France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Fiction
The next day, and the day following, the Convention realized the full
danger of the situation when they saw that, out of the forty-eight
Sections composing the population of Paris, forty-seven had accepted the
Constitution but had rejected the decrees. The Section of the
Quinze-Vingts alone had accepted both the Constitution and the decrees.
On the other hand, the armies, two of which were reduced to inaction by
the peace with Prussia and with Spain, voted without reserve, amid cries
of enthusiasm. The army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, the only one which was
still actively engaged, had conquered at Wattignies, raised the siege
of Mauberge, triumphed at Fleurus, given Belgium to France, crossed the
Rhine at Dusseldorf, besieged Mayence, and followed with the victories
of the Ourthe and the Roer, thus securing the Rhine to France. This army
paused upon the battlefield, where it had just won a victory, and over
the bodies of the Frenchmen who had just died for liberty, swore
fidelity to the Constitution, which, while it put an end to the Terror,
still maintained the Republic and the Revolution.
The day which brought the news of this enthusiastic vote was a great one
for the Convention and for all true patriots of France. On the 1st
Vendémiaire, of the Year IV. (23d September, 1795), the result of the
voting was announced. The Constitution was unanimously accepted. The
decrees were passed by an immense majority. In some places votes had
even been cast for a king--which showed how great was the freedom which
had obtained during the two months following the 9th Thermidor.
This news created the greatest excitement in Paris--an excitement at
once twofold and varied in character. There was joy among the patriots
who sided with the Convention, and fury among the royalist Sections.
Then it was that the Section Le Peletier, known during the Revolution as
the Section of the Daughters of Saint Thomas, the most reactionary of
all the Sections, and the one whose grenadiers had resisted the men from
Marseilles on the 10th of August, set up this decree:
"The power of every constituted body ceases before that of the assembled
people."
This decree, favorably voted upon by the Section, was converted into a
resolution, and sent to the forty-seven other Sections, who received it
with favor. It was a simple method of proclaiming the dissolution of the
Assembly.
The Convention was not intimidated. It replied by a declaration and a
decree. It declared that if its power was threatened it would retire to
one of the provincial towns and there continue to exercise its
functions. It decreed that all the territory conquered on the French
side of the Rhine, as well as Belgium, Liège, and Luxemburg, should
thereafter belong to France. Thus did it reply to the threat of its
overthrow by a proclamation of its grandeur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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