appeared undecided how it would terminate, the public was agitated with the most serious fears of seeing a renovation of the horrors from which they hoped to have escaped. The spirit of moderation, which had, since the fall of Roberspierre, been predominant, was so unacceptable to the jacobin party, which, though checked, was not suppressed, that, availing themselves of the lenity professed by government, they assembled in various places, and held dis. courses of a tendency to rouse into an insurrection all that were disposed to join them. The pretence, by means of which they excited the populace to discontent, was the scarcity of bread. Whether this was real or affected, through their machinations, an immense crowd arose on the first of April, and proceeded to the hall of the convention, demanding bread, and the constitution of 1793. The latter of these demands plainly shewed who were the instigators of this insurrection. The jacobin members of the convention explicitly abetted these deinands. Emboldened by this support, the spokesman of the insur. gents told the convention, that those in whose name he addressed them were the men of the fourteenth of July, the tenth of August, and the thirty-first of May; that they would not suffer the accused members to be sacrificed to their enemies; and expected the convention would alter its measures.

When the insurgents broke into the hall, the convention was em. ployed in a discussion how to re. medy the scarcity that was com. plained of; but this sudden interruption forced them to have recourse to immediate means, for their preservation from the fury

of the mob. They directed the alarm bells to be rung through all Paris, and the citizens to be called to the aid of the convention. They readily obeyed the summons, and assembled to the number of twenty thousand. But, from two in the afternoon till six in the evening, the convention was in the power of the insurgents, from whom, as they had forcibly entered the hall, danger was reasonably apprehended; their words and demeanour being full of insolence and menaces.

The city was no less alarmed than the convention. Knowing the number and resolution of the jaco. bins, and dreading a return of their tyranny, they took up arms with the utmost zeal in every section; and, by this demonstration of adhe rence to the convention, intimidated the insurgents, who, finding themselves unequal to the force that opposed them, were compelled to disperse. What highly contributed to the suppression of this tumult was the presence of Pichegru, who happened auspiciously to be at Paris. He took the command of the Paris military, and quickly restored the public tranquillity. Delivered from their perilous situation, the convention passed a decree for the punishment of the authors of this riot. As it had evidently been excited to prevent the trial of the denounced members, it was moved by Dumont, a popular member, of noted firmness, that they should immediately be sentenced to punish. ment. In order to soften the rigour of a condemnation that might ap. pear precipitate, their lives were spared; but they were banished to Guiana, and ordered to be trans. ported thither without delay. Let [G3]

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us, said he, without dooming them to death, cast away these monsters from our society. In this manner terminated the career of Barrere, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud Var. rennes, after having made so conspicuous a figure during the two first years of the republic. Vaudier, their associate, had found means to make his escape.

The party of the moderates resolved to improve this opportunity of ridding the convention of some of those turbulent spirits that still guided the moticons of the remaining members of the mountain. That bold and restless faction, though subdued, was not destroyed, and fost no occasion of reviving and enforcing its atrocious maxims. A bout twenty of the principal among them were put under arrest, and imprisoned in the castle of Ham, in the province formerly called Pi. cardy. Had they acted in the same manner against the government of Roberspierre as they had done against the present, no one doubted that they would have to suffer death. The system of moderation, against which they so violently declaimed, was the sole cause of their preservation; and yet individuals arose who, with that philosophic coolness which, however praiseworthy in its prin. ciple, is too prone to require the same regularity of proceeding in tempestuous as in peaceable times, took upon them to describe the conduct of the moderate party as de. serving of censure, on this occa. sion, for having neglected the formalities of a regular trial. With out entirely absolving this party, the universal assent of all those who dreaded the renovation of the jaeobin system was a sufficient justification of the measures they took to

prevent it. Many of their least partial friends heavily censured them for not having adopted a line of more security, against men who would have shewed them no mercy, and who, by the clearest laws of re taliation, were entitled to no more lenity than they had themselves displayed, whenever the evil destiny of their country had thrown its go. vernment into their hands.

As soon as this dangerous insur rection had subsided, the convention determined to enter on the longdesired, though highly arduous, undertaking, of forming a constitution that might be acceptab e to all reasonable people, and thereby bid fair to be more permanent than the preceding. A committee was ap pointed to prepare the method of carrying this plan into execution, The result of its consultations was, that a commission of eleven mem. bers of the convention should be authorized to draw up a system of go, vernment, comprehending a cir. cumstantial organization of all its parts. All m n were invited to communicate their sentiments on these subjects. The commissioners selected for this great work were Lanjuinais, Lareveilliere, Lepaux, Thibaudeau, Boissy d'Anglas, Le Sage, Latouche, Louvet, Bertier, Daunou, Durand, Baudin. A provisional system of government was, in the mean while, established, and to remain in force till the constitu. tion had been completed and ac, cepted. It was framed on prin. ciples consistent with those of the moderate party, and calculated to maintain a strict concord and correspondence between all the departments of government, These procecdings took place in the course of May.

Aa

An object of no less importance to France, in its critical situation respecting foreign powers, was the providing means to carry on the war with so many potent enemies. Cam. bon, the financier, so long celebrated for his labours in the department of finance, had been dismissed by the convention, and succeeded by Jo. hannot, a man of established repu tation in that branch of political knowledge. In a report which he presented on the sixth of May to the convention, upon the situation of the national finances, he proposed two regulations to be observed, with inviolable fidelity: the one was a strict and punctual payment of the interest due on the national debt; the other was the establishment of a sinking fund, to pay off the principal. Allowing the war to continue two years longer, still, he contended, money enough would remain, after defraying all other expences, to answer the purposes of such a fund. According to his state. ments, the property of the nation, in lands and forests, estates of the emigrants, royal palaces, and do. mains, together with the produce of the same nature in Belgium, were valued altogether at a sum equal to more than 110,000l. sterling per annum. This, he asserted, was an amount amply sufficient for the expences of the war, on a supposition of its lasting a much longer space than probable, and for a complete liquidation of the whole debt. After entering into various calculations, to prove the justness of his ideas, he concluded by asserting, that, after defraying all charges, there would remain, clear and un. appropriated, according to the accounts and valuations referred to,

no less a sum than seven thousand millions of livres.

Ad.

This enumeration of the re. sources remaining to France, af forded great satisfaction to the public; but the deeper class of specula tors could not refrain from hinting their doubts of the solidity of the multifarious objects on which his calculations were founded. mitting their exactness, still the uncertainty of those amounts, which were to arise from assets existing only in expectation, was alone a defect, that reduced his system to a mere possibility. But this, in pecu. niary matters, was no foundation to build upon; especially in a country, the government of which was liable to so many vicissitudes, and the finances of which could not, of course, be considered in a situation of stability.

The late commotions had left an impression on the public mind, so inimical to the jacobins, that the convention, no less desirous of depressing that turbulent party, and punishing the chief agents in its enormities, resolved, in compliance with the reiterated desire of the majority, to bring to justice, conformably to their promise, the execrated instruments of Roberspierre's cruelties, the president and judges of the revolutionary tribunal. The multiplicity of crimes they were ac cused of, required some time to be arranged: they were accused of having prostituted the administration of justice, in the most scandalous and insolent manner, to serve the purposes of oppression and cruelty; and of having made out lists of persons to be sentenced to death, under juridical forms, merely to gratify private enmity. Contrarily [G4]

to

to the laws of humanity, and of all civilized countries, pregnant women had been ordered for execu." tion. Such was their thirst of blood, that they had been known to take no longer a space of time than three hours to try and condemn sixty in dividuals. They were so hardened and unfeeling in this work of death, and their conduct so careless and inattentive, that the father had been executed for the son, and the son for the father. Frequently they had refused copies of indictments to prisoners. Instead of a legal selection of juries by lot, out of the body of citizens, they had packed and chosen them as they thought proper. At the head of these accusations stood the name of Fouquier Tinville, a man as much.detested as his patron Roberspierre. Fifteen others were comprehended in the list, either judges or jurors of the revolutionary tribunal. They were condemned and executed on the ninth of May, to the universal satis. faction of the humane and equitable part of society.

There still remained a man equally guilty with the worst of those who had suffered, and who had signalized him. self by his barbarities as copiously as Roberspierre himself. This was Joseph Lebon, already mentioned. Loaded as he was with crimes and murders, the convention allowed him to speak in his own defence. He was one of those men, whom nature, in an evil hour for the community, endowed with a shrewd head and a wicked heart. He pleaded his cause eight or nine successive days, with as much coolness and resolutiou as if his conscience had been wholly clear of all offence. But though his audience might be astonished at his abilities, they were

too well apprised of his guilt to suffer him to go unpunished. He was unanimously delivered up to a court of justice, in that city where he had exercised most of his enormi. ties, and there brought to a trial, which terminated in his execution some time in July.

This marked spirit of vengeance, on the jacobin party, roused its abettors in every quarter: and they too determined to seize the first mo. ment of revenge. They loudly ac. cused the moderate party of shielding themselves under that denomi. nation, the more securely to conceal the plots they were contriving for the restoration of royalty. But the falsity of these accusations was so manifest, that they passed unheeded by the more cool republicans. The convention did no: seem in the least inclined to favour the roya ists. It enacted at this very time some se. vere regulations to prevent the.r re. turn into France, without law ful permission. It softened, indeed, the unnecessary rigour with which they had hitherto been treated. The property of none was confiscated, but actual emigrants: the estates of such as had suffered during the late tyranny, were restored to the lawful heirs: and the relations, and even the creditors of known emigrants were excepted from the severity of the laws against them.

But the lenity which the convention seemed evidently inclined to adopt, whenever occasion offered, could not fail to procure them the ill-will of those unruly multitudes, whose minds had been perverted by the inexorable maxims of the terrorists. They watched in silence for another opportunity of rising against the convention; and a favourable one soon recurred. The

scarcity

scarcity of bread in the late commotion, whether real or artificial, was now become too true, the principal of the remaining leaders of the jacobins, who lay concealed in the obscurest parts of Paris, availed themselves of the ill temper of the hungry populace; and persuaded them that the want of provisions was due to the indolence of the convention, and their neglecting the proper means of providing supplies for the metropolis. Among those leaders were two members of the convention whom it had sentenced to imprisonment with several others: but they contrived to escape, and were now concealed in that most turbulent faction of all the metropolis, the suburb of St. Antoine. These were Cambon, the financier, and Tharot, men equally dangerous through their abilities, their resolution, and their influence over the multitude. Through their machinations the people were excited to the most outrageous complaints and menaces against the government, and a determination taken to rise in arms against the convention.

The day chosen for this purpose was the twentieth of May. They prepared it on the preceding day, by distributing papers in the several sections, full of the most rancorous charges against the convention, and of exhortations to submit no longer to so weak and incapable a govern. ment. Those measures produced their intended effect; the members of the convention were openly reviled in the streets, and compelled to withdraw to places of shelter; but this manifestation of popular fury contributed in the issue to their safety. Forewarned thereby of what was preparing, they had time for taking precautions.

In the inflammatory papers, circulated by the exciters of the insur. rection, they recommended it unequivocally, as the duty of the people when they were aggrieved. They advised the citizens of Paris, without distinction of age or sex, to repair to the convention, there to demand bread and the constitution of 1793, the dissolution of he convention, and the arrest of all its mem. bers, and the immediate convoca. tion of the primary assemblies for the election of another. After these arrangements had taken place, and the multitude had been provided with pikes and other weapons, at the dawn of day the alarm bell was rung, and the drums beat to arms, in the suburbs of St. Antoine. The convention had,, in the manwhile, assembled; and after issuing a proclamation to the citizens to arm in their defence, passed a decree to outlaw every one that headed the insurgents: but these now surrounded the hall of the convention, and numbers of them rushing in, loaded the deputies with abuse and insult. The tribunes being in possession of the populace, force be came necessary to expel them, and a

moment

fierce contest ensued between them, and the conventional guards. The crowd was every bursting into the hall, exclaiming. bread and the constitution of 1793. It was with extreme difficulty the president could obtain a few mi. nutes of silence. He told the crowd that the convention was an. xiously deliberating on the means of supplying them with bread; but, that unless they desisted from riot and disorder, none could be pro. cured. He firmly assured them, that the convention was not to be intimidated, and would resolutely

encounter