None of the writings
which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage
fitry ever worked up a fiercer ferment through the
* Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding
o10!
which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage
fitry ever worked up a fiercer ferment through the
* Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding
o10!
Edmund Burke
When we consider of an adherence to a
man which leads to his power, we must not only see
what the man is, but how he stands related. It is
not to be forgotten that Mr. Fox acts in close and
inseparable connection with another gentleman of exactly the same description as himself, and who, perhaps, of the two, is the leader. The rest of the body are not a great deal more tractable; and over them,
if Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan have authority, most
assuredly the Duke of Portland has not the smallest
degree of influence.
51. One must take care that a blind partiality to
some persons, and as blind an hatred to others, may
not enter into our minds under a color of inflexible
public principle. We hear, as a reason for clinging
to Mr. Fox at present, that nine years ago Mr. Pitt
ogot into power by mischievous intrigues with the
court, with the Dissenters, and with other factious
people out of Parliament, to the discredit and weak
? ? ? ? 58 OBSERVATIONS ON THE
ening of the power of the House of Commons. -is
conduct nine years ago I still hold to be very culpable. There are, however, many things very culpable that I do not know how to punish. My opinion oin
such matters I must submit to the good of the state,
as I have done on other occasions, - and particularly with regard to the authors and managers of
the American war, with whom I have acted, both in
office and in opposition, with great confidence and
cordiality, though I thought many of their acts criminal and impeachable. Whilst the misconduct of Mr. Pitt and his associates was yet recent, it was
not possible to get Mr. Fox of himself to take a single
step, or even to countenance others in taking any
step, upon the ground of that misconduct and false
policy; though, if the matters had been then taken
up and pursued, such a step could not have appeared
so evidently desperate as now it is. So far from pursuing Mr. Pitt, I know that then, and for some time after, some of Mr. Fox's friends were actually, and
with no small earnestness, looking out to a coalition with that gentleman. For years I never heard
this circumstance of Mr. Pitt's misconduct on that
occasion mentioned by Mr. Fox, either in public or
in private, as a ground for opposition to that minister. All opposition, from that period to this very session, has proceeded upon tire separate measures
as they separately arose, without any vindictive retrospect to Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784. My memory, however, may fail me. I must appeal to the printed
debates, which (so far as Mr. Fox is concerned) are
unusually accurate.
52. Whatever might have been in our power at
an early period, at this day I see no remedy for what
? ? ? ? CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY. 59
was done in 1784. I had no great hopes even at the
time. I was therefore very eager to record a remonstrance on the journals of the House of Commons, as a caution against such a popular delusion in times to
come; and this I then feared, and now am certain,
is all that could be done. I know of no way of animadverting on the crown. I know of no mode of
calling to account the House of Lords, who threw
out the India Bill in a way not much to their credit. As little, or rather less, am I able to coerce the
people at large, who behaved very unwisely and
intemperately on that occasion. Mr. Pitt was then
accused, by me as well as others, of attempting to
be minister without enjoying the confidence of the
House of Commons, though he did enljoy the confidence of the crown. That House of Commons,
whose confidence he did not enjoy, unfortunately
did not itself enjoy the confidence (though we well
deserved it) either of the crown or of the public.
For want of that confidence, the then House of
Commons did not survive the contest. Since that
period Mr. Pitt has enjoyed the confidence of the
crown, and of the Lords, and of the House of Commons, through two successive Parliaments; and I suspect that he has ever since, and that he does
still, enjoy as large a portion, at least, of the confidence of the people without doors as his great rival. Before whom, then, is Mr. Pitt to be impeached, and
by whom? The more I consider the matter, the
more firmly I am convinced that the idea of proscribing Mr. Pitt indirectly, when you cannot directly punish him, is as chimerical a project, and as unijustifiable, as it would be to have proscribed Lord North. For supposing that by indirect ways of opposition,
? ? ? ? CGO OBSERVATIONS ON THE
by opposition upon measures which do not relate to
the business of 1784, but which on other grounds
might prove unpopular, you were to drive him from
his seat, this would be no example whatever of punishment for the matters we charge as offences in
1784. On a cool and dispassionate view of the
affairs of this time and country, it appears obvious
to me that one or the other of those two great men,
that is, Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, must be minister. They
are, I am sorry for it, irreconcilable. Mr. Fox's conduct in this session has rendered the idea of his power a matter of serious alarm to many people who were very little pleased with the proceedings of Mr.
Pitt in the beginning of his administration. They
like neither the conduct of Mr. Pitt in 1784, nor
that of Mr. Fox in 1793; but they estimate which
of the evils is most pressing at the time, and what
is likely to be the consequence of a change. If Mr.
Fox be wedded, they must be sensible that his opinions and principles on the now existing state of
things at home and abroad must be taken as his
portion. In his train must also be taken the whole
body of gentlemen who are pledged to him and to
each other, and to their common politics and principles. I believe no king of Great Britain ever will
adopt, for his confidential servants, that body of geIntlemen, holding that body of principles. Even if the
present king or his successor should think fit to take
that step, I apprehend a general discontent of those
who wish that this nation and that Europe should
continue in their'present state would ensue,- a discontent which, combined with the principles and
progress of the new men in power, would shake
this kingdom to its foundations. I do not believe
? ? ? ? CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY. 61
any one political conjecture can be more certain
than this.
53. Without at all defending or palliating Mr.
Pitt's conduct in 1784, I must observe, that the
crisis of 1793, with regard to everything at home
and abroad, is full as important as that of 1784
ever was, and, if for no other reason, by being
present, is much more important. It is not to nine
years ago we are to look for the danger of Mr. Fox's
and Mr. Sheridan's conduct, and that of the gentlemen who act with them. It is at this very time, and
in this very session, that, if they had not been strenuously resisted, they would not only have discredited the House of Commons, (as Mr. Pitt did in 1784, when he persuaded the king to reject their advice, and
to appeal from them to the people,) but, in my opinion, would have been the means of wholly subverting the House of Commons and the House of Peers, and the whole Constitution actual and virtual, together with the safety and independence of this nation, and the peace and settlement of every state ill the now Christian world. It is to our opinion of the
nature of Jacobinism, and of the probability, by
corruption, faction, and force, of its gaining ground
everywhere, that the question whom and what you
are to support is to be determined. For my part,
without doubt or hesitation, I look upon Jacobinisnm
as the most dreadful and the most shameful evil
which ever afflicted mankind, a thing which goes
beyond the power of all calculation in its mischief, -
and that, if it is suffered to exist in France, we must
in England, and speedily too, fall into that calamity.
54. I figure to myself the purpose of these gentlemen accomplished, and this ministry destroyed. I
? ? ? ? 62 OBSERVATIONS ON THE
see that the persons who in that case must rule can
be no other than Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey,
the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Thurlow, Lord Lauderdale, and the Duke of Norfolk, with the other
chiefs of the Friends of the People, the Parliamentary
reformers, and the admirers of the French Revolution.
The principal of these are all formally pledged to their
projects. If the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam should be admitted into that system, (as they
might and probably would be,) it is quite certain
they could not have the smallest weight in it, - less,
indeed, than what they now possess, if less were possible: because they would be less wanted than they
now are; and because all those who wished to join
them, and to act under them, have been rejected by
the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam themselves; and Mr. Fox, finding them thus by themselves disarmed, has built quite a new fabric, upon quite a new foundation. There is no trifling on this
subject. We see very distinctly before us the ministry that would be formed and the plan that would
be pursued. If we like the plan, we must wish the
power of those who are to carry it into execution;
but to pursue the political exaltation of those whose
political measures we disapprove and whose principles we dissent from is a species of modern politics
not easily comprehensible, and which must end in
the ruin of the country, if it should continue and
spread. Mr. Pitt may be the worst of men, and
Mr. Fox may be the best; but, at present, the former
is in the interest of his country, and of the order of
things long established in Europe: Mr. Fox is not.
I have, for one, been born in this order of things,
aid would fain die in it. I am sure it is sufficient
? ? ? ? CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY. 63
to make men as virtuous, as happy, and as' knowing
as anything which Mr. Fox, and his friends abroad
or at home, would substitute in its place; and I
should be sorry that any set of politicians should obtain power in England whose principles or schemes should lead them to countenance persons or factions whose object is to introduce some new devised order of things into England, or to support that order where it is already introduced, in France, --a place in which if it can be fixed, in my mind, it must
have a certain and decided influtence in and upon this
kingdom.
This is my account of my conduct to my private
friends. I have already said all I wish to say, or
nearly so, to the public. I write this with pain and
with an heart full of grief.
? ? ? ? PREFACE
TO THE
ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT
TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. TRANSLATED BY
THE LATE WILLIAM BURKE, ESQ. I79 4.
VOL. V. 5
? ? ? ? PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS.
T HE French Revolution has been the subject of
various speculations and various histories. As
might be expected, the royalists and the republicans
have differed a good deal in their accounts of the
principles of that Revolution, of the springs which
have set it in motion, and of the true character of
those who have been, or still are, the principal actors
on that astonishing scene.
They who are inclined to think favorably of that
event will undoubtedly object to every state of facts
which comes only from the authority of a royalist.
Thus much must be allowed by those who are the
most firmly attached to the cause of religion, law,
and order, (for of such, and not of friends to despotism, the royal party is composed,)- that their very affection to this generous and manly cause, and their
abhorrence of a Revolution not less fatal to liberty
than to government, may possibly lead them in some
particulars to a more harsh representation of the proceedings of their adversaries than would be allowed by the cold neutrality of an impartial judge. This
sort of error arises from a source highly laudable;
but the exactness of truth may suffer even from the
feelings of virtue. History will do justice to the intentions of worthy men, but it will be on its guard against their infirmities; it will examine with great
? ? ? ? 68 PREFACE TO BRISSOT S ADDRESS
strictness of scrutiny whatever appears from a writer
in favor of his own cause. On the other hand, whatever escapes him, and makes against that cause,
comes with the greatest weight.
In this important controversy, the translator of the
following work brings forward to the English tribunal of opinion the testimony of a witness beyond all
exception. His competence is undoubted. He knows
everything which concerns this Revolution to the bottom. He is a chief actor in all the scenes which he
presents. No man can object to him as a royalist:
the royal party, and the Christian religion, never had
a more determined enemy. In a word, it is BRISSOT.
It is Brissot, the republican, the Jacobin, and the
philosopher, who is brought to give an account of
Jacobinism, and of republicanism, and of philosopliy.
It is worthy of observation, that this his account
of the genius of Jacobinism and its effects is not confined to the period in which that faction came to be
divided within itself. In several, and those very importalt particulars, Brissot's observations apply to
the whole of the preceding period before the great
schism, and whilst the Jacobins acted as one body;
insomuch that the far greater part of the proceedings
of the ruling powers since the commencement of the
Revolution in France, so strikingly painted, so strongly and so justly reprobated by Brissot, were the acts
of Brissot himself and his associates. All the members of the Girondin subdivision were as deeply concerned as any of the Mountain could possibly be, and some of them much more deeply, in those horrid
transactions which have filled all the thinking part
of Eulope with the greatest detestation, and with the
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 69
most serious apprehensions for the common liberty
and safety.
A question will very naturally be asked, -- What
could induce Brissot to draw such a picture? He
must have been sensible it was his own. The answer is, --The inducement was the same with that which led him to partake in the perpetration of all
the crimes the calamitous effects of which he describes with the pen of a master, -- ambition. His faction, having obtained their stupendous and unnatural power by rooting out of the minds of his unhappy countrymen every principle of religion, morality, loyalty, fidelity, and honor, discovered, that, when authority came into their hands, it would be a
matter of no small difficulty for them to carry on
government on the principles by which they had
destroyed it.
The rights of men and the new principles of liberty and equality were very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of tranquillity
and order. They who were taught to find nothing
to respect in the title and in the virtues of Louis the
Sixteenth, a prince succeeding to the throne by the
fundamental laws, in the line of a succession of monarchs continued for fourteen hundred years, found nothing which could bind them to an implicit fidelity
and dutiful allegiance to Messrs. Brissot, Vergniaud,
Condorcet, Anacharsis Clootz, and Thomas Paine.
In this difficulty, they did as well as they could.
To govern the people, they must incline the people
to obey. The work was difficult, but it was necessary. They were to accomplish it by such materials
and by such instruments as they had in their hands. 'I'ley were to accomplish the purposes of order, mo
? ? ? ? v70 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
rality, and submission to the laws, from the principles
of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. Ill as the disguise became them, they began to assume the mask
of an austere and rigid virtue; they exhausted all the
stores of their eloquence (which in some of them were
not inconsiderable) in declamations against tumult
and confusion; they made daily harangues on the
blessings of order, discipline, quiet, and obedience
to authority; they even showed some sort of disposition to protect such property as had not been confiscated. They who on every occasion had discovered a sort of furious thirst of blood and a greedy appetite
for slaughter, who avowed and gloried in the murders
and massacres of the 14th of July, of the 5th and 6th
of October, and of the 10th of August, now began to
be squeamish and fastidious with regard to those of
the 2nd of September.
In their pretended scruples on the sequel of the
slaughter of the 10th of August, they imposed upon
no living creature, and they obtained not the smallest credit for humanity. They endeavored to establish a distinction, by the belief of which they hoped to keep the spirit of murder safely bottled up and sealed
for their own purposes, without endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison which they prepared for their enemies.
Roland was the chief and the most accredited of
the faction. His morals had furnished little matter
of exception against him. Old, domestic, and uxorious, he led a private life sufficiently blameless. He
was therefore set up as the Cato of the republican party, which did not abound in such characters.
This man, like most of the chiefs, was the manager of a newspaper, in which he promoted the in
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 71
terest of his party. He was a fatal present made by
the revolutionists to the unhappy king, as one of his
ministers under the new Constitution. Amongst his
colleagues were Clavidre and Servan. All the three
have since that time either lost their heads by the
axe of their associates in rebellion, or, to evade their
own revolutionary justice, have fallen by their own
hands.
These ministers were regarded by the king as in
a conspiracy to dethrone him. Nobody who considers the circumstances which preceded the deposition of Louis the Sixteenth, nobody who attends to the
subsequent conduct of those ministers, can hesitate
about the reality of such a conspiracy. The king
certainly had no doubt of it; he found himself
obliged to remove them; and the necessity, which
first obliged him to choose such regicide ministers
constrained him to replace them by Dumouriez the
Jacobin, and some others of little efficiency, though
of a better description.
A little before this removal, and evidently as a
part of the conspiracy, Roland put into the king's
hands, as a memorial, the most insolent, seditious,
and atrocious libel that has probably ever been
penned. This paper Roland a few days after delivered to the National Assembly,* who instantly published and dispersed it over all France; and in
order to give it the stronger operation, they declared
that he and his brother ministers had carried with
them the regret of the nation.
None of the writings
which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage
fitry ever worked up a fiercer ferment through the
* Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding
o10! (iaV. - - TRANSLATOR.
? ? ? ? 72 PREFACE TO BRISSOT' S ADDRESS
whole mass of the republicans in every part of
France.
Under the thin veil of prediction, he strongly recommends all the abominable practices which afterwards
followed. In particular, he inflamed the minds of
the populace against the respectable and conscientious clergy, who became the chief objects of the
massacre, and who were to him the chief objects of
a malignity and rancor that one could hardly think
to exist in an human heart.
We have the relics of his fanatical persecution
here. We are in a condition to judge of the merits of the persecutors and of the persecuted: I do
not say the accusers and accused; because, in all
the furious declamations of the atheistic faction
against these men, not one specific charge has been
made upon any one person of those who suffered in
their massacre or by their decree of exile.
The king had declared that he would sooner perish under their axe (he too well saw what was preparing for him) than give his sanction to the iniquitous act of proscription under which those innocent people were to be transported.
On this proscription of the clergy a principal part
of the ostensible quarrel between the king and those
ministers had turned. From the time of the authorized publication of this libel, some of the manoeuvres
long and uniformly pursued for the king's deposition
became more and more evident and declared.
The 10th of August came on, and in the manner
in which Roland had predicted: it was followed by
the same consequences. The king was deposed, after cruel massacres in the courts and the apartments
of his palace and in almost all parts of the city. In
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 73
reward of his treason to his old master, Roland was
by his new masters named Minister of the Home Department.
The massacres of the 2nd of September were begotten by the massacres of the 10th of August. They
were universally foreseen and hourly expected. During this short interval between the two murderous
scenes, the furies, male and female, cried out havoc
as loudly and as fiercely as ever. The ordinary jails
were all filled with prepared victims; and when they
overflowed, churches were turned into jails. At this
time the relentless Roland had the care of the general police;-he had for his colleague the bloody
Danton, who was Minister of Justice; the insidious
Petion was Mayor of Paris; the treacherous Manuel was Procurator of the Common Hall. The magistrates (some or all of them) were evidently the authors of this massacre. Lest the national guard
should, by their very name, be reminded of their
duty in preserving the lives of their fellow-citizens,
the Common Council of Paris, pretending that it
was in vain to think of resisting the murderers,
(although in truth neither their numbers nor their
arms were at all formidable,) obliged those guards
to draw the charges from their muskets, and took
away their bayonets. One of their journalists, and,
according to their fashion, one of their leading statesmen, Gorsas, mentions this fact in his newspaper,
which he formerly called the Galley Journal. The
title was well suited to the paper and its author.
For some felonies he had been sentenced to the galleys; but, by the benignity of the late king, this
felon (to be one day advanced to the rank of a regicide) had been pardoned and released at the inter
? ? ? ? 74 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
cession of the ambassadors of Tippoo Sultan. His
gratitude was such as might naturally have been
expected; and it has lately been rewarded as it deserved. This liberated galley-slave was raised, in
mockery of all criminal law, to be Minister of Justice: he became from his elevation a more conspicuous object of accusation, and he has since received
tile punishment of his former crimes in proscription
and death.
It will be asked, how the Minister of the Home
Department was employed at this crisis. The day
after the massacre had commenced, Roland appeared; but not with the powerful apparatus of a
protecting magistrate, to rescue those who had survived the slaughter of the first day: nothing of this.
On the 3rd of September, (that is, the day after the
commencement of the massacre,*) he writes a long,
elaborate, verbose epistle to the Assembly, in which,
after magnifying, according to the bon-ton of the Revolution, his'own integrity, humanity, courage, and
patriotism, he first directly justifies all the bloody
proceedings of the 10th of August. He considers
the slaughter of that day as a necessary measure for
defeating a conspiracy which (with a full knowledge
of the falsehood of his assertion) he asserts to have
been formed for a massacre of the people of Paris,
and which he more than insinuates was the work
of his late unhappy master, --who was universally
known to carry his dread of shedding the blood of
his most guilty subjects to an excess.
" Without the day of the 10th," says he, " it is evident that we should have been lost. The court, pre* Letter to the National Assembly, signed, The Minister of the Interior, ROLAND; dated Paris, Sept. 3rd, 4th year of Liberty.
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 75
pared for a long time, waited for the hour which was
to accumulate all treasons, to display over Paris the
standard of death, and to reign there by terror. The
sense of the people, (le sentiment,) always just and
ready when their opinion is not corrupted, foresaw
the epoch marked for their destruction, and rendered
it fatal to the conspirators. " He then proceeds, in
the cant which has been applied to palliate all their
atrocities from the 14th of July, 1789, to the present
time: --" It is in the nature of things," continues
he, " and in that of the human heart, that victory
should bring with it some excess. The sea, agitated
by a violent storm, roars long after the tempest; but
everything has bounds, which ought at length to be observed. "
In this memorable epistle, he considers such excesses as fatalities arising from the very nature of things, and consequently not to be punished. He
allows a space of time for the duration of these agitations; and lest he should be thought rigid and too scanty in his measure, he thinks it may be long.
But he would have things to cease at length. But
when? and where? - When they may approach his
own person.
" Yesterday," says he, " the ministers were denounced: vaguely, indeed, as to the matter, because subjects of reproach were wanting; but with that
warmth and force of assertion which strike the imagination and seduce it for a moment, and which mislead and destroy confidence, without which no
man should remain in place in a free government.
Yesterday, again, in an assembly of the presidents
of all the sections, convoked by the ministers, with
the view of conciliating all minds, and of mutual
? ? ? ? 76 PREFACE TO BRISSOT' S ADDRESS
explanation, I perceived that distrust which suspects,
interrogates, and fetters operations. "
In this manner (that is, in mutual suspicions and
interrogatories) this virtuous Minister of the Home
Department, and all the magistracy of Paris, spent
the first day of the massacre, the atrocity of which
has spread horror and alarm throughout Europe. It
does not appear that the putting a stop to the massacre had any part in the object of their meeting, or in their consultations when they were met. Here was
a minister tremblingly alive to his own safety, dead
to that of his fellow-citizens, eager to preserve his
place, and worse than indifferent about its most important duties. Speaking of the people, he says
"that their hidden enemies may make use of this
agitation" (the tender appellation which he gives to
horrid massacre) " to hurt their best friends and their
most able defenders. Already the example begins: let
it restrain and arrest a just rage. Indignation carried to its height commences proscriptions which fall only on the guilty, but in which error and particular
passions may shortly involve the honest man. "
He saw that the able artificers in the trade and
mystery of murder did not choose that their skill
should be unemployed after their first work, and
that they were full as ready to cut off their rivals as
their enemies. This gave him one alarm that was
serious. This letter of Roland, in every part of it,
lets out the secret of all the parties in this Revolution.
Plena rimarum est; hac atque illac perfluit. We see
that none of them condemn the occasional practice of
murder, - provided it is properly applied, -provided
it is kept within the bounds which each of those parties think proper to prescribe. In this case Roland
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 77
feared, that, if what was occasionally useful should
become habitual, the practice might go further than
was convenient. It might involve the best friends
of the last Revolution, as it had done the heroes of
the first Revolution: he feared that it would not be
confined to the La Fayettes and Clermont-Tonnerres,
the Duponts and Barnaves, but that it might extend
to the Brissots and Vergniauds, to the Condorcets,
the P6tions, and to himself. Under this apprehension there is no doubt that his humane feelings were altogether unaffected.
His observations on the massacre of the preceding
day are such as cannot be passed over. "Yesterday," said he, " was a day upon the events of which
it is perhaps necessary to leave a veil. I know that
the people with their vengeance mingled a sort of justice: they did not take for victims all who presented themselves to their fury; they directed it to them who
had for a long time been spared by the sword of the
law, and who they believed, from the peril of circumstances, should be sacrificed without delay. But I
know that it is easy to villains and traitors to misrepresent this effervescence, and that it must be checked; I know that we owe to all France the declaration, that
the executive power could not foresee or prevent this
excess; I know that it is due to the constituted authorities to place a limit to it, or consider themselves
as abolished. "
In the midst of this carnage he thinks of nothing
but throwing a veil over it, - which was at once to
cover the guilty from punishment, and to extinguish
all compassion for the sufferers. He apologizes for
it; in fact, he justifies it. He who (as the reader
has just seen in what is quoted from this letter) feels
? ? ? ? 78 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
so much indignation at " vague denunciations," when
made against himself, and from which he then feared
nothing more than the subversion of his power, is
not ashamed to consider the charge of a conspiracy
to massacre the Parisians, brought against his master
upon denunciations as vague as possible, or rather
upon no denunciations, as a perfect justification of
the monstrous proceedings against him. He is not
ashamed to call the murder of the unhappy priests
in the Carmes, who were under no criminal denunciation whatsoever, a "vengeance mingled with a sort
of justice "; he observes that they "had been a long
time spared by the sword of the law," and calls by anticipation all those who should represent this " effervescence " in other colors villains and traitors: he did not then foresee how soon himself and his accomplices would be under the necessity of assuming the
pretended character of this new sort of " villany and
treason," in the hope of obliterating the memory of
their former real villanies and treasons; he did not
foresee that in the course of six months a formal
manifesto on the part of himself and his faction, written by his confederate Brissot, was to represent this
" effervescence " as another " St. Bartholomew," and
speak of it as " having made humanity shudder, and
sullied the Revolution forever. " *
It is very remarkable that he takes upon himself
to know the motives of the assassins, their policy, and
even what they " believed. " Howv could this be, if
he had no connection with them? He praises the
murderers for not having taken as yet all the lives
of those who had, as he calls it, "presented themselves
as victims to their fury. " He paints the miserable
* See p. 12 and p. 13 of this translation.
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 79
prisoners, who had been forcibly piled upon one
another in the Church of the Carmelites by his faction, as presenting themselves as victims to their fury, -as if death was their choice, or (allowing the idiom of his language to make this equivocal) as if
they were by some accident presented to the fury of
their assassins: whereas he knew that the leaders
of the murderers sought these pure and innocent
victims in the places where they had deposited them
and were sure to find them. The very selection,
which he praises as a sort of justice tempering their
fury, proves beyond a doubt the foresight, deliberation, and method with which this massacre was
made. He knew that circumstance on the very day
of the commencement of the massacres, when, in all
probability, he had begun this letter, -- for he presented it to the Assembly on the very next.
Whilst, however, he defends these acts, he is conscious that they will appear in another light to the
world. He therefore acquits the executive power,
that is, he acquits himself, (but only by his own
assertion,) of those acts of " vengeance mixed with a
sort of justice," as an " excess which he could neither
foresee nor prevent. " He could not, he says, foresee
these acts, when he tells us the people of Paris had
sagacity so well to foresee the designs of the court
on the 10th of August, -- to foresee them so well
as to mark the precise epoch on which they were to
be executed, and to contrive to anticipate them on
the very day: he could not foresee these events,
though he declares in this very letter that victory
must bring with it some excess, - that "' the sea roars
long after the tempest. " So far as to his foresight.
As to his disposition to prevent, if he had foreseen,
? ? ? ? 80 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
the massacres of that day, -- this will be judged by
his care in putting a stop to the massacre then going
on. This was no matter of foresight: he was in the
very midst of it. He does not so much as pretend
that he had used any force to put a stop to it. But
if he had used any, the sanction given under his hand
to a sort of justice in the murderers was enough to
disarm the protecting force.
That approbation of what they had already done
had its natural effect on the executive assassins, then
in the paroxysm of their fury, as well as on their employers, then in the midst of the execution of their deliberate, cold-blooded system of murder. He did
not at all differ from either of them in the principle
of those executions, but only in the time of their duration,-and that only as it affected himself. This, though to him a great consideration, was none to his
confederates, who were at the same time his rivals.
They were encouraged to accomplish the work they
had in hand. They did accomplish it; and whilst
this grave moral epistle from a grave minister, recommending a cessation of their work of "vengeance mingled with a sort of justice," was before a grave
assembly, the authors of the massacres proceeded
without interruption in their business for four days
together, -- that is, until the seventh of that month,
and until all the victims of the first proscription in
Paris and at Versailles and several other places were
immolated at the shrine of the grim Moloch of liberty
and equality. All the priests, all the loyalists, all the
first essayists and novices of revolution in 1789, that
could be found, were promiscuously put to death.
Through the whole of this long letter of Roland, it
is curious to remark how the nerve and vigor of his
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 81
style, which had spoken so potently to his sovereign,
is relaxed when he addresses himself to the sans-culottes, - how that strength and dexterity of arm, with
which he parries and beats down the sceptre, is enfeebled and lost when he comes to fence with the
poniard. When he speaks to the populace, he can no
longer be direct. The whole compass of the language
is tried to find synonymes and circumlocutions for
massacre and murder. Things are never called by
their common names. Massacre is sometimes agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess, sometimes too continued an exercise of a revolutionary power.
However, after what had passed had been praised,
or excused, or pardoned, he declares loudly against
such proceedings in future. Crimes had pioneered
and made smooth the way for the march of the virtues, and from that time order and justice and a
sacred regard for personal property were to become
the rules for the new democracy. Here Roland and
the Brissotins leagued for their own preservation, by
endeavoring to preserve peace. This short story will
render many of the parts of Brissot's pamphlet, in
which Roland's views and intentions are so often alluded to, the more intelligible in themselves, and
the more useful in their application by the English
reader.
Under the cover of these artifices, Roland, Brissot,
and their party hoped to gain the bankers, merchants,
substantial tradesmen, hoarders of assignats, and purchasers of the confiscated lands of the clergy and gentry to join with their party, as holding out some sort of security to the effects which they possessed, whether
these effects were the acquisitions of fair commerce.
VOL. V 6
? ? ? ? 82 PREFACE TO BRISSOT S ADDRESS
or the gains of jobbing in the misfortunes of their
country and the plunder of their fellow-citizens. In
this design the party of Roland and Brissot succeeded
in a great degree. They obtained a majority in the
National Convention. Composed, however, as that
assembly is, their majority was far from steady. But
whilst they appeared to gain the Convention, and
many of the outlying departments, they lost the city
of Paris entirely and irrecoverably: it was fallen into
the hands of Marat, Robespierre, and Danton. Their
instruments were the sans-culottes, or rabble, who
domineered in that capital, and were wholly at the
devotion of those incendiaries, and received their daily
pay. The people of property were of no consequence,
and trembled before Marat and his janizaries. As
that great man had not obtained the helm of the state,
it was not yet come to his turn to act the part of Brissot and his friends in the assertion of subordination and regular government. But Robespierre has survived both these rival chiefs, and is now the great patron of Jacobin order.
To balance the exorbitant power of Paris, (which
threatened to leave nothing to the National Convention but a character as insignificant as that which the first Assembly had assigned to the unhappy Louis
the Sixteenth,) the faction of Brissot, whose leaders
were Roland, P6tion, Vergniaud, Isnard, Condorcet,
&c. , &c. , &c. , applied themselves to gain the great
commercial towns, Lyons, Marseilles, Rouen, Nantes,
and Bordeaux. The republicans of the Brissotin
description, to whom the concealed royalists, still very
numerous, joined themselves, obtained a temporary
superiority in all these places. In Bordeaux, on
account of the activity and eloquence of some of its
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 83
representatives, this superiority was the most distinguished. This last city is seated on the Garonne,
or Gironde; and being the centre of a department
named from that river, the appellation of Girondists
was given to the whole party. These, and some other
towns, declared strongly against the principles of anarchy, and against the despotism of Paris. Numerous addresses were sent to the Con. vention, promising to maintain its' authority, which the addressers were
pleased to consider as legal and constitutional, though
chosen, not to compose an executive government, but
to form a plan for a Constitution. In the Convention measures were taken to obtain an armed force
from the several departments to maintain the freedom
of that body, and to provide for the personal safety
of the members: neither of which, from the 14th of
July, 1789, to this hour, have been really enjoyed by
their assemblies sitting under any denomination.
This scheme, which was well conceived, had not
the desired success. Paris, from which the Convention did not dare to move, though some threats of
such a departure were from time to time thrown
out, was too powerful for the party of the Gironde.
Some of the proposed guards, but neither with regularity nor in force, did indeed arrive: they were
debauched as fast as they came, or were sent to the
frontiers. The game played by the revolutionists
in 1789, with respect to the French guards of the
unhappy king, was now played against the departmental guards, called together for the protection of
the revolutionists. Every part of their own policy
comes round, and strikes at their own power and
their own lives.
The Parisians, on their part, were not slow in tak
? ? ? ? 84 PREFACE TO BRISSOT S ADDRESS
ing the alarm. They had just reason to apprehend,
that, if they permitted the smallest delay, they should
see themselves besieged by an army collected from
all parts of France. Violent threats were thrown
out against that city in the Assembly. Its total
destruction was menaced. A very remarkable ex
pression was used in these debates, -" that in future
times it might be inquired on what part of the Seine
Paris had stood. " The faction which' uled in Paris,
too bold to be intimidated and too vigilant to be surprised, instantly armed themselves. In their turn,
they accused the Girondists of a treasonable design
to break the republic one and indivisible (whose unity
they contended could only be preserved by the supremacy of Paris) into a number of confederate commonwealths. The Girondin faction on this account received also the name of Federalists.
Things on both sides hastened fast to extremities.
Paris, the mother of equality, was herself to be equalized. Matters were come to this alternative: either
that city must be reduced to a mere member of the
federative republic, or the Convention, chosen, as
they said, by all France, was to be brought regularly
and systematically under the dominion of the Common Hall, and even of any one of the sections of
Paris.
In this awful contest, thus brought to issue, the
great mother club of the Jacobins was entirely in the
Parisian interest. The Girondins no longer dared
to show their faces in that assembly. Nine tenths
at least of the Jacobin clubs, throughout France, adhered to the great patriarchal Jacobinidre of Paris,
to which they were (to use their own term) affiliated. No authority of magistracy, judicial or executive,
? ?
man which leads to his power, we must not only see
what the man is, but how he stands related. It is
not to be forgotten that Mr. Fox acts in close and
inseparable connection with another gentleman of exactly the same description as himself, and who, perhaps, of the two, is the leader. The rest of the body are not a great deal more tractable; and over them,
if Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan have authority, most
assuredly the Duke of Portland has not the smallest
degree of influence.
51. One must take care that a blind partiality to
some persons, and as blind an hatred to others, may
not enter into our minds under a color of inflexible
public principle. We hear, as a reason for clinging
to Mr. Fox at present, that nine years ago Mr. Pitt
ogot into power by mischievous intrigues with the
court, with the Dissenters, and with other factious
people out of Parliament, to the discredit and weak
? ? ? ? 58 OBSERVATIONS ON THE
ening of the power of the House of Commons. -is
conduct nine years ago I still hold to be very culpable. There are, however, many things very culpable that I do not know how to punish. My opinion oin
such matters I must submit to the good of the state,
as I have done on other occasions, - and particularly with regard to the authors and managers of
the American war, with whom I have acted, both in
office and in opposition, with great confidence and
cordiality, though I thought many of their acts criminal and impeachable. Whilst the misconduct of Mr. Pitt and his associates was yet recent, it was
not possible to get Mr. Fox of himself to take a single
step, or even to countenance others in taking any
step, upon the ground of that misconduct and false
policy; though, if the matters had been then taken
up and pursued, such a step could not have appeared
so evidently desperate as now it is. So far from pursuing Mr. Pitt, I know that then, and for some time after, some of Mr. Fox's friends were actually, and
with no small earnestness, looking out to a coalition with that gentleman. For years I never heard
this circumstance of Mr. Pitt's misconduct on that
occasion mentioned by Mr. Fox, either in public or
in private, as a ground for opposition to that minister. All opposition, from that period to this very session, has proceeded upon tire separate measures
as they separately arose, without any vindictive retrospect to Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784. My memory, however, may fail me. I must appeal to the printed
debates, which (so far as Mr. Fox is concerned) are
unusually accurate.
52. Whatever might have been in our power at
an early period, at this day I see no remedy for what
? ? ? ? CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY. 59
was done in 1784. I had no great hopes even at the
time. I was therefore very eager to record a remonstrance on the journals of the House of Commons, as a caution against such a popular delusion in times to
come; and this I then feared, and now am certain,
is all that could be done. I know of no way of animadverting on the crown. I know of no mode of
calling to account the House of Lords, who threw
out the India Bill in a way not much to their credit. As little, or rather less, am I able to coerce the
people at large, who behaved very unwisely and
intemperately on that occasion. Mr. Pitt was then
accused, by me as well as others, of attempting to
be minister without enjoying the confidence of the
House of Commons, though he did enljoy the confidence of the crown. That House of Commons,
whose confidence he did not enjoy, unfortunately
did not itself enjoy the confidence (though we well
deserved it) either of the crown or of the public.
For want of that confidence, the then House of
Commons did not survive the contest. Since that
period Mr. Pitt has enjoyed the confidence of the
crown, and of the Lords, and of the House of Commons, through two successive Parliaments; and I suspect that he has ever since, and that he does
still, enjoy as large a portion, at least, of the confidence of the people without doors as his great rival. Before whom, then, is Mr. Pitt to be impeached, and
by whom? The more I consider the matter, the
more firmly I am convinced that the idea of proscribing Mr. Pitt indirectly, when you cannot directly punish him, is as chimerical a project, and as unijustifiable, as it would be to have proscribed Lord North. For supposing that by indirect ways of opposition,
? ? ? ? CGO OBSERVATIONS ON THE
by opposition upon measures which do not relate to
the business of 1784, but which on other grounds
might prove unpopular, you were to drive him from
his seat, this would be no example whatever of punishment for the matters we charge as offences in
1784. On a cool and dispassionate view of the
affairs of this time and country, it appears obvious
to me that one or the other of those two great men,
that is, Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, must be minister. They
are, I am sorry for it, irreconcilable. Mr. Fox's conduct in this session has rendered the idea of his power a matter of serious alarm to many people who were very little pleased with the proceedings of Mr.
Pitt in the beginning of his administration. They
like neither the conduct of Mr. Pitt in 1784, nor
that of Mr. Fox in 1793; but they estimate which
of the evils is most pressing at the time, and what
is likely to be the consequence of a change. If Mr.
Fox be wedded, they must be sensible that his opinions and principles on the now existing state of
things at home and abroad must be taken as his
portion. In his train must also be taken the whole
body of gentlemen who are pledged to him and to
each other, and to their common politics and principles. I believe no king of Great Britain ever will
adopt, for his confidential servants, that body of geIntlemen, holding that body of principles. Even if the
present king or his successor should think fit to take
that step, I apprehend a general discontent of those
who wish that this nation and that Europe should
continue in their'present state would ensue,- a discontent which, combined with the principles and
progress of the new men in power, would shake
this kingdom to its foundations. I do not believe
? ? ? ? CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY. 61
any one political conjecture can be more certain
than this.
53. Without at all defending or palliating Mr.
Pitt's conduct in 1784, I must observe, that the
crisis of 1793, with regard to everything at home
and abroad, is full as important as that of 1784
ever was, and, if for no other reason, by being
present, is much more important. It is not to nine
years ago we are to look for the danger of Mr. Fox's
and Mr. Sheridan's conduct, and that of the gentlemen who act with them. It is at this very time, and
in this very session, that, if they had not been strenuously resisted, they would not only have discredited the House of Commons, (as Mr. Pitt did in 1784, when he persuaded the king to reject their advice, and
to appeal from them to the people,) but, in my opinion, would have been the means of wholly subverting the House of Commons and the House of Peers, and the whole Constitution actual and virtual, together with the safety and independence of this nation, and the peace and settlement of every state ill the now Christian world. It is to our opinion of the
nature of Jacobinism, and of the probability, by
corruption, faction, and force, of its gaining ground
everywhere, that the question whom and what you
are to support is to be determined. For my part,
without doubt or hesitation, I look upon Jacobinisnm
as the most dreadful and the most shameful evil
which ever afflicted mankind, a thing which goes
beyond the power of all calculation in its mischief, -
and that, if it is suffered to exist in France, we must
in England, and speedily too, fall into that calamity.
54. I figure to myself the purpose of these gentlemen accomplished, and this ministry destroyed. I
? ? ? ? 62 OBSERVATIONS ON THE
see that the persons who in that case must rule can
be no other than Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey,
the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Thurlow, Lord Lauderdale, and the Duke of Norfolk, with the other
chiefs of the Friends of the People, the Parliamentary
reformers, and the admirers of the French Revolution.
The principal of these are all formally pledged to their
projects. If the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam should be admitted into that system, (as they
might and probably would be,) it is quite certain
they could not have the smallest weight in it, - less,
indeed, than what they now possess, if less were possible: because they would be less wanted than they
now are; and because all those who wished to join
them, and to act under them, have been rejected by
the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam themselves; and Mr. Fox, finding them thus by themselves disarmed, has built quite a new fabric, upon quite a new foundation. There is no trifling on this
subject. We see very distinctly before us the ministry that would be formed and the plan that would
be pursued. If we like the plan, we must wish the
power of those who are to carry it into execution;
but to pursue the political exaltation of those whose
political measures we disapprove and whose principles we dissent from is a species of modern politics
not easily comprehensible, and which must end in
the ruin of the country, if it should continue and
spread. Mr. Pitt may be the worst of men, and
Mr. Fox may be the best; but, at present, the former
is in the interest of his country, and of the order of
things long established in Europe: Mr. Fox is not.
I have, for one, been born in this order of things,
aid would fain die in it. I am sure it is sufficient
? ? ? ? CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY. 63
to make men as virtuous, as happy, and as' knowing
as anything which Mr. Fox, and his friends abroad
or at home, would substitute in its place; and I
should be sorry that any set of politicians should obtain power in England whose principles or schemes should lead them to countenance persons or factions whose object is to introduce some new devised order of things into England, or to support that order where it is already introduced, in France, --a place in which if it can be fixed, in my mind, it must
have a certain and decided influtence in and upon this
kingdom.
This is my account of my conduct to my private
friends. I have already said all I wish to say, or
nearly so, to the public. I write this with pain and
with an heart full of grief.
? ? ? ? PREFACE
TO THE
ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT
TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. TRANSLATED BY
THE LATE WILLIAM BURKE, ESQ. I79 4.
VOL. V. 5
? ? ? ? PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS.
T HE French Revolution has been the subject of
various speculations and various histories. As
might be expected, the royalists and the republicans
have differed a good deal in their accounts of the
principles of that Revolution, of the springs which
have set it in motion, and of the true character of
those who have been, or still are, the principal actors
on that astonishing scene.
They who are inclined to think favorably of that
event will undoubtedly object to every state of facts
which comes only from the authority of a royalist.
Thus much must be allowed by those who are the
most firmly attached to the cause of religion, law,
and order, (for of such, and not of friends to despotism, the royal party is composed,)- that their very affection to this generous and manly cause, and their
abhorrence of a Revolution not less fatal to liberty
than to government, may possibly lead them in some
particulars to a more harsh representation of the proceedings of their adversaries than would be allowed by the cold neutrality of an impartial judge. This
sort of error arises from a source highly laudable;
but the exactness of truth may suffer even from the
feelings of virtue. History will do justice to the intentions of worthy men, but it will be on its guard against their infirmities; it will examine with great
? ? ? ? 68 PREFACE TO BRISSOT S ADDRESS
strictness of scrutiny whatever appears from a writer
in favor of his own cause. On the other hand, whatever escapes him, and makes against that cause,
comes with the greatest weight.
In this important controversy, the translator of the
following work brings forward to the English tribunal of opinion the testimony of a witness beyond all
exception. His competence is undoubted. He knows
everything which concerns this Revolution to the bottom. He is a chief actor in all the scenes which he
presents. No man can object to him as a royalist:
the royal party, and the Christian religion, never had
a more determined enemy. In a word, it is BRISSOT.
It is Brissot, the republican, the Jacobin, and the
philosopher, who is brought to give an account of
Jacobinism, and of republicanism, and of philosopliy.
It is worthy of observation, that this his account
of the genius of Jacobinism and its effects is not confined to the period in which that faction came to be
divided within itself. In several, and those very importalt particulars, Brissot's observations apply to
the whole of the preceding period before the great
schism, and whilst the Jacobins acted as one body;
insomuch that the far greater part of the proceedings
of the ruling powers since the commencement of the
Revolution in France, so strikingly painted, so strongly and so justly reprobated by Brissot, were the acts
of Brissot himself and his associates. All the members of the Girondin subdivision were as deeply concerned as any of the Mountain could possibly be, and some of them much more deeply, in those horrid
transactions which have filled all the thinking part
of Eulope with the greatest detestation, and with the
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 69
most serious apprehensions for the common liberty
and safety.
A question will very naturally be asked, -- What
could induce Brissot to draw such a picture? He
must have been sensible it was his own. The answer is, --The inducement was the same with that which led him to partake in the perpetration of all
the crimes the calamitous effects of which he describes with the pen of a master, -- ambition. His faction, having obtained their stupendous and unnatural power by rooting out of the minds of his unhappy countrymen every principle of religion, morality, loyalty, fidelity, and honor, discovered, that, when authority came into their hands, it would be a
matter of no small difficulty for them to carry on
government on the principles by which they had
destroyed it.
The rights of men and the new principles of liberty and equality were very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of tranquillity
and order. They who were taught to find nothing
to respect in the title and in the virtues of Louis the
Sixteenth, a prince succeeding to the throne by the
fundamental laws, in the line of a succession of monarchs continued for fourteen hundred years, found nothing which could bind them to an implicit fidelity
and dutiful allegiance to Messrs. Brissot, Vergniaud,
Condorcet, Anacharsis Clootz, and Thomas Paine.
In this difficulty, they did as well as they could.
To govern the people, they must incline the people
to obey. The work was difficult, but it was necessary. They were to accomplish it by such materials
and by such instruments as they had in their hands. 'I'ley were to accomplish the purposes of order, mo
? ? ? ? v70 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
rality, and submission to the laws, from the principles
of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. Ill as the disguise became them, they began to assume the mask
of an austere and rigid virtue; they exhausted all the
stores of their eloquence (which in some of them were
not inconsiderable) in declamations against tumult
and confusion; they made daily harangues on the
blessings of order, discipline, quiet, and obedience
to authority; they even showed some sort of disposition to protect such property as had not been confiscated. They who on every occasion had discovered a sort of furious thirst of blood and a greedy appetite
for slaughter, who avowed and gloried in the murders
and massacres of the 14th of July, of the 5th and 6th
of October, and of the 10th of August, now began to
be squeamish and fastidious with regard to those of
the 2nd of September.
In their pretended scruples on the sequel of the
slaughter of the 10th of August, they imposed upon
no living creature, and they obtained not the smallest credit for humanity. They endeavored to establish a distinction, by the belief of which they hoped to keep the spirit of murder safely bottled up and sealed
for their own purposes, without endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison which they prepared for their enemies.
Roland was the chief and the most accredited of
the faction. His morals had furnished little matter
of exception against him. Old, domestic, and uxorious, he led a private life sufficiently blameless. He
was therefore set up as the Cato of the republican party, which did not abound in such characters.
This man, like most of the chiefs, was the manager of a newspaper, in which he promoted the in
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 71
terest of his party. He was a fatal present made by
the revolutionists to the unhappy king, as one of his
ministers under the new Constitution. Amongst his
colleagues were Clavidre and Servan. All the three
have since that time either lost their heads by the
axe of their associates in rebellion, or, to evade their
own revolutionary justice, have fallen by their own
hands.
These ministers were regarded by the king as in
a conspiracy to dethrone him. Nobody who considers the circumstances which preceded the deposition of Louis the Sixteenth, nobody who attends to the
subsequent conduct of those ministers, can hesitate
about the reality of such a conspiracy. The king
certainly had no doubt of it; he found himself
obliged to remove them; and the necessity, which
first obliged him to choose such regicide ministers
constrained him to replace them by Dumouriez the
Jacobin, and some others of little efficiency, though
of a better description.
A little before this removal, and evidently as a
part of the conspiracy, Roland put into the king's
hands, as a memorial, the most insolent, seditious,
and atrocious libel that has probably ever been
penned. This paper Roland a few days after delivered to the National Assembly,* who instantly published and dispersed it over all France; and in
order to give it the stronger operation, they declared
that he and his brother ministers had carried with
them the regret of the nation.
None of the writings
which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage
fitry ever worked up a fiercer ferment through the
* Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding
o10! (iaV. - - TRANSLATOR.
? ? ? ? 72 PREFACE TO BRISSOT' S ADDRESS
whole mass of the republicans in every part of
France.
Under the thin veil of prediction, he strongly recommends all the abominable practices which afterwards
followed. In particular, he inflamed the minds of
the populace against the respectable and conscientious clergy, who became the chief objects of the
massacre, and who were to him the chief objects of
a malignity and rancor that one could hardly think
to exist in an human heart.
We have the relics of his fanatical persecution
here. We are in a condition to judge of the merits of the persecutors and of the persecuted: I do
not say the accusers and accused; because, in all
the furious declamations of the atheistic faction
against these men, not one specific charge has been
made upon any one person of those who suffered in
their massacre or by their decree of exile.
The king had declared that he would sooner perish under their axe (he too well saw what was preparing for him) than give his sanction to the iniquitous act of proscription under which those innocent people were to be transported.
On this proscription of the clergy a principal part
of the ostensible quarrel between the king and those
ministers had turned. From the time of the authorized publication of this libel, some of the manoeuvres
long and uniformly pursued for the king's deposition
became more and more evident and declared.
The 10th of August came on, and in the manner
in which Roland had predicted: it was followed by
the same consequences. The king was deposed, after cruel massacres in the courts and the apartments
of his palace and in almost all parts of the city. In
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 73
reward of his treason to his old master, Roland was
by his new masters named Minister of the Home Department.
The massacres of the 2nd of September were begotten by the massacres of the 10th of August. They
were universally foreseen and hourly expected. During this short interval between the two murderous
scenes, the furies, male and female, cried out havoc
as loudly and as fiercely as ever. The ordinary jails
were all filled with prepared victims; and when they
overflowed, churches were turned into jails. At this
time the relentless Roland had the care of the general police;-he had for his colleague the bloody
Danton, who was Minister of Justice; the insidious
Petion was Mayor of Paris; the treacherous Manuel was Procurator of the Common Hall. The magistrates (some or all of them) were evidently the authors of this massacre. Lest the national guard
should, by their very name, be reminded of their
duty in preserving the lives of their fellow-citizens,
the Common Council of Paris, pretending that it
was in vain to think of resisting the murderers,
(although in truth neither their numbers nor their
arms were at all formidable,) obliged those guards
to draw the charges from their muskets, and took
away their bayonets. One of their journalists, and,
according to their fashion, one of their leading statesmen, Gorsas, mentions this fact in his newspaper,
which he formerly called the Galley Journal. The
title was well suited to the paper and its author.
For some felonies he had been sentenced to the galleys; but, by the benignity of the late king, this
felon (to be one day advanced to the rank of a regicide) had been pardoned and released at the inter
? ? ? ? 74 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
cession of the ambassadors of Tippoo Sultan. His
gratitude was such as might naturally have been
expected; and it has lately been rewarded as it deserved. This liberated galley-slave was raised, in
mockery of all criminal law, to be Minister of Justice: he became from his elevation a more conspicuous object of accusation, and he has since received
tile punishment of his former crimes in proscription
and death.
It will be asked, how the Minister of the Home
Department was employed at this crisis. The day
after the massacre had commenced, Roland appeared; but not with the powerful apparatus of a
protecting magistrate, to rescue those who had survived the slaughter of the first day: nothing of this.
On the 3rd of September, (that is, the day after the
commencement of the massacre,*) he writes a long,
elaborate, verbose epistle to the Assembly, in which,
after magnifying, according to the bon-ton of the Revolution, his'own integrity, humanity, courage, and
patriotism, he first directly justifies all the bloody
proceedings of the 10th of August. He considers
the slaughter of that day as a necessary measure for
defeating a conspiracy which (with a full knowledge
of the falsehood of his assertion) he asserts to have
been formed for a massacre of the people of Paris,
and which he more than insinuates was the work
of his late unhappy master, --who was universally
known to carry his dread of shedding the blood of
his most guilty subjects to an excess.
" Without the day of the 10th," says he, " it is evident that we should have been lost. The court, pre* Letter to the National Assembly, signed, The Minister of the Interior, ROLAND; dated Paris, Sept. 3rd, 4th year of Liberty.
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 75
pared for a long time, waited for the hour which was
to accumulate all treasons, to display over Paris the
standard of death, and to reign there by terror. The
sense of the people, (le sentiment,) always just and
ready when their opinion is not corrupted, foresaw
the epoch marked for their destruction, and rendered
it fatal to the conspirators. " He then proceeds, in
the cant which has been applied to palliate all their
atrocities from the 14th of July, 1789, to the present
time: --" It is in the nature of things," continues
he, " and in that of the human heart, that victory
should bring with it some excess. The sea, agitated
by a violent storm, roars long after the tempest; but
everything has bounds, which ought at length to be observed. "
In this memorable epistle, he considers such excesses as fatalities arising from the very nature of things, and consequently not to be punished. He
allows a space of time for the duration of these agitations; and lest he should be thought rigid and too scanty in his measure, he thinks it may be long.
But he would have things to cease at length. But
when? and where? - When they may approach his
own person.
" Yesterday," says he, " the ministers were denounced: vaguely, indeed, as to the matter, because subjects of reproach were wanting; but with that
warmth and force of assertion which strike the imagination and seduce it for a moment, and which mislead and destroy confidence, without which no
man should remain in place in a free government.
Yesterday, again, in an assembly of the presidents
of all the sections, convoked by the ministers, with
the view of conciliating all minds, and of mutual
? ? ? ? 76 PREFACE TO BRISSOT' S ADDRESS
explanation, I perceived that distrust which suspects,
interrogates, and fetters operations. "
In this manner (that is, in mutual suspicions and
interrogatories) this virtuous Minister of the Home
Department, and all the magistracy of Paris, spent
the first day of the massacre, the atrocity of which
has spread horror and alarm throughout Europe. It
does not appear that the putting a stop to the massacre had any part in the object of their meeting, or in their consultations when they were met. Here was
a minister tremblingly alive to his own safety, dead
to that of his fellow-citizens, eager to preserve his
place, and worse than indifferent about its most important duties. Speaking of the people, he says
"that their hidden enemies may make use of this
agitation" (the tender appellation which he gives to
horrid massacre) " to hurt their best friends and their
most able defenders. Already the example begins: let
it restrain and arrest a just rage. Indignation carried to its height commences proscriptions which fall only on the guilty, but in which error and particular
passions may shortly involve the honest man. "
He saw that the able artificers in the trade and
mystery of murder did not choose that their skill
should be unemployed after their first work, and
that they were full as ready to cut off their rivals as
their enemies. This gave him one alarm that was
serious. This letter of Roland, in every part of it,
lets out the secret of all the parties in this Revolution.
Plena rimarum est; hac atque illac perfluit. We see
that none of them condemn the occasional practice of
murder, - provided it is properly applied, -provided
it is kept within the bounds which each of those parties think proper to prescribe. In this case Roland
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 77
feared, that, if what was occasionally useful should
become habitual, the practice might go further than
was convenient. It might involve the best friends
of the last Revolution, as it had done the heroes of
the first Revolution: he feared that it would not be
confined to the La Fayettes and Clermont-Tonnerres,
the Duponts and Barnaves, but that it might extend
to the Brissots and Vergniauds, to the Condorcets,
the P6tions, and to himself. Under this apprehension there is no doubt that his humane feelings were altogether unaffected.
His observations on the massacre of the preceding
day are such as cannot be passed over. "Yesterday," said he, " was a day upon the events of which
it is perhaps necessary to leave a veil. I know that
the people with their vengeance mingled a sort of justice: they did not take for victims all who presented themselves to their fury; they directed it to them who
had for a long time been spared by the sword of the
law, and who they believed, from the peril of circumstances, should be sacrificed without delay. But I
know that it is easy to villains and traitors to misrepresent this effervescence, and that it must be checked; I know that we owe to all France the declaration, that
the executive power could not foresee or prevent this
excess; I know that it is due to the constituted authorities to place a limit to it, or consider themselves
as abolished. "
In the midst of this carnage he thinks of nothing
but throwing a veil over it, - which was at once to
cover the guilty from punishment, and to extinguish
all compassion for the sufferers. He apologizes for
it; in fact, he justifies it. He who (as the reader
has just seen in what is quoted from this letter) feels
? ? ? ? 78 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
so much indignation at " vague denunciations," when
made against himself, and from which he then feared
nothing more than the subversion of his power, is
not ashamed to consider the charge of a conspiracy
to massacre the Parisians, brought against his master
upon denunciations as vague as possible, or rather
upon no denunciations, as a perfect justification of
the monstrous proceedings against him. He is not
ashamed to call the murder of the unhappy priests
in the Carmes, who were under no criminal denunciation whatsoever, a "vengeance mingled with a sort
of justice "; he observes that they "had been a long
time spared by the sword of the law," and calls by anticipation all those who should represent this " effervescence " in other colors villains and traitors: he did not then foresee how soon himself and his accomplices would be under the necessity of assuming the
pretended character of this new sort of " villany and
treason," in the hope of obliterating the memory of
their former real villanies and treasons; he did not
foresee that in the course of six months a formal
manifesto on the part of himself and his faction, written by his confederate Brissot, was to represent this
" effervescence " as another " St. Bartholomew," and
speak of it as " having made humanity shudder, and
sullied the Revolution forever. " *
It is very remarkable that he takes upon himself
to know the motives of the assassins, their policy, and
even what they " believed. " Howv could this be, if
he had no connection with them? He praises the
murderers for not having taken as yet all the lives
of those who had, as he calls it, "presented themselves
as victims to their fury. " He paints the miserable
* See p. 12 and p. 13 of this translation.
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 79
prisoners, who had been forcibly piled upon one
another in the Church of the Carmelites by his faction, as presenting themselves as victims to their fury, -as if death was their choice, or (allowing the idiom of his language to make this equivocal) as if
they were by some accident presented to the fury of
their assassins: whereas he knew that the leaders
of the murderers sought these pure and innocent
victims in the places where they had deposited them
and were sure to find them. The very selection,
which he praises as a sort of justice tempering their
fury, proves beyond a doubt the foresight, deliberation, and method with which this massacre was
made. He knew that circumstance on the very day
of the commencement of the massacres, when, in all
probability, he had begun this letter, -- for he presented it to the Assembly on the very next.
Whilst, however, he defends these acts, he is conscious that they will appear in another light to the
world. He therefore acquits the executive power,
that is, he acquits himself, (but only by his own
assertion,) of those acts of " vengeance mixed with a
sort of justice," as an " excess which he could neither
foresee nor prevent. " He could not, he says, foresee
these acts, when he tells us the people of Paris had
sagacity so well to foresee the designs of the court
on the 10th of August, -- to foresee them so well
as to mark the precise epoch on which they were to
be executed, and to contrive to anticipate them on
the very day: he could not foresee these events,
though he declares in this very letter that victory
must bring with it some excess, - that "' the sea roars
long after the tempest. " So far as to his foresight.
As to his disposition to prevent, if he had foreseen,
? ? ? ? 80 PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS
the massacres of that day, -- this will be judged by
his care in putting a stop to the massacre then going
on. This was no matter of foresight: he was in the
very midst of it. He does not so much as pretend
that he had used any force to put a stop to it. But
if he had used any, the sanction given under his hand
to a sort of justice in the murderers was enough to
disarm the protecting force.
That approbation of what they had already done
had its natural effect on the executive assassins, then
in the paroxysm of their fury, as well as on their employers, then in the midst of the execution of their deliberate, cold-blooded system of murder. He did
not at all differ from either of them in the principle
of those executions, but only in the time of their duration,-and that only as it affected himself. This, though to him a great consideration, was none to his
confederates, who were at the same time his rivals.
They were encouraged to accomplish the work they
had in hand. They did accomplish it; and whilst
this grave moral epistle from a grave minister, recommending a cessation of their work of "vengeance mingled with a sort of justice," was before a grave
assembly, the authors of the massacres proceeded
without interruption in their business for four days
together, -- that is, until the seventh of that month,
and until all the victims of the first proscription in
Paris and at Versailles and several other places were
immolated at the shrine of the grim Moloch of liberty
and equality. All the priests, all the loyalists, all the
first essayists and novices of revolution in 1789, that
could be found, were promiscuously put to death.
Through the whole of this long letter of Roland, it
is curious to remark how the nerve and vigor of his
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 81
style, which had spoken so potently to his sovereign,
is relaxed when he addresses himself to the sans-culottes, - how that strength and dexterity of arm, with
which he parries and beats down the sceptre, is enfeebled and lost when he comes to fence with the
poniard. When he speaks to the populace, he can no
longer be direct. The whole compass of the language
is tried to find synonymes and circumlocutions for
massacre and murder. Things are never called by
their common names. Massacre is sometimes agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess, sometimes too continued an exercise of a revolutionary power.
However, after what had passed had been praised,
or excused, or pardoned, he declares loudly against
such proceedings in future. Crimes had pioneered
and made smooth the way for the march of the virtues, and from that time order and justice and a
sacred regard for personal property were to become
the rules for the new democracy. Here Roland and
the Brissotins leagued for their own preservation, by
endeavoring to preserve peace. This short story will
render many of the parts of Brissot's pamphlet, in
which Roland's views and intentions are so often alluded to, the more intelligible in themselves, and
the more useful in their application by the English
reader.
Under the cover of these artifices, Roland, Brissot,
and their party hoped to gain the bankers, merchants,
substantial tradesmen, hoarders of assignats, and purchasers of the confiscated lands of the clergy and gentry to join with their party, as holding out some sort of security to the effects which they possessed, whether
these effects were the acquisitions of fair commerce.
VOL. V 6
? ? ? ? 82 PREFACE TO BRISSOT S ADDRESS
or the gains of jobbing in the misfortunes of their
country and the plunder of their fellow-citizens. In
this design the party of Roland and Brissot succeeded
in a great degree. They obtained a majority in the
National Convention. Composed, however, as that
assembly is, their majority was far from steady. But
whilst they appeared to gain the Convention, and
many of the outlying departments, they lost the city
of Paris entirely and irrecoverably: it was fallen into
the hands of Marat, Robespierre, and Danton. Their
instruments were the sans-culottes, or rabble, who
domineered in that capital, and were wholly at the
devotion of those incendiaries, and received their daily
pay. The people of property were of no consequence,
and trembled before Marat and his janizaries. As
that great man had not obtained the helm of the state,
it was not yet come to his turn to act the part of Brissot and his friends in the assertion of subordination and regular government. But Robespierre has survived both these rival chiefs, and is now the great patron of Jacobin order.
To balance the exorbitant power of Paris, (which
threatened to leave nothing to the National Convention but a character as insignificant as that which the first Assembly had assigned to the unhappy Louis
the Sixteenth,) the faction of Brissot, whose leaders
were Roland, P6tion, Vergniaud, Isnard, Condorcet,
&c. , &c. , &c. , applied themselves to gain the great
commercial towns, Lyons, Marseilles, Rouen, Nantes,
and Bordeaux. The republicans of the Brissotin
description, to whom the concealed royalists, still very
numerous, joined themselves, obtained a temporary
superiority in all these places. In Bordeaux, on
account of the activity and eloquence of some of its
? ? ? ? TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 83
representatives, this superiority was the most distinguished. This last city is seated on the Garonne,
or Gironde; and being the centre of a department
named from that river, the appellation of Girondists
was given to the whole party. These, and some other
towns, declared strongly against the principles of anarchy, and against the despotism of Paris. Numerous addresses were sent to the Con. vention, promising to maintain its' authority, which the addressers were
pleased to consider as legal and constitutional, though
chosen, not to compose an executive government, but
to form a plan for a Constitution. In the Convention measures were taken to obtain an armed force
from the several departments to maintain the freedom
of that body, and to provide for the personal safety
of the members: neither of which, from the 14th of
July, 1789, to this hour, have been really enjoyed by
their assemblies sitting under any denomination.
This scheme, which was well conceived, had not
the desired success. Paris, from which the Convention did not dare to move, though some threats of
such a departure were from time to time thrown
out, was too powerful for the party of the Gironde.
Some of the proposed guards, but neither with regularity nor in force, did indeed arrive: they were
debauched as fast as they came, or were sent to the
frontiers. The game played by the revolutionists
in 1789, with respect to the French guards of the
unhappy king, was now played against the departmental guards, called together for the protection of
the revolutionists. Every part of their own policy
comes round, and strikes at their own power and
their own lives.
The Parisians, on their part, were not slow in tak
? ? ? ? 84 PREFACE TO BRISSOT S ADDRESS
ing the alarm. They had just reason to apprehend,
that, if they permitted the smallest delay, they should
see themselves besieged by an army collected from
all parts of France. Violent threats were thrown
out against that city in the Assembly. Its total
destruction was menaced. A very remarkable ex
pression was used in these debates, -" that in future
times it might be inquired on what part of the Seine
Paris had stood. " The faction which' uled in Paris,
too bold to be intimidated and too vigilant to be surprised, instantly armed themselves. In their turn,
they accused the Girondists of a treasonable design
to break the republic one and indivisible (whose unity
they contended could only be preserved by the supremacy of Paris) into a number of confederate commonwealths. The Girondin faction on this account received also the name of Federalists.
Things on both sides hastened fast to extremities.
Paris, the mother of equality, was herself to be equalized. Matters were come to this alternative: either
that city must be reduced to a mere member of the
federative republic, or the Convention, chosen, as
they said, by all France, was to be brought regularly
and systematically under the dominion of the Common Hall, and even of any one of the sections of
Paris.
In this awful contest, thus brought to issue, the
great mother club of the Jacobins was entirely in the
Parisian interest. The Girondins no longer dared
to show their faces in that assembly. Nine tenths
at least of the Jacobin clubs, throughout France, adhered to the great patriarchal Jacobinidre of Paris,
to which they were (to use their own term) affiliated. No authority of magistracy, judicial or executive,
? ?
