have the means of checking them; the sword of the law must be intrusted to surer hands; it must turn everywhere, and fall with the rapidity of lightning on all its enemies." In silent dread the Assembly and the people heard the terrible declaration; its justice was universally acknowledged. All now saw that the insupportable evils of anarchy could only be arrested by the sanguinary arm of despotism. 5. But the necessity of some central executive power was speedily felt, to make head against the innumerable dangers and difficulties, external and internal, in which France was involved. The administration had been in the hands of the Girondists; some central power was indispensably required, on their overthrow, to put a period to the anarchy which threatened the country. The Committee of Public Salvation presented the skeleton of a government already formed. Created some months before, it was at first composed of the neutral party; the victorious Jacobins, after the 31st May, found themselves in possession of its power. Robespierre, St Just, Couthon, Billaud Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois, were successively elected members, and speedily ejected Hérault de Séchelles, and the other partisans of Danton.* To the ruling Jacobins, the different departments of government were assigned: St Just was intrusted with the duty of denouncing its enemies; Couthon with bringing forward its general measures; Billaud Varennes and Collot d'Herbois with the management of the departments; Carnot was made minister of war; Barère, the panegyrist and orator of the government; Robespierre, general dictator over all. 6. While the practical administration of affairs was thus lodged with despotic * The Committee of Public Salvation was not immediately altered after the 31st May. On 10th July it was changed, and Barère, Jean-Bon St André, Gasparin, Couthon, Thuriot, St Just, Prieur (de la Marne), Hérault de Séchelles, and R. Lindet were chosen members. On 27th July Robespierre was elected in room of Gasparin; Carnot and Prieur (de la Côte d'Or) were added on the 14th August; and Billaud Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and Garamsin, on the 6th September.-Histoire Parlementaire, xxviii. 147. power in the hands of the Committee of Public Salvation, the general superintendence of the police was vested in another Committee, styled of General Safety, subordinate to the former, but still possessed of most formidable authority. Inferior to both in power, and now deprived of much of its political importance by the vast influence of the Committee of Public Salvation, the municipality of Paris began to turn its attention to the internal regulation of the city, and there exercised its power with the most despotic rigour. It took under its cognisance the police of the metropolis, the public subsistence, the markets, the public worship, the theatre, the courtesans, and framed on all these subjects a variety of minute and vexatious regulations, which were speedily adopted over all France. Chaumette, its public accuser, ever sure of the applause of the multitude, especially when he tormented their creditors, exerted in all these particulars the most rigorous authority. Consumed by an incessant desire to subject everything to new regulations, continually actuated by the wish to invade domestic liberty, this legislator of the market-places and warehouses became daily more vexatious and formidable; while Pache, the mayor, indolent and imperturbable, agreed to everything which was proposed, and left to Chaumette all the influence of popularity with the rabble. 7. The correspondence which the Jacobins carried on over all France, with the most ardent and factious in the towns and villages, speedily gave them the entire direction of the country, and rendered the Committee of Public Salvation at Paris, resting on the support of their central club, altogether irresistible from one end of the Republic to the other. It was the comviolent of the Revolutionists, had everymand which that party, as the most where obtained of the magistracies, which was the secret of this terrible power. The Jacobins of Paris were the incarnation of the whole civil and military force of the commonwealth; the Committee of Public Salvation was. the incarnation of the Jacobins of Paris; and Robespierre was the Avatar who personified the Committee of Public Salvation. The democratic party, in possession of all the municipalities in the departments, in consequence of their being elected by universal suffrage armed with the powers of a terrible police, intrusted with the right of making domiciliary visits, of disarming or imprisoning the suspected persons-soon obtained irresistible authority. In vain the armed sections and battalions of the national guard in some places strove to resist; want of union and organisation paralysed all their efforts. In almost all the provincial towns of France they had courage enough to take up arms, and sometimes endeavoured to withstand the dreadful tyranny of the magistracies; but these bodies, based on the support and election of the multitude, in the end everywhere prevailed over the whole class of proprietors, and all the peaceable citizens, who in vain invoked the liberty, tranquillity, and security to property, for the preservation of which they were enrolled. This was, generally speaking, the situation of parties over all France, though the strife was more ardent in those situations where the masses were densest, and danger most evidently threatened the revolutionary party. 8. The spirit of faction had been for long, in an especial manner, conspicuous at Lyons. A club of Jacobins had some time previously been there formed, composed of deputies from all the clubs of note in the south of France, at the head of which was an ardent Republican, of Italian origin, named Chalier, a man of the most atrocious character, who was at the same time an officer of the municipality and president of the civil tribunal. The Jacobins had got possession of all the offices in the municipality except the mayoralty, which was still in the hands of a Girondist of the name of Nevière. The Jacobin Club made use of the utmost efforts to displace him, loudly demanded a Revolutionary Tribunal, and paraded through the streets a guillotine recently sent down from Paris, "to strike terror into the traitors and aristocrats." Chalier was at the head of all these revolutionary movements, and with such success were his efforts attended, that, for four days in August 1792, the city of Lyons was the prey of anarchy and murder, and the whole of the autumn of that year, and spring of 1793, had been passed in the most vehement strife between the two parties. A list of eight hundred persons, who had signed a petition in favour of moderate government, was kept by Chalier, and they were all doomed to death: the day of the massacre being fixed for the 9th May, when also a Revolutionary Tribunal was to be established. On the other hand, the armed sections, composed of the shopkeepers and better class of citizens, who were strongly attached to the principles of the Girondists, vigorously exerted themselves to resist the establishment of a tribunal which was shedding such torrents of blood in the capital. Everything already announced that desperate strife of which this devoted city so soon became the theatre. 9. In the other towns in the south of France the Girondists were all-powerful, and the utmost horror at the anarchical party, who had obtained the ascendancy at Paris and in the northern provinces, was already conspicuous. Rennes, Caen, Evreux, Marseilles, Toulouse, Nimes, Saintes, Grenoble, Bayonne, all shared their sentiments. Almost all the deputies who formed the party of the Gironde came from these towns, and their principles perfectly represented the feelings by which the great majority of the better class of citizens was animated. From the mouth of the Rhone to that of the Garonne, these sentiments were nearly universal, and in some even the municipalities were in the hands of the moderate party. At Bordeaux these principles were so strong that they already bordered on Royalist feelings; while the whole country, from the Gironde and the entrance of the Loire, by the shores of the ocean to the mouth of the Seine, was openly attached to the ancient institutions of the country, and beheld with undisguised horror the atrocities with which the Revolutionary party at Paris had already stained their career. 10. Such was the state of public feel ing in France, when the Revolution of 31st May, and the fall of the Girondists, took place. That catastrophe set the whole of the southern departments into a flame; the imprisonment of the deputies of the national representatives by the mob of Paris, the open assumption of government by the municipality of that city, excited the most profound indignation. In most of the cities the magistracy had fallen, as already observed, into the hands of the Jacobins, who were supported by the parent club at Paris and the Executive; while the armed sections were attached to the opposite views. The catastrophe of the Girondists at Paris brought these conflicting powers almost everywhere into collision. At Evreux, the Jacobin authorities were put under arrest, and an armed force of four thousand men was organised; at Marseilles, the sections rose against the municipality, and violently seized possession of the magistracy; at Lyons, a furious combat took place--the sections took the Hotel de Ville by assault, dispossessed the magistracy, shut up the Jacobin Club, and gained the command of the city. At Bordeaux, the arrest of the Girondists, of whose talents the inhabitants were justly proud, excited the most violent sensation, which was brought to a crisis by the arrival of several of the fugitive deputies, who announced that their illustrious brethren were in fetters, and in hourly expectation of death. Cries of fury were immediately heard in all the streets; a general feeling of indignation and of despair impelled the citizens to their several rallying-points. The armed sections were quickly in motion, and the municipal authorities, elected during the first fervour of the Revolution, wrote to the executive council at Paris, that they were deprived of all power, and unable to say what events a day might bring forth. 11. On the 13th June the department of Eure gave the signal of insurrection. The plan agreed on was, that four thousand men should march upon Paris to liberate the Convention. Great part of Normandy soon followed the example, and all the departments of Brittany were ere long in arms. The whole valley of the Loire, with the exception of that which was the theatre of the war of La Vendée, proposed to send deputies to Bourges to depose the usurping faction at Paris. At Bordeaux the sensation was extreme. All the constituted authorities assembled together; erected themselves into a committee styled of Public Salvation; declared that the Convention was no longer free; appointed an armed force, and despatched couriers into all the neighbouring departments. Marseilles sent forth a determined petition; the whole mountaineers of the Jura were in a ferment; and the departments of the Rhone, the Garonne, and the Pyrenees, joined themselves to the vast confederacy. So far did the spirit of revolt proceed, that at Lyons, as already detailed, a prosecution was instituted against Chalier and the leaders of the Jacobin Club, whose projects for a repetition of the massacres of September at Paris had now been fully brought to light; and deputies, to concert measures for their common safety, were received from Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Caen. Seventy departments were in a state of insurrection; and fifteen only remained wholly devoted to the faction which had mastered the Convention. 12. Opinions were divided at Paris: how to meet so formidable a danger. Barère proposed, in the name of the Committee of Public Salvation, that the revolutionary committees, which had become so formidable throughout France from their numerous arrests, should be everywhere annulled; that the primary assemblies should be assembled at Paris to name a commander of the armed force in lieu of Henriot, who had been denounced by the insurgents; and that thirty deputies should be sent as hostages to the provinces. But the Jacobins were not disposed to any measures of conciliation. pierre adjourned the consideration of the report of the committee; and Danton, raising the voice so well known in all the perils of the Revolution, exclaimed "The Revolution has passed through many crises, and it will survive this as it has done the others. It is in the moments of a great produc Robes and already everywhere established in absolute force the despotism of the capital. They continued their preparations, however, and refused to send the proscribed authorities to Paris; but their ardour gradually cooled, and in two months the germ of revolt existed only in vigour at Lyons, Toulon, and Marseilles, where it brought about those bloody catastrophes which have been already recorded. tion that political, like physical bodies, | Salvation, wielding at will the army, seem menaced by an approaching de- the Jacobin clubs, and the municipastruction. The thunder rolls, but it is lities. France now felt the fatal conin the midst of its roar that the great sequences of the centralisation of all work which is to consummate the hap- power in Paris by the Constituent Aspiness of twenty-five millions of men sembly, of the democratic election of will be accomplished. Recollect what all the provincial authorities by unihappened at the time of the conspiracy versal suffrage, and of the general deof Lafayette. In what state were we sertion of their country by the emigrant then? The patriots proscribed or op- noblesse. These causes had utterly propressed; civil war threatening every-strated the strength of the provinces, where. Now we are in the same situation. It is said the insurrection in Paris has occasioned disturbances in the departments! Let us declare in the face of the universe, that Paris glories in the revolt of 31st May, and that, without the cannon of that day, the conspirators would have triumphed, and we should have been slaves!" In this spirit the Convention, instead of yielding, adopted the most vigorous measures, and spoke in the most menacing strain. They declared that Paris, in placing itself in a state of insurrection, had deserved well of the country; that the arrested deputies should forthwith be lodged in prison like ordinary criminals; that a call of the Convention should be made, and all those absent without excuse be instantly expelled, and their place supplied by new representatives; that all attempts at correspondence or coalition among the departmental authorities were illegal, and that those who presided in them should forthwith be sent to Paris. They annulled the resolution of the department of the Eure, ordered all the refractory authorities to be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and sent the most ardent Jacobins into the provinces to enforce submission to the central government. 13. These vigorous measures effectually broke this formidable league. The departments, little accustomed to resist the authority of the government at Paris, returned one by one to submission. Hostile preparations were made at Bordeaux, Lyons, Rouen, and Marseilles; but the insurgents, without a leader or central point of union, and destitute of all support from the nobility and natural chiefs of the country, were unable in most places to struggle with the energetic Committee of Public 14. The great engine which the Jacobins made use of to inflame the popular passions against their opponents, and counteract the general burst of indignation which followed in the departments the proscription of the Girondists, was the charging them with the project of destroying the unity of the Republic, and establishing, instead of one mighty state, a federal union of small republics. That this project was entertained by many of the Girondists is certain; nor indeed could they well avoid anxiously wishing for the establishment of such a system, considering the incalculable evils which they saw coming on their country and themselves, by the centralisation of all power in the hands of a violent and sanguinary faction at Paris, and the apparent prosperity and happiness which, under the federal system, the United States were enjoying. But the Jacobins, by incessantly representing that design as amounting, as in fact it did, to a partition of France, and as rendering it wholly unable to resist the attacks of the European monarchies, succeeded in generally rousing the national spirit against the fallen party, and cooling the ardour of those in the departments who had taken up arms in their defence. On the other hand, the leading principle of the Jacobins, which in a great degree produced their popu regeneration. We may now despise the efforts of calumny; we can say -There is the answer of the patriot deputies; there is the work of the Mountain." Chabot answered-"In this constitution, so loudly praised, I see a power at once colossal and libertine. When you establish so powerful an executive, you sow anew the seeds of royalty. I am told that this power has no veto; but what does that signify? I am asked, what will be the guarantee of liberty? I answer, the guillotine." larity in Paris, was the constant deter- | sublime and majestic image of French mination they evinced and acted on, to centralise everything in the capital, and render it all in all over France.* Meanwhile the reaction at Lyons, where, during the first burst of public indignation at the arrest of the Girondists, the federal party had gained an entire ascendancy, became terrible. The Revolutionary Tribunal, established by the Jacobins for the destruction of their enemies, now seized by another party, was worked with fearful efficacy against themselves. Numerous arrests took place; and in July alone, eighty-three persons were ordered to be brought to trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal at Lyons; and though one only of these, Chalier, suffered death, yet it was attended with circumstances of a very shocking kind. Though his crimes richly deserved that punishment, yet was his execution peculiarly horrible. Four times the guillotine (as yet a novel instrument in that region) missedits blow, and his head was at length severed from his body by means of a knife. 15. The Convention shortly after, now wholly under the power of the Jacobins, proceeded to the formation of a constitution, the most democratic that ever existed upon earth. Eight days completed the work. Every Frenchman of twenty-one years of age was entitled to exercise the rights of a citizen; a deputy was named by every fifty thousand citizens. On the 1st of May of every year, the primary assemblies were to meet, without any convocation, to renew the deputies. It was adopted with out discussion, and instantly circulated over all France. "The most democratic constitution that ever existed," said Robespierre in the Jacobins, "has issued from the bosom of an assembly composed of counter-revolutionists, now purged of its unworthy members. We can now offer to the universe a constitutional code, infinitely superior to any that ever existed, which exhibits the "To develop the idea that Paris is the real sphere of the Republic, the centre of Government, a never-failing army; that it can exist only by the revenues drawn from the departments.". -Notes de PAYAN, agent de ROBESPIERRE. Papiers Inédits trouvés chez ROBESPIERRE, ii. 388. 16. But there never was a greater mistake than to imagine that this constitution, so republican in form, conferred any real liberties on the people. Its only effect was to concentrate the whole authority of the state in the hands of a few popular leaders. Thenceforward the Committee of Public Salvation at Paris exercised, without opposition, all the powers of government. It named and dismissed the generals, the judges, and the juries, appointed the provincial authorities, brought forward all public measures in the Convention, and launched its thunder against every opposing faction. By means of its commissioners it ruled the provinces, generals, and armies, with absolute sway; and soon after, the Law of Suspected Persons placed the personal freedom of every subject at its disposal: the Revolutionary Tribunal rendered it the master of every life; the requisitions and the maximum, of every fortune; the accusations in the Convention, of every member of the legislature. The Law of the Suspected, which augmented so prodigiously this tremendous power of the Decemvirs, passed on the 17th September. It declared all persons liable to arrest, who, "either by their conduct, their relations, their conversation, or their writing, have shown themselves the partisans of tyranny or of federation, or the enemies of freedom; all persons who have not discharged their debts to the country; all nobles, the husbands, wives, parents, children, brothers, sisters, or agents of emigrants, who have not incessantly manifested their devotion to the Revolution." Under this law, no person had |