Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher

CHAPTER III. FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE TO THE EMPIRE OF NAPOLEON (1794-1804).

FALL OF ROBESPIERRE (9TH THERMIDOR).—A reaction set in against the cruelties of Jacobinism. Men—even the judges of the murderous tribunal—grew weary of bloodshed. The authority of Robespierre began to wane, even with his colleagues. The assembly at length turned against him. On July 27 (the 9th Thermidor, according to the new calendar) he was arrested. He was released, but was again seized, and, with St. Just, Couthon, and most of the leaders of the commune, was guillotined.

Bare statistics, accompanied by no thrilling descriptions, convey a strong impression of the atrocities of the Reign of Terror. According to M. Taine, "there were guillotined at Paris, between April 16, 1793, and the 9th Thermidor, 2,625 persons. The same process went forward all over France. In Arras, 299 men and 93 women; in Orange, 331 persons; in Nantes, 1,971; in Lyons, 1,684 (avowedly, but a correspondent of Robespierre estimates the total at 6,000); in the fusillades (deaths by shooting) of Toulon, more than 1,000; in the noyades (drownings) of Nantes, nearly 5,000 perished. In the eight departments of the West, it is reckoned that nearly half a million perished." The deaths from want, under the Jacobin government, M. Taine thinks, much exceeded a million. "France was on the brink of a great famine on the Asiatic scale."

REACTION: CONTROL OF THE MODERATES.—The Reign of Terror was brought to an end. The moderates controlled the Convention. The prison doors were opened, and the multitude of suspects were set free. The revolutionary tribunal was broken down. The commune of Paris was so shaped as to strip it of its most dangerous powers. The Jacobin and other incendiary clubs were suppressed. Religion was declared to be free, and the churches were opened to their congregations. The Girondist deputies who survived were invited back to their seats in the Convention. The National Guards were filled up from the middle class,—the bourgeoisie. Little mercy was shown to the Jacobins anywhere. The reaction was seen in the altered character of society and of manners. Those who had acquired wealth in the late time by the changes of property came to the front. The old fondness for dress and gayety reappeared. Paris was again alive with balls and other festive entertainments. The salons were crowded with elegant youth of the higher class (the jeunesse dorée). The party of Terror were cowed; but in consequence of the rise in the cost of provisions, and of the distress caused by it, and by the sudden abrogation of tyrannical laws settling the price of food and wages, there were two fierce outbreakings of the mob of Paris (April 1, May 20, 1795). These were quelled, and the power of the Jacobins was finally crushed. The moderates had now to guard against the increasing strength and rising hopes of the royalists.

CONQUEST OF HOLLAND: PRUSSIA.—The armies of France were everywhere successful. Through the victories of Jourdan and Pichegru, Holland was conquered, and converted into the Batavian Republic, and Dutch Flanders surrendered to France. The Low Countries were now a dependency of the French Republic (1794-1795). Hoche, an excellent general, partly by conciliation, reduced the West—the theater of the La Vendée revolt—to submission. The English and emigrants landed in Quiberon, on the coast of Brittany, but were defeated. The coalition was broken up, first by the withdrawal of Prussia, which ceded (April 5, 1795), and, in a secret article, ceded permanently, its territories on the left bank of the Rhine to the French, for a compensation to be obtained from secularized German states,—that is, states in which the old ecclesiastical rule should be abolished. A few months later (July, 1795), Spain concluded peace, ceding St. Domingo to the Republic. The soldiers of France were fast becoming trained, and their confidence rose with their increasing success. This success was due largely to the weak generalship of the allies. The French were commonly hard masters in the conquered places. On the other hand, however, they effected a welcome abolition of old feudal inequalities and abuses.

CONSTITUTION OF 1995.—Meanwhile, there was disaffection, especially in the cities, with the rule by the Convention. In the cities there was distress, except in the moneyed class. There was a yearning for a strong and stable government. The Convention framed and submitted to the nation a new constitution, the third in the order of political fabrics of this sort. There were to be seven hundred and fifty legislators, divided into two bodies,—the Council of Elders, or the Ancients, of two hundred and fifty, and the Council of Five Hundred. The executive power was given to a Directory of five persons. Two-thirds of the councils for the first term were to be taken from the Convention. The constitution, thus conservative and anti-Jacobin in its character, was well received. But there was dissatisfaction in the reactionary parties; and a great insurrection of the royalist middle class in Paris (Oct. 5, 1795, the 13th Vendémaire) was promptly put down by the resolute action of Bonaparte, to whom had been given the command of the troops of the city. It was the royalist and the anti-republican parties which now threatened the government. But a new authority, the will of the army, was beginning plainly to disclose itself. The dread of Jacobinism still existed. What the people more and more craved was internal tranquillity and order.

BONAPARTE IN ITALY: TO THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO.—The assignats became worthless. This bankruptcy had one benefit: it relieved the state of its debt, and brought coin into circulation. A triple attack was planned by Carnot against Austria. In Germany, Jourdan and Moreau were driven back by the Archduke Charles of Austria. But a splendid success attended the arms of Bonaparte in the attack on the Austrian power in Italy. He had been lately married to Josephine Beauharnais, the widow of a French general guillotined in 1794, the only woman to whom he appears ever to have been warmly attached. There were two children by her former marriage,—Eugène (1781-1824), and Hortense (1783-1837) who married Louis Bonaparte. Starting from Nice, and following the coast, Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and Piedmontese separately, and forced the latter to conclude a distinct peace, which ceded Savoy and Nice to France. He exemplified in this campaign the characteristics which in after-years contributed essentially to his success as a general. He struck the enemy before they could combine their forces. He did not, after the old method, wait to capture all the fortresses in his path, but by swift marches made his attacks at unexpected places and times. He defeated the Austrians after a brief struggle at the bridge of Lodi on the Adda, captured Milan, overran Lombardy as far as Mantua, and forced the Pope, and Parma, Modena, and Naples, to purchase peace by giving up their treasures of art. Thus began the custom of despoiling conquered capitals, and other subjugated cities, of works of art, which went to adorn and enrich Paris,—a new custom among civilized Christian nations. Wurmser, the veteran Austrian general, was defeated in a series of engagements; and, after him, another great Austrian army, under Alvinzi, was vanquished at Arcola (Nov. 14-17, 1796) and at Rivoli (Jan. 14, 1797). Bonaparte now crossed the Alps to meet the Archduke Charles, who had cleared Germany of its invaders. The French general, although his own situation was not free from peril, was able to dictate the terms of peace. In the treaty of Campo Formio (Oct. 17, 1797), Austria ceded the Belgian provinces to France, recognized the Cisalpine Republic to be established by Bonaparte in North Italy, and secretly consented to the cession of the German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine. In return, he gave Venice to Austria, in disregard of the principles of international law, and perfidiously as regards that republic, which had made its peace with him, and become a democracy dependent on France. In this treaty with Austria, there was another secret stipulation that Prussia should not be indemnified in Germany for her losses on the west of the Rhine. Thus Napoleon used the selfishness of the allies to divide them from one another. At Tolentino in February the Pope had ceded for the Cispadane Republic the Romagna, Bologna, and Ferrara. A young man of twenty-seven, Bonaparte had given proof of his astonishing military genius by a series of victories over large armies and experienced generals; and he had evinced equally his skill, as well as his lack of principle, in the field of diplomacy. He had won admiration from his enemies by his evident freedom from the revolutionary fanaticism, and his contempt for declamation about "the rights of man." Returning to Paris, he was received with acclamation, but thought it politic to avoid publicity, and to live quietly in his modest dwelling.

COUP D'ÉTAT: 18 FRUCTIDOR (Sept. 4, 1797).—During Bonaparte's absence, the royalist and reactionary faction had gained ground in the governing bodies. Pichegru was plotting on that side. These schemes had been baffled with the timely assistance of a detachment of troops sent to Paris by Bonaparte under Augereau. On Sept. 4 (the 18th Fructidor), the palace of the Tuileries, where the councils met, was surrounded. The reactionary deputies were arrested; Pichegru and his fellow-conspirators were banished. This coup d'état sealed the triumph of the republicans, but it was effected through the army.

THE EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION.—The Directory were conscious of weakness, and looked with alarm and distrust on the young general, who was fast becoming the idol of the people, as well as of the army. They wished him to attempt a descent on England. He preferred, in the room of this impracticable venture, to conduct an expedition to Egypt, with the design of getting control, if possible, of the Eastern Mediterranean, and of striking at the possessions of Great Britain in India. To this scheme the Directory, quite willing to have him at a distance, readily consented. Hiding his plans until all was ready, he sailed from Toulon (May 19, 1798) with a strong fleet and army; on his way captured Malta through treachery of the knights, and landed safely in Egypt. With him were some of the best of the French generals, and a large company of scientific men. He defeated the Mamelukes in a great battle fought within sight of the Pyramids. But at Aboukir, in the Battle of the Nile, the French fleet was destroyed by the English naval force under Nelson. The French army was thus cut off from the means of return. Bonaparte invaded Syria, but was prevented by the English fleet from getting a foothold on the coast. He had to raise the siege of Acre, and returned to Egypt, where he vanquished the Turks at Aboukir.