To Citizen Fréron, Government agent.
Citizen,
Citizen Bouisson, the Widow Janniquet, with full confidence in the justice you represent, shall describe for you how, on 22 Brumaire [12 November 1794] of last year [Year III], she had stopped at the district's administrative board on a matter concerning some farmland. She had spared no expense on this nation's asset in order to keep it in good condition and to produce an abundant harvest. At that point, Citizen Augustin Baux, émigré and former owner of the house prior to his fleeing the country, took advantage of the law of 22 Germinal [11 April 1795] and 22 Prairial [10 June 1795] which allows workers, seamen, sailors, bakers, and health officials to return to the territory of the republic. He had learned, through plotting and subterfuge, how to change his profession from being a merchant in wholesale cloth, to being a health official. Under this spurious pretext, he was able to give the illusion of being a member of this occupation. Through bribes, he was wrongly and without basis struck from the record. He then attacked our speaker, the Widow Janniquet, bringing her before the arbitration committee, which sent her to the district court. His claims went so far as to demand half of the harvest. [After his request was rejected], she was left in peace for a brief period. However, Citizen Baux again appealed to the same court, which, this time, judged in favor of this émigré, granting him not just half the harvest, but all of this year's crop. As a result, he had the olives seized that the aforementioned Citizen Janniquet had had taken to a mill to have pitted. Upon seeing herself deprived of an asset that she believed to have been legitimately due and accorded to her by this unforeseen and arbitrary bureaucratic stroke, she now turns to you for recourse to obtain the restoration of the above-mentioned olives which are rightfully hers. Imbued with the humanity and justice that are the tenets of your work, she hopes that you will look kindly upon her lawful claim.
Sincerely in brotherhood,
Signed Thérèse Bouisson, the widow Janniquet.
Their Majesties, the Emperor and the King of Prussia, having heard the wishes and representations of Monsieur, the Count of Artois, jointly declare that they view the situation in which the King of France currently finds himself as a subject of common interest for all of Europe's sovereigns. They hope that this interest can not fail to be recognized by the powers from whom assistance is being requested. Consequently, jointly with their respective Majesties, they will use the most efficient means in relation to their strengths to place the King of France in a position to be totally free to consolidate the bases of a monarchical government that shall be as amenable to the rights of sovereigns as it is to the well-being of the French nation. In this case then, their said Majesties, the Emperor and the King of Prussia are resolved to act quickly, in mutual agreement, and with the forces necessary to achieve the proposed and common goal. Meanwhile, they shall issue their troops the necessary orders to prepare them for action.
I am sure Your Majesty will have learned, with as much surprise and indignation as I, of the unprecedented outrage of the arrest of the King of France, of my sister the Queen, and of the Royal Family. I am also sure your sentiments cannot differ from mine with regard to this event which immediately compromises the honor of all sovereigns and the security of all governments by inspiring fear of still more dreadful acts to follow, and by placing the seal of illegality upon previous excesses in France.
I am determined to fulfill my obligation as to these considerations, both as chosen head of the Germanic State, with its support, and as Sovereign of the Austrian states. I therefore propose to you, as I propose to the Kings of Spain, England, Prussia, Naples, and Sardinia, as well as to the Empress of Russia, to unite with them and me to consult on cooperation and measures to restore the liberty and honor of the Most Christian King and his family, and to limit the dangerous extremes of the French Revolution.
The most pressing [need] appears to be our immediate cooperation . . . having our ministers in France deliver a common declaration, or numerous similar and simultaneous declarations, which may curb the leaders of the violent party and forestall desperate decisions. This will still leave them an opportunity for honest repentance and for the peaceful establishment of a regime in France that will preserve at least the dignity of the crown and the essential requirements for general tranquillity. For this purpose, I propose to Your Majesty the plan annexed hereto which appears to me satisfactory.
However, since the success of such a declaration is problematical, and since complete success can be assured only in so far as we are prepared to support it by sufficiently respectable means, my Minister to Your Majesty will receive at once the necessary instructions to discuss with your Minister such agreement on vigorous measures as circumstances may require. I also intend to have him inform you concerning the replies of the other powers as soon as I have received them.
I regard it as an infinitely precious advantage that the disposition they all show for the reestablishment of peace and harmony gives promise to the removal of the obstacles which might be detrimental to the unanimity of the views and sentiments concerning an event so closely associated with the welfare of all Europe.
Signed, Leopold
Plan of the Common Declaration
Padua, 5 July 1791.
The undersigned are charged with making known, on the part of their sovereigns, the following:
That, notwithstanding the notorious deeds of constraint and violence which have preceded and succeeded the acts of consent granted by the King of France to the decrees of the National Assembly, they had nevertheless still wished to withhold their opinion concerning the degree to which such consent represented, or did not represent, the conviction and free will of His Most Christian Majesty. But the effort undertaken by that prince to set himself at liberty, being a most certain proof of the state of confinement in which he found himself, no longer left any doubt that he had been forced to do violence to his religion in several respects, at the same time that the last outrage, the formal arrest of Him and of the Queen, the Dauphin, and Madame Elizabeth, inspires legitimate fears concerning the ulterior undertakings of the dominant party.
That the said sovereigns, unable to delay any longer the manifestation of sentiments and resolutions which, under the circumstances, the honor of their crowns, the ties of blood, and the maintenance of the public order and peace of Europe require of them, have ordered their undersigned ministers to declare:
That they demand that this prince and his family be set at liberty immediately, and that they claim for all said royal persons the inviolability and respect which the law of nature and of men imposes upon subjects towards their princes;
That they will unite in order to avenge in a forceful manner any future outrages which may be committed, or may be allowed to be committed, against the security, the person, and the honor of the King, the Queen, and the Royal Family.
That, finally, they will recognize as law and as a constitution legally established in France only those [measures] which they find bearing the voluntary approval of the King, in the enjoyment of perfect liberty; but that, in the contrary case, they will employ in concert all the means within their power to bring to an end the scandal of an usurpation of power which bears the character of an open revolt, and the disastrous example of which it is important for all governments to check.
These infuriated men alone could have devised the means, and what is still more incredible, partly have succeeded in the execution of their project. The means were doubtless execrable, but it must be acknowledged that they were of gigantic conception. The Jacobins possessed minds rarefied by the fire of republican enthusiasm, and they may be said to have been reduced, by their purifying scrutinies . . . to the quintessence of infamy. Hence they displayed, at the same time, a degree of energy which was completely without example, and an extent of crimes, which all those of history, put together, can scarcely equal.
They saw that to obtain the end which they had in view, the received systems of justice, the common axioms of humanity, and the whole range of principles, adopted by Lycurgus, would not be of use, and that they must arrive at the same object by another road. To wait till death took away the great proprietors of estates, or till they consented to their own spoliation; to wait till years rooted out fanaticism, and effected a change in customs and manners; to wait till recruits, raised in the ordinary way, could be sent to the armies: all this appeared doubtful and tedious. As if, therefore, the establishment of a republic and the defense of France, taken separately, afforded too little employment for their genius, they resolved on attempting both at the same time.
Agents having been placed at their posts in every corner of the republic, and the word communicated to affiliated societies, the monsters . . . gave the fearful signal which was to recall Sparta from its ruins. It resounded though France like the trump of the exterminating angel—the monuments of the sons of men crumbled away, and the graves opened.
At the same moment a thousand sanguinary guillotines were erected in all the towns and villages of France. The citizen was suddenly awoke in the night by the report of cannon and roll of the drum, to receive an order for his immediate departure to the army. He was thunderstruck, and knew not whether he was a wake. He hesitated and looked around him. There he espied the ghastly heads and hideous trunks of those unfortunate wretches, who had perhaps refused to march at the first summons, only that they might take a last farewell of their families. What could he do? Where were the leaders, under whom he could place himself in order to avoid the requisition? Every one, thus taken separately, found himself deprived of all defense. On one side he beheld certain death; on the other bands of volunteers, who, flying from the famine, persecution, and intolerance of the interior, were going to seek bread and liberty in the army. They were intoxicated, singing, full of all the ardor of youth; and the citizen, with a guillotine before his eyes, seeing no other resource but to join them, took his departure with despair in his heart. On arriving soon afterwards at the frontiers, the necessity of defending his life, the courage natural to the French, the inconstancy and the enthusiasm of which they are characteristically susceptible, considerable pay, abundant food, the tumult and dangers of a military life, the women, the wine, and his native gaiety of disposition, made him forget that he had been brought thither by force, and he became a hero. Thus persecution on the one hand, and rewards on the other, created armies by enchantment; for when once the first example had been set, and the requisition obeyed, men by a natural imitative impulse, were eager, whatever might be their opinions, to walk in the steps of others.
Here then were the rudiment of a military force, but it was necessary that this force should be organized. A committee, of which it has been said that its talents could not have been surpassed except by its crimes, employed itself in connecting these disjointed corps. Let no one, however, suppose that they resorted to the ancient tactics of Caesar and Turenne, No. Everything was to be new in this newly modeled world. It was no longer an object to save the life of man; it was no longer a rule to give battle only when the loss would at least be reciprocal. The art of war was now reduced to a calculation of numbers, rapidity, and time of attack. As to numbers, two or three armies immediately followed each other, to keep up an imposing mass of strength . . . . It might cost ten thousand men to take a place; it might be necessary to attack it twenty times, and on twenty successive days—still the place was to be taken. When the blood of men is reckoned as nothing, it is easy to make conquests. Were not deserters and spies sure to be found? The engineers trolled a song while they studied the weak points of the army, and secured victory in spite of the scientific secrets appertaining to their department of service. The telegraph conveyed flying orders, the earth yielded saltpeter, and France vomited forth innumerable legions.
While the armies were forming, the prisons were filled with all the wealthy persons of France. At one place they were drowned by thousands, at another the doors of the crowded dungeons were opened and the victims fired upon by cannon loaded with grapeshot. The guillotine was at work day and night. This implement of destruction was too slow for the haste of the executioner; and the artists of death invented a new kind, which cut off several heads with a single blow. The streets were so inundated with blood, as to become impassible; and it became necessary to change the place of execution. It was in vain that immense pits were opened to receive the dead bodies; they were soon filled, and new ones obliged to be dug. Grey-headed people of eighty years old and girls of sixteen, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands, wives and children died covered with the blood of each other. Thus the Jacobins attained four leading points at once, towards the establishment of their republic; they destroyed the inequality of rank, leveled the fortunes of individuals, augmented the finances by the confiscation of every person's property who was condemned, and attached the army to their interest by buoying it up with the hope that it would some day posses these estates.
The people, now hearing of nothing but conspiracies, invasion, and treason, were afraid of their own friends, and fancying themselves upon a mine which was ready to burst beneath them, sunk into a state of torpid terror. This the Jacobins had foreseen. A man, if now asked for bread, gave it; if for his garment, he took it off; if for his life, he resigned it without regret. At the same time he saw all the churches shut, its ministers sacrificed, and the ancient worship of the country banished under pain of death. He was told that there is no celestial vengeance but a guillotine; while by a contradictory and inexplicable jargon, he was commanded to adore the virtues for which festivals were instituted, where girls, clothed in white, and crowned with roses, entertained idle curiosity by singing hymns in honor of the Gods. The unfortunate confounded people no longer knew where they were, nor whether they existed. They sought in vain for their ancient customs—these had vanished. They saw a foreign nation in strange attire, wandering through the public streets. If they asked which were their holidays, and which the days of their ordinary duties, new appellations struck their ears. The day of repose had disappeared. They trusted at least that the fixed return of the year would restore the natural state of affairs, and bring some consolation with it. Unfounded hope! As if condemned for ever to this new order of misery, the unknown months seemed to tell them that the revolution would extend to eternity; and in this land of prodigies, they had fears of losing themselves even in the midst of the streets, the names of which they no longer knew. . . .
Thus was the unhappy nation bandied about by the hands of a powerful faction, suddenly transported into another world, stunned by the cries of victims, and the acclamations of victory resounding from all the frontiers, when God, casting a look towards France, caused these monsters to sink into nothingness.
Such were the Jacobins, of whom much has been said, though few people knew them. Most persons have indulged in declamation and published their crimes, without stating the general principle on which they acted. This principle consisted in the system of perfection, towards which the first step to be made was the restoration of the Spartan laws. We have ascribed too much to passions and circumstances. A distinguishing feature of the French Revolution is, that it is necessary to admit speculative views and abstract doctrines, as infinite in their causes. It was in part effected by the men of letters, who were rather inhabitants of Rome and Athens than of their own country, and who endeavored to bring back the manners of antiquity into modern Europe.
The philosophers who study the causes of important events have said that, in some way, each century carries within it the century that will follow. This bold metaphor covers an important truth that has been confirmed by the history of Athens: the century of laws and virtues prepared that of valor and glory, in turn producing a century of conquests and luxury, which finished with the destruction of the republic.
The deeply philosophic thought can be applied to the history of all peoples. The tyrannical humiliations and bloodthirsty barbarity of Richelieu laid the groundwork for the despotism of Louis XIV. That century of great men was the work of the literary and religious debates that had preceded it. It is in the eye of the storm that the nature and policy of empires, the laws and all human institutions are regenerated, and that the sciences grow with renewed vigor. The nation, sagging beneath the weight of its misfortunes, crushed by its disgrace and caught up in terror and superstition, whimpered for a fragile and fleeting glory which it acquired at the cost of the people's future, the price of their blood, and the prosperity of the empire. Its gloomy silence evidenced its pain. For a few years, the call of the monarchy relieved the nation of this distressing state, only to deliver it up to the convulsions of madness and cupidity. The squanderings of Louis XIV gave birth to this system. The French, bent beneath the yoke, nevertheless endured the vices and errors of the government with incredible patience. The sacred and inalienable rights of the People were relegated to the museums of science and art as if they were curiosities to behold, things rendered useless by the long period of slavery. Thus was the reasoning that suspended any public demands during the entire reign of Louis XV. During the final years of that monarch the nation lost almost all of its morality. Corruption spread out from the base of the throne to almost all classes of society. Finally, the limit of arbitrary excesses of power had been reached. The horrible financial disarray rendered the required severe reform inevitable. This is how the course of events is played out: not by fortuitous syntheses, but by a primary and irrefutable impulse. It is very true that extremes come full circle.