Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
This time the members of the committee were obliged to have recourse to defence, and the convention simply passed to the order of the day, on the question of the denunciation made by Legendre, without voting it calumnious, as they had done that of Lecointre.
If he talked to us about Thuriot, Guffroi, Rovere Lecointre, Panis, Cambon, Monestier, and the rest of the Dantonists, we might agree with him; let him even require Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, Legendre, Freron, well; but Duval, Audoin, Leonard Bourdon, Vadier, Vouland it is impossible to consent."
Not a murmur, not a mark of applause welcomed this declaration of war. The silence with which Robespierre was heard continued long after he had ceased speaking. Anxious looks were exchanged in all parts of the doubting assembly. At length Lecointre of Versailles arose and proposed that the speech should be printed. This motion was the signal for agitation, discussion, and resistance.
"You must have been surprized to see among the list of members arrested, the name of Laurent Lecointre; but he could never be pardoned for having reduced the Convention to the embarrassing necessity of prosecuting Robespierre's associates, and he is now secured, lest his restless Quixotism should remind the public, that the pretended punishment of these criminals is in fact only a scandalous impunity.
Intimidated by such unequivocal proofs of disapprobation, when the Assembly met on the thirteenth, it was decreed, after much opposition from Tallien, that Lecointre should be allowed to reproduce his charges, and that they should be solemnly examined.
Lecointre, deputy of Versailles, who had seen what had passed on the 5th and 6th of October, Hebert, who had frequently visited the Temple, various clerks in the ministerial offices, and several domestic servants of the old Court were summoned.. Admiral d'Estaing, formerly commandant of the guard of Versailles; Manuel, the ex-procureur of the Commune; Latour-du-Pin, minister of war in 1789; the venerable Bailly, who, it was said, had been, with La Fayette, an accomplice in the journey to Varennes; lastly, Valaze one of the Girondists destined to the scaffold, were taken from their prisons and compelled to give evidence.
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.
After all this, Lecointre, whose figure is almost ludicrous, and who is no orator, was to repeat a voluminous denunciation, amidst the clamour, abuse, chicane, and derision of the whole Convention.
Signs of impatience and antipathy appear behind his back: Lecointre has braved him openly; numerous insults, and, worse than these, sarcasms, reach his ears. On such an occasion, and in such a place! Against the pontiff of Truth, the apostle of Virtue! The miscreants, how dare they!
I. Mortimer-Ternaux, VII., 435. Who has ever furnished the world with this spectacle? Danton, at table in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, remarked: "The Revolution, like Saturn, eats its own children." Denunciation by Lecointre.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking