Massacres of September

The massacres of September indicate a series of summary executions and mass which proceeded 2 with the September 7th 1792 with Paris. It is one of the darkest episodes of the French revolution. The historians do not agree on the motivations which pushed men to make these fatal acts and to kill, in particularly horrible circumstances, prisoners. These slaughters were perpetrated not only with Paris, but also in other cities of the country, such as for example with Orleans, Meaux or Rheims, without however that these exactions become in province same extensive as in the capital.

Context

The France is in war against the Austria since the April 20th 1792.

The Prussian armies invested Longwy the August 23rd and Verdun, besieged, soon will undergo the same fate. In the Parisian population a feeling of panic develops then: by the Proclamation of Brunswick of the July 25th, the duke of Brunswick employs expressions " malvenues" : of a rendering and one return to the royal order, the Prussian armies will deliver Paris to “a military execution and a total subversion”.

Some want to move the institutions of the Republic in province and to evacuate the capital. Danton is opposed vigorously to this solution. The idea of an interior enemy develops. The rumor runs that the counter-revolutionaries are in the train, of the bottom of their jails, to warp a plot, that they are accessory and thus culprits by advance to the threats uttered by Brunswick. The Sans-culotte S require a fast justice in order to put a term at the plot.

Unfolding

The massacres start with the sticking of twenty-three priests refractory to the Prison of the Abbey with federate Marseillais and Breton. A group goes thereafter in the convent of the Carmelite friars, where a hundred and fifty insermentés priests are locked up. On arrival of the assassins, they run to kneel with the vault where they are killed with blows of spade, axe and stick. Then, the group turns over to the Abbey still full with prisoners, and installs a “court there”. It is here that “are judged” and “are carried out” more than 300 people. Stanislas-Marie Maillard, executor of the orders of the Inspection committee, one by one condemns all those which are presented in front of him “to the Force”. The door opens and as soon as they crossed the threshold, they fall under the spades or the bayonets. This massacre lasts all during the night.

The same day, four priests are massacred in the Église Saint-Paul Saint-Louis (current Église Saint-Paul in the Marsh), old church professes Jésuite S (commemorative plaque on the right).

The massacre extends then during five days with the close prisons: with the Caretaker's lodge, the Prison of Large-Châtelet the, the Force, the Salpêtrière, Bicêtre, the Prison of the Carmelite friars.

The massacres do not stop there. Marat wishes that these bloody popular “courts” extend in whole France. It thus makes draw on its presses a circular dated September 3rd which justifies the exactions, pokes angers and still causes many summary “judgments”:

The Commune of Paris hastens to inform his/her brothers of all the departments that part of the wild conspirators held in the prisons was put at died by the people; acts of justice which appeared essential to him, to retain by terror the legions of traitors hidden in its walls, at the moment when it was going to go to the enemy; and undoubtedly the whole nation, after the long continuation of treasons which led it on the edges of the abyss, will hasten to adopt this means so necessary of public hello, and all the French will exclaim like the Parisian ones: " We walk to the enemy; but we will not leave behind us these brigands, to cut the throat of our children and our femmes."

One witnesses executions for example with Orleans, Meaux or Rheims but the situation in province will remain very moderate compared to the exactions which ensanglantent the capital. On the whole, the days from September in Paris and in the departments made more than 1.400 died.

The massacreurs were not brigands but generally small shopkeepers or craftsmen. If the counter-revolutionaries were the first victims, they are mainly prisoners of common right who were killed. The September 4th, with the old people's home prison of Salpétrière, the assassins will violate and kill out of the prostitutes, insane and same of orphan still the children.

Responsibility for the capacity

The role of the revolutionary government in these murders remains very turbid: were the riots overall spontaneous or the massacres they were encouraged even organized by the capacity in place?

Always it is that these words pronounced by Danton the September 2nd 1792 remained engraved in all the memory S: “Of the audacity, still of the audacity, always of the audacity”. One remembers that Danton was Ministre for Justice, in the provisional Executive council which included/understood six members (ministers). This council had been consisted the legislative Parliament the evening of the August 10th, 1792, by acclamation.

The Commune of Paris and the legislative Assemblée were committed in a fight for the capacity which returned France, then in state of war civil, almost ungovernable. The governorship of the Republic was the object of a wild fight between various factions, and all and sundry did not hesitate to take initiatives even contradictory not-coordinates. For the Commune, this capacity was in fact in fact given to the Inspection committee on which Danton and Marat had a determining influence.

The Commune had decided to raise an army of 60.000 men to fight the Prussian armies. Officially, she did not wish to leave the cities without defense delivered to the counter-revolutionaries; in fact, it was quite conscious owing to the fact that the volunteers would be more the extremists, and that those left the central capacity would pass by again under the dominating influence of the moderate ones. The commune had carried out many arrests (arbitrary) but she did not dare yet “to judge” as it will be made during the terror. In this direction the Commune had an obvious interest to let make the massacreurs, and in fact the massacreurs are not distinguished from the supports of the Commune, while the promoters were influential men of the Commune. These considerations undoubtedly explain the silence of Danton, which wished to preserve its influence on the members of the Commune.

Since the Storming of the Bastille , Marat thought openly that the most effective policy to break with the past would consist in making fall a few hundreds from heads. Its newspaper was one of most virulent capital, and it had a strong prestige since the arrest of Louis XVI.

For Marat this episode thus concerns an insurrectionary strategy, commune with all the movements extremists and particularly when they feel threatened, which aims at putting most moderate in front of the accomplished fact, and to prevent any flashback,

by eliminating the men from the opposite edge.
while returning the moderate accomplices (would be this only by their inaction) of a massacre.
by creating an atmosphere of terror, aiming at making conceal the expression of a contrary opinion.

And in fact, the massacres indeed made it possible the Patriotes extremists to take a dominating place and the elections which followed transfer to triumph Marat and Danton.

The Massacres of September are the result of this logic. They constitute also one of the first " dérapages" French revolution. Often discussed, this event remains the object of sharp debates between the historians, some preaching a Marxist vision of the revolution (Albert Soboul), others attempting to show the limits of the popular capacity (François Furet).

Assessment

The massacres of September 1792 made on the whole between 1000 and 1400 victims, is half of the Parisian prisoners. There were 307 died among the 357 prisoners of the prison of the Abbey who appeared before the popular courts. The three quarters of the massacred prisoners were ordinary prisoners.

September 2nd in the calendar

There does not exist official commemoration. The victims are regarded as Martyr S}}. The Calendrier Liturgique mentions on September 2nd like the day of commemoration of the Happy martyrs. This mention is not reproduced on the ordinary Agenda S.

List Parisian prisons

Prison of the Abbey
Prison of Châtelet
Prison of the Carmelite friars
Prison of the Force
Prison of the Caretaker's lodge
Prison of Bicêtre
Prison of Saint-Firmin

See too

Sources

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