Besides fanaticism and love of power, there existed a material motive for the continuance of the Terror. Resources were secured for the service of the State. As soon as a person was imprisoned his capital was sequestered and his revenue confiscated. When he was condemned to die, the capital itself was confiscated. But the promise held out before the arrest of the Hébertists, that provision should be made for the indigent out of sequestered property, was never carried into effect. Further, purchasers of state lands lost their lives by scores, and thus national property came a second time into the market as security for the paper money. Cynical words ascribed to Barère exactly expressed the satisfaction felt by many at these financial results of the guillotine. ‘We coin money,’ he was reported to have said, ‘on the Place de la Révolution.’
The result of the dictatorship of the committee and of Robespierre’s ascendancy was, therefore, that the Terror was reduced to a system. Those who hoped for a return to a more clement policy were grievously disappointed. The revolutionary army of Paris was disbanded. Special courts in the departments, with the exception of some twenty, were suppressed, and political prisoners sent to Paris for trial. Justice, probity, and virtue were declared to be the order of the day, and the penalties of imprisonment and death were suspended over the heads of those who defrauded the Republic. The bands of villains, which, under the name of revolutionary armies, were still the curse of several departments, were broken up and their leaders sent to the scaffold. Encouragement was promised to trade and agriculture, and the release ordered of artisans and labourers in country districts against whom no definite charges had been brought. The number of executions at Paris rose in proportion as it decreased in the departments, from 60 to 155, and then to 354 a month. In Bordeaux, Arras, and other towns where special courts were retained, executions were recommenced. A new court was established by the committee at Orange, which in forty-two sittings condemned to death 331 persons, imprisoned 98, and acquitted 159. Five Girondist outlaws still hiding in the Gironde were hunted out. Guadet and Barbaroux were executed at Bordeaux, the bodies of Pétion and Buzot were found dead in a field.
War in La Vendée.
In La Vendée a war of extermination was being carried on. After the destruction of the great Vendean army in December, the country was quiet through exhaustion, and by the adoption of a clement policy the insurrection might have been brought to an end. But at the Commune, where Hébert was still in power, the idea had been entertained of annihilating the inhabitants and of confiscating their land. Under the command-in-chief of Turreau, a man as brutal as Collot himself, twelve columns marched into the interior from different points, killing all living things that came in their way, and destroying villages, farms, crops, ovens, and corn-mills. Even towns which they did not occupy were pillaged and burnt, and those inhabitants who had throughout supported the Republic were required to quit the country on pain of being themselves treated as brigands. The war flared up again on all sides. The population of entire villages, taking their goods and stock with them, sought refuge in their forests, whence they carried on an incessant guerilla warfare against the enemy. The isolated republican posts were either stormed or starved out. If the soldiers had corn they had no means of grinding it, because all the mills had been destroyed. Supplies from Saumur and Nantes were cut off on the way. The men fell ill by thousands, and the reduction of the country appeared less near completion than when Turreau’s columns first began their work of destruction.
The Hague Treaty.
After the disastrous ending of the Rhine campaign in December 1793, the alliance between Austria and Prussia practically came to an end. Prussia having acquired her so-called compensation in Poland, her generals and diplomatists were desirous of bringing the war with France to a speedy termination. The country was poor, and without interest in its continuation. An important consideration, however, restrained the Government from rashly entering on a peace policy. Prussia was bound, for the sake of her headship in North Germany, to protect the northern States against invasion. The King, moreover, had personally a strong disinclination to desert the coalition before the existing government in France was overthrown. A middle path was found. Prussia declared her readiness to leave her army on the Rhine if the allies would bear the cost of its maintenance. The lesser States of the Empire showed no alacrity in responding to this appeal, while Austria refused to be a party to any arrangement for the payment of a Prussian army. After the experience of the last campaign, Thugut did not credit Prussia with the intention of rendering any material assistance, and foresaw that if Austria held back, England would undertake to bear the burden. The ministers of George III. were making strenuous efforts to hold the coalition together. They were intent on extending the colonial empire of England, and while France was engaged in hostilities with half the continent, it was impossible for her to defend her colonies. Accordingly, a treaty was signed at the Hague between Malmesbury on the English side and Haugwitz on the Prussian, by which England undertook, together with Holland, to supply Prussia with a monthly sum for the maintenance of 62,000 men (April 19).
Insurrection in Poland.
This treaty was hardly signed when news reached Berlin that the Poles were in arms. The Polish Diet had been forced, at the time of the second partition, not merely to relinquish provinces to Russia and Prussia, but to sign a treaty which placed in subjection to Russia that portion of the country still left nominally independent. King Stanislaus was the tool of Catherine, and his Government was supported by 40,000 Russians. Discontent permeated the country. The inhabitants of the towns regretted the reformed constitution of May 1791, overthrown by the influence of Catherine (p. 98). The lesser nobility was bitterly hostile to Russian domination; the army, still 30,000 strong, resented its degradation. The standard of revolt was now raised on all sides. At Warsaw the populace, uniting with insurgent Polish regiments, drove out the Russian garrison with heavy loss of life (April 18). Yet, in spite of the enthusiasm with which the insurrection was begun, and the patriotic spirit animating its leaders, Potocki and Kosciusko, there was but little probability of final success. The Poles, torn by internal faction, were unable to present a united front against the common foe. Many of the upper nobility were in Russian pay. Three powerful neighbours—Austria, Prussia, and Russia—did but need a pretext for the accomplishment of a final partition and the effacement of Poland from the map. Frederick William, with 50,000 troops, at once marched into the country, and, joining with the Russians, laid siege to Warsaw (July 13).
These events reacted sensibly on military operations in the West. England and Prussia had had different objects in view when they entered into the treaty of the Hague. The English Government expected that the Prussian army would fight in Belgium; the King of Prussia intended that it should merely secure the Empire against invasion by blocking the passage of the Rhine. The Polish insurrection had heightened the aversion of Prussian generals and ministers to the French war. They refused to allow their army to leave the Rhine, urging the forcible plea that the Empire would be exposed to invasion. They further made the quarrel with England which broke out on this ground an excuse for taking no active steps whatever to attack the enemy. In May, indeed, their army had advanced in the direction of Alsace, and had driven the French from Kaiserslautern and the neighbouring positions. But from that time it remained inactive, and thus the French were able to send large additional forces to combat the allies in Belgium.
Campaign in Belgium.