But it was not enthusiasm alone that saved France. It was the splendid organization of that enthusiasm by an efficient central government at Paris. In Carnot (1753-1823) the National Convention possessed a military and administrative genius of the first order. Of honorable and upright character, fearless, patriotic, and practical, Carnot plunged into the work of organizing the republican armies. His labors were incessant. He prepared the plans of campaign and the reports that were submitted to the Convention. He raised volunteers and drafted militia, drilled them, and hurried them to the frontiers. With the aid of Robert Lindet (1749-1825), the able finance minister, he found means of feeding, clothing, and arming the host of soldiers. He personally visited the armies and by word and precept infused them with energy and determination. For the first time in modern history a nation was truly in arms.
[Sidenote: The New Generals]
The work of Carnot was supplemented by the labors of the "deputies on mission," radical members of the Convention who were detailed to watch the generalship and movements of the various French armies, endowed with power to send any suspected or unsuccessful commander to the guillotine and charged with keeping the central government constantly informed of military affairs. Gradually, a new group of brilliant young republican generals appeared, among whom the steadfast Moreau (1763- 1813), the stern Pichegru (1761-1804), and the gallant Jourdan (1762- 1833) stood preeminent.
[Sidenote: French Successes]
[Sidenote: Break-up of the First Coalition, 1795]
In this way France met the monster coalition which would have staggered a Louis XIV. The country was cleared of foreign enemies. The war was pressed in the Netherlands, along the Rhine, in Savoy, and across the Pyrenees. So successful were the French that Carnot's popular title of "organizer of defense" was justly magnified to that of "organizer of victory." Of course it is impossible in our limited survey to do justice to these wonderful campaigns of 1794 and 1795. It will suffice to point out that when the National Convention finally adjourned in 1795, the First Coalition was in reality dissolved. The pitiful Charles IV of Spain humbled himself to contract a close alliance with the republic which had put his Bourbon cousin to death. By the separate treaty of Basel (1795), Prussia gave France a free hand on the left bank of the Rhine and turned her attention to securing compensation at the expense of Poland, William V, the Orange stadholder of Holland, was deposed and his country transformed into the Batavian Republic, allied with France. French troops were in full possession of the Austrian Netherlands and all other territories up to the Rhine. The life-long ambition of Louis XIV appeared to have been realized by the new France in two brief years. Only Great Britain, Austria, and Sardinia remained in arms against the republic.
[Sidenote: Suppression of Domestic Insurrection]
The foreign successes of the republic seem all the more wonderful when it is remembered that at the same time serious revolts had to be suppressed within France. Opposition to Carnot's drafting of soldiers was utilized by reactionary agitators to stir up an insurrection of the peasants in La Vendée in order to restore the monarchy and to reëstablish the Roman Catholic Church. Provincial and bourgeois dislike of the radicalism of the Parisian proletariat caused riots and outbreaks in such important and widely separated cities as Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. With the same devotion and thoroughness that had characterized their foreign policy, but with greater sternness, the officials of the National Convention stamped out all these riots and insurrections. By 1795 all France, except only the émigrés and secret conspirators, had more or less graciously accepted the republic.
The true explanation of these marvelous achievements, whether at home or abroad, lies in the strong central government which the National Convention established and in the policy of terrorism which that government pursued.
[Sidenote: Rule Of The Committee Of Public Safety]
In the spring of 1793 the National Convention intrusted the supreme executive authority of France to a special committee, composed of nine (later twelve) of its members, who were styled the Committee of Public Safety. This small body, which included such Jacobin leaders as Carnot, Robespierre, and St. Just, acting secretly, directed the ministers of state, appointed the local officials, and undertook the administration of the whole country. Manifold were the duties it was called upon to discharge. Among other problems, it must conduct the foreign relations, supervise the armies, and secure the active support of the French people. Diligently and effectively did it apply itself to its various activities.