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The first question on the people is this: Whether we are to consider the individuals now actually in France, numerically taken and arranged into Jacobin clubs, as the body politic, constituting the nation of France, or whether we consider the original individual proprietors of lands, expelled since the Revolution, and the states and the bodies politic, such as the colleges of justice called Parliaments, the corporations, noble and not noble, of bailliages and towns and cities, the bishops and the clergy, as the true constituent parts of the nation, and forming the legally organized parts of the people of France.
Napoleon now joined the army under Carteaux, which acted against the Marseillais who had declared against the National Convention and occupied Avignon. At this time he became attached to the younger Robespierre, who was a commissioner with the army, and embraced his Jacobin principles.
The clubs are a constant receptacle for idleness; and servants who think proper to frequent them do it with very little ceremony, knowing that few whom they serve would be imprudent enough to discharge them for their patriotism in attending a Jacobin society.
In spite of frequent messages from Paris, she was not to get there until some days after the coronation, a fact which did not prevent her appearing in the great picture commemorating the event, painted by David, who was successively Jacobin and Imperialist, and beginning with the apotheosis of Marat, celebrated that of Napoleon.
It was directed, not by men of genius, not by reformers seeking to rule by wisdom, but by demagogues and Jacobin clubs, and the mobs of the city of Paris. What was called the "Left," in the meetings of the Assembly, made up of fanatics whom Mirabeau despised and detested, gained a complete ascendency and adopted the extremest measures.
"But what on earth has my music to do with politics?" "It is usual with us," said Olivier. "Look at the battles that have taken place over Beethoven. Some people will have it that he was a Jacobin, others a mountebank, others still a Pere Duchesne, and others a prince's lackey." "He'd knock their heads together." "Well, do the same." Christophe only wished he could.
If we compare this view of our own situation with everything we can observe of the state and condition of our enemy; if we can trace him labouring under equal difficulty in finding men to recruit his army, or money to pay it; if we know that in the course of the last year the most rigorous efforts of military conscription were scarcely sufficient to replace to the French armies, at the end of the campaign, the numbers which they had lost in the course of it; if we have seen that the force of the enemy, then in possession of advantages which it has since lost, was unable to contend with the efforts of the combined armies; if we know that, even while supported by the plunder of all the countries which they had overrun, the French armies were reduced, by the confession of their commanders, to the extremity of distress, and destitute not only of the principal articles of military supply, but almost of the necessaries of life: if we see them now driven back within their own frontiers, and confined within a country whose own resources have long since been proclaimed by their successive governments to be unequal either to paying or maintaining them; if we observe that, since the last revolution, no one substantial or effectual measure has been adopted to remedy the intolerable disorder of their finances, and to supply the deficiency of their credit and resources; if we see, through large and populous districts of France, either open war levied against the present usurpation, or evident marks of disunion and distraction, which the first occasion may call forth into a flame; if, I say, Sir, this comparison be just, I feel myself authorized to conclude from it, not that we are entitled to consider ourselves certain of ultimate success, not that we are to suppose ourselves exempted from the unforeseen vicissitudes of war; but that, considering the value of the object for which we are contending, the means for supporting the contest, and the probable course of human events, we should be inexcusable if at this moment we were to relinquish the struggle on any grounds short of entire and complete security against the greatest danger which has ever yet threatened the world; that from perseverance in our efforts under such circumstances we have the fairest reason to expect the full attainment of that object; but that at all events, even if we are disappointed in our more sanguine hopes, we are more likely to gain than to lose by the continuation of the contest; that every month to which it is continued, even if it should not in its effects lead to the final destruction of the Jacobin system, must tend so far to weaken and exhaust it as to give us at least a greater comparative security in any other termination of the war; that on all these grounds this is not the moment at which it is consistent with our interest or our duty to listen to any proposals of negotiation with the present ruler of France; but that we are not therefore pledged to any unalterable determination as to our future conduct; that in this we must be regulated by the course of events; and that it will be the duty of His Majesty's Ministers from time to time to adapt their measures to any variation of circumstances, to consider how far the effects of the military operations of the allies, or of the internal disposition of France, correspond with our present expectations; and, on a view of the whole, to compare the difficulties or risks which may arise in the prosecution of the contest, with the prospect of ultimate success, or of the degree of advantage which may be derived from its farther continuance, and to be governed by the result of all these considerations in the opinion and advice which they may offer to their Sovereign.
But on the probable state of Holland I shall say more, when in this correspondence I come to talk over with you the state in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe. So far as to the East Indies. As to the West Indies, indeed, as to either, if we look for matter of exchange in order to ransom Europe, it is easy to show that we have taken a terribly roundabout road.
Terror has drilled people of the most opposite sentiments into such an uniformity of manner and expression, that an aristocrat who is ruined and persecuted by the government is not distinguishable from the Jacobin who has made his fortune under it.
D the Assembly! I shall never be a farthing the better for them!" "Oh," replied I, "then I suppose you are not a Jacobin?" The driver, with a torrent of curses, then began execrating the very name of Jacobin. This emboldened me to ask him when he had left Paris.
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