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Updated: June 1, 2025
The constitutional monarchists had almost disappeared. The Gironde and the Mountain, extreme parties, consisted of about a hundred members apiece, who successively became leaders. In the Mountain were the most advanced members: Couthon, Herault de Sechelles, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Marat, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Barras, Saint-Just, Fouche, Tallien, Carrier, Robespierre, &c.
This tribunal condemned a few persons, but the commune having conceived the most terrible projects, did not consider it sufficiently expeditious. At the head of the commune were Marat, Panis, Sergent, Duplain, Lenfent, Lefort, Jourdeuil, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Tallien, etc.; but the chief leader of the party at that time was Danton.
We come to those by which he consolidated his power. At the beginning of September, the Committee was increased by the admission of Billaud-Varennes, and of Collot d'Herbois, of whom one afterwards overthrew Danton, and the other, Robespierre. The appointment of Collot was a concession to Hébert.
It exhibits Robespierre's colleagues in the Committee of Public Safety as noisy and dirty street blackguards. Now, bad as they were, they were not at all of that species, nor did their deliberations take place in the manner depicted. Billaud-Varennes is represented as a drunken vagabond sitting on a table at the committee and declaiming.
This denunciation agitated the assembly, and more especially those who supported the committees, or who wished that divisions might cease in the republic. "If the crimes Lecointre reproaches us with were proved," said Billaud-Varennes "if they were as real as they are absurd and chimerical, there is, doubtless, not one of us but would deserve to lose his head on the scaffold.
But this party retained the direction of affairs through the committees. All its members were attached to the revolutionary system; some, such as Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, Barrere, Vadier, Amar, saw it was their only safety; others, such as Carnot, Cambon, the two Prieurs, de la Marne, and de la Cote-d'Or, etc., feared the counter-revolution, and the punishment of their colleagues.
For France never loved the Terror or the loathsome instruments, such as Fouquier-Tinville, or Carrier, or Billaud-Varennes, or Collot-d'Herbois, or Henriot, or Robespierre, or Couthon, who conducted it. On this point there can, I think, be neither doubt nor question. I have tried to show how the Terror began. It is easy to show how and why it ended.
Simultaneously, as the pressure lessened, rifts began to appear in the knot of men who held the Dictatorship in the Republic. Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just coalesced, and gained control of the police, while Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, and, secretly and as far as he dared, Barère, formed an opposition.
At the Cafe Manouri it was given out that his views of the government were the only ones which, like the magnet, would attract all citizens to the Revolution. It is not the same with citizen Billaud-Varennes." "Of painstaking cleanliness." Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 94. Meillan, "Memoires," p.4.
Andre, Lindet, and above all, Prieur de la Cote d'Or and Carnot, confine themselves each to his particular department, navy, war, supplies, with blank signatures, for which they give in return their signatures to the political leaders; the latter, called "the statesmen," Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, are the real rulers providing overall direction.
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