书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第494章

His sincerity passes for a new false-hood. Vergniaud, Brissot, Torné, Condorcet, in the tribune, charge him with treachery, demand from the Assembly the right of suspending him,[18] and give the signal to their Jacobin auxiliaries. -- At the invitation of the parent club, the provincial branches bestir themselves, while all other instruments of agitation belonging to the revolutionary machine are likewise put in motion, -- gatherings on the public squares, homicidal announcements on the walls, incendiary resolutions in the clubs, shouting in the tribunes, insulting addresses and seditious deputations at the bar of the National Assembly.[19] After the working of this system for a month, the Girondists regard the King as subdued, and, on the 26th of July, Guadet, and then Brissot, in the tribune, make their last advances to him, and issue the final summons.[20] A profound delusion! He refuses, the same as on the 20th of June: "Girondist ministers, Never!"Since he bars one of the two doors, they will pass out at the other, and, if the Girondists cannot rule through him, they will rule without him. Pétion, in the name of the Commune, appears personally and proposes a new plan, demanding the dethronement. "This important measure once passed,"[21] he says, "the confidence of the nation in the actual dynasty being very doubtful, we demand that a body of ministers, jointly responsible, appointed by the National Assembly, but, as the constitutional law provides, outside of itself, elected by the open vote of freemen, be provisionally entrusted with the executive power." Through this open vote the suffrage will be easily controlled. This is but one more decree extorted, like so many others, the majority for a long time having been subject to the same pressure as the King. "If you refuse to respond to our wishes," as a placard of the 23rd of June had already informed them, "our hands are lifted, and we shall strike all traitors wherever they can be found, even amongst yourselves."[22] -- "Court favorites," says a petition of August 6, "have seats in your midst. Let their inviolability perish if the national will must always tamely submit to that lethal power!" -- In the Assembly the yells from the galleries are frightful; the voices of those who speak against dethronement are overpowered; so great are the hooting, the speakers are driven out of the tribune.[23] Sometimes the "Right" abandons the discussion and leaves the chamber. The insolence of the galleries goes so far that frequently almost the entire Assembly murmurs while they applaud; the majority, in short, loudly expresses anger at its bondage.[24] -- Let it be careful! In the tribunes and at the approaches to the edifice, stand the Federates, men who have a tight grip. They will force it to vote the decisive measure, the accusation of Lafayette, the decree under which the armed champion of the King and the Constitution must fall. The Girondists, to make sure of it, exact a call of the house; in this way the names are announced and printed, thus designating to the populace the opponents of the measure, so that none of them are sure of getting to their homes safe and sound. -- Lafayette, however, a liberal, a democrat, and a royalist, as devoted to the Revolution as to the Law, is just the man, who, through his limited mental grasp, his disconnected political conceptions, and the nobleness of his contradictory sentiments, best represents the present opinion of the Assembly, as well as that of France.[25] Moreover, his popularity, his courage, and his army are the last refuge. The majority feels that in giving him up they themselves are given up, and, by a vote of 400 to 224, it acquits him. -- On this side, again, the strategy of the Girondists is found erroneous. Power slips away from them the second time. Neither the King nor the Assembly have consented to restore it to them, while they can no longer leave it suspended in the air, or defer it until a better opportunity, and keep their Jacobin acolytes waiting. The feeble leash restraining the revolutionary dog breaks in their hands; the dog is free and in the streetIII.

The Girondins have worked for the benefit of the Jacobins. -- The armed force sent away or disorganized. -- The Federates summoned. --Brest and Marseilles send men. -- Public sessions of administrative bodies. -- Permanence of administrative bodies and of the sections. -- Effect of these two measures. -- The central bureau of the H?tel-de-ville. -- Origin and formation of the revolutionary Commune.

Never was better work done for another. Every measure relied on by them for getting power back, serves only to place it in the hands of the mob. -- On the one hand, through a series of legislative acts and municipal ordinances, they have set aside or disbanded the army, alone capable of repressing or intimidating it. On the 29th of May they dismissed the king's guard. On the 15th of July they ordered away from Paris all regular troops. On the 16th of July,[26] they select " for the formation of a body of infantry-gendarmerie, the former French-guardsmen who served in the Revolution about the epoch of the 1st day of June, 1789, the officers, under-officers, gunners, and soldiers who gathered around the flag of liberty after the 12th of July of that year," that is to say, a body of recognized insurgents and deserters.