CHAPTER X

1792 continued

KING'S FATUITY-PREPARATIONS FOR THE 10TH-PÉTION-EVENTS OF THE 9TH AND 10TH-DANTON'S MOVEMENTS-DESPONDENCY OF THE INSURGENTS-LUCILE'S JOURNAL-THE COUR DU COMKING'S CHARACTER

MERCE-THE

TUILERIES-MANDAT-THE

-AFTER THE COMBAT

DURING the first days of August the King seemed bent on playing into the Revolutionists' hands. Perhaps nothing could have convinced them that he did not sympathise with Brunswick's proclamation, which was, in fact, only a cruder and more violent version of his instructions to Mallet du Pan. But after five days' silence he on August 3 sent a message to the Assembly which it could not help regarding as the hypocritical plea of an accessory to a crime. He threw doubts on the authenticity of the proclamation, alluding to it in self-excusing terms instead of with the passionate abhorrence which it had roused in all patriotic hearts. Such abhorrence his conscience would not permit him to feign. Not a cheer greeted his message, and in a fiery outburst the Girondin Isnard made a fierce attack on his conduct and motives, which was followed by a petition from the Sections for his dethronement. Danton was not one of those who signed it, but his friends Legendre and Fabre d'Eglantine were, and we catch his accents in We could have been content with the King's suspension; but the Constitution-the Constitution, which is ever on his

PREPARATIONS FOR INSURRECTION

81

lips-forbids it. Therefore we invoke the Constitution ourselves and demand that he be deposed.' In the still Monarchical Assembly, which five days later was to refuse to condemn Lafayette, indignation at the King's speech had been chilled by the Sections' petition, and its passive attitude increased the Revolutionists' anger and alarm. On the 4th the second meeting of the Secret Directory was held at the Cadran Bleu, on the Boulevard du Temple, whence it was adjourned to Antoine's lodgings at Duplay's house in the Rue St. Honoré, where also Robespierre lodged. On this day the general plan of insurrection was set forth by Camille Desmoulins, but it did not take place that night because Santerre was not ready, and because some preferred to wait for the Assembly's decision as to the suspension of the King. The Mauconseil Section declared the throne vacant and invited the other Sections to join it in announcing its declaration to the Assembly on August 5. Fourteen assented. Sixteen opposed. Ten gave no sign. The decision of the other eight is not known. But the populous Sections were with Mauconseil, and though the Assembly pronounced its declaration illegal and the Departmental Directory ordered its illegality to be proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet, the Commune set at nought the order and preparations for the impending conflict went on openly and apace.

In such crises the timider men who in times of order hold sway efface themselves. Meetings are sparsely attended. The bolder spirits vote and act. If their acts are afterwards condemned those who stood aloof, though for that very reason most blameworthy, are acquitted of all blame. Such was the case now. Pétion's advice, or possibly the jealousy of one

G

Section, made the insurrection miss fire on August 5, and had the propertied classes shown an united front Danton's task would have been rendered far more difficult than it was. But they stayed at home, and the Sections followed the lead of the men who knew their own minds and were not afraid to act.

These had

The Secret Directory of Insurrection consisted of five men chosen by the Fédérés in Paris. added to themselves ten of the managers of the fulldress rehearsal of June 20. This body, with Pétion's connivance, arranged that the representatives of the twenty-eight most revolutionary Sections should sit in the hall of the Hôtel de Ville. They were, therefore, in touch with the Old Communal Council, which sat in the next chamber, Pétion, the Mayor, being their secret ally, and Danton, the Assistant Procureur, their real chief. The Mauconseil Section had threatened that if the Assembly did not accept their petition the tocsin should be sounded at midnight, August 9. The Section Quinze-vingts finally named the same time. therefore, was the hour fixed for insurrection.

That,

Mandat, the commandant of the National Guard, made all preparations for the defence of the Tuileries. Westermann was chosen to lead the people to the assault. On the 8th Roederer, the Departmental Procureur Syndic, wrote to Pétion requesting him to say what steps he had taken to prevent the tocsin being sounded, and suggesting that he should issue a warning to the citizens against disorder. This Pétion did, and it was read at certain of the Sections, which met about eight o'clock that evening, and must have considerably damped the revolutionary fervour of some of them. Mandat, commandant of the National Guard, also wrote to Pétion asking him to authorise various

changes in the disposition of the troops. Between five and six o'clock Pétion went to the Assembly and gave it assurances that order would be maintained. Roederer took him thence to the Departmental Directory, and it was settled that the Departmental and Communal Councils should both hold permanent session. Then Pétion went to the Hôtel de Ville and found there letters from Mandat pressing him to come to the Tuileries.

Pétion was a man of a vanity so prodigious that a reader of his self-revelations is at a loss to decide whether they are more odious or more ridiculous. They excite more disgust than contempt in his account of the return from Varennes, more amazement than amusement when he was flying for his life in 1793. Vanity had for him the force which higher instincts have for better balanced minds. It was as a crown to the glory of his triumphal progress in the Berline, as a strong staff to him while limping painfully through the Valley of the Shadow; for it enabled him to revel in the supposed passion excited in some female bosom by his form and countenance, whether his victim were a princess or a peasant. On the present occasion it supplied, or rather reinforced, his courage, for physically

he does not seem to have been a coward. He afterwards with incredible frankness himself admitted, that when on this night all other men's minds were absorbed in terrible realities he was, as usual, posturing, so to speak, before a looking-glass. Je désirais l'insurrection, mais je tremblais qu'elle ne réussit pas. Ma position était critique; il fallait faire mon devoir de citoyen sans manquer à celui de magistrat. Il fallait conserver tous les dehors et ne point m'écarter des formes.' In other words, the dignity of this quintessence of all mayors

demanded that he should lie decorously and handle a dagger only with a kid glove. Even his false assurances to the Assembly and his hypocritical admonitions to the people were dictated rather by the vanity of the official than the politician's craft. And now, when to enter the Tuileries was to enter the lion's den, it was, no doubt, vanity in arms that spurred him on. In the Tuileries it had been grievously wounded by the King's curt Taisez-vous' after June 20. In the Tuileries he, Sergent, and Panis had been hooted, had, to quote a Monarchical historian, met with a reception plus que brutal'-nay, had experienced voies de fait très répréhensibles.' Sergent no doubt, who had been actually knocked down, had borne this in mind when he handed the Marseillais their cartridges. Too well were he and Panis to remember it in September. Pétion must have remembered it too. As he listened to the King's angry words and to the curses and threats of the Royalists in the garden he must have consoled himself with the thoughts of the morrow. But his relief must have been great when at 2 A.M. the Assembly sent for him after he had been for nearly three hours in a most disagreeable position. Merely reiterating his assurances to the Assembly, he went straight to the Hôtel de Ville, leaving his luckless coachman shivering on the box of his carriage at the Tuileries, till between three and four o'clock in despair he drove home. At about six he tasted the first sweets of revenge in summoning Mandat, who had just cross-questioned him at the palace, to be cross-questioned in his turn at the Hôtel de Ville. Then, having with one hand helped the Revolution materially and with the other seriously imperilled its chance of success, he serenely welcomed at the Mairie the force sent by the Insurrectionary Commune to lock