Madame Roland, in the name of her husband, drew up for the Convention the plan of a republic as a subst.i.tute for the throne. From childhood she had yearned for a republic, with its liberty and purity, fascinated by the ideal of Roman virtue, from which her lively imagination had banished all human corruption. But now that the throne and hereditary rank were virtually abolished, and all France clamoring for a republic, and the pen in her hand to present to the National a.s.sembly a Const.i.tution of popular liberty, her heart misgave her. Her husband was nominally Minister of the Interior, but his power was gone. The mob of Paris had usurped the place of king, and Const.i.tution, and law. The Jacobins were attaining the decided ascendency. The guillotine was daily crimsoned with the blood of the n.o.blest citizens of France. The streets and the prisons were polluted with the ma.s.sacre of the innocent. The soul of Madame Roland recoiled with horror at the scenes she daily witnessed. The Girondists struggled in vain to resist the torrent, but they were swept before it. The time had been when the proclamation of a republic would have filled her soul with inexpressible joy. Now she could see no gleam of hope for her country. The restoration of the monarchy was impossible.
The subst.i.tution of a republic was inevitable. No earthly power could prevent it. In that republic she saw only the precursor of her own ruin, the ruin of all dear to her, and general anarchy. With a dejected spirit she wrote to a friend, "We are under the knife of Robespierre and Marat. You know my enthusiasm for the Revolution. I am ashamed of it now. It has been sullied by monsters. It is hideous."
CHAPTER VII.
MADAME ROLAND AND THE JACOBINS.
1792
Advance of the allies.--Hopes of the king"s friends.--Consternation at Paris.--Speech of Danton.--Despotic measures.--Domiciliary visits.--Opening of the catacombs.--Terror of the people.--Scenes of terror.--Vain attempts at concealment.--Numbers arrested.--The priests.--A human fiend.--Butchery of the priests.--Arrival at the prison.--Prison tribunal.--Ma.s.sacre in the prisons.--Fiendish orgies.--Female spectators.--Character of the victims.--The Bicetre.--Numbers ma.s.sacred.--Girls sent to the guillotine.--Their heroism.--The a.s.sa.s.sins rewarded.--They threaten their instigators.--Ascendency of the mob.--Peril of the Girondists.--The a.s.sembly surrounded.--Adroitness of the Jacobins.--Advance of the allies.--Robespierre and Danton.--Bold measures proposed by Madame Roland.--Decisive stand taken by MM. Roland and Vergniaud.--The Girondists defeated.--Resignation of M. Roland.--Attacks upon Madame Roland.--How received in the a.s.sembly.--Letter from M. Roland.--Its lofty tone.--Danton seeks a reconciliation.--His failure.--Plans of the Jacobins.--Fearlessness of Madame Roland.
The Prussians were now advancing on their march to Paris. One after another of the frontier cities of France were capitulating to the invaders as the storm of bomb-sh.e.l.ls, from the batteries of the allied army, was rained down upon their roofs. The French were retreating before their triumphant adversaries. Sanguine hopes sprung up in the bosoms of the friends of the monarchy that the artillery of the Prussians would soon demolish the iron doors of the Temple, where the king and the royal family were imprisoned, and reinstate the captive monarch upon his throne. The Revolutionists were almost frantic in view of their peril. They knew that there were tens of thousands in Paris, of the most wealthy and the most influential, and hundreds of thousands in France, who would, at the slightest prospect of success, welcome the Prussians as their deliverers. Should the king thus prove victorious, the leaders in the revolutionary movement had sinned too deeply to hope for pardon. Death was their inevitable doom.
Consternation pervaded the metropolis. The magnitude of this peril united all the revolutionary parties for their common defense. Even Vergniaud, the most eloquent leader of the Girondists, proposed a decree of death against every citizen of a besieged city who should speak of surrender.
It was midnight in the a.s.sembly. The most extraordinary and despotic measures were adopted by acclamation to meet the fearful emergency.
"We must rouse the whole populace of France," exclaimed Danton, in those tones which now began to thrill so portentously upon the ear of Europe, "and hurl them, _en ma.s.se_, upon our invaders. There are traitors in Paris, ready to join our foes. We must arrest them all, however numerous they may be. The peril is imminent. The precautions adopted must be correspondingly prompt and decisive. With the morning sun we must visit every dwelling in Paris, and imprison those whom we have reason to fear will join the enemies of the nation, even though they be thirty thousand in number."
The decree pa.s.sed without hesitation. The gates of Paris were to be locked, that none might escape. Carriages were to be excluded from the streets. All citizens were ordered to be at home. The sections, the tribunals, the clubs were to suspend their sittings, that the public attention might not be distracted. All houses were to be brilliantly lighted in the evening, that the search might be more effectually conducted. Commissaries, accompanied by armed soldiers, were, in the name of the law, to enter every dwelling. Each citizen should show what arms he had. If any thing excited suspicion, the individual and his premises were to be searched with the utmost vigilance. If the slightest deception had been practiced, in denying or in not fully confessing any suspicious appearances, the person was to be arrested and imprisoned. If a person were found in any dwelling but his own, he was to be imprisoned as under suspicion. Guards were to be placed in all unoccupied houses. A double cordon of soldiers were stationed around the walls, to arrest all who should attempt to escape. Armed boats floated upon the Seine, at the two extremities of Paris, that every possible pa.s.sage of escape might be closed. Gardens, groves, promenades, all were to be searched.
With so much energy was this work conducted, that that very night a body of workmen were sent, with torches and suitable tools, to open an access to the subterranean burial-grounds extending under a portion of Paris, that a speedy disposal might be made of the antic.i.p.ated mult.i.tude of dead bodies. The decree, conveying terror to ten thousand bosoms, spread with the rapidity of lightning through the streets and the dwellings of Paris. Every one who had expressed a sentiment of loyalty; every one who had a friend who was an emigrant or a loyalist; every one who had uttered a word of censure in reference to the sanguinary atrocities of the Revolution; every one who inherited an ill.u.s.trious name, or who had an unfriendly neighbor or an inimical servant, trembled at the swift approach of the impending doom.
Bands of men, armed with pikes, brought into power from the dregs of society, insolent, merciless, and resistless, accompanied by martial music, traversed the streets in all directions. As the commissaries knocked at a door, the family within were pale and paralyzed with terror. The brutal inquisitors appeared to delight in the anguish which their stern office extorted, and the more refined the family in culture or the more elevated in rank, the more severely did vulgarity in power trample them in the dust of humiliation. They took with them workmen acquainted with all possible modes of concealment. They broke locks, burst in panels, cut open beds and mattresses, tore up floors, sounded wells, explored garrets and cellars for secret doors and vaults, and could they find in any house an individual whom affection or hospitality had sheltered, a rusty gun, an old picture of any member of the royal family, a b.u.t.ton with the royal arms, a letter from a suspected person, or containing a sentiment against the "Reign of Terror," the father was instantly and rudely torn from his home, his wife, his children, and hurried with ignominious violence, as a traitor unfit to live, through the streets, to the prison. It was a night of woe in Paris.
The friends of the monarchy soon found all efforts at concealment unavailing. They had at first crept into chimneys, from which they were soon smoked out. They had concealed themselves behind tapestry.
But pikes and bayonets were with derision thrust through their bodies.
They had burrowed in holes in the cellars, and endeavored to blind the eye of pursuit by coverings of barrels, or lumber, or wood, or coal.
But the stratagems of affection were equally matched by the sagacity of revolutionary phrensy, and the doomed were dragged to light. Many of the Royalists had fled to the hospitals, where, in the wards of infection, they shared the beds of the dead and the dying. But even there they were followed and arrested. The domiciliary visits were continued for three days. "The whole city was like a prisoner, whose limbs are held while he is searched and fettered." Ten thousand suspected persons were seized and committed to the prisons. Many were ma.s.sacred in their dwellings or in the streets. Some were subsequently liberated, as having been unjustly arrested.
Thirty priests were dragged into a room at the Hotel de Ville. Five coaches, each containing six of the obnoxious prisoners, started to convey them to the prison of the Abbaye. A countless mob gathered around them as an alarm-gun gave the signal for the coaches to proceed on their way. The windows were open that the populace might see those whom they deemed traitors to their country, and whom they believed to be ready to join the army of invasion, now so triumphantly approaching. Every moment the mob increased in density, and with difficulty the coaches wormed their way through the tumultuous gatherings. Oaths and execrations rose on every side. Gestures and threats of violence were fearfully increasing, when a vast mult.i.tude of men, and women, and boys came roaring down a cross-street, and so completely blocked up the way that a peaceful pa.s.sage was impossible.
The carriages stopped. A man with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a glittering saber in his hand, forced his way through the escort, and, deliberately standing upon the steps of one of the coaches, clinging with one hand to the door, plunged again, and again, and again his saber into the bodies of the priests, wherever chance might direct it. He drew it out reeking with blood, and waved it before the people. A hideous yell of applause rose from the mult.i.tude, and again he plunged his saber into the carriage. The a.s.sa.s.sin then pa.s.sed to the next coach, and again enacted the same act of horrid butchery upon the struggling priests crowded into the carriages, with no shield and with no escape. Thus he went, from one to the other, through the whole line of coaches, while the armed escort looked on with derisive laughter, and shouts of fiendish exultation rose from the phrensied mult.i.tude. The mounted troops slowly forced open a pa.s.sage for the carriages, and they moved along, marking their pa.s.sage by the streams of blood which dripped, from their dead and dying inmates, upon the pavements. When they arrived at the prison, eight dead bodies were dragged from the floor of the vehicles, and many of those not dead were horridly mutilated and clotted with gore. The wretched victims precipitated themselves with the utmost consternation into the prison, as a retreat from the billows of rage surging and roaring around them.
But the scene within was still more terrible than that without. In the s.p.a.cious hall opening into the court-yard of the prison there was a table, around which sat twelve men. Their brawny limbs, and coa.r.s.e and brutal countenances, proclaimed them familiar with debauch and blood.
Their attire was that of the lowest cla.s.s in society, with woolen caps on their heads, shirt sleeves rolled up, unembarra.s.sed by either vest or coat, and butchers" ap.r.o.ns bound around them. At the head of the table sat Maillard, at that time the idol of the blood-thirsty mob of Paris. These men composed a self-const.i.tuted tribunal to award life or instant death to those brought before them. First appeared one hundred and fifty Swiss officers and soldiers who had been in the employ of the king. They were brought _en ma.s.se_ before the tribunal.
"You have a.s.sa.s.sinated the people," said Maillard, "and they demand vengeance." The door was open. The a.s.sa.s.sins in the court-yard, with weapons reeking with blood, were howling for their prey. The soldiers were driven into the yard, and they fell beneath the blows of bayonets, sabers, and clubs, and their gory bodies were piled up, a hideous mound, in the corners of the court. The priests, without delay, met with the same fate. A moment sufficed for trial, and verdict, and execution. Night came. Brandy and excitement had roused the demon in the human heart. Life was a plaything, murder a pastime.
Torches were lighted, refreshments introduced, songs of mirth and joviality rose upon the night air, and still the horrid carnage continued unabated. Now and then, from caprice, one was liberated; but the innocent and the guilty fell alike. Suspicion was crime. An ill.u.s.trious name was guilt. There was no time for defense. A frown from the judge was followed by a blow from the a.s.sa.s.sin. A similar scene was transpiring in all the prisons of Paris. Carts were continually arriving to remove the dead bodies, which acc.u.mulated much faster than they could be borne away. The court-yards became wet and slippery with blood. Straw was brought in and strewn thickly over the stones, and benches were placed against the walls to accommodate those women who wished to gaze upon the butchery. The benches were immediately filled with females, exulting in the death of all whom they deemed tainted with aristocracy, and rejoicing to see the exalted and the refined falling beneath the clubs of the ragged and the degraded. The murderers made use of the bodies of the dead for seats, upon which they drank their brandy mingled with gunpowder, and smoked their pipes. In the nine prisons of Paris these horrors continued unabated till they were emptied of their victims. Men most ill.u.s.trious in philanthropy, rank, and virtue, were brained with clubs by overgrown boys, who accompanied their blows with fiendish laughter.
Ladies of the highest accomplishments, of exalted beauty and of spotless purity, were hacked in pieces by the lowest wretches who had crawled from the dens of pollution, and their dismembered limbs were borne on the points of pikes in derision through the streets of the metropolis. Children, even, were involved in this blind slaughter.
They were called the cubs of aristocracy.
We can not enter more minutely into the details of these sickening scenes, for the soul turns from them weary of life; and yet thus far we must go, for it is important that all eyes should read this dreadful yet instructive lesson--that all may _know_ that there is no despotism so dreadful as the despotism of anarchy--that there are no laws more to be abhorred than the absence of all law.
In the prison of the Bicetre there were three thousand five hundred captives. The ruffians forced the gates, drove in the dungeon doors with cannon, and for five days and five nights continued the slaughter. The phrensy of the intoxicated mob increased each day, and hordes came pouring out from all the foul dens of pollution greedy for carnage. The fevered thirst for blood was inextinguishable. No tongue can now tell the number of the victims. The mangled bodies were hurried to the catacombs, and thrown into an indiscriminate heap of corruption. By many it is estimated that more than ten thousand fell during these ma.s.sacres. The tidings of these outrages spread through all the provinces of France, and stimulated to similar atrocities the mob in every city. At Orleans the houses of merchants were sacked, the merchants and others of wealth or high standing ma.s.sacred, while some who had offered resistance were burned at slow fires.
In one town, in the vicinity of the Prussian army, some Loyalist gentlemen, sanguine in view of the success of their friends, got up an entertainment in honor of their victories. At this entertainment their daughters danced. The young ladies were all arrested, fourteen in number, and taken in a cart to the guillotine. These young and beautiful girls, all between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, and from the most refined and opulent families, were beheaded. The group of youth and innocence stood cl.u.s.tered at the foot of the scaffold, while, one by one, their companions ascended, were bound to the plank, the ax fell, and their heads dropped into the basket. It seems that there must have been some supernatural power of support to have sustained children under so awful an ordeal. There were no faintings, no loud lamentations, no shrieks of despair. With the serenity of martyrs they met their fate, each one emulous of showing to her companions how much like a heroine she could die.
These scenes were enacted at the instigation of the Jacobins. Danton and Marat urged on these merciless measures of lawless violence. "We must," said they, "strike _terror_ into the hearts of our foes. It is our only safety." They sent agents into the most degraded quarters of the city to rouse and direct the mob. They voted abundant supplies to the wretched a.s.sa.s.sins who had broken into the prisons, and involved youth and age, and innocence and guilt, in indiscriminate carnage. The murderers, reeking in intoxication and besmeared with blood, came in crowds to the door of the munic.i.p.ality to claim their reward. "Do you think," said a brawny, gigantic wretch, with tucked-up sleeves, in the garb of a butcher, and with his whole person bespattered with blood and brains, "do you think that I have earned but twenty-four francs to-day? I have killed forty aristocrats with my own hands!" The money was soon exhausted, and still the crowd of a.s.sa.s.sins thronged the committee. Indignant that their claims were not instantly discharged, they presented their b.l.o.o.d.y weapons at the throats of their instigators, and threatened them with immediate death if the money were not furnished. Thus urged, the committee succeeded in paying one half the sum, and gave bonds for the rest.
M. Roland was almost frantic in view of these horrors, which he had no power to quell. The mob, headed by the Jacobins, had now the complete ascendency, and he was minister but in name. He urged upon the a.s.sembly the adoption of immediate and energetic measures to arrest these execrable deeds of lawless violence. Many of the Girondists in the a.s.sembly gave vehement but unavailing utterance to their execration of the ma.s.sacres. Others were intimidated by the weapon which the Jacobins were now so effectually wielding; for they knew that it might not be very difficult so to direct the fury of the mob as to turn those sharp blades, now dripping with blood, from the prisons into the hall of a.s.sembly, and upon the throats of all obnoxious to Jacobin power. The Girondists trembled in view of their danger. They had aided in opening the sluice-ways of a torrent which was now sweeping every thing before it. Madame Roland distinctly saw and deeply felt the peril to which she and her friends were exposed.
She knew, and they all knew, that defeat was death. The great struggle now in the a.s.sembly was for the popular voice. The Girondists hoped, though almost in despair, that it was not yet too late to show the people the horrors of anarchy, and to rally around themselves the mult.i.tude to sustain a well-established and law-revering republic. The Jacobins determined to send their opponents to the scaffold, and by the aid of the terrors of the mob, now enlisted on their side, resistlessly to carry all their measures. A hint from the Jacobin leaders surrounded the a.s.sembly with the hideous howlings of a haggard concourse of beings just as merciless and demoniac as lost spirits.
They exhibited these allies to the Girondists as a bull-dog shows his teeth.
In speeches, and placards, and proclamations they declared the Girondists to be, in heart, the enemies of the Republic. They accused them of hating the Revolution in consequence of its necessary severity, and of plotting in secret for the restoration of the king.
With great adroitness, they introduced measures which the Girondists must either support, and thus aid the Jacobins, or oppose, and increase the suspicion of the populace, and rouse their rage against them. The allied army, with seven thousand French emigrants and over a hundred thousand highly-disciplined troops, under the most able and experienced generals, was slowly but surely advancing toward Paris, to release the king, replace him on the throne, and avenge the insults to royalty. The booming of their artillery was heard reverberating among the hills of France, ever drawing nearer and nearer to the insurgent metropolis, and sending consternation into all hearts. Under these circ.u.mstances, the Jacobins, having ma.s.sacred those deemed the friends of the aristocrats, now gathered their strength to sweep before them all their adversaries. They pa.s.sed a decree ordering every man in Paris, capable of bearing arms, to shoulder his musket and march to the frontiers to meet the invaders. If money was wanted, it was only necessary to send to the guillotine the aristocrat who possessed it, and to confiscate his estate.
Robespierre and Danton had now broken off all intimacy with Madame Roland and her friends. They no longer appeared in the little library where the Girondist leaders so often met, but, placing themselves at the head of the unorganized and tumultuous party now so rapidly gaining the ascendency, they were swept before it as the crest is borne by the billow. Madame Roland urged most strenuously upon her friends that those persons in the a.s.sembly, the leaders of the Jacobin party, who had instigated the ma.s.sacres in the prisons, should be accused, and brought to trial and punishment. It required peculiar boldness, at that hour, to accuse Robespierre and Danton of crime.
Though thousands in France were horror-stricken at these outrages, the mob, who now ruled Paris, would rally instantaneously at the sound of the tocsin for the protection of their idols.
Madame Roland was one evening urging Vergniaud to take that heroic and desperate stand. "The only hope for France," said she "is in the sacredness of law. This atrocious carnage causes thousands of bosoms to thrill with horror, and all the wise and the good in France and in the world will rise to sustain those who expose their own hearts as a barrier to arrest such enormities."
"Of what avail," was the reply, in tones of sadness, "can such exertions be? The a.s.sa.s.sins are supported by all the power of the street. Such a conflict must necessarily terminate in a street fight.
The cannon are with our foes. The most prominent of the friends of order are ma.s.sacred. Terror will restrain the rest. We shall only provoke our own destruction."
"Of what use is life," rejoins the intrepid woman, "if we must live in this base subjection to a degraded mob? Let us contend for the right, and if we must die, let us rejoice to die with dignity and with heroism."
Though despairing of success, and apprehensive that their own doom was already sealed, M. Roland and Vergniaud, roused to action by this ruling spirit, the next day made their appearance in the a.s.sembly with the heroic resolve to throw themselves before the torrent now rushing so wildly. They stood there, however, but the representatives of Madame Roland, inspired by her energies, and giving utterance to those eloquent sentiments which had burst from her lips.
The a.s.sembly listened in silence as M. Roland, in an energetic discourse, proclaimed the true principles of law and order, and called upon the a.s.sembly to defend its own dignity against popular violence, and to raise an armed force consecrated to the security of liberty and justice. Encouraged by these appearances of returning moderation, others of the Girondists rose, and, with great boldness and vehemence, urged decisive action. "It requires some courage," said Kersaint, "to rise up here against a.s.sa.s.sins, but it is time to erect scaffolds for those who provoke a.s.sa.s.sination." The strife continued for two or three days, with that intense excitement which a conflict for life or death must necessarily engender. The question between the Girondist and the Jacobin was, "Who shall lie down on the guillotine?" For some time the issue of the struggle was uncertain. The Jacobins summoned their allies, the mob. They surrounded the doors and the windows of the a.s.sembly, and with their howlings sustained their friends. "I have just pa.s.sed through the crowd," said a member, "and have witnessed its excitement. If the act of accusation is carried, many a head will lie low before another morning dawns." The Girondists found themselves, at the close of the struggle, defeated, yet not so decidedly but that they still clung to hope.
M. Roland, who had not yet entirely lost, with the people, that popularity which swept him, on so triumphant a billow, again into the office of Minister of the Interior, now, conscious of his utter impotency, presented to the a.s.sembly his resignation of power which was merely nominal. Great efforts had for some time been made, by his adversaries, to turn the tide of popular hatred against him, and especially against his wife, whom Danton and Robespierre recognized and proclaimed as the animating and inspiring soul of the Girondist party.
The friends of Roland urged, with high encomiums upon his character, that he should be invited to retain his post. The sentiment of the a.s.sembly was wavering in his favor. Danton, excessively annoyed, arose and said, with a sneer, "I oppose the invitation. n.o.body appreciates M. Roland more justly than myself. But if you give him this invitation, you must give his wife one also. Every one knows that M.
Roland is not alone in his department. As for myself, in my department I am alone. I have no wife to help me."
These indecorous and malicious allusions were received with shouts of derisive laughter from the Jacobin benches. The majority, however, frowned upon Danton with deep reproaches for such an attack upon a lady. One of the Girondists immediately ascended the tribune. "What signifies it to the country," said he, "whether Roland possesses an intelligent wife, who inspires him with her additional energy, or whether he acts from his own resolution alone?" The defense was received with much applause.
The next day, Roland, as Minister of the Interior, presented a letter to the Convention, expressing his determination to continue in office.
It was written by Madame Roland in strains of most glowing eloquence, and in the spirit of the loftiest heroism and the most dignified defiance. "The Convention is wise," said this letter, "in not giving a solemn invitation to a man to remain in the ministry. It would attach too great importance to a name. But the _deliberation_ honors me, and clearly p.r.o.nounces the desire of the Convention. That wish satisfies me. It opens to me the career. I espouse it with courage. I remain in the ministry. I remain because there are perils to face. I am not blind to them, but I brave them fearlessly. The salvation of my country is the object in view. To that I devote myself, even to death.
I am accused of wanting courage. Is no courage requisite in these times in denouncing the protectors of a.s.sa.s.sins?"
Thus Madame Roland, sheltered in the seclusion of her library, met, in spirit, in the fierce struggle of the tribune, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. They knew from whose shafts these keen arrows were shot.
The Girondists knew to whom they were indebted for many of the most skillful parries and retaliatory blows. The one party looked to her almost with adoration; the other, with implacable hate. Never before, probably, in the history of the world, has a woman occupied such a position, and never by a woman will such a position be occupied again.
Danton began to recoil from the gulf opening before him, and wished to return to alliance with the Girondists. He expressed the most profound admiration for the talents, energy, and sagacity of Madame Roland. "We must act together," said he, "or the wave of the Revolution will overwhelm us all. United, we can stem it. Disunited, it will overpower us." Again he appeared in the library of Madame Roland, in a last interview with the Girondists. He desired a coalition. They could not agree. Danton insisted that they must overlook the ma.s.sacres, and give at least an implied a.s.sent to their necessity. "We will agree to all,"
said the Girondists, "except impunity to murderers and their accomplices." The conference was broken up. Danton, irritated, withdrew, and placed himself by the side of Robespierre. Again the Jacobins and the Girondists prepared for the renewal of their struggle. It was not a struggle for power merely, but for life. The Girondists, knowing that the fury of the Revolution would soon sweep over every thing, unless they could bring back the people to a sense of justice--would punish with the scaffold those who had incited the ma.s.sacre of thousands of uncondemned citizens. The Jacobins would rid themselves of their adversaries by overwhelming them in the same carnage to which they had consigned the Loyalists. Madame Roland might have fled from these perils, and have retired with her husband to regions of tranquillity and of safety but she urged M. Roland to remain at his post and resolved to remain herself and meet her destiny, whatever it might be. Never did a mortal face danger, with a full appreciation of its magnitude, with more stoicism than was exhibited by this most ardent and enthusiastic of women.
CHAPTER VIII.
LAST STRUGGLES OF THE GIRONDISTS.
1792-1793
The Jacobins resolve to bring the king to trial.--Famine in Paris.--Suspicions against the Girondists.--Baseness of the Jacobins.--Peril of the Girondists.--Anxious deliberations.--Vile intrigue of the Jacobins.--Madame Roland accused.--Madame Roland before the a.s.sembly.--Her dignified demeanor.--Madame Roland"s defense of herself.--She is acquitted by acclamation.--Madame Roland"s triumph.--Chagrin of her enemies.--Festival of the Girondists.--Toast of Vergniaud.--Cla.s.sical allusion.--Clamors for the king"s death.--The king brought before the Convention.--Dismal day.--Menaces of the mob.--Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.--Trial of the king.--Proposition of Robespierre.--Vote of Vergniaud.--Vote of the Girondists.--Indignation at the king"s death.--The Revolutionary Tribunal.--Unlimited powers of the Revolutionary Tribunal.--Atrocious cruelties.--Embarra.s.sments of M. Roland.--He sends in his resignation.--Attempts to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Rolands.--Entreaties of friends.--Firmness of Madame Roland.--Roland"s influence in the departments.--Plots against the Girondists.--Meetings at Madame Roland"s.--Insurrections in favor of the monarchy.--Jacobin insurrection.--Portentous mutterings.--Precautions of the Girondists.--Intrepidity of Vergniaud.--Power of prayer.--"Horrible hope."--The power of the Girondists gone.
The Jacobins now resolved to bring the king to trial. By placards posted in the streets, by inflammatory speeches in the Convention, in public gatherings, and in the clubs, by false a.s.sertions and slanders of every conceivable nature, they had roused the ignorant populace to the full conviction that the king was the author of every calamity now impending. The storm of the Revolution had swept desolation through all the walks of peaceful industry. Starvation, gaunt and terrible, began to stare the population of Paris directly in the face. The infuriated mob hung the bakers upon the lamp-posts before their own doors for refusing to supply them with bread. The peasant dared not carry provisions into the city, for he was sure of being robbed by the sovereign people, who had attained the freedom of committing all crimes with impunity. The mult.i.tude fully believed that there was a conspiracy formed by the king in his prison, and by the friends of royalty, to starve the people into subjection. Portentous murmurs were now also borne on every breeze, uttered by a thousand unseen voices, that the Girondists were accomplices in this conspiracy; that they hated the Revolution; that they wished to save the life of the king; that they would welcome the army of invasion, as affording them an opportunity to reinstate Louis upon the throne. The Jacobins, it was declared, were the only true friends of the people. The Girondists were accused of being in league with the aristocrats. These suspicions rose and floated over Paris like the mist of the ocean. They were every where encountered, and yet presented no resistance to be a.s.sailed. They were intimated in the Jacobin journals; they were suggested, with daily increasing distinctness, at the _tribune_. And in those mult.i.tudinous gatherings, where Marat stood in filth and rags to harangue the miserable, and the vicious, and the starving, they were proclaimed loudly, and with execrations. The Jacobins rejoiced that they had now, by the force of circ.u.mstances, crowded their adversaries into a position from which they could not easily extricate themselves. Should the Girondists vote for the death of the king, they would thus support the Jacobins in those sanguinary measures, so popular with the mob, which had now become the right arm of Jacobin power. The glory would also all redound to the Jacobins, for it would not be difficult to convince the mult.i.tude that the Girondists merely submitted to a measure which they were unable to resist. Should the Girondists, on the other hand, true to their instinctive abhorrence of these deeds of blood, dare to vote against the death of the king, they would be ruined irretrievably. They would then stand unmasked before the people as traitors to the Republic and the friends of royalty.