by Eugène Sue
The large space reserved behind the bar for visiting deputations was suddenly filled with patriots, who brought with them Swiss soldiers, pale and trembling, and several of them wounded. What touching and admirable episodes took place in this pell-mell of gratitude and generosity, which embraced the combatants on both sides! Vanquished and vanquishers fraternized! The Assembly as one man rose spontaneously at the spectacle, and gave utterance to its enthusiasm by cheers.
When the first transports of emotion were past and silence had again settled down upon the Assembly, one of the patriots who brought in the Swiss advanced towards the bar, saying:
“Citizen President, one of these brave soldiers, who speaks French, asks the floor, in the name of his comrades, to explain their conduct.”
A young Swiss sergeant stepped forward and addressed the vast audience as follows:
“Had the King and the royal family remained at the palace, we would have allowed ourselves to be killed to the last man in their defense. That was our duty as soldiers. But having learned of the departure of the King, we refused to fire on the people, in spite of the orders, in spite of the threats, even, of our officers. They alone are responsible for the blood that has flowed. It was one of them, and one of the gentlemen of the palace who were the first to fire from the steps of the grand staircase at the moment that we fraternized with the people from the Sections. The latter cried out ‘Treason!’ fired back in return, and the fight was on. Victory rested with the people.”
A new announcement was now made by the president. “They have just brought in,” he said, “eleven cases of silver plate rescued from the flames at the Tuileries by the brave citizens who hastened to check the fire. They have also brought several bundles of papers discovered in an iron cupboard, a secret cupboard fashioned in the wall of the King’s apartment.” (Profound sensation.) “These papers, no doubt of the highest importance, shall be turned over to the proper committees.”
When the president announced the discovery of the papers in the Iron Cupboard, Louis XVI seemed unmanned by the shock. His face grew ashen; his first look was shot at the Queen; even she, in spite of her iron will, shuddered and became paler than her royal spouse. What secrets that cupboard contained!
And now was to come the climax of that moving drama, whose precipitate progress, whose impassioned and unexpected catastrophe surpassed anything the imagination could invent or dream of. Time seemed to march with a dizzying haste during that session of two nights and a day — the night of the 9th of August and the day and night of the 10th.
The second night was near its close. A committee in extraordinary had gone to entreat of the Commune of Paris, on that day of August 10, whether the palace of the Luxembourg could not be appropriated as a residence for the King and his family. At the time it was adopted, this measure was in full accord with the hesitant disposition of the majority of the Assembly, who wished only to decree the suspension of the King’s powers. But the attitude of the people, victorious and fully armed, happily made its weight felt within the Assembly. The choice of Danton as Minister of Justice testified to the sudden change of mind on the part of the majority of the popular Representatives. They admitted the necessity for the deposition of the royal person. Louis XVI was held prisoner, under accusation of high treason.
But what part of Paris could serve as his prison?
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!”
