Check out this very fiery Couthon I found while looking for something else in the debates on the king!
"I declare that, when it would be Buzot who wants to be king, I'd blow his brains out."
Buzot has just been making the same astoundingly hypocritical argument as Brissot that I've mentioned before: that executing Louis will cause war with Europe. (Ok, I technically don't know what Buzot was doing during the war debates, but it's still a stupid argument because it's WAY too late for that.)
Buzot's position is also particularly enraging because just the previous month he was proposing that all supporters of royalty should be sentenced to death. So I guess the regular person who supports the king should be condemned, but the king himself — who very much supported his own return to power & whom Buzot had literally already voted guilty for conspiring against the nation — should be spared.
Archives Parlementaires, Volume 57, p. 441
but also lol at them being so personally feisty in the Convention!
In 1791 and 1792, Robespierre had the most intimate liasons with Pétion, Buzot and even Roland, how can he accuse them today without accusing himself?
The deputy Armand Gensonné in his defence, written 1793
Buzot wishes good morning to his friend Brissot and asks him to meet at Pétion's house this evening around six o'clock. Robespierre's imprudent vanity has ruined everything. If we don't change measures, there's nothing left to do. We need men who want good to be done and who want nothing else. Such men are very rare!
Buzot in a letter to Brissot, April 10 1791
The section immediately named a deputation of 12 members, and we took this woman to the National Assembly. Robespierre and Buzot, whom we consulted, were carried away by the assured countenance of the witness, and by the whole of the testimony; but they were greatly perplexed as to the measures to be taken. All the members of the assembly were against revolutionaries, some without knowing it, but many knowingly, and the others out of fear. We will be, they said, pushed back from the tribune, referred to the research committee, and our accusation will be entered in this mortuary register of denunciations. Péthion [sic] came, and increased the embarrassment, and stopped Robespierre, who, at first, was quite disposed to take away the reputation of Bailly and La Fayette by assault.
Desmoulins in number 82 (June 27 1791) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, describing his activities on June 21 1791.
Roland and I were truly worried about [Robespierre]: we had ourselves taken to his house, in the middle of the Marais, at eleven o'clock in the evening [of a day around the the Champ de Mars massacre], to offer him asylum. But he had already left his home: we went to Buzot to tell him that, without abandoning the Jacobins, he might perhaps enter the Feuillans to judge what was happening there, and be ready to defend those who were being persecuted. Buzot hesitated for a while: "I would do anything," he said, "to save this unfortunate young man (speaking of Robespierre), although I am far from sharing the opinion of certain people about him; he thinks too much of himself to love liberty so much: but he serves it, and that is enough for me. Nevertheless, the public must come before him; I would be inconsistent with my principles, and I would give a false idea of them, if I went to the Feuillans; I have a repugnance to a role, which would give me two faces, Grégoire went there, he will inform us of what is happening there; and finally, nothing can be done against Robespierre without making the Assembly act; there, I will always be there to defend him.
Mémoires de Madame Roland, volume 1, page 370-372.
Eh! What can one imagine that is too cruel from a scoundrel who caused his benefactors, M. and Mme. Roland, to perish on the scaffold, they who saved him after the event on the Champs-de-Mars, who risked everything to save his execrable life, who induced me, whose disinterestedness and, dare I say, virtuous character they knew, to sacrifice my reputation to the point of throwing myself into the Feuillans, to protect Robespierre from the blind anger of the enemies of the Republic: blind, I said; for the vile scoundrel was innocent of the generous movement that had arisen against Louis XVI. He trembled like a leaf shaken by the winds, and his little soul was as incapable of braving an obvious danger as of conceiving a project useful to the liberty of his country. What Madame and Monsieur Rolland wanted from me, I could have done for Pétion, but never for Robespierre, whom I despised with all my might.
Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député à la Convention nationale (1828), page 163-164.
After some debates useless for me to report here, I strongly reproached Robespierre for his conduct, and repeating his eternal slanders against the most estimable men: "And me for example," I said to him, "can you in the privacy of your conscience, can you here publicly, in the presence of your friends, indict mine, accuse me of improbity, ambition, intrigues, slander my patriotism and the righteousness of my intentions?”
“No,” Robespierre replied to me, “no, I esteem you, because I know you well; but one deceived you about us, about our views, and that’s all.”
“How can you ignore the good faith, the probity, the patriotism of Roland? Would you dare say that Roland is sold to foreign powers? You must also know his inflexible austerity of morals, and his unwavering civic-mindedness, and his ardent love for liberty. Have you not forgotten the services he rendered you, that he was your most intimate friend under the Constituent Assembly?
“No,” replied Robespierre, “I do not accuse Roland of having sold himself abroad, but I stopped seeing him from the moment he adopted Brissot’s opinion on the war.”
“And Brissot,” I said to him, “Brissot, whose honorable poverty you know, you accuse him of having sold his pen and his talents to the enemies of France!”
“I do not believe him to be corrupt,” Robespierre continued, “but since his opinion on the war it has been shown to me that he is not a patriot.”
I was going to respond with passion; but the silence and the interest that our conversation had caused in the committee aroused some jealousy. Our debate was bitterly interrupted, I responded in the same way to the interrupters, and Robespierre left. One of us said: “I bet Robespierre is going to the Jacobins to start his odious accusations again;” and the fact was true: he slandered us louder than ever. As for his views, his projects of ambition and disorder, the event has only too justified our useless foresight.
Memoirs of Buzot, in Mémoires inédits de Pétion et Mémoires de Buzot & de Barbaroux (1866), page 17-18. Buzot here recalls a conversation he and Robespierre had at the Commission of Public Safety, to which they were elected members on March 26 1793. The commission was put to death just two weeks later, April 6 1793.
There was this great difference between Pétion and me — he had a particular deference for Robespierre, and I had an invincible aversion for this man who had the face of a cat.
Memoirs of Buzot, cited in Mémoires inédits de Pétion et Mémoires de Buzot & de Barbaroux(1866), page 43-44.
[Pétion] had a kind of inexcusable weakness for Robespierre.
Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député a la Convention nationale (1828), page 162. Both of his memoirs were written between going underground after the insurrection of May 31 1793 to his suicide in in June the following year.
A supporter of the aristocracy, a partisan of intrigue, an accomplice in infamous schemes, a scoundrel worthy of death? That is how I am portrayed; that is how I am characterized by this same society [the jacobin club] which, alone with Pétion and Robespierre, whom Pétion wanted me to esteem, I supported in 91 against the efforts of its enemies, who had succeeded in making all the deputies, except the three of us, abandon it.
Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député a la Convention nationale (1828), page 200.
Robespierre, non moins lâche et couard, cruel de sang-froid avec réflexion , par sytème et par peur, haineux , vindicatif, jaloux à l’extrême, avait sans cesse les mots de Providence et humanité à la bouche, alors même qu’il forgeait ses plus anciens amis. Ce scélérat hypocrite ne pardonna jamais ni les outrages qu’il avait faits, ni les bienfaits qu’il avait reçus, ni les talens qu’il n’avait pas. Condorcet a dit de lui qu’il n’avait pas une idée dans la tète ni un sentiment dans le cœur. On eût mieux peint Robespierre sous la figure sombre, pâle, décharnée de l’envie, jetant sur tout ce qui l’approche les serpens qui la dévorent.
Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député a la Convention nationale (1828), page 93-94
Moreover, I have reliable witnesses who can attest that on August 9th [1792], Robespierre left the Princess de Lamballe's house around midnight, and I know well enough the ferocity of that vile scoundrel's soul to attribute the appalling massacre of this unfortunate woman to his fear that she might one day discover the truth; for history must never forget that Desmoulins, Fabre d'Églantine, Danton, and Robespierre are the sole perpetrators of the dreadful September Days.
Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député a la Convention nationale (1828), page 163.
I do not know what posterity will judge of Robespierre, Saint-Just and Barrère, for the rest is not worth talking about; but it is constant that all the evils of France date only from our expulsion from the National Assembly.
Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député a la Convention nationale (1828), page 196, written right after having been informed of the execution of Danton.
There is another measure to be taken. There exists in Paris a class of individuals who, despite the weakness of their sex, do a lot of harm to the Republic. They corrupt your young men; and instead of making them vigorous and worthy of the ancient Spartans, they only make them into Sibarites incapable of serving liberty: I am talking about these immodest women who make a shameful trafficking of their charms. It is a plague on society, and any good government should banish it from its midst. I ask that the Committee of Public Safety examine whether it would not be useful to stifle this germ of counter-revolution, by deporting these women of bad habits beyond the seas (applauds).
Jean-Bon-Saint-André at the Convention, September 5 1793
In effect, how should one esteem a woman (Madame Ricord) who knows so little of the rules of propriety and her duties as a wife to commit the gravest offenses against them? How should I have loved a person who continually compromised my younger brother with her advances, to which he believed it essential to his honor and duty not to respond?
Charlotte Robespierre’s memoirs (1834)
[Albertine Marat] mentioned Charlotte Corday to me in passing, describing her as an adventuress and a woman of ill repute.
Oeuvres d'Alphonse Esquiros, député des Bouches-du-Rhône, Histoire des Montagnards (1875), page 5. Section titled ”my witnesses.”
[The Enragés] reduced to silence the estimable citoyennes whom the love of the public good had led there, they entrusted the scepter to the hands of some female Demosthenes, inspired by these English and Austrian sylphs. Their primary occupation is to cry out for famine, to push the people into despair, to denounce the imperturbable friends of liberty. They are the ones who came in the wake of Jacques Roux and Leclerc, to insult the Mountain and the Jacobins, to insult and threaten the representatives of the people. They are responsible for teaching the universe that modesty is a prejudice, that the distinction between the talents and occupations of the two sexes is nothing other than an invention of the aristocracy; that men must abandon the tribune and the seats of the senate to women; and all men's clubs must appear before the tribunal of revolutionary presidents. Porcia was only an imbecile, with her virtue revered in Rome; she should have played the role of Cato. Cornelia only played a vulgar role, instructing her sons, still children, to defend the rights of the people; Cornelia should have mounted the rostrum for harangues: instead of offering their jewels to the homeland; they will not cry out when they learn of their glorious death: I had given birth to him to serve the homeland; this merit is too vulgar; they are sterile like vice; but on the other hand, they will declaim against the founders of the republic, and slander the representatives of the people. Such is the sublime instrument that the agents of the enemies of the homeland keep in reserve to incite trouble if necessary, at the first moment of embarrassment or disaster with which the republic would be threatened.
Rapport écrit de la main de Robespierre, sur la faction de l’étranger, cited in Pièces trouvées dans les papiers de Robespierre et complices (24 September 1794).
M. Le Bas continued to come assiduously to my parents’ home. One evening, he seemed sad to me, he who, until then, had always showed himself to be so cheerful and so happy with me. He was worried and a bit cold. I wanted to know the cause of this change and asked him whether he was still ill; he replied that he was not but that something he had learned recently had much afflicted him; he hesitated to confide it to me; however I insisted and I then learned from him that a man of his acquaintance had abused me to him, and had strongly discouraged him from marrying me, seeking to make him believe that I had had lovers and that one of them ought to marry me. […] He saw my distress and finally named Guffroy [as the calumniator]; he was a printer and bookseller.
Memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas. In Les secrets de Joseph Lebon et de ses complices… (1795) page 116, Guffroy admitted that he had attempted to stop the marriage between Lebas and Élisabeth, writing: ”This young man (Lebas) for whom I had held esteem, and whom I had sometimes kept company during an illness, stopped seeing me when I saw him assiduously frequenting Hébert and David; and when I told him the truth about Duplay's daughter whom he married despite the truthful stories I told him.”
Philippe had, it seems, learned from a certain source many things on the conduct of this young person (Guffroy’s daughter), and even knew that she was pregnant, having had a liaison with her father’s master printer. He replied therefore bad-temperedly: “Guffroy, you wish me too well; I thank you for the ill you have told me of Mlle Duplay, but I want to be the father only of children of my own making.” Guffroy, furious at this refusal, would later put all his effort into troubling our happiness, but he did not succeed. The pregnancy of his daughter was only too certain, for she had her lying-in four months after my marriage.
Memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas
Shall we speak here of a society of fallen women, picked up from the dregs of Paris, whose audacity is matched only by their shamelessness, female monsters possessing all the cruelty of weakness and all the vices of their sex? The mere sight of them inspires horror. These women played a major role in the 1793 revolution. An old Parisian hussy commands them, and their daggers belong to whoever knows best how to wield them. It seems that Lacombe, their leader, has seized considerable power; and in the debates brewing between Robespierre and his allies, and Danton and his, this shameless woman might well tip the scales in favor of the party she chooses to support. To what excess of infamy have the French people been led! It could be that, in the end, upon closer examination, the French armies fought, the Assembly of the nation was dishonored, the public fortune was destroyed, and the entire Republic was stained with French blood, only through the intrigues of the most hideous hussies of Paris.
Memoirs of Buzot, cited in Mémoires inédits de Pétion et mémoires de Buzot & de Barbaroux (1866), page 72.
The femme or fille Lacombe is finally in prison, and unable to do harm. This counter-revolutionary Bacchante now drinks only water; we know that she loved wine very much, that she loved food and men no less, as evidenced by the close fraternity that reigned between her, Jacques Roux, Leclerc, and company, etc.
Feuille du Salut Public, 24 September 1793.
This is the truth of what happened between Mr. Chabot and me, he said he had witnesses, I must name them. Upon entering his house, I first saw the vile companion of his disordered life.
Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la société des Républicaines Révolutionnaires (fall 1793). The ”vile companion” Lacombe talks about here is probably Chabot’s 16 year old Austrian wife Léopoldine.
That despotism, fanaticism, pride, avarice lavishing gold and promises, arm the hands of a multitude of men without confession, without family, without homeland, this we have often had examples of since the [beginning of] the revolution. But that a weak and timid sex, stripping away at the same time the two feelings which are most essential to its being: fear and pity, arms its feeble hands against its fellow citizens, its friends, its brothers, its defenders; that one see women assembled in a public square, calling men to fight, provoking some, inciting others, ordering murder and setting an example! [---] Once again, it is the corruption of morals which today produces the anti-civility of women, formerly noble. Well! how could they not fear to cross, at one point, the limits of their sex, they who have stripped all sense of modesty? How would they blush to add hypocrisy to so many even more shameful vices? Chaste women are timid, lost women are bold, daring, cruel.
Adresse aux femmes de Monteauban par Mme Robert, ci-devant Melle de Kéralio (1790)
I have observed very well that these Societies [of Revolutionary Republican Women] are not composed of mothers, daughters, sisters looking after their young brothers or sisters, but of a kind of adventurers, knights-errant, emancipated girls, female grenadiers.
Fabre d’Eglantine at the Convention, October 29 1793.
Frev people infantilizing people that are actually older than them compilation
You (Pétion) have told me (Robespierre) twenty times that Brissot was a child, and that is the common word of the coterie, when it comes to explaining certain rather strong mischievous acts that he is accused of. […] You will at least allow me to regard him as a mischievous child: but, as I do not want to take on the task of correcting him, allow me to rely on the public.
Réponse de Maximilien Robespierre à Jérôme Pétion (November 1792). Brissot was born 1754, Pétion 1756 and Robespierre 1758.
David: The day after Hébert had an explanation with Danton in this assembly, I saw Danton at the Convention and he told me: "I am very happy to have explained myself to Hébert; because it pained me to be on bad terms with this boy, whom I love very much."
David at the jacobins, October 20 1793. Danton was born 1759, Hébert 1757.
Buzot hesitated for a while: "I would do anything," he said, "to save this unfortunate young man (speaking of Robespierre), although I am far from sharing the opinion of certain people about him; he thinks too much of himself to love liberty so much: but he serves it, and that is enough for me.”
Mémoires de Madame Roland, volume 1, page 371. Buzot was born 1760, Robespierre 1758.
”They (the Duplay family) felt that my brother would eventually escape them if I regained his confidence, they destroyed me entirely in his mind; today he hates the sister who served as his mother…”
Charlotte Robespierre in spring 1794, according to La Révolution, la Terreur, le Directoire 1791-1799: d’après les mémoires de Gaillard (1908) page 266. Charlotte was born in 1760, Maximilien in 1758.
Buzot advises Parisians on how to calculate optimal maximum prices
On 18 April 1793, in the National Convention
Buzot: "I must tell a fact worthy for the petitioners to hear. In the city of Bordeaux measures had been taken to maintain the bread prices independently of the wheat ones. The people soon realised that the measure was going to ruin the city, and all the sections voted for the price of bread to be fixed at seven and a half sous per livre (half kg), as the price of wheat damanded. That is the example I propose to the petitioners."
can you speak more on buzot? why do you like him? i only really know of his death with pétion lol
His politicial principles
You will most likely hold your glaze on Buzot's name for the first time between April and June 1791, a period of high concentration of his speeches in Constituent Assembly given on various themes.
Buzot’s favorite idea was, probably, the one of separation of powers. Not necessarily the three branches of power, but any.
The declaration he wrote with Petion before his death starts as follows:
“The evils that Despotism had done to the Earth had, since long ago, inspired in us a hatred of Kings. It has always seemed to us absurd and degrading for people that the fate of Millions of them depended on the will and passion of one.
“It seemed to us it was revolting and dangerous that one man inherits the right to command his fellow men as a Sovereign.
“This system, the only one which weighed on the world for centuries, seemed to be the main Source of Mistakes, prejudices and evils which desolate and degrade a society of people.
“From the beginning of the Revolution we have hoped to see an annihilation of this fatal and criminal system.
“We have been constantly working to fulfill this object of our dearest wishes” (published in Vatel, Vol.2, p.360)
When the Constituent Assembly debated which form to use to inquire the King and the Queen returned from Varennes, Buzot defended, it was on 26th June, the need to entrust the questioning to the ordinary court without forming a commission of deputies to prevent mixing of legislative and judicial powers (Journal des débats et des décrets n°766, p13).
On May 17th, 1791, he spoke against re-election to the next Assembly and to executive power. "In general, the continuation of any powers and functions is a principle of corruption. <...> Could you forget your principles and your wise foresight for a matter able to compromise the purity of the legislative body and one day alter the respect and confidence which people have for representatives? And you place another one arm in the hands of executive power for it to grow insensibly at the expense of public freedom. <...> Do not believe that only entire corruption leads to the conquest of the majority in a big assembly. A small number of people, an eloquence of one orator, intrigues of another, some cleverly managed terrors can master it in spite of itself, deceive its probity, force it to abandon its principles, to show weakness and injustice it will later repent. And unfortunately, it is these infinitely dangerous and perverse people to whom ministries tend to attach themselves." (Moniteur)
On April 13th, 1791, he said that it is administrative power instead of the Minister of Colonies who National Guard should obey to prevent the concentration of ministerial power (Moniteur).
He even proposed a project of dividing the Assembly into two equal parts formed by draw each month and discussing the same matters independently (21st May 1791, Moniteur).
He viewed the post of a deputy and the one of a Governor of the Dauphin incompatible. And the first was much more honorable for him: "I believe that it is unworthy of a Representative of the Nation to leave his post to be a Governor of the Dauphin." (28 June 1791, Journal des débats et des décrets n°768, p 9)
Another idea that needs to be noted is that all citizens must have an ability to participate in political life to maintain their republican spirit. On 28 April 1791 Buzot defended the right of everyone (not only active citizens) to serve in the National Guard (Moniteur).
He was amongst those who supported the right of petitions signed by organizations: "To leave the right of petitions only to individuals is to annihilate it. Wait until the despotism, which is already raising its head so proudly, will acquire the strength it is rising to. Who will then dare to defy the bayonets and be the first to sign a brave petition? Woe to that first signed. Even if there was someone brave enough to defy the power of the oppressor, the later would laugh at this petition. Whereas a petition which is a general wish strongly expressed by cities, associations and hundred thousand men would make the despots pale." (9th May 1791, Révolutions de France et des Royaumes etc., n°77)
It was 6th August 1789 when he said: “And first of all, I maintain that ecclesiastical property belongs to the Nation.” (Moniteur) He attacked the church as an institution, but do not hasten to classify him as a radical. On 18th April 1791 he supported the opinion that non-sworn priests must be allowed to worship (Journal des débats et des décrets n°693).
Who he was before
Such brilliant career in the National Assembly resulted in Buzot receiving, by the end of it, two offers: of a post of vice-president of the criminal court in Paris and of a president of the same court in his hometown. He chose the last.
François Nicolas Léonard Buzot was born in Èvreux on the first of March 1760. He is mostly known by the name François but Archives National and Louvet in his memoires call him Léonard. His father was a prosecutor and his maternal grandfather was a lawyer in the same court (baptismal certificate, published by Vatel, Vol.2, p.160). On December 26, 1787, he became a lawyer in the court of Èvreux and one year and three months later, on March 28, 1789, he was elected to États généraux (d'Actes de convocation et de députation aux États généraux, published by Vatel, Vol 2 p. 283).
“Born with an independent and proud character, never yielding to the command of any person, how could I support an idea of hereditary rule and inviolability of one person? My head and heart were full of Greek and Roman history, of great men who, in these ancient republics, honored people the most. I’ve shared their maxims from the youngest age. I fed myself with their virtues. My youth was almost wild. My passions, concentrated in my ardent and sensitive heart, were violent, extreme, but dedicated to a single object, always to it. Never debauchery will wither my soul with its impure breath. Lechery always horrified me and to the old age never a licentious word spoiled my lips. But I’ve known misfortune early, still I stayed attached to virtue, whose consolations were my only asylum. What charm I still feel when I recall those happy days of my life now never to return, when I wandered silently through the mountains and woods round the city I was born, reading some works of Plutarch or Rousseaux with delight or recollecting the pieces of their moral and philosophy I cherished the most. Sometimes, sitting on a flowering grass in a shade of dense trees, I, in a sweet melancholy, gave myself over to the memories of the pains and pleasures of my first days. At the evenings, the precious works of two good men often occupied and entertained me and my friend the same age as me whom death took from me when we were thirty years old and whose memory, always cherished and respected, protected me from many mistakes! That was my character, slightly changed by the clash of revolutionary passions, when I arrived at the Constituent Assembly.” (Memoires, p 24)
Development of his principles and his liaisons
Madame Roland opened her salon in the spring of 1791. Not surprising that one of its visitors was Buzot, a friend of Brissot and Pétion. They became friends. Rolands exchanged letters with him since they have all departed from Paris in September 1791, the letters which must have been nothing close to the tender, soulful lines madame Roland would wrote in little less than two years later. Yet these letters allowed them to thoroughly study the souls of each other and, having become intimate soon, brought up the love they found themselves in by the time they saw each other a year after. “Buzot with pure principles, courage, sensitivity and gentle manners has infinitely inspired me with esteem and attachment to him.” (Madame Roland, Memoires, p. 119)
Then, in the reopened salon, he would find two new close friends of him: Louvet and Barbaroux, whom he describes in his Memoires as talented and of great character (p.90).
On 24 September 1792, in the midst of a heated argument caused by Kersaint’s proposition of a law against those who instigate murders, Buzot climbed the rostrum to say:
“Strange to the revolutions of Paris, I arrived here with confidence that I would retain the independence of my soul. Good that I know what to wait for or to fear. What does citizen Kersaint propose? Firstly, to inform each of us about the actual situation in both the Republic and the capital. That is the first thing I demand to be clarified. Secondly, to discover if we have any laws against instigators of murders. <…> We need a public force to provide the compliance with laws. <…> I also demand a public force in which all the departments will participate, because I belong to Paris no more than to the other departments. That is my will, a strongly expressed which will not be suffocated by the declamations of those who speak about Prussians, whom I do not have the honor of knowing, because I lived in my department as if retired. <..> I ask for appointment of four or six commissaires for examining the state that Paris and 83 departments are in to propose in future a project of a law not bloody – I have always raised against those ones, I have fought against that Mirabeau, who had made a martial law – but gentle, which simultaneously reassures good citizens and gives justice to the miscreants. I demand the National Convention to be surrounded by force so imposing that not only did we have nothing to fear but also our departments were completely confident that we have nothing to fear. Oh! Some may think they will make us slaves of some deputies of Paris… I have said this word. It is not too strong. I ask the Convention to examine these questions and for us not to be portrayed as enemies of the people when we want to establish a government that will bring them peace and give them bread.”(Moniteur)
This proposal (which was adopted) and Girondins’ eagerness to bring the guard to life became later one of the reasons for accusing them in federalism.
“When I said yesterday that the Convention must be surrounded by the guard formed by men from all 83 departments, wasn’t I speaking in favor of this unity? I proposed this measure and I say that all we need to prevent the federal division, this tearing of the French republic is to bring departments here, is each primary assembly to send here a man as a guarantee of the unity. <…> One decree is not enough to establish the unity of French Republic. This unity must exist as a fact, as a union of people sent from 83 departments to surround the convention. But these ideas must be organized with care. So, I ask for these observations to be sent to the Editing Commission for it to present its report as soon as possible.” (Moniteur)
To the report on the departmental guard, which Buzot made on 8th October, belongs this definition of republic: “Republic is a holy confederation of people who see themselves as similar and proud, who cherish their kind, honor their character and dignity, work together for the happiness of all to better provide the happiness of every, because in society one necessarily depends on others and is made more significant, more solid by it; of people, finally, equal, independent, but wise and appreciating no rule except law emanated from the general will freely expressed by the representatives by the entire Republic. That beautiful association is not limited by the borders of a small land. It is one, indivisible throughout France. Its perfection, its safety is an interest of 25 million men.” (Moniteur)
What Montagnards called federalism was, in fact, an irritation from Parisians affecting politics under the name of the nation on the basis that they were the nurse of liberty and a fight against what Girondins saw as and called a tyranny of one city. And some party spirit, of course. An important part in this quotation is Buzot talking about cantons. He opposes Paris’ influence with every citizen in the Republic able to vote. During the debates on the king’s trial, he asked for an appeal to people. He would be happy to live in a direct democracy.
It was March 10, 1793. Cambacérès proposed proceeding to the organization of the (future-called) Revolutionary tribunal and the ministries, “the ministries which are now organized as if two powers existed”. He said: “All powers were given to you; you must exercise them all. No separation must exist between the body that discusses and the body that acts.”
“(Cries “to the vote! to the vote!” are heard in the big part of the Assembly. Some murmurs then follow the cries – that is Buzot appears on the tribune.)
Buzot: Citizens, I request the floor. (The murmurs on the left are heard once again) This noise tells me, and I knew before, that some courage is needed to oppose the ideas by which some want to lead us to despotism more terrible than anarchy. (The same murmurs) For every moment I live I thank those who let me to. I view my life as a voluntary concession from their side. (The murmurs continue in the very big part of the Assembly) But may they at least give me the time to save my memory from dishonor by letting me vote against the despotism of the Convention.” (Histoire Parlementaire, t.XXV, p.50)
A prophecy.
By that time Buzot was extremely unloved by all left. His endless attacks, sometimes absurd, e.g. his accusation of Robespierre and Danton being in the Orlean’s party (he did not believe it himself), his resistance to Dubois-Crancé’s army reform made him unbearable. He would become even more after his resistance to the Committee of Public Safety’s power expanding, his eager to bring Marat to justice (even more fiery because he had called him innocent for months before, but that is a story for another day). No one would forget that he stood for the stay of execution (and had an argument on that matter with Barbaroux).
On 8 May 1793 he tells the Convention the following story when one deputy reminds it to him.
“My servant was arrested on fifth of that month. He was riding a horse of my friend [Dugazon]. He was taken to the Garde-Meuble and asked to show his civil card. He had no. Therefore, I had to present myself four times to the Section Quatre-Nations, where I live. I was refused. The servant said he was mine and this single circumstance determined his arrest and imprisonment. He was being held at the city hall, and I went there with my claim. There I saw, among others, a man with big moustache and big saber, a type which can be frequently seen near the Convention. I was refused taking my servant back in front of witnesses. I asked for their names but was refused. A big man [the man with big moustache] asked me if I needed his help, "the one on the end of my saber" — he added. I answered that I'm ready for it, armed with my courage and some bullets. I went out. The guard decided to follow me. I refused him, but he still did. I came to the mayor who received me decently. I've been there for a very little time when a municipal officer and a military officer began to argue. The object of their argument was the arrest of the man with big moustache and the cause of the arrest was his treat to leave only with my head. This man was taken to the Committee of police and released by it, because he said he was a true patriot and a good citizen. Finally, after two hours and a half of interrogation, when all means to get my servant make contradictions ended, he was returned to me.” (Moniteur)
On 22nd of May Buzot spoke about big municipalities division (Moniteur, I recommend reading it), and on May 23rd about 10th March (Moniteur). He said no single word on 31st of May. On the 2nd of June he stayed at Meillan's, as many other girondins did, and had no intention of participating in the session. Having heard that the idea of proscribing thirty-four deputies instead of twenty-two had been suggested, Buzot rushed to the door, willing to die on the tribune of the Convention. While his colleagues were holding him by pure physical strength, Barbaroux, possessed by the same desire, managed to escape unnoticed (Memories de Meillan, p.52).
Who he became
He became the soul of the Federalist revolt. A great inspirator. Next to his and Barbaroux 's names Brissot, in Saint-Just’s report on 8th July, looks like a petty hooligan.
Madame Roland, an author of at once chaste and passionate letters, wrote him on 6th July: "I’m penetrated by your courage, your affection honors me and I praise everything that inspires your proud and sensitive soul." (Madame Roland’s third letter, published by Dauban, p.36)
Those were the days of energy and hope. They soon ended, being followed by "cruel adventures" (Louvet's word) about which Buzot, in one of many fits of rage, writes in his memoires: “Yes, to avenge! To avenge my friends, their memory on the barbarians oppressing us. That is my goal, my will, my hope! It takes me whole; I think of it all day, I see it in my dreams, to fulfill this duty is the only reason I live! And who of us could agree, without this reassuring hope, to wander in this senseless, torturing life from district to district, from house to house, sometimes staying in the wild and desert forests of Bretagne and Perigord, sometimes sailing two hundred lieus on the sea, exposed to illnesses, inconstancy of the stormy sea, invasion of English, pirates and to the danger a thousand times more cruel than all English and storms, to the danger of being recognized by French, finding hearts cold everywhere, indifferent, frozen with fear or terrible souls tainted with our blood? Could we have another interest? Who of us could agree, without that reassuring hope, to live in our free land after death of our friends and our independence. Alas! We desire no more! What is left of us except pain?” (p.128)
He always was a man of feeling more than a one of thought. And so to say, a man of a deep, strong feeling. All his memories (and they consist of three chapters written in different times and places and to be the last words) are written to splash out the emotions he could not take any more. “My heart cannot handle the feelings oppressing it. There are still some cruel ones I have to devour in silence! Great God! How long do I have to endure? How much is it left of me? You’ve given hope to an unfortunate man but hope also abandoned me! <…> I search in vain for something dear to me, that will force me to once again love life. But in an isolated loneliness I now find nothing. On a despair of no longer having tender, honest feelings. Of no longer having a heart able to respond and rekindle my life with its sweet flame. All is lost for me, forever lost! How terrible those words! They plunge me into oblivion.” (p.132)
His Memoires possess no structure of Barbaroux's or facts of Pétion's. They were written in the same time, Buzot and Pétion were working on them literally elbow to elbow, so it says a lot about their priorities.
Prone to melancholy (Madame Roland's description of him), Buzot rapidly changes his tone from flashes of high lyricism to furious screams but is always uncommonly permeated by sadness.
"Celestial ray, shining from Divinity itself, I bless you for the evils I suffer for you! Support my courage and make me, always faithful to myself, never be unfaithful to your laws.” (p.41)
“Pache, Garat, awful names! Execrable memories! What regrets, what remorse they cause in me! You are partly obliged to me in your sudden rising and I’m well punished for it.” (p.100)
He barely tries to properly explain his theories. The only one chapter that contains them is the one about federalism (p.149), but it still has nothing specific, only an idea of it being a reasonable system, still never ever proposed by him to France.
A consequence of this will to turn his soul inside out is a brilliant honesty he writes with. Not objectivity, but honesty of judgements he had the moment he was writing.
“Following the basis of known ideas of Saint-Just, Robespierre and Barère, I see only a fatal advantage of having a new revolution every new year until the people, tired by its poverty and anarchy, finally fall back, under their own weight, to the most absolute despotism.” (p.158)
“Danton loves glory not less than pleasure and money; he is indifferent to crime as well as to courage, cruelty for him is only a calculated mean; following his interests, he signed pardon for September prisoners as he signed their massacre. <…> I don’t consider him as envious as Robespierre and as stained with blood as Marat, but he drinks it when it’s in his interests. <…> His mind knows no culture, he doesn’t hear arguments, he has no knowledge in any field; he was born awful and becomes even more in his convulsions of anger.” (p.94)
“What will happen with humanity, morals, virtues if Robespierre, Barère and Danton die peacefully in their beds?” (p. 131)
The attitude is clear. Yet – Memoires had been already finished – Buzot wrote on a piece of paper: “I’ve just read about Danton’s trial, and I found myself regretting his death.” (p.195)
"Alas! In the sad refuge where I am confined, I feel no longer the gracious heat of the sun, I see no green of the fields, the murmur of the stream doesn't come to my ear to doze the pains of my heart. Nothing living mixes its tears with mine. I see nothing breathing, and hope itself proposes to me nothing but a funeral shroud! Oh! A few more days, a few days after the fall of our tyrants to fulfil the supreme duty that remains to me, and the dream of life can vanish forever! But if it is my destiny to, after long sufferings, perish in France, in the midst of executioners, surrounding and pressing me, oh you, who are interested in the glory of mine and my friends, do not fear anything undignified of us. Our souls have never feared death, but never will the assassin have the glory of contributing it. And till the last breath Pétion, Barbaroux and Buzot will be free!.." (p.187, and the last)
He killed himself together with Pétion on the same day and the same wheat patch as Barbaroux.
"We've discussed a lot and decided nothing. I will always remember the opinion that Buzot developed with great energy. The question was if we were accused, should we prefer a voluntary death to the ignominy of mounting the echafaud. Buzot preferred the last and proved that the death on the echafaud was more courageous, more dignified to the patriots, and, even more, it was more useful for the Liberty." (Brissot, Memoires, Vol.4, p.261)
(A copy of a portrait belonged to Madame Roland published by Dauban)
