"Monsieur," said Pichegru, using the old form of address, which had been abolished in France for a year, "if you were a spy I would have you shot; if you were an ordinary recruiting officer who staked his life for gain, I would send you to the revolutionary tribunal, and you would be guillotined. You are a man in whom confidence has been reposed, and I believe that you have acted more from sympathy than principle. I will reply to you seriously, and I will send you back to the prince with my answer. "I belong to the people, but my birth in no wise influences my political opinions, they are due entirely to my historical studies.
"Nations are great organized bodies, subject to human disease. Sometimes it is emaciation, and then tonics are necessary; sometimes it is plethora, and then bleeding is prescribed. You tell me that the Republic is a chimera. I agree with you that it is now. And that is where your error comes in. We are not yet a Republic; we are in the midst of a revolution. For a hundred and fifty years kings have ruined us; for three hundred years nobles have oppressed us; for nine centuries priests have held us in slavery. The time has come when the burden has grown too heavy for the backs which bear it, and '89 has proclaimed the Rights of Man, reduced the clergy to the rank of other subjects of the kingdom, and abolished every kind of privilege.
"There remained the king, whose rights had not been touched. He was asked: 'Will you accept France as we shall[Pg 174] remodel it, with its three orders—the people, clergy, and nobility—each depending on the other; will you accept the constitution with the privileges which it accords you, the revenues it grants you, the duties it imposes on you? Reflect carefully. If you refuse, say No, and abdicate; if you accept, say Yes, and take the oath.'
"The king said Yes, and took the oath.
"The next day he left Paris; and so confident was he that all due precautions had been taken and that he could reach the frontier in safety, that he sent this message to the representatives of the nation, who had received his oath on the previous evening:
"'I have been compelled to take the oath; it was made with the lips and not the heart; I hold my duties in abeyance, and resume my rights and privileges; and I will return with the enemy to punish you for your revolt.'"
"You forget, general," said Fauche-Borel, "that those whom you call the enemy were his own family."
"Well," said Pichegru, "that is just the trouble. The king's family were the enemies of France. But how could it be otherwise? Half of the blood that flowed in the veins of Louis XVI., son of Louis XV. and a princess of Saxony, was not even French blood; he married an archduchess, and we have for the royal armorial bearings, the first and third quarters of Lorraine, the second of Austria, and the fourth only of France. The result is as you have said. When Louis XVI. quarrels with his people he appeals to his family; but as the family is the enemy of France, he appeals to the enemy, and as the enemy enters France at the summons of the king, he commits the crime of high treason against the nation—a crime as great as high treason against the king, if, indeed, it is not greater.
"Then a terrible state of affairs results. While the king prays for the success of the arms of his family—which means the disgrace of France—and while the queen, seeing the Prussians at Verdun, counts the days that it will take them to reach Paris, France, beside herself with hate and[Pg 175] patriotism, rises as one man and recognizes that she has enemies on the frontier—Austrians and Prussians; enemies in her very capital—the king and the queen; secret enemies—nobles and aristocrats. She defeats the Prussians at Valmy, the Austrians at Jemmapes; she stabs her aristocrats in Paris, and beheads both king and queen on the Place de la Révolution. By means of this terrible convulsion she believes that she is saved, and breathes freely.
"But she is mistaken; for the family that made war under the pretext of replacing Louis XVI. on the throne, continues to make war under pretext of crowning Louis XVII., but in reality that France may be invaded and dismembered. Spain wishes to regain Roussillon; Austria wants Alsace and the Franche-Comté; Prussia the Margraviates of Anspach and Beyreuth. The nobles form three divisions; one attacks us on the Rhine, another on the Loire, and a third conspires. War within, war without! Foreign war and civil war! On the frontier thousands of men lying on the battlefields; in France itself thousands of men massacred in prison, thousands of men dragged to the guillotine. Why? Because the king, after taking the oath, did not keep it, and instead of trusting to his people, to France, threw himself into the arms of his family, the enemy."
"But then you approve of the massacres of September?"
"I deplore them. But what can you do against a people?"
"You approve of the king's death?"
"I regard it as a terrible thing; but the king should have kept his oath."
"Do you approve of political executions?"
"I think them abominable; but the king should not have called in the enemy."
"Oh! you may say what you like, general; the year '93 is a fatal one."
"For royalty, yes; for France, no."
"But aside from civil and foreign wars, aside from all these massacres and executions, it is nothing short of bank[Pg 176]ruptcy to issue all those thousands of francs in paper money."
"I should be glad to see the country bankrupt."
"So should I, if royalty could have the credit of restoring her credit."
"Credit will be re-established by the division of property."
"How so?"
"Have you not seen that all the lands belonging to the emigrated nobles, and to the Church, have been confiscated by the Convention; and that it has been decreed that they shall belong to the nation?"
"Yes; but what of that?"
"Have you not perceived that they have issued another decree to the effect that these lands can be bought with paper money at par value?"
"Yes."
"Well, my dear sir, there you have it! With a thousand francs in paper money—which is not enough to buy ten pounds of bread from the baker—the poor man can purchase an acre of land, which he can cultivate himself, and with which he can furnish bread for himself and his family."
"Who will dare to buy stolen property?"
"Confiscated; which is by no means the same thing."
"What difference? No one would take upon himself to become the accomplice of the Revolution."
"Do you know how much has been sold this year?"
"No."
"More than a thousand million francs' worth. Next year double that amount will be sold."
"Next year! But do you think that the Republic will last till next year?"
"The Revolution—"
"Well, the Revolution—why, Vergniaud says that the Revolution is like Saturn, and that it eats all its children."
"It has a great many children, and some of them are hard to digest."
[Pg 177]
"But you see that the Girondins are already devoured."
"The Cordeliers are left."
"Some day the Jacobins will devour them at a gulp."
"Then the Jacobins will be left."
"Good! but they have no men like Danton, and Camille Desmoulins, to make a formidable party."
"They have men like Robespierre and Saint-Just, and they are the only party that are in the right."
"And after them?"
"After them I see no one else, and I fear much that with them the Revolution must end."
"And in the meantime, think of the rivers of blood that will flow."
"Revolutions are ever thirsty."
"But these men are tigers."
"In a revolution I do not fear tigers as much as I do foxes."
"And you will consent to serve them?"
"Yes,............