书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第398章

- Letter found on one of the arrested gentlemen. "A cowardly bourgeoisie, directors in cellars, a clubbist (Jacobin)municipality, waging the most illegal war against us."[20] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of the Attorney-General of Bayeux, May 14, 1792, and of the Directory of Bayeux, May 21, 1792. - At Bayeux, likewise; the refugees are denounced and in peril. According to their verified statements they scarcely amounted to one hundred. "Several nonjuring priests, indeed, are found among them. (But) the rest, for the most part, consist of the heads of families who are known to reside habitually in neighboring districts, and who have been forced to leave their homes after having been, or fearing to become, victims of religious intolerance or of the threats of factions and of brigands."[21] Lenin has probably read this during his studies in Paris and maybe been confirmed in his plan to create a new elite, an elite he eventually began to make use of from 1917 and onwards, an elite which continues to rule Russia and a great part of the world today.

(SR.)

[22] Mercure de France, June 4, 1790 (letter from Cahors, May 17, and an Act of the Municipality, May 10, 1790).

[23] "Archives Nationales," F7,, 1223. Letter of count Louis de Beaumont, November 9, 1791. His letter, in a very moderate tone, thus end: "You must admit, sir, that it is very disagreeable and even incredible, that the Municipal Officers should be the originators of the disorders which occur in this town."[24] Mercure de France, January 7, 1792. M. Granchier de Riom petitions the Directory of his Department in relation to the purchase of the cemetery, where his father had been interred four years before; his object is to prevent it from being dug up, which was decreed, and to preserve the family vault. He at the same time wishes to buy the church of Saint-Paul, in order to insure the continuance of the masses in behalf of his father's soul. The Directory replies (December 5, 1791): "considering that the motives which have determined the petitioner in his declaration are a pretense of good feeling under which there is hidden an illusion powerless to pervert a sound mind, the Directory decides that the application of the sieur Granchier cannot be granted."[25] De Ferrières, II. 268 (April 19, 1791).

[26] De Montlosier, II. 307, 309, 312.

[27] Moniteur, VI. 556. Letter of M d'Aymar, commodore, November 18, 1790.

[28] Mercure de France, May 28, and June 16, 1791 (letters from Cahors and Castelnau, May 18).

[29] Mercure de France, number of May 28, 1791. At the festival of the Federation, M. de Massy would not order his cavalry to put their chapeaux on the points of their swords, which was a difficult maneuver. He was accused of treason to the nation on account of this, and obliged to leave Tulle for several months. - " Archives Nationales," F7, 3204. Extract from the minutes of the tribunal of Tulle, May 10, 1791.

[30] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, "Minutes of the meeting des Officiers Municipaux de Brest," June 23, 1791.

[31] "Mémoires de Cuvier" ("Eloges Historiques," by Flourens), I, 177. Cuvier, who was then in Havre (1788), had pursued the higher studies in a German administrative school. "M. de Surville," he says, an officer in the Artuis regiment, has one of the must refined minds and most amiable characters I ever encountered. There were a good many of this sort among his comrades, and I am always astonished how such men could vegetate in the obscure ranks of an infantry regiment."[32] De Dampmartin, I. 133. At the beginning of the year 1790, "inferior officers said: 'We ought to demand something, for we have at least as many grievances as our troopers,' " - M. de la Rochejacquelein, after his great success in La Vendée, said: "I hope that the King, when once he is restored, will give me a regiment."He aspired to nothing more ("Mémoires de Madame de la Rochejacquelein"). - Cf. "Un Officier royaliste au Service de la Republique," by M. de Bezancenet, in the letters and biography of General de Dommartin killed in the expedition to Egypt.

[33] Correspondence of MM. de Thiard, de Caraman, de Miran, de Bercheny, etc., above cited, passim. - Correspondence of M. de Thiard, May 5, 1780: "The town of Vannes has an authoritative style which begins to displease me. It wants the King to furnish drum-sticks. The first log of wood would provide these, with greater ease and promptness."[34] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248, March 16, 1791. At Douai, Nicolon, a grain-dealer, is hung because the municipal authorities did not care to proclaim martial law. The commandant, M. de la Noue, had not the right of ordering his men to move, and the murder took place before his eyes.

[35] The last named, especially, died with heroic meekness (Mercure de France, June 18, 1791). - Sitting of June 9, speeches by two officers of the regiment of Port-au-Prince, one of them an eye-witness.

[36] "De Dampmartin," II. 214. Desertion is very great, even in ordinary times, supplying foreign armies with "a fourth of their effective men." - Towards the end of 1789, Dubois de Crancé, an old musketeer and one of the future "men of the mountain," stated to the National Assembly that the old system of recruiting supplied the army with "men without home or occupation, who often became soldiers to avoid civil penalties" (Moniteur, II. 376, 381, sitting of December 12, 1789).

[37] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. de Thiard, September 4 and 7, 1789, November 20, 1789, April 28, and May 29, 1790. "The spirit of insubordination which begins to show itself in the Bassigny regiment is an epidemic disease which is insensibly spreading among all the troops. . . . The troops are all in a state of gangrene, while all the municipalities oppose the orders they receive concerning the movements of troops."[38] "Archives Nationales," H,1453. Correspondence of M. de Bercheny, July 12, 1790.