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The French Revolution— Volume 3
Contents:
II. Re-Election of the Two-Thirds.
Decrees for the re-election of the Two-thirds. - Small number of Voters. - Maneuvers for preventing electors from voting on the decrees. - Frauds in the returns of votes. - Maintenance of the decrees by force. - Recruiting of the Roughs. - The military employed. - The 13th of Vendémaire.
There is no other refuge for them except in supreme power, and no other means for maintaining this but in the excesses of despotism, dishonesty, mendacity and violence. In the Constitution they manufacture, they desire to remain the sovereigns of France and they decree[12] at once that, willingly or not, France must select twothirds of its new representatives from amongst them, and, that she may make a good selection, it is prudent to impose the selection upon her. There is a show, indeed, of consulting her in the special decrees which deprive her of two-thirds of her elective rights but, as in 1792 and in 1793, it is so contrived that she consents, or seems to consent, to this arrangement.[13] - In the first place, they relied on the majority of electors abstaining from a response. Experience indeed, had shown that, for a long time, the masses were disgusted with the plebiscite farces; moreover, terror has stifled in individuals all sentiment of a common interest;[14] each cares for himself alone. Since Thermidor, electors and mayors in the boroughs and in the rural districts are found with a good deal of difficulty, even electors of the second degree; people saw that it was useless and even dangerous to perform the duties of a citizen; they would have nothing to do with public functions. A foreigner writes,[15] after traversing France from Bourg-en-Bresse to Paris: "Ninety times out of a hundred that I have asked the question,
’Citizen, what was done in the primary meeting of your canton?’
the answer would be:
’Me, citizen, what have I to do with it? I’ faith, they had hard work to agree!’
Or,
’What’s the use? There were not many there! Honest folks stayed at home.’"
In fact, out of at least six million electors convoked, five millions do not come near the ballot-box, there being no embarrassment in this matter as they do not vote.[16]
In the second place, precautions have been taken to prevent those who come to vote on the Constitution from entertaining the idea of voting on the decrees. No article of the Constitution, nor in the decrees, calls upon them to do so; slight inducement is held out to them to come, in a vague style, through an oratorical interrogation, or in a tardy address.[17] - In addition to this, on the printed blanks sent to them from Paris, they find but three columns, one for the number of votes accepting the Constitution, another for the number rejecting it, and the third for "written observations" in case there are any. There are no special columns for marking the number of votes accepting or rejecting the decrees. Thereupon, many illiterate or ill-informed electors might think that they were convoked to vote solely on the Constitution and not at all on the decrees, which is just what happened, and especially in the remote departments, and in the rural assemblies. Moreover, many assemblies, nearer Paris and in the towns, comprehend that if the Convention consults them it is only for form’s sake; to give a negative answer is useless and perilous; it is better to keep silent; as soon as the decrees are mentioned they very prudently "unanimously" demand the order of the day.[18] Hence out of five primary assemblies on the average which vote for or against the Constitution, there is only one which votes for or against the decrees.[19] - Such is the mode of getting at the voice of the nation. Apparently, it is induced to speak; in practice, its silence is ensured.
The last and most ingenious expedient of all: when a primary assembly speaks too loudly it is taken for granted that it kept silent. In Paris, where the electors are more clear sighted and more decided than in the provinces, in eighteen well-known departments, and probably in many others, the electors who voted on the decrees almost all voted against them; in many cases, even their minutes state that the negative vote was "unanimous," but the minutes fail to state the exact number of the noes. On this, in the total of noes hostile to the decrees, these noes are not counted.[20] Through this trickery, the Convention, in Paris alone, reduced the number of negatives by 50,000 and the same in the provinces, after the fashion of a dishonest steward who, obliged to hand in an account, falsifies the figures by substituting subtractions for additions.-Such is the way, in relation to the decrees, in which, out of the 300,000 votes which it accepts, it is able to announce 200,000 yeas and 100,000 noes and thus proclaim that its master, the sovereign people, after giving it a general acquittance, a discharge in full, invests it anew with its confidence and expressly continues its mandate.
It now remains to keep by force this power usurped by fraud. - Immediately after the suppression of the Jacobin riots the Convention, menaced on the right, turns over to the left; it requires allies, persons of executive ability. It takes them wherever it can find them, from the faction which decimated it before Thermidor and which, since Thermidor, it decimates. Consequently, its executive committee suspends all proceedings begun against the principal "Montagnards ;" a number of terrorists, former presidents of the sections, "the matadors of the quarter," arrested after Prairial 1, are set free at the end of a month. They have good arms, are accustomed to vigorous striking without giving warning, especially when honest folks are to be knocked down or ripped open. The stronger public opinion is against the government the more does the government rely on men with bludgeons and pikes, on the strikers " turned out of the primary assemblies," on the heroes of September 2 and May 31, dangerous nomads, inmates of Bicêtre, paid assassins out of employment, and roughs of the Quinze- Vingts and faubourg Saint- Antoine.[21] Finally on the 11th of Vendémiaire, it gathers together fifteen or eighteen hundred of them and arms them in battalions.[22] Such brigands are they, that Menon, "major-general of the army of the interior and commandant of the armed force of Paris," comes the next day with several of his staff-officers and tells the Committee of Five that he "will not have such bandits in his army nor under his orders". "I will not march with a lot of rascals and assassins organized in battalions "under the name of "patriots of ’89." Indeed, the true patriots of ’89 are on the other side, the constitutionalists of 1791, sincere liberals, "forty thousand proprietors and merchants," the elite and mass of the Parisian population,[23] "the majority of men really interested in public matters," and at this moment, the common welfare is all that concerns them. Republic or royalty is merely a secondary thought, an idea in the back-ground; nobody dreams of restoring the ancient régime; but very few are preoccupied with the restoration of a limited monarchy.[24] "On asking those most in earnest what government they would like in place of the Convention, they reply ’We want that no longer, we want nothing belonging to it; we want the Republic and honest people for our rulers.’"[25] - That is all; their upraisal is not a political insurrection against the form of the government, but a moral insurrection against the criminals in office. Hence, on seeing the Convention arm their old executioners, "the tigers" of the Reign of Terror, admitted malefactors, against them, they cannot contain themselves.[26] "That day," says a foreigner, who visited many public places in Paris, "I saw everywhere the deepest despair, the greatest expression of rage and fury. . . . Without that unfortunate order the insurrection would probably not have broken out." If they take up arms it is because they are brought back under the pikes of the Septembriseurs, and under Robespierre’s axe. - But they are only national guards; most of them have no guns;[27] they are in want of gunpowder, those who have any having only five or six charges ; "the great majority do not think of fighting;" they imagine that "their presence is merely needed to enforce a petition;" they have no artillery, no positive leader; it is simply excitement, precipitation, disorder and mistaken maneuvers.[28] On the contrary, on the side of the Convention, with Henriot’s old bullies, there are eight or nine thousand regular troops, and Bonaparte; his cannon, which rake the rue Saint Honoré and the Quai Voltaire, mow down five or six hundred sectionists. The rest disperse, and henceforth the check-mated Parisians are not to take up their guns against the Jacobin faction whatever it does.
Contents:
Chicago: Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, "II. Re-Election of the Two-Thirds.," The French Revolution— Volume 3, ed. Braybrooke, Richard Griffin, Baron, 1783-1853 and trans. Ingram, J. H. (James Henry) in The French Revolution—Volume 3 (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1909), Original Sources, accessed February 12, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H3UHBH3K2BBKLPV.
MLA: Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe. "II. Re-Election of the Two-Thirds." The French Revolution— Volume 3, edited by Braybrooke, Richard Griffin, Baron, 1783-1853, and translated by Ingram, J. H. (James Henry), in The French Revolution—Volume 3, Vol. 36, New York, Doubleday, Page, 1909, Original Sources. 12 Feb. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H3UHBH3K2BBKLPV.
Harvard: Taine, HA, 'II. Re-Election of the Two-Thirds.' in The French Revolution— Volume 3, ed. and trans. . cited in 1909, The French Revolution—Volume 3, Doubleday, Page, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 12 February 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H3UHBH3K2BBKLPV.
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