THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. BY M. A. THIERS. TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES. BY FREDERICK SHOBERL. IN FIVE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. STATE OF FRANCE AFTER THE 31ST OF MAY INVASION THE decree passed on the 2d of June against the twenty-two deputies of the right side and the members of the commission of twelve enacted that they should be confined at their own homes, and closely guarded by gendarmes. Some voluntarily submitted to this decree, and constituted themselves in a state of arrest, to prove their obedience to the law and to provoke a judgment which should demonstrate their innocence. Gensonné and Valazé might easily have withdrawn themselves from the vigilance of their guards, but they firmly refused to seek safety in flight. They remained prisoners with their colleagues, Guadet, Petion, Vergniaud, Biroteau, Gardien, Boileau, Bertrand, Mollevaut, and Gomaire. Some others, conceiving that they owed no obedience to a law extorted by force, and having no hope of justice, quitted Paris or concealed themselves there till they should be able to get away. Their intention was to repair to the departments, and excite them to rise against the capital. Those who took this resolution were Brissot, Gorsas, Salles, Louvet, Chambon, Buzot, Lydon, Rabaut St. Etienne, Lasource, Grangeneuve, Lesage, Vigé, Larivière, and Bergoing. An order of arrest was issued by the commune against the two ministers Lebrun and Clavières, dismissed after the 2d of June. Lebrun found means to evade it. The same measure was taken against Roland, who had been removed from office on the 21st of January, and begged in vain to be permitted to render his accounts. He escaped the search made for him by the commune, and concealed himself at Rouen. Madame Roland, against whom also proceedings were instituted, had no other anxiety than that of favouring the escape of her husband; then, committing her daughter to the care of a trusty friend, she surrendered with noble indifference to the committee of her section, and was thrown into prison with a multitude of other victims of the 31st of May. Great was the joy at the Jacobins. Its members congratulated themselves on the energy of the people, on their late admirable conduct, and on the removal of all those obstacles which the right side had not ceased to oppose to the progress of the Revolution. According to the custom after all great events, they agreed upon the manner in which the last insurrection should be represented. "The people," said Robespierre," have confounded all their calumniators by their conduct. Eighty thousand men have been under arms for nearly a week, yet no property has been violated, not a drop of blood has been spilled, and they have thus proved whether it was their aim, as it has been alleged, to profit by the disorder for the commission of murder and plunder. Their insurrection was spontaneous, because it was the effect of the general conviction; and the Mountain itself, weak and astonished at this movement, has proved that it did not concur to produce it. Thus this insurrection has been wholly moral and wholly popular." This was at once giving a favourable colour to the insurrection, addressing an indirect censure to the Mountain, which had shown some hesitation on the 2nd of June, repelling the charge of conspiracy preferred against the leaders of the left side, and agreeably flattering the popular party, which had behaved so well and done every thing of itself. After this interpretation, received with acclamation by the Jacobins, and afterwards repeated by all the echoes of the victorious party, no time was lost in calling Marat to account for an expression which excited considerable sensation. Marat, who could never find more than one way of putting an end to the revolutionary hesitations, namely the dictatorship, on seeing some tergiversation on the 2nd of June, had repeated on that day, as he did on every other, We must have a chief. Being called upon to explain this expression, he justified it after his usual fashion, and the Jacobins were easily satisfied, conceiving that they had sufficiently proved their scruples and the severity of their republican principles. Some observations were also made on the lukewarmness of Danton, who seemed to be much softened since the suppression of the commission of twelve, and whose resolution, kept up till the 31st of May, had not lasted till the 2nd of June. Danton was absent. His friend Camille-Desmoulins defended him |