But the Jacobins were not yet silenced. The rapid progress of the
reaction disquieted many. The reappearance of Emigrants and of
non-juring priests, the extravagance of the Jeunes Gens, the revival
of Royalist opinions in Paris, the terrible excesses which began to
stain the reaction in the South-East of France, and which, under the
direction of the 'Compagnies de Jésus' and the 'Compagnies du Sol,' had
already made Lyons the scene of murder and of civil war, alarmed the
Thermidorians and many other members of the Convention. The majority
oscillated from day to day between their fear of the Mountain and
their fear of a Royalist reaction, and displayed to all the world
the vacillation and weakness of the ruling powers in France. At the
beginning of May, the Jacobins so far prevailed as to carry a decree
for the immediate arrest of returned Emigrants and refractory priests,
and for the prosecution of Royalist publications. The disarming of
Terrorists practically ceased. The high prices of food and the distress
which they occasioned became more serious every day, and Jacobin agents
laboured persistently to rouse the workmen to another insurrection. On
the 1st Prairial (20th May), their efforts succeeded. A second rising,
more formidable and better organised than that of Germinal, confronted
the Government, and the Convention, after a sharp struggle, only saved
itself by yielding to the demands of the insurrectionary leaders.
Fair promises, however, gained the Assembly time to bring up troops
for its defence. On the evening of the 22nd May, a strong force of
cavalry and infantry arrived in Paris. The next day, the Faubourg St.
Antoine was besieged and compelled to surrender at discretion. Numerous
arrests were made. The disarming of the Terrorists was completed.
All pikes were seized. The reorganisation of the National Guard was
accomplished, and the right of serving in it was once more restricted
to members of the bourgeois class. A temporary military commission was
established to try those accused of complicity in the insurrection,
and the Revolutionary Tribunal was abolished. Six prominent deputies
of the Mountain, including Goujon, Romme, Soubrany and Bourbotte,
were sent to the scaffold. Lebon, long since put under arrest, Panis,
almost forgotten, Lindet, Jean Bon St. André, Guffroy and Rühl, all
except three of the members of the two redoubtable Committees, Pache,
Bouchotte, and several of their associates in the former Ministry of
War, shared in the proscription of their party. The influence of the
extreme Jacobins was finally destroyed, and once again the policy of
the reaction triumphed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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