498

CONSPIRACY TO MAKE HIM RIDICULOUS.

general ennui of numerous assemblies, there is always somebody (often not the most ordinary person) who is thus sacrificed for the amusement of all. These moments of hilarity are those in which parties become less distant, when, the most implacable enemies laughing altogether, concord is for a moment restored, and there remains but one foe.

To make a man ridiculous, there is one easy way; which is, for his friends to smile whenever he speaks. Men are generally so frivolous, so easily led, and so cowardly imitative, that a smile from the left side, from Barnave or the Lameths, infallibly excited the risibility of the whole Assembly. One man alone seems to have taken no part in these indignities; and this was the truly powerful Mirabeau. He used always to reply seriously and respectfully to this weak adversary, respecting in him the image of fanaticism, sincere passion, and persevering labour. He shrewdly distinguished, but with the indulgence and generosity of genius, Robespierre's profound pride, the religious faith that he had for himself, his person, and his words. "That man will go far," said Mirabeau, "for he believes all he says.'

The Assembly, rich in orators, had a right to be difficult to please; accustomed as it was to Mirabeau's lion-looking countenance, to Barnave's bold self-conceit, to the passionate Cazalès, and to Maury's insolent declamation, it found displeasure in beholding Robespierre's mean countenance, his stiffness, and timidity. The constant tension of his muscles and his voice, his straining utterance, and his short-sighted look, left a painful, tiresome impression, which people tried to get rid of by laughing at him. To complete the measure of annoyance, they did not allow him even the consolation of seeing himself in print. The journalists, through negligence, or perhaps on the recommendation of Robespierre's friends, cruelly mutilated his most elaborate speeches. They were obstinately bent on not knowing his name, always designating him as a member, or M. N., or Mr. * * *.

Thus persecuted, he seized the more eagerly every opportunity of raising his voice; and this invariable resolution of speaking on every occasion, sometimes made him truly ridiculous. For instance, when the American Paul Jones came to congratulate the Assembly, after the president had replied and

HIS SOLITUDE AND POVERTY.

499

everybody had considered his answer sufficient, Robespierre was obstinately resolved to give his reply likewise. Neither murmurs, interruptions, nor anything was able to stop him. After a great deal of trouble, he managed to say a few insignificant, useless words, and only by appealing to the galleries, claiming the freedom of opinion, and exclaiming that they were trying to drown his voice. Maury caused the whole Assembly to laugh by voting that M. de Robespierre's speech should be printed.

:

To forget such mortifications, so extremely galling to his vanity, Robespierre had no resource, neither family nor the world he was alone and poor. He used to carry home with him his mortification to his deserted neighbourhood, the Marais, and to his lonely apartment in the dismal Rue de Saintonge : a cold, poor, and ill-furnished lodging. He lived parsimoniously and very sparingly on his salary as a deputy; moreover, he sent one quarter of it to Arras for his sister; another quarter was allotted to a mistress who loved him passionately, but seldom saw him; his door was often closed against her; neither did he treat her well.* He was very frugal, dining for thirty sous; and yet he scarcely had money enough to purchase clothes. When the Assembly decreed a general mourning for the death of Franklin, Robespierre was extremely embarrassed. He borrowed a black stuff coat of a man much taller than himself; and the coat dragged four inches on the ground. "Nihil habet paupertas durius in se quàm quòd ridiculos homines facit." (Juvenal.)

He betook himself to work with greater energy. But he had hardly time except at night, passing whole days, invariably assiduous at the Jacobins and the Assembly: unwholesome, crowded rooms, which gave Mirabeau a serious ophthalmia, and caused Robespierre to suffer from a frequent hæmorrhage. If I may trust to the difference which is found between his portraits, his constitution must then have undergone a considerable alteration. His face, which till then had borne a

* I owe this particular and several others to M. Villier's work (Souvenirs d'un déporté, 1802), who lived with Robespierre the greater part of the year 1790, and often served him gratuitously as a secretary. In other respects, I have almost always followed the Mémoires de Charlotte de Robespierre, printed at the end of the Euvres de Robespierre, by M. Laponneraye.

500

BREAKS WITH THE LAMETHS.

somewhat soft and youthful expression, seems to have become suddenly harsh; and an extreme concentration of the faculties, or a sort of contraction became the predominant character. Indeed, he had nothing that can unbend the mind. His sole pleasure was to polish and improve his speeches, which were pure enough but very insipid; by labour he got rid of his commonplace facility, and contrived at length to write with elaboration. What did him the greatest service, was his setting himself apart from his own party, isolating himself, once for all, and breaking off his acquaintance with the Lameths, in order no longer to be shackled by equivocal friendship. One morning, when Robespierre went to the Lameths' mansion, they either could not, or would not, receive him; and he never returned. Shaking off men of expedients, he constituted himself the man of principles.

The part he now had to play was prominent and simple; and he became the principal obstacle to those whom he had forsaken. At every compromise that those worldly-minded partymen attempted to make between principles and interests, between right and circumstances, they met with a stumblingblock, abstract, absolute right, opposed to them by Robespierre. Against their spurious, Anglo-French, and self-styled constitutional solutions he brought theories, not specially French, but general, universal, according to the Social Contract, the legislative ideal of Rousseau and Mably.

They intrigued and agitated; but he remained immutable; they meddled in everything, tampered, negotiated, and compromised themselves in every way; but he merely professed. They seemed like attorneys; he a philosopher, a priest of justice. He could not fail to wear them out in time.

As a faithful witness of principles, and even protesting in their favour, he seldom explained himself about their application, or ventured on the dangerous ground of ways and means. He told them what ought to be done, but seldom, very seldom, how it could be done. Yet this is the point where the politician engages his responsibility the most, and where events often happen to contradict him and prove him to be wrong.

It was, however, easy to have a hold on such an Assembly, wavering, advancing, retiring, and losing sight, every moment,

THE ASSEMBLY REDUCES THE ELECTORS.

501 of the principle of the Revolution, its own principle by which it existed.

And what was this principle? Nobody expressed it in a precise formula; but everybody had it in his heart. It was right, no longer the right of things (properties, fiefs), but the right of men, the equal right of human souls, an essentially spiritualist principle, whether this characteristic were perceived or not. It was followed at the first elections, in which all men, proprietors or not, equally voted in its favour. The Declaration of Rights acknowledged the equality of men, and everybody understood that this implied the equal right of citizens.

In October, 1789, the Assembly allows the electoral right only to those who will pay the value of three days' labour; and from six millions afforded by universal suffrage, the electors are reduced to 4,298,000 of francs. The Assembly was then afraid of two opposite things, the popular factions of the towns, and the aristocracy of the rural districts; it was afraid of bestowing suffrage on the two hundred thousand beggars of Paris, without speaking of the towns, and a million of peasants dependent on the nobles.

This was specious in the year '89, but much less so in '91. The rural districts which had been supposed servile, had, on the contrary, generally proved friendly to the Revolution; the peasants had almost everywhere embraced the natural hope of the new order of things, and had married in great numbers, sufficiently indicating thereby that they did not separate the idea of order and peace from that of liberty.

The faith of the people was immense; the Assembly ought to have put faith in them. People little know how many blunders and acts of treachery it required to deprive them of this sentiment. At first, they believed in everything, in ideas and men, ever endeavouring, by a too natural credulity, to incarnate their ideas in their idols; one day the Revolution would appear in Mirabeau; on the morrow in Bailly or Lafayette; even the harsh and disagreeable countenances of such as Barnave and the Lameths, inspired them with confidence; and being perpetually deceived, they transferred elsewhere their inveterate necessity of believing.

In this manner the hearts of the people had opened, and their minds had expanded. Never had there been a more

502

DUPLICITY OF THE LAMETHS.

rapid transformation. Circe changed men into beasts; but the Revolution did precisely the contrary. However little prepared men had been, the rapid instinct of France had supplied the difference; so that a vast number of ignorant persons began to understand public affairs.

Now, to tell those fervent, intelligent, energetic multitudes, that had voted in 1789, that they had no longer this right, to reserve the name of active citizens for the electors, and to lower the non-electors to the rank of passive citizens, of noncitizen citizens,—all this appeared a sort of counter-revolution. But still more strange was it to say to the electors thus reduced you shall choose only the rich. Indeed, they were able to elect as deputies only such as paid at least the value of a silver marc (fifty-four francs).

The debates which arose several times on this subject furnished the constitutional party and the economists with an opportunity of displaying candidly their gross, materialist doctrines, on the right of property. The latter went so far as to maintain that proprietors alone were members of society, and that it belonged to them!*

The question of the exercise of political rights, so great in itself, was the more so by the consideration that the 1,300,000 judges, assessors of judges, and administrators, created by the Assembly, were to be chosen only among the active citizens. They went still further, and endeavoured to confine to the latter the national guard, thus disarming the victorious people who had just made the Revolution.

This distrust testified towards the people, this middle-class materialism, which can perceive no guarantee for order but in property, was ever gaining ground in the Constituent Assembly. It increased at every riot. Such men as Sièyes, Thouret, Chapelier, and Rabout de Saint-Etienne, were now always retrograding, unmindful of their previous conduct. What is still more strange is, that those who possessed the watch-word of insurrection, which they occasionally gave out, such as Duport, Lameth, and Barnave, were by no means confident,

*These unintelligent disciples of Quesnay and Turgot did not perceive that their masters had exaggerated the right of the land only in order to inflict on it more surely the duty of paying taxes, at a period when it was entirely in the hands of the priests and nobles.