YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
EDWARD WELLS SOUTHWORTH
FUND

BUONARROTI'S HISTORY
OF
BABEUFS CONSPIRACY
FOR
EQUALITY;
WITH
THE AUTHOR'S REFLECTIONS
ON THE
fiTau0r*$: <£Darartn: of tfje jFvenrtf lUbolutton,
AND HIS ESTIMATE OF THE
LEADING MEN AND EVENTS OF THAT EPOCH.
IIni, HIS VIEWS OF
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT,
COMMUNITY OF PROPERTY,
AND
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EQUALITY.

1 RA \ SLATED FROM THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, AND ILLUSTRATED BY
ORIGINAL NOTES, ETC.

By BRONTERRE,

EDITOR OF TBE POOR MAN'S GUARDUN, HETHERIXGTON's TWOPENNY
DISPATCH, ETC- ECT.

LONDON :
PRINTED and PUBLISHED by H. HETHERINGTON, 12fl,STKANiJ
AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
1836.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
or
BIOMBROTI.

The author of this work, Phillippo Buonarroti, was
born in Florence in 1760. He was of noble extraction,
and descended, it is said, in a right line from the cele
brated Michael Angelo ; but, as Michael Angelo was
never married, it is more probable that he belonged to a
collateral branch of that family. Certain it is, at all
events, that his immediate connexions were amongst the
highest Order at Florence ; a fact not only attested by
the high favour in which he was held in early life at the
court of the Grand Duke Leopold, but also by the
powerful influences he was enabled to interest in his
behalf, at several critical periods of his subsequent life.
He received his education at the University of Pisa,
where he discovered great energy of mind, and an in
defatigable zeal for study. He addicted himself in par
ticular to the cultivation of philosophy, politics, and
history. He also exhibited favourable specimens of his
talents by several dissertations and essays on a variety
of subjects.
These promising dispositions, united with the great
name he bore, won him the esteem of the Grand Duke
Leopold, who made it a point to favour all the de
scendants of the illustrious men of Florence, and espe
cially the families of Buonarroti, Vespucci, and Galilei,
whose ancestors had shed so much honour upon that
nursery of Italian genius.
As soon as Buonarroti quitted the University, the
Grand Duke created him a Knight of the Order of St.
Stephen, and offered him a distinguished place in his
Court, with a large pension. The Order of Knighthood
he aceepted ; but, whether from a desire to be more free
a2

IV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI.
to prosecute his studies, or, what is more probable, from
a hatred of the servilities and hypocrisy necessary to
make a good courtier, be declined the latter offer.
" The desire of enriching himself," observes one of his
Tory biographers, " seems never to have possessed him ;
his errors were of a very different character." Unfor
tunately for Buonarroti's own prospects, they were indeed
of a very different character ; for if to unite, to a thorough
. knowledge of the causes of human misery, an ardent love
of his fellow-creatures, and a burning desire to rescue
them from tyranny and slavery, at the risk of every per
sonal sacrifice and danger — be an error, no man was
ever more deeply involved in error than Buonarroti. His
life was a continued error of this kind. Hence the many
difficulties and perils of his revolutionary career ; hence his
participation in Babeuf's " Conspiracy for Equality;" and
hence is now devolved on the writer of this the task of
aiding to transmit this last monument of his patriotism
and glory to the admiration, we trust, of the good and
the oppressed of all nations.
When the French Revolution broke out, it was natural
that a mind constituted like Buonarroti's should catch
the electric spark that thrilled all generous hearts with
the hope of a new era. He accordingly entered into it
with all the ardour of an Italian, and with an energy of
character which showed that the soul of Michael Angelo
was inherited by his illustrious descendant. Making no
secret of his feelings, he boldly announced, and became
a propagator of, the new principles. The Grand Duke
was soon alarmed ; his predilections for Buonarroti as a
man were lost in the terrors he iuspired as a politician.
To the Duke's own fears were added those of his courtiers
and ministers. Buonarroti was, of course, calumniated
and defamed. He was accused of ingratitude, as though
the Grand Duke had a right to his conscience, in return
for the Order of Knighthood conferred on him ; and, by
way of marking the Court's abhorrence of revolutionary
principles, Buonarroti was exiled from Tuscany. From
this period commenced at once his career of misfortune
and glory.
He first took refuge in Corsica with his wife and
children, and soon after his arrival began to publish a

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI. V
patriotic journal, entitled, " L'Amico della Libertd
Italica." (The Friend of Italian Libert;/.) This
journal, which breathed the true spirit of a patriot, be
sides attaching to him a host of admirers of the new
principles, attracted the notice of Sahcetti the Deputy,
to whom Buonarroti had been formerly known ; and the
Constituent Assembly having finished its functions, and
the Corsican Deputies being returned from Paris, Salicetti
was rejoiced to find an old friend in his native country —
a friend rendered doublv dear to him by his recent
waitings and services in the popular cause.
Not long after (in 1792) the second legislature was
dissolved, and a National Convention summoned, to
which Salicetti was elected by the Corsicans. Reluctant
to leave so valuable a coadjutor behind, Salicetti pre
vailed on Buonarroti to accompany him to Paris, where
he would have a wider field for the exercise of his talents
and labours in support of the Revolution. He accord
ingly repaired thither, was received by the Republicans
with the highest marks of esteem, and adopted into the
famous popular society of the Friends of Liberty,
better known under the name of the " Jacobin Club."
In this situation he became acquainted with all the great
leaders of the Mountain party, and it was probably from
what he observed there, that he was subsequently en
abled to distinguish so shrewdly between the generous
and comprehensive policy of Robespierre's party, and
the selfish and hollow character of those sham-Radical
Mountainists, who then co-operated with Robespierre for
their own ends, but who afterwards immolated him on
the 9th Thermidor, after those ends had been attained.
Some few months after the Convocation of the Na
tional Convention (in the winter of 1792), an aristocratic
insurrection broke out in Corsica, and it being necessary
to send a Commissioner there with full powers, the choice
fell on Buonarroti, who possessed all the personal and
local requisites for the mission. Having repaired to
that island he made every possible exertion to restore
order, but being badly supported by the people, who had
been seduced by the Royalists, he not only proved un
successful,, but well nigh lost his life as well. The
Corsican Aristocrats resolved to throw off their al-

VI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI.
legiance to France, and, like all Aristocrats, unscrupulous
as to means, formed a conspiracy to assassinate Buonar
roti. His house was surrounded in the dead of night,
and it was only by throwing himself out of a window,
amidst a discharge of pistols, that he escaped the
hands of the assassins.
Having with some difficulty effected his escape from
Corsica, he returned to Paris, and from his known zeal
and energy was immediately entrusted with a new and
more dangerous mission. It was to suppress a counter
revolutionary movement in Lyons, which the rich manu
facturers and shopocrats of that town were industriously
organising against the authorities of the Convention, and
which threatened every moment to assume the character
of a rebellion. These vampires, whose colossal wealth
was derived from the luxurious spendings of the old
aristocracy on the one hand, and from the brutalization
of the workpeople on the other, were alarmed at the
progress of Robespierre's doctrines of equality. To
emancipate France was to strip them of the means of
robbing their neighbours ; and seeing no security for the
old system of monopoly and plunder, except in the re-
establishment of Monarchy, they were all but in a
state of insurrection before Buonarroti quitted Paris.
The latter and Maillot, another active patriot, were
armed with full powers to quell the insurrectionary spirit.
This they hoped to effect tranquilly, and by the aid of
the municipal body of Lyons, which had been revolu-
tionarily organised ; but they had scarcely made half
their journey when the dread tidings reached them that
the town was in actual rebellion against the Convention ;
that the municipal authorities had been deposed, and
many of them massacred, by the insurgent shopocrats ;
and that Challier, the famous Radical mayor (called a
"¦fanatic" on account of his zeal and sincerity), had
been judicially assassinated. The same fate was de
signed for Buonarroti and Maillot, but this did not
deter those brave patriots from proceeding on their
mission. As soon as they reached the insurgent city,
they were arrested, and carried before the president of
the rebellious sections, whence they were sent to a dun
geon, preparatory to their undergoing the fate of Challier.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI. Vll
But on the eve of the day appointed for their execution,
Collot d'Herbois arrived, and the Republican army en
tering the place under his instructions, Buonarroti and
his colleague were saved.
It is said that having thus for a second time es
caped assassination, Buonarroti expressed a wish for
an appointment to some more peaceable situation ; but
(as is justly observed by one of his commentators)
" such a wish is not likely to have been formed by
Buonarroti, than whom no man was ever less disposed
to seek peace, and ensue it," to the neglect of his
country's claims on his services. Be that as it may,
Collot recommended him to his colleagues, Ricord and
Robespierre's brother, who were then on a mission at
Nice, and by them he was appointed a member of the
military tribunal of the army of Italy; and after the
conquest of Piedmont in the following year, agent of the
Republic in all the conquered countries.
It was in this last capacity that Buonarroti's real
generosity of character became a theme of admiration
for all who knew him. " He exhibited," says his bio
grapher, " a degree of justice and disinterestedness,
" which acquired him great celebrity in the eyes both of
" French and Italians. Although at the head of an im-
" mense administration, he not only proved himself
" inaccessible to bribery and peculation, but actually
" expended the produce of all his appointments in
" relieving and succouring patriots and soldiers, who
" hazarded their lives for their country. Being asked
" why he preferred poverty to affluence; he replied, that
" his only motive in coming to France was to be
" serviceable to the cause of liberty, and that if he had
" preferred riches he would not have left his prosperous
" situation in Florence." *
Happy would it have been for France had all her
revolutionary agents acted with the like disinterestedness ;
but, unfortunately, the majority of them considered the
Revolution as a game of hazard, in which each had a
right to grasp for himself whatever fortune offered. The
pro-consuls and commissioners of the then Government
* Phillips's Biographical Anecdotes of the Founders of the
French Revolution, &c. &c.

Vlii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI.
were, with few exceptions, of this class. The system of
terror which Robespierre and his friends had adopted
and supported only as a safeguard against aristocrats
and traitors, was converted by these monsters into a
means of omnigenous robbery and self-aggrandisement.
Hence the horrid butcheries in the provinces organised
and perpetrated by Fouche, Tallien, Bourdon, Freron,
Barras, and other brigand deputies and commissioners
of the Convention. Sprung from the lowest dregs
of society, a Revolution was necessary to push these
adventurers into affluence ; but that once attained, a
counter-revolution was required to secure them in the
sate enjoyment of their blood-stained acquisitions.
Hence, and from other causes not necessary here to par
ticularize, arose the catastrophe of the 9th Thermidor ;
or, in other words, the immolation of Robespierre and
the sincere Republicans, by the brigand-Mountainists of
the Convention, acting in conceit with the other aris
tocratic factions of that assembly.
This event, which changed the whole face of the Re
public, occured whilst Buonarroti held the appointment
of agent-general of all the conquered countries. The
Revolution, which had hitherto progressed towards a
new social order, to be based on equality of rights and
general happiness, assumed a new character. The new
Aristocrats, forming a junction with the old, rapacitv
and proscription of the patriots became the order of the
day. The friends of virtue and equality were every
where devoted to destruction. Buonarroti was not tor-
gotten. The Thermidorian assassins, aware of his
principles and inflexible character, immediately dis
patched orders for arresting him and sending him to
Paris. Tureau, the representative at Nice, to whom
these orders were addressed, having the highest personal
esteem for Buonarroti, and wishing to give him an op
portunity of escape, exclaimed publicly, " Voila encore
une victime du Freronisme" (Behold another victim of
Freronism).* He even delayed executing the commands
of the Committee for ten days, so that Buonarroti was
not only apprised of the fate intended for him, but might
* Freron was considered at the head of the then prevailine
party. b

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF Bt'OXARROTI. ix
depart in safety if he wished. His secretary implored
him to escape, and to provide against the future by
carrying off the chest of the administration, which con
tained about 300,000 livres. Buonarroti, indignant at
this advice, replied with firmness, " Why should I leave
so base a stain upon my character * Have I been
guilty of any crime ? No — / yield to my destiny
and consent to go to prison ! ! "
Buonarroti was accordingly seized by the gendarmerie,
and carried to Paris. In the prison Du Plessis, where
lie was immured, " he suffered," says his biographer,
" the greatest distress, and endeavoured to earn a sub
sistence by teaching music." " I find," said he, " that
Rousseau was altogether right when he recommended
to his Emilius the attainment of some art which might
prove useful to him in time of want. I had studied
music for my recreation; I am now obliged to have
recourse to it for my subsistence."
Two circumstances occurred during his imprisonment
at Du Plessis, both strikingly illustrative of the true mag
nanimity of his character. The National Convention,
by whose orders he was arrested, came, by a just retri
bution of Providence, to feel the effects of the counter-
Revolution it had commenced. The middle classes of
Paris, who desired a more complete re-action in their
favour than the Convention was disposed to promote,
rose in insurrection against it on the memorable 13th
Vendemiaire. This movement, which was decidedly
Royalist, filled the Convention, and the Thermidorians
in particular, with alarm and dismay. Buonarroti being
asked whether he did not rejoice to see the Convention
menaced by the same Royalists whom the Thermidorian
faction had so basely caressed, in order to secure their
co-operation against Robespierre ? He generously made
answer — " / sacrifice all personal resentment to the
public welfare. Jf the Convention be sincere in de
fending the Republic against the Royalists, and if it
want a soldier to fight for the public cause, I am
ready again to take up arms in its support, though 1
have experienced the grossest injustice at its hands."
The other trait I alluded to is this : During Buonar
roti's confinement, the Prince Corsini, ambassador from

X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI.
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, intimated to him that he
would intercede with the Directory, and procure him
his liberty, if he would engage to return to Florence, and
resume there his rank and family honours. Buonarroti
replied that he had relinquished his right for ever in
Italy, that he was wedded to liberty, and that death or
force alone should prevent him from remaining in France
to enjoy the " vestigia morientis libertatis " (the last
traces or remains of expiring liberty !) Such sublime
devotedness was not without its reward even in Direc
torial France. A few days afterwards the Convention
(feeling itself to be in more danger from the Royalists
than from the Democrats, and desiring to use the latter
as a sort of counterpoise to the growing ascendancy of
the former), proclaimed a general amnesty to all the
confined patriots, and Buonarroti regained his liberty
once more. This, which was his third escape, was
(considering the then state of parties) almost as mar
vellous as either of his two former ones. It was only
the hope that his life would prove more useful than his
death to the then dominant faction, that saved him on
this occasion from adding one more to the numerous
victims of the Thermidorian counter-Revolution.
From this period we hear no more of Buonarroti till
he connected himself with the Pantheonists, and in con
junction with Babeuf and others, organised the famous
conspiracy for equality which forms the subject of this
work. But of these events he must be his own historian.
One circumstance, however, in this part of his eventful
career I cannot forbear noticing here. It stamps the
seal of conviction on all that is recorded in commendation
of " this magnanimous and accomplished character —
the gallant but unfortunate Buonarroti," as he is justly
designated by one of his biographers. I allude to the
dialogue which took place between him and the President
of the Military Commission appointed to try him for the
conspiracy : —
" Did you conspire ?" said the President.
" Yes," answered Buonarroti.
" What motive induced you to conspire ?"
" The love of mankind."
" What were the principles that directed you ?"

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI. XI
" The rights of man."
" But did you intend to overthrow the present Con-
" stitution ?"
" Yes ! and till I cease to live I will ever conspire
" against tyrants. Was it worthwhile to shed the blood
" of two millions of citizens, in order to restore slavery
" again ? Was it worth while to crush the ci-devant, in
" order to bow to the ci-apres ?"
" But are you not a foreigner ?"
" No man is an alien to the cause of human nature."
It will be seen from the sequel that only two of the
conspirators were condemned to death — Darthe and
Babeuf; the former, most probably, because he was the
intimate friend of Robespierre ; and Babeuf, I should
suppose, in consequence of the inflexible perseverance
with which he preached and advocated in his journal a
" community of property. " This doctrine was particularly
unpalatable to the then rulers of France, who were all up
start adventurers, enriched by public plunder, and reeking
with the blood and spoils of the Revolution. The rest
of the conspirators, including Buonarroti, were only sen
tenced to transportation ; but this apparent clemency to
parties equally culpable as Babeuf and Darthe, is easily
accounted for. The Quarterly Review explains it well.
" They who were then in authority," observes that pe
riodical, " had good reason for this. The appetite of
the Revolution for blood, which during a long and
dreadful time had ' grown by what it fed on,' had gained
their ends in the Revolution, and, therefore, wished it
to stop where it was ; and they were conscious, moreover,
that against them Babeuf and his associates had but
too strong a case."
Buonarroti's sentence, it appears, was never carried
into effect, owing, it is supposed, to the reiterated inter
cession of the Court of Tuscany. Incarceration vvas sub
stituted for transportation, and he was confined first at
Cherbourg, then at some place in the Maritime Alps,
where he was as late as 1806, and lastly in some other
remote extremity of France, the name of which is not
stated. The last account I heard of Buonarroti was
shortly after the Revolution of 1830, when it seems he
was arrested by some of Louis Philippe's agents. The

Xli BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BUONARROTI.
Times newspaper, which was then " on the Liberal side,
noticed the matter in the way of indignant remonstrance.
It upbraided Louis Philippe for cruelty in persecuting so
venerable and (as the > Times then thought him) so
patriotic an old man. (Buonarroti must have been then
upwards of 70.) Such an eulogium, upon such a man,
it did certainly surprise me at the time to find in such a
publication ; nor was my surprise without good cause, as
the honest Times itself soon proved ; for, in a day or
two after, out comes another leader in the Times, dis
claiming all it said before, and pointing attention to some
correspondent's letter, in which Buonarroti was abused
as a leveller, and calumniated as a blood-thirsty follower
of Robespierre. The humane and liberty-loving Times
was, of course, shocked at this disclosure ; and, though
poor Buonarroti had done nothing in the mean time to
excite our contemporary's wrath, all the praises and
appeals to the French authorities in his behalf were re
tracted, and the " venerable and patriotic old man " was
left to sink or swim, as he best could, under the tutelary
protection of honest Louis Philippe. So much for
Printing-house-square philanthropy.
What has since become of Buonarroti, — whether he is
alive or dead, I have not heard. Should any of my
readers be able to give me any information on the sub
ject, I shall be most happy to publish it at the close of
the work
BRO.NTERRE.

TO THE READER.

My readers mav desire to know my reasons for pub
lishing Buonarroti's work. I will frankly explain. The
motives that determined me are as follows : —
1st. Because Buonarroti's book contains one of the
best expositions I have seen of those great political and
social principles which I have so long advocated in the
" Poor Man's Guardian" and other publications, and
which I am still endeavouring to inculcate through the
columns of " Hetheringtons Twopenny Dispatch."
The application of these principles I deem to be of
paramount importance to the human race. Society has
been hitherto constituted upon no fixed principles. The
state in which we find it is the blind result of chance.
Even its advocates do not claim for it any other origin.
The right of the strongest — the only right acknowledged
by savage man— appears to be still the fundamental
charter of all " civilized " states. The wandering savage
asks no other title to his neighbour's produce than his own
superior strength or capacity to take it. The " civilized''
man acts precisely, though disguisedly, on the same prin
ciple. Then- means are different, but the objects and
end are the same. What the savage or uncivilized man
does individually and directly, by the exercise of mere
personal prowess, the civilized man (so called) does col
lectively and circuitously , by cunningly-designed in
stitutions. Theeffectsof these institutions are well depicted
by Buonarroti. He shows, with admirable ability, how,
in trying to escape the evils of savage life, man has un
consciously plunged into another state far more cala
mitous — to wit, the present artificial state, which he
terms that of " false civilization." He shows, that to
correct the evils of this latter state, without at the same
time retrograding to the former, was the grand problem
sought to be resolved by the first French Revolution ;
and, in discussing the principles and institutions deemed
necessaty to that end by the leaders of the Revolution,

Xiv TO THE READER.
I was so forcibly struck by the coincidence of Buonarroti's
ideas with my own, that I immediately resolved to trans
late the book, and thereby present to the English reader
the doctrines of the " Poor Mans Guardian" under a
new form and dress, which, if I mistake not, will add
greatly to their popularity, in consequence of the superior
abilities and practical experience of the author. Such,
then, is my first and chief motive in sending forth this
work. 2d. Because it contains what to me appears the most
luminous and correct estimate, to be found in any lan
guage, of the leading men and events of the great
French Revolution. In this respect I deem the repub
lication of Buonarroti's work an imperative duty.
In no other book have I seen the frauds of history so
effectually exposed. It is impossible to read it without
being convinced that nearly all the books that have ap
peared on the French Revolution are masses of fabrica
tion and misrepresentation, artfully designed to reconcile
mankind to aristocratic tyranny. To believe these im
postors, one would suppose that the Royalists and
Girondists included all the public virtue in France at
that epoch, and that Robespierre and his party were a
band of illiterate and blood-thirsty monsters, who, under
pretence of serving the public, sought only to aggrandize
themselves, and who, to gain their selfish and criminal
ends, would cover France with scaffolds and dead bodies.
How different the reality ! How utterly at variance with
facts and reason are these representations! The then
Royalists of France were exactly the same description of
persons that now support Louis Philippe's despotism ; that
is to say, Aristocrats and rich usurers, who, caring only
for themselves, would sacrifice half the human race to
make slaves and brutes of the other half. The Girond
ists consisted of lawyers, bankers, and babbling literati,
who, jealous of the nobility and privileged orders, sought
to swindle the Government, and all the advantages de
rivable from it, into their own hands. Some good men
there were, no doubt, amongst them ; but, taken as a
whole, the Girondists were the worst faction in France,
except perhaps the sham-Radical portion of the Moun
tain party, that conspired with the committees of

TO THE READER. XT
Government to destroy Robespierre. The Royalists
would concentre the whole national authority in the
hands of the rich bourgeoisie, or make it absolute in the
King and Council. The Girondists would extend the
franchise to the small middlemen (just as our English
Whigs did by the Reform Bill), in order the more effec
tually to keep down the working classes. The one
would govern by the Church and a standing army; the
other would govern by money, by lying journalism, and
an armed shopocracy. Priestcraft and bayonets were
the materiel of Royalist tyranny ; Mammon and corrupt
literature were the weapons of the other. The prevailing
characteristics of the Royalists were sloth, monopoly,
bigotry, hatred of change; those of the Girondists were
restlessness, intrigue, falsehood, and cowardly ambition.
The sham-Radical Mountainists differed from both in
this — that wanting the riches of the former party, and
the talents of the Girondists, they were obliged to make
up for the double deficiency by brigand courage and
enterprize. To this latter party belonged the Septem-
brizers — the chief terrorists of the Convention — and the
ferocious pro-consuls and commissioners who shed so
much blood in the provinces. Its leaders were Bourdon,
Tallien, Fouche, Freron, Legendre; Barras and Ro-
vere also belonged to it; but previously to Danton's
death, that demagogue was considered the chief of the
party. In the early stages of the Revolution, and, in
deed, till a short period before his death, the necessity
of opposing a strong force to the Royalists and Girond
ists, obliged Robespierre to act with these desperadoes,
but there was no mutuality or congeniality of feeling be
tween him and them. Robespierre and his friends de
sired to turn the Revolution to the account of humanity,
by introducing a new social order into society, based on
equality of rights and purity of morals. The Dantonists,
on the other hand, cared nothing about rights or morals,
provided they could acquire riches and power for them
selves. The Revolution was in their eyes a game of
hazard, in which every one had a right to seize all he
could for himself, no matter at what cost or at whose
expense. Such discordant elements could not long
coalesce. Previously to the 1st of May, 1793, the

Xvi TO THE READER.
necessity of combatting the Girondists, who had then a
majority in the Convention, kept them united, but after
that event the chasm became wider and wider every day.
The Dantonists, who had combatted the Royalists and
the Girondists, only with a view to succeed them in
authority, formed the nucleus of a new Aristocracy ; but
having acquired their ascendancy solely by the people's
favour, they found it convenient still to profess popular
principles; 'conscious, however, that Robespierre knew
their real designs, and dreading his extreme popularity,
and still more his inflexible integrity, they naturally de
sired his downfall. Moreover, as Robespierre combatted
against principles, not men, they felt that the same
patriotic motives which had impelled him against the
Royalists and the Girondists, would necessarily compel
him at last to take a part against themselves, seeing that
they had now usurped the places of the Aristocracy, to
whose vices they added those also of brigandism and
apostacy. These considerations necessarily hastened
the shock of parties.
The result is well told by Buonarroti. Suffice it to
observe here, that Robespierre was overwhelmed on the
9th Thermidor (27 July, 1794), by a conspiracy of all
the factions in the Convention, headed by the Despera
does or Dantonists just described. His accusation was
decreed with acclamations, amid cries of " Down with
the tyrant ;" and after his execution he was, of course,
saddled with the chief share of all the crimes of the
Revolution, and especially with those that had been
committed by his assassins. This is the way in all Revo
lutions. The dominant party takes credit to itself for
all that is good, and flings upon the vanquished the
odium of all that is bad.
As a proof how little reliance can be placed in history,
I shall just notice here some of the opinions promulgated
respecting Robespierre. Mark their inconsistency with
facts, and with one another.
M. Dulaure, in the course of a long article inserted
in the Censeur of 1815, proves (as he thinks) that
Robespierre was a secret Royalist traitor, who had sold
himself first to Orleans, and afterwards to the foreign
enemy, for gold. Dulaure asserts, that beyond doubt

TO THE READER. XVII
Robespierre received bribes from foreign Courts ; and that
previously to his death he was meditating how to smooth
the way for the return of royalty in the person of Louis
XVIII. A strange character this, to give of a man whom
France called the Incorruptible, from his well-known
contempt of riches — a man of whom Napoleon said that
if he had been offered 2,000,000f. to betray the Repub
lic, he would have rejected it with disdain — of a man, in
short, who, though the most influential in France during
a period of eighteen months, and consequently with un
bounded opportunities of enriching himself, nevertheless
died so poor that the sale of all his effects after his death
fetched only 240 livres, or less than 10Z. !
Another character of Robespierre is, that he " was of
a cold, sanguinary disposition, without conviction and
without conscience — ready to exterminate three-fourths
of the French people — devoid of all capacity, and aspi
ring to some inexplicable sort of bloody dictatorship,"
&c. Such is the sapient opinion of Fantin Desodoards,
author of a history on the French Revolution. Dulaure
and he would be not a little puzzled to reconcile these
two characters. It would non-plus them to explain how
a man, aspiring to a dictatorship for himself, could at the
same time be plotting for the royalty of another. Beth
these writers, by the way, represent Robespierre as an
unparalleled liar and hypocrite, &c. &c.
Now, what say Messrs. Thiers and Mignet ? According
to these worthies, Robespierre was " an honest fanatic (un
fanatique de bonne foi), of mediocre capacity, devoured
w ith envy and pride, incapable of courage ; for the rest,
a sincere and incorruptible Republican, but beneath the
mission which he supposed himself called to fill," &c. &c.
It would be a nice matter to reconcile this, with the two
preceding characters. The honest fanatic does not har
monise well with the profound hypocrite " without con
viction or conscience :" much less does the " incorruptible
Republican " harmonise with Dulaure's mercenary con
spirator receiving the wages of treason from the hands of
royalty, &c.
Another writer, named Nodier, has improved on Thiers
and Mignet. According to him, Robespierre was net
only honest, but horribly honest ! His expression is " kor-

XV111 TO THE READER.
rible bonne foi." " From these circumstances," ob
serves Nodier, " I should consider Robespierre to be the
true personification of the Revolution — his rare dis
interestedness, his horrible honesty, and his appetite
for blood!" What a jumble is here. Before I saw this
profound criticism I was not aware that there was any
thing horrible in honesty, much less did I imagine there
was any natural connexion between blood-spilling and
disinterestedness ; but historians are rare discoverers. If
we believe the Abbe de Montgaillard, or the Conjuration
de Robespierre (by Mountjoye), or Fantin Desodoard,
Robespierre was a compound of all the inferior qualities,
not only of human nature, but of brute and reptile na
tures also. He was " ignorant, ugly, grim, sombre, ma
lignant, vulgar, lascivious, brutal, envious, a hater of
journalists, a second Omar against literature, a barbarous
proscriber of the arts and sciences, a murderer of his
enemies, an assassin of his friends, a bachelor only be
cause the chastity of marriage did not suit his taste for
libertinism, a seducer of his host's daughter, and, to
complete the picture, a filthy beast that finished his daily
orgies of lust and the guillotine by a nocturnal debauch
%mongst common prostitutes ! ! !" Such is the character
given by history of one of the noblest spirits that ever
adorned human nature.
History has been defined to be, " Philosophy teaching
by examples." A just definition, no doubt, if applied
to true history ; but how melancholy to think that the
youth of a nation should have its opinions formed by
such " philosophy" as that just quoted — a " philosophy"
that has falsehood for its means, and slavery for its end!
But what, you may ask, is the secret of this ferocity —
of these unheard of calumnies against an individual ? Read
Buonarroti, my friends, and you will know. Buonarroti
will show you that Robespierre was a true friend of huma
nity; that he was the oppressed man's consolation and
i the oppressor's scourge; that he devoted himself to the
| emancipation of his fellow-citizens with a zeal and a
jdegre#»of success never witnessed before in the world;
j that he had a vast plan of regeneration in preparation
¦ for France, by which the poor would be for ever de
livered from the rich, and the reign of morals, of frater-

TO THE READER. xix
nity of relations, and real happiness established on earth.
But the counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the 9th
Thermidor destroyed all. Robespierre and his friends
removed, the few honest Democrats in the Convention
were left without weight or influence. The old Aris
tocrats uniting themselves to the new, that assembly
soon became thoroughly anti-popular. Deprived of
their party in the Convention, the friends of equality
were soon driven from all their strongholds. The very
day after Robespierre's death they lost the Commune, or
Municipal Authority of Paris, which was broken up by
order of the Convention, and never afterwards re-orga
nised. They were next driven from the Committees of
Government. The sectional meetings, which in Robes
pierre's time used to be held every day, were now re
duced to one in every decade, or ten days; and the
daily payment of forty sous to the sansculottes, to enable
them to attend, was discontinued. As democracy declined
in influence, the bourgeoisie and the Royalists raised their
heads once more. The population of Paris, finding itself
betrayed and disappointed, made a few insurrections to
recover its lost power ; but without chiefs, or a powerful
Commune to lead, they proved feeble and abortive. To*
complete its humiliation, and to cut off all hope as well as
chance of future success, the Convention, under pretence
of preparing organic laws for the execution of the Constitu
tion of 1793, abolished that Constitution altogether, and
substituted for itthe Constitution of the Year HI. (1795),
which made over the legislature to the middle classes, by
annexing a money qualification to the franchise. This
was the final blow at the democracy. The people now
became universally sensible of the real character and
motives of the Thermidorian Revolution. The destruc
tion of Robespierre and his party was now viewed in its
proper light — namely, as an essential preliminary to the
new treason, which was to wrest the national sovereignty
from the entire body of the citizens, in order that a single
class might monopolize it. The Constitution of 1793 had
been voted by 4,800,000 adult Frenchmen, exclusire of
the armies, which were all devotedly attached to it. The
Constitution of 1795, on the other hand, received but
900,000 votes, and the armies were all against it. Yet,

XX TO THE READER.
because this latter established the Government of the
middle class, the perfidious Convention was satisfied with
the 900,000 votes, and took no account of the 4,800,000
in favour of the popular and legitimate Constitution.
Perhaps the history of the world does not record a more
hideous treason than this. Had such a measure been
proposed only two years before iii the Convention, the
proposer would have been sent before the revolutionary
tribunal as a traitor. But so great had been the reaction
since Robespierre's death, that except in petitions and
remonstrances, no resistance was offered by the people.
The 900,000 shopocrats were quietly suffered to rob
the 4,000,000 citizens of their rights and sovereignty;
and there was no longer a power in the country to
invade the Conventionalists in their hall, or to blow
the swindling shopocracy to hell at the cannon's
mouth. The people, deceived and disappointed, aban
doned the struggle in despair. After all their sacri
fices, they wondered to find themselves worse off
than before the Revolution ; they had not know
ledge enough to know that, of all governments, a
government of the middle class is the most grinding and
remorseless; if they had, they would have felt less sur
mise at the dreadful distress at that time felt by the
Parisian workmen. The Convention having suppressed
the law of the maximum* in favour of the Shopocrats, as
also those against monopolv and forestalling, the conse
quence was that usury and high profits became the order
of the day. To add to the difficulty, assignats, the only
money accessible to the labouring class, were in discredit.
This arose in a great measure from the extravagance
and wasteful system of finance adopted bv the new Go
vernment, which had issued no less than ,10,000 millions
of assignats since the 9th Thermidor. The depreciation
caused by these enormous issues rendered the assignats
of no value. The Shopocrats would not receive them,
and the people having no cash, and wanting provisions,
were on the brink of destruction. Historians of all
* A Robespierrian law, by which the Shopocrats were prevented
from charging an extortionate price on commodities, &c. This law
was passed to prevent the middle classes from starving the sans
culottes.

TO THE READER.

parties agree that this was a period of unexampled
distress, although the harvest had been singularly abun
dant. The fact is acknowledged, but the cause is left
to conjecture. The following, however, shows pretty
clearly what the cause was :— " Such," observes Mignet,
" was the distressing situation of the country after the
fall of the Committee of Public Safety, which had during
its reign provided against scarcity, both in the army and
the interior, by requisitions and the maximum. No
person could escape this financial regulation by which
the mercantile and the wealthy classes were rendered
tributary to the soldiers and the mob. During that
period, therefore, the necessaries of life were not neces
sarily hoarded in warehouses. But since, when an end
was put to violence and confiscation, the people, the
Convention, and the armies had been at the mercy of
proprietors and speculators; the consequence was, a
frghtful degree of poverty, the reactiou of the maxi
mum," &c. Mignet calls the requisitions and maximum
violent, though they were absolutely necessary to support
1,400,000 soldiers fighting in defence of the country on
the frontiers ; but he does not call the hoarding by the
vampire profit-hunters violent, although the effect of that
was certain death, and torments the most excruciating, to
hundreds of thousands. But so it is with aristocratic
historians. The middleman's gains being of more con
sequence in his eyes than the poor man's life, whatever
interferes with the one is " violent," while the other is
very lightly dealt with. Thus Mignet sums up for the
poor, quietly — " they attributed their distress to the
merchants, to the contractors, to the landholders, to
the Government (all with good reason), and, they called
to mind, not without regret, that not long ago they
hud both bread and power under the Committee of
Public Safety."
Such was the condition of France two years after the
death of Robespierre, when the famous conspiracy of
Babeuf was formed, — and this brings me to my third
reason for publishing this book.
3rd. Because " Babeuf 's Conspiracy for Equality"
appears to me the only event of the kind recorded in
history that was sincerely and comprehensively designed

XXii TO THE READER.
for the benefit of human kind. The only conspiracy to
match it in magnitude of means, was that of Cataline to
set fire to Rome during Cicero's consulship, but from
what history has transmitted relative to that event (a
good deal falsified no doubt) it does not appear that
Cataline and his accomplices had any other motives than
plunder and private revenge. Not that I believe what
Sallust and Cicero relate respecting him. The fact that
Cicero was obliged to put his accomplices to death un-
condemned, is enough for me. Had not the conspiracy
and its agents been more popular than it suited Sallust
or Cicero to state, the latter would not have feared to
send them for trial before the judges. Nevertheless ,
putting the case most favourably for Cataline, there
is no evidence extant to show that that conspirator
was actuated by other than personal motives — motives
it may be justifiable and provoked — but still only per
sonal and vindictive.
Of a very different character was the conspiracy of
Babeuf and his friends. Their's was a plot for the eman
cipation of France — for the regeneration and happiness
of mankind. It was a conspiracy to restore the demo
cratic Constitution of 1793, and, through that Constitu
tion, the reign of political and social equality. Nor was
the project a chimerical one. The conspirators had
abundant means and materials for success. Never,
perhaps, was a conspiracy conducted with better aus
pices, or more likely to succeed, up to the moment when
it was broken by the hand of perfidy. . The then state of
France, and particularly Paris, was peculiarly favour
able. The experience of two years had made the mul
titude regret the loss of Robespierre's Government. The
abundance enjoyed then, and the happy times that
promised to follow the accomplishment of his projects for
giving a milliard to the defenders of the country — for
dividing the lands of the emigrant traitors amongst the
poor— for extirpating mendicity— and, above all, for
putting the people in secure possession of the Constitu
tion of 1793; these, and the like, contrasted strangely
with the misery and impotence experienced by the mul
titude under the new Government. Now, the object of
the conspirators (who were all devoted admirers of

TO THE READER. XXU1
Robespierre) being to resume the great work left off on
the 9th Thermidor, it was pretty certain that the mo
ment they declared themselves, the multitude would rise
as one man for them. Besides, the doctrines of social
equality had been recently rendered so universally popu
lar by Robespierre's Government, that they no longer
inspired feelings of incredulity (as they might now in
France), but rather of enthusiasm and confidence. The
principles to which the people were invited to rally
were the same that had often led them to victory, and
to the achievement of such prodigies. Upon the
people, then, the conspirators had every reason to
calculate. Moreover, they had 17,000 practised Revo
lutionists ready to act at a given signal. They had the
Mountaineers* of the Convention with them, and the
ex-officers of various kinds who had been in authority
under Robespierre to the number of 1 ,500 ; they had
the artillerymen of Paris, who were noted for their demo
cratic spirit, the grenadiers of the legislative body, the
whole corps of the Invalides, and almost the entire legion
of police. They had also gained the guards, the ma
gazines, and the artillery at the camp of Vincennes; and
by Grisel, one of the conspirators (the same that after
wards betrayed them), they were assured of the good
dispositions of the soldiers at the camp of Grenelle. With
the aid of the two camps they promised themselves a
speedy success ; but should the troops hold out against
the harangues of their orators, the blandishments of the
women, who were to present them with garlands and
refreshments, and the invitation of the Invalides to follow
their example, preparations were made for barricading
the streets against them, and showering upon them
stones, slates, bricks, vitriol, and boiling water. But I
anticipate the narrative — I have said so much only to
show that the conspirators had no lack of means or ma
terials, and considering the then aspect of affairs, their
project appeared as feasible in execution as it was bold
in conception and benevolent in design.
BRONTERRE.
* These devils, now sunk into contempt and impotence, by the
return of the Girondists, and the general progress of the counter
revolutionary re-action, regretted bitterly the part they had taken.
against Robespierre on the 9th Thermidor.

XX1V TO THE READER.
P.S. I had intended to offer some remarks as to the
credibility of Buonarroti as a historian, but the following
extracts are, I think, considering the quarter from whence
they come, sufficiently decisive on that point. A good
word from the Quarterly is — in Buonarroti's case at
least (to use his own words) — omni exceptione major.
(From the Quarterly Review.)
"The work of Buonarroti may be considered not only as the
most curious one which has appeared concerning the French Re
volution, but as the most important also.1'
Again — " Let us render justice both to Buonarroti and his work.
That he was an accomplished person, and a man of great abilities,
is beyond all doubt ; as little can it be doubted, that if his opinions
had been compatible with the public welfare (Tory welfare he
means), or if he had lived in peaceful times, he might in many
respects have been an estimable and distinguished member of
society. The estimation in which he was held at the Court of the
Grand Duke, Leopold, is proof of this. To speak of him as intrepid,
would be to use a word at once inadequate and inappropriate ; to
use an expression of Marshal Soult, he was an impassable man ; he
could have done whatever Sylla or Marius did ; whatever Timur
or Nadir enjoined among barbarians, or Simon de Montford and
Alva among persecuting Christians, he could have executed with
out hesitation and without remorse, &c. &c. * * * * He
has rendered an important service to society by the publication of
these Memoirs. There never was a book more trustworthy in all
i'ts statements," &c.
Again — " On the subject of the conspiracy his authority is omni
exceptions major ; he is perfectly explicit both as to the object at
which he aimed and the means by which it was to be brought
about; the object was to subvert the existing system, not of
Government alone, but of society in France, and to introduce an
absolute community of goods ; the means were, an insurrection
first, the massacre of all who opposed them, the putting of the
whole legislative body to death, and placing the operatives, the
malheureux, as he sometimes calls them, in possession of the pro
perty and houses of the higher orders throughout the whole of
France !" &c. &c. &c.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.'
I take this opportunity to announce that I will shortly send
torth to the public several new works, of which I have repeatedly
given intimation in the Poor Man's Guardian, Twopenny Dispatch
&c. Amongst these will be-" A True Life and Character of
Maximilian Robespierre"—" A Real History of the French Revolution"
— A UiMory of the English Commonwealth"— and " An Essay on the
Existing State and Future Prospects of Society." I am now encaged in
collecting materials for these works, and hope to have Robespierre's
Lite in stereotype before the last number of Buonarroti shaU have
appeared. The others shall follow with all the despatch compatible
with the due execution of such important and, necessarily labo
rious undertakings. Of their nature and principles I shall only
observe here that I intend them to be instrumental in familiarising
tne public mind of England with those great principles of social
and political reform, the application of which I consider essential
to the regeneration and happiness of mankind. Bronterke

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

A momext before our condemnation, Babeuf and
Darthe ~ received from me, on the benches of the High
Court of Vendome, in presence of the aristocratic axe,
which was ready to fall upon them, a promise to avenge
their memory, by publishing an exact recital of our
common intentions, which party spirit had so strangely
misrepresented and disfigured. Now that I am near
the close of life, it is time that I acquit myself of this
obligation, which divers circumstances prevented me
from discharging sooner.
Besides other duties, a long and rigorous detention,
followed by a surveillance still longer, and oftentimes
very embarrassing, on the three opposite extremities of
France, precluded me for a long time from the possi
bility of discussing with ocular witnesses, the causes of
the great events of the Revolution, and of procuring
certain documents (pieces) that were necessary to
elucidate particular facts, which I had proposed to my-
* The penalty of death had just been demanded against them.,
and that of deportation against Germain, Moroy, Cazin, Bouin,
Meneissier, JBlondeau, and myself. B

ii author's preface.
self to make known. Nevertheless, I might possibly
have been able to publish this work much sooner, had I
not been withheld by the apprehension of furnishing
fresh pretexts for animosities and persecutions. Now,
however, that age presses me, I have decided to let it
appear ; and I feel the greater confidence in so doing,
because, on the one hand, the men of that epoch have
almost all disappeared, and because, on the other, the
political doctrines of the present day being at an infinite
distance from those which were professed by the De
mocrats of the year IV of the French Republic, there
exists no longer any occasion to dread any dangerous
application. Besides, it is just that the democratic
party should be at length known in its true colours.
Having to render an account of a singularly bold en
terprise, I have considered it my duty to make clearly
appear in what manner we conducted ourselves ; and to
this end I have deemed it necessary to bring to recol
lection the situation in which the Revolution then stood,
the successive phases which had marked its progress,
and the virtues or vices which appeared to us to have
exercised any influence upon it. Accordingly, I have
commenced my narration with a rapid retrospect of this
Revolution, up to the period of those events which form
my subject-matter. I have not pretended to write a
history of them, I have only desired to sketch the im
pressions which we (the conspirators) received from
them. To accomplish the task thus imposed upon me, it was
not sufficient to narrate what Babeuf and his friends
did, or wished to do, with the view of putting their

AUTHORS PREFACE. Ill
plan in execution ; it was necessary also to explain the
final end which they proposed to themselves, and the
manner in which they demonstrated to their own satis
faction its justice and necessity. I have, therefore, fol
lowed up my recital of the facts of the conspiracy, by a
development of their doctrines and of their projects.
The sources from which I derive all that I affirm rela
tively to this conspiracy, are my own recollections, the
writings of my brother conspirators, the papers of the
judicial proceedings instituted against them, and some
few fragments that were, up to this moment, unknown.
All our papers were not seized by the police. Some
of those which Babeuf had not about him, were de
stroyed by over-prudent friends ; others I have been
able to recover ; these I publish in the imperfect state in
which they have reached me.
I am not ignorant that the political and economical
principles which I must avow, will meet with many dis
approves, but that is no reason for not publishing them ;
other opinions, pretended to be errors, have established
themselves as incontestable truths. Are there not men
whom the tinsel of civilized society has not dazzled, nor
the systems which are preached up by those who arro
gate to themselves the right of directing opinion ? They,
perhaps, will appreciate the importance of these opinions,
and will give some regret to the memory of those cou
rageous citizens who, being penetrated by their justice,
and proud of exposing their lives in supporting them,
sealed them at last with their blood.
Strongly knitted to them by the conformity of our
sentiments, I partook in their conviction and efforts >
B 2

IV AUTHOR S PREFACE.
and if we deceived ourselves, our error was, at least,
complete. They persevered in it to the grave ; and for
my own part, after subsequent long reflection, I re
main convinced that that equality which they che
rished, is the only institution proper for conciliating all
real wants, for directing the useful passions, restraining
the dangerous ones, and giving to society a free, happy,
peaceful and durable form.

CONSPIRACY FOR EQUALITY

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.

PARTIES AND THEIR CHARACTERS DURING THE REVO
LUTION.
Amongst the various parties which caused the French
Revolution to assume so many different complexions,
there was one which deserves to fix the attention of the
philosopher, because of the constant devotion with which
it consecrated its efforts to the real deliverance of hu
manity. Whilst ambition, jealousy, cupidity, and the blind
love of innovation, kept up a deplorable struggle among .
a people, of whom some combatted to reestablish the
ancient monarchy — others to place upon the French
throne a new dynasty — others, again, to transfer power
from one caste of society to another ; but all for the
purpose of appropriating exclusively to themselves the
national authority, and thereby those enjoyments of
which authority is the source: amid all these parties
there was slowly formed a certain class of citizens who,
actuated by very different principles, desired also a
great political change, but one altogether opposed to
the passions of the former persons, who were only so
many interested fomenters of civil discords. In fact,
there was a variety of political sects that aspired, each
to give to France a form of administration favourable to <
its own selfish views, but they were very few who sought
a real radical reform ef society in favour of the mass oi'
the people.

6 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
Hence it happens that the bulk of those who figured
on the stage of the Revolution, confined their efforts to
the barren object of making one order of government
prevail over another, without at all troubling themselves
about the condition of those for whose advantage all
legitimate government ought to exist; and owing to the
same cause it was, that so many pretended legislators
imagined themselves to have founded a Republic, when
they had only condemned a king to death, and substi
tuted the authority of several for that of an individual.
Our divisions during the Revolution were the results
of opposing interests and principles. While one set of
persons (the honest) supported a system because they
believed it to be good, another set, far more numerous,
united themselves to the party that appeared most
favourable to their personal views of fortune or ambition.
The former pursued with constant fidelity the path which
they had originally traced out for themselves ; the latter
were always shifting their conduct, according to circum
stances, or their own capricious passions.
It was only at successive stages of the Revolution,
however, that one could discern the particular character
of each political sect, for so long as they had a common
enemy to combat, they were obliged (whatever their
differences of opinion) to appear all to act in the same
spirit; but at each succeeding step towards a new degree
of amelioration, there was formed a fresh party of oppo
sitionists, namely, of those interested in maintaining the
vices against which the new movement was directed.
Thus, if certain nobles of the Constituent Assembly
appeared popular at the dawn of the Revolution, they
were not slow in revealing their true characters, by fol
lowing an opposite course, the moment that the first
aspirations were heard in favour of a real equality. If
others, again, rose up against the reigning family, with
the design of substituting another in its room, they were
soon seen to range themselves under the banners of
royalty, from the moment it became evident that the
cause of all dynasties was hopeless. If, at first, the
priests applauded the efforts of the reformers against the
higher orders of the clergy, they became afterwards the
bitterest propagators of fanaticism, when once the nation

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 7
had refused its support to all forms of worship alike. If
those who had wished to cashier the constitutional mo
narchy for their own profit, assumed the guise of Repub
licans to that end, they were to be found in open
opposition to the more ardent defenders of the Republic,
from the instant that the people seemed eager for the
Republic as the most desirable of all things.
In the midst of the storms thus necessarily pro
duced by the mixture of so many discordant elements,
those individuals who, from the commencement of the
Revolution, had conceived the hope of establishing in
France the empire of true justice, seized with eagerness
the frequent occasions which so great a fermentation
presented, to habituate their fellow citizens to reflect on
their rights, and to lead them gradually to desire the
overthrow of all vicious institutions which interdicted the
enjoyment of them.
The useful or dangerous passions that agitated
Frenchmen in one sense or the other, were in some
measure represented in the Assemblies, which during the
Revolution exercised the supreme power. In these were
developed the most abject vices and the most sublime
virtues. In these was the signal given of so many com
bats. It was here that the members of the different
political sects, laid hold on, and gave birth to those
crises by which they sought to give prevalence to their
respective systems and interests.
The party which remained firm to the cause of the
people, saw itself, at distinct epochs, treacherously
abandoned and threatened with destruction, by the very
factions that had assisted in the triumph of its projects,
up to the moment when those projects began to clash
with their own selfish views. Whilst the Monarchy
existed, the Republican party appeared very numerous ;
and although for a long time one might have perceived
essential shades of difference amongst those that were
then ranged under the banners of the Republic, the 10th
of August, 1792, witnessed a multitude of men combat
ing against the Court, who afterwards became divided,
and amongst whom were many that have since espoused
the cause of kings. Indeed, amongst these combatants,
as well as amongst those that applauded their triumph,

8 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
might be enumerated many who were animated only by
personal jealousy and resentment, and a still greater
number whom the probability of a Regency, or of a
change of dynasty, flattered with the hope of a near and
profitable influence. Be this as it may, however, there
exists every reason to believe that the majority were at
/ that time in favour of a Republican Government, al
though the different parties diverged widely from one
another, both in respect of the ideas they had formed of
Republicanism, and of the passions which impelled them
to desire that form of Government.
All the various systems of politics and of public eco
nomy, served as motives or pretexts for the dissensions
of the National Convention. Some preached the ex
clusive influence of the class favoured by fortune and by
education ; others regarded a participation by all in the
sovereign power as an essential condition of the durable
tranquillity and well-being of society. The former sighed
after the riches, the superfluities, and the display of
Athens ; the latter desired the frugality, the simplicity,
and the modesty of the fine days of Sparta. It is
rendering, however, but a very imperfect view of the
nature of these dissensions, to compare them with the
political systems of the ancients. To understand it well,
we must consider the state of manners, and our acquaint
ance with natural rights.
What passed in France immediately after the creation
of the Republic, is, in my view, only the explosion of
that discord, which ever exists between the partizans of
opulence and distinctions on the one hand, and the
friends of equality, or the numerous class of labourers, on
the other. By tracing the stream higher up, we shall
System of find the source of the discussions which took
sKEnes" Place at tllat epoch, in the English doctrine
of the economists,* on the one side, and
in that of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mably, and other
modern philosophers on the other.
* I comprise under this denomination, as well those writers and
statesmen who would subject industry and commerce to regula
tions, ns those who would give the most extended freedom to their
operations.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 9
Let us call to mind, that very many writers have
made the prosperity of nations to consist in the multi
plicity of their wants — in the ever augmenting diversity
of their material enjoyments — in an immense industry —
in an unlimited commerce — in the rapid circulation ot
the monied metals — and (as the last step of the analysis)
in the restlessness and insatiable cupidity of the popu
lation* At one time they prefer the heaping together
of territorial property, at another, they declare for the
multiplication of small proprietorships ; and whilst some
have believed that the misery and brutalization of the
productive classes are essential to the opulence and tran
quillity of the whole, others, by holding forth the unre
stricted and unlimited freedom of industry and commercial
transactions, as a means of remedying the established
inequality, have only paved the wav for a new system
of corruption, and for new inequalities, more extensive
aid pernicious than what before existed. For, once the
happiness and strength of society were placed in riches, it
became a necessary consequence to debar from the exercise
of political rights all the citizens who do not offer by their
fortunes a guarantee or pledge of attachment to such an
order of things — an order reputed, as it were, the perfection
of the social state. In all social systems of this kind, the
great majority of the citizens being incessantly subjected
to painful drudgery are, in effect, condemned to languish
all their days in misery, ignorance, and slavery. +
* It was always difficult for men to understand one another,
with a view to the establishing of a rational social order. It was
by a traffic in superfluities, and by the arts of luxury, that our
forefathers, snatched without violence a part of their riches from
the favoured sons of feudality. Slaves, by thus becoming neces:
sary to their masters, enfeebled their power. An evil which
served as a cure for another evil, was taken for the supreme good
at the point, where, in the eyes of many, liberty is but another
name for the unlimited faculty of acquiring and accumulating.
t From the vast disproportion between the numerically large
class of labourers (salwi^s) and the comparatively small class of
capitalists (saUrians), must necessarily result the misery of the
former. Overcharged as they are with labour, their ignorance
becomes as much a matter of necessity to themselves, as it is a
necessary safeguard to their taskmasters, who would have every
thing to fear from their knowledge, in consequence of having
thrown upon them their own proper share of the general burdens.
From ignorance and misery arises the slavery of our couniry;
which exists wherever men want the power or the knowledge to
exercise their volition B 5

10 babeuf's CONSPIRACY,
Rousseau proclaimed the inalienable rights
Iy ualit0f of human nature- He Pleaded for a11 mankind
qU ' Y' without distinction. He placed the prosperity
of society in the happiness of each of its members, and
its strength in the attachment of all to the laws. In his
view, public riches consist in the industry and moderation
of the citizens, and liberty resides in the power of the
sovereign, which is the entire body of the people, and of
which each element preserves in itself the influence
necessary to the social body, by means of an impartial
distribution of enjoyments and of intelligence.
This social order subjects to the will of the sovereign
people the acts and properties of each individual, en
courages the arts which are useful to all, proscribes those
which only flatter the vanities of the few, develops, without
predilection or partiality, the reason of each citizen,
substitutes for base cupidity the love of country and of
glory, and constitutes the whole of society into one vast,
peaceable family, in which each member is subject to the
will of the whole, but no member to that of another.
This social order of Rousseau is the same for which all
true philosophers have sighed from time immemorial, and
has had illustrious advocates in all ages, as, for example,
in ancient days, Minos, Plato, Lycurgus, and the law
giver of the Christians (Jesus Christ) ; and in modern
times, Thomas Moore, Montesquieu,* and Mably.-f-
The system of the economists has been named the
ORDER OF EGOISM,! or the ARISTOCRATIC
* Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws (Esprit des Lois) book 4, cap. 6.
t Vide Principes de Legislation, and, promiscuously, his other
writings. Mably considers a community of property to be the
only social order, conformable to the true end or intent of so
ciety, which is the permanent happiness of all its members. Ac
cording to him, all the evils which afflict human society, being the
effects of avarice and ambition, the science of politics reduces
itself to the art of effectually stifling these passions. Avarice
cannot be smothered unless by a community of goods. The prin
ciple of community does away with individual property , and thus,
at the same time, diminishing the attractions of power, it becomes
a rampart against ambition, which ought also to be restrained by
manners and by institutions.
t By this denomination is meant to be expressed, that in this
system, the only spring to sentiments and actions is the selfish
one oi mere personal interest, without any regard whatever to the
general good.

BABEUF's CONSPIRACY. 11
SYSTEM. That of Rousseau— the ORDER OF
EQUALITY. *
From the moment that the tendencies of the different
political sects, which figured on the stage of the Revolu-
* Equality, the sentiment of which is the base of sociability,
and the consolation of the wretched, is a chimera only in the eyes
of men that are depraved by the love of riches and of power.
All systems and all passions apart, where is the human being
that does not, in his heart, recognise an equal in an individual of
his own species, whatever he may be ? Where is the man, who,
placed in the same situation, does not experience an equal pang
of pity at beholding the sufferings of any of his fellow men ? This
sentiment, trie effect of our earliest impressions, is justified by
reason, which teaches us, that nature has. made all men equal.
But how, and in what respects 1 To comprehend this rightly is
important. The advocates of social inequalities pretend that they are in
evitable, because, as they say, they are derived from those which
nature herself has established between individuals of the human
species. Mankind, they say, differing naturally in sex, size,
colour, features, age, and vigour of limb and muscle, cannot pos
sibly be equal either in power or riches ; equality, whether na
tural or social, is, therefore, a mere creature of reason or of
imagination. But granting that the natural differences just mentioned do really
exist, does it, therefore, follow that the inequalities of institut ion are
necessary consequences of them 1 Why, according to this rea
soning, opulence and authority would always go hand in hand
with physical force, with majesty of size and beauty — a conse
quence utterly disclaimed by fact and experience. But, say the
partizans of inequality, there is another natural difference which
necessarily induces distinctions in intellect and social position ;
namely, that of mind or spirit (esprit.') Nay, they have gone so
far as to pretend to recognise in the bumps of the brain, according
to their various degrees of protuberance, infallible indices of our
inclinations and passions. Notwithstanding this, however, our
very instincts apprise us that things have not been so ordered by
the author of Nature ; and that if human beings, ordinarily well
organized, do not all possess the same mental capacity, the exist
ing differences in this respect is much less the effect of diversity
in their conformation, than of the circumstances in which they
have been trained and placed. Who can doubt that numbers of
men now ignorant, would not be so if they had had opportunities
of instruction ? Does not the coarsest rustic apply, in the direc
tion of his works, and in the discussion of his interests, as much
intellectual acuteness as was required by Newton for discovering
the laws of attraction? Everything depends on the object to
wards which our study is directed. Besides, were it even true
that intellectual inequality exists by nature, to the degree pre
tended, it would nevertheless be impossible to discover in that
circumstance the source of those distinctions in riches and power
which exist in society, since it is by no means true that wealth
and authority are generally the inheritance of knowledge and
wisdom. But, after all, are the qualities just spoken of necessary to the

12 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
tion, began to assume a marked character, it night be
observed that all whose minds were perverted by corrupticr.
attached themselves to the promoters of the Onler of
Egoism, while, on the other hand, those only whose
question? Not at all. The natural equality we have in view, and
for whose existence we contend, is only that uinfGnmty oi wants
ind desires which are born with us," or are developed by the first
use that we make of our senses and organs. The want ot food—
the desire of procreation -self-love— pity— sympathetic affections
—the disposition to feel, to think, to will, to communicate our
ideas, and understand those of our companions, and to conform
our actions to rules — hatred of constraint and We of freedom;
these are what exist in pretty nearly the same degrees, in the
bosoms of all sound and well-constituted human beings. Such is
the natural law, from which emanate, for all men, the same natural
rights. In the eyes of him, who recognises in himself a being composed
of two substances of distinct natures, a new argument, in favour
of natural equality, may be derived from the spirituality of the
thinking principle. This principle, which constitutes to him alone
his entire human self (tout le moi huwuiii), being indivisible and
pure, and derived always from the same source, is necessarily
equal in every individual of our species. As to the inequality oi
physical strength, it is certain that it can be no bar to the enjoy
ment of natural equality, at any rute no more than a momentary
bar ; and it was probably to obviate this evil that recourse has
been hud to conventions, and that civil society was instituted.
And here, for want of foresight, mankind have precipitated
themselves into a greater calamity than the one they had wished
to guard against. The equality established by nature, and avowed
by reason, has been violated in society by a succession of these
same Conventions which were designed to maintain it. For the
transitory inconveniences produced by the inequalities of physical
force have been substit uted other inconveniences more fatal, more
permanent, and more inevitable, by the conventional inequalities
of riches and power. '1 hu.^. by a strange metamorphosis, the most
loolish, the most vicious, the feeblest, and the least numerous,
have been enabled to overburden with painful toils and duties,
and to deprive of their natural liberty, the great majority of the
strongest, most virtuous, and even best instructed.
From the unequal distribution of wealth nnd poweT arise all the
disorders of which nine-tenths of the inhabitants of all civilized
countries justly complain. From thence result to them privations,
suffering's, humiliations, nnd slavery. From the same source re
sults also that intellectual inequality which, through interested
motives, is falsely ascribed to an exaggerated inequality of mental
capacity. It is, therefore, to restrain within just limits the riches
and power of individuals, that all true social institutions should
pnd— power, by subjecting all citizens equally to laws emanating
¦;om the whole— and riches, by providing such institutions for
hstnbution, as would give to each enough, and to nobody more
'hau enough. Behold in what consists the equality treated of in
this work.
Indeed, at the point to which things have arrived now, this
equality may be said to regard riches only ; for wealth alone,

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 13
hearts were pure, and whose consciences were not per
verted, became necessarily interested in the complete
triumph of the Order of Equality. But amongst the
partisans of the system based on egoism,
:here were, besides those whom old preju- ^J^e friends
lices attached to it, many that aspired to qua 1 y"
preserve, and others that wished to conquer for themselves,
exclusive enjoyments and pre-eminence. This latter
party, devoid of all virtue, affected a love of equality, and
;ven an affection towards its sincere friends, so long as
diey fancied they would be able to prevent its establish
ment, and to turn to their own profit the general fermen
tation they had themselves provoked.
Since the commencement of the Revo- yff t ,
lution, the friends of equality, that is to gressofthe
say, of justice, exerted themselves to pre- party of Equa-
pare a triumph for it, by opposing in the ' y-
distance, the views of the parties that were its enemies.
Under the Constituent Assembly, they combatted against
the unjust distinction of citizens into active and inactive
— against the contribution of a mark of silver being
required as a condition of eligibility to the national
representation — against the royal veto, and against mar
tial law. They thundered, at one and the same time,
against the avowed Royalists, and against those who
hypocritically covered themselves with the varnish of
patriotism, they proposed the progressive impost — op
posed the reinstatement of the King after his forced
return from Varennes — sustained the courage of the
patriots, when it was at the point of being extinguished
after the massacre of the Champ de Mars — unmasked
the aristocratic complots of those who prematurely de
manded the Republic. These, and a variety of other
services, they rendered under the Constituent. Under
the first Legislative Assembly they denounced the dis
missal of the military patriots, exposed to light the snare
hidden under the declaration of war against Austria,
caused crowns of honour to be decreed to the Swiss
soldiers of the Chateau- Vieux, unmasked the dissimula-
nowadays, confers the passport to power. Wealth is become the
e.,]a t-itla tr. nrtTx'ar nc wpll in 1 he evf"* of the rnvprnnrs afl of the

14 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
tion of the court, the crimes of the ministers, the
treasons of Narbonne, and the tortuous proceedings of
the Girondists; and preserved the sacred fire (of
patriotism), which the rich and powerful had endeavoured
to smother by calumny and persecution.
But it was especially after the 10th of August, 1792,
that the men I have just described, conceived the most
flattering hopes, and redoubled their noble efforts to
secure the triumph of their sublime cause. To the merit
of Rousseau's conceptions, they added the boldness of
applying them to a society of five and twenty millions of
men. At this same epoch, too, the struggle between the
friends of equality and the partisans of the Order of
Egoism became more characterized and more animated.
The project of governing the state under a show of
republican forms, while at the same time retaining all
the institutions of the monarchy, was publicly supported.
To this project, united themselves all those descriptions
of persons who, in times of political trouble, fear to lose
their consideration and enjoyments. And as the same
fear had attached them to royalism, they furnished
grounds of accusation against the leaders of their party,
for conspiring to re-establish the throne.* So great was
, . , at that time the number and credit of the
sincere friends of equality, whom the poig-
nards of the aristocracy had not as yet cut off — such
was the activity excited in the multitude by the hope of
a speedy deliverance from their sufferings, and such was
the force of the sham-patriots, who had hypocritically
become the apostles of an equality they abhorred, with
a view to replace the old aristocracy — so great was the
power of all these combined (for they were then united),
that the avowed partisans of the Order of Egoism were
attacked, vanquished, and reduced to silence. Behold
what produced the divisions of the National Convention,
before the 31st of May, 1793, and the civil war which
followed upon that memorable day's proceedings.
* Some were effectually devoted to the royal cause. Others
accommodated themselves with equal ease to every regime through
which they hoped to preserve their consideration and power
the interest that both these parties took in the life of the kine
during his trial before the Convention, gave great weight to the
accusations of royalty urged against them.

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 15
From the victory of the 10th of August resulted im
mediately some progress of the popular cause. A few
days after the fall of the throne, the exercise of political
rights was extended to all citizens, without distinction. .,
All were declared eligible to public functions, and it was
solemnly recognized that no constitution could be im
posed on the people without their consent. At the same
time marriage was legallv disembarrassed of that de
plorable (dhespirinte) indissolubility which often ren
ders it as inimical to the happiness of individuals and
families, as it is disastrous to morals and liberty. It is
a fact deserving observation, that the energy of the
nation in defence of the Revolution invariably expanded
or diminished in proportion as the laws seemed to favour
equality or to oppose it. It was the working class — that
class so maltreated and so unjustly despised in society —
which achieved all the prodigies of virtue and devotion
to which the Revolution gave birth. The rest of the
community (with very few exceptions) only threw ob
structions in the way of the national regeneration.
It is an unquestionable fact that the Aristocrats in
Order of Egoism, or Aristocracy,* had the National
very able and numerous advocates in the ?onv,!ntlS? be"
National Convention. For proofs of this ore s dy'
we need only look to the crafty harangues and writings
of Vergniaud, Guadet, Rabaud, Brissot, Gorsas, Con-
dorcet, Lanjuinais, Louvet, Barbaroux, and so many
others of the same stamp. We have further proofs in
their transactions with the court — in their incessant
invectives against the friends of equality — in their avowed
hatred of the real directors of the insurrection of the 10th
of August — in their connections with Narbonne, Dumou-
riez, Custine, and other faithless generals — in their
persevering opposition to the establishment of the pro
gressive impost t — in the prodigal interest they took in
* The aristocratic system, or exercise of sovereign power, by a
I part of the nation over the whole, is an inevitable consequence of
the inequality consecrated by the Order of Egoism.
t The impost progressive differs from the proportional impost
in this— that the relation of the latter to a man's income is always
the same, tie tax preserving a uniform ratio to his fortune —
whereas in the impost progressive the ratio itself increases at the
point where superfluity begins. In short, the progressive impost
prevents luge fortunes and spares small ones.

16 BABEUF's CONSPIRACY.
the King's fate, when he was brought before the tribunal
of the nation— in their hostile measures against tne par
tisans of democracy— in the alarms with winch they
sought to inspire the rich and corrupt classes— in tne
firebrands of discord which, by such means, they scattered
throughout France-andlast, not least, in their obstinate
perseverance to consecrate by the force ot laws their
anti-popular principles. * The question was, to give a
* The liberty of a nation is the result-l. Of AeequaUty which
the laws produce in the condition and enjoyments of the "t^ens
and 2. From the greatest possible extension being ; given to the
exercise of political rights. The projet of the first Constitutional
Committee of the National Convention, composed entirely ol
Girondists, by absolutely neglecting the first of these conditions,
delivered over the people to the influence of the neb ana in
triguing, by the development which it seemed to give to tne
second.NAME OF THE GIRONDIST FACTION. — CAUSES OF DIVISION IN THE
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY.
This faction was called Girondist, because it recognised for its
chiefs almost all the deputies from the department of La Crironae,
to the Legislative Assembly, and to the Convention.
So soon as the first Declaration of Rights was proclaimed by
the Constituent Assembly, the frank and unqualified application
of the principles of natural j ustice with which some of them were
consecrated in it, proved revolting to men led astray by a false
science, or corrupted by the vices of civilization. From that
moment they only meditated how they might best elude the prin
ciples, while they affected and appeared to applaud them.
This was the origin of the factions which, under the first three
National Assemblies, exerted themselves to arrest the impulse
(elan) of the French people towards complete emancipation, ana
to confine the Revolution to those systems which they judged
most favourable to their passions, or most conformable to their
doctrines. These proved much moi'e hurtful to the establishment
of liberty, than the open opposition of the privileged classes,
because they have deceived the people by borrowing from them
the language of patriotism.
Towards the close of the Constituent Assembly, the spirit of
these factions predominated in it, and the party which remained
faithful to the public cause would have been unnoticed, had it not
forced itself into attention by the energy of its remonstrances. It
is to this spirit we are to ascribe the retrograde movements and
contradictions of this Assembly.
In contempt of the equality of right which had been decreed by
.- the Constitution, millions of citizens were deprived of the right
* of suffrage, and of eligibility. A law of blood was opposed to the
complaints excited by the misery of the people, and by the equi
vocal course of the legislature. The latter were obstinately bent,
in defiance of good sense and the national will, to replace the
safeguard of the constitution in the hands of a king who had just
openly avowed himself its enemy, and whose power, instead of
extinguishing, they had increased. They caused to flow in the

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 17
constitution to a rising republic. ^ The want of a regular
authority had made itself generally felt, and it was pretty
commonly believed that a good distribution of political
Champ de Mars the blood of those citizens who were preparing
to solicit a contrary decision. They forced the people to have
recourse to violence in order to obtain that justice which a simple
decree might have peaceably operated. They struck a blow at the
right to assemble and petition, and wished to chain the nation for
ever to the chariot wheels of the aristocracy.
To the real contempt which the Constituent Assembly had for
the mass of the people, we are to attribute the feebleness of their
efforts against the royal power, which, while they pretended to
shake, they really desired to convert into a rampart against demo
cratic effervescence. Hence, also, its negligence to profit by the
people's enthusiasm and the errors of the court, in order to anni
hilate the monarchy or tie it up within limits which would have
made it, in effect, almost a republic.
Such are the causes of the suspicions which subsequently arose
against the Lameths, against La Fayette, against the minority of
the Noblesse, and against several distinguished members of the
Third Estate. The same views were shared by the famous
Mirabeau, the extreme corruption of whose morals, forced him
through the allurements of gain, to become the champion of that
monarchy against which he had just successfully combatted.
THE GIRONDIST FACTION.
But the love of luxury, the thirst of gold, and the desire to shine
and govern, were not engrossed by the Noblesse alone ; there was
between them and the immense class of working men, another
numerous class of ignoble aristocrats, who shone by riches, by
polished manners, by refined wit, by small talk, by laxity of
morals, and by irreligion. This latter upstart class also despised
the people— believed itself born to lord over them — pretended to
be the sound part of the nation, and added supineness and jealousy
to the views of the nobles, whom they aspired to replace in
authority. This class was composed, for the greater part, of advocates,
lawyers, physicians, bankers, rich merchants, opulent citizens,
and men of letters, who trafficed in science, and made it the
ladder of their ambition. Greedy, vain, and restless, it plunged
into tie first movements of the Revolution, and induced the mul
titude, whom poverty and want of instruction made dependent on
them, to participate in their schemes of ambition. The members
of this class being masters of most of the tribunes for haranguing
the people (tribunes aux harangues), and of the administrations,
pushed themselves, through the suffrages of their friends, into the
Legislative Assembly and the Convention, where they formed the
nucleus of the Girondist faction.
Generally speaking, the Girondists did not desire the ancient
regime in all its hideousness, but still less did they desire that the
new regime should progress so far as to confound them with what
they called the " low people" (basveuple), and strip them of that
superiority which was so profitable to them. As to whether
France was governed in the manner of Monarchy or of a Republic,
at bottom they cared not a rush, provided to them and their
party should belong the possessors and dispensers of all favours
emanating from power, and that the sovereignty of the people

18 BABEUF's CONSPIRACY.
power would in itself secure to the people the advantages
of equality and liberty — the main object of their aspi
rations.should be in reality but a sound invented the more effectually to
ensure public submission and obedience to the laws — laws of
which they (the Girondists) should have the sole enactment and
execution. Accordingly, we see them in the Legislative Assembly alter
nately combat or favour the particular interests of Louis XVI., just
according as that monarch pretended to follow the planof his
ancient courtesans, or submit himself to the councils of this faction.
The personal views of its chiefs in the secret negociations which
they entered upon with the king— in the official councils they gave
him to the effect of strengthening his power, were fully proved
by living witnesses and documentary evidence. Indeed, some of
the Girondists, most notable in their party, had not been ashamed
to publish in their memoirs, their confession of attachment to the
Monarchy, and their aspirations for its re-establishment after it
had ceased to exist.
PROOFS OF THEIR HATRED OF REPUBLICANISM.
It is a gross error to suppose the Girondists were real friends of
liberty, or frank Republicans. Had they been so, would they
have so bitterly calumniated and persecuted the Parisian munici
pality of the 10th of August (the dethronement of the king), to
whom was mainly due the triumph of that day ? Would they have
exerted themselves as they did, during the combat, to throw damp
("under pretence of re-establishing order) upon the people's en
thusiasm, which it was so important at the moment to cherish and
increase? Would they have declaimed so much against those
terrible but inevitable executions of the 2d and 3d of September,
which were notoriously resolved upon as the only means of se
curing the Revolution, and which were but deplorable consequences
of the avowed and concealed hostilities of the enemies of liberty,
and of the grave and imminent dangers which just then threatened
the French nation ? Would they have converted the sanctuary of
the laws into an arena of gladiators, by their virulent and calum
nious accusations against the men who had contributed most to
sustain the courage of the people ? Would they have sought to
terrify the rich, to sow division among the people, and speak of
federalising France, at a time when the most perfect unity was
necessary to repel the armed coalition of Europe's despots ? Would
they even, after their expulsion from the Convention, have erected
altar against altar, kindled a civil war, and laboured to arm the
departments against the heroic Commune of Paris, whose destruc
tion the foreign tyrants most panted for ? Could, they, in short,
have been ignorant that the only means to consolidate the Revolu
tion, and eternalize liberty, peace, and happiness, was to second
the people's cause, to satisfy the secret wishes, and give effect to
the aspirations of so many millions of oppressed men, and thus
uniformly diffuse throughout society, for each and every one of its
members, the benefit of the social state.
Unhappy Girondists ! Neither was it without reason that you
were inculpated of the design to re-establish the throne. Were
there not some Royalists amongst those Girondists that fought at
Lyons against the Republic under the orders of a king's officer, "
and received into their ranks the emigrants whom they had released

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 19
Nevertheless, the most clear-sighted of
the friends of equality did not participate Tlie ,fnenlls o{
..l ¦ ¦ • it'i * i i equality op-
in this opinion. \\ hatever may nave been posed to the
said of the matter, the aristocrats of the premature dis-
Convention were more eatrer to set to CUSSI™ °.f a
, , . . =; constitution.
work about this constitution than the
friends of equality, who, being far less numerous, felt
convinced that without an event calculated to terrify
from prison, or who congregated in crowds into this revolted city ?
W ere there not some Royalists amongst those other Girondists who
delivered Toulon to the enemy, and re-established there the very
same day the royal authority !
The servile spirit of the Girondists appeared palpable in the
proposition, so obstinately supported by them, to submit the sen
tence against Louis to the ratification of the Primary Assemblies.
Falsely did they pretend in that to render homage to the sovereignty
of the people, since the question at issue was a mere judicial act,
and not a law. Could they flatter themselves with engraving on
the hearts of Frenchmen that hatred of royalty upon which the
Republic should be based, by introducing in favour of the royal
captive so new a privilege ! How is it that they did not dread
exposing France to weariness and distraction, which had well
nigh dug a tomb for liberty ? Was such an irresolution, cowardice,
and servile respect for a demolished throne, the proper means to
strengthen in the souls of the citizens that courage and virtue
which they so much needed to escape the fury and perfidious snares
of the enemies of the Revolution ? Is it by tergiversation that
characters elevate themselves? Is it by trembling, dastard-like
that we can break a nation's chains ? But if, under all circum
stances, people will have it that the Girondists were Republicans .
then must it be confessed that their conduct was absurd, and that
if they desired a Republic, it was one that would have crushed
the people under such a weight of oppression as to give them
abundant cause to regret their old servitude.
Unfortunate Girondists ! the sport of your own vanity, yon
could neither be frankly Royalist nor positively Republican. You
did us far more injury than our avowed enemies, inasmuch as you
veiled your crimes under the appearances of patriotism and mode
ration, and rendered nrgent and necessary that severity which at
first saved the Republic, but which afterwards furnished so many
auxiliaries to those by whom it was successively dismantled and
destroyed. Miserable Girondists! by combatting against the men sincerely
devoted to the happiness of the people, you delivered them de- .
fenceless to the wicked and infatuated men that immolated them
on the 9th Thermidor. Listening only to the counsels of ven
geance, you provoked, after this epoch, the massacre of the Re
publicans ; and your aristocratic spirit gave birth to the Constitution
of the year III , to which we owe the tyranny of Buonaparte, which
was, in great measure, your work. Let others vaunt the eloquence
of the Girondists ; to us they cannot be subjects for eulogy in any
sense, because we are convinced that their influence has been one
of the most active causes of the failure of the Revolution, of the
fall of the Republic, and of the ruin of liberty.

20 babeuf's conspiracy.
their adversaries, not only could they not obtain a reform
in the civil elements of society, but that it was impossible
even to establish an organization founded on the equality
of political rights. This eagerness of the aristocrats was
then a branch of the vast conspiracy against the natural
rights of man ; and it was necessary to divert from it its
chief instigators before one could reckon on the success
ful efforts of a handful of honest persons.
Conspiracy A conspiracy was, in fact, formed against
of the 3: st the numerous conspirators that had intro-
May, i79o. diiggcl themselves into the chief offices of
authority in the republic — a conspiracy for the impre
scriptible rights of humanity against the desolating
power of pride and avarice ; and at the moment when
the aristocrats, concealed in the bosom of the Conven
tion, were giving the signal for a general proscription
of the friends of equality, whom they called anarchists,
the people of Paris carried terror into the souls of their
perfidious representatives, and forced them to deliver up
(31 May, and the days following) to national justice the
chiefs of the counter-revolutionary plot. The freedom
of the Gonventi°n was violated to save that of the
people; the power of the delegates was infringed to
make them respect the national sovereignty, which was
impudently made a jest of, by the majority of them.
In the absence of the writings, discourses, and facts,
which prove the reality of this plot, one may easily
recognize it in the almost universal coalition of the rich
against the revolution of the 31st May, and in the
rapidity with which democratic truths were subsequently
Democracy in propagated. It must not be supposed that
France. Mean- the revolutionists of France attached the
ingot the word. game ;dea tQ the democracy gought by
them that the ancients attached to that word. Nobody
in France dreamt of convening the universal people to
deliberate on the acts of Government. Democracy was
in their view, that public order in which equality 'and
good morals place all the people in the same con
dition to exercise legislative power usefully.
Small number Later events have, methinks, sufficiently
of the sincere proved that the true democrats were never
friends of equa- numerous in the National Convention.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY 21
: The insurrection of the 31st of May was Uty in the N,_
tar trom transmitting the supreme influ- tional Conven-
ence to the sincere friends of equalitv tion-
only. Its false and interested friends appeared to triumph
with it ; but the latter, who were active destroyers only
for their own profit, immediately flung themselves into
the old system they had combatted, when it became
necessary to build up another for the people.
Amongst the individuals that shone in the revolutionary
arena, there were a few who, from the outset, declared
themselves for a complete emancipation of the French
people. Marat, Maximilien Robespierre, and Saint Just,
figured gloriously, with some others, in this honourable"
list of the champions of equality. Marat and Robespierre
attacked in front the anti-popular system which pre
vailed in the Constituent Assembly. By these were the
steps of the patriots directed before and after the 10 th
of August ; elected to the Convention, they were there
exposed to all the hatred and calumnies of the egoistical
or aristocratic factions, whom they confounded and un
masked. In giving judgment on the king, they elevated
themselves to the highest philosophy, and they had a
principal share in the events of the 31st of May and days
following," the happy influence of which was afterwards
destroyed by the false friends of equality.
Previously to the fall of the Girondists, Declaration of
Robespierre believed that it was impos- fespienlj R°
sible for the Convention, governed as it
was by that faction, to originate good laws. He thought,
moreover, that in the then critical state of the country,
the first care of the people's mandatories ought to be to
annihilate the hordes of enemies which, from within and
without, menaced the existence of the Republic ; but,
seeing the eagerness of the Girondists to consecrate by
* France was indebted to the rational and vigorous policy which
followed these events, for the generous and universal onset (ilan)
which made her crush in so short a time the factions of the interior,
and the armies of the confederated despots, for which the aristo
cratic views and equivocal conduct of the Girondists prepared a
safe and certain triumph. Such was the effect of the courage and
firmness of the Mountainists, the adverse party to the Girondists
in the Convention. At this epoch the Mountain was composed of
the true friends of equality, and of those who from personal views
affected and made use of its principles.

22 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
legislation their aristocratic principles, he opposed to
their projects his Declaration of Rights, in which his
popular designs are fully revealed. If the political doc
trines comprised in this document, and in the discourses
which Robespierre delivered in his last days, are viewed
in juxta-position with the purity of his morals, his de-
votedness, his courage, his modesty, and his rare dis
interestedness, we are forced to render a brilliant homage
to so lofty a wisdom ; and we cannot but detest the
perversity, or deplore the incomprehensible blindness,
of those that planned and consummated his assassi
nation.* * So much has this illustrious martyr of equality been calumni
ated, that it becomes a duty of every honest writer to consecrate
his pen to avenge his memory. I know not that I can better effect
this purpose than by transcribing here his project of the Declaration
of Rights. This remarkable document lets in a full light on the
real and ultimate designs of those men, so furiously proscribed
since the death of this celebrated legislator. One cannot but
admire in it the definition of the right of property, which ceases to
rank in the number of principal rights, to give place to the power of
preserving existence. One will also admire in it the limits placed
to this same right of property — the institution of the progressive
impost— the concurrence of all in the formation of the law — the
extirpation of misery — the guaranteeing of instruction to all the
citizens— and above all the right of resistance to oppression, deter
mined in such a manner as to become an insurmountable barrier
to the arbitrary will of public ministers, and against even the
tyranny of the laws themselves.
DECLARATION
Of the Rights of Man, and of the Citizen,
BY MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE.
The representatives of the French people, assembled as a National
Convention, acknowledge that all human laws which do not emanate
from the eternal laws of justice, are but criminal attempts of igno
rance and despotism against humanity ; and convinced that the
forgetfulness and contempt of the natural rights of man are the
sole causes of the crimes and calamities of the world, have re
solved to lay open, in a solemn declaration, those sacred and
inalienable rights, to the end, that all the citizens being always
able to compare the acts of the Government with the design of all
social institutions, may never suffer themselves to he oppressed
and degraded by tyranny ; and that the people may have perpetu
ally before its eyes the bases of its liberty and happiness— the
magistrate the rule of his duties— and the legislator the objects of
his mission— in consequence, the National Convention proclaims,
in presence of the universe and of the Supreme Legislator of the
World, the following Declaration of the Rights of Man, and of the
Citizen : —
Art. 1. The end of all political associations is the maintenance
ot the nataral and imprescriptible rights of man, and the develop
ment of all his faculties.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 23
The Constitution of 1793, however, which was drawn
up in consequence of the insurrection of the 31st May, >
by the party then called the Mountain, did not corn-
Art. 2. The principal rights of man are those of providing for
the preservation of his existence and liberty.
Art. 3. These rights belong to all men equally, whatever dif
ference may be in their physical and moral force. Equality of
rights is established by Nature. Society, so far from invading it,
constitutes its security against the abuse of force, which would
render it illusory.
Art. 4. Liberty is the power which belongs to a man of exercising
all his faculties at pleasure. It has justice for its rule, the rights
of others for its boundaries, nature for its origin, and the law for
its safeguard.
Art. 5. The right of peaceably assembling — of manifesting
opinions, whether through the press, or by any other means — are
so necessary consequences of the principles of man's liberty, that
the necessity of declaring them supposes either the presence or
rthe recent remembrance of despotism.
Art. 6. Property is the right which each citizen has to enjoy
and to dispose of, at his pleasure, the portion of fortune or wealth
that is guaranteed to him by the Law.
Art. 7. The right of property is limited, like all other rights, by
the obligation to respect the rights of others.
Art. 8. It can prejudice neither safety, nor liberty, nor existence,
nor the property of our fellow-citizens.
Art. 9. All traffic that violates this principle is essentially illicit
and immoral.
Art. 10. Society is under obligation to provide subsistence for
all its members, either by procuring employment for them, or by en
suring the means of existence to those that are incapable of labour.
Art. 11. The relief indispensible to those that are in want of
necessaries is a debt due from the possessors of superfluities. It
belongs to the law to determine the manner in which the debt
should be discharged.
Art, 12. Citizens, whose income does not exceed what is ne
cessary to their subsistence, are dispensed from contributing to
the public expenditure. The rest ought to contribute progressively,
according to the extent of their fortunes.
Art. 13. Society ought to favour, with all its power, the progress
of public reason, and place instruction within the reach of every
citizen. Art. 14. The people is the sovereign ; Government is its work and
its property ; the public functionaries are its agents and officers ;
the people may, when it pleases, revoke its mandatories.
Art. 15. The law is the free and solemn expression of the people's
will. Art. 16. The law ought to be equal for all.
Art. 17. The law can forbid only what is hurtful to society ; it
can prescribe only what is useful.
Art. 18. Every law that violates the imprescriptible rights of
man is essentially unjust and tyrannical ; it is no law at all.
Art. 19. In every free state the law ought, above all, to defend
public and individual liberty against the authority of those that
govern. Every institution that does not suppose the peoplj good,
and the magistrate corruptible, is vicious.

24 babeuf's conspiracy.
pletely answer the wishes of the friends of humanity.
One regrets to find in it the old deplorable ideas on the
right of property. For the rest, the political rights of
Art. 20. No part of the people can exercise the power of the
whole people ; but the wish it expresses ought to be respected, as
a wish of part of the people, which is to concur in forming the
general will. Each section of the sovereign assembly ought to
enjoy the right of expressing its will with perfect liberty ; it is
essentially independent of all constituted authorities, and com
petent to regulate its own policy and deliberations.
Art. 21. All the citizens are equally admissible to all public
functions, without any other distinctions than those of virtue and
talents— without any other title than the confidence of the people.
Art. 22. All the citizens have an equal right to concur in the
Qomination of the delegates of the people, and in the formation
of the law.
Art. 23. In order that these rights be not illusory, and equality
chimerical, society ought to pay the public functionaries, and to
provide that the citizens who live by their labour may be able to
assist at the public assemblies to which the law calls them, without
compromising their means of existence, or that of their families.
Art. 24. Every citizen ought religiously to obey the magistrates
and agents of the Government, whilst they are the organs and
executors of the law.
Art. 25. But every act against the liberty, the safety, or against
the property of a man, by whomsoever exercised, even in the
name of the law itself, if not comprehended within the cases
determined by the law, and within the forms it prescribes — every
such act is arbitrary and null. The very respect due to the law
forbids submission to it, and if the attempt be made to execute
such act by violence, it is permitted to repel force by force.
Art. 26. The right of presenting petitions to the depositaries of
the public authority belongs to every individual. Those to whom
they are addressed ought to determine upon the points which con
stitute the object of them ; but they can never either interdict, or
restrict, or condemn the exercise of the right.
Art. 27. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the
other rights of man and of the citizen.
Art. 28. There is oppression against the social body whenever
one alone of its members is oppressed. There is oppression against
every member of it when the social body is oppressed.
Art. 29. When the Government violates the rights of the people,
insurrection is for the people, and for every portion of the people
the most sacred of rights, and the most indispensible of duties.
Art. 30. When the social guarantee or compact fails to protect
a citizen, he resumes his natural right to defend personally all his
rights. Art. 31. In either of the two preceding cases, to subject to
legal forms the resistance to oppression, is the last refinement of
tyranny. Art. 32. Public functions cannot be considered as distinctions,
nor as recompenses, but as public duties.
Art. 33. The crimes of the delegates of the people ought to be
spverely and promptly punished. No one has the right of pretend
ing that he is more inviolable than other citizens.

babeuf's conspiracy. 2,5
the citizens are clearly enounced and strongly guaranteed.
It places general education amongst the duties of society;
it renders easy all changes favourable to the people ; it
opens the way to every improvement, and secures to the
people the exercise of sovereign power, in a manner, and
to a degree, unknown before. Is it to a prudent cir
cumspection, commanded by the hostile attitude of the
rich, who were set in motion by the Girondists ? or is it
to the prevailing influence of the Egoists, in the deli
berations of the Convention, that we are to ascribe the
wary reservations it had resort to, and the veil under
which the honest members of that body were obliged to
conceal their ulterior views of social equality ? Whatevei
was the cause, certain it is, that the right, attributed to the
people, of deliberating on the laws — the submission of
the people's mandatories to their orders, and the almost
unanimous voice of the nation in accepting the Consti
tution of 1793 — caused that Constitution to be regarded
(and never was title juster) as the Palladium of French
Liberty. "'¦ But some of the parties that had Origin and mo-
laboured in digesting this Constitution fives of the
(called afterwards the democratic Con- Government.
stitution by the patriots) felt that it alone
was not enough to ensure to Frenchmen the happiness
they demanded. They considered an antecedent reform
of moftds to be necessary to the enjoyment of liberty;
they knew that before conferring on the people the
exercise of sovereign power, it was necessary to render
Art. 34. The people has the right to know all the operations of
its delegates. It is the duty of the latter to render to the people a
faithful account of their behaviours, and to submit to its judgment
with respect.
Art. 3.5. Men of all countries are brothers, and the people of
each ought to yield one another mutual aid, according to their
ability, like citizens of the same state.
Art. 36. He who oppresses one nation alone is the declared
enemy of all.
Art. 37. Those who make war oh a people, to arrest the progress
of liberty, and to annihilate the rights of man, ought to be pursued
everywhere, not as ordinary persons, but as assassins and brigand
rebels •>
Art. 38. Kings, aristocrats, tyrants of every description, are
slaves in revolt against the sovereign of the earth, which is the
human race, and against the legislator of the universe, which is
Nature. C

26 babeuf's conspiracy.
the love of virtue general — to substitute disinterested
ness and modesty for avarice, vanity, and ambition,
which keep up a perpetual war amongst the citizens —
to extinguish the contradiction established by our insti
tutions between want and the love of independance, and
to wrest from the natural enemies of equality the means
of deceiving, terrifying, and dividing. They knew that
the coercive and extraordinary measures, indispensable
to operate so happy and great a change, are irrecon
cilable with the forms of a regular organization. They
knew, in short — and subsequent experience has but too
well justified their views — that to establish, without
those preliminaries, the constitutional order of elections,
would be only to abandon their power to the friends of
all abuses, and thus lose for ever the opportunity of
establishing general happiness. Accordingly, at the
demand of 8,000 envoys from the people, they caused
the Constitution of 1793 to be replaced (until the peace)
by a form of authority, which preserved to those who
had commenced the great work the power of completing
it, and substituted at once, for the hazards of an open
war against the intestine foes of liberty, prompt and
¦legal means of reducing them to impotence. This form
]was called the revolutionary Government, and had for
(fits directors the members of that Committee of Public
| Safety, to which humanity might owe its complete re
demption, had not subsequent events destroyed all.
It is impossible that honest minds should
lg ' not acknowledge the profound wisdom with
which the French nation was then directed towards a
state in which, equality established, it would have ar
rived at the full and tranquil enjoyment of a free con
stitution. One cannot too much admire the prudence
with which these illustrious legislators, turning reverses
and victories, to account, with equal skill, were able to
inspire the great majority of the nation with a self-denial
the most sublime, with contempt of riches, pleasures,
and even death, and to induce them to proclaim that
all men have an equal right to the productions of the
earth and of industry.
And who will be able to efface from the pages of his
tory this astonishing metamorphosis, by which so vast a

EAUEl'F S CONSPIRACY. 27
population, hitherto, and but a season before, the sport
of voluptuousness, cupidity, levity, and presumption,
cheerfully renounced a thousand factitious enjoyments
rivalled one another in zeal to offer up their superfluities
on their country's altar, thundered in mass on the armies
of the coalesced sovereigns, and contented themselves
with demanding for their all, bread, steel, and equality ?
These facts, attested by an infinite number of addresses,
reports, and decrees, by the public registers, by the
annals of France, by the terror (not yet extinct) of the
aristocratic classes, and by our own recollections, are
alone a sufficient answer to the falsehoods, the calum
nies, and the sophisms, by which it has been sought to
blacken this brilliant portion of French history. To what
high destinies might not a people attain, capable of
being inspired with such generous devotion ! What sage
institutions might not France and the world have pro
mised themselves from the counsels of those who had
presided over such grand prodigies !
After the promulgation of the Constitutional Act of
1793, and of the decree which created the revolutionary
government, authority and legislation became every
day more popular. An enthusiasm, as sacred as it was
new, seized possession of the French people ; innumer
able armies started up as it were by magic ; the Repub
lie became at once one vast workshop of war ; youth,
matured manhood, and even old age, rivalled one another
in patriotism and courage ; in a very short time was a ,
formidable enemy repelled from the frontiers, which it
had invaded, or which treason had put into its hands.
In the interior, factions were quelled and crushed; every
succeeding day witnessed the birth of new legislative
measures tending to raise the hopes of the numerous
class of unhappy poor (malheureux), to encourage
virtue, and to re-establish equality on earth. Super
fluous wealth was consecrated to misfortune, and to the
defence of the country. By means of requisitions (in
prints and merchandize) of forced loans, revolutionary
taxes, and the boundless generosity of good citizens,
provision was made to subsist/bwrreerc hundred thousand
warriors, and the rest of the population besides, whose
c 3

28 babeuf's conspiracy.
republican darings the rich proposed to subdue by hunger
and destitution.
The establishment of magazines of abundance, the
laws against monopoly and forestalling, the emission of
the principle, which attributes to the people the right of
property in commodities of prime necessity, the laws for
the extinction of mendicity, those for the distribution of
national succours, and the community of goods, which
then reigned in effect amongst the generality of French
men, were some of the preliminaries to a new order of
things, the plan of which is traced out in ineffacable
characters in the famous reports of the Committee of
Public Safety, and principally in those which Robes
pierre and Saint Just delivered in the National Tribune.*
* As long as the present order of things shall endure, the freest
form of political government will be advantageous only to those
that can live without work. The mass of the people being sub
jected by their wants to painful and continual labour, and unable
either to inform themselves respecting public affairs, or to assist
in the assemblies where they are canvassed or discussed, and de
pending on the rich for their very existence, the latter alone (rich)
dispose of the deliberations, which their deceitful governments
have the artful plausibility to appear to demand and encourage in
the people. Are we to presume that these honest folk forget
themselves ? How would they act, if the people, taking them at
their word, were to moot the question of their own usurped dis-"
tinctions, and demand of them to descend to their proper level ?
[How queer the hypocrites would look then ! — Bronterre.]
Robespierre's Report of the 18 Pluvoise, Year II. — " We desire
" an order of things, in which all the mean and cruel passions shall
" be chained down ; all the beneficent and generous passions
" awakened by the laws ; in which ambition shall consist in the
" desire of meriting glory and serving our country ; in which dis-
" tinctions shall spring but from equality itself ; in which the
" citizen shall be subject to the magistrate, the magistrate to the
" people, and the people to justice ; in which the country shall en-
" sure the prosperity of every individual, and in which eachindi-
" vidual shall enjoy with pride the prosperity and glory of his
" country ; in which every soul shall be aggrandised by the con-
•' tinual intercommunication of republican sentiments, and by the
" wish to merit the esteem of a great people ; in which the arts
" shall flourish as the decorations of the liberty that ennobles
" them ; and in which commerce will be a source of public riches,
" and not of the monstrous opulence of a few great houses only.
" We desire to substitute in our country morality for Egoism,
'* probity for honour, principles for usages, duties for courtesies,
" the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice
" for contempt of misfortune, manly pride for insolence, greatness
" of soul for vanity, love of glory for the love of monev, honesty
" for respectability, good people for good company, merit for in-

ABACI'S CONSPIRACY. 29
In order to rightly appreciate the revo- Legislative
lutionary government of the French Re- me"su>'es in,fa-
... •' B L ,. , „ , vour of equality
public, we must divest ourselves of the and of national
prejudices engendered by the political morals.
systems which have preceded the revolution, and which,
" trigue, genius for wit, truth for display, the charms of happiness
" for the ennui of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness
" of the great, a people magnanimous, powerful, and happy, for a
" people amiable, frivolous, and miserable ; in a word, we desire
i.'' to substitute all the virtues and all the miracles of the Republic
. " lor all the vices and all the ridiculous fopperies of the Monarchy.
¦ "We desire, in short, to fulfil the vows of nature, to accomplish
" the destinies of humanity, to absolve Providence from the long
" reign of crime and tyranny — that France, heretofore illustrious
" amongst enslaved countries, may, by eclipsing all the free states
" that ever existed, become a model for nations, the terror of op-
" pressors, the consolation of the oppressed, the ornament of the
" world — and that in sealing our work with our blood, we may
" at least witness the breaking dawn of universal felicity.
Robespierreagain. — Discourse of the7th Prarial, Year II. — "What
" constitutes a Republic is neither the pomp of denominations, nor
" victory, nor riches, nor transitory enthusiasm ; it is the wisdom
" of the laws, and, above all, probity of manners — it is the purity
" and stability of the maxims of Government."
SaintJust — Report of the 8t/i Ventose, Year II. — " The wealth of
" the country is in the hands of a great number of the enemies of
" the Revolution; their wants place the labouring people in a
" state of dependence on their enemies. Do you conceive that an
" empire can exist, if its social and civil relations shall depend on
" those opposed to its form of Government J They that make but
" half-Revolutions only dig a tomb for themselves. The Revolu-
" tion conducts us to recognise this principle, that whoever has
" shown himself the enemy of his country can hold no property in
" it. We want still some master-strokes of genius to save us."
" Shall it be, then, to cater for the enjoyments of its tyrants
" that our people sheds its blood on the frontiers, and that every
" family wears mourning for their children? No! Better recognise
" with me this principle — that he alone possesses rights in our
" country who has co-operated in emancipating it. Abolish men.
" dicity, which dishonours a free state. Let the properties of pa-
" triots be sacred, but let the wealth of conspirators be given to
" the poor. The outcast poor are the great powers of the earth —
" they have a right to speak in the character of masters to all
" governments that neglect them."
!And at the close of the same discourse—" As regards you ! Destroy
" the rebel faction — establish liberty on a rock of brass— avenge the
" patriot-victims of intrigue— make good sense and modesty the
" order of the day— permit not that there shall be one pauper, or a
" single human being in misery, throughout the state. Such is the
" price at which only you shall have made a Revolution, and a
" veritable republic."
Saint Just again— Report of the 23rd Ventose, Year II.—" If the
" people shall love virtue and frugality ; if effrontery shall disap-
" pear from their foreheads, and modesty become the characteristic
" of our citizens ; if the counter-revolutionists, the Moderates, and

30 babeuf's conspiracy.
in all ages, bequeathed to the earth only calamities and
crimes. The wisdom with which that government pre
pared a new order in the distribution of goods and
duties, cannot escape the regard of upright minds.
Such minds will discern more than the mere expression
of national gratitude in the distribution of lands pro
mised to the defenders of the country, and in the decree
which ordained the repartition, amongst the unhappy
poor, of the goods of the enemies of the Revolution who
were to be expelled from the French territory. They
will see, in the confiscation of the possessions of the con
demned counter-revolutionists, not a mere fiscal measure,
but the vast plan of a regenerating reformer. And when,
after considering the care with which these reformers
propagated the sentiments of fraternity and benevolence,
the ability with which they were able to change our
ideas of happiness, and that prudence which kindled in
all hearts a virtuous enthusiasm for the defence of the
country and of liberty, they will further call to mind the
respect accorded to simple manners and good morals,
the proscription of conquests and superfluities, the grand
assemblies of the people, the projets of national educa
tion, the Champs de Mars, the national festivals — when
they will reflect on the establishment of that sublime
worship, which, by blending the laws of the country
with the precepts of the divinity, doubled, as it were, the
force of the legislator, and armed him with the means
of extinguishing all superstitions in a short time, and of
realizing all the miracles of equality ; when, moreover,
they will bear in mind, that by taking external com
merce into its own hands, the Republic had snapped
" the robbers, shall roll in the dust : if terrible to the enemies of
" the Revolution, you show yourselves loving and feeling, towards
' ' the patriots ; if the public functionaries shall study and labour in
" their closets to work out the well-being of the state, without run-
" ning here and there after shallow renown, and having no other
^ " witness but their own hearts ; if you will bestow lands on all the
" unhappy poor, and take them away from traitor-aristocrats ; if
" you will act in this way, then shall I acknowledge that you have
" really made a ' Revolution.' "
The same — Report, 13th Ventose. — " Let Europe learn that you will
" no longer suffer that there be one indigent wretch, nor one oppres-
" sor on the French territory. Let this example fructify all over the
" earth — let there be propagated every where the love of virtue
" and happiness. Real happiness is a new idea in Europe," ^c.

babeuf's conspiracy. 31
the root of the most devouring species of avidity, and
dried up the most fruitful spring of factitious and arti
ficial wants — when they will consider, that by the re
quisitions the Republic disposed of the major part of
the products of agriculture and industry, and that sub~
sistence and commerce had already formed two grand
branches of the public administration, they will be
forced to exclaim, One day more, and the happiness
and liberty of all were ensured by institutions which
all incessantly demanded !
But fate had otherwise ordained ! and Faction, which
the cause of equality, which had never alarms the peoT
before obtained such signal success in the pTiserva^
the world, was destined once more to tion of its sove-
succumb, under the combined efforts of Jf'P17"
all the anti-social passions. Those who
had dared the noble task of undertaking so glorious an
enterprize had to combat at one and the same time —
the infatuating errors of weak men, and the intrigues of
dishonest villany, of which they were at last the victims.
Some believed, and others feigned to believe, that the
revolutionary government, by which the exercise of
political rights was partially and momentarily sus
pended (a mere temporary precaution), did essentially
menace the liberty of the nation; the latter party in-',
jured the country more by the sophisms with which they !
deluded and led astray a multitude of honest citizens, ,
than even by the plots they hatched and instigated
against the leading reformers. Unfortunately, the nature
of an extraordinary but necessary authority was with
difficulty comprehended, by minds which had imbibed
only the theories of a free and tranquil social order.
Forgetful of existing circumstances, they looked to the
end only ; but, incapable of conceiving the means
necessary to attain that end, they were easily disposed
to look with jealousy and alarm on a form of govern
ment, the necessity for which they did not understand.
They did not see that an [extraordinary or revolutionary/
1 authority was indispensable in the actual circumstances^
of the country, such authority being alone competent to I
put a nation in full possession of liberty, notwithstanding
the corruption which is the consequence of its ancient

32 babeuf's conspiracy.
slavery, and in the midst of the snares and hostilities, m
which its enemies, internal and external, never fail to
embroil it, by conspiracy and intrigue.
The faction of The false friends-or equality, who had
upstart Egoists, (propagated its principles only with the
combining with view Qf improving- the opportunities (of
sassinatethe the time) to subserve their rapacity,
friends of equa- grew pale at the approach of an era
lity. Dantonists. when all snoui,i DeriCi to the same social
level, and submit to the yoke of morals. Some had
abused the extensive powers entrusted to them in the
departments and with the armies. Others had fixed
their hopes in a transfer of riches in favour of the revo
lutionists, out of whom they desired to form a new pri
vileged class. Others, again, were accused of having
received foreign gold as the price of their criminal
manoeuvres.* * Hebert and Danton gave their names to two factions, which,
though equally inimical to the Revolutionary Government they
had aided to establish, differed essentially, both as regarded
the tendency of their aims ana the characters of the individuals
that composed them.
In the ranks of the Hebertists one might count, generally speak
ing, only the working class — men of labour — upright, frank, cou
rageous, little studious, strangers to political theories, loving
liberty from sentiment, enthusiasts for equality, and impatient to
enjoy it. Good citizens in an established popular Republic, but
bad pilots in the storms that precede its establishment, it was not
difficult to disaffect them against the prolongation of the revo
lutionary institution (the necessity of which they did not com
prehend) by painting it to them under the colours of a culpable
invasion of the popular sovereignty. Neither was there much
difficulty in persauding them, that in order to dry up for ever the
source of superstitions and of sacerdotal power, it was necessary
to proscribe all religious ideas. Nevertheless, such men, more
disposed to break through difficulties by coups de main than to
maturely weigh the utility and consequences of a political crisis,
had the same results in view as the wise friends of equality, but
they had not, like the latter, formed clear ideas, either of the in
stitutions by which it was to be be won, nor of the route by which
it was necessary to arrive at it. It is not to them, however, that
we ought, to impute the disastrous division in the ranks of equality,
and the calamities operated by the faction they belonged to. A
responsibility so grave rests entirely with those influential persons
who, in the name of the public good, inspired them with unworthy
suspicions, and for whose criminal blindness there can hardly be
found a just excuse.
The Dantonists have no claim to the like indulgence, because
the predominant character of this faction was a compound of
vanity, intrigue, audacity, falsehood, venality, and corruption.
Its acknowledged chiefs openly professed maxims the very reverse

babeuf s conspiracy. 33
This faction conspired also against the promoters of
democratic institutions. It failed, however, in its first
efforts, and had to witness the destruction of some of
its chiefs ;* but the survivors of the party, rallying to
the cry of national justice which threatened them, flat
tering the enemies of the Revolution of all shades, sup
ported by the deluded patriots ,f in whom they excited
of that moral purity upon which the French Government of that
epoch desired to base the new Republic. Servile imitators of the
profligacy which, before the Revolution, had distinguished the
Court and the privileged orders, they combatted the aristocrats of
the old regime, only to put themselves in their place, — and they
rose against religion, not with the view of emancipating mankind
from the yoke of prejudice and superstition, nor of disarming
despotism of its most redoubtable auxiliary, but only to dis
encumber themselves of the sore idea of an all-seeing judge, in
order the more tranquilly to abandon themselves to their base pas
sions, and to efface from the human mind the consolatory sentiments
of justice, probity, and virtue. The Dantonists considered the
Revolution as a game of hazard, in which victory belongs to the
most crafty and the most knavish. They had a smile of pity for
the words disinterestedness, virtue, equality, and did not hesitate to
declare, that in the account between France and the Revolution,
the advantages of fortune and power enj oyed by the old aristocracy
ought, as a matter of course, to pass into the hands of the successful
Revolutionists. Accordingly, many that then swelled their ranks
have since not been ashamed to borrow the most opposite colours,
to flatter all tyrannies in turn, and to abandon themselves to the
meanest intrigues, in order to acquire fortune and retain a shadow
of power.
By the leaders of these two factions were the most dangerous
machinations hatched and plotted ; and it was not without grave
reasons that the Revolutionary Government (of Robespierre, &c.)
accused them of acting in concert with the foreign cabinets then
in league against the French Republic.
Whatever may have been the secret understanding of then-
chiefs, certain it is, at any rate, that the two factions laboured to
throw every thing into confusion ; and that they both applauded
and co-operated in the disastrous events of the 9th Thermidor.
They did so, however, under the influence of very opposite motives
and ends. The Dantonists wished to disembarrass themselves of
an equality that they hated, and of the Republican austerity
which bridled their licentiousness, whilst the poor Hebertists
acted under the mad impression that equality and the Republic
were about to be delivered and consolidated by the result. The
latter were soon undeceived. By degrees their eyes opened, and
they soon re-attached themselves to the men whose conduct they
had a little before condemned, and they subsequently shared the
proscription in which every honest man in France was involved
by that rotten faction, whose revolting immorality always tended
to confound them with the partisans of despotism.
* Danton, Camile Desmoulins, Lacroix, and Fabre D'Eglantine.
t Hebert's party — chiefly well meaning but simple and ignorant
operatives.
c 5

34 babeuf's conspiracy.
apprehensions of losing the popular sovereignty, and
craftily turning to their account the jealousy which
merit ever excites, they contrived to represent the vo
luntary homage rendered to virtue as the characters of
an insupportable tyranny ; and by dint of calumnies
they succeeded at last, on the 9th Thermidor of the year
II, in causing the assassination of the Deputies* to whom
y the French people were mainly indebted for the vast
progress made in the conquest and acquisition of their
rights, f
^ * Robespierre, Saint Just, Couthon, Lebas, &c
t Certain members of the National Convention (Tallien, Freron,
Bourdon, Fouche, Rovere, &c), known by the malversations by
which they had polluted themselves in their missions, appear to have
been the principal instigators of this deplorable day's proceedings.
Alarmed by the punishment of the conspirators (Danton, Lacroix,
Chabot, &c. &c), and by the austere maxims of the Government,
they easily communicated their fears to others similarly con
ditioned ; and, by their clamours, roused the confidence and audacity
of the enemies of equality.
A thousand different motives of interest, jealousy, vanity, aris
tocracy, and vengeance, swelled the tempest, which on that day
burst on the Republic. One might recognise them by the ab
surdity of the accusations, by the contradictions of the accusers,
and by the ferocity and rancour with which they pursued and
proscribed every man that dared to perform his duty in defending
the Republican Robespierre.
( The secret views of these proscribers were disguised under the
i vague imputation of tyranny. But a tyrant without treasures,
I without soldiers, without any other friends than the enemies of
' tyrants — a tyrant who, far from basely pandering to the multitude
( by espousing its caprices, had often the courage to divert it, at
* the risk of losing his popularity, from the seductive schemes
i which others treacherously presented to it. What is such a tyrant
but a creature of the imagination — a fiction of the brain? Folly
itself is fooled by the supposition. But, said they, he is the
tyrant of opinion. Well, now, the process is judged ! the argument
decided ! the tyranny of Robespierre was, then, nothing else than
the power of his wise councils, and the influence of his virtue. He
was the tyrant of the wicked — he was a tyrant against all tyrannies.
, And how did you prove his tyranny — you who, after his death,
i'| were only capable of tearing one another like beasts of prey, and
1 of ruining us ! Whilst one party accused him of having sa-
|crificed Danton, another party reproached him with having tried
to save him ! The very men who the evening before called him
the Cato of France, or compared him to Orpheus civilizing savage
states by his lyre, were those that prepared his act of accusation !
On one side he is charged with the crimes of certain Deputies on
mission— on the other he is upbraided for the prosecutions which
he wishes to institute against them. Vou gave out that he was rich in
the possession of several millions, and France calls him to this day
Incorruptible ; and, besides it is well-known that the sale of his
effects, after his death, did not produce more than 450f. in money !

babeuf's conspiracy. 35
From that moment all was lost ! To Virtue is called
justify their crime, those who had co-ope- r^nynnd ty"
rated in the events of that day were
obliged to change into heads of accusations, the verv
principles, conduct, and virtues of their victims. The
You declared him to be devoid of knowledge and judgment, at the
same time that you are not ashamed to pretend that he subjected
you for fifteen months to his domination. One batch of you called
him cruel, whilst another batch reproached him with sparing the
lives of the sixty-three imprisoned Girondists! You still tali.
of his reckless ambition, but you forget to inform the world, abused
as it is, by your lying inventions, that had it not been for his
heroic counsels the magistrates of Paris, at the head of the majoritv
of the sections, and of the cannoniers, would have inflicted on
you the correction you so richly merited. Like scholars in in
surrection against their master, you insulted him on his bed of
death, and you suffered his bleeding wounds to be envenomed by
cuts and stabs with a penknife !
There is no parallel for the madness of those committees who,
in imitation of the most furious aristocrats of ancient Rome, armed
the people against its defenders, by painting them to it, under
ambitious colours, as though they had conspired to re-establish the
throne, or aspired to mount it — of those committees who, on the
loth Thermidor, were not ashamed to declare to the Convention
that it owed its triumph to the falsehoods by which they had de
ceived the good and simple inhabitants of the faubourg Antoine.
" Mayhap you might not credit it," observed the Reporter of the
Committees of Public Safety and General Security, " on the desk of
the common hall in which the counter-revolutionary sitting was
held, there was a new seal, having for its impression but a single
fleur de lis ; and already in the night time had two individuals
presented themselves at the Temple to demand the liberation of
its inmates. I ought here to record a trait which marks well the
state of the public mind. Secret emissaries had wished to corrupt
it in the Faubourg Antoine, but no sooner did the representatives
of the people speak to them of the emblems of royalism found in
the common hall than the Republican sections rent the air with
shouts of indignation 1"
Robespierre wishes to confound his accusers — he is silenced !
Saint Just is cast into irons at the first words of a discourse which
he is prevented from delivering. Couthon is arrested, because lie
desires to oppose injustice. Lebas is proscribed, for the sole
reason that he declares he will not share the infamy of an iniqui
tous decree. The brother of Robespierre desires to defend him,
and he, too, is smitten by a decree of arrest ; and David, who had
said to Robespierre, "I will drink the hemlock with you," suf
fered a long imprisonment, and was indebted for his life only to
the vain celebrity he enjoyed as a painter. To secure their prompt
immolation, you created pretences for yourselves out of the just
alarms of the Commune, and from their presence at its last deli
berations. But, besides that, you are suspected of having held a
snare for them, by yourselves unlocking their prisons, their designs
and yours — what they had done, and what you did— the blessings

36 babeuf's conspiracy.
interested professors of democracy, and the ancient par
tisans of aristocracy, were found to accord once more.
Certain rallying cries that recalled the doctrines and
institutions of equality, were now regarded as the im
pure howls of anarchy, brigandism, and terrorism.
Those that in Robespierre's time had been wisely kept in
check for the nation's safety, seized upon authority
again ; and to revenge themselves for the humiliation
they had been reduced to, they involved in a long and
sanguinary proscription, together with the sincere
friends of equality, those also who had preached it from
self-interest, and even the very factionists who by
treason, jealousy, or blindness, had so largely and
fatally co-operated in the counter-revolution of the 9th
Thermidor.
promised to us by the times which preceded their death, and the
train of calamities that followed it — all these prove to demonstra
tion that if they rose against you, never was insurrection more
holy, nor resistance more imperiously commanded.
[Perhaps the history of the world, including France itself, does
not record a more atrocious mass of villanous fabrications than
this brief recital shows to have been set on foot, to compass and
justify the death of Robespierre. Not a word more is necessary
to corroborate all I have stated in the Guardian and my other pub
lications, respecting the true character of that illustrious martyr
of equality ; but, if further evidence be wanted, the public may
take my word for it, they shall have it abundantly in my forth
coming " Life of Robespierre." I shall never cease, if God gives
me life, till I have avenged the memory of this, and of every other
friend of humanity, whom the aristocracy, not content with murder
ing, have had the additional baseness to consign to the execrations
of posterity, by means of their lying fabrications called "his
tories." If there be one duty which, more than another, an intel
lectual man owes to his country, it is to blast the existing literature
of the world, and to damn its authors in the eyes of posterity.
This literature is, fi'om beginning to end, a mass of fraud and
misrepresentation, designed and encouraged to perpetuate the
present cannibal state of society ; and is, perhaps, the most
foimidable and fatal of all existing obstructions to human pro
gression. It shall not be my fault, at any rate, if the industrious
classes shall continue much longer undeceived as to its real cha
racter. It is time that the crimes and machinations of the aris
tocracy should be placed in such a light as to render it impossible
for them to cheat and mystify mankind any longer. — Bronterre.J

babeuf's conspiracy. 37
From the moment that the Revolution- TheRevolutim
ary Government had passed into the hands aryGo^rnment
of the Egoists it became a veritable pub- becomes a pub
lic scourge. Its prompt and terrible ac- hc scouree-
tion, which the virtue of its former directors and their
thoroughly popular designs could alone render legitimate,
became thenceforward but a frightful tyranny, both as
regarded its objects and form. It demoralised every
thing ; it restored luxury, debauchery, effeminate man •
ners, and brigandism; it squandered the national do
mains, denaturalised the principles of the Revolution,
and delivered over to the poignards of its enemies all
who had defended it with sincerity and disinterestedness.
It was to the maintenance of inequality, and to the es
tablishment of aristocracy, that manifestly tended, at
this epoch, the efforts of the dominant party. After
having deprived the people of all hope of an equitable
legislation, and plunged them into incertitude and dis
couragement, it was meditating to despoil them of
even the feeble remains of their sovereignty.
Much as the friends of equality had The friends of
desired, before the 9th Thermidor, to see equality de-
the Revolutionary Government maintained ™?nlJ the Con-
... ¦"'•li i , stitution of
in ail its purity,* they longed as much 1793, and are
now, to see it replaced by the Constitution vanquished.
of 1793, against which were palpably directed the ma-
* In order to deter the people from all ideas of reform, to disgust
it with the exercise of its rights, and to render odious in its eyes
its true friends, the old aristocrats and the new applied themselves
with peculiar industry, to work on its feelings, by presenting an
exaggerated picture of the imprisonments and condemnations
which took place, under the Revolutionary Government, antece
dently to the 9th Thermidor. They represented them as having
threatened indiscriminately all classes of society ; and then, apply
ing to a durable state what was only the sad necessity of a state of
transition, they laboured to make it be believed that the Order of
Equality is neither more nor less than one interminable series of
violence, massacres, executions, hatreds, and vengeance.
Nevertheless, very little discernment suffices to detect in these
declamations the rage and malice of the parties that dictated them ;
and if men will only judge without passion, they will be forced to
agree that love of country and the sentiment of duties the most
imperiqus, determined the friends of equality, after a too long and
very disastrous patience, to at last resort to severity against its
incorrigible enemies.
The justice and necessity of the revolutionary institution once
recognised, it is no longer necessary to the question to examine up

38 babeuf's conspiracy.
nceuvres of the aristocracy. Despairing of the triumph
of social equality, they desired, at least, to put the people
in possession of their political rights. Such was the
to what point the presiding authority carried the severity of which
it was necessitated to make use. The only important matter is to
know, whether it answered the ends for which it was instituted.
Its province was to establish the reign of equality and the laws,
and in this vocation it laboured, without interruption, till the 9tb
Thermidor of the Year II., either in reforming morals, and the
spirit of the laws, or in levelling the obstacles that were incessantly
reared up against the execution of so sublime an enterprise. These
obstacles lay in the armed opposition of Europe, in the seductions
and ever-reviving conspiracies set on foot by a party that had
rather perish in the conflagration it had kindled, than bend its
haughty head to the level of equality, and renounce its vicious and
despotic habits. With such enemies to deal with, the question
was not whether they should be punished, but how they were to
be exterminated.
Let us call to mind the rapidity with which the plcts of the aris
tocracy against the power of the people succeeded one another
since the commencement of the Revolution. Irom the moment
that the Republic was proclaimed, and especially after the insur
rection of the 31st May, there was manifested amongst the op
posing parties a fermentation so intense, so general, and so
characterised, that one might, without fear of mistake, recognise
every enemy of reform by his conduct, his manners, and opinions.
For a long time the danger was so imminent that the people
would have been justified in thundering down at once upon the
class of society it dreaded. The Revolutionary Government did
in the name of the people what the people had the right of doing,
but it did the business far more usefully. Things were arrived at
^ that pass when it was necessary to choose between the annihilation
; of certain conspirators on the one hand, and the inevitable ruin of
popular rights on the other. The case was one in which we should
consider the end, not the means. Was the end just ? The severity
necessary to attain it was, no doubt, a painful and grievous duty ;
but then it was the more indispensably necessary, inasmuch as
there was neither, mercy nor amendment to be expected from ex
asperated pride, f To pretend to establish justice and equality
without employing force, amongst a people of whom great numbers
had contracted habits and pretensions irreconcilable with the
well-being of the rest of society and with the just rights of all, is
a project as chimerical as it is seductive in theory - To undertake
such a reform, and then to halt at the firmness it requires, is but
to avow one's cowardice and want of foresight. It is worse — it is
to sacrifice the safety of the whole to the vices of a small number
— it is, in fact, to want virtue.
Did antiquity impute as a crime to Lycurgus the sacrifice of
some Lacedemonian aristocrats ? Did it reproach Brutus for the
condemnation of his own children ? Has it blamed the more than
revolutionary rigour with which Moses himself exterminated
without pity all that opposed the success of his institution ? Do
the oppressors of the earth show any tenderness of the people's
blood whenever, in the anguish of their sufferings, the latter break
out into resistance against the evils they are made to endure ?

BABEl'F S CONSftlUCY. 39
motive of the movement of the 12th Germinal of the
year III., and of the insurrection in Paris of the 1st
Prairial. The ill success of those days redoubled the
fury of the enemies of liberty, and greatly augmented
the number of good citizens, that were either crammed
in heaps into dungeons, or massacred all over the ex
tent of the Republic*
Revolutions are but the necessary consequences of long careers
of injustice. They punish in a moment the accumulated crimes
of ages. Why do those that fear them labour incessantly to make
new ones unavoidable ? Why did not the parties, that are pleased
to exaggerate what they call- the excesses of the French Revolu
tion, prevent their occurrence, by the voluntary abandonment of
their iniquitous pretensions, which were the whole and sole causes
of them?
There has been a world of declamation on the subject of the
numerous arrests, ordered on mere suspicion, and on the brevity
of the proceedings instituted against the accused conspirators.
But be it observed, that at a time when conspiracies spring out of
the intense irritation of passions common to a vast number of
powerful and crafty men, it is easy for the conspirators to ripen
their murderous projects into maturity without letting the least
index of them appear. It then happens that the public danger
becomes, all at once, manifest, and that the State is delivered over
to general conflagration, before it is possible to acquire material
proofs against the guilty parties. At such a crisis, in which every
thing announces the existence of imminent perils, is it not pru
dent, is it not just, to spare the people the hazards of an intestine
war, by using severity against the parties whose passions, aristo
cratic habits, and anti-social interests, manifestly place them out of
the pale of the popular sovereignty? At a juncture of this kind,
the salvation of the whole depends on the terror inspired into the
wicked, by the rapidity with which the thunder of national justice
Smites a few guilty heads. It is extremely probably that a single
additional act of severity in France, at that period, would have
secured to the human race a complete and everlasting victory over
its enemies.
But of what use to exhaust arguments to justify the spirit and
action of the Revolutionary Government which preceded the 9th
Thermidor of the year II.? The instigators of that tragical day
have supplied its best justification by the crowd of disasters which
they drew down upon the French people. In vain did they after
wards invoke the laws of humanity they had profaned, by violently
arresting a salutary action, which was approaching its close, in
order to commence another action a thousand times more bloody
and terrible, and for the profit, too, of immorality, aristocracy, and
royalty. * The movement of the 12th Germinal was provoked by the
prosecutions directed against Bare-re, Billaud-Varennes, Collot
d'Herbois, and Vadier, members of the ancient Committees of
Public Safety and General Security, in revenge for the firmness
with which they crushed the enemies of the Revolution. The
National Convention was convicted by them of having ordered
and approved all the acts with which it reproached them j but so

40 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
The prisons of The incarceration of almost all the
Paris are the fr; d f liberty and their frequent
focuses of con- . J > . ',
spiracies for translations from one prison to anotlier,
equality. procured them the advantage of a better
mutual acquaintance, and of a closer friendly connexion.
The prisons of Paris, and particularly those of Plessis
and Quatre-Nations, were at that time the tbci of a great
revolutionary fermentation. It was there the principal
actors in the conspiracy, of which I have proposed to
narrate the events, first met together. Bedon* Laujen
de Dorimel, Bertrand (Ex-Mayor of Lyons), Fonte-
nelle, Fillion, Hannac, Simon Duplay, Sombod, Claude
Piquet, Massart, Bouin, Moroy, Chintrard, Glartou,
La Tilme, Velor, Golscain, Rivagre, Julien desArmes,
Laire de la Naitle, Babeuf, Germain, Buonarroti ; the
members of the popular commission d'Orange ; those of
the revolutionary tribunals of Arras, Cambrai, Angers,
Rennes, and Brest; those of the revolutionary com
mittees of Paris, Nantz, Nevers, and Moulins; and
many other democrats from all the departments, were in
detention at the prison of Plessis, in the month Floreal
of the year III.
From these abodes of grief issued those electric sparks
which so often made the new tyranny turn pale with
terror. I know, beyond the shadow of doubt, that the
insurrection of the 1st Prarial, in the year III., was, in a
great measure, the work of several citizens, in detention
blind was the fury of the aristocrats that then composed the
majority of the Convention (the proscribed members of the
Gironde had been then restored), that without any regard to their
justification — that without making any allowance for the part they
hud unhappily acted in the events of the 9th Thermidor, and not
daring to send them to trial in presence of the people of Paris— it
arbitrarily condemned them to deportation.
In Prairial, 'the citizens devoted to the political system of
Robespierre, and the deluded party, that had been maliciously
alarmed about the sovereignty of the people (the remains of
Hebert's party), were found once more in coalition at the rallying
call of the Constitution of 1793, of which they unanimously de
manded the immediate execution..
* The names written in italics in the course of this work are the
anagrams of the names of parties supposed to be still living.
[The reason of this is obvious. Buonarroti would not expose his
old friends to a fresh proscription, or their families to the hatred and
persecution of the modern aristocrats of France.— BnoxTERKE.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 41
at Plessis, amongst whom may be particularly named
Leblanc, afterwards a Commissary of the Directory at
Saint Domingo, and Claude Fiquet.*
* Bread and the Constitution of 1793 were at this period the
rallying cries of the people of Paris, who were justly alarmed for
their rights and for their subsistence. As to the latter (the
Constitution) their fears were but too well-founded, for it was to
the annihilation of the Constitution of 1793 that the efforts of the
ruling party of the Convention then visibly tended.
With respectto subsistence, never had the Parisiens experienced
a more cruel famine than this, although the harvest had been most
abundant, and the rural districts presented the most flattering
appearance. From whence proceeded, then, this frightful famine
which cut short the lives of so many citizens ? From the retrograde
march of the Convention, from the cunning of the aristocracy, and
from the avarice of the rich.
For a considerable time before, it had been found necessary, in
order to defeat the criminal manoeuvres of the aristocracy, seconded
as they were, by the avarice of the middle classes, to impose a tax
on provisions — to force those that were in possession of them to
stock the markets, and maintain by severe measures the circulation
of paper-money (assignats) at its nominal value. After the 9th
Thermidor, the requisitions and the taxes having been on a sudden
interdicted, and the paper money abandoned to the unrestricted
speculations of commerce, the price of commodities rose so high
that at last there was no possibility of procuring provisions with
out metallic money. The consequence was, that the mass of la
bourers, who were destitute of money of that kind, were reduced
to absolute starvation in the midst of abundance.
At the very height of the people's sufferings the ruling party
never ceased to assure them that their subsistence should be
provided tor ! Its policy was to stuff the people with promises
of future abundance and prosperity, on condition of unqualified
submission on the part of the latter ! Such was the price to be
paid for their fatal docility. It is only by the circumstances under
which they are established that one can judge rightly of the merit
of institutions, and of the intentions of the framers of them.
[In corroboration of the truth of what Buonarroti here states
respecting the schemes of the aristocracy and middle classes to
subdue the friends of equality by famine, I beg attention to the
following passage in Mignet's History of the French Revolution.
Mignet was ho friend of the working classes, and therefore his
testimony is the more valuable in the present instance. Speaking
of theevents justalludedto, he says: — " They (the assignats) were
received with reluctance, and cash, as it was the more sought
after, was so much the more carefully hoarded up, and the value of
paper-mnney still further decreased. The people wanting pro
visions, and not having the power, even with assignats, of purchas
ing them, were reduced to great distress ; they attributed it to the
merchants, to the contractors, to the landlords, to the Government
(ail with perfect justice), and they called to mind, not without
regret, that not long ago they had BOTH BREAD AND POWER

42 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
This incontestible fact, placed in juxta-position with
the printed act, which was the signal of the insurrection,
with the demands of the insurgents, and with the poli
tical character of the deputies, who supported them,*
are sufficient to wipe away the stain of royalism, which
even patriotic writers were forced to stamp on the prin
cipal instigators of that disastrous day, with a view to
spare the blood of the friends of equality, who were
devoted to the most sanguinary proscription.! So
UNDER THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY," &c.&c.
Men of England ! Social Reformers ! Friends of Equality ! look
to this. Are your eyes beginning to open now respecting the
real character of Robespierre, and the true design of his govern
ment 1 But wait a little — you shall soon know the whole truth, in
spite of craft and calumny. — Bronterre.]
* Goujon, Romme, Soubrany, Duroy, Duquesnoy, Bourbotte.
Prieur de la Marne, Peysard, Forestier, Albitte, &c. &e. The
first six of these were horribly immolated to the fury of the soi-
disant humanity-mongers, who pretended to base their power on
moderation, whilst they were enthroning it on the ruins of public
liberty by making rivers of popular blood flow !
[Are we not here, forcibly, reminded of our Moderates in
England? These villains, -who helped our Tories to cause the
destruction of three millions of men in the revolutionary wars, and
who would again shed the blood of half the human race to perpe
tuate their cannibal and desolating usurpation of the rights of
industry, are incessantly prating about the violence of Radicals,
and endeavouring to persuade the world that all who seek the
overthrow of their fell power are " anarchists," " haters of law
and order," and " sanguinary speculators in a revolutionary
scramble for property." But their days are numbered. The hand
writing is on the wall, and (if the people only prove true to them
selves) they will not long enjoy their ill-gotten spoils and hellish
ascendancy. — Bronterre.]
t My contemporaries are, doubtless, not deceived respecting
the nature of these insurrections. But posterity, which, not hav
ing witnessed the facts, must form its judgment from history, ought
to be apprised that the periodic, and even patriotic, writers have
always had recourse to this subterfuge, whenever the attempts of
the Republicans suffered defeat.
[It may be observed here, that the same well-meaning ruse was
practised by the Parisian journals in all the late Republican move
ments against Louis Philippe's Government. The intention was
to save the poor Republicans from the consequences of their
failures, and to give the Government a pretext for exercising cle
mency towards them as the deluded tools of another party's machi
nations. For this purpose have the Carlists been accused of

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 43
general and furious was this proscription, that amongst
tue citizens, precipitated in thousands into the prisons of
Paris, there were many indifferent persons, and not a
few that were even opposed to the triumph of the party
to which they were accused of belonging.
These prisons were at that time the Manners and
scene of a spectacle as affecting as it was occupations of
singularly new. The victims, whom the f°^™d
aristocracy had plunged into them, lived
frugally in the most intimate fraternity, honoured one
another for their chains and poverty, devoted themselves
to work and study, and conversed only on the calamities
of their common country, and on the means of bringing
th?m to an end. The civic songs with which, chaunting
simultaneously, they made the air resound, caused to
congregate every evening around these dismal abodes a
crowd of citizens, whom curiosity attracted there, or the
congeniality of their sentiments with those of the prisoners.
It was natural that men of this stamp, burning with
patriotism, inflamed bv persecution, and confirmed in
their common sentiments, by long and frequent inter
communication, should be disposed to hazard every
thing to restore the principles of the Revolution, and to
attain at last the end of their steadfast wishes. Ac
cordingly were the prisons of that epoch the cradles of
those democratic conspiracies which burst forth in the
third and fourth years of the Republic.
The immolation of the popular Consti- Constitution of
tution was at length consummated by the 0^a^V. ' °r
commission, to which had been entrusted
the hypocritical task of preparing organic laws for its
execution. The projet of a new Constitution, proposed
by this commission to the National Convention, on the
5th Messidor of the year III., was a subject of deep
meditation for the imprisoned patriots. They examined
all its parts and provisions with more of ripe considera
tion than was bestowed upon it in any primary assem
bly. Behold the opinion they formed of it.
instigating all the late troubles, and the Government, whose policy
it was not to drive the Republicans to despair, found its convenience
in appearing to credit and acquiesce in the subterfuge. What
devilish shrewd fellows are these upstart tyrants!— Brontf.rpe.]

44 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY
Opinion of the If the proposed Constitution, said they,
friends of equa- could leave any doubts as to the spirit of
1tiL0tionisCon' its authors, they would be effectually dis
sipated by the report which precedes it.
To preserve opulence and misery — such is the spirit
which pervades every sentence of it. They regarded
this work, then, as the final result of the crimes of the
egoist or aristocratic faction. Excepting the article
which required a property in lands, as a condition of
eligibility to the national representation, and another
which rendered a man ineligible to a superior office
unless he had antecedently filled an inferior one, the
projet of the commission was adopted, and became the
fundamental law of the French nation till the 18th
Brumaire of the year VIII.* The most superficial ex
amination suffices to convince one that the conservation
of opulence and misery was the base of every part of
this new structure.
In the first place, in order to silence all pretensions,
and to close for ever all avenues against innovations
favourable to the people, its political rights are either
taken away altogether, or frittered away by mutilations ;
the laws are made without its participation, and with
out the possibility of its exercising on them any species
of censure or revision — the Constitution chains to itself
the people and its posterity for ever, for it is interdicted
to change it. It declares the people sovereign, indeed,
(what hypocrisy !) but all deliberation of the people upon
it is declared seditious. After speaking confusedly of
the equality of rights, it snatches the rights of citizen
ship from an immense multitude of citizens, and reserves
exclusively to persons in easy circumstances the right of
nominating to the principal offices of the state. In fine,
to perpetuate for ever this wretched inequality, the
source of immorality, injustice, and oppression, the au
thors of this Constitution swept away with the exactest
care every institution that tended to enlighten the nation
as a whole, as also all that tended to form a Republican
youth, to diminish the ravages of avarice and ambition,
to rectify opinion, to ameliorate morals, and to rescue
* Bonaparte's usurpation.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 45
the mass of the people from the savage domination of
the idle anil ambitious rich.*
These scandalous violations of our common rights, and
this contempt of the principal duties of a popular legis
lator, were denounced to the French people by An-
tonelle, in a paper entitled " Considerations on the
Rights of Citizenship ;" and by Felix Lepelletier in
his " Suffrage Explained on the Constitution of the
year III." Indignation, but not surprise, was the
universal feeling at the audacity with which the rulers of
the day dared to infringe the declared will of the sove
reign people so solemnly put forth, as well as their own
recent professions and promises. f The Constitution of
1793 was impudently calumniated; and the doctrine of
equality was, by the aid of the most monstrous sophisms,
scoffed and vilified by the very parties who, a short time
before, had been the heralders and extollers of its jus
tice.:; * Thanks to the inflexible pride of our new lords, it soon came
to their own turn to regret the loss, notwithstanding its great de
fects, of this pet Constitution, to which it might have been possible,
with the help of some modifications, to reconcile the friends of
equality. But the aristocrats preferred gorging themselves with
gold, bedaubing themselves with crosses and ribands, and crouch
ing under the iron sceptre of an insolent and perjured soldier
( Bonaparte ) to living free and equal with tbe people; in short,
they made of this Constitution the Revolutionary Government
of Royalty.
t In the month Germinal of the Year III., a terrible law, called
" The Law of the High Police," condemned as seditious the re
monstrances that were raised on all sides against the counter
revolutionary march of the Government ; but in order the more
easily to assuage the public effervescence, this same- law hypo
critically menaced with transportation whoever should speak or
write against the Constitution of 1793, the prompt execution of
which was promised by the Convention on the 2nd Prairial of the
same year.
t The only care of the Commission appointed to prepare the
organic laws of the Constitution of 1793, was to cause this same
Constitution to be proscribed, in order to substitute for it another
more conformable to the selfish views of the then dominant faction.
After having at great length declaimed against the most sacred of
the people's rights — that of upproving the laws it is to live under —
the reporter of this commission proceeds to enumerate the gaps or
flaws pretended to be discovered in it. He asserted that the Con
stitutional Act of 1793 (which, added he, ought to be annihilated,
for the sole reason, if there was* no other, that Robespierre and
Saint Just had laboured in drawing it up), left undetermined the
administrative hierarchy, the nomination of generals and ambas
sadors, as well as the right of declaring war and negociating peace.

46 BABEUF'b CONSPIRACY.
Their protests. Numerous protests against the projet
adopted by the Convention were trans
mitted to the primary assemblies by the imprisoned Re
publicans. Their example, however, was not una
nimously imitated by all who then honoured themselves
with the qualification of Democrats. In consequence of
the events of Prairial, there were found, mixed up with
the inflexible Republicans in the prisons, other persons
of timid character or indifferent principles, who pur
chased their liberty by a base submission to the pleasures
of the aristocracy ; these accepted the new Constitution.
Others, despairing of the triumph of democracy, or con
sidering the then Revolutionary Government as the most
disastrous of evils, or flattering themselves that from the
latitude of the Constitutional Order might result some
change favourable to the people ; or seeing, in the pro
posed Constitution, the only plank of safety against the
threatened return of royalty, and, above all, being ap
prehensive of personal dangers and persecutions — these
also accepted the aristocratic law ; but they could not
shake the faith of those whom nothing could induce to
tamper with the enemies of equality, to the contempt of
justice, and to the rain of the common rights.
Such was the honest reporter's statement, in the teeth of the fact
that all the points enumerated are determined in articles 54, 55
69i'i83,',10^' 118'and 1-19" CVerily. these Conventionalists could
tell a " mighty great lie" as glibly as our own precious represen
tatives on this side the Channel, or as the august Duke of Cum
berland himself. That Buonarroti speaks the truth will be found
by reference to the Constitutional Act of 1793 itself, which will
appear in the progress of this work amongst the justifi catory pieces.
— Bronterre.J On the other hand, the Commission appealed, in
support of its opinion, to what it was pleased to call the violence
corruption, and terror, which it pretended had presided over the ac
ceptance of the Constitution now sought to be proscribed. But who
will ever bolt the monstrous absurdity, that upwards of 4,000,000
of adult subscribers could have been bought or constrained by
violence 1 Is it not notorious, that at the time this Constitution
was accepted, the revolutionary rigour (whose necessity has been
since acknowledged) had not been yet brought into play against
the enemies of equality, who were free to take part in the pnmary
assemblies and even to demand in them the re-establishment of
royalty j Notwithstanding the manoeuvres and stratagems em
ployed to efface the truth, there remain traces sufficiently distinct,
by which the severe critic may a future day recognise that this
almost unanimous concurrence of the French people proves their
adherence to the insurrection of the 31st May (against the Girond
ists,, and the opposition of the parties it was directed against to

BAEEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 47
The Convention announced the ac- The acceptation
ceptance by the people of the new Con- ?f the Consutu-
. -f . • ; / r „ . .Y . tion of the year
stitution. An extreme confusion prevailed III. by the peo-
in the verification of the votes ; and the P!e is a false-
result of this operation, and of attested
public facts, was, that the voters were very few in num
ber, that a multitude of citizens had been expelled from
the assemblies, and that the most outrageously eager
acceptors had been those who, having made themselves
notorious for their egoism, had been afterwards accused
of conspiring for the return of royalty. Let us not lose
sight of the distinction (a very real one) of the Egoist
party into conservators and aspirers ; let us call to mind
that the latter had constantly, up to the 9th Thermidor
of the year II., copied and followed in, the footsteps of
the sincere friends of equality, and had thereby drawn
upon themselves the hatred of the counter-revolutionists.
The conventional members, who at that time assumed
the character of patriots, belonged, almost all, to this
latter class.
So far was the hatred of the Revolution Proscription of
carried, that the proscription, which at tionalistZ""
first had fallen only on its disinterested
friends, was destined now to reach the very parties that
had first instigated it, and who were unable, by their
recent crimes, to erase the recollection of their former
appearance of virtue. Respectable people — men of good
family — men of the rich middle class — disdained to sit by
the side of the old Terrorists, who were loaded with the
spoils of the aristocracy. They indiscriminately devoted
to the rage of the enemies of the Revolution all the
Conventionalists, who were accused of having exercised,
or allowed to be exercised, the system of terror ; and
if they admitted any exceptions, it was only in favour of
those that had signalized themselves by their perse
verance in defending the privileges of the " respectable"
classes against the seditious pretensions of the un-
the national will. This will, still manifested for a long time in the
interior, and in the armies (Mignet asserts the same), until the
people, betrayed by its delegates, disappointed in its hopes, and
bereft by assassinations and imprisonments of its most devoted
friends and champions, sunk into confusion and apathy, and at
length ceased to take any interest in public affairs.

48 babeuf's conspiracy.
happy poor, whom they qualified by the opprobrious
term " canaille" (rabble.)
It seems that the execution of the new
enemiSes°ofthe Constitution, and a new legislative body,
Revolution. excited in the enemies of the Revolution
the hope of some participation in power, and in not a
few of them the hope of the return of royalty, with which
they flattered themselves on every occasion, when the su
preme authority deviated from the route of equality, to
lose itself in the tortuous path of egoism — the cause and
effect of all tyrannies. In order to perpetuate the spirit of the
The Pe?p,Je a^e new Constitution, its authors conceived
renewal o/the the design of annually renewing- the le-
Deputies by gislative body, only by thirds,[so as to
tnllds- introduce in the first composition of that
body two-thirds of the members of the Convention,*)to
the choice of the electoral bodies. This measure which
* All the Deputies that remained attached to the political rights,
consecrated by the Constitution of 1793, had been forcibly expelled
by the Convention, or cut off by massacre and arrest.
[In corroboration of what Buonarroti states, and as a proof of
the horrible system of proscription and extermination adopted by
the new Aristocrats against the Democrats after the death of Robes
pierre, hear what Mignet says. After describing the ferocious
proceedings against the Jacobins in Paris, he proceeds, — " In the
departments the reaction was much more violent, for there was no
authority (alluding to the Convention) to interpose and prevent
the carnage with which they were visited. * * * The South
became in a peculiar manner the scene of massacres en masse, and
of individual slaughter. Associations were formed amongst the
Royalists, under the names of Societies of Jesus and Societies of the
Sun, who took a dreadful revenge for the sufferings of their party.
At Lyons, Aix, Terascon, and Marseilles, they butcheredin prison all
those who took any share in the preceding Government. In fact,
all the South became the victims of another tnd of September. At Lyons,
after the massacre of the Revolutionists, the men belonging to the
societies gave chase to the fugitives, and whenever they met one
they immediately, without any other ceremony than the cry of
' Here is a Matavon !' dispatched him, and threw his body into
the Rhone. At Tarascon the victims were cast from the top of a
tower upon a rock adjoining that river," &c. — Radicals of England 1
there is the treatment your friends received in France from the
aristocracy and middlemen ! And these monsters talk of Robes-

babeuf's conspiracy. 49
was dictated by the uneasy anticipations of certain cri
minal legislators,- — this measure, conceived in the design
of making the people slaves for ever, was, in the extreme,
flattering to the passions of the Conventionalists. Those
whose vanity is pleased by the exercise of power — those
that dreaded prosecutions for the malversations and
apostacies by which they had disgraced themselves —
those that had a horror of equality — and those whom
even the bare thought of democratic principles alarmed,
these and the like were anxiously eager for its adoption.*
pierre's " Reign of Terror !" At the utmost, not more than 1,200
persons perished by the guillotine in Paris, during the two years of
Robespierre's greatest influence, and even then he was but one in
a Committee of twelve, each of whom was armed with power equal
to his own, and the majority of them more severe against conspi
rators than himself. But what are these 1,200 in two years compared
with the horrible picture you have just contemplated ? And, re
member, the 1,200 put to death by Robespierre (I assume that he
killed them all) were convicted traitors, that sought to devote
France and Frenchmen to everlasting slavery, whereas the thou
sands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands, whom
the aristocracy and middlemen so inhumanly butchered, were the
industrious poor and their friends, who sought nothing beyond a
j ust participation of political rights with the rich. They did not,
like their assassins, demand exclusive rights and privileges for
themselves. They did not demand to devote the rest of the popu
lation to poverty and ii-redeemable slavery. " Give us our just
rights," said they, " and we ask no more." Their doctrine was
" Live and let live" — do unto us as we will do unto you — and for
seeking to put this doctrine in force were they martyred and mur
dered in the manner stated ! Men of England ! when will your
eyes open to the truth 1 Will you not now, at least, ask yourselves
how it is, that, while you have heard so much of Robespierre's
terrorism, and of the massacres of September in Paris, your honest
teachers and instructors have never told you anything of those
other massacres practised against the Democrats, a thousand times
more atrocious, and a thousand million times more unjustifiable'!
Shall I tell you the reason ? Because the Democrat-sufferers were
poor and honest— because the others were rich and " respectable."
Believe me, your oppressors set more value on the life of one of
their Order than on a thousand such lives as yours ; and be assured
it will always continue so until you adopt some terrible means oi
convincing them, that life for life, yours' are as valuable as theirs'.
But more of this in my future works. — Bronterre.
* This measure, suggested by the aristocratic spirit which pre-
D

50 babeuf's conspiracy.
In the Convention itself, the false friends of equality,
who were as odious to the real Republicans as they were
to the Royalists, showed themselves the most ardent
partisans m favour of this scheme of renewal. Adopting
an artifice, of which they made frequent use, they ac
cused of a conspiracy to re-establish monarchy whatever
parties offered any resistance to them ; and, indeed, in
the present case, those parties were, generally speaking,
the same by whom popular institutions had always been
rejected. The fear of playing the game of the Royalists — the
selfishness of greedy place-hunters — and the necessity in
which the sincere friends of equality found themselves to
choose between two factions equally criminal,* exercised
a great influence on public opinion ; hence resulted a
number of suffrages, which, though extremely few
in comparison with the population, and very con
fusedly calculated, were nevertheless sufficient to furnish
the guilty Conventionalists with a pretext for giving the
force of law to their decrees on the renewal, which public
clamour had forced them to submit to the sanction of the
people. dominated in the framing of the Constitution of the Year III., and
by means of which they desired to shut out from the new legis
lative body the old Royalists, as well as the sincere friends of
equality, was not attended with all the success that its authors had
promised themselves from its operation. Deceived in their ex
pectations, and dreading royalty and the people, by turns, they
several times, and from opposite motives, decimated the national
representation, to which, impelled by their hatred of equality, they
dealt (by one of the most execrable crimes on record) a final blow
on the 18th Brumaire of the Year VIII.
* [To circumstances analogous to these have the Whigs of this
country been more than once indebted for a triumph over the
Tories. The bulk of the English people — at least all the useful
and honest classes— abhor both factions ; but, having no means of
returning men of their own stamp — that is to say, honest Radicals
—to Parliament, and when their choice is limited to the two plun
dering factions, then, as the lesser of two evils, they generally
choose Whigs in preference to Tories, just as the French Demo
crats, to whom Buonarroti alludes, preferred the false but pro
fessing Republicans to the avowed and blood-thirsty Royalists.
In either case it was but a choice of evils ; and, in my opinion,
the people made the worst choice on both occasions.— Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 51
From the promulgation of this decree T, , . ,
arose the agitation, troubles, and, at last, equalitHefen'd
the armed revolt of the Sections of Paris,* the guilty Con-
on the 13th Yendemiaire of the year IV. ; ^entionalists.
a day on which the greater part of the Conventionalists
would have perished, had it not been for the generous
devotion of thosef whom but a short time before they had
betrayed, and delivered over to the enemies of liberty.
Their love for their country, threatened as it was with
utter slavery, and the hope of seeing spring out of the
approaching struggle, a state of things favourable to the
cause they cherished, determined a handful of Repub
licans to defend their recent enemies, by combatting on
their side against the numerous army of the Sections.
They reasoned thus. If the Conventionalists, said they,
who have demorahzed the Revolution by calling to their
councils a crowd of corrupt men, shall once declare
themselves the enemies of these men, they will be forced
(for security sake) to join the ranks of the Democrats,
and to give in to our wishes. By this reasoning were
the most resolute and enlightened induced to take arms,
and they were soon joined by others, who were either
excited by the desire of vengeance, or by the hope of
re-investing themselves with authority. Out of this com
bination, whose numbers were augmented by the acces
sion of parties similarly circumstanced to the menaced
* [This armed revolt was of a very different character from the
insurrections in Robespierre's time. The latter, which were
chiefly directed by the ardent friends of the working classes, were
the insurrections of liberty andjustice, against tyranny and oppres
sion. The former, on the other hand, was the rising of the middle
classes of Paris against the Convention, for not carrying the
counter-revolution far enough. The alleged ground was the pro
vision in the conventional decree for retaining two-thirds of that
body in the new legislative assembly. The middle classes op
posed this, not because it was selfish and tyrannical on the part
of the Convention, hut because they wanted to have the choosing
of the whole legislative body to themselves, in which case they
would have made it entirely Royalist. The proscription of the
Democrats by the middle classes, at that epoch, was frightful in the
extreme ; but all these points shall be more fully explained in my
forthcoming " History af the French Revolution." — Bronterre.]
t The friends of equality — the true Democrats.
D2

52 babeuf's conspiracy.
Conventionalists, was formed the armed body which was
designated by the name of the " Battalion of the Pa
triots of 1789."* This denomination is very remark
able ; it demonstrates how much public opinion was
deteriorated since the 9th Thermidor of the year II. ; and
proves the extreme rottenness of the Conventionalists,
who, though scarcely daring to call themselves Repub
licans, implored earnestly the help of the friends of
equality, to whom they basely feared, at the same time,
to incur the suspicion of being reconciled. f
New treason of After the battle of the 13th Vendemi-
the Convention- aire, those whom the love of equality had
alists- led to victory, claimed from the chiefs
of that day's proceedings the fulfilment of the promise
they had made to re-establish the rights of the people.
Their request was in vain. It was easily seen, by the
tone with which the victors recommended an extreme
circumspection, that no dependance could be placed on
engagements that fear alone had induced them to enter
into. * People have vaunted a great deal of the almost perfect una
nimity with which the Revolution of 1789 appeared to have been
brought about. Those that have referred the honour of that event
to public virtue appear to me to have very imperfectly appreciated
the spirit of the Revolution. Figure to yourself the several steps
of a ladder crowded with the sons of Ambition (under whose ac
cumulated weight the mass of the people groans beneath), and each
aspiring to rise to tbe degrees above himself. The nobility placed
at the summit of the ladder, oppressed all the rest. The destruction
of the nobility, therefore, was naturally desired by all ; and, accord
ingly, against it were directed the first movements of the Revolution .
It. was not virtue, then, but the restless jealousy of the interme
diate steps between the nobility and the people that produced this
apparent unanimity. Moreover, the working classes having been
counted as ciphers by the actors of that epoch, the notable patriots
of 1789, were, with very few exceptions, the friends of all abuses,
that of hereditary nobility alone excepted.
t At the moment when the first shots were being fired, the
Committees of Government were going to propose to the Conven
tion to disarm, and plunge again into dungeons the very Repub
licans armed for its defence !
[How like this is to the dirty Whigs transporting the poor
Dorchester labourers, just after their brothers, the working men
of London, had been raising penny subscriptions to present the
authors of the Reform Bill with a piece of plate, in token of their
gratitude. But such things will always happen till the multitude
shall know better how to distinguish their true from their false
friends. — Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 53
Whilst the great majority of the Convention were
seeking false subterfuges to elude the demands of the
friends of equality, those of the latter that were still in
captivity never ceased to solicit their companions, already
free, to take advantage of their victory, to advance the
democratic cause. Uselessly, and worse than uselessly,
said they, shall have so much blood been shed, if we let
slip the present opportunity, when the friends of virtue
are in strength and arms, and when the terrified senators
are indebted to them for their lives. They desired that
it should be imperiouslv demanded of the Convention to
make void the last elections, to abolish the new Constitu
tion, and to establish forthwith the Constitution of 1793.
In conformity with these suggestions they were preparing
to demand the nullification of the elections, and the
petition, already signed, was about being presented,
when the conspiring Deputies of the 9th Thermidor, in
concert with the other traitorous Deputies whom the
national justice had smitten on the 31st of May, dreading
the laws of the people more than royalty, succeeded, by
one trick or another, in sowing division amongst the nu
merous subscribers to the petition, the consequence of
*hich was that the petition was not presented.*
Nevertheless, in consequence of a report of Barras,
vhich unmasked the vast projects of the rebels (Royal-
fits), of whom the Convention itself contained many
accomplices, a Commission of Public Safety was ap
pointed, whose presumed intentions rekindled, for a
moment, hope in the breast of the Republicans ; a hope,
however, that was soon frustrated. They believed, in
fact, that this Commission was about to propose the
nullification of the last elections ; but whether this was
doing too great honour to the Commission, or whether it
was that it suffered itself to be intimidated by the virulent
invectives and diatribes of Thibeaudeau, certain it is that*
* [Do you not here fancy, my friends, that you see Joe Hume
and Joe Parkes, and all the other Whig-Radical humbugs, at
work amongst the poor honest Radicals 1 How many times have
the latter been induced to forego active and vigorous measures
solely in consequence of the meddling and dishonest interference
of these shoyhoys, who appear all the time to be acting in the
most friendly and sympathising spirit 1- -Bronterre.]

54 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
it did no more than propose paltry palliatives, which re
medied nothing ; and the Constitution of the year III.
was almost immediately put in execution by the Con
ventionalists, who, more than ever vowed hatred against
equality, under the names of terror and anarchy.
Liberty of the ln the interval which elapsed between
patriots. the battle of the 13th Vendemiaire, and
the amnesty of the 4th Brumaire following, all the pa
triots that had remained in captivity were hberated. They
owed their liberty, however, not to the triumph of the
popular cause, but to the mean policy of their enemies.
In coming out from their dungeons, where they had
sounded the depth of the public calamities, they menaced
in their hearts the tyrants that had just broken their
chains.
„, . At this epoch, the persevering friends of
Their straying r ' 1 o
from their prin- equality were deeply afflicted at the de-
ciples. pravation, which gliding even into the
opinions of a great number of the Revolutionists, threat
ened the doctrines of democracy with eternal oblivion.
In general, the patriots, of whom the greater number act
more frequently from impulse than reflection, glorified them
selves on the victory of Vendemiaire, counted the nomina
tion of Barras and Carnot amongst the happy events of
the Revolution, and found solace for their long misfor
tunes in the idea of places and favours which they
flattered themselves with obtaining. It seemed as if they
had forgotten the cause they had combatted for, and that,
looking with an eye of indifference on the invasion of the
people's rights which had just been consummated, they
made the safety of the country to consist in the mitigation
of their own calamities.
All the Revolutionists, however, did not participate in
these narrow views; for, if the men just spoken of
thought, or feigned to think, that it was necessary to
trust to time for the reform of the new Constitution, and
to prepare the way for such reform by insinuating
themselves into public offices, there were others who,
alarmed at the stability which the consolidation ot
the new government, together with the abatement ol
the Republican energy (every day becoming less and
less enthusiastic), were about to confer on the principles

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 55
of tyranny, believed it to be the duty of the true friends
of equality to sound the alarm, and to lead the people
once more to the recovery of their rights.
From this division of opinions resulted -n. • j- • ¦
» ^i v. i i- r i i * Their division.
one amongst the Republicans themselves.
That portion of them that had often made the principles
of justice yield to their own particular conveniences,
took the name of the patriots of 1789; the others,
who distinguished themselves by their persevering
defence of democracy, were called the Equals (les
Egaux). After their liberation from prison, the First meetings
patriots, and especially the Equals, anxious of tne Equals.
about the fate of liberty, sought to unite themselves,
and concert plans, to oppose a powerful rampart to the
progress of the new tyranny. They assembled frequently
in the coffee-houses, in the public gardens, and in the
open places ; but, as every thing was conducted there
with extreme and indispensable circumspection, their
general discussions on the state of affairs did not give
rise to any prompt and decisive result that might be
turned to advantage for the common cause.
At the beginning of the month Brumaire of the year
* [A similar division, both as regards opinions and persons, has
been discernible amongst the Radical party in England since the
passing of the Reform Bill. The disciples of Robert Owen, and
those who patronize and support the principles promulgated by
me in Mr. Hetherington's publications, correspond with the French
Egaux or Equals ; whilst the numerous and motley host of sham
and shallow soi-disant Radicals, who reject our principles, or are
incapable of appreciating them (including knaves and fools of
every sort), may be likened to the patriots of 1789. This latter
party, who are Radicals but in name, and whom only the accidents
of birth and fortune have prevented from being Whigs, Tories, or
any thing else, they might profit by, may be thus known. They
attach themselves to names and persons instead of to principles ;
they confine their views almost exclusively to political changes :
and, while they incessantly rail against the mere consequences of
our social system, they take care to say nothing against the system
itself, thereby showing that it is not with the principle of evil they
quarrel, hut with the accident that has made it ,an evil to them
selves personally.— Bronterre.]

56 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
IV , Babeuf,* Darthe, Buonarroti, Laurgen de Doimel,
and Fontenelle, exerted themselves to form a centre of
direction, at which the scattered patriots might rally, to the
end of afterwards acting uniformly to the profit of the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BABEUF.
* Gracchus Babeuf was born at-.St. Quentin, Department of
l'Aine. He was a man of sense, well-informed, and indefatigable ;
his mind was penetrating and just ; he wrote with clearness, fire,
and eloquence.
The French Revolution found Babeuf young, devoted to study,
sober, detesting tyranny, and meditating on the means of rescuing
his unhappy fellow-citizens from oppression ; he experienced at
an early period the necessity of devoting himself for the public
liberty. In the beginning of the Revolution Babeuf wrote in the
spirit of a freeman against the feudal regime, and against the sys
tem of finance, which drew down upon him persecution, and an
order of arrest, from the effects of which he was saved by the
active solicitations of Marat. At a later period he obtained the
post of Secretary to a District Administration, where his discourses
and popular writings made him numerous enemies, who had in
fluence enough to get him prosecuted and condemned as a forger of
writings or signatures (faussaire) ; but the judgment against him
was annulled by the Convention, which solemnly declared its
injustice. Subsequently, Babeuf got employment in the Bureaux
of the Commune of Paris, where he formed a friendly connexion
with a great number of courageous Republicans.
After the disastrous events of the 9th Thermidor, Babeuf ap
plauded for a moment the indulgence exercised towards the enemies
of the Revolution ; his error did not last long — and he, who had
adopted the Gracchi for the models of his conduct, was not slow
in perceiving that nothing could less resemble these illustrious
Romans than the Post-Thermidorian rulers — the murderers of
Robespierre. Greater than if he had never erred, Babeuf owned
his mistake, reclaimed for the people its ravished rights, unmasked
the parties by whom it had been deceived, and carried his zeal for
the democracy so far, that the aristocrats then in possession of the
Government lost no time in sending him to prison. From tho
Gaol of Plessis, where he was at first detained, they transferred
him to that of Arras. It was then he got acquainted with Germain
of Narbonne, Captain of Hussars, of whom frequent mention will
be made in the course of this work, and with several Republicans
of the Department of Pas-de-Calais. Amongst these, Babeuf was
an indefatigable preacher of popular institutions ; he inflamed
: their hatred against the new tyrannies ; he familiarised them with
the idea of a great revolution in property, and disposed them to
form a sort of plebeian Vendue, for the purpose of obtaining by
force, what it appeared to him no longer possible to obtain by any
other means.
Upon his return to the Plessis, after the insurrection of Prairial
of the Year III., Babeuf was entirely occupied with the like pro
jects which his frequent conversations with certain citizens, then
imprisoned with him, aided him to mature. It was then he
made the acquaintance of Bedon, whose real name I regret not

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 57
common cause. In the meetings which took place to this
effect, several propositions were made ; some wished that
all the sincere patriots should be incorporated into a sort
of masonic association, to act in obedience to certain
directors they proposed to appoint over it ; others sug-
beiag able to give — of Bedon, who, having passed his whole life in
examining the causes of public evils, had seized, better than any
body else, the spirit of Robespierre's profound views. ^-
It will be seen in the sequel of this work how the ideas of
Babeuf expanded, and how large a shaTe he had in the conspiracy
to which his name is attached. This extraordinnry man, gifted
witheminenttalents, the inflexible friend of justice, was constantly *-
disinterested and poor ; a good husband, a tender father ; he was
beloved by his family. The courage with which, in the presence
of his judges, he appalled the powerful monsters that demanded
his head, and the loity serenity with which he faced the glorious
death inflicted on him by the aristocracy, heighten the lustre of
his virtues, and shed a s.inctity on the patriotic labours of this_>
illustrious martyr of equality.
[Notwithstanding this glowing eulogium — an eulogium so justly
earned by the individual, and to which no human being can be
entitled that holds other principles than those of Babeuf — there
are not wanting villains to vilify and blacken the character of this
" noble of nature." I remember reading in one aristocratic account
of him, that he was an "insane monster;" and in another, that during
his provincial secretaryship " he exhibited all the little tricks of
a low pettifogger!" My readers will, doubtless, stare at these
representations, so utterly at variance with facts, and with the
whole history of Babeufs life ; but, be it observed, that the authors
of such calumnies would have given the same character of Jesus
Christ himself, had his Gospel appeared for the first time at the
period to which this history refers. In truth, the doctrines of
Babeuf are as nearly as possible (making allowance for different
epochs and circumstances) the same that our Saviour preached
18 centuries ago; while the murderers of Babeuf present just as
close a resemblance to the parties that crucified our Saviour. The
aristocracy andusurers of France called Babeuf a " bloody fanatic,"
and his doctrines " anarchical, wild, and desolating." The same
character was given of our Saviour by the Jews and money
changers that murdered him, and his religion was denounced by
the aristocratic Tacitus as a " destructive superstition (eiitiabilis
superstitio).—[$>ee his Annals, book xv., cap. 44.] Mrs. Wool-
stonecraft, who knew Babeuf well, declared that she " had never
seen any person who possessed greater abilities, or equal strength
of character." And this is the " fanatic " and " low pettifogger"
of the aristocrats— but wait a little, my friends, and you will
see what smash I shall make of the lying histories of these
impostors. — Bronterbe.1 D 5

58 babeuf's conspiracy.
gested that they might at any moment constitute them
selves into a committee of insurrection, by an act signed
individually by each of the members. As in these
assemblies there was neither uniformity of views, nor the
confidence necessary to obtain a useful result, they could
come to no mutual understanding, and so they soon
ceased to meet.
They did not, however, renounce the two-fold project
of rallying the patriots, and of overthrowing tyranny.
These were imperious wants for every true Republican.
Accordingly, they assembled again a short time after,
for the purpose of establishing a new popular society.
At the first sitting, which was held at the house of
Bouin, there were present, amongst others — Darthe,*
* BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DARTHE.
Augustin Alexander Darfhi, of Saint Paul, Department of Pas-
de-Calais, was well-informed, just, bold, constant, active, inflexible,
and very expert in unravelling and interesting in his views the
passions of the parties he had to deal with. He was a law student
at Paris when the Revolution broke out, and he precipitated him
self into it, with the zeal of a man who defends truth to desperation,
when once its light shines upon him. In 1789 Darthe took part
in the deliverance of the French Guards, in the taking of the Bastile
(where he contracted an incurable infirmity), and at the siege of the
Castle of Vincennes. He was afterwards member of the Directory
of his Department, and in this capacity rendered to the Republic,
under very critical circumstances, services so important, that he
was rewarded for them by a decree of " bien meritt de la patrie" (he
deserved well of his country). Having been subsequently pro
moted to the office of public accuser before the Revolutionary
Tribunals of Arras and Cambrai, to the severity of which was
owing, in great part, the preservation of this frontier, he approved
himself a true Republican, an incorruptible magistrate, as well as
an intrepid warrior. The Thermidorian proscription, which he
could not escape, found him in honourable poverty. At an early
period, Darthe penetrated, and seconded with all his power, the
benevolent designs of Robespierre ; accordingly, as Robespierre
had shown the greatest esteem for Darthe, the enemies of equality
vowed implacable vengeance against him.
To great intelligence, and a lively passion for true justice,
Darthe united austere manners and a compassionate heart. When
on his trial, before the High Court of Vendome, he perseveringly
refused to acknowledge its jurisdiction, or to offer any defence —
when condemned to death, his last sighs were for his country.
[With the exceptions of Robespierre, Marat, and a few others,
there is none whose character has suffered more from calumny
than Darthe. If we are to believe the aristocratic accounts of
him, his table-companion was the executioner, and his wit and
conversation all turned upon the guillotine. One caricature of him

babeuf's conspiracy. 59
Germain, Buonarroti, Massart, Fontenelle, Lihppi, Laur-
jen de Doimel, Bertrand,* Tismiot, Chintrard, Cha-
says, that when on his mission as public accuser in the North, he
would not suffer the cart of basket-work, in which the bodies
were brought from the guillotine to be lined, as usual, with tin,
because " he wished that its track of blood should be seen in the streets."
Another account accuses him of having sacrificed " whole families
to his private malice — of brutal licentiousness — of fraud and rapacity ;"
and so forth through the whole circle of crime. Such are the
horrid inventions by which democracy, or (which is the same)
common justice has been made so revolting and unpopular with
the world. — Bronterre.]
* Bertrand, of Lyons, was Mayor of that Commune before the
revolt which took place there on the 29th of May, 1793, and again
after its forced submission to the laws of the Convention. Ber
trand had exhausted an opulent fortune in favour of the Revolu
tion ; he was just, loyal (not to the king), generous, full of courage
and amenity ; his manners were simple, and candour was depicted
on his countenance.
The rich Lyonese were reserving for Bertrand the same fate to
which they had devoted his friend Charlier ; their efforts were
vain, for the people responding aloud, by sobs and benedictions to
the interruptions with which Bertrand reminded them of his
sacrifices, and of the services he had rendered the unfortunate,
the judges about to immolate him were, on several resumptions of
the trial, constrained to adjourn the sentence, and to send him
back to his dungeon, where he remained during the long siege of
his Commune. On the very day of the 9th Thermidor, the order
was issued to seize and transmit to Paris Bertrand, and several '
other Lyonese Democrats. So strongly were their purity and firm
ness resented, that their chains were not struck off till after the
13th Vendemiaire of the Year IV.
Bertrand — this ardent lover of mankind, of his country, and of
liberty — an austere defender of equality, a popular and incor
ruptible magistrate, a good son, an excellent friend — this pattern
of every virtue was assassinated by the military Commission of
the Temple, in consequence of the massacre at the Camp of
Crenelle. He was asleep when he was ordered out to execution.
This good and virtuous citizen, who had been arrested, without
arms, and at a distance from the Camp of Crenelle, would have
been (in conformity with the conclusions of the reporter) con
demned only to incarceration or deportation, had not the executive
Directory hastened to apprise the commission, that it desired his
death. At sight of the certificate of appeal, presented by Bertrand and
his companions in martyrdom, the execution of their sentences of
death was suspended by General Foissac la Tour, who, having
referred it to the Directory, received an immediate order to take
no notice of it. A few months afterwards the tribunal of Cassation
(to which Bertrand appealed) annulled all the sentences which
had condemned them.
[So much for the justice of Barras, the Director, who was one of
Robespierre's principal assassins. — Bronterre.]

60 babeuf's conspiracy.
pelle, Lussorilon, Lacombe, Reuf, Ulagenoc, Bouin, and
Sombod. This interview was very affecting. Our souls
re-opened to a hope, which so many misfortunes had
almost extinguished. We all swore to remain in union,
and to make equality triumph.
The attention of this meeting was directed to the
question of ascertaining, whether the estabhshment of
several societies in the different arondissements of Paris
would not be preferable to that of a single one. After a
long discussion the decision was adjourned to a more
numerous sitting, which it was agreed to hold in a place
less exposed to the surveillance of the police ; it took
place in a small closet, situated in the middle of the
ancient abbey of Saint Genevieve.
Spirit of the Whilst the wreck of the democratic
new Govern- party was endeavouring to reorganize it-
ment- self as a united body, the Government
established by the Constitution of the year III., was
laying the foundations of the political system which it
constantly adhered to afterwards. The spirit of the Con
ventional party — that profited by the disasters of the
9th Thermidor — routed the Democrats in Prairial, and
triumphed by their aid over the Royalists in Vendemiaire,
passed effectually into the men composing the executive
Directory ; the reduction of that spirit may be thus de
fined — " to conserve and to acquire riches and power,
to repress the Royalists and Influentials on the one
hand, and the Friends of Equality on the other."
From the moment of their installation, the five chiefs
of the Executive applied themselves to confront the old
Royalists with the Democrats, and the Democrats with
the old Royalists, so as to fight them one against the
other, according as either party obtaining the ascendant,
became the greater object of alarm to them.
It favours the At the time the patriots were project-
re-unions of the ing to form themselves into a society, the
patriots. Government appeared favourable to their
views. Being still under a necessity to intimidate the
rebels of Vendemiaire, and wishing to force the rich, by
the bugbear of terror, to concur in the measures by
which it counted upon restoring the shattered finances
of the Republic, it secretly instructed its agents to

babeuf's conspiracy. 61
encourage the opening of patriotic unions, although deter
mined to arrest the progress of them, the moment they
should attempt to revive the principles of Robespierre's
time. This cheat did not escape the sagacity Spirit of the
of the closely-observing patriots, who, ^riot^ a,nd of
having witnessed, on the 13th Vende
miaire, the fruitless squandering of the people's blood,
were confirmed in the opinion that nothing of substantial
use could emanate from the new Government.
The democratic party was not numerous, and the
mass of the patriots feeble, and scarcely recovered from
their fright, were disposed to suffer themselves to be
again intimidated at the least appearance of a new per
secution. As to the people of Paris, deceived in its
hopes, deluded by calumny, and by the underhand plots
of Royalism, and of the foreign despots, it had aban
doned the Democrats, and languished in profound in
difference. There were some that even accused the
Revolution of the evils, without number, that pressed
them down.
The citizens, assembled in the garden Prudence of the
of St. Genevieve, felt the dangers to funds' of
which the duplicity of the Government Equality.
exposed those that, by a premature zeal, might dare to
make a direct attack on the authority that had usurped
the rights of the nation. " Above all," said they, " it is
necessary to rectify the ideas of many of the patriots,
regain for them the esteem of the people, and restore to
the latter the sentiment of its rights and of its force,
almost lost to it since Robespierre's death. Meanwhile,
it is necessary to cover ourselves with the Constitution,
and even with the protection of the Government, up to
the moment when we shall be strong enough to attack
and destroy it." Thus reasoned the patriots ; and it
was then resolved to establish the new society on these
principles. The necessity of conserving and centralizing
its spirit made them discard the proposition for dividing
it into several sections, which, though better adapted to
elude the vigilance of the police, did, nevertheless, pre
sent the inconvenience of being more exposed to diverge
from the plan of the institution, and to become the sport

62 babeuf's conspiracy.
of intriguers, and of the enemies of the Republic. To
this unique society they proposed to invite none but men
without reproach, and capable of being easily and fami
liarly inspired with the prudence adopted by its founders.
Foundation of The society was immediately opened in
the society of the ancient refectory of the nuns of St.
the Pantheon. Genevieve, of which the patriotic Cardi-
naux, who rented a part of their convent, granted the
gratuitous use ; and whenever this apartment was conse
crated to meetings of another kind, the society was held in
a vast vault of the same edifice (probably a crypt), where
the dim paleness of the torch-light, the hollow echoes of
their voices, and the constrained position of the persons
present, either standing or seated on the ground, im
pressed on them the greatness and the perils of their
enterprize, as well as of the courage and prudence it
required. The proximity of this place to the Pantheon
caused the new society to be called by the name of this
temple. The assembly once opened, its numbers rapidly
increased by the accession of a great number of patriots
invited to attend, or induced there by the attractions of
the institution. With these, other individuals insinuated
themselves, who, servilely attached to the members of the
Government, reduced all the duties of the friends of
liberty to the single one of lending their support to the
Government against the Royalists.*
T . ,. At first the society was occupied with
Its organization. . . . , ^ , r
its organization ; but such was the exces
sive prudence or weakness of the greater part of its
members, that there were, in this regard, great obstacles
to overcome. Fearing to offer any resemblance to the
old societies,! their prudence went beyond even the
? [It will be remembered that Buonarroti had just said, that
none hut men without reproach were to be invited to this society.
By reproach, then, must be understood moral, not political, delin
quency ; otherwise, these parasites of the Directorial tyranny
could not be admitted. The object of the latter was two-fold— to
canvass support for their masters, who much needed it against
the Royalists, and to act as spies on the proceedings, in case they
assumed too honest or dangerous a character ! The conspirators
understood them well, but it was their policy just now to connive
at their baseness. — Bronterre.]
t Jacobins, Cordeliers, &c. &c.

babeuf s conspiracy. 62
shackles forged by the new Constitution against the
right of assembling. To have a body of rules — a pre
sident, secretaries, minutes (proces-verbaux), a form of
admission — this, they taught, was to copy too closely the
Jacobin model, and to expose their flanks to a new per
secution. They came at length to a mutual understand
ing, and the soeietyJhadaj:ode_oiJaws, whic^^dmitting
neither registers, nor minutes, nor any other, condition
of admission, than the presentation by two members,
rendered all order next to impossible, and threw open
the society to the entry of a multitude of doubtful per
sons, who often perverted its spirit, and excited in it
dangerous debates and contests. An orator, and a vice-
orator, held the places of president and secretary ; and
to meet the necessary expenses of the institution, there
were no other funds than the spontaneous contributions
of the members.
In a short time the society of the Pan- Divergences of _
theon counted more than two thousand istes.Panthe°n"
members. In the actual circumstances
of the time, and with the regulations agreed to, it was
neither prudent nor possible to exclude from it every
individual that had not merited being ranked amongst
the Equals. It was unavoidable to admit a great number
of patriots who had been impeached for some errors, and
particularly of that section of them which pretended to
restore the democracy, by getting possession of the pub-
he functions and offices.
It was easy to perceive the existence of these different
elements in the bosom of the society. The Equals made
themselves remarkable for their zeal to enlighten the
people, and to revive a respect for the doctrines of
equality; whilst the patriots of 1789 might be recog
nized by their eagerness to exercise on the Government
an influence favourable to their own repose and interests.
The alternating preponderance of these two parties pro
duced contrary movements in the working of the society. '
The patriots of 1789 frequently determined the assembly
to solicit places for the citizens they regarded ; the otjier
party laid before it the afflicting picture of public opinion
depraved, and of the errors by which the enemies of
liberty were labouring to lead the people astray ; pointed

64 babeuf's conspiracy. ¦ •¦
out to it the triumph of equality as the only object worthy
of its wishes, and encouraged measures calculated to re
animate the almost extinguished courage of the multi
tude, and to rekindle that sacred enthusiasm, to which it
owed so many brilliant victories achieved over every
species of tyranny.
Communication A commission was charged to propose
of the society a plan of operations, and a prompt and
with the people. easy m0(je 0f communication with the
people. Placards, entitled " The Truth to the People
by the Patriots of 1789," soon attracted public atten
tion to national affairs, without any direct attack on the
authorities, whose vengeance it would have been impru
dent .to provoke just then. The first effect of these
papers was to bring to the new society a great number
of the working classes, who, as their hopes revived, were
eager to repeat everywhere the numerous truths they
heard proclaimed by us.*
As the end which the founders of the
w society proposed to themselves, was to pro
cure speedy succours and consolation for the multitude,
and thereby to merit its confidence, to the end of sub
sequently employing its physical force for the recovery of
its rights, the commission recommended that petitions
should be presented for the execution of two laws, which
the counter-revolutionary policy of the Government had
all but buried in oblivion — that which promised a thou
sand millions' worth of national property to the defend
ers of the country, and that which had been decreed in
the Year II. for the extinction of mendicity .f
Proscription of Whilst they were warily engaged at the
Babeuf. Pantheon in restoring to vigour the prin
ciples of democracy, whilst other societies were forming
in the same spirit at several points in Paris, and
* I annex to the justificatory, or confirmatory documents given
at the end of the work (under No. 2), one of those placarded ap
peals which describes in full the state of the French Republic
after the 9th Thermidor, and the cautious prudence that the Equals
were forced to observe in the Society of the Pantheon.
t These two important and highly just and popular laws were
decreed by the Convention in Robespierre's time, and owing
chiefly to the labours and influence of that illustrious reformer.—
Bronterre.

babeuf s conspiracy. 65
aristocratic writers were sounding the alarm against the
new attempts of the " Terrorists," as they called them,
Babeuf resolutely unveiled, in his journal' (the Tribune
of the People), the crimes of the rulers of the Republic,
demonstrated the goodness and the legitimacy of the
Constitution of 1793, and did not hesitate to sigualize
private or individual property as the principal source of
all the calamities that oppress and afflict society. Such
extraordinary courage soon drew down upon him a fresh
proscription, which he was only able to elude by seeking
an obscure asylum in the houses of certain Democrats.*
At the same time a secret Committee r m tt
was formed at the house of Amar, in the the house of
street Clery, to prepare an insurrection Amar.
against the new despotism, which, more and more, every
day, was crushing the French people under its iron arm.
The earlier members of the Committee were Amar,
Darthe, Buonarroti, Massart, and Germain, who were
subsequently joined by Bedon, Soigne, Felix Le-
pelletier, Clement, and Marchand. The intense grief
with which they were penetrated, carried the friends of
liberty, as it were, by inspiration, to combine their forces
against the hateful yoke that weighed down the people.
As to the enlightened Democrats, they believed it an
imperious duty.
The members of the Committee, assem- j f
bled at the house of Amar, were unani- the Government
mous in considering the Government es- of the Year III.
* Babeuf was, on that occasion, indebted for his liberty to the
Forts de la Halle. A government officer having presented himself
at his house in the street Faubourg, Honored, No. 29, with an order
to arrest him, on account of the incentives to insurrection con
tained in his writings, Babeuf, after a long struggle, broke loose
and effected his escape. The officer pursued him with cries of
" Stop the robber !" Twice the Forts de la Halle seized him, and
twice they let him go again, on hearing the name of the writer who
defended the rights of the people. [No mean proof, this, of his
great popularity, and of the true feelings and opinions of the then
Parisian population.] Eriddy and Darthe afterwards gave him an
asylum in the ancient Convent of the Assumption.
[The Halle is a fish and vegetable market place in Paris, similar
to Billingsgate. It occupies the space included between the streets
La Tonnellerie, Marche-aux-Poires, and Piliers-Potiers d'Etain,
in the 4th arondissernent — it lies in the north east of the city. —
Bronterre.]

66 babeuf's conspiracy
tablished by the Constitution of the Year III. as illegi
timate in its origin, oppressive in its spirit, and tyran
nical in its intentions. They were all of opinion, that the
salvation of the Republic and of Liberty imperiously
commanded its destruction.
Before occupying themselves with the means of effect
ing this, it was the wish of all that each member might
be not only convinced of the justice of the enterprise,
but that he should also have formed a clear and complete
idea of the political system he would substitute for the
one whose annihilation was contemplated.* They sin
cerely desired the happiness of the people ; and with this
impression, they felt that it was contrary to its (the
people's) true interests to rashly expose it to convulsions,
the only result of which might be to build up a new
tyranny on the ruins of the existing one, to create new
privileges, and to favour new amoitions. The Committee
was, at first, a sort of political Lyceum, or school,- in
which, after unravelling the causes of the calamities that
afflict nations, they at length arrived at the knowledge
of determining with precision the principles of social
order the best calculated, in their belief, to deliver man
kind from them, as well as to prevent their recurrence.
Never, said they, has the mass of the individual pro-
people attained the degree of instruction perty the cause
and independence necessary for the exer- of slaTerv-
cise of those political rights that are essential to its
preservation and its happiness. The wisest nations of
antiquity had slaves, which placed them incessantly in
peril ; and if we except the Peruvians, the Paraguayans,
and some small tribes scarcely known, civil society has
never been able to make disappear from its bosom, that
multitude of persons who are soured and rendered mise-
serable by the idea of goods of which they are destitute,
and of which they see or fancy others to be in possession.
Everywhere does the multitude crouch under the rod of
a despot, or under that of privileged castes, or classes.
* A stronger proof could not be offered of their integrity and
good intentions. Men that would merely knock down, without
having clear and just ideas of the edifice they would substitute,
are not Reformers, but mere speculators in anarchy. They are
either robbers or the tools of robbers.— Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy, 67
And then turning their regards to the French nation,
they beheld it, as it were, bound hand and foot by the
conquering or upstart Egoists, in bondage to the corpo
ration of the Old Rich and the New Rich.
As to the cause of these disorders, they discovered it
in the mequalitv of fortunes and conditions, and (as the
last step of the analysis) in the system of individual pro
perty, by which the craftiest, least conscientious, and
luckiest, have despoiled, and incessantly despoil the
multitude ; who., bound down to wearisome and painful
labours, ill-fed, ill-clothed, and badly lodged, deprived
of enjoyments they see superfluously multiplied for others,
and undermined by misery, by ignorance, by envy, and
by despair, both in their physical and moral strength,
behold in society only a deadly enemy, and lose even
the possibility of having a country.
The history of the Revolution came opportunely .to the
aid of the Committee's reflections. In that history they
beheld the class that was rich before, and that which
became rich, assiduously occupied in insuring pre
eminence for themselves. They saw in it, that ambitious
pretensions went always hand in hand with hatred of
work and the desire of riches ; that the people's attach
ment to their rights of citizenship had become less and
less ardent, in proportion as the institutions favourable to
equality had been assaulted and overborne ; and that
the whole system of aristocratic policy consisted in im
poverishing, dividing, disgusting, terrifying, and com
pressing the laborious classes, whose cries and remon
strances they uniformly represent as the most active
causes of the decay of society. ; From these observations
the Committee were necessarily led to conclude, that the
ever-quickening cause of the slavery of nations lies en
tirely in the inequality of condition, and that,\so long as
such inequality remains, the exercise of political rights
will be little more than illusory for that unhappy class
which our false civilization debases below human nature.
To destroy this inequality, then, is the work of a
virtuous legislator.^ Behold the principle which re
sulted from the Committee's meditations. But how was
it to be accomplished? This was the subject of a fresh
inquiry. Amar, who had seen the National Convention

j8 babeuf s conspiracy.
provide for the urgent wants of the country by the tax
on saleable commodities, by the revolutionary contribu
tions, and by requisitions on the rich, extolled this
mode of taking away (these are his own words) the
superfluity that encumbers the overflowing channels of
wealth, to restore it to those that want the necessaries.
Others proposed, in turns, the division of lands, sump
tuary laws, and the Progressive Impost.
Vices of agra- Bedon, Darthe, Felix Lepelletier, and
rian and sump- Buonarroti observed, that those legislators
tuary laws. wn0; jn order to diminish the ravages of
inequality, had had recourse to the division of lands
and to sumptuary laws, at the same time that they
abandoned the distribution of work, and of its produce
(wealth) to cupidity, and competition, had opposed
to an impetuous torrent only very feeble ramparts, in
cessantly undermined, and always overthrown by the
action of avarice and of pride, to which the maintenance
of the right of property does constantly furnish a thou
sand means of surmounting all obstacles. The requisi
tions, said they, the taxes, the revolutionary contributions,
were properly resorted to, to meet the urgent wants of
the moment, and to defeat the malevolence of the rich ;
but they could not form part of the habitual order of
society, without assailing its existence : for, besides that
it would be impossible to assess them, without risking
the taking away of necessaries, they would involve the
grave and irreparable inconvenience of drying up the
sources of reproduction, by divesting proprietors, to whom
they would leave the burden of cultivation, of the neces
sary incentive of enjoyment, and they would prove in
sufficient and ineffectual against the silent accumulation
of money — an inevitable result of commerce, towards
which would be naturally turned the speculations of
cupidity.* * The Progressive Impost would be an effectual means of par
celling out the land, of preventing the accumulation of riches, and
of banishing idleness and luxury, if the exact estimate of fortunes
that it requires did not render the practical application of it ex
tremely difficult. The value of real or immoveable property is
easily enough ascertained, but how can you determine the amount
or value of money, or credit-capitals, which it is so easy to withdraw
from the public sight 1 At best, this manner of assessing taxes is

babeuf's conspiracy. 69
By the law of nature, which makes E ,-. f ,
production depend on labour, this labour bours and of
is evidentlv for each citizen an essential enjoyment the
condition of the social compact ; and as th^societyf
each, in entering into society carries
with him an equal stake and contribution (the totality
of his strength and means), it follows that the burdens,
the productions, and the advantages, ought to be
equally divided. They made it, moreover, he remarked,
that the end of society is to effectually prevent natural
inequalities ; that were it even true that inequality of
enjoyments had hastened the progress of the really
useful arts, it ought to cease now, seeing that any new
progress can add nothing to the real happiness of all ;
only a preparatory steps towards the evil, but would not go to the
root. [It may be observed here, that Robespierre, who was the author
of the Progressive Impost, adopted it only as a means to an end ;
and as the best means which the then state of public opinion would
sanction, of providing for the wants of the Republic at the ex
pense of the rich and destructive classes. There were at that
time, one million, four hundred thousand Frenchmen in arms, and
notwithstanding the immense consumption required by so extra
ordinary a state, and the general interruption of industry necessarily
occasioned by it, the people and the armies were well fed and
abundantly provided for. What a contrast to the state of France
two years after ! After the murder of Robespierre, and under the
Directory, France, instead of a workshop of war, became a work
shop of industry, wealth was abundantly produced, and the har
vest was most abundant; yet, never did the French people expe
rience direr distress than then ! The workpeople of Paris died by
hundreds of famine, and there was hardly a man or woman of them
whose effects were not all pawned at the Mont de Viitt. How is
this apparent paradox to be accounted for ? With infinite ease, my
friends. Under Robespierre the workpeople had power. The
Government was in the hands of their friends, and the Conven
tional Decrees were, in a greater or less decree, all favourable to
them ; but when the Usurers and Aristocrats accomplished the
destruction of Robespierre, the Government, as a matter of course
(for this was the object sought), passed into the hands of the
Bourgeoisie, or middle classes. Hoarding and amassing became
then the order of the day, and, as a consequence, the people re
lapsed once more into the old state of misery. The labouring
population of a country must be always miserable under a Govern
ment of the middle classes.— Bronterre.]

70 babeuf s conspiracy.
and that the equality suggested by their own simple
good sense to the first founders of societies, is still more
strongly recommended to us by the increase of our know
ledge and by our everyday experience of the evils that
follow in the train of inequality. Those who reasoned
thus, saw in the community of goods and of labours —
that is to say, in the equal distribution of burdens and
enjoyments — the veritable object and perfection of the
social state — the only public order adequate to banish
oppression for ever, by rendering the ravages of ambition
and avarice impossible, and to guarantee to each and
every citizen the greatest possible happiness. Bedon
had composed a work in which he demonstrated the
injustice of the right of property, and developed the long
series of evils that are its necessary consequences.
Amar appeared smitten, as it were, by a beam of
light. At the first enunciation of this system he became
its enthusiastic defender ; and no longer thinking of
aught else than to justify and propagate its principles,
he carried in a short time the heat of his zeal so far as
to become its impetuous champion in public. It became
an admitted principle in the Committee that the laws of
liberty and equality could never receive a useful and
durable application without a radical reform in the pro
perty system ; it was agreed that the patriots would only
appear in the eyes of the multitude a set of restless and
selfish intriguers, so long as they would not openly avow
themselves supporters of a system suited to guarantee
palpably the same advantages to every member of society.
Robespierre the In developing these ideas, mention was
friend of this often made of the philosophers, and espe-
equahty. daily of the men of the Revolution, who
had recognised their justice. Of this class was Robes
pierre and his companions in martyrdom, who, in the
eyes of those whose doctrine I have just expounded, had
evidently aspired to the equal distribution of burdens
and enjoyments. In respect of Robespierre, Amar, who
on the 9th Thermidor had been one of his most violent
persecutors, acknowledged his wrong, testified his re
pentance, and only sought to excuse his fault by alleging
his complete ignorance of the benevolent views of him
whom he calumniated and immolated.

babeuf's conspiracy. 71
But the ways of truth and justice are Obstacles to its
with difficulty perceived by the multitude, establishment.
who cannot be peruaded by the same motives that de
termine minds accustomed to reflect. The philosophers,
that desired to effect the happiness of their enslaved,
unhappy, and ignorant fellow-citizens, have been gene
rally rewarded by death upon the vulgar accusation of
ambition, hypocritically urged against them by the
crafty and eternal enemies of equality. *
The Committee did not conceal from itself how dis
astrous to the common cause and to good morals had
been the catastrophe of the 9th Thermidor, and the
tragical events that were its consequences. It was aware,
that since that period numbers of citizens had abandoned
themselves to the most shameful rapacity; nor was it
ignorant that the very pettiest proprietors had re-attached
themselves with cupidity to their possessions (which, a
* It is difficult to convince the multitude of the danger of inn6-
vations, without the aid of that experience which can happen only
after they have been acted upon. Accordingly, have the wisest
legislators of antiquity been obliged to have recourse to religious
fictions, by w hich they astonished the multitude whom they could
not persuade. This expedient, which, in any case is dangerous,
cannot be employed at all with success amongst a people who
(whether fortunately or unfortunately, I cannot say) cultivate
science and philosophy. With these you can accomplish nothing,
unless by the attractions of pleasure, or by force.
[The author explains here (unknown to himself) the cause of
the failure of the St. Simonian religion in France. The multitude
were too enlightened to believe in it as a revelation, but not suffi
ciently enlightened to perceive that it was only a new device de
signed to rescue humanity from " property" and its endless horrors.
The adage, " a little learning is a dangerous thing," proved equally
fatal to St. Simonianism, and those whom it was intended to benefit.
With more knowledge, the producers in France would have em
braced the political economy of St. Simon, while they left the
revelation part of his religion to sleep quietly in the grave with its
eccentric but benevolent author. — Bronterre.]
If Christianity had not been disfigured by impostors who deceive
in order to subjugate and plunder, it might have proved of vast
service to all legislators friendly to their fellow-men. The pure
and benevolest doctrine of Jesus, presented, as an emanation of
natural religion, from which it differs not, might become the basis
of a sage reform, and the source of really social morals. Such
morals are irreconcileable with materialism, which influence people
to consult in their conduct only their own direct interest, and to
make a mockery of all virtue.

72 babeuf's conspiracy.
little before, they were ready to renounce), from a con
viction that all 'views of general interest had vanished
from legislation, abandoned, as it henceforward was, to
the most unbridled egoism. It, consequently, felt how
difficult it was to substitute immediately, and by a single
effort, for the legislation of property, the incomparably
> milder and more equitable one of the equality of goods
and labour. Nothing was further, however, from this
tionofl793was equality than the social order established
a preparatory by the Code of the Year III., the COn-
step to equality. m.matiori 0f which was about to take
away from the people the exercise of their natural rights.
Nevertheless, it appeared to the Committee that in order
to lead the people to declare itself upon the constant
object of its secret wishes, which the want of enlighten
ment and proper direction had always heretofore pre
vented it from attaining, it was necessary to begin
with restoring to it its assemblies, its discussions, its de
liberations, and the sentiment of its force. The Committee
saw in the Constitution of 1793 this preparatory step
towards a greater good, and that circumstance, joined
to the motives which made the members justly respect it
as the sovereign will of the French people, freely and
solemnly set forth, determined them to adopt that Con
stitution as the rallying point of the patriots and the
people. T f . Nor did they pretend blindness to the faults
of this Constitution — they discovered them
principally in the articles of the Declaration of Rights,
which, in defining the right of property, consecrate it in
all its appalling latitude. Nevertheless, they acknow
ledged that never before had a work of this kind ap
proached so near to perfection ; and they applauded its
provisions as opening a vast field for future ameliora
tions.* * [If Buonarroti and the Committee had weighed more nicely
the terms of the Declaration of Rights, they would have found it
more in unison with their ideas than they appear to have thought.
When Robespierre proposes to secure to every citizen whatever pro
perty is guaranteed to him by the law, let it be born in mind that he at
the same time leaves the law open to unlimited change at the will of

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 73
On the other hand, they considered that to this Consti
tution would rally not only the Equals, but also the De
mocrats, who did not go so far, and a large portion of
the people; that all further changes would become
easier as soon as the spirit of equality had resumed its
energy ; and, besides, that it would be hazarding too
great a danger to expose themselves to divergences of
opinion, at a moment when it was indispensable to unite
all the popular forces, in order to attack the common
enemy with success.
After a long and serious examination, Rallying points
the Committee reduced the duties of the R^kW
people to these two cardinal points : —
1. To re-establish the Constitution of 1793, agreed to
by the people, as a fundamental law which frankly con
secrates the exercise of its power — a prompt means of
arriving at equality — a rallying point necessary to over
throw the existing authority, convicted of tyranny. 2. To
prepare, in the distance, for the adoption of a veritable
equality, by demonstrating it to the people as the only
effectual means of drying up for ever all the sources of
public calamity.
The Revolution contemplated being to Authority to be
commence by the destruction of the Con- the Govern/"
stitution of the Year III., the Committee mentofthe
naturally occupied itself with the means ^ear ***•
the sovereign people ; so that if the guarantees of property (esta
blished by law) were at any time found mischievous or inconve
nient, they might be remedied by the same authority that controlled
the law itself. The more Robespierre's Declaration is considered
the clearer will appear its perfect adaptation to any or to every
social order that the most enlarged and comprehensive benevolence
can contemplate. Robert Owen does not go one jot farther than
Robespierre's Declaration would sanction. Without the people's
consent we have no right to thrust systems upon them (be they
ever so perfect in our view), but with their consent all systems
should be equally accessible to them. Now, this is the gTand
point conceded by Robespierre's Declaration, and in that, there
fore, consists its surpassing excellence. It is true, the Declaration
agreed to by the Convention differs in some respects from Robes
pierre's, but still it is sufficiently comprehensive to admit of un
limited change i» the institution of property. The Conventional
Declaration will be found amongst the justificatory documents at
the end of this work. — Bronterre.]

74 babeuf's conspiracy.
of operation, and with the provisional Government, to
be suddenly substituted for the one they sought to over
throw. The necessities of the case, and the very success
of the enterprize, evidently required that there should be
an interval between the fall of the aristocratic Govern
ment and the definitive establishment of the popular
Constitution. It was only by the people's force they
proposed attacking the usurped authority ; and this
force they counted on putting in action, only by the
ascendancy of truth, by the love of liberty, and by the
people's hatred of oppression.
Before I resume (in the course of this work) the sub
ject of the form of provisional authority, by which the
conspirators proposed to themselves, to suddenly replace
the Constitutional Order of the Year III., I will here
briefly expound the several opinions that divided the
Committee. One party proposed to recal the remnant of the
National Convention, which they regarded as still ex
isting by right ; another party wished to confide the
Provisional Government of the Republic to a body
named on the spot by the people of Paris, in insurrec
tion ; others, again, were inclined to invest for a limited
period a single individual, under the title of dictator or
regulator, with the supreme power and charge of settling
the Republic. By-and-bye will be seen the reasons by
which each supported his opinion. Suffice it for the
present to state, that the opinion in favour of nominating
the Provisional Government, by the insurgents of Paris,
was preferred to the recal of the Convention proposed
by Amar, and to the Dictatorship suggested by Bedon.
Whilst the Committee was ripening its projects, the
Society of the Pantheon, and the writings of Babeuf,
served it, as levers, for the contemplated movement. To
the end of directing their action, it whispered the orators
of the Society (which they calculated on making the
nucleus of the insurrection), to repress with prudence all
premature explosions, without subduing the Society's
energy ; and it encouraged Babeuf to redouble his zeal
against the oppressors, and to summon the people without
reservation to the full and complete conquest of its rights.
They were on the point of forming themselves into

babeuf s conspiracy. 75
sections, to prepare the insurrection, to lay the basis of
the provisional legislation which was to follow it, and to
reduce to form the definitive institutions of equality,
when the demon of distrust interposed to damp the
labours of the Committee, which, in consequence, soon
dissolved itself. Amar became the object Dissolution of
of general distrust ; he was equally odious the Committee.
to many of the friends of equality, as to the partisans of
the aristocracy. The latter reproached him with the
part he had taken in the persecutions against the
Girondists, and the severity he had displayed against
the enemies of the Repubhc ; the former accused him of
having been one of the most violent proscribers of the vic
tims of the 9th Thermidor, towards whom, it was alleged,
he had exercised revolting traits of cruelty — they called
him vain, imprudent, intriguing, and revengeful. But
he had been able to gain the confidence of Darthe and
of Massart, and it was owing to them that the other
members of the Committee associated with him. Though
induced, however, to act with Amar, by their ardent
desire to serve the cause of the people, and by the
opinion they had of the sincerity of the zeal he mani
fested, they were soon estranged from him by bitter
recollections, by the very eagerness with which he had
declared himself for the system of equality, and even by
the unjust fear of being betrayed by him.
Heron, who had been one of the principal agents of
the Committee of General Security, in the Convention,
had, in that capacity, conceived against Amar an im
placable hatred ; though sick and dying, hardly had he
learned the fact of the Republicans placing trust in him,
than he hastens to send for Felix Lepelletier, conjures
him in the name of the country to warn his comrades
against him, and charges him to paint Amar to them
under the most frightful colours. The injunction of
Heron having been acted upon, the Committee, which,
from motives of prudence, had just transferred its sittings
to the street Neuve Egalite, was immediately dissolved.*
* Amar had made some pecuniary sacrifices for the democratic
conspiracy, towards the success of which he never ceased to con
tribute, up to the instant when he was implicated in the proceed
ings instituted against its author.
E2

76 babeuf's conspiracy.
Other re-unions There was hardly a true Republican at
kind!6 8ame this ePoch that was not a conspirator, or
ready to become one, so intensely did
they all feel the necessity of uniting, and concerting to
gether the overthrow of tyranny. Thus, no sooner was
the Committee just spoken of dissolved, than there were
formed other unions of the same kind, in several parts
of Paris. In these were observed Darthe, Buonarroti,
Massart, Bouin, Eriddy, Antonelle, Germain, De
Naumbet, Chintrard, Ready, Tismiot, Dufour, and
Chapelle. These new associations had but a brief
existence, partly owing to the surveillance of the police,
and partly to a secret influence which tended to draw
to another centre the efforts of the Democrats. It was
in these assemblies that the project was developed of
distributing all the patriots into small obscure clubs,
chosen delegates from which were to form district so
cieties, subject to a central committee, which was to
have been composed of a small number of tried Demo
crats, charged with imparting to the whole an uniform
impulse.
Th democratic At the Pantheon it was found extreme-
spirit bursts ly difficult to restrain the impetuous
forth at the bursts of the Society, now become very
 ""'"'' numerous-, against the constitutional ty
ranny of the Year III. The animated discussions to
which the reading of the journals belonging to the dif
ferent factions gave rise, and the still more exciting ones
occasioned by the proposition to demand the execution
of the law, which promised to the defenders of the
country a thousand millions' worth of national property,
as also of another law which authorized the grant of
honourable succours to poor citizens, revived in the
society the old vigour of the Democrats, and made
known to the Government the most devoted and most
eloquent friends of popular principles.
,,.„ ,. Thouerh it was admitted, amongst the
Difficult posi- _ . b . , ' , . » ,
tionofthe ora- Fantheomsts, that a prudent dissimula
tors of this so- tion was a necessary precaution to render
less difficult the accomplishment of their
ends, they could not prevent bold harangues from cir
culating amongst the members, and occasionally even

babeuf s conspiracy. 77
bursting forth from the tribune of the Society, some
times through an effect of zeal, and sometimes in con
sequence of a criminal intrigue to provoke the destruction
of this useful institution. Besides, it was impossible to
inspire the people with energy without speaking to it of
its interests and rights, and the necessity of allowing
some latitude to the discussions, combined with that
degree of circumspection which was essential to steal a
march on tyranny, placed the orators of the Pantheon
in a very embarassing position, both as regarded the
public interests, and as respected its confidence in the
Society — a confidence which it was indispensable to
maintain. Whilst the Society was rousing the EeviTai of de.
attention of the friends and enemies of mocratic prin-
inequality — whilst its discussions were ciples among
being repeated and commented upon by e peop e'
the patriotic journals — disfigured, abused, and calum
niated by the counter-revolutionary writers — and that
the old Democrats were casting some regards of hope
towards the Pantheon ; the people of Paris were gra
dually emerging from the indifference into which it had
been plunged by a long train of calamities, and there
was formed in all the Departments a great number of
societies, in secret correspondence with that of the
capital, through the interposition of their members ad
mitted into its bosom.
The labours of the Society of the Pan- Labours of the
theon were distributed as follows:— f^ttlon!
Reading of the journals;
Communication of the correspondence of the mem
bers ;
Collections of money and other relief for distressed
patriots ;
Measures to restore the liberty of persons thrown into
irons by the aristocracy.
Afterwards followed discussions on legislation, and on
the proceedings of Government, propositions, and the
examining of addresses, to present to the authorities.
From the lively debates that took place, there were
frequent opportunities of ascertaining the generous sen
timents of the parties that aspired to restore to the

78 babeuf's conspiracy.
people the plenitude of its rights, and the selfish and
narrow views of other parties that only aimed at making
the Society the pedestal of an odious domination.
Amongst the remarkable events that transpired in this
Society, the two following merit particular notice.
Previously to the 9th Thermidor of the
ttttXsof Year II., two laws had laid the ground-
the country of a work of a great reform in the distribution
uWwortW of territorial wealth. By the first, a
national pro- thousand millions' worth of national pro
perty, petty had been promised to the defenders
of the country. By the second, the goods of the ene
mies of the Revolution were allotted to distressed pa
triots.* Almost all the Pantheonists considered the
execution of the first as a mere debt of gratitude ; but
those most devoted to the cause of equality saw in it be
sides, a first step towards arriving at the vigorous execu
tion of the second, and designed to familiarize the
nation with the principle which places in the hand of the
sovereign the right of disposing of all property ; they felt,
moreover, that it was only by discussions of this kind
they could awake in the people that energy which had
enabled it to work such prodigies, and without which
all efforts to establish a reasonable social order would be
vain. Accordingly, the proposition for demanding the effec
tive distribution of the thousand millions was received
with transport, and the address containing the demand
was at first adopted without any modification. The
transmission of it, however, was, at a subsequent sitting,
adjourned sine die, through the influence of certain
agents of the Government, who succeeded in replunging
the majority of the members of the society into that state
of alarm from which they had just scarcely emerged.+
* Conventional decrees of the 8th and 14th VentSse of the
Year II.
t The national domains, appropriated or mortgaged from the
commencement for the extinction of the old national debt, repre
sented for a time by the dividends or annuities on the State, and
more recently represented by the paper-money, known under the
name of assignats, were horribly dilapidated, when, after the 9th
Thermidor, it was permitted to purchase them without public
auction, by simple contract or subscription, and to pay the price
of them in papor which had now scarcely more than a nominal

babeuf's conspiracy. 79
The boldness with which Babeuf at- interest of the
tacked, in his Tribune of the People, the Society for
Constitution in force, and the members Bal)euf-
of the Government, was the cause of the rigorous si
lence for a long time observed respecting him by the
Society of the Pantheon. Those that approved his
opinions were apprehensive of losing- all by precipitation
— the timid ones were afraid to compromise themselves
— the enemies of Babeuf's doctrine had a cautious fear
of giving him importance. At the commencement of
Ventose of the Year IV., the proscription impendings
over Babeuf reached his wife ; she was arrested upon a
charge of having distributed the writings of her husband,
but the real motive of the proceeeding was to ascertain
from her her husband's secret retreat. At the mention
of this excess of cruelty the Pantheon resounded with a
thousand cries of indignation ; the friends of equality
raised their voice in favour of the courageous Babeuf;
value, since the recent examination and report on the state of the
currency. Hence, as well as from the brigandism of the commis
saries for victualling the armies, arose those colossal fortunes, and
that unbridled luxury, which afterwards contributed so powerfully
towards the total ruin of the Republic.
The Pantheonists represented in their address, that if this dis
order continued ever so little longer, there would not remain a
single rood of ground to discharge the debt contracted with the
defenders of the country. Already had Robespierre complained,
in his last discourses, of the partiality shown to the rich rentiers
in detriment to the poor, and especially of the Finance Committee,
for suffering to be squandered the mass of national property re
served for the people.
[Do you, my friends, begin to see why Robespierre was mur
dered? Alas! what a liar is history ! Knaves pretend, and fools
believe, that he perished because he was a tyrant, but the knaves
take precious good care not to inform the fools that his death was
compassed by a band of robbers that had forfeited their lives to
the guillotine by their butcheries and peculations in the provinces,
and who, not satisfied with their previous spoliations, wanted
again to swindle the unfortunate people, that had risked their lives
and abandoned their employments in defence of the country, out
of the thousand millions gua anteed to them by Robespierre's law
of the 8th Ventflse, as well as of the property of convicted conspi
rators, which St. Just's law of the 14th VentSse assigned to the
unfortunate poor and to distressed patriots. But I must not an
ticipate—all these matters shall be more fully and appropriately
shown in my forthcoming Life of Robespierre. — Bronterre.]

80 babeuf's conspiracy.
they succeeded in making the Society interfere by pe
tition for the liberation of his wife, and in having pecu
niary relief afforded her in her prison.
Schism in the The neW entnu3'asm witn which the
Society of the people received those truths, in support
Pantheon. 0f which it had lately shed its blood with
so much glory — the spirit of equality which was spread
ing all over France — this new impulse towards demo
cracy — and, above all, the well-known character of the
leaders of the Pantheon — had unchained against this
Society all the anti-popular writers of Paris, to whom
were joined several orators of the Council of Five Hun
dred. The Government, which originally applauded
its institution, in the design of using it as a bugbear
against the Royalists, were already alarmed at its pro
gress and influence. Accordingly, the secret agents of
tyranny, seconded by the timidity oT weak men, soon
paralysed the energy of the Society, by sowing terror in
its body. At one time they represented a band of Aris
tocrats as ready to assail it with armed force ; at another
they presented to its vision the vengeance of the Govern
ment, exasperated by the alleged boldness of its dis
cussions. As to remedies, however, they proposed none
but acts of submission and protestations of attachment
to the new-established system. Induced by such coun
sels, the Society was made to propose an address to the
Executive Directory,.jn which, after a thousand base
flatteries, it was led to swear fidelity to the Constitntion
of the Year III. The address was vehemently opposed,
but, having been adopted by the majoriry, it became the
ground of an open schism between those that signed it
and the sworn Democrats, who preferred the hazards of
a fresh proscription to so base a perjury. Assienats— Li-
In the course of its labours, the Society berty of the
turned its attention towards the credit of Press— Juries.
assignats, the liberty of the Press, and the formation of
Juries. Such was at that epoeh the rapid depreciation
of assignats, that wages could not at all keep pace with
the rising prices of commodities, which absolutely
doubled in one day. The whole of the working popu
lation, no longer able to obtain the means of subsistence,
and reduced to sell their furniture, tools, and rags of

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 81
clothes, were languishing in extreme misery, or absolutely
dying of inanition. A petition of the Pantheonists di
rected the notice of the legislative body to this appalling
disorder. Another petition refuted the sophisms by which certain
malignant members of the Legislature had called for
restrictions on the liberty of the Press, for the purpose,
as they pretended, of repressing the audacity of the
Democrats, whom the new Aristocrats hypocritically
affected to confound with the Royalists, as though both
these parties had in view the same ends.
The new legislation having excluded from the right of
being enrolled in the registers of Juries for criminal
cases, all who did not pay the electoral qualification,
the consequence was that the poorer classes lost all \
guarantees for impartial justice, and were left com
pletely at the mercy of their natural enemies, the rich.
Hence resulted judicial severity for them, — lenity and
indulgence for fie privileged classes. So dangerous
and glaring an abuse was, of course, denounced by the
Society, to the people, and to the legislative body, but
the latter cunningly remained mute.
Those who, from the outset, had pro- Prudence of the
posed to themselves to make the Society °0Clety-
of the Pantheon a rallying point for the restorers of the
democracy, kept two points constantly in view — to
revive the popular energy, and at the same time to
warily avoid offending the constitutional authorities, up
to the moment when the general rectification of opinion
would permit it to speak out without subterfuge, and
would render vain the efforts of the oppressors in power.
Consequently, they desired to limit themselves to abstract
discussions on the rights of man and of states, without
making any direct application to the tyrants of the day ;
and it was in accordance with this prudence that the
Society discountenanced the inconsiderate, and perhaps
pretended, zeal of those who uttered grave denunciations
against the members of the Executive Directory, and
even sometimes threatened insurrection.
The same motives of prudence made Exclusion of
them refuse the admission into the So- tionalists!n"
ciety of the proscribed Mountain mem-
e 5

82 babeuf's conspiracy.
bers, whom the Government considered, though wrong
fully, as dangerous conspirators. Drouet alone was
admitted.* In the month of Pluvioie of the Year IV., the great
concourse of popular men that presented themselves at
the Pantheon — the good spirit of the small democratic
[ societies, formed in several quarters of Paris — and the
lively interest taken by the people generally in the re
establishing of its rights, apprized the founders of the
Society that their wishes were beginning to be accom
plished, and that the time was come for opening a wider
field to their operations. Up to this period, they had
confined themselves to the work of concentrating and
reanimating the most active elements of the Revolution.
At present they felt that the, time had arrived for exer
cising the same influence upon the people of Paris.
Decadary Seeking to reconcile the indispensable
festivals. publicity of their sittings with the regulations
of the police, and especially with that prudential caution
which circumstances required, they began to spread the
conviction that, as their political doctrine was the in
fallible consequence of the laws of nature, it was as
reasonable as practicable, to present it as the code of the
Divinity — that is to say, as the object of natural religion.
In fact, the practice of a worship which presented the
Supreme Being as the creator, the legislator, and the
protector of equality, offered the immense advantage of
conciliating the class that value Christianity only for the
sake of its morality — those that reject Atheism — and
those that abhor superstition. It was, moreover, founded
on the opinion of philosophers, whom humanity reveres,
and upon arguments impossible to be refuted. It was
capable of becoming, in the hands of reformers, a most
powerful lever for the establishment of democratic insti
tutions ; it was the only means allowed by law of ad
dressing great assemblies of the people. They resolved,
then, to appear in the public temples, under the name of
* Drouet was the person that caused the arrest, at Varennes, of
Louis XVI. In the Convention he always ranged himself under
the banners of the democracy. Made prisoner at the siege of Mau-
beuge, in consequence of his burning courage and patriotism, he
was in the dungeons of Austria during the disastrous occur
rences of the 9th Thermidor, which he vehemently condemned.

babeuf's conspiracy. 83
Deists, preaching, as their sole religion, the morality of
nature. And, as it was expedient to accustom the multitude
to replace the practices of the Catholic Church by other
practices — what the Government itself sought at that
time to accomplish by the introduction of decadary
festivals — they determined upon celebrating these fes
tivals publicly, and for this purpose to demand a spacious
temple from the Executive Directory. The latter, pene
trating the design, and apprehending the consequences
of complying with this demand, refused it, under the
pretext that it was about to occupy itself with the pro
posed celebration. It became then necessary to hold a
clearer language to the Society, and to give a glimpse at
those secret views which it would have been indiscreet to
reveal to it to their full extent. The intention was to
place the Society under the protection of religious forms,
in order to enjoy the publicity and places of worship
guaranteed by the law to the members of all religious
sects. The discussion which took place on this subject
was very animated, and was prolonged during several
sittings. The authors of the project were obliged to
combat the opposition of orators who laboured to prevent
its execution, sometimes by recommending a dutiful
deportment towards the Government, and sometimes by
exhibiting every religious form as the source of a new
superstition. At length all obstacles were surmounted,
and the Society resolved "to devote the decadis* (every
" tenth day) to the public worship of the Divinity, by
" preaching the laws of natural religion." A commis
sion was charged to rent a place of worship, and to pre
pare the catechism and rules of the new religion.
About this epoch the Executive Direc- Hatred of the
tory conceived a horror of the Society of Government
the Pantheon, whose discussions alarmed £>war ds the
the numerous selfish robbers of the capital. <m
The police were accordingly instructed to spy the
* [To those of our readers not conversant with the history of
revolutionary France, it may not be amiss to state, that, after the
formal abolition of the Catholic worship, a Republican calendar
was formed, which substituted every tenth day as a day of rest
for the Christian Sabbath— Bronterre.]

84 babeuf's conspiracy.
propositions and conduct of the Pantheonist orators,
who had not as yet, in their public conduct, furnished
any decent motive of persecution. Nevertheless, their
destruction was vowed, and the authorities only waited
for a pretext to dissolve the Society, which they already
called a den of brigands.
Towards the beginning of Ventose of the
Their zeal. Year Ty ^ ^ pant]ieornsts having recovered
from their former stupor, were, for the greater part,
devoted to the triumph of equality. Instead of inflaming
their zeal, the difficulty was to regulate their impulses
so as to prevent a premature explosion, which would
have proved disastrous. The emissaries, insinuated into
the Society by Government, being despised and abashed,
and no longer capable of deceiving, sunk into vile
informers. Reading of the Tne Pretext s0 industriously sought by
work of Babeuf. the Government was offered by Darthe,
Dissolution of who, wishing to sound the disposition of
the Society, caused some numbers of the
Tribune of the People to be read to it, in which the
persons of the directors, and of certain deputies, were
treated with as little ceremony as their oppressive Con
stitution and tyrannical laws. The reading of these
papers was received with bursts of applause ; but a few
days afterwards* an order was issued by the Directory
to shut up the Pantheon, and was executed by General
Bonaparte in person.f
« The 9th Ventose of the Year IV.
t Bonaparte, who then commanded the army of the interior, was
the real author of this measure. Having unravelled, by the aid of
numerous agents, the secret views of the Pantheonists, he inspired
the Directory with fear of them, and obtained the order for their
dissolution. He was present at its execution, and caused the keys
of the apartment, where the Society held its sittings, to be de
livered to himself in person.
By several traits of this nature, the upstart aristocracy was
enabled to recognize in this Geneial (already celebrated by the re
capture of Toulon from the enemy, and by the proceedings of the
13th Vendemiaire) the man that might one day lend it a solid sup
port against the people ; and it was the knowledge thus had of his
haughty character, and aristocratic opinions, which caused him to
be called from Egypt, before the 18th Brumaire of the Year VIII.,
to the aid of this party, already terrified at the rapidity with which
the democratic spirit was reviving throughout France. Bonaparte
was hoisted to supreme power in consequence of the retrograde

babeuf's conspiracy. 85
Thus, as in all aristocratic governments, Perfidy of the
there was in that of the French Republic Government-
a spirit equally opposed to the authority of an individual,
as to the power of the people. The ardour, however,
with which the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people
had been recently received by the generality of the
nation, and preached by even some of the founders of
march impressed on the Revolution by the events of the 9th
Thermidor — that disastrous epoch, after which the authority,
which governed the skeleton of the Republic, having separated
itself from the working classes, had to maintain an incessant
struggle against the Royalists on the one hand, and the wreck of
the democratic party on the other. It was seen, in fact, to combat
this latter party in Prairial of the Year III., to overthrow the
friends of royalty in Aendemiaire of the Year IV., to proscribe
the Democrats in Floreal and Fructidor of the same year, to pursue
the Royalists in Fructidor of the Year V., and to quash and nullify
the popular elections in Prairial of the Year VI. In the last
months of the Year VII., the popular tempest blowing louder and
fiercer than ever, and the armies of the enemy becoming more
menacing, the usurpers of the national sovereignty felt themselves
pressed between the vengeance of the old regime and the justice
of the people, but too much the enemies of equality to have recourse
to a capitulation, which they might have easily obtained from the
popular party ; they preferred exposing themselves to all the
chances of military despotism, by delivering on the 18th Brumaire
of the Year VIII., the French Republic to the unlimited power of
an imperious soldier, whose ambition and audacity they in vain
ttattered themselves with being able to check.
Thus was it, in consequence of the policy that prevailed on the
9th Thermidor of the Year II., that those who presided over the
destinies of France were led to view the war of invasion as a pow
erful means of absorbing the attention of the nation — of diverting
it from the care of its rights — of exhausting progressively the de
mocratic spirit of the armies — of corrupting the citizens — and of
furnishing aliment to the ambition of the generals. It is difficult
to explain, on any other hypothesis, the conduct observed in Italy
and Switzerland, and, especially, that impolitic and criminal ex
pedition to Egypt.
The consulate and the empire were, then, as much the conse
quences of the war of invasion whence Bonaparte emerged, as of
the politics of the interior ; these two causes have their common
source in the plots of which Robespierre was the victim. Bona
parte might, by the firmness of his character and by the ascendancy
of his military exploits, have been the restorer of French liberty ; *
but, the creature of vulgar ambition, he preferred being its last
worst destroyer — he held in his hands the happiness of Europe,
and he proved its scourge by the systematic oppression he made
her groan under, and by that still more terrible oppression of which
he prepared the elements, and under which were buried, after his
fall, in the name of liberty itself (by the Holy Alliance), so many
nations of this part of the globe. The more we reflect on the
chain of events, the more must we be convinced that the Counter
revolution began on the 9th Thermidor.

86 babeuf's conspiracy.
the new Aristocracy, did not permit the latter party to
make a crime of it, in the Democrats, by painting them
under their true colours. Accordingly, in order to make
them the victims of public hatred, they were obliged to
treat them as disguised Royalists, who aspired to bring
back the nation to kingly government, by the circuitous
route of anarchy, with which they affected to confound
democratic principles. This political fraud may be dis
covered in all the acts of the new usurpation against the
popular party;* the Directorial decree which closed,
together with the Pantheon, several Royalist unions, that
were opened immediately afterwards, is a proof of this ;
to which may be added other more decisive ones, of
which I shall have occasion to speak, when I render an
account of the famous, or infamous, law of the 27th
Germinal. No scruples stand in the way of the wicked when they
want to destroy disagreeable or troublesome adversaries.
It was so in this case.^ The most disinterested friends of
equality were represented to the world as monsters of
rapacity and" ambition, by the very parties that had
spared neither violence nor calumny to retain an au
thority which had turned their recent poverty to opulence.
Similar imputations were lavished in abundance against-
the Pantheonists by the Directory, whom it accused of
having audaciously demanded the Constitution of 1793
and the Dictatorship. As to the latter, the question
was never even mooted ; and though the Constitution of
1793 was dear to the heart of every member of the So
ciety, the greatest caution was observed to prevent any
allusions being made to it at their tribune.
New proscrip- Tnis v'°lent act alarmed all minds—
tion of the Pa- even those least devoted to the cause of
triots. liberty — and was the signal for a new
proscription. A great many patriots were dismissed
from the public offices they filled, the events of the
Revolution were raked up, and an active persecution
* [It is exactly the same sort of cheat that is practised on the
Radicals of this country by O'Connell and the Birmingham
" Council," when they represent what they call " ultra-Radicals"
— that is, honest Radicals— as " playing the game of the Tories."—
Bronterre.]

babeuf s conspiracy. 87
was commenced against the popular writers. Re
publicans of every shade, from the most impassioned
friend of equality to the most moderate patriot — all were
indignant at this criminal attack by the Executive
Directory, and afterwards by the report of the Deputy
Mailhe on the popular societies against the already too
restricted right of assembling, guaranteed by the Con
stitution of the Year III. Tyranny, which in this instance
assumed a more than ordinarily menacing and odious
character, had the effect of producing against it, a com
bination of patriots of all shades, and of making them
unanimously desire its speedy overthrow. The Pan-
theonists, dispersed by violence, re-assembled at first in
the coffee houses kept by Republicans, and afterwards in
the public places when the fine weather returned. Cer
tain writers of the Press inveighed with vehemence
against the Directorial Act ; others, after the example of
Babeuf, seized this opportunity to summon the people
more peremptorily than ever to the recovery of its rights.
Amongst the writings which then circulated in Paris,
there was one remarkable paper, entitled : — " Soldier,
stop and Read," by Felix Lepelletier ;* and " An Ad
dress to the French on Associations of the Citizens,"
of which Antonelle was the anonymous author, f
Babeuf had not ceased to preach in his Tne couraee of
Tribune of the People, the doctrines of Babeuf excites
pure equality, and to accuse of usurpation numerous ene-
the founders of the new Government, as j"-1^ aSalns
well as its actual agents and functionaries.
His austere and uncompromising principles had made him
shoals of enemies, and disposed several parties against
him, including not only those indebted to the supreme
authority for favours received or expected, but those who,
believing it to be a good policy to feign attachment to
the existing authority, in order the more easily to anni
hilate it afterwards, accused him of rashly divulging what
they called the secret of the Democrats.
Their distrust was so outrageous that some of them
* The plans of organization, alluded to here by Buonarroti, are
described more at length in his justificatory documents, the prin
cipal of which will appear at the end of the history.— Bronterre.]
t See justificatory pieces.

88 babeuf's conspiracy.
resolved to destroy this courageous citizen ; they even
tried to excite against him the indignation of the popular
party, by exaggerating his former connexions with the
instigators of the crimes of the 9th Thermidor, and by
maliciously reminding them of his writings against certain
agents of the Revolutionary Government. . Meanwhile,
the decided friends of equality, feeling that comprehensive
political principles, calculated to operate sensibly on the
mass of the people, were the only means of maintaining
and augmenting the popular energy, which the Aristocrats
were labouring to extinguish ; and perceiving what ser
vices the talents and boldness of Babeuf might render to
the public cause, undertook his defence with spirit and
devotion, and by that means favoured the development
of his plans.
„ To the desire of enlightening his fellow-
the project of citizens, Babeuf had long added that of
delivering the actively aiding them to recover their rights.
people. To this end; he had attached to himself
the ardent friends of democracy, and had endeavoured
to ascertain and direct the efforts made by the Democrats
at Amar's house, in the street Papillon, in the Faubourg
Denis, and in every place where they held meetings.
The habitations of Felix Lepelletier, d'Eris, and Crexel,
were successively the asylums in which Babeuf, encou
raged and aided by Antonelle, Buonarroti, Simon Duplay,
Darthe, Eriddy, Germain, Silvain Marechal, and Sombod,
discharged the duties he had imposed on himself, and
ripened his enterprise.
It was not till towards the beginning of Germinal of
the Year IV., that the insurrectional institution of which
I am going to treat, received its existence. There had
been, previously to this epoch, a scheme concocted
amongst Babeuf, Felix Lepelletier, and Silvain Marechal,
which had at first no other object than that of regulating
the subjects and tone of their political works; it seems
certain that Babeuf, who aimed at directing all the de
mocratic movements to a common centre, contributed,
by the influence of his friends, to effect the dissolution of
the Committees whose labours I have detailed, and many
of whose ideas may be recognized in the acts of the new
insurrectional body.

babeuf's conspiracy. , 89
On the few first days of Germinal, Appointment of
Babeuf, Antonelle, Silvain Marechal, and a secret Direc-
Felix Lepelletier, constituted themselves *ory of Public
a secret Directory of Public Safety, and a e y"
conceived the generous resolution of binding to a single
point the scattered threads of the democracy, for the
purpose of directing them towards the re-establishment
of the popular sovereignty.*
To rally, and place at. its immediate Agents and
disposal all the friends of liberty — to tions_
calculate their forces, and to give them an
impulse favourable to instruction and to the general de
liverance, without at the same time exposing either the
conspiracy or its partisans to be compromised by treachery
or indiscretion — these were the first cares of the Direc
tory. To give them effect, a plan of organization f was
resolved, instituting a chief revolutionary agent in each
of the twelve arrondissements of Paris, and intermediary
agents to maintain correspondence and communications
between the Directory and its revolutionary agents. To
this act was added an instruction, in which, after having
explained to these agents the motives and justice of the
enterprise, the Directory traced out to them the route to
be followed in order to guarantee its success. X There
was in fact, however, no other intermediary agent than
Eriddy, whose zeal, activity, address, and discretion,
were constantly above all praise. Though, according to
the established "regulation, this agent should know neither
the members of the Directory nor their operations, yet
the purity of his patriotism, his wisdom, and his fidelity,
on all trying occasions, deservedly secured him their un
bounded confidence. Of this confidence he availed him
self, to determine them to unite to themselves Darthe
and Buonarroti, who in their turn obtained the admission
of Bedon.
Thus, about the 10th Germinal of the Membersofthe
Year IV, there existed a Secret Directory Directory and
of Public Safety, instituted to restore the dh^n°ehtical
people to the exercise of its rights. It
was composed of Antonelle, Babeuf, Bedon, Buonarroti,
* See justificatory pieces.
t Ibid. t Ibid.

90 babeuf's conspiracy.
Darthe, Felix Lepelletier, and Silvain Marechal, and
held its meetings in an apartment occupied by Crezel,
in whose house Babeuf was then a refugee. Amongst
these individuals there was no discordance of opinion on
the subject of the political doctrine discussed at Amar's
house : a perfect unanimity combined them ; they all con
sidered equality of labour and enjoyments as the sole end
worthy of honest citizens, and in that end alone they saw
a legitimate motive for insurrection. Their theories are
so important for the progress of society, for the honour
of the French Revolution, and for a knowledge of the
true designs of the Secret Directory, that I deem it my
duty to transcribe, amongst the justificatory documents of
this work, a paper of extracts containing the essence of
them. This paper, printed by order of the Secret Direc
tory, is entitled, " Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf's
Tribune of the People, proscribed by the Executive
Directory for having declared the truth."*
Final object of Equality without restriction, the greatest
the conspira- possible happiness of all, and the certainty
of never losing it by force or fraud — such
are the benefits the secret directors of public safety sought
to ensure to the French people. Its design was to resume
the great work so fatally interrupted on the 9th Thermidor,
and after the example of the victims of that disastrous
day, to add to the revolution in power and rank, that in
comparably more just and necessary one of property and
intelligence, whose final result should be, an impartial
distribution of riches and knowledge amongst all the
citizens.
The people the And, although the Secret Directory
mtnl of the knew that the union of wisdom and au-
Secret Direc- thority would be for it a good earnest of
tor.y- success, it was too well convinced of the
insufficiency of the best intentioned power, to guarantee
a complete and durable success, without the affection and
t Silvain MarSsohal was the author of the famous manifesto of
the Equals, to which the Secret Directory was unwilling to give
publicity, because it approved neither the expressions,—" Perish
the arts, if need be, provided that real equality may remain with us ,-"
nor that other,—" Away at length with the revolting distinction of
governors and governed." See this manifesto amongst the justifica
tory pieces.

babeuf's conspiracy. 91
concurrence of the people, not to place in the latter its
chief reliance. Without the support of the people, it felt
that all its labours would be fruitless ; therefore, to secure
that, was now its main desideratum.
Before the French Revolution had exhibited to the
world the extraordinary spectacle of several millions of
men proclaiming, and sealing with their blood, those
eternal truths, which, in antecedent times, had been
known but to a few philosophers, the design of putting
the people in movement, by the sole force of these
truths, might have appeared chimerical; but this was
not the case at the epoch when the Secret Directory
was formed. The question, then, was not how to create
a new opinion, but how to concentrate and organize that
which had already existed so short a time before,* and
which calumny and proscription had divided and stifled.
There was a period during the Revolution, when the
well-founded hope of an approaching equality, exercising
a powerful influence on the hearts of the people, at
tached them cordially to the new order of things. But
disappointed in the attempt, they regretted, after the 9th
Thermidor, the sacrifices they had made, and regarding
as an ignis fatuus the happiness once promised them,
began to feel even an aversion towards the Revolution
and its champions. This disposition of popular opinion
furnished the Royalists with occasion to discredit the
Republican system, and the Aristocrats with plaus'ble
grounds for inculcating a horror of insurrections, and an
indifference to politics. Again, proscription had greatly
thinned the ranks of the decided Republicans ; the sur
vivors, dispersed by violence or divided by calumny, no
longer inspired that confidence by the aid of which they
had formerly conducted the people to the conquest of
its rights.
In this state of affairs, the Secret Directory which de
sired to act only for and by the people, naturally felt
that it was necessary, before all things, to enlighten the
deluded — to encourage the weak — to lead the multitude
to explore the true causes of their calamities — to trace out
a uniform plan of conduct for the courageous apostles of
* In Robespierre's time.

92 babeuf's conspiracy.
democracy— and to present to all a single centre of
direction. So far from working in darkness like criminal
conspirators, the Secret Directory expected the success
of its enterprise only from the progress of public reason
and the lustre of truth.
What the Society of the Pantheon had been only able
to rough-hew, the Secret Directory undertook to com
plete. The latter possessed the two-fold advantage over
f the Society, of being less exposed, and of being better
able to mature and pursue its plans. The violent disso
lution of the Society contributed not a little, by the
public discontent consequent upon it, to augment in
the Secret Directory the sentiment of its force.
r^ . , Besides the real equality, which it was
It wishes to es- . . 1 L xi, 1
tablishtheCon- just and necessary to present to trie people
stitution of as the veritable and legitimate end of the
1793. Revolution, it was important to draw its
attention to a form of administration proper to preserve
it. To this intent, the Secret Directory examined, with
more care than had ever been done before, the Constitution
of 1793, which at this epoch was the rallying point of
all the sincere friends of democracy ; and as, at the same
time, it discussed the institutions necessary to establish
social equality, it was the better enabled to unravel that
Constitution's defects, and to discover the supplements
it would require.
Its opinion of iJike the Committee at Amar's house,
this Constitu- our conspirators of the Secret Directory
tlon- discovered the positive vice of this Con
stitution, to be in the Articles of the Declaration of
Rights which concern property. Respecting the Con
stitution, as a whole, they judged that it could not
sufficiently guarantee the people from usurpations by the
k legislative body, and from errors into which it might be
itself drawn. It will be seen, at the close of this work,
by what supplements they proposed to prevent these
dangers. Notwithstanding these blemishes, the Secret
Directory determined to maintain the respect vowed, to
this Constitution by the Republicans, and this, for two
supreme reasons :— 1. The almost unanimous sanction
it had received from the nation; and 2. The right of
the people, consecrated by itself, to deliberate on the

babeuf's conspiracy. 93
laws. It was in this latter provision, especially, that it
saw the distinguishing excellence of the Constitution of
1793, of which all the other parts appeared to it but as
articles of regulation. They agreed, then, to take this
constitution for a rallying point, and to represent its esta
blishment as the means of attaining that.charming equality,
of which they, meanwhile, continued to demonstate the
justice, to demand the practice, and to develope the
fundamental laws. It was not by the aid ^ rutn the ereat
of a handful of factious persons, excited by moving prin-
a thirst of gain, or by a mad fanaticism, ciple of the
that the Secret Directory pretended to rectum lnsur"
overthrow the ruling usurpation ; it de
sired to employ no other moving principle than the force
of truth. The frank and full exposition of the people's
rights, and the crimes of its oppressors, was the sole
means by which it counted on raising the population of
Paris against tyranny, at the moment when public indig
nation would be fiercest and most general; then, but
not till then, would it have hoisted its standard, and
given the signal for insurrection.
Accordingly, its first care was to labour Associations of
to convince the multitude, and to make tipped in Paris.
proselytes. To this end, it spared neither
discourses nor writings; and to circulate them with
more effect, it instituted in Paris a great number of small
associations, mutually unknown to each other, but all
under the direction of the Democrats, who themselves
received their cue and instructions from the twelve revo
lutionary agents. It is worth observing, in the instructions
given to these agents, the precautions by which the Direc
tory of Public Safety endeavoured to guard the Demo
crats from the consequences of imprudence and perfidy.
From the outset, the Revolutionary agents were de
signed to become the levers by which the people of Paris
was to dart upon its tyrants. Meanwhile they formed
associations, directed popular discussions, circulated
writings, and reported to the Secret Directory the pro
gress of opinion, the intrigues of the aristocracy, and the
number, capacity, and energy of the Democrats. Nor
are we to wonder that its measures applied principally
to Paris ; it was in the heart that it was necessarv to

94

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.

smite the aristocracy, and the immense population
of this commune would have easily impressed its move
ment, and communicated its fire to the democratic
elements spread all over the Republic.
Choice of the The choice of revolutionary agents was
twelve revolu- a graver operation. Such an important
tionary agents. fuuctjon COuld De confided only to men
who combined great activity and great inteUigence with
constant love of equality, tried prudence, and the confi
dence of the people ; they were named by the Secret
Directory, according to the votes of a majority, and after
a mature examination of the motives alleged in favour of
each of them by their respective proposers.*
* LIST OF REVOLUTIONARY AGENTS.

ARHONDISSE-

MENS.

SECTIONS.

AGENTS.

PROPOSERS.

1

Tuileries, Piques,
Champs-Elysees, Re-

Romaincolset.
Babeuf.
t
Lepelletier, Butte-des-
Moulins, Mont-Blanc,
Faubourg Mont-Martre.
Denaumbet.
DarthS.
3
Brutus, Contrat-So-
cial, Mail, Poissonniere
Meneissier.
Bedon.
4
Halle-aux-Bleds, Mu
seum, G ardes - Fran-
Bouin.
Buonarroti.
5
Bondy, Bonne-Nou-
velle, Nord, Bon-Con-
Le Himug.
Germain.
6
Gravilliers, Lom
bards, Temple, Amis de
Claude Fiquet.
Germain.
7
Reunion, Homme-
Arm6, Droit de
Paris.
Darthe.
8
Quinze-Vingts, Indi
visibility, Popincourt,
Cazin.
Babeuf.
9
Fid8ite\_ Fraternity,
Adery.
Darthe.
10
Fontaine de Grenelle,
Ouest, Invalides, Unite\
Rerpino,
Bouin.
11
Theatre Francais,
Luxembourg, Pont-
Sombod. <
Babeuf et
Buonarroti.
12
Panth6on, Finisterre,
Jardin des Plantes, Ob-
Moroy.
Jledon,
BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 95
From the moment that the supreme authority had
quitted the paths of justice, its decrees ceased to have
for their support, public opinion and the people's love.
Accordingly, they experienced now as much of coldness
and resistance as they formerly had of ease and rapidity
in their execution. Since the death of Robespierre it
became necessary to substitute the resource of force for
that of popular affection ; it was necessary to intimidate
the multitude, whose just resentment was feared by the
parties that had usurped its sovereignty. After having
surrounded themselves with a crowd of enemies of the
Revolution, whose baseness and bad faith were not slow
in developing themselves, the moderators of the aristo
cratic system perceived that their safety could only re
pose on a prop of bayonets, placed in blind subjection to
their creatures, till at last, under pretence of maintaining
the public tranquillity, they actually transformed the
sanctuary of the national representation, of which the
attachment of the citizens had recently constituted the
sole defence, into a military camp, which menaced their
liberties and their lives.
This army around and within Paris, which in Germinal
and Prairial of the Year III., had aided the enemies of
liberty to establish their empire, was maintained and
augmented by the Constitutional Government ; one might
perceive at its head, ex-nobles, who were prisoners in the
Year II., and generally speaking, men who had given
conspicuous proofs of their hatred of the sovereignty of
the people. The presence of these numerous forces de
voted to tyranny, compared with the state of disarmament
to which the Government had (under the twofold pretext
of disarming the Royalists and the Terrorists) reduced
the people, might possibly discourage the multitude, and
dispose it to dread the least opposition.
Amongst the number of obstacles that might oppose
the success of its enterprize, the Secret Directory ranged
the resistance of the troops, and even the bare contem
plation of such resistance by the people, which might
prove equally fatal as the reality itself. Accordingly
did it apply itself in time to render such obstacle void,
by rekindling in the breasts of the soldiers the love of
democracy — by reminding them of the mighty interests

96 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
for which they had shed their blood, and by insensiblv
weaning them from that servile obedience to their chiefs,
which the tyrants had artfully represented to them as an
imperious duty. It *vas, moreover, by the ascendancy
of truth that the conspirators desired to inflame the army
with hatred of the aristocratic Government, to the end
of inducing it to join its forces to those of the people by
a unanimous burst of patriotism.
To this intent the Secret Directory Military agents.
added successively to the agents of arondissments, mili
tary agents, charged with similar functions as the former,
to be exercised amongst the battalions stationed at Paris
and in the environs. It accorded its confidence
To Fion for the Invalides ;
To Germain for the Legion of Police;
To Sasemy for the detachments cantoned at Fran-
ciade ;
To Vannec for the troops in general ; and
To Georges Grisel for the camp of Grenelle.
The horrid part played by this Grisel in the denoue
ment of the conspiracy, requires that we make known,
to the full extent, the circumstances and motives which
gave him access to the principal defenders of equality.
Besides the civil and military agents already described,
the Secret Directory had instituted superintendants, who
examined their conduct, directed their proceedings, and
communicated fresh vigour to their operations. Darthe
and Germain were charged with this important office.
Both had hitherto rendered most signal services to the
cause of equality ; it was through them that the Direc
tory became more particularly acquainted with what
transpired at the popular assemblies, and to them only
used it to entrust all difficult commissions, in which
they invariably acquitted themselves with a precision
and courage, which only profound conviction of right,
and a complete devotion to the cause, could inspire.
Darthe, indefatigable and intrepid, expert in impart
ing the fire of his own soul to those of his auditors —
skilful to repress the too precipitate bursts of opinion,
and to conciliate its conflicting differences — exerted him
self to encourage and bring together the friends of
equality, and to discover the parties that could best

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 97
promote its cause. With these objects it was that he
frequented the Caft des Bains Chinois (Chinese Baths),
which was the daily resort of several Democrats, and that
he connected himself with Georges Grisel, of Abbeville,
at that time a captain attached to the third battalion of
the thirty-eighth demi-brigade of the line, encamped on
the plain of Grenelle, near Paris.
Grisel, who, like so many others, appears to Grisel.
have seen in the Revolution only a great occasion for per
sonal aggrandizement, sought after and courted the
patriots. By imitating their language, he succeeded in
passing amongst them for an ardent revolutionist ; and
that step gained, he had not much difficulty in cap
tivating the good will of some Democrats, who introduced
him to Darthe, as a person that would prove valuable
to their party. The imprudent eulogies lavished on
Grisel by his introducers, his own conversations, the
ardour with which he volunteered to spread the writings
of the Secret Directory amongst the troops, and editing
himself an insurrectionary pamphlet tending to provoke
insubordination in the army, persuaded the too confident
Darthe of the purity of his intentions, and determined
him to propose him to the Secret Directory, which
needed to have a military agent at the camp of Grenelle.
He was nominated to that office, and the instructions
relative to his mission were delivered to him by Darthe
on the '26th Germinal.
As soon as the agencies it had instituted Democratic
were sufficiently organized, the Secret wntmss-
Directory set immediately to work to circulate such
writings as it thought v/ould undeceive the people. It was
expedient to show the latter that its sovereignty had
been usurped by the existing authority — that the Con
stitution of 179-3 was the only legitimate one — that the
happiness of the whole could result only from the real
equality of all — and that the evils attributed to the
Revolution had happened only in consequence of that
Revolution having been prevented from attaining its '
legitimate end. Every democratic pen was put in con
tribution. Babeuf, in his Tribune of the People, de- <
veloped the spirit of the insurrectional institution, and
Simon Duplay propagated the same doctrines amongst

98 babeuf's conspiracy.
the poor and working classes, by means of a small sheet,
entitled the Enlightener (L'Eclaireur). The Repub
licans directing the Journal des Hommes libres
(Journal of free men), also rendered important services
to the democracy, by the discussions which they had the
boldness to moot on forms of government, and respecting
the grand system of equality, the justice of which they
caused to shine forth, by inserting the victorious replies
of its advocates, in answer to their own objections inten
tionally put forth for the purpose.
One of the first cares of the Secret Directory was, to
mark out, in a positive manner, the rallying points in
Paris where the people in insurrection should assemble.
This it effected by means of the " Analysis of Babeuf's
Doctrine," which was distributed and placarded on the
20th Germinal with immense profusion ; and, though the
Government endeavoured by its agents to tear down the
placards, and intercept the writing from the public eye,
such was the impression it made on all minds, that the
Aristocrats were driven to the desperate subterfuge of
transcribing it into their journals as a master-piece of
extravagance and audacity, while the patriots universally
made it the subject of their conversations and hopes.
On the 23d Germinal appeared " Thoughts on our
two Constitutions ;" on the 24th was published the
letter of " Freeman to his friend Terror;" on the 25th
was circulated the paper entitled, " Do we owe obedience
to the Constitution of 1795 (or Year III) ?" on the
27th was distributed the " Tribunes Address to the
Army ;" on the 29th was spread the " Letter in reply
to M. V. ;" and on the 1st Floreal was put into the
people's hands the " Cry of the French People against
its Oppressors."*
Misery of the The persecution under which the mass of
people. the patriots still groaned, and the ever
growing distress which the working classes experienced,
lent prodigious aid to the operations of the Secret Direc
tory. It was at this period that the progressive deprecia
tion of the assignats inducing the merchants to hoard,
* [Such of these pieces as have not been lost, and are deemed
worthy of insertion in this work, will be found towards the close
of the translation. — Bronterre.]

babeuf s conspiracy. 99
and thereby causing a scarcity of provisions, reduced the
labourers either to go without the necessaries of life or
else part with their furniture, and even their most in
dispensable garments, in order to procure specie, with
which alone commodities could be purchased.*
This frightful distress, joined to the writings of the
Secret Directory, which at once demonstrated its cause
and the radical remedy for it, produced so intense and
general a fermentation, that very soon the discontent
propagated by the secret associations burst forth publicly,
and caused the numerous gatherings that were seen
towards the middle of Germinal of the Year IV. in the
streets, in the open places, and on the bridges of Paris.
Then did the usurpers of the popular sovereignty learn
with certainty that their enemies were re-uniting in mass,
and that the people, while invoking equality and the
democratic constitution, uttered regrets for the victims
immolated to corruption and aristocracy, on the 9th
Thermidor of the Year II., and in Prairial of the Year III.
What was passing in Paris — the opi- p f .,
nions, conversations, and discussions of insurrectionary
the people and the soldiers — all was re- spirit.
gularly transmitted every day to the Secret Directory by
the reports of its agents, and by the verbal communica
tions of inspectors admitted to its presence ; it used also
* This revolting invasion of the fortune of the poor, already too
straightened, resulted from the suppression of the impost on pro
visions, and of tbe requisitions on the rich, two legislative mea
sures, which, before the 9th Thermidor, had precluded the neces
sity of having recourse to too great an issue of assignats ; but
since that epoch the subsistance of the public having been aban
doned to the speculations of proprietors and greedy contractors,
for the most part enemies of popular reforms, the labouring poor
were despoiled of the necessaries of existence, which went to
augment the superfluities and luxury of the opulent.
[It may be observed here, that one of Robespierre's reasons for
guarding against an over issue of assignats was, that the thousand
millions' worth of national property, decreed and promised by the
National Convention to the defenders of the country, might not
be reduced to a nullity by the depreciation of the national money,
in which species of currency he was well aware that the base
Convention would be but too ready to discharge the claim. A
thousand millions of livres in assignats meant something substan
tial in his time. Two years after it meant something very like
nothing at all ! — Bronterre.]
F2

100 babeuf's conspiracy.
to receive information through several Democrats who
had dexterously introduced themselves into the Govern
ment police. It was soon perceived by the Secret
Directory that the effect of its inspirations had surpassed
its expectations, and the urgent necessity was felt of con
centrating all the means by which it counted upon second
ing, directing, and utilitizing the popular commotion, of
which the precursory symptoms were observed by all.
Labours of the The conspirators assembled almost every
Secret Direc- evening in the asylum of Babeuf, with
tory. whom constantly remained deposited the
principal papers and seal of the conspiracy; this seal, by
which the revolutionary agents recognised the orders of
the Directory, bore the words Public Safety around a
level surface, probably typical of the ultimate end of the
conspiracy. During its sittings the Directory examined —
The reports of its agents and draughts of replies ;
The writings to be printed ;
Propositions touching the plan of the insurrection, the
legislative dispositions that should follow it, and, finally,
the institutions and organization of the New Republic.
All the decisions, which the Secret Directory referred
to the plurality of votes, were regularly booked, and
served as bases for the correspondence and preparatory
labours distributed amongst the conspirators. There
was nothing signed. Babeuf, whom proscription obliged
to live in concealment, was almost the only person that
drew up the letters and instructions, of which the neces
sary dispatches were executed by a secretary, and con
veyed by Eriddy to the revolutionary agents.
Authority to be After deciding that it should direct the
substituted for action of the people against the existing
theexisting Government, and towards the establish-
authonty. ment Qf ^ Constitution of 1793^ the
Secret Directory had to resolve another question, which
circumstances rendered a thorny one. It was to deter
mine by what form of authority the people should replace
that whose destruction was contemplated ?
^) They were convinced that it was neither possible nor
without danger to summon the primary assemblies im
mediately, to name a legislative body and a government

babeuf's conspiracy. 101
conformable to the Constitution of 1793. In the first
place, it was evident that an interval of some time should
elapse between the insurrection and the installation of the
new constitutional authority ; and it was not less sensibly
felt that it would be the maddest imprudence to leave
the nation for an instant without a director or guide.
Other considerations induced the Secret Directory to
think that this interval of time should be longer than
what would be strictly required by the elections and
the arrival of the new Deputies. These considerations i
deserve to be developed.
To change the form of public adminis- „
... ,., , ' , , , JN ecessity of an
tration was not the sole end proposed to authority ante-
themselves by the conspirators. They rior to the Con-
desired also — what was by far the most st'tutloniU
important branch of their mission — to
procure useful and durable laws for France. And though
the Secret Directory was not ignorant that the mode in
which the law is emitted and executed may exercise
some influence on the institutions to be established, his
tory, and the experience of the French Revolution, had
forewarned it that the certain effect of inequality of con
dition is to divide the citizens, to create opposing interests,
to foment hostile passions, and to subject the multitude
(whom it renders ignorant, credulous, and the victims of
excessive labour) to a small number of informed and
crafty men, who, abusing the preference acquired by
their address, apply themselves afterwards only to pre
serve and strengthen, in the distribution of goods and
advantages, the social order that exclusively favours
themselves. > Hence the Directory concluded, that a j
people, so strangely elongated from the natural order
of things, was but poorly qualified to make a useful
choice, and had need of an extraordinary means' to
replace it in a condition in which it would be possible
for it to exercise effectually, and not in mere fiction, the j
plenitude of its sovereignty.
From this train of reflection arose the project for re
placing the existing Government by a revolutionary and
provisional authority, constituted in such a manner as to
withdraw the people for ever from the influence of the
natural enemies of equality, and to restore to it the unity

102 babeuf's conspiracy.
of will necessary for the adoption of Republican institu-
! tions. What shall this authority be ? Behold a delicate
question that was very scrupulously examined by the
Secret Directory. The three propositions formerly agi
tated at Amar's house were reproduced for discussion ;
the first was foi recalling the Mountain, or supposed-
v Radical part of the Convention ; the second, for creating
* a Dictatorship ; the third, for establishing a new body,
v charged and empowered to consummate the Revolution
for the happiness of the people.'
Recal of the Amar had proposed in the first Com-
Convention. mittee to recal the National Convention ;
that body, said he, which could not be replaced, but by
an authority willed by the people, having been deposed,
m virtue of a constitution and laws contrary to its
sovereign will, is still the only legitimate authority.
Again, continued Amar, the legitimacy of its (the Con
vention's) decrees depended upon the freedom of the
Deputies, guaranteed by the established forms for pro
secuting those of its members against whom any grave
accusations might be urged ; but certain members of the
Convention (Mountainists) were arrested, banished, or
despoiled of their political rights, without process of
? trial or judgment, in Germinal and Prairial of the Year
III. Accordingly, the acts of the Convention, posterior
to these violences, are null and void ; the establishment
* The experience of the French Revolution, and more particu
larly the troubles and fluctuations of the National Convention,
Fliave, as appears to me, sufficiently demonstrated tliat<a people
l whose opinions have been formed under a regime of inequality and
of despotism, is little calculated, at the commencement of a rege
nerating Revolution, to distinguish wisely (by its suffrages) the
Umen most capable to direct and consummate it "with success. This
difficult task can belong only to certain wise and courageous citi
zens, w;ho, strongly impregnated with the love of country, and of
humanity, have long before fathomed the sources of public calamity
—have disenthralled themselves from the common prejudices anil
vices of their age— have shot in advance of contemporary intel
lects, and who, despising money and vulgar greatness, have placed
their happiness in rendering themselves immortal by ensuring the
triumph of Equality. Perhaps, therefore, in the beginning'of a
Revolution, it is of less consequence, even as regards (and for the
sake ot) the real popular sovereignty itself, to ousy ourselves in
collecting the suffrages of a nation, than to make the supreme
authority fall by the least arbitrary means possible, into hands that
are wisely and vigorously revolutionary.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 103
of the Constitution of the Year III., ought to be con
sidered as if it had never happened ; and, consequently,
they are still the veritable delegates of the people, who
have not participated in these abuses of power, or who
have been the victims of theni.
In conformitv with this reasoning-, Amar „, .
, . • , . ., ,?'. ,. Objections.
proposed to recal to the exercise of the di
recting power, the members of the National Convention
that had been by itself declared ineligible, and those who,
having been excluded from the legislative body, had not
participated in the usurpation.
There were too many and serious charges, however,
against these Conventionahsts to admit the adoption of
Ainar's proposition. A great number of them were re
proached with the part they had taken in the crimes of
the 9th Thermidor ; with the proscription of the Demo
crats under the names of " anarchists," " exclusives,"
'• terrorists." &c. &c. ; the breaking up of the popular
societies — the return into the Convention of the seventy-
three Girondists, and the setting at liberty of all the Aris
tocrats — the weakness with which they had suffered
several of their colleagues to be massacred — the silence
they observed on the proposition for changing the Con
stitution — their great thirs t for power — the riches acquired
by some of them and, in general, with an extreme
pusillanimity in defence of the people's rights.* Could
persons impressed with the necessity of confiding the
destiny of the country only to men of the greatest wisdom
and courage, decide upon recalling to supreme power
those who in the exercise of it had merited such grave
reproaches ? It was ruled by the Secret Directory, that
arguments of so much force ought to prevail over the
doubtful advantage promised by an apparent legitimacy
(in favour of the Conventionalists), by the aid of which
it was hoped that resentments mi^ht be mitigated and
resistences overcome. The Directory, moreover, con
sidered that, relying mainly for the success of its projects
on the influenee of the Democrats throughout the whole
* Though the Secret Directory believed itself instituted to
refuse confidence to many of these Conventionalists, it neverthe
less paid sereral of them a well-merited tribute of esteem and
respect.

104 babeuf's conspiracy.
Republic, who, upon all hypotheses, would second the
impulse given by those of Paris, it was prudent to throw
subtleties aside, and to give a preference to the plan
which offered the greatest security against the errors and
weaknesses of men clothed with power.
Provisional au- The recal of the Conventionalists thus
thority to be rejected, the Secret Directory canvassed
iWgents^f tlie Proposition for committing to the
Paris. nomination of the insurgents of Paris, the
provisional authority, to which it would be unavoidably
necessary to confide the government of the nation. In
fact, considering the physical impossibility of collecting
at once the suffrages of all the French, it was the only
means of rendering to the sovereignty of the people all
the homage compatible with circumstances. To this
advantage was joined that of a greater probability of a
good choice being made, seeing that the men to make
it were the same whose devotion to the principles of the
new Revolution would have been attested by the courage
with which they were about to assume the defence of it.
T1 ¦ „ , It was foreseen that the crafty enemies
1 his system « ,. .. -> .
was in harmony oi equality would attempt to excite the
with the sove- inhabitants of the departments against
Peopit0f the what they would not have failed to call
" the usurping encroachments of the
brigands of Paris on the rights of the sovereign people."
The Secret Directory, who wished to do nothing but
what was just, examined this objection — behold how
they refuted it.
" When tyranny exists, it is the right and bounden
" duty of every citizen to labour to destroy it. It being
" impossible, however, that all the citizens of a vast
" Republic can repair to the seat of the Authority
" sought to be overthrown, it necessarily devolves on
" those living nearest to, and about it, to take arms
" first; and as it is important that a new authority should
" immediately succeed the old, it belongs to the insur-
" gents to provide that authority. Besides, the right
" of overthrowing tyrannic power being, by the very
" nature of things, consigned to that section of the
" people which lives in its immediate neighbourhood, to
" the same section is delegated, for the some reason,

babeuf's conspiracy. 105
" the right — which no other section can exercise — of
" replacing it by a provisional authority, as conform-
" able, as actual circumstances may allow, to the prin-
" ciples of national sovereignty."
The next question Mas, to decide what provisional
form should be proposed to the people of Paris in insur
rection. Upon this pcint there was great diversity of
opinion. Some of the members of the Directory Mere
for the dictatorship of an individual ; the rest preferred
a new body, composed of a small number of tried De- '
mocrats. This latter opinion prevailed.
Bedon and Darthe, who proposed the
dictatorship, attached to this word the PJf™ orsh'P re"
idea of an extraordinary authority, con
fided to an individual, to be charged with the double
function of proposing to the people a plan of legisla
tion simple, and suited to ensure to it equality, and
the real exercise of its sovereignty ; and to dictate
provisionally the preparatory measures necessary to
dispose the nation to receive it. According to them,
it being impossible to achieve so bold and important a
task unless by the aid of a perfect unity of thought and
action, it should be conceived and executed by a single
head. In support of their opinion, they appealed to the
example of ancient states, and called to mind the dis
astrous consequences of plurality, of which they had so
many recent proofs in the divisions of the Committee of
Public Safety. As to the dangers of abuse to be appre
hended from such a magistracy, it appeared to them that
they might be easily avoided by well ascertaining the virtue
of the citizen to be clothed with such power — by the clear
and legal exposition of the end to be attained by it —
and by imposing limits beforehand to its duration.
By this system the task of the Secret Directory was
reduced to these points : to trace out in a few articles
the object of the reform sought; to fix a limited time to
the new magistracy; to discover the most virtuous
citizen of the Republic ; and to procure the adoption of
his plan by the Parisians in insurrection.* The Secret
* To what can we reasonably attribute the loss of the democracy
and of liberty in France, if it be not to the diversity of views, to
f 5

106 babeuf's conspiracy.
Directory, however, judged differently of it. Not that
it distrusted the soundness of the motives alleged in
favour of the dictatorship, but the difficulty of making
a good choice — the fear of abuse — the apparent resem
blance of this magistracy to royalty — and, above all, the
general prejudice against it, which was thought insur
mountable, induced it to prefer a body of individuals,
but not numerous, to whom might be entrusted the
same powers, without running the same hazards, and
without having so many obstacles to overcome.
The result of this grave deliberation
ing V^n" De"- was, that after the destruction of tyranny,
mocrat from the people of Paris should be engaged to
each Depart- create a National Assembly, clothed with
ment to be pro- . t c r>
posed to the supreme power, and composed of a De-
people of Paris mocrat from each department ;* and that,
in insurrection. meanwhi,e; the Secret Directory should
scrupulously search after, and scrutinize the Democrats
to be proposed ; and, the Revolution achieved, that it
should continue its labours, and keep watch over the
conduct of the new assembly.
Whilst the conspirators were thus regulating the
major points, they did not neglect the minor ones. They
closely observed every disposition of the people, however
trifling in importance. They lost sight of no means for
ensuring victory on the day of insurrection, which might
possibly prove a day of combat also. In truth, they had
every reason to expect that the army would abandon
itself to the popular impulse ; but it would, nevertheless,
be imprudent in the extreme not to take into account
the influence which its aristocratic officers might be able
to exercise over soldiers little informed, and habituated
to blind obedience.

the opposition of interests, to the want of virtue, of unity, and of
perseverance in the National Convention 1 In my opinion, it is
not in order to preserve, but to establish, equality amongst the
people of a corrupt state, that a strong and irresistible authority is
needed. It may be reasonably presumed, that if in the Year II.,
or the Year III., the French had the wisdom to invest a man of
Robespierre's stamp with a Dictatorship such as Bedon and Darfhi
proposed, the Revolution would have attained its veritable end.
* The French Republic was then divided into 97 departments.

babeuf's conspiracy. 107
At the same time that it redoubled its Tlie Secret Di-
efforts to draw over the soldiers of the rectory consi-
Government to the cause of the people, ders on *lie
the Secret Directory sought to render the dering the peo-
Democrats more than a match for them, pie stronger
in the event of then coming- to blows. Its than ** army-
design was to suddenly create a popular army, and to
this end it collected information touching the number,
valour, and capacity of the Democrats — the forces of the
enemy, and the places where the people might be able
to provide themselves with arms and ammunition. It
procured lodgings in Paris for the Republicans, whom it
invited from all parts of France, to reinforce the friends
of liberty, and carefully noted the depots of subsistence
(provision warehouses), in order that on the grand day
of their redemption, the people might not be constrained
by hunger to abandon the field of battle, as had hap
pened before, in Prairial of the Year III.
Amongst the patriots of the departments Republicans of
the Lyonese had most particularly fixed Lyons.
the attention of the Secret Directory. There were se
veral of them in Paris that had merited the confidence
of Robespierre, and those that remained at Lyons had
exhibited such a character that the Directory was war
ranted in expecting the best services at their hands.
On the 20th Germinal of the Year IV., Great fermenta-
a violent agitation manifested itself tion in Pans-
amongst the people of Paris, of which the criminal factions
laboured to take advantage, concurrently with the De
mocrats. From that period there existed two Two factions in
principal factions in the Government, the Govern-
The men who, under the banners of ment-
equality, had craftily got possession of riches and power,
and whom I have named " false friends of equality,"
or " upstart Egoists," formed that which acknowledged
for its chief's Barras, Tallien, Legendre, Freron, Merlin '
de Thionville, Rewbell, &c. &c. The other was com
posed of the friends of the old Order of Inequality, whom
I have comprised under the denomination of " Conserv
ative Egoists " or old Aristocrats. This latter rallied ^
the remnant of the Gironde, the authors of the new Con- "

108 babeuf's conspiracy.
stitution, and even the Royalists, who promised them
selves some advantages from the character which this
faction was impressing on opinion, and generally from
whatever tended to proscribe equality. It counted in its
ranks Boissy d'Anglas, Lariviere, Thibaudeau, Dumolard,
Camille Jordan, Lareveillere, Lepeaux, Lanjuinais, Por-
talis, Pastoret, Simeon, &c. &c.
The first of these factions valued the new Constitution
only in proportion as it might maintain them in pre
eminence ; the second anticipated fresh successes from
its scrupulous execution. The former, less numerous,
but more enterprising and bold, meditated acts of violence
against the latter, whom it accused of aiming at the re-
establishment of the throne, and who in their turn (being
numerically stronger, butmore hypocritical and dastardly)
proposed to overwhelm their adversaries by constitutional
arms. It' is the character of every aristocracy to repel,
at the same time, equality and every other aristocracy
whose competition it fears. All pretexts are good in its
eyes for crushing its rivals. Again, there being nothing
which more effectually ruins public men in the estimation
of the vulgar than dissoluteness and rapacity, the old
Aristocrats exerted themselves to excite by reproaches of
this nature, against the friends of equality, true and false,
the indignation of the people, which the latter (the false
ones) had but too well merited.
The false To attacks of this kind the upstart
friends of equal- Egoists opposed the mass of persons who
prfthioldAriT- had taken any share in tlle Revolution.
tocrats from They had the dexterity to represent, in-
authority. discriminately, all who censured their
crimes as so many enemies of the Republic. They
alarmed the Republicans of all shades with the fear of
returning royalty ; they pretended that the people
should waive all considerations of abstract rights, in
order to give their whole thoughts to the plots of the
Royalists, whose audacity they boasted that themselves
alone could repress. In a word, they set every agency
at work to constitute themselves the centre of the popular
movement, of which they did not dissemble the approach.
According to the tactics of this taction, the insurrection
(the direction of which they counted upon seizing to

babeuf's conspiracy. 109
their own profit) was to have no other object than that
of driving from the legislative body, and from the
Government, the men that offended them, such as
Bossy d'Anglas, Isnard, Cadroy, Rovere, Lariviere,
<l-c. &c.s
To this end they made the vicinity of T, . ,
the legislative sittings resound with violent raiiy around
declamations against the massacres re- them the pa-
cently perpetrated in the South of France, pxei°psle!md the
tlie instigation of which they charged
upon the opposite party, but of which, however, they
had been themselves for a long time the provokers.
Hypocritical apostates spread themselves over the public
places, to exaggerate the number and criminal designs
of the Royalist conspirators, to seduce the people's at
tention from the crimes of the false friends of equality,
and to reinstate the latter in its lost confidence.
Thus the less sagacious Republicans were exposed to
incertitude between the seductions of the perjured Re
volutionists, and the counsels of the true Democrats.
From this double impulse arose very dangerous
obstacles to the labours of the Secret Directory, which
immediately felt the necessity of putting a stop to them
in some way.
In the force of truth it was, that the Tne gecret ]ji.
Directory once more sought a remedy, rectory baffles
It unmasked the wily snare, and the th^-^eitful
trick was baffled. A number of the pr0J

* By these traits it is easy to recognize the faction which
triumphed, and that which gave way, on the 18th Fructidor of the
Year V. The events of that day were retarded by the inflexible-
ness of the Republicans, who, wishing to give neither of the fac- v
tions a triumph, forced them to combine their eflorts against
Democracy, their common enemy.
[The same would happen in England if there were a popular
conspiracy of sufficient magnitude and means to seriously endan
ger the Government. The O'Connells, Humes, and other sham-
Radicals of the country, would seek to put themselves at its head,
in order to forward their own ambitious views at the expence of
both the parties rising and the parties risen against ; but, if they
found the insurgents too wise to be gammoned by their palaver,
they would then join the Royalists again, or the devil, if neces
sary, to prevent the real Radicals from succeeding.— Bronterre.]

110 babeuf's conspiracy.
" Tribune of the People,"* devoted to the exposure of
the crimes of the apostates from the popular party, dis
concerted their enemies ; and it might be asserted with
truth, that amongst the men who had bona fide taken
any part whatever in the Revolution, there did not re
main with them a single partizan ; there was breathed
but one wish amongst all — it was the speedy destruction
of the tyranny established by the Constitution of the
Year III.
„ . f At the same time the Directory got
the proscribed intimation that Allinoget, Eudochoi,
Conventional- Amar, Huguet, and Javogues,f all ex-
lsts" Mountainists of the Convention, pro
scribed in the months Germinal and Prairial of the Year
III., were concerting measures for putting themselves at
the head of the insurrection, which they foresaw, with a
view to re-establish the National Convention, and after
wards the Constitution of 1793. These attempts, with
which rumour erroneously associated the names of
Barrere and Vadier, appeared so important to the Direc
tory, that it deemed them necessary to make them the
subject of a serious discussion.
The Secret Di- Ought the conspirators to give place
rectory renders to the proscribed Mountainists ? Ought
vain. eff°rtS they t0 endeavour to form a junction with
them ? Ought they to oppose their am
bitious aims? Such were the questions agitated on this
head in the bosom of the Directory.
To the motives which had made it reject the propo
sition for recalling the Convention, was added, for re
pelling the Mountain Committee, the well-known anti
democratic views of some of its members, and the
extreme weakness of others. But as they had formerly
rendered many acknowledged services to the Republic,
the Directory was content with recommending the revo
lutionary agents to engage the people to distrust any
movements that might be made at the instigation of the
Mountainists. The agents were at the same time en-
* See justificatory pieces.
t Huguet and Javogues were assassinated by the Military Com
mission of the Temple, in consequence of the massacre at the
Camp of Grenelle.

babeuf's conspiracy. Ill
joined to watch over their safety, and to prevent the
measures which the Government was adopting against
them, and of which the Secret Directory received in
formation every day, through some principal agents of
the Minister of Police.
The rapidity with which democratic T, f ,
principles were propagated anew; the friend's of equa-
boldness of the writings which urged the "ty reunite
people to a new and salutary Revolution; ^HldTris'to-
those numerous assemblies, at which the crats against
crimes of the usurpers were proclaimed, tne Democrats.
and the Constitution of 1793 was imperiously demanded ;
this concert of wills, inspired as it were with one soul,
and revealing a vast plan, the directing hands of which
it was difficult to seize; the impatience of the multitude,
and the determined boldness of the conspirators ; — these
circumstances combined, spread terror in the ranks of
the enemies of equality, who felt the necessity of sus
pending then quarrels, and directing all their forces
against the incorrigible apostles of the popular doctrines.
In the mean time, a message from the Message of the
Executive Directory (the Government) Executive Di-
came to rouse to action all the enemies rectory against
n ,,- c ., t~. the Democrats.
ot public reform ; the Democrats were
horribly calumniated in it, and decrees of proscription
and death invoked against them. On this occasion, the
old hypocrisy, by which it wa3 sought to justify the
violent breaking up of the Society of the Pantheon,
launched its poisoned arrows with more malignity than
ever. The Government, wishing to render the Demo
crats universally odious, accused them of seeking to
plunge the state into a frightful anarchy, in the double
design of using it as a means to re-establish royal des
potism, and of enriching themselves in the interim by
brigandism.* * It is with the same sort of good faith that parties pretended to
attribute to Royalism, and to the foreign enemy, the conception of
all the great measures by which Royalism was crushed and the
foreign enemy vanquished, and that they pretended to treat as dis
guised Royalists the men whose austerity and disinterestedness
attested their sublime devotion to the cause of equality and liberty.
This manoeuvre, of which the Girondists set the first example, for
the purpose of justifying their conduct at the King's trial, and

112 babeuf's conspiracy.
By the like imputations it was that the Post-Thermi-
dorian Convention had succeeded in imposing upon
France the yoke of the new aristocracy. Nevertheless,
was there common sense in accusing of venality men who
had emerged in a state of poverty from a Revolution,
and from appointments which offered them so many op
portunities of enriching themselves?" Did it belong to
those who, after the 9th Thermidor, had practised so
much violence, to stigmatise as anarchists men, the utmost
stretch of whose demands went no farther than the exe
cution of the law which the French people had sanctioned ?
The real, the only anarchy, said the Democrats, is in
the pretended laws which, violating the natural rights of
men, condemn nations either to interminable convulsions
or to the lethargy of death. Their uniform conduct, and
the vows they incessantly offered up for the establishment
of a true Republic, were a sufficient answer to the libellous
reproach of disguised royalism which nobody credited.
The Royalists applauded this cheat, which relieved them
from their most formidable enemies, and made them even
conceive the vain hope of attaching them (the Democrats)
to themselves, as auxiliaries against the Directorial
Government. Solid as were these reasons, they did not confound the
effrontery of the Executive Directory ; indebted for its
their hatred of the true founders of the Republic, has been since
brought to perfection by those eunuchs in politics, who, incapable
of those generous movements which save and regenerate nations,
revenge themselves, for the nullity to which they are condemned.
by detracting from the great men whose virtues appear chimerical
to them, through the means of base intrigues, which constitute
their whole stock of political science. To hear these wretches,
you would suppose that the revolutionary action was conceived
and directed by the principal persons who were attainted by it —
that the brothers of Louis XVI. had solicited his condemnation—
that the Royalists who lost their lives on the 2d and 3rd of Sep
tember were immolated to the profound policy of their friends—
and that the popular enthusiasm which saved France from inva
sion was the work of those who sought to invade her!!!
Nunierous plots were, no doubt, hatched by the European aris
tocracy against the French Revolution ; but to pretend to discover
the traces of them, in what was most ruinous to that aristocracy,
does appear to me the perfection of absurdity.
* Buonarroti was one of these ; and, judging by all that is on
record concerning him as a placeman, no human being could be
better entitled to put the question.— Bronterre.]

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 113
power to its violation of the people's rights, it thought
now only of extinguishing them, and this odious deter
mination extinguished in it all sense of shame. It be
lieved, that by persevering- in calumny it would succeed
in stifling truth, and flattered itself with being able to
rally around itself all classes of citizens, by the frightful
colours under which it incessantly painted its enemies.
Nevertheless, this perfidious message revealed one truth
which turned many a villain pale. It attested the exist
ence of a courageous association determined upon over
throwing the new constitutional tyranny.
Such was, then, the corruption and L
baseness of the Deputies, that there was ^the Ubertyof
not even one man amongst them that speech and of
dared openly to defend the rights of the the Press-
people; with the exception of twelve members, the whole
01 the Council of Five Hundred accepted with eager
haste the disastrous laws of the 27th and 28th Germinal
of the Year IV., to which their worthy colleagues of
the other Council gave their unanimous sanction on the
same day !
These acts, unworthy to bear the name of laws, were
a criminal invasion of the liberties of the public. Under
their authority any peaceable meeting of the citizens
might be dispersed by force as a seditious mob. By these v
acts, all discussions upon the advantages or inconveniences
of different forms of government were made punishable
with death. They, moreover, rendered all ameliorations
in the constitution of the State next to impossible ; in a
word, they tore from the French people — already de
spoiled of the rights of deliberating on the laws, and of
associating in public societies — that of freely expressing
their thoughts on national affairs !
From that moment the subaltern agents y Dersecu.
of tyranny redoubled their audacity against tions against
the speakers, writers, and news-agents of tIie Democrats.
the democratic party. The least observations, the
slightest murmurs, were distorted into seditious provo
cations, and furnished pretexts every hour for imprisoning
the best citizens ; nay, the array of military force was
displayed against peaceable men who frequented the
pubhc places, in order to seek in the outpourings of

114 babeuf's conspiracy.
friendship some consolations for the grief they felt at
witnessing the degradation and misfortune of their country.
, A sacred rage took possession of all the
JL frleiiTof sincere friends of equality, and impelled
liberty. them to take the resolution of resisting
oppression ; they declared aloud that the moment was
come for fulfilling the oath— TO LIVE FREE OR DIE!
The Secret Di But tlle Directory of Pubhc Safety,
rectory^alms1" which had placed itself at the point
their impa- whence it could measure the forces of its
tience. party witn tft0se of tne enemy, judged
that it was not yet time to give battle. Fearing one of
those ill-concerted out-breaks, which had contributed so
much to establish the Aristocrats' empire, and regarding
its enterprise as a last effort, whose bad success would
have altogether destroyed the democracy, it could not
resolve upon giving the signal of attack, without having
prudently co-arranged all the insurrectional elements
which appeared to it indispensable for victory.
Although the names of the Secret Directors had a
salutary veil thrown around them, their association and
their labours were known to all the Democrats. This
knowledge, by sustaining their hopes, rendered them
docile to the advice addressed to them through the
channel of the revolutionary agents, or through that of
the " Tribune of the People," and of the " Enlight-
ener." So long a series of reverses had at length con
vinced every body that the veritable Republic could not
attain its destination of safety unless by the concurrence
of all its friends in seconding with confidence the plans
conceived, and secretly directed, by a small knot of in
dividuals, who had been resolute enough not to despair
of a cause so many times proscribed, and almost anni
hilated. By the aid of this confidence was the Secret
Directory enabled to arrest the premature explosion pro
voked by the laws of the 27th and 28th Germinal — laws
which even the most moderate, compared to the ancient
Martial Law. But whilst with one hand it restrained a
dangerous outbreak, it hastened with the other tc unite
together all the threads which were to conduct it to a
speedy denouement and a sure triumph. The slowness
that would have encouraged its enemies, divided and

BABEUF s CONSPIRACY. 115
damped its friends, appeared to it no less dangerous
than an imprudent precipitation. Decided upon promptly
saving liberty or perishing with it, it quickened the ope
rations of the revolutionary agents, redoubled its zeal to
draw over the army, of which it was not yet sure, and
assiduously exerted itself in regulating the forms of the
insurrection, and the legislation which was to follow it.
The first object that naturally presented gome of the in- «
itself for discussion was the manner of surrectional
effecting the dissolution of the existing measures.
illegitimate Authorities, and of disabling the members of
them from enterprising any measures against equality.
The unanimous design of the Secret Directory was to
attain this double end by a great example of justice,
capable of terrifying the traitors, and of inspiring with
the same salutary dread all future deputies whom the
people might honour with its confidence. Revolting
treason, and a manifest usurpation, were the crimes of
which the members of the two Councils, and those of
the Executive Directory, had palpably rendered them
selves guilty. Covered with the blood of the best citizens,
they had robbed the people of its sovereignty, and had
sacrificed the majority of the nation to the criminal pre
tensions of a handful of insatiable and ambitious rich
men. A signal punishment was necessary ; but indul
gence and oblivion would have succeeded to a day of
just and salutary terror, which would have left behind it
only the remembrance of a legitimate and too tardy
retribution. The majority of the Parisians, discontented, uneasy,
unhappy, were looking back on the past, and regretted
the times which had preceded the 9th Thermidor ; they
had need, in order to overthrow the tyrants, to be led on
by intrepid Repubhcans, who were themselves awaiting
the signal of our conspirators. In this condition of
affairs the latter saw that the important point was to
withdraw the bulk of the working classes from the in
fluence of the established Government, and to place
them exclusively under that of the Democrats; they
resolved, accordingly, that on the day of insurrection all
the relations existing between the Government and the
citizens should be broken — that the people should range

116 babeuf's conspiracy.
themselves under the banners to be delivered by the
Secret Directory to persons of its choice — and that to
give or execute in the name of the existing tyranny any
order whatever, should be on that day a national crime,
to be punished with instant death.
Insurrectional To infuse order into the grand move-
Aet- ment which was preparing, the Secret
Directory judged it necessary to declare itself openly at
the head of it, and in this capacity to indicate to the
people the demands that they should make, the route
they should follow, the obstacles they would have to
overcome, and the snares that it would behove them to
baffle and defeat. To this end, after a long and serious
deliberation, it adopted the famous Insurrectional Act,
the publication of which was to have been the signal of
the new Revolution.*
Besides, the dispositions having direct reference to the
destruction of tyranny, this Act contained the forms of
several legislative measures, designed to justify, in the
eyes of the people, the benevolent intentions of the
Secret Directory, and the legitimacy of its enterprize.
Here they are : —
1. A distribution, amongst the defenders of the country
and the unhappy poor, of the properties of emigrants, o*f
conspirators, and of the enemies of the people.
2, The unhappy poor to be forthwith lodged in the
houses of the conspirators.
3. The gratuitous restitution of the effects of the
people pledged at the Mont-de-Piite (Government
Pawn-offices). 4. The adoption by the people of the wives, children,
fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, of the citizens that
might fall m the insurrection, and abundant provision for
them during life.
The distribu- It would be wrong to consider the pro-
orTainefbvthe mise of a ^and distribution of goods as
Insurrectional contrary to the spirit of the community at
orinfatuVthe ^f it was sought to arrive. The grand
community of P0lnt was to succeed, and the Secret
property. Directory, which did not adopt its Insur-
* See justificatory pieces.

babeuf's conspiracy. 117
rectional Act -without due deliberation, had felt that to
gain that end it should neither practice too much reserve,
which might possibly discourage its true friends, nor too
much precipitation, which would only swell the num
ber of its enemies. By the promise of distribution the
Directory fixed the attention and sustained the hopes of
the labouring class, without indisposing those who, whilst
they hated the upstart aristocracy, did not, for all that,
lcve equality in tact. To distribute goods did not signify '
to parcel out the landed property, for wealth consists
not in lands but in the fruits they yield ; moreover, by
distributing the fruits, its promise would have been com
pletely fulfilled ; and that was what the Secret Directory
proposed to do, after the manner we are going to see.
Immediately after the destruction of ,
, J , n t, ¦ . Assembly of
tyranny the people of Pans was to meet the pe0p]e of
in general assembly in the Place de la Paris after the
Revolution.* There the Secret Directory f^Zf™ ot
. r • tyranny.
would have rendered it an account ot its
conduct — would have demonstrated to it that all the
evils the people complained of were the effects of inequality
• — would have reminded it of the advantages it was
justified in expecting from the Constitution of 1793- —
and would have invited it to approve of the Act of
Insurrection. Afterwards it would have been proposed
to the insurgent people to create on the spot a Provisional
Authority, charged to terminate the Revolution, and to
govern the country up to the moment of putting the
popular institutions in activity.
In order to obtain from the victorious New National
people a decree conformable to its true Assembly.
interests, the Directory reckoned upon submitting to its
suffrages the names of the Democrats it judged most
worthy of such high confidence. This new Assembly
should have come to contract, in the face of heaven, an
engagement to devote itself for the safety of all, and to
swear to execute faithfully the orders which it was pro
posed to prescribe to it by the following decree.
"The people of Paris, after having decree to be
" overthrown tyranny, using the rights proposed to the
* Now called the Place Louis XV.

118 babeuf's conspiracy.
insurgents of " which it has received from nature ac-
Pans' " knowledges and declares to the French
" People —
^ " That the unequal distribution of goods and of labour
"is the inexhaustible source of slavery and of all public
" calamities. " That labour is for every one an essential condition
" of the social compact.
" That the proprietorship of all the riches of France re-
" sides essentially in the French people, which can alone
" determine and change the repartition of them.
" Orders the National Assembly which it has just
" created, and in the name of the French people, to
" ameliorate the Constitution of 1793, to prepare the
" prompt execution of it, and to guarantee to the French
" Republic, by wise institutions founded upon the above
" acknowledged truths, an unalterable equality, liberty,
" and happiness.
" Enjoins on the said Assembly to render account, in
" a year at most, to the Nation, of the execution of the
" present decree.
" And, finally, engages itself to enforce respect to the
" decrees of this assembly, if conformable to the above
" orders, and to punish with the penalty due to traitors,
'•' whosoever of its members shall abandon the duties it
'• has just prescribed to them."
We shall see, farther on, by what laws the Secret Direc
tory proposed to itself to fix the destiny of the Republic,
but first let us follow in its developments the march of
the conspiracy, of which it is important to make known
the details.
Insurrection of Whilst our Directory was silently ma-
the Legion of turing every part of its great enterprise,
Pollce- the effects of its inspirations began to be
manifested in the armed bodies stationed at Paris and in
the environs, and particularly in the Legion of Police,
and amongst the grenadiers charged with the guard of
the legislative body.
Nothing alarmed the Government so much as this
spirit of opposition, of which the military had already let
appear numerous symptoms. In that quarter was
vanishing, as it thought, the only rampart which it

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY, 119
flattered itself with being able to oppose to the rage of
the people. Thus, after having exhausted every seduction
amongst the Legion of Police, it was forced to order
away from Paris the two most insubordinate battalions of
that body, which, by the law that instituted it, ought
never to be engaged in service out of the city. This
order, signified on the 9th Floreal, was followed by a
formal disobedience, of which the immediate consequence
was an increase of agitation amongst the people; indeed,
the moment was supposed to be at hand when the
existing tyranny might be disposed of on the cheapest
terms. The Secret Directory, which, without having directly
provoked the resistance of the legionaries, had never
theless contributed to elicit it by the maxims it was in
cessantly promulgating, was also of opinion that the
moment of success was near, and although it had not
yet in its power all the information it demanded, it would
have determined on giving the signal of insurrection, if
it had had the certainty of finding in the Legion of
Police a sufficient force to repel the first efforts of the
Government, and to augment thereby the confidence of
the people.
Every engine was set at work to constitute this point
of support into a centre of movement, and for a moment
the hope was entertained of rendering the insurrection
general in the Army of the Interior.* Revolutionary*'
agents were scattered amongst the troops — others held
themselves ready to make the people march; a com
mittee promptly formed in the bosom of the Legion of
Pohce, was already in communication with the Secret
Directory, through the intermission of Germain ; a Ma
nifesto of the Legion to the People, and the reply of the
latter,t drawn up in its name by the conspirators, in
formed all honest citizens of the task they had to accom
plish ; the Democrars were under arms — everything was
about to totter — when the unexpected submission of the
insurgent battalions compelled a suspension of the move-
• By this name was the army called which, since the 9th Ther
midor, was encamped around Paris, to keep the friends of liberty
in awe.
t See justificatory pieces.

120 babeuf's conspiracy.
ment, from an apprehension of drawing irretrievable ruin
on the country.
Its disband- A decree of disbandment smothered the
ment. insurrection in its cradle. A considerable
number of the legionaries submitted to it with joy, and
there was but too much reason to believe, that a few
of the dangers to be encountered on the frontiers had
been with many of them the true motives of their re
sistance, which the republican soldiers had too lightly
attributed to a generous patriotism.
The legionaries Whatever may have been the probably
become refu- unknown causes of this insubordination,
houses of the the Democrats derived from it the advan-
patriots. tage of having at their disposition, by
harbouring them at their dwelling houses, not only the
well-meaning legionaries, but also almost all who proved
refractory to the orders of Government. From this
numerous desertion, was formed the body which the
Secret Directory, counted upon placing in the van
guard of the insurrectional army. This tumultuous
event redoubled the impatience of the people, whose
impetuosity, every hour increasing, warned the Secret
Directory that the denouement of the conspiracy
could not any longer be deferred without extreme
danger. Partial movements, fruitless no doubt, were
about to burst forth; and, moreover, the loss of cer
tain legionaries, arrested for having incited their com
rades to resistance, seemed inevitable. It was of neces
sity to prevent false steps, and to break the axe of
authority; these circumstances engaged the Secret
Directory to hasten the movement of the insurrection.
' It was then about the 10 th of Flore al.
Two things appeared indispensable to our conspirators.
Prudence, without which all success is impossible ; and
boldness, which disperses obstacles that none can foresee :
while they took the former for their guide, they made a
constant duty of the latter. Wishing to hasten the
catastrophe — reckoning, in order to put the Parisians in
motion, upon the energy of the Democrats — informed of
the public impatience — sufficiently assured of the friendly
spirit of the troops — and masters of the legionary de
serters, they bethought themselves of giving the most

babeuf's conspiracy. 121
suitable dispositions to their forces ; and it was to effect
this that they judged it necessary to surround themselves
with citizens, who united in themselves the love of de
mocracy and experience in military operations. Fion,
Germain, Rossignol, Massart, and Grisel, all of them^
officers or generals, were invited to the presence of the
Secret Directory in the afternoon of the 11th Floreal.
Grisel was admitted to it on account of the influence it
was thought he could exercise upon the camp at Grenelle.
At this assembly were present, Babeuf, p olitico-mili-
Buonarroti, Bedon, Darthe, Marechal, tary sitting of
Eriddy, and the five above-named mili- the llthFloreul
tary officers.* The Secret Directory be
gan by informing these latter of the final object of its
labours — the point it had arrived at — and the road which
remained to be travelled over. Afterwards it acquainted
them with the insurrectional act, of which they approved ;
and ended by inviting them to deliberate with it on the
means to be taken to ensure the triumph of the people.
It was decided that the Secret Directory, while it
reserved to itself the conception of every necessary mea
sure, and the supreme direction of the movement, should
confide to a military committee the care of preparing the
attack and defence, after furnishing it with the necessary
instructions and plans relating thereto. The five military
gentlemen already mentioned were named members of
this new committee, whose first sitting was fixed for
the following day, at the house of Eris, in the street
Montblanc. In the general assembly already spoken of, Germain
had shown himself an ardent Democrat, Massart did not
belie the character he had manifested at Amar's house,
Grisel played the part of a Republican to perfection,
Fion and Rossignol, while they applauded the views of
the Secret Directory, only regretted that there were not
in its body some of the ex-conventional Mountainists.
In a few hours after this meeting the retreat of Babeuf
and the sittings of the Secret Directory were transferred
* In convoking this meeting, the Secret Directory infringed the
third article of the law which created it ; and this fault, without
which Grisel could not have known the chiefs of the conspiracy,
was the principal cause of the ruin of their projects.

122 babeuf's conspiracy.
to the faubourg Montmartre, in the house of Ourecle,
where also the editor of the Eclaireur du People was in
concealment, who, already acquainted with a part of the
conspiracy, had some share in the labours it gave birth to.
Military Com- Germain was the sole organ through
mittee. whom the new committee communicated
with the Secret Directory. This committee, which a
few days after transferred its sittings from the house of
Eris to that of Crexel, near the corn-market, took dili
gent cognizance of the business confided to it, and sub
mitted on the 15th to the aforesaid Directory the result
of its examination.
It is proposed Amongst the numerous propositions
to make the which the conspirators received from all
Royalists con- quarters there were two that attracted
cur m the enter- t . ' . _ , ,
prise of the particular attention, by the one they
Democrats. were recommended to induce by adroit
means, for the overthrow of the Government, the con
currence of the Royalists, who were also its enemies, and
whose hopes they should afterwards frustrate by an
nouncing the veritable end of the insurrection. This
proposition was rejected, because it was adjudged very
dangerous to begin by putting arms into the hands of
persons whom it would be soon necessary to combat and
because it was felt that their bare presence amongst the
ranks of the insurgents would be sufficient to discourage
the Republicans, and to destroy in them the confidence
they might otherwise accord to the measures of the
A ff smade Secret Directory.* By the second, two
to poignard the officers of the Legion of Police -f offered
Executive to poignard, in the same night, the Mem
bers of the Executive Directory, about
whose persons one of them was on guard with a detach
ment of patriotic soldiers ; their demand was that they
might be supported by a body of Democrats, and that
the insurrection should be thus commenced: — To facilitate
the execution of their project they communicated the
word of order. This proposition was also rejected, from
the motive that nothing ought to be attempted until the
moment when the simultaneous concurrence of all the
* See justificatory pieces. t Peche and Steve.

babeuf's conspiracy. 123
pre-disposed measures would render victory almost
certain. In truth, grand dispositions were being made —
the new legislative edifice was making progress every
day — the active patriots were ascertained and classified
— the Insurrectional Act, and the standards around
which they were to rally, were marked out and distributed
to the agents — public impatience was at its height.
But, besides that the Military Commission had not as
yet declared itself upon the means to be employed to
operate every where simultaneously the grand commotion
of the people, the Secret Directory was still unprovided
with money, of which it had need to subsist certain par- ""
ties very useful to it, but bereft of fortune, and it had not
been able to provide the powder necessary to ammunition
the insurgents.
Want of money was, perhaps, the most The conspira-
characteristic feature of our conspiracy, ^^ey spl
The love of money was judged criminal
by the conspirators, and the Secret Directory never
sought to procure from the contributions of the conspi
rators anything bevond what was necessary for the print
ing of its papers, and the support of a few indigent
Democrats it employed. Nevertheless, means of this
kind were indispensable, either to buy over certain agents
of tyranny, or to furnish the Democrats with occasions
to flatter and undeceive the deluded soldiery. Some
steps were taken to obtain a little, but the largest amount
at the disposal of the Secret Directory was two hundred
and forty francs in specie, transmitted by the Minister of
an allied Republic — it was seized by the agents of the «
police, who introduced themselves on the 21st Floreal,
into the place where the conspirators were assembled.
How difficult it is to do good by such means only as^
reason approves ! How much it costs an austere Re
publican to relax the duties which reason imposes, and
to employ men by whom these duties are disregarded,
unless he would see his endeavours frustrated, and be
come the witness of fresh miseries ! Such was the
painful situation in which the members of the Secret
Directory found themselves placed since the creation of
the Military Committee. c- 2

124 babeuf's conspiracy.
Rossignol and Germain was not slow in perceiving that
Fion solicit the Rossignol and Fion did not frankly adopt
theXuntn-' the system of the Secret Directory.
ists with the Strongly attached to the Mountamist
Secret Direc- Deputies, they saw with dissatisfaction
tory' that the latter did not form a part of it ;
very soon they became so possessed of this desire as to
afford grounds for suspecting their devotion to the cause
in the event of its not being complied with. The Moun
tainists in question were the Conventionalists proscribed
alter the 9th Thermidor, whom we have seen assembled
in Committee, with a view to the re-establishment of the
Constitution of 1793, and whose ambitious endeavours
the Secret Directory had judged it necessary to obstruct
and fetter. According to Fion and Rossignol's opinion,
the motives which had caused the secession of these
Mountainists were of no weight ; their private affections
weighed more with them than political considerations,
and they appeared convinced that the presence of these
old legislators would produce a magic effect — would
efface the conflicting shades of Republican opinion —
would propagate the insurrection rapidly, and overcome
all resistance in the departments. A great many citizens
participated in this opinion, and even had Fion and
Rossignol been without imitators, the advances that hat!
been made to them, and the services that were expected
from them, especially by reason of Rossignol's influence
over the inhabitants of the faubourg Antoine, were suffi
cient to induce the Secret Directory to take their advice
into consideration.
The Mountain- Meanwhile, it was reported to our
ists aim at seiz- Directory that the Mountainist Com
ing the leader- . J ,.,_, T . , , , •
ship of the mittee, to which Robert Lindet had just
insurrection. joined himself, so far from having lost
sight of the object for which it was formed, calculated
upon its accomplishment through the assistance of the
movement prepared by the Democrats, of which it
hoped to assume the leadership, by making its mem
bers appear in the midst of the insurrection, and ex
hibit themselves to the people as their enly represen
tatives.

babeuf's conspiracy. 125
On the other hand, Drouet, celebrated Drouet is linked
for his devotion and courage, was ac- ""'.ththecon-
quainted with Babeuf's projects — was
intimately connected with Darthe — and desired likewise
a revolution favourable to equality; the Secret Directory
accordingly reckoned on using his popularity as a lever
of the insurrection. But Drouet was no stranger to the
doings of the Mountainists, his old colleagues, and he
appeared to incline in favour of blending the two con
spiracies into one.
At last Germain came to complete the Incertitude of
perplexity of the Directory ; he manifested rectory016' Ul
intense anxiety respecting the intentions
of Fion and Rossignol, and seemed alarmed at the ob
stacles about to be raised up by the ambition of the
Mountainists, whose designs had just been confided to
him by Ricord and by Allinoget, who had, at the same
time, proposed to him a coalition with the Secret Direc
tory in formal terms ; he had no doubt as to there being
a mutual understanding between them and the two
before-mentioned members of the Military Commission.
Bedon, who had always taken an active part in the
labours of the Secret Directory, could not listen unmoved
to the proposal of a coalition with the Mountainists,
whom he reproached with the calamities which oppressed
France. " Will you sully," he exclaimed, "your noble
" enterprise, by inviting to the glory of saving liberty the
" parties who, through ambition or vanity, or jealousy
" or ignorance, have been its ruin ? Are there not
" amongst them the very men who, by assassinating on
" the 9th Thermidor the most resolute and firmest sup-
" porters of the country, restored to the aristocracy the
" power it had lost, and resuscitated the almost extinct
" hopes of the Royalists ? Can you forget that they
" were the first to sharpen the poignards of the counter-
" revolutionists against the friends of equality? Beware
" how you give them the least influence ; they will only
" make use of it to deceive and divide the Republicans.
" Would you speak respectfully of Robespierre and his
" companions in martyrdom ? These Mountainists will
" lavish upon you the epithets ' exclusives,'' ' drinkers
" of blood,' ' dictatorials,' and ' satellites of tyranny ! '

126 babeuf's conspiracy.
" Would you render homage to virtue, to morality, to
" the divinity? They will stigmatize you as fanatics,
" moderates, sophists ! Would you give wise counsels
" to the people? They will pretend that they are the
" sole depositaries of the power to foresee all, to direct
" all ! With them you will experience nothing but coun-
" teraction and discord. It will be told you, that they
" were only deluded on the 9th Thermidor; in my opi-
" nion they will never agree to that. I am willing- that
" they should be pardoned — that their faults should be
" forgotten; but, at the same time, let them be reduced
" to eternal silence. And why? Because it is impos-
" sible to march with them in the ways of truth and
" justice." The impossibility of inducing these Mountainists to
concur in any way for the re-establishment of the public
welfare, appeared so evident to Bedon, that he inclined
to believe a complete inaction would be preferable to
the proposed coalition. This idea of renouncing the
conspiracy was displeasing to the Secret Directory ; and
so exasperated was one of its members at it, that he so
far forgot himself as to accuse Bedon of pusillanimity.
The altercation that ensued was, however, soon ap
peased ; but the impression produced by it entered deep
into the minds of the conspirators. They felt more
strongly than ever how much prudence was required to
prevent the best Democrats from being sacrificed without
any advantage to the people, upon whom a failure would
only draw down increased oppression.
It was not dissembled that the result of a coalition
with the Mountainists would be a state of things less
favourable to the reforms sought ; but their daring bold
ness, and, above all, the opinions of Fion and Rossignol
seemed to be obstacles capable of clogging every wheel
of the conspiracy. The faults of the Mountainists, and
the frightful evils that had resulted from them, inces
santly occurred to the friends of the conspirators, and it
was a point confessed, that from the free determinations of
these ex-Conventionalists, no such thing could be ex
pected as the establishment — so much wished for — of an
impregnable, indefeasible equality.
To persist in the conspiracy, whilst at the same time

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 127
renouncing this equality, would have been only to avow
themselves inconsequential and ambitious ; to burst the
threads of the conspiracy at the moment when every
thing betokened a speedy success, would have been to
render themselves criminal in the eyes of the patriots,
and of posterity ; it was necessary then to persevere in
the first resolves, and elicit from circumstances the
course most favourable to the popular cause.
After a long and animated discussion, j res j
the Secret Directory adopted the pro- coalesce with
posed coalition, and resolved at the same tn? Moun-
time to take great precautions to restrain taimsts-
the ambition of the Mountainists, and to compel them
to concur in the execution of its designs.
After the explications that had been given, the con
spirators, by adopting the coalition, would be pledged
to re-establish the National Convention — that is to say,
the section of that body which Amar regarded as the
only one legitimate, and still existing by right ; if that.
were done without any modification, France would be
at the mercy of those against whom such Jieavy re
proaches lay. To avoid so great a misfortune, the Secret
Directory decided that the recal of the Convention
should take place only on condition that the Moun
tainists would consent to the following preliminaries : — '
1. To superadd to the National Con- Conditions of
vention, composed exclusively of the pro- the coalition.
scribed Deputies, a Democrat from each department,
to be named by the insurgent people upon the presenta
tion of the Secret Directory.
2. To cause to be executed without restriction, and
on the spot, the provision of Article 18 of the Act of
Insurrection. 3. Unqualified submission to the decrees which might
be passed by the people of Paris on the day of the
insurrection. As soon as this resolution was taken, Germain was
authorised to conduct on the following day a member of v
the Mountainist Committee to the Secret Directory,
which immediately transferred itself to the house of
Tissot, in the street Grande Truanderie, where it had
formerly held some of its sittings.

128 babeuf's conspiracy.
A messenger On the morning of the 15th Floreal,
from the Moun- Q j conducted to the Secret Direc-
tamist Commit- ^" *-»"¦"" _ ^
tee is presented tory, Ricord, a messenger trom the
to the Secret Mountainist Committee. He was received
Directory. ^y an address* in which he was informed
of the state of affairs— of the motives which had caused
the rejection of all thoughts of a coalition with his
brethren of the Committee — and of those subsequent
ones, in conformity with which that coalition was at
length agreed to. The Act of Insurrection was read to
the Mountainist Deputy, and a discussion forthwith
raised as to the changes to be made in the article con
cerning the Provisional Authority, which it was indis
pensable to create. It was spontaneously agreed that
the proscribed members of the National Convention
should be recalled to the supreme power ; but the mes
senger was, at the same time, given to understand, that
all negociation would be broken off, unless the Moun
tainists would give irrefragable guarantees of their popular
intentions. They spoke to him without reservation or
ambiguity, and declared to him that they had little con
fidence in his colleagues of the Committee, against whom
very serious objections were urged.
It was impossible for Ricord to justify the whole of
his colleagues ; amongst them, to use his own words,
there were some that did not merit the people's censure.
The three aforesaid conditions were explained to him, to
which was unanimously added —
The suspension of all laws and decrees passed since
the 9th Thermidor of the Year II.
The expulsion of all the restored emigrants.
Refusal of the Ricord consented to all on condition of
Mountainists. receiving the ratification of his colleagues.
The following day he came to announce their refusal.
According to the ideas of the Mountainist Committee,
the immediate and only effect of the insurrection ought
to be the re-installation of about sixty proscribed Con
ventionalists, in whom an unqualified and blind reliance
should be placed, as regarded all consecutive measures.
The adjunction of a Democrat for each department was
* See justificatory pieces.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 129
repelled by the Mountainists as a criminal invasion of the
national sovereignty, of which they pretended themselves
the sole depositaries; the orders which the Directory
desired to have prescribed to them by the insurgents,
were, in their estimation, but so many encroachments
on the rights of the French people, whom it belonged
to them alone to represent ; they had no objection to
putting the people in possession of the lodgings and
goods promised by the Act of Insurrection, but they
would be understood to concede that point on political
grounds only, not as though they were executing an order
or acknowledging a right, but as performing a men: act
of generosity; in fine, they offered the members of the
Secret Directory to nominate them upon the Executive
Council which they proposed to establish.*
The reader will doubtless be pleased to Reply of the Se-
know the answer which was returned to cret Dlrectory-
the Mountainist messenger. Here it is. " In yielding
" our concurrence in the provisional re-establishment of
" a part of the Convention, we understand ourselves to
" serve only the people. The sole recompense we aspire
" to is the complete triumph of Equality. We will
" combat, and expose our lives, to restore to the people
" the plenitude of its rights, but we do not comprehend
" how persons can pretend generosity towards the mas-
" ters of every thing. If you sincerely desire to co-
" operate with us in the great enterprise which engages
" us, be cautious how you announce propositions and
" propose terms, which may cast suspicion on your in-
" tentions. Several of your colleagues have betrayed
" the interests of the people; and we should be infinitely
" more reprehensible than they, were we to abandon the
" country again to their passions or weaknesses. It is
" inconceivable how it should be necessary, in order to
" re-establish the sovereignty of the people, to employ
" the very instruments that caused its ruin. It is to
* [The palpable selfishness of these demands attests the true
character of these ex-Conventionalists ; and when it is considered
that they constituted the most meritorious part of what was called
the Mountain party in the Convention, we can be at no loss to
comprehend the real motives and authors of the crimes of the 9th
Thermidor. — B ronterre.]
g5

130 babeuf's conspiracy.
" those from whom the nation expects the destruction of
" tyranny, that it necessarily delegates the right of
" adopting the provisionary measures' indispensable. Our
" object is not to annihilate one oppressive Government
" in order to substitute a no less oppressive one in its
" room. It is good to pardon error ; but it would be
" criminal as well as foolish to confide anew the destiny
" of the country to the parties by whose errors it has
" been ruined. Better perish by the hands of the pa-
" triots, who, indignant at our inactivity, will be war-
" ranted in accusing us of pusillanimity and treason,
"or by those of the Government, which will at length
" obtain cognizance of our projects, than to place the
" people again at the mercy of those who, on the 9th
" Thermidor, immolated its best friends, and who after-
" wards basely suffered the Republicans to be proscribed,
" and the democratic edifice to be demolished."
Upon retiring, Ricord promised to communicate to
the Secret Directory the definitive resolution of his
colleagues. Alarms of the Whilst this negociation was passing
patriots. between the Secret Directory and the
Mountainist Committee, the patriots were being alarmed
and discouraged by sinister rumours ; the principal con
spirators were exposed to suspicions and calumny, and
the calm which had succeeded to so intense a fermenta
tion was generally considered as the precursor of new
calamities. These fatal presentiments insensibly worked
upon the revolutionary agents, who had been recom
mended to restrain premature outbreaks, in order to get
time to arrange for simultaneous action ; beginning to
be themselves disconcerted, they sent word to the Secret
Directory that any further delay would lose it the con
fidence of the men most decided to take the field.
In order to dissipate all fear, the Directory resolved to
discover frankly to its agents the position it found itself
in, and the obstacles which marred its progress ;* but,
before the circulars intended for them had been tran
scribed, it was apprised that the Mountainists had just
agreed to and subscribed its propositions.
* See justificatory pieces.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 131
In fact, Darthe reported, on the 18th Coalition of the
Floreal, to the Secret Directory, that in ^"^^X
a meeting, at which he was present, the Mountainist
Mountainist Committee had, after a Committee. **
violent debate, consented to the adjunction of one
Democrat for each department, to the engagements
promised in favour of the unhappy poor, and to the
execution of the decree, which it was purposed to de
mand from the people of Paris in insurrection. He
related, at the same time, that the objections spoken of
by Ricord had been triumphantly refuted by Amar, and
particularly by Robert Lindet, who, after justifying the
distrust of the Secret Directory, spoke largely on the
necessity of impressing on the Revolution a character
veritably popular, without which, as he observed, it is
but a mere game of parties. This news was instantly
communicated to the agents, and from that moment
there was nothing thought of but to hasten the denoue
ment of the conspiracy.
During the negociations which took Certain points
place between the Mountainist Com- relative to the
mittee and the Secret Directory, the movement?1181
communications of the latter with the
Military Committee were very frequent ; they continued
to be agreed upon the following points : —
That the insurrection should take place by day.
That generals acting under the orders of the Secret
Directory should lead the people against its enemies.
That the insurgents should be divided by arrondisse-
ments, and subdivided by sections.
That the arrondissements should have chiefs, and the
sections sub-chiefs.
That all allegiance to the existing authorities should
be dissolved, and every act of such nature punished with
instant death.
The better to understand one another, — in order to
establish a perfect confidence amongst all the chief actors,
and to secure harmony in all the measures to be taken,
a general assembly of the Directory and the two com
mittees, on the principle of the recently concluded
coalition, was arranged for the evening of the 19th, at
the house of Drouet, near the Place des Piques.

132 babeuf's conspiracy.
Treason of By the side of so many generous de-
Grisel- fenders of the rights of humanity, there
was one infamous hypocrite, who, in order to ruin the
cause they were devoted to, had maliciously borrowed
their principles and language. This monster was Georges
Grisel. Whether with a view to open a road to fortune for
himself, of which his knowledge of the levelling projects
of the conspirators would have precluded all hope, or
whether with the immediate intent of serving tyranny,
Grisel exerted himself to conciliate the confidence of the
Democrats. After having engaged Darthe to communi
cate to him the instructions destined for the military
agents, he spared no pains to confirm the favourable
opinion conceived of him ; admitted afterwards to a
sitting of the Secret Directory, and named a member of
the Military Committee, he showed himself the most
outrageous and impatient Democrat amongst them ; he
wished, in fact, to know every thing, and aimed at
nothing less than to disembarrass tyranny for ever of its
enemies, by crushing all the friends of equality at a single
blow. To this end, he disclosed to the Government all
the thoughts and designs of the Democrats.*
He denounces Having at length ascertained the prin-
the conspirators cipal conspirators, and a part of their
.plan, he denounced them on the 15th Floreal to the
Government, to whom he engaged to deliver them up,
together with the papers of the conspiracy. To this
trait of perfidy Grisel subsequently added fresh ones
every day ; most assiduous in his attendeuce at the
Military Committee, he pressed his confiding colleagues
to make haste— lie smoothed away difficulties — suggested
measures — and never forgot to confirm their courage by
painting in exaggerated colours the devotion of the Camp
of Grenelle to the democratic cause. Agreeably to in
formation given by Grisel, orders were dispatched by the
Government to surprise the conspirators on the 18th, at
a meeting whicli it was supposed would take place on
that night at Ricord's house. The officers of Govern
ment repaired thither, but there was nobody to be found.
* See the letters written by Grisel to the Insurrectional Directory,
amongst the explanatory documents or justificatory pieces.

babeuf's conspiracy, 133
New measures were forthwith taken to invest the house
of Drouet on the following night, where the traitor
knew that the conspirators were to assemble.
In fact, this meeting was held from Assemblyofthe
half-past eight o'clock to a quarter before rTuTstole.
eleven. The parties present were Babeuf,
Buonarroti, Darthe, Eriddy, Fion, Massart, Rossignol,
Robert-Lindet, Drouet, Ricord, Allinoget, and Jarogues.
Grisel also repaired thither. Perfidious villain ! he came
to sell his generous associates to tyranny ; and while in
waiting for their executioners, he actually embraced them,
applauded them, and lavished upon them pledges of the
most implicit devotion without betraying a blush !
The conspirators assembled at Drouet's house felt
themselves in the most perfect security ; the ardour of
their sentiments, and the sacredness of their cause, ba
nished all distrust — the assurance and verbosity of Grisel
diverted all suspicion from that quarter.
The Secret Directory, through the Report of the
mouth of one of its members, explained tor
the motives which had determined it to
constitute itself the centre of the efforts of the Democrats
against the upstart tyranny. " Remember your oaths,"
said the orator to the conspirators — " call to mind the
" evils produced by the forgetfulness of the principles
" which you have sworn to seal with your blood. The
" moment is come for fulfilling your engagements. We
" must to battle. The triumph of the noblest of causes
" — the liberty of the French people — the confidence
" with which it honours you — the fury of its enemies and
' ' vour own safety impose upon you the imperious duty.
" Never was conspiracy more legitimate — more holy, i
" The question we have to decide is not a choice of
" masters. Not one of us aspires to fortune or power.
" Traitors oblige us to take arms, and it is for the exist-
" ence — for the liberty — for the happiness of our fellow-
" citizens, that an army of liberators, secretly organised
" by us, awaits but our signal to thunder down upon
" this handful of perfidious tyrants who oppress the
" people. " Until we commenced operations everything was
" inert and despairing. After the fruitless victory of the

134 babeuf's conspiracy.
" 13th Vendemiaire aristocracy had no obstacle to en-
" counter. The greater number of Democrats, despairing
" of liberty, were upon the point of making their peace
" with odious oligarchs, who are gorged with the blood
" of your friends.
" At our call hope revived, and France put forth her
" energy once more ; and already, thanks to the inde-
" fatigable zeal of so many courageous Republicans, the
" people, burning with impatience, invokes aloud the
" signal for combat.
" All the good are known to us ; the wicked tremble.
" On the day that you will appoint for action, the arms
" of which tyranny has essayed in vain to despoil you,
" will be found in the hands of your brethren. You
" have willed that the Revolution we are preparing should
" be complete, and that the people should no longer
" have to content itself with a mere speculative liberty,
" and a mockery of equality. Equality real and legal
" — behold the grand character which is to distinguish
" your sublime enterprise from all others that have pre-
" ceded it.
" All difficulties are vanquished. The love of country
" has united us all. The conditions subscribed to by
" those of our former national representatives, and the
" dispositions of the Act of Insurrection unanimously
" resolved, will announce and guarantee to the people
" the justice and utility of its insurrection.
" Time urges — every moment is precious — public im-
" patience is extreme ; let us not endanger the loss, by
" too long a delay, of an opportunity which it might
" never again be possible for us to recover. We implore
" you —
" To add to the measures already adopted any others
" that you will judge necessary.
" To determine the moment for beginning the insur-
" surrection. We shall perish in the conflict, or, by
" victory and equality, terminate for ever so long and so
" sanguinary a revolution."
Robert-Lindet demonstrated the justice of the insur
rection, justified the recal of the Convention, and insisted
at great length upon the necessity of impressing upon
the approaching revolution, by the practice of the strictest

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 135
equality, a character peculiar to itself, and absolutely
and unequivocally popular.
" For my part," said Grisel, " I answer to you for my
brave comrades of the Camp of Grenelle ; and to let you
see how much I take to heart the triumph of holy equality,
I will inform you that I have found the means of abstract
ing from my aristocratic uncle the sum of 10,000 livres,
which I destine to be applied to the providing of refresh
ments for the insurgent soldiers."
The new Act of Insurrection was once Renewed adhe-
more approved by the Conventionalists, aicTuntainists.
who promised to repair on the day of
rising, with their colleagues, to the place which the Secret
Directory might appoint, for the re-installation of the
Convention, and to yield a sincere concurrence in the
execution of the measures resolved, and of the decrees
which the people in insurrection might pronounce.
Massart, in the name of the Military j, f ,
Committee, rendered an account of the Military Com-
bases of the plan of attack, which had ap- mittee.
peared to it most conformable to the views of the Secret
Directory. Agreeably to the Committee's opinion, the
twelve arrondissements of Paris, united in three divi
sions, were to be led by as many generals against the '
legislative body, the executive Directory, and the staff
of the army of the interior. The first platoon was to be
composed of the most ardent Democrats ; and such was
the pubhc impatience that a rising, en masse, of all the
working classes, at the call of the revolutionary agents,
and of the active friends of equality, was regarded as a
matter of easy execution. Massart added, that before
deciding upon the moment of insurrection, the Com
mittee had need of some fresh information respecting the
number of the Democrats, and of the capacity of some
of them, as also respecting the arms and ammunition, of
which it would be necessary to seize possession at the com
mencement of the action. The assembly then resolved —
" That the Secret Directory should Regolution of
" accelerate the denouement ot the con- the Assembly.
" spiracy. " That it should give its agents instructions conform-
" able to the plan of the Military Committee.

136 babeuf's conspiracy.
" That the assembly should meet again two days after
" to hear a final report upon the state of things, and to
" fix the day of action."
The Police in- Hardly was the assembly dissolved,
vest the resi- when the Minister of Police, followed by
denceofDrouet a detachment of infantry and cavalry,
penetrated by open force, and in contempt of the laws,*
into the apartment of Drouet, where he hoped to seize
the conspirators ; but he found there only Drouet and
Darthe, whom he did not think it prudent to arrest. An
order, either badly conceived or badly given, thus frustrated
for the present the sinister designs of the reigning tyranny.
Grisel restores But this event, which ought to have
confidence to inspired the conspirators with distrust,
the conspira- orjy served to increase their fancied se
curity. Grisel, who had been able to
convince them of his honesty, dissipated their alarms and
persuaded them that all new precautions were unneces
sary. At first, the Secret Directory attributed to treason
the danger it had run ; and in the investigation which it
hastily instituted to discover the author, it fixed its
suspicions for a moment upon one of the sincerest friends
of the popular cause. Germain had not assisted at the
meeting at Drouet 's house, and this absence, which was
unavoidably caused by the persecutions directed against
him by the Government, excited against him some sus
picions, which were soon, however, dispelled by the
recollection of his morality, his uniform behaviour, his
sacrifices, and his frankness. All further distrust was
dissipated by a course of argument suggested to Darthe
by Grisel himself — " If there had been a traitor," said
he, " amongst the conspirators, he would have at once
conducted the police to Drouet's house, where we were
yesterday evening, or to the place where we were all
assembled on the 11th, because the papers of the con
spiracy are deposited there ;\ that not having taken
* The then existing Constitution (that of the Year III.) forbid
domiciliary visits at night time.
[t Grisel declared afterwards, before the tribunals, that he had
not been able to recollect the place where the meeting of the 11th
was held. Thus did the villain turn his very ignorance to the
profit of treason and perfidy. — Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 137
place, we ought to conclude that there is no treason
amongst us, and that the movement of the police is only
the effect of some suspicions it entertains, or of the ex
traordinary surveillance imposed upon it." Thus was
every alarm dissipated, and the Secret Directory judged
it useless to adopt any precautions by which it would
have been so easy to avoid the calamities that soon after
overwhelmed it.
In pursuance of the orders of the Meeting of the
Secret Directory, there was held on the *?£??,,?* Mas"
p i ".-.rt , . sart s house.
evening of the 20th a new meeting, at
which were present Darthe, Eriddy, Germain, Fion,
Rossignol, Grisel, and all the agents of arrondissements.
The object of this meeting, which took place at Mas-
sart's house, was to consult each of those citizens, who
were all men of tried experience, as to the best means of
making the insurrectionary movement explode simulta
neously, and of ensuring its success ; as also to learn
from each agent an exact account of his resources in
men, arms, ammunition, and devotion to the cause.
Claude Fiquet, agent of the sixth Propositions of
arrondissement, suggested the propriety tne agents.
of barricading the faubourg Antoine, in order to pro
tect the dissolution of the troops encamped at Vincennes,
if they were well-intentioned ; or to prevent them from
penetrating into the city, if they were hostilely disposed.
Paris, agent of the seventh arrondissement, rendered
account of the plan of attack proposed by a general
whom the Secret Directory had engaged him to consult;
he explained how the Executive Directory might easily
be arrested, and proposed that the conspirators should
take possession of the subterraneous avenues of the
Luxembourg, through which its members might other
wise escape the hands of popular justice.
Cazin, agent of the third arrondissement, recom
mended that the communication between the faubourgs
Antoine and Marceau should be secured by a bridge of
boats ; and that the insurrectionists should, from the
commencement, occupy the heights of Montmartre, *
"[These heights lie to the north-west of Paris, and command the
whole town, particularly the aristocratic parts in the quartiers of
the Thuilleries and Palais Royal. — Bronterre.]

138 babeuf's conspiracy.
either in order thence to thunder down upon the Aris
tocrats who might resist, or to serve as a rallying point
in case of experiencing any serious check.
Sombod, agent of the eleventh arrondissement, desired
that the insurrection should take place on a day when
the decade (Republican sabbath) might fall on a Sun
day, in order to facilitate the concourse of the workmen
still attached to the forms of Christian worship, and
those who had renounced it. He proposed to make use
of women and children to break the ranks of the
soldiers, and to entice them to amalgamate and make
common cause with the people.
With respect to public opinion, the revolutionary
agents repeated what they had told the Secret Direc
tory, namely, that the impatience was general and
extreme, and that the fall of tyranny was certain, unless
the soldiers should decide to put the people to the
sword ; in this case they counted upon the numbers and
courage of the Democrats, seconded by their maturely
concerted military dispositions.
Nevertheless, the instructions given by
Committee^de- the agents did not appear sufficient to the
mands from Military Committee, which, desiring more
them fresh in- precision, wished that the citizens des-
structions. f . ¦¦ . , . . .1
tined to play so important a part in the
insurrection should be consulted, in order that there
might be no mistake as to their intentions. These new
reports were to be put into Massart's hands, to be by
him communicated to a general assembly, appointed
, the following morning at Dufour's house in the faubourg
Poissoniere. Whilst the agitation, still on the increase, was causing
a general presentiment of an approaching shock, the
Secret Directory was measuring in silence the forces it
had rallied, combining the movements to be impressed
on them, and maturing the plans by which it proposed
to itself to obtain the grand end of the Revolution — that
is to say, the equal distribution of goods and labour.
Forces of the IR casting its regards around, it saw
Democracy. itself at the head of an army composed of
a vast number of ardent friends of the Revolution, rallied
by its exertions for a common end, and impatient to

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 139
grapple with tyranny ; of ex -officers who had been in
authority before the 9th Thermidor — of the cannoneers
of Paris, famed for their Democratic spirit — of disbanded
officers — of patriots from the departments, which it had
invited to Paris, or which had fled thither to escape
persecution — of military men in detention, either for
patriotism or for insubordination — of the grenadiers of
the legislative body — of nearly all the Legion of Police,
and of the whole corps of Invalides.*
Moreover, it perceived great disaffec- Discontent and
tion amongst the soldiers encamped j^people! °f
around Paris, and heard murmurs in
every quarter from the labouring classes, whose indig
nation was bursting forth without reservation in the
secret societies, and in the immense gatherings which
took place every day in the open air.
Besides, it was the general conviction that the zeal of
the Proletarians,-!- the only true supporters of equality,
would redouble when they saw executed, from the
very outset of the insurrection, those engagements so
many times postponed, by which their hard lot was to be
ameliorated ; and the Secret Directory felt the greater
confidence in its forces, from the circumstance that its
agents, whilst describing the people's, vehement impa
tience, boldly demanded of it the signal of battle.
* We may, without exaggeration, reckon at seventeen thousand
the men then in Paris who were in readiness to commence the
insurrection, without counting the very numerous class of work
men, whose discontent and impatience were breaking out in all
directions. Behold the calculation on which the Secret Directory
based all its determinations : —
Revolutionists of Paris  4,000
Members of the Old Authorities  1,500
The Democratic Cannoneers  1,000
Disbanded Officers  500
Revolutionists of the Departments  1,000
Grenadiers of the Legislative Body  1,500
Military Men in Detention  500
Legion of Police  6,100
Corps of Invalids  1,000
Democrats ready to commence action. . . . 17,000
t [Proletarians (so called from the Latin word, proles) means
the multitude who, possessing no fortune or property, have only
their offspring (proles) to offer as a guarantee for their attachment v
to the state. — Brontehpf ]

140 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
Force of the By the side of its own list the Directory
reigning had placed in view the forces which the
tyranny. reigning tyranny could oppose to it. It
was aware that armed bodies, however apparently weak,
might obstruct the popular movement — that the Royalists
would, in all probability, assume the defence of the
Government it hated, m order to escape the law of
equality, which was still more odious to it — that the
great bulk of the rich, who exclusively commanded the
National Guard, would rather die than witness the
triumph of Democracy — that the greater number had
arms, and that Government would provide the remainder
with them.
Resources of On their side, the conspirators had at
the people. their command the arms and ammunition
with which the grenadiers of the legislative body and
the legionaries were provided ; and they counted upon
seizing those deposited at the armorers and gun-smiths,
at the chief places of the sections, at the Thuilleries, at
the Feuillans, and at the Invalides, with the help of the
most resolute of the citizens, and by the connivance of
the men appointed to guard the magazines. They
reckoned besides upon the artillery of the Camp of
Vincennes, which was devoted to them, and expected
the troops would join the people — that the sudden
explosion of an immense population would strike the
partizans of tyranny with terror, and that the people
would find a powerful auxiliary in the cowardice so
natural to the rich favourites of fortune, upon whom the
Government founded its principal hopes.
The Director Was it in order to escape the just
Barras offers resentment of the people? Was it to
his services to r ., • l * •.,
the conspira- favour the conspirators, or with a view to
tors. ascertain their designs, that the Director
Barras had a long conference, on the 30th Germinal,
with Germain, the accredited agent of the Secret Direc
tory ? — -a conference in which Barras sounded Germain
upon the causes of the popular effervescence so strongly
manifested ; and that, on the evening of the 20th
Floreal, he made an offer to the principal conspirators
(using Rossignol and Louel as his organs) to put him
self, with his staff, at the head of the insurrection or to

BADEUF S CONSPIRACY. 141
place himself as a hostage in the Faubourg Antoine ?
They who would give these facts an interpretation
favourable to Barras's honour, would have at the same
time to explain why he did not apprise the parties to
whom he testified so much interest and confidence on
the 20th, of the denouncement which had been made
against them on the preceding 15th Floreal.*
After having rendered an account of the Democratic
forces at Paris — after having collected the opinions of
the most enlightened patriots, and heard the report of
the Military Committee, the Secret Directory considered
it a duty to trace out a plan of insurrection, to the end
that all operations might tend uniformly to the same
point, and that the enterprize might not fail for want of
prudence. It had been long since admitted that it Order of the
would be expedient to open the insurrec- movement?1181
tion by the pubhc announcement of an
Insurrectional Directory, around which all should rally,
and whose impulsion all should obey. This announce
ment was to be made by the promulgation of the Insur
rectional Act, agreed to in concert with the Mountainist
Committee. In this Act, as well as in all others to
* A fact posterior to our conspiracy seems to throw a light upon
this mystery. After the violent dissolution of the Secret Directory
and the imprisonment of several of its members, some other De
mocrats undertook to break their irons, and to continue their great
work. To these, two friends of the Director Barras introduced
themselves, and persuaded them that the latter participated in
their aspirations, and desired to effectually second their efforts.
It was owing to their counsels that the project was formed of
making the Democrats fraternize with the soldiers of the camp of
Grenelle, in conjunction with whom they were then to invade
the Executive Directory, in order to operate the desired Revolu
tion. These promises made in the name of Barras by his friends,
a sum of about 24,000 francs distributed by them, and the pro
testations of certain officers of the camp, did, in fact, determine
the Democrats to present themselves there in a body, without
arms, crying Vive la Republique, and singing patriotic hymns.
But instead of the fraternity promised to them, they found mas
sacre and death. Who laid these traps ? Who desired to destroy
the democratic party at a single blow ?
[My readers may learn from this single anecdote the true cha
racter of the Thermidorian assassins of Robespierre. Barras, the
true author of this ambuscade, had been appointed chief of the
counter-revolutionary forces of the Convention on the nigbt of
9th Thermidor. — Bronterre.]

142 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
appear during and after the insurrection, the Secret
Directory assumed the title of " Insurrectional Com
mittee of Public Safety," with the view of restoring the
forms under which the Robespierrians had prepared the
way for equality before the 9th Thermidor, and to avoid
all analogy to those which the aristocracy had instituted.
The distribution of the insurgent army into three
divisions had been adopted. Three generals were to
command them, under the orders of a general-in-chief,
subject to those of the Insurrectional Committee ; sub
ordinate to each general of the division were to be placed
chiefs of arrondissements, and to the latter again, chiefs
of sections, which in like manner were to be subdivided
into platoons, with appropriate leaders.
With respect to generals, the views of the Committee
were fixed upon Fion, Germain, Rossignol, and Massart.
The chiefs and commanders of platoons, marked out by
the same Committee, were to present themselves to
form the ranks of the people, at the moment when the
proclamation of the Insurrectional Act, the tocsin
(alarum-bell), the trumpets, and the shouts of the
friends of liberty, would have summoned it to the re-
conquest of its rights.
The popular army being thus composed, the next step
was, by the aid of the insurrection, which it was expected
would be general amongst the labouring classes, to direct
it against the reigning tyranny, whose forces it was to
combat. Columns of it were to march on the legislative
body, on the Executive Directory, on the staff officers,
and on the hotels of the Ministers, in order to support
the Republicans charged with arresting the usurpers.
The best disciplined sections, and those least armed,
would have been directed towards the depots of arms and
ammunition, and particularly towards the camps of
Grenelle and Vincennes, where there were no more than
8,000 men, and even these, it was believed, were ready
to join the people.
To hasten this junction, it was proposed to employ the
display of a grand force as well as the language of per
suasion; orators were to remind the soldiers of the crimes
of the Government, and of their duties towards their
country; the women were to present them with garlands

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 143
and refreshments ; the Invalides to invite them to follow
their example. If the worst happened, preparations
were made for barricading the streets — for showering *
upon the troops torrents of boiling water mixed with
vitriol, besides stones, slates, tiles, and bricks.
The rest of the popular army was to be employed in
guarding the entrances to Paris — in maintaining commu
nications between the different bodies of the people — in
protecting the provisions intended for the city — in prevent
ing all anti-popular gatherings — in intercepting all aristo
cratic correspondence — in checking all attempts at pillage,
and in executing the orders of the insurrectional authorities*
Unforeseen accidents, like those which caused the
disasters of Prairial, might possibly render doubtful the
success of the enterprise, if measures were not taken to
prevent them. Accordingly, did the Insurrectional
Committee consider of the means of abundantly pro
visioning all the places where the people was to assemble,
and it was principally with this intent that it had decided
upon installing in each section, from the outset of the
insurrection, three members of the Revolutionary Com
mittee, which was in activity up to the 9th Thermidor,
and whose duty would be to instantly place at the disposal
of the insurgent citizens, whatever meat and drink they
might require, by seizing the provisions deposited at all
the public and private stores, and to execute on the
spot the first offices of kindly relief promised by the con
spirators to the unhappy poor.
For the purpose of giving the people a Lodging and
sensible idea of the new Revolution, and p0^r mg
of strengthening its zeal, the Insurrec
tional Committee proposed to publish, during the insur
rection, two decrees, by virtue of which the poor should
be immediately clothed at the expense of the Republic,
and on the same day lodged in the houses of the rich,
to whom should be left only the accommodation indis
pensable in that way.
* It would be wrong to confound the regular distribution of
lodging and clothes with pillage, which is opposed to all amelio
ration by the irreparable losses it causes to society, by the new
inequalities it produces, by the demoralization it fosters and
feeds, and by the difficulties it opposes to the reception of good
laws. — It belongs to laws alone to re-establish equality.

144 babeuf's conspiracy.
It is right to make known the idea Punishment of
formed by the Insurrectional Committee
of the public sentence to which it desired to subject the
most guilty of the people's enemies, that is to say, the
members of the two Councils, and those of the Executive
Directory. The crime was manifest — the penalty was
death — a grand example was necessary. Nevertheless,
this example should bear the stamp of rigorous justice,
and of a profound feeling for the public good. It was
agreed that the insurgent people should have read to it a
full and detailed account of the treasons it had been the
victim of, and should be invited to except from proscrip
tion those of the accused, in extenuation of whose
political faults excusable error might be pleaded, or
simple and popular manners, or some brilliant service
rendered to equality during the insurrection. According
to some opinions in the Insurrectional Committee, the
condemned were to be buried under the ruins of their
palaces ; which ruins were to be left in that state as a
monument to the latest posterity of the just punishment
inflicted on the enemies of equality.
Every measure of attack and defence was about being
signified to the agents of arrondissements, and to the
generals the Committee was upon the point of naming.
From the happy termination of the insurrection was ne
cessarily to flow a new order of things, some substrata
for which it was necessary to lay beforehand, in order to
prepare for the most urgent wants; the Insurrectional
Committee had made them the subject of its meditations.
We have seen how, previously to its coalition with the
Mountainists, it counted upon getting established, by the
people in insurrection, the new Authority and the rules
of its conduct. To the changes rendered necessary by
this coalition, the distrust, excited by the equivocal course
of the Mountainists, caused others to be added.
To triumph over tyranny would have been nothing,
unless there were a certainty that it would be replaced
by guides animated with the purest love of equality. It
was necessary to have men whose doctrines, morals, and
entire life were in perfect harmony with the institutions
they were summoned to create.
According to its first system, the Insurrectional Com-

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 145
mittee was certain that the spirit which animated it
would pass effectually and fully into the new National
Assembly, and in that consisted the strongest guarantee
it could offer the people of the approaching establish
ment of equality, and of the popular Constitution of
1793. But from the moment it was de- xhe equivoca-
cided to recal a part of the Convention, conduct of the
the Insurrectional Committee believed it Mountainists
... £.•/-, 1 - renders new
to be its duty to fortify the people against precautions ne-
the seductions of the new authority. The cessary.
reproaches which it urged againsts the Mountainists
sufficiently prove that it was far from reposing confidence
in them.
To the old grounds of distrust, the recent conduct of
these Conventionahsts added new ones. The Committee
had been struck by the subtility with which they en
deavoured to evade the proposed adjunction, by the
haughtiness they carried into the discussions, and by that
aristocratic pride which made them call the restitution
of the people's rights a gratuitous concession. Moreover,
it was informed that manoeuvres were being clandestinely
practiced, with a view to elude the conditions agreed
upon, and to make the supreme authority of the Repub
hc fall exclusively into the hands of the Mountainists.
The Committee was now so strongly convinced of the
impossibility of these Mountainists effecting any good,
that it regarded as an unpardonable crime the least
movement, which bv delivering power into their hands
would be only substituting one tyranny for another.
They considered then of the means of forcing the
recalled Conventionalists to abide by their promises, and
to throw no obstacle in the way of an effective and per
manent equality. It was by the people that the con
spirators had hoped to overthrow tyranny. It was by the
ascendancy of truth that they had obtained the support of
the people, and it was now again by the aid of truth and
the people that they resolved to baffle the new machina
tions. Notwithstanding the provisions of the Thedispositions
Insurrectional Act, by which a part of the °i(m ^erelo^be
National Convention was recalled to the sanctioned by
evprcise of power, the Committee wished *{"fl vosce °f
r ' the people.

146 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
that it should be re-established by the express will of the
people in insurrection ; that by the same authority should
the stipulated adjunction be solemnly decreed, and
the additional Deputies named. It wished, besides, that
the same people should order the magistrates in authority
before the 9th Thermidor to instantly resume their func
tions ; that it should confirm all the insurrectional dis
positions, prescribe the prompt execution of the decrees
of the Committee concerning the lodging and clothing
of the poor, and directly instal the new Convention after
having pronounced the grand decree already spoken of.
To this effect, the Insurrectional Committee had re
commended its agents to direct all their cares to produce,
immediately after the overthrow of tyranny, a concourse
of all the citizens round the place where it would hold
assembly. There the Committee would have rendered
account to the people of all it had done to break the
new yoke imposed on the nation, and demanded of it
the decrees it might judge necessary for the safety of the
Republic. The discourse which one of the members was
to pronounce upon that grand occasion was actually
drawn up, and was about to be submitted to examina
tion.Discussion on A very delicate point was maturely dis-
the participa- cussed in the Insurrectional Committee.
tion of the rpne question was to determine what part
Insurrectional . ^ , , . . , ... r .
Committee in its members should have m the exercise
the new autho- of the new authority. Its intention was
rlty" to speak to the people without reservation
or equivocation, and to pay the most striking homage to
its sovereignty. Had it deemed it necessary, to the
complete success of the insurrection, to be temporarily
invested with the whole national power, it would not
have hesitated to demand it. But every institution of
this sort having been previously rejected, it remained
only to examine whether it would be expedient to re
commend the people in insurrection to institute a
numerically small body, authorized to propose legislative
measures to the new Convention, whose decrees it would
execute, or whether it would be more expedient to com
mit this important care to the Convention itself. What
ever might have been the decision of the Insurrectional

babeuf's conspiracy. 147
Committee, it would be still necessary to ask itself
whether the success of the new Revolution did not
require that its members should exclusively compose the
contemplated body in question.
There having been no resolution come to in this
respect, I can only record the arguments by which the ,
Committee had compared the advantages and incon
veniences of the different plans proposed for adoption.
It will occur, in the first instance, that the conversion
of the Insurrectional Initiative into a permanent, and
necessarily very extended power, would expose the
members of the Insurrectional Committee to the sus
picion of having ambitious and interested views ; it was
feared that inculpations of this kind would, by the
readiness with which they are credited and propagated,
only obstruct their march, and leave them no time to
realize the good proposed. And it was asked, whether
the presence of the conspirators in the new Convention,
their ultimate union, and the general confidence be
stowed upon them, would not suffice to impart to the
laws the spirit of their enterprize, and to raise to the
supreme executive power magistrates worthy of exer
cising its functions ?
On the other hand, the Insurrectional Committee saw
but few men in whom purity of principle was to be found
united with courage, with firmness, and the intelligence
necessary to reduce them to practice ; it felt how dan
gerous it would be not to leave the completion of so
hazardous a work to those who had had the boldness to
commence it, and it dreaded the duplicity of certain per
sons with whom it was about to find itself in competition.
After having long hesitated, our conspirators had almost
decided upon demanding from the people a decree by
which the initiative and the execution of the laws should
be exclusively confided to them.
Several of our projects remained imperfect ; many
useful undertakings were cut short by the treason which
delivered over to the vengeance of the aristocracy the
men whom circumstances had carried to the head of the
Democratic Party ; and the history of their conspiracy
might be terminated here, were it not necessary, in
order to give a thorough knowledge of their designs, to
h 2

148 babeuf's conspiracy.
throw some light on the picture they had formed to
themselves (of the probable state of the nation imme
diately after the insurrection — on the final results to
which they aimed, and on the means they counted upon
employing to attain them.
View of the In the midst of the consternation with
probable state which so radical a Revolution would
thfeIin"urrecr-ng llave smitten aristocrats of all shades, and
tion. of the joy which changes of so popular a
cast would have excited amongst the numerous class of
operatives and unhappy poor, was the new Convention
to spring up, composed of about one hundred and
» seventy thorough Democrats and Equahtarians, all of
' them irrevocably pledged by the principles of their lives,
and the aspirations of the surrounding people, to lay the
foundation of a solid and enduring equality. By the
side of it, the Insurrectional Committee, seconded by
j the magistrates installed by the insurrection, would have
presided, at least provisionally, over the execution of the
Act which was to put the citizens in movement ; at its
call the enormous mass of Parisian poor would have been
suddenly transferred from their cells and garrets into
healthy and commodious habitations. The unhappy
poor would have been supplied with clothing, and their
goods and furniture in pledge at the pawn-offices would
be gratuitously restored to them. At the same time
diligent care would have been taken to ensure abundant
subsistence ; the principles of the new Revolution would
have been explained to the citizens in the assemblies to
be forthwith re-opened ;* a numerous popular guard
would have repressed the ill-intentioned, and facilitated
every operation that might be adjudged necessary to the
consolidation of the new system.
It is impossible to determine exactly to what extent
the display of physical force might have been necessary ;
the conspirators desiring to carry the day at any price,
were determined either to vanquish or to bury them
selves under their country's ruins. Unless in case of
resistance, the severity to be employed would not have
exceeded the punishment of the principal usurpers, and
* The same as in Robespierre's time.

babeuf's conspiracy. 149
the arrestation of certain dangerous persons, of whom the
Insurrectional Committee had lists drawn up.
To the preparatory steps judged necessary to over
throw the scaffolding erected by the new aristocracy, it
would have been necessary to add those others which ap- '
peared best calculated to render the Revolution of Paris
common to the whole Republic, and to establish
throughout the institutions of equality and popular so
vereignty. From the first moment of its appoint- The depart
ment, the Insurrectional Committee had ments-
made the departments and the armies the subject of its
meditations ; it had circulated its writings in all quarters ;
the Democrats were everywhere apprised of its projects,
and everywhere prepared to co-operate. There was in
the hands of one of its members a voluminous cor- '
respondence which indicated the places were the Demo
crats were in force, and the men in whom most
confidence could be placed ; information was received
from all sides stating that the Revolutionists, abandoning
the shades of opinion that had hitherto divided them,
were rallying one and all to the standard of pure
equality. With respect to the armies, the Committee was well
aware how difficult the commissaries of the Convention
had found the task of stifling amongst them, after thev
9th Thermidor, what they called the spirit of anarchy
and insubordination ;"' neither was it ignorant that the
Constitution of the Year III. had raised murmurs
throughout whole armies (avait fait murmurer des
armees entieres) ; it was informed that the soldiers
obeyed with repugnance the commands of the officers
that succeeded those destituted after the 9th Thermidor,
and that amongst the chiefs, of whom some corresponded
with it, there were several that still remained strongly
* [Even Mignet (an historian devoted to the middle classes)
admits this. " During these occurrences," he says, " the intel
ligence of the Revolution of the 9th Thermidor reached the armies.
They were entirely Republican, and apprehensive lest the fall of
Robespierre should carry along with it that of the popular Govern
ment; they heard it, therefore, with marked disapprobation," \c.
—Bronterre.]

150 babeuf's conspiracy.
attached to the principles of democracy.* It was, more
over, authorised to reckon upon the co-operation of
certain Conventionalists, whom the Executive Directory
had sent on a mission to the armies of the Republic.
Furthermore, it was likely that the example of Paris
would give an impulse to the people of all France, which
a subsequent knowledge of the truth would have ren
dered irresistible. By way of spreading amongst the
soldiers this knowledge (upon which the Insurrectional
Committee founded its principal hopes), commissaries
were to have been dispatched to them, and proclama
tions f addressed, in unison with those by which it was
in preparation to announce to the French people the
news of its redemption.
Legislation of Whilst meditating the overthrow of
equality and in- tyranny, the Committee had never ceased
termediary laws to occupy itself with the definitive legis
lation of equality, and with the inJerSMiaTy laws by
whiehitrwas to' be gradually attained. In relation to this
important 4jranclp-of-its-labours, there were (at the mo
ment when part of the papers of the conspiracy were
seized) certain memoirs and projects deposited with one
of the Committee, in a place which the police could not
discover ; unfortunately these documents were almost all
destroyed in consequence of the sudden consternation of
their authors, and I have been only able to procure some
fragments which were deposited elsewhere. With the
help of these fragments, and the remembrance retained
by several persons of the facts and discussions they
were witnesses, to, I will endeavour to give an approxi
mate idea, but as substantially exact as possible, of the
object and intentions of the conspirators. I will first
explain the civil and political state to which they desired
to gradually conduct the French people. I will after
wards relate some of the temporary institutions by which
they counted upon preparing them for, and leading them
to that state.

* They were not yet covered with the spoils of Italy, of Switzer
land, of Egypt, of Germany, and Spain.
t See the spirit of these in one of them inserted amongst the
justificatory pieces at the close of this work.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 151
From the decree which the Insurrec- The proprietor-
tional Committee was to demand of the shlp„f a-u
- p f** » ¦* euitii is one
people ot fans, was to emanate a new and indivisible.
social order.* In the first place it was ^ belongs to
there implicitly acknowledged that mdi- people'
vidual property, so far from emanating from the law of
nature, is but an invention of the civil law, and may, like
it, be modified or abolished ; in the next place, it was
there laid down as a principle, that thejDroprietorship of
all the wealth comprised^ within the nationaFterifFory is
one and indivisible, and belongs inalienably to the people,
which alone has the right of repartition, as regards its
enjoyment and usufructuary possession.
AssuretHy-the "proclamation of these truths would have
been very agreeable to the multitude, whose sufferings
and slavery are always inevitable consequences of the
contrary system ; nevertheless it would have been only
a cruel derision to acknowledge the principle, unless
measures were assiduously taken to apply it "in such
manner as to produce practical consequences of utility
to mankind.
The principle once recognised, that the right of re
gulating, for the general good, the distribution of wealth
and of the labours which produce it, belongs to society ;
and that from the inequality of this distribution flow, as
from an inexhaustible source, all the calamities which
afflict nations; it follows that society should provide
that this inequality be destroyed never more to return.
It remains then to be decided, whether the remedy for
these evils ought to be sought in modifications of the
right of property, or in its total abolition.
It has been seen, in the course of this work, by what
motives the conspirators had been determined to adopt,
as the final object of their enterprise, the proscription of
individual property, and by what means they reckoned
upon attaining it; by establishing the community of
wealth and labour — the sole means of drying up for ever
the source of all inequalities, and of extirpating all pre
judices, as well as all the evils derived from them. In
structed by the lessons and by the examples of the great
* For this decree, see pages 117, 118.

152 babeuf's conspiracy.
men of antiquity, and of the Revolution, and encouraged
by the dispositions lately manifested in France, they had
conceived the design of giving new manners to the
French, and of constituting them into a people passion
ately attached to their country and laws ; happy at home :
loved, respected, and imitated abroad.
"Right of every In this social state, private riches dis-
one to a happy appear ; and the right of property is
existence. The repiaced by that of each individual to an
obligation ot r J , . r .1
labour equal for existence as happy as that ot any otner
all. member of the social body. The gua
rantee of this sacred right becoming the principle of
all institutions, rests in the obligation imposed upon each
member of the social body to take a share of the labour
necessary to insure the maintenance, the prosperity, and
the conservation of society — an obligation which, being
derived from the law of nature (which has given to all an
equal right to happiness), is consequently equal for all.
Agricultureand The &* and most important occu-
arts of the first pations of the citizens ought to be those
necessity. which assure them subsistence, clothing,
and habitations, and have for their object agriculture,
and the arts subservient to the cultivation of the soil, to
the construction of edifices, to the making of furniture,
and the fabrication of stuffs and cloths. And, as all
lands are not equally suited to the culture of the same
products, one of the principal cares of the public admi
nistration ought to be to establish in each canton, the
productions and works most conformable to the soil and
climate, and the most favourable to abundance and
equality.Distribution of Thus, as all lands cannot produce with
the citizens. equal fecundity every species of commo
dity, in like manner all persons cannot be usefully em
ployed with several sorts of works. To the end that
society may derive from the equal and moderate labour
of each of its members, all the advantage that it ought
to expect from it, and that habit may diminish its diffi
culties, it is necessary that occupations be distinct —
that each have his state or calling — and that those, foi
example, who cast metals, be not obliged to work wood,
to weave stuffs, &c. Thence arises in the system of

babettf's conspiracy. 153
community of goods and labour, the necessity of dis
tributing the citizens [into several classes, to each of
which the law allots a particular sort of work, according
to the wants of the country, and in accordance with the
supreme principle of equality.
This distribution takes birth in the It takes its
houses of public education, of which we uTeducation."
shall speak anon. The magistrates charged
with their superintendence cause to be executed therein
all branches of work ordained by the laws, and attach to
each of them the number of eleves (pupils) proportioned
to the wants of the public, at the same time consulting
the capacity and peculiar bent or turn of each pupil.
The grand object of this general activity, ADundance the
from which none may withdraw them- object of gene-
selves but those whom old age or infirm- ral 'abour.
ities render incapable of it, is to provide in superabund
ance the things necessary for all ; and to furnish them
with those articles of pleasure not disapproved by public
manners. Whatever is not communicable to all, ought
to be severely retrenched.
In the Order in question, the works Labour is a
necessary to the subsistence and pleasures lat'edby law?"
of the people are functions, the regulation
of which is prescribed by the laws, in order that they
may never degenerate into fatigue — that they may cause
the least possible pain — that they may not fall heavier
upon one citizen than another — and that all may be
called and encouraged to take part in them, by custom,
by the love of country, by the attractions of pleasure, and
by the approbation of pubhc opinion. Thus, whilst the
greater number would be occupied in labouring, sowing,
reaping, and putting up in the granaries, some would be
constructing and repairing houses, public edifices, roads,
harbours, canals : others again would superintend the
breeding and preservation of animals ; the latter would
prepare and employ the thread, the wool, the hides ; the
former would manufacture the furniture, vehicles, shipping,
or work the metals, &c. &c. The duration and severity '
of the labours would be regulated by the law, which,
while it spared the weak, would excite the strong by the
encouragement of opinion, and by the praises of the
h 5

154 babeuf's conspiracy.
magistrates, so that all might find themselves subject to
duties equally proportioned to their strength, and to the
rudeness of the labour they might have to perform.
Mitigation of Fearing that the diversity of occupa-
painful labour, tions might produce for certain classes too
sensible an increase, or surfeit of labour, it was con
sidered — 1st. That it would be expedient to call in the
sciences to soften the labour of man, by the invention of
new machines and the perfecting of old ones.* 2d. That
it would be right to charge, in turn, all the able-bodied
citizens with the more repulsive occupations, the dis-
agreeableness of which, it was hoped, would be progres
sively but rapidly diminished by a masculine education,
and by the assistance of mechanism, chemistry, and the
physical sciences in general.
Probably it would have been found convenient to dis
tinguish the works of strict necessity into easy and painful,
and to oblige each citizen to exercise one of one class,
and one of the other. Probably it might have been also
just to establish another division of citizens, according to
age, for the purpose of proportioning the weight of labour
to the increase and diminution of strength ; for, in matters
of this kind, equality ought to be measured and deter
mined less by the intensity of the labour required than by
the capacity of the labourer.
* It is only in the system of community that the use of ma
chines can prove a real benefit to humanity, by diminishing the
labours of man, while, at the same time it augments the abundance
of things necessary and agreeable. At present, machines, by su
perseding a vast deal of manual labour, have only the effect of
depriving multitudes of men of bread, for the advantage of certain
insatiable speculators, whose gains they augment.
[Buonarroti, it will he perceived, takes the same view of ma
chinery that I have so often endeavoured to elucidate in the
Poor Man's Guardian, People's Conservative, &c. He would have
been more correct, however, had he added to the greedy specu
lators he alludes to, that infinitely larger mass of the community,
which may be comprehended under the two-fold class of idle
and uselessly-employed ; that is to say, those who do nothing for
their living, and those who do only what is useless or mischievous,
such as lawyers, priests, stockjobbers, and the great majority of
profit-hunters of every sort, nine-tenths of whom are not wanted by
society for the purposes of distribution, &c. &c. ; these, and the
like, are the parties that chiefly profit by the present use or abuse
of machinery .—Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 155
From the impartial and universal division of labour —
from the reduction of occupations to those alone which
are necessary to all — from the most advantageous use of
animals, and from the perfecting of instruments and
machines, flow two consequences infinitely favourable to
the happiness of the species. 1st. The useful employ
ment of all the land, and the multiplication of things
truly useful. '2d. The removal of idleness, and thereby
a great mitigation of individual labour.
All having equally contributed towards Equality of en-
the fertilization of the land, and to pre- J°yments-
paring its productions, it is but palpable justice that all
should participate equally in the enjoyments resulting
therefrom, and to which Nature has attached the conser
vation and happiness of the species. To the end that '
partiality should not disturb the social tranquillity, it is
necessary that all the productions of the land, and of
industry, should be deposited in public magazines,
whence they should issue, to be distributed equally to
the citizens, under the superintendence of the magis— »
trates, responsible for such impartial distribution.
If the society thus instituted were limited to the
scanty territory of a commune or district, its administra
tion would be a matter of extreme simplicity,* for its
inhabitants would have a right to only the things pro
duced within it. But in an immense Republic, com
posed of several millions of men, who constitute its
strength, and insure its durability, the proprietorship of
the riches of each of its parts belongs to the entire
people, and the inhabitants of each section have an
equal right to the consumption and use of the commo
dities and products of all the rest ; the districts which
* By dividing the grand national proprietorship into as many
partial proprietorships as there might be small communities, each
of them would be able to procure the necessaries it might be in
need of, only by the exchange of its own superfluities. Those
which, on account of the sterility of the soil, or the inclemency of
seasons, might find themselves without superfluities, would have to
experience the inconveniencesand evils of scarcity. Thus would
vanish that general fraternity, and immense reciprocity of suc
cours, which it was intended to establish ; and the selfish and
chicaning spirit of traffic, which would have soon presided over
the deliberations of all those communities, would not be slow to
awake once more the old cupidity in the hearts of the citizens.

156 babeuf's CONSPIRACY'.
yield a superfluity ought to furnish the less productive
ones with what is necessary. Thence arises in the
administration of a very extended society a certain com
plexity which is extremely puzzling to persons who con
sider the thing superficially ; but at bottom the whole
affair is one of simple calculation, susceptible of the
most exact order and regular operation, since cupidity
being deprived of all aliment, by the establishment of
the institutions in question, there would be no longer
any occasion to fear the losses which incessantly cause,
under the existing order of things, the competition of
rival chiefs, and the plunder of their subordinates.
Advantages of Besides, the greater the extent of ter-
community ap- rjt0ry a community embraces, the stronger
plied to a very . .. J -i re v _? r
extended is the guarantee it otters to each part ot
country. that territory against dearth and scarcity
of every kind. Moreover, from such great and frequent
intercommunication of men and things, ought necessarily
to spring up a feeling of happiness, of fraternity, and of
devotion, so general and so strong, that it is to be pre
sumed no human force could either invade such country
nor destroy its institutions of equality, once they were
firmly established.
Equal distribu- So numerous an association of men,
tion of nches. scattered over so vast a territory, requires
another species of function, without which the fraternal
bond that links together all parts of the Republic
would be broken, and the superfluities of one district be
rendered useless to itself and to the rest. These functions
have for their object the transfer of the products of land
and industry from places where they exceed the wants
of the inhabitants to those which are deficient. They
are of two sorts. 1st. A superior magistracy compares
the riches of the whole with the wants of each part,
points out the commodities to be deported, and the
places whence they are to be taken. 2d. Inferior
officers superintend and effect the transport.
By-and-bye we shall see by what channels the
supreme administration of our Republic would have
been able to easily provide for an uninterrupted com
munication between all its parts ; for the present we
shall only observe, that in this order of things the in-

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 157
habitants of barren countries, whose extreme fatigues
would never have yielded other than extreme poverty,
would behold themselves consoled for the labours they
had bestowed, and invited to participate in the riches of
more productive soils.
With respect to transport, the Insurrectional Com
mittee was of opinion that society ought to consider it not
merely as an indispensable means of providing the inha
bitants of one district with the surplus products of
another, but also as a happy occasion for strengthening
the love of country, by bringing home to every individual
the knowledge of its beauties, of its institutions, and of
the benefits of the equality to be established by the laws ;
consequently, they wished that every citizen capable of
work should be called in turn to this function, as also to
those of courier, bearer of dispatches, &c. Let my
readers bear in mind that I have not before me all the
documents to which the conspirators had committed
their most secret thoughts ; I cannot, therefore, develop
in detail all the parts of the edifice they proposed to
construct, but am limited to a mere report of such out
lines as my memory may furnish, with the aid of the
few fragments I have been able to recover. The con
siderate reader will accept this as an apology for the
imperfect manner in which I must necessarily treat this
part of my subject.
Such are the vicious habits we have External com-
contracted, such is the multiplicity of ar- merce-
tificial wants we have inconsiderately created, that it is
to be presumed there would still be a necessity to draw
from foreign countries some of the more important com
modities that France does not produce; at all events, it
would have been necessary to send abroad for those
which the medical profession derives, more or less, from
all climes. The people being sole proprietor of all
wealth, it belongs only to the people to treat with
foreigners for the mutual exchange of superfluities. Be
sides, a traffic of this kind could not be entrusted to
other than responsible magistrates, without refalling
into the evils inseparable from private or individual pro
perty, and exposing the state to a new corruption. It

158 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
thence follows that all commercial relations with fo
reigners ought to be subjected to the supreme direction
of the Republic*
Usufructuary It also follows, from these principles,
right. that the system of community once es
tablished,, a citizen could -never acquire over anything
what is called the right of property ; he would have only
the right, of using, or" a usufructuary. right.to whatever
objects or goods he became possessed of by the actual
delivery of the magistrate. In this Order of Economy,
the right "of "property vests always in the Republic,!
which may at all times dispose of every thing not con
sumed or destroyed.
This regime once established, the satisfaction of
future wants is effectually guaranteed, by the labour of
all being made subsidiary to them, and by the natural
desire of each and all to have what is good. There
would be no longer any reason to be greedy of riches ;
all motives for being anxious about the future would
cease, and thus the most prolific source of the cares and
vexations which gnaw the heart of civilised man, would
be for ever dried up. Under the existing order of things,
two painful feelings incessantly haunt the labouring man,
and, generally, persons of small income — the fear of po
verty from the infirmities of old age, and apprehensions
for the condition and fate of their offspring. In the
system of community these corroding feelings would be
unknown.
The aged and To the obligation of labour imposed on
infirm. the strong, correspond the right to a
happy existence at all times, and that of being exempted
from labour, and unburdened with care, whenever the in
firmities of age, or the weakness of the organs, render
labour painful or impossible. Thus, in the Order of
* There exists corruption in society whenever the elements that
compose it are divided by diversity and opposition of interests. A
nation may be always pronounced corrupt whenever there exists
in the bosom of it a class of persons who have formed to them
selves pretensions irreconcilable with the well-being of the
whole, or of the other component parts.
t That is to say, the absolute empire or faculty of disposing at
its pleasure. Jus utendi atque abutendi (the right of using and
abusing).

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 159
Community, the repose and tender treatment of the
aged and infirm are placed in the rank of the principal
duties of society. In return for these good offices, the
Repubhc would receive lessons of experience from the
old, and make them subjects of emulation for the young;
they were destined, in fact, to become the guardians of
morals and of the laws, the censors of public manners,
and the conservators of virtue.
One of the effects of these institutions would have
been, I think, to attach the citizens so strongly to them,
that the love of country would have become their pre
dominant passion. By education, the legislator would
have been able to render all affections of family and
kindred subordinate to this sentiment ; he could have
rendered it so intense and active, that the truly fraternal
union of all Frenchmen would, in all probability, have
been its happy and astounding consequence. This re
flection constituted the delight of our conspirators, and
was the animating soul of all their projects. I remember
one occasion, when, in the midst of a discussion on the
advantages and inconveniences of family ties, the pro
position was formally made to forbid children to bear the
name of a father that had not distinguished himself by
great virtues.
Thus, what was to embellish the declining years of old
age would have also strengthened the virtue of the young,
and from this reciprocity of advantage, joined to the
happy effects of an education in common for all, at the
public charge, the country would have derived an aug
mentation of power from every increase of its population
— an augmentation progressive and sure, as there would
be no moral cause to retard it.
Everything in this social order favours Propagation of
the multiplication of our species. The the species en-
system of community does away with courase •
those obstructions which now frequently prevent the le
gitimate intercourse of the sexes ; it gives to the soul a
tranquillity at present unknown to us, it fortifies the
body by a mild and varied activity, and augments the
productions useful to all by banishing luxury and idle
ness.

160 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
<s „„¦„,;?„ „f R was by similar ways that the most
superiority ot , , ,,*'., n • -^ i-n j
this institution celebrated legislators of antiquity qualified
over those of their respective fellow-citizens for the en-
the ancients. joyment; in different degrees, of liberty
and happiness. Lycurgus, in particular, had nearly
attained the end of society marked out by nature. But
the law of nations practiced by the ancients, and perhaps,
also, an unjust egoism or selfishness had introduced into
all their institutions an inhuman usage, with which the
system of our conspirators would never have sullied itself
— I mean the practice of holding slaves. The community
sought by us would have this honourable distinction in
its favour — that the liberty to be established by it would
not, as in Greece and Rome, be the privilege of a certain
class or classes, to be enjoyed at the expense of the ser
vitude of the rest.
New repartition Since the inequality of fortunes has
ofthepopula- condemned one portion of the people to
tlon- overwhelming toil, and another portion to
a demoralizing inaction ; the country parts have retained
comparatively few inhabitants, often insufficient for the
wants of cultivation, but always crushed under the weight
of excessive fatigue. The supernumerary population has
crowded into cities, either to dissipate there in volup
tuousness the riches produced by the country people, or
to procure an easy living by subserving the pleasures of
the rich, or through the complication of the public ad
ministration. In verging towards equality, society should necessarily
witness the breaking up of those huge gatherings of
human beings, which are destructive alike of morals and
population. Those capable of work should necessarily
return to the country to lighten the burden of their rustic
brethren. The industry of towns would go to embellish
the lives of the country people who feed them. The
simplicity of the new Government would render unne
cessary the myriads of clerks and placemen who are now
abstracted from agriculture and the useful arts ; and the
maintenance of order being dependent on the due dis
charge by each citizen of his respective functions, it
would be no longer compatible with those tumultuous

baet.uf's conspiracy. 161
gatherings in towns, amongst which it is so easy to hide
one's actions from public observance and censure.
No longer a capital — no more great Decay and dis-
cities* — die country would be gradually but appearance of
rapidly covered with villages, built iii the sreat clUes"
mosf healthy and convenient places, and located in such
* If I mistake not, the existence of large cities is a symptom of
public malady, and an infallible forerunner of civil convulsions.
The nucleus of them is formed of overgrown proprietors, large
capitalists, and opulent merchants ; around whom congregate a
multitude of persons who subsist on their expenditure, by pur
veying for their wants, by nattering their tastes, by lending them
selves to their caprices, and by pandering to their vices.
The more populous a city is, the greater is the number we meet
of servile domestics, of abandoned women, of hungry writers, of
poets, of musicians, of painters, of loose wits, of comedians, of
dancers, of priests, of intermeddlers and interlopers, of thieves,
and of vagabonds of every sort.
From the perpetual exchange of services and wages, there is
engendered in one class the habit of authority and command ; in
the other classes, that of submission and servitude. The latter,
while they crawl and cringe to the former, do, at the same time,
contract their dissolute morals, their airs, their disdainful pride
and manners ; they also accustom themselves to exercise a vulgar
authority over those less favoured by fortune than themselves, in
imitation, no doubt, ot" their masters. Both one and the other
scorn real happiness ; they desire to be rich, powerful, and pre
ferred, and, above all, to appear so.
Those sumptuous palaces, those vast gardens, those costly va
rieties of furniture, those brilliant equipages, those numerous and
flaunting liveries, and those riotous saloons, which constitute, as
they say, the ornaments of great cities, make fatal impressions on
the minds of all whose regards they attract. On the one hand, they
innate the minds of ihe possessors, and dispose them to see in
those deprived of them so many malignant enemies, whom
jealousy and misery are incessantly urging to despoil them oftheir
possessions, and to revenge themselves for the state of humilia
tion and destitution to which the rich have reduced them. On
the other hand, the excluded parties either get their minds per
verted by covetousness, and envious hatred; or rendered abject
and degraded, they become the degenerate props of ambition and
tyranny. All such luxuries and possessions occasion real misery,
both to the possessors, and to those desiring them, for while the
former are tormented by ennui and suspicions, the latter are
gnawed by an envious longing for imaginary goods, of which
more happy mortals (as they fancy) are in possession.
The parties who go to seek in great cities distraction of thought,
pomp, and homage, are such as need not to labour, having already
thrown upon other people's shoulders their proper share of the
common burthen which nature imposes upon all alike. Accord
ingly has the task of those remaining in the country parts ex
ceeded the limits of nature, and the labours of agriculture and of
the necessary arts of life, have become more and more subjugating
and painful The evil always making progress, at length attains

162 BABEUFS CONSPIRACY.
manner as to communicate easily one with another, by
means of roads and numerous canals, which it would be
in every respect the general interest to open and con
struct.that last desperate stage when the condition of the labourer and
artisan, scarcely differing from that of the galley-slave, is at
length despised and abandoned. Every peasant then turns his
regards towards the great city, and hies thither, it he can, in
quest of those advantages of which his imagination exaggerates
the allurements. The folly once committed of going there, he
must now live there. Examples are seductive ; the multitude of
wrong-doers protects vice from censure, the senses get inflamed ;
what at first appears repulsive, assumes by little and little the
complexion oibon ton and " knowledge of the world"— very soon
are money and applause preferred to duty and virtue ; by dint ot
being supple and polished, he becomes hypocrite, liar, and knave ;
and if fortune smiles, he attains his wished-for elevation, when
without being happy, he appears so, or becomes a mark of am
bition to be envied or imitated by a crowd of imprudent creatures,
who fling themselves into the jaws of misfortune by false reckon
ing and illusions.
Nevertheless, the number of competitors, attracted by riches,
pleasures, and dissipation into large towns, goes on increasing to
the point, when the majority of them, reduced to slender salaries,
exhausted by excesses, and overburdened with children, are at
length confounded with that multitude of wretches who wound
the sight and afflict the heart, in every country where there are
large cities.
A griculture and the arts of first necessity, being the true nu
tritive supports of society, it is to the scene of tbese occupations
that men are called by nature to live, whether it be to till the soil,
or to furnish the agriculturists with commodities and with re
creations. To the evils immediately resulting from inequality, there is
added a multiplicity of others, by the extent of territory, the cen
tralization of Government, the enormity of taxes, public debts,
the luxury of banquets, and the deceitful splendour of courts.
These and the like are inseparable from those grand capitals,
" where the women," says Jean Jacques Rousseau, " no longer
believe in honour, nor the men in virtue."
In proportion as these living masses of humanity extend in
bulk, in the same proportion do they suppose progressive in
equalities of fortune and condition ; and, as public misery and dis
content augment with inequality, w-herevev these crowded popu
lations have place, there are the causes of discord and convulsion
most rife, and there, also, are most obstacles to be overcome
before real liberty can be established.
People complain of the imposture of priests, of the violence of
military men, of the duplicity of courtiers, and of the perfidy of
spies — let us complain rather of the monstrous inequality which
renders them all necessary. How should any one expect that,
without deceiving and terrifying, an appearance of peace could bo
maintained amongst this motley multitude of persons, who are
impelled by their very morals, institutions, and laws, to envy,
hate, and combat one another 1

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 163
It is to be presumed, that all considera- Simplicity of
tions yielding to the supreme law of tbe haoitations-
equality, the sumptuous mansion and towering castle
would give place to the salubrity, commodiousness, and
prosperity of all the habitations, disposed with an elegant
symmetry, both to please the eye and facilitate the
maintenance of public order.
As there would be no longer palaces. Magnificence of
neither would there be any miserable edifies1'0
ruins, such as now constitute the greater
number of habitations. The dwellings would be simple,
and the magnificence of architecture and of the arts,
which set off and heighten its imposing grandeur, would
be reserved for the pubhc magazines, for the amphi
theatres, for the circuses, the aqueducts, bridges, canals,
public places, the archives, the libraries, and, above all,
for the places consecrated to the deliberations of the
mieistrates, and to the exercise of the popular sove
reign: v.
In a well-ordered society nothing would escape the
searching mind of the legislator ; in a veritable republic "
nothing should run counter to the principle of equality,
which is at once its end, bond, and strength ; let its citi
zens only once begin to taste the sweets of equality, and
These capitals, which inequality engenders, and in which are
forged the elements of all revolutions — these capitals, which have
so often been the instruments, were also at times the focuses of
liberty ; they might still be made to render effectual aid towards
establishing a real social order, provided wise and upright minds
could attain the directing power of their movements, and were
afterwards able to make their unwieldly bulks disappear, by
scattering their inhabitants over the country, to be better employed
for themselves and their country.
[How dear old Cobbett would have enjoyed this philippic of Buo
narroti against the vices of city life ! Who does not recollect some
of that able writer's descriptions of the " Wen," as he used to call
this metropolis. Buonarroti, however, possesses this advantage
over Cobbett — that he tells the whole truth, while Cobbett tells
only a part. The taxes and the tax-eaters were all that seemed to
trouble Cobbett. Buonarroti takes a wider and juster view of
things. Without assigning a pre-eminence of mischief to any one
class in particular, Buonarroti shows what must inevitably be the
vices of all city populations — vices which can be no otherwise
remedied than by the application of some such principles as those
inculcated in his book. — Brontehre.]

164 babeuf's conspiracy.
soon will every department of civil life be most easily
moulded and harmonised upon that principle.
Furniture and The same rules are applicable to dress
clothing. ancj furniture. It is essential to the hap
piness of individuals, and to the maintenance of public
order, that the citizen should habitually find in all his
fellow-countrymen equals, brothers ; and that he should
nowhere meet with the least sign of even apparent
superiority, the precursor of despotism and servile sub
mission. Equality and simplicity do not exclude ele
gance and propriety. There might be, for instance,
different colours and forms to distinguish the different
ages and occupations ; and there is no reason why the
citizen should not wear a different costume at the
assemblies and festivals, from his ordinary one in the
workshop. The girls, too, might be differently attired
from the grown women ; and it might prove useful, as
well as pleasing, that the youth, the adult, the old man,
the magistrate, and the warrior, should have each a
peculiar and appropriate costume. Indeed, with respect
to dress in general, the Insurrectional Committee was of
opinion that the main point to consttrt-for^'as health,
and the- development of the organs ; for fashion and
frivolity it ha4-eo-sympathies. It desired, also, that the
French people -should adopt a costume to distinguish
them from all other nations. 
Happy conse- To appreciate fully the utility of so
quencesofthis great a change, the readers of this work
ought to bear well in mind the train of
reasoning by which the Committee demonstrated to
itself the justice of its enterprize, and felt encouraged to
persevere. If, it observed, the only object of regard be
that class of men who, by their riches, their talk, their
wit, their dissipation, and their insolence, engross the
whole of public attention, and call themselves the sound
and interesting part of the nation, it must be owned that
such persons will have many privations to experience in
the transition from the old to the new life of the social
body. Those amongst us who have been led, by a
vicious education, to contract disastrous habits, will
necessarily view with uneasy astonishment the regenera
tion they must have to undergo. But if, on the other

babeuf's conspiracy. 165
hand, we consider the state of oppression, of misery, of
suffering, of drudgery, and bondage, to which the great
majority of our fellow-citizens are reduced — if we reflect
that the rich man does not taste a single pleasure which
is not wrung from their toils and privations — we shall be
convinced that every advance towards equality prevents
the recurrence of an infinity of afflictions, and opens an
immense field to the benedictions of emancipated mil
lions, which, though less noisy, cannot be counter
balanced by the selfish murmurs of a handful of corrupt
usurpers, whom, for their own true happiness, as well
as for that of the whole Commonwealth, and of all pos
terity, it is necessary to lead, by consent or force, to
more reasonable sentiments.
The labour necessary to the mainte- Non-productive
nance of society, equally distributed occuPations-
amongst all its valid members, is for each of them a
duty, the fulfilment of which is rendered imperative by
the law. Nevertheless, there remains in the life of man
a long interval of time, the occupancy of which ought
not to be abandoned to voluptuousness and ennui. It is
upon the wise and rree employment of this time that the
happiness of the citizen depends, and consequently the
liberty, prosperity, and duration of society. To fortify
the soul by giving vigour to the body — to close without
restraint all the avenues to corruption- — to shed a charm
upon every moment of life — to develope the enthusiasm
of virtue, and to render his country the dearest of earthly-
abodes to each citizen — such are the grand effects that
a legislator truly popular would elicit from the occupa
tions, by which he might contrive that this interval of
life be freely filled up.
It would be idle to attempt introducing a taste for v
such occupations into a country where corrupt institu
tions render the love of riches the principal spring of
human action, and place the talent of acquiring them in
the rank of honourable qualities. Were the attempt
made to ally them to the spirit of avarice and traffic,
they would immediately sink into utter contempt ; and
the man who, to accomplish such a task, should neglect
the care of his own affairs, would pass for an incorrigible

166 babeuf's conspiracy.
dupe, and inevitably carry about him the penalty of iiis
good intentions.
_ , Those occupations which have for their
Good manners. ,.,,., r • ,. ., i i 4.1. u-
object the exercise ot the body, the culti
vation of the mind, general instruction, the scientific use
of arms, military evolutions, the rendering honours to the
Divinity, the apotheosis of great men, public games, the
celebration of festivals, the perfecting of useful arts, the
study of the laws, the public administration, and the
deliberations of the people, differ from the other occu
pations spoken of in this — that they arc neither indis
pensable for man's existence, nor, for the most part,
commanded by the law. They ought to be taken up
voluntarily, and without constraint. To obtain a good
result from them, the skilful legislator attaches the
people to them by their own free choice. And here, the
master-piece . of policy consists in so modifying the
'human heart by education, by example, by reasoning,
; and by the attractions of pleasure, as to cause it never to
form any other desires than those which tend to render
society more free, more happy, and more durable.
When a nation reaches this point, it has good manners ;
then are duties, the most painful, discharged with alacrity
and pleasure. A spontaneous obedience is yielded to the
laws ; the limits imposed on our natural independance
are regarded as blessings ; reasonable propositions en
counter no opposition, and there prevails throughout the
body politic unity of interest, of will, and of action.
There took place in the Insurrectional Committee, a
few days before its violent dissolution, a long conference
on this department of the new institutions, all the cir-
•j cumstances of which I regret that I am unable to report.
To acquit myself, however, in the best way I can of the
duties I have imposed on myself I shall state all that re
mains of it in my memory, but without attempting to
fill up the breaks of the argument, lest I might substi
tute my own thoughts for those of the Committee.
Education the According to the conspirators' plan,
source of man- the mould of national manners lay in
the common education, which they placed
¦j under the immediate direction of the Republic. They would

babeuf's conspiracy. 167
be afterwards confirmed in the civic assemblies, where
the young people would have found the same sentiments,
the same opinions, and the same usages, which they had
been taught to love in the early days of life. I will
speak of this education after I shall have given a more
complete idea of the superstructure of which it was to be
the eternal base.
We have seen that the employments Works not sub-
indispensable for the preservation of so- 0f°iaDour"
ciety, ought to be so distributed amongst
the different classes of workers, that each would have its
own department. But there are other employments to
which it is expedient, for the maintenance of liberty, that
all the citizens should be invited to take part in turn —
viz., such as appertain to the administration and defence
of the Republic.
The Insurrectional Committee was of ^i'^110" 9f
opinion that equality and liberty could ^d defence' 0'f
not be maintained in society unless all the country,
the citizens participated in the construe- common to all.
tion of the laws, were all equally eligible to be charged
with a share of the pubhc administration, and were
alwavs ready to carry arms for the defence of the
country and the laws.
If, observed the Committee, we allowed Dangers to be
to grow up in the State a class of persons apprehended
exclusively versed in the principles of the exciusive]y in-
social art, of law-making, and of Govern- structed in the
ment, it would soon find, in the supe- «« _of S°vern-
riority of its knowledge, and in the
ignorance of the rest of the citizens, the secret of
creating for itself distinctions and privileges. By ex
aggerating the importance of its services, it would easily
succeed in making itself be regarded as a protecting
power, necessary to the country ; and, colouring its
audacious designs with a pretended regard to the public
good, it would, by degrees, usurp the popular sove
reignty, and talk all the time of liberty and equality,
the same as though it were not reducing the deluded
people to the worst of all servitudes; the worst,
because it would be an apparently legal and voluntary
one.

168 babeuf's conspiracy.
T, . r The primordial laws are not sufficient
The exercise of r
legal power not for a state ; they cannot foresee every
above the capa- thing, nor be adapted to all times and
lei °{ any Cltl" circumstances, and new ones will be fre
quently required to preserve the spirit of
the institutions, as well as to provide for unforeseen
cases. Moreover, it belongs to the nature of man to
ameliorate his works by experience ; and in order that
the end of society be completely attained, it is necessary
that its practical results should be from time to time
applied by the laws to the improvement of the public
administration. If a permanent legislative power be
necessary to a state — if this power can, as we shall
presently see, reside only in the whole people — it be
comes one of the most important duties of the founder
of a Republic to place all the citizens in a capacity to
exercise it ; that is to say, to give the people the means
of being really sovereign. The enlightened decisions of
the people on general objects could never run counter to
equality, or to the well-being of society (since no people
would knowingly legislate against themselves) ; but to be
and to continue enlightened, they should be formed under
a regime in which equality exists in the fullest sense of
the word.
From this fundamental duty emanate for every citizen
three species of occupations, which, by the importance
of their object, the attention they require, and the eleva
tion they give the mind, would charm a great part of
lite. These occupations consist in the conservation and
propagation of the principles of the social institution and
laws, in the necessary training to learn them, and in
exercising them. I shall speak elsewhere of the magis
tracies charged with the public education and instruc
tion, as also with the training of youth; at present I will
confine myself to describing the career intended for the
young people after they had quitted the common halls
of education, through which all should pass.
Age and ca a ^ a'^ soc'a^ rights, there be none more
city required" important than those which relate to the
for having the formation of the laws, for by them it is
frage.°fSuf" ?hat society lives and moves; next in
importance come the functions of the

babeuf's conspiracy. 169
magistrates charged with the execution of the sovereign
will. These rights cannot be exercised, nor these func
tions properly discharged, unless by well-informed, expe
rienced, and prudent men. Thus, according to the plan
of the Insurrectional Committee, the legislature was to
prescribe the age under which no man could participate
in the sovereign power or in the magisterial authority : *
it was even proposed to interdict from the exercise of
civic rights all who could not furnish proofs of their ca
pacity ; but the fear of thereby affording a pretext for
the exclusion of a vast number of citizens, made the
Committee reject it, and the more determinedly, because
its members were convinced that, real equality once"
established, the multiplicity and opposition of interests
would be annihilated, and the art of government so sim
plified, as to be brought within the capacity of anybody
and everybody.
In coming out of the halls of education, the youth of
France would not have been inconsiderately thrown into
the Comitia ;* it was expected they should first attend *
them for some time in silence, and in a place marked
out for the purpose, in order to learn the forms and order
of debate, and to acquire habits of gravity and decency.
It was also desired that, before being invested with the most
precious of all social rights, that of voting for the laws,
the young people should frequent unions, wherein it
would have been lawful for every one to speak his opinion ;
there they would have heard men deeply versed in the
science of law, and perused such books as the Republic
would have provided for the purpose. Moreover, they
should not have arrived at the exercise of the suffrage
without having served a certain time in military affairs at
the camps ; the youth would have been constantly in
the presence, as it were, of their country, which, never
losing sight of their future destination, would have che
rished and enlightened them in the knowledge of its be
nefits, of its laws, and of their duties.
• ("An assembly of the whole Roman people to give their vote
upon anything was called comitia; in these assemblies, every
thing which came under the power of the people was transacted,
such as electing magistrates, passing laws, declaring war, &c—
Bronterre.] I

170 babeuf's conspiracy.
The rights of The Committee regarded as a great
citizenship are vice the custom of placing in the rank ot
acquired by citizens all who happen to be bom in a
consent. country, without any deliberation on
their part, thus presuming a consent which ought to
have so great an influence on their future lives. It was
considered, that the submission of every one to the laws
of the society of which he forms part, ought to be the
result, formally expressed, of a free and enlightened will.
For this purpose, it thought of establishing a solemnity,
by which the reciprocal engagements of society towards
the citizens, and of the citizens towards society, would
have been formally verified.
On stated days, young men of the requisite age, and
after completing the degrees of civil and military instruc
tion prescribed by the laws, should have come to demand
of the assembled citizens the inscription of their names
on the register. Afterthejleliberation-of this assembly,
the riature of the_ social compact would have been ex
plained, the rights it confers, and the duties it imposes
on the candidates, who would have been called upon to
declare whether they consented to become a part of
French society on the conditions they had just heard,
vand in which they had been instructed by their education.
/ The recusants, if any, would have been forthwith banished
for ever from the Republic, and accompanied to the
frontiers, after being provided for a certain time with the
necessaries of life. As to the others — those consenting
to the conditions — they would have contracted a solemn
engagement with the sovereign people, by virtue of which
they would have received the tokens of their new con
dition. Clothed by the magistrates in the costume of
the citizens, they would have been saluted as French
citizens, and their names inscribed in the civic register
borne with pomp in the midst of the people ; then would
each new citizen have been presented with a military
coat and a complete suit of armour with his name
engraven thereon, to the end that the fear of being
dishonoured by losing it, might render him more
resolute in battle, and engage him to defend at the
cost of his life whatever his country confided to his
care.

babeuf's conspiracy. 171
From his inscription on the civic regis- Popular assem.
ter till death, each citizen would have blies for the
been summoned without fail to the assem- exercise of so-
blies in which the people was to exercise vere'sn P°wer-
its sovereignty. It will be seen by the developments, I
propose to give of the doctrine of our conspirators re
specting the form of Government which was to be the
final result of their success, that these assemblies would
have met for the following purposes : —
To discuss — to admit or reject the laws proposed to
the people by its delegates.
To deliberate on the laws demanded by a certain
number_of -citkensror "bY other sections of the sovereign
(people),   -  — - -
To ascertain and promulgate the laws approved, by
the whole .people. "
The same development will also make Formation and
known the occupations to which the elec- action of the
tion of magistrates, their installation, and
functions, would have given place. The essential point
was to render these occupations agreeable and sought
after ; and this our reformers hoped to accomplish by
education, by the carefully-cherished remembrance of
the unnumbered evils from which equality had delivered
Frenchmen, and by the esteem and gratitude with which
the laws, manners, and pubhc opinion, would have
honoured those who devoted themselves to the public
administration. It would have been an object to em- The.pnblic as-
bellish the localities of these assemblies castnToTVe-
with every thing that the arts, Majesty, taxation and
Order, and Liberty, present as most at- emulation.
tractive. If, moreover, we consider that the confusion
caused now-a-days in such meetings by the clashing
of interests, which often makes them degenerate into
tumultuous mobs, would have been unknown in our
assemblies; if we reflect, besides, that from the sim
plicity of our political system, all persons would have
been able to appreciate the utility of these assemblies,
we shall retain the conviction that, real equality once
established, they would necessarily become objects of
interest, of relaxation, and of useful emulation.
1 1

i72 babeuf's conspiracy.
Every citizen is The aggression of foreign powers being
a soldier. a thing always possible, the defence of
the country against invasion is an essential part of the
wisdom of laws ; for the best internal institutions would
offer no safeguard to a people unskilled in war, against
the attack of an unjust and warlike neighbour. But if,
on the one hand, arms are useful to the Republic, they
become, on the other, very disastrous to it, when
habitually and exclusively confided to a part of the
citizens. These, seduced by the temptation of booty,
or by a false glory, often turn them against the liberty
of the other citizens, to the advantage of ambition and
tyranny. To prevent so dangerous an abuse, it is good
policy to give arms to all fhtf citizens, and to render all
equally skilled in the use of them. Besides being a
preservative against "the" danger just spoken of, the
Republic would find in such institutions the advantage
of being better respected by its neighbours, and the no
less valuable one of accustoming the citizens to legal
obedience, and of increasing their vigour by fatigue, and
by the contempt of pain and death.
The children Accordingly, so soon as the children
to be brought up wouhi have acquired strength, they would
country and of have been habituated to military works.
true glory. In speaking of early education, I shall
explain how it was intended to inspire them with firm
ness and courage. I shall only observe here, that
according to the views of the Committee, the effect of
the institutions relating to this point would have been to
preclude the introduction of young people into social
life until inured to discipline, and to the privations of
the camp, inflamed with love of country, and burning to
serve it.
The youth con- ^n ProPorti°n as the new institutions
stantly encamp- would have augmented the defensive force
ed qn the fron- 0f the nation, in the same ratio would
they have inspired it with sentiments of
justice towards foreigners, and with aversion for con
quests. An agricultural people without money, and
without luxury, having no other soldiers than citizens,
and enjoying the sweets of equality, of liberty, and
abundance, has neither the wish nor the power to take

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 173
up arms to oppress its neighbours, or to prolong war
after being engaged in it in self-defence. Nevertheless!
its respect for the laws of nations being no security
against the restless projects and ambitious designs of its
neighbours, it ought to be on its guard and prepared.
Its army, composed of all the able-bodied citizens, would
soon punish the audacity of invaders ; but is it not- wiser
to stop them on the frontiers, to preserve the country
from the ravages of an invasion, and to give the nation
time to fly to arms? Accordingly was the Committee
of opinion, that in the then political state of Europe,
and until reason and liberty might have made new con
quests, it would be necessary to keep the youth of France
constantly encamped, or cantonned on the borders of the
Republic. Before entering on the chapter of military
education, it is right to throw a glance or two on the
formation, force, and movements of the National Army.
We have seen that it was to be composed of all
Frenchmen capable of bearing arms. The laws had
determined the age at which this capacity is presumed
to begin and end.
All the citizens, distributed into bodies MT ,
of equal force, are ready to march at the
voice of the country in danger. There is in military life
a time exclusively devoted to obedience ; the chiefs are
named for a time by the people.* Some members of

* The perpetuity of military grades is, if I mistake not, one of
the greatest scourges of public liberty, and by it it is that a certain
despotism raises itself on the ruin of the laws. Officers, formerly
good citizens, seeing themselves placed for life above the common
soldier, insensibly separate their interests from those of the
people, create out of the services they have rendered the country
titles or licenses for arrogating to themselves distinctions, trea
sures, and power ; they no longer carry arms, except in the sense
in which one exercises a profession or trade, and they end by
forming in the state an aristocratic body, which, to please its
chiefs to whom it owes every thing, accredits the doctrine of
blind obedience, and labours to stifle in its subordinates even the
remembrance of their rights.
It is the interest of tyranny to persuade the people that war
cannot be made with advantage, unless by those who make it the
exclusive business of life. That is an error belied by all ex
perience. The souls of freemen have a spring of action within
them more powerful than all the rules of tactics. A united and
wisely-instituted people will always know enough of the art to
confound the audacity of its enemies, and will find old men and

174 babeuf's conspiracy.
the Committee believed it would be useful to call the
civil magistrates to the superior functions of the army.
We shall revert to this opinion when we speak of govern
ment. Occupations of In time °f Peace the M'1'*^ InStitu"
which the Mili- tion would tend to prepare the citizens
tary Order is for (Jle fatigues and manoeuvres of war, to
the source. strengthen man's physical and moral con
stitution, and to open to the people a vast field of amuse
ments and emulation. Frequent assemblies would be
formed, to enter the names of the new defenders — to
elect and proclaim the chiefs — to execute military evo
lutions — to assist in the exercises of running, riding,
and swimming, &c. — to form grand encampments — to
distribute the prizes and triumphal honours decreed to
zeal and valour.
Levy of the Thus far military functions agreeably
whole people fill up a part of the void left in human
easy to execute. ijfe^ unciaimeci by its necessary occupa
tions, of which they derange neither the distribution nor
harmony; but war arriving, they immediately pass into
the rank of works essential to the maintenance of society,
whose wants are then considerably augmented.
To the authority charged with the supreme executive
power, it belongs to summon the citizens to the common
defence, and to mark out, agreeably to rules established
by law, the divisions that are to march when the con
currence of all is not necessary. The lists, the arms,
the habiliments, and the military instruction being always
magistrates of sufficient experience to direct its military opera
tions. There is Sparta — had she irremovable officers ? Had the
Greeks, who bid defiance to the countless army of Xerxes, per
petual chiefs at their head 1 In the glorious days of ancient Rome
had they commanders for li lei Was it not with armies of peasants
and shepherds that the Swiss, the Dutch, and the Americans re
pelled the troops of their oppressors, though disciplined, fashioned
to blind obedience, and commanded by professional officers 1 A
handful of rude Corsicans constantly beat the disciplined soldiers
of the Genoese aristocrats, and for a long time resisted a numerous
and well-regulated army of Frenchmen. In short, it is to soldiers
without experience, and to new chiefs, that France was indebted,
at an epoch, when she marched with rapid strides to liberty, for
the prodigies of valour, by which the servile soldiery of all the
despots ot Europe was repelled and defeated.

babeuf's coNSPiRAcr. 175
m an effective state on all points of the Republic, the
levy or rising of the whole people presents no more
difficulty than the march of a single regiment. Where
is the nation that can oppose to its enemies so formi
dable a force ?
However, if the whole or a part of the people take up
arms, and remove to a distance from home, productive
labour being necessarilv suspended or diminished, there
will result a lack of the ordinary materials of consump
tion, unless a wise administration can find in the ordinary
course of society preservatives against unforeseen acci
dents. These accidents are not confined to the Unforeseen ac-
ravages of war, and the suspension of in- cautions"1 PrB
dustrial works ; there are some which
¦unan prudence can neither foresee nor prevent — such
are inundations, parching droughts, hail-storms, and
that sterility with which frequent revolutions smite lands
rendered fruitful by the hand of man. For the want of
good social institutions, flourishing countries are often
times depopulated by these and the like events, and what
is far more distressing to every honest mind, a season
of scarcity causes the labouring classes to die of misery,
not through any real lack of food in the country, but be
cause the workpeople, who are then in less demand,
cannot reach the high price to which the rich raise com
modities and provisions, the latter of which they alone
have been able to accumulate during years of abundance.
Where a people is equitably governed, the goods and
the evils ought to be equitably shared amongst all its
members. The scarcity of things necessary for use,
ought, whenever it happens, to make itself be felt equally
everywhere; but before coming to privation, every pre
caution, rendered practicable by the ordinary fertility of
the sod, and by the activity of the inhabitants, ought to
be exhausted.
The labour of all the valid citizens would, no doubt,
produce far beyond the wants of the public, since, even
under the existing order of things, there are so many
idle people, and so many useful things converted into
superfluities. To obviate unforeseen accidents then, it
is only necessary to gather up, and preserve the super-

176 babeuf's conspiracy.
abundance of fertile years, now-a-days almost entirely
dissipated in frivolous customs, which, by flattering
pride, vanity, and depraved tastes, render us wicked and
unhappy. From its ready knowledge of the state of production
and demand, the Supreme Administration deduces the
arrangements necessary to guarantee everywhere a suffi
cient supply of provisions, and to provide also for the
unforeseen wants of the future. As matters stand now,
nothing is more rare than exactness in such surveys, be
cause every one, believing himself less exposed to adver
sity in proportion as he piles up, endeavours by false
declarations to withdraw his substance from the public
charges. But in our system, where the sole proprietor
ship of the country replaces individual properties, it being
impossible for any man to be tranquil as regards the
future, unless the Republic be rich, and able to ad
minister and distribute with equity the fruits of the com
mon labour, the same anxiety, which now causes men to
think only of themselves, invites them to approach one
another, to mix together, to lend mutual succours, and
to communicate to one another without mystery or
fraud their wants and their resources. Let all the cir
cumstances, said the Committee, be duly weighed, and
it will be seen that the advantages of the social state are
almost annihilated by the introduction of private pro
perty, and that it is only when that institution shall have
been abolished, that each individual will feel how much
he is interested in the well-being of all his associates.
The science of government, which the collision of so
many opposing interests renders at present so very in
tricate, is reduced by the system of community to a simple
calculation scarcely beyond the capacity of an ordinary
shopman. By means of grand depots, replenished in
times of abundance, our Republic would have provided
for unforeseen accidents ; upon the least appearance of
external danger, the subsistence necessary for the armies
would have been abstracted from the depdts, to be
transported to the places where the troops were mus
tering. Under the existing order of things, whenever we want
to prepare for war, our greatest difficulty is not to direct

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 177
the movements of the aimed bodies, but to assemble
them and subsist them.
If we succeed so far as to overcome in some degree
the resistance opposed to us by effeminacy and selfishness,
a great deal remains still to be done in the way of raising
money, which is contributed with reluctance, and in
ensuring provisions of every kind, either by direct pur
chase, which the sudden rise of prices and the inevitable
peculations of agents render very burdensome, or through
the medium of contractors, whose insatiable and crafty cu
pidity nothing can satisfy. Sometimes, indeed, the fear
of a foreign yoke kindles, at least for a time, the love cf
country, and favours the raising of extraordinary contri
butions, but it is only by inflicting a disastrous wound on
agriculture and industry, that the means are procured
for repelling foreign aggression.*
In the political system of our conspirators all these
difficulties disappear. The provisioning of the armies is
always at hand, and the armed bodies always ready at a
moment's warning to march to the frontiers, without any
necessity for the citizens to make the least retrenchment
in their mode of living; their numbers remaining the
same, the consumption of the whole is not increased,
wherever that consumption may take place.
Nevertheless, if a second or third cam- Extraordinary
paign were necessary, since the mass of resources.
labour necessary to be done, and the number of consumers
would remain undiminished, whilst a part of the citizens
was engaged in non-productive occupations, there would
ultimately result in the provisioning department, a deficit
which might become a cause of calamities and disorder.
To remedy this, a new application of the principles of
equality furnishes new resourses. Since the citizens en
gaged in war bear a burden to which nothing can possibly
be added, it is just that, by a fresh repartition of the
common industry, an increase should take place in the
labour of those who do not take arms. A half-hour or
a hour's additional work per day would be the maximum
* [The reader will please to bear in mind, that Buonarroti's argu
ment applies to a continental and agricultural country. In an insular
country, like Great Britain, the dangers and difficulties to which
he alludes exist in a comparatively small degree. — Bronterre.]

178 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
of the burden which the most calamitous war could entail
on the people. " Let there be shown to us," exclaimed
some of the conspirators, " any other social order in
which such grai d effects are produced, by means so
simple and of such easy execution."
„ From the facility with which a people,
1 recautions
against the living under such institutions, would be
abuse of war. able to develope its strength, it would be
wrong to conclude that it would be therefore disposed to
disturb the quiet of its neighbours. On the contrary,
the presumption is that it would impose restraints on
itself, either to prevent precipitation and injustice in the
declaration of war, or to direct the conduct of its warriors
during the existence of hostilities. Probably, such a
people would never wage war, unless to repel invasion,
or to support a neighbouring power unjustly oppressed.
Content with the riches of a fertile soil, and containing
in its bosom neither beggars nor rogues, for what purpose
could it be tempted to dispute with its neighbours for
productions which it neither required nor would know
now to dispose of? Agricultural, simple, happy, and at
tached to the manners, and to its laws, the love of pillage
would be as foreign to it as the passion for conquests ; and
its commercial institutions could never expose it to
espouse the quarrels of its merchants — a race of vampires
that would be unknown to the country.*
It was thought in the Insurrectional Committee, that
the law Ought to forbid all offensive wars, and oblige the
army to await on the territory of the Republic the attacks
* Peace Deing the most desirable of objects after liberty, it is
useful and just to have recourse to arms only when the latter is
menaced. Except in this case, the most successful war is but a
crime against humanity, and a source of evils to even the conqueror
himself. History informs us that military glory was most frequently
the footstool of tyranny. The necessity of bridling the military
spirit by laws andmanners, is rendered greater by the circumstance
that conquest and pillage corrupt the citizens, drive the vanquished
to despair and vengeance, taint public opinion with a false ambition
under the names chivalry and honour, and elevate above the laws
rebel chiefs, who dare to exercise upon the country the despotism
to which they had fashioned the soldiers, under pretence of dis
ciplining them. These traitors, aided by the passion for money
and distinctions, which they craftily foment in their imprudent
companions in arms, sow everywhere the seeds of corruption,
proscribe virtue, insolently proclaim themselves the saviours of

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 179
of the enemy; the intent was to preserve the nation from
the corruption which the spoils of victory draw in their
train ; that all individual booty should be interdicted, and
that every soldier should be obliged to carry to the public
depot whatever might fall into his hands. It was well
understood, however, that the best security against military
licentiousness would be found in the contempt entertained
for the treasures of slaves— a contempt which the ge
neral education would have engraved on all hearts. In
the tent — in the field — in the midst of battle, the citizen
soldier would have had no other passion than the love of
equality and of country, and no other guide than the
laws. To the love of their Republic the con- Respect for the
spirators united that of humanity, to the law of natl0ns'
well-being of which all their projects fundamentally
tended. Had their wishes been fulfilled, it would not
have been their fault if the same spirit of equality and
of justice, which was to reign amongst the citizens, did
not direct the conduct of the Republic towards foreigners.
They desired that the French people, considering itself
as a member of the great human society, should con
tribute, by its wisdom and by its example, to ensure
universal peace, and to procure respect in all places for
the rights which nature has accorded to all men alike.
Occupations having for their object the administration
and defence of the State, are not less essential than those
which contribute to satisfy the wants of men, because
without them internal order could not be maintained,
nor external dangers prevented. Besides, they are duties
for all, since, if they were otherwise, they would soon
cease to have for their sole object the public interest.
Those of which I am going to speak differ from them in
this — that while no less necessary for the preservation of
liberty, and for the happiness of society, they are neces-
the nations they are loading with chains, and after having outraged
humanity, and made a mockery of all religious ideas, they caii-y
their effrontery to such a pitch, as to place their criminal usurpa
tions under the protection of the Divinity and of justice.
[What an admirable portrait of the insolent usurper Buonaparte,
who used at one time to sign himself " citoyen sans culottes I" —
Bronterre.]

180 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
sarily more fruitful of good results, since, instead of being
commanded, they are voluntary, and sought after — make
pleasure a source of virtue, and fortify the sentiment and
love of equality.
Advantages of The Committee desired, that in the
frequent meet- Republic, the citizens should do in common
ings of citizens. whatever was to be done. The presence,
it observed, of a numerous and incorruptible pubhc, checks
the secret impulses of selfishness, makes the want of
mutual co-operation more sensibly felt, and fosters in
the heart of each the desire of obtaining the geaeral ap
probation, by punctuality in the discharge of his duties.
If relaxation or recreation be the object, it is in the very
genius of equality to value pleasure only in proportion as
it is shared by all. Thus, have free people frequent
assemblies, while slaves have none. The amount of
happiness in a state increases in proportion as public
amusements are more preferred, and, as there exists a
less disposition to shut oneself up, and become insensible
to the sufferings and to the ennui of the multitude.
Under a wise legislature, the events of nature, of life,
and of society, are rendered so many occasions for in
struction and amusement. By the one, he invites the
attention of the citizens to the works of the Divinity,
and to the wonders of the social system. By the others,
he celebrates the virtues of great men, and excites an
ambition to imitate them. At one time he inflames
courage, at another he kindles the love of equality ; and,
by incessantly occupying the soul with sublime objects,
he preserves it from those appetites and corrupt passions
which enervate and deprave it.
Four classes of The Insurrectional Committee distin-
assembhes. guished, if I mistake not, four classes of
the people. In the first, it ranged those who had for
their objects the exercise of sovereign power, of the
judicial functions, and of the public administration. I
have already alluded to it, and shall revert again to the
subject, in rendering account of the form of Govern
ment. The assemblies of the second class had reference
to the military order, of which I have spoken. To the
third belonged exclusively the assemblies destined for
instruction. I will say more of it, in treating of educa-

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 181
tion, and the development of the intellectual faculties.
Finally, by those of the fourth class, the Committee pro
posed to nourish and strengthen the love of virtue in the
hearts of the French people. I shall attempt a brief
description of the ideas formed by the Committee on
these points.
It began by turning its eyes to the most re- Festivals.
markable events of civil life, and judged it to be con
formable to the spirit of its institutions to make such
events the subjects of so many popular festivals. The
union of the sexes, the presentation of new born in
fants, the entrance of children into the houses of
education, the departure of the youth for the fron
tiers, their return, and admission to the rank of
citizenship, — all these and the like events would have
given place to pubhc solemnities celebrated in every part
of France. In case of war, the departure of the war
riors, the rendering of honours to the defenders of the
country fallen in battle, and the triumphs to be
decreed to the most valiant, would have given occasion
to other festivals, calculated to exalt the soul, and to
preserve the martial spirit of arms.
Other assemblies were destined by the Assemblies -of- ~
Committee to foster the desire of appro- ce-nsors iP.-..~>-
bation, and the fear of pubhc censure. At certain pre
scribed times, a species of censorship would have been
exercised on the conduct of the citizens, and principally
on that of the magistrates. We have seen that the con
sent of the people would have been necessary for the
enrolment of the youth on the civic register. The same
sort of ceremony would have been required for the
honours to be decreed to old men, and for according to
the dead a glorious memory. According to the views of
the Committee, the old men should have played a grand
part in the Government of the Republic, either by en
lightening the deliberations, or by watching over the
preservation of morals; cr finally, by directing the edu
cation of youth. Distinguished by a particular costume,
and by a marked place in the public assemblies, they
had collectively the initiative of opinion (right of speak
ing first) on all propositions made to the people. Im
portant functions, and the principal influence over the

182 babeuf's conspiracy.
censorship, were reserved to them ; and, by yielding to
them a filial respect full of deference, as their due reward
for a life without reproach, the public deliberations were
preserved from levity, and from the precipitate rashness
of immatured experience.
Judging of the Our conspirators desired, also, to in-
public tunc- stitute tribunals of opinion, to which all
nonaries. ^ magistrates, on the expiration of their
offices, would have been amenable. No magistrate could
have been called to a new office unless his behaviour in
the preceding one had been approved.
.udgingofthe And, to the end that something might
dead. always remain to be desired, or feared by
the citizens, even by those most covered with glory, it
was in contemplation to naturalize in France a custom
of ancient Egypt, by which the lives of the dead were
subjected to an examination, which accorded or refused
them the honours of sepulture, according to their ad
mitted deserts. Places embellished by nature and art
were to be consecrated to receive the mortal remains of
good citizens. Monuments erected by the people to the
most worthy, and the inscription upon them of the
names and virtues of all, would have transmitted to
posterity a vast field of instruction and of patriotism ;
and the old men to whom would have been confided the
guardianship of these sacred precincts, would have in
vited the whole nation, by their example, to render a
useful homage to the memory of deserving men.
Anniversaries Festivals would have been consecrated
of memorable to celebrate the memorable events which
111 had most contributed to establish and
consolidate equality. By placing before the people's
eyes the causes which gave rise to them, the circum
stances by which they were accompanied, and the good
or evil which were the consequences of them, it would
have been made to pass through a course of national
history, of morality, and politics ; and it would have
learned to know the rocks upon which the lack of wis
dom might expose the vessel of the Republic to be
wrecked and dashed to pieces.
Games and It was also a wish that some of these
spectacles, events should be represented, as it were in

babeuf's conspiracy, 183
living action ; and, in that case, what advantages might
not the legislator have derived from poetry, from music,
from dancing, and painting, to engrave profoundly on
the heart the sentiments sought to be inspired ? By the
aid of rewards decreed by opinion, he would have ren ¦
dered highly honourable courage, agility, temperance,
modesty, the love of labour, and all the physical and
moral qualities which are the ornaments and the sup
ports of equality, and of liberty. It seemed to the Com
mittee that these amusements, in which all the people
do not share, ought to be severely retrenched in a well
instituted state, through fear, as it observed, lest the
imagination, released from the surveillance of a severe
judge, might soon engender monstrous vices so contrary
to the happiness of all.
All the institutions .and republican Divinity and
manners intended to be created and pre- t^J0rvj.lty °
served would have found a last and im
portant support in the religious ideas, the seeds of which
were to have been implanted in all minds by the laws
and by education. The French Republic, acknowledg
ing no revelation, would have adopted no particular
worship ; but it would have established equality as the
only dogma agreeable to the divinity, whose beneficent
works would have been proclaimed by popular solemni
ties, and it would have strongly engraved on the hearts
of good citizens the hope of a happy immortality. '
* It was thought in the Committee, that the only dogmas 01
which a regenerated society would be really interested in main
taining the belief, are the existence of a Supreme Being and
the immortality of the soul, because, said they, it is important
that the citizens should acknowledge an infallible judge of their
thoughts and of those secret actions, which no laws can reach, and
that they should be firmly convinced, that an eternal happiness
will be the necessary consequence of their devotion to humanity
and to their country. As to worship, they wished it to be limited
to respect for the social compact, to the defence of equality, and
to certain public festivals. All pretended revelations would have
been disavowed by the laws the same as other public maladies, the
seeds of which it was necessary to gradually extirpate. Meanwhile,
every one would have been free to follow his own religious vagaries,
provided public order, general fraternity, and the authority of the
laws, were not disturbed. Such was the religious doctrine of the
principal defenders of equality during the French Revolution ,
such was that of Robespierre, who owed, in a great measure, to
the courage with which he defended it, the bloody proscription of

184 babeuf's conspiracy.
Bond which What appeared to the Insurrectional
of tie Re1 Sbhc. Committee the most difficult point in the
social order intended to be established,
was the maintenance of that sacred bond which holds in
which he was the victim. The infatuation of the Atheists, the
errors of the Hebertists, the immorality of the Dantonists, the
humbled pride of the Girondists, the dark plots of the Royalists,
and the gold of England, disappointed, on the 9th Thermidor, the
hopes of the French people, and of the human race.
[There was no period of the French Revolution in which the
career of an exalted and benevolent legislator was rendered more
painful and perilous than during the fanatic orgies of the A theists,
towards the close of 1793 and in the beginning of 1794. The
hatred of the old superstition, inspired by the recollection of its
countless crimes against liberty and happiness, became so furious
and indiscriminating, that, in their rage to extirpate all traces of
it, many of the inflamed patriots plunged headlong into the oppo
site extreme of Atheism. Not content with destroying all vestiges
of the Catholic worship, and proscribing its priests, the fanatic
multitude was impelled to make war on the Divinity, by denying
his existence, and seeking to make a religion of Atheism itself,
under the form of a sort of demi-pagan worship, instituted in ho
nour of reason. This popular madness, which went to confound
the Deity with the crimes committed in his name by sacerdotal
impostors, occasioned the bitterest sorrow in the more enlightened
friends of equality. One of the objects of the Revolution was to
establish liberty of conscience, but the Atheists outvied even the
fanatics of the old religion in persecution and intolerance. They
broke open the churches, demolished the altars, stripped the clergy
of their vestments, and, adding barbarous insult to cruelty, paraded
asses in the robes of the priests, and presented the chalice to them
to drink in derision of the ceremony of the mass. Robespierre
witnessed these disgusting orgies — these outrageous invasions
of liberty, with horror and indignation. He saw that they were
calculated, not only to degrade France in the eyes of the world,
but what was of more immediate consequence, to produce sym
pathy, and a consequent reaction, in favour of the priests and
superstition. The Convention having decreed the worship of
Reason, at the instance of the Commune, which encouraged the
atheistic party, Robespierre denounced the extravagant and per
secuting proceedings of the leaders of that body, and, at his sug
gestion, the Convention declared the existence of the Deity, and
re-established the freedom of worship and opinion. The speeches
and conduct of Robespierre on these occasions were of the sub-
limest character. At the risk of his popularity, he opposed himself
to the phrensied excesses of the multitude, and, though he detested

babeuf's conspiracy. 185
compact union all classes of the Republic, and causes
each of them so far from regarding itself as a separate
whole, independent of and indifferent to the fate of the
rest, to feel that its prosperity depends on theirs, and
the Catholic worship, he defended its priests, because he saw the
rights of conscience invaded in their persons. On the same prin
ciple that he would have resisted the persecution of the Atheists
by the priests, he now resisted that of the priests by the Atheists.
One of his discourses on this topic is worth reciting here, if It
were only to show his love of justice and the real magnanimity of his
character. " Xo," he observes, " it is not religions fanaticism
" which ought, at this time of day, to fill us with most alarm. Five
" years of Revolution — a Revolution which has crushed and de-
" molished the priesthood, attests its impotence. Fanaticism has
" fled before reason ; but once more pursue it with loud yells, and
" lo ! it will return again to plague you.
" And what other effect can result from this extraordinary and
" sudden heat with which, as appears to me, it has been warred
" against for some time 1
" With what right do obscure individuals, hitherto unknown in
" the career of the Revolution, obtrude themselves to seek in the
" midst of events to usurp a bastard popularity, to seduce the best
" patriots into false measures, and to fling amongst us firebrands of
*' trouble and discord? What right have they to disturb the
" liberty of worship in the name of liberty, and to attack fanaticism
" by a new fanaticism ? With what right dare they to degrade
*' the solemn homages rendered to pure truth into eternal and
" ridiculous farces 1 Why should they be permitted to thus sport
" with the dignity of the people, and to attach the rattle of folly to
" the sceptre of philosophy itself?
" It has been supposed that, by accepting the late offerings of
" civism,the Convention had proscribed the Catholic worship. No \
"the Convention has not made that false step. Its intention is to
" maintain the liberty of worship it has proclaimed, and, at the
" same time, to repress those who would abuse it, with a view to
" disturb public order. It will not suffer the peaceable ministers
" of religion to he persecuted. * » * The priests have been
•' denounced for saying mass. » » • The man who
" would prevent them from it is more fanatic than he who says the
" mass. " There are men who would go further still — who, under pre-
" tence of destroying superstition, wish to make a sort of religion
" of Atheism itself. Every philosopher — every individual— may
" adopt upon that point whatever opinion he pleases. Whoever
" would make it a crime in him to do so is a madman ; but the
" public man— the legislator that should adopt such a system

186 babeuf's conspiracy.
can be preserved and increased only by a harmonious
communion of the whole in will and action.
There are in every extensive country some fertile spots
where the soil furnishes an abundant superfluity, and
" would be a hundred times more insane still. The National
" Convention abhors it. The Convention is not a maker of books,
." an author of metaphysical systems ; it is a political and popular
" body, commissioned to cause to be respected, not only the rights,
" but the character of the French people. It is not in vain that
" it has proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man, in pre-
" senceof the Supreme Being.
" It will be said, perhaps, that I am narrow-minded — a man of
" prejudices — nay, perhaps, a fanatic. I have already said, that I
" speak neither as an individual, nor as a systematic philosopher,
" but as a representative of the people. The idea of a Great Being,
" who watches over oppressed innocence, and punishes triumphant
" crime, is a purely popular one. * * * I have been, since
" I left college, but an indifferent Catholic ; I have never been
" either a cold friend or an unfaithful defender of humanity. I
" am in consequencee more strongly than ever attached to the
'* moral and political ideas which I have just expounded to you.
" If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent one."
" I address myself to a tribune where the impudent G  dared
" to make it a crime in me to have pronounced the word Provi-
" dence. And at what a time 1 When with ulcerated heart, and
" bleeding spirit, I sought to elevate myself above the impure
" crew of conspirators by whom I was surrounded, by invoking
" against them the vengeance of heaven, in default of the popular
*' thunder. *»****»»**
" This sentiment is engraved on all pure and feeling hearts ; it
" was at all eras the animating spark of the most magnanimous
" defenders of liberty. Thus, long as there shall exist tyrants, a
" sweet consolation will be ever present to the hearts of the op-
" pressed ; and, if ever tyranny should revive amongst us, where
" is the energetio and virtuous soul which would not in secret
" appeal from its sacrilegious triumph to that eternal justice which
" seems to have written in all hearts the decree of death against
" all tyrants. It seems to me at least that the last martyr of liberty
" would exhale his soul with a sweeter sensation by reposing upon
" this consolatory idea."
Notwithstanding the noble sentiments of liberty breathed in this
discourse, so strong was the current of atheistic fanaticism at the
time, that it was generally denounced in the clubs as anti-popular,
and counter-revolutionary. The more ardent but less reflecting pa
triots fancied they saw behind the theism of Robespierre a lurking

babeuf s conspiracy. 187
others where it yields hardly enough for the wants of the
inhabitants. In the system of community the advantages
of union are easily enough felt by the latter of these
Earties, but how are you to prevent the districts most
ivoured by nature from regarding as onerous their as
sociation with the less favoured ones, and from aiming to
remain, by a violation of the law of equality, in possession
of a more commodious existence. Perhaps the institutor
of a new people might see, in the possibility of this dis
order, a motive for extending or contracting his terri
tory ; or the object might perhaps be gained by varying
the productions in such a manner that each commune
would have something to expect from the. others ; but it
is chiefly by the reciprocity of benefits, and by the
knowledge of the advantages of social order, that the
bond in question may be rendered indissoluble. When
the inhabitant of the south shall know how useful to him
are those of the north, by the enjoyments they procure
him, by the importance of the district they defend, and
by the fraternal sentiments engendered in them by the
conformity of manners and laws, he will feel his soul
aggrandized, he will admire the social mechanism by
which so many millions of men conspire to render him
desire to restore superstition and priestly power. It was in allusion
to this speech that a ci-devant bishop, then a deputy on mission,
was heard to deliver himself at a popular tribunal of the following
execrable words : —
" The priests are miscreants. 1 know them better than anybody
" else, since I have been their colonel. Woe to you, people ! un-
" less you wage against fanaticism a war of extermination.
" Robespierre himself shall answer to the revolutionary patriots
" for the fanatic discourse which he pronounced at the Jacobin
" Club, on the 1st Frimaire last."
My readers may infer from this what a hard card Robespierre
had to play at that epoch. Execrated and conspired against by
the Aristocrats on the one hand, and accused of moderantisme by
the clubs on the other, it is astonishing how he was able to main
tain his ground so long. The misfortune was, that the people of
France were not then sufficiently enlightened to appreciate such a
man as Robespierre. ' In times of great excitement, the most fatal
of calamities is popular ignorance. A revolution should never be
attempted until the people are first well instructed in a knowledge
of their rights and duties. — Biionterre.]

188 babeuf's conspiracy.
happy, and he will be convinced that, for the very sake
of this equality which he cherishes, it is necessary that,
overstepping the limits of his commune, it should com
prise the whole extent of the Republic*
Communica- Nothing is more calculated to give
tions between birth to, and to cherish these sentiments,
the citizens. tllan fluent communications between
the inhabitants of different parts of a state : they redouble
their zeal by proving to them the eagerness of all to
serve the country. At present, merchants do, for the
purpose of enriching themselves, what ought to be done
for the general good, for the sake of instruction, and in
order to improve ourselves. But the selfish spirit of
trade being stifled under our system, by the proscription
of individual property, the legislator who does not wish
to circumscribe his Republic within the precincts of a
city, ought to supply it with means and motives for useful
and agreeable intercommunication amongst the citizens.
The transport of provisions, the transmission of orders,
the functions of Government and war, require a great
number of citizens to traverse the country ; that is not all.
To the communications of duty we must add others,
incited solely by love of the pleasures of mind and heart ;
and methinks there is no better way to encourage, and
make them be sought after, than by the frequency and
variety of public festivals.
Festivals ^ach conlmune> each department, would
have its particular festivals ; the more general
ones would have been celebrated only near the seat of
Government. Others would have alternately embel
lished several points of the Republic, which should have
* The real or tacit compact upon which society reposes, neces
sarily includes the application in common, or the clubbing together
of all the strength and all the powers of individuals ; for otherwise,
these being found from the beginning unequally divided, the compact
would operate all to the advantage of some and to the detriment of
others. From this fundamental convention it results, that the territory,
however extensive, is entirely the original property of the
people occupying it. Now, by the people not wishing to treat
one party more favourably than another, is necessarily under
stood this— that when it fully exercises its rights, the unequal
dr°t b0tt°n °r 6qUal W°rk3 Sh°uld be comPensated °y an impartial

3ABEUF*S conspiracy. 189
the honour in turn of attracting the regards of the entire
nation.* By such institutions it was that the Necessity of an
Insurrectional Committee thought liberty autllonty-
might be solidly founded, and that by a gradual change
of manners the French might be rendered happy, united,
beloved, respected, and inviucible. Nevertheless, the
cares of our reformers would have been insufficient, if
they had not looked to the means of preserving their
work from the attacks of force and corruption, as well as
of successively ameliorating it. Whatever might be the
wisdom of institutions, they would soon totter, and in
their fall break down the established equality, if the legis
lator did not give them a guarantee more active than the
efforts of egoism ; there is no more effectual one than
the combination of all the individual forces into a single
grand general one, always ready to bring back to the
rule of the common interest whosoever might deviate
from it — it is the creation of the political body.
But this force may be itself dangerous The legislative
and hurtful to liberty, unless placed in power resides
subjection to the will of the sovereign "» *ie. people.
people, and directly emanating from it.t It is necessaryt
then, that the declaration oLthe- national will, or the
law, should be the work of the people itself. Accordingly,
it was to the people that the Insurrectional Committee
desired to consign the care of maintaining, by the acts of
its will, the grand principle of equality.
Though primitive institutions be wisely conceived,
they can neither foresee all the dangers and all the
future wants of society, nor provide by anticipation for
all the circumstances in which society may find itself.
Our Republic would have therefore required, like all
political incorporations, a successive legislation, and con- \
sequently a permanent legislative authority, which, as we
have already seen, should reside only in the people ,
* The Divinity, the grand phenomena of nature, the useful arts,
the virtues, political revolutions favourable to humanity, and the
great men who have served and honoured it, were subjects which
these festivals would have engraven on the minds of the people,
and of which the first idea had been furnished by the decree of the
National Convention, passed in consequence of the memorable
report of Robespierre on religious ideas.

190 babeuf's conspiracy.
After settling the foundations of the social economy
suited to maintain equality, the Insurrectional Committee
'applied itself to devise means by which the principle of
the sovereignty of the people might be at all times
secure from violation, that is to say, to dispose things in
such a manner that no obligation could be imposed on
the people without its bona fide consent, that it might
have no difficulties or obstructions in emitting its will,
and that it might carry into its deliberations all the ma
turity desirable. In order to attain this end, it was
necessary to determine the elements of which the people
is composed, the forms to be observed in eliciting the
expression of its will, and in ascertaining its decisions,
and the precautions requisite to force the magistrates to
submit to them.
Before I render account of the projects of the Com
mittee relative to the public authority — an account as
faithful as the lapse of time, and the feeble and sole
resource of my memory will permit — I ought to premise
that they, one and all, tended to ensure the execution of
the fundamental dogma — the people deliberates on the
laws, consecrated by the Constitution of 1793, of which
it forms the distinguishing character ; for the rest, I by
\ no means give these projects as points definitely deter
mined upon.
The people, observed the Committee, is the totality
of the individuals living as brothers under the same po
litical laws, and as nature makes the happiness of indi
viduals, and the durable tranquillity of society to depend
on equality of rights, there cannot exist within the body
of the nation a single individual having more or less than
his proper share, without there being thereby sown a
seed of disorder and dissolution. Consequently, all the
inhabitants, who having arrived at the age when the in
tellectual faculties are developed, consent to live in the
country, and to submit to the decrees of the sovereign
people, are, ipso facto, citizens and members of the
legislative power.
Foreigners ^n treating of the views of the Insur
rectional Committee on external com
merce, I have said that the direction of it was to have
been confided to magistrates. This arrangement was

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 191
adopted, not only as being in conformity with the prin
ciple of community of goods, but also as a safeguard
against the contagion of pernicious examples which might
otherwise enervate the force of manners, and the love of
equality, the only guarantees of the rights and happiness
of all. Thus, between France and its neighbours, there
would have been raised up, as it were, barriers bristled
with obstacles — obstacles not insurmountable, however,
for the love of humanity would have opened them to the
persecuted friends of liberty, to the benefactors of nations
attracted by the desire of knowing French institutions,
and to all men weary of bondage, who might come with
pure hearts to seek in our Repubhc the asylum of equality
and happiness.*
No pains would have been spared, however rigorous,
to keep away all persons who would introduce frivolities
and foreign fashions ; the curious would have been sub
jected to rude tests (of their good faith), and to a severe
surveillance ; and with respect to those honestly aspiring to
the rights of citizenship, the law would have required that
the National Act conferring them should be preceded by

* This precaution in regard to foreigners was dictated not by a
malevolent spirit of isolation, but by the desire of better dis
charging the offices of humanity and fraternity, which all states
reciprocally owe to one another. The first of these duties is that
which binds a people to aid others in the recovery and defence of
their natural rights ; and the Insurrectional Committee thought
that the French Republic ought, above all others, to acquit itself
of this duty, by displaying the brilliant example of a powerful
institution founded upon equality and liberty. According to its
view, so great a blqssing could not be communicated by force of
arms, either because invasion carries with it the idea of conquest
and domination, or because the accents of fraternity do not har
monize well with the violences which follow in the train of war.
Wishing, then, to render effectual the grand example that was
preparing for the world, it was important to carefully ward oft
from the new social order every thing that might retard or prevent
its establishment; and consequently to rigidly exclude from the
French territory that crew ot foreigners which hostile Govern
ments would not have failed to pour in upon it, under the colours
of philanthropy, for the perfidious purpose of sowing discord and
creating factions in it. , Besides, the experience of the Year II.
was too recent not to make the necessity of caution be felt. A
perfectly free intercourse would not have been held with foreign
States before they had adopted the political principles of France.
Until then the latter would have seen only dangers for herself, in
their manners, in their institutions, and particularly in their
Governments.

192 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
a long and scrupulous noviciate. Where there is a nume
rous people spread over a vast territory, it is not possible
to convene all the citizens to a single assembly, so as to
collect the national will simultaneously at once. Hence
the necessity of regulating in a uniform and commodious
manner the sections into which the whole people is dis
tributed, and to discover a prompt and easy means of
comparing their wishes, without incurring the risk of
seeing them misconstrued or outraged. The Committee
believed that this end would be attained by means of the
three following establishments: — 1. The assembhes of
Sovereignty. 2. The Central Assembly of Legislators.
3. The body of Conservators of the National Wih.
The two first are consecrated by the Constitution of
1793 ; the third was to be the object of a supplement,
which the Committee judged necessary.
Assemblies of To form the Assemblies of Sovereignty,
theSovereignty. tne Republic would have been divided
into arrondissements, as extended as the convenience of
meeting might permit. There would have been held in
each arrondissement —
The Assembly of Sovereignty, composed of all the
citizens ;
A Senate, composed of old men named by the afore
said Assembly ;
A President and Secretaries chosen by the same
Assembly ;
An ornamented and commodious amphitheatre for the
Assemblies of the People — archives or records — Officers
commissioned to convoke the meetings, and to maintain
order in them.
Central Assem- The Central Assembly of Legislators
bly of Legisla- was composed, conformably to the Con-
tOTS- stitution of 1793, of Delegates directly
named by the people, with the double mission of pro
posing laws and of passing decrees to ensure the
execution of them, and to direct and watch over
the Government. By a remarkable difference between
the provisions of the aforesaid Constitution and the
projects of the Insurrectional Committee, the legislators
would have been, in certain cases, responsible for their
opinions.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 193
The Body of the Conservators of the Conservators
National Will was a new institution, des- of the National
tined to collect the Acts of the Sovereign wiu-
Assemblies, and to proclaim the will of the Sovereign.
It was, moreover, projected to constitute this body into
a species of tribuneship, charged to see that the legislators
might not, by abusing the right of passing decrees, make
any encroachments on the legislative power. I do not
recollect that any steps were taken with respect to the
number of Conservators, and the duration of their func
tions, but I remember very well that it was agreed to
engage the people to take them, by immediate suffrage,
from the body of the senators.
This point settled, two ways of forming Formation of
the law were contemplated — it might
originate either in the Central Assembly of Legislators, or
in any of the Sovereign Assemblies. In the first case,
the Central Assembly addressed to the Sovereign Assem
blies its projects, with the exposition of its motives. The
results of the popular deliberations were then transmitted
to the Conservators, who proclaimed the will of the
nation, by publishing the votes of each fraction of the
sovereign whole* In the second case, any Assembly
of the Sovereignty might propose a new law, or the
* According to the Constitution of 1793, the tacit acquiescence
of nine-tenths of the primary assemblies of one-half the depart
ments, and one over, is equivalent to a general consent. The object
of this arrangement w-as not to fatigue the people by too frequent
assemblies ; and the provision itself was a consequence of the
right of individual property, guaranteed by the declaration of
rights which precedes that Constitution. This right being abo
lished, or considerably abridged, the danger of seeing the people
diverted from public affairs, by the care of its own private affairs,
disappears ; and gTeater strictness is justly required in the proofs
of national consent, the presumption of which might often be
founded upon a silence resulting from ignorance and criminal
manoeuvres. It would be absurd to fear the multiplicity of political
assemblies in a country where equality simplifies legislation, es
pecially if we reflect that the acts which do not legislate on general
matters are not laws.
[It would be instructive and amusing to see a comparative esti
mate of the trouble and expence of British legislation in juxta
position with that which would be necessary under Buonarroti's
system. My own opinion is, that the O'Connell and Raphael
squabble, arising out of the Carlow election, and the late Dublin
Election Commission, have conjointly cost more time, trouble,
K

194 babeuf's CONSPIRACY
repeal of an old one — the same proposition being made
by the majority of the nation, the Conservators com
municated the result to the Legislators, who were bound
to put it into legal form, and thus submit to the people's
approbation the law demanded by itself.
Should it have happened that the As-
GUinstw?- sembly of Legislators encroached on the
croachments of sovereign power, by passing, under the
the Assembly of form of decrees, any legislative acts con-
Legislators. trary to tne exjstnlg iaws> tne action of
the conservators would have become necessary to pro
voke the judgment of the people. With regard to this
action there prevailed in the Committee some diversity,
or, at least, some incertitude of opinion ; for if all ac
knowledged the necessity of raising up a rampart against
the precipitation or ambition of an assembly clothed
with a great authority, they were not all agreed as to
the extent of power which it was expedient to confer on
the conservators. Some were of opinion that their in
tervention should not exceed a simple appeal to the
people ; others thought it advisable, to authorise them to
suspend, until the decision of the sovereign power, the
operation of the decrees objected to.
Division of the All was vague and undecided in this
Authority of respect, except the fear of usurpations on
this Assembly. the par(. of the Central Assembly— a fear
so strongly felt, as to give rise to the project for dividing
this Assembly into two sections, one of which was to
have its functions limited to the drawing up of laws,
whilst the other, retained within constitutional bounds
by the Conservators, would have directed and comprised
the Government.
Advantage of It will be readily perceived, that the
several organs distribution or diffusion of the sovereign
of legislation. power amongSt s0 many Assemblies, has
a great advantage over its concentration in a single body,
which is more liable to become the sport of factions and
of a false eloquence. The inconstancy and precipitation
and money, than seven years' legislation would under the pro
jected regime of the conspirators, if once fairly established.—
Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 195
so often urged against Democracies, are no longer to be
dreaded in a system where the deliberations pass through
so many stages before being converted into laws. This
manner of forming the law is, in these respects, prefer
able to all others — that it has simplicity of manners and
uniformity of interests for its supports, and that, by the
already cited institution of senates, it offers the securest
possible guarantee against human errors.
The sovereign power belonging of right The people
to the people, it cannot, without destroying ought to adopt
itself, submit its acts to any will, nor precautions
ever acknowledge any superior. Its truly asauls
legislative decisions are necessarily dictated by upright
intentions, but being composed of men, and man being
fallible, it may be deceived. It is, therefore, prudent,
and to its interest, to take precautions to guarantee itself
from errors.
Behold why, if it is contrary to the imprescriptible
rights of people to dispossess them of the exercise of
sovereign power, either by condemning them to silence,
or by submitting to a particular sanction the acts of their
will, it is just and necessary for the maintenance of these
same rights, to surround the people with lights and
councils, to the end that they may pronounce only en
lightened and useful decisions.
These supports the Insurrectional Com- genates-
mittee found in nature, and after the
example of ancient legislators, it found them in the ex
perience and prudence of old age. It desired that an
Assembly of Sovereignty might not be legally able to
deliberate without having first heard the opinion of its
Senate, whose functions were limited to advice, after
¦which the senators should have voted with the citizens.
It has been seen that the Conservators would have been
Selected from the Senates, and it was proposed to also
extract from them a Council of Ancients, charged with
the sole function of enlightening by its advice the
Central Assembly of Legislators.
Nevertheless, it was admitted, that FirBt formation
time alone could give to this institution of senates.
its utility and its efficacy. It was felt that the same
force of habit which would one day attach old men to
k2

196 babeuf's conspiracy.
the institutions of equality, attached them then as now
to the illusions of hereditary monarchy, to the errors of
superstition, to the false fascinations of property, and to
the precepts of a servile morality. The senates sought
to be established were to be the conservators of equality
and of democratic manners, and of these the majority of
modern old men know neither the one nor the other.
Besides, these bodies should have beeninthe commence
ment the propagators of the new order, of which they
would afterwards become the guardians. Accordingly,
the Insurrectional Committee calculated on composing
the first senates only of the citizens most distinguished
for virtue, zeal, and attachment to the new institutions.
After a certain time they would have united to them
selves whatever old men were most estimable, and most
agreeable to their respective arondissements.
Inviolable prin- R appears from the preceding remarks
ciples. that, in the eyes of the Committee, hap
piness and liberty depend much more upon the main
tenance of equality, and in the attachment of the citizens
to the institutions which establish it, than on the dis
tribution of the public administration. There was in
their Republic an Institution of the State and a Con
stitution of Authority, and in each are fundamental
points which the people itself can neither violate nor
modify, because they cannot be touched without in
stantly dissolving society. Such are, in the first,
rigorous equality ; and in the second, the popular
sovereignty . The inviolability of these dogmas would
have been solemnly recognized by the law which was to
authorise resistance and insurrection in case a part of the
citizens should attempt, in misconception of these dogmas,
to arrogate to itself the right of enslaving the rest.
Rectification of Excepting these cardinal points of na-
theConstitution tural right, all the rest was subordinate to
the will of the people, which might modify and change at
pleasure the authority established by itself. To render
homage to this doctrine, and at the same time to pre
serve the Republic from the dangers of intrigue and
tumult, it was wished that the assemblies of sovereignty
should be periodically convened to consult on the con
stitution, and that in case they should demand any

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY, 197
changes in it, a small number of sage persons should be
charged to propose in regular form the changes de
manded. It was also desired that, at fixed periods, the
state of the nation should be investigated by special com
missioners, who should propose to the people the proper
measures for extirpating whatever abuses they might have
discovered to exist.
To appreciate the advantages to be Fewiawssuf_
derived from a legislative power thus fice for a people
constituted, it is necessary, above all, to in tne enjoy-
recollect that a people without property, equaiity.
and without the vices and crimes it en
genders, without commerce, without money, without
imposts, without finances, without civil processes, and
without poverty, could not feel the want of that mul-
tiplicitv of laws under which the civilized societies of
Europe groan.
Before terminating what relates to the The direction of
sovereign power, I deem it useful to agriculture, and
remark, that the supreme direction of of the useful
agriculture and the arts would have been prin'cipalp'rero-
one of its principal prerogatives. The gativesofthe
general rules laid down by the laws would S0Tereign
~ power,
have been developed by the central as
sembly, and put in practice by the executive authority,
of which I am about to treat.
If every precaution is taken that the Executive au- •
will of the people be at all times known, on y'
if the delegates authorized to prepare and proclaim its
decrees are happily placed in a state of impotence to
substitute their own for them, it only remains to con
stitute the authority charged with the execution of them,
in such a manner that the magistrates may in no case
be able to constrain the citizens to obey any other wills
than those of the laws, and that their conduct may fur
nish a permanent lesson of good manners and patriotic
devotion. In enforcing respect to the people's will, the i
magistrate should be clothed with the full powers of the
nation ; but he should experience every possible difficulty
and obstruction the moment he deviates from that will,
whether from error or prevarication.

198 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
Causes of its An administration such as I have de-
goodness, scribed is the result of the mode of nomi
nating its members, of their number, of the distribution
and duration of their functions, of the surveillance exer
cised over them, of the accounts exacted from them, of
the penalties and rewards awarded to them, and, above
all, of the national manners and enlightened attachment
of the citizens to their country and laws.
Supplement to It seemed to the Insurrectional Com-
the Constitu- mittee that the provisions of the Consti-
tion of 1793. tution of 1793) relative to the Executive
Council, were good, though insufficient. It applauded
the article which limits its action to the execution of the
laws and decrees, and that, also, which makes the Coun
cil responsible for their non -execution. It approved the
separation, established by that Constitution, of the ad
ministrative functions of the Council from its concurrent
jurisdiction in the judicial functions assigned to the
tribunals, and it adhered also to what the Constitution
ordained respecting the number of supreme magistrates
and the duration of their power, but it deemed it ex
pedient to determine a mode of investigating their con
duct, of assigning a penalty to each infraction of their
duties, of regulating the forms to be observed in award
ing them the praise or blame they might merit, and
of instituting prompt and ready means for prosecuting
delegates and supreme magistrates accused of infidelity
to the people.
Nature and ob- The Safety> defence> and> in the ?ystem
ject of the dif- of the Committee, the very subsistence
ferent magis- 0f the people, imperiously require that
! ( " the impulse given by the first or supreme -
depositaries of the laws, should propagate itself rapidly
and uniformly to the very extremities of the Republic; it
is, therefore, necessary that the country should be, as
it were, embraced by long chains in every direction, of
which every link responds instantaneously to the move
ment impressed at the central point. These links are the
magistrates, instituted to remind the citizens everywhere
of their true interests, and to provide for the wants of the
people, as directed by the laws. There is, then, in the

BABETJFS CONSPIRACY. 199
Republic, a graduated scale of magistracies, descending
by divers degrees of jurisdiction from the Executive
Council to the inferior officers, who form the point of
contact between the sovereign power and each of its
subject parts. A similar scale, but altogether judicial,
re-ascends from the inferior magistrates appointed to
verify and prosecute infractions of the laws, up to the
supreme tribunal, whose province is to maintain uniformity
of legislation throughout the whole. One class of magis
trates direct productive occupations, and regulate the
impartial distribution of the wealth accruing therefrom — . !
others maintain harmony among the citizens. Some watch j
over the defence of the state, and implant in the soul the
seeds of courage and virtue ; others let fall the severity of i
the laws on those that infringe them. By some the weak
are protected, and the deluded set right ; by others are
aliments incessantly supplied to feed the love of country,
by liberty, by majesty, and by the propriety and gaiety
which they cause to reign in the public meetings and
festivals. It would be as tedious as it is unnecessary to enter
into all the details of this social order, the bases of which
are laid by the Constitution of 1793 ; it institutes on the
one hand, tribunals, and on the other, intermediate admi
nistrations, and municipal bodies, under whom are placed
other subordinate magistrates to regulate the national
economy. To these same municipal bodies was the Uniting the
military Order attached, which they were fu"c1t-0™htary
commissioned to form and superintend. It
was desired that the superior posts of the army should be
occupied by civil magistrates, to the end, said they, " that
war be never made, except in the spirit of the Government
and people — to render all collision between the army and
the people impossible — and that there might be less to
fear from the ambition of generals." Leaving the judicious
reader to follow all the ramifications of authority, which
flow as so many consequences from the foregoing princi-
ciples, I will confine myself here to the explanation of the
means by which it was hoped that so great a number of
magistrates would be restrained within legal bounds. In
fact, no nation had ever so many magistrates, without

200 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
taking into account that, in certain respects, every citizen
would have been a magistrate, keeping watch for him
self and others ; it is certain that public functions would
be very much multiplied, and, consequently, the magis
trates very numerous. The aggregate, or totality of
functions, being composed of every action necessary for
feeding, clothing, lodging, educating, informing, govern
ing, and defending the people, every citizen, so to speak,
is, or has been, a functionary. The difference between
the functions, in which all participate, and those assigned
by the laws to particular magistrates, consists in this —
that the latter have exclusively for their object to direct
and protect the rest. We call them public functions.
The magistrate lt WOuld be Wr0nS> however to feel
notmoreexpen- any alarm at so great a number of magis-
sive than the trates, who almost all restricted to the
common citizen. , , • , ., -j i
work over which they preside, have no
other authority than the example of a greater activity,
or else are drawn from the class whom age exempts
from painful occupations. Not one of them costs the
Republic more expense than the simplest or obscurest
citizen. Simplicity of It is a grand prodigy of social order
manners a gua- wnen the magistrate, appointed to apply
fidelity of the laws of a great people to one of its
magistrates. fractions, attracts to himself, by conform
ing strictly to those laws, the esteem and love of this
fraction, to such degree that he can displease it, or be
come unpopular, only by violating the law himself. If
such prodigy be within the compass of realization, it is
only where simplicity of manners gives to all parts of
the state the same spirit and the same interests ; and
that was precisely the end to which the efforts of the In
surrectional Committee tended.
Graduated In its view, the people was the creator,
scale of ma- the superintendant, and the support of its
gis racies. magistrates. Wishing to spare it the regrets
of an ill-placed confidence, the Committee had turned
its regards to such laws by which nobody could be raised
by popular suffrage to magistracies of the higher order,
without having given proof of a great love of equality,
and without having successively passed through all the

BABEUF,*S CONSPIRACY. 201
inferior magistracies of the same class. This provision,
which the Committee by no means extended to the
exercise of sovereign power (in which the people should
be left unlimited liberty), appeared to it to unite to the
advantage of calling to the more important functions
only men of matured experience, that of better pre
serving the spirit of reform, which, for the rest, could
only attain complete success by the abandonment of
vanity, pride, and avarice, and by a happy change in
the morality and manners of the citizens.
Here naturally recurs the observation In commencing
which has been made in speaking of ^cie^tt
senates. Honest old men are calculated to be confided to
to preserve equality ^wh en once estab- Revolutionists
lished ; they are incapable and dangerous °n y
when the question is only to establish it. To found a
Republic belongs only to such disinterested friends of
humanity, and of their country, whose reason and
courage have shot in advance of the reason and courage
of their contemporaries. The spirit^ of_ the Republic,
when established, forms that ofuie citizens and of the
magistrates; but at the commencement it is only the
wisest and most ardent instigators of reform who can
create the popular Republican spirit. It was, therefore,
a point resolutely agreed on by the Committee, that the
magistracies, composed at first, and exclusively of the
best Revolutionists, should not be subsequently renewed
by the full application of the constitutional laws at once,
but only gradually and partially in proportion to the
progress of national regeneration. «
Those of my readers who have followed me thus far
have been able, I trust, to form a sufficiently clear idea
of the political principles of our conspirators, and of the
instrumentality by which they proposed to apply them
to the French Republic.
Nobody, I presume, will do them the Gradua, march_
injustice of supposing that they enter-
tertained the mad hope of putting these principles into
practice by, as it were, the magic stroke of a wand, or
by an act like that of creation. They did not dissemble
the objects they had to vanquish, but they were con
vinced that the reform they projected was the only means
k5

202 babeuf's conspiracy.
of founding a vigorous and durable Republic ; and they
saw in the progress of public spirit — in the reviving ac
tivity of the revolutionary elements — in the coalition of
the various classes of Democrats* — in the extreme dis
content of the people, and in the courage of the devoted
citizens, sufficient materials to commence, and to con
solidate by degrees, the revolution of which they had laid
the foundations. Amongst the means to be imagined for
Education the making head against ambition and ava-
means of con- . P . . P , .
summating and nce, tor inspiring new manners, and tor
conserving re- fully calling into play the natural good-
'" " ness of human nature, there is one which,
though slow in its effects, is infallible, if the Reformers
of a state know how to employ it to its full extent : it is
, • education. Education once placed in the hands of the
Reformers, would have completely changed the face of
the country, by rendering the love of country, and the
principles of liberty and equality sacred. The grand
edifice once raised, it belonged still to education to ame
liorate it, to fortify it, and to render it immortal. We
should here, therefore, consider education in two points
of view — first, as a conservative institution in the hands
of the Republic when founded, afterwards as a means of
> regeneration in those of the Reformers. An age passes
whilst our sentiments and intelligence are being formed
and modified by the action of all that surrounds and
operates upon us; in this action consists our education;
it makes us good or bad, wise and humane or the con
trary, citizens or brigands.
Society ought A^ society cannot be free, happy, and
to direct educa- flourishing, but by the sentiments and
tl0n- strength of its members, there is nothing
clearer than the right it has to watch directly over all
that may exercise on their education any influence what
ever, it is its duty to do it, because the'reon depends its
own future destiny.
Separation of From the natural division of our species
the sexes. arise two branches of education, one for
nr*«nT^?eb^rtAStS' 0r deluded Democrats, and the Robespierrists,
SadSib"' W6re' atthiS time' C°aleS=ed "* raiUed

babeuf's conspiracy. 203
males, the other for females. The end which society
ought to have in view is the same for both, but the
differences made by nature between the sexes apprise us
that we cannot, without running counter to her laws,
employ indiscriminately the same processes of training for
each. It is moreover important to the vigour and con
servation of individuals, that the development of the
passion of love, which is accelerated by early intercourse
of the sexes, should be retarded. It is, therefore, expedient
that they should be brought up separately. According
to the views of the Insurrectional Committee, education
ought to be National, in Common, Equal.*
National — that is to say, directed by
the laws, and superintended by the ma- JA"03*1!011 ls
gistrates. Education being to complete
the work of reform, to maintain and consolidate the
Republic, the latter is the sole competent judge of the
instructions and habits which ought to be given to youth.
Besides, the principal object of education ought to be
to engrave profoundly on all hearts the sentiments of
general fraternity, to which the exclusive and selfish
regime of families is directly and abhorrently opposed.
In common — that is to say, simulta- j
neously administered to all children living
under the same discipline. It is essential that the young
people should be early accustomed to see in all their
fellow-citizens only friends and brothers — to intermingle
their pleasures and sentiments with those of others, and
to find their own happiness inseparable from that of their

* Michel Lepelletier, who had the glory of sealing with his
blood the rising Republic, had also that of being the first of the
men of the Revolution to conceive a plan of education to be na
tional, in common, and equal. This plan, an eternal monument of
the virtue of its author, was unfortunately made to reconcile
itself with the miseries which flow in such abundance from indi
vidual property — that true Pandora's box of ills — and, conse
quently, it had to comprise qualifications and exceptions which
considerably abridged its advantages. Lepelletier proposed to
bring up children in common, from five to twelve years old, and
to deliver them thenceforward to their families. Was it not to be
feared, that the impressions still feeble at that age, might be in
great measure effaced by the false opinions and bad examples, of
which the youth, thus flung into a whirlpool of vices and prejudices,
should have necessarily experienced the influence?

204 babeuf's conspiracy.
companions. Communities of education are the images
of the great national community to which every good
citizen ought to refer his actions and his enjoyments.
-p , Equal — because all equally beloved chil
dren of their country — because all have the
same rights to happiness, which is necessarily disturbed by
inequality— because from inequality of education would
inevitably flow the worst political equality, and con
sequently a return of the old evils.
r , x. . To form an adequate idea of the projects
CjQUCEltlOn IS ¦ •
directed by of the Insurrectional Committee in this
an eminent respect, let us figure to ourselves a supreme
magistracy, magistracy, composed of old men who had
grown grey in the more important functions of the
Republic, directing, by the aid of inferior magistrates,
all the establishments of education, assuring itself, by
inspectors chosen from its own body, of the execution of
the laws and of its orders, and having under its eye a
seminary of teachers, whose training it has in charge.
Cares of in- In the social order conceived by the""
fancy. Committee, the country takes possession of
every individual at birth, and never quits him till death.
It watches over his first moments, secures him the
nourishment and cares of his mother, keeps out of his
reach every thing that might impair his health or ener
vate his constitution, guarantees him against the dangers
of a false tenderness, and conducts him, by the hand of his
parent, to the national seminary, where he is to acquire
the virtues and intelligence necessary to make him a
good citizen. They wished to establish, in each aron-
dissement, two houses of education ; one for the boys,
the other for girls. Places with good air, the country
parts at a distance from towns, the vicinity of rivers
would have been preferred.
Natural differ- The dutY of man> who is designed by
encesofthe nature for movement and action, is to
two sexes. nourish and defend the country ; the wo
man's part is to give birth to vigorous citizens. The
latter, weaker than men, subject to the inconveniences
of pregnancy, to the pains of childbirth, and to the evils
which are the after consequences of them, and gifted
with charms which exercise so powerful an empire over

babeuf s conspiracy. 205
the other sex, appears destined for the less rude and
noisy operations of life, and seems to have received as her
natural portion of duty, to soften the ills of humanity,
and to give to the practice of virtue its highest and
sweetest reward. It follows, from these indelible
differences, that the education of the two sexes cannot
be altogether the same. Let us speak first of that of
boys. According to the ideas of the Insurrec- Objects of edu-
tional Committee, the national education catlon-
was to have three objects in view : — 1 . The strength
and agility of the body; 2. The goodness and energy of
the heart; 3. The development of the understanding.
The health and strength of the citizens Tn D j
are conditions on which essentially depend
the happiness and safety of the Republic. These are
acquired and preserved by the action of the organs, and
by banishing the causes which disturb the animal func
tions. Thence the necessity of fatigue, of exercise, of
sobriety, and temperance. The youth which form their
country's hope ought, therefore, to be exercised in the most
laborious works of agriculture and the mechanical arts,
to be habituated to the most difficult movements, and to
live in the strictest frugality. Military manoeuvres,
coursing, riding, wrestling, pugilism, dancing, hunting,
and swimming, were the games and recreations which
the Insurrectional Committee intended for the rising
generation. It wished that sloth and idleness should be
banished from the national houses of education, and that
effeminacy and love of voluptuous pleasures might not
find a single avenue to glide into the hearts of the youth
of France.
The houses of education were to be Arrangements
distributed into as many separate apart- of the houses of
ments as they would have comprised dif- educa lon-
ferent ages. Here, — rooms for dining in common ; there
workshops, where each pupil should be trained in the
art which was the object of his preference : on the one
side extensive grounds, where the youth might be seen
at one time engaged in the works of agriculture, and at
another lodged in military fashion under tents ; on the

206 babeuf's conspiracy.
other side, gymnasiums for manly exercises, besides
amphitheatres for instruction.
„, , From the ever-varying occupations of
our youth, they should necessarily contract
sentiments analogous to the principles of the state. They
would have been accustomed to refer to the country —
the mistress of all — every beauty and perfection they
witnessed, and to attribute to her sacred laws, their
health, their well-being, and their pleasures. Living
constantly together, they would soon learn to commingle
their happiness with that of others, and removed from
the contagion of self-interest and ambition, as well as
convinced by experience, and by what they heard, of
their country's tenderness towards them, the desire of
serving it, and of meriting its approbation, would have
become the ruling principle and spring of their actions.
Every precaution would have been used to guard the
youth from forming ideas of superiority and self-distinc
tion. There being nothing in those abodes of innocence
and of peace to awake the passions of avarice and power,
a burning love of equality and of justice would have been
so effectually blended with the earliest sensations of our
young people, that every virtue inspired by our institu
tions, and recommended in the name of a beloved
country, would have become thoroughly familiar and
dear to them.
Arts and call- Shall the human mind be left to rove
inss. without guide and without curb through
the vast fields of imagination ? Shall it be left to intro
duce into society, under pretence of polishing and ame
liorating it, an infinity of factitious wants, of inequalities,
of disputes, of false ideas of happiness ? — or shall limits
be imposed on industry, by banishing from the houses of
education, everything that is not strictly necessary to the
well-being of the Republic? Our Committee, wishing
to deliver their fellow-citizens from the constraints of su
perfluous wealth, and from the love of enjoyments, which
enervate men, and are of no value, except on account of
the distinctions of which they are signs, had unanimously
determined to restrict, in the houses of education, the
works of art and handicraft to such objects as are easily

babeuf's conspiracy. 207
communicable to all. It desired that the pretended ele
gance of eostly furniture and clothing should give place
to a rustic simplicity. Order and propriety, it observed,
are wants of mind and body, but it is expedient that the
principle of equality, to which every thing must yield,
should proscribe those pomps and delicacies which only
flatter the silly vanity of tyrants and slaves.
With regard to speculative knowledge, Intellect. Sci-
the Insurrectional Committee, warned by ences.
the sages of antiquity, instructed by some true philosophers
of modern times, and convinced that nothing is less con
ducive to a nation's happiness than to shine and get
itself talked about, wished to divest false science of
all pretext for escaping its share of the common duties
— of all opportunity of flattering pride — of deluding
credulous honesty — and of seducing the passions with the
idea of an individual happiness foreign to that of the rest
of society. They saw in the abolition of property that
also of our voluminous jurisprudence — the despair alike
of those who study it, and of those whose interests it pre
tends to defend ; they were stoutly decided upon throwing
overboard all species of theological discussion ; and they
felt that the cessation of salaries would have soon cured
the mania for displaying small wit, and for book-making.
The learning of the citizens, said they, ought to make
them love equality, liberty, and their country, and place
them in a condition to serve and defend it. It is then,
necessary, they added, that every Frenchman should be
able to read, speak, and write his own tongue well, be
cause, in so vast a Republic, written signs are the only
possible means of intercommunication between its parts,
and because upon them the other sciences depend ; that
the science of numbers should be famihar to all, because all
may be called to guard and to distribute the national
riches ; that every one should be trained to reason cor
rectly, and to express himself with brevity and precision ;
that nobody should be ignorant of the history and laws
of his country — of history, because it will make known
the evils the Republic has made cease, and the blessings
it has given birth to — of the laws, because by the study
of them, each citizen will be instructed in his duties,
and become capable of exercising the magistracies, and

208 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
of taking part in public affairs ; that all should be ac
quainted with the topography, natural history, and
statistics of the Republic, in order to have a just idea of
the power which protects them, and of the wisdom of the
institutions which make all the parts of so vast a body
to contribute to the felicity of each individual ; that to
embellish the public festivals all should be skilled in
dancing and music. Such was pretty nearly the course of
education destined by the Committee for the youth of
France ; to that Committee it was an object of predilec
tion, because they considered it the most solid foundation
of social equality, and of the Republic.
Thus inured to fatigue, exercised in agriculture and the
useful arts, provided with useful knowledge, the young
people would have insensibly become the hope and con
solation of all the citizens, who would have found in them
a great source of comfort during their hours of labour,
and of agreeable and inspiring delight in the public
festivals. No more domestic education — no more paternal sway,
but, for the individual authority thus taken from fathers
at home, the law would have compensated them with
authority a hundred fold greater in common. The se
nates, of which mention has been made, were to become
in each arrondissement, the guardians of the houses of
education, and under their direction, the women also
would have been invited to watch over the educatian of
girls, to be also brought up in common till the period of
their marriage.
Educatior of To the end that the state should com-
slrls- prise only robust and hardy citizens, a good
constitution should be ensured to those whom nature des
tines to give citizens to the state ; it is, therefore, necessary
to invigorate their bodies by fatigue, by labour, and by
exercise. Active motion and occupation, said the con
spirators, are the grand springs of Republican education.
They concur with the absence of property and distinc
tions, to weaken the inclination to coquetry, and to check
the too early impulses of sexual passion.
The girls, they continued, will be brought up to the
less laborious works of agriculture and the arts, because
work, which is the common debt of all, is also the curb

babeuf's conspiracy. 209
of the passions — the desideratum and charm of domestic
life ; they will be chaste, because chastity is the guardian
of health, and because it seasons and makes love whole
some ; they will love their country, because it will be an
object with them to be loved by the men, and they will,
consequently, participate in the studies calculated to
make them admire the wisdom of its laws ; they will be
engaged in singing national hymns to embellish our fes
tivals ; in fine, they will take part, in the people's pre
sence, in the sports of the boys, in order that gaiety and
innocence may preside over the first emotions of love,
and be the happv forerunners of approaching unions.
It is impossible for me to enter into all the details of
so new an institution, of which the Committee had
scarcely sketched the plan. For the rest, it suffices to
know that the grand end of the education, national,
common, and equal, was to form vigorous citizens, who
would have served the Republic with devotion, from the
habit of behaving well, and for the pleasure of contribut
ing to the prosperity of so fond a country.
In the system of the Committee, the Military eduea-
young people passed from the houses of tlon-
education to the camps established near the frontiers ;
there, always ready to repel external aggressions, they
would be perfected in the military art ; there, living in
a perfect community of work and enjoyments, they
would have acquired, by fatigue, by application, and by
frugality, the requisite qualities for obtaining, on their
return home, the exercise of the rights of citizenship.
On the success of the first essays of this kind depended,
as the conspirators thought, that of their projected refor
mation. That alone, said they, will suffice to establish
equality ; for that alone will prove the existence of man
ners, and of Republican opinions, which the existing
generation can adopt but very imperfectly.
In order the better to preserve the spirit Assemblies of
of the new laws, and the principles of instruction.
public morality, assemblies of instruction werejo have
been opened, where it would have been lawful for each
citizen to explain to the public the precepts of Repub
lican morality and politics, and to converse on natinnal

210 babeuf's conspiracy.
affairs. Near these assemblies the magistrates would
have established printing-offices and libraries.
In this order of things, printing is the Liberty of the
most active means of communication, and press.
the best rampart against any usurpation of the sovereignty
( of the people. It alone can render the citizens of a
1 vast state equally competent to pronounce ripely on the
projects of law submitted to them ; it alone gradually
ameliorates public order ; it alone baffles the machina
tions of ambitious men. But individual property being
abolished, and all pecuniary interest become impossible,
it is necessary to adopt means for deriving from the
press all the services to be expected, without risking the
again calling in question the justice of equality, and the
rights of the people, or delivering the Repubhc to inter
minable and disastrous discussions. On the subject of
the liberty of the press, the following articles had been
submitted to the examination of the Insurrectional Com
mittee : —
1 . No one may promulgate opinions directly contrary
to the sacred principles of equality, and of the sovereignty
of the people.
2. All writings on the form of Government, and on
its administration, are to be printed, and sent to all the
libraries upon the demand of an assembly of sovereignty,
or of a prescribed number of citizens, above the age of
thirty. 3. No writing about any pretended revelation what
ever can be published.
4. All writings are printed and distributed, if the
conservators of the National Will shall judge that their
publication may be useful to the Republic.
In speaking of education, we have seen that the in
surrectional Committee intended to prevent the refine
ment of the arts and the study of the sciences, from
introducing into the Republic effeminate manners, false
ideas of happiness, dangerous examples, and incentives
to pride and vanity. This article was, like a great many
others, discussed again and again, and the discussion
was not exhausted when the Committee was forced to
renounce its enterprize.

eabeufs conspiracy. 211
By the progress of the arts, it was Advantages of
sometimes argued, indispensable labours the arts and
may be mitigated, communications by sciences-
land and by water may become easier and more rapid,
and new enjoyments may be added to the mass of the
common enjoyments. And what would the arts be, con
tinued the speaker, without the sciences which fix the
theories of them, and illustrate the practice? By the
sciences, diseases are often cured or prevented. They
teach man to know himself; they preserve him from
religious fanaticism, put him on his guard against des
potism, charm his leisure hours, and elevate his soul to
the highest virtues.
But considering things under other as- Evils which
pects, there were seen to spring from the flow from them.
refinement of the arts, a taste for superfluities, disgust
at simple manners, the love of voluptuousness and fri
volities. It was feared that men, devoting themselves to
the sciences, would imperceptibly form for themselves
out of their acquirements, real or supposed claims to
distinctions, to superiority, and to exemption from the
common burdens; and that the opinion entertained of their
knowledge would, by feeding their vanity, engage them
at last in disastrous enterprises, against the rights of simple
and less informed persons, whose honesty they would
deceive by the aid of an hypocritical and dangerous
eloquence. To the weight of these reflections was joined
that of the opinion of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who had
said, on the authority of history, that never were morality
and liberty found united with a brilliant state of the arts
and sciences. During the discussions which frequently
took place on this subject, it was observed that the
greater part of the evils for which the arts and sciences
were blamed, being caused by the thirst for gain, which
now tempts people to make professions of them, it was
probable they would disappear, and that the number of
artists and professors would greatly diminish, once the
establishment of community had annihilated poverty,
and destroyed the possibility of subserving avarice. With
respect to the following points which had been proposed,
the Committee came to no determination : —

212 babeuf's conspiracy.
1 . No study or profession gives a right to exemption
from the common labours of society.
2. There shall be regularly appointed magistrates to
preserve and to increase the existing stock of human
knowledge. 3. Such young persons as may have given proof of
great natural talents shall, upon quitting the houses
of education, be sent to those magistrates to pursue their
studies under their direction.
Such are the faint outlines of the civil
i ' and political order towards which the efforts
of the Insurrectional Committee were directed. The
objections against it rest partly on the alleged injustice
of its projects, and partly on the presumed impossibility
of putting them in execution. As to the injustice, we
have, in the course of this work, placed our readers in a
situation to form their own judgment upon it. As regards
the impossibility of execution — the vulgar objection of
all whom the slightest reform alarms — we will only ob
serve, that when a just idea has been formed of the state
of France during the two first years of the Republic,
every thinking person must be convinced that the devo
tion of the French people to the cause of equality, and
their confidence in its leaders, were then so great that
there was no democratic institution whatever which they
would not have adopted with enthusiasm. Those happy
dispositions were, it is true, greatly weakened by the
frightful event of the 9th Thermidor;* but they still
continued to manifest themselves strongly, during the
labours of the Insurrectional Committee, and even a
long time after. Besides being natural to the people,
they are always ready to show themselves whenever the
causes cease which keep them down, and in fear of de
claring themselves. Obstacles to real Radical reform
never come from the majority of citizens ; they always
arise from the depraving influence of those who have
found the secret of throwing upon others their proper
* The results of that day were the more disastrous, inasmuch
as they reduced to despair of the happiness of their country, and
of humanity, vast numbers of persons who had previously ele
vated themselves to the highest pitch of virtue.

babeuf's conspiracy. 213
share of the general labour. Reduce this corrupt minority
to silence, and all the rest of society will applaud you,
and second you with all their force. For the rest, the
Committee, I repeat, far from pretending to give us
complete equality at once the day after the insurrection,
(though resolved to neglect no means of accelerating its
establishment), did not consider itself to be in a condition
to determine the epoch of its commencement. It felt the
necessity of proceeding gradually, according to the pro
gress of opinion, and the success of its first measures of
which I am about to render account. Indeed, had it
only founded upon a solid basis its proposed system of
education in common, it would have done a vast deal for
humanity.* * What the Democrats of the Year IV. were unable to execute
in France, a generous man has recently essayed, by other means,
to put in practice in the British Isles and in America. Robert
Owen, the Scotchman, after having established in his own
country, and at his own expense, some communities founded on_
the principles of equal distribution of enjoyments and of labours, has
just formed in the Lnited States sundry similar establishments,
in which several thousands of people live peaceably under the
happy regime of perfect equality.
By the counsels of this friend of humanity, the co-operative
society established in London has been for some time at work, pro
pagating the principles of community, and demonstrating, by
practical examples, the possibility of their application.
Babeuf attempted to combine a numerous people into one single
and grand community ; Owen, placed in other circumstances,
would multiply in a country small communities, which afterwards
united by a general bond, might become, as it were, so many
individuals of one gTeat family. Babeuf wished his friends to
seize on the supreme authority, as by its influence he hoped to
effectuate the reforms they had projected; Owen calculates on
success by preaching and by example. May he show to the^l
world that wisdom can operate so vast a good without the aid of '
authority ! May he, above all, be spared the grief of seeing his
noble efforts fail, and furnishing, by an unsuccessful experience,
the advocates of equality with an argument against the possibility
of establishing, in any manner, a social equality, to which violent
passions oppose so formidable a resistance, and which, as ap
peared in our time, could only be the result of a strong political
commotion amongst civilized nations.
[When Buonarroti penned this remarkable passage, he neither
knew the failure of the Owenite experiments in America, nor the
successive breaking up of the various co-operative societies es
tablished in London and throughout Great Britain. If success
depended on individual merit, on generous zeal, on indomitable
perseverance, and an unquenchable desire to make man free and
happy, at all sacrifices to the individual himself, unquestionably

214 babeuf's conspiracy.
First measures The first cares of the insurgents, aftei
of the Insur- victory, would have been to conciliate the
rection. g00(j 0pimon 0f the people, to place all
offices of authority in the hands of persons thoroughlj
the experiments of Robert Owen would have succeeded. But
alas ! the materials to work upon forms as essential an element in
the calculations of success, as the skill of the architect. Robert
Owen brought to the task the necessary skill, hut the demoralizing
effects of our institutions left him no materials to work upon
For my own part, while I admire both Babeuf and Robert Owen
and agree, generally, with both as to the end sought, I am obliged
to dissent from both as regards means. The points in which 1
agree and differ from them will be found in the following article
of mine, which appeared some weeks ago in the Twopenny Dis
patch : —
" It has been intimated to me, that in consequence of my having
expressed generally a concurrence in the political and social prin
ciples of Buonarroti, as promulgated in this work, an impression
has gone abroad that I am for a community of goods and labour, to
be established by force, if necessary. It has also been insinuated,
that my design in sending forth the work, is to instruct the British
people in the arts of conspiracy and insurrection. I ought not,
perhaps, to notice such silly imputations, but, as it is not my habit
to disguise or qualify my principles, let me, once for all, explain
what they really are, to prevent further misconception.
" I am for liberty and equality ; meaning by these terms pre
cisely what they are defined to be by Mr. Augustus Beaumont, in
his excellent prospectus to the Radical newspaper, namely — " An
equal opportunity to every man of obtaining all the advantages of so
ciety ; no one having a monopoly, and each exclusively enjoying the
produce of his own industry and intellect !" The first step towards
this equality, is the extension of the franchise to all classes alike,
without restriction or qualification, other than what would apply
equally to all members of the social body, such as age, sanity, and
moral fitness, &c. Therefore, the first article in my creed is
Universal Suffrage, alias, the equal participation of all in forming
the laws and institutions of the country. As to the ballot, short
parliaments, equal representation, and so forth, they are mere ac
cidents or contrivances for securing the valid use of the franchise.
They are not rights, hut arrangements for the due exercise of
rights, and being the best at present familiar to us, I am for having
them, at least till better ones he discovered and agreed upon. Some
such guarantees for good voting will be always necessary, so long
as the laws are not directly made or approved by the people themselves,
as was the case with the Athenians and Romans, and as was pro
vided in France by the famous Constitution of 1793. By that

babeuf's conspiracy. 215
devoted to the principles of the new Revolution, and not
to leave the well-known enemies of equality any time foi
concerting the plots to which, it was certain, they would
resort. Constitution the representative body could only propose bills and
discuss them, after which they should be transmitted to the Pri
mary Assemblies to be approved by the people : otherwise they
were not law. The authors of that Constitution were too well
acquainted with the encroaching spirit of representative bodies to
trust them with the whole legislative power. To the people alone
was that most important of all functions reserved. Hence, they
had little need of ballot-boxes, or short parliaments, though, in
deed, to make assurance doubly sure, they made annual elections
one of the articles of the Constitution. If it rested with me, no
Parliament — no matter how elected — should have the power of
passing laws. I would provide, as the Democrats of France did,
that that power should reside in, and be inalienable from the people.
Parliaments are good and necessary to originate and discuss laws
— to collect the evideuces necessary to adjust the details of them,
and, finally, to put them into shape and form ; but as to passing-
them, that is quite another question. The moment a people lets
that power out of its hands, farewell its rights and liberties. Even
with universal suffrage it is almost impossible to recover them.
The temptations to abuse are too great for any Parliament to with
stand. Hence there has hardly ever existed a representative
body that has not, at some time or another, prostituted its mission
to sinister ends. Even in Republican America the representative
chambers are little better than gangs of smooth-tongued lawyers
and profit-mongers, who make all the institutions to favour their
own class. Witness the recent chartering of the United States'
Bank by the legislature of Pennsylvania. Would that have hap
pened, if the law were referred to the people for approval : I
apprehend not. At all events, if I had my way, the people's sanc
tion should be essential to every law ; and if I have not hitherto
broached the doctrine, it is only because I would not distract the
people's attention by new projects, especially as I deem universal
suffrage sufficient to gradually give us all we want. The best
fundamental law ever promulgated to man was the French Demo
cratic Constitution of 1793, which was voted by nearly five millions
of adult Frenchmen. Had that Constitution survived, how dif
ferent would be the condition of France now ! It is my firm con
viction, that had Robespierre and his friends lived to execute it,
there would not be now one pauper or one oppressor on the French
territory, nor probably in Europe. To this end was it drawn up
by its framers, and it was solely owing to its pre-eminent fitness
to attain such end, that the brigands of the Convention conspired

216 babeuf s conspiracy.
Proclamation^ For this purpose, the Committee had
the French resolved the plan of a proclamation to the
people. French people, of which one of its mem
bers was in the act of writing the first sentences, when
to Burke it after the death of Robespien-e. It was a fatal error of
the Revolutionists of 1330 not to have proclaimed it at Paris
during the three glorious days. Should there be ever another
successful popular commotion in France, the insurrectionists
ought to proclaim it instantly, and see that it was speedily exe
cuted. How grievously do we Radicals feel the want of some such
rallying point in England.
" Buonarroti was a great admirer of the Constitution of 1793 — so
am I ; but Buonarroti thought it did not go far enough, because it
did not proscribe individual commerce and private property.
There I differ from Buonarroti. If all men are placed equal before
the law — if the means of acquiring and retaining wealth are equally
secured to all in proportion to the respective industry and services
of each, I see no obj ection to private property. Every man has a
right to the value of his own produce or services, be they more or
less. If one man can and will do twice the work of another man,
he ought certainly in justice to have twice the reward. But ifhis
superior strength or skill gives him the means of acquiring more
wealth than his neighbour, it by no means follows that he ought,
therefore, to acquire a right or power over his neighbour's pro
duce as well as his own. And here lies the grand evil of
society — it is not in private property, but in the unjust and
atrocious powers with which the existing laws of all countries
invest it. If a man has fairly earned a hundred or a thousand
pounds' worth of wealth beyond what he has consumed or
spent, he has a sacred right to the exclusive use of it, if he
thinks proper ; but he has no right to use that wealth in such a
way as to make it a sort of sucking-pump or thumbscrew for suck
ing and screwing other people's produce into his possession. Sir
John Cam Hobhouse, for example, has 60,000/. in Whitbread's
brewery. Now, supposing Sir John to have earned that money
honestly, he has a right to use it, and live upon it, while it lasts ;
but he has no just right to make it the means of sucking 5,000/. or
6,000(. additional every year out of the public, without a particle
of labour or industry on his part. He has no just right to employ
his money in usury or speculation. His money should not be al
lowed to grow money, as cabbage grows cabbage, or weeds grow
weeds. To employ money in that way is not to use the right of
property, but to practise robbery. Every shilling which Sir John
Cam now derives from Whitbread's brewery is a shilling not
earned, but a shilling filched from the public. Sir John does nothing
for it, and the people get no return, or equivalent. I do not im-

babeuf's conspiracy. 217
i
he was seized by the satellites of tyranny* By this
proclamation was to be placed before the people's eyes,
the long tissue of crimes, by means of which equality and
the rights of the citizens had been indignantly outraged ;
pute this as a crime to Sir John. The fault is not in him, but in
the laws and institutions of the country, which have established
such modes of acquiring wealth. Sir John does no more than
what is uniformly practised in trade. He takes advantage of his
" capital," and of the poverty that surrounds him. He says to the
hungry man, come and labour for me, create fresh wealth for me,
and you shall have a small share of your produce to keep you
alive. You ought to have the whole, I know. There ought to be
institutions which would enable you to get and retain the whole,
but as no such institutions exist now, you must either starve or
submit to my terms. " Hunger makes every thing sweet but
itself." The labourer canjtand any thing before hunger. Hence
Sir John grows richer and richer every day, without earning any
riches at all, while he who produces the riches grows poorer and
poorer, as age diminishes his strength, till at last he dies in poverty
and in the workhouse. Such are the effects of wealth as now
administered. They result not from property, but from robbery
— they are not rights of property, but wrongs on industry — they
spring from bad laws — from depraved institutions. These laws
and these institutions, instead of protecting industry from dishonest
cupidity, have utterly sacrificed the former to the latter. The
employers of labour and the exchangers of wealth are alone con
sidered in the laws. The producers and active distributors are
only thought of as slaves or criminals. Enormous fleets and armies
are kept up to protect the merchants' gains. Enormous gaols and
penitentiaries are kept up for tbe poor. Thus are the labourers
forced to pay, not only for the protection of those that plunder
them, but for the very instruments of their own torture and misery.
Buonarroti considers all these results inseparable from private
property. So did Babeuf — so did thousands of the French Demo
crats of 1793 — so do Robert Owen and his disciples of the present
day. I think differently. I will never admit that private property
is incompatible with public happiness, till I see it fairly tried. I
never found an objection urged against it, which I cannot trace to
the abuse, not the use, of the institution. Assuredly, if men are
allowed to acquire wealth by all manner of nefarious means, and
to afterwards employ that wealth more nefariously still, there must
be public ruin and misery ; but I deny that these are the necessary
* Here are the words—" The Insurrectional Committee of
Public Safety — The people have vanquished — tyranny is no more
— you are free. ..." Here the writer was arrested and carried off.

218 babeuf's conspiracy.
the proclamation was then to show that the causes of
the public calamities — the same which had occasioned
the Revolution, and which the Revolution had not yet
uprooted — were all to be traced to social inequality, and
effects of private property. Usury, for instance, has destroyed all
the nations of antiquity, and is now undermining all modern states ;
but is usury essential to private property 1 I deny it. But, then
it is necessary to, and inseparable from, commerce. I deny that
too. It is, certainly, inseparable from commerce as now con
ducted ; but I deny that an enlightened Government, representing
all classes, would allow commerce to be conducted as it is now.
I assert, that such Government would place commerce and manu
factures upon a totally different footing from the present, and make
the land the common property of all the inhabitants, and that, with
out any real or material injury to the existing proprietors. I hold,
and I am sure I can prove, that such a dispensation of things is
within the power of an enlightened Legislature, fairly representing
all classes. I have no space to argue the question here ; but,
assuming that I am right for the present, why should we conclude
that private property is the inevitable cause of the evils alluded to,
until the institution be fairly tried and tested 1
" But, if I hold these opinions on private property, let it not be
supposed that I am opposed to the system of community. On the
contrary, I hold that system to be the ultimatum of social pro
gression. I hold it to be the grand prize destined by our Creator
lov trie human race, whenever it shall prove itself worthy of it by
the perfection of moral and intellectual science. Were it possible
to induce all men to ronounce individual and selfish interests, and
to combine their powers for the common advantage, I am enthu
siast enough to believe that the human race might be as far raised
above its present state as it is now above the meanest animals—
that it would, in fact, attain a degree of prosperity and happines
of which not one mind in ten thousand is now capable of forming
an estimate. But the elements of such community do not at pre
sent exist. It requires opinions and habits utterly incompatible
with the existing laws and institutions of property. To obtain the
prevalence of suchopinions and habits, we must first have property
upon a just and legitimate foundation. Whenever that is done, we
shall witness the spontaneous formation of communities, without
the necessity of either law or force to establish them. The dif
ference between Buonarroti's ideas and mine, then, is this :—
Buonarroti would establish community by force ; I would leave it
to establish itself spontaneously, by first preparing the materials
through a radical reform of the laws of property. It is the right of
every man to have the produce of his labour secured to him by
law— it is not bis right to compel any other man to co-operate with

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 219
its resulting vices ; to propose to the nation the conduct
of the people of Paris as the model to be universally
imitated, to boldly invite the French nation to equality,
and to enter into a solemn engagement to ensure it to
him in forming communities. The latter is the spontaneous work
of wisdom. Laws can have nothing to do with it, further than to
prepare the materials, and encourage it by sympathy and protection.
I have no doubt that had the Constitution of 1793 been established
in France, it would have led to the magnificent results anticipated
by its benevolent framers. That Constitution was wise and just
in not making community of property an elementary principle.
The National Convention had no right to say to Frenchmen— you
must all club your means and resources, you must live in commu
nity, and work and enjoy on equal terms. That would be to sub
ject the whole to the opinions of a sect; and hence do I differ
from Babeuf and Buonarroti, in preferring Robespierre's Declara
tion in favour of private property to their proscription of the insti
tution. If people choose to renounce private property, and live in
community, they have a right to do so ; but they have no right to
compel others to the same course. The system of community
must, as I observed before, be the spontaneous growth of wisdom.
The Constitution of 1793 neither ordained it nor proscribed it. It
contented itself with laying the foundations of a just and natural
order of things, leaving it to time and wisdom to develope the ad
vantages of community. I know not whether my readers have
seen the work of Mr. Etzler, lately published in America, and re
published in London by Mr. Brooks, of Oxford-street. If people
would know the advantages of community let them read that book.
It is entitled, " Paradise within the Reach of all Men," and though
some of its statements appear extravagant, it is impossible to deny
the truth of its general principles, or of the particular facts and
experiments detailed in it. Why do I mention this book 1 Be
cause, believing that the system of community must be the work
of wisdom and knowledge, not of force or law, I believe EtzlerE
book to be one of the best that ever appeared for the purpose. Had
Buonarroti's conspirators seen that book, 'it would have been a
powerful lever in their hands. It would, most likely, have induced
them to limit the objects of the insurrection to the restoration of
the Constitution of 1793, in the hope that time and knowledge
would soon render that Constitution effectual for the working out
the great ends developed by Mr. Etzler.
" To conclude — 1 am for Liberty and Equality, as defined by Mr.
Beaumont. I am for Equal Laws and Equal Rights, and conse
quently for Universal Suffrage, that being the first step necessary
to the attainment of them, as well as the most familiar to the
English people. I am for new pronertv laws — not laws to abolish

220 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
all, with the help of a few months of calm, of courage, of
patience, and of docility.
The same proclamation would have erected into a
principle of legislation the decree of the Parisian people
private or individual property, but to place it upon a just and
righteous foundation ; securing to every man what is legitimately
his own, but preventing him from employing his wealth to the
detriment of others.
" In fine, I am for community, provided it be adopted voluntarily,
and without injury to those who prefer the individual competitive
system. The former I demand for the people as a right. The
latter I only wish for as a good which deserves the best considera
tion and attention of all who seek to be happy, and who would live
without care for to-morrow." — Bronterre.
BUONARROTI'S DEFENCE OF OWEN AND BABEUF.
Several objections have been urged against the system of Owen,
which apply equally to that of Babeuf. Let us record them, and
tne answers which demonstrate their futility.
1st Objection. — The physical differences which exist amongst
men do not permit, in the distribution of labour and of the
objects of consumption, that perfect equality which is the end of
community. Answer. — In this case, equality ought to be measured by the
capacity of the workman, and by the want of the consumer, and
not by the intensity of the work and quantity of the objects con
sumed. The man who possessing one degree of strength raises a
weight of ten pounds, works equally hard as he who, having a
quintuple strength, raises a weight of fifty pounds. Again, the
man who, to appease a burning thirst, drinks a bottle of water,
does not enjoy more than his fellow man who, with a less ardent
-thirst, swallows only a small pintful. The end of the community
[ in question is equality of enjoyments and of labour, and not that
of the things to be consumed, or of the task of the labourer.
2nd Objection. — The unequal quantity of objects of the same
kind, as fruits, vegetables, dairy produce, viands, drink, liquors,
&c. &c, would introduce into distribution a real inequality,
which would engender jealousy and altercations, and would con
vert society into an abode of discord and endless enmities.
Answer. — People reason thus, only because they judge of men
brought up under a system of perfect fraternity after themselves,
whom bad institutions render vain, jealous, and enemies of one
another. It is unjust towards the Author of nature to suppose
that men are naturally prone to envy, hate, and tear one another
for the sake of a fruit, or for the sweet scent of a flower — while
fruits and flowers abound around them. Remove individual pro
perty from men, and you will calm their most fatal passions, and
at the same time rid them of almost nil means of self-in
jury. Besides, could not the petty inequalities in question be
rendered still less sensible by casting lots, or by distributing the
bad and good alternately to each? In morals, in politics, and
in economy, equality is not mathematical identity: it is not
altered by petty differences. Good sense and the spirit of

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 221
in insurrection, and would have consecrated the Consti
tution of 1793 as the ultimate term of the new political
regime ; without prejudice, however, to certain supple
ments to be added, and the previous establishment of
equality and concord, smoothed away in Sparta all those feeble
difficulties, which, even now, do not trouble the peace of nu
merous families, of boarding-houses, and of military barracks.
3rd Objection. — If society charged itself with providing for the
wants ot each and all, nobody would feel the necessity of working
to procure his subsistence, and a man naturally inclined to idle
ness would abandon himself to a general indifference, which
would render all labour impossible,
Answer. — Every well-constituted man has need of motion, and
to dissipate ennui he seeks work, towards wliich he shows a re
pugnance only when it is excessive, and when he gets more than
his due share by having the burden thrown upon him exclusively.
Neither of these cases can apply to community, whore all being
workers, the task of each is the mildest possible.
To these motives of activity ought to be added the conviction
which all would feel of the necessity of labour, the disgrace with
which public opinion would brand the lazy man, and the seventy
of the law, wnich would punish voluntary idleness with such
pains as are now inflicted on thieves.
4th Objection. — For the same reason there would he no more
progress made in intellectual and industrial pursuits.
Answer. — The frivolous productions which the stimulant" of a
paltry salary elicits, and which have no value but in the eyes of
vai.ity and laziness, would disappear never to return. Surely there
could be no harm in that. But, undoubtedly, it would not be the
same with respect to studies and researches, tending to strengthen
the love of countiy, and to ameliorate the condition of all. To
these people would devote themselves with unexampled ardour,
inasmuch as they would generally have more leisure, and be en
couraged by public gratitude, and by the attraction of wisely-
decreed honours, which would be at all times the spring of grand
actions and of inventions truly useful.
5th Objection. — The mechanical regime and minutiae of com
munity would make a sort of friary of civil society, and be in-
j urious to liberty.
Answer. — Monks, whether they have property or beg, do not
apply themselves to any agricultural or industrial occupation ;
whilst, in the community of Babeuf and Owen, every one serves
the country by his industry. Monks practice celibacy ; but in
community there is no renunciation of the conjugal union.
Monks yield a blind obedience to their chiefs ; but in community
we are subject only to the law in the formation, modification,
and abrogation, of which all have a share. The lazy monks make
the air resound with useless prayers, whereas under the system
of equality we render to the divinity the only worship worthy of
it, by the exercise of true charity. In fine, monks are constrained
to conform all their actions to a severe rule ; the men of commu
nity, on the contrary, have, with the exception of a few hours
work a day, the disposal of their time according to their inclina
tions and pleasure.
To decide whether liberty of action is more respected in the

222 babeuf's conspiracy.
institutions, without which the most popular Constitu
tion will ever be a body without a soul, exposed to the
fury of every faction.
The following are some of the dispositions by which
this proclamation was to be followed : —
The immediate dissolution of all the existing civil and
judicial authorities, and the outlawry of every individual
who should dare to exercise the functions belonging to
them. The immediate re-establishment of executive commis
sions, of departmental and district administrations, of the
municipalities, the revolutionary committees, the justices
of the peace, and the criminal tribunals, the same as
they were all before the 9th Thermidor of the Year II.
An order to all citizens who exercised, at that period
(9th Thermidor), any functions whatever in the aforesaid
system of community, or in that of individual property, it suffices
to consider that, under the latter, the majority of the population
being, by necessity, subjected to long and painful drudgery, is
always more or less deprived of the free use of its will, even while
the law seems to insure to them its enjoyment. There will as
suredly exist more of this liberty in a country where all work three
or four hours per day, than in that where four-fifths of the popula
tion are constrained to labour ten or twelve hours per day, in
order that the remaining fifth may wallow in voluptuousness, and
get depraved by sloth and luxury.
6th Objection. — The life of community would make society retro
grade to the state of barbarism.
Answer. — The absence of the arts and sciences, united to gross-
ness of manners, and violence of character, constitute what is
commonly called barbarism. N ow, nothing of that sort would be a
necessary consequence of community, such as Babeuf and Owen
have conceived it. This community, so far from excluding the
studies and industry which really contribute to the happiness and
maintenance of society, would encourage them, by common in
terest, by public opinion, and by leisure to pursue them. The
sciences and arts, no longer supplying aliment to avarice and
vanity, would soon get released from all that is neither true nor
of general advantage. Again, the education in common, and the
uninterrupted interchange of succours and benefits, would engen
der in the feelings that fraternity which softens the manners, and
tempers the impetuosity of character. By the suppression of
misery and of meanness — inevitable consequences of individual
property — would be banished from society that dissimulation and
hypocrisy which now make it a field of battle, a veritable hell on
earth. People would be good without disguise or artifice, and
proud without brutality. So far from re-falling into barbarism, we
should then discover the possibility of attaining, by the establish
ment of community, a durable happiness, and a real and perfect
civilization.

babeuf s conspiracy. 223
authorities, to resume them instantly, except where there
was a legitimate impediment.
Exclusion from all public employment, under pain of
death, of every individual known to have augmented his
fortune in the exercise of any public function whatever.
Publication of the Insurrectional Act throughout the
whole Republic.
Application to the whole Republic of articles 1,2, 18
and 19 of the said Act.
Seals to be put on all the national chests, &c.
Abolition of all direct imposts, and of patents (to date
from the 1st Vendemiaire of the Year IV.), in favour of
those citizens who, occupied in the works of agriculture
and arts of the first necessity, had barely simple neces
saries for themselves and families.
The whole of the direct contributions thus rescinded
to be levied on the rich on the plan of the progressive
impost. These contributions to be gathered in kind.
Payment in kind of the timber of the national estates.
Establishment of public magazines in each commune,
and of grand military magazines within twenty leagues
of the frontiers, covered by the armies.
Every citizen to be invited to present to his country
clothing materials for its defenders.
An order to the municipalities to see that no part of
the territory remain uncultivated.
The estates of all proprietors neglecting to cultivate
their lands according to the custom of the country to be
forfeited to the people.
Suspension of the sale of national effects, or property.
Immediate abolition, in the interior of the Republic,
of all salaries paid in money.
The public agents to be supplied with what was
necessary, in kind, according to their proved wants.
A similar provision to be made for the indigent fami
lies of the defenders of the country, and for all aged or
infirm poor.
The rich to be exhorted to yield, with a good grace,
to the imperious voice of justice, to spare their country
the necessity of convulsions, and themselves a long train
of calamities, and to restrict themselves to simple living,

224 babeuf's conspiracy.
by a generous abandonment of their superfluities to the
people.
)' A general amnesty — including oblivion of all acts and
opinions contrary to equality — in favour of those who,
within a given time, should evince, in an unequivocal
manner, a sincere return to truth, and to patriotism.
Return to prison, under pain of outlawry, of all per
sons who had been in detention on the 9th Thermidor of
the Year II., unless they complied with the exhortation
to restrict their wants to what was necessary, in favour
of the people.
Revocation of all decrees passed since the 9th Ther
midor, in favour of emigrants, or those accused of emi
gration, of conspirators, or their heirs.
Arrest of all persons known to have executed, or pro
voked, since the 9th Thermidor, the assassination of the
patriots. These were but the commencement of the grand re
forms projected by the Insurrectional Committee ; it was
no more than the forced transfer of authority to popular
hands. The Committee, calculating on preserving after the
Insurrection a useful influence over the deliberations,
occupied itself with a plan of operations immediate and
preparatory to the definitive legislation at which it desired
to arrive. I shall give a faint idea of it.
Commissary There.^ would Jiave been immediately
Generals. dispatched into the departments, and to
the armies, Commissary Generals taken out of the pew
Convention, invested with, ample powers, commissioned
to vanquish all resistances by the force of the Republicans,
- authorised to employ severity and indulgence as circum
stances might require, armed with power to~ eject from
office, to send to trial, to reward ; bound to declare be
fore entering into office the state of their fortunes, and
responsible for their conduct to a special tribunal erected
expressly to receive accounts of their behaviour, and to
punish whoever might have perverted the object of their

Normal Semi- The Committee regarded as a most
nary" important object, the immediate formation,
near the Insurrectional Authority, of a Normal seminary.

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 22.';
to which the citizens of the departments should come
to imbibe the principles of the new Revolution, to pene
trate themselves with the spirit of the Reformers, and to
learn to direct, by public persuasion, the execution of the
laws which were to change the face of the nation.
TcV}fF0mmisSary Generals was t0 be Public spirit
confided the important care of enlightening and popular so-
and of uniting the Repubhcans, and espe- cieties-
cially of imparting to them the views and spirit of the
directors of the Insurrection ; they were to attach them
by the wisdom of their measures, by the warmth of their
zeal, by their disinterestedness, and by their irreproach
able manners. Like true apostles, they would have
spread the light of equality in every commune, and par- ¦
ticularly in the popular societies which were to be opened,
so that public opinion might, as it were, light the way
before the reforming acts of the legislature.
Five projects of revolutionary decrees were submitted
for discussion to the Insurrectional Committee, at the
moment of its dissolution. — to wit : 1 . Regarding the
Police; 2. The Military; 3. On Education; 4.
Economy ; and 5. On National Festivals.
By the vigour of the Police Decree, it Decrees of Po-
was intended to terrify and disconcert lice.
those who might be tempted to renew the scenes which
deluged the Republic with blood after the 31st of May,
1793. Such was the end sought by the interior camps,
by the general armament of the citizens, and by the new
formation of the National Guard. All who were not
interested in the complete success of reform were to be
reduced to the most complete impotence. Accordingly,
every man who did not serve the commonwealth by some
useful employment, would have been excluded from it. In
fine, it was contemplated to make even the discontented
concur in facilitating the execution of the general plan,
by forcing them, however reluctant, to seek in it their
only means of safety.*
From the Military Decree was to re- wilitilry decl,ee
suit a sort of republican education for the
youth who could no longer receive its benefits in the
* [This is more fully explained in No. 28 of the justificative
pieces. — Bronterre.]

226 babeuf's conspiracy.
houses of education ; this decree contained amongst
many other articles the following: —
Every Frenchman performs active service in the army
from the age of twenty to that of twenty-five.
No one can exercise a command in the army, unless
he has carried arms as a simple soldier during . . . years.
r- The soldiers concur in each corps, in the nomination
of their chiefs, who are to be periodically removable.
Military payments to be no more made in money. The
Republic distributes daily a military ration to each in
dividual composing the army. It lodges, clothes, yields
an equal supply of light, firing, washing, and main
tenance to all the defenders of the country.
The military ration is the same as that of the public
functionaries. The defenders of the country live in common under
the direction of their chiefs, and according to the rules
to be established.
Individual pillage is forbid. Every defender of the
country promises, before entering on the campaign, to
carry to the administrators of the army whatever he may
legitimately take from the enemy. After extraordinary
fatigues, the soldiers who endured them, receive a more
copious distribution of provisions.
Insubordination is punished with death. The same
penalty attaches to generals and officers who are found
guilty of robbery, drunkenness on duty, rape, gaming,
contempt of the laws, violence and arbitrary acts to
wards those under their command.
There shall be established in the armies, employments.
studies, and festivals.
The Republic decrees rewards for gallant and brilliant
exploits. Every citizen is trained to the use of arms and to
military evolutions.
Decree on Edu- The Decree on Educationvr&s designed
tion. to put in immediate execution the plan of
which we have spoken. In fact, no pains were to be
spared in the training of infancy, which, having no
formed habits, was in a disposition to contract whatever
it might be desirable to impart to it. Every difficulty in
that department reduced itself to this — to vanquish the

BABEUF s CONSPIRACY. 227
repugnance of certain families, and to find a sufficient
number of men capable of directing houses of education
in the spirit of the projected reform. The first obstacle
we hoped to overcome by the influence of the Repub
licans, by the enthusiasm about to be awakened by the
propagation of the principles of equality, by the im
mediate comfort which this measure was to bring to the
indigent class, and by the evidence of the advantages
which it was about to ensure to the children.
As to the intelligence, morality, and capacity of those
to whom was to be confided the direction of the houses
of education, we calculated on securing them by the help
of the Normal school, where we were to employ in
forming them, the time necessary to accommodate the
people to the new system, and to arrange the places
where the youth was to be brought together. Let us
succeed, said the Insurrectional Committee, in inducing
the young people and the soldiers to contract an affection
towards the manners of equality, and the most important
part of our mission will be accomplished ; for, in a few
years, these young people and soldiers will compose
the great bulk of the nation; however, not to render
useless the good dispositions which the national education
will have given them, let us not suffer them to find, on
entering society, any social order opposed to its effects.
Let the destruction of the spirit of individual property
commence simultaneously, and march in front of the
progress of the youth and of the army, in the doc
trines and in the manners of equality. To this end it
was, that the Committee designed the Economical
Decree. This decree embraced every part of the Economical de-
public administration : agriculture, arts, crees
commerce, navigation : the finances, and public works,
came within its province, and were destined to receive
new life from it.
It is understood, that the establishment of the grand
and perfect national community was the ultimate object
of the labours of the Committee. Nevertheless it would
have been very cautious in making it the object of a
social order, immediately after its triumph, and of com
pelling opposing parties to take part in it; all individual

228 babeufs conspiracy.
violence, all innovation not ordered by the laws, would
have been interdicted and punished. The Committee
was of opinion that the legislator ought to act in such a
way as to determine the mass of the people to proscribe
property from necessity and from interest.
But how induce such numbers of persons, depraved
by idleness, by factitious enjoyments, and by vanity, to
desire a state of simplicity to which they had opposed so
sharp a resistance ? By establishing through the laws,
replied the Committee, a public order in which the
rich, while they keep their wealth, shall find no more
abundance pleasures, or consideration than the rest of
society. Let us, it added, enable all industrious men to
enjoy, in return for a very moderate labour, and without
wages, an honourable and certain competence, and
soon will the bandage fall from the eyes of the citizens
led astray by prejudices, and by the routine of fashion.
It will then happen that the proprietors of wealth, or of
its representative money, forced to offer a superior work
manship to the commodious and gratuitous maintenance
of the public works guaranteed by the Republic, and to
expend the greater part of their incomes in costs of
culture, preparations, and imposts — no longer able to
procure themselves any extra pleasures, or services ; op
pressed under the weight of oppressive taxes, shut out
from the administration of affairs, deprived of all in
fluence, despised, forming in the state only, as it were,
a suspected class of foreigners, they will either emigrate,
by disposing of their effects, or will hasten to seal, by
their voluntary adhesion, the pacific and universal estab
lishment of the community.*
Let us invite to join us, added the Committee, the
small proprietors, the less prosperous shopkeepers and
tradespeople, the journeymen, the labourers, the ar-
tizans, all the unfortunate persons whom our vicious
institutions condemn to a life surcharged with fatigue,
with privations, and with pain; let them be born again
unto humanity ; let the country forthwith guarantee to
all who will frankly consecrate to it their faculties and
* To rightly comprehend this passage, it is necessary to read,
in connexion with it, the fragment of the Economical Decree, in
serted amongst the justificative pieces under No. 29.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 229
their labour, a commodious living, secure from reverses,
and relieved from the apprehensions and cares, which
are no less the effects of possession than of poverty ; let
us create from this moment a grand national commu
nity ; let us endow it with an immense territory ; let us
incorporate with it all the real estate, over which the
nation or the communes have rights to exercise ; let us
confer on those who will make over to it an absolute
surrender of their persons and property, the impre
scriptible right to every thing that constitutes a pro
sperity such as all may participate in ; let us see that
this prosperity be real and immediate ; let us prevent
coxcomb witlings from coming to disturb it by sophisms
and exaggerations ; let us force all the ramifications of
authority to march in the sense of equality ; let us
receive into the country's bosom all who seek an asylum
in it with good intentions ; let us dry up every source
whence pride might still derive the means of displaying
before the people the illusions of a deceitful pomp ; let
us render gold more onerous to its possessors than sand
and stones ; let us strike the first blows with boldness
and firmness, and then leave to man's natural desire of
happiness and to wisdom, to complete, by progressive
changes, so sublime an enterprize.
This preparatory operation once consummated, the
nation would have existence only in those participating
in the community ; but every thing inclined the Insur
rectional Committee to think that the community would
soon amalgamate itself with the entire nation, by the
successive returns of the defenders of the country, by the
incorporation of the possessions of non-participators de
ceased, or retired abroad, and by the happy change of
opinion, which would have been the infallible conse
quence of such a reformation. The day would have
soon arrived when obligation and restraint might be,
without danger, substituted for exhortations, example,
and the force of necessity. Then and from that time
the word proprietor would begin to signify something
barbarous or outlandish to the French.
In speaking of the assemblies of the Decrees re-
peode, we have made mention of national specting the na-
ferti'vals, and of the principles upon which tl0nal festlval3'

220 babeuf's conspiracy.
the Committee reckoned upon instituting them. The same
spirit reigned in the Revolutionary project which it dis
cussed a short time before its dissolution. Those fes
tivals would have been numerous and varied. All the
days of rest would have been devoted to them. In the
Committee's opinion, it was of sovereign importance to
the cause of equality to keep the citizens incessantly
exercised — to attach them to their country, by making
them love its ceremonies, its games, its amusements —
to banish ennui from all their leisure moments, and to
cherish and fortify, by frequent intercourse, sentiments
of fraternity amongst all parts of the Republic.
Upon the consolidation of those institutions, and
especially of those which the Economical Decree was to
establish, depended, as the Committee thought, the
accomplishment of the Revolution and complete exer
cise of the popular sovereignty. In other words, that
the day on which the people should enter into the
peaceable enjoyment of equality, would have been that
on which it would be able to exercise, in all its pleni
tude, the right of deliberating on its laws, as consecrated
by the Constitution of 1793.
Partial and sue- TiU then tlle sovereign power was to be
cessive execu- rendered to the people only gradually,
tion of the Con- and according- to the progress of the new
stitution. „? ., r. ° „ , „
manners. The authority of the Senates,
tempering by different combinations (during the progress
of the Reformation), the influence of the mass, would
have preserved it from the troubles and dangers to
which old habits, and the snares of the wicked, would
have infallibly exposed it.
Numerous details are effaced from my memory; it
has preserved only the recollection of the more pro
minent features, and an idea sufficiently clear of the
successive and simultaneous progression of the institu
tions and of the Constitution. It will be easily felt
that the Insurrectional Committee itself could neither
foresee all the measures which circumstances might have
rendered necessary, nor determined beforehand the
epoch when the mission of the reformer would have
been completed.
Who could calculate all the resistance of alarmed

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 231
passions ? Who could predict to what extent the ex
ternal enemies of the Republic would have multiplied
their efforts against the new Reformation, which, un
doubtedly, would have been more odious to them than
all preceding ones ? Its calculations and foresight must
have necessarily depended on the celerity with which
the democratic opinion resumed its former ascendancy.
We can only be certain, from the well-known views of
the conspirators, that, so far as they were concerned,
foreign hostilities would not have been prolonged a
single day, either through the ambition of conquest and
domination, or the jealousies of commerce.
So manv and such vast efforts, to Arrest of the
which some merit will not be refused, consPllatOTS-
were frustrated by the treachery of Grisel. Aided by
the wiles of this perfidious villain, the oppressors of
France succeeded in arresting, on the morning of the
21st Floreal of the Year IV., the greater part of the
chiefs of the conspiracy.* Babeuf and Buonarroti were
seized, in the midst of some papers, in the chambers
where they had passed the night, meditating and pre
paring for the insurrection and subsequent reforms.
Darthe, Germain, Eriddy, Drouet, and several others,
were arrested at the same time at Dufour's house,
where they were met together to fix the day of the
popular movement. The army of the interior, under
* At this epoch commenced the brilliant campaign of Italy,
which paved the way to supreme power for an audacious soldier
(Buonaparte). Thenceforward the love of liberty began to give
place, in the hearts of Frenchmen, to that of military glory, and to
the passion for conquests, which subsequently proved the most
active cause of their reverses, and total subjugation under the
Holy Alliance. Judging from all appearances, the success of the
conspiracy, of which we have just given the history, would, by
snatching the Government from the weak and corrupt men who
exercised it since the 9th Thermidor, have restored to the Repub
lic the vigour of its first years ; and it is to be presumed that the
French people, thus escaping the aristocratic complots under
which it afterwards sunk, would have been saved from the ambi
tion of Buonaparte, and from the disastrous consequences of those
distant expeditions, of which the allied sovereigns took such
plausible advantage to replunge France under the yoke of its old
masters (Bourbons), by unchaining against her (by the aid of
insidious promises of liberty) the several nations, whose jealousy
was roused by the dazzling success of the Revolution, and which
were soured against us by the evils of a war of invasion and of
spoliation.

232 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
arms, protected the Government expedition against the
Democrats ; and the Parisian people, who were made to
believe that it was only robbers that were going to be
arrested, stood motionless spectators of the imprisonment
of the conspirators, whose chains they some time after
vainly endeavoured to break.
[As some of my readers, not conversant with French
history, may not understand the Republican dates used
in the course of this work, I have thought proper to
insert here the new French calendar adopted by the
Convention. It will be perceived that the Republican
year begins on the 22d of September, that being the
day on which the monarchy was formally abolished in
France, and (by a curious coincidence) the day also
upon which the autumnal equinox falls. Thus nature
appeared just then to conspire with politics, in giving
eclat to the new Revolutionary eera. — Bronterre.]
NEW FRENCH CALENDAR,
FOR THE YEAR, COMMENCING SEPTEMBER 22, 1792.
New French Names r.__noV, t„™,. Duration.
of the Months. English. Terms. Days
AUTUMN.
Vindemiare Vintage Month Sept. 22 to Oct. 21 . . 30
Brumaire Fog Month Oct. 22 to Nov. 20 . . 30
Frimaire Sleet Month Nov. 21 to Dec. HO . . 30
WINTER.
Nivose Snow Month Dec. 21 to Jan. 19 . . 30
Pluviose Rain Month Jan. L'O to Feb. 18 . . 30
Ventose Wind Month Feb. 19 to March 20 . . 30
SPRING.
Germinal Budding Month March 21 to April 19 . . 30
Flore'al Flower Month April 20 to May 19 . . 30
Prairial Pasture Month May 20 to June 18 . . 30
SUMMER.
Messidor Harvest Month June 19 to July 18 . . 30
Thermidor Hot Month July 19 to Aug. 17 .. 30
Fructidor Fruit Month. August 18 to Sept. 16 . . 30
SANS CULOTIDES,* AS FEASTS DEDICATED TO
Les Vertus The Virtues Sept. 17
Le Genie Genius Sept. 18
Le Travail Labour Sept. 19
L'Opinion Opinion Sept. 20
Les Recompenses Rewards Sept. 21 365
* They were subsequently re-named, Jours Complementaires
(complementary days.)

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 233
The intercalary day of every fourth year was to be called La Sans
Culotide, on which there was to be a national renovation of their
oath, — To Lite Free or Die.
The month was divided into three Decades, the days of which
were called, from the Latin numerals —
1. Primidi 4. Quartidi 7. Septidi
2. Duodi 5. Quintidi 8. Octodi
3. Tridi 6. Sextidi 9. Nonodi, and
10. Decadi, which was to be the day of rest.

PART I. CONCLUDES HERE.

PABI II.
OF THE
CONSPIRACY FOR EQUALITY,
CALLED
BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.

TRIAL AND JUSTIFICATIVE PIECES.

CRIMINAL PROCESS.
The imprisonment of the conspirators, Imprisomnent.
and the announcement of the conspiracy,
produced a variety of sensations ; affliction and amazement
amongst the oppressed classes — yells of horror and fero
cious joy amongst the upper . and affluent classes, who
uttered howls of death against the " Babouvists." The
numerous papers seized with Babeuf, enabled the aris
tocracy to discover the means of annihilating the party
it dreaded. Immediately were the dungeons of the Abbaye filled
with the accused, who were dragged there amidst demon
strations of the most intense interest for their fate, lavished
upon them by the people and the soldiery. For several
days the crowd blocked up the streets adjacent to that
prison ; but the accused were soon separated, and those
who appeared most compromised were put au secret in
the towers of the Temple ! Almost all of these expected
to perish immediately by the sentence of a military com
mission : Drouet saved them from that fate.
By the Constitution of the Year III., a Drouet eras-
Deputy could not be sent to trial, except ready to smite
upon an accusation of the legislative body, them.

236 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
and by a High Court of Justice, the jurors of which were at
the choice of the Electoral Assemblies of the Departments.
Several mouths were required to form this extraordinary
tribunal, which could not hold its sittings near the com
mune where the Government resided. Drouet, one of
the accused, was a Deputy, and the judgment of the
rest was necessarily suspended, until it might be known
whether Drouet could carry with him to his tribunal
those whose accomplice he appeared to be. Two days
after his incarceration Babeuf addressed the following
letter to the Executive Directory : —
G. BABEUF TO THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY.
Paris, 23 Floreal, Year IV.
__ of the Republic.
Babeuf s letter " Do you consider it beneath you,
to the Direc- " Citizen Directors, to treat me as one
tory- " Power with another ? You have now
" seen of what a vast confidence I am the centre ! You
" have seen that my party can very well balance yoursT)
" You have seen its immense ramifications, and I am
" more than convinced that the discovery has made you
" tremble. Is it for your interest — is it for the interest of
" the country- -to give an eclat to the conspiracy you
" have discovered ? I think not. jfWhat would happen if
" it were brought out in broad day ? that I should play
" the most glorious of all parts ; that I should demon-
" strate with all the greatness of soul — with all the energy
" which you know to be mine — the holiness of the con-
" spiracy of which I have never denied that I am a
" member. Leaving the base and beaten path of dene-
" gations, which vulgar criminals resort to to justify
" themselves, I would develope greatnrinciples, and
" plead the eternal rights of the people] with all that
" advantage which arises from an intimate knowledge of
" the beauty of the subject. I would, I say, demonstrate
" that this could be no process of justice, but of the strong
" against the weak — of the oppressors against the op-
" pressed and their magnanimous defenders. You might
': condemn me to deportation or to death, but my sen-
" tence would be immediately reputed as that which
" powerful guilt pronounces upon feeble virtue, j My

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 237
" scaffold wouldfigure gloriously beside those of Barne-
" veltand Sidney^ Would you, and on the very morrow
" of my suffering* prepare altars for me, by those on
" which at present the Robespierres and the Goujons
" are revered as martyrs? This is not the way by
" which governments and governors can secure them-
" selves. " You have seen, Citizen Directors, that you gain
" nothing by having me in your hands. I am not the
" whole conspiracy — far from it. I am but a single link
" in the vast chain which composes it. You have all
" the other links to dread as much as me. You have
" proof, however, of the great interest which all the rest
" take in me. In striking me you would strike and
" irritate the whole against you ! You would exasperate,
" I say, the whole democracy of the Republic; and that,
" you know, is not so trifling a matter as you had at
" first imagined. Remember, it is not at Paris alone
" that it has its strongholds. Observe, that at every
" point of the Departments it exists in equal vigour.
" You would better comprehend me, if your officers had
" seized the great correspondence from which those lists
" have been formed — of which you have seen only a few
" fragments. It is in vain that you wish to extinguish
" the sacred fire — it burns, and will burn ! The more it
" appears to go out at certain moments, the more it
" menaces to burst forth again into a sudden flame of
" powerful and terrific explosion.
" Would you undertake to completely deliver your-
" selves from that vast sans-culottide sect which is yet
" far from having declared itself vanquished ? Suppose,
" even the possibility of crushing us, in what posi-
" tion would you afterwards find yourselves ? You are
" not yet in the position of that Government which, after
" the death of Cromwell, deported some thousands of
" English Republicans. Charles II. was a king, and
" (whatever may be said of you) you are not kings yet.
" You need a party to support you; but once removel
" the patriots, and you stand unprotected and alone
" against Royalism. What, think you, would be the
" consequences to yourselves, if pitted alone against the
" Royalists ? ' But,' you will say, ' the patriots are as

238 babeuf's conspiracy.
" ' dangerous to us as the Royalists — perhaps, more so.'
" You are mistaken. Mark well the character of the
" enterprise of the patriots ; you will not discover in it
" any intent against your lives, and it is a calumny to
" have published it. For myself, I can answer to you,
" they never desired it; they wished to march by other
" ways than those of Robespierre ; they did not wish for
" blood ; they wished only to force you to acknowledge
" that you have made an oppressive use of your power —
" that you have stripped it of every popular form and safe-
" guard; and they wished, therefore, to recover it from
" you. To this determination they would not have come,
" had you, as you seemed to promise after Vendemiaire,
" put yourselves in train to govern popularly. I, myself,
" in the early numbers of my paper, wished to open the
" door to you; I told you by what means you might
" cover yourselves with the benedictions of the people.
' ' I explained how it appeared to me possible that you
" might make disappear whatever the constitutional
" character of your Government offers in the way of
" contrast to true Republican principles.
" Well! — there is yet time. The upshot of this last
" event may be rendered profitable and salutary for
" yourselves and for the commonwealth. Disdain not
" my opinions and conclusions, when I urge that the
" interests of the country, and your own, consist in not
" giving celebrity to the present affair. Metliinks I
"' have already perceived in you a disposition to treat it
" politically. In so doing you will act rightly. Do
" not suppose me interested in making these overtures;
" the frank and singular manner in which I avow my
" guilt, in the sense imputed^Jets you see that I am
" not actuated by weakness. /Death or exile would be
" for me the road to immortality! whither I am prepared
" to march with a heroic and religious zeal; but not
" my proscription, nor that of all the Democrats, would
" advance your ends, or ensure the safety of the Re-
" public. I have reflected that, on the whole, you were
" not at all times the enemies of this Republic ; you have
" been even honest Republicans. Why should you not
" be so still? Why may it not be supposed that you,
" who are but men, were only betrayed into temporary

babeuf's conspiracy. 239
error, like many others, by the inevitable effeet of
exasperations different from ours, into which circum
stances have thrown you ? Why, in short, may not
all of us concede some part of our extreme opinions,
and embrace a reasonable compromise? The patriots,
the mass of the people, have their hearts already ul
cerated — ought you to rend them still more ? What
would be the final result of such a course ? May not
these patriots deserve that, instead of aggravating their
wounds, you should think of curing them? You can
begin the work whenever you please, because in you
resides all the power of government. Citizen Directors,
govern popularly ! — behold all that these same patriots
demand of you. In thus making myself their organ,
I am sure they will not belie my representations — I am
sure they will throw no obstructions in my way. I
see but one wise course for you to take==;declare that^
there has been no serious conspiracy. I Five men, by/
showing themselves great and generous, have it this
day in their power to save the country] I will engage
that the patriots will then cover you with their bodies,
and you will no longer stand in need of whole armies
to defend you. The patriots do not hate you, they
have hated only your unpopular acts. I will give you,
on my own account, agjiarantee as extensive as my __
perpetual frankness, j You know what influence I .
have over that class of men. I will employ it all to
convince them that if you identify yourselves with the
people, it is their duty to make common cause with
you. "" It were fortunate should the effect of this simple
letter be to pacify the interior of France. By prevent
ing any eclat upon the affair of which it treats, might
not that also be prevented which impedes the peace
of Europe?) (Signed) " G. Babeuf."
It had been for a long time evident — Blindness of the
and the discovery of the conspiracy had Government.
just furnished fresh proofs of it — that the proscription o.
democratic doctrines had caused a great division among
the old friends of the Revolution, and that it more and
more inflamed the zeal of the people to defend it. This

240 babeuf's conspiracy.
state of things, augmenting the chances in favour of the
Royalist party supported by foreign influence, ought, me-
thinks, to have moderated the pride of the chiefs of the
upstart aristocracy, and to lead them to adopt some mo
difications of the law, which, by attaching to them the
Democrats, and through them, the people, would have
spared the Republic the subsequent struggles so dis
astrous to it, and themselves the calamities which ul
timately overtook them.* Such was the object of
Babeuf's proposal, which he urged as much for the sake
of sparing his friends, as in order to restore to the Re
publican spirit its expiring vigour. But can alarmed
pride hearken to the councils of prudence? The new
Government shut its eyes, and disdaining to wisely re

* [There is something so very childish in this remark of Buo
narroti's, that one is at a loss to reconcile it with his general
shrewdness and knowledge of human nature. The worst that was
likely to happen the Executive Directors, from the triumph of
Royalism, was the loss of their power, which they might, at any
time of danger, commute for something substantial, in money or
lands, as Barras subsequently did when he struck his clandestine
bargain with Buonaparte to facilitate that usurper's success ;
whereas, had Babeuf s party triumphed, the best that could happen
the said Directors was to have the precarious and perilous honour
of serving the Republic without plunder or estates, and under the
awful surveillance of the " Insurrectional Committee." What
value the murderers of Robespierre would have set on such barren
distinction, Buonarroti ought to have known too well not to see
the impossibility of their forming any connexion with the Equah
tarians or Democrats. And, as to what he says of the subsequent
struggles and disasters of the Republic, what cared Barras and Co.
about them, so long as they could feather their own nests? Men of
that stamp regard the calamities of their country about as much as
did Lord Castlereagh or Major Sirr, the life of an United Irish
man, in 1798 ; and as well might the modern Whig party of England
be expected to fling themselves into the arms of real Radicals like
myself, by way of escaping the Tories, as the upstart aristocracy
to which Barras belonged, be expected to unite with the Robes-
pierrists, in order to make head against the Royalists. Between
the Royalists and the upstarts it was only a question of dividing the
plunder, which might be easily settled ; but between the upstarts
and the Democrats it was a question between plunder and no
plunder at all, which, manifestly admitting of no adjustment, ren
dered the parties irreconcileable to one another.— Bronterre.]

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 241
trogade even one step, which would have gained it the
affections of the people — affections it never had — it impru
dently gave way to a blind rage, which, in contempt of
good sense and public opinion, it pushed to the extent
of imputing Royalist intentions to citizens who abhorred
the very name, and of proscribing in their persons the
only men from whom the Republic could reasonably ex
pect a sincere and necessary devotion.
The revolutionary Aristocrats thought only of mo
mentarily profiting by a victory they owed to an in
famous treason, to crush the party which condemned
their usurpation. Articles of impeachment were drawn
up against Drouet, and he was sent before the High
Court of Justice, whose sittings were fixed to be held at
Vendome. No accused person, said the Constitu- The Constitu
tion of the Year III., can be withdrawn tion is violated.
from the jurisdiction of the judges whom the law as
signs to him, by any commission, or by any privileges
other than those determined by an anterior law.
Nevertheless, a law posterior to the discovery of the
conspiracy, decided that the Deputy (Drouet) should
drag his co-accused with him before the High Court,
which was not the tribunal assigned to them by law.
Again, said the same Constitution — there is for the
whole Republic a Tribunal of Cassation (Court of
Appeal) which pronounces on the final judgments of
all other tribunals. The aforesaid law, however, or
dered that the judgments of the High Court, which was
notoriously a tribunal, should not be subject to appeal.
These provisions, contrary to the letter of the Constitu
tion, were attributed by Drouet' s associates in misfortune
to the fear entertained by Government of a public debate
in presence of the people of Paris, and were considered
as the effects of that animosity which, subsequently
bursting forth during the discussion, made one furious
legislator exclaim, there is no need of such precautions
in favour of seditionists ; and another, no less enraged,
too much time would be required if, in proceeding
against factious criminals, all the legal forms were to
be observed.

242 babeuf's conspiracy.
Fifty-nine citizens, of whom seventeen
Accusation. ^^ cmtumaci0USj were put in accusa
tion at Paris, many upon unpardonably slight grounds.
At the same time, spies were on the watch all over the
Republic to hunt out pretences, however trivial, for
swelling the number of accused, of whom the rulers of
the day flattered themselves that the High Court would
make a complete hecatomb. Cherbourg, Arras, Rochfort,
Bourg, and Saintes furnished each its contingent of ac
cused, but all such manifestly utter strangers to the affair
thata shadow of reproach could not be urged against them.
E i ns Whilst they were getting up at Paris
the tragedy to be played at Vendome,
the Parisian Democrats were agitating to deliver their
companions. Drouet effected his escape from the
Abbaye by the aid of a Republican turnkey, but the
escape of the prisoners in the Temple, which had been
concerted with the soldiers placed to guard them, mis
carried for want of necessary accord in the plan.
Pache was the only man out of prison that openly
embraced, in a printed paper, the opinions and cause
of the accused. Some periodic writers opposed a feeble
barrier to the torrent of invectives which burst upon the
prisoners, but they did it without skill or courage, some
times by denying palpable facts, at other times insinu
ating that the Government had secretly instigated the
conspiracy ; at no time did they dare to start the ques
tion of the legitimacy of the conspirators' enterprise, or
justify their real intentions.
Translation of L*i tne night of the 9th Fructidor, of
the prisoners to the Year IV., all the accused in deten-
VendSme. tion at paris were transferre(i to Ven
dome. The staff of the place had them minutely
searched in its presence, and placed them itself in barred
cages, constructed for the express purpose of exhibiting
them, like wild beasts, as a spectacle to the enemies of
equality, and to the deluded people whom the latter ex
cited against them. The convoy traversed Paris in the
midst of a numerous army, and was escorted all the way
by a strong detachment of gendarmerie, and by regi
ments of cavalry. The women, daughters, and sisters of

babeuf's conspiracy. 243
the accused, had frequently to endure the inclemencies of
the atmosphere and the gibes of the Aristocrats. The
prisoners themselves had a deal to suffer from the bru
tality of the officer who commanded their escort ; but
they had reason to be proud of the reception, full of
sympathetic regard, which they experienced from the
municipal administrations of Chartres and of Cha-
teaudun. At Vendome there was expressly prepared for them a
tribunal and a spacious court-house, in which the ac
cused present were locked up for the night of the 19th
Fructidor. Antonelle and Fion, arrested subsequently
to the impeachment — as also the accused from Rochfort,
Cherbourg, and Arras, entered there in succession some
time after. Troops of every description guarded with
strictest severity the approaches to the prison, as well as
the entrances to the town, to which a specific law for
the occasion interdicted all access nearer than ten
leagues round. The intention was to ward off from the
debate every species of publicity.
The time which elapsed between the arrival of the
accused and the opening of the sittings of the High
Court, was employed by it in constituting itself, in giving
notice of the contumacious, in forming the jury, and in
judging the demands and exceptions taken by the ac
cused against the Court's jurisdiction. The latter availed
themselves of the time to protest, to agree on the chal
lenges which they had the right to exercise, and to con
cert and prepare their defence.
By the unconstitutional decrees already protests.
spoken of, a wide field was opened for
protests on the part of the accused. Several of them, in
denying the competence of the High Court, surmised
the possibility of raising between it and the legislative
body a contest which might lead to events favourable to
the popular cause. Vain hope ! The Hight Court de
clared itself competent.
Upon the totality of the jurors named CnaUenges.
by the electoral assembhes, the accused
had the right of exercising thirty challenges. This was
a very grave operation, as upon it might depend the
fate of a great number of the prisoners. By help of

244 babeuf's conspiracy.
some imperfect and frequently erroneous information,
collected in the departments, the accused agreed, after
deliberating together, upon the names to be rejected.
Thirty of the accused distributed the privilege amongst
themselves, in such manner that each might challenge
one name. The elections of the Year IV., however,
having in many places been made in the absence of the
Republicans proscribed, or violently expelled from the
assemblies, and under the influence of the enemies of
the Revolution, it was impossible to leave on the list of
jurors only true friends of liberty. Force was to content
itself with the less bad. Amongst those who merited
an entire confidence, some were excluded by the Tri
bunal as relations of emigrants — others, sacrificing to
fear, feigned illness, and were excused; three were pre
sent at the trial.
Courageous f From the moment Babeuf was deprived
avowals of of liberty his first thought was to avow
the conspiracy, and to maintain its legiti
macy. The legitimacy is demonstrated in his replies to
the Minister of Police, who demanded whether he had
intended to overthrow the Government, and if he had
combined with certain parties for that purpose ? Here
are his answers :-£" Convinced in my heart that the
" existing Government is one of oppression, I would have
" done all in my power to overthrow it. As to my ac-
" complices, they are all the Democrats of the Republic ;
" it is no part of my duty to name them. Being ques
tioned by the same Minister respecting the means he
counted upon employing, he replied, " all the means
" legitimate against tyrants." And a little after : — " It
'; is not my business to give the details of the means
" attempted to be employed. Besides, they did not
" depend on me alone. I had but a single voice in the
" Council of Tyrannicides."
Interrogated some days afterwards by the foreman of
the jury, he replied thus, to the imputation of his being
pthe author of the conspiracy : — " I attest, then, that too
l " much honour is done me, in decorating me with the
" title of Chief of the Conspiracy; I declare that I had
" not ever more than a secondary part in it — a part
" limited to what I am about to tell. I gave my sanction

babeuf's conspiracy. 245
" to this conspiracy, because I believed it legitimate ;
" because I believed, and believe still, that the existing
" Government is supremely criminal — an usurper of au-i
" thority, a violator of all the rights of the people, whom
" it has reduced to the most pitiful destitution, to the
" most deplorable slavery; guilty, in short, of treason to i
" the national sovereignty ; and that I believed, and do 1
" still believe, in the soundness of the principle, that it is
" the rigorous duty of all free men to conspire against?'
" such a Government; accordingly did I voluntarily
" consent to aid, with all my resources, the chiefs and
'' leaders of a conspiracy which was formed against it."
And after having established the part he had played in
the conspiracy, he added : — " Behold details which,
" no doubt, will destroy the absurd supposition that I
" was chief of the conspiracy, and that, founded on the bare
" circumstance that I was found, at the moment of my
" arrest, with a portion of the papers of the conspirators
"- about me. I repeat the fact, without meaning thereby
" to extenuate my culpability ; I only desire to act /
" honestly, and not to appear in a more brilliant character
" than I merit — a character that is not mine. I consent,
" however, after that acknowledgment, to endure the
" severest penaltv awarded against the crime of plotting
" against oppressors ; for I still own, that as regards in-
" tention, no one has conspired against them more reso-
" lutely than myself. I am convinced that it is a crime
" common to all Frenchman, at least to all the virtuous
" part — to all that are not wedded to the frightful system
" of founding the happiness of a very small number upon
" the degradation and extreme misery of the mass ; I
" declare myself fully convicted of the crime charged,
" and I declare that it was the crime of all the conspi-
" rators whom I served."
During the long preparatory examination taken by the
foreman of the jury, the principal accused in detention
were kept constantly shut up. It being impossible to
concert matters with Babeuf, who was deemed the best-
informed of the affair, the other conspirators, through
fear of contradicting themselves or of compromising one
another, were to consign to him the care of giving expla
nations, and to keep themselves within the limits of a

246 babeuf's conspiracy.
rigid circumspection. Some failed to recognise their own
handwriting — others imagined stories — Darthe all along
protested against the legality of the procedure.
Had it not been for the weakness of Pille, arrested
with Babeuf and Buonarroti, his handwriting, and that of
several of the accused, would have remained unknown.
Foolishly fearing that the numerous copies he had made
of the Acts of the Insurrectional Committee, whose sec
retary he had been, would draw down upon his head
the accusation of having dipped actively in the plot, he
hastened to declare what he had done and seen, and to
make known the authors of the manuscripts he had tran
scribed. This prisoner, whose timid conduct produced
fatal consequences, played the part of a simpleton in
prison and during the trial, with great skill. In presence
of the High Court, he pretended that a malevolent spirit
had driven him to Babeuf s house. He declared that one
might have a compact with a demon, either to be pro
tected by him or to hurt somebody, and demanded to
speak, to give, as he said, some details ! Not one of the
accused, really compromised, quailed or staggered before
the capital and impending danger which menaced them.
All remained unalterable in their attachment to the doc
trines they had defended, and resolved to seal them with
their blood. Nobody was compromised by their decla
rations.Firmness of the Upon their arrival at Vendome they
accused. had already agreed to renounce all con
cealment, all evasions, all denegation; to avow the con
spiracy, and to offer no other defence than demon
strations of its legitimacy ; they considered they owed
this last testimony to the justice of their cause, and to
their country a memorable example of perseverance and
of firmness.
Others of the accused, less compromised and more
prudent, were alarmed at this plan of defence, and set
about preventing its execution, " If you avow," said
they to their comrades, " the reality of the conspiracy,
" will the jury be able to declare it not proven ? Could
" there possibly be amongst our jurors four persons so
" hardy as to dare justify your intentions, or reply by a
" pious falsehood to the questions of fact which will be

babeuf s conspiracy. 247
" submitted to them ? That were to presume too much
" of men elected at a period of corruption and per-
" versity. If the conspiracy is declared real, will you
" not involve in your destruction us who are your friends,
" and those numerous Republicans who are already ex-
" posed to calumnies and persecutions. Be cautious of
" putting the virtue of our judges to a too severe a
" proof, and offer them at least a pretence for acquitting
" you." Whether it was that these remon- Modifications
strances made the principal accused fear 0I tne defence.
that a fatal division would burst forth during the proceed
ings, or that they shrunk back from the idea of wound
ing their country by injuring their friends, or finally
that they opened their hearts to their own preservation,
the first plan was rejected, and it was agreed that the
formal conspiracy should be denied ; that its end should
be hypothetically defended, and that an attempt should
be made to give plausible explications of the documents
seized, and of the facts proved.
Nevertheless, the testimony of the informer detailed
particulars, and was precise ; and even though he stood
alone as to the main point of the accusation, he was so
strongly corroborated by the numerous and overwhelming
writings of the accused, that it seemed impossible, all
political considerations apart, for any honest man to
deny, after the slightest examination, the reality of the
conspiracy. From that moment, the gravely-compro
mised prisoners proposed to defend themselves by main
taining that the concert pretended to have been estab
lished had not existed, and that, even had it been real,
it was clear of all criminality, whether arguing from the
want of means, or because, on the most unfavourable
hypothesis, the final aim attributed to them was legi
timate and founded in right.
What the conspirators were preparing Antonelle.
for the debates, Antonelle executed be
forehand for pubhc opinion. This generous citizen made
then the noblest use of his talents and of his wealth.
Although no legal presumption was raised against him
self, he frankly espoused the cause of his incarcerated
friends; by numerous writings he disposed the public to

248 babeuf's conspiracy.
favourably receive their defence, and from the depth of
his dungeon he unsparingly accused the Government,
rendered homage to the Constitution of 1793, justified
the intentions of the conspirators, and dared almost to
declare himself their accomplice. At this calamitous
epoch, nearly all that there was of energy in the Re
public was locked up in the prison of Vendome. There
the accused mutually encouraged one another to serve
the people, by showing an example of unflinching firm
ness, and they lived in the most democratic fraternity.
The shades of difference remarked between the Equals
and the Ex-Conventionalists, did not prevent their har
mony from being complete ; it increased every day by the
comparison and mutual conciliation of their opinions,
as well as by the fidelity with which each discharged his
duty before the tribunal. In the evening Republican
songs, in which all the prisoners took part, re-echoed in
the distance ; and the inhabitants of Vendome, attracted by
sympathy and curiosity to a neighbouring lull, frequently
mingled with them their own voices and applauses.
For men who had dared so much in favour of a cause
they were devoted to, the fate of the Republic was ne
cessarily the permanent subject of their conversations
and anxieties. To one and the other, new aliment was
supplied by another horrid calamity. Hardly had the
accused arrived at Vendome, when they were apprised
of the fatal event of Grenelle, where, in consequence of
a murderous ambuscade, the bulk of the democratic
party lost their lives in a generous attempt to liberate
the imprisoned patriots, and to re-establish the rights of
the people. By this horrible butchery, the power of the
Aristocracy was increased by all the strength lost to the
Democrats.* * This unfortunate affair of Grenelle is thus described by
Mignet :— " Their partisans made a last attempt. In the night of
the 7th September (23d Fructidor), about eleven o'clock, they
marched to the number of six or seven hundred, armed with
sabres and pistols, against the Directory, which, however, they
found defended by its guards. They then proceeded to the camp
of Grenelle, which, from the 'supposed understanding between
themselves and it, they had hopes of gaining over. The camp
had retired to rest, when the conspirators arrived. When the
s™tinels demanded ' Who goes there V they replied ' Long live
the Republic ! Long live the Constitution of 93 !' The centinels
immediately gave the alarm. The conspirators, relying upon the

babeuf s conspiracy. 249
Shortly after, some Royalist conspirators, emissaries
of the proscribed dynasty, and surprised in the overt
act, were treated with a scandalous indulgence bv a
great part of the Legislature, which openly protected
them, as well as by the Military Commission which
tried them. About the same epoch, the tribunals
charged to try the contumacious of the 13th Vende
miaire (Royalists),* declared not proven the conspiracy
which that day deluged the city of Paris with blood.
This judicial compliance displeased the Ministry, /
fear, said one of its members, that it will prove a bad
example for the prisoners of Vendome; it is breaking
the ice for their escape. It was of our conspirators,
indeed, that the Government most desired to rid itself.
At last the debates were opened on Opening of the
the 2d Ventdse of the Year V. There judicial debates.
were forty-seven accused present; eighteen were tried
in their absence, being contumacious.! Babeuf, Darthe,
assistance of a battalion of the guard which had been reduced,
marched towards the tent of Jlalo, the commander, who ordered
his men to sound to horse, and his dragoons, who were half-naked,
to mount. The conspirators, surprised at this reception, made
but a feeble resistance ; they were put to flight, leaving a number
of dead, and many prisoners, on the field of battle. This unfor
tunate expedition was almost the last of the party ; at each suc
cessive defeat it lost its energy and its leaders, and at length
acquired the secret conviction that its reign was at an end. The
enterprise of Grenelle proved a very disastrous affair to it; for,
besides its losses in the engagement, it suffered considerably be
fore the military commissions, which were as fatal to it as the
revolutionary tribunals had been to its enemies. The commission
at the camp of Grenelle, at five times, condemned thirty-one of
the conspirators to death, thirty to transportation, and twenty-five
to imprisonment." — Bronterre.
* Persons refusing to appear in a court of justice, when sum
moned, are called, in the French language, " contumaces." —
Bronterre. t The accused present were — Babeuf, Darthe, Germain, Blon-
deau, Cordas, Frossard, the widow Mounard, Buonarroti, Sophia
Lapierre, Goulard, Mugnier, Massard, Raybois, Fion, Cochet,
Nayez, Boudin, Jeanne Breton, Vadier, Laignelot, Toulotte, Lam
bert, Lamberte, Pottofeux, Moiel, Dufour, Moroy, Clerex, Amar,
Philip, Cazin, Nicholas Martin, Taffoureau, Drouin, Roy, Pille,
Breton, Didier, Antonelle, Antoine Ficquet, Ricord, Thierry,
Adelaide Lambert, Vergne, Duplay the father, Duplay the son,
Crepin. The accused absent were — Drouet, Lindet,Vacret, Claude Ficquet,
Guilhem, Chretien, Monnier, Reys, Manessier, Mounard, Baude,
Bouin, Parrein, Bodsom, Lepelletier, Rossignol, Jorry, and
Cordebar.

250 babeuf's conspiracy.
Buonarroti, Germain, Cazin, Claude Ficquet, Bouin,
Fion, Ricord, Drouet, Lindet, Amar, Antonelle, Ros
signol, and ten others, had really an active part in the
conspiracy ; five had indirectly taken part in it; all the
rest had been absolute strangers to it, and were dragged
before the High Court only through the rage of the ruling
party, who meant to use this tribunal for the extermina
tion of the democracy.
A numerous armed force guarded the tribunal; each
prisoner was placed between two gendarmes. The court
was spacious, and the enclosed space reserved for the
public was always crowded with people, who frequently
applauded the accused — -never the accusers. We had a
great many advocates ; these prolonged the debates by
the numerous incidental objections they raised — some
times even thwarted the views of the accused, whose
intentions they never dared to justify. The true de
fenders of the cause were Babeuf, Germain, Antonelle,
and Buonarroti, The generous women who had fol
lowed the accused from Paris were never absent from
the sittings of the Tribunal.
DarfM Amongst those of the prisoners most
seriously compromised, Darthe alone,
more consistent than the rest, persisted in his protest.
Never would he recognize the jurisdiction of the Court,
or its right to try him. He persevered to the end in
refusing to answer questions, or give explanations, and
suffered himself to be condemned without a defence.
After reiterating his first protest before the jury, he deli
vered the following words: — "For myself, if Providence
' ' has ordained my career to close at this epoch, I shall
" terminate it with glory, without fear, without regret.
" Alas ! what could I regret ? When liberty succumbs —
" when the edifice of the Republic is piece by piece
" demolished — when its name is become odious — when
" the friends, the adorers of equality, are pursued in
" exile, wandering over the Republic, delivered to the
" fury of assassins, or to the agonies of the most fright-
" ful misery — when the people, a prey to all the horrors
" of famine and poverty, is despoiled of its rights, de-
" graded, vilified, despised, and languishes under a yoke
" of iron — when this sublime Revolution, the hope and

ri,«. babeuf's Conspiracy. 25l
" consolation of oppressed nations, is no longer but a
" phantom — when the defenders of the country are
" everywhere overwhelmed with outrages, naked, de-
" fenceless, maltreated, and crushed under the most
" odious despotism — when, in return for all their sacri-
" fices, for their blood shed in the common defence, they
" are treated as miscreants, assassins, and brigands, and
" their laurels of victory changed into the cypress of
•' death — when Royalism is everywhere audacious, pro-
" tected, honoured, rewarded even with the blood and
" tears of the unhappy Republicans — when fanaticism
'' has again grasped its poignards with redoubled fury —
'' when proscription and death hover over the head of
" every virtuous man, of all the friends of reason who
" have taken any part in the great and generous work
" of national regeneration — when, to crown the climax
" of horrors, it is in the name of what is most sacred,
" most revered on earth, in the name of sacred friend-
" ship, of revered virtue, of honourable probity, of be-
" neficent justice, of gentle humanity, nay, of the
" Divinity itself, that the brigands drag desolation,
" despair, and death in their train — when profound
" immorality, horrible treason, the execrable informer,
" the infamous perjurer, unqualified brigandism and
" assassination, are officially honoured, proclaimed, and
" qualified with the sacred name of virtue — when all social
" bonds are broken — when France is covered with fune-
" real crape — when she will soon offer to the affrighted
" traveller's eye only piles of dead bodies, and smoking
" deserts — when, in short, there is no longer a country
— then, then, is death a benefit.
" I will bequeath to my family neither opprobium nor
" infamy. They shall be able to cite my name with pride
" amongst the defenders and martyrs of the sublime cause
" of humanity ; I attest it with confidence ; I have tra-
" versed the whole revolutionary sphere without taint or
" blemish ; my career was never once sullied by mean-
" ness or corruption ; never did the idea of crime or
" baseness tarnish my soul; launched young into the
" Revolution, I supported all its fatigues, I bore all
" its dangers without a murmur — without any other
" enjoyment than the hope of once seeing founded the

252 babeuf's conspiracy
" durable reign of equality and liberty ; solely occupied
" with the sublimity of that philanthropic enterprise, I
" devoted myself to it with the most perfect self-abne-
" gation ; personal interests — family affairs — all were
" forgotten, neglected, for it ; my heart never throbbed
" but for my fellow-creatures, and for the triumph of
" justice."
„ From the outset the national accusers
Counter-revo- ¦ .T.
lutionary spirit displayed a most rancorous hostility, not
of the national oniy against the accused, but also against
accusers. every thing done in favour of democracy
during the Revolution. First, laying down as an admitted
fact, the existence of an imaginary faction of " malignant
beings, monsters heretofore unknown, hypocrites without
religion or morals, ambitious, revengeful, furious, ca
lumniators, homicides, children of anarchy , born in its
bosom, strangers to every other element, incessantly
invoking it, and never smiling but at its approach,"" &c.
— they attributed to that faction all the commotions and
acts of the Revolution, and blushed not (before a word
was heard in their defence) to identify with it the accused
whom the High Court was just going to try for their
lives. Such, to believe these accusers, had been the in
fluence of the said faction, that it was impossible for their
auditors to make out what events of the Revolution they
honoured with their approbation ; according to the defi
nition they gave of a legitimate insurrection, one should
necessarily conclude, that in their hearts they did not
except from their anathema against the great movements
of the nation, even that of the 14th of July, which was
the only one they appeared to applaud.*
It was not difficult for the accusers to prove, by the
help of the numerous papers seized with the accused, the
concert which they qualified with the name of criminal
conspiracy ; but as to the intention — an essential element
* [By the taking of the Bastile, which happened on the 14th of
July, the Government passed from the partisans of absolutism to
the friends of constitutional monarchy, and the result was the
middle class Constitution of 1791. The subsequent movements
of the 10th of August and 31st of May, having been in favour of
republicanism and democracy, were naturally hated by the up
start Aristocrats of the Directorial Government.— Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 253
of crime — they endeavoured to prevent all discussion
upon it, and in the little they said of it, they denaturalized
truth by hazarded suppositions and inductions of the most
absurd kind. Their constant aim was to render the ac
cused contemptible and odious, and to prevent them
from convincing France that their views were benevolent,
that their opposition to the Constitution of the Year III.
was legitimate, and that their projects had been just
and conformable to general interests. What must we
think of those accusers who, charged to prosecute, in the
name of the Repubhc, the authors of a project not exe
cuted, permitted themselves to justify the conspiracy and
armed revolt which caused to flow, on the 1 3th Vende
miaire of the Year IV., the blood of several thousand
citizens, and of which the final object was to re-establish
Royalty ?
In concert with the accusers, the judges, Impediments
wishing to confine the debate to the mere g^to the de"
matter of fact, several times interposed
their authority to interdict all discussion, even hypo
thetical, on the part of the accused, touching the main
object of the conspiracy, as well as all examination of
their papers, notwithstanding that these papers were re
presented in the indictment as the principal, and almost
the only means of the conspirators. Thus, a tribunal,
apparently designed to be the bulwark of national rights,
and to curb the force of power, was, in fact, but the in
strument of those, who, in contempt of the sovereignty of
the people, had seized the supreme authority by violence
and stratagem.
Although those of the prisoners gravely Th? accused
r 4. a v. J i, a j »i. vi t defend the Re-
lmplicated had abandoned the idea ot TOiution.
formally avowing the conspiracy, they
persisted in defending its principles. The Revolution
was, in their view, a sacred thing. They were consci
entiously faithful to the popular sovereignty, and to the
Constitution of 1793, which consecrated it. Proud of
what they had done to re-establish them, they felt
honoured by their chains and by the danger that menaced
them. A violent irritation — the necessary consequence of the
opposition manifested between the views of the accusers

254 babeuf's conspiracy.
and the sentiments of the accused— repeatedly burst
forth, sometimes in the virulent declamations of the
public Minister, sometimes in the partial interruptions of
the Court, and frequently in the impetuous sallies and
protests of the prisoners.
Was it possible for those noble spirits to listen cold
bloodedly while the founders of the Republic were being
calumniated, and whilst the firmest supporters of equality
were represented as devoid of talents, courage, and
morality ? Could they, without retaliating, hear the hired
accuser impute vile and interested motives to men, the
greater part of whom had a thousand times exposed their
lives for the country, and who had emerged from public
functions in an honourable poverty ? — men against whom
there was not raised, in the course of so long a procedure,
a single voice to reproach them with even the semblance
of an infamous act ? Throughout the debates the ac
cused never belied their character. On every possible
occasion they rendered brilliant homage to the Republic,
and to equality. They several times victoriously refuted
the political sophisms of the accusers, and at almost
every sitting made the vaulted roofs of the Court re-echo
to their Republican songs.
The traitor. Tne tr£Utor> by whom the confiding
men he had flattered, inflamed, and
caressed, were denounced and delivered up. Grisel !
figured in the list of witnesses, amongst whom were
some other police spies, who, struck with horror at his
atrocious conduct, constantly refused to sit near him
during the trial.
The prisoners had hoped to set aside this witness, for
the law forbade the informer to be heard in evidence in
cases where the information of the crime is pecuniarily
rewarded by the law, or when the informer may in any
other way profit by the effect of his information. In
the opinion of the accused and their advocates, the word
may expressed a possibility without limitation, and
comprised such rewards as the informer of the conspi
racy might reasonably expect from Government.
The expedient hit upon by the national accusers, to
extricate themselves from this embarassing argument
of the accused, excited universal laughter. They

babeuf's conspiracy 255
had the impudence to maintain that the term informer
was not applicable to Grisel ; because, said they, having
made his first declaration to the Directory, and not to an
officer of judiciary police, he was but a simple discloser
(revelateur) !
This subterfuge was not successful; He is a witness.
nevertheless the Court, having ruled that
the signification of the word may was to be limited to
advantages accruing, of right, to the informer in con
sequence of the mformations, ordered, to the great
scandal of many persons, that Grisel should be heard.
In support of the prosecution, there were about five
hundred documents presented in evidence, and several
sittings were occupied in handing them to the accused
for recognition, or in verifying, by expert witnesses,
those attributed to the prisoners who did not make .
answer, or were contumacious.
All manner of conjectures were ex- Tumult.
hausted to ascertain, in a document to
which the accusers attached great importance, certain
words which Babeuf had covered with a great blot of ink,
in flourishing his signature to it, at the house of the Mi
nister of Police. The fastidious discussion which took
place on this subject occasioned violent invectives on
both sides, and ended in a frightful tumult. The sitting
was abruptly adjourned, amidst cries of the accusers, the
advocates, and the accused; the latter, as they retired,
chaunted with vehemence the couplet of the Marseillais
hymn, " Tremblez tyrans, et vous perfides !" The
Court prepared a minute of the whole, on which the
legislative body passed to the order of the day.
In consequence of a reproach addressed by the ac
cused to the President, the accusers complained that
there was a design, by crowding incident upon incident,
to indefinitely prolong the debates. " So many indig
nant voices," said they, " arise agamst the slowness of
this Court's proceedings !"— " What, are these voices so
" multiplied ?" exclaimed Babeuf. " Friends of the
" people ! you guess them ; they are but the yells of
" that caste audaciously called respectable, which is
" but a speck in comparison with the mass, but which

256 babeuf s conspiracy.
" has the egregious insolence to pretend to be the whole ;
'• to live, without doing anything, upon the extorted
" sweat of the millions — to count as nothing the mass
" exclusively useful — to massacre them, to starve them,
" in return for the incessant employment of their arms,
" of their skill, and of their industry. Such, Repub
licans, is the true character of this handful of vam-
" pires, whose voices, we are told, are raised against the
" slowness of the operations of men who have come
" prepared to immolate us. Such are the parties whom
" there is so much eager haste to please. Respectables,
" you will be satisfied ! Only read the first day's pro-
" ceedings in this affair to be convinced how well you
" are served. And you, the essential and major part of
" the people — you will see how you are treated in the
" persons of those who have not abandoned your m-
" terests. You, also, friends and advocates ©f the people,
" companions in glory, you have heard it; it is the
" Golden Million which demands your crucifixion. You
" do not distinguish amidst the yells of the devouring
" horde — you do not recognize the voices of those four-
" and-twenty millions of oppressed citizens whose noble
" cause you have to sustain. Alas ! no. They groan
" in silence, loaded with irons, despoiled, naked, sinking
' ' from inanition, addressing their homages and sighs to
" the names of the glorious martyrs who have preceded
" us in the career of establishing public felicity, of which
" they have bequeathed to you the sublime apostleship,
" in the same manner as you will transmit it to other
" just spirits, as zealous, and, perhaps, more fortunate,
" than you and your predecessors. Virtue never dies :
" she is imperishable. The tyrants abuse themselves
" in their atrocious persecutions ; they destroy only the
" body — the perishable dust. The virtuous man's soul
" only changes its mortal envelope; when one is dis-
" solved, it passes into and animates other beings, in
" whom it continues to inspire generous movements,
" which never leave any repose to triumphant crime.
" After these last reflections, and after all the innova-
" tions wliich I see each day introduced to accelerate my
" holocaust, I give my oppressors all the facilities they

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 257
" desire ; I abandon the useless details of my defence ;
" let them strike without further delay; I shall repose in
*' peace in the bosom of virtue."
Grisel spoke during two sittings, and Deposition of
related circumstantially all he had done tiie traitor.
to find out, second, deceive, and betray the accused.
He spoke truth, saving some additions dictated by
vanity, and by which he succeeded at times in contra
dicting himself. But, though he could not be regarded
as a liar, people were not the less revolted at the effron
tery with which he paraded his perfidy, and the
stratagems by means of which he had gained the good
will of the persons he was plotting to destroy. By a
natural movement of indignation, Antonelle painted to
the life the traitor's hypocrisy, and stamped upon his
forehead the ineffaceable seal of infamy.
In speaking of certain accused, Grisel had said,—" I
" see here only agents ; not one of them was the real
" chief of the conspiracy. There were men behind the
" curtain who made these move and act at their
" bidding." This sentence wrung from Germain the
following phrases : — " Ah ! since we are not victims
'• enough for you, go to the banks of the Aude, and
" drag from under the sand that covers it the carcase of
" my wife ; go and dispute its prey with the worms, less
" worthy than you to devour it ; fling yourself, like a
" famished tiger, upon my mother ; join to the abomina-
" ble feast my sisters and their children ; tear my son
" from the feeble arms of his nurse, and grind his tender
" limbs under your cannibal teeth. Our sixty families
" offer you the same unsightly ministry. Go — set about
" it ; go. What ! does not this allurement tempt you?
" Ah ! no doubt, it is because you still dissemble." The
words with which Germain ended his eloquent defence
are not less remarkable : — " I await your verdict," said
he, " without fear or weakness ; whatever it may be,
" why should I fear it? If I am to die, liberty never
" had a more devoted martyr ; if I am to live, she will
" never have a more resolute defender."
Grisel had spoken of the insurrection Babeuf justifies
of the 1st Prairial of the Year III., as- theinsun-ection
cribing it to the " anarchists," a deno- of Fralnal-

258 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
mination under which he affected, in imitation of his
masters, to comprise all the sincere friends of equality.
" Prairial!" exclaimed Babeuf, " epoch of terror, tragic,
'." but sacred and revered days! — days which never recur
" to the thoughts of virtuous Frenchmen, without exciting
" tender regrets and sorrow — the remembrance of the
' " greatest crimes, the recollection of the most generous
' " efforts of virtue, as well as of the deepest calamities of
" the people. Prairial! — days disastrous, but immortal,
" in which the people and its faithful delegates so nobly
" performed their duty; on which its traitor-deputies,
" its famishers, its assassins, the usurpers of its sove-
" reignty and of all its rights, capped the climax of
" atrocities, such as no history offers the like example !
" You alone of the Convention — oh Gracchi ! immortal
" Frenchmen ! — you were generous ; you alone had the
" courage to declare yourselves the supports and de-
" fenders of the people. There were but you whose
" entire devotion sustained its too just demands — Bread
" and the Laws ! * Goujon, Duroy, Romme, Soubrany,

* [The rallying cry of the people during the Prairial Insurrec
tion was " Bread and the Constitution of 1793." Bread — because
the Parisians were literally dying of hunger, the maximum having
been suppressed for the benefit of the profit-hunters and mono
polists ; and the Constitution of 1793, because all the then schemes
of the Convention manifestly tended to Burke it, the starvation
itself being intended for that purpose. " Give the people a good
famishing," said the usurers, " and they will soon forget the Con
stitution to look after bread." The monied vampires were too
cunning to use these words, but that was the palpable language of
all their acts, and the aim of their assassin organs in the Con
vention. A bloodier or baser confederacy of human devils never
existed than the majority of the Convention at this epoch. They
were just the sort of fellows that would have passed a New Poor
Law Act, or a Coercion Bill, with as little ceremony as they
murdered Robespierre, after worshipping him during fifteen
months with adulation so fulsome and abject, that he was at last
obliged to complain of it in the public papers. The perfidious
manner in which the People's Constitution was shortly after
Burked, under pretence of preparing organic laws for its execu
tion, is proof enough that the insurrectionists ot Prairial knew
well what they were about, when they united the cry for the
Democratic Constitution with that for bread. — Bronterre.]

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 259
" Duquesnoy, Bourbotte — illustrious victims!* You,
" whose names, for ever celebrated, have already re-
" echoed in this place, where they shall still re-echo
" more than once again! — you, whose manes we inces-
" santly honour by our daily hymns! — you, whose noble
" constancy in irons, and before your hangmen judges,
" will serve as an example to us to endure the longest
" and direst captivity! — you, in fine, whom the mis-
" creants have massacred, but whose courage they could
" not make flinch even for a single day! Glorious
" martyrs, intrepid champions of sacred equality ! — you
" rescued liberty, the sovereignty of the people, all the
" principles which guarantee happiness, from the dis-
" grace of being immolated without a courageous re-
'' sistance. It belonged to us to replace you, after your
" fall ; fallen like you, it is now our duty to imitate you,
" and to appear before our persecutors, unflinching, un-
" conquerable like you ; and it is the duty of every true
" Republican to honour the epoch in which you died,
" the victims of the most execrable enemies of the
" Republic." Here the Court compelled Babeuf to be
silent. About this time, some police bloodhounds came to
depose against certain workmen, accused of having, since
Babeuf's arrest, formed a combination to deliver him
and execute his projects ; these abandoned men, amongst
whom was seen a coiner of false money, released from
prison for the express purpose of being used as a spy,
had encouraged, by their concurrence, the very men
against whom they appeared as witnesses.
In the midst of so many perverse beings, Generosity of
appeared two unfortunate young men, two witnesses.
who, by their misfortunes, their generosity, and courage,
made the spectators shed tears of tender affection. Jean
Baptiste Meunier and Jean Noel Barbier, both soldiers,
had been condemned to ten years' imprisonment in irons

* [The unflinching bravery of these noble-minded Deputies is
best attested by the fact, that the instant they were condemned
they deliberately inflicted death on themselves by a single blade,
which they passed in succession from one victim to another, in
front and in contempt of their assassins. — Bronterre.]

260 babeuf's conspiracy.
for circumstances relating to the insurrection of the
Legion of Police. Before, the Military Commission that
tried them, they had been inveigled into certain admis
sions implicating some of the accused at Vendome ; it
was to confirm these admissions that they were trans
ferred to this latter place. But far from answering the
expectations of the accusers, Meunier and Barbier boldly
disavowed what they had had the weakness to confess,
and preferred exposing themselves to a new condemna
tion, as false witnesses, to uttering a single word against
the men on their trial before the Court. They did more :
they bowed respectfully to the accused ; greeted them
with Republican hymns; called them friends of the
people; and demanded to participate in their glory!
Such extraordinary virtue was rewarded by a fresh con
demnation to irons  What times ! . . . .
Defence. None of the accused was more crippled
in his defence than Babeuf, in conse
quence of the resolution which had been taken by com
mon consent to deny the conspiracy. Amongst about
five hundred documentary proofs — almost all of them
seized with himself, and containing in black and white
the organization, plan, acts, and correspondence of the
Insurrectional Committee — there were more than a hun
dred in his own hand-writing ; the information was
throughout against him ; five long sittings were occupied
in his examination.
How was it possible to give to the numerous facts, re
sulting from these documents, and corroborated by the
informer, any explications how little soever plausible?
The principal accused, however, made the attempt;
they sometimes even succeeded partially, but on the whole
they obtained no other advantage than that of putting
more at ease those of the jurors who already participated
in their opinions. In this respect, their defence was but
an incoherent tissue of subtleties, which their hearts dis
avowed, and to which they submitted only from con
siderations for their companions in misfortune. The
true defence of these accused* is fully comprised in the
avowals they made of their democratic doctrines, in the
solemn homage they rendered to the Constitution of
1793, and in the perseverance with which they hypo-

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 261
thetically justified the object of the conspiracy. This
conspiracy was all comprised in the Act creating the
Insurrectional Directory, which the accusers called an
usurpation of sovereignty ; it was on this document
that the accusation mainly rested. Babeuf justified its
motives, intentions, and means of execution.
" This is not," said he, " a trial of individuals — it is
" that of the Republic ; in despite of all who hold a
" different opinion, it must be treated with all the gran-
" deur, majesty, and devotion which so all-powerful an
" interest demands  This act," continued he, " be-
'• longs to any and every Republican, and all Republicans
" are implicated ,in this affair ; consequently it belongs
" to the Repubhc — to the Revolution — to history : my
" duty is to defend it." A moment after, comparing
his actual position with that of the non-imprisoned
Democrats — " Genius of Liberty !" he exclaimed, " what
" thanks ought I not to render you for having placed
" me in a position in which I am more free than all
" other men, from the very fact that I am in fetters !
" How grand is my position ! How beautiful my cause !
" it permits me exclusively to use the language of truth.
" ... .In the midst of my chains my tongue is privileged
" beyond all others of the countless number of oppressed
" and unhappy citizens, for each of whom the tyrants
" cannot, as for me, erect a prison for an abode. They
" are suffering, harassed, pressed down, overwhelmed
" under the most poignant distress, crouched under the
" most odious subjugation, and, to complete the atrocities
" of despotism, they are no longer permitted to complain.
" ... .At any rate, if our country is doomed to perish
" in those of her children who are implicated in this
" affair, let it be recorded that, in dying, they have not
" betrayed her — that they have courageously professed
" the maxims of their mother. . . .1 address myself to the
" virtues; they alone can vouch that we are just; if
" there were no more but these (virtues) to hear my
" voice — oh ! indeed, it would only remain to prepare
" the scaffold.''
But when Babeuf spoke with affection of the Con
stitution of 1793 — when he began to enumerate the
violences by which that Constitution had been torn from

262 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
the people, the national accusers commenced a torrent
of invectives against the accused, and pretended that
they were still conspiring against the Government. So
Babeuf was immediately condemned to silence again.
Buonarroti also undertook to justify this document.*
He said that the body it created had no other object
than that of propagating democratic doctrines ; he main
tained that even had this body prepared legislative
draughts of measures to be submitted to the people,
whose discontent was notorious, and every moment ex
pected to explode, it would have done no more than an
act of prudence, in nowise contrary to the laws ; and
then assuming the hypothesis, that the. Secret Directory
might have wished to provoke the people to examine the
form of Government, he demonstrated that such provoca
tion is the right of every citizen in every country ruled
by a constitution, which, like that of the Year III., ac
knowledges that the sovereignty resides in the universality
of the citizens.
At a later stage of the proceedings Babeuf adroitly
recurred to this object, and by the help of some prefatory
remarks, suited to bespeak the ear of the Court, he was
enabled to speak aloud — " to rouse the real people from
" their slumber — to provoke the reign of happiness, the
" reign of equality and liberty, abundance for all, liberty
" for all, the prosperity of all — behold the aspirations of
" those pretended insurrectionists, who have been painted
" in such horrifying colours to the eyes of all France."
Touching afterwards on the means, he made it appear
that in reality they reduced themselves to the operating
a revolution in opinion, a general movement of mind,
the effects of which, he thought, had been exaggerated
by the authors of the Act creating the Insurrectional
Directory. " For, added he, very judiciously, " it is but
" too evident, that a moral revolution being the necessary
" result of the conversion of the majority of men, and of
" their renunciation of all the passions which subjugate
" them, is not an affair, whose execution by the sole
" means of apostolically preaching virtue, can be easily
" comprehended. Since the first existence of instructors
* See No. 4 of the justificative documents.

BAriEUl's CONSPIRACY. 263
" among nations — of generous men devoting themselves
" to teach the maxims of supreme reason, and to point
" out the ways of true justice, we have witnessed little
" success attending their efforts, and we have seen nearly
" all of them fall victims to their benevolence !"
He did more; he proved that when the people is
oppressed, insurrection, even partial insurrection, is just
and necessary ; and supporting his argument by the
authority of Mably, he completely refuted the lethargic
doctrine of the national accusers, who said — " Insurrection
" is legitimate only when sanctioned by the universal
" participation of the citizens," as much as to say — never !
Twice was Babeuf asked to name his accomplices,
and twice did he reject the proposal with horror. With
the like indignation did he scout the system of falsehood
by which some of the accused and an advocate wished
to defend themselves, by attributing the conception of
the conspiracy to the Government, and by representing
the agents of authority as having provoked its most dan
gerous acts. For example, when the Court was canvassing
the Insurrectional Act, on the subject of which Ricord
had exclaimed — •" it is Grisel himself who has drawn it
up" — " No," replied Babeuf sternly, " he has not drawn
" it up ; it is not a document that should make its
" author blush, and Grisel is too great a miscreant to
" have drawn up such an Act."
All the documentary proofs were handed in by the
accusers in the exact order in which they had really been
framed, and when tied together as a parcel in their
consecutive form, they offered an easy clue, of which the
accusers naturally availed themselves, to deduce the
veritable history of the conspiracy.
Conformably to their previously co-arranged plan of
denying the conspiracy, the accused made great efforts
to sever the connecting chain of documentary evidence,
of which the accusers had shown the true and consecu
tive order. This they attempted to do by referring their
respective papers to isolated causes, to fortuitous circum
stances, and to distinct epochs. In analysing those
papers, they let no opportunity escape of avowing their
democratic principles, of justifying them, and of showing
that the Constitution which then ruled France was not

264 babeuf's conspiracy.
the one which the French nation had given itself. Thus,
in explaining the draught of an address to the soldiers
of which he was the author (see justificative pieces),
Buonarroti described why he had actively served the
French Revolution ; developed, in spite of the interrup
tions of the Court, his reasons for defending the Consti
tution of 1793 ; accused the Government of usurpation
and tyranny, and pronounced an eulogium of the de
signs and acts of the Revolutionary Government. " The
•' oath,'' cried he, " which I took to defend the code
" unanimously sanctioned by an immense people in the
" days of its union and glory, cannot be effaced from
" my heart; and the fidelity which even slaves have
" been seen to preserve towards their masters, I have
" preserved to a magnanimous people,' which generously
" received me in its bosom, and adopted me, in its days
" of liberty, as a constituent part of its solemn will."
It was not without intense emotion and excitement
that a multitude of citizens, belonging to Vendome and
its environs, attended every day the sittings of the High
Court. Those vehement attacks so often reiterated
against the Government ; those pressing argumentations
from which the accusers seldom emerged victorious ; the
lively attachment of the prisoners to the rights and in
terests of the people, and their bold and frank defence
of the most popular events of the Revolution ; those
noble youths who, called from their irons to give evidence
for the Government, not only refused to speak, but
absolutely rendered homage to the men they were dragged
to appear against ; those devoted families who travelled
from Paris to witness the struggle whose issue they
awaited with trembling ; — these, and the like circum
stances, had inspired the spectators with an ardent
interest in behalf of the accused, an interest which was
every day augmented by the articles of a journal printed
in the place, and by the conversations of the inhabitants,
who were almost exclusively occupied with what was
passing in the Court.
To these friendly dispositions was soon superadded the
desire to rescue the most implicated of the accused from
the dangers that menaced them. On one side, secret
attempts were made to induce a part of the soldiers who

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY, 265
guarded them to make an insurrection in their favour ;
they did not succeed. On the other hand, it was in
contemplation to favour a clandestine escape. By the
help of some instruments, furtively introduced into the
prison, the accused in a few days opened a large breach
in the walls, through which those most implicated were
on the point of escaping from their executioners, when the
inconsiderate conduct of some of the prisoners alarmed
the vigilance of the guards, and thus all hopes of flight ,
vanished. About thirty heads were devoted to „ ,-, j-
... , * . , , ,. Hostile dis-
death in the long address delivered by course of the
the national accusers at the close of the national ac-
debates. The documents seized were so cusers-
numerous, and so conclusive, that it was most easy for
them to establish the truth of the information, and to
prove the reality of the conspiracy. They were not
equally successful in demonstrating fts criminality.
The accused had repeatedly maintained that, even
supposing there had been a conspiracy, there was nothing
criminal in it, seeing that the Constitution, against which it
was directed, being subversive of the sovereignty of the
people, and not having been accepted by the people, was,
therefore, not the veritable law. To this paramount
and decisive point the accusers made no reply, but
taking their stand upon the fact, they affected to treat
as irrelevant to the question, the legitimacy of intention.
Throwing aside the gravest argument of the accused,
they amused themselves with combatting those which
appeared weakest, and, above all, they aimed at
terrifying timid minds, by paintiug, in exaggerated
colours, the means of execution, by a calumnious expo
sition of the intentions of the accused, and by a fantastic
picture of the consequences of their projects, falsely
deduced, of course. Nothing, in fact, appeared more
extravagant than the conclusion, in which it was dog
matically asserted, that the practice of the popular sove
reignty and of equality should necessary eventuate in
the devastation, depopulation, and desolation of France,
and by consequence, the circuitous, though insensible,
return of royalty.
It would be as useless as fastidious to report minutely

266 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
the strained interpretations given by the accused to the
documents opposed to them, the denegations by which
they repelled the allegations of the informer, and the
slight contradictions into which the latter fell for want of
memory, or through the vanity of appearing more saga
cious and cunning than he had really been. The informa
tion was true on the whole, the conspiracy had been real,
and if the principal accused denied its existence, it was
only by a pious falsehood, from which they did not promise
themselves any success, and of which they were in their
hearts ashamed.
Answers of the But what ought not to be lost to his-
accused. tory is that part of their general defence
in which were discussed the principles of the public
rights of Frenchmen ; here the Revolution was justified
in its utmost tendencies to equality and to the sove
reignty of the people. We shall give a brief recapitula
tion of it, to make known the sentiments in which the
accused persevered to the last moment of their lives.
In the system laid down by the accusers and the Court,
the function of the jurors was limited to examining
whether any offence had been really committed against
the Constitution of the Year HI., the legitimacy of which
they pretended to prevent the accused from discussing.
The more implicated of the conspirators, however, per
sisted not the less in developing and justifying the prin
ciples they so ardently professed, because they believed
them true, and conducive to the well-being of all. In
this course alone they saw their veritable means of defence
in the eyes of the people, and of popular jurors.
Appeal to the In the first instance, they addressed
patriotism of themselves to the virtue of the jurors, in
the jurors. order tQ awake m their souls a noble
sentiment of independence ; they endeavoured to convince
them that the sublimity of their mission imposed upon
them the duty of ascending to first principles, of lifting
their minds above the Constitution of the Year III., of
submitting the origin and essence of that Constitution to
a rigorous examination, and of taking as guides to their
decisions the real rights of the people, and not the pre
tended ones of the existing authority, which, in reality,
had not been created by the people. " This affair,"

babeuf's conspiracy. 2C7
said one of the accused, " is not an ordinary process.
'' The power of the accusers, the weakness and obscurity
' of the accused, ought to command the scrupulous
' attention of the high-jurors to considerations altogether
' foreign to the ordinary course of tribunals. It will
* not be in vain, citizens, that the oppressed will appeal
' to your consciences against the cruelty of their op-
' pressors. The holy enthusiasm of liberty will not in
' vain invoke at your hands respect and justice for those
' sacred principles to which we owe the destruction of
' privileges, the fall of the throne, and the progress of
' public reason towards equality of rights. The mission
' confided to you by the people is to defend the rights,
' and not to adapt any formula of jurisprudence to sub-
' serve schemes of ambition and folly. Representatives
' of the people ! be the people itself — to give expression
' to its will, it is necessary that you should feel with its
' heart !"
Before undertaking to demonstrate that the veritable
law of Frenchmen was the Constitution of 1793, and
that the Constitution of the Year III. was but an act of
spoliation and violence, the accused endeavoured to
neutralise the horror with which the national accusers
had laboured to envelope the democratic law, as well as
those who remained faithful to it, by the exaggerated
picture they drew of the severity of the Revolutionary
Government with which they affected to confound it.
" You are constantly reminding us," T ... .. c
. , , , ,, / tl ° ' „ Justification ot
said the accused, " ot the measures ot the Revolution-
' 1 793 ; but you throw a veil of silence ary Govern-
' over what led to the unhappy necessity ment<
' of employing them. You forget to remind France of the
' innumerable treasons which destroyed the lives of
' thousands of citizens ; you forget to remind us of the
' terrific progress of the war of La Vendee, of the trea-
' sonable surrender of our frontier towns, of the revolt of
' Dumouriez, and of the perfidious protection he found
' in the bosom of the Convention itself ; you forget to
' remind us of the unheard-of cruelties with which the
' the ferocious Vendeans tore limb from limb, and made
' expire, in the midst of the most refined torments, the
' defenders of the country, and all who showed any

268 babeuf's conspiracy.
" attachment to the Repubhc. If you evoke the manes
" of the victims of a deplorable necessity, produced
" by the incessant and augmenting perils of the country,
" we will meet you by exhuming the piles of French
" corpses massacred by the counter-Revolutionists at
" Montauban, at Nancy, in the Champ de Mars, in La
" Vendee, at Lyons, at Marseilles, at Toulon. We will
" awake the shades of a million of French Republicans
" slaughtered on the frontiers by the partisans of tyranny,
" who are incessantly conspiring with it in the very heart
" of France; we will put in the balance the blood shed
" by your friends, through cold and callous calculations of
" selfishness, to weigh against that wliich the patriots
" have shed with regret in the generous transports of
" national defence, and in the exaltation of their love of
" liberty  Is it us or liberty that the national accusers
" are instructed to prosecute ?. . . .Their malignant ran-
" cour will serve our cause, and the high-jurors will
" doubtless detect, in their one-sided representations,
" and in the hypocrisy with which they outrage history,
" and heap upon the heads of the accused, events
" utterly foreign to their case, that secret and rank-
" ling vengeance which the enemies of the Republic,
" more adroit than we, have vowed against its intrepid
" and too-confiding friends."
Having concerted with the intent to overthrow the
Constitution of the Year III., in order to replace it by
that of 1793, and with the design of invading private
property by establishing a community of goods — these
were the two grand heads of accusation, against which
the prisoners had to defend themselves. " Assuredly,"
said they, " we love the Constitution of 1793; we love
" it, because it guarantees to the people the inalienable
" right of deliberating on the laws ; we love it, because
" it was solemnly, and almost unanimously, accepted by
" the French people."
Eulogy of the " Assuredly," they added, " we still
Constitution of " consider that Constitution to be the real
" fundamental law of France, because
" that of the Year III. has robbed the people of the
" effective right of sovereignty, and because it is false
" that the French people have accepted it." The rea-

babeuf's conspiracy, 269
sons and numerical calculations by which the accused
demonstrated the truth of their assertions were so over
whelming, that after a long argumentation on both sides,
the accuser Viellart acknowledged himself defeated, in
pronouncing these words — For the rest, I consent.
" Is it alleged," continued the accused, The accused
" that we have invoked the attention of maintain the
" the people to this extraordinary infrac- legitimacy of
" tion of its rights? In that, we have the """P™*-
'' done no more than use the right of speech and of
" writing, wliich the Constitution of the Year III. itself
" guarantees to all Frenchmen. Furthermore, if it be
" pretended that we have conspired to re-establish, by ¦
" consent or force, the Constitution of 1793, which we
" regard as sacred — as the palladium of public liberty —
" our answer is, that, in the first place, the act of con-
" spiring (which we deny) is not proved, and the want
" of means of execution alone suffices to set aside all
" presumption of a dangerous and criminal conspiracy.
" But even if we had really conspired with the design
" and means of re-establishing the Constitution of 1793,
" we should have only obeyed the dictates of a pure
" conscience, we should have only obeyed the veritable
" law of France, we should have only done what every
" true citizen ought to do, we should have only, in fact,
" fulfilled our oaths, which, in binding us to that Con-
" stitution, bound us to liberty, to the sovereignty of the
" people, and to the Republic."
Whilst the accusers and Court pretended that the
jurors should confine themselves to the simple question,
whether the prisoners had conspired against the Consti
tution of the Year III., the accused represented that if,
at all hazards, the fact of the conspiracy was to be de
cided against them, still their conspiracy was not a crime,
since the authority against which it was directed, not
having been sanctioned by the people, was an illegitimate
one. It was to the fact of this illegitimacy that the ac
cused most earnestly solicited the jury's consideration.
As to the design of establishing a com- Community of
munity of goods, it was unnecessary for goods defended
the accused to discuss it at any length, y a eu '
because the papers containing the successive plans of

270 babeuf's conspiracy.
legislature not having been seized, and nothing of the
kind having transpired in Grisel's presence, this part of
the accusation was very feebly established. Neverthe
less, Babeuf, who had often made this community the
subject of his writings in the Tribune of the People, did
not fail to speak of it; he expounded his democratic
opinions on that point, and justified them by reason — by
depicting the evils entailed upon society through the con
trary system, and by a host of imposing authorities, which
had propagated the same doctrine. " Private pro-
" perty, said he, " is the source of all the calamities on
" earth. In preaching this doctrine, long since pro-
" claimed by philosophers, I desired to attach to the
" Republic the people of Paris, who are wearied of
" Revolutions, discouraged by misfortunes, and almost
" royalized by the plots and schemes of the enemies of
" liberty."
Peroration of Babeuf thus terminated his long de-
Babeuf. fence : — " If the axe of tyranny menaces
" my head, its lictors will find me prepared : it is glo-
" rious to die in virtue's cause  The verdict of the
" jurors is about to resolve this problem — Shall France
" remain a Republic,* or shall she, after being the prey of
" the brigands who dismember her, degenerate once more
" into a monarchy ? Citizen jurors, will you condemn men,
" the sole guide of whose conduct has been the love of
" justice ? Will you accelerate the counter-Revolution,
" and precipitate the fall of the patriots under the
" poignards of triumphant royalism ? However, if our
" death be resolved upon — if the fatal knell has tolled for
" me, I am long ago resigned. Incessantly a victim
" throughout this long Revolution, I am grown familiar
" with torture. The Tarpeian Rock is ever present to
" my sight, and Gracchus Babeuf is but too happy to
" die for his country. Well ! all things considered, what
" is there wanting to console me? Could I ever expect
" to end my career at a brighter moment of glory? I
* Four years after this epoch there no longer remained a vestige
of it.
[The trial took place in 1796. Before the close of 1799 Buona
parte was master of France, and the Constitution of the Year III.
was no more ! — Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 271
" shall have experienced before my death, such sensations
" as have rarely accompanied that of men who have
"immolated themselves for humanity  The power
" which was strong enough to hold us so long in op-
" pression has failed in its efforts to destroy our fame.
" We have lived to see the pen of truth engrave on the
" page of history facts which shed honour on our names,
" and which will brand our persecutors with eternal
" infamy. Yes ! history will engrave our names in cha-
" racters of glory. And who are the men with whom I
" am associated as a culprit ? It is Drouet ! it is Lepel-
"letier!  Oh, names dear to the Republic! Such
" are my accomplices ! And you, my friends, who sur-
" round me hard by on these benches, who are you ?
" I recognise you — you are almost all founders — firm
" supports of this Republic ; if you and I are condemned :
" ah ! I foresee, we are the last of the French — we are
" the last of the energetic Republicans. The reign of
" Royalist terror begins — its daggers will soon penetrate
" everywhere. Is it not better for us to reap the glory
" of not having survived servitude — of having died to
" save our fellow-citizens from it ? O my children
" (here a flood of tears came to his relief) ! I have but
" one bitter regret to express to you — it is, that having
" burned with a holy desire to bequeath you liberty, the
" source of all happiness, I leave you a prey to every
" calamity. I have no earthly good to bequeath you !
" Not even my civic virtues, my profound hatred of
" tyranny, my ardent devotion to the cause of equality
" and liberty, my intense love of the people — not even
" these can I now wish to bequeath you — for they would
" be a fatal legacy. What use could you make of them
" under the royal despotism which, to a certainty, is
" about to establish itself? I leave you slaves! and this
" reflection is the only one that will rend my soul in its
"expiring struggle. It would be my duty, indeed, to
" advise you to bear your bonds with more patience than
•' your unhappy father did, but even of that last sad
" office I feel that I am incapable !"
To the first questions submitted to the Questions on
deliberation of the jurors, and wliich con- the facts-
cerned only the fact of the conspiracy, and the par-

272 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
ticipation in it of each of the accused, the Court, at the
request of the foreman of the jury, added some others,
touching the provocations (written or verbal) to re-establish
the Constitution of 1793. This addition produced in
the terms of the indictment a change the more illegal,
inasmuch as it all at once submitted to the examination
of the jurors papers, on which the parties had not been
permitted to explain themselves.* Some of the accused
complained loudly of this, but, notwithstanding that they
were, pro tanto, supported by the opinion of the national
accuser, the Court took no notice of their complaints.
Question as to With no better success, though with
the intention. great energy, the accused protested
against the manner in which the question of intention
was put, and in which an odious partiality was visible.
The law ordered, on pain of rendering null and void,
that in all cases the jury, after having declared the fact
proven, and the accused party convicted, should add,- —
" I am, or I am not, of opinion that he had committed
such act maliciously, and with design." It was espe
cially on maintaining the adverb maliciously that the
accused insisted, because they saw in it, as it were, an
invitation to the Jury to examine the legitimacy of the
motives by which they had hypothetically justified the
conspiracy. On the question of intention, it was, that
the accused expressed themselves thus in addressing the
jurors : — " Descend into your own hearts; you will there
" find a silent monitor to whisper you — ' These men,
' after all, only meditated on the happiness of their
" fellow-creatures. The Revolution was not for them a
" game of personal interest.' Let it be deeply impressed
" on you citizens, that there were men who regarded it
" as an event of vast moment to humanity ; be well
" assured that that conviction became to them a new
" religion, to which they could, in the spirit of perfect
" self-devotion, sacrifice convenience, riches, repose,
" life itself! To strike down a friend of liberty, is to
" stretch forth the hand of fellowship to kings. You sit
" in judgment on liberty ; she was fruitful in martyrs,
* A judgment of the Criminal Tribunal of the Seine has since
solemnly decided that the questions relative to the provocations
referred to were put by the High Court in contravention of the Um !

babeuf's conspiracy. 273
" and in avengers of their memory. Remember, liberty
" expires when you stifle the generous passions — when
" you present to her inspired worshippers the bleeding
" heads of those who have devoted themselves in her
" defence. The accusers have pretended, that even
" though our arguments were true, the jurors could
" take no account of tlie motives which might have
" determined the accused, nor see in their intentions
'• other than the design to subvert the Constitution of
" the Year III. (1795). If you admit this novel pre-
" tention, then, there is no longer in France either jury
" or country. In the first place, it is not to the over-
•' throw of the actual Constitution, but to that of legiti-
" mate authority, that the jurors ought to turn their
'" attention; for could they declare a man guilty who,
" in acting against the Government de facto, was im-
" pelled by the conviction that he was acting in favour
" of the Government dejure, and of the veritable law
" of the country ? What, in that case, would become
" of the internal feeling of good or evil, which renders
" the institution of jurors so invaluable in the estimation
" of pure consciences ? To what a nullity you would
" reduce the care which the law has taken of reconciling
" (by questions touching intention and motive) the con-
" tradictions so frequently observable between the pre-
" cepts of natural law and those of the actual law ! To
" what a pass you would bring the supreme law of the
" interest of the people, which enjoins its delegates to
" reckon love of country, and devotion to its welfare, as
" a principal circumstance in judging the hearts of
" accused persons."
Some of the jurors joined the accused in demanding
that the questions touching intention might be put ac
cording to the formula prescribed by the law ; they
asked in vain. The High Court persisting in its course,
limited the questions within the following terms : —
" Has the accused conspired, or provoked with the
" intention of conspiring, or of provoking ?" Thus
was interdicted all examination touching the morality of
the act.
There were sixteen jurors ; four were Declaration of
sufficient to acauit. Three onlv remained tae iury-

274 babeuf's conspiracy.
constantly favourable to the accused. Gauthier Biauzat,
whom we name, because we know he has ceased to live,
was of the number. He remained throughout faithful to
the people ; and, had it depended on him, there would
have been none condemned. All the questions, however,
relative to the conspiracy were resolved negatively. But.
unfortunately, thirteen jurors pronounced that there had
been provocations, verbal and written, to re-establish the
Constitution of 1793, and that Babeuf, Darthe, Buonar
roti, Germain, Cazin, Moroy, Blondeau, Meneissier, and
Bouin, had participated in it ; the two first without
palliating circumstances, all the others with these cir
cumstances. From day-break in the morning of the
7th Prairial of the Year V., the rolling of drums, the
noise of artillery, and the extraordinary movement of
troops, gave the inhabitants of Vend6me a presage of
the denouement of the drama, of which they had been
spectators. Condemnation. „ Evei7 thing announced to the seven
aforementioned prisoners, who were pre
sent, their approaching end. They appeared for the
last time before the tribunal, which was wrapt in a
gloomy silence. A numerous and uneasy multitude
filled the Court, of which all the avenues were guarded
by a strong military force. The chief of the jury having
pronounced the fatal verdict, which he did with a tre
mulous voice, the accusers followed, demanding sen
tence of death against Babeuf and Darthe, and of
deportation against the rest.
A last attempt was made to arrest judgment. One
of the latter, aided by an advocate, demanded of the
tribunal to pronounce a general acquittal, on the ground
that the law of the 27th Germinal, the application of
which had been just required by the national accusers,
being prohibitive of the liberty of the press, had ceased
to be in force, by virtue of an article of the Constitution,
purporting that every law of this description should have
effect during only one year at most. The tribunal paid
no attention to it, but said to Babeuf and Darthe —
" Die .'" and to the seven others — " Go and drag along
a miserable life, far from your country, in burning
and murderous climes !"

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 275
At that moment a great tumult is Babeuf and
heard ; Babeuf and Darthe stab them- Darthe stab
i ..1 ii-i _,. themselves.
selves ; they cry on all sides — They are
assassinated. Buonarroti protests and appeals to the
people; a general movement is made by the spectators,
which is instantly suppressed by a hundred bayonets
directed against them. The gendarmes seize those sen
tenced to transportation, menace them with their sabres,
and drag them, along with their dying companions,
away from the public view. But the weakness of their
poignards, which broke in the attempt, prevented Babeuf
and Darthe from accomplishing their self-destruction.
They passed a cruel night in consequence of the wounds
they inflicted on themselves ; the blade of the weapon
remained buried in Babeuf's wound, close to his heart.
Then courage never belied itself; and Bloody execu-
strong in conscience they marched reso- tion-
lutely to the scaffold, as to a triumph. Immediately
before receiving the stroke of death, Babeuf spoke of
his love for the people, to whom he recommended his
family. A general mourning prevailed in Vendome
when those generous defenders of equahty lost their
fives. Their mutilated bodies, which the barbarians had
caused to be flung into a ditch, were piously interred by
the neighbouring country people.
Fifty-six accused were acquitted. Of v ,.
this number was Vadier, formerly mem
ber of the Convention, to whom the High Court adopted
a measure that ought not to be forgotten for its palpable
injustice. This unfortunate old man, who, by the in
tegrity with which, before the fatal 9th Thermidor, he
had discharged the difficult functions of President of the
Committee of General Surety, had drawn upon himself
the indiscriminating hatred of the enemies of the Revo
lution and of justice, had hardly escaped a bloody pro
scription, when a fresh pretext was seized to involve him
in another. Though he had no knowledge whatever of
the conspiracy, and though not even suspected, he was
arrested, dragged, through a thousand dangers, from
Toulouse to Paris, put in accusation, and transferred to
Vendome. In the course of the debates, he tried in vain
to justify his conduct ; he was silenced. Being, how-

276 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
ever, obliged to acquit him, he was ordered to be de
tained in prison, on the alleged ground that there was a
decree of the Convention authorizing his deportation.
Will it be believed ? This decree had been revoked,
and no longer existed ! It was thus, by an error of fact
so easy to rectify, that the members of the first tribunal
of the Republic — a tribunal to which a law had attri
buted infallibility — arbitrarily, and without interrogating
their victim, inflicted a most severe punishment, which
lasted a long time, and might have been perpetual, had
not the great crime of the ] 8th Brumaire (Buonaparte's
usurpation) put a period to it.
Generosity of Shortly afterwards the five convicts
the Municipa- present were thrown, with Vadier, into
htyofSaint-LS. tne for(. constmcted on the barren island
at the entrance of the Bay of Cherbourg. They traversed
this long route in chains, and shut up in barred cages,
sometimes exposed to insults and menaces, at other
times receiving the most affecting marks of affection and
respect. At Falaise, at Caen, and at Valogne, they
encountered imminent dangers ; but they were received
with friendship and honour at Mellereau, at Argertan,
and at Saint-L6. In this latter city the mayor, at the
head of the municipal body, complimented and embraced
them, calling them, our unfortunate brethren. " You
" have defended" said the mayor, " the rights of the
" people ; every good citizen owes you love and gra-
" titude." By a resolution of the Council General, they
were lodged in its assembly room, where all manner of
succours and consolation were administered to them.
Goodness of For many a long day the good in-
the people of habitants of Vend6me used to point out,
Vendome. witn tender emotion, to travellers the
last abode of the martyrs of equality.*
* [Here ends the history of the conspiracy, after which follow
the justificative pieces alluded to in the course of the work. As
indicative of the state of opinion, and of the nature of the efforts
made by the Democrats in 1795 and 1796, they are documents of
great interest. The conspiracy of Babeuf was the last expiring
struggle for equality. With the condemnation of its chiefs ended
all hope of reviving the Constitution of 1793 ; and, as a natural
consequence, the workm lasses, losing all interest in public

baeevf's CONSPIRACY. 277
affairs, abandoned the Revolution to the monied classes. In re
ference to this portion of French history, Mignet observes : —
" Some time afterwards, Babeuf and his accomplices, amongst
whom were Amar, Vadier, and Darthe, the old Secretary of Joseph
Lebon, were brought to trial before the High Court of Venddme.
They none of them belied their character ; they spoke like men
¦who were neither afraid to avow their designs nor to die for their
cause. At the beginning and ending of each examination, they
hummed the air of the Marseillaise. This ancient song of victory,
joined with their confident demeanour, struck the spectators with
astonishment, and seemed to render them still formidable. Their
wives having followed them before the tribunal, Babeuf, in finish
ing his defence, turned towards them, and said, ' They might
follow them to the very place of execution, for their punishment
could not make them blush.' Babeuf and Darth6 were condemned
to death, and they both, on hearing their sentence, stabbed them
selves with their daggers. Babeuf was the last chief of the old
commune, and of the Committee of Public Safety, which had been
divided before July (Thermidor), but had afterwards united. The
final dispersion of this party, which had been diminishing more
and more every day, may be dated from this period. Under the
re-action it remained united, and under Babeuf presented a
formidable association. From that time Democrats still existed,
but the party was disorganized." — Bronterre.]

JUSTIFICATIVE PIECES.
PIECE No. I.

THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION.
ADOPTEn BY
THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The French people, convinced that the forgetfulness
and contempt of the natural rights of man, are the sole
causes of the calamities of the world, has resolved to lay
open, in a solemn declaration, those sacred and inalien
able rights, to the end that all the citizens being always
able to compare the acts of the Government with the
design of all social institutions, may never suffer them
selves to be oppressed and abused by tyranny ; and that
the people may have perpetually before its eyes the bases
of its liberty and its happiness, the magistrate the rule
of his duties, and the legislator the object of his mis
sion. In consequence it proclaims, in presence of the Su
preme Being, the following declaration of the rights of
man and of the citizen : —
Art. 1 . The end of society is general happiness
Government is instituted for the purpose of guarantee
ing to man the enjoyment of his natural and impre
scriptible rights.
2. Those rights are equality, liberty, safety, and pro
perty. 3. All men are equal by nature and in the eye of the
law. 4. The law is the free and solemn expression of the
general will; it is the same for all, either in protecting

280 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
or in punishing : it can ordain only that which is just
and useful to society.
5. Every citizen is equally admissible to public em
ployments. Free people, in their elections, know no
other motives of preference, than virtue and talents.
6. Liberty^ is the power which belongs to a man of
doing all thatwhich does not injure the rights of another :
it has nature for its origin, justice for its rule, and the
law for its protection : its moral bounds are defined in
this maxim, —
Do not to another that which thou dost not wish he.
he should do unto thee.
7. The right of manifesting thoughts and opinions,
either by the press or by any other manner, the right of
assembling peaceably, and the free exercise of modes of
worship, cannot be forbidden.
The necessity of declaring these rights supposes either
the presence or the remembrance of recent despotism.
8. Safety consists in the protection granted by society
to each of its members for the preservation of his person,
of his rights, and of his property.
9. The law ought to protect public and individual
liberty from the oppression of those who govern.
10. No one ought to be accused, arrested, or de
tained otherwise than in the cases determined by the
law, and according to the forms wliich it prescribes :
every citizen summoned or seized by the authority of
the law ought instantly to obey ; by resistance he ren
ders himself culpable.
1 1 . Every act exercised against a man who has not
offended against the law, and exercised without the
forms prescribed by the law, is arbitrary and tyrannical :
the person against whom it is wished to be exercised by
violence has the right of resisting it by force.
12. Those who solicit, expedite, sign, execute, or
cause to be executed arbitrary acts, are culpable, and
ought to be punished.
13. Every man being presumed innocent till the
moment that he shall be declared guilty, if it is judged
indispensably necessary to arrest him, all severity which
is not necessary to secure his person, ought to be
severely repressed by the law.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 281
14. No one ought to be judged and punished, till
after having been heard or legally summoned, and but
in virtue of a law promulgated before the commission of
the crime: the law which punishes crimes committed
before its existence is a tyranny; a retroactive effect
given to the law is a crime.
15. The law ought to decree only punishments strictly
and evidently necessary : punishments ought to be pro
portioned to crimes, and useful to society.
16. The right of property is that which belongs to
every citizen of disposing, at his pleasure, of his goods,
of his revenues, and of the produce of his labour and
industry. 17. No kind of labour, of culture, or commerce, can
be forbidden to the industry of citizens.
18. Every man may engage his services and his time,
but he can neither sell himself nor be sold. His person
is not an alienable property. The law does not acknow
ledge the state of servitude ; there can exist only an
engagement of attentions and recompenses between the
man who labours and the man who employs him.
19. No one can be deprived of the least part of his
property without his consent, except when the public
necessity, legally verified, requires it, and under the
condition of a just and previous indemnity.
20. No contribution can be established but for general
utility. All the citizens have a right of concurring in
the estabhshment of contributions, in watching over
then- employ, and in causing an account of them to be
rendered. 21. Public succours are a sacred debt. Society owes
subsistence to unfortunate citizens, either by procuring
them labour, or by assuring the means of existence to
those who are not in a state to labour.
22. Instruction is what all have need of. Society
ought to favour with all its power the progress of public
reason, and put instruction within the reach of all the
citizens. 23. The social guarantee consists in the action of all
for the purpose of assuring to each the enjoyment and
preservation of his rights: this guarantee rests on the
national sovereignty.

282 babeuf's conspiracy.
24. It cannot exist, if the limits of the public func
tions are not clearly determined by law, and if the re
sponsibility of all the functionaries is not assured.
25. The sovereignty resides in the people. It is one
and indivisible, imprescriptible, and inalienable.
26. No portion of, the people can exercise the power
of the entire people ; but every section of the sovereign
assembled ought to enjoy, with an entire liberty, the
right of expressing its will.
27. All individuals usurping the sovereignty should be
immediately put to death by free men.
28. A people has always the right of revising, of re
forming, and of changing its constitution. One genera
tion cannot subject future generations to its laws.
29. Every citizen has an equal right to concur to the
formation of the law, and to the nomination of his de
legates, or of his agents.
30. The public functions are in an essential manner
temporary : they cannot be considered either as distinc
tions or as recompenses, but as duties.
31. The crimes of the delegates of the people ought
never to be unpunished. No one has the right of pre
tending that he is more inviolable than other citizens.
32. The right of presenting petitions to the depositaries
of the public authority cannot in any case be forbidden,
suspended, or limited.
33. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of
the other rights of man.
34. There is oppression against the social body when
one alone of its members is oppressed. There is op
pression against every member when the social body is
oppressed. 35. When government violates the rights of the
people, insurrection is for the people, and for every por
tion of the people, the most sacred of rights, and the
most indispensable of duties.

PIECE No. U.

CONSTITUTIONAL ACT.

The Republic.
Art 1 . The French Repubhc is one and indivisible.
Division of the People.
2. The French people is divided, for the exercise of
its sovereignty, into primary assemblies of cantons.
3. It is divided, for the administration and for justice,
into departments, districts, and municipalities.
State of the Citizens.
4. Every man born and domiciliated in France, of
the full age of twenty-one years; every foreigner of the
same age, who domiciliated in France for one year, lives
there on his labour, or acquires a property, or marries a
French person, or adopts an infant, or supports an old
person ; and likewise every foreigner who shall be
judged by the legislative body to have merited well of
humanity, is admitted to the exercise of the rights of a
French citizen.
5. The exercise of the rights of a citizen is lost by
naturalization in a foreign country, by the acceptance of
functions or favours from a government not originating
from the people, and by condemnation to corporal and
disgraceful punishments, till again re-established.
6. The exercise of the rights of a French citizen is
suspended by being in a state of accusation, or by a
sentence of contumacy, so long as the sentence remains
unrevoked. Sovereignty of the People.
7. The sovereign people is the universality of the
French citizens.

284 babeuf's conspiracy.
8. It names its deputies itself.
9. It delegates to the electors the choice of adminis
trators, of public arbitrators, of the criminal judges, and
the judges of cashiering.
10. It deliberates on the laws.
Primary Assemblies.
1 1 . The primary assemblies are composed of citizens
domiciliated during six months in each canton.
12. They are composed of two hundred citizens at
least, of six hundred at most, called to vote.
13. They are constituted by the nomination of a pre
sident, of secretaries, and of scrutators.
14. Their police belongs to them.
15. No person can appear there in arms:
16. The elections are made either by scrutiny ro by
vote, according to the choice of each voter.
17. A primary assembly cannot in any case prescribe
an uniform method of voting.
18. The scrutators shall verify the votes of those
citizens who, not being able to write, prefer voting by
scrutiny.- 19. The suffrages on the laws are given by yes or
by no.
20. The wish of the primary assembly is thus pro
claimed : — The citizens united in the primary assembly
of  to the number of  voters, vote for
or against  to the majority of 
National Representation.
21. Population is the sole basis of the national repre
sentation. 22. There is a deputy to every forty thousand indi
viduals. 23. Every union of primary assemblies, resulting from
a population of from thirty-nine to forty-one thousand
souls, names immediately a deputy.
24. The nomination is made by the absolute majority
of suffrages.
25. Each assembly examines the suffrages, and sends
a commissioner for the general reverification to the place
pointed out as the most central.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 285
26. If the first reverification does not give the absolute
majority, a second appeal is proceeded to, and the
choice lays between the two citizens who had the greatest
number of votes.
27. In case of an equality of votes, the most aged has
the preference, either to be balloted or elected. In case
of an equality of age, it is decided by lot.
28. Every Frenchmen exercising the rights of a citizen
is eligible in the extent of the Republic.
29. Every deputy belongs to the whole nation.
30. In case of the non-acceptance, resignation, ex
clusion, or death of a deputy, his replacement is pro
vided for by the primary assemblies who named him.
31. A deputy who has given in his resignation cannot
quit his post till after the admission of his successor.
32. The French people assembles every year, on the
1st of May, for the elections.
33. It proceeds to elect whatever may be the number
of citizens having a right to vote.
34. The primary assemblies meet extraordinarily on
the demand of fifty citizens having a right to vote.
35. The convocation is made in this case by the mu
nicipality of the ordinary place of assembling.
36. These extraordinary assemblies do not deliberate,
unless the half of the citizens who have a right to vote,
and one more, be present
Electoral Assemblies.
37. The citizens met in the primary assemblies name
one elector to the proportion of two hundred citizens,
present or not, two from two hundred and one to four
hundred, and three from four hundred and one to six
hundred. 38. The sittings of the electoral assemblies and the
mode of elections are the same as in the primary as
sembhes. Legislative Body.
39. The legislative body is one, indivisible, and per
manent. 40. Its session is of one year.
41. It meets on the 1st of July.

286 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
42. The national assembly cannot constitute itself, if
it is not composed at least of one half the deputies and
one more.
43. The deputies cannot at any time be called to ac
count, accused, or judged, for opinions which they have
given in the bosom of the legislative body.
44. They may, for criminal offences, be seized in the
fact, but the warrant of arrest, or warrant to bring them
before the tribunals, cannot be issued without the au
thority of the legislative body.
Sittings of the Legislative Body.
45. The sittings of the national assembly are public.
46. The proces verbal of its sitting are printed.
47. It cannot deliberate unless two hundred members
at least are present.
48. It cannot refuse the right of speaking to its mem
bers in the right of which they have claimed it.
49. Its deliberations are determined by the majority
of those present.
50. Fifty members have a right to demand the
nominal appeal.
51. It has the right of censure on the conduct of
members in its bosom.
52. The police of the place of its sittings, and in the
exterior circle which it has determined, belong to it.
Functions of the Legislative Body.
53. The legislative body proposes laws and makes
decrees. 54. Under the general name of laws are comprised
all acts of the legislative body, concerning —
The civil and criminal legislation ;
The general administration of the revenues, and or
dinary expenses of the Republic ;
The national domains ;
The standard, the weight, the impress, and the deno
mination of coins ;
The declaration of war ;
All new general distribution of the French territory ;
The public instruction, and public honours paid to the
memory of great men.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 287
55. Under the particular name of decrees are com
prehended all the acts of the legislative body, concern
ing— The yearly establishment of the land and sea forces ;
The permission or denial of the passage of foreign
troops over the French territory ;
The introduction of foreign naval forces into the ports
of the Repubhc ;
Measures of safety and general tranquillity ;
The annual and accidental distribution of succours and
public works ;
Orders for the fabrication of money of all species ;
Unforeseen and extraordinary expenses ;
Local and particular measures of an administration, a
commune, or a public work ;
Defence of the territory ;
The ratification of treaties ;
The prosecution of the responsibility of the members
of the council, and the pubhc functionaries ;
The accusation of those charged with conspiracies
agamst the general safety of the Republic ;
All changes in the partial distribution of the French
territory ;
National recompenses. Formation of the Laws.
56. The plans of the laws are preceded by a report.
57. The discussion cannot be opened, and the law
provisionally ordained, till fifteen days after the report.
58. The plan is printed and sent to all the communes
of the Republic, under this title, Proposed Law.
59. In forty days after the sending of the proposed
law, if, in the half of the departments, and one over,
the tenth of the primary assemblies of each of them, re
gularly formed, shall not have objected, the plan shall
be accepted, and become law.
60. If objections are made to it, the legislative body
convokes the primary assembhes.
Titles of Laws and Decrees.
61. The laws, the decrees, the judgments, and ail the
public acts are titled, In the name of the French people,
the  year of the French Republic.

288 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
Executive Council.
62. There is an executive council, composed of twenty-
four members.
63. The electoral assembly of each department names
a candidate. The legislative body chooses from the
general list the members of the council.
64. It is changed one-half by each legislature, during
the latter months of the session.
6.5. The council is charged with the direction and
inspection of the general administration. It can only
act in execution of the laws and decrees of the legislative
body. 66. It names out of its own body the agents in chief
of the general administration of the Republic.
67. The legislative body determines the number and
the functions of these agents.
68. These agents form no council. They are separate,
without any immediate connection between them ; they
exercise no personal authority.
69. The council names out of its own body the ex
terior agents of the Republic.
70. It negociates treaties.
71. The members of the council, in case of prevarica
tion, are accused by the legislative body.
72. The council is responsible for the non-execution
of the laws and decrees, and for the abuses which it does
not denounce.
73. It recalls and replaces the agents of its nomi
nation. 74. It is bound to denounce them, if there is cause,
before the judicial authorities.
Connection of the Executive Council with the Legis
lative Body.
75. The executive council is situated near the legisla-
tative body. It has an entrance, and a separate place in
the hall of the legislative body.
76. It is heard at all times when it has an account
to give.
77. The legislative body calls it into its presence, either
in whole or in part, whenever it judges necessary.

BAlSLUF S CONSPIRACY. 2S9
Administrative and Municipal Bodies.
78. There is in every commune of the Republic a mu
nicipal administration. In every district an intermediary
one. 79. The municipal officers are elected by the as
semblies of the commune.
80. The administrators and municipal officers have
not any character of representation.
81. The municipalities and the administrations are half
renewed every year.
82. The administrators and municipal officers have not
anv charter of representation.
They cannot in any case modify the acts of the legis
lative bodv. or suspend their execution.
83. The legislative body determines the functions of
the municipal officers and administrators, the rules of
their subordination, and the penalties which they may
incur. 84. The sittings of the municipalities and of the ad
ministrations are public. Civil Justice.
85. The code of the civil and criminal laws is the
same for the whole of the Republic.
86. There can be no hindrance given to the right
which the citizens have of causing their differences to be
decided by arbitrators of their own choosing.
87. If the citizens do not reserve to themselves the
right of protesting against it, the decision of these arbi
trators is final.
88. Justices of the peace are elected by the citizens
of the circles marked out by the law.
89. They conciliate and judge without any charge.
90. Their number and their competence are deter
mined by the legislative body.
91. Public arbitrators are elected by the electoral
assemblies. 92. Their numbers and their circles are fixed by the
legislative body.
93. They take cognizance of those disputes which
have not been definitely settled by private arbitrators,
or by justices of the peace.

290 babeuf's conspiracy.
94. They deliberate in pubhc. They give their
opinions openly. They decide without appeal on verbal
defence, or simple memorial, without process, and
without expense. They state the reasons of their de
cisions. 95. The justices of the peace, and the public arbi
trators, are elected every year.
Criminal Justice.
96. In criminal matters no citizen can be judged but
on an accusation received by the juries, or decreed by
the legislative body.
The accused have counsel chosen by them, or officially
named. The conducting of the process is public.
The fact and the intention are decided upon by a
jury of judgment.
The punishment is applied by a criminal tribunal.
97. The criminal judges are elected every year by the
electoral assemblies. Tribunal of Cashiering.
98. There is for all the Republic a tribunal of
cashiering. 99. This tribunal takes no cognizance of the more es
sential parts of affairs.
It pronounces on the violations of forms, and on ex
press contraventions of the law.
100. The members of this tribunal are named every
year by the electoral assemblies.
Public Contributions.
101. No citizen is exempted from the honourable
obligation of contributing to the public charges.
National Treasury.
102. The national treasury is the central point of the
receipts and disbursements of the Republic.
103. It is administered by accountable agents, named
by the executive council.
104. These agents are watched over by commis-

abeuf's conspiracy. 291
sioners named by the legislative body, taken out of its
own number, and responsible for those abuses which
they do not denounce. Respotisibility.
105. The accounts of the agents of the national
treasury, and of the administrators of the public money,
are given in annually to responsible commissioners,
named bv the executive council.
106. These verifiers are watched over by commis
sioners of the nomination of the legislative body, taken
out of its own number, and responsible for those errors
and abuses which they do not denounce.
The legislative body passes the accounts.
Forces of the Republic.
107. The general force of the Republic is composed of
the whole French people.
108. The Republic keeps in pay, even during the
time of peace, a sea and land force.
109. All the French are soldiers, they are all exercised
in the use of arms.
110. There is no generalissimo.
111. The difference of ranks, their distinctive marks,
and subordination, only subsist relatively to the service,
and during its duration.
112. The pubhc force employed to maintain order and
peace in the interior, acts only on the requisition in
writing of the constituted authorities.
113. The pubhc force employed agamst the enemies
without, acts under the orders of the executive council.
1 14. No armed body can deliberate.
National Conventions.
115. If in the half and one over of the departments,
a tenth of the primary assemblies, regularly formed, de
mand the revision of the constitutional act, or the change
of some one of its articles, the legislative body is bound
to convoke all the primary assemblies of the Republic,
for the purpose of knowing if there is reason for a na
tional convention.
116 The national convention is formed in the same
o2

292 babeuf s conspiracy.
manner as the legislatures, and unites the powers of
them. 117. It occupies itself, relatively to the constitution
only on those objects which have occasioned its con
vocation. Connections between the French Republic and Foreign
Nations.
118. The French people is the natural friend and ally
of all free people.
119. It does not intermeddle with the government of
other nations. It does not suffer other nations to inter
meddle in its own.
120. It gives an asylum to all foreigners banished
from their country for the cause of liberty. It refuses
one to tyrants.
121. It does not make peace with an enemy who
occupies its territory. Guarantee of Rights.
122. The constitution guarantees to all the French,
equality, liberty, safety, property, the public debt, the
free exercise of modes of worship, general instruction,
public succours, the indefinite liberty of the press, the
right of petition, the right of meeting in popular societies,
the enjoyment of all the rights of man.
123. The French Republic honours fidelity, courage,
old age, filial piety, and misfortune. It places the
deposit of its constitution under the protection of all the
virtues. 124. The declaration of rights, and the constitutional
act, are engraved on tables in the hall of the legislative
body, and in the public places.
(Signed) Collot D'Herbois, President.
Durand Maillaine, Ducos, Meaule,
Ch. De la Croix, Gossuin.
P. A. Laloy, Secretary.

babeuf s conspiracy. -293
DOCUMENT No. II.

THE TRUTH TO THE PEOPLE,
BY THE PATRIOTS OF 89
Of the \AthJuly, \0th August, and\3th Vendemiaire.
People !— you whom they caress or threaten — whom
they exalt or vilify, as may suit the ambitious views of those
men who speak of your rights only to trample them under
foot — of your sovereignty only to usurp it — listen to great
truths ! learn the cause of all the calamities which you
have been made to endure, from the 9th Thermidor of the
Year II., up to Vendemiaire of the Year IV.
Certain abuses — a few arbitrary acts inseparable from
a great revolution — had impressed some blemishes on
the sreat and glorious events of the four first years of
the Revolution. To correct those abuses — to put an end
to all provisional government — to give the people a con
stitution which would guarantee its rights and sovereignty
— to snatch power from hands that abused it — to strip
tyranny of all hopes of raising its hideous head — behold
what the Revolution of the 9th Thermidor would have
operated for you, if the interest of the people — if general
happiness — had been the object of that event. But its
results have been most disastrous, because it was the work
of vice, of division, of ambition, and of vengeance ; it
turned every thing to the advantage of royalism; it has
ended by dragging into one common precipice the pure
and courageous Republicans, and the false ones employed
to bring it about. From that moment calumny has never
ceased to distil its poison. 'Every friend of the people —
every founder of liberty — was qualified and treated
as knave, miscreant, terrorist, and blood-drinker These
denominations were rendered synonymous with Repub
lican ; hired journals re-echoed them ; corrupt orators
polluted the tribune of the senate with them. Thence
were organised famine, massacre, the discrediting of the
assignats, the monopoly and forestalling of merchandize.
In the people who made the Revolution was no longer to
be seen but a mass of slaves ready to crouch in subjection

294 babeuf's conspiracy.
to the golden million, which exclusively called itself
sovereign ; pity had all her tears for counter-revolution
ists, who represented themselves as being all victims of
terror ; the prison doors were unlocked to them, and their
places speedily supplied by Republicans, under the name
Terrorists ; and the latter were expelled from all military
and civil posts, to be succeeded by returned emigrants,
by nobles, by non-juring priests, who had all become
patriots par excellence. Forthwith our armies were dis
organised, treasons burst forth, our arsenals, which a short
time before abounded in every thing, were emptied, our
fleets beaten were abandoned to the enemy, and our
marine annihilated. It then became necessary to our
tyrants to proscribe the popular surveillance, to stifle public
remonstrances (imprescriptible rights of a free people) ;
accordingly did our new masters hastsn to destroy our
popular societies, which had been the advanced sentinels
of the Revolution, and the terror of Pitt and Cobourg,
because they were focuses of public instruction, whence
issued sparks that electrified all hearts, and fed the
sacred enthusiasm of liberty ; because they opposed a
formidable rampart to ambition and intrigue ; because,
in short, they were so many Pharoses or beacon-lights,
warning our state-pilots of the rocks which endangered
the vessel of liberty.
And, heavens ! what means resorted to, to operate
and consolidate this counter-revolution ! — what liberticidal
decrees wrested from the Convention by the faction of
the foreigner ! — what hordes of emigrants struck cut
from the proscription lists, and restored to honour, under
the qualification of cultivators and workmen ! — what
bands of refractory priests tolerated, and licensed to
fanatieize the multitude! The property of condemned
Royalists, which offered a solid mortgage to the as
signats, was restored to their kinsfolk, as guilty as them
selves ; thence the ruin of public credit. An amnesty is
offered to the Chouans and Vendean rebels ; they spurn
it, and insolently demand to be treated on the footing of
Power to Power. Miscreant audacity ! Oh, shame of
our country ! Stipulate for peace with Charette, Stofflet,
Comartin, Sapino, and the rest of the crew of brigand
insurgents ! — allow them to arm ! — pay them for tearing

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 295
their country's bosom !— for having murdered thousands of
Republicans ! — and (by a secret condition) promise them
the re-establishment of the altar and the throne ! The
people's delegates conclude so ignominious a treaty! —
one that will dishonour the pages of history — and the
French Senate ratify the shame of the first nation on
earth ! Ah, you will not believe it, future generations ;
you would not believe it yourselves, men oi' Fiance, had
you not been living witnesses of it. And it is after two
years of complete triumph that your delegates stipulate
your disgrace, and cover your trophies with crape — it is
at the moment when your phalanxes, covered with
laurels, had just hoisted the standard of liberty beyond
the Rhine, upon the summits of the Alps and Pyrenees,
and at the extremities of the Batavian swamps — that
treaties of dishonour are ratified in your name with the
despots of Berlin and Madrid, whom you had van
quished, and who, had it not been for the Thermidorean
reaction, would have come, together with their con
federates, to sue for peace upon any conditions that you
might have thought proper to impose !
But why should we wonder if the Committees of
Government had become a Pandora's box ; they were re
cruited from the tactions of Rovere, Boissy, Saladin,
Laumont, Auguis, Lariviere, Lanjuinais, Dumont, &c,
ail notorious Royalists, who could no otherwise pay court
to the tyrants they served, than by stifling liberty, by
replacing the people under the yoke of servitude, and
by massacreeing, en masse, all the most intrepid Repub
licans. Blood, however, did not flow in sufficient
abundance on the scaffold ; accordingly, did they or
ganize in all points of the Republic, hordes of assassins,
under the name of Companies of Jesus and of the Sun,
Boisset was dispatched to Lyons and Bourg ; Cadroy,
Cliambon, Mariette, Isnarci, to Aix and Marseilles ;
and at their guilty bidding the assassination of the
patriots was made the order of the day throughout
the whole south of France. Under their banners the
assassins now march, burst in the doors of the prisons,
slaughter all the patriots they find within, issue forth like
furies, reeking with gore ; they violate private dwellings,
traverse the streets, sabre every man they meet of known

296 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
patriotism ; the infant is massacred in the bosom of its
mother, the old man in presence of his child, and the
waters of the Rhone are choked with human carcasses,
which are drifted along to the waves of the Mediterranean,
already dyed with Republican blood ! And these horrid
scenes are prolonged in the sight of human tigers, who
call themselves delegates of the people ! and the Con
vention crouching under the sway of wretches who have
sold themselves to the foreigner, or abandoning itself to
pnostitute women, has suffered France to be covered
with mourning and carnage for ten long months ! Nay,
the Convention has not punished even one assassin, and
Rovere had the effrontery to qualify these assassinations
with the name of popular justice*
Not content with suffering the murderers to go un
punished — with corrupting the public mind — with sub
duing the energy and stifling the enthusiasm of liberty —
with substituting for the hymns which led our warriors
to victory, homicidal songs,f which provoked the
immolation of patriots by hecatombs ; not content with
these, they must needs reduce the people to despair, by
giving them but two ounces of bad bread, whilst Boissy
d'Ang-las came insultingly to the tribune of the Con
vention to announce that the subsistence of the people
was provided for !
* [See page 48 (note), for what Mignet says of the massacres
of the people alluded to here. — Bronterre.]
t [After the death of Robespierre, Freron, one of the Ther-
midorian assassins, in his journal called " The Orator of the
People," summoned the counter-revolutionists to arms, and
forming the young men of the middling and wealthy classes into
a sort of irregular militia called the jeunesse dorce of Freron, placed
himself at their head. These young ruffians, armed with short
staves leaded at the end like bludgeons, used to parade the streets
of Paris — to knock down every jacobin or patriot they met — dis
perse by force all the popular meetings — till, at length, emboldened
by impunity and the tacit approval of the Convention, they broke
open the doors of the Jacobin Club, and provoked .i desperate
battle, which gave the Convention an excuse for suppressing
popular societies altogether. These young privileged assassins
used to march to a tune called the Reveil du Peuple, in hatred of
the Marselleise and other Republican airs, which so often led the
French Democrats to victory.— Bronterre.]

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 297
Yes ! — no doubt, subsistence was provided for the
golden million, who gorged themselves with the wealth
of France, while the mass of the people, destitute of
every thing,were-dying in thousands of inanition !
And, people of France ! in whose hands are your
destinies placed ? In the hands of men who, after
famishing, betraying, ruining, and massacreeins: you,
still hold seats in your senate ; whilst you have seen
driven from it, proscribed, and led to the scaffold, tin-
Deputies who opposed its murderous and liberticidaJ
decrees ! — for never did perfidious royalism so domineer
over the Convention as during the Thermidorian re
action. 1 es, you have seen those days of mourning
•ind crime — those fatal days of Germinal and Prairial
— on which you were treated as seditionists for having
come to the bar of your delegates to demand bread, and
die execution of that Coustitution, which the nation had
freely, solemnly, and unanimously accepted.
You remember, courageous inhabitants of the fau
bourgs, how you were hunted, pursued by Freron's
golden band, at the order of the Government — blocked
up in vour houses, disarmed, dungeoned, and the most
energetic of your brethren condemned by military law,
and dragged to the same scaffold on which had just
flowed the blood of the only delegates who had had
the courage to raise their voice in the Senate to support
vour just remonstrances! You had sworn, virtuous
Goujon, Romme, Duroy, Soubrany, Bourbotte, Du-
quesnoy, to defend the interests of the people, to die for
them and for liberty ; you have kept your oath ! Your
generous devotion has turned your executioners pale ; it
has served the commonwealth ; it is engraven in the
hearts of the Republicans ; it will go down to posterity,
and run parallel with that of the Gracchi, of Curtius,
and of Regulus. Yes, people of France, you wiil re
member those days of horror, if it were only to consign
the abominable authors of them to the execrations of all
generations, present and future. You will never forget
that during the fifteen months succeeding the 9th Ther
midor, your rulers have heaped upon you such vexations,
such calamities, as never did the slaves of Rome endure
at the hands of their patrician masters, the serfs of
o5

298 babeuf's CONSPIRACY
Poland under their palatines, nor even those sons of
misery who are sold to bondage by inhuman traffic on
Africa's coasts.
Base villains ! — they called it a- " reign of terror,''
which had existed only against crime, while they exercised
a most bloody and desolating terror against virtue and
republicanism  Miscreants! they boasted of having
overthrown a decemviral tyranny, yet never did a direr
tyranny grind you down than that which they have
exercised during the last fifteen months. Impostors !
they had the baseness to saddle men no longer in exist
ence, and whom it is for posterity to judge, with all the
evils which they themselves heap upon you. Incapable
of continuing the grand operations so nobly conceived
and executed by the men they sacrificed, they have only
confused and disorganized everything. They pretended
to arouse your indignation against the monarchic regime ;
but the' trick was too gross; you were too capable of
distinguishing between them and events to be deceived.
Too well you knew that the misery which consumed you
was not the work of your friends, but of the usurpers —
their successors ; you were convinced that during the
two first years of the Republic, your rights were re
spected, your enemies crushed, industry and the arts
encouraged; your arsenals provided, your fleets well
equipped, your flags floating on every sea, your fourteen
armies everywhere victorious, la Vendee subjugated,
your external enemies routed, the despots of Europe
panic-stricken, their thrones rocking beneath them and
themselves ready to fall at your feet, the credit of the
assignats maintained, the cupidity of proprietors and
stockjobbers curbed, your markets well supplied, and
abundance guaranteed to you, in return for the countless
sacrifices you had made to achieve liberty.
And what are the substitutes given you for such ad
vantages? Alas! what a harrowing picture does the
Thermidorian reaction present. Your rights disowned,
sneered at, trampled under foot; your friends, your
defenders, your brothers, calumniated, proscribed, in
carcerated, assassinated ; the most unbridled stock
jobbing—that destroyer of Republics— substituted for
commerce, which vivifies and enlightens them; your

babeuf's conspiracv. 299
fleets beaten, sold, and delivered to the English; your
magazines, your arsenals empty, La Vendee and Chouan-
nerie* reuniting their forces, the ardor of the Republicans
paralysed; the brave, fellows who led them to victory
banished, and replaced by nobles, emigrants, and Roy
alists ; you have seen thirty thousand millions of assignats
absorbed in ten months ; the rich land-owner — the big-
merchant — the stock-jobber — the monopolist — divide
the spoils amongst them, and suck your blood drop by
drop ; you have seen famine in the midst of abundance,
extreme misery by the side of the most abandoned luxury,
public morals destroyed, murder unpunished — even re
commended — crime rendered triumphant over virtue, the
democracy annihilated, the steps of the throne raised up
again, and anew Tarquin ready to mount it. In a word,
liberty would have utterly perished, had it not been for
the courage of those brave Republicans — those patriots,
so much calumniated and persecuted, who prevented the
massacre of the National Convention, and saved the
Republic on the memorable days of the 12th, 13th, and
14th Vendemiaire.
Those days, however, have produced no decided tri
umph for democracy. And why ? Because the conspi
rators have not been punished, because they still pursue
their svstem of assassination, stock-jobbing, monopoly,
and debasing- the national money ; and find protectors
even in the senate ! Nevertheless, those memorable days
are not altogether lost to us, since they have divested of
power the impure hands which had consummated so
many crimes ; since they have restored to their families
such of the Republicans as had escaped the scaffold, and
the poignards of the Royalist bands ; since they are des
tined to give us a government whose direction will be
confided to men of purity — to Republicans who have
accomplished much for the general happiness, and will
accomplish still more, if they will clothe themselves
with the confidence of the patriots, who can make no
compromise with principles ; if they will strike without
* [The Royalist rebellion in the west of France was sometime,
called Chouannerie, from three brothers named Chouan, who t-,yi
.a distinguished part in it.— Buonierre,]

300 babeuf s conspiracy.
pity the Royalists, emigrants, and refractory priests,
who incessantly conspire against the Republican Govern
ment ; if they will take vigorous means to supply the
markets abundantly, so as to lower the price of pro
visions ; and if they will retain in office only pure,
enlightened, energetic Republicans : men who would
perish by their side rather than suffer the counter-
Revolution to triumph.
Magnanimous people ! your safety consists in resisting
your oppressors with subhme perseverance ; disdain not
to use vigilance against them. The calamities they have
incessantly heaped on your defenders have sufficiently
awaked your suspicions to prevent their crafty civism
irom any longer imposing on you. Assume your majestic
attitude; arm yourselves with your avenging thunder;
crush those modern Titans who dare to invade your
sovereignty ; remember your triumphs ; and, if you have
still penis to avoid, you have also trophies to obtain

PIECE No. III.

SOLDIER,
STOP AND READ !
An insidious, perverse Government, and whose luxury
insults the public misery, has just lifted the mask, and
openly attacking liberty, has dared audaciously to close,
and impudently to calumniate, the patriotic unions. In
these assembhes, it is, that the energetic men of the 14th
July, of the 10th August, and of the 13th Vendemiaire,
watched over the rights of the people; and, though
hourly exposed to the bastiles and daggers of the
Royalists, persevered in devoting themselves for the Re
volution. They exposed the restoration of the emigrants,
carried to such excess that the list of erasures exceeds
that in wliich they had been marked out for the con
tempt of men, and for the vengeance of the laws ! They
resolutely claimed for your families the succours so justly
guaranteed to them by the law ; and for yourselves, too,

babeuf's conspiracy. 301
the possessions which the country owes you for having
shed your blood in defending her against kings, and
which so many solemn, decrees justly assure you. The
Executive Directory itself had at first favoured those
unions, as if an unjust and arbitrary power could love
publicity, evidence, and truth. The patriots, confiding
in its good faith, repaired in crowds to join them; the
snare was craftily laid ; they fell into it ; patriotic devo
tion and honesty have little calculation. But the patriots
are not sorry ; they have acted as became free men. To
treat them as anarchists is vain. Europe, more just,
even already distinguishes the friends of equality in that
name ; incorruptible posterity will confirm its judgment.
But*whence proceeds this presumption of a few men,
clothed with a brief authority ? Citizen soldiers ! they
found their hopes of criminal success upon your courage.
They impudently declare, " Our soldiers will defend us."
You ! their soldiers ! ! — the vanquishers of tyrants sup
port tyranny !!!... .Profligate tyrants ! — disabuse your
selves. In vain do you seek to fish out partizans, and
to seduce our brethren by brilliant uniforms, by iniquitous
bribes, bv treats of brandy and cordials : their hearts are
not traitors to their country, nor rebels to her voice. Will
the same means which unmasked the crime of Capet,
and destroyed that tyrant, prove successful for you 1
No ! citizen soldiers ! You will not fire on your brethren,
as in Germinal and Prairial. Your arms shall no longer
be seduced against your friends ! It is against tyranny
vou will direct them ; this glorious triumph still remains
for you. Like the Greeks of Asia, drawn into the army
of Xerxes, you will hearken to the cry of your common
country ! You will read the lines which your brothers
trace in your passage ! And should ever the day of a
iust retribution arrive, you will know what it is that now
opposes your return to your homes, where, with us, you
desire to establish equality and general happiness !

302 babeuf's conspiracy.
PIECE No. IV.

EQUALITY. LIBERTY.
GENERAL HAPPINESS.
Creation of an Insurrectional Directory.
The Democrats of France, grievously affected, pro
foundly indignant, justly revolted at the unheard-of state
of misery and oppression of which their unhappy country
presents the spectacle;
Ardently remembering that when a Democratic Con
stitution was given to the people, and by it accepted,
the preservation of that Constitution was placed under
the safeguard of all the virtues ;
Considering, therefore, that to the purest, most
courageous virtues, belongs the initiative of undertaking
to avenge the people, whenever, as now, its rights are
usurped, its liberty ravished, and even its existence
compromised ;
Believing that the reproach is an unjust one which
accuses the people of cowardice, and that if the people
has hitherto postponed its justice, it was only for want
of proper guides to lead them on ;
Recognizing that the overflowing measure of the
crimes of an usurped authority has ripened the inclina
tions of every virtuous soul, in favour of a revolutionary
explosion, to that degree of maturity, that in order to
render it beneficial — that to put its conductors in a train
to ensure success, it will probably be necessary to mode
rate rather than accelerate the impetuous burst of free
dom, — have resolved as follows : —
Art. 1. They constitute themselves, from this moment,
an Insurrectional Directory, under the name of the
" Secret Directory of Public Safety." In this capacity
they assume the initiative of all movements intended to
lead the people to the recovery of its sovereignty.
2. This Directory consists of four members.
3. This Directory shall be secret ; the names of its
members shall be unknown to even its chief agents.
Between these and the members of the Directory there

babeuf's conspiracy. 303
shall be intermediary agents to carry communications
from one to the other.
4. The Secret Directory of Public Safety pledges
itself to discharge the immense range of duties which
that great title imposes on it.
5. A distinctive mark shall be affixed to such written
instructions, as it may be indispensable to give to the
principal agents, and this mark shall serve as a precaution
against all surprise arising from false instructions ; it
shall be a guarantee to them, notwithstanding the
default of signatures, for the authenticity of the Acts
to be communicated by the Secret Directory.

PIECE No. V.

Organization of Principal Agents to the Number of
Twelve, and of Intermediary Agents. — Principal
Functions of each Class.
The Secret Directory of Public Safety has resolved as
follows : —
Art. 1 . There shall be twelve principal revolutionary
agents — one for each arrondissement of the commune ot
Paris. 2. Each of these is charged to organize, in his arron
dissement, one or more unions of patriots; to foster and
direct the public mind in those unions by the reading of
popular journals, and by discussions on the rights of the
people, and respecting its present situation.
3. These agents shall take note of the daily thermo
meter of public opinion. They shall render account in
those notes of the dispositions, more or less favourable,
of the patriots ; they shall signify the individuals they
may observe most capable of seconding the progress of
the movement designed to be brought about ; they shall
indicate the description of employment, or revolutionary
enterprise, to which they may suppose each of these
individuals suited. They shall, in like manner, take note
of the intriguers— of such impostors who may try to in-

babeuf's conspiracy, 304
sinuate themselves into the meetings ; and they shall,
moreover, render account of the impediments and oppo
sition which the latter may offer to the development of
energy, or to the inspiration of sound principles and
regenerating ideas.
4. There shall be intermediary agents to maintain
communications between the principal agents and the
Secret Directory.
5. To those agents only shall the twelve principal .
agents commit the notes of their daily observations.
6. The intermediary agents shall apply successively
for these notes every day, or every second day, to each
of the principal agents, at their residences, if necessary.
7. The present organization, together with that of the
Secret Directory, and the following instruction, shall be
transmitted to each of the principal agents.

PIECE, No. VI.

Primary Instruction of the Secret Directory, addressed
to each of the Principal Revolutionary Agents.
Citizens! — It is not in times of crisis as in ordinary
times. When the people enjoys its rights, when the
principles of liberty triumph, no one has a right to as
sume authority over others, without their concurrence;
nobody can enterprise measures relating to the general
interest without consulting the whole people, and without
obtaining its assent. The reason is, that then the best !
social order reigns, and the best social order is perpe
tuated only by the rigid maintenance of principles. The j
man who, in such a state of things, should assume any
T title whatever for erecting himself (without any conces
sion made to him) into a pubhc magistrate, under pre
tence of wishing to ameliorate the condition of his
iellow-citizens, would be a usurper, even on the sup
position that his ultimate intentions were perfectly
upright The reason of this too is plain— it is, that
where the people is free, and may be consulted, it is not

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 305
to be presumed that others can judge better of its in
terests than the people itself can.
The case is different when a people is in chains — when
tyranny has placed it in a state of impotence to emit its
will on all that concerns it; when a fortiori, it has be
come impracticable for the people to direct measures of
repression against its tyrants ; when it has been rendered
incapable of wresting from them the usurped power, of
which they take advantage, to make it suffer and lan
guish in despair, and to subjugate it more and more every
day, till it reaches a limit beyond all calculation.
It becomes, then, just — it becomes necessary that the
most intrepid — men most capable of devoting themselves
— men endowed with the greatest amount of energy, fire,
and force — with those generous virtues, under the safe
guard of which has been deposited the preservation of
a popular Constitution, which all Frenchmen, having
the true spirit of freemen, have never lost sight of — it is
then just and necessary that such men, being moreover
convinced that the inspiration of their own hearts, or that
of liberty itself (which makes them more forcibly — more
particularv hear its voice), is a sufficient authority to
them to enterprize every thing — it is just and necessary
that such men should invest themselves with the dictator
ship of insurrection — that they should assume the initia
tive — that they should arrogate the glorious title of
" conspirators for liberty" — in a word, that they should
erect themselves into magistrates to save their fellow-
citizens. Such are the motives which have appeared to us to
justify our resolution, and to give it a character of
grandeur and magnanimity. Having thus satisfied our
selves that our self-conferred' mission is eminently legiti
mate, since the circumstances which render it indispensable
for the salvation of liberty, do not admit of its transmission
bv the sovereign nation, we have furthermore distin
guished this very encouraging truth — that the accusation
of cowardly apathy, urged against the people, is sheer
blasphemy, and that from the general impatience it
manifests to burst a yoke really abhorrent to it, we may
readily see, that if, up to this time, it has done nothing
to break that yoke, we must attribute the circumstance

306 babeuf's conspiracy.
to the fact, that it has hitherto seen itself without guides;
and we have remarked, that it is with the deepest regret
it postpones the repression of the crimes accumulated on
its head. Every thing has announced to us what it
would be capable of doing, if it perceived at its head
leaders worthy of its confidence.
Animated by such dispositions, we have been imme
diately led to turn our regards to the men most capable
of seconding us in our glorious enterprize. It is you,
citizens, who, by a long career of republican conduct, by
multiplied acts of pure civism manifested in every stage
of the Revolution, by the terrible proofs you have given of
your patriotism in times when everything virtuous and
patriotic was an object of persecution — it is on you that
the first self-constituted avengers of our betrayed country
have fixed their regards, to make you the depositaries of
their confidence, and to delegate to you the primary and
principle divisions of their intended operations.
The portion of trust wliich the Secret Directory of
Public Safety communicates to you is precious and im
portant ; its guardianship requires much discretion, pru
dence, activity, and love of general good ; it requires all
the virtues of men such as the Secret Directory believes
you to be. The Secret Directory has weighed its funda
mental organization, and that of its relations with you,
in the balance of wisdom and circumspection.
It has deemed it expedient to create twelve municipal
agents in the twelve arrondissements of the commune of
Paris ; and it has so arranged their means of communi
cation with itself, that the correspondence will be almost
direct without, however, suffering the twelve principal
agents to know the members of the Directory. The
reason of this precaution is easily comprehended. It has
been felt that the most important part of the secret of
the projected insurrection — that upon which depends the
success of the whole series of operations — was not so
much the existence of an insurrectional committee as the
knowledge of the persons who compose it In fact, should
tyranny even learn that such a committee exists, no harm
can result to its members, so long as they are personally
unknown ; neither can any result to the country, unless
it be harm to warn despotism to be on its guard, but that

babeuf s conspiracy. 307
has happened long ago, because despotism has long since
been aware that its crimes must have inspired every
virtuous mind with a disposition to conspire against it.
There would be, therefore, no great danger in divulging
the existence of a committee of general revolution, and
hereafter we may examine whether it would not be even
wise to take advantage of some juncture to let the secret
half-transpire, in order to add fuel to the courage of the
unhappy majority, who only sigh for the opportunity and
moment for emerging from oppression ; whereas every
thing would be lost by discovering the leading con
spirators themselves: in losing them, the combined
ensemble of ramifications emanating, as they will, from
a single centre, would be destroyed, and another certain
and disastrous effect would be, the disconcerting and
terrifying of the most courageous citizens.
Such, Republicans, are the motives which have deter
mined the Directory of Public Safety, notwithstanding
its immense confidence in you — a fact attested by its
choosing you to be its principal and primary agents — to
conceal from even yourselves the names of its members.
The danger of an indiscretion, or that of a counter-
determination — nay. the danger prophetically suggested
to us by a knowledge of human weakness, which too
often supports as a burden the weight of a great confi
dence, and seems to find comfort in depositing it in the
bosom of frisndship, or what appears to be friendship —
all these and the like have been considered by the Secret
Directory, and it could not think of abandoning, perhaps,
the salvation of the country to the hazard of such acci
dents ; besides, even on the score of fidelity, it is difficult
to persuade oneself of the possibility of that quality
existing with equal strength in the breasts of twelve men,
when made the depositaries of matters of the last im
portance. The Secret Directory supposes also that it
will not be the less successful in inspiring you with that
entire confidence which the exigency of the case requires.
And why ? Because it has persuaded itself that you will
see in the hardihood, in the devotion, in the fund of
virtue required for such an enterprize, sufficient motives
to accord to it such confidence.
There is another guarantee which the Directory thinks

308 babeuf's conspiracy.
it may also hold out to you — it is that tone of truth and
good faith which malevolence can never simulate. Such
tone you will discern in all its acts.
At the same time that we have armed ourselves with
every precaution calculated to render ourselves intangible,
and our measures impossible to be disconcerted, we de
sire that you should be secure against any surprise, and
that by means of particular marks, stamped upon our
acts, you may be always able to recognize their authen
ticity, notwithstanding the absence of our real signatures.
The Secret Directory has pushed its prudence so far
as to isolate its twelve principal agents — each from the
rest. They will all receive the same instructions ; they
will be all charged to do the same things, to concur
towards the same end ; and, nevertheless, they shall have
no mutual knowledge of one another. We have con
sidered such knowledge to be in nowise necessary ; no
good could result from it ; it manifestly sufficing that
the directing impulse be immediately received from the
Secret Directory, by each of its agents, and it being
incontestible that success is attainable only through
punctuality of execution, and that any concert amongst
the twelve agents themselves could only lead to impedi
ments, delays, or modifications, which might possibly
diverge from the views and combinations of the regulating
Directory. Again, the greatest harm might result from
it, if in a case — which far be it from us to suspect, after
our scrupulous care in selecting the agents (but, in matters
of such serious importance, we ought to fear everything,
to suppose the worst in everything, and to anticipate
every precaution) — there might, then, we repeat, result
very great mischiefs from the reciprocal acquaintance and
mutual intercommunication of the agents ; in case, for
instance, that one of them should unfortunately commit
an indiscretion, or an act of perfidy, he would then per
haps immolate all his co-agents, whereas, if he did not
know them, only himself would suffer from his mal-aduress
or treachery ; he could neither involve any one in his
defection, nor disorganize the enterprize so as to com
promise the fate of liberty.
The same precautions in the way of isolation are taken
in regard to the intermediary agents — the same sciuti-

babeuf's conspiracy. 309
nizing care exercised in selecting them ; but independently
of this attention, everything is besides arranged in respect
of them, in such manner, that no one of them can com
promise more than himself, or weaken the strength of
our party by more than his individual loss. Furthermore,
he will not know what precise part he will have to play,
nor that of the principal agent, between whom and the
Secret Directory he is to form the connecting link of
communication. He will be led to believe himself em
ployed for quite another object ; he will not directly
deliver his packets of correspondence to the Secret Di
rectory, but everything will reach the hands of the latter
without any intermediary being in its confidence : thus,
the principal agents will have no cause to fear being
betrayed by their co-agents, nor by their intermediary
aarents, as neither will know them for what they will
really be. The principal agents will be known only by
the four members of the Secret Directory ; and these,
whatever mav turn up, they can have no cause to
distrust. In general, the Secret Directory having adopted the
grand system of isolating everything — of preventing all
intercommunication, it will render its entire organization
subserv ient to this plan, in such manner, that no individual
it employs, mediately or immediately, will be able to
betray any one ; and that his ruin will entail no other
loss on the Revolutionists. Undoubtedly, such a plan,
in whicli each party concerned will have only himself to
distrust, is calculated to embolden all who co-operate
towarcs its success.
As to the precautions which extreme prudence alway-
commands us to take ourselves, in respect of you, in
order not to be deceived by the reports and information
of any of you, that is our affair. -We neither exact nor
establish particular marks, to assure ourselves of the au
thenticity of those reports ; but we are sure to distinguish
that authenticity by unequivocal signs and proofs.
After having spoken, citizens, of what has appeared to
us to legitimatize our enterprize, and of what must render
you individually at ease with yourself in participating in
it, it is meet to trace out what the Secret Directory con
siders you will have in the first place to do.

310 babeuf's conspiracy.
Articles II. and III. of the organization we have de
signed for you, and which precede this instruction,
direct you —
" To organize in your arrondissement one or more
" patriotic reunions; in these unions. to feed and direct
" public spirit by the reading of popular journals, and
" by discussions on the rights of the people, and its
" actual situation. To take notes of the daily ther-
" mometer of opinion ; to render account in these notes,
" of the disposition, more or less good, more or less
" energetic, of the patriots ; to make known to us what-
" ever individuals you will remark most capable of
" seconding the progress of the movement in contem-
" plation ; to indicate the sort of employment or revo-
" lutionary task for which you will believe each of those
" individuals best suited ; to set a mark on the intriguers
" and traitorous knaves who will try to insinuate them-
" selves into the meeting ; moreover, to render account
" of the impediments and opposition they may offer to
" the development of energy, to the inspiration of sound
" principles and regenerating ideas."
Articles IV. and V. of the same organization determine
the means by which you will be able to transmit to the
Secret Directory the notes, information, or reports, it
expects at your hands. You will consign them tc the
intermediary agents, who will go to receive them directly
from your hands, in the same manner as they will con
sign to you such ulterior instructions as the Secret
Directory will find itself obliged to transmit to you.
Such, citizen, is the scope of the mission entrusted to
you for the present. Henceforward, we shall have to
present to you only those ideas of detail, which you will
modify or not, agreeably to your own discretion.
When we invite you to organise in your arrondisse
ment one or more patriotic reunions, we need not suggest
the expediency of doing the thing quietly and unosten
tatiously; and it is possible for you "to form such
reunions, and even to identify their spirit with your's,
without appearing to be either their founder or leader.
Let us sacrifice the vanity of appearing to advantage, to
the glory of being really useful. There is no stronger
guarantee of grand and substantial success, nothing

babeuf s conspiracy. 311
which confers more real self-satisfaction, than the internal
consciousness that one is the invisible instrument by
which great springs of action are moved. We then
render to our genius a merited homage, infinitely supe
rior to that which eager vanity would arrogate, by
putting one's self forward as the principal actor in a
political scene. It will be time enough to receive the
applauses of our brethren, when we shall have saved them.
Thus, then, it appears to us perfectly practicable for
the principal agents to institute, organise, and direct the
clubs we look for, without appearing to institute, organise,
or direct anything. By the way, speaking of organisa
tion, we think, for the like prudential reasons, that we
should aim less at making new creations, than to base
our edifice on old elements — the old bases already
existing. In several arrondissements you have coffee
houses where the patriots are in the habit of assembling ;
do you quietly endeavour to draw them there in greater
numbers, and more frequently. Rather seek, however,
to multiply those places of meeting, than to crowd them
with an indiscriminate multitude, unknown to one ano
ther, and likelv to give umbrage to the Government, as
well as to provoke its vigilance. Visit each of those
places in turn ; even prefer private residences to coffee
houses for holding your meetings, if practicable. In
private houses, the patriots will be more completely free
— less exposed to police spies — in a better condition to
admit none but brothei s in whom they can confide. In
general, avoid giving a public or external importance to
those assemblings ; do not call them clubs, societies, or
unions ; avoid all pompous denominations ; say, simply,
such a coffee-house, such a dwelling ; and the action of
going there, call taking a stroll — visiting, &c. Let the
things be, but not the words.
We have spoken of another duty after establishing the
places of reunion ; it is that of using them to foster and
direct public spirit. We have laid down that, for that
purpose, discussions on the rights of the people, and its
actual position, joined to the reading of popular journals,
would suffice. Mind ! above all, the reading of popular
journals! The Secret Directory recommends to you
this means, as being the most powerful lever. The choice

312 babeuf's conspiracy.
of such journals will not be difficult ; you will easily know
them. Besides writings, every other means of acting,
and of making others act, will be supplied to you at the
proper time. The journals we allude to will, in a great
measure, serve you as a mariner's compass ; they will
guide your movements, and serve instead of general in
structions. Hitherto they have preached our principles,
and those of all true Democrats. They will, doubtless,
continue to do so, and in such manner that you will
always recognize our doctrine in theirs'. To support
and applaud that doctrine — behold ! almost the whole
ostensible part of you have to act, and in that you have
not to quit the circle of demonstrations, which will cause
you to be regarded only as simple actors, simpleauditors,
and assistants like the rest. As your function of note
— taking and reporting can only take place with closed
doors ; your mission still remains, so far as that is con
cerned, unknown. This latter part of your mission will
not engage you in any observation of detail ; its manner
of execution is sufficiently chalked out by Article III. of
the rules of organization, and by what we have more
effectively stated in this instruction.
In stating that the popular journals to be furnished to
you will serve as your compass, and as principal supple
ments to the ulterior instructions we shall give (save
where you receive contrary ones from us), it suffices to
apprise you that must not make the thermometer of
energy rise above the degree fixed by those same journals ;
and -this observation is comprised in that made by the
Directory, in its act of creation, where it says, — " That
the overflowing measure of crimes on the part of an
usurped authority, has ripened the dispositions of all
minds in favour of a revolutionary explosion to such a
degree, that to render it beneficial, to put its directors
in a train to ensure complete success, it will be neces
sary, perhaps, rather to moderate, than accelerate
the impetuous burst of freedom."
Accordingly, however essential it is to warm public
spirit up to a certain heat, it would be in the same degree
unsalutary, and even dangerous, to inflame it too rapidly
until the supreme measure is prepared. We must con
sider that if the people's opinion is formed, that of the

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 313
soldier is not; the latter is seduced by the perfidious
caresses of a government which desires to use him to
subjugate the citizens and the soldier himself. Time is
necessary to disabuse our armed brethren. It will be
wise, then, not to heat the citizens' heads beyond the
just progression of the thermometer of opinion, whose
varying point will always be indicated by the Secret
Directory. Behold, citizens, nearly all that we have to com
municate in this first instruction. Your own zeal, your
inteUigence, your civism, will supply whatever we may
have omitted to trace out in the plan of so momentous a
mission. The perfect knowledge we had beforehand of
your civic virtues has dispensed us with the necessity of
using art to inflame your energy. A simple exposition
of things, the acknowledged justice of which is felt in
your hearts, as in ours, has appeared sufficient in our
eyes to convince you of the essential necessity of the
enterprise to which we engage your concurrence.
Frenchmen ! it concerns your salvation and ours ; it
concerns the salvation of the existing generation and of
posterity — the salvation of our Republic and of the
world. Let our courage be the signal to the veritable
people to awake ! Let them, by us electrified, rise from
a fatal sleep which paralyzes them, and establish for
ever the reign of happiness, equality, and liberty ! All
is ready !. . . .The Edifice of Law, which will guarantee
abundance for all — equality and liberty for all — to make
a grand and majestic appearance, only awaits the over
throw of the existing monument of slavery, oppression,
and death, whose place it is to occupy. Let us prepare
this happy catastrophe ! It will be durable and eternal —
the code we are about to establish — because it will
ensure the happiness of all. It will not be made to
elevate any particular man, but to advantage at once, and
for ever, all men whom it is destined to affect. It is time
that all the ambitious should disappear — that human
pride be confounded. The time has at length arrived for
resolving in practice this beautiful problem — that each
of us depend henceforward only on laws and institu
tions, and that no individual of us shall hold another
in his dependance.

314 babeuf's conspiracy.

PIECE No. VII.

MANIFESTO OF THE EQUALS.
" REAL EQUALITY-THE LAST END OF THE SOCIAL
ART."— Condorcet, Picture of the Human Mind, page 329.
People of France ! — During fifteen ages you have .
lived slaves, and consequently unhappy. During six
years you breathe with difficulty in the expectation of
independance, of prosperity, and of equality.
Equality ! — first vow of nature, first want of man,
and chief bond of all legitimate association ! People of
France ! you have not been more favoured than the
other nations which vegetate on this ill-fated globe !
Always and everywhere does the unfortunate human
species, delivered over to cannibals more or less artful,
serve for a plaything to all ambitions — for pasture to all
tyrannies. Always and everywhere have men been fooled
by fine words ; never and nowhere have they obtained
the thing with the word. From time immemorial we
have been hypocritically told — men are equal; and
from time immemorial does the most degrading and
monstrous inequality insolently oppress the human race.
Ever since the first existence of civil societies has the
finest apanage of man been uncontradictedly acknow
ledged ; but never, up to this moment, has it been once
realized. Equality has never been other than a beauti
ful and barren fiction of law. Even now, when it is
claimed with a stronger voice, we are answered, " Be
silent, miserables ! — absolute equali y is but a chimsera ;
be content with conditional equality ; you are all equal
before the law. Rabble! what more do you want?"
What more do we want ? Legislators, governors, rich
proprietors — listen in your turn.
We are all equal, are we not ? This principle remains
uncontested, because, without being self-convicted of
folly, one cannot seriously say that it is night when it is
day. Well! we pretend henceforward to live and die equal,
as we are born so. We desire real equality or death ;

babeuf's conspiracy. 315
behold what we want. And we shall have this real
equality, no matter at what price. Woe to them who
will interpose themselves between it and us ! Woe to
him who will offer resistance to so determined a resolve !
The French Revolution is but the forerunner of
another revolution far more grand, far more solemn, and
which will be the last. The people has marched over
dead bodies against the kings and priests coalesced -
against it ; it will do the same against the new tyrants —
against the new political Tartuffes* who have usurped
the places of the old.
" What do we want,'' you ask, " more than equality of
rights V • We want that equality not merely written in
the " Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen;'' we want it in the midst of us — under the
root's of our houses. We consent to everything for it —
to become as pliable wax, in order to have its charac
ters engraven upon us. Perish, if needs be, all the arts,
provided real equality abides with us !
Legislators and governors, who are as destitute of
genius as of honesty — you rich proprietors, without
bowels of pity — in vain do you essay to neutralize our
holy enterprize, by saying, " They are only re-producing
the old Agrarian law, so often demanded already before
them." Calumniators ! be silent in your turn ; and in the
silence of confusion hearken to our pretensions, dictated _
by nature heiself, and based upon eternal justice. The
Agrarian law, cr partition of lands, was only the instan
taneous wish of certain soldiers without principles — of
certain small tribes, moved by instinct rather than by-
reason. We aim at something more sublime, and more
equitable; we look to common property, or the com
munity of goods ! No more individual property in
lands. The earth belongs to no one. We claim — we~|
demand — we will the communal enjoyment of the fruits
of the earth ; the fruits belong to all.
We declare that we can no longer suffer that the
great majority of men shall labour and sweat to serve
* [Tartuffe is a famous hypocritical character in one of Moliere's
plays. — Bronterre.]
p2

316 babeuf's conspiracy.
and pamper the extreme minority. Long enough, and
too long, have less than a million of individuals disposed
of what belongs to more than twenty millions of men
like themselves — of men in every respect their equals.
Let there be at length an end to this enormous scandal,
which posterity will scarcely credit. Away for ever with the
revolting distinctions of rich and poor, of great and little,
of masters and servants, of governors and governed.
Let there be no longer any other differences in man
kind than those of age and sex. Since all have the same
wants, and the same faculties, let all have accordingly
the same education — the same nourishment. They are
content with one sun, and the same air for all ; why
should not the like portion, and the same quality of
food, suffice for each according to his wants ?
But already do the enemies of an order of things, the
most natural that can be imagined, declaim against us,
— " Disorganizers, and seditionists," they exclaim, " you
want but massacres and plunder."
People of France ! We will not waste our time to
answer them ; but we will tell you, — " the holy enterprise
we are organizing has no other object in view than to put
-- an end to civil dissensions and to public disorder. Never
was a more vast design conceived and put in execution.
At distant intervals in the history of the world it has been
talked of by some men of genius — by a few philosophers
— but they spoke it with a low and trembling voice. Not
one of them has had the courage to speak the entire truth.
The moment for great measures has arrived. Evil is
\ at its height; it has reached its maximum, and covers
! the face of the earth. Chaos, under the name of politics,
has too long reigned over it. Let everything revert to
order, and resume its proper place. At the voice of
equality, let the elements of justice and felicity be or
ganized. The moment is come to found the Republic
of Equals — that grand asylum open to all human kind.
The days of general restitution are come. Weeping
families, come and seat yourselves at the common table
provided by nature for all her children.
People of France ! The purest of all earthly glories
has been reserved for you — yes, 'tis you who are first
lestined to present the world with this touching spectacle.

babeuf s conspiracy. 317
Old habits, old prejudices, will again seek to oppose.
obstacles to the establishment of the Republic of
Equals. The organization of real equality — the only
one which satisfies all wants, without making victims,
without costing sacrifices — will not, perhaps, at first
please everybody. The egotist, the ambitious, will yell
with rage. Those who possess unjustly, will raise the
cry of injustice. Exclusive enjoyments, solitary plea
sures, personal ease and privileges, will cause poignant
regrets to some few individuals who are dead or callous
to the pangs of others. The lovers of absolute power,
the vile instruments of arbitrary authority, will feel it
hard that their haughty chiefs should bend to the level
of equality. Their short-sightedness will, with difficulty,
penetrate into the future of public happiness, however
near; but what can avail a few thousand malcontents
against such a mass of human beings, all happy, and
astonished at having been so long in quest of a felicity
which they had within hands' reach. On the day that
follows this real revolution, they will say to one another
in amazement — " What — universal happiness depended
on so little ! We had but to will it. Ah, why had we «
not willed it sooner ? Was it then necessary to have it
told to us so often? Yes, no doubt, a single man on
the earth, more rich, more powerful, than his fellow men,
than his equals, destroys the equilibrium, and crime and
misfortune come on the world.
People of France ! By what sign then ought you
henceforward to recognise the excellence of a constitu
tion? ....That which altogether reposes on actual,
absolute equality, is the only one that can be suitable
to you, and satisfy all your desires.
The aristocratic charters of 1791 and 1795 riveted
your chains, instead of breaking them. That of 1793
was a great practical step towards real equality ; never
before was equality so nearly approached ; but that
Constitution did not yet touch the end, nor was it fully
competent to attain general happiness, of which, how
ever, it has solemnly consecrated the great principle.
People of France! Open your eyes and hearts to
the fulness of felicity; recognize and proclaim with us the
REPUBLIC OF EQUALS!

babeuf s conspiracy.

PIECE No. VIII.

ANALYSIS OF THE DOCTRINE OF BABEUF.
proscribed by the executive directory for
having told the truth !

ARTICLE 1.
Nature has given to each individual an equal
right to the enjoyment of all the goods of life.
PROOFS,
DRAWN FROM THE DISCUSSION TO WHICH THIS PIECE GAVE RISE.
1 . Previously to their first coming together, or forming
societies, all men were equally masters of the productions
which nature spread with profusion around them.
2. Finding themselves together upon an uncultivated
land, what could have established amongst them the
inequality of this right ? Is it their natural difference ?
But they have all the same organs and the same wants.
Is it the dependence of some upon others ? But no one
was sufficiently strong to make servants of the rest, who
might disperse on the slightest occasion for discontent ;
and the advantage of mutual succours, and of co-opera
tive benevolence, rendered it necessary for all to respect
in others, the rights with which they felt themselves in
vested by nature. Is it the ferocity of their hearts ? But
compassion is the immediate consequence of their organi
zation, and ferocity springs only from the exasperation
of the passions. Is it an inborn penchant for humiliation
and servitude ? But the sight of distinctions is even for
the most savage beings a painful sensation — a source of
jealousy and hatred.
3. If families have been the first models of societies,
they are also the most striking proofs of the right we
speak of. Equality in families is the pledge of tenderness
on the part of parents — of union and happiness on that
of the children. Is that equality broken ? Forthwith
anger and jealousy introduce disorder and violence.
Everything — even the fondness of parents — inspires the

babeuf's conspiracy. 319
children with a hatred of partialities, which the parents
themselves cannot apply without risking the introduction
of dangerous passions into the family.
4. The most strict equality must have been consecrated
by the first conventions ; for what could have induced
persons, hitherto the enemies of all distinction, to consent
to privations and inferiority ?
5. The forgetfulness of this equality has introduced
amongst mankind —
' False ideas of happiness ;
, Perversion of the passions ;
Deterioration and decay of the species ;
Violences, troubles, wars ;
The tyranny of some, and the oppression of others ;
Institutions, civil, political, and religious, which, by
consecrating injustice, end with dissolving societies,
after having for a long time distracted and torn
them to pieces.
x The sight of distinctions, of pomp, and of pleasures
enjoyed only by a few, was, and ever will be, an inex
haustible source of torments and uneasiness to the mass.
It is given to only a few philosophers to preserve them
selves from corruption, and moderation is a blessing
wliich the vulgar can no longer appreciate, when once
their thoughts have been weaned from it. Do certain
citizens create to themselves new factitious wants, and
introduce into their enjoyments refinements unknown to
the multitude ? Simplicity is no longer loved, happiness
ceases to consist in an active life and tranquil soul, dis
tinctions and pleasures become the supreme of goods,
nobody is content with his station, and all seek in vain
for that happiness, the entrance of which into society is
debarred by inequality.
/ The more distinctions we obtain, the more we desire,
the more we excite jealousy and covetousness ; thence
that insatiable and criminal thirst for gold and power ;
thence those sanguinary wars caused by the spirit of
conquest, and by the jealousy of commerce, which leave
miserable humanity scarcely a moment of repose.
In the midst of this subversion of ideas, sloth and vex
ations destroy a part of the species, enervate another
part, and prepare for society generations incapable of

320 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY
defending it. From the love of distinctions arise the pre
cautions taken to preserve them, in despite of the envy
and discontent they engender; these precautions are,
barbarous laws, exclusive forms of government, religious
fables, servile morality ; in a word, tyranny on the one
hand, oppression on the other. However, the voice of
nature cannot be entirely stifled ; at times she makes her
ungrateful children turn pale, she avenges by occasional
outbreaks the tears of humanity, and if she rarely succeeds
in re-establishing its rights, she ends always by over
throwing the societies which have neglected her laws.
If equality of goods be a consequence of that of our
organs and wants — if public and private calamities — if
the ruin of societies — are inevitable effects of all criminal
attempts against it, this equality is, therefore, a natural
right. ARTICLE II.
The end of society is to defend this equality,
often assailed by the strong and wicked in the state
of nature ; and to augment, by the co-operation of
all, the common enjoyments of all.
PROOFS.
1 . By Society is here understood, association regulated
by conventions ; and by State of Nature, that of casual
and imperfect society in which men necessarily lived be
fore they submitted to laws.
Without examining here, whether criminal attempts
against equality, of the nature mentioned in this article,
could have had place in the state of nature, it is evident
that if the inconveniences of that state determined men
to establish laws, they must have been only such as arose
from the violation of equality. At all events, the pre
servation of equality is the end of association, because,
by equality alone can men living together be rendered
happy. 2. By uniting their strength, men assuredly desired to
procure to themselves the greatest number of enjoyments
of which they had the idea, and by the least possible
trouble. Now, the abundance of necessary things ensures these
enjoyments, and is itself ensured by the labour of those

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 321
associated together, which is the least possible for each,
only when it is fairly distributed amongst all.
ARTICLE III.
Nature has imposed on each person the obligation
to work ; nobody could, without crime, evade his
share of the common labour.PROOFS.
Labour is for each a precept of nature.
1 . Because man, isolated in the deserts, could not,
without some kind of labour, procure himself subsistence.
2. Because the activity which moderate labour occa
sions, is for man a source of health and amusement.
This obligation could not be weakened by society,
either for all or for each of its members.
1 . Because the preservation of society depends upon it.
2. Because, the labour of each is the least possible
only when all participate of it.
ARTICLE IV.
Labour and enjoyments ought to be common.
EXPLANATION.
That is to say, all ought to bear an equal portion of
labour, and derive from it an equal quantity of enjoy
ments. The justice of this principle follows from the proofs of
the preceding Articles I. and III. But what do we
understand by community of labour ? Is it. meant that
all the citizens should be engaged in the same occupa
tions ? No ; but it is meant that the different branches
of labour should be distributed in such manner as to
leave no able-bodied person idle or unemployed ; it is
meant that the increased number of workers should, at
the same time that it diminished individual toil, guarantee
abundance for the whole ; it is meant, that in return for
his labour each person shall receive from society the
means of providing for his natural wants, and for the
small number of factitious wants which all may satisfy.
But it may be objected — What will become of those
productions of industry, which are the fruits of time and
genius ? Is it not to be feared that, being no longer
better recompensed than other descriptions of work, they
will be altogether extinguished to the injury of society '.
p5

322 babeuf's conspiracy.
Sophism ! It is to the love of glory, not to the thirst
for riches, that we have been at all times indebted for
the efforts of genius. Every day do millions of poor
soldiers devote themselves to death for the honour of
serving the caprices of a cruel master; and shall we
doubt of the prodigies that might be operated on the
human heart by the sentiment of happiness, the love of
equality and country, and by the noble incentives of a
wise policy ? Besides, should we have the same longings
for the display of the arts, and for the tinsel of luxury,
if we had the happiness to live under the laws of
equality ? ARTICLE V
There is oppression wherever one part of society
is exhausted by labour, and in ivant of everything,
rvhilstthe other part wallows in abundance, without
doing any work at all.
,, PROOFS.
1. Inequality and oppression are synonymous ; if to
oppress an individual consist in violating a general law
to his detriment, those whom inequality overcharges
with toil are oppressed, because inequality violates the
natural law, to which it is absurd to oppose human laws.
2. To oppress signifies either to restrain the faculties
of a person, or to unjustly augment his burdens ; that is
precisely what inequality does, by diminishing the enjoy
ments of him whose duties it aggravates.
ARTICLE VI.
Nobody could, without crime, exclusively appro
priate to himself the goods of the earth or of
industry. EXPLANATION AND PROOFS.
If we demonstrate that inequality has no other cause
than this exclusive appropriation, we shall have demon
strated the crime of those who introduced the distinction
of mine and thine (meum and tuum).
From the moment lands were divided arose the exclu
sive right of property. Then each person became abso
lute master of all he could derive from the fields which
had devolved to him, and from whatever industry he

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 323
could exercise. It is probable that men, devoted to the
arts of first necessity, were at the same time excluded
from all territorial possession, which they had not time
to cultivate. Thus one portion of the people remained
masters of the things necessary to existence, whilst the
rest had only a right to such salaries, or wages, as the '
former chose to pay them. Nevertheless, this change
did not involve a very sensible one in the distribution of
enjoyments, so long as the number of those receiving
wages did not exceed that of the possessors of the soil.
But as soon as natural accidents, acting conjointly with
the economy or address of some, with the prodigality or
incapacity of others, had concentrated the territorial
properties in a small number of families, the men of
wages became vastly more numerous than the pro
prietors, and, as a natural consequence, were utterly at
their mercy. The possessors, proud' of their opulence,
soon reduced the labourers to a life of privations.
From this revolution date the sinister effects of in
equality, developed in the first Article. Thenceforward
we have seen the idle man fatten, by a revolting system
of injustice, on the sweat of the laborious man, who
sinks under the weight of fatigues and privations. We
have seen the rich man take possession of the State,
and, like a master, dictate tyrannical laws to the poor
man, exasperated by want, degraded by ignorance, and
deceived by religion. ¦»
Miseries and slavery are consequences of inequality,
which is itself the result of property. Property is, there
fore, the greatest scourge of society ; it is a veritable
public crime.
We shall be told, I know, that property is a right
anterior to society, which has been instituted to protect
it. But how could the idea of such a right have been
formed, before conventions had guaranteed to the pro
prietor the fruits of his labour ? How could society have
owed its origin to an institution the most subversive of
all social sentiment ?
Lastly, let it not be said that it is just that the laborious
and economical man should be recompensed by opulence,
and that the idle man should be punished by misery. No
doubt, it is equitable that the active man, having dis-

324 babeuf's conspiracy.
charged what he owes his country, should receive in
return what she can afford to give him, without destroy
ing herself; it is equitable that his conduct be rewarded
by public gratitude ; but he cannot thereby acquire the
right to poison his country, more than a soldier can
acquire, by his valour, that of reducing her to slavery.
There are, doubtless, many sad fellows, who ought to
impute to their own vices the poverty they are reduced
to ; but it would be to outrage experience and reason to
range all the unhappy poor in this class, which comprises
so small a portion of them. What multitudes of labourers
and artisans live unpitied and uncared for, upon bread
and water, in order that an infamous libertine may
squander in peace the accumulations of an inhuman
father, and that a millionaire master-manufacturer may
export fabrics and trinkets at low prices to countries,
which, in return, supply our lazy and voluptuous Sybarites
with the perfumes of Arabia, and the birds of Phase.
Would even the bad members of the working classes be
what they are, were it not for the vices and follies in
which they are involved by our social institutions, which
punish in them the effects of passions, whose develop
ments they provoke ? ARTICLE VII.
In a veritable society there ought to be neither
rich nor poor. ARTICLE VIII.
T/ie rich, who are not willing to renounce their
superfluities in favour of the indigent, are the
enemies of the people. ARTICLE IX.
No one can, by accumulating to himself all the
means, deprive another if the instruction necessary
for his happiness. Instruction ought to be common
to all. PROOFS.
1. This accumulation deprives the men of labour, of
even the possibility of acquiring the knowledge necessary
to every good citizen.
2. Although the people have no need of very great
instruction, they require a certain portion to save them

babeuf s conspiracy. 325
from being the prey of professional craft, and of pre
tenders to learning and science. The people, above all,
require to know their rights and duties.
ARTICLE X.
The end of the French Revolution is to destroy
inequality, and to re-establish general prosperity.
PROOFS.
Where is the honest man who could wish to deliver
his fellow-citizens to the convulsions and evils of a politi
cal revolution, which had no other object than to render
them more miserable, or to place them in a condition
which should necessarily entail their total ruin ? To
skilfully lay hold of the proper moment for reform is not
the least task of an able and virtuous politician.
ARTICLE XI.
The Revolution is not terminated, because the
rich absorb all valuable productions, and com
mand exclusively ; whilst the poor toil like real
slaves, pine in misery, and count for nothing in the
State. ARTICLE XII.
TJie Constitution of 1 793 is the veritable law of
Frenchmen, because the people has solemnly ac
cepted it; because the Convention had not the
right to change it; because to succeed in super
seding it, the Convention has caused the people to
be shot for demanding its execution;* because it
has hunted and massacred the deputies, who
performed their duty in defending it ; because a
system of terrorism against the people, and the
influence of emigrants,*? have presided over the
* On the 1st Prairial of the Year III., and the days following,
Bourbotte, Duroy, Duquesnoy, Goujon, Romme, and Squbrany,
were put to death. Peyssard was deported, and Forestier con
demned to detention.
t The men of the popular party were publicly massacred, or
thrust in heaps into dungeons. A great number of emigrants,
and more especially all who had deserted after the Revolution of
the 31st of May, had been recalled since the 9th Thermidor of the
Year II.

326 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
fabrication and pretended acceptation of the Con'
stitution of 1795, which, nevertheless, had not
a quarter of the number of suffrages in its favour
that the Constitution of 1793 has obtained; be
cause the Constitution of 1793 has consecrated
the inalienable right of every citizen to consent to
the laws, to exercise political rights, to meet in
assembly, to propose what he deems useful, to
receive instruction, and not to die of hunger;
rights which the counter-revolutionary Act of
1795 has openly and completely violated.
ARTICLE XIII.
Eve?-y citizen is bound to re-establish and de
fend, in the Constitution of 1793, the will and
happiness of the people. ARTICLE XIV.
All the powers emanating from the pretended
Constitution of 1795 are illegal and counter
revolutionary. ARTICLE XV.
Those who have used violence against the Con
stitution of 1793 are guilty of high treason against
the nation.

PIECE No. IX.

LETTER OF FRANC-LIBRE
(Soldier of the Cir co-Parisian Army)
TO HIS FRIEND LA TERREUR
(Soldier of the Army of the Rhine.)
We are p — upon, my poor friend, La Terreur; yes,
we are p — * upon, and without resource, if we swallow
* [I do not pretend to do more than render the general sense of
this piece. The slang phrases and indelicate allusions in whicli it
abounds, oblige me to occasionally sacrifice fidelity for decency,
and to merge in paraphrase what it would be offensive to render
literally. — Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 327
down the pill that has been crammed into our mouth. In
vain have we fleshed our swords in the vile carcases of
the miscreant slaves who fight for the crowned wolves of
Europe ; in vain have we bivouaced, fasted, combatted,
sweated blood and water, and kiUed lice and slaves
during four years ; we have wasted our shot on sparrows !
— we have lost our labour: for liberty, that noble object
of our aspirations, and sweet equality, its inseparable
companion, are no longer but vain images caricatured
on the dishclouts of the kitchen of the heirs of C — , but
an empty cloud like the smoke of my pipe. In the
names of order and discipline, we, and all our brother
sans-culottes, are chained like dogs in a poultry yard,
with the difference that when the mastiffs bark they
fling them some grub for their inside, whereas they treat
you and me as if our mouths were sewed up. Damna
tion! — niv brave La Terreur, should we ever have
abandoned our fire-hearths, our wives, our children, our
fathers and mothers, to thrash the knaves who menaced
our country, had we dreamt that whilst we were kicking
emigrants and snaffling kings, a crew of smooth-skinned
tigers would have strangled, mangled, and devoured
our parents, friends, and Liberty herself? Yes, my
friend, yes ; however strange what I announce to you, it
is no less true than the fact, that one sturdy cove like you
is worth a cart-load of the ricketty abortions who govern
us; and the sketch I am going to present of the picture
that has been before my eyes for the last ten months,
will convince you of it ; I will not add any oath to
extort credence from you, for since the oath of fidelity
to the Constitution of 1793, I have seen none take oaths
but beggarly scamps, without souls or honour.
1. The insolent pride of the Court, and of the
ci-devant great, forced us to overthrow the throne.
We had established a popular Government, in which, as
Father Latulipe said, every one had the right to think
himself a citizen; but whilst we were helter-skeltering
before us the ruffian serf's who presumed to take
us to account for what we chose to do with our own
concerns, the rascals of commissaries to whom we
confided the care of our affairs, after slaughtering those
of our friends who preserved their fidelity to us, have

328 babeuf's conspiracy.
established, under the name of an Executive Directory,
five lions, whom they have caparisoned, harnessed, and
plumed like mules of Provence, and surrounded with
Scapins, Scaramouches, and Cartouches; who, all
together, have quintupled the arrogance, insolence,
tyranny, and despotism of that son of a b — h, C — ,*
their worthy predecessor.
2. The Government we had left in 93 put egoism
under contribution to establish magazines of goods and
provender necessary to the safety of the country ; that
which our perfidious commissaries have substituted for it,
establishes no other public magazine than that of the
charnel-house of Clamar, composed of thousands of
carcases of Republicans, dead of hunger, who during
eighteen long months have been coming in cart-loads
every hour to choke up that horrible depot.
3. The nobles had always betrayed us, and we had
truly conquered only when we had chased them from our
armies; to-day, the brave cudgelling officers who led
us to victory — who, like ourselves, have their skins all
scarified and sewn up again — are basely cashiered, and re
placed by Chouans of the aristocratic and perfumed castes.
4. Paris — the beautiful Paris of 93 — in which liberty,
equality, and abundance had formed the whole of the
people into one happy family, no longer presents other
than a frightful forest, filled with devourino- wolves and
expiring sheep ; these wolves are the governors and
the rich, and the sheep are the patriots, our kinsmen,
brothers, and friends.
5. Our companions in arms, mutilated in battle, are
here crushed and spit upon, covered with dirt and con
tempt by our governors and their base lacqueys ; and the
greater part of them are sunk into beggarsj imploring
alms, and cursing the ingratitude of a country for which
they have shed their blood like ditch-water." Thev are
wrong, you will say, dear comrade. No, my friend,
they are not. Their piteous accents of despair will cease
only when we shall have avenged them, and that will
not be long, I hope, by G — .
* C— , the initial of Capet, I presume. Capet is the surname of
the Bourbons, and Buonarroti's work was published during the
reign of the last of that imbecile dynasty.— Bronterre.

BABEUF S CO>.SPIRACY. 329
6. The generals who command us here — vile syco
phants of the five plumed mules, who flatter them in
return — keep us, under pretence of discipline, in the
most abject slavery. Folded up here, at the military
school, like a flock of sheep, we are prevented from
communicating with our friends and kinsmen. Ah! —
no doubt they fear lest their tears should move our
hearts, and inspire our courage with a just vengeance;
but in vain do the rotten voluptuaries hope to  !
Though they count us only lor machines of oppression,
essentially obedient, they shall soon know — the tyrants !
— that we are also the avengers of the rights of man and
of humanity. 7. The Government of 93, my dear comrade, has
assured us the spoils of the enemies of the country to
reward our victories. The Government that is, gives, in
the name of restitution, to our enemies, what we had
conquered from them, and what served as a national
security for our Republican currency ; whence it follows,
that the miscreants who govern us, after having trampled
under foot the red cap of liberty they were unworthy to
wear, have shamelessly put a green one on their head;
and, to complete their infamy, while they continue to
promise us a thousand millions' worth of national pro
perty, they in reality reserve for us no other recompence
than the tents taken from us three campaigns back — to
make begging wallets of for our families.
I should never end, my dear La Terreur, were I to
undertake to trace to you all the horrors which encom
pass us here ; but, better used to fight than to whine, as
patient in sorrow as terrible in vengeance, I only wait,
my dear comrade, with ten millions of oppressed Demo
crats, the moment when peace with the foreign foe shall
permit you and your companions in arms to return to
your firesides. Then, united once more, we shall prove
to France, and to the world, that we know as well how
to chastise the traitors, and to keep our oaths of 93, as
we did to vanquish the unkennelled packs of b — ¦ — !
Safety and fraternity. Your brother, Franc-Libre.
Paris, 24th Germinal, Year IV. of the
Democratic Republic to come.

330 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.

PIECE No. X.

Primary Instruction of the Secret Directory addressed
to each of its principal Military Agents.
Citizens ! — It is not in times of crisis as in ordinary
times, &c. [Read Piece VI., from the beginning as far
as the words, " as it would be capable of doing, if it saw
" at its head leaders worthy of its entire confidence.''
- Animated with such dispositions, we have been led at
once to turn our regards to the men most capable of
seconding us in this most glorious career. It is you,
citizens, who, whether we regard your continuity of noble
conduct, together with the multiplied acts of pure civism
you have evinced throughout the Revolution, or the ter
rible proofs you have given of courage and incorruptibility,
in times when everything patriotic and virtuous was per
secuted ; it is to you, citizens, that those who have con
stituted themselves the first avengers of a betrayed country
have turned their regards to make you the depositaries
of their confidence, and to delegate to you the first and
principal division of their intended operations.
The portion of trust which the Secret Directory com
municates to you is precious and important, its safe
fulfilment demands much discretion, prudence, activity,
and love of the general good ; it requires all the virtues
of men such as the Directory believes you to be.
The Secret Directory has weighed its fundamental
organization, and that of its relations with you, in the
balance of wisdom and circumspection. It has deemed
it expedient to appoint principal agents near to the dif
ferent armed bodies placed within and around the com
mune of Paris, and it has so arranged their means of
communication with itself, that the correspondence will
be almost direct, without, however, any of those agents
being able to know the members of the Directory.
The reason of this precaution, &c. [Read Piece VI.
from the preceding words, as far as the words, " the
discouragement and consternation of the most coura
geous citizens."

babeuf's conspiracv. 331
Such are Republicans, &c. [Read Piece VI. again, as
far as the words, " equally unflinching of twelve men,"
instead of which substitute, " equally unflinching of
several men." Read on afterwards as far as the words,
" you will perceive it in all their acts."]
" At the same time that we have armed ourselves with
all the necessary precautions," &c. [Again see paragraph
in Piece VI., beginning with these words, and read to
the end without any change.]
" The Secret Directory has carried its prudence so far
as to," &c. [The same as in the paragraph in Piece VI.,
beginning with the same words, except to substitute the
word agents for twelve agents, in two places.]
Articles III., IV., V., of the organization we have pre
scribed to you, and which precede this instruction, indicate
to you —
" To form and direct the public spirit of the soldiery
" in general, and of the corps and battalions which are
" assigned to you, in particular.
" To stimulate and foment this military public spirit ;
" first, by facilitating the propagation of journals and
" other popular writings ; afterwards, by affording occa-
" sion for habitual conversations and frequent discussions
" on the rights of the people, on its present situation,
" and on the state of the army.
" To take notes of the daily thermometer of opinion;
' to render account in these notes of the dispositions,
" more or less good, more or less energetic, of the mass
" of the soldiers ; to distinguish the individuals you will
" remark most capable of forwarding the movement to
" be produced ; to indicate the species of employment
" or revolutionary enterprise to which you may believe
" each of those individuals best suited ; to fix a mark on
" the intriguers, the serviles, the tyrannical subalterns ;
" and to render account of the obstacles they may oppose
" to the development pf energy, to the inspiration of
" good principles, and regenerating ideas."
Articles VI., VII., and VIII. of the same organization
determines the means by which you will be able to trans
mit to the Secret Directory the notes, informations, or
reports it will expect at your hands.
" You will give them to the intermediary agents, who

332 babeuf's conspiracy.
" will go to receive them directly from your hands, in the
" same manner as they will consign to you personally
" such ulterior instructions as the Secret Directory shall
" find itself obliged to transmit to you."
Such, citizens, is the scope of the task assigned
you in this elementary stage. Hereafter we shall have
only to offer to you some ideas of detail, which you may
modify as prudence dictates.
When we invite you to stimulate, feed, and direct the
public spirit of the soldiery, by reading, and by discussions
on the rights of the people, on its actual situation, and
on the situation of the army, you will feel how expedient
it is for the interest of the cause, as well as for your own,
that the thing should be done quietly, and without osten
tatiously aiming at too much. It is possible for you to
become the leader of a great number of brave fellows,
and to infuse into them your own spirit, without their
being conscious of the source whence they imbibed it :
it would be far more dangerous were their chiefs, and all
who have an interest contrary to the principles we wish
to inculcate, to discern the part you were playing about
them. You ought, therefore, to look vigilantly to your
selves, and use extreme precaution, lest you betray your
object by inconsiderate avowals, or by reposing confidence
in any person, no matter whom. It is not on occasions
like this that one can indulge his self-love. Let us sacri
fice the vanity of appearing to the advantage of really
being and doing. There is no stronger guarantee of
great and signal success, there is nothing which confers
a prouder internal satisfaction, than the consciousness
that one is the invisible instrument by which great springs
of action are moved ; we then render to our genius and
discretion a merited homage, infinitely superior to that
which eager vanity would grasp, by wishing to pass for
principal actor in a political scene. It will be time
enough to receive the applause of our brethren after we
shall have saved them ; wherefore, then, it appears to us
very practicable for the principal agents to stimulate,
foster, and guide the soldier's energy without hardly ap
pearing to do so ; for since the only thing required is, to
fix his attention on the violation of all the rights of the
people, and on the cruel and deplorable state to which

babeuf's conspiracy. 333
the citizen and soldier are now reduced, such habitual
conversations and discussions as we have proposed to you
to get up, may be effected by the sole means of journals,
and other popular writings ; and it will not be difficult
for you to transmit these writings, whether directly or
indirectly, in a safe and quiet way, that will involve no
consequences, be scarcely noticed, and leave you to
appear throughout only as a simple observer.
The dissemination of writings, then, being the prin
cipal means on which we count for promoting those
serious discussions in which we desire to engage the
soldier, we recommend to you this means. The choice
of the writings will not be difficult ; you will easily dis
tinguish those of the right stamp. For the rest, it will
be the business of the Directory to transmit such writings
to you, so that you may have them in sufficient quantity
tor distribution. Besides writings, all other means of
acting, and of making others act, will be furnished to
you when occasion demands. The journals we have
alluded to will serve you, in a great measure, as a com
pass to steer your course, and for general instructions
conformable to this. They have, up to the present,
preached our principles, and those of all true Democrats.
We believe they will always continue to do so, and that
you will always recognize our doctrine in their's. To
support and applaud that doctrine, — behold nearly the
whole of the part assigned you in the new drama, and
to play it well you need not travel out of the circle of those
demonstrations, which make you appear only as simple
actors, simple auditors, and by-standers like all the
others present. As your function of note-taking and
reporting will take place only with closed doors, it leaves
your mission still a secret. This latter department will
not engage us in any observation of detail ; its mode of
execution is sufficiently determined by Article V. of the
rules of organization, and by what we have prescribed
in the foregoing part of this instruction. In telling'you
that the popular journals to be supplied to you, &c.
[Here the same instruction occurs as in Piece VI. , in the
paragraph beginning with the same words as this.]
Now, however necessary it be to warm the soldiers'
minds up to a certain heat, it would be in the same

334 babeuf's conspiracy.
degree useless, and even dangerous, to inflame them too
rapidly before the final measure. We are certain that
the people's opinion is formed ; we are no less certain
that the same may be said of several battalions ; but we
know also that there are many armed bodies whom the
influence of craft and perfidy has hitherto kept in error.
It is essential, then, in order to ensure complete success,
that all, citizens and soldiers, be disciplined to move
simultaneously with us. We must not, therefore, excite
a part to that degree of energy required for the grand
explosion, while the others remain considerably behind
in spirit and disposition. We must allow ourselves time
to undeceive at least the majority of our comrades, and
fortify them against the insidious caresses of a Govern
ment which desires to use them as instruments, first to
oppress themselves, and afterwards the people. Accord
ingly, it will be the part of wisdom not to inflame the
passions of the more ardent Democrats above the
exact progression of the thermometer, whose varying
point will be always indicated by the Secret Directory.
We have not yet proposed the lever, which we deem
the most powerful of all for exciting the soldier's mind
and courage. We proceed to tell it you. It is a long-
acknowledged truth, that to impel men to vigorous
action, you must appeal to their interests. The general
interest is made up of all the particular interests. We
must, therefore, conciliate those particular interests, if
we would operate the real good of the whole ; and, since
these same interests are for all men the most powerful
springs of action, it follows that, in employing this grand
instrument, we at the same time perform a thing the
most just and capable of guaranteeing certain success.
Let us appeal, then, to the interest of the greatest
number — that is to say, let us be virtuous and equitable,
for virtue and justice present us with the surest means
of success.
It is for the interest of the greatest number that the
Revolution was undertaken ; it is because, previously to
the Revolution, the majority found themselves socially
aggrieved and oppressed, that they desired a change to
improve their condition. The interest of the majority
caused the Revolution to be adored so long as a hope

babeuf's conspiracy. 335
was entertained that it would operate a change for the
better. The same interest has caused the Revolution to
be detested, since its more recent events taught the
majority to see in it only a change from bad to worse.
It is the interest of the majority that now induces us to
commence another Revolution, which we wish to be the
last, and whose object is to change the worse into a
perfect good. Let us prove to the majority the possibi
lity of this latter change. Let us do more— let us show
them the certainty of it, and we shall see that their
interest will determine them to ensure it, by the ener
getic and irresistible ascendancy of their volition and
force. There are two principal points of view in which we
can and ought to address ourselves to the interest and
feelings of the men who have defended the country —
their interest as applicable to their present lot — their
interest as applicable to their future lot.
May you not with perfect truth exhibit to the soldiei
a picture, in which he will recognize himself miserable,
like the people, equally destitute as the people, equally
starved and famished, equally cheapened and degraded ?
I behold a poor fellow returning from the frontier. In
what state is he ? His bare aspect is enough to let me
see that our governors are the best friends of the despots
he has combatted ! I see him the victim of neglect and
suffering, for having made their satellites bite the dust.
His person lank — his face pale and haggard — he sinks
from inanition. I interrogate him ; he tells me that the
deplorable state I find him in, is not surprising when the
cause is explained. I learn that his pay is more beggarly
than that of the vilest German military slave. With
thirty sous in assignats, and only two sous per day in
cash, it is a miracle that he is not starved to death. In
a word, he is worse treated than the wretched German
serf, or the vile Italian thief-catcher, who, brutalized,
degraded, and with scarcely any pretentions to the name
of man, forms part of the legions whom Francis of
Austria pays at about the same rate, and whose hungry
aspect inspired me with so much pity at the commence
ment of the Revolution. The soldier of our country
not only suffers hunger now-a-days, but he is without

336 babeuf's conspiracy.
shoe's, without clothes ; to have his shirt washed is out
of the question, for that would cost thirty francs,* and
where, poor wretch, could he find such a sum ? But
he suffers more than the want of clothing and nourish
ment. He must in addition, be harassed, vexed, crushed
under a multiplicity of tortures decorated with the pom
pous name of military discipline ; and which is, at bot
tom, a far more galling system of refined tyranny than
existed under the lordly ministers of Louis XVI. It
renders the soldier far more of an automaton, far more
servilely subject to the caprices of subalterns. He is
degenerated, in fact, into a mere moving man-machine,
who must know nothing but the word of command. To
reason, to speak, nay, even to think, are interdicted
from him. Moreover, the tyrants in authority over him
are not the men who accompanied him in the perils of
war. It is not the bravest that are promoted; it is not
the men who most distinguished themselves against the
enemies of liberty that are rewarded by honours. On
the contrary, those now in command are, for the most
part, base, dastardly intriguers, and even counter-revo
lutionists. Real military merit is devoted to neglect
and opprobrium. Thus is the defender of the country
overwhelmed at once by every calamity incidental to his
state. He is not clothed, he is not fed ; he bends
under the cruel rod of contemptible chiefs, who never
fought for the Republic, who detest it, and, with it, all
who have poured their blood for its triumph. If any
exceptions are made to the destitution and privations of
the mass of soldiers, it is only in a sense which caps the
climax of perfidy and national humiliation. Baits and
lures are offered to some, the better to consolidate the
slavery of the rest. Those distributions of wine, of
brandy, &c, made to the battalions, whose service is
more immediately to guard the ea:£ra-revolutionary city
(Paris), whose energetic bursts for liberty are always
feared ; those entertainments more substantial, even
splendid, with which the select companies employed as
the immediate guard of the Government, are regaled ;
[Owing to the depreciation of the assignats, or revolutionary
paper-money.— Bronterre.]

babeuf s conspiracy. 337
— all that is only the honey, presented at the end of the
staff destined to cudgel the people into servitude. If
the miserables who receive these largesses vow to the
authors of them that blind obedience for which they are
offered as a bribe, we can only say that such persons
must be regarded as sordid traitors, who sell their
country and liberty for a mess of potage.
Such, or the like, is the picture — alas ! too true a one
— of the present condition of the soldier, which you
should continually present to his view, and alongside of
it you may place that of his future condition, which you
may easily sketch in perspective. The latter, God
knows, will not be a much brighter one. Represent to
them the scenes which await their return to their firesides.
What will they find there ? misery profound — a thousand
times more. profound than that which weighed down
their unhappy fathers. The Revolution had promised
them a just, a legitimate compensation (too well was it
merited !) for their glorious exploits achieved to assure
its success ; the Revolution had promised them national
property, quite enough to secure subsistence for each
and all. . With this recompense, worthy of their toils,
they might pass, in an honourable retreat, the remainder
of their lives tranquil and happy; form new families
without number ; bring up a new generation in the love
of a country whose happiness they might have justly
prided themselves in having established, and narrate a
thousand times over, and always with a new joy, and
new sympathetic affections, to their astonished children,
by what combined and consecutive acts of courage they
had succeeded in shaking off the yoke of the oppressors
and of the rich, and finally in founding their inde
pendence. Instead of that, what will they be? Those
possessions which had been solemnly promised and
guaranteed to them by a multiplicity of decrees — what
has become of them ? They had been carried to the
then valued amount of an effective milliard, that is to
say, to three hundred milliards* in value, of the present
• [Milliard means a thousand millions' worth (francs, of course) ;
and we may infer from this passage that, within little more than
twelve months after the death of Robespierre (during whose
ascendancy the decrees alluded to were passed), the assignats
Q

338 babeuf's conspiracy.
assignats. Where are the domains of the Republic
equivalent to this sum ? They have been restored to
traitors from whom they had been justly confiscated.
The defender of his country was not on returning to
his cottage to find it domineered over by the turretted
castle of the insolent squire, who, with all the soil in his
possession, made the soldier's father work as a slave,
treated him in all respects as such, allowed him not half
food enough, and never permitted him to be decently
clothed. The defender of his country was to find in the
vast possessions monopolized by this insatiable ogre his
allotted portion, which would suffice with industry to
yield him a comfortable living. Nothing of the kind!
Instead of what was promised, he will find this devouring
monster more furious, more unpitying than ever. The
latter will behold in the poor old broken-down soldier,
the man who fought against him when he was an emi
grant, who eagerly desired his utter destruction, and who
still regrets that it was not consummated. The feudal
despot will exact a long and dire repentance for such
crimes. The ancient defender of liberty will pass his old
age in bitter bondage and frightful misery. More
trampled on, more degraded than his forefathers, out
raged by the infamous expressions, beggars, rabble,
populace, he must, (as the author of a real people's
journal has too truly foreseen and said) " crouch under
" the insolent domination of rich robbers, become their
" galley-slaves, toil for vile wages from sun-rise to sun-
" set, have only his sweat to moisten his morsel of brown
" bread, dried up by the heat of the sun. Still happy
" they who will be able to prolong existence even on
" those terms, the rest will be turned adrift on the world
" to beg or perish. We shall see the lamed, the unfor-
" tunates with wooden legs, with broken jaws, fractured
" arms, &c, cover the streets and highways, painfully
" drag their bodies towards the doors of the bloated sons
" of luxury, present their humiliating prayer to a hundred
" of them, experience ninety-nine rebuffs, accompanied
had so depreciated in value that three hundred francs in assignats
were then only equal in value to one franc of the same currency,
before the 9th Thermidor.— Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 339
" with insults, and receive at the hundredth door an
" obolus, the thousandth part of what will suffice to buy
" a breakfast's bread for them."
Such is a too true and sensible sketch of the future
situation of our defenders — a sketch which you are to
use all your endeavours to make them understand and
appreciate. Tell them afterwards that it depends on
themselves alone to avert this horrific perspective — that
to save themselves, they have only to aid the people and
the people's friends to re-conquer the rights of all. Those
to whom you may speak with confidence, and whom you
will deem at the outset calculated to propagate what, we
are about to say — those you may assure, that from the
very day on which they shall have aided the people to
recover its power, they shall be no longer in
WANT OF ANY THING ; THEY SHALL BE PROVIDED WITH
EVERYTHING NECESSARY FOR MEN. TeLL THEM, FUR
THERMORE, THAT ON THE DAY AFTER THE STRUGGLE
ABUNDANCE AND THE MOST PROSPEROUS CONDITION
OF LIFE SHALL BE GUARANTEED TO EVERY SOLDIER.
It will be no longer in distant promises, and such as are
easy to elude, that we will deal ; it will be the simulta
neous and immediate reality.
In order the better to kindle in them the feelings most
suitable to the people and to themselves ; make them
reflect on what they are, and what they are intended for
by their rulers ; on the motives for which they have been
drawn around the walls of Paris ; on the ignominious
use which it is in contemplation to make of their bayonets
and arms ; and on the very opposite and glorious part
they may play for their own happiness and that of their
fellow-citizens : present these reflections to them some
what in the way they have been put forth by the popular
journalist already cited, and from whom we will here
copy some additional reflections.
" What is the business of the numerous phalanxes
" concentrated around the city of Paris — the city of the
" Revolution — the cradle of liberty?  Why are they
" called hither? Are they going to be subjugated? Ah !
" it is not difficult to elucidate these questions.
" It is not for the real people that the soldiers of liberty
" form a formidable fence about the walls of Paris. This
o2

340 babluf's CONSPIRACY.
" real people— the industrious, the labouring people —
'L are maltreated, muzzled, starved, ruined!  by the
" tribe of stockjobbers, monopolists and robbers, This
" latter description of gentry is indeed in avowed and
" criminal rebellion against the good people ; but is it to
" subjugate the oppressive party, and to defend the op-
" pressed party, that our warriors present a triple array
" of bayonets in all the circumference of Paris? No!
" it is quite the reverse  The intention is to use their
" arms and force to effect the total subjugation of the
" oppressed under the yoke of oppression — to maintain
" the latter in his odious domination, and the people in
" their pitiful impotence ! Ah ! were it the people it
" was the object to defend, there would be no necessity
" for diverting the people's brethren the soldiers from
•' their legitimate destination, which is to combat the
" external enemy; for the rest, the people would suffice
" to defend itself; but, when the object is to sacrifice
" the mass to a fraction, then it is, that there is need of
" hired bayonets — then it is that Government expects
" to find auxiliaries in men to whom obedience is
" preached as the only essential duty  It is when
" the Government and the corrupt caste whom it exclu-
" sively protects have lost all shame; it is when, un-
" blushingly, and without even the decency of disguise,
" and through a most infamous conspiracy, they have by
" atrocious ordinances, audaciously called laws, conse-
" crated iniquities of every sort, misery the most frightful,
" slavery the most revolting ; it is when the measure of
" their abominations is filled to such palpable overflowing,
" that the people's patience is exhausted, and its cre-
" dulity will bear no more ! ... .it is then that the tyrants
" turn their eyes to the army ! Yes, it is the same hands
'' which chastised ruffian kings, that our new tyrants
" would arm to preserve, to perpetuate, such oppression t
" Yes ! it is a military government established to force
" the people to submit to a regime of wretchedness, in
" which it is pretended they can live.. . -without nou-
" rishment, without raiment, without liberty. . . .And they
'• are fathers — sons — brothers — who are expected to im-
" pose such a system on — aye, to stab, if needs be, their
" children — wives — fathers — brothers — friends — and

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 341
" kinsmen! ! ! and it is the soldiers of the people, who
" are themselves the people, that are to be marshalled
" out against another portion of the people ! By these
" it is that the robbers would consolidate their system of
"servitude, degradation, and famine.... a thousand
" times worse than the old slavery against which French-
" men so justly rose up six years ago.
"No! the soldiers of France will never be the vile
" satellites, the blind and cruel instruments of the people's
"' enemies, and, consequently, of their own  It is only
" where governments have rendered themselves culpable,
" or would wish to do so, that they encompass themselves
" with bayonets. When power is just, it is always strong
" enough in the voluntary support of the people. Capet
" had fortified himself with an army before the 14th of
" July. We all know what his designs were, and what
" crimes he would have perpetrated with impunity if he
" had succeeded. Would it be culpable to examine
" whether those who imitate him are not equally guilty ?
" for is there not an exact parity of motives between
" Capet's act and theirs ?
" Our soldiers will remember how magnanimously well
" the army of Capet behaved; though trained in the school
" of monarchic discipline, it did not, with all its training,
'• forget that it belonged to the people. The French
" Guards lowering their fasces before the sans-culottes ! —
" behold an example that will go down to the admiration
" of all ages !
" No, no ! — it shall not be said that the defenders of
" the Republic were less grand, less magnanimous. It
" shall not be said that they held such language as this:
" ' Governors — usurpers of the people's rights — be tran-
" ' quil ; fear nought; despise the unanimous cry raised
" ' against you by the indignant people, and its bold
" ' tribunes ; shut your ears to all complaints ; trample
" ' under foot its importunate remonstrances against
" ' your oppression, which after all it is born to endure.
" ' Tyrants! we are your soldiers; we will prop up your
" ' despotism, and all your acts of brigandism ; we will
" ' crush; if needs be, we will thunder down upon our
" ' fathers and brothers ! we will embowel our sisters and
" ' mothers ! we will exterminate our children ! to main-

342 babeuf's conspiracy.
' tain your insupportable and unexampled domma-
' tion ! ! ! It is our duty to aid you in consolidating the
' slavery of our country ; our own chains ought to be
' rivetted by our own hands.'
" No, no, again! It shall not be said that the de
fenders of the Republic consented to be only moving
machines, only living puppets, only senseless automata,
to blindly obey every impulse of their leaders. It
shall not be said that they will no longer use their
own judgment, or that, captivated by false and vain
caresses, by debasing distributions of drink, they
helped a Government of usurpation and oppression to
rivet for ever the chains of twenty-five millions of
' their fellow-countrymen."
And as to you, citizen, to whom we address these first
instructions, after suggesting this sketch of the way in
which you ought to catechise our armed brothers, we
will not add a word more to inspire you with the spirit of
our principles, and the extreme importance of the mission
we have imposed on ourselves. Neither will we further
enlarge on what we have pointed out as the most effective
means of seconding our operations. " Your zeal, your
intelligence, your civism, will supply the rest." [See
Piece VI., beginning with those words, and read on to
the end.]

PIECE So. XI.

DO WE OWE OBEDIENCE TO THE CON
STITUTION OF 1795.
In swearing to defend Liberty and Equality, we have
reciprocally bound ourselves in solemn engagement to
one another, never to recognise any other authority than
that of the people, and to punish all who, by force or
fraud, should presume to violate its sovereign will. This
solemn engagement renders it a duty imperative on all
of us to examine coolly and scrupulously whether the
Government which now rules France is veritably the
Republican Government desired by the people.

babeuf's conspiracy. 343
Those whom we have seen uniformly combat in the
ranks of the defenders of liberty, reject as counter
revolutionary the Act of 1795. Those, on the con
trary, who never appeared decided for anything, except
their own selfish interests, extol this Act as the funda
mental law, par excellence. They deny the former
party even the right of examining it, and wish to com
mand for it the same religious respect that was exacted
five years ago for the Royalist Constitution of 1791.
In a struggle, the issue of which ought for ever to set
at rest the conscience of all upright men, it is of so\ t-
reign importance to light our way by the flambeau o.
principles, developed and applied by arguments matured
and independent of persons and parties ; for if, in short,
the Constitution of 1795 do possess all the characteristics
of legitimate law, we ought to submit to and defend it ;
but if it be devoid of such characters, then is it the duty
of freemen to overthrow it, and to punish the men who
would have enslaved the people.
I am aware that the bare wish to examine impartially
what we are all so interested in knowing, will be called
anarchy, rebellion — favourite terms of the Court before
and after 1789, of La Fayette, of Dumouriez, of the
Venetian Senate, of the Pope, of the Grand Seignor,
which signify neither more nor less than that the present
possessors of power wish to retain it, no matter at wtiat
price ; but we, who deem it an honour to be rebels and
seditious agamst all anti-popular powers, whatever jargon
they talk, whatever masks they wear, will always counsel
our fellow-citizens to make use of their reason, and to
incessantly rise up against every authority opposed to
the principles of popular sovereignty.
Previously to the famous report of the Commission ot
Eleven, we had the Constitution of 1793, which was
generally recognised as being the veritable fundamental
law of the French people, because it had received their
formal sanction by the suffrages of 4,800,000 voters in
the primary assembhes, whose envoys, to the number of
8,000, confirmed the thus-declaied will of France, upon
the ever-memorable day of the 10th of August, 1793 ;
and what rendered that law, and the people who ac
cepted it, so laudable in the sight of humanity, was the

344 babeuf's conspiracy.
equality of rights it guaranteed to all Frenchmen, with
out regard to the state of domestic servitude, which it
proscribed, and without distinguishing between rich and
poor — the necessary concurrence of the people in forming
the law, and the latitude secured for giving effect to the
people's wishes in the way of having them heard and
respected* — circumstances which, whatever our states
men may pretend, struck at the root of civil convulsion,
by extirpating all contrast between the will of the sove
reign and that of its delegates. How fine a sight ! — to
behold perhaps a twentieth of the people arrest the crimes
or faults of its agents, and provoke against them the
effective judgment of all their fellow-citizens, without a
single shock to the public tranquillity?
When we speak of the beauties of the Constitution of
1793 to the partisans of the existing order, they pretend
to oppose to us a posterior will of the people, who, say
they, had a right to change that Constitution, and have
effectually done so in accepting the Constitution of 1795.
p Undoubtedly, if the French have freely accepted this
latter Constitution, we owe it obedience until it adopts
another ; but it is precisely on this fact, whicli is the
matter in dispute, that we are to bring the discussion
strictly to bear. Is it the people, or even a large section
of the people, which demanded the change? Certainly
not. The people has loudly and unanimously reclaimed
its Constitution of 1793. Witness the numerous ad
dresses of the communes, of the popular societies, and
the armies ; witness the scenes of Prairial at Paris, and
the almost simultaneous ones in the north and south of
the Republic ; witness the acts of the Convention, which,
to render homage to the will of the people, and to calm
apprehensions, decreed, on the 1st Germinal, of the same
year, the penalty of deportation against whosoever should
write or speak against the Constitution of 1793.
The people had ordered, by Article 115 of this Con
stitution, that all demands for changing it, should es
sentially originate with the people thamselves, and could
* This Constitution, which no feeling man can ponder on without
a lively emotion of admiration, offered the first example on record
of comfort and instruction being guaranteed to all citizens alike bv
the fundamental law of the State.

babeuf s conspiracy. 345
on no account emanate from the legislative body ; never
theless, the too celebrated Commission of Eleven, whose
powers were limited to merely proposing the organic
laws of the Constitution of 1793, came to the body of
the Convention to declaim against what it qualified with
the term of popular tyranny; and that Convention
itself, in disregard of its duties and oaths, instead of
hurling the Commission into annihilation, had the au
dacity to propose to the people its anti-popular fabrication
of 1795. No fact can be more evident than that the
Commission of Eleven, and the Members of the Con
vention who voted for the change, have overstepped
their powers, and betrayed the people by this open
violation of its clear and solemn will.
There took place, however, certain events which the
guilty usurpers qualify with the name of popular accep
tation — events with which they wrap themselves up to
legitimatize their crimes, and to escape the penalties
of treason, which they manifestly incurred. The Con
stitutional Act of 1795 has been sent, it is true, to the
primary assemblies and to the armies,"' the extracts of
whose registers, made by those personally interested in
the matter, have " verified " that 900,000 citizens have
voted for its acceptation. If this acceptation be the free
expression of the people's will, the Constitution of 1795
carries the day ; but if it is but an act of violence .... let.
us see !
4,800,000 citizens have voted for the Constitution of
1793; only 900,000 have assented to the Act of 1795.
What has become of the remaining 3,900,000 ? Either
their vote has not been verified, or they have not presented
themselves at the primary assemblies. If the first sup
position be true, the crime of the Constitutionalists of
1795 is manifest; if the second is to be admitted, thi_n
will it be necessary to examine whether the silence of the
3,900,000, who had voted on the former occasion, is suffi
cient to warrant the presumption of a change of will and
* The Constitution of 1793 was not sent to the armies ; never
theless, it had 4,800,000 votes. What apology is to be made for
the legislator who, having recourse to the votes of soldiers, trained
in habits of blind obedience to their chiefs, afterwards commands,
in the name of their bayonets, the consent of the rest of the
citizens ?
Q5

346 babeuf's conspiracy.
tacit consent on their part, or whether it is only the effect
of violence exercised by the counter-revolutionists.
But in order to prove that their silence ought to be
taken for consent, it is necessary, according to all rules
of law, that it be proved.
1 . That the 3,900,000 citizens had it in their power
to attend the assemblies, and would have incurred no
danger in pronouncing against the Act of 1795.
2. That this Act does not violate the natural and
inalienable rights of the citizens ; for otherwise, the most
formal consent could be considered only as an act of
madness and blindness, involving no obligation ; and in
this case, the acceptation of some would be a palpable
act of oppression against the rest.
Let us call to mind what was the fate at Paris, Toulon,
Valenciennes, &c. — of those who, in Prairial of the Year
III., demanded the execution of the Constitution of 1 793 ;
let us call to mind how the Convention caused the people
who reclaimed it to be shot and guillotined ; how it
massacred and hunted down, without regard to the laws
and forms it had itself prescribed, and by the most
monstrous violation of justice and decency, those of its
members who refused to participate in the disgrace of its
treasonable proceedings ; let us call to mind the pro
tracted and atrocious persecution which indiscriminately
menaced the defenders of the Constitution of 1793, in
the interior and in the armies ; and let us afterwards
judge of the state of liberty, when there were citizens
found to kill themselves in the primary assemblies, in
order to escape the bloody proscription which her new
tyrants were then exercising all over France.*
Ah ! if this silence, so imperiously commanded by the
exercise of terror over the good — a terror operated by
the execution and incarceration of all the warmest friends
of the people — if such a silence can justify in France the
Order of 1795, let us cease — yes, let us cease to declaim
against the despotism of the East, which reposes exactly
upon a similar basis.
And the 200,000 citizens dying in dungeons, and the
It is right to remind the victims of terror, that the 8,000
envoys of the people had not as yet invoked it (terror), at the
epoch when the Constitution of 1793 was accepted.

babeuf's conspiracy. 347
100,000 others in exile to avoid the poignards of the
counter-revolutionists, and all those to whom they caused
the right of suffrage to be refused in the primary assem
blies — will you say that these also have tacitly consented ?
Is it not true that the Act of 1795 despoils the people of
the inalienable right of changing its Constitution, and of
sanctioning the laws? Is it not true that it strips of the
right of citizenship such Frenchmen as cannot pay a
contribution equal to the value of three day's labour, or
who are in a state of domestic service ?* Is it not true
that in five years, no one will be able to exercise the
right of citizenship, if unable to read or write, unless the
Constitution assures the means of instruction to the in
digent class ? Is it not true that nobody can be either an
elector or juror unless he pay, at the least, a rent equi
valent to 150 days' work in towns, and unless he be a
farmer or proprietor in the country ?f Is it not true that
the representatives, who are appointed or accounted to
declare the people's will, are not elected by the people,
but hold their power only from the most opulent, most
cruel, and most vicious part of the nation ? Frenchmen !
if you doubt it, open the Act of 1 795, and you will find all
these iniquities sealed by the blood of our friends, immo
lated last Prairial to the furious ambition of the patricians.
You desire, tyrants, that this silence should be reputed
a tacit consent? But will you also say that 25 millions
of people, thus despoiled of all rights, have consented to
their own servitude ? Will you say that the French,
whose blood has flowed in torrents for liberty, have re
nounced all participation in the national sovereignty — to
crouch, like the negroes of America, under the inexorable
scourge of the planter ? Rather say that such was the
will of a minority which holds the keys of power and of
enjoyments, and we shall reply that whenever equality of
rights towards each member of the association is violated,
then society no longer exists — there only remains op
pression on the one side, and the obligation to resist on
the other.
* This exception comprehends at least a sixth part of all the
citizens. t A condition which excludes all the journeymen and labouring
classes.

348 babeuf's conspiracy.
RECAPITULATION.
The Constitution of 1793 has had 4,800,000 suffrages.
That of 1795 has had posteriorly. . 900,000 ditto.
With respect to the latter, no votes
were given by  3,900,000 citizens.
Silence is not a tacit consent.
1. Because it has been commanded by a long system
of terror— by the assassination and bastilizaticn of the
patriots. 2. Because the Constitutional Act of 1795 violates
the natural rights of man, which no one can renounce.
This silence is therefore a formal disavowal. It follows
from this reasoning, which we defy all the partisans of
inequality to answer : —
1. That the Constitution of 1793 is the sole and veri
table law of the French people.
2. That the Act of 1795 is the result of violence and
tyranny, which cannot be defended without crime.
3. That no one can exercise, without treason towards
the people, the powers which emanate from the Counter
revolutionary Act.
At Paris, this 24th Germinal of the Year IV.

PIECE, No. XII.

ADDRESS OF THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE
To the Army of the Interior*
Soldiers ! — In a Republic which was once superior
to what our Republic is now, the army and the people
had what we have not. Rome had her Tribunes of the
People and her Military Tribunes. They were magis
trates whom the law appointed to be perpetual defenders
of the people and of the army. The Tribunes of the
People were elected by the people, and their duty con
sisted in keeping incessant watch lest any criminal attempt
should be made on the people's rights ; they were to be
* Extract from No. 41 of the Tribune of the People.

babeuf's conspiracy. 349
incessantly attentive to curb the ambition and injustice
of the senate and patricians, or of the rich ; and they had
the privilege of opposing every law which might seem to
them contrary to the people's interest or to general hap
piness. The Military Tribunes, chosen in the same way
by the soldier, were similarly employed in keeping watch
for him, in defending his rights, and in always opposing
whatever might tend to harass, betray, or deceive him.
In France this august tribunitian magistracy has not
been established. The person now addressing you has
felt the utility of its existing, at least morally. I have
constituted myself, by means of a periodical paper, Tri
bune of the People. My office is but a faint miniature
of the tribuneship of the Romans. I enjoy only the
right (and even for this I have a hard struggle) to follow
and watch the march of the Government, and to warn
my fellow-citizens when I discern acts which I deem
inimical to justice and to their common interest. The
right of opposing such acts is wanting to me. I exercise
only a portion of influence on public opinion, and this
portion is measured by the degree of confidence I inspire.
If I judge rightly, the striking evidence which I have
succeeded in placing along side all the truths I have
presented to the people, has attached to me the sound
and honest part of this people — the major, the interest
ing, the useful part — the part from which you, soldiers,
are drawn — the part, in short, which is insolently
called plebeian. So strongly attached, indeed, that,
without any Constitutional institution, this title of
Tribune, by the assent and sanction of the people, is not
illusory. The people has, therefore, in France, as in
ancient Rome, the tribuneship in reality. I dare say
they possess it as veritably as did the Romans under
their best tribunes, under Lucius Junius, under Viscel-
linus, under Arsa, under Dentatus, under Canuleius,
under Stolon, under the Gracchi. Like them, it is my
pride to have earned the hatred of traitors — the con
fidence and esteem of the major part of my fellow-
citizens. With this confidence, the right of opposing, which I
have not, for want of the legal institution, is, neverthe
less, in great measure realized to the advantage of the

350 babeuf's conspiracy.
people, by means of the sanction it gives me in repro
bating such acts of the Government as I demonstrate to
be contrary to its just interests and rights. The people,
when enlightened respecting the injustice it experiences,
renders feeble the decisions of its guilty delegates ; and
the vast and universal expression of discontent it sends
abroad is equivalent to a formal opposition, because it
is impossible for tyranny, however expert and crafty, to
give durability to what a whole nation rejects.
- Why, then, with such advantages, almost equal to
those of the Tribunes of Rome, have I not yet obtained
the same success which they were accustomed to obtain ?
Ah ! my brothers, you must have foreseen the reason.
You will perceive, according to what I have stated, that
something is still wanting to place us on a level of
advantage with the Romans. I am but a tribune of the
people ; you have no military tribunes. Thus referring
to what certain parties say, you may easily perceive this
deficiency on our side. To believe these persons, your
public spirit, your revolutionary intelligence, are not, in
general, equal to the intelligence and public spirit of the
other citizens .... Nay, they go so far as to assert that
you are prepared to justify, by your conduct, the expres
sion which escaped from some of your rulers — " Our
soldiers will defend us !" I know, however, that it is
far from true .... that the aggregate of your body
is locked up within such a narrow and servile circle of
ideas and opinions. . Nevertheless, it cannot be dis
sembled that a large portion of your body might be
easily led into disastrous errors from the want of good
instruction. Such instruction I now offer you, and I
also propose myself to be your military tribune. Most
naturally does this title amalgamate with that of tribune
of the people  Are not you the people also? Do
your interests differ from those of your brothers who
compose the class of citizens ? And may not the man
who enjoys their confidence likewise inspire yours ? Give
ear to him, then, and hear him frankly plead your cause !
courageously support your noblest rights ! and tell you
what you have to do  for yourselves, and for the
people of whom you form part, and to whom you
belong.

babeuf's conspiracy. 351
For what purpose are you congregated in such large
numbers around this metropolis ? — the city of the Revo
lution ? — the cradle of liberty ? Why are you called
here ? Are its inhabitants rebels ? Is it required to
subjugate them ? These are questions whicli it is not
unimportant to throw some light upon.
Soldiers ! it is not for the real people that you form
around our walls a formidable pale ! This real people —
the industrious, working people — is maltreated here,
muzzled, outraged, despised, starved, ruined, Ly the
people of stock-jobbers and public robbers ! .... It is
this latter description of people which is in a most
criminal state of rebellion against the good people ! But
is it to subjugate the oppressive party, and to defend the
oppressed party, that you present a triple array of
bayonets around the circumference of Paris ? No ! but
quite the contrary .... The tyrants mean to use your
arms and force to utterly crush the oppressed under the
oppressors' yoke ! — to maintain the latter in their odious
domination, and the people in its sufferings and despair
ing impotence ! Ah ! if the object was to defend the
people, there would be no necessity to draw off from the
frontiers their brethren, whose destination is to combat
the external foe ! For the rest, the people would suffice
to defend itself. But when it is sought to sacrifice the
mass to a fraction, then are distant succours required.
It is then the tyrants expect to find such succours in the
men whose duty they pretend to be unqualified obedience.
.... It is when the Government, and the corrupt caste
it exclusively protects, have lost all shame — it is when,
without even the decency of disguise, the infamous
accomplices of despotism have, by atrocious ordinances
(audaciously called laws), consecrated iniquities of every
sort, misery the most frightful, slavery the most revolting
— it is when the measure of their misdeeds is carried to
such an overflowing fullness, and with such glaring
effrontery — that the long patience of the people is
exhausted, and its credulity can bear no more — it is
then they turn their eyes to you ! It is your hands they
would arm to maintain — to perpetuate such oppression !
It is the Government of arms that is sought to be
established, in order to force the people to bend to a

352 babeuf's conspiracy.
regime in which it is pretended they can live without
nourishment, without clothes, without liberty ! And
they are the fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, kinsmen,
&c, that our rulers would have impose on — nay, strike
(should circumstances require it) their children, wives,
fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, kinsfolk ! &c. And it is
through you, who are of the people ! — you, soldiers of the
Republic ! — who are thus placed in opposition to another
portion of the people ! — it is through you it is sought
to consolidate this state of bondage, degradation, and
famine, a thousand times worse than the old servitude
against wliich we rose in arms six years ago !
No ! — you will not be the vile satellites, the cruel and
blind instruments of the enemies of the people, and, con
sequently, of your own enemies ! I repeat, that it is only
when authority has rendered itself culpable, or wishes to
aggravate its guilt, that it encompasseth itself with bay
onets. When power is just, it is always strong enough
in the people's strength. Capet had fortified himself
with an army before the 14th of July. . . .We know what
his designs were, and for what a complication of crimes
he wanted to secure impunity for himself. Would it be
wrong to examine whether those who imitate him are not
influenced by an exact parity of motives ?
Remember, soldiers, that the army of Capet, though
trained in the school of monarchic discipline, exhibited a
noble conduct. It remembered that it was part of the
people ! The French guards lowering their fasces before
the sans-culottes was an example which will be handed
down to the admiration of all ages. Alas! why must
we remind you of an epoch more recent and less glorious ?
On the 12th Germinal and on the 1st Prairial batallions
born amid the Republic, and which had made themselves
illustrious in battle against the satellites of kings, have tar
nished their laurels by obeying two slaves named Pichegru
and Menou! — by slaughtering (under their orders) a
people covered with rags and dying of hunger ! Ah ! had
it not been for this fatal and dishonouring conduct, our
degradation and misery would be now past. That battle
against the people has done it more harm than all die
victories gained in its name have done it good. The
French armies have a deal to do to repair that calamity.

babeuf's conspiracy. 353
It is true we owe them gratitude for the 13th Vendemiaire,
tor if, as a general rule, the arm of the soldiershould always i
wither in presence of the real people, he should make
exceptions with respect to the gilded sops of luxury, who
are not the people. But how many Vcndemiaires would
be necessary to expiate the infamous days of Prairial ?
In Vendemiaire you vanquished these gilded Do-nothings,
you made aristocracy and royalism bite the dust. So far
well. Every blow dealt to these two monster-species is
useful and worthy of the French armies. But in dealing
the blow, it is right to have a wise object in view. Is it
enough to conquer ? No, it is further necessary to turn
the victory to account. This is what you neglected to
do in Vendemiaire. We read these words in the address
of Solignac, which has just appeared under the name of
the first division of the army of the interior. The men of
the\3th Vendttmiare combatted for the Government. It
is a sad truth that, and perhaps the only truth contained
in that contemptible document. The vile Adjutant Solignac
was equally worthy of drawing it up, as he was of com
mitting the forgery of attaching the name of the army
of the interior to his servile effusion. Yes ! unfortunately
you combatted and conquered in Vendemiaire only for
the Government ! You might have rendered the victory
fruitful and decisive for the people and for yourselves ;
instead of which, the Government for whom you tri
umphed has shown you its gratitude by making both the
people and you worse slaves than you were before. Will
vou not be' wiser when the like occasion offers again ?
Will it net be for the people that you will then combat ?
I cannot believe that this degrading language— that these
grovelling phrases which the dishonoured Solignac has
put into your mouths can express your real sentiments !
What ! you could have said, it is our chiefs who direct
our bayonets ! our hands are armed in favour of the
depositaries of the national authority ! . . . .we are the
protectors . . . .of the Government ! Gods ! this lan
guage of slaves to be spoken by republican soldiers ! —
their lips to be soiled by these liberticidal blasphemies !
It is you who could have said — " Governors! usurpers of
"the people's rights! be tranquil, fear nothing 
" despise the almost unanimous cry raised against you

354 babeuf's conspiracy.
" both by tnis indignant people and its resolute Tribunes ;
" close your ears to all its complaints, trample under
" foot its importunate remonstrances against your op-
" pression, which, after all, it is born to support. Tyrants!
" we are your soldiers — we will maintain your despotism
" and all your brigand acts — we will crush — if necessary
" we will fulminate upon our fathers and brothers! — we
" will rip up the bellies of our sisters and mothers !. .we
" will exterminate our children 
" to maintain your insupportable and unparalleled domi-
" nation. Our duty is to aid you to consolidate the
" slavery of the country ; our own chains ought to be
" rivetted by our own hands ! For what else are we but
" moving machines, living puppets, senseless automatons,
" who are blindly to obey every impulse of our leaders?
'" It is our chiefs who direct our bayonets. . . . We are
" the protectors of the Government ! Besides, are we
" not well enough paid for it? What have we to com-
" plain of? Have we not for some time a double and
" triple pittance of brandy ? What is there to put in
" the balance against that? What signifies it that for
" this inestimable douceur we are required to chain down
" our contemporaries and posterity ? What signifies it
" that soon — in a month, in a week, perhaps, or it may
" be to-morrow — our families and ourselves shall have
" nothing ? We have brandy to-day — that is everything.
" Formerly, indeed, we had been promised (and even
" assured by solemn decrees) possessions — lands — pen-
" sions — but are we born for such advantages ? Is it
" not folly to believe that the Revolution was made for
"us? By the way, of our chiefs — ought we not to be
" sufficiently flattered at seeing the Directory give our
" General Buonaparte 800,000 francs to furnish his
"house? To Duvigneau, chief of our staff, a most
" gorgeous carriage and equipage.*
* It is said that the same corrupting means were tried with
Jourdan. It is added, that to render them effectual, or propor
tionate to the degree of resistance anticipated on the part of this
General, the means employed to win him were somewliat more
seductive than those employed for the rest. Keport speaks of six
beautiful steeds, and of a complete suit of armour — of magnificent
galas at the house of Baron de Benezech — of brilliant fetes given

babeuf's conspiracy. 355
" All that is charming. All that ought to glad the sight
" of the soldier, and no doubt it is enough for him to
" have his eyes feasted with such a spectacle. What
" more do we want? — we, the greater part of us miserable
" peasants, sons of workmen, and the scum of society ?
'* Our fathers were a herd of canaille, who thought them-
'' selves too happy to be allowed to admire the gen-
" tilities of their lords and masters. It was even a favour
" to suffer them to look the 'respectable' folk in the
" face. Their happiness consisted in doing each the
" work of four, in never more than half-satisfying their
" hunger, and in having the satisfaction of knowing that
" the fruits of their sweat gave superfluities of pleasure
" and enjoyment to a small number of debauchees,
¦' abandoned to every vice. What more do we demand I
" Are we not the descendants of this populace ? And
'is it not this populace which caused us to be born
" with naked breech? Wherefore we ought to pretend
" to no other rights than they had. Why talk to us of
" lands and pensions to reward our exploits against the
" enemies of the Revolution? No, no, those rewards
'' were not made for us. They were very good to
" promise at the time it was necessary to tempt us to
" enlist in order to repel the invaders who wished to set
" fire to the four corners of France, but we have no
" right to suppose that such promises could have been
" made in seriousness. On returning home to our beg-
" gars of fathers, we ought to expect to be beggars like
" them, to crouch like them under the insolent domi-
" nation ot" the rich ; to be their galley slaves ; to labour
" for vile wages from sunrise to sunset ; to have only
" our sweat to cool and moisten the half-mouthful of
" brown bread dried in the sun's heat! Yet happy
" those of us who will be able even thus to prolong their
"existence! The rest — will go alms-gathering. We shall
" see the lamed, the wooden-legged, those with broken
by this beloved Minister of the Directory to the wife of the hero of
the Army of the North — of the additional and quite peculiar
honour of giving to Cithen-ess Jourdan the arrangement of the car-
.iages of the Luxembourg Court. But it is confidently stated that
*ourdan, little affected by these cajoleries, remains no less the
General of liberty notwithstanding, and that he continues to
merit the confidence of the people and of the soldiers.

356 babeuf's conspiracy.
" jaws and fractured arms, cover the streets and high-
" ways, drag themselves painfully up to the doors of the
" wailowers in luxury, present their humiliating suppli-
" cations to a hundred of them, experience ninety-nine
" refusals, accompanied with outrages, and receive at
" the hundredth door an obolus, the thousandth part of
" what would buy a breakfast-meal of bread. But,
" soldiers of the Republic, let us make a joke of all
" that. The Government gives us brandy now. Let us
" stultify ourselves, and not look to the future. Let us
" not examine even why it gives us this brandy. Let us
" keep aloof from those sad sermonizers who come to
" tell us that the brandy is meant to captivate our blind
" obedience, in order to give to the Revolution a result
" quite opposite to the one for which it was undertaken.
" They say it is to induce us to keep down the people
" who would re-conquer its rights and ours against the
" Government which has usurped all. They say that it
" is in order to afterwards work specially against us ;
" that it is to consolidate and guarantee to the emigrants
" and counter-revolutionists, the restitution of their pos-
" sessions, legitimately confiscated, whicli had been set
" aside for our recompense, and the resumption and
" restitution of which have caused the destruction of the
" assignats and the ruin of the people. They say that
" by supporting the Government in such operations,
" after having concurred in the Revolution, we are now
" consummating the counter-revolution, since we make
" the Revolution turn to the profit of its enemies ; since
" we help them to resume the wealth which had become
" ours, and which, consequently, we more than re-
" nounce for ourselves, by protecting the men who are
" wresting them from our hands. Behold all that these
" folks say who pretend to be more clear-sighted than
" others. But let us not hearken to them. The Govern-
" ment gives us brandy — that is all we want. Let us
" oppress the people, our families, and ourselves — let us
" see only our chiefs, let us hear only their voices,
" they alone ought to direct our bayonets. We are
" but automatons, beasts, barbarians, incapable of re-
" fleeting, of feeling, and of judging. To the right
" face — to the left — behold all that we ought to know.

BABEUF s CONSPIRACY. 357
" Take aim^jire — we ought to ask no questions about
" what is passing before us !"
Such, soldiers of the Kcpublic, is the atrocious and
mad reasoning held out to you. But it is fortunate that
this reasoning is not yours. No, yuu will not be the
assassins of your country, and your own executioners.
You love the people as it loves you ; you will constantly
protect it as it protects you. If it were possible that you
could forget yourselves, that you would not support, that
you would not reclaim your incontestible rights, the
people would reclaim them, would sustain them for you.
You must have already remarked how far from indifferent
it is to your condition, how its fraternal solicitude is in
cessantly occupied with it. Its cares on your behalf, its
alarms respecting your future destiny, reflects the image
of the parent's tenderness for his children. Nay, arp
they not also the reality ? And that affectionate mother,
your country, which never loses sight of you ; which,
with restless eye and soul of love follows you everywhere
in the hazards and perils of glory ; which, when tyrannic
villany, stronger than her benevolence, condemned you
to privations and bad treatment of every sort, payed you
the last tribute of her heart by melting in tears over your
condition — this tender mother, I repeat, takes always the
same interest in your welfare. Doubtless, she will not
find you ungrateful children. Hear what she implores
6f vou by the voice of her popular writers. Hear it again
in the last dying accents of those patriotic reunions dis
solved and proscribed principally for the reason that they
demanded for you what was solemnly promised you in
the fine days of the Republic — in 1793 ! The Society
of the Pantheon rendered itself very culpable in the eyes
of despotism when, in an address to the Council of Five
Hundred, it dared to express these words : —
" The public fortune has been impaired by the indis-
" criminate restitution to the families of traitors, of the
" domains which had been justly confiscated. The
" nation has been, in great measure, abandoned to the
" mercy and brigandism of commerce, and the rich man
" alone has had a patent of privilege for existence. All
" the decrees now emanating from the legislative body
" are tainted with the spirit of last year's system.

358 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
" They augment prejudices and distrusts, instead of
" calming or diminishing them. In establishing dif-
" ferences between the metallic money and the assignat,
" by fixing the proportion at 150 capitals for one, you
" have yourselves given the assignat its death-blow."
The Pantheon ! — soldiers of the country .... At this
sound — at that of Jacobins — those of you led astray by
the prejudices artfully implanted in you by the aristo
cracy, start back as though smitten by some inde
scribable repugnance. Those who appreciate things
better, and who are not susceptible of delusion, know
that those two terms are synonymous with that of best
friends of the people. Again, the same parties ask,
Where are those Jacobins and men of the Pantheon ?
Take courage, my friends ; they are not dead. A troop
in retreat is not routed. Each member of those societies
is still secretly at work for the citizen at home, and for the
soldier under arms. The Pantheon is not at Paris only ;
it is also at every point of the Republic. We, the
Tribune of this entire Republic — an honorary and
affiliated member of all those academies of pure repub
licanism, who collect together the results of their best
labours — to us it belongs to make them known to our
brothers, to show them where are their most solid
bulwarks. Warriors ! go to the north ; seek the real
supporters of your rights in those climates where the
temperature forms geniuses more profound than brilliant,
more perseveringly firm than carried away by momentary
enthusiasm — more frankly zealous to achieve good, than
blessed with the wit of giving us the superfices for the
substance of it. Go to that city which has given birth
to the hero of democracy,* and where your tribune con
summated a term of exile. At Arras is also a Pantheon,
no less plebeian than that which absolute power judged
it expedient to reduce to ruins, in the Central Commune
(Paris). It is there republican soldiers, where you —
where the people — have still courageous and energetic
friends. Read, in consecutive order, what they have
done for you, and tell us whether they do not serve you,
in intention, at least, as well as you could serve your
selves. * [Robespierre was born at Arras.— Bronterre.]

babeuf's conspiracy. 359
Address of the Undersigned Patriots of Arras to the
Council of Five Hundred.
" Legislators! — The intention of the National Con-
" vention in passing the decrees of the 4th and 16th of
" June, 1793, 16th Vendemiaire, 5th Nev6se, 21st
" Pluviose, 24th Floreal, and 13th Prairial of the Year
" II., undoubtedly was to assure to the families of the
" generous defenders of the country the succours re-
" quired for the relief of the pressing wants they expe-
" rience. The excessive dearness of provisions, the
" total discredit of the assignats, in which they are paid
" for, the .want of employment for the labourers, and
" the miserable wages they receive — all these circum-
•• stances must thoroughly convince you that the sums
•• hitherto granted to them are not only insufficient, but
'• immeasurably far from fulfilling the original intention
" of the Conventionalists. . . .Legislators ! to you it be-
• longs to remedy these abuses as disastrous to humanity
" as they are dishonouring to the Republic .... For you
" is reserved the glory of executing the laws recently
•' passed in favour of the brave and courageous de-
" fenders of liberty !.... One decree states that there
" shall be reserved to the amount of 300 millions of
" national domains, to be distributed in shares to each
" of the soldiers, upon their definitive return from the
" army ! The resolution you have latterly taken ex-
" presslv purports that there be excepted from the sale
" of these same possessions, and placed in reserve the
¦• equivalent in value of an effective milliard.* These
" provisions are, doubtless, good ; but they do not
'• suffice to guarantee our soldiers, and the friends of
" equality, against the oscillations of legislative bodies.
" Why may you not ordain the immediate execution of
'- these measures? — measures equally calculated to in-
" fuse new courage into our brothers in arms, as they
' are necessary to make them cheerfully support the
* An effective milliard — that is to say, a milliard paid in specie
(as originally projected when the assignats were at par), would
be equivalent to 3O0 milliards in assignats of the present depreci
ated currency— a sum well worth the trouble of claiming. But
where were the national domains reserved to meet this demand > —
Bronterre.

360 babeuf's conspiracy.
" fatigues and dangers of the war ? Why, in waiting
" for their return, should not their families — almost all
" of them plunged into the most frightful misery— enjoy
" the recompense awarded to the valour of their hus-
" bands, brothers, and protectors? Why should they
" not occupy and cultivate those lands for the posses-
'' sion of which so many heroes have shed and are still
" shedding their blood every day on the frontiers ?. .
" Legislators ! we will not dissemble — we fear there is
" still a design to frustrate and render null an advan-
" tage so dearly earned by the people's blood ! If you
" be sincere, begin by putting a stop to the calumnies of
" the enemies of the Republic ! Hasten to prove to the
" Democrats that the promises made to our warriors
" are not illusory ! Ordain on the spot the distribution
" of the part of the national property which you have
" allotted to their intrepidity ! Procure "for their unhappy
" families the satisfaction of enjoying, beforehand, the
" fruits of their courage! Give to all of them the means
" of immediately raising, on the apportioned lands,
" habitations suitable to receive them, upon the ter-
" mination of their glorious campaigns. Let them
" henceforward only have to offer up vows for the
" prosperity of a state whose glory they will have so
" powerfully contributed to render eternal !" — [Here
follow the signatures.]
Soldiers ! it is the real people which thus speaks for
you ! But it is not for this real people that the present
Government would interest your arms ! It is not to
induce you to serve this people that you are loaded with
false caresses, and that you are primed and plied with
liquors and brandy. On the contrary, it is to determine
you to sell yourselves against the people, that the filthy-
bribes are offered you. How little they know you,
soldiers ! — the wretches who would thus corrupt you.
They judge you by their own standard. They fancy,
because they have themselves signed an odious compact
against the people, that you, too, could be seduced to
participate in their guilt and ignominy. No, no. Be
always the soldiers of the people. Swear by your sabres
to die only for the people. You have seen it ; you will
see it again ; it is equally ready to die for you and with

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY, 361
you. I leave you to day. or otherwise I should offer you
many other testimonials of its friendly wishes, similar to
what the Democrats of Arras have expressed towards
you. In deferring this exposition till another time, I
would meanwhile warn despotism, that on all sides the
voice of liberty and equality soars above all their
humanicidal complots. Let them try again to day to
stifle that voice, together with the energy of those who
are its organs ! Schooled by adversity, exasperated by the
recollection of the deep-laid, refined, multiplied perfidies
of which they have been victims ; forewarned of what
would be their fate if they suffered another defeat, the
Democrats have all fully prepared themselves to resist
any new projects of tyranny. They are perfectly aware
of what art and force they will require against the
villains who have made this encampment around Paris.
Do you also be enlightened, magnanimous warriors,
and you will be neither accomplices nor dupes of the
partisans of oppression. In vain have the usurpers
brought all their trickeries into play ; in vain have they
put all their wiles in requisition. Not one of them shall
succeed. One of their stratagems is to frequently
renovate the army of the interior. When they fancy that
disabused by us, you begin to regard us as friends instead
of enemies, they send you off to a distance ! The columns
which hold us here, as it were, in a state of siege, are
continually and almost every hour relieved by other
columns. To what will all this finessing lead ? Why,
to this — that all the French armies will come in succes
sion to receive instruction at our school, to read our
inflaming papers, and to rend (each in turn) the veil
which prevented them from knowing the truth, and
from forming a right estimate of the villains who de
ceived them and us.
Gracchus Babeuf,
Tribune of the People.
Paris, 10th Germinal, Year IV. of the Republic.

362 babeuf's conspiracy.

PIECE No. XIII.

TO GRACCHUS BABEUF,
Tribune of the People.
Paris, 30th Pluviose, Year IV.
And I too would desire real equality. I am almost
sixty years old — I have nothing, or almost nothing, in
the shape of property — I am burdened with six children,
as yet too young to work — I have the misfortune not to
know any profession or trade — I am neither merchant,
nor courtier, nor stockjobber, nor broker, nor even
clerk in an office. How many pressing motives for de
siring real equality. But, alas — is it possible ? Of what
use to show me this blissful state in so remote and ob
scure a distance, that I despair of ever arriving there ?
How are we to give it existence? Always the word,
and never the thing.
I have read of agrarian divisions of land, but that has
not endured. The cause of this is what needs to be
fathomed. It is not a question of new distribution
merely, but of the durability of such distribution. The
lands are not all that would require to be newly dis
tributed ; and I have nowhere read of even the attempt
being made to distribute the productions of mind and
invention, except in religious communities, or some such
establishments. Shall we divide ourselves into small
communities ? Suppose we do that, and that I bring.
for example, my charming picture, my perfect machine,
my excellent invention, my discoveries in physics, in
chemistry, in hydraulics, in natural history ; my music,
my poetry, my volubility on the violin, the harp, and
the harpsichord ; the harmonious sounds of my voice, etc.
to the general magazine of real equality, along with my
neighbour the cobbler, to receive our equal portions of
good things, such as meat, bread, liquor, &c. ; still this
is not all that is required — it is necessary that such a
state should be durable, that, moreover, it should not
extinguish taste, genius, and the passion for the beau-

babeuf's conspiracy. 363
tiful, and for perfection in the arts and callings. But
suppose me gifted with the self-abnegation of a monk-
capable of renouncing my most pleasurable tastes and
penchants, for the sake of a real equality with my neigh
bour the cobbler — still shall we not need superiors,
priors, abbots, executive directors, &c, for names make
no difference in the matter ? Shall we not want laws,
that is to say, mutual conventions ? Will it not be
necessary to confide to perfectly disinterested chiefs, a
force equal in action to the re-action we must always
calculate on, and calculate too with a precision as nice
as the weight of a turnspit or the spring of a watch.
What a crowd of reflections come to offer themselves
here !
I hear Jean Jacques Rousseau and Mably quoted on
your side. The first has positively said, that to live
under a pure democracy we should be demi-gods. The
second is very far from believing in the possibility of real
equality in a country so extensive, so considerable, and
so well peopled as our's. When I think on it, and I
often think on it, my head loses itself in bewilderment.
Tribune ! — lay us down a plan ; prove to us, in a
clear manner, the possibility of equality; that such
equality can be durable; and show us the positive steps
or means of arriving at it, that is to say, that we may
not continue for years in anarchy; and that, after so
many great movements, after so many painful and fruit
less sacrifices, we may not behold ourselves in a worse
condition than we are at present.* (Signed) M  V.
* [My readers of the Owenite or co-operative school will be
f .rcibly reminded, by the above letter, of the many doubts and
queries addressed to Robert Owen, touching the possibility of re
ducing his system to practice. To all such readers and doubtful
inquirers, the following reply of Babeuf to M. V. will prove a
gratifying treat. — Bronterre.]

364 babeuf's conspiracy.

Babeuf's Reply to a Letter signed "M.V," published
and addressed the 30th Pluviose, to Gracchus
Babeuf, Tribune of the People.
" In a veritable society there ought to be neither rich nor poor."
" The rich who will not renounce their superfluities in favour
of the indigent are enemies of the people."
" The end of the Revolution is to destroy inequality, and to
re-establish the happiness of all."
" Articles 7, 8, and 10 of the Analysis of the Doctrine of the Tribune,
posted up and proclaimed the &0th of this month of Germinal."
The following truths, addressed in reply to the author
of the letter of the 30th Pluviose, ought to have been
published sooner. I am not sorry, however, that par
ticular reasons obliged me to wait till now. The. doc
trine discussed in this paper is more than ever the order
of the day, and I flatter myself that I shall at present
attract a reasonable attention to the greatest of all
subjects which interest man.
Every true Republican ought to rejoice at the doubts
advanced by the Citizen M.V., as to the possibility of
executing the system of real equality. If the contest
engaged in, touching this supreme point of human re
generation, be supported by the friends of liberty with
the same warmth of zeal which they recently evinced in
demolishing the scaffolding of feudality and monarchy,
it is beyond doubt certain that we shall soon witness the
fall of the barbarous system of private properties, and,
as a consequence, the re-establishment on earth of the
happiness of the Golden Age, and of practical fraternity,
which ambition and avarice have hitherto entirely ba
nished from our monstrous societies.
Generous souls! — you who launched into the revo
lutionary career, impelled by the sole love of humanity,
the time is come for attacking with the thunderbolts of
reason, that ever-existing cause of all calamities, of all
tyrannies — individual riches. The doctrine we preach
has in support of it the cool calculations of philosophy,
and the authority of some of the greatest men of an
tiquity and of our own age. It alone offers a reasonable
boundary to the revolution which would be a crime, if
in changing the mere form of oppression it left the mul-

babeuf's conspiracy. 365
titude in misfortunes and servitude, aggravated by the
false hope of mitigation, and consolidated by the in
creased number and perversity of its oppressors.
Before touching on the proofs of the possibility, of the
justice, and of the charms of the system of real equality,
in answer to the doubts of M.V., we must set him
right on a question which he seems to misunderstand,
when, after speaking of the division of lands, he adds,
" the difficulty of the question regards not merely the
division of lands, but to provide that such division be
durable." Nothing of the kind. The system of equality excludes
all division. Nay, it is to this very division, that our
societies — the offspring of the wants, passions, and
ignorance of our ancestors — owe all the tyrannies and
all the afflictions of which we are at present the victims.
Before any of our forefathers could have said that a field
belonged to him, it was necessary that a convention —
express or tacit — should have guaranteed him the enjoy
ment or possession of it. Happy for mankind had that
fatal convention never taken place ! That convention it
was which first introduced into the social state the dis
astrous consequences of force and cunning, of which
there was so much reason to complain in the natural
state.* That it is which has isolated and divided human
kind, which has excited their cupidity, and founded upon
this destructive vice the conservation of societies. That it
is which has furnished force, cunning, and perversity,
with the means of evading the natural conditions of the
social compact, and delivering over simplicity and virtue
to exhausting labour and penury and sorrow. That it
-is which has condemned the producers of all wealth to
every privation, and heaped all manner of luxurious
enjoyment upon the idle. That it is which has subjected
the multitude (constrained to be ignorant) to the snares
of ambition and fanaticism. It is it, in fine, which is
the source of all tyrannies — 1st, Because, were it not
for the hope of wallowing in pleasure without doing any-
* The right of nature differs essentially from what is called the
state of nature. The former is the result of experience and re
flection ; the latter is the offspring of first impressions and of
ignorance.

366 BABEUF:d CONSPIRACY.
thing to earn his living, nobody would desire to be either
a monarch, or a noble, or a governor ; 2d, Because it
is the perfection of perfidy to call men free who, con
demned to labour to exhaustion, without hoping ever to
enjoy, are incapacited to make known their feelings and
sufferings by the want of leisure, and by the constrained
ignorance in which our social state retains them. Behold
why nothing is more contrary to equality and to hap
piness than private property, or the division of lands
which is its fountain-head.
Nay, more — this division of lands to which, according
to some, the maximum of our social happiness is re
ducible, would aggravate the general evil, inasmuch as
it would alarm the egoism of our proprietors, which forms
the only basis of what at present is called public prosperity,
and open the way to the immediate return of disorders
of which it is pretended that it would be the remedy.
Now, let us see what is understood by real equality.
It has for its basis two essential conditions : — work in
common ; enjoyment in common.
In the first place, labour being a necessary condition,
without which society would perish, nobody can evade
his share of it without injustice ; the man who has done
so, has either diminished the public stock of wealth, or
else thrown his own burden upon his neighbour.
Two powerful considerations occur in support of this
system. 1. This common labour would augment the
riches of society, which in the actual state can count
upon the useful labour of only a small portion of its
members. 2. If the general labour were fairly distributed
amongst all the valid members of society, it would deliver
from an insupportable burden those whom we have con
demned exclusively to drudgery, and would transfer to
the rest only a very moderate portion of labour, which
would soon become for all a source of pleasure and
amusement. I do not. comprehend how one can honestly
regard our present state as the best possible, whilst the
great mass of the people lead a more miserable life than
they would in a state of simple nature. Look at the
savage — if he hunts, if he fishes, if he cultivates the earth,
the fruits of his sweat is entirely his own, and he enjoys
all the happiness he knows. Our journeymen operatives

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 367
— our peasants — on the contrary, far from keeping the
enjoyment of their productions, and of tasting the hap
piness of which our civilization gives them the idea, are
obliged to surrender nearly all to greedy and worthless
proprietors, and to a certainty, suffer hunger, thirst, and
the inclemency of the seasons.
Let each work for the great social family, and let each
receive in return the means of living and his fair share of
the general pleasure and happiness. Behold what nature
wills — behold the state in which equality is not a chimera,
and in wliich the liberty of each individual is substantially
assured. You speak, citizen M. V., of the abnegation of all
tastes, of all penchants, of the equality that would take
place between the living of an artist and that of a cobbler,
and of the decay of the fine arts, as so many disastrous
consequences of the system of real equality, whose ab
surdity you would thereby prove. The objection only
proves that you are still enthralled by our old prejudices.
To suppose that to return to equality would be to become
savage and brutal, is only to misconceive its constitution.
To fling in our teeth the scarecrow of abnegations, when
we wish to put an end to the incalculable and perpetual
privations of the majority of the people — when we wish
that the labour of each person should secure him a com
modious and agreeable existence — is either not to compre
hend us, or to show oneself the accomplice of those whom
idleness and hatred of work render the enemies of equality.
It would, to be sure, be an indescribable horror, my
dear M. V., that your bread, your meat, your wine,
and your clothes, should come out of the same magazine
and have the same taste as those of a cobbler ! But
then, why did Nature choose to give to this inferior ani
mal a stomach and senses like yours ? Miserable ! when
you swim in abundance, do you want in addition the
picture of another's griefs to complete your happiness ?
The pretended decay of the professions and the fine
arts is another of the " unanswerable" objections of those
clever persons who would have you believe that the
world is at end the moment you snatch from them their
distinctions, their privileges, and their usurped conside
ration. Assuredly, even if this decay were to take place,

368 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
the mass of the people, who are utter strangers to the
advantages of the fine arts, would not experience any
great inconvenience in consequence. But in truth, no
such event is to be feared, for it is manifest that the arts
would receive, in our system of equality, advancements
of general utility, and a sublime impress conformable to
the grand sentiments which an immense association of
happy beings should necessarily give birth to. The
citizens would be well-fed, well-clothed, well-amused,
without inequality, without luxury ; the Republic alone
would be rich, magnificent, all-powerful.
Some crafts, it is true, whose productions only serve
to relieve the ennui of a very small portion of parasites,
and to pump enormous masses of money into their hands,
should give place to others which would augment the
well-being of the great mass of society. But where is
the man who could regret this happy change? The
sciences and the fine arts once relieved from the goad of
ever-pressing, ever-crippling want, the man of genius
would no longer have any other stimulus than the love
of glory ; and, soon shaking off the yoke of flattery, and
of selfish Mecsenas-like patrons, his only object would
be the prosperity of the social body.
To frivolous poems, to architecture of bad taste, to
pictures without interest, we should see succeed circuses,
temples, and sublime porticos, whither the sovereign
people (at present worse lodged than our brute animals
are) would repair to imbibe, in the monuments and
works of philosophy, the doctrine, the example, and the
love of wisdom.
In this enchanting system, of whose charms I only
pretend to sketch the outlines, we should witness the
solution of the problem — to find a state in which each
individual might, with the least trouble, enjoy the
most commodious life. Thus the very-diversified pro
ductions of all would belong to the mass, who would
afterwards distribute them for the greatest happiness of
each. You see, then, citizen M. V., that it is not pro
posed to condemn men to abnegations, but, on the con
trary, to diminish the privations of the mass. You
ought also to see that in such a state the uprooting of
avarice, having put an end to jealousies, cunning, and

BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY. 369
distrusts, men would be really brothers, strictly interested
in the conservation of an order of things which would
make the happiness of all.
It was due to the French Revolution to put in prac
tical execution the conceptions of philosophy, hitherto
regarded as chimerical. We have commenced the great
work ; let us finish it. Were we to stop at the point
where we now are, humanity and posterity would have
little to thank us for.
In order to pass from our present vicious state to the
one I advocate, it is necessary, —
1 . To place all the existing wealth of the country in
the hands of the Republic.
2. To make all the valid citizens "work, each accord
ing to his capacity and actual habits.
3. To utilize the objects of labour, by bringing toge
ther those which mutually aid one another, and by
giving a new direction to such as are only the effect of
the existing stagnant masses of riches.
4. To bring together (so as to have a continued
supply) into the pubhc depots all the productions of the
land and of industry.
5. To effect an equal distribution of productions and
enjoyments. 6. To dry up the source of all property, of all indi
vidual or private commerce, and to substitute for them a
wise distribution confided to the public authority.
7. To establish common halls of education, in which
each individual should be trained to the employment or
work most suitable to his strength and inclinations.
Thus egoism would be no longer the spring of action
or the stimulus to labour for individuals, who, whatever
the variety and use of their productions, would receive
the same retribution in food, clothing, &c. &c.
From this consequence our rich folk elicit the two
following objections: —
1. The necessity of procuring subsistence, and the
hope of ameliorating our condition in life are the great
sources of labour and reproduction; this necessity and
this hope once destroyed, labour ceases, the spring of
reproduction is dried up, and society perishes.
r 5

370 babeuf's conspiracy.
2. If every species of labour were to receive the same
recompence, there would no longer exist any motive for
pursuing those scientific researches, which produce dis
coveries useful to society.
I answer, 1 st, It is easy to make every one understand
that a few hours' occupation per day would secure to
every individual the means of living agreeably, and per
manently relieve him from those anxieties by which we
are now continually undermined; and surely the man who
, now slaves himself to exhaustion in order to have a little,
would work a little in order to have much. Moreover,
the objection rests entirely upon the disagreeable idea
we are accustomed to form of labour, which, if wisely
and universally distributed, would become in our system
a mild and delightful occupation, of which no person
would have either the inclination or interest to elude his
share. 2d. It is, I think, a well ascertained fact that the
progress of science depends more on the love of glory
than on the avidity for riches; and in this case, our
society, truly philosophic, embodying every possible
means of effectually and impartially honouring its bene
factors, would have therefore a right to expect more from
science than our present corrupted associations, in which
genius and virtue, despised and devoted to indigence,
have the mortification to behold folly and crime almost
invariably loaded with riches and honour.
I have said enough to satisfy my readers in good
earnest, that the principle of avidity and selfishness,
which forms the basis of all our present institutions, is
detestable ; and that to terminate for ever the agitations,
misfortunes, and tyrannies which divide and oppress us'
we must replace ourselves in a veritable state of society^
where each individual, having equal stake and interest^
may derive an equal profit; for all the reasonings of the
political economists will never convince men of sense and
honesty that it is supremely just that those who do no
thing should possess every thing, and chain down, bru
talize, and maltreat those who doing everything, possess
almost nothing.
Citizen M. V. presents as another objection to our

babeuf's conspiracy. 371
system of equality — the necessity of a Government, and
the too large extent of the Republic. The answer is
obvious. 1st. The persons commissioned to preserve this system,
the machinery of which is extremely simple, would be
regarded as workers necessary to the general prosperity ;
and never being able to obtain more enjoyments than
the other citizens (too deeply interested in watching
them) there would be no occasion to fear any attempts
on their part to retain their authority in contempt of the
people's will.
2d. If all the difficulties which prejudices oppose to
the community of labour and enjoyment in a small state
or tribe can be easily vanquished, there is nothing to
prevent the hke result in a great association like the
Republic of France. In the first place, it is readily con
ceived how all the citizens might be employed, each in
his respective locality, and agreeably to the nature of
the soil. As to the equal distribution of objects of con
sumption to all the communes of the Republic, or to all
that might participate in it according to their relations
with the differerent climates, I cannot see why a wise
authority, unembarrassed by the obstacles with which
these sorts of operations are now-a-days thwarted by the
greedy selfishness of governors and governed, could not
execute it with far more satisfaction to all the citizens
than they experience in the actual state of things, aban
doned, as they frequently are, to scarcity and famine,
by the crafty calculations of speculators,
I behold, in the new order of things —
1. The arts placed, by providential institutions, in
the localities where they would be most useful ; and, by
commingling with the agriculturists, working the extinc
tion of those receptacles of every vice, large cities ;
and covering France with villages, adorned with im
mense and happy populations, whose propagation and
multiplication there would be nothing to retard.
2d. Men, enlightened and trained to labour by
education in common — loving their country more than
they at present love their families — and deliberating,
with a knowledge of causes on public affairs — I behold
them giving to the world the first example of democracy

372 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
and virtue, defended with the courage of a lion by an
immense population.
3d. Frenchmen without money, without privations,
without ennui, without blue-devils, without the desire of
amassing against the future — I behold them paying
cheerfully to their country the common tribute ot all —
labour; I behold them luxuriating in the pleasures of
nature, and passing their unoccupied time in the gaieties
of public festivals, in the discussion of laws, and in the
instruction of youth.
4th. Society disenthralled from the litigations, the
hatreds, the jealousies, and all the disastrous conse
quences of private property.
5th. Legislation reduced to a few simple elementary
principles ; reduced, in fact, to the art of augmenting
the knowledge and pleasures of society.
6th. The country, when threatened with danger, able
to find, in the increase of a half-hour's work per day,
more soldiers and resources than can, in the present
order of things, be furnished by all the financiers of
Europe. Oh, my fellow-countrymen ! contemplate this picture
of liberty, of peace, of happiness ! Behold the only
possible remedy for so many distractions, convulsions, and
factions — evils which must terminate either in universal
slavery or universal happiness. What, then, are the pow
erful obstacles to prevent us (upon returning to the ways
of reason) from putting an end to our mutual jealousies,
our fierce contests, and our propensities to destroy one
another ? The stupidity of some, the sloth of others, and
the vicious habits which have puffed with false pride the
hearts of those who look cold-bloodedly on the misery of
their fellow-creatures — the fruit of their baneful opulence
_ — such are the obstacles that mar our progress.
Friends of the country ! patriot philosophers ! to you
it belongs to finish the Revolution. To your reasonings
— to your writings, it belongs to extirpate selfishness —
the source of all misery and woe. To truth, in short, it
belongs to destroy royalism, which, at once the cause
and effect of monstrous inequality, will ever subsist under
any and every form of government, until actual equality
and democracy shall have amalgamated all interests,

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 373
destroyed all partialities, and divested one portion of
society of the anti-social faculty of constraining, harassing,
wounding, and oppressing the remainder.
If power had no interest in opposing the progress of
human sociability, I would regard the success of this en
terprise as certain ; for if we speak clearly and honestly
to the people, I feel satisfied they will immediately de
clare themselves for equality. But whereas such state is
not relished by the vitiated hearts and perturbed imagi
nations of the powerful, those who will have the courage
to fulfil their duties towards the mass, must expect, not
only to be tortured and persecuted in a thousand ways,
but also to be represented (which already happens) as
brigands, incendiaries, and royalists. True, it will with
difficulty be believed that those who have destroyed the
throne, and who cannot endure any inequality, not even
that of idleness and riches, can love royalty the maximum
of inequalities ! But still there will be fools to believe it,
and therefore the patriots must be prepared to bear with
fortitude this new indignity; indeed, unless they shall
make up then minds to risk life itself in defending the
general good, the Revolution will only appear in the eyes
of posterity as a blot on history and a crime on them
selves. It still remains for me to dissipate the last doubt of
citizen 31. V, who tears anarchy in the transition from
the existing- system to that of equality.
Patriots ! join your voices to mine when I exclaim —
Oh ! fellow citizens, let us cast our gold into the sea —
let us all work — let us all enjoy — let us banish idleness
and luxury — and this seductive language, supported by
the reasons of wisdom, will set reform beyond the reach
of all the incertitudes, all the alarms which seemingly
are feared. But were it even true that this transition
should necessarily involveconvulsiveextravagances(which,
however, have never accompanied our great national
movements), I would only call them the last effects of
expiring anarchy. For, properly speaking, disorder and
anarchy do really exist at present in every actual society
in Europe, where, under divers pretexts, and by different
means, the population is despoiled of all its rights. And
surely it would be well worth risking some momentary

374 babeuf's conspiracy.
irregularities, in order to put an end to the present
grand organized and perpetual anarchy, and to establish
a system of prosperity which, realizing the predictions ot
philosophers on the Revolution, would, according to all
appearances, work the utter demolition of the Govern
ments which still disquiet us, because their subjects have
not hitherto discovered in our innovations the clear and
decisive stamp of the general felicity we have so long
heralded and proclaimed.
Paris, 28th Germinal, Year IV. of the Republic.

SUPPLEMENT TO PIECE XIII.
A NEW SONG, FOR THE USE OF THE
FAUBOURGS.*
Air : C'est ce qui me d&soie.
Mourant de faim, mourant de froid,
Peuple depouille de tout droit,
Tout bas tu te desoles : bis.
Cependant le riche effront£,
Qu'epargna jadis ta bonte,
Tout haut, il se console. bis.
Gorges d'or, des hommes nouveaux,
Sans peines, ni soins, ni travaux,
S'emparent de la ruche : bis.
Et toi, peuple laborieux,
Mange, et digere, si tu peux,
Du fer, comme l'autruche. bis.
Evoque l'ombre des Gracchus,
Des Publicola, des Brutus ;
Qu'ils te servent d'enceinte ! bis.
Tribun courageux, hate-toi,
Nous t'attendons : trace la loi
De I'e'galitc sainte. bis.
Qui, tribun, il faut en finir.
Que tes pinceaux fassent piilir
Luxembourg et \ erdne ! t bis.
Le regne de Ve'galite'
Ne veut, dans sa simplicity,
Ni panaches, ni trdne ! f bis.
r Par Sylvain Marechal.
t La royautS et l'aristocratie, dont les chefs residaient au
Luxembourg. t Les panaohes Staient la decoration des membres du directoire.

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 375
Cenes, un million d'opulens
Reuent depuis assez long-temps
Le peuple a la glandee : bis.
Nous ue voulons, dans le faubourg,
ISi les chouans du Luxembourg,
I\i ceux de la Vendee. bis.
O vous, machines ii decrets,
Jetez dans le t'eu, sans regrets,
Tous vos plans de finance : bis,
Pauvres d'esprit, ah ! laissez-nous :
LScgalitc saura sans vous
Rainener Taboudance. bis,
Le directoire executif,
Ln vertu du droit plumitif,
Nous interdit d'ecrire : his*
N'ecrivons pas ; mais que chacun,
Tout bas, pour le bonheur commun,
En bon trere conspire. bis.
Un double conseil sans talens,
Cinq directeurs toujours tremblans
Au nom seul d'une pique ; bis.
Le soldat choye, caresse,
Et le democrate ecrast :
Voila la republique. bis.
Helas ! du bon peuple aux abois
Tiers compagnons, vainqueurs des rois,
Soldats couverts de gloire ! bis.
Las ! on ne vous reconnait plus.
Eh ! quoi ! seriez-vous devenus
Les gardes du Pretoire 1 bis.
Le peuple et le soldat unis
Ont bien su require en debris
Le trone et la Bastille : bis.
Tyrans nouveaux, hommes d'etat,
Craignez le peuple et le soldat
Keunis en lamille. bis*
Je m'attends bien que la prison
Sera le prix de ma chanson ;
C'est ce qui me desole ; bis.
Le peuple la saura par cceur ;
Peut-etre, il benira l'auteur .
C'est ce qui me console. bis.

ANOTHER SUPPLEMENT TO PIECE XM.
Un code infame a trop long-temps
Asservi les hommes aux hommes :
Tombe le regne des brigands!
Sacbons enfin ou nous en sommes.

376 babeuf's conspiracy.
ReVeillez-vous a notre voix J
Et sortez de la nuit profonde, ' T^efTa\,n g(n(ral.
Peuples ! ressaisissez vos droits, £
Le soleil luit pour tout le monde. *
Tu nous cr£as pour etre 6gaux,
Nature, 6 bienfaisante mere !
Pourquoi des biens et des travaux
L'inegalite meurtriere"! — ReveiUez, etc.
Pourquoi mille esclaves rampans
Autour de quatre a cinq despotes 1
Pourquoi des petits et des grands?
Levez-vous, braves sans-culottes. — ReveiUez, etc.
Dans l'enfrance du genre humain
On ne vit point d'or, point de guerre,
Point de rang, point de souverain,
Point de luxe, point de misere !
La sainte et douce egalite
Remplit la terre et la feconde :
Dans ces jours de felicity,
Le soleil luit pour tout le monde,
Tous s'aimaient, tous vivaient heureux,
Goiltant une commune aisance ;
Les regrets, les d6bats honteux,
N'y troublaient point l'independance. — ReveiUez, etc. \
Helas ! bient6t l'ambition,
En s'appuyant sur l'imposture,
Osa de i'usurpation,
Mediter le plan et l'injure. — ReveiUez, etc.
On vit des princes, des sujets,
Des opulens, des miserables,
On vit des maitres, des valets,
La veille tous etaient semblables. — ReveUlez, etc.
Du nom de lois et d'instituts
On revel raffreux brigandage ;
On nomme crimes les vertus,
Et la necessity pillage. — ReveiUez, etc.
Heias ! vos generefix desseins,
Fils immortels de Cornelie,
Contre le fer des assassins
Ne peuvent sauver votre vie. — ReVeillez, etc.
Et vous, Lycurgues des Francais,
O Marat ! Saint-Just ! Robespierre !
D6ja de vos sages projets
Nous sentions l'effet salutaire ;
Deja le riche et ses autels,
Replonges dans la nuit profonde,
Eaisaient r£peter aux mortels :
Le soleil luit pour tout le monde.

babeuf's conspiracy 377
Deja vos sublimes travaux
Nous ramenaient a la nature :
yuel est leur prix 1 les echafauds,
Les assassinats, la torture. — ReveiUez, etc.
L'or de Pitt et la voix de d'Anglas
Ont ouvert un nouvel abime :
Rampez ou soyez scelerats,
Choisissez la mort ou le crime. — ReveiUez, etc.
D'un trop Uthargique sommeil,
Peuples, rompez l'antique charme -.
Par le plus terrible reveil,
Au crime heureux portez 1'alarme.
Prctez l'oreille a notre voix,
Et sortez, etc.
Nota. — Ces chansons furent distributes a la meme epoque, par
les soins du directoire secret.
[These songs were distributed at the same epoch by the care of
the Secret Directory.]

The following English lines comprise the substance,
and are, as near as may be, a literal version of the second
sone:: —
By tyrant codes enthralled, by knaves borne down,
Man stoops to man, and villains wear the crown : —
^Yhe^e is the freeman's voice ? the warrior's steel ? —
Shall we not stoutly fight as well as keenly feel ?
Awake ! arise, at Liberty's command ! —
Th' Aurora of our freedom is at hand,
And slavery's night is o'er, if we'U but bravely stand!
Oh Nature, or whatever power it be,
¦Which said to man, " Be happy and be free .'" —
Say by what strange mischance thy laws o'erthrown,
Have yielded place to slavery and a throne'!
Is there not one will dare assert the cause
Of outraged manhood, and thy broken laws?
How long shall man quail 'neath the despot rule
Of a usurper or a king-born fool 1
Nations ! arise, at Liberty's command,
Th' Aurora of your freedom is at hand,
And slavery's night is o'er if you'll but bravely stand !
In ancient times, when yet our race was young
Nor gold nor war the soul to madness stung,

378 babeuf's conspiracy.
Each in the land possessed an equal share,
Ho kingly luxury known, no gaunt despair ;
Then peace and competence went hand in hand,
Unfear'd the assassin's knife, the foeman's brand —
These days are our's again if we'll but bravely stand!
In those bless'd days when man, of man the friend,
Nor yet had learn'd to borrow or to lend,
Nature on all alike her bounty poured,
No starving wretch was seen, no pampered lord —
Till fraud and priestcraft, by ambition led,
Taught man his kind to hate, his blood to shed;
Then princes, subjects, masters, serfs were known,
And shuddering Freedom fled before — a Thron*. .'
Then started into life the warrior's trade-
Then groan'd th' assassmed sire, the ravished maid!
Pillage and murder still the steps pursued
Of heroes, glorying in the path of blood.
Then first were heard the ravings of despair,
And dying wretches rent with shrieks the air.
Nations ! arise, at Liberty's command,
Th' Aurora of your freedom is at hand —
And slavery's night is o'er, if you'll but bravely stand !
Where is the difference 'tween the serf and peer ?
Why meanly quail ye then with idiot fear ?
Bring front to front the oppressor and oppressed —
Wealth cannot strength import, nor title steel the breast.
Lay on ! lay on ! the death sigh of the brave
Be our's and not the death-bed of the slave !
Nations ! arise, at Liberty's command,
Th' Aurora of your freedom is at hand —
* nd slavery's night is o'er if you'll but bravely stand.

PIECE No. XIV.

A PRESSING WORD TO THE PATRIOTS
Friends! —I did not intend addressing you to-dav.
1 interrupt a work that requires much time, in order to
address you a few urgent words in haste. Give ear to
them ; they interest you exceedingly.
Truth triumphs. All the oppressors are pale. The
eyes of the people are opened by its friends. The army

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 379
sees also. The torrent of popular energy can be no
longer restrained by any dyke or bulwark. Our rulers
have perceived all this, and they have just got upon a
new tack, in order to escape the fall, the expectation of
which is our consolation and their despair.
Within the last ten or twelve days they have dis
covered that persecution and outrages against citizens of
the best character, were no longer efficacious arms in
their hands. They have substituted for them craft and
disgusting cajoleries. The ferocious wolves have trans
formed themselves into supple and cautious foxes. Be
not deceived by it ; they are still and always the same
carnivorous animals ; they have not changed their nature
nor their evil will. They caress you to-day, as it were,
with velvet paws; to-morrow they will devour you if they
can. Hear me as to the points upon which I wish to put
you on your guard.
The emissaries of the Talliens, the Legendres, the
Barrases, and those honest personages themselves, are
in a great flutter, and have all their irons at work to
make you fall into the most abominable of snares ; they
take advantage of the dispositions you have shown
against all the culpable authors of your calamities,
amongst whom they have themselves figured in the first
rank ; they have the impudence to pretend that they were
not amongst your oppressors, or, at least, they affect to
separate themselves from the crew of persecutors who
marched only as they ordered, and agreeably to their
instigations. They dare to insinuate that they are now
ready to constitute themselves avengers of the crimes
which they themselves committed, or caused to be com
mitted ! It is of importance to unmask their designs, to
show you the tendency of their views, and to point out
the new deep abyss they are digging beneath your feet ;
but, antecedently, it is necessary to give you a clue to
their intrigues.
Aux-Fer, and the rest of that crew, have been
hugging a new set of knaves, of whose names we could
here give you the complete list ; but for the present we
content ourselves with signalizing two of them, whose
acts have been most prominent. Rich. . . . and Soul. . . .
(the latter calls himself a man of letters) have been for

380 babeuf's conspiracy.
the last few days employed in tampering with the groups
assembled near the Tuilleries. Admirably do they acquit
themselves of their mission, which is to excite popular
effervescence to an extreme point. They there give out,
to whoever will hear them, that the two councils are,
without exception, composed of villains — that Barras
and Carnot are excellent Republicans, most anxious to
terminate the sufferings of the people, and to save the
country— that there has been, therefore, formed an in
famous plot to assassinate them — that consequently, it is
the duty of the people to rally around them and their
friends, to arm without delay, and to sound the tocsin
(alarum bell).
A true Democrat, whom the emissary Rich  had
set upon within the last few days, on the terrace of the
Tuilleries, in order to inoculate him with his collusory
ideas, was in the act of hearing Rich  's objections
touching " the strange precipitation with which it was
sought to hurry on so important an affair ;" when mean
while they were interrupted by Legendre, of whom
Rich .... inquired the news of the day. The butcher
of Prairial replied, that he did not understand how the
patriots could follow the instigations of the Tribune of
the People, who seemed to single out the best patriots,
such as Barras and Carnot, for his most furious invec
tives ; that it was necessary to fall vigorously only upon
the acknowledged workers of mischief, such as Isnard
and his clique ; that the patriots should unite to anni
hilate these men; but that the little errors and dif
ferences they had mutually to reproach one another
with, ought, for the sake of the common cause, to be
reciprocally forgotten, &c.
Close to where this affair took place, another syco
phant asked a certain other Democrat if he had seen
such a man who possesses influence over a certain
quarter of Paris, hinting that something good was to be
communicated to him on the part of Tallien; and the
intriguer added — " You are a patriot ; you are not an
" intruder amongst us; the mine must spring in a few
'* days, the tocsin must be sounded ; I am in quest of
" the man alluded to, to apprise him of what is pass-
• ing— "

babeuf's conspiracy. 381
The plot is well got up, the bait is not worse laid than
so many others of which you have been the dupes and
victims ; but could you possibly be duped on this occa
sion as on the former ones ? The intentions of the men
who have never ceased to assassinate, starve, and load
you with chains, are manifestly these.
In the first place, to save their guilty heads, upon
which they see that the grand jury of the people, con
vinced of their unparalleled and countless crimes, is
ready to execute the terrible sentence long since pro
nounced against them. They see no other means of
accomplishing this than by feigning to throw themselves
into the arms of the Democrats, whom they flatter them
selves they will be able the more easily to captivate, by
persuading them that the people is incompetent to work
out its own salvation, without the aid of some of the
parties in authority.
But through what means are we to suppose them de
sirous to effect the object of saving their heads ? What
subsequent intentions are we to credit them for ? Have
the patriots the simple good nature to suppose it will be
by frankly serving the democracy, in order to expiate
the infamy of having destroyed it by proceedings the
most criminal, and to obtain from them a generous
pardon on account of this reparation ? Are the patriots
simple enough to believe that these hypocrites would
divest themselves of power, of supremacy, and of the
initiative, during, and after the revolutionary movement,
with the view of living peaceably under simple demo
cratic laws, and under the protection of a sacred
amnesty, awarded them by an indulgent nation ? No,
no ; that is not their plan ; they have no such inten
tions. The truth is, these oppressors have perceived
that the principles of democracy predominate — that
their throne is tottering — that they have lost all con
fidence — that the true defenders of the people possess
that confidence entire — that, in short, the question now
uppermost in the public mind is not whether this or that
party is to succeed to power, but how the evils are to be
remedied which the hypocrites have brought upon us.
Nor must we be foolish enough to believe them, shouM
they even confess (which they do not) that they are

382 babeuf's conspiracy.
willing to expiate their past wickedness by being them
selves instrumental in terminating its horrid results.
No ; we must not suffer these odious beings even to take
a musket and enter our lines as private soldiers. Were
the people of France capable of acting otherwise towards
them, it would be the basest people on earth ; it would
be ever after unworthy that a single individual of courage
and wisdom should devote his faculties to the achieve
ment of liberty.
Citizens ! attend well to this truth. Fear not so much
the Royalists in the senate ; they are rather serviceable to
us than otherwise. Whatever evil they may intend against
us — we are on our guard against it ; and as to their con
test with the opposite party, that is useful to us. When
ever the rulers of a country form but a single party, they
are always strongest, as against the people. The party
of the people must put itself in train to vanquish, single-
handed, both the Royalist party, whose idol is at Verona,
and the Royalist party, whose idols are at the Luxem
bourg, without needing the assistance of one or the other.
It would be folly to pretend to conceal from either our
hostile intentions under pretence of disarming their vigi
lance. These intentions are long since known to them,
and they have tried every means to neutralize and render
them abortive. No longer able to defeat us by force or
opinion, behold why they now resort to stratagem. But
this last resource we will also triumph over. I oppose to
them not masked but open batteries. The geese, the
cacklers, the fools of the faction of prudents will say,
perhaps, that it would be better policy to cover ourselves
with some disguise. I say, it is absolutely necessary,
and the time is come, that the mass of the sans-culotte
army should see the camp, and that its existence can be
no longer concealed from the enemy. It is no longer by
surprise that we either can or wish to vanquish it — it is
in a manner more worthy of the people — it is by open
force. Far from us the vile pusillanimity which would
persuade us that we can do nothing by ourselves, and
that we shall always need a part of the government to be
on our side. Governments make revolutions only for
themselves — only that the governors may always govern.
We, on the contrary, want a real revolution, that will

baeeuf's coNSPin.Ycr. 383
establish the perpetual happiness of the people on the
basis of true democracy. Sans culottes! let us fling
from us all paltry ideas of mere animadversion against
certain men ; it is for bread, for ease, for liberty, that we
have kindled the revolutionary flame. Let us not suffer
ourselves to be imposed upon — let not our attention be
diverted from the real object which interests us. I tell
you, I repeat it to you, it is an error to suppose that you
can effect nothing single-handed and by yourselves.
Never will there be anything great and worthy of the
people done, except by the people, and where there will
be only the people. Make no movement, then, until
you see the men of the people move and appear. Do
not fall into any trap ; look not elsewhere for liberators ;
Tecognise no other standard. Do not allow yourselves
to be abused by that other sophism of the government
spies, who interpret the deceitful inductions of our ene
mies ; they say, they have their soldiers. They lie, the
rascals ! they are our soldiers, not theirs. They are ours
by their very institution, but they are still more so by
their actual dispositions. Yes, the soldier will march
only with us, and for us. So much the better that the
villains, who harass us, have collected a great army here.
Better still should they augment it ; we shall be only the
stronger in consequence. The seed has been sown ; the
good doctrine has taken root amongst our enlisted
brethren, who, like us, are of the people, and who have
but the same cause that we have ; tyranny deceives itself
again in changing them every hour from place to place.
The troops arriving to-day, receive lessons from those
who have been before them, and the troops that are
marched away only carry elsewhere the doctrines we
have inculcated, so that our popular " poison " takes
everywhere. No, no ! it is no longer in the power of
any inquisition, civil or military, to prevent our soldiers
and workpeople from reading writings which they devour
with avidity, and from which they imbibe the leaven of a
democratic contagion the most active and intoxicating.
People ! behold the reason why your own party suffices
for your triumph ; it is because we have you altogether
with us, and already a considerable portion of the sans
culottes, whom the usurpers vainly hoped to seduce

384 BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
against you. Thus shall we all march united on the
people's day, to a certain victory in the train, and under
the sole direction of the men of the people, the moment
they shall give us the signal that such happy day is
arrived.
Gracchus Babeuf,
Tribune of the People.

PIECE No. XV.

THE INSURRECTIONAL COMMITTEE OF
PUBLIC SAFETY TO THE PEOPLE.
Act of Insurrection.
EQUALITY. LIBERTY.
GENERAL HAPPINESS.
The Democrats of France, considering that the op
pression and misery of the people are at their height —
that this state of tyranny and woe results from the acts
of the existing Government ; —
Considering that the numerous crimes of the governors
have excited against them the daily-repeated and ever-
unavailing complaints of the governed; —
Considering that the Constitution of the people, sworn
to in 1793, was placed by the people under the safeguard
of all the virtues ; that, consequently, when the entire
people has lost all its constitutional guarantees against
despotism, it belongs to whatever virtues are most cou
rageous, most intrepid, to take the initiative of insurrec
tion, and to direct the emancipation of the mass; —
Considering that the Rights of Man, acknowledged at
the same epoch (1793), prescribe to the entire people,
and to each portion of it, as the most sacred of rights
and the most indispensible of duties, that of rising
against the Government which violates its rights, and
that they direct every freeman to instantly put to death
lhose who usurp the sovereignty ; —
Considering that a faction of conspirators has usurped

BABEUF s CONSPIRACY. 385
the sovereignty by substituting its own particular will for
the general will, freely and legally expressed in the
primary assemblies of 1793, by imposing on the French
people (under the auspices of persecution and assassina
tion directed against all the friends of liberty) an exe
crable code, called the Constitution of 95, in place of
the Constitution of 1793, which had been accepted with
so much enthusiasm ; —
Considering that the tyrannic code of 95 violates the
most precious of rights, in that it establishes distinctions
among the citizens, interdicts them the faculty of sanc
tioning the laws, of changing the Constitution, and of
assembling together ; limits their liberty in the choice of
public agents, and leaves them no guarantee against the
usurpation of governors ; —
Considering that the authors of this frightful code
have maintained themselves in a state of permanent
rebellion against the people, since they arrogated to
themselves, in contempt of the sovereign will, an autho
rity wliich the nation alone could confide ; that they
have appointed themselves, either by their own act, or
by that of a handful of factious enemies of the people,
some, kings, under the disguised name of directors —
others, legislators, independent of, and irresponsible to
the people; —
Considering that these oppressors, after having done
everything to demoralise the people; after having out
raged, degraded, and proscribed the attributes and in
stitutions of liberty and democracy; after having caused
the massacre of the best friends of the Republic, restored
and protected its most atrocious enemies, robbed and
exhausted the public treasury, sucked the national re
sources dry, totally discredited the republican currency,
effectuated the most infamous bankruptcy, delivered over
to the cupidity of the rich even the last ragged garments
of the poor, who, for nearly two years, have been slowly
perishing of hunger ; that, not content with so many
crimes, they have at length, by an unheard-of refinement
of tyranny, robbed the people of even the right of com
plaining ; —
Considering that they have originated and favoured
plots to foster civil war in the western departments, in

386 babeuf's conspiracy.
deceiving the nation by a patched-up pacification, whose
secret articles stipulated conditions contrary to the will,
to the dignity, to the safety, and to the interests of the
French people; —
Considering, that more recently still, they have sur
rounded themselves with a band of foreigners, and that
the principal conspirators of Europe are at this moment
in Paris to consummate the last act of the counter-revo
lution; —
Considering that they have just disbanded and treated
with indignity such of the battalions which have had the
virtue to refuse being parties to their atrocious designs
against the people ; that they have had the audacity to
send to trial those of our brave soldiers who had displayed
most energy against oppression ; and that to this infamy
they have added the more execrable one of representing
their (the soldiers) generous resistance to the will of tyrants,
as being itself the work of Royalist inspiration ! —
Considering that it would be difficult and unnecessarily
» tedious to follow up and trace completely the populicidal
march of this criminal government, whose every thought,
whose every act is a felony against the nation ; that the
proofs of all these treasons are traced in characters of
blood all over the Republic ; that all the departments are
unanimous in invoking its repression ; that it belongs to
that portion of the citizens in nearest contact to the
oppressors to attack oppression ; that this portion is
accountable to the entire state for the safe protection of
liberty ; and that too long a silence would render it an
accomplice of tyranny ; —
Considering, in fine, that all the defenders of liberty are
prepared ; —
After constituting themselves an insurrectional com
mittee, they take upon their heads the responsibility, and
the initiative of the insurrection, and decree as follows : —
Art. 1 . The people is in insurrection against tyranny.
2. The end of the insurrection is the re-establishment
of the Constitution of 1793, of liberty, of equality, and of
the happinsss of all.
3. To day, and this very instant, the citizens, male
and female, shall proceed from all points in disorder, as
it may be, and without awaiting the rising of the neigh-

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 387
bouring quarters, whose populations they will carry alono-
with them. They shall rally at the sound of the tocsin
and trumpets, under the guidance of patriots to whom
the Insurrectional Committee shall have confided banners
bearing the following inscription : —
CONSTITUTION OF 1793.
EQUALITY. LIBERTY.
GENERAL HAPPINESS.
Other banners shall bear these words : —
" When the Government violates the rights of the
" people, insurrection is for the people, and for each
" portion of the people, the most sacred of rights and
" the most indispensable of duties !"
" Those who usurp the sovereignty ought to be put to
" death bv freemen."
The generals of the people will be distinguished by
tri-cololoured ribands floating in striking profusion around
their hats.
4. All the citizens shall repair with their arms, or want
ing their arms, with any other offensive weapon, under
the sole direction of the aforesaid patriots, to the ren
dezvous, or chief place of their respective arrondisse
ments. 5. Arms of every sort shall be seized and carried off
by the insurgents, wherever they find them.
6. The barriers and the course of the river shall be
sedulously guarded ; no person can quit Paris without a
formal and special order of the Insurrectional Committee ;
there shall be free to enter Paris, only the carriers and
conductors of eatables, to whom protection and surety
will be given.
7. The people shall take possession of the national
treasury, of the post-office, of the ministers' houses, and
of every magazine, public or private, containing pro
visions, ammunition of war, or military stores.
8. The Insurrectional Committee of Public Safety
orders the sacred legions encamped around Paris, who
have sworn to die for equality, to support everywhere the
efforts of the people.
9. The patriots of the departments, who are refugees
s 2

388 babeuf's conspiracy.
at Paris, and the brave destituted * officers, are invited
to distinguish themselves in this holy contest.
10. The two Councils, and the Directory, usurpers of
the popular authority, shall be dissolved. All the mem
bers composing them shall be immediately judged by the
people. 11. All existing authority, ceasing in presence of that
of the people, no pretended deputy, member of the
usurping government, director, administrator, judge,
officer, sub-officer of the national guard, or any public
functionary whatever, shall exercise any act of authority,
or give any order. Those found contravening this in
junction shall be put to death on the spot. Every mem
ber of the pretended legislative body, or director found
in the streets, shall be arrested and conducted forthwith
to his ordinary post.
12. All opposition shall be instantly put down by
force. The parties resisting shall be exterminated. Also
shall be put to death those who will beat, or cause to be
beat, the generale ; all foreigners, no matter of what
nation, who shall be found in the streets ; all the presi
dents, secretaries, and commandants of the Royalist
conspiracy of Vendemiaire, who may dare to show their
faces in public.
13. All envoys of foreign powers are ordered to remain
in their domiciles during the insurrection ; they are under
the safeguard of the people.
14. Provisions of all sorts shall be brought to the
people on the public places.
15. All the bakers will be in requisition to continue
the baking of bread, which will be distributed gratis to
the people : they shall be paid according to their invoices.
16. The people shall take no repose till after the de
struction of the tyrannic government.
17. All the property of emigrants, of conspirators, and
of all the enemies of the people, shall be distributed
without delay amongst the defenders of the country and
the unhappy poor. The poor of all the Republic shall
be immediately accommodated with lodging and furniture
in the houses of the conspirators. The effects belonging
* Destitui (in French) means deposed, or removed from office.

babeuf s conspiracy. 389
to the people in pledge at the pawn-offices shall be gra
tuitously restored on the spot. The French people adopts
the wives and children of the brave fellows who shall
have fallen in this holy enterprise ; the French people
will feed and maintain them ; it will do the same towards
their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and all to
whom the existence of the deceased was necessary. The
proscribed patriots in exile throughout the Republic shall
receive all suitable succours and means to enable them
to return to the bosom of their families. They shall be
indemnified for the losses they may have suffered. The
war against domestic tyranny being that which most
opposes general peace, such of our gallant defenders as
will prove their services in aiding to terminate it shall be
free to return with arms and baggage to their firesides.
They shall, moreover, be put in immediate enjoyment of
the rational recompenses so long promised them. Those
who may prefer continuing to serve the Republic shall
also be immediately rewarded in a manner worthy of a
great and free people.
18. All property, pubhc and private, shall be placed
under the safeguard of the people.
19. The care of terminating the Revolution, and of
giving to the Republic liberty, equality, and the Consti
tution of 1793, shall be confided to a national assembly,
composed of one democrat for each department, named
by the insurgent people on the presentation of the In
surrectional Committee.
20. The Insurrectional Committee of Public Safety
shall remain en permanence until the complete accom
plishment of the insurrection.

PIECE No. XVI.

The Sans-Culotte People of Paris to the Legion
of Police.
Generous Brothers ! — Your signal is heard, your
conduct is approved, your firm resolve gives us joy. The
moment is arrived for shivering the sceptres of the new

390 babeuf's conspiracy.
upstart tyranny ? Has liberty ordained that the times in
which we live shall see the last of universal oppression >.
The people is prepared.
N0i — y0U will not desert us. No— you will not de
part for the frontiers to have yourselves immolated be
neath the steel of foreign slaves, the accomplices of our
slaves. Such is the fate intended for you. Our tyrants
have made a frightful compact with the miscreants we
have been six years combatting against. They have
stipulated to give them a holocaust offering of all the
faithful defenders of the people. Judging by your acts,
you, brothers, deserve to be amongst the first sacrificed.
You have espoused the interests of the people; you have
protested, with the people, against all the crimes of its
oppressors; you have shown that you would not become
part of its executioners, in presence of the bloody pre
paratives marshalled around us by the assassins. Paris
blocked up — Paris threatened to be deluged in blood
and fire, because it complained of being, in common
with the rest of the Republic, starved, despoiled, fa-_
mished, degraded ; Paris, in short, under the yoke of
a handful of barbarian usurpers, is become for all men an
object of compassion and public interest. Dearest com
rades! — it depends on you to save us, and to cover your
selves with glory. You can take the initiative against
the enemies of the people. You will take it. Your
friends, your brethren, your wives, your kinsmen and
parents, invoke you, that while you refuse to expose
yourselves to the massacre intended for you on the fron
tiers, you will not abandon them to another massacre
within those walls. Already have you made the accents
of truth to penetrate the ears and hearts of your en
camped brethren. Your example will perfect their con
viction. They will learn, in despite of all the watch
words and instructions — in spite of all the interdictions
of their officers to prevent their inter-communication
with the citizens — that in the struggle of the people
against its governors, it is the people that are in the
right. They will feel that it is not the people they
ought to immolate. Let us make an appeal to these
brave fellows, and they too will come over to our side.
As to the people, it tells you, itself, that it is prepared.

babeuf's conspiracy. 391
Its leaders are about to give it the signal. It hears them ;
it is by the side of you. Its tyrants are dispersing —
liberty reappears — abundance and prosperity lift their
heads again — the Republic triumphs on all hands, and
effectual measures are taken to render its re-establish
ment perpetual.
9th Floreal.

PIECE No. XVII.

Note to be added.
Convinced how important it is to completely baffle
the Royalists, and to deceive them respecting our real
intentions in the movement which is preparing, in order
to prevent both them and the Government from employ
ing against us, during the movement, their old pre
scriptive epithets of terrorists, jacobins, seditionists,
men of Prairial, &c. I think we should all, from the
outset, have chalked upon our hats — Army of the
people ; down with the tyrants.
Also, there shall be borne three sorts of banners, upon
which will be the following inscriptions — Army of the
people ; down with the tyrants ; vengeance of the
people. This appears to me a capital expedient to make
our very enemies subserve our designs. You may judge
of it by the applauses given at the theatres to the words,
Tremble tyrants, &c. When success shall have de
clared itself for the popular party, it will be then neces
sary to make a theatrical display of banners, as if
descending from the clouds, and bearing the inscriptions,
Constitution of 1793; general happiness ; victory of
the people, &c. In the midst of applauses, and of
bravos (a hundred thousand times repeated), you will
see the insurrection march instinctively to its natural
destination. Thus only can we flatter ourselves with being able to
give to the efforts of all a simultaneous direction against
the common enemy, to turn public indignation to proper

392 babeuf's conspiracy.
account, and to evade the opposition of the Royalist
faction, which might prove very injurious to us at the
commencement of the action.

PIECE No. XVIII.

Address to the Delegate from the Mountainist Com
mittee.
You are aware, citizens, of the efforts of certain De
mocrats to recover the rights of the people ; you are
aware that, in the midst of proscriptions and scaffolds,
we had courage and firmness enough to plead the
sacred cause of humanity, and that we have persevered
up to this moment in confronting all dangers, in order to
form an opposition party against tyranny.
At the epoch of Vendemiaire, we emerged from our
dungeons (where we deserved enough from tyranny to
be buried alive for ever) only to attack it anew ; the
sacred fire was then extinct ; the mass of the people was
royalized; a portion of the patriots subdued, worn out,
degenerated in the prisons, found themselves too happy
in their enlargement to think of aught else ; nay, pre
viously to their discouragement, they were disposed to
make terms with an atrocious and usurped Government
—to serve it even, and to accept its plans and condi
tions. If some few men, still worthy of liberty, repre
sented to them the dishonour and disgrace of such a
compromise, the greater number excused themselves by
something still more disgraceful ; they said, they had a
mental reservation, and that if they fraternized with
their enemies, it was only the better to surprise their con
fidence, so that, when strong enough, they might be
able to overwhelm and extinguish them.
Such conduct was unpalatable to us. We desired to
infuse a sort of chivalrous honour into the war of virtue
against crime. Front to front we attacked the latter ;
we gained over the waverers ; we induced the Repub
licans to play a part more worthy of them, we restored

babeuf s conspiracy. 393
them to their primitive dignity; we unroyalized the
people also ; we disabused them of the false opinion by
which the villains had induced them to believe that their
then deplorable condition was the result of the Repub
lican system ; we succeeded in demonstrating to them,
that, on the contrary, it was the result of the atrocious
reminiscences of royalism, and of the decay of the Re
publican edifice, which, if it had been completed, would
procure them the maximum of happiness. Well, we
had the advantage of bringing about the end sought by
this tuition — that of disposing the patriots and the mass
of the people to overthrow the existing tyrannic Govern
ment, in order to substitute for it one more worthy of
the great Revolution which the French have had the
courage to undertake.
We have felt that revolutionary journals are not suffi
cient to conduct us to our end. It is now several months
since we found it to be our duty to form ourselves into a
committee of several courageous Democrats ; to organize
ourselves insurrectionally, and to organize around us all
the elements necessary to consummate a successful in
surrection. We have done much to effect that purpose. We
think we have" brought together the greater part of the
requisite materials, and made nearly all the arrangements
essential to such object.
We have information as to the places where ammu
nition and arms are to be found, and as to the means of
getting possession of them.
We have lists of the patriots ; of all the men of cha
racter in Paris ; we have the means of effecting a simul
taneous rising of the people at the first signal.
We have more — we have an organization of civil and
military agents fully prepared to act. We have printed
at length the manifesto of our insurection.
In short, the insurrection was ready to burst forth,
when certain information we received, and observations
we caused to be made, led us to some serious reflections.
It is our duty to address you in perfect frankness.
We had resolved, in making this insurrection, to dis
pense with everything which had belonged to the different
National Assemblies. Strangers to all factions, working
s 5

394 babeuf's conspiracy.
only for the people, we had considered it to be of prime
importance to keep aloof from our new Government
everything which might, by reviving former passions
or prejudices, prove prejudicial to the people's complete
regeneration. You will excuse us, citizens, for expressing to you cer
tain truths somewhat strongly — you will ascribe them to
our extreme frankness. We upbraided the Mountainists
with not having fully discharged their duty in the mission
entrusted to them by the people. We reproached them for
not having died in support of the people's rights rather
than submit to see them trampled on. We were further
apprehensive that in calling them once more to the helm
of affairs, we should witness the revival of quarrels and
distracting recriminations — the natural fruits of the old
points of dispute — the leaven of which still exists in the
heads of the majority of them. In a word, we persuaded
ourselves that we could do all and better without them
than with them.
We fancy, however, that within the last few days, we
have acquired, if not a positive proof, at least a very
strong presumption of the contrary, and besides, we are
tender how we risk the ruin of the country. Several over
tures have been made to us, in which we have been told
that, labouring on your side in the same views and objects
as ourselves, you are most anxious to form a coalition
with us for the common object.
We are determined to accept this proposition, and the
more readily, inasmuch as we have been fearful lest your
measures and ours might reciprocally clash with and mar
one another ; and lest (since we must speak it) you might
obstruct our projects at the decisive moment, and lest, on
the arrival of different companies of the people's de
fenders on the ground, they might feel no disposition to
harmonize together, but, on the contrary, add a civil
war, amongst themselves, to all the others which the-
Republic has to sustain against all its different species ot
enemies. A calamity such as that, and all the con
sequences likely to result from it, have filled us with
alarm. We have resolved to prevent them, by accepting
your proffered coalition. We have invited you, for the
purpose of transmitting to you this decision. Most

babeuf's conspiracy. 39^
desirous are we that it may prove agreeable to you, and
that we may come to a good mutual understanding ; that
we may effectively concentrate and combine our means
to save the people, and rescue it from tyranny ; let us
forget everything in order to attain this happy end.

PIECE, No. XIX.

The Directory of Public Safety to the Agents of the
Twelve Arrondissements.
Citizens ! — Never was conspiracy holier than ours,
whether we regard its motives or its end. Neither was
there ever a conspiracy whose agents showed themselves
so worthy of the confidence of which they were made
the sacred depositaries. Never did conspirators labour
in secret against a perfidious Government so long and
so successfully as we have done. In vain has its restless
vigilance racked itself, and exhausted every resource of
inquisition the most atrocious ; not one material proof
has it yet been able to obtain against us.
This result does honour to our choice of you, and
gives us the strongest guarantee for a confidence still
greater, if possible, than that already reposed in you.
With men of your stamp, we need to practice no
reserve. What is engraven in our hearts ought to be
equally famihar to you as to ourselves, and we owe you
the truth complete and entire.
For some days past our correspondence with you is
Jess active on our part The tone of it is less firm, less
decided, more vacillating, than it has hitherto been. A
sort of negligence, of languor, of incertitude, must have
been visible to you in our movements. At what a time,
however! — at a time when, apparently, our vigour ought
to have been redoubled, whilst the patriots and the mass
of the people called aloud for battle, and that circum
stances appeared to offer them many chances of gaining
it. This communication will put you in a condition to
pronounce whether our conduct is not justifiable not-

396 babeuf's conspiracy.
withstanding. If we cannot justify it, it is the duty of
you, and of the patriots you direct, to throw all the
blame on us, and even to punish us for the non-fulfil
ment of our mission.
We might content ourselves with telling you, that in
considering our means of attack, we had well-grounded
reasons for believing them inadequate, and that we,
therefore, felt it our duty to suspend a patriotic out
break, which might only prove the signal of extermina
tion to the Democrats ; and the more strongly, because
the terrible lessons of Germinal and Prairial ought to be
constantly before the eyes of Republicans, and that only
one more similar lesson was required to ruin them for
ever. But this is not the only consideration that stopped us.
We know that in an insurrection we must be daring —
we must be (to so speak) more than rash. Behold
the principal cause of the apparent slowness on our
side. You know we are all desirous that this insurrection
should be the last — that it should, in fact, constitute the
happiness of the people. It was accordingly our duty
to take every precaution capable of assuring this result.
We have wished that the manifesto proclaiming it
should guarantee as the first benefit — as a simple pre
liminary step to the state of felicity we propose for the
people ; we have willed, we say, that this manifesto
should guarantee, in the first place, the distribution
amongst the unhappy poor of the property of all the
conspirators ; that in the next, it should declare that
the unhappy poor would be lodged, and provided with
furniture, in the houses of the conspirators, &c. &c.
In order that these, and other equally advantageous
changes, may be executed, we must assure ourselves
that the power, in passing from the hands of the villains
who now hold it, shall fall into those of true, pure and
absolute Democrats — of men of the people  of the
people's friends, par excellence. How are they to get
hold of this power ? Behold the difficulty which has
stopped, and still stops, us. It is the discussion of this
ticklish point which has forced us to let several oppor
tunities be lost, which might otherwise have been pre-

babeuf's conspiracy. 397
cious to us, and probably determined in our favour the
success of the battle we have to fight.
To gain the battle is nothing, unless we can make
sure of profitting by the victory. Behold why we had
printed a first manifesto to the number of thirty thousand
copies, in which we had laid it down that the Directory
of Public Safety would substitute for the existing tyran
nical authority a national assembly, composed of one
member for each department, chosen from amongst the
most energetic and tried Democrats, of whom the Direc
tory would itself furnish the list to be approved by the
people. This assembly, acting in concert with the Insur
rectional Directory, would have been charged to finish
the Revolution, and to assure the well-being of all.
Numerous considerations subsequently lea us to be
lieve that we should augment our strength and chances
of success by recalling the proscribed deputies of the old
Mountain, who had no share in violating the Constitution
of 1793, and who owed to violence alone the loss of their
seats in the Assembly. We considered that, in the eyes
of the democratic party, these Mountainists constituted
the legal authority, which the people had not superseded,
and which, consequently, did then exist. We did not,
however, dissemble that this section of the Convention
alists was almost as culpable and ruinous to our cause as
the rest; in the first place, for having, after the 9th
Thermidor, permitted and taken part in the counter
revolutionary reaction ; for having allowed the democratic
edifice to be demolished piecemeal, and without oppo
sition ; for not having sounded the alarm on the 5th
Messidor, when the infamous Boissy D'Anglas appeared
in the Tribune, and obtained the adoption of his populi-
cidal code ; for having afterwards had the cowardice not
to protest aloud against this execrable treason ;* in fine,
for having had the egregious baseness to accept (the
greater part of them) missions from this government of
usurpation and oppression. But powerful reasons, which
we will hereafter explain to you and to the people, had
obliged us to close our eyes for a moment to these cir
cumstances, and to make great sacrifices of feeling, in
* These three latter imputations, thus generalised, appear to me
exaggerated.

398 babeuf's conspiracy.
order to secure the aid of men, without whom we felt it
would be perhaps impossible to rescue the country from
the unbearable slavery it endures. We had come, then,
to the resolution to make use of them, but we had, at
the same time, taken measures to secure the people
against retailing under a new tyranny in their hands.
We had agreed to re-establish the less corrupt remnant
of the Convention— that is to say, the proscribed party
(to the number of about 68 members) ; and to raise a
counterpoise to their ambition by uniting to them a new
body, composed of one Democrat from each department,
and whose election, made by us and the people in insur
rection, would present an opposition-front of more than
one hundred Democrats of the most energetic and decided
stamp; moreover, to retain, up to the moment when the
entire people should be placed in secure possession of
tranquility and prosperity, the title and authority of
Insurrectional Committee of Public Safety.
To this effect had we stipulated with the ex-Moun-
tainists ; they had accepted all our conditions, and pro
mised to aid us with all their means. We had, in
consequence, printed 50,000 copies of a fresh manifesto,
and were taking measures to put it in immediate execu
tion. Would you believe it, citizens ? These Conven
tionalists have altered their mind, and have come to tell
us that they will give the patriots no guarantee against
their foreseen tyranny ; they have come to tell us that they
would no longer consent to the adjunction to their body
of one Democrat from each department — that is to say,
they demand the destruction of one despotism only to
put another in its place — to overthrow the existing op
pression in order to set up their own !
In support of their pretensions they urge the most
wretched sophisms, and they count as nothing a single
reason which we consider supreme — it is, that we desire
to subvert the dominion of robbers, only that we may
the better establish that of the people on a durable
foundation. Behold, my friends, a frank explanation of the causes
of our delay. We are still at the same point. These
honest Mountainists hold us in check, and, whether from
ambition or pride, they seem to care little if, whilst they

babeuf s conspiracy. 399
are disputing about terms, the country is exposed to
eternal perdition. It is unfortunate, we repeat, that
circumstances, which we cannot just now explain to you,
place us in the condition of not being able to dispense
with them. The conclusion of this letter is to inform
you that if we can, we shall, nevertheless, dispense with
them, and that if we cannot, we must only direct the
people in such manner as to prevent the evil which they
(the Mountainists) might still cause us ; in a manner, to
oppose to their ambition, in despite of them, the counter
poise they reject.
The people accuses us of inactivity. How lamentable
that we cannot apprise them, as we do you, of what
obstructs us ! Our popular writers could not do it with
out compromising matters of the last importance. In
this position — a most painful one for us — do you at least
undeceive the patriots, not by transmitting to them all
the particularities which we have just now communicated
in exclusive confidence to you, but by assuring them that
their leaders merit their continued trust, and by exhorting
them to be patient, and to sustain their energy, which,
in one way or another, will be released in a very few
days from further restraint.
Die or vanquish is the word. Better, fai better, to
perish in a glorious struggle than to await assassination
in one of the thousand ways which our tyrants employ,
and will employ against us.
Wait, then, in steady expectation of the decisive mo
ment. Be not alarmed one way or the other — whether
you will see the remnant of the Mountain ranged on our
side, or otherwise ; but bear in mind that one of the
most important instructions is to surround the Insur
rectional Committee with a great mass of popular force
at the moment when it may present itself at the sitting
of the resuscitated Convention to make known the
people's pleasure, to the end of assuring the happy
effects of the insurrection ; as also to assure what the
then assembled people will insist on, and expect, at the
hands of the new representation (to be added to the
skeleton of the Convention), in order to effectually ac
complish the regeneration we have in view.
P.S. — Inform us immediately whether you have pre-

400 BABEUFS CONSPIRACY.
pared the standards ; it is a point of detail, but a very
essential one.
N.B.— On the 18th, at nine in the evening.— We learn
this moment that the Mountainists give way to the press
ing arguments we have so repeatedly plied them with.
They consent definitively to all we ask ; accordingly, we
proceed not to lose a moment. The conclusion of our
letter relative to the marching of the people en masse,
in the train of the Insurrectional Committee — this con
clusion, we repeat, holds always, and the measure it
demands is most particularly recommended to you.
Paris, 18th Floreal, Year IV. of the Republic.

PIECE No. XX.

LIBERTY. EQUALITY.
GENERAL HAPPINESS, OR DEATH.
The Author of the Letter of Franc-Libre to his
Republican Brothers of the Executive Directory .
Brother Republicans ! — I have received, with in
expressible pleasure, the instructions and commission of
secondary agent, which your confidence has entrusted
to me, through the medium of our brother, D. T. H.
I hope soon to justify the opinion you have conceived of
me ; if not by my talents, at least by my zeal, my con
stancy, my courage, and, above all, my discretion.
To the particular knowledge I have of Paris, where I
have resided eight years, I unite that, more valuable
still, of the military spirit, which I have studied in all its
bearings, as a Government agent, during seven years,
and essentially during- the campaigns of the present war.
It is in consequence of this practical experience that I
have felt it my duty to draw up the following reflections,
which I submit to your wisdom.
It is a real delusion to suppose that the same stimulants
which operated the insurrection of the military corps in
89, can be still used with effect to work a new insurrec
tion now. The machine has acquired a new form ; we

babeuf s conspiracy, 401
shall, therefore, require a new combination of springs to
put it in motion. I will explain myself.
Under the monarchic regime, the soldier was less a
slave than he is now-a-days, it is true ; but he knew
that he was a slave, because the contrary was never pre
tended to him, and because his officers neglected no
means to remind him of it ; the immense distance there
was between them and him made the latter too acutely
feel his degradation. The consequence was, that in
1789 the soldier embraced the popular cause, far less
from love of liberty and equality, of which he could then
have only a confused idea, than from the inveterate
hatred he bore towards his officers — a hatred whose
explosion was terrible, in proportion as it had been long
pent up. This hatred, this leaven, was then, if not the
only one, at least the most powerful spring which moved
our armies to insurrection ; and this truth is too evident
to be contested.
To-day the case is altogether different ; except in the
superior grades alone, the great mass of officers is com
posed of men formerly privates, who have only their pay
to live upon, which is reduced, for a chief of battalion,
to about eight effective sous per day, which obliges the
major part of them, captains and others, to eat at the
same mess with the privates, and consequently to con
tract the most intimate familiarity with them.
This equality of misery between the soldier and his
officer produces a friendship, an attachment, and a
mutual confidence the reverse of what existed before 89.
The result is, that the soldier, accustomed, like all men,
to judge of his condition by comparing it with that of
others, finds, in respect of his officers, too small a dif
ference between them and him to be envious or jealous ;
and the officer, who is fooled by the hope of an ap
proaching better lot, makes the private participate in
this chimerical expectation, which mutually consoles and
sets both to sleep in a sort of lethargic stupor, Besides,
the existing civil state offers to the majority of military
men a still worse condition than their present one, as
foot soldiers — a circumstance which, in no small degree,
contributes to keep them servilely under the yoke.
But, it will be said, how is it that amongst the officers,

402 babeuf's conspiracy.
who are not all automatons, there are not some few to
open the eyes of their comrades ? How ! the reason is
simple ; all whom real love of liberty, and that alone,
had induced to take arms, have, as far as they were
able, withdrawn from the service since the 9th Thermidor
—that is to say, since the overthrow of the cause they
had undertaken to defend. The impossibility of retiring
had made some still remain ; but the Executive Direc
tory, which will have no soldiers not essentially slaves,
has made these latter retire, by its decree of the 6th
instant, on the new organization of the army. The result
must, therefore, be that we shall have henceforward for
officers, only those vile beings destitute of fortune, of
talents and resources, who, moreover, grown old in
slavery, will be incapable of disobeying, through fear of
losing their epaulettes, which they regard as the ne plus
ultra of their possible good fortune ; only those crea
tures, in short, who, under the reign of kings, thought
themselves honoured in carrying worsted lace on their
sleeves, and in the privilege of striking the privates with
the flat of their swords. Behold a just description of
the officers who alone are relished by the existing
Government. As to the soldiers in genera!, they are no longer those
ardent defenders of liberty we had in 1792 and 1793.
The major part of those brave fellows have fallen on the
bed of honour ; the mass of what remain is composed
of country recruits, who serve liberty as convicts serve at
the galleys. In a battalion of four hundred men you can
seldom find forty privates who know anything of reading
and writing. The youth of our towns, who are some
what better informed, have almost all contrived to escape
from the service. The only aspiration of most of the
soldiers (who, ridiculously enough, are called volunteers)
is to return in all speed to their firesides ; and I can
vouch for it, there are thousands of them who care so
little about the Revolution, that they would willingly
barter the Republic for one of their village-cakes. But
to make amends, we have, on the other hand, about a
third, who, being soldiers by trade, and destined to be so,
no matter under what regime, are fit instruments for any
and every purpose, when one knows how to employ

babeuf's conspiracy. 403
them ; of these the greater part are fool-hardy hot-brains
who always carry along the timid and apathetic by their
ascendant audacity. To put these men in motion, it is
not fine or long speeches that are wanted ; wine, and
the hope of pillage, are sufficient. These are what they
best understand, and without them you must expect no
thing. The Convention knew right well the virtues of
this recipe, and right well it used it on the 1 3th Vende
miaire. The cavalry, in general, is of the class I have just
described to you, more especially the dragoons, hussars,
ai.d chasseurs.
After these observations, I proceed to trace the means
which, in my opinion, it would be expedient to employ
to operate the general resurrection desired.
1st, To vigorously undermine the generals and their
staffs, but to spare the subaltern officers. 2dly, To pro
voke, if not the disorganization of the forces, at least the
utmost possible relaxation of their discipline, in order the
better to operate their dissolution afterwards, if necessary.
3dly, To speak at once of pillaging the rich, and of
absolute disbanding (you will easily know how to evade
your promises afterwards, as circumstances turn out) ;
not, however, to speak too much of absolute equality,
for their chiefs (Chouans as they are) have long since
fortified the minds of the soldiery against that system, to
the degree that they not only deem it impossible, but in
general think it a certain mark whereby to recognise the
Royalists. This will appear strange, but it is not the less
true notwithstanding. And 4th, and lastly, when the
grand day of operation arrives, it would, in my opinion,
be of most essential use to establish balls or dancing
parties in the tea-gardens in the vicinity of the barracks,
whither the soldiers might be attracted, and then, by
plying them with lush, we might artfully work up their
spirits to the proper pitch of exaltation.
These reflections, brother Republicans, I offer you in
the way of consultation. If you find my opinions worthy
of adoption, I pray you to let me know it. I mean*?
occupy myself for the next few days with a work which
I shall entitle, A Dialogue between Jambe-de-bois
(wooden-leg) and Franc-Libre. This dialogue will

404 babeuf's conspiracy.
turn upon the details of the misery and actual degrada
tion of the soldier, compared with the lot he enjoyed in
1792. This work (to be written in the true soldier
slang) will be immediately followed (so far as leisure
will permit me) by another, entitled, Reply of La
Terreur to Franc-Libre.
I have read and re-read your instruction, and I shall
read it again, in order to imbibe its spirit, and to follow
it punctually." I salute you fraternally.
26th Germinal, Year IV.

PIECE No. XXI.

Franc-Libre to the Secret Directory, $c. Sec.
For three decades (thirty days) I had laboured in
vain to find a brother amongst my comrades of the camp
of Grenelle. I already began to despair of success, when
a lucky chance procured me one who is of the sort to soon
procure me other and more substantial ones.
Here is the fact.
I passed some hours yesterday after dinner drinking
over a bottle with Montion (that is his name) lieutenant
of my battalion (a man of oratorical and military abilities,
and an old Flemish soldier.) I had long before surmised
that his principles were good, and it was to sound him that
I took him aside. After a long talk on politics in general,
and after making him drink enough to make him speak
(for he is naturally very discreet), he owned to me, in
that sort of heartfelt effusion which is a certain sign of
frankness, that he had never ceased to be a Democrat ;
but that he had lost the hope of seeing the Republicans
So soon lift their heads again, and that, in consequence,
he, and several of his old Flemish friends, making a
virtue of necessity, affected to appear Government-men.
* This letter is by the traitor Grisel. — [What an accomplished
miscreant ! — Bronterre.J

babeuf s conspiracy. 405
I seized this opportunity to arouse his courage; and
avowing to him that I professed the same political creed
as himself, I gave him to understand that I knew, for a
positive fact, that more than forty thousand sans-culottes
were ready to rise, and that they would have already
overthrown the tyrants, had they not apprehended the
finding themselves in the necessity of combatting u» —
us, soldiers of the Government. I added, that every
thing presaged an immediate insurrection notwithstand
ing, and that to a dead certainty we should be victimized,
like the Swiss on the 10th of August. I said no more,
but that sufficed to produce an understanding between us.
1st, That he would see, to-day, three of his old friends,
whom he knew at bottom, and would engage them to
join him in preparing the troops to second the people at
the decisive moment ; he will enable me to know his
friends, without letting them know me ; he will tell them
(an enssential point) and assure them that there are
already three hundred gained over, but that it is agreed
that they shall be known to one another only in parties
of four and four, in order to avoid the effects of treason ;
At a rough guess, the number may mount up to fifteen
or twenty, of whom three only are officers (for it is the
least accessible grade.) When this little nucleus is
formed, I shall get transmitted to each of them about a
thousand francs in assignats to gain the soldiers, and to
spread insubordination. The way I shall get this money
(for money, I take it, is the grand lever) is this — 1st, I
have in the hands of one of my brothers, at Abbeville,
thirty-five thousand livres in assignats ; these will soon
be here, for a letter is already despatched for them. 2d,
I have a cousin-german, named Ponticourt, a notary in
the street Sainte- Croix de la Bretonnerie, whom I
rarely see, because he is very rich, and consequently a
great royalist ; he has often offered to advance me money
to equip me better than I am now equipped, for, as he
says, I have more the air of a sans-culotte than of a
captain ; I have always despised his offers, as I do his
person, without however breaking or quarrelling with
him, out of a certain regard to his father, &c. &c. I will
go find this cousin — I will tell him that I have just got a
place in the War-office — and will ask him to lend me ten

406 babeuf's conspiracy.
thousand francs to equip myself, a thing he will jump to
do for me.*
17th Floreal,

PIECE, No. XXII.

This piece is the same as Piece XV., except the fol
lowing modifications. Between the fourth and fifth
Considering, read as follows : —
" Considering that the National Convention has never
" been dissolved ; that it was only dispersed by violence
" and by the tyrannic will of a counter-revolutionary fac-
" tion; that it still exists of right ; that it could not be re-
" placed, unless by a legislative body, freely elected by
" the people, and, consequently, according to its demo-
" cratic Constitution."
Between Articles 1 0 and 1 1 , read the following Article,
which becomes the 10th : —
•' The Convention will immediately re-assemble, and
" resume its functions."
The numbers of all the. following Articles augment by
an unit. At the end of Article 1 1 , which becomes the
lath, add these words : —
" The members of the Convention will be recognised
" by a particular sign ; it will be that of a red envelope
" around the form of the hat."
In place of Article 19th, which becomes the 20th,
read what follows : —
" On account of the void which will take place in the
" national representation, inconsequence of the expulsion
" of the usurpers of the national authority ; and by reason
" of the actual impossibility of resorting with effect to
" the primary assemblies, for a choice of representatives
" worthy of the people's confidence, the National Con-
" vention shall forthwith unite to itself one member for
" each department, taken from amongst the most decided
" Democrats, and especially amongst those who shall have
* Tn's. tetter is also by the traitor Grisel, who wrote it after
having given information of the projects of the Democrats.

babeuf's conspiracy. 407
" most actively concurred in the overthrow of tyranny.
" The list of them will be presented by the delegates of
" that portion of the people which shall have taken the
" initiative of the insurrection."

PIECE No. XXIII.

PROJET.
EQUALITY. LIBERTY.
GENERAL HAPPINESS.
The Insurrectional Committee of Public Safety, con
sidering that the people has long been wheedled by vain
promises, and that it is time at length to provide effec
tively for its own well-being — sole end of the Revo
lution :
Considering that the majestic insurrection of this day
ought for ever to destroy poverty — perpetual source of
all sorts of oppression — decrees as follows : —
Art. 1 . When the insurrection is over, the needy citi
zens, who are actually ill-lodged shall not return to their
ordinary dwellings, but shall be forthwith installed in the
houses of the conspirators.
2. The furniture of the aforesaid rich shall be imme
diately used to furnish comfortable accommodation to
the sans-culottes.
3. The Revolutionary Committees of Paris are charged
to take all the necessary measures for the prompt and
punctual execution of the present decree.

PIECE, No. XXIV.

FRAGMENT.
Draught of a Decree concerning the Popular Judgment.
The Insurrectional Committee of Public Safety-
Considering that the punishment of faithless delegates,
and of the usurpers of the national sovereignty, is the first

408 babeuf's conspiracy.
duty which the insurgent section owes to the entire
people ; —
Considering that this punishment ought to be inflicted
in such manner as to strike terror into traitors only, and
to remove from the enemies of equality all pretext for
calumniating the Parisian people ; —
Decrees as follows : —
Art. 1. The usurpation and tyranny of the members
of the two councils, and of the Executive Directory, are
evident. The law* punishes with death the usurpers of
the popular sovereignty.
2. A commission, appointed by the insurgent people,
sits in judgment on the aforesaid individuals.
3. This commission conducts its proceedings in pre
sence of the people ; after having heard the Insurrec
tional Committee, or the accuser named by it, it pro
nounces whether there are grounds for recommending
the delinquent to the mercy of the people.
4- The insurgent people convened by sections, and in
the form to be pointed out, accords or refuses the mercy
demanded. 5. Such and such citizens  actual members of the
two councils, are worthy of the people's confidence ; they
are placed under its special protection.
6. For the purpose of accelerating the punishment of
traitors, each agent of arrondissment names and pre
sents to the acceptation of the assembled people four
citizens per section.
7. The commission is divided into six sections ; each
section pronounces to the number of twenty-two mem
bers. Others replace the absent ; the oldest presides ;
the composition of each section is decided by lot.
8  (Left blank.)
* Article 27 of the Declaration of Rights of 1793.

babeuf's conspiracy. 409

PIECE, No. XXV.

The Secret Directory to the Agents.
All the steps are taken, the measure of our tyrants'
crimes is full to overflowing ; we must rise !
Here are the orders and instructions to which we de
sire you to conform strictly : —
1 . To-morrow morning, at ... . o'clock, you will cause
the tocsin to be rung in all the sections of your arron
dissements, and as many trumpets as you can possibly
procure, to be sounded in the streets. The general-in-
chief will send you some, after the insurrection commences,
if he can take possession of the place where they are de
posited. It were desirable that the platoons, or, at least,
the arrondissements, should be preceded, as they march,
by sound of trumpet.
2. At the same instant you will cause the manifestoes
we send you, to be placarded and spread profusely; and
you will make the mass of the people rise by means of
your agents whom you should have previously apprised.
3. The Directory has nominated the following citizens
to be the people's generals during the insurrection — to
wit, &c. &c. You will cause them to be recognised —
first, by the subalterns whom we have chosen, and after
wards by the entire people, and you will see that then-
orders be punctually followed.
4. You will find herein annexed the list of citizens of
your respective arrondissements, whom, agreeably to the
information transmitted by you, we have deemed most
competent to lead the people to the conquest of its rights.
Each of them shall command one of the platoons into
which the people is to be divided ; the citizen appointed
as chief, shall command the arrondissement ; the sub-
chiefs will command the sections.
5. You will immediately apprise the chiefs of arron
dissements to whom you will make known the names of
the generals they are to obey, and you will enjoin them
at the same time to apprise the sub-chiefs to hold them
selves in readiness, without telling them anything more ;

410 babeuf's conspiracy.
the same intimation shall be given to the commanders of
platoons in whom you can fully rely ; the rest shall be
apprised only at the moment of rising. You are at
jroerty not to employ such commanders of platoons as
you may have reason to suspect or doubt.
6. You will consign to the chiefs, sub-chiefs, and com
manders of platoons, the standards referred to in the
Manifesto. 7. You will order them to take immediate possession
(and at any cost or price) of the arms and ammunition
which may be found at the adjutants' houses and at the
chief stations of the sections.
8. You will make all the cannoneers that may offer
themselves, to muster in a body, that they may be ready
to execute the orders of the generals.
9. You will make choice of energetic patriots, to whom
you will confide the business of haranguing and electri
fying the people. You will, at the same time, turn to
account the pathetic and persuasive eloquence of the
women, whom you will direct, as we have already told
you in our preceding instructions, towards the soldiers,
to whom they will present civic crowns, while they exhort
them (by all the powerful considerations they know so
well how to employ) to mingle and amalgamate with the
ranks of the people.
10. From the instant the effervescence begins, you will
encourage it by causing the report to be spread, that the
camps of Grenelle and of Vincennes have already ranged
themselves on the people's side. It is necessary, that in
fraternising with the people, the soldiers should mingle in
the ranks of the sans-culottes, and that they should
neither march in bodies, nor under the directions of their
officers. 1 1 . You will order the chiefs and commanders to seize,
or disperse all persons attempting to rally to the orders
of the Government, and under the command of the
officers of the National Guard. All warrants, ordon-
nances, or messengers bearing orders from any existing
authority whatever, shall be stopped and arrested.
12. You will be careful to follow and rally the mass of
your arrondissements ; you will set the example of de
votion and courage, and you will render us an account

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 411
every quarter of an hour, by expresses, of the state of
the insurrection.
13. Should the generals order the mass of your arron
dissement to divide itself, you will follow the larger division,
and you will confide the surveillance of the remainder to
some zealous citizen, whose name you will forthwith
transmit to us, and whom you will order likewise to send
us expresses every quarter of an hour.
14. You will communicate all your instructions to
whatever sans-culotte most deserves your confidence, that
he may replace you in case any accident should happen
to you personally.
15. You will order (on our part) three members of the
revolutionary committees of each section of your arron
dissement, who were in activity on the 9th Thermidor,
and who have preserved themselves most incorrupt, to
resume their functions at the first sound of the tocsin.
Failing these, you will choose other patriots, whom you
will charge to take, in concert with us, all the requisite
measures for executing the Insurrectional Act ; above
all, they must occupy themselves with the articles con
cerning the bakers, and the refreshments to be furnished
to the people.
16. You will also order them to forthwith put in re
quisition the horses, mules, and vehicles necessary for
the transport of provisions, ammunition, and the wounded.
In taking possession of the magazines of flour, you will
be careful to establish guards to watch them, and to
secure to the bakers, in the vicinity, a continued supply.
17. The instant the insurrection begins you will send
us (to remain near us) ten armed and resolute sans
culottes of your arrondissment ; they will serve to carry
orders, and in the last extremity we will bury ourselves
beside them under the ruins of -liberty.
18. The Insurrectional Director)' will hold its sittings
at 
19. It will instal the National Convention imme
diately after the insurrection at  You will make
known its existence to the people.
20. You will see that the orders of the generals, for
guarding the barriers, be punctually executed ; and you
will be particularly vigilant that the bridges be guarded,
t 2

412 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
and that all inter-communication be cut off between the
existing authorities.
21. You will take advantage of the first moment of
victory, to make the people of each arrondissement repair
to us en masse, that they may concur in the presentation
of the list of Democrats to be added to the National
Convention, and to support the popular and regenerating
laws which will be proposed by us on the spot, and
drawn up in such a manner as not to leave a single
poverty-stricken citizen in the state.

PIECE No. XXVI.

FRAGMENT
(Of the Draught of an Address to the Victorious
People).
TRIUMPHANT PEOPLE !
Citizens ! — If to command the interest of his
audience, the subject of an orator's address should con
tain matters of the highest importance, never did orator
deserve to be listened to with more attention than I am
about to experience. I implore this attention at your
hands. I beg it, and desire to prepare you for it beforehand,
happy people ! in the name of this blessed day, which
now shines upon us. I would seek to augment it by
intimating that the things I have to address you on, are
more important still than the sublime conquest you have
just achieved. In short, if confidence in him who
speaks, and in those in whose name he speaks, can
augment the degree of application in one's auditors, I
fancy that I do not prejudice my claims on your atten
tion when I announce that at this moment you hear
speak the organ of the Insurrectional Committee of
Public Safety.
People once more free ! people unfettered and vic
torious ! abandon yourselves to unconstrained trans
ports ; your masters are no more ! The time is passed
when in your presence, and while they treated of your

babeuf s conspiracy. 413
liberty, your lives, your dearest interests, they wished to
make a vile automaton of you. We do not ask you —
we do not — to give any signs of approbation or of dis
approbation. Sovereign people! if we betray you — if
henceforward our words were also (like the rest of your
deceivers) to be only the forerunners of our perfidy and
crimes — in the name of our country, and of liberty, do
not suffer us to finish them ; instantly, on the "spot,
rebuke us ; punish us !
Again I deem it suitable to my exordium, people of
France, to declare to you here who the members are of
this Insurrectional Committee of Pubhc Safety, in whose
name I address you. Here are their names ....
France ! it is thy universal self that hearest me ! And
you, my auditors, who, with us, compose her first libera
tors, I have promised you, as well as her, to speak of
matters worthy of this great day — of matters more in
teresting than even the distinguished triumph it has
shone upon. I will state and propose things which will
guarantee the people against ever losing the fruits of this
triumph. It is ever to the people I address myself ; I still see only
the people here. The Insurrectional Act makes mention of
a representation ; such representation does not yet exist,
since it is not yet recognized. It does not as yet exist,
since the people, still in insurrection, continues to exercise
its rights and power undelegated — since all other power
disappears in its (the people's) presence. A representa
tion does not as yet exist, because the fruits of the in
surrection are not yet gathered in, nor even assured to
the people. Citizens, take effective advantage of this
circumstance. Let no old juggling trick illude you. It
is you who are here. I see no senate here ; it is, con
sequently, to you, to you alone, I am going to address
myself; and I repeat, it is important — of sovereign im
portance — that you give me all your attention. The
moment is precious — it is unique — it will never again
arrive. On the use we are about to make of it may
depend our lot for ever.
[The remainder of this address was either lost, or
probably not completed. — Bronterre.]

414 babeuf's conspiracy.

PIECE No. XXVII.

PROCLAMATION TO THE SOLDIERS.
Soldiers ! — The moment approaches to save or ruin the
country for ever ! Our people, wearied under the weight of
afflictions, is about to rise in its wrath against oppression.
It is resolved to destroy tyranny, or expire with liberty.
No ; they cannot be patriots who would longer endure
the existence of a government raised up (against the
people's will) on the tombs of its warmest friends, on the-
violation of its rights, and on the destruction of all popular
laws. The misery of the people has reached its maximum,
and all means of making its voice be heard are taken
away. It no longer has either society or public assembly
to echo its complaints or support its remonstrances. The
councils and the Directory which show themselves so
humane and gracious towards the great, and the re
spectables, have neither heart, nor bowels, nor ears, nor
voice for the people.* If any one speaks or writes for
the latter, he is imprisoned, he is destroyed. No, never
was tyranny more atrocious, more insupportable ; the
people, for whom the Revolution was made, are treated
by our rulers as a vile rabble that must be chained down
for their (the rulers') safety ; and the men, whom such
excessive barbarity revolts — the very men who overthrew
the Bastile and the throne — are called Royalists by these
same villains, in order to deceive and arm the weak and
ignorant against them. By such perfidious Machiavelism
do they hope first to delude, and afterwards bayonet you
as they did in Germinal and Prairial of the Year III.
You are sans-culottes, and you will not fight against
those who, like you, have uprooted royalty ! Listen, and
do not abandon yourselves to illusion.
The people desires the Constitution of 1793, which it
unanimously accepted, but of which it has been perfidi
ously despoiled, through the massacre and incarceration
of the patriots under the name of terrorists. It desires
* Might not one suppose that this description was intended for
our own House of Commons ?— Bronterre.

babeuf's conspiracy. 415
this Constitution, because in abrogating all distinctions of
riches, this Constitution renders all men equal before the
law ; because it assures property and relief to the de
fenders of the country and to the poor ; and because it
authorises the people to put a veto on all laws which
they may deem prejudicial to their interests.
If you are not the friends of kings, of nobles, and of
monied vampires, you will be on our side ; you will not
heed the deceitful language of your staff-officers, who, in
contempt of their oft-repeated oaths, have flung them
selves, body and soul, into the arms of the present go
vernment, because it pays a good price for their baseness,
and above all, because it permits them to exercise over
you the intolerable despotism which you had overthrown
in 1789.
Ah ! little dreamt ye, when you were shedding your
blood on the frontiers to defend the country, what horrors
were meanwhile committed in the interior ! You fancied
vou were fighting for liberty, for the people ; while your
victories, your blood, only served to raise up a new
tyranny — new distinctions — a new insolence on the ruins
of the old despotism.
Look at this Directory! Do you not recognise the
court of the Capets in its insolent pomp, its magnificent
palaces, its numerous body-guard, its arrogance, the pa
rasitical baseness of its courtiers ? And our generals, so
elegantly costumed, do they not exhibit, by their luxury
and disdainful pride, the exact counterpart of the haughty
nobles whose palaces they have usurped? Ah! too well you
now perceive, brave soldiers ! that the Revolution, which
was destined to re-establish equality, has hitherto done
no more than replace a band of old robbers by a multi
tudinous crew of new ones.
Patriotic administrators were guiding the Revolution
towards the relief and comfort of the oppressed poor.
Chiefs, friendly to equality, were leading you to victory ;
they have been destituted under the name of Terrorists.
Terror, which had saved the country, became a crime
and the courageous men who, in the noblest spirit ot
devotion, had braved all dangers, were pointed out tor
the poignardsof counter-revolutionists as the most aban
doned of villains.

416 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
Well! after two years of counter-revolutions, you
ought to be disabused. The Terrorists are those who,
throughout the whole of the Revolution, have been com
batting for the rights of the people ; who incessantly
invoke and demand the promised recompenses for you,
and relief for the distressed poor — who gave death to the
enemies of the people ; they are the men, in short, by
whose sides you have so often made the satellites of
tyrants turn pale. See then, whether we or our enemies
are best entitled to your esteem.
Soldiers ! open your eyes ; you are of the people.
Could you arm against the people? Why this animosity
against your brothers of the Legion of Police? They
are banished to a distance, because they see clearly;
because they will not cut our throats ; in a day or two
you also will be undeceived, and made the subjects of the
like treatment.
Soldiers ! whether with red collars or white collars,
are you not all children and defenders of the country ?
Have you not all fought together for the triumph of
liberty ? Friends, embrace one another, arid turn your
combined arms against the usurpers, who, fearing the just
vengeance of the people, hope to find a support in your
divisions. But should you dare it, the country, your
common mother, exasperated by the blood of your slain
brethren, will overwhelm and crush you under the weight
of her maledictions.
The tocsin sounds.
You are not the Government's soldiers, but the people's
soldiers. It is not the Government, but the people,
that pays you by its sweat and privations ; and should
you arm against the people, as your tyrants pretend
you will, whatever the danger, we will combat you. The
die is cast ; to be silent is the greatest of crimes ; to
endure it now is to sanction the slavery of future gene
rations. We will rise up, and we shall see if you are the
defenders of liberty or the slaves of tyranny. Ah! soldiers,
you, too, are the people, oppressed, miserable like our
selves ; you will, therefore, join our ranks, and help us to
avenge the country of your and her oppressors.

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 417
PIECE No. XXVII. j
Fragment of a Projet, or Draught of a Decree of
Police (left by the Conspirators).
Art. 1. Individuals who do nothing for the country
can exercise no political rights in it. They are strangers
to whom the Republic accords hospitality.
2. They do nothing for the country who do not serve
it by some useful occupation or labour.
3. The law considers as useful occupations : —
Those of agriculture, pastoral life, fishing, and navi
gation ;
Those of the mechanical and manual arts ;
Those of retail dealing ;
Those appertaining to the transport of men and things ;
Those appertaining to war ;
Those of instruction, education, and the sciences ;
4. Nevertheless, the occupations of teaching and the
sciences shall not be reputed useful, if those who exercise
them do not produce, within a given time, a certificate
of civism, delivered after forms to be hereafter regulated.
5. The exercise of political rights is preserved to citi
zens whose useful occupations have been suspended by
the infirmities or circumstances of the Revolution.
6. Foreigners are interdicted from entering the public
assemblies. 7. Foreigners are under the direct surveillance of the
a<iministration in chief, which may temporarily remove
them from their ordinary domicile, and send them to
places of correction.
8. Every foreigner admitted to the rights of hospitality,
becomes an aspirant to the rights of citizenship, if he
enters into the national community. He exercises these
rights as soon as he can present a certificate of civism.
9. The law determines the period after which no one
shall be competent to exercise the rights of citizenship
who is not a member of the national community.
10. All the citizens shall be armed.
11. Foreigners shall deliver, under pain of death,
t 5

418 babeuf's conspiracy.
whatever arms they are possessed of, in the hands of the
revolutionary committees.
12. On the first decadi next following the promulgation
of the present decree, the citizens shall meet in general
assembly to re-organise the National Guard.
13. There shall be formed, within the shortest possible
time, in the environs of Toulon, Valence, Grenoble,
Macon, Metz, Clermont, Angouleme, and Toulouse
camps destined to maintain tranquillity, to protect the
Repubhcans, and to favour reform.
14. For this purpose, the revolutionary committees
shall select, and make depart immediately for the places
designed, four Republicans from each company of the
National Guard, completely armed, equipped, and pro
vided with whatever is necessary for encampment.
15. The provisions or contents of the military decree
are applicable to the above camps.
16. These camps will be broken up as soon as the
new laws may be peaceably executed.
17. The Isles Marguerite and Honore, d'Hieres,
d'Oleron, and de Rhe, shall be converted into bridewells,
or places of correction, whither shall be sent (to be bound
to hard labour in common with other convicts) suspected
foreigners, and all persons arrested in consequence of the
proclamation to the French people.
18. These isles shall be rendered inaccessible; they
shall have administrations directly subject to the Govern
ment. 19. Those of the prisoners who will furnish proofs of
amendment, of activity in the works, and of good con
duct, shall be privileged to re-enter the Republic, and
acquire therein the rights of citizenship.

PIECE No. XXIX.

Fragment of a Draught of an Economical Decree
Art. 1. There shall be established in the Republic a
grand national community.

babeuf's conspiracy. 419
2. The national community holds proprietorship of
the possessions hereinafter mentioned — to wit : —
The possessions which, being declared national, were
not sold up to the 9th Thermidor of the Year II.
The possessions of the enemies of the Revolution,
which the decrees of the Sth and 13th Ventose of the
Year II. had vested in the unhappy poor.
The possessions forfeited, or to be forfeited, to the
Republic, in consequence of judiciary condemnations.
The buildings now in occupation for the public
service. The possessions which the communes enjoyed pre
viously to the law of the 10th June, 1793.
The possessions appropriated to hospitals, charitable
institutions, and establishments for public instruction.
The lodgings occupied by the needy citizens, in
execution of the proclamation to the French on the ... .
The possessions which may be voluntarily abandoned
to the Republic by their present owners.
The usurped possessions of such as have enriched
themselves in the exercise of public functions.
The possessions of which no use is made by their pre
sent holders.
3. The right of succession, whether by inheritance or v
will, is abolished. All the wealth actually possessed by
individuals shall lapse, at their decease, to the national
community. 4. Will be considered as actual possessors the children
of a father now living, who are not called by the law to
form part of the armies.
5. Every French person, of either sex, who makes a
voluntary surrender to his country of all his effects, and
devotes to it his body, and whatever service he is capable
of is a member of the great national community.
6 Old men who have attained their sixtieth year, and
the infirm, if they are poor, are, of right, members of the
national community.
7. As also, all young persons brought up in the
national houses of education.
8. The possessions of the national community are em
ployed in common by all its valid members.
9. The grand national community maintains all its

420 babeuf's conspiracy.
members in an equal and honourable mediocrity ; it pro
vides them with everything they want.
10. The Republic invites all good citizens to contribute
to the success of reform, by a voluntary surrender of their
possessions to the community.
11. After the date of  , no one can be a civil or
military functionary, who is not a member of the said
community. 12. The grand national community is administered by
local magistrates, freely chosen by its members, agree
ably to the laws, and under the direction of the supreme
administration. * * *
13. [The remainder of this projet, like several other
papers of the conspirators, appears to have been lost,
or left imperfect. — Bronterre.]
Of Occupations in Common.
Art. 1. Every member of the national community
owes to it such labour as he is capable of, in agriculture
and the useful arts.
2. Are excepted, old persons of sixty years, and the
infirm. 3. Citizens who, by the voluntary abandonment of
their possessions, will become members of the national
community, shall not be subjected to any painful labour,
if they have attained their fortieth year, and if they did
not exercise a mechanical art before the publication of
the present decree.
4. In each commune the citizens are distributed by
classes. There are as many classes as there are useful
arts ; each class is composed of all those who profess the
same art.
5. There are, amongst each class, magistrates named by
those composing it ; these magistrates direct the works —
see to their equal repartition — execute the orders of the
municipal administration, and set an example of zeal
and activity.
6. The law determines, for each season, the daily
duration of the labour of the members of the national
community. 7. There is with each municipal administration, a
council composed of old men, delegated by each class of

babeuf's conspiracy. 421
workers ; this council enlightens the administration upon
everything which concerns the distribution, the mitiga
tion, and the improvement of works.
8. The supreme administration will apply to the works
of the national community the use of such machines
and processes as are suited to diminish the labour of men.
9. The municipal administration attends to and regu
lates the condition of the workers of each class, and that
of the task to which they are appointed. It regularly
informs the supreme administration of what passes.
10. The displacement of workers from one commune
to another is ordered by the supreme administration,
according to its knowledge of the powers and wants of
the community.
1 1 . The supreme administration condemns to forced
labour, under the surveillance of communes nominated
for the purpose, individuals of both sexes, whose in-
civism, idleness, luxury, and dissoluteness, set pernicious
examples to society — their possessions are appropriated
by the national community.
12. The magistrates of each class cause to be depo
sited in the magazines of the national community, the
fruits of the land, and the productions of art susceptible
of conservation. 13. The new verification of these objects is regularly
communicated to the supreme administration.
14. The magistrates attached to the class of agri
culture superintend the propagation and improving the
breed of animals proper for food; they also see that the
people be well clothed, that they have the means of
transport and conveyance, and that they be supplied with
proper refreshments, and every other means of mitigating
their burdens.
Of the distribution and use of the possessions of the
National Government.
Art. 1. No member of the national community can
enjoy or use anything but what the law assigns him, by
the actual delivery of the magistrates.
'2. The national community guarantees, from this in
stant, to each of its members —

422 babeuf's conspiracy.
A healthy, commodious, and well-furnished habitation;
Clothing for work-hours, and clothing for the hours of
respite, linen and woollen, conformably to the national
costume; Washing, lighting, and firing;
A sufficient supply of food in bread, meat, fowl, fish,
eggs, butter or oil, wine, and other drinks, used in the
different climes or regions; vegetables, fruits, seasoning,
and other articles, the due combination of which con
stitutes a competent and frugal state of comfort. Also,
medical aid and attendance.
3. There will take place in each commune, at stated
periods, repasts in common, at which all the members of
the community will be bound to assist.
4. The keep of public and military functionaries is the
same as that of the members of the national community.
5. Every member of the national community who re
ceives pay, or hoards money is punished.
6. Members of the national community can receive
the common ration only in the arrondissement where they
are domiciled, except in cases of removal authorised by
the administration.
7. The domicile or settlement of actual citizens is that
which they enjoy at the publication of the present decree ;
that of young people, brought up in the national houses
of education, is in the commune where they were born.
8. There are, in each commune, magistrates charged
to distribute, at the respective domiciles, to the members
of the national community, the productions of agri
culture and of the arts.
9. The law determines the rules of such distribution,
10. [Left unfinished.] * * * *
Of the administration of the National Community
1 . The national community is under the legal direc
tion of the supreme administration of the state.
2. Relatively to the administration of the community,
the Republic is divided into regions.
3. A region comprises all the contiguous departments
whose productions are pretty nearly the same.
4. There is in each region an intermediary adminis-

babeuf's conspiracy. 423
tration, to which the departmental administrations are
subordinate. 5. Lines of telegraph accelerate the correspondence
between the departmental administrations, and the inter
mediary ones between the latter and the supreme ad
ministration. 6. The supreme administration determines (according
to law) the kind and quotation of distributions to be
made to the members of the community of each region.
7. Agreeably to this determination, the departmental
administrations make known to the intermediary ones
the deficit or the superfluities of their respective arron
dissements. 8. The intermediary administrations compensate, as
nearly as may be, the deficit of one department by the
superfluity of another, direct the necessary payments and
transports, and render account to the supreme adminis
tration of their wants and superfluities.
9. The supreme administration provides for the wants
of the deficient regions, by the superfluity of those which
have too much, or by exchange with foreigners.
10. Above all, the supreme administration causes to
be previously levied and deposited every year in the
military magazines, the tenth of all the harvests of the
community. 11. It provides that the superfluities of the Republic
be carefully preserved, as provision against years of
scarcity.

Of Commerce.
Art. 1. All private commerce with foreigners is forbid;
any merchandize so acquired will be confiscated to the
profit of the national community ; contraveners will be
punished. .
2 The Repubhc procures for the national community
whatever commodities it wants, by exchanging its super
fluous productions of agriculture and art for those ot
foreign states.
3 For this purpose commodious entrepdts are estab
lished on the frontiers, by land and water.

424 babeuf's conspiracy.
4. The supreme administration negociates with
foreigners through its agents; it makes the latter deposit
the superfluities to be exchanged, in the entrepots, where
it receives from foreigners the commodities agreed for.
5. The agents of the supreme administration in the
entrepots of commerce are frequently changed; pre
varications are severely punished.

Of Transport and Conveyance.
Art. 1. There are magistrates in each commune
charged to direct the transport of communal possessions
or goods from one commune to another.
2. Each commune is provided with sufficient means
of transport, whether by land or water.
3. The members of the national community are called
in rotation to conduct and superintend the commodities
transported from one commune to another.
4. Every year the intermediary administrations charge
a certain number of young people (chosen in all the
departments subordinate to them) with the more distant
transports. 5. Citizens charged with any transport whatever, are
maintained and provided for in the commune where
they happen to be.
6. The supreme administration causes to be trans
ported from commune to commune, by the shortest
rout, under the surveillance of inferior administrations,
such commodities as are required to make up the deficit
of regions which experience a scarcity.

Of Contributions.
Art. 1. Individuals not belonging to the national com
munity are alone subject to contribution.
2. They are liable to the contributions already stated.
3. These contributions will be gathered in kind, and
paid into the magazines of the national community.
4. The total of the quotas of those liable to contribu
tion, for the current year, is double of that of last year.
5. This total will be divided and levied amongst the

babeuf s conspiracy. 425
departments progressively* on all rendered subject
to it.
6. The non-communionists may be required, in case
of need, to pay into the magazines of the national com
munity, on account of future contributions, their super
fluous provisions or manufactured articles.

Of Debts.
Art. 1. The national debt is extingnished for all
Frenchmen. 2. The Repubhc will pay over to foreigners the capital
of the funded debts it owes them. Meanwhile, it appro
priates to its use both the perpetual dividends and the
life-interest annuities payable to foreigners.
3. The debts of every Frenchman, who becomes a
member of the national community, are extinguished as
regards all French claims upon him.
4. The Republic charges itself with the debts due
from the members of the national community to
foreigners. 5. All fraud in this respect is punished with perpetual
slavery.

Of Money.
Art. 1 . The Republic coins no more money.
2. The monied metals, or materials which may lapse
to the national community, will be employed to purchase
the commodities it will require.
3. Every individual not participating in the com
munity, who will be convicted of having offered any
species of money to one of its members, will be severely
punished. 4. There shall be no more gold or silver introduced
into the Republic.
* r * * * * "
* The word progressively has been explained in treating of the
progressive impost. — Bhonterr«.:

426 babeuf's conspiracy.

PIECE No. XXX.

THE LAST LETTER OF GRACCHUS BABEUF.
(To my Wife and to my Children.)
Farewell, my friends. I am about to enter the
night of eternity. The friend to whom I address the two
letters you will see — to that friend I describe my situation
and feelings towards you, better than I can describe
them to yourselves. It seems as if I felt nothing from
feeling too much. I place your fate in his hands. Alas !
I know not that you will find him in a condition to be
able to do what I ask of him ; I know not how you will
be able to gain access to him. Your love for me has led
you here through all the obstacles of our misery. You
have supported yourselves in the midst of pains and
privations ; your constant sensibility has made you
follow every moment of this long and cruel procedure,
of which, like me, you have drank the bitter chalice.
But I know not what steps you mean to take to return
to the place whence you came ; I know not how my
memory will be appreciated, though I am conscious of
having conducted myself in tile most irreproachable
manner. I know not, in short, what is to become of all
the Republicans, their families, and even their little ones
at the breast, in the midst of the royal furies which the
counter-revolution is going to excite. Oh, my friends !
how harrowing are these reflections for my last moments !
 To die for my country. — to leave a family, chil
dren, a beloved wife, would, after all, be more support
able, if I did not behold liberty destroyed, and every
thing that appertains to sincere Reupblicans involved
in the most horrible proscription. Ah ! my dear children!
what will become of you ? I cannot at this moment help
feeling the most intense emotions. . . .Think not that I
feel regret for having sacrificed myself for the noblest of
causes ; even should all my efforts prove unavailing for
it, I have fulfilled my mission ....
If, contrary to my expectation, you can survive the

babeuf s conspiracy. 427
terrible tempest which now rages over the Republic , and
over all that was attached to it ; if you can restore your
selves to a tranquil situation, and find some friends to
aid you to triumph over your bad fortune, I would re
commend you to five well-united together. I would re
commend my wife to endeavour to bring up and guide
her children with mildness, and I would recommend my
children to deserve their mother's goodness, by respecting
and always obeying her. It belongs to the family of a
martyr of liberty to give the example of every virtue, in
order to attract the esteem and attachment of all good
people. I would desire my wife to do all in her power
to give education to her children, by engaging her
friends to yield her all the assistance possible towards
such object. I invite Emilius to comply with this wish
of a father, whom I believe he much loves, and by whom
he was so tenderly beloved ; I invite him to comply
with it without loss of time, and as soon as he possibly
can. My friends, I hope you will remember me, and often
speak of me. I hope you will beheve that you were
always most dear to me. I knew no other way to render
you happy, than by promoting the happiness of all. I
have failed. I have sacrificed myself; it is for you, as
well as for liberty, I die.
Speak often of me to Camille ; tell him a thousand
and a thousand times that I bore him tenderly in my
heart. Tell Caius as much, when he will be capable of
understanding it.
Lebois has announced the printing of our defence in
separate parts ; let mine receive the greatest possible
publicity. I recommend my wife — my sweet friend — not
to give Baudouin, Lebois, or others, any copy of my
defence, without having another perfectly correct one in
her possession, as a security that that defence may never
be lost. You will feel, my love, that this defence is pre
cious; that it will be always dear to virtuous hearts, and
to the friends of their country. The only possession that
will remain to you, from me, will be my reputation ; and
I am sure that both you and your children will derive
much consolation from the enjoyment of it. You will

428 BABEUF S CONSPIRACY.
love to hear it said by all feeling and upright hearts, in
speaking of your husband — of your father —
He was perfectly virtuous.
Adieu ! No more. I hold to the earth but by a single
thread, which to-morrow's light will sever. That is
certain ; too clearly I see it. The sacrifice must take
place. The wicked are in the ascendant; I yield to
them. At all events, it is sweet to die with a conscience
so pure as mine; the only thing harrowing or cruel in it,
is to be torn from your arms, oh, my tenderest friends !
Oh, all that I hold dearest ! ! !  I tear myself away
... .the violence is done  Adieu, adieu, adieu, ten
millions of times, adieu !
One word more. Write to my mother and sisters.
Send them by diligence, or otherwise, my defence as
soon as it is printed. Tell them how I died, and en
deavour to make these good, kind creatures understand
that, far from being dishonourable, such a death is most
glorious. Adieu, then, once more, my dearest, tenderest friends.
Farewell for ever. I wrap myself in the bosom of virtue's
sleep.
Gracchus Babeuf.

THE END.

TO MY FRIENDS AND READERS

Babeuf's letter to his wife and children is the last of
the justificative pieces. I have now concluded a work
which, were I to die to-morrow (leaving unexecuted the
larger and more important ones I am preparing), would
console me for the misspent part of my life. The history
of Babeuf s conspiracy ought to be preserved, if it were
only to undeceive mankind respecting the true character
of the French Revolution, and of the causes which oc
casioned its failure.
My readers are aware that, at the commencement of
the work, I was ignorant whether Buonarroti was living
or dead. Judge my surprise and delight when, some
five weeks ago, a letter, dated Paris, and from Buonarroti
himself, came to apprise me that he was still living, and
to furnish me with a list of the real names of the con
spirators, of which I was previously only able to give the
anagrams. The handwriting of the letter is exceedingly
small — so small as almost to require a microscope to read
it. The following is a verbatim copy, as well as I could
make it out : —
(From Buonarroti to Bronterre.) Paris, May 3, 1836.
Mos Frehe— N'ayant pas encore quitte la vie je suis heureux
de pouvoir vous timoigner la satisfaction que j'ai eprouvee en
apprenant par le prospectus que vous venez de repandre le zele
avec leqnel vous vous-eles determine a publier en Anglais, mon
histoire de la conspiration de Babeuf. Agrees en mes remer-
cimens les plus empresses. Je les dois a l'homme a qui l'amour
de ses semblables fait braver les injures et les persecutions
partage toujours reserve a quiconque ose elever la voix contre les
institutions oppressives, et frayer le chemin aux progres de la
verite et de la justice. Je vois avec une joie veritable, que

430 babeuf's conspiracy.
l'Angleterre a aussi dans son sein des amis sinceres de cette pure
6galit6, pour laquelle j'eus le bonheur de joindre mes faibles
efforts a ceux bien plus glorieux de mes amis qui les sceUerent de
leur sang.
Quoique un ocean de moeurs inv&teiees et de passions viles
olfusquent encore la raison et enchainent les volontes il ne faut
pas d6sesperer — du salut de I'humanitfe. Elle avancera; j'en
ai la conviction, dans la route, de la sociability et du bonheur ; et
nous jouirons dans une vie plus heureuse du bien que nous avons
entrevu, et dont nos successeurs plus sages queleur peres sauront
se mettre en possession. Ci jointe une note des noms veritables
que je vous prie de substituer aux anagrams que des motifs de
prudence, me firent employer lors de la publication de mon
ouvrage. Ces motifs sont aujourd'hui sans valeur, et il est juste
de faire connoitre ceux qui partagerent les travaux et les dangers
de Babeuf.
Mon intention n'est certainement pas de vous parler de moi.
Qu'est ce que l'humanit^ gagnerait a etre exactement instruite des
details, bons au mauvais, de ma vie? je me borne a vous prevenir
que les receuils d'ou vous avez tir6 ma biographie fourmillent
d'anachronismes et des fautes : on m'attribue des choses que je n'ai
pas faites ; celles que je pouvais revendiquer sont ou tronquees ou
mal rendues ; les evenements sont quelquefois deplaces, et la bonne
opinion que vous voulez bien avoir de moi vous a dict£ en ma
faveur des eloges que je suis honteux de ne pas meriter.
Une occasion particuliere que je saisis avec empressement
me fournit la facilite de vous envoyer un essai biographique sur
Robespierre dont la publication me paroit utile ; peut §tre jugerez
vous apropos d'en faire usage.
C'est pour moi une fort bonne aubaine que l'evenement qui m'a
procure votre connoissance ; les hommes de la trempe que vous
paroissez posseder sont assez rares par le temps qui court, et je
me felicity d'avoir appris la science certaine qu'en Angleterre
tout n'est pas avidite de richesses et esprit de Boutique et qu'a
cote" de vos seigneuries et de vos pretres de Plutus il y a des pen-
seurs profonds, des amis devoues du peuple et d'admirables
contempteurs des folies humaines.
Croyez, mon frere, que si vous prenez la peine de m'ecrire je
m'estime raiheureux de cultiver votre connoissance.
Votre devou6 Frere,
Philippe Buonarroti, Age de75 ans.

babeuf s conspiracy. 431

TRANSLATION.

My Brother,— Not having yet taken leave of life, 1 am happy
in being able to testify to you the satisfaction I have felt in learn
ing, through the prospectuses you have distiibuted, the zeal with
which you have determined on publishing, in English, my history
of the conspiracy of Babeuf. Please to accept my most earnest
thanks. I owe them to the man whose love of his fellow-creatures
induces him to brave insult and persecution — the lot always
reserved for whosoever dares to raise his voice against oppressive
institutions, and to pave the way for the progress of truth and
justice. It is with real joy I see that England also contains sin
cere friends of that pure equality, for which I had the happiness
of joining my feeble efforts to those far more glorious ones of my
friends, who sealed them with their blood.
Although an ocean of inveterate habits and vile passions still
obscure reason, and chain down men's wiUs, we must not despair
of the salvation of humanity. It wiU advance, I am convinced, in
the road of sociality and happiness ; and we shall enjoy, in a
happier life, the good which we have dimly foreseen, and of which
our successors, wiser than their fathers, wiU be able to possess
themselves. Annexed to this is a note, containing the real names
(of the conspirators), which I beg you will substitute for the
anagrams that prudential motives made me employ at the time of
pubUshing my work. These motives have no longer any weight,
and it is just to make known the persons who shared the labours
and dangers of Babeuf.
It is certainly not my intention to speak of myself. What would
humanity gain by becoming acquainted with the exact details,
good or bad, of my life ? I content myself with apprising you,
that the compilations whence you have gleaned my biography
abound in anachronisms and errors. Things are attributed to me
which I have not done; those wliich I might justly claim are
either mutilated or badly expressed ; events are sometimes out of
place ; and the good opinion you are disposed to entertain of me
has dictated to you eulogies in my favour, which, I am ashamed
to say, I do not merit.
A particular opportunity, of which I gladly avaU myself, affords
me the facility of sending you a biographical essay on Robespierre,
of which the publication appears to me desirable ; mayhap you
wUl deem it suitable to your purpose to make use of it.
I consider myself very fortunate in the event which has pro
cured me your acquaintance. Men of the stamp you appear to be
are rare enough as times go ; and it is a source of satisfaction to
me to learn, for certain, that in England there is something besides
greediness of riches and the spirit of the shop ; and that, by the side

432 babeufs conspiracy.
of your lordships, and your priests of Plutus, there are to be found
deep thinkers, and admirable despisers of human folly.
Believe me, my brother, that if you take the trouble to write to
me, I will esteem myself happy in cultivating your acauaintance.
Your devoted brother,
Philippe Buonarroti, Aged 75 years.

Bedon . . lisez
Laujen de Dorimel
HannacSombod Glartou
La Tilme
ChintrardVelor
Golscain
RivagreLihppiTismiotLussorillon Reuf
EriddiFilipe le Rexelet . .
Be Naumbet
Adery 'Eris
Crexel
Le Himug
Perrino
AUinoget EuduchoiSasemy

Debon.
Jullien de la Drome.
Chan an.
Bodsom. Goulard, imprimeur (printer).
Maillet, homme de loi (lawyer).
Trinchard, menuissier (carpenter).
Revol, imprimeur (printer).
Solignac, tanneur (tanner).
Gravier, marchand de vin (wine-merchant).
Philp, marin (seaman).
Mittois, homme de lettres (man of letters).
Roussillon, chirurgien (surgeon).
Feru, de Toulon.
Didier, ferrurier (locksmith).
Felix le Pelletier.
Baudement. Beray.Reys, sellier (saddler).
Clerex, tailleur (tailor).
Guilhem, courrier (courier.)
Pierron. Laignelot, ex conventionnel. \ -memDers
Choudieu, idem. >„ otu"?
{.Convention.
Massev.

I have felt it my duty to publish this letter, not only
because it supplies the real names of the conspirators
(which, pro tanto, gives the translation an advantage
over the original), but also because it impeaches the
accuracy of the compilations from which I gleaned the
few facts recorded in my short sketch of the author's
life. As I write only for utility's sake, whatever may be
my own predilections, I owe it to truth not to indulge
them to the extent of misleading my readers. I there
fore avail myself of Buonarroti's own testimony to correct

babeuf's conspiracy. 433
,ny erroneous impressions I may have been betrayed
nto respecting him, leaving it to the reader to judge
iow much of the error (if any) is imputable to the mo-
lesty of the author himself. I will merely observe that
he only sources I have had access to for my biographical
ketch are " Phillips' Biographical Anecdotes of the
Founders of the French Revolution," and some few
English periodicals, including the Quarterly Review in
jarticular. I have distorted nothing, discoloured nothing,
idded nothing to what is contained in these sources. If
[ am wrong, they are wrong — and if I have been too
audatory of the author, it is because I found the friends
uid enemies of his principles equally zealous to do
iomage to his virtues. I expect very soon to have the
pleasure of a personal interview with Buonarroti, in which
:ase I shall avail myself of the opportunity to learn those
details of his life which his modesty prevented him from
aunsmitting by letter. Such details, as also any other
information I may collect in Paris, shall be laid in some
shape before my friends and readers. Bronterre.
P. S. The similarity of Mr. Owen's doctrines to those
for which Babeuf died, induces me to annex the following
locuments to this work. My Parisian and other foreign
readers I know will be mHch gratified by their in
sertion.

434 babeuf's conspiracy.
THE LEGACY OF ROBERT OWEN,
TO THE POPULATION OF THE WORLD.

' Sacred to Truth, without Mystery, Mixture of Error, or Fear of Man."

More than half a century ago I discovered that there was some
grievous error deep in the foundations of society, which created
evil, and prevented the good which man by his nature was evi
dently destined, in some stage of his progress, to attain and per
manently to enjoy.
From that period to the present, I have never ceased honestly
and fearlessly to search for that truth which should enable me to
detect the error, remove the evil, and for ever establish the good.
Having found this truth, and proved it to be such by the only
criterion of truth known to man ; that is, by its undeviating con
sistency with ascertained facts, I now give it to you, that through
its influence you may be regenerated, your minds born again, and
your posterity be made partakers of the endless blessings which
this truth, and this truth alone, can insure permanently for the
human race.
This great truth which I have now to declare to you is, that
the system on which all the nations of the world are acting is founded in
gross deception, in the deepest ignorance, or in a mixture of both. That,
under no possible modification of the principles on which it is based, can
it ever produce good to man ; but that, on the contrary, its practical
results must ever be to produce evil continually.
And, consequently, that no reaUy intelligent and truly honest
individual can any longer support it : for, by the constitution of
this system, it unavoidably encourages and upholds, as it ever
has encouraged and upheld, hypocrisy and deception of every
description, and discouraged and opposed truth and sincerity
whenever truth and sincerity were applied permanently to im
prove the condition of the human race. It encourages and up
holds national vice and corruption to an unlimited extent ; whilst,
to an equal degree, it discourages national virtue and honesty.
The whole system has not one redeeming quality: its very
virtues, as they are termed, are vices of great magnitude. Its
charities, so called, are gross acts of injustice and deception. Its
instructions are to rivet ignorance in the mind, and, if possible,
to render it perpetual. It supports, in all manner of extravagance,
idleness, presumption, and uselessness; and oppresses, in almost
every mode which ingenuity can devise, industry, integrity, and
usefulness. It encourages superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism ;
and discourages truth, common sense, and rationality. It gene
rates and cultivates every inferior quality and base passion that
human nature can be made to receive ; and has so disordered all
the human intellects, that they have become universally perplexed
and confused, so that man has no just title to be called a reason
able or rational being. It generates, under the title of glorious
war, violence, robbery, and murder, and extols and rewards
these vices as the highest of all virtues.
Its laws are founded in gross ignorance of individual man and

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 435
of human society ; they are cruel and unjust in the extreme, and,
united with all the superstitions of the world, are calculated only
to teach men to call that which is pre-eminently true and good,
false and bad ; and that which is glaringly false and bad, true and
good. In short, to cultivate with great care all that leads to per
manent vice and misery in the mass, and to exclude from them,
with equal care, all that would direct them to true knowledge and
real happiness, which alone, combined, deserve the name of
virtue. In consequence of the dire effects of this wretched system upon
the whole of the human race, the population of Great Britain (the
most advanced of modern nations in the acquirement of the means
to create riches, power, and happiness; has created and supports
a theory and practice of government, which is directly opposed
to the real weU-being and true interest of every individual member
of the empire, whatever may be his station, rank, or condition —
whether sovereign or subject. And so enormous are the increas
ing errors of this system now become, that, to uphold it, the
government is compelled, day by day, to commit acts of the
grossest cruelty and injustice, and caU such proceedings laws of
justice and Christian mercy.
Under this system, the idle, the useless, and the vicious govern the
population of the world ; whilst the useful and truly virtuous, as
far as such a system wiU permit men to be virtuous, are by them
degraded and oppressed.
Under this system, those who daily and hourly practise the art
of poisoning the body, deranging the intellects, and reducing in
dividuals to the lowest stage of human existence, are openly
fostered and encouraged, until they build palaces of temptations,
to excite to every conceivable vice and crime, and at the same
time to teach almost a continued language of the vilest and most
demoralizing oaths : whilst those who, to protect themselves and
their helpless families, by their industry and good conduct, from
these dire effects, meet together to aid and encourage each other
in their wise and virtuous proceedings, and engage to do so by
righteous oath, taken solely to unite these, the producers of all
good to society, in a virtuous bond of brotherhood and sisterhood,
are hunted like beasts of prey, incarcerated in demoralising
prisons, subjected to a worse than farcical trial, found guilty by
ignorant and prejudiced individuals, and sentenced to a cruel,
ignominious, and grossly unjust punishment.
Men of industry, and of good and virtuous habits! this is the last
state to which you ought tosubmit; nor would I advise you to allow
the ignorant, the idle, the presumptuous, and the vicious, any-
longer to lord it over the weU-being, the lives and happiness, of
yourselves and families, when, by three days of such idleness as
constitutes the whole of their lives, you would for ever convince
each of these mistaken individuals that you now possess the
power to compel them at once to become the abject slaves, and
the oppressed portion of society, they have hitherto made you.
But all the individuals now living are the suffering victims of
this accursed system, and all are objects of pity : you will, there
fore, effect this great and glorious revolution without, if possible,
inflicting individual evil. You can easily accomplish this most-
to-be-desired object. Proceed with your Lnion on the pnnc.ples
you have latterly adopted; they are wise and just; and wisdom
and justice, combined with your Union, will be sure to render it
for ever legal.
u 2

436 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
Men of industry, producers of wealth and knowledge, and of
all that is truly valuable in society ! unite your powers now to create
a wise and righteous state of human existence ; a state in which the only
contest shall be, who shall produce the greatest amount of permanent
happiness for the human race. You have all the requisite materials
awaiting your proper application of them to effect this change,
and circumstances have arisen within the last week to render
delay a dereliction of the highest duly which you have to perform
to yourselves, to your families, and to the population of the world.
Men of industrious habits, you who are the most honest, useful,
and valuable part of society, by producing for it all its wealth and
knowledge, you have formed and established the Grand National Con
solidated Trades' Union of Great Britain arid Ireland, andit will prove
the palladium of the world. All the intelligent, well-disposed, and
superior minds among all classes of society, male and female, will
now rally round the Consolidated Union, and become members of
it; and, if the irrationality of the present degraded and degrading
system should render it necessary, you will discover the reasons
why you should willingly sacrifice all you hold dear in the world,
and life itself, rather than submit to its dissolution or slightest
depression. For your sakes, I have become a member of your Consolidated
Union ; and while it shall be directed with the same wisdom and
justice that it has been from its commencement, and its proceed
ings shall be made known to the public as you intend them to be,
my resolve is to stand by our order, and support the Union to the
utmost of my power. It is this Consolidated Union that can alone
save the British empire from greater confusion, anarchy, and
misery than it has ever yet experienced. It is, it will daily
become more and more, the real conservative power of society ; for its
example will be speedily followed by all nations, and through its
beneficial example the greatest revolution ever effected in the his
tory of the human race will be commenced, rapidly carried on,
and completed over the world, without bloodshed, violence, or
evil of any kind, merely by an overwhelming moral influence ; which
influence individuals and nations will speedily perceive the folly
and uselessness of attempting to resist.
Experience has forced these important truths into my mind, and
I give them now to the population of the world as the most valuable
legacy that man can give to man.
March 30, 183*.

THE CHARTER OF THE RIGHTS OF
HUMANITY,
Passed at a great Public Meeting of the Producers of Wealth ana
Knowledge, held in the Metropolis on Wednesday, February 12, 1834.
The period has arrived when we, the producers of wealth and
knowledge, have decided that we will not waste any more of
our time or labour on objects of minor importance, which, if
obtained, could effect no permanently beneficial change in our
condition; but that, overlooking the local advantages of class,
and considering only the general and permanent interest of
humanity, we will henceforth devote all our energies to the
•ttainment of those superior objects and advantages developed
in this our RhartAr

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 437
1. A graduated property tax, equal in amount to the full exigen
cies of government, when wisely administered.
2. An abolition of aU other customs, duties, and taxes— national ,
county, and parochial.
3. Free and protected ingress and egress for all persons into and
out of all couniries; and the free interchange of all improvements
and commodities between all nations.
4. Wars to cease ; and all differences between nations to be
adjusted by an annual congress, to be held in rotation in each of
the different states.
5. Liberty of expression of conscientious opinions, upon all
subjects, without limitation.
6. No dominant religion to exist, nor any one to be encouraged
by any worldly temptations whatever ; but all persons to be equally
protected in tiie rights of conscience.
7. S atioual, scientific, physical, intellectual, and moral educa
tion lor aU, who from any cause cannot be otherwise well trained
and cultured in all these respects.
8. N atioual employment for all who cannot otherwise find pro
ductive or beneficial occupation, that thereby the greatest amount
of wealth may be produced for every individual.
9. 1 he children of all classes, without any exception, to be
trained and employed, physically or mentally, to produce fur
society as much as they require from society,
10. National measures to set the poor and unemployed imme
diately to beneficial employments, under arrangements which shall
reform their feelings and habits, and secure their comfort and
happiness. 11. .N ational arrangements to distribute the new wealth, created
by the national employment of the poor and unemployed, bene
ficially for them and the nation.
12. Unlimited freedom for the production and interchange of all
commodities and riches, until more wealth shall be produced than
is necessary for the happiness of the population of every country.
13. A change of the vicious and degrading circumstances by
which the productive classes are now surrounded, for others pos
sessing a virtuous and superior character.
14. The present property of all individuals, acquired and pos
sessed by the usages and practices of old society, to be held sacred
until the possessors shall discover that it can no longer be of any
use or exchangeable value, from the facility with which a surplus
of wealth will be produced for all ; thus destroying the motive to
accumulate individual wealth, as the motive to accumulate water,
where it is in abundance, has been destroyed, although it is the
most intrinsically valuable of aU our wealth.
15. The just rights of both sexes to be universaUy established.
16. The congress of nations to determine on some one language,
which shall be taught to all the children of each state, in addition
to their mother tongue. .
17. Arrangements to be adopted, as soon as practicable, to put
an end to individual and national competition and contest, now
unnecessary, and producing innumerable grievous evils to all
classes.

438 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.

THE RATIONAL SYSTEM.
Experience has proved that man has always been the creature
of the circumstances in which he has been placed, and that it is
the character of these circumstances which inevitably makes him
ignorant or intelligent, vicious or virtuous, wretched or happy.
It is, therefore, necessary to acquire a knowledge ot the influence
which individual and general circumstances have over human
nature ; that is, to learn what particular circumstances produce
among mankind ignorance, vice, and misery, and what intelli
gence, virtue, and happiness ; and to discover how to remove the
former, and to secure the latter ; and this will be acquired by the
study of the following fundamental laws of human nature :—
WHAT HUMAN NATURE IS,
AND THE FACTS FROM WHICH THE RATIONAL SYSTEM OF SOCIETY IS
nERIVED.
1. Man is a compound being, whose character is formed of his
constitution or organization at birth, and of the effects of external
circumstances upon it, from birth to death ; such original organiza
tion and external influences continually acting and re-acting each
upon the other.
2. Man is compelled by his original constitution to receive his
feelings and his convictions independent of his will.
3. His feelings or his conDictions, or both of them united, create
the motive to action called the will, which stimulates him to act,
and decides his actions.
4. The organization of no two human beings is ever precisely
similar at birth ; nor can art subsequently form any two indi
viduals, from infancy to maturity, to be the same.
5. Nevertheless, the constitution of every infant, except in case
of organic disease, is capable of being formed or matured either
into a very inferior or a very superior being, according to the quali
ties of the external circumstances allowed to influence that con
stitution from birth.

ADDRESS OF ROBERT OWEN,
At the Great Public Meeting, held at the National Equitable Labour
Exchange, Charlotte-street, on May 1, 1833, denouncing the Old
System of the World, and announcing the Commencement of the New.
The existing condition of mankind makes it evident to those
who can reflect, and who have been formed with minds capable of
generalizing the ideas acquired from the past and present history
of the human race, that the associations of men, from their com
mencement, have been founded upon a false basis, and that, in
consequence, man has been formed to be the creature of error and
deception, of sin and of misery.
All associations have been based on the supposition that man
possesses the power to believe and to feel according to the bidding
of others ; and that virtue consists in thus believing and feeling,

BABEUF S CONSPIRACY. 439
and vice in refusing so to believe and feel. And by analyzing the
complex proceedings of mankind, it has been discovered that the
system ot forming the human character, and of governing the
human race, derived from these notions, is the only system that
has ever been known in any part of the world, and consequently
is the only one that has yet been practised.
The experience of the past, the only valuable knowledge which
man has acquired, proves that this system continually generates,
and effectually cultivates, all the inferior animal passions— is
opposed to the progress of real knowledge, to natural sincerity, to
all the higher moral virtues, and to the finest and best feelings of
our nature. Also, that as long as this system shall be supported,
ignorance, poverty, and of necessity, sin and misery, must con
tinually pervade all the associations of men ; while pure charity
and affection must remain as hitherto, unknown and unpractised.
Clearly perceiving this wretched state of human existence, and
knowing that all governments are blind to its errors, inconsisten
cies, and wickedness, I have decided, after the most calm and
deliberate reflection, to renounce on this day, thus publicly, in
wL.u may be justly caUed the metropolis of the civilized world,
for myself and my disciples, the entire of this old system, and to
declare my conviction that to countenance it any longer will be
the grossest act of folly and the greatest of all crimes.
1 also thus announce my determination henceforward to advocate
thus openly and fairly another system, founded upon opposite prin
ciples, and leading to a totally different practice.
It is also my determinution to recommend to all who think with
me, to adopt the same course, and now to put these principles into
full practice, and to assert the natural right of all men to act con
scientiously, according to their convictions, as long as their conduct
shall be benencial to the public and not injurious to others.
If the existing laws of this country cannot protect the people
in this moral and only really virtuous line of conduct, it is evident
a despotism exists over the pubUc mind which ought now to cease,
and that the constitu-ion of this and other countries ought to be
changed to meet the improved intelligence of the age.
It is now the time to try the moral courage of men, and to ascer
tain who possesses virtue and knowledge sufficient to abandon
falsehood for truth, folly for wisdom ; yes, the period has arrived
when the moral courage of man will be put to the test, and it will
be proved who are prepared to overcome the mental bondage in
which, hitherto, all have been held from their infancy.
Do you feel desirous to ask me what we of the " Sev; World"
now mean to relinquish, and what to adopt 1
That none may misunderstand our proceedings, or falsify our
intentions, I now thus openly, before the world, declare that— 1.
We abandon aU the false religions that have been forced upon the
liun.an race, founded on the supposition that man, by his will, has
the power to believe or feel as he likes, or to believe contrary to
his convictions, or feel contrary to hi;, nature, at the bidding of
others. L2. We now adopt the only religion which can be true, because
it is derived immediately from the unchangeable and everlasting
laws of nature, which never lie, or deceive the human race. The
basis of this Relicion of Tru-ih, the only one which ever can
conduct man to the practice of pure charity and real virtue, and to
the enjoyment of unalloyed happiness, is the knowledge that the
iaws of nature have given the power to adutt man, so to controul

440 BABEUFS CONSPIRACY.
the mental faculties and physical powers of his infant, as to force
it to receive error, however absurd and inconsistent, or to imbibe
truth only, known to be truth by its undeviating consistency with
the ascertained laws of nature ; and to acquire the most wretchedly
vicious and injurious, or the most highly virtuous and beneficial
habits through life : and thus, through our new religion, we attain
fhe invaluable knowledge of the certain mode by which, without
individual reward, or punishment, or responsibility, to make the
whole human race morally, inteUectually, and physically, either
inferior or superior, good or bad, miserable or happy ; and yet no
two of them is likely ever to be formed to be without various
desirable physical and mental differences.
3. Our future practice will be in conformity with this new re
ligion, as far as the rapidly expiring errors of the old system shall
be removed to admit its adoption, and the evils necessarily ema
nating from this old system we shall now adopt every means to
make manifest to the human race.
4. We shall be opposed to no men, but solely to the old errors,
which in the period of their mental weakness they have been
compelled to receive.
5. In conformity with the principles of the new religion of de
monstrable truth, we shall adore in admiring silence, as alone
becomes man, that, to us, at present, Incomprehensible Power,
which acts in and through all nature, everlastingly composing,
decomposing, and recomposing the materials of the universe, pro
ducing the endless variety of life, of mind, and of organised form.
6. We will not degrade, blaspheme, or merel} humanise this
power, so far beyond man's present knowledge, as to attribute to it
the human form and passions, or any of the qualities of our limited
senses and vague imaginations.
7. Neither will we attempt to force others to receive or ac
knowledge our impressions upon this subject, seeing that up to this
hour similar attempts have confounded and perplexed the human
mind, making man in every district in the world a degraded mental
slave, irrational and miserable. On the contrary, we shall patiently
wait until an evident accurate knowledge of this power shall be
made manifest to all mankind, who will then, by the law of their
nature, be compelled to admire and to love it, in proportion to the
extent and the goodness of the qualities which it shall be discovered
to possess.
By this course of proceeding, dictated bv common sense, or plain
right reasoning from self-evident facts, ail injurious differences of
opinions respecting religion will cease from among men; charity
unlimited will take the place of presumption and violence ; anger,
ill-will, and irritation of all kinds will cease, and in place thereof'
pure love and affection, through a superior education, will be
made to pervade and direct all the proceedings of mankind.
8. Directed by this knowledge and these feelings, we will as
soon as it shall be practicable, form arrangements to create New
Institutions to new form the general character of the rising generation
and to regenerate the existing adult population ; for the period is near
at hand when the minds of men must be born again; when they
shall no longer see as through a glass darkly, but face to face, and
Know each other even as they know themselves.
To effect this change, other arrangements, very different from
those which now exist, wil be formed to insure a superior educa-
SlT,1 ' SU°h aS W1" glve, a new and very superior character
to all children ; arrangements that will preclude any cliild free

BABEUF S CO*SPIRACY. 441
from mental disease, or bodily defect, from acquiring physical,
intellectual, or meral injurious habits 01 qualities ; and that will
render the succeeding generations a superior order of beings,
compared with those who have hitherto lived.
9. As a knowledge of facts has now disclosed to us that, liking
or disliking, or loving or hating, depend not upon the will ot
man, but upon the manner in which his organization is affected
by the ever-varying qualities of external objects, none will be
required to perjure themselves, as they are compelled to do under
the old system of the world, before they can legally enjoy the
natural rights of the sexes, by solemnly declaring that they will
love to the end of life a being who is liable to perpetual change,
and whom they may be forced to dislike or hate before the year
expires. >o! instead of this blasphemy against the laws of
nature, other arrangements dictated by common sense, or right
reason* will be formed to insure all the good that can be derived,
and to avoid all the vice and evil that has been experienced from
the social converse between the sexes. All will then be fully
conscious, and wUl openly acknowledge that pure chastity con
sists in forming this connexion only when affection exists between
the parties, and that it is a vile, abominable, and injurious prosti
tution to form or continue this connexion when there is no affec-
* Many persons grossly mistake our views on the subject of the union
of the sexes. Our object is to remote the causes ol the immense amount
of sexual crime and misery, and consequent physical and mental
disease which now exist- It is nature's laws, now disregarded, which
we desire to discover and implicitly obey ; there being none other which
can produce -virtue and happiness. In the present absence of real
knowledge derived from experience, and with the existing irregular
feelings of the population of the world, created Ly a false education, we
CSopose that the union and disunion of the sexes should take place under
?*-.e following regulations : — Persons having an affection for each other,
. _nd being uesirous of forming a union, first announce such intention
publicly in our Sunday assemblies. If the intention remain at the end
of three months, they make a second public declaration which declara
tions being registered in the books of the society will constitute their
marriage. In our new world, marriages will be solely formed to promote the hap
piness of the sexes, and if this end be not obtained, the object of the
union is defeated. Should the parries, therefore, after the termination ot
twelve months at the soonest, discover that their dispositions and habits
are unsuited to each other, and that there is little or no prospect of
happrness being derived from their union, they are to make a public
declaration, as before, to that effect, after which they return, and live
together six months longer, at the termination of which, if they still find
their qualities discordant, they make a second declaration, both of which
being duly registered and witnessed, wffl constitute their legal sepa-
^The'above cases apply only when both parties unite in the declarations.
Should one alone come forward upon the last declaration, and the other
object to the separation, they would be required to live together another
six months, to try if their feelings and habits could be made to accord,
so as to promote happiness. But if at the end of the second six months,
the objecting party shall remain of the same mind, the separation is then
to be final, and the parties may, without diminution of public opinion,
form new unions more suited to their dispositions.
™ Si the children of the new world will be trained and educated
under the superintendence and care of the Society, the separation of the
parentrwill not produce any change in the condition of the rising
stneratiom Under these arrangements, we have no doubt, a much
more vimous and happy state of society will be enjoyed than anywfucl,
has existed at any time in any part of the world.
U 5

442 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
tion between the parties, even when they are what is called legally
bound to each other. The union between the sexes will be, in
consequence, always pure and chaste ; it will be a union ot affec
tion only ; it will continue as long as that affection can be main
tained, and cease only, under well-devised public forms and
regulations, when the affection between the parties can no longer
be made to exist. And the experience of the world has proved
that affection is much more disinterested, pure, and durable,
without than with these legal bonds. In order to prevent con
fusion or any evil whatever by these changes, other arrangements,
very different from the existing family arrangements, Witt be
made, in conformity with this superior union between the sexes,
and the superior national education to be provided tor the
children. ...
10. We shall abandon the present degrading and demoralizing
mode of distributing wealth by the ordinary method in practice,
of buying cheap and selling dear, through the medium of the
common money of the old system of the world. Arrangements
will be made, as speedily as possible, to effect an equitable
exchange of labour for equal value of labour throughout society,
by the intervention of the labour note, the most perfect money in
all respects ever yet introduced into society. But this method of
transacting the business of life will be an intermediate and tem
porary arrangement only, and will be continued no longer than
till permanent arrangements can be formed to re-constitute
society upon scientific principles, giving to each separate division
of society, in practice, the due proportion of the producing, dis
tributing, educating, and governing principles, so combined and
organized that more of all kinds of wealth, possessing intrinsic
value, may be, with advantage to all parties, so easily created,
that those made to be the most penurious or avaricious will cease
to desire any individual accumulation of it ; and all contests, pri
vate or public, for the possession of wealth, will terminate for
ever. And then all the human powers and faculties will be
directed, to promote in a straightforward manner, to the exclusion
of all private interests, the general happiness of the whole of
society. 11. Conscious of the unlimited powers possessed by the British
nation when wisely united in its operations, to produce wealth
through all future time, far beyond the wants or desires of its
population, we renounce the principle of individual competition
in the production and distribution of wealth, as being, in its
immediate and remote consequences, not only the most demo
ralizing principle on which man can now act and govern his
affairs, but as being, also, the greatest obstacle, in practice, to the
beneficial production and distribution of wealth, to the formation
of a superior individual and national character, and to the well-
ordering and good government of the people.
12. VVe shall, therefore, as soon as the means can be obtained,
exchange the principle of competition, and of mistaken individual
interest, for the principle of unlimited union and of undivided
national interests. And by this change in conducting the affairs
of this empire, we know that more and better wealth can be pro
duced in one day than is now produced in one week ; that this
greater amount and better quality of wealth can be more advan
tageously distributed for the whole population, by one day's occu
pation of those at present employed to distribute wealth, than is
cow effected by them under the existing competitive system of

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 443
distribution in one month; that by this change, with less labour
and capital than are now applied to the task, the individual and
national character can be formed to be many hundred-fold superior
to that which has been, is, or am be found under the competitive
system, and that by the abandonment of the principle of division
of interosts, the empire will be more easily and far better governed
than it ever has been under the old system, with one per cent, of
the capital and labour which are now required.
13. As the false basis upon which the moral part of the old
system has been founded, united with the principle of competi
tion, when applied to practice, form together the sole cause which
renders law, or codes of law, necessary m society, we, of the new
world, renounce all law proceedings in our transactions with each
other, and we will form arrangements to adjust whatever dif
ferences may arise between individuals, or associations of indi
viduals, by the decision of three persons selected for their superior
knowledge and experience in the new principles, and their known
love of justice ; these individuals to be annually chosen by the
elders of their district.
Courts of law, and all the paraphernalia and folly of law, with
its animosities and ruinous expense, cannot be found in a rational
state of society, and will, therefore, not be found among the children
of the new world.
14. As the principles on which this new system is based will
immediately check, and effectuaUy prevent the growth of anger
and ill-will, and speedUy remove all the causes of dislike from
among the chUdren trained from infancy in the new world, war
will be discountenanced, and ultimately abrogated as a practice,
the most grossly ignorant and vicious that a well-ordered or rational
mind can conceive ; a practice contrary to our new religion, and
to be foUowed only by those who have been made irrational from
their birth, or by wholesale murderers and robbers.
Charity, peace, and good-will to the whole family of mankind,
without regard to any of the petty artificial or irrational causes of
division now existing between them, will be the inevitable, and
therefore, uniform practice of all the children of the new world;
and one of their chief offices, until the ignorance which causes the
evil shall be removed, wiU be to reconcile man to man, and nation
to nation, throughout the world, and to enable all to understand
that they have but one interest, which is, to insure the permanent
happiness of each and all, to promote which, by every means that
the aggregate of knowledge and power can devise, will be the
great business of human life, and then will he seen how easy and
straightforward is the true path to real virtue and the most refined
15 But although private and public warfare and contests, with
their endless train of unavoidable crime and misery, will be un
known among the children of the new world, effeminacy, with tits
train of evil, will also be discountenanced and discarded. I he
new mode of forming the character of the children of the new
world will cultivate, and bring forth to maturity and perfection
all the physical, intellectual, and moral faculties and powers which
have been given to human nature. Arrangements will be formed
to admit anil encourage the due exercise of each of these faculties
and powers up to the point of temperance, for it is only by all
of the-n being caUed into action at the period designed by nature,
that man can feel satisfied, contented, and nappy. Anxiety is the
natural feeling which arises when any one of these propensities or

444 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
qualities is not duly exercised. The physical powers will, there
fore, be better cultivated than they were in the best days of Greece
and Rome, and a far superior form of body and expression of mind,
and a duly regulated activity of both will be obtained for all the
future generations.
t In consequence, celibacy, in either sex, beyond the period designed
by nature, will be no longer considered a virtue, but, on the con
trary, it will be known to be, as it is, a great crime agamst nature,
causing other unatural crimes, all of which produce disease of
body and mind, giving a false direction to both thoughts and feel
ings, and thereby making the human race the most artificial, un
natural, and criminal beings in existence. The earth is yet a
wilderness for want of people to drain its marshes and cultivate its
soil, nor does it yet produce one-thousandth part of the excellence
and enjoyment which it is capable of bringing forth and perma
nently sustaining. Upon this, and almost all other important
subjects, the world is in gross darkness, because it has hitherto
been instructed and governed, or rather uninstructed and mis
governed, by men trained to possess only the most feeble and
puny knowledge of themselves, of nature, and of wise and good
gavernment. 16. We now also renounce the separate interests which have
been created by the errors of the old world ; and we will adopt
another mode of carrying on the general business of society. Ori
ginally many and various occupations were performed by one
individual ; but as population increased in particular places, the
variety of employments practised by one person gradually dimi
nished, until they are now become so much divided, that many
individuals have their time and attention taken up and occupied in
making a small part of a common pin, a needle, or of thread, to the
destruction of their health, their mental faculties, and all the
higher enjoyments of a rational existence. Experience has nuw
developed the means by which the union and division of labour may
be combined to secure the peculiar advantages of both, without the
evils of either. The science of society, so totally unknown in the
old world, has disclosed the necessity for, and the benefits of,
uniting a due proportion of agriculture, manufactures, commerce,
education, and government, in every separate association, for
carrying on the business of life : and in the new world all these
individualised and opposing interests will become one, and each
part thus united, will essentially aid and promote all the others.
The communities of the new world, when the public shall acquire
any rational notions respecting them, will be found to be nothing
less than a combination of all these interests, so united as to ensure
to every individual living within them, the greatest amount of
advantages, and the highest degree of individual freedom and
happiness that human nature, in its present state of knowledge, is
capable of enjoying. Thus will man, as a member of an association
formed purposely for his benefit, experience the utmost share of
individual freedom that is compatible with the still higher privi
leges of a social state of existence.
17. We consequently abandon all the arrangements to which
these separate interests have given birth ; such as large cities,
towns, villages, and universities, as well as the existing arrange
ments for carrying on the business of agriculture, detached from ma
nufactures, education, and commerce. These accidental individual
circumstances, formed without knowledge or foresight, are not
such as can ever form man into a rational being, or insure to him

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 445
more than a very small portion of the wealth, health, and happiness,
which his nature may be made to enjoy.
18. We also abandon, to the irrationality of the old system of
the world, all places for ceremonial worship of an unknown Power,
and with them all mysteries in every department of life, as being-
much worse than useless. In like manner, we abandon to the
same system, all places of punishment and confinement, such
as prisons, penitentiaries, houses of correction, and workhouses ;
and all charitable institutions, as they are called, as being promi
nent and magnificent monuments of the utter incapacity of the
rulers of human affairs, to form arrangements to insure a superior
character, wealth, and health of body and mind, to the respective
populations which they have governed, or do now attempt to
govern. 19. We abandon also all individual ambition and desire for
personal distinction, knowing we possess nothing but what we
have received, and that these personal distinctions cannot benefit
mankind, but are, in themselves, the cause of endless errors, crimes,
and miseries, and tend to keep men in perpetual ignorance of
themselves, and to make them highly irrational.
i'O. We also dismiss, for similar reasons, all envy and jealousy
from the new world, in which all will partake of the advantages
derived from the excellencies of each; all will, therefore, feel
their happiness to be increased in proportion as each excels in all
superior qualifications, and in consequence all will aid to enable
each individual to acquire and enjoy them. Thus will unity of
design, of duty, of interest, and of sympathy, among the human
race, supersede the division, competition, and opposition of man
to man, and nation to nation, and remove the causes of all the
envy and jealousy which instigate to crime, make man a demon,
and the earth a pandemonium.
I therefore now proclaim to the world the commencement, on
this day, of the promised miUennium, founded on rational prin
ciples and consistent practice.

MANIFESTO
OF THE PRODUCTIVE CLASSES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND, TO THE GOVERNMENTS AND PEOPLE OF THE
CONTINENTS OF EUROPE, AND OF NORTH AND SOUTH
AMERICA.
t Passed unanimously at the Great Public Meeting, held at the National
{ Equitable Lalur Exchange, Charlotte-street, Fitzroy-square ,
London, on the 13th May, 1833.)
Men of the Great Family of Mankind-
We vour relatives and friends, have been, enabled, through
We, your *eiauve» ecjaii, by modern improvements and
past "penence aided especiauyy ^ knowled of
discoveries, and ^ P™" ev» perceive all things through a
a newhfe and^ in con equen e^ «, P^ & ^^ ^
^ove Whelmed our reasoning faculties, and benumbed all our

446 babeuf's CONSPIRACY.
finest and best feelings. But we are now wide awake, and have
become fully conscious of all the evUs which we and you have so
long suffered. Our eyes have been opened to our real position in
society ; we have at length discovered the true source of our
power, and the most effectual mode of applying it for the benefit
of all future generations.
To accomplish the great work which we are about to undertake,
many and most important changes in conducting the affairs of life
must of necessity be made ; and we now put forth this statement
to obtain your approval and ardent co-operation, because we
desire that these changes should be effected by reason, and not
by force.
We, therefore, intend now to make manifest the necessity which
has arisen at this period for the adoption of these changes, and
also to convince the population of the world of their truth and
justice, and thus to carry the minds of all with us ; and, in the
spirit of charity and kindness, to prevent all future revolutions of
violence, by removing the causes which germinate and bring them
to maturity.
We perceive that the evils which have afflicted the human
race have arisen from ignorance ; our remedy is to remove this
ignorance. the materials for the production of happiness superabound —
they are now unused, or misused. We mean to bring them into
action, and give them a right direction.
The materials for the production of happiness are the earth and
human beings. The former requires but to be well cultivated, and
properly arranged to produce abundance, and to form a terrestrial
paradise. 1 he latter, but to be trained from birth according to
the laws of their nature, and all their faculties and qualities to be
made available, and properly directed, to insure the perpetual
happiness of each individual.
To effect these important results, another and' a very different
arrangement of society from that wliich has hitherto existed must
now be made.
The whole powers of the soil and of man must be brought into
action ; no portion of either can remain dormant when population
can be advanced to require the wastes and wildernesses of the
earth, which are now, for want of cultivation, fruitful sources of
disease and discomfort to man.
But all our powers are now misapplied. The arrangements of
society are random or chance proceedings, arising chiefly from
the supposed private interests of one family, in opposition to all
others. We, the producers of real wealth, have been, and now are, held
in disesteem ; while the unproductive, useless, and injurious mem
bers of society, riot to their own hurt in riches, and are trained to
consider us their servants and slaves. By these ignorant and
unnatural proceedings, the Earth and his own nature have been
made the perpetual source of evil instead of good to man.
We will, that this irrational state of society shall now cease,
and that, henceforward, all, except those of the present generation
too far advanced in life for the change, shall be trained to become
producers of physical wealth or of intellectual gratification, and
that none shall be maintained who are not occupied in producing
or acquiring that wliich will benefit society, or be deemed equi
valent to their consumption of its productions.
We now know that all will become far better and happier, by

babeuf's CONSPIRACY. 447
D?inS made to be producers, physically or intellectually, or both,
of the means of gratification to society, that they can be by living
a life of idleness or uselessuess, and that the individual who is not
trained, and afterwards employed to effect something beneficial to
society, must be, of necessity, not merely a useless but a posi
tively injurious member of the great family of mankind.
That it is, therefore, the first duty of all governments to adopt
national measures to train and place all the population of their
respective dominions within such arrangements as shall make
them physically, intellectually, and morally, useful members of
society. But, to effect this change, an entire new organization of society
is necessary. None of the professions, as they are now exercised,
will be required ; nor can any of the present modes of transacting
the business of life be retained. Instead of these errors of the old
world, arrangements will be adopted to re-organize the whole of
society, and to re-model the proceedings of mankind. We know
that, whatever shaU be discovered and proved to be for the per-
manent interest of the human race, will of necessity be carried
into execution; and we know it to be for the permanent interest
of the human race that the natural powers and faculties of each
individual should be fully developed and brought into action for
the direct benefit of all, that he himself may thereby be the most
permanently benefitted.
That each individual should be trained to become, as his natural
faculties may direct, a producer of wealth, or of something of real
value to society ; that is, of something that shall contribute to the
well-being or happiness of some portion of the population ; or, in
other words, as all may be trained to be useful or useless, no one
shall he formed to become a worthless or useless member of our
new social state.
We also know that, by arrangements founded on these simple
principles, the human race may he emancipated from ignorance
and poverty, and, consequently, from sin and all its frightful train
of miseries and evils innumerable.
The union of these few principles, properly combined in prac
tice, will constitute the foundation for a very superior local and
general government of the human race; and the general business
of society, which has been hitherto so complicated and perplexed,
will become, as it ought to be, so plain that any individual may be
trained easily to comprehend the principles, and to apply them
advantageously to practice.
We, therefore, now proclaim to ygu that a new era has com
menced — one in which wealth of the most intrinsic value can be
created to an unUmited extent, and in which the individuals ot
the human race may be trained and educated to become beings
possessing aU the good and superior qualities only which belong
to their nature.
And this era we do not hesitate to pronounce the commence
ment of that period, which , under the term Millennium, the human
race has been so long taught to expect.
It is a period when all deception and artifice must cease— when
man will know and acknowledge the laws of his nature, and act
in perfect accordance with them, and when, m consequence, he
will become a natural and superior being.
We invite you now to co-operate cordially with us to effect tins
great and glorious change— we invite you as relatives and friends,
without desire to create hostile feeling of any description— we

448 babeuf's conspiracy.
invite you purely from the affection which our newly acquired
knowledge of our common nature has created within us. We
dismiss all fear and suspicion, and all the inferior feelings which
a system of error had generated and matured within us ; for we
have now full confidence that we ourselves can attain these
grand and noble results without the aid of any, and, notwithstanding
the opposition of any, or all parties, whoever or whatever they
may be. The old power of the old system of error is vanishing
away as a mist disappears before the refulgent influence of the
sun. It had no strength but that which it derived from public
opinion, and from public opinion it can no longer obtain support.
And why should any of you lament that public opinion is with
drawn from giving power to an old system of error which has pro
duced evil continually 1 Is there any one, from the occupier of
the most powerful throne to the meanest individual of the lowest
tribe, who is not most grievously injured by the necessary effects
of this system ? It makes now, of all mankind, slaves to passions
or to persons — a state of human existence which can never produce
either virtue or happiness. Not one of you has a real interest in
the longer support of this system ; but, on the contrary, your
future happiness must arise from its now dying a natural death.
Come, then, and for your own happiness, co-operate with us as
friends. We are the producers of all the wealth and means of
comfort you have hitherto possessed — we can make arrangements
by which, in future, you may enjoy these good things in safety,
and without fear ; but, were we so inclined, we could effectually
withhold them from you and your children ; and force applied to
us, would demonstrate only the weakness and folly of our mistaken
opponents. The reign of terror, of carnal arms, or of physical
force of' any kind or description iu opposition tc public opinion,
has for ever ceased. It is now useless to speak of these old worn-
out means to effect any great or permanent object. We discard
them as being worse than useless ; as means of power gone by,
never more to be called into action by beings claiming a rational
nature. We call upon you to discard them also, and to turn your thoughts
from the destruction of your fellow men, and of their wealth, to
the acquisition of that knowledge which will enable you to assist
materially to improve the former, and greatly to increase the
amount of the latter. To act thus is your duty and your interest,
for it is the only course that can insure you permanent satisfaction,
or that can now give you a chance of happiness.
In conclusion, we again earnestly call upon you to unite cor
dially with us in measures —
First, To produce a surplus of all kinds of wealth.
Second, To distribute wealth the most beneficially for all parties
in all countries.
Third, To form a superior character for the rising generation,
and to improve the adults of the present generation.
Fourth, To govern well and wisely for all parties.
Fifth, And to form arrangements to carry these measures into
immediate execution, to stop the evident progress daily making
toward a revolution of violence.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Bronterre's biographical sketch of Buonarroti
Bronterre's addre
Author's preface.

Bronterre's address to the reader ...
Author s preface  ,'
Parties and their characters during the revolution

c * 7 "" ^"wotwia uuring tne revolution  o
system of egoism, or selfishness 8
bystem ot equality— Montesquieu, Mably, &c. . ••"•""• J0
Buonarroti's defence of equality  11
false friends of equality— Efforts and progress of the eqiia-
Aristocrats in the national convention before 31st May  15
Causes of division in the Constituent— The Girondists, &c. . 16
ItealcharacteroftheGirondists— Their hatred of republicanism 18
Ine friends of equality opposed to the premature discussion
of a constitution  jq
Conspirac y of the 31st May,' 1793 !!.',' ." .' " ." ' ." ." .' ." ' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' , .' .' .' 20
Democracy in France — meaning of the term, &c  ibid.
The famous Declaration of Rights by Robespierre  22
Origin and motives of the revolutionary government  25
Its prodigies  26
Extracts from Robespierre's and St. Just's reports  28
Legislative measures in favour of equality and morals  29
The Hebertist faction — it alarms the people, &c. &c  31
Real character and proceedings of the factions of Hebert and
Danton  32
Causes and circumstances of Robespierre's death  34
/I'he revolutionary government becomes a public scourge  37
The friends of equality demand the constitution of 1793, &C. ibid.
Buonarroti's j ustification of the revolutionary government, &c. 38
"The prisons of Paris are the focuses of conspiracies for
equality  40
' Manners and occupations of the imprisoned patriots  43
.'Opinions of the equalitarians on the constitution of 1795  4-1
The acceptation of this constitution by the people— a falsehood 47
Proscription of the conventionalists  ibid.
The people enslaved by the renewal of the deputies by thirds 48
The friends of equality defend the guilty conventionalists . . 51
New treason of the conventionalists  52
-First meetings of the equals, or equalitarians  55
Biographical sketches of Babeuf, Darthe, Bertrand, &c  56
The new government favours the reunions of the people  60
"pirit of the patriots and people — Prudence of the Equals  61
foundation of the society of the Pantheon  62
' Communication of the society with the people  64
'Committee at the house of Amar ( ex-cuuventionaUst)  6:>

460 CONTENTS. PAGE
Vices of agrarian and sumptuary laws  66
Equality of labour and enjoyment — the end of society  69
Robespierre the friend of this equality, &c— Obstacles, Stc. 70
The constitution of 1793 a preparatory step towards it, &c. . . 72
Rallying points for the republicans— Authority to be substi
tuted for the government of the year ill. (1795.)  73
Dissolution of the committee at Amar's  ;  75
Other unions formed— i'he democratic spirit bursts forth at
the Pantheon  ¦ - - ;  ¦ - • 76
Labours of this society — itevival of democratic principles, &c. 77
Distribution to the defenders of the country of a thousand
miltions' worth of national property  78
Interest of the society for Babeuf, &c  79
Schism in the society of the Pantheon  80
Exclusion of the conventionalists— Decadary festivals, &c. . . 82
H atred of the government towards the pantheonists  83
Reading of Babeuf's journal — Dissolution of the society  84
Base conduct of Buonaparte on this occasion  ibid.
Perfidy of the government  85
New proscription of the patriots  86
The courage of Babeuf excites numerous enemies against him 87
Babeuf conceives the project of delivering the people  88
Appointment of a Secret Directory of public safety  89
Members of this directory and their political doctrine  ibid.
Final object of the conspirators — The people their only means 90
Wishes to establish the Constitution of 1793  92
Popular associations multiplied in Paris  93
Choice of twelve revolutionary agents, &c. ccc  94
Grisel the traitor ! — Democratic writings  97
Misery of the people — Progress of the insurrectionary spirit 98, 99
Necessity of an authority anterior to the Constitutional Order 101
Proposed recal of the convention — Objections, &c  102,103
Provisional authority to be named by the insurgents, &c .... 104
Dictatorship rejected, &c  105
A body of one democrat from each department to be proposed
to the people of Paris in insurrection  106
The secret directory considers how to render the people
stronger than the army — Republicans of Lyons— Two fac
tions in the government, &c  107
The false friends of equality wish to expel the old aristocrats 108
The secret directory baffles the deceitful project  109
Message of the Executive Directory against the democrats  111
Laws against the liberty of the press— Fresh persecutions  1 13
Indignation of the people — Some of the insurrectional
measures  H4, 115
Insurrectional act — Distribution of goods — Community, &c. 116
The people to assemble after destroying tyranny  117
New national assembly — Decree to be proposed, &c. ike  ibid.
Insurrection of the legion of police, &c  118
The polioe legion disbanded — become refugees with the patriots 120
Politico-military sitting of the 11th Floreal  121
An offer is made to poignard the executive directory  122
The conspirators' contempt for money  123
Overtures to the Mountainists— The latter aim at leadership 124
Drouet linked with the conspirators -Incertitude of the secret
directory  225
Resolves at last to coalesce with the Mountainists  ...... 127

CONTENTS. 45]
Keply of the Secret Directory  Ijq
Treason of Grisel — he informs against the conspirators  132
Assembly at Drouet's house — Report of the Secret Directory 133
Renewed adhesion of the Mountainists — Report of the mili
tary committee — Resolution of the assembly,  135
Drouet's house invested by the police — Grisel again !  136
Meeting of the revolutionary agents at Massart's house ...... 137
Discontent and impatience of the people — Forces of the demo
crats, &c  139
Force of the reigning tyranny — The director Barras, cvc  140
Order of the insurrectional movement  141
Lodging and clothing for the poor, &c, &c  143
View of the probable state of Paris during the insurrection. . 148
The departments — State and spirit of the armies  149
Legislation of equality and intermediary laws  150
The proprietorship of aU wealth is one and indivisible, &c. . . 151
Every one to work and every one to enjoy — Agriculture, &c. 152
Labour is a function regulated by law, ice  153
Mitigation of painful labour — Machinery, ccc  154
Advantages of community, equal distribution, ccc  156
External commerce — how to be conducted, ic  157
Usufructuary right — The aged and infirm  158
Propagation of tie species encouraged  159
N ew repartition of tie population  160
Decay and disappearance of great cities — Vices of town life —
Habitations and public buUdings under the new system, &c. 161
Happy consequences of this reform  164
Non-productive occupations  165
Manners — Education the grand source, &c  166
Division of labour — Direction of public affairs open to all  167
No exclusive governors — Age and capacity required for
having the right of suffrage  168
The rights of citizenship are acquired by consent  170
Popular assemblies of sovereignty — Formation of the govern
ment, ccc  171
Every citizen a soldifcr— -The youth encamped on the frontiers 172
The military order — No perpetuity of rank or grades  173
Levy of the whole people easy to execute  175
Precautions against the abuse of war  178
Respect for the law of nations  179
Advantages of frequent meetings of the citizens  180
Assemblies of censorship  181
Judging of public functionaries and of the dead— Anniversa
ries of memorable events  182
Divinity and immortaUty of the soul  183
Deism, Atheism, Robespierre's worship— Bronterre's re
marks, CvC  -i**
Festivals  -,•--.---:  ;¦¦¦-.  1S£,
The legislative power resides m the people only  189
Precautions to be taken in respect of foreigners  190
Assemblies of sovereignty— Central assembly of legislators. . 192
Conservators of the national will— Formation of the law  193
Guarantees against encroachment— Division of authority, &c. 194
Few laws suffice for a people in the enjoyment of equality —
The direction of agriculture and of the useful arts is one of
the principal prerogatives of the sovereign power— Execu
tive authority  J^

452 CONTENTS. PAGE
Supplement to the constitution of 1793— Nature and objects
of the different magistracies  198
Uniting the civil to the military functions  • ¦  199
The magistrate not more expensive than the common citizen —
Simplicity of manners, and graduated scale of magistracies 200
In commencing reform, the magistracies to be confided to
revolutionists only — Gradual march, &c  :  201
Education the means of consummating and conserving reform
— to be directed by society — Separation of the sexes  202
Education is national, in common, and equal for all, and to
be directed by an efficient magistracy — Natural differences
of the sexes  203
Objects of education — The body — Common halls, or houses of
education  205
Forming the heart— Arts and callings  206
Intellect, sciences  207
Education of girls  208
Military education — Assemblies of instruction  209
Advantages and evils of the arts and sciences  211
Robert Owen and his system — Parallel between him and
Babeuf — Buonarroti's defence of both systems — Bronterre's
remarks on both, &c  213
First measures of the insurrection  214
Proclamation to the French people  216
Commissary generals — Normal seminary  224
Public spirit — Decrees of police — Military decree  225
Decree on education  226
Economical decrees  227
Decrees respecting the national festivals  229
Partial and successive execution of the constitution  230
Arrest of the conspirators — Buonaparte's campaigns, &c  231
New French calendar — Conclusion of Part 1  232, 233

PART II.
Imprisonment of the conspirators — Drouet suspends the
axe, &c  235
Babeuf s letter to the executive directory  236
Blindness of the government  -39
The constitution is violated  241
Accusation — Evasions — Translation of the prisoners to Yen-
ddme  -42
Protests — Challenges  i4o
Courageous avowals of Babeuf  244
Firmness of the accused  246
Modifications of the defence — Antonelle  247
Horrible massacre of the patriots at Grenelle  248
Opening of the judicial debates — i\ ames of the accused  219
Magnanimous conduct and speech of Darthe  250
Counter-revolutionary spirit of the national accusers,  252
The accused defend the revolution  'Jo3
Appearance of the traitor Grisel  254
He is a witness — Tumult — Noble speech of Babeuf  255
Babeuf justifies the insurrection of Prairial  257
Generous conduct of two witnesses  259
Defence  260

CONTENTS. 453
Hostile address of the national accusers  265
Answers of the accused— Appeal to the patriotism of the jurors 266
J ustification of the revolutionary government  267
Eulogy of the constitution of 1793  '....'....... 268
1 he accused maintain the legitimacy of the conspiracy— Com
munity of goods defended by Babeuf 269
Peroration of Babeuf  .'.'.'..'"."..'.'.'  270
Questions on the facts   .......... ..". 271
Question as to the intention  ... 272
Condemnation of the prisoners  " 274
Babeuf and Darthe stab themselves — Vadier. ....... .... 275
Generosity of the municipality of Saint-Lo— Goodness of the
people ot Vend6me, ccc  27g

JUSTIFICATIVE PIECES.
Declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, by the
national convention  279
The famous Constitutional Act of 1793  283
The truth to the people, by the patriots of 89  293
Soldier, stop and read !  300
Equality — Liberty — General happiness — Creation of an insur
rectional directory  302
Organization of twelve principal agents, and of intermediary
agents— Principal operations of each class  303
Primary instruction of the secret directory, addressed to each
of the principal revolutionary agents  301
Manifesto of the equals or equalitarians  314 "-
Analysis of the doctrine of Babeuf (proscribed by the execu
tory for having told the truth)  318-
Letter of Franc-Libre (soldier of the Circo-Parisian army) to
his frieud La Terreur (soldier of tie army of the Rhine) . . 326
Primary instruction of the secret directory, addressed to each
of its principal military agents  330
Do we owe obedience to the constitution of 1795 1  342
Address of the tribune of the people to the army of the interior 348
Address of the patriots of Arras to the council of five hundred 359
M. V. to Gracchus Babeuf, tribune of the people  362
Babeuf s reply to M. V., in support of his doctrines  364
A new song for the use of the* Faubourgs  374
Another song for the patriots — English translation  377
A pressing word to the patriots  378
The insurrectional committee of public safety to the people —
The act of insurrection  384
The sans-culotte people of Paris to the legion of police  389
Speech to the delegates from the Mountainist committee  392
The directory of public safety to the revolutionary agents of
the twelve arrondissments  395
General happiness or death — The author of the letter of
Franc-Libre to his republican brothers of the executive
directory  400
Another letter of Franc-Libre to the executive directory, &c. 404
Draught of a decree concerning the popular judgment  407
Concluding remarks of Bronterre on Buonarroti's work  429
Copy of a letter from Buonarroti to Bronterre  ibid.
Bronterre's remarks on the letter  432

454 CONTENTS. PACE
The legacy of Robert Owen to the population of the world . . 434
The charter of the rights of humanity  436
The rational system  438
Address of Robert Owen  .  ibid.
Manifesto of the productive classes of Great Britain and
Ireland, to the governments and people of the continents of
Europe, and of North and South America  445

ERRATA.
The following errors, which are partly my own, partly the au
thor's, and partly the printer's, have inadvertently crept into the
translation, owing to unavoidable haste in sending the numbers
to be stereotyped as they appeared.
Page Line Instead of Read
xv  42  lstoi'May  31st of May.
xviii  11  Desodoard  Desodoards.
17  33  supineness  suppleness.
27  38  prints  provisions.
45 . . .19  our new lords .. . .our lords.
71  18  danger  advantage.
354. ...35.... equipage  equipage of^ the
late D'Orleans.
I am not aware of any other errors except one or two literals in
the anagrams of the names, and for the correction of these the
reader will please to see Buonarroti's letter to me, in which he
furnishes the real names of the conspirators. — Bronterre.

H. HETHERINGTON, TRINTER, 126, STRAND.

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