At the time when the death-sentence of Louis XVI was passed, Robespierre had eighteen months to live, Danton fifteen, Vergniaud nine, Marat five months and three weeks, and Lepelletier-Saint-Fargeau one day! Brief and terrible was the breath of life in those days.
“Noble spectators from all over Europe contemplated the French Revolution from a distance and interpreted it according to their own indignations and enthusiasms for so long, and so passionately, that the text finally disappeared under the interpretation.”
—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §38 (edited excerpt).
16th May 1823 saw the death in France of Grace Elliott, the renowned Scottish society beauty and courtesan who witnessed at first hand the French Revolution.
Born in Edinburgh in 1754, Grace Dalrymple Elliott became one of the most sought after women in Europe.
Educated in a French convent, her barrister father Hew Dalrymple later introduced her to Edinburgh society where she received numerous marriage proposals. Grace, however, fearless, beautiful and wild, was to reject tradition.
Unhappily married and then divorced, she went on to have affairs with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Orleans, later known as Philippe Egalité.
She lived a scandalous and remarkable life, maintaining dangerous alliances and surviving treachery and betrayal.
Her memoir, an eyewitness account of the Revolution, recounts a time of turbulent politics, dark days and lethal enemies during an infamous time in history, which she witnessed while living in Paris.
Entertaining her relationship with the Duke of Orleans, Grace had unprecedented access to the highest ranks of court life, which she vividly recounts. After her arrival in Paris she was forced to escape violent Revolutionists and the Mob to stay in Meudon, where she was at the mercy of domestic spies and harboured a wanted man.
Unable to fleehome, she was then imprisoned and became gravely ill.
Although many of her friends met their deaths, including Madame du Barry, Grace only narrowly escaped the guillotine herself. She narrowly avoided death and was released after the Reign of Terror came to an end, not before she had been confined in a total to four different prisons by the Republican government. In later years, there were rumours that she had an attachment with Napoleon Bonaparte, but had rejected his offer of marriage. She died a wealthy woman at Ville d'Avray, in present-day Hauts-de-Seine, in May 1823, while a lodger with the commune’s mayor. Her memoirs were published in 1859.
After the Storming, people immediately wanted to conserve souvenirs from it. Palloy, in charge of its demolition, encouraged it by creating “relics” from the material of the building. This kind of models, small reproduction of the Bastille, was sent in every département and exhibited for the patriotic fests
“The Storming of the Bastille”, Visible in the center is the arrest of Bernard René Jourdan, marquis de Launay (1740-1789), Watercolor painting; 37,8 x 50,5 cm
The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.
On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. The demonstrators had earlier stormed the Hôtel des Invalides to gather arms (29,000 to 32,000 muskets, but without powder or shot), and were mainly seeking to acquire the large quantities of arms and ammunition stored at the Bastille.
The crowd gathered outside around mid-morning, calling for the release of the arms and gunpowder. The negotiations dragged on while, and the crowd finally decided to take the prison down and surged into the undefended outer courtyard. About this time gunfire began.
The firing continued, and the attackers were reinforced by mutinous gardes françaises and other deserters from among the regular troops, along with two cannons. Governor de Launay capitulated and the vainqueurs swept in to liberate the fortress at.
Ninety-eight attackers and one defender had died in the actual fighting. De Launay was seized and dragged towards the Hôtel de Ville. He was then stabbed repeatedly and fell, and his head was sawn off and fixed on a pike to be carried through the streets.
Returning to the Hôtel de Ville, the mob accused the prévôt des marchands Jacques de Flesselles of treachery, and he was assassinated en route to an ostensible trial at the Palais-Royal.
People often ask me (I haven’t forgotten you, anons!) which books I’d recommend about the French Revolution. The question always stumps me, because I assume you might want books in English and I… just… barely… know them. They are generally not… very good. Aside from a few exceptions, I just don’t use them.
So in the last 24 hrs I’ve been working on a critical, thematic bibliography of my best-of, looking at the state of Anglo-American historiography, and also which amazing French books (that I’d recommend first) have been translated to English. Good news! Many have been! Praise the Allegories, etc.!
Stay tuned for my post!
Can’t wait for this. I’ve been thinking about the reason behind it (why there are so few good -or few well-known good Anglo sources on frev). Without going too much into speculation, it does seem like Anglo historical sphere is very ethnocentric towards frev: they have their own view on it, which often misses the context in both time and space. And I don’t mean on whether they are positive or negative rowards frev. I mean: those books are very clearly written for Anglo readers. The assumptions, the norms, values, expectations, even the writing style - all of this is made with the Anglo culture and Anglo reader in mind.
This is not something only Anglo writers do (Eastern European historiography is equally ethnocentric about frev and anything else), but the issue with Anglo sources is that they position themselves as the absolute, objective authority on the subject. When it’s just… a very ethnocentric, biased view.
Obviously, French sources are often ethnocentric, too, but it is their history and (regardless of how they view frev - I am also talking about books critical if it) they at least tend to use the correct historical context of the French culture. Which Anglo books miss so often.
There is also an issue of so many French books not being translated in English, which also tells about the lack of interest (as in, lack of awareness that those books are important or that there is a gap in knowledge if those books are ignored).
BARÈRE ARE THOSE EVEN WORDS(*). DID NO ONE TEACH YOU PENMANSHIP. WHY DOES THE COMMITTEE EVEN LET YOU WRITE OUT DECREES WHEN BILLAUD-VARENNES, CARNOT, SAINT-JUST, HÉRAULT, AND SOMETIMES COUTHON HAD PERFECTLY LEGIBLE HANDWRITING.
P.S. - His signature can get even bigger. It can get bigger.
(*) - So it actually becomes decently readable if you zoom, like x300. But my god.
Their signatures are like
ᴿᵒᵇᵉˢᵖᶦᵉʳʳᵉ
ᴮᶦˡˡᵃᵘᵈ ⱽᵃʳᵉⁿⁿᵉ
BBarere
Now I need to know Why
@saintjustitude Found Barère’s birth record, but as far as I can tell, no time of birth. Bertrand was born in Tarbes on 10 September 1755. But here is the record, if anyone wants to check:
A drawing (probably taking place circa 1792) of Camille Desmoulins (1760-1794), his wife Lucile (1770-1794) and their only son Horace (1792-1825). Camille and Lucile’s appearances are based upon the 1983 movie Danton and Horace’s is based upon a loaf of bread.
Super super rough storyboard thingy of what will eventually be my next big drawing project. Eventually, I’ll do each of these panels individually and very big, just sketched out in pencil, then I’ll scan each and color digitally (fingers crossed). One of my favorite quotes ever, adapted visually for this.
it must be very odd to run into people on tumblr defending Robespierre saying that calling him a mass murderer is “thermidorian propaganda”. So let’s unpack that.
Thermidorian propaganda is, long story short, a series of made up or distorted facts about the politics of year II (1793/94, like, the terror) and specially about Robespierre. We all know propaganda is supposed to push an agenda, it’s usually financed by an entity. With thermidorian propaganda is hard to tell because the people who had anything to gain from painting Robespierre as a monster are long dead, but somehow it still gets parroted to this day by non-specialists and reproduced in fiction and pop culture.
In this post I’m going to focus on the original thermidorian propaganda that came out immediately after Robespierre’s death. I hope, if real life allows me, this to be the first post of a series. I must clarify I’m not a historian so there will be inacuracies, this is just a casual, funny and quick intro to the subject, so if I succeed in picking your interest, I strongly encourage you to do your own research with real academic sources and draw your own conclusions. Also I’d like to thank @frevandrest and @tierseta for their corrections and suggestions! Also I relied a lot on @rbzpr, specially this post that compiles a lot of primary sources about the propaganda.
Year II (1793-1794) speedrun
Robespierre’s real role during the terror
To understand what even was the terror about, you need to know that there was an external war against all the monarchies of Europe and simultaneously, an internal war against counterrevolutionary forces like vendean revels and federalists. To even have a chance for the republic to survive, the national convention declared that the government would be “revolutionary until peace” which means that there would be a state of emergency, which suspended certain freedoms until peacetime. Some of the emergency measures were the suspension of the constitution of 1793, the infamous law of suspects and general maximum, the limitation of freedom of press and the institution of representatives on mission, deputies of the convention that were sent to the provinces to watch over military operations and had the authority to do whatever they wanted.
Robespierre in 1793 was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. The CPS was the convention’s executive branch and pretty much a war cabinet with dictatorial powers (in theory, but in practice everything they did had to be approved by the convention). Its purpose was to take measures to win the war against all of Europe, keep everyone fed and crush counterrevolution. They didn’t have a “director” or anything like that, the twelve had equal authority. Besides, the CPS was full of deeply confrontational, clashing personalities that weren’t exactly fond of Robespierre, so it’s not like he could dominate over them. (Twelve who Ruled by R.R. Palmer gives you a good idea of their dynamic and boy did they hate each other)
Despite this, Robespierre was the most famous member; so he became the de facto face of the CPS and it was assumed outside of France that he had control over the republic, which was portrayed by the monarchies as a barbaric mess, and that impression lives on.
I hope to make this very clear: Robespierre wasn’t as powerful and didn’t have as much control of the situation as bad school texts will make us believe. Nobody did, the situation during the terror really was that chaotic. By the summer of 1794, known today as the Great Terror, Robespierre’s popularity and influence on the goverment was weakened compared to that it was before (I’ll elaborate why soon).
The excesses of year II and who made them
The deputies that became the future thermidorians, for the most part, were ultra radicals from the mountain (the far left party that was most influential in the convention and Robespierre himself was a part of) who had been sent to the provinces as representatives in mission to crush counterrevolution or supervise the army. Some of them committed some atrocious war crimes, brutally executing thousands of people. Robespierre was appalled, had them recalled and spent the rest of his life antagonizing them because he didn’t have the authority to bring them to justice.
For example, Collot d’Herbois, fellow CPS member, who shot people with cannons full of shrapnel as a representative on mission in Lyons alongside Joseph Fouché, used his authority to counteract Robespierre’s attempts to hold him or the other representatives on mission accountable. Still Robespierre had them on his radar to punish them as soon as he had the opportunity and they had him on their radar fearing that he would use his popularity against them at any moment. Some of them tried to bootlick him and get on his good side, but their actions were so repulsive to him he refused any kind of compromise.
Other important details
The idea that Robespierre was aspiring for a dictatorship comes from way earlier. In November 1792, a girodin named Louvet accused him of such and wanting to form a triumvirate with Danton and Marat. Robespierre defended himself well and the idea was discredited, only to be recycled during thermidor when the surviving girondins came back to the convention (the girondins another long story lmao)
The idea that Robespierre was some kind of blood drinking monster also started even before the man even did anything wrong. His radical ideals about giving voting rights to minorities like jews and protestants, to men that didn’t own property, to free black people, him speaking out against slavery, against the inviolability of the king, the royal veto, etc… it genuinely pissed off a lot of people
This is a huge tangent but it’s relevant because it’s the origin of Robespierre’s supposed God-complex. So, if you have heard about the decristianization hysteria that was going on during the terror, Robespierre was hostile to it actually, and thought the state needed some kind of religion to hold it together, which is funny since a lot of people nowadays believe he was an atheist. To put a stop to it and reinforce the freedom of cults, he proposed that the French Republic must recognize the cult of “Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul” as a compromise between religion and secular patriotic worship. To clarify, this isn’t some religion Robespierre made up out of nowhere, it was influenced by Rousseau’s deist ideas and civic festivals (More on that in Mathiez essay about The Supreme Being in The Fall of Robespierre). The project was a success at the time, but his militant atheist coworkers couldn’t forgive him for it and went out of their way to use it against him later. Thus the Committee of General Security put together a report (with fabricated evidence and all!) in which they tried to link him to a wacky but harmless and obscure cult that prophesied the coming of a messiah, implying that it was Robespierre, with the purpose to ridicule him.
The infamous Prairial law (here’s a post explaining it better than I ever could). This law, which streamlined processes and executions and centralized them in Paris, removed the deputies immunity which would enable Robespierre to go after the aforementioned war criminals’ heads. However, Robespierre cut ties with the CPS after a fight with the other members and disappeared from the government, leaving the law in the hands of people who abused it, like the Committee of General Security and public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville (who also had beef with Robespierre). In fact you don’t see many arrests signed by Robespierre during this time, that later became considered to be the Great Terror, while his coworkers, like Carnot or Barère, were very trigger happy using this law to say the least.
Robespierre’s fall
So, Robespierre goes rogue against the CPS and disappears from the government for more than a month. There was an attempt at reconciliation that Robespierre completely rejected when the 8th thermidor he returns and causes a commotion with an emotional and disjointed speech in which he expresses his despair about the gory state of the revolution and vagues the violent deputies, but refuses to give their names. The speech is definitely not his best and you can tell he’s not ok, but it has some raw, revealing lines like:
“Anyway, voilà within less than six weeks that my dictatorship is expired, and that I didn’t have any kind of influence on the government. Has patriotism been more protected? the factions more timid, the patrie happier? I would wish so”
Or my personal favorite:
“They call me tyrant… If I would be one, they would crawl at my feet, I would stuff them with gold, I would ensure them the right to commit all the crimes, and they would be grateful.”
Fouché and others took advantage of his vagueness to convince half of the convention that he was targeting them and aspiring for a power grab.
Jean Lambert Tallien, a young deputy who had participated in bloody repressions in Bordeaux, conspired with his then girlfriend Thérese Cabarrus who was in prison, starts the reaction the next day by interrupting SJ’s speech trying to mitigate the mess Robespierre caused the previous day. Later Tallien becomes instrumental in building the narrative to justify Robespierre’s murder and create the concept of the Reign of Terror.
The first batch of Thermidorian propaganda
The accusations against Robespierre were vague and contradictory… and calling them accusations is kind of generous because they were mostly people yelling vague grievances against him, nothing official or legal. The ultra radicals accused Robespierre of not being enough of a terrorist. The moderates of being too much of a terrorist. The funniest example of this dichotomy was when Billaud-Varenne (CPS member) accused him of, I shit you not, protesting against arresting Danton and another guy shouting “the blood of Danton chokes you” during the session. Anyway, Robespierre was declared an outlaw and executed with no trial and at least a hundred of his followers were dragged with him to the scaffold. Ironically, the day after Robespierre’s death saw the highest number of people guillotined in a single day in all of the terror. I need to empathize that he was guillotined without a trial, because while the revolutionary tribunal could be a kangaroo court sometimes, at least they kept registries of what someone was being accused of, Robespierre didn’t even go through it so his imputed crimes remained very vague and open to add shit later. So the next day Barére showed up with a report and fabricated evidence about how Robespierre was conspiring with his close supporters to crown himself king.
Some time later Tallien came up to the convention with a speech about how what had happened the past year had been a Reign Of Terror, that Robespierre bullied a congress of 700 something men into doing whatever he wanted, that every single bad thing that happened, all the unnecessary bloodshed was exclusively Robespierre’s fault. Boohoo, Robespierre poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague upon the republic and he did all himself.
The thermidorian convention, with the press of the time, made sure to run the robespierrists’ names through the mud and scapegoat them of their own excesses. A massive amount of libelous pamphlets against Robespierre were circulating circa 1795-1799, portraying him as some kind of gangster-sultan-pimp tyrant monster with a secret castle and lots of money and chicks, which is hilarious in hindsight since all his stuff sold for like… 300 francs, but at the time people ate it up.
Here’s some of my personal favorites because original thermidorian propaganda was seriously wacky (and let’s make it fun by rating it)
✨highlights✨
Apparently, Robespierre wished to marry Louis’ eldest child to crown himself king. I’d rate it higher for the creativity but she was a literal teenager ewww. 3/10
Courtois report: Courtois was in charge of going through the robespierrists papers and of course he suppressed and twisted a lot of evidence. He collected his “findings” in a report for the convention. Thanks to this guy most of Robespierre’s correspondence is lost. -4563456435/10
La vie de Robespierre: I haven’t read this one so what I know comes from secondary sources, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s one of the first biographies of Robespierre ever written, by his own school teacher, the abbot Proyart, who became a royalist émigré during the revolution. It’s such a mess, he makes normal things children do sound malignant when little Maximilien did them. He’s also the source of the legend that Robespierre read a poem for Louis XVI as a kid, which Hervé Leuwers debunked in his Robespierre bio. 5/10 because apparently his beef with Robespierre (besides the whole revolution thing) was that he wouldn’t say hi to him during vacations. Petty as hell.
Le chat-tigre: the description that Robespierre resembled a cat comes from a pamphlet published by Merlin de Thionville. This one is key because it deviates from the common view of the time of Robespierre as a morally corrupt orgy-frequenter, and portrays him as a dull, emotionless incel, which is closer to the way thermidorian propaganda reads like today. It also has this hysterical line: “History will say little about this monster”. Anyway Merlin called Robespierre a catboy unironically so I rate it meow/10
La queue de Robespierre (Robespierre’s tail). This pamphlet by Méhée de la Touché is interesting because it goes after certain thermidorians like Barère, Collot and Billaud, foreshadowing how the whole thing would soon backfire on them. Also the title is a dick joke, so, 10/10.
These two engravings. 760936/10
This whole-ass painting of Robespierre straight up ruling over hell
My absolute favorite: this one is from later when the whole mountain was purged from the convention (so there’s lots of thermidorians here too). There’s so much happening here. The snakes, the bats, the be gay do crimes skeletons, and the whole gang is there, looking like smurfs. It’s beautiful. 1793/10
But why spread so many lies about a dead man? They had to do it, you see, they had to gaslight the entire nation as much as possible, the ultras to avoid accountability and the moderates to discredit the democratic ideals that he represented so they could pass shit like the constitution of year III. This has effects on historiography to this day (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).
Thermidor backfires
With some exceptions, who ended up becoming Napoleon’s ministers, they did not avoid accountability…
Some of the original thermidorians were radicals who believed in the jacobin ideals of year II and just thought, sincerely or not, that Robespierre was aspiring for dictatorship, and the ones who had done war crimes as representatives on mission seemed to genuinely believe they were justified to do so and had to defend themselves when they were used against them.
Some of them weren’t expecting that after purging and persecuting Robespierre’s supporters, the mountain would be weakened and that the national convention would take a turn to the right when they brought back a bunch of girondins. What was left of the mountain wanted to keep the progress towards a more egalitarian society made in year II. Some of the right wingers like Boissy d’Anglas took credit for Robespierre’s fall and influenced the convention to become more reactionary. Some of the montagnards got guillotined for their crimes against humanity, like Carrier (the infamous dude who drowned thousands of people in the Loire - also a massive thermidorian, because of course he was), while most were exiled to Guyana.
Decades later during the Bourbon restoration, former Montagnards and members of the CPS like Billaud and Barère, came to regret bitterly what they did to Robespierre, his memory and the Republic, and admitted to having lied about him.
Conclusion
It’s not a secret to anyone that the French Revolution was extremely brutal and nobody is denying it (and that’s without counting what happened after Robespierre’s death). Donald Greer in The incidence of the terror during the french revolution estimates a death toll of 35.000-40.000, which includes not just people sentenced to death (which he estimates between 16.000-17.000), but people massacred without a trial by these representatives on mission I spoke about, people who died of disease in prisons, etc.
The executions by guillotine, that Robespierre came to represent, were just one aspect of it, an aspect that has become iconic in pop culture and exaggerated to death. The Jacobins weren’t executing people just for being nobles, in fact, there were some former nobles in the government and more commoners were executed than nobles. All those 17k death sentences weren’t signed or approved by Robespierre personally, and while Robespierre was powerful in theory as a member of the committee of public safety, he had very little control of the situation. And it’s not like he was an innocent little angel, he had blood on his hands but so did everyone back then, and his reputation is very disproportionate to what he actually did.
And yet, we’re taught in schools and in media that he was single-handely the supreme authority who did whatever he wanted and we never hear about the people that got him killed, what they were up to during the terror and how they straight up scapegoated this man to escape accountability for their crimes against humanity. But why though? Shouldn’t that be common knowledge by now, more than two centuries later?
Next part, if I can do it, I hope I can cover how thermidorian propaganda evolved to what it is today. Still this is a subject I only have general notions about and haven’t read about extensively so I’ll take a while to write the post, but it should be fun to research as it was fun (and infuriating) to research this.
Salut & fraternité and… happy birthday Robespierre!!! :-) My present is posting about how you got murdered and slandered I guess lmao.
In profile facing to the right, Robespierre’s face has a different expression, moreover [his head] is crowned by an oak crown with the most beautiful effect. David d'Angers could not have paid a more significant homage to the Incorruptible. He remembered that Robespierre had really received an oak crown from the people, and he wanted to consecrate this memory of the heroic times of the Revolution. It was on 30 September 1791, the day when the Constituent Assembly ended its glorious career. At four o’clock the president Thouret rose, and, amidst a religious silence, delivered these words: « The National Assembly declares that it has fulfilled its mission, and that all of its sessions are closed. » The deputies left, and an immense crowd expected them on the terrace of the Tuileries.
« Robespierre », Ernest Hamel wrote, « was well-known and well recognisable, since his portrait was exhibited in the windows of all printsellers. When he appeared, offering his arm to Pétion, then his faithful friend, one surrounded both of them; one embraced them ; and, amidst cries of Long live liberty! Long live the nation!,one placed oak crowns on their heads. A mother, having a very young child in her arms, broke through the crowd, went straight to Robespierre and placed it in his hands, as if she had wanted that this father of liberty blesses, through her child, the new generation [that] had the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of the Revolution. Visibly moved, Pétion and Robespierre sought to evade this triumph, all the more honourable for them as it was completely spontaneous, and attempted to slip away via a bystreet… »
Les portraits de Robespierre (Hippolyte Buffenoir), chapter II, in: Annales révolutionnaires, vol. 1, p. 460.
Excerpt from the procès-verbal of the session of the General Council of the Commune of 23 Pluviôse, Year II of the Republic.
The three Representatives of the People, deputies from the Colonies, the one black, the other métis, and the third white, enter the General Council of the Commune, and, in the name of their constituents, they present the feelings of affection and esteem that the virtues [and] the courage of the people of Paris and of its magistrates have inspired in them.
Speech of the métis Deputy at the General Council of the Commune of Paris.
Citizens Magistrates of the people,
We come to consolidate a pact of union and fraternity with the people of Paris, in the name of the 6 or 7 hundred thousand individuals who inhabit Saint-Domingue ; it has started the revolution, it has fought the tyrant, it has overthrown despotism, and it has served the cause of liberty and equality so well, that the Republic is finally one and indivisible. We come to pay the homage of our administration to it, for its glorious works and for its successes ; it is by hearing the account of its efforts [and] of its victories, that we have found, within ourselves, the energy which characterises the free man, the republican, and which was smothered by the degradation wherein we were buried. It is to the progress of the spirit which it has developed, that we owe the fortunate regeneration which has, firstly, made us citizens, and which finally comes to restore the name men to our brothers, in exchange for the one of slaves. This odious word will no longer sully the dictionary of the French ; henceforth, there will, in all parts of France, only be a people of friends and brothers.
The name of the People of Paris will, in our memory, eternally unite with the idea of liberty, of the French Republic, of the National Convention, and with the one of the submission and the inalterable attachment to one’s laws.
People of Paris, these are the feelings that I present to you, in the name of my brothers, and I present them in the hands of your magistrates.
Signed, MILLS.
Speech of the black deputy.
Citizens,
I was a slave in my childhood. 36 years ago, I became free through my industry ; I was bought [by] myself. Since, in the course of my life, I felt worthy of being French.
I served my patrie with the esteem of my leaders of the last war, in the campaign of New England, under General d'Estaing. In the very memorable days of the last 20 and 21 June (old style), when the traitor Galbaud, at the head of the counter-revolutionaries, wanted to have the delegates of France slaughtered ; I armed myself with my brothers in order to defend them ; my blood flowed for the French Republic, for the noble cause of liberty: I do not claim to make myself a merit out of it, I only did my duty.
Having barely escaped the dangers of my wounds, I was appointed, by my concitoyens, in order to represent them in France and to bring you the homage of their devotion and their eternal fidelity to the French Nation ; citizens, these are my only titles ; this is my glory.
I have only one thing to tell you: it is the tricolour flag that has called us to liberty ; it is under its auspices that we have regained this liberty, our heritage and the treasure of our posterity ; as [long as] a single drop of blood will be left in our veins, I swear to you, in the name of my brothers, that this flag will always float on our shores and in our mountains.
Signed, BELLEY.
Speech of the white deputy.
Citizens,
When all French [people] were free, between 6 and 7 hundred thousand individuals were still slaves in Saint-Domingue, and just as many on our other islands. – They were surrounded by evils ; they were on French territory as in a foreign country ; they did not have the permission to have a patrie ; they fertilised French soil ; they contributed to the prosperity of the metropolis, and they did not draw any benefit from their sweat ; they did not have anything, not even hope.
I have had the pleasure of pleading their cause, and of attaching them to France ; the National Convention has been their liberator, it has broken their chains, it has restored the Rights of Man to them ; for them, misfortune is not eternal: nature lies in the joy of seeing such a beautiful triumph ; my happiness is complete.
In addition to my bliss, having been born in Paris, I find myself amidst my concitoyens, my compatriots ; I have nothing left to desire, if not their esteem, and to prove myself worthy of them in the Convention ; and until my last breath, I will be [worthy], I swear it, and I will keep my oaths.
Signed, DUFAY.
The president responds: « Citizens, the Rights of Man were violated for a long time ; crooks [and] kings had, through a long slavery, debased humankind ; they did not blush about trading humans. Thanks to our sacred revolution, we have recovered our rights, [and] we will keep them ; unite with us ; let us form an unwavering faisceau ; let us vow the death of the tyrants. Soon, our pledges will be fulfilled, and earth, [having been] purged of the monsters that sully it, will henceforth only offer the touching sight of truly free men. »
Then, CHAUMETTE takes the floor, and says:
« In the days when, for pusillanimous souls, it was dangerous to proclaim the Rights of Man and to apply them to People of Colour, the Commune of Paris, braving both prejudices and fears, dared to welcome, in its midst, the victims of egotism, and received from them, as a reward for their attachment, the flag that you see hanging over our heads. The visit of our brothers, the deputies of Saint-Domingue, compensates us today for the feigned disdain that we have experienced, when, at the bar of the National Convention, we led the Americans, preceded by a woman of 114 years of age…, a woman who bore the trace of a century of misfortunes on her face, of a century of crimes on behalf of our unfortunate fathers, or rather the seal of their own enslavement ; but then, the Convention was not itself: it could only dedicate its efforts to delivering the French People from the tyranny of the federalists who infected everything, even the senate itself.
I remember it well, it was the year after the expulsion of the kings, that Rome, upon the motion of Valerius Publicola, pronounced the laws on the liberation [of the slaves] ; and, among us, it was in the year after the death of the tyrant, that the very name slave has been destroyed.
Citizens, we have more than one Valerius Publicola, more than all his assembled works: we have a National Convention, which does not content itself with making laws on the liberation, but which, with a single word, pronounced the abolition of slavery ; we have a Publicola Convention!… long live the Convention… long live the Publicola Convention!… (The people from the tribunes repeats it.) Long live the Publicola Convention!…
And you, men from the Colonies, applaud with us to the works of a new people which wants to make our concitoyens forget the crimes of the old man ; no, no, the murderous nabot will no longer crush the ankle of the unfortunate slave’s foot. Ah! he shall depart immediately, this fortunate being, which, as the voice of our legislators, will also be the voice of the sacred laws or nature in our Colonies ; he shall fly, he shall cry Liberty! – He shall advance in the home of arrogant avidity ; he shall set forth with the speed of light upon the barbarous piqueur, while crying: stop, you wretch, you are striking a free man…
Oh you, unfortunate mothers, obliged to curse your fertility, rest assured, your children will be citizens ; the source of crimes is exhausted: no, you will no longer smother your children in order to shield them from slavery and from the murderous whip ; you will no longer smother them in order to shield them from the long ordeal of life ; you will nourish them for the patrie, you will nourish them so that they can enjoy their liberty and bless their liberators. And you, Black Men, you… (I must use your expression) you will no longer swallow your tongue, in order to be able to hide your degradation and your torments under the tomb ; on the contrary, you will preserve them in order to pronounce the death sentence of tyranny, in order to inveigh against your oppressors, regardless of the skin with which nature has covered them ; you will preserve them in order to proclaim, in both worlds, the immortal declaration of the Rights of Man, [which has been] buried for you for too long under the jumble of astute speeches, and the tiresome paperwork of the long process of humanity against despotism.
For you, Commune of Paris, enjoy, for a moment, the little good that you have done. It is nothing, this is true, in comparison with what our Legislators have done ; but nature, which makes the Cedar of the Lebanon grow, also grants asylum to the simple violet, under the shadowy vaults of our forest. Our legislators deposit, at the feet of the Patrie, at the feet of liberty, the immortal trophies of their glory. Let us gather the humble field flower, and let us also bring our offering to the common divinity. The legislator proclaims, in the name of the French People, the rights of humanity, and marks his works with new good deeds ; we shall be allowed to celebrate them ; let us sing of sacred equality, and our songs shall resound in the mountains of the land of the children of the sun.
One the next Décadi, [30 Pluviôse], as our decrees command, we will assemble with our brothers, in the Temple of Reason, in order to read out the Rights of Man there and to sing the hymns of liberty. Let us also celebrate the abolition of slavery there. I propose that a member of the General Council delivers a speech on this subject, and that this festival is dedicated to celebrating this pleasant period of our revolution. »
The Council, adopting the proposal of the national agent, decides that he will himself be invited to deliver the speech that he proposes ; that all constitutional authorities, the electoral body, the sections, the popular societies, the civil and revolutionary committees, will be invited to this festival: finally, decides that the administration of public works will take the measures [that are] necessary for the order that is to be observed there.
[Brief account of the Festival of 30 Pluviôse]
And on Décadi, 30 Pluviôse, the People of Paris gathered with its magistrates, in the Temple of Reason. The crowd was immense. Upon the arrival of the deputation of the National Convention, which included the deputies of the Colonies, repeated cries of Long live the National Convention, and applause, mingling with the noise of the instruments of war, resounded in the vaults of the building and were repeated outside.
Thecitoyensandcitoyennes of Colour were placed, along with the deputation of the National Convention, in an enclosure [that was] decorated with garlands and crowns.
The ceremony began with an overture by Gossec, performed by the National Institute of Music. The president of the Council then read the declaration of the Rights of Man.
After this reading, another piece of music was performed ; during which the most pleasant effusions of fraternity manifested themselves. Cries of Long live the Republic put an end to this touching scene.
Thesecrétaire-greffier then read out the analysis of all the beautiful deeds that the past month had witnessed. Another piece of music followed. Finally, Citizen Chaumette delivered [his famous] speech, which was often interrupted by applause: tears of affection flowed from all eyes, they were charming. Once the speech ended, the citizens of colour came to give the kiss of fraternity to the orator. A black child, lifted by the arms [of the citizens] and thus handed over to the Representatives of the People, produced the greatest effect ; but soon, the Men of Colour, followed by the municipality, advanced to the sound of a military march, beside the Representatives of the People, their hands carrying the crowns that they presented to them. It would have been necessary to have seen this beautiful scene, in order to really feel it. Men of all colours, formerly slaves, pressed between the arms of the Representatives of the French People, soaked with their tears… The arms of all spectators raised towards the sky, cries of Long live the Republic,Long live the Convention [were] repeated a thousand times… On this day, the Legislators must have felt how expressive the gratitude of the People is.
After a drum roll, everyone resumed their place, and the Men of Colour, always pressed around the representatives of the People, remained in this attitude, during the Hymn to Liberty, which closed this interesting festival.
Upon leaving the Temple, the crowd had grown outside ; the nearby squares and streets were filled with Republicans who, in their turn, demonstrated their gratitude to the popular representation, as well as the role which they played in the festival that had just been celebrated.
