第58章

The Terror was the chief means of government during the Convention.Commencing in September, 1793, it reigned for six months--that is, until the death of Robespierre.Vainly did certain Jacobins-- Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Herault de Sechelles, &c.--propose that clemency should be given a trial.

The only result of this proposition was that its authors were sent to the scaffold.It was merely the lassitude of the public that finally put an end to this shameful period.

The successive struggles of the various parties in the Convention and its tendency towards extremes eliminated one by one the men of importance who had once played their part therein.Finally it fell under the exclusive domination of Robespierre.While the Convention was disorganising and ravaging France, the armies were winning brilliant victories.They had seized the left bank of the Rhine, Belgium, and Holland.The treaty of Basle ratified these conquests.

We have already mentioned, and we shall return to the matter again, that the work of the armies must be considered absolutely apart from that of the Convention.Contemporaries understood this perfectly, but to-day it is often forgotten.

When the Convention was dissolved, in 1795, after lasting for three years, it was regarded with universal distrust.The perpetual plaything of popular caprice, it had not succeeded in pacifying France, but had plunged her into anarchy.The general opinion respecting the Convention is well summed up in a letter written in July, 1799, by the Swedish charge d'affaires, Baron Drinkmann: ``I venture to hope that no people will ever be governed by the will of more cruel and imbecile scoundrels than those that have ruled France since the beginning of her new liberty.''

3.The End of the Convention.The Beginnings of the Directory.

At the end of its existence, the Convention, always trusting to the power of formulae, drafted a new Constitution, that of the year III., intended to replace that of 1793, which had never been put into execution.The legislative power was to be shared by a so-called Council of Ancients composed of 150 members, and a council of deputies numbering 500.The executive power was confided to a Directory of five members, who were appointed by the Ancients upon nomination by the Five Hundred, and renewed every year by the election of one of their number.It was specified that two-thirds of the members of the new Assembly should be chosen from among the deputies of the Convention.This prudent measure was not very efficacious, as only ten departments remained faithful to the Jacobins.

To avoid the election of royalists, the Convention had decided to banish all emigres in perpetuity.

The announcement of this Constitution did not produce the anticipated effect upon the public.It had no effect upon the popular riots, which continued.One of the most important was that which threatened the Convention on the 5th of October, 1795.

The leaders hurled a veritable army upon the Assembly.

Before such provocation, the Convention finally decided to defend itself, and sent for troops, entrusting the command to Barras.

Bonaparte, who was then beginning to emerge from obscurity, was entrusted with the task of repression.With such a leader action was swift and energetic.Vigorously pounded with ball near the church at St.Roch, the insurgents fled, leaving some hundreds of dead on the spot.

This action, which displayed a firmness to which the Convention was little habituated, was only due to the celerity of the military operations, for while these were being carried out the insurgents had sent delegates to the Assembly, which, as usual, showed itself quite ready to yield to them.

The repression of this riot constituted the last important act of the Convention.On the 26th of October, 1795, it declared its mission terminated, and gave way to the Directory.

We have already laid stress upon some of the psychological lessons furnished by the government of the Convention.One of the most striking of these is the impotence of violence to dominate men's minds in permanence.

Never did any Government possess such formidable means of action, yet in spite of the permanent guillotine, despite the delegates sent with the guillotine into the provinces, despite its Draconian laws, the Convention had to struggle perpetually against riots, insurrections, and conspiracies.The cities, the departments, and the faubourgs of Paris were continually rising in revolt, although heads were falling by the thousand.

This Assembly, which thought itself sovereign, fought against the invincible forces which were fixed in men's minds, and which material constraint was powerless to overcome.Of these hidden motive forces it never understood the power, and it struggled against them in vain.In the end the invisible forces triumphed.