[210] Louis Necker (1730-1801), elder brother of Jacques Necker the statesman, assumed the name of de Germanie on succeeding to an estate of that name which he inherited from his father. He had made a fortune as a banker at Marseilles.
[211] The Baron de Staël-Holstein was Swedish Ambassador at Paris from 1783 to 1792.
[212] M. de Narbonne-Lara was Minister of War from December, 1791, to March, 1792. Born in 1755, he is said to have been the son of Madame Adelaide and the Comte de Narbonne, her chamberlain. He was one of the few persons who, according to Talleyrand, were completely in the confidence of Mirabeau. "Le Comte Louis de Narbonne est enfin ministre de la guerre, d'hier," wrote Marie Antoinette to Count Fersen. "Quelle gloire pour Mme de Stael, et quel plaisir pour elle d'avoir toute l'armée ... à elle!" (Klinckowström, Le Comte de Fersen et la Cour de France, i. 269). After the insurrection of August 10, 1792, Narbonne was saved by Madame de Staël and M. Bollmann, and took refuge in England.
[213] Antoine de Lessart, Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs (1791-2), was accused of corresponding with the émigrés and the emperor, tried before the High Court of Orleans for treason, and murdered in the September massacres of 1792.
[214] The Emperor Leopold II. died March 1, 1792, and was succeeded by his son Francis Joseph, who, pending his election as emperor, took the title of King of Bohemia and Hungary.
[215] Taine traces to the action of Marseilles in the autumn of 1791 the first crop of the "arbre révolutionnaire" (La Révolution, vol. ii. c. vi.). Marseilles, in fact, became a Republic which undertook the conquest of southern provinces. In February, 1792, four thousand Marseillais marched upon Aix, and disarmed and pillaged the Swiss Regiment of Ernest. In the following March, they made themselves masters of Arles. Their troops, "vraie Sodome errante," pillaged the country, and plundered, outraged, or massacred peaceful inhabitants. Avignon, which with the Comtat Venaissin was united to France in September, 1791, was the next object of their attack. It had been, in October, 1791, the scene of the horrible massacres of La Glacière perpetrated by Jourdan Coupe-Tête and the "Brigands of Avignon." Jourdan's cruelties had produced a reaction. But in April, 1792, he was carried in triumph by the Marseillais through the streets of the city, and restored to his usurped position as governor and commander-in-chief. Jourdan, it may be added, was guillotined in May, 1794.
[216] In April, 1792, Wilberforce brought forward his annual motion for the abolition of the slave trade. Pitt made one of his most eloquent speeches in its support. Dundas moved as an amendment a gradual measure of abolition. His amendment, though opposed by Fox, was carried (April 2) by 193 to 125. He subsequently (April 23) moved a series of resolutions to effect a gradual abolition. These were taken up by Pitt, and, with some amendments, carried. In the Lords a proposal to receive evidence on the subject was carried (May 8), and there for the time proceedings stopped. The Bill for the general abolition of the slave trade received the royal assent in March, 1807.
[217] On June 7, 1792, Captain John Kimber was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of a negro girl on board the Recovery. He was acquitted, and two of the witnesses for the prosecution were committed for trial for perjury. On February 19, 1793, Surgeon Dowling, the principal witness against Kimber, was convicted of perjury. The charge against Kimber was urged by Wilberforce in his speech of April 2, 1792.
[218] The Jockey Club; or, A Sketch of the Manners of the Age (Parts i., ii., iii.), by Charles Pigott, is an attack on monarchy and aristocracy, a defence of the French Revolution, and an appeal to Fox to use his influence in favour of France in a war which is "the general cause of all human nature. It is the cause of sovereigns and certain individuals enjoying exclusive privileges to the injury of the rest, against the combined immortal cause of the whole world."
[219] On April 30, 1792, Mr. Grey, in consequence of a resolution adopted by the "Friends of the People," gave notice of his intention to move for an inquiry into the representative system. On this notice a debate followed. Grey was supported by Fox. Pitt, on the other hand, declared that if ever there was a time when such a question should not be raised, the present was that time. Burke spoke in the same sense, attacking Paine's Rights of Man, and all clubs and societies which recommended the principles of that work. On May 6, 1792, Grey presented a petition from the "Friends of the People," in which the abuses of the electoral system were exposed, and moved that it be referred to a committee. After a debate of two nights, he found only forty-one supporters.