Most cold, on the other hand, most patronising, unsubstantial is the tone of the Girondins towards 'our poorer brethren;'--those brethren whom one often hears of under the collective name of 'the masses,' as if they were not persons at all, but mounds of combustible explosive material, for blowing down Bastilles with! In very truth, a Revolutionist of this kind, is he not a Solecism? Disowned by Nature and Art; deserving only to be erased, and disappear! Surely, to our poorer brethren of Paris, all this Girondin patronage sounds deadening and killing: if fine-spoken and incontrovertible in logic, then all the falser, all the hatefuller in fact.
Nay doubtless, pleading for Popularity, here among our poorer brethren of Paris, the Girondin has a hard game to play. If he gain the ear of the Respectable at a distance, it is by insisting on September and such like; it is at the expense of this Paris where he dwells and perorates. Hard to perorate in such an auditory! Wherefore the question arises: Could we not get ourselves out of this Paris? Twice or oftener such an attempt is made.
If not we ourselves, thinks Guadet, then at least our Suppleans might do it. For every Deputy has his Suppleant, or Substitute, who will take his place if need be: might not these assemble, say at Bourges, which is a quiet episcopal Town, in quiet Berri, forty good leagues off? In that case, what profit were it for the Paris Sansculottery to insult us; our Suppleans sitting quiet in Bourges, to whom we could run? Nay even the Primary electoral Assemblies, thinks Guadet, might be reconvoked, and a New Convention got, with new orders from the Sovereign people; and right glad were Lyons, were Bourdeaux, Rouen, Marseilles, as yet Provincial Towns, to welcome us in their turn, and become a sort of Capital Towns; and teach these Parisians reason.
Fond schemes; which all misgo! If decreed, in heat of eloquent logic, to-day, they are repealed, by clamour, and passionate wider considerations, on the morrow. (Moniteur, 1793, No. 140, &c.) Will you, O Girondins, parcel us into separate Republics, then; like the Swiss, like your Americans; so that there be no Metropolis or indivisible French Nation any more? Your Departmental Guard seemed to point that way! Federal Republic?
Federalist? Men and Knitting-women repeat Federaliste, with or without much Dictionary-meaning; but go on repeating it, as is usual in such cases, till the meaning of it becomes almost magical, fit to designate all mystery of Iniquity; and Federaliste has grown a word of Exorcism and Apage-Satanas. But furthermore, consider what 'poisoning of public opinion' in the Departments, by these Brissot, Gorsas, Caritat-Condorcet Newspapers!
And then also what counter-poisoning, still feller in quality, by a Pere Duchesne of Hebert, brutallest Newspaper yet published on Earth; by a Rougiff of Guffroy; by the 'incendiary leaves of Marat!' More than once, on complaint given and effervescence rising, it is decreed that a man cannot both be Legislator and Editor; that he shall choose between the one function and the other. (Hist. Parl. xxv. 25, &c.) But this too, which indeed could help little, is revoked or eluded; remains a pious wish mainly.
Meanwhile, as the sad fruit of such strife, behold, O ye National Representatives, how between the friends of Law and the friends of Freedom everywhere, mere heats and jealousies have arisen; fevering the whole Republic! Department, Provincial Town is set against Metropolis, Rich against Poor, Culottic against Sansculottic, man against man. From the Southern Cities come Addresses of an almost inculpatory character; for Paris has long suffered Newspaper calumny. Bourdeaux demands a reign of Law and Respectability, meaning Girondism, with emphasis. With emphasis Marseilles demands the like. Nay from Marseilles there come two Addresses: one Girondin; one Jacobin Sansculottic. Hot Rebecqui, sick of this Convention-work, has given place to his Substitute, and gone home; where also, with such jarrings, there is work to be sick of.
Lyons, a place of Capitalists and Aristocrats, is in still worse state; almost in revolt. Chalier the Jacobin Town-Councillor has got, too literally, to daggers-drawn with Nievre-Chol the Moderantin Mayor; one of your Moderate, perhaps Aristocrat, Royalist or Federalist Mayors! Chalier, who pilgrimed to Paris 'to behold Marat and the Mountain,' has verily kindled himself at their sacred urn: for on the 6th of February last, History or Rumour has seen him haranguing his Lyons Jacobins in a quite transcendental manner, with a drawn dagger in his hand; recommending (they say) sheer September-methods, patience being worn out; and that the Jacobin Brethren should, impromptu, work the Guillotine themselves! One sees him still, in Engravings: mounted on a table; foot advanced, body contorted; a bald, rude, slope-browed, infuriated visage of the canine species, the eyes starting from their sockets; in his puissant right-hand the brandished dagger, or horse-pistol, as some give it; other dog-visages kindling under him:--a man not likely to end well! However, the Guillotine was not got together impromptu, that day, 'on the Pont Saint-Clair,' or elsewhere; but indeed continued lying rusty in its loft: (Hist. Parl. xxiv. 385-93; xxvi.
229, &c.) Nievre-Chol with military went about, rumbling cannon, in the most confused manner; and the 'nine hundred prisoners' received no hurt.
So distracted is Lyons grown, with its cannon rumbling. Convention Commissioners must be sent thither forthwith: if even they can appease it, and keep the Guillotine in its loft?
Consider finally if, on all these mad jarrings of the Southern Cities, and of France generally, a traitorous Crypto-Royalist class is not looking and watching; ready to strike in, at the right season! Neither is there bread; neither is there soap: see the Patriot women selling out sugar, at a just rate of twenty-two sous per pound! Citizen Representatives, it were verily well that your quarrels finished, and the reign of Perfect Felicity began.
