the paffing of that ignominious propofal. He infifted, in the name of the nation, that the commiffion of five fhould inftantly be fuppreffed, and that the conftitution decreed, by the acceptance of the people, fhould take place, and the convention be diffolved on the day appointed. Thibaudeau was vigorously feconded by his friend, Larevaillere Lepeaux: their joint exertions recalled the majority of the affembly to a fenfe of the injudicious and hameful meafure they were about to fanction. They recovered themfelves on this occafion, and notwithflanding the violent declamations of thote who were interefted in this meafure, they voted the annulment of the commiffion of five, the conftitution agreed upon, and the diffolution of the convention. The gaining of thefe three points was a matter of ferious triumph to the regular party, which was now that of the moderates. It fhewed that the nation was not cordially difpofed to approve of the meafure that had been carried, to re-elect two-thirds of the members; and it forewarned those who were to conftitute the majority of the future legiflature, to be cautious in the exercife of a power with which they were invefied evidently against the fenfe of their fellow citizens. The manifeft difapprobation, expreffed by the public at this proceeding, induced the violent party to coincide with the moderate in pafling fome acts previously to their diffolution, by which they hoped to in gratiate themfelves with the generality, and wipe off the ftain of terrorifm. By thefe acts, the punithment of death was to be abolished after the restoration of peace, and a general amnefty was alfo to be granted: but this was clogged with a variety of exceptions that demonftrated from which of the two parties they proceeded: those which excluded the enemies to the new conftitution, and the forgers of affignats, were judged treasonable; but the claufes against the emigrants and the clergy, fentenced to tranfportation, ought, it was faid, to have been mitigated; and thofe affecting the late infurgents in the capital, ought never to have been enacted. Thefe blended acts of lenity and revenge, characteristic of the refpective parties that framed them, terminated the proceedings of the convention. It diffolved itself on the 26th of October, after fitting upwards of three years. No political aflembly, recorded in hiftory, ever did much greater or worse things. As it confifted of men chofen by a populous nation, it partook of the difpofitions that characterised the various partifans of the people of France. The fire and impetuofity of temper that marks the inhabitants of the fouthern provinces, and the pertinacity and unyieldingnefs of mind that is usually found in thofe of the northern parts; but that, which will eternize the memory of this famous aflembly, is the undaunted audacity with which it fhook off thofe ideas, that, implanted by education, and confirmed by the habit of years, remain fo obftinately fixed in the human mind. Monarchy and catholicifm, the two favourite objects of the French na: tion, fanctioned by the attachment and veneration of countries, began to totter the very first moment of their meeting, and were completely overthrown as foon as they attempt. ed to regain their preponderance; fo fo intirely had thefe artful and enterprifing men obtained the confidence and prepoffeffion of the multitude. When they had new welded the public mind, according, w their own form, they conceived the valt profpect of extending the fame influence over their neighbours; and they fucceeded beyond their GNL expectations, and even beyond the fears of their enemies. They did for the grandeur of France more than had been done in its moft triamphant periods, and more than ever had been done for a country by its moft victorious rulers. They did thofe things through means not heretofore imagined. All was new and unprecedented in their hands: they created, as it were, the very materials with which fo many ftupendous deeds were performed: their ftatefmen, their generals, their foldiers, were of their own formation. When they began the execution of the vaft plans they had formed, they had the whole world to encounter: all kings, all states, all nations were at once their declared, and, as they menaced defruction to every cftablishment but their own, their neceflary enemies. What rendered their actions pecularly ftriking and marvelous, the actors in thofe aftonishing fcenes were men wholly unknown to their country, before they affumed the reins of government: they were not confpicuous either by birth, ftation, or riches: their confequence was innate, and called forth by a fingularity of events, without which it muft have remained in that obfcurity which is the attendant of all thofe alents, however great, that are not brought forth by great occafions. No aflembly ever difplayed a more aftonishing mixture of shining qualities, and of atrocious vices. Ambitious, cruel, unprincipled, are epithets inadequate to convey an appofite idea of their enormities. They were true to their character from the very beginning; overturning without fcruple or remorse whatever flood in their way, and compaffing their ends without ever adverting to the re&itude or moral impropriety, or turpitude of the means employed. The only qualifications, on which they feemed to fet a fubftantial value, were courage and capacity, boldnefs and expedition. Thefe, divefted of all virtuous or fentimental feelings, appear to have been the real attributes of thofe extraordinary, but not refpectable names that continued for three years to keep all Europe in uncealing alarms; that made kings tremble on their thrones, that progreflively overcame all their enemies; that changed the fear of all chriftendom in fome of the most effential refpects; that introduced fyf-tems which, if through the hand of power they may be reprefled, will never be eradicated; that founded in fhort an epoch, from which may be dated events that are only beginning to unfold themfelves, and the ultimate iffue of which it is not within the compafs of the profoundest politics to afcertain; but which will probably, if not certainly, be felt in the remoteft ages to come. Such were the men who now yielded, for the firft time, to their antagonists: but thefe were not the rivals, but the fupporters of their power. To this they were compelled by the circumstances of the times; and they were too wife to oppose the irresistible will of a peo ple ple who had been taught to feel their ftrength, and might have exered it to their coft. They refign ed, however, only a name that was no longer tenable with fafety; but they retained the fubftance of that authority they had fo long exercifed, and with their ufual dexterity eftablished it upon a conftitutional bafis, when they found that no other means would fecure its exiftence. Confcious at the fame time that the conftitution, which they had been obliged to frame, would operate to their difadvantage, unless they were placed at the head of it, they never refted till, by their intrigues and machinations, they had found means to exclude, from the principal ma ́nagement of affairs, thofe men whofe intentions were to abide with the ftricteft punctuality to the letter and fpirit of the new conftitution, upon whom the eyes of their countrymen were fixed, as individuals of unimpeached intégrity, and who, in the midst of thofe atrocities which they could not prevent, had the courage to reprobate them, and to keep their own characters unftained. Thefe being men precisely the reverfe of themfelves, they had no other method of preferving their own confequence with the public, than to reprefent them either as timid and fearful to act a ftrong and refolute part in the tempeftuous fcenes that had accompanied the formation of the republic, or as concealed partifans of royalifin under the mask and denomination of moderates. had even the infolence to brand them with the appellation of Chouans, the most odious of all those who oppofed the revolution, on account of the barbarities and depredations with which they difgraced the caufe They y had efpoufed, and rendered many who were not difinclined to favour it, fufpicious that, fhould it obtain the upper hand, it would, under another name; renew the reign of terrorifm, and fill France with profcriptions and maflacres. Thefe furmifes againfi the Chouans, and their abettors, being founded on facts that could not be denied, operated powerfully against the royalifts in general, and niade people apprehenfive, that, were they to fucceed in their indefatigable attempts to cruth the republican party, they would not make a more moderate ufe of their fuccefs than thefe had done. Hence multitudes, dreading the repetition of the horrors they had witnelled, were cordially willing to acquiefce in the government now establifhed; and viewed not only with difapprobation, but with ab horrence, every endeavour that was made to overturn it, as tending necellarily to create new confufions, and replunge the nation into thofe miferies from which it was gradually emerging, Could the predominant party have effected their intention to ruin, in the public eftcem, thofe men who had fo fpiritedly oppofed their attempt to annul the new conflitution, they would have been uncontrolled mafters of the new system. But, happily for the nation, its opinion of thofe men was fo ftrongly, as well as fo juftly, fettled in their favour, that fmall as their number was in the new legiflature, its weight was fuch as to form no inconfiderable counterpoife to the great majority of worthlefs and profligate men it had to oppofe. The refpect of the public for these men had been teftified in the moft mortifying manner for their antagonists. The different departments vied with each each other which fhould have the honour of being reprefented by them. Hence it happened, how ever, that as each of them could ly take his feat for one, and yet had been elected by many, the convention, conformably to the decrees carried by that party, which was thereby to become the majority in the legislative body, had a farther opportunity of adding to its fuperiofity, by supplying thofe departments for which they had not made their option, with members of its own chooting. This was an advantage which it feems they had well forefeen, when they paffed that decree, by which the convention fhould be empowered to nominate to the deficiencies occafioned by the defaults in the departments of not electing a fuficient number. But inftead of majority of members, the party which now acted in oppofition to that which was fuperior in numbers, counted the major part of the nation on its fide, and thus felt a confequence that emboldened it to enter the lifts, unappalled at the multitude it would have to encounter. It ought not, however, to be forgotten, that much of the rancour that actuated these oppofite partics was owing to the refufal of the one to coalefce with the other. Advances of reconciliation had been made, by the chiefs of the predominant faction, with the heads of the moderate party. were prompted by intereft, they may jufly be prefumed to have been fincere. Thofe who made them were conscious that their conduct had long been odious to the nation, which had always confidered them as the coadjutors of Robefpierre, and imputed their defection from him, not fo much to their averfion VOL. XXXVII. As thofe advances to his measures, as to the neceflity of preventing the defigns which they either knew, or fufpected he had formed against them. To fave their own lives they had refcued the nation from his tyranny but their fubfequent conduct had not fufficiently proved their abhorrence of his meafures; and the terrorists had always viewed them in the light of patrons, and teftified a marked readinefs to be fubfervient to them. In the late conteft with the metropolis the reciprocal confidence fubfifting between them and the terrorists had been too ftrongly evinced to fuffer any doubt that they were intimately connected, and that they would ftand by each other whenever the one or the other was in danger. Such being the relative. situation of the prevailing faction in the convention, and of the great body of the terrorifts, the heads of the the moderates difdained all connection with that party, looking upon them as men of blood, who would not feruple to imitate their former leader, Robefpierre, if they could do it with fafety; and who had, in fact, imitated him in their conduct towards the Parifians, and were preparing to imitate him ftill farther, by that defpotic commiffion which was to have invefied five of them with the whole authority of the fiate. Tallien, Legendre, and Freron, were the principals of this party. They were undoubtedly men of firong parts, and great refolution: their influence was extenfive, and thofe who were perfonally attached to them, were also men of known abilities and courage. Finding that their advances were flighted, and that the nation was manifeftly in clined to favour their rivals, they determined to modci the legislative [1] body body, to be elected together with the new conftitution, in fuch wife, as to fruftrate the expectations of their rivals, that the fupreme power would devolve into their own hands, as foon as the people had the difpofal of it. After fucceeding in this bold project, they difcovered, however, that notwithstanding their arts had been prevalent within the walls of the convention, they had completely failed in that point, they had next at heart, to conciliate the good will of the public. Here they met with invincible obftacles. The names of the chief members in the minority refounded every where with fuch applaufe, that they thought it prudent to abandon that part of their plan, which had for its object a total exclufion of their rivals from all the powers and dignities of the new constitution, ( СНАР. |