Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/400

 388 FRANCE prisons where the priests and other suspected persons were confined, and there, on Sept. 2, began the slaughter known as the September massacres. It is estimated that between 1,300 and 1,500 prisoners were put to death. In the provinces similar though less important acts were committed. On Sept. 21 the newly elected national convention took the place of the legislative assembly. In this new body the Jacobins and more violent agitators were greatly in the majority, and their party, called "the Mountain" from its occupying the ele- vated seats in the hall, far outnumbered the Gironde, which now represented the more conservative element; besides these definite parties, a large part of the convention occu- pied an indecisive middle ground. On Sept. 25, on the motion of Oollot d'Herbois, France was enthusiastically proclaimed a republic, and the convention at once entered upon a series of decisive measures against all relics of the old regime. The fortunes of the war on the frontiers had meanwhile changed ; the Prussians had retired, the French under Du- mouriez entered Belgium, Montesquiou pressed into Savoy, and the force under Custine cap- tured several important positions on the Ger- man frontier. The party of the Mountain and the popular leaders took the credit for these successes ; their influence was greatly increas- ed ; and, urged on by them, events now rap- idly took the direction, toward which they had long been tending, of more violent personal measures against the king. On Dec. 11 Louis was brought to trial on various charges, and after a long and intensely exciting trial he was sentenced to death on Jan. 20, 1793, and on the 21st was guillotined in the place de la Revolution (now the place de la Con- corde). France was now speedily involved in an almost inextricable confusion. Insurrec- tions took place in all parts of the kingdom ; in the Vendee, from the beginning the seat of formidable royalist uprisings, the most violent disturbances broke out, and threats were made of advancing on the capital. England, by whose government the French ambassador was dismissed immediately on the news of the king's execution, united with the German em- pire, Holland, Spain, and Naples, against the revolutionary government of France. Paris itself was soon under the rule of an organized terrorism, at the head of which were Danton, Marat, Desmoulins, and their associates. A revolutionary tribunal and a "committee of public safety" were formed (March 10 and April 6), which were endowed by the conven- tion with what was in effect an absolute power over persons and property. The law securing to the members of the convention immunity from personal arrest and injury was shortly afterward repealed ; undoubtedly this was brought about as a preliminary step to the effort soon to be made to destroy the Gironde, between whom and the new leaders of affairs there existed the bitterest conflict ; a conflict to be intensified when a violent quarrel put an end to a temporary affiliation which Danton had made with the Girondist leaders. Their fall was finally brought about after a most violent debate, during which several accusa- tions were brought against them and rejected, among others that of having been associated in some way with Dumouriez in his acts. (See DUMOFEIEZ.) Bands of the armed mob gath- ered before the hall of the convention and de- manded their punishment, and on June 2 the arrest of the Girondist leaders was decided. They were at first only sentenced to nominal arrest in their own houses ; but it was not long before those who did not conceal them- selves were seized and imprisoned in the Con- ciergerie. (See GIRONDISTS.)' These acts of the convention produced violent disturbance in the provinces and in many of the large cities of the kingdom, great numbers of the people taking the part of the Girondists and opposing the violence of the new leaders at the capital. But in Paris the terrorists were now fully established in power, and proceeded daily to strengthen their rule by renewed steps against their remaining enemies. The great majori- ty of the people, especially in the provinces, looked upon Marat as the head and life of the terrorists; but when on July 13 he was killed by Charlotte Corday, the error of this belief was seen. The murder, instead of aiding the imprisoned Girondists, only furnished their enemies with another accusation against them ; while the real leadership of the party was now obviously, where it had long actually been, almost entirely in the hands of Robespierre, whom Marat's death only left more at liberty to carry out his own plans. On Aug. 10, 1793, still another constitution, and this time a radi- cally democratic one, was adopted, but it was voted that it should not go into actual effect until the end of the war. The convention made great changes in the organization and leadership of the army, and by the most stren- uous exertions, and the proclamation of a levee en masse, now brought men into the field by hundreds of thousands. In the provinces the conflict with the opposition was carried on with the most relentless cruelty. In the Yen- dee, among the royalist inhabitants, terrible slaughter was made. In Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Lyons, which had resisted the authorities at Paris, but had been subdued, the most bar- barous massacres were perpetrated. Carrier in Nantes invented novel horrors (the noyades). Toulon endeavored to escape the fate of these cities by surrendering to the British ; but it was recaptured and treated with the same cruelty. Similar measures marked the civil conflict in all parts of the kingdom, the forces of the con- vention overrunning and ravaging the country. Meantime the war of the coalition against France did not make much progress. The allied powers were embarrassed by complica- tions among themselves. Paris itself had been fairly given over to anarchy ; all industry was