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Updated: June 1, 2025
Yet at the same moment Billaud-Varennes, one of the most advanced of the Jacobins, was addressing the Club in favour of a republic; and the fédérés formed a central committee which on the 17th petitioned the assembly for the suspension of the King. To support the movement further the section committees were decreed in continuous session, and came under the control of the organization.
Just, Couthon, and Billaud-Varennes were theorists after the manner of Rousseau. Their new gospel of social regeneration embraced democracy, civic virtue, moral institutions, and public festivals. These were their shibboleths and catch-words.
The following members were fixed on by lot to retire: Barrere, Carnot, Robert Lindet, in the committee of public safety; Vadier, Vouland, Moise Baile in the committee of general safety. They were replaced by Thermidorians; and Collot-d'Herbois, as well as Billaud-Varennes, finding themselves too weak, resigned.
Nothing that relates to a man like Napoleon can be considered useless or trivial. "What, after all, was the result of this strange business which might have cost Bonaparte his head? for, had he been taken to Paris and tried by the Committee of Public Safety, there is little doubt that the friend of Robespierre the younger would have been condemned by Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois.
"A similar apathy is found in all the government agents," adds Billaud-Varennes; "the secondary authorities which are the strong points of the Revolution serve only to impede it." Decrees, transmitted through administrative channels, arrive slowly and are indolently applied.
Add to these the reports of commissions charged with examining into the conduct of old dictators, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Barere, Amar, Vouland, Vadier and David, the reports of the representatives charged with investigating certain details of the abolished system, that of Gregoire on revolutionary vandalism, that of Cambon on revolutionary taxes, that of Courtois on Robespierre's papers.
IV. The Statesmen. Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Couthon and Saint-Just. Conditions of this rule. Dangers to which they are subject. Their dissensions. Pressure of Fear and Theory. If such are the ravages which are made in an upright, firm and healthy personality, what must be the havoc in corrupt or weak natures, in which bad instincts already predominate!
The worst of the remaining offenders, Barère, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud-Varennes, were deprived of their seats on the Committee of Public Safety. But in spite of the denunciations of Lecointre and of Legendre, the Convention refused to proceed against them. All through September and a great part of October the Mountain held its ground, and prevented the reform of the government.
Billaud-Varennes spoke from his seat "Yesterday," said he, "the society of Jacobins was filled with hired men, for no one had a card; yesterday the design of assassinating the members of the national assembly was developed in that society; yesterday I saw men uttering the most atrocious insults against those who have never deviated from the revolution.
"I have sworn," he said, "to die at my post; I will keep my oath." The conspirators of the Mountain themselves protested against the proposition of the committee. Marat urged that those who make sacrifices should be pure; and Billaud-Varennes demanded the trial of the Girondists, not their suspension.
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