Public opinion, Louis knew, was a fickle and powerful tide. He was riding the crest of a massive wave of popular support, but tides always turned. He could not afford to simply enjoy the warmth of his newfound adoration. He had to use it. He had to translate his stunning narrative victory into a permanent, structural change in the balance of power. He had to break the back of his most dangerous and unpredictable enemy: the Paris Commune.
The Commune, under the leadership of Jacques Hébert and his fellow ultra-radicals, was a state within a state. They controlled the National Guard battalions of the most volatile sections, they controlled the city's food supply, and their word could summon a mob of fifty thousand angry sans-culottes to the streets in a matter of hours. They were the third man in his unstable Triumvirate, a partner he had been forced to accept but one he knew would betray him at the first opportunity. Now, with their credibility shattered by the miracle of the Dauphin's recovery, they were vulnerable. It was time to strike.
He could not, however, use his own troops. To march Colonel Giraud's regulars on the Hôtel de Ville, the seat of the Commune's power, would still be seen as a military coup. It would shatter the carefully crafted image of the benevolent Philosopher King and recast him as a common despot. It would be a fatal miscalculation.
No, the revolution had to be seen to be cleansing itself. He needed an instrument, a weapon that carried the legitimacy of the revolution itself. He needed the man who had become his junior partner in the new government. He needed Danton.
He summoned the Minister of Justice to the Tuileries. Georges Danton arrived, a changed man. The near-death experience of his confrontation with Robespierre, followed by the King's stunning and absolute victory over the Commune, had humbled him. The swaggering, roaring titan of the streets was gone, replaced by a more cautious, more calculating political animal. He was a predator who had finally, and with great surprise, recognized a greater predator. He entered the King's study not as a rival, but as a subordinate awaiting his orders.
Louis did not waste time with pleasantries. "Citizen Danton," he began, his tone that of a senior partner in a firm addressing a talented but junior associate. "We have a problem. Or rather, you have a problem that I am willing to help you solve. The Paris Commune, under the leadership of Hébert and his fanatics, has proven itself to be an enemy of stable government. They defied the will of the sovereign National Assembly. They attempted to storm this palace and subvert the course of justice. They are a cancerous tumor on the body of the Republic."
He paused, his eyes locking with Danton's. "They are a threat to our government. To your new power as Minister of Justice, and to my authority as Head of State. They must be dealt with. Permanently."
Louis proposed the plan. It was simple, direct, and cloaked in the impeccable mantle of the law. Danton, as the Minister of Justice and, in the wake of the previous crisis, the most powerful man in the Assembly, would use his authority to issue warrants for the arrest of Jacques Hébert and the other key leaders of the Commune who had ordered the illegal march on the Tuileries. The charge would be precise and legally unassailable: "Insurrection against the sovereign National Assembly and conspiracy against the security of the state." It would be a perfectly legal move, an act of the judiciary, not the executive.
Danton hesitated. His face, scarred by a childhood encounter with a bull, creased in a deep, worried frown. This was a direct, frontal assault on the ultra-radicals, the men of the sections, who had once been his allies, the very source of his street power. "Your Majesty," he warned, his voice a low rumble. "Hébert is a sewer rat, but he is the king of the sewer rats. The sans-culottes listen to him. To move against him and his friends could provoke the sections of Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marcel to rise. It could be another night of furies."
"The sections will not rise for discredited leaders," Louis countered calmly, his confidence absolute. "We have spent the last week proving to the citizens of Paris that Jacques Hébert is a ghoul, a liar, a man who tried to profit from the death of a sick child. His credibility is in ashes. The people now see him as an enemy of the miracle they have all witnessed."
He leaned forward, the iron fist showing beneath the velvet glove of his logic. "And," he added, his voice dropping, "should the sections become… restless… you will not be facing them alone. Colonel Giraud's professional soldiers will be waiting, under the full legal authority of the emergency decree from the Assembly, to assist your new national police force in 'maintaining order.' This is your chance, Danton. Help me crush the fanatics, and you will be the undisputed master of the revolutionary street, second only to the state itself. Refuse, and you will be left to fight them alone when they eventually recover and inevitably come for you. And this time, I will not intervene to save you."
The threat was unspoken but perfectly clear. Danton, a pragmatist to his very core, saw the cold, hard logic. The King was offering him a partnership in a decisive victory and the consolidation of his own power. The alternative was isolation and eventual destruction. There was no real choice.
He gave a slow, decisive nod. "The warrants will be prepared."
The purge was a model of swift and brutal efficiency. Danton, now fully committed, moved with the speed of a man fighting for his life. His new Sûreté force, a national police loyal to him, conducted a series of perfectly coordinated midnight raids. They did not use the unreliable, faction-ridden National Guard. They used professional soldiers and former gendarmes.
Hébert was arrested at his printing press while screaming obscenities at the final proofs of his next edition of Le Père Duchesne. The other key leaders of the Commune—Ronsin, Vincent, Momoro—were rounded up in their homes or their favorite taverns within a matter of hours.
Just as Louis had predicted, there were no street battles, no popular uprising. The sans-culottes of the eastern sections, their leaders snatched from them in the dead of night, their faith in those leaders poisoned by a week of royalist propaganda, were left confused, disorganized, and demoralized. There were a few scattered protests, a few angry speeches at the Cordeliers Club, but without their leadership, the fire of the radical street sputtered and died out.
The final act of the drama took place at the Revolutionary Tribunal. Hébert and his co-conspirators were put on trial. But the atmosphere of the court was utterly changed. The fanatical, bloodthirsty zeal of the Robespierrist era was gone. The chief prosecutor was not a wild-eyed Jacobin. He was a new man, a brilliant, ambitious, and deeply cynical lawyer named Fouquier-Tinville, who had been quietly appointed by Danton at the King's suggestion. He was a man who understood which way the new political wind was blowing.
The evidence against the Hébertists was overwhelming and presented with a cold, legalistic precision. The Assembly's own emergency decree authorizing the King's military intervention. The testimony of the National Guard commanders who had been at the Tuileries gates. The signed confession of the Commune's own messenger. The verdict was a foregone conclusion.
Jacques Hébert and the entire leadership of the ultra-radical faction were sentenced to the guillotine.
Louis, by using Danton as his instrument, as his willing executioner, had just successfully purged the entire leadership of the radical left from the political scene. He had eliminated the third man, the most unpredictable and dangerous man, in his Triumvirate. All that remained was himself, the King, with the unshakeable loyalty of the professional army, and a now deeply dependent and politically isolated Danton. The balance of power was no longer a balance at all. It was a hierarchy. And he was at the top.
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