书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
19097600000862

第862章

Now as we have seen,[151] two of these plans square with this theory, one anarchical and the other despotic; naturally, the master adopts the latter, and, like a practical man, he builds according to that theory a substantial edifice, with sand and lime, habitable and well suited to its purposes. All the masses of the great work-civil code, university, Concordat, prefectoral and centralized administration-all the details of its arrangement and distribution of places, tend to one general effect, which is the omnipotence of the State, the omnipresence of the government, the abolition of local and private initiative, the suppression of voluntary free association, the gradual dispersion of small spontaneous groupings, the preventive ban of prolonged hereditary works, the extinction of sentiments by which the individual lives beyond himself in the past or in the future. Never were finer barracks constructed, more symmetrical and more decorative in aspect, more satisfactory to superficial views, more acceptable to vulgar good sense, more suited to narrow egoism, better kept and cleaner, better adapted to the discipline of the average and low elements of human nature, and better adapted to dispersing or perverting the superior elements of human nature. In this philosophical barracks we have lived for eighty years.

THE END.

(written in 1889).

__________________________________________________________________________Notes:

[1] Gaudin, Duc de Ga?te, "Memoires," I., 28. Gaudin, commissioner of the Treasury, meets the president of the revolutionary committee of his quarter, an excellent Jacobin, who says to him: "Eh, well, what's all this? Robespierre proscribed! Is it possible? What is wanted -everything was going on so well!" (It is true that fifty or sixty heads fell daily.) "I replied, 'Just so, there are some folks that are never satisfied.'"[2] Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," II., 16. (Letter of January 8, 1795.) -Ibid., "Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne," I., 23, 25, 32, 34, (January 8, 1795, on the four parties com posing the Convention).

[3] Marshal Marmont: "Memoires," I., 120. (Report of General Dugommier on the capture of Toulon.) "That memorable day avenged the general will of a partial and gangrened will, the delirium of which caused the greatest misfortunes."[4] Memorial of the ninety-four survivors Thermidor 30, year II., acquitted Fructidor 28.

[5] Carrier indicted Brumaire 21, year III. Decree of arrest passed by 498 out of 500 votes, Frimaire 3; execution Frimaire 26. Fouquier-Tinville indicted Frimaire 28; execution Floréal 28, there being 419witnesses heard. Joseph Lebon indicted Messidor I, year III. Trial adjourned to the Somme court, Messidor 29; execution Vendémiaire 24, year IV.

[6] Cf. chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the present volume. Numbers of printed documents of this epoch show what these local sovereigns were.

The principal ones in the department of Ain were "Anselm, who had placed Marat's head in his shop. Duclos, a joiner, living before the 31st of May on his earnings; he became after that a gentleman living on his rents, owning national domains, sheep, horses and pocket books filled with assignats. Laimant, a tailor, in debt, furnishing his apartment suddenly with all the luxuriousness of the ancient regime, such as beds at one hundred pistoles etc. Alban, mayor, placing seals everywhere, was a blacksmith and father of a family which he supported by his labor; all at once he stops working, and passes from a state of dependence to one of splendor; he has diamonds and earrings, always wearing new clothes, fine linen shirts, muslin cravates, silk stockings, etc.; on removing the seals in the houses of those imprisoned and guillotined, little or nothing was found in them.

Alban was denounced and incarcerated for having obliged a woman of Macon to give him four hundred francs on promising to interest himself in her husband. Such are the Ain patriots. Rollet, another, had so frightened the rural districts that the people ran away on his approach; on one occasion he had two of them harnessed to his carriage and drove them along for some time in this manner . . . Another, Charcot (of Virieu), before the Revolution, was a highway assassin, and was banished for three years for an act of this description."(Bibliotheque Nationale. Lb. 41, No. 1318. "The truth in reply to calumnious charges against the department of Ain." Letter of Roux, Vendémiaire, year III.)[7] Decree of Germinal 12, year III: for the transportation of Collot, Barère, Billaud-Varennes and Vadier. Eight Montagnards are put under arrest. - Decree of Germinal 14: the same against nine other Montagnards. ?Decree of Germinal 29: the same against Maribon-Montant. - Decree of Prairial 6: twenty-nine Montagnards are indicted. - Decree of Prairial 8: putting six Montagnards under arrest. - Decree of Prairial 9: the same against nine members of former committees. - Decrees of Prairial 10 to Thermidor 22, year III: condemning 6 Montagnards to death, one to transportation and twenty put under arrest.

[8] Barbé-Marbois," Mémoires," preface, p. VIII. "Except about fifty men who are honest and intelligent, history presents no sovereign assembly containing so much vice, abjectness and ignorance." ??Buchez et Roux, XXXVII., 7. (Speech by Legendre, Thermidor 17, year III.)"It is stated in print that, at most, there are but twenty pure men in this Assembly." - Ibid., 27. Order of the Lepelletier section, Vendemiaire 10, year IV. "It is certain that we owe the dearth and all its accompanying evils to the incapacity and brigandage of the present government."[9] Mallet-Dupan, " Correspondance," etc., I., 211. (May 27, 1795.)[10] "Un Sejour en France," 267. 271, (Amiens, March 13, April 12, 1795.)[11] Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," 123, 351. (The author arrives in Paris, September 22, 1795.)[12] Decrees of Fructidor 5 and 13, year III.