Robespierre’s speech at the Jacobin Club (28 Messidor)
Session of 28 Messidor, Year II (16 July 1794) at the Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality
3rd intervention [by Robespierre]: Against the patriotic banquets.
The campaign of the fraternal banquets, [a] new form of popular opposition to the Revolutionary Government, developed within Paris towards the middle of Messidor. Victory asserting itself and every political initiative being forbidden to them, the Parisian sections, in order to celebrate victory and to manifest their political existence, organized civic repasts or fraternal banquets. It is certain that the moderates had found an occasion to reappear in this popular initiative. By drinking to the victory and to the forthcoming peace, the assistants implicitly wanted the end of the Revolutionary Government and of the exceptional measures: There was something satisfying for the sans-culottes and the moderates at the same time. The patriotic banquets multiplied in Paris, on occasion of the victory of Fleurus, on 8 Messidor, and even more [on occasion] of the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, on 26 [Messidor]. Coming into fashion, the movement was devious from its first signification: on 22 Messidor, [the] section of the Friends of the Patrie, the organizers of the patriotic banquet, were moderates. The Revolutionary Government could not allow this. From 24 [Messidor], Payan intervened at the General Council of the Commune. His arguments were picked up by Barère, at the tribune of the Convention, on the 28th. Attributing this new intrigue to «testamentary executors of Hébert and of Chaumette», Barère strongly marked that the sectionary meals, diverted from their original goal, were no longer «[more] than a premature amnesty, an early proclamation of peace and a dangerous fusion of pure sentiments and perfidious intentions, of republican actions and counter-revolutionary principles». The Convention did not issue any decree, Barère reporting: «The civic defence is the best article of the decree in order to proscribe these so-called fraternal banquets, and in this moment the National Convention returns the execution of this moral decree to the revolutionary tribunal of public opinion».
On this evening at the Jacobins, Barère read out his report. Robespierre intervened and even went one step further. A sudden end was put [to the fraternal banquets], the movement declined quickly.
Robespierre: This morning, the Convention returned a decree whose object is to extirpate an abuse [that was] coloured with patriotic varnish, I want to speak of the so-called fraternal banquets. The aristocracy [shall not be able to] accuse the Convention of not loving fraternity, it is thus useful to expose, here, the truths that were the foundation of this wise decree, and to show that the aristocrats know [how] to abuse our own virtues against us: one of the most dangerous secrets of the aristocracy is making in a time [in] which it is not as good to do [this] than in another. [If] you want the Revolution not to arrive at a happy and desirable end, fraternize with crime; fraternity can only ever exist for the friends of virtue, it is not possible that good men unite with their enemies and their assassins: let us smother the seeds of discord, let us be just towards everybody and even towards crime, but let us beware from compromising ourselves by indiscreet measures. Fraternity is the union of hearts, it is the union of principles: the patriot can only ally himself with a patriot; if he unites with others, he loses his strengths instead of increasing them.
When a people has founded its liberty and its tranquillity upon wise laws, when its enemies are reduced to the impotence of harming it, the moment of fraternity has arrived; but as long as there are enemies of liberty, aristocrats fraternize amongst themselves, and patriots with patriots.
The momentary success of the so-called fraternal banquets has its source in the general feeling of civisme which animates the entire people. The first attempts came from the perversity of intriguers who have perfidious views, such as the one to weaken public opinion, and to benumb the friends of liberty; how indeed can one distrust a man who has drunk from the same cup, on whose lips one has found the language of patriotism, and whose eyes only presented the image of friendship?
The calumnies against the revolutionary government, and also against the Revolutionary Tribunal, the persecutions [that are] directed against energetic and honest patriots, have an intimate rapport with these banquets: adroit intriguers wanted to creep [in] there and bring about, if it had been possible, an amnesty for the conspirators. The people does not show itself in a manner [that is] really worthy of it, which [is] when it is separated from its enemies; it was great and sublime on the day of the Festival of the Supreme Being; crime did not dare to show itself then, the intriguers were not there, or [their number was] so small that one could not even see them: but if we divide [the people] by tables, it is no longer the people; it is nothing more than coteries, mixtures of patriots and of aristocrats: let us unite less with the latter, and we will be much more friends among us.
Let us separate from the deceitful [people] and intriguers, and they will not be able to divide us; this will be the divine charm of the virtue and the friendship which will unite us. Such is the sublime instinct of the French people, that it had its eyes fixed on the principles which the decree of the Convention has dictated, even before this decree has been presented. Many patriots have witnessed disquietudes on the sectionary banquets: the vow of the people has prepossessed the intentions of the Convention. That this happened shall be a lesson; that the patriots know well that their union constituted their strength, that their enemies are not yet defeated, and that only virtue, vigilance and courage can consolidate the Republic.
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