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Updated: May 16, 2025
They agreed to convoke an extraordinary meeting of the moderate members of the councils, to describe the public danger to the Ancients, and by urging the ascendancy of Jacobinism to demand the removal of the legislative body to Saint-Cloud, and the appointment of general Bonaparte to the command of the armed force, as the only man able to save the country; and then, by means of the new military power, to obtain the dismissal of the directory, and the temporary dissolution of the legislative body.
From the names of these individuals, some of whom are known to me, I could perceive that Bonaparte had more difficulty to select proper Emperors, Kings, and Electors, than he would have had, some years ago, to choose directors or consuls. Our inconsistency is, however, evident even here; I did not read a name that is not found in the annals of Jacobinism and republicanism.
We have heard that an eminent judge of the last generation was in the habit of jocosely propounding after dinner a theory, that the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism was the practice of bearing three names. He quoted on the one side Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Horne Tooke, John Philpot Curran, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Theobald Wolfe Tone.
Thanks to my bitter hatred of royalty, and my rampant Jacobinism, I have carried matters so far, that I have been put upon the list of officers to keep watch, and, therefore, once every week I shall keep guard before your majesty's sleeping-room."
But, as Shakespeare says, 'What's in a name? Perhaps you can suggest a more suitable one?" "A broad-minded fellow," was the general verdict; and some admirers added that ideas which in weaker men might seem to lean towards free thought, and even towards Jacobinism, became Mr. Westcote handsomely enough.
Whilst the Girondists were exciting the anger of the people against the king, hostilities were beginning in Belgium, in consequence of reverses, which were attributed to treasons of the court: these were produced by three causes; the hesitation of the generals, who did not understand how to impart to their troops that ardour which impels the masses, and bears down resistance; the disorganisation of the armies, which emigration had deprived of their ancient officers, and who had no confidence in the new; and finally, the want of discipline, that element of revolutions, which clubs and Jacobinism had spread amongst the troops.
Bernadotte, though ever suspected of Jacobinism and feared for the forceful ambition that sprang from the blending of Gascon and Moorish blood in his veins, was now also treated with the consideration due to one who had married Joseph Bonaparte's sister-in-law: he received at Napoleon's hands the house in Paris which had formerly belonged to Moreau: the exile's estate of Grosbois, near Paris, went to reward the ever faithful Berthier.
Had all other nations been united and unanimous, during 1793 and 1794, against the monster, Jacobinism, we should not have heard of either Jacobin directors, Jacobin consuls, or a Jacobin Emperor.
And thus, where Feuillants, Girondins, and Jacobins had produced chaos, the practical man and his able helpers succeeded in weaving ineffaceable outlines. As to the time when the change took place in Bonaparte's brain from Jacobinism to aims and methods that may be called conservative, we are strangely ignorant.
Had he been less mean, something might have been said in extenuation of his cruelty. Had he been less cruel, something might have been said in extenuation of his meanness. But for him, regicide and court-spy, for him who patronised Lebon and betrayed Demerville, for him who wantoned alternately in gasconades of Jacobinism and gasconades of servility, what excuse has the largest charity to offer?
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