No sooner had the news of their first ephemeral successes at Longwy and Verdun arrived at Paris, and at the same time the rising in La Vendée become known, than there was a rush to arms, to the frontier, to drive back the invaders from the soil of France. The revolutionists seized their opportunity to declare that the royalists left in France would help the invaders by conspiring at home. It was enough. The thirst for blood and slaughter, never equalled or approached by any other civilised nation, which characterised the French Revolution, burst forth with unheard of atrocity. The September massacres were the result, and of the order for this horrible crime Tallien and Danton were chiefly accused.
Danton did not attempt to deny the part he had taken, but declared that it was necessary to strike terror amongst their opponents and that he accepted the responsibility.
Tallien had stepped into the place of Guy de Kersaint, deputy of Versailles, who, though a revolutionist, objected to massacres.[97] He tried to explain and excuse them by the fury and excitement of the time when he perceived the horror with which they were regarded, not only by the civilised world at large, but by many of the revolutionists, even by some of his own colleagues. However, the brand of infamy remained attached to his name, notwithstanding his endeavours to clear himself from the suspicion and accusation which have nevertheless always clung to him.
“There are many,” he said in one of his speeches, “who accuse me of being a murderer of the 2nd of September, to stifle my voice because they know I saw it all. They know that I used the authority I possessed to save a great number of persons from the hand of the assassin, they know that I alone in the midst of the Commune, dared throw myself before the sanguinary multitude to prevent their violating the _depôts_ entrusted to the Commune. I defy any one to accuse me of crime or even of weakness. I did my duty on that occasion....” But the name of “_septembriseur_” clung to him for ever in spite of his protestations.
Through all this time it is not clear exactly where Térèzia was, probably at Paris and at Fontenay, but the relations between herself and her husband did not improve, and without any violent enmity between them, she had several times thought of getting a divorce from him.