书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
19097600000581

第581章

"screams, murmurs, stampings, shouts. . . The foulest insults were launched from the galleries." "For a long time," says another, "no one can speak here without obtaining their permission."[28] The day that Buzot obtains the floor to speak against Marat, "they break out furiously, yelling, stamping, and threatening";[29] every time that Buzot tries to begin his voice is drowned in the clamor, while he remains half an hour in the tribune without completing a sentence. On the calls of the House, especially, their cries resemble those of the excited crowd at a Spanish bull-fight, with their eager eyes and heaving breasts, watching the contest between the bull and the picadores; every time that a deputy votes against the death of the King or for an appeal to the people, there are the "vociferations of cannibals," and "interminable yells" every time that one votes for the indictment of Marat. "I declare," say deputies in the tribune, "that Iam not free here; I declare that I am forced to debate under the knife."[30] Charles Villette is told at the entrance that "if he does not vote for the King's death he will be massacred." -- And these are not empty threats. On the 10th of March, awaiting the promised riot, "the tribunes, duly advised, . . . had already loaded their pistols."[31] In the month of May, the tattered women hired for the purpose, under the title of "Ladies of the Fraternity," formed a club, came daily early in the morning to mount guard, with arms in their hands, in the corridors of the Convention; they tear up all tickets given to men or women not of their band; they take possession of all the seats, show pistols and daggers, and declare that "eighteen hundred heads must be knocked off to make things go on right."[32]

Behind these two first rows of assailants is a third, much more compact, the more fearful because it is undefined and obscure, namely, the vague multitude forming the anarchical set, scattered throughout Paris, and always ready to renew the 10th of August and 2nd of September against the obstinate majority. Incendiary motions and demands for riots come incessantly from the Commune, and Jacobin, Cordeliers, and l'Evêché clubs; from the assemblies of the sections and groups stationed at the Tuileries and in the streets.

"Yesterday," writes the president of the Tuileries section,[33] "at the same moment, at various points about Paris, the Rue du Bac, at the Marais, in the Church of St. Eustache, at the Palace of the Revolution, on the Feuillants terrace, scoundrels were preaching pillage and assassination." -- On the following day, again on the Feuillants terrace, that is to say, right under the windows of the Convention, "they urge the assassination of Louvel for having denounced Robespierre. " -- Minister Roland writes: "I hear of nothing but conspiracy and plans to murder." -- Three weeks later, for several days, "an up-rising is announced in Paris";[34] the Minister is warned that "alarm guns would be fired," while the heads are designated beforehand on which this ever muttering insurrection will burst. In the following month, in spite of the recent precise law, "the electoral assembly prints and circulates gratis the list of members of the Feuillants and Sainte-Chapelle clubs; it likewise orders the printing and circulation of the list of the eight thousand, and of the twenty thousand, as well as of the clubs of 1789 and of Montaigu."[35]