n* ANNUAL ItfeGISTER, 1194. 



tiong. They had flot been able to 

 throw off the yoke of submiRsion 

 to his dirL'ctions, til! that fortunate 

 day which delivered France from 

 his tyranny, 



Tallieii, a man of great feSoIu- 

 tjon and talents, had borne a prin- 

 cipal sharo m this attack upon the 

 members of the committees, oh the 

 10th of September an attempt was 

 made on his life; and he was wound- 

 ed with a pistol-shot. From the 

 j)*rsonaI enmity snbslsting between 

 liini aad Billaud Varennci?, one of 

 the accused members of the com- 

 niittecs, and the influence of tliis 

 latter in the Jacobin club, which 

 lirj.i ben a' jvyed to resume its 

 meetings, after its dispersion by 

 1a: Geiidie. duringthe coiiiiict with 

 Rob spiorre's pirty, it v.as ftrongly 

 suspected by tlie public that the 

 violent declamations of the many 

 incendiaries who freoieiited this 

 club, and their inv.^ctives against 

 the prosecutors of Billaud and his 

 associates, had roused the fury of 

 syii.e enthusiast amongst them, and 

 Jricited liip.i to the perpetration of 

 this atrocious deed. 



This assassination, together with 

 the inflammatory discourses and 

 maxims advanced in the meetings 

 ot this society, induced at length 

 the committee of general safety 

 formally to prohibit them. That 

 portion of the community which 

 reflected on the general conduct of 

 the Jacobin club, without partiality 

 in liicir favour or prepossessions to 

 their disadvantage, had' long testi- 

 ii'.d its surpri.'.e at the patience and 

 forbearance of the legislature in 

 LOiiiiiving at the unwarrantable li— 

 bLrtics they took with every pub- 

 lic person and transaction that dis- 

 pleased them. 13ut the fact was, 

 that they had successively be'.-:i the 



Support of every violent party that 

 obtained the possession of power, or 

 was aiming to obtain it. The party 

 that overthrew Robespierre having 

 openly embraced the system of mo- ■ 

 deration, and explicitly discarded ! 

 that of terror,had given that society ' 

 such offence, that it kept no mea- j 

 sures in the obloquy and defama- 

 tion with which it loaded every 

 friend to this new plan of lenity, 

 and on the outrageous manner in 

 which it insisted on the restoration 

 of severity. This insulting beha- 

 viour drew upon them the indigna- 

 tion of government; which thought 

 itself fully authorized, by the pro- 

 priety of suppressingsuch audacious 

 violation of the respect due to the 

 legislature, and the Hcentious prin- 

 ciples subversive of both private 

 and public tranquillity, to issue an 

 order for the ^juspension of this 

 dangeroi:? asse: bly. This was done 

 about the middle of October. 



The committee of public safety 

 did not, however, take this step 

 without publicly assigning its rea- 

 sons : they acknowledged that so- 

 ciety to have done much good 4 

 but pleaded the propriety of silent 

 cing it, in order la preserve that su- 

 bordination in society, without 

 which he could not exist'. They al- 

 lowed of popular societies, under 

 due restrictions, as being the right 

 of a republican community : but 

 the Jacobin club was not merely a 

 society ; they vied in power and in- 

 fluence with the legal authority of 

 the state itself: they had attempted 

 to vilify the Convention. Though 

 it was not improper to remind the 

 governorsof a nation of their duties, 

 yet a rival powerto theirs ought not 

 to exist in a state. It ought not to 

 be forgotten, that on the 28th of 

 last Jul}, when tyranny was sub- 

 verted, 



