and tears in order to arrive at the age of maturity” had sorely misunderstood the operation of popular sovereignty. The people “are free at the moment they desire to be so,” Desmoulins insisted, recalling the sudden “return to the fullness of their rights from the 14 July.” Liberty “possessed neither a decrepitude nor an infancy; it has only one age, that of force and vigour.”472 It was, in this sense, timeless; the actualisation of liberty did not imply a need to wait.
Popular patience quickly ebbed. On 15 July, Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, appeared before the Jacobin Club to declare that if action was not immediately taken, then the “gulf” adumbrated by Vergniaud would become insurmountable and a stationary people would witness the past re-engulf the present. Invoking the spectre of cyclicality, Billaud- Varenne asked whether the French people had “undertaken a revolution in order to conquer liberty, or only to pass from despotism to anarchy, and to fall from anarchy back into a new slavery?” “Have the people overturned the towers of the Bastille in order to partake in the benefits of their victory, or to consent to remain eternally in the misery of their abasement?” As the completion of the Revolution slipped ever further into the future, it seemed probable that the present would be confined to such a gradual process of amelioration that it would resemble an endless historical reiteration. If nothing were done to overcome the growing gulf, warned the radical sans-culottes leader, Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette, “the ancien regime would be resuscitated,” and France would once again suffer beneath the oppression of “the dime, the gabelle, the aides, the feudal rights, [and] the mainmorte.” It was therefore possible to rationalise “the slow notification of useful decrees,” and the “counterrevolutionary vetos” issued by a king “impregnated with inherited prejudices,” as a manifestation of treachery, as a bid to place the Revolution in reverse.473 By seeming to frustrate the innate tempo of
revolution historical progress, the monarchy had essentially declared itself illegitimate.
472 Camille Desmoulins, ‘4.Vive Libre ou Mourir!’ (30 frimaire, l’an II) (20 December, 1793), in Pierre Pachet,
ed., Le Vieux Cordelier (Paris, Belin, 1987), pp.61-68, here: p.61; on Desmoulin’s rhetoric of conspiracy, see: Caroline Weber, ‘The Bridle and the Spur: Collusion and Contestation in Desmoulins’ Vieux Cordelier,’ in Terror
and its Discontents: Suspect Words in Revolutionary France (Minneapolis, MN., University of Minnesota Press,
2003), pp.115-70.
473 Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, Discours de M. Billaud-Varenne, sur les mesures à prendre pour sauver la patrie, prononcé à la séance du 15 juillet 1792… (Paris, 1792), pp.1: “Avons-nous entrepris une révolution pour
conquérir la liberté, ou seulement pour passer du despotisme à l’anarchie, et tomber de l’anarchie dans un nouvel esclavage? Le peuple a-t-il renversé les tours de la Bastille pour partager les avantages de sa victoire, ou pour consentir à rester éternellement dans la misère et dans l’avilissement,” p.2: “c’est que le roi, plus puissant que jamais, écrase déjà, du poids de son autorité, le pouvoir législatif, perpétuellement entravé, ou par la lenteur de la notification des décrets utiles, ou par la célérité de la transmission des lois corrosives, ou par des vetos contre- révolutionnaires…c’est que le roi, imprégné des préjugés inhérens [sic] à cette dignité suprême, ne sait appeler aux places les plus importantes que les roués de son ancienne cour…” See also: Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette, Mémoires
de Chaumette sur la Révolution du 10 août 1792 (Paris, Société de l’histoire de la Révolution, 1893), p.26: “Alors
l’ancien régime serait ressuscité, la dime, la gabelle, les aides, les droits féodaux, la mainmorte auraient écrasé ceux qui auraient survécu au bouleversement général.”
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In July, the patience of the people began to crack. Troops of petitioners now began
interrupting Assembly proceedings on an hourly basis. They were unanimous in their desire to see the suspension of the monarchy; they were uniform in their belief that the time
available to save the Revolution was running out. On 23 July, a fédérés delegation entered the legislative chamber to denounce the continued “dissimulations” of the Assembly:
“Legislators, the peril is imminent; the reign of truth must commence.” Calling upon the deputies to “suspend the executive power,” the delegation insisted that there was “not a second to lose.” Seven days later, the citizens of Beaucaire made their own unannounced appearance: “Legislators, the present time is pregnant with the future! Do not disdain to save us, there is still time; but soon you will have no more.” The justification for these
interventions – and for the bold demand to suspend the monarchy – were articulated in temporal terms, legitimated by the notion that popular patience had elapsed. Later, on 6 August, the fédérés would return to the tribune of the Assembly to announce that the nation was entirely exhausted:
For three years we have been in revolution, how many conspirators, how many cowards, how many traitors, perjurers, prevaricators have you observed; and still the blade of national vengeance remains suspended! The people grow weary; they recognise the guilty; they are outraged!
The “blade of national vengeance,” suspended precariously above the heads of the culpable, may be read here as a reference to the velocity of the Revolution itself, which also seemed to have jammed.474
During the preceding months, the Assembly had been recast as a body of time- wasters. In its efforts to bend to royal whim, Chaumette portrayed the legislature as
“consuming precious time in order to regulate the ceremonial and etiquette between it and the king,” often passing “entire sittings deciding if deputations to the king would be composed of twenty, thirty or sixty members.” “It was this Assembly which, instead of taking vigorous measures against the enemies of liberty, fatuously passed its time hearing declamatory reports, all of which ended with…messages to the king – for shame!”475 The Assembly
474 Wahnich, La Longue Patience, p.383: “Législateurs, le péril est imminent; il faut que le règne de la vérité
commence. […] Faites nommer une Convention nationale…Il n’y a pas un instant à perdre,” p.392: “Législateurs, le temps présent est gros de l’avenir. Ne dédaignez pas de nous sauver, il en est temps encore; bientôt vous ne le pourrez pas,” p.400: “Il y a trois ans que nous sommes en révolution, combien avons-nous vu de conspirateurs, combien de lâches, combien de traîtres, de parjures, de prévaricateurs; et le glaive des vengeances nationales est encore suspendu! Le peuple se lasse; il connaît les coupables; il est indigné!” Emphasis added.
475 Chaumette, Mémoires de Chaumette, p.6, footnote.3: “Ce fut cette Assemblée qui consume un temps précieux
pour régler le cérémonial et l’étiquette entre elle et le roi, qui passa des séances entières pour décider si les députations au roi seraient composées de vingt, de trente ou de soixante membres…Ce fut cette Assemblée qui, au