书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
5010600000864

第864章

- The same remark for the "Fidélité" section. Its minutes state that the décrees are rejected "unanimously," and that it is composed of 1,300 citizens; its vote, likewise, goes for nothing. The totals given by the recapitulation are as follows: Voters on the Constitution, 1,107,368. For, 1,057,390. Against, 49,978. - Voters on the Decrees, 314,382. For, 205,498. Against, 108,794. - Mallet-Dupan (I., 313) estimates the number of electors, at Paris, who rejected the decrees, at eighty thousand. Fiévée, "Correspondance avec Bonaparte," introduction, p. 126. - (A few days before Vendémiaire 13, Fiévée, in the name of the Theatre-Fran?ais section, came, with two other commissioners, to verify the returns announced by the Convention.) "We divided the returns into three parts; each commissioner undertook to check off one of these parts, pen in hand, and the conscientious result of our labor was to show that, although the Convention had voting done in a mass by all the regiments then in France, individually, the majority, incontestably was against its project. Thus, while trying to have the election law passed under the Constitution, both measures were rejected."[21] Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris pendant la Revolution." (Reports of Messidor 1 and 24, year III.) "Good citizens are alarmed at the numerous pardons granted to the members of the revolutionary committees." "The release of numerous terrorists is generally turned to account." - Mallet-Dupan, " Correspondance," etc., I., 259, 261, 321. "The vilest terrorists have been set free; a part of them confined in the chateau of Ham have been allowed to escape; they are summoned from all parts of the kingdom; they even send for them abroad, in Germany, in Belgium, in Savoy, in Geneva. On reaching Paris they are given leaders and organized. September 11 and 12 they began to meet publicly in groups and to use threats. I have proof of emissaries being engaged in recruiting them in the places I have mentioned and in paying their expenses to the capital." (Letter of September 26, 1795.)[22] Buchez et Roux, XXXVII., 36, 49. (Reports of Merlin de Douai and Barras on the 13th of Vendémiaire.) - Thibaudeau, "Histoire de la Convention et du Directoire," I., 209. - Fabre de l'Aude, "Histoire secrete du Directoire," I., p.10. "The Convention opened the prison doors to fifteen or eighteen hundred Jacobin lunatics, zealots of the former members of the Committee of Public Safety." - Mallet Dupan, (ibid., I., 332, 337, 361,) estimates the numbers of terrorists enrolled at three thousand.

[23] Barbé-Marbois, "Mémoires,"9. - Meissner, p.246.

[24] Mallet-Dupan, ibid., I., 282. (Letter of August 16, 1795.) "At Paris, the patriots of 1789 have got the upper hand. The regicides have the greatest horror of this class because they regard it as a hundred times more dangerous than pronounced aristocrats." Ibid., 316.

- -Meissner, p. 229. "The sectionists want neither a republic nor monarchy but simply intelligent and honest men for the places in the new Convention."[25] Lavalette, "Mémoires," I., 162, 170.

[26] Meissner, p. 236. - Any number of details show the features and characters of the male and female Jacobins here referred to. For example, Carnot, ("Mémoires," I., 581,) says in his narrative of the foregoing riot, (Prairial 1st.): "A creature with a horrible face put himself astride my bench and kept constantly repeating: "To-day is the day we'll make you passer le gout de pain? and furies posted in the tribunes, made signs of the guillotine."[27] Meissner, p. 238.-Fiévée, p.127, and following pages.

[28] Mallet-Dupan, I., 333, and following pages. (Letter of October 24, 1795.) "Barras does not repeat the mistake made by the Court on the 10th of April, and shut himself up in the chateau and the Tuileries; he posts troops and artillery in all the avenues. . . .

Fréron and two other representatives, supplied with coin and assignats collected in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, four or five hundred bandits which joined the terrorists; these formed the pretended battalions of the loyal section which had been pompously announced to the Convention. No section, excepting the" Quinze-vingts," sent its battalion, this section having separated at the outset from the other forty-seven sections. . . . The gardens and court of the Tuileries resembled a feasting camp, where the Committees caused distributions of wine and all sorts of provisions; many of their defenders were intoxicated; the troops of the line were kept loyal with money and drink."- After Vendemiaire 13, the Convention brings further reinforcements of regular troops into Paris to keep the city under, amounting to eight or nine thousand men.

[29] Constitution of year III., Articles VI. and VII.

[30] Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," II., 367 and following pages. Sauzay, "Hist. de la Persecution Révolutionnaire dans le Doubs," VIII., ch. 52 and 54 - Law of Pluvi?se 4, year IV., authorizing the executive Directory to appoint the members who, up to Thermidor I, year IV., shall compose the municipal bodies of Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles and Paris.

[31] Decree of Brumaire 3, year IV.

[32] Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of Gen. Kermorvan, to the Com. of Public Safety, Valenciennes, Fructidor 22, year III.)At Valenciennes, during the elections, "the leaders of the sections used their fists in driving out of the primary assemblies all the worthy men possessing the necessary qualities for election. . . .

I knew that the "seal-breakers," (brise-scellés), were the promoters of these turbulent parties, the patriotic robbers, the men who have wasted public and private fortunes belonging to the commune, and who are reveling in the houses and on the estates of the émigrés which they have had awarded to them at a hundred times below their value. .

. . All of them are appointed electors. . . . They have paid .