instituted the deputies on mission in the provinces, who could overrule
any local authority, and who corresponded regularly with the Committee.
France thus returned under new forms to its traditional government: a
despotic authority in Paris with all-powerful agents in the provinces.
Against disaffection the government was armed with formidable weapons:
the Committee of General Security and the Revolutionary Tribunal. The
Committee of General Security, first established in October 1792, was
several times remodelled. In September 1793 the Convention decreed that
its members should be nominated by the Committee of Public Safety. The
Committee of General Security had unlimited powers for the prevention or
discovery of crime against the state. The Revolutionary Tribunal was
decreed on the 10th of March. It was an extraordinary Court, destined to
try all offences against the Revolution without appeal. The jury, which
received wages, voted openly, so that condemnation was almost certain.
The director of the jury or public prosecutor was Fouquier Tinville. The
first condemnation took place on the 11th of April.
Fall of the Girondins.
Enmity between Girondin and Jacobin grew fiercer as the perils of the
Republic increased. Danton strove to unite all partisans of the
Revolution in defence of the country; but the Girondins, detesting his
character and fearing his ambition, rejected all advances. The Commune
of Paris and the journalists who were its mouthpieces, Hebert and Marat,
aimed frankly at destroying the Girondins. In April the Girondins
carried a decree that Marat should be sent before the Revolutionary
Tribunal for incendiary writings, but his acquittal showed that a
Jacobin leader was above the law. In May they proposed that the Commune
of Paris should be dissolved, and that the _suppleants_, the persons
elected to fill vacancies occurring in the Convention, should assemble
at Bourges, where they would be safe from that violence which might be
applied to the Convention itself. Barere, who was rising into notice by
the skill with which he trimmed between parties, opposed this motion,
and carried a decree appointing a Committee of Twelve to watch over the
safety of the Convention. Then the Commune named as commandant of the
National Guard, Hanriot, a man concerned in the September massacres. It
raised an insurrection on the 31st of May. On Barere's proposal the
Convention stooped to dissolving the Committee of Twelve. The Commune,
which had hoped for the arrest of the Girondin leaders, was not
satisfied. It undertook a new and more formidable outbreak on the 2nd of
June. Enclosed by Hanriot's troops and thoroughly cowed, the Convention
decreed the arrest of the Committee of Twelve and of twenty-two
principal Girondins. They were put under confinement in their own
houses. Thus the Jacobins became all-powerful.
Revolt of the provinces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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