The French Revolution A History Chapter 3.1.VI. - The Circular.
by Thomas Carlyle
But the Constituted Authorities, all this while? The Legislative Assembly;
the Six Ministers; the Townhall; Santerre with the National Guard?--It is
very curious to think what a City is. Theatres, to the number of some
twenty-three, were open every night during these prodigies: while right-
arms here grew weary with slaying, right-arms there are twiddledeeing on
melodious catgut; at the very instant when Abbe Sicard was clambering up
his second pair of shoulders, three-men high, five hundred thousand human
individuals were lying horizontal, as if nothing were amiss.
As for the poor Legislative, the sceptre had departed from it. The
Legislative did send Deputation to the Prisons, to the Street-Courts; and
poor M. Dusaulx did harangue there; but produced no conviction whatsoever:
nay, at last, as he continued haranguing, the Street-Court interposed, not
without threats; and he had to cease, and withdraw. This is the same poor
worthy old M. Dusaulx who told, or indeed almost sang (though with cracked
voice), the Taking of the Bastille,--to our satisfaction long since. He
was wont to announce himself, on such and on all occasions, as the
Translator of Juvenal. "Good Citizens, you see before you a man who loves
his country, who is the Translator of Juvenal," said he once.--"Juvenal?'
interrupts Sansculottism: "who the devil is Juvenal? One of your sacres
Aristocrates? To the Lanterne!" From an orator of this kind, conviction
was not to be expected. The Legislative had much ado to save one of its
own Members, or Ex-Members, Deputy Journeau, who chanced to be lying in
arrest for mere Parliamentary delinquencies, in these Prisons. As for poor
old Dusaulx and Company, they returned to the Salle de Manege, saying, "It
was dark; and they could not see well what was going on." (Moniteur,
Debate of 2nd September, 1792.)
Roland writes indignant messages, in the name of Order, Humanity, and the
Law; but there is no Force at his disposal. Santerre's National Force
seems lazy to rise; though he made requisitions, he says,--which always
dispersed again. Nay did not we, with Advocate Maton's eyes, see 'men in
uniform,' too, with their 'sleeves bloody to the shoulder?' Petion goes in
tricolor scarf; speaks "the austere language of the law:" the killers give
up, while he is there; when his back is turned, recommence. Manuel too in
scarf we, with Maton's eyes, transiently saw haranguing, in the Court
called of Nurses, Cour des Nourrices. On the other hand, cruel Billaud,
likewise in scarf, 'with that small puce coat and black wig we are used to
on him,' (Mehee, Fils (ut supra, in Hist. Parl. xviii. p. 189).) audibly
delivers, 'standing among corpses,' at the Abbaye, a short but ever-
memorable harangue, reported in various phraseology, but always to this
purpose: "Brave Citizens, you are extirpating the Enemies of Liberty; you
are at your duty. A grateful Commune, and Country, would wish to
recompense you adequately; but cannot, for you know its want of funds.
Whoever shall have worked (travaille) in a Prison shall receive a draft of
one louis, payable by our cashier. Continue your work." (Montgaillard,
iii. 191.)--The Constituted Authorities are of yesterday; all pulling
different ways: there is properly not Constituted Authority, but every man
is his own King; and all are kinglets, belligerent, allied, or armed-
neutral, without king over them.
'O everlasting infamy,' exclaims Montgaillard, 'that Paris stood looking on
in stupor for four days, and did not interfere!' Very desirable indeed
that Paris had interfered; yet not unnatural that it stood even so, looking
on in stupor. Paris is in death-panic, the enemy and gibbets at its door:
whosoever in Paris has the heart to front death finds it more pressing to
do it fighting the Prussians, than fighting the killers of Aristocrats.
Indignant abhorrence, as in Roland, may be here; gloomy sanction,
premeditation or not, as in Marat and Committee of Salvation, may be there;
dull disapproval, dull approval, and acquiescence in Necessity and Destiny,
is the general temper. The Sons of Darkness, 'two hundred or so,' risen
from their lurking-places, have scope to do their work. Urged on by fever-
frenzy of Patriotism, and the madness of Terror;--urged on by lucre, and
the gold louis of wages? Nay, not lucre: for the gold watches, rings,
money of the Massacred, are punctually brought to the Townhall, by Killers
sans-indispensables, who higgle afterwards for their twenty shillings of
wages; and Sergent sticking an uncommonly fine agate on his finger ('fully
meaning to account for it'), becomes Agate-Sergent. But the temper, as we
say, is dull acquiescence. Not till the Patriotic or Frenetic part of the
work is finished for want of material; and Sons of Darkness, bent clearly
on lucre alone, begin wrenching watches and purses, brooches from ladies'
necks 'to equip volunteers,' in daylight, on the streets,--does the temper
from dull grow vehement; does the Constable raise his truncheon, and
striking heartily (like a cattle-driver in earnest) beat the 'course of
things' back into its old regulated drove-roads. The Garde-Meuble itself
was surreptitiously plundered, on the 17th of the Month, to Roland's new
horror; who anew bestirs himself, and is, as Sieyes says, 'the veto of
scoundrels,' Roland veto des coquins. (Helen Maria Williams, iii. 27.)--
This is the September Massacre, otherwise called 'Severe Justice of the
People.' These are the Septemberers (Septembriseurs); a name of some note
and lucency,--but lucency of the Nether-fire sort; very different from that
of our Bastille Heroes, who shone, disputable by no Friend of Freedom, as
in heavenly light-radiance: to such phasis of the business have we
advanced since then! The numbers massacred are, in Historical fantasy,
'between two and three thousand;' or indeed they are 'upwards of six
thousand,' for Peltier (in vision) saw them massacring the very patients of
the Bicetre Madhouse 'with grape-shot;' nay finally they are 'twelve
thousand' and odd hundreds,--not more than that. (See Hist. Parl. xvii.
421, 422.) In Arithmetical ciphers, and Lists drawn up by accurate
Advocate Maton, the number, including two hundred and two priests, three
'persons unknown,' and 'one thief killed at the Bernardins,' is, as above
hinted, a Thousand and Eighty-nine,--no less than that.
A thousand and eighty-nine lie dead, 'two hundred and sixty heaped
carcasses on the Pont au Change' itself;--among which, Robespierre pleading
afterwards will 'nearly weep' to reflect that there was said to be one
slain innocent. (Moniteur of 6th November (Debate of 5th November, 1793).)
One; not two, O thou seagreen Incorruptible? If so, Themis Sansculotte
must be lucky; for she was brief!--In the dim Registers of the Townhall,
which are preserved to this day, men read, with a certain sickness of
heart, items and entries not usual in Town Books: 'To workers employed in
preserving the salubrity of the air in the Prisons, and persons 'who
presided over these dangerous operations,' so much,--in various items,
nearly seven hundred pounds sterling. To carters employed to 'the Burying-
grounds of Clamart, Montrouge, and Vaugirard,' at so much a journey, per
cart; this also is an entry. Then so many francs and odd sous 'for the
necessary quantity of quick-lime!' (Etat des sommes payees par la Commune
de Paris (Hist. Parl. xviii. 231).) Carts go along the streets; full of
stript human corpses, thrown pellmell; limbs sticking up:--seest thou that
cold Hand sticking up, through the heaped embrace of brother corpses, in
its yellow paleness, in its cold rigour; the palm opened towards Heaven, as
if in dumb prayer, in expostulation de profundis, Take pity on the Sons of
Men!--Mercier saw it, as he walked down 'the Rue Saint-Jacques from
Montrouge, on the morrow of the Massacres:' but not a Hand; it was a
Foot,--which he reckons still more significant, one understands not well
why. Or was it as the Foot of one spurning Heaven? Rushing, like a wild
diver, in disgust and despair, towards the depths of Annihilation? Even
there shall His hand find thee, and His right-hand hold thee,--surely for
right not for wrong, for good not evil! 'I saw that Foot,' says Mercier;
'I shall know it again at the great Day of Judgment, when the Eternal,
throned on his thunders, shall judge both Kings and Septemberers.'
(Mercier, Nouveau Paris, vi. 21.)
That a shriek of inarticulate horror rose over this thing, not only from
French Aristocrats and Moderates, but from all Europe, and has prolonged
itself to the present day, was most natural and right. The thing lay done,
irrevocable; a thing to be counted besides some other things, which lie
very black in our Earth's Annals, yet which will not erase therefrom. For
man, as was remarked, has transcendentalisms in him; standing, as he does,
poor creature, every way 'in the confluence of Infinitudes;' a mystery to
himself and others: in the centre of two Eternities, of three
Immensities,--in the intersection of primeval Light with the everlasting
dark! Thus have there been, especially by vehement tempers reduced to a
state of desperation, very miserable things done. Sicilian Vespers, and
'eight thousand slaughtered in two hours,' are a known thing. Kings
themselves, not in desperation, but only in difficulty, have sat hatching,
for year and day (nay De Thou says, for seven years), their Bartholomew
Business; and then, at the right moment, also on an Autumn Sunday, this
very Bell (they say it is the identical metal) of St. Germain l'Auxerrois
was set a-pealing--with effect. (9th to 13th September, 1572 (Dulaure,
Hist. de Paris, iv. 289.) Nay the same black boulder-stones of these Paris
Prisons have seen Prison-massacres before now; men massacring countrymen,
Burgundies massacring Armagnacs, whom they had suddenly imprisoned, till as
now there are piled heaps of carcasses, and the streets ran red;--the Mayor
Petion of the time speaking the austere language of the law, and answered
by the Killers, in old French (it is some four hundred years old): "Maugre
bieu, Sire,--Sir, God's malison on your justice, your pity, your right
reason. Cursed be of God whoso shall have pity on these false traitorous
Armagnacs, English; dogs they are; they have destroyed us, wasted this
realm of France, and sold it to the English." (Dulaure, iii. 494.) And so
they slay, and fling aside the slain, to the extent of 'fifteen hundred and
eighteen, among whom are found four Bishops of false and damnable counsel,
and two Presidents of Parlement.' For though it is not Satan's world this
that we live in, Satan always has his place in it (underground properly);
and from time to time bursts up. Well may mankind shriek, inarticulately
anathematising as they can. There are actions of such emphasis that no
shrieking can be too emphatic for them. Shriek ye; acted have they.
Shriek who might in this France, in this Paris Legislative or Paris
Townhall, there are Ten Men who do not shriek. A Circular goes out from
the Committee of Salut Public, dated 3rd of September 1792; directed to all
Townhalls: a State-paper too remarkable to be overlooked. 'A part of the
ferocious conspirators detained in the Prisons,' it says, 'have been put to
death by the People; and it,' the Circular, 'cannot doubt but the whole
Nation, driven to the edge of ruin by such endless series of treasons, will
make haste to adopt this means of public salvation; and all Frenchmen will
cry as the men of Paris: We go to fight the enemy, but we will not leave
robbers behind us, to butcher our wives and children.' To which are
legibly appended these signatures: Panis, Sergent; Marat, Friend of the
People; (Hist. Parl. xvii. 433.) with Seven others;--carried down thereby,
in a strange way, to the late remembrance of Antiquarians. We remark,
however, that their Circular rather recoiled on themselves. The Townhalls
made no use of it; even the distracted Sansculottes made little; they only
howled and bellowed, but did not bite. At Rheims 'about eight persons'
were killed; and two afterwards were hanged for doing it. At Lyons, and a
few other places, some attempt was made; but with hardly any effect, being
quickly put down.
Less fortunate were the Prisoners of Orleans; was the good Duke de la
Rochefoucault. He journeying, by quick stages, with his Mother and Wife,
towards the Waters of Forges, or some quieter country, was arrested at
Gisors; conducted along the streets, amid effervescing multitudes, and
killed dead 'by the stroke of a paving-stone hurled through the coach-
window.' Killed as a once Liberal now Aristocrat; Protector of Priests,
Suspender of virtuous Petions, and his unfortunate Hot-grown-cold,
detestable to Patriotism. He dies lamented of Europe; his blood spattering
the cheeks of his old Mother, ninety-three years old.
As for the Orleans Prisoners, they are State Criminals: Royalist
Ministers, Delessarts, Montmorins; who have been accumulating on the High
Court of Orleans, ever since that Tribunal was set up. Whom now it seems
good that we should get transferred to our new Paris Court of the
Seventeenth; which proceeds far quicker. Accordingly hot Fournier from
Martinique, Fournier l'Americain, is off, missioned by Constituted
Authority; with stanch National Guards, with Lazouski the Pole; sparingly
provided with road-money. These, through bad quarters, through
difficulties, perils, for Authorities cross each other in this time,--do
triumphantly bring off the Fifty or Fifty-three Orleans Prisoners, towards
Paris; where a swifter Court of the Seventeenth will do justice on them.
(Ibid. xvii. 434.) But lo, at Paris, in the interim, a still swifter and
swiftest Court of the Second, and of September, has instituted itself:
enter not Paris, or that will judge you!--What shall hot Fournier do? It
was his duty, as volunteer Constable, had he been a perfect character, to
guard those men's lives never so Aristocratic, at the expense of his own
valuable life never so Sansculottic, till some Constituted Court had
disposed of them. But he was an imperfect character and Constable; perhaps
one of the more imperfect.
Hot Fournier, ordered to turn thither by one Authority, to turn thither by
another Authority, is in a perplexing multiplicity of orders; but finally
he strikes off for Versailles. His Prisoners fare in tumbrils, or open
carts, himself and Guards riding and marching around: and at the last
village, the worthy Mayor of Versailles comes to meet him, anxious that the
arrival and locking up were well over. It is Sunday, the ninth day of the
month. Lo, on entering the Avenue of Versailles, what multitudes,
stirring, swarming in the September sun, under the dull-green September
foliage; the Four-rowed Avenue all humming and swarming, as if the Town had
emptied itself! Our tumbrils roll heavily through the living sea; the
Guards and Fournier making way with ever more difficulty; the Mayor
speaking and gesturing his persuasivest; amid the inarticulate growling
hum, which growls ever the deeper even by hearing itself growl, not without
sharp yelpings here and there:--Would to God we were out of this strait
place, and wind and separation had cooled the heat, which seems about
igniting here!
And yet if the wide Avenue is too strait, what will the Street de
Surintendance be, at leaving of the same? At the corner of Surintendance
Street, the compressed yelpings became a continuous yell: savage figures
spring on the tumbril-shafts; first spray of an endless coming tide! The
Mayor pleads, pushes, half-desperate; is pushed, carried off in men's arms:
the savage tide has entrance, has mastery. Amid horrid noise, and tumult
as of fierce wolves, the Prisoners sink massacred,--all but some eleven,
who escaped into houses, and found mercy. The Prisons, and what other
Prisoners they held, were with difficulty saved. The stript clothes are
burnt in bonfire; the corpses lie heaped in the ditch on the morrow
morning. (Pieces officielles relatives au massacre des Prisonniers a
Versailles (in Hist. Parl. xviii. 236-249).) All France, except it be the
Ten Men of the Circular and their people, moans and rages, inarticulately
shrieking; all Europe rings.
But neither did Danton shriek; though, as Minister of Justice, it was more
his part to do so. Brawny Danton is in the breach, as of stormed Cities
and Nations; amid the Sweep of Tenth-of-August cannon, the rustle of
Prussian gallows-ropes, the smiting of September sabres; destruction all
round him, and the rushing-down of worlds: Minister of Justice is his
name; but Titan of the Forlorn Hope, and Enfant Perdu of the Revolution, is
his quality,--and the man acts according to that. "We must put our enemies
in fear!" Deep fear, is it not, as of its own accord, falling on our
enemies? The Titan of the Forlorn Hope, he is not the man that would
swiftest of all prevent its so falling. Forward, thou lost Titan of an
Enfant Perdu; thou must dare, and again dare, and without end dare; there
is nothing left for thee but that! "Que mon nom soit fletri, Let my name
be blighted:" what am I? The Cause alone is great; and shall live, and
not perish.--So, on the whole, here too is a swallower of Formulas; of
still wider gulp than Mirabeau: this Danton, Mirabeau of the Sansculottes.
In the September days, this Minister was not heard of as co-operating with
strict Roland; his business might lie elsewhere,--with Brunswick and the
Hotel-de-Ville. When applied to by an official person, about the Orleans
Prisoners, and the risks they ran, he answered gloomily, twice over, "Are
not these men guilty?"--When pressed, he 'answered in a terrible voice,'
and turned his back. (Biographie des Ministres, p. 97.) Two Thousand
slain in the Prisons; horrible if you will: but Brunswick is within a
day's journey of us; and there are Five-and twenty Millions yet, to slay or
to save. Some men have tasks,--frightfuller than ours! It seems strange,
but is not strange, that this Minister of Moloch-Justice, when any
suppliant for a friend's life got access to him, was found to have human
compassion; and yielded and granted 'always;' 'neither did one personal
enemy of Danton perish in these days.' (Ibid. p. 103.)
To shriek, we say, when certain things are acted, is proper and
unavoidable. Nevertheless, articulate speech, not shrieking, is the
faculty of man: when speech is not yet possible, let there be, with the
shortest delay, at least--silence. Silence, accordingly, in this forty-
fourth year of the business, and eighteen hundred and thirty-sixth of an
'Era called Christian as lucus a non,' is the thing we recommend and
practise. Nay, instead of shrieking more, it were perhaps edifying to
remark, on the other side, what a singular thing Customs (in Latin, Mores)
are; and how fitly the Virtue, Vir-tus, Manhood or Worth, that is in a man,
is called his Morality, or Customariness. Fell Slaughter, one the most
authentic products of the Pit you would say, once give it Customs, becomes
War, with Laws of War; and is Customary and Moral enough; and red
individuals carry the tools of it girt round their haunches, not without an
air of pride,--which do thou nowise blame. While, see! so long as it is
but dressed in hodden or russet; and Revolution, less frequent than War,
has not yet got its Laws of Revolution, but the hodden or russet
individuals are Uncustomary--O shrieking beloved brother blockheads of
Mankind, let us close those wide mouths of ours; let us cease shrieking,
and begin considering!
