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The Infernal Club: First Session (Pilpay)

The series of pamphlets Le club infernal was written by the royalist writer Jean-Pierre Gallais (1756-1820) under the pseudonym Pilpay.��

Although the pamphlets are undated, it is clear that they were published in the spring of 1795, after the trial and execution of Fouquier-Tinville (18 Floréal, Year III / 7 May 1795) ; thus, they should be considered in the context of the reactionary offensive of Year III.

The pamphlets are based on the premise that the Jacobins reunited in Hell after their deaths, forming a new, “infernal” Club (hence the title). This leads to a series of confrontations and conflicts, which are, in my eyes, quite entertaining. (Yet, one should not neglect the political and deeply reactionary context within which these pamphlets were written.)

Presidency of Robespierre.

It was nearly half past ten in the evening when Fouquier-Tinville arrived before the bronze door of the infernal club, guarded by the famous Cerberus, a terrible and marvellous dog that caresses the Jacobins and devours the aristocrats. He regarded Fouquier with a tender look, and, opening one of his three mouths, he asked him, with a graceful tone, for his carte de citoyen: – here. – Your certificat de civisme? – here. – Your passport? – I am holding it. – Your receipts for furniture contributions in '91 and '92? – there. – Your patriotic donation? – I have it. – Your political life? – is over. – Your duties? – have been fulfilled... etc. etc. – You are perfectly in order. One does not gather more proofs of civisme. You can enter ; you will be received well.

Fouquier entered. The room was illuminated by lanterns placed in 45 skulls of fermiers géneraux, which emitted a light that was more red than the blood of a virgin. At the end, on a fiery three-legged stool, Maximilien Robespierre was sitting nonchalantly, holding his jawbone in one hand, and drawing, with a dagger in the other hand, the vast plan of a universal cemetery. On the left, one saw Lubin, who was crying, Henriot, who gnashed his teeth, Payan, who cleaned his, Lavalette, who snuffed tobacco, and Coffinhal, who read Audouin's Le Journal Universel.

On the right, Fleuriot gnawed his nails ; Chaumette recited a rosary ; Hébert heated his furnaces ; Dumas was sulking ; Sijas unmuzzled a tiger ; Couthon contemplated a crime ; St.-Just wrote a report, and the rabble behind him.

Upon seeing Fouquier-Tinville, everybody rose ; everybody jumped for joy. They embraced him. Here he is ; he is there ; it is him ; it is Fouquier. So, where is Barère? Where is Billaud? What is Collot doing? everybody spoke at the same time. It was a sequence of events, it was a noise that could not be understood. The president might well have rung a bell bigger than the one of Moscow, no one would have listened, no one would have heard him ; one saw, one heard only the dear Fouquier. In these moments of euphoria, talents were forgotten, authority disappeared, reputation vanished.

Robespierre, a man of the world who knew best how to yield to the circumstances, let the enthusiasm pass, and when he saw that everyone began to resume their place and their role, he waved Fouquier to come over.

I would have loved your better up there, he told him, but as I see that you have descended, like us, to the destination of the dead, I hope you arrived here well: tell us of the news!

Great master, Tinville cried, while bowing deeply...

Stop, Fouquier, Coffinhal interrupted, there is no great master here. You are in the place of equality. Equality, up there, was only a word which we other scoundrels used in order to enslave the dupes. Here, he have to walk beneath the surface. All of our thoughts are on our lips ; all of our actions are weighed on the inflexible scales of equity, all of our hearts are exposed.

HENRIOT: The heart of Coffinhal! who ever suspected you [of having one]?

COFFINHAL: Maybe it is not Henriot who would amuse himself pirouetting in the air, instead of assembling his gunners around us.

HENRIOT: Monster! without your brutality, we would still be alive. (Noise.)

COFFINHAL: Idiot! without your stupidity, we would certainly be the master of Paris. (Murmurs.)

HENRIOT: Blood drinker!

COFFINHAL: Whipped and marked... (Disturbance ... the president covers himself.)

ROBESPIERRE: My friends, have we not promised to forget our mutual faults ; I know what has to be attributed to weakness, and what can be blamed on malice ; but let us not trouble the universal joy with the arrival of our friend Fouquier inspires with particular fights. Tell us, Fouquier, in what state have you left France? what are the Jacobins doing, what are Pitt and Coburg doing?

FOUQUIER: I have left the task of telling you about the current state of France to Barère.

FLEURIOT: I do not love your Barère ; his unchanging, ambidextrous, pompous and insignificant reports bore me to death: we will have to choose another reporter.

SIJAS: Another reporter, so be it ; but we have to agree at least that, if one can easily find someone more honest or more eloquent, you will hardly find anyone who is more astute.

ROBESPIERRE: What is the Convention doing?

FOUQUIER: It is fighting against intrigue and anarchy.

ROBESPIERRE: The government?

FOUQUIER: It is divided.

ROBESPIERRE: The revolutionary committees?

FOUQUIER: They tremble.

ROBESPIERRE: The Jacobins?

FOUQUIER: They are dragged through the mud.

All at once: Dragged through the mud!

DUMAS: How, the Jacobins, this eternal pivot of the revolution, this centre burning of patriotism, these untamed rivals of kings and legislators, the hope of France, the columns of liberty, the Jacobins are dragged through the mud!

FOUQUIER: Alas! yes. The force of the truth tears me away from distressing declarations ; but as we no longer have either the means, or the interest of erring, it is necessary to resolve, for me, to make them to you, and, for you, to hear them. The reign of the Jacobins is over. Even the people, which was their pawn and their victim for so long, the people clearly demands the dissolution ; and, frankly, they deserve through to their stupidities even more than through their crimes.

COUTHON: If they only had crimes to reproach themselves for, not all would be lost. One covers crimes up, and we have left more than one example of this kind of plasterwork ; but stupidities can be judged by everyone!

ST.-JUST: What has thus become of this admirable cleverness, of which we have left so many lessons ; this art of placing one's own stupidities and crimes on the account of one's enemies? What has become of the spirit which we have bequeathed, while dying, to Billaud, to Barère, to Collot, these old champions who are cleared under our flags?

FOUQUIER: I do not know, but the veterans no longer appear to be fighting for the cause. Be it weakness, be it politics, they have abandoned the battlefield to greenhorns, to revolutionary runts, who are more stupid than malicious ; but who, wanting to manage everything, have ruined everything.

LAVALETTE: Mort de ma vie! the leaders hide themselves in a moment of crisis! this is a punishable jeanfoutrerie.

ROBESPIERRE: Sometimes, this is a wise policy.

HÉBERT: The jeanf... remembers 10 August and 31 May.

ST.-JUST: But, at last, who appears at the tribune? who are our successors?

FOUQUIER: Caraffes, Bouins, Fayau, Duhems, Duperrets, Gautherots, etc., all these persons are as new as their names are ridiculous.

ROBESPIERRE: Names are not worth anything, only talent matters.

HÉBERT: I do not know these B... .

CHAUMETTE: Neither do I: have they voted?

COUTHON: Where are they coming from? what are their means? their virtues?

FOUQUIER: I do not know where they come from ; their means are their lungs. They shout at the top of their voices, they scream out patriotism: they mimic Robespierre ; they repeat all of his phrases against modérantisme and the aristocracy. With the words liberty, safety of the people, patriots and aristocrats, they compose speeches that the idiots applaud to, but which are mocked by the people ; speeches that are extolled in Le Journal de la Montagne, and spread by all police spies.

LUBIN: The sessions have to be curious, aren't they?

FOUQUIER: Curious, the first time ; boring, afterwards.

DUMAS: Let us risk boredom: give us a sample of the play.

FOUQUIER: I really want to ; but remember that I will only be a historian.

The procès-verbal, written messily, is barely read by a secretary who could not read, when Caraffe mounts the tribune, shakes his head, rolls his eyes and screams without any preamble:

« You see the aristocracy with a sardonic laughter on its lips, and with a dagger in it hands. It triumphs today ; but patience, the Jacobins will develop their revolutionary energy: they will chase from their tribune and from their midst all these moderates who preach justice, and slander terror ; all aristocrats who want to kill liberty, with the liberty of the press ; all these suspicious people who do not think like us. »

Duperret succeeds Caraffe: he takes his hat off and puts it back on twice, coughs like a capuchin, and with a nasal tone he says: « Let us return to the principles, there can be no fraternity between patriots and aristocrats, between crime and virtue. »

ROBESPIERRE: This Duperret is a vile plagiarist who steals from me quite bluntly... it does not matter, let us see!

DUPERRET: Do you know how one can distinguish patriots from aristocrats?

FLEURIOT: Devil! are they already at the elementary definitions?

PAYAN: Nothing surprising ; the definitions have to change with the matters, and the matters are not what the used to be five years ago, six months ago. The aristocrats of today do not resemble the one of the past year any more than the Jacobins lead by Marat resemble the Jacobins led by Collot. Tallien is an aristocrat today, and he was an enragé 18 months ago. Thus, in revolutions, the words patriotism and virtue do not have anything fix, anything well-defined. All parties seize them, and paint their enemies in the most generally proscribed colour. As long as the aristocrats will be the dark head of the people, the populace will call all those aristocrats who will have the recklessness to lift a corner of the veil which covers our operations.

DUPERRET: The aristocrats are those who roam the squares, the theatres and the brothels. They laugh loudly, spit far, watch closely, eat muskmelons with Véri, and read the Correspondance politique. The patriots, on the contrary, shun lucrative places, denounce the artists of the theatres, and abhor girls. They see in the girls only luxury objects, in shows only subjects of scandal, and in [public] squares only means of corruption.

HÉBERT: What a f...ing gibberish! what does all of this have to do with patriotism?

DUPERRET: I do not know anything about this ; but it is necessary that the patriots, that is to say, the Jacobins, raise their head proudly, and, above all, are not afraid. Fear is the share of the cowards and the aristocrats.

LUBIN: The aristocrats again! that is a pons asinorum.

ROBESPIERRE: What does it matter? as long as, thanks to this astute Machiavellianism, one spreads more and more confusion.

ST.-JUST: This Machiavellianism is known and overused usque ad nauseam.

ROBESPIERRE: It succeeds nonetheless, and it will always succeed with a bit of skill or audacity.

DUPERRET: We lack both the former and the latter. I, who is speaking to you, frankly declare that the tyrant scared me.

ROBESPIERRE: And this was the effect of a single glance.

HENRIOT: So, how do you dare, after this confession, to treat the aristocrats as cowards? you must be quite impudent!

DUPERRET: But today, that the tyrant is dead, I brave tyranny, and I loudly say that one has to fight to death against all the insolent [persons] who dare to print their thoughts, and against all the impure [persons] who enjoy [the company of] girls.

CHAUMETTE: This does not make too much sense, but it is fine. One does not know enough how much girls harm the revolution: and I have made sure to include them into my indictments.

HÉBERT: You f...ing indictments are forgotten. You wrote for shopkeepers.

CHAUMETTE: And you, for mass graves.

HÉBERT: You repeated [my words] without spirit.

CHAUMETTE: And you shamelessly imitated Robespierre.

HÉBERT: You were only a damned schoolteacher.

CHAUMETTE: And you, an insolent muscadin.

(One shouts for order.)

ROBESPIERRE: Citizens, let us not give the scandal of an open schism among the patriots to your enemies. Vanity has to cede to virtue, and crime must not be able to reproach us for sacrificing the patrie to our resentments.

(One laughs.)

LEVASSEUR, arriving completely out of breath from the departments, demands the floor for a point of order. « What do I hear you say, citizens? Is it true that one has opened the doors to the prisoners? Is it true that terror is no longer the order of the day? Alas! I only see it in the joy which reigns on the faces of the French, and the paleness which covers yours. If Pitt and Coburg were in prison, I believe that all counter-revolutionaries would pass the word around in order to liberate them. »

LUBIN: What an effort of imagination!

LEVASSEUR: Listen until the end. One cannot hide that there is a terrible system of oppression, an infernal system, a renewed system of the Cazalès, the Brissots, the Héberts, in order to execute the patriots and to restore liberty to the aristocrats.

HÉBERT: These simpletons reason like f...ing idiots. If the system which has opened the prisons is counter-revolutionary, it can only be so because one would only have locked up aristocrats there, and in this case, I would not be one of them. If, on the contrary, if I had locked up patriots there, in order to repel the revolution by exaggerating, just as my patron, all revolutionary measures, the system which liberates them is in no way terrible, surprising, [or] counter-revolutionary: it is not enough to be breathless like an ox, to spill horse blood in Mans, and to spread watchwords in Paris, one has to be able to reason.

LEVASSEUR: One listens to us without this. In a few days, I will not reason any more, and yet, I will deliver a great speech wherein I will unveil the system of oppression which reigns in Paris as much as in the departments. (Surprised movements.)

HENRIOT: Why not unveil all of it immediately?

LEVASSEUR: It is because our addresses are still not made ; we let them come from all sides.

HENRIOT: Produced in Paris, isn't that so?

DUQUESNOY: No doubt ; but I, who does not need dexterity in order to speak, I simply inform you that I have sent 57 individuals from Pas-de-Calais to the revolutionary tribunal, but, through an incredible scandal, my pieces have been misplaced, and these are my 57 sheep that are ready to be liberated: is it not revolting!

COFFINHAL: It is this rascal from L'Obsent who must have taken the pieces away in order to examine them!

DUQUESNOY: I do not know about any of this, but at least it is sure that everything languishes, that everything is going badly since one examined the matters. The examination of the matters is the death of the revolutionary government, and the triumph of the aristocracy.

Well, I say that, in order to put an end to all past, present and future ills, it is necessary to strongly cut down the aristocrats. During revolutions, one must never look back, but pitilessly crush all of our enemies, who are also the ones of the people.

FAYAU: Crush, that is the word. Yes, let us crush the insolent head of the aristocracy against the columns of liberty. Several days ago, the aristocracy reappeared on the stage, and the signals are already given to attack the patriots ; the prisons are already open ; the inmates have already set the library and the powder magazine of Grenelle on fire ; they have already assassinated Tallien. (Boos.)

ROBESPIERRE: The more absurd this accusation is, the more successful it will be.

FAYAU: I doubt it, because of the liberty of the press which spoils all of our measures, and unmasks all of our forces: but we do not want to have anything to reproach ourselves for.

One already prepares phosphoric fuses in order to blow up the Convention. The émigrés are already settling in their housings in the fauxbourg St. Germain. – Will the patriots remain impassive witnesses of these new manoeuvres? no: the people will eradicate this horde of pygmies, which dares to attack its liberty, with its powerful club. The Jacobins will stop this scandal by reporting all of these scoundrels.

Robespierre, who had fallen asleep during this last soliloquy, falls onto Fleuriot, who falls onto Chaumette, who falls onto Hébert, who falls onto Couthon, who falls on the floor: everyone laughs, as one laughs in hell, as one laughs when one gets burned.

COFFINHAL: I do not know if this fall is laughable, but it seems to presage the one of our friends.

DUQUESNOY: By waiting, we have blamed the explosion of the gunpowder magazine of Grenelle on the aristocracy.

HENRIOT: You have postponed it, for one assures that one the very day of the event, you would accuse the aristocracy of increasing its mishaps ; certainly, one does not see all of a sudden what interest the aristocrats would then have in increasing, along with their wrongdoings, the number of their enemies.

GAUTHEROT: Ah! so this is why we were unsure of our deeds. We grope around for [public] opinion.

ROBESPIERRE: He who gropes around is lost. In order to become the master of [public] opinion, one has to know how to get ahead of it.

BOUIN: This is true, and I reproach the Jacobins for remaining behind [public] opinion. I swear to heaven that the counter-revolution has succeeded, if the patriots do not hurry to take great measures, if one does not rapidly deport the priests, the noble, the rich, the merchants, the artists, the clerks, the bureau bosses, the magistrates, the generals and the entire aristocratic following which weighs upon the soil of liberty.

LACOMBE: I denounce five intriguers by name, allied in order to demand the liberty of the press. The first is Dufourni, who mocks all orators ; the second is Lavaux, who thinks that he has more intellect than us ; the third is Boissel, who bends his principles ; the fourth is Réal, who treated me like a bad citizen ; the fifth, finally, is Yon, whom I regard as the faction’s butcher.

ISORÉ: I expect that one will say that the Jacobins do not want the liberty of the press ; but this is a calumny. The Jacobins want this liberty for themselves, and not for the counter-revolutionaries.

MONESTIER: Let us declare that the liberty of the press exists as much as it can exist, that is to say, for us and our friends, and that any other question will be adjourned until peace.

DUHEM vainly endeavours to speak: his tongue, which is glued to his palate, refuses him the service ; he has five or six glasses of water brought to him, and, with incredible efforts, he manages to say: do you, my friends, know what one accuses me of? on accuses me of having assassinated Tallien! I am in a terrible rage! I do not know myself anymore! I, an assassin! but I know where this comes from. The toads lift their head out of the marsh ; we will know them better, and we will kill them more easily... (Signs of disapproval.)

ROBESPIERRE: What clumsiness, to come to demask oneself! Duhem must be sold to our enemies...

FOUQUIER: I would be tempted to believe it, based on his conduct, if I did not know all of his stupidity ; but it is always imprudent on behalf of the leaders to use such instruments... Moreover, I believe that this sample suffices in order to give you an impression of the spirit which reigns in the society, and in order to justify what I have said before, that the Jacobins were dragged through the mud.

COUTHON: They will get back on their feet.

FOUQUIER: I do not believe any of this: the people decided in favour of their arrest.

COUTHON: They have immense resources in their immense correspondence.

FOUQUIER: By cutting off the head, one will kill the tail.

ST.-JUST: They have the committees.

FOUQUIER: One will renew them.

ROBESPIERRE: What is the department doing?

FOUQUIER: It has replaced the municipality, and it has taken its spirit.

ROBESPIERRE: The revolutionary tribunal?

FOUQUIER: It is still not perfectly purified, but in general, it judges wisely, and it seems to be surrounded by public esteem.

ROBESPIERRE: The agencies?

FOUQUIER: Behave themselves with an indecency or an ignorance of principles which distresses all citizens and ruins the chose publique.

ROBESPIERRE: The ruin of the chose publique is a small evil for them and for me, but I am afraid that so many accumulated evils, so many committed extravagances, so many unmasked intriguers, at last overturns all of our dear hard work, and awakens the people, [which has been] put to sleep by our tales for so long, and fooled so cruelly by our deceptions. Sullied by so many, so feeble treasons, repulsed by so many, so idiotic charlatans, the French will end up crushing both all traitors and all privileged charlatans... I see the moment approaching when common sense and justice will finally make the distinction, which has been uncertain for so long, between patriots and aristocrats, between good and bad citizens. Regardless of the influence of intrigue on truth in the tribunal of amour-propre, it ends up winning its process before the one of reason: I am the most complete and the most deplorable proof for this. Woe, thus, to the unmasked Jacobins, woe to the revolutionary committees ; woe to the perfidious or inept agencies of supplies ; woe, finally, to this entire sacrilegious league of scoundrels, of royalists, or émigrés and of stupid ushers, who, walking on my path while dedicating me to infamy, think that they can resuscitate my system, and finish, without talents, the work which has cost me five years of tiresome works, ingenious efforts and incredible crimes. I said: The session is closed.

P.S. The dark messenger, who brought us the infernal session yesterday which we publish today, has given us his word of honour to come back within fifteen days with even more interesting dispatches, even fresher news and more spicy commentaries. What concerned us the most, is that he assured us that the next session would be stuffed with great political views, for Le Moniteur, with lovely maxims of morality that are drawn from Gordon or Machiavelli, and with beautiful historical traits that shall serve as materials for the history of the revolution ; everything to enrich the collectors, and capable of surprising the people who are barely ever surprised. Moreover, one has to believe that malice, always ready to embarrass us, will be able to distinguish here between the author and the editor ; and that, if it is ready to pursue the one until hell, it will have to denounce the other at the Jacobins ; and this is, among all misfortunes, not the one which he fears the most. Goodbye.

PILPAY.

Source: Le club infernal.

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