ON THE SITUATION IN FRANCE[1]
(1793)
Born in 1754, died in 1820; elected to the Assembly in 1791, to the. Convention in 1792, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793; the greatest financier of the Revolution.
The Committee of Public Safety charged me to apprise you yesterday of the condition of the Republic at the time of its establishment and of its actual condition, as well as to give you a summary of the operations it has conducted. I have just finished this task.
I will first remind you that, at the period of the establishment of the committee, the Republic was betrayed. Dumouriez had disorganized the army of the North and the Ardennes, and there remained but about two thousand five hundred men in the garrisons of that whole frontier; the forts lacked provisions and munitions to sustain a siege, and this perfidious general, after having delivered to the Austrians the
- ↑ From a speech in the Convention on July 11, 1793. Translated by Scott Robinson for this edition from the text as given by Stephens. This speech was technically a report from Cambon and Danton, members of the Committee of Public Safety, who had been rejected at the election of the new committee, in which Robespierre became the dominant figure, and which ruled France for the next year with a despotic and bloody hand.
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