书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
35302100000801

第801章

"Citoyen, your detention is used by your country as a means of conversion. Eight of your immediate family have, because they did not take advantage of his opportunity, carried their heads to the scaffold. What have you done to avoid the sword of justice? Speak!

What are your feelings? Let us hear your principles. Have you at last renounced the arrogance of the ancient regime? Do you believe in equality established by nature and ordained by the Convention? Who are the sans-culottes you associate with? Is your cell not a meeting place for the aristocrats? . . . It is I, who in the future will be your company; I, who will make you familiar with the republican principles, who will make you love them, and who will take care of your improvement."[148] Taillandier, Mémoires écrits par Daunau, à Port-Libre, in Aug.

1794, p.51, 52.

[149] Granier du Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," i., 107. (Trial of Babeuf, extracts from Buonarotti, programme des "Egaux.") All literature in favor of Revelation must be prohibited: children are to be brought up in common; the child will no longer bear his father's name; no Frenchman shall leave France; towns shall be demolished, chateaux torn down and books proscribed; all Frenchmen shall wear one special costume; armies shall be commanded by civil magistrates; the dead shall be prosecuted and obtain burial only according to the favorable decision of the court; no written document shall be published without the consent of the government, etc." - Cf. "Les Meditations de Saint-Just."[150] Guillon de Montléon, II., 174.

[151] "Memoires sur les Prisons," I., 211, II., 187. - Beaulieu, "Essais," V., 320. "The prisons became the rendezvous of good society."[152] "The Revolution," vol.3, ch. 6, ante.

[153] Chateaubriand: "Génie du Christianisme," part 4, book II., notes on the exhumations at St. Denis taken by a monk, an eye-witness.

Destruction, August 6 and 8, 1793, of fifty-one monuments. Exhumation of bodies, October 12 and 25, 1793. - Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," p.223. (Testimony of Bordier-Langlois.) "I saw the head of our good Duke Réné, deposited in the chapel of St. Bernardin, in the Cordéliers at Angers, tossed like a ball by some laborers from one to the other."[154] R. Chantelauze, "Louis XVII.," (according to unpublished documents). This book, free of declamation and composed according to the critical method, sets this question at rest.

[155] Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire," III., 285. -Campardon, "Hist. du Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris," I., 306.

Brochet, one of the jury, was formerly a lackey.

[156] The above simply conveys the sense of the document, which is here given in the original: "Si tu n'est pas toute seulle et que le compagnion soit a travailier tu peus ma chaire amie venir voir juger 24 mesieurs tous si-deven président on conselier au parlement de Paris et de Toulouse. Je t' ainvite a prendre quelque choge aven de venir parcheque nous naurons pas fini de 3 hurres. Je tembrase ma chère amie et épouge." (TR).

[157] Wallon, III., 402.

[158] Campardon, II., 350. - Cf. Causeries du Lundi," II., 164.

Saint-Beuve's comment on the examination. "André Chénier, natife de Constantinoble....son frère vice-consulte en Espagne. "Remark the questions on his health and correspondence and the cock-and-bull story about the 'maison a cotté.' " - They ask him where his servant was on the 10th of August, 1792, and he replies that he could not tell. "Alui representé qua lepoque de cette journee que touts les bons citoyent ny gnoroit point leurs existence et quayant enttendue batte la générale cettait un motife de plus pour reconnoitre tous les bons citoyent et le motife au quelle il setait employée pour sauvee la Republique. A repondue quil avoit dite l'exacte véritée. A lui demandée quel etoit dite l'exacte veritée - a repondue que cetoit toutes ce qui etoit cy dessue."