 1797 (the 14th of Thermidor of the year V), Frotte exclaimed : " Our place is anywhere In the ranks where men are fighting to save France from anarchy and to punish crime."
Reading the journals and the accounts of the pro- ceedings in the Councils, we see clearly that there was a state of violent disagreement between the politicians ; that some were stigmatised as royalists or Chouans, and others as Jacobins, anarchists, and Terrorists. iWhen, however, we try to distinguish between persons and programmes, to make any sort of classification, we find our foundation slipping. In the correspondence which he carried on between Berne and the Court at Vienna, according to the instructions which the royalists sent him from Paris, Mallet du Pan writes, in Fructidor of the year V : » ■
56 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
" To understand the conduct, the vacillations and uncertainties of the Legislative Corps, it must be remembered that since the entrance of the new third the majority of the two Councils has been divided into three parts. The first, at the head of which are Pichegru, Willot, Boissy, Dumolard, Quatrcmere, Imbert-Colomes, Lariviere, Boirot, Mersan, Pastoret, &c., wishes to level the revolutionary edifice by powerful blows, diminish the authority of the Directory, force on an external peace, and open up a future for the monarchy. The second, which comprises, to a great extent, the majority of the Elders, also, desires the good of the country, but wishes to work slowly ; it fears the king, the emigres, and all idea of a sudden and complete counter- revolution. The third, at the head of which are Thibaudeau, Emery, Vaublanc, and Bourdon, demands the constitution in all its purity ; it wishes to weaken the Directory, and to preserve the Republican State ; it hates the King and the more notable emigres for their reputation, their ideals, and the credit they might possibly gain."
We shall see, in' the light of a single fact, how vain these classifications were. Dumolard, whom Mallet du Pan represents as a sort of rebellious royalist, was then the president of the Council of Five Hundred. This is how he expresses himself, in that quality, on the 23rd of Thermidor of the year V, upon the anniversary festival of the loth of August :
" Woe to him who should exercise the idea of re-establishing the throne ; what an error, to suppose that those who have reduced it to dust would labour to rebuild it ; that the founders of the Republic, forgetful of their glory and prostrating themselves in the mire, are about to serve as the vile instruments of a liberticide faction, which would abandon them to the concentrated rage of them who long to tear them in pieces ! Why, citizens, who is there among you who has not actively co-operated in the overthrow of the monarchy, or has not at least proclaimed aloud, in his own circle, the imprescriptible rights of the people ? Where is he who would traffic with kings ? Who, having vanquished them when they were all-powerful, would humiliate himself before them now that they are vanquished ? "
I ask if it is possible to class am'ong the royalists of his time a man capable of uttering spontaneously go thrilling a profession of republican faith?
Contemporaries spoke freely pf an Orleanist party.
THE ORLEANIST "PARTY" 57
but apparently it had little existence except in their imagination. The Due de Chartres (Due d'Orleans since the death of his father Philippe-^fegalite), who emigrated with Dumouriez in April, 1793, had been living, inconspicuously enough, in Switzerland. The Monlteur of the 3rd of Pluvlose of the year IV an- nounced that he had just embarked at Stockholm for North America. His two brothers, the Dues de Mont- pensier and de Beaujolais, imprisoned at Marseilles, were set at liberty on the 3rd of Bnimaire of the year V, when they set sail for Philadelphia. All these remained in America until the Consulate. .Wihat influence could they exercise so far from France? Yet those monar- chists who did not wish to re-establish the anclen regime must logically have found their candidate in the Due d'Orleans ; since Louis XVIII had proclaimed that he did intend to re-establish the anclen regime^ while Orleans upheld the principles of the Revolution, and had not, when an Emigre, carried arms against France. The partisans of Louis XVIII were very much afraid of him. In a proclamation of January i, 1797, the Comte de Puisaye said : '* The infamous Due d'Orleans, too greatly honoured by the fate of the martyrs, lives again in his son ; the factions have sent the latter to a distance in order to produce him when the time has come."
After the departure of Orleans for America, he had circulated a letter from Mme. de Genlis to her old pupil, in which, after reminding him that there was a party which desired to elevate him to the throne, she implored him not to listen ■; '' You to pretend to royalty ! — to become a usurper, to aboHsh a Republic which you have recognised, which you have cherished, and for which you have valiantly fought ! " The journals spoke much of this letter, which drew atten- tion to the Due. In Vendemiaire of the year V the rumour ran tha;t he was in France, at Rennes ; and
58 POLICIES ^BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
that his agent, the ex-Constituent Voidel, was about to be appointed Minister of Police. The reactionary Courrler republicain (for the 1 3th of Vendemiaire) pretended that the Orleanist faction was becoming extremely powerful ; that the Ventre, a portion of the Mountain, was in its favour. It also stated that the same faction, in order to lay a false trail, was spread- ing the rumour that there was a Yorkist faction, and one in favour of the Archduke Charles. In Frimaire, at the Cafe du Foy, it was said that the members of the Legislative Corps used often to dine at the house of the Duchesse d'Orleans. At the end of Germinal came a report that the elections were favourable to the Due d'Orleans. The royalist prisoner Duverne de Presle gravely declared that the Due d'Orleans was in Paris, and that he had a faction. This faction was denounced from the tribune of the Five Hundred by Jean de Bry, on the loth of Ventose of the year V, and by Dumolard on the 13th and 15th of the following Fractidor, Finally, those " who would recall Orleans " were men- tioned among those whom the Directory threatened with death in its proclamation of the 1 8th of Fractidor.
Was there really at that time a party, or even one individual of importance, at work in the interests of the Due d'Orleans? No text, no fact allows us to make such an assertion.
iWe see how difficult a matter it is to distinguish the different groups and opinions in the new majority which resulted from the elections of the year V ; or to affirm or deny absolutely that this majority wished to re- establish any monarchy whatever, whether absolute or limited. All that we can say with certainty is that there was an alliance of all the reactionaries. i Had they been
' It is perhaps an anachronism to employ this word at this period. I find it for the first time in a poHce report of the nth of Floreal of the year VII, which refers to "incorrigible reactionaries." But the word reaction had already been used to denote the White Terror of the year
RELIGIOUS POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC 59
victorious in their quarrel with the Directory, it is probable that, under penalty of an immediate dissocia- tion, they would have been forced to maintain the republican form of government, and to form a mixed government of moderates and royalists.
V.
If we go to the bottom of things, we find that the two inimical groups who were and are still known as the royalists and the republicans were above all separated by the religious question.
The religious policy of the Republic was thus defined by the Constitution of the year III : ■' No one may be prevented from exercising the cult he has chosen so that he conform to the laws. No one may be forced to contribute to the expenses of a cult. None will be salaried by the Republic." This was the system of the lay or secular State ; of the separation of Church and State, of which we have already considered the origins and the establishment.
Under this system there was an abundant harvest of religious, moral, and intellectual life. New religious groups were seen to form themselves ; new churches arose ; new cults, evolving from the old religious groups.
iWe may say that the general policy of the Govern- ment in matters religious during the whole duration of the bourgeois Republic was practically this' : to see that these various religious groups counterbalanced one another to the profit and independence of the lay State ; to prevent any religion from becoming dominant ; to watch over the competition of the churches, and parry
III. The Directory, addressing the people of the Midi in a proclama- tion of the 14th of Germinal of the year IV, had spoken of the " six years of tempest and reaction " which they had just passed through.
60 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
the mortal blows that eacli would attempt to strike the other. The State was, as it were, a judge, but not an impartial arbiter. The Directory had a prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church. This church was the strongest ; it was extremely powerful ; it threatened to dominate the other churches and the State itself ; the governmental policy was hence to weaken it, or even, as its dogmas appeared incompatible with the principles of the Republic, to destroy it.
That the Directory really did wish to destroy the Roman Church, that at least it did at one moment desire to do so, results not only from the general sense of its politics ; it expressed this intention in definite terms in a letter signed by three of its members — La Revelli^re-L^peaux, Barras, and Reubell — which it addressed on the 1 5th of Pluviose of the year Y to General Bonaparte. In this we read :
" While giving attention to all the obstacles which impede the consolidation of the French Constitution, the executive Directory has come to the conclusion that the Roman cult is that of which the enemies of liberty might in the future make the most dangerous use. You are too much given to reflection, Citizen General, not to have felt as strongly as have we that the Roman religion will always be the irreconcilable enemy of the Republic ; in the first place in its very essence ; in the second place because its ministers and its secretaries will never forgive the Republic for the blows with which the Republic has stricken the fortune and the credit of the former and the habits and prejudices of the latter. These are doubtless means which can be employed in the interior in order insensibly to abolish its influence ; whether by legislative methods or by institutions which will efface the old impressions by substituting new impressions more analogous to the present condition of things, more in conformity with reason and a sane morality. But there is one point perhaps no less essential if we would arrive at this desired end ; it is to destroy, if it be possible, the centre of unity of the Roman Church ; and it is for you, who have been successful in uniting the most distinguished qualities requisite to a general officer, to those of an enlightened politican, to reaHse this desire, should you judge it to be practicable. The executive Directory therefore invites you to do all that you consider possible (without com- promising in any wise the safety of your army ; without depriving
THE DIRECTORY AND ROME 61
yourself of the resources of all kinds upon which you might draw for the support of your army, and without rekindling the torch of fanaticism in Italy instead of extinguishing it) towards destroying the Papal government ; in such a way that, whether by placing Rome under another power, or (which would be still better) by establishing in Rome a form of internal government which would render the government of priests odious and contemptible, the Pope and the Sacred College could no longer conceive the hope of ever sitting in Rome, and would be obliged to seek an asylum elsewhere, where at least they could no longer wield any temporal power.
This was not an order given by the Directory to Bonaparte=^ it was a desire which it expressed. The General would follow it up only if he judged it to be possible and useful.
This letter expresses as Clearly as possible the intimate feelings of the majority of the Directory in Plaviose of the year V, when the victories of the army of Italy appeared to put the Pope at the mercy of thej French Government.
On the other hand^ to favour the former Constitu- tional Church as an element of counterpoise, but to oppose it in all that it professed contrary to the repub- lican laws (the marriage of priests, divorce, celebration of the decadi, &c.), to leave unmolested the Protestant and Jewish sects, which were reasonable ; to favour the development of new cults on a rationalistic basis, so that little by little they might supplant the old cults on a mystic basis ; gradually to eliminate revealed religion from the national conscience, while educating that conscience by a secular system of public instruction and civic festivals ; such were the tendencies and the methods revealed by almost all the politico-religious actions of the Directory ; not only in the period subse- quent to the 1 8th of Fructidor, when it had resumed dictatorial prowess against the Papist clergy, but in the previous period which we are at this moment con- sidering.
Let us first of all take the rationalistic groups.
62 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
The aristocracy of the freethinkers were enclosed in the official frame of the National Institute. These survivors or disciples of the Encyclopsedists appeared to see a religion and a morality in organised science. They flattered themselves that their group represented this organised science ; that they were " the living Encyclopaedia." Except for a very small number, the formula of their free thought was Deism.
This aristocracy furthered the taste for freedom of thought in the upper spheres of bourgeois society ; where nevertheless Catholicism was once more becoming the fashion ; and it presided, so to speak, over a larger rationalistic group ; a group of rational and popular character, which was then and has since been called the Decadal church or cult. This was an attempt at a periodical convocation of the whole people around the Altar of the Country ; there to adore the mother country ; the country considered as such, but so beloved, so honoured by so many sacrifices and the outpouring of so much blood, that it seemed as though it might offer to the mind of all Frenchmen the advan- tage of a mystical entity, and so unite them by a tie universally accepted. The origins of the cult were not artificial ; the altars of the country had risen spon- taneously in 1789 and 1790, when the new nation was founded by the resurrection of the communes, by the grouping of communes, by provincial federation, and finally by national federation. Of all the altars that had since been raised, none had had from the first so many sincere devotees as this ; and men had seen the artificial cults imagined by the Hebertists and the Robespierrists become confounded with this religion of patriotism ; become absorbed in it, and gradually disappear. So long as the French gave all their physical and intellectual forces to the work of national unification and to the war against the enemies of this unification ; so long as this cult was a religion of
THE DECADAL CULT 63
warfare, it remained popular, ardent, and absorbing the whole man. The nation founded, the Republic once victorious, the cult of the patrie established itself in men's consciences. The Convention wished to lead it out into the public places, establish it in the temples, and organise it by law. Actuated by Marie-Joseph Chenier's report, it decreed, as a beginning, that there should be decadal festivals in each commune (Nivose the ist, year III). It stated, in the Constitution of the year III (Article 301) : " National festivals will be established in order to foster fraternity among the citizens, and to attach them to the Constitution, their native country, and the laws."
There were already annual national festivals. Thus the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille had been celebrated regularly. On the 2nd of Pluviose of the year II (January 21, 1794), at the request lof the Commune, the Convention had passed a decree ordering the celebration of the anniversary of the execu- tion of Louis XVI ; on July 27, 1793, it had ordered the annual celebration of August 10, 1792. The decree of the i8th of Floreal of the year II, besides the festival of the Supreme Being (which was celebrated once) and a number of other festivals in honour of various entities (which were not celebrated at all) had ratified the three festivals of July 14th, January 21st, and August loth, while founding yet another : the anniversary of May 31, 1793 (abolished on the 19th of Ventose of the year III). On the 2nd of Pluviose of the year Ilia law had prescribed the celebration of the anniversary of the 9th of Therniidor. To these political festivals the Convention added, on the eve of its separa- tion (by the law of the 3rd of Bramaire, year IV, title 6) certain festivals of a different character, in the following terms :
" (i) In each canton of the Republic there will be celebrated, each year, seven national festivals : namely, that of the Foundation of the
64 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OP FRUCTIDOR
Republic, on the ist of Vendimiaire ; that of Youth, on the loth of Germinal ; that of the Espoused, on the loth of Florcal ; that of Gratitude, on the loth of Prairial; that of Agriculture, on the loth of Messidor ; that of Liberty, on the 9th and loth of Thermidor ; that of the Aged, on the loth of Fructidor. (2) The celebration of the national cantonal festivals comprises the singing of patriotic songs, speeches on the morahty of the citizen, fraternal banquets, various public games peculiar to each locality, and the distribution of awards. (3) The ordering and arrangement of the national festivals in each canton is enacted and announced in advance by the municipal administrations. (4) The Legislative Corps decrees each year, two months in advance, the order and manner in which the festival of the ist of Vendcmiaire must be celebrated in the commune in which it resides."
Although at this moment we are speaking only of the period anterior to the i8th of Fructidor, we may as well note, in order to complete this outline of the national festivals, that a law of the 13th of Plaviose, of the year VI established a festival of the Sovereignty of the People to be celebrated on the 30th of Ventose, and that a law of the 2nd of Fructidor of the year VI ordered the celebration of the anniversary cf the i8th of Fructidor of the year V.
These festivals were actually celebrated throughout the Republic.
The political festivals of July 14th, August loth, January 21st, the ist of Vendemiaire, and the i8th of Fructidor, were attended by the people, who lent them- selves to the occasion with more or less enthusiasim according to the place and the circumstances ; that is to isay, as they felt more or less keenly the impulse towards anti-royalist demonstrations. The festival of the 1st of Vendcmiaire (the date of the foim,dation of the Republic) was that celebrated with the greatest pomp, at least in Paris.
The philosophical festivals, inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Greuze, were less attended by the people, excepting three of them, which in practice had a political flavour ; these were : ( i ) the festival of Gratitude, which
NATIONAL FESTIVALS 65
was really a festival of Victories ; (2) the festival of Liberty, which, being celebrated on the anniversaries of the coup (V Hat of the 9th and loth of Thermidor, was in especial an occasion of official anathema, directed against the Terror and the Terrorist ; (3) the festival of the Sovereignty of the People, which opened, so to speak, the period of elections in the years VI and VII. The festivals of Youth, of the Espoused, of Agriculture, and of the Aged, ingeniously organised by orders from the Directory, do not seem to have been appreciated save by a few curious spectators. The Catholics ridi- culed these ceremonies, which the Abb6 de Boulogne, in the Annates catholiques of Germinal of the year V, called "idea festivals," "civic pantalonades " ; and went out of their way to throw ridicule on this decadal worship of the native land.'
The Directory, moreover, did not conceal the fact that these festivals, essential elements of the plan of national education outlined by the Convention, were in- tended little by little to accomplish the dechristianisa- tion of France ; or, as it wrote to Bonaparte in the letter already cited, " insensibly to abolish the influence of the Roman religion," by replacing " ancient impres- sions " by " new impressions more analogous to the existing state of things, more in conformity with reason and a sane morality."
As for the obligatory substitution of the Decad'i for
' The orders of the Directory which in succession organised the national festivals are extremely interesting. See especially the follow- ing in the Bulldin des lots : those of the 19th of Vcntose, year IV (Youth) ; of the 27th of Germinal, year IV (the Espoused) ; of the 20th of Floreal, year IV (Gratitude and Victories) ; of the 20th of Prairial, year IV (Agriculture) ; of the ist of Messidor, year IV (Liberty) ; of the 27th of Thermidor, year IV (the Aged) ; of the 13th of Fructidor, year IV (Foundation of the Republic), and the 13th of Fructidor, year V (the same) ; of the 28th of Pluviose, year VI (Sovereignty of the People) ; of the 3rd of Fructidor, year VI (the i8th of Fructidor) ; of the 13th of Messidor, year V (the 14th of July).
VOL. IV. 5
66 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
the Sabbath, and the celebration of each Decadi by festivals, it was only after the i8th of Fructidor that the decadal cult was perfected.
In the meantime the Government favoured a non- official attempt, emanating from private initiative, to establish a kind of rationalistic church under the name of Theophilanthropy.
Theophilanthropy was the national religion so often glorified by the philosophers and poets of the eighteenth century.
To extract from the " revealed " religions a small number of dogmas, accepted by all, verified by reason, transformed into rational principles, and to make them the foundation of a non-mystical worship, together with the morality accepted in all times by all decent folks : such was the aim of the natural religion ; not that of Rousseau, which was Christianity purified, revealed, and interpreted by a vicar of God ; but the natural religion of Voltaire, anterior and superior to Christianity.
Voltaire had imported the idea from England. He clarified it, formulated it, and popularised it in France, and the English carried it back again in order to attempt its application. In 1776 David Williams, author of a " Liturgy founded upon the Universal Prin- ciples of Religion and Morality," assembled the English Freethinkers in a temple, in London, there to adore God and encourage the love of men. This attempt, which was applauded by Voltaire and Frederic the Great, had only a temporary success as a curiosity, but it remained well known and famous in France. It doubtless inspired the immediate precursors of Theophilanthropy : Thomas Paine, Daubermesnil, and Sobry.i i
' Announcing the latter's work : Rappel dii peuple franfais a la
sagcsse et aux principes de la morale, the journal the Ami des Lois
(13th of Ventose, year IV) defined in advance the new rationalistic
. religion : " We have been praying, for eight months, to be informed
THEOPHILANTHROPY 67
It would seem that the true founder of Theophilan- thropy was Chemin, a professor, litterateur, and librarian. He published a " Manual," of which a " Religious Year " unfolded the principles, joined him- self to four fathers of families — Mareau, Jeanne, Valentin Haiiy, and Mandar — and the new sect held its first session in a disused chapel of the Institute of the Blind, in the Rue Saint-Denis, on the 26th of Nivose of the year V (January 15, 17^)7).
The Theophilanthropists defined themselves as follows :
Their meetings were religious and yet not religious. Theophilanthropy was a religion for those who had no other ; for those who had it was merely an Ethical Society {Societe morale).
The Theophilanthropists addressed themselves to whosoever believed in God, in the immortality of the soul, in fraternity, in humanity. The God in whom they professed belief was the " God of the Reason " ; for some even the enlarged Deity of Diderot ; and they were liberal enough to admit Sylvain Marechal the atheist ; and in Doubs the adepts styled themselves merely philanthropists. But on the whole this group was theistical, for deism was then the most popular form of free thought ; and the Theophilanthropists were purely rationalistic — no revelation, no mystic dogmas for them !
But — and herein resides the originality of this religion — the Theophilanthropists did not proscribe nor attack nor condemn any other religion ; they respected
as to the morality by which we might once more become the honour and the admiration of Europe, and rid ourselves of Catholicism, Mahometanism, Protestantism and other religions fabricated by the hands of men and presented under a celestial covering. We have prayed all good citizens to busy themselves with this important work, and to bring each one a stone for the erection of the edifice of theism and philanthropy."
68 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
them, so they said, and honoured all, avoiding all controversial propaganda.
" Far from seeking," says Chemin, " to overthrow the altars of any worship, you must even moderate the zeal which might lead you to make converts to our own. Profess ours modestly, and await in peace for those whom its simplicity convinces to join you. ... Be circum- spect. . . . Do not seek to win proselytes. . . . Dealing, in your festivals, only with religion and morality, there should consequently never be anything put forward in them that is not suited to all ages, to all countries, to all religions, and all governments."
He constantly repeats that men must love the native land, love the Republic.
There is moraHty and there is religion. Morality instructs us concerning our duties ; religion leads us to fulfil them. Morality has a very wide and solid basis : " Good is all that which tends to preserve man or to perfect him. Evil is all that which tends to destroy or deteriorate him." By this word, man, " we understand not one single rrian, but the human species in general."
Religion consists especially in assembling, whether in the family or in the temple, in order to encourage the practice of morality.
The temple of the Theophilanthropists should be devoid of pomp.
" A few moral inscriptions, a simple altar, on which they place, as a sign of gratitude for the benefits of the Creator, a few flowers or fruits according to the season ; a pulpit for reading or for speech ; there is all the ornament of their temples." The speakers and readers may wear a special costume (a blue coat with a rose-coloured girdle), but are not obliged to do so.
The ceremonies commence by an invitation to the Father of Nature, to which succeeds a moment of silence in which each quietly examines his conscience. " The head of the family may assist this examination
THEOPHILANTHROPY 69
by various questions, while eacli answers tacitly to him- self." Then they listen to speeches, or sing hymns ; they set themselves face to face with nature ; they praise the Spring ; they proceed to baptisms, marriages, and funerals ; they do honour to men who have done honour to humanity; such as Socrates, St. Vincent de Paul, Jean -Jacques Rousseau, (Washington.
This cult is remarkable for a perfect elegance and sobriety of style. In this respect it is aristocratic. It does not address an ignorant populace, but the scholarly middle class. It is by means of the finest that it hopes, without any clamorous propaganda, to attract, little by little, the mass of the nation.
The Theophilanthropists succeed in grouping about their altars in a party of very considerable size the elite of the nation. The relative success of this attempt to organise natural religion, which until then had been scarcely more than a particular mode of thought, gives the movement the value of a historic fact.
The cult formed a numerous and varied aristocracy of mind. There were ex -members of the Constituent Assembly, ex -Ministers, members of the Institute of France, and general officers ; among others we read the jiames of Creuze-Latouche, Goupil de Prefelne, Dupont (of Nemours), Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (whom we meet as godfather at St. Thomas Aquinas), Marie-Joseph Chenier, the painter David, Guffroy, Lamberty, Corchand, Combaz, Ulrich, the ex-abbes Parent and Danjou, the citizeness Augereau, mother of the general, and many others.
The Government protected the Theophilanthropists ; sometimes privately, sometimes in public. The Direc- tor La Revelliere-Lepeaux, while denying that he had ever been a Theophilanthropist, admits in his memoirs that he undertook to plead the cause of the new Church before his colleagues, and to advise them of ** the happy political results " which the new religion promised.
70 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
" The Directory," he says, " came to the same conclusion, and gave orders to Sotin, Minister of PoUce, to protect the founders of this new institution, and to allow them, from the police funds, the very moderate assistance which they might require for the celebration of a worship so simple and so little costly. Certainly the secret funds of governments have not always been employed in so honest nor in so useful a manner."
Gregoire reports that the Directory paid the ex- penses of the installation of the cult in Notre Dame, In Messidor of the year V Ginguene, Director-General of Public Instruction in the Ministry of the Interior, wrote to his colleague Champagneux, chief of the first division of the same Ministry, in order to obtain for the Theophilanthropists the use of the church of Quatre- Nations : " I believe the Minister cannot render a greater service to the progress of morality, and I beg you earnestly, my dear colleague, to obtain of him this permission," They were granted the use of eighteen churches or chapels. The Minister of the Interior sent out Chemin's Manuel into the provinces openly, with his own signature appended. Soon afterwards the jury of instruction officially approved of the Catechism of the Theophilanthropists, which thus became a standard book. I
An attempt was even made to have Theophilanthropy declared the State religion. This was the object of the " discourse concerning the existence and utility of a civil religion in France " pronounced by Leclerc (of Maine-et-Loire) from the tribune of the Council of Five Hundred, on the 9th of Fructidor of the year V. This attempt came to nothing.
VI.
If we now, from the rationalist groups, pass on to the mystic groups, formed by the members of the old
* Concerning the favours of which Theophilanthropy was the object, see Gregoire, Hisfoire des Sedes, vol, i.
JEWS AND PROTESTANTS 71
revealed religions, we shall find that there were two — the Jewish and the Protestant (the Reformed Church) which drew no attention to themselves and caused no discussion during the period of separation. Subjected to the laws, the Protestants and the Jews confined them- selves to a silent enjoyment of the liberty they had obtained after so many centuries of persecution. The Government had no trouble with either.'
As for the Catholics, whether Papist or not, we have already seen how, under the Convention, during the Thermidorian period, they had profited by the new politico-religious system to commence the reorganisa- tion of their cult. This reorganisation was completed under the Directory. AVe read in the Annates de la Religion of the 6th of Messidor of the year VI :
" At the commencement of Vendemiaire last — that is to say at the end of September — an abstract was made in the offices of the Minister of Finance of all the communes which had resumed the public exercise of their cult. Already, nine months ago, there were 31,214 ; and 4,511 more had applied for permission to resume worship. Finally, there was no question of Paris in this statement, and the larger communes were reckoned as having only one church. Here already we have, practically, our 40,000 original parishes."
In this large number of " parishes," what was the proportion of Papists and of non-Papists, otherwise known as the ci-devant Constitutionals and the ci- devant refractories? We know only that the Papist cult had a far larger following than its rival.
We have seen how the ci-devant Constitutionals organised themselves at the beginning of the system of
' On the 2ist of Messidor of the year V, Boulay (of Meurthc) spoke from the tribune of the Five Hundred as follows : " It is useless to speak here of the Jewish sect, too weak and too peaceful to give rise to anxiety. The Protestants we need fear even less ; their principles are favourable to the spirit of political and religious liberty ; they are the chief authors of the resurrection and establishment of moral, political and civil liberty in all the states in which such liberty is more or less a fact ; French liberty has no more constant and enthusiastic supporters."
72 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
separation. Their " national " Church (as they called it) was not very popular, and in the period before the 1 8th of Fructldor it lost ground. But its priests and the faithful remained numerous enough for the schism which it represented to be still formidable to the Roman Church. In the year V, of the 83 bishops elected or maintained in 1790 there remained 41 (of the other 42, 9 were married, 6 had resigned, 6 had not resumed their functions, 8 were dead by the guillotine, 1 3 had died a natural death). Of these 42 episcopates the faithful had filled 3 : Colmar, Versailles, and Saint-Omer. The majority of the episcopal chairs were therefore occupied on the 1 8th of Fractidor.
At the outset the " vessel of the Republic " and that of the former Constitutional Church had " kept com- pany," as Gregoire had predicted. But the relations of the Church and the Government very rapidly cooled. On the 2nd of Ventose of the year IV an order of the Directory provisionally prohibited (though it later per- mitted) the election of a Bishop of Versailles, because there had been speeches against the marriage of priests in a kind of synod convoked by the candidate. Abbe Clement. The question of the marriage of priests, on which the ex-Constitutionals proved inflexible, led to the anticipation of the broils which were later (after the 1 8th of Fractidor) to settle the question of the Decadi.
The Directory, however, being conscious of the poli- tical utility of protecting these schismatics against the Pope, allowed them to hold synodal assemblies and a " national Council." The synodal assemblies, convoked in each diocese, and composed of the ecclesiastics of the diocese, elected a deputy and substitutes, who, with the bishop (a member ex-officio) were to represent the diocese in the national Council. This Council, which at first had been convoked for May i, 1796, was held at Paris, at Notre Dame, from August 15, 1797 (the
THE SCHISM IN THE CHURCH 73
28th of Thermidor of the year V), until November 12th (the 22nd of Brumaire of the year VI).'
Both in the synodal assemblies and in the Council, the ex-Constitutionals protested that they had never wished to effect a schism, and attempted a reconcilia- tion with the Pope. Under the name of the " decree of pacification " the Council drew up and despatched to the Pope, on September 24, 1797 (the 4th of Vende- miaire of the year VI), a scheme of reconciliation. It stated that the Civil Constitution being defunct, the Gallican Church renounced it, recognising in the Pope the visible head of the Church, with supremity of honour and of jurisdiction ; it accepted all the dogmas, con- demned presbyterianism, and would admit to the number of its priests none but citizens faithful to the Republic, having taken the civic oath, and having undertaken to maintain the maxims and the liberties of the Gallican Church ; but excluded no one for his previous opinions. The following system was proposed to the Pope : the bishops, in the vacant sees, would be elected by the clergy and by the people, and confirmed and installed by the metropolitan. In each diocese when there was only one bishop (whether of the old or the new regime) this bishop would be recognised by all ; and it would be the same in the case of each parish in which there was only one cure. When there were two bishops or cures the elder would officiate, and the other would succeed him.
As the Pope, at the time of the negotiations between the armistice of Boulogne and the treaty of Tolentino, had seemed to make advances to the ex-Constitutionals, the latter hoped that he would discuss the " decree of pacification " with benevolent intentions. He made no reply to it.
' The proceedings of this first Council were not printed, as were those of the second. For the internal debates, see the organ of the ex-Constitutionals, the Annales de la religion.
74 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
The Papist Catholic Church, like the former Con- stitutional Church, had lost the greater number of its bishops. Forty-one of them were dead. They did not all emigrate, as has often been said ; eleven never left France ; those of Troyes, Chalon-sur-Saone, Marseilles, Auger, S6ez, Senlis, Alais, Saint-Papoul, Lectoure, Macon, and Sarlat. At last one of the emigres, Mgr. d'Aviau, Bishop of Vienne, returned to France in Floreal of the year V. Some of the absent bishops tried to administrate their dioceses from a distance. In some of the dioceses vacant through the death of their titulars (it jnust be remembered that Louis XVIII did not fill any of these vacancies) there were vicars -apostolic. We have, however, no data on which to base statistics, even approximate, of the dioceses of the old kingdom which were then reorganised. As to the cures and vicars, they were numerous enough, in spite of imprison- ment and deportation.
The Roman Catholic cult, a year after the estab- lishment of the system of separation, was in a very flourishing condition, especially in Paris. In the Annates catholiques of December i, 1797 (the i ith of Frimaire of the year V), the Abbe de Boulogne wrote : " The state of the Catholic Church of Paris is still very consoling to those who are interested in the pro- gress of religion. Every day new temples are being opened ; and the affluence of the faithful, very far from diminishing, visibly increases." The number of churches in Paris occupied by the Roman Catholics, which did not exceed fifteen at the commencement of the separation, was then, according to the Abbe, forty ; ;and the following year, at the time of the Easter festivals, on the 27th of Germinal of the year V, it was fifty. In Paris almost all the shops were closed on the days of the more important Catholic festivals.
The Papist clergy were the refractory priests ; that is, those who in 1790 and 1792 had refused to take
LAWS AGAINST EMIGRil PRIESTS 75
the oaths required of them. Since then a promise of submission to the Republic merely had been exacted from ministers of religion, by the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire of the year IV. The emigrant priests, amenable to deportation, returned in hosts to make this promise. These enemies of the Revolution and the Republic showed themselves with impunity, and many of them acted as agents of the monarchy or the reac- tion. Irritated and anxious, the Convention decreed (by the law of the 3rd of Bramalre of the year IV) :
"That the laws of 1792 and 1793 against priests amenable to depor- tation or imprisonment will be executed within twenty-four hours of the promulgation of the present decree, and such public functionaries as shall be convicted of negligence in the execution of the said laws will be condemned to two years' imprisonment. The orders of the Committees of the Convention and of the representatives of the people on mission contrary to those laws are annulled."
These laws were severe ; too horribly severe. The tribunals did not apply them, although, in a circular dated the 23rd of Nivose of the year IV, the Directory had imperatively demanded their application. Briot might well say, as he did, before the Council of Five Hundred, without exposing himself to any risk of denial, that before the 1 8th of Fructidor not one of the priests amenable to these laws had ever been condemned (the 2 1 St of Brumaire of the year VII). So the priests continued to return to France, to carry on there a propa- ganda contrary to the principles of the Revolution ; so that in almost all the disturbances which the Direc- tory had to suppress the hand of the refractory priest was discovered. The law of the 3rd of Ventose of the year III forbade the ringing of bells ; but the bells were still rung in the country districts. In vain did the law of the 22nd of Germinal of the year IV declare penalties against the ringing of bells ; the bells were still heard. To the republicans of those times these bells were the tocsin of insurrection against the
76 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Republic. For the peasants, there was no religion without the ringing of bells. This quarrel on the subject of bells was one of the causes of the success of the moderates in the elections of the year V.
The Directory, almost from the outset, showed far more animosity towards the Papist priests than the Committee of Public Safety of the year II had exhibited. In the instructions to its commissaries (in Frimaire of the year IV) it denounced these priests as agents of royalism, and relentlessly instructed its own agents to fight them' : " Balk their treacherous schemes by a continual and active supervision ; thwart their measures, hamper their movements, wear out their patience. . . ." It denounced what we should call the clerical peril in numerous messages to the two Councils.
Although all the Papist priests were at one in decrying to the faithful certain laws of the Republic, such as that of divorce, or in troubling the consciences of those who had acquired ecclesiastical property, they were not all at one as to opposing the Republic for the benefit of the monarchy. There was a group of opportunists, of whom a distinguished priest, the Abbe Emery, was the inspiring force. He advised against the policy of allying the cause of the Church with that of Louis XVIII, and counselled the recognition of the Republic, the giving of the promise exacted by the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire of the year IV. The victories of Bona- parte in Italy stimulated this movement by rendering the chances of restoration more uncertain. The oppor- tunists had a periodical organ, the Annales religieuses, to which Abbe Sicard contributed : a type of the opportunist. They made advances toward the ex- Constitutionals, speaking vaguely of reconciliation ; and in the meantime they skilfully relieved them of some part lof their congregations. Several bishops of the ancien regime authorised or even requested their priests
PROJECTS OF CONCILIATION 77
to submit to the Republic ; among others, the Arch- bishop of Paris, Mgr. de Juign6.
After the invasion of the Papal States by Bonaparte and the conclusion of the armistice of Boulogne (on the 5th of Messidor of the year IV), the Pope sent to Paris an official negotiator, the Conte Pierachi, with conciliatory instructions and a projected pastoral, dated July 5, 1796, in which he counselled Catholics to accept the Republic, and to submit to the established autho- rities. At this moment there were vague projects of a concordat. Bonaparte, a supporter of the concordat by principle, perhaps had not dreamed of establishing it until the day when he should be master of France (if at that time his dreams were so precise). The Directory, we have seen, would have preferred that Bonaparte should have profited by the occasion to destroy the temporal sovereignty of the Pope entirely, and thus to lead up to the destruction of the Roman Church. In any case the negotiations came to nothing ; and in the treaty of Tolentino (dated the ist of Ventose of the year V) there was no question save of temporal interests.
All projects of conciliation, moreover, were opposed by the majority of the clergy of the old regime ; an insurgent, royalist majority, who followed the instruc- tions of Louis XVIII, in which it was stated that "to submit to the laws of the Republic was to revolt against legitimate authority, to meddle with sacrilege and brigandage, to become an accomplice of all the revolutionary crimes, and to carry scandal and abomina- tion into the sanctuary." These rebellious priests also had an organ, the Annates cathotiques, in which the Abb6 de Boulogne carried on a bitter campaign against the opportunists.
Although opposed and hampered by the rebels, the policy of the opportunists was not without effect. Thus, the Elders (on the 9th of Fructidor of the year IV)
78 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
rejected a resolution of the Five Hundred (of the 17th of FloreaV) which enacted fresh measures against the priests. I
Shortly afterwards the Five Hundred themselves
' Or rather this revolution enacted measures for putting the laws of 1792 and 1793 into useful and vigorous operation. This is how the reporter, Drulhe, onthe 9th of Floreal, defined the "clerical question " : " You have been desirous and will always be desirous that every citizen should be free to profess in peace such religious opinions as please him ; for you know that liberty consists in being able to do what is not otherwise harmful. But you have not been, nor ever will be, desirous that religious opinions should be employed to excite men to revolt against legitimate authority and to light in their midst the torch of internal discord. The legislator is a stranger to the affairs of the other world ; but he is entrusted with the maintenance of tranquillity in this. Therefore it is not as priests that you attack these men who preach civil war in the name of a god of peace, and trample upon the sovereignty of the people in the name of the king ; but you will punish them as bad citizens, as rebels against the laws of the country. You are not persecutors, but, like all this world's governments, you have the right to refuse to tolerate those who persecute you." The arguments of the other side are well summed up in this passage of a speech by Darracq on the 12th of Floreal : "According to the new order of things in France, the State no longer recognising any religion, we can no longer deal with priests as priests, but with rabbis, bonzes, and ministers of all the other religions. Now I ask of the Commission what it means by refractory priests ? Doubtless it means the ministers of the Catholic religion, who, disdaining the civil constitution of the clergy, have refused to take the oath which it exacts. But since it has been shown that this constitution, and the whole system then prevalent, were monstrosities and an insult to reason ; since the revolution which has led up to the Republic has cast all these fantasies into nothingness, how can the Commission admit the supposition that there still exist, for you, priests ? . . ." Rouyer replied that priests were those who formed themselves into a caste. Therefore a special law was required against them. The nobles also formed a caste, but could be seized and punished, " Perhaps the priest can be proceeded against with equal ease ? It is in the heart of a fanatical family that he spreads his poison of error and superstition ; it is in the secret tribunal, which he calls the confessional, that he terrifies the weak, leads astray the credulous, and incites the timorous mind against a government which he depicts as given over to sacrilege and atheism."
THE CATHOLICS AND THE COUNCILS 79
appeared to relent with regard to the Papist clergy. A law of the 1 4th of Frimaire of the year V (a resolu- tion of the 1 6th of Brumaire) repealed, amongst other articles of the law of the 3rd of Brumaire of the year IV, that Article 10 which ordered the prompt execution of the laws of 1792 and 1793.
But as ChoUet stated afterwards, on the 14th of Frimaire of the year III, from the tribune of the Five Hundred, " to repeal the dispositions of a law which merely ordered the execution of other laws not yet repealed, and not to repeal those laws themselves, was a kind of monstrosity in legislation ; besides which, the authorities did not know what to go by."
The great success of the opportunist Catholics was the result of the elections of Germinal of the year V, which led to the formation, in the two Councils, of a majority which we call royalist, but which would more correctly be called Catholic.
The Council of Five Hundred, thus renewed, ap- pointed a commission to revise the politico-religious laws. It was in the name of this commission that the most eloquent of the opportunist Catholics, Camille Jordan, made, on the 29th of Prairial of the year V, a celebrated report. He spoke of the Catholic religion with an emotional sensibility, but he did not ask for it anything but what seemed to him, under the circum- stances, possible. His report was, so to speak, a minimum programme of Catholic claims, divided into four parts' : Firstly, he demanded that the faithful should be able to choose their ministers according to their will : that is, to choose refractory priests ; '
* " What have you heard," said Jordan, " in the primary and electoral assembUes ? What advice was mingled with the touching demands with which you were surrounded ? Everywhere your fellow-citizens claimed the free exercise of all religions ; everywhere these good and simple men, who fill our country districts and make the earth fruitful by their useful labours, held their supplicating hand toward the fathers
80 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
secondly, that no promise, nor oath, nor declaration of any kind whatever should be exacted ; i thirdly, that bells might be rung ; 2 fourthly, that each cult should have its own burial-ground. The project presented by Camille Jordan also ratified the system of separation and the lay State. It prohibited " collective donations, which would recall the abolished corporations, and per- petual donations, which would result in the accumula- tion," said the speaker, " of property of a kind you have determined to proscribe." That the different cults should shut themselves up in their temples ; that the priests should wear no ecclesiastical costume save in the temples ; such were Jordan's concessions, and in case of infraction he proposed penalties of which the heaviest would be six months' imprisonment.
On the 8th of Messidor of the year V, Dubruel read a report recommending the abrogation of the laws against the non-juring priests.
The Council discussed these two projects of the 20th and the 27th of Messidor of the year V. General Jourdan made a lively attack upon the Papist priests, the cause of the Vendeean rebellion.
of the people, while demanding that they should at last be allowed to follow the religion of their hearts in peace, to choose their ministers at will, and to rest in the bosom of their most sacred customs, from all the evils they have suffered."
' He states that "when revolutions are consummated the Catholics transfer to the new government all the religious obedience which they gave the old."
' " They have forbidden the bells ; they still ring. The law is obeyed only in the towns : it is generally violated in the country, and no religion dominates others by their means, and no insurrection is rung in by them. The sole abuse they present to-day is the failure of an existing law ; it is a scandal which it is important to end by with- drawing the cause. Finally, the repeal of this law is everywhere solicited. These bells are not only useful to the people ; they are dear to it ; they are one of the most sensible delights which their religion presents. Will you refuse the people this innocent pleasure ? It is good, for human legislators, to be able to grant the wishes of the multitude at so small a cost."
ATTACKS UPON CATHOLICISM 81
" Why cannot I summon here the shades of those brave defenders of their country, immolated before royalty by fanaticism ? They will tell you that those who wielded the steel or launched the lead that struck them down were directed by the -priests, who wished to re- establish royalty for their own benefit ; they will tell you that the inhabitants of the countryside, worthy and credulous, threw them- selves, crying, ' Vive le rot ! ' upon the bayonets and the artillery, with a tenacity and a coolness which can only be produced by fanaticism. But you, brave soldiers, who have left limbs on the field of battle, come hither and tell your legislators how those of you who fell into the hands of these rebels were bound to their cannon, and in that cruel position were exposed to the fire of your comrades ; and that these cruelties were committed to the sound of cries a thousand times reiterated of ' Vive le roi ! Vive la religion catholique ! ' Tell them of what these people led astray by fanaticism are capable, and induce them to take the necessary measures to prevent the return of such horrible scenes."
The Catholics found a brilliant defender in Lemerer, who on the 21st of Messidor delivered an enthusiastic eulogy of " the ancient religion of our fathers " (and whose expressions became celebrated).' We see clearly that at heart he wished to oppose the Declaration of Rights by the Catechism ; the Revolution by the Church. The discussion grew keen. Boulay (of Meurthe) at the same session affirmed that the Roman Catholics, who had a " foreign prince " for leader, were more dangerous than the other sects. Eschas- seriaux the elder cried, on the 23rd of Messidor: " You who are for ever speaking of the religion of our fathers — no, never will you lead us back to absurd beliefs, idle prejudices, and a delirious supersti- tion. . . ." " Violent protests," says the Moniteur, " interrupted the speaker. Jordan and Delahaye, secre- taries, demanded permission to speak. ' I protest,' said
' By the tone of his eloquence and his apologetic methods, Lemerer is a sort of precursor of Chateaubriand. See in the Moniteur (p. 1188) the long period in one of his speeches commencing with the words, " Reason has already overthrown the altars raised by Folly to Reason. . . ."
VOL. IV. 6
82 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Eschasseriaux, ' that I meant to say nothing to outrage the Cathohc religion ; I wished to speak of the super- stitious practices with which it has been deformed,' " Lemarque also opposed Lemerer :
" The god of their fathers," he said, " was the god of Philippe II, of Charles IX, of Catherine de Medicis." "Ah ! we do not want this God of their fathers, for their fathers were barbarians who misconceived and outraged the true God, and who made Him in their image. The true God is the God of tolerance, wisdom, and humanity ; not of this humanity which preaches vengeance, assassination and civil war, but of the humanity which inspires concord, the extinction of hatred, the forgetfulness of injuries, and respect for the established government."
Royer-Collard defended the Catholics (on the 26th of Messidor), and demanded " justice " for them. " To the ferocious cries of demagogy invoking audacity^ and next, audacity, and then yet again audacity, repre- sentatives of the people/' he said, " you will at last reply by this conciliatory and triumphant cry, which will resound throughout all France : Justice, and next, justice, and then yet again justice ! "
The Five Hundred voted on the 27th a resolution abrogating the laws against the refractory priests. The Elders approved, almost unanimously, on the 7th *of Fructidor of the year V.^
In thus repealing the laws against the priests the Legislature violently contravened the wishes of the Directory, which in a message of the 23rd of Thermidor had once more denounced " the insolence of the emi- grants and the refractory priests, who, recalled and
' Was a declaration to be required of the ministers of religion ? No, decided the Five Hundred, voting by "sitting and standing," on the 27th of Messidor, There were protests, and uproarious demands for the roll-call. This appeal took place on the 28th, and 210 votes against 204 decided that a declaration should be required. What declaration ? Dubruel, in the name of a special commission, on the loth of Fructidor, proposed this : " I promise submission to the Government of the French Republic." The coup d'etat of the i8th of Fructidor came before anything was settled in the matter.
THE "CLERICAL PERIL" 83
openly favoured, are overflowing the country on every hand, fanning the fires of discord, and inspiring con- tempt for the laws."
The law of the 7th of Fractldor and the " clerical peril " which seemed to result from it were among the reasons that decided the Directory upon a coup d'etat.
VII.
The new majority in the Legislative Corps opposed the Directory not merely on religious grounds ; there was a continual war of bickering upon all matters ; for example, on the subject of expenditure, especially mili- tary expenditure, in which department there had certainly been malversation and abuses. The Govern- ment believed that a royalist plot was in process of formation. It is certain that the deputies and Generals Pichegru and Willot had an understanding with the Pretender. If there was a conspiracy to place Louis XVIII on the throne, they were its ringleaders ; but they hesitated, held back by constitutional obstacles, and by the state of public opinion, which they saw to be as hostile to royalty as it was at the time of the Terror.
The Directory seemed to be reduced to a state in which it was impossible to govern ; not only through the opposition of the Legislature, but because it was itself divided into two hostile groups. This division is attested by the official proces-verbal of the session of the Directory of the 28th of Messidor (of the year V), in which Carnot, in the name of the majority of the Legislative Corps, proposes the dismissal of four Ministers' : Merlin (of Douai), Ramel-Nogaret, Charles Delacroix, and Truguet, Barthelemy was alone in con- tending, with Carnot, that the Legislature could inter- vene in the choice of Ministers. Except for the dismissal of Delacroix and Truguet, which was voted unanimously,
84 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
in all the other votes of maintenance, dismissal, or appointment which that day were taken, it was by three votes, always the same, against two, always the same, that the decisions were effected. The intervention of Carnot had no other result than the bestowal of the portfolios of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, War, and the Marine upon men on whom the majority of the Directory could absolutely rely.
From thenceforth scission was inevitable. On the one hand were Carnot and Barthelemy, and on the other Barras, La Revelliere-Lepeaux, and Reubell. The Two believed neither in the clerical peril nor the royalist peril ; and Carnot wished to oppose the factions only by means of laws. The Three believed in these perils, and saw no other means of exorcism than a coup d' etat.
This was especially the belief of Barras ; an active, perspicacious, unscrupulous man. He first of all applied to General Hoche. In Thermldor of the year V a portion of the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, under the pretext of going to reinforce that on the coast, passed very near the constitutional circle traced round Paris, which no army was allowed to enter. This movement, denounced in the Council of Five Hundred, was aban- doned. But the majority of the Directory did not abandon the idea of a military coup d'etat, and the various armies sent in addresses threatening the royalists ; especially the Army of Italy, commanded by Bonaparte, who entered fully into the Directorial plans, and sent to Paris, to act as his agent there, his Heutenant, Augereau, who was appointed commandant of the 17th military division. On the other hand, the republican democrats (ex -Jacobins, Terrorists, &c.) were reconciled with the Directory as opposed to the Councils, and the idea of a coup d'etat was approved, not only by the ardent republicans, but by those more moderate, such as Bailleul, and by liberals such as Benjamin Constant, the friend and lover of Mme. de
NECESSITY OF A COUP U^TAT 85
Stael. Practically all patriots were of opinion that without a new 31st of May the Republic would be lost and the monarchy restored. The royalists and the moderates of the two Councils were on their side pre- paring for a new 9th of Thermidor against those whom it called the Triumvirs, and whom they reproached for their external politics, their dreams of gigantic terri- torial aggrandisement, which, so they said, retarded the conclusion of a final peace with Austria. These malcontents had generals — Pichegru and Willot — but no soldiers but the small guard of the Legislative Corps. It was to procure more that they voted for a law which, by reorganising the national guard in an anti- republican spirit, gave them means of resistance or attack {Fractidor the 13th).
The Directory then decided to act. The conspirators knew as much ; they obsessed Carnot with their solicita- tions, promising him, in the King's name, the highest rewards. Carnot refused " : he remained neutral. On the 17th of Fractidor the leaders of the majority in the Five Hundred decided to vote the impeachment of Barras, Reubell, and La Revelliere-Lepeaux on the fol- lowing day. In case of resistance on the part of these three Directors, Pichegru and Willot would march upon the Luxembourg with the Guard of the Legislative Corps and the old insurgents of Vendemiaire. At eight o'clock in the evening the three threatened Directors voted themselves " in permanent session," without convoking Carnot or Barthelemy. They had already expurgated the members of the twelve Parisian municipalities, and of several departmental administrations, had added to Bonaparte's powers the command of the army of the Alps, and sent for General Moreau, whose sentiments were doubtful, to come to Paris. The barriers of Paris were closed ; the alarm-gun was fired ; General Augereau set out to occupy the locality in which the
' See the memoirs of the Chevalier de la Rue, ed. 1895, pp. 34-37.
86 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
two Councils sat. Notwithstanding this, some of the deputies of the majority tried to assemble there ; Augereau dispersed some and made prisoners of others. Barthelemy was arrested. Carnot, being warned, escaped. Placards, posted throughout Paris, announced that " any individual who should permit himself to call for royalty, the Constitution of 1793, or d'Orleans " would be instantly shot down. A Directorial proclama- tion announced the discovery of a conspiracy in favour of Louis XVIII, and published evidence relative to the secret understanding of Pichegru with the Pretender ; evidence which proved Pichegru's treason beyond all possibility of doubt.
On the 1 8th of Fructidor, at nine in the morning, in pursuance of an order of the Directory, those members of the two Councils who had been left to their freedom assembled ; the Five Hundred at the Odeon, the Elders at the ifccole de Sante (now the School of Medicine). The Five Hundred appointed a Commission of five members, in order to safeguard the public tranquillity and the Constitution of the year HI, received messages from the Directory con- cerning the royalist plot ; discussing and voting, during a permanent session which lasted from the i8th to the 2 1 St, various extraordinary measures, which the Elders, after some hesitation, decided to confirm. This was the revolutionary law of the 19th of Fructidor. We have already seen that this law annulled the opera- tions of the electoral assemblies in forty-nine depart- ments. Besides this sixty-five citizens were condemned to deportation ; namely, the following members of the Five Hundred : Aubry, J. J. Ayme, Bayard, Blain (Bouches-du-Rhone), Boissy d'Anglas, Borne, Bour- don (Oise), Cadroy, Coucheri, Delahaye (Seine-Infe- rieure), de La Rue, Doumere, Dumolard, Duplantier, Duprat, Gibert-Desmolieres, Henry-Lariviere, Imbert- Colomes, Camille Jordan, Jourdan (Bouches-du-
PROSCRIPTIONS 87
Rhone), Gau, Lacarriere, Lemarchand - Gomicourt, Lemerer, Mersan, Madier, Maillard, Noailles, Andre, (Lozere), Mac -Curtain, Pavie, Pastoret, Pichegru, Polissart, Praire-Moutaud, Quatremere-Quincy, Saladin, Simeon, Vauvilliers, Vienot-Vaublanc, Villaret-Joyeuse, Willot ; the following members of the Elders : Barbe- Marbois, Dumas, Ferrand-Vaillant, Laffont-Ladebat, Lomont, Muraire, Murinais, Paradis, Portalis, Rovere, Tronson-Ducoudray ; the Directors Carnot and Bar- thelemy ; the royalist conspirators Brottier, La Vil- leurnoy, Duverne de Presle ; the ex -Minister of Police Charles Cochon ; the policier Dossonville ; Generals Miranda and Morgan ; the journalist Suard ; the ex- Conventional Mailhe ; and Ramel, commandant of the Grenadiers of the Legislative Corps. Among these prescripts, forty-eight could not be arrested, and seventeen were deported to Guiana. i
We have already analysed nearly all the other pro- visions of this law. All individuals inscribed on the list of emigres, and not finally expunged, were obliged to leave the country on pain of death. The law of the 7th of Fructidor, which recalled the deported priests, was revoked ; and the Directory was invested with the right of deporting any priests who should cause trouble. All ministers of religion were obliged to take the oath of hatred of royalty, &c. The police might prohibit journals. The law of the 7th of the preceding Thermidor, which prohibited clubs, was re- pealed ; as well as those of the i 5 th of Thermidor and the 13th of Fructidor concerning the National Guard. The Directory resumed the right of placing a commune
' These seventeen were : Ayme, who was recalled on the 5th of Nivose of the year VIII ; Pichegru, Ramel, Willot, Laffont-Ladebat, Barthelemy, de La Rue, Dossonville, Barbe-Marbois, who escaped ; Murinais, Tronson-Ducoudray, Gibert-Desmoliures, Bourdon, La Villeurnoy, Rovere, Abbe Brottier, who died in Guiana, and Aubry, who died in the course of flight.
88 POLICIES BEFORE 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
in a state of siege?; a right which the Legislative Corps had contested.
There was soon bloodshed ; military commissions, sitting in thirty-two cities, pronounced some i6o sentences of death.
Finally, as we have seen, Merlin (of Douai) and Frangois (of Neufchateau) replaced Carnot and Bar- th^lemy in the Directory.
CHAPTER II
THE RELIGIOUS POLICY, OPINIONS, AND PARTIES AFTER THE i8th OF FRUCTIDOR
I. The religious policy : Catholicism. — II. The religious policy : the Decadal cult; Theophilanthropy. — III. Royalism. — IV. Directorial Republicans and Democratic Republicans. The law of the 22nd of Floreal of the year VI (May 11, 1798). — V. Opposition to the Directory. The insurrection of the 30th of Pratrial of the year VII (July 18, 1799). — VI. Reappearance of the Terror. — VII. Resurrection of the Jacobins.
I.
Since the coup (Vetat of the i8th of Fructidor was determined, above all, by the consciousness of the "clerical peril" to which the proceedings of the new majority in the Councils exposed the Republic, it jis natural, first of all, to consider the period which followed on the coup (Vetat from the politico-religious point of view.
The clerical peril resided more especially in the intrigues of the Papist priests.
The law of the 19th of Fructidor imposed the obligation of " taking the oath of hatred of royalty and anarchy, of attachment and fidelity to the Republic and the Constitution of the year III " on all ministers of religion. On the part of the Papist clergy this oath obtained fewer adherents than had the promise exacted by the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire of the year IV ; none the less, a large number of priests did take it.
90 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Emery advised them to take it. The Bishops of Marseilles and of Lugon, MM. de Belloy and de Mercy, gave the same advice to the priests of their dioceses. In Paris the majority of the Papist priests took the oath with at least the tacit consent of the Archiepis- copal Council. Even in the department of La Vendee there were Papist priests who swore ; about one-fifth of the whole. The Pope refused to condemn the oath.
There were enough of these new " jurors " to allow of the subsistence of the " Papist " cult after the i8th of Fractidor. This cult was strictly supervised by the Directory, which embarrassed it in its very develop- ment. Thus in Paris, in the year VI, the central administration of the Seine closed the oratories, by an order dated the 14th of Floreal; on the pretext that in a commune in which the members of the various sects were allowed a fixed number of churches by the law of the 14th of Prairlal of the year III, it wasi impossible for the Papists to occupy other buildings for purposes of worship. Worship was not forbidden them in private houses, since the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire permitted it on condition that " besides the persons having the same domicile there was not, on the occasion of these ceremonies, an assemblage of more than ten persons." The central administration of Seine, learning that there were assemblies of more than two hundred persons meeting in private houses which contained a number of separate households, decided " that only individuals occupying the same domicile, and composing the same household, may be admitted to private oratories, together with persons from without, including the ministers of religion ; but that all those persons may not be admitted who while lodged in the same house do not form part of the same household."
The congregations of the various oratories thus closed flowed immediately to the eight churches in
THE "PAPISTS" 91
which the Papist clergy had continued to officiate in Paris during the period which followed the 1 8th of Friictidor ; the churches, namely, of Saint -Gervais, Saint-Thomas -Aquinas, Saint-Philippe du Roule, .Saint- Laurent, Saint-Eustache, Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, Saint-Roch, and Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs. A police report of the 8th of Messldor of the year VI states that this Cult was followed with a " kind of fury " ; notably at Saint-Gervais and Saint-Jacques-du-Haut- Pas. " The former, on the last Catholic festival, held about three thousand persons."
The rule was to allow those priests who had taken the oath to exercise their functions. Those who attempted to exercise them without taking the oath were arrested. Thus in Messldor of the year VI the churches of Saint-Gervais and Saint-Eustache remained closed in the morning during the hours reserved for Catholics, because non-juring priests had officiated there. They remained closed for a week ; until sworn priests applied for them. Other Papist priests were surprised in offering up public prayers for the King and Queen ; they were arrested. A former Constitu- tional priest, the Abbe Audrein, proposed to the Directory (in Messidor of the year VI) to profit by these individual ofifences by closing all the churches ; to the actual profit of the other Catholic sect. This was also the advice of Dupui, commissary of the Directory to the central administration of the depart- ment of Seine. In a report dated Prairial of the year VI, he proposed to send police agents in disguise to confess themselves to Papist priests. If in this way it was discovered that all the confessionals were employed in attempting to disgust the faithful with the Republic and its laws, the whole Papist cult could be prohibited.
The Directory remained deaf to these counsels ; the sworn Papist priests continued to officiate both in Paris and in the departments.
92 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
The question now arose as to whether those should be invited to take the oath who had refused or violated the oaths previously exacted. In a circular directed to the departmental commissaries (dated the 20th of Ve tide mi aire of the year VI) Sotin, the Minister of Police, declared that those ecclesiastics who had re- fused the oath of adhesion to liberty and equality must not be permitted to take the present oath. W^ere these alone to be refused? .Were those to be admitted to the oath who had not taken the oath exacted in relation to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, or those who had refused to give the promise exacted by the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire of the year IV? In this matter there was no established doctrine, no settled rule. On the 23rd of Nivose of the year VI the Five Hundred rejected a proposal, arising from a speech of Gay-Vernon's, to the effect that ecclesiastics desirous of taking the oath of the 19th of Fructidor should no longer be objected to on account of their former opposition to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
The result of this incoherent policy was to leave in peace those ecclesiastics who remained quiet and to proscribe or deport the rest.
By Article 24 of the law of the 19th of Fructidor of the year V the Directory had been " invested with the right to deport, by means of orders individually justified, such priests as should trouble the public peace in the interior." This amounted to a species of anti- clerical dictatorship which neither the Committee of Public Safety nor the Committee of General Security had exercised. The anti -religious " persecution," so often referred to in Catholic histories of the Directorial period, consisted principally in the application of this Article 24.
The only limit to the will of the Directory was the legal obligation of issuing individual orders of arrest ; it was not to deport all the priests of any given district
DEPORTATION OF PRIESTS 93
as a whole. It pursued the latter course only in the case of the Belgian clergy, when it ordered the simul- taneous deportation of eight thousand priests as agents of the anti-French propaganda. In the old French departments there was no violation of this law ; but the Directory sometimes evaded it to a certain extent by issuing identical orders of arrest against a number of persons. On the 3rd of Vendemiaire of the year VI, for example, it issued the following order :
" The executive of the Directory, being informed that Philippe Bar, ex-vicar-generai of Saint-Die, dwelling at Charmes, in the canton of Cliarmes, department of the Vosges, is waving the brand of fanaticism in the district he resides in and in the parts contiguous ; that he is there employing all possible means of corrupting the public mind and of royalising the weak inhabitants of the country ; that it is impossible, without danger to the internal tranquillity of the Republic, to suffer that he should continue to dwell on its soil, orders," &c. . . .
On the same day fifteen orders of arrest identically the same as that which was issued against Philippe Bar were issued against fifteen other priests of the same department ; identically the same except in one instance, when the additional charge was formulated that the offender, one Charles Barret, was " preventing soldiers from rejoining their corps."
Here are some further examples of these incentives to deportation :
On the 28th of Frimalre of the year VI a priest of the department of Rhone was deported by the Directory, actuated by this report of the Minister of Police :
" A ci-devant cure, who is said to have been deported, Cabuchet by name, returned two years ago to the commune of Saint-Bonnet-le- Troncy. He preaches there ; officiates in public every day, to the sound of his bell ; he attracts to his sermons the inhabitants of the neighbouring communes, and even visits them on his missions, making the most seditious and inflammatory speeches. Before the i8th of Fnictidor he was openly warning the wives of those who had acquired national property to induce their husbands to make good their escape, if they wished to keep them from the gallows. Finally,
94 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
in concert with another cure of whose name I have not yet been informed, he has reduced the unhappy farmers to such a state of fanaticism that since the passing of the law of the 19th of Frudidor, one of them who had made a deposit in the matter of a purchase of grain from some citizens who were the holders of national property, has forfeited his deposit to them, saying that his wife had threatened to leave his house if he brought in any emigres' corn. The conduct of this priest tending only to trouble the public peace, I propose, Citizen Directors, that you should order him to be deported."
During the same month of Frimalre the following orders of deportation were issued on the report of the local commissary and of the Minister of Police : against Thomas, priest of Saint-Claude, who after abdicating his functions in 1793 had resumed them without com- plying with the laws of the 7th of Vendemiaire of the year IV and the 19th of Fructidor of the year V ; who was, moreover, denounced as corrupting public opinion ; against Hardy, ex-principal of the College of Saintes, who professed to be furnished with plenary powers from the Pope, for having " fanaticised a great part of the inhabitants of this commune, for having induced sworn priests to retract, and for having prevented un- sworn priests from making the declaration prescribed by the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire " ; against Vallee, ex-rector of Plouhinec, as having been the " butcher of patriots " during the civil war ; against Pelissier, priest of Cuxac-Cabardes (Aude), for wearing vest- ments and going in procession outside the temple (he had persisted after warning) ; against Legallieres, priest of Varces (Isere), for having officiated without having taken the oath.
For these offences — some vague, others definite — how many ecclesiastics were condemned to deportation by Government orders? 1,448 in the year VI ; 209 in the years VII and VIII up to the i8th of Brumaire ; altogether 1,657. So much for Old France. In the departments formed by the annexation of Belgium, 235 were condenmed by various orders later than the 14th
DEPORTATION OF PRIESTS 95
of Brumaire of the year VII, besides the 8,000 con- demned by the order of that date ; a total of 8,235 for Belgium, or in all 9,892.1
It must not be supposed that all these priests were really deported, nor even that all were arrested. Those who were arrested (whose numbers we do not know) were at first sent to Rochefort, then (on the 30th of Germinal of the year VI) to the He de Re, and then (on the 28th of Nivose of the year VII) to the He d'Oleron. There were three convoys for Cayenne.
1. On the I St of Germinal of the year VI the frigate La Charente set sail with 193 deported prisoners, of whom 150 were ecclesiastics. The Charente having been attacked and dismasted by the English, the exiles were transferred to the Decade, which landed them at Cayenne on the 21st of Prairlal. They were settled at Conanama, an exceedingly unhealthy spot. Less than two years later only 13 of those deported were alive.
2. On the 1 8th of Thermidor of the year VI the Vaillante set sail with 51 exiles, of whom 25 were priests. The ship was taken by the English,
3. On the 22nd of Thermidor of the year VI the Bayonnaise set sail with 119, of whom 108 were priests. Settled firstly at Conanama, they were trans- ferred to Sinnamary (on the 29th of Brumaire of the year VII), where the majority perished of sickness. So if we subtract the 25 priests delivered by the English, 258 were effectively transported. Those who were not embarked, who were imprisoned at Rochefort, on the He de Re, or the He d'Oleron, underwent great sufferings, and a large number died. Besides the above
' These figures are according to M. Sciout {Le Direcloire, vol. iii. p. 154), who has compiled a summary of the warrants of deportation in the register and papers of the Directory. I myself have been unable to undertake this lengthy task. If M. Sciout is violently prejudiced against the Revolution, at least his researches are usually exact.
96 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
a few priests were here and there condemned to death by mihtary commissions.
At no time did these individual persecutions pro- duce the effect of a general interruption of the exer- cise of the Roman Catholic religion, either in France or in a single department even. But they did have the effect of reducing the royalist priests to a state of semi -impotence, and they prevented the counter- revolutionary risings of the year VII from spreading dangerously far. From another point of view, although the Directory realised for a time its intention of de- stroying the temporal power of the Pope, since that power was replaced, from the 3rd of Nivose of the year VI to the 8th of Vendemiare of the year VIII, by the Roman Republic ; and although Pope Pius VI died a prisoner of the French Republic (at Valence, on the 1 2th of Fructidor of the year VIII), it did not realise its design of destroying the Roman re- ligion, the exercise of which it had to continue to permit.
As for ci-devant constitutional clergy, we have seen that at the moment of the coup d* Hat they were holding their first National Council. Although the Council mis- carried in its principal design — reconciliation with the Pope — the schismatics came away better organised despite themselves. For a time they seemed to pro- gress as though benefited by the severity displayed against their Papist rivals.' They firmly refused to
' There are no statistics of the Constitutional Church. But that one of its ministers who has best described it, Gregoire, was a statistician by taste and temperament. Figures abound, precise and varied, in his references to other sects ; but he has given no figures, not even approximate ones, relating to his own. I fancy he could not and also that he would not. He did not care to reveal how far his own church was in a minority as compared with the Papist Church. In 1834 Thibaudeau gave the numbers of this church as being 7,500,000 ; but v/ithout proof. To what date do these capricious figures refer ? We do not know ; but the numbers varied according to circumstances.
THE "CIVIL RELIGION" 97
transfer to the Decadl the ceremonies of their Sunday, and after the end of the year VI they were embroiled with the Directory on that account ; but the Directory still favoured them at times, merely as a matter of strategy, the better to oppose the Papist Church. In reality the Directory menaced both these Catholic sects, seeking to destroy them gradually, and to replace them by a " civil religion," as it was then styled.
II.
The " civil " religion was the " decadal " worship which was announced before the i8th of Fructidor, and was already becoming established before that date by means of the celebration' of many important national festivals, whether political or philosophical. After the 19th of Fructidor the Directory methodically continued its policy of substituting the decadal cult for Catholicism.
Under the Terror orders of the representatives " on mission " had in many departments rendered abstention from work on the tenth day compulsory. Legally such abstention was only compulsory for State administra- tions. In Paris part of the population abstained on the tenth day from civic motives ; but the abstention on Sunday was much greater.
At first the Government tried to render the tenth day of rest general, to the detriment of Sundays, by issuing orders and circulars. On the 29th of Brumaire of the year VI the Minister' of the Interior (Le Tourneux) addressed a circular to the departmental and municipal administrations inviting them to persuade the ministers of the Catholic religion to consecrate the tenth instead of the seventh day. " Here the request will suffice ; with you more than advice will be necessary ; and you must invoke the authority of the law. Moreover, reli- gious fanaticism will oppose your attempts. Everywhere
VOL. IV. 7
98 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTWOR
almost you will have to contend with prejudice and habit. Each of those obstacles must be overthrown by different means ; I leave the choice to your intelli- gence and your patriotism." This liberty of choice resulted in the administrators of Allier treating the priests who maintained the Sabbath as suspects, as though the Terror was still at its height.' (Gr^goire complained of this fact in the Council of Five Hundred, on the 25th of Frimaire of the year VI.)
On the 14th of Germinal next an order of the Direc- tory prescribed measures for the rigid observance of the Republican calendar. The administrations and the tribunals were to cease work punctually on each tenth day ; the market days were to be fixed by the muni- cipal administrations so as to refer in no way to the old calendar, and especially so as to " break off all connection between the fish markets and the days of abstention of the old calendar." The central adminis- trations were to regulate the fair-days of their respective arrondissements by the Republican calendar. " They will adhere as far as possible to the old dates, while nevertheless taking care not to preserve them exactly, and will take especial care that such days do not correspond with the fete-days of the old calendar."
The departures of diligences ; the opening of sluices ; the ,days of rest in workshops under the direction or for the benefit of the Republic ; dances ; contracts ; spectacles ; the dates of journals, &c. — all must be regulated according to the Republican calendar.
In actual practice at least one municipal administra- tion went farther than this : I refer to that of Brest, which, on the 2nd of Floreal of the year VI, at the request of the Directorial commissary,
"considering that for a long period the strict observation of the Republican calendar had been recommended, but that such recom-
' In Paris an order of the Central Bureau of the canton forbade the ostentatious observance of Sunday (5th of Frimaire, year VI).
THE TENTH DAY 99
mendations had for the most part proved useless, because one has always been in opposition to the priest, who continued to observe the Sundays and fete-days of the old calendar, and to mark those days by particular ceremonies, which has contributed to perpetuate ancient prejudices, and consequently to alienate the people from the Republican regime prescribed by the law of the 4th of Friniaire of the year II, ordained that, in order to obviate these inconveniences, the temples of the two parts of this city should be kept closed on the days formerly known as Sundays, and on fete-days observed by fasting by the sectaries of the Catholic cult."'
For some time the Council of Five Hundred had already been occupied with this question of the Decadl. On the 3rd of Frlmaire of the year VI Dutrot (of Nord) proposed that it should be declared obligatory, and he formulated the proposal in terms which were hostile to Christianity :
" While philosophy cries aloud to you to erase from the memory the superstitious institutions of the priests, to establish others more reasonable and more proper to republicans, pay such attention to its voice that you will not misconceive the destinies preparing for the French people, if, shaking off fanaticism of every kind, it will hence- forth take reason alone for its guide."
On the 14th, reporting on his own motion, he protested against those who had desired, with Lemerer, to place the Republic under the aegis of " the religion of our fathers." This religion was only for him " the pre- judices of ouf fathers," " the superstitions of our fathers."
" Ah, my colleagues," he said, " do not wait before acting to ask what the prejudices of our fathers were ; let us act according to our own knowledge and according to our own reason. Do not let us inquire into the superstitions of our fathers, when the simplest good sense commands us imperiously to destroy superstition ; let us dare, dare, of our own strength, to say boldly that it afflicts humanity, and shatter it to pieces in the hands of those who use it as a murderous weapon to assassinate {sic) the progress of man towards philosophy and liberty."
' From the compilation entitled: Archives de la villc de Brest: deliberations du Conseil municipal, vol. iv. pp. 423-4.
100 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
The debate upon the obligation to abstain from work on the Decadi opened on the 25th of Frimaire of the year VI. Gregoire alone was definitely hostile to compulsion. Felix Faulcon was of opinion that there was no need to establish such an obligation except for the inhabitants of the central communities of the cantons ; it would suffice to " invite " the people of the rural districts to cease their labours on the tenth day. Another deputy, Chapelain (of Vende), suggested that there were better ways of honouring the tenth day than by ceasing work. " Do not let us dishonour the tenth day by slothfullising it {laughter) ; honour it, on the contrary, by commercialising it {more laughter).'" Supported by Monmayou, he proposed to establish festivals on each tenth day. This motion, accepted in principle, inspired two reports upon " Decadal festivals " ; that of Dutrot and that of Bonnaire (on the 4th of Germinal and the 19th of Messidor of the year VI), in which the prevailing idea was that of contending against the influence of the Catholic religion by means of these festivals' : " Woe to the French people," cried Dutrot, " if the influence of its priests still fights against the influence of its laws ; if its institutions still prevail against yours ! "
Two legislative debates — one on the means of making the Decadi compulsory, and the other on the means of celebrating it by means of festivals — were carried on almost simultaneously, sometimes becoming actually confused : and ended, the former in the laws of the 17th and the 23rd of Fructidor of the year VI (resolu- tions of the 3rd and 21st of Thermidor), and the latter in the law of the 13th of Fructidor of the year VI (resolution of the 6th of Thermidor).
I . Obligation to abstain from labour on the tenth day. — The prescriptions of the Directorial order of the 14th of the preceding Germinal were ratified and ex- tended to other matters. Thus not only the " public
THE DECADAL CULT COMPULSORY 101
schools," but also the " private schools and boarding establishments for both sexes," were required to rest on the tenth day, and could not take a vacation on any other day excepting the fifth day (which took the place of Thursday in the new system). On the Decadi, there would be no announcements, distraints, arrests for debt, judicial executions or sales, nor executions of criminals, nor labour in public places ot highways, nor in view of public places or highways, excepting work in the country districts during the time of sowing or of harvest, and urgent labour specially authorised by the administrative bodies. Shops, stores, workshops, and factories were to be closed " without prejudice, however, to the ordinary sale of eatables and pharma- ceutical objects " ; all these matters being subjected to the conditions of Article 603 of the code of offences and penalties (ordinary police-court penalties). To these conditions of the law of the 17th of Thermidor of the year VI the law of the following 23rd of Fructidor added certain others ; either in order to ratify the order of the 14th of Germinal or finally to abolish the Sabbath. The employment of or reference to the old calendar in deeds and contracts, public or private, or in periodicals, placards, or sign-boards, was forbidden. Under no circumstances whatever was any but the new calendar to be employed ; and the calendar henceforth would be called the Annuaire de la Republique.
2. Decadal fetes. — Each Decadi, according to the law of the 13th of Fructidor of the year VI, the municipal administration, the commissary of the Direc- tory, and the secretary, were to repair, in uniform, " to the place chosen for the reunion of the citizens," and there read aloud : Firstly, the laws and enactments of the public authorities addressed to the administration during the preceding decade of ten days ; secondly, a " Decadal Bulletin of the general affairs of the Re- public," containing also instances of " civism " and
UBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
102 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
virtue, and " an instructive article on agriculture and the mechanical arts." The celebration of marriages would take place only on the Decadi, and in the same place. The teachers of both sexes " of the schools public or private " were expected to conduct their pupils regularly to the place of assembly. Finally, each Decadi would be celebrated by games and athletic exercises.
These laws being passed,' the Directory, with inde- fatigable zeal, endeavoured to apply them all over France, and this was the purpose and principal effort of its internal policy. The quarrel between M. Dimanche and the citizen D6cadi, as the pamphlets of those days called it, was no other than the quarrel between the Church and the secular State. The Directory had henceforth against it in this quarrel not only the Papist priests, but the former Constitutionals. The majority refused to transfer their ceremonies from Sunday to Decadi. We see, however, that in Vendemiaire of the year VII, in the rural cantons of Seine, this transfer was effected almost everywhere. But this was not to last. The peasants clung to their Sunday even more tenaciously than the priests. It would seem, to judge from the few existing monographs, that over the whole mass of rural France the celebration of Sunday con- tinued, despite the efforts of the Directorial commis-
* In the short debates which took place in the Council of Elders on the subject of these laws, the anti-Christian feeling seemed weaker than in the lower chamber. Thus Brothier, deputy from Saint- Domingue to the Council of Elders, expounded, in a liberal rather than an anti-Christian spirit, the superior advantages of a day of rest on which all the citizens should assemble and which itself was not sectarian. If all citizens were forced to rest on the tenth day, all apparent preference accorded to one religion or another would be abolished. On the other hand Rabaut the younger, a Protestant, was sensible that the scheme of decadal festivals threatened all revealed religion to some extent. He regretted that the Government would not make use of the "vehicle of religion" in order to inspire "love of the good, the just, the honest."
THE DECADAL CULT ESTABLISHED 103
saries. It is true that the peasants more or less zealously rested on the Decadi as well. But the desired result — that is, the general and voluntary substitution of the Decadi for the Sabbath — was not obtained.
The parish church was usually the place chosen for the celebration of the decadal ceremonies ; and the same building was more often than otherwise used on other days by the other sects. The central administration of Seine (on the second complementary day of the year VI) ordained that each of the twelve municipalities of Paris should celebrate the decades in one of the fifteen churches reopened for the use of the citizens. On a Decadi the exercise of other cults had to terminate in these churches at half-past eight in the morning, and could not be resumed until the termination of the decadal fetes, provided that was not later than six in winter and eight in summer. During the presence of the municipal administration the signs or symbols of other religions had to be removed or covered over ; and during the celebration of the Decadi no one could appear in the churches in any costume peculiar to religious ceremonies.
The fifteen churches in use by the citizens lost their ancient names, and were renamed as follows, by the order of the central administration of Seine, dated the 22nd of Vendemiaire of the year VI L :
Saint-Philippe-du-Roule : Temple of Concord. Saint -Roch : Temple of Genius. Saint -Eustache : Temple of Agriculture. Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois : Temple of Gratitude. Saint-Laurent : Temple of Age. Saint-Nicolas-des -champs : Temple of Hymen. Saint- Merri' : Temple of Commerce. Sainte-Marguerite : Temple of Liberty and Equality. Saint-Gervais : Temple of Youth. Notre Dame : Temple of the Supreme Being. Saint Thomas Aquinas : Temple of Peace. Saint-Sulpice : Temple of Victory. Saint- Jacques-du-Haut-Pas : Temple of Beneficence. Saint-
104 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Medard : Temple of Labour. Saint -]fctienne-du -Mont : Temple of Filial Piety.
In general the decadal festivals were celebrated with more curiosity than enthusiasm. The attendance of citizens was mediocre. People were drawn chiefly by the marriages ; in respect of which one of the most interesting and authoritative pieces of evidence is that of Dupin, Directorial commissary to the central ad- ministration of Seine. This is how he gives his impressions in a report submitted at the end of Vende- miaire of the year VII :
" The decadal festivals have been celebrated with a degree of success which, if not very complete, was at least extremely encouraging. A few municipal agents had neglected to attend under different pretexts ; the central administration sent for them and i^eprimanded them in a paternal manner, by which they profited at the succeeding festivals. Experience shows how right it was to insist that marriages should take place at the decadal Assembly ; for on Dccadis when there are none the temple is deserted. It must be admitted that so far our decadal festivals present no other attraction ; if people are to come there must be some kind of amusement, and the reading of the laws and the Bulletin, which is written and edited in a very frigid style, is not sufficient to offer them. The articles on rural economy interest the villager, but hardly the townsman. A few experiments in physics, as the Minister suggested in his circular to the Central Schools, would produce a better effect. So far the fetes have passed off without disturbance, for one must not dignify by that name a few ironical murmurs occasioned by the marriage of an old woman, wearing a girlish hat, to a deformed young man. I should not mention this matter in a general report, had not some people on the look-out for trouble announced that there was a disturbance in the Roch building last Dccadi ; but I will mention another and far more interesting fact which proves how very easy it is to undeceive the eyes of the people. In a rural canton (Pierrefitte) a marriage had just been celebrated in the decadal temple. The President had delivered a capital speech, the ring had been presented (the villagers think a great deal of the pre- sentation of the ring). The ceremony performed, one of those present asked the commissary of the executive how much it cost to get married in the Republican fashion. My colleague replied, loudly enough to be heard by the whole assembly, that far from demanding money from those it united in marriage, the Republic was fully repaid by the hope
PROGRESS OF THE NEW RELIGION 105
that the young people would give it children worthy of it ; but that their cure would ask for money without adding anything to the august ceremony of marriage. Thereupon the married pair and their relations looked at each other, saying that the cure should do so no longer, and gaily departed, taking their money with them. In this canton the decadal solemnity has so impressed the inhabitants that marriages celebrated in the new style are no longer submitted to the " visa du cure," a formality which these good folk never failed to observe in the case of marriages made before the agent of the com- mune. This is by no means a contemptible advantage that philosophy has won."
Dupont says farther on : "It seems to me that the civil religion ought very soon to destroy all the others, if its ceremonies can be made attractive." This v^as an illusion ; in Frimaire of the year VII the police reports gave evidence of " a general indifference." It was cold in these churches with broken windows. It was hard to see and hard to hear in them. To remedy these inconveniences the central administration of Seine had the temples repaired. By an order of the 1 8th of Nlvose of the year VI it placed in each temple a platform for the municipal officers ; sloping benches for the public ; busts of great men ; an altar of the Native Land, triangular in form, on the faces of which were " depicted, by allegorical figures, the principal epochs of the civic life as established by the law." The president of the municipal administration inter- rogated the pupils of the schools as to the Constitu- tion ; a hymn would be sung of a symphony executed. If there were occasion, civic crowns were bestowed on those who had performed acts of bravery. On the occasion of marriages the president would make a speech.
The execution of this law improved the fetes ; more people attended ; the police reports denoted real progress.
At the end of the Directory the decadal cult was
106 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
almost an integral part of the manners and customs of the people ; at least in Paris. In some cities, as in Besangon, it was celebrated with a great deal of fervour and success. Generally it did not arouse enthusiasm. In the rural cantons the municipal officers complained that the citizens' day of rest became for them a day of toil, and unpaid toil at that. The Catholics of both sects took all possible pains to ridicule the whole affair.
Nevertheless, the decadal system lasted, or more truly developed, until the day when the bourgeois Republic came to an end.
As for Theophilanthropy, we have seen that this rationalistic worship was at its apogee at the moment of the coup d'etat of Fructidor. The assemblages of the Theophilanthropists were still favoured by the Government as being " schools of the sanest morality." At the outset they occupied only three or four temples. In Vendemiaire of the year VII they were installed in the fifteen temples of Paris. The temples were too many for their numbers ; they could only furnish a small group of worshippers for each temple ; espe- cially as their services, which at first had attracted large numbers of curious persons, had now for a long time been attended only by the faithful. In Frimaire of the year VII the commissary Dupin stated that " they seemed to be disappearing " ; that " those who attended their meetings from a sense of civic duty seem to prefer the decadal fetes " ; and that " those who used to go out of curiosity are no longer attracted." In Nivose of the year VII the same Dupin writes : " The Theophilanthropists still exist, but their number does not increase, and their existence makes no splash " ; and in Germinal of the year VIL : " No growth, no falling off."
But one sees and may confidently state that in the year VIII, in Brumaire, the Theophilanthropic Church
PROGRESS OF THEOPHILANTHROPY 107
was still living, and was still causing the Catholics anxiety.
The " cohabitation of cults," under the system of the separation of Church and State, did not operate without a few quarrels. The Catholics often showed themselves extremely intolerant, as is proved by the numerous administrative reports on the subject. Thus, on the 20th of Messidor of the year VII the Catholics of Juniville (Ardennes) " insulted those married in the decadal temple." On the 25th of the following Thermidor the Catholics of Charly (Aisne) burned the altar of the Theophilanthropists. In Paris they insulted them by the most aggressive species of mockery. i The Theophilanthropists appeared perfectly conciliatory on all occasions. Thus in Paris, in the year VII, the muni- cipality of the 9th arrondissement had reserved the choir and the nave of Notre Dame for the decadal cult, having relegated the Catholics and the Theophilan- thropists to the lateral aisles. The Catholics grumbled and protested ; the Theophilanthropists submitted, although the destruction was involved of an altar in plaster-work which they had erected in the choir, and only requested that they should be indemnified to the extent of the cost of repairing the altar. In an undated report referring to these incidents the Minister of the Interior, Frangois (of Neufchateau), compared, in terms which for us are instructive, the intolerance of the Catholics, even of the non-Papists, with the concilia- tory spirit of the Theophilanthropists.
" This intolerant sect," he says of the Catholics, " will not suffer, in the places where it exercises its cult, any attributes other than those which distinguish itself. Where it places the image of Mary that of Wisdom must be veiled ; and the bust of Socrates or of Plato must
^ Especially during the first year. See Paris pendant la reaction for this subject ; vol. iv. pp. 383-496. When the Catholics saw their adver- saries were no longer gaining ground they quieted down.
108 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
be replaced by that of St. Dominic. Such a condescension would be weakness. It is quite enough to have left the chapels and one of the aisles to this malignant and exclusive sect. The Theophilanthropic sect, on the other hand, accommodates itself absolutely to the attri- butes of the decadal ceremonies ; they even regard them as auxiliary decorations of which they obtain the benefit."
These quarrels between the cults fell short of civil war ; they did not even cause any serious disturbances. Under the system of separation the cults co-existed with a bad grace ; but they did co-exist. Just or unjust, legal or dictatorial, the severities of the Directory to- wards the most important of the churches prevented its preponderance, and a religious equilibrium was established. At the beginning of the year VIII religious pacification was realised throughout the greater part of France, and was everywhere apparent.
Although the Directory had not realised its after- thought— sometimes secret, sometimes openly avowed — of destroying the Catholic religion, it had by its policy popularised the idea of the secular State, and had fortified the secular character which the State had already constitutionally assumed. It took care to ensure that public instruction should have no other basis than rationalism. To cite only one example : the Minister of the Interior, Frangois, on the 1 7th of Vendemiaire of the year VII, stated in a circular addressed to the professors of the Central Schools :
" You must exclude from your teaching all that relates to dogmas and the rites of any religions or sects whatsoever. The Constitution certainly tolerates them ; but the teaching of them is not part of public instruction, nor can it ever be. The Constitution is founded on the basis of universal morality ; and it is therefore this morality of all times, all places, all religions, this law engraven on the tablets of the human family, it is this that must be the soul of your teaching, the object of your precepts, and the connecting link of your studies, as it is the binding knot of society." '
' Recueil de lettres circulaircs du Ministrc de I'InUrieiir, vol. i. p. 224.
ROYALIST INSURRECTIONS 109
Shortly before the i8th of Fructidor the Directory imposed on the candidates for public service the obliga- tion of having attended the State Schools (by the order of the 27th of Frimaire of the year VI). It then organ- ised a rigid inspection of the free schools, closing all those in which the instruction was not founded on the rationalistic principles of the French Revolution (by an order of the 17th of Pluviose of the year VI).
Such was the religious policy of the Directory, and such was the evolution of the religious parties between the 1 8th of Fructidor of the year V and the 18th of Brumaire of the year VIII.
III.
The royalist party appeared to make it its own busi- ness to demonstrate the reality of the vast conspiracy denounced by the Directory, thereby justifying the coup d'etat of the i8th of Fructidor . An insurrection in Gard, directed by the royalist D. Allier, seized Pont- Saint -Esprit, but was unable to hold it. At Carpentras, at Tarascon, in the neighbourhood of Lyons, in the west, there were musterings of armed men. The Directory easily ended the matter. It placed Lyons, Montpellier, Perigueux, Limoges, and a few other towns in which the royalists had risen in a state of siege. These royalists, seeing that France accepted the events of the 1 8th of Fructidor^ were soon suppressed.
They had hoped that the moderates, should the Republic fall into their hands, would have rallied finally to the monarchy. But the moderates were beaten, crushed. Those of the royalists who, with the Comte de Puisaye, leader of the Breton insurrection, had always preferred armed attacks upon the Republic to pacific action, parliamentary intrigues, and coalitions with the republicans of the Right, felt themselves en- couraged by events to continue their policy of insur-
110 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
rection. On December 5, 1797 (the 15th of Frlmaire of the year VI), Puisaye, Frotte, Chatillon, Bourmont, Suzannet, and d'Alegre, assembled in London, addressed to the Comte d'Artois a collective letter, which is interesting to the historian, especially as the writers avowed that France was not royalist, as lying courtiers had made the King believe. Here are their own words : " ' France,' they say (the courtiers), attributing to their pretended labours the natural and inevitable change of public opinion : ' France is all royalist.' It would have been more correct to say : The French^ or nearly all the French, are discontented. They should not have concluded as lightly as they did that the wishes of nearly all were united and centred on the return of the King."
Certainly there are monarchists in France, but very many of them are inclined to choose another than a Bourbon king. For instance, were the Archduke Charles to marry the daughter of Louis XVI he would have excellent chances of supplanting Louis XVIII, and once on the throne " it is our duty," says the deputation, " to inform the King and Monsieur that now among the royalists not a voice would protest, not a hand be raised to force him to descend." There is only one means of averting this danger : it is that Monsieur himself (the Comte d'Artois) should at last return to France and set himself at the head of his supporters. The Comte d'Artois dryly refuses, stating that this is not the moment for an insurrection. Also the eventuality of which he is warned does not materialise; on June 10, 1799 (the 22nd of Prairlal of the year VII), the daughter of Louis XVI marries her cousin, the Due d'Angouleme.
In September, 1798, the royalist leaders send La Tremouille to Mitau to obtain a plain statement of his intentions from Louis XVIII himself ; but in vain.
The diplomatic and military successes of the Re-
ROYALIST BRIGANDAGE 111
public, the terror inspired among the ranks of the royalists pf the interior by the dictatorial laws, and the policy of aggression pursued after the 1 8th of Friictidor ; the progress of republican ideas among even the rural masses of the French people' ; ^ these were the reasons why, from the end of the year V to the beginning of the year VII, neither the Comte d'Artois nor Louis XVIII would attempt anything. This was a period without civil war, but jiot without disturb- ances. What was known as Choaannerie was pro- visionally extinguished as an insurrection of armed bands, but persisted as a state of brigandage. The holding up and robbing of diligences and stage coaches was one of the means systematically recommended by the royalist leaders ; means in general employment of delaying the complete re-establishment of order and security. The mobile columns which patrolled the country, and the soldiers who escorted the coaches, could not prevent the almost daily thefts and assassina- tions. France was almost terrorised. It was felt that the government which could not establish the security of the highways was not sound. This absence of confi- dence was one of the chief reasons why the impost was so irregularly paid during all this period ; and it may be noted in passing that the terrible financial difficulties from which the Directory suffered were due to the anxiety caused by the royalists and the refractory priests.
Yet order would have been re-established if the military situation had not grown critical ; and if the first successes of the second coalition had not threatened the Republic with the danger of extinction.
' The unanimous emotion caused by the news of the death of Hoche which was reported on the third complementary day of the year V (September 19, 1797), the popular success of the funeral ceremonies in honour of the great republican soldier, and the general sorrow of the nation, attested the vitality of Revolutionary France.
112 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Then between Prairial and Fructidor of the year VII Louis XVIII decided to put his fate to the test, and the Comte d'Artois organised insurrections in Langue- doc, Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Perche, and Normandy, with the aid of Cadoudal, Chatillon, Bourmont, and Frotte as leaders. He endeavoured to procure a diver- sion in the interior which would benefit Souvaroff and the Austrians.
The first of these royalist insurrections, and perhaps the most serious, took place in Thermidor of the year VII, in Haute-Garonne, Ariege, Gers, Aude, Tarn, Lot, and Lot-et-Garonne. It had been prepared from a distance by the emigres; refractory priests returned from all quarters, and the insurrection broke out at the news of the Republic's military disasters, and during the spasm of discontent which the levy of all classes had caused among the peasantry. About Toulouse, on the night of the i8th of Thermidor, an army of fifteen or twenty thousand men spontaneously assembled — dis- contented peasants and refractory conscripts, incited to the pitch of fanaticism by priests, ofhcered by nobles, and under the command of an ex -General of the Republic named Rouge. Their purpose was to take Toulouse, the garrison of that town having of neces- sity been sent to the frontier. The courage and presence of mind of the departmental administrations, in especial that of Haute-Garonne, managed, thanks to the patriotism of the National Guards, to offer a sudden and effective resistance. A small army of volun- teers was organised in Toulouse. The royal army, which had already captured a few small towns, notably that of Muret, was forced to beat a retreat, and was crushed at Montrejeau (on the 3rd of Fructidor of the year VII). This victory was due solely to the courage of the republicans of the south. ,When the troops despatched by the Minister of War arrived at Toulouse under the command of General Fr^geville the insurrec-
ROYALIST INSURRECTIONS 113
tion was vanquished, and France heard of the beginning and the close of it almost at the same time.
In Normandy Frotte, who had landed there on the 1st pf Vendemialre of the year VIII, found himself immediately at the head of about ten thousand insur- gents. They constituted themselves a " royal and Catholic army " ; and in a proclamation of Octo- ber 25, 1799 (the 3rd of Brumaire of the year VIII), " in the name of the God of our fathers and on behalf of our legitimate King Louis XVIII," it called upon " the brave and faithful Normans " to " fly to arms," promising them that Monsieur was about to land in France. Frotte dared not or could not occupy any town.
In the other risings the royalists were bolder, and attacked the larger towns. On the night of the 22nd of Vendemialre of the year VIII the army of the Comte de Bourmont took the city of Mans by surprise, pil- laged it, and remained its master until the 25th, when they retired at the approach of republican troops. Chatillon and d'Andigne attempted to capture Nantes ; their army entered it on the night of the 27th of Vendemialre^ but was able only to free some prisoners before it was put to flight. On the 4th of Brumaire Chatillon attacked the town of Vannes, but without success. On the same night a thousand Chouans took Saint-Brieuc, but could only maintain their position for a few hours. In Anjou, d'Autichamp attempted to surprise Cholet ; but the royalists were themselves surprised by a sortie of the garrison of the town, and were dispersed (on the 7th of Brumaire^.
On the 1 6th of Brumaire the Minister of War, Dubois-Crance, in a report submitted to the Directory, estimated the insurgent forces in the iWest at the following figures :
"Chatillon, in Anjou, has 3,000 men and hopes to muster 12,000; Bourmont, in Maine, has 7,000, whom he beUeves he can increase to VOL. IV. 8
114 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
15,000 ; Frotte professes to have 20,000 under him in Normandy ; there are as many more in Brittany under different leaders. The bands are largely composed of young men subjected to requisition or conscription, enlisted in the cause by or against their own wishes."
These insurgent leaders hoped soon to be in a posi- tion to assist the English, the Austrians, and the Russians. Their hopes were disappointed. The vic- tories of Brune in Holland and Massena in Zurich (3rd sans-culottide, year VIII) preserved France from invasion and saved the Republic. On the other hand, although the royalists had at the outset enjoyed an astonishing and rapid success, they had been unable to maintain themselves in the towns they conquered. In no region of France was their audacity seconded by the general and enthusiastic assent of the population. It was no difficult task to seize upon places whose garrisons had been sent to the front ; but nowhere was it possible for them to establish themselves securely. The royalist leaders knew themselves beaten, not only by the vic- tories of Brune and Massena over their allies, but by the failure of their plan to rouse the peasantry. At the moment when the Directory came to an end these leaders were considering the question of capitulation. General Hedouville, a former chief of staff under Hoche, appointed commander of the " Army of England " — that is, the forces available for use against the Chouans — had some experience of such " pacifications." He at once began to negotiate with the generals of Louis XVIII. On the i8th of Brumaire of the year VIII he received in his general quarters at Angers Mme. de Turpin-Crisse, instructed by MM. de Chatillon and d'Autichamp to open negotiations with a view to an armistice.
Thus at the moment of the fall of the Directory the royalist insurrection in the West was morally defeated, and the royalist party in general was in a
DECADENCE OF THE ROYALIST PARTY 115
state of rapid decadence. ' In Paris it had been for a long time reduced to hiding in the salons and the masonic lodges .2
IV.
The coup d'etat of the i8th of Friictidor was effected by an understanding between the democratic repub- licans (then called Jacobins, anarchists, Terrorists, and exclusives) and the bourgeois republicans (otherwise called Directorial, or liberal -conservatives). This agreement did not last. The republicans of the Right recommenced, at the end of some months, to attack the republicans of the Left, reproaching them with their Babeuvist connections and tendencies. At the Con- stitutional Club, on the 9th of Ventose of the year VI, Benjamin Constant fulminated against the " anarchists," whom he declared were more contemptible than formid- able :
" They want," he said, "to equal Danton, by recommending anarchy ; but Danton had powerful conceptions and profound emotions ; Danton overwhelmed the souls of his listeners, because Danton himself had a
' Is it true that the Director Barras had become the secret agent of Louis XVIII in the year VII ? Letters patent have been published, dated from May 8, 1799, in which the King assured him of impunity in respect of his regicide in the event of restoration. It appeared that he received a money payment for his treason. He took money again at the Restoration. In his Memoires Barras states that having received overtures from Louis XVIII, he spoke of the fact to his colleagues in the Directory, who requested him to pretend to allow himself to be bought, and to follow up the intrigue. The fact that one cannot cite a single service which the royalists received from Barras appears to confirm his posthumous justification. See Fauche-Borcl, Memoires; Th. Muret, Histoire des gucrres de I' Quest ; Gohier, Memoires ; E. Daudet, Les Emigres et la seconde coalition; C. Nauroy, Lc Curieux ; Chassin, Les Pacifications,
' Dupin says of the royalists in a report : "Shut up in their masonic lodges, they imagine they can escape the eyes of the police and seduce public functionaries at their banquets,"
116 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
soul ; Danton was susceptible of pity, of that virtue of generous hearts, without which man is nothing to man, and can do nothing with men ; and his pretended heirs, clumsy gabblers of distorted speeches, cold in their delirium and petty in their corruption, are narrow and trivial as the interest that animates them."
But there is no need to speak of Terrorists, of anarchists. The peril to-day is of another kind. It is property that is threatened :
" The Revolution was effected for the sake of the liberty and equality of all, and to leave the property of each inviolable. Wherever pro- perty exists it should be inviolable ; to touch it is to invade it ; to disturb it is to destroy it ; it is a miracle of the social order ; it has become its basis ; it can only cease to be so by ceasing to exist. Now the Revolution did not intend that it should cease to exist ; it therefore undertakes to defend it. From what has not been done against pro- perty results what has been done in its favour ; and all the means of government, all the measures of the legislator, must tend to maintain it, to consolidate it, to surround it with a sacred barrier. . . . Who dispossesses the rich man threatens the poor man ; who proscribes opulence conspires against mediocrity."
The Directorial republicans were resolute conserva- tives. But if the proprietors whom they wished to defend did not rally sincerely to the Republic, both the proprietors and the Directorial republicans would be lost. " The events of eight years," says Benjamin Constant, " afford us the perpetual example of men who have perished through their allies. It is therefore more than time to learn to avoid imprudent alliances. The nobility, who were not attacked, rushed to the rescue of feudality ; the nobility are no more. Royalty, which was spared, ran to the succour of the nobility in peril ; royalty has passed away. Property, which we respect, and hope always to respect, seems to devote many regrets and some efforts to the re-establishment of vanquished royalty. Let property beware ; the decree is irrevocable ; he who supports that which is bound to fall only determines his own fall ; and if property
THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS 117
grows blind we may well perish with it^ but not protect it."
During the elections of the year VI it was necessary, in Constant's words, to oppose " hereditariness and arbitrariness " together ; in order to succeed it was essential " to confide the functions of the Republic only to republicans." i
This incoherent programme was not the one to rally public opinion. Not that the democrats had a more lucid or solid programme ; not that they had any programme at all, as far as can be seen, except to ;change the personnel of the Government. But the Directory gave them a species of popularity by persecu- ting them, by excluding them from the functions of office, by suppressing their journals, while at the same time it was making itself unpopular by showing itself surrounded by. dubious functionaries, by stockjobbers ; a dishonest sequel in which Barras would seem to have been the leading figure. As a result of these disorders (themselves the result of the financial expedients to which the Government was constrained to resort on account of the continuation of the war), the democratic republicans (or those who had been such) represented integrity and virtue.
The elections of Germinal of the year VI were favourable to them ; they obtained a majority ; less as democrats than as opponents of the Directory.
The Directory immediately cried out at the " social peril." In a message of the 13th of Floreal of the year VI it denounced its adversaries of the Left as socialists and Robespierrists :
" By anarchists the Directory docs not understand those energetic republicans, lovers rather then friends of liberty, who arc capable of submitting the imperious sentiment of liberty to the law ; by this
' Discours prononcc au Cercle constituiionel, le g Ventose, an VI, par Benjamin Constant.
118 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
word it understands those men covered with blood and rapine, who preach the common happiness in order to enrich themselves by the ruin of all ; who speak of equality hoping to become despots ; men capable of all baseness and all crime, sighing for their old powers ; the men who, on the 8th of Thermidor, were Robespierre's agents, and occupied places throughout the whole Republic ; who since the 9th of Thermidor have figured in all conspiracies ; who were the hench- men of Babeuf and the conspirators of the camp of Grenelle." '
The Directory ended by requesting the deputies to take "measures as efficacious" as those of the i8th of Fructidor, and " to have as little to do with Babeuf as with the supporters of a phantom king." As a result of Bailleul's report the Council of Five Hundred adopted a resolution, on the 19th of Floreal, which the Elders approved on the 22nd. We have already analysed this celebrated law of the 22nd of Floreal, the aim and effect of which was to change, in a revolu- tionary spirit, the results of the last elections, and to eliminate a large proportion of the opposition of the Left.
The preamble of this law forms a long indictment of the deputies to be excluded. It states that there is a ,royalist conspiracy " which is divided into two branches, and has employed two kinds of agents, who have (apparently taken opposite sides, but who have actually been marching towards the same end." On the one hand royalism, flying its true colours, has elected a few deputies, " On the other hand, and in a greater number of departments, royalism, despairing of its own forces, has put a faction in its place, the corrupted tool of the foreigner, the enemy of law of any kind, and destructive to the whole social order." Henceforward it was the official custom to represent the
' If we subtract the insults, this is a very fair historical definition of the democratic republican party under the bourgeois Republic ; the old governmental personnel (of the year II) as opposed to the new; the equalitarian as opposed to the liberal policy.
THE DIRECTORIAL REPUBLICANS 119
democratic republicans as the allies of the royalists ; and for a long time denunciations were heard of royalism in the red bonnet.
There is no evidence that this assertion was not calumnious. The Directorial republicans never alleged any definite example of this pretended alliance of the republicans of the Left with the royalists, and I have discovered nothing to indicate even a momentary agree- ment between the partisans of Louis XVIII and the " Jacobins."
Drafted with as much haste as anger, this law did not merely calumniate those it struck ; it struck them at hazard. If it eliminated Robert and Thomas Lindet (Eure), Doppet (Mont-Blanc), Fion (Ourthe), and Le- quinio (Nord), it is easy to see that it was because these citizens were really suspected of " Jacobinism " or " anarchy." But why should the same law allow equally notable " Jacobins " to retain their seats? It left unstricken, for example, Monge (Bouches-du- Rhone), Crevelier and Guimberteau (Charente), Florent Guiot (Cote-d'Or), Briot and Quirot (Doubs), Destrem (Haute-Garonne), Genissieu (Isere), and Talot (Maine-et -Loire), all republicans after the fashion of the year II, and elected or re-elected to the two Councils. The truth is that at the time no one was really conscious of the difiference in the ideas and even in the personnel of the two parties. All anti-clericals, the republicans were divided, after the 1 8th of Fractidor as before it, only upon secondary ques- tions ; almost the only exception being that the repub- licans of the Left were for a moment allied to the Babeuvists.
This alliance was apparently abandoned, in Paris, at the moment of the elections of the year VI . Certainly at the electoral assembly, at the Oratory, there were Babeuvists, or at least persons who had been more or les§ compromised during Babeuf's trial ; but
120 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
there is no trace whatever extant of any " sociaHstic " disturbance during these elections. ^
It may even be doubted if all the deputies excluded as anarchists were really of the opposition. In Pas- de-Calais four were excluded out of the nine elected : namely, Coffin, Thery, Cocud, Crachet. Now Coffin was the Directorial commissary to the central ad- ministration of Pas-de-Calais ; Thery was Directorial commissary to the municipal administration of Bapaume ; Cocud had been appointed judge by the Directory after the i8th of Fractidor ; as for Crachet, administrator of the district of Saint-Omer in 1793, he had been dismissed as a moderate after the 31st of May ; the Directory had appointed him, in the year IV, commissary to the correctional tribunal of Saint-Omer ; then, m the year VI, he was promoted to be public accuser to the criminal court of Pas-de-Calais. Here, then, are four officials appointed by the Directory, enjoying its confidence, whom the Legislative Corps has cast out from its midst as anarchists 1 One of the four — Crachet — called attention to the matter in a brochure which had a great success .2
Antonelle also, one of the leaders of the supposed " anarchists," published a criticism of the law of the 22nd of Floreal, in which he took his stand entirely on the Constitution of the year III. Those of the democrats who were reputed to be the most violent
' The conservative republicans would gladly have given a contrary impression. They printed a placard entitled : Tentaiives de realiser le systeme de Babciif, par la vote des elections, prouvees par une petite liste alphabetiqiie de quelques principanx electeurs du canton de Paris, enfaiits cJieris de Babeiif, qui tenaient le de a I'Oratoire. The list of names is as follows : Audouin, Antonelle, Alibert, Andre, Boudin, Briffaut, Crepin, Creton, Casset, Clemence, Camus, Daubigny, Fyon, Fiquet, Gaultier de Biauzat, Groslaire, Jorry, Julien, Lavigne, Leban, Moreau, Naudon, Pierron, Real, Toutin, Tissot.
^ Appel aux principes, ou Premiere lettre de Robert Crachet, 15 Thennidor, an III. Secondc lettre, i Vcndemiaire, an VII.
THE PEOPLE CONTENT: CHEAP FOOD 121
strongly advised against any insurrection, and their political behaviour was strictly constitutional.'
The Legislative Corps itself was apparently swiftly ashamed of this incoherent coup (Vetat. At a dinner of deputies on the 28th of Prairial of the year VI, Bailleul having proposed a toast to the law of the 22nd of Floreal, there were violent protestations, and the toast was not drunk.
This peril of the Left, so loudly denounced, began to appear chimerical, especially when it was seen that the Parisian working-men were indifferent to the demo- cratic propaganda. The police laughed at the efforts "of the 150 brigands of the anarchist staff." ^ Why? Because the famine had ceased, and the means of sub- sistence were cheap. Since the beginning of Frimaire of the year V, corn was at 24 livres, meat at 4 soujs the livre on the hoof or 8 sous dressed. A police report of V end e mi aire of the year VII stated that the people were contented to possess at last the three eights that had been demanded so constantly in 1789 and 1790 : bread at 8 sous the 3 livres, wine at 8 sous the litre, and meat at 8 sous the livre. 3 The Redacteur of the 24th of Messidor describes the increasing well-being of the people in the following terms :
"Another very remarkable change for the better, although little attention has been paid to it, is the standard of living among the labourers and artisans ; not only is their ordinary diet better, in so
' See, for instance, a pamphlet entitled ; La grande conspiration anarchique de I'Oratoire renvoyee a ses auteiirs, by Citizen Bach. The author attacks the law of the 22nd of Floreal, and speaks in commenda- tion of the electors of the Oratory, of whom he is one. The anarchist conspiracy ? it is the work of the usurpers of the sovereignty of the people ; of the stockjobbers, police-spies, &c. — But no insurrection. Let us rally round the Constitution of the year III. — Such is the substance of this pamphlet, which was denounced as a hardy piece of opposition on the part of the Left.
" Paris pendant la reaction, &c., vol. iv. p. 721.
3 Ibid., vol. V. p. 173.
122 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
far as they eat more meat and more vegetables than formerly, but it is more equally distributed. A short time ago two wretched meals costing 5 or even 4^ sous only, witli plain water to drink, was all that could be afforded, week in week out, by all the journeymen tailors, cobblers, saddlers, stone-cutters, &c., of Paris. As a result they used to guzzle in Nev/ France, Poland, or the Piggeries, all Sunday and half through Monday, so that all the streets neighbouring on these quarters were full of drunkards who found them too narrow, and who were fighting among themselves or with their women, who tried to get them home. To-day these same men eat and drink less on Decadl and Primidi, on Sunday and Monday, but in return they have much better fare on the other days of the week, and usually drink a little wine at each meal. Their physique and their morality can only be the gainers by this change of diet."
No propaganda, whether in favour of universal suffrage or Babeuvism, had a chance of success in the Faubourgs Saint-Marceau and Saint -Antoine, from which conscrip- tion had taken nearly all the active young men, and where, after so much physical hardship and suffering, mere material life had become so much better than ever it had been before.
V.
So it v/as not in the streets, but in the Legislative Corps, that the influence of the democratic republicans was felt. The coup d'etat of the 22nd of F lor eat had not eliminated all the new deputies ; enough had re- mained to work a sensible change in the spirit of the two Councils. There was a strong opposition to the Directory, especially in questions of finance ; an oppo- sition whose object was to draw the Legislative Corps out of the state of subordination in which the coup detat of the 1 8th of Fructidor had placed and left it. The Government was made responsible for mal- versations which the most indulgent could not fail to observe in the administration, especially of things military. Royalists no longer, but ardent republicans
CORRUPTION OF THE ADMINISTRATION 123
like Genissieu, now denounced to the Five Hundred (on the 19th of Thermidor of the year VI) a " faction which threatens Hberty by the loss of the pubhc wealth and the demoralisation of society." The reporter of a commission which the Five Hundred had instructed to conduct an inquiry into the matter gave vent to this cry of alarm (on the 2nd of Fructidor of the year VI) :
"There is no department of the public administration into which immoraHty and corruption have not crept. ... A longer indulgence would make you the accomplices of these men whom the voice of the public accuses. They will be struck down from the height of their sumptuous chariots, and hurled into the void of public contempt : these men whose colossal fortunes are a proof of the infamous and criminal means which they have employed in acquiring them."
Certainly the speaker affected to attribute these dis- orders to the " bureaucracy," not to the Directory itself. But a large division of public opinion was less indul- gent ; it was to Barras, the self-indulgent rake, that the thefts of the contractors and the scandals of market - rigging were attributed ; they were attributed also even to the honest Reubell, who thus paid dearly for the lying agents with whom he had weakly surrounded himself ; Reubell, on whom fell the unpopularity of his protege, the Minister of War Scherer, and the accusations formulated on all hands against his relative Rapinat, commissary of the Directory in Switzerland. People did not scruple to say that it was from the salons of the Directory that issued all the corruption displayed by the cynical noiiveaux-riches who had speculated in national property, assignats, and army stores ; and many historians have retrospectively per- ceived the source of this corruption in the manners of the society of the day.
But the periods at which most complaint is made of unfortunate manners are perhaps not those when manners are actually at their worst. If we read care-
124 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
fully the absolutely contemporary testimony of eye- witnesses, namely, the journals and the police reports, we find that the fashions complained of as obscene are adopted only by a few eccentric persons ; that even the royalist journals are written in a more decent style than was the case under the monarchy ; that the contributors to these journals cry out at the least scandal, and that although morals may have been easy in the garden of Idalia, prostitution in Paris was diminishing. In PrairlaL of the year VI the Directorial commissary Dupin wrote :
" Manners ' are not bad ; there is still a sense of public decency, and in spite of austere critics we may say, comparing the manners of to-day with those of the ancien regime, that there is less ceremony but at least as much sincerity and integrity. For some time prostitution has been less of a scandal than it was. The police are seriously striving to suppress it." "
So when people speak of the " corruption of the Directory," as I did myself at a time when I was wont to put too much trust in memoirs, they are using an abusive generalisation ; and there is no justifica- tion for attributing the morals of Barras to the whole Directory, or the morals of a few dishonest contractors to the whole of France, If an affirmation were per- missible, one might almost say that under the Directory public morality was in a state of progress.
One thing is certain : that the opposition had per- suaded the nation that the Directory was not dealing honestly with the public finances. When the electors assembled, from the 20th of Germinal of the year VII
' The word mceurs used throughout this passage means more than manners. I have commonly translated it by manners for convenience ; but its exact significance usually includes morality as well. The vocabulary of the illiterate classes gives almost the exact nuance to the word " ways " : "I don't like his ways." — [Trans.]
" Paris pendant la reaction, &c., vol. iv. p. 735. As to the question of public morality under the Directory, see the whole of vols. iv. and v.
SIEYES BECOMES A DIRECTOR 125
to the 29th, they were convinced that the undeniable waste and embezzlement was the work of the Directory ; that there was systematic dishonesty on the part of the Government and the administrations, which must be radically dealt with. They knew also that the Army of Italy, defeated, was in full retreat ; that the Russians were coming into line against France, while the best general of the Republic was wasting himself at the siege of Acre. The newly elected third was com- posed of republicans of the Left ; nearly all of them hostile to the Directory. The latter, by a stroke of ill-luck, lost one of its members, Reubell, by lot, and replaced him by Sieyes, who was notoriously hostile to the Directorial policy, and had in his head a plan of constitutional reform.
When the new third came to take their seats the Directory had lost all the prestige of its military and diplomatic victories. Jourdan, defeated, had recrossed the Rhine, and the French plenipotentiaries had just been murdered at Rastadt. Discontented and anxious, the majority of the Legislative Corps, thanks to the complicity of Sieyes and the seeming treachery of Barras, was able to prepare a sort of coup (V etat against the majority of the Directory. On the 17th of Prairial the Council of Five Hundred invited the Directory to explain the causes of the disasters to the French arms, and the means which it proposed as a remedy. The Directory remained silent. On the 28th it was summoned to reply, and the Five Hundred put them- selves in a state of permanent session until the answer should arrive. Finally the Directory decided to send a message, in which it spoke of the " causes " of the disasters in such a way as to justify itself and to blame the Legislative Corps ; but it postponed the explanation of the '* means " to be adopted as a remedy.
The Legislative Corps had opened hostilities by
126 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
annulling, on constitutional pretexts, the election of the Director Treilhard, although then of a year's stand- ing, replacing him by Gohier, an upright and inde- pendent republican.
On the 30th of Prairial, in the Five Hundred, Boulay (of Meurthe) declared that " a great blow must be struck " in order to force Merlin and La Revelliere to send in their resignations. He reproached the former with having " put into practice the most disgusting and tortuous Machiavelism," and the latter with having " attacked the liberty of the conscience " in order to favour Theophilanthropy. To report upon the motion the Five Hundred immediately appointed a commission of which Boulay was again the reporter. His report, submitted before the same session was over, vaguely complained of " arbitrary actions and illegal deten- tions," and drew the conclusion that a message on the subject should be sent to the Directory. This conclusion adopted, the Five Hundred, on the motion of Frangais (of Nantes), " considering that conspiracies might be hatched against the safety of the national representation or one of its members," voted the following resolution, which the Elders at once converted into law : " Any authority or individual who shall make any attempt upon the security of the national representation or of any one of its members, whether by giving directions or by executing them, shall be outlawed."
Merlin and La Revelliere-Lepeaux dared not resist this coercion, but sent in their resignations, and were immediately replaced by General Moulin and the ex- Conventional Roger Ducos.
It will be remarked that Barras, formerly denounced as forming a triumvirate with the other two Directors just named, was allowed to retain his post. Is it true, as we are told, that he effected a treacherous reconcilia- tion with the majority in the Councils by betraying to them the plans of campaign of the threatened Directors,
DISCONTENT WITH THE DIRECTORY 127
thus causing them to miscarry? In the Memoires com- piled by Rousselin and Saint-Albin from the post- humous notes of Barras, we read that the latter per- suaded his two colleagues to resign by stating that he would immediately follow their example ; we read also that he negotiated with the leaders of the Legislative Corps. He felt that the military and diplomatic checks which the Directory had suffered had deprived it of the strength required for an attempt to bring about a new coup d'etat like that of the 1 8th of Fructidor, and at the last moment, by abandoning his colleagues, he made the victory of the Legislative Corps over the Directory a possibility.
This victory is known as the coup cV etat of the 30th of Pr atrial of the year VII, although the coup d'etat consisted only of a purely moral and assuredly legal pressure. But from that time onwards the Constitution of the year III, irremediably strained, seemed doomed quickly to disappear ; and Sieyes, aided by the weak Ducos, prepared for the realisation of his mysterious plans.
VI.
It was the external danger — the defeats of the French in Germany and in Italy — which had led the Council of Five Hundred to assume, on the 30th of Pr atrial, the attitude of a Convention. The continuation of the external peril, the victorious march of Souvaroff, the threat of an invasion of France, while the best French general was in the East with a picked army, quickly provoked a return, in the interior, to the forms of the Terror.
The need became sensible, as it had in 1792 and 1793, of a strong and almost dictatorial centralisation of the Government.
It was to re-establish unity in the Directory, to give
128 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
it strength to save a France threatened by her neigh- bours, that the Five Hundred compelled La Revelliere- Lepeaux and Merlin to resign. But the Five Hundred were suffering from an illusion. Although Barras had all the appearance of a Government leader, in reality he no longer directed anything, and was destroying him- self by acting at the same time (or so it seems) as the accomplice of all the parties. Roger Ducos did not count. Gohier was apparently a mediocrity. Moulin was upright — no more. Sieyes was dreaming of another republic, of which he would be the elector. The Minis- try, from Prairial of the Year VII to Brumaire of the year VIII, was the shadow of the Directory ; powerless, and divided. Fouche, in the Ministry of Police, was making ready for any kind of treason ; Reinhard, in the Ministry of External Relations, was merely the agent of his predecessor Talleyrand ; Dubois -Crance, who was about to replace Bernadotte as Minister of War, and Robert Lindet, Minister of Finance, were no longer wielding their power under conditions which allowed them the full play of their clairvoyant energies. But these republican names — Dubois -Crance, Lindet, Fouche — seemed to recall and restore revolutionary forms of government ; and such was the patriotic exal- tation of the country that on the approach of Souvaroff all divergencies for the moment disappeared, to make way for a violent effort of national defence.
The language and the pose of 1793 returned. Just as after the great popular " days " or insurrections the vanquished were tried and condemned, so did the ad- vanced republicans of the Council of Five Hundred desire (but in vain) to try and execute the three ex- Directors, Merlin, La Revelliere-Lepeaux, and Reubell : the " Royalist Triumvirs," as they unjustly called them. The Council of Five Hundred created something like a Committee of Public Safety ; a Commission of Eleven^ which soon became a Commission of Seven. The
THE COUNTRY IN DANGER 129
Directory was authorised to make domiciliary visits. As in August, 1793, recourse was had to the levee en masse, the general levy, so on the loth of Messidor of the year VII (June 28, 1799) conscripts of all classes without exception were called for. As in 1792, the cry that the country was in danger was heard from the tribune, and Jourdan proposed to proclaim this danger (on the 27th and 28th of Fructidor) ; the Five Hundred refused, but Jourdan's wild words were applauded. Finally, as we shall see. Terrorist laws were voted, and the Jacobins reappeared.
In 1793, for the needs of national defence, the Con- vention had established a forced loan of a milliard upon "the rich." On the 19th of Frlmaire of the year IV the Councils had voted a compulsory loan of about six hundred millions, upon a fifth of the taxable popu- lation. These expedients had succeeded but ill ; but in the year VII, under the pressure of national peril, they were repeated. On the loth of Messidor the "easy" class was called upon to fill up a loan of a hundred millions to organise new battalions. On the 19th this measure took the form of a progressive tax established in proportion to the tax on landed property. A law more revolutionary and more of the Terrorist type was that of the 24th of Messidor of the year VII, called the law of the hostages. At the moment when it became necessary to rob the interior of its garrisons in order to defend the frontiers, no one knew how to prevent the brigandage of the royalists, the isolated assassina- tions, the holding-up of diligences, and the pillage of all kinds that the " Jacobin " journals indignantly enumerated. By the law of hostages it was deter- mined that when a department, canton, or commune was notoriously in a disturbed condition the Directory should propose to the Legislative Corps that it should be declared affected by the following measures : the relatives of emigres, the former nobles, and the relatives
VOL. IV. 9
130 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
of brigands, both men and women, would be held re- sponsible for assassination or looting ; they would all be put under arrest as hostages. For each assassin of a patriot four hostages would be deported ; and all the hostages in addition would pay a fine of 5,000 livres. For each act of pillage, the hostages would pay the victim a sum, as damages, to be determined. Such was this law, more threatening than easy of execution ; indeed, the Government apparently had only begun to apply it in a few rare cases when the recovery of the military situation rendered it void and useless.
VII.
Of all the effects of the Terrorist reaction brought about by the external conditions, the most startling and important was the resurrection of the Jacobin Club. We have already seen that the old parent society at- tempted to reconstitute itself, both at the outset of the Directory and after the i 8th of Fructldor: near the Pantheon, or in the Rue du Bac, or in the Faubourg Saint -Antoine. But the Constitution of the year III authorised none but " private societies connected with politics " ; these societies might neither qualify them- selves as popular, nor become mutually affiliated, nor correspond one with another, nor hold public meetings at which members and outsiders were distinct from one another, nor make any collective petition.
The Directory had until then been able to fetter or suppress the clubs at will, so long as the country was not in danger and so long as public opinion refused to tolerate the Jacobins. But in the year VII, under the threat of invasion, opinion was so far modified as to allow of a serious attempt at the reorganisation of the Jacobin Club against the enemy at home, allied, as in 1792 and 1793, with the enemy at the gates. On the 1 8th of Messidor (July 6, 1799) a Reunion
THE RESURRECTION OF THE JACOBINS 131
d'Amis de la liberie et de V egalite was formed in the Salle du Manege, with the tacit authorisation of the Council of Elders. In order not to seem to violate the Constitution by openly re-establishing the old parent society, the Jacobins had neither president nor secre- taries ; but " a regulator, a vice -regulator, and anno- tators." The law forbade petitions ; the Jacobins drew up addresses and posted them up. The law forbade affiliation ; there was a " spontaneous " breaking-forth of sister societies in all the large towns, organised on the lines of the Parisian society.
The " Reunion " of the Manege had a periodical organ : the Journal des homines litres ; a worthy successor of the Journal de la Montagne. It had 3,000 adherents, of whom 250 were deputies. Its regulators (or presidents) were Destrem, Moreau (Yonne), and General Augereau, Among its leaders or orators were Drouet, Felix Le Peletier, Bouchotte, Prieur(Marne), and Xavier Audouin. Its commission of public instruction strove to indoctrinate France. It acted prudently, affecting legal and constitutional forms. But from the tribune of the club the members not only eulogised the republicans of the year II ; they did not confine them- selves to stigmatising the insurrection of the 9th of Thermidor, to exalting the memory of the victims of Prairialy or to vaunting the democratic republic : zealous orators dared to praise Babeuf and Darthe, and to publish a socialist programme ; so that the neo -Jacobins were accused of " preaching the agrarian law." '
* These neo-Jacobins were the socialist-radicals, as we have seen. They venerated the memory of the democrats and Babeuvists. We read, in a speech by Marchand (of the 2nd of Thermidor of the year VII): " Goujon, Bouchotte, Romme, Soubrany, Duquesnoy, and you, Babeuf and Darthe, virtuous martyrs of liberty, as yet we have raised no obelisk to your memory," &c. In speeches of the 30th of Messidor and the 7th of Thermidor, Bach proposes "to establish a progressive impost immediately, using the surplus of what the rich will thus pay for the alleviation of the imposts on the industrious and laborious class." To
132 POLICIES AFTER 18TH OF FRUCTIDOR
Insulted at the outset by the royalists, by the Incroy- ables, by the " young men with spy-glasses, curls, and queues, and black or violet stocks," they were soon denounced before the Council of Elders as anarchists and factious people, and had to emigrate to the old Jacobin convent in the Rue du Bac, where they met from the 9th to the 25th of Thermidor. On the 26th the Directory closed their hall, and the club disap- peared ; after thirty-eight days of a very stormy and unequal career, which alarmed the bourgeoisie and pre- pared them to accept as from a saviour guarantees against this " red spectre " which for a moment had r,eappeared ; and against the agrarian law, the new partition of the national property which the Jacobins had imprudently preached from their tribune.
From this point of view the resurrection of the Jacobins had grave historical consequences.
reduce official salaries, to make the enemies of the people " stump up," to establish relief workshops, to demand an account of the employment of all incomes over 1,200 livres — such was the programme. Lastly, would it not be just, when the poor citizens were about to defend the soil, to declare them co-proprietors with the more fortunate ? On the 1 8th of Thermidor, in a programme voted upon the introduction of a motion by Felix Le Peletier, the club expressed these desires : " To re-establish the democratic spirit in the Government. — To establish an equal and common education. — To give properties to the defenders of the country. — To open public workshops, in order to destroy mendicity." For information respecting these neo-Jacobins, see my article in the Revolution frangaise, vol. xxvi. p. 385.
CHAPTER III THE FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
General causes of the coup d'etat of the i8th of Brumaire. — II. Popularity of Napoleon Bonaparte. His return from Egypt. — III. Preparations for the coup d'etat. — IV. The "day" of the i8th of Brumaire. — V. The 19th of Brumaire. — VI. Suppression and replacement of the Directory.
The coup d'etat of the i8th of Brumaire, by means of which Napoleon Bonaparte impounded the RepubHc, was the distant, indirect, but visible consequence of the action of the Legislative Assembly on April 20, 1792, in declaring war upon the King of Bohemia and Hungary.! Since that time revolutionary France had never ceased to be in a state of war. Despite so many brilliant military and diplomatic victories, she could not obtain a general peace. France, as we have seen, never ceased to be an enormous camp, in which a system of military discipline was combined with a constitutional system in proportions ever varying according to the exigencies of national defence. The rational principles of the Revolution were proclaimed and violated in one breath. In order to obtain from Europe the right to establish the liberty of the future, it was necessary to suspend the liberty of the present.
' See vol. i. p. 353. 133
134 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
In order to organise a government which should be powerful enough to conquer both Europe and the re- sistance of the past, it was necessary first to make an appeal to the sovereignty of the people and then to suspend the exercise of that sovereignty. The consequence was the formation, under the cover of patriotism, of a condition of public manners and morals which finally permitted an ambitious general to create himself dictator.
We may say that patriotism gradually became cor- rupted. The people of France fought to make France free and independent ; but also in order to fraternise with other peoples and rescue them from a state of slavery. Their victories won France her independence ; but they also brought her conquests. Then, forgetting her disinterested promises, the nation wished to retain, for the sake of self-aggrandisement, what she had taken in self-defence. At the time of Bonaparte's first Italian victories, France styled herself, by the voice of the Directory, the Great Nation. This greatness consisted in the fact that, by a return to the ideal of the ancien regime, she had substituted the politics of interest for the politics of principle.'
Patriotism, humanitarian at first, became egotistical. It had even become malignant ; especially with regard to the English, whom France had formerly so much admired ; and who were now waging pitiless war upon her ; a war without mercy or loyalty, in which they pretended to negotiate only to break off nego- tiations ; suborning all Europe against her ; destroy- ing the effect of her victories ; standing out, isolated and obstinate, against the general pacification. Anglo- phobia had already, at the instigation of the Revolu-
' According to Roederer {(Euvres, vol. iii. p. 326) and Joseph Bona- parte {Memoires, vol. i. p. 77), Napoleon, on his return from Italy, remarked to Sieyes : " I have made the great nation." Sieyes replied " That is because we first of all made the nation."
ANGLOPHOBIA 135
tionary Government, so far corrupted patriotism as to render it cruel ; notably when Barere, on the 7th of Prairial of the year II, procured the decree that in future the French should make no English or Hano- verian prisoners. This frame of mind, unnatural to the French character and inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution, was still further exasperated, from the year IV to the year VIII, by the despairing continuation of the war with England. When the Directory, in a proclamation of the ist of Frimaire of the year VI, announced its intention of " being about to dictate peace in London " ; when it declared that by a descent upon England " the Great Nation would avenge the universe " ; it was useless to say that France, " naturally generous," " did not hate even the English " ; it was futile tO' distinguish the English from their Government ; the fact being that the whole Republic was suffering from an erup- tion of Anglophobia. The failure of this proposed descent so cruelly disappointed French patriotism that we can see plainly that the French nation would have made even the sacrifice of liberty, that it would, at need, have provisionally abdicated in favour of a single man, if thus it could hope to come to grips with England. I
This degeneration of patriotism was also apparent in the state of affairs and opinion that we nowadays call militarism.
The generals, first of all severely subordinated to the civil power, so long as France was fighting to
' On the 14th of Nivose, year VI, in a proclamation, the central bureau of the canton of Paris stated : " At the name of England the blood boils in the veins, the heart shudders with indignation." Among the various manifestations of Anglophobia we may cite the success of the "Hymn of Revenge" {Chant des vengeances) oi Rouget de Lisle, and dramas such as La Descente en Angletcrre {Paris pendant la reaction, &c., vol. iv. pp. 505-532).
136 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
defend herself in order to live, became predominant from the moment when, as a conqueror, France wished to retain, organise, and extend her conquests.
Since the general levy had sent into camp nearly all the young and living forces of the nation, it would seem that only the Army was still strong and vital. It was to the Army that the Government must look for support in its internal policy. The blow of i8th of Fructidor was effected by the grace of Bonaparte and the sword of Augereau. Then the Army declared itself — as in modern times has happened in Spain — issued addresses directed against the royalists, and took the civil power under its protection.
It was ardently republican ; but it also ardently loved its leaders, who had led it to victory. Its con- quests had progressively assumed a political signifi- cance. The Army had created republics in Italy ; why should it not organise the French Republic? '
Since it began to conquer in place of defending, the Army (like the nation) has learned to love con- quest as conquest ; first for the sake of glory, then for the sake of loot. The Hoches, Klebers, and Marceaus of the Army have done their best against the instinct of rapine, the craving for prey ; Bona- parte has excited it, and has placed a sordid ideal before the eyes of the Army of Italy.
In this manner the pure republican ideal of the soldiers of the year II has been modified. From conquest they have acquired the taste for conquest ; from gain, the taste for pillage. Victories due to the genius of their leaders have awakened in their hearts
' The Council of Five Hundred seemed to encourage these ideas by the considerable place which it accorded military men in the lists of candidates for the Directorates. Among these candidates, at different times, were Generals Beurnonville, Massena, Ernouf, Augereau, Brune, Moulin, Lefebvre, Dufour, Marescot, and Pille.
BONAPARTE AND THE ARMY 137
sentiments which later on will gradually give the Army a Prastorian character.
The Army hates kings and Bourbons ; it shouts '* Vive la Republique ! Vlvent Vegallte et la liberie!'''' — but it no longer has the love of civil liberty at heart. Having engineered a coup d^etat at the instance of civil authority, of obscure civilians, why not bring about a coup d'etat of its own for the benefit of its glorious generals? The civil leaders feed it ill, clothe it ill ; the military leaders led it to glory and gain ; they love and understand it ; and they have proved, by the organisation of their conquests, that they understand civil matters as well as military.
Now it happens that the most admired of these leaders. Napoleon Bonaparte, is at the same time a great general and a great military orator, and thus seems to realise in himself an ancient ideal of the French race.
n.
Now, since his prodigious Italian victories of the years IV and V, and especially since the death of Hoche, General Bonaparte had become the hero of France, and all men's imaginings were busy with him. Coming to Paris after exchanging at Rastadt the rati- fications of the treaty of Campo-Formio, he was received by the Directory, on the 20th of Frimaire in the year VI, in an audience so pompous, so theatrical, that it seemed an apotheosis of the general whose civic loyalty the Government had already had more than one excuse for regarding with suspicion. Bonaparte spoke as a soldier, but also as a politician ; and having eulogised the Revolution and exalted the re- publican victories, he ventured to say : " When the welfare of the French people is based upon the best organic laws, all Europe will become free." The
138 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
Directors dared not protest against this indirect but factious criticism of the Constitution of the year III ; they pubhcly bestowed the accolade upon their general, thus ratifying his popularity, which became dis- turbingly great ; what with banquets, medals of honour, poetry and hymns, and the flattery of the journals, there was a general paroxysm of worship and adula- tion, all the more threatening to liberty because it was for the most part sincere. Intended to command the Army which is to make the descent upon England, Bonaparte remains in Paris, and, with the help of Sieyes, is already playing an audacious part : he speaks of re-investing the Legislative Corps with its former authority, and of engineering another 9th of Thermidor against the Government. The Directory (we are told) decides upon the expedition to Egypt in order to be rid of a rival who is already dangerous.
This expedition, although finally disastrous, adds a kind of Oriental prestige to Bonaparte's glory. Although he forsakes his Army in order to return to France, he is regarded not as a deserter, but as ^ hero miraculously delivered. When, on the 21st of Vendemiaire of the year VIII, Paris learns that he has landed, on the 1 6th, near Frejus, there is an explosion of joy in the cafes, in the theatres, and in the streets. The ex-Conventional Baudin having died suddenly, the report is spread that he has died of joy. Republicans and royalists, in their journals, salute his return with rising hope. Briot (of Doubs), the ardent democrat, speaking in the Council of Five Hundred on the 22nd of Vendemiaire, predicts, in lyrical terms, the services which the sword of Aboukir's conqueror will shortly render the Republic.^
' On the 27th the municipal administration of PontarHer writes to the central administration of Doubs : " The news of Bonaparte's arrival in France has so electrified the inhabitants of the commune of Pontarlier that many of them have been indisposed by it ; others
BONAPARTE'S WELCOME 139
Bonaparte makes a triumphal journey. '* The crowd was such," says the Mo nit ear, " even on the highways, that the traffic could hardly advance. All the places he has passed through, from Frejus to Paris, were illuminated in the evening. Lyons is in a delirium ; a play in his honour is improvised and performed at the theatre : The Return of the Hero ; or Bonaparte at Lyons."
The Directory probably foresaw and perhaps pro- voked this journey ; but it had not expected this formidable explosion of popularity. It welcomes Bonaparte with sufficiently good grace, and reproaches him with nothing. The general appears modest ; he flatters and seduces everybody save Jourdan and Berna- dotte ; gives a sabre to Moreau, and at the Institute persuades every one that the expedition to Egypt was undertaken purely in the interests of science. The most distinguished intellects of the time — Berthollet, Monge, Laplace, Chaptal, Cabanis, Marie-Joseph Chenier, and others — scientists, poets, and thinkers, are convinced that this young general, a geometer and philosopher, will found the republic of their dreams. He poses as the citizen rather than the soldier, and assumes a semi-civil costume ; a redingote with a Turkish scimitar. " He has taken to wearing his hair short," says the Moniteur of the 26th of Vendemiaire. " The climate in which he has lived . . . has given more colour to his face, which was naturally pale." For the first time since 1789 the gazettes are full of flatter- ing anecdotes of a man whose words and actions are reported as those of Mirabeau nor of Robespierre never were. And this is not a factitious or concerted " boom " ; it is an effusion of sympathetic curiosity, of universal liking. Hoche was admired. Bonaparte is admired and beloved. Even in the opposition of
have wept tears of joy, and all wonder if it is not only a dream " (Sauzay, Hist, de la pers. riv. dans Ic dep. du Dotibs, vol. x. p. 474).
UO FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
certain far-seeing republicans, who already prophesy a Cromwell, there is liking. Henceforth France identi- fies herself with her hero, who knows how to speak as well as to conquer, and who towers above the heads of his contemporaries ; all the more because the guillotine has long ago suppressed his possible rivals, the flower of the men of thought or action of the time. The deadly levelling blade that has planed the nation down makes Bonaparte, already great, a giant : he fills all eyes ; no other man is seen.
.We can scarcely doubt that Bonaparte returned from Egypt with seditious dreams of ambition. Conscious of the extreme outward and inward peril of the country, he counted on appearing as a saviour. When he landed, he learned, on the contrary, that France was saved by the victories of Massena and of Brune. He had perforce to rejoice in his popularity with modesty and innocence ; to wait, to manoeuvre, to plot with Sieyes.
The latter used to say that he needed a sword for the realisation of his mysterious and complicated schemes for a Constitution. He would have wished for a sword " less lengthy " than Bonaparte's ; he would have preferred Moreau's. But Moreau evaded him. After his return from Egypt Bonaparte was the only commander whom Sieyes could approach. The " old fox " hoped to play with the " young hero." Yet he half feared what actually occurred. Conversing with Joseph Bonaparte and Cabanis as to his proposal to make Napoleon Consul, together with himself and a third, he said : "I wish to march with General Bona- parte because he is the most civil of all soldiers. But I know what is in store for me. After success the general, leaving his two colleagues behind, will make the very gesture I make now " ; and passing, as he spoke, between his two companions, and pushing them backward with his two arms extended, he suddenly
SIEYES FINDS HIS SOLDIER 141
attained the centre of the room. This anecdote, re- peated to the general, made him smile, " Hurrah for men of intellect ! " he said. " I augur well from that." In Vain did Sieyes try to get Bonaparte to agree beforehand to his Constitution. The latter would not hear him ; would not plan with him anything but means of execution of the projected coup d'etat ; as for the Constitution, he declared that it must be dis- cussed by the legislative commissions which would be drawn from the expurgated Legislature. If Sieyes would not consent, let him pick another general ! Talleyrand and Roederer, who played an active part on the backstairs of the conspiracy, prevented a rupture. Sieyes resigned himself, and his Constitution was " rejected at the stage of the second draft and left to the chances of the future."
III.
Bonaparte, Sieyes, and their accomplices were thus determined to engineer against the Legislative Corps a coup d'etat analogous to that of the i8th of Fructi- dor ; but they did not feel confident of success, and they saw that at the moment public opinion was not clamouring for a saviour. The French, after so many contradictory and forcible revolutions, whether popu- lar or governmental, had arrived at a state of political scepticism ; an apathy which allowed a schemer to dare greatly, but not to count upon the enthusiastic support of a truly national feeling. Certainly the true republican spirit, the spirit of legality, had been corrupted by the excesses of the Terror, by the excess of military glory, and by the weakness or violence of the Directory. The bourgeoisie, the new social aristocracy, the possessors of national goods, were afraid ; both of the Jacobins, who had almost become Babeuvists, and of the royalists, who were threatening
142 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
the social fabric which had been established since 1789. Such a state of affairs made a coup d'etat possible enough, if it were put forward as directed simulta- neously against the Jacobins and against Louis XVIII. But it did not necessitate the coup d'etat ; the nation did not call for it.
Had Bonaparte returned from Egypt a few weeks earlier, when Souvaroff was threatening the frontiers, France would possibly have thrown herself into his arms. But in Brumaire of the year VIII the frontiers were saved, and the royalist insurrection of the south suppressed.
Yet one new danger facilitated the schemes of the conspirators. At the end of Vendemiaire there was news of the recrudescence of the Vendeean and Chouan insurrections. Public opinion, however, was not greatly stirred ; it quickly saw through the factitious character of this royalist upheaval. The Prussian Minister in Paris wrote to his Government at this time that con- fidence was being renewed throughout France ; and we find that even religious enmities were becoming appeased.
It has been said that the Legislative Corps, by the triviality and incoherence of its deliberations, managed finally to disgust public opinion with the parliamentary system. But it was really, on the con- trary, occupying itself calmly and sedately with the repeal of the Terrorists' laws relating to the compul- sory loan and the hostages. On the 17th of Brumaire this debate was on the point of conclusion ; Sieyes and Bonaparte, if they waited longer, would no longer have the Jacobins to invoke as a pretext, no longer be able to raise the red spectre. It was time to act ; the morrow would be too late. Sieyes still hesitated ; Bonaparte resolved to take the plunge.
Whatever advantage the conspirators gained by the glory of Bonaparte and Si^y^s' position in the Govern-
THE CONSPIRACY OF BRUMAIRE 143
ment, it is extremely doubtful whether their coup (V Hat^ which France did not in any way desire, could ever have been realised ; but for the fact that the majority of the Elders were already familiar, not indeed with the idea of a military dictatorship (which they held in abhorrence), but with the constitutional schemes of Sieyes, although no one as yet clearly under- stood these schemes, and Sieyes himself had probably not yet resolved upon all the forms and means. The Five Hundred had voted a resolution to the effect that all negotiators, generals, ministers, Directors, &c., who should propose or accept conditions of peace involving the integral alteration of the territory of the Republic, or any modification of the Constitution of the year III, should be punished by death. This resolution, evidently aimed at Sieyes, was rejected by the Elders on the 2nd of Bramaire of the year VHI. The Five Hundred resigned themselves to this rejection ; there was no conflict, but a profound divergence between the two Chambers. The Elders admit that the Constitu- tion might be altered ; the Five Hundred feel that it is threatened, but avoid all open discord ; they are conciliatory, but are powerless and lacking in fore- sight. They fear Sieyes ; not without justification. But they do not fear Bonaparte ; indeed, their con- fidence in him is pushed so far that on the ist of Bramaire they elect his brother president ; Lucien, who has sworn to plunge his dagger into any dictator. The Elders, having to renew their " Inspectors of the Hall " (questors), appoint men who are shortly to be accomplices in the coup d'etat: Cornet, Courtois, Beauprc, Barailon, Fabre.
Bonaparte spent the 1 7th of Bramaire in making sure of his officers and his troops. He persuaded General Bemadotte to neutrality. He sent for Mac- donald, Beurnonville, and his brother-in-law Leclerc. As for Moreau, he consented to co-operate because
144 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
he was dissatisfied with the Directory. A contempo- rary, the historian Tissot, assures us that the Minister of War learned of the conspiracy on the 1 7th, and proposed to the Directory that Bonaparte should be arrested ; they refused, being reassured by the reports of the Minister of Police, Fouche, The worthy Gohier was one of the most ardent disbelievers in the con- spiracy, because Bonaparte had promised to dine at his house on the i8th. Sieyes, assured of the complicity of Roger Ducos, and the prudent neutrality of Barras, did not trouble to put his colleague Moulin on the wrong scent. Helped by Fouche, secretly advised by the able Talleyrand, sure of a majority in the Council of Elders, Bonaparte and Sieyes could without anxiety set to work on the final preparations for the coup (V Hat, while the Commission of Inspectors convoked the Elders to an extraordinary session on the following morning — the i8th — at eight o'clock.
IV.
At the opening of the session Cornet, president pf the Commission of Inspectors, vaguely denounced a conspiracy, and spoke of " poignards " and " vultures." Immediately Regnier, without giving further details, proposed that the Elders should make use of the right which the Constitution gave them of transferring the Legislative Corps to another commune. He proposed Saint-Cloud, which insignificant village was chosen to show that there was no intention to decapitalise Paris. The two Councils would assemble there on the follow- ing day — the 19th. "General Bonaparte is there," added Regnier, " ready to execute your orders the moment you instruct him. This illustrious man, who has merited so much from his country, burns to crown his noble labours by this act of devotion to the Repub- lic and the national representation." He demanded
THE COUP UETAT OF BRUMAIRE 18TH 145
that Bonaparte should be appointed commander of the 17th military division, in the province of which was the department of Seine.
Although the Elders had the right to transplant the Legislative Corps, they had by no means the right to appoint any general to a command. Nevertheless the Elders voted all Regnier's propositions.
The Five Hundred, meeting about eleven o'clock, Received notice of the decree of the Elders ; and in order to prevent all debate Lucien Bonaparte, the president, immediately terminated the session.
The Elders had not waited for the Five Hundred to meet before acquainting Bonaparte with the decree. From the steps of his house he harangued the entire staff of officers, who overflowed into the street. He replied to the objections of his predecessor in the command of the 13th division. General Lefebvre, by informing him that it was a matter of rescuing the Republic from lawyers. Already he had had the Champs-Elysees and the garden of the Tuileries oc- cupied by troops. Having received the decree, he went to the bar of the Elders to take the oath there ; but instead of " swearing fidelity to the Republic and the Constitution of the year HI, and to oppose with all his might the re-establishment of royalty in France, and of all kinds of tyranny," according to the formula decreed on the 12th of Thermidor of the year VII, he said : " We desire a Republic founded upon the true liberty ; upon civil liberty, and upon the national re- presentation ; we shall have it, I swear. I swear it in my own name and in those of my companions in arms." Whereupon, installed in the inspectors' hall, he imme- diately began giving orders and conferring commands ; and, although no decree had authorised him to do so, ^.ppointed General Moreau commandant of the Guard of the Luxembourg, in which the Directors dwelt ; and Moreau accepted this gaoler's place. The barriers of VOL. rv. 10
146 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
Paris were closed, and the departure of couriers suspended.
The people of Paris showed themselves indifferent ; there was no rising, either hostile or sympathetic, although the streets were full of curious citizens reading the proclamations of Bonaparte : "In what a state did I leave France, and in what a condition did I find her 1 . . . This condition of things cannot continue," &c. The Minister of Police, Fouche, and the central administration of Seine also, by means of placards, pronounced themselves in favour of the coup d'etat. Eulogies of Bonaparte and of his liberal intentions were also spread abroad ; stating that he would be neither a Csesar nor a Cromwell. The people were assured that it was merely a matter of a legal revolution. Thus, for the constitutional promulgation of the decree of the Elders the signature of the majority of the Directors was required. All depended upon the attitude of Barras ; if he were to join Gohier and Moulin, the coup d'etat already commenced might miscarry. Barras stood aside ; he absented himself, to the profit of the conspirators.
Gohier, who presided, convoked the Directory ; Moulin alone presented himself. Barras sent his resig- tion as Director to the Legislative Corps. At this Gohier and Moulin, thoroughly disconcerted, went to join Sieyes and Roger Ducos in the hall of the inspec- tors, which they refused to leave ; and all four signed the decree. Evidently Gohier and Moulin either lost their heads, or did not as yet suspect Bonaparte. On their return to the Luxembourg they became prisoners in Moreau's custody. They protested by means of a message which was intercepted. Moulin escaped. Gohier remained a prisoner until the 20th. The Government was at an end.
THE COUP D'ETAT OF BRUMAIRE 18TH 147
V.
However, the coup d'etat well-nigh miscarried ; be- cause the republican supporters of the Constitution of the year III had had time to confer during the twenty- four hours which elapsed between the decree of trans- ference and the re-assembling of the Legislative Corps at Saint-Cloud. The president of the Five Hundred, Lucien Bonaparte, had over-estimated his influence over his colleagues, and it was very soon evident that the Council contained a majority against the schemes of Siey^s and Bonaparte. Even in the Council of Elders there was a hostile minority which did not conceal its indignation as to the violence offered to Gohier and Moulin.
The Five Hundred opened their session in the Orangery, and the Elders in the Gallery of Mars, in the midst of a display of military strength. However, the soldiers who guarded the chateau were chiefly com- posed of the grenadiers of the Legislative Corps, so the deputies were not alarmed.
The Elders sat at two o'clock. The minority de- manded explanations as to the plot which had been denounced the day before. They were given the in- correct answer that Gohier, Moulin, and Roger Ducos had resigned with Barras, and that Sieyes had been placed under supervision. At four o'clock Bonaparte, introduced at the bar with his staff, made an incoherent speech, in which he stated that he was accompanied by the God of Fortune and the God of Glory. He requested the Elders to " prevent intestine broils," and to safeguard liberty and equality. Some one cried out : " And the Constitution? " Pie replied that the Con- stitution, violated by every party, could no longer save France. He was challenged to name the conspirators, and he hinted at vague grievances against Barras and Moulin. The Council insisted ; he became confused,
148 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
lost his head, denounced the Five Hundred, summoned his soldiers, and withdrew. A republican, Dalphonse, proposed that the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the year III should be taken. The majority appeared embarrassed. Then came the news that Bonaparte had just been stabbed in the hall of the Five Hundred : the Elders formed themselves into a secret committee.
The Council of Five Hundred met simultaneously with the Council of Elders. Delbrel cried : " We will have the Constitution or death ! Bayonets do not frighten us : we are free here, I demand that all the members of the Council, individually summoned, shall imme- diately renew the oath to maintain the Constitution of the year HI," The assembly rose with enthusiasm ; and each deputy, including even Lucien Bonaparte, went to swear the proposed oath ; with one single excep- tion, that of the ex-Conventional and ex-Girondist Bergoeing.
The Five Hundred were discussing the resignation and the replacement of Barras, when Bonaparte entered the hall, bare-headed, holding in one hand his hat, in the other his riding-whip, escorted by four Grenadiers of the Legislative Corps armed only with their sabres. Beside them he seemed smaller than ever ; he was pale, disturbed, and hesitating. It would perhaps have been a favourable occasion for hearing and questioning him. Anger and indignation overcame prudence. The Five Hundred would not allow him to speak ; they cried : " Down with the dictator 1 Outlaw ! " Destrem said to him : " Is it for this you have conquered? " It has been pretended that at this juncture several deputies, notably Arena, threatened him with daggers, and that a grenadier named Thome received the blow intended for him. It is clear, however, from the most credible witnesses, even those who were among his supporters, that there was only a scuffle, in which the grenadier Thome perhaps had his sleeve torn ; but that
THE SCENE IN THE COUNCIL OF 500 149
no daggers were drawn, nor was there any attempted assassination. Insulted, repulsed, Bonaparte retired. His brother Lucien tried to justify him, raised a storm of hooting, and gave up his presidential chair to another conspirator, Chazal. It was proposed to annul Bona- parte's appointment ; to declare that the troops assem- bled at Saint-Cloud were part of the guard of the Legislative Corps. Chazal refused to put these motions to the vote. There arose a general cry : " The outlawry of Bonaparte ! " Lucien was forced to resume the pre- sidency for the voting of this decree. Lucien wept, half fainted, and laid down the insignia of the presi- dential dignity. He was surrounded, consoled, and allowed to go in search of his brother, in order to bring matters to a termination by a " civic explanation." Chazal resumed the chair. There was now a frightful uproar. Augereau, coming to resume his place as deputy, challenged the president to put the decree of outlawry to the vote.
The decree was on the point of being carried when the troops entered.
When Bonaparte left the hall of the Five Hundred he was seen to be very pale ; his head was bent and he walked like a sleep-walker, pursued by the cry of " Hors la lot! " (" Outlaw! ") which had formerly sent Robespierre to the scaffold. The silence of the soldiery and of the crowd increased his alarm. He got into the saddle to harangue the troops, but immediately fell to the ground. He was picked up and surrounded ; Lucien came up and led him into a hall of the palace, and then returned to inform the troops that seditious persons had attempted to assassinate their general, and that it was the president of the Council of the Five Hundred who now ordered them to invade the hall where the assassins were in session, and to disperse the deputies. Two squadrons of grenadiers, preceded by drums, entered the Orangery, their sabres drawn. Blin^
150 FALL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY
Bigounet, Talot, and General Jourdan addressed them in vain ; they pushed the deputies before them, and forced them to go out, laughingly carrying the most recalcitrant in their arms. The spectators in the galleries departed through the windows.
VI.
Immediately the Council of Elders instructed a Com- mission to draw up and propose suitable measures ; and, in accordance with its report, voted the suppression of the Directory, the creation of an executive Com- mission of three members, and the adjournment of the Legislative Corps.
Bonaparte and Sieyes, however, did not believe that this vote would be accepted by the general public.
Some members of the Five Hundred, 25 or 30 in number, held a session at nine o'clock at night, under the presidency of Lucien Bonaparte ; and, as they formed a majority, voted a resolution (in conformity with a report submitted by Boulay of Meurthe) to the effect that the Directory no longer existed ; that 61 members of the Legislative Corps would be ejected, among them being Talot, Arena, Briot, Destrem, Goupilleau (Montaigu)), and General Jourdan ; that an executive Consular Commission should be created, consisting of the citizens Sieyes, Roger Ducos and Bona- parte, who would assume the title of Consuls of the French Republic; that the Legislative Corps was ad- journed until the ist of Ventose following ; that during this adjournment each Council would be replaced by a Commission of 25 of its members ; and these two Commissions would legislate, " upon the definite and essential motion of the executive Consular Commission, upon all urgent matters of police and finance," and would prepare " the modifications to be effected in the organic provisions of the Constitution, the faults
BONAPARTE TRIUMPHANT 151
and inconveniences of which have been shown by experience."
The Council of Elders immediately converted this resolution into law, and the three provisional Consuls appeared at the bar in order to take the oath of " fidelity to the Republic one and indivisible, to liberty, equality, and the representative system." It was Lucien Bona- parte who had had this formula altered ; it was Lucien again who at the tribune of the Five Hundred compared this day with that of the Oath of the Tennis Court.
As for the grenadiers who had dispersed the Five Hundred, they felt that they had saved the Republic, and re-entered Paris singing the (^a ira.
CHAPTER IV
THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE AND THE CONSTITU- TION OF THE YEAR VIII
I. The 1 8th of Brumaire and public opinion. — II. The policy of the Provisional Consuls. — III, The drafting of the Constitution of the year VIII.— IV. Analysis of this Constitution.— V. The acceptation by plebiscite.
It may seem that the history of the plebiscitary Republic, that is to say of the Consulate, ought not to form part of the history of the French Revolution properly so called, because the coup d'etat of the 1 8th of Brumaire opened up a period during which the development of the principles of 1789 was contra- dicted and arrested ; a period, in short, of genera,! reaction.
But this reaction did not appear as a whole and at once. The disorganisation of the work of the Revolution by the man in whose favour the nation had abdicated its rights was not effected at a blow. Gradually only, and progressively, half -elaborated, the State politic, fashioned in conformity with the ideas of the eighteenth century, was abolished as regards its essential institutions, and replaced by a new form of government^ archaic both in spirit and in tendency ; replaced by a species of military and religious tyranny. A brief history, or rather a sketch of a history, will suffice to show the workings of this slow and pro-
152
PARIS INDIFFERENT : FRANCE INDIGNANT 153
visional disappearance of the principles whose birth and vicissitudes we have considered in some detail.
I.
France learned with amazement of this new revolu- tion, which had no excuse in the shape of serious internal or external danger. Yet so many days had been seen since 1789, so many insurreictions and coups d'etat^ effected by the people or its governors, and the Constitution of the year III had been so often violated by the latter, that the breaches of law com- mitted on the 1 8th and 19th of Bramalre were pro- ductive of more surprise than indignation. In Paris the workers of the faubourgs did not rise in defence of the democratic deputies who were the victims of Napoleon's move. Since the events of Pr atrial in the year III the popular element was practically nowhere in the capital. There was no longer a Jacobin Club in Paris. Democratic opinion had no longer a centre nor means of action ; it remained inert. The bourgeoisie were reassured and confident ; especially those engaged in the higher walks of commerce and finance. Consols, on the 17th of Brumaire, were at .11 fr. 38. On the 18th they rose to 12.88 ; on the 19th, to 14.38 ; on the 21st, to 15.63 ; on the 24th, to 20 francs. But no one appeared to be particularly rejoiced, excepting the royalists, who at first were so naive as to believe that Bonaparte was about to set Louis XVIII on the throne. They insulted the repub- licans by means of street-songs and comedies. But this phase passed quickly, and we may say that through- out Paris in general the public feeling remained chilly, nearly indifferent, almost apathetic.
It was by no means the same in the departments ; there occurred many acts of definite opposition. Many public officials — elected administrators of departments
154: THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
or cantons, or commissaries of the Directory — protested, or refused to register the decrees of the 19th of Brumaire. The president of the Criminal Court 'of Yonne did the same. The provisional Consuls had on this account to discharge a considerable number of functionaries. One departmental administration, that of Jura, was not contented with protestations ; it actually decreed the formation of an armed force to march against the " usurping tyrants " ; but its decree was not obeyed.
Several clubs made their protests heard ; notably those of Versailles, Metz, Lyons, and Clermont-Ferrand. The Jacobins of Toulouse unsuccessfully called on the citizens to arm themselves. There was thus a verbal re- publican opposition in the departments ; but it was the opposition of a minority of club-members and officials. Nowhere, it seems, was it echoed by the masses of the people ; nowhere was it necessary to repress even an incipient insurrection in defence of the law. The royalists exulted in the provinces as in Paris ; but there were no bloody collisions between them and the repub- licans. iWe may say that the mass of the nation waited, without any particular emotion, to make up its mind as to this new " day," this last insurrection : the doing;s of Bonaparte, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos.
II.
The provisional Consuls exercised their functions from the 20th of Brumaire of the year VIII until the following 3rd of Nivose: from November i ith till December 24th of the year 1799. At their first session it was proposed that a president of the Consulate should be appointed. The Consuls decided against any such appointment ; the duties of a president should be ful- filled in rotation, each day by one of them, who should have no other title than that of Consul of the day. The
THE CONSULS 155
chance of alphabetical order gave Bonaparte the presi- dency of the first session ; Roger Ducos presided over the next and Sieyes over the third, and so forth. Conse- quently Bonaparte was not invested with the dictatorship on the morrow of the coup d^etat, nor is it true to say that he then actually exercised it. Although in military matters he exercised a preponderance similar to Carnot's when a member of the Committee of Public Safety, it is impossible to cite any authentic instances of his acting or speaking as a dictator before the voting of the Constitution of the year VIII, unless they happen to be instances which illustrate the preparation of that Constitution. The policy generally followed during these first weeks was as far* as possible anonymous, and the Consulate was only a Directory reduced to three members ; of whom Bonaparte appeared in public only with his two colleagues ; truly by no means diminished or effaced, but in legal standing and official authority of one rank with them.i
The policy of the provisional Consulate was modest and conciliatory. The victors of previous " days " — the 3 ist of May, the 9th of Thermidor, the 1 8th of Fractidor — had boasted of blasting vice and error in the name of truth and virtue. The new " saviours of the Republic " are tactful people, who have slipped into power as best they could : but more roughly than they had expected ; and who are anxious to atone for their outburst by being wiser and luckier than their prede- cessors. The combination of a popular general and a fastidious philosopher offers not to change society, but to heal its diseases by opportune expedients. No one speaks of a military dictatorship ; Bonaparte has
' The Ministry was thus composed : Justice, Cambacercs ; Foreign Relations, Reinhard ; Pohce, Fouche ; War, Berthier ; Finance, Guadin ; Interior, Laplace ; Marine and Colonies, Bourdon de Vatry. (We see that four out of seven former Ministers were retained — Cambaceres, Reinhard, Fouche, Bourdon de Vatry.)
156 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
exchanged (so the journals announce) his general's uniform for a civilian's frockcoat ; it is a civil govern- ment that the new rulers wish to establish. They neither wish to set the Seine on fire nor to make a clean sweep and begin anew ; they wish to do their best for the best, while treading on as few corns as possible.
Firstly comes the question of bringing the advanced republicans into line. As the pretext of the coup d'etat was the Jacobin peril, a Consular order of the 20th of Brumaire banishes from the continental territory of France 34 " Jacobins " ; among them Destrem, Arena, and Felix Le Peletier ; and orders the imprisonment at La Rochelle of 19 others : Briot, Antonelle, Talot, Delbrel, &c. But this order is revoked on the 4th of Frimaire; the 34 are merely placed provisionally under police surveillance ; so that there is apparently no actual proscription before the establishment of the Constitution of the year VIII,
Many of the 61 deputies excluded on the 19th of Brumaire rally to the new Government. General Jourdan exchanges a courteous correspondence with Bonaparte.
Among the survivors of the Mountain of the year II, Barere writes a letter of adhesion, i which is published in the Moniteur of the 19th of Frimaire, and makes a great stir. Even those republican ex -deputies who do not rally to the Consulate, such as Delbrel, Talot, Destrem, and Briot, and who perhaps understand that the cause of liberty is lost, refrain from any active opposition ; and of the majority of the republicans we may say that they accept the coup d'etat or resign themselves to it.
The Consuls send forth twenty -four delegates '* on mission " to the departments ; among them such ex-
' It was not a merely flattering adhesion. Barere proposes to Bona- parte an entire scheme of a democratic constitution.
BONAPARTE'S AMBITION 157
Conventionals as Jard-Panvillier, Lecointe-Puyvareau, and Penieres ; and these new commissaries plead the cause of the new system with ability, and finally reassure the republicans. The royalists are disowned ; a point is made of seeming to maintain and glorify republican forms. In a circular of the 6th of Frimaire the Minister of Police, Fouche, hurls anathemas at the emigres^ whom the country " rejects eternally from her bosom." When the Terrorist laws concerning the hostages are repealed (on the 22nd and 27th of Brumaire), the republicans find in this measure no savour of reaction, but the natural conclusion of the debates already opened upon these matters in the two Councils before the i8th of Brumaire.
In a word, the policy of the provisional Consulate is practically a continuation of the policy of the Directory.!
III.
It is possible that at this period Bonaparte did for a moment dream of the glory of a Washington, and that the policy that appeared so liberal and conciliatory was indeed sincere. But at the very moment when this policy had produced its due effect ; when Bona- parte saw the republicans reassured or resigned ; when he no longer had any opposition whatever to fear, his personal ambition awoke, and he exploited the feeling of general confidence which the moderation of the provisional Consulate had produced throughout the nation in order to obtain a constitution which should make him the master of France.
It will be remembered that the two intermediary
' Concerning the provisional Consulate : see the Register of its deliberations which I published in the collection of the Society of the History of the Revolution, Paris, 1894 ; also in my Etudes et lemons, 2nd series, pp. 213-259, the chapter entitled Le lendemain du 18 Brumaire.
158 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
legislative Commissions, emanating from the Legislative Corps and provisionally replacing it, were to prepare modifications to be introduced into the Constitution of the year III. To this effect they established two " sections." That of the Five Hundred was composed of Chazal, Lucien Bonaparte, Daunou, Marie-Joseph Chenier, Boulay (Meurthe), Cabanis, and Chabot ; that of the Elders, of Carat, Laussat, Lemercier, Lenoir- Laroche, and Regnier. These sections apparently decided at the outset to adopt Sieyes' project as their working basis. This project, however, was not yet drafted, and from the famous thinker they could obtain only conversations and rough outlines. It was supposed that he wished to reconcile the monarchical with the democratic ideal. The people is sovereign, but it mus;t not exercise its sovereignty directly, being* insufficiently enlightened for such a course. It must delegate its sovereignty. The " confidence " must come from below, and the " power " from on high.
Requested to be precise, Sieyes allowed two con- fused sketches to be extracted from him. According to the first, the people would draw up lists of notabilities, from which a proclamator -elector would select the func- tionaries. The Government would be exercised by a Council of State of fifty members. The people would elect a Legislative Assembly. There would also be a Tribunate, a constitutional jury, and a conservative Senate, a kind of court of appeal in political matters. This senate would appoint the proclaniator-elector, and would absorb him, if he became too ambitious, as it would also absorb too popular tribunes. This system was symbolised by a pyramid, having the people as its base, and at its apex the proclamator-elector . Bona- parte saw no scope for his ambition in this scheme, and he derided the proclamator-elector, calling him the " fatted swine." Sieyes elaborated a second scheme, in which he confided the executive power not to a State
BONAPARTE FIGHTS FOR HIS AMBITION 159
Council, but to two Consuls, the one for peace, the other for war. This was to reserve a place for Bona- parte, but in this plan, as in the other, Sieyes had multiplied the guarantees of liberty and the precautions against the ambition of one man.'
The sections of the Commissions inclined to accept this second scheme. Bonaparte adroitly prevented a discussion, and formed, at his own house, a little com- mittee comprising Sieyes, Roederer, and Boulay. He tried to intimidate the philosopher, and for the first time spoke as a master. Sieyes was silent, and apparently abandoned his scheme.
The two sections then elaborated a plan ~ of which the basis was the qualified suffrage, and political privi- lege the perquisite of the bourgeoisie ; 3 the executive power would be organised as in Sieyes' plan. The journals frowned upon the scheme. Bonaparte threatened to get a constitution botched up by any- body or a nobody, and to submit it to the people himself. Then Daunou drafted a plan, which, under the names of Consulate, Senate, Tribunate, concealed merely the Constitution of the year III, democratised by the suppression of property suffrage. Bonaparte refused this plan also ; it would have been the ruin of his ambition. He took it upon him to dictate to this little committee — unaided (or very nearly so) — the plan which afterwards became the Constitution
' Of these two plans we know the first through Mignet, who has pub- lished an analysis of it in his History of the Revolution, and to whom the original was communicated by Daunou. The second has been pub- lished by Boulay in a volume entitled: Theorie conslituiiondle de Sieyes, Constitution de Van VIII (Paris, 1836).
' In the Moniteuriox the loth of Friniaire of the year VIII, and for the 12th of Friniaire.
3 At this time there was a great effort made to effect the prevalence of the idea that the bourgeois proprietors should be the sole rulers of the nation ; that there should be a "democracy of landowners."
160 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
of the year VIII. ' Drafted in Bonaparte's salon, it is not certain whether it was submitted in entirety to the vote of the Legislative Commissions, the members of which signed it individually on the 22nd of Frimaire. Bonaparte imposed it, as by a new coap (Vet at.
IV.
The Constitution of the 22nd of Frimaire of the year VIII (December 13, 1799), a kind of caricature of the plans of Sieyes and Daunou, consists of 95 articles, arranged without any method. The Declaration of Rights is not even referred to ; there is no mention of the liberty of the press nor of the liberty of the con- science ; and it has only one liberal characteristic — the guarantee of individual security by Articles 76 to 82.
iWhat is most remarkable in this Constitution is that it deprives the nation — while recognising it as sovereign — of the right to elect its deputies, to make its own laws through them, and through them to regulate the national revenue and expenditure.
In fact, while re-establishing universal suffrage, it annihilates it .2
It re-establishes universal suffrage, since henceforth all Frenchmen aged twenty-five or more who are not hired domestics and have been domiciled for a year will be citizens and will possess the right to vote.
It annihilates it by the following ingenious arrange- ments :
All the citizens of each " communal " arrondlssement
' Roederer says that Bonaparte himself "discussed all parts of the Constitution," and that he " marked them with the seal of his mind, in giving the authority of the government that uniform force which ensures at the same time order and liberty."
* The expression universal suffrage began to be employed about this time. I find it for the first time in an article by Mallet du Pan. He wrote in London ; doubtless he borrowed the expression from the English language.
THE NEW SUFFRAGE 161
will reduce themselves to a tenth of their number, selecting by their votes " those among them whom they believe to be the fittest to assume the conduct of public affairs. This tenth will form the communal list, or the list of the arrondissement, from which will be chosen the public functionaries of the arrondissement. The citizens comprised in the lists of the arrondlssements of each department are again reduced to a tenth ; this is the departmental list, from which the departmental officials will be selected. All the departmental lists must then be reduced to one-tenth, in order to form the national list of those eligible to " public national functions " ; that is to say, to the functions of deputy, tribune, &c. These various lists of candidates will be drawn up once and for all. As for the vacancies produced by death, they will be filled once in three years only. Finally the formation of these lists is postponed until the year IX, so that at the beginning of the organisation of the various public services the electors cannot, and in fact do not, participate in any manner whatever. Although in time they would have exercised their rights it would have been a totally illusory exercise of the national sovereignty : a vote deprived of all practical consequences. Suppose an arrondissement to contain ten thousand citizens. If these ten thousand had had the right to choose even a hundred only of their number to be added to the list from which their functionaries were to be taken, they would thus have exerted a certain influence on affairs. But for these ten thousand to select at least a thousand meant that they really selected no one ; the cards were forced, so to speak ; the demand for such a number allowed no actual choice whatever ; to make up the; number every person who could spell would have to be included ; and it would be all the more easy to exclude the few persons who were really competent. But there was no way of excluding a whole party. VOL. rv. 11
162 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
Such was the farcical electoral system, nominally democratic, which Bonaparte substituted for the quali- fied suffrage system of the Constitution of the year III ; and by which, while seeming to restore to the French nation the rights which they had won by the insurrec- tion of August loth (1792), he actually excluded the nation from political life. And thus, by a parody of the scheme of Sieyes, he organised his pyramid with " confidence " at the base, being the source of the " powers " placed at the apex.
One of these powers, whose duty it was to elect and maintain, was a Conservative Senate of 60 members (holding office for life, and over forty years of age), who, by an annual addition of two new senators over a space of ten years, would finally reach their full comple- ment of 80. The origin of the Senate was entirely revolutionary and dictatorial. Article 24 of the Con- stitution states : " The citizens Sieyes and Roger Ducos, outgoing Consuls, are appointed members of the Conser- vative Senate ; they will unite themselves to the second and third Consuls appointed by the present Constitu- tion. These four citizens appoint the majority of the Senate, which then completes itself, and proceeds to the elections which are confided to it." Later on the Senate would fill the gaps which co-optation would produce in it, from a list of three candidates presented by the Legislative Corps, the Tribunate, and the First Consul. The principal functions of the Senate were : Firstly, to elect the legislators, tribunes, consuls, judges of appeal, and commissaries of accounts ; secondly, to maintain or annul such proceedings as should be sub- mitted to it as unconstitutional by the Tribunate or by the Government. Its sessions were not public.
As for the legislative power, the Government alone was able to propose laws. Drafted by a Council of State, which was the most active member of the new system, they were submitted to a. Tribunate
METHOD OF LEGISLATION 163
and a Legislative Corps. The Tribunate was com- posed of ICO members, appointed by the Senate for five years, renewable by one-fifth each year, and re- eHgible ; they must be at least twenty-five years of age. The Legislative Corps numbered 300 members, at least thirty years of age ; appointed and renewed in the same way, but re-eligible only after one year's interval. The Legislative Corps should always contain at least one member from each department of the Republic. The Tribunate discussed the proposed laws and voted for their adoption or rejection ; and sent three of its members to expound and defend the motives of these votes or " desires " before the Legislative Corps.
The Legislative Corps also heard the Government orators and State Councillors, and arrived at its deci- sions without discussion, by the secret ballot. The Legislative Corps sat only four months. When the Tribunate adjourned it appointed a permanent commis- sion of ten to fifteen of its members, which was instructed to convoke it should such a step seem advisable. The sessions of the Tribunate and those of the Legislative Corps were public, but the number of strangers present might not exceed two hundred.
The salary of a senator was 25,000 francs ; of a tribune, 15,000; of a legislator, 10,000.
The executive power was confided to three Consuls, appointed for ten years and indefinitely re -eligible. They were to be elected by the Senate ; but in the first instance they were designated by the Constitution itself : Bonaparte as First Consul, Cambaceres Second Consul, and Le Brun Third Consul.' All the reality of
' The Legislative Commissions were called upon to vote in this matter. According to contemporary witnesses Bonaparte obtained a unanimous vote ; Cambaceres and Lebrun each obtained 21 votes in each Commission. See the brochure : Seance extraordinaire de la nuit tenue au palais des Consuls, also the journal Lc Bien-I nforme for the 24th of Frimaire of the year VIII.
164 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
power was in. the hands of the First Consul, who was far more powerful than Louis XVI had been under the Constitution ofi789-i79i.
" The First Consul promulgates the laws ; he appoints and recalls at will the members of the Council of State, the Ministers, ambassadors, and other external agents-in-chief ; the officers of the army by land and sea ; the members of local administrations, and the commissaries of the Government attached to the tribunals. He appoints all the criminal and civil judges other than the justices of peace and the judges of the appeal court, without being able to recall them" (Article 41). " In other governmental proceedings the Second and Third Consuls express themselves in consultation : they sign the register of these proceedings in order to testify to their presence ; and if they wish they register their opinions ; after which the decision of the First Consul suffices."
Practically, there was no legal barrier to Napoleon's will. Article 45 stated clearly that an annual law would determine the total revenue and expenditure. But the Government proposed this law, which the Legislative Corps had to accept or reject as a whole, without amend- ments. Out of a kind of derisory respect for the principles of liberal governments, it was stated in Article 55 that no enactment of the Government could take effect unless it were signed by a Minister ; and Article 72 stated that Ministers would be responsible. But senators, legislators, tribunes. Consuls, Councillors of State, and so forth, were not responsible (Article 69). Agents of the Government could only be proceeded against for matters relating to their duties in virtue of a decision of the Council of State (Article 75). Thus ■there was no constitutional check upon Bonaparte. The dictatorship was already in being ; unacknowledged, and hidden under formula, but ready to be organised.
V.
The Constitution had to be " offered at once for the acceptance of the French people " (Article 95). Every-
THE CONSULAR CONSTITUTION 165
thing was done to ensure the success of the plebiscite. Instead of convoking the primary assembhes which" had formerly voted upon the Constitutions of 1793 and of the year III, they were regarded as being in fact abohshed, as the discussions which would inevitably result were dreaded, and it was decided that the citizens should vote singly, in silence, in writing, and in public. In each commune registers of acceptance or non-accep- tance were opened ; in which each citizen was called upon " to record or cause to be recorded " an " Aye " or a " No " (by the law of the 23rd of Frimaire and the order of the 24th).
As this voting did not take place everywhere at once, nor even simultaneously (the voting was at the end of Frimaire in Paris, and during the whole of Nivose in the departments), Bonaparte had time to prepare public opinion by various measures. Of these the principal was a new coup d'etat, which yet further aggravated the revolutionary character of all that had been done since the i 8th of Brumaire ; by virtue of a law of the 3rd of Nivose, passed long before the conclusion of the plebiscite, the Constitution was put into force, and the Consuls began the performance of their duties, oil the 9th of Nivose. The majority of the electors had thus to pronounce upon a Constitution which was already in operation.
In this way the electors were intimidated ; but by a tactful piece of policy they were also reassured. France was eager for peace, at home and abroad. Bonaparte thought it expedient to make offers of peace to England and Austria. At the same time he pro- claimed his intention of healing the wounds caused by. the civil war and of reconciling all Frenchmen who had remained in France. The pacification of Vendue had been commenced by the Directory, who had instructed General de H6douville, formerly chief of staff to Hoche, to obtain the submission of the royalist insurgents.
166 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
discouraged as they were by the victories of Brune and Massena. The honours of this enterprise fell to the Consulate, as its effects were not visible until after the 1 8th of Brumaire. It was on the 23rd of Frimaire, at Pouance, that d'Autichamp, Frotte, Bourmont and others signed an armistice. It remained to make peace ; Hedouville set about it with a patience that irritated Bonaparte. By an order of the 7th of Nivose Jie demanded that the insurgents should lay down their arms within ten days, under the menace of being placed " outside the Constitution." But Hedouville's ability was after all not without its fruits ; at this very time the left bank of the Loire was making its submission. The right bank followed suit a few days later ; Frotte, in Normandy, was still in arms. Jealous of this success, Bonaparte deprived Hedouville of his command and gave it to Brune ; six thousand troops were sent against Frotte, who made his submission, and was captured and shot in defiance of a safe-conduct (on the 29th of Pluvlose). This was an end of Vendeean rebellion, an end of chouannerie . The murder of Frotte was later in date than the plebiscite ; but the pacification was assured beforehand, at the time when the citizens were actually voting.
As for the emigres^ at the outset (see Article 93 of the Constitution), those were still forbidden to return to France who had left it voluntarily in order to fight against the French people. Others — that is, those who were banished, deported, or proscribed for various reasons — were the objects of various measures of cle- mency. A law of the 3rd of Nivose having authorised the Government to allow all those to return to France, on condition of supervision, " who were by name con- demned to deportation without previous trial by an enactment of the Legislative Corps," the majority of the " Fructidorised " exiles were recalled, among them being Camot. Liberal ex-Constituents were also re-
THE PLEBISCITE 167
called, such as La Fayette, La Tour-Maubourg, La. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt ; and advanced republicans, such as Barere and Vadier. Pichegru, among the monar- chists, and Billaud-Varenne among the republicans, were excepted from these acts of clemency. The order of the 9th of Frimaire was revoked ; which, while it removed the proscription pronounced on the 20th of Brumaire against the 39 republicans, had subjected them to the surveillance of the police.
All parties benefited by, this policy either before or during the plebiscite ; there was, so to speak, a general amnesty of opinion, and when the votes came to be counted (on the i8th of Pluviose) it was found that the Constitution was accepted,' if we are to believe the figures given in the Bulletin des lois, by 3,011,007
' In his Histoire de la garde nationale de Paris, published in 1827, Charles Conte remarks (p. 388) that the number of signatures in favour of the Constitution of the year VIII "exceeded by at least three-quarters the number of citizens able to sign." "... The registers intended to receive the signatures were placed only in the hands of government employees. Every individual, whatever his or her age, sex, condition, or nationality, was not only allowed, but invited to sign. I saw children sign who had not the least idea of what they were really doing ; they wrote their signatures in the register as they would have done in their copy-books. In the towns where the citizens presented themselves to sign, a list of their names was made, and was copied by children into the registers. I knew cases in which young people were employed for whole days in this kind of work. Finally the counting of the signatures was performed by a commission which the chief conspirators had formed for the purpose, into which none but their accomplices entered." This testimony of Conte's has the disadvantage of being much later in date than the events he relates ; and if it were contemporary we should have no means of checking it. It is quite possible that there were not in France at that time three miUions of men able to write, but the law of the 23rd of Frimaire did not exclude the illiterate from voting, since it authorised citizens to " cause " their votes "to be recorded." That there may have been fraud — that votes may have been " recorded " without the consent of citizens — is possible, but not proven.
168 THE PROVISIONAL CONSULATE
"Ayes " against 1,562 " Noes." ' Among the "Ayes " I have obtained, from the register of Paris, the names of many artists, scientists, scholars, literary men, professors of the Museum, of the College of France, and the School of Medicine ; members of the Institute, and, in short, nearly all the aristocracy of intellect. I also find the names of the ex-Montagnard Conventionals Merlino, Leyris, Lequinio, and Breard,^ and the still more signifi- cant name of the ex-Minister of War, Bouchotte, a staunch republican. 3 In voting for the Constitution of the year VIII these republicans believed that they were voting for the Revolution and the Republic as against the monarchy and the ancien regime.
In this manner was the plebiscitary Republic founded in France. AVe call it by this name because the exercise of the national sovereignty was limited to a plebiscite under the conditions of universal suf- frage ; a plebiscite in which the question was simply one of yes or no ; a plebiscite by which, without knowing or intending it, the French nation abdicated its sovereignty to place it in the hands of one man ; or rather by means of which, in place of the numerous representatives whom it had formerly appointed to legislate and to govern, it appointed one single repre- sentative : Napoleon Bonaparte.
' The registers are in the National Archives. To go through them all would of course be a task of impossible length. I have only inspected a few — not even all those of the department of Seine. The Moniteur states that in Paris there were only 10 votes against the acceptation, and 12,440 for it.
== The Moniteur states (without proof) that 332 ex-members of the Council of Five Hundred voted in favour of the Constitution.
3 Bouchotte signed the register of the nth arrondissement, No. 473. He accepted no employment and no favours from Bonaparte. A colonel in 1792, he was retired as colonel in 1804, and until his death (in 1840) held himself aloof.
CHAPTER V
THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
I. Installation of the public powers. — II. The conditions of the Press. — III. Administrative organisation. — IV. New manners and customs. — ^V. Effects of the victory of Marengo in the interior. Crime, proscriptions, and the progress of despotism.
I.
The three Consuls designated by the new Constitution commenced to sit on the 4th of Nivose i of the year VIII (on December 25, 1799), forty-four days before it was known that the people had accepted that Constitu- tion. From the time of this first session the tentative methods of the provisional Consulate were things of the past^: Bonaparte's activity whirled his colleagues along with him, in a kind of cyclone. On this day of the 4th of Nivose notable words were spoken, notable things done. A proclamation of the First Consul to the French people inaugurated a new condition of things' : stability of government, a powerful army, order, justice, and moderation : these were the words which replaced the language and the principles of the Revolution. Ministers were appointed, to the number of seven : Justice^ Abrial ; External Relations, Talley- rand ; War, Berthier ; the Interior, Lucien Bonaparte ; Finance, Gaudin ; the Marine and the Colonies,
' They had even held a preparatory meeting the day before, at 8 p.m. The proccs-vcrbaux of the sessions of the Consuls are to be found in the National Archives.
169
170 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
Forfait ; General Police, Fouche.i The Consuls had a Secretary of State, who kept the proces-verbal of their sessions, and countersigned the proceedings of the Government : he was H . B . Maret ; later the Due de Bassano.
The Council of State had been created and organised since the 3rd of Nivose. Entrusted with the drafting of projected laws and the regulations of the public administrations, this Council prepared the decisions of the Consuls in all contentious matters. It had the power of deciding whether any functionary should be delivered to the courts of justice. It had also the vague and formidable power of " developing the sense of the laws " upon the demand of the Consuls. It was in this Council that Bonaparte organised his govern- ment, his policy, his rule ; presiding, perorating, and winning the Councillors to his ideas by persuasion, before the victory of Marengo had created him a despot, subjugating them and tyrannising over them by the expression, often brutal, of his will. We have not the proces-verbauxoi this Council ; but we have the memoirs of several Councillors : of Thibaudeau, Roederer, Pelet (of Lozere) and Miot de Melito.2 Its organisation was
' Here are the modifications which this Ministry underwent during the Consulate : Justice : Abrial was replaced by Regnier on the 27th of Fructidor, year X (according to the senatus consultus of the preceding i6th of Thermidor, Regnier bore the title of " Grand-juge ministre de la justice ") ; War : Berthier was replaced by Carnot, but only during the campaign of Marengo (from the 12th of Germinal of the year VIII to the i6th of Vendemiaire of the year IX); Interior: Chaptal succeeded Lucien Bonaparte on the ist of Pluviose of the year IX ; Marine : Decres succeeded Forfait on the nth of Vendemiaire of the year X. The Ministry of Police was combined with that of Justice on the 28th of Fructidor of the year X. A Ministry of the Treasury was created on the 5th of Vendemiaire of the year X, and confided to Barbe-Marbois. Gaudin was Minister of Finance until the end of the Empire ; and Talleyrand was Minister of External Relations until 1807.
' See le Conseil d'Etat avant et depuis ijSg, by M. Leon Aucoc, Paris, 1876.
THE COUNCIL OF STATE 171
at first as follows' : Section of War: Brune, president ; Dejean, Lacuee, Marmont, Petiet ; Section of the Marine: Gauteaume, president ; Champagny, Fleurieu, Lescalier, Redon, Cafarelli ; Section of Finance: Defermon, president ; Duchatel (of the Gironde), Devaisnes, Dubois (of the Vosges), Jollivet, Regnier, Dufresne ; Legislation^ Civil and Criminal: Boulay (of Meurthe), president ; Berlier, Moreau (of Saint -Mery), Emmery, Real ; Section of the Interior: Roederer, president ; Benezech, Cretet, Chaptal, Regnaud (of Saint -Jean-d'Angely), Fourcroy ; Secretary General of the Council: Locre.i On the 4th of Nivose, at four o'clock, this Council was installed, and immediately expressed the opinion that the Constitution had by implication abrogated the laws which excluded ex- nobles and the relatives of emigres from public func- tions. This was extremely serious : Bonaparte showed that at need he would be capable of legislating by means of the Council of State, without the assistance of the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps .2
In conformity with the Constitution, Siey^s, Roger Ducos, Cambaceres, and Le Brun had designated those citizens who would form the majority of the Conserva- tive Senate. Their choice fell on distinguished men,
' Of these councillors five were entrusted with duties which made them the assistants, or rather the supervisors, of the Ministers. Article 7 of the regulations of the Council was conceived as follows : " Five councillors of State are specially entrusted with various depart- ments of the administration, as regards instruction only ; they will follow the details of their departments, sign the correspondence, receive and demand all kinds of information, and will carry to the ministers the propositions of the decisions which the latter will submit to the Consuls." Thus Chaptal was entrusted with the department of public instruction; Dufresne, with the public Treasury] ; Regnier, with the national properties ; Lescalier, with the colonies ; Cretet, with the public works.
" Councillors were sent " on mission '' into the departments, in order to make enquiries, in the name of the First Consul. Some of their reports are in Rocquain's Etat dc la France an 18 Bruniaire, 1874,
172 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
almost all of whom had deserved well of the Revolu- tion ; such as Monge, Volney, Garat, Garran-Coulon, Kellermann, and Cabanis, Sieyes and Roger Ducos entered on the right of the Senate, which was im- mediately completed by co-optation until the constitu- tional number of 60 members had been reached. These second selections fell upon men less celebrated ; but we may remark Daubenton, Lagrange, and Frangois ' (of Neufchateau).
The Senate immediately appointed the 300 members of the Legislative Corps and the 100 members of the Tribunate ; nor did it make these appointments in a narrow or servile spirit. On the contrary, it composed the Legislative Corps almost entirely of former members of the various revolutionary Assem- blies, with a marked preference for the men of 1789, but without excluding such ardent republicans as Gregoire, Breard, Florent Guiot, or even personal oppo- nents of Bonaparte, such as Dalphonse, who, in the Council of Elders, had vigorously opposed the coup d'etat of the i8th of Brumaire.
The Tribunate was composed of men whose character and past career fitted them for the part of a Constitutional opposition, for which the assembly seemed to be created : Andrieux, Bailleul, Marie- Joseph Chenier, Benjamin Constant, Jean de Bry, Demeunier, Ginguene, Stanislas de Girardin, Jard- Panvillier, Laley, Laromiguiere, and Penieres.2
The Tribunate and the Legislative Corps fulfilled their duty against incipient despotism with firmness and intelligence, and rejected many projects of illiberal laws. But these assemblies, so distinguished in compo-
' The pivces-verbaux of the sessions of the Senate have not been printed. They are to be found among the National Archives.
' The proces-verbaux of the sessions of the Legislative Corps and the Tribunate have been printed. They will be found in the National Archives. The Bibliotheque Nationale has an incomplete example.
THE ASSEMBLIES: THE JOURNALS 173
sition, did not constitute a national representation ; they did not even represent the notables, the lists of whom were not to be drawn up until the year IX. Their opposition was fruitless and impotent : Bonaparte had little trouble in overcoming it.
II.
During the provisional Consulate the periodical press had perhaps enjoyed more liberty than had ever been the case since June 2, 1793. Thus the Moniteur oi the 29th of Brumaire of the year VIII, in terms at once respectful and hypothetical, warned the public against Bonaparte's ambition, and at the same time advised the latter, should peace not be concluded within three months, to " divest himself of the civil power," and place himself at the head of an army. The Bieti- Informe, in its issues of the 14th and 24th of Frimaire, freely criticised and complained of the illiberality of the proposals for a constitution, and contrasted them with the American Constitution, which it reprinted. We read in the Gazette de France of the 26th of Frimaire: " The Constitution was proclaimed on the 24th in all the arrondissements of Paris. Here is an anecdote which will exhibit the spirit of the Parisians. A muni- cipal was reading the Constitution, and every one was struggling so to hear him that no one heard two con- secutive phrases. A woman said to her neighbour, ' I haven't understood a thing.' — ' Why, I didn't lose a word!' — 'Well, what is there in the Constitution?' — ' There's Bonaparte.' " It was by means of such epigrammatic anecdotes that the opposition of the few opposition journals manifested itself. Bonaparte feared that they might, in conjunction with the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps, prevent him from becoming master. On the 27th of Nivose of the year ,VIII, -" considering that a portion of the journals printed in
174 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
the department of the Seine are instruments in the hands of the enemies of the Republic," he issued an order to suppress all the political journals in Paris, excepting the thirteen following : Moniteur, Journal des debats. Journal de Paris, Bien-lnforme, Puhliciste, Ami des Lois, Clef du cabinet, Citoyen frangais, Gazette de France, Journal des hommes libres. Journal du soir des freres Chaignieau, Journal des defenseurs de la patrie, and the Decade philosophique. \
Certainly the better part of the Parisian press was still maintained ; even the opposition Gazette de France. But the Moniteur, the most important journal of the time, had been official since the 7th of Nivose, and the other twelve were threatened with immediate suppression, did they insert " articles contrary to the respect due to the social compact, to the sovereignty of the people, and the glory of the armies," or if they should publish " invectives against governments or nations friendly with or alhed to the Republic, even when those articles should be extracted from foreign periodicals." In short, all opposition whatever on the part of the press was forbidden ; and we may almost say that the commencement of despotism actually dates from this order of the 27th of Nivose.
Put forward as a provisional measure, " during the course of the war," this suspension of the liberty of the press did not terminate with the Peace of Amiens, but continued during the entire Consulate and the Empire also, with various aggravations ; amongst others (to speak only of the period of the Consulate), it was forbidden to mention the movements of the land or sea forces (on the i6th of Pluviose of the year VIII and the i ith and 14th of Prairial of the year XI) ; or to give any summary or analysis at the head of the first page (on the i 5th of Thermidor of the year VIII) ; to give news likely to disturb commerce or to stir public opinion (on the 9th of Thermidor of the year
LIBERTY OF THE PRESS SUPPRESSED 175
IX) ; to make any mention of religious afifairs (on the 1 8th of Thermidor of the year IX) or of the state of the nation's supply of food (on the i8th of Frimaire of the year X), or to give reports of suicides (in Frimaire of the year XI ) .
The Government did not authorise the creation of any new political journal, excepting (in the year X) an official and ephemeral Bulletin de Paris. On the 9th of Prairial of the year VIII the Ami des Lois was suppressed, for having published epigrams upon the Institute. Two other journals also ceased publication, whether willingly or unwillingly : the Bien-Informe in Germinal of the year VIII, and the Journal des hommes litres in Fructidor of the same year. If we except the Monitenr, the official journal, and Decade philosophique, a review, which had practically aban- doned all mention of politics, by the month of Germinal of the year IX there were only eight political journals in Paris : the Journal des debats (with 8,150 sub- scribers) ; the Publiciste (with 2,850) ; the Gazette de France (with 3,250) ; the Clef du cabinet (with 1,080) ; the Citoyen frangais (with 1,300) ; the Journal des defenseurs de la patrie (with 900) ; the Journal du soir (with 550) ; the Journal de Paris (with 600) ; a total of 18,680 subscribers.'
The political journals of the provinces were not affected by the order of the 27th of Nivose, but those exhibiting any signs of independence were suppressed by individual measures' : such as the Repablicain demo- crate of Auch, the Anti-royaliste of Toulouse, and the Vedette of Rouen. The matter was so handled that only one journal remained for each department, and that directed or inspired by the prefect. As for the foreign journals, circulation in France was forbidden
* Report by Councillor of State Roedercr, cited by Hahn, Histoire de la presse, vol. vii. p. 412.
176 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
to practically all, save during the first few weeks fol- lowing the Peace of Amiens.
A censor's office was at work, in the dark and un- acknowledged. (Warnings, reprimands, threats, and examples of suppression reduced the journals (as under the Directory after the i8th of Fructldor) to a state in which they no longer ventured to express their political ideas except by the choice of news, or by historical allusions in their literary departments ; and even this they could not do with impunity.
Thus intimidated, the journals became insignificant, practically negligible. This was not Bonaparte's doing ; he would have preferred a lively but docile press with all the appearance of freedom. ' Following the example of the Directory, he also attempted to inspire and to edit .2 The directors of the journals had to see that their writers were acceptable to the Government. Articles were sent to each journal in conformity with its former shade of politics. These schemes, however, gave no one the illusion of a free press.
But it must not be supposed that at the end of the Consulate the entire press was absolutely domesticated. After the murder of the Due d'Enghien the Journal des debats ventured to manifest its reprobation of the act by publishing a translation of the speech by means of which Pacuvius, in Silius Italicus, dissuades his son from his intention of assassinating Hannibal. Suard,
' See the report of Portalis of the 23rd of Brumaire of the year IX (cited in the Revolution fran^aise, vol. xxxii. pp. 66-72). " The first rule of conduct is not to leave the journalists entire liberty, but to foster without affectation the idea, so consoling to the reader, that they are really free. To this effect it is enough to direct, constantly and in a secret and invisible manner, the editing of these journals."
' It will be remembered that Napoleon had literary ambitions in his obscure and youthful days ; so that it is possible that he was actuated here not entirely by policy, but by vanity, or at least by a half -forgotten faculty.— [Trans.]
DESPOTISM IN THE CONSTITUTION 177
solicited to write an apology for the murder in the Publiciste, wrote a letter of proud refusal.
Once the Empire was established these traces of independence disappeared, and the political press belonged absolutely to the Government.
III.
Despotism was already to be found in the Constitu- tion of the year VIII, but expressed only by implica- tion, and half obscured by formulse, which were brief and obscure by Bonaparte's desire, as he later con- fessed in referring to the Italian Constitution. On the very day when he was certain that the nation had accepted the Constitution, the mask fell, and the First Consul presented to the Tribunate and the Legisla- tive Corps the proposed law (which became the law of the 28th of Pluviose of the year VIII) concerning the reorganisation of the administration ; a scheme to establish an absolute centralisation for the profit of one man, by means of which the people was abso- lutely deprived of all rights in the election of officials ; so that the people retained nothing of its former sovereignty but the right to elect the justices of the peace.
The Constitution had declared that the territory of the Republic was divided into departments and com- munal arrondissements. The division into departments was maintained, without further change than the sup- pression of the department of Mont-Terrible, which was combined with that of Haut-Rhin, As for the communal arrondissements^ which the Constitution had named without defining, it was supposed that the maintenance was intended of those cantonal munici- palities by means of which the authors of the Con- stitution of the year III had attempted to establish a true communal life. But it was precisely these
VOL. IV. 12
178 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
communes, large enough to have a hfe and action of their own, that might have opposed an obstacle to despotic centraHsation. All the old municipalities were re-established as the Constituent Assembly had pre- viously established them, and as we have them to-day : that is to say, there was a return to a sterilising dispersion of municipal life.
Under the name of arrondissements were reconsti- tuted the districts, abolished by the Constitution of the year III ; but their number was diminished. As for the administrators^ the Constitution had made it clear that they would be appointed by the executive power ; but not that the administration would be entrusted, in the departments and in the arrondisse- ments, to one single man. The law of the 28th of Pluviose^ Article 3, enacted that " the prefect will alone !be entrusted with the administration." In each arrondissement he would have sub -prefects under his orders. I This was the resurrection of the intendants and their sub -delegates, yet the system was far more severe than under the ancien regime; for they could not be opposed by any body, institution, or tradition whatsoever.
An explanatory statement enunciates the principle " that to administrate must be the work of one man ;
^ Doubtless under the preceding system of government the com- missaries of the Directory attached to the central and municipal administrations had, by the increase of their powers, prepared the people for this system of prefects and sub-prefects ; but, as they could only be chosen from among the inhabitants of the district in which they were to operate, these commissaries, men of the neighbourhood as much as agents of the central power, applied themselves to humour local feeling, even when they caused the Directory to suppress the elected administrations. The prefects and sub-prefects, on the other hand, were scarcely ever chosen from among the inhabitants of their departments or arrondissements, were scarcely ever wen of the country j a fact which greatly increased the severity of the new method of administrative centralisation.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 179
to judge, the work of several." There are two kinds of judgments. Firstly, judgments which consist in the redistribution of the imposts ; these are confided to Councils General, Arrondissement Councils, or to Municipal Redistributors. Secondly, judgments of con- tentious matters, debateable claims, &c. ; these are confided to Councils of the Prefecture.
Appointed for three years, the Councils General and Arrondissement Councils sat only for fifteen days in each year, in order to settle the apportionment of direct taxation between the arrondissements or communes. The Council General also voted " additional centimes " for departmental expenses ; these the prefect employed as he chose, on condition of accounting for such ex- penditure once a year to the Council General, which limited itself to " hearing " this account and expressing its opinion as to the needs of the department.
The duties of the Municipal Councils were slightly more extensive ; they could audit and discuss the account of revenue and expenditure handed by the mayor to the sub -prefect, who gave it its final shape ; and they deliberated on questions such as loans, octrois, &'c. The civil commonwealth and the police were confided to the mayors and assistants. But in cities of over one hundred thousand inhabitants the police were in the hands of the Government. In Paris the system was exceptional, and there was a prefect of police. Prefects, sub -prefects, members of Council (General or d* arrondissement^, mayors, assistants, and municipal councillors were appointed, some by the First Consul and some by the prefects. As for the " contentious tribunal " established in each department under the name of the " Council of Prefecture," and composed, according to the department, of three, four, or five members, its members were appointed by the First Consul, and the prefect might preside over the Council, and had the casting-vote in case of equality
180 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
of votes. I Thus, having distinguished administrative, matters from matters of judgment, the authors of the law proceeded to confound them again in the interests of despotism.
The Tribunate vi^as horrified by the presentation of this project, and the Hberals of that assembly could regard it only as codified tyranny. Daunou, who re- ported upon it (on the 23rd of Pluviose), riddled it with criticisms, but eventually advised its adoption, simply because it would be dangerous to reject it .2 The press being mute, the Tribunate felt itself power- less. There were eloquent speeches against the sup- pression of all these liberties, but finally the Tribunate adopted the law by 71 votes against 25, and the Legislative Corps by 217 against 63.
Thus was organised this system of despotic centrali- sation-; but at first its effects appeared to be entirely happy, on account of the skilful manner in which Bonaparte chose his prefects and sub-prefects,3 and
' The " Councillors of Prefecture " did not receive a salary sufficient to ensure their independence ; according to the population of the city in which the Council operated, this salary varied from 1,200, 1,600,2,000 to 2,400 francs. The salary of a prefect was 8,000, 12,000, 16,000, to 20,000 francs. The sub-prefects received 3,000 francs in towns of less than 2,000 inhabitants, and 4,000 francs in larger towns.
^ Here is the conclusion of his report : " The Commission would have wished to find in the provisions of the project more numerous and more direct reasons for adopting it. It has been obliged to lay frankly before you the faults it has seen. It cannot say to you : Approve of this measure, because it is as good as it could be ; because it answers all the demands of the constitution ; because all its articles are the applica- tions of the excellent principles which preface it ; but it invites you to consent to it because it would be dangerous to wait too long for it to be perfected."
3 The prefects and sub-prefects were selected from the flower of the political and administrative personnel which had developed during the Revolution. Among them — contrary to the usual statement — was only a small number of Montagnards. Those who were most numerous, and most zealous to serve the Consulate, were moderate liberals, ex-
BONAPARTE'S REPUBLICAN SIMPLICITY 181
because at the outset he could accordingly rapidly effect the various ameliorations of which his genius conceived. The administration was rapid and simple. It was found to be equitable. Europe appeared to envy the French. It was only gradually that it became brutal and tyrannical, as the master himself degenerated from a good into an evil despot.
IV.
This transformation was slow, and its various phases ill comprehended by contemporaries. At the time when the Constitution of the year VIII was before the country Bonaparte still preserved a kind of republican simplicity. It was not until the 30th of Pluviose that he installed himself in the Tuileries, as he was authorised by law.' He kept no Consular Court as yet ; his first thought was to surround himself with a Court of heroic statues. He ordered that the great gallery of the Tuileries should be ornamented with effigies of Demosthenes, Alexander, Hannibal, Scipio, Brutus, Cicerp, Caesar, Turenne, Conde, .Washington,
Constituents, ex-Legislatives, ex-Conventionals of the Gironde or the Plain. At the outset many were inclined to assume the attitude of " representatives on mission " ; to issue proclamations and publish journals ; they were quickly reminded of the modesty of their functions as subordinate agents, and rendered a devoted obedience.
* The law of the 3rd of Nivose of the year VIII had appropriated to the various constituted authorities the following national buildings : I. The Palais de Luxembourg to the Conservative Senate. 2. The Tuileries to the Consuls (Bonaparte lived in the apartments of Louis XVI ; Le Brun had the Pavilion de Flore ; Cambaceres the Hotel d'Elbeuf). 3. The Palais du Cinq-Cents (Palais Bourbon) to the Legislative Corps. 4. The Palais d'Egalite (Palais-Royal) to the Tri- bunate. Thibaudeau says the ceremony of installation in the Tuileries was still of a character of republican simplicity. Mme. de Stael, on the contrary, was struck by the regal air of Bonaparte and the servility jof those about him.
182 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
Frederick the Great, Mirabeau, Marceau, Sc He pre- served a part of the repubhcan etiquette, and no title was employed but that of citizen. ^ Upon the news of .Washington's death he issued an order of the day (on the 1 8th of Pluviose of the year VIII) ordaining mourn- ing in the name of the ideas of Liberty and Equality.
But beside these republican customs new manners began to appear ; or rather it was that manners of the old school began timidly to reappear. The Opera balls, forbidden since 1790, were reopened; men dis- guised themselves as monks, parliamentary counsellors, &c., as much in reaction as in a spirit of parody. A brilliant reception given by Talleyrand on the 6th of Ventose of the year VIII (February 25, 1800) made apparent the First Consul's intention of gathering about him the society of the ancien regime as well as that of the new. There were present MM. de Coigny, Dumas, Portalis, Segur the elder, La Rochefoucauld- Liancourt, and de Crillon, and Mmes. de Vergennes, de Castellane, d'Aiguillon, and de Noailles. At the time of the coup d* etat of the 1 8th of Brumaire and during the provisional Consulate, Bonaparte had surrounded himself almost entirely with the men of 1789, liberals, and members of the Institute. He now began to intro- duce new elements for the formation of his future court, and he found them among the people of the ancien regime. As for the liberals, who took seriously their parts as tribunes or legislators, and who were alread.y forming into an opposition, he was out of humour with
' Bonaparte's modesty and simplicity at the commencement of the Consulate were signalled by a royalist journal published at Hamburg, the Spedateur du Nord. [It must be remembered that Mme. de Stael's own manners were noisy, effusive, and ostentatious ; she shocked the Genevans and amused the Parisians. Reserve and quiet were possibly qualities she was apt to mistake ; certainly she had a genius for mis- understanding men. — Trans.]
" Yet he himself set the example of saying Madame in place of Citoyenne.
"IN THE NAME OF HONOUR" 183
them, and already sneeringly called them the ideologues.
Soon we shall see him still further modify the French patriotism whose degeneration had facilitated the success of the coup d'etat. The word which the men of the Revolution had habitually associated with patriotism was the word virtue. In place of virtue, Bonaparte begins to employ the word honour. On the 17th of Ventose it is "in the name of honour" that he summons the conscripts to join their regiments before the i 5th of Germinal. The new patriotism is the emulation of Frenchmen in a direction determined by Bonaparte. Honour is the glory of having been proclaimed as victor in the struggle by Bonaparte. It is precisely that honour in which Montesquieu saw the mainspring of monarchies ; and it is precisely a return to the monarchical spirit, a transformation pi citizens into subjects, that we now see Bonaparte pre- paring, by this substitution of the word honour for the words virtue, Liberty, and Equality with which the Revolution loved to embellish patriotism. It is no longer so much a question of loving a country for its own sake ; men will shortly become accustomed to love it for the sake of a master ; to love it in its master, as in the days of the old monarchy.
V.
The negotiations with Austria having miscarried, Bonaparte has occasion to win fresh military glory, which will serve him usefully in assuring his domina- tion in the interior. But the Constitution does not confer upon him the command of the Army. The command is given to Berthier, who yields the portfolio of War to Camot. The First Consul will be present! at the campaign only as an onlooker ; but that onlooker will be the real commander-in-chief.
184 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
The preparations for war were accompanied by the taking of precautions against liberty. Three journals were suspended : the Bien-Informe, the Journal des hommes litres, and the Journal des defenseurs de la patrie. The theatrical censorship was re-established (on the 15th of Germinal of the year VIII) and Paris saw the last of that Aristophanic comedy which until then had been able to run its almost free course, but of which hardly a trace has ever reappeared.
During his absence, which lasted from the i6th of Floreal until the 12th of Messidor of the year VIII, Bonaparte dared not retain the exercise of the execu- tive power ; so the executive was confided, according to the Constitution, to Cambaceres, the Second Consul, who acquitted himself well during the interim. It seems that the governmental machine was able to operate without Bonaparte ; indeed, it was given out that the provisional government had determined in advance the election of the successor to the First Consul, should the latter perish in the war.i
Victor at Marengo (on the 25 th of Pr atrial of the year VIII, or June 14, 1800), he hastened to return to Paris, without receiving all the fruits of his victory.
He was welcomed with honour, but not fulsomely.; the Tribunate seemed rather inclined to praise the heroism of Desaix.^ But among the masses of the country-folk and the artisans there was an outburst of enthusiasm, and the people began to believe in the star, the providential mission of the First Consul. This, it would seem, was the moment when his whole ambi- tious dream defined itself and became articulate in Napoleon's mind.
An unforeseen event was about to increase his popu- larity yet further, and offer new means to his ambition.
' See the memoirs of Miot de Melito, i. 209 ; Stanislas de Girardin, i. 175 ; and Lucien Bonaparte, i. 410. ' See Daunou's report of the 3rd of Messidor. [See also notes. — Trans.]
MARENGO : AND THE INFERNAL MACHINE 185
On the 3rd of Nivose of the year IX (Decem- ber 24, 1800), as Bonaparte, driving to the Opera, was passing down the rue Saint-Nicaise, a royalist, by name Saint-Rejant, attempted to kill him by the explosion of a keg of gunpowder concealed in a cart. Four persons were killed and some sixty wounded. The First Consul was not touched. His anger imme- diately jumped with his political interests, and he attributed the crime to the " Jacobins " : that is, to those of the republicans who were unwilling to deliver the Republic into the hands of one man. The time was past when he willingly went out of his way after them in order to ensure the success of the plebiscite. He hated and feared them more than any other party. The cries of " Outlaw! " with which they had harassed him on the 19th day of Brumaire still resounded in his ears. He saw that the occasion was a good one for ridding himself of some of them and intimidating the rest. Also he would thus roundly give the lie to Pitt, who had called the First Consul the son and champion of the Jacobins, and would appear before Europe as a lover of order.
Proofs came pouring in that the criminal of the rue Saint-Nicaise was a royalist. None the less Bona- parte persisted in his desire to strike the republicans. It was impossible to obtain a law of proscription from the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps. Bonaparte resorted to the expedient of an " act of government," drafted in the Council of State on the 14th of Nivose, by order of which one hundred and thirty republicans were to be '* placed under special supervision outside the European territory of the Republic " ; not as accomplices in the attempt of the rue Saint-Nicaise, but as Septemberers and anarchists' : that is to say, opponents.
The preamble of the senatus consuttus by which this act was approved (on the i 5th of Nivose) shows
186 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
that the conservative republicans were not sorry to rid themselves of the democratic republicans :
"The Senat Conservateur, &c., considering that it is a matter of notoriety that for many years there has existed in the RepubUc, and notably in the city of Paris, a number of individuals who, at various periods of the Revolution, have defiled themselves with the greatest crimes ; and that these individuals, arrogating to themselves the name and the rights of the people, have been and continue to be on every occasion the focus of every conspiracy, the agents of every attempt upon life, the venal instrument of all internal or external enemies, the disturbers of all governments, and the pest of the social order ; that the amnesties accorded to these persons on various occasions, far from recalling them to a state of obedience to the laws, have only made them the bolder by habit and have encouraged them by impunity ; that their repeated conspiracies and attempts upon life have latterly, by the very fact that they have miscarried, become a fresh motive for attacking a government whose justice threatens them with a final punishment ; that it results from the evidence laid before the Conservative Senate that the presence of these individuals in the Republic, and notably in this great capital, is a continual cause of alarms and a secret terror to the peaceful citizens who fear, on the part of these men of blood, the fortuitous success of some conspiracy and the return of their vengeance ; considering that the Constitution has in no wise determined the measures of security necessary to employ in such a case ; and that in view of this silence on the part of the Constitution and the laws as to the means of setting a term to the dangers which every day threaten the public weal, the desire and the will of the people can be expressed only by the authority which it has especially entrusted to preserve the social pact, and to annul or maintain such acts as are favourable or contrary to the Constitutional charter ; that according to this principle the Senate, interpreter and guardian of this charter, is the natural judge of the measure proposed in these circumstances by the Government ; that this measure has the advantage of uniting the double characteristics of firmness and indulgence, in that on one hand it removes from society the disturbing persons who put it in danger, while on the other hand it leaves them a last means of amendment ; considering finally, according to the appropriate expressions of the Council of State, that the application of the Government to the Conservative Senate, in order to procure from this tutelary body an examination of its own pro- ceedings and a decision upon them, becomes by force of example a safeguard capable of reassuring the nation by its continuation, and of forewarning the Government itself against any action dangerous
REPUBLICANS DEPORTED 187
to the public liberty ; for all these reasons the Conservative Senate declares that the act of the Government dated the 14th of Nivose is a measure preservative of the Constitution." "^
All innocent, these proscribed republicans, to whose number a few more were added without a fresh senatus consultus, were very unequally treated. The most notable among them — Talot, Felix Le Peletier, Choudieu, and the Prince of Hesse — evaded deporta- tion ; probably thanks to the double part played by Fouche as Minister of Police. Destrem, however, ex- member of the Five Hundred, who had severely apos- trophised Bonaparte at Saint-Cloud, was deported to Guiana, never to see France again. Some forty of those proscribed were also deported to Guiana. The others, among whom was General Rossignol, were deported to Mahe, one of the Seychelles Islands,
Scarcely twenty of the whole survived, to return to France under the Restoration. 2
These were not the only measures taken at that time against the democrat-republicans. By an order of the 1 7th of Nivose of the year IX fifty-two citizens known for their democratic tendencies were placed under supervision in the interior of France, being for- bidden to reside in the department of Seine or in neighbouring departments. Among them were Antonelle, Moyse Bayle, Laignelot, Le Cointre, Sergent,
' According to an oral tradition, reported by Buchez in 1838 (vol. xxxviii. p. 379), this senatus consultus was not voted without a lively opposi- tion on the part of the minority. " Garat, Lambrechts, and Lenoir- Laroche attacked it vehemently. Lanjuinais cried : 'No coup d'etat! Coups d'etat destroy States ! ' Sieycs alone proposed to justify the measure by considerations oi public safety ; the t dreadful developments of such considerations had formerly led to the deportation of a re- publican party. The debate was suspended and there were negotia- tions. The executive was exigent, the majority was on its side."
* See J. Destrem's Les Deportations du Consulat et de I'Empire, Paris, 1883.
188 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
&c. The wives or widows of republicans were im- prisoned without trial : among them the widows of Chaumette, Marat, and Babeuf .• There was also blood- shed, and illegal sentences of death were passed. Sent before a military commission, a number of citizens — Chevalier, Veycer, Metge, Humbert, and Chapelle — accused of a pretended conspiracy organised by the police — were shot on the Plaine de Crenelle. Other and better known republicans — Arena, Ceracchi, Topino- Lebrun, and Demerville — were condemned to death by the Criminal Court of Seine, although they were guilty only of remarks hostile to Bonaparte, or at the most of a slight tendency to sedition, and were guillotined on the I ith of Pluviose of the year IX. As for the true authors of the attempt in the rue Saint-Nicaise, the royalist Saint-Rejant and his accomplice Carbon, the evidence of whose guilt was overwhelming, they were condemned to death and executed on the 1 6th of Germinal following (or the 6th of April, iSoi).
Although many writers have declared differently, material order was not efficiently maintained under the Consulate. The royalist brigands held up the dili- gences, as under the Directory ; murdered patriots, and looted, in the country districts, the houses of those who had acquired national property. On the ist of Vendemlaire of the year IX a band of Chouans carried off the senator Clement de Ris, who was spending the summer at his chateau in Touraine ; and on the 28th of the following Brumaire another band murdered the " constitutional " Bishop Audrein, on a pastoral circuit in Finistere.
The gendarmerie, mobile columns of troops, and
military commissions should have been enough to stamp
out these crimes. Bonaparte profited by the public
indignation by obtaining the creation of special tri-
' Yet Bonaparte granted Robespierre's sister a pension.
THE SPECIAL TRIBUNALS 189
bunals, which rid him at need not only of the royalist brigands, but of republicans of the opposition. By the law of the i8th of Pluviose of the year IX — which the Tribunate almost rejected (the votes being 49 for and 41 against) and which had a fairly strong minority against it in the Legislative Corps 1(192 votes for and 88 against) — the Government was authorised to establish, in such departments as it thought fitting, a special tribunal composed of a president and two judges of the criminal court, and three military and two civil members appointed by the First Consul. This tribunal was to deal with practically all crimes of a nature calculated to cause the Government anxiety, and that without appeal or recourse to a higher court, except on questions of competence. Bonaparte was thus able to establish at will in each department a kind of Revolutionary Tribunal for the purpose of satisfying his appetite for revenge ; and he did establish such courts in at least 32 departments.
The progress of Bonaparte's despotism did not alarm the liberals of the Tribunate or the Legislative Corps, although this despotism was based upon the increase of popularity which the First Consul had lately derived from the treaty of peace concluded with Austria at Luneville, on the 20th of Pluviose of the year IX. The three first divisions of the Civil Code, prepared in the Council of State with the personal and predominant collaboration of Bonaparte, were the object of lively criticism on the part of the Tribunate, as being any- thing but consistent with the principles of 1789, and marking a reaction in respect of the former project already partly voted by the Convention. The first division was rejected by the Tribunate and the Legis- lative Corps, and the second, also rejected by the Tribunate, was about to be submitted to the Legislative Corps, when the Government withdrew the project by means of an abusive message (in Nivose of the year X).
190 THE DECENNIAL CONSULATE
At the same time the Legislative Corps and the Tribunate emphasised their opposition by selecting as candidates for the Senate such ideologues as Daunou.
When Bonaparte returned from his triumphal journey to Lyons, bringing with him the title of President of the Italian Republic (in Pluviose of the year X) and all the prestige of a popularity which was even greater in the departments than in Paris, he felt himself powerful enough to chastise by a sudden blow the leaders of the opposition in the two so-called representative assemblies.
The time was approaching when, according to the Constitution, a fifth of the Tribunate and of the Legis- lative Corps must be renewed. Instead of allowing the outgoing members to be selected by lot, the First Consul, inspired, it is said, by Cambaceres, conceived the idea of commanding the Senate to name those members of the two assemblies who should retain their seats ; and as a matter of fact the senatas consalius on the 27th of Ventose of the year X named 240 mem- bers of the Legislative Corps and 80 of the Tribunate as not subject to re-election, and in this way were eliminated the leaders of the opposition. Among others were the tribunes Daunou, Bailleul, Isnard, Thibault, and — most noteworthy of all — Benjamin Constant, who had proved himself no mean tactician and orator. They were replaced by more manageable men ; it was then, however, that Carnot entered the Tribunate. Thus ex- purgated, these assemblies offered less opposition ; but, as we shall see, they still preserved a certain independence.
Peace having been concluded with England, at Amiens, on the 4th of Germinal of the year X (March 25, 1802), that general pacification so de- sired by the French was at last effected, after eight years of war. Bonaparte concluded that the moment had come to realise, by means of the Life Consulship,
THE LIFE CONSULATE 191
one of those ambitious dreams for which he had already prepared by a change in his religious policy. This change is of such importance in the history of the plebiscitary Republic that we must devote a special chapter to it.
CHAPTER VI
THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
I. The system of Separation of Church and State under the Consulate. The Decadal cult. Theophilanthropy. — II. The two Catholic sects. — III. General results of the system of Separation. — IV. The causes of the destruction of this system. — V. The Concordat. — VI. Application of the Concordat. — VII. New advantages accorded to the Roman Church.
I.
For a long time — that is, until the Concordat — the reli- gious policy of the Consulate appeared to be merely the continuation of the religious policy of the Directory. On the 30th of Brumaire of the year VIII the Minister of the Interior, Laplace, wrote to the departmental authorities :
" Do not neglect any occasion of proving to your fellow-citizens that superstition will have no more cause for rejoicing than royalism over the changes made by the iSth of Brumaire. It is by continually ensuring the most meticulous observation of the laws instituting the national and decadal festivals, the republican calendar, the new system of weights and measures, &c., that you will justify the confidence of the Government."
On the following 6th of Frimaire the Minister of Police, Fouche, wrote to the same authorities' : " Let the fanatics hope no more to ensure the domination of an intolerant cult ; the Government protects all
192
FOUCHE'S CIRCULARS 193
equally without favouring any." On the 26th of the same month, in a circular addressed to the bishops of the former Constitutional Church, he excited an emula- tion among the cults as to which should best serve the Republic : not in appearance, but in reality :
" Think," he said, " it is futile to speak a different language in your sermons, which are heard, and in the confessional, which is secret ; the secret of your inspiration in that tribunal in which you deal with souls will be revealed by the character of the souls which you direct and shape."
To the prefects, on the 26th of Prairlal of the year VIII, Fouche wrote :
" Let the temples of all religions be open ; let all consciences be free ; let all religions be equally respected ; but let their altars be raised peacefully beside the altars of the country, and may the first of public virtues, the love of order, preside over all ceremonies, inspire all discourse, and direct all minds."
The laws of the 7th of Vendemiaire and the 22nd of Germinal of the year IV, which forbade the external observances of religious worship, were still applied. ' When, at the approach of the Concordat, the vigilance of the authorities was in this respect relaxed, Fouche, in a circular of the 13th of Floreal of the year IX, ordered the prefects to keep the Catholics rigorously up to the standard in the matter of observing the laws. This circular did not remain a dead letter : on the
' Thus Richard, prefect of Haute-Garonne, wrote to Fouche on the 2oth of Messidor of the year VIII : "A priest has taken it upon himself to ring the bells in the commune of Gardouch. I notified the mayor that the first time this priest permitted himself to break the laws he would be arrested and the church closed. I have not heard that the action has been repeated. Another priest, in the commune of Lave- lanet, canton of Rieux, led a procession. I gave severe orders in this case also, and am convinced that such a thing will not happen again " (see the Revolution fraufaise, vol. xxxiii. p. 184).
VOL. IV. 13
194 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
1st of Pr atrial following the prefect of Seine, Frochot, requested the mayors of Paris to apply it scrupulously.' Royalist demonstrations on the part of the Catholic clergy were severely repressed. Thus Abbe Fournier having spoken, in a sermon, at Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois (on the 4th of Pr atrial of the year IX) of the execution of Louis XVI as a crime, was imprisoned in the Bicetre as seized with " seditious lunacy."
On the other hand the principle of the secular State was observed and defended less zealously than under the Directory, but without any notable lapses. Public instruction was still based on the principles of 1789, and even after the signing of the Concordat there was no immediate change in this respect. The law of the I ith of Floreal of the year X concerning public in- struction did not re-establish religious instruction in the schools of the Republic ; and in upholding the project of this law before the Tribunate, Roederer, now a State Councillor, proclaimed " the independence of the State," declaring that " public instruction and religion were and should be two separate institutions."
Bonaparte, therefore, continued to uphold the system of the separation of Church and State : the system of the secular State. But he did not apply it as the Directory had applied it ; or rather he did not apply it in the same spirit. The Directory had hoped finally though gradually to extinguish the Catholic religion in France, as being incompatible with republican principles. The First Consul, until the day when he
' They were to see that the following manifestations were not renewed : ringing bells to call people to church ; posting notices announcing sermons, the Christian festivals, &c., on the doors of churches ; exhibiting palls or mourning draperies bearing a cross ; and the exposing of dead bodies in such a manner as to exhibit the appa- ratus or insignia of a cult. "Thanks to the present Government we are no longer under the rule of atheism nor of intolerance, but under the empire of a truly philosophic legislation " {Catalogue d'une impor- tante collection, &c., Paris, Charavay, 1862).
THE DISPOSITION OF THE CHURCHES 195
decided to negotiate a concordat with the Pope, affected a kind of impartial neutrality, and revoked several of the militant measures formerly established, whether against the ministers of the Catholic religion or the religion itself.
An order of the 8th of Frlmaire of the year VIII annulled the orders of deportation issued by the Directory against those priests who had taken all the oaths in succession, or had married, or had ceased to exercise their priestly functions before the law of the 7th of Vendemiaire of the year IV.
Three orders of the 7th of Nivose following granted to the sects facilities and advantages by which the Catholics must have chiefly profited. Firstly, all churches not alienated were restored to the use " of the citizens of the communes which were in possession of them on the first day of the year II " ; secondly, from ministers of religion, as from functionaries, the only declaration henceforth required was to be this : " / promise fidelity to the Constitution " (a prescription confirmed by the law of the 21st of the same month) ; thirdly, the orders by which some administrations had ordained that the churches should be opened on Decadl only were revoked and annulled ; and it was stated " that the laws relating to the liberty of religion would be executed according to their form and tenour."
Under the Consulate, in the years VIII and IX, the same religious cults co-existed as under the Directory.
The " civil religion " or " decadal cult " was not suppressed. An order of the 2nd of Pluviose of the year VIII enacted that the same edifices should continue to serve at the same time for the " celebration of the decadal ceremonies " and the " celebration of the cere- monies of the cults," and that the administrative authori- ties would select the hours accorded to each cult, so as to prevent concurrent services. But the decadal cult was reduced. Out of consideration of the fact " that it is con-
196 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
ducive to the national liberty and prosperity to preserve those national festivals only which have been vi^elcomed by all Frenchmen, without leaving any memories that might tend to produce division among the friends of the Republic," a law of the 3rd of Nivose of the year VIII ordained that there should be no more national festivals except that of July 14th and that of the foundation of the Republic. An order of the following 7th of Thermidor declared that the observation of the Decadi as a feast-day should be compulsory " only for the constituted authorities, public functionaries, and salaried servants of the Government." '
The rule that marriages must be celebrated only on Decadis and in the chief town of the canton was im- plicity suppressed by another order of the same date, and although this order enacted that the publications of marriages should be made only on Decadis, it was none the less a terrible blow to the decadal ceremonies, as marriages had formed their principal attraction. 2
' This order enacted that "fair days and market days should remain fixed according to the repubHcan calendar and the orders of the central and municipal administrations."
=" Some time before the issue of these orders the Consular Govern- ment had recommended the prefects to apply no longer the laws which rendered the Dccadi compulsory. Nothing could in this respect be more significant than the following letter, written from Bordeaux on the 3rd of Prairial of the year VIII by the ex-Conventional Thibaudeau, prefect of the Gironde, to the Minister of the Interior: "Citizen Minister, I ought not to leave you in ignorance of the fact that at the time of my arrival in this department I discovered a great relaxation on the part of the citizens and the authorities in the matter of the celebration of the Decadi and a great eagerness to celebrate the old festivals. The former are entirely forgotten, and the latter are devoted to rest and relaxation. This state of affairs has caused no disturbances ; but there are none the less complaints on the part of people who attach a great deal of importance to this republican institution. Before my departure from Paris I had several conversations on this subject with the Consular authorities. I was told that the intention of the Government was not to force the citizens to labour or to rest on fixed days ; that they must be left the widest liberty on this point ; that ex-
SUPPRESSION OF THEOPHILANTHROPY 197
These ceremonies nevertheless were continued until the application of the Concordat. Practically none but the public functionaries attended them ; but the altar of the Patrle was still dressed and honoured in the principal churches of France, and until 1802 it still drew its faithful adorers.
As for Theophilanthropy, the friendly relations which existed between this sect and the Government were not at the outset sensibly modified by the coup (V etat, in which several of the followers of this " natural religion " took part, while others approved, suffering from a common illusion with the Institute. Bonaparte left them free for a time ; then he began to regard them with the aversion with which all " ideologues " inspired him once he had determined to become a despot. At the time of the reaction which followed the victory of Marengo the police had orders to protect them no longer. On the 20th of Nivose of the year IX some rioters, probably Catholic, entered Saint- Gervais, demolished the altar of the Theophilanthropists, and tore down their decorations. The Government sup- pressed the cult without waiting for the publication of the Concordat ; on the 1 2th of Vendemiaire of the
perience had proved that all the efforts to the end of keeping up the celebration of the Dccadi had proved ineffectual ; that the habits of the great majority of the nation were in continual opposition to it. I have consequently had to shut my eyes to what has been done. However, the common custom is in conflict with the letter of the laws. These laws exist : they have not been abrogated. It is extremely painful for an administrator to find himself placed between violations of the law, which seem to be authorised by the tolerance professed by the Government, and the imperative mandate of the law itself. Be so good, Citizen Minister, to confirm my irresolution in this respect, and outline the conduct which I should adhere to. Greetings and respect. — A. Thibaudeau." At the head of a summary of this letter, dated the 14th of Prairial, we read these words : " Let him do all he can to reconcile the laws with the wishes of the Government until he is advised of the result of proposals which are now under consideration to this end."
198 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
year X (October 4, 1801) a consular order deprived the Theophilanthropists of the use of the national edifices, and when they applied for an authorisation to rent suitable quarters their petition remained unnoticed. »
II.
If we pass from the rationalistic groups to the mystical cults, we shall find that the Jews and the Protestants still led their modest life, without any attention from the State. The sects which are of interest in the political history of the Revolution, under the Consulate as under the Directory, are the two Catholic sects.
The former Constitutional Church welcomed with joy the coup d^etat, which, in suppressing the Directory, would presently abolish the " decadal persecution " of which it had so bitterly complained : " The revolution of the I 8th of Briimaire arrived," wrote Gregoire, " and from that moment the clergy could breathe." Bishop Royer defended the coup d'etat in the pulpit of Notre Dame. Bonaparte dealt graciously with the Constitu- tionals. He authorised them, in 1801, to hold a National Council, as the Directory had done in 1797. He flattered and consulted Gregoire ; there was any amount of deference between the parties ; a continual coquetting. He allowed the Constitutionals to believe that the Concordat would be to their advantage. The relations between the State and the Constitutional Church were, at the end of the period of separation, excellent.
' Gregoire {Hisioire dcs scctes, vol. i. p. 454) states that Chenier secretly continued to carry on the cult, in the Rue Etienne, in a school at which he gave lessons in Latin. The cult was kept up by a few families, and may be in existence yet, for I remember receiving, a few years ago, a few numbers of a Theophilanthropic journal. But from the time of the order of the 12th of Vendemiaire, Theophilanthropy has had no legal existence nor historical importance.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHURCH 199
This Church was not in a state of progress. It could ill sustain the competition of so many refractory priests (Papists), who had issued from prison or returned from abroad in order to make the promise of fidelity. It was seriously put aback, and the numbers of its flock diminished. In the year IX, out of the fifteen " national edifices " bestowed on the worshippers of Paris, the Constitutionals officiated in five only, while the " re- fractories " officiated in all the remaining ten. In the country a non-Papist priest often officiated in an empty church. In some towns the sect was followed by only a small proportion of the bourgeoisie ; in others by a few poor folk only. The fact that at the date of the Concordat a fairly large number of episcopal sees were vacant seems to prove clearly that the " National " Church was national only in name ; that it was not gaining ground, but perhaps losing it ; that it had fewer followers than ever, and above all, that it was poor. I
It was, however, stronger than its adversaries wished to see it ; it numbered in its ranks an honourable minority of the nation ; its pastors were virtuous and distinguished men ; it held metropolitan councils and a second National Council ; 2 they assembled regularly
' In a report addressed by Hauterive to the First Consul (undated, but which M. Boulay, of Meurthe, believed to date from the 15th of Nivose of the year IX) we read : "The Constitutional Clergy is rich in ministers, poor in followers. There are many priests, but the faithful are few ; it has good maxims and no credit. . . ."
" In this second National Council, held at Saint-Sulpice on June 29, 1801, to the i6th of the following August (the i8th of Prairial to the 28th of Thermidor of the year IX), these schismatics, against their will, wrote a fresh letter to the Pope, hoping to be reconciled with him. At the same time they were inviting their " non-communicating brothers" to renew the celebrated conferences of Carthage (between the Catholic bishops and the Donatist bishops of the fifth century). Each party was to elect eighteen delegates, who were to meet in Notrc-Dame on September i, 1801. On that day the eighteen Con-
200 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
and solemnly ; they made a brave show. They were a living and moving force in the social development of France, a force which every one reckoned with.
The Papist clergy retained almost the same attitude as under the Directory. The Councillor of State, Lacuee, in a report of the year IX, denounced this clergy as exciting hatred of the Republic. On the subject of the promise of fidelity exacted by the order of the 7th of Nivose and by the law of the 21st of Nivose of the year VIII the Papist priests were divided, as before on the subject of the various oaths, into opportunists and insurgents ; the manageable and the royalists. There were many bishops who urged their clergy to refuse the " promise," persuaded by the Abbe Maury, who represented the Pretender in Rome ; and by the attitude of the new Pope, Pius VII, who, without committing himself with regard to the " promise," had recognised Louis XVIII as King of France. But it seems probable, in the absence of statistics, that the majority of the lower clergy took the promise and rallied to the Consular Government. 1
stitutional delegates assembled in Notre-Dame. They waited eight days, in vain. No Papist appeared, and they separated mournfully.
' On the other hand we have the raw material of statistics relating to the religious situation in the departments in the tables which the Minister of the Interior had drav^'n up in his offices in the year IX, together with the replies provoked by a series of questions addressed more especially (it would seem) to the members of the Legislative Corps. I have published this document in my compilation : L'Eiai de France en Van VIII et en Van IX, 1897). This document shows that the majority or a large number of priests had made the promise in the following eighteen departments : Ain, Basses-Alpes, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-Maritimes, Ariege, Aube, Aude, Charente, Cher, Correze, Eure-et- Loir, Gers, Gironde, Landes, Loire, Vienne, Saone-et-Loire, Var. In the departments of Haute-Marne and Bas-Rhin all the priests made the promise. A minority only took it in twenty-one departments : Aisne, Ardeche, Ardennes, Aveyron, Bouches-du- Rhone, Cantal, Charente-Inferieure, Cote-d'Or, Drome, Escaut, Finistere, Gard, Herault, Ille-et-Vilaine, Jemmapes, Jura, Haute-Loire, Sambre-et-Meuse, Deux-
SITUATION OF THE SECTS 201
£mery, Bausset, and Sicard presided once again over this rallying movement, and brought with them a strong minority of bishops, either residents in France or emigres. Every day the royal cause was losing ad- herents from the ranks of the Papist clergy.
III.
Such, at the end of the system of separation of Church and State, was the situation of the religious sects in France ; a situation very tolerable from the point of view of the Churches, and greatly to the advantage of the State.
Neither the Theophilanthropists, nor the Jews, nor the Protestants, nor the ex-Constitutional Catholics had any reason to complain, either of the system or of the Government ; and indeed there survives no trace of any serious discontent on their part ; they desired only to constitute or re-constitute their internal hierarchy, and it did not seem as though any insurmountable obstacle stood in the way of their desire. Among the *' Papist " clergy who had rallied to the Republic the wish was general that certain external practices, such as the ringing of bells, should be permitted. It was
Sevres, Vaucluse, Haute-Vienne. In the case of the other departments the replies to the questions do not give the numbers of the priests who gave the promise ; but reUgious disturbances are mentioned as occur- ring in the following twenty-two departments: Calvados, Cote-d'Or, Drome, D)'le, Escaut, Finistere, Haute-Garonne, Lozere, Lys, Maine- et-Loire, Manche, Mayenne, Meuse-Infcrieure, Mont-Blanc, Morbihan, Moselle, Nord, Rhone, Seine-Inferieure, Somme, Tarn, Vosges. No religious disturbances were reported in the following twenty-two departments : Allier, Creuse, Ille-et-Vilaine, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Isere, Leman, Loir-et-Cher, Loiret, Lot, Marne, Meuse, Oise, Ourthc, Pas-de-Calais, Basses-Pyrenees, Hautes-Pyrenees, Pyrenees-Orientales, Haute-Rhin, Hautc-Saone, Vienne, Yonne. The document here analysed says nothing as to these twelve departments : Doubs, Euro, Forets, Golo, Liamone, Loire-Inferieure, Meurthe, Deux-Sevres, Seine, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-et-Oisc, Vendee.
202 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
believed that when the general peace with Europe was concluded and the chances of a religious civil war had disappeared the Catholics would once more be allowed to employ their bells. As for the Papist clergy who had not rallied to the Republic, their feeling towards the whole Revolution was one of irreconcilable anger and hatred. This hatred and anger, however, were not shared by the population, so that they became each day less formidable ; and moreover the grievance of the rebellious priest was political more than religious.
Generally speaking, the system of separation had produced an extraordinary development of the religious life in France ; an unusual variety of religious groups ; never had there been so many altars raised in France as on the eve of the Concordat.
As for the relations of the religious groups among themselves, the Catholics continued to give proof of their intolerance. But the shrewd firmness of the Con- sular Government did not allow them to attain to the tyrannical predominance to which they aspired, and so to stifle the other forms of worship. They had to confine themselves, in the employment of their legal liberty, to attacking the freethinkers rather than the other mystical cults.
" Free thought " still numbered a great number of adepts in cultivated society ; it was apparently in the ascendant in the Institute, especially in the depart- ment of the moral sciences ; but it was no longer the fashion. Militant rationalists, like Fourcroy, were pronouncing their mea culpa; and although this par- ticular scientist declared a preference for Protestantism it was none the less the Catholics who benefited by his defection. In literature, to glorify Catholicism was already a means of arriving at celebrity, as was demonstrated by the example of La Harpe and Fontanes. Chateaubriand, in March, 1801, published
THE REVIVAL OF CATHOLICISM 203
his Atala, in which, against the background of a romantic adventure, lie exalted the Gospels and the Catholic religion : he thus obtained a literary success the like of which had never been known in France since the day of Voltaire. Among the bourgeoisie Roman Catholicism gained ground, but not as an intolerant and exclusive religion. Neither Chateau- briand nor his admirers demanded that the altars of other gods should be overturned. It was only to the rebellious Papist priests that the continuation of the liberal system of separation seemed intolerable.
Although Roman Catholicism was spreading, while the other cults remained as they were, or even de- clined, there was still a kind of equilibrium between the groups, and the consequent religious competition was carried on to the profit of the conscience and of the State. The independence of the State increased still further every day, as Roederer remarked. We have seen that the devotion of a portion of the Papist clergy to the cause of Louis XVIII was one of the reasons why Bonaparte decided to put an end to the system of separation. Since the victory of Marengo, however, this devotion was scarcely dangerous, and those priests who were faithful to the King became every day more rare. It would be more correct to say that the rebellious royalism of a portion of the Papist clergy was useful rather than hurtful to the State, because that very royalism caused a schism in the most powerful of the religious groups, that one whose numerical advantage was most dangerous to the independence of the State.
As a matter of fact the French Revolution had victoriously, but not without trouble, achieved this result : that the most formidable of all the forces of the past against which it had to struggle, namely the Catholic Church, was now split up into three parts ; firstly, the ex-Constitutionals ; secondly, the reconciled
204 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
Papists ; and thirdly, the royaHst Papists, all of whom quarrelled among themselves ; while a large rational- istic sect, the Theophilanthropists, gave, by its per- sistence, an example of the organisation of free thought as a sect ; and the Hebrews, and more especially the Protestants, grown more numerous by means of terri- torial annexations, acted as a counterpoise. The altar of the country too, honoured each Dccadi, still stood in the principal churches. Nowhere did the Catholic religion reign exclusively. Public instruction remained secular. The State was secular. The State was free, and its own master.
IV.
Why then did Bonaparte abandon a system so favour- able to the State, advantages that his own policy had so ably confirmed, a condition of things so advantageous to France and to himself? Why did he restore the Church to its old preponderant situation?
Was it because there was a movement of public opinion in favour of the Concordat? Quite on the contrary ; so unpopular was the Concordat of i 5 1 6, indirectly broken by the Constituent Assembly in 1790, that in common prudence and as a matter of policy the convention which was eventually concluded with the Pope was not given the name of Concordat. Had there still been a free press we may be sure that there would have been a revulsion of feeling against the Concordat, we may almost say a unanimous revul- sion. Neither among those who surrounded Bonaparte, nor among his adversaries, nor among any party of the clergy, nor even at the Court of Rome (where no one could have imagined that the head of the French State would spontaneously renounce the advantages of separation) was there any demand for a Concordat.
Was it that Bonaparte, by birth a Corsican and
BONAPARTE'S RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE 205
a Catholic, was impelled by pious motives to favour the Roman Church? There is no indication that he ever possessed the quality we call faith. Many of his actions testify to his indifference in religious matters. In Egypt he had honoured the Mohammedan religion as though himself a Mohammedan. Married by the civil process, he resigned himself to undergo the religious ceremony of marriage only upon the eve of his coronation, and then only because it was essential to his coronation. If he went to Mass he refused to communicate. Even upon the conclusion of the Con- cordat he thought a Te Deuin sufficient. Roederer tells us that it took the combined efforts of Portalis and Cambaceres to persuade him to attend a Mass, and that then they could not persuade him to kiss the patena. He did not confess ; he did not communicate ; not even (it appears) in the article of death ; and his will indicates merely that he died in the religion of his birth.
Impenetrable to the religious spirit, incapable even of envisaging religion from the standpoint of the conscience, he said before Pelet (of Lozere) :
"As for me, I do not sec in religion the mystery of the incarnation, but the mystery of the social order ; religion attributes to heaven an idea of equality, so that the rich shall not be massacred by the poor. Religion, again, is a kind of inoculation or vaccine, which, while satisfying our love of the marvellous, safeguards us against charlatans and sorcerers ; the priests are more valuable than the Cagliostros, the Kants, and all the dreamers of Germany."
He said much the same to Roederer :
" Society cannot exist without the inequality of fortunes, and in- equality of fortune cannot continue without religion. When one man is dying of hunger by the side of another who is overfed, it is impos- sible for him to submit to this difference unless there is an authority which says to him : ' God wills it thus ; there must be rich and poor in the world ; but afterwards and for all eternity matters will be other- wise arranged.' "
206 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
That Bonaparte, after having presided over the system of separation with an admirable tact and success, came finally to desire, and then to effect, re- union with Rome — in short, to conclude the Concordat — was no proof whatever of his piety ; it was all done with a view to swaying the nation's conscience through the Pope, in order to realise, through the Pope, his dreams of empire — of universal empire. He also fore- saw the accessory advantage of ridding himself of the former Constitutional Church, which had remained democratic on account of the electoral system which was its foundation, and of depriving Louis XVIII of his last means of influencing France, and of pacifying La Vendee definitely and finally.
V.
Perhaps it was with this design already formed, and with a view to negotiating a Concordat, that Bona- parte avoided all mention of religion in planning the Constitution of the year VIII. In any case, the project of a Concordat was one of the weapons of war and diplomacy which he took with him into Italy at the time of his second campaign. As early as the i6th of Prairial of the year VIII (June 5, 1800), he said to the cures of Milan : " The French are of the same religion as you yourselves. To be sure we have had some disputes together ; but all that is being settled and is coming right." The victor of Marengo, he had a Te Deum sung at Milan (on the 29th of Prairial) " in spite of what our Parisian atheists might say of it." Then, through Cardinal Martiniana, Bishop of Verceil, he made overtures to the Pope with a view to a Concordat. The Pope agreed immediately to enter upon negotiations, and sent Mgr. Spina, Archbishop of Corinth, together with a theologian. Father Caselli, to treat with Napoleon.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONCORDAT 207
Spina arrived in Paris on the 14th of Bramaire of the year IX (November 5, 1800), and the negotia- tionS;, at first merely complimentary, commenced immediately. Talleyrand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was said to regard the proposal of a Con- cordat with little favour, held aloof, or was instructed to do so. Spina dealt principally with the Abbe Bernier, a Vendeean, who had more or less betrayed the royalists ; hardly a man to be esteemed, but extremely intelligent. On the 2nd of Messidor of the year IX (June 21, 1801) the Cardinal Secretary of State replaced Spina, with full powers to conclude and sign. The convention was signed on the 26th of Messidor of the year IX (July 15, 1801),
These long negotiations took place amid the absolute silence of the French Press, which had received orders to say nothing more of any religious matters ; but in the circles where some knowledge existed of what was going forward, there was a feeling which the Roman plenipotentiary, on the 2nd of July, described, when communicating with the Papal Court, in the following words :
" The strife which has been stirred up to prevent this reunion with Rome is incredible. All the legislative bodies, all the philosophers, all the Libertines, and a great portion of the Army are greatly set against it. They have said to the First Consul's face that if he wished to destroy the Republic and bring back the monarchy he could find no surer means than this reunion."
It is probable that the Abbe Bernier, in his conversa- tions with Spina and Consalvi, had exaggerated the boldness and the unanimity of the opposition to the Con- cordat, in order to impress the Pope ; but the opposition was real, and it certainly seems that until the end it was general.
That the negotiations were thus delayed was not because there had been, even at the outset, any lack
208 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
of agreement as to the essential point, which was that the bishops, appointed by the First Consul, should be installed by the Pope, thus terminating the schism of the " Constitutionalists." The fact was that at the outset the Pope was not, as a temporal sovereign, at Bonaparte's mercy, and he hesitated to abandon either the bishops who had remained faithful to him or that Louis XVIII whom he had so recently recognised as King of France. He hesitated all the more because he was by no means absolutely certain that the First Consul would finally prevail against the coalition. Moreau's victory at Hohenlinden (on the 1 2th of Frimaire of the year IX) ; the flight of Louis XVIII, expelled from Russia (on the 3rd of Pluviose) ; the peace with Austria, concluded at Luneville (on the 2oth of Pluviose), and the peace with Naples (con- cluded on the 7th of Germinal) ; these were the facts that confirmed the hesitating Pope, while Bonaparte's demands increased simultaneously.
At the outset Bonaparte had offered to proclaim the Roman Catholic religion as the State religion. After the victory of Hohenlinden he withdrew this offer, and imposed the arrangement which was adopted : namely, that the French Government should recognise " that the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion was the religion of the great majority of French citizens." As long as he was at war with the King of the Two Sicilies he showed patience in his negotiations ; once he had concluded peace with that sovereign he sent the Pope a churlish ultimatum, which led to the despatch pf Consalvi to Paris, and the conclusion of the Concordat.
We need not here follow the vicissitudes of the negotiations, all the details of which may be found in the excellent compilation made by M. Boulay (of Meurthe), and I will not here reproduce the text of the " convention between the French Government and
RESULTS OF THE CONCORDAT 209
His Holiness Pius VH," which is well known and obtain- able anywhere. I will only point out how the Con- cordat modified the politico-religious situation in France.
The principle of the secular State — or the inde- pendent State, as it was then called — was not entirely abolished, as Catholicism was not proclaimed as the State religion. But in recognising that it was the religion of the great majority of the French, longe maxima pars civiiim ; in permitting the Pope to " recog- nise " that the Consuls of the Republic made an " in- dividual profession " of the Catholic religion ; in agreeing that should any one of the successors of the present First Consul not be a Catholic a treaty would be drawn up which would regulate the method of appointing the bishops ; — in all this the French Govern- ment was establishing the Roman Church in France on a basis of moral preponderance, and destroying, in its interest, the religious equilibrium v/hich the system of separation had established between the religious groups.
For the rest, this system of separation was abolished by Articles 2, 3, and 5 of the convention, in which it was agreed that the Pope and the French Government should make in concert a new circumscription of the dioceses ; that the Pope should demand or impose the dismissal of all the present titulars of episcopal or archiepiscopal sees ; that the First Consul should appoint the titulars of the sees of the new circum- scription ; that the Pope should confer the canonical institution upon the said titulars according to the forms established with regard to France before the change of government, and that he would do the same when a see should become vacant. The bishops would appoint the cures, but their choice might fall only upon persons approved by the Government (Article 10). The idea of the old Gallican system, that ministers
VOL. IV. 14
210 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
of the faith were at the same time State functionaries, was restored by Articles 6 and 7, which exacted from the bishops and cur6s this oath (very nearly the same as that which had formerly been required of kings)' :
" I swear and promise to God, upon the Holy Evangelists, to main- tain obedience and fidelity to the Government established by the Constitution of the French Republic. I also promise to hold no intercourse, to assist at no council, to support or communicate with no league, whether at home or abroad, which might be inimical to the public tranquility ; and if, whether in my diocese or elsewhere, I learn that anything whatsoever is being contrived to the prejudice of the State, I will inform the Government thereof."
In return, the Government undertook to assure the bishops and cures of a " suitable stipend."
Thus was established, and even aggravated, the old confusion between Church and State.
In order to ensure that the nation should accept such a reaction, it was disguised, as it were, with advantages, direct or indirect, which appeared in some respects to confirm certain results of the French Revolu- tion to which the men of that time attached the greatest importance. Firstly, by the very fact that the Pope was concluding a Concordat with the French Republic he recognised the Republic and abandoned Louis XVIII, whose alliance with the Pope appeared then to be his only chance of success. Secondly, the royalist bishops, who, emigres or at home, made war upon the Revolution in their old diocesan districts, were to be got rid of. Thirdly, the possessors of national property originally Church property were re- assured by Article 3, which enacted that neither the present Pope nor his successors " should in any manner disturb the purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical pro- perty, and that in consequence the possession of such property, the rights and revenues attached, would remain incommutably in their hands or in those of their assignees."
ROME GAINS BY THE CONCORDAT 211
However, these concessions on the part of the Vatican merely ratified a state of things which the mihtary victories of the Republic had already assured. These were illusory advantages for the French, or at most they were gratifications of the imagination. The Roman Church, on the other hand, by the destruction of the politico-religious system established by the Revolution, by the termination of the schism which had so greatly disturbed it, and by the Papal right of investing the bishops, obtained advantages as real as they were un- hoped for. On July 27, 1801, Consalvi wrote from Paris to the Vatican : " All the ministers of the foreign powers were present, as well as all the rich and learned ; regarding the conclusion of the Concordat as a true miracle, particularly in that it had been possible to conclude it far more advantageously than had appeared possible in the present state of things. I myself, who saw it concluded, could hardly believe it." The Pope's delight was no less than Consalvi's. While at Rome the cardinals were examining the convention, the Pope, according to the French minister, Cacault, " was in the state of agitation, anxiety, and desire of a young bride who hardly dares to rejoice on the great day of her espousal." «
VI.
The ratifications were exchanged on the 23rd of Fructidor of the year IX (September 10, 1801). But the Concordat was not published until seven months later. These seven months were employed in making the convention applicable by dismissing the old bishops and nominating the new, by the vote of approbation of the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps, and by the drawing-up of police regulations or articles of organisation.
' Boulay, iii. 339.
212 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
Bonaparte had submitted to the Pope the outline of a proposed Bull of Circumscription of the new dioceses, to the number of sixty. But it was first of all necessary to obtain the resignation of the existing bishops to make a tabula rasa. This, on the side of the ex-Constitutionals, was not difficult. At the news of the conclusion of the Concordat they had decided to resign as a body, and to this resolution they adhered ; it was evidently one of the conditions of the promise given by the First Consul to appoint some of them to the new sees. The " Constitutional Church " thus com- pletely disappeared, none of its ministers refusing to enter the Church of the Concordat, so that no trace of the schism was left.
It was otherwise with the ci-devant refractory bishops, all of whom did not obey the brief in Avhich the Pope (on August 15, 1801) required their resigna- tion. The fifteen who were then in France resigned, so did the five who were living in Italy (one of whom, the Bishop of Beziers, sent his resignation to Louis XVIII). Fourteen of the bishops who had taken refuge in London refused to resign. Altogether, according to Abbe de Boulogne, out of a total of 81 bishops 45 resigned, and 36 refused to resign, publishing protests which they renewed in 1806. Nearly all died still in a rebellious attitude ; the last survivor, M. de The- mines. Bishop of Blois, claimed in 1828 to be Bishop of All France. The reasons they alleged, although they had nearly all been ultramontanes, was respect for the Gallican liberties. In reality their motives were fidelity to Louis XVIII ; that is to say, it was rather as gentlemen than as priests that these neophytes of Galli- canism revolted against the Pope, and spoke of him, in their statements of refusal or defence, as a heretic, a Jew, a pagan, and a publican. This schism, at first called Btanchardism, after an Abbe Blanchard who wrote copiously against the Concordat, attracted so
THE FATE OF THE CONSTITUTIONALS 213
few disciples that it was known as the little Churchy and the Roman Church was not appreciably weakened by it.
The slate having been cleaned, it remained to fill the new sees. Bonaparte had promised to appoint a number of Constitutionals. This was the condition of suicide which the Constitutional Church had demanded. He had no love for these republicans : he would willingly have sacrificed them.i But the Legislative Corps had selected Gregoire, the true chief of the Constitutional Church, as candidate for a vacant place in the Senate (on the 22nd of Ventose of the year IX), and the Senate ratified their choice (on the 1 5th of Frimalre of the year X). Bonaparte understood this warning and nomi- nated eleven Constitutional bishops .2 The Papal Legate wished to force them to recant ; they refused to do so. Finally Abbe Bernier took it upon him to state that they had recanted through him and secretly. When they received the news of this false testimony they protested against the fraud,3 and the Pope had to content himself with the letter which they had written him at the time of their nomination, in which they informed him that they renounced the Civil Constitution and adhered to the Concordat.
^ Despite the places they obtained, the Constitutionals did actually find that they were sacrificed. In Gregoire's manuscript notes, from which M. Gazier has kindly given me extracts, I find the following : "Constitutionals sacrificed by Bonaparte in Concordat, sacrificed quia reputed republicans, quia they fear them little, knowing that they have submitted."
^ He nominated only ten at first. He decided, shortly afterwards, to nominate two more. Altogether, among the 60 archbishops and bishops as first appointed, there were sixteen members of the old episcopate ; twelve Constitutional bishops and thirty-two various ecclesiastics, of whom about two-thirds were vicars, canons, &c. (M. Boulay, of Meurthe, vol. v. p. 464).
3 It was Lacombc, Bishop of Angouleme, who protested in their name in a public letter dated June 4, 1802, published in the Annales de la Religion, xv. 134.
214 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
Now that the bishops were nominated it was time to transform the Concordat into the law of the State. For this was necessary the co-operation and the vote of the Council of State, the Tribunate, and the Legis- lative Corps ; a co-operation which must have seemed far from being certain, to judge by the discontent which prevailed even in Bonaparte's immediate entour- age. Five days after the conclusion of the Concordat, on the 1st of Thermidor of the year IX, Fouche had ventured to despatch to the prefects a circular which was an undisguised satire on the religious policy of the First Consul. In it he angrily denounced all Roman Catholic priests. Had they refused the promise of fidelity? Their case was clear : banish them ! Had they taken it? Then they were hypocrites ! Their conduct, said the Minister, was an endless perjury :
"They have sown dissension among the citizens and hatred in famihes ; awakened party quarrels, disturbed men's consciences ; made fanatics of ardent spirits, and abused the creduUty of the weak ; lastly they have revived, in the century of enlightenment and liberty, all the absurdities and all the scandals of the centuries of ignorance and superstition.''
The Minister ordered the prefects : i. To expel from France such priests as had not given the promise ; 2, to expel from the communes " those who, having taken it, disturb the peace " ; 3, to reserve the churches for the priests who were officiating in them before the 1 8th of Brumaire ; that is, almost entirely for the ex -Constitutionals. The First Consul, if we can believe it, only knew of this circular through the journals. He wrote to Fouche on the 21st of Thermidor^ censuring him and ordering him to revoke the circular, which the latter did on the 23rd ; but he dared not as yet dispense with the services of this Minister who had dared so plainly to thwart his policy. (Or perhaps the whole affair was only a comedy
THE CONCORDAT ADOPTED 215
arranged between the master and the servant, in order to make the Cathohcs more grateful to Bonaparte.)
Bonaparte decided to read the Concordat before the Council of State ; the Council received his reading of it with significant coldness, and with several outbursts of laughter at certain mystical expressions. On the 1 2th of Genninal of the year X it adopted the various acts submitted to it without discussion. However, the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps had been expur- gated, so that a favourable vote was obtained : 78 votes against 7 in the Tribunate ; in the Legislative Corps, 228 against 21 (on the 17th and i8th of Ger- minal). Nevertheless, the expurgation had not been sufficient to render these two bodies invariably servile. If they accepted the Concordat with such a majority, it was because they passed certain acts at the same time which seemed to modify its anti-revolutionary character. Textually, what was voted reads as follows :
" The Convention exchanged in Paris, the 26th of Messidor, year IX, between the Pope and the French Government, the ratifications of which were exchanged in Paris on the 23rd of Fnicfidor, year IX, to- gether with the organic articles of the said Convention, and those of the Protestant cults, of which the gist follows, will be promulgated and executed as laws of the Republic."
In this suppression of the rival cults of Roman Catholicism the liberals of the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps were thankful to see the two Protes- tant Churches of France maintained : the Reformed Church and the Church of the Confession of Augs- burg. The ministers of these churches were salaried, as were the Catholic priests, and they were given a promise that they should be allowed to form the elected assemblies to which they aspired according to their historical traditions. In reality the Protestant Churches were put in leading-strings, and by no means counter- balanced the predominance, always increasing, of
216 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
Catholicism. Only too happy in being allowed to exist, they undertook no propaganda, and did not increase the numbers of their followers, leaving the field entirely free for the Catholic propaganda.
There was no Jewish question at this time ; it was under the Empire that the Hebrew cult was regulated by the State (by the decree of March 17, 1808).
As for the " organic articles of the convention of the 26th of Messidor of the year IX," they seemed, to the men of those days, to oppose a solid barrier to the pretensions of Roman Catholicism. These were the " police regulations " referred to in Article i of the Concordat. It has been said that the Pope did not ratify them. He did not have to ratify them ; they formed not a treaty, but a State law. These articles had been published as if they formed one text with the convention ; it was this method of publication that the ""ope disowned. He also complained, but without vehemence, of the severity of the " police regu- lations " ; he demanded and obtained certain modifica- tions of detail, and finally resigned himself.
These regulations were in 77 articles which followed on without logical order, without visible plan, as though at random. But they all emanated from an ancient, royalist doctrine : Gallicanism, the form of which Portalis, the Councillor of State entrusted with religious affairs, restored in various reports ; but especially in the report of the fifth complementary day of the year XI (September 22, 1803).!
Gallicanism was mainly " the independence of the Government in temporal things and the limitation of ecclesiastical authority to matters purely spiritual." Under the ancien regime the Pope and the King had
' He indicated the outline of a reply to the representations just made by the Papal Legate on the subject of the "organic articles." This report will be found in the Droit civil ecclesiastiquc of Champeaux (Paris, 1848), vol. ii. p. 184.
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWERS 217
finally agreed that the temporal power should be inde- pendent of the spiritual power, but had not agreed upon any rules distinguishing the temporal from the spiritual. The King combined spiritual power with his temporal power ; the Pope combined temporal power with his spiritual power.
These are the terms in which the legislators of the new Caesar contested a portion of the Pope's spiritual domain : " The idea of regarding as spiritual all matters that refer in any way to sin and morality would become a principle of universal absorption which would have the effect of referring everything to the Church, since morality is all-embracing " ; Portalis even refused to leave the Church m possession of the whole domain of conscience : " The law, which is itself the public conscience, has the power of binding the citizens by the intimate bonds of conscience." The State would a^bandon to the Church only that region of the conscience in which resides the belief in dogmas which are purely dogmatic, and mysteries purely mystical : the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, transubstantiation, &c. These mysteries, says Portalis, occupy the void left by reason " which the imagination would incontestably fill less beneficially." In other words, a Frenchman who dreams of the beyond, of the future life, does not think of politics ; he becomes a docile subject. The State therefore renounces that portion of the mind which is infected by mysticism, as the sick portion ; it keeps to itself the sane and healthy portion, and absorbs it — its temporal power.
Between the spiritual power thus reduced and the temporal power thus enlarged, there is still a region of matters undefined ; an indefinite territory. Here the State would rule, because it is more ancient than the Church, for the Church is in the State.
These mixed matters the State would undertake.
As for the things spiritual which have been reduced
218 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
to dogma alone : does the State entirely ignore them? No : the prince, the head of the State, the Protector of the Faith, has agreed to protect it only as it is. He can and should see that these spiritual matters remain unchanged. He is acquainted with spiritual matters, not only because he nominates the bishops, but be- cause he examines into their orthodoxy to see if it is irreproachable. He sees that the catechism is taught. He is concerned, in fact, with all religion, with aJl dogma, and with all discipline.
Thus Gallicanism is not a liberal doctrine, tending to establish a neutral and secular State. On the con- trary : Gallicanism tries to include in the province of the State as much of the province of conscience as is possible ; to make the chief of the State a kind of Pope, a rival of the true Pope.
Pius VH was not blinded by this Gallicanism. He was well acquainted with the royal doctrine. The Papacy had fought against it for centuries, and had survived it. But the State was now for the first time attempting to apply the principles of Gallicanism all at once, by means of a single police regulation. The Church, however, which had suffered so many ills with- out perishing, could suffer this also, which perhaps would last only as long as the life of Bonaparte ; it could endure a temporary evil compensated by so many lasting benefits.
Let us now consider how Gallicanism was put into operation by the " organic articles."
Generally speaking, the subordination of the Church to the State was, if not established therein, yet at least formulated by the clauses prohibiting the introduction into France, without permission of the French Govern- ment, of any act of the Court of Rome or of its general councils ; or by those which referred to the Council of State, in case of abuses, the actions of the priests.
The encroachments of the State upon the spiritual
CHURCH AND STATE 219
domain were marked by the articles according to which the Government commissioned those who were to examine the candidates for the episcopate on matters of doctrine, forced the clergy to teach the declaration of 1682, to use only one liturgy and one catechism, and saw that each bishop visited the whole of his diocese in the space of five years. Concerning the appointment of cures, the obligation laid on the bishops by the Con- cordat to choose only persons " approved by the Government " was thus defined in the organic articles : " The bishops will appoint and ordain the cures ; nevertheless they will effect neither the nomination nor the canonical investment until the nomination has been approved by the First Consul."
The police regulations relative to public worship were thus composed : there could be no out-of-door ceremonies in towns where there were temples of any other cults ; neither chapels nor oratories might be opened without the permission of the Government ; the ministers of religion, once outside the temples, must wear the ordinary French fashion of dress, in black ; they must not speak of politics in the pulpit, nor attack any other cult.'
The lay character of the civil State was maintained. It was forbidden to the clergy to give the nuptial benediction to persons not married before the mayor.
This obligation must have been painful to the Church. It was atoned for in the Church's eyes by a concession of which the Concordat had said nothing ; the sup- pression of the decadal cult, which, enfeebled as it had grown, still disturbed the Church by its persistence. The suppression was formulated in phrases which
' The prohibition of the use of bells, so much complained of by the Catholics, was revoked in these terms (Article 48) : " The bishop will confer with the prefect as to the manner of summoning the faithful to divine service by means of bells ; they may not be sounded for any other reason without the permission of the local police."
220 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
accorded to the Catholic religion one of the charac- teristics of a State religion, since in Article 57 the Christian Sunday was fixed as the day of rest for public functionaries. The republican calendar was only partly maintained in the case of the clergy ; the latter were expected to make use of it, but had the option of calling the days by the names they bore in the old calendar.
Thus the organic articles were not designed merely to preserve the rights and the character of the secular State as organised by the Revolution. On the con- trary, they effaced some of these rights and a part of this character. The Church rejoiced therefore ; but the professional defenders of the State were unable to perceive the damage suffered by the State, or rather, returning to the Galilean ideas in which they had been brought up, they actually believed that the State would gain by resuming the semi-secular, semi-clerical char- acter which it possessed before the Revolution ; and that so constituted it would be the stronger and better able to ensure its predominance over the Church ; a predominance which the organic articles had intended to establish by means of the Galilean system. This is the reason why the higher officials, at first hostile to the Concordat, finally resigned themselves to it as a means of the better control of the Roman Church.
There was practically no further opposition to the Concordat except in the Army, which had so often had to fight, during the civil wars, against the Roman Catholic priests who had turned against their country. The generals attended the ceremony at Notre Dame (on the 28th of Germinal of the year X), when the promulgation of the Concordat was celebrated, with a very ill grace. Thibaudeau states that when the First Consul asked General Delmas, " What do you think of the ceremony? " the latter replied : " A pretty sermon ! It only wants the million men who were killed in destroying what you are re-establishing."
THE CONCORDAT IN OPERATION 221
"It was rumoured," says Thibaudeau, moreover, "that the First Consul had decided that the colours of the troops should be blessed, and that he dared not carry out the programme, because the soldiers declared roundly that they would trample them underfoot. A cari- cature was circulated secretly which represented the First Consul drowning in a font, while the bishops were pushing him to the bottom with their croziers."
VII.
It was from April i8, 1802, that the Concordat was put into operation. To give the history of its appHca- tion does not enter into the scheme of this book, as the chief events in its history occurred under the Empire. But it is well to remark here that in the histories of this application of the Concordat a powerful light has been thrown on the brutality of Napoleon Bonaparte in his quarrel with the Church ; the Pope carried off, incarcerated, treated with violence ; priests imprisoned or deported ; seminaries handled like so many regiments ; missions to the interior prohibited ; and the regulation of indulgences and prayers by the State.
How did these measures weigh against the advan- tages, material as well as moral, which were granted the Church in addition to those accorded by the Con- cordat?
The Concordat had only promised, and the organic articles only granted, salaries at the rate of 15,000 francs for archbishops, 10,000 francs for bishops, and 1,000 to 1,500 francs for cures. According to the Concordat there were to be cures only in the chief towns of cantons. The organic articles established chapels of ease in the other communes, with cures appointed and recalled by the bishops. These cures had to be chosen from among the ecclesiastics who, as ex-possessors of suppressed benefices, and in virtue of the decrees of the Constituent Assembly,
222 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
were in receipt of a pension (the maximum of which had been reduced to i,ooo livres by the Con- vention). This pension, together with the offerings of the congregation, would form the salary of the com- munal priests. It was paid only to priests who had taken the various oaths. Bonaparte (by order of the 3rd of Pr atrial of the year X) granted it to all, pro- vided they had accepted the Concordat. Without this order the great majority of the lower clergy would have been unpaid ; and this was the greatest benefit received by the Church next to the Concordat. As for many this was a somewhat insufficient salary, an order of the 1 8th of Germinal of the year XI authorised the Councils General and the municipalities to vote a supplementary salary for deserving cases. These assemblies having taken little note of this order, the Emperor, on the i ith of Prairial of the year XII, as a gift of good omen, granted each assistant cure (besides his lodging, which was at the cost of the commune) a pension of 500 francs payable out of the State budget ; and a decree passed on September 30, 1807, increased the number of assistants to 30,000. Pensions were also granted to canons, vicars -general, cardinals, and bishops who had resigned on the conclusion of the Concordat. Finally all these pensions and salaries were declared unseizable.
The first year the system was applied the expenses of the cults figured in the budget as 1,200,000 francs only. We have not the figures of the pensions then paid to ex-beneficiaries. However, as they were paid only to those who had taken the oaths it is not probable that this expense was very great, nor that the total expenditure for religious purposes exceeded five millions.
In 1807 religion cost the budget as much as 17 millions, and about 23 millions were paid in pensions, making a total of 40 millions for all ecclesias-
PROMISES OF THE CONCORDAT EXCEEDED 223
tical expenses. Thus the Catholic Church received annually from the State about 35 millions more than was due to it according to the Concordat and the exist- ing laws. In addition, various measures restored to the Church a portion of such of its properties as had not been alienated. Thanks to this spontaneous liberality it was able so to reorganise itself as to become, under a new aspect, almost as powerful as under the ancien regime.
As for the moral and material advantages which the Concordat did not promise, but which the Church actually received, we must reckon first in importance the suppression of the ex-Constitutional schism, the abolition of the rationalistic cults, Theophilanthropy, the decadal ceremonies, &c., and also, as the indirect result of these measures, the fact that a second Con- cordat concluded by Bonaparte in 1803 in the name of the Italian Republic specified that in this Republic Roman Catholicism should be the State religion : greatly to the displeasure of the liberals of Milan.
One of the classes of the national Institute, that of " moral and political sciences," had brought to- gether the most influential freethinkers of the day : Volney, Garat, Ginguene, Cabanis, Mercier, Lakanal, and Naigeon — those " ideologues " ' who had always been hostile to the Catholic Church and who became hostile to Bonaparte's ambition. By an order of the 3rd of Pluviose of the year XI (January 23, 1803), this class was suppressed, and its members were distri- buted among the other classes, so as to break up the group.
The Papal negotiator had not dared to demand the
' All those who made a reasoned opposition to him Bonaparte called ideologues. The word had been brought into use by one of the associates of the class of moral and political sciences, Destutt dc Tracy, who, in the year IX, published a Projet d'cUments d'ideologie a I'usage des Scales centrales.
224 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
suppression of the academic work of the Revolution, although this secularisation of education, the basis of which was a rational morale, was one of the chief grievances of the Church. Even the law of the i ith of Floreal of the year X had implicitly approved this process of secularisation. As Emperor, Napoleon saw it as a Republican principle, and abolished it (on March 17, 1808) by establishing "the principles of the Catholic religion " ' as the first basis of educa- tion in the Imperial University. Free thought was severely excluded ; every pupil had to be a Christian or a Jew. The bishops inspected the education in the public schools (lycees).
Certainly the State assumed the monopoly of educa- tion, and educated by means of a secular corporation. But neither this monopoly nor this secularisation was actually applied to primary instruction, which was given almost entirely by the brothers of the Christian colleges .2 These latter had reappeared as early as 1802. The decree of March 17, 180S, legalised their existence, placed them under the (illusory) supervision of the University, and exempted them from military service.
If Bonaparte was merciless with those priests who thwarted or opposed his policies, he favoured the others, revoked his own laws in their favour or allowed them to be isolated, and spontaneously took measures which continually gave Catholicism more and more the char- acter of a State religion .3 I am not speaking of the
' The Council of State wrote "the Christian religion." It was Napoleon himself, according to Pelet, who substituted the word Catholic for Christian.
^ The law of the nth of Floreal of the year X had already dis- organised the system of primary secular instruction, by depriving it of its character of State education and allowing its organisation, development, and teaching staff to depend upon the whim of the maj'ors and municipal councils.
3 Among these measures we may recall, besides that of the anoint-
FAVOURS GRANTED TO ROME 225
exemption from military service, as that was common to the ministers of all religions. I refer to the privi- leges peculiar to the Catholic religion, as that resulting from a personal decision of the First Consul's, by which (on the 23rd of Fructidor of the year X) he approved of ,the order of the mayors that the citizens should decorate the fronts of their houses upon the passage of the procession of Corpus Christi ; or the prohibition of the marriage of priests, ordained by ministerial cir- culars (on January 12, 1806, and January 30, 1807), in violation of the civil code.
Another favour granted the Church was the suppres- sion of the republican calendar by the senatus consultus of the 22nd of Fructidor of the year XIII, and the re -establishment of the Gregorian calendar from January i, 1806.
Finally, the Roman Church had also the First Consul and the Emperor to thank for the re- establishment, whether official or by toleration, of a large number of religious communities and fra- ternities. The decree of January 2, 18 12, abolished these only in a portion of France, in the " united " departments .
Such were the principal favours, unforeseen by the Concordat, which the Catholic Church received from Napoleon Bonaparte : favours of which we may say that the Most Christian King could not have done more. The Church was grateful. At the end of the second Empire a monarchist author, M. d'Haussonville,' having
ing of Napoleon, the provisions of the senatus consultus (of the 28th of Floreal of the year XII) by which Napoleon was declared " Emperor by the grace of God " and had to take the oath on the New Testament.
' See the studies by M. d'Haussonville on the Roman Catholic Church and the first Empire in the Revue des Deux Mondes (from 1865 to 1869), published in book form in 1868-1870 (5 vols.). A work by Father Theiner, prefect of the Archives of the Vatican, the Histoire des deux Concordats de la Rcpublique fmnfaisc d de la Republique
VOL. IV. 15
226 THE RELIGIOUS POLICY
maintained that the Catholics owed Napoleon nothing, the Court of the Vatican immediately protested against this statement, and, by the pen of the prefect of the Archives of the Vatican, expressed in terms almost lyrical its gratitude towards the author of the Con- cordat, enumerating the benefits received from him.
Such was the religious policy of Bonaparte. It was thus that, after having himself applied the system of separation of Church and State with as much success as ability, he then disorganised that system by means of the Concordat, the organic articles, and a host of other measures ; and gradually restored the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome to its old situation as State Church ; not in name only, but in fact. Depriving the State of its secular character, confounding Church and State in the manner of the ancien regime, restoring Gallicanism, to the profit of his policy, his object was certainly not to subject the State to the Church, but to make the Church an instrument of his imperial am- bition, and, as I have said, to govern men's consciences through the Pope. This attempt miscarried, in the sense that Napoleon's throne quickly crumbled beneath him. It was the Catholic Church that was finally vic- torious, for the State ceased for a long time to be secular, and the Church maintained, and still maintains in France, nearly all the privileges she had obtained. Even if these privileges had been lost the Church would nevertheless have retained the formidable numerical pre- ponderance which she gained through the suppression of schisms and the abolition of the rationalistic cults, and the state of tutelage into which the Jews and Protestants had fallen ; and if the system of separation had been re-established there would no longer have been the competition of the other religious bodies by which the secular State had profited from 1705 to
cisalpine, was printed at Bar-le-Duc in 1869 (2 vols.), but the cover is dated 1875.
THE CONCORDAT REACTIONARY 227
1802 ; there would have been no serious resistance to the power of the Catholics, which to-day is only held in check by means of secular primary instruction, and the progressive decay of religious feeling among the rural masses of the French population.
Taking the whole work of destruction and reaction which Bonaparte more or less consciously accomplished, it is the Concordat which stands out as the essential counter-revolutionary measure, both in its conse- quences and the manner of its application.
CHAPTER VII
THE LIFE-CONSULATE
I. The plebiscite of the year X. — II. The organic Senatus consultus of the i6th of Thermidor of the year X (August 4, 1802). — III. Return to monarchical forms. — IV. The Republican opposi- tion. Military conspiracies. Bonapartism among the working- classes. — V. Royalism. — VI. Conspiracies, actual and pretended : Cadoudal, Pichegru, and Moreau. The Due d'Enghien. — VII. The establishment of the Empire. — VIII. The organic Senatus con- sultus of the 28th of Floreal of the year XII (May 18, 1804). — IX. Disappearance of the Republic. — X. General remarks on the French Revolution.
I.
The conclusion of the Concordat, the Peace of Amiens, the brilliant success of military and diplomatic affairs, — a host of events, some fortunate and others presented as being so, and attributed by all to Bonaparte — pre- pared the public mind for illiberal changes in a con- stitution already so far from liberal, but which at all events limited the power of the First Consul to a period of ten years ; and it was already easy for those surrounding him to see that if these changes were not granted him he was capable of obtaining] them by force.
The Second Consul, Cambac^r^s, on the occasion of the Peace of Amiens, suggested to the Tribunate that it would be only proper to grant Bonaparte a national reward. The Tribunate expressed the wish '(01^ the
BONAPARTE DESIRES POWER FOR LIFE 229
1 6th of Floreal of the year X) that he should be given " an emphatic proof of national gratitude," but the deputation which acquainted the First Consul of this desire informed him that it was a matter of a purely honorific recompense. The title of Pacificator or Father of the People did not recommend itself to Bonaparte's ambition. He turned to the Senate, to whom the wish of the Tribunate had been communicated, and the senators were individually solicited to decree a life- Consulship.
They had the courage to refuse, and on the 1 8th of Floreal decided to limit their action to re-electing Bona- parte to the First Consulship in advance for another space of ten years. Let it be noted in passing that this action of the Senate was an act of opposition, or rather of independence, which was as obvious as it was de- liberate. The proces-verbal of the session gives proof of this.
"One member," it says, "in view of the report (concerning the matter of showing our gratitude) and of the great things which are still expected of the Government, finds the term of ten years recom- mended by the Commission insufficient. He proposes re-election for life, as more consistent with the public interest, and more worthy of the First Consul and of the Senate. Several others spoke in the same sense. Others, for various reasons, approved of the proposal of the Commission. The reporter,' in the name of the Commission, stated that it had privately discussed the matter of re-election for life, but that, after having weighed the advantages of the proposal, it decided that the initiative in the matter should come from the Senate assembled in general conclave. The senatiis consultiis agreed to give the proposal priority. A second reading followed, after which the assembly balloted on the question of its adoption." "
' Lacepede drew up the report in the name of the special Commission instructed to look into the proposal of the Tribunate.
^ The Register of the deliberations of the Conservative Senate. We understand to-day why the proces-verbaux of the Senate were not printed, as were those of the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps : they were too interesting.
230 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
It is therefore absolutely certain that the proposal to elect Bonaparte for life was moved and rejected in the Senate.!
Bonaparte concealed his irritation, and wrote to the Senate (on the 19th of Floreal) that he was about to consult the people as to whether he should accept the " sacrifice " which was required of him, and prolong his term of ofhce. He then left for Malmaison, in order to leave the field free to Cambaceres, whose zeal in this cause was both plucky and ingenious.
Cambaceres convoked the Council of State (on the 20th of Floreal) to deliberate on the First Consul's letter and the question of consulting the people and on what they should be consulted. Bigot de Preameneu proposed " not to confine the expression of the public will within the limits of the Senate." Roederer declared that in the very interests of the governmental " stability " which the Senate had expressed its desire to ensure it was necessary to submit to the people the double question — should the First Consul be named for life, and should he have the right to appoint his successor? The idea of passing a law formulating the nature of the plebiscite was rejected, and the Council of State, despite the opposition of the minority, adopted Roederer's project .2
Upon his return Bonaparte feigned vexation ; scolded Roederer, from whom he received a letter of apology, spoke of annulling the order, and finished by accept- ance : erasing, however, the article concerning the right of appointing his successor. The Consuls (on
' Thibaudeau states that Lespinasse proposed the appointment for life in the Senate. Among those who disapproved were Garat and Lanjuinais.
' See Thibaudeau (Memoires) and Roederer {(Envres) for details of this session of the Council. We are not told by what majority the first question was voted ; but it appears that the second (the right of appointing his successor) had five councillors against it, who abstained from voting : Berenger, Berlier, Dessolle, Emmery, and Thibaudeau.
THE QUESTION OF THE LIFE-CONSULATE 231
the same day, the 20th of Floreal of the year X) " considering that the resohition of the First Consul is a piece of magnificent homage to the sover- eignty of the people, and that the people, con- sulted as to its dearest interests, should know no other limit than those very interests," ordered that the French people should be consulted upon this question : " Should Napoleon Bonaparte be Consul for life? " The plebiscite was thus formulated by a simple Con- sular order, and as nothing in the Constitution authorised such a mode of procedure it was truly a coup d'etat, which was notified to the Senate (on the 2 1st of Floreal), the Legislative Corps, and the Tri- bunate, by a simple message, their advice not being solicited.
The Senate, irritated, appointed a Commission to consider what measures should be taken ; but this Commission, with Demeunier as spokesman, declared (on the 27th of Floreal) that there was nothing to be done " as to the present."
The Tribunate and the Legislative Corps bowed to the accomplished fact. On the registers which they opened for the purpose of recording the individual votes of their members (which registers have not been dis- covered) there were registered, according to Fauriel, only four negative votes ; one in the Tribunate (Carnot's), and three in the Legislative Corps. Yet on presenting these figures to the First Consul on the 24th of Floreal, Vaublanc, the spokesman of the Legislative Corps, gave him the pithy advice to govern " through political, civil, and religious liberty," and the spokesman of the Tribune, Chabot, ventured an indirect but lively satire upon Bonaparte's ambition.
The honour of scrutinising the proces-verbaux of this plebiscite was inflicted on the Senate ; the plebiscite was taken, as before, by means of open registers. On the 14th of Thermidor of the year X '(August 2, 1802) the following senatus consultus was issued :
232 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
"The Conservative Senate, assembled in the numbers prescribed by Article 90 of the Constitution ; deliberating upon the message of the Consuls of the Republic of the loth of this month ; having heard the report of its special Commission ; being instructed to verify the registers of the votes given by the citizens of France ; having examined the proces-verbal drawn up by the special Commission, which states that 3,577,259 citizens voted, and that 3,568,885 voted that Napoleon Bonaparte be appointed First Consul for life ; considering that the Senate, established by the Constitution as the organ of the people in all that concerns the social pact, should manifest in a striking and extra- ordinary manner the national gratitude towards the conquering and peace-making hero, and solemnly proclaim the wish of the French people to give the Government all that stability necessary to the inde- pendence, prosperity, and glory of the country, decrees the following : I. The French People appoints and the Senate proclaims Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul for life. 2. A statue of Peace, holding in one hand the laurel of Victory, and in the other the decree of the Senate, will attest to posterity the gratitude of the nation. 3. The Senate will convey to the First Consul the expression of the confidence, love and admiration of the French people."
This statue of Peace of which the Senate decreed the erection was the only possible expression of its honourable but impotent desire for the establishment of a normal and legal state of things ; and all its oppo- sition, now broken and overcome, could manifest itself in no more effective manner than by this indirect counsel to the soldier to whom France had given herself up.
For this plebiscite was indeed the abdication of all France in favour of one man. He had already won the stupendous victory of obtaining the acceptance of the Constitution of the year VIII by three millions of voters ; this time there had been 500,000 more " Ayes " than in the year VIII. The interference of the prefects i was not enough to explain this increased majority. It
' On the 26th of Floreal of the year X, in a circular to the prefects, Roederer engaged them to obtain as many votes as possible ; but Roederer was only the Councillor of State in charge of public instruc- tion, and had despatched this circular unknown to his nominal chief, the Minister of the Interior, Chaptal. People were still blushing at the idea of interference in elections.
THE PLEBISCITE 233
was to be explained principally by the fact that the nation was rejoicing over the Peace of Amiens, which seemed to terminate for ever a period of ten years' bloody war. On the other hand large numbers of royalists who abstained from voting in the year VIII did vote for Bonaparte on this occasion, out of gratitude for a senatus consaltus of the 6th of Floreal of the year X, which granted the emigres a conditional amnesty.; ' and also because the establishment of the life -Consulate seemed likely to bring about, if not a restoration of the Bourbons, at least monarchical institutions. It was the moment for disarming and rallying of a large number of royalists, much to the indignation of Louis XVIII (whose abdication Bonaparte had vainly tried to procure). 2 It must also be remembered that the Papist clergy, in their satisfaction at the Concordat, must have proved excellent electoral agents .3
iWe may therefore almost assert that it was a majority of the Right that declared for the life-Consulate, while the Constitution of the year VIII had rallied the most ardent and most disinterested republicans (such, for example, as Bouchotte). This time the majority of the men of the Revolution abstained from voting ; and in the registers for Paris we find hardly any names of the ex-Constituents, ex-Conventionals, scholars,
' Exceptions from this amnesty were : the leaders of armed assembHes, the agents of the civil war, &c. The others were amnestied on the condition of returning to France before the ist of Vendcmiaire of the year XI (September 23, 1802), and of taking the oath " to be faithful to the Government established by the Constitution and not to be drawn into any intrigue or correspondence with the enemies of the State, either directly or indirectly." Such of their property as had not been alienated would be restored. These amnestied persons were to remain under the special supervision of the Government for a space of ten years.
" See p. 260.
» See the brochure entitled : Quel est Vinilrct de la religion el du clerge an Consulai a vie et a la longue vie de Bonaparte 1
234 THE LIFE -CONSULATE
members of the Institute, and men of 1789 or 1793, who had supported the Constitution of the year VIII.
As for the 8,374 citizens who voted " No," we should think little of such a figure nowadays ; but for the time, and in relation to the 1,562 votes unfavourable to the plebiscite of the year VIII, the figure was not insignificant. Remember that the voting was by open register ; that to vote " No " was to inscribe oneself on the register of possible proscription. To oppose one's neighbours thus in writing called for a very real courage ; it is a remarkable thing that several thousands of Frenchmen dared to record their opposition to the ambition of a man who, on the morrow of the Peace of Amiens, was adored by all France ; who was admired by his enemies, and who was in the flower of a glory not as yet dishonoured.
On the other hand, do we know the actual total of these negative votes? Are the votes of the Army — at that time so strongly republican — comprised in the registers preserved in the Archives? We know that many soldiers voted " No." In the garrison of Ajaccio, if we may believe Miot de Melito, out of 300 votes there were 66 " Noes " ; in a company of 50 cannoneers there were 38. " The majority of the negative votes," said Stanislas de Girardin, " were given by the Army. It is told, in this relation, that one of our generals assembled the soldiers of his command, and spoke to them, saying, ' Comrades, the question is whether to appoint General Bonaparte Consul for life. Opinions are free ; however, I ought to tell you that the first one of you who does not vote for the life-Consulate I'll have shot at the head of his regiment.' "
Many of those liberals of 1789 who had approved or even supported the coup of the 1 8th of Brumaire, were unable to stomach the life-Consulate. La Tour- Maubourg wrote to Bonaparte that he could not vote " Aye " unless the liberty of the press were re-estab-
RUPTURE WITH THE LIBERALS 235
lished. " The liberty of the press ! " cried Bonaparte : " I should only have to restore it, and in a moment I should have thirty royalist journals and a few Jacobin sheets. I should still have to govern with a minority, a faction, and recommence the Revolution, while all my efforts have tended to govern with the nation." And he expressed his certainty that the liberty of the press would unchain the reaction.
La Fayette's was the vote that attained the greatest notoriety. He formulated it thus : " I cannot vote for such a magistracy until the liberty of the public has been sufficiently guaranteed ; then I will give my vote to Napoleon Bonaparte." With a fine loyalty, he him- self sent a copy of his vote to Bonaparte, accompanied by a dignified and affectionate letter (on the 30th of FloreaV) in which he said: "The i8th of Bramaire has saved France." He praised Bonaparte's " recon- structive dictatorship," which had effected great things ; " less great however than will be the restoration of liberty."
" It is impossible that you, General, the first in that order of men who can only be placed and compared by those who regard all the centuries, should wish that such a revolution, so many victories and so great bloodshed, such misery, such prodigies, should end, for the world and for you, merely in an arbitrary government."
The plebiscite on the life-Consulate thus marks the rupture of Bonaparte with a party of the liberals of 1789, who had effected or allowed the coup of the 1 8th of Bramaire. Their eyes were opened at last: too late. They were taken by the snare, these politicians, thinkers, and philosophers of the Institute, As for Bonaparte, he became the enemy ; and now in especial was the time when he ridiculed them by calling them ideologues.
La Fayette's phrase has often been remarked : " The
236 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
1 8th of Brumaire has saved France."' A memor- able phrase ; it perfectly expressed the naive illusion of these liberals, who, afraid of democracy, had hoped, with Sieyes, to obtain from one man the liberty they had demanded of the laws. Even in 1802 they do not yet see that the establishment of individual power is the logical and inevitable consequence of the initial coup (Vetat. They blame Bonaparte, the circum- stances, and ill fortune, when they should blame only themselves. Without them, without their candid and effectual complicity, the national representation would not have been violated on the 19th of Brumaire, at Saint-Cloud. It was they who on that day had impelled a soldier to the assault of the existing laws, in the mad hope of thus obtaining better. And after they themselves had destroyed the laws they were astonished to find that there were no longer any laws at all.
Their astonishment was childish ; but it plainly proved that they were not accomplices of the estab- lishment of the life-Consulate and the overthrow of the simulacrum of liberty which still existed. Their opposition left no particular traces in history, because they were powerless ; but it was none the less real, not only in the society of thinking men, but in the Tribunate, the Legislative Corps, the Senate, and even the Council of State. The courtier Roederer was an exception, and those who were left of the men of the Revolution of the year X were horrified and indignant at the plebiscitary manoeuvre which made Bonaparte Consul for life. Then they understood too late that the Republic was dead.
' La Fayette had not yet returned to France at the time of the coup d'etat. But he returned as soon as he heard the news, and in March, 1800, he was erased from the list of emigres. See Charavay's La general La Fayette.
THE DEATH OF FREEDOM 237
n.
When Bonaparte was certain of being Consul for life he resolved to assume what he had before refused : the right to perpetuate his power by appointing his successor. This was a grave modification to effect in the Constitution of the year VIII : he profited by it to re -shape the Constitution to such effect that, although the act of the 1 6th of Thermidor of the year X (August 4, 1802), which ratified these changes, was entitled the setiatus-consulte organique de la Constitu- tion^ it was actually almost a new Constitution, and historians often speak of it as the Constitution of the year X. This was the personal work of Bonaparte, who dictated it to his secretary Bourrienne, and then corrected it with his own hand (Roederer saw this document and copied it). Then, on the 3rd, 4th, and 6th of Thermidor^ there was held a kind of privy council, consisting of the three Consuls, and the four State Councillors, Roederer, Regnier, Portalis, and Muraire, who approved the scheme after making some insignificant moderations. It was then passed on to the senatorial Commission which had counted the votes of the plebiscite. The Council of State only knew of it on the morning of the 1 6th of Thermidor, and had to vote upon it almost without examination. On the same day, at eleven in the morning, the scheme was sub- mitted to the Senate, illegally transformed into a con- stituent body, as it had already on two occasions beeii turned into a legislative assembly.' Terrorised by Bonaparte's popularity, and surrounded (so we are assured) by grenadiers, the Senate avoided all debate, voted by " Ayes " and " Noes," and without adjourn- ment adopted the project by an " absolute majority."
» The method of renewing the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps had been determined by a senafus consultus, and the conditional amnesty had been granted to the emigres by the same means.
238 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
Although this new Constitution, the fifth since 1789, did in fact destroy the Republic, though preserving the name and certain forms, it must not be supposed that it simply organised the dictatorship of a single man ; or, rather, although it did organise such a dictatorship, it also made notable concessions to public opinion.
Let us consider in what degree Bonaparte's power was increased.
In the first place, he confirmed his power by a quality that had something in it akin to heredity : the condition of inheritance. He obtained the right to present to the Senate the citizen he wished to succeed him after his death. Lest the Senate should refuse, he named a second candidate, and a third, who would of necessity be appointed in case of repeated refusal. Bonaparte contrived to appear moderate in imposing any restrictions whatever upon this privilege, since many thousands of electors, during the plebiscite on the life- Consulship, had spontaneously written, after their " Ayes," these words : With the right to name his successors
The Senate was deprived of all independence ; it con- tinued to complete its numbers by co-optation, but from a list of three candidates selected by the First Consul from the list drawn up by the " colleges " of the de- partments. There were then 14 places to fill, the Senate still consisting of 66 members instead of 80. Moreover, the First Consul could himself appoint 40 new Senators, without previous presentation by the departments, and increase the total number of senators to 120.2 He was thus able to procure a certain majority. Then it was he
* Girardin says that 95,000 votes were so given.
' Among these 120 members the following were members ex officio : I, The three Consuls ; 2, the members of the Grand Council of the Legion of Honour "of whatever age " (Articles 39 and 62).
BONAPARTE OMNIPOTENT 239
who presided over the Senate, » or required the Second or Third Consul to preside. Although thus subordi- nated, the Senate found its powers increased ; not only did it interpret the Constitution ; it also legislated upon " all that has not been foreseen by the Constitution, and is necessary to its continued application." It could dissolve the Legislative Corps and the Tribunate, and annul the judgments of the courts, when they were inimical to the security of the State, &c. In short, it was omnipotent : but by and through Bonaparte.
The Council of State had not accepted so many despotic measures without opposition ; for the future such opposition was annihilated by the establishment of a Privy Council, whose members were to be nominated " at each session " by the First Consul ; which Council would prepare each senatas cotisultus. The Tribunate would be reduced, from the year XIII, td 50 members.
The sole vestige of popular direct election which the Constitution of the year VIII had maintained dis- appeared ; the citizens would no longer appoint the justices ,of the peace, but would merely put forward two candidates for each vacancy .2
The First Consul was authorised to ratify treaties of peace and of alliance, merely upon the advice of the Privy Council, and without the intervention of the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps. To promulgate them it sufficed for him to acquaint the Senate of them. Finally, he received the royal right of pardon.
Let us consider what concessions Bonaparte made in exchange for these advantages.
The fact that the Second and Third Consuls also became Consuls for life left the public indifferent, as
' He presided for the first time on the 3rd of Frudidor of the year X, appearing with an almost royal pomp.
^ In the event of a vacancy the Senate was to appoint a candidate presented by the First Consul, the same rules being followed as in the appointment of his own successor.
240 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
these two colleagues of Bonaparte's had no real power. But public opinion was keenly sensible of a kind of re-establishment of the exercise of national sovereignty.
The system of preparing lists of notabilities was abolished, and in place of several hundreds or thousands of candidates for official positions the electors would henceforth suggest two only for each place, submitting these names to the Senate or the executive power.'
The cantonal assemblies, the electoral colleges of arrondissements, and the electoral colleges of depart- ments had the right to elect these candidates by the secret ballot (see the consular order of the 19th of Fructidor of the year X).
The cantonal assemblies, consisting of all the citizens domiciled in the canton, nominated two candidates for the position of justice of the peace, and, in towns of five thousand inhabitants, for each of the vacancies in the municipal council (renewable by one half every ten years) two candidates taken " from the one hundred most highly taxed citizens of the canton." Finally the cantonal assemblies appointed the members of the electoral college of the arrondissement, there being no condition of eligibility ; and also the members of the departmental college of electors, who were chosen from the six hundred citizens paying the highest land, personal, or sumptuary taxes, and from the list of those holding licences or " letters patent."
The colleges of the arrondissements were to comprise at least 120 members, and at most 200 ; the colleges of the departments at least 200 and at most 300. The First Consul had the right to add ten members to the
' This system of candidatures was perhaps suggested by the method of nomination of the Executive Council as established by the Con- stitution of 1793, Article 63 : " The electoral Assembly of each depart- ment names a candidate. The Legislative Corps chooses the members of the Council from the general list."
THE ELECTORAL COLLEGES 241
colleges df art ondisse merit and twenty to the depart- mental colleges (of which ten would be chosen from the thirty most highly taxed citizens of the depart- ments).
The members of the two colleges were appointed for life, and elections to fill places vacated by death were to be held only when two -thirds of the places should be vacant ; so that these elections, taking place under the good impression of the Peace of Amiens, served for the entire duration of the Consulate and the Empire.
The colleges could assemble only in virtue of ^n act of convocation issued by the Government in the place allotted to them. Should a college occupy itself with matters other than those for which it was con- voked, or if it continued its sessions beyond the term fixed by the act of convocation, the Government had the right to dissolve it. The dissolution of a college involved the renewal of all its members.
The electoral colleges of the arrondissements put forward two candidates for each vacant place in the Council of the arrondissement, and also two citizens for the list from which the members of the Tribunate were to be chosen. The departmental colleges did the same for each vacant place in the General Council, and also took part in drawing up the list of candidates for the Senate. As for the list from which the members of the Legislative Corps were to be chosen, each college (of either kind) put forward two citizens.
To one considering the foundation of this scheme, it seemed to be a system of universal suffrage, since the cantonal assemblies were to consist of all the citizens. But at the outset (Article 4) they were only to comprise those citizens whose names were on the " communal list of the arrondissement." Only at the period when this list had to be renewed, according to the Constitution of the year VIII, would the cantonal
VOL. IV. 16
242 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
assemblies comprehend all the citizens. These ** com- munal lists of the arrondissements " were, to be sure, created by a vote of universal suffrage, but as long ago as Fructidor of the year IX (and on them vi^ere officially inscribed the functionaries already nominated and who should have been selected from these lists). Established for three years, they should have been renewed in the year XII ; it was thus in the year XII that, according to the new system, these lists being abolished, universal suffrage should have been installed. The nation was still awaiting it. Only in 1800 (by a decree of the 17th of January) was it decided that all citizens should take part in the cantonal assemblies.
These new assemblies were not to take part in the formation of the colleges, whose members were ap- pointed for life. They had only to nominate candidates for the functions of justice of the peace, and, in towns of five thousand inhabitants or more, the municipal councillors. This democratic basis of the new system was thus an illusion, a sham. In reality Bonaparte made no appeal to the people except in the form of a plebiscite. As soon as he had the power to do so he organised a bourgeois system ; he gave the bourgeoisie not actual political power, but privileges of influence and honour. The plebiscitary Republic was at the same time a bourgeois Republic, the scaffolding of which was all in readiness for the bourgeois monarchies of 18 14 to 1848.
Here, then, were electors, elections, and the elected. An appearance of a return to the ideas and practices of the Revolution made public opinion accept (so far as it still existed) both the restrictions which made an illusion of the right of suffrage, and the extension given, by the other articles of the senatas consultus, to the personal power of Bonaparte.
BONAPARTE'S CHANGED ATTITUDE 243
III.
From the commencement of the period of the Hfe- Consulate, Bonaparte abandoned the attitude, so far approximately preserved, of a president after the American fashion. In the senatus consultus which pro- claimed him Consul for life he was no longer " citizen Bonaparte," but " Napoleon Bonaparte." Thus issued from the shadows this baptismal name of sonorous syllables which was soon to become the name of an Emperor. Fatuous adulation was already to be noted ; the Journal des defenseurs de la patrie, in its issue of the 23rd of Floreal of the year X, published a pre- tended " extract from a German journal," in which it was declared that the word Napoleon^ according to its Greek root, signified the " Valley of the Lion." A circular emanating from the Ministry of the Interior, on the 1 6th of Thermidor of the year X, invited the prefects to celebrate (on the 27th of Thermidor — the 1 5th of August) the anniversary of the birth of the First Consul and of the ratification of the Concordat by the Pope.i Paris was splendidly illuminated on this date ; and everywhere the initials A^ B appeared. On the Pont-Neuf rose the statue of Peace which the Senate had decreed as a counsel and a warning : but it was not long to remain there.
Shortly afterwards Bonaparte contrived to be given a civil list of six millions, which the Minister of Finance, Gaudin, introduced in the budget of fhe year X, iri
' " This day," said the Minister, " will be henceforth consecrated by the grandest of memories. It will recall to our latest descendants the memorable epoch of public happiness, of peace of conscience, and of the greatest act of sovereignty which a nation ever executed. The 15th of August is at once the anniversary of the birth of the First Consul, the day of the signing of the Concordat, and the epoch when the French nation, wishing to ensure and to perpetuate its happiness, allied its continuance with the glorious career of Napoleon Bonaparte."
244 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
place of the 500,000 francs which the Constitution of the year VIII had granted the First Consul.
Since Marengo, and especially since the peace, Bona- parte's apartments in the Tuileries, simple at first, had become luxurious, indeed almost royal.
There was a Governor of the Palace — Duroc — and prefects of the Palace (by the orders of the 21st and 23rd of Brumaire). Four ladies were attached to the person of Mme. Bonaparte : Mmes. de Lugay, de Lauriston, de Talhouet, and de Remusat. Military and unpolished at the outset (or so it appeared to survivors of the monarchy) the court was transformed by the influence of Josephine, and also by the will of Bona- parte, who did not wish his surroundings to be wholly military or wholly civil. At first members of his entourage wore the French coat with boots and sabre, which gave rise to amusement. Bonaparte, at the festival of July 14, 1802, appeared in a coat of red Lyons silk, without ruffles, and with a black cravat. After the creation of the life -Consulate, the small-sword and silken stockings replaced the boots and sabre. Questions of costume became of serious importance. To. wear the hair powdered and en bourse was to please the First Consul ; thus did Gaudin, the Minister of Finance. Bonaparte did not use powder, and wore his hair as before ; but he encouraged these futilities and absurdities of the ancien regime, and everything else that might transform his officials and generals into courtiers divided among themselves and engrossed in imbecilities. The character of this new court, and the chief quality by which it difi"ered from the old, was that although women were one of its ornaments they had scarcely any political influence, or else they were merely the instruments of Bonaparte's policy ; Bonaparte being master in his own palace as well as in France.
Of all the acts of the Consulate that which seemed
THE LEGION OF HONOUR 245
to contemporaries to savour the most of a return to the manners of the monarchy was the law of May 19, 1802 (the 29th of Floreal of the year X), which created a Legion of Honour, " in execution of Article 87 of the Constitution, relating to military rewards, and also the reward of civil services and virtues." This Legion, of which the First Consul was the head, consisted of a Grand Council of Administration, and of fifteen cohorts (of which each had its particular local centre), comprising each seven grand officers with pensions of 5,000 francs, twenty commanders with pensions of 2,000 francs, thirty officers with pensions of 1,000 francs, and three hundred and fifty legionaries with salaries of 250 francs ; all appointed for life. To each cohort national property was appropriated bring- ing in an income of 200,000 francs. A hospital was to be established in each cohort for infirm legionaries. Appointed by the chief administrative Council, over which the First Consul presided, the members of the Legion of Honour were chosen from among those soldiers who had " rendered signal service to the State in the war of liberty " (those who had received swords of honour being members by right), and from among " those citizens who, by their knowledge, talents, or virtues, had contributed to establish or defend the principles of the Republic, or had made men love and respect justice and the public administration." Each person admitted to the Legion of Honour must
" swear upon his honour to devote himself to the service of the Re- public ; to the conservation of its territory in a state of integrity ; to the defence of the Government, its laws, and the qualities consecrated thereby ; to oppose, by all the means authorised by justice, reason, and the laws, all undertakings tending to re-establish the feudal system ; finally, to co-operate with all his power in the maintenance of liberty and equality."
Despite these republican formulae, the project of the institution of the Legion of Honour met with a lively
246 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
opposition from the Council of State (which adopted it by 14 votes against 10). The orators of the Tribunate criticised it bitterly as anti-revolutionary.'
This assembly adopted the proposal by only 56 votes against 38, and the Legislative Corps by 170 against 1 10. Decried and ridiculed at the outset as a civil institution,^ the Legion of Honour was soon accepted by public opinion, and its insignia were so sought after as to become a powerful factor in support of Bona-' parte's personal ambition.
IV.
After the establishment of the life-Consulate, which left nothing of the Republic but the name, were there still those in France who wished to re-establish a true republic? Was there still a republican party?
Among the more notable democrats of the year II only Jeanbon Saint-Andre and Barere had rallied to the Government ; the former being prefect of Mayence, and the latter employed at an obscure task of drawing up secret bulletins. The others — Robert Lindet, the
' See the speeches of the tribunes Savoye-RoUin and Chauvelin at the session of the 28th of Floreal. The former denounced the Legion of Honour as laying the foundation of a new nobility : the latter expressed a fear lest the Legion should be intended as a representative body, and lest the authority of the Tribunate was to be supplanted by that of a corporation established and distributed all over France, in its fifteen centres, of which the hierarchy and confederations, sub- ordinate or collateral, would form a strongly knit and powerful organisation.
= Mme. de Chastenay, in her Memoires (vol. ii. p. 2), speaks thus of the first members : " M. Real could not, at first, let us see him without blushing. I found Garat at Fouche's, the revers of his coat tightly buttoned up, so that no one should see on his philosopher's bosom the sign, only too far from equivocal, of the vanity of a courtier ; but the pitiless Fouche amused himself by forcing Garat to show it to me. In a few days people grew used to it ; in a few months they began to envy it."
THE REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION 247
two Prieurs, Cambon, Vadier, and the ex-Ministers Pache and Bouchotte, held themselves aloof. Among the men of the second rank, and the men of action of the same party, the more energetic had been deported in connection with the affair of the " infernal machine," or condemned to death for a pretended conspiracy ; ' the others, terrified, did not stir. Those whom the police called the " exclusives " were thus reduced to silence, and although their existence was a source of alarm to Bonaparte, who regarded the ex-Montagnards as the most irreconcilable and dangerous opponents of his dictatorship, no more was heard of them.
There was, however, a republican opposition which was both seen and heard. It had found a place in the new system ; it sat in the Senate, the Tribunate, and the Legislative Corps. Among the more dis- tinguished members of the opposition was Carnot, who was, as it were, set apart by the great part he played in the year II, and his fantastic political conduct of the year V ; the Catholic democrat, Gregoire ; the Catholic liberal, Lanjuinais ; and the moderate, bour- geois ^ ex-Directorial republicans — Benjamin Constant, Bailleul, Ginguene, Marie-Joseph Chenier — those " ideo- logues," hated by Bonaparte, who formed the nucleus of the opposition. The salon of Bailleul was their meeting-place. 2 Talleyrand had a footing among them ; a spy and accomplice both. Sieyes was sup- posed secretly to encourage them .3 The spirit of
' See p. 1 88.
' See, for example, the report of the prefecture of police of the 9th of Frimaire of the year IX, which states that at a meeting held at Bailleul's house on the 7th it was decided "that they must no longer hesitate, but must at last show themselves energetic and ready to break the chains with which the dummy of a constitution had loaded the Legislative Corps."
3 He said to Bailleul : " Leave the Government alone ; it will cut its own throat " (police report of the 3rd of Pluviose of the year IX. See also the report of the i6th of Germinal following).
248 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
Mme. de Stael animated them and associated them, somewhat as the spirit of Mme. Roland had formerly animated and associated the Girondists.
Having a horror of the despotism to which they had so naively opened the door, by their complicity with Bonaparte in the affair of the 1 8th of Brumaire, neither the epigrams of the salons nor speeches from the tribune could satisfy them. They lived in the hope of provoking an insurrection — not among the working classes, who no longer troubled about politics, but in the Army, and especially among the superior officers.
We see them to-day, retrospectively, in the mind's eye, these generals of the Consulate : Marshals of France, courtiers of Napoleon's court, and later, for the most part, the servitors of Louis XVIII. We cannot realise that under the Consulate they were republicans. It is, however, the fact that they were. One must remember that they had all attained superior grades, either by election or by the choice of the representa- tives on mission, at a period when republicanism was dominant. They were the most republican soldiers of the republican Army, who had formed the glorious general staff of the year II. I think we may say that if Hoche and Marceau had lived into the Consulate they would have been no more republican than Bernadotte, Mas- sena, Augereau, Brune, Moreau, Jourdan, Gouvion Saint -Cyr, Lecourbe, Lannes, and Macdonald were from 1800 to 1804. 1
After the Peace of Lun^ville the majority of these generals, back in Paris, and unemployed, joined the opposition. Bonaparte sent a few away on diplomatic or military missions : such as Bernadotte, Lannes,
' There were no generals who were not republicans ; who did not dream of delivering France from her new tyrant. Thus we read in a report of the prefecture of police (of the 14th of Prairial, year IX) : " Last Dccadi, when the salon of the Museum had just been opened, a young officer was seen ecstatically kissing the bust of Marcus Brutus."
MILITARY OPPOSITION 249
Bnine, Macdonald. Bernadotte, however, being com- mander-in-chief of the Army of the West, often returned to Paris. According to Mme. de Stael, when a party was formed in the Senate he would not take action until the termination of a deliberation of that assembly. It was, however, among his staff at Rennes that a kind of conspiracy was hatched when the promulgation of the Concordat had unveiled the whole of Bonaparte's ambi- tion. His chief of staff, General Simon, was arrested with other officers, and convicted of having drawn up and having sent to all the armies printed placards, on which was this passage :
" Soldiers, you have no longer a native land ; the Republic exists no longer, and your glory is tarnished, ... a tyrant has seized the power, and who is this tyrant? Bonaparte !" "The Republic, the fruit of your labour, your courage, and your constancy during twelve years, is at last no more than a word. Soon, doubtless, a Bourbon will be on the throne ; or perhaps Bonaparte himself will have proclaimed himself Emperor or King."
Having railed at the Concordat and the ceremony at Notre Dame, the placard continues thus' :
" By what right does Bonaparte abuse the weakness of the French in forgetting his conduct of Vendemiaire,^ and in forgiving his usurpa- tion of the reins of Government in Bnimairc? By what right does this bastard abortion of Corsica, this republican pigniy, imagine that he can transform himself into a Lycurgus or a Solon, to give laws to a country which can honour him neither for his wisdom nor for his virtues ? "
Against the perfidy and scoundrelism of the " dis- loyal knight of Saint-Cloud " a " military federation " must be formed.
" Let our generals show themselves ; let them make their glory, and the glory of the armies, respected. Our bayonets are ready to avenge the outrage inflicted upon us, the outrage of causing them to be
' When he deserted the Army of Egypt to re'iurn to France.
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turned against us on the fatal day of Saint-Cloud : let our generals say but a word, and the Republic shall be saved."
These republican demands found an echo. On the 1 5th of Prairial of the year X the prefect of Ille-et- Vilaine, Mounier, wrote to the Minister of the Interior : " The anarchists of Rennes have unhappily some sup- porters amongst the troops. . . . The Concordat and the life-Consulate are exasperating the hot -heads here- abouts. . . ." There were other conspiracies, with the object of killing the First Consul, either by assassina- tion or a kind of forced duel. All was foreseen, dis- covered, thwarted and strangled in the greatest silence, without ostentatious severity, so that France and Europe knew nothing of these attempts.
The Army of the Rhine, which had preserved the pure republican spirit of the year II, alarmed Bona- parte ; on the morrow of the Peace of Amiens he sent the best of it to fight and to die in San Domingo.
Still, in the inactivity of peace the general officers continued to rail at Bonaparte, and their hunting parties at Moreau's house, in the country near Grosbois had the look of conspiracy. To judge by the police report Augereau, Massena, and Bernadotte were among the most unbridled slanderers.
That the Peace of Amiens was of so short a duration was perhaps, in some degree, because Bonaparte could no longer keep the military republican opposition quiet. It seemed as though he could only shut their mouths by employing them in war, putting them in the way of victories, honours, and booty. The greater number allowed themselves gradually to be corrupted or domesticated by these means. The small number of those who preferred to remain independent were easily broken later.
There was one republican general with whom it was never easy to come to terms ; I am speaking of Moreau. Prudent, taciturn, he afforded no hold over
MOREAU 251
him, no pretext for the denunciations of the poHce, who at Grosbois and at Paris kept him under active super- vision. He was waiting, reserving himself. He was the hope of all the opposition men, republicans or royalists. The sole fact that the victor of Hohenlinden lived withdrawn from the Consular court, holding no active position, refusing to enter the Legion of Honour, refus- ing to be present at the Te Deum sung in celebration of the Concordat, was a serious, even a very dangerous matter for Bonaparte. Should a military reverse befall him, an eclipse of his star — there was his successor, waiting in readiness. It was for this reason that he wished to rid himself of Moreau, as Robespierre had rid himself of Danton ; for this reason he " amalga- mated " him (to use a phrase of the Terror) in ^ political conspiracy ; intending to dishonour him, to expel him from France, thus depriving the opposition of his head and his arm, or at least of his sword.
The republican opposition, whether that of the iex- democrats or of the republican soldiers, was reduced to secret conspiracies, and during the suppression of the free press had no .means of acting on public opinion. The republicans of the Tribunate could speak their minds ; those of the Senate and the Legislative Corps could influence the stream of events by their votes and their attitude in public. The opposition of these pseudo-representatives of the people, who had been elected by no electoral body, and who represented no vital national force, was overcome by various measures, and without much difficulty. Mme. de Stael ' and Benja-
' The famous Mme. de Stael, a voluble, intelligent, tempestuous Swiss, the daughter of the great Necker — a gigantic egoist, and more desirous of being a politician, authoress, and grande amoureuse than successful in any of those roles — had for years held Benjamin Constant in her toils ; sometimes as lover, sometimes as friend, despite the eventual marriage of both parties, and numerous other love affairs. Her only real influence on politics was through Constant, though she believed that Napoleon regarded her with genuine fear. When in
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min Constant had to leave France. The Tribunate, expurgated, found itself threatened with almost im- mediate disappearance ; the Legislative Corps was reduced to impotence by the lately augmented powers of the Senate. These two assemblies voted almost unanimously on the questions of the budget and the levies of troops necessitated by the resumption of the war ; and the sessions of the years XI and XII were devoted, without any incident of particular note, to the reading and voting of laws such as those relating to the exercise of the profession of medicine, the organisa- tion of the body of notaries, the establishment of " chambers of consultation " for matters relating to the manufactures, arts, and crafts ; the administration of matters of forestry, the law schools, and the Civil Code, which was at last completed.
We find no further traces of opposition in the Senate, of which the majority has been changed by the additions made by virtue of the senatus consultus of the 1 6th of Thermidor of the year X. Bonaparte finally conciliates this assembly by the creation (on the 14th of Nlvose of the year XI) of senatoreries, or senatories, to coin a word, at the rate of " one to each arrondlssement of the Court of Appeal " (a total of 31). Each senatory, held for life, is " endowed with a house and an annual income from national property of 20,000 to 25,000 francs," the only condition being that of residence in the senatory for at least three months in the year. The holders of these lucrative sinecures are appointed by the First Consul, from a list of three senators presented to him by the Senate. ^
bad odour in France she commonly entertained a houseful of exiles at her country house in Switzerland. — [Trans.]
' This was an extremely efficient means of rewarding the zealous, reconciling the opposition, and pacifying those out of favour. In this way was tempered the disgrace of Fouche. He was dismissed from the Ministry of PoHce because the First Consul wished to be rid of
FAILURE OF THE OPPOSITIONS 253
The creation of these senatories is another step onward in the system of making all honour and all welfare depend on the will of the master.
Henceforth the Senate was zealous in its devotion to Bonaparte. It helped to restrict yet more the feeble prerogatives of the Legislative Corps by a senatus consultus of the 28th of Frimaire of the year XH (December 20, 1803), which deprived that .assembly of the right of appointing its president : henceforth it could only nominate four candidates, from whom the First Consul selected the president ; in this case he selected Fontanes. On the 3rd of Germinal of the year Xn the Legislative Corps voted for the erection, in its place of assembly, of a bust of Bonaparte executed in white marble.
It is impossible to understand this abdication, and the final failure of the opposition, whether republican or democratic, military or middle-class, unless we bear in mind the fact that the members of the opposition were only a staff without an army. It was by means of the National Guard that the great anti -governmental insur- rections of the Revolution were effected. Although this was no longer a municipal force, although the Government had taken over its command, and although the bourgeois elements in it were actually predominant, it might still have been a powerful democratic institu- tion, it might yet have been truly the nation in arms, since all citizens were still admitted to it without quali- fication and elected their ofhcers. But the Parisians, working men and bourgeois, were disgusted with the service of the National Guard. We read in a report from the prefecture of police (dated the iith of Pluvlose of the year XI) :
the "Jacobin" who had opposed the Concordat. Made a Senator, he received the senatory of Aix. Another " Jacobin," the Senator Monge, was given the senatory of Liege. Demeunier exhibited signs of inde- pendence ; he was given the senatory of Toulouse. See the Ahnanach National for the year XII.
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" Yesterday some police agents, requiring armed forces, repaired to the guard-house in the Rue Grange-BateUere ; they found absolutely no one there, not even the sentry. The gate was open and the arms left to the mercy of chance. It was only after the lapse of a quarter of an hour that the sergeant in charge arrived, and informed the police that of the twenty-five men of whom this post was supposed to consist, only five had presented themselves, and even they had gone awaj'. It is almost the same, every day and every night, with the other guard-houses."
Other reports speak of the complaints of the working classes, who are no longer willing to mount guard. Bonaparte made no attempt to remedy a slackness that so well served his ambition. A Consular order of the 1 2th of Vendemiaire of the yea,r XI had estabt- lished a " Municipal Guard of the City of Paris " (com- posed of 2,054 infantry and 180 troopers) who gradu- ally took over the duties of the National Guard. The latter still existed, but its duties were reduced to mere parades. I
The National Guard having thus ceased to play a political part, those who had dreams of overthrow- ing Bonaparte could have realised them only by an insurrection of soldiers and the working classes. Now the police reports show us that in the barracks of Paris Bonaparte was popular. He was popular even in the factories and workshops, and the labouring population of the Faubourgs Saint-Marceau and Saint- Antoine admired and loved him far more than they had ever admired Marat and Robespierre.
This was not because he had assumed the pose of a kind of democratic Csesar. On the contrary, he always treated the working classes as inferiors. By the law of the 22nd of Germinal of the year XI and the order of the 9th of Frlmaire of the year XII he placed them
' The scnatus, consulius of the 2nd of Vendemiaire of the year XIV gave the Emperor the right of appointing the officers of the National Guard.
PLENTY THE PREVENTIVE OF OPPOSITION 255
under the supervision of the poUce, obHged them to carry certificates, without which they would be arrested as vagabonds, and once more, under penalty of im- prisonment, prohibited all unions or strikes, and con- fided to the prefect of police the power of arbitration between workers and employers on the subject of wages. By a return to the ancien regime the Code Napoleon enacted (Article 1,781) that in such disputes the em- ployer's simple word should be taken. Although the plebiscite was the basis of the new regime, Bonaparte tended, here as elsewhere, to destroy equality, to divide French society into a middle class privileged politically and socially, and a subordinated plebeian class.
Far from complaining of this state of things, the workers did not even appear to see that it was in contra- diction with the principles of 1789. Their love for Bonaparte was inspired and maintained by moral and material advantages.
The material advantages consisted especially in this : that by the vigilance of the First Consul Paris was well provisioned and the necessities of life were almost always cheap (and to this end Bonaparte formed the bakers and butchers into corporations dependent upon the police). Industry also revived visibly under the Consulate : work was rarely wanting ; wages were higher, and later on the very abuse of military conscrip- tion had the indirect result of raising them still further.
The moral (or, if you will, chimerical) advantages were that Bonaparte won for France a dazzling military glory, and the patriotism of the Parisian working man had become extremely Chauvinistic. At the same time the working man was still passionately anti-royalist. He saluted in Bonaparte the leader of the Revolution ; the beneficent dictator formerly predicted and demanded by Marat ; the protector of the new France against the Bourbons.
These sentimental reasons were the stronger : at
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the time of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, the Parisian workers knew that they might come to lack work, that their welfare was being compromised, but they still cried Vive Bonaparte ! With bread and glory, or with glory alone, Bonaparte felt that he would retain the love of the working classes ; but he also felt that if he lost that love his personal power, in the event of a military disaster, would be at the mercy of an insurrection of the faubourgs. His police sur- veyed with a vigilant eye the attitude and opinions of the working classes, and kept informed of their con- versation. During the whole Consulate they testified to the excellent political feeling prevalent in the work- shops. It must not be thought that the police were servilely and untruthfully optimistic in order to please the Government ; for they reported, with a certain pessimism, the progress of the opposition among the ^bourgeoisie and among the superior officers of the Army.
The reports emanating from the prefecture of police contain a host of facts which prove the unalterable confidence which the Parisian workers reposed in Bonaparte.
The severest, even the most illegal measures against the leaders of various strikes or attempts at co-opera- tion failed to excite any discontent. When the Govern- ment forbade the joiners, carpenters, hatters, &c., to re- establish the " Companionship of Work," i they quietly submitted. In vain did the " exclusives," the liberals of the Tribunate, or the royalists, attempt to indoc- trinate them ; they remained as deaf to the appeals of the opposition of the Left as to those of the opposition of the Right . They no longer sang the Marseillaise ; on the 1 8th of Germinal of the year XI the police reported, as an exceptional fact, that the " strong men " of the markets sang it ; but then they were drunk. ' Dez'o/r=duty, exercis-e, task. — [Trans.]
BONAPARTE'S POPULARITY 257
Not only in the workshops, but in the wineshops, bars, roadside inns, and outdoor cafes are the working men observed ; it is impossible to catch them in hostile attitudes or conversations ; notably so on the morrow of such political events as that of the " infernal machine," the Concordat, and the life-Consulate. They speak of Bonaparte only, to praise him.
^Vhen bread is dear, in the year X, they, complain without anger ; as soon as the price goes down they thank the Government.
Whatever happens they bear no grudge against Bona- parte. One result of peace in Paris is the closing of button factories employing at least 12,000 hands ; but there are no disturbances. Upon the breaking out of war there is a general decline in the manufacture of articles de luxe; those concerned do not even complain. iWhat the workers do say is that it was well done not to give way to England : they are Anglophobes.
jWhen Moreau and his so-called accomplices are arrested, they are wroth with the " conspirators " (the 27th of Pliiviose of the year XII). iWhen Georges is arrested " they express loudly, in profane and energetid terms, the keenest satisfaction" (the 20th of Ventose). Do they wish to insult or abuse a man? — they call him Georges (on Germinal the 7th). When the Due d'Enghien is killed, they applaud ; they offer their services to the Government (the 4th of Germinal) .
Moreover, they welcome the establishment of the Empire. iWe read in the report of the 4th of Prairial of the year XII : " The workers are very busy exercising their right to vote on the subject of imperial inheri- tance. They meet in crowds to go and sign their names at the prefecture of police, and to the offices of the commissaries who give out the papers. They speak enthusiastically of the Emperor." And in a report of the 7th of Prairial we see that they reproached those of
VOL. IV. 17
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their fellows who had not yet voted for the hereditary- Empire for their negligence.'
This abdication of the Parisian workers — so docile and so absolute — in favour of a master, reduces the bourgeois republicans to impotence ; henceforth their opposition is merely a futile affair of the salons. From this time dates the rupture between the liberals and the people ; for many long years democracy and universal suffrage will seem incompatible with liberty.
V.
The royalist opposition had now no more chance of success than the republican. We have seen how the royal armies, reorganised at the end of the Directory in Vendee, Brittany, and Normandy, had been forced to dissolve, either by capitulation or the capture of their leaders .2 This attempt at a great civil war was followed by brigandage, as under the Directory. iWhen the Papist priests had rallied to Bonaparte on account of the Concordat this brigandage diminished ; but a state of insecurity was manifested, in the Chouan and Vendeean regions, by a continual series of distrubances throughout the entire Consulate and Empire ; and the fact that the rebellion broke out so fiercely in 18 14 and 1 8 I 5 was due to the fact that the fire had neVer been completely quenched. 3 The royalists also, under English influence, resumed their conspiracies and
' Two days later — on the 9th of Prairial of the year XII (May 27, 1804) the police report the seizure, and make an analysis, of a manu- script entitled : Esquisse dun nouveau plan d'organisaiion social, par un philanthrope J and this philanthrope is Saint-Simon. This coincidence shows how far this thinker is in advance of his time ; for while he is criticising the state of things and discusses the social question, the workers of Paris are delighted with their lot, satisfied with the social organisation, and enthusiasts on the subject of Napoleon.
- See pp. 165-166.
3 Chassin, Pacification de Voucst, vol. iii.
THE PRETENDER'S PROPOSALS 259
attempts at assassination. There was the affair of the " infernal machine," of which I have spoken ; there was the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal, of which I am about to speak. There was also seditious talk in the salons, but it became less and less frequent as the power of the First Consul became more monarchical, and as the emigres returned and found their place in the new regime.
On the 1 9th of Brumaire the royalists were flattering themselves that Bonaparte was going to play the part of Monk. Hyde de Neuville and d'Andigne saw him and made proposals ; he bowed the two agents out.
Louis XVni was not discouraged. Sceptical, and a lover of intrigue, it is stated with certainty that he had formerly approached Robespierre. We have seen that he conferred with Barras.' From Mitau, on Decem- ber 19, 1799, he sent M. de Clermont-Gallerande with full powers to treat with Bonaparte. On February 20, 1800, he himself wrote the First Consul a most flattering letter : ^
" Save France from her own furies, and you will have accompHshed the desire of my heart ; give her back her King, and the generations of the future will bless your memory. You will always be too necessary to the State to make it possible for me to pay, by means of important positions, the debt of my agent and my own."
This letter eliciting no reply, Louis XVHI wrote another (undated, but anterior to the battle of Marengo). " Take your place," he said, " determine the fate of your friends. . . . We can assure the glory of France. I say we, because for tliat purpose I shall have need of Bonaparte, and he cannot effect it without me." To this Bonaparte finally replied, but after Marengo (on the 20th of Fructidor of the year VHI — September 7, 1800) :
' See p. 1x5, note.
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" I have received your letter, sir ; I thank you for the courteous things you say in it. You must not expect to return to France ; to do so you must step over a hundred thousand slain. Sacrifice your interest to the welfare and repose of France. . , . History will remember you. I am not insensible to the misfortunes of your family. . . I shall with pleasure contribute to the pleasantness and calm of your retreat."
Louis XVIII also wrote to Consul Le Brun, who replied that the restoration of the Bourbons was not possible " to-day." He instructed Clermont-Gallerande to interview Josephine, to whom he conveyed the most flattering compliments. Bonaparte stood aside ; these proceedings had the advantage of preventing a public statement of Louis' claim.
The conclusion of the Concordat, the reconciliation of the Pope with the Republic, and the peace with Austria and England seemed to deprive the Pretender of all further hope ; the more so as the Franco-Russian entente demanded his expulsion from Russia. But he established himself at Warsaw, and continued to behave as a king. Then the First Consul, through the media- tion of Prussia, tried to persuade him finally to abdicate. On the 17th of Nivose of the year XI (January 7, 1803), the Minister of Exterior Relations, Talleyrand, confided in Lucchesini, the Prussian minister in Paris. To him he said :
" To calm the timid minds of many anxious Catholics ; to harmonise that which some of the emigres believe they still owe to their oaths and their honour with the desire which almost all of them experience of returning to their country and serving it ; and finally, to deprive the malevolent of the pretext and the rival power of France of the instru- ments of future disturbances : these are the salutary and praiseworthy purposes which the First Consul wishes to attain. A feeling mingled of compassion and respect for the misfortunes of the princes of the house of Bourbon, together with a sentiment of the dignity of a great people long governed by it, has inspired the First Consul with the noble intention of providing for his (Louis') maintenance."
In exchange for this " benefit " Bonaparte de- manded " a free, entire, and absolute renunciation of
BONAPARTE AND LOUIS XVIII 261
all rights and pretensions to the throne of France, and to the charges, dignities, domains and appanages of the princes of that house."
Prussia transmitted these proposals to Louis XVIIL He refused them in a letter of March 3, 1803, which he despatched to all the European courts :
" I do not confuse M. Bonaparte," he said, " with his predecessors ; I esteem his valour and his military talents ; I am grateful to him for several administrative acts, for the good he or any does my people will always be sweet to me ; but he deludes himself if he believes he can persuade me to compromise my own rights. Far from that, he would establish them himself, could they ever be in question, by the very step he is now taking. I do not know what are God's inten- tions toward my house and myself, but I know the obligations imposed upon me by the rank to which it has pleased Him to call me at birth. A Christian, I shall fulfil these obligations until my last breath ; son to Saint Louis, I shall know how, after his example, to respect myself even in iron fetters ; a successor of Francis the First, I wish at least to be able to say, with him : All is lost, except honour ! "
When the Empire was established Louis XVIII con- spicuously protested.
At the end of the Consulate there was, as we see, not only a Pretender, a " legitimate " King, for Bona- parte to reckon with ; there were also royalists playing Chouan in the west, and others, in Paris, slandering him in the salons. But the greater number of the returning emigres rallied to the support of the First Consul ; and these converts increased in number every day. But there was still, among those royalists who had not yet returned to France, a group who, in agreement with the English Cabinet, were preparing, since the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, for the assassination of Bona- parte.
VI.
This group consisted of those emigres who in England formed the court of the Comte d'Artois, the Due de
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Berry, and the Prince de Conde. Pichegru was at hand. Attempts were made to put him in communication with Moreau. The Consular police were not unaware of these attempts ; their object was to tarnish the glory of the man who won at Hohenlinden, Bonaparte's sole rival in point of military glory, Moreau consented to become reconciled with Pichegru, but not to join the conspiracy, which nevertheless ran its course, at the suggestion of an agent of the French Government, Mehee de La Touche. A General Lajolais, a friend of Pichegru's, persuaded the emigres that Moreau had joined the royalist cause. Georges Cadoudal and some Chouans went secretly to Paris. They hoped, through Moreau, to provoke a military insurrection in the capital itself. Disappointed in their hope, they formed the project of attacking the First Consul in the street, with a number of men equal to that of his guard. Pichegru, the Mar- quis de Riviere, and the two Polignacs joined Cadoudal. The Comte d'Artois and the Due de Berry were to land in France if the blow succeeded.
The Consular police knew everything and allowed matters to progress. It was hoped that Moreau would finally compromise himself ; it was also hoped that the Comte d'Artois would land in France, and so deliver himself into their hands. It was finally decided to question some of the Chouan accomplices who had previously been arrested. One of these, Bouvet de Lozier, deposed that they had counted on Moreau, but that the latter had refused to help them. Immediately, and although this deposition exculpated Moreau, Bona- parte had him arrested (on the 25th of Plaviose of the year XII) as an accomplice of the Chouan assassins, and further slandered him in his journals. Pichegru was also arrested (on the 8th of Ventose). On the same day a senatas consiiltas suspended the functions of the jury " during the course of the years XII and XIII, in all the departments of the Republic, for the trial of crimes
SECOND ATTEMPT AGAINST BONAPARTE 263
of treason, attempts upon the person of the First Consul, and others against the internal and external security of the Republic." In Paris, in conformity with a law of the 23rd of Floreal of the year X, a " Court of Special and Criminal Justice " was formed : a veritable Revolu- tionary Tribunal. As for Georges Cadoudal, he was arrested without having managed to attempt anything (on the 1 8th of Ventose of the year XII), together with his accomplices ; among others the two Polignacs and the Marquis de Riviere.
The Comte d'Artois and the Due de Berry did not land in France, and Bonaparte, having failed to seize their persons, turned his vengeance upon another Bour- bon, a stranger to the plot : the Due d'Enghien, who for two years since had been living at Ettenheim, in the territory of Baden. Violating this territory, a de- tachment of dragoons set out to seize the young prince (on the 24th of Ventose of the year XII), His papers proved his innocence of the conspiracy directed against Bonaparte. He was none the less condemned to death by a military commission, and immediately shot in the fosse of the Chateau of Vincennes (on the 30th of Ventose — March 21, 1804).
This murder excited in Paris, among the upper classes, and then over the whole of Europe,' a revulsion of horror and fear. Soon it became known that General Pichegru had hanged himself in prison ; but no one was convinced that he had committed suicide. Many contemporaries believed, and stated their belief, that Bonaparte had had Pichegru put out of the way in; order to avoid the brilliance of his public defence in the trial which was then approaching. 2
' Concerning the sensation produced by the murder of the Due d'Enghien, see Lucchesini's despatch of March 24, 1804, in P. Bailleu's Preussen unci Frankreich.
= Besides the Mcmoires of the Due de Rovigo, sec the despatch, dated April II, 1804, of Baron Dalberg, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Elector of Baden in Paris.
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VII.
The discovery of Cadoudal's conspiracy led to a frenzy of adulation with regard to Bonaparte, by which he profited in order at last to crown his dream of ambition. A few addresses, more or less spontaneous, had demanded that the Consulate should be hereditary in Bonaparte's family. On the 6th of Germinal of the year XII (March 27, 1804) the Senate prayed the " great man " not to refuse to " complete his work by making it as immortal as his glory " ; that is to say by making his authority hereditary. i The word Empire was not employed, and the Senate's wishes re- mained obscure. The Council of State, consulted on the matter, deliberated for four sessions, and came to no agreement. Seven councillors even voted an adjourn- ment. In vain did Lucien Bonaparte threaten the hesi- tating '(who included nearly all) with an acclamation on the part of the Army, which would have saluted the First Consul with the title of Emperor. Cambaceres himself was afraid of the Empire.
It was only after several weeks of intrigue and hesitation 2 that a member of the Tribunate, one
' According to Pelet {Opinions de Napoleon, p. 51), the commission of the Senate had proposed merely a congratulatory address, and it was Fouche who demanded " institutions which would destroy the hopes of conspirators by ensuring the existence of the Government beyond the lifetime of its head."
^ The desire of the French nation, so constantly invoked, was not so clear as the courtiers of Bonaparte declared. Thus, among the numerous extracts from addresses published by the Moniteur in Germinal and Floreal of the year XII, emanating from prefects, mayors, and general councils — that is, from officials appointed by the Government — there are very few in which the establishment of the Empire is definitely demanded. The council general of Jura demands " a more stable order of things," " but at the same time institutions both powerful and liberal must assure to our descendants an effectual protection against the oscillations and abuses of power." There is even one address, from the authorities of Isere and the prefect of the
THE IMPERIAL TITLE PROPOSED 265
Cur6e,i proposed an order (on the 3rd of Floreal of the year XII) "to the effect that Napoleon Bonaparte, now First Consul, should be declared Emperor of the French, and that the Imperial dignity should be declared hereditary in his family." The same day a Privy Council was assembled and consulted,^ and on the fol- lowing day Bonaparte invited the Senate " to inform him of their entire thoughts " on the subject. The Senate appointed a Commission, which, while waiting to hear what the Tribunate intended doing, sent out a circular to the senators asking, in the name of the First Consul, their individual advice.
" The greater number," says Thibaudeau, " replied by assent pure and simple ; a few made no reply ; these were members of the society known as the Society of Auteuil— Cabanis, Praslin, &c. It was believed
same department (the learned Joseph Fourier), which advises Bona- parte not to seek an augmentation of power : " May he find, in the memory of his great deeds and in the just affection of a sensible and generous nation, the only rewards which are worthy of his labours ! " One cannot possibly say that all France, even through the mouths of the agents of the Government, demanded at this period the re- establishment of the throne in favour of Bonaparte ; nor that they existed in a state of slavery.
' An old Conventional, who had been a member of the Marsh.
' This Privy Council was composed of Bonaparte's most devoted servants : Le Couteulx de Canteleu, Roederer, Frangois (Neufchateau), Treilhard, Portalis, Regnaud (Saint-Jean-d'Angely), Fontanes, Talley- rand, Decres, Regnier, Boulay (Meurthe), and Fouche. The First Consul made use of his favourite method of intimidation ; the armies, he said, were deliberating, and haste was essential if they did not wish bayonets to settle the question. With the exception of Regnier and Fouche the members of the Council demanded that if the monarchy were to be established the monarch at least should be liberal, Fontanes said : " Monarchy in the head of the Government ; aristocracy in the Senate ; democracy in the Legislative Corps." Talleyrand insisted that one of the two chambers should be truly representative, in order that the opinion of the people should be known, without which nothing was possible. Bonaparte rejected these counsels in sharp, decisive terms. (From a rough draft of a prods-verbal by Maret.)
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that Volney and Sieyes voted unfavourably ; Lambrechts and Gregoire replied in the negative, and gave their views as to the best means of controlling the excesses of imperial power and to guarantee the public liberties and the rights of the nation." '
The Tribunate, on the loth of Floreal, began to discuss the motion of Curee, whom all the speakers supported, excepting Carnot, who (on the iith of FloreaV) declared the movement of opinion in favour of the " hereditary monarchy " to be " factitious," since the press was no longer free, and who, while conceding that the i 8th of Brumaire and the institution of abso- lute power " had withdrawn the State from the brink of the abyss," expressed the opinion that the dictator- ship should be terminated :
" Was liberty shown to man," he says, " in order that he might never enjoy it ? Was it continually offered to his desires as a fruit to which he could not raise his hand without being stricken with death ?
" If so, Nature, who has made this liberty one of our most pressing needs, would indeed have proved herself a cruel stepmother ! No, I cannot consent to regard this benefit, so universally preferred before all others, without which all others are nothing, as a mere illusion ; my heart tells me that liberty is possible, that its rule is a simple matter, and more stable than any arbitrary government or any oligarchy."
Yet he declared himself ready to submit to the measures against which he protested.
This protestation — so moderate, and for that matter eulogistic where it concerned Bonaparte — found no echo in the Tribunate ; which, being now reduced to 60 members, trembled at the idea of suppression, should it exhibit the slightest independence .2
' Gregoire' s reply, together with a suggested Constitution, is to be found in his Memoires.
' Out of 49 members present, 48 put down their names to speak in favour of the establishment of the Empire. Twenty-five actually spoke. Three who were unable to speak had their speeches printed. There were many courtier-like platitudes. Chabaud-Latour congratulated himself that they could all " throw themselves into the arms of a saviour." Several speakers declared that the reason of their desire for a new
THE QUESTION OF IMPERIAL POWER 267
A Commission was appointed, in the name of which the ex -Conventional Jard-Panvilher made a favourable report, on the 13th of Floreal of the year XII (May 3, 1804), which might thus be summed up : " The general desire has pronounced in favour of the individual unity of the [supreme] power, and for [the principle of] heredity in that power. France should expect from the Bona- parte family, more than from any other, the maintenance of the rights and the liberty of the people that chose that family, and all the institutions necessary to guarantee them. This dynasty is as deeply interested in maintaining all the advantages of the Revolution as the former dynasty would be in destroying them." The Tribunate, by 48 votes out of 49, expressed a desire in uniformity with Curee's motion, and conveyed it to the Senate, which, in a message to the First Consul, declared " that it was in accordance with the highest interests of the French people to confide the government of the Republic to Napoleon Bonaparte, hereditary Emperor." To this message was added a memoir (which was not published, but exists in the National Archives, among the proces-verbaux of the Senate) in which were " developed " the dispositions most likely to guarantee to the nation " its dearest rights." Here are the most important of these dis- positions' : there would be two senatorial Commissions ; one dealing with individual liberty, the other with the liberty of the press ; any unconstitutional law might
dynasty was the better to oppose " democracy." Others, on the other hand, spoke in eulogy of the plebiscitary democracy. The tribune Carion-Nisas recalled " the famous oath of the Cortes of old Spain. ' We others, 'who are equally worthy wtlh thee,' said the oath : there was native equality ; ' Who can perform more than thou ' : there was national sovereignty ; ' We make thee our chief ' : there was the contract ; ' To be the guardian of our interests' : there was the condi- tion. ' Otherwise, no ' ; there was the penalty to follow the dereliction of duty. Family that France calls to reign, you have heard your title. Family that France for ever rejects, you have heard your sentence.
268 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
be denounced in the Senate by one of its members ; the Senate would on such occasion fulfil the functions of a Supreme Court-; the Legislative Corps could dis- cuss projected laws in secret committee ; the tribunes would be elected for ten years ; and there would be a plebiscite upon the establishment of the Empire. These were very feeble defences against despotism. The Senate, it appears, had suggested other and stronger guarantees.! Doubtless the Senate was convinced that Bonaparte would never lend himself to the establishment of a truly constitutional system ; it therefore resigned itself to a despotism in the execution of which it would itself play the part of moderator.
The Legislative Corps was not in session. Its pre- sident, Fontanes, got those of its members who were in Paris to vote (on the 20th of Floreal) an address in conformity with the desires expressed by the Tri- bunate and the Senate, in which were mingled counsels of liberalism and fulsome eulogies.
So far we have to deal merely with the expression of desires. On the 26th of Floreal the Senate, presided over by Cambaceres, was required to look into a pro- jected senatus consaltus presented in the name of the Council of State by Portalis.2 The Commission already appointed by the Senate examined it in two days ; and upon the report submitted by Lacepede in the name of this Commission the organic senatus consaltus was issued which is vulgarly called the Imperial Constitution. 3
' In the Tribunate, on the 13th of Floreal, Gallois spoke of the Senate, " which has demanded new institutions." Was there then such a demand made before the 14th of Floreal f
^ Did Bonaparte draw up this project himself ? We do not know. He obtained its approval on the 23rd of Floreal by the Council of State and the privy Council.
3 It seems there was no debate : " The discussion," says the proces- verbal,"\vas open relating to the report of the commission. Many members requested that the Senate should at once vote by ballot, by Aye or by No, as to the adoption of the proposed organic
THE PLEBISCITE ON THE EMPIRE 269
The people were not allowed to vote upon the entire senatus consiiltus ; but only to accept or reject, by Aye or by No, the following proposition : " The people desires the hereditary nature of the Imperial dignity in direct, natural, legitimate, and adoptive descent from Napoleon Bonaparte, and in direct, natural, and legiti- mate descent from Joseph Bonaparte and Louis Bona- parte, as ordained by the organic senatus consultus of the 28th of Floreal of the year XII." This plebiscite was taken under the system of universal suffrage, and in the same manner as the preceding plebiscites, in Prairial of the year XII. There were 3,572,329 Ayes and 2,569 Noes. I'
Tables appended to the senatus consultus relating to this result were published in the Bulletin des Lois, and afford us some data that were lacking in the case of the other plebiscites.
We find that there was no negative vote in 1 1 de- partments : Hautes-Alpes, Correze, Garde, Indre, Liamone, Haute-Loire, Loiret, Deux-Sevres, Var, Vau- cluse, and Haute-Vienne. If we credit the same source,
senatus consultus." But Thibaudeau says Gregoire voted against it. He also says that at the scrutiny there were found two blank papers and three negative votes ; those of Gregoire, Lambrechts, and Garat. Lanjuinais, whose hostility was well known, had on the 26th obtained leave of absence until the 15th of Therniidor, " for reasons of health."
' The senatus consultus of the 15th of Brumaire of the year XIII indicates a lesser number, stating that among 3,524,254 voters there were 3,521,675 Ayes. But a report of the Senatorial Commission of Recensement, appended to this senatus consultus, informs the public that fresh papers having come to hand, the result must be modified in consequence, and that there were 50,654 Ayes more than was at first believed. The registers are in the Archives. An incomplete examina- tion shows me that the number of illiterate voters was very large. In some communes only two or three signatures were inscribed : but there were whole columns of the names of illiterates, all written in the same hand. Did these illiterates know of the use made of their names ? There are registers containing no names, but merely the statement that all the citizens voted Aye.
270 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
there was no negative voter among the 400,000 voters of the Army, nor among the 50,000 voters of the naval forces. This is hardly credible, if we remember that most of the republicans of the opposition were among the superior officers. We read in a bulletin of the Ministry of Police, dated the i6th of Prairial of the year XII, that at Angouleme General Malet openly criticised the establishment of the Empire. " He is the only person in Angouleme," we read, "who ^id not rejoice on the day when the news of the senatas consultus arrived." We can hardly admit that Malet can have voted Aye. It seems likely that the members of the opposition in the Army confined themselves to abstaining from the vote. For example, the bulletin of the 9th of Prairial states that at Boulogne, in the regiment of sappers, there were " signatures refused."
In thirteen departments only were there more than 50 negative votes : in Doubs, 78 Noes; Jura, 74 ; Mont-Tonnerre, 131 ; P6, 204; Haut-Rhin, 127; Rhin-et-Moselle, 88; Roer, 121; Haute-Saone, 74; Saar, 68 ; Seine, 70 ; Sezia, 90 ; Stura, 61 ; Vosges, 107.
In the south-east of France, that south-east which had been the focus of the republican spirit, the voting was as follows : Aude, 13,829 Ayes against 3 Noes; Bouches-du-Rhone, 14,043 against 4 ; Gard, 20,984 against o ; Herault, 23, 185 against 7 ; Pyrenees -Orien- tales, 9,451 against 17.
What is the meaning of these negative votes? In the case of the recently annexed departments it is clear enough ; it is only to be expected that the opposing minority should be a minority hostile to France. In the case of the old departments the meaning of these votes is less clear. If we read the bulletins of the Ministry of Police dealing with the state of the public mind, which are compiled by the aid of the reports of prefects, procurator -generals, commandants of gen-
NAPOLEON PROCLAIMED EMPEROR 271
darmerie, &c., we shall see that in certain cities — Brest, Bordeaux, Mayence — the opponents of the senatus consultus show a lively interest in General Moreau. Royalist and republican agree in praising Moreau. The prefect of Aisne sends word that in his department the formerly " refractory " priests accept the empire of Bonaparte " personally " only ; they do not approve of the hereditary principle, the foundation of a new dynasty usurping the rights of the Bourbons. Generally speaking, those priests who are hostile to the Concordat excite the peasants against the new Emperor. If the opposition comprises republicans, it contains royalists and clericals in much greater numbers. As far as we can draw a conclusion from the existing data, we may say that the plebiscite on the subject of the Imperial inheritance is on the whole a plebiscite in favour of the Revolution as against the Bourbons ; as against the ancien regime.
VIII.
The organic senatus consultus of the 28th of F tor eat of the year XII enacts, by its first two articles, that the " Government of the Republic is confided to an Em- peror, who takes the title of Emperor of ttie Frencti," and that " Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, is Emperor of the French." Then follow articles establishing, organising, or affecting the prin- ciple of heredity, the royal family, and the regency. Here indeed is a new throne, a new dynasty. But this monarchy, which was to become despotic, is presented in the following articles as liberal, and the hereditary Empire is offered as the best guarantee of liberty.
It would have been easy for Napoleon to make him- self Emperor by means of a plebiscite of peasants and working-men, without these apparent concessions, this pretence of liberalism ; but he pretended to govern
272 THE LIFE-CONSULATE
by the bourgeoisie, and his cue was to persuade them, to rally them round his person. He made them believe that he gave them, in the Senate, the means of defence against despotism.
The Senate used to be presided over by one of the Consuls' : but henceforth a Senator appointed by the Emperor would preside.
The Senate had no legislative power : it would now possess the right of declaring that a given law should not be promulgated, were that law denounced in the Senate by one of its members as anti-revolutionary or unconstitutional.
Here, then, was the Senate, established with due pomp as an Upper Chamber. By means of two per- manent Commissions the Senate would watch over the liberty of the press and the liberty of the individual, and, should the ministers violate this liberty, the Senate would pronounce judgment as a Supreme Court.
The Tribunate and the Legislative Corps had the power to send before this Supreme Court the agents of the executive power, ministers, prefects, &c. The Supreme Court would also take cognizance of such crimes as attempts at assassination, conspiracies against the security of the State, offences committed by mem- bers of the Imperial Family, and so forth.
So far the Legislative Corps had been silent. Now it was given a voice ; it had henceforward the right to discuss the laws put before it.
Finally, the oath taken by the Emperor was con- ceived in the following terms :
" I swear to maintain the integrity of the territory of the Republic ; to respect, and cause to be respected, the laws of the Concordat and the liberty of religious worship, to respect, and cause to be respected, the equality of rights, civil and political liberty, and the irrevocability of the sales of national property ; to levy no impost, nor establish any tax, save in virtue of the law ; to maintain the institution of the Legion of Honour ; and to govern solely with a view to the interest, the welfare, and the happiness of the French people."
THE CONSTITUTION INOPERATIVE 273
The extremest liberals of the time asked no more than this.; at this price the establishment of the throne seemed to them a benefit.
Doubtless, if regarded minutely, the senatus consuttus contained disturbing passages. Thus, the right of veto accorded to the Senate might be rendered illusory by a certain article [(72) which ordained that in the exercise of the veto by the Senate the Emperor, after listening to the Council of State, might promulgate the law despite the veto. Although the Legislative Corps re- ceived the right of discussing the laws, it could only do so in general committee : that is to say, in camera^ unless the Government requested that the session should be public. There would be no more general or public sessions of the Tribunate.; it was divided into three sections, which deliberated with closed doors. As for the suffrage, the independence of the electors was diminished by the addition, as members ex-officlo: (i) to the Colleges of arrondissements, of all the legionaries.; (2) to the departmental colleges, of the grand officers, commanders, and officers of the Legion of Honour. Although the privileges of the Senate were augmented, the Emperor had the right to manipulate the majority by the unlimited addition of members. This right he did not abuse, for at the fall of the Empire there were only 147 senators. Still, the feeling that he could abuse it sufficed to check all inclination to form an opposition.
Despite these limitations, if this constitution had ever been put into operation no despotism would have been possible.
It was not put into operation ; not, at any rate, as regards its liberal characteristics.
Scarcely any further legislation was undertaken, in the sense of making laws. Laws were replaced by the senatus consuttus and Imperial decree. The Legis- lative Corps had little to do, and seldom assembled. The Tribunate was suppressed in 1807. No assembly
VOL. IV. 18
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made use of its right to send the agents of the executive power before the Supreme Court. The senatorial Com- mission relating to the liberty of the press had no con- trol of the periodical press, which was reduced to slavery and insignificance. It was entrusted merely with the supervision of the non-periodical press, in order to preserve its liberty. If there had been any liberty in the matter of brochures and pamphlets, des- potism could never have been either absolute or lasting. But this Commission undertook only two or three insig- nificant affairs ; its activity was negligible. The Com- mission dealing with individual liberty met often, and there are numerous traces of its activity in the National Archives. It obtained the release of a few poor in- significant devils, to whom the Government had given the right of petition. But the Government allowed the Commission to control it only when it so pleased ; Napoleon imprisoned whom he pleased, re-established the Bastilles, and derided individual liberty, until the Commission served merely to give tyranny a kind of constitutional appearance. As for the " equality of rights," which the Imperial oath was to " respect and cause to be respected," this principle was, in great part, sacrificed, as were the others, to Napoleon's am- bition, which established a new hereditary nobility.
It is thus no exaggeration to say that this Constitution was not applied, so far as it maintained some of the principles and results of the Revolution.
IX.
We have seen that it was the government of the Republic which was confided to an Emperor ; and in the formula of promulgation of the laws. Napoleon had to style himself " Emperor, by the grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic." What was to be understood by this word Republic? On the loth
NAPOLEON AND THE REPUBLIC 275
of Frimaire of the year XIII the president of the Senate, Frangois (of Neuf chateau), while felicitating the Em- peror upon the results of the plebiscite on the subject of heredity, stated that this result " brought the vessel of the Republic ^ into port." And he cried : " Yes, Sire, of the Republic 1 This word might hurt the ears of an ordinary monarch. Here the word is in its right place, before him whose genius has made us rejoice in the thing itself as the thing itself can exist for a great nation." To desire the establishment of the " pure Republic," the " Republic properly so called," that is to say, democracy, would be to prepare " fetters for the future ".; for with the mass of the people as ignorant as they are, liberty and democracy are so mutually in- consistent that the genius even of Napoleon would be unable to reconcile them. Frangois would endow the Republic with the advantages of the monarchy (as for- merly d'Argenson wished to infuse into the monarchy all the good qualities of the republic), and, commenting upon the Emperor's oath, he finds therein the guarantees of a " representative State." Napoleon replied with a despot's brevity :
" I am mounting the throne to which I have been called by the unanimous desires of the Senate, the people, and the Army ; with a heart full of consciousness of the great destinies of this people, which, from the midst of camps, I was the first to salute with the name of great " —
and so forth. He spoke neither of liberal guarantees nor of the Republic.
This word distressed and obsessed him. He deter- mined to be rid of it ; but little by little, timidly, by successive omissions, as his victories gave him the strength and courage to do so.
' Mme. de Remusat writes in her Memoir cs (vol. i. p. 375) : "One dared no longer utter the word republic, so soiled it was by the Terror ! " Another example of the constructive memory !
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In 1 804, after the Empire was established, there was celebrated, at least once more, not only the festival of the 14th of July, but that of the establishment of the Republic.! In 1805 there was no longer any question of celebrating either.
The newspaper stamp, up to December 31, 1805, bore the legend Repablique frangaise. The seal of State was altered sooner ; the law of the 6th of Pluviose of the year XIII erased all republican symbols. In the phrasing of decrees. Napoleon often spoke of himself as Emperor by the Constitutions of the Re- public, as late as May 28, 1807. In the formula of the promulgation of laws, these words appear for the last time in the law of April 29, 1809, concerning the code of civil procedure. After this we have Napoleon by the grace of God and the Constitutions . . .
But the Emperor dared not take any direct and final measure against the use of the word " republic." Only after the meeting at Erfurth [(in September-October, 1808), when Alexander and he mutually guaranteed the submission of Europe, did he feel himself sufficiently powerful to abolish the last vestige of the Republic, by the decree of October 22, 1808, which was worded thus : " The moneys which will be struck from January i, 1809, onwards will bear as legend, on the reverse side, the words : Empire frangais, instead of the words Repablique frangaise. '' No one noticed this decree.; the word " republic," formerly regarded by the people as a talisman of victory, was forgotten ; replaced in the imagination of the French by the name of Napoleon, another talisman of victory.
' The Moniteur gives no account of this celebration ; but the Gazette de France speaks of the illuminations and the concert which took place on this occasion. The Emperor and Empress were at Mayence. In a letter of the nth of Fructidor Portalis proposed that the Emperor should suppress this festival. We see that it was still celebrated on the ist of Vendemiaire of the year XIII.
THE LAST OF THE REPUBLIC 277
In this manner, after an existence, actual or nominal, of nearly sixteen years !(from September 22, 1792, to December 31, 1808), the first French Republic, which during its democratic period had gloriously performed such mighty deeds, had the singular fortune of disap- pearing from history almost furtively, as it had come into being.
If I have traced the exact point of history at which the word " republic " i disappeared, it was not through idle curiosity. As long as this word endured there were certain limits to despotism ; and the despot felt himself obliged to keep within a certain measure ; in short, to appear reasonable. Once the word was erased there was practically no restraining memory of the Revolution left^; practically no rein to the caprices of his genius ; and it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say that from that time his tyranny became as insane as it was grandiose.
X.
We are now at the end of this narrative, which is long if measured by the number of its pages, but appears curtailed when we consider the number of facts that have perforce been omitted altogether, or else abridged in order that they might be introduced. These four volumes are only a summary.
To sum up this summary, to abridge still further this abridgment, according to that classic custom, under the title of conclusion — what is to be gained by it? Would it not be useless and pedantic thus to repeat oneself? Besides, I have already explained my inten- tions, method, and plan in my Preface, and will ac- cordingly spare the reader such repetitions.
Had I had a historical thesis to sustain, or a train of
' See in the Revue bleue of January 15, 1898, my article entitled : Quand disparut la premiere Rcpnblique ?
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reasoning to develop, in order to demonstrate the truth of a proposition, a logical conclusion would have been necessary. But I have merely attempted to narrate, objectively, and without any preconceived idea, the political history of the Revolution from the point of view of the origin and the development of democracy and the Republic.
Another kind of conclusion would consist in drawing from the past, as I have presented it, lessons to be applied in the future. I will attempt no such teme- rarious pedantry. It is for my readers, if they think it possible and profitable, to extract these lessons for themselves ; each according to his political tendencies and his turn of mind. I am content to have uncovered certain facts ; let them speak for themselves .
I wish merely, in a very few words, not to write a conclusion nor a summary, but to suggest a few ideas which are too general in their nature to have found a fitting place at any particular point of the narrative, but which disengage themselves only from the whole mass of facts.
I . It is a mistake to say that the French Revolution was effected by a few distinguished individuals, by a few super-men. I admit, if you will, that it was a soldier of genius who finally succeeded in disorganis- ing the political structure. But I believe that no individual emerges from the history of the ten years between 1789 and 1799 as the master of events:: neither Louis XVI, nor Mirabeau, nor Danton, jnor Robespierre. Can we say that the French nation was the hero, the true super-man of the French Revolution? Yes ; if we see the French people not as a multitude, but in a condition of organised groups. Take, for example, the really decisive facts ; those which in- dubitably influenced events ; and first of all the capital fact, the taking of the Bastille and the municipal revolu- tion which followed. It will be found no easy task
GROUPS THE STRENGTH OF THE REPUBLIC 279
to cite the name of a single individual who appears to have played, in the formation of the new France in July and August, 1789, a preponderant part. What do we see? That Frenchmen organising themselves into groups of a municipal type grouped them- selves into communes ; these communes became con- federated into a nation ; but a new nation, born of a spontaneous movement of fraternity and reason. Then take the insurrection of August 10, 1792, which, changing the destinies of France, overthrew a throne that had stood for centuries, and founded democracy. It was anonymous and national. It was the work neither of Danton nor of Barbaroux, but of the Federals of Marseilles and Brest, and the Parisian National Guards. Who saved the nation when it was attacked by the King and torn by civil war? Was it Danton? Robespierre? Carnot? Certainly these individuals were of ;service ; but as a matter of fact unity was main- tained and independence assured by the grouping of the French into communes and popular societies. It was the municipal and the Jacobin organisations that drove back Europe in coalition. Yet in each group, if we look closely, there are two or three men of superior capacity, who, whether leaders or led, execute decisions, and have the appearance of leaders, and may be called leaders, but who (if, for example, we read the proces- verbaux of the people's clubs) seem to draw their power far more from their groups than from themselves. In order to arrest the Revolution Bonaparte dissolved these groups. Then there were citizens no longer ; there were only individuals.
2. The Revolution was realised only partly and for a time. It was even suspended, and appeared to be abolished, during the rule of Napoleon I ; at least, from 1808 to 1 8 14. Why? — because the French people was not sufficiently educated to wield its own sove- reignty. To educate the people was the true political
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and social programme of the republicans : of the group leaders of whom I have spoken. To prevent the people from learning or reasoning : such was one of the principal articles of the political and social programme of Napoleon Bonaparte when he became a despot.
3. It has been said that the generation which per- formed such great and such terrible deeds was a genera- tion of giants ; or, to be more literal, that it was a more competent and remarkable generation than that which preceded it or that which followed. This is a retro- spective illusion. The citizens who formed the various groups, whether municipal, or Jacobin, or national, by which the Revolution was effected, do not seem to have been superior either in talent or in enlightenment to the Frenchmen of the time of Louis XV or that of Louis -Philippe. As for those whose names have been preserved by history because they appeared upon the stage of Paris, or because they were the most brilliant orators of the various revolutionary assemblies — were they exceptionally gifted? Mirabeau, to a certain ex- tent, deserves to be called a tribune of real genius. But the others — Robespierre, Danton, Vergniaud, for instance : had they really greater talent than our speakers of to-day for example? In 1793, in the time of the so-called " giants," Mme. Roland wrote in her Memoires: "France was as though drained of men; their rarity in this revolution is truly an astonishng thing ; there were practically none but pigmies." This is the contrary illusion ; that of which contemporaries are commonly the dupe ; that of which we ourselves are doubtless the dupes in the present year of grace ; the pessimist's illusion. The generation of 1789 and 1793 was neither superior nor inferior ; it was an average generation. Perhaps we may safely say that :when first the guillotine and then proscription had deprived it of its most distinguished individuals it fell somewhat below the average ; and that this was one
WHAT WAS THE REVOLUTION? 281
of the circumstances which allowed Bonaparte to dominate it and cast it into slavery, and to destroy the groups that the death or exile of their leaders had already disorganised.
4. It seems to me that the facts assembled in this book deprive the words : the French Revolution of their equivocal meaning. People used to denote, by the same phrase, both the principles which constitute the French Revolution and the actions consistent with those principles, and the period during which the Revolution was effected, with all the actions, consistent with or in contradiction to those principles, performed during that period. This confusion was as harmful to the truth as it was useful to the supporters of the retrograde policy, as it allowed one to attribute to the Revolution, considered as a sort of historical per- sonage, the most grievous or, even the most anti- r'evolutionary laws or actions. For example, could there have been a more anti -revolutionary action than the execution of the Hdbertists and the Dantonists? — or the suppression of universal suffrage in the year III? This does not prevent people from saying glibly : " The Revolution killed Hebert and Danton ; the Revolution abolished democracy." This abusive manner of speak- ing— " The Revolution did or didn't do so-and-so " — has had the result that many people see in the Revolu- tion a kind of incoherent power ; capricious, violent and sanguinary. It has been attempted thus to dis- credit the very principles of the Revolution ; especially by the pains and to the profit of those who regard these principles as satanic, and who would govern society by the reverse of these principles. For the rest, all the political parties of the nineteenth century have pleaded their cause by means of arguments drawn from anything or everything that happened between 1789 and 1799 ; and these facts, taken at random or ingeniously selected, they have called the French Revolution, Now, I fancy,
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matters are clearer ; the Revolution consists in the Declaration of Rights drafted in 1789 and completed in 1793, and the attempts made to realise that declaration ; the counter-Revolution consists in the attempts made to prevent the French from acting in conformity with the principles of the Declaration of Rights ; that is to say, according to reason, elucidated by history.
The French Revolution is, so to speak, a political, social, and rational ideal, which Frenchmen have at- tempted partially to realise, and which historians have attempted to confound either with its application, often incoherent, as far as it was effected, or with the events provoked by the very enemies of that ideal, with a view to abolishing or obscuring it. This book will, I hope, have contributed to dissipate this dangerous ambiguity.
5. The Imperial despotism arrested the Revolution, and marked a retrogression towards the principles of the ancien regime ; provisionally abolishing liberty and partially abolishing equality. But they were rather the political results of the Revolution than the social which were thus suppressed. The possession of national pro- perty ; civil laws drawn up according to a code less equalitarian than that which the Convention had con- ceived, but infinitely more humane and more reasonable than that of the ancien regime, and which had the further advantage of being the same for all France ; the employment of revolutionary laws concerning inherit- ance : and all this code impressed upon nearly the whole of Europe — in this manner was the Revolution maintained in its social results, and this it is that explains why, after its fall, when these results were contested by the returned royalists, that very Napoleon Bonaparte who disorganised the political work of the Revolution as completely as he possibly could, appeared to be, and was able to call himself, " the man of the Revolution."
INDEX OF
PERSONS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT
The names of authors quoted in the course of this work are in italics
Abrial, appointed Minister of Justice, iv. 169
Advielle, iv. 32 n
Aelders (Mme.), feminist, i. 232, 233
Agier, iii. 266
Aigon, i. 302
Aiguillon (Mme. d'), iv. 182
Albert, elected Elder, iii. 342
Albitte, tried with Romme and escapes, iii. 139 ; 140; 246
Alegre (d'), writes to Comte d'Artois, iv. no
Alexander the Great, iv. 1 81
Alexander I., iv. 276
Alibert, accused of Babeuvism, iv. 120 tt
Allier, D. , seizes Pont Saint-Esprit, iv. 109
Alquier, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232
Amar, ii. 62 n, 69 ft, 217, 223 ; member of Committee of General Security, 232, 233, 245 ; accuses the 65 Giron- dists ; iii. 46, 121 ; arrested, 200 ; 213 n, 214 n, 244; iv. 39; ac- quitted, 45
Amyon, iii. 40
Andigne (d'), attempt on Nantes, iv.
113. 259 Andre (Lozere), condemned to deporta- tion, iv. 87
Andri, Ferd., iii. 369 n
Andre (d'), moves that decrees be executed without the royal sanc- tion, i. 267; 272, 276, 316, 324, 330. 343
Andrei, ii. 222 n ; iii. 40
Andrieux, iii. 342, iv. 172
Anthoine, i. 311, 318 n, ii. 63 n, 103, 127 ; on Committee of Constitution, 163
Antiboul, iii. 40 ; one of the " Twenty- Two," 121
Antonelle, iv. 37 ; implicated with Ba- beuf, 39; acquitted, 45; 120, 156, 187
Antraigues (d'), i. 98
Aoust (d'), ii. 222 n
Arena, said to have threatened Bona- parte, iv. 148 ; 150, 156 ; guillotined, 188
Argenson (d'), i. 83, 89 «, 97, 97 n, 100, loi, 117, 170 «, iv. 275
Arnould, elected Elder, iii. 342
Arsandaux, i. 202
Artois (Comte d'), his influence on Louis, i. 134, 137, 262, ii. 310, 311 ; lands on He de Yeu, iii. 250 ; re- embarks, iv. 47; no; organises insurrections, 112; 261, 262, 263
Asselin, iv. 40
Aubert, iii. 342
Aubert-Dubayet, iii. 325, 362
Aubin, i. 235 n
283
284
INDEX
Aubry, iii. 40, 215 n, 216 n; con- demned to deportation after the i8th Fructidor, iv. 86 ; dies a fugitive,
87
Audibert, ii. 43 n
Audouin, Xavier, Member of Revolu- tionary Commune, ii. 75 ; of Com- mittee of General Security, 231, iii. 83, 270 ; accused of Babeuvism, iv. I20«; 131
Audrein (Abbe, later Bishop), ii. 222 «, iii. 258 ; iv. 91 ; murdered by Chouans, 188
Auger, Athanase, i. 350
Augereau (General), iii. 359 ; Bona- parte's agent in Paris, iv. 84 ; 85, 131, 136, 149, 248, 250
Augereau (Citizeness), iv. 69
Auguis, iii. 153, 214 «
Aiilard, i. 96;?, 134 «, iv. 277
Aumont, ii. 320 n
Autichamp (d'), attempts to surprise Cholet, iv. 113; signs armistice, 166
Auvrest, iii. 77 n
Aviau (Mgr. d'), iv. 74
Ayme, J.-J., iii. 353 ; iv. 54, 86, 87 n
Azema, iii. 212 «
B
Babey, iii. 40
Babeuf, i. 159, 160, iii. 139, 243, 243 «,
311, iv. 30, 34; conspiracy and
arrest, 38, 39, 42, 42 n ; trial and
execution, 44, 45 ; 47, 52, 118, 119,
120, 131 Babeuf (Vve.), imprisoned, iv. 188 Bach, iv. 121 n, 131 n Baden (Margrave of), iv. 49 Bailie, Pierre, ii. II3« Bailleii, P., iv. 263 n Bailleul, iii. 40, 59, 64, loi «, 214 «,
289, 354, iv. 84, 118, 121, 172, 190,
247, 247 « Bailly, i. 308, 313 «, 317, 351 n, ii. 222
n, 21471 Bancal des Issarts, i. 238, 280 «, 283,
300 ; iii. 40, 46, 49 n, 56 Bar, Jean-Etienne, ii. 315; iii. 212 «
Bar, Philippe, iv. 93
Bara, iii. 187
Barailon, iv. 143
Barante (de), i. 172 w, 195 «
Barbaroux, ii. 113, 130^, 136 «, 138, 161, 161 w, 236 ; iii. 32, 35, 38, 40, 42 ; adumbrates law of suspects, 49 ; 53 ; character, 67 ; forms Marseillais battalion, 96 ; votes for Louis' death, 99; arrested, 111-12; escapes, and foments civil war, 115; guillotined, 123; 135; iv. 279
Barbe-Marbois, iii. 354, 389 ; iv. 54, 87, 87 «, 170 n
Barere, i. 147, 152 «, 153^, 166, 170, 175 n, igon, 191, 192; his republi- canism, 21 1 «, 259 n ; 303 ; ii. 143 n ; 161, 171, 183, 188, 194, 210, 222 w, 223, 236-42, 247 ; proceeded against, 249 ; 250, 252, 262, 279 ; declares all nobles suspect, 288 ; 294 ; iii. 47 ; responsible for death penalty against supporters of agrarian law, 73, 75> 106, 107 «, no, in, 113M, 130, 134, 138, 159, 167, 187, 188 «, 193-7, 205, 208, 209, 214, 215; upholds the Revolutionary Tribunal, 231-2; 237; denounced, 242; in danger of deportation, 244 ; 270 ; election declared void, 339 ; 353 ; iv. 135; supports the Consulate, 156; proscription removed, 167 ; 246
Barnave, i. 88 n, 89 « ; 165, 166 ; leads Louis captive back to Paris, 265 ; praises monarchy, 274; 278, 316, 326, 327, 353 n, 356
Barras, ii. 222 n ; 224 ; appointed commander-in-chief of Paris in Therniidor, iii. 200; 214 «, 222; at head of "Dandies," 237, 240; ap- pointed military dictator with Napo- leon in Vcndi!miaire, 251 ; appointed dictator, 325, 358, 361 ; 364 « ; has a critic thrashed, 381 ; regarded as royalist, iv. 35
Barret, Charles, iv. 93
Barruel-Bauvert, article on Bonaparte, iii. 379
INDEX
285
Barthe, i. 320
Barthelemy, appointed Director, iii. 359 5 364 ; iv. 54 ; forced to retire, 82-8
Basire, i. 340, 345 ; ii. 145, 148 ; de- mands national jury, 190 ; 194 ; vice- president of Committee of General Security, 231 ; 232, 297 ; iii. 32, 74,
75> 99, 151
Bassal, ii. 222«; member of Committee of General Security, 232
Bassano (Due de), see Maret, Secretary of State under Consulate, iv. 170
Bassville, iii. 259 n
Batz (Baron de), ii. 245
Baudin (des Ardennes), ii. 224, iii. 258, 276, 285 «, 301, 315, 316, 355; is said to die of joy at Napoleon's re- turn, iv. 138
Baudot, iii. 83
Baudouin de Maisonblanche, i. 283 n ; ii. 276
Bausset, iv. 201
Bayard, iv. 86
Bayle, Moyse, ii. 43 ; member of Committee of General Security, 223, 232, 233 ; iii. 200, 213 n ; iv. 187
Bayle, Pierre, ii. Ii3?z
Beauchamp, iii. 212
Beaugeard, iii. 366
Beauhamais jun., i. 247
Beaujolais (Due de), iv. 57
Beaumez, i. 194 n, 326, 332
Beaupre, iv. 143
Beauvau (Marechal de), i. 145 «
Becquey, i. 343
Beffroy, ii. 301
B^gh, iii. 77
Belin, iii. 40
Bellarmin, i. 124
Bellouguet, iii. 367
Belloy (de). Bishop of Marseilles, iv. 90
Benezech, ii. 220; iii. 325, 362, iv. 171
Bentabole, ii. 163, 224, 270 n
Bentham, Jeremy, ii. 141
Berenger, iv. 230 n
Bergoeing, iii. 32, 35, 40 ; accusation
demanded by St. Just, 116; 214 w;
refuses oath in favour of Constitution
in Bnitnaire, iv. 148 Berlier, ii. 224, 239, 240 ; iii. 210,
216 M, 275, 276, 291, 342, 355; iv.
171, 230^ Bernadotte, iii. 363 ; iv. 128, 139, 143,
248, 249, 250 Bernard, i. 235 «, 279 ??, 281 w, 316,
317 Bernard (of Saint- Affrique), ii. 222 n ;
iii- 354 Bernard (of Saintes), ii. 224 ; member
of Committee of General Security,
231 ; iii. 34, 139, 208, 213 «, 214 M Bernier (Abbe), iv. 207, 213 Bernis (Cardinal de), i. 224 Berry (Due de), iv. 262, 263 Berthier, iv. 155, 169; commands
army under Napoleon's Consulate,
183
Berthollet, ii. 220 « ; iv. 139
Bertin, i. 235 «; iii. 252;?
Bertrand, ii. 43 n
Bertrand de la Hosdiniere, iii. 40
Besson, iii. 177, 178
Beugnot, i. 80-1 n
Beurnonville, ii. 215 ; iii. 359 ; iv. 136 «; takes part in coup d'etat of Bruniaire, 143
Bigonnet, iv. 150
Bigot de Preameneu, iv. 230
Billaud-Varenne, i. 285, 290, 312 «; demands a republic, ii. 52 ; appointed to Insurrectionary Commune, 75 ; lOl, 124, 136, 138;?; demands abolition of monarchy, 148; 151; on Committee of Jacobin Club, 163 ; 185 «, 223 ; on Committee of Public Safety, 242 ; 248 ; proceeded against, 249; 250, 251, 262, 270 «, 295; iii. 54, 76, 145, 146 ; denounces Danton, 150; 169; joins the con- spiracy against Robespierre, 195, 197, 215, 224, 237 ; denounced, 242; deportation decreed, 244
Birotteau iii. 40
286
INDEX
Blad, iii. 40, 216 n
Blain (Bouches-du-Rh6ne), iv. 86
Blanc, dies of excitement at sight of Louis XVI, 82
Blanchard, i. 235 n
Blanchard (Abbe), iv. 212
Blanqui, iii. 40 ; iv. 46
Blaux, iii. 40
Blaviel, iii. 40
Blin, iv. 149
Blondeau, iv. 45
Blutel, iii. 172
Bo, ii. 272
Bochet, ii. 221
Bohan, iii. 40
Boilleau, iii. 40 ; trial as one of the " Twenty-Two," 121
Boirot, iv. 56
Boisguyon, i. 356 n
Boissy, iv. 56
Boissy d'Anglas, ii. 224 ; iii. 193 ; persuaded to abandon Robespierre, 196 ; 215 n, 24s, 259, 27s, 276, 279, 280, 294, 305, 310, 324, 354, 374
Bonaparte, Joseph, iv. 134 «, 140, 269
Bonaparte, Louis, iv. 269
Bonaparte, Lucien, iii. 355 ; elected president of Council of 500, iv 143 ; action in coup (Titat of Bru- maire, 149, 150, 151 ; Minister of Interior, 169; 184 «; 264
Bonaparte, Napoleon, i. 96 tt ; ii. 260 ; at siege of Toulon, iii. 120 ; disperses royalists on 13th of Vendimiaire, 251 ; 266, 314, 350, 370, 379 ; iv. 34 ; Italian victories, 49 ; Directory recommends him to ruin Papal power, 61, 65 ; invasion of Papal States, 77 ; watches cozip d'etat of Fructidor, 84; 133, 134, 134 « ; returns to Paris, 137; goes to and returns from Egypt, 138, 139, 140 ; approached by Sieyes, 141 ; decides on coup d'itat of Brtimaire, 142 ; prepares for same, 143, 146 ; the coup cTdtat, 147-50 ; Constitution reformed, 158-68 ; as Consul, 169- 77 ; installed in Tuileries, 181, 182 ;
183; war with Austria, 183, 184; attempt on his life, 185 ; deports enemies, 187-9; 19°' I9i> I94) I95> 198, 203 ; church policy, 204 ; Con- cordat, 205, 210, 212-15, 220-7 ; 228, 229 ; life-Consulate, 230-40 ; 242, 243 ; luxurious state, 244 ; installs Legion of Honour, 245 ; 247-62 ; has the Due d'Enghien executed, 263 ; Empire suggested, 264-8 ; the plebiscite, 269, 270 ; declared Em- peror, 271-4 ; 275, 276 ; 280, 282
Bonaparte (Mme.), iv. 244
Bonchamps, ii. 307
Bonet, iii. 40
Bonnaire, iv. 100
Bonnay (de), i. 152 «
Bonne-Aventure-Libre (see l^galit^, Orleans), ii. 121
Bonnet, i. 308 n
Bonnet de Mautry, ii. 222 n
Bonneville, Nicolas, i. 162 «, 245, 246 «, 247 «, 340 ; ii. 118
Bontoux, iii. 367
Borda, iii. 359
Bordas, member of Committee ot General Security, ii. 231 ; iii. 214,
29s, 354
Borne, iv. 86
Bouche, ii. 314
Boucher de Saint-Sauveur, i. 247 «, 306, 307 n, 323, 340 ; ii. loi ; mem- ber of Committee of General Security, 233
Bouchereau, iii. 40
Bouchotte, ii. 215 ; iv. 131, 168, 233, 247
Boudin, iii. 214 n ; iv. 120
Bougainville, iii. 359
Bougeart, Alfred, iii. 91
Bouille, i. 218, 219; to march with Louis on Paris, 264 ; arranges for Louis' escape, 265 ; 270 ; threatens the National Assembly, 354
Bouin, found guilty of conspiracy with Babeuf, iv. 45
Bouillerot, iii. 255
Boulanger (General), iii. 105
INDEX
287
Boulay (of Meurthe), ii. 221 n ; ii. 334; iv. 71, 81 ; concerned in forc- ing Merlin and La Revelliere to resign, 126; 150, 158, 159, 171, 199 «, 208, 211 «, 213 «; appointed to Privy Council on eve of Empire, 265
Boulogne (Abbe de), iv. 65, 74,77, 212
Boulogne, armistice of, iv. 73
Bouquey, host at Girondist meetings, iii. 34
Bourbeaux, ii. 57
Bourbon (M. de), ii. 90, 124 ; iv. 249
Bourbotte, ii. 118
Bourdon, Leonard, ii. 75; iii. 201, 244
Bourdon (of Oise), ii. 224 ; iv. 56 ; deportation decreed in Fructidor, 86 ; deported to Guiana, 87 «
Bourdon de Vatry, iii. 362 ; iv. 155 n
Bourgoin, i. 235 n
Bourguignon, iii. 363
Bourmont (de), iv. no; insurgent leader under d'Artois, 112; takes and evacuates Mans, 113; signs armistice, 166
Bcurrienne, secretary to Bonaparte, iv.
237
Bouvet de Lozier, iv. 262
Boyer-Fonfrede, Girondist, ii. 195, 223, 235, 238 n ; iii. 32, 36 n, 40 ; 43 ; demands abolition of death penalty exceptlfor political offences, 50 ; 63 ; votes for Louis' death, 99; 103;?; trial and execution, 1 2 1-2
Boze, iii. 63
Brandenburg, ii. 124
Breard, ii. 223 ; on Committee of Public Safety, 236-40 ; iii. 209, 215 w; elected Elder, 324; Presi- dent, 254 ; iv. 168, 172
Bresson, iii. 40
Breton, i. 235 n
Brienne, i. 106
Briffaut, iv. 120
Briot, iv. 75, 119, 138, 150, 156
Brissot, one of the founders of the Republic, i. 86 ; editor of the Palriole,
164 ; 170 ; recommends a Republic, 224 ; relations with Mme. Roland and the Roberts, 254-5 ; 271 w, 273, 280; his policy, 288, 289 ; 311, 323, 340. 345. 353. 356-60 ; still advises liberal monarchy, ii. 65 ; prefers suspension of royalty, 70, 71; 74; professes hatred of monarchy, 96 ; opposed to Robespierre, 99, 100 ; loi, 118, 126; secretary to the Convention, 145 ; 148, 153 ; on Committee of Constitution, 161 ; 177; Committee of General Defence, 235 ; of Public Safety, 236 ; press destroyed, 281 ; a leader of the Gironde, iii. 32-40; does not con- fess on scaffold, 43 ; 45-8 ; federal policy, 53 M ; as party leader, 58 ; character, 59-63 ; expelled from Jacobins, 72 ; 93, 97, 98 ; votes for Louis' death, 99 ; 106; arrested with the "Twenty-Two," 112; escapes to raise the provinces, 115; trial, 121 ; execution, 122
Brival, ii. 83 n ; member of Committee of General Security, 231, 232 ; iii. 168
Brocheton, i. 235 n
Brothier (deputy), iv. I02 n
Brottier (Abbe), iii. 379 ; royalist agent, iv. 50 ; 52 ; deported Xo and dies in Guiana, 87
Bruirette, i. 320
Bruix, iii. 362
Brulart de Sillery, ii. 222
Brune, i. 311, 318 «, 319, 320, 340; iii. 327 ; victory in Holland, iv. 114; 136 «, 140, 166, 171, 248, 249
Brunet, ii. 219
Brunswick, Duke of, effect of his Manifesto, ii. 59 ; suggested as candidate for French throne, 62 n ; 87, 96 ; Carra's indiscreet praise of, 123-4 ; 125 ; iii. 57, 77, 106
Brutus, ii. 104 ; iv. 181
Bry, Jean de, ii. 77, 103 «, i6i «, 171, 223, 231, 236, 238, 304; iii. 40, 216 «, 354, 370, 375 ; iv. 34, 58, 172
288
INDEX
Bucket, i. 105 n, 308 n, 313 w ; ii. 53 «, 100 « ; iv. 41 «, 187 «
Buchot, ii. 214, 220, 221 n
Buffon, i. 19; ii. 185
Buonaparte, see Bonaparte
Buonarroti, iv. 39, 45
Buzot, leader of democratic party, i. 213; 271 «, 274, 316; vice-presi- dent of Criminal Court, 324 ; on Committee of Constitution, 326 ; 349, ii. 133 ; speaks attacking Paris, 183 ; on Committee of Public Safety, 236; 281, 298; a Girondist, iii. 32; 34, 35 ; influence of, and relations with, Mme. Roland, 38; 40, 42, 46, 47 n ; hatred of mob, 48 ; 48 « ; 49, 54 ; character, 66, 6^ ; 74, 92 ; votes for Louis XVI. 's death, 99; inter- view with Robespierre, 102; arrested, 112; escapes, and opens civil war in Eure, 115; 116; death, 123
C (M. de), i. 4;^
Cabanis, iii. 342 ; iv. 139, 158, 223
Cabuchet, iv. 193
Cacault, iii. 259 «; iv. 211
Cadoudal, Georges, royalist rebel ; surrenders, iv. 47 ; leader under d'Artois, 112; 239; engaged in fresh conspiracy, 262 ; arrested, 263 ; 264
Cadroy, iii. 223, 247, 248, 375; con- demned by Directory, iv. 86
Cafarelli, iv. 171
Cagliostro, iv. 205
Cahier de Gerville, i. 351
Cales, i. 214 «
Callot, i. 364
Calon (de), ii. 222 n
Cambaceres, ii. 115, 196, 224; on Committee of Public Safety, 236 ; 238 n ; president of Committee of Legislation, iii. 2I2«; 215, 273, 275. 324. 340, 342; president of Elders, 354 ; 362 ; Minister of Justice under Consulate, iv. 155 «;
proposed as Second Consul, 163 ; 171, 181 w, 184, 190, 205, 228, 230, 264
Cambon, i. 302 ; ii. 44, 85, 86 n, 193; president of Convention, 223 ; on Committee of General Defence, 235 ; on Committee of Public Safety, 238, 240, 252; iii. 73, 102, Ii3«; pro- poses compulsory loan, 135 ; 137 ; proposes suppression of expenses of public worship, 152, 153, 153 «, 167, 187, 196, 244, 253, 253 «; proposes separation of Church and State, 234, 254"; 255, 260; iv. 247
Campe, ii. 141
Camus, i. igon', secretary to Con- vention, 145 ; member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 236 ; president of Council of 500, iii. 354 ; 363 ; iv. 120 «
Candeille, i. 335
Canecie, i. 235
Capon, ii. 221 n
Carbon, accomplice in affair of the "infernal machine" of 1800, exe- cuted, iv. 188
Carelli, iii. 366
Carnot, ii. 218 ; president of Conven- tion, 225 ; on Committee of Public Safety, 243 ; military functions, 248, 249, 250 ; degree of guilt in Terror, 251, 251 « ; as deputy-commissioner, 257; 261, 263 « ; edits journal op- posing Robespierre, 285 ; 293 « ; iii. 150, 169 w, 189; arrest ordered in Thermidor, 200 ; 215, 237, 245, 247 ; nominated Director, 325 ; 358, 359j 364 « ; iv. 83 ; scission in Directory, 84 ; tempted by royalists, 85 ; escapes in Fructidor, 86 ; con- demned to deportation, 87 ; 88, 155 ; recalled from exile, 166; Minister of War, 170M; 183, 190; votes against life-Consulate, 234 ; 247 ; opposes Empire, 266 ; 279
Carra, i. 287, 323, 347, 356 ; ii. 38 n \ demands suspension of Louis XVI,
INDEX
289
51 ; proposes candidates for throne, 62 n ; converted to republicanism, 96, 117; as royalist, 1 23 ; frightened into change of politics, 124 ; 157 ; as Girondist, iii. 40 ; execution, 43 ; trial as one of the *' Twenty-Two," 121; 153
Carre, i. 104 «
Carrier, ii. 221, 227 ; as deputy on mission, 259; iii. 147 ; 179-80, 232, 238 ; accused in Convention and tried for barbarity, 241
Carteaux (General), occupies Marseilles, ii. 309; iii. 118, 119
Casabianca, ii. 222 ;r
Caselli (Father), iv. 206
Casset, iv, 120 n
Castel, iii. 342
Castellane (Comte de), i. 148, 193
Castellane (Mme. de), iv. 182
Castera, iii. 125
Cathelineau, Vendeean guerilla, ii. 307
Catiline, i. 223, iii. 58, 197
Cavaignac, Montagnard, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 231, 232 ; 317, iii. 162
Cazales, i. 191
Cazeneuve (de), ii. 222 k, iii. 40
Cazin, iv. 45
Ceracchi, iv. 188
Cerisier, i. 356
Cerutti, i. 85, 97 «, 98
Caesar, iv. 146, 181
Chabaud, iv. 158
Chabaud-Latour, iv. 266 n
Chabert, i. 235 w
Chabot, Cordelier, member of Consti- tuent Assembly, i. 340 ; 345 ; ii. 63 «, 87, 88 «, 125, 137, 146, 161, 163, 189, 222 w; member of Committee of General Security, 231 ; 245, iii.
32, 34> 75. 76, 99. 151 Chaboud, i. 235 «, 271 Chailleux, i. 235 w Chales, ii. 222 w, 244, 273 Chalier, iii. 108, 125, 163 Chambon, iii. 35, 40, 98, 123, 223, 247 Champagne, iii. 342
VOL. IV. 19
Champagneux, iii. 368 ; iv. 70
Champagny, iv. 171
Champeaux (de), iv, 216
Champion, Ednii, i. II9«, 122 w
Champion de Cice, Archbishop of Bor- deaux, i. 144 w, 146, 147
Chapelain, iv. lOO
Chapelle, iv. 188
Chaptal, iv. 139
Charavay, Etienne, i, 115 ;z, 325 m, 341 M, iv. 194 w, 236 «
Charette, iii. 249, 250, iv. 47
Charlemagne, i. 96
Charles, Archduke, the, iv. 58, no
Charles I, of England, i. 359 ; ii.
303 Charles IX, iv. 82 Charlier, ii. 223 Charrier, ii. 309 Chartier, i. 235 ; ii. 57 n Chartres (Due de), ii. I2I n ; iv. 57 Chasset, ii. 145 ; iii, 40; 354 Chassey, iii. 368 n Chassin, ii. 106 n ; 306 w, 307 n ; iv.
50 M, II5«, 258 72
Chastellain, iii. 40
Chastellet (Marquis de), i. 359
Chastenay (Mme. de), iv. 246 «
Chateaubriand, i. 113 «, 115 ^^, 1^1 n, 1^2 n ; iv. 81 n
Chateauneuf-Randon, i. 316 «; ii. 222 n ; iii. 119, 124^
Chatillon, iv. no, 112, n3, n4
Chauchot, D., i. 207
Chaudron-Rousseau, iii. 191
Chaumette, i. 313; ii. 60 «, 75; as commissary, 107 ; procurator of Commune, iii. 98 ; 103, 145 ; exe- cuted, 149; 157; at installation of Worship of Reason, 160, 161, 180, 183, 184
Chaumette (Mme.), iv. 188
Chaumont, iii. 325
Chauvelin, iv. 246
Chazal, iii. 215, 342, 355, iv. 149, 158
Chemin, founder of Theophilanthropy, iv, 67, 68, 70 ; 198
Chenier, Andre, i. 122 «
290
INDEX
Chenier, Marie-Joseph, i. 138 «; ii. 117; president of Convention, 224; 278 n ; proposes cult of the Fatrie, iii. 158; 216 w, 222, 256, 259, 342, 347 ; president of 500, 334 ; 375 ; iv. 63 ; a Theophilanthropist, 69 ; I39j 158; member of Tribunate, 172, 247
Chepy, jun., i. 312 «
Chevalier, iv. 188
Choderlos de Laclos, i. 255, 283, 310
Choquin, i. 82
Choudieu, i. 105 «, ii. 45, iii. 244, iv. 187
Chrestien, jun., i. 235 n
Chretien, iv. 45
Chuquet, A.,'\, 239
Cicero, i. 87 «, iv. 181
Clair val, i. 334
Claretie, Jules, i. 86«, l63«
Clarkson, Thomas, ii. 141
Clauzel, ii. 224, iii. 214 «
Claviere, i. 271 n ; ii. 73, 94, 157, 215; iii. 33, 34, 58, 1 10 ; arrested with the "Twenty-Two," 112; 113 ; com- mits suicide, 123
Clemence, iv. 120
Clement, Abbe, iv. 72
Clement de Ris, ii. 220, iv. 188
Clermont-Gallerande, iv. 259, 260
Clermont-Tonnerre, i. 248, 326
Clootz, Anacharsis, i. 255, 347, 355, ii. 118, 141, 142, 163, 177, 178; iii.
53 «» 59. 64. 73. 145. 148
Cobourg, iii. 135
Cochon, i. 3167?, iii. 304; iii. 215, 215 w, 324, 359, 363, iv. 54, 57
Cocud, iv. 120
Coffin, iv. 120
Coffinhal, i. 136 «, iii. 200
Coigny (de), iv. 1S2
Coland-Lasalcette, ii. 222 «
Collard (Mme.), i. 235
Collombel, iii. 213 «, 214 «, 360
Collot d'Herbois, a monarchist at out- set, i. 86 ; author of Almanack du Fire G&ard, 342 ; royalist tone of same, 347; ii. 102 n, 12b n; as
republican, 147, 148 n ; on Jacobin Committee, 163; president of Con- vention, 223, 224 ; becomes member of Committee of Public Safety, 242 ; 248 ; 249, 262 ; iii. 75 ; his massacres at Lyons, i2o; 139, 140, 145, 169, 188 m; in danger of assassination, 190 «; his part in Robespierre's downfall, 193, 196, 197, 198 ; arrest ordered by Commune, 200 ; 215, 237, 242 ; deportation decreed, 244
Combaz, i. 235 n ; iv. 69
Comte, Auguste, i. 253
Conde, iii. loi ; iv. 181, 262
Condorcet, not a republican, i. 84, 98 ; favours Provincial Assemblies, 108; fears uneducated populace, 120, 131 ; converted to popular suffrage, 201, 208, 209; 213 ; a feminist, 231, 232; 273, 292, 29s, 296, 297, 298 ; elected to second Assembly, 340, 341 ; still favourable to monarchy, 342 ; 347, 353 ; republican leader, 359 ; ii. 73, 74 ; declares himself repubUcan, 96 ; hostile to the Commune, lOi ; 118, iiSn, 123, 145; member of Committee of Constitution, 161, 164, 169 «, 170 ; fails to support feminism, 173 > 179; proposal for Constitution defeated, 183; 186; 222 «; vice- president of Convention, 223, 234, 239 ; a Girondist, iii. 33, 34, 38, 40, 46, 47, 50; Mme. Roland's opinion of, 66 n \ 68, 69, 70, 71. 73. 85, 87, 88, 91 ; not in favour of Louis' death, 99 ; arrest decreed for criticising Montagnard Constitution, 1 16; trial (one of the "Twenty-Two") and execution, 121, 122; 284, 314
Consalvi (Cardinal), iv. 207, an
Constant, Benjamin, iv. 84, 115, 1 16, 117; member of Tribunate, 172; deprived of seat, 190 ; 247 ; ejciled, 251, 251 «, 252 «
Conte, Ch., iv. 167 n
Conti, i. 284;/
Corbel, iii. 40
Corbieni, i. 235
INDEX
291
Corchand, iv. 69
Corday, Charlotte, iii. 68 ; kills Marat, 81
Cormatin, iii. 299
Corneille, i. 99
Cornet, president of Council of Elders, iii* 355 ; appointed inspector of Hall of Council, iv. 143 ; part in coup ditat of Brumaire, 144
Cornudet, president of Council of Elders, iii. 355
Corre, ii. 48 n, 107 n
Coucheri, condemned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 86
Coupard, iii. 355
Coupe (of Oise), ii. 222 w ; iii. 224
Couppe (of C6tes-du-Nord), member of Committee of General Security, ii. 231 ; iii. 40
Cournaud (Abbe), socialist writer on " agrarian law," i. 229 ; 236 n
Courtois, member of Committee of General Security, iii. 214 «; of Council of Elders, iii. 324 ; president of same, 354 ; inspector of Hall in Brumaire, iv. 142
Coustard, iii. 40
Couthon, i. 343, 344 ; pronounces against royalty, ii. 146 ; on Com- mittee of Constitution, 163 ; 185, 193 ; president of Convention, 223 ; on Committee of Public Safety, 239, 240, 242, 247, 248, 262, 286 ; iii. 91, 107; moves the arrest of the "Twenty-Two," 112; takes part in blockade of Lyons, 119; begins demolition of Lyons, 120; 168; announces decadal festival, 182 ; 187, 188 «, 189 ; still loyal to Robes- pierre, 192 ; arrested on 9th of Thermidor, 199; escapes to Hotel de Ville, 200 ; guillotined, 202, re- placed on Committee of Public Safety, 208 ; 209 n
Crachet, iv. 120, 120 «
Crassons, president of Council of 500,
iii- 354 Creniere, i. 149
Crepin, \. i<fin
Crestin, ii. 64
Cretin, i. 235 n
Creton, i. 120 «
Creuz^-Latouche, iii. 2i^n; member of the " Commission of Seven," 273 ; of the " Commission of Eleven," 276 ; president of Council of Elders, 354 ; of Council of 500, 355 ; a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69
Crevelier, iv. 119
Crillon (de), iv. 182
Cromwell, i. 296, 356, 357, 358, 359
Curee, proposes, in Tribunate, that Bonaparte shall be declared Em- peror, iv. 265
Cusset, executed after Grenelle con- spiracy, iv. 46
Cussy, iii. 40
D
Dabray, iii. 40
Dafin, i, 235 n
Daillet, ii. 220
Daire, i. 123
Dalbarade, ii. 214, 220
D'Alembert, i. 341
Dalphonse, iv. 148
Dambray, iii. 323
Danjon (Abbe), i. 229, iii. 366 ; a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69
Dansard, Claude, i. 234
Danton, i. 86, no ; a royalist agitator, 164 ; 245 ; denounces King's ad- visers, 278 ; 280 ; proposes elective executive Council, 282 ; 283, 284 «, 288 ; inclines towards republicans, 309, 310 ; draws up petition to Assembly demanding abdication, 312 ; 313 ; rumour that he is to be appointed *' tribune of the people," 319; 320, 323, 324, 340; implores Federals not to leave Paris, ii. 51, 52, 60 n ; Minister of Justice, 72 ; 73 ; real head of Provisional Execu- tive, 74 ; 76, 82 ; opposed to the Girondins, 99 ; does not declare himself a republican before the Con-
292
INDEX
vention assembles, loo «, loi « ; 120; suspected of Orleanism, 122, 123 ; rumours of a triumvirate, 136 ; ridicules the idea, 146 ; his motion on the " unity and indivisibility of the Republic," 153 ; member of Committee of Constitution, 161 ; of Jacobin Committee, 163; 164 «; 171 n; against interference with other Powers, 178 ; 180, 181 ; seeks to impose Montagnard Constitution in time to prevent Paris from attacking the Girondists, 184; 18S; in favour of religious tolerance, 198 ; his dic- tatorship feared, 202; 214; 217 «, 218; president of Convention, 223 ; 235 ; member of Committee of General Defence, 236; of Committee of Public Safety, 238 ; 239 ; in charge of foreign affairs, 240 ; his pre- ponderance on the Committee, 241 ; excluded from it, 242 ; re-appointed, refuses to sit, 242 ; recommends a Committee of Execution, 243 ; arrest signed by the two " Government Committees," 245 ; 246 ; order for his arrest, 231 ; 279 ; the Danton press ceases after his death, 282 ; liberty of speech disappears, 283 ; estabhshes the Revolutionary Tri- bunal, 285 ; attempts to relax the grasp of the Terror, 294 ; iii. 31 ; his opinion of the Rolands, 38 ; 43, 47 ; accused of September massacres, 52 ; saves Roland from arrest, 57 ; 64 ; Mme. Roland's judgment of, 66; 66 n, 68, 73 ; does his best to check September massacres, 74 ; 75 ; laments September, 78 ; rumoured a possible triumvir, 79 ; disowns Marat, 80 ; 83, 87 ; Danton's policy one of conciliation, and formation of a strong and enlightened coalition party, 88 ; does not believe in immortality ; has no fixed system, 89 ; against interfer- ence with other nations ; an opportun- ist in best sense, 90 ; his position, 91 ; 91 «; 92; attempt at conciliation,
92 ; Condorcet's admiration for, 94 ; Marat's opposition, 95 ; 99 ; further attempts at conciliation, lOO, lOi , 102, 106, 107 ; 107 n ; at time of insurrec- tionary Commune, 109 ; indignation at demand for arrest of the ' ' Twenty- Two," III; 112, 113; accused of Orleanism, II3»; 114, 115; ex- cluded from Committee of Public Safety, 116 ; his fall, 117 ; in moder- ate opposition, 144; 145 ; Robes- pierre fears his rehabilitation, 146 ; 149 ; arrested by Robespierre's con- trivance, 150; trial, 150; his eloquent defence, sentence and execution, 151; 153. 153 «» 165, 196, 198, 232 ; iniquity of his trial, 241 ; 252, 253 ;iv. 115, 251, 278, 279,287
Darracq, iii. 379, iv. 78 n
Darrignan, iii. 175 «
Darsy, i. 346 «
Darthe, Babeuvist, iv. 38, 44, 131
Dartigoeyte, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232, iii. 162, 170
Daubenton, member of Conservative Senate, iv. 172
Daubermesnil, Theophilanthropist, iv. 66
Daubigny, iv. 120 w
Dauchy, i. 244, 328
Daudet, Ernest, iv. 115 w
Daunou, ii. 221 « ; president of Conven- tion, 224; a Girondist, iii. 40; 216; member of Commission of Constitu- tion, year III, 275 ; chief draughts- man of proposal, 279 ; in favour of two biennial Consuls, 301 ; 309; presi- dent of Council of 500, 325, 354,
355; 377. 378> 379; iv. 158; pro- posal for Constitution of year VIII, 159, 159 «; Constitution caricature of plans of Daunou and Sieyes, 160, 180, 184 « ; candidate for the Senate, 190 ; excluded from re-election to the Legislature, 191 David, ii. 220, 221 n ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, 233 ; iii. 83 ; prepares plan for Festival of the
INDEX
293
Supreme Being, i86, 187; 196; survives Thermidor, 202
David, Alex., iii. 212 n
Dechezeaux, iii. 40
Decomberousse, president of Council of Elders, iii. 355
Decres, iv. 170 w, 265 «
Decret, i. 235 11
Dedelay-Dagier, iii. 355
Defermon, favours universal suffrage, i. 184, 185; 187, 191; president of Convention, ii. 223 ; on Committee of General Defence, 235 ; a Girondist, iii. 40 ; leaves Committee of Public Safety, 216 m; 267, 2,10 n, 324; president of Council of 500, 354 ; member of Council of State during Decennial Consulate, iv. 171
Defergues, ii. 214
Deffoux, i. 235 n
Deguaigne, iii. 77 n
Dejean, iv. 171
Delacoste, president of Council of Elders, iii. 255
Delacroix, i. 345 ; president of Con- vention, ii. 223 ; 240 ; arrested, 251 ; as commissary, 319 ; iii. 83 ; on Committee of Public Safety, iii. 102 ; III; arrested with Danton,
ISO Delacroix (of Eure-et-Loir), ii. 208;
appointed to Committee of Public
Safety, 238 ; iii. 172 Delacroix, Charles, iii. 308 ; Minister
of Foreign Affairs under Directory,
325 ; candidate for Directory, 359,
360, 361 ; 362 ; dismissal from
Ministry, iv. 83 Delahaye, a Girondist, iii. 40 ; suggests
Directorial veto, 303; 304, 317 «;
denies royalist peril, 378 ; iv. 81 ;
condemned to deportation as a
royalist by the Directory in Fructtdor,
86 Delamare, Girondist, iii. 40 Delaunay, executed with Danton, iii.
151 Delbrel, iv. 148, 156
Delcasso, ii. 222
Delecloy, iii. 40, 214
Delessart, i. 351
Deleyre, iii. 42, 296
Delmas, stippUant to " Commission of Six," ii. 171 ; president of Con- vention, 223 ; member of Committee of General Defence, 236 ; of Com- mittee of Public Safety, 238 ; assist- ant to Danton in war policy, 241 ; iii. 215, 215 It', president of Council of Elders, 354 ; 358 ; remark to Napo- leon at commemoration of Concordat, iv. 220
Demerville, guillotined for remarks hostile to Bonaparte, iv. 188
Demeunier, qualified monarchist, i. i6g ; in favour of qualified suffrage, 185, 190, 278 ; declares right of nation to choose form of government, 330 ; candidate for Directory, iii. 339 ; member of opposition in Tri- bunate, iv. 172 ; 231 ; given Sena- tory of Toulouse, 252 n
Demosthenes, iii. 61 ; iv. 181
Demoy, i. 313
Dentzee, ii. 222 n
Depere, president of Council of Elders,
iii- 355
Deperret, one of the " Valaz6 Com- mittee," iii. 35
Derazey, a Girondist, iii. 40
Derniau, ii. 221 «
Desaix, hero of Marengo, iv. 184
Desaugiers, ii. 215
Desaunays, ii. 185
Desbouillons, leader of Brestois Fede- rals, ii. 48
Descamps, iii. 40
Descartes, iii. 158
Deschesne, i. 235 n
Desenfants (General), iv. 48
Desfieux, i. 307 it
Desforgues, iii. 113
Desmoulins, i. 87 ; leads the insurrec- tion of the Green Cockade, 142 n ; his fear of the agrarian law, 162 ; perhaps the first republican, 163 ;
294
INDEX
165 n, 166, 179; in favour of univer- sal suffrage, 199, 200 ; 219, 219 « ; his republicanism echoed, 220 ; 243 n ; drafts a suffrage petition, 245 ; 252, 285 «, 311 ; accused, he escapes; writ cancelled in favour of summons ; saved by amnesty, 320 ; 340, 356, 356 n ; his face-about against republi- canism, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361 ; ii. 51 ; his attempt to ruin the Gironde by accusing it of royalism, 147 « ; member of Committee of General Defence, 236 ; order for his arrest signed by both "Government Com- mittees," 245; 251 ; iii. 83, 91, 92, 116; expelled from Jacobins, 146; writ of arrest issued ; arrest and trial ; trial cut short ; guillotined with rest of Dantonists, 151
Desmoulins (Mme.), trial of, iii. 183
Desmousseaux, i. r88 n
Despinassy, ii. 222 n
Desponelles, royalist agent, iv. 30
Dessolle, iv. 230 n
Destournelles, demands end of mon- archy, ii. 40 ; 215
Destrem, i. 361 n, iv. 119 ; president of the Riunioti of the Manage, 131 ; 148 ; ejected from the Legislative Corps in Brumaire, 150; condemned to be banished, but order revoked, 156 ; deported to Guiana after the affair of the Rue Saint-Nicaise, 187
Destutt de Tracy, iv. 223
Desvieux, i. 203 «
Devaisnes, iv. 171
Deverite, iii. 40
Deveze, iii. 368 «
Dherbez-Latour, iii. 366
Diderichsen, tried and executed with the Dantonist "amalgam," iii. 151
Diderot, anti-monarchical but does not advocate a republic, i. 83 ; editor of the Encyclopidie, 92 w ; 97 ; iii. 185, 189 ; iv. 67
Diel, i. 235 n
Dijon Brothers, ii. 57
Dillon, i. 199
Domitian, 1. 223
Dondeau, iii. 363
Doppet, iv. 119
Dormay, iii. 366
Dossouville, iv. 87, 87 n
Doublet, iii. 40
Doulcet de Pontecoulant, ii. 222 n ; president of Convention, 224 ; mem- ber of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 216 k; president of Council of
500. 354 ; 376
Doumere, iv. 86
Douzon, i. 235 n
Driaut, i. 239 n
Driye, i. 235 n
Drouet, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 231, 232; 315; arrested as Babeuvist conspirator, iv. 3S, 39 ; escapes from prison, 45 ; acquitted, 45 ; a leader of the Ri- union of the Manage, 131
Drulhe, ii. 222 «, iv. 78 n
Dubarran, president of Convention, ii. 223 ; arrest ordered by Commune in Tkermidor, iii. 200, 213 «
Dubayet, ii. 88 n
Dubois, Alexis (General), iii. 245
Dubois-Crance, elected to Jacobin Committee, ii. 163 ; president of Convention, 223 ; member of Com- mittee of General Defence, 235, 236 ; 238 n ; iii. 83 ; bombards Lyons in the Civil War, 119; arrest ordered by Commune in Thtrmidor, 200 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 215; recalled to Jacobin Club, 224 ; 282 ; Minister of War under Directory, 363 ; attacks free- dom of Press, 379, 380; iv. 113, 128
Du Bois du Bais, president of Council of Elders, iii. 355
Dubois (of Vosges), president of Council of 500, iii. 355
Dubroeucq, State messenger, iii. 325
Dubruel, iv. 655
Dubusc, a Girondist, iii. 40
Ducancel, i. 311
Ducasse, iii. 175 »
INDEX
295
Duchastel, a Girondist, 40; executed as one of the "Twenty-Two," 121
Du Chastellet, i. 271, 292
Duchatel (Gironde), member of Council of State, iv. 171
Ducis, iii. 341
Ducos, Fran9ois, i. 316 ; demands sup- pression of all effigies of Louis XVI, ii. 86 ; demands abolition of mon- archy, 148 ; objects to public voting, 188 ; objects to taxation of those who merely earn living wage, 193 ; a Girondist, 332 ; iii. 36, 40 ; does not confess on scaffold, 43 ; recommends separation of Church and State, 45- 46 ; a demi-Montagnard, 63 ; votes for Louis' death, 99 ; tried and exe- cuted with the " Twenty-Two," 121
Ducos, Roger, elected an Elder, iii. 324, 342 ; candidate for Directory, 360; elected, 361, iv. 126; 127 accomplice of the fall of the Directory, 141, 146; to be appointed Consul, 150, 155 ; member of Senate, 162
Ducroisi, prods verbal written to Council of Elders, iii. 356
Dudon (Mme.), iii. 33
Duevis(?), iii. 77
Dufestel, a Girondist, iii. 40
Dufour, i. 235 n ; arrested for preaching Socialism while "on mission," ii. 132, 133 ; candidate for Directory, iii. 361, iv. 136
Dufresne, State Councillor under Consu- late, iv. 170
Dufriche-Valaz^, iii. 35 ; a Girondist, 40, 68 ; tried and executed with the "Twenty-Two," 121, 122
Dugue d'Asse, a Girondist, iii. 40
Duhem, member of Committee of General Security, iii. 231 ; arrested in Germinal, 244
Duhot, iv. 99, 100
Dulaure, a Girondist, ii. 40 ; excuses September massacres, iii. 50-51
Dumas, i. 223 ; iv. 52 ; sentenced to be deported in Fructidor, 87 ; 182
Dumetz, i. 194
Duraolard, 111. 345 ; president of Council of 500, 354 ; accused of monarchical schemes, iv. 56 ; denounces the Orleanists, 58 ; condemned to de- portation in Fructidor, 86
Dumont, ii. 276
Dumont, Andre, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232 ; anti- religious violence, iii. 164; a Terror- ist, 198, 213 n; 214 n; 215 n; 299
Dumont, Etienne, i. 31 « ; 138//, 139, 271 m; iii. 33, 33 w, 34
Dumouchet, ii. 97 n
Dumouriez, selected by Louis as one of the Roland ministry, i. 353 ; ii. 166 n; subscribes to republicanism, ^57) 158; consequences of his treason, 170 ; 235, 237 ; his reverses lead to the policy of sending commissaries to the armies, 255 ; royalists revive their efforts after his treason, 305, 322 ; iii. 34 ; persuades the people that the Girondists are with him, 82 ; sup- posed to be their tool, ICXD, 102, 148; iv. 57
Dupin, i. 235 n ; ii. 220 ; a Girondist, iii. 40; iv. 91; account of Decadal festival, 104, 105 ; 115, 124
Duplantier, iii. 42, 372; sentenced to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 86
Duplay, the brothers, Robespierre's hosts, acquitted in the trial of the Babeuvists, iv. 45
Dupont, i. 225
Dupont, Jacob, ii. 222
Du Pont (Nemours), i. 170 «; advises property-owners' suffrage, 185, but no such restriction in the case of those elected, 189 ; said to have proposed Republic in La Rochefou- cauld's house, 270 n ; a republican anti-Terrorist, iii. 252 n, 280, 346; president of Council of Elders, 354 ; a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69
Duport, iii. 362 n
Du Port, Adrien, i. 52, 169; in favour of universal suffrage, 184, 185;
296
INDEX
suggests second federation of National Guards, 271 ; in favour of monarchy, 273 ; member of Committee of Con- stitution, 326
Duport-Dutertre, Keeper of the Seal, obtains decree authorising him to affix it, i. 119, 316
Duprat, Girondist member of Committee of General Security, ii. 231 ; meets with "Valaze Committee," iii. 35; 40 ; tried and executed as one of the "Twenty-Two," 121
Duprat, condemned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. S6
Dupuis, twice candidate for Directory, iii. 360
Dupuy, member of Committee of Gene- ral Security, ii. 232
Duquesnoy, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 231 ; iii. 140; member of emergency commission on night of Prairial, 245 ; commits suicide at trial, 246 ; iv. 131 n
Durand-Maillane, i. 86 ; condemns royalty, ii. 113W; persuaded to forsake Robespierre in order to arrest the Terror, iii. 196 ; member of Committee of Legislation, 212 tt ; 222, 238, 258 ; a member of the " Commission of Eleven," 275 ; in favour of an annual President, 301 ;
324 Duroy, ii. 239 n ; executed in Prairial,
iii. 246 Dusaulx, a Girondist, iii. 40 ; 324 ;
president of Council of Elders,
354 Duval, a Girondist, iii. 40 ; candidate
for Directorship, 360 ; Minister of
Police, 363 Duval, Charles, iii. 107 n ; 208 ; edits a
Republican journal, 381 Duvergier, iii. 342 n Duverne de Presle, a royalist agent, iv.
50 ; prisoner, declares Orleans is in
Paris, 58 ; condemned to deportation
in Fructidor, 87 Dyzez, iii. 366, 367
Egalit^, ii. 121, see Due d'Orl^ans
Ehrmann, ii. 289 n ; proposes to give Directory right of veto, iii. 303
Elbee (d'), royalist rebel, ii. 307
Elisabeth (Mme.), ii. 311
Elliot, Sir Gilbert, English commis- sioner to Corsica, appointed viceroy
Emery, Abbe, iv. 96 ; advises clergy to take oath of fidelity to the Republic, 89-90 ; 201
Emmery, a constitutionalist, iv. 56 ; State Councillor, 171, 230
Enghien (Due d), murder of, iv. 176 ; applauded by the ouvriers, 257
Epicurus, Robespierre compares Rous- seau to, iii. 184
Epremesnil (d'), i. 105; reactionary,
255
Ernouf (General), candidatefor Director- ship, iii. 359, iv. 136
Erostrates, i. 273
Eschasseriaux, nominated to Committee of Public Safety, iii. 208-9 > leaves, 215 ; against single-chamber Govern- ment, 295-6 ; scheme for electing Directors, 302-3, 343 n
Esgrigny (Abbe d'), royalist agent, iv. 51 «
Espagnac (Abbe d'), condemned with the Dantonist " amalgam," 151
Estadens, iii. 40
Eymar (Abbe d'), moves that the Catho- lic be declared the State religion, i. 44. 169
Fabre, states that no republican mani- festations were visible in the Legisla- tive Assembly, i. 347 n ; appointed " inspector of the Hall " by Elders in Brumaire, iv. 143
Fabre d'Eglantine, i. 215 n, 323 ; ii. 74, 75; attacks "friends of property," 134 ; favours universal taxation, 193; member of Committee of General
INDEX
297
Defence, 237 ; of General Security, 245 ; iii. 75 ; signs Jacobin address vindicating Marat, 83; eulogises massacres of September, 92 ; arrested for embezzlement, 146 ; innocent, cannot produce evidence, and is executed with Dantonist " amalgam,"
151 ; 158
Fabre (Herault), commissary to army,
killed in action, ii. 257 Fabre- Fond (General), assists in burn=
ing heart of Henri IV, ii. 321 Faipoult, Minister of Finance under
Directory, iii. 325, 363 Farcot, refused election to Elders, iii.
341-2 Fauche-Boul, iv. 115 m Fauchet, J. H., ii. 215 Fauchet, i. 162 w, 249;?, ii. 88 «, loi,
118; supplia7it to Committee of
Constitution, 161 n ; I'zz n ; member
of Committee of General Security,
231 ; iii. 33 ; a Girondist, 40 ; 43,
67 ; one of the " Twenty-Two,"
offers to resign on June 2, 1743, m 5
tried and executed, 121 Faulcon, Felix, on contradictory nature
of cahiers, i, 175 it ; iv. 100 Faure, a Girondist, iii. 40 ; averse to
educating people, 290 ; his opinion
that the two Chambers should sit in
different localities, 298 Fauriel, iv. 231 Favart, i. 99 Fayau, ii. 121 Faye, a Girondist, iii. 40 Fayolle, a Girondist, iii. 40 Fenelon, i. 348 Feraud, killed and beheaded in the
Convention on the 1st of Prairial, iii.
245, 278 Ferdinand I., iv. 49, 208 Ferrand, Anthoine de, ii. 305 n, 312 n Ferrand-Vaillant, iv. 54 ; condemned to
deportation in Fructidor, 87 Ferrant, i. 235 n Ferrieres, i. 166, 168 «; ridicules idea
of republic, 272-3
Ferroux, a Girondist, iii. 40
Fievee, iii. 252 n
Fiquet, a Girondist, iii. 40
Flahaut (de), i. 253
F!a»itnermonl, i. 103 «, ii. 64
Fleurieu,iv. 53 ; State Councillor under Decennial Consulate, iv. 171
Fleuriot, ii. 220
Fleuriot-Lescot, guillotined on 9th of Thermidor, iii. 202
Fleury, Girondist, iii. 40
Fockedey, ii. 154
Fontaine, ii. 40 «
Fontanes, iv. 202 ; appointed president of Legislative Corps by Bonaparte, 253 ; to Privy Council, 265 w
Forestier, tried with Romme, &c., during reaction of Prairial, iii. 246
Forfait, iv. 170 w
Foucault-Lardimalie, i. i^^n
Fouche, ii. 222 n ; massacres the Lyons rebels, iii. 120 ; a socialistic resolu- tion, 139 ; efforts at dechristianisa- tion, 157 ; arrested by Commune in Thermidor, 20I ; 224 ; Minister of Police under the Directory, 363 ; 391 ; iv. 128 ; his part in the con- spiracy of Brumaire, 143, 146 ; Minister of Police under Consulate, 155; 157, i7o» 187; 192, 193; de- nounces Catholics, 214 ; Bonaparte censures, 214 ; granted a senatory, 232 n ; 264 ; member of Privy Council, 265
Fouquier-Tinville, Public Accuser, iii. 121 ; his indictment of the Dantonists, 150 ; his trial, 232, 241
Fourcroy, appointed to Committee of Public Safety, iii. 215, 215 w; State Councillor under Consulate, 171 ; 202
Fourier, Joseph, iv. 265 n
Fournet, i. 235
Fournier-l'Americain, i. 340
Fournier (Abbe), iv. 194
Fournier, ii. 57 ; State messenger, iii. 355
298
INDEX
Foussedolre, H, 222
Fran^ais (Nantes), presldeni of the Second Assembly, 363
Francastel, member of Committee of Public Safety, ii. 239
Francis II, war declared against, i. 353 ; ii. 124 ; Napoleon declares war against, iv. 133
Fran9ois (Neufchateau), ii. 106 ; presi- dent of Legislative Assembly, 138, 145 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; candidate for Directorship, 359 ; elected, year V-VI, 360 ; Minister of Interior, 362 ; departmental commissary, 366 ; iv. 88 ; report on intolerance of Catholics, 107-8; member of Con- servative Senate during Consulate, 172; of Privy Council, 265 «; his view of Napoleon's Empire, 275
Franklin, Benjamin, i. 1 12-13
Franqueville, iii. 132
Frederick the Great, iv. 182
Frederick-William, i. 310 w «, 347
Fregeville (General), iv. 112
Fremanger, ii. 271 ; a State messenger,
iii- 355 Freron, i. 312 «, 319; hides after the affair of; the Champ de Mars, 321 ; 340 ; his censure of Robespierre, iii. 192, 194 ; his arrest ordered by the Commune in Thermidor, 200 ; 222 ; a leader of the "Dandies," 224; attempts to destroy influence of ex-Terrorists, 237, 240; 271;
324
Freteau, i. 171, 174
Frey, brothers, iii. 151
Frix-David, iii. 367
Frochot, iv. 194
Frontin, i. 196
Frott^, Louis de, leads a Norman (royalist) insurrection, iv. 47 ; 53, 55 ; warns d'Artois that France is not royalist, 1 10 ; leads another in- surrection in year VII, 112, 113; signs armistice, i56
Fyon, a Babeuvist, iv. 39 ; acquitted at trial, 45; iv. 119
Gaillard, ii. 43 « ; iii. 77 n
Gaillemet, i. 308 «
Gallois, iv. 268 n
Gambetta, iii. 90
Gamon, a Girondist, iii. 41
Gannuel-Dufresne, i. 235 «
Ganteaume, State Councillor under Consulate, iv. 171
Gantois, a Girondist, iii. 41
Garat, Saint-Etienne's anti-royalist letter to, ii. 98 ; succeeds Danton as Minister of Justice, 214; 220 n; iii. ioi-2«; 193; president of Council of Elders, 355 ; candidate for Directorship, 359-60; iv. 138; member of Conservative Senate, 172; 187,' 223; opposes life-Consu- late, 230 n ; 246 «, 269 n
Gardien, Girondist, iii. 41 ; executed with the "Twenty-Two," 43 ; 116; trial and execution, I2I-2
Garilhe, Girondist, iii. 41
Garnier, Germain, candidate for Directorship, iii. 359, 366
Garnier (Aube), iii. 198 ; member of Committee of General Security, 214 w
Garnier (Saintes), member of Com- mittee of General Security, iii. 232 ; releases prisoners at Rochefort, 260
Garran de Coulon, i. 245 ; 340
Garrau, iii. 42
Gasparin (de), ii. 222 n ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 239-40, 242
Gaston, a barber, Vend^ean insurgent leader, ii. 307
Gateau, ii. 219
Gau, iv. 54 ; deported in Frucitdor,
87
Gaudin, iv. 155 «
Gaultier de Biauzat, "L 120 «, I47 ; in favour of qualified suffrage, 184 ; 237, 278, 311 ; director of republican journal, ii. 57 ; elected to Council of Elders, iii. 342; departmental com-
INDEX
299
missary, 366 ; accused of Babeuvism,
iv. I20W
Gauthier (Ain), iii. 214 «
Gay- Vernon, iii. 222 n ; iv. 92
Gazier, iii. 257 w, 266 « ; iv. 213 «
Genevois, member of Committee of General Security, iii. 214 «
Genissieu, ii. 224; iii. 135, 265, 340, 342 ; president of Council of 500, 355 ; candidate for Directorship, 360 ; Minister of Justice, 362 ; iv. 119
Genlis (Mme. de), begs the younger Orleans not to put himself forward as a candidate for the French throne, iv. 57
Gensonne, favours an aristocratic re- public, i. 340 ; advises Louis XVI to form a Jacobin Ministry, ii. 64 ; 85 ; member of Committee of Con- stitution, 161 ; puts forward his plan for a Constitution, 164; president of Convention, 223 ; attends Giron- dist meetings, iii. 33, 34, 35, 41 ; favours separation of Church and State, 45 ; 49 ; demands punish- ment of the " Septemberers," 52 ; in favour of the supremacy of Paris, 56 ; 63, 65 ; votes for King's im- mediate death, 99 ; put under arrest with the " Twenty-Two," 112 ; 116; trial and execution, 121, 122 ; 184
Geoffroy, jun., State messenger, iii. 355
George III, i. in, 156, 347
Gerbac, i. 312 w
Gerbert, jun., ii. 153
Gerle, Dom, i. 154 «, 199 «
Germain, a Babeuvist conspirator, iv. 39 ; trial, 45
Gervais, ii. 250
Gibergues, ii. 222
Gibert-Desmolieres, iii. 323, 345 ; con- demned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 86 ; dies in Guiana, 87
Gideon, the prophet, i. 112 m
Gillet, member of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 216
Gillet, jun., i. 308 «
Ginguen^, 1. 316 «, ii. 220«, fii. 262;
candidate for Directorship, 360 ;
as Director-General of Public In- struction supports Theophilanthropy,
iv. 70; member of Tribunate, 172;
hostile to Napoleon, 223, 247 Giot, Th., ii. 103 Girard, i. 235 n Girardin, Rene de, i. 242 Girardin, Stanislas de, member of
Tribunate, iv. 172; i84«, 234, 238 « Girault, Girondist, iii. 41 Girey-Dupre, expelled from Jacobins,
iii. 97 Girouard, i. 308 n Giroux, i. 235 n Gleizal, iii. 297 ; prods-verbaliste to the
Council of 500, 356 Gobel, Bishop of Paris, i. 324 ; iii.
145 ; resigns his ecclesiastical duties
at the bar of the Convention, 159 ;
trial and execution, 183 ; 266 n Godard, J., i. 167 « Godefroy, iii. 171 Gognet, J. , i. 302 Gohier, Minister of Justice, ii. 214 ;
member of Council of Elders, 342 ;
candidate for Directorship, 359, 360 ;
elected, 361; iv. 115W, 126, 128,
144, 146 Goislard, Parliamentarian, arrested, i.
105 Goislard, Mayor of Longny, ii. 206 Gomaire, ii. 222 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ;
319
Gomigeon, iii. 342
Gonchon, ii. 57 ; spokesman of the "men of July 14" and "August 10, " 91
Gorani, N., ii. 141
Gorneau, elected to Elders, iii. 341
Gorsas, i. 170, 171, 184, 189 w, 193, 193 n, 248, 268 «, 277 n ; objects to a republic and supports the Dauphin, 292, 293 ; ii. 96, 106, 125 ; his press destroyed, an early Terrorist measure, 281 ; a Girondist, iii, 41 ; excuses the Septemberers, 50 ; his report of
300
INDEX
Marat's bloody speech, Sin; his
account of Marat's acquittal, 83 ; 94 ;
St. Just's report demands that he
shall, with other Girondists, be
declared a traitor, 116 Gossain, ii. 209 Goubert, i. 235 n Goujon (Oise), i. 343 n Goujon (Seine-et-Oise), Minister of
Foreign Affairs, ii. 214 ; 215; 215;?;
sentenced and commits suicide after
Pi-airial, 246; iv. 131 n Goupil, i. 235 n Goupil de Prefelne, attacks republicans,
i. 273 ; elected to Council of Elders,
iii. 324 ; president of same, 354 ; a
Theophilanthropist, iv. 69 Goupilleau (Fontenay), member of
Committee of General Security, iii.
213 «, 214 «; of Council of Elders,
324
Goupilleau (Montaigu), i. 344 ; mem- ber of Committee of General Security, iii. 213 w, 214 «; iv. 150
Gourdan, member of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 216 w ; member of Council of Elders, iv. 355
Gouttes, i. 199
Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, iv. 248
Goyre-Laplanche, ii. 222 n
Grandin, i. 149
Granet, i. 316 «; member of Com- mittee of Public Safety, ii. 242 ; iii. 83 ; arrested by Commune in Ther- midor, iii. 200
Grangeneuve, ii. 66 ; republican and Girondist, 117 ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, 231 ; iii.
32,41
Grawers (de), author of a feminist pro- ject, ii. 173
Gregoire, i. 144 ; favours unqualified suffrage, 184, 184 «, 185; 199; a democratic leader, 213 ; demands a National Convention, 274; 316; Bishop of Loir-et-Cher, 325 ; 328 ; denounces monarchies in Blois Cathedral, ii. 98 ; elected to Con-
vention, 119; attacks royalty in general, 147-8 ; 194, 222 n ; presi- dent of Convention, 223 ; iii. 160, 181 ; demands religious liberty (in reality wishing to revive Catholicism), 257 ; 257 « ; 258 ; organises the former "official" clergy, 263; 264, 264 «; obtains keys of Notre Dame, 266 ; 282 ; iv. 70, 70;?, 72, 96 «, 98, 100; member of Legislative Corps, 172 ; 198, 198 w; elected to Senate, 213, 247 ; against Bonaparte's assumption of empire, 266 ; 269
Grimmer, ii. 222 «
Grisel, betrays the Babeuvists, iv. 38,
45
Groslaire, iv. 120
Grouvelle, ii. 73, 215
Guadet, future Girondist, i. 340 ; 344 ; advises King to form a Jacobin Ministry, ii. 64, 65 ; Marat's abuse of, ii. 100 ; 140 ; president of Con- vention, 223 ; member of Committee of General Defence, 235, 236 ; iii. 32-5 ; influence of Mme. Roland upon, iii. 38 ; 41 ; quarrel with Robespierre, 44 ; wishes to separate State and Church, 45 ; 53 « ; his character, 63 ; 64 ; 65 ; 96 n ; votes for Louis' death, 99 ; his conference with Danton, loi ; arrest as one of the " Twenty-Two," 112 ; escapes to foment civil war, 115; 116; guillo- tined in Bordeaux, 123 ; 184
Gudin de la Brenellerie, i. 95 n
Gtierner, IV., i. 97 n, 120 n, 122 n
Guffroy, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232 ; 233 ; iii. 214 ; a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69
Guidan, iii. 77 n
Guillaitmc, J., i. 267-S
Guillaume, M. J., iii. 214 «, 216 «,
535 » Guillemard, i. 235 n Guilleraut, i. 235 n Guillotin, i. 174
Guimberteau, ii. 258; iii. 170; iv. 119 Guinement, Louis-Felix, i. 221 »
INDEX
301
Guiot, Florent, commissary, imposes loans on citizens of Lille to feed patriots, iii. 141; 181; member of Committee of Legislation, 212 « ; candidate for Directorship, 361 ; iv. 119; member of Legislative Corps, 172
Guiraut, inventor of a shorthand, ii. 229
Guiter, ii. 222 n
Guizot, i. 185
Gutenberg, ii. 141-2
Guynement de Keralio, father of Mme. Robert, i. 221 ; edits a republican journal, 323
Guyomar, ii. 172 ; favours direct suffrage, 189; member of Committee of General Security, iii. 214^2
Guyot-Desherbiers, president of seced- ing Electoral Assembly of Paris, year VI, iii. 341
Guyot des Maulans, unsuccessful royalist intriguer, ii. 313
Guyton-Morveau, member of Com- mittee of General Defence, ii. 235, 236 ; of Public Safety, 238 ; presi- dent of same, 239 ; 240 ; iii. 215
Guzman, iii. 151
H
Halem, i. 239 n, 250 n
Hamilton, John, ii. 141
Hannibal, iv. 176, 181
Hanover, Elector of, ii. 124
Hanriot, i. 313 ; nominated commander of Paris by the Commune in insur- rection, iii. 108; invests the Tuileries on June 2nd, compelling surrender of the Girondists, 1 1 1 ; his arrest decreed in Ther77iidor^ and his attempts on the Tuileries, 199 ; guillotined with Robespierre and his followers, 202 ; a tool of Robes- pierre's, 230
Hardy, i. 93 n ; member of " Valaze Committee," iii. 35 ; a Girondist, 41 ; a member of the Committee of
General Security, 214 «; president of Council of 500, 354
Hardy, "principal of college, deported for " fanaticising," iv. 64
Harmand (Meuse), member of Com- mittee of General Security, iii. 214 «
Haussonville (d'), iv. 225 n
Hauterive (d'), iv. 199 n
Haiiy, Valentin, a founder of Theo- philanthropy, iv. 67
Havet, ii. 221 n
Havre (Due de), i. 108 n
Hebert, i. 313 ; member of Revolution- ary Commune, ii. 75 ; editor of Pcre Duchesne, 93 ; policy, 94 ; his gradual progress towards republican- ism, 95 ; 96 ; ii. 282 ; assistant pro- curator to Commune, iii. 98 ; arrested by a Girondist commission and released, 106 ; on the agrarian law, 128-9 5 leader of the Left, 144 ; arrested with his friends, 148 ; guil- lotined, 149; 184, 196; iv. 281
Hebert (Mme.), trial of, iii. 183
Hebert de Lavicomterie, see Lavi- comterie
Hecquet, Girondist, iii. 41
Hedouville' (General), treats with royalists, iv. 114; pacifies La Vendee, 165, 166
Helvetius, i. 83, 97 ; iii. 44
Henau, i. 235 n
Henri IV, i. 133, 314 w; ii. 90; his heart burned by Thirion, 320; iii. 250
Henri de Navarre, i. 253
Henry- Lariviere, ii. ill ; Girondist, iii. 41 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 216 w; unsuccess- fully demands arrest of Carnot, 247 ; 324; president of Council of 500, 354 ; condemned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 86
Hentz, member of Committee of Legis- lation, iii. 212 M
Herault de Sechelles, i. iign, 345; ii. 161 ; his work on the Constitution, 184-6; 188, 190, 193-4; drafts the
302
INDEX
new Declaration of Rights, 197 ; 199, 203, 22211; twice president of Convocation, 223-4 ; arrested, 227 ; member of Committee of General Security, 231 ; associated with Com- mittee in drafting Constitution, 239, 240 ; 292 ; in diplomacy, 247-8 ; iii. 69 m; 107, 112; arrested on false charge of treason, 149 ; executed with Dan ton, 151 ; his religious policy, 158; iii. 209
Herman, Minister of the Interior, ii. 215, 215 M, 219
Hesmart, replaces Hanriot, iii. 199
Hesse, Prince of, iv. 187
Hesse-Cassel, Landgrav of, iii. 248
Heurtant-Lamerville, president of Council of 500, iii. 355, 366
Hoche, pacifies La Vendee, ii. 306 ; signs treaty of peace with Breton leaders, iii. 249; foils the Anglo- Royalist attempt at Quiberon, 250 ; 264, 362 ; again commands against the Vendeeans, iv. 47 ; approaches Paris within statutory limit, 84 ; death, iii « ; 114, 136, 139, 168, 248
Holbach (d'), i. 83, 97
Hollis, Thomas, i. iii
Houliere (de), ii. 222 k
Hovel, i. 235 n
Hugot, iii. 366
Hugou, i. 221 «
Huguenin, ii. 75
Huguet, iii. 222 «; 341; executed after the affair of Crenelle, iv. 46
Humbert, leads an Irish expedition, iii. 304 ; executed, iv. 188
Hyde de Neuville, royalist agent, iv. 259
Ichon, ii. 222 »
Imbert, tragedian, i. 165, 223
Imbert-Colomes, Bourbon agent, iv.
54 ; 56 ; deported in Fructidor, 86 Ingrand, member of Committee of
General Security, ii, 231-2 ; iii. 168 Isainberi, i. 235 11
Isnard, i. 357 «, 364; ii. 178, 222 m ; president of the Convention, 223 ; 236 ; 238 n ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; denies his atheism and declares he is of no party, 43-4 ; excuses mas- sacre, 49 ; threatens Paris with de- struction if she lay hands on the nation's deputies, 57 ; 99 ; his threat to Paris, 106 ; offers to resign on June 2nd, 1 1 1 ; escapes, hides, and survives the Terror, 122; active in the "White Terror," 223; recalled, 239 ; incites royalists to massacre, 247-8 ; excluded from Legislature under Consulate, iv. 190
Jallet (Abbe), i. 138, 199
James II, i. 303
/annet, i. 97 «, 98 «, lOO »
Janteau, J.J. D., 235 «
Jard-Panvillier, iv. 157, 172
Jary, Girondist, iii. 41
Jault, iii. 188
Javogues, iii. 200 ; sentenced to death by military commission, iv. 46
Jay (Sainte-Foy), ii. 222 n; member of Committee of General Security, 232 ; iii. 42
Jeanbon Saint-Andre, member of Jaco- bin " Auxiliary Committee of Consti- tution," ii. 163 ; suppliant to actual Commission, 171; 222 n; president of Convention, 223 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 239, 240; 242; much "on mission," 247 ; to Brest, during English attack upon, 257; iii. lOO, 136, 143, 169, 1 70, 209 n ; arrested after insurrec- tion of Prairial, 246-7 ; prefect of Mayence, iv. 246
Jeanne, one of the founders of Theo- philanthropy, iv. 67
Johannot, ii. 219, 220 «; elected to Council of Elders, iii. 324
Jollivet, State Councillor, iv. 171
Jordan, Camille, his famous "bell"
INDEX
303
oration, iv. 79, 79 «, 80, 80 «; 81 ; ordered to be deported in F7-uctidor, 86
Jorry, acquitted in the Babeuf trial, iv. 45; 120
Joubert, i. 199, 235 n
Jouennault, iii. 367
Jourdan, president of Council of 500, iii. 354 ; condemned to deportation in F.ructidor, iv. 86
Jourdan (General), iv. 49 ; deported, recrosses Rhine, 125 ; calls for pro- clamation that France is in danger, 129 ; 139 ; protests at clearing of the Orangery, in Brumaire, 150; 156, 248
Juigne (Mgr. de. Archbishop of Paris), iv. 77
Julien, Damas, i. 312 »
Julien, Dracon, secretary to Committee of Public Safety, ii, 240
Julien (Toulouse), ii. 222 n ; member of Committee of General Security, 232 ; a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69 ; de- nounced by the Conservative re- publicans as a Babeuvist, I20»
Jullien, iii. 189
JuUien, jun., ii. 219, 262 n
K
Kant, iv. 205
Kellermann, ii. 158; iii. 119 Keralio : see Guynement de K^ralio Keralio-Robert, i. 237, 255 n, 287 Kersaint, author of an early republican pamphlet, i. 85, 323, 324; ii. 98, 222 n ; suggests a Committee of General Defence, 234 ; president of same, 235 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; anxious to proceed against Septem- berers, 52 ; 68, 92, 94 Kervelegan, i. 316 w ; a member of the Committee of General Security, ii. 231; a Girondist, iii. 41; 215 «; member of Committee of General Security, 213 «; elected to Council of Elders, 324
Kilmaine (General), beaten back from
the faubourgs in Prairial, iii. 246 Kissienne, i. 235 n Kleber, iv. 49, 136 Klopstock, ii. 141 Kosciusko, Thaddeus, ii. 141
Laborde de Mereville, i. 153 Laborde (Mme. de), i. 253 Laboureau, agent-provocateur, iii. 148 Lacarriere, deported in Fructidor, iv.
87 Lacaze, a Girondist, iii. 34, 35, 41 ;
one of the "Tvirenty-Two," arrested
and tried, 121 Lacepede, iv. 229 n Laclos, i. 311, ii. I20« Lacombe (Bishop of Angouleme), iv.
2I3«
Lacombe Saint - Michel, member 01 Committee of Defence, ii. 235 ; tries to hold Corsica, iii. 121 n; member of Committee of Public Safety, 2i6« ; elected an Elder, 325 ; president of Council^ of Elders, 354
Lacoste, Elie, president of Convention, ii. 224 ; enters Committee of General Security, 233 ; iii. 213 «
Lacretelle, iii. 251
Lacroix, Sigismond, i. 196 «, 200 «, 201 n, 209 n
Lacroix ( Haute- Vienne), Girondist, iii.
41
Lacrosse (Rear- Admiral), candidate for Directorate, iii. 360, 361
Lacu^e, president of Council of Elders, iii. 354; State Councillor, iv. 171
La Faye, iii. 77 «
La Fayette, a royalist in 1789 as regards France, i. 86 ; impelled by Declara- tion of Independence to sail for America, 114; republican abroad, a monarchist at home, 1 1 5-6 ; his con- tempt for the people, 120 ; drafts Declaration of Rights, 140, 150; 217, 219; accused of republicanism,
304
INDEX
270 ; 274 ; accused of complicity in Louis XVI's escape, 276, 278 ; 298, 313 «. 317, 336. 351. 354 ; suspected of desire to be President of a French Republic, 356, 356 «; 357, 35S, 359, 360, 366 ; ii. 50 ; his accusation de- manded, 53-4 ; acquitted, 66-7 ; attempting in vain to induce his army to declare for Louis, escapes from France, 81 ; 304 ; recalled under Consulate, iv. 167 ; praises Bonaparte, but will not vote for the life-Consulate, 235
Laffon-Ladebat, president of Legis- lative Assembly, ii. 65 n ; iii. 323 ; president of Council of Elders, 354 ; deported to Guiana after Fructidor, iv. 87
Lafosse, i. 235 n
Lagarde, secretary to Directoy , iii.
325
Lagrange, member of Conservative Senate, iv. 172
La Harpe, i. 91
Laignelot, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232 ; iii. 157, 1 70- 1, 214 w ; involved in Babeuvist conspiracy, iv. 39 ; acquitted upon trial, 45 ; condemned to supervision by "police, 187
Lajolais (General), royalist conspirator, iv. 262
Lakanal, ii. 222 k, iii. 256, 295, 317 n ; iv, 223
Lalande, ii. 222 n
Laligant, i. 235 n
Lalire, i. 235 n
Lally-ToUendal, i. 152; demands quali- fied suffrage, 182
Laloy, president of Convention, ii. 223 ; receives personification of Liberty at bar, iii. 160 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 209, 215 ; president of Council of 500, 334; 366, 367; iv. 172
La Luzerne, Cesar de, Bishop of Lan- gres, i. 149
La Luzerne (Marquis de), i. 89 «
Lamare, iii. 295 n
Lamarque, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 231 ; refuses election to Elders, iii. 342 ; presi- dent of Council of 500, iii. 354 ; anti- Catholic, iv. 82
Lamariine, his History of the Giron- dists, iii. 32
Lamberty, a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69
Lambrechts, Directorial candidate, iii, 360 ; Minister of Justice, 362 ; iv. 187 ; unfavourable to the hereditary imperial ambition of Bonaparte, 266, 269 «
Lameth, Alexandre de, i, 152; favours suspension of Louis, 269 ; points out dangers of regency, 272 ; disbelieves in republicanism, 287 ; appointed member of Committee of Constitu- tion, 326
Lameth, Charles de, i. 194, 278
Lamourette, scene knov?n as the Baiser de La?)iourette, i, 366-7
Langlois, iii. 252 n
Lanjuinais, a Feuillant, i. 316 ; accuses the Mountain of Orleanist tendencies, ii, 122 ; member of " Commission of Six," 171; opens feminist question, 172-3 ; president of Convention, ii. 224 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; not under Mme. Roland's control, 67 ; his behaviour on June 2nd, when he refuses to resign, 1 1 1 ; arrested with the "Twenty-Two," 112; declared traitor, 116 ; 222 ; recalled from out- lawry, 239 ; recommends restoration of their churches to Catholics, 264 ; 267 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 275 ; demands a constitution, 277 n ; upholds property suffrage, 281, 285 « ; 289, 291 ; recommends an annual President, 301 ; elected an Elder, 324-5 ; 346 ; disapproves of life-Consulate, iv. 230 n ; member of republican opposition, 247 ; un- favourable to assumption of imperial dignity, 269 »
Lanne, ii. 219
INDEX
305
Lannes, iv. 248
Lanot, member of Committee of Public Security, ii. 232 ; account of massacre by Catholics, 316; of royalist in- trigues, 317; his intolerance, iii. 168; 170
Lanthenas, i. 229 ; petitions for re- moval of Louis, 311 ; suppUant to Committee of Constitution, ii. 161 n ; 207 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; 59 ; ex- pelled from Jacobins, 97 ; offers to resign on June 2nd, 11 1; 282; speaks against freedom of the press,
375
Laplace, iv. 139 ; Minister of Interior under Provisional Consulate, 1 55 « ; 192
Laplaigne, Girondist, iii. 41
Laplanche, detects royalism in Army (1793). ii- 315; iii- 123; taxes rich to feed poor, 139
Laponneraye, i. 188 «
Laporte, intendant to Louis XVI, whose papers proved treacherous conduct of the King in his use of the Civil List, ii. 83
Laporte, Seb. de, member of Com- mittee of General Security, iii. 214 « ; of Public Safety, 216 n; 260
La Poype, petitions Assembly to re- move Louis XVI, i. 311 ; Bernard demands his arrest, 319
La Revelliere-Lepeaux, i. 316 «; presi- dent of Convention, ii. 224 ; 238 n ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 216 n; of Commission of Eleven, 275, 276, 277, 279 «; 291 « ; 304; elected president of the Council of Elders ; then Director, 325 ; 354, 358 ; resigns Directorate, 361 ; 364 ; wishes to destroy the Roman Church, iv. 60; favourable to Theophilan- thropy, 69-70 ; 84 ; forced to resign, 126; attempt to execute him, together with Reubell and Merlin, 128
La Riviere, i. 318 «
Laroche, iv. 187 «
VOL. IV. 20
La Rochefoucauld (Due de), i. 152 «,
270 «, 324 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, recalled
from exile, iv. 167 ; present at
Consular court, 182 Larochejaquelein, royalist intriguer, ii.
307
Laromiguiere, member of Tribunate, iv. 172
Larroque (Mme.), iii. 175 «
La Rue (Chevalier de), iv. 85 n ; con- demned to deportation in Fructidor, and sent to Guiana, 86, 87 n
La SicotUre, iv. 51 »
Lasource, attests that no republicans exist (in 1792), i. 357 «; ii. 144, 151, 222 n ; president of Convention, 223 ; Girondist member of Committee of General Security, 231, 236; 238; iii. 41 ; said to favour federated republics, 54 ; his programme to reduce the political influence of Paris to that of one of eighty-three depart- ments, 67-8 ; Saint-Just recommends his recall to the Convention after June 2nd, 116 ; tried as one of the "Twenty-Two" and executed, 121, 122 ; 219
La Tour-du-Pin Paulin, i. 144 11
Latour-Maubourg, one of the three deputies to lead Louis XVI back from Varennes, i. 265 ; recalled from exile under the Consulate, iv. 167 ; urges liberty of Press on Bonaparte,
234
La Tremoille (Prince de), Louis XVIII's agent in Paris, iv. 51 ; no
Laumont, ii. 220
Laumur (General), executed after trial with the Hebertist "amalgam," iii. 148
Laurence, a Girondist, iii. 41, 236
Laurenceot, a Girondist, iii. 41
Laurent, his account of a popular festival commemorating the execu- tion of Louis XVI, at Arras, ii. 321
Lauriston (Mme. de), attached to Mme. Bonaparte, iv. 244
306
INDEX
Laussat, iv. 158
Lauze-Deperret, ii. 222 n ', a Girondist,
iii. 41 ; confesses on scaffold, 43 ;
trial as one of the " Twenty-Two,"
121 Lavaux, i. 235 n ; State messenger, iii.
355
Lavergue, Lt'once de, i. 108 «
Lavicomterie, a declared republican in 1790, i. 220-1; 222; ii. 97, loi ; favours a federative communal re- public, 138, 138^, 139 ; stippli!a7it to Committee of Constitution, 161 w; 222 n ; member of Committee of General Security, 231, 232, 233; iii. 54
La Villeurnoy, royalist agent, iv. 50, 51 ; deported to and dies in Guiana in Friictidor, 87, 87, n
Lavisse, i. 142 w
Le Bas, member of Committee of General Security, ii. 233 ; the friend of Robespierre, iii. 91, 192 ; demands to share latter's arrest, 199 ; escapes to Hotel de Ville, 200; commits suicide, 201
Lebau, iv. 120 n
Leblanc, elected an Elder, iii. 342
Le Bois Desguays, regards a republican placard as too absurd for punishment, i. 271
Lebois, iii. 377
Le Bon, ii. 222 n ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, ii. 233 ; 249 ; his brutal conduct as a com- missary, 259 ; 276
Le Breton, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; favours a President, 301-2
Lebreton, iii. 358 ; his report re post- age, 389
Le Brun, i. 221 n ; Minister of Foreign Affairs under Provisional Govern- ment (1792), ii. 73, 214, 216 ; arrested as one of the " Twenty- Two," iii. 112; continues to attend to his duties, 113; condemned (December, 1793), 123
LebruD, president of Council of
Elders, iii. 354 ; Third Consul, iv. 163; 171 ; 181 «, 260
Lecamus, ii. 220
Le Carlier, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; Direc- torial candidate, 360 ; Minister of Police, 363
Le Carpentier, commissary, iii. 170
Le Chapelier, bourgeois leader, i. 271, 278, 316, 328
Leclerc, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; president of Council of 500, 355 ; supports Theophilanthropy as a possible State religion, iv. 70
Leclerc (General), iv. 143
Lecointe-Puyraveau, member of Com- mittee of General Security, ii. 232; president of Council of 500, iii. 354 ; 379 ;iv. 157
Lecointre, Laurent, iii. 231 ; denounces the Committees, 238 ; his denuncia- tion rejected but taken up again, 242 ; banished from Seine province, 188
L'Ecolaus, i. 235 n
Lecourbe, iv. 248
Le Couteulx-Canteleu, iii. 323 ; presi- dent of Elders, 554 ; member of Bonaparte's Privy Council, iv. 265
Le Coz (Bishop), iii. 264
Le Febvre, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; Direc- torial candidate, 360, 361 ; iv. 136,
145
Lefevre, F.-N. , ii. 97 «; iii. 399 n
Lefiot, his account of a royalist religious riot, ii. 317 ; iii. 172
Le Franc de Pompignan, J. G., Arch- bishop of Vienne, i. 144 «
Legallieres, iv. 94
Le Gendre, i. 235 it ; 320, iii. 150, 172 ; closes the hall of the Jacobins, 224 ; demands that the script of the Con- stitution be replaced in the Conven- tion, 271
Legendre (Paris), president of the Con- vention, ii. 224 ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, 231, 232 ; iii. 213 «, 214 n
Leger, i. 235 n
INDEX
307
Le Grand, i. 83
Leguillier, ii. 221 n
Lehardi, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; 43 ;
tried as one of the " Twenty-Two,"
121 Le Hodey, i. 153 «, 174 n, 175 n, 185 n,
190 n, 192 n, 193 «, 194, 194 n,
270 «, 271 n, 2,2,0 71, 331 w Lejeune (Indre), member of Committee
of General Security, ii. 232; 315 Lemaignan, a Girondist, iii. 41 Le Maillaud, member of Committee of
Legislation, iii. 212 « ; 366 Le Maire, ii. 96 Lemane, ii. 222 n Lemarchand-Gomicourt, condemned
to be deported in Fructidor, iv.
87
Lemercier, ii. 221 « ; president of Coun- cil of Elders, iii. 355 ; iv. 158
Lemerer, demands liberty of Press, iii. 375 ; defends Catholicism, iv. 81 ; condemned to deportation in Fructi- dor, 87 ; 99
Lemoine d'Aubermesnil, ii. 222 n
Lenoir-Laroche, iii. 341 ; Minister of Police, 363; iv. 158, 187 ?z
Leonidas, iii. 184
Lepaige, i. loi
Le Peletier de Saint- Fargeau, ardent republican, ii. 118; 120; 222 w ; murder of, 231 ; results of, 302 ; iii. 125, 163
Le Peletier, Felix, democrat leader, iv. 37 ; implicated in Babeufs con- spiracy, 39 ; acquitted, 45 ; leader of the Reunion of the Manege, 131 ; banished, 156; but evades deporta- tion, 187
Lequinio, commissary, ii. 315 ; iii. I70j 171 ; iv. 119, 168
Lerebours, ii. 220
Lesage,a Girondist, iii. 35, 41 ; mem- ber of Commission of Eleven, iii. 275 ; 285 n
Lesage (Eure-et-Loir), member of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 216 « ; 276, 324
Lesage-Senault, member of Committee
of General Security, iii. 214 w Lescalier, State Councillor, iv. 171 Lescot-Fleuriot, provisional Mayor of
Paris, replacing Pache, iii. 149 ; 188 ;
his part in the events of the 9th of
Tha'tnidor, 199 Lescure, royalist noble, ii. 307 Lespinasse, proposer of life-Consulate
in Senate, iv. 230 Lesterpt-Beauvais, a Girondist, iii. 41 ;
43 ; tried as one of the " Twenty- Two," 121 Letournel, i. 235 n Le Tourneur (Manche), president of
Convention, ii. 224 ; member of
Committee of Public Safety, 216 «;
a Director, 325, 358 ; retires, 359 Letourneux, issues circular directing
administrations to persuade clergy
to the consecration of the tenth day,
iv. 97 Levasseur, ii. 195 ; iii. 130 Levasseur (Meurthe), member of Com- mittee of Public Security, iii. 214 n ;
procis-verbaliste to the Council of
500, 356 Levasseur (Sarthe), favours indirect
suffrage, ii. 189 ; no taxation of the
poor, and a sliding scale, 193 ; iii.
83 ; arrested in Germinal {•^^•ax III),
244 Leveque, commissary, iii. 367 Levis (Due de), objects to dangers of
enlightening the people as to their
rights, i. 149 Levy-Schneider, points out that Brest
and Toulon were for a time true col-
lectivist cities, iii. 143 Leyris, member of Committee of
General Security, ii. 231, 232 ; iv.
168 Lezay-Marnesia, ii. 294 n ; iii. 252 «,
274 « Lheritier, jun., ii. 220 « Lhomme, i. 206-7 Lhulier, ii. 219 Liard, iii. 256 n
308
INDEX
Lidon, one of the " Valaze Committee,"
iii. 35 ; a Girondist, 41 Lieuvain, ii. 220 Ligeret, president of Council of Elders,
iii- 354
Lindet, Robert, president of Conven- tion, ii. 223 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, 238; retired from same, 239 ; 242, 247, 248, 251 ; iii. 102, 150, 169, 214 ; seeks, with Car- not, to avoid party quarrels and establish a liberal Republic, 237-8 ; 243 ; arrested by Convention after Prairial, 246 ; exclusion from the Legislature in the year VI, 343 ; Minister of Finance under Directory, 363 ; a commissary, 366 ; involved in the Babeuvist conspiracy, iv. 39 ; acquitted, 45 ; 46 ; iv. 128 ; 247
Lindet, Thomas, i. 270 «, 283, 286 ; ii. 222 n ; iii. 132 ; iv. 119
Locke, had great influence over eigh- teenth-century French philosophers, i. Ill ; admiration for English institu- tions arising from study of, 117
Locre, proch-verbaliste to Council of Elders, iii. 356
Loiseau, a Girondist, iii. 41
Lombard -Lachaux, ii. 222 «
Lomont, member of Committee of General Security, iii. 214 ; con- demned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Lorinet, i. 243
Lothringer, Abbe, confesses Fauchet on scaffold, iii. 43
Louchet, commissary, iii. 172 ; demands the decree of accusation against Robespierre in Thermidor, 198 ; but favours the continuation of the Ter- ror, 207
Louis XIV, i. 90, 91, lOl ; jealous of absolute power, 134; 310; ii. 90, 321
Louis XV, i. 90, 100 ; attempts to re- place the Parliaments, 102 ; 119, 263 ; iv. 280
Louis XVI, writers of cahicrs do not
attribute their troubles to him, i. 81 ; loyalty towards, 81-2 ; 84, 86, 87, 88, 89 ; his paternal despotism, 90 ; attempts, like Louis XV, to replace Parliaments by more docile institu- tions, 103, 104, 105 ; alarmed at idea of representative government, 106 ; founds Provincial Assemblies, 108 ; 109 ; his offers of liberties refused, no; 115; confident that the Third Estate will make no demands of im- portance, 132-3 ; denies promises, 134; a weak hypocrite, 135; loses his first chance of heading the Revo- lution, 136-7 ; 138 ; outwitted, 139 ; forms a ministry, 140; dares not use force, 141 ; Paris rises and Louis submits, 142 ; 143 ; still the idol Oi France, 144-5; 156, 163, 165, 169; given a "suspension veto," 171; still sides against people, 172 ; 173, 174; his right to refuse the Consti- tution denied, 175 ; led to Paris by the mob, 176 ; 177, 178 « ; is begged to refuse to sanction the decree of the "silver mark," 200; 203; ac- cepts Constitution, 213-4 ; suspected of betraying France, 220; 221, 224, 225, 248, 249, 250, 251 ; flight to count as abdication, 252 ; 255-8 ; 260-6 ; his character, 261-3 > his treacherous designs, 264 ; his flight, 265 ; his return, 266 ; the nation willing to replace him on the throne, 267 ; 268-9 ; 272, 273, 274, 275 ; 277 ; many groups now consider Louis impossible, 280; 281-4; 286-9 ; the nation decides to try him, 290; 291 ; 298-300; his pres- tige shattered, 305 ; 306-8, 3io«, 311, 312, 314, 323; accepts the Constitution, 332 ; his popularity undiminished, 333-7; 339. 342-51. 353. 354. 361. 363; the people force the Tuileries, 364, 365 ; La Fayette proposes that Louis shall use force, 366 ; the " Kiss of La- mourette," 366-7 ; his guard dis-
INDEX
309
banded, ii, 31 ; refuses sanction to the armed camp before Paris, 32 ; 33, 34 ; feeling that Louis must be re- moved or suspended grows, 36-67 ; the insurrection of August : Louis suspended and imprisoned, 68-73 > 75> 76j 78-82 ; proof of his treason, 83, 84-90, 92-6, 98, 104-9, 1 16-19, 123, 147 ; royalty abolished by de- cree, 148; 148;/, 153, 212-14, 217, 221, 227, 230; voting at his trial, 238-9; 253, 254, 297-305 ; 314 ; iii. 34 ;_^the Girondist vote at his trial, 39 ; 73 ; his approaching execution ac- claimed, 98 ; the vote at his trial, 99 ; the anniversary of his execution to be kept by law, 234 ; iv. 35 ; 53, 63, no, 164, 194, 278
Louis XVII, i. 142 «, 224; ii. 304, 307 ; proclaimed at Lyons and Toulon, 310; 311, 315; iii. 113 «, 120 ; dies in the Temple, 249
Louis XVIII, i. 224 ; appoints Charette general of the insurrection, 250 ; 251, 323. 379 ; iv. 47 ; appears content to await events, 51-2; contrasted with Orleans, 57; 74, 77, 83; the Pichegru conspiracy, 86 ; affects a temporising policy, in ; decides on a fresh insurrection, H2, 113; his generals compelled to treat, 114 ; 119, 142, 153 ; recognised by ^the Pope, 200; 203, 206, 208; the Pope abandons his cause and signs the Concordat, 210; 212; refuses to abdicate, 233 ; 248 ; confers with Barras and writes to Bonaparte, 259 ; 260 ; protests against the Empire, 261 gy
Louis (Bas-Rhin), president of Con- vention, ii. 224 ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, iii. 2I3«, 214 n
Louis-Philippe, i. 172 n ; ii. 176 ; 201 ; iv. 35, 2S0
Loustallot, protests against the "mark of silver," i. 198 ; 199, 200; his aim to arouse the democratic conscious-
ness, 213-4 ; 217 ; his scheme of a referendum, 306 ; ii. 1 30
Louvet, ii. 122 ; president of Conven- tion, 224; iii. 35; a Girondist, 41, 45, 67 ; blamed by Condorcet for the bitterness of his attacks on Robes- pierre, 68; treats the Montagnards as royalists, 73 ; backed up by the Federals, 96 ; votes for Louis' death, 99; arrested with the "Twenty- Two," 112 ; escapes to raise the civil war, 115 ; 116 ; survives the Terror, 122 ; member [of Committee of Public Safety, 216 n ; recalled from outlawry, 239 ; member of Commis- sion of Eleven, 275 ; 308, 374 ; edits the republican journal, the Sentinelle, 381
Louvet (Somme), member ofCommittee of Legislation, iii. 2l2j
Loysel, a Girondist, iii. 41
Lucas-Montigny, i. 149 w
Lu9ay (Mme. de), attached to Mme. Bonaparte, iv. 244
Luckner (General), i. 366
Lucchesini, Prussian Minister in Paris, iv. 260, 263 n
Lucretius, iv. 184
Lulier, ii. 75 ; procurator-syndic of the Department of Paris, iii. 109 ; ac- cused and tried with the Dantonists,
151
Lusurier, i. 235 n
Lutier, Nicolas, a royalist propagand- ist, ii. 313-4 Lycurgus, iv. 249
M
Mably, a royalist writer, i. 83 ; dreams of a " republican monarchy," 92 ; his reasons for upholding monarchies, 97; 113, 115,118; disgust at demo- cracy, 120, 121 ; 131, 199
Mac-Curtain, condemned to deporta- tion in Fructidor, iv. 87
Macdonald, supports Bonaparte in Brumaire, iv, 143 ; 248, 249
310
INDEX
Mackintosh, James, made a French citizen by the Convention, ii. 141
Madier, condemned to deportation in Frtuiidor, iv. 87
Madison, N., created a French citizen by the Convention, ii. 14I
Magenthies, ridicules cult of Supreme Being, iii. 195
Magin, ii. 221 n
Maignet, iii. 119; arrested in Ger- minal, year IV, 244
Maiihe, iii. 225, 303, 372 ; condemned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Maillard, condemned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Maillard (Mme.), i. 235 n
Mailly (Marquis de Chateaurenaud), ii. 222 «
Maisse, a Girondist, iii. 41
Males, president of the Council of 500,
iii- 355
Malet (General), criticises the Empire, iv. 270
Mallarme, president of Convention, ii. 223 ; 239 «, 300 n, 318 ; iii. 196, 255
Mallet du Pan, i. 89 «, now, 115 n, I35»i65, 336; iv. 55-6, 160 «
Malo, iv. 51
Malouet, i. 139, 149, 169, 269, 270, 271, 273 K
Malvaux, i. 235 «
Mandar, Theophile, i. 289 ; converted to republicanism by Cordorcet's eloquence, 298 ; a founder of Theo- philanthropy, iv. 67
Mangin, i. 235 n
Manuel, advises Louis XVI upon his son's education, i. 348-9 ; sus- pended from functions as procurator- general of Commune, 367, ii. 33 ; reinstated, 80 ; 92 ; now a fervid republican, 104 ; 107, 145, 147-8, 161 ; member of Committee of General Security, 231 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; 68, 75 ; executed, 122
Maras, iii. 366
Marat, still monarchical in 1 789, i. 164, 170; favours universal suffrage.
197 ; his statement of the political situation, 209-11; 213, 226, 241 «, 250-2 ; demands a dictator, 280-1 ; in hiding, 321 ; ii. 97, 99, lOO ; be- lieves the people unripe for a republic, 120 ; his relations with Or- leans, 120-1 ; 122, 123, 126; people fear his becoming a " triumvir," 136 ; 227, 234, 236, 303, 312-3 n ; iii. 32, 34> 35> 36 ; the votes upon his im- peachment, 39; 50, 53 «, 57, 59, 64* 73 ; guilty of the September massacres, 74 ; 79 ; his thirst for blood, 80 ; 81 ; is impeached, 82 ; acquitted in triumph and becomes a party leader, 83 ; hatred of the Girondists ; killed by Charlotte Corday, 84 ; popularity after his death, 85 ; his disease, 85 n ; de- spises the people, 86 ; 88, 90, 91, 92 ; Danton disowns him, 93 ; 94, loi, 106, no, 125, 129, 132, 163; his remains deposited in the Pantheon, 23S ; 242 ; iv. 44, 188
Marbos, ii. 222 «; a Girondist, iii. 41
Marbot, president of the Council of Elders, iii. 355
Marceau, killed in Germany, iv. 49 ; 136, 182, 248
Marcel, ii. 47
Marchand, i. 312 « ; iv. 131 n
Mareau, iv. 67
Marec, member of the Committee of Public Safety, iii. 214 «
Marechal, Sylvain, Babeuvist con- spirator, iv. 39 ; socialist verses by, 43 ; atheist, but admitted to the Theophilanthropist sect, 67
Marescot (General),^)irectorial candi- date, iii. 361 ; iv. 136 «
Maret, H. B., iv. 170; 265 n
Marie-Antoinette, her retrograde in- fluence, i. 134, 137 ; 251, 262 ; flight from Paris, 265 ; 275 ; recovered popularity, 335-6 ; Vergniaud threatens her in a speech, 352 ; 364, 366 ; taken to the Temple, S4-5 «, 3"
INDEX
311
Mariette, member of Committee of General Security, iii. 214 « ; 223
Marion, i. 235 n
Marius, i. 223
Marmont, State Councillor under Con- sulate, iv. 171
Marmontel, i. 89 n
Marragon, president of Council of Elders, iii. 354
Martin (Rear- Admiral), Directorial candidate, iii. 360, 361
Martin-Saint-Romain, a Girondist, iii.
41
Martiniana, iv. 206
Martique, ii. 221 w
Massa, a Girondist, iii. 41
Massart, Babeuvist conspirator, iv. 39
Massena, saves France from invasion, iii. 327 ; Directorial candidate, 359- 61 ; iv. 114, 136, 140, 166, 248, 250
Massieu, i. 199; ii. 221 «; iii, 172
Massulard, i. 307
Masuyer, a Girondist, iii. 41
Mathieu, i. 235 «, 307 n ; ii. 146 ; president of Convention, 224 ; mem- ber of Committee of Public Safety, later commissary, 239 ; 240 ; iii. 107 ; member of Committee of General Security, 214 « ; of the Commission of Seven, 273
Mathiez, H., iv. 276 n
Mathon, ii. 221 n
Maubac, i. 312 w
Maubant, i. 235 «
Maucher, i. 235 n
Maudard, i. 102 n
Maupeou, i. 104
Maure, ii. 118; member of Committee of General Security, ii. 232 ; liber- ates religious prisoners, 239; 271; iii. 102, 178, 179
Maury, i. 81 n, 162 n ; royalist agent in Rome, iv. 200
Mauiottchet, i. 300 «
Mazade-Percin (de), ii. 222 n
Mazue [Mazuel], president of the "Central Committee of Federals," i. 54 «
Meaulle, member of Committee of
General Security, ii. 232, iii. 214 « Meda, gendarme, claimed to have shot
Robespierre, iii. 201 Medicis, Catherine de, iv. 82 Mt'ge, Francisque, i. 120 «, 147 «,
300 n ; ii. 90 Mehee de la Touche, assistant secretary
to the Commune, offers to assassinate
any future monarch, ii. 93 ; iii. 381 ;
an agent provocateur, iv. 262 Meillan, iii. 35 ; a Girondist, 4I ; his
opinion of Brissot, 58-9 Menant, ii. 57 Menessier, Babeuvist conspirator, iv.
45
Menou (General), employed by the Convention in Prairial, iii. 246
Mercier, i. 235 n ; member of the "Commission of Six," ii. 171 ; 194, 220 ; a Girondist, iv. 41, 223
Mercy (de), Bishop of Lucon, advises priests to take oath, iv. 90
Merlin (Douai), president of Conven- tion, ii. 224 ; member of Committee of Pubhc Safety, iii. 215 «, 216 »; protests against suppression of de- fence before the Revolutionary Tri- bunal, 231 ; 239 ; member of the Commission of Seven, 273 ; of Eleven, 275 ; elected Director, 359 ; resigns, 361 ; Minister of Justice, 362 ; Carnot proposes his dismissal, iv. 83 ; 88, 126 ; compelled to resign ; the republicans attempt his execution, 128
Merlin (Thionville), a Cordelier, i. 340; speaks of republican attitude of Soissons, ii. 107; 122; president of Convention, 224 ; iii. 75, 99, 208 ; president of Committee of Legis- lation, 212 «; member of Com- mittee of General Security, 213 «, 214 n, 224
Merlino, iv. 168
Mersan, recalled to Legislature in Prairial, year V, iv. 54 ; accused of monarcliioal tendencies by Mallet
312
INDEX
du Pan, 56 ; condemned to deporta- tion, 87
" Mesdames " (the King's aunts), i. 251
Metge, shot after illegal trial in the year IX, iv. 188
Meunier, 1. 313
Michaud, i. 89 n, ii. 84 n, 239, 252 n
Michaud (Doubs), member of Com- mittee of General Security, ii. 232
Michel, a Girondist, iii. 41
Michelet, i. 312^, 313 «
Michelet (Creuse), a commissary, iii. 367
Mignet, iv. 159 «
Mijon, ii. 57
Milet de Mureau, Minister of War under the Directory, iii. 362
Milhaud, iii. 138
Milton, ii. 303
Minvielle, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; tried as one of the " Twenty-Two," 121
Miot, ii. 221 n
Miot de Melito, iv. 170, 184W, 234
Mique, i. 235 n
Mirabeau, a resolute royalist, i. 85, 98 ; praises American Declaration of Independence, 114; 138, 149 w ; hostile to a French Declaration, 151 ; 153 '^ ; speaks upholding absolute religious liberty, 155 ; favours abso- lute royal veto, 172 ; 177 ; hostile to idea of privileged middle class, 189 ; 193 ; in favour of the "three days' labour " tax, 197; his idea that the King shall champion the people against the reaction, 200 ; 261, 262, 283, 324, 351 ; ii. 120; iii. 90, 286; iv. 139, 182, 278, 280
Miranda (General), condemned to de- portation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Mirande, iii. 355
Mireur, i. 118 »
Mittie, i. 234
Moene, fills Hebert's place as assistant national agent, iii. 149
Moisson, Frangois, commander of the Marseillais Federals, ii. 46
Moitte (Mme.), i. 235 «
Mollein, i. 235 «
MoUevaut, one of the " Valaze Com- mittee," iii. 35 ; a Girondist, 41 ; accused of complicity with the rebels, 116; president of Elders, 355
Moltedo, ii. 222 «
Momoro, i. 247 «, 320, 340, 361 n ; ii. 60 ; arrested for preaching agrarian law, 1^2 n ; author of a socialist Declaration of Rights, 133 ; 133 « ; 134; tried with the Hebertists, iii, 148
Moncey (General), defeats Spain, iii. 248
Monestier (Lozere), iii. 83, 173 ; taxes imposed by, 175 «
Monestier (Puy-de-D6me), ii. 222 n
Monge, i. 235 n
Monge, Minister of Marine, ii. 73 ; ardent republican, 150, 153, 214 ; elected an Elder, iii. 342 ; Directorial candidate, 359; iv. 119, 139; given the senatory of Liege, 253 n
Monk (General), iv. 259
Monmayou, member of the Committee of General Security, iii. 219 «; ad- vises the establishment of Decadal fetes, iv. 100
Monnel, ii. 222 «
Monneron, Louis, ii. 221 »
Monsieur (the Comte de Provence, later Louis XVIII, whom see), escapes from France at time of King's flight, i. 265 ; 275 ; assumes regency, ii. 311 ; Frotte assures the Normans he is about to land (1799), iv. 113
Montaigne, i. 97
Montaudouin, i. 235 «
Montaut (de), ii. 222 «; member of Committee of Public Security, ii. 231
Montesquieu, prefers a monarchy of the English type, i. 83 ; his classic definition of a republic, 92 ; his writings republican in their effect, 93 ; 94, 164; ii. 217; iii. 314; iv. 183
Montesquiou, ii. 158
INDEX
313
Montier, A., i. 283 «
Montlosier, ideas as to suffrage, i. 183 ; 189
Montmorency (Comte de), i. 148
Montmorin (Comte de), writes that religion and the throne are threatened, i. 224 ; iii. 77
Montpensier (Due de, son of Due d'Orleans), i. 275 n ; is liberated and sails for America, iv. 57
Monvel, iii. 166
Moreau, ii. 220 ; operations on the Rhine, iv. 49 ; called to Paris in Fructidor, 88 ; accused of Babeuvism, 120 n; honoured by Bonaparte, 139 ; Sieyes wishes to make use of him, 140 ; consents to co-operate in the coup-ititat of Brumaire, 143 ; made commandant of the Luxembourg guard, 145; arrests Gohier and Moulin, 146 ; victorious at Hohen- linden, 208 ; 248 ; the hope of the opposition, 250-1 ; arrested for con- spiracy, 257 ; 262, 271
Moreau (Yonne), president of the Council of Elders, iii. 355 ; iv. 131
Moreau de Saint-Mery, iv. 171
Moreaux, i. 235 n
Morgan (General), condemned to de- portation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Morisson, threatened by Catholic peasants, iii. 171
Moroy, trial of, as Babeuvist conspira- tor, iv. 45
Morris, Gouverneur, United States minister, i. 88 « ; 165-6, 253
Mortimer- Ternaux, ii. 59 n ; iii. 70
Mossy, Auguste, ii. 43 n
Moteville, Bertrande de, i. 351
Moulin (General), i. 235 «, iii. 242; Directorial candidate, 360 ; Director, 361, iv. 126; 128, 136 «, 144; his part in the events of Brumaire, 146,
147 Mounier, i. 87 ; indirectly, although a monarchist, undermines the mon- archy, 98; 116, 139 «, 146; consti- tutional proposals, 150, 151, 166;
his draft constitution, 168, 169 ;
proposes two Chambers, 172-3, 174,
174 «, I76w,'i77«, 1 80 ; recommends
qualified suffrage, 182 Mounier, iv. 250
Mouraille, mayor of Marseilles, ii. 43 Mouret, points out absurdities of the
ballot, i. 204 Mourre, ii. 220 w Moysset, a Girondist, iii. 41 Mugnet de Nanthou, author of a report
on Louis' flight, i. 272, 307 Muraire, iii. 323 ; president of Council
of Elders, 354 ; iv. 52 ; condemned
to deportation in Fructidor, 87 ;
State Councillor under the Consulate,
approves Bonaparte's Constitution,
237
Muret, Th.,iv. 11$ n
Murinais, deported to Guiana in Fructi- dor, 87, 87 w
Musquinet de Saint - Felix, i. 235 «,
319 Musset, ii. 222 n ; his letter describing the enthusiasm for the Republic shown in September, 1793, on the occasion of reviewing levies, 319
N
Naigeon, iv. 223
Napoleon I . , grants pensions to all priests accepting the Concordat, iv. 222 ; puts an end to secularisation as republican, 224 ; other favours granted to Catholicism, 225 ; the enthusiasm with which the masses rally to him reduces the educated republicans to impotence, 257-8, 258/2 ; royalist-clerical opposition to the senatus consultus establishing the throne, 271 ; his arbitrary method of imprisoning opponents, 274, 275 ; "Emperor by the Constitutions of the Republic," and "by the grace of God and the Constitutions," 276; his tyranny becomes capricious, 277 ; 279, 290
314
INDEX
Narbonne, i. 351, 360,11 . 77
Naudon, iv, 120 n
Naugaro de St.-Paul, iii. 175 n
Nauroy, Ck., concerning the question of Barras' alleged treason, iv. 115
Necker, attempts to persuade Louis to representative Government, i. 106 ; his scheme of pacific reform refused, 134; reads an expurgated report, 136; dismissed by Louis, 140; his bust carried in procession, 142 «, 143 n ; 262
Nero, i. 223
Nicolas, Ch., i. 308 «
Nioche, i. 316 «
Noailles (Mme. de), iv. 182
Noailles (Vicomte de), i. 167 n, con- demned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Nodier, Charles, partly responsible for the term " Girondists," iii. 32
Noel, Louis, i. 235 n, 307 n; a Girondist, iii. 41
Noussiton, demands universal suffrage, i. 184, 1S5
O
Obelin, a Girondist, iii. 41
CElsner, i. 282 n
Olivier, i. 223
Olivier-Gerente, a Girondist, iii. 41
Orange (Princesse d'), i. 347
Orleans (Due d'), i. 81 n, 142 n, 143 n ; the Ami dii peuple states that he showed himself to the people as a candidate for the throne on the day of the King's flight, 275 « ; possibly aims at a regency, 283, 283 n ; withdraws owing to distrust felt by the people, 2S4 ; 284 n ; excluded, with all Bourbons, from the throne or a regency, ii. 61 ; was there an Orleanist party after August loth? 1 19-120; Marat flatters him and begs from him, 120-12 1 ; takes name of Egalite, 121 ; elected to Convention, 121-122 ; did Danton or Marat desire to help him to the
throne? 123, 222 k; Cambon states Danton plotted to place Orleans on the throne, iii. 113^; apparently the existence of an Orleanist party after the Due's death was largely imaginary, iv. 57, 58
Orleans (Due d'), the younger, see Chartres (Due de)
Orleans (Duchesse d'), iv. 58
Orry de Mauperthuy, i. 197
Osselin, member of the Committee of General Security, ii. 232
Oudot, member of the Committee of Legislation, iii. 212 w
Pache, i. 316 w; member of Revolu- tionary Commune, 75 ; Minister of War, ii. 215; iii. 34; Mayor of Paris, 98 ; leads the sections to the bar of the Convention to demand the exclusion of the "Twenty-Two," 102, 108; Ii3«; Cordelier con- spiracy to set him at the head of a new Government, 147 ; arrested, 149 ; 247
Pacuvius, iv. 176
Paganel, ii. 202, 222 n, 272 ; iii. 33 «, 50 n ; his account of Brissot, 61 ; loi ; proscribed, 324
Paine, Thomas, i. 84 ; the effect of his "Common Sense," 112; 254 «; his letter to Sieyes, favouring a republic, 293 ; 295, 347 ; elected four times over to the Convention, ii. 118; created French citizen by the same, 141 ; member of the Commit- tee of Constitution, 161 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; 46 ; anxious to save Louis' life, 98 ; in favour of universal suffrage, 282 ; proscribed, 324 ; iv. 66
Palasne-Champeaux, persuaded to abandon Robespierre, iii. 196
Panis, i. 323; ii. 136; member of the Committee of General Security, 232 ; 233; iii. 75, 83; arrest ordered by the Commune in Thermidor, 200
INDEX
315
Paoli, iii. 120 «, 121 »
Paradis, president of Council of Elders,
iii- 354
Pare, ii. 215
Parent, iv. 69
Paris, i. 235 «
Parny, iii. 262
Parrein, ii. 57; acquitted in the Babeuf trial, iv. 45
Pastoret, i, 341 ; president of Legisla- tive Assembly, 345 ; of Council of 500, iii. 354 ; claims absolute liberty of the Press, 374 ; 377 n ; iv. 52, 56, 87
Pauw, Corneille, created French citizen by the Convention, ii. 141
Pavie, condemned to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Payan, ii. 219 ; appointed national agent, iii. 149; 188; requests the Com- mune to declare itself in insurrec- tion upon news of decree against Robespierre, 199; guillotined, 202
Pelet (Lozere), president of Convention, ii. 223 ; member of Committee of Public Safety, iii. 215 ; objects that a Constitution would be premature, 270 ; 274, 324 ; president of the Council of 500, 354; iv. 170, 205, 224 n, 264 n
Pelissier, priest, deported for walking abroad in procession and wearing vestments, iv. 94
Pellenc, ii. 64
Pellissier, departmental commissary, iii. 366
Peltier, ii. 300
Pemartin, member of Committee o General Security, iii. 214
Penieres, puts forward scheme for electing Directors, iii. 303 ; sent "on mission," iv. 157 ; member of Tri- bunate, 172
Pepin - Degrouhette, i. 234, 235 «, 307 n ; member of Committee of Legislation, iii. 212 «
Peres, member of Committee of Legis- lation, iii. 212 «
Pericles, the type of ruler conceived by early republicans, i. 340, iii. 47
Peries, a Girondist, iii. 41
Perlet, ii. 69 n ; speaks of cries of joy when the Terrorists were executed, iii. 202
Perrin (Vosges), member of Committee of General Security, iii. 214; presi- dent of Council of Elders, 355
Perroud, iii. 254
Pestalozzi, N. , created a French citizen by the Convention, ii. 141
Petiet, Minister of War under the Directory, iii. 362 ; State Councillor in section of War under the Con- sulate, iv. 171
Petion, i. 183 ; a democratic leader, 213 ; wishes to improve the mon- archy, 256 ; escorts Louis XVI back to Paris from Varennes, 265 ; 271 Mme. Roland's statement that Petion was already privately a re- publican, 271 « ; 273 ; demands an elective executive, 273 w; 308, 316, 318 ; elected president of the Criminal Court, 324; member of the Committee of Constitution, 326 ; enthusiasm of the people for, 337 ; warns Buzot that the bourgeoisie will turn against the people, 349 ; Mayor o Paris, 351 n ; 353, 362 ; suspended from functions as mayor, 367 ; reinstated, ii. 33 ; 47 n, 48, 57 « ; 60 ; demands the downfall of the Bourbons, 65 ; retained as mayor by the Revolutionary Commune, 75; 80, 93, 144 ; president of the Con- vention at the time of the decree abolishing royalty, 145-6 ; member of the Committee of Constitution (1792), 161 ; 223 ; president of the Committee of General Defence, 235 ; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 236 ; a Girondist, iii. 32, 34, 38, 41 ; refuses help of royalists at Caen, 47 ; 48 ; the first of the Girondists to claim that death should be the fate of defeated parties, 50 ;
316
INDEX
51 ; did not shun the Federal hatred of Paris, 56 ; 66 ; neutral at the opening of the Convention, he finally turns against Robespierre, 68 ; 92 ; re-elected mayor, re- signs, 98 ; votes for Louis' death, 99 ; 102 ; excluded with the "Twenty-Two"; escapes, to raise civil war; outlawed, 116; found dead, 123
Petit, i. 235 «; a Girondist, iii. 41
Petra, i. 235 n
Peyre, i. 307 «, 313 ; a Girondist, iii. 41
Peyssard, ii. 222 n ; arrested and tried in Prairial, iii. 246
Philippe II, iv. 82
Philippe-Delleville, a Girondist, iii.
Philippe-Egalite (see Due d'Orleans), ii. 121, 121 «, 122, 298;! iii. 73, 74; iv. 57
Philippeaux, ii. 147 ; arrested with Danton, &c., 245, 251 ; an inde- pendent, iii. 92 ; decries the Com- mittee of Public Safety, 144 ; arrest, trial, and execution, 150, 151
Pichegru, commandant of Paris in Germinal, iii. 244; president of Council of 500, 354, iv. 54; 56; in communication with the Pre- tender, 83, 85 ; condemned to deportation in Fructidor, 87 ; de- ported to Guiana, but escapes, 87 « ; 167.; joins a royalist con- spiracy and is arrested, 262 ; hangs himself in prison, 263
Picquet, ii. 219, 220, 221 n
Pierachi, Conte di. Papal agent, iv.
77 Pierre, secretary to the Committee of
Public Safety, ii. 240 Pierret, member of Committee of
General Security, iii. 214 « Pierron, iv. 120 n Pilastre, a Girondist, iii. 41 Pille (General), ii. 220 ; Directorial
candidate, iii. 361 ; iv. 136 «
Pinet, denounces Hispano-royalist con- spiracy, ii. 318
Pison du Galand, president of Council of 500, iii. 355
Pitt, iii. loi, 135, iv. 185
Pius VI, dies a prisoner at Valence, iv. 96
Pius VII, recognises Louis XVIII as King of France, iv. 200 ; enters into negotiations with Bonaparte, 206, 207, 209, 211, 212, 213, 216, 218, 221
Plasse, ii. 57
Pleville - le - Pelley, Foreign Minister under the Directory, iii. 362
Pocholle, ii. 222 n
Poisson, i. 235 n ; president of Council of Elders, iii. 355
Poix, Prince de, iii. 77
Polignac, Princes, the, join Cadoudal, iv. 262
Polissart, recalled to Legislature, iv.
54 Pollart, iii. 342 Pollet, B., i. 235 «, iii. 77 n Pollio, ii. 47 n Pomiro, sen., iii. 175 » Pomiro (the American) iii. I75» Pomme, Andre, demands that the new
Declaration of Rights (1793) shall
recognise a Supreme Being, ii. 174,
iii. 45 Poncelin, iii. 252 « ; decoyed to
Luxembourg and thrashed, 381 Pongeard-Dulimbert, iii. 358 Pons (Verdun), i. 323; member of
Committee of Legislation, iii.
212 « ; president of Council of
500. 355
Porches, member of Committee of Legislation, iii. 212 « ; 346
Port, dies tin, ii. 306 n
Portalis, iii. 323 ; elected an Elder, 325 ; 346 ; president of Council of Elders, 354 ; condemned to deporta- tion in Fructidor, iv. 87 ; favours the secret and official control of the Press, 176/?; present at the new Consular
INDEX
347
court, 182; 205, 216; State and Privy Councillor, 237, 265 n, 268
Portiez (Oise), iii. 342
Potonnier, ii. 219
Pettier, Ch., Directorial candidate, iii. 361
Pothean, i. 235 «
Pouchet, G., iii. 256 «
Poulain, i. 235 n
Poullain-Grandprey, president of the Council of 500, iii. 355
Poultier, ii. 222 n ; proposes a Presi- dent and three Councillors, iii. 302
Poumier, i. 235 n
Praire-Montaud, condemned to de- portation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Praslin, iv. 265
Precy (de), royalist, holds Lyons, iii. 119 ; upon capitulation cuts his way out and escapes, 120; chief military royalist agent, iv. 50
Pressac des Planches, iii. 366
Pressensi (de), iii. 266 n
Prevelle, i. 235 n
Priestley, Joseph, created a French citizen by the Convention, ii. 141
Prieur (Cote-d'Or), president of the Convention, ii. 224 ; elected to Com- mittee of Public Safety, 242 ; 247, 248 ; imprisoned by department of Calvados, 115 ; 215 ; iv. 247
Prieur (Marne), i. 191, 273 ; rallies the army of the Ardennes to the Re- public, ii. 157; president of the Convention, 224 ; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 236 ; 242 ; 247 ; sent as commissary to La Vendee, 257; iii. 77 «, 169 w, 209, 215 ; one of the Commission of Four of the ist of Prairial, 245 ; escapes before trial, 246 ; a leader of the Reunion of the Manage, iv.
131 ; 247
Projean, iii. 355
Prost, i. 299
Provence (Comte de, see Monsieur and
Louis XVIII), letter to, ii. 300 ;
lives at Hamm, nursing a reactionary
policy, 311 ; on death of Louis XVII in the Temple assumes title of King, 249
Puisaye (Comte de), royalist supporter of Louis XVIII, fears and abuses young Orleans, iv. 57 ; meets other agents in London to decide on future policies, no
Puzin, i. 235 n
Quatremere-Quincy, iv. 56 ; con- demned to deportation, 87
Queinnec, a Girondist, iii. 41
Qudrard, i. 84 «
Quinette, ii. 147 ; member of the Com- mittee of General Defence, 236 ; president of the Council of 500, iii. 354; Minister of the Interior under the Directory, 363
Quirot, president of the Council of 500, iii. 355 ; a commissary, 367 ; iv. 119
R
Rabaut-Pomier, advises the division of large municipalities, ii. 182 ; 222 n ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; member of Committee of Public Safety,
2l6«
Rabaut-Saint-Etienne, proves that in 1789 there was no republican party, i. 166; absolutely converted to republicanism by Louis XVI 's treachery, ii. 98 ; swears eternal hatred of royalty, 1 14 ; secretary to the Convention, 145; 171, 222 m; president of Convention, 223 ; 234 ; a Girondist, iii. 41 ; half a socialist, 68 ; portrait of Robespierre attri- buted to his pen, 87 ; seeks to re- concile Paris and the departments, 93 ; votes for Louis XVI's imprisonment, 08-9 ; arrested with the " Twenty- 1 wo," 112; Saint-Just proposes to call him to the Convention, 116; . .ecuted, 122; demanded a supple-
318
INDEX
mentary social revolution, 126, 127,
128, 130, 133, 13s Rabaut, jun., iv. 102 Rabusson-Lamothe, ii. 89, Sgn Rambaud, A., i. 142 n Ramel de Nogaret, i. 190; Minister of
Finance under the Directory, iii.
363 ; his dismissal demanded by the
Legislative Corps, iv. 83 Ramel, D. V., ii. 184 ; associated with
the Committee of Public Safety for
purpose of drafting the Constitution
(1793), 239 ; 240 ; appointed to
Committee of Public Safety, iii. 107 ;
suggests progressive impost as a
war- tax, 134 ; 196 Ramel, commandant of the Grenadiers
of the Legislative Corps, iv. 51 ;
condemned to deportation, 87 ; sent
to Guiana, but escapes, 87 n Rapinat, iv. 123 Rathery, i. 98 n Raynal (Abbe), author of a history of
the American Revolution, i. 84, 84 n ;
although a monarchist, indirectly
undermines the throne, 98 Real, proposes Orleans as regent during
the suspension, i. 284 n ; 286 n ;
proposes a scheme of taxation, iii.
135; 3S1 ; iv. 120 «, 171, 246 ?z Rebecquy, a Girondist, iii. 41 Recamier, Mme. , hostess of a bourgeois
salon, iii. 239 Redon, i. 235 «, iv. 171 Redon-Beaupreau, Directorial candi- date, iii. 359 Regnaud (Saint-Jean-d'Angely), State
Councillor under Consulate, iv. 171 ;
Privy Councillor, 265 n Regnault, i. 235 n Regnier, president of Council of
Elders, iii. 355 ; proposes, in Bru-
maire, that the Councils meet at
Saint-Cloud and instruct Bonaparte,
iv. 144-5 ; 158 ; Chief Justice, iv.
265 Reinhard, Minister of Justice, I'jon;
171 ; member of the Council which
approves Bonaparte's Constitution, 237 ; Privy Councillor, 265 n
Remaseilles, i. 235 n
Remusat (Mme. de), attached to Mme. Bonaparte, iv. 244 ; 275 n
Renault, ii. 222 «
Renault, Cecile, suspected of the in- tention to kill Robespierre, iii. 190, 194
Renault (Orne), iii. 362 »
Roiouvier, J., his account of the en- gravings of Days issued by the Revolutions de Paris, i. 363 n
Retz (Cardinal de), speaks of hearing the cry The Republic ! in 1649, 82
Reubell, i. 184, 191 ; a Feuillant, though later a democrat, ^16 n; opposes the electors' tax, 328 ; president of Con- vention, ii. 224 ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, iii. 214 « ; of Public Safety, 2l6n; Director, 325, 358, 364; iv. 60; in Fructidot the leaders of the Council of 500 decide to impeach him and two other Directors, 85 ; 123 ; replaced by Sieyes, 125 ; the advanced republicans seek his death, 128
Reverchon, member of the Committee of General Security, iii. 214 «
Reynaud, a departmental commissary, iv. 366
Ribereau, a Girondist, iii. 41
Richard, member of the Committee of Public Safety, iii. 215, 215 «
Richard, sen., i. 320
Richer de Serisy, iii. 240, 251 «, 377
Richou, a Girondist, iii. 41
Richou (Eure), advises the Assembly to capitulate (on June 2nd), iii. Ill
Ricord, involved in the Babeuf con- spiracy, iv. 39 ; acquitted, 45
Riou, president of the Council of 500,
iii- 354 Riouffe, member of the Constitutional
Club, iv. 36 Rivarol, warns politicians against the
people, i. I50W
INDEX
319
Rivaud, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; elected to the Council of Elders, 341
Rivery, a Girondist, iii. 41
Riviere (Marquis de), arrested as an accomplice of Cadoudal, iv. 263
Roberjot, ii. 222 n ; member of Com- mittee of General Security, iii. 214 «
Robert, Francois, his character, i. 221 ; his journal, 221 n ; a republican in 1790, 223 ; 223 n ; publishes a volume on Republicanism adapted to France, 223 ; federates the People's Clubs, 237; president of the "Fraternal Society of the Two Sexes," 234 ; 235 ; taking a republican petition from the Cordeliers to the Assembly, is arrested, 281, 281 «; released, 282 ; the Jacobins refuse to join the Cordeliers in demanding the Repub- lic, 282 ; 304, 312 « ; draws up another republican petition, 313 ; in hiding, 321, 321 n ; objects to the term " Federals," ii. 50; his journal pro- poses the suspension of Louis until the end of the war, 56 ; 56 « ; a member of the Revolutionary Com- mune, 75 ; the RJvohitions de Paris, said to be edited by him, demands the Republic as the only means of saving France, 95 ; elected to the Convention, loi ; a member of the Jacobin Committee of Constitution, 163 ; draws up a petition justifying the Jacobins, 76; iv. 119
Robert, Louise (Mme. Robert), marries Robert, i. 221 ; co-edits the Mercure, 2zin; Mme. Roland's account of her, 222 ; foundress of the republican party, 222 ; 222 n ; the party has its rise in her salon, 225 ; admitted to the "Fraternal Society," 235 ; takes the name of Sister Louise Robert, 236 ; 250; opposed by Mme. Roland, 254, 254 « ; 255 ; her salon, 259 ; 323 ; ii. 100 n
Robespierre, a monarchist in 1789, i. 86 ; seeks to improve the monarchy, 164 ; 169 ; a worshipper of Rousseau,
180; upholds universal suffrage, 184, 184 w, 185; 187, 187 «, 192;?, 194; a democrat leader, 213 ; 215 « ; states that the King is the delegate of the nation, 218; 220; recognises in- equality of wealth as a "necessary evil," 230 ; 237 ; leads the campaign against the property qualification, 239; eulogises the people, 210; influence of this speech, 210 «, 211, 211 n; 246, 256, 261 ; demands an election to decide Louis' fate, 273 ; 278, 308 ; denies that he is either a republican or a monarchist, 309 ; 309«, 3io«, 311, 311;^, 316 ; elected Public Prosecutor, 324 ; 327 ; wel- comed with delirious enthusiasm by the people (with Petion), 337 ; fore- sees that war will mean loss of liberty, 332 ; 336 ; induces Desmou- lins to help him to fight the republi- cans, 358 ; 359 ; favours constitutional monarchy, 360, 361 ; ii. 34 «, 39; indoctrinates the Federals at the Jacobins, 49 ; still a constitutional royalist, 50 ; 51 ; demands Louis' suspension, 53, 53 n ; 54 n, 59 ; a member of the Revolutionary Com- mune, 75 ; 91 ; his conversion to republicanism begins, 97 ; 99, 100, 100 «, loi, III n ; protests against the candidature of Orleans for the Convention, 122 ; denounces a plot in favour of Brunswick, 124 ; demands universal suffrage once more, 127 ; people fear a triumvirate of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, 136 ; Bar- baroux declares that Panis stated he should be Dictator, 136 « ; 140, 143, 160, 163 ; a member of the Jacobin Auxiliary Committee of Con- stitution, 163 ; 175 ; his famous declaration of the right to work, 176 ; professes to be a socialist, 177 ; 178 ; preaches decentralisation, 179; 189, 190, 193, 194, 195 ; abandons his socialistic ideas, 198 ; his dictator- ship feared, 202 ; 209 ; president of
320
INDEX
Convention, 223, 229 ; 235 ; on the second Committee of General Defence, 236 ; 239 ; on the Com- mittee of Public Safety, 242, 246 ; 248, 249, 251; directs the section of General Police, 253 ; 266 ; wishes to weaken the Commune by means of the Committees of Surveillance, 268 ; becomes the terror of the Convention, 283 ; makes use of the Revolutionary Tri- bunal to rid himself of his personal enemies, 286 ; deprives accused of counsel, 286 ; founds a Popular Com- mission at Orange, 288 ; 288 n ; his triumph in the Convention, iii. 31 ; Buzot and Petion forsake him, 38 ; reproaches the Girondists as atheists, 43 ; his pietism, 44 ; accepts the " civil religion " of Rousseau, 45 ; 46 ; his dreams of a Spartan republic, 47 ; turns Paris against Roland, 57 ; 64 ; irritated by Gensonne, 65 ; 67, 68 ; he defines the Mountain, 71 ; 73, 74, 78, 79 ; disowns Marat, 80 ; his popularity as the apostle of democ- racy, 85 ; believes the people to be reasonable and virtuous, 86 ; 86 « ; his egoism, 87 ; slanders the Giron- dists, who deride his pontifical airs, 88; 88 «, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94; Louvet accuses him, 96 ; 97, 99, 102, 107 ; his excuse for the insurrection of June 2nd, 112 ; II3«, 114; saves the 75 Girondists who sign the protest against the arrest of the "Twenty-Two," 121; appears a socialist from policy, 131 ; in oppo- sition to Danton and Hebert, 144 ; 146 ; 147 ; having destroyed the Ilebertists, decides to attack Danton, 149; 150; protests against anti- religious violence, 164 ; pretends that atheists are foreign agents, 165 ; " Reply to the manifestoes of the Kings, &c.," 166; farthers a decree ratifying the liberty of worship, 167 ; at the height of the dechrist-
ianising movement prepares to intro- duce the cult of the Supreme Being, 173 ; I79> 181, 182 ; presents his religious project, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, i88«, 189; Cecile Renault's supposed attempt on his life, 190 ; regarded generally as a tyrant, 192 ; except by the people, 193 ; the vic- tory of Fleurus proves the futility of his bloodthirsty methods, 194 ; the Terror depends on him, 194-5 » the conspiracy hatched, 195 ; Barras reads a report censuring further severities, 195 ; Robespierre's reply, 195-6 ; he demands the purgation of the Com- mittees and denounces many members of Convention, re-reading the speech before the Jacobins, 196; the Con- vention declares itself permanent, decreeing the arrest of Hanriot : cries of " Tyrant ! " 197 ; refused speech and accused ; his arrest demanded, 198 ; arrested, 199 ; refused entrance to the prisons, he escapes to the Hotel de Ville, 200 ; found wounded, 201 ; guillotined, 202 ; 207, 208, 209 «, 222, 223, 224, 228, 230, 231, 232, 235, 236, 237, 238, 252, 254, 269, 295, 302, 312, 313, 346; iv. 38, 118, 139, 251, 254, 259, 278, 279
Robespierre, jun., frees peasants im- prisoned on account of their religion, ii. 259; iii. 83, 112; his humanity "on mission," 179; asks to share his brother's fate, 199 ; attempts suicide, 201 ; guillotined, 202
Robespierre (the sister of), granted a pension by Bonaparte, iv. 188 »
Robin, Z., i. 167 n
Robinet, Dr., author of a life of Danton, iii. 91
Robois (de), i. 235 »
Rochecot (de), iv. 51 «
Rochegrede (de), ii. 222 «
Rocquain, F., iv. 17 1 «
Roederer, i. 187 ; favours qualified suffrage, 193 ; moves that the King's
INDEX
321
name be omitted from the form of oath, 268 ; 269, 270 n, 271 « ; elected judge, 324 ; elected procurator-gene- ral-syndic by the democrats, 340 ; writes in support of the Republic, ii. 98 ; ignores the fact in later life, 98 M ; present at meetings of the Girondist party, iii. 33 ; 127, 276 ; iv. I34«; present at the famous meeting between Bonaparte and Sieyes, 159; 160 n; Councillor of State, 171; I75«; favours secular instruction, 194 ; 203, 205 ; recom- mends a plebiscite on the question of the life-Consulate, 230 ; 232, 237 ; Privy Councillor, in favour of the Empire, 263 Rohan (Cardinal de), i. 199 Roland, i. 222 n, 280 ; selected by Louis to form a ministry with Du- mouriez, 353 ; 355 ; ii. 45, 57 ; dis- missed by Louis, is recalled by the Assembly, 73; 94, 120, 150, 153 Minister of the Interior, 215 ; in- herits Dan ton's influence, 216; 217 ; makes the Executive Council un- popular, 218 ; 235 ; iii. 33, 34 ; often assisted or represented by his wife, 37, 38 ; his responsibility in the September massacres, 51 ; 52, 53^; writes against the preponderant in- fluence of Paris, 55, 55 n ; falls from power in attempting to prevent this state of affairs, 57 ; 58, 59, 67 ; de- mands a Guard for the Assembly, 92 ; 94 ; expelled by the Jacobins, 97 ; his pamphlets burned by the Commune, 98 ; forced to resign, 100; a refugee on June 2nd, 112; kills himself at the news of his wife's death, 122 Roland (Mme.), still a monarchist : her account of Mme. Robert, i. 222 ; 222 n ; finally joins certain of the clubs, 235 ; attacks the bourgeoisie, 238 ; republican by instinct, 254 ; 254 w; 263, 271 w; converted to republicanism by the King's flight, VOL. IV.
280 n ; states that Danton recom- mended a regency, 283 ; 300, 3io«, 212 n; the Roberts ask her to shelter them, 321 « ; opinion of the Con- stitution, ii. 64 «; i63«; her con- tempt of the Constitution of 1793, 201 ; her place in the Girondist party, iii. 32 ; 32 « ; her preponder- ant influence, 37 ; her influence over and love of Buzot, 38 ; the idol of her party, 39 ; 46, 47, 48, 49, 49 n, 52, 54, 56, 57 ; Guadet the tool of her hatred, 63 ; her character, 65 ; her fastidious and partial judgment, 66 ; Buzot her mouthpiece, 67 ; 87 ; initiatrix of the campaign against Paris, 92 ; imprisoned by the Com- mune, 112; guillotined, 122; iv. 248, 280
Romme, member of the " Commission of Six," ii. 171, 172 ; president of Convention, 223 ; iii. 83 ; imprisoned when commissary, 115; taxes the wealthy, 143 ; a dechristianiser, 158; tried after the famine riots of Prairial, commits suicide, 246 ; iv. 131 «
Roncy (de), i. 235 n
Rondelet, ii. 221 «
Ronsin, head of the " Revolutionary Army," executed with the Hebert faction, iii. 148
Rossee, president of the Council of Elders, iii. 354
Rossignol, ii. 57 ; member of the Revolutionary Commune, 75 ; in- volved in the Babeuvist conspiracy, iv. 39 ; absent from the trial, is acquitted, 45 ; deported, 187
Rouault, a Girondist, iii. 41
Rouge, leads royalist troops against Toulouse, iv. 113
Rouget de Lisle, author of the Mar- seillaise, ii. 47 ; the success of his " Hymn of Revenge," iv. 135 «
Rousseau, J. J., believed in republican- ism only for small countries, i. 83, 95; by democracy he means "the
21
322
INDEX
middle order," 122 ; fears the popu- lace, 131 ; Marat's admiration of, 164 ; against universal suffrage, 179 ; could not have been an elector or eligible under qualified suffrage, 189, 198 ; 228, 286, 298, 306, 326, 348 ; ii. 137 «; his influence on Mme. Roland, iii. 38 ; 43 ; Robespierre borrows his " civil religion," 45 ; 78, 88, 184, 189; his remains removed to the Pantheon, 238 ; iv. 164 ; honoured by Theophilanthropists, 69
Rousseau, elected to the Council of Elders, iii. 341 ; president of the same, 354
Roussel, iii. 367
Rousselin de Saint-Albin, iv. 127
Roux (ex-Abbe), iii. 129
Roux, Jacques, declaims furiously against financial jobbery, iii. 132
Roux (Haute-Marne), ii. 222 n ; mem- ber of the Committee of Public Safety, iii. 215 w
Roux-Fazillac, letters from concerning the continual practice of Catholicism, iii. 172 ; 366 ; chef de bureau in charge of correspondence with the commissaries, 368 n
Rouyer, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; iv. 78 n
Rouzet, a Girondist, iii. 41 ; demands female but not universal suffrage, 290-1 ; suggests four legislatures, 298
Rovere, ii. 222 n ; president of Con- vention, 224 ; member of the Com- mittee of General Security, 231 ; speaks of pillage on the part of "patriots," 272; iii. 214 «; 325; deported to Guiana in Fructidor, iv. 87 ; there dies, 87 n
Rovigo {Due de), iv. 263 n
Roye, i. 235 n
Royer, i. 318 «; ii. 222 k; active in the Catholic revival, iii. 266 ; de- fends the coup d'etat of Brumaire from the pulpit, iv. 198
Royer-CoUard, i. 172 «, I95»; defends the Catholics, iv. 82
Royon, i. 289 «, 314 «
Rozimbois (Dr.), i. 204-5
Ruamps, member of the Committee of General Security, ii. 231 ; advises confiscation of property of the very wealthy who will not contribute to the defence of France, iii. 138-9; arrested in Germinal, 244
Ruault, a Girondist, iii. 41
Rtihl, ii. 190 ; president of Convention, 223 ; member of the Committee of General Security, 233 ; of Public Safety, 236 ; publicly breaks the holy phial on the statue of "Louis the Sluggard," 320; iii. 213 «, 214 «; tried after the famine riots, commits suicide, 246
Rumare, iv. 54
Rutledge, a Cordelier orator, i. 228 ; 253
Sadous, i. 235 n
Sadouze, i. 235 n
Sagnaci, Ph., i. 238 n
Saint-Felix, arrested after the affair of the Champ de Mars, i. 320
Saint- Huruge, an agitator of the Palais Royal (royalist), i. 164
Saint-Just, a monarchist at the outset, i. 86 ; in 1793 accuses Girondists of royalism, ii. 70 ; a member of the Jacobin "Auxiliary Committee," 163 ; in 1793 has federal ideas, 179 ; yet wishes Paris to be strong, 182; a member of the Committee of Public Safety in May, 1793, ^84; president of Convention, 223 ; 239, 242 ; con- tributes by his presence to the victories of the armies, 247 ; 248, 253, 257, 293, 294 ; as anxious to em- bellish the Republic by culture as the Girondists, iii. 47 ; not yet a Robes- pierrist in 1792-3, 91 ; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 107 ; his report on the Girondists, 116; his report on mendicity, 137 ; return- ing from the seat of war, sup-
INDEX
323
ports Robespierre, 146 ; Robespierre strikes at Danton through Saint-Just, 150; persuades the Convention to put the "amalgam" "out of de- bate," 151; 192; opens the session of the fatal 9th of Thermidor, 197 ; arrested, 199 ; takes refuge in the Hotel de Ville, 100; re-arrested> 201 ; guillotined, 202 ; 207, 209 n
Saint-Martin, iii. 303
Saint-Martin- Valogne, a Girondist, iii.
41
Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, i. 348 ; a Theophilanthropist, iv. 69
Saint- Rend Taillandier, i. I57«
Saint-Rejant, author of the plot of the " infernal machine " of the rue Saint-Nicaise, iv. 185 ; executed, 188
Saint-Simon, a manuscript of his seized by the police, iv. 258 n
Saint-Beuve, reference to the Giron- dists, iii. 49
Saladin, a Girondist, iii. 42 ; denounces four leading Terrorists on behalf of a Commission, iii. 242 ; 324 ; sen- tenced to deportation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Saliceti, a democrat, secedes from the Jacobins to the Feuillants, i. 316
Salle, also secedes, i. 316 ; demands that the calendar shall date from the taking of the Bastille, ii. 151 ; 180; attends the "Valaze Committee," iii. 35 ; a Girondist, 42 ; 68 ; his outlawry demanded by Saint-Just, 116; guillotined in Bordeaux, 123
Sallengros, demands a rectification of departmental frontiers, iii. 304 ; a State messenger under the Directory,
325 '^ Salm (Prince Emmanuel de), i. 279 Salmon, a Girondist, iii. 42 Sambat, iii. TT n Samuel (the prophet), cited by Tom
Paine, i. 112 n Sanadon, ii. 222 n Santerre, enrols 2,000 National Guards,
i- 275; 313; accused after the afiair
of the Champ de Mars, 320, 323 ;
meets the Marseillais at the head of
the National Guards, ii. 47 Santies, i. 320
Sapinaud, a royalist insurgent, iii. 249 Sardanapalus, Mme. Roland compares
Danton to, iii. 66 Saunier, i. 235 n Saurine, ii. 222 n ; a Girondist, iii. 42 ;
member of the Catholic Society^ 266 Sauzay, iv. 1 39 « Savary, ii. 306 n ; a Girondist, iii. 42 ;
president of the Council of 500,
355 Savoye-Rollin, iv. 246 n Scherer, Minister of War under the
Directory, iii. 362 ; Reubell suffers
through his unpopularity, iv. 123 Schiller, created a French citizen by
the Convention, ii. 141 Sciout, Lud. , iv. 95 n Scipio, iv. 181 Seailles, Gabriel, ii. 301 n Seguier, defends the parliaments, i.
105 « Seguin, ii. 222 n Segur, sen., iv. 182 Seignobos, i. 1 1 1 « Sentiet, J., i. 307 n Sergent, i. 247 ; aids in drafting the
petition that Louis' flight shall be
counted as abdication, 311 ; 323,
340; placed under supervision, iv.
187 Serre, a Girondist, iii. 42 Servan, ii. 57 n ; Minister of War, 73 •
94, 124, 158 ; ii. 215 Serviere, iii. 366 Sevestre, member of the Committee of
General Security, iii. 214 n ; State
messenger, 355 Seytres, ii. 43 n Siblot, iii. 175 Sicard, Abbe, iv. 76, 201 Sidney, his name a household name in
France, i. iii, 356 Sieyes, monarchist, i. 85 ; 98 ; proposes
a Declaration of Rights, 150; dis-
324
INDEX
tinguishes between active and passive citizens, i8i ; favours two Chambers, 278 ; the oracle of the middle classes, 293; 294, 295, 321, 324; wishes to change the dynasty, ii. 64 « ; 83 ; member of the Committee of Consti- tution of 1792, 172, 222 « ; president of Convention, 224 ; member of the Committee of General Defence, 235, 236 ; iii. 216 « ; member of the Com- mission of Seven, 273, 274 ; of Eleven, 275 ; 275 n ; hopes to avoid the deadlock of two hostile Chambers by making both elective, 296 ; pro- poses a Constitutional Jury, 297, 298 ; nominated Director, declines the post, 325 ; president of the Council of 500, 354 ; elected Di- rector in the year VII, 360, 361 ; hostile to the Directorial policy, iv. 125 ; prepares for the realisation of his constitutional schemes, 127 : dreams of being Elector of a new republic, 128; I34« ; Bonaparte and Sieyes plot together, 140 ; pre- pares for the coup d'itat, 146, 147 ; the coup d'etat, ending in the Co n sular Commission with Sieyes as a provisional Consul, 149-150; 154, 155 ; discusses the new Constitution, 158; Bonaparte overrides him, 159 ; 159 n ; 160 ; Bonaparte's Constitution a parody of Sieyes', 162; assists in appointing the Senate, 171, 172, 187 n, 236, 247 ; believed to have voted against the Empire, 266
Sijas, iii. 342
Silius Italicus, iv. 176
Sillery, ii. 220 « ; 157 ; a Girondist, 42, 43 ; one of the " Twenty-Two," 121
Simeon, president of the Council of 500, iii- 354. 380 ; iv. 87
Simon (General), iv. 249
Simond, ii. 222 n
Simonne, states that a deputy is the mandatory of the people in general, ii. 129
Smits, J. J., i. 221 n
Sobry, a precursor of Theophilan- thropy, iv. 66
Socrates, a deist, iii. 184, iv. 69
Solon, iv. 249
Sonthonax, iii. 44
Sotin, Minister of Police under the Directory, iii. 363 ; ordered to pro- tect the Theophilanthropists, iv. 70 ; 92
Soubcyran de St. -Prir, a Girondist, iiL 42
Soubrany, ii. 222 n ; executed during the reaction after Prairial, iii. 246 ; iv. 131 n
Souhait, Julien, strongly in favour of universal suffrage in the year III, iii. 282-3
Soulignac, a Girondist, iii. 42
Souvaroff, iv. 112, 127, 142
Spina (Mgr.), iii. 259 «; represents the Pope in Paris during the pre- liminaries of the Concordat, iv. 206
Spol, iii. 77 «
Stael (Mme. de), hostess of a bourgeois republican salon, iii. 239; iv. 84, 181 «, 182 n ; a hostess of the Opposition, 248; 249; deported from Paris with Benjamin Constant,
251
Stofflet, rebel (Catholic) leader, ii. 307 ; captured and shot, iv. 47
Suard, iii. 383 ; sentenced to be de- ported in Fructidor, iv. 87, 1 76
Suares, i. 124 «
Surian, i. 235 n
Suzannet, royalist conspirator, iv. IIO
Sylla, i. 223
Taine, i. 261, iu 273
Talhouet (Mme. de), attached to Mme. Bonaparte, iv. 244
Talleyrand, i. 152, 324; Minister of Foreign Affairs, iii. 363 ; iv. 128 ; takes part in the conspiracy of Bru- tnaire, 141 ; 144 ; Foreign Minister under the Consulate, 169 ; 182 ; dis-
INDEX
325
approves of the Concordat, 207 ; a spy with a footing in both camps, 247 ; 260 ; Privy Councillor, 265 «
Tallien, i. 271 n; a member of the Revolutionary Commune, 75 ; 121 ; member of the Committee of General Security, 231; iii. 75; 1 18; pre- cipitates matters on the 9th of Thermidor, 1 97 ; his arrest ordered by the Commune, 200; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 209 ; 215 « ; 216 w ; 222 ; recalled to the reopened Jacobin Club, 224 ; becomes a leader of the "gilded youth " to destroy the power of the ex-Terrorists, 237, 240, 270
Tallien (Mme.), hostess of a bourgeois salon, iii. 239
Talot, iii. 379; iv. 119; ejected rom the Legislature in Brumaire, 150 ; sentenced to imprisonment, but merely placed under surveillance, 156 ; 187
Tarbe, Directorial candidate, iii. 359 ; iv. 54
Target, suggests amendments to the Declaration of Rights, i. 1 50, 152 «
Tarquins, the, i. 252, ii. 52
Tassart, i. 235 n
Taton Lacreusade, iii. 175 «
Taveau, State messenger, iii. 355
Teniers, i. 365
Terral, iii. 278 «, 366
Terrasson, i. 312 «; proposes Feder- alism at the Jacobins, ii. 137
Terrier, ii. 38
Terrier de Montciel, i. 300 n
Tesse(Mme. de), mentioned by Gouver- neur Morris as a republican hostess, i. 89 w
Theiner (Father), prefect of the Archives of the Vatican, iv. 225 n
Themines (Bishop of Blois), a *' refrac- tory," claimed in 1828 to be Bishop of all France, iv. 212
Theot, Catherine (nicknamed " the Mother of God"), ii. 245; Robes- pierre's enemies seek to compromise
him by her trial, iii. 195 ; Robespierre accuses Vadier of engineering the affair, 196; 198
Th^ry, refused election as an anarchist, iv. 120
Thibaudeau, describes delirious enthu- siasm with which the National As- sembly received Louis XVI, i. 82 ; president of Convention, ii. 224; member of the two "Government Committees," 214 «, 216 «; 222; complains of corruption of revolu- tionaries by hostesses of bourgeois salons, 240 ; 251, 272, 273 ; a mem- ber of the " Commission of Eleven," 275 ; states that the Commission decided to put aside the Constitu- tion of 1793, 276; 285 m; opposes " graduality," 292 ; favours the bi- cameral system, 295 ; his account of the debates upon the supreme execu- tive, 301 ; method of electing the Directory, 302 ; 309 ; gives instance of Directorial corruption re elec- tions, 337 ; president of the Council of 500, 354 ; a constitutional re- publican, iv. 56 ; 96, 170, 181 ; as prefect of the Gironde, complains of the decay of the civil religion, 196-7, an anecdote of the Concordat, 220 ; 221 « ; 230 «; his account of the response of the Senate to the pro- posal of the Empire, 265-6 ; 269 n
Thibault (Abbe), i. 190; ii. 222 « ; eliminated from the Tribune, iv. 190
Thiers, first to use the term " Giron- dists," iii. 32
Thirion, publicly burns the hearts of Henri IV and Marie de Medicis, ii. 320 ; 366, 367
Thiry, Etienne, fraudulently represents himself as a departmental commis- sary, ii. 362
Tholin,'\. iiSn
Thomas, Saint, i. 124 «
Thomas, iv. 94
Thom^, rumoured to have received a
326
INDEX
dagger-thrust intended for Bona- parte during the coup (f^tai of Brumaire, iv. 148
Thouret, his suffrage scheme, i. 183, I97> 326, 328
Thuriot, a member of the Jacobin " Auxiliary Committee," ii. 163, 170 ; critic of the Declaration of Rights, 182, 188, 190, 193 ; presi- dent of Convention, 223 ; 238 n ; resigns from the Committee of PubHc Safety, 242 ; assists in the downfall of Robespierre, 198; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 209, 215 « ; recalled to the Jacobin Club, 224 ; arrested during the food riots of Germmal, 244
Tiberius, i. 223
Tissier, arrested after the affair of the Champ de Mars, i. 320
Tissot, ii. 220 M, iii. 342; accused of Babeuvism by the Conservatives, iv. 120 M ; 144
Topino-Lebrun, condemned to death for hostility to Bonaparte, iv. 188
Tome (de), ii. 222 «
Toulongeon, ii. 105 «, 158
Tourneux, Maurice, i. 89 «, iv, 42
Tournie, i. 235 «, 360 n
Tournier, a Girondist, iii. 42
Toumon, a colleague of the Robert- Keralio group, i. 221 n
Toussenel, i. 346;/
Toutin, iv. 120 «
Trajan, Louis XVI compared to, by Desmoulins, i. 87
Trehouart, ii. 258 ; iii. 324
Treilhard, president of Convention, ii. 223 ; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 238 ; retired, 239 ; iii. 209, 215, 216 « ; president of the Council of 500, 354 ; elected a Director, the election finally de- clared invalid, 360 ; iv. 126 ; Privy Councillor, 265 n
Tronchet, iii. 346 ; president of the Council of Elders, 354
Tronson-Ducoudray, deported to, and dies in, Guiana, iv. 87
Truguet, Minister of Marine and Colonies under the Directory, iii. 325 ; his dismissal proposed by the Legislative Corps, iv. 83
Turenne, iv. 181
Turgot, i. 83 ; his conception of gradu- ally developed self-government, 106 ; 123, 262, 391 ; Hebert regrets that Louis did not follow his advice and save the monarchy, ii. 94
Turpin-Crisse (Mme. de), a royalist agent of Louis XVIIL iv. 114
Turquet de Mayerne, ii. 72 n
Turreau, iii. 205
u
Ulrich (ex-Abbe), i. 235 n ; a Theo- philanthropist, iv. 69
Vachard, one of the drafters of the Jacobin petition of July 17, i. 313 ; Mme. Roland's horror of, iii. 65-6
Vadier, president of Convention, ii. 223 ; member of the Committee of General Security, 233 ; 245 ; pro- ceedings against after Thermidor^ 249 ; signs the Jacobin address de- fending Marat, 83 ; prominent in the affair of Catherine Theot, 196 ; his arrest ordered by the Commune, 200; 213 «; denounced after the Terror, 242 ; his deportation decreed in Germinal, 244 ; involved in the Babeuf affair, iv. 39 ; acquitted, 45 ; recalled to France, 167 ; 247
Valaze, a member of the " Commission of Six," ii. 171 ; the "Valaze Com- mittee," iii. 35, 36 ; the principal host of the Girondists, 37
Valence, ii. 106
Vallee, a Girondist and ex-priest, iii. 42 ; deported for " killing patriots " in the civil war, iv. 94
INDEX
327
Vanieville, ii. 221 n
Vardon, member of the Committee of General Security, iii. 214 w; State messenger, 355
Varlet, drafter of a petition demanding the dethronement of Louis XVI, ii. 60 «, 66; a Girondist, iii. 42; pub- lishes a socialistic "declaration," 128-9
Vaublanc, in favour of property suffrage, iii. 281, 295 «; obtains a law pro- hibiting clubs, 372; a constitutional- ist, iv. 56; advice to Bonaparte, 231
Vaugeois, Gabriel, ii. 54 «
Vauvilliers, sentenced to deportation after Fructidor, iv. 87
Venaille, departmental commissary, iii. 366-7
Vergennes (Mme. de), iv. 182
Vergniaud, a monarchist at the outset, i. 86; 340, 345, 352; the "day "of July 20th, 364 ; denounces the treachery of Lrouis (July 3rd), 366 ; confers with Louis and attempts to persuade him to lead the Revolution, ii. 64 ; 66 ; receives Louis in the Assembly on August 1 0th, 69, 69 n ; in view of his report the Assembly suspends the King, 69-70 ; Marat's attack upon, 100 n ; fails to secure election to the Convention as deputy for Paris, loi ; secretary, 145 ; member of the Committee of Consti- tution, 161 ; favours a secular De- claration, 174; 180; president of Convention, 223 ; of Committee of Public Safety, 236 ; the first Com- mittee in favour of an understanding with the Girondist leaders, 239 ; iii. 32. 33) 34 j outside Mme. Roland's influence, 38 ; 42, 43 ; not an avowed atheist, 45 ; attitude toward the Septemberers, 51-2 ; his federalism, 54 ; his love of Paris, 56 ; an orator rather than a leader, 61, 62; political influence, 63 ; 64 ; 66 « ; votes for Louis' death, 99 ; 103 ; the struggle between him and Robespierre on
May 31st, 109 ;Tarrested as one of the "Twenty-Two," 112; 116; trial and execution, 121-2; I184, 232; 280
Vermoul, i. 209 n
Vernerey, speaks of his welcome on arriving in Allier to free peasants imprisoned on religious grounds, ii. 260 ; of the manner iin which the clergy have abused the law by im- prisoning parishioners for non- attendance at Mass, ^271 ; iii. 172; his success as a " dechristianiser,"
175
Vernier, i. 328 ; president of Conven- tion, ii. 224 ; a Girondist, iii. 42 ; member of the Committee of Public Safety, 216 « ; 346; president of Council of Elders, 354
Verrieres, accused after the affair of the Champ de Mars, i. 319, 320
Veycer, accused of a pretended con- spiracy and shot, iv. 188
Veyrieu, iii. 366
Viaud, i. 229
Vidal, T., ii. iQin
Vidal, jun., admitted improperly to the rights of an active citizen, i. 204
Vidalin, complains of royalist inscrip- tions in 1793, ii. 318
Viellart, Directorial candidate, iii. 359
Vienot- Vaublanc, sentenced to depor- tation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Viger, a Girondist, iii. 42 ; 43 ; one of the "Twenty-Two," 121
Villar, ii. 222 n
Villaret-Joyeuse, sentenced to deport- ation in Fructidor, iv. 87
Villers, president of the Council of 500, iii. 354
Villetard, demands, with Le Gendre, that the copy of the 1793 Constitu- tion be replaced in the Convention, iii. 271 ; claims that the people should choose the executive, 303 ; claims- that pending the elections of the year IV the Directory should appoint officials, 345
328
INDEX
Villette, ii. 222 n
Vincent, i. 361 « ; a Girondist, iii. 42 ; 147 ; tried and executed with the Hebert faction, 148
Vincent, Saint, iv. 69
Vinchaux, a Swiss, delegate of the petitioners of July 14th, i. 308 n
Virieu, favours property suffrage, i. 189, 193
Vitellius, i. 87 n
Voidel, Charles, an Orleanist, iL I20», iv. 58
Volney, iv. 223, 226
Voltaire, his ideal a benevolent reform- ing despot, i. 83 ; no republican, 93, 94, 95 «, 99 ; dechristianises polite society, 119; lines from Brutus adapted, 277 ; a friend of Cordorcet, 341 ; ii. 62 n ; iii. 43, 78 ; his religion imported from England, iv. 66 ; free thought unfashionable, iv. 203
Vosgien, i. 345
Voulland, in favour of State Catholicism, i. 154 ; a Feuillant, though a demo- crat, 316 « ; president of Convention, ii. 223 ; member of the Committee of General Security, iii. 213 w
W
Wandelaincourt, ii. 222 «
Washington, the Brissotins accused of seeing in La Fayette a Washington, i- 3561 356 w; ii. 136, 136^; created a French citizen by Convention, 141 ; iv. 69; Bonaparte perhaps for a moment dreams of emulating, 157 ; orders Washington's statue to be placed in the Tuileries, 181
Watier, i. 235 n
Westermann (General), supporter of Danton, iii. 116 ; executed with him, 150
Wilberforce, William, created a French citizen by Convention, ii. 141
Williams, David, i. 254 n ; created a French citizen by Convention, ii. 141 ; influences the Committee of Constitution, 163 «; 173; a pre- cursor of Theophilanthropy, iv. 66
Williams, Helena Maria, gives an account of the Girondists, iii. 54
Willot (General), a royalist, iv. 54, 56 ; an agent of the Pretender, 83 ; de- ported in Fructidor, but escapes, 87, 87 n
Wimpffen, i. 169; France a "royal democracy," 172, 172 w; tries to win over the Girondist rebellion to royalism, ii. 47
Wurtemburg (Due de), makes peace with the Republic and cedes his territory on the left of the Rhine, iv. 49
York (Duke of), suggested as a French king, ii. 62, 86; the idea angers the people, 90; 96, 123 ; the news spread that he has been called to the throne, 124 ; 125, 315, 317 ; iv. 58
Ysabeau, ii. 222 n ; a commissary, iii. 118; member of the Committee of General Security, 214 n ; elected an Elder, 325
Yzarn de Valady, ii. 222 n ; a Girond- ist, iii. 42
SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX
OF THE CHIEF REFERENCES TO THE PRINCIPAL POLITICAL EVENTS AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE REVOLUTION
See also Chronological Stimmaries
Assassinations, political, actual, or attempted— <yi Marat, ii. 84 ; attempted, of Robespierre, iii. 190; attempted, of Collot d'Herbois, iii. 190; of Feraud, iii. 245 ; attempted, of Bonaparte, iv. 185.
Assemblies, the Provincial — Condorcet's faith in, i. 85 ; two established, 107 ; twenty in operation in 1788, 109.
Assembly, the Constituent or National — its monarchical enthusiasm, i. 80 ; promised by Louis XVI in 1787, 108 ; Louis commands the nobles to join, 139 ; at a deadlock with the King, 141 ; delivered by the people of Paris in insurrection, 141, 142; speaks as a sovereign body, 143; declares the feudal system abolished, 144 ; the new oath, 145 ; organises the monarchy on a bourgeois basis, 146 ; suspends the monarchy, 266 ; puts Louis under a guard, 269 ; wishes to preserve the monarchy as a defence against democracy, 305 ; petitioned to consult the nation as to Louis' fate, 306, 307 ; division of after July 14, 316 ; attempts to stifle democracy, 331 ; replaces Louis on the throne, 332.
Assembly, the Legislative — establishes universal suffrage and democracy, i. 79 ; meets in 1791, 338; represents the bourgeoisie, 339; its functions to preserve and superintend the operations of the Constitution, 339 ; its composition affected by Louis' flight, 339, 340 ; verifies its powers, 343 ; no democratic or republican majority, 346 ; decrees that all non-constitu- tional clergy must take the new oath, 351 ; learns of the King's treason, 366 ; forced to treat him as an enemy, ii. 31, 32, 33 ; hopes he may choose a patriotic ministry, 57; again suspends the King, 71, 72; establishes universal suffrage, 77, 78 ; delivers Louis to the Commune and im- prisonment, 84 ; decides that a National Convention shall pronounce upon the form of Government to be adopted, 86; pronounces against royalty, 87.
CaMers, the — i. 28, 128 n, 129 «, 130 ; also see Translator's Preface.
Campaigns, Invasions, rebellions, dr'c. — war declared on the King of Hungary, i. 353 ; the campaign, 366 ; invasion of France by Austria and Prussia, ii. 83, 84 ; the war in La Vendee, 306-9 ; iii. 107 ; the Civil War, 107, 114, 115, 117-20, 247, 248; further trouble in La Vendee, iv. 47-9; the German Campaign, 49 ; the Italian Campaign, 49 ; Chouannerie suppressed, brigandage is rife. III ; Jourdan defeated, 125; 127 ; expedition to Egypt, 139 ; the victories of Brune and Massena, 140 ; pacification of La Vendee, 166 ; war with Austria and the victory of Marengo, 184 ; royalist brigandage, 188.
330 SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX
Clubs:
TTie Cordeliers — democratic, i. 223 ; becomes openly republican, 276- 81 ; but draws back temporarily, 289.
The Feuillants — encourages Louis to defy the Legislative Assembly,
i- 351-
The Fraternal {of both jej:f5)^influence of, i. 233.
The Jacobin (and affiliated clubs) — middle-class, i. 233-7 ', still mon- archical at the time of Louis' flight, 279 ; secession from, 316 ; converted to republicanism, ii. 102-5 ; demands direct suffrage, 127, 128 ; its Auxiliary Committee of Constitution, 163 ; reception of the Constitution of I793» 169 ; 265 ; iii. 75 ; enthusiasm for Robespierre, 196 ; affiliations prohibited, 224 ; its fall, 225 ; democratic republicans known as Jacobins, iv. 37 ; attempt at reorganisation, 131.
The People^ s Clubs or Popular Societies — i. 233-7. Commissaries, the — ii. 253-63 ; manifestations of anti-royalism, 319-21 ; their
efforts at dechristianisation, iii. 157, 264; Directorial, iii. 367-9. Committee, Central, of Federals — ii. 54.
Committees, of Constitution — that of 1789, i. 139 ; the second of 1789, 146; that of 1790, 326 ; that of 1792, ii. 161-71 ; composition, 161 ; dissolved, 171 ; the Commission of Six appointed, 171 ; the Commission of Seven, iii. 273 ; of Eleven, 274. Committees, the Governmental :
General Committee, the — ii. 241.
Committee of General Defence, the — ii. 234-6.
Committee of General Security, the — ii. 231, 232; composition, iii. 214;
hatches the conspiracy against Robespierre in Thermidor, 195. Conunittee of Public Safety, the — instructs de Sechelles to dr^iw up a Consti- tution, ii. 185 ; is to direct the Government, 218, 283 ; creation of, 237 ; 243, 245, 246-53; the second Committee, iii. 131, 144; triumphant over its enemies, 149, 209-12, 213, 217. Committees, of Surveilla^ue^ or the Revolutionary — ii. 267-73 ; their downfall,
iii. 224. Commune, of Paris, the — Manuel and Petion suspended, i. 367 ; reinstated, ii. 33 ; the Revolutionary Commune, 75, 76 ; henceforth a powerful rival Oi the Convention, 76 ; declares against royalty, 92, 93 ; assumes a predomi- nant attitude, iii. 103-7; in insurrection, 108-11 ; victorious, 112; crushed by the Committees, 149 ; destroyed, iiL 228. Concordat, tJie — iv. 198, 204-27.
Constitutions: Ajtierican, the — i. 111-17; established a property suffrage, 123, 124. Of 1791, the — debates upon, i. 168-76; organises the bourgeoisie as a privileged class, 1 79-95 ; its revision postponed, 329 ; employed and adapted by the Revolutionary Government, ii. 213. Of 1793, the — ii. 159; not applied, 160; the Committee of Constitution, 161 ; its preparation and completion, 161-207 ; proclaimed, 206, 207 ; post- poned until peace, 210 ; may be revised by a special Convention, 168 ; de Sechelles' scheme, 185, 190-2; the Constitution considered, 199; its later adventures, 200, 201 ; impossible of execution at the time, 201 ; suspended, 210, 211, 269.
SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX 331
Constitntions — continued:
Of the year III : or Directorial, the — ii. 159 ; suppresses democracy and uni- versal suffrage, iii. 279 ; 285, 292-325 ; application of, 326-92. Consular, the, or of the year VIII — the schemes of Sieyes, iv. 143 ; he is requested to produce a plan, 158 ; Daunou drafts a scheme, 159; Bonaparte dictates one, 159, 160; the Constitution, 160-4; the plebiscite for its acceptance, 165. Of the yeax X, or the Life-Consulate — iv. 237. Imperial, the — iv. 274.
Consulate, the Provisional— vj. 151, 154; policy of, 155-7; the Consuls, 163, 169; defends the principle of the secular State, 194; the Concordat and the religious policy, 204-27.
Consulate, the Decennial — iv. 229.
Consulate, the Life — the Senate solicited by Bonaparte to offer it to him, iv. 229 ; suggested by the other Consuls, 231.
ConTention, the Natio7tal — elections to, ii. 99-102; character of, ill ; its man- date, 115; 119; creates eminent foreigners French citizens and elects some as deputies, 141; constituted, 144-6; decrees royalty abolished, 148; decrees the Republic, 152; its constitutional labours, 161-210; orders proposals for a Constitution to be printed, 170; begins once more to construct a Constitution, 170, 171; debates on the same, 174-84; adopts part of de Sechelles' plan, 188 ; orders a plebiscite, 203 ; danger of dissolution during war, 209 ; the Constitution suspended and the Government declared revolutionary until peace, 210; lays hold of the executive power, 217, 220 ; presidents of, 223, 224 ; 225 ; 225-30 ; overruled by the Commune, iii. 112; the Hebertists destroyed, 148; the Dantonists destroyed, 150; fall of Robespierre, 192-202; disowns the Terror, 241 ; sees in democracy the continuation of the Terror, 278 ; creates Commissions of Constitution, 273-5 » members to sit in the new Councils of the new Constitution, 319.
Council, Provisional Executive, the, of \^^2 — ii. 73; Danton its effective head, 74; 214, 217; placed under the Committee of Public Safety, 244; abolished, 245.
Council of State — iv. 158, 164, 170.
Councils, //^e Directorial: of the Five Hundred— m. 292, 299, 350, 351; presi- dents of, 354, 355 ; 358, 377, 380 ; repeals laws against Catholics, iv. 82 ; in opposition to the Directory, 83. Of Elders, the— in. 292, 299, 350, 351; presidents of, 345, 355; 358; repeals laws against Catholics, iv. 82 ; opposes the Directory, 83.
Coups d'etat — Louis XVI's intended coup, i. 265 ; the Girondist coup at Lyons, iii. 108 ; the Montagnard in Paris, 108 ; that of the 9th of Thermidor, 192-202 ; that of the l8th of Fructidor, 383-5, iv. 86-9, 115 ; of the 30th oi Prairial, 127; of the 1 8th of Brumaire, 133 ; indirectly the consequence of the Austrian War, 141 ; preparations for, 143 ; 144-53 ; amazement at, 153.
Declaration of Independence, the American — its influence, i. II3-I7.
Declarations of Rights — that of 1789, drafted by La Fayette, i. 140 ; ratifies the monarchy, 146; debates on, 146-62; the Girondist declaration of 1793. ii. 165; de Sechelles', 197; the Girondist and Montagnard declarations compared, 198 ; that of the year III, iii. 310.
332 SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX
Democracy (see Parties) — opinion held of by the eighteenth-century philosophers, i. 119-25.
Directory, the — iii. 299-309, 322, 325, 350, 358, 359-65 ; destroys the freedom of the Press, 383-5 ; new oaths instituted by, iv. 29, 30 ; inimical to Catholicism, 60 ; its Decadal policy, 62-4 ; laws against Catholics, 75-82 ; the coup d'dtat of Fructidor, 86 ; religious policy under, 89-109 ; decrees a levy en masse, 129.
Elections, principal — of 1790, i. 323 ; of 1791, 324 ; to the Legislative Assembly, 329 ; to the National Convention, ii. 99-102 ; to the Directory (year III), iii. 319,322-5,328, 359-65; of the year IV, 331, 345, 347; oi the year V, 331, 338, 347, 348, 349, 359, 372; of the year VI, 331, 338, 349. 359. iv. 117 ; of the year VII, iii. 331, 349, 359, 387 ; of the year VIII, 331 ; of the year IX. iv. 170-2; of the year X, iv. 190.
Empire, the — suggested after Cadoudal's conspiracy, iv. 264, 265 ; plebiscite as to its acceptance, 269, 270 ; proclaimed, 271.
Estate, the TX/rif— elected by almost universal suffrage, i. 128, 129 ; the Court hopes the delegates will quarrel, 132, 133 ; its sense of solidarity, 133 ; grows bolder, and proclaims itself the National Assembly, 136.
Estates General, the — what was hoped from them, i. 128.
Insurrections — the taking of the Bastille and delivery of the National Assembly, i. 141-2 ; the feudal (provincial) insurrections, 144 ; the King brought to Paris, 176 ; the affair of the Champ de Mars, 307-14 ; the rising of June 20, 1792, 361-5 ; of August loth, ii. 67-70 ; the Revolutionary Commune, 75, 76 ; in La Vendee, 307 ; the September massacres, 50-3 ; 74-7 ; the Montagnard insurrection of May 30th, iii. 108 ; the 9th of Thermidor^ 199-202 ; the insurrection of Germinal (year III), 244 ; of Frairial^ 245; the 13th of Vendimiaire, 251 ; of the 1 2th of Germinal demand- ing " Bread and the Constitution of 1793," 273 ; in La Vendee, Poitou, and Indre, iv. 47-g ; in Gard, 109 ; royalist risings organised by Louis XVIII, 1 12-14.
Legislative Corps, the — iv. 162, 163, 172 ; its powers restricted, 253 ; 272.
Monarchy, the — suspended, i. 266 ; ideas of changing the dynasty, 288, 347 ; its destruction demanded, ii. 91 ; communal movement against, 46 ; reports of new dynasties, 86, 87, 90, 120 ; rumours of change, 217 ; Louis XVIII puts his fate to the test, iv. 112, 114.
Parliaments, the — the quarrel between the Crown and the Parliament of Paris, i. 100-3 ; the parliaments wish to preserve the status quo, 106 ; they bring about a state of anarchy, 100.
Parties, the :
The Dantonists — iii. 92, 144 ; their destruction, 150. The Democratic — formation of, i. 212-17 ; its attack on the property suffrage, 225 ; 247, 256 ; stimulated by the affair of the Champ de Mars, 315 ; demands the Constitution of 1793, iii. 270; iv. 122.
The Girondist — ii. 161 :i fails to impose a Constitution on Paris, 1 84; its organisation and composition, iii. 31-70; statistics of, 41-3; its fear of Paris, 55 ; arrest of the leaders demanded, iii ; decreed, 112; the leaders tried and executed, 12 1-2.
The Hibertist — iii. 144 ; destroyed, 148.
SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX 333
Parties — continued :
The Montagnard — iiL 71, 92; in insurrection, 108; victorious, 112, 125.
The Republican — did not exist in 1789, i. 80, 163-8 ; birth of, 217-25; 247, 266 ; attack upon, 273 ; starts propaganda, 290-9 ; in the pro- vinces, 299-305 ; brought into power by the war with Austria, 354 ; rein- forced from the provinces, ii. 39 ; finally united in the struggle against the royalists, 202 ; 247 ; iv. 31-3 ; the bourgeois or Directorial republicans, 33 ; Bonaparte's persecution of, 185 ; in opposition during the Consulate, 246-58.
The Royalist — ii. 296-321 ; iii. 247, 374 ; iv. 31-3 ; the Royalist Peril, iv. 47 ; royalist agents, 50, 51, 52 ; the Orleanists, 57, 58 ; in opposition during the Consulate, 258.
The Socialist, and Socialism — unorganised, i. 226-3 1 ; ii. 132-5 ; iii. 132-44 ; the Babeuvist conspiracies, iv. 37-46. Plebiscites — that of 1793, ii. 203-7 ; for the acceptance of the Directorial Con- stitution, iii. 319; of the year VIII, for the acceptance of the Consular Constitution, iv. 165 ; unfairly taken, 165, 166 ; for the acceptance of the life-Consulate, 231-5 ; for the acceptance of the Empire, 269, 270. Repablic, the — established by Convention in 1792, i. 79 ; unthought-of in 1789, 84, 88, 163; 273, 287; denounced by Robespierre in June, 1792, 361 ; Marseilles the first commune to demand it, ii. 44; hastened by the " Day " of August loth and proof of Louis' treason, 82-4 ; hesitation at using the word, 91 ; demanded by a great part of France, 108 ; but the word still regarded with doubt, 122 ; decreed by Convention, 152 ; its reception, 154-8 ; its organisation, 159-210 ; the Republic dead, iv. 236, 277. Avterican, the — i. 111-17. English, the — i. 11 1. Greek republics, the — iii. 47. Roman, the — i. 11 1. Revolutionary Government, the — decreed, ii. 210; what it was, 211; 253, 264, 273-7 ; decadence of, iii. 203 ; attacked by the Press, 233-9 ; report on means of terminating the Revolution, 315. Senate, the Conservative — iv. 162, 163, 171, 272. Suffrage, the feminist — demands for, i. 231-5.
Suffrage, the property — i. 183-95; ^^^^ ^"^1 of> 203; opposition to, 209-11; struggle against, 238-47 ; made more exacting, 322 ; in practice, 323, 324; debates upon its revision, 326-9; extended to all "active citizens," 328 ; system of the year III, 283, 289, 328 ; Bonaparte's indirect system, iv. 238-42. Suffrage, universal — established by the Legislative Assembly, i. 79 ; demanded vainly in 1789, 192-4 ; by Marat, 197 ; 198-203 ; established by the insurrection of August 20, 1792, ii. 78, 79 ; in the elections to the Conven- tion, 109; as determined by the Constitution of 1793, 166-8; de Sechelles' Constitution based upon, 199 ; suppressed by the Constitution of the year III, 279, 285. Terror, the — ii. 277-92 ; provisional in character, 293, 294 ; lasting elements of, 295 ; reaction against, 239-47.
334 SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX
Terror, the lesser or bourgeois of I'jgi — i. 321,
Terror, the White — iii. 207, 248.
Trials and executions^ famous — of Louis XVI, ii. 299-302 ; of the Girondists, iii. 121 ; of the Hebertists, iii. 148 ; of the Dantonists, iii. 150 ; of the Terrorists, iii. 202 ; of Riihl, Romme, <S:c., 246 ; of the Babeuvists, iv.
44-5. Tribunal, the Revolutionary — ii. 285, 286 ; its decay, iii. 231 ; reorganised, 232 ;
suppressed, 232. Tribunate, the — that suggested by Sieyes in 1795, iii. 297 ; the Consular body,
iv. 162, 163, 172 ; dares not oppose the Empire, 266-7 J 273-7.
Ube (Bresbam ipcess,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, WOKING AND LONDON.
Date Due
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