On Paris food riots of Feb 25-26

Feb. 25, 1793

(Translator unknown - provided by Ayumi)

As I have always loved humanity and have sought to flatter any man, I shall speak the truth. This is a plot directed against the patriots themselves. The intriguers are determinded to bring the patriots to their ruin. The people have been rightly filled with indignation. I have said before, in the midst of persecution and without the support of others, that the people are never wrong. I dared to proclaim this truth at a time when it was not yet recognized; it has been vindicated by the later course of the Revolution.

The people have so often heard the law invoked by those who wished to enslave them that they have grown to distrust such talk. The people are still persecuted by the rich,who are still what they always were: hard and merciless. (applause) The people see the insolence of those who have deceived them; they see how wealth has accumulated in their hands; conscious of their own wretchedness., they do not feel the need to take such measures as will carry the Revolution through to its goal; and when one speaks to them in the language of reason, they follow but the promptings of their own anger against the rich and allow themselves to be led along false paths by men who capture their confidence in order to destroy them.

For this there are 2 causes, of which the first is the natural disposition of the people to seek the means to alleviate their wretched condition. This in itself is a natural and legitimate disposition: the people believe that, in default of protective laws, they have the right to talk their own measures to satisfy their needs. But there is another cause, which lies in the treacherous designs of the enemies of freedom, of the enemies of the people, who are convinced that the only way to open our doors to the enemy without is to arouse popular alarms concerning our food supplies and to make the people suffer the consequences of the resultant commotion. I have, myself, been a witness of these disturbances.

Along with decent citizens, we have seen strangers and men of wealth clad in the honorable garb of the san-culottes. We have heard them say: "they promised us abundance after the king's death, and we have been more wretched than ever since that poor king died." we have heard them protest, not against the intriguing and counterrevolutionary section of the convention, which now sits whereonce sat the aristocrats of the constituent assembly, but against the Mountain, against the deputies of Paris and the Jacobins, whom they present as hoarders and speculators. I am not saying that the people are guilty, nor that their agitation is a crime. But when the people rise, should they not have an object worthy of themselves? They have gainted nothing from it, for the sugar loaves have been carried off by the lackeys of the aristocracy; and even if they have gained something, what disasters have they not reaped to offset this slender advantage? Our enemies wish to terrify allw ho have any property by persuading them that our system of liberty and equality is subversive of all order and security. The people, indeed, must rise: not to seize sugar, but to exterminate the brigands. (Applause) ...