THE REPUBLIC.
The first year of the Republic commenced on the 21st of September 1792, after the Convention had replaced the Legislative Assembly. In the course of a few months its sittings were to be held in the Palace of the Kings of France, re-christened Palace of the Nation. The Men of the Mountain, the "Frogs of the Plain" (as the moderate party was nick-named), and the eloquent Gironde, were closely confronted in the royal theatre; and from the galleries, whence of yore great seigneurs and high-born beauties had looked on, there now rang the applause or threats savage sans-culottes.
The Republic had been ushered in by the first triumph of the French arms. Dumouriez had been victorious at Valmy; Custine occupied Spire, Trèves, and Mayence; the over-boastful Duke of Brunswick, instead of handing Paris over to military execution, quietly evacuated French territory. The signal heroism of its untried volunteers restored to France some of the lustre which the prison massacres had obscured.
These massacres had opened an abyss between the leaders of the Gironde and the three great revolutionary chiefs, Danton, Marat, Robespierre. The last, as often before, had kept personally aloof from a movement which he may have deplored, but of which he was now appropriating the advantages. The Girondins, so far from imitating this crafty, or statesman-like, policy, raised the hue and cry against the Septemberers. Madame Roland, who in her girlhood had endured an agony of pity at the racking of two criminals, now suffered tortures at this desecration which liberty had undergone. Burning with indignation, she exhorted her husband to protest against these "abominable crimes," to appeal to the Assembly to put a stop to further repetitions, and clear himself of the dishonour of tolerating them by his silence, should it be at the risk of himself being struck by the dagger of assassins. Already, on the 3rd of September, Roland addressed a remonstrance to the Assembly, couched in terms which seem very mild compared to the searing denunciations in his wife's Memoirs. Yet this address was everywhere applauded as a miracle of courage. Too conclusive proof that Terror, like the Sword of Damocles, was already suspended above the heads of the Parisians, and that, for fear of being suspected of Moderatism, the population was satisfied to let the most violent take the lead. Roland's letter had been hailed with delight by the Assembly, who ordered its publication and dissemination in the provinces.
Proclamations and addresses were of little avail, however, unless they could be reinforced by decisive measures. These decisive measures, for which the executive had no force at command, Roland had not the daring to take. One way, and one only, remained open, by which the Ministry could still have seized the reins of government: the one which Denton pointed out to Madame Roland through Fabre D'Églantine, his month-piece. Institute a dictatorship, to be vested in the hands of the Executive Council, and exercised by its president: a measure foreshadowing the subsequent dictatorship of Robespierre, Saint Just, and Couthon. The proposition was received in mute disdain by Madame Roland, as were the many other advances made from time to time by this Hercules of the Tribunes.
She shrank from this man—whom she pictured as a "Sardanapalus, dagger in hand"—with uncontrollable loathing. Between these two natures there was radical antagonism of nature. The woman—type of the Republic such as poets have dreamed her—possessed all the virtues and talents that adorn life, possessed, above all, a profound humanity, shown throughout life, and which did not forsake her at the foot of the scaffold itself. The man—embodiment of the elemental force of the Revolution, and, like it, a compound of horrors and sublimities—if guilty of brutal and violent deeds, had yet that signal merit of thoroughly grasping the peril of the situation, and of being ready to sacrifice all personal considerations for the cause he had at heart.
If ever in her life Madame Roland was greatly at fault, she was so in her persistent repulse of Danton. Considering the tremendous issues at stake and the critical position of France, she would not only have shown far greater political sagacity, but have proved more humane in the long run, to have let the dead bury their dead, and to have averted the greater terrors to come by a truce with Dantan. The Gironde, with Danton for its ally, might have triumphantly carried out its programme, and so have saved the Republic. The Gironde, with Danton for its adversary, was helplessly given over to the Hébertists and to Robespierre, and its fall ultimately entailed that of the Republic. But Madame Roland knew not how to make a compromise with evil.
After the massacres of September, Roland's wife succeeded in inspiring the whole party with her hatred of Danton. Her voice urged them to the attack, and whenever they slackened in their zeal, one man, over whom she possessed illimitable influence, the proud, intrepid Buzot, renewed the onset in the Convention.
The Girondins had been universally returned by the provinces. Paris manifested its bias by electing Danton, Robespierre, Collot-d'Herbois, Billaud-Varenne, and one of the main instigators of the September massacres, Marat. Parties at this time seemed pretty equally balanced in the Chamber; if anything, the Gironde had the majority. Their members sat on all the Committees, and Pétion the Mayor was their close ally. They had now arrived at that point, reached by every revolutionary party in turn, when they would fain have piloted the vessel of State into harbour. Their aim became to consolidate the Republic by evolving the reign of law from the chaos of anarchy. The Revolution had been a violent transition from an old order of things to a new one, and, its main objects being attained, they deemed the time ripe for a reorganization of the government in more peaceable fashion. With this object they drew up an Appeal to the Convention to recommend the prosecution of the instigators of the September massacres, setting forth that their principal objects were to dissolve the Commune, to decree in due form the election of a new Municipality; and to reorganize the National Guards; whose Commander-General was henceforth to be elected by the united sections. All these measures were advocated by Madame Roland; but, in order to succeed, a threatening obstacle had to be surmounted: the triple revolutionary power—Danton; Marat, Robespierre.
But lack of courage was not the failure of the Girondins. Insufficiently prepared with proofs for so momentous a proceeding, they now impeached the three formidable Montagnards of aspiring to the Dictatorship; and sought to make them responsible for the murderous work in the prisons. The most important of these accusations was that against Robespierre by Louvet. The prophetic spirit of the Gironde instinctively knew its future destroyer, but, in default of conclusive proofs, could not hope to shake his enormous popularity. Robespierre, in a profoundly-considered discourse, wherein he sketched the whole progress of the Revolution, turned his defence into a victory. Outside the Chamber indignant crowds clamoured for their favourites. The failure of the indictment meant the fall of the Girondins.
Their efforts to obtain a provincial guard to protect the Convention was another cause of their growing unpopularity in Paris. After events completely justified the wisdom of this demand. In the absence of a properly-constituted government, with a Commune arrogating to itself all practical functions of one, and a National Guard whose commander was appointed by the most violent party of the moment, the Convention was left entirely at the mercy of the most turbulent faction of the population of Paris. The moment a mob, using its "sacred right of insurrection," chose to invest and threaten the representatives of the nation, what resistance could they offer?
Robespierre, by attacking this demand for a provincial guard, enhanced his own popularity, while the accusation of federalism began to be urged with increased plausibility against the Gironde. In the meanwhile, there came a respite to these unfortunate dissensions of patriots on the arrival in Paris of the victorious General Dumouriez. All parties vied with each other in welcoming him. With the object of bringing about a reconciliation between Danton and Madame Roland, Dumouriez came to dine with the latter, and, with some embarrassment, presented her with a magnificent bouquet of oleander. She replied with a neatly-turned speech, and the numerous guests, looked upon the little incident as of good augury. Vergniaud alone was not touched by the hope and joy of the moment, did not share the general delight at the realisation of their ardently-desired Republic. With his veiled look turned inwards, he sat silently brooding, and, seeing the radiant hostess drop some petals from the nosegay into her wine, be remarked half-aloud to Barbaroux, "Not flowers but cypress-leaves should we drop into our glasses to-night. In drinking to the Republic, whose cradle has been dipped in the blood of September, who knows but that we drinking to our own death? Never mind; if this were my blood, I would still drain it to liberty and equality." No guest but he, the poet-politician, saw the inexorable shadow in the festively-light room which rang to the cries of "Long live the Republic!"
So bright a scene this of the 14th of October! Roland's wife presiding, brilliant with beauty and eloquence to-night, with her hair as usual flowing in dark, abundant locks almost down to her girdle, worn à la Romaine, knotted on one side, over what was then called a republican gown, whose white, graceful folds fitted the shape closely from head to foot, a dress "altogether ravishing in taste." Beside her sat the successful Dumouriez, gallant and insinuating in manner, and the slight, insignificant-looking Louvet—fit in turn, says Madame Roland, "to make Catiline tremble in the Senate or to dine with the Graces"—who kept up that flow of wit and sparkling repartee which rarely forsake the sociable Frenchman. There, too, in a blue coat with high turn-down collar, a red waistcoat with wide lapels, and shirt-frill of fine muslin, his hair carefully dressed and powdered (though powder had gone out as aristocratic), was the sad, high-souled Buzot, suffering his glances to linger too long on those dark, expressive eyes of his hostess—glances whose perilous sweetness came with the shock of a revelation. Beside him the austere Roland, with his careless dress and rasping voice, looked still older than he was. There, too, among others, were the humane Brissot, and Barbaroux, with his Antinous-like head. Oh, gifted, high-minded group, so full of hope and aspiration, make merry to-night! let your glasses clink; celebrate the Republic. But a short year hence, when the leaves are falling again, and where will you be? Scattered yourselves, like the leaves of autumn, in lonely places, battling with the midnight storm, hiding in wells and caverns, or shut up in prison till the hour of execution shall strike! She, too, this noble hostess, will be daily awaiting her death-warrant, and will then confess—what otherwise might have gone to grave with her—that she, too, came to know that "terrible passion," so long delayed in her life, which at last seized upon her as with the accumulated force of years. In the clash and clang of the Revolution, when all the faculties were stimulated to the utmost, was born this bitter-sweet love, "heavy as remorse," inevitable as fate.
Madame Roland first met Buzot in 1791, and, after her return to La Platière, she had maintained a correspondence with both Robespierre and him, but more regularly with the latter. Their relations became more intimate after the meeting of the Convention in the autumn of 1792. In a description of his character, written by her on a circular, closely-folded sheet of paper, and which, cut to the size of Buzot's miniature, was carefully placed between its canvas and exterior cardboard, Madame Roland says, "Nature has endowed him with an affectionate heart, a proud spirit, and a lofty character. . . . A tendency to melancholy was aggravated by griefs of the heart." In his public career he was ever staunch to his principles, for when danger attended the utterance of advanced political opinions, he did so as unflinchingly as Robespierre, and when it became equally dangerous to oppose the violent excesses of the Revolution, he had the daring to do so. Buzot was tall, handsome, and sensitive. By the scrupulous neatness of his dress he was a standing protest against the indecent neglect of appearance then in fashion. To him a Republic, if anything, meant the general lifting of the social standard, not its degradation to the lowest level.
Between these two natures—as, indeed, between all whose love has the inevitableness of fate—there was a "birth-bond." They thrilled with the same aspirations, the same hopes, and the same sorrows. To know each other's thoughts they had no need of speech. If Madame Roland possessed more originality and genius than Buzot, she gloried in the fearlessness of the man who invariably fought her battles by leading the attack in the Convention.
Doomed passion-flower of love to have bloomed in so stormy a time! Brief gleams of tenderness illumining the lurid back-ground of Revolution and civil war! Flashes of love to be quenched at the stern voice of duty and self-sacrifice!