THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION LE PELETIER  
As the election could not take place on the 1st Prairial, since that date was already past, the 20th Fructidor was appointed.
It was hoped that the first act of the French, reunited after such terrible occurrences, would be like that of the Federation at the Champ de Mars—an act of fraternity, and that a hymn would be sung advocating forgiveness of wrongs. It was on the contrary a sacrifice to vengeance! All the pure, disinterested and energetic patriots were driven from the Sections, which began to organize insurrection. The defeated patriots hurried to the Convention, where they related what had happened, thereby putting the Convention on its guard against the Sections. Furthermore they demanded the restoration of their arms, declaring that they would use them in defence of the Republic.
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[Pg 248] 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[Pg 249] 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.
The Section, treating with the Convention as power with power, then sent its president, at the head of six members, to notify it of what it termed a Measure of Protection; namely, of a decree issued by the Section declaring that, before the will of the assembled people, the powers of all the constituent bodies should cease.
The president was a young man of twenty-four or five, and although he was dressed quietly, a supreme elegance, due more to his bearing than to his garments, was manifest in his whole person. He was attired fashionably, without exaggeration, in a frock-coat of dark red velvet with jet buttons, and buttonholes worked in black silk. A cravat of white foulard with floating ends swathed his neck; a waistcoat of white piqué with bright blue flowers, trousers of pearl-gray tricot, white silk stockings, pumps, and a low, broad-brimmed hat with a pointed crown, completed his attire. He had the clear, fair complexion of a man of the North or East, eyes both piercing and earnest, and fine white teeth, with full red lips. A tri-color sash, folded in such a way that very little of it was visible save the white, girdled his waist, which was admirably shaped; a sword hung from this sash, and he carried two pistols stuck in it.
He advanced alone to the bar of the Convention, and in that tone of lofty insolence which had not yet descended to the bourgeoisie, or to which that class had not attained, he said in a loud voice, addressing the president, Boissy d'Anglas:
"Citizen-Representative, in the name of the Mother Section, of which I have the honor to be president, and in the name of the forty-seven other Sections—the Section of the Quinze-Vingts alone excepted—I come to announce to you that you are deprived of your powers and that your reign is over. We approve of the Constitution, but we reject the[Pg 250] decrees; you have no right to nominate yourselves. It is for you to deserve our choice, and not to command it."
"The Convention recognizes no power, either that of the Mot............