Historic Bubbles

by Frederic Leake

They were condemned to death by the same Committee of Public Safety which a few days before was their pliant tool of assassination.

It was the end. The Reign of Terror was over, and all political prisoners were set free. It was thus that Hoche and Josephine and Madame de Fontenay recovered their liberty.

I suppose you ladies will not let me off from the rest of the love affairs of that fascinating dame and Tallien. Well, they were married, and Madame Tallien was one of the queens of beauty and fashion under the Directory the Consulate and the Empire. It was in her drawing room that Bonaparte first met Josephine. After he became emperor he quarrelled with Madame Tallien. She was too witty and had too little reverence for the demi-god; so he would no longer let Josephine associate with her old friend and fellow prisoner.

Tallien lived to be old. In his last years he was supported by a small pension granted him by Louis XVIII. whose brother Tallien had done to death. Such was the vengeance of the House of Bourbon. And it was another prince of that house who brought from Saint Helena the remains of the arch-enemy of his race, and placed them in that superb tomb under the dome of the Invalids. Contrast this with what the English restoration did with the Regicides and with the remains of Cromwell.

The greatest of French rulers sleeps in the most gorgeous mausoleum of modern times: the greatest of English rulers—Where is his grave?

Hoche was no sooner out of prison than the Committee of Public Safety who had been asking themselves day after day whether the time had come to send him to the guillotine, gave him a new command. This time it was one he would fain have shrunk from; for he was to draw his sword against Frenchmen. In the west of France was the new Department of La Vendée. The inhabitants were rural in their occupations and primitive in their manners. They were devoted Roman Catholics and consequently devoted royalists. Many priests flying for their lives from Liberty, Equality and Fraternity had taken refuge among them, and had strengthened their fealty to the old régime. The Vendéeans had risen in arms against the Republic, and the insurrection had extended to neighboring Departments. Such was the valor of the men and the skill of their leaders that they had thus far repulsed every force sent against them. Even Kléber afterwards the victor of Heliopolis, had been defeated and driven back. France face to face with Europe in arms, could hardly survive with this ulcer in her bosom: it was therefore her best soldier that she now chose to deal with it. Hoche set about the task with characteristic energy. He made no mistakes, he suffered no defeats and at the end of a sanguinary campaign La Vendée was pacificated, that is, was turned into a desert.

It is illustrative of the imbecility with which this European war upon France was for some years carried on, that no adequate effort was made to take advantage of this revolt of the Vendéeans. The only important attempt to second them was the expedition to Quiberon Bay. A small force of emigrants, that is of French royalists were conveyed to that bay by an English fleet. They landed and fortified their position; and as it was commanded by the English guns, they felt themselves safe till they could form junction with the insurgents. But they had counted without their host, that is without Hoche; and almost before they thought he could be aware of their coming, his troops were scaling their defenses. The affair was soon over, and but few of the invaders escaped. What added to the carnage was that the guns of the English fleet played the while upon the scene of action, mowing down with cynical impartiality friend and foe alike. The English commander no doubt felt that every man laid low was one Frenchman the less, and how could he send ashore first to ascertain his politics?

It was toward the close of Hoche’s campaign in La Vendée that another campaign more notable was in progress on the eastern frontier. Let us take a glance at the chain of events that caused this campaign to be so remarkable.

The Convention was not an adequate government for a great people, but it was better than none. Such however was not the opinion of the socialists and communists and anarchists who swarmed in Paris, and had gained control of the Sections, that is of the ward-meetings. These philosophers held that the best government was the one that governed the least, and therefore an ideal government was one that did not govern at all. They rose to suppress the Convention, so that every man might be a law unto himself, and Liberty, Equality and Fraternity do their perfect work. The crisis was alarming: the Convention appealed for protection to General Barras the military head of Paris. Barras had under him an artillery officer full of original ideas. This was the young man already referred to as having been at Versailles when the mob broke into the palace, and as having called the king an imbecile for not ordering his guards to use their bayonets. Among his other excellences this young gentleman was handsome. We have said that Hoche was handsome, but their respective success in the path of beauty, was different. Hoche was tall and of martial aspect. This other Apollo was small of stature and had the features and the hands and the feet of a good-looking girl. Nevertheless he was not a favorite with the ladies. He had ways they did not like. When they talked he would not listen as he ought, and as we all ought, but would look off into vacancy as if rapt in thought; and they were malicious enough to say that he was rapt in thought—the thought of his own attractions; and considering the complex character of the man it is not impossible the ladies were right. With men however he stood better. Few could come in contact with him without feeling his influence, and Barras was often led by him. To him then he had recourse in the threatened peril. The young officer planted cannon in different parts of the town under lieutenants of his own mettle, and himself took charge of a few pieces in the street Saint Honoré at the corner where stands the church Saint Roch. The insurgents came swarming up. He gave them no warning of what was in store for them but waited till they were within range, and then let drive into them a pitiless storm of grape-shot. The pavement was strewed with the dead and dying. Revolt had met its match: the Convention was saved.

A few weeks later, in October 1795, the Convention laid down its functions and was replaced by the Directory which body in the following February, conferred upon this remorseless gunner the command of the army of Italy, the army from which Hoche had been withdrawn to be thrown into prison. Behold then this new apostle of grape-shot red-handed from the slaughter of his fellow republicans, at the head of the best and worst army of the Republic! His men as it proved, were fully gifted with that fanatical valor which made the revolutionary soldier so formidable; but their clothes were in rags and their shoes full of holes, and as for food Thiers intimates that it was a choice between stealing and starving. Their young commander told them what was perfectly true—for he had contracted the habit of telling the truth when it would serve—that he was as poor as they; silver and gold had he none; but their bayonets were in good order, and he was going to lead them to a land of promise flowing with food and raiment and money to boot. And at the head of these marauders he passed into Italy.