Chapter 23

Page: 18-33

CHAPTER XXIII.

The first deception of the second assembly; what it was; illusory calculation of the departments to mislead the people; the first test of the legislative forces against the king; the brissotins and Maratistes; various reflections; the system of the Jacobins; a portrait.

The first deception of the second assembly was to be carried out in light of the current national situation. In other words, it was necessary that it follow quite exactly

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the alleged account given by Montesque which, in turn, was only a copy of the one delivered by Mr. Necker. What was needed was a comparison of the fortune of the kingdom before the revolution with that of the present moment when it was given the responsibility of governing it. It is universally recognized in politics that the misfortune or prosperity of an empire depends entirely on finances.

Thus it was necessary to state that it helped a hundred thousand heads of families who had lost their means of livelihood; that it restored obedience; that it had the means to raise enough forces to put down the popular tyranny; and that it worked on the errors of the new constitution in the same way that the Constituent Assembly had claimed to work on the abuses prior to its mission.

It presented its actions in the most positive light possible. For instance, it took a singular stance in taking care of the mass of the turmoil without favoritism or allowing itself to be dominated by any party that wanted the disorder to continue. However, one could sense the direction it was headed in by the falseness of its statistics which were intended to dupe the people.

For example, look at this declaration by one department. Following a

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pompous preamble it boasts to all its communes: “You are now better off, and here is the proof:
Previously tariffs and indirect taxes amounted to.......... 9,239,029 liv.
Now they amount to only……… ………........................ 7,059,247.
Thus you are now paying 2,179, 782 liv. less in taxes!
So, here you see the benefits of the new order of things! “

Poor people, you are being deceived! What these figures don’t show is that the incomes of those who provided your livelihood have been cut in half, thus the rich people are no longer able to provide you with more work. And they don’t show you that your resources have vanished; that the taxes on salt and tobacco, which never really cost much but which you made a big deal about, have now been converted into an exorbitant tax on every other commodity because merchants are now making you pay for their cost increases levied through the stamp tax, licenses, increased rent, and higher costs on raw materials, etc. etc.

Now if a tradesman goes to a cabaret, he will pay 12 S. for the same wine which cost him only 8 before the indirect taxes were abolished. And that isn’t all. Fraud, which was difficult to get away with when there were inspectors, can now be carried out with impunity. When it comes to merchants, they can be easily fooled. Good

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faith lies at the heart of commerce but guile has replaced it. As for the people, they are being told that they are now much better off too, and that they must express their satisfaction! I don’t know who the monk was, but he said to a victim being executed on the rack, “My friend, be comforted. Your suffering is for your own good because you now stand at the gates of paradise.”

What is the cause of the dreadful disorder which is afflicting France? It is the new order of things. It is bad because it produces illusions which result in much discontent.

Now it’s being said that the aristocrats didn’t want what was good, so they burned their own castles and destroyed their own estates. What pitiful reasoning! The aristocratic noble (since the term ‘aristocrat’ has been altered by the rabble), wants to enjoy the property which he holds from his forefathers. The aristocrat priest wants his church to have one head. The reasonable aristocrat, in whatever form, wants to be a sovereign subject to laws, and doesn’t want to be regulated by a sect which aims to control the world – an elite which sends out apostles to stir up passions and fan the fires of discord and, who, finally employ the most atrocious means to establish and cement

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a universal despotism. All this is in vain, say I, because its morals will not take hold and waking up to reason will be terrible.

But since there are many contrary opinions espoused by prominent parties, to which must one give preference? One needs neutral judges to decide this question, but who are they? The judges are the foreign nations.

Germany hates the Jacobins; the Russian, Prussian, Sarde and Dane the méprisent. The Swiss in Bern and the English - no power wants to recognize the French government and no nation wants to deal with the national assembly. Nations which judge us are at the optical focal point for seeing ourselves well. They don’t want to relate to people who display every kind of madness; they only want to deal with people who are reasonable, not extreme.

The revolution owes its atrocious character to the violence that was proposed by those who wanted to set fire to all empires and to disorganize them. “It is necessary,” Brissot said, “to set the four corners of Europe ablaze; it is our only salvation.” Wouldn’t it be simpler to appeal to reason and to consult it?

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This Brissot was a disgruntled foreman, driven out of Boulogne-sur-Mer, who became: the regulator of one hundred million people because he wanted to control all of Europe. It is always amazing how great effects can be ignited by small causes.

The duke of Brunswick makes a proclamation. It is received initially by jeers and then by 25 or 30 thousand deaths, followed by the downfall of the French throne. And what was behind all these astonishing events? Merely a pack of hotheads led by some mad English dogs. This is the truth.

Furthermore, Franklin said, along with many others, that whoever would carry Christian principles into the realm of politics would change the face of the world. While equality and fraternity changed only the face of France, everywhere else it was felt that Christian morals and politics must be done differently.

Louis XVI accepted the constitution but it was obvious he was constrained by circumstances to do so since the defects he had found in it three months previously still remained. Furthermore, this mania to have a written and public constitution will

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generally take place at the expense of common sense. Human rights, the eternal germ of discord; royal democracy; the absurd level of equality; and a thousand other political monstrosities supported by a multitude of young scatterbrains, have formed a government so vicious that the executive power couldn’t do a thing without the consent of the rabble.

It was during this crisis that the legislative assembly took the reins of the state. Dazzled by the apparatus, and astonished by the authority which had handed them the scepter, the legislative assembly made an oath to support this constitution which it perfectly knew contained many defects.

One cannot doubt there were indeed some clear-thinking men in the constituent assembly but, unfortunately, all were delivered over to the spirit of partisan politics and thus left corrupted. Undoubtedly there were also a large number of wise people whom the circumstances had simply rendered impotent.

But the legislative assembly found itself with less talent to draw upon. It consisted of merchants, buyers and proud farmers who took pleasure in the power of dominating others; young people without experience; and vain

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spokesmen for society who believed themselves to be important characters because they could utter catchy slogans and thus pride themselves on their presumptuous impudence.

The first test of its powers was directed at the executive branch. It began with suppressing the words ‘lord’ and ‘majesty’, and it reveled in having muted any reverential attributes of the monarch. Initially this was met with regret and indignation because this broke the last vestige of attachment the people had with their king. A decree was proclaimed that made the president equivalent to the sovereign, while others worked on the masses so as to deflect any residual notion of respect attached to the word ‘king’.

The intentions of this second assembly could be clearly guessed, and one didn’t have long to wait to be disappointed. Hardly had the legislative assembly been installed than it forgot all about its oaths, openly declaring war on its predecessors, the king, his ministers, and all the sovereigns of Europe. So now a new fanaticism arose on the heels of its predecessor, and a fury more devastating and stronger than the first burst forth with a bang.

The king, stripped of his authority, thought only of following his constitutional line,

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being persuaded that this course would be wise in order to obtain, at least for his friends, some semblance of order and tranquility. He was mistaken. The minority was wholly swamped by the pride, clamor and hostility of passionate orators that were propagated in a turbulent municipality, all of which put an end to his projects. The king remained faithful to his oath, which wasn’t welcome because the great art of the factious ones was to show his evils which they spread with profusion.

The legislative assembly opened its meetings in October 1792, and in the first days of November it had issued a decree which condemned to death all emigrants who had not returned by January 1. The king, under the terms of his prerogatives, refused to sanction this atrocious decree. Good in theory, he hoped to induce the emigrants to return by gentler means. Indeed, wouldn’t it be better to employ the language of persuasion? But a burgeoning of emigrants had alarmed the people, so more stringent means were thought necessary so as not to exacerbate the problem. The soft and pure reasons of the king to refuse sanctioning such an odious decree,

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were clearly expressed in letters to his brother, but these were totally disregarded because only his faults were to be made public. This was the aim of the party which couldn’t establish its authority unless the sovereign had been discredited in the court of public opinion. One cannot, without disgust, look upon the dreadful trials which Louis XVI faced.

The assembly was occupied only with inflaming the people; with decrying against the suspensive veto [of the king]; with making odious caricatures [of the royal family], and crafting nasty songs to the extent that the king and his family couldn’t even breathe air without it being deemed an outrage.The king tried to call three outstanding men to be his counsel and form the dominant faction, but all three betrayed him. Roland wrote an insulting letter to him and Servan acted unworthily. The Jacobins then had a very large preponderance. This party contained at its centre the germs of all the misfortunes of France. It produced the most vehement conspirators and openly preached revolt.
It dared to create power and often forced the legislators to enact cruel laws. It instituted denunciations and arbitrary incarcerations so that every vexation possible emerged from this infernal cave. Thus

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the French were divided into two classes: the oppressors and the oppressed.

The Jacobin club was only one workshop of intrigue, but it was the rallying point for all the bad subjects of the kingdom. It was the sewer where the most immoral, impure and atrocious elements of all the clubs met. What they did en masse, and what the Jacobins did as individuals within their club are things that would make your hair stand on end. Jacobins and scélérat (rotten rascals) are words that have become synonymous.

As soon as this club was established, it presented to the public a sinister face. It was not concerned with freedom or equity, nor with riches except for itself. It was a gathering of turbulent people who were burdened with debts or driven out of employment and who wanted to reverse their fortunes by capitalizing on the wreckage of society.

To dominate the public spirit, it seized the newspapers and proposed affiliations with all the cities. It was Jesuitism renewed in another form. Having become the controllers of public opinion, the Jacobins denounced as an unpatriotic enemy of the state anyone who saw clearly or sensed the danger of this new inquisition.

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Then personal vendettas were unleashed and the turmoil attracted its snakes. The ramifications of Jacobinism spread over the whole of France. The art of sedition was professed and armies of brigands, sabre and pike in hand, were the apostles of its doctrines.

Within the Jacobins there were two quite prominent parties, the Brissotins and Maratistes. The first had a particular vocabulary consisting of words like order, human rights, respect, and popular sovereignty. The second spoke only about agrarian laws, equality in wealth, patriotism, and finally of havoc, law and assassination. As these groups grew in audacity, they dominated all others. After this victory, officials were sent into the departments for the purpose of extermination and all those who weren’t found to be Jacobin were plundered, sent to prison, or killed.

Ferocious men were placed in the ministry, in the armies, and the management of the Tuileries which was nothing more than a den of tigers. “Bring a goblet of blood to the man,” said a right-winger. “He is thirsty!” - “Bathe these men in a bathtub of the blood of patriots!” replied the members on the left.

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Thus they prostituted themselves on both sides within the sanctuary of law. Jacobins said openly that all property was public, and that only patriots deserved to be spared.

One cannot doubt that their objectives were:
1. To make a general revolution out of the French revolution;
2. To cut down all thrones;
3. To have an armed democracy without limits;
4. To despoil all businesses for the purpose of redistributing wealth;
5. To effect this redistribution exclusively by the hands of the sans-culottes;
6. To conquer and nourish the war through finances derived from plundering.

This plan was traced by Cambon [a merchant of Montpellier or Toulouse, known to be a rascal] and a letter of Brissot is known to exist which declares, ”Dumourier does not agree; one needs a Miranda.”

Such were the reasons for the war.

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To unleash an enormous mass of furious people, forces more powerful than cannons were employed namely, covetousness, hatred, independence, selfish interest and vanity, and crime with impunity. As a substitute for paper currency, plunder was the new medium of exchange. Because of this, one saw formidable masses enlisting in the army, as if enchanted, not only to fight but for self-preservation, so eventually all of France resembled one big army barracks. But how does one pay for so many soldiers when the state has no regular income? Simply by pillaging with one hand and paying out with the other. This is what reduced the regime to a military republic.

And this is why little concern was given to the arts, crafts, factories, manufacturing and commerce. All that was required was arms and soldiers, the best of whom happened to be criminals. Thus, finally, the prisons and dungeons were opened, and those in the galleys were unchained.

It isn’t necessary to have read the treatise on psychology by Lawater to recognize an over-zealous patriot. It is a particular breed of men. If a family had a bad apple

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or if a province had a scoundrel banished for criminal behaviour, he became a Jacobin or a ‘patriot’ which gave free expression for the audacity of his thoughts and the fury of the wicked.

In general the Jacobin has various traits that are worth pointing out. Here is a portrait which I believe most will resemble: He is bilious and livid with a fierce eye. His mouth foams while speaking; his voice is rough and his gestures are crude. His character is irascible; his tastes are villainous; his language is gross and insolent; he disdains propriety because it shows weakness; charms of the fair sex hold no allure for him; all women look the same to him; arts have no attraction for him; ideas that are great, noble, beautiful and honest are absolutely foreign to him; his features are strikingly ugly, and he has course hair. Danton, Robespierre, Collet-d’Herbois, Duhem and Carrier prominently exhibited these qualities.

If one happens to see a fine individual amongst the Jacobins, one will notice that his eyes are always moving, like those of a wild animal. I noticed this on at least ten occasions.

When the ‘mountain’ existed [the Jacobins were seated higher in the assembly and thus referred to as the ‘mountain’], nothing was

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easier than at first glance to recognize one of its members. In this description that I made of a Jacobin, I do not include a multitude of decent people who were misled and who attended their company in the beginning in order to spend time and to inform themselves about political affairs. I know of several in this category who I predicted would regret having consorted with them.

Now I return to the legislative assembly. The two parties of which I spoke, namely the Brissotins and the Maratists effectively formed the government, but besides them there were also the moderates, the independents, the anarchists, and the mountain. The capuchin, Chabot, led the Anarchists while Basire, Merlin de Douay, and others ruled the terrible ‘mountain’.

At the head of these parties were prominent leaders like Sieyes, and eventually the whole aligned themselves into two factions, the Jacobins and Feuillans versus the Cordeliers who played second fiddle. Then behind the curtain there were the principal directors who benefited from the ferocity as one camp sought to out-class the other.

Such was the organization of this second assembly which was more passionate and more delirious than the first.

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The Feuillans would not wait long to be allies of the Jacobins. They wanted no rival and their zeal was extreme. But soon the new club was reversed because Péthion, Danton and Manuel, at the head of the municipality, gave the Jacobins a very powerful force.