TWO:Very important events had during this time been taking place in Europe. In the north, Russia, checked in its encroachments on Turkey for the present, turned its eyes on the inviting region of Poland. Poland, after neglecting its own internal improvement, and the raising of the condition of its people, so as to give them a[396] real interest in the defence of the country, had suddenly set about establishing a new Constitution, very much on the model of the French Revolutionary one. The Diet declared the throne hereditary, and not elective, as hitherto; and Stanislaus Augustus, the kingthat is, Poniatowski, the former lover and favourite of Catherine of Russiawas wholly agreeable to this. The Diet proposed the Elector of Saxony as Poniatowski's successor, the king having no children. It also admitted the burgher class into its body. As there was a strong party, however, in opposition to the popular party, the patriots met secretly, and not only pledged themselves to the new Constitution, but to pass it en masse and at once, without canvassing the particular articles of it. The king, being privy to this, on the 3rd of May, 1791, entered the hall of the Diet. The new Constitution was read, passed by a majority, and signed by the king. Stanislaus then led the way to the cathedral, where he was followed by all the nuncios except twelve, and there both he and they swore to maintain this new Constitution. An unexpected difficulty was found in persuading the Elector of Saxony to accept the Crown; for, though both Russia and Prussia still professed friendship for Poland, he was too well aware of the designs of Russia on Poland to accept the dangerous post without much hesitation. At length, in the month of April, 1792, the Elector gave his reluctant consent, but not without stipulating that they should give more power to the sovereign, and limit more that of the Diet; that the right of determining peace and war should belong to the king, as well as the authority over the army. He objected to a number of things, evidently borrowed from the revolutionary French, such as the oath taken to the nation, and the education of the heir by the Diet, just as the National Assembly had claimed the right to educate the Dauphin.No sooner had Collot d'Herbois, Barrre, and that party triumphed over Robespierre than they summoned the members of the tribunal to their baray, on the very morning of the day of his executionand voted them honours amid much applause. The tribunal replied, that though a few traitors like Coffinhal and Dumas had found their way into the tribunal, the majority of them were sound and devoted to the Convention. Accordingly, the next day the Convention handed over to Fouquier-Tinville and his colleagues a list of fresh proscriptions of sixty-nine municipals, and a few days afterwardsnamely, the 12th of Thermidor, being the 30th of Julythey added twelve more, completing eighty-one victims! These were all executed within twenty-four hours. The Convention then fell into new divisions, some members contending for its being time to cease these tragedies, others insisting on maintaining them. Billaud-Varennes, Barrre, and Collot d'Herbois defended the guillotine and Fouquier-Tinville, but the greater number of the enemies of Robespierre denounced them, declared themselves the overthrowers of Robespierre, and assumed the name of Thermidorians, in honour of the month in which they had destroyed him. For the Thermidorians saw that the better part of the public had become sick of blood, and they set about contracting the Reign of Terror. They reduced the powers of the two governing Committees; they decreed that one-fourth of the members should go out every month; they reduced the revolutionary sections of Paris from forty-eight to twelve, and abolished the forty sous a day to the sansculotte patriots for their attendance. A month after the execution of Robespierre, Tallien made a fierce onslaught on the Terrorist system, and declared that there were numbers yet living who had been equally merciless with Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just; and the next day Lecointre denounced by name Barrre, Billaud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois. To put an end to the Jacobin resistance, the Convention closed the Jacobin Club altogether, which had thus only survived the fall of Robespierre about four months. Thereupon the Jacobins began to denounce the Thermidorians as anti-Republicans, but they retorted that they were Republicans of the purest schoolthat of Marat.
