ABSTRACT
Fréron’s Gilded Youth,* which was not in the least gilded, were called that because of their tone, their manners and the cleanliness of their dress which was in marked contrast with the language, the vulgar manners, and the official filthiness of the Jacobin costume. It was made up of all the young people who belonged to the upper classes of Paris society which had more or less suffered from the Revolution, several of whom had relatives or friends who had been drowned in that enormous shipwreck [that is, the Terror]. It was also made up of all the clerks of notaries, solicitors or appraisers, almost all the merchants’ clerks, and finally all those who belonged to the honourable bourgeoisie. United, they formed in the middle of Paris a large enough army for th e Convention to count on to oppose, if the occasion arose, the Jacobin
masses who, in spite of the defeat of their leaders, were still solid and threatening. Up till then, however, the gilded youth…had limited themselves to teasing the Jacobins, to singing the ‘Réveil du peuple’ in the streets and the public promenades, and to making honourable amends to actors whose patriotic fervour had risen a few degrees too much during the course of the Revolution. But Barras, Fréron, Tallien, Goupilleau de Fontenay and Merlin de Thionville did not go to the trouble to train us, to discipline us, and to teach us the use of arms in order to carry out these vulgar exploits, or to parade in the streets crying out, ‘Down with the Jacobins!’ or to become the theatre police. The time was approaching when we were to be called upon to do great things, when our good will and our military talents were going to be seriously put to the test. Up till now I have told you about encounters that were hardly worth calling skirmishes; now let me tell you about sieges and combats.
