^{page 266 note 1} The only complete copy known to exist is now in the Biblioteca Feltrinelli, Milan. Most biographical articles mention an Italian paper, l'Amico della Liberia Italiana, edited by Buonarroti in Corsica. This is obviously the Giornale Patriottico. Ambrosi in his “Notice sur Buonarroti”, however, mentions a Tuscan paper, L'Ami de la liberté Italienne (Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Historiques et Naturelles de la Corse, Bastia 1919, No. 389–392, p. 2). Buonarroti said at his trial at Vendôme: „En 1787 je fus le rédacteur d'un journal français qui proclamait déjà les principes de la liberté. En 1788, et au commencement de 1789, je publiais dans quelques articles d'une feuille italienne l'éloge de la révolution française”. (Débats du procès instruit par la Haute-Cour de Justice, Paris, 1797, IV, p. 294). There is as far as I know no Italian source referring to a French paper, but a further Italian research may settle this point. Buonarroti had been an editor in 1788 and 1789 of an Italian paper, the Gazette Universale in Florence.

^{page 267 note 1} La Conjuration de Corse, 1793, p. 27–28.

^{page 267 note 2} Garrone, Alessandro Galante, Buonarroti e Babeuf, Torino, 1948, p. 52–67.Google Scholar

^{page 267 note 3} He spoke in the Jacobin Club during his stay in Paris. Aulard however does not mention him in his Société des Jacobins. Buonarroti had become a member of the Jacobin Club at Corte in 1792.

^{page 267 note 4} Lamartine in his Histoire des Girondins (Livre XXX, ch. 13) relates that Buonarroti belonged to Robespierre's intimate circle. The statement is based on information of Madame Lebas (one of the daughters of Maurice Duplay, the host of Robespierre) and her son Philippe. They corrected the first version of Lamartine's story and gave Buonarroti's name amongst those who visited Robespierre “always”, with Lebas, Saint-Just, David, Couthon (c.f. Stéphane-Pol, , de Robespierre, Autour, le Conventionnel Lebas…, Paris [1901], p. 84Google Scholar). With regard to Hamel's statement that Buonarroti played the piano in the family circle, J. M. Thompson (Robespierre, 1935, I, p. 186–187) remarks that it may be only Hamel's guesswork that places the piano there, and that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction in the accounts of Robespierre's daily life. Hamel's statement is probably based on Buchez et Roux and the piano is already there: “C'était dans l'intérieure de cette famille patriarche que Robespierre passait toutes ses soirées. Lebas, amateur passionné de la musique italienne, qu'il chantait fort agréablement, se faisait souvent entendre dans cette réunion interne ou Ph. Buonarroti tenait le piano” (Histoire Parlementaire, vol. 35, 1837, p. 341Google Scholar). Buchez knew Buonarroti and got information from him (c.f. Histoire Parlementaire, Vol. 34, 1837, p. 3, 4Google Scholar). Buonarroti never spoke about his relations with Robespierre, but those who knew him, like Prati, Rusconi, Raspail, etc., mentioned this association. Raspail related in his Lettres sur les prisons de Paris (Paris, 1838, II, p. 323) that Buonarroti spoke of Robespierre as “son terrible et vertueux ami”. On the other hand Buonarroti is recorded to have said: “Je ne connus pour ainsi dire pas Maximilien Robespierre” (Buonarroti, , a biographical article in the Almanach de la France démocratique, 1846, p. 87–89).Google Scholar

^{page 268 note 1} Onnis, Pia, Filippo Buonarroti Commissario rivoluzionario a Oneglia nel 1794–95, 1939. p. 41.Google Scholar

^{page 269 note 1} Ph. Buonarroti, , Conspiration pour l'Egalité dite de Babeuf, Bruxelles, 1828, I, p. 119.Google Scholar In the following quoted as “Conspiration”.

^{page 269 note 2} The main difference between the two constitutions, Buonarroti wrote, was that the Constitution of 1793 implied that “nulle loi ne peut être imposée au peuple sans son consentement explicite” and that the one of 1795 created “des législateurs indépendants du peuple”; c.f. The Memoir “Au Gouvernement de la République française” [the Consulate] dated 24 Pluviose An VIII. Arch. Nat. BB³ 21.

^{page 269 note 3} The spontaneous popular insurrection of the 1st Prairial against the post-Thermidorian government had equally as its main slogan Bread and the immediate application of the Constitution of 1793.

^{page 270 note 1} If one realises that several of the “Montagnards” like Amar and Vadier had been Thermidorians, the opposition in the Committee of Babeuf is easily understood. One of the members, Debon, even declared that he would prefer renouncing the entire plan of an insurrection rather than associate it with these “Montagnards”.

^{page 270 note 2} Mathiez, Albert, Le Directoire. Paris, 1934, p. 212.Google Scholar

^{page 271 note 1} Copie des Pieces, II, p. 171–172. In the article Un mot pressant aux Patriotes, published in the Tribun du Peuple du 24 Germinal an IV, Babeuf wrote: “Le Peuple, ne se lèvera qu'en masse et a la voix de ses véritables libérateurs… Les gouvernants ne font des révolutions que pour toujours gouverner. Nous en voulons faire enfin une pour assurer à jamais le bonheur du Peuple par la vraie démocratic” (Dommanget, Maurice, Pages choisies de Babeuf, Paris 1935, p. 291 and 293).Google Scholar

^{page 271 note 2} The propaganda under the troops in the capital, the so-called “Légion de Police”- organised in the days after Prairial – had not been unsuccessful. The Government aware of their unrest, decided to send them to the frontier. The “Légion” mutinied and it seems that this should have been the signal for the insurrection. Instead the Government did the decisive tactical move: the men of the “Légion”, who were to have formed the shock troops for the insurrection, were dismissed. As not unusual under those circumstances the situation had gone out of hand. Where there is no question of a “pronunciamento”, a “coup d'état”, but of an insurrection based on a popular movement, the “thermometer” cannot be regulated like a watch. The governmental move to send the “Légion” away from Paris had set off the mutiny the Secret Directory had prepared, but it came before all the preparations were complete and they hesitated to launch the insurrection. Instead of taking the offensive they waited and were defeated. It seems that this might have been their decisive chance, whatever the outcome: even thirty years later Buonarroti held that the insurrection would have been successful without the treason of Grisel, which led to his arrest (10 May 1796), his subsequent trial, imprisonment and exile.

^{page 271 note 3} Many historians denied this, although nobody went so far as Advielle, who denied that there was a real plan for the insurrection because the accused denied it – an opinion which is plainly absurd.

^{page 272 note 1} See in this connection the Introduction of Georges Lefebvre to Dommanget, M. Pages Choisies, op. cit., p. VII–XIGoogle Scholar, and Lefebvre, Georges, Les origines du communisme de Babeuf, in his Etudes sur la Révolution Françhise, Paris, 1954, p. 305–314.Google Scholar

^{page 272 note 2} The expression was derived from Roman history (partition of the conquered lands) and meant in a somewhat vague way an agrarian revolution, expropriation and parcelling of the land on behalf of the cultivators. On 19th March 1793 the Convention decreed quasi unanimously the death penalty “contre quiconque proposera une loi agraire ou toute autre, subversive des propriétés territoriales, commerciales et industrielles”. Although motivated as a measure against the counter-revolutionists the real purpose was to assure the “acquisitateurs” of the “biens nationaux” of their property. In fact the death penalty was decreed for those who attacked the principle of private property. “Equality” was an innocent word, but propaganda for the “Loi Agraire” became the essential crime against society. In the last resort it was for this that Babeuf was brought to the guillotine. “Quel horrible bouleversement que l'anéantissement de ce droit de propriété, base universelle et principale de l'ordre social”, exclaimed Viellart, the “accusateur national” at Vendôme. Attacking private property remained a dangerous crime for more than thirty years and only after the July-revolution communism could be openly propagated. Even in the secret societies during these years these ideas could only be held or expressed by its most secret circle. This is the essential significance of the “credo” of the “Areopagus” of Buonarroti's “Sublimes maitres parfaits”.

^{page 272 note 3} No. 35, 30th November 1795, quoted from Dommanget, M., Pages Choisies, op. cit., p. 255.Google Scholar

^{page 273 note 1} A pamphlet of eight pages, published on the 28th Germinal.

^{page 273 note 2} M.V. (according to Walter, G., “Babeuf”, Paris, 1937, p. 185Google Scholar, the author is Marc Vadier) had questioned Babeuf's theory of equality and had remarked: “The difficulty of the question lies not merely in the division of lands but in providing that such a division be durable”, in a letter “A Gracchus Babeuf” Tribun du Peuple de I'lmprimerie de l'Ami du Peuple (R. F. Lebois) 3 pp. In the list of contents of the Conspiration Buonarroti mentions the letter under the heading “Lettre à Babeuf, contenant des doutes sur le système de la communauté.”

^{page 274 note 1} The “credo” of the highest grade, the “Areopagus”, of Buonarroti's “Sublimes Maîtres Parfaits” read: “From the imprudent division of the land all crimes, vices and hatred have sprung”, (c.f. “Buonarroti and his international secret societies” in this Review, Vol. I, p. 124).

^{page 274 note 2} “La propriété est la mère de tous les crimes”, Morelly wrote in his Basiliade.

^{page 274 note 3} Why Maréchal was not arrested – although there was a “mandat d'arrêt” dated 24 Floréal (Arch. Nat. F⁷4276) – nor accused, has never been explained. His name was mentioned in the confiscated documents. Maurice Dommanget, who is an authority on Maréchal as well as on Babeuf, dealt with this problem in Chapter XII of his biography Maréchal, Sylvain, l'égalitaire, l'homme sans Dieu, Paris, 1950.Google Scholar His explanation seems neither conclusive nor convincing.

^{page 274 note 4} Dommanget, M., op. cit. p. 322Google Scholar, quotes a passage of the circular of the 14tj Floréal of Babeuf to the agents concerning a distribution of a manifesto and concludes: “cela signifie que les conjurés jugèrent bon d'utiliser le Manifeste après l'avoir amputé sans doute des mots jugés subversifs”. This conclusion is however erroneous as the quoted passage (c.f. “Copie des Pièces,” I, p. 186,656 pièce, 7e liasse) refers not to the Manifesto of Maréchal, but to the Insurrectional Act (“Acte d'Insurrection”, printed in: Copie des Piéces, II, p. 244–252; “Conspiration”, II, p. 244–253).

^{page 275 note 1} Code de la Nature, 1755, p. 190. In his “Basiliade” Morelly wrote: «les lois éternelles de l'univers sont que rien n'est à l'homme en particulier que ce qu'exigent ses besoins actuels, ce qui lui suffit chaque jour pour le soutien ou les agréments de sa durée; le champ n'est point à celui qui le laboure, ni l'arbre à celui qui y cueille des fruits, il ne lui appartient même des productions de sa propre Industrie que la portion dont il use; le reste, ainsi que sa personne, est à l'humanité” (quoted from Villegardelle, , Code de la Nature, Paris, 1841, p. 185–186Google Scholar).

^{page 275 note 2} Pierre Dolivier was on Buonarroti's list as a member to be appointed for the National Assembly. A copy of his pamphlet was amongst the confiscated papers (Arch. Nat. F⁷ 4247).

^{page 275 note 3} “Il est prouvé par ma correspondance, et par une infinité de fails notoires dans le pays… que j'ai été continuellement l'effroi des agents des administrations militaires, qui pillaient, maltraitaient et terrifiaient les habitants: que j'ai fait arrêter ceux qui étaient prévenus de pillage et de vexations”. “Réponse de Philippe Buonarroti… aux Motifs de son arrestation”. A Paris maison d'arrêt du Plessis, ce 12 Messidor Pan 3. (Arch. Nat. F⁷ 6331).

^{page 275 note 4} C.f. Onnis, Pia, Buonarroti, Ancora Su F. (Nuova Rivista Storica, 1955, Fasc. 3).Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 1} This obviously wrong interpretation of a socialist Robespierre played an important rôle in the revolutionary and republican propaganda in the early eighteenthirties.

^{page 276 note 2} “If we are to believe some of his proscribers, the disposition avowed by Robespierre to modify the laws of property, contributed in no small degree to swell the number of his enemies”, Buonarroti wrote in his Observations sur Maximilien Robespierre, written probably in 1833 and published in Le Radical, Brussels (1837, Nr. 33 and 34, preceded by a note of Delhasse) and republished in La Fraternité (1842) and La Belgique Démocratique (1851). A manuscript of this biographical article was sent to O'Brien in 1836 who published the translation in his The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre… (1837, p. 83–96). O'Brien said the manuscript has been since (i.e. 1836) printed in Paris and largely distributed amongst friends. This may be a pamphlet in four pages (in 2 col.), a reprint from the article in Le Radical, Brussels, of which no copy is known. Bronterre O'Brien met Buonarroti in Paris: “I have seen that brave and venerable old man… shed tears like a child at the mentioning of Robespierre's name” (A Dissertation and Elegy on the Life and Death of the immortal Robespierre, London, 1859, p. 7Google Scholar). The meeting must have taken place between May 1836 and September 1837, when Buonarroti died at the age of 76.

^{page 276 note 3} Guérin's, Daniel important book La lutte de classes sous la Première République, 2 vol., Paris 1946Google Scholar, is an elaborate refutation of this thesis.

^{page 276 note 4} Lefebvre, Georges, Questions agraires au temps de la terreur, 2me édition, La Roche-sur-Yon, 1954.Google Scholar His conclusion about the laws of Ventôse seems decisive: “il ne resterait en substance qu'une mesure terroriste de plus” (p. 49).

^{page 277 note 1} In Robespierre's proposed Declaration of Rights of 24th April 1793, is stated: “Property is the right of each and every citizen to enjoy and to dispose of the portion of property guaranteed to him by law. Society is obliged to provide for the subsistence of all its members, either by procuring work for them or by ensuring the means of existence to those who are unable to work”. The Constitution of 1793 formulated the right of property as the right appertaining to every citizen to enjoy and dispose at will of his goods, his income, and the product of his labor and skill.

^{page 278 note 1} See the concluding chapters of Kropotkine, Peter: The Great Revolution, London, 1909.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 2} See Rude, G. et Soboul, A., Le maximum des salaires parisiens et le 9 Thermidor, in: “Annales Historiques de la Revolution Française”, January-March 1954, p. 1–22.Google Scholar

^{page 279 note 1} In a letter to Babeuf, Copie des Pièces, II, p. 156.

^{page 280 note 1} Just as in Buonarroti's secret societies “the most secret thoughts” were known only by the highest grade.

^{page 280 note 2} Conspiration, I, p. 206–296.

^{page 280 note 3} The document is amongst Buonarroti's papers in the Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A. 20803, fol. 117–121, and reprinted with a few changes in the Conspiration, II, p. 305–319.

^{page 280 note 4} Robiquet, , op. cit., p. 187Google Scholar; also Dommanget, M., Pages Choisies, op. cit., p. 14Google Scholar: “Buonarroti fut, avec Babeuf, le grand théoricien et le véritable législateur des Egaux”.

^{page 281 note 1} Morelly, in his Code de la Nature spoke of a “Sénat Suprême”.

^{page 282 note 1} La Fraternité de 1845, p. 37–38.

^{page 282 note 2} Cabet, , Toute la Vérité au Peuple, 1842, p. 85.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 3} Cabet, , Histoire populaire de la Révolution Française, Paris, 1840, p. 333–334.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 4} Cole, G. D. H., Chartist Portraits, London, 1941, p. 266.Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 1} Blanqui, Auguste, Critique Sociale, 1885, I, p. 208 (written 1868–1870).Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 2} The first decree to be passed by the National Assembly said: “Le peuple de Paris, aprés avoir terrassé la tyrannic, usant des droits qu'il a reçus de la nature, reconnaît et déclare au peuple français:…” (Conspiration, I, p. 157).

^{page 284 note 1} A manuscript of Buonarroti; published by Saitta, A., Buonarroti, Filippo. Contribute alla storia della sua vita e del suo pensiero, Roma, 1951, II, p. 137.Google Scholar

^{page 284 note 2} The Blanquists in the second half of the 19th century regarded themselves much more as the heirs of the “Hébertistes” than as followers of Robespierre.

^{page 284 note 3} The communist programme Weitling expounded in his book: Die Menschheit wie sie ist, 1839 (the influence of Cabet's Voyage en Icarie can be disregarded because the first edition appeared only a year later), written at the demand of the Central Committee of the “League of the Just”, was the community of goods and labour of the Conspiration. In 1847, writing the first draft of the Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels still held the same opinion: private property had to be replaced by common ownership of the instruments of production and the distribution of all products based on the community of goods: “die sogenannte Gütergemeinschaft”.

^{page 284 note 4} C.f. Lehning, A., Discussions á Londres sur le communisme icarien, in: Bulletin of the International Institute of Social History, 1952, p. 87–109.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 1} The split in the Communist League (September 1850) between Willich and Schapper, on the one hand, and Marx and Engels on the other, made also an end to this society, which probably existed only on paper.

^{page 285 note 2} The statutes of six points were signed by Marx, , Engels, , Willich, , Harney, , Adam, and Vidal, . The original document is in the Marx-Engels Archives in the International Institute of Social History.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 3} Engels still held the same opinion in 1890.

^{page 285 note 4} Bernstein, E., Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus, Stuttgart, 1899, Ch. II.Google Scholar; id., Blanquismo e Socialismo, Roma, 1899.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 5} In the Bolshewik theory and practice Buonarroti's wise and courageous citizens, who should exercise the dictatorship, are replaced by the so-called “avant-garde” of the Proletariat, i.e. the Bolshewik Party.

^{page 286 note 1} C.f. Buonarroti and his international secret societies, in this Review, vol. I, p. 116. In Buonarroti's conception the revolutionary dictatorship was linked up with the occult leadership of his secret societies.

^{page 286 note 2} Conspiration, I, p. 296.

^{page 286 note 3} Conspiration, ed. 1842, p. 95–97.