Page:Babeuf's Conspiracy.djvu/26

nity of relations , and real happiness established on earth, tint the co unter-re volutiuimry conspiracy ~cf-the"9th Thermidor destroyed all. Rqheapje rre and his frie nds removed, the few honest Democrats in the Convention were l eft without weight or influ ence. The old Aris- tocrats uniting themselves to the u 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^emociacydeclined in influence, the bourgeoisie and the Ro yalist* raispffnteir heads onc e mor e. 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 it the Constitution of the Year III. (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. Tha J^gnstitution of 1793 had be en voted by 4,8 00,000 adultjrenchmen , exjjusive of the armies, l^ hicli Were all devotedly attached to it. The- Cj asfilution oi' IV&^ jq b the other hand, received Hbut 900^000 votes, and the armies were all againstjj. Yet,