书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
19097600000509

第509章

[42] Moniteur, XI. 20, session of Feb. 4. At this meeting Gorguereau, reporter of the committee on legislation, had already stated that "The authors of these multiplied addresses seem to command rather than demand. . . It is ever the same sections or the same individuals who deceive you in bringing to you their own false testimony for that of the capital." - "Down with the reporter! From the galleries." -Ibid., XIII. 93, session of July 11. M. Gastelier: "Addresses in the name of the people are constantly read to you, which are not even the voice of one section. We have seen the same individual coming three times a week to demand something in the name of sovereignty." (Shouts of down! down! in the galleries. Ibid., 208, session of July 21. M.

Dumolard: "You must distinguish between the people of Paris and these subaltern intriguers . . . these habitual oracles of the cafés and public squares, whose equivocal existence has for a long time occupied the attention and claimed the supervision of the police." (Down with the speaker! murmurs and hooting in the galleries).-Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 398. Protests of the arsenal section, read by Lavoisier (the chemist): "The caprice of a knot of citizens (thus) becomes the desire of an immense population."[43] Buchez et Roux, XVI. 251. - Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 239 and 243.

The central bureau is first opened in "the building of the Saint-Esprit, in the second story, near the passage communicating with the common dwelling." Afterwards the commissioners of the section occupy another room in the H?tel-de-ville, nearly joining the throne-room, where the municipal council is holding its sessions. During the night of August 9-10 both councils sit four hours simultaneously within a few steps of each other.

[44] Robespierre, "Seventh letter to his constituents," says: "The sections. . . have been busy for more than a fortnight getting ready for the last Revolution."[45] Robespierre, "Seventh letter to his constituents" -- Malouet, II.

233, 234. -- R?derer, "Chronique des cinquante jours."[46] Moniteur, XIII. 318, 319. The petition is drawn up apparently by people who are beside themselves. "If we did not rely on you, I would not answer for the excesses to which our despair would carry us! We would bring on ourselves all the horrors of civil war, provided we could, on dying, drag along with us some of our cowardly assassins!" -- The representatives, it must be noted, talk in the same vein. La Source exclaims: "The members here, like yourselves, call for vengeance!" - Thuriot: "The crime is atrocious!"[47] Taine is describing a basic trait of human nature, something we see again and again whether our ancestors attacked small, harmless neighboring nations, witches, renegades, Jews, or religious people of another faith .(SR).

[48] Buchez et Roux, XIX 93, session of Sept. 23, 1792. Speech by Panis: "Many worthy citizens would like to have judicial proof; but political proofs satisfy us" -- Towards the end of July the Minister of the Interior had invited Pétion to send two municipal officers to examine the Tuileries; but this the council refused to do, so as to keep up the excitement.

[49] Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," 303. Letter of Malouet, June 29. --Bertrand de Molleville, "Mémoires," II. 301. -- Hua, 148. -- Weber, II. 208. -- Madame Campan, "Mémoires," II. 188. Already, at the end of 1791, the king was told that he was liable to be poisoned by the pastry-cook of the palace, a Jacobin. For three or four months the bread and pastry he ate were secretly purchased in other places. On the 14th of July, 1792, his attendants, on account of the threats against his life, put a breastplate on him under his coat.

[50] member of the 1789 Constituent Assembly. (SR).

[51] Moniteur, VIII. 271, 278. A deputy, excusing his assailants, pretends that d'ésprémesnil urged the people to enter the Tuileries garden. It is scarcely necessary to state that during the Constituent Assembly d'Espréménil was one of the most conspicuous members of the extreme "Right." - Duc de Ga?te, "Mémoires," I. 18.

[52] Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 465.

[53] Moniteur, XIII. 327, -- Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 176.

[54] Moniteur, XIII. 340. -- The style of these petitions is highly instructive. We see in them the state of mind and degree of education of the petitioners: sometimes a half-educated writer attempting to reason in the vein of the Contrat Social; sometimes, a schoolboy spouting the tirades of Raynal; and sometimes, the corner letter-writer putting together the expressions forming his stock in trade.

[55] Carra, "Précis historique sur l'origine et les véritables auteurs de l'insurrection du 10 Ao?t." -- Barbaroux, "Mémoires, 49. The executive directory, appointed by the central committee of the confederates, held its first meeting in a wine-shop, the Soleil d'or, on the square of the Bastille; the second at the Cadran bleu, on the boulevard; the third in Antoine's room, who then lodged in the same house with Robespierre. Camille Desmoulins was present at this latter meeting. Santerre, Westermann, Fournier the American, and Lazowski were the principal members of this Directory. Another insurrectionary plan was drawn up on the 30th of July in a wine-shop at Charenton by Barbaroux, Rebecqui, Pierre Bayle, Heron, and Fournier the American. -Cf. J. Claretie, "Camille Desmoulins," p. 192. Desmoulins wrote, a little before the 10th of August: "If the National Assembly thinks that it cannot save the country, let it declare then, that, according to the Constitution, and like the Romans, it hands this over to each citizen. Let the tocsin be rung forthwith, the whole nation assembled, and every man, as at Rome, be invested with the power of putting to death all well-known conspirators!"[56] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 182. Decision of the Quinze-Vingt Section, Aug. 4. - Buchez et Roux, XVI. 402-410. History of Quinze-Vingt Section.