Эжен Сю
The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic
CHAPTER VIII
REPRISALS
Sublime was the picture thus presented by the 10th of August, 1792, a picture in which the heroism of the combatants blended with their disinterestedness, and with their generosity to their enemies.
Alas, why was it fated that, so shortly after, the wretched days of the 2nd and 3rd of September should present so sad a contrast! Inexorable was the law of reprisal!
Pitiless became the anger of the people when it saw its trust violated, its hopes blasted; when it saw its generosity towards its enemies only confirm their high-handedness, and encourage them to new transgressions. Such were the experiences that brought about the occurrences of the 2nd and 3rd of September, known as the Prison Massacres – a pitiless popular retribution.
Petion, Mayor of the Commune of Paris, speaking at the bar of the Assembly, once said:
"The people demands justice on its enemies; legislators, it looks to you!"
In those words of Petion's is contained almost entirely the secret of the days of September. The expectations of the people were deceived. The courts proved themselves unworthy of their trust by absolving proven criminals. Then the people, as highly angered as it had before shown itself magnanimous, took justice into its own hands.
The circumstances which produced the formidable explosion were many. After the victory of the 10th of August – a victory the consequences of which were the deposition of Louis XVI, his imprisonment in the Temple, and the convocation of a National Convention to proclaim the Republic and institute proceedings against the former King – Paris calmly awaited the accomplishment of these great events. Everyone confidently expected the conviction of the accomplices of Louis XVI by the national High Court at Orleans. The High Court acquitted the prisoners, despite their guilt, and among them the Count of Montmorin, the old Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had aided the flight of Louis. The High Court also acquitted the Prince of Poix, a high counter-revolutionist, and Bakman, a colonel of the Swiss, who was one of the instigators of the resistance by the soldiers, and hence, a part author of the carnage at the Tuileries.
The prisons, meanwhile, were filled with suspects, declared royalists, and refractory priests, taken red-handed in the incitation of civil war – all guilty on the first count. It was also learned that in the interior of the prisons themselves existed establishments for turning out false notes, which were put in circulation through channels of communication between the prisoners and their friends outside. The collusion between the imprisoned nobles and priests on the one hand, and the counterfeiters, their companions in captivity, on the other, was indisputable.
Emboldened by the acquittal of the conspirators, the counter-revolution reared its head again in Paris and in the provinces. Each day brought from without news more and more alarming. Part of the west and south, lied to by the nobility, goaded to fanaticism by the clergy, was on the verge of rebellion. Rumors were rife that the Assembly had sent the King's trial minutes to a Convention, not daring itself to pass upon the fate of Louis XVI; that the allied army would be upon Paris before the 20th of September, the date set for the opening of the new Assembly. These predictions were, in fact, on the point of fulfilment. On September 1st, Paris learned that the Prussian army had crossed the frontier; Longwy was taken; the enemy had invested Verdun; the fortified place, left designedly by Louis XVI almost without defense, was unable to resist; from this city the allied army could in three days arrive in Paris!
Judge of the excitement among the people of Paris!
The royalists only awaited the favorable moment to unchain their vengeance on the capital. All these causes combined could do no less than let loose a whirlwind. And that is what happened on the terrible days of September 2nd and 3rd. The following are extracts from my journal, which I wrote almost hour by hour, as these sad events unrolled themselves.
September 2, about eleven in the morning, I heard the sound of a signal gun, to which were quickly added the rapid clanging of the tocsin and the roll of drums. The news of the taking of Longwy by the Prussians had spread through Paris the previous night, and had thrown the people into consternation.
I left my ironsmithy and hastily donned my uniform of the National Guard, in order to assemble with my Section of the Pikes. I was about to go to Victoria's room, where I supposed she was, as usual, busy sewing, when I saw her come in from out-of-doors.
"I was about to go in and tell you that I was bound for my Section," I said to her. "What is forward in Paris?"
"The great day of reprisals has dawned at last," replied my sister shrilly; "O, age-long martyrs of the Kings, the nobles, and the clergy! O, shades of our fathers, of our mothers! Daughters and sons of Joel, rejoice. The hour of vengeance has sounded! Ah, for centuries your sweat, your tears, your blood have flowed! Martyrs of the Kings, priests and nobles, the tyrant issue of a conquering race, at last upon your torturers has descended the day of expiation, the day of retribution!"
"Sister," I cried, shuddering for very fear, "what mean you?"
But Victoria, the victim of a sort of ecstatic hallucination, continued without seeming to hear me: "Does not the blood of slaves, of serfs, of vassals, despoiled, exploited, tortured, immolated by thousands, by seigniory and nobility since the Frankish conquest, cry 'Vengeance!'? Does not the blood of the Arians, massacred by thousands by Clovis's hordes at the word of the priests of Rome, cry 'Vengeance!'? Does not the blood of the Vaudois, of the Albigensians, massacred by thousands by Simon of Montfort's bandits, at the voice of the priests of Rome, cry 'Vengeance!'? Does not the blood of the Reformers, massacred by thousands by the Valois and the Guises, cry 'Vengeance!'? And the Protestants hanged, broken on the wheel, drawn and quartered by the soldiers of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarch? Just God! if all that blood had flowed in a single day, the land of the Gauls would have become one crimson sea! If they should heap together the bones of our fathers, our mothers, the victims of royalty, nobility and clergy, the charnel-pile would graze the heavens!"
Victoria's savage eloquence, the light in her glowing eyes, her darksome beauty, which at the moment gave her the aspect of the goddess of Vengeance, wove over me a sort of fascination. The frightful enumeration of the victims of the Kings, the nobles, and the Romish Church, the memory of the martyrs whom we wept in our own family for so many centuries, the general exasperation, which in that moment I shared, against the murderous plots of our eternal enemies, carried away my reason, and while the spell lasted, I, too, believed in the justice of reprisal, and answered:
"You speak true, sister, you speak true. Too long has the vengeance of heaven spared these scoundrels. Let now the sword of the people fall upon them!"
"Aye, brother, justice shall not be less terrible for having been delayed! Retribution will recall to life none of the dead we mourn; but our enemies, annihilated or struck with terror, will hesitate to create new victims! In avenging the past, we safeguard the future. The instinct of the people can be trusted – its history is ours! It does not know the details of its age-long martyrdom, but it feels itself the representative of martyrs; it is conscious of being the living legend of the miseries and tortures of generations past. It is in their name that it will judge and execute."
Before I could reply, one of my companions in arms, a workman like myself, the son of our neighbor Jerome, and like myself belonging to the Section of the Pikes, called to me, without: "John, hear you not the drum? They have just posted placards in the street that the nation is in danger. Longwy is taken! The Prussians are marching upon Paris. They are sounding the assembly everywhere – come, come, let us to our place in the fray."
Fearing I should be lacking in duty should I further delay joining my Section, I bade my sister farewell and left our dwelling. My comrade and I directed our steps towards Vendome Place, the Section's assembly-ground.
It were useless to attempt to portray the thousand aspects presented by the multitude that packed the street corners and the crossings; for it was in these places that were posted by preference the placards issued by the patriot press or the clubs, as well as the decrees, issued almost hourly by the National Assembly, or by the Commune of Paris, elected by the insurgent Sections on the night of the 9th of August.
How could one hope to describe the aspects, so diverse, presented by those surging masses, or convey an idea of the tumultuous sentiments of the population? – now dumbfounded and seemingly crushed by the approach of grave public danger; now shrieking maledictions and cries of death against the royalists and the foreign despots; and again, carried away by a burst of patriotism, shouting: "To the frontiers!" All Paris oscillated in turn between terror, hatred and blind vengeance.
A reading of the placards and decrees alone can explain the downheartedness, the fury, and the recurring ferocious appetites of the delirious crowd. The following placard is from the Courier of the Departments, published by the Girondin Gorsas:
PLAN OF THE ALLIES AGAINST PARIS
More than two hundred Royalist chiefs, scattered about in the different centers of France, have their rendezvous. – They hold the signatures of numerous persons who are ready to join the armies of the allied Kings when they shall have cleared the frontier. – The combined armies will march on the fortified towns as if to lay siege to them; but will take only such as will open their gates. – The Duke of Brunswick will combine with his army those corps of the French forces which are scattered along the frontier, while the King of Prussia will advance at the head of his troops, swelled by the counter-revolutionists of the interior. – They will march first upon Paris. – They will reduce the city by starvation. No consideration, not even the danger of the royal family, will change the following dispositions: – The inhabitants, of Paris will be led into the open country. They will be sorted out. The revolutionists will be put to death. – As to the others they will be disposed of later. – Perhaps they will follow the system of the Emperor of Austria, not to spare any but the women and children. In case of unequal forces, they will set the cities on fire; for, according to the expression of the allied Kings, DESERTS ARE PREFERABLE TO PLACES INHABITED BY A REVOLTED PEOPLE.
To arms, citizens! The enemy is at our gates!
Another poster stuck on the walls of the city read:
TO ARMS, CITIZENS!!!
Citizens:
The enemy will soon be under the walls of Paris!
Longwy is taken!
Verdun can hold out but a few days. Its defenders appeal to the people.
The citizens who defend the citadel have sworn to die sooner than surrender it. They make for you a rampart with their bodies. It is your duty to succor them.
Citizens!
This very day, immediately, let all friends of liberty gather under its flag!
Let us assemble in the Field of Mars, and let an army of sixty thousand men be formed without delay.
Citizens!
Let us march on the enemy, either to fall under their blows or to exterminate them under ours!
The Commune of Paris decrees:
ARTICLE 1. The Sections shall give to the State the men ready to set out.
ARTICLE 2. The Military Committee shall sit in permanence, to receive enrolments.
ARTICLE 3. The alarm gun shall be fired, the tocsin shall ring, night and day.
CITIZENS, THE NATION IS IN DANGER!
TO ARMS!
"Save Paris! save France! Else, woe is us!" repeated the imploring voices of women, whose cries and moans mingled with the clamor of the alarm bell.
At that moment there advanced, through the crowd which made way for him, a municipal officer bearing a banner, and followed by several drummers beating the charge. They preceded a troop of volunteers of all ages and conditions, singing the Marseillaise, that sacred hymn of the Revolution. At the end of each stanza they waved their pikes, their guns, their sabers, their caps, their hats, crying:
"To arms, brothers! To the Field of Mars! And to-night, off for the frontier!"
The majority of the citizens, who, after reading the decree of the Commune, also cried "To arms!" fell in line with the volunteers. Among them I beheld a man in the prime of life, his face radiant with civic ardor, embrace his wife and little daughters who accompanied him, and, his eyes filled with tears, exclaim – "Adieu! I go to defend you!"
I was still thrilling under the impression produced by this patriotic act, when I heard someone read, in a loud voice, this fragment of a placard, posted, they said, by order of the ministry:
" – Citizens of Paris, you have traitors in your midst. Ah, but for them, the strife would soon be over!"
"Who are the traitors?" the word went 'round. "Who are they, if not the royalists, hidden in the two hundred dens mentioned by Gorsas – if not the priests and the monks?"
"And our fathers, our husbands, our sons, our brothers, are enrolling in mass to run to the frontiers!" cried a woman, in terror. "Who will defend us against the fury of the enemies within?"
"The royalists will let slip upon Paris the counterfeiters and the brigands shut up with them in the prisons!"
"Mercy of God! While we are at the front, these wretches will pillage our shops, assault our daughters, slaughter our wives. No, no, it shall never be!"
"Can we go away and leave behind us our women, our children, the old men, exposed to the rage of our enemies? What shall we do?"
"The Friend of the People tells us what to do!" cried a voice in the crowd. "Long live Marat. To the lamp-post with the aristocrats! Here is what it says:
"'The Friend of the People to the Parisians:
"'Folly! Folly! It is useless to proceed with law against the counter-revolutionaries!
"'People, march in arms to the Abbey!
"'Drag out the traitors, the Swiss officers, and their accomplices, the priests, the Jesuits, the monks – let them feel the edge of the sword!
"'People, strike your enemies with terror; otherwise you are lost!'"
"We approve the advice!" shouted several voices in response. "Legal justice absolves the guilty. Let us replace the judges, and strike the culprits. To the Abbey! – to the Abbey!"
Frightened at the turn things were taking, and dreading the consequences of the assent given to Marat's appeal, I attempted to fend off the massacre of the prisoners. Raising my voice above the tumult, I addressed myself to the speaker:
"Citizen, it is true there are great criminals in the Abbey; but all the prisoners are not guilty in the same degree. Are there not some imprisoned merely as suspects? Are you sure that among them there are none innocent? And, with such doubt on your mind, would you kill all? No, citizen, such a crime would defile the Revolution!"
My intervention seemed for a moment to have recalled the throng to less barbarous sentiments. But just at that instant there arrived a panting workman, who jumped on a curbstone, exclaiming:
"Citizens – I come from the Assembly – I bring you serious news!"
"Silence! – Let us listen!"
"When the committee-men of the commune read their decrees to the Assembly, Vergniaud cried out: 'I thank Paris for its courage and energy; now one may say the country is saved!' He called Longwy, which had surrendered to the Prussians, a city of cowards. Hearing the refrain of the Marseillaise he said 'There is enough singing of Liberty – we must defend it. It is no longer Kings of bronze that must be torn down – it is the despots of Europe! Down with the Kings!' And he, Vergniaud, closed his address to the Assembly with these words: 'I demand that the Assembly, at this moment more a military body than a legislative, send at once, and every day hereafter, twelve delegates to the entrenched camp in the Field of Mars, not with empty discourses to exhort the citizens to work, but to ply the pick-ax with their own hands. The time is past for orating. We must dig the graves of our enemies. Our enemies are both in front of and behind us, citizens; in front of us the Prussians, behind us the royalists, the priests, their lay communicants, and the brigands in the prisons!'"
And the workman proceeded with his report of the occurrences in the Assembly:
"When Vergniaud left the platform, Roland, the Minister of the Interior, asked the floor to inform the Assembly of some very important matters. 'The Vendée,' he said, 'spurred on by the dissident clergy, has risen in several places, and patriots have been massacred. One portion of the south, under the instigation of the priests and the former nobles, is the breeding-ground of a vast conspiracy, with the Count of Saillant at its head. He has declared himself "the lieutenant-general of the army of the Princes."'"
Before the crowd had recovered from the stupefaction into which it was thrown by these words the speaker continued:
"After Roland, Lebrun, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that twenty thousand Russians were advancing on us through Poland and Germany, at the same time that a Russian fleet, proceeding from the Black Sea, was to pass through the Dardanelles and land at Marseilles. At this Danton became sublime! 'Everything stirs, drives on, burns, to a combat,' he exclaimed. 'Verdun is not yet in the hands of the enemy. The garrison has sworn to slay those who mention surrender. Part of the people is rushing to the frontiers; another part is digging entrenchments; another army will defend the city at the point of their pikes. Citizen Representatives,' continued Danton, 'we ask of you to concur with us in directing this heroic movement of the people. Whosoever refuses to serve in person or to give up his arms, let him be punished with death. All who are not with us are against us.' At these last words pronounced by Danton, the Assembly rose with enthusiasm – " added the orator on the curb. "'That bell which now clangs is not a signal of alarm!' Danton cried. 'No! It is the signal for the charge against the enemies of the country. To whip them we must dare, and dare, and dare again – and France is saved!'"
An electric thrill ran over the tossing multitude as these words of Danton's were told it – heroic words accompanied by the tintinnabulations of the tocsin, the prolonged echoes of the five-minute alarm gun, the distant roll of the drums, and the strains of the Marseillaise, chanted in chorus by the column of volunteers. The massive energy of Danton seemed to seize upon every spirit; it roused to its highest pitch their sacred love of country, and reawakened the ardor of vengeance. In that supreme moment, the prison massacres were considered by the population, bourgeois and artisans alike, as a measure of public safety, a Spartan measure which many of the citizens deplored, but which they regarded as a fatal necessity, as a question of life and death for their families, for France, for the Revolution.
Bill-posters were now attaching to the walls the new decrees rendered by the Commune of Paris, which had now declared itself a permanent body. The first of these was conceived as follows:
THE COMMUNE OF PARIS DECIDES AND DECREES:
ARTICLE 1. All horses fit for service are required at once to be turned over to the citizens who depart for the front.
ARTICLE 2. All citizens shall hold themselves in readiness to march at the first call.
ARTICLE 3. Those, who by reason of age or infirmity are unable to join the march, shall deposit their arms with their Sections, to equip those more fortunate citizens ready to go to the front.
ARTICLE 4. The ramparts shall be closed.
Paris, September 2, 1792,
COULOMBEAU.
The last paragraph, ordering the closing of the ramparts, caused a shudder not unmingled with savage joy to shoot through the crowd. Through all minds flashed the thought: "The Commune orders the ramparts to be closed in order to prevent our enemies within from escaping. The work of justice will be the easier!"
Another decree which was posted, read:
THE COMMUNE OF PARIS
Decrees:
1.º Enlistment shall go on in the Sections, in the theaters, in the churches and in the public places.
2.º Foreign citizens shall enrol at the City Hall.
3.º The Department of Paris shall furnish at once sixty thousand men.
4.º The armorers, iron-workers and blacksmiths shall report to the Military Committee how fast they can turn out guns, pikes, swords, etc.
5.º All leaden coffins shall be melted up for bullets. The retired soldiers will take charge of this work.
Paris, September 2, 1792,
COULOMBEAU.
On this terrible day, everything converged to throw the population into a somber vertigo. There was not an event which did not drive fatally onward to the massacres in the prisons.
"Long live the Nation! Death to the traitors!" rose the cry.
The delegates of the Luxembourg Section declared to the Commune that they had adopted and recorded in their minutes the resolution "That it was urgent to purge the prisons before marching to the front." Three committee-men were sent to notify the Commune of this decision. The Sections of the Julian Hot-Baths, the Blind Asylum, and Ill-Counsel took the same action. The crowd about me echoed the cry:
"To the prisons! To the prisons!"
"Exterminate the rogues!"
"Purge the prisons!"
"Down with the black caps!"
"Death to the aristocrats!"
I sank into a stupor of despair. There was room for doubt no longer; public opinion was pronouncing itself for the mass extermination of the prisoners. The Sections were despatching their delegates to the Commune to notify it of the urgency of the move. The Commune, through Tallien's organ, approved the massacre; finally, Danton also approved it, Danton, the Minister of Justice, elected by the Assembly. How could I stem such a tide? Still I tried, not without the knowledge that I thereby risked my life; for in moments of popular impulse and enthusiasm, to pronounce oneself in opposition to the general opinion is to court being taken for a traitor. Nevertheless, I leaped upon a bench hard by, and cried in a voice vibrating with all the anguish of my heart:
"Citizens, in the name of the country, in the name of the Revolution, hear me!"
My paleness, my tears, my supplicating accents impressed the crowd; silence was given me, and I continued:
"Citizens, suppose that we all, patriots here present, were incarcerated by our triumphant enemies. Our enemies rush into our prison, surprise us without defense, without means of escape, and massacre us all! Would that not be a cowardly, a horrible deed? Would you commit a like atrocity?"
Outcries, hisses and curses drowned my voice.
"He is a wheedler!"
"A traitor!"
"A royalist in disguise!"
"Death to the traitors!"
I believed my last hour was come. Thrown down from my bench, I was surrounded, seized, mauled back and forth by the crowd in its fury. My uniform was torn to shreds. A sword was already raised over my head when some patriots, interposing between my adversaries and me, tore me from the hands that grasped me, protected me with their own bodies, and pushed me under the arch of a carriage-gate, which they slammed upon me. I fell battered and almost fainting; and soon I heard the throng disperse, crying:
"Long live the Nation!"
"To the prisons, to the prisons!"
"Death to the royalists!"
So, indeed, it occurred. The massacre was carried out.
