LOUVET LOUVET: REVOLUTIONIST & ROMANCE-WRITER BY JOHN RIVERS With 18 Illustrations, including a Photogravure Frontispiece NEW YORK: BRENTANO'S Printed in Great Britain TO MY WIFE ELISE RIVERS, nte DUCHAMP. PREFACE CARLYLE'S contemptuous reference to, and summary dis- missal of, Faublas in his French Revolution have made at least the name of that romance familiar to English readers, and most have been content to pass on their way regard- ing its author as nothing more than a typical eighteenth century purveyor of the superfluities of naughtiness. If we except M. Aulard's biographical introduction to his admirable edition of Louvet's Memoires, and the briefer notices attached to the various reprints of his works, no biography of Louvet has, so far as I am aware, been published either in French or English, although he was admittedly one of the most romantic figures in the whole history of the French Revolution. Three years have passed since I discovered (as doubtless many others have done before me) that Louvet was not only a most brilliant writer, but also a most fascinating hero, of romance ; and that the plain record of his life after writing that wonderful, though much maligned, romance, Faublas, is as breathlessly exciting and as full of picturesque incident and rapid movement as the most dashing tale ever imagined by Dumas himself. Indeed, it is not too much to affirm that whilst the historian will find in Faublas an invaluable picture of French society under the ancien regime, the novelist may confidently turn to the pages of his Recit de mes perils with the expectation of finding the material for half a dozen stirring romances. Louvet's political activity covers the whole period from the fall of the Bastille to the beginning of the Direc- toire ; and the account he has given us of his life is a human document of the greatest historical value, which vii PREFACE flashes light into many an obscure passage of those terrible days when the goddess Liberty became transformed, through the perversity of men, into a devouring Fury athirst for the blood of her noblest sons. It is the tragic history of the Girondist Deputies who escaped to Normandy after their expulsion from the Con- vention on June 2nd, 1793. It tells of their proscription and flight across France, tracked like wolves from lair to lair, of their wanderings in disguise from one hiding- place to another, denied and betrayed by their dearest friends, until they were one by one driven to suicide, or led without trial to the scaffold. It is a narrative of base treachery and heroic courage, of ingratitude of the worst kind, and of self-sacrifice even unto death. There are surprises and hairbreadth escapes, terrible privations and sufferings met with stoical fortitude and unfailing cheer- fulness, perils by day and by night, overcome by an ever- ready wit and resourcefulness ; and running like a golden thread through the whole history there is the charming love-story of Louvet and the sweet and gracious woman who shared his perils and inspired him with a lifelong and passionate devotion. Louvet's Recit de mes perils was twice translated into English in 1795, but neither translation has since been reprinted. As the work was written under the most trying circumstances during his flight, there are many gaps in the history, and the continuity of the narrative is often interrupted by long tirades against his enemies, and by the introduction of other matter of little interest to the modern reader. I have, therefore, deemed it expedient in the present work to re-tell the story, closely following his own narrative wherever possible. By adopting this course, I have been able to piece together the record of his early and later life, and to supplement his own account by information gleaned from other sources. The task of sifting the literature of the period for facts bearing on Louvet and Lodoiiska has been a laborious one, though by viii PREFACE no means devoid of compensations ; and if I have suc- ceeded in communicating to the reader a tithe of the interest in the French Revolution which the adventures of those exemplary lovers has aroused in me, I shall feel that my work has not been written in vain. It gives me pleasure here to acknowledge my indebted- ness to my old friend George Morton Willis, a descendant of Dr. Francis Willis (the famous Physician -in -Ordinary to George III.), who plays such an important part in the denouement of Faublas, for many helpful suggestions, and for the stimulus derived from many conversations on the Revolution in general and the subject of this biography in particular. JOHN RIVERS. Hampstead. IX CONTENTS CHAPTER I French society in 1760 Birth of Louvet His parentage His first adventure An early Republican A boy and girl love affair The coming of Lodoi'ska Her marriage Louvet's despair Influence of Voltaire and Rousseau First literary success He becomes a publisher's clerk And is admitted avocat " Studied ease " on ^33 a year Was Louvet of noble descent ? What he has to say on the subject His double, Pierre Florent Louvet He completes Faublas His method of work He is joined by Lodoi'ska Origin of her name Great success of Faublas Kemble's melodrama Lodoiska I CHAPTER II Les Amours du Chevalier de Faublas . . .--'-. . .18 CHAPTER III Louvet returns to Paris Lodoiska again Nemours The sex question during the Revolution The teaching of the pkilosophes, and its results Louvet dons the tricolour The King's veto " An infamous orgy " Louvet is called out The insurrection of the 5-6 October, 1789 Louvet and Lodoiska seek to win over the soldiers Louvet begins his political career Paris justifif The Jacobins 30 CHAPTER IV Emilie de Varmont Robespierre's joke Louvet as a dramatist His wit The quarrel between King and Legislature The Flight to Varennes Marat's foresight The Revolution in the Provinces The first French Republic A King's business Louis' double-dealing He takes the oath End of the first phase of the Revolution 46 CHAPTER V Robespierre's cunning First meeting of the Legislative Assembly The Parties Brissot Vergniaud Rise of the Girondists Louvet is convinced of the King's duplicity He discusses his plans with Lodoiska Her fears Louvet is elected to serve on the Jacobins' Committee of Correspondence His colleagues 56 xi CONTENTS CHAPTER VI Threats and intrigues of the Emigres Coercive measures proposed against them Vergniaud's first great speech King vetoes the decree against the fimigrts Louvet's great oratorical success Curiosity of the ladies Louvet's interview with Camille Des- moulins and Robespierre on the proposed war with Austria Letter from Mme. Roland Robespierre declaims against the war His trap for Louvet Louvet creates a diversion He overwhelms Robespierre with ridicule He makes an implacable enemy and a life-long friend Triumph of the Girondists Louvet proposed as Minister of Justice Robespierre intrigues against him His life threatened Robespierre's accusation Jacobins attempt to howl Louvet down A clever ruse Louvet clears himself of Robespierre's calumnies His placard-journal La Sentinelle His witty parable on Marat Breach between the Mountain and the Gironde War declared against Austria Disaster Fury of Dumouriez 66 CHAPTER VII The Girondists undermine the Throne The King exercises his veto Roland's letter of remonstrance The King's resentment He dismisses the Girondist Ministry Insurrection of June 2Oth Lafayette comes to Paris Guadet's sarcasm Arrival of the Federal troops Brunswick's manifesto He invades France Insurrection of August loth Capture of the Tuileries Napoleon watches the fight Louvet rescues some Swiss Guards Im- prisonment of the Royal Family Where was Robespierre ? Commune becomes all powerful Arrest of suspected persons Executive Committee of Twenty-One elected Louvet becomes editor of the Journal desD/bats Lodoiska assists him September massacres First meeting of the Convention Amar compli- ments Lodoiska Her retort 80 CHAPTER VIII Social life in Paris during the Revolution The salons The Talmas Their fgte to Dumouriez Louvet as a conversationalist M. J. Chfenier Ducis Dumouriez Dramatic appearance of the People's Friend Marat denounces the guests ... 87 CHAPTER IX Louvet elected to the Convention He resumes his feud with Robespierre His suspicions of Robespierre, Danton, and Marat xii CONTENTS Were they justified ? Character of Marat His sincerity and disinterestedness Usefulness of the fanatic Louvet's sus- picions not shared by his colleagues Their apathy and gulli- bility Louvet's political acumen Moore's opinion Robes- pierre the idol of the mob Louvet prepares his Robespierride 95 CHAPTER X Roland's report on the state of Paris Alleged plot to murder the Girondist leaders, and to appoint Robespierre dictator Robes- pierre defends himself He grows eloquent about his own virtues Dares anyone to denounce him Louvet takes up the gauntlet Robespierre is disconcerted Louvet's great oration Robespierre loses his nerve, and is unable to reply His friends save him Effect of Louvet's eloquence Scene at the Jacobin Club 102 CHAPTER XI Robespierre defends himself against Louvet's accusation His popularity with the women of Paris The galleries packed Louvet is prevented from replying Uproar in the Convention The diplomatic Barere His peculiar talents His character Lethargy of Louvet's colleagues Decline of the Gironde Louvet issues a pamphlet A number of La Sentinellc . . .114 CHAPTER XII Barbaroux proposes drastic measures Girondists jealous of the domination of Paris The Mountain charge them with Federalism Were they Federalists ? Hebert employed to calumniate the Girondists Le Phe Duchesne Origin The real Hebert A specimen number of the P2re Duchesne Hebert's vile attack on Mme. Roland and Louvet . . . . . . .128 CHAPTER XIII Debate on the King's trial Views of the Girondists Policy of the Mountain Danton's brutal frankness Louis at the bar of the Convention Marat's admission The King's ironical observation to Coulombeau Salle's motion Gensonne's sarcasm The geese of the Capitol Louvet rebukes Danton Trial of the King Scene in the Convention The voting Vergniaud declares the result The death sentence A king's tragedy Disunion in the Girondist ranks, and its causes Strength of the Mountain 136 xiii CONTENTS CHAPTER XIV A war of extermination Mot of Sieyes The Girondists fast lose ground Their attempts to recover their popularity Buzot's opinion of the Sovereign People Disgraceful scenes in the Convention Dumouriez complains of the Jacobin agents in Belgium He arrests two Government commissioners His disastrous reverses How Paris received the news Peculiarities of the Gallic temperament Caesar's shrewd observations Riots in Paris Mob destroy Girondist printing-presses The Revolutionary Tribunal Conspiracy of March loth foiled by Lodoiska Her heroism Louvet warns his colleagues Petion's phlegm 148 CHAPTER XV Vergniaud denounces the conspiracy His eloquence Louvet's dissatisfaction Vergniaud's strange reply Louvet discusses the situation with Lodoiska He publishes another pamphlet The Committee of Public Safety Treason of Dumouriez Danton attempts to conciliate the Girondists They reject his overtures His furious outburst First attack on the Girondists from without Robespierre follows up the attack Vergniaud's crushing rejoinder . . . ... . . . . 160 CHAPTER XVI A quarrel Guadet Impeachment of Marat His acquittal Commune demands expulsion of the Girondist leaders Masuyer's jest, and what it cost him Commune levies a forced loan Second plot to murder the Girondist leaders They order the arrest of Hebert and his associates The Commune demands their release Isnard's famous rebuke Herault de Sechelles Release of prisoners Insurrection of May 3ist Louvet and his friends in hiding They proceed armed to the Convention Guadet apostrophises Danton A stormy sitting The Conven- tion is coerced by the mob Temporary failure of the insur- rection 170 CHAPTER XVII Arrest of Mme. Roland Witticism on Roland's flight The threatened Deputies meet for the last time Louvet states his views He joins Lodoiska A terrible night Louvet in hiding Insurrection of June 2nd The Convention imprisoned by the mob The Assembly seeks the protection of the soldiers, but is driven back Thirty-one Girondists placed under arrest Letter from Barbaroux Why they refused to escape Downfall of the Girondists Their eloquence General view of the feud between the Mountain and the Gironde 183 xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER XVIII Buzot and Barbaroux escape to Caen A letter from Barbaroux Generosity of Valaz6 A common error rectified Mme. Goussard Lodoiska bears letters from Mme. Roland to Buzot Louvet and Lodoiska leave Paris secretly Their journey to 6vreux They meet Guadet Lodoiska returns to Paris Mme. Roland pities Lodoiska Louvet and Guadet reach Caen General Wimpfen The Girondists organize an insurrection Their official residence Mme. Roland on Louvet's style Barbaroux and the Marquise Mme. Roland's disapproval Louvet diverts his friends " The Angel of Assassination " Her 'farewell letter Petion's little joke Louvet's opinion of Charlotte Corday Girondists not implicated in the assassination of Marat Puisaye's attack on Vernon " A battle without tears " End of the Girondist rising in Normandy 200 CHAPTER XIX Outlawed Flight of the proscribed Deputies They reach Vire Lodoiska joins Louvet Their marriage The Deputies set out for Quimper What happened to them at D61 A midnight alarm Lodoiska proceeds alone to Quimper Louvet's com- panions A hostile town Riouffe is detained His escape Boetidoux the Royalist He befriends the fugitives Louvet in- clines to suspicion The outlaws are recognized A trying ordeal A quiet night and another alarm . . . .221 CHAPTER XX The flight continued In the name of the law ! A game of bluff The Girondists fix bayonets Louvet explains a point of caligraphy Dansons la Carmagnole I A terrible march Louvet drinks with mine host, and gets news The fugitives reach Carhaix What befel them there Their miserable plight They reach Quimper Arrest and escape of Lodoiska . 231 CHAPTER XXI A humane priest Mme. Roland's last letter to Buzot The out- laws separate Barbaroux down with the smallpox Lodoiska's harbour of refuge Louvet's hiding-place An expansive lover The delights of Penhars Seven of the outlaws sail for Bor- deaux What happened to them Louvet's change of residence He composes his Hymne a la Mart A dramatic exit Louvet meets an " admirable Crichton " Lodoiska returns to Paris A dash for the sea Suspense The outlaws search for their XV CONTENTS ship in an open boat A sleepless night The good ship Industrie A dour Scot The fugitives run the gauntlet of the Brest fleet They prepare for a fight A mutinous crew Grainger lies stoutly The white cliffs of Saintonge The Giron- dists escape in the ship's boat Perilous seas The promised land, and what they found there 242 CHAPTER XXII Guadet's imprudence Too late ! Petion and Guadet spy out the land Bordeaux under the Terror Guadet goes to Saint- lEmilion Denounced They barricade themselves in a house Ominous preparations A narrow escape The sleeping sentinel A hot pursuit The outlaws separate A terrible fortnight Adventures of Louvet, Barbaroux and Valady Louvet meets with an accident Life in a hayloft The coming of a heroine Mme. Bouquey welcomes the outlaws Their life in the caverns of Saint-^milion Execution of twenty-one Girondists in Paris Death of Mme. Roland Buzot's despair Mme* Bouquey in tears She is forced to part with the outlaws Her sacrifice and death 257 CHAPTER XXIII The Girondists' Odyssey continued Louvet bids farewell to Bar- baroux, Buzot and Petion Valady's fate Louvet accompanies Guadet and Salle They hide in a cave Guadet tries the quality of a friend Louvet is taken ill The closed door Guadet's despair Louvet's resolution He sets out alone for Paris Arrest and execution of Salle and Guadet The fate of the Guadet family Providential escape of the Deputy's wife The last days of Barbaroux, Buzot and Petion Agony and death of Barbaroux Suicide of Buzot and Petion . . 275 CHAPTER XXIV Louvet reaches Montpont Negotiating a sentry A critical moment Qui vive ! Fabricating a passport Crippled with rheumatism A sympathetic landlady An embarrassing compli- ment He steals through Mussidan Almost collapses on the road He falls among enemies A churlish innkeeper and his wife Louvet plays the sans-culotte He prepares for the worst Hoodwinking the Mayor The Procureur-Syndic Louvet calls for more wine The passport A desperate game The landlady loses her blood money Louvet breathes freely again Another hostile innkeeper Louvet is befriended by a carrier xvi CONTENTS A restless night and a hopeless dawn He overtakes the carrier He accepts a seat in the cart An explanation A sudden peril, and how he met it Louvet's " passport " The carrier uses his whip 283 CHAPTER XXV Louvet and his companion reach Limoges The carrier's home His wife's trick Louvet is passed on to another carrier His new companions At the mercy of strangers A piquant situation He wins the good-will of his fellow-passengers A dangerous meeting Louvet's coolness Incident at Argenton The Jacobin agent's missed opportunity Louvet hears bad news His fears for Lodoiska's safety Bitter reflections on reaching Orleans Stopped at the barrier He gives himself up for lost A hairbreadth escape Adventure of the inquisitive Jacobin Another narrow escape He watches the triumph of an enemy In the midst of alarms Longjumeau Strange incident at a table d'hote He hears one of his own songs Paris at last 297 CHAPTER XXVI Louvet searches for Lodoi'ska Reunion Deserted by their friends Bremont gives them half an hour in which to leave his house Barbarity of this decision They decide to die together Louvet's bold course Lodoiska's plan Her ascendancy, and how she maintained it Louvet's romanticism A fresh asylum Lodoiska builds a secret chamber Faint-hearted friends Lodo'iska plans Louvet's escape His letter He leaves Paris in disguise He is detained by a Government official A momentous interview An unknown friend Louvet reaches the Jura Mountains Homesickness Anxiety on account of Lodoiska His imagination plays him tricks Schemes of vengeance Safe arrival of Lodoiiska They suffer many petty persecutions Their wanderings in search of a lodging A folk- moot Louvet pleads with the village magnates Lodoiska bears him a son The fall of Robespierre 309 CHAPTER XXVII Louvet returns with his family to Paris A financial crisis He opens a bookseller's shop And publishes some famous books A visit from Wolfe Tone Social successes of Louvet and Lodoiska Their popularity Louise Fusil describes their per sonal appearance They dine with the Talmas Louvet re- sumes his seat in the Convention He defends the Girondists' xvii B CONTENTS memory Refuses to join in the proscription of his enemies His growing influence Speech on the trial of the extremists Insurrection of the Prairial A terrible sitting Murder of the deputy Feraud Lodoiska again saves her husband's life The end of the Mountain Louvet's funeral oration on F6raud He is elected President Notre Dame de Thermidor gives a f/te Louvet's toast Reaction Failing health Cowardly attack on Lodoiska Louvet's contempt for his enemies His death Lodoiska poisons herself, but recovers Her last years Louvet's son, grandson, and grand-daughter . . . 325 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . , . . . 349 INDEX 355 xvin LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JEAN BAPTISTE LOUVET. From an engraving by F. Bonneville ..... Frontispiece Facing page BRISSOT. From an engraving by Levachez . . 58 VERGNIAUD. From lithograph by Delpech, after a drawing by Maurier ...... 62 CAMILLE DESMOULINS. From an engraving by Levachez . . . . . . .68 MADAME ROLAND. From an engraving by Baudran, after the portrait carried by Buzot ... 80 TALMA. From an engraving by Henry Meyer, after a painting by J. P. Davis . . . . .90 JEAN PAUL MARAT. From an engraving by Levachez ........ 92 MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE. From an engraving by Levachez ........ 114 ROLAND. From an engraving by J. E. Bolt . . 132 MARGUERITE ELIE GUADET. From an engraving by Sandoz, after a painting by F. Bonneville . . 140 ARMAND GENSONNE. From an engraving by Levachez ........ 140 DANTON. From an engraving by Levachez . . 166 JEROME PETION. From an engraving by Levachez . 170 BARBAROUX. From an engraving by Baudran . 200 CHARLOTTE CORDAY. From an engraving by Levachez ........ 210 MADAME BOUQUEY. From an engraving by Baudran, after the painting by Yvon ..... 266 BUZOT. From an engraving by Baudran, after the portrait carried by Madame Roland . . . 282 MADAME TALLIEN. From an engraving by J. C. Armytage, after a painting by J. Masquerier . 340 xix LOU VET: Revolutionist and Romance- Writer CHAPTER I French society in 1760 Birth of Louvet His parentage His first adventure An early Republican A boy and girl love affair The coming of Lodoiska Her marriage Louvet's despair Influence of Voltaire and Rousseau First literary success He becomes a publisher's clerk And is admitted avocat " Studied ease " on ^33 a year Was Louvet of noble descent ? What he has to say on the subject His double, Pierre Florent Louvet He completes Faublas His method of work He is joined by Lodoiska Origin of her name Great success of Faublas Kemble's melodrama Lodoiska. FRANCE was in a bad way. The guns were still booming in the disastrous Seven Years' War, and the widows and orphans of the men who fell at Minden and Rossbach were scarcely out of mourn- ing, when news came of that short and bloody conflict on the Plains of Quebec, which cost France half a continent and, victors and vanquished alike, the life of a great hero. And at Versailles, Louis the Well-Beloved, an old man before his time, perverse, sad-eyed, and bored to death, lolled on the throne of his fathers, playing at love, the devil finding evil enough for his idle hands to do. Ostensibly the absolute master of I i LOUVET some twenty-five million subjects, he was in reality an abject slave of the petticoat a puppet manipu- lated for the past fifteen years by a small, elegant, and slightly cross-eyed woman (if we may trust the portrait by Boucher), of infinite tact and subtlety, who made and unmade treaties and alliances, raised and deposed ministers and generals, organized defeat by dictating from her boudoir plans of battle for the French armies in the field, and ground the people to the dust beneath her little red-heeled shoe. After the disaster at Rossbach, there had been riots at Paris to secure the dismissal of her nominee, the back- stairs general the Prince de Soubise, whose military reverses, celebrated throughout Europe, had assured him in his rank and firmly established his renown. For a moment her empire had trembled in the balance ; but, with characteristic tenacity, she had insisted on maintaining her friend in his command, and had in the end got her way. Brilliant, witty, graceful, an artist to her finger-tips, she devoted her great talents to the amusement of the blase monarch, and shrank from no iniquity to achieve this object. Never were the social gifts of urbanity, courtesy and grace carried to a higher pitch than under the reign of the incomparable Marquise. No longer beautiful, her person had ceased to attract the King, but her voice alone could soothe and charm away those terrible fits of depression to which he was becoming more and more a prey. In 1760, of which year I write, she acted in no more intimate capacity than that which a modern dramatist has designated as " Mrs. Warren's profession." She maintained her 2 LOUVET ascendancy to the last. Though Madame de Pompa- dour would have been described by Saint-Simon as a lady de moyenne vertu, she nevertheless had her good points ; she was devoted to her daughter ; she was admirably loyal to her friends ; she caused Cre"billon fits to be banished for writing Les Egare- ments du cceur et de Pesprit ;* and her private apart- ments were decorated by Boucher. Around these two figures circled a thousand or two charming women and free-and-easy carpet knights, who spent a great deal of their time in witty conversa- tion, varied by games of love and chance ; and, since the profits of the card-table are at best uncertain, they devoted their spare energies to intriguing for office. The frivolity and license of the court had spread even to the Church. The Bishop of Be"ziers, we hear, having a mind to visit his niece with as little incon- venience as possible, cut a road at the expense of the province, through a neighbouring farm, and when the owner protested, not only forced him to sell his property at a great loss, but hounded him out of the country. Nor was the custom of taking unto them- selves nieces confined to the prelates ; it soon became a common practice among the lesser clergy. During the Revolution the Abbe Delille, for instance, met a young woman at Stuttgart whom he brought to Paris to keep house for him. Her education had been sadly neglected, and when Rivarol visited the pair, * Not, we suspect, because she was shocked by the impropriety of that frigid fiction, although that was the pretext, but because she saw in it certain shrewd home-thrusts at herself. 3 I* LOUVET her behaviour displeased the guest so much that he said to his host : " Since you were able to choose your niece, I think you might have made a better choice." " Poverty and privilege," says Arthur Young, " divided the realm " ; and peculation in high places went naked and unashamed. France was in a very bad way. Rousseau was putting the finishing touches to the Nouvelle Heloi'se, and had already sketched out the first chapters of Emile, when, in a house at the corner of the Rue des Ecrivains in Paris, a weak and sickly infant announced his advent in the manner of his kind. It was the i2th June, 1760, and the child afterwards answered to the name of Jean Baptiste. He was the youngest son of Louis Lou vet, stationer, and of Louise his wife. This frail boy was destined to become, first, the sprightly historian and critic of the gay and decadent society (with all its morbid and intoxicating charm) that moved around the reigning favourite ; and later, one of the boldest and most uncompromising reformers of its abuses. Lou vet p&re is described byMercier as "an ignorant and brutal shopkeeper," and is referred to by others who knew him in equally uncomplimentary terms.* He was a hard-headed business man, coarse and tyrannical, who, failing to understand the refined and sentimental vein in his son's nature, generally treated him with irritability and contempt. His mother, on the other hand, was of a gentle and sym- * Mercier, Nouveau Paris, ii., p. 473. 4 LOUVET pathetic temper, and Jean Baptiste always spoke of her with the greatest veneration. To her he probably owed those remarkable qualities of mind and heart for which he was afterwards famous. He was his mother's favourite. We learn that much of his boyhood was rendered miserable through the syste- matic persecution of a brother, six years older than himself, although no word of complaint against his tyrant passed his lips. He consoled himself by occasionally giving his brother a good drubbing the battle being not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift. During these early years, Jean Baptiste, being of a frail constitution, was sent to bed very early, in his mother's dressing-room, situated on the first floor ; whilst his more robust brothers enjoyed them- selves in an attic on the fourth storey at the top of the house. Tired to death of these domestic arrangements, he cast about for a means of escape from his boredom, and being even at that time of an inven- tive turn, he had soon arranged his plan. Taking advantage of a little roof, almost on a level with the window of his mother's room, he persuaded his brothers to let down a rope from their window, which he grasped firmly in both hands, and at a given signal they hauled him up to the top of the house. At ten o'clock, when they heard the rest of the household preparing to retire for the night, his brothers . care- fully dropped little Jean on to the roof below, whence he could easily climb into his mother's window. This sport lasted for several months. One night, 5 LOUVET however, in mid-winter, when there had been a snow-storm followed by a hard frost, in attempting to regain his bedroom in the usual way, the boy's naked foot slipped on the frozen snow, and he fell from the roof to the pavement below. He lay there unconscious the whole night long. In the morning he was discovered lying at full length before the front door, covered with snow and ice. It was found that he had broken no bones, and, indeed, appeared to be little the worse for his adventure. With that staunch loyalty and tenacity of purpose so characteristic of his whole life, he refused to explain how the accident had happened ; and his mother, who shared his confi- dence in all else, died without knowing the secret.* In spite of his father's coldness and the continual bullying of his brother, young Jean Baptiste's boyhood was not wholly devoid of happiness. This he owed chiefly to the kindness of some friends of his parents named Denuelle. The boy spent many a delightful hour in the society of M. Denuelle, a level-headed, well-read man, who soon inspired him with his own enthusiasm for that eighteenth century philosophy which was destined in the fullness of time to set the world on fire. M. Denuelle was one of the first to profess republican opinions, and there is little doubt that he had a profound influence on the impressionable mind of his young friend. It was, however, a still more powerful attraction which drew the boy's steps daily to the Denuelle's house. They had a little daughter, Marguerite, born eight days before himself, * From notes supplied by Louvet's widow to RiouSe for his Oraison Fitnebre sur Louvet. 6 LOUVET who had been his playmate as long as he could remember, and whom, as long as he could remember, he had passionately loved.* Even at this tender age, Marguerite showed sweetness of temper, combined with a singular firmness of will, and that active, managing disposition which distinguished her throughout her chequered career. She returned the enterprising Jean Baptiste's affection with a love stronger than death. Some years later he rewarded her devotion by spreading her fame abroad in the land as Lodoiska, the heroine of a long episode in his Faublas, whilst his eternal singing of her virtues, her talents, and her charms, more creditable to his affection than to his discretion, ended by making the poor lady slightly ridiculous. For the present, it is enough that the children were perfectly happy in each other's society, and it never occurred to them that one day they would probably be separated. But when Marguerite was sixteen years old, a Monsieur Cholet, a rich jeweller of the Palais Royal, made a formal proposal to her parents for her hand. When the news reached her, she told her parents that she was betrothed to Louvet, and begged them with tears in her eyes not to consider the proposal. But whether the offer of the Sieur Cholet was too tempting, or whether they thought Louvet an excellent play- mate, but too feckless a youth as a possible husband for their daughter, they turned a deaf ear to her supplications. In spite of her tears and reproaches, * Vatel, Charlotte de Cor day et les Girondins, iii., p. 500 et seq. 7 LOUVET she was forcibly married to a man almost old enough to have been her grandfather. Louvet, in despair, threw himself into a course of hard reading by way of distraction. It was at this time that he fell completely under the spell of Rous- seau and the prophets. Their doctrines, and especially those of Voltaire and the arch-sophist of Geneva, had a deep influence on his life both as a man of letters and as a political leader. From them he learnt that pathetic solicitude for the welfare of the human race, and for the future generations of mankind, which the revolutionary politician thought too vital a matter to be entrusted to an unassisted Providence. The fundamental error which vitiates their whole system of thought is their insistence on the cardinal importance of the rights of man, whilst they practically ignored the duties and services which those rights enjoin. The political consequences of this doctrine may be seen in the ever-growing tendency of the nation to impute the natural results of their own imprudences and errors of judgment to the vicious- ness of their political institutions ; and gradually transformed them from a docile and law-abiding nation into a people whom " No king could govern, nor no god could please." The Contrat Social and the Essai sur Flnegalite fiarmi les Hommes taught them to seek for the rights of man and social perfection in the state of nature, and for all virtue and happiness in the breast of the unsophisticated savage. The theory would be ludi- crous were it not pernicious. But no amount of 8 LOUVET evidence could convince these men of this transparent fallacy. The works of travellers and explorers, describing the conditions of uncivilized life, which they eagerly read, taught them nothing. They resolutely blinded themselves to the obvious fact that no man is born virtuous ; he either becomes so or grows from bad to worse. They pointed to the courtesan as the natural product of civilization. Another fallacy: it is the virtuous woman who is the product of civilization. Such palpable truths, however, inter- fered with their beautiful theories, and they sought to evade by ignoring them, " Men as they are did not concern them ; their business was with men in general, as they ought to be on leaving the hands of Nature " with the creatures they evolved from their inner consciousness in all the nakedness of meta- physical abstraction. In their conception, " men are all fashioned after one pattern, and society consists of so many human units, all alike equal and inde- pendent, contracting together for the first time."* There were more things in this theory than Rousseau dreamed of in his philosophy. This doctrine, corrupt- ing barren and narrow minds incapable of seeing facts behind words, was largely responsible for the power of the rabble during the Reign of Terror. For when an abstract idea, such as the rights of man and popular sovereignty, once takes possession of a mind which has attained to a perfection of moral and intellectual sterility equal to Robespierre's, it will soon drive * Taine. 9 LOUVET out all other ideas and reign there alone. With that arrogance and self-sufficiency peculiar to those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own, such men will believe themselves the god-sent types of absolute virtue and incorruptibility. Hence they will accept the wickedness of all who differ from them in their opinions as a self-evident truth ; whilst those who presume to question the propriety of their acts, immediately fall under suspicion of being friends of tyranny, and they will denounce them, in all sincerity, as bad citizens and sworn foes of mankind. There is little doubt that, had he lived long enough, Rousseau, whose name was ever on the lips of these demagogues, would have died on the scaffold as an anti-revolutionist, for he had said one drop of blood was too dear a price to pay for a revolution ; and it is equally certain Voltaire would have met with the same fate, for having taught that the worst of all governments is mob government. Louvet also accepted these doctrines ; but his romanticism, and, above all, his sense of humour, saved him from attempting to carry them to their logical conclusion. He did not allow these abstract principles to occupy his mind entirely. He was an artist before he was a philosopher, and his art kept him in touch with his fellows. Paris was ringing with the news of the insurgent victories in the American War of Independence, and Mirabeau, from his cell at Vincennes, was writing in blood and tears those heartrending letters to Sophie de Monnier, when our hero, seventeen years of age, became secretary to P. F. de Dietrich, the eminent 10 LOUVET mineralogist.* It was whilst in this position that he made his debut as a man of letters, by writing a memoir on a poor servant girl who went out nursing in order to support her mistress and two daughters, when they had been suddenly reduced to penury. This memoir succeeded in obtaining for his client the prize for virtue, which had a few weeks before been instituted by the Baron de Monty on in connection with the Academie Francaise. He next engaged himself to Prault, the publisher of much of the light literature of the age. Here his time was not wasted ; he mastered every detail connected with the production of books, and perfected himself in his art. He also read for the law, and was admitted avocat. " Tout notaire a reve des sultanes" wrote Flaubert in Madame Bovary. The malady is not peculiar to notaries. No youth with a touch of poetry in him escapes the infection. It is a distemper inseparable from growth. Scanty as is our information on these years, one thing we do know il revait des sultanes. The proof is in Faublas, the romance he was now ruminating. He was twenty-six years of age, and had already acquired by his industry a small income which enabled him to live in the country. " I had," he says, " laid aside the luxuries dear to youth, and had attained independence by circumscribing my wants. My expenses were limited to 800 livres (about 33) a year." The first part of the book, entitled Les Amours du * During the Revolution, he became Mayor of Strasbourg, and it was at his house that the Marseillaise was first sung. II LOUVET Chevalier de Faublas, consisting of seven neat little volumes, probably "set up " and printed by the author's own hand, and on sale at his house in the Rue Quincampoix, appeared in the spring of 1786. Its success was immediate. Nor is this to be wondered at, for the public was beginning to be bored to death by the long-drawn sighs of Heloise, the laborious sentimentality of Mercier, and even by the delicate indelicacies of Crebillon fils. The most cursory examination of the pages of Faublas will convince the reader that whatever Louvet may have been by conviction, he was certainly an aristocrat by temperament. One of the most remarkable features of the book is its author's deep and sympathetic insight into the hearts and souls of those elegant gentlemen and dainty ladies who flut- tered round the throne, and lightly ransacked heaven and earth for subjects of conversation in the fashion- able salons of the century. His sympathy is so fundamental and his knowledge so intimate that it seems natural to attribute them to the influence of heredity. If he was the son of the " ignorant and brutal shopkeeper," described by Mercier, how could he have become the inimitable historian of the light- hearted intrigues and intimacies of the boudoir ? Where did he learn that finesse, that exquisite tact, that easy self-possession which made the nobility of France under the ancien regime the most attractive aristocracy the world has ever seen ? Being unable to answer these questions satisfactorily, it has been roundly asserted that our author was of noble descent, though apart from this vague sense of the fitness 12 LOUVET of things there is no evidence for the statement. Nor did Louvet himself make any serious claim to a title, for though he signed Faublas " Louvet de Couvrai," it seems clear from the address " To my double," affixed to that work, he did so only to avoid Confusion with another public man ; whilst in later editions of the romance he jokingly refers to " the most impertinent of Revolutions " for robbing him of his title of a day. The address, which bears directly on the subject, runs thus : " I do not know, sir, if you are the happy possessor of a face like mine, or if, like me, you are descended from that famous Louvet* ... I do not know, though I can no longer doubt, that we are of about the same age ; that we are adorned with almost the same title ; and that we glory in an identical name. Above all, I am struck by a point of re- semblance more important to us and more interesting to our country ; it is that we can march hand in hand to immortality, for we both write very charming prose, and we both readily get ourselves into print. "I am pleased to think that this perfect analogy seemed at first to you, as it did to me, very flattering ; but now I am persuaded that you feel, as I do, the terrible inconvenience that it entails. By what certain sign shall two rivals so closely resembling each other, and entering at the same time on a great * A reference to President Louvet, minister of State under Charles VII., whose wife (with her charmes succulents) plays such an important vdle in Voltaire's Pucelle. These words appear to me to have been taken too seriously ; at least, it may fairly be doubted whether this was not " only his fun," as Lamb said of Coleridge's preaching. 13 LOUVET career, be recognized and distinguished ? When the world shall ring with our common fame ; when our masterpieces, under the same signature, shall travel from pole to pole, who will separate our two names, confounded in the temple of Fame ? Who will pre- serve to me my reputation, which, without the least idea of doing so, you will continually usurp ? Who will restore to you your glory, of which, without wishing to do so, I shall continually rob you ? Who could be so perspicacious, as by a sufficiently equitable distribution, to render to each the just portion of celebrity which he has merited ? What shall I do to prevent them from lending you all my wit ? How will you prevent them from gratifying me with all your eloquence ? Ah ! my dear sir, my dear sir ! " It is true that a thankless fortune has put a difference between us which is wholly to your ad- vantage : you are an advocate au,* whilst I am but an advocate en ;f you have pronounced a great dis- course before a great assembly, whilst I have but written a small romance. Now, all orators will allow that it is more difficult to harangue the public, than to write in the study ; and all enlightened folk stand aghast at the gulf which separates advocates en from advocates au. But I would humbly submit that there are thousands of ignorant people in the state, who have never heard either of my romance or of your discourse, and who, in their profound indifference, have not taken the trouble to learn what great privileges are attached to that little word au, * Avocat au tribunal* f Avocat en droit. LOUVET of which, if I were in your place, I should be very proud. Thus, you see, sir, in spite of the romance and the discourse, and the en and the au, all these good people, who cannot fail to hear of you and I very shortly, will constantly be taking one of us for the other. Ah, my dear sir, I pray you, let us hasten to spare our contemporaries these perpetual mis- apprehensions, which, moreover, will be so very embarrassing for our nephews. " I had at first imagined that you, being the more interested party in clearing the doubts of posterity, would follow the custom of your noble colleagues, who, for the greater glory of the Bar, when their ordinary names are become too modest, commonly augment them by the addition of a high-sounding surname. On further reflection, however, I felt that I ought to spare you from such a ridiculous action by taking it upon myself. It was that which decided me. You may, if you see fit to do so, remain simply M. Lou vet ; for my part I wish ever to be Lou vet de Couvrai."* This little discourse has hitherto been treated as a deliberate mystification on the part of its author. It may have been so. Yet is it not conceivable that Louvet intended the epistle to be taken literally ? The surmise is strengthened when we consider that the advocate Pierre Florent Louvet had already won * It was a common practice in large families for each son to adopt a second name, in this way, to distinguish him from his brothers. Thus, we have Brissot de Warville, who was known to Madame de Genlis only as Monsieur de Warville ; Potion de Villeneuve, and the brothers Rabaut Saint-Etienne and Rabaut-Pomier. 15 LOUVET a reputation for eloquence before the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. He afterwards represented the Department of la Somme in the Legislative Assembly and in the National Convention. He was a member of the Plaine the Trimmers of their day and on the downfall of the Girondists addressed a letter of protest to the Convention against their pro- scription. During the Terror, he was sent as a commissioner to interview Madame Roland in the Abbaye Prison, and came off second best. She thought him a pedantic fool, and as good as told him so ; but^his embarrassment may have arisen from nervousness and a sense of the justice of her cause. He seems to have been an inoffensive creature. His name appears in the trial of Charlotte Corday, and on the document which Robespierre was signing when he was struck down at the Hotel de Ville. In the beginning of 1789, Lou vet went to live in a country house, six miles from Paris, which a friend had generously placed at his disposal, in order to write the last chapters of the second part of Faublas. He was anxious to finish it, for Lodolska, failing to obtain a divorce, was about to join him and he would shortly have to provide for them both. " I was at work," he says, " on the Fin des Amours de Faublas, and I worked hi my own way, that is to say, in absolute solitude, far from all commerce with the world, cut off, as it were, from among the living, delivered over solely to the creatures of my imagination. It is essential to me when at work to abandon myself without distraction of any kind. Should an intruder break the thread of my 16 LOUVET thoughts, I have the greatest difficulty to resume my work, and if I am often interrupted, disgust supervenes and my mind becomes paralyzed ; but left, on the other hand, to myself, I work with very great rapidity." The publication of the other six volumes of Faublas in 1789, considerably increased Louvet's fortune. The profits would doubtless have been very much greater but for the outbreak of the Revolution, which interfered with the sale of all romances, and gave facilities to the publishers of pirated editions. The story of Lodoi'ska, which forms an episode in Faublas, was the subject of two operas per- formed with great success in Paris, the first, composed by Cherubini, being produced at the Theatre Feydeau on July 18, 1791, and the second by Kreutzer, at the Italiens on August I, 1791. It was also the subject of a popular melodrama by J. P. Kemble, first per- formed in June, 1794, at the Drury Lane Theatre. In spite of a song by Tom Moore, it is poor stuff ; though rich in humour of the unconscious sort. The climax is terrific. A horde of Tartars (twenty-four to be exact), on real horses, set the castle on fire in which Lodoi'ska and her lover are confined by her wicked and amorous custodian. Floreski, her lover, snatches her from the blazing battlements, whilst the Tartars, their rescuers, bear off all the other women they find, singing a bold, bad song with the refrain : " Worlds of wealth, and worlds of wives, Are the hardy TARTARS PRIZE." 17 2 CHAPTER II Les Amours du Chevalier de Faitblas. WRETCHED cloaca of a book ; without depth even as a cloaca ! What ' picture of French society ' is here ? Picture properly of nothing, if not of the mind that gave it out as some sort of a picture. Yet symptom of much ; above all, of the world that could nourish itself thereon." Thus spake Carlyle in reference to Faublas. In charity, ^we can only assume that the man who wrote these words had never read the book ; in this, indeed, he was no worse than the many others who have cheerfully taken upon themselves to decry this wonderful romance. The criticism has no more relation to fact than the definition propounded to Cuvier by a youthful comparative anatomist, in which a crab was described as a red fish which walks backwards. " Your definition would be perfect," said Cuvier, " but for three facts : a crab is not a fish, it is not red, and it does not walk backwards." It is strange that the moralist who tolerates with- out a protest the mephitic sentimentality of his German contemporaries, he who has nought but a smile for the lubricity of a Philina, and boggles at none of the gratuitous coarseness of that dullest of the world's great masterpieces, Wilhelm Meisier, should stiffen at once into the Calvinistic divine 18 LOUVEt and profess to be shocked when Louvet lays bare the souls of the men and looks into the hearts of the women he knew so well. " If I am sometimes too gay," says Louvet in his preface, " forgive me. I have yawned so much over so many romances. I was fearful lest mine should be as soporific as they. Have patience with me for a few years, and I shall perhaps write a duller one, which will be more to your liking. I say perhaps. Yet ought not the romancer to be the faithful his- torian of his age ? Can he paint other than that he has seen ? O, you who make such a clatter, change your manners, and I will change my pictures ! " Precisely, Faublas, we repeat, is not an im- moral book. It has none of that subtle, furtive and leering indecency which debases much of the literature of the eighteenth century ; and, after all, it is by the moral standard of the age in which it was written, not by our own, that every work of art should be judged. In short, all that is noble in Faublas (and I think you will find a great deal) belongs to Louvet alone, whilst he is not entirely responsible for that which shocks the susceptibilities of his modern readers. It is witty, vivacious, and as free from cant and superfluous fig-leaves as the brilliant society it portrays ; but, like that society, it has its serious moments too. There are passages hi it worthy of the eloquence of a Burke, and scenes which would draw tears from the eyes of a Robes- pierre. The women are spirited to the verge of in- discretion, but tactful, warm-hearted and sym- pathetic; it was their nature to love passionately, 19 2* LOUVET and they glory in their love. Yet they are the true sisters of the beautiful and good Madame de Lam- balle, who, on hearing of the Queen's danger, left a safe asylum in England to watch over and comfort her friend, and paid for her devotion by the thousand obscene horrors perpetrated on her murdered body ;* or of that Madame Bouquey, who welcomed and protected Louvet and his fellow-outlaws, when all other doors were closed against them, starved herself that they might be fed, and when that was not enough, cheerfully laid down her life for her friends. And we are made to feel that these pleasure-loving women he describes, in spite of their gaiety, their frivolity, and their recklessness, will also, when their time comes, shrink from no sacrifice for the sake of those they love. Nor are the men unworthy of such women. They are careless epicureans, dissipated it may be, in a genteel way, not overburdened with conscience, perhaps, when things go well with them, as under the ancien regime ; but these are the chival- rous gentlemen who, on August loth, 1789, rushed forward to die for the King on the staircase of the Tuileries ; the lofty patriots who poured out their blood like water in the service of the country which robbed, proscribed, massacred, and led them in flocks to the scaffold. The romance opens with Faublas' first entry into * She was then forty-three, but she had been beautiful and she was still good. 20 LOUVET Paris by the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, in October, 1783. " I sought," he says, " that superb city of which I had read such wonderful accounts. I found but high and squalid tenements, long narrow streets, poor wretches everywhere clothed in rags, a crowd of almost naked children ; I beheld a dense population and appalling poverty. I asked my father if that was indeed Paris ; he answered coldly that it was certainly not the finest quarter ; we should have time to see the other on the morrow." This picture, drawn in a few simple words, bites into the brain of the reader like the burin into the plate of the engraver. It succeeds in bringing pre- revolutionary Paris straight before the eyes, far more directly than many more ambitious descriptions. The contrast between the life he sees to-day and the life into which he enters on the morrow is most effective. A few days after their arrival in the capital, the hero and his father visit the convent in which Faublas' sister Adelaide is a pensionnaire. " My father was curious to see the bosom friend of his daughter. When the Baron requested Adelaide to fetch Mademoiselle de Pontis, a kind of presenti- ment set my heart beating wildly. My sister ran out ; she soon returned, leading by the hand . . . imagine Venus at fourteen ! I wanted to step for- ward, to speak, to bow ; I remained with fixed eyes, open mouth, and with arms hanging helplessly by my side. My father, perceiving my agitation, was amused. ' Surely you will greet the lady ? ' said he. This served but to increase my embarrassment. 31 LOUVET I made a very awkward bow. ' I assure you, made- moiselle, that this young man has had a master of deportment,' continued the Baron. I was absolutely put out of countenance. . . . Before leaving, my father kissed his daughter and bowed to Mademoiselle de Pontis. In my agitation I bowed to my sister, and was on the point of kissing Sophie. The young lady's governess, preserving more presence of mind than I, advised me of my mistake. The Baron looked at me in astonishment. Sophie coloured slightly, but a smile rippled over her sweet lips." It must be admitted that Faublas' adventures were not all so innocent. Soon after coming to Paris, he made the acquaintance of the Comte de Rosam- bert, a handsome young rake, who early initiated him into the elegant iniquities of that polite society, in which " vice itself had lost half its evil by losing all its grossness." In a spirit of mischievousness, Rosambert per- suades Faublas, who is a very pretty boy, to accom- pany him to a ball dressed as a girl. " We had no sooner made an appearance in the assembly than all eyes were turned on me. I was troubled ; I felt myself blush ; I lost all countenance. It occurred to me that perhaps some part of my dress was disordered, or that my borrowed habit had betrayed me ; but the general eagerness of the men and the universal discontent of the women soon convinced me that I was well disguised. One looked at me disdainfully, another examined me sulkily ; there was an agitation of fans as they whispered together and exchanged malicious smiles. I saw that 22 LOUVET they gave me the welcome which women usually accord to a pretty rival on seeing her for the first time. At this moment a very beautiful woman entered the room ; it was the Count's mistress. He introduced me as his relative, who, he said, had just left the convent. The lady (who was the Marquise de B ) received me very kindly. I sat down by her side, and the young men made a circle round us. In order to excite the jealousy of his mistress, the Count affected to treat me with marked pre- ference. The Marquise, apparently nettled by his coquetry, and resolved to punish him, dissimulated the vexation she felt and redoubled her politeness and kindness towards me. " ' Do you like the convent, mademoiselle ? ' she asked. " * I should love it, madame, if there were many people like you there.' " The Marquise smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment. She asked me a great many more ques- tions, seemed delighted with my answers, and over- whelmed me with those little caresses which women lavish on each other. Then, turning to Rosambert, she told him he was really too fortunate in having such a relative, and ended by giving me a tender kiss, which I politely returned. This was more than the Count had bargained for. Taken aback by the vivacity of the Marquise, and, above all, by the good- will with which I had received her caresses, he whis- pered in her ear and revealed to her the secret of my disguise. Having looked at me very attentively for a few moments, she cried : 23 LOUVET " * What nonsense ! It cannot be ! ' " The Count renewed his protestations. " ' What an idea ! ' replied the Marquise, lowering her voice. ' Do you know what he says ? He has the assurance to tell me that you are a young man in disguise.' " I replied timidly in a whisper that he spoke the truth. " The Marquise darted a tender glance at me, pressed my hand, and feigning to have misunderstood my words, she said aloud : " * I knew it very well. The story was too pre- posterous ! * Then turning to the Count : " ' What is the meaning of this pleasantry, mon- sieur ? ' " * What ! ' cried Rosambert in his astonishment ; ' does mademoiselle dare to maintain ' (I c Of course she maintains it ! Just look at her, such a sweet child ; the pretty darling ! * " ' Do you mean to tell me ! ' again ex- claimed the Count. " ' I pray you have done with this nonsense, monsieur,' returned the Marquise with considerable warmth ; ' either you take me for a fool or you are beside yourself.' ' Such is the beginning of Faublas' liaison with the brilliant Madame de B . Of all the striking figures in the book the Marquise is the most remarkable. She is the incarnation of those fascinating women, with an extraordinary aptitude for affairs, either of a political or a senti- mental nature, who have played such a great part 24 LOUVET throughout the history of France. No nation has produced so great a number of eminent women ; and in no country have the women had such a direct influence on the march of events. Frenchwomen claim it as their right to have a voice in every matter which affects the welfare of those dear to them. " Madame," said Napoleon to a lady no less cele- brated for her beauty and her wit than for the viva- city of her opinions, " I do not like women to meddle in politics." " You are quite right, General," she replied ; " but in a country where they cut off their heads, it is only natural that they should want to know why." The first person openly to express Republican opinions in France was Madame Robert, daughter of the Chevalier Guynement de Keralio, and that at a time when the terrible lettre de cachet was in full force ; and when Madame Roland, who was destined to become one of the great Republican martyrs, was still a supporter of the Monarchy. Madame Robert, according to M. Aulard, must be regarded as the founder of the Republican party. In view of these facts, it is little wonder that, in 1788, a great thinker like Condorcet should draw up a scheme of social and political reform, in which he demanded that women should be eligible to vote at the election of representatives.* Nor is it surprising that under the ancien regime women holders of fiefs were admitted to vote in the electoral system of the provincial and municipal assemblies ; whilst many a noble or clerical deputy owed his election * See the present writer's article on " Women's Suffrage and the French Revolution," in The Academy, Sept. 7, 1907. 25 LOUVET to the States-General to the votes of women.* More- over, women participated directly in all the events of the Revolution. Some contributed to its success in their salons, others in the streets, and yet others at the taking of the Bastille. It was the women who initiated the march on Versailles on the 5th and 6th October, 1789 ; it was a woman who rid her country of a tyrant in Marat ; and it was a woman, Therese Cabarrus, who (in her own way, it is true) checked the bloody proscriptions of Tallien at Bor- deaux. The Madame de B of Faublas is just such a woman as these. She has an iron will and a tender heart. She was fashioned for love, and she was fashioned for intrigue. We can imagine her fighting the battles of the century in her draw- ing-room. She delights in violent action, and yet she is superbly feminine. From the moment of her meeting with Faublas, her whole life is devoted to scheming for his happiness, but she is determined that he shall owe his happiness to none but her. To attain her object, she sticks at nothing : all means are fair in her eyes. She makes heroic efforts to be generous to Sophie (the daughter of Lodoiska) and Madame de Lignolle, her rivals, but the woman in her triumphs, and she is their implacable enemy throughout ; and whenever Faublas attempts to break with her he is met by the insurmountable obstacle of her imperious love. After reading Faublas we feel that the Mar- quise de B is one of the few heroines of romance * Mirabeau's mother recorded her vote on this occasion. 26 LOUVET that we have met in the flesh, so intense is the feeling of reality she creates. Her spell is cast over the reader just as surely as it was cast over Faublas, for she is not a creature of the imagination, but a woman of flesh and blood ; and it is as idle for the M. du Portail of the story to exhort the hero to break with her, as it is to attempt to weaken the devotion of the reader by shouting in his ear that she paid too little regard to the proprieties. As for Faublas himself, he would certainly be an impossible person were it not for one fact. In spite of his wildness and the thousand and one follies of which he is guilty, the quest of sensation without love, of pleasure for pleasure's sake, which is the essential characteristic of the vicious man, is foreign to his nature. This is his saving grace ; therein lay the charm he has for us, and we readily forgive him everything. He is a rake, but his rakishness has not corrupted his heart. His conduct may be open to improvement, but his sentiments are beyond reproach. The clean-hearted and tender Sophie never ceases to hold his heart in her little white hand. With her modesty and almost childish candour, she remains for him the incarnation of that assured and enduring domestic happiness, which for him is a para- dise lost. When his good intentions fall victims to an over-ardent temperament, as they very often do, he returns to her in a passion of remorse. Sophie, on her part, never fails to greet him with a welcoming smile on her lips and forgiveness in her eyes, and Faublas, with characteristic buoyancy, takes this as 27 LOUVET a sign that he has reached at least one stage on the road to the paradise regained. As there are some men, so are there some books superior to their reputations. Faublas is such a book. Beyond the mad frolics of a particularly in- flammable hero, beyond the profoundly scientific capitulations of the Marquise de B , and the disingenuous indiscretions of the sprightly little Comtesse de Lignolle, there is a very definite moral to be drawn. Louvet, unconsciously it may be, makes his characters suffer the logical consequences, both moral and physical, of their misconduct ; and a book which its author has strangely enough de- scribed as " frivolous " ends in a poignant tragedy. Considered as a whole, the most prejudiced reader must admit that the characters in the romance com- pare very favourably with their contemporaries in real life. Few would be prepared to maintain that the hero and heroines of Faublas are not on an in- finitely higher moral plane than the average courtier or leader of society under the Regency. Compared with Madame de Boufflers or Madame de Parabere, the Marquise de B is almost a vestal ; and if it be objected that the essential quality of a vestal is absolute and admits of no modification, even in the case of such a charming creature as the Marquise, we would urge that her past left so very little trace on her future that the matter is scarcely worth arguing about. As for Faublas, his naughtiest ad- venture is innocence itself compared with the cold- blooded depravities of a La Fare or a Richelieu, not to mention the unspeakable De Sade. 38 LOWET With its laughing philosophy and easy self- possession, its exquisite tact, delicacy of feeling and scintillating wit, Faublas is the epic of the ancien regime, the masterly epitome of that careless, gallant and accommodating society which was so soon to perish under the blade of the guillotine. CHAPTER III Louvet returns to Paris Lodolska again Nemours The sex question during the Revolution The teaching of the philosophes, and its results Louvet dons the tricolour The King's veto " An infamous orgy " Louvet is called out The insurrection of the 5-6 October, 1789 Louvet and Lodoiska seek to win over the soldiers Lonvet begins his political career Paris justifii} The Jacobins. HIS task over, Louvet quitted his solitary retreat and returned to Paris. Ignorant of all that had happened during the past months, he stepped, as it were, into a new world. The France of a year ago had passed away for ever : a new era had dawned. The States-General had been in session for six weeks. " Full of civic curiosity," he says, " I set out for Versailles. It was the i4th or i5th of June (1789) when I entered the hall. Target was speaking. As everybody knows, Target was not the most eloquent of the Commons, but he was a man of some feeling, and at that time showed courage, and this was the first time I had heard the rights of the people spoken of publicly. My soul was stirred to the depths. I re- turned preoccupied with the thought that since I could serve the popular cause in no other way, I ought to undertake the publication of a journal. " But if the love of the Revolution blazed up suddenly in my heart, another and an older love burnt there none the less ardently. Ah ! if I could but write the story of my youth ! You would then 30 know something of her, that rare woman, endowed with every quality of mind, heart and soul ; and I should deem myself unworthy of her love if I failed to make you adore her too." That was perhaps too much to expect, but clearly our friend was badly smitten, for this was set down four years later. " Her name," he proceeds, " might now be men- tioned without compromising her, for she is my wife ; but I will still conceal it lest our enemies should wreak their cowardly vengeance on her un- offending relatives. I will, therefore, give her the name of the generous daughter of one Republican and the worthy wife of another, whose characters I have drawn in the (Polish) episode of my first romance. Who could have guessed, when in 1786 I described the perils and adventures of the unhappy Pulawski, that soon my own destiny would bear such a striking resemblance to his ; or that my dear lady, whose only ornaments then seemed the tender graces and virtues of her sex, would display all the high courage and firmness in the face of danger and difficulty with which I had endowed the wife of Lowzinski ? To think that it was to be her fate to suffer all the mis- fortunes my brain had invented for Lodoi'ska. By that name, then, I shall in future distinguish her." For five months Louvet had been deprived of the happiness of seeing Lodoiska. As soon, therefore, as he had made arrangements for the publication of his new volumes, he left everything and flew to her. She was living at Nemours, rather more than fifty miles from Paris. LOUVET " Of all noble sweeps of roadway," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in an essay on Fontainebleau, " none is nobler, on a windy dusk, than the high road to Nemours, between its lines of talking poplar." The place held his imagination, for he returns to the sub- ject in a letter to his mother in 1875. " Nemours," he says, " is a beautiful little town, watered by a great canal and a little river. The river is crossed by an infinity of little bridges, and the houses have courts and gardens, and come down in stairs to the very brim ; and washerwomen sit every- where in curious little penthouses and sheds. A sort of reminiscence of Amsterdam. The old castle turned now into a ball-room and cheap theatre ; the seats of the pit are covered with old Gobelins tapestry ; one can still see heads in helmets. In the actors' dressing-rooms are curious Henry Fourth looking- glasses. On the other hand, the old manacles are kept laid by in a box, with a lot of flower-pots on the top of it, in a room with four canary birds." * In a cottage on the outskirts of this romantic town Louvet passed the next few months the happiest of his life treading " the primrose path of dalliance " with the woman he loved by his side. Yet it must often have filled him with bitterness to think that she was the wife of another, for he was essentially " a marrying man," and his whole ambition was centred in the simple pleasures of domestic life. Although the moralist will condemn him, there * See Balfour (Graham,) Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, vol. i., p. 13* 32 LOUVET were in his case circumstances which might fairly be urged in extenuation of his conduct. Only those whose virtue has triumphed over equally sore tempta- tion are in a position to cast stones at him ; and these would be the last to condemn, for " to know all is to pardon all." Moreover, the bonds of matri- mony sat lightly upon the men and women of that age. To them love was its own justification, and they regarded all ties which prevented them from follow- ing the dictates of their hearts as unnatural, and refused to be bound by them. The characteristic attitude of the time, in regard to the institution of marriage, is summed up in Chamfort's comedy, in which Belton, a wandering Englishman, wrecked on a savage island, encounters Betty, an attrac- tive and unsophisticated young lady, who falls in love with him at first sight and takes him to her father's cave, finally going away with him. The innocence of the lovers is saved, at a critical juncture, by the arrival of a benevolent: Quaker, who provides a dowry, but insists on formally marrying them, much to the astonishment of Betty, who exclaims, " What ! can I not love thee without this man in a black gown ? " Yet examples might be multiplied of the most admirable constancy in extra-conjugal attachments such as that between Lou vet and Madame Cholet. The mutual fidelity of the Chevalier de Boufflers and Madame de Sabran triumphed over periodical separations of many months' duration ; and the emotional Madame d'Houdetot (the original of 33 3 LOUVET Heloise) remained to the end faithful to the absent Saint-Lambert, in spite of the gins and pitfalls that Rousseau set about her feet. Nor should it be overlooked that the whole ten- dency of the age was towards a loosening of the marriage tie. The philosophes and encyclopedistes, from Helvetius to Rousseau, and from Voltaire to Condorcet, all treated morality as a purely social question, and taught that our conduct is virtuous or vicious only in so far as it is useful or prejudicial to the welfare of the state. During the Revolution, this theory was carried into practice in the law of September, 1792, wherein marriage was treated as an ordinary civil contract, and its tie deliberately rendered loose and precarious, approximating as nearly as possible to the free and transient union of the sexes. The law further granted a dissolution of marriage on the demand of both, or even of one of the parties, after one month of formal probation ; or if it could be proved that a couple had lived sepa- rate for six months, the divorce might be pronounced without any delay whatever. Illegitimacy was abolished, children born out of wedlock being accorded the same rights as legitimate children. During the first two and a quarter years following the promulgation of this law, the courts of Paris granted 5,994 divorces ; and in the sixth year of the Republic the number of divorces was in excess of the marriages.* While these facts do not exonerate Louvet from * Taine, 34 LOUVET blame, they go far to show that the particular delin- quency of which he was guilty was regarded as of quite a venial nature, and was accepted by his con- temporaries with an indulgent equanimity. From time to time rumours of tumult and sedition in Paris, the first low murmurs of the coming storm, reached him in his retreat, but during the last few weeks the horizon seemed to have cleared. Then like a thunderbolt came the news that the Parisians had suddenly revolted and taken the Bastille by assault. Lou vet and his companion were almost delirious with joy. Lodoi'ska ransacked her work- basket, cut out three strips of ribbon red, white and blue and within a few moments her deft fingers had fashioned a tricoloured cockade, the badge of the popular party. Kneeling at her feet, Lou vet received the emblem at her hands, with all the fervour of a Crusader setting out on another holy war. On being assured that Paris was completely victorious, and had nothing to fear from the intrigues of the Court, Louvet prolonged his stay at Nemours, having for the present abandoned his idea of founding a popular journal. After the fall of the Bastille had convinced the Royalist party of the futility of any attempt to win back by force the power they had lost, they hoped to do so by means of a majority in the Constituent Assembly. To this end Mirabeau, Cazales, Maury, Malouet and others brought in a bill by which no law could be passed by the Assembly without the King's sanction. This measure was violently opposed 35 3* LOUVET by the leaders of the popular party, the most pro- minent members of which were Barnave, the three brothers Lameth (founders of the Jacobin Club), Petion, Robespierre, Talleyrand and Sieys, who wished to make of the King a mere functionary of State, the passive and obedient agent of a govern- ment which would be Republican in all but name. Between these two parties were Necker and his clique, who sought to win the confidence of all by allowing the right of a suspensive veto to the King, by which he should have power to suspend any measure of which he did not approve, for a definite number of years. It is difficult to conceive how any sane man could have supported such a measure, which would have made government practically impossible. Such was the state of politics when Louvet returned to Paris towards the end of September. He at once threw himself into the fray, and in the debates at the assemblies of the municipal section to which he belonged, he soon made a name for himself as an orator of great promise. In October, the Court party, anticipating further disturbances, and fearing for the safety of the Royal Family, summoned the regiment of Flanders to Versailles. They had no sooner arrived than they were half won over by the populace. In their extremity the King and Queen resolved to seduce the regiment by caresses. A magnificent banquet was organized in the Court Theatre, and invitations were addressed to all the troops of the King's household. At the height of the banquet, remembering the happy effect of her mother Maria Teresa's beauty and courage on her 36 LOUVET Hungarian soldiers, the 1 Queen appeared in their midst, accompanied by the King, and bearing the little Dauphin in her arms. They were greeted with a thunder of applause, and a thousand swords leaping from their scabbards testified to the passionate devo- tion of the soldiers. The tricoloured cockade was trampled underfoot, and the white cockade, the emblem of the Royal house, was donned with acclamation. At the same moment the bands of the Guards and the regiment of Flanders struck up the plaintive air of " 6 Richard ! 6 mon roi ! " from Sedaine's opera of Richard Cceur de Lion, which had met with a prodigious success on its appearance in 1784, and had maintained its popularity ever since. The story on which the opera is founded tells how Richard the Lionhearted, on his way home from the Crusades, was shipwrecked in the Adriatic, and whilst making his way in disguise through the territory of his enemy, Leopold Duke of Austria, was recognized, arrested, and handed over to the Emperor Henry VI., who imprisoned him in the Castle of Durrenstein. The play reaches its climax when Blondel, Richard's faithful troubadour, who had followed him in his wanderings, discovers the King by singing this song outside the prison in which he is confined. On the outbreak of the Revolution the analogy between Richard's situation and that of Louis XVI., the ardent loyalty which characterizes the whole opera, and is, as it were, epitomized in this pathetic song, caused it to become the recognized chant of the Royalists : 37 LOUVET 6 Richard! 6 mon roi ! L'univers t'abandonne ; Sur la terre il n'est done qne moi Qui s'interesse a ta personne ! Moi seul dans 1'univers Voudrais briser tes fers, Et tout le monde t'abandonne. 6 Richard ! 6 mon roi L'univers t'abandonne, Et sur la terre il n'est que moi Qui s'interesse a ta personne." It is easy to imagine the frenzy of loyalty with which the gallant soldiers, heated as they were with wine, received the famous air, which for five years had haunted their ears ; whilst the belief that they saw the young and beautiful daughter of a hundred kings, in her peril, turning to them as the only refuge for herself and those dear to her, served but to increase their devotion. Unhappily, the effect of the banquet on the people was disastrous for the Royal Family. They saw in it a carefully organized plot against their newly-won freedom, and a convincing proof of the King's per- fidy. Seized with fury and terror, Paris showed her teeth. The night of the banquet Louvet had taken Lodoiska to visit Madame Salle, a mutual friend, the wife of the future Girondist leader. The Salle's house was a well-known rendezvous of Revolutionary enthusiasts, and this " infamous orgy " was the all- absorbing topic of conversation among the guests. Several Deputies were present, and the " scandalous turpitude " of the Court party was denounced with 38 LOUVET unmeasured vehemence. Presently a young officer of the Royal Body Guards, the nephew of the hostess, who had come straight from the fete, entered the room. He spoke enthusiastically of the banquet and of the display of loyalty it had evoked, and went on to sneer at the Revolution, and to utter impreca- tions and menaces against Paris. The Deputies were reduced to silence, and the only person to summon sufficient courage to remonstrate with him was the lady who, as Louvet puts it, " had the misfortune to be his aunt." When the young man had finished what he had to say, Louvet, who had till now watched the scene with some amusement, quietly turned to him, and in his most courtly manner told him he was a cowardly slave. The two men quietly exchanged cards, and Louvet turned towards the door, in order to settle the difference of opinion forthwith, when he was arrested by a look from Madame Cholet, which recalled him to his duty and his principles. He had always ridiculed the practice of duelling as a relic of barbarism, which only a year before had (it was rumoured) cost France the life of Suffren, her greatest admiral. " No, no, sir," said he ; " we have tolled the knell of all such prejudices ; the age of duelling is past. Besides, since when have you nobles esteemed persons of my condition sufficiently to challenge one of them to single combat ? You men of the sword, of the cloth and of the robe, have too long united to oppress the people, who could not defend themselves because you had the art of spreading division among them. 39 LOUVET To-day, it is our turn, to-day it is the people who by their masses are going to crush the gentlemen. I might then by a just retaliation make use of this superiority of numbers. I have no wish, however, to take this advantage, but I will reserve to myself the right of choosing the time and the place of the combat. You Body Guards," added he, as if in- spired by a premonition, " you Body Guards ask for civil war. You shall have it. You call us Parisians out : we Parisians will come. On that day, sir, show yourself before your squadron if you dare, and I will step out from our ranks to meet you : I give you a rendezvous between the two armies before the gates of the Chateau." On the morrow, the 5th of October, as if in fulfil- ment of Lou vet's prophecy, the Parisians marched on Versailles, but he called on his enemy in vain. This march, one of the most impressive scenes in the whole history of the Revolution, was undertaken on the initiative of the women of Paris, who joined the procession in thousands. The story of the banquet had spread panic among them, and they imagined it was the first step in a deliberate scheme to reduce the capital by famine ; for, as Rivarol truly said, " the people is a sovereign who demands only that he may eat : so long as he is digesting his majesty is quiet." The terrible scarcity of food gave colour to the wild rumours which were sedulously spread abroad by unscrupulous demagogues, who, to serve their own ends, endeavoured to sow distrust and hatred between the King and his subjects. " Bread ! give us bread that our children may live ! " cried the 40 LOUVET famished mothers in despair ; and it was resolved to go to Versailles, and to demand bread of the King, whom they still looked upon as the father of his people. Led by the conquerors of the Bastille, the women were armed with improvised spears, loaded sticks, pistols, hatchets, muskets anything, in fact, they could lay their hands on. Most of them were in hideous rags, whilst others, women of the town, were dressed in the latest and most elegant fashions, or in gala costumes taken from theatrical wardrobes. They danced by the side of the cannon, singing the re- volutionary songs, which were soon to become famous. Others sat astride the guns, or sprawled over the ammunition wagons. All whom they met on the way were swept forward by the tide, and forced to join the procession. At the head of the women rode the famous Theroigne de Mericourt, skilfully managing a spirited war-horse, borrowed from the Marquis de Saint Huruge, a recusant nobleman, who shared her friendship with a comparatively large percentage of his peers. She wore a steel helmet, ornamented with a long plume, which swept over her naked shoulders. Her muscular arm wielded a spear, and she gave orders in a sharp military tone of voice. With her superb figure and fearless blue eyes, she looked like Penthesilea leading her Amazons into battle. On reaching Versailles, the women soon succeeded in winning over the regiment of Flanders, whilst several companies of dragoons and chasseurs dis- persed to fraternize with the people, and join them in menacing the loyal regiments. 41 LOUVET Louvet and Lodoi'ska were walking by the gates of the Chateau, when they narrowly escaped being run down by a squadron of cavalry in a charge on the Parisian advanced guard. They passed continually along the ranks of the regiment of Flanders, beseech- ing the soldiers not to fire on their brothers. The arguments of a number of beautiful courtesans, specially enrolled for the purpose, proved even more convincing, and this corps, too, were soon fraternizing with the people. Louvet and his friend continued their efforts until they found themselves exposed to a heavy fire. Shortly before daybreak the people, who had en- camped before the Chateau, finding that the palace was badly guarded, owing to the neglect of Lafayette, forced their way within the walls, and after mur- dering the two guards who opposed them, rushed in dense masses up the great staircase, uttering threats of vengeance against the Queen, who had incurred their enmity. A handful of Gentlemen of the Guard, setting their backs to the door of the Queen's apart- ment, purchased with their lives the few moments necessary for her escape. Their bodies were one by one hacked to pieces. At this juncture Lafayette arrived on the scene, and sought to retrieve his fault by quelling the insurrection, which he knew it was his duty to have prevented. Taking advantage of his immense popularity with the masses, he at length succeeded in restoring peace. The Royal Family was conducted by the people to Paris, and from this time forward the King was practically a prisoner in his Palace of the Tuileries. 42 LOUVET A few weeks later Mourner, President of the States of Dauphine, and one of the leading moderates in the Assembly, published a manifesto, protesting against the disorders of the 5th and 6th of October. This provided Louvet with an opportunity of dis- playing his powers as a controversialist, which he was not slow to seize. His reply, entitled Paris justifie, at once brought him to the front as a politician, and gained him admittance to the Society of Jacobins (so-called from the convent where its meetings were held), which had just been founded in Paris. The object of this society was to familiarize the people with Revolutionary ideas, both by the dissemination of literature and by the establishment of similar associations in every corner of the kingdom. Above all, it was formed to counteract the in- fluence of the Royalist and Clerical majority in the Assembly. It was an open confederation of the friends of the people against the half- concealed or suspected conspiracies of the aristo- cracy. The Jacobins formed, as it were, an army of vigilance, which gradually spread itself over the whole country. They were the Jesuits of the Revolution. The majority of its members belonged to the middle classes, who had long been waging secret warfare against those of the upper ranks : the bar- rister against the magistrate, who treated him with contumely ; the ambitious solicitor or surgeon envious of the social position of the barrister ; the half-starved priest against the luxurious prelate ; and the rich merchant or shopkeeper resenting the haughtiness and 43 LOUVET exclusiveness of the impoverished noble.* Indeed, from their first appearance, this class has been re- sponsible for most of the great social upheavals. The reason for this is not far to seek. An aristocracy has all to lose and nothing to gain by a change in the established order of things ; whilst the energy of the poor is wholly taken up by the daily struggle for existence. The middle classes alone stand to benefit by revolutions ; and if they can succeed in dazzling the populace by throwing a specious light on the advantages of change, other things being equal, it is not difficult for them to attain power. This is precisely what hap- pened in the French Revolution. Apart from a small band of idealists, who were responsible for all that was best in the Revolution, it was largely the work of noisy, ambitious, and, with few exceptions, com- monplace demagogues, backed by a swarm of briefless barristers, tavern loafers, and hungry irresponsible journalists, drunk with vanity, jealousy and egotism. Speaking of the Revolution, a lady once remarked in the presence of Delille : " All must recognize in it the hand of God." " And of man," added Delille. At first, the Jacobins were not opposed to the monarchy as such ; they merely agitated for an amended constitution ; but they were tired of " the absolute monarchy tempered by epigrams " of the ancien regime, and were determined to have a more popular form of government. It was only when they despaired of persuading the King to take this momentous step that they adopted a frankly anti- * Micheletj 44 LOUVET monarchical policy. Thenceforward, each day saw the growth of this wonderful political organization, which after the fall of the monarchy, and under the ascendancy of Robespierre, practically usurped the supreme power in the State. In the early days of the Society, its membership was strictly limited to Deputies of the popular party in the Assembly, and to authors or orators who had distinguished themselves in the service of the Revo- lution. Persuaded that his country had many cleverer defenders in the tribune than himself, Louvet seldom spoke at the meetings of the Jacobins ; but it was soon found that he shrank from none of those obscure and onerous duties incidental to the working of a great society, which few were found willing to under- take. His leisure he devoted to his friends, and to the literary pursuits dear to him. Unhappily he felt it his duty to enlist his art as a story-teller into the service of his political opinions. But Art is a jealous mistress, and will not tolerate a divided allegiance. CHAPTER IV. Emilie de Varmont Robespierre's joke Louvet as a dramatist His wit The quarrel between King and Legislature The Flight to Varennes Marat's foresight The Revolution in the Provinces The first French Republic A King's business Louis' double-dealing He takes the oath End of the first phase of the Revolution. IT will be remembered that in his preface to Faublas Louvet comforts those critics who found fault with his romance on the grounds of its gaiety, by saying that in a few years' time he might perhaps " write a duller one which would please them better." In 1790 he published Emilie de Varmont, ou le Divorce Necessaire ; et les Amours du Cure Sevin ; and the first part of his prophecy was fulfilled. The work is in three small volumes uniform with Faublas, and although from the artistic point of view it will not bear comparison with that incomparable romance, it was, nevertheless, eminently successful, and the refrain of the unhappy curb's conversation, " On devrait bien marier les pretres," became a popular catch phrase of the streets of Paris. As its title announces, this romance, which is in epistolary form, is a plea for more liberal views and a greater facility of divorce. The fact that Madame Cholet had for years past vainly sought a legal separa- tion from her husband in order to marry Louvet had probably not a little to do with his choice of a 46 LOUVET subject ; and although this personal element was calculated to lessen neither the force of his eloquence nor the cogency of his reasoning, the story must be acknowledged a failure. Yet, it was not without trouble that the author pleases us less : there is abundant evidence of careful workmanship. The secondary object of the book was to show the necessity for the marriage of priests. It is signifi- cant that on the 3oth of May of the same year, 1790 ? Robespierre formally moved the adoption of this measure in the Assembly ; and there is little doubt that this fact was mainly responsible for his popu- larity among the clergy. Thousands of priests wrote from every corner of France, expressing their warmest gratitude to him for bringing forward this question. He received reams of poems in his praise, ranging from five hundred to fifteen hundred verses, not only in French, but in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. "It is said there are no longer any poets," he remarked to a friend with whom he was dining, " but you see that I can make some." But a joke on Robespierre's lips was no laughing matter. It is more than probable that Robespierre owed the conception of this bill to Louvet, such a sensible measure would scarcely have occurred to his arid mind. Moreover, Madame Roland has related that it was his constant practice, in whatever society he found himself, to listen attentively to the opinions of others, rarely to give his own, and on the morrow to echo in the tribune all that his friends had said the evening before. Literary vanity, as M. Taine acutely remarked, was a dominant trait of his 47 LOUVET character, and it may be that this fact partly accounts for the bitter hatred he conceived for the brilliant author of Faublas. In the following year Louvet wrote a satirical comedy on the emigrant nobility and clergy gathered at Coblenz, which succeeded in keeping the boards for twenty-five nights at the Theatre de Moliere ; this was entitled La Grande Revue des Armees Noire et Blanche. Another play, L'Anobli consfiirateur, ou le Bourgeois Gentilhomme du XVIIIe siecle, threw ridicule on the nobility in general, and the younger Mirabeau nicknamed Tonneau, because he was said to resemble a hogshead, both in shape and con- tents and the Abbe" Maury, the celebrated Royalist orator, in particular. Louvet finished the play just six weeks before the passing of the decree which abolished titles of nobility. Taking his work to the Theatre Fransais, it was provisionally accepted, and a day was appointed for the reading. The dramatist had not read far before he noticed unmistakable signs of uneasiness on the faces of the two managers. At length one of them rose to shut all the doors. Louvet had scarcely begun the fourth act when the fidgetiness of his hearers became even more notice- able. At length one of the managers, named Dor- feuille, could contain himself no longer, and exclaimed: " To play this piece, sir, we should need a battery of cannon at our backs." This rebuff very naturally caused Louvet to suspect Dorfeuille's patriotism. He made inquiries, and found the manager to be in receipt of a civil list pension, which he held on condition of producing only 48 LOUVET such plays as met with the approval of the Court party ; whilst, in 1793, adds Louvet, this Royalist pensioner was suddenly transformed into a furious Jacobin. That these charges were not unfounded is proved by the fact that when Louvet wrote, as quoted above, this same Dorfeuille presided over the Revolutionary Commission at Lyons, which daily massacred so many of its inhabitants that the city reeked like a slaughter-house, and the gutters ran red with blood.* Louvet was equally unsuccessful with his *' V Elec- tion et Faudience du Grand Lama Sispi (Pie Six)," a wild extravaganza on the Court of Rome and the political situation generally, which tells how a Chinese vagabond, arriving in Tibet at the moment when the death of the Grand Lama is announced, is found to bear such a strong resemblance to the deceased pontiff, that he is elected his successor. Soon after his installation, a number of Europeans reach his court to solicit his maledictions against the Third Estate of France. Among these emigrants Sispi recognizes Mirabeau, Calonne, and the Queen's favourite, the Duchesse de Polignac. They complain bitterly of the changes which have lately taken place in their country, and fully expect to have his sym- * In his Prisons de Lyons, Delandine relates an anecdote (in connection with Dorfeuille's presidency at the trial of Mathon-de- la-Cour, a philanthropist and man of letters, which clearly shows what manner of man he was. " You are a noble," said Dorfeuille, when the prisoner was brought before him ; " you did not leave Lyons during the siege ; read the decree ; you can pronounce your own doom." Like the Athenian Lysias, when he cried, " It is not I, Erastothenes, it is the law that condemns thee," he sought to wash his hands of the death of a just man. 49 4 LOUVET pathy. At first, however, Sispi finds these changes excellent in every way ; but when they explain to him how much he loses by them, he becomes even more indignant than they are. The play is brilliantly witty, and the quips at royalty and other topical allusions are hardy in the extreme. Under the cir- cumstances, it was considered too strong food for the times, and the author himself was not surprised to find no manager willing to incur the risk of performing it. The grave posture of affairs in July, 1790, caused Louvet to abandon his career as a dramatist in order to devote all his energies to the service of his party. On the twelfth of that month the Assembly decreed the civil constitution of the clergy. This measure did more than anything else to embitter the quarrel between the King and the Legislature, and it was only after a month's painful struggle and even then with certain mental reservations that he could be induced to give his assent to an edict in every way opposed to his conscience and to his religious con- victions. As- Voltaire's Homme d Quarante ecus remarked : "It so often happens that one is at a loss for a reply to an argument, and yet is not con- vinced." It was thus with Louis XVI. when he perceived that it was the intention of the Assembly to kill the monarchy by a policy of pin-pricks. Little wonder that he took to those tortuous ways and secret negotiations with his Austrian brother-in-law, which were destined to ruin him. He determined to fly from a situation which was fast becoming intoler- able. His design was to make a dash for the army of the Marquis de Bouille, which awaited him on 50 LOUVET the Belgian frontier, and whilst the Austrians made a diversion by suddenly mobilizing, to march on Paris with all the loyal regiments he could muster. It was not until the late spring of 1791 that he found an opportunity of putting his plan into execu- tion. On the night of the 20 th to 2ist of June the Royal Family fled in disguise from the Tuileries. The King left behind him a Proclamation in which he recapitulated all his grievances, and withdrew his consent to all the measures forced upon him since the return from Versailles. The news of the King's flight spread like wildfire, and struck terror into the hearts of all members of the community. The people felt themselves betrayed, and the leaders of the factions found it an easy matter to convince them that Louis was actively plotting to restore the despotism of the ancien regime by the aid of foreign arms. The entire French nation had one of those periodical attacks of " nerves " to which they are so peculiarly liable. The journals set up a howl of fury. The King's evasion was a direct attack on the liberty of his subjects ; it was nothing less than a crime. As a matter of fact, it was " worse than a crime, it was a blunder," for it was unsuccessful ; and from that day the monarchy in France was past praying for. During this crisis one man showed remarkable political foresight, and that man was Marat. He alone perceived that since the King had abandoned the State, the only means of averting anarchy was to appoint a military dictator. In his Ami du Peuple of the 22nd June he earnestly exhorted the 51 4* LOUVET people to accept this means of salvation, the only one remaining to^them. " If you refuse to take my advice in this^matter," said he, " your blood be on your own heads. I leave you to your fate, for my labour has been in vain." Marat's good sense on this occasion leads inevitably to the conclusion that at this time he was something more than the homicidal maniac he afterwards became. The alarm, however, was soon dispelled by the news that the Royal Family had been recognized and arrested at Varennes. Petion, Barnave and Latour- Maubourg were at once deputed to escort them back to Paris. They re-entered the capital by the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the 25th of June. From this time the provinces began to play an important part in the drama of the Revolution. Hitherto the provincials had remained indifferent to, or even ignorant of, the gravest events in Paris. At Clermont, wrote Arthur Young, " I dined or supped five times at the table d'hote, with from twenty to thirty merchants, tradesmen, officers, etc., and it is not easy to express the insignificance, the inanity of their conversation. Scarcely any politics at a moment when every bosom ought to beat with none but political sensations. The ignorance or the stu- pidity of these people must be absolutely incredible ; not a week passes without their country abounding with events that are analyzed and debated by the carpenters and blacksmiths of England." When he asked their opinion on the affairs of the country, they replied : " We are of the provinces, and must wait to know what is going on in Paris." 52 LOUVET This moral and intellectual stagnation of the pro- vincials made them the easy dupes of the Jacobin emissaries, who soon began to infest the country ; whilst their entire lack of initiative accounts for their tame submission to the domination of the capital during the Reign of Terror. So far as anything was capable of arousing the provincials to take a languid interest in the political situation, it was the news of the King's flight ; indeed, this was one of the few events of the first phase of the Revolution which stirred the whole nation to its depths. The immediate result of the flight was the decree by which the Assembly suspended the King from his office until he had accepted the Constitution, and for three months France was a republic. During this time it was triumphantly demonstrated that the people were at least no worse off under this form of government than they had been under the monarchy. It was the opportunity for which the few men who at that time professed Republican opinions had been waiting, and they used it to good advantage. But the most convincing arguments against the monarchy were the actions of the King himself ; and if the eloquence of Brissot and Camille Desmoulins converted their thousands, the subterfuges of the King converted their tens of thousands. There were two courses open to Louis at this juncture : to fight or to abdicate. He had not suffi- cient decision of character to take the first, and it is probable that the Queen dissuaded him from the second. Louis submitted to everything. On 53 LOUVET September I4th he solemnly swore to maintain and defend the Constitution, whilst in his heart he nourished the hope of soon being in a position to trample it underfoot. Yet it is scarcely surprising that the King should have displayed little enthusiasm for the principles of the Revolution ; he might reasonably have exclaimed with his brother-in-law, the Emperor Joseph II., " Cest mon metier, d moi, d'etre royaliste." So long as it seemed possible to regard the King as the head of the Revolution, anti-monarchical opinions were repugnant to the vast majority of the nation, and the few men who consistently preached Republican doctrines were looked upon as cranks.* But when Louis was openly convicted of double- dealing, people began to question the utility of here- ditary monarchy, and when once this spirit of inquiry got abroad hi the land, it was an easy step to the conclusion that the monarch was nothing more than " a stick in the wheel." And since the Assembly had deliberately reduced the executive power to a mockery, and not only denied the King all respect, but even the amount of personal liberty enjoyed by the meanest of his subjects, the conclusion was a per- fectly just one. " When sovereignty," says Taine, " becomes transformed into a sinecure, it becomes burdensome without being useful, and on becoming burdensome without being useful, it is overthrown." * It is interesting to note that both Marat and Robespierre were ardent Royalists as late as the summer of 1791 ; and when the question of establishing a republic was mooted in the salon of Madame Roland, Robespierre asked with a sneer, " What is a republic ? " 54 LOUVET The ceremony of the King's oath to the new Consti- tution took place on September i4th, 1791, and all moderate men breathed a sigh of relief, believing and hoping that, since all they had fought for was won, the Revolution had now run its course, and things would speedily settle down to the entire satisfaction of all parties. But they reckoned without the Jacobins. 55 CHAPTER V Robespierre's cunning First meeting of the Legislative Assembly The Parties Brissot Vergniaud Rise of the Girondists Louvet is convinced of the King's duplicity He discusses his plans with Lodoiska Her fears Louvet is elected to serve on the Jacobins' Committee of Correspondence His colleagues. SHORTLY before the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly it had decreed, on the motion of Robespierre, that none of its members should be eligible for a seat in the next legislature. It is difficult to conceive what could have persuaded the Assembly to sanction a measure which delivered their successors, as it were, bound into the hands of the Jacobins. This was, perhaps, the most cunning of all the cunning moves which Robespierre made in the game he was playing. By this means he not only eliminated from active politics the many able royalists who had opposed him in the House, but ensured the election of a large number of the nominees of the Jacobins, who at this time began to regard him as their chief. Every possible means, legal or illegal, was resorted to by the Society to influence the elections. Voters were openly threatened, and the secrecy of the ballot was shamelessly violated. When the Legislative Assembly met on October ist, there were already three distinct parties. On the right sat a small number of royalists side by side with the Feuillants, composed of those who favoured a 56 LOUVET constitutional government, and thought the Revolu- tion had now gone far enough. These were led from without by Barnave, Duport, and the Lameths, who had recently quitted the Jacobin Club to found that of the Feuillants. In the centre sat an actual majority of the House, composed for the most part of men who had no definite policy, silent working members, whose votes were generally reserved for the predominant party, whichever that party might be. On the left sat the extremists, whose policy was largely directed by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, from without. Among them sat the group of deputies who were soon to break away from the Jacobins on the question of the war with Austria, although at first there was no perceptible difference of opinion between all the members of the Left. Before many weeks had passed, however, these men came to be known as Brissotins, after the most important member of the group, Jean Pierre Brissot, an en- lightened publicist and able journalist, well-known as the editor of the Patriots Fran$ais, a journal of pronounced republican views. Brissot 's career had been a strange one. The thirteenth child of a small innkeeper at Chartres, he had as a youth come to Paris to enter an attorney's office, in which position Robespierre preceded him. When still very young, he formulated a theory of criminal law, which he had intended to submit to Vol- taire, but at the great man's door his courage failed him and he was about to beat a hasty retreat, when he was stopped by a beautiful and elegantly dressed woman. 57 LOUVET As she had a kindly and sympathetic face, Brissot made a clean breast of the matter, and the lady was so touched by his disappointment that she took him back and introduced him to Voltaire's host, the Marquis de Villette, and through him the manuscript was submitted to the aged philosopher, who wrote a warmly eulogistic letter to the author. Brissot's unknown friend was Madame Dubarry, and he never tired of testifying to the kind heart of the reigning favourite. He next became translator on the staff of the Courrier de I' Europe at Boulogne ; whilst here he won two literary prizes offered by the Academy of Chalons, and married Mile. Felicite Dupont, . a young lady associated with Madame de Genlis in the education of the Orleans princesses. From Boulogne he crossed to England, and founded the European Academy of Science, a rickety, ill- conceived scheme, which after a brief and troubled existence, came to an untimely end. Returning to France, Brissot made the acquaint- ance of the interior of the Bastille for a lampoon on the Queen, which he had never heard of ; but the fine gentlemen who at that time conducted the affairs of the nation could not be expected to waste their time in examining evidence, especially when it related to a man so little to their mind as Brissot. He owed his release, after six weeks' im- prisonment, to the solicitations of Mme. de Genlis, supported by those of Lord Mansfield, whose friend- ship he had made when in England. On his libera- tion, he went to Switzerland, and in collaboration with Clavi&re, the future Girondist minister, wrote 58 From an engraving by Levachez. Designed and engraved by Duplessis Berteaux. BRISSOT. [To face page 58. LOUVET several works on finance, which were published in the name of Mirabeau. Again crossing to Eng- land, probably as a secret service agent, he picked up a wide and peculiar knowledge of the shadier kinds of diplomatic intrigue of his day ; he also made the acquaintance of several leading Quakers, and became so interested in the question of the abolition of slavery that on his return to France he again associated himself with Mirabeau and Claviere in the foundation of the Societe des Amis des Noirs. He was next sent to the United States to study and report on the question of emancipation, with a view to the liberation of the slaves in the French Colonies. When he returned, the Revolution had begun. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the cause, and after publishing an enormous number of revolutionary pamphlets, he founded the Patriote Franpais, which soon made his name famous throughout Europe. Madame Roland, who knew him intimately, says of Brissot : " The simplicity of his manners, his frankness, his natural negligence, seemed to me in perfect harmony with the austerity of his principles ; but I found in him a kind of lightness both of mind and character not altogether becoming the gravity of a philosopher ; this always pained me, and his enemies made the most of it. For all that, the more I saw of him, the more I esteemed him. It would be impossible to find a more entire disinterestedness united to a more whole- hearted zeal for the public welfare, or to give oneself to well doing with a greater forgetfulness of self. His writings have all the authority of reason, justice and 59 LOUVET enlightenment ; though as a man Brissot is entirely lacking in dignity. He is the best of men, a good husband, a tender father, a faithful friend, a virtuous citizen ; his society is as agreeable as his character is obliging ; confiding to the verge of imprudence, gay, naive, disingenuous as a boy of fifteen, he was made to live with the wise, and to be the dupe of the wicked. A learned publicist, devoted from his youth to the study of social questions, and of the means of furthering the happiness of the human race, he understands man perfectly, but knows nothing of men. He recognizes that vices exist, but cannot believe hmi vicious who speaks to him with a fair tongue ; and when at length he recognizes anyone as such, he pities him, treats him as one would do an insane person, but without distrusting him. He cannot hate ; we might say that his soul, sensitive as it is, has not sufficient solidity to entertain such a vigorous sentiment. With wide knowledge, he has an extreme facility of work, and composes a treatise as another would copy out a song." Yet this generous philanthropist has been, and is still, described, by many historians of the Revolu- tion, as a base intriguer, a thoroughly insincere and self-seeking political adventurer. " So little was he fitted for intrigue," wrote Buzot, " that the least idea of artifice or dissimulation was a torture to him. We often made fun of his simplicity, of his extreme good nature, and we used to say jestingly, ' Of all possible Brissotins, he is certainly the least Brissotin ! ' " It is curious how this idea of Brissot's intrigues 60 LOUVET got abroad. Even the bitterest of his opponents did not seriously believe in the accusation ; and Camille Desmoulins, who certainly did not love him, tells how Danton delighted to tease Brissot by shaking his finger at him waggishly, and saying, " Brissot, tu es Brissotin." Yet it must be admitted that Brissot had not the qualities essential to the good party leader ; he was at once too candid and too uncompromising, and the facility of his character made him too open to the influence of his friends. Chief among the Deputies who gathered around Brissot in the Assembly were the three young barristers of Bordeaux, Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonne. All three had won fame in their profession ; and they had no sooner been elected to the Assembly than they made France ring with their eloquence. Their mar- vellous speeches won them such high reputation that, when at length there was a split in the ranks of the Jacobins, those who followed Brissot were no longer named Brissotins, but Girondists, after the name of the Department represented by these great orators. Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud, perhaps the greatest political orator France ever produced, was the son of an army contractor of Limoges. He early gave promise of great talents ; and whilst at school, a poem of his composition attracted the attention of Turgot, at that time intendant of Limoges in the Limousin, who secured for him a bursarship at the College Duplessis at Paris, where he numbered among his schoolfellows Lafayette and Gorsas, the future 61 LOUVET Girondist journalist. His easy manners, his wit, and an unusual facility of versification, won his entrance into the salons of a society where such gifts were more highly prized than any others. In 1778, he made the acquaintance of Thomas, the Academician, who introduced him to Dupaty, President of the Parle- ment at Bordeaux. The latter was so much struck by the young man's abilities that he recommended him to read for the Bar, and offered to pay all ex- penses whilst he was completing his studies. Vergniaud accordingly established himself at Bor- deaux, where he took his degree of bachelor of law in April, 1781, and was admitted avocat in the same year. Dupaty then made him his secretary, and pro- cured him many important cases. Vergniaud soon made his mark, and almost from his debut was acknowledged as the most brilliant of the. long line of orators who had rendered the Bar of Bordeaux illustrious. There was nothing remarkable about the personal appearance of Vergniaud, unless, indeed, it was his ugliness. His features were heavy, and devoid of expression ; his figure was ungainly and his step languid. But at the Bar or in the tribune, his features became animated, the black eyes flashed beneath the overhanging brows, whilst his golden voice electri- fied his audience and carried all before it. His lovable disposition and extreme good nature won him many devoted friends, and even his enemies paid tribute to the staunchness and nobility of his character. Perhaps the greatest charm of his elo- quence lay in the wide and tolerant humanity so 62 From a lithograph by Dclpzch, after a drawing by Maurier. VERGNIAUD. [To face page 62. characteristic of all his speeches. " You have sought to consummate the Revolution by terror," said he in his reply to Robespierre's attack on the Girondists ; " I should have wished to consummate it by love." Vergniaud's one great fault was an incurable indolence. He would work only to secure the barest necessities of life. It is related that an attorney one day brought him two important cases. Having listened to the details, Vergniaud yawned, stretched himself, then going to his desk and finding that he had still a little money left, arose, and, stepping to the door, bowed his client from the room, begging him to address himself elsewhere. Such were the men with whom Louvet now allied himself. Whilst they fought for the Revolution in the Legislative Assembly, he made his activity felt without. " Towards the end of 1791," says he, " everything announced that the French people were shamefully be- trayed. Nearly all those who had defended the cause when the Constituent Assembly was in session, now one by one abandoned it. In the Legislative Assembly, Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet and other good patriots found themselves in an alarming minority. Writers, impostors, fanatical priests, perfidious generals, sedi- tious emigrants, intriguing priests, princes, ambitious despots within ; whilst the enemy, planning our destruction without, were subsidized, favoured and protected by the Court of France. It became evident that Louis XVI. had accepted the Constitution only that he might destroy it. The hour of a serious revolution had struck. Since Louis broke his oath, 63 LOUVET he absolved us from ours ; since he endeavoured by every crime to re-establish the old despotism, we determined to employ every virtue in order to attain the Republic." Louvet resolved to throw himself into the work with renewed ardour. It was not without pain that Lodoi'ska listened to his new plans. But when the first bitterness of disappointment had passed, she overcame the womanly temptation to set her love above what he thought his duty by the tyranny of tears. " For a moment," he wrote, " she was seized with irresolution. She saw all the misery into which the country would be plunged by a new revolution ; and the no less terrible evils which were perhaps in store for its authors. She saw the kings of the earth leagued together to war against a single people, and the whole world ravaged by the tempest. She saw the reward of my work in the Revolution, that sweet reward which at last seemed assured to us by the decree of divorce for a long time withheld, she saw our long cherished project of retirement indefinitely postponed, and our happy love itself put to the hazard. Yet her heart did not shrink from the glorious sacrifice. She wept over my plans, but urged me on with them. I recall only too well her sad presenti- ments, her generous tears, and the prophetic words which accompanied them : " ' Go,' she said, ' work for them ; I consent ; let us sacrifice ourselves for their welfare, but Heaven grant that at least we may not meet with their ingratitude.' ' 64 LOUVET Men and women really did talk so, during the French Revolution ; the memoirs of the period are full of it. Lou vet himself has pages of this sort of thing. It is only when he gets off his stilts that he is really interesting. Lou vet's enthusiastic labours soon drew upon him the attention of the chiefs of the Jacobin Club, and he was elected a member of their great Committee of Correspondence. He had among his colleagues Bosc and Lanthenas, the friends of the Rolands ; Condorcet, who was too busy, and Vergniaud, who was too lazy, to give much help ; Camille Desmoulins, whom he always regarded as an arrant knave, and Robespierre, at that time Desmoulins' master. CHAPTER VI Threats and intrigues of the Emigres Coercive measures proposed against them Vergniaud's first great speech King vetoes the decree against the timigrte Louvet's great oratorical success Curiosity of the ladies Louvet's interview with Camille Des- moulins and Robespierre on the proposed war with Austria Letter from Mme. Roland Robespierre declaims against the war His trap for Louvet Louvet creates a diversion He overwhelms Robespierre with ridicule He makes an implacable enemy and a life-long friend Triumph of the Girondists Louvet proposed as Minister of Justice Robespierre intrigues against him His life threatened Robespierre's accusation Jacobins attempt to howl Louvet down A clever ruse Louvet clears himself of Robespierre's calumnies His placard- journal La Sentinelle His witty parable on Marat Breach between the Mountain and the Gironde War declared against Austria Disaster Fury of Dumouriez. FROM the date of the fall of the Bastille onwards there had been a steady emigration of the princes of the Royal house, the nobility, and officers of the army, the majority of whom established themselves at Coblenz, whence they breathed threats of ven- geance against all who had taken part in the Revolution. Nor did their enmity end here ; for they de- liberately attempted to induce Austria and Prussia to declare war and to invade France. In the nervous state in which the people then were, the threats of the emigrants, combined with the fear of an invasion, succeeded in arousing a fear among all classes of the community altogether out of propor- tion to the danger ; so that when the Legislative 66 LOUVET Assembly met on the ist October it turned its immediate attention to the question of what coercive measures, if any, should be taken against the emigrants. The debate was opened on the 2oth, and lasted nearly a fortnight. On this occasion the golden-mouthed Vergniaud won his first great success, and his speech delivered on the 25th secured his election to the Presidency of the Assembly five days later. It was eventually decreed that unless the emigrants returned to France by the ist January, 1792, their property should be confiscated, and they should be condemned to death. However little consideration they had shown for him, the King not unnaturally declined to sanction a decree which was equivalent to a death sentence on his brothers, and on the I2th November he vetoed the bill. His enemies were not slow to turn this against him, and by his action he forfeited what little kindness his people had left for him. It was on this question that Louvet achieved his first great triumph as an orator. On Christmas Day, 1791, he was deputed by the Section des Lombards to present at the bar of the Assembly a petition demanding a decree of accusation against the fugitive princes. At the mention of his name, all eyes were turned on him with curiosity, and the ladies in the gallery, nudged each other, smiled, and exchanged signifi- cant glances as they craned forward to see the creator of that dear Faublas, whose enterprising ardour had won all their hearts a few years before. Nor was their eagerness abated by the recollection of 67 5* LOUVET the persistent rumour that Louvet himself was the hero of his romance ; for it had been whispered that at seventeen, in the habit of her sex, it was he who had surprised the affection of the beautiful lady whom he has painted in the character of the Marquise But there was little of the hero of romance about Louvet that day as he strode to the bar of the Assembly. His face was stern, his manner of delivery had all the pomp and circumstance of eighteenth century tragedy, and his oratory, in- spired by a sincere revolutionary enthusiasm, was fanned to white heat by an undercurrent of genuine indignation at the baseness of those whom he came forward to accuse. Such enthusiasm was contagious ; the discourse was received with prolonged applause ; and Louvet took his place among the great orators of the Revolution. He regularly attended the meetings of the Jacobins. As a member of the Correspondence Committee of the Club, he worked assiduously at the onerous but obscure task for which he had offered himself. He was not one of those who do good by stealth, and tremble lest it should not be found out. At one of these meetings, Camille Desmoulins, who was speaking to Robespierre, turned towards him and, with the villainous stammer which ruined him as an orator, said that Mirabeau was very pleased with his Paris justifie, and wished to make its author's acquaintance, for he was sure the man capable of writing such a pamphlet would make his mark in the Revolution. 68 From an engraving by Levachcz. Designed and engraved by Dup!essis Berteaux. CAMILLE DESMOULINS. [To face page 68. LOUVET " On hearing words of praise, which were not ad- dressed to him," says Louvet, " Robespierre stared at Desmoulins as if in astonishment, and then threw a disdainful look on me. Desmoulins, however, con- tinued to speak ; he asked my opinion on the war which some thought ought to be declared against Austria. " ' Do you not think it is necessary ? ' said I. " He advanced a number of obscure and diffuse arguments. " ' And you ? ' asked I of Robespierre. " ' No/ he answered drily. " ' Why ? ' " ' For a great many reasons.' " ' Would you be good enough to name them ? ' " ' There are a hundred reasons.' " ' Do you not agree that it is inevitable ? ' " ' Perhaps.' " ' Would you have us wait until the Emperor has finished his preparations ? ' " ' We must see.' " ' He will not be ready in the spring ; we might take him at a disadvantage.' " ' It is not time.' " I made all sorts of objections, to which he answered in monosyllables, mostly devoid of sense. "Those who know this man only by the public newspapers, in which the journalists owe it to their own interest to abridge his eternal declamations, to prune his innumerable repetitions, and to suppress his absurd contradictions, might suppose him to have some common sense. But I, who had heard him a 69 LOUVET hundred times, knew already that he was an empty braggart, without understanding, without feeling, and without instruction. This conversation taught me that he was the vainest and the most presumptuous of men. I had yet to learn that, after Marat, he was also the most cowardly, the most spiteful, the most slanderous, and the most bloodthirsty." It was at this time that the line of cleavage between the Girondists and the followers of Robespierre, Danton, and Marat became noticeable. The latter bitterly opposed the declaration of war against Austria. Like the Socialists of to-day (and, indeed, the democratic extremists in every age), they were uniformly hostile to an imperialistic policy, as such a policy involves grave diplomatic questions, which the deficiencies of their education taught them were quite beyond their capacity. Some, in fact, openly ad- vocated the abandonment of all the French colonies. Now, too, arose those mutual suspicions, which began to make life in French political circles intoler- able. We find Robespierre complaining to Madame Roland of her friendship with his bitterest enemies, to which she replies : " I do not know whom you look upon as your mortal enemies ; I am not acquainted with them, and, certainly, I do not receive them upon friendly terms, for I regard as such only those citizens of approved integrity who have no enemies but those of France. " Time will reveal all ; its justice is slow, but sure ; it is the hope and the consolation of the good. I will wait for it to confirm or to justify my esteem for those on whom it is bestowed. 70 LOUVET " It is for you, Sir, to consider that time's justice will surely immortalize your glory or destroy it for ever." " J 'ignore qui vous regardes (sic) comme vos ennemis mortels ; je ne les connois pas et, certainement, je ne les re9ois point chez moi en con fiance, car, je ne vois a ce titre, que des citoyens dont 1'integrite m'est demontr6e et qui n'ont d' ennemis que ceux du salut de la France " Le temps fera tout connoitre ; sa justice est lente, mais sure ; elle fait 1'espoir et la consolation des gens de bien. J'attendrai d'elle la confirmation ou la justification de mon estime pour ceux qui en sont 1'ob jet. " C'est a vous, Monsieur, de considerer que cette justice du temps doit a jamais e"terniser votre gloire, ou 1'aneantir pour toujours. " ROLAND, NEE PHLIPON." At the Jacobin Club, Robespierre declaimed against the war with an obstinacy which was only equalled by the long-suffering patience of his hearers. When he rose to pronounce his fourteenth discourse on the subject, however, the benches showed unmistakable signs of boredom. He had with engaging modesty, just clinched his argument with the remark that " those who had combated his opinion by fine phrases would be hard put to it to find a reply to his last contention," when Louvet rose to create a diversion at any price. Robespierre's satellites attempted to howl him down. But one of Lou vet's strong points was that when he had something to say, no power on earth could prevent him from saying it. And say it he did. In one of his wittiest tales, Voltaire tells how Zadig, the wise young minister of the King of Babylon, 73 LOUVET cured the excessive egotism of the satrap Irax. The great man was scarcely awake in the morning when, acting on Zadig's advice, the King sent the royal choir with a full orchestra to his chamber to perform a cantata in his honour, which lasted two hours, with the following refrain repeated every third minute : " Que son merite est extr&ne ! Que de grices ! que de grandeur ! Ah ! combien monseigneur Doit etre content de lui-meme ! " When the cantata was finished, a chamberlain came forward and pronounced an eloquent discourse, lasting three-quarters of an hour, in which he assiduously praised him for all those good qualities that he lacked. During the three hours occupied in dining, whenever he opened his mouth to speak, the first chamberlain said, " He will be right ! " and Irax had scarcely said four words when the second chamber- lain exclaimed, "He is right ! " Meanwhile, the two other chamberlains burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter at the good things which Irax ought to have said, but did not. When dinner was over, the cantata was repeated. The first day seemed to Irax delight- ful ; the second day he found less agreeable ; the third day was tiresome ; the fourth was intolerable ; and on the fifth day, which was simply torture to him, he was cured. Louvet, in his attack on Robespierre, adopted the tactics of Zadig ; and, although Robespierre had an uncommonly good digestion for flattery, even his appetite was cloyed by the good things which Louvet showered upon him. That day he had no words to 74 LOUVET reply. The speech was received with ironical cheers at his expense, and was ordered to be printed and distributed in the Departments. As Lou vet descended from the tribune, Guadet, who had presided at the meeting, rushed forward and impetuously embraced him ; and this was the beginning of a friendship cut short only by death. As for Robespierre, he recog- nized in Louvet a redoubtable enemy, clever, im- petuous, and fearless ; and, however short a memory he had for a kindness, he never forgot an injury. After a hard fight the Girondists triumphed, Louis gave way by appointing a Ministry from their ranks, and within a month of their appointment war was formally declared against Austria. Dumouriez, who at this time worked with the Girondists, became Minister for Foreign Affairs ; Roland was offered, and accepted, the portfolio of the Interior ; and Louvet was at first proposed as Minister of Justice. This was too much for Robespierre, and he brought all his sinister influence to bear against his nomination. At the Jacobin Club he caused it to be announced that Louvet had but three months previously returned to Paris from Coblenz, and had in- sinuated himself among the Jacobins only to spread discord. Louvet was out walking when he was charitably informed of the movement against him by one of his political opponents, who warned him that he would run great danger if he attended that night's meeting of the Club. But he was not the man to allow his enemies to calumniate him behind his back, 75 LOUVET so with his usual intrepidity he made his way un- perceived through the armed mob which awaited him outside the building. At the moment he entered the hall, Robespierre was denouncing the emigrants who, he asserted, had introduced themselves into the Society, and he ended his harangue by demanding that these members should be expelled forthwith. Taking in the situation at a glance, Louvet promptly rose to second the motion. For a moment Robes- pierre was taken by surprise ; he had promised him- self that the arguments of the cut-throats he had placed outside would have proved incontrovertible. But quickly recovering himself, he said that since Louvet had not been named it was against the order of the day to allow him to speak ; and, at a given signal, the rabble in the galleries rushed madly upon the new-comer, shaking their fists in his face and threatening him with cudgels. He stood up to his enemies without flinching : it was not the first occa- sion, nor was it to be the last, on which his iron nerve and ever-ready wit saved him from the fury of the mob. Indignant at this violence, a party of the more moderate Jacobins surrounded Louvet and offered to escort him home ; but he refused to leave until he had been heard in his defence. But the rules of the Club were not to be ignored, and Louvet, as Robes- pierre had said, was clearly out of order. At this juncture, one of his friends named Bois said to him : " They refuse to hear you, do they ? Well, I'll make them hear you ! " With that he ran to the middle of the hall and shouted at the top of his voice : 76 LOUVET " Robespierre is right, it is certain we have a traitor in our midst ; but I, at least, will not accuse him in- directly : it is Louvet ! " By this bold step Louvet acquired the right of clearing himself from the cunningly veiled accusations of Robespierre. He rushed to the tribune, and gave an account of his life and actions since the beginning of the Revolution. The crowd in the galleries who scarcely an hour before had clamoured for his life, loudly applauded his speech. On the morrow, Robespierre spread the report that Louvet had caused himself to be accused in order that he might pro- nounce his own panegyric, with a view to being appointed Minister of Justice. At the last moment the vacant ministry was be- stowed upon Duranthon, a timid person cursed with ambition, who, like La Bruyere's Celse, " had little merit himself, but knew some people who had a great deal," and these had pushed him forward. When the hour of trial came he abandoned his col- leagues in the vain hope of remaining in office. There is no reason to believe that Louvet would not have made an excellent Minister of Justice ; but it is not in our hearts to regret the circumstance which drove him back to his pen. The Ministry was scarcely formed when Lanthenas introduced him to Roland and his wife. Lodoiska and he were soon numbered among their most intimate friends. On their sug- gestion Louvet undertook the publication of a placard- journal, called La Sentinelle, which was printed twice a week at Roland's expense, and posted on the 77 LOUVET walls of Paris. In this journal, some numbers of which reached a circulation of twenty thousand, he taught the most ardent Republicanism, tempered by a sincere love of order and a wide and tolerant humanity. His pages are full of wit, humour, and pathos. He was a master of ridicule, the weapon of all others most dreaded by Frenchmen ; and he wielded it mercilessly against the bloody-minded scoundrels who daily incited the people to murder. " People," said he, in a number of his journal, " I am going to tell you a humorous fable, but one which will touch your friend Marat to the quick. Imagine that a hair of my beard possessed the faculty of speech, and said to me : " ' Cut off thy right arm, because it has defended thy life ; cut off thy left arm, because it has conveyed food to thy mouth ; cut off thy legs, because they have borne thy body ; cut off thy head, because it has directed thy members ! ' " Tell me now, O Sovereign People, whether I should not do better to preserve my arms, my legs, and my head, and cut off only this scrap of beard, which gave me such absurd advice ? " Marat is this morsel of the Republic's beard ! He says: " ' Kill the generals who defeated your enemies ! Kill the Convention which directs the Empire ! Kill the Ministers who cause the Government to move ahead ! Kill all except myself ! ' The war had opened towards the end of April, with an abortive attempt to invade Belgium. But in 78 LOUVET spite of the optimistic report of Narbonne,* the late Minister of War, as to the efficiency of the army, the first brush with the enemy proved that the French military forces from top to bottom were in a hope- less state of disorganization. Two divisions of French troops ignominiously turned tail and fled on the approach of the enemy, and one of them, suspecting Dillon, their general, of treachery, murdered him in cold blood. Dumouriez was furious. " You marched out like madmen," he wrote, on the receipt of the news, " and you came back like fools." Paris was hi a ferment. The Minister for War was dismissed, and, after an interval of five days, during which Dumouriez acted as minister, Servan, a fine soldier and stern Republican, was appointed in his stead. * The beloved of Madame de Stael. 79 CHAPTER VII. The Girondists undermine the Throne The King exercises his veto Roland's letter of remonstrance The King's resentment He dismisses the Girondist Ministry Insurrection of June zoth Lafayette comes to Paris Guadet's sarcasm Arrival of the Federal troops Brunswick's manifesto He invades France Insurrection of August loth Capture of the Tuileries Napoleon watches the fight Louvet rescues some Swiss Guards Im- prisonment of the Royal Family Where was Robespierre ? Commune becomes all powerful Arrest of suspected persons Executive Committee of Twenty-One elected Louvet becomes editor of the Journal des Dcll,< !re parU-matt , es eteroelA opjm*?ura da peuple. tl .'. ontouro rf. minim*. *W- viellU dans U dcoauclio c- I'ohireU r. ? Mitoraetail, listrion ea *yaro , dcatVc*. prit bossa vvadotl U justice t U vesTlia* * flux poids : (Tun Stint-Germain , (Paa 1)o- mnU , derrracTenrs da aiUitaire j age* I'ua itolt 5 pout toe an ril caporat *c&t;rr , plaldt qua minialre t ft l'uitre eaoristaln tlof capuciin t pluto quo maricrul it Franco I il'uc Coknuto qci b nre ;t le sane et Utu-ur tin puipU duu I'augo de 11 dcouciu i d'ua Kicker , ft fait da ^riici , j.'nio I ro- , pbaatopho quin J U filbh ilrs cn- ,11 falloit tire fljttetiu , U'intrigsiic , do !out , tn ti itt'nctat par sea frerss et unlssftat par tiirii'L'rs Tilcts , dans li four il tigaort las rroqUtries , el da as Lt unit U soulTroll Ic* Qu'e fait eet homc-.e ? A tare , il les impels : ftroce M crapuleujt , i! poa matin dons Id Seng rlcs W(.-s fom-ca . < tiur dans la range des festins : J^corani et voulut aWr.,r,l:r Ics lui.iiires : su>> r.enx , il Voulut que Voluiro ft Rout -iu des millions d letties-de-caclicl : cni^. il fit couper les cliereui i ceux-ci , ocoiiU d coa f s ceux-la : puitile , il nil sa gloat 1 porter des fcrdu ", et le disputer la se A. flepuis, qu'a fait eet homrn. U a jnro tWAjua 1 a sa patric , et I'a traLie de twtca !>et forcas : U ft cotrowpo a"ec f" qu'enlut prodtgoott t 1** n1tami , lee mioiatrM ; lot df> dea trcupes i i| a careta< tcul l aanemlj de la Mum t il a rempe derant lea protros qni la decluroient, accucjlli Les itablot qui 1'incendialer.t , wuJ-iyi Us etran^ers qu! la d6raatnleot ; enfia , evide d'aisassiceu , Je suppllcee, it lorf.in it tons les genres , eurpaisaac emit <-* cjtie I'tmgioiWD A* tons lei elides, 1! neVfte d'egorger dans nn jour tons les patiiotu;, dopuis le load dM Isles Je I'Amerlqua jusqn'au rives du Rhin ( dcpuis les Pjrajie^ee jusqu'anx bords de'U Baluqxic : II est terns d'nrreier M critnineUa citrriire : Uieu a calcuU son regne : que le pcuple se levc tscore ! 11 se lere : et le regae Alors, Louis it dernier, on t"a mis dns une portera oa ds '-.i on de tol * Sra-ce to; qui n'us que le tuiet T sera-ce lui qui est tea souverain eteroel , imiaii.iblv. Sera-ce toi qui le feuii.-oyer , roi drponj.- : 1'jrgcnl O.UC us trnols tie aes blsnlaju a at caparcr , daiu I'ctrajierr i lee Ciarses c^ul derolam le notjr- rir , qui le T^Tt-nail ffvriit I'entottres do ceilel il'-. niiatsins , les poignards et Irs sli- lets ; qui prelrras la lion!, de fuir comma juris une coult/ntion qui iiVtoit BTantsgeuse- ^u'a toi , aree la volonta <1* t'n orrir "ei/- lement pour egorger la palrie ; qui mcditaa enjin de fairs perir tout ca peuple , pour le ct derouUidaieslorfaitutestSera-celuiqui n'a oppose 4 tiut de crimes qu'une Vcrtu i:i- kable , qu'uue cl^mcitee que 1'on pourroit d.re avengle ; ^ui , le jour enfin ou tu de- mamlois s. t(c a t,s ..telliles , fut .am g*. neieuz, dansi'otoj- epouran:.!,!e de sa fu- rfur, pour respecter la tienne 1 qui I'empor- tera done! Sen-cc toil seia-ce lui NOD i on t'e mis dsna [a balance , tn as eto trouva trop Kg,,. 'AUTEUR du journal la Sentinellf , voulant ffviter toute inaaence dtrafiger* s'csf rcunir ses travaux au Bulletin des Amis de la verite, public par les citoyetJs libres , direc- teurs de Timprimerie du Cercle social;- les abonnes sonr pr^venus qu'ils? Tecejront ce derniea journal pour lerestede leur abonneraent qui n'est poinhencore dchu. DC rirnprimeiit da Orel* SociiJ ', Rue du TtWut - Frui^oit , n'. 4. 127 CHAPTER XII Barbaroux proposes drastic measures Girondists jealous of the domination of Paris The Mountain charge them with Federalism Were they Federalists ? Hebert employed to calumniate the Girondists Le P2re Duchesne Origin The real Hebert A specimen number of the P2re Duchesne Hebert's vile attack on Mme. Roland and Louvet BARBAROUX now moved the adoption of four momentous decrees, aimed directly at the Commune, which were accepted almost unanimously by the Girondist party. The first declared that the capital should lose the right of being the seat of the Legislature when it could no longer find means of protecting the national representation from insult and violence. The second proposed that the Federal troops from the Departments and the National Guards were, conjointly with the armed Sections of Paris, to guard the Deputies to the Convention and to maintain public order. The third suggested that the Convention should constitute itself a court of justice for trying con- spirators against the commonwealth. The fourth boldly urged the Convention to abolish the Municipality of Paris. As it will be seen, this Bill is animated by an extreme jealousy of the influence of Paris. This feeling had shown itself even on the first sitting of the Convention, and now became a marked feature 128 LOUVET of the Girondist policy. As early as September 25th, 1792, Lasource had demanded that " Paris should, like every other Department, exercise only an eighty- third share of influence in the State." It was on account of speeches such as these that the charge of Federalism was so constantly brought against the Girondists. Undoubtedly, the fundamental differ- ence between the two parties was that whilst the Mountain wished Paris, so long, at least, as the war lasted, to retain the direction of affairs, the Giron- dists denied to the capital the right of supremacy over the other Departments. Brissot, as we have seen, in a previous chapter, had been to America, where a man of his political insight could not have failed to observe the disastrous effects of federal government. He knew, as every politician knew, that the Confederation of the thirteen colonies, after the War of Independence, had proved itself ineffi- cient to the last degree. By that form of govern- ment, each state was recognized as an independent body, which voluntarily delegated certain powers to the Congress, sitting in the capital. The inherent vice of a Confederation of this kind is that each state retains so much power that the Central Legis- lature has, to all practical purposes, none at all. Thus if one of the states chose to ignore the will of the other twelve, there was no remedy but civil war ; and the consciousness of this hampered, if it did not paralyze, the government at every turn. With the example of the United States before their eyes, the Girondists were, to a man, convinced of the imprac- 129 9 LOUVET ticability of federal principles ; and one of their number, Barbaroux, was the first to write un- equivocally condemning that form of government. Yet, on the other hand, they were determined to prevent the capital from domineering over the other Departments, and many times urged that the seat of government should be removed to one of the provincial towns, where its deliberations could be conducted free from the violence of the Parisian mob. That is a very different thing from plotting against the unity of the state. But the distinction was too subtle for the mental grasp of the semi-educated bourgeoisie, who by a confusion of ideas, which was carefully fostered by the Mountain, were persuaded that the Girondists sought to split up the country into a number of small independent republics. As a matter of fact, the only persons who had publicly advocated federal principles were Billaud- Varenne, Collot d'Herbois, Lavicomterie, and the latest of all the recruits of the Mountain, Barere, who, in his anxiety to compound for the equivocal origin of his newly-found convictions, turned with peculiar ferocity to rend his former associates of the Gironde. Having, by an ingenious and unscrupulous stratagem, undermined the influence of their opponents over the middle classes, the Mountain now sought by fresh calumnies to destroy their hold on the masses. They knew that with the ignorant multitude, the distortion of their adversaries' prin- ciples would avail them nothing. The general scarcity of food provided them with a weapon ready 130 LOUVET to hand. It is useless arguing with a hungry man, but it is easy to arouse his suspicions, and to delude him as to the cause of his misery. Recognizing this truth, the violent faction adroitly turned the popular suspicions against the rival party. For this purpose they made use of the diabolical talents of Hebert, the infamous author of the infamous journal, Le Pere Duchesne. Beginning life as a lackey, Hebert soon left that employment to become chief clerk in the ticket office of a small Parisian theatre, from which position he was dismissed for embezzlement. On the night of August gth to loth he emerged from obscurity, and managed to get him- self installed, apparently on his own recommendation, as a member of the insurrectionary Commune. His zeal in the prison massacres procured for him the office of Sub-Procureur Syndic of the Municipality of Paris. If Marat preached massacre as a painful duty, Hebert extolled murder as an amusing pastime. He was a past master in the art of arousing the basest instincts in the vilest of mankind. Adopting the lurid language of the gutter, freely interlarded with unprintable expletives and filthy analogies, his pages are, nevertheless, not altogether devoid of a certain kind of humour if, indeed, that can be called humour which results in the violent death of the person against whom it is directed. Le Pere Duchesne, which had an enormous circula- tion, is a small quarto journal, clumsily printed on rough grey paper. It was published irregularly, and each issue bears a number, but no date, and abounds 131 9* LOUVET in typographical and orthographical mistakes, caused very largely, no doubt, by the demand outstripping the means of supply. Each number bears as a device the figure of a squalid peasant, in a tattered vest and trousers, a round hat, and huge boots, with a pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth. This was the counterfeit presentment of Le Pere Duchesne a character obviously modelled on the Compere Matthieu, a sagacious but disreputable peasant in the Abbe Du Laurens' famous novel of that name, with whom all were familiar. To the ignorant, it was a life-like portrait of the author ; but those who had heard Hebert speak from the tribune of the Jacobin Club knew better. There he was a fair-haired young man, with rather fine blue eyes, and the mildest-looking face in the world, remarkable for the elegance of his dress, the distinction of his manners, and the perfection of his diction. He was an ex- cellent business man, and sold his services to such good purpose that when, scarcely two years later, his turn came to mount the scaffold, he left, accord- ing to Mallet du Pan, a fortune of fifty thousand pounds. Yet, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own life ! In this instance Hebert applied the argumentum ad hominem in these terms : " Says I to myself, The devil, but that Roland chap is going it ! He's making up in fine style for the time when he went a-fasting. I must tell you about a little adventure, which will form a pretty chapter in the history of the virtuous Roland when it comes to be written. 132 ROLAND. [To face page 132. LOUVET " The other day a half-dozen good sans-culottes, Gremard, administrator of the Department, Moulinet Duplex, member of the Commune, Poussin and Auger, Commissaries of the Section of the Repub- lique, marched in deputation to the house of Old Shaven-Pate. Damme, if it wasn't grub-time ! " ' Vat you vant ? ' growled the Swiss, stopping them at the door. " ' We want to speak to the virtuous Roland.' " ' Der virtuous is not here,' answered the fat, clean-shaved porter, sticking out his paw, for all the world like an old-time Norman attorney. " ' We ain't going to tip you,' said friend Gremard ; ' we've got a free pass, like the Capucines. We were sent by the sans-culottes, and don't you forget it!' " At this, the Swiss sneaked back into his box like a snail into his shell after he has shown his horns. We sans-culottes filed into the corridor, and soon came to the ante-chamber of the virtuous Roland. You could hardly see anything for flunkeys. Twenty cooks, loaded with dainty fricassees, shouted at the top of their voices. ' Look out, there ! here come the entrees of the virtuous Roland ! ' Others yelled, one after another : ' This is the most delicious dish of the virtuous Roland ! ' ' This is the second course of the virtuous Roland ! ' ' Make way for the roast meats of the virtuous Roland ! ' " ' What do you want ? ' demanded the virtuous Roland's valet, staring at the deputation. " ' We want to speak to the virtuous Roland.' " ' He can't be seen just now.' 133 LOUVET " ' Tell him it's his duty to welcome the magis- trates of the people at all times.' " The valet trotted off to give the virtuous Roland our message, and soon after Old Shaven-Pate came out to us, with a napkin on his arm, smacking his chops and looking as sour as the devil. " ' The Republic must certainly be in danger to make me leave my dinner like this,' he mumbled. " Roland led my bucks through the dining-room, where there were thirty odd spongers tucking in for all they were worth. At the top of the table, to the right of the virtuous Roland, sat Bussatier ; to the left, the accuser of Robespierre, that dirty little tyke Louvet, who, with his papier-mache" face and hollow eyes, threw covetous glances on the wife of the virtuous Roland." Hebert proceeds to relate how one of the mem- bers of the deputation, whilst passing through the study in the dark, upset the dessert of the virtuous Roland. On being told of the accident, " the wife of the virtuous Roland, in her rage, tore off her wig." Meanwhile, the Commissioners demanded to know why the Minister had caused the seals to be removed from the property of the emigrant noble- man Saint -Priest. They afterwards went to their Section to give an account of their exploit, and, above all, of the copious dinner of the virtuous Roland. It would seem that Hebert, heading a deputation to the Minister, had been treated with the ignominy he deserved, and that he avenged himself, and at the same time served the interests of the Mountain, by this account of one of those dinners, Spartan in 134 LOUVET their simplicity, which Madame Roland used to give, twice a week, to a small number of her husband's colleagues in the Convention. From these informal gatherings Louvet was seldom absent, though on these occasions Lodoi'ska never accompanied him, for Madame Roland was careful, during her husband's Ministry, never to invite women to her salon when the political situation was to be discussed. Her faith in the discretion of her sex had evidently its limits. Nor would her sense of what was becoming in a woman ever permit her to join in these conversations, although, as she tells us in her Memoirs, she was often sorely tempted to do so. Having held up the Rolands and their friends to ridicule, Hebert now attempted to make them odious in the eyes of the rabble by the vilest imputations against the morality of the guests, and against the reputation of the noble woman who presided over the circle. In these attacks Louvet comes in for a large share of abuse on account of the stinging satires appearing in the Sentinelle, in which Hebert was persistently held up to the infamy and contempt of mankind. 135 CHAPTER XIII Debate on the King's trial Views of the Girondists Policy of the Mountain Danton's brutal frankness Louis at the bar of the Convention Marat's admission The King's ironical observation to Coulombeau Salle's motion Gensonne's sarcasm The geese of the Capitol Louvet rebukes Dan ton Trial of the King Scene in the Convention The voting Vergniaud declares the result The death sentence A king's tragedy Disunion in the Girondist ranks, and its causes Strength of the Mountain. THE Mountain's next bid for power was in the matter of the King's trial. Although the majority of the Girondists sincerely believed that Louis had been guilty of treachery to the nation, they doubted the competence of the Convention to sit in judg- ment on the dethroned monarch. Yet again they experienced that, in revolutionary times, a tender conscience is a fatal encumbrance. In their anxiety to preserve the forms of the law, they became en- tangled in a chain of sophistry, which exposed them to a charge of attempting to shield the King. The Mountain, on the other hand, went straight to the mark. " The Assembly," said Robespierre, with singular boldness, " has involuntarily been led far away from the question at issue. Here we have nothing to do with the trial : Louis is not an accused man ; you are, and can be, only statesmen and representatives of the people. You have no sentence to pronounce 136 LOUVET for or against a man ; you are called upon to adopt a measure of public safety. Louis was King ; a republic is now established. The question before you is, therefore, decided by these simple words. Louis cannot be tried, for he is already tried and con- demned. The trials of nations are not like those of judicial courts their sentences are hurled like thunder- bolts ; they do not condemn kings ; they hurl them back into space. This kind of justice is as good as that of ordinary tribunals." " Our business," said Danton, with brutal frank- ness, " is not to try the King, but to kill him." Thus the main question involved was whether the revolutionary regime should be indefinitely pro- longed, or whether the lead of the Girondists should be followed by reverting to a strictly legal govern- ment. On Tuesday, December nth, Louis appeared at the bar of the Convention, then under the presidency of Barere. His examination lasted five hours. The quiet dignity of his bearing and the coolness with which he categorically denied the charges made against him, deeply impressed the whole Assembly. " We owe it to the truth to admit," says Marat, " that in this trying and humiliating position, he bore himself with dignity. He, who had never been addressed by any name but that of Majesty, heard himself called ' Louis Capet ' a hundred times with- out betraying the least sign of irritation ; and when he was kept standing, he, in whose presence no man had been allowed to sit, never once showed the least impatience. Had he been innocent, how noble and 137 LOUVET sympathetic he would have appeared to me in his humiliation ! If only this apathetic calm had been due to the resignation of a wise man to the hard laws of necessity."* Louis appeared before the Convention for the last time on Wednesday, December 26th. As before, he was driven to the Assembly in the mayoral carriage, accompanied by Chambon, the Mayor, Chaumette, the Procureur, and Coulombeau, Secretary of the Commune, and under the escort of a body of cavalry from the Ecole Militaire. The King was perfectly calm, and during the journey took part in a dis- cussion of the merits of Seneca, Livy, and Tacitus. He paused in the entrance hall to converse with his counsel Malesherbes, Tronchet, and Deseze. Treil- hard, a member of the Mountain, and future Director, on his way to the Assembly, overhearing them address the King as " Sire," turned upon them angrily, with the words, " How dare you utter names which the Convention has proscribed ? " " Contempt for you, and contempt for life," promptly answered Malesherbes. The King was led before the Assembly, when Deseze read his speech for the defence, which lasted three hours. On his way to the carriage, cries of " Death to Louis ! " arose on all sides. During the ride back to the Temple, he remarked with a smile to Coulombeau, who kept his hat on ; " The last time you came you had forgotten your hat ; you have been more careful to-day." * Marat in the Journal de la Rtpublique Franfaise of December 13. 1792^ 138 LOUVET Salle, one of the oldest of Louvet's political friends, now brought forward his famous motion that the judgment on the King should be referred to the nation as a whole. This proposal was strongly supported by Lanjuinais and other adherents of the Gironde in the tribune ; whilst Louvet, who had also intended to speak in its favour, was prevented from doing so by the sudden closure of the discussion. He again had recourse to his printing-press, and his discourse was widely circulated among the people. During the debates, Gensonne distinguished himself by an attack on Robespierre, Marat, and Anacharsis Clootz : " It is but too true," said he, " even Liberty has her hypocrisy and her cult, her humbugs and her bigots. Just as there are quacks in the art of healing, so there are charlatans in the science of politics. They may be recognized by their hatred of philosophy and learning, and by their adroitness in flattering the prejudices and passions of those whom they wish to deceive. They boast with effrontery ; they speak unceasingly of their zeal, their disinterestedness, and their other rare qualities ; they lie impudently ; and they draw attention to themselves by seductive titles and extraordinary formulas. One proclaims himself the ' Friend of the People,'* another, the ' incorruptible defender of their rights,' t whilst another invents the ' balm of the universal republic.' J But having obtained some success, reflection soon dissipates their prestige ; before they reach their goal, they betray * Marat. f Robespierrei I Anacharsis Clootzi 139 LOUVET themselves ; and the people, ashamed of having been duped, drive out these mountebanks ; or if they allow them still to tread their boards, listen to them only to laugh at their follies, and respond to their advances only by their contempt." He divided the Jacobins into two classes, the blind and the overbearing. Let the first reform and come back to the true cause of the people. As for the others, " if they helped to save the body politic, they did so by instinct, like the geese of the Capitol. But I have yet to learn that the Roman people, by way of showing their gratitude to this sort of liberators, created them dictators and consuls, or that they made them the supreme arbiters of their destiny." But the Girondists were soon to pay dearly for these pleasantries. Years afterwards, the last survivors of the Mountain still remembered with bitterness the immortal sting of Gensonne's sarcasm. On December i6th, Buzot moved that all members of the Bourbon family, excepting those imprisoned in the Temple, should be immediately banished. This was furiously opposed by Bourdon and Marat, as it was chiefly aimed at Philippe Egalite, a member of the Mountain. In support of the proposal, Louvet delivered one of his most brilliant orations. Walking solemnly to the tribune, carrying a volume of Livy in his hand, he began in these words : " Representatives of the people, it is not I who am about to support Buzot's proposal, it is the immortal founder of a famous republic, it is the father of Roman liberty, Brutus." At this point murmurs arose in the house. " Yes, Brutus," he continued. " I rise on a 140 LOUVET point of order," cried Breard. The President having decided in Louvet's favour, " Yes, Brutus," he re- peated, " and although his discourse was pronounced nearly two thousand years ago, it is so apposite to our actual situation that we might believe it had been composed this day." He then cited at length the objurgations which Livy makes Brutus address to Tarquinius Collatinus, urging him to submit to voluntary banishment for the good of the Republic. " Really," cried Duhem ; " Louvet ought not to crush us under the despotism of his learning ! " " There are two hundred petitioners at the bar ! " shouted Goupilleau. But the President still ruled that Louvet was in order, and the orator proceeded imperturbably with his parallel between Collatinus and Philippe Egalite. After a long debate, it was decided on January 14, that the Deputies should vote aloud, in turn, from the tribune, upon the three questions : Is Louis guilty of conspiracy against the nation ? Shall the judgment be referred to the people for ratification ? and, What punishment shall be inflicted ? On January I5th, under the presidency of Vergniaud, who had been elected on the loth of the month, the first question was put to the vote. The result was an almost unanimous verdict of guilty. The voting on the second question lasted throughout the whole of the next day. Out of the seven hundred and seventeen members present, two hundred and eighty- three voted for the appeal to the people, and four hundred and twenty-four declared against it, whilst ten refused to vote. Louvet voted with the minority, 141 LOUVET and during the debate crossed swords with Danton. " Thou art not yet king, Danton ! " he cried, when that Deputy had spoken without the President's leave. Amongst those who voted against the measure were Condorcet, Isnard, and Boyer-Fonfrede, with many other leading Girondists. The sitting of January lyth was devoted to the third question : What punishment shall be inflicted ? although the actual voting did not begin until eight o'clock in the evening, and lasted throughout the night and most of the next day. It was difficult to believe that these men were assembled to decide upon a question which involved not only the life of a King, but the welfare of a great nation one of the gravest questions, in fact, which had ever been submitted to the judgment of a legislative body. The public galleries were crowded with noisy men and women, who constantly interrupted the proceedings by their comments or their threats. In the middle of the hall, a section was divided off into stalls, reserved for the wives and mistresses of the members. These ladies were shown to their seats by the official ushers, and exchanged smiles and greetings with the Deputies as they passed to their places. Fashion, under the Convention, favoured the low- cut dress. The women in this part of the hall followed the fashion very far. Instead of a fan, each of these ladies held a card, on which she marked off with a pin the votes as they were given aloud from the tribune. From time to time, the Deputies left their seats to chat with their fair friends, or to order refreshments for them ; and 142 LOUVET throughout the night, waiters were busy running to and fro with all kinds of liqueurs, fruits, and con- fectionery. The voting proceeded without hurry, and each member as he ascended the tribune was careful to give the reasons for his decision. When he had recorded his vote, he returned to his seat amid the applause or the abuse of the galleries. In the re- freshment room and in the passages, agents of the Jacobin and Cordelier Clubs waylaid undecided members, canvassing for their votes/ It is recorded that the threats of these gentlemen sometimes proved more convincing than their logic, and that many a wavering Deputy found conviction on his passage through the lobbies of the house. At length Vergniaud rose to announce the result of the ballot. There were seven hundred and twenty- one votes taken, of which three hundred and sixty-one were given for death. The minority of three hundred and thirty-four Deputies voted for the King's deten- tion until the establishment of a general peace, when he should be banished for life. Thus Louis' death was decided by a majority of twenty-six votes. Louvet, after supporting Salle's motion, pronounced for death, but on condition that the sentence should be carried out only when the constitution should be completed and ratified by the people ; and he voted for the respite, after taking a leading part in the discussion on that subject. Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne", Brissot, Buzot, Barbaroux, and Petion were among those who voted for death uncondition- ally ; whilst other members of their party, including 143 LOUVET Salle, Lanjuinais, Defermon, Rabaut Saint-Etienne, the Protestant pastor, and Sillery, the husband of Madame de Genlis, voted with the minority for deten- tion and banishment. Having announced the result of the scrutiny, the President's voice trembled with emotion, as he said, " In the name of the Convention I declare the punishment to which it condemns Louis Capet to be death." The King's counsel now appeared at the bar to make a last appeal for the mercy of the Assembly in view of the small majority by which the sentence had been obtained. " Most laws are made by small majorities," said a member of the Mountain. " Laws may be revoked," replied one of Louis' advocates ; " but you cannot give back a man's life when once you have taken it." But his doom was irrevocably pronounced, and on January 2ist, Louis mounted the scaffold. There is considerable truth in the following lines on Louis by Comte Alexandre de Tilly : " II ne sut que mourir, aimer et pardonner S'il avait su punir, il auroit su regner." This is one of the world's most moving tragedies. A just man, who, according to his lights, sincerely endeavoured to do his duty by the people he was called upon to govern ; of a kind-hearted, tolerant, and pliable disposition, it was his misfortune to be surrounded by evil counsellors, who, on the first approach of danger, left him to face the storm alone. But it is more important to the welfare of a nation that its governors should be strong than that they should be virtuous ; and however much we sympathize 144 LOUVET with the man, it is difficult to see how the Conven- tion could safely have acted otherwise than by con- demning him to death, for a dethroned monarch must ever be a standing menace to a newly-established republic. The story of Louis fills the reader with pity and terror, and oppresses him with that sense of inevitability which is the essence of tragedy. " As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods ; They kill us for their sport." The Girondists have frequently been reproached, even by their warmest advocates, for the want of party discipline revealed in their ranks, at this and other crises of the Revolution. Their disunion has been contrasted with the solid front presented by their opponents, and they have on this account been sometimes hastily condemned as incompetent states- men. It were idle to deny that the Mountain was a more closely organized political combination than the Gironde, though it is curious to note, in this connection, that at the King's trial some of the members of the former party voted against the death sentence. This, however, is by the way. What I am here concerned with is to seek a reason for this contrast. In the first place, the Mountain were out of office ; and they were united in a steady determination to oust their rivals. There are few more powerful bonds of union than this. Whilst in opposition, they tacitly agreed to forget all minor differences of opinion, for on that condition alone could they hope to attain the one supreme end they had in view. When, a few 145 10 LOUVET months later, they had succeeded in crushing their opponents, their boasted unity at once gave place to the most violent internal dissension. If the Giron- dists had their Brissotins and their Buzotins, the Mountain had their Dantonists, Robespierrists, Maratists, and Hebertists, each sect following a definite policy of its own. Moreover, the Girondist party was composed almost entirely of men remarkable for their intellectual attainments. It would be difficult to name a political party of any nation or of any time which contained such a large number of men of genius. The organiza- tion of such a party was, necessarily, of the loosest possible description. Each member brought an independent judgment to bear upon every problem as it arose in the Convention, and he was loath to modify his opinion in deference to the will of others. Intellectual freedom is the dearest possession of the philosopher ; consequently, he rarely makes a good party man. Hence the extraordinarily divergent opinions which any important debate revealed in the Girondist ranks, and their fatal inclination to temporize. The faculty of seeing every side of a question has it drawbacks. It makes it more difficult for a man to form an opinion. It often, in fact, renders him incapable of coming to any decision at all. Such a mind instinctively arrives at an equili- brium, in which the positive is exactly balanced by the negative. Thus, during the King's trial, several Deputies refused to vote. Ask an ignorant man the same question, and, provided it be within his comprehension, he will 146 answer with no hesitation whatever. This is because he sees facts only in their broadest features. His mind draws a sharp distinction between the light and the shade. Incapable of analyzing his impressions, he sees only two roads before him, running in opposite directions. He sometimes chooses the fight one. For this reason, sophistry has no hold on a simple mind. As he judges facts, so he divides men into two classes, the good and the bad. With a superb indifference to petty distinctions, he places the sheep on his right hand, the goats on his left. In his philosophy, there are no degrees of goatishness. The Mountain, like the ignorant man, were content to see only one side of the question. This was the more easy in that their party was very largely com- posed of ignorant men, who consequently subjected themselves to the will of a masterful minority with less reluctance than would have been possible to the highly cultured men who formed the majority of the rival party. These circumstances gave a unity to the counsels of the Mountain which was wholly lacking in those of the Girondists. 147 CHAPTER XIV A wax of extermination Mot of Sieyes The Girondists fast lose ground Their attempts to recover their popularity Buzot's opinion of the Sovereign People Disgraceful scenes in the Convention Dumouriez complains of the Jacobin agents in Belgium He arrests two Government commissioners His disastrous reverses How Paris received the news Peculiarities of the Gallic temperament Caesar's shrewd observations Riots in Paris Mob destroy Girondist printing-presses The Revolutionary Tribunal Conspiracy of March loth foiled by Lodoiska Her heroism Louvet warns his colleagues Petion's phlegm. AFTER the momentary diversion created by the King's trial and execution, the rival parties braced themselves for a war of extermination. The Con- vention became an arena in which their feud was fought out to its bloody end. On the one side was a group of idealists, day by day overwhelming their opponents by the force of their logic, their irony, and their contempt. Bold in council, timid in action, the Girondists swept the House along with them in the impetuous flood of their eloquence ; but when the time came to act some hesitated, others ab- sented themselves or refused to vote, whilst all wasted their tune in useless talk and argument. In times of revolution it is dangerous to drag your adversary to the brink of the precipice without having the power to hurl him over the side. " First make sure that you have the cannon on your side," advised Sieyes, the Wise Youth of the Revolution. 148 LOUVET Arrayed on the other side was a resolute minority, warned by the threats of their opponents, exasperated by their defeats in the Convention, and, above all, knowing exactly what they wanted and determined at all costs to get it. The Mountain, moreover, had powerful auxiliaries in the Commune and the tri- bunes, which were perpetually crowded with turbulent bands from the Jacobin and Cordelier Clubs. Again, the disasters to the army and the scarcity of food inevitably tended to bring the people into opposition to the Government, and the streets of Paris were constantly the scene of riots and seditions of the most threatening character. In their distress at seeing their popularity slipping from them, the Girondists sought to justify themselves. Their ex- planations were as futile as the tears and reproaches of a woman who ceases to please. So long, however, as they could make themselves heard, they deemed that all was not lost. But the most impassioned eloquence is powerless to revive a dead enthusiasm. The pictures which the Girondists drew of the Sovereign People at this period are not flattering. " The insolence of these rascals," says Buzot, " is almost incredible. For the past eight months we have had to endure conduct which has at once dis- gusted and shamed every honest and sensitive soul. Although I knew how necessary it was to be patient, I checked myself a thousand times on the point of blowing out the brains of one or other of these odious wretches. Good God ! what deputations ! It seemed as though they had ransacked the sewers of Paris and the big towns, and had collected together the 149 LOUVET most hideous, the most filthy, and the most infected refuse. They all had ugly faces, of every tint except that of cleanliness, surmounted by shocks of greasy hair, with eyes sunk deep into their heads. With every nauseous breath they exhaled the most scur- rilous abuse, interspersed with the sharp cries of beasts of prey. The tribunes were in every way worthy of such legislators. Crime and misery were stamped upon the faces of the men, whilst the lowest debauchery was apparent in the shameless bearing of the women. When the hands, feet and voices of this mob began their racket, you might have thought you had strayed into an assembly of devils."* The disillusionment, then, was not all on one side ; and the Girondists, who had begun by endowing the people with all the virtues, ended by finding them Yahoos, and turned from them in disgust. Each day the quarrel in the Convention grew more embittered. Calumny met calumny, violence repelled violence. The hall rang with cries of " Liar ! " " Scoundrel ! " " Conspirator ! " " Aristo- crat ! " " Assassin ! " Louvet declared he would go to the sittings armed with a blunderbuss. Others brought sword-sticks, pistols, and loaded canes. Marat carried a huge cavalry sword. Bourdon de 1'Oise struck Chambon, and called him out ; whilst that hot-headed apostle, Rebecqui of Marseilles, in his yearning to reclaim a wandering sheep, seized him by the throat with such violence that he was almost rendered incapable of ever again straying from the fold. On one occasion Marat left his seat, * Buzot (F.N.L.,) Mfrnoires ; edited by C. A. Dauban, p. 57^ 150 LOUVET foaming at the mouth, and ran down the hall yelling, " Silence, you wretches ! Let the patriots speak ! " " Hold your noise, you thief ! " he shouted to one member ; and to another : " Silence, you traitor ! " Meanwhile, Dumouriez, whose great victory at Jemappes in the previous November had laid Bel- gium at the feet of the Republic, complained bitterly of the rapacity and lawlessness of the Jacobin agents who had been sent in the wake of his victorious army to propagate Revolutionary principles and to establish clubs after the pattern of the mother society. They had taken possession of the valuable church ornaments, sequestrated the revenues of the clergy, confiscated the property of the nobles, and had, in short, brought odium on the Government in every possible way. Unless, he asserted, the Con- vention abandoned this harsh policy and adopted more conciliatory measures, the conquered people would inevitably revolt against the French occupa- tion. Finding that his protests were disregarded, he came to Paris at the time of the King's trial, to see what his personal influence could do towards redress- ing the grievances, which were fast alienating the sympathy of the Belgians from the Revolutionary cause. He succeeded only in arousing the hatred of the ultra- Jacobins ; and he returned to his army de- termined at the first opportunity of putting down the factions by force of arms. On reaching Belgium, he restored part of the property taken from the churches, and issued a proclamation in the name of the Republic repudiating all the vexatious acts LOUVET committed by the Jacobin agents, whom he desig- nated as brigands. He then arrested two of the Government Commissioners and sent them back to Paris under an armed escort. These measures suc- ceeded in attaching the Belgians to him. Lastly, when the Government sent a special deputation to him for an explanation of his conduct, he openly set them at naught, and expressed with much vigour his hearty contempt for the Convention and all its works. But at this moment his army met with a series of disastrous reverses. The Austrians drove General Valence from Aix-la-Chapelle ; Miranda was forced to raise the siege of Maestricht ; and Dumouriez him- self was in consequence compelled to abandon his invasion of Holland. The Frenchman is not a good sportsman. He takes a beating badly. Indeed, it has always been his nature to do so. In times of crisis he is apt to betray a certain moral instability. As the temper of the Gauls, says Caesar, is ardent and sanguine in undertaking wars, so is their spirit soft and unstable in enduring misfortunes.* At such moments a French- man will readily suspect his best friend of betraying him ; forgetting that, when men pass from thought to action, they are obliged to place confidence in some- body. Moreover, from his first appearance in his- tory, credulity and suspicion have been distinctive traits of his character. Hence his peculiar sus- ceptibility to panic, which has been such an im- portant factor in determining his destiny. Nothing * Casar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, bk. iii., ch. 19. 152 LOUVET escaped the attention of the Roman General, and he knew the peculiarities of the Gauls, as he knew those of his favourite Tenth Legion. After remark- ing on their fickleness and love of change, he tells how it was their habit to stop travellers and mer- chants, and compel them to declare what country they came from and to tell what news they had learned there. Under the influence of such vague information, they frequently embarked on enterprises of the highest importance, of which, adds Caesar, they must constantly repent ; for, since they are notoriously the slaves of uncertain rumours, most people give them false answers adapted to their wishes.* When the news of Dumouriez' reverses reached Paris, the cry of treachery was immediately raised by the Jacobins, and again their fables were accepted by the credulous populace. The Jacobins, also, knew the national weakness, and acted upon it, as Caesar had done before them. They found it easy to turn the popular suspicion against the Girondists, and the latter were openly accused of aiding and abetting the traitor Dumouriez. A riot took place, during which the mob, led by the most turbulent demagogues, broke into the offices of several of the leading Girondist newspapers and destroyed the printing-presses. The tumult -was eventually put down without bloodshed by Beurnon- ville, the Minister of War. But more serious disturb- ances occurred on the following day. Indeed, there is little doubt that an organized conspiracy existed to * Casar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, bk. iv., ch. 5. 153 LOUVET do away with the leading Girondist Deputies. For some weeks past their lives had been in peril. Again and again Marat had covertly threatened them ; whilst the bloody-minded jests of He'bert openly pointed them out to the dagger of the assassin. They seldom ventured out alone, and were always under arms. Their nights were passed away from home. Louvet and Lodoi'ska often found shelter at the house of Mme. Goussard, wife of the Directeur de la Compta- bilite Commerciale, a very old friend of theirs, as also of the Brissots, the Rolands, and the Petions. This lady soon after risked her life in facilitating the escape of Louvet and Petion from Paris. In order to be near the Convention, Louvet had recently taken rooms in the Rue Saint-Honore, a short distance above the hall of the Jacobin Club. In this modest home, on the evening of March loth, Lodoi'ska anxiously awaited Louvet 's return from the Assembly, which was then sitting permanently. She had needed all her courage to carry her through the day, for the Convention had just decreed the establishment of an extraordinary tribunal for trying without appeal all conspirators and counter-revolu- tionaries. Suspecting that such a measure was partly aimed at themselves, many of the Girondists had strenuously combated the proposal. " I would rather die," cried Vergniaud, " than consent to the establishment of an inquisition a thousand times more terrible than that of Venice ! " And Lanjuinais suggested that, if they were determined to sanction such an iniquity, they ought at least to limit the calamity to the 154 LOUVET Department of Paris. After a fierce debate, which had exhausted the strength of all present, it was proposed to adjourn the sitting for an hour. This brought Danton to his feet. " What ! " he exclaimed, "is it at the moment that Miranda is beaten, and Dumouriez, taken in the rear, may be obliged to lay down his arms, that you think of deserting your posts ? Let us rather complete the enactment of these extraordinary laws destined to overawe our internal enemies. They must be arbi- trary, because it is impossible to render them precise ; and terrible though they be, they will be preferable to the popular executions, which now, as in Sep- tember, would be the consequence of the delay of justice. After establishing this tribunal, you must organize an energetic executive power, which shall be in close co-operation with you and have power to raise both men and money. To-day, then, the extraordinary tribunal, to-morrow the executive power, and the next day the departure of your commissioners to the Departments. Let who will calumniate me. Let my name be blotted out and my memory perish, if only France may be free ! " It was ultimately decided to raise a levy of three hundred thousand recruits, and to establish the tribunal forthwith. Thus, like a second Minerva, the chief instrument of the Terror sprang, fully armed, from the brain of another Jupiter enthroned on the revolutionary Olympus. Mme. Suard, whose salon afterwards became famous, asked one of her friends what he thought of the newly-established tribunal. 155 LOUVET " What do I think of it ? " he replied. " Why, I dare scarcely hold my tongue ! " When the Lion of the Mountain raised his terrible voice, passions ran high. All this Lodoi'ska knew as she sat that night waiting in her little room, and she trembled for Louvet's safety. Suddenly a deafening uproar, mingled with hoarse cries and the tramp of many feet, arose in the street below. She had lived long enough in the heart of the Revolution to know that those sounds boded no good. She ran to the window and looked out. An angry crowd of men and women surged around the entrance of the Jacobin Club. The clock struck nine as Lodoiska dashed downstairs and forced her way through the seething mob. From an obscure corner of the gallery she watched the proceedings. She carried her life in her hands. Had she been recognized, she had small mercy to expect from the fury of those around her. The age of chivalry was dead. Bentabole, a creature of Marat's, first rose to read a report on the morning's sitting of the Convention. When he had concluded, a column of volunteers, armed with swords and pistols, asked to be allowed to parade through the hall. Having obtained the President's consent, they filed before the Assembly amid enthusiastic applause. " Citizens," cried one of them, " at the moment when the country is in danger, the conquerors of the loth of August are rising to exterminate her enemies abroad and at home." " Yes," replied Collot d'Herbois, the President ; " and in spite of the intriguers we will unite with you to preserve our freedom." 156 LOUVET *' Let us arrest the traitors in their houses 1 '* cried Desfieux, after denouncing the leading Giron- dists by name. " No, no ! " shouted a soldier. " Arrest is not sufficient : the people must have vengeance ! What do we care for the inviolability of the national repre- sentatives ! I trample it under foot." At this point, Dubois-Crance, a member of the Mountain, who had just arrived, opposed these drastic measures and counselled moderation. His speech occasioned a frightful commotion. It was at last decided that those present should divide into two bands, one of which should go to the Cordelier Club for reinforcements, whilst the other proceeded to the Convention to demand that the unpopular Deputies should be handed over to them. Then the rabble swarmed over the partitions of the galleries into the body of the hall. Swords were drawn ; the lights were suddenly extinguished, and the two bands set out, amid cries of " Down with the Giron- dists ! " " Death to the traitors ! " In the tumult Lodoiska slipped out unobserved and joined the crowd marching towards the Cordelier Club ; and, watching her opportunity, broke from them and made her way home. Louvet had already returned. He immediately snatched up a sword and flew to Petion's, where he found several of his friends assembled, calmly discussing the proposals about to be submitted to the Convention, as was their wont. " God alone knows," says Louvet, " what diffi- culty I had to arouse them to a sense of their danger." 157 LOUVEt At length, he persuaded them to absent themselves temporarily from the Assembly, and to meet again that night at a retired place, where they would be safe from attack. He then hastened to the Convention to give the alarm, and most of the threatened mem- bers left. Kervelegan, the Deputy for Finistere, rushed off to the barracks of the Brest battalion of loyal volunteers and called them to arms. They immediately marched off with him to defend the national representatives. Meanwhile, Lou vet ran from door to door, braving a thousand dangers, to warn his colleagues. Two hours later he repaired, thoroughly exhausted, to the meeting-place agreed upon. Valaze, Buzot, Brissot, Vergniaud, Bar- baroux and Salle were already there ; whilst Beur- nonville had posted himself at the door with a patrol of volunteers. Petion was missing. Knowing the peril he was in if he remained at home, Louvet set out for his house, and earnestly entreated him to leave. But the stolid Petion was not to be moved. " It is raining," said he, throwing open the window ; " they won't do anything to-night." Petion was right. There is nothing like a rain- storm to damp the spirits of the riotous. Of the two columns that had set out, only a handful of the more resolute marched to the Convention, to find that the birds had already flown. When he had assured himself that the insurrection had failed, the Mayor prudently reported the matter to the Assembly. Thus, the conspiracy of the loth of March was foiled by the heroic devotion of a woman. Lodoiska had 158 LOUVET proved herself to be one of those rare women whose natural place in the hour of danger is at the side of the men they love. Is it to be wondered at that Louvet sometimes becomes lyrical, not to say tire- some, as he sings the eternal praise of Lodoi'ska in his beautiful French prose ? 159 CHAPTER XV Vergniaud denounces the conspiracy His eloquence Louvet's dissatisfaction Vergniaud's strange reply Louvet discusses the situation with Lodoiska He publishes another pamphlet The Committee of Public Safety Treason of Dumouriez Danton attempts to conciliate the Girondists They reject his overtures His furious outburst First attack on the Girondists from without Robespierre follows up the attack Vergniaud's crushing rejoinder. THE threatened Deputies entrusted the formal denunciation of the conspiracy to Vergniaud. Had Louvet known how the great orator would acquit himself of his task, he would have strenuously opposed his selection. Vergniaud mounted the tribune on the I3th of the month. His speech is a sublime piece of oratory ; like a noble river it rolls majestically onwards, but beneath the placid surface there is an irresistible force the speaker's passionate love of his country. Applied to the leaders of the Revolution, this is no empty figure of speech, but a genuine and living emotion. To Vergniaud, France is a beloved mistress turning to his manhood for help in her hour of need. She claimed his heart's blood. He was soon to give it, and to glory in the sacrifice. It was good to die for such a country ! It would have been better still to have lived for her. As we read the oration to-day, we understand the devotion of the man's friends : we wonder how he came to have enemies. 160 LOUVET " We are marching," said he, " from crimes to amnesties, and from amnesties to crimes. A great many citizens have now come to confound these ever-recurring seditions with the grand march of liberty ; to mistake the violence of brigands for the efforts of energetic minds, and to regard even robbery and destruction as necessary to public safety. . . . " On this account, citizens, there is reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will devour all her children, and end by giving birth to despots. . . . " In ancient times, there was a tyrant who had all his victims laid on an iron bed and, by mutilating the tall ones and dislocating the short ones, succeeded in making them all of one uniform size. Citizens, that tyrant was also a lover of equality ; and it is this kind of equality which is so often imposed upon " If our principles are so. slow of propagation among the nations of the earth, it is because their radiance is obscured by the blood-stained veil of anarchy and sedition. When our ancestors first fell on their knees to worship the sun, do you think that it was obscured by the clouds of a gathering storm. No ; we cannot doubt that it shone forth from the im- mensity of space resplendent with undimmed glory to spread light and fruitfulness over the whole world." He concluded by demanding a decree of accusation against Fournier, Desfieux, and Lazowski, the leaders of the insurrection. Unfortunately, Vergniaud directed his denunciation to the wrong address. Instead of frankly accusing the Jacobins of aiding and abetting the conspiracy, 161 ii LOUVET he denounced it as the work of the aristocrats. The Mountain asked nothing better. They were loud in their praise of Vergniaud's eloquence. Even Marat grinned approval, and seconded the motion for arresting the leading rioters. The Minister of Justice was ordered to make a strict inquiry into the matter and to report to the Convention. He carried out his directions in the most perfunctory manner, and declared that he could find no trace of the alleged Committee of Insurrection. Vergniaud's complaisance to the Mountain had filled Lou vet with astonishment. He drew the great orator aside, and asked him the reason of his strange conduct. Vergniaud answered that he deemed it impolitic to name the real conspirators lest he should still more exasperate men who were already too prone to be carried away by their violent passions. In vain Louvet pointed out that such squeamishness was lost on their opponents and served only to prepare their own ruin. He turned homewards with a heavy heart. " These men," said he to his faithful Lodoiska, " are rushing blindly on death ; if it were not that they are the only representatives of virtue and duty, it would be necessary to break with them at once." Nevertheless, a few of the Girondists saw that Vergniaud had led them into a false position, and how the error had been turned to the profit of their enemies ; and they earnestly begged Louvet to do what he could to remedy the evil. But when he rose to speak the Convention refused to hear him. He therefore promptly wrote a pamphlet, entitled "A la Convention nationale et a mes Commettans sur la Con- 162 LOUVET spiration du 10 Mars et la faction d' Orleans." An edition of six thousand copies was distributed in Paris, and the brochure was reprinted in several of the Departments. It is an exceedingly able attack on Garat, the Minister of Justice, and on those members of the Mountain who, although fully aware of the con- spiracy, failed to report it to the Convention. The opening repels the charge of Girondist intrigues with Dumouriez, and proves that Danton, Lacroix, and their associates had far more intimate relations with the suspected General than ever the Girondists had. As usual, they had anticipated the treason of Dumouriez, for the news of his defection did not reach them until some days later. Louvet then passed to an account of the inner history of the insur- rection. Throughout the speech there is that strange insistence on a certain phrase, the constant repetition of a fixed order of words, which in Louvet 's oratory always makes such a profound impression. Just as every paragraph in the exordium of his famous attack on Robespierre began with the terrible words, " ]e t "accuse," so in his indictment of Garat he re- peats at the end of each accusation the words, " Yet the Minister of Justice cannot find a trace of the Committee of Insurrection ! " In this brochure Louvet made good use of Lodoiska's report of the famous meeting of the Jacobin Club. He regarded this work, which is exceedingly rare, as his political testament. It was the last of his writings as a member of the Convention. On March 26th, the nominations for the new 163 n* LOUVET Committee of Public Safety were made. Of the twenty-four members, nine only were Girondists. The party was rapidly losing power. At the same time the Revolutionary Tribunal began its operations ; domiciliary visits were ordered to be made, and no person was safe from arrest who was unable to pro- duce a certificate of citizenship upon demand. In order to facilitate the arrest of suspected persons the Convention decreed that all landlords and house- holders should post up outside their houses a list of all residents therein, with their names, ages and occupations. At this period, the Convention was possessed by a feverish energy, and the members scarcely allowed themselves time for food and sleep. On the receipt of official information as to the treason of Dumouriez, he was summoned to the bar, and five members were commissioned to proceed to his army with power to suspend or arrest any of the generals, officers, or men, besides suspected functionaries and ordinary citizens. On the following day (March 3ist), Chaumette formally demanded the impeachment of Dumouriez. The Convention ordered his address to be printed and sent to all the Republican armies in the field. For some time Danton had shown little inclination to join his party in their attacks on the Girondists. Meillan, one of their number, at this period, once met him at the Committee of Public Safety, and, speaking to him in a friendly way, assured him how different were the feelings which the Girondists had for him from those they entertained for Robespierre. He 164 LOUVET frankly expressed their admiration of his splendid abilities and his fertile and energetic mind, and con- cluded by saying that he might play the very greatest part, if only he would employ his power to good purpose and to the welfare of the Republic. Deeply impressed by these words, Danton looked up quickly, and in a voice shaken by emotion, said, " You Girondists have no confidence in me." Meillan vainly sought to undeceive him. " No, no," replied Danton, " you have no confidence in me," and he cut the conversation short by moving slowly away. There is little doubt that Danton would gladly have joined hands with the Girondists had he met with the least encouragement on their part. But they never forgave him his attitude during the prison massacres, and thus, by scruples which were as honourable as they were imprudent, they drove him into the arms of Robespierre and Marat, whom he despised. In this they were no doubt largely influenced by Madame Roland, who from the first had entertained a mortal antipathy towards the great demagogue the anti- pathy of a refined and cultivated woman for the gross language and frank brutality of an untutored bar- barian. This was also the opinion of Dumouriez. " One man alone," said he, in his memoirs, " could have saved the Girondists, but they completely alienated him, although Dumouriez " (the General had the pleasant trick of speaking of himself in the third person) " had counselled them to keep fair with him. This man was Danton. To a hideous face, a harsh and violent heart, much ignorance and coarse- ness, he united great natural ability and an 165 LOUVET exceedingly energetic character. If the Girondists had possessed common sense enough to have coalesced with him, he would have humbled the atrocious faction of Marat, and either tamed or annihilated the Jacobins .... but the Girondists provoked him, and he sacrificed everything to his vengeance." It was Lasource who destroyed all hope of recon- ciliation. He openly accused Danton and Lacroix, in the Convention, of connivance in the treason of Dumouriez. Trembling with passion and with his face convulsed with fury, Danton rushed to the tribune. He demanded that the special commission appointed to inquire into the conspiracy of Dumouriez should also take proceedings against those who had plotted against the indivisibility of the Republic and those who had attempted to save the King and to ruin liberty. " No more peace or truce," he thundered, " between you and us. I have entrenched myself in the citadel of reason. I will sally out with the cannon of truth, and I will grind to powder the villains who have dared to accuse me." That awful voice must have struck terror to the hearts of the bravest. It was at once decreed that the existing Committee of Public Safety should be replaced by a new com- mittee of the same name (composed of only nine members), which should have supreme executive power. The elected members all belonged to the Mountain. Two days later, on April 8th, the Convention ad- mitted to its bar a deputation from the Section of Bon Conseil, demanding the arrest of Brissot, 166 From an engraving by Levachez. Designed and engraved by Duplessis Berteaux. DANTON. [To face page 166. LOUVET Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne", Louvet, Barbaroux, Buzot, and other Girondists. Instead of punishing this outrage as an act of rebellion against the sovereignty of the people, the Convention, by an ill-advised and untimely application of the principles of individual liberty, and a squeamish regard for the rights of persons, permitted the evil, and took no measures to arrest its progress, until it had acquired such strength as made every effort against it in- effectual. Amid the applause of the tribunes and the extreme left, the petitioners were awarded the honours of the sitting. Such was the first attack made from without upon the Girondists in their last refuge, the bosom of the Convention. This success was immediately followed up by Robespierre. " A powerful faction," said he, " is conspiring with the tyrants of Europe to give us a king and an aristocratic constitution ; it hopes to attain its shame- ful desire by force of foreign arms and an insurrec- tion in the Departments. These views are pleasing to the aristocrats of the middle classes, who entertain a horror of equality and are in constant fear for their property. I demand that all members of the Orleans family be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, together with Sillery and his wife,* Valence, and all those intimately connected with this house ; and, further, that the Tribunal be directed to institute proceedings against all the other accomplices of Dumouriez. Dare I name such patriots as Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Guadet ? " * Known to later generations as Madame de Genlis. 167 LOUVET At these words, Vergniaud sprang to his feet. " I will venture to reply to Monsieur Robespierre," he cried, " who, by a perfidious romance concocted in the silence of his study, has provoked fresh dis- cords in the bosom of the Assembly. I will venture to reply to him without preparation ; I have no need, as he has, to call in the aid of art : my soul suffices me." He then proceeded in a masterly manner to tear in pieces the web of suspicion which Robespierre had skilfully woven around him and his friends. During the course of his long speech, he was constantly annoyed by the interruptions of Panis, a furious demagogue.* When he came to deal with Robespierre's accusa- tion that the Committee of General Defence had failed to do its duty, Vergniaud pointed out that Robespierre was himself a member of that Committee, though he seldom attended its meetings, on the plea that he had no time. " Is it just," asked Vergniaud, " that members who by their negligence left to us all the work of the Committee, should accuse us of usurping the power of that Committee ? " At this point, Panis again broke in : " We did not wish to attend a Committee full of conspirators." " I have only one word to say to Panis," and Vergniaud quietly turned to his enemy, " let him present his accounts." The whole Convention joined in the laugh. It was * Yet his favourite book was Virgil, in the original, if you please. 168 LOUVET a nasty homethrust, for there was more than a sus- picion that Panis had profited by his position as ad- ministrator of police, in August and September, 1792, to make a considerable fortune. The orator there- upon resumed his speech, and was no longer troubled by interruptions. " The patriotism of some men," continued Verg- niaud, " seems to consist in tormenting their fellows, and in plunging them into misery. If I had had my way, patriotism should have made all men happy. The Convention is the centre around which all citizens should rally. I am afraid they sometimes turn in this direction with fear and trembling. I should have wished it to be the centre of all our affection and all our hope. You have sought to consummate the Revolution by terror. I should have wished to con- summate it by love. I little thought that, as the savage ministers of the Inquisition spoke of the God of Mercy only when surrounded by then: victims burning at the stake, you also would call upon the sacred name of Liberty only from the midst of daggers and assassins." Vergniaud's words made a profound impression on the Assembly, and when he had finished loud applause broke out on all sides. But the quarrel had gone too far, the wounds which the rival parties had in- flicted on each other were too deep, to be healed by the balm of noble thoughts, however nobly expressed. 169 CHAPTER XVI A quarrel Guadet Impeachment of Marat His acquittal Commune demands expulsion of the Girondist leaders Masuyer's jest, and what it cost him Commune levies a forced loan Second plot to murder the Girondist leaders They order the arrest of Hebert and his associates The Commune de- mands their release Isnard's famous rebuke Herault de Sechelles Release of prisoners Insurrection of May 3ist Lou vet and his friends in hiding They proceed armed to the Convention Guadet apostrophises Danton A stormy sitting The Convention is coerced by the mob Temporary failure of the insurrection. " T DEMAND the punishment of all traitors and A conspirators," cried Petion on April i2th, in moving a vote of censure against the reader of an inflammatory report. " And their accomplices," interrupted Robespierre. " Yes," agreed Petion, " and against you as one of their number. It is time to put a stop to this infamy. It is time that all traitors and conspirators were brought to the scaffold, and I will take upon myself to denounce them." " Give us facts," sneered Robespierre. " Good ! I will deal with you first." The partisans of Robespierre here raised indignant protests, and for long there was a terrible commotion. At length a tall, thin man, with a sallow complexion, aggressive black eyes and a sarcastic mouth, made his way into the tribune. It was Guadet. The Mountain always felt uncomfortable when he was on 170 From an engraving by Levachez. Designed and engraved by Duplessis Berteaux. JEROME PETION. [To face page 170. LOUVET his feet, for he had many of the gifts of a great satirist. He was impetuous, a master of fiery eloquence, but even in the most heated debates he never lost control of his temper, whilst he had a rare skill in arousing the nervous irritability of his opponents. His great strength lay in a power of laying bare hidden motives, of revealing moral cowardice masquerading as worldly wisdom, and of tearing the veil from the secret vanities and infirmities which lurked almost unsuspected in the souls of his enemies. Guadet concluded one of his ablest and most rancorous speeches by reading aloud from the tribune an address, signed by Marat, exhorting the people to rise in arms against the Convention, as a centre of counter-revolution. The stroke was a clever one. For when the matter was thus formally brought before the Assembly, even Marat's own party were forced to make some show of condemning such flagrant audacity. Several Mountaineers, therefore, joined the Girondists in passing a decree formally impeach- ing Marat, and ordered him to come up for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. It was impossible for the Girondists to allow Marat's atrocious threats and calumnies to pass in silence ; yet this attempt to bring him to book served but to hurry on their destruction. The result of the trial was a foregone conclusion. Marat was accompanied to the Tribunal by a howling multitude of ragged men and slatternly women, who were prepared to tear judges and jury- men limb from limb if they should be so ill-advised as to condemn the popular idol. " Citizens," said he, scowling at his judges, who 171 LOUVET trembled in their shoes, " it is not a criminal who appears before you : it is the apostle and martyr of liberty, against whom a faction of notorious intriguers have obtained a decree of accusation." After this, of course, there was nothing to be said. If, hi his wisdom, Citizen Marat gave it as his opinion that he ought to be acquitted, was it for such as they to gainsay him ? Heaven forbid ! Judges and jury- men alike felt it a privilege to be of Citizen Marat's opinion, and he was forthwith acquitted. Many a man, I imagine, who played a part in that delicate transaction anxiously awaited the next day's issue of the Ami du Peuple, and trembled lest he should find his name upon the fatal list of the suspected. On the announcement of his acquittal the court rang with frenzied applause. Marat was then crowned with a wreath of oak-leaves, and the mob of men and women thronged around him to pay eager homage to the victorious Friend of the People. Unhappily the hero was a stunted, twisted little man, so that only those in his immediate vicinity succeeded in catching a glimpse of him. Thereupon, two stalwart fellows seized on the arm-chair of one of the judges, and placing Marat in it, bore him shoulder high towards the Convention. During the whole route the procession was followed by frantic cries of " Vive Marat !" " Vive le Peuple / " " Vive la Republique ! " The women of the Halles simply buried their hero in flowers, so that when he arrived at the Assembly he was quite exhausted. Still seated on his chair, with the wreath upon his brow, he was carried into the hall. His colleagues of the 172 LOUVET Mountain deemed it expedient to give him a welcome which made up in effusiveness for what it lacked in sincerity, for they felt a thousand threatening eyes upon them, jealous for the honour of the hero. The mob then swarmed into the body of the hall, drove many of the Deputies from their seats, and lifting Marat into the tribune, begged him to address them. It was some moments before he could recover his breath sufficiently to comply with this request. But at length, standing on tiptoe so that his head was just visible above the tribune, he said : " Legislators, I appear before you as a man who has been basely accused, but whose innocence has been established by a legal acquittal. I offer you a pure heart, and I shall continue to defend the rights of the individual, the citizen, and the people with all the energy of which I am capable." These words were received with almost delirious enthusiasm, and the sitting ended with a triumphal march of the invading mob through the hall of the Convention. The popularity of Marat now became greater than ever. Much as he desired the downfall of the Gironde, the issue was not yet sufficiently assured for the timid Robespierre to declare himself openly in favour of a forcible purification of the Assembly ; whilst Danton, from more honourable motives, was also opposed to an open violation of the national repre- sentation. Marat, therefore, became the recognized head of the movement against the Girondist Deputies. The designs of the conspirators were no longer dis- guised, and Marat presided at the meetings of Sections 173 LOUVET where resolutions were passed declaring that the Convention was rotten to the core and a danger to the Republic unless it were speedily subjected to a drastic purification. The Commune, the Jacobin Club, and thirty-five ot the forty-eight Sections of Paris adopted these resolutions. The Commune declared itself in a permanent state of insurrection, and formally demanded the expulsion of twenty-two of the leading Girondist members. This petition, which was prepared at a meeting of delegates of the various Revolutionary Committees sitting at the Hotel de Ville, and signed by Pache the Mayor, was read before the Convention on April i5th by Rousselin. The proscribed Deputies were Brissot, Vergniaud, Louvet, Guadet, Gensonne, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Barbaroux, Petion, Salle, Lanjuinais, Valady, Cham- bon, Lanthenas, Valaze, Gorsas, Fauchet, Lasource, Hardy, Birotteau, Doulcet and Lehardy. Im- mediately the names were read out Boyer-Fonfrde rose with the words : " If it were not that modesty is a duty in a public man, I should consider it an insult that my name has been omitted from the list of honour which has just been laid before you." Thereupon, the members, with the exception of about ninety of the Mountaineers, sprang to their feet and shouted : " Put us all down ! " As Pache left the bar to return to his seat, Masuyer said to him : " Do you not think you could find a little room for me upon your list ? There would be a hundred crowns for yourself, you know." Masuyer afterwards paid for his little joke with his life. 174 LOUVET Amid the ferocious threats of the Mountain and the yelling of the mob in the galleries, Vergniaud now rose to move that the petition be declared calum- nious, and his eloquence snatched victory from the opportunists who held the balance between the rival parties and were known as the Plain. Towards mid- night the majority of the Girondists left the house, and in their absence the petitioners, on the motion of the younger Robespierre, were awarded the honours of the sitting. The Commune now usurped all the powers of sove- reignty. It imposed a forced loan on the rich, drew up lists of suspected persons to be imprisoned, and raised an army of sans-culottes, armed with pikes and muskets at the expense of the victims of its tyranny. Meanwhile, the Central Committee of In- surrection, which, since March 3ist, had held regular meetings at the old Episcopal Palace, was steadily perfecting a fresh plan for the overthrow of the Girondists. This assembly now styled itself the Central Committee of Public Safety, and from the time of Marat's acquittal rapidly superseded the Council-General of the Commune as the centre of the movement against the Convention. The leaders of this seditious assembly were Dobsent, Varlet and Dufourny, the damned souls of Marat and Hebert. The Commune made but a feeble resistance to the imperious demands of these men ; and when Pache was summoned to the bar of the Convention to give an account of the meetings of the Revolutionary Committees, which had met under his presidency at the Hotel de Ville, he had the audacity to confirm 175 LOUVET Garat's statement as to the falsity of the rumoured plot against the national representation. But in spite of these treacherous assurances a plan was formed to arrest the twenty-two Deputies as they left the Assembly on the night of May 20th to 2ist, when it was proposed to take them to an isolated house, specially engaged for the purpose, situated in the Faubourg Montmartre. Each victim as he arrived was then to be pushed into an inner room, where hired assassins were stationed to murder him. The corpse was then to be passed out and buried in a great hole which had already been dug in the adjoining garden. On the morrow it was to be publicly announced that the missing Deputies had emigrated ; and, at the same time, a traitorous correspondence with Cobourg, forged for the occasion and bearing the signatures of the victims, was to be discovered and made public. It was not enough to murder them, they must also be calumniated. But this time the plot miscarried, and some of the incriminating documents, signed by Pache and other ringleaders, fell into the hands of the Girondists Bergoeing and Rabaut Saint-Etienne. Guadet denounced these conspiracies in the Con- vention, and proposed that the Commune of Paris should be abolished and a new municipality appointed in its stead, and that the substitute members of the Convention, whom it was customary to elect at the same time as the regular Deputies, to supply vacancies as they occurred, should, if necessary, be convened to form a fresh National Assembly, holding its sittings at Bourges. This drastic measure was strenuously 176 LOUVET opposed by the Mountain, supported by the Plain, and on the motion of Bardre, it was ultimately decided to appoint a committee of twelve members to inquire into the conduct of the Commune and to present a report on the alleged plots against members of the Convention. The new committee, which was composed almost entirely of Girondists, was appointed on May aoth, and at once began operations by ordering the arrest of Michel and Marino, two administrators of police, who had taken a conspicuous part in the seditious assemblies at the Episcopal Palace and at the Hotel de Ville, and by sending Hebert, the Deputy Procureur de la Commune, to the Abbaye Prison for the publication of an article in his paper, the Pere Duchesne, accusing the Giron- dists of attempting to stir up a Departmental war against Paris. On May 25th a deputation from the Council- General of the Commune waited on the Convention to protest against the arrest of Hebert and his asso- ciates, and demanded in the most peremptory terms their instant release. They were sternly rebuked by Isnard, who presided at the sitting. " France," said he, " has made this Assembly the centre of its national representation, and if ever you raise sacrilegious hands against that representation, I solemnly declare to you, in the name of the whole country, that Paris shall be utterly destroyed, and travellers shall ask on which side of the Seine the famous city stood." This speech so exasperated the Mountain and the people in the galleries, that Isnard was compelled to 177 12 LOUVET retire from the presidency. He was succeeded by Herault de Sechelles, a man of noble birth and a famous beau, who in the early days of the Revolution had surprised his elegant friends by suddenly throw- ing up a high official post and embracing the opinions of the extreme democratic party. Herault replied to the petitioners with exemplary docility. At a late hour the same night it was decreed that the patriots imprisoned by order of the Committee of Twelve should be released, and that the Committee itself should be abolished. This decree was obtained when most of the Girondists had left the house. On the following day the Girondists at once revoked the decree of the preceding night, and reinstated the Committee of Twelve. This action raised a fearful commotion, and their enemies resolved on a fresh insurrection, with the avowed object of overthrowing what they were pleased to call the tyranny of the Committee, whose activity they had cause to dread, but with the ulterior design of encompassing the destruction of the Girondists. May 3ist was fixed for the execution of their plans. Delegates of thirty- three of the Sections of Paris, in conjunction with the Central Committee of Public Safety, held a secret meeting at the Episcopal Palace to appoint a Com- mission of nine members to carry out all the measures agreed upon ; these men were the creatures of Marat and Hebert. This Committee claimed to have been endowed with plenary powers by the will of the sovereign people. It declared Paris to be in a state of insurrection, ordered the tocsin to be rung and the barriers to be closed ; it then caused the Mayor and 178 LOUVET the entire Council- General of the Commune to abdicate their functions, and upon their submission immediately reinstated them. In future the Com- mission of Nine held its meetings at the Hotel de Ville. The insurrectionary Commune now remem- bered the distinguished services of Henriot, com- mandant of the battalion of the Sans-culotte Section, during the September prison massacres, to reward them by appointing him commander-in-chief of the National Guard, in succession to Santerre, who had recently been ordered to La Vendee. It was also decreed that forty sous a day should be paid to all patriots serving in the ranks. On the night of May 30-31 the outlook was so threatening that Louvet and five of his friends again deemed it prudent to sleep away from home. In a remote quarter of the town they found a room with only three beds, but well situated from a defensive point of view in case of attack, where they decided to pass the night. Louvet's companions were Buzot, Barbaroux, Guadet, Bergoeing, and Rabaut Saint- Etienne. They were awakened at three o'clock in the morning by the sound of the tocsin. At six o'clock, after arming themselves with swords and pistols, they cautiously ventured out into the street and made their way to the Convention. Near the Tuileries (where, since the loth of the month, the Assembly held its sittings) they were recognized by a mob of sans-culottes, who made a show of attacking them ; but on seeing their arms they thought better of it and made off. During the journey across Paris, 179 12* LOUVET Rabaut Saint-6tienne was greatly agitated, and at intervals repeated the words, " Ilia supremo, dies ! " But his time was not yet come, though Louvet never saw him again. On entering the hall, they found three members of the Mountain there before them. Turning to Guadet and pointing to Danton, Louvet said : " See what a horrible hope shines on that hideous face ! " " It is no doubt to-day," cried Guadet, " that Clodius drives Cicero into exile ! " Danton answered them with an enigmatical grin. They failed to see that Danton was not one of their worst enemies until it was too late. During the night the most extraordinary measures had been taken to prevent the flight of the threatened Deputies. Every military guard had been doubled ; sentries had been set to watch the post-houses ; the barriers had been closed and all external communica- tion cut off. Warrants were out for the arrest of Lebrun, late Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Clavi&re, Minister of Finance. The sitting began at half -past six.* A deputation from the Council-General of the Commune was ad- mitted to the bar, which announced that it had dis- covered a great plot ; but that the people had risen to destroy the conspirators. It next enumerated the measures which had been taken to ensure the public safety, and called upon the Convention to pay the * Mallet du Pan appears to have hit on the reason why the Convention assembled at such early and irregular hours when he says : " Toute la Revolution est et sera jusqu'au bout une suite de coups de mains ; 1'avantage restera done a celui qui gagne ses adversaires d'une minute." 180 LOUVET forty sous a day which the Commune had already promised to patriot volunteers. At this point Guadet rushed to the tribune. " The Commune," said he, " has surely made a slight mistake in the choice of a word : it evidently means that it has ' undertaken/ not ' discovered,' a plot ! " These words occasioned a frightful uproar. When the tumult had at length subsided, the question was put to the vote. The result was a triumph for the rioters. The Convention weakly submitted to the dictation of the Commune and resolved to adopt all its recommendations. A joint deputation from the Parisian Sections, Department, and Commune, next appeared at the bar, demanding the impeachment of the late Ministers, Roland, Lebrun and Clavire, the Committee of Twelve, and the twenty-two Deputies already de- nounced by the Commune. The petitioners were awarded the honours of the sitting. At this good news the rabble in the galleries could contain them- selves no longer, but swarmed over into the body of the hall, and made the house ring with their cheers. Several of the Girondists rose to protest against this unseemly behaviour. " The Convention is no longer free ! " they cried, and Vergniaud proposed that the members should go forth to claim the protection of the armed men outside. This was opposed by Robespierre, who, in order to gain time, delivered a long, rambling speech, in which he sought still more to inflame popular passion against the Girondists. At length, Barere, speaking on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, proposed the abolition of the 181 LOUVET obnoxious Committee, together with the permanent requisition of the public forces, and at the same time suggested that the Committee of Public Safety and the Commune of Paris be instructed to take common measures against all concerned in the plots which had that day been denounced in the Convention. Barere's proposals were adopted, and the sitting, which had lasted for sixteen hours, came to an end. The conspiracy against the Girondists had again miscarried, although their enemies affected to have achieved their object, and ordered the town to be illuminated as for a great victory. Yet their efforts had not been wholly in vain, for in this first great trial of strength they had brought the Convention to its knees, and the independence of that body was now a thing of the past. Their project for the destruction of the Gironde was for a time deferred, but not aban- doned. 182 CHAPTER XVII Arrest of Mme. Roland Witticism on Roland's flight The threatened Deputies meet for the last time Louvet states his views He joins Lodoiska A terrible night Louvet in hiding Insurrection of June 2nd The Convention imprisoned by the mob The Assembly seeks the protection of the soldiers, but is driven back Thirty-one Girondists placed under arrest Letter from Barbaroux Why they refused to escape Downfall of the Girondists Their eloquence General view of the feud between the Mountain and the Gironde. AS Louvet entered the hall of the Assembly on the following day he was pained to hear that his and Lodoiska's friend, Madame Roland, had been arrested by order of the Commune. Her hus- band had made good his escape. " His body is indeed missing," said a wag, " but he has left his soul behind him." This news convinced even the most sanguine of the Girondists that their downfall was now only a matter of time. That day Louvet engaged all the threatened Deputies to meet at Meillan's house in the Rue des Moulins.* It was the last occasion on which they dined together. They were considering what action to take in the grave crisis which had arisen, when the mad clangour of the tocsin arose on all sides. Immediately afterwards a breathless messenger burst into the room to tell Brissot that the seals were put on all their houses. Fearful lest his enemies should arrest Lodoiska * Meillan (A.,) Mtmoires. 183 LOUVET during his absence, Louvet briefly explained to his friends what he considered to be the only course of action left open to them. " Since the Mountain and the ruffians in the galleries," said he, " are determined to prevent us from speaking in our own defence, there is no useful purpose to be served by our attendance at the Convention. Why give our enemies the op- portunity of seizing their prey at one stroke ? Nor can we hope to do anything in Paris, dominated as it is by the terror inspired by the conspirators who have usurped the constituted authority and made themselves masters of the forces of the State. France can be saved only by a Departmental insurrection. We ought, therefore, to seek without delay a safe retreat for to-night, and during to-morrow and the following days leave Paris, one by one, as the oppor- tunity occurs, and reunite either at Bordeaux or in Calvados, where a movement against our tyrants has already manifested itself. Above all, we must not return to the Convention, for the Mountain would seize on us as hostages." It was a wise counsel. To return to the Convention after its integrity had been violated was a fatal mistake. The people of the Departments had for long complained with reason of the supremacy of Paris, and of the favours so lavished upon its in- habitants. All the contracts for the equipment and the provisioning of the armies went to Paris. Huge sums were expended to feed its poor, to liquidate its debts, to provide work for its unemployed, and to induce its citizens to enlist in the Civil Guard. But 184 LOUVET the provinces were neglected. Was their patriotic zeal, then, to be maintained solely by their love of liberty ? They were tired of starving themselves that Paris might be fed. It needed but this last outrage on their chosen representatives to arouse them to fury. The provinces were ripe for revolt. But so long as they saw members of the proscribed party still sitting in the Convention and taking part in its deliberations, they naturally thought that the alarming rumours emanating from the capital were exaggerated, and that the national representation was still intact. Under this impression their indig- nation gradually abated. Whether it was that the desperate remedy of civil war was abhorrent to them, or that they still deceived themselves as to their inviolability as representatives of the people, many of the guests, including Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonne", Mainvielle, and Valaze, re- mained unconvinced by Louvet's arguments. They were still deep in the discussion when Louvet quitted them to fly to the aid of Lodoi'ska in peril. Happily the man who had so abruptly broken in upon their deliberations had given a false alarm, and Louvet found her in safety. She refused, however, to leave her house until she was assured that he would not return thither. She then went out to seek the mother of Barbaroux, to take her to a place of safety in the house of one of Louvet's relatives. Here the two women passed a terrible night. At every moment the air was rent with the wild ringing of the alarm bells and the thunder of the drums beating the general call to arms ; and they turned sick with LOUVET fear as they heard the savage cries of the mob yelling for the heads of those dear to them. In an agony of terror for her son, the mother of Barbaroux moaned in despair, and from time to time fell at full length in a dead faint. " We rear them fine men," she cried, " and as soon as they reach maturity the wretches cut their throats ! " With dry eyes and a stricken heart Lodoi'ska braced herself to comfort her friend. Her hair turned grey in that single night ! Louvet, however, had succeeded in reaching the house of his friends in safety, where for a fortnight he remained in strict concealment, watching for an opportunity of escaping from Paris. Meanwhile, the agitators were busily preparing their plans for the consummation of the plot, which on the 3ist had temporarily miscarried. The whole of June ist was devoted to fomenting the insur- rection, and in perfecting the measures which it was determined to put into execution on the fol- lowing day, Sunday, June 2nd. Full executive powers for the insurrection were invested in a com- mittee appointed by the Revolutionary assembly of the Eveche, and the services of Henriot and the whole of his command were placed at its disposal. Lastly, in order that there should be no slackness on the part of the National Guards, many of whom had shown a disposition to side with the Convention on the 3ist, several battalions of furious sans-culottes, stationed at Courbevoie and other towns, awaiting orders to proceed to La Vendee, were recalled to the capital. By ten o'clock on the morning of June 2nd the Con- 186 LOUVET vention was surrounded by eighty thousand armed men, under the command of Henriot. Every seat on the Mountain was occupied, and the galleries were packed to suffocation. The disappointment was great when it was found that only three of the leading Girondists Barbaroux, Lanjuinais and Isnard were in their places. A deceptive calm characterized the first part of the sitting, during which the Mountaineers sought to win over the Plain, and were naturally anxious not to shock them by violent propositions until they were quite sure of their ground. It was not until a deputation from " the constituted Revolutionary authorities of the Department of Paris " was an- nounced that the storm began. Before the speaker could say a word, Lanjuinais dashed up the steps of the tribune, and moved that these self-constituted Revolutionary authorities be forthwith abolished ; that all their acts during the past three days be annulled, and that all who arro- gated to themselves an authority contrary to the law be put beyond the pale of the law. " Get down from the tribune, or I will fell thee ! " cried the butcher Legendre, making a motion characteristic of his trade. " First let Legendre get it decreed that I am an ox," answered the fearless Lanjuinais. Several Mountaineers, led by Legendre and the younger Robespierre, armed with pistols, forced their way into the tribune, and attempted to drag the orator down ; but by clinging desperately to the cornice, Lanjuinais succeeded in maintaining his position. The rabble in the galleries screamed with delight at 187 LOUVET the tussle, whilst the Plain cried shame on the dis- graceful scene. The President put on his hat by way of protest. " This conduct fills me with pain," he said, when some sort of order was at length re- stored ; "if you persist in such unseemly violence, Liberty will inevitably perish." The leaders of the attack on the Girondist orator were then severely rebuked, and Lanjuinais calmly proceeded. The Convention next granted audience to the depu- tation. " Representatives of the people," said Hassenfratz,* the spokesman, " the forty-eight Sections of Paris and the constituted authorities of the Department have come to demand the impeachment of the Committee of Twelve, the men who are in league with Dumouriez, the men who are inciting the people of the provinces to march on Paris. For four days the inhabitants of Paris have been under arms. This counter- revolution must come to an end ; all the conspirators, without exception, must be brought to the scaffold. The crimes of the factions in the Convention are known to you ; we come for the last time to denounce them to you ; we demand that without further delay you decree them guilty and unworthy the confidence of the nation. Patriots, you have often saved the country ; we demand that you deal with these traitors ; the people are weary of your postponing their welfare ; they are still in your governance ; save them, or they will save themselves." * The appropriate nom de guerre under which Le Lievre sought to hide a tattered reputation. For more of this worthy, see Dumouriez' Mftnoires. 188 LOUVET The President mildly reproved the tone of this discourse, but, nevertheless, invited the petitioners to share the honours of the sitting. But they were in no mood for cajolery and flatly refused. At this juncture the resourceful Barere sought to effect a compromise. Speaking in the name of the Com- mittee of Public Safety, he urged the accused Deputies to submit to a voluntary ostracism for the good of the country. Isnard, Lanthenas and Dusaulx agreed to this proposal. " I think I have shown some courage hitherto," said Lanjuinais, " and you can expect from me neither suspension nor resignation." He was interrupted by furious cries, but steadily wearing down the opposition, he imperturbably proceeded : "It was the custom in barbarous countries to lead the victims of the human sacrifices to the stake crowned with flowers, but never have I heard that priests and spectators were allowed to insult them ! . . . Abolish immediately every authority unrecognized by the law ; have the courage to enforce your will, which is the will of the people, and you will soon see the agitators abandoned by the citizens whom they have led astray ; unless you do this, I say, Liberty is lost. I see civil war, which is already kindled, spreading on every side ; I see the fearful monster of militarism and tyranny stalk- ing to and fro in the land, amid heaps of corpses and smoking ruins ; and at last I see the overthrow of the Republic itself." Barbaroux next rose to sup- port Lanjuinais' motion. " I have sworn to die at my post." he said, " and I will keep my oath." But 189 LOUVET this was not enough for the Mountain ; Robespierre and his clique, as D ant on said, were thirsty and wanted blood. " What ! " screamed Marat. " Are we to allow the guilty the honour of self-devotion ? To offer sacrifices to his country, a man must be pure ; it is to me alone, a real martyr of liberty, that devo- tion is appropriate. I offer, therefore, my suspen- sion from the moment you decree the arrest of the accused Deputies." Billaud-Varennes and Chabot were equally magnanimous. At this moment Lacroix burst into the hall, in the greatest disorder, to complain that he had been in- sulted and roughly handled by a sentinel who had refused to allow him to leave the building. It was now discovered that all the posts had been changed, and that strange guards had been stationed at all the issues with strict orders to prevent any Deputy from leaving. The Convention was imprisoned. For the moment several of the Mountaineers joined in the indignant protests of the Plain and the Gironde against this outrage. Just as if this was the first time it had tamely submitted to outrage ! Barere, the man of expedients, again came to the rescue by moving that the Convention should suspend its sitting, march out of the hall in a body, and endeavour to recall the armed forces arrayed against them to a sense of their duty. This motion was supported by Danton and was adopted. Herault-Se"chelles, the President, then put on his hat and, followed by the members of the Convention bareheaded, descended the grand staircase, crossed the vestibule, and led the way to the gate opening 190 LOUVET on the Place du Carrousel. Before they had pro- ceeded many paces the representatives were met by Henriot mounted on a charger. " What do the people want ? " asked the President. " The Con- vention is solely occupied in promoting their welfare." " Herault," replied Henriot, " the people have not risen to be put off with idle phrases. They demand that the guilty Deputies be delivered up to them ! " And when the members attempted to pass out, " Artillerymen, to your guns ! " shouted Henriot, and the humiliated Assembly hastily retreated. They tried all the outlets in succession, only to find them- selves shut off by bands of armed sans-culottes. Mean- while Marat hurried from post to post, encouraging the resistance of the soldiers. " No weakness," he cried. " Hold firm until they are delivered up ! " Finding that all means of egress were denied them, the representatives returned to the hall of the Con- vention amid shouts of " Long live Marat ! " " Long live the Mountain ! " " Down with the Brissotins ! " Couthon, the paralytic, was now carried into the tribune to demand that the vote should be taken ; and it was decreed that the members of the Committee of Twelve, the twenty-two denounced Deputies, and the two Ministers should be placed under arrest in their own houses. Legendre proposed to erase from the list of the twenty-two the names of Boyer-Fonfrede and Saint- Martin Valogne, who had opposed the arbitrary arrest of Dobsent and Hebert ; whilst Marat de- manded that the names of Lanthenas, Dusaulx and Ducos should be struck out, because the first was 191 LOUVET " a harmless sort of lunatic, Dusaulx an old idiot, and Ducos an empty-headed youngster who had been led astray by intriguers." He suggested that the names of Valaze" and Defermon should be inserted instead. This was agreed to, and the decree was passed without further discussion. In all thirty-one members were ordered to be placed under the guard of one gendarme each in his own house. On the morrow the intrepid Barbaroux wrote the following letter to his colleagues in the Con- vention : " PARIS, the 3 June, 1793. Year 2 of the Republic One and Indivisible. " To the National Convention. " Charles Barbaroux, Deputy of the Department of the Bouches-du-Rh&ne. " CITIZENS, MY COLLEAGUES, " Yesterday's sitting had scarcely terminated than I placed myself under arrest in my own house, in accord- ance with the decree of the National Convention, without examining the circumstances under which it had been issued, for it is not in my heart to add to the ills of the Republic the greater misfortune of an internal dis- sension. " To-day, the administrators of the police of Paris have advised me of an order which appears to me to add to the provisions of the decree. I submit this order to you, Citizens, my Colleagues, together with my reply, and await the decision of the law to obey. " BARBAROUX." 192 * . "M > ,,} 4 I 4 1 r i * a V .1