Page:Voices of Revolt - Volume 1.djvu/30

 26 were those of the Jacobin Robespierre. Yet, Robespierre was right in not desiring a war at this moment. He was the only man to oppose himself to the enthusiastic militant current of the Revolution at that moment. On January 2 and 11, 1792, he delivered two courageous addresses in the Jacobin Club. Robespierre later declared that the Rolandistes had begun the war on instructions from abroad and made against Brissot and Mme. Roland the formidable accusation (M. Roland, the husband and Minister, was only the wife's shadow; she was the leader of an entire party and ended on the guillotine) that they had declared war in order that the Emperor of Austria might be freed from the necessity of declaring war himself, in other words, to give the Emperor the pretext he wanted, thus committing a great crime against the Revolution. Robespierre was wrong in believing that the men of the year 1792 were acting in understanding with the Austrians; we must lay something to the account of rhetorical exaggeration.

The arguments used by Robespierre in his attack on the war are the same as those used by Marat. Maximilien denounced the war as a weakening of the Revolution. He called Roland a liar and a demagogue, since the danger of Versailles was even greater than that of Coblenz. He said that it would be impossible to march against all the kings of Europe with a king at the head of one's army; he