The recall of those sympathisers with the Girondin party, who had been imprisoned, in December 1794 was followed in March 1795 by the recall to their seats in the Convention of the outlawed Girondin leaders, of whom the most conspicuous were Lanjuinais and Louvet. The return of these victims increased the clamour against the surviving Terrorist leaders and proconsuls who had ruled France in 1793–94 in Paris, or on mission in the provinces. Hot debates took place on the necessity of punishing what was now termed ‘Robespierre’s tail.’ In Paris a powerful section of the populace—namely, the young bourgeois, who were commonly called the Jeunesse Dorée, or after their leader Fréron the Jeunesse Fréronienne—never ceased to demand the punishment of the Terrorists. Popular sympathy was generally with the Jeunesse Dorée; conspicuous Jacobins of the Terror were beaten in the streets; the heart of Marat was taken from the Pantheon and thrown down a sewer; and the busts of Marat, who was regarded as the apostle of Terrorism, were everywhere broken. The former rulers of Paris, the old members of the Jacobin Club and the Revolutionary Committees, were not inclined to submit to popular vengeance without striking a blow. On 12th Germinal, Year III. (1st April 1795) they raised an insurrection in the turbulent Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the insurgents broke into the Convention shouting ‘Bread and the Constitution of 1793.’ The only result of this riot was that Billaud-Varenne, Collot-d’Herbois, Barère, and Vadier were ordered to be deported to French Guiana without trial. The persecution of the Terrorists continued. A commission was appointed to inquire into the acts of the former proconsuls; power passed into the hands of the returned Girondins and the members of the Plain or Centre. Certain of the remaining deputies of the Mountain, supported by the Jacobins of Paris, then resolved on a second insurrection. On 1st Prairial, Year III. (20th May 1795) the Convention was again invaded by a Saint-Antoine mob, headed by women who had gained the unenviable name of the ‘Furies of the Guillotine.’ A deputy named Féraud was taken for Fréron and murdered on the spot, and throughout the day the hall of the Convention was occupied by a howling mob, which vainly endeavoured to compel the President, Boissy-d’Anglas, to pass the decrees they desired. Meanwhile the Committees of Government prepared to act with vigour. With the help of some regular troops quartered in Paris, of the national guards of the bourgeois sections, and of the Jeunesse Dorée, they expelled the mob, and on the following days a force composed of these elements under the command of General Menou, an ex-Constituant, disarmed the revolutionary sections. The victory of the Committees was the victory of the enemies of the Reign of Terror. Some of the former Terrorist deputies were condemned to death and committed suicide, others were impeached and placed under arrest, and the Mountain as a party ceased to exist. The expulsion of the deputies of the Mountain caused the Committees of Government to be filled by the members of the Centre, the men who during the Reign of Terror had been peacefully occupied in the legislative and educational reforms, which were the most lasting works of the Convention. Of these new members the most typical is Cambacérès, the great jurist and principal law reformer of the period, on whose labours Napoleon compiled the Code Civil. While the Committees were engaged in the work of government, a commission of eleven deputies was appointed to draw up a new Constitution which should avoid the errors of its predecessors. The chief authors of this Constitution, which is known as the Constitution of the Year III., were Boissy-d’Anglas and Daunou.
Treaties of Basle. 1795.
The direction of foreign policy was still mainly conducted by Merlin of Douai, who was now aided in this department by Cambacérès, Sieyès, and Reubell. Their great work—indeed the great work of the Thermidorians—was the conclusion of the Treaties of Basle. The causes of these treaties have been shown in the examination just made of the changed attitude of the powers of Europe towards the French Republic. The agent of the French Republic in Switzerland, Barthélemy, was the diplomatist who negotiated the series of treaties. Switzerland had throughout the Reign of Terror been the centre of diplomatic action, for in Switzerland alone France could meet the representatives of foreign powers. The first and the most important of the Treaties of Basle was that between France and Prussia, which was signed upon the 5th of April 1795. By it not only was peace concluded between the contracting powers, but a line of demarcation was agreed to be drawn by which Prussia might secure safety from French invasion for the states of Northern Germany. One point only was left in abeyance by Barthélemy and Hardenberg, the negotiators of this treaty. The French Government insisted that France, in reward for her exertions, and in compensation for the long war, should receive her natural limits of the Rhine. Prussia’s territory upon the left bank of the Rhine was very small in amount, and it was agreed that the amount of compensation she should receive for ceding it to France should be left unsettled for the present. Frederick William II., who posed as a guardian of the Holy Roman Empire, refused openly to assent to the doctrine that France should reach the Rhine and thus consecrate the infringement of the limits of the Empire. He had no desire to appear ready to consent to any such arrangement, for he felt that such a policy would leave to Austria the position of protector of the Empire. The Treaty of Basle with Prussia was succeeded at the same place by a treaty with Spain on the 22d of July, and finally by a treaty with the most energetic of the petty princes of the Empire, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, on the 29th of August. Peace had already on February 9th been made with Tuscany, which had most unwillingly declared war on France under pressure from England. Of these treaties, the most important was that with Spain, which was excessively popular at Madrid, and won for Godoy the high-sounding title of ‘Prince of the Peace.’ Thus, after three years of war, France re-entered the comity of nations and broke up the coalition formed against her independence.
CHAPTER V
1795–1797
Results of the Treaties of Basle on the Foreign Policy of France—Constitution of the Year III—The Directory—The Legislature: Councils of Ancients and of Five Hundred—Local Administration of France—The Insurrection of Vendémiaire—The Rising of 13th Vendémiaire in Paris—The First French Directors, Councils, and Ministers—Dissolution of the Convention—England and the Emigrés—Treason of Pichegru—Exchange of Madame Royale—Desire for Peace in France—France and Prussia—Suggestion of Secularisations in Germany—France and the Smaller States of Europe—Attitude of Russia—Campaign of 1795 in Germany—Bonaparte’s Campaigns of 1796 in Italy—Battle of Montenotte—Armistice of Cherasco—Battle of Lodi—Armistice of Foligno—Conquest of Upper Italy—Battles of Castiglione, Arcola, and Rivoli—Peace of Tolentino with the Pope—Campaign of 1796 in Germany—Battle of Altenkirchen—Retreat of Moreau—Effects of the Campaign in Germany—Treaty between Prussia and France—Internal Policy of the Directory—Pacification of La Vendée—The State of France—The Directory, Councils, and Ministers in 1796—Creation of the Ministry of Police—Alliance between France and Spain—Treaty of San Ildefonso—Battle of Cape Saint-Vincent—The Batavian Republic—Negotiations between England and the Directory—Death of the Empress Catherine of Russia—Bonaparte’s Campaign of 1797 in the Tyrol—The Campaign of 1797 in Germany—Preliminaries of Leoben between France and Austria.
Result of the Treaties of Basle.
The conclusion of the Treaties of Basle in the spring and summer of 1795 brought France once more into a recognised position among the nations of Europe. The idea of a revolutionary propaganda had been entirely abandoned by the leading Thermidorians, who looked upon it as the first duty of the French Government to secure peace for France. All the great statesmen of the revolutionary period, from Mirabeau to Danton and Robespierre, had protested against the absurd notion that it was the mission of France to secure the pre-eminence of democratic ideas throughout the whole of Europe. Events had shown that it was a task of quite sufficient difficulty to secure the prevalence of such ideas in France. The abandonment of the revolutionary propaganda broke up the league of old Europe against new France. When the Prussian state, and still more the ancient monarchy of Spain, had consented to make peace with France, the rest of the powers of the Continent felt that they could no longer affect to treat the French republicans as beyond the pale of humanity, or the French Republic as having destroyed the title of France to be reckoned as a nation.
Constitution of the Year III.
The Thermidorians, not satisfied with their diplomatic success, constructed a new government for France. The authors of the policy, which resulted in the Treaties of Basle, were also the sponsors of the ‘Constitution of the Year III.’ The task of drawing up the bases of a new Constitution was referred upon 14th Germinal, Year III. (3d April 1795) to a committee of seven deputies, but the details were worked out by a subsequent commission of eleven. Among the seven the most important were Sieyès, Cambacérès, and Merlin of Douai, who were also at this period the three principal members of the Committee of Public Safety. Just as in making the Treaties of Basle, they and their colleagues had recurred to the fundamental ideas and policy of the old French Monarchy, so in the new Constitution they exhibited the influence of bygone ideas. The experience of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, and of the Convention until the formation of the Committee of Public Safety, had shown the utter inadequacy of intrusting supreme executive and administrative authority to an unwieldy deliberative assembly. The power of the monarchy in all modern states has rested upon the conviction of the importance of consolidating, as far as possible, the executive authority; the founders of the United States of America understood this truth, and invested their President with power resembling that exercised by kings; and the Convention, when it yielded to the voice of Danton, and conferred supreme authority upon the Committee of Public Safety, had reaped the advantage in its victories upon all the frontiers. Even the most obtuse of the deputies who sat in the Convention had learnt this lesson. And the founders of the Constitution of the Year III. had no difficulty in carrying the most important point in their programme. This was the entire separation of the executive and legislative powers. The Constitution of 1791, in its jealousy of the monarchy, had practically deprived the king and his ministers of all real authority, while leaving him the entire responsibility. The Constitution of 1793 had placed all executive authority in the hands of the Legislature. The Constitution of the Year III. endeavoured to separate the executive and legislative authorities.