Page:Babeuf's Conspiracy.djvu/27

This page needs to be proofread.

xx

TO THE READER.

xx

besaiisaJliis latter e stablished_the Government ^f the mijdlp, rl assTthe perfidious Convention was sat isfied with the 900,CmOTotesr^ftd4o^na^ccount . of the 4~80tf$T)O i n^ favour of the popular and legitimate C^nst ituiidg. Perhaps the history of the world does not recorcTa more hideous treason than this. Had such a measure been proposed only two years before in 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- prise, at the dreadfuj distress at that time felt by the Parisian workmen. The rOcgjvg£jjflTi haying jRuppmnrd

tfrAJaav nfjjifi mm ivn<>i m * in fairrmr r>f tl i r ft hnj i,iti ^ Q

a lso those against mojiQPoly Qn ^ forestalling, the conse- quence was that Usury and high profits became the order of the day. To apldJ^Lthedteculj^ASsignats, the only money accessible to the labouring class, w ere in disc redit. This arose in a great measure from the extravagance and wasteful system of finance adopted by the new Go- vernment, which had issued no less than 30,000 millions of assignats since the 9th Thermidor. The depreciation caused by these^^^ua aous issues leii deredjhe assignats e£-»tf-vaiue. The Shopocrats ^wo uld not recqv glSgm, aprt-thp ^pe ople having no cash, anoTwantin g provis ions, weg e - on the brini L ^Tgestr uction.' Historians f>f 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.