September Massacres

As concerns at counter revolutionaries and the encroaching foreign armies as well as doubts in a far from reliable King, Paris seemed far from stable.  On the 9th of August 1792 revolutionaries overthrew the Paris Commune and then the following day stormed the King’s residence at the Tuileries Palace.  This led to the effective immediate abolishment of the monarchy.  In this political vacuum the new Paris Commune supported by waves of revolutionary sans-culottes seized the initiative and control of the city.

Paranoia in Paris however did not lessen.  The Prussian army was encroaching onto French soil led by the Duke of Brunswick whose Manifesto made it quite clear what he thought of the revolution.  The situation seemed more urgent as the Prussians took Verdun on the 20th of August and seemed within weeks of seizing Paris and snuffing out the revolution. Alleged counter revolutionaries were rounded up and placed in jail and plans were made for a mass levee to be made and sent to the front.  Suspicions arose however that as soon as the good men of Paris left to fight the Prussians the prison population would rise up free themselves and stab the revolution in the back.  Some such as Marat called for a cleansing of the traitors.

On the 2nd of September 1792 24 non-juring priests who had not signed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy were set upon by a mob and killed.  This escalated as more priests were killed and sans-culottes broke into prisons launched speedy trials which led to the summary execution of over a thousand individuals.  Included amongst the dead was the friend of the queen the Princesse de Lamballe whose head was paraded to the Temple to be exhibited to the newly imprisoned Marie Antoinette (who fortunately for her did not see it).  Though many of those killed would be ordinary criminals.

The massacres marked an escalation in the revolution and a movement to what became the Terror.   Elements within Paris such as Marat would support the massacres others would defend those who committed the atrocities.

Jean-Baptiste Cléry (the King’s valet) reports on the events of the September Massacres in 1792 from A Journal of the Terror, The Folio Society, London (1955) p20-21.

At one o’clock the King and the Family expressed a desire to walk, but were refused.  When they were dining, drums were heard, and soon after the cries of the populace.  The Royal Family rose from table with great uneasiness, and assembled in the Queen’s chamber.  I went down to dine with Tison and his wife, who were employed for the service of the Tower.

We were scarcely seated when a head on the point of a pike was held to the window.  Tison’s wife gave a violent scream which the murderers supposed to have proceeded from the Queen, and we heard the savages laughing immoderately.  Imagining that Her Majesty was still at dinner, they placed their victim in such a manner that it could not escape her sight.  The head was the Princess de Lamballe’s, which, though bleeding was not disfigured, and her fine light hair, still curling waved around the pike….

In the meantime the clamour without increased, and insults addressed to the Queen were distinctly heard.  Another municipal Officer came in, followed by four men, deputed by the populace to ascertain whether the Royal Family was, or was not, in the Tower.  One of them, accoutered in the uniform of the National Guards, with two epaulettes, and a huge sabre in his hand, insisted that the prisoners should show themselves at the windows, but the Municipal Officers would not allow it.  This fellow then said to the Queen, in the most indecent manner: “They want to keep you from seeing de Lamballe’s head, which has been  brought you that you may know how the people avenge themselves advise you to show yourself, if you would not have them come up here.”  At this threat the Queen fainted away; I flew to support her, and Madame Elizabeth assisted me in placing her upon a chair, while her children, melting into tears, endeavored by their caresses to bring her to herself.  The wretch kept looking on, and the King, with a firm voice, aid to him: “We are prepared for everything, Sir, but you might have dispensed with relating this horrible disaster to the Queen.”  Their purpose being accomplished, he went away with his companions.

Madame Roland discusses the September massacres.  Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p43-44

On 1 September of last year he became aware of disturbances threatening the prisons.  Early in the morning he visited them all.  At the Abbaye as in others, he found a crowd of people who had just come in, having been arrested during the last domiciliary raids, and held as I am held today under a arbitrary and unmotivated warrants.  There was an atmosphere of agitation and fear; orders from the Commune had prohibited all communication with the outside world.  Grandpré invited these people to write notes to their friends.  He waited for two hours and carried out the letters which he delivered to the section, enabling at least some of them to be saved in time.  For in the meantime the report of a massacre was spreading like the dread murmur that precedes a storm.  Grandpré went to the Ministry of the Interior and waited for the rising of the Council which was being held in the office of Roland, its president. Danton came out first; Grandpré approached him, described with some heat the imminent dangers and insisted on the needs for a distinction to be made at once between the different types of prisoner.  Danton cut him off with an oath, shouting at the top of his voice and with a madman’s gesture, “I don’t give a damn for the prisoners they can go to the devil.”  The bystanders (for this took place in the second antechamber) were horrified that a Minister of Justice could express such views.  They did not know that, as has subsequently emerged, clandestine meetings were being held in Danton’s office where lists of prisoners were produced, orders given to lock up the victims and a number of them set aside for a dispatch in a manner which give the impression of a “people’s verdict”.

The Courrier Francais reports on the September Massacres.  Taken from Madame De Lamballe by Georges Bertin, Godfrey A. S. Wieners, New York (1901) p284

What a night! What a day! The Procureur of the Commune tried in vain to bar with his body the door of the Abbaye. He succeeded no better than did the deputies of the National Assembly. The people made it a duty to purge the city of all criminals so that while they are away fighting the Austrians they need not fear an exodus from the prisons against the women and children.   There is no longer at the Chatelet anyone but the concierge. They have liberated the innocent and those imprisoned for debt. Twenty-four women also have been spared. Madame de Lamballe has lost her life.

Count Fersen (Swedish diplomat and close friend of Marie Antoinette) reports on the death of Madam de Lamballe. Taken from Madame De Lamballe by Georges Bertin, Godfrey A. S. Wieners, New York(1901) p291

Madame la Princesse de Lamballe has been tortured most horribly for four hours. My pen refuses to write the details. They tore out her entrails with their teeth and afterwards gave her every possible restorative for two hours to resuscitate her that she might more fully realise the torture of death.

Retif de la Bretonne the novelist recounts what he saw on the streets during the September Massacres.  Taken from Madame De Lamballe by Georges Bertin, Godfrey A. S. Wieners, New York (1901) p292-293

I arose dazed with terror. The night had not refreshed me, but had inflamed my blood. I went out. ... I listened, I was among those running to the scene of the disasters, for such was their expression. Passing in front of the Conciergerie I saw an assassin who they told me was a sailor from Marseilles, his wrist swollen from fatigue. ... I passed on. Before the Chatelet lay piles of dead. I started to flee. . . . Yet I followed the crowds. I reached the Rue Saint Antoine, at the end of the Rue des Ballets, just as a wretched victim, who had seen how they were killing his predecessor, instead of stopping overwhelmed on passing through the gate, started to run at full speed. A man who did not belong to the butchers, but who was one of those numberless unthinking machines, stopped him with his pike. The miserable wretch was attacked by pursuers and murdered. The man who had stopped him said to us coldly, 'I did not know that they wanted to kill him.' This prelude was enough to make me turn back when another scene met my eye. I saw two women come out; one whom I have since known through the interesting Sainte-Brice as lady-inwaiting to a former royal princess, a young person of sixteen years, Mademoiselle de Tourzel.   There was a cessation of the murders: something was taking place within. ... I flattered myself that all was over. At last I saw another woman come out she was as pale as her linen and was supported by a jailer. They shouted to her roughly, 'Cry Long live the Nation! 'No, no ! ' said she.  They made her mount a pile of corpses. One of the butchers seized the jailer and thrust him aside. ' Oh ! ' cried the unfortunate woman, ' do not hurt him.' Again they bade her cry ''Long live the Nation!' She refused with scorn. Then a butcher seized her, tore off her clothes and ripped open her stomach. She fell and was finished by the others. . . .  My imagination had never pictured such horrors. I strove to flee, my limbs gave way, I fainted. . . .When I came to myself I saw the bloody head. . . . I was told that they were going to wash it, curl the hair, put it on the end of a pike, and carry it beneath the windows of the Temple. Needless cruelty ! It could not be seen from them. . . . This unfortunate creature was Madame de Lamballe.

Madame Roland discusses the September massacres.  Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p70

The massacres continued.  At the Abbaye they lasted from Sunday evening until Tuesday morning; at La Force, longer; at Bicêtre, four days, and so on.  I am now in the first of these three prisons myself and that is how I have heard the gruesome details; I dare not describe them.  But there was one event which I will not pass over in silence because it helps to show how all this was linked and premeditated.  In the faubourg St-Germain there was a warehouse where they put the prisoners for whom there was no room in the Abbaye.  The police chose the Sunday evening just before the general massacre to move prisoners from the depot to the prison.  The assassins were lying in wait; they fell upon the coaches, five or six in number, broke them open with swords and pikes and slew the men and women within, screaming there in the open street.  All Paris witnessed these terrible scenes, carried out by a small number of butchers.  (At the Abbaye there were barely fifteen of them, but only defenders of the gate, despite all the demands made to the Commune and to the Commander of the Guard, were two men of the National Guard.)  All Paris saw it and all Paris let it go on.  I abominate this city.  It is impossible to imagine Liberty finding a home amongst cowards who condone every outrage and coolly stand by watching crimes which fifty armed men with any gumption could easily have prevented.

Marat on the September massacres in his Friend of the People publication.  Taken from Jean Paul Marat: The People’s Friend by Ernest Belfort Bax, Grant Richards, London (1901) p205-206

What is the duty of the people? The last thing it has to do, and the safest and wisest, is to present itself in arms before the Abbaye, snatch out the traitors, especially the Swiss officers and their accomplices, and put them to the sword. What folly to wish to give them a trial! It is all done: you have taken them in arms against the country, you have massacred the soldiers, why would you spare their officers, incomparably more culpable? The folly is to have listened to the smooth-talkers, who counselled to make of them only prisoners of war. They are traitors whom it is necessary to sacrifice immediately, since they can never be considered in any other light.

Circular on sent the 3rd of September by the Committee of Vigilance of the Commune to all the departments featuring the signature of Danton.  Taken from Madame De Lamballe by Georges Bertin, Godfrey A. S. Wieners, New York (1901)  p294-295

The Commune of Paris hastens to inform its brothers and all the departments that some of the ferocious conspirators shut up in the prisons have been put to death by the people, an act of justice which seemed necessary to terrify, and so to restrain those legions of traitors hidden within the walls at the moment when they themselves were about to march against the enemy j and no doubt the whole nation, after the long continuance of the treacherous acts which led it to the brink of the abyss, would hasten to adopt this means so essential to the public safety, and all Frenchmen would cry out as the Parisians had done: " ' We are marching against the enemy, but we will not leave behind us brigands to cut the throats of our wives and children. . . .'