History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves

by J. N. Larned

diggings. New issues of shares were made; first 50,000, then
50,000 more; both at an enormous premium. The jobbers of the
rue Quincampoix found ordinary language inadequate to express
their delight: they invented a new slang for the occasion, and
called the new shares 'les filles,' and, 'les petites filles,'
respectively. Paris was divided between the 'Anti-system' party
who opposed Law, and the Mississippians who supported him. The
State borrowed from the company fifteen hundred millions;
government paid its creditors in warrants on the company. To
meet them, Law issued 100,000 new shares; which came out at a
premium of 1,000 per cent. The Mississippians went mad with
joy--they invented another new slang phrase; the 'cinq cents'
eclipsed the filles and the petites filles in favour. The
gates of Law's hotel had to be guarded by a detachment of
archers; the cashiers were mobbed in their bureaux; applicants
for shares sat in the ante-rooms; a select body slept for
several nights on the stairs; gentlemen disguised themselves
in Law's livery to obtain access to the great man. ... By this
time the charter of the company of Senegal had been merged in
the bank, which also became sole farmer of the tobacco duties;
the East India Company had been abolished, and the exclusive
privilege of trading to the East Indies, China, and the South
Seas, together with all the possessions of Colbert's company
were transferred to Law. The bank now assumed the style of the
Company of the Indies. Before the year [1719] was out the
regent had transferred to it the exclusive privilege of the
mint, and the contract of all the great farms. Almost every
branch of industry in France, its trade, its revenue, its
police, were now in the hands of Law. Every fresh privilege
was followed by a new issue of shares. ... The shares of 500
franks were now worth 10,000. The rue Quincampoix became
impassable, and an army of stockjobbers camped in tents in the
Place Vendome. ... The excitement spread to England [where the
South Sea Bubble was inflated by the madness of the hour].
See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
... Law's system and the South Sea scheme both went down
together. Both were calculated to last so long, and so long
only, as universal confidence existed; when it began to be
whispered that those in the secret were realizing their
profits and getting out of the impending ruin, the whole
edifice came down with a crash. ... No sooner was it evident
that the system was about to break down, than Law, the only
man who could at least have mitigated the blow, was banished."
Viscount Bury,
Exodus of the Western Nations,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
C. Mackay,
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions,
volume 1, chapter 1.
A. Thiers,
The Mississippi Bubble.
W. C. Taylor,
Memoirs of the House of Orleans,
volume 2, chapter 2.
C. Gayarre,
History of Louisiana, second series,
lecture 1.
Duke de Saint-Simon,
Memoirs:
abridged translation by St. John, volume 3, chapter 25,
and volume 4, chapters 4, and 13-15.
FRANCE: A. D. 1720.
The fortifying of Louisbourg.
See CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1720-1745.
FRANCE: A. D. 1723-1774.
Character and reign of Louis XV.
The King's mistresses and their courtiers
who conducted the government.
State and feeling of the nation.
After the death of the Duke of Orleans, "a short period of
about two years and a-half comprehends the administration of
the Duke of Bourbon, or rather of his mistress, la Marquise de
Prie. Fleury [Cardinal] then appears on the stage, and dies in
1743. He was, therefore, minister of France for seventeen
years. On his death, the king (Louis XV.) undertook to be his
own prime minister; an unpromising experiment for a country at
any time. In this instance the result was only that the king's
mistress, Madame de Chateauroux, became the ruler of France,
and soon after Madame de Pompadour, another mistress, whose
reign was prolonged from 1745 to 1768. Different courtiers and
prelates were seen to hold the first offices of the state
during this apparent premiership of the monarch. The ladies
seem to have chosen or tolerated Cardinal Tençin, Argençon,
Orsy, Mauripaux, and Amelot, who, with the Dukes Noailles and
Richelieu, succeeded to Fleury. Afterwards, we have Argençon
and Machault, and then come the most celebrated of the
ministers or favourites of Madame de Pompadour, the Abbé de
Bemis and the Duc de Choiseul. The last is the most
distinguished minister after Fleury. He continued in favour
from 1758, not only to 1763, when Madame de Pompadour died,
but for a few years after. He was at length disgraced by la
Comtesse Dubarri, who had become the king's mistress soon
after the death of Madame de Pompadour, and remained so,
nearly to the death of the monarch himself, in 1774."
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 3.
"The regency of the Duke of Orleans lasted only eight years,
but it was not without a considerable effect upon the
destinies of the country. It was a break in the political and
the religious traditions of the reign of Louis XIV. The new
activity imparted to business during this period was an event
of equal importance. Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose
that constantly increasing misery at last excited revolt
against the government and the institutions of the old regime.
The Revolution in France at the close of the eighteenth
century was possible, not because the condition of the people
had grown worse, but because it had become better. The
material development of that country, during the fifty years
that preceded the convocation of the States General, had no
parallel in its past history. Neither the weight of taxation,
nor the extravagance of the court, nor the bankruptcy of the
government, checked an increase in wealth that made France in
1789 seem like a different land from France in 1715. The lot
of large classes was still miserable, the burden of taxation
upon a large part of the population was still grievous, there
were sections where Arthur Young could truly say that he found
only poverty and privileges, but the country as a whole was
more prosperous than Germany or Spain; it was far more
prosperous than it had been under Louis XIV. ...
{1249}
Such an improvement in material conditions necessitated both
social and political changes. ... But while social conditions
had altered, political institutions remained unchanged. New
wine had been poured in, but the old bottles were still used.
Tailles and corvées were no more severe in the eighteenth than
in the fifteenth century, but they were more odious. A feudal
privilege, which had then been accepted as a part of the law
of nature, was now regarded as contrary to nature. ... A
demand for social equality, for the abolition of privileges
and immunities by which any class profited at the expense of
others, was fostered by economical changes. It received an
additional impetus from the writings of theorists,
philosophers, and political reformers. The influence of
literature in France during the eighteenth century was
important, yet it is possible to overestimate it. The seed of
political and social change was shown by the writers of the
period, but the soil was already prepared to receive it. ...
The course of events, the conduct of their rulers, prepared
the minds of the French people for political change, and
accounted for the influence which literature acquired. The
doctrines of philosophers found easy access to the hearts of a
people with whom reverence for royalty and a tranquil
acceptance of an established government had been succeeded by
contempt for the king and hatred for the regime under which
they lived. We can trace this change of sentiment during the
reign of Louis XV. The popular affection which encircled his
cradle accompanied him when he had grown to be a man. ... Few
events are more noticeable in the history of the age than the
extraordinary expressions of grief and affection that were
excited by the illness of Louis XV. in 1744. ... A preacher
hailed him as Louis the well beloved, and all the nation
adopted the title. 'What have I done to be so loved?' the king
himself asked. Certainly he had done nothing, but the
explanation was correctly given. 'Louis XV. is dear to his
people, without having done anything for them, because the
French are, of all nations, most inclined to love their king.'
This affection, the result of centuries of fidelity and zeal
for monarchical institutions, and for the sovereigns by whom
they were personified, was wholly destroyed by Louis's
subsequent career. The vices to which he became addicted were
those which arouse feelings not only of reprehension, but of
loathing. They excited both aversion and contempt. The
administration of the country was as despicable as the
character of the sovereign. Under Louis XIV. there had been
suffering and there had been disaster, but France had always
preserved a commanding position in Europe. ... But now defeat
and dishonor were the fate of a people alike powerful and
proud. ... The low profligacy into which the king had sunk,
the nullity of his character, the turpitude of his mistress,
the weakness of his administration, the failure of all his
plans, went far toward destroying the feelings of loyalty that
had so long existed in the hearts of the French people. Some
curious figures mark the decline in the estimation in which
the king was held. In 1744, six thousand masses were said at
Nôtre Dame for the restoration of Louis XV. to health; in
1757, after the attempted assassination by Damiens, there were
six hundred; when the king actually lay dying, in 1774, there
were only three. The fall from six thousand to three measures
the decline in the affection and respect of the French people
for their sovereign. It was with a public whose sentiments had
thus altered that the new philosophy found acceptance."
J. B. Perkins,
France under the Regency,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapters 2-8.
J. Murray,
French Finance and Financiers under Louis XV.
FRANCE: A. D. 1725.
The alliance of Hanover.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
FRANCE: A. D. 1727-1731.
Ineffectual congress at Soissons.
The Treaty of Seville, with Spain and England.
The Second Treaty of Vienna.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.
FRANCE: A. D. 1733.
The First Family Compact of the Bourbons (France and Spain).
"The two lines of the house of Bourbon [in France and in
Spain] once more became in the highest degree prominent. ...
As early as November 1733 a Family Compact (the first of the
series) was concluded between them, in which they contemplated
the possibility of a war against England, but without waiting
for it entered into an agreement against the maritime
supremacy of that power. ... The commercial privileges granted
to the English in the Peace of Utrecht seemed to both courts
to be intolerable."
L. von Ranke,
History of England,
book 22, chapter 4 (volume 5).
"It is hardly too much to say that the Family Compact of 1733,
though even yet not generally known to exist, is the most
important document of the middle period of the 18th century
and the most indispensable to history. If that period seems to
us confused, if we lose ourselves in the medley of its
wars--war of the Polish election, war of Jenkins's ears, war
of the Austrian succession, colonial war of 1756--the simple
reason is that we do not know this treaty, which furnishes the
clue. From it we may learn that in this period, as in that of
Louis XIV. and in that of Napoleon, Europe struggled against
the ambitious and deliberately laid design of an ascendant
power, with this difference, that those aggressors were
manifest to all the world and their aims not difficult to
understand, whereas this aggression proceeded by ambuscade,
and, being the aggression not of a single state but of an
alliance, and a secret alliance, did not become clearly
manifest to Europe even when it had to a considerable extent
attained its objects. ... The first two articles define the
nature of the alliance, that it involves a mutual guarantee of
all possessions, and has for its object, first, the honour,
glory, and interests of both powers, and, secondly, their
defence against all damage, vexation, and prejudice that may
threaten them." The first declared object of the Compact is to
secure the position of Don Carlos, the Infant of Spain,
afterwards Charles III., in Italy, and "to obtain for him the
succession in Tuscany, protecting him against any attack that
may be attempted by the Emperor or by England. Next, France
undertakes to 'aid Spain with all her forces by land or sea,
if Spain should suspend England's enjoyment of commerce and
her other advantages, and England out of revenge should resort
to hostilities and insults in the dominions and states of the
crown of Spain, whether within or outside of Europe.'"
{1250}
Further articles provide for the making of efforts to induce
Great Britain to restore Gibraltar to Spain; set forth "that
the foreign policy of both states is to be guided exclusively
by the interests of the house"; denounce the Austrian
Pragmatic as "opposed to the security of the house of
Bourbon." "The King of France engages to send 32,000 infantry
and 8,000 cavalry into Italy, and to maintain other armies on
his other frontiers; also to have a squadron ready at Toulon,
either to join the Spanish fleet or to act separately, and
another squadron at Brest, 'to keep the English in fear and
jealousy'; also, in case of war with England breaking out, to
commission the largest possible number of privateers. Spain
also promises a fixed number of troops. The 11th and 12th
articles lay the foundation of a close commercial alliance to
be formed between France and Spain. Article 13 runs as
follows:--'His Catholic majesty, recognising all the abuses
which have been introduced into commerce, chiefly by the
British nation, in the eradication of which the French and
Spanish nations are equally interested, has determined to
bring everything back within rule and into agreement with the
letter of treaties'"--to which end the two kings make common
cause. "Finally the 14th article provides that the present
treaty shall remain profoundly secret as long as the
contracting parties shall judge it agreeable to their
interests, and shall be regarded from this day as an eternal
and irrevocable Family Compact. ... Here is the explanation of
the war which furnished the immediate occasion of the first
Compact, a war most misleadingly named from the Polish
election which afforded an ostensible pretext for it, and
deserving better to be called the Bourbon invasion of Italy.
Here too is sketched out the course which was afterwards taken
by the Bourbon courts in the matter of the Pragmatic Sanction.
Thirdly, here most manifestly is the explanation of that war
of Jenkins's ears, which we have a habit of representing as
forced upon Spain by English commercial cupidity, but which
appears here as deliberately planned in concert by the Bourbon
courts in order to eradicate the 'abuses which have been
allowed to creep into trade.'"
J. R. Seeley,
The House of Bourbon
(English History Review, January, 1886).
ALSO IN:
J. McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
chapter 22 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
War with Austria, in Germany and Italy.
Final acquisition of Lorraine.
Naples and Sicily transferred to Spain.
In the war with Austria which was brought about by the
question of the Polish succession (see POLAND: A. D.
1732-1733), the French "struck at the Rhine and at Italy,
while the other powers looked on unmoved; Spain watching her
moment, at which she might safely interfere for her own
interests in Italy. The army of the Rhine, which reached
Strasburg in autumn 1733, was commanded by Marshal Berwick,
who had been called away from eight years of happy and
charming leisure at Fitz-James. With him served for the first
time in the French army their one great general of the coming
age, and he too a foreigner, Maurice, son of Augustus II. of
Poland and the lovely Countess of Königsmark. ... He is best
known to us as Marshal Saxe. It was too late to accomplish
much in 1733, and the French had to content themselves with
the capture of Kehl: in the winter the Imperialists
constructed strong lines at Ettlingen, a little place not far
from Carlsruhe, between Kehl, which the French held, and
Philipsburg, at which they were aiming. In the spring of 1734
French preparations were slow and feeble: a new power had
sprung up at Paris in the person of Belle-Isle, Fouquet's
grandson, who had much of the persuasive ambition of his
grandfather. He was full of schemes, and induced the aged
Fleury to believe him to be the coming genius of French
generalship; the careful views of Marshal Berwick suited ill
his soaring spirit; he wanted to march headlong into Saxony
and Bohemia. Berwick would not allow so reckless a scheme to
be adopted; still Belle-Isle, as lieutenant-general with an
almost independent command, was sent to besiege Trarbach on
the Moselle, an operation which delayed the French advance on
the Rhine. At last, however, Berwick moved forwards. By
skilful arrangements he neutralised the Ettlingen lines, and
without a battle forced the Germans to abandon them. Their
army withdrew to Heilbronn, where it was joined by Prince
Eugene. Berwick, freed from their immediate presence, and
having a great preponderance in force, at once sat down before
Philipsburg. There, on the 12th of June, as he visited the
trenches, he was struck by a ball and fell dead. So passed
away the last but one of the great generals of Louis XIV.:
France never again saw his like till the genius of the
Revolution evoked a new race of heroes. It was thought at
first that Berwick's death, like Turenne's, would end the
campaign, and that the French army must get back across the
Rhine. The position seemed critical, Philipsburg in front, and
Prince Eugene watching without. The Princes of the Empire,
however, had not put out any strength in this war, regarding
it chiefly as an Austrian affair; and the Marquis d'Asfeld,
who took the command of the French forces, was able to hold
on, and in July to reduce the great fortress of Philipsburg.
Therewith the campaign of the Rhine closed. In Italy things
had been carried on with more vigour and variety. The veteran
Villars, now 81 years old, was in command, under
Charles-Emmanuel, King of Sardinia. ... Villars found it quite
easy to occupy all the Milanese: farther he could not go; for
Charles-Emmanuel, after the manner of his family, at once
began to deal behind his back with the Imperialists and the
campaign dragged. The old Marshal, little brooking
interference and delay, for he still was full of fire, threw
up his command, and started for France: on the way he was
seized with illness at Turin, and died there five days after
Berwick had been killed at Philipsburg. With them the long
series of the generals of Louis XIV. comes to an end. Coigny
and the Duke de Broglie succeeded to the command. Not far from
Parma they fought a murderous battle with the Austrians, hotly
contested, and a Cadmean victory for the French: it arrested
their forward movement, and two months were spent in enforced
idleness. In September 1734 the Imperialists inflicted a heavy
check on the French at the Secchia; afterwards however
emboldened by this success, they fought a pitched battle at
Guastalla, in which, after a fierce struggle, the French
remained masters of the field. Their losses, the advanced time
of the year, and the uncertainty as to the King of Sardinia's
movements and intentions, rendered the rest of the campaign
unimportant.
{1251}
As however the Imperialists, in order to make head against the
French in the valley of the Po, had drawn all their available
force out of the Neapolitan territory, the Spaniards were able
to slip in behind them, and to secure that great prize. Don
Carlos landed at Naples and was received with transports of
joy: the Austrians were defeated at Bitonto; the Spaniards
then crossed into Sicily, which also welcomed them gladly; the
two kingdoms passed willingly under the rule of the Spaniards.
In 1735 Austria made advances in the direction of peace; for
the French had stirred up their old friend the Turk, who, in
order to save Poland, proposed to invade Hungary. Fleury, no
lover of war, and aware that England's neutrality could not
last forever, was not unwilling to treat: a Congress at Vienna
followed, and before the end of 1735 peace again reigned in
Europe. The terms of the Treaty of Vienna (3 October 1735)
were very favourable to France. Austria ceded Naples and
Sicily, Elba, and the States degli Presidii to Spain, to be
erected into a separate kingdom for Don Carlos: France
obtained Lorraine and Bar, which were given to Stanislaus
Leczinski on condition that he should renounce all claim to
the Polish Crown; they were to be governed by him under French
administration: Francis Stephen the former Duke obtained, as
an indemnity, the reversion of Tuscany, which fell to him in
the following year. Parma and Piacenza returned to the
Emperor, who also obtained from France a guarantee of the
Pragmatic Sanction. Thus France at last got firm hold of the
much-desired Lorraine country, though it was not absolutely
united to her till the death of Stanislaus in 1766."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 52 (volume 6).
FRANCE: A. D. 1738-1740.
The Question of the Austrian Succession.
Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.
FRANCE: A. D. 1740-1741.
Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.
Seizure of Silesia by Frederick the Great.
French responsibility for the war.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741;
and 1741 (APRIL-MAY), (MAY-JUNE).
FRANCE: A. D. 1741-1743.
The War of the Austrian Succession in Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743;
and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741, to 1743.
FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (October).
The Second Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.
"France and Spain signed a secret treaty of perpetual alliance
at Fontainebleau, October 25th, 1743. The treaty is remarkable
as the precursor of the celebrated Family Compact between the
French and Spanish Bourbons. The Spaniards, indeed, call it
the Second Family Compact, the first being the Treaty of
November 7th, 1733, of which, with regard to colonial affairs,
it was a renewal. But this treaty had a more special reference
to Italy. Louis XV. engaged to declare war against Sardinia,
and to aid Spain in conquering the Milanese. Philip V.
transferred his claims to that duchy to his son, the Infant
Don Philip, who was also to be put in possession of Parma and
Piacenza. All the possessions ceded by France to the King of
Sardinia, by the Treaty of Utrecht, were to be again wrested
from him. A public alliance was to be formed, to which the
Emperor Charles VII. was to accede; whose states, and even
something more, were to be recovered for him. Under certain
circumstances war was to be declared against England; in which
case France was to assist in the recovery of Gibraltar, and
also, if possible, of Minorca. The new colony of Georgia was
to be destroyed, the Asiento withdrawn from England, &c."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1743-1752.
Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.
FRANCE: A. D. 1744-1745.
The War of the Austrian Succession in America.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744, and 1745.
A. D. 1741-1747.
War of the Austrian Succession in Italy,
Germany and the Netherlands.
See ITALY: A. D. 1744, to 1746-1747;
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744;
and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1745, and 1746-1747.
FRANCE: A. D. 1748 (October).
Termination and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.
See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748;
and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.
FRANCE: A. D. 1748-1754.
Active measures in America to fortify possession of the Ohio
valley and the West.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.
FRANCE: A. D. 1749-1755.
Unsettled boundary disputes in America.
Preludes of the last contest with England for dominion in the
New World.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753;
OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
FRANCE: A. D. 1755.
Causes and provocations of the Seven Years War.
See GERMANY: A.D. 1755-1756;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755.
FRANCE: A. D. 1755.
Naval reverse on the Newfoundland coast.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).
FRANCE: A. D. 1755-1762.
The Seven Years War: Campaigns in America.
See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760;
NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, and 1755;
OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, and 1755;
CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.
FRANCE: A. D. 1756 (May).
The Seven Years War: Minorca wrested from England.
See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.
FRANCE: A. D. 1757-1762.
The Seven Years War: Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER),
to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST); 1760; and 1761-1762.
FRANCE: A. D. 1758-1761.
The Seven Years War: Loss of footing and influence in India.
Count Lally's failure.
See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.
FRANCE: A. D. 1760.
The Seven Years War: The surrender of Canada.
See CANADA: A. D. 1760.
FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (August).
The Third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.
"On the 15th of August [1761] ... Grimaldi [Spanish ambassador
at the French court] and Choiseul [the ruling minister, at the
time, in France] signed the celebrated Family Compact. By this
treaty the Kings of France and Spain agreed for the future to
consider every Power as their enemy which might become the
enemy of either, and to guarantee the respective dominions in
all parts of the world which they might possess at the next
conclusion of peace. Mutual succours by sea and land were
stipulated, and no proposal of peace to their common enemies
was to be made, nor negotiation entered upon, unless by common
consent. The subjects of each residing in the European
dominions of the other were to enjoy the same commercial
privileges as the natives.
{1252}
Moreover, the King of Spain stipulated the accession of his
son, the King of Naples, to this alliance; but it was agreed
that no prince or potentate, except of the House of Bourbon,
should ever be admitted to its participation. Besides this
treaty, which in its words at least applied only to future and
contingent wars, and which was intended to be ultimately
published, there was also signed on the same day a special and
secret convention. This imported, that in case England and
France should still be engaged in hostilities on the 1st of
May 1762 Spain should on that day declare war against England,
and that France should at the same period restore Minorca to
Spain. ... Not only the terms but the existence of a Family
Compact were for some time kept scrupulously secret. Mr.
Stanley, however, gleaned some information from the scattered
hints of the Duke de Choiseul, and these were confirmed to
Pitt from several other quarters." As the result of the Family
Compact, England declared war against Spain on the 4th of
January, 1762. Pitt had gone out of office in October because
his colleagues and the King would not then consent to a
declaration of war against the Spanish Bourbons.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763.
The force of circumstances soon brought them to the measure.
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 37 (volume 4).
FRANCE: A. D. 1761-1764.
Proceedings against the Jesuits.
Their expulsion from the kingdom.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
FRANCE: A. D. 1763.
The end and results of the Seven Years War.
The Peace of Paris.
America lost, nothing gained.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: A. D. 1763.
FRANCE: A. D. 1763.
Rights in the North American fisheries secured by the Treaty
of Paris.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1763.
FRANCE: A. D. 1768.
Acquisition of Corsica.
See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.
FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788.
The Court and Government of Louis XV!., his inheritance of
troubles, his vacillations, his helpless ministers.
Turgot, Necker, Calonne, Brienne.
Blind selfishness of the privileged orders.
The Assembly of Notables.
The Parliament of Paris.
"Louis XVI., an equitable prince, moderate in his
propensities, carelessly educated, but naturally of a good
disposition, ascended the throne [May 11, 1774] at a very
early age. He called to his side an old courtier, and
consigned to him the care of his kingdom; and divided his
confidence between Maurepas and the Queen, an Austrian
princess [Marie Antoinette], young, lively, and amiable, who
possessed a complete ascendency over him. Maurepas and the
Queen were not good friends. The King, sometimes giving way to
his minister, at others to his consort, began at an early
period the long career of his vacillations. ... The public
voice, which was loudly expressed, called for Turgot, one of
the class of economists, an honest, virtuous man, endowed with
firmness of character, a slow genius, but obstinate and
profound. Convinced of his probity, delighted with his plans
of reform, Louis XVI. frequently repeated: 'There are none
besides myself and Turgot who are friends of the people.'
Turgot's reforms were thwarted by the opposition of the
highest orders in the state, who were interested in
maintaining all kinds of abuses, which the austere minister
proposed to suppress. Louis XVI. dismissed him [1776] with
regret. During his whole life, which was only a long
martyrdom, he had the mortification to discern what was right,
to wish it sincerely, but to lack the energy requisite for
carrying it into execution. The King, placed between the
court, the parliaments, and the people, exposed to intrigues
and to suggestions of all sorts, repeatedly changed his
ministers. Yielding once more to the public voice, and to the
necessity for reform, he summoned to the finance department
Necker, a native of Geneva, who had amassed wealth as a
banker, a partisan and disciple of Colbert, as Turgot was of
Sully; an economical and upright financier, but a vain man,
fond of setting himself up for arbitrator in everything. ...
Necker re-established order in the finances, and found means
to defray the heavy expenses of the American war. ... But it
required something more than financial artifices to put an end
to the embarrassments of the exchequer, and he had recourse to
reform. He found the higher orders not less adverse to him
than they had been to Turgot; the parliaments, apprised of his
plans, combined against him, and obliged him to retire [1781].
The conviction of the existence of abuses was universal;
everybody admitted it. ... The courtiers, who derived
advantage from these abuses, would have been glad to see an
end put to the embarrassments of the exchequer, but without
its costing them a single sacrifice. ... The parliaments also
talked of the interests of the people, loudly insisted on the
sufferings of the poor, and yet opposed the equalization of
the taxes, as well as the abolition of the remains of feudal
barbarism. All talked of the public weal, few desired it; and
the people, not yet knowing who were its true friends,
applauded all those who resisted power, its most obvious
enemy. By the removal of Turgot and Necker, the state of
affairs was not changed: the distress of the treasury remained
the same. ... An intrigue brought forward M. de Calonne [in
1783, after brief careers in office of M. de Fleury and M.
d'Ormesson]. ... Calonne, clever, brilliant, fertile in
resources, relied upon his genius, upon fortune, and upon men,
and awaited the future with the most extraordinary apathy. ...
That future which had been counted upon now approached: it
became necessary at length to adopt decisive measures. It was
impossible to burden the people with fresh imposts, and yet
the coffers were empty. There was but one remedy which could
be applied; that was to reduce the expenses by the suppression
of grants; and if this expedient should not suffice, to extend
the taxes to a greater number of contributors, that is, to the
nobility and clergy. These plans, attempted successively by
Turgot and Necker, and resumed by Calonne, appeared to the
latter not at all likely to succeed, unless the consent of the
privileged classes themselves could be obtained. Calonne,
therefore, proposed to collect them together in an assembly,
to be called the Assembly of the Notables, in order to lay his
plans before them, and to gain their consent either by address or
by conviction. The assembly [which met February 22, 1787] was
composed of distinguished members of the nobility, clergy, and
magistracy, of a great number of masters of requests and some
magistrates of the provinces. ... Very warm discussions
ensued." The Notables at length "promised to sanction the
plans of Calonne, but on condition that a minister more moral
and more deserving of confidence should be appointed to carry
them into execution."
{1253}
Calonne, consequently, was dismissed, and replaced by M. de
Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse. "The Notables, bound by the
promises which they had made, readily consented to all that
they had at first refused: land-tax, stamp-duty, suppression
of the gratuitous services of vassals ('corvées'), provincial
assemblies, were all cheerfully granted. ... Had M. de Brienne
known how to profit by the advantages of his position; had he
actively proceeded with the execution of the measures assented
to by the Notables; had he submitted them all at once and
without delay to the parliament, at the instant when the
adhesion of the higher orders seemed to be wrung from
them--all would probably have been over; the parliament,
pressed on all sides, would have consented to everything. ...
Nothing of the kind, however, was done. By imprudent delays
occasion was furnished for relapses; the edicts were submitted
only one after another; the parliament had time to discuss, to
gain courage, and to recover from the sort of surprise by
which the Notables had been taken. It registered, after long
discussions, the edict enacting the second abolition of the
'corvées,' and another permitting the free exportation of
corn. Its animosity was particularly directed against the
land-tax; but it feared lest by a refusal it should enlighten
the public, and show that its opposition was entirely selfish.
It hesitated, when it was spared this embarrassment by the
simultaneous presentation of the edict on the stamp-duty and
the land-tax, and especially by opening the deliberations with
the former. The parliament had thus an opportunity of refusing
the first without entering into explanations respecting the
second; and, in attacking the stamp-duty, which affected the
majority of the payers of taxes, it seemed to defend the
interest of the public. At a sitting which was attended by the
peers, it denounced the abuses, the profligacy, and the
prodigality of the court, and demanded statements of
expenditure. A councillor, punning upon the 'états'
(statements) exclaimed ... --'It is not statements, but
States-General that we want.' ... The utterance of a single
word presented an unexpected direction to the public mind: it
was repeated by every mouth, and States-General were loudly
demanded."
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 17-21.
"There is no doubt that the French administrative body, at the
time when Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and
self-seeking. In the management of the finances and of the
army, illegitimate profits were made. But this was not the
worst evil from which the public service was suffering. France
was in fact governed by what in modern times is called 'a
ring.' The members of such an organization pretend to serve
the sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do
so; but their rewards are determined by intrigue and favor,
and are entirely disproportionate to their services. They
generally prefer jobbery to direct stealing, and will spend a
million of the state's money in a needless undertaking, in
order to divert a few thousands into their own pockets. They
hold together against all the world, while trying to
circumvent each other. Such a ring in old France was the
court. By such a ring will every country be governed, where
the sovereign who possesses the political power is weak in
moral character or careless of the public interest; whether
that sovereign be a monarch, a chamber, or the mass of the
people. Louis XVI., king of France and of Navarre, was more
dull than stupid, and weaker in will than in intellect. ... He
was ... thoroughly conscientious, and had a high sense of the
responsibility of his great calling. He was not indolent,
although heavy, and his courage, which was sorely tested, was
never broken. With these virtues he might have made a good
king, had he possessed firmness of will enough to support a
good minister, or to adhere to a good policy. But such
strength had not been given him. Totally incapable of standing
by himself, he leant successively, or simultaneously, on his
aunt, his wife, his ministers, his courtiers, as ready to
change his policy as his adviser. Yet it was part of his
weakness to be unwilling to believe himself under the guidance
of any particular person; he set a high value on his own
authority, and was inordinately jealous of it. No one,
therefore, could acquire a permanent influence. Thus a
well-meaning man became the worst of sovereigns. ... Louis XV.
had been led by his mistresses; Louis XVI. was turned about by
the last person who happened to speak to him. The courtiers,
in their turn, were swayed by their feelings, or their
interests. They formed parties and combinations, and intrigued
for or against each other. They made bargains, they gave and
took bribes. In all these intrigues, bribes, and bargains, the
court ladies had a great share. They were as corrupt as the
men, and as frivolous. It is probable that in no government
did women ever exercise so great an influence. The factions
into which the court was divided tended to group themselves
round certain rich and influential families. Such were the
Noailles, an ambitious and powerful house, with which
Lafayette was connected by marriage; the Broglies, one of whom
had held the thread of the secret diplomacy which Louis XV.
had carried on behind the backs of his acknowledged ministers;
the Polignacs, new people, creatures of Queen Marie
Antoinette; the Rohans, through the influence of whose great
name an unworthy member of the family was to rise to high
dignity in the church and the state, and then to cast a deep
shadow on the darkening popularity of that ill-starred
princess. Such families as these formed an upper class among
nobles. ... It is not easy, in looking at the French
government in the eighteenth century, to decide where the
working administration ended, and where the useless court that
answered no real purpose began. ... There was the department of
hunting and that of buildings, a separate one for royal
journeys, one for the guard, another for police, yet another
for ceremonies. There were five hundred officers 'of the
mouth,' table-bearers distinct from chair-bearers. There were
tradesmen, from apothecaries and armorers at one end of the
list to saddle-makers, tailors and violinists at the other. ...
The military and civil households of the king and of the
royal family are said to have consisted of about fifteen
thousand souls, and to have cost forty-five million francs per
annum. The holders of many of the places served but three
months apiece out of every year, so that four officers and
four salaries were required, instead of one. With such a
system as this we cannot wonder that the men who administered
the French government were generally incapable and
self-seeking. Most of them were politicians rather than
administrators, and cared more for their places than for their
country. Of the few conscientious and patriotic men who
obtained power, the greater number lost it very speedily."
E. J. Lowell,
The Eve of the French Revolution,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapters 9-11.
Mme. de Stael,
Considerations on the Principal Events
of the French Revolution,
chapters 3-10 (volume 1).
J. Necker,
On the French Revolution,
part. 1, section 1 (volume 1).
Condorcet,
Life of Turgot,
chapters 5-6.
L. Say,
Turgot,
chapters 5-7.
C. D. Yonge,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
chapters 8-21.
{1254}
FRANCE: A. D. 1778 (February).
Treaty with the United States of America.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778,
and 1778 (FEBRUARY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1780 (July).
Fresh aid to the United States of America.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (July).
FRANCE: A. D. 1782.
Disastrous naval defeat by Rodney.
Unsuccessful siege of Gibraltar.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.
FRANCE: A. D. 1782.
The negotiation of Peace between Great Britain and the United
States of America.
Dissatisfaction of the French minister.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (SEPTEMBER),
and (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1784-1785.
The affair of the Diamond Necklace.
The chief actor in the affair of the diamond necklace, which
caused a great scandal and smirched the queen's name, was an
adventuress who called herself the Comtesse de Lamotte, and
claimed descent from Henry II., but who had been half servant,
half companion, to a lady of quality, and had picked up a
useful acquaintance with the manners and the gossip of court
society. "Madame de Lamotte's original patroness had a
visiting acquaintance with the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan,
and in her company her protégée learned to know him also.
Prince Louis, who had helped to receive Marie Antoinette at
Strasburg, had been the French ambassador at Vienna, where he
had disgusted and incensed Maria Theresa by his worldliness,
profligacy, and arrogance. She had at last procured his
withdrawal, and her letters expressing a positive terror lest
he should come near Marie Antoinette and acquire an influence
over her, were not without their effect. He was not allowed to
appear at Court, and for ten long years fretted and fumed
under a sense of the royal displeasure. ... He was now a man
bordering on fifty, grey-headed, rosy, 'pursy,' with nothing
save his blue blood and the great offices which he disgraced
to recommend him. Madame de Lamotte, hovering about Paris and
Versailles, where she had lodgings in La Belle Inage, tried to
make her own of backstairs gossip, and picked up a hint or
two. Suddenly a great idea struck her, founded on the history
of a magnificent necklace dangled before bright eyes, over
which many an excitable imagination gloated. The Queen had a
court jeweller, Bœhmer, who had formerly been jeweller to the
King of Saxony at Dresden. ... For a period of years he had
been collecting and assorting the stones which should form an
incomparable necklace, in row upon row, pendants and tassels
of lustrous diamonds, till the price reached the royal pitch
of from eighty to ninety thousand pounds English money. This
costly 'collar,' according to rumour, was ... meant, in the
beginning, for the Comtesse du Barry. In the end, it ... was
offered with confidence to the Queen. ... She declined to
buy--she had enough diamonds. ... There was nothing for it but
that Bœhmer should 'hawk' his necklace in every Court of
Europe, without success, till the German declared himself
ruined, and passionately protested that, if the Queen would
not buy the diamonds, there was no resource for him save to
throw himself into the Seine. But there was a resource,
unhappily for Bœhmer, unhappily for all concerned, most so for
the poor Queen. Madame de Lamotte, in keeping up her
acquaintance with Prince Louis de Rohan, began to hint darkly
that there might be ways of winning the royal favour. She
threw out cunning words about the degree of importance and
trust to which she had attained in the highest quarters at
Versailles; about the emptiness of the Queen's exchequer, with
consequent difficulties in the discharge of her charities;
about the secret royal desire for the famous necklace, which
the King would not enable Marie Antoinette to obtain. The
blinded and besotted Cardinal drank in these insinuations. The
black art was called in to deepen his convictions. In an age
when many men, especially many churchmen, believed in nothing,
in spite of their professions, naturally they were given over
to believe a lie. Cagliostro, astrologer and modern magician,
was flourishing in Paris, and by circles and signs he promised
the priest, De Rohan, progress in the only suit he had at
heart. Still the dupe was not so infatuated as to require no
proof of the validity of these momentous implications, and
proof was not wanting; notes were handed to him, to be
afterwards shown to Bœhmer, graciously acknowledging his
devotion, and authorising him to buy for the Queen the diamond
necklace. These notes were apparently written in the Queen's
hand (that school-girl's scrawl of which Maria Theresa was
wont to complain); but they were signed 'Marie Antoinette de
France,' a signature which so great a man as the Cardinal
ought to have known was never employed by the Queen, for the
very good reason that the termination 'de France' belonged to
the children and not to the wife of the sovereign. Even a
further assurance that all was right was granted. The
Cardinal, trembling in a fever of hope and expectation, was
told that a private interview with the Queen would be
vouchsafed to him at midnight in the Park of Versailles. At
the appointed hour, on the night of the 28th of July, 1784, De
Rohan, in a blue greatcoat and slouched hat, was stationed,
amidst shrouding, sultry darkness, in the neighbourhood of the
palace. Madame de Lamotte, in a black domino, hovered near to
give the signal of the Queen's approach. The whisper was
given, 'In the Hornbeam Arbour,' and the Cardinal hurried to
the spot, where he could dimly descry a tall lady in white,
with chestnut hair, blue eyes, and a commanding air, if he
could really have seen all these well-known attributes. He
knelt, but before he could do more than mutter a word of
homage and gratitude, the black domino was at his side again
with another vehement whisper, 'On vient' (They come).
{1255}
The lady in white dropped a rose, with the significant words,
'Vous savez ce que cela veut dire' (You know what that means),
and vanished before the 'Vite, vite' ('Quick, quick ') of the
black domino, for the sound of approaching footsteps was
supposed to indicate the approach of Madame and the Comtesse
d'Artois, and the Cardinal, in his turn, had to flee from
detection. What more could be required to convince a man of
the good faith of the lady. ... Bœhmer received a hint that he
might sell his necklace, through the Prince Cardinal Louis de
Rohan, to one of the great ones of the earth, who was to
remain in obscurity. The jeweller drew out his terms--sixteen
hundred thousand livres, to be paid in five equal instalments
over a year and a-half--to which he and Prince Louis affixed
their signatures. This paper Madame de Lamotte carried to
Versailles, and brought it back with the words written on the
margin, 'Bon Marie Antoinette de France.' In the meantime,
Bœhmer, the better to keep the secret, gave out that he had
sold the necklace to the Grand Turk for his favourite Sultana.
The necklace was, in fact, delivered to Prince Louis and by
him entrusted to Madame Lamotte, from whose hands it passed
--not into the Queen's. Having been taken to pieces, it was
sent in all haste out of the kingdom, while the Cardinal,
according to his own account, was still played with. ... It
goes without saying that no payment, except a small offer of
interest on the thirty thousand, was forthcoming. The Cardinal
and Bœhmer were betrayed into wrath, dismay, and despair.
Bœhmer took it upon him to apply, in respectful terms, to her
Majesty for payment; and when she said the whole thing was a
mistake, the man must be mad, and caused her words to be
written to him, he sought an interview with Madame Campan, the
first woman of the bedchamber, at her house at Crespy, where
he had been dining, and in the gardens there, in the middle of
a thunder-shower, astounded her with his version of the story.
... The Cardinal was taken to the Bastille. More arrests
followed, including those of Madame de Lamotte, staying
quietly in her house at Bar-sur-Aube, and the girl Gay
d'Oliva, an unhappy girl, tall and fair haired, taken from the
streets of Paris, and brought to the park of Versailles to
personate the Queen. It was said the Queen wept passionately
over the scandal--well she might. The court in which the case
was tried might prove the forgery, as in fact it did, though
not in the way she expected; but every Court in Europe would
ring with the story, and she had made deadly enemies, if not
of the Church itself, of the great houses of De Rohan, De
Soubise, De Guéménée, De Marsan, and their multitude of
allies. The process lasted nine months, and every exertion was
made for the deliverance of the princely culprit. ... The
result of the trial was that, though the Queen's signature was
declared false, Madame de Lamotte was sentenced to be whipped,
branded, and imprisoned for life, her husband was condemned to
the galleys, and a man called Villette de Retaux, who was the
actual fabricator of the Queen's handwriting, was sentenced to
be banished for life. The Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan was
fully acquitted, with permission to publish what defence he
chose to write of his conduct. When he left the court, he was
escorted by great crowds, hurrahing over his acquittal,
because it was supposed to cover the Court with
mortification."
Sarah Tytler,
Marie Antoinette,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
The Diamond Necklace
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 5).
H. Vizetelly,
The Story of the Diamond Necklace.
FRANCE: A. D. 1787-1789.
Struggle of the Crown with the Parliament of Paris.
The demand for a meeting of the States-General yielded to.
Double representation of the Third Estate conceded.
The make-up of the States-General as elected by the three
Estates.
Banished to Troyes (August, 1787), in consequence of its
refusal to register two edicts relating to the stamp-duty and
the land-tax, the Parliament of Paris "grew weary of exile,
and the minister recalled it on condition that the two edicts
should be passed. But this was only a suspension of
hostilities; the necessities of the crown soon rendered the
struggle more obstinate and violent. The minister had to make
fresh applications for money; his existence depended on the
issue of several successive loans to the amount of
440,000,000. It was necessary to obtain the enrolment of them.
Brienne, expecting opposition from the parliament, procured
the enrolment of this edict, by a 'bed of justice,' and to
conciliate the magistracy and public opinion, the protestants
were restored to their rights in the same sitting, and Louis
XVI. promised an annual publication of the state of finances,
and the convocation of the states-general before the end of
five years. But these concessions were no longer sufficient:
parliament refused the enrolment, and rose against the
ministerial tyranny. Some of its members, among others the
duke of Orleans, were banished. Parliament protested by a
decree against 'lettres de cachet,' and required the recall of
its members. This decree was annulled by the king, and
confirmed by parliament. The warfare increased. The magistracy
of Paris was supported by all the magistracy of France, and
encouraged by public opinion. It proclaimed the rights of the
nation, and its own incompetence in matters of taxation; and,
become liberal from interest, and rendered generous by
oppression, it exclaimed against arbitrary imprisonment, and
demanded regularly convoked states-general. After this act of
courage, it decreed the irremovability of its members, and the
incompetence of any who might usurp their functions. This bold
manifesto was followed by the arrest of two members,
d'Eprémenil and Goislard, by the reform of the body, and the
establishment of a plenary court. Brienne understood that the

opposition of the parliament was systematic, that it would be
renewed on every fresh demand for subsidies, or on the
authorization of every loan. Exile was but a momentary remedy,
which suspended opposition, without destroying it. He then
projected the reduction of this body to judicial functions.
... All the magistracy of France was exiled on the same day,
in order that the new judicial organization might take place.
The keeper of the seals deprived the Parliament of Paris of
its political attributes, to invest with them a plenary court,
ministerially composed, and reduced its judicial competence in
favour of bailiwicks, the jurisdiction of which he extended.
Public opinion was indignant; the Châtelet protested, the
provinces rose, and the plenary court could neither be formed
nor act. Disturbances broke out in Dauphiné, Brittany,
Provence, Flanders, Languédoc, and Béarn; the ministry,
instead of the regular opposition of parliament, had to
encounter one much more animated and factious.
{1256}
The nobility, the third estate, the provincial states, and
even the clergy, took part in it. Brienne, pressed for money,
had called together an extraordinary assembly of the clergy,
who immediately made an address to the king, demanding the
abolition of his plenary court, and the recall of the
states-general: they alone could thenceforth repair the
disordered state of the finances, secure the national debt,
and terminate these disputes for power. ... Obtaining neither
taxes nor loans, unable to make use of the plenary court, and
not wishing to recall the parliaments, Brienne, as a last
resource, promised the convocation of the states-general. By
this means he hastened his ruin. ... He succumbed on the 25th
August, 1788. The cause of his fall was a suspension of the
payment of the interest on the debt, which was the
commencement of bankruptcy. This minister has been the most
blamed because he came last. Inheriting the faults, the
embarrassments of past times, he had to struggle with the
difficulties of his position with inefficient means. He tried
intrigue and oppression; he banished, suspended, disorganized
parliament; everything was an obstacle to him, nothing aided
him. After a long struggle, he sank under lassitude and
weakness; I dare not say from incapacity, for had he been far
stronger and more skilful, had he been a Richelieu or a Sully,
he would still have fallen. It no longer appertained to anyone
arbitrarily to raise money or to oppress the people. ... The
states-general had become the only means of government, and
the last resource of the throne. They had been eagerly
demanded by parliament and the peers of the kingdom, on the
13th of July, 1787; by the states of Dauphiné, in the assembly
of Vizille; by the clergy in its assembly at Paris. The
provincial states had prepared the public mind for them; and
the notables were their precursors. The king after having, on
the 18th of December, 1787, promised their convocation in five
years, on the 8th of August, 1788, fixed the opening for the
1st of May, 1789. Necker was recalled, parliament
re-established, the plenary court abolished, the bailiwicks
destroyed, and the provinces satisfied; and the new minister
prepared everything for the election of deputies and the
holding of the states. At this epoch a great change took place
in the opposition, which till then had been unanimous. Under
Brienne, the ministry had encountered opposition from all the
various bodies of the state, because it had sought to oppress
them. Under Necker, it met with resistance from the same
bodies, which desired power for themselves and oppression for
the people. From being despotic, it had become national, and
it still had them all equally against it. Parliament had
maintained a struggle for authority, and not for the public
welfare; and the nobility had united with the third estate,
rather against the government than in favour of the people.
Each of these bodies had demanded the states-general: the
parliament, in the hope of ruling them as it had done in 1614;
and the nobility, in the hope of regaining its lost influence.
Accordingly, the magistracy proposed as a model for the
states-general of 1789, the form of that of 1614, and public
opinion abandoned it; the nobility refused its consent to the
double representation of the third estate, and a division
broke out between these two orders. This double representation
was required by the intellect of the age, the necessity of
reform, and by the importance which the third estate had
acquired. It had already been admitted into the the provincial
assemblies. ... Opinion became daily more decided, and Necker
wishing, yet fearing, to satisfy it, and desirous of
conciliating all orders, of obtaining general approbation,
convoked a second assembly of notables on the 6th of November,
1788, to deliberate on the composition of the states-general,
and the election of its members. ... Necker, having been
unable to make the notables adopt the [double] representation
of the third estate, caused it to be adopted by the council.
The royal declaration of the 27th of November decreed, that
the deputies in the states-general should amount to at least a
thousand, and that the deputies of the third estate should be
equal in number to the deputies of the nobility and clergy
together. Necker moreover obtained the admission of the curés
into the order of the clergy, and of protestants into that of
the third estate. The district assemblies were convoked for
the elections; every one exerted himself to secure the
nomination of members of his own party, and to draw up
manifestoes setting forth his views. Parliament had but little
influence in the elections, and the court none at all. The
nobility selected a few popular deputies, but for the most
part devoted to the interests of their order, and as much
opposed to the third estate as to the oligarchy of the great
families of the court. The clergy nominated bishops and abbés
attached to privilege, and cures favourable to the popular
cause, which was their own; lastly, the third estate selected
men enlightened, firm and unanimous in their wishes. The
deputation of the nobility was comprised of 242 gentlemen, and
28 members of the parliament; that of the clergy, of 48
archbishops or bishops, 35 abbés or deans, and 208 curés; and
that of the communes, of two ecclesiastics, 12 noblemen, 18
magistrates of towns, 200 county members, 212 barristers, 16
physicians, and 216 merchants and agriculturists. The opening
of the states-general was fixed for the 5th of May, 1789."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
introd.
ALSO IN:
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 6 (volume 1).
J. Necker,
On the French Revolution,
part 1, section 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789.
The condition of the people on the eve of the great
Revolution.
The sources and causes of its destructive fury.
"In 1789 three classes of persons, the Clergy, the Nobles, and
the King occupied the most prominent position in the State,
with all the advantages which it comports; namely, authority,
property, honors, or, at the very least, privileges,
immunities, favors, pensions, preferences, and the like. ...
The privileged classes number about 270,000 persons,
comprising of the nobility 140,000 and of the clergy 130,000.
This makes from 25,000 to 30,000 noble families; 23,000 monks
in 2,500 monasteries, and 37,000 nuns in 1,500 convents, and
60,000 curates and vicars in as many churches and chapels.
Should the reader desire a more distinct impression of them,
he may imagine on each square league of territory, and to each
thousand of inhabitants, one noble family in its weathercock
mansion, in each village a curate and his church, and, every
six or seven leagues, a conventual body of men or of women. ...
{1257}
A fifth of the soil belongs to the crown and the communes, a
fifth to the third estate, a fifth to the rural population, a
fifth to the nobles and a fifth to the clergy. Accordingly, if
we deduct the public lands, the privileged classes own one
half of the kingdom. This large portion, moreover, is at the
same time the richest, for it comprises almost all the large
and handsome buildings, the palaces, castles, convents, and
cathedrals, and almost all the valuable movable property. ...
Such is the total or partial exemption from taxation. The
tax-collectors halt in their presence, because the king well
knows that feudal property has the same origin as his own; if
royalty is one privilege seigniory is another; the king
himself is simply the most privileged among the privileged.
... After the assaults of 450 years, taxation, the, first of
fiscal instrumentalities, the most burdensome of all, leaves
feudal property almost intact. ... The privileged person
avoids or repels taxation, not merely because it despoils him,
but because it belittles him; it is a mark of plebeian
condition, that is to say, of former servitude, and he resists
the fisc as much through pride as through interest. ... La
Bruyère wrote, just a century before 1789, 'Certain
savage-looking beings, male and female, are seen in the
country, black, livid and sunburnt, and belonging to the soil
which they dig and grub with invincible stubbornness. They
seem capable of articulation, and, when they stand erect they
display human lineaments. They are, in fact, men. They retire
at night into their dens, where they live on black bread,
water and roots. They spare other human beings the trouble of
sowing, ploughing and harvesting, and thus should not be in
want of the bread they have planted.' They continue in want of
it during 25 years after this, and die in herds. I estimate
that in 1715 more than one-third of the population, six
millions, perish with hunger and of destitution. The picture,
accordingly, for the first quarter of the century preceding
the Revolution, far from being overdrawn, is the reverse; we
shall see that, during more than half a century, up to the
death of Louis XV., it is exact; perhaps, instead of weakening
any of its points, they should be strengthened. . . .
Undoubtedly the government under Louis XVI. is milder; the
intendants are more humane, the administration is less rigid,
the 'taille' becomes less unequal, and the 'corvée' is less
onerous through its transformation, in short, misery has
diminished, and yet this is greater than human nature can
bear. Examine administrative correspondence for the last
thirty years preceding the Revolution. Countless statements
reveal excessive suffering, even when not terminating in fury.
Life to a man of the lower class, to an artisan, or workman,
subsisting on the labor of his own hands, is evidently
precarious; he obtains simply enough to keep him from
starvation and he does not always get that. Here, in four
districts, 'the inhabitants live only on buckwheat,' and for
five years, the apple crop having failed, they drink only
water. There, in a country of vineyards, 'the vine-dressers
each year are reduced, for the most part, to begging their
bread during the dull season.' ... In a remote canton the
peasants cut the grain still green and dry it in the oven,
because they are too hungry to wait. ... Between 1750 and
1760, the idlers who eat suppers begin to regard with
compassion and alarm the laborers who go without dinners. Why
are the latter so impoverished, and by what chance, on a soil
as rich as that of France, do those lack bread who grow the
grain? In the first place, many farms remain uncultivated,
and, what is worse, many are deserted. According to the best
observers 'one-quarter of the soil is absolutely lying waste.
... Hundreds and hundreds of arpents of heath and moor form
extensive deserts.' ... This is not sterility but decadence.
The régime invented by Louis XIV. has produced its effect; the
soil for a century past is reverting back to a wild state. ... In
the second place, cultivation, when it does take place, is
carried on according to mediæval modes. Arthur Young, in 1789,
considers that French agriculture has not progressed beyond
that of the 10th century. Except in Flanders and on the plains
of Alsace, the fields lie fallow one year out of three and
oftentimes one year out of two. The implements are poor; there
are no ploughs made of iron; in many places the plough of
Virgil's time is still in use. ... Arthur Young shows that in
France those who lived on field labor, and they constituted
the great majority, are 76 per cent. less comfortable than the
same laborers in England, while they are 76 per cent. less
well fed and well clothed, besides being worse treated in
sickness and in health. The result is that, in seven-eighths
of the kingdom, there are no farmers but simply métayers.
['The poor people,' says Arthur Young, 'who cultivate the soil
here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability
to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and
seed, and he and his tenants divide the product.'] ... Misery
begets bitterness in a man; but ownership coupled with misery
renders him still more bitter"; and, strange as it appears,
the acquisition of land by the French peasants, in small
holdings, went on steadily during the 18th century, despite
the want and suffering which were so universal. "The fact is
almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true. We can only
explain it by the character of the French peasant, by his
sobriety, his tenacity, his rigor with himself, his
dissimulation, his hereditary passion for property and
especially for that of the soil. He had lived on privations
and economized sou after sou. ... Towards 1760, one-quarter of
the soil is said to have already passed into the hands of
agriculturists. ... The small cultivator, however, in becoming
a possessor of the soil assumed its charges. Simply as
day-laborer, and with his arms alone, he was only partially
affected by the taxes; 'where there is nothing the king loses
his dues.' But now, vainly is he poor and declaring himself
still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion
of his new possessions. ... In 1715, the 'taille' [see TAILLE
AND GABELLE] and the poll-tax, which he alone pays, or nearly
alone, amounts to 66,000,000 livres, the amount is 93,000,000
in 1759 and 110,000,000 in 1789. ... 'I am miserable because
too much is taken from me. Too much is taken from me because
not enough is taken from the privileged. Not only do the
privileged force me to pay in their place, but, again, they
previously deduct from my earnings their ecclesiastical and
feudal dues. When, out of my income of 100 francs, I have
parted with 53 francs, and more, to the collector, I am
obliged again to give 14 francs to the seignior, also more
than 14 for tithes, and, out of the remaining 18 or 19 francs,
I have additionally to satisfy the excise-men.
{1258}
I alone, a poor man, pay two governments, one, the old
government [the seigniorial government of the feudal regime],
local and now absent, useless, inconvenient and humiliating,
and active only through annoyances, exemptions and taxes; and
the other [the royal government], recent, centralized,
everywhere present, which, taking upon itself all functions,
has vast needs and makes my meagre shoulders support its
enormous weight.' These, in precise terms, are the vague ideas
beginning to ferment in the popular brain and encountered on
every page of the records of the States-General. ... The
privileged wrought their own destruction. ... At their head,
the king, creating France by devoting himself to her as if his
own property, ended by sacrificing her as if his own property;
the public purse is his private purse, while passions, vanities,
personal weaknesses, luxurious habits, family solicitudes, the
intrigues of a mistress and the caprices of a wife, govern a
state of 26,000,000 men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness,
a prodigality, an unskilfulness, an absence of consistency,
that would scarcely be overlooked in the management of a
private domain. The king and the privileged excel in one
direction, in good-breeding, in good taste, in fashion, in the
talent for self-display and in entertaining, in the gift of
graceful conversation, in finesse and in gayety, in the art of
converting life into a brilliant and ingenious festivity. ...
Through the habit, perfection and sway of polished intercourse
they stamped on the French intellect a classic form, which,
combined with recent scientific acquisitions, produced the
philosophy of the 18th century, the ill-repute of tradition,
the ambition of recasting all human institutions according to
the sole dictates of reason, the appliance of mathematical
methods to politics and morals, the catechism of the rights of
man, and other dogmas of anarchical and despotic character in
the 'Contrat Social.'--Once this chimera is born they welcome
it as a drawing-room fancy; they use the little monster as a
plaything, as yet innocent and decked with ribbons like a
pastoral lambkin; they never dream of it becoming a raging,
formidable brute; they nourish it, and caress it, and then,
opening their doors, they let it descend into the
streets.--Here, amongst a middle class which the government
has rendered ill-disposed by compromising its fortunes, which
the privileged have offended by restricting its ambition,
which is wounded by inequality through injured self-esteem,
the revolutionary theory gains rapid accessions, a sudden
asperity, and, in a few years, it finds itself undisputed
master of public opinion.--At this moment, and at its summons,
another colossal monster rises up, a monster with millions of
heads, a blind, startled animal, an entire people pressed
down, exasperated and suddenly loosed against the government
whose exactions have despoiled it, against the privileged
whose rights have reduced it to starvation."
H. A. Taine,
The Ancient Régime,
book 1, chapters 1, 2,
and book 5, chapters 1, 2, 5.
"When the facts of history are fully and impartially set
forth, the wonder is rather that sane men put up with the
chaotic imbecility, the hideous injustices, the shameless
scandals, of the 'Ancien Regime,' in the earlier half of the
century, many years before the political 'Philosophes' wrote a
line,--why the Revolution did not break out in 1754 or 1757,
as it was on the brink of doing, instead of being delayed, by
the patient endurance of the people, for another generation.
It can hardly be doubted that the Revolution of '89 owed many
of its worst features to the violence of a populace degraded
to the level of the beasts by the effect of the institutions
under which they herded together and starved; and that the
work of reconstruction which it attempted was to carry into
practice the speculations of Mably and of Rousseau. But, just
as little, does it seem open to question that, neither the
writhings of the dregs of the populace in their misery, nor
the speculative demonstrations of the Philosophers, would have
come to much, except for the revolutionary movement which had
been going on ever since the beginning of the century. The
deeper source of this lay in the just and profound griefs of
at least 95 per cent. of the population, comprising all its
most valuable elements, from the agricultural peasants to the
merchants and the men of letters and science, against the
system by which they were crushed, or annoyed, whichever way
they turned. But the surface current was impelled by the
official defenders of the 'Ancien Régime' themselves. It was
the Court, the Church, the Parliaments, and, above all, the
Jesuits, acting in the interests of the despotism of the
Papacy, who, in the first half of the 18th century,
effectually undermined all respect for authority, whether
civil or religious, and justified the worst that was or could
be said by the 'Philosophes' later on."
See
PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715;
and JESUITS: A.D. 1761-1767.
Prof. T. H. Huxley,
Introduction to F. Rocquain's
"The Revolutionary Spirit preceding
the French Revolution"
"I took part in the opening of the States-General, and, in
spite of the pomp with which the royal power was still
surrounded, I there saw the passing away of the old regime.
The regime which preceded '89, should, it seems to me, be
considered from a two-fold aspect: the one, the general
condition of the country, and the other, the relations
existing between the government and the country. With regard
to the former, I firmly believe that, from the earliest days
of the monarchy, France had at no period been happier than she
was then. She had not felt the effects of any great misfortune
since the crash which followed Law's system. The long lasting
ministry of Cardinal de Fleury, doubtless inglorious, but wise
and circumspect, had made good the losses and lightened the
burdens imposed at the end of the reign of Louis XV. If, since
that time, several wars undertaken with little skill, and
waged with still less, had compromised the honor of her arms
and the reputation of her government; if they had even thrown
her finances into a somewhat alarming state of disorder, it is
but fair to say that the confusion resulting therefrom had
merely affected the fortune of a few creditors, and had not
tapped the sources of public prosperity; on the contrary, what
is styled the public administration had made constant
progress. If, on the one hand, the state had not been able to
boast of any great ministers, on the other, the provinces
could show many highly enlightened and clever intendants.
Roads had been opened connecting numerous points, and had been
greatly improved in all directions. It should not be forgotten
that these benefits are principally due to the reign of Louis
XV. Their most important result had been a progressive
improvement in the condition of agriculture.
{1259}
The reign of Louis XVI. had continued favoring this wise
policy, which had not been interrupted by the, maritime war
undertaken on behalf of American independence. Many
cotton-mills had sprung, up, while considerable progress had
been made in the manufacture of printed cotton fabrics, and of
steel, and in the preparing of skins. ... I saw the splendors
of the Empire. Since the Restoration I see daily new fortunes
spring up and consolidate themselves; still nothing so far
has, in my eyes, equalled the splendor of Paris during the
years which elapsed between 1783 and 1789. ... Far be it from
me to shut my eyes to the reality of the public prosperity
which we are now [1822] enjoying. I am cognizant of the
improvement in the condition of the country districts, and I
am aware of the fact that all that rests on this solid
foundation, even though its appearance may be somewhat more
humble, is much to be preferred to a grander exterior that
might hide a less assured solidity. I do not seek to disparage
the present time--far from it. I am ready to admit the
advantages which have accrued, in many respects, as the
results of the Revolution; as, for instance, the partition of
landed property, so often assailed, and which, so long as it
does not go beyond certain limits, tends to increase wealth,
by introducing into many families a well-being hitherto
unknown to them. But, nevertheless, when I question my reason
and my conscience as to the possible future of the France of
1789, if the Revolution had not burst, if the ten years of
destruction to which it gave birth had not weighed heavily
upon that beautiful country ... I am convinced that France, at
the time I am writing, would be richer and stronger than she
is to-day."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 44-47.
"In the spring of 1789 who could have foreseen the bloody
catastrophe? Everything was tinged with hopefulness; the world
was dreaming of the Golden Age. ... Despite the previous
disorders, and seeds of discord contained in certain cahiers,
the prevailing sentiment was confidence. ... The people
everywhere hailed with enthusiasm the new era which was
dawning. With a firm king, with a statesman who knew what he
wished, and was determined to accomplish it, this confidence
would have been an incomparable force. With a feeble prince
like Louis XVI., with an irresolute minister like Necker, it
was an appalling danger. The public, inflamed by the anarchy
that had preceded the convocation of the States, disposed,
through its inexperience, to accept all Utopias, and impelled
by its peculiar character to desire their immediate
realization, naturally grew more exacting in proportion as
they were promised more, and more impatient and irritable as
their hopes became livelier and appeared better founded. In
the midst of this general satisfaction there was but one dark
spot,--the queen. The cheers which greeted the king were
silent before his wife. Calumny had done its work; and all the
nobles from the provinces, the country curates, the citizens
of the small towns, came from the confines of France imbued
with the most contemptible prejudices against this unfortunate
princess. Pamphlets, poured out against her by malicious
enemies; vague and mysterious rumours, circulated everywhere,
repeated in whispers, without giving any clew to their
source,--the more dangerous because indefinite, and the more
readily believed because infamous and absurd,--had so often
reiterated that the queen was author of all the evil, that the
world had come to regard her as the cause of the deficit, and
the only serious obstacle to certain efficacious reforms. 'The
queen pillages on all sides; she even sends money, it is said,
to her brother, the emperor,' wrote a priest of Maine, in his
parochial register, in 1781; and he attributed the motive of
the reunion of the Notables to these supposed depredations.
If, in 1781, such reports had penetrated to the remotest parts
of the country, and found credence with such enlightened men
as the Curé Boucher, one can judge what it must have been two
years later, when the convocation of the States-General had
inflamed the minds of the people. If the States should
encounter any inevitable obstacle in their path; if certain
imprudent promises should be unfulfilled; if promised reforms
should fail,--public resentment and ill-will, always on the
alert, would be sure to blame Marie Antoinette; they would
impute to her all the evil done, and all the good left undone.
The symptoms of this distrust were manifest at the outset.
'The deputies of the Third Estate,' Madame Campan observes,
'arrived at Versailles with the strongest prejudice against
the court. The evil sayings in Paris never failed to be spread
through the provinces: they believed that the king indulged in
the pleasures of the table to a most shameful excess; they
were persuaded that the queen exhausted the State treasury to
gratify her inordinate love of luxury; almost all wished to
visit Little Trianon. As the extreme simplicity of this
pleasure-house did not correspond with their ideas, they
insisted on being shown even the smallest closets, saying that
richly furnished apartments were being concealed from them.
Finally they designated one, which according to their account
was ornamented with diamonds, and twisted columns studded with
sapphires and rubies. The queen was amused at these mad
fancies, and told the king of them.'"
M. de la Rocheterie,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
A. de Tocqueville,
On the State of Society
in France before the Revolution.
A. Young,
Travels in France, 1787-89.
R. H. Dabney,
Causes of the French Revolution.
E. J. Lowell,
The Eve of the French Revolution.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (May).
Meeting of the States-General.
Conflict between the three Estates.
The question of three Houses or one.
"The opening of the States-general was fixed for the 5th of
May, 1789, and Versailles was chosen as the place of their
meetings. On the 4th, half Paris poured into that town to see
the court and the deputies marching in procession to the
solemn religious ceremony, which was to inaugurate the
important epoch. ... On the following day, the States-general,
to the number of 1,200 persons, assembled in the spacious and
richly decorated 'salle des menus plaisirs.' The King
appeared, surrounded by his family, with all the magnificence
of the ancient court, and was greeted by the enthusiastic
applause of the deputies and spectators." The king made a
speech, followed by Barentin, the keeper of the great seal,
and by Necker. The latter "could not prevail upon himself to
avow to the Assembly the real state of affairs. He announced
an annual deficit of 56,000,000 francs, and thereby confused
the mind of the public, which, since the meeting of the
Notables, had always been discussing a deficit of from
120,000,000 to 140,000,000.
{1260}
He was quite right in assuming that those 56,000,000 might be
covered by economy in the expenditure; but it was both
irritating and untrue, when he, on this ground, denied the
necessity of summoning the States-general, and called their
convocation a free act of royal favour. ... The balance of
income and expenditure might, indeed, easily be restored in
the future, but the deficit of former years had been
heedlessly allowed to accumulate, and by no one more than by
Necker himself. A floating debt of 550,000,000 had to be
faced--in other words, therefore, more than a whole year's
income had been expended in advance. ... The real deficit of
the year, therefore, at the lowest calculation, amounted to
more than 200,000,000, or nearly half the annual income. ...
These facts, then, were concealed, and thus the ministry was
necessarily placed in a false position towards the
States-general; the continuance of the former abuses was
perpetuated, or a violent catastrophe made inevitable. ... For
the moment the matter was not discussed. Everything yielded to
the importance of the constitutional question--whether the
three orders should deliberate in common or apart--whether
there should be one single representative body, or independent
corporations. This point was mooted at once in its full extent
on the question, whether the validity of the elections should
be scrutinised by each order separately, or by the whole
Assembly. We need not here enter into the question of right;
but of this there can be no doubt, that the government, which
virtually created the States-general afresh [since there had
been no national meeting of the Estates since the
States-general of 1614-see above: A. D. 1610-1619], had the
formal right to convoke them either in one way or the other,
as it thought fit. ... They [the government] infinitely
lowered their own influence and dignity by leaving a most
important constitutional question to the decision and the
wrangling of the three orders; and they frustrated their own
practical objects, by not decidedly declaring for the union of
the orders in one assembly. Every important measure of reform,
which had in view the improvement of the material and
financial condition of the country, would have been mutilated
by the clergy and rejected by the nobles. This was
sufficiently proved by the 'cahiers' of the electors ['written
instructions given by the electors to the deputies']. The
States themselves had to undertake what the government had
neglected. That which the government might have freely and
legally commanded, now led to violent revolution. But there
was no choice left; the commons would not tolerate the
continuance of the privileged orders; and the state could not
tolerate them if it did not wish to perish. The commons, who
on this point were unanimous, considered the system of a
single Assembly as a matter of course. They took care not to
constitute themselves as 'tiers état,' but remained passive,
and declared that they would wait until the Assembly should be
constituted as a whole. Thus slowly and cautiously did they
enter on their career. ... Indisputably the most important and
influential among them was Count Mirabeau, the representative
of the town of Aix in Provence, a violent opponent of
feudalism, and a restless participator in all the recent
popular commotions. He would have been better able than any
man to stimulate the Assembly to vigorous action; but even he
hesitated, and kept back his associates from taking any
violent steps, because he feared that the inconsistency and
inexperience of the majority would bring ruin on the state.
... It was only very gradually that the 'tiers état' began to
negotiate with the other orders. The nobles shewed themselves
haughty, dogmatical, and aggressive; and the clergy cautious,
unctuous, and tenacious. They tried the efficacy of general
conferences; but as no progress was found to have been made
after three weeks, they gave up their consultations on the
25th of May. The impatience of the public, and the necessities
of the treasury, continually increased; the government,
therefore, once more intervened, and Necker was called upon to
propose a compromise," which was coldly rejected by the
nobles, who "declared that they had long ago finished their
scrutiny, and constituted themselves as a separate order. They
thus spared the commons the dreaded honour of being the first
to break with the crown. The conferences were again closed on
the 9th of June. The leaders of the commons now saw that they
must either succumb to the nobility, or force the other orders
to submission."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution.,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 8 (volume 1).
Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 1 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (June).
The Third Estate seizes the reins, proclaims itself the
National Assembly, and assumes sovereign powers.
The passionate excitement of Paris.
Dismissal of Necker.
Rising of the mob.
"At last ... on the proposal of Sieyès [the Abbé, deputy for
Paris] and amid a storm of frantic excitement, the Third
Estate alone voted themselves 'the National Assembly,' invited
the other two orders to join them, and pushing their
pretensions to sovereignty to the highest point, declared that
the existing taxes, not having been consented to by the
nation, were all illegal. The National Assembly, however,
allowed them to be levied till its separation, after which
they were to cease if not formally regranted. This great
revolution was effected on June 17, and it at once placed the
Third Order in a totally new relation both to the other orders
and to the Crown. There were speedy signs of yielding among
some members of the privileged orders, and a fierce wave of
excitement supported the change. Malouet strongly urged that
the proper course was to dissolve the Assembly and to appeal
to the constituencies, but Necker declined, and a feeble and
ineffectual effort of the King to accomplish a reunion, and at
the same time to overawe the Third Order, precipitated the
Revolution. The King announced his intention of holding a
royal session on June 22, and he summoned the three orders to
meet him. It was his design to direct them to unite in order
to deliberate in common on matters of common interest, and to
regain the royal initiative by laying down the lines of a new
constitution. ... On Saturday, the 20th, however, the course
of events was interrupted by the famous scene in the tennis
court. Troops had lately been pouring to an alarming extent
into Paris, and exciting much suspicion in the popular party,
and the Government very injudiciously selected for the royal
session on the following Monday the hall in which the Third
Order assembled. The hall was being prepared for the occasion,
and therefore no meeting could be held.
{1261}
The members, ignorant of the fact, went to their chamber and
were repelled by soldiers. Furious at the insult, they
adjourned to the neighbouring tennis court [Jeu-de-Paume]. A
suspicion that the King meant to dissolve them was abroad, and
they resolved to resist such an attempt. With lifted hands and
in a transport of genuine, if somewhat theatrical enthusiasm,
they swore that they would never separate 'till the
constitution of the kingdom and the regeneration of public
order were established on a solid basis.' ... One single
member, Martin d'Auche, refused his assent. The Third Estate
had thus virtually assumed the sole legislative authority in
France, and like the Long Parliament in England had denied the
King's power to dissolve them. ... Owing to the dissension
that had arisen, the royal session was postponed till the
23rd, but on the preceding day the National Assembly met in a
church, and its session was a very important one, for on this
occasion a great body of the clergy formally joined it. One
hundred and forty-eight members of the clergy, of whom 134
were curés, had now given their adhesion. Two of the nobles,
separating from their colleagues, took the same course. Next
day the royal session was held. The project adopted in the
council differed so much from that of Necker that this
minister refused to give it the sanction of his presence.
Instead of commanding the three orders to deliberate together
in the common interest, it was determined in the revised
project that the King should merely invite them to do so. ...
It was ... determined to withdraw altogether from the common
deliberation 'the form of the constitution to be given to the
coming States-General,' and to recognise fully the essential
distinction of the three orders as political bodies, though
they might, with the approval of the Sovereign, deliberate in
common. Necker had proposed ... that the King should
decisively, and of his own authority, abolish all privileges
of taxation, but in the amended article the King only
undertook to give his sanction to this measure on condition of
the two orders renouncing their privileges. On the other hand,
the King announced to the Assembly a long series of articles
of reform which would have made France a thoroughly
constitutional country, and have swept away nearly all the
great abuses in its government. ... He annulled the
proceedings of June 17, by which the Third Estate alone
declared itself the Legislature of France. He reminded the
Assembly that none of its proceedings could acquire the force
of law without his assent, and he asserted his sole right as
French Sovereign to the command of the army and police. He
concluded by directing the three orders to withdraw and to
meet next day to consider his proposals. The King, with the
nobles and the majority of the clergy, at once withdrew, but
the Third Order defiantly remained. It was evident that the
attempt to conciliate, and the attempt to assert the royal
authority, had both failed. The Assembly proclaimed itself
inviolable. It confirmed the decrees which the King had
annulled. Sieyès declared, in words which excited a transport
of enthusiasm, that what the Assembly was yesterday it still
was to-day; and two days later, the triumph of the Assembly
became still more evident by the adhesion of 47 of the
nobility. After this defection the King saw the hopelessness
of resistance, and on the 27th he ordered the remainder of the
nobles to take the same course. ... In the mean time the real
rulers of the country were coming rapidly to the surface. ...
Groups of local agitators and of the scum of the Paris mob
began to overawe the representatives of the nation, and to
direct the course of its policy. Troops were poured into
Paris, but their presence was an excitement without being a
protection, for day after day it became more evident that
their discipline was gone, and that they shared the sympathies
and the passions of the mob. ... At the same time famine grew
daily more intense, and the mobs more passionate and more
formidable. The dismissal of Necker on the evening of July 11
was the spark which produced the conflagration that had long
been preparing. Next day Paris flew to arms. The troops with
few exceptions abandoned the King."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 20 (volume 5).
ALSO IN:
E. Dumont,
Recollections of Mirabeau,
chapters 4-5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July).
The mob in arms.
Anarchy in Paris.
The taking of the Bastille.
"On the 12th of July, near noon, on the news of the dismissal
of Necker, a cry of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille
Desmoulins, mounted on a table, announces that the Court
meditates 'a St. Bartholomew of patriots.' The crowd embrace
him, adopt the green cockade which he has proposed, and oblige
the dancing-saloons and theatres to close in sign of mourning:
they hurry off to the residence of Curtius master], and take the busts of the Duke of Orleans and of
Necker and carry them about in triumph. Meanwhile, the
dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on the Place
Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance of
the Tuilleries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and
bottles. Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hôtel
Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their
barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the 'Royal Allemand.'
The tocsin is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are
sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; 15 or 16
well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to
be assembled and armed.--The new sovereign, the people in arms
and in the street, has declared himself. The dregs of society
at once come to the surface. During the night between the 12th
and 13th of July, 'all the barriers, from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of
the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and
set on fire.' There is no longer an 'octroi'; the city is
without a revenue just at the moment when it is obliged to
make the heaviest expenditures. ... 'During this fearful
night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each trembling
at home for himself and those belonging to him.' On the following
day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits
and the lowest of the low. ... During these two days and
nights, says Bailly, 'Paris ran the risk of being pillaged,
and was only saved from the marauders by the national guard.'
... Fortunately the militia organized itself, and the
principal inhabitants and gentlemen enrol themselves; 48,000
men are formed into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie
buy guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabres
or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are
hung on the spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again
becomes political.
{1262}
But, whatever its object, it remains always wild, because it
is in the hands of the populace. ... There is no leader, no
management. The electors who have converted themselves into
the representatives of Paris seem to command the crowd, but it
is the crowd which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to
save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to send for
six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants
that he is about to blow everything into the air. The
commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has
twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an hour,
and, more than once, the whole committee is near being
massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the
discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, 'a
concourse of 1,500 men pressed by 100,000 others who are
forcing an entrance,' the wainscoting cracking, the benches
upset one over another ... a tumult such as to bring to mind
'the day of judgment,' the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and
'people beside themselves, for the most part not knowing where
they are nor what they want.' Each district is also a petty
centre, while the Palais-Royal is the main centre. ... One
wave gathers here and another there, their strategy consists
in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is
effected only because they are let in. If they get into the
Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers.--At
the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning
to five in the evening against walls 40 feet high and 30 feet
thick, and it is by chance that one of their shots reaches an
'invalide' on the towers. They are treated the same as
children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. The
governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon
to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear
not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the
deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger dispatched from
the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he receives
several discharges without returning them, and lets the first
bridge be carried without firing a shot. When, at length, he
does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second
bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is
going to do so. ... The people, in turn, are infatuated with
the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell
of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can
think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their
expedients being on a level with their tactics: A brewer
fancies that he can set fire to this block of masonry by
pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with
phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archæological
notions, proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think
that they have seized the governor's daughter, and want to
burn her in order to make the father surrender. Others set
fire to a projecting mass of buildings filled with straw, and
thus close up the passage. 'The Bastille was not taken by main
force,' says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; 'it was
surrendered before even it was attacked,' by capitulation, on
the promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The
garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to
fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing, and, on
the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense
crowd. Eight or nine hundred men only were concerned in the
attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the
faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers, and wine-dealers,
mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille,
however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded
with the curious who came to witness the sight; 'among them,'
says a witness, 'were a number of fashionable women of very
good appearance, who had left their carriages at some
distance.' To the 120 men of the garrison, looking down from
their parapets, it seemed as though all Paris had come out
against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge and
introduce the enemy; everybody has lost his head, the besieged
as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because
they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have
they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and the
latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; 'each
one fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells.'
Sudden omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too
strong for human nature. ... Elie, who is the first to enter
the fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in
advance, the French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of
war, try to keep their word of honour; but the crowd pressing
on behind them know not whom to strike, and they strike at
random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who have fired on them,
and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to be prisoners;
on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fall furiously
on the 'invalides' who opened the gates to them; the man who
prevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his
wrist severed by the blow of a sabre, is twice pierced with a
sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one of the
districts of Paris is promenaded through the streets in
triumph. The officers are dragged along and five of them are
killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the way." M.
de Launay, the governor, after receiving many wounds, while
being dragged to the Hotel-de-Ville, was finally killed by
bayonet thrusts, and his head, cut from his body, was
placarded and borne through the streets upon a pitchfork.
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
"I was present at the taking of the Bastille. What has been
styled the fight was not serious, for there was absolutely no
resistance shown. Within the hold's walls were neither
provisions nor ammunition. It was not even necessary to invest
it. The regiment of gardes françaises which had led the
attack, presented itself under the walls on the rue Saint
Antoine side, opposite the main entrance, which was barred by
a drawbridge. There was a discharge of a few musket shots, to
which no reply was made, and then four or five discharges from
the cannon. It has been claimed that the latter broke the
chains of the drawbridge. I did not notice this, and yet I was
standing close to the point of attack. What I did see plainly
was the action of the soldiers, invalides, or others, grouped
on the platform of the high tower, holding their muskets stock
in the air, and expressing by all means employed under similar
circumstances their desire of surrendering. The result of this
so-called victory, which brought down so many favors on the
heads of the so-called victors, is well-known. The truth is,
that this great fight did not for a moment frighten the
numerous spectators who had flocked to witness its result.
Among them were many women of fashion, who, in order to be
closer to the scene, had left their carriages some distance
away."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 55-56.
ALSO IN:
D. Bingham,
The Bastille,
volume 2, chapters 9-12.
R. A. Davenport,
History of the Bastile,
chapter 12.
J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapter 1, section 4.
{1263}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July).
Practical surrender of authority by the king.
Organization of the National Guard with Lafayette in command.
Disorder and riot in the provinces.
Hunger in the capital.
The murder of Foulon and Berthier.
"The next morning the taking of the Bastille bore its intended
fruit. Marshal de Broglie, who had found, instead of a loyal
army, only disaffected regiments which had joined or were
preparing to join the mob, sent in his resignation. ... The
king, deserted by his army, his authority now quite gone, had
no means of restoring order except through the Assembly. He
begged that body to undertake the work, promising to recall
the dismissed ministers. ... The power of the king had now
passed from him to the National Assembly. But that numerous
body of men, absorbed in interminable discussions on abstract
ideas, was totally incapable of applying its power to the
government of the country. The electors at the Hotel de Ville,
on the 15th of July, resolved that there must be a mayor to
direct the affairs of Paris, and a National Guard to preserve
order. Dangers threatened from every quarter. When the
question arose as to who should fill these offices, Moreau de
Saint Méry, the president of the electors, pointed to the bust
of Lafayette, which had been sent as a gift to the city of
Paris by the State of Virginia, in 1784. The gesture was
immediately understood, and Lafayette was chosen by
acclamation. Not less unanimous was the choice of Bailly for
mayor. Lafayette was now taken from the Assembly to assume the
more active employment of commanding the National Guard. While
the Assembly pursued the destruction of the old order and the
erection of a new, Lafayette, at the age of 82, became the
chief depositary of executive power. ... Throughout France,
the deepest interest was exhibited in passing events. ... The
victory of the Assembly over the king and aristocracy led the
people of the provinces to believe that their cause was
already won. A general demoralization ensued." After the
taking of the Bastille, "the example of rebellion thus set was
speedily followed. Rioting and lawlessness soon prevailed
everywhere, increased and imbittered by the scarcity of food.
In the towns, bread riots became continual, and the
custom-houses, the means of collecting the exorbitant taxes,
were destroyed. In the rural districts, châteaux were to be
seen burning on all sides. The towers in which were preserved
the titles and documents which gave to the nobleman his
oppressive rights were carried by storm and their contents
scattered. Law and authority were fast becoming synonymous
with tyranny; the word 'liberty,' now in every mouth, had no
other signification than license. Into Paris slunk hordes of
gaunt foot-pads from all over France; attracted by the
prospect of disorder and pillage. ... From such circumstances
naturally arose the National Guard. "The king had been asked,
on the 13th, by a deputation from the Assembly, "to confide
the care of the city to a militia," and had declined. The
military organization of citizens was then undertaken by the
electors at the Hotel de Ville, without his consent, and its
commander designated without his appointment. "The king was
obliged to confirm this choice, and he was thus deprived even
of the merit of naming the chief officer of the guard whose
existence had been forced upon him." On the 17th the king was
persuaded to visit the city, for the effect which his personal
presence would have, it was thought, upon the anxious and
excited public mind. Lafayette had worked with energy to
prepare his National Guard for the difficult duty of
preserving order and protecting the royal visitor on the
occasion. "So intense was the excitement and the
insurrectionary spirit of the time, so uncertain were the
boundaries between rascality and revolutionary zeal, that it
was difficult to establish the fact that the new guard was
created to preserve order and not to fight the king and
pillage the aristocracy. The great armed mob, now in process
of organization, had to be treated with great tact, lest it
should refuse to submit to authority in any shape." But short
as the time was, Lafayette succeeded in giving to the
powerless monarch a safe and orderly reception. "The king made
his will and took the sacraments before leaving Versailles,
for ... doubts were entertained that he would live to return."
He was met at the gates of Paris by the new mayor, Bailly, and
escorted through a double line of National Guards to the Hotel
de Ville. There he was obliged to fix on his hat the national
cockade, just brought into use, and to confirm the
appointments of Lafayette and Bailly. "Louis XVI. then
returned to Versailles, on the whole pleased, as the day had
been less unpleasant than had been expected. But the
compulsory acceptation of the cockade and the nominations
meant nothing less than the extinction of his authority. ...
Lafayette recruited his army from the bourgeois class, for the
good reason that, in the fever then raging for uncontrolled
freedom, that class was the only one from which the proper
material could be taken. The importance of order was impressed
on the bourgeois by the fact that they had, shops and houses
which they did not wish to see pillaged. ... The necessity for
strict police measures was soon to be terribly illustrated.
For a week past a large crowd composed of starving workmen,
country beggars, and army deserters, had thronged the streets,
angrily demanding food. The city was extremely short of

provisions, and it was impossible to satisfy the demands made
upon it. ... On July 22, an old man named Foulon, It member of
the late ministry, who had long been the object of public
dislike, and was now detested because it was rumored that he
said that 'the people might eat' grass,' was arrested in the
country, and brought to the Hotel de Ville, followed by a mob
who demanded his immediate judgment." Lafayette exerted vainly
his whole influence and his whole authority to protect the
wretched old man until he could be lodged in prison. The mob
tore its victim from his very hands and destroyed him on the
spot. The next day, Foulon's son-in-law, Berthier, the
Intendant of Paris, was arrested in the country, and the
tragedy was re-enacted. "Shocked by these murders and
disgusted by his own inability to prevent them, Lafayette sent
his resignation to the electors, and for some time persisted
in his refusal to resume his office. But no other man could be
found in Paris equally fitted for the place; so that on the
personal solicitation of the electors and a deputation from
the 60 districts of the city, he again took command."
B. Tuckerman,
Life of General Lafayette,
volume 1, chapters 9-10.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
Historical View of the French
Revolution, book 2, chapters 1-2.
{1264}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July-August).
Cause and character of the "Emigration."
"Everything, or nearly everything, was done by the party
opposed to the Revolution in the excitement of the moment;
nothing was the result of reasoning. Who, for instance,
reasoned out the emigration? It has oftentimes been asked how
so extraordinary a resolution came to be taken; how it had
entered the minds of men gifted with a certain amount of sense
that there was any advantage to be derived from abandoning all
the posts where they could still exercise power; of giving
over to the enemy the regiments they commanded, the localities
over which they had control; of delivering up completely to
the teachings of the opposite party the peasantry, over whom,
in a goodly number of provinces, a valuable influence might be
exerted, and among whom they still had many friends; and all
this, to return for the purpose of conquering, at the sword's
point, positions, a number of which at least could be held
without a fight. No doubt it has been offered as an objection,
that the peasantry set fire to châteaux, that soldiers
mutinied against their officers. This was not the case at the
time of what has been called the first emigration, and, at any
rate, such doings were not general; but does danger constitute
sufficient cause for abandoning an important post? ... What is
the answer to all this? Merely what follows. The voluntary
going into exile of nearly the whole nobility of France, of
many magistrates who were never to unsheath a sword, and
lastly, of a large number of women and children,--this
resolve, without a precedent in history, was not conceived and
determined upon as a State measure; chance brought it about. A
few, in the first instance, followed the princes who had been
obliged, on the 14th of July, to seek safety out of France,
and others followed them. At first, it was merely in the
nature of a pleasant excursion. Outside of France, they might
freely enjoy saying and believing anything and everything. ...
The wealthiest were the first to incur the expense of this
trip, and a few brilliant and amiable women of the Court
circle did their share to render most attractive the sojourn
in a number of foreign towns close to the frontier. Gradually
the number of these small gatherings increased, and it was
then that the idea arose of deriving advantage from them. It
occurred to the minds of a few men in the entourage of the
Comte d'Artois, and whose moving spirit was M. de Calonne,
that it would be an easy matter for them to create a kingdom
for their sovereign outside of France, and that if they could
not in this fashion succeed in giving him provinces to reign
over, he would at least reign over subjects, and that this
would serve to give him a standing in the eyes of foreign
powers, and determine them to espouse his cause. ... Thus in
'89, '90, and '91, there were a few who were compelled to fly
from actual danger; a small number were led away by a genuine
feeling of enthusiasm; many felt themselves bound to leave,
owing to a point of honor which they obeyed without reasoning
it out; the mass thought it was the fashion, and that it
looked well; all, or almost all, were carried away by
expectations encouraged by the wildest of letters, and by the
plotting of a few ambitious folk, who were under the
impression that they were building up their fortunes."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 64-66.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (August).
The Night of Sacrifices.
The sweeping out of Feudalism.
"What was the Assembly doing at this period, when Paris was
waiting in expectation, and the capture of the Bastille was
being imitated all over France; when châteaux were burning,
and nobles flying into exile; when there was positive civil
war in many a district, and anarchy in every province? Why,
the Assembly was discussing whether or not the new
constitution of France should be prefaced by a Declaration of
the Rights of Man. In the discussion of this extremely
important question were wasted the precious days which
followed July 17. ... The complacency of these theorists was
rudely shaken on August 4, when Salomon read to the Assembly
the report of the Comité des Recherches, or Committee of
Researches, on the state of France. A terrible report it was.
Châteaux burning here and there; millers hung; tax-gatherers
drowned; the warehouses and depots of the gabelle burnt;
everywhere rioting, and nowhere peace. ... Among those who
listened to the clear and forcible report of Salomon were
certain of the young liberal noblesse who had just been dining
with the Duc de la Roehefoucauld-Liancourt, a wise and
enlightened nobleman. At their head was the Vicomte de
Noailles, a young man of thirty-three, who had distinguished
himself at the head of his regiment under his cousin,
Lafayette, in America. ... The Vicomte de Noailles was the
first to rush to the tribune. 'What is the cause of the evil
which is agitating the provinces?' he cried; and then he
showed that it arose from the uncertainty under which the
people dwelt, as to whether or not the old feudal bonds under
which they had so long lived and laboured were to be
perpetuated or abolished, and concluded an impassioned speech
by proposing to abolish them at once. One after another the
young liberal noblemen, and then certain deputies of the tiers
état, followed him with fresh sacrifices. First the old feudal
rights were abolished; then the rights of the dovecote and the
game laws; then the old copyhold services; then the tithes
paid to the Church, in spite of a protest from Siéyès; then
the rights of certain cities over their immediate suburbs and
rural districts were sacrificed; and the contention during
that feverish night was rather to remember something or other
to sacrifice than to suggest the expediency of maintaining
anything which was established. In its generosity the Assembly
even gave away what did not belong to it. The old dues paid to
the pope were abolished, and it was even declared that the
territory of Avignon, which had belonged to the pope since the
Middle Ages, should be united to France if it liked; and the
sitting closed with a unanimous decree that a statue should be
erected to Louis XVI., 'the restorer of French liberty.' Well
might Mirabeau define the night of August 4 as a mere 'orgie.'
... Noble indeed were the intentions of the deputies. ...
{1265}
Yet the results of this night of sacrifices were bad rather
than good. As Mirabeau pointed out, the people of France were
told that all the feudal rights, dues, and tithes had been
abolished that evening, but they were not told at the same
time that there must be taxes and other burdens to take their
place. It was of no use to issue a provisional order that all
rights, dues, and taxes remained in force for the present,
because the poor peasant would refuse to pay what was illegal,
and would not understand the political necessity of supporting
the revenue. ... This ill-considered mass of resolutions was
what was thrown in the face of France in a state of anarchy to
restore it to a state of order."
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution,
(American edition), volume 1, pages 81-84.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (August-October).
Constitution-making and the Rights of Man.
The first emigration of nobles.
Famine in Paris.
Rumors of an intended flight of the King.
"One may look upon the peculiarity of the Assembly as being a
singular faith in the power of ideas. That was its greatness.
It firmly believed that truth shaped into laws would be
invincible. Two months--such was the calculation--would
suffice to construct the constitution. That constitution by
its omnipotent virtue would convince all men and bend them to
its authority, and the revolution would be completed. Such was
the faith of the National Assembly. The attitude of the people
was so menacing that many of the courtiers fled. Thus
commenced the first emigration. ... As if the minds of men
were not sufficiently agitated, there now were heard cries of
a great conspiracy of the aristocrats. The papers announced
that a plot had been discovered which was to have delivered
Brest to the English. Brest, the naval arsenal, wherein France
for whole centuries had expended her millions and her labours:
this given up to England! England would once more overrun France!
... It was amidst these cries of alarm--with on one hand the
emigration of the nobility, on the other the hunger of a
maddened people; with here an irresolute aristocracy, startled
at the audacity of the 'canaille,' and there a resolute
Assembly, prepared, at the hazard of their lives, to work out
the liberty of France; amidst reports of famine, of
insurrections, and wild disorders of all sorts, that we find
the National Assembly debating upon the rights of man,
discussing every article with metaphysical quibbling and
wearisome fluency, and, having finally settled each article,
making their famous Declaration. This Declaration, which was
solemnly adopted by the Assembly, on the 18th of August, was
the product of a whole century of philosophical speculation,
fixed and reduced to formulas, and bearing unmistakeable
traces of Rousseau. It declared the original equality of
mankind, and that the ends of social union are liberty,
property, security, and resistance to oppression. It declared
that sovereignty resides in the nation, from whence all power
emanates; that freedom consists in doing everything which does
not injure another; that law is the expression of the general
will; that public burdens should be borne by all the members
of the state in proportion to their fortunes; that the
elective franchise should be extended to all; that the
exercise of natural rights has no other limit than their
interference with the rights of others; that no man should be
persecuted for his religious opinions, provided he conform to
the laws and do not disturb the religion of the state; that
all men have the right of quitting the state in which they
were born, and of choosing another country, by renouncing
their rights of citizenship; that the liberty of the press is
the foremost support of public liberty, and the law should
maintain it, at the same time punishing those who abuse it by
distributing seditious discourses, or calumnies against
individuals." Having adopted its Declaration of the rights of
man, the Assembly proceeded to the drawing up of a
constitution which should embody the principles of the
Declaration, and soon found itself in passionate debate upon
the relations to be established between the national
legislature and the king. Should the king retain a veto upon
legislation? Should he have any voice in the making of laws?
"The lovers of England and the English constitution all voted
in favour of the veto. Even Mirabeau was for it." Robespierre,
just coming into notice, bore a prominent part in the
opposition. "The majority of the Assembly shared Robespierre's
views; and the King's counselors were at length forced to
propose a compromise in the shape of a suspensive veto;
namely, that the King should not have the absolute right of
preventing any law, but only the right of suspending it for
two, four, or six years. ... It was carried by a large
majority." Meantime, in Paris, "vast and incalculable was the
misery: crowds of peruke-makers, tailors, and shoemakers, were
wont to assemble at the Louvre and in the Champs Elysées,
demanding things impossible to be granted; demanding that the
old regulations should be maintained, and that new ones should
be made; demanding that the rate of daily wages should be
fixed; demanding ... that all the Savoyards in the country
should be sent away, and only Frenchmen employed. The bakers'
shops were besieged, as early as five o'clock in the morning,
by hungry crowds who had to stand 'en queue'; happy when they
had money to purchase miserable bread, even in this
uncomfortable manner. ... Paris was living at the mercy of
chance: its subsistence dependent on some arrival or other:
dependent on a convoy from Beauce, or a boat from Corbeuil.
The city, at immense sacrifices, was obliged to lower the
price of bread: the consequence was that the population for
more than ten leagues round came to procure provisions at
Paris. The uncertainty of the morrow augmented the
difficulties. Everybody stored up, and concealed provisions.
The administration sent in every direction, and bought up
flour, by fair means, or by foul. It often happened that at
midnight there was but half the flour necessary for the
morning market. Provisioning Paris was a kind of war. The
National Guard was sent to protect each arrival; or to secure
certain purchases by force of arms. Speculators were afraid;
farmers would not thrash any longer; neither would the miller
grind. 'I used to see,' says Bailly, 'good tradesmen, mercers
and goldsmiths, praying to be admitted among the beggars
employed at Montmartre, in digging the ground.' Then came
fearful whispers of the King's intention to fly to Metz. What
will become of us if the King should fly? He must not fly; we
will have him here; here amongst us in Paris! This produced
the famous insurrection of women ... on the 5th October."
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 9.
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapters 3-4 (volume 1).
{1266}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (October).
The Insurrection of Women.
Their march to Versailles.
"A thought, or dim raw-material of a thought, was fermenting
all night [October 4-5], universally in the female head, and
might explode. In squalid garret, on Monday morning Maternity
awakes, to hear children weeping for bread. Maternity must
forth to the streets, to the herb-markets and Bakers'-queues;
meets there with hunger-stricken Maternity, sympathetic,
exasperative. O we unhappy women! But, instead of
Bakers'-queues, why not to Aristocrats' palaces, the root of
the matter? Allons! Let us assemble. To the Hôtel-de-Ville; to
Versailles; to the Lanterne! In one of the Guard houses of the
Quartier Saint-Eustache, 'a young woman' seizes a drum,--for
how shall National Guards give fire on women, on a young
woman? The young woman seizes the drum; sets forth, beating
it, 'uttering cries relative to the dearth of grains.'
Descend, O mothers; descend, ye Judiths, to food and
revenge!--All women gather and go; crowds storm all stairs,
force out all women: the female Insurrectionary Force,
according to Camille, resembles the English Naval one; there
is a universal 'Press of women.' Robust Dames of the Halle,
slim Mantua-makers, assiduous, risen with the dawn; ancient
Virginity tripping to matins; the Housemaid, with early broom;
all must go. Rouse ye, O, women; the laggard men will not act;
they say, we ourselves may act! And so, like snowbreak from
the mountains, for every staircase is a melted brook, it
storms; tumultuous, wild-shrilling, towards the
Hôtel-de-Ville. Tumultuous; with or without drum-music: for
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine also has tucked-up its gown; and
with besom-staves, fire-irons, and even rusty pistols (void of
ammunition), is flowing on. Sound of it flies, with a velocity
of sound, to the utmost Barriers. By seven o'clock, on this
raw October morning, fifth of the month, the Townhall will see
wonders. ... Grand it was, says Camille, to see so many
Judiths, from eight to ten thousand of them in all, rushing
out to search into the root of the matter! Not unfrightful it
must have been; ludicro-terrific, and most unmanageable. At
such hour the overwatched Three Hundred are not yet stirring:
none but some Clerks, a company of National Guards; and M. de
Gouvion, the Major-general. Gouvion has fought in America for
the cause of civil Liberty; a man of no inconsiderable heart,
but deficient in head. He is, for the moment, in his back
apartment; assuaging Usher Maillard, the Bastille-sergeant,
who has come, as too many do, with 'representations.' The
assuagement is still incomplete when our Judiths arrive. The
National Guards form on the outer stairs, with levelled
bayonets; the ten thousand Judiths press up, resistless; with
obtestations, with outspread hands,--merely to speak to the
Mayor. The rear forces them; nay from male hands in the rear,
stones already fly: the National Guard must do one of two
things; sweep the Place de Greve with cannon, or else open to
right and left. They open: the living deluge rushes in.
Through all rooms and cabinets, upwards to the topmost belfry:
ravenous; seeking arms, seeking Mayors, seeking justice;--
while, again, the better-dressed speak kindly to the Clerks;
point out the misery of these poor women; also their ailments,
some even of an interesting sort. Poor M. de Gouvion is
shiftless in this extremity;--a man shiftless, perturbed: who
will one day commit suicide. How happy for him that Usher
Maillard the shifty was there, at the moment, though making
representations! Fly back, thou shifty Maillard: seek the
Bastille Company; and O return fast with it; above all, with
thy own shifty head! For, behold, the Judiths can find no
Mayor or Municipal; scarcely, in the topmost belfry, can they
find poor Abbé Lefèvre the Powder-distributor. Him, for want
of a better, they suspend there: in the pale morning light;
over the top of all Paris, which swims in one's failing
eyes:--a horrible end? Nay the rope broke, as French ropes
often did; or else an Amazon cut it. Abbe Lefèvre falls, some
twenty feet, rattling among the leads; and lives long years
after, though always with 'a tremblement in the limbs.' And
now doors fly under hatchets; the Judiths have broken the
Armory; have seized guns and cannons, three money-bags,
paper-heaps; torches flare: in few minutes, our brave
Hôtel-de-Ville, which dates from the Fourth Henry, will, with
all that it holds, be in flames! In flames, truly,--were it
not that Usher Maillard, swift of foot, shifty of head, has
returned! Maillard, of his own motion,--for Gouvion or the
rest would not even sanction him,--snatches a drum: descends
the Porch-stairs, ran-tan, beating sharp, with loud rolls, his
Rogues'-march: To Versailles! Allons; à Versailles! As men
beat on kettle or warming-pan, when angry she-bees, or say,
flying desperate wasps, are to be hived; and the desperate
insects hear it, and cluster round it,--simply as round a
guidance, where there was none: so now these Menads round
shifty Maillard, Riding-Usher of the Châtelet. The axe pauses
uplifted; Abbé Lefèvre is left half-hanged: from the belfry
downwards all vomits itself. What rub-a-dub is that? Stanislas
Maillard, Bastille hero, will lead us to Versailles? Joy to
thee, Maillard; blessed art thou above Riding-Ushers! Away,
then, away! The seized cannon are yoked with seized
cart-horses: brown-locked Demoiselle Théroigne, with pike and
helmet, sits there as gunneress. ... Maillard (for his drum
still rolls) is, by heaven-rending acclamation, admitted
General. Maillard hastens the languid march. ... And now
Maillard has his Menads in the Champs Elysées (Fields
Tartarean rather); and the Hôtel-de-Ville has suffered
comparatively nothing. ... Great Maillard! A small nucleus of
Order is round his drum; but his outskirts fluctuate like the
mad Ocean: for Rascality male and female is flowing in on him,
from the four winds: guidance there is none but in his single
head and two drum-sticks. ... On the Elysian Fields there is
pause and fluctuation; but, for Maillard, no return. He
persuades his Menads, clamorous for arms and the Arsenal, that
no arms are in the Arsenal; that an unarmed attitude, and
petition to a National Assembly, will be the best: he hastily
nominates or sanctions generalesses, captains of tens and
fifties;--and so, in loosest-flowing order, to the rhythm of
some 'eight drums' (having laid aside his own), with the
Bastille Volunteers bringing up his rear, once more takes the
road. Chaillot, which will promptly yield baked loaves, is not
plundered; nor are the Sèvres Potteries broken. ... The press of
women still continues, for it is the cause of all Eve's
Daughters, mothers that are, or that ought to be. No
carriage-lady, were it with never such hysterics, but must
dismount, in the mud roads, in her silk shoes, and walk. In
this manner, amid wild October weather, they, a wild unwinged
stork-flight, through the astonished country wend their way."
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 1, book 7, chapters 4-5.
{1267}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (October).
The mob of men at Versailles, with Lafayette
and the National Guard.
The king and royal family brought to Paris.
Before the memorable 5th day of October closed, the movement
of the women upon Versailles was followed by an outpouring, in
the same direction, of the masculine mob of Paris, headed by
the National Guard. "The commander, Lafayette, opposed their
departure a long time, but in vain; neither his efforts nor
his popularity could overcome the obstinacy of the people. For
seven hours he harangued and retained them. At length,
impatient at this delay, rejecting his advice, they prepared
to set forward without him; when, feeling that it was now his
duty to conduct as it had previously been to restrain them, he
obtained his authorisation from the corporation, and gave the
word for departure about seven in the evening. "Meantime the
army of the amazons had arrived at Versailles, and excited the
terrors of the court. "The troops of Versailles flew to arms
and surrounded the château, but the intentions of the women
were not hostile. Maillard, their leader, had recommended them
to appear as suppliants, and in that attitude they presented
their complaints successively to the assembly and to the king.
Accordingly, the first hours of this turbulent evening were
sufficiently calm. Yet it was impossible but that causes of
hostility should arise between an excited mob and the
household troops, the objects of so much irritation. The
latter were stationed in the court of the château opposite the
national guard and the Flanders regiment. The space between
was filled by women and volunteers of the Bastille. In the
midst of the confusion, necessarily arising from such a
juxtaposition, a scuffle arose; this was the signal for
disorder and conflict. An officer of the guards struck a
Parisian soldier with his sabre, and was in turn shot in the
arm. The national guards sided against the household troops;
the conflict became warm, and would have been sanguinary, but
for the darkness, the bad weather, and the orders given to the
household troops, first to cease firing and then to retire.
... During this tumult, the court was in consternation; the
flight of the king was suggested, and carriages prepared; a
piquet of the national guard saw them at the gate of the
orangery, and having made them go back, closed the gate:
moreover, the king, either ignorant of the designs of the
court, or conceiving them impracticable, refused to escape.
Fears were mingled with his pacific intentions, when he
hesitated to repel the aggression or to take flight.
Conquered, he apprehended the fate of Charles I. of England;
absent, he feared that the duke of Orleans would obtain the
lieutenancy of the kingdom. But, in the meantime, the rain,
fatigue, and the inaction of the household troops, lessened
the fury of the multitude, and Lafayette arrived at the head
of the Parisian army. His presence restored security to the
court, and the replies of the king to the deputation from
Paris satisfied the multitude and the army. In a short time,
Lafayette's activity, the good sense and discipline of the
Parisian guard, restored order everywhere. Tranquillity
returned. The crowd of women and volunteers, overcome by
fatigue, gradually dispersed, and some of the national guard
were entrusted with the defence of the château, while others
were lodged with their companions in arms at Versailles. The
royal family, re-assured after the anxiety and fear of this
painful night, retired to rest about two o'clock in the
morning. Towards five, Lafayette, having visited the outposts
which had been confided to his care, and finding the watch
well kept, the town calm, and the crowds dispersed or
sleeping, also took a few moments repose. About six, however,
some men of the lower class, more enthusiastic than the rest,
and awake sooner than they, prowled round the château. Finding
a gate open, they informed their companions, and entered.
Unfortunately, the interior posts had been entrusted to the
household guards, and refused to the Parisian army. This fatal
refusal caused all the misfortunes of the night. The interior
guard had not even been increased; the gates scarcely visited,
and the watch kept as negligently as on ordinary occasions. These
men, excited by all the passions that had brought them to
Versailles, perceiving one of the household troops at a
window, began to insult him. He fired, and wounded one of
them. They then rushed on the household troops, who defended
the château breast to breast, and sacrificed themselves
heroically. One of them had time to warn the queen, whom the
assailants particularly threatened; and, half dressed, she ran
for refuge to the king. The tumult and danger were extreme in
the château. Lafayette, apprised of the invasion of the royal
residence, mounted his horse, and rode hastily to the scene of
danger. On the square he met some of the household troops
surrounded by an infuriated mob, who were on the point of
killing them. He threw himself among them, called some French
guards who were near, and, having rescued the household troops
and dispersed their assailants, he hurried to the château. He
found it already secured by the grenadiers of the French
guard, who, at the first noise of the tumult, had hastened and
protected the household troops from the fury of the Parisians.
But the scene was not over; the crowd assembled again in the
marble court under the king's balcony, loudly called for him,
and he appeared. They required his departure for Paris; he
promised to repair thither with his family, and this promise
was received with general applause. The queen was resolved, to
accompany him; but the prejudice against her was so strong
that the journey was not without danger; it was necessary to
reconcile her with the multitude. Lafayette proposed to her to
accompany him to the balcony; after some hesitation, she
consented. They appeared on it together, and to communicate by
a sign with the tumultuous crowd, to conquer its animosity, and
awaken its enthusiasm, Lafayette respectfully kissed the
queen's hand; the crowd responded with acclamations. It now
remained to make peace between them and the household troops.
Lafayette advanced with one of these, placed his own
tricoloured cockade on his hat, and embraced him before the
people, who shouted 'Vivent les gardes-du-corps!' Thus
terminated this scene; the royal family set out for Paris,
escorted by the army and its guards mixed with it."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
B. Tuckerman,
Life of Lafayette,
volume 1, chapter 11.
{1268}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791.
The new constitution.
Appropriation and sale of Church property.
Issue of Assignats.
Abolition of titles of honor.
Civil constitution of the clergy.
The Feast of the Federation.
The Émigrés on the border and their conduct.
"The king was henceforth at the mercy of the mob. Deprived of
his guards, and at a distance from his army, he was in the
centre of the revolution; and surrounded by an excited and
hungry populace. He was followed to Paris by the Assembly;
and, for the present, was protected from further outrages by
Lafayette and the national guards. Mirabeau, who was now in
secret communication with the court, warned the king of his
danger, in the midst of the revolutionary capital. 'The mob of
Paris,' he said, 'will scourge the corpses of the king and
queen.' He saw no hope of safety for them, or for the State,
but in their withdrawal from this pressing danger, to
Fontainebleau or Rouen, and in a strong government, supported
by the Assembly, pursuing liberal measures, and quelling
anarchy. His counsels were frustrated by events; and the
revolution had advanced too far to be controlled by this
secret and suspected adviser of the king. Meanwhile, the
Assembly was busy with further schemes of revolution and
desperate finance. France was divided into departments: the
property of the Church was appropriated to meet the urgent
necessities of the State; the disastrous assignats were
issued: the subjection of the clergy to the civil power was
decreed: the Parliaments were superseded, and the judicature
of the country was reconstituted, upon a popular basis: titles
of honour, orders of knighthood, armorial bearings--even
liveries--were abolished: the army was reorganised, and the
privileges of birth were made to yield to service and
seniority. All Frenchmen were henceforth equal, as 'citoyens':
and their new privileges were wildly celebrated by the
planting of trees of liberty. The monarchy was still
recognised, but it stood alone, in the midst of revolution."
Sir T. E. May,
Democracy in Europe,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
"The monarchy was continued and liberally endowed; but it was
shorn of most of its ancient prerogatives, and reduced to a
very feeble Executive; and while it obtained a perilous veto
on the resolutions and acts of the Legislature, it was
separated from that power, and placed in opposition to it, by
the exclusion of the Ministers of the Crown from seats and
votes in the National Assembly. The Legislature was composed
of a Legislative Assembly, formed of a single Chamber alone,
in theory supreme, and almost absolute; but, as we have seen,
it was liable to come in conflict with the Crown, and it had
less authority than might be supposed, for it was elected by a
vote not truly popular, and subordinate powers were allowed to
possess a very large part of the rights of Sovereignty which
it ought to have divided with the King. This last portion of
the scheme was very striking, and was the one, too, that most
caused alarm among distant political observers. Too great
centralization having been one of the chief complaints against
the ancient Monarchy, this evil was met with a radical reform.
... The towns received extraordinary powers; their
municipalities had complete control over the National Guards
to be elected in them, and possessed many other functions of
Government; and Paris, by these means, became almost a
separate Commonwealth, independent of the State, and directing
a vast military force. The same system was applied to the
country; every Department was formed into petty divisions,
each with its National Guards, and a considerable share of
what is usually the power of the government. ... Burke's
saying was strictly correct, 'that France was split into
thousands of Republics, with Paris predominating and queen of
all.' With respect to other institutions of the State, the
appointment of nearly all civil functionaries, judicial and
otherwise, was taken from the Crown, and abandoned to a like
popular election; and the same principle was also applied to
the great and venerable institution of the Church, already
deprived of its vast estates, though the election of bishops
and priests by their flocks interfered directly with Roman
Catholic discipline, and probably, too, with religious dogma.
... Notwithstanding the opposition of Necker, who, though
hardly a statesman, understood finance, it was resolved to
sell the lands of the Church to procure funds for the
necessities of the State; and the deficit, which was
increasing rapidly, was met by an inconvertible currency of
paper, secured on the lands to be sold. This expedient ... was
carried out with injudicious recklessness. The Assignats, as
the new notes were called, seemed a mine of inexhaustible
wealth, and they were issued in quantities which, from the
first moment, disturbed the relations of life and commerce,
though they created a show of brisk trade for a time. In
matters of taxation the Assembly, too, exceeded the bounds of
reason and justice; exemptions previously enjoyed by the rich
were now indirectly extended to the poor; wealthy owners of
land were too heavily burdened, while the populace of the
towns went scot free. ... Very large sums, also, belonging to
the State, were advanced to the Commune of Paris, now rising
into formidable power. ... The funds so obtained were lavishly
squandered in giving relief to the poor of the capital in the
most improvident ways--in buying bread dear and reselling it
cheap, and in finding fanciful employment for artizans out of
work. The result, of course, was to attract to Paris many
thousands of the lowest class of rabble, and to add them to
the scum of the city. ... On the first anniversary [July 14,
1790] of the fall of the Bastille, and before the Constitution
had been finished ... a great national holiday [called the Feast
of the Federation] was kept; and, amidst multitudes of
applauding spectators, deputations from every Department in
France, headed by the authorities of the thronging capital,
defiled in procession to the broad space known as the Field of
Mars, along the banks of the Seine. An immense amphitheatre
had been constructed [converting the plain into a valley, by
the labor of many thousands, in a single week], and decorated
with extraordinary pomp; and here, in the presence of a
splendid Court, of the National Assembly, and of the
municipalities of the realm, and in the sight of a great
assemblage surging to and fro with throbbing excitement, the
King took an oath that he would faithfully respect the order
of things that was being established, while incense streamed
from high-raised altars, and the ranks of 70,000 National
Guards burst into loud cheers and triumphant music; and even
the Queen, sharing in the passion of the hour, and radiant
with beauty, lifted up in her arms the young child who was to
be the future chief of a disenthralled and regenerate people.
...
{1269}
The following week was gay with those brilliant displays which
Paris knows how to arrange so well; flowery arches covered the
site of the Bastille, fountains ran wine, and the night blazed
with fire; and the far-extending influence of France was
attested by enthusiastic deputations of 'friends of liberty'
from many parts of Europe, hailing the dawn of an era of
freedom and peace. The work, however, of the National Assembly
developed some of its effects ere long. The abolition of
titles of honor filled up the measure of the anger of the
Nobles; the confiscation of the property of the Church, above
all, the law as to the election of priests, known as the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, shocked all religious or
superstitious minds. ... The emigration of the Nobles, which
had become very general from the 5th and 6th of October, went
on in daily augmenting numbers; and, in a short time, the
frontiers were edged with bands of exiles breathing vengeance
and hatred. In many districts the priests denounced as
sacrilege, what had been done to the Church, divided the
peasantry, and preached a crusade against what they called the
atheist towns; and angry mutinies broke out in the Army, which
left behind savage and relentless feelings. The relations
between the King and the Assembly, too, became strained, if
not hostile, at every turn of affairs, to the detriment of
anything like good government; and while Louis sunk into a
mere puppet, the Assembly, controlled in a great measure by
demagogues and the pampered mobs of Paris, felt authority
gradually slipping from it." To all the many destructive and
revolutionary influences at work was now added "the pitiful
conduct of those best known by the still dishonorable name of
'Émigrés.' In a few months the great majority of the
aristocracy of France had fled the kingdom, abandoned the
throne around which they had stood, breathing maledictions
against a contemptuous Nation, as arrogant as ever in the
impotence of want, and thinking only of a counter-revolution
that would cover the natal soil with blood. ... Their utter
want of patriotism and of sound feeling made thousands believe
that the state of society which had bred such creatures ought
to be swept away."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution and First Empire,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
H. Van Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 5, and book 2, chapters 3-5.
M'me de Stael,
Considerations on the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 12-19 (volume l).
E. Burke,
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 1, chapters 22-35 (volumes 2-3).
Duchess de Tourzell,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 3-11.
W. H. Jervis,
The Gallican Church and the Revolution.,
chapters 1-4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1790.
The rise of the Clubs.
Jacobins, Cordeliers, Feuillants, Club Monarchique, and Club
of '89.
"Every party sought to gain the people; it was courted as
sovereign. After attempting to influence it by religion,
another means was employed, that of the clubs. At that period,
clubs were private assemblies, in which the measures of
government, the business of the state, and the decrees of the
assembly, were discussed; their deliberations had no
authority, but they exercised a certain influence. The first
club owed its origin to the Breton deputies, who already met
together at Versailles to consider the course of proceeding
they should take. When the national representatives were
transferred from Versailles to Paris, the Breton deputies and
those of the assembly who were of their views held their
sittings in the old convent of the Jacobins, which
subsequently gave its name to their meetings. It did not at
first cease to be a preparatory assembly, but as all things
increase in time, the Jacobin Club did not confine itself to
influencing the assembly; it sought also to influence the
municipality and the people, and received as associates
members of the municipality and common citizens. Its
organization became more regular, its action more powerful;
its sittings were regularly reported in the papers; it created
branch clubs in the provinces, and raised by the side of legal
power another power which first counselled and then conducted
it. The Jacobin Club, as it lost its primitive character and
became a popular assembly, had been forsaken by part of its
founders. The latter established another society on the plan
of the old one, under the name of the Club of '89. Siéyes,
Chapelier, Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld, directed it, as Lameth
and Barnave directed that of the Jacobins. Mirabeau belonged
to both, and by both was equally courted. These clubs, of
which the one prevailed in the assembly, and the other amongst
the people, were attached to the new order of things, though
in different degrees. The aristocracy sought to attack the
revolution with its own arms; it opened royalist clubs to
oppose the popular clubs. That first established, under the
name of the Club des Impartiaux, could not last because it
addressed itself to no class opinion. Reappearing under the
name of the Club Monarchique, it included among its members
all those whose views it represented. It sought to render
itself popular with the lower classes, and distributed bread;
but, far from accepting its overtures, the people considered
such establishments as a counter-revolutionary movement. It
disturbed their sittings, and obliged them several times to
change their place of meeting. At length, the municipal
authority found itself obliged, in January, 1791, to close
this club, which had been the cause of several riots."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 3.
"At the end of 1790 the number of Jacobin Clubs was 200, many
of which--like the one in Marseilles--contained more than a
thousand members. Their organization extended through the
whole kingdom, and every impulse given at the centre in Paris
was felt at the extremities. ... It was far indeed from
embracing the majority of adult Frenchmen, but even at that
time it had undoubtedly become--by means of its strict
unity--the greatest power in the kingdom."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).
"This Jacobin Club soon divided itself into three other clubs:
first, that party which looked upon the Jacobins as lukewarm
patriots left it, and constituted themselves into the Club of
the Cordeliers, where Danton's voice of thunder made the halls
ring; and Camille Desmoulins' light, glancing wit played with
momentous subjects. The other party, which looked upon the
Jacobins as too fierce, constituted itself into the 'Club of
1789; friends of the monarchic constitution;' and afterwards
named Feuillant's Club, because it met in the Feuillant
Convent. Lafayette was their chief; supported by the
'respectable' patriots. These clubs generated many others, and
the provinces imitated them."
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 10.
{1270}
"The Cordeliers were a Parisian club; the Jacobins an immense
association extending throughout France. But Paris would stir
and rise at the fury of the Cordeliers; and Paris being once
in motion, the political revolutionists were absolutely
obliged to follow. Individuality was very powerful among the
Cordeliers. Their journalists, Marat, Desmoulins, Fréron,
Robert, Hébert and Fabre d'Églantine, wrote each for himself.
Danton, the omnipotent orator, would never write; but, by way
of compensation, Marat and Desmoulins, who stammered or
lisped, used principally to write, and seldom spoke. ... The
Cordeliers formed a sort of tribe, all living in the
neighbourhood of the club."
J. Michelet,
Historical View of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapters 7 and 5.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 2, book 1, chapter 5.
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791.
Revolution at Avignon.
Reunion of the old Papal province with France decreed.
"The old residence of the Popes [Avignon] remained until the
year 1789 under the papal government, which, from its
distance, exercised its authority with great mildness, and
left the towns and villages of the country in the enjoyment of
a great degree of independence. The general condition of the
population was, however, much the same as in the neighbouring
districts of France--agitation in the towns and misery in the
country. It is not surprising, therefore, that the commotion
of August 4th should extend itself among the subjects of the
Holy see. Here, too, castles were burned, black mail levied on
the monasteries, tithes and feudal rights abolished. The city
of Avignon soon became the centre of a political agitation,
whose first object was to throw off the papal yoke, and then
to unite the country with France. ... In June, 1790, the
people of Avignon tore down the papal arms, and the Town
Council sent a message to Paris, that Avignon wished to be
united to France." Some French regiments were sent to the city
to maintain order; but "the greater part of them deserted, and
marched out with the Democrats of the town to take and sack
the little town of Cavaillon, which remained faithful to the
Pope. From this time forward civil war raged without
intermission. ... The Constituent Assembly, on the 14th of
September, 1791, decreed the reunion of the country with
France. Before the new government could assert its authority,
fresh and more dreadful atrocities had taken place," ending
with the fiendish massacre of 110 prisoners, held by a band of
ruffians who had taken possession of the papal castle.
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 3, chapter 2 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791.
The oath of the clergy.
First movements toward the European coalition
against French democracy.
Death of Mirabeau.
The King's flight and arrest at Varennes.
Rise of a Republican Party.
"By a decree of November 27th, 1790, the Assembly required the
clergy to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law and
the king, and to maintain the constitution. This oath they
were to take within a week, on pain of deprivation. The King,
before assenting to this measure, wished to procure the
consent of the Pope, but was persuaded not to wait for it, and
gave his sanction, December 3rd. ... Of 300 prelates and
priests, who had seats in the Assembly, those who sat on the
right unanimously refused to take the oath, while those who
sat on the left anticipated the day appointed for that
purpose. Out of 138 archbishops and bishops, only four
consented to swear, Talleyrand, Loménie de Brienne (now
Archbishop of Sens), the Bishop of Orleans, and the Bishop of
Viviers. The oath was also refused by the great majority of
the curés and vicars, amounting, it is said, to 50,000. Hence
arose the distinction of 'prêtres sermentés' and
'insermentés,' or sworn and non-juring priests. The brief of
Pius VI., forbidding the oath, was burnt at the Palais Royal,
as well as a mannikin representing the Pope himself in his
pontificals. Many of the deprived ecclesiastics refused to
vacate their functions, declared their successors intruders
and the sacraments they administered null, and excommunicated
all who recognised and obeyed them. Louis XVI., whose
religious feelings were very strong, was perhaps more hurt by
these attacks upon the Church than even by those directed
against his own prerogative. The death of Mirabeau, April 2nd
1791, was a great loss to the King, though it may well be
doubted whether his exertions could have saved the monarchy.
He fell a victim to his profligate habits, assisted probably
by the violent exertions he had recently made in the Assembly.
... He was honoured with a sumptuous funeral at the public
expense, to which, says a contemporary historian, nothing but
grief was wanting. In fact, to most of the members of the
Assembly, eclipsed by his splendid talents and overawed by his
reckless audacity, his death was a relief. ... After
Mirabeau's death, Duport, Barnave, and Lameth reigned supreme
in the Assembly, and Robespierre became more prominent. The
King had now begun to fix his hopes on foreign intervention.
The injuries inflicted by the decrees of the Assembly on
August 4th 1789, on several princes of the Empire, through
their possessions in Alsace, Franche Comté, and Lorraine,
might afford a pretext for a rupture between the German
Confederation and France. ... The German prelates, injured by
the Civil Constitution of the clergy, were among the first to
complain. By this act the Elector of Mentz was deprived of his
metropolitan rights over the bishoprics of Strasburg and
Spires; the Elector of Trèves of those over Metz, Toul,
Verdun, Nanci and St. Diez. The Bishops of Strasburg and Bale
lost their diocesan rights in Alsace. Some of these princes
and nobles had called upon the Emperor and the German body in
January 1790, for protection against the arbitrary acts of the
National Assembly. This appeal had been favourably
entertained, both by the Emperor Joseph II. and by the King of
Prussia; and though the Assembly offered suitable indemnities,
they were haughtily refused. ... The Spanish and Italian
Bourbons were naturally inclined to support their relative,
Louis XVI. ... The King of Sardinia, connected by
intermarriages with the French Bourbons, had also family
interests to maintain. Catherine II. of Russia had witnessed,
with humiliation and alarm, the fruits of the philosophy which
she had patronised, and was opposed to the new order of things
in France. ...
{1271}
All the materials existed for an extensive coalition against
French democracy. In this posture of affairs the Count
d'Artois, accompanied by Calonne, who served him as a sort of
minister, and by the Count de Durfort, who had been despatched
from the French Court, had a conference with the Emperor, now
Leopold II., at Mantua, in May 1791, in which it was agreed
that, towards the following July, Austria should march 35,000
men towards the frontiers of Flanders; the German Circles
15,000 towards Alsace; the Swiss 15,000 towards the Lyonnais;
the King of Sardinia 15,000 towards Dauphiné; while Spain was
to hold 20,000 in readiness in Catalonia. This agreement, for
there was not, as some writers have supposed, any formal
treaty, was drawn up by Calonne, and amended with the
Emperor's own hand. But the large force to be thus assembled
was intended only as a threatening demonstration, and
hostilities were not to be actually commenced without the
sanction of a congress. ... The King's situation had now
become intolerably irksome. He was, to all intents and
purposes, a prisoner at Paris. A trip, which he wished to make
to St. Cloud during the Easter of 1791, was denounced at the
Jacobin Club as a pretext for flight; and when he attempted to
leave the Tuileries, April 18th, the tocsin was rung, his
carriage was surrounded by the mob, and he was compelled to
return to the palace. ... A few days after ... the leaders of
the Revolution, who appear to have suspected his negociations
abroad, exacted that he should address a circular to his
ambassadors at foreign courts, in which he entirely approved
the Revolution, assumed the title of 'Restorer of French
liberty,' and utterly repudiated the notion that he was not
free and master of his actions." But the King immediately
nullified the circular by despatching secret agents with
letters "in which he notified that any sanction he might give
to the decrees of the Assembly was to be reputed null; that
his pretended approval of the constitution was to be
interpreted in an opposite sense, and that the more strongly
he should seem to adhere to it, the more he should desire to
be liberated from the captivity in which he was held. Louis
soon after resolved on his unfortunate flight to the army of
the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmédy. ... Having, after some
hair-breadth escapes, succeeded in quitting Paris in a
travelling berlin, June 20th, they [the King, Queen, and
family] reached St. Menehould in safety. But here the King was
recognised by Drouet, the son of the postmaster, who, mounting
his horse, pursued the royal fugitives to Varennes, raised an
alarm, and caused them to be captured when they already
thought themselves out of danger. In consequence of their
being rather later than was expected, the military
preparations that had been made for their protection entirely
failed. The news of the King's flight filled Paris with
consternation. The Assembly assumed all the executive power of
the Government, and when the news of the King's arrest
arrived, they despatched Barnave, Latour, Maubourg and Pétion
to conduct him and his family back to Paris. ... Notices had
been posted up in Paris, that those who applauded the King
should be horsewhipped, and that those who insulted him should
be hanged; hence he was received on entering the capital with
a dead silence. The streets, however, were traversed without
accident to the Tuileries, but as the royal party were
alighting, a rush was made upon them by some ruffians, and
they were with difficulty saved from injury. The King's
brother, the count of Provence, who had fled at the same time
by a different route, escaped safely to Brussels. This time
the King's intention to fly could not be denied; he had,
indeed, himself proclaimed it, by sending to the Assembly a
manifest, in which he explained his reasons for it, declared
that he did not intend to quit the kingdom, expressed his
desire to restore liberty and establish a constitution, but
annulled all that he had done during the last two years. ...
The King, after his return, was provisionally suspended from
his functions by a decree of the Assembly, June 25th. Guards
were placed over him and the Queen; the gardens of the
Tuileries assumed the appearance of a camp; sentinels were
stationed on the roof of the Palace, and even in the Queen's
bedchamber. ... From the period of the King's flight to
Varennes must be dated the first decided appearance of a
republican party in France. During his absence the Assembly
had been virtually sovereign, and hence men took occasion to
say, 'You see the public peace has been maintained, affairs
have gone on, in the usual way in the King's absence.' The
chief advocates of a republic were Brissot, Condorcet, and the
recently-established club of the Cordeliers. ... The
arch-democrat, Thomas Payne, who was now at Paris, also
endeavoured to excite the populace against the King. The
Jacobin Club had not yet gone this length; they were for
bringing Louis XVI. to trial and deposing him, but for
maintaining the monarchy."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapters 2-3 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
Historical View of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapters 8-14.
M'me Campan,
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapters 5-7.
Marquis de Bouillé,
Memoirs,
chapters 8-11.
Duchess de Tourzel,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapter 12.
A. B. Cochrane,
Francis I., and other Historical Studies,
volume 2 (The Flight of Varennes).
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (July-September).

Attitude of Foreign Powers.
Coolness of Austria towards the Émigrés.
The Declaration of Pilnitz.
Completion of the Constitution.
Restoration of the King.
Tumult in the Champs de Mars.
Dissolution of the Constituent National Assembly.
"On the 27th of July, Prince Reuss presented a memorial [from
the Court of Austria] to the Court of Berlin, in which the
Emperor explained at length his views of a European Concert.
It was drawn up, throughout, in Leopold's usual cautious and
circumspect manner. ... In case an armed intervention should
appear necessary--they would take into consideration the
future constitution of France; but in doing so they were to
renounce, in honour of the great cause in which they were
engaged, all views of selfish aggrandizement. We see what a
small part the desire for war played in the drawing up of this
far-seeing plan. The document repeatedly urged that no step
ought to be taken without the concurrence of all the Powers,
and especially of England; and as England's decided aversion
to every kind of interference was well known, this stipulation
alone was sufficient to stamp upon the whole scheme, the
character of a harmless demonstration."
{1272}
At the same time Catharine II. of Russia, released from war
with the Turks, and bent upon the destruction of Poland,
desired "to implicate the Emperor as inextricably as possible
in the French quarrel, in order to deprive Poland of its most
powerful protector; she therefore entered with the greatest
zeal into the negociations for the support of Louis XVI. Her
old opponent, the brilliant King Gustavus of Sweden, declared
his readiness--on receipt of a large subsidy from Russia--to
conduct a Swedish army by sea to the coast of Flanders, and
thence, under the guidance of Bouillé, against Paris. ... But,
of course, every word he uttered was only an additional
warning to Leopold to keep the peace. ... Under these
circumstances he [the Emperor] was most disagreeably surprised
on the 20th of August, a few days before his departure for
Pillnitz, by the sudden and entirely unannounced and
unexpected arrival in Vienna of the Count d'Artois. It was not
possible to refuse to see him, but Leopold made no secret to
him of the real position of affairs. ... He asked permission
to accompany the Emperor to Pillnitz, which the latter, with
cool politeness, said that he had no scruple in granting, but
that even there no change of policy would take place. ...
Filled with such sentiments, the Emperor Leopold set out for
the conference with his new ally; and the King of Prussia came
to meet him with entirely accordant views. ... The
representations of d'Artois, therefore, made just as little
impression at Pillnitz, as they had done, a week before, at
Vienna. ... On the 27th, d'Artois received the joint answer of
the two Sovereigns, the tone and purport of which clearly
testified to the sentiments of its authors. ... The Emperor
and King gave their sanction to the peaceable residence of
individual Émigrés in their States, but declared that no armed
preparations would be allowed before the conclusion of an
agreement between the European Powers. To this rejection the
two Monarchs added a proposal of their own--contained in a
joint declaration--in which they spoke of the restoration of
order and monarchy in France as a question of the greatest
importance to the whole of Europe. They signified their
intention of inviting the coöperation of all the European
Powers. ... But as it was well ascertained that England would
take no part, the expressions they chose were really
equivalent to a declaration of non-intervention, and were
evidently made use of by Leopold solely to intimidate the
Parisian democrats. ... Thus ended the conference of Pillnitz,
after the two Monarchs had agreed to protect the constitution
of the Empire, to encourage the Elector of Saxony to accept
the crown of Poland, and to afford each other friendly aid in
every quarter. The statement, therefore, which has been a
thousand times repeated, that the first coalition for an
attack on the French Revolution was formed on this occasion,
has been shown to be utterly without foundation. As soon as
the faintest gleam of a reconciliation between Louis and the
National Assembly appeared, the cause of the Emigrés was
abandoned by the German Courts."
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 2, chapter 6. (volume l).
At Paris, meantime, "the commissioners charged to make their
report on the affair of Varennes presented it on the 16th of
July. In the journey, they said, there was nothing culpable;
and even if there were, the King was inviolable. Dethronement
could not result from it, since the King had not staid away
long enough, and had not resisted the summons of the
legislative body. Robespierre, Buzot, and Pétion repeated all
the well known arguments against the inviolability. Duport,
Barnave, and Salles answered them, and it was at length
resolved that the King could not be brought to trial on
account of his flight. ... No sooner was this resolution
passed than Robespierre rose, and protested strongly against
it, in the name of humanity. On the evening preceding this
decision, a great tumult had taken place at the Jacobins. A
petition to the Assembly was there drawn up, praying it to
declare that the King was deposed as a perfidious traitor to
his oaths, and that it would seek to supply his place by all
the constitutional means. It was resolved that this petition
should be carried on the following day to the Champ de Mars,
where everyone might sign it on the altar of the country. Next
day, it was accordingly carried to the place agreed upon, and
the crowd of the seditious was reinforced by that of the
curious, who wished to be spectators of the event. At this
moment the decree was passed, so that it was now too late to
petition. Lafayette arrived, broke down the barricades already
erected, was threatened and even fired at, but ... at length
prevailed on the populace to retire. ... But the tumult was
soon renewed. Two invalids, who happened to be, nobody knows
for what purpose, under the altar of the country, were
murdered, and then the uproar became unbounded. The Assembly
sent for the municipality, and charged it to preserve public
order. Bailly repaired to the Champ de Mars, ordered the red
flag to be unfurled, and, by virtue of martial law, summoned
the seditious to retire. ... Lafayette at first ordered a few
shots to be fired in the air: the crowd quitted the altar of
the country, but soon rallied. Thus driven to extremity, he
gave the word, 'Fire!' The first discharge killed some of the
rioters. Their number has been exaggerated. Some have reduced
it to 30, others have raised it to 400, and others to several
thousand. The last statement was believed at the moment, and
the consternation became general. ... Lafayette and Bailly
were vehemently reproached for the proceedings in the Champ de
Mars; but both of them, considering it their duty to observe
the law, and to risk popularity and life in its execution,
felt neither regret nor fear for what they had done. The
factions were overawed by the energy which they displayed. ...
About this time the Assembly came to a determination which has
since been censured, but the result of which did not prove so
mischievous as it has been supposed. It decreed that none of
its members should be re-elected. Robespierre was the proposer
of this resolution, and it was attributed to the envy which he
felt against his colleagues, among whom he had not shone. ...
The new Assembly was thus deprived of men whose enthusiasm was
somewhat abated, and whose legislative science was matured by
an experience of three years. ... The constitution was ...
completed with some haste, and submitted to the King for his
acceptance. From that moment his freedom was restored to him;
or, if that expression be objected to, the strict watch kept
over the palace ceased. ... After a certain number of days he
declared that he accepted the constitution. ... He repaired to
the Assembly, where he was received as in the most brilliant
times. Lafayette, who never forgot to repair the inevitable
evils of political troubles, proposed a general amnesty for
all acts connected with the Revolution, which was proclaimed
amidst shouts of joy, and the prisons were instantly thrown
open. At length, on the 30th of September [1791], Thouret, the
last president, declared that the Constituent Assembly had
terminated its sittings."
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 186-193.
ALSO IN:
M'me de Stael,
Considerations on the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 22-23, and part 3, chapters 1-2.
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1., and appendix 1.
{1273}
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (August).
Insurrection of slaves in San Domingo.
See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (September).
Removal of all disabilities from the Jews.
See JEWS: A. D. 1791.
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (October).
The meeting of the Legislative Assembly.
Its party divisions.
The Girondists and their leaders.
The Mountain.
"The most glorious destiny was predicted for the Constitution,
yet it did not live a twelve month; the Assembly that was to
apply it was but a transition between the Constitutional
Monarchy and the Republic. It was because the Revolution
partook much more of a social than of a political overthrow.
The Constitution had done all it could for the political part,
but the social fabric remained to be reformed; the ancient
privileged classes had been scotched, but not killed. ... The
new Legislative Assembly [which met October 1, its members
having been elected before the dissolution of the Constituent
Assembly] was composed of 745 deputies, mostly chosen from the
middle classes and devoted to the Revolution; those of the
Right and Extreme Right going by the name of Feuillants, those
of the Left and Extreme Left by the name of Jacobins. The
Right was composed of Constitutionalists, who counted on the
support of the National Guard and departmental authorities.
Their ideas of the Revolution were embodied in the
Constitution. ... They kept up some relations with the Court
by means of Barnave and the Lameths, but their pillar outside
the Assembly, their trusty counsellor, seems to have been
Lafayette. ... The Left was composed of men resolved at all
risks to further the Revolution, even at the expense of the
Constitution. They intended to go as far as a Republic, only
they lacked common unity of views, and did not form a compact
body. ... They reckoned among their numbers Vergniaud, Guadet,
and Gensonné, deputies of the Gironde [the Bordeaux region, on
the Garonne], powerful and vehement orators, and from whom
their party afterwards took the name of 'Girondins'; also
Brissot [de Warville] (born 1754), a talented journalist, who
had drawn up the petition for the King's deposition; and
Condorcet (born 1743), an ultra-liberal, but a brilliant
philosopher. Their leader outside the Assembly was Pétion
(born 1753), a cold, calculating, and dissembling Republican,
enjoying great popularity with the masses. The Extreme Left,
occupying in small numbers the raised seats in the Assembly,
from which circumstance they afterwards took the name of 'the
Mountain,' were auxiliaries of the 'Girondins' in their
attempts to further a Revolution which should be entirely in
the interest of the people. Their inspirers outside the
Assembly were Robespierre (born 1759), who controlled the club
of the Jacobins by his dogmatic rigorism and fame for
integrity; and Danton (born 1759), surnamed the Mirabeau of
the 'Breechless' (Sansculottes), a bold and daring spirit, who
swayed the new club of the Cordeliers. The Centre was composed
of nonentities, their moderation was inspired by fear, hence
they nearly always voted with the Left."
H. Van Laun,
The French Revolutionary Epoch,
book 1, chapter 2, section 3 (volume 1).
"The department of the Gironde had given birth to a new
political party in the twelve citizens who formed its
deputies. ... The names (obscure and unknown up to this
period), of Ducos, Guadet, Lafond-Ladebat, Grangeneuve,
Gensonné, Vergniaud, were about to rise into notice and renown
with the storms and disasters of their country; they were the
men who were destined to give that impulse to the Revolution
that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, before
which it still trembled with apprehension, and which was to
precipitate it into a republic. Why was this impulse fated to
have birth in the department of the Gironde and not in Paris?
Nought but conjectures can be offered on this subject. ...
Bordeaux was a commercial city, and commerce, which requires
liberty through interest, at last desires it through a love of
freedom. Bordeaux was the great commercial link between
America and France, and their constant intercourse with
America had communicated to the Gironde their love for free
institutions. Moreover Bordeaux ... was the birthplace of
Montaigne and Montesquieu, those two great republicans of the
French school."
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 4, section 1 (volume 1).
"In the new National Assembly there was only one powerful and
active party--that of the Gironde. ... When we use the term
'parties' in reference to this Assembly, nothing more is meant
by it than small groups of from 12 to 20 persons, who bore the
sway in the rostra and in the Committees, and who alternately
carried with them the aimless crowd of Deputies. It is true,
indeed, that at the commencement of their session, 130
Deputies entered their names among the Jacobins, and about 200
among the Feuillants, but this had no lasting influence on the
divisions, and the majority wavered under the influence of
temporary motives. The party which was regarded as the 'Right'
had no opportunity for action, but saw themselves, from the
very first, obliged to assume an attitude of defence. ...
Outside the Chamber the beau ideal of this party,--General
Lafayette,--declared himself in favour of an American Senate,
but without any of the energy of real conviction. As he had
defended the Monarchy solely from a sense of duty, while all
the feelings of his heart were inclined towards a Republic, so
now, though he acknowledged the necessity of an upper Chamber,
the existing Constitution appeared to him to possess a more
ideal beauty. He never attained, on this point, either to
clear ideas or decided actions; and it was at this period that
he resigned his command of the National guard in Paris, and
retired for a while to his estate in Auvergne. ... The
Girondist Deputies ... were distinguished among the new
members of the Assembly by personal dignity, regular
education, and natural ability; and were, moreover, as ardent
in their radicalism as any Parisian demagogue. They
consequently soon became the darlings of all those zealous
patriots for whom the Cordeliers were too dirty and the
Feuillants too luke warm.
{1274}
External advantages are not without their weight, even in the
most terrible political crises, and the Girondists owe to the
magic of their eloquence, and especially to that of Vergniaud,
an enduring fame, which neither their principles nor their
deeds would have earned for them. ... The representatives of
Bordeaux had never occupied a leading position in the
Girondist party, to which they had given its name. The real
leadership of the Gironde fell singularly enough into the
hands of an obscure writer, a political lady, and a priest who
carried on his operations behind the scenes. It was their
hands that overthrew the throne of the Capets, and spread
revolution over Europe. ... The writer in this trio was
Brissot, who on the 16th of July had wished to proclaim the
Republic, and who now represented the capital in the National
Assembly, as a constitutional member. ... While Brissot shaped
the foreign policy of the Girondist party, its home affairs
were directed by Marie Jeanne Roland, wife of the quondam
Inspector of Factories at Lyons, with whom she had come the
year before to Paris, and immediately thrown herself into the
whirlpool of political life. As early as the year 1789, she
had written to a friend, that the National Assembly must
demand two illustrious heads, or all would be lost. ... She
was ... 36 years old, not beautiful, but interesting,
enthusiastic and indefatigable; with noble aims, but incapable
of discerning the narrow line which separates right from
wrong. ... When warned by a friend of the unruly nature of the
Parisian mob, she replied, that bloodhounds were after all
indispensable for starting the game. ... A less conspicuous,
but not less important, part in this association, was played
by the Abbé Sieyès. He did what neither Brissot nor Mad.
Roland could have done by furnishing his party with a
comprehensive and prospective plan of operations. ... Their
only clearly defined objects were to possess themselves of the
reins of government, to carry on the Revolution, and to
destroy the Monarchy by every weapon within their reach."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4, (volume 2).
See, also, below.
FRANCE: A. D. 1791-1792.
Growth and spread of anarchy and civil war.
Activity of the Emigrés and the ejected priests.
Decrees against them vetoed by the King.
The Girondists in control of the government.
War with the German powers forced on by them.
"It was an ominous proof of the little confidence felt by
serious men in the permanence of the new Constitution, that
the funds fell when the King signed it. All the chief
municipal posts in Paris were passing into the hands of
Republicans, and when Bailly, in November, ceased to be Mayor
of Paris, he was succeeded in that great office by Pétion, a
vehement and intolerant Jacobin. Lafayette had resigned the
command of the National Guard, which was then divided under
six commanders, and it could no longer be counted on to
support the cause of order. Over a great part of France there
was a total insecurity of life and property, such as had
perhaps never before existed in a civilised country, except in
times of foreign invasion or successful rebellion. Almost all
the towns in the south--Marseilles, Toulon, Nîmes, Arles,
Avignon, Montpellier, Carpentras, Aix, Montauban--were centres
of Republicanism, brigandage, or anarchy. The massacres of
Jourdain at Avignon, in October, are conspicuous even among
the horrors of the Revolution. Caen in the following month was
convulsed by a savage and bloody civil war. The civil
constitution of the clergy having been condemned by the Pope,
produced an open schism, and crowds of ejected priests were
exciting the religious fanaticism of the peasantry. In some
districts in the south, the war between Catholic and
Protestant was raging as fiercely as in the 17th century,
while in Brittany, and especially in La Vendée, there were all
the signs of a great popular insurrection against the new
Government. Society seemed almost in dissolution, and there
was scarcely a department in which law was observed and
property secure. The price of corn, at the same time, was
rising fast under the influence of a bad harvest in the south,
aggravated by the want of specie, the depreciation of paper
money, and the enormously increased difficulties of transport.
The peasantry were combining to refuse the paper money. It was
falling rapidly in value. ... In the mean time the stream of
emigrants continued unabated, and it included the great body
of the officers of the army who had been driven from the
regiments by their own soldiers. ... At Brussels, Worms, and
Coblentz, emigrants were forming armed organisations."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th century,
chapter 21 (volume 5).
"The revolution was threatened by two dangerous enemies, the
emigrants, who were urging on a foreign invasion, and the
non-juring bishops and priests who were doing all in their
power to excite domestic rebellion. The latter were really the
more dangerous. ... The Girondists clamoured for repressive
measures. On the 30th of October it was decreed that the count
of Provence, unless he returned within two months, should
forfeit all rights to the regency. On the 9th of November an
edict threatened the emigrants with confiscation and death
unless they returned to their allegiance before the end of the
year. On the 29th of November came the attack upon the
non-jurors. They were called upon to take the oath within
eight days, when lists were to be drawn up of those who
refused; these were then to forfeit their pensions, and if any
disturbance took place in their district they were to be
removed from it, or if their complicity were proved they were
to be imprisoned for two years. The king accepted the decree
against his brother, but he opposed his veto to the other two.
The Girondists and Jacobins eagerly seized the opportunity for
a new attack upon the monarchy. ... Throughout the winter
attention was devoted almost exclusively to foreign affairs.
It has been seen that the emperor was really eager for peace,
and that as long as he remained in that mood there was little
risk of any other prince taking the initiative. At the same
time it must be acknowledged that Leopold's tone towards the
French government was often too haughty and menacing to be
conciliatory, and also that the open preparations of the
emigrants in neighbouring states constituted an insult if not
a danger to France. The Girondists, the most susceptible of
men, only expressed the national sentiment in dwelling upon
this with bitterness, and in calling for vengeance. At the
same time they had conceived the definite idea that their own
supremacy could best be obtained and secured by forcing on a
foreign war.
{1275}
This was expressly avowed by Brissot, who took the lead of the
party in this matter. Robespierre, on the other hand, partly
through temperament and partly through jealousy of his
brilliant rivals, was inclined to the maintenance of peace.
But on this point the Feuillants were agreed with the Gironde,
and so a vast majority was formed to force the unwilling king
and ministers into war. The first great step was taken when
Duportail, who had charge of military affairs, was replaced by
Narbonne, a Feuillant. Louis XVI. was compelled to issue a
note (14 December, 1791) to the emperor and to the archbishop
of Trier to the effect that if the military force of the
emigrants were not disbanded by the 15th of January
hostilities would be commenced against the elector. The latter
at once ordered the cessation of the military preparations,
but the emigrants not only refused to obey but actually
insulted the French envoy. Leopold expressed his desire for
peace, but at the same time declared that any attack on the
electorate of Trier would be regarded as an act of hostility
to the empire. These answers were unsatisfactory, and Narbonne
collected three armies on the frontiers, under the command of
Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, and amounting together to
about 150,000 men. On the 25th of January an explicit
declaration was demanded from the emperor, with a threat that
war would be declared unless a satisfactory answer was
received by the 4th of March. Leopold II. saw all his hopes of
maintaining peace in western Europe gradually disappearing,
and was compelled to bestir himself. ... On the 7th of
February he finally concluded a treaty with the king of
Prussia. ... On the 1st of March, while still hoping to avoid
a quarrel, Leopold II. died of a sudden illness, and with him
perished the last possibility of peace. His son and successor,
Francis II., who was now 24, had neither his father's ability
nor his experience, and he was naturally more easily swayed by
the anti-revolutionary spirit. ... The Girondists combined all
their efforts for an attack upon the minister of foreign
affairs, Delessart, whom they accused of truckling to the
enemies of the nation. Delessart was committed to prison, and
his colleagues at once resigned. The Gironde now came into
office. The ministry of home affairs was given to Roland; of
war to Servan; of finance to Clavière. Dumouriez obtained the
foreign department, Duranthon that of justice, and Lacoste the
marine. Its enemies called it 'the ministry of the
Sansculottes.' ... On the 20th of April [1792] Louis XVI.
appeared in the assembly and read with trembling voice a
declaration of war against the king of Hungary and Bohemia."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 22, section 20-21.
The sincere desire of the Emperor Leopold II. to avoid war
with France, and the restraining influence over the King of
Prussia which he exercised up to the time when Catherine II.
of Russia overcame it by the Polish temptation, are set forth
by H. von Sybel in passages quoted elsewhere.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1791-1792.
ALSO IN:
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 6-14 (volume l).
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 2. chapters 1-14 (volume 5-6).
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the Eighteenth Century,
5th period, 2d division, chapter 1 (volume 6).
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (April).
Fête to the Soldiers of Chateauvieux.
See LIBERTY CAP.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (April-July).
Opening of the war with Austria and Prussia.
French reverses.
"Hostilities followed close upon the declaration of war. At
this time the forces destined to come into collision were
posted as follows: Austria had 40,000 men in Belgium, and
25,000 on the Rhine. These numbers might easily have been
increased to 80,000, but the Emperor of Austria did no more
than collect 7,000 or 8,000 around Brisgau, and some 20,000
more around Rastadt. The Prussians, now bound into a close
alliance with Austria, had still a great distance to traverse
from their base to the theatre of war, and could not hope to
undertake active operations for a long time to come. France,
on the other hand, had already three strong armies in the
field. The Army of the North, under General Rochambeau, nearly
50,000 strong, held the frontier from Philippeville to
Dunkirk; General Lafayette commanded a second army of about
the same strength in observation from Philippeville to the
Lauter; and a third army of 40,000 men, under Marshal Luckner,
watched the course of the Rhine from Lauterbourg to the
confines of Switzerland. The French forces were strong,
however, on paper only. The French army had been mined, as it
seemed, by the Revolution, and had fallen almost to pieces.
The wholesale emigration of the aristocrats had robbed it of
its commissioned officers, the old experienced leaders whom
the men were accustomed to follow and obey. Again, the passion
for political discussion, and the new notions of universal
equality had fostered a dangerous spirit of license in the
ranks. ... While the regular regiments of the old
establishment were thus demoralised, the new levies were still
but imperfectly organised, and the whole army was unfit to
take the field. It was badly equipped, without transport, and
without those useful administrative services which are
indispensable for mobility and efficiency. Moreover, the
prestige of the French arms was at its lowest ebb. A long and
enervating peace had followed since the last great war, in
which the French armies had endured only failure and
ignominious defeat. It is not strange, then, that the foes
whom France had so confidently challenged, counted upon an
easy triumph over the revolutionary troops. The earliest
operations fully confirmed these anticipations. ... France
after the declaration of war had at once assumed the
initiative, and proceeded to invade Belgium. Here the Duke
Albert of Saxe-Teschen, who commanded the Imperialist forces,
held his forces concentrated in three principal corps: one
covered the line from the sea to Tournay; the second was at
Leuze; the third and weakest at Mons. The total of these
troops rose to barely 40,000, and Mons, the most important
point in the general line of defence, was the least strongly
held. All able strategist gathering together 30,000 men from
each of the French armies of the Centre and North, would have
struck at Mons with all his strength, cut Duke Albert's
communications with the Rhine, turned his inner flank, and
rolled him up into the sea. But no great genius as yet
directed the military energies of France. ... By Dumouriez's
advice, the French armies were ordered to advance against the
Austrians by several lines. Four columns of invasion were to
enter Belgium; one was to follow the sea coast, the second to
march on Tournay, the third to move from Valenciennes on Mons,
and the fourth, under Lafayette, on Givet or Namur.
{1276}
Each, according to the success it might achieve, was to
reinforce the next nearest to it, and all, finally, were to
converge on Brussels. At the very outset, however, the French
encountered the most ludicrous reverses. Their columns fled in
disorder directly they came within sight of the enemy.
Lafayette alone continued his march boldly towards Namur; but
he was soon compelled to retire by the news of the hasty
flight of the columns north of him. The French troops had
proved as worthless as their leaders were incapable; whole
brigades turned tail, crying that they were betrayed, casting
away their weapons as they ran, and displaying the most abject
cowardice and terror. Not strangely, after this pitiful
exhibition, the Austrians--all Europe, indeed--held the
military power of France in the utmost contempt. ... But now
the national danger stirred France to its inmost depths.
French spirit was thoroughly roused. The country rose as one
man, determined to offer a steadfast, stubborn front to its
foes. Stout-hearted leaders, full of boundless energy and
enthusiasm, summoned all the resources of the nation to stem
and roll back the tide of invasion. Immediate steps were taken
to put the defeated and disgraced armies of the frontier upon
a new footing. Lafayette replaced Rochambeau, with charge from
Longwy to the sea, his main body about Sedan; Luckner took the
line from the Moselle to the Swiss mountains, with
head-quarters at Metz. A third general, destined to come
speedily to the front, also joined the army as Lafayette's
lieutenant. This was Dumouriez, who, wearied and baffled by
Parisian politics, sought the freedom of the field."
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (June-August).
The King's dismissal of Girondist ministers.
Mob demonstration of June 20.
Lafayette in Paris.
His failure.
The Country declared to be in Danger.
Gathering of volunteers in Paris.
Brunswick's manifesto.
Mob attack on the Tuileries, August 10.
Massacre of the Swiss.
"Servan, the minister of war, proposed the formation of an
armed camp for the protection of Paris. Much opposition was,
however, raised to the project, and the Assembly decreed (June
6) that 20,000 volunteers, recruited in the departments,
should meet at Paris to take part in the celebration of a
federal festival on July 14, the third anniversary of the fall
of the Bastille. The real object of those who supported the
decree was to have a force at Paris with which to maintain
mastery over the city should the Allies penetrate into the
interior. Louis left the decree unsanctioned, as he had the
one directed against nonjurors. The agitators of the sections
sought to get up an armed demonstration against this exercise
of the King's constitutional prerogative. Though armed
demonstrations were illegal, the municipality offered but a
perfunctory and half-hearted resistance. ... Louis, irritated
at the pressure put on him by Roland, Clavière, and Servan, to
sanction the two decrees, dismissed the three ministers from
office (June 13). Dumouriez, who had quarreled with his
colleagues, supported the King in taking this step, but in
face of the hostility of the Assembly himself resigned office
(June 15). Three days later a letter from Lafayette was read
in the Assembly. The general denounced the Jacobins as the
authors of all disorders, called on the Assembly to maintain
the prerogatives of the crown, and intimated that his army
would not submit to see the constitution violated (June 18).
Possibly the dismissal of the ministers and the writing of
this letter were measures concerted between the King and
Lafayette. In any case the King's motive was to excite
division between the constitutionalists and the Girondists, so
as to weaken the national defence. The dismissal of the ministers
was, however, regarded by the Girondists as a proof of the
truth of their worst suspicions, and no measures were taken to
prevent an execution of the project of making an armed, and
therefore illegal, demonstration against the royal policy. On
June 20, thousands of persons, carrying pikes or whatever
weapon came to hand, and accompanied by several battalions of
the national guard, marched from St. Antoine to the hall of
the Assembly. A deputation read an address demanding the
recall of the ministers. Afterwards the whole of the
procession, men, women and children, dancing, singing, and
carrying emblems, defiled through the chamber. Instigated by
their leaders they broke into the Tuileries. The King, who
took his stand on a window seat, was mobbed for four hours. To
please his unwelcome visitors, he put on his head a red cap,
such as was now commonly worn at the Jacobins as an emblem of
liberty, in imitation of that which was once worn by the
emancipated Roman slave. He declared his intention to observe
the constitution, but neither insult nor menace could prevail
on him to promise his sanction to the two decrees. The Queen,
separated from the King, sat behind a table on which she
placed the Dauphin, exposed to the gaze and taunts of the
crowds which slowly traversed the palace apartments. At last,
but not before night, the mob left the Tuileries without doing
further harm, and order was again restored. This insurrection
and the slackness, if not connivance, of the municipal
authorities, excited a widespread feeling of indignation
amongst constitutionalists. Lafayette came to Paris, and at
the bar of the Assembly demanded in person what he had before
demanded by letter (June 28). With him, as with other former
members of the constituent Assembly, it was a point of honour
to shield the persons of the King and Queen from harm. Various
projects for their removal from Paris were formed, but policy
and sentiment alike forbade Marie Antoinette to take advantage
of them. ... The one gleam of light on the horizon of this
unhappy Queen was the advance of the Allies. 'Better die,' she
one day bitterly exclaimed, 'than be saved by Lafayette and
the constitutionalists.' There was, no doubt, a possibility of
the Allies reaching Paris that summer, but this enormously
increased the danger of the internal situation. ... To rouse
the nation to a sense of peril the Assembly [July 11] caused
public proclamation to be made in every municipality that the
country was in danger. The appeal was responded to with
enthusiasm, and within six weeks more than 60,000 volunteers
enlisted. The Duke of Brunswick, the commander-in-chief of the
allied forces, published a manifesto, drawn up by the
emigrants. If the authors of this astounding proclamation had
deliberately intended to serve the purpose of those Frenchmen
who were bent on kindling zeal for the war, they could not
have done anything more likely to serve their purpose.
{1277}
The powers required the country to submit unconditionally to
Louis's mercy. All who offered resistance were to be treated
as rebels to their King, and Paris was to suffer military
execution if any harm befell the royal family. ... Meanwhile,
a second insurrection, which had for its object the King's
deposition, was in preparation. The Assembly, after declaring
the country in danger, had authorised the sections of Paris,
as well as the administrative authorities throughout France,
to meet at any moment. The sections had, in consequence, been
able to render themselves entirely independent of the
municipality. In each of the sectional or primary assemblies
from 700 to 3,000 active citizens had the right to vote, but
few cared to attend, and thus it constantly happened that a
small active minority spoke and acted in the name of an
apathetic constitutional majority. Thousands of volunteers
passed through Paris on their way to the frontier, some of
whom were purposely retained to take part in the insurrection.
The municipality of Marseilles, at the request of Barbaroux, a
young friend of the Rolands, sent up a band of 500 men, who
first sung in Paris the verses celebrated as the
'Marseillaise' [see MARSEILLAISE]. The danger was the greater
since every section had its own cannon and a special body of
cannoneers, who nearly to a man were on the side of the
revolutionists. The terrified and oscillating Assembly made no
attempt to suppress agitation, but acquitted (August 8)
Lafayette, by 406 against 280 votes, of a charge of treason
made against him by the left, on the ground that he had sought
to intimidate the Legislature. This vote was regarded as
tantamount to a refusal to pass sentence of deposition on
Louis. On the following night the insurrection began. Its
centre was in the Faubourg of St. Antoine, and it was
organised by but a small number of men. Mandat, the
commander-in-chief of the national guard, was an energetic
constitutionalist, who had taken well-concerted measures for
the defence of the Tuileries. But the unscrupulousness of the
conspirators was more than a match for his zeal. Soon after
midnight commissioners from 28 sections met together at the
Hotel de Ville, and forced the Council-General of the
Municipality to summon Mandat before it, and to send out
orders to the officers of the guard in contradiction to those
previously given. Mandat, unaware of what was passing, obeyed
the summons, and on his arrival was arrested and murdered.
After this the commissioners dispersed the lawful council and
usurped its place. At the Tuileries were about 950 Swiss and
more than 4,000 national guards. Early in the morning the
first bands of insurgents appeared. On the fidelity of the
national guards it was impossible to rely; and the royal
family, attended by a small escort, left the palace, and
sought refuge with the Assembly [which held its sessions in
the old Riding-School of the Tuileries, not far from the
palace, at one side of the gardens]. Before their departure
orders had been given to the Swiss to repel force by force,
and soon the sound of firing spread alarm through Paris. The
King sent the Swiss instructions to retire, which they
punctually obeyed. One column, passing through the Tuileries
gardens, was shot down almost to a man. The rest reached the
Assembly in safety, but several were afterwards massacred on
their way to prison. For 24 hours the most frightful anarchy
prevailed. Numerous murders were committed in the streets. The
assailants, some hundreds of whom had perished, sacked the
palace, and killed all the men whom they found there."
B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 5.
"Terror and fury ruled the hour. The Swiss, pressed on from
without, paralysed from within, have ceased to shoot; but not
to be shot. What shall they do? Desperate is the moment.
Shelter or instant death: yet How, Where? One party flies out
by the Rue de l'Echelle; is destroyed utterly, 'en entier.' A
second, by the other side, throws itself into the Garden;
'hurrying across a keen fusillade'; rushes suppliant into the
National Assembly; finds pity and refuge in the back benches
there. The third, and largest, darts out in column, 300
strong, towards the Champs Elysées: 'Ah, could we but reach
Courbevoye, where other Swiss are!' Wo! see, in such fusillade
the column 'soon breaks itself by diversity of opinion,' into
distracted segments, this way and that;--to escape in holes,
to die fighting from street to street. The firing and
murdering will not cease: not yet for long. The red Porters of
Hotels are shot at, be they 'Suisse' by nature, or Suisse only
in name. The very Firemen, who pump and labour on that smoking
Carrousel [which the mob had fired]; are shot at; why should
the Carrousel not burn? Some Swiss take refuge in private
houses; find that mercy too does still dwell in the heart of
man. The brave Marseillese are merciful, late so wroth; and
labour to save. ... But the most are butchered, and even
mangled. Fifty (some say Fourscore) were marched as prisoners,
by National Guards, to the Hôtel-de-Ville: the ferocious
people bursts through on them, in the Place-de-Greve;
massacres them to the last man. 'O Peuple, envy of the
universe!' Peuple, in mad Gaelic effervescence! Surely few
things in the history of carnage are painfuler. What
ineffaceable red streak, flickering so sad in the memory, is
that, of this poor column of red Swiss, 'breaking itself in
the confusion of opinions'; dispersing, into blackness and
death! Honour to you, brave men; honourable pity, through long
times! Not martyrs were ye; and yet almost more. He was no
King of yours, this Louis; and he forsook you like a King of
shreds and patches: ye were but sold to him for some poor
sixpence a-day; yet would ye work for your wages, keep your
plighted word: The work now was to die; and ye did it. Honour
to you, O Kinsmen; and may the old Deutsch 'Biederkeit' and'
Tapferkeit,' and Valour which is Worth and Truth, be they
Swiss, be they Saxon, fail in no age!"
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 2, book 6, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 266-330.
Madame Campan,
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapters 9-10.
J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapter 3, sections 4-5.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 18-28 (volumes 6-7).
Duchess de Tourzel,
Memoirs,
volume 2, chapters 8-10.
Count M. Dumas,
Memoirs,
chapter 4 (volume 1).
{1278}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August).
Power seized by the insurrectionary Commune of Paris.
Dethronement and imprisonment of the King.
Conflict between the Girondins of the Assembly and the
Jacobins of the Commune.
Alarm at the advance of the Prussians.
The searching of the city for suspects.
Arrest of 3,000.
"While the Swiss were being murdered, the Legislative Assembly
were informed that a deputation wished to enter. At the head
of this deputation appeared Huguenin, who announced that a new
municipality for Paris had been formed, and that the old one
had resigned. This was, indeed, the fact. On the departure of
Santerre the commissioners of the sections had given orders to
the legitimate council-general of the municipality to resign,
and the council-general, startled by the events which were
passing, consented. The commissioners then called themselves
the new municipality, and proceeded, as municipal officers, to
send a deputation to the Assembly. The deputation almost
ordered that the Assembly should immediately declare the
king's dethronement, and, in the presence of the unfortunate
monarch himself, Vergniaud mounted the tribune, and proposed,
on behalf of the Committee of Twenty-one, that the French
people should be invited to elect a National Convention to
draw up a new Constitution, and that the chief of the
executive power, as he called the king, should be
provisionally suspended from his functions until the new
Convention had pronounced what measures should be adopted to
establish a new government and the reign of liberty and
equality. The motion was carried, and was countersigned by one
of the king's ministers, De Joly; and thus the old monarchy of
the Bourbons in France came to an end. But the Assembly had
not yet completed its work. The ministry was dismissed, as not
having the confidence of the people, and the Minister of War,
d'Abancourt, was ordered to be tried by the court at Orleans
for treason, in having brought the Swiss Guards to Paris. The
Assembly then prepared to elect new ministers. Roland,
Clavière, and Servan were recalled by acclamation to their
former posts. ... Danton was elected Minister of Justice by
222 votes against 60; Gaspard Monge, the great mathematician,
was elected Minister of Marine, on the nomination of
Condorcet; and Lebrun-Tondu, a friend of Brissot and
Dumouriez, and a former abbé, to the department of Foreign
Affairs. At the bidding of the self-elected municipality of
Paris the king had been suspended, and a new ministry
inaugurated, and this new municipality, which, it must be
remembered, only represented 28 sections of Paris, next
proceeded to send its decrees all over France. It was joined
on this very day by some of the extreme men who hoped through
its means to force a republic on France--notably by Camille
Desmoulins and Dubois-Dubais; and on the 11th it was still
further reinforced by the presence of Robespierre,
Billaud-Varenne, and Marat. The Legislative Assembly had
become a mere instrument in the hands of the Committee of
Twenty-one over the safety of the public, and which foreshadowed the
later famous Committee of Public Safety]. The majority of the
deputies either left Paris, or, if they belonged to the right,
hid themselves, while those of the left had to obey every
order of their leaders, and left the transaction of temporary
business to the Committee of Twenty-one. This committee
practically ruled France for forty days, until the meeting of
the Convention; the Assembly always accepted its propositions
and sent the deputies it nominated on important missions; its
only rival was the insurrectionary commune, and the
internecine warfare between the Jacobins and the Girondins was
foreshadowed in the struggle between this Commune and the
Committee of Twenty-one. For, while the extreme Jacobins
filled the new Commune of Paris, the Committee of Twenty-one
consisted of Girondins and Feuillants, Brissot was its
president, Vergniaud its reporter, and Gensonné, Condorcet,
Lasource, Guadet, Lacépède, Lacuèe, Pastoret, Muraire, Delmas,
and Guyton-Morveau were amongst its members. On the evening of
August 10 the Assembly decreed that the difference between
active and passive citizens should be abolished, and that
every Frenchman of the age of 25 should have a vote for the
Convention. ... The last sight the king might have seen on the
night of August 10 was his palace of the Tuileries in flames,
where, for mischief, fire had been set to the stables. It
spread from building to building, and the Assembly only took
steps to check it when it threatened to spread to the houses
of the Rue Saint Honoré. ... On the day after this terrible
night the king was informed that rooms had been found for him
in the Convent of the Feuillants; and to four monastic cells,
which had not been inhabited since the dissolution of the
monastery two years before, the royal family was led, and
round them was placed a strong guard. Yet they were no more
prisoners in the Convent of the Feuillants than they had been
in the splendid palace of the Tuileries. ... The king's
nominal authority was annihilated; but though the course of
events left him a prisoner, it cannot be said that his
influence was diminished, for he had none left to diminish. It
was to the Girondins, rather than to the king, that the
results of August 10 brought unpleasant surprises. ... The
real power had gone to the Commune of Paris, and this was very
clearly perceived by Robespierre and by Marat. ... Though
Marat was received with the loudest cheers by the
insurrectionary commune, Robespierre was the man who really
became its leader. He had long expected the shock which had
just taken place, and had prepared himself for the crisis. The
first requisition was, of course, for a Convention. This had
been granted on the very first day. The second demand of the
Commune was the safe custody of the king, so that he should
not be able to escape to the army. This was conceded by the
Assembly on August 12, when they ordered that the king and
royal family should be taken to the old tower of the Temple,
and there strictly guarded under the superintendence of the
insurrectionary commune. Lafayette's sudden flight greatly
strengthened the position of the Commune of Paris. ...
Relieved from the fear of Lafayette's turning against them,
both the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly and the
Jacobins in the insurrectionary commune turned to the pursuit
of their own special plans, and naturally soon came into
violent collision. ... The Girondins were, above all things,
men of ideas; the Jacobins, above all things, practical men:
and of the issue of a struggle between them there could be
little doubt, though, at this period the Girondins had the
advantage of the best position. On August 15 the final blow
was struck at the unfortunate Feuillants, or
Constitutionalists. The last ministers of the king, as well
Duport du Tertre, Bertrand de Moleville, and Duportail, were
all ordered to be arrested, with Barnave and Charles de
Lameth. The Assembly followed up this action by establishing
the special tribunal of August 17, which held its first
sitting on the same evening at the Hotel de Ville.
{1279}
Robespierre was elected president, and refused the office. ...
The new tribunal was too slow to satisfy the leaders of the
Commune of Paris, for its first prisoner, Laporte, the old
intendant of the civil list, was not judged until August 21,
and then acquitted. This news made the Commune lose all
patience, and they determined to urge the Assembly to more
energetic measures. Under the pressure of the Commune the
Assembly took vigorous measures indeed. All the leaders of the
émigrés were sequestrated; all ecclesiastics who would not
take the oath were to be transported to French Guiana, and it
was decreed that the National Guard should enlist every man,
whether an active or a passive citizen. Much of this vigour on
the part of the Assembly was due, not only to the pressure of
the Commune, but to the rapid advance of the Prussians. ...
The Assembly ... decreed that an army of 30,000 men should be
raised in Paris, and that every man who had a musket issued to
him should be punished with death if he did not march at once.
... On August 28, on the motion of Danton, now Minister of
Justice, a general search for arms and suspects was ordered.
The gates of the city were closed on August 30; every street
was ordered to be illuminated; bodies of national guards
entered each house and searched it from top to bottom. Barely
1,000 muskets were seized, but more than 8,000 prisoners were
taken and shut up, not only in the prisons, but in all the
largest convents of Paris, which were turned into houses of
detention. Who should be arrested as a suspect depended
entirely on the municipal officer who happened to examine the
house, and these men acted under the orders of a special
committee established by the Commune, at the head of which sat
Marat. ... The residents in Paris at the time of the
Revolution seem to have been more struck by this
house-to-house visitation than by many other events which were
far more horrible."
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Grace D. Elliot,
Journal of My Life during the French Revolution,
chapter 4.
Gouverneur Morris,
Life and Correspondence.,
edited by Sparks, volume 2, pages 203-217.
G. Long,
France and its Revolutions,
chapter 29.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August).
Lafayette's unsuccessful resistance to the Jacobins.
His withdrawal from France.
"The news of the 10th of August was carried to Lafayette by
one of his own officers who happened to be in Paris on
business. He learned that the throne was overturned and the
Assembly in subjection, but he could not believe that the
cause of the constitutional monarchy was abandoned without a
struggle. He announced to the army the events that had taken
place, and conjured the men to remain true to the king and
constitution. The commissioners despatched by the Commune of
Paris to announce to the different armies the change of
government and to exact oaths of fidelity to it soon arrived
at Sedan within Lafayette's command. The general had them
brought before the municipality of Sedan and interrogated
regarding their mission. Convinced, from their own account,
that they were the agents of a faction which had unlawfully
seized upon power, he ordered their arrest and had them
imprisoned. Lafayette's moral influence in the army and the
country was still so great that the Jacobins knew that they
must either destroy him or win him over to their side. The
latter course was preferred. ... The imprisoned commissioners,
therefore, requested a private conference with Lafayette, and
offered him, on the part of their superiors in Paris, whatever
executive power he desired in the new government. It is
needless to say that Lafayette, whose sole aim was to
establish liberty in his country, refused to entertain the
idea of associating himself with the despotism of the mob. He
caused his own soldiers to renew their oath of fidelity to the
king, and communicated with Luckner on the situation. ...
Meanwhile, emissaries from the Commune were sent to Sedan to
influence the soldiers by bribes and threats to renounce their
loyalty to their commander. All the other armies and provinces
to which commissioners had been sent had received them and
taken the new oaths. Lafayette found himself alone in his
resistance. His attitude acquired, every day, more the
appearance of rebellion against authorities recognized by the
rest of France. New commissioners arrived, bringing with them
his dismissal from command. The army was wavering between
attachment to their general and obedience to government. On
the 19th of August, the Jacobins, seeing that they could not
win him over, caused the Assembly to declare him a traitor.
Lafayette had now to take an immediate resolution. France had
declared for the Paris Commune. The constitutional monarchy
was irretrievably destroyed. For the general to dispute with
his appointed successor the command of the army was to provoke
further disorders in a cause that had ceased to be that of the
nation and become only his own. Three possible courses
remained open to him,--to accept the Jacobin overtures and
become a part of their bloody despotism; to continue his
resistance and give his head to the guillotine; to leave the

country. He resolved to seek an asylum in a neutral territory
with the hope, as he himself somewhat naively expressed it,
'some day to be again of service to liberty and to France.'
Lafayette made every preparation for the safety of his troops,
placing them under the orders of Luckner until the arrival of
Dumouriez, the new general in command. He publicly
acknowledged responsibility for the arrest of the
commissioners and the defiance of Sedan to the Commune, in
order that the municipal officers who had supported him might
escape punishment. He included in his party his
staff-officers, whose association with him would have
subjected them to the fury of the Commune, and some others who
had also been declared traitors on account of obedience to his
orders. He then made his way to Bouillon, on the extreme
frontier. There, dismissing the escort, and sending back final
orders for the security of the army, he rode with his
companions into a foreign land."
B. Tuckerman,
Life of Lafayette,
volume 2, chapter 3.
{1280}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August-September).
The September Massacres in the Paris prisons.
The house-to-house search for suspects was carried on during
the night of August 29 and the following day. "The next
morning, at daybreak, the Mairie, the sections, the ancient
prisons of Paris, and the convents that had been converted
into prisons, were crowded with prisoners. They were summarily
interrogated, and half of them, the victims of error or
precipitation, were set at liberty, or claimed by their
sections. The remainder were distributed in the prisons of the
Abbaye Saint Germain, the Conciergerie, the Châtelet, La
Force, the Luxembourg, and the ancient monasteries of the
Bernardins, Saint Firmin, and the Carmes; Bicêtre and the
Salpêtrière also opened their gates to receive fresh inmates.
The three days that followed this night were employed by the
commissaries in making a selection of the prisoners. Already
their death was projected. ... "We must purge the prisons, and
leave no traitors behind us when we hasten to the frontiers.'
Such was the cry put into the mouth of the people by Marat and
Danton. Such was the attitude of Danton on the brink of these
crimes. As for the part of Robespierre, it was the same as in
all these crises--on the debate concerning war, on the 20th of
June, and on the 10th of August. He did not act, he blamed;
but he left the event to itself, and when once accomplished he
accepted it as a progressive step of the Revolution. ... On
Sunday, the 2d of September, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, the signal for the massacre was given by one of
those accidents that seem so perfectly the effect of chance.
Five coaches, each containing six priests, started from the
Hôtel-de-Ville to the prison of the Abbaye ... escorted by
weak detachments of Avignonnais and Marseillais, armed with
pikes and sabers. ... Groups of men, women and children
insulted them as they passed, and their escort joined in the
invective threats and outrages of the populace. ... The
émeute, increasing in number at every step across the Rue
Dauphine, was met by another mob, that blocked up the
Carrefour Bussy, where municipal officers received enrolments
in the open air. The carriages stopped; and a man, forcing his
way through the escort, sprung on the step of the first
carriage, plunged his saber twice into the body of one of the
priests, and displayed it reeking with blood: the people
uttered a cry of horror. 'This frightens you, cowards!' said
the assassin, with a smile of disdain; 'You must accustom
yourselves to look on death.' With these [words] he again
plunged his saber into the carriage and continued to strike.
... The coaches slowly moved on, and the assassin, passing
from one to the other, and clinging with one hand to the door,
stabbed at random at all he could reach; while the assassins
of Avignon, who formed part of their escort, plunged their
bayonets into the interior; and the pikes, pointed against the
windows, prevented any of the priests from leaping into the
street. The long line of carriages moving slowly on, and
leaving a bloody trace behind them, the despairing cries and
gestures of the priests, the ferocious shouts of their
butchers, the yells of applause of the populace, announced
from a distance their arrival to the prisoners of the Abbaye.
The cortège stopped at the door of the prison, and the
soldiers of the escort dragged out by the feet eight dead
bodies. The priests who had escaped, or who were only wounded,
precipitated themselves into the prison; four of them were
seized and massacred on the threshold. ... The prisoners ...
cooped up in the Abbaye heard this prelude to murder at their
gates. ... The internal wickets were closed on them, and they
received orders to return to their chambers, as if to answer
the muster-roll. A fearful spectacle was visible in the outer
court: the last wicket opening into it had been transformed
into a tribunal; and around a large table--covered with
papers, writing materials, the registers of the prisons,
glasses, bottles, pistols, sabers, and pipes--were seated
twelve judges, whose gloomy features and athletic proportions
stamped them men of toil, debauch or blood. Their attire was
that of the laboring classes. ... Two or three of them
attracted attention by the whiteness of their hands and the
elegance of their shape; and that betrayed the presence of men
of intellect, purposely mingled with these men of action to
guide them. A man in a gray coat, a saber at his side, pen in
his hand, and whose inflexible features seemed as though they
were petrified, was seated at the center of the table, and
presided over the tribunal. This was the Huissier Maillard,
the idol of the mobs of the Faubourg Saint Marceau ... an
actor in the days of October, the 20th of June, and the 10th
of August. ... He had just returned from the Carmes, where he
had organized the massacre. It was not chance that had brought
him to the Abbaye at the precise moment of the arrival of the
prisoners, and with the prison registers in his hand. He had
received, the previous evening, the secret orders of Marat,
through the members of the Comité de Surveillance. Danton had
sent for the registers to the prison, and gone through them;
and Maillard was shown those he was to acquit and condemn. If
the prisoner was acquitted, Maillard said, 'Let this gentleman
be set at liberty'; if condemned, a voice said, 'A la Force.'
At these words the outer door opened, and the prisoner fell
dead as he crossed the threshold. The massacre commenced with
the Swiss, of whom there were 150 at the Abbaye, officers and
soldiers. ... They fell, one after another, like sheep in a
slaughter-house. The tumbrils were not sufficient to carry
away the corpses, and they were piled up on each side of the
court to make room for the rest to die: their commander, Major
Reding, was the last to fall. ... After the Swiss, the king's
guards, imprisoned in the Abbaye, were judged en masse. ...
Their massacre lasted a long time, for the people, excited by
what they had drank--brandy mingled with gun-powder-and
intoxicated by the sight of blood, prolonged their tortures.
... The whole night was scarcely enough to slay and strip
them."
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 25 (volume 2).
"To moral intoxication is added physical intoxication, wine in
profusion, bumpers at every pause, revelry over corpses. ...
They dance ... and sing the 'carmagnole'; they arouse the
people of the quarter 'to amuse them,' and that they may have
their share of 'the fine fête.' Benches are arranged for
'gentlemen' and others for 'ladies': the latter, with greater
curiosity, are additionally anxious to contemplate at their
ease 'the aristocrats' already slain; consequently, lights are
required, and one is placed on the breast of each corpse.
Meanwhile, slaughter continues, and is carried to perfection.
A butcher at the Abbaye complains that 'the aristocrats die
too quick, and that those only who strike first have the
pleasure of it'; henceforth they are to be struck with the
backs of the swords only, and made to run between two rows of
their butchers, like soldiers formerly running a gauntlet. ...
{1281}
All the unfettered instincts that live in the lowest depths of
the heart start from the human abyss at once, not alone the
heinous instincts with their fangs, but likewise the foulest
with their slaver, while both packs fall furiously on women
whose noble or infamous repute brings them before the world;
on Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; on Madame Desrues,
widow of the famous prisoner; on the flower-girl of the
Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover,
a French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy. Ferocity here is
associated with lubricity to add profanation to torture, while
life is attacked through attacks on modesty. In Madame de
Lamballe, killed too quickly, the libidinous butchers could
only outrage a corpse, but for the widow, and especially the
flower-girl, they imagine the same as a Nero the fire-circle
of the Iroquois. ... At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is cut to
pieces. I cannot transcribe what Charlot, the hair-dresser,
did with her head. I merely state that another wretch, in the
Rue Saint-Antoine, bore off her heart and 'ate it.' They kill
and they drink, and drink and kill again. ... As the prisons
are to be cleaned out, it is as well to clean them all out,
and do it at once. After the Swiss, priests, the aristocrats,
and the 'white-skin gentlemen,' there remain convicts and
those confined through the ordinary channels of justice,
robbers, assassins, and those sentenced to the galleys in the
Conciergerie, in the Châtelet, and in the Tour St. Bernard,
with branded women, vagabonds, old beggars and boys confined
in Bicêtre and the Salpétrière. They are good for nothing,
cost something to feed, and, probably, cherish evil designs.
... This time, as the job is more foul, the broom is wielded
by fouler hands. ... At the Salpétrière, 'all the bullies of
Paris, former spies, ... libertines, the rascals of France and
all Europe, prepare beforehand for the operation,' and rape
alternates with massacre. ... At Bicêtre, however, it is crude
butchery, the carnivorous instinct alone satisfying itself.
Among other prisoners are 43 youths of the lowest class, from
17 to 19 years of age, placed there for correction by their
parents, or by those to whom they are bound. ... These the
band falls on, beating them to death with clubs. ... There are
six days and five nights of uninterrupted butchery, 171
murders at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 223 at the Châtelet,
328 at the Conciergerie, 73 at the Tour-Saint-Bernard, 120 at
the Carmelites, 79 at Saint-Firmin, 170 at Bicêtre, 35 at the
Salpétrière; among the dead, 250 priests, 3 bishops or
archbishops, general officers, magistrates, one former
minister, one royal princess, belonging to the best names in
France, and, on the other side, one negro, several low class
women, young scape-graces, convicts, and poor old men. ...
Fournier, Lazowski, and Bécard, the chiefs of robbers and
assassins, return from Orleans with 1,500 cut-throats. On the
way they kill M. de Brissac, M. de Lessart, and 42 others
accused of 'lèse-nation,' whom they arrested from their
judges' hands, and then, by way of surplus, 'following the
example of Paris,' 21 prisoners taken from the Versailles
prisons. At Paris the Minister of Justice thanks them, the
Commune congratulates them, and the sections feast them and
embrace them. ... All the journals approve, palliate, or keep
silent; nobody dares offer resistance. Property as well as
lives belong to whoever wants to take them. ... Like a man
struck on the head with a mallet, Paris, felled to the ground,
lets things go; the authors of the massacre have fully
attained their ends. The faction has fast hold of power, and
will maintain its hold. Neither in the Legislative Assembly
nor in the Convention will the aims of the Girondists be
successful against its tenacious usurpation. ... The Jacobins,
through sudden terror, have maintained their illegal
authority; through a prolongation of terror they are going to
establish their legal authority. A forced suffrage is going to
put them in office at the Hotel-de-Ville, in the tribunals, in
the National Guard, in the sections, and in the various
administrations."
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 9 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution,
(American edition.), volume 1, pages 350-368.
Sergent Marceau,
Reminiscences of a Regicide,
chapter 9.
A. Dobson,
The Princess de Lamballe
("Four Frenchwomen," chapter 3).
The Reign of Terror: A collection of Authentic
Narratives, volume 2.
J. B. Cléry,
Journal of Occurrences at the Temple.
Despatches of Earl Gower,
pages 225-229.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (September-November).
Meeting of the National Convention.
Abolition of royalty.
Proclamation of the Republic.
Adoption of the Era of the Republic.
Establishment of absolute equality.
The losing struggle of the Girondists with the Jacobins of the
Mountain.
"It was in the midst of these horrors [of the September
massacres] that the Legislative Assembly approached its
termination. ... The National Convention began [September 22]
under darker auspices. ... The great and inert mass of the
people were disposed, as in all commotions, to range
themselves on the victorious side. The sections of Paris,
under the influence of Robespierre and Marat, returned the
most revolutionary deputies; those of most other towns
followed their example. The Jacobins, with their affiliated
clubs, on this occasion exercised an overwhelming influence
over all France. ... At Paris, where the elections took place
on the 2d September, amidst all the excitement and horrors of
the massacres in the prisons, the violent leaders of the
municipality, who had organized the revolt of August 10th,
exercised an irresistible sway over the citizens. Robespierre
and Danton were the first named, amidst unanimous shouts of
applause; after them Camille Desmoulins, Tallien, Osselin,
Freron, Anacharsis Clootz, Fabre d'Eglantine, David, the
celebrated painter, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes,
Legendre, Panis, Sergent, almost all implicated in the
massacres in the prisons, were also chosen. To these was added
the Duke of Orleans, who had abdicated his titles, and was
called Philippe Égalité. ... The most conservative part of the
new Assembly were the Girondists who had overturned the
throne. From the first opening of the Convention, the
Girondists occupied the right, and the Jacobins the seats on
the summit of the left; whence their designation of 'The
Mountain' was derived. The former had the majority of votes,
the greater part of the departments having returned men of
comparatively moderate principles. But the latter possessed a
great advantage, in having on their side all the members of
the city of Paris, who ruled the mob, ... and in being
supported by the municipality, which had already grown into a
ruling power in the state, and had become the great centre of
the democratic party.
{1282}
A neutral body, composed of those members whose principles
were not yet declared, was called the Plain, or, Marais; it
ranged itself with the Girondists, until terror compelled its
members to coalesce with the victorious side. ... The two
rival parties mutually indulged in recriminations, in order to
influence the public mind. The Jacobins incessantly reproached
the Girondists with desiring to dissolve the Republic; to
establish three-and-twenty separate democratic states, held
together, like the American provinces, by a mere federal
union. ... Nothing more was requisite to render them in the
highest degree unpopular in Paris, the very existence of which
depended on its remaining, through all the phases of government,
the seat of the ruling power. The Girondists retorted upon
their adversaries charges better founded, but not so likely to
inflame the populace. They reproached them with endeavouring
to establish in the municipality of Paris a power superior to
the legislature of all France, with overawing the
deliberations of the Convention by menacing petitions, or the
open display of brute force; and secretly preparing for their
favourite leaders, Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, a
triumvirate of power, which would speedily extinguish all the
freedom which had been acquired. The first part of the
accusation was well-founded even then; of the last, time soon
afforded an ample confirmation. The Convention met at first in
one of the halls of the Tuileries, but immediately adjourned
to the Salle du Ménage, where its subsequent sittings were
held. Its first step was, on the motion of the Abbé Gregoire,
and amidst unanimous transports, to declare Royalty abolished
in France, and to proclaim a republic; and by another decree
it was ordered, that the old calendar taken from the year of
Christ's birth should be abandoned, and that all public acts
should be dated from the first year of the French republic.
This era began on the 22d September 1792. [See, also, below:
A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).] ... A still more democratic
constitution than that framed by the Constituent and
Legislative Assemblies was at the same time established. All
the requisites for election to any office whatever were, on
the motion of the Duke of Orleans, abolished. It was no longer
necessary to select judges from legal men, nor magistrates
from the class of proprietors. All persons, in whatever rank,
were declared eligible to every situation; and the right of
voting in the primary assemblies was conferred on every man
above the age of 21 years. Absolute equality, in its literal
sense, was universally established. Universal suffrage was the
basis on which government rested." The leaders of the
Girondists soon opened attacks upon Robespierre and Marat,
accusing the former of aspiring to a dictatorship, and also
holding him responsible, with Marat and Danton, for the
September massacres; but Louvet and others who made the attack
were feebly supported by their party. Louvet "repeatedly
appealed to Pétion, Vergniaud, and the other leaders, to
support his statements; but they had not the firmness boldly
to state the truth. Had they testified a fourth part of what
they knew, the accusation must have been instantly voted, and
the tyrant crushed at once. As it was, Robespierre, fearful of
its effects, demanded eight days to prepare for his defence.
In the interval, the whole machinery of terror was put in
force. The Jacobins thundered out accusations against the
intrepid accuser, and all the leaders of the Mountain were
indefatigable in their efforts to strike fear into their
opponents. ... By degrees the impression cooled, fear resumed
its sway, and the accused mounted the tribune at the end of
the week with the air of a victor. ... It was now evident that
the Girondists were no match for their terrible adversaries.
The men of action on their side, Louvet, Barbaroux, and
Lanjuinais, in vain strove to rouse them to the necessity of
vigorous measures in contending with such enemies. Their
constant reply was, that they would not be the first to
commence the shedding of blood. Their whole vigour manifested
itself in declamation, their whole wisdom in abstract
discussion. They had now become humane in intention, and
moderate in counsel, though they were far from having been so
in the earlier stages of the Revolution. ... They were too
honourable to believe in the wickedness of their opponents,
too scrupulous to adopt the measures requisite to disarm, too
destitute of moral courage to be able to crush them. ... The
Jacobins ... while they were daily strengthening and
increasing the armed force of the sections at the command of
the municipality, ... strenuously resisted the slightest
approach towards the establishment of any guard or civic force
for the defence of the Convention. ... Aware of their weakness
from this cause, the Girondists brought forward a proposal for
an armed guard for the Convention. The populace was
immediately put in motion," and the overawed Convention
abandoned the measure. "In the midst of these vehement
passions, laws still more stringent and sanguinary were passed
against the priests and emigrants. ... First, it was decreed
that every Frenchman taken with arms in his hands against
France should be punished with death; and soon after, that
'the French emigrants are forever banished from the territory
of France, and those who return shall be punished with death.'
A third decree directed that all their property, movable and
immovable, should be confiscated to the service of the state.
These decrees were rigidly executed: and though almost
unnoticed amidst the bloody deeds which at the same period
stained the Revolution, ultimately produced the most lasting
and irremediable effects. At length the prostration of the
Assembly before the armed sections of Paris had become so
excessive, that Buzot and Barbaroux, the most intrepid of the
Girondists, brought forward two measures which, if they could
have been carried, would have emancipated the legislature from
this odious thraldom. Buzot proposed to establish a guard,
specially for the protection of the Convention, drawn from
young men chosen from the different departments. Barbaroux at
the same time brought forward four decrees. ... By the first,
the capital was to cease to be the seat of the legislature,
when it lost its claim to their presence by failing to protect
them from insult. By the second, the troops of the Fédérés and
the national cavalry were to be charged, along with the armed
sections, with the protection of the legislature. By the
third, the Convention was to constitute itself into a court of
justice, for the trial of all conspirators against its
authority. By the fourth, the Convention suspended the
municipality of Paris. ... The Jacobins skilfully availed
themselves of these impotent manifestations of distrust, to
give additional currency to the report that the Girondists
intended to transport the seat of government to the southern
provinces. This rumour rapidly gained ground with the
populace, and augmented their dislike at the ministry. ... All
these preliminary struggles were essays of strength by the two
parties, prior to the grand question which was now destined to
attract the eyes of Europe and the world. This was the trial
of Louis XVI."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 8 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 16.
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 29-31.
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
chapter 43 (volume 4).
J. Moore,
Journal in France, 1792,
volume 2.
{1283}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (September-December).
The war on the northern frontier.
Battle of Valmy.
Retreat of the invading army.
Custine in Germany and Dumouriez in the Netherlands.
Annexation of Savoy and Nice.
The Decree of December 15.
Proclamation of a republican crusade.
"The defence of France rested on General Dumouriez. ...
Happily for France the slow advance of the Prussian general
permitted Dumouriez to occupy the difficult country of the
Argonnes, where, while waiting for his reinforcements, he was
able for some time to hold the invaders in check. At length
Brunswick made his way past the defile which Dumouriez had
chosen for his first line of defence; but it was only to find
the French posted in such strength on his flank that any
further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance was
to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, on
the 20th of September, Brunswick, facing half-round from his
line of march, directed his artillery against the hills of
Valmy, where Kellermann and the French left were encamped. The
cannonade continued for some hours, but it was followed by no
general attack. Already, before a blow had been struck, the
German forces were wasting away with disease. ... The King of
Prussia began to listen to the proposals of peace which were
sent to him by Dumouriez. A week spent in negotiations served
only to strengthen the French and to aggravate the scarcity
and sickness within the German camp. Dissensions broke out
between the Prussian and Austrian commanders; a retreat was
ordered; and, to the astonishment of Europe, the veteran
forces of Brunswick fell back before the mutinous soldiery and
unknown generals of the Revolution. ... In the meantime the
Legislative Assembly had decreed its own dissolution ... and
had ordered the election of representatives to frame a
constitution for France. ... The Girondins, who had been the
party of extremes in the Legislative Assembly, were the party
of moderation and order in the Convention. ... Monarchy was
abolished, and France declared a Republic (September 21).
Office continued in the hands of the Gironde; but the
vehement, uncompromising spirit of their rivals, the so-called
party of the Mountain, quickly made itself felt in all the
relations of France to foreign powers. The intention of
conquest might still be as sincerely disavowed as it had been
five months before; but were the converts to liberty to be
denied the right of uniting themselves to the French people by
their own free will? ... The scruples which had lately
condemned all annexation of territory vanished in that orgy of
patriotism which followed the expulsion of the invader and the
discovery that the Revolution was already a power in other
lands than France. ... Along the entire frontier, from Dunkirk
to the Maritime Alps, France nowhere touched a strong united, and
independent people; and along this entire frontier, except in
the country opposite Alsace, the armed proselytism of the
French Revolution proved a greater force than the influences
on which the existing order of things depended. In the Low
Countries, in the Principalities of the Rhine, in Switzerland,
in Savoy, in Piedmont itself, the doctrines of the Revolution
were welcomed by a more or less numerous class, and the armies
of France appeared for a moment as the missionaries of liberty
and right rather than as an invading enemy. No sooner had
Brunswick been brought to a stand by Dumouriez at Valmy than a
French division under Custine crossed the Alsatian frontier
and advanced upon Spires, where Brunswick had left large
stores of war. The garrison was defeated in an encounter
outside the town; Spires and Worms surrendered to Custine. In
the neighbouring fortress of Mainz, the key to western
Germany, Custine's advance was watched with anxious
satisfaction by a republican party among the inhabitants, from
whom the French general learnt that he had only to appear
before the city to become its master. ... At the news of the
capture of Spires, the Archbishop retired into the interior of
Germany, leaving the administration to a board of
ecclesiastics and officials, who published a manifesto calling
upon their 'beloved brethren' the citizens to defend
themselves to the last extremity, and then followed their
master's example. A council of war declared the city to be
untenable; and, before Custine had brought up a single
siege-gun, the garrison capitulated, and the French were
welcomed into Mainz by the partisans of the Republic (October
20). ... Although the mass of the inhabitants held aloof, a
Republic was finally proclaimed, and incorporated with the
Republic of France. The success of Custine's raid into Germany
did not divert the Convention from the design of attacking
Austria in the Netherlands, which Dumouriez had from the first
pressed upon the Government. It was not three years since the
Netherlands had been in full revolt against the Emperor
Joseph. ... Thus the ground was everywhere prepared for a
French occupation. Dumouriez crossed the frontier. The border
fortresses no longer existed: and after a single battle won by
the French at Jemappes on the 6th November, the Austrians,
finding the population universally hostile, abandoned the
Netherlands without a struggle. The victory of Jemappes, the
first pitched battle won by the Republic, excited an outburst
of revolutionary fervour in the Convention which deeply
affected the relations of France to Great Britain, hitherto a
neutral spectator of the war. A decree was passed for the
publication of a manifesto in all languages, declaring that
the French nation offered its alliance to all peoples who
wished to recover their freedom, and charging the generals of
the Republic to give their protection to all persons who had
suffered or might suffer in the cause of liberty. (November
19.) A week later Savoy and Nice were annexed to France, the
population of Savoy having almost unanimously declared in
favour of France on the outbreak of war between France and
Sardinia.
{1284}
On the 15th December the Convention proclaimed that a system
of social and political revolution was henceforth to accompany
every movement of its armies on foreign soil. 'In every
country that shall be occupied by the armies of the French
Republic'--such was the substance of the Decree of December
15th--'the generals shall announce the abolition of all
existing authorities; of nobility, of serfage, of every feudal
right and every monopoly; they shall proclaim the sovereignty
of the people. ... The French nation will treat as enemies any
people which, refusing liberty and equality, desires to
preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to make any
accommodation with them.' This singular announcement of a new
crusade caused the Government of Great Britain to arm."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 1.
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapters 3-5 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A.D. 1792 (November-December).
Charges against the King.
Jacobin clamor for his condemnation.
The contest in Convention.
"There were, without a doubt, in this conjuncture, a great
number of Mountaineers who, on this occasion, acted with the
greatest sincerity, and only as republicans, in whose eyes
Louis XVI. appeared guilty with respect to the revolution; and
a dethroned king was dangerous to a young democracy. But this
party would have been more clement, had it not had to ruin the
Gironde at the same time with Louis XVI. ... Party motives and
popular animosities combined against this unfortunate prince.
Those who, two months before, would have repelled the idea of
exposing him to any other punishment than that of
dethronement, were stupefied; so quickly does man lose in
moments of crisis the right to defend his opinions! ... After
the 10th of August, there were found in the offices of the
civil list documents which proved the secret correspondence of
Louis XVI. with the discontented princes, with the emigration,
and with Europe. In a report, drawn up at the command of the
legislative assembly, he was accused of intending to betray
the state and overthrow the revolution. He was accused of
having written, on the 16th April, 1791, to the bishop of
Clermont, that if he regained his power he would restore the
former government, and the clergy to the state in which they
previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to
hasten the approach of his deliverers; ... of having been on
terms with his brothers, whom his public measures had
discountenanced; and, lastly, of having constantly opposed the
revolution. Fresh documents were soon brought forward in
support of this accusation. In the Tuileries, behind a panel
in the wainscot, there was a hole wrought in the wall, and
closed by an iron door. This secret closet was pointed out by
the minister, Roland, and there were discovered proofs of all
the conspiracies and intrigues of the court against the
revolution; projects with the popular leaders to strengthen
the constitutional power of the king, to restore the ancient
regime and the aristocrats; the manœuvres of Talon, the
arrangements with Mirabeau, the propositions accepted by
Bouillé, under the constituent assembly, and some new plots
under the legislative assembly. This discovery increased the
exasperation against Louis XVI. Mirabeau's bust was broken by
the Jacobins, and the convention covered the one which stood
in the hall where it held its sittings. For some time there
had been a question in the assembly as to the trial of this
prince, who, having been dethroned, could no longer be
proceeded against. There was no tribunal empowered to
pronounce his sentence, no punishment which could be inflicted
on him: accordingly, they plunged into false interpretations
of the inviolability granted to Louis XVI., in order to
condemn him legally. ... The committee of legislation,
commissioned to draw up a report on the question as to whether
Louis XVI. could be tried, and whether he could be tried by
the convention, decided in the affirmative. ... The discussion
commenced on the 13th of November, six days after the report
of the committee. ... This violent party [the Mountain], who
wished to substitute a coup d'etat for a sentence, to follow
no law, no form, but to strike Louis XVI. like a conquered
prisoner, by making hostilities even survive victory, had but
a very feeble majority in the convention; but without, it was
strongly supported by the Jacobins and the commune.
Notwithstanding the terror which it already inspired, its
murderous suggestions were repelled by the convention; and the
partisans of inviolability, in their turn, courageously
asserted reasons of public interest at the same time as rules
of justice and humanity. They maintained that the same men
could not be judges and legislators, the jury and the
accusers. ... In a political view, they showed the
consequences of the king's condemnation, as it would affect
the anarchical party of the kingdom, rendering it still more
insolent; and with regard to Europe, whose still neutral
powers it would induce to join the coalition against the
republic. But Robespierre, who during this long debate
displayed a daring and perseverance that presaged his power,
appeared at the tribune to support Saint Just, to reproach the
convention with involving in doubt what the insurrection had
decided, and with restoring, by sympathy and the publicity of
a defence, the fallen royalist party. 'The assembly,' said
Robespierre, 'has involuntarily been led far away from the
real question. Here we have nothing to do with trial: Louis is
not an accused man; you are not judges, you are, and can only
be statesmen. You have no sentence to pronounce for or against
a man, but you are called on to adopt a measure of public
safety; to perform an act of national precaution. A dethroned
king is only fit for two purposes, to disturb the tranquillity
of the state, and shake its freedom, or to strengthen one or
the other of them. Louis was king; the republic is founded;
the famous question you are discussing is decided in these few
words. Louis cannot be tried; he is already tried, he is
condemned, or the republic is not absolved.' He required that
the convention should declare Louis XVI. a traitor towards the
French, criminal towards humanity, and sentence him at once to
death, by virtue of the insurrection. The Mountaineers, by
these extreme propositions, by the popularity they attained
without, rendered condemnation in a measure inevitable. By
gaining an extraordinary advance on the other parties, it
obliged them to follow it, though at a distance. The majority
of the convention, composed in a large part of Girondists, who
dared not pronounce Louis XVI. inviolable, and of the Plain,
decided, on Pétion's proposition, against the opinion of the
fanatical Mountaineers and against that of the partisans of
inviolability, that Louis XVI. should be tried by the
convention. Robert Lindet then made, in the name of the
commission of the twenty-one, his report respecting Louis XVI.
The arraignment, setting forth the offences imputed to him,
was drawn up, and the convention summoned the prisoner to its
bar."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 17.
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 32-33 (volume 2).
A. de Beauchesne,
Louis XVII.: His Life, his Suffering, his Death,
book 9.
{1285}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-January).
The King's Trial and death sentence.
"On December 11, the ill-fated monarch, taken from his prison
to his former palace, appeared at the bar of his republican
judges, was received in silence and with covered heads, and
answered interrogatories addressed to him as 'Louis Capet,'
though with an air of deference. His passive constancy touched
many hearts. ... On the 26th the advocates of the King made an
eloquent defence for their discrowned client, and Louis added,
in a few simple words, that the 'blood of the 10th of August
should not be laid to his charge.' The debates in the Assembly
now began, and it soon became evident that the Jacobin faction
were making the question the means to further their objects,
and to hold up their opponents to popular hatred. They
clamored for immediate vengeance on the tyrant, declared that
the Republic could not be safe until the Court was smitten on
its head, and a great example had been given to Europe, and
denounced as reactionary and as concealed royalists all who
resisted the demands of patriotism. These ferocious invectives
were aided by the expedients so often employed with success,
and the capital and its mobs were arrayed to intimidate any
deputies who hesitated in the 'cause of the Nation.' The
Moderates, on the other hand, were divided in mind; a
majority, perhaps, condemning the King, but also wishing to
spare his life: and the Gironde leaders, halting between their
convictions, their feelings, their desires, and their fears,
shrank from a courageous and resolute course. The result was
such as usually follows when energy and will encounter
indecision. On January 14 [the 15th, according to Thiers and
others], 1793, the Convention declared Louis XVI. guilty, and
on the following day [the speaking and voting lasted through
the night of the 16th and the day after it] sentence of
immediate death was pronounced by a majority of one [but the
minority, in this view, included 26 votes that were cast for
death but in favor of a postponement of the penalty, on
grounds of political expediency], proposals for a respite and
an appeal to the people having been rejected at the critical
moment. The votes had been taken after a solemn call of the
deputies at a sitting protracted for days; and the spectacle
of the vast dim hall, of the shadowy figures of the awestruck
judges meting out the fate of their former Sovereign, and tier
upon tier of half-seen faces, looking, as in a theatre, on the
drama below, and breaking out into discordant clamor, made a
fearful impression on many eye-witnesses. One vote excited a
sensation of disgust even among the most ruthless chiefs of
the Mountain, though it was remarked that many of the
abandoned women who crowded the galleries shrieked
approbation. The Duke of Orleans, whose Jacobin professions
had caused him to be returned for Paris, with a voice in which
effrontery mingled with terror, pronounced for the immediate
execution of his kinsman. The minister of justice--Danton had
resigned--announced on the 20th the sentence to the King. The
captive received the message calmly, asked for three days to
get ready to die (a request, however, at once refused), and
prayed that he might see his family and have a confessor."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution, and First Empire,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 44-72.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Private Memoirs, relative to the last year of Louis XVI.,
chapters 39-40.
J. B. Cléry,
Journal of Occurrences at the Temple.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-February).
Determination to incorporate the Austrian Netherlands and to
attack Holland.
Pitt's unavailing struggle for peace.
England driven to arms.
War with the Maritime Powers declared by the French.
"Since the beginning of December, the French government had
contracted their far-reaching schemes within definite limits.
They were compelled to give up the hope of revolutionizing the
German Empire and establishing a Republic in the British
Islands; but they were all the more determined in the resolve
to subject the countries which had hitherto been occupied in
the name of freedom, to the rule of France. This object was
more especially pursued in Belgium by Danton and three other
deputies, who were sent as Commissioners of the Convention to
that country on the 30th of November. They were directed to
enquire into the condition of the Provinces, and to consider
Dumouriez's complaints against Pache [the Minister at War] and
the Committee formed to purchase supplies for the army."
Danton became resolute in the determination to incorporate
Belgium and pressed the project inexorably. "It was a matter
of course that England would interpose both by word and deed
directly France prepared to take possession of Belgium. ...
England had guaranteed the possession of Belgium to the
Emperor in 1790--and the closing of the Scheldt to the Dutch,
and its political position in Holland to the House of Orange
in 1788. Under an imperative sense of her own interests, she
had struggled to prevent the French from gaining a footing in
Antwerp and Ostend. Prudence, fidelity to treaties, the
retrospect of the past and the hopes of the future--all called
loudly upon her not to allow the balance of Europe to be
disturbed, and least of all in Belgium."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 5 (volume 2).
"The French Government resolved to attack Holland, and ordered
its generals to enforce by arms the opening of the Scheldt. To
do this was to force England into war. Public opinion was
already pressing every day harder upon Pitt [see ENGLAND: A.
D. 1793-1796]. ... Across the Channel his moderation was only
taken for fear. ... The rejection of his last offers indeed
made a contest inevitable. Both sides ceased from diplomatic
communications, and in February 1793 France issued her
Declaration of War."
J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 9, chapter 4 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 22 (volume 6).
Earl Stanhope,
Life of Pitt,
chapter 16 (volume 2).
Despatches of Earl Gower,
page 256-309.
{1286}
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (January).
The execution of the king.
"To this conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis!
The Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form of
Law. Under Sixty Kings this same form of law, form of Society,
has been fashioning itself together these thousand years; and
has become, one way and other, a most strange Machine. Surely,
if needful, it is also frightful, this Machine: dead, blind:
not what it should be: which with swift stroke, or by cold
slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumerable
men. And behold now a King himself or say rather Kinghood in
his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures;--like a
Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull!
It is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous
man: injustice breeds injustice: curses and falsehoods do
verily return 'always home,' wide as they may wander. Innocent
Louis bears the sins of many generations: he too experiences
that man's tribunal is not in this Earth: that if he had no
higher one, it were not well with him. A King dying by such
violence appeals impressively to the imagination; as the like
must do, and ought to do. And yet at bottom it is not the King
dying, but the man! Kingship is a coat: the grand loss is of
the skin. The man from whom you take his Life, to him can the
whole combined world do more? ... A Confessor has come; Abbé
Edgeworth, of Irish extraction, whom the King knew by good
report, has come promptly on this solemn mission. Leave the
Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with its malice will
go its way, thou also canst go thine. A hard scene yet
remains: the parting with our loved ones. Kind hearts,
environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here! Let
the reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry through these
glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches: and see the
cruelest of scenes: 'At half-past eight, the door of the
ante-room opened: the Queen appeared first, leading her Son by
the hand: then Madame Royale and Madame Elizabeth: they all
flung themselves into the arms of the King. Silence reigned
for some minutes; interrupted only by sobs.' ... For nearly
two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves asunder.
'Promise that you will see us on the morrow.' He promises:
--Ah yes, yes: yet once; and go now, ye loved ones: cry to God
for yourselves and met!--It was a hard scene, but it is over.
He will not see them on the morrow. The Queen in passing
through the ante-room, glanced at the Cerberus Municipals;
and, with woman's vehemence, said through her tears, 'Vous
étes tous des scélérats.' King Louis slept sound, till five in
the morning, when Cléry, as he had been ordered, awoke him.
Cléry dressed his hair: while this went forward, Louis took a
ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger: it was
his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a
mute farewell. At half-past six, he took the Sacrament, and
continued in devotion, and conference with Abbé Edgeworth. He
will not see his family: it were too hard to bear. At eight
the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will, and
messages and effects; which they, at first, brutally refuse to
take charge of: he gives them a roll of gold pieces, a hundred
and twenty-five louis; these are to be returned to
Malesherbes, who had lent them. At nine, Santerre says the
hour is come. The King begs yet to retire for three minutes.
At the end of three minutes, Santerre again says the hour is
come. 'Stamping on the ground with his right-foot, Louis
answers: Partons, Let us go.'--How the rolling of those drums
comes in, through the Temple bastions and bulwarks, on the
heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a widow! He is gone, then,
and has not seen us? ... At the Temple Gate were some faint
cries, perhaps from voices of pitiful women: Grace! Grace!
Through the rest of the streets there is silence as of the
grave. No man not armed is allowed to be there: the armed, did
any even pity, dare not express it, each man overawed by all
his neighbours. All windows are down, none seen looking
through them. All shops are shut. No wheel-carriage rolls,
this morning, in these streets but one only. 80,000 armed men
stand ranked, like armed statues of men; cannons bristle,
cannoneers with match burning, but no word or movement: it is
as a city enchanted into silence and stone: one carriage with
its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound. Louis reads,
in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers of the Dying: clatter of
this death-march falls sharp on the ear, in the great silence;
but the thought would fain struggle heavenward, and forget the
Earth. As the clock strikes ten, behold the Place de la
Revolution, once Place de Louis Quinze: the Guillotine,
mounted near the old Pedestal where once stood the Statue of
that Louis! Far round, all bristles with cannons and armed
men: spectators crowding in the rear; D'Orléans Egalité there
in cabriolet. ... Heedless of all Louis reads his Prayers of
the Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished: then the
Carriage opens. What temper he is in? Ten different witnesses
will give ten different accounts of it. He is in the collision
of all tempers; arrived now at the black Mahlstrom and descent
of Death: in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling
to be resigned. 'Take care of M. Edgeworth,' he straitly
charges the Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two
descend. The drums are beating: 'Taisez-vous, Silence!' he
cries 'in a terrible voice, d'une voix terrible.' He mounts
the scaffold, not without delay; he is in puce coat, breeches
of gray, white stockings. He strips off the coat; stands
disclosed in a sleeve-waistcoat of white flannel. The
executioners approach to bind him: he spurns, resists; Abbé
Edgeworth has to remind him how the Saviour, in whom men
trust, submitted to be bound. His hands are tied, his head
bare; the fatal moment is come. He advances to the edge of the
Scaffold, 'his face very red,' and says: 'Frenchmen, I die
innocent: it is from the Scaffold and near appearing before
God that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I desire that
France--' A General on horseback, Santerre or another, prances
out with uplifted hand: 'Tambours!' The drums drown the voice.
'Executioners, do your duty!' The Executioners, desperate lest
themselves be murdered (for Santerre and his Armed Ranks will
strike, if they do not), seize the hapless Louis: six of them
desperate, him singly desperate, struggling there; and bind
him to their plank. Abbé Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him:
'Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven.' The Axe clanks down; a
King's Life is shorn away. It is Monday the 21st of January
1793. He was aged 38 years four months and 28 days.
{1287}
Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shouts of Vive la
République rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats
waving: students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on
the far Quais; fling it over Paris. D'Orléans drives off in
his cabriolet: the Townhall Councillors rub their hands,
saying, 'It is done, It is done.' ... In the coffee-houses
that evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot
in a more cordial manner than usual. Not till some days after,
according to Mercier, did public men see what a grave thing it
was. A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have
consequences. ... At home this Killing of a King has divided
all friends; and abroad it has united all enemies. Fraternity
of Peoples, Revolutionary Propagandism; Atheism, Regicide;
total destruction of social order in this world! All Kings,
and lovers of Kings, and haters of Anarchy, rank in coalition;
as in a war for life."
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 2, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (February-April).
Increasing anarchy.
Degradation of manners.
Formation of the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal.
Treacherous designs of Dumouriez.
His invasion of Holland.
His defeat at Neerwinden and retreat.
His flight to the enemy.
"While the French were ... throwing down the gauntlet to all
Europe, their own country seemed sinking into anarchical
dissolution. Paris was filled with tumult, insurrection and
robbery. At the denunciations of Marat against 'forestallers,'
the shops were entered by the mob, who carried off articles at
their own prices, and sometimes without paying at all. The
populace was agitated by the harangues of low itinerant
demagogues. Rough and brutal manners were affected, and all
the courtesies of life abolished. The revolutionary leaders
adopted a dress called the 'carmagnole,' consisting of
enormous black pantaloons, a short jacket, a three-coloured
waistcoat, and a Jacobite wig of short black hair, a terrible
moustache, the 'bonnet rouge,' and an enormous sabre. [The
name Carmagnole was also given to a tune and a dance; it is
supposed to have borne originally some reference not now
understood to Carmagnola in Piedmont.] Moderate persons of no
strong political opinions were denounced as 'suspected,' and
their crime stigmatised by the newly coined word of
'moderantisme.' The variations of popular feeling were
recorded like the heat of the weather, or the rising of a
flood. The principal articles in the journals were entitled
'Thermometer of the Public Mind;' the Jacobins talked of ...
being 'up to the level.' Many of the provinces were in a
disturbed state. A movement had been organising in Brittany
ever since 1791, but the death of the Marquis de la Rouarie,
its principal leader, had for the present suspended it. A more
formidable insurrection was preparing in La Vendée. ... It was
in the midst of these disturbances, aggravated by a suspicion
of General Dumouriez's treachery, which we shall presently
have to relate, that the terrible court known as the
Revolutionary Tribunal was established. It was first formally
proposed in the Convention March 9th, by Carrier, the
miscreant afterwards notorious by his massacres at Nantes,
urged by Cambacérès on the 10th, and completed that very night
at the instance of Danton, who rushed to the tribune, insisted
that the Assembly should not separate, till the new Court had
been organised. ... The extraordinary tribunal of August 1792
had not been found to work fast enough, and it was now
superseded by this new one, which became in fact only a method
of massacring under the form of law. The Revolutionary
Tribunal was designed to take cognisance of all
counter-revolutionary attempts, of all attacks upon liberty,
equality, the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, the
internal and external safety of the State. A commission of six
members of the Convention was to examine and report upon the
cases to be brought before it, to draw up and present the acts
of accusation. The tribunal was to be composed of a jury to
decide upon the facts, five judges to apply the law, a public
accuser, and two substitutes; from its sentence there was no
appeal. Meanwhile Dumouriez had returned to the army, very
dissatisfied that he had failed in his attempts to save the
King and baffle the Jacobins. He had formed the design of
invading Holland, dissolving the Revolutionary Committee in
that country, annulling the decree of December 15th, offering
neutrality to the English, a suspension of arms to the
Austrians, reuniting the Belgian and Batavian republics, and
proposing to France a re-union with them. In case of refusal,
he designed to march upon Paris, dissolve the Convention,
extinguish Jacobinism; in short, to play the part of Monk in
England. This plan was confided to four persons only, among
whom Danton is said to have been one. ... Dumouriez, having
directed General Miranda to lay siege to Maestricht, left
Antwerp for Holland, February 22nd, and by March 4th had
seized Breda, Klundert and Gertruydenberg. Austria, at the
instance of England, had pushed forward 112,000 men under
Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg. Clairfait, with his army, at
this time occupied Berghem, where he was separated from the
French only by the little river Roer and the fortress of

Juliers. Coburg, having joined Clairfait, March 1st, crossed
the Roer, defeated the French under Dampierre at Altenhoven,
and thus compelled Miranda to raise the siege of Maestricht,
and retire towards Tongres. Aix-la-Chapelle was entered by the
Austrians after a smart contest, and the French compelled to
retreat upon Liege, while the divisions under Stengel and
Neuilly, being cut off by this movement, were thrown back into
Limburg. The Austrians then crossed the Meuse, and took Liege,
March 6th. Dumouriez was now compelled to concentrate his
forces at Louvain. From this place he wrote a threatening
letter to the Convention, March 11th, denouncing the
proceedings of the ministry, the acts of oppression committed
in Belgium, and the decree of December 15th. This letter threw
the Committee of General Defence into consternation. It was
resolved to keep it secret, and Danton and Lacroix set off for
Dumouriez's camp, to try what they could do with him, but
found him inflexible. His proceedings had already unmasked his
designs. At Antwerp he had ordered the Jacobin Club to be
closed, and the members to be imprisoned, at Brussels he had
dissolved the legion of 'sans-culottes.' Dumouriez was
defeated by Prince Coburg at Neerwinden, March 18th, and again
on the 22nd at Louvain. In a secret interview with the
Austrian Colonel Mack, a day or two after, at Ath, he
announced to that officer his intention to march on Paris and
establish a constitutional monarchy, but nothing was said as
to who was to wear the crown.
{1288}
The Austrians were to support Dumouriez's advance upon Paris,
but not to show themselves except in case of need, and he was
to have the command of what Austrian troops he might select.
The French now continued their retreat, which, in consequence
of these negociations, was unmolested. The Archduke Charles
and Prince Coburg entered Brussels March 25th, and the Dutch
towns were shortly after retaken. When Dumouriez arrived with
his van at Courtrai, he was met by three emissaries of the
Jacobins, sent apparently to sound him. He bluntly told them
that his design was to save France, whether they called him
Cæsar, Cromwell or Monk, denounced the Convention as an
assembly of tyrants, said that he despised their decrees. ...
At St. Amand he was met by Beurnonville, then minister of war,
who was to supersede him in the command, and by four
commissaries despatched by the Convention." Dumouriez arrested
these, delivered them to Clairfait, and they were sent to
Maestricht. "The allies were so sanguine that Dumouriez's
defection would put an end to the Revolution, that Lord
Auckland and Count Stahremberg, the Austrian minister, looking
upon the dissolution and flight of the Convention as certain,
addressed a joint note to the States-General, requesting them
not to shelter such members of it as had taken any part in the
condemnation of Louis XVI. But Dumouriez's army was not with
him. On the road to Condé he was fired on by a body of
volunteers and compelled to fly for his life (April 4th)." The
day following he abandoned his army and went over to the
Austrian quarters at Tournay, with a few companions, thus
ending his political and military career. "The situation of
France at this time seemed almost desperate. The army of the
North was completely disorganised through the treachery of
Dumouriez; the armies of the Rhine and Moselle were
retreating; those of the Alps and Italy were expecting an
attack; on the eastern side of the Pyrenees the troops were
without artillery, without generals, almost without bread,
while on the western side the Spaniards were advancing towards
Bayonne. Brest, Cherbourg, the coasts of Brittany, were
threatened by the English. The ocean ports contained only six
ships of the line ready for sea, and the Mediterranean fleet
was being repaired at Toulon. But the energy of the
revolutionary leaders was equal to the occasion."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 5 (volume 4).
ALSO IN
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 5.
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 1-2.
C. MacFarlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 11.
FRANCE: A. D: 1793 (March-April).
The insurrection in La Vendee.
"Ever since the abolition of royalty and the constitution of
1790, that is, since the 10th of August, a condemnatory and
threatening silence had prevailed in Normandy. Bretagne
exhibited still more hostile sentiments, and the people there
were engrossed by fondness for the priests and the gentry.
Nearer to the banks of the Loire, this attachment amounted to
insurrection; and lastly, on the left bank of that river, in
the Bocage, Le Loroux, and La Vendée, the insurrection was
complete, and large armies of ten and twenty thousand men were
already in the field. ... It was particularly on this left
bank, in Anjou, and Upper and Lower Poitou, that the famous
war of La Vendée had broken out. It was in this part of France
that the influence of time was least felt, and that it had
produced least change in the ancient manners. The feudal
system had there acquired a truly patriarchal character; and
the Revolution, instead of operating a beneficial reform in
the country, had shocked the most kindly habits and been
received as a persecution. The Bocage and the Marais
constitute a singular country, which it is necessary to
describe, in order to convey an idea of the manners of the
population, and the kind of society that was formed there.
Setting out from Nantes and Saumur and proceeding from the
Loire to the sands of Olonne, Lucon, Fontenay, and Niort, you
meet with an unequal undulating soil, intersected by ravines
and crossed by a multitude of hedges, which serve to fence in
each field, and which have on this account obtained for the
country the name of the Bocage. As you approach the sea the
ground declines, till it terminates in salt marshes, and is
everywhere cut up by a multitude of small canals, which render
access almost impossible. This is what is called the Marais.
The only abundant produce in this country is pasturage,
consequently cattle are plentiful. The peasants there grew
only just sufficient corn for their own consumption, and
employed the produce of their herds and flocks as a medium of
exchange. It is well known that no people are more simple than
those subsisting by this kind of industry. Few great towns had
been built in these parts. They contained only large villages
of two or three thousand souls. Between the two high-roads
leading, the one from Tours to Poitiers, and the other from
Nantes to La Rochelle, extended a tract thirty leagues in
breadth, where there were none but cross-roads leading to
villages and hamlets. The country was divided into a great
number of small farms paying a rent of from five to six
hundred francs, each let to a single family, which divided the
produce of the cattle with the proprietor of the land. From
this division of farms, the seigneurs had to treat with each
family, and kept up a continual and easy intercourse with
them. The simplest mode of life prevailed in the mansions of
the gentry: they were fond of the chase, on account of the
abundance of game; the gentry and the peasants hunted
together, and they were all celebrated for their skill and
vigour. The priests, men of extraordinary purity of character,
exercised there a truly paternal ministry. ... When the
Revolution, so beneficent in other quarters, reached this
country, with its iron level, it produced profound agitation.
It had been well if it could have made an exception there, but
that was impossible. ... When the removal of the non-juring
priests deprived the peasants of the ministers in whom they
had confidence, they were vehemently exasperated, and, as in
Bretagne, they ran into the woods and travelled to a
considerable distance to attend the ceremonies of a worship,
the only true one in their estimation. From that moment a
violent hatred was kindled in their souls, and the priests
neglected no means of fanning the flames. The 10th of August
drove several Poitevin nobles back to their estates; the 21st
of January estranged them, and they communicated their
indignation to those about them. They did not conspire,
however, as some have conceived.
{1289}
The known dispositions of the country had incited men who were
strangers to it to frame plans of conspiracy. One had been
hatched in Bretagne, but none was formed in the Bocage; there
was no concerted plan there; the people suffered themselves to
be driven to extremity. At length, the levy of 300,000 men
excited in the month of March a general insurrection. ...
Obliged to take arms, they chose rather to fight against the
republic than for it. Nearly about the same time, that is, at
the beginning of March, the drawing was the occasion of an
insurrection in the Upper Bocage and in the Marais. On the
10th of March, the drawing was to take place at St. Florent,
near Ancenis, in Anjou. The young men refused to draw. The
guard endeavoured to force them to comply. The military
commandant ordered a piece of cannon to be pointed and fired
at the mutineers. They dashed forward with their bludgeons,
made themselves masters of the piece, disarmed the guard, and
were, at the same time, not a little astonished at their own
temerity. A carrier, named Cathelineau, a man highly esteemed
in that part of the country, possessing great bravery and
powers of persuasion, quitting his farm on hearing the
tidings, hastened to join them, rallied them, roused their
courage, and gave some consistency to the insurrection by his
skill in keeping it up. The very same day he resolved to
attack a republican post consisting of eighty men. The
peasants followed him with their bludgeons and their muskets.
After a first volley, every shot of which told, because they
were excellent marksmen, they rushed upon the post, disarmed
it, and made themselves master of the position. Next day,
Cathelineau proceeded to Chemillé, which he likewise took, in
spite of 200 republicans and three pieces of cannon. A
gamekeeper at the château of Maulevrier, named Stofflet, and a
young peasant of the village of Chanzeau, had on their part
collected a band of peasants. These came and joined
Cathelineau, who conceived the daring design of attacking
Chollet, the most considerable town in the country, the chief
place of a district, and guarded by 500 republicans. ... The
victorious band of Cathelineau entered Chollet, seized all the
arms that it could find, and made cartridges out of the
charges of the cannon. It was always in this manner that the
Vendeans procured ammunition. ... Another much more general
revolt had broken out in the Marais and the department of La
Vendée. At Machecoul and Challans, the recruiting was the
occasion of a universal insurrection. ... Three hundred
republicans were shot by parties of 20 or 30. ...In the
department of La Vendée, that is, to the south of the theatre
of this war, the insurrection assumed still more consistence.
The national guards of Fontenay, having set out on their march
for Chantonnay, were repulsed and beaten. Chantonnay was
plundered. General Verteuil, who commanded the 11th military
division, on receiving intelligence of this defeat, dispatched
General Marcé with 1,200 men, partly troops of the line, and
partly national guards. The rebels who were met at St.
Vincent, were repulsed. General Marcé had time to add 1,200
more men and nine pieces of cannon to his little army. In
marching upon St. Fulgent, he again fell in with the Vendeans
in a valley and stopped to restore a bridge which they had
destroyed. About four in the afternoon of the 18th of March,
the Vendeans, taking the initiative, advanced and attacked him
... and made themselves masters of the artillery, the
ammunition, and the arms, which the soldiers threw away that
they might be the lighter in their flight. These more
important successes in the department of La Vendée properly so
called, procured for the insurgents the name of Vendeans,
which they afterwards retained, though the war was far more
active out of La Vendée. The pillage committed by them in the
Marais caused them to be called brigands, though the greater
number did not deserve that appellation. The insurrection
extended into the Marais from the environs of Nantes to Les
Sables, and into Anjou and Poitou, as far as the environs of
Vihiers and Parthenay. ... Easter recalled all the insurgents
to their homes, from which they never would stay away long. To
them a war was a sort of sporting excursion of several days;
they carried with them a sufficient quantity of bread for the
time, and then returned to inflame their neighbours by the
accounts which they gave. Places of meeting were appointed for
the month of April. The insurrection was then general and
extended over the whole surface of the country. It might be
comprised in a line which, commencing at Nantes, would pass
through Pornic, the Isle of Noirmoutiers, Les Sables, Luçon,
Fontenay, Niort, and Parthenay, and return by Airvault,
Thouar, Doué, and St. Florent, to the Loire. The insurrection,
begun by men who were not superior to the peasants whom they
commanded, excepting by their natural qualities, was soon
continued by men of a higher rank. The peasants went to the
mansions and forced the nobles to put themselves at their
head. The whole Marais insisted on being commanded by
Charette. ... In the Bocage, the peasants applied to Messrs.
de Bonchamps, d'Elbée, and de Laroche-Jacquelein, and forced
them from their mansions to place them at their head." These
gentlemen were afterwards joined by M. de Lescure, a cousin of
Henri de Laroche-Jacquelin.
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 146-152.
ALSO IN
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 12, (volume 3).
Marquise de Larochejaquelein,
Memoirs.
Henri Larochejaquelein and the War in La Vendée,
(Chambers Miscellany, volume 2).
L. I. Guiney,
Monsieur Henri
(de La Rochejaquelein.)
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (March-June).
Vigorous measures of the Revolutionary government.
The Committee of Public Safety.
The final struggle of Jacobins and Girondins.
The fall of the Girondins.
The news of the defeat of Dumouriez at Neerwinden, which
reached Paris on the 21st, "brought about two important
measures. Jean Debry, on behalf of the Diplomatic Committee,
proposed that all strangers should be expelled from France
within eight days who could not give a good reason for their
residence, and on the same evening the Committee of General
Defence was reorganized and placed on another footing. This
committee had come into existence in January, 1793. It
originally consisted of 21 members, who were not directly
elected by the Convention, but were chosen from the seven most
important committees.
{1290}
But now, after the news of Neerwinden, a powerful committee
was directly elected. It consisted of 24 members, and the
first committee contained nine Girondins, nine deputies of the
Plain, and six Jacobins, including every representative man in
the Convention. ... The new Committee was given the greatest
powers, and after first proposing to the Convention that the
penalty of death should be decreed against every emigre over
fourteen, and to everyone who protected an emigre, it proposed
that Dumouriez should be summoned to the bar of the
Convention." Early in April, news of the desertion of
Dumouriez and the retreat of Custine, "made the Convention
decide on yet further measures to strengthen the executive.
Marat, who, like Danton and Robespierre, was statesman enough
to perceive the need of strengthening the executive, proposed
that enlarged powers should be given to the committees; and
Isnard, as the reporter of the Committee of General Defence,
proposed the establishment of a smaller committee of nine,
with supreme and unlimited executive powers--a proposal which
was warmly supported by every statesman in the Convention. ...
It is noticeable that every measure which strengthened the
terror when it was finally established was decreed while the
Girondins could command a majority in: the Convention, and
that it was a Girondin, Isnard, who proposed the immense
powers of the Committee of Public Safety [Comité de Salut
Public]. Upon April 6 Isnard brought up a decree defining the
powers of the new committee. It was to consist of nine
deputies; to confer in secret; to have supreme executive
power, and authority to spend certain sums of' money without
accounting for them, and it was to present a weekly report to
the Convention. These immense powers were granted under the
pressure of news from the frontier, and it was obvious that it
would not be long before such a powerful executive could
conquer the independence of the Convention. Isnard's proposals
were opposed by Buzot, but decreed; and on April 7 the first
Committee of Public Safety was elected. It consisted of the
following members:--Barère, Delmas, Bréard, Cambon, Danton,
Guyton-Morveau, Treilhard, Lacroix, and Robert Lindet. The
very first proposal of the new committee was that it should
appoint three representatives with every army from among the
deputies of the Convention, with unlimited powers, who were to
report to the committee itself. This motion was followed by a
very statesmanlike one from Danton. He perceived the folly of
the decree of November 18, which declared universal war
against all kings. ... On his proposition the fatal decree ...
was withdrawn, and it was made possible for France again to
enter into the comity of European nations. It is very obvious
that it was the foreign war which had developed the progress
of the Revolution with such astonishing rapidity in France. It
was Brunswick's manifesto which mainly caused the attack on
the Tuileries on August 10; it was the surrender of Verdun
which directly caused the massacres of September. It was the
battle of Neerwinden which established the Revolutionary
Tribunal, and that defeat and the desertion of Dumouriez which
brought about the establishment of the Committee of Public
Safety. The Girondins were chiefly responsible for the great
war, and its first result was to destroy them as a party. ...
Their early influence over the deputies of the Plain rested on
a belief in their statesmanlike powers, but as time went on
that influence steadily diminished. It was in vain for Danton
to attempt to make peace in the Convention; bitter words on
both sides had left too strong an impression ever to be
effaced. The Jacobin leaders despised the Girondins; the
Girondins hated the Jacobins for having won away power from
them. The Jacobins formed a small but very united body, of
which every member knew its own mind; they were determined to
carry on the Republic at all costs, and to destroy the
Girondins as quickly as they could. ... The desertion of
Dumouriez had caused strong measures to be taken by the
Convention, ... and all parties had concurred. ... But as soon
as these important measures had been taken, which the majority
of the Convention believed would enable France once more to
free her frontiers from the invaders, the Girondins and
Jacobins turned upon each other with redoubled ardour, and the
death-struggle between them recommenced. The Girondins
reopened the struggle with an attack upon Marat. Few steps
could have been more foolish, for Marat, though in many ways a
real statesman, had from the exaggeration of his language
never obtained the influence in the Convention to which his
abilities entitled him. ... But he remained the idol of the
people of Paris, and in attacking him the Girondins
exasperated the people of Paris in the person of their beloved
journalist. On April 11 Guadet read a placard in the
Convention, which Marat had posted on the walls of Paris, full
of his usual libellous abuse of the Girondins. It was referred
to the Committee of Legislation with other writings of Marat,"
and two days later, on the report of the Committee, it was
voted by the Convention (half of its members being absent),
that Marat should be sent before the Tribunal for trial. This
called out immediate demonstrations from Marat's Parisian
admirers. "On April 15, in the name of 35 sections of Paris,
Pache and Hébert demanded the expulsion from the Convention of
22 of the leading Girondists as 'disturbers of the public peace,'
including Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Buzot,
Barbaroux, Louvet, Petion, and Lanjuinais. ... On April 22 the
trial of Marat took place. He was unanimously acquitted, although
most of the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal sympathized
with the Girondins. ... The acquittal of Marat was a fearful
blow to the Girondin party; they had in no way discredited the
Jacobins, and had only made themselves unpopular in Paris. ...
The Commune of Paris steadily organized the more advanced
republicans of the city for an open attack upon the Girondins.
... Throughout the month of May, preparations for the final
struggle went on; it was recognized by both parties that they
must appeal to force, and arrangements for appealing to force
were made as openly for the coup d'état of May 31 as they had
been for that of August 10. On the one side, the Commune of
Paris steadily concentrated its armed strength and formed its
plan of action; on the other, the leading Girondins met daily
at the house of Valazé, and prepared to move decrees in the
Convention.'" But the Girondins were still divided among
themselves.
{1291}
Some wished to appeal to the provinces, against Paris, which
meant civil war; others opposed this as unpatriotic. On the
31st of May, and on the two days following, the Commune of
Paris called out its mob to execute the determined coup
d'état. On the last of these three days (June 2), the
Convention surrounded, imprisoned and terrorized by armed
ruffians, led by Henriot, lately appointed Commander of the
National Guard, submissively decreed that the proscribed
Girondin deputies, with others, to the number altogether of
31, should be placed under arrest in their own houses. This
"left the members of the Mountain predominant in the
Convention. The deputies of the Marsh or Plain were now docile
to the voice of the Jacobin leaders," whose supremacy was now
without dispute. On the preceding day, an attempt had been
made, on the order of the Commune, to arrest M. Roland and two
others of the ministers. Roland escaped, but Madame Roland,
the more important Girondist leader, was taken and consigned
to the Abbaye.
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 13.
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 37 (volume 2).
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 7, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (March-September).
Formation of the great European Coalition against
Revolutionary France.
The seeds of dissension and weakness in it.
"The impression made at St. Petersburg by the execution of
Louis was fully as vivid as at London: already it was evident
that these two capitals were the centres of the great contest
which was approaching. ... An intimate and confidential
correspondence immediately commenced between Count Woronzoff,
the Russian ambassador at London, and Lord Grenville, the
British secretary of state for foreign affairs, which
terminated in a treaty between the powers, signed in London on
the 25th of March. By this convention, which laid the basis of
the grand alliance which afterwards brought the war to a
glorious termination, it was provided that the two powers
should 'employ their respective forces, as far as
circumstances shall permit, in carrying on the just and
necessary war in which they find themselves engaged against
France; and they reciprocally engage not to lay down their
arms without restitution of all the conquests which may have
been made upon either of the respective powers, or upon such
other states or allies to whom, by common consent, they shall
extend the benefit of this treaty.' ... Shortly after [April
25], a similar convention was entered into between Great
Britain and Sardinia, by which the latter power was to receive
an annual subsidy of £200,000 during the whole continuance of
the war, and the former to keep on foot an army of 50,000 men;
and the English government engaged to procure for it entire
restitution of its dominions as they stood at the commencement
of the war. By another convention, with the cabinet of Madrid,
signed at Aranjuez on the 25th of May, they engaged not to
make peace till they had obtained full restitution for the
Spaniards 'of all places, towns, and territories which
belonged to them at the commencement of the war, and which the
enemy may have taken during its continuance.' A similar treaty
was entered into with the court of the Two Sicilies, and with
Prussia [July 12 and 14], in which the clauses, prohibiting
all exportation to France, and preventing the trade of
neutrals with it, were the same as in the Russian treaty.
Treaties of the same tenor were concluded in the course of the
summer with the Emperor of Germany [August 30], and the King
of Portugal [September 26]. Thus was all Europe arrayed in a
great league against Republican France, and thus did the
regicides of that country, as the first fruits of their cruel
triumph, find themselves excluded from the pale of civilized
nations. ... But while all Europe thus resounded with the note
of military preparation against France, Russia had other and
more interested designs in view. Amidst the general
consternation at the triumphs of the French republicans,
Catharine conceived that she would be permitted to pursue,
without molestation, her ambitious designs against Poland [See
POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796]. She constantly represented the
disturbances in that kingdom as the fruit of revolutionary
propagandism, which it was indispensable to crush in the first
instance. ... The ambitious views of Prussia were also ...
strongly turned in the same direction. ... Nor was it only the
ambitious projects of Russia and Prussia against the
independence of Poland which already gave ground for gloomy
augury as to the issue of the war. Its issue was more
immediately affected by the jealousy of Austria and Prussia,
which now broke out in the most undisguised manner, and
occasioned such a division of the allied forces as effectually
prevented any cordial or effective co-operation continuing to
exist between them. The Prussian cabinet, mortified at the
lead which the Imperial generals took in the common
operations, insisted upon the formation of two independent
German armies; one composed of Prussians, the other of
Austrians, to one or other of which the forces of all the
minor states should be joined: those of Saxony, Hanover, and
Hesse being grouped around the standards of Prussia; those of
Bavaria, Wirtemburg, Swabia, the Palatinate, and Franconia,
following the double-headed eagles of Austria. By this means,
all unity of action between the two grand allied armies was
broken up. ... Prince Cobourg was appointed generalissimo of
the allied Armies from the Rhine to the German ocean." In
April, a corps of 20,000 English had been landed in Holland,
"under the command of the Duke of York, and being united to
10,000 Hanoverians and Hessians, formed a total of 30,000 men
in British pay." Holland, as an ally of England, was already
in the Coalition, the French having declared war, in February,
against the two maritime powers, simultaneously.
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 13 (volume 4).
ALSO IN
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (April-August):
Minister Genet in America.
Washington's proclamation of neutrality.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
{1292}
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June).
Flight of most of the Girondists.
Their appeal to the country.
Insurrection in the provinces.
The rising at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulon.
Progress of the Vendean revolt.
"After this day [of the events which culminated on the 2d of
June, but which are commonly referred to as being of 'the 31st
of May,' when they began], when the people made no other use
of their power than to display and to exercise the pressure of
Paris over the representation, they separated without
committing any excess. ... La Montaigne caused the committees
to be reinstated on the morrow, with the exception of that of
public safety. They threw into the majority their most decided
members. ... They deposed those ministers suspected of
attachment to the' conquered; sent commissioners into the
doubtful departments; annulled the project of the constitution
proposed by the Girondists; and charged the committee of
safety to draw up in eight days a project for the constitution
entirely democratical. They pressed forward the recruiting and
armament of the revolutionary army--that levy of patriotism en
masse. They decreed a forced loan of a million upon the rich.
They sent one after the other, accused upon accused, to the
revolutionary tribunal. Their sittings were no longer
deliberation, but cursory motions, decreed on the instant by
acclamation, and sent immediately to the different committees
for execution. They stripped the executive power of the little
independence and responsibility it heretofore retained.
Continually called into the bosom of their committees,
ministers became no more than the passive executors of the
measures they decreed. From this day, also, discussion was at
an end; action was all. The disappearance of the Girondists
deprived the Revolution of its voice. Eloquence was proscribed
with Vergniaud, with the exception of those few days when the
great party chiefs, Danton and Robespierre, spoke, not to
refute opinions, but to intimate their will, and promulgate
their orders. The Assemblies became almost mute. A dead
silence reigned henceforth in the Convention. In the meanwhile
the 22 Girondists [excepting Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos,
Tonfrède, and a few others, who remained under the decree of
arrest, facing all consequences], the members of the
Commission of Twelve, and a certain number of their friends,
warned of their danger by this first blow of ostracism, fled
into their departments, and hurried to protest against the
mutilation of the country. ... Robespierre, Danton, the
Committee of Public Safety, and even the people themselves,
seemed to shut their eyes to these evasions, as if desirous to
be rid of victims whom it would pain them to strike. Buzot,
Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Salles, Pétion, Bergoing, Lesage,
Cressy, Kervélégan and Lanjuinais, threw themselves into
Normandy; and after having traversed it, inciting all the
departments between Paris and the Ocean, established at Caen
the focus and centre of insurrection against the tyranny of
Paris. They gave themselves the name of the Central Assembly
of Resistance to Oppression. Biroteau and Chasset had arrived
at Lyons. The armed sections of this town were agitated with
contrary and already bloody commotion [the Jacobin
municipality having been overthrown, after hard fighting, and
its chief, Chalier, put to death]. Brissot fled to Moulins,
Robaut St. Etienne to Nismes. Grangeneuve, sent by Vergniaud,
Tonfrède, and Ducos, to Bordeaux, raised troops ready to march
upon the capital. Toulouse followed the same impulse of
resistance to Paris. The departments of the west were on fire,
and rejoiced to see the republic, torn into contending
factions, offer them the aid of one of the two parties for the
restoration of royalty. The mountainous centre of France ...
was agitated. ... Marseilles enrolled 10,000 men at the voice
of Rebecqui and the young friends of Barbaroux. They
imprisoned the commissioners of the Convention, Roux and
Antiboul. Royalty, always brooding in the south, insensibly
transformed this movement of patriotism into a monarchical
insurrection. Rebecqui, in despair ... at seeing loyalty avail
itself of the rising in the south, escaped remorse by suicide,
throwing himself into the sea. Lyons and Bordeaux likewise
imprisoned the envoys of the Convention as Maratists. The
first columns of the combined army of the departments began to
move in all directions; 6,000 Marseillais were already at
Avignon, ready to reascend the Rhone, and form a junction with
the insurgents of Nismes and of Lyons. Brittany and Normandy
uniting, concentrated their first forces at Evreux."
A de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 43 (volume 3).
The royalists of the west, "during this almost general rising
of the departments, continued to extend their enterprises.
After their first victories, the Vendeans seized on Bressure,
Argenton, and Thouars. Entirely masters of their own country,
they proposed getting possession of the frontiers, and
opening the way to revolutionary France, as well as
communications with England. On the 6th of June, the Vendean
army, composed of 40,000 men, under Cathelineau, Lescure,
Stofflet, and La Rochejacquelin, marched on Saumur, which it
took by storm. It then prepared to attack and capture Nantes,
to secure the possession of its own country, and become
masters of the course of the Loire. Cathelineau, at the head
of the Vendean troops, left a garrison in Saumur, took
Angers, crossed the Loire, pretended to advance upon Tours
and Lemans, and then rapidly threw himself upon Nantes, which
he attacked on the right bank, while Charette was to attack
it on the left."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June-October).
The new Jacobin Constitution postponed.
Concentration of power in the Committee of Public Safety.
The irresistible machine of revolutionary government.
"It was while affairs were in this critical condition that the
Mountain undertook the sole conduct of the government in
France. They had hitherto resisted all attempts of the
Girondists to establish a new constitution in place of that of
1791. They now undertook the work themselves, and in four days
drew up a constitution, as simple as it was democratic, which
was issued on the 24th of June. Every citizen of the age of 21
could vote directly in the election of deputies, who were
chosen for a year at a time and were to sit in a single
assembly. The assembly had the sole power of making laws, but
a period was fixed during which the constituents could protest
against its enactments. The executive power was entrusted to
24 men, who were chosen by the assembly from candidates
nominated by electors chosen by the original voters. Twelve
out of the 24 were to be renewed every six months. But this
constitution was intended merely to satisfy the departments,
and was never put into practice. The condition of France
required a greater concentration of power, and this was
supplied by the Committee of Public Safety.
{1293}
Ever since the 6th of April the original members of the
Committee had been re-elected, but on the 10th of July its
composition was changed. Danton ceased to be a member, and
Barère was joined by Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon,
Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and, in a short time,
Carnot. These men became the absolute rulers of France. The
Committee had no difficulty in carrying their measures in the
Convention, from which the opposition party had disappeared.
All the state obligations were rendered uniform and inscribed
in 'the great book of the national debt.' The treasury was
filled by a compulsory loan from the rich. Every income
between 1,000 and 10,000 francs had to pay ten per cent., and
every excess over 10,000 francs had to be contributed in its
entirety for one year. To recruit the army a levee en masse
was decreed. 'The young men shall go to war; the married men
shall forge arms and transport supplies; the wives shall make
tents and clothes and serve in the hospitals; the children
shall tear old linen into lint; the aged shall resort to the
public places to excite the courage of the warriors and hatred
against kings.' Nor were measures neglected against domestic
enemies. On the 6th of September a revolutionary army,
consisting of 6,000 men and 1,200 artillery men, was placed at
the disposal of the Committee to carry out its orders
throughout France. On the 17th the famous 'law of the
suspects' was carried. Under the term 'suspect' were included
all those who by words, acts or writings had shown themselves
in favour of monarchy or of federalism, the relatives of the
emigrants, etc., and they were to be imprisoned until the
peace. As the people were in danger of famine, a maximum
price, already established for corn, was decreed for all
necessaries; if a merchant gave up his trade he became a
suspect, and the hoarding of provisions was punished by death.
On the 10th of October the Convention definitely transferred
its powers to the Committee, by subjecting all officials to
its authority and by postponing the trial of the new
constitution until the peace."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 23, section 11.
The Committee of Public Safety--the "Revolutionary
Government," as Danton had named it, on the 2d of August, when
he demanded the fearful powers that were given to
it--"disposed of all the national forces; it appointed and
dismissed the ministers, generals, Representatives on Mission,
the judges and juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The
latter instrument became its strong arm; it was, in fact, a
court martial worked by civil magistrates. By its agents it
directed the departments and armies, the political situation
without and within, striking down at the same time the rebels
within and the enemies without: for, together with the
constitution were, of course, suspended the municipal laws and
the political machinery of the communes; and thus cities and
villages hitherto indifferent or opposed to the Revolution
were republicanized. By the Tribunal it disposed of the
persons of individuals; by requisition and the law of maximum
(with which we are going to be better acquainted) it disposed
of their fortunes. It can, indeed, be said that the whole of
France was placed in a state of siege; but that was the price
of its salvation. ... But Danton has committed, a great
mistake,--one that he and especially France, will come to rue.
He has declined to become a member of the Revolutionary
Government, which has been established on his motion. 'It is
my firm resolve not to be a member of such a government,' he
had said. In other words, he has declined re-election as a
member of the Committee de Salut Public, now it has been
erected into a dictatorship. He unfortunately lacked all
ambition. ... When afterwards, on September 8, one Gaston
tells the Convention, 'Danton has a mighty revolutionary head.
No one understands so well as he to execute what he himself
proposes. I therefore move that he be added to the
Revolutionary Government, in spite of his protest,' and it is
so unanimously ordered, he again peremptorily declines. 'No, I
will not be a member; but as a spy on it I intend to work.' A
most fateful resignation! for while he still for a short time
continues to exercise his old influence on the government,
both from the outside, in his own person, and inside the
Committee, in the person of Hérault de Sechelles, selected in
his place, he very soon loses ground more and more,--so much
so even that Hérault, his friend, is 'put in quarantine,' as
was said in the Committee. And very natural. A statesman
cannot have power when he shirks responsibility, and without
power he soon loses all influence with the multitude. Those
who now succeed him in power are Robespierre, Barère,
Billaud-Varennes, and Carnot,--the two last very good working
members, good men of the second rank, but after Danton not a
single man is left fit to be leader."
L. Gronlund,
Ça Ira! or Danton in the French Revolution,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 2.
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution.
volume 2, chapter 9.
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1, and appendix 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July).
The assassination of Marat.
"Amongst those who had placed faith in the Girondists and
their ideals was a young woman of Normandy, Charlotte Corday.
... When the mob of Paris rose and drove with insult from the
Convention those who in her eyes were the heroic defenders of
the universal principles of truth and justice, she bitterly
resented the wrong that had been done, not only to the men
themselves, but to that France of which she regarded them as
the true representatives. Owing to Marat's persistent cry for
a dictatorship and for shedding of blood, it was he who, in
the departments, was accounted especially responsible both for
the expulsion of the Girondists and for the tyranny which now
began to weigh as heavily upon the whole country as it had
long weighed upon the capital. Incapable as all then were of
comprehending the causes which had brought about the fall of
the Girondists, Charlotte Corday imagined that by putting an
end to this man's life, she could also put an end to the
system of government which he advocated. Informing her friends
that she wished to visit England, she left Caen and travelled
in the diligence to Paris. On her arrival she purchased a
knife, and afterwards obtained entrance into Marat's house on
the pretext that she brought news which she desired to
communicate to him. She knew that he would be eager to obtain
intelligence of the movements of the Girondist deputies still
in Normandy. Marat was ill at the time, and in a bath when
Charlotte Corday was admitted.
{1294}
She gave him the names of the deputies who were at Caen. 'In a
few days,' he said, as he wrote them hastily down, 'I will
have them all guillotined in Paris.' As she heard these words
she plunged the knife into his body and killed him on the
spot. The cry uttered by the murdered man was heard, and
Charlotte, who did not attempt to escape, was captured and
conveyed to prison amid the murmurs of an angry crowd. It had
been from the first her intention to sacrifice her life for
the cause of her country, and, glorying in her deed, she met
death with stoical indifference. 'I killed one man,' she said,
when brought before the revolutionary court, 'in order to save
the lives of 100,000 others.' ... His [Marat's] murder brought
about contrary results to those which the woman who ignorantly
and rashly had flung away her life hoped by the sacrifice to
effect. ... He was regarded as a martyr by no small portion of
the working population of Paris. ... His murder excited
indignation beyond the comparatively narrow circle of those
who took an active part in political life, while at the same
time it added a new impulse to the growing cry for blood."
B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN
C. Mac Farlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 13.
J. Michelet,
Women of the French Revolution,
chapter 18-19.
Mrs. R. K. Van Alstine,
Charlotte Corday.
A. Dobson,
Four French Women,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December).
The civil war.
Sieges of Lyons and Toulon.
Submission of Caen, Marseilles and Bordeaux.
Crushing of the Vendeans.
"The insurgents in Calvados [Normandy] were easily suppressed;
at the very first skirmish at Vernon [July 13], the insurgent
troops fled. Wimpfen endeavoured to rally them in vain. The
moderate class, those who had taken up the defence of the
Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the
constitution was accepted by the other departments, it saw the
opportunity for admitting that it had been in error, when it
thought it was taking arms against a mere factious minority.
This retractation was made at Caen, which had been the
headquarters of the revolt. The Mountain commissioners did not
sully this first victory with executions. General Carteaux on
the other hand, marched at the head of some troops against the
sectionary army of the south; he defeated its force, pursued
it to Marseilles, entered the town [August 23] after it, and
Provence would have been brought into subjection like
Calvados, if the royalists, who had taken refuge at Toulon,
after their defeat, had not called in the English to their
aid, and placed in their hands this key to France. Admiral
Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he
proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for 8,000 Spaniards
by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux,
who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles.
Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in
isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point. The
Mountain commissioners had made their entry into the rebel
capitals; Robert Lindet into Caen; Tallien into Bordeaux;
Barras and Fréron into Marseilles. Only two towns remained to
be taken Toulon and Lyons. A simultaneous attack from the
south, west, and centre was no longer apprehended, and in the
interior the enemy was only on the defensive. Lyons was
besieged by Kellermann, general of the army of the Alps; three
corps pressed the town on all sides. The veteran soldiers of
the Alps, the revolutionary battalions and the newly levied
troops, reinforced the besiegers every day. The people of
Lyons defended themselves with all the courage of despair. At
first, they relied on the assistance of the insurgents of the
south; but these having been repulsed by Carteaux, the
Lyonnese placed their last hope in the army of Piedmont, which
attempted a diversion in their favour, but was beaten by
Kellermann. Pressed still more energetically, they saw their
first position carried. Famine began to be felt, and courage
forsook them. The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility
of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army
entered the walls [October 9], where they awaited the orders
of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself [in the
siege of which Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the artillery],
defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell
into the power of the republicans. The battalions of the army
of Italy, reinforced by those which the taking of Lyons left
disposable, pressed the place closely. After repeated attacks
and prodigies of skill and valour, they made themselves
masters of it, and the capture of Toulon finished what that of
Lyons had begun [December 19]. Everywhere the convention was
victorious. The Vendeans had failed in their attempt upon
Nantes, after having lost many men, and their
general-in-chief, Cathelineau. This attack put an end to the
aggressive and previously promising movement of the Vendean
insurrection. The royalists repassed the Loire, abandoned
Saumur, and resumed their former cantonments. They were,
however, still formidable; and the republicans, who pursued
them, were again beaten in La Vendée. General Biron, who had
succeeded General Berruyer, unsuccessfully continued the war
with small bodies of troops; his moderation and defective
system of attack caused him to be replaced by Canclaux and
Rossignol, who were not more fortunate than he. There were two
leaders, two armies, and two centres of operation; ... The
committee of public safety soon remedied this, by appointing
one sole general-in-chief, Lechelle, and by introducing war on
a large scale into La Vendée. This new method, aided by the
garrison of Mayence, consisting of 17,000 veterans, who,
relieved from operations against the coalesced powers after
the capitulation, were employed in the interior, entirely
changed the face of the war. The royalists underwent four
consecutive defeats, two at Châtillon, two at Cholet [the last
being October 17]. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d'Elbée were
mortally wounded: and the insurgents, completely beaten in
Upper Vendée, and fearing that they should be exterminated if
they took refuge in Lower Vendée, determined to leave their
country to the number of 80,000 persons. This emigration
through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection,
became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly
routed at Mons [Le Mans, December 12], they were destroyed at
Savenay [December 23], and barely a few thousand men, the
wreck of this vast emigration, returned to Vendée. These
disasters, irreparable for the royalist cause, the taking of
their land of Noir-moutiers from Charette, the dispersion of
the troops of that leader, the death of Laroche jacquelin,
rendered the republicans masters of the country.
{1295}
The committee of public safety, thinking, not without reason,
that its enemies were beaten but not subjugated, adopted a
terrible system of extermination to prevent them from rising
again. General Thurreau surrounded Vendée with sixteen
entrenched camps; twelve movable columns, called the infernal
columns, overran the country in every direction, sword and
fire in hand, scoured the woods, dispersed the assemblies, and
diffused terror throughout this unhappy country."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 328-335,
and 398-410.
Marchioness de Larochejaquelain,
Memoirs.
A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 1, chapters 5-7.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December).
Progress of the war of the Coalition.
Dissensions among the Allies.
Unsuccessful siege of Dunkirk.
French Victories of Hondschotten and Wattignies.
Operations on the Rhine and elsewhere.
"The civil war in which France for a moment appeared engulfed
was soon confined to a few narrowing centres. What, in the
meantime, had been the achievements of the mighty Coalition of
banded Europe? Success, that might have been great, was
attained on the Alpine and Pyrenean frontiers; and had the
Piedmontese and Spaniards been well led they could have
overrun Provence and Rousillon, and made the insurrection of
the South fatal. But here, as elsewhere, the Allies did
little; and, though defeated in almost every encounter, the
republican levies held their ground against enemies who
nowhere advanced. It was, however, in the North and the
North-east that the real prize of victory was placed; and no
doubt can exist that had unanimity in the councils of the
Coalition prevailed, or had a great commander been in its
camp, Paris might have been captured without difficulty, and
the Revolution been summarily put down. But the Austrians, the
Prussians, and the English, were divided in mind; they had no
General capable of rising above the most ordinary routine of
war; and the result was that the allied armies advanced
tardily on an immense front, each leader thinking of his own
plans only, and no one venturing to press forward boldly, or
to pass the fortresses on the hostile frontiers, though
obstacles like these could be of little use without the aid of
powerful forces in the field. In this manner half the summer
was lost in besieging Mayence, Valenciennes, and Condé; and
when, after the fall of these places [July-August], an attempt
was made to invade Picardy, dissensions between the Allies
broke out, and the British contingent was detached to besiege
Dunkirk, while the Austrians lingered in French Flanders,
intent on enlarging by conquest Belgium, at that period an
Austrian Province. Time was thus gained for the French armies,
which, though they had made an honorable resistance, had been
obliged to fall back at all points, and were in no condition
to oppose their enemy; and the French army in the North,
though driven nearly to the Somme, within a few marches of the
capital, was allowed an opportunity to recruit its strength,
and was not, as it might have been easily, destroyed. A part
of the hastily raised levies was now incorporated in its
ranks; and as these were largely composed of seasoned men from
the old army of the Bourbon Monarchy, and from the volunteers
of Valmy and Jemmapes, a respectable force was before long
mustered. At the peremptory command of the Jacobin Government,
this was at once directed against the invaders, who did not
know what an invasion meant. The Duke of York, assailed with
vigor and skill, was compelled to raise the siege of Dunkirk
[by the French victory at Hondschotten, September 8]; and, to
the astonishment of Europe, the divided forces of the halting
and irresolute Coalition began to recede before the enemies,
who saw victory yielded to them, and who, feeble soldiers as
they often were, were nevertheless fired by ardent patriotism.
As the autumn closed the trembling balance of fortune inclined
decidedly on the side of the Republic. The French recruits,
hurried to the frontier in masses, became gradually better
soldiers, under the influence of increasing success. Carnot, a
man of great but overrated powers, took the general direction
of military affairs; and though his strategy was not sound, it
was much better than the imbecility of his foes. At the same
time, the Generals of the fallen Monarchy having disappeared,
or, for the most part, failed, brilliant names began to emerge
from the ranks, and to lead the suddenly raised armies; and
though worthless selections were not seldom made, more than
one private and sergeant gave proof of capacity of no common
order. Terror certainly added strength to patriotism, for
thousands were driven to the camp by force, and death was the
usual penalty of a defeated chief; but it was not the less a
great national movement, and high honor is justly due to a
people which, in a situation that might have seemed hopeless,
made such heroic: and noble efforts, even though it triumphed
through the weakness of its foe. Owing to a happy inspiration
of Carnot, a detachment was rapidly marched from the Rhine,
where the Prussians remained in complete inaction; and with
this reinforcement Jourdan gained a victory at Wattignies
[October 16] over the Austrians, and opened the way into the
Low Countries. At the close of the year the youthful Hoche,
once a corporal, but a man of genius, who had given studious
hours to the theory of war, divided Brunswick from the
Austrian Würmser by a daring and able march through the
Vosges; and the baffled Allies were driven out of Alsace, the
borders of which they had just invaded. By these operations
the great Northern frontier, the really vulnerable part of
France, was almost freed from the invaders' presence; and,
though less was achieved on the Southern frontier, the enemies
of the Republic began to lose courage."

W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution,
chapter 6.
"The Prussians had remained wholly inactive for two months
after the fall of Mayence, contenting themselves with watching
the French in their lines at Weissenburg. Wearied at length by
the torpor of his opponents, Moreau assumed the initiative,
and attacked the Prussian corps at Pirmasens. This bold
attempt was repulsed (September 14) with the loss of 4,000
men; but it was not till a month later (October 13) that the
Allies resumed the offensive, when the Weissenburg lines were
stormed by a mixed force of Austrians and Prussians, and the
French fled in confusion almost to Strasburg. But this
important advantage led to no results, though the defeat of
the Republican movement was hailed by a royalist movement in
Alsace.
{1296}
The Austrians, immovable in their plans of conquest, refused
to occupy Strasburg in the name of Louis XVII.; and the
unfortunate royalists, abandoned to Republican vengeance, were
indiscriminately consigned to the guillotine by a decree of
the Convention, while the confederate army was occupied in the
siege of Landau. But the lukewarmness of the Prussians had now
become so evident, that it was only by the most vehement
remonstrances of the Austrian cabinet that they were prevented
from seceding altogether from the league; and the Republicans,
taking advantage of the disunion of their enemies, again
attacked the Allies (December 26), who were routed and driven
over the Rhine [abandoning the siege of Landau]; while the
victors, following up their success, retook Spires, and
advanced to the gates of Mannheim. The operations in the
Pyrenees and on the side of Savoy, during this campaign, led
to no important results. On the western extremity of the
Pyrenees, the Spaniards [had] entered France in the middle of
April, routed their opponents in several encounters, and drove
them into St. Jean Pied-de-Poet. An invasion of Roussillon, at
the same time, was equally successful; and the Spaniards
maintained themselves in the province till the end of the
year, taking the fortresses of Bellegarde and Collioure, and
routing two armies which attempted to dislodge them, at Truellas
(September 22) and Boulon (December 7). An attempt of the
Sardinians to expel the French from their conquests in Savoy
was less fortunate; and, at the close of the campaign, both
parties remained in their former position."
A. Alison,
Epitome of History of Europe,
pages 58-59 (chapter 13,
volume 4 of complete work).
ALSO IN:
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 8, chapter 2 (volume 3).
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
volume 1, chapters 9-11.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (August).
Emancipation in San Domingo proclaimed.
See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (September-December).
The "Reign of Terror" becomes the "Order of the Day."
Trial and execution of Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, and
the Girondists.
"On the 16th of September, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine
surrounded the Hôtel de Ville, clamoring for 'Bread.' Hébert
and Chaumette appeased the mob by vociferous harangues against
rich men and monopolists, and by promising to raise a
revolutionary army with orders to scour the country, empty the
granaries, and put the grain within reach of the people. 'The
next thing will he a guillotine for the monopolists,' added
Hébert. This had been demanded by memorials from the most
ultra provincial Jacobins. The next day the Convention
witnessed the terrible reaction of this scene. At the opening
of the session Merlin de Douai proposed and carried a vote for
the division of the revolutionary tribunal into four sections,
in order to remedy the dilatoriness complained of by
Robespierre and the Jacobins. The municipality soon arrived,
followed by a great crowd; Chaumette, in a furious harangue,
demanded a revolutionary army with a travelling guillotine.
The ferocious Billaud-Varennes declared that this was not
enough, and that all suspected persons must be arrested
immediately. Danton interposed with the powerful eloquence of
his palmy days; he approved of an immediate decree for the
formation of a revolutionary army, but made no mention of the
guillotine. ... Danton's words were impetuous, but his ideas
were politic and deliberate. His motions were carried, amid
general acclamation. But the violent propositions of
Billaud-Varennes and others were also carried. The decree
forbidding domiciliary visits and night arrests, which had
been due to the Girondists, was revoked. A deputation from the
Jacobins and the sections demanded the indictment of the
'monster' Brissot with his accomplices, Vergniaud, Gensonné,
and other 'miscreants.' 'Lawgivers,' said the spokesman of the
deputation, 'let the Reign of Terror be the order of the day!'
Barère, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety,
obtained the passage of a decree organizing an armed force to
restrain counter-revolutionists and protect supplies. Fear led
him to unite with the most violent, and to adopt the great
motto of the Paris Commune, 'Let the Reign of Terror be the
order of the day!' 'The royalists are conspiring,' he said;
'they want blood. Well they shall have that of the
conspirators, of the Brissots and Marie Antoinettes!' The
association of these two names shows what frenzy prevailed in
the minds of the people. The next day September 6, two of the
most formidable Jacobins, the cold, implacable
Billaud-Varennes and the fiery Collot d'Herbois, were added to
the Committee of Public Safety. Danton persisted in his
refusal to return to it. This proves how mistaken the
Girondists had been in accusing him of aspiring to the
dictatorship. He kept aloof from the Committee chiefly because
he knew that they were lost, and did not wish to contribute to
their fall. Before leaving the ministry Garat had tried to
prevent the Girondists from being brought to trial; upon
making known his wish to Robespierre and Danton, he found
Robespierre implacable, while Danton, with tears coursing down
his rugged cheeks replied, 'I cannot save them!' ... On the 10th
of October Saint-Just, in the name of the Committee of Public
Safety, read to the Assembly an important report upon the
situation of the Republic. It was violent and menacing to
others beside the enemies of the Mountain; Hébert and his gang
might well tremble. He inveighed not only against those who
were plundering the government, but against the whole
administration. ... Saint-Just's report had been preceded on
the 3d of October by a report from the new Committee of Public
Safety, concluding with the indictment of 40 deputies; 39 were
Girondists or friends of the Gironde; the fortieth was the
ex-Duke of Orleans. Twenty-one of these 39 were now in the
hands of their enemies, and of these 21 only 9 belonged to
the first deputies indicted on the 2d of June; the remainder
had left Paris hoping to organize outside resistance, and had
been declared outlawed. The deputies subsequently added to
this number were members of the Right who had signed protests
against the violation of the national representation on that
fatal day. ... It was decided at the same session to bring the
40 deputies, together with Marie Antoinette, to trial. The
Jacobins and the commune had long been demanding the trial of
the unhappy queen, and were raising loud clamors over the
plots for her deliverance.
{1297}
She might perhaps have escaped from the Temple if she would
have consented to leave her children. During July a sorrow
equal to that of the 21st of January had been inflicted on
her; she had been separated from her young son under the
pretence that she treated him like a king, and was bringing
him up to make 'a tyrant of him.' The child was placed in
another part of the Temple, and his education was intrusted to
a vulgar and brutal shoemaker, named Simon. Nevertheless the
fate of Marie Antoinette at this epoch was still doubtful;
neither the Committee of Public Safety nor the ministry
desired her death. While Lebrun, the friend of the Girondists,
was minister of foreign affairs, a project had been formed
which would have saved her life. Danton knew of it and aided
it. ... This plan was a negotiation with Venice, Tuscany, and
Naples, the three Italian States yet neutral, who were to
pledge themselves to maintain their wavering neutrality, in
consideration of a guaranty of the safety of Marie Antoinette
and her family. Two diplomatic agents who afterwards held high
posts in France, Marat and Sémonville, were intrusted with
this affair. As they were crossing from Switzerland into
Italy, they were arrested, in violation of the law of nations,
upon the neutral territory of the Grisons by an Austrian
detachment (July 25). ... At tidings of the arrest of the
French envoys, Marie Antoinette was separated from her
daughter and sister-in-law Elizabeth, and transferred to the
Conciergerie. On the 14th of October she appeared before the
revolutionary tribunal. To the accusation of the public
prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, made up of calumnies against
her private life, and for the most part well-founded
imputations against her political conduct, she opposed a
plausible defence, which effaced as far as possible her part
in the late government. ... The following questions were put
to the jurors: 'Has Marie Antoinette aided in movements
designed to assist the foreign enemies of the Republic to open
French territory to them and to facilitate the progress of
their arms? Has she taken part in a conspiracy tending to
incite civil war?' The answer was in the affirmative, and the
sentence of death was passed on her. The decisive portions
which we now possess of the queen's correspondence with
Austria had not then been made public; but enough was known to
leave no doubt of her guilt, which had the same moral excuses
as that of her husband. ... She met death [October 16] with
courage and resignation. The populace who had hated her so
much did not insult her last moments. ... A week after the
queen's death the Girondists were summoned before the
revolutionary tribunal. Brissot and Lasource alone had tried
to escape this bloody ordeal, and to stir up resistance
against it in the South. Vergniaud, Gensonné, and Valazé
remained unshaken in their resolve to await trial. Gensonné,
who had been placed in the keeping of a Swiss whose life he
had saved on the 10th of August, and who had become a
gendarme, might have escaped, but he refused to profit by this
man's gratitude. ... The act of indictment drawn up by the
ex-Feuillant Amar was only a repetition of the monstrous
calumnies which had circulated through the clubs and the
journals. Brissot was accused of having ruined the colonies by
advocating the liberation of slaves, and of having drawn
foreign arms upon France by declaring war on kings. The whole
trial corresponded to this beginning. ... On the 29th the
Jacobins appeared at the bar of the Convention, and called for
a decree giving the jurors of the revolutionary tribunal the
right to bring the proceedings to a close as soon as they
believed themselves sufficiently enlightened. Robespierre and
Barère supported the Jacobin demand. Upon Robespierre's motion
it was decreed that after three days' proceedings, the jurors
might declare themselves ready to render their verdict. The
next day the jurors availed themselves of their privilege, and
declared themselves sufficiently informed, although they had
not heard the evidence for acquittal, neither the accused nor
their counsel having been allowed to plead their cause.
Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Valazé, Bishop Fauchet, Ducos,
Boyer-Fonfrède, Lasource, and their friends were declared
guilty of having conspired against the unity and
indivisibility of the Republic, and against the liberty and
safety of the French people. ... Danton, who had not been an
accomplice in their death, had retired to his mother's home at
Arcis-sur-Aube, that he might not be a witness thereof. The
condemned were brought back to hear their sentence. The
greater part of them rose up with a common impulse, and cried,
'We are innocent! People, they are deceiving you!' The crowd
remained motionless and silent. ... At midnight they partook
of a last repast, passing the rest of the night in converse
about their native land, their remnant of life being cheered
by news of victory and pleasant sallies from young Ducos, who
might have escaped, but preferred to share his friend
Fonfréde's fate. Vergniaud had been given a subtle poison by
Condorcet, but threw it away, choosing to die with his
companions. One of his noble utterances gives us the key to
his life. 'Others sought to consummate the Revolution by
terror; I would accomplish it by love.' Next day, October 31,
at noon, the prisoners were led forth, and as the five carts
containing them left the Conciergerie, they struck up the
national hymn ... and shouts of 'Long live the Republic.' The
sounds died away as their number decreased, but did not cease
until the last of the 21 mounted the fatal platform. ... The
murderers of the Girondists were not likely to spare the
illustrious woman who was at once the inspiration and the
honor of that party, and the very same day Madame Roland who
had been for five months a prisoner at St. Pelagie and the
Abbaye, was transferred to the Conciergerie. Hébert and his
followers had long clamored for her head. During her captivity
she wrote her Memoirs, which unfortunately have not been
preserved complete; no other souvenir of the Revolution equals
this, although it is not always reliable, for Madame Roland
had feminine weaknesses of intellect, despite her masculine
strength of soul; she was prejudiced against all who disagreed
with her, and regarded caution and compromise with a noble but
impolitic scorn. ... The 18th Brumaire (November 10), she was
summoned before the revolutionary tribunal; when she left her
cell, clad in white, her dark hair, floating loosely over her
shoulders, a smile on her lips and her face sparkling with
life and animation. ...
{1298}
She was condemned in advance, not being allowed a word in her
own defence, and was declared guilty of being an author or
accomplice 'of a monstrous conspiracy against the unity and
indivisibility of the Republic.' She heard her sentence
calmly, saying to the judges: 'You deem me worthy the fate of
the great men you have murdered. I will try to display the
same courage on the scaffold.' She was taken directly to the
Place de la Revolution, a man condemned for treason being
placed in the same cart, who was overwhelmed with terror. She
passed the mournful journey in soothing him, and on reaching
the scaffold bid him mount first, that his sufferings might
not be prolonged. As she took her place in turn, her eye fell
on a colossal statue of Liberty, erected August 10, 1793. 'O
Liberty,' she cried, 'what crimes are committed in thy name!'
Some say that she said, 'O Liberty, how they have deceived
thee!' Thus died the noblest woman in history since the
incomparable Joan, who saved France! ... The bloody tribunal
never paused; famous men of every party succeeded each other
at the fatal bar, the ex-Duke of Orleans among them, but four
days earlier than Madame Roland. ... The day after Madame
Roland's trial began that of the venerable Bailli, ex-mayor of
Paris and ex-president of the Constituent Assembly, a man who
played a great part early in the Revolution, but faded out of
sight with the constituent power."
Henry Martin,
Popular History of France, 1789-1877,
volume 1, chapter 16.
ALSO IN
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
chapters 46-52 (volume 3).
C. D. Yonge,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
chapter 39.
Madame Campan,
Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, conclusion.
S. Marceau,
Reminiscences of a Regicide,
chapter 11.
Count Beugnot,
Life,
volume 1, chapter 6.
Lord R. Gower,
Last Days of Marie Antoinette.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (October).
Life in Paris during the Reign of Terror.
Gaiety in the Prisons.
The Tricoteuses, or knitting women.
Revolutionary costumes and modes of speech.
The guillotine as plaything and ornament.
"By the end of October, 1793, the Committee of General
Security had mastered Paris, and established the Reign of
Terror there by means of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and could
answer to the Great Committee of Public Safety for the
tranquillity of the capital. There were no more riots; men
were afraid even to express their opinions, much less to
quarrel about them; the system of denunciation made Paris into
a hive of unpaid spies, and ordinary crimes, pocket-picking
and the like, vanished as if by magic. Yet it must not be
supposed that Paris was gloomy or dull; on the contrary, the
vast majority of citizens seemed glad to have an excuse to
avoid politics, of which they had had a surfeit during the
last four years, and to turn their thoughts to the literary
side of their favourite journals, to the theatres, and to art.
... The dull places of Paris were the Revolutionary
Committees, the Jacobin Club, the Convention, the Hôtel de
Brienne, where the Committee of General Security sat, and the
Pavillon de l'Egalité, formerly the Pavillon de Flore, in the
Tuileries, where the Great Committee of Public Safety
laboured. ... Elsewhere men were lighthearted and gay,
following their usual avocations, and busy in their pursuit of
pleasure or of gain. It is most essential to grasp the fact
that there was no particular difference, for the vast majority
of the population, in living in Paris during the Reign of
Terror and at other times. The imagination of posterity,
steeped in tales of the tumbrils bearing their burden to the
guillotine, and of similar stories of horror, has conceived a
ghastly picture of life at that extraordinary period, and it
is only after living for months amongst the journals, memoirs,
and letters of the time that one can realize the fact that to
the average Parisian the necessity of getting his dinner or
his evening's amusement remained the paramount thought of his
daily life. ... Strange to say, nowhere was life more happy
and gay than in the prisons of Paris, where the inmates lived
in the constant expectation that the haphazard chance of being
brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal and condemned to
death might befall them at any moment. ... A little more must
be said about the market-women, the tricoteuses, or
knitting-women of infamous memory. These market-women had been
treated as heroines ever since their march to Versailles in
October, 1789. ... They formed their societies after the
fashion of the Jacobin Club, presided over by Renée Audu,
Agnès Lefevre, Marie Louise Bouju, and Rose Lacombe, and went
about the streets of Paris insulting respectably dressed
people, and hounding on the sans-culottes to deeds of
atrocity. These Mænads were encouraged by Marat, and played an
important part in the street history of Paris, up to the Reign
of Terror, when their power was suddenly taken from them. On
May 21, 1793, they were excluded by a decree from the
galleries of the Convention; on May 26 they were forbidden to
form part of any political assembly; and when they appealed
from the Convention to the Commune of Paris, Chaumette
abruptly told them 'that the Republic had no need of Joans of
Arc.' Thus deprived of active participation in politics, the
market-women became the tricoteuses, or knitting-women, who
used to take their seats in the Place de la Revolution, and
watch the guillotine as they knitted. Their active power for
good or harm was gone. ... Life during the Terror in Paris ...
differed in little things, in little affectations of liberty
and equality, which are amusing to study. The fashions of
dress everywhere betrayed the new order of things. A few men,
such as Robespierre, might still go about with powdered hair
and in knee-breeches, but the ordinary male costume of the
time was designed to contrast in every way with the costume of
a dandy of the 'ancien régime.' Instead of breeches, the
fashion was to wear trousers; instead of shoes, top-boots; and
instead of shaving, the young Parisian prided himself on letting
his moustache grow. In female costume a different motive was
at work. Only David's art disciples ventured to imitate the
male apparel of ancient Greece and Rome, but such imitation
became the fashion among women. Waists disappeared; and
instead of stiffened skirts and narrow bodices, women wore
short loose robes, which they fancied resembled Greek chitons;
sandals took the place of high-heeled shoes; and the hair,
instead of being worked up into elaborate edifices, was
allowed to flow down freely. For ornaments, gun-metal and
steel took the place of gold, silver and precious stones. ...
The favourite design was the guillotine.
{1299}
Little guillotines were worn as brooches, as earrings and as
clasps, and the women of the time simply followed the fashion
without realizing what it meant. Indeed, the worship of the
guillotine was one of the most curious features of the epoch.
Children had toy guillotines given them; models were made to
cut off imitation heads, when wine or sweet syrup flowed in
place of blood; and hymns were written to La Sainte
Guillotine, and jokes made upon it, as the 'national razor.'
... It is well known that the desire to emphasize the
abolition of titles was followed by the abolition of the terms
'Monsieur' and 'Madame,' and that their places were taken by
'Citizen' and 'Citizeness;' and also how the use of the second
person plural was dropped, and it was considered a sign of a
good republican to tutoyer everyone, that is, to call them
'thou' and 'thee.' ... The Reign of Terror in Paris seems to
us an age of unique experiences, a time unparalleled in the
history of the world; yet to the great majority of
contemporaries it did not appear so; they lived their ordinary
lives, and it was only in exceptional cases that the serenity
of their days was interrupted, or that their minds were
exercised by anything more than the necessity of earning their
daily bread."
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 10.
ALSO IN
J. Michelet,
Women of the French Revolution,
chapters 20-30.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (October).
The new republican calendar.
"Before the year ended the legislators of Paris voted that
there was no God, and destroyed or altered nearly everything
that had any reference to Christianity. Robespierre, who would
have stopped short at deism, and who would have preserved the
external decencies, was overruled and intimidated by Hébert
and his frowsy crew, who had either crept into the governing
committees or had otherwise made themselves a power in the
state. ... All popular journalists, patriots, and public
bodies, had begun dating 'First Year of Liberty,' or 'First
Year of the Republic;' and the old calendar had come to be
considered as superstitious and slavish, as an abomination in
the highest degree disgraceful to free and enlightened
Frenchmen. Various petitions for a change had been presented;
and at length the Convention had employed the mathematicians
Romme and Monge, and the astronomer Laplace, to make a new
republican calendar for the new era. These three philosophers,
aided by Fabre d'Eglantine, who, as a poet, furnished the
names, soon finished their work, which was sanctioned by the
Convention and decreed into universal use as early as the 5th
of October. It divided the year into four equal seasons, and
twelve equal months of 30 days each. The five odd days which
remained were to be festivals, and to bear the name of
'Sansculottides.' ... One of these five days was to be
consecrated to Genius, one to Industry, the third to Fine
Actions, the fourth to Rewards, the fifth to Opinion. ... In
leap-years, when there would be six days to dispose of, the
last of those days or Sansculottides was to be consecrated to
the Revolution, and to be observed in all times with all
possible solemnity. The months were divided into three
decades, or portions of ten days each, and, instead of the
Christian sabbath, once in seven days, the décadi, or tenth
day, was to be the day of rest. ... The decimal method of
calculation ... was to preside over all divisions: thus,
instead of our twenty-four hours to the day, and sixty minutes
to the hour, the day was divided into ten parts, and the tenth
was to be subdivided by tens and again by tens to the minutest
division of time. New dials were ordered to mark the time in
this new way, but, before they were finished, it was found
that the people were puzzled and perplexed by this last
alteration, and therefore this part of the calendar was
adjourned for a year, and the hours, minutes and seconds were
left as they were. As the republic commenced on the 21st of
September close on the [autumnal] equinox, the republican year
was made to commence at that season. The first month in the
year (Fabre d'Eglantine being god-father to them all) was
called Vendémiaire, or the vintage month, the second Brumaire,
or the foggy month, the third Frimaire, or the frosty month.
These were the three autumn months. Nivôse, Pluviôse, and
Ventôse, or the snowy, rainy and windy, were the three winter
months. Germinal, Floreal, and Prairial, or the bud month, the
flower month, and the meadow month, formed the spring season.
Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor, or reaping month, heat
month, and fruit month, made the summer, and completed the
republican year. In more ways than one all this was calculated
for the meridian of Paris, and could suit no other physical or
moral climate. ... But the strangest thing about this
republican calendar was its duration. It lasted till the 1st
of January, 1806."
C. Mac Farlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 4, volume 3.
The Republican Calendar for the Year Two of the Republic
(September 22, 1793-Sept. 21, 1794) is synchronized with the
Gregorian Calendar as follows:
1 Vendémiaire = September 22;
1 Brumaire = October 22;
1 Frimaire = November 21;
1 Nivôse = December 21;
1 Pluviôse = January 20;
1 Ventôse = February 19;
1 Germinal = March 21;
1 Floreal = April 20;
1 Prairial = May 20;
1 Messidor = June 19;
1 Thermidor = July 19;
1 Fructidor= August 18;
1st to 5th Sansculottides = September 17-21.
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, appendix 12.
ALSO IN
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 364-365.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (November).
Abandonment of Christianity.
The Worship of Reason instituted.
"The earliest steps towards a public abandonment of
Christianity appear to have been taken by Fouché, the future
minister of Police, and Duke of Otranto. ... He published at
Nevers (October 10, 1793) a decree" ordaining that "no forms
of religious worship be practised except within their
respective temples;" that "ministers of religion are
forbidden, under pain of imprisonment, to wear their official
costumes in any other places besides their temples;" and that
the inscription, "Death is an eternal sleep," should be placed
over the entrance to the cemetery. "This decree was reported
to the municipality of Paris by Chaumette, the fanatical
procureur of the Commune, and was warmly applauded. ... The
atheistical cabal of which he was the leader (his chief
associates being the infamous Hébert, the Prussian baron
Anacharsis Clootz, and Chabot, a renegade priest), now judged
that public feeling was ripe for an avowed and combined
onslaught on the profession of Christianity. ... They decreed
that on the 10th of November the 'Worship of Reason' should be
inaugurated at Notre Dame.
{1300}
On that day the venerable cathedral was profaned by a series
of sacrilegious outrages unparalleled in the history of
Christendom. A temple dedicated to 'Philosophy' was erected on
a platform in the middle of the choir. A motley procession of
citizens of both sexes, headed by the constituted authorities,
advanced towards it; on their approach, the Goddess of Reason,
impersonated by Mademoiselle Maillard, a well known figurante
of the opera, took her seat upon a grassy throne in front of
the temple; a hymn, composed in her honour by the poet
Chenier, was sung by a body of young girls dressed in white
and bedecked with flowers; and the multitude bowed the knee
before her in profound adoration. It was the 'abomination of
desolation sitting in the holy place.' At the close of this
grotesque ceremony the whole cortège proceeded to the hall of
the Convention, carrying with them their 'goddess,' who was
borne aloft in a chair of state on the shoulders of four men.
Having deposited her in front of the president, Chaumette
harangued the Assembly. ... He proceeded to demand that the
ci-devant metropolitical church should henceforth be the
temple of Reason and Liberty; which proposition was
immediately adopted. The 'goddess' was then conducted to the
president, and he and other officers of the House saluted her
with the 'fraternal kiss,' amid thunders of applause. After
this, upon the motion of Thuriot, the Convention in a body
joined the mass of the people, and marched in their company to
the temple of Reason, to witness a repetition of the impieties
above described. These demonstrations were zealously imitated
in the other churches of the capital. ... The interior of St.
Eustache was transformed into a 'guinguette,' or place of low
public entertainment. ... At St. Gervais a ball was given in
the chapel of the Virgin. In other churches theatrical
spectacles took place. ... Representatives of the people
thought it no shame to quit their curule chairs in order to
dance the 'carmagnole' with abandoned women in the streets
attired in sacerdotal garments. On Sunday, the 17th of
November, all the parish churches of Paris were closed by
authority, with three exceptions. ... Chaumette, at a sitting
of the Commune on the 26th of November, called for further
measures for the extermination of every vestige of Christian
worship;" and the Council of the Commune, on his demand,
ordered the closing of all churches and temples, of every
religious denomination; made priests and ministers of religion
responsible for any troubles that might arise from religious
opinions, and commanded the arrest as a "suspect" of any
person who should ask for the reopening of a church. "The
example set by Paris, at this melancholy period, was
faithfully repeated, if not surpassed in atrocity, throughout
the provinces. Religion was proscribed, churches closed,
Christian ordinances interdicted; the dreary gloom of
atheistical despotism overspread the land. ... These infamies
were too monstrous to be tolerated for any length of time. ...
Robespierre, who had marked the symptoms of a coming reaction,
boldly seized the opportunity, and denounced without mercy the
hypocritical faction which disputed his own march towards
absolute dictatorship."
W. H. Jervis,
The Gallican Church and the Revolution,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 52 (volume 3).
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 4 (volume 3).
E. de Pressense,
Religion and the Reign of Terror,
book 2, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (October-April).
The Terror in the Provinces.
Republican vengeance at Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon,
Bordeaux, Nantes.
Fusillades and Noyades.
"The insurgents of Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, and Bordeaux,
were punished with pitiless severity. Lyons had revolted, and
the convention decreed [October 12] the destruction of the
city, the confiscation of the property of the rich, for the
benefit of the patriots, and the punishment of the insurgents
by martial law. Couthon, a commissioner well tried in cruelty,
hesitated to carry into execution this monstrous decree, and
was superseded by Collot d'Herbois and Fouché. Thousands of
workmen were employed in the work of destruction: whole
streets fell under their pickaxes: the prisons were gorged:
the guillotine was too slow for revolutionary vengeance, and
crowds of prisoners were shot, in murderous 'mitraillades.'
... At Marseilles, 12,000 of the richest citizens fled from
the vengeance of the revolutionists, and their property was
confiscated, and plundered. When Toulon fell before the
strategy of Bonaparte, the savage vengeance and cruelty of the
conquerors were indulged without restraint. ... The dockyard
labourers were put to the sword: gangs of prisoners were
brought out and executed by fusillades: the guillotine also
claimed its victims: the sans-culottes rioted in confiscation
and plunder. At Bordeaux, Tallien threw 15,000 citizens into
prison. Hundreds fell under the guillotine; and the
possessions and property of the rich were offered up to
outrage and robbery. But all these atrocities were far
surpassed in La Vendee. ... The barbarities of warfare were
yet surpassed by the vengeance of the conquerors, when the
insurrection was, at last, overcome. At Nantes, the monster
Carrier outstripped his rivals in cruelty and insatiable
thirst for blood. Not contented with wholesale mitraillades,
he designed that masterpiece of cruelty, the noyades; and
thousands of men, women and children who escaped the muskets
of the rabble soldiery were deliberately drowned in the waters
of the Loire. In four months, his victims reached 15,000. At
Angers, and other towns in La Vendee, these hideous noyades
were added to the terrors of the guillotine and the
fusillades."
Sir T. E. May,
Democracy in Europe,
chapter 14.
"One begins to be sick of 'death vomited in great floods.'
Nevertheless, hearest thou not, O Reader (for the sound
reaches through centuries), in the dead December and January
nights, over Nantes Town,--confused noises, as of musketry and
tumult, as of rage and lamentation; mingling with the
everlasting moan of the Loire waters there? Nantes Town is
sunk in sleep; but Représentant Carrier is not sleeping, the
wool-capped Company of Marat is not sleeping. Why unmoors that
flatbottomed craft, that 'gabarre'; about eleven at night;
with Ninety Priests under hatches? They are going to Belle
Isle? In the middle of the Loire stream, on signal given, the
gabarre is scuttled; she sinks with all her cargo. 'Sentence
of Deportation,' writes Carrier, 'was executed vertically.'
The Ninety Priests, with their gabarre-coffin, lie deep! It is
the first of the Noyades [November 16], what we may call
'Drownages' of Carrier; which have become famous forever.
{1301}
Guillotining there was at Nantes, till the Headsman sank worn
out: then fusillading 'in the Plain of Saint-Mauve;' little
children fusilladed, and women with children at the breast;
children and women, by the hundred and twenty; and by the five
hundred, so hot is La Véndee: till the very Jacobins grew
sick, and all but the Company of Marat cried, Hold! Wherefore
now we have got Noyading; and on the 24th night of Frostarious
year 2, which is 14th of December 1793, we have a second
Noyade; consisting of '138 persons.' Or why waste a gabarre,
sinking it with them? Fling them out; fling them out, with
their hands tied: pour a continual hail of lead over all the
space, till the last struggler of them be sunk! Unsound
sleepers of Nantes, and the Sea-Villages there-abouts, hear
the musketry amid the night-winds; wonder what the meaning of
it is. And women were in that gabarre; whom the Red Nightcaps
were stripping naked; who begged, in their agony, that their
smocks might not be stript from them. And young children were
thrown in, their mothers vainly pleading: 'Wolflings,'
answered the Company of Marat, 'who would grow to be wolves.'
By degrees, daylight itself witnesses Noyades: women and men
are tied together, feet and feet, hands and hands; and flung
in: this they call Mariage Républicain, Republican Marriage.
Cruel is the panther of the woods, the she-bear bereaved of
her whelps: but there is in man a hatred crueler than that.
Dumb, out of suffering now, as pale swollen corpses, the
victims tumble confusedly seaward along the Loire stream; the
tide rolling them back: clouds of ravens darken the River;
wolves prowl on the shoal-places: Carrier writes, 'Quel
torrent révolutionnaire, What a torrent of Revolution!' For
the man is rabid; and the Time is rabid. These are the Noyades
of Carrier; twenty-five by the tale, for what is done in
darkness comes to be investigated in sunlight: not to be
forgotten for centuries. ... Men are all rabid; as the Time
is. Representative Lebon, at Arras, dashes his sword into the
blood flowing from the Guillotine; exclaims, 'How I like it!'
Mothers, they say, by his orders, have to stand by while the
Guillotine devours their children: a band of music is
stationed near; and, at the fall of every head, strikes up its
'Ça-ira.'"
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 5, chapter 3.
ALSO IN
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 11.
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 1, section 9 (volume 3).
Horrors of the Prison of Arras
("The Reign of Terror: A Collection of Authentic
Narratives," volume 2).
Duchesse de Duras,
Prison Journals during the French Revolution
A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 1, chapters 7-13, and volume 2, chapter l.
See, also, FRANCE: 1794 (JUNE-JULY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (November-June).
The factions of the Mountain devour one another.
Destruction of the Hebertists.
Danton and his followers brought to the knife.
Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.
The Feast of the Supreme Being.
"Robespierre was unutterably outraged by the proceedings of
the atheists. They perplexed him as a politician intent upon
order, and they afflicted him sorely as an ardent disciple of
the Savoyard Vicar. Hébert, however, was so strong that it
needed some courage to attack him, nor did Robespierre dare to
withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch from making
an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its
partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the 21st
of November one of the most admirable of his oratorical
successes. ... 'Atheism [he said] is aristocratic. The idea of
a great being who watches over oppressed innocence and
punishes triumphant crime is essentially the idea of the
people. This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; it
is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached
neither to priests, nor to superstitions, nor to ceremonies;
it is attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to
the idea of an incomprehensible Power, the terror of
wrong-doers, the stay and comfort of virtue, to which it
delights to render words of homage that are all so many
anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.' This is
Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as
statesman. ... Danton followed practically the same line,
though saying much less about it. 'If Greece,' he said in the
Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too shall
solemnize her sans-culottid days. ... If we have not honoured
the priest of error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to
honour the priest of incredulity: we wish to serve the people.
I demand that there shall be an end of these anti-religious
masquerades in the Convention.' There was an end of the
masquerading, but the Hébertists still kept their ground.
Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally
impotent against them for some months longer. The
revolutionary force had been too strong to be resisted by any
government since the Paris insurgents had carried both king
and assembly in triumph from Versailles in the October of
1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to strive
with all their might to build a new government out of the
agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months
the battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance
against atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of
masked skirmishes. ... Collot D'Herbois had come back in hot
haste from Lyons. ... Carrier was recalled from Nantes. ...
The presence of these men of blood gave new courage and
resolution to the Hébertists. Though the alliance was
informal, yet as against Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and the
rest of the Indulgents, as well as against Robespierre, they
made common cause. Camille Desmoulins attacked Hébert in
successive numbers of a journal ['Le Vieux Cordelier'] that is
perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the
revolution. Hébert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of
Desmoulins in the Club, and the unfortunate wit,
notwithstanding the efforts of Robespierre on his behalf, was
for a while turned out of the sacred precincts. ... Even
Danton himself was attacked (December, 1793) and the integrity
of his patriotism brought into question. Robespierre made an
energetic defence of his great rival in the hierarchy of
revolution. ... Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and
timidity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had
been premature; and a convenient illness, which some supposed
to have been feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks
from a scene where he felt that he could no longer see clear.
We cannot doubt that both he and Danton were perfectly assured
that the anarchic party must unavoidably roll headlong into the
abyss.
{1302}
But the hour of doom was uncertain. To make a mistake in the
right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant death.
Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. ... His
absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed
events to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in
dangerous action which he had dreaded on the 10th of August,
as he dreaded it on every other decisive day of this burning
time. The party of the Commune became more and more daring in
their invectives against the Convention and the Committees. At
length they proclaimed open insurrection. But Paris was cold,
and opinion was divided. In the night of the 13th of March,
Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day
Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin
Club. He joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public
Safety in striking the blow. On the 24th of March the
Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were beheaded. The first bloody
breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by the
second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon
followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the
execution of the Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest
of the Moderates. When the seizure of Danton had once before
been discussed in the Committee, Robespierre resisted the
proposal violently. We have already seen how he defended
Danton at the Jacobin Club. ... What produced this sudden
tack? ... His acquiescence in the ruin of Danton is
intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The
Committee [of Public Safety] hated Danton for the good reason
that he had openly attacked them, and his cry for clemency was
an inflammatory and dangerous protest against their system.
Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up his mind that
the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, he
could work out his own vague schemes of power and
reconstruction. And, in any case, how could he resist the
Committee? ... All goes to show that Robespierre was really
moved by nothing more than his invariable dread of being left
behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not seeming
practical and political enough. And having made up his mind
that the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the
Dantonists, he became fiercer than Billaud himself. ... Danton
had gone, as he often did, to his native village of
Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of sight
in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal
ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles.
... It is not clear that he could have done anything. The
balance of force, after the suppression of the Hébertists, was
irretrievably against him, as calculation had already revealed to
Robespierre. ... After the arrest, and on the proceedings to
obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and
others of its members, one only of their friends had the
courage to rise and demand that they should be heard at the
bar. Robespierre burst out in cold rage; he asked whether they
had undergone so many heroic sacrifices, counting among them
these acts of 'painful severity,' only to fall under the yoke
of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried out
impatiently that they would brook no claim of privilege, and
suffer no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for
the Convention dreaded to have its independence suspected, and
it dreaded this all the more because at this time its
independence did not really exist. The vote against Danton was
unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the deepest stain on
the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the 16th
Germinal (April 5, 1794), Paris in amazement and some
stupefaction saw the once dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast
bound in the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging
knife [with Camille Desmoulins and others]. 'I leave it all in
a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a
man of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow
me; he is dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman
than meddle with the governing of men!' ... After the fall of
the anarchists and the death of Danton, the relations between
Robespierre and the Committees underwent a change. He, who had
hitherto been on the side of government, became in turn an
agency of opposition. He did this in the interest of ultimate
stability, but the difference between the new position and the
old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable
republic with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions.
... The base of Robespierre's scheme of social reconstruction
now came clearly into view; and what a base! An official
Supreme Being and a regulated Terror. ... How can we speak
with decent patience of a man who seriously thought that he
should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of
the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the
Feast of the Supreme Being. This was designed as a triumphant
ripost to the Feast of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends
had celebrated in the winter. ... Robespierre persuaded the
Convention to decree an official recognition of the Supreme
Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of
their mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for
the decade in which the festival would fall. When the day came
(20th Prairial, June 8, 1794), he clothed himself with more
than even his usual care. As he looked out from the windows of
the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in the gardens, he was
intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, 'how
sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow
pale at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical
pride he walked at the head of the procession, with flowers
and wheat-ears in his hand, to the sound of chants and
symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the first of the great
basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised an
allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was
prepared. Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the
midst of an amiable group of human Vices, with Madness by her
side, and Wisdom menacing them with lofty wrath. Great are the
perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied a torch to Atheism, but
alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and Madness were
damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was hapless
Wisdom who took fire. ... The whole mummery was pagan. ... It
stands as the most disgusting and contemptible anachronism in
history."
J. Morley,
Robespierre
(Critical Miscellanies, Second Series).
ALSO IN
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 6.
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapters 19-20.
L. Gronlund,
Ça ira: or Danton in the French Revolution,
chapter 6.
J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapters 5-6.
{1303}
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (March-July).
Withdrawal of Prussia from the European Coalition as an ally,
to become a mercenary.
Successes of the Republic.
Conquest of the Austrian Netherlands.
Advance to the Rhine.
Loss of Corsica.
Naval defeat off Ushant.
"While the alliance of the Great Powers was on the point of
dissolution from selfishness and jealousy, the French, with an
energy and determination, which, considering their
unparalleled difficulties, were truly heroic, had assembled
armies numbering nearly a million of men. The aggregate of the
allied forces did not much exceed 300,000. The campaign on the
Dutch and Flemish frontiers of France was planned at Vienna,
but had nearly been disconcerted at the outset by the refusal
of the Duke of York to serve under General Clairfait. ... The
Emperor settled the difficulty by signifying his intention to
take the command in person. Thus one incompetent prince who
knew little, was to be commanded by another incompetent prince
who knew nothing, about war; and the success of a great
enterprise was made subservient to considerations of punctilio
and etiquette. The main object of the Austrian plan was to
complete the reduction of the frontier fortresses by the
capture of Landrecy on the Sambre, and then to advance through
the plains of Picardy on Paris;--a plan which might have been
feasible the year before. ... The King of Prussia formally
withdrew from the alliance [March 13]; but condescended to
assume the character of a mercenary. In the spring of the
year, by a treaty with the English Government, his Prussian
Majesty undertook to furnish 62,000 men for a year, in
consideration of the sum of £1,800,000, of which Holland, by a
separate convention, engaged to supply somewhat less than a
fourth part. The organisation of the French army was effected
under the direction of Carnot. ... The policy of terror was
nevertheless applied to the administration of the army.
Custine and Houchard, who had commanded the last campaign, ...
were sent to the scaffold, because the arms of the republic
had failed to achieve a complete triumph under their
direction. ... Pichegru, the officer now selected to lead the
hosts of France, went forth to assume his command with the
knife of the executioner suspended over his head. His orders
were to expel the invaders from the soil and strongholds of
the republic, and to reconquer Belgium. The first step towards
the fulfilment of this commission was the recovery of the
three great frontier towns, Condé, Valenciennes, and Quesnoy.
The siege of Quesnoy was immediately formed; and Pichegru,
informed of or anticipating the plans of the Allies, disposed
a large force in front of Cambray, to intercept the operations
of ... the allied army upon Landrecy. ... On the 17th
[of April] a great action was fought in which the allies
obtained a success, sufficient to enable them to press the
siege of Landrecy. ... Pichegru, a few days after [April 26,
at the redoubts of Troisville] sustained a signal repulse from
the British, in an attempt to raise the siege of Landrecy; but
by a rapid and daring movement, he improved his defeat, and
seized the important post of Moucron. The results were, that
Clairfait was forced to fall back on Tournay; Courtray and
Menin surrendered to the French; and thus the right flanks of
the Allies were exposed. Landrecy, which, about the same time,
fell into the hands of the Allies, was but a poor compensation
for the reverses in West Flanders. The Duke of York, at the
urgent instance of the Emperor, marched to the relief of
Clairfait; but, in the meantime, the Austrian general, being
hard pressed, was compelled to fall back upon a position which
would enable him for a time to cover Bruges, Ghent, and
Ostend. The English had also to sustain a vigorous attack near
Tournay; but the enemy were defeated with the loss of 4,000
men. It now became necessary to risk a general action to save
Flanders, by cutting off that division of the French army
which had outflanked the Allies. By bad management and want of
concert this movement, which had been contrived by Colonel
Mack, the chief military adviser of the Emperor, was wholly
defeated [at Tourcoign, May 18]. ... The French took 1,500
prisoners and 60 pieces of cannon. A thousand English soldiers
lay dead on the field, and the Duke [of York] himself escaped
with difficulty. Four days after, Pichegru having collected a
great force, amounting, it has been stated, to 100,000 men,
made a grand attack upon the allied army [at Pont Achin]. ...
The battle raged from five in the morning until nine at night,
and was at length determined by the bayonet. ... In consequence
of this check, Pichegru fell back upon Lisle." It was after
this repulse that "the French executive, on the flimsy
pretence of a supposed attempt to assassinate Robespierre,
instigated by the British Government, procured a decree from
the Convention, that no English or Hanoverian prisoners should
be made. In reply to this atrocious edict, the Duke of York
issued a general order, enjoining forbearance to the troops
under his command. Most of the French generals ... refused to
become assassins. ... The decree was carried into execution in
a few instances only. ... The Allies gained no military
advantage by the action of Pont Achin on the 22nd of May. ...
The Emperor ... abandoned the army and retired to Vienna. He
left some orders and proclamations behind him, to which nobody
thought it worth while to pay any attention. On the 5th of June,
Pichegru invested Ypres, which Clairfait made two attempts to
retain, but without success. The place surrendered on the
17th; Clairfait retreated to Ghent; Walmoden abandoned Bruges;
and the Duke of York, forced to quit his position at Tournay,
encamped near Oudenarde. It was now determined by the Prince
of Coburg, who resumed the chief command after the departure
of the Emperor, to risk the fate of Belgium on a general
action, which was fought at Fleurus on the 26th of June. The
Austrians, after a desperate struggle, were defeated at all
points by the French army of the Sambre under Jourdan.
Charleroi having surrendered to the French ... and the Duke of
York being forced to retreat, any further attempt to save the
Netherlands was hopeless. Ostend and Mons, Ghent, Tournay, and
Oudenarde, were successively evacuated; and the French were

established at Brussels. When it was too late, the English
army was reinforced. ... It now only remained for the French
to recapture the fortresses on their own frontier which had
been taken from them in the last campaign. ...
{1304}
Landrecy ... fell without a struggle. Quesnoy ... made a
gallant [but vain] resistance. ... Valenciennes and Condé ...
opened their gates. ... The victorious armies of the Republic
were thus prepared for the conquest of Holland. ... The Prince
of Orange made an appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen;
but the republicans preferred the ascendancy of their faction
to the liberties of their country. ... The other military
operation's of the year, in which England was engaged, do not
require prolonged notice. The Corsicans, under the guidance of
their veteran chief, Paoli, ... sought the aid of England to
throw off the French yoke, and offered in return allegiance of
his countrymen to the British Crown. ... A small force was
despatched, and, after a series of petty operations, Corsica
was occupied by British troops, and proclaimed a part of the
British dominions. An expedition on a greater scale was sent
to the West Indies. Martinique, St. Lucie and Guadaloupe were
easily taken; but the large island of St. Domingo, relieved by
a timely arrival of succours from France, offered a formidable
[and successful] resistance. ... The campaign on the Rhine was
undertaken by the Allies under auspices ill calculated to
inspire confidence, or even hope. The King of Prussia, not
content with abandoning the cause, had done everything in his
power to thwart and defeat the operations of the Allies. ...
On the 22d of May, the Austrians crossed the Rhine and
attacked the French in their intrenchments without success. On
the same day, the Prussians defeated a division of the Republican
army [at Kaiserslautern], and advanced their head-quarters to
Deux-Ponts. Content with this achievement, the German armies
remained inactive for several weeks, when the French, having
obtained reinforcements, attacked the whole line of the German
posts. ... Before the end of the year the Allies were in full
retreat, and the Republicans in their turn had become the
invaders of Germany. They occupied the Electorate of Treves,
and they captured the important fort of Mannheim. Mentz also
was placed under a close blockade. ... At sea, England
maintained her ancient reputation. The French had made great
exertions to fit out a fleet, and 26 ships of the line were
assembled in the port of Brest," for the protecting of a
merchant fleet, laden with much needed food-supplies, expected
from America. Lord Howe, with an English fleet of 25 ships of
the line, was on the watch for the Brest fleet when it put to
sea. On the 1st of June he sighted and attacked it off Ushant,
performing the celebrated manœuvre of breaking the enemy's
line. Seven of the French ships were taken, one was sunk
during the battle, and 18, much crippled, escaped. The victory
caused great exultation in England, but it was fruitless, for
the American convoy was brought safely into Brest.
W. Massey,
History of England during the reign of George III.,
chapter 35 (volume 3).
ALSO IN
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 16 (volume 4).
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3.
Capt. A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution
and Empire, chapter 8 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (June-July).
The monstrous Law of the 22d Prairial.
The climax of the Reign of Terror.
A summary of its horrors.
"On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine
was concealed in the folds of rich hangings. It was the 20th
of Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention
the memorable Law of the 22d Prairial [June 10]. Robespierre
was the draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own
writing. This monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation
of all law. Of all laws ever passed in the world it is the
most nakedly iniquitous. ... After the probity and good
judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal guarantees in state
trials are accurate definition, and proof. The offence must be
capable of precise description, and the proof against an
offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial
violently infringed all three of these essential conditions of
judicial equity. First, the number of the jury who had power
to convict was reduced. Second, treason was made to consist in
such vague and infinitely elastic kinds of action as inspiring
discouragement, misleading opinion, depraving manners,
corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the Revolution
by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the
conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary
inquiry, of witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the
accused. Any kind of testimony was evidence, whether material
or moral, verbal or written, if it was of a kind 'likely to
gain the assent of a man of reasonable mind.' Now, what was
Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? ...
To us the answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim
in Robespierre's mind at this point in the history of the
Revolution. His brother Augustin was then the representative
of the Convention with the army of Italy, and General
Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. Bonaparte
said long afterwards ... that he saw long letters from
Maximilian to Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the
Conventional Commissioners [sent to the provinces]--Tallien,
Fouché, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they
perpetrated, and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by
their atrocities. Again, there is abundant testimony that
Robespierre did his best to induce the Committee of Public
Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. The text
of the Law ... discloses the same object. The vague phrases of
depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles
perfidiously, were exactly calculated to smite the band of
violent men whose conduct was to Robespierre the scandal of
the Revolution. And there was a curious clause in the law as
originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the
right of preventing measures against its own members.
Robespierre's general design in short was to effect a further
purgation of the Convention. ... If Robespierre's design was
what we believe it to have been, the result was a ghastly
failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent to
apply his law against the men for whom he had specially
designed it. The frightful weapon which he had forged was
seized by the Committee of General Security, and Paris was
plunged into the fearful days of the Great Terror. The number
of persons put to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal before
the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. From the
creation of the Tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution
of the Hébertists in March 1794, the number of persons
condemned to death was 505.
{1305}
From the death of the Hébertists down to the death of
Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2,158. One-half
of the entire number of victims, namely, 1,356, were
guillotined after the Law of Prairial. ... A man was informed
against; he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at
seven he was taken to the Conciergerie; at nine he received
information of the charge against him; at ten he went into the
dock; by two in the afternoon he was condemned; by four his
head lay in the executioner's basket."
J. Morley,
Robespierre
(Critical Miscellanies: Second Series).
"Single indictments comprehended 20 or 30 people taken
promiscuously--great noblemen from Paris, day labourers from
Marseilles, sailors from Brest, peasants from Alsace--who were
accused of conspiring together to destroy the Republic. All
examination, discussion, and evidence were dispensed with; the
names of the victims were hardly read out to the jury, and it
happened, more than once, that the son was mistaken for the
father--an entirely innocent person for the one really
charged--and sent to the guillotine. The judges urged the jury
to pass sentences of death, with loud threats; members of the
Government committees attended daily, and applauded the bloody
verdicts with ribald jests. On this spot at least the strife
of parties was hushed."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 10, chapter 1 (volume 4).
"The first murders committed in 1793 proceeded from a real
irritation caused by danger. Such perils had now ceased; the
republic was victorious; people now slaughtered not from
indignation, but from the atrocious habit which they had
contracted. ... According to the law, the testimony of
witnesses was to be dispensed with only when there existed
material or moral proofs; nevertheless no witnesses were
called, as it was alleged that proofs of this kind existed in
every case. The jurors did not take the trouble to retire to
the consultation room. They gave their opinions before the
audience, and sentence was immediately pronounced. The accused
had scarcely time to rise and to mention their names. One day,
there was a prisoner whose name was not upon the list of the
accused, and who said to the Court, 'I am not accused; my name
is not on your list.' 'What signifies that?' said Fouquier,
'give it quick!' He gave it, and was sent to the scaffold like
the others. ... The most extraordinary blunders were
committed. ... More than once victims were called long after
they had perished. There were hundreds of acts of accusation
quite ready, to which there was nothing to add but the
designation of the individuals. ... The printing-office was
contiguous to the hall of the tribunal: the forms were kept
standing, the title, the motives, were ready composed; there
was nothing but the names to be added. These were handed
through a small loop-hole to the overseer. Thousands of copies
were immediately worked off and plunged families into mourning
and struck terror into the prisons. The hawkers came to sell
the bulletin of the tribunal under the prisoners' windows,
crying, 'Here are the names of those who have gained prizes in
the lottery of St. Guillotine.' The accused were executed on
the breaking up of the court, or at latest on the morrow, if
the day was too far advanced. Ever since the passing of the
Law of the 22d of Prairial, victims perished at the rate of 50
or 60 a day. 'That goes well,' said Fouquier-Tinville; 'heads
fall like tiles:' and he added, 'It must go better still next
decade; I must have 450 at least.'"
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 63-66.
"One hundred and seventy-eight tribunals, of which 40 are
ambulatory, pronounce in every part of the territory sentences
of death which are immediately executed on the spot. Between
April 6, 1793, and Thermidor 9, year II. [July 27, 1794], that
of Paris has 2,625 persons guillotined, while the provincial
judges do as much work as the Paris judges. In the small town
of Orange alone, they guillotine 331 persons. In the single
town of Arras they have 299 men and 93 women guillotined. At
Nantes, the revolutionary tribunals and military committees
have, on the average, 100 persons a day guillotined, or shot,
in all 1971. In the city of Lyons the revolutionary committee
admit 1684 executions, while Cadillot, one of Robespierre's
correspondents, advises him of 6,000.--The statement of these
murders is not complete, but 17,000 have been enumerated. ...
Even excepting those who had died fighting or who, taken with
arms in their hands, were shot down or sabred on the spot,
there were 10,000 persons slaughtered without trial in the
province of Anjou alone. ... It is estimated that, in the
eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all
ages exceeded 400,000.--Considering the programme and
principles of the Jacobin sect, this is no great number; they
might have killed a good many more. But time was wanting;
during their short reign they did what they could with the
instrument in their hands. Look at their machine. ...
Organised March 30 and April 6,1793, the Revolutionary
Committees and the Revolutionary Tribunal had but seventeen
months in which to do their work. They did not drive ahead
with all their might until after the fall of the Girondists,
and especially after September, 1793, that is to say for a
period of eleven months. Its loose wheels were not screwed up
and the whole was not in running order under the impulse of
the central motor until after December, 1793, that is to say
during eight months. Perfected by the Law of Prairial 22, it
works for the past two months faster and better than before.
... Baudot and Jean Bon St. Andre, Carrier, Antonelle and
Guffroy had already estimated the lives to be taken at several
millions, and, according to Collot d'Herbois, who had a lively
imagination, 'the political perspiration should go on freely,
and not stop until from twelve to fifteen million Frenchmen
had been destroyed.'"
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 8, chapter 1 (volume 3).
ALSO IN
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
Lectures 39-42 (volume 2).
Abbé Dumesnil,
Recollections of the Reign of Terror.
Count Beugnot,
Life,
volume 1, chapters 7-8.
J. Wilson,
The Reign of Terror and its Secret Police
(Studies in Modern Mind, etc.), chapter 7.
The Reign of Terror:
A collection of authentic narratives,
2 volumes.
{1306}
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (July).
The Fall of Robespierre.
End of the Reign of Terror.
Robespierre "was already feeling himself unequal to the task
laid upon him. He said himself on one occasion: 'I was not
made to rule, I was made to combat the enemies of the
Revolution;' and so the possession of supreme power produced
in him no feeling of exultation. On the contrary, it preyed
upon his spirits, and made him fancy himself the object of
universal hatred. A guard now slept nightly at his house, and
followed him in all his walks. Two pistols lay ever at his
side. He would not eat food till some one else had tasted from
the dish. His jealous fears were awakened by every sign of
popularity in another. Even the successes of his generals
filled him with anxiety, lest they should raise up dangerous
rivals. He had, indeed ... grounds enough for anxiety. In the
Committee of Public Safety every member, except St. Just and
Couthon, viewed him with hatred and suspicion. Carnot resented
his interferences. The Terrorists were contemptuous of his
religious festivals, and disliked his decided supremacy. The
friends of Mercy saw with indignation that the number of
victims was increasing. The friends of Disorder found
themselves restrained, and were bored by his long speeches
about virtue and simplicity of life. He was hated for what was
good and for what was evil in his government; and meanwhile
the national distress was growing, and the cry of starvation
was heard louder than ever. Fortunately there was a splendid
harvest in 1794; but before it was gathered in Robespierre had
fallen. A somewhat frivolous incident did much to discredit
him. A certain old woman named Catherine Théot, living in an
obscure part of Paris, had taken to seeing visions. Some of
the Terrorists produced a paper, purporting to be written by
her, and declaring that Robespierre was the Messiah. The paper
was a forgery, but it served to cover Robespierre with
ridicule, and to rouse in him a fierce determination to
suppress those whom he considered his enemies in the Committee
and the Convention. For some time he had taken little part in
the proceedings of either of these bodies. His reliance was
chiefly on the Jacobin Club, the reorganized Commune, and the
National Guards, still under the command of Henriot. But on
July 26th [8th Thermidor] Robespierre came to the Convention
and delivered one of his most elaborate speeches, maintaining
that the affairs of France had been mismanaged; that the army
had been allowed to become dangerously independent; that the
Government must be strengthened and simplified; and that
traitors must be punished. He made no definite proposals, and
did not name his intended victims. The real meaning of the
speech was evidently that he ought to be made Dictator, but
that in order to obtain his end, it was necessary to conceal
the use he meant to make of his power. The members of the
Convention naturally felt that some of themselves were aimed
at. Few felt themselves safe; but Robespierre's dominance had
become so established that no one ventured at first to
criticize. It was proposed, and carried unanimously, that the
speech should be printed and circulated throughout France.
Then at length a deputy named Cambon rose to answer
Robespierre's attacks on the recent management of the
finances. Finding himself favourably listened to, he went on
to attack Robespierre himself. Other members of the hitherto
docile Convention now took courage; and it was decided that
the speech should be referred to the Committees before it was
printed. The crisis was now at hand. Robespierre went down as
usual to the Jacobin Club, where he was received with the
usual enthusiasm. The members swore to die with their leader,
or to suppress his enemies. On the following day [9th
Thermidor] St. Just attacked Billaud and Collot. Billaud
[followed and supported by Tallien] replied by asserting that
on the previous night the Jacobins had pledged themselves to
massacre the deputies. Then the storm burst. A cry of horror
and indignation arose; and as Billaud proceeded to give
details of the alleged conspiracy, shouts of 'Down with the
tyrant!' began to rise from the benches. Robespierre vainly
strove to obtain a hearing. He rushed about the chamber,
appealing to the several groups. As he went up to the higher
benches on the Left, he was met with the cry, 'Back, tyrant,
the shade of Danton repels you!' and when he sought shelter
among the deputies on the Right, and actually sat down in
their midst, they indignantly exclaimed, 'Wretch, that was
Vergniaud's seat!' Baited on all sides, his attempts to speak
became shrieks, which were scarcely audible, however, amid the
shouts and interruptions that rose from all the groups. His
voice grew hoarser ... till at length it failed him
altogether. Then one of the Mountain cried, 'The blood of
Danton chokes him!' Amid a scene of indescribable excitement
and uproar, a decree was passed that Robespierre and some of
his leading followers should be arrested. They were seized by
the officers of the Convention, and hurried off to different
prisons; so that, in case of a rescue, only one of them might
be released. There was room enough for fear. The Commune
organized an insurrection, as soon as they heard what the
Convention had done; and by a sudden attack the prisoners were
all delivered from the hands of their guards. Both parties now
hastily gathered armed forces. Those of the municipality were
by far the most numerous, and Henriot confidently ordered them
to advance. But the men refused to obey. The Sections mostly
declared for the Convention, and thus by an unexpected
reaction the Robespierian leaders found themselves almost
deserted. A detachment of soldiers forced their way into the
room where the small band of fanatics were drawing up a
Proclamation. A pistol was fired; and no one knows with
certainty whether Robespierre attempted suicide, or was shot
by one of his opponents. At any rate his jaw was fractured,
and he was laid out, a ghastly spectacle, on an adjacent
table. The room was soon crowded. Some spat at the prostrate
form. Others stabbed him with their knives. Soon he was
dragged [along with Couthon, St. Just, Henriot, and others]
before the Tribunal which he himself had instituted. The,
necessary formalities were hurried through, and the mangled
body was borne to the guillotine, where what remained to him
of life was quickly extinguished. Then, from the crowd, a man
stepped quickly up to the blood-stained corpse, and uttered
over him the words, 'Yes, Robespierre, there is a God!'"
J. E. Symes.
The French Revolution,
chapter 13.
{1307}
"Samson's work done, there bursts forth shout on shout of
applause. Shout, which prolongs itself not only over Paris,
but over France, but over Europe, and down to this generation.
Deservedly, and also undeservedly. O unhappiest Advocate of
Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates? Stricter man,
according to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of
probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and suchlike,
lived not in that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled
age, to have become one of those incorruptible barren
Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and
funeral-sermons. His poor landlord, the Cabinet-maker in the
Rue Saint-Honorè, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God
be merciful to him and to us! This is the end of the Reign of
Terror; new glorious Revolution named 'of Thermidor'; of
Thermidor 9th, year 2; which being interpreted into old
slave-style means 27th of July, 1794."
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
book 6, chapter 7 (volume 3).
"He [Robespierre] had qualities, it is true, which we must
respect; he was honest, sincere, self-denying and consistent.
But he was cowardly, relentless, pedantic, unloving, intensely
vain and morbidly envious. ... He has not left the legacy to
mankind of one grand thought, nor the example of one generous
and exalted action."
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre.
Conclusion.
"The ninth of Thermidor is one of the great epochs in the
history of Europe. It is true that the three members of the
Committee of Public Safety [Billaud, Collot, and Barère],
who triumphed were by no means better men than the three
[Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just], who fell. Indeed, we are
inclined to think that of these six statesmen the least bad
were Robespierre and St. Just, whose cruelty was the effect of
sincere fanaticism operating on narrow understandings and
acrimonious tempers. The worst of the six was, beyond all
doubt, Barère, who had no faith in any part of the system
which he upheld by persecution."
Lord Macaulay,
Barère's Memoirs
(Essays, volume 5).
ALSO IN
G. Everitt,
Guillotine the Great,
chapter 2.
J. W. Croker,
Robespierre (Quarterly Review,
September, 1835, volume 34).
W. Chambers,
Robespierre
(Chambers' Edin. Journal, 1852).
FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (July-April).
Reaction against the Reign of Terror.
The Thermidorians and the Jeunesse Doree.
End of the Jacobin Club.
Insurrection of Germinal 12.
Fall of the Montagnards.
The White Terror in the Provinces.
"On the morning of the 10th of Thermidor all the people who
lived near the prisons of Paris crowded on the roofs of their
houses and cried, 'All is over! Robespierre is dead!' The
thousands of prisoners, who had believed themselves doomed to
death, imagined themselves rescued from the tomb. Many were
set free the same day, and all the rest regained hope and
confidence. Their feeling of deliverance was shared throughout
France. The Reign of Terror had become a sort of nightmare
that stifled the nation, and the Reign of Terror and
Robespierre were identical in the sight of the great majority.
... The Convention presented a strange aspect. Party remnants
were united in the coalition party called the 'Thermidorians.'
Many of the Mountaineers and of those who had been fiercest in
their missions presently took seats with the Right or Centre;
and the periodic change of Committees, so long contested, was
determined upon. Lots were drawn, and Barère, Lindet, and
Prieur went out; Carnot, indispensable in the war, was
re-elected until the coming spring; Billaud and Collot,
feeling out of place in the new order of things, resigned.
Danton's friends now prevailed; but, alas! the Dantonists were
not Danton."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
chapter 22 (volume l).
"The Reign of Terror was practically over, but the
ground-swell which follows a storm continued for some time
longer. Twenty-one victims suffered on the same day with
Robespierre, 70 on the next; altogether 114 were condemned and
executed in the three days which followed his death. ... A
strong reaction against the 'Terreur' now set in. Upwards of
10,000 'suspects' were set free, and Robespierre's law of the
22 Prairial was abolished. Fréron, a leading Thermidorien,
organized a band of young men who called themselves the
Jeunesse Dorée [gilded youth], or Muscadins, and chiefly
frequented the Palais Royal. They wore a ridiculous dress, 'a
la Victime' [large cravat, black or green collar, and crape
around the arm, signifying relationship to some of the victims
of the revolutionary tribunal.--Thiers], and devoted
themselves to punishing the Jacobins. They had their hymn, 'Le
réveil du Peuple.' which they sang about the street, often
coming into collision with the sans-culottes shouting the
Marseillaise. On the 11th of November the Muscadins broke open
the hall of the celebrated club, turned out the members, and
shut it up for ever. ... The committees of Salut Public and
Sureté Générale were entirely remodelled and their powers much
restrained; also the Revolutionary Tribunal was reorganized on
the lines advocated by Camille Desmoulins in his proposal for
a Comité de Clémence--which cost him his life. Carrier and
Lebon suffered death for their atrocious conduct in La Vendée
and [Arras]; 73 members who had protested against the arrest
of the Girondins were recalled, and the survivors of the
leading Girondists, Louvet, Lanjuinais, Isnard,
Larévillière-Lépeaux and others, 22 in number, were restored
to their seats in the Convention."
Sergent Marceau,
Reminiscences of a Regicide,
part 2, chapter 12.
"Billaud, Collot, and other marked Terrorists, already
denounced in the Convention by Danton's friends, felt that
danger was every day drawing nearer to themselves. Their fate
was to all appearance sealed by the readmission to the
Convention (December 8) of the 73 deputies of the right,
imprisoned in 1793 for signing protests against the expulsion
of the Girondists. By the return of these deputies the
complexion of the Assembly was entirely altered. ... They now
sought to undo the work of the Convention since the
insurrection by which their party had been overwhelmed. They
demanded that confiscated property should be restored to the
relatives of persons condemned by the revolutionary courts;
that emigrants who had fled in consequence of Terrorist
persecutions should be allowed to return; that those deputies
proscribed on June 2,1793, who yet survived, should be
recalled to their seats. The Mountain, as a body, violently
opposed even the discussion of such questions. The
Thermidorians split into two divisions. Some in alarm rejoined
the Mountain; while others, headed by Tallien and Fréron,
sought their safety by coalescing with the returned members of
the right. A committee was appointed to report on accusations
brought against Collot, Billaud, Barère, and Vadier (December
27, 1794). In a few weeks the survivors of the proscribed
deputies entered the Convention amidst applause (March 8,
1795). ... There was at this time great misery prevalent in
Paris, and imminent peril of insurrection.
{1308}
After Robespierre's fall, maximum prices were no longer
observed, and assignats were only accepted in payment of goods
at their real value compared with coin. The result was a rapid
rise in prices, so that in December prices were double what
they had been in July, and were continuing to rise in
proportion as assignats decreased in value. ... The maximum
laws, already a dead letter, were repealed (December 24). The
abolition of maximum prices and requisitions increased the
already lavish expenditure of the Government, which, to meet
the deficit in its revenues, had no resource but to create
more assignats, and the faster these were issued the faster
they fell in value and the higher prices rose. In July 1794,
they had been worth 34 per cent. of their nominal value. In
December they were worth 22 per cent., and in May 1795 they
were worth only 7 per cent. ... At this time a pound of bread
cost eight shillings, of rice thirteen, of sugar seventeen,
and other articles were all proportionately dear. It is
literally true that more than half the population of Paris was
only kept alive by occasional distributions of meat and other
articles at low prices, and the daily distribution of bread at
three half-pence a pound. In February, however, this source of
relief threatened to fail. ... On April 1, or Germinal 12,
bread riots, begun by women, broke out in every section. Bands
collected and forced their way into the Convention, shouting
for bread, but offering no violence to the deputies. ... The
crowd was already dispersing when forces arrived from the
sections and cleared the House. The insurrection was a
spontaneous rising for bread, without method or combination.
The Terrorists had sought, but vainly, to obtain direction of
it. Had they succeeded, the Mountain would have had an
opportunity of proscribing the right. Their failure gave the
right the opportunity of proscribing the left. The
transportation to Cayenne of Billaud, Collot, Barère, and
Vadier was decreed, and the arrest of fifteen other
Montagnards, accused without proof, in several cases without
probability, of having been accomplices of the insurgents. ...
The insurrection of Germinal 12 gave increased strength to the
party of reaction. The Convention, in dread of the Terrorists,
was compelled to look to it for support. ... In the
departments famine, disorder, and crime prevailed, as well as
in Paris. ... From the first the reaction proceeded in the
departments with a more rapid step and in bolder form than in
Paris. ... In the departments of the south-east, where the
Royalists had always possessed a strong following, emigrants
of all descriptions readily made their way back; and here the
opponents of the Republic, instigated by a desire for
vengeance, or merely by party spirit, commenced a reaction
stained by crimes as atrocious as any committed during the
course of the revolution. Young men belonging to the upper and
middle classes were organised in bands bearing the names of
companies of Jesus and companies of the Sun, and first at
Lyons, then at Aix, Toulon, Marseilles, and other towns, they
broke into the prisons and murdered their inmates without
distinction of age or sex. Besides the Terrorist and the
Jacobin, neither the Republican nor the purchaser of State
lands was safe from their knives; and in the country numerous
isolated murders were committed. This lawless and brutal
movement, called the White Terror in distinction to the Red
Terror preceding Thermidor 9, was suffered for weeks to run
its course unchecked, and counted its victims by many
hundreds, spreading over the whole of Provence, besides the
departments of Rhone, Gard, Loire, Ain, and Jura."
B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution (American edition),
volume 3, pages 109-136; 149-175; 193-225.
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 12, chapters 1-3.
J. Mallet du Pan,
Memoirs and Correspondence,
volume 2, chapters 5.
A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 2, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (October-May).
Subjugation of Holland.
Overthrow of the Stadtholdership.
Establishment of the Batavian Republic.
Peace of Basle with Prussia.
Successes on the Spanish and Italian frontiers.
Crumbling of the Coalition.
"Pichegru having taken Bois le Duc, October 9th, the Duke of
York retreated to the Ar, and thence beyond the Waal. Venloo
fell October 27th, Maestricht November 4th, and the capture of
Nimeguen on the 9th, which the English abandoned after the
fall of Maestricht, opened to the French the road into
Holland. The Duke of York resigned the command to General
Walmoden, December 2nd, and returned into England. His
departure showed that the English government had abandoned all
hope of saving Holland. It had, indeed, consented that the
States-General should propose terms of accommodation to the
French; and two Dutch envoys had been despatched to Paris to
offer to the Committee of Public Welfare the recognition by
their government of the French Republic, and the payment of
200,000,000 florins within a year. But the Committee,
suspecting that these offers were made only with the view of
gaining time, paid no attention to them. The French were
repulsed in their first attempt to cross the Waal by General
Duncan with 8,000 English; but a severe frost enabled them to
pass over on the ice, January 11th, 1795. Nothing but a
victory could now save Holland. But Walmoden, instead of
concentrating his troops for the purpose of giving battle,
retreated over the Yssel, and finally over the Ems into
Westphalia, whence the troops were carried to England by sea
from Bremen. ... General Alvinzi, who held the Rhine between
Emmerich and Arnheim, having retired upon Wesel, Pichegru had
only to advance. On entering Holland, he called upon the
patriots to rise, and his occupation of the Dutch towns was
immediately followed by a revolution. The Prince of Orange,
the hereditary Stadtholder, embarked for England, January
19th, on which day Pichegru's advanced columns entered
Amsterdam. Next day the Dutch fleet, frozen up in the Texel,
was captured by the French hussars. Before the end of January
the reduction of Holland had been completed, and a provincial
[provisional?] government established at the Hague. The
States-General, assembled February 24th, 1795, having
received, through French influence, a new infusion of the
patriot party, pronounced the abolition of the Stadtholderate,
proclaimed the sovereignty of the people and the establishment
of the Batavian Republic. A treaty of Peace with France
followed, May 16th, and an-offensive alliance against all
enemies whatsoever till the end of the war, and against
England for ever.
{1309}
The sea and land forces to be provided by the Dutch were to
serve under French commanders. Thus the new republic became a
mere dependency of France. Dutch Flanders, the district on the
left bank of the Hondt, Maestricht, Venloo, were retained by
the French as a just indemnity for the expenses of the war, on
which account the Dutch were also to pay 100,000,000 florins;
but they were to receive, at the general peace, an equivalent
for the ceded territories. By secret articles, the Dutch were
to lend the French seven ships of war, to support a French
army of 25,000 men, &c. Over and above the requisitions of the
treaty, they were also called upon to reclothe the French
troops, and to furnish them with provisions. In short, though
the Dutch patriots had 'fraternised' with the French, and
received them with open arms, they were treated little better
than a conquered people. Secret negotiations had been for some
time going on between France and Prussia for a peace. ...
Frederick William II., ... satisfied with his acquisitions in
Poland, to which the English and Dutch subsidies had helped
him, ... abandoned himself to his voluptuous habits," and made
overtures to the French. "Perhaps not the least influential
among Frederick William's motives, was the refusal of the
maritime Powers any longer to subsidise him for doing nothing.
... The Peace of Basle, between the French Republic and the
King of Prussia, was signed April 5th 1795. The French troops
were allowed to continue the occupation of the Rhenish
provinces on the left bank. An article, that neither party
should permit troops of the enemies of either to pass over its
territories, was calculated to embarrass the Austrians. France
agreed to accept the mediation of Prussia for princes of the
Empire. ... Prussia should engage in no hostile enterprise
against Holland, or any other country occupied by French
troops; while the French agreed not to push their enterprises
in Germany beyond a certain line of demarcation, including the
Circles of Westphalia, Higher and Lower Saxony; Franconia, and
that part of the two Circles of the Rhine situate on the right
bank of the Main. ... Thus the King of Prussia, originally the
most ardent promoter of the Coalition, was one of the first to
desert it. By signing the Peace of Basle, he sacrificed
Holland, facilitated the invasion of the Empire by the French,
and thus prepared the ruin of the ancient German
constitution." In the meantime the French had been pushing war
with success on their Spanish frontier, recovering the ground
which they had lost in the early part of 1794. In the eastern
Pyrenees, Dugommier "retook Bellegarde in September, the last
position held by the Spaniards in France, and by the battle of
the Montagne Noire, which lasted from November 17th to the
20th, opened the way into Catalonia. But at the beginning of
this battle Dugommier was killed. Figuières surrendered
November 24th, through the influence of the French democratic
propaganda. On the west, Moncey captured St. Sebastian and
Fuentarabia in August, and was preparing to attack Pampeluna,
when terrible storms ... compelled him to retreat on the
Bidassoa, and closed the campaign in that quarter. On the side
of Piedmont, the French, after some reverses, succeeded in
making themselves masters of Mont Cenis and the passes of the
Maritime Alps, thus holding the keys of Italy; but the
Government, content with this success, ventured not at present
to undertake the invasion of that country." The King of
Sardinia, Victor Amadeus, remained faithful to his engagements
with Austria, although the French tempted him with an offer of
the Milanese, "and the exchange of the island of Sardinia for
territory more conveniently situated. With the Grand Duke of
Tuscany they were more successful. ... On February 9th 1795, a
treaty was signed by which the Grand Duke revoked his adhesion
to the Coalition. ... Thus Ferdinand was the first to desert
the Emperor, his brother. The example of Tuscany was followed
by the Regent of Sweden."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 7 (volume 4).
ALSO IN
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 4, chapter 3 (volume 3).
L. P. Segur,
History of the Reign of Frederick William II. of Prussia,
volume 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1796.
Brigandage in La Vendée.
Chouannerie in Brittany.
The Disastrous Quiberon expedition.
End of the Vendean War.
"Since the defeat at Savenay, the Vendée was no longer the
scene of grand operations, but of brigandage and atrocities
without result. The peasants, though detesting the Revolution,
were anxious for peace; but, as there were still two chiefs,
Charette and Stoffiet, in the field, who hated each other,
this wish could scarcely be gratified. General Thurieu, sent
by the former Revolutionary Committee, had but increased this
detestation by allowing pillage and incendiarism. After the
death of Robespierre he was replaced by General Clancaux, who
had orders to employ more conciliatory measures. The defeat of
the rebel troops at Savenay, and their subsequent dispersion,
had led to a kind of guerilla warfare throughout the whole of
Brittany, known by the name of Chouannerie. ['A poor peasant,
named Jean Cottereau, had distinguished himself in this
movement above all his companions, and his family bore the
name of Chouans (Chat-huans) or night-owls. ... The name of
Chouan passed from him to all the insurgents of Bretagne,
although he himself never led more than a few hundred
peasants, who obeyed him, as they said, out of friendship.']
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 4, page 238.
The Chouans attacked the public conveyances, infested the high
roads, murdered isolated bands of soldiers and functionaries.
Their chiefs were Scepeaux, Bourmont, Cadoudal, but especially
Puisaye ... formerly general of the Girondins, and who wanted
to raise a more formidable insurrection than had hitherto been
organised. Against them was sent Hoche [September, 1794], who
accustomed his soldiers to pacify rather than destroy, and
taught them to respect the habits, but above all the religion,
of the inhabitants. After some difficult negotiations with
Charette peace was concluded (15th February), but the
suppression of the Chouans was more difficult still, and Hoche
... displayed in this ungrateful mission all the talents and
humanity for which he was ever celebrated. Puisaye himself was
in England, having obtained Pitt's promise of a fleet and an
army, but his aide-de-camp concluded in his absence a treaty
similar to that of Charette. ... Stoffiet surrendered the
last.
{1310}
Not much dependence could be placed on either of these
pacifications, Charette himself having confessed in a letter
to the Count de Provence that they were but a trap for the
Republicans; but they proved useful, nevertheless, by
accustoming the country to peace." This deceptive state of
peace came to an end early in the summer of 1795. "The
conspiracy organised in London by Puisaye, assisted and
subsidised by Pitt, ... fitted out a fleet, which harassed the
French naval squadron, and then set sail for Brittany, where
the expedition made itself master of the peninsula of Quiberon
and the fort Penthièvre (27th June). The Brittany peasants,
suspicious of the Vendeans and hating the English, did not
respond to the call for revolt, and occasioned a loss of time
to the invaders, of which Hoche took advantage to bring
together his troops and to march on Quiberon, where he
defeated the vanguard of the émigrés, and surrounded them in
the peninsula. Puisaye [who had, it is said, about 10,000 men,
émigrés and Chouans] attempted to crush Hoche by an attack in
the rear, but was eventually out-manœuvred, Fort Penthièvre
was scaled during the night, and the émigrés were routed;
whilst the English squadron was caught in a hurricane and
could not come to their assistance, save with one ship, which
fired indiscriminately on friend and foe alike. Most of the
Royalists rushed into the sea, where nearly all of them
perished. Scarcely a thousand men remained, and these fought
heroically. It is said that a promise was given to them that
if they surrendered their lives should be spared, and,
accordingly, 711 laid down their arms (21st July). By order of
the Convention ... these 711 émigrés were shot. ... From his
camp at Belleville, Charette, one of the insurgent generals,
responded to this execution by the massacre of 2,000
Republican prisoners." In the following October another
expedition of Royalists, fitted out in England under the
auspices of Pitt, "landed at the Ile Dieu ... a small island
about eight miles from the mainland of Poitou, and was
composed of 2,500 men, who were destined to be the nucleus of
several regiments; it also had on board a large store of arms,
ammunition, and the Count d'Artois. Charette, named general
commander of the Catholic forces, was awaiting him with 10,000
men. The whole of the Vendée was ready to rise the moment the
prince touched French soil, but frivolous and undecided, he
waited six weeks in idleness, endeavouring to obtain from
England his recall. Hoche, to whom the command of the
Republican forces had been entrusted, took advantage of this
delay to cut off Charette from his communications, while he
held Stoffiet and the rest of the Brittany chiefs in check,
and occupied the coast with 30,000 men. The Count d'Artois,
whom Pitt would not recall, entreated the English commander to
set sail for England (December 17th, 1795), and the latter,
unable to manage his fleet on a coast without shelter,
complied with his request, leaving the prince on his arrival
to the deserved contempt of even his own partisans. Charette
in despair attempted another rising, hoping to be seconded by
Stofflet, but he was beaten on all sides by Hoche. This
general, who combined the astuteness of the statesman with the
valour of the soldier, succeeded in a short time in pacifying
the country by his generous but firm behaviour towards the
inhabitants. Charette, tracked from shelter to shelter, was
finally compelled to surrender, brought to Nantes, and shot
(March 24th). The same lot had befallen Stofflet a month
before at Angers. After these events Hoche led his troops into
Brittany, where he succeeded in putting an end to the
'Chouannerie.' The west returned to its normal condition."
H. Van Laun,
The French Revolutionary Epoch,
book 2, chapter 2, and book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 144-145; 188-193;
230-240; 281-305; 343-345; 358-363; 384-389.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (April).
The question of the Constitution.
Insurrection of the 1st Prairial and its failure.
Disarming of the Faubourgs.
End of Sansculottism.
Bourgeoisie dominant again.
"The events of the 12th of Germinal decided nothing. The
faubourgs had been repulsed, but not conquered. ... After so
many questions decided against the democratists, there still
remained one of the utmost importance--the constitution. On
this depended the ascendancy of the multitude or of the
bourgeoisie. The supporters of the revolutionary government
then fell back on the democratic constitution of '93, which
presented to them the means of resuming the authority they had
lost. Their opponents, on the other hand, endeavoured to
replace it by a constitution which would secure all the
advantage to them, by concentrating the government a little
more, and giving it to the middle class. For a month, both
parties were preparing for this last contest. The constitution
of 1793, having been sanctioned by the people, enjoyed a great
prestige. It was accordingly attacked with infinite
precaution. At first its assailants engaged to carry it into
execution without restriction; next they appointed a
commission of eleven members to prepare the 'lois organiques'
which were to render it practicable; by and by, they ventured
to suggest objections to it on the ground that it distributed
power too loosely, and only recognised one assembly dependent
on the people, even in its measures of legislation. At last, a
sectionary deputation went so far as to term the constitution
of '93 a decemviral constitution, dictated by terror. All its
partisans, at once indignant and filled with fears, organized
an insurrection to maintain it. ... The conspirators, warned
by the failure of the risings of the 1st and 12th Germinal,
omitted nothing to make up for their want of direct object and
of organization. On the 1st Prairial (20th of May) in the name
of the people, insurgent for the purpose of obtaining bread
and their rights, they decreed the abolition of the
revolutionary government, the establishment of the democratic
constitution of '93, the dismissal and arrest of the members
of the existing government, the liberation of the patriots,
the convocation of the primary assemblies on the 25th
Prairial, the convocation of the legislative assembly,
destined to replace the convention, on the 25th Messidor, and
the suspension of all authority not emanating from the people.
They determined on forming a new municipality, to serve as a
common centre; to seize on the barriers, telegraph, cannon,
tocsins, drums, and not to rest till they had secured repose,
happiness, liberty, and means of subsistence for all the
French nation. They invited the artillery, gendarmes, horse
and foot soldiers, to join the banners of the people, and
marched on the convention. Meantime, the latter was
deliberating on the means of preventing the insurrection. ...
{1311}
The committees came in all haste to apprise it of its danger;
it immediately declared its sitting permanent, voted Paris
responsible for the safety of the representatives of the
republic, closed its doors, outlawed all the leaders of the
mob, summoned the citizens of the sections to arms, and
appointed as their leaders eight commissioners, among whom
were Legendre, Henri la Riviere, Kervelegan, &c. These
deputies had scarcely gone, when a loud noise was heard
without. An outer door had been forced, and numbers of women
rushed into the galleries, crying 'Bread and the constitution
of '93!' ... The galleries were ... cleared; but the
insurgents of the faubourgs soon reached the inner doors, and,
finding them closed, forced them with hatchets and hammers,
and then rushed in amidst the convention. The Hall now became
a field of battle. The veterans and gendarmes, to whom the
guard of the assembly was confided, cried 'To arms!' The
deputy Auguis, sword in hand, headed them, and succeeded in
repelling the assailants, and even made a few of them
prisoners. But the insurgents, more numerous, returned to the
charge, and again rushed into the house. The deputy Feraud
entered precipitately, pursued by the insurgents, who fired
some shots in the house. They took aim at Boissy d'Anglas, who
was occupying the president's chair. ... Feraud ran to the
tribune, to shield him with his body; he was struck at with
pikes and sabres, and fell dangerously wounded. The insurgents
dragged him into the lobby, and, mistaking him for Freron, cut
off his head and placed it on a pike. After this skirmish they
became masters of the Hall. Most of the deputies had taken
flight. There only remained the members of the Crête [the
'Crest'--a name now given to the remnant of the party of 'The
Mountain'] and Boissy d'Anglas, who, calm, his hat on,
heedless of threat and insult, protested in the name of the
convention against this popular violence. They held out to him
the bleeding head of Feraud; he bowed respectfully before it.
They tried to force him, by placing pikes at his breast, to
put the propositions of the insurgents to the vote; he
steadily and courageously refused. But the Crêtois, who
approved of the insurrection, took possession of the bureaux
and of the tribune, and decreed, amidst the applause of the
multitude, all the articles contained in the manifesto of the
insurrection." Meantime "the commissioners despatched to the
sections had quickly gathered them together. ... The aspect of
affairs then underwent a change; Legendre, Kervelagan, and
Auguis besieged the insurgents, in their turn, at the head of
the sectionaries," and drove them at last from the hall of the
convention. "The assembly again became complete; the sections
received a vote of thanks, and the deliberations were resumed.
All the measures adopted in the interim were annulled, and
fourteen representatives, to whom were afterwards joined
fourteen others, were arrested, for organizing the
insurrection or approving it in their speeches. It was then
midnight; at five in the morning the prisoners were already
six leagues from Paris. Despite this defeat, the Faubourgs did
not consider themselves beaten; and the next day they advanced
en masse with their cannon against the convention. The
sections, on their side, marched for its defence." But a
collision was averted by negotiations, and the insurgents
withdrew, "after having received an assurance that the
Convention would assiduously attend to the question of
provisions, and would soon publish the organic laws of the
constitution of '93. ... Six democratic Mountaineers, Goujon,
Bourbotte, Romme, Duroy, Duquesnoy, and Soubrany were brought
before a military commission ... and ... condemned to death.
They all stabbed themselves with the same knife, which was
transferred from one to the other, exclaiming, 'Vive la
République!' Romme, Goujon, and Duquesnoy were fortunate
enough to wound themselves fatally; the other three were
conducted to the scaffold in a dying state, but faced death
with serene countenances. Meantime, the Faubourgs, though
repelled on the 1st, and diverted from their object on the 2nd
of Prairial, still had the means of rising," and the
convention ordered them to be disarmed. "They were encompassed
by all the interior sections. After attempting to resist, they
yielded, giving up some of their leaders, their arms, and
artillery. ... The inferior class was entirely excluded from
the government of the state; the revolutionary committees
which formed its assemblies were destroyed; the cannoneers
forming its armed force were disarmed; the constitution of
'93, which was its code, was abolished; and here the rule of
the multitude terminated. ... From that period, the middle
class resumed the management of the revolution without, and
the assembly was as united under the Girondists as it had
been, after the 2nd of June, under the Mountaineers."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
Duchesse d'Abrantes,
Memoirs,
chapters 12-14 (volume l).
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 7, chapters 4-6.
G. Long,
France and its Revolutions,
chapter 53.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (June-September).
Framing and adoption of the Constitution of the Year III.
Self-renewing decrees of the Convention.
Hostility in Paris to them.
Intrigues of the Royalists.
"The royalist party, beaten on the frontiers, and deserted by
the court of Spain, on which it placed most reliance, was now
obliged to confine itself to intrigues in the interior; and it
must be confessed that, at this moment, Paris offered a wide
field for such intrigues. The work of the constitution was
advancing; the time when the Convention was to resign its
powers, when France should meet to elect fresh
representatives, when a new Assembly should succeed that which
had so long reigned, was more favourable than any other for
counter-revolutionary manœuvres. The most vehement passions
were in agitation in the sections of Paris. The members of
them were not royalists, but they served the cause of royalty
without being aware of it. They had made a point of opposing
the Terrorists; they had animated themselves by the conflict;
they wished to persecute also; and they were exasperated
against the Convention, which would not permit this
persecution to be carried too far. They were always ready to
remember that Terror had sprung from its bosom; they demanded
of it a constitution and laws, and the end of the long
dictatorship which it had exercised. ... Behind this mass the
royalists concealed themselves. ... The constitution had been
presented by the commission of eleven. It was discussed during
the three months of Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor

[June-August], and was successively decreed with very little
alteration."
{1312}
The principal features of the constitution so framed, known as
the Constitution of the Year III., were the following: "A
Council, called 'The Council of the Five Hundred,' composed of
500 members, of, at least, thirty years of age, having
exclusively the right of proposing laws, one-third to be
renewed every year. A Council called 'The Council of the
Ancients,' composed of 250 members, of, at least, forty years
of age, all either widowers or married, having the sanction of
the laws, to be renewed also by one-third. An executive
Directory, composed of five members, deciding by a majority,
to be renewed annually by one-fifth, having responsible
ministers. ... The mode of nominating these powers was the
following: All the citizens of the age of twenty-one met of
right in primary assembly on every first day of the month of
Prairial, and nominated electoral assemblies. These electoral
assemblies met every 20th of Prairial, and nominated the two
Councils; and the two Councils nominated the Directory. ...
The judicial authority was committed to elective judges. ...
There were to be no communal assemblies, but municipal and
departmental administrations, composed of three, five, or more
members, according to the population: they were to be formed
by way of election. ... The press was entirely free. The
emigrants were banished for ever from the territory of the
republic; the national domains were irrevocably secured to the
purchasers; all religions were declared free, but were neither
acknowledged nor paid by the state. ... One important question
was started. The Constituent Assembly, from a parade of
disinterestedness, had excluded itself from the new
legislative body [the Legislative Assembly of 1791]; would the
Convention do the same?" The members of the Convention decided
this question in the negative, and "decreed, on the 5th of
Fructidor (August 22d), that the new legislative body should
be composed of two-thirds of the Convention, and that one new
third only should be elected. The question to be decided was,
whether the Convention should itself designate the two-thirds
to be retained, or whether it should leave that duty to the
electoral assemblies. After a tremendous dispute, it was
agreed on the 13th of Fructidor (August 30), that this choice
should be left to the electoral assemblies. It was decided
that the primary assemblies should meet on the 20th of
Fructidor (September 6th), to accept the constitution and the
two decrees of the 5th and the 13th of Fructidor. It was
likewise decided that, after giving their votes upon the
constitution and the decrees, the primary assemblies should
again meet and proceed forthwith, that is to say, in the year
III. (1795), to the elections for the 1st of Prairial in the
following year." The right of voting upon the constitution was
extended, by another decree, to the armies in the field. "No
sooner were these resolutions adopted, than the enemies of the
Convention, so numerous and so diverse, were deeply mortified
by them. ... The Convention, they said, was determined to
cling to power; ... it wished to retain by force a majority
composed of men who had covered France with scaffolds. ... All
the sections of Paris, excepting that of the Quinze-Vingts,
accepted the Constitution and rejected the decrees. The result
was not the same in the rest of France. ... On the 1st of
Vendémiaire, year IV. (September 23, 1795), the general result
of the votes was proclaimed. The constitution was accepted
almost unanimously, and the decrees by an immense majority of
the voters." The Convention now decreed that the new
legislative body should be elected in October and meet
November 6.
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 305-315.
ALSO IN:
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 12, chapter 4 (volume 4).
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1, and appendix 3.
J. Mallet du Pan,
Memoirs and Correspondence,
volume 2, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (June-December).
Death of the late King's son (Louis XVII.)
Treaty of Basle with Spain.
Acquisition of Spanish San Domingo.
Ineffectual campaign on the Rhine.
Victory at Loano.
"The Committees had formed great plans for the campaign of
1795; meaning to invade the territories of the allies, take
Mayence, and enter Southern Germany, go down into Italy, and
reach the very heart of Spain. But Carnot, Lindet, and Prieur
were no longer on the Committee, and their successors were not
their equals; army discipline was relaxed; a vulgar
reactionist had replaced Carnot in the war department and was
working ruin. ... The attack in Spain was to begin with the
Lower Pyrenees, by the capture of Pampeluna and a march upon
Castile, but famine and fever decimated the army of the
Western Pyrenees, and General Moncey was forced to postpone
all serious action till the summer. At the other end of the
Pyrenees, the French and Spaniards were fighting aimlessly at
the entry to Catalonia. The war was at a standstill; but the
negotiations went on between the two countries. The king of
Spain, as in honor bound, made the liberation of his young
kinsman, the son of Louis XVI., a condition of peace. This the
Republic would not grant, but the prisoner's death (June 8,
1795) removed the obstacle. The counter-revolutionists accused
the Committees of poisoning the child styled by the royalist
party Louis XVII. This charge was false; the poor little
prisoner died of scrofula, developed by inaction, ennui, and
the sufferings of a pitiless imprisonment, increased by the
cruel treatment of his jailers, a cobbler named Simon and his
wife. A rumor was also spread that the child was not dead, but
had been taken away and an impostor substituted, who had died.
Only one of the royal family now remained in the Temple, Louis
XVI.'s daughter, afterwards the Duchesse d'Angoulême. Spain
interceded for her, and she was exchanged. ... Peace with
Spain was also hastened by French successes beyond the
Pyrenees; General Marceau, being reinforced, took Vittoria and
Bilboa, and pushed on to the Ebro. On the 22d of July,
Barthelémi, the able French diplomatist, signed a treaty of
peace with Spain at Basle, restoring her Biscayan and
Catalonian provinces, and accepting Spanish mediation in favor
of the king of Naples, Duke of Parma, king of Portugal, and
'the other Italian powers,' including, though not mentioning,
the Pope; and Spain yielded her share of San Domingo, which
put a brighter face on French affairs in America. ...
Guadeloupe, Santa Lucia, and St. Eustache were restored to the
French. ... Spain soon made overtures for an alliance with
France, wishing to put down the English desire to rule the
seas; and, before the new treaty was signed, the army of the
Eastern Pyrenees was sent to reinforce the armies of the Alps
and Italy, who had only held their positions in the Apennines
and on the Ligurian coast against the Austrians and
Piedmontese by sheer force of will; but in the autumn of 1795
the face of affairs was changed.
{1313}
Now that Prussia had left the coalition, war on the Rhine went
on between France and Austria, sustained by the South German
States; France had to complete her mastery of the left bank by
taking Mayence and Luxembourg; and Austria's aim was to
dispute them with her. The French government charged Marceau
to besiege Mayence during the winter of 1794-95, but did not
furnish him the necessary resources, and, France not holding
the right bank, Kléber could only partially invest the town,
and both his soldiers and those blockading Luxembourg suffered
greatly from cold and privation. Early in March, 1795,
Pichegru was put in command of the armies of the Rhine and
Moselle, and Jourdan was ordered to support him on the left
(the Lower Rhine) with the army of Sambre-et-Meuse. Austria
took no advantage of the feeble state of the French troops,
and Luxembourg, one of the strongest posts in Europe,
receiving no help, surrendered (June 24) with 800 cannon and
huge store of provisions. The French now had the upper hand,
Pichegru and Jourdan commanding 160,000 men on the Rhine. One
of these men was upright and brave, but the other had treason
in his soul; though everybody admired Pichegru, 'the conqueror
of Holland.' ... In August, 1795, an agent of the Prince of
Condé, who was then at Brisgau, in the Black Forest, with his
corps of emigrants, offered Pichegru, who was in Alsace, the
title of Marshal of France and Governor of Alsace, the royal
castle of Chambord, a million down, an annuity of 200,000
livres, and a house in Paris, in the 'king's' name, thus
flattering at once his vanity and his greed. ... He was
checked by no scruples; utterly devoid of moral sense, he
hoped to gain his army by money and wine, and had no
discussion with the Prince of Condé save as to the manner of
his treason." In the end, Pichegru was not able to make his
treason as effective as he had bargained to do; but he
succeeded in spoiling the campaign of 1795 on the Rhine.
Jourdan crossed the river and took Dusseldorf, with 168
cannon, on the 6th of September, expecting a simultaneous
movement on the part of Pichegru, to occupy the enemy in the
latter's front. But Pichegru, though he took Mannheim, on the
18th of September, threw a corps of 10,000 men into the hands
of the Austrians, by placing it where it could be easily
overwhelmed, and permitted his opponent, Wurmser, to send
reinforcements to Clairfait, who forced Jourdan, in October,
to retreat across the Rhine. "Pichegru's perfidy had thwarted
a campaign which must have been decisive, and Jourdan's
retreat was followed by the enemy's offensive return to the
left bank [retaking Mannheim and raising the siege of
Mayence], and by reverses which would have been fatal had they
coincided with the outburst of royalist and reactionary plots
and insurrections in the West, and in Paris itself; but they
had luckily been stifled some time since, and as the
Convention concluded its career, the direction of the war
returned to the hands which guided it so well in 1793 and
1794."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
chapter 24 (volume 1).
"The peace with Spain ... enabled the government to detach the
whole Pyrenean army to the support of General Scherer, who had
succeeded Kellermann in the command of the army of Italy. On
the 23d of November, the French attacked the Austrians in
their position at Loano, and, after a conflict of two days,
the enemy's centre was forced by Massena and Augereau, and the
Imperialists fled with the loss of 7,000 men, 80 guns, and all
their stores. But the season was too far advanced to prosecute
this success, and the victors took up winter quarters on the
ground they had occupied. ... The capture of the Cape of Good
Hope (September 16) by the British under Sir James Craig, was
the only other important event of this year."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 154 and 157
(chapter 18 of the complete work).
ALSO IN:
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 13.
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book. 1, chapters 19-20 (volume l).
A. de Beauchesne,
Louis XVII.: His Life, his Sufferings, his Death.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (October-December).
The Insurrection of the 13th Vendemiare, put down by
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Dissolution of the National Convention.
Organization of the government of the Directory.
Licentiousness of the time.
"The Parisians ... proclaimed their hostility to the
Convention and its designs. The National Guard, consisting of
armed citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of
the Convention; and it was openly proposed to march to the
Tuilleries, and compel a change of measures by force of arms.
The Convention perceiving their unpopularity and danger, began
to look about them anxiously for the means of defence. There
were in and near Paris 5,000 regular troops, on whom they
thought they might rely, and who of course contemned the
National Guard as only half soldiers. They had besides some
hundreds of artillery men; and they now organised what they
called 'the Sacred Band,' a body of 1,500 ruffians, the most
part of them old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With
these means they prepared to arrange a plan of defence; and it
was obvious that they did not want materials, provided they
could find a skilful and determined head. The insurgent
sections placed themselves under the command of Danican, an
old general of no great skill or reputation. The Convention
opposed to him Menou; and he marched at the head of a column
into the section Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of
that district--one of the wealthiest of the capital. The
National Guard were found drawn up in readiness to receive him
at the end of the Rue Vivienne; and Menou, becoming alarmed,
and hampered by the presence of some of the' Representatives
of the People,' entered into a parley, and retired without
having struck a blow. The Convention judged that Menou was not
master of nerves for such a crisis; and consulted eagerly
about a successor to his command. Barras, one of their number,
had happened to be present at Toulon and to have appreciated
the character of Buonaparte. He had, probably, been applied to
by Napoleon in his recent pursuit of employment. Deliberating
with Tallien and Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, 'I
have the man whom you want; it is a little Corsican officer,
who will not stand upon ceremony.' These words decided the
fate of Napoleon and of France. Buonaparte had been in the
Odeon Theatre when the affair of Le Pelletier occurred, had
run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in
the gallery, and heard the discussion concerning the conduct
of Menou.
{1314}
He was presently sent for, and asked his opinion as to that
officer's retreat. He explained what had happened, and how the
evil might have been avoided, in a manner which gave
satisfaction. He was desired to assume the command, and
arranged his plan of defence as well as the circumstances
might permit; for it was already late at night, and the
decisive assault on the Tuilleries was expected to take place
next morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the march
of Menou had been chiefly owing to the presence of the
'Representatives of the People,' and refused to accept the
command unless he received it free from all such interference.
They yielded: Barras was named commander-in-chief; and
Buonaparte second, with the virtual control. His first care
was to despatch Murat, then a major of chasseurs, to Sablons,
five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The
Sectionaries sent a stronger detachment for these cannon
immediately afterwards; and Murat, who passed them in the
dark, would have gone in vain had he received his orders but a
few minutes later. On the 4th of October (called in the
revolutionary almanac the 13th Vendemiaire) the affray
accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National Guards advanced
about two P. M., by different streets, to the siege of the
palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those
of Louis XVI. Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the
bridges, had effectually secured the command of the river, and
the safety of the Tuilleries on one side. He had placed cannon
also at all the crossings of the streets by which the National
Guard could advance towards the other front; and having posted
his battalions in the garden of the Tuilleries and Place du
Carousel, he awaited the attack. The insurgents had no cannon;
and they came along the narrow streets of Paris in close and
heavy columns. When one party reached the church of St. Roche,
in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's
troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on
which side the firing began; but in an instant the artillery
swept the streets and lanes, scattering grape-shot among the
National Guards, and producing such confusion that they were
compelled to give way. The first shot was a signal for all the
batteries which Buonaparte had established; the quays of the
Seine, opposite to the Tuilleries, were commanded by his guns
below the palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the
action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions,
leaving the streets covered with dead and wounded; the troops
of the Convention marched into the various sections, disarmed
the terrified inhabitants, and before nightfall everything was
quiet. This eminent service secured the triumph of the
Conventionalists. ... Within five days from the Day of the
Sections Buonaparte was named second in command of the army of
the interior; and shortly afterwards, Barras finding his
duties as Director sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the
command-in-chief of the same army to his 'little Corsican
officer.'"
J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 3.
The victory of the 13th Vendemiaire "enabled the Convention
immediately to devote its attention to the formation of the
Councils proposed by it, two-thirds of which were to consist
of its own members. The first third, which was freely elected,
had already been nominated by the Reactionary party. The
members of the Directory were chosen, and the deputies of the
Convention, believing that for their own interests the
regicides should be at the head of the Government, nominated
La Réveillère-Lepeaux, Sièyes, Rewbel, Le Tourneur, and
Barras. Sièyes refused to act, and Carnot was elected in his
place. Immediately after this, the Convention declared its
session at an end, after it had had three years of existence,
from the 21st September, 1792, to the 28th October, 1795 (4th
Brumaire, Year IV.). ... The Directors were all, with the
exception of Carnot, of moderate capacity, and concurred in
rendering their own position the more difficult. At this
period there was no element of order or good government in the
Republic; anarchy and uneasiness everywhere prevailed, famine
had become chronic, the troops were without clothes,
provisions or horses; the Convention had spent an immense
capital represented by assignats, and had sold almost half of
the Republican territory, belonging to the proscribed classes
...; the excessive degree of discredit to which paper money
had fallen, after the issue of thirty-eight thousand millions,
had destroyed all confidence and all legitimate commerce. ...
Such was the general poverty, that when the Directors entered
the palace which had been assigned to them as a dwelling, they
found no furniture there, and were compelled to borrow of the
porter a few straw chairs and a wooden table, on the latter of
which they drew up the decree by which they were appointed to
office. Their first care was to establish their power, and
they succeeded in doing this by frankly following at first the
rules laid down by the Constitution. In a short time industry
and commerce began to raise their heads, the supply of
provisions became tolerably abundant, and the clubs were
abandoned for the workshops and the fields. The Directory
exerted itself to revive agriculture, industry, and the arts,
re-established the public exhibitions, and founded primary,
central, and normal schools. ... This period was distinguished
by a great licentiousness in manners. The wealthy classes, who
had been so long forced into retirement by the Reign of
Terror, now gave themselves up to the pursuit of pleasure
without stint, and indulged in a course of unbridled luxury,
which was outwardly displayed in balls, festivities, rich
costumes and sumptuous equipages. Barras, who was a man of
pleasure, favoured this dangerous sign of the reaction, and
his palace soon became the rendezvous of the most frivolous
and corrupt society. In spite of this, however, the wealthy
classes were still the victims, under the government of the
Directory, of violent and spoliative measures."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 2. pages 270-273.
{1315}
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (April-October).
Triple attack on Austria.
Bonaparte's first campaign in Italy.
Submission of Sardinia.
Armistice with Naples and the Pope.
Pillage of art treasures.
Hostile designs upon Venice.
Expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy.
Failure of the campaign beyond the Rhine.
"With the opening of the year 1796 the leading interest of
European history passes to a new scene. ... The Directory was
now able ... to throw its whole force into the struggle with
Austria. By the advice of Bonaparte a threefold movement was
undertaken against Vienna, by way of Lombardy, by the valley
of the Danube, and by the valley of the Main. General Jourdan,
in command of the army that had conquered the Netherlands, was
ordered to enter Germany by Frankfort; Moreau, a Breton
law-student in 1792, now one of the most skilful soldiers in
Europe, crossed the Rhine at Strasburg; Bonaparte himself,
drawing his scanty supplies along the coast-road from Nice,
faced the allied forces of Austria and Sardinia upon the
slopes of the Maritime Apennines, forty miles to the west of
Genoa. ... Bonaparte entered Italy proclaiming himself the
restorer of Italian freedom, but with the deliberate purpose
of using Italy as a means of recruiting the exhausted treasury
of France. His correspondence with the Directory exposes with
brazen frankness this well·considered system of plunder and
deceit, in which the general and the Government were cordially
at one. ... The campaign of 1796 commenced in April, in the
mountains above the coast-road connecting Nice and Genoa. ...
Bonaparte ... for four days ... reiterated his attacks at
Montenotte and at Millesimo, until he had forced his own army
into a position in the centre of the Allies [Austrians and
Piedmontese]; then, leaving a small force to watch the
Austrians, he threw the mass of his troops upon the
Piedmontese, and drove them back to within thirty miles of
Turin. The terror-stricken Government, anticipating an
outbreak in the capital itself, accepted an armistice from
Bonaparte at Cherasco (April 28). ... The armistice, which was
soon followed by a treaty of peace between France and
Sardinia, ceding Savoy to the Republic, left him free to
follow the Austrians, untroubled by the existence of some of
the strongest fortresses of Europe behind him. In the
negotiations with Sardinia, Bonaparte demanded the surrender
of the town of Valenza, as necessary to secure his passage
over the river Po. Having thus artfully led the Austrian
Beaulieu to concentrate his forces at this point, he suddenly
moved eastward along the southern bank of the river, and
crossed at Piacenza, 50 miles below the spot where Beaulieu
was awaiting him. ... The Austrian general, taken in the rear,
had no alternative but to abandon Milan and all the country
west of it, and to fall back upon the line of the Adda.
Bonaparte followed, and on the 10th of May attacked the
Austrians at Lodi. He himself stormed the bridge of Lodi at
the head of his Grenadiers. The battle was so disastrous to
the Austrians that they could risk no second engagement, and
retired upon Mantua and the line of the Mincio. Bonaparte now
made his triumphal entry into Milan (May 15). ... In return
for the gift of liberty, the Milanese were invited to offer to
their deliverers 20,000,000 francs, and a selection from the
paintings in their churches and galleries. The Dukes of Parma
and Modena, in return for an armistice, were required to hand
over forty of their best pictures, and a sum of money
proportioned to their revenues. The Dukes and the townspeople
paid their contributions with a good grace: the peasantry of
Lombardy, whose cattle were seized in order to supply an army
that marched without any stores of its own, rose in arms, and
threw themselves into Pavia, after killing all the French
soldiers who fell in their way. The revolt was instantly
suppressed, and the town of Pavia given up to pillage. ...
Instead of crossing the Apennines, Bonaparte advanced against
the Austrian positions upon the Mincio. ... A battle was
fought and lost by the Austrians at Borghetto. ... Beaulieu's
strength was exhausted; he could meet the enemy no more in the
field, and led his army out of Italy into the Tyrol, leaving
Mantua to be invested by the French. The first care of the
conqueror was to make Venice pay for the crime of possessing
territory intervening between the eastern and western extremes
of the Austrian district. Bonaparte affected to believe that
the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to occupy Peschiera
before he seized upon Brescia himself. ... 'I have purposely
devised this rupture,' he wrote to the Directory (June 7th),
'in case you should wish to obtain five or six millions of
francs from Venice. If you have more decided intentions, I
think it would be well to keep up the quarrel.' The intention
referred to was the disgraceful project of sacrificing Venice
to Austria in return for the cession of the Netherlands. ...
The Austrians were fairly driven out of Lombardy, and
Bonaparte was now free to deal with Southern Italy. He
advanced into the States of the Church, and expelled the Papal
Legate from Bologna. Ferdinand of Naples ... asked for a
suspension of hostilities against his own kingdom ... and
Bonaparte granted the king an armistice on easy terms. The
Pope, in order to gain a few months' truce, had to permit the
occupation of Ferrara, Ravenna, and Ancona, and to recognise
the necessities, the learning, the taste, and the virtue of
his conquerors by a gift of 20,000,000 francs, 500
manuscripts, 100 pictures, and the busts of Marcus and Lucius
Brutus. ... Tuscany had indeed made peace with the French
Republic a year before, but ... while Bonaparte paid a
respectful visit to the Grand Duke at Florence, Murat
descended upon Leghorn, and seized upon everything that was
not removed before his approach. Once established in Leghorn,
the French declined to quit it. Mantua was meanwhile invested,
and thither Bonaparte returned. Towards the end of July an
Austrian relieving army, nearly double the strength of
Bonaparte's, descended from the Tyrol. It was divided into
three corps: one, under Quasdanovich, advanced by the road on
the west of Lake Garda; the others, under Wurmser, the
commander-in-chief, by the roads between the lake and the
river Adige. ... Bonaparte ... instantly broke up the siege of
Mantua, and withdrew from every position east of the river. On
the 30th July, Quasdanovich was attacked and checked at
Lonato. ... Wurmser, unaware of his colleague's repulse,
entered Mantua in triumph, and then set out, expecting to
envelop Bonaparte between two fires. But the French were ready
for his approach. Wurmser was stopped and defeated at
Castiglione (Aug. 3), while the western Austrian divisions
were still held in check at Lonato. ... In five days the skill
of Bonaparte and the unsparing exertions of his soldiery had
more than retrieved all that appeared to have been lost. The
Austrians retired into the Tyrol, leaving 15,000 prisoners in
the hands of the enemy. Bonaparte now prepared to force his
way into Germany by the Adige, in fulfilment of the original
plan of the campaign. In the first days of September he again
routed the Austrians, and gained possession of Roveredo and
Trent.
{1316}
Wurmser hereupon attempted to shut the French up in the
mountains by a movement southwards; but, while he operated
with insufficient forces between the Brenta and the Adige,
with a view of cutting Bonaparte off from Italy, he was
himself [defeated at Bassano, September 8, and] cut off from
Germany, and only escaped capture by throwing himself into
Mantua with the shattered remnant of his army. The road into
Germany through the Tyrol now lay open; but in the midst of
his victories Bonaparte learnt that the northern armies of
Moreau and Jourdan, with which he had intended to co-operate
in an attack upon Vienna, were in full retreat. Moreau's
advance into the valley of the Danube had, during the months
of July and August, been attended with unbroken military and
political success. The Archduke Charles, who was entrusted
with the defence of the Empire," fell back before Moreau, in
order to unite his forces with those of Wartensleben, who
commanded an army which confronted Jourdan. "The design of the
Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the
French for six weeks, and revealed how worthless was the
military constitution of the Empire, and how little the
Germans had to expect from one another. ... At length the
retreating movement of the Austrians stopped [and the Archduke
fought an indecisive battle with Moreau at Neresheim, August
11]. Leaving 30,000 men on the Lech to disguise his motions
from Moreau, Charles turned suddenly northwards from Neuberg
on the 17th August, met Wartensleben at Amberg, and attacked
Jourdan ... with greatly superior numbers. Jourdan was
defeated [September 3, at Würtzburg] and driven back in
confusion towards the Rhine. The issue of the campaign was
decided before Moreau heard of his colleague's danger. It only
remained for him to save his own army by a skilful retreat,"
in the course of which he defeated the Austrian general Latour
at Biberach, October 2, and fought two indecisive battles with
the Archduke, at Emmendingen, October 19, and at Huningen on
the 24th.
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapters 14-15.
General Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
volume 1, chapter 2.
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 22 (volume 1).
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns, 1796-1870,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (September).
Evacuation of Corsica by the English.
Its reoccupation by the French.
"Corsica, which had been delivered to the English by Paoli,
and occupied by them as a fourth kingdom annexed to the crown
of the King of Great Britain, had just been evacuated by its
new masters. They had never succeeded in subduing the interior
of the island, frequent insurrections had kept them in
continual alarm, and free communication between the various
towns could only be effected by sea. The victories of the
French army in Italy, under the command of one of their
countrymen, had redoubled this internal ferment in Corsica,
and the English had decided on entirely abandoning their
conquest. In September 1796 they withdrew their troops, and
also removed from Corsica their chief partisans, such as
General Paoli, Pozzo di Borgo, Beraldi and others, who sought
an asylum in England. On the first intelligence of the English
preparations for evacuating the island, Buonaparte despatched
General Gentili thither at the head of two or three hundred
banished Corsicans, and with this little band Gentili took
possession of the principal strongholds. ... On the 5th
Frimaire, year V. (November 25, 1796), I received a decree of
the Executive Directory ... appointing me
Commissioner-Extraordinary of the Government in Corsica, and
ordering me to proceed thither at once."
Count Miot de Melito,
Memoirs,
chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (October).
Failure of peace negotiations with England.
Treaties with Naples and Genoa.
"It was France itself, more even than Italy, which was
succumbing under the victories in Italy, and was falling
rapidly under the military despotism of Bonaparte; while what
had begun as a mere war of defence was already becoming a war
of aggression against everybody. ... The more patriotic
members of the legislative bodies were opposed to what they
considered only a war of personal ambitions, and were desirous
of peace, and a considerable peace party was forming
throughout the country. The opportunity was taken by the
English government for making proposals for peace, and a
pass-port was obtained from the directory for lord Malmesbury,
who was sent to Paris as the English plenipotentiary. Lord
Malmesbury arrived in Paris on the 2nd of Brumaire (the 23rd
of October, 1796), and next day had his first interview with
the French minister Delacroix, who was chosen by the directory
to act as their representative. There was from the first an
evident want of cordiality and sincerity on the part of the
French government in this negotiation; and the demands they
made, and the political views entertained by them, were so
unreasonable, that, after it had dragged on slowly for about a
month, it ended without a result. The directory were secretly
making great preparations for the invasion of Ireland, and
they had hopes of making a separate and very advantageous
peace with Austria. Bonaparte had, during this time, become
uneasy on account of his position in Italy," and "urged the
directory to enter into negotiations with the different
Italian states in his rear, such as Naples, Rome, and Genoa,
and to form an offensive and defensive alliance with the king
of Sardinia, so that he might be able to raise reinforcements
in Italy. For this purpose he asked for authority to proclaim
the independence of Lombardy and of the states of Modena; so
that, by forming both into republics, he might create a
powerful French party, through which he might obtain both men
and provisions. The directory was not unwilling to second the
wishes of Bonaparte, and on the 19th of Vendemiaire (the 10th
of October) a peace was signed with Naples, which was followed
by a treaty with Genoa. This latter state paid two millions of
francs as an indemnity for the acts of hostility formerly
committed against France, and added two millions more as a
loan." The negotiation for an offensive alliance with Sardinia
failed, because the king demanded Lombardy.
T. Wright,
History of France,
volume 2, page 758.
ALSO IN:
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 27 (volume 7).
E. Burke,
Letters on a Regicide Peace.
{1317}
FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (October-April).
Bonaparte's continued victories in Italy.
His advance into Carinthia and the Tyrol.
Peace preliminaries of Leoben.
"The failure of the French invasion of Germany ... enabled the
Austrians to make a fresh effort for the relief of [Würmser]
in Mantua. 40,000 men under Alvinzi and 18,000 under
Davidowich entered Italy from the Tyrol and marched by
different routes towards Verona. Bonaparte had employed the
recent interlude in consolidating French influence in Italy.
Against the wishes of the Directors he dethroned the duke of
Modena, and formed his territories into the Cispadane
Republic. Then he tried to induce Piedmont and Venice to join
France, but both states preferred to retain their neutral
position. This was another of the charges which the general
was preparing against Venice. On the news of the Austrian
advance, Bonaparte marched against Alvinzi, and checked him at
Carmignano (6 November). But meanwhile Davidowich had taken
Trent and was approaching Rivoli. Bonaparte, in danger of
being surrounded, was compelled to give way, and retreated to
Verona, while Alvinzi followed him. Never was the French
position more critical, and nothing but a very bold move could
save them. With reckless courage Bonaparte attacked Alvinzi at
Arcola, and after three days' hard fighting [November 15-17,
on the dykes and causeways of a marshy region] won a complete
victory. He then forced Davidowich to retreat to the Tyrol.
The danger was averted, and the blockade of Mantua was
continued. But Austria, as if its resources were
inexhaustible, determined on a fourth effort in January, 1797.
Alvinzi was again entrusted with the command, while another
detachment under Provera advanced from Friuli. Bonaparte
collected all his forces, marched against Alvinzi, and crushed
him at Rivoli (15 January). But meanwhile Provera had reached
Mantua, where Bonaparte, by a forced march, overtook him, and
won another complete victory in the battle of La Favorita. The
fate of Mantua was at last decided, and the city surrendered
on the 2nd of February. With a generosity worthy of the glory
which he had obtained, Bonaparte allowed Würmser and the
garrison to march out with the honours of war. He now turned
to Romagna, occupied Bologna and terrified the Pope into
signing the treaty of Tolentino. The temporal power was
allowed to exist, but within very curtailed limits. Not only
Avignon, but the whole of Romagna, with Ancona, was
surrendered to France. Even these terms, harsh as they were,
were not so severe as the Directors had wished. But Bonaparte
was beginning to play his own game; he saw that Catholicism
was regaining ground in France, and he wished to make friends
on what might prove after all the winning side. Affairs in
Italy were now fairly settled: two republics, the Cisalpine in
Lombardy, and the Cispadane, which included Modena, Ferrara,
and Bologna, had been created to secure French influence in
Italy. ... The French had occupied the Venetian territory from
Bergamo to Verona, and had established close relations with
those classes who were dissatisfied with their exclusion from
political power. When the republic armed against the danger of
a revolt, Bonaparte treated it as another ground for that
quarrel which he artfully fomented for his own purposes. But
at present he had other objects more immediately pressing than
the oppression of Venice. Jourdan's army on the Rhine had been
entrusted to Hoche, whose ambition had long chafed at the want
of an opportunity, and who was burning to acquire glory by
retrieving the disasters of the last campaign. Bonaparte, on
the other hand, was eager to anticipate a possible rival, and
determined to hurry on his own invasion of Austria, in order
to keep the war and the negotiations in his own hands. The
task of meeting him was entrusted to the archduke Charles, who
had won such a brilliant reputation in 1796, but who was
placed at a great disadvantage to his opponent by having to
obey instructions from Vienna. The French carried all before
them, Joubert occupied Tyrol, Masséna forced the route to
Carinthia, and Bonaparte himself, after defeating the archduke
on the Tagliamento, occupied Trieste and Carniola. The French
now marched over the Alps, driving the Austrians before them.
At Leoben, which they reached on 7th April, they were less
than eighty miles from Vienna. Here Austrian envoys arrived to
open negotiations. They consented to surrender Belgium,
Lombardy, and the Rhine frontier, but they demanded
compensation in Bavaria. This demand Bonaparte refused, but
offered to compensate Austria at the expense of a neutral
state, Venice. The preliminaries of Leoben, signed on the 18th
April, gave to Austria, Istria, Dalmatia, and the Venetian
provinces between the Oglio, the Po, and the Adriatic. At this
moment, Hoche and Moreau, after overcoming the obstacles
interposed by a sluggish government, were crossing the Rhine
to bring their armies to bear against Austria. They had
already gained several successes when the unwelcome news
reached them from Leoben, and they had to retreat. Bonaparte
may have failed to extort the most extreme terms from Austria,
but he had at any rate kept both power and fame to himself."
R. Lodge,
English of Modern Europe,
chapter 23.
ALSO IN:
F. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon I.,
volume 1, chapters 5-7.
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 4, chapters 1-4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (December-January):
Hoche's expedition to Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1791-1798.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (February-October).
British naval victories of Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (April-May).
The overthrow of Venice by Bonaparte.
When Napoleon, in March, entered upon his campaign against the
Archduke Charles, "the animosity existing between France and
Venice had ... attained a height that threatened an open
rupture between the two republics, and was, therefore, of some
advantage to Austria. The Signoria saw plainly what its fate
would be should the French prove victorious; but though they
had 12,000 or 15,000 Slavonian troops ready at hand, and
mostly assembled in the capital, they never ventured to use
them till the moment for acting was past. On the Terra Firma,
the citizens of Brescia and Bergamo had openly renounced the
authority of St. Mark, and espoused the cause of France; the
country people, on the other hand, were bitterly hostile to
the new Republicans. Oppressed by requisitions, plundered and
insulted by the troops, the peasants had slain straggling and
marauding French soldiers; the comrades of the sufferers had
retaliated, and an open revolt was more than once expected.
General Battaglia, the Venetian providatore, remonstrated
against the open violence practised on the subjects of Venice;
Buonaparte replied by accusing the government of partiality
for Austria, and went so far as to employ General Andrieux to
instigate the people to rise against the senate. The
Directory, however, desired him to pause, and not to 'drive
the Venetians to extremity, till the opportunity, should have
arrived for carrying into effect the future projects
entertained against that state.'
{1318}
Both parties were watching their time, but the craven watches
in vain, for he is struck down long before his time to strike
arrives." A month later, when Napoleon was believed to be
involved in difficulties in Carinthia and the Tyrol, Venice
"had thrown off the mask of neutrality; the tocsin had sounded
through the communes of the Terra Firma, and a body of troops
had joined the insurgents in the attack on the citadel of
Verona. Not only were the French assailed wherever they were
found in arms, but the very sick were inhumanly slain in the
hospitals by the infuriated peasantry; the principal massacre
took place at Verona on Easter Monday [April 17], and cast a
deep stain on the Venetian cause and character." But even
while these sinister events were in progress, Bonaparte had
made peace with the humiliated Austrians, and had signed the
preliminary treaty of Leoben, which promised to give Venice to
them in exchange for the Netherlands. And now, with all his
forces set free, he was prepared to crush the venerable
Republic, and make it subservient to his ambitious schemes. He
"refused to hear of any accommodation: and, unfortunately, the
base massacre of Verona blackened the Venetian cause so much
as almost to gloss over the unprincipled violence of their
adversaries. 'If you could offer me the treasures of Peru,'
said Napoleon to the terrified deputies who came to sue for
pardon and offer reparation, 'if you could cover your whole
dominions with gold, the atonement would be insufficient.
French blood has been treacherously shed, and the Lion of St.
Mark must bite the dust.' On the 3d of May he declared war
against the republic, and French troops immediately advanced
to the shores of the lagunes. Here, however, the waves of the
Adriatic arrested their progress, for they had not a single
boat at command, whereas the Venetians had a good fleet in the
harbour, and an army of 10,000 or 15,000 soldiers in the
capital: they only wanted the courage to use them. Instead of
fighting, however, they deliberated; and tried to purchase
safety by gold, instead of maintaining it by arms. Finding the
enemy relentless, the Great Council proposed to modify their
government,--to render it more democratic, in order to please
the French commander,--to lay their very institutions at the
feet of the conqueror; and, strange to say, only 21 patricians
out of 690 dissented from this act of national degradation.
The democratic party, supported by the intrigues of Vittelan,
the French secretary of legation, exerted themselves to the
utmost. The Slavonian troops were disbanded, or embarked for
Dalmatia; the fleet was dismantled, and the Senate were
rapidly divesting themselves of every privilege, when, on the
31st of May, a popular tumult broke out in the capital. The
Great Council were in deliberation when shots were fired
beneath the windows of the ducal palace. The trembling
senators thought that the rising was directed against them,
and that their lives were in danger, and hastened to divest
themselves of every remnant of power and authority at the very
moment when the populace were taking arms in their favour.
'Long live St. Mark, and down with foreign dominion!' was the
cry of the insurgents, but nothing could communicate one spark
of gallant fire to the Venetian aristocracy. In the midst of
the general confusion, while the adverse parties were firing
on each other, and the disbanded Slavonians threatening to
plunder the city, these unhappy legislators could only
delegate their power to a hastily assembled provisional
government, and then separate in shame and for ever. The
democratic government commenced their career in a manner as
dishonourable as that of the aristocracy had been closed."
They "immediately despatched the flotilla to bring over the
French troops. A brigade under Baraguai d'Hilliers soon landed
[May 15] at the place of St. Mark; and Venice, which had
braved the thunders of the Vatican, the power of the emperors,
and the arms of the Othmans, ... now sunk for ever, and
without striking one manly blow or firing one single shot for
honour and fame! Venice counted 1300 years of independence,
centuries of power and renown, and many also of greatness and
glory, but ended in a manner more dishonourable than any state
of which history makes mention. The French went through the
form of acknowledging the new democratic government, but
retained the power in their own hands. Heavy contributions
were levied, all the naval and military stores were taken
possession of, and the fleet, having conveyed French troops to
the Ionian islands, was sent to Toulon."
T. Mitchell,
Principal Campaigns in the Rise of Napoleon,
chapter 6 (Fraser's Magazine, April, 1846).
ALSO IN:
E. Flagg,
Venice: The City of the Sea,
part 1, chapters 1-4 (volume 1).
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 4, chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (May-October).
Napoleon's political work in Italy.
Creation of the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics.
Dismemberment of the Graubunden.
The Peace of Campo-Formio.
Venice given over to Austria, and Lombardy and the Netherlands
taken away.
"The revolution in Venice was soon followed by another in
Genoa, also organised by the plots of the French minister
there, Faypoult. The Genoese had in general shown themselves
favourable to France; but there existed among the nobles an
anti-French party; the Senate, like that of Venice, was too
aristocratic to suit Bonaparte's or the Directory's notions;
and it was considered that Genoa, under a democratic
constitution, would be more subservient to French interests.
An insurrection, prepared by Faypoult, of some 700 or 800 of
the lowest class of Genoese, aided by Frenchmen and Lombards,
broke out on May 22nd, but was put down by the great mass of
the real Genoese people. Bonaparte, however, was determined to
effect his object. He directed a force of 12,000 men on Genoa,
and despatched Lavalette with a letter to the Doge. ...
Bonaparte's threats were attended by the same magical effects
at Genoa as had followed them at Venice. The Senate
immediately despatched three nobles to treat with him, and on
June 6th was concluded the Treaty of Montebello. The
Government of Genoa recognised by this treaty the sovereignty
of the people, confided the legislative power to two Councils,
one of 300, the other of 500 members, the executive power to a
Senate of twelve, presided over by the Doge. Meanwhile a
provisional government was to be established. By a secret
article a contribution of four millions, disguised under the
name of a loan, was imposed upon Genoa.
{1319}
Her obedience was recompensed with a considerable augmentation
of territory, and the incorporation of the districts known as
the 'imperial fiefs.' Such was the origin of the Ligurian
Republic. Austrian Lombardy, after its conquest, had also been
formed into the 'Lombard Republic'; but the Directory had not
recognised it, awaiting a final settlement of Italy through a
peace with Austria. Bonaparte, after taking possession of the
Duchy of Modena and the Legations, had, at first, thought of
erecting them into an independent state under the name of the
'Cispadane Republic'; but he afterwards changed his mind and
united these states with Lombardy under the title of the
Cisalpine Republic. He declared, in the name of the Directory,
the independence of this new republic, June 29th 1797;
reserving, however, the right of nominating, for the first
time, the members of the Government and of the legislative
body. The districts of the Valteline, Chiavenna, and Bormio,
subject to the Grison League, in which discontent and
disturbance had been excited by French agents, were united in
October to the new state; whose constitution was modelled on
that of the French Republic. Bonaparte was commissioned by the
Directory to negociate a definitive peace with Austria, and
conferences were opened for that purpose at Montebello,
Bonaparte's residence near Milan. The negociations were
chiefly managed by himself, and on the part of Austria by the
Marquis di Gallo, the Neapolitan ambassador at Vienna, and
Count Meerfeld. ... The negociations were protracted six
months, partly through Bonaparte's engagements in arranging
the affairs of the new Italian republics, but more especially
by divisions and feuds in the French Directory." The Peace of
Campo Formio was concluded October 17. "It derived this name
from its having been signed in a ruined castle situated in a
small village of that name near Udine; a place selected on
grounds of etiquette in preference to the residence of either
of the negociators. By this treaty the Emperor ceded the
Austrian Netherlands to France; abandoned to the Cisalpine
Republic, which he recognised, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema,
Peschiera, the town and fortress of Mantua with their
territories, and all that part of the former Venetian
possessions to the south and west of a line which, commencing
in the Tyrol, traversed the Lago di Garda, the left bank of
the Adige, but including Porto Legnago on the right bank, and
thence along the left bank of the Po to its mouth. France was
to possess the Ionian Islands, and all the Venetian
settlements in Albania below the Gulf of Lodrino; the French
Republic agreeing on its side that the Emperor should have
Istria, Dalmatia, the Venetian isles in the Adriatic, the
mouths of the Cattaro, the city of Venice, the Lagoons, and
all the former Venetian terra firma to the line before
described. The Emperor ceded the Breisgau to the Duke of
Modena, to be held on the same conditions as he had held the
Modenese. A congress composed of the plenipotentiaries of the
German Federation was to assemble immediately, to treat of a
peace between France and the Empire. To this patent treaty was
added another secret one, by the principal article of which
the Emperor consented that France should have the frontier of
the Rhine, except the Prussian possessions, and stipulated
that the Imperial troops should enter Venice on the same day
that the French entered Mentz. He also promised to use his
influence to obtain the accession of the Empire to this
arrangement; and if that body withheld its consent, to give it
no more assistance than his contingent. The navigation of the
Rhine to be declared free. If, at the peace with the Empire,
the French Republic should make any acquisitions in Germany,
the Emperor was to obtain an equivalent there, and vice versa.
The Dutch Stadtholder to have a territorial indemnity. To the
King of Prussia were to be restored his possessions on the
left bank of the Rhine, and he was consequently to have no new
acquisitions in Germany. Princes and States of the Empire,
damnified by this treaty, to obtain a suitable indemnity. ...
By the Treaty of Campo Formio was terminated not only the
Italian campaign, but also the first continental war of the
Revolution. The establishment of Bonaparte's prestige and
power by the former was a result still more momentous in its
consequences for Europe than the fall of Venice and the
revolutionising of Northern Italy."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 8 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 4, pages 214-225.
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 28.
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
chapters 6-8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (September).
Conflict of the Directory and the two Councils.
The Revolutionary Coup d'État of the 18th of Fructidor.
Suppression of the Royalists and Moderates.
Practical overthrow of the Constitution.
"The inevitable dissension between the executive power and the
electoral power had already displayed itself at the conclusion
of the elections of the Year V. The elections were made for
the most part under the influence of the reactionary party,
which, whilst it refrained from conspiring for the overthrow
of the new Constitution, saw with terror that the executive
power was in the hands of men who had taken part in the
excesses and crimes of the Convention. Pichegru, whose
intrigues with the princes of the House of Bourbon were not
yet known, was enthusiastically made President of the Council
of Five Hundred, and Barbé-Marbois was made President of the
Ancients. Le Tourneur having become, by lot, the retiring
member of the Directory, Barthélemy, an upright and moderate
man, was chosen in his place. He, as well as his colleague,
Carnot, were opposed to violent measures; but they only formed
in the Directorate a minority which was powerless against the
Triumvirs Barras, Rewbel, and La Réveillère, who soon entered
upon a struggle with the two Councils. ... There were,
doubtless, amongst [their opponents] in the two Councils, some
Royalists, and ardent reactionists, who desired with all their
hearts the restoration of the Bourbons; but, according to the
very best testimony, the majority of the names which were
drawn from the electoral urn since the promulgation of the
Constitution of the Year III. were strangers to the Royalist
party. 'They did not desire,' to use the words of an eminent
and impartial historian of our own day [De Barante, 'Life of
Royer-Collard'], 'a counter-revolution, but the abolition of
the revolutionary laws which were still in force. They wished
for peace and true liberty, and the successive purification of
a Directorate which was the direct heir of the Convention. ...

But the Directorate was as much opposed to the Moderates as to
the Royalists.'
{1320}
It pretended to regard these two parties as one, and falsely
represented them as conspiring in common for the overthrow of
the Republic and the re-establishment of monarchy. ... If
there were few Royalists in the two Councils, there were also
few men determined to provoke on the part of the Directors a
recourse to violence against their colleagues. But as a great
number of their members had sat in the Convention, they
naturally feared a too complete reaction, and, affecting a
great zeal for the Constitution, they founded at the Hotel
Salm, under the name of the Constitutional Club, an
association which was widely opposed in its spirit and
tendency to that of the Hotel Clichy, in which were assembled
the most ardent members of the reactionary party [and hence
called Clichyans]. ... The Council of Five Hundred, on the
motion of a member of the Clichy Club, energetically demanded
that the Legislative power should have a share in determining
questions of peace or war. No general had exercised, in this
respect, a more arbitrary power than had Bonaparte, who had
negotiated of his own mere authority several treaties, and the
preliminaries of the peace of Campo Formio. He was offended at
these pretensions on the part of the Council of Five Hundred,
and entreated the Government to look to the army for support
against the Councils and the reactionary press. He even sent
to Paris, as a support to the policy of the Directors, General
Augereau, one of the bravest men of his army, but by no means
scrupulous as to the employment of violent means, and disposed
to regard the sword as the supreme argument in politics,
whether at home or abroad. The Directory gave him the command
of the military division of Paris. ... Henceforth a coup
d'état appeared inevitable. The Directors now marched some
regiments upon the capital, in defiance of a clause of the
Constitution which prohibited the presence of troops within a
distance of twelve leagues of Paris, unless in accordance with
a special law passed in or near Paris itself. The Councils
burst forth into reproaches and threats against the Directors,
to which the latter replied by fiery addresses to the armies,
and to the Councils themselves. It was in vain that the
Directors Carnot and Barthélemy endeavoured to quell the
rising storm; their three colleagues refused to listen to
them, and fixed the 18th Fructidor [September 4] for the
execution of their criminal projects. During the night
preceding that day, Augereau marched 12,000 men into Paris,
and in the morning these troops, under his own command,
supported by 40 pieces of cannon, surrounded the Tuileries, in
which the Councils held their sittings. The grenadiers of the
Councils' guard joined Augereau, who arrested with his own
hand the brave Ramel, who commanded that guard, and General
Pichegru, the President of the Council of Five Hundred. ...
The Directors ... published a letter written by Moreau, which
revealed Pichegru's treason; and at the same time nominated a
Committee for the purpose of watching over the public safety.
... Forty-two members of the Council of Five Hundred, eleven
members of that of the Ancients, and two of the Directors,
Carnot [who escaped, however, into Switzerland] and
Barthélemy, were condemned to be transported to the fatal
district of Sinnamari. ... The Directors also made the editors
of 35 journals the victims of their resentment. They had the
laws passed in favour of the priests and emigrants reversed,
and annulled the elections of 48 departments. Merlin de Douai
and François de Neufchâteau were chosen as successors to
Carnot and Barthélemy, who had been banished and proscribed by
their colleagues. That which took place on the 18th Fructidor
ruined the Constitutional and Moderate party, whilst it
resuscitated that of the Revolution."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France, 4th period,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2).
"During these two days, Paris continued perfectly quiet. The
patriots of the fauxbourgs deemed the punishment of
transportation too mild. ... These groups, however, which were
far from numerous, disturbed not in the least the peace of
Paris. The sectionaries of Vendemiaire ... had no longer
sufficient energy to take up arms spontaneously. They suffered
the stroke of policy to be carried into effect without
opposition. For the rest, public opinion continued uncertain.
The sincere republicans clearly perceived that the royalist
faction had rendered an energetic measure inevitable, but they
deplored the violation of the laws and the intervention of the
military power. They almost doubted the culpability of the
conspirators on seeing such a man as Carnot mingled in their
ranks. They apprehended that hatred had too strongly
influenced the determinations of the Directory. Lastly, even,
though considering its determinations as necessary, they were
sad, and not without reason: for it became evident that that
constitution, on which they had placed all their hope, was not
the termination of our troubles and our discord. The mass of
the population submitted and detached itself much on that day
from political events. ... From that day, political zeal began
to cool. Such were the consequences of the stroke of policy
accomplished on the 18th of Fructidor. It has been asserted
that it had become useless at the moment when it was executed;
that the Directory, in frightening the royalist faction, had
already succeeded in overawing it; that, by persisting in this
stretch of power, it paved the way to military usurpation. ...
But ... the royalist faction ... on the junction of the new
third ... would infallibly have overturned everything, and
mastered the Directory. Civil war would then have ensued
between it and the armies. The Directory, in foreseeing this
movement and timely repressing it, prevented a civil war; and,
if it placed itself under the protection of the military, it
submitted to a melancholy but inevitable necessity."
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 4, pages 205-206.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-May).
Revolutionary intrigues in Rome.
French troops in possession of the city.
Formation of the Roman Republic.
Removal of the Pope.
"At Rome a permanent conspiracy was established at the French
Embassy, where Joseph Bonaparte, as the ambassador of the
Republic, was the centre of a knot of conspirators. On the
28th of December, 1797, came the first open attempt at
insurrection. General Duphot, a hot-headed young man, one of
the military attaches of the French Embassy, put himself at
the head of a handful of the disaffected, and led them to the
attack of one of the posts of the pontifical troops. In the
ensuing skirmish a chance shot struck down the French general,
and the rabble which followed him dispersed in all directions.
It was just the opportunity for which the Directory had been
waiting in order to break the treaty of Tolentino and seize
upon Rome.
{1321}
Joseph Bonaparte left the city the morning after the émeute,
and a column of troops was immediately detached from his
brother's army in the north of Italy and ordered to march on
Rome. It consisted of General Berthier's division and 6,000
Poles under Dombrowski, and it received the ominous title of
l'armée vengeresse--the avenging army. As they advanced
through the Papal territory they met with no sympathy, no
assistance, from the inhabitants, who looked upon them as
invaders rather than deliverers. 'The army,' Berthier wrote to
Bonaparte, 'has met with nothing but the most profound
consternation in this country, without seeing one glimpse of
the spirit of independence; only one single patriot came to
me, and offered to set at liberty 2,000 convicts.' This
liberal offer of a re-inforcement of 2,000 scoundrels the
French general thought it better to decline. ... At length, on
the 10th of February, Berthier appeared before Rome. ...
Wishing to avoid a useless effusion of blood, Pius VI. ordered
the gates to be thrown open, contenting himself with
addressing, through the commandant of St. Angelo, a protest to
the French general, in which he declared that he yielded only
to overwhelming force. A few days after, a self-elected
deputation of Romans waited upon Berthier, to request him to
proclaim Rome a republic, under the protection of France. As
Berthier had been one of the most active agents in getting up
this deputation, he, of course, immediately yielded to their
request. The French general then demanded of the Pope that he
should formally resign his temporal power, and accept the new
order of things. His reply was the same as that of every Pope
of whom such a demand has been made: 'We cannot--we will not!'
In the midst of a violent thunder-storm he was torn from his
palace, forced into a carriage, and carried away to Viterbo,
and thence to Siena, where he was kept a prisoner for three
months. Rome was ruled by the iron hand of a military
governor. ... Meanwhile, alarmed at the rising in Italy, the
Directory were conveying the Pope to a French prison. ...
After a short stay at Grenoble he was transferred to the
fortress of Valence, where, broken down by the fatigues of his
journey, he died on August 19th, 1799, praying for his enemies
with his last breath."
Chevalier O'Clery.
History of the Italian Revolution,
chapter 2, section 1.
ALSO IN:
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 4.
J. Miley,
History of the Papal States,
book 8, chapter 3 (volume 3).
J. E. Darras,
History of the Catholic Church, 8th period,
chapter 6 (volume 4).
T. Roscoe,
Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci.
volume 2, chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-September).
Invasion and subjugation of Switzerland.
Creation of the Helvetic Republic.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1799.
Hostile attitude toward the United States.
The X, Y, Z correspondence.
Nearness of war.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1797-1799.
FRANCE: A. D. 1798 (May-August).
Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt.
His seizure of Malta.
Pursuit by the English fleet under Nelson.
The Battle of the Nile.
"The treaty of Campo Formio, by which Austria obtained terms
highly advantageous to her interests, dissolved the offensive
and defensive alliance of the continental powers, and left
England alone in arms. The humiliation of this country was to
be the last and the greatest achievement of French ambition.
... During the autumn and winter of this year [1797-8],
preparations for a great armament were proceeding at Toulon,
and other harbours in possession of the French. The army of
Italy, clamorous for a promised donation of 1,000,000,000
francs, which the Directory were unable to pay, had been
flattered by the title of the army of England, and appeased by
the prospect of the plunder of this country. But whatever
might be the view of the Directory, or the expectation of the
army, Bonaparte had no intention of undertaking an enterprise
so rash as a descent upon the coast of England, while the
fleets of England kept possession of the seas. There was
another quarter from which the British Empire might be menaced
with a better chance of success. India could never be secure
while Egypt and the great eastern port of the Mediterranean
were in the possession of one of the great maritime powers.
Egypt had been an object of French ambition since the time of
Louis XIV. ... It was for Egypt, therefore, that the great
armament of Toulon was destined. The project was not indeed
considered a very hopeful one at Paris; but such was the dread
and hatred of the ruling faction for the great military genius
which had sprung out of the anarchy of France, and of the
30,000 creditors whom they were unable to satisfy, that the
issue of the expedition which they most desired was, that it
might never return from the banks of the Nile. ... The fleet,
consisting of thirteen ships of the line, with several
frigates, smaller vessels, and transports conveying 28,000
picked troops, with the full equipment for every kind of
military service, set sail on the 14th of May. Attached to
this singular expedition, destined for the invasion of a
friendly country, and the destruction of an unoffending
people, was a staff of professors, furnished with books, maps,
and philosophical instruments for prosecuting scientific
researches in a land which, to a Christian and a philosopher,
was the most interesting portion of the globe. The great
armament commenced its career of rapine by seizing on the
important island of Malta. Under the shallow pretence of
taking in water for a squadron which had left its anchorage
only two days, a portion of the troops were landed, and, after
a show of resistance, the degenerate knights, who had already
been corrupted, surrendered Malta, Gozo, and Cumino, to the
French Republic. A great amount of treasure and of munitions
of war, besides the possession of the strongest place in the
Mediterranean, were thus acquired without loss or delay. A
conquest of such importance would have amply repaid and
justified the expedition, if no ulterior object had been
pursued. But Bonaparte suffered himself to be detained no more
than twenty-four hours by this achievement; and having left a
garrison of 4,000 men in the island, and established a form of
civil government, after the French pattern, he shaped his
course direct for Alexandria. On the 1st of July, the first
division of the French troops were landed at Marabou, a few
miles from the city. Aboukir and Rosetta, which commanded the
mouths of the Nile, were occupied without difficulty.
Alexandria itself was incapable of any effectual defence, and,
after a few skirmishes with the handful of Janissaries which
constituted the garrison, the French entered the place; and
for several hours the inhabitants were given up to an
indiscriminate massacre.
{1322}
Bonaparte pushed forward with his usual rapidity, undeterred
by the horrors of the sandy desert, and the sufferings of his
troops. After two victories over the Mamelukes, one of which
was obtained within sight of the Pyramids [and called the
Battle of the Pyramids], the French advanced to Cairo; and
such was the terror which they had inspired, that the capital
of Egypt was surrendered without a blow. Thus in three weeks
the country had been overrun. The invaders had nothing to fear
from the hostility of the people; a rich and fertile country,
the frontier of Asia, was in their possession; but, in order
to hold the possession secure, it was necessary to retain the
command of the sea. The English Government, on their side,
considered the capture of the Toulon armament an object of
paramount importance; and Earl St. Vincent, who was still
blockading the Spanish ports, was ordered to leave Cadiz, if
necessary, with his whole fleet, in search of the French; but
at all events, to detach a squadron, under Sir Horatio Nelson,
on that service. ... Nelson left Gibraltar on the 8th of May,
with three ships of the line, four frigates, and a sloop. ...
He was reinforced, on the 5th of June, with ten sail of the
line. His frigates had parted company with him on the 20th of
May, and never returned." Suspecting that Egypt was
Bonaparte's destination, he made sail for Alexandria, but
passed the French expedition, at night, on the way, arrived in
advance of it, and, thinking his surmise mistaken, steered
away for the Morea and thence to Naples. It was not until the
1st of August that he reached the Egyptian coast a second
time, and found the French fleet, of sixteen sail, "at anchor
in line of battle, in the Bay of Aboukir. Nelson, having
determined to fight whenever he came up with the enemy,
whether by day or by night, immediately made the signal for
action. Although the French fleet lay in an open roadstead,
they had taken up a position so strong as to justify their
belief that they could not be successfully attacked by a force
less than double their own. They lay close in shore, with a
large shoal in their rear; in the advance of their line was an
island, on which a formidable battery had been erected; and
their flanks were covered by numerous gun-boats. ... The
general action commenced at sunset, and continued throughout
the night until six o'clock the following morning, a period of
nearly twelve hours. But in less than two hours, five of the
enemy's ships had struck; and, soon after nine o'clock, the
sea and shore, for miles around, were illuminated by a fire
which burst from the decks of the 'Orient,' the French
flag-ship, of 120 guns. In about half an hour she blew up,
with an explosion so appalling that for some minutes the
action was suspended, as if by tacit consent. At this time the
French Admiral Brueys was dead, ... killed by a chain-shot
before the ship took fire. Nelson also had been carried below,
with a wound which was, at first, supposed to be mortal. He
had been struck in the head with a fragment of langridge shot,
which tore away a part of the scalp. ... At three o'clock in
the morning four more of the French ships were destroyed or
taken. There was then an interval of two hours, during which
hardly a shot was fired on either side. At ten minutes to
seven another ship of the line, after a feeble attempt at
resistance, hauled down her colours. The action was now over.
Of the thirteen French ships of the line, nine had been taken,
and two had been burnt." Two ships of the line and two
frigates escaped. "The British killed and wounded were 895.
The loss of the French, including prisoners, was 5,225. Such
was the great battle of the Nile."
W. Massey,
History of England during the Reign of George III.,
chapter 39 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
E. J. De La Gravière,
Sketches of the Last Naval War,
volume 1, part 3.
R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapter 5.
Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson,
volume 3.
Bonaparte,
Memoirs Dictated at St. Helena,
volume 2.
A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire,
chapter 9 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (August-April).
Arming against the Second European Coalition.
The conscription.
Overthrow of the Neapolitan kingdom.
Seizure of Piedmont.
Campaigns in Switzerland, Italy, and on the upper Danube.
Early successes and final reverses.
"The Porte declared war against the French, and, entered into
an alliance with Russia and England (12th August). A Russian
fleet sailed from Sebastopol, and blockaded the Ionian
Islands; the English vessels found every Turkish port open to
them, and gained possession of the Levant trade, to the
detriment of France. Thus the failure of the Egyptian
expedition delivered the Ottoman Empire into the hands of two
Powers, the one intent upon its dismemberment, the other eager
to make itself master of its commerce; it gave England the
supremacy in the Mediterranean; it inaugurated the appearance
of Russia in southern Europe; it was the signal for a second
coalition." Russia, "under Catherine, had but taken a nominal
part in the first coalition, being too much occupied with the
annihilation of Poland. ... But now Catherine was dead, Paul
I., her son and successor, took the émigrés in his pay,
offered the Pretender an asylum at Mittau, promised his
protection to the Congress at Rastadt, and fitted out 100,000
troops. Naples had been in a great ferment since the creation
of the Roman Republic. The nobles and middle classes, imbued
with French ideas, detested a Court sold to the English, and
presided over by the imbecile Ferdinand, who left the cares of
his government to his dissolute Queen. She hated the French,
and now solicited Tuscany and Piedmont to unite with her to
deliver Italy from the sway of these Republicans. The Austrian
Court, of which Bonaparte had been the conscious or
unconscious dupe, instead of disarming after the Treaty of
Campo-Formio, continued its armaments with redoubled vigour,
and now demanded indemnities, on the pretext that it had
suffered from the Republican system which the French
introduced into Switzerland and Italy. The Directory very
naturally refused to accede to this; and thereupon Austria
prepared for war, and endeavoured to drag Prussia and the
German Empire into it. ... But Frederick William's successor
and the princess of the empire declined to recommence
hostilities with France, of which they had reason to fear the
enmity, though at present she was scarcely able to resist a
second coalition. The French nation, in fact, was sincerely
eager for peace. ...
{1323}
Nevertheless, and though there was little unity amongst them,
the Councils and the Directory prepared their measures of
defence; they increased the revenue, by creating a tax on
doors and windows; they authorised the sale of national
property to the amount of 125,000,000 francs; and finally, on
the report of Jourdan, they passed the famous law of
conscription (5th September), which compelled every Frenchman
to serve in the army from the age of 20 to that of 25, the
first immediate levy to consist of 200,000 troops. When the
victory of the Nile became known at Naples the court was a
prey to frenzied excitement. Taxes had already been doubled, a
fifth of the population called to arms, the nobles and middle
classes were tortured into submission. And when the report
spread that the Russians were marching through Poland, it was
resolved to commence hostilities by attacking the Roman
Republic, and to rouse Piedmont and Tuscany to rebellion.
Forty thousand Neapolitans, scarcely provided with arms,
headed by the Austrian general Mack, made their way into the
Roman states, guarded only by 18,000 French troops, dispersed
between the two seas (12th November). Championnet, their
commander, abandoned Rome, took up a position on the Tiber,
near Civita-Castellana, and concentrated all his forces on
that point. The King of Naples entered Rome, while Mack went
to encounter Championnet. The latter beat him, routed or
captured the best of his troops, and compelled him to retire
in disorder to the Neapolitan territory. Championnet, now at
the head of 25,000 men, returned to Rome, previous to marching
on Naples, where the greatest disorder prevailed. At the news
of his approach the Court armed the lazzaroni, and fled with
its treasures to the English fleet, abandoning the town to
pillage and anarchy (20th December, 1798). Mack, seeing his
army deserting him, and his officers making common cause with
the Republicans, concluded an armistice with Championnet, but
his soldiers revolted and compelled him to seek safety in the
French camp. On Championnet's appearance before Naples, which
the lazzaroni defended with fury, a violent battle ensued,
lasting for three days; however, some of the citizens
delivered the fort of St. Elmo to the French, and then the mob
laid down its arms (23rd January, 1799). The Parthenopeian
Republic [so called from one of the ancient names of the city
of Naples] was immediately proclaimed, a provisional
government organised, the citizens formed themselves into a
National Guard, and the kingdom accepted the Revolution. The
demand of Championnet for a war contribution of 27,000,000
francs roused the Calabrians to revolt; anarchy prevailed
everywhere; commissioners were sent by the Directory to
re-establish order. The French general had them arrested, but
he was deposed and succeeded by Macdonald. In commencing its
aggression the court of Naples had counted on the aid of the
King of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. But Piedmont,
placed between three republics, was herself sharing the
Revolutionary ferment; the King, who had concluded an alliance
with Austria, proscribed the democrats, who, in their turn,
declared war against him by means of the Ligurian Republic,
whither they had fled. When Championnet was compelled to
evacuate Rome, the Directory, afraid that Sardinia would
harass the French rear, had ordered Joubert, commanding the
army of Italy, to occupy Piedmont. The Piedmontese troops
opened every place to the French, entered into their ranks,
and the King [December 8, 1798] was forced to give up all
claims to Piedmont, and to take refuge in Sardinia ...
[retaining the latter, but abdicating the sovereignty of
Piedmont]. Tuscany being also occupied by the Republican
troops, the moment war was declared against Austria, Italy was
virtually under French dominion. These events but increased
the enmity of the Coalition, which hurried its preparations,
while the Directory, cheered by its successes, resolved to
take the offensive on all points. ... In the present struggle,
however, the conditions of warfare were changed. The lines of
invasion were no longer, as formerly, short and isolated, but
stretched from the Zuyder Zee to the Gulf of Tarentum, open to
be attacked in Holland from the rear, and at Naples by the
English fleet. ... Seventy thousand troops, under the Archduke
Charles, occupied Bavaria; General Hotze occupied the
Vorarlberg with 25,000 men; Bellegarde was with 45,000 in the
Tyrol; and 70,000 guarded the line of the Adige, headed by
Marshal Kray. Eighty thousand Russians, in two equal
divisions, were on their way to join the Austrians. The
division under Suwarroff was to operate with Kray, that one
under Korsakoff with the Archduke. Finally, 40,000 English and
Russians were to land in Holland, and 20,000 English and
Sicilians in Naples. The Directory, instead of concentrating
its forces on the Adige and near the sources of the Danube,
divided them. Fifteen thousand troops were posted in Holland,
under Brune; 8,000 at Mayence, under Bernadotte; 40,000 from
Strasburg to Bâle, under Jourdan; 30,000 in Switzerland, under
Masséna; 50,000 on the Adige, under Schérer; 30,000 at Naples,
under Macdonald. These various divisions were in reality meant
to form but one army, of which Massena was the centre, Jourdan
and Schérer the wings, Brune and Macdonald the extremities. To
Massena was confided the principal operation, namely, to
possess himself of the central Alps, in order to isolate the
two imperial armies of the Adige and Danube and to neutralise
their efforts. The Coalition having hit upon the same plan as
the Directory, ordered the Austrians under Bellegarde to
invade the Grisons, while on the other side a division was to
descend into the Valteline." Masséna's right wing, under
Lecourbe, defeated Bellegarde, crossed the upper Rhine and
made its way to the Inn. Schérer also advanced by the
Valteline to the upper Adige and joined operations with
Lecourbe. "While these two generals were spreading terror in
the Tyrol, Masséna made himself master of the Rhine from its
sources to the lake of Constance, receiving but one check in
the fruitless siege of Feldkirch, a position he coveted in
order to be able to support with his right wing the army of
the Danube, or with his left that of Italy. This check
compelled Lecourbe and Dessoles to slacken their progress, and
the various events on the Danube and the Po necessitated their
recall in a short time. Jourdan had crossed the Rhine at Kehl,
Bâle, and Schaffhausen (1st March), penetrated into the defile
of the upper Danube, and reached the village of Ostrach, where
he was confronted by the Archduke Charles, who had passed the
Iller, and who, after a sanguinary battle [March 21],
compelled him to retreat upon Tutlingen. The tidings of
Masséna's success having reached Jourdan, he wished to support
it by marching to Stockach, the key to the roads of
Switzerland and Germany; but he was once more defeated (25th
March), and retreated, not into Switzerland, whence he could
have joined Masséna, but to the Rhine, which he imagined to be
threatened. ...
{1324}
In Italy the Directory had given orders to Schérer to force
the Adige, and to drive the Austrians over the Piave and the
Brenta." He attacked and carried the Austrian camp of
Pastrengo, near Rivoli, on the 25th of March, 1799, inflicting
a loss of 8,000 on the enemy; but on the 5th of April, when
moving to force the lower Adige, he was defeated by Kray at
Magnano. "Schérer lost his head, fled precipitately, and did
not stop until he had put a safe distance between himself and
the enemy. ... The army of Switzerland, under Masséna,
dispersed in the mountains, with both its flanks threatened,
had no other means of salvation than to fall back behind the
Rhine."
H. Van Laun,
The French Revolutionary Epoch,
book 3, chapter 1, section 2 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
R Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapter 6 (volume 2).
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 18.
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 5.
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 3, chapter 2; book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (August-August).
Bonaparte's organization of government in Egypt.
His advance into Syria and repulse at Acre.
His victory at Aboukir and return to France.
"On hearing of the battle of Aboukir [better known as 'the
battle of the Nile'], a solitary sigh escaped from Napoleon.
'To France,' said he, 'the fates have decreed the empire of
the land--to England that of the sea.' He endured this great
calamity with the equanimity of a masculine spirit. He gave
orders that the seamen landed at Alexandria should be formed
into a marine brigade, and thus gained a valuable addition to
his army; and proceeded himself to organise a system of
government, under which the great natural resources of the
country might be turned to the best advantage. ... He was
careful to advance no claim to the sovereignty of Egypt, but
asserted, that having rescued it from the Mameluke usurpation,
it remained for him to administer law and justice, until the
time should come for restoring the province to the dominion of
the Grand Seignior. He then established two councils,
consisting of natives, principally of Arab chiefs and Moslem
of the church and the law, by whose advice all measures were,
nominally, to be regulated. They formed of course a very
subservient senate. ... The virtuosi and artists in his train,
meanwhile, pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific
researches; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and laid
the foundation, at least, of all the wonderful discoveries
which have since been made concerning the knowledge, arts,
polity (and even language), of the ancient nation. Nor were
their objects merely those of curiosity. They, under the
General's direction, examined into the long-smothered traces
of many an ancient device for improving the agriculture of the
country. Canals that had been shut up for centuries were
reopened; the waters of the Nile flowed once more where they
had been guided by the skill of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies.
Cultivation was extended; property secured; and it cannot be
doubted that the signal improvements since introduced in
Egypt, are attributable mainly to the wise example of the
French administration. ... In such labours Napoleon passed the
autumn of 1798. ... General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued
Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt, where the Mamelukes hardly made a
single stand against him, but contrived by the excellence of
their horses, and their familiarity with the deserts, to avoid
any total disruption of their forces. ... The General, during
this interval of repose, received no communication from the
French Government; but rumours now began to reach his quarters
which might well give him new anxieties. The report of another
rupture with Austria gradually met with more credence; and it
was before long placed beyond a doubt, that the Ottoman Porte,
instead of being tempted into any recognition of the French
establishment in Egypt, had declared war against the Republic,
and summoned all the strength of her empire to pour in
overwhelming numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte. ...
The General despatched a trusty messenger into India, inviting
Tippoo Saib to inform him exactly of the condition of the
English army in that region, and signifying that Egypt was
only the first post in a march destined to surpass that of
Alexander! 'He spent whole days,' writes his secretary, 'in
lying flat on the ground stretched upon maps of Asia.' At
length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about
Cairo, the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons
in the chief towns,--Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799
marched for Syria at the head of 10,000 picked men, with the
intention of crushing the Turkish armament in that quarter,
before their chief force (which he now knew was assembling at
Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea. Traversing the
desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession of the
fortress El-Arish (February 15), whose garrison, after a
vigorous assault, capitulated on condition that they should be
permitted to retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to
serve again during the war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah
(that ancient city of the Philistines) without opposition; but
at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ), the Moslem made a resolute
defence. The walls were carried by storm, 3,000 Turks died
with arms in their hands, and the town was given up during
three hours to the fury of the French soldiery--who never, as
Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the license of war
more savagely than on this occasion. A party of the
garrison--amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1,200 men,
but stated by others as nearly 3,000 in number--held out for
some hours longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length,
seeing no chance of rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of
March. ... On the 10th--three days after their surrender--the
prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a
battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the
sand-hills, at some distance from the town, they were divided
into small parties, and shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like
true fatalists, submitted in silence; and their bodies were
gathered together into a pyramid, where, after the lapse of
thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening the
sand. Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one
of the darkest stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the
fact himself;--and justified it on the double plea, that he
could not afford soldiers to guard so many prisoners, and that
he could not grant them the benefit of their parole, because
they were the very men who had already been set free on such
terms at' El-Arish. ...
{1325}
Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria,
Achmet-Djezzar, was at St. Jean D'Acre (so renowned in the
history of the crusades), and determined to defend that place
to extremity, with the forces which had already been assembled
for the invasion of Egypt. He in vain endeavoured to seduce
this ferocious chief from his allegiance to the Porte, by
holding out the hope of a separate independent government,
under the protection of France. The first of Napoleon's
messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to
death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge,
while the necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be
sent round by sea from Alexandria. Sir Sidney Smith was then
cruising in the Levant with two British ships of the line, the
Tigre and the Theseus; and, being informed by the Pacha of the
approaching storm, hastened to support him, in the defence of
Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from
Egypt, fell into his hands, and he appeared off the town two
days before the French army came in view of it. He had on
board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a French royalist of great
talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at Brienne); and
the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore and this
skilful ally to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the
plan of his defence. The loss of his own heavy artillery, and
the presence of two English ships, were inauspicious omens;
yet Buonaparte doubted not that the Turkish garrison would
shrink before his onset, and he instantly commenced the siege.
He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. 'On that little
town' said he to one of his generals, as they were standing
together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard
Cœur-de-Lion--'on yonder little town depends the fate of the
East. Behold the Key of Constantinople, or of India.' ...
Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the
mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre,
and attack the besiegers in concert with the garrison of
Djezzar. Junot, with his division, marched to encounter them,
and would have been overwhelmed by their numbers, had not
Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April 8) at
Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the Orientals were, as
usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed
musketry of the French. Kleber with another division, was in
like manner endangered, and in like manner rescued by the
general-in-chief at Mount Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans
dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon, returning to his siege,
pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after day, in which
his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts of
Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies." On the 21st
of May, when the siege had been prosecuted for more than two
months, Napoleon commanded a final assault. "The plague had
some time before this appeared in the camp; every day the
ranks of his legions were thinned by this pestilence, as well
as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The hearts of all
men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to
reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of
the 21st of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and
began his retreat upon Jaffa. ... The name of Jaffa was
already sufficiently stained; but fame speedily represented
Napoleon as having now made it the scene of another atrocity,
not less shocking than that of the massacre of the Turkish
prisoners. The accusation, which for many years made so much
noise throughout Europe, amounts to this: that on the 27th of
May, when it was necessary for Napoleon to pursue his march
from Jaffa for Egypt, a certain number of the plague-patients
in the hospital were found to be in a state that held out no
hope whatever of their recovery; that the general, being
unwilling to leave them to the tender mercies of the Turks,
conceived the notion of administering opium, and so procuring
for them at least a speedy and an easy death; and that a
number of men were accordingly taken off in this method by his
command. ... Whether the opium was really administered or
not--that the audacious proposal to that effect was made by
Napoleon, we have his own admission; and every reader must
form his opinion--as to the degree of guilt which attaches to
the fact of having meditated and designed the deed. ... The
march onwards was a continued scene of misery; for the wounded
and the sick were many, the heat oppressive, the thirst
intolerable; and the ferocious Djezzar was hard behind, and
the wild Arabs of the desert hovered round them on every side,
so that he who fell behind his company was sure to be slain.
... Having at length accomplished this perilous journey [June
14], Buonaparte repaired to his old head-quarters at Cairo,
and re-entered on his great functions as the establisher of a
new government in the state of Egypt. But he had not long
occupied himself thus, ere new rumours concerning the beys on
the Upper Nile, who seemed to have some strong and urgent
motive for endeavouring to force a passage downwards, began to
be mingled with, and by degrees explained by, tidings daily
repeated of some grand disembarkation of the Ottomans,
designed to have place in the neighbourhood of Alexandria.
Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once more in command at Cairo, he
himself descended the Nile, and travelled with all speed to
Alexandria, where he found his presence most necessary. For,
in effect, the great Turkish fleet had already run into the
bay of Aboukir; and an army of 18,000, having gained the
fortress, were there strengthening themselves, with the view
of awaiting the promised descent and junction of the
Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority of numbers,
advancing to Alexandria, and completing the ruin of the French
invaders. Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of
the 24th of July, found his army already posted in the
neighbourhood of Aboukir, and prepared to anticipate the
attack of the Turks on the morrow. ... The Turkish outposts
were assaulted early next morning, and driven in with great
slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within the
range of the batteries and also of the shipping that lay close
by the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended
in a route, but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the
Turks engaged in the task of spoiling and maiming those that
fell before them--thus giving to Murat the opportunity of
charging their main body in flank with his cavalry, at the
moment when the French infantry, profiting by their disordered
and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of
Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments. From that
moment the battle was a massacre. ... Six thousand surrendered
at discretion: 12,000 perished on the field or in the sea. ...
Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on the 9th of August; but
it was only to make some parting arrangements as to the
administration, civil and military; for, from the moment of
his victory at Aboukir, he had resolved to entrust Egypt to
other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was already preparing in
secret the means of his removal to France."
J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 9-11.
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 2.
Letters from the army of Bonaparte in Egypt.
M. de Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 1. chapter 15-23.
{1326}
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (April-September).
Murder of the French envoys at Rastadt.
Disasters in North Italy.
Suwarroff's victories.
Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and
capture of the Dutch Fleet.
"While the French armies were thus humiliated in the field,
the representatives of the republic at the congress of Rastadt
[where peace negotiations with the states of the empire had
been in progress for months] became the victims of a
sanguinary tragedy. As France had declared war against the
emperor [as sovereign of Austria], and not against the empire,
the congress had not necessarily been broken off; but the
representatives of the German states were withdrawn one after
another, until the successes of the Austrians rendered the
position of the French ministers no longer secure. At length
they received notice, from the nearest Austrian commander, to
depart within twenty-four hours; and the French
ministers--Jean Debry, Bonnier, and Roberjeot--left Rastadt
with their families and attendants late in the evening of the
8th of Floréal (the 28th of April). The night was very dark,
and they appear to have been apprehensive of danger. At a very
short distance from Rastadt they were surrounded by a troop of
Austrian hussars, who stopped the carriages, dragged the three
ministers out, and massacred them in the presence of their
wives and children. The hussars then plundered the carriages,
and took away, especially, all the papers. Fortunately for
Jean Debry, he had been stunned, but not mortally wounded; and
after the murderers were gone the cold air of the night
restored him to life. This crime was supposed to have been
perpetrated at the instigation of the imperial court, for
reasons which have not been very clearly explained; but the
representatives of the German states proclaimed loudly their
indignation. The reverses of the republican arms, and the
tragedy of Rastadt, were eagerly embraced by the opposition in
France as occasions for raising a violent outcry against the
directory. ... It was in the midst of this general
unpopularity of the directors that the elections of the year
VII. of the republic took place, and a great majority of the
patriots obtained admission to the councils, and thus
increased the numerical force of the opposition. ... The
directory had made great efforts to repair the reverses which
had marked the opening of the campaign. Jourdain had been
deprived of the command of the army of the Danube, which had
been placed, along with that of Switzerland, under the orders
of Masséna. The command of the army of Italy had been
transferred from Scherer to Moreau; and Macdonald had received
orders to withdraw his forces from Naples and the papal
states, in order to unite them with the army in Upper Italy.
The Russians under Suwarrow had now joined the Austrian army
in Italy; and this chief, who was in the height of his
reputation as a military leader, was made commander-in-chief
of the combined Austro-Russian forces, Melas commanding the
Austrians under him. Suwarrow advanced rapidly upon the Adda,
which protected the French lines; and, on the 8th of Floreal
(the 27th of April), forced the passage of that river in two
places, at Brivio and Trezzo, above and below the position
occupied by the division of Serrurier, which formed the French
left, and which was thus cut off from the rest of the army.
Moreau, who took the command of the French forces on the
evening of the same day, made a vain attempt to drive the
enemy back over the Adda at Trezzo, and thus recover his
communication with Serrurier; and that division was
surrounded, and, after a desperate resistance, obliged to lay
down its arms, with the exception of a small number of men who
made their way across the mountains into Piedmont. Victor's
division effected its retreat without much loss, and Moreau
concentrated his forces in the neighbourhood of Milan. This
disastrous engagement, which took place on the 9th of Floreal,
was known as the battle of Cassano. Moreau remained at Milan
two days to give the members of the government of the
Cisalpine republic, and all the Milanese families who were
politically compromised, time to make their escape in his
rear; after which he continued his retreat. ... He was allowed
to make this retreat without any serious interruption; for
Suwarrow, instead of pursuing him actively, lost his time at
Milan in celebrating the triumph of the anti-revolutionary
party." Moreau first "established his army in a strong
position at the confluence of the Tanaro and the Po, covered
by both rivers, and commanding all the roads to Genoa; so that
he could there, without great danger, wait the arrival of
Macdonald." But soon, finding his position made critical by a
general insurrection in Piedmont, he retired towards the
mountains of Genoa. "On the 6th of Prairial (the 25th of May),
Macdonald was at Florence; but he lost much time there; and it
was only towards the end of the republican month (the middle
of June), that he at length advanced into the plains of
Piacenza to form his junction with Moreau." On the Trebbia he
encountered Suwarrow's advance, under General Ott, and rashly
attacked it. Having forced back Ott's advanced guard, the
French suddenly found themselves confronted by Suwarrow
himself and the main body of his army. "Macdonald now resolved
to unite all his forces behind the Trebbia, and there risk a
battle; but he was anticipated by Suwarrow, who attacked him
next morning, and, after a very severe and sanguinary
engagement, the French were driven over the Trebbia. The
combat was continued next day, and ended again to the
disadvantage of the French; and their position had become so
critical, that Macdonald found it necessary to retreat upon
the river Nura, and to make his way round the Apennines to
Genoa. The French, closely pursued, experienced considerable
loss in their retreat, until Suwarrow, hearing Moreau's cannon
in his rear, discontinued the pursuit, in order to meet him."
Moreau routed Bellegarde, in Suwarrow's rear, and took 3,000
prisoners; but no further collision of importance occurred
during the next two months of the summer.
{1327}
"Suwarrow had been prevented by the orders of the Aulic
Council from following up with vigour his victory on the
Trebbia, and had been obliged to occupy himself with sieges
which employed with little advantage valuable time. Recruits
were reaching the French armies in Italy, and they were
restored to a state of greater efficiency. It was already the
month of Thermidor (the middle of July), and Moreau saw the
necessity of assuming the offensive and attacking the
Austro-Russians while they were occupied with the sieges; but
he was restrained by the orders of the directory to wait the
arrival of Joubert. The latter, who had just contracted an
advantageous marriage, by which the moderate party had hoped
to attach him to their cause, lost an entire month in the
celebration of his nuptial festivities, and only reached the
army of Italy in the middle of Thermidor (the beginning of
August), where he immediately succeeded Moreau in the command;
but he prevailed upon that able general to remain with him, at
least until after his first battle. The French army had taken
a good position in advance of Novi, and were preparing to act
against the enemy while he was still occupied in the sieges,
when news arrived that Alessandria and Mantua had surrendered,
and that Suwarrow was preparing to unite against them the
whole strength of his forces. Joubert immediately resolved to
fall back upon the Apennines, and there act upon the
defensive; but it was already too late, for Suwarrow had
advanced with such rapidity that he was forced to accept
battle in the position he occupied, which was a very strong
one. The battle began early in the morning of the 28th of
Thermidor (the 15th of August); and very early in the action
Joubert received a mortal wound from a ball which struck him
near the heart. The engagement continued with great fury
during the greater part of the day, but ended in the entire
defeat of the French, who retreated from the field of battle
in great confusion. The French lost about 10,000 men in killed
and wounded, and a great number of prisoners. The news of this
reverse was soon followed by disastrous intelligence from
another quarter. The English had prepared an expedition
against Holland, which was to be assisted by a detachment of
Russian troops. The English forces, under Abercromby, landed
near the mouth of the Helder in North Holland, on the 10th of
Fructidor (the 27th of August), and defeated the French and
Dutch republican army, commanded by Brune, in a decisive
engagement [at the English camp, established on a well-drained
morass, called the Zyp] on the 22nd of Fructidor (the 8th of
September). Brune retreated upon Amsterdam; and the Russian
contingent was thus enabled to effect its junction with the
English without opposition. As one of the first consequences
of this invasion, the English obtained possession of the whole
Dutch fleet, upon the assistance of which the French
government had counted in its designs against England. This
succession of ill news excited the revolutionary party to a
most unusual degree of violence."
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 6, chapters 22-23 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
H. Spalding,
Suvóroff,
chapters 7-8.
L. M. P. de Laverne,
Life of Field-Marshal Souvarof,
chapter 6.
E. Vehse,
Memoirs of the Court of Austria,
chapter 15, section 2 (volume 2).
J. Adolphus,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapter 108 (volume 7).
Gen. Sir H. Bunbury,
Narratives of the Great War with France,
pages 1-58.
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (August-December).
Campaign in Switzerland.
Battle of Zurich.
Defeat of the Russians.
Suwarroff's retreat across the Alps.
Reverses in Italy, and on the Rhine.
Fall of the Parthenopean and Roman Republics.
Since the retreat of Massena in June, the Archduke Charles had
been watching the French on the Limmat and expecting the
arrival of Russian reinforcements under Korsakoff; "but the
Aulic Council, with unaccountable infatuation, ordered him at
this important juncture to repair with the bulk of his army to
the Rhine, leaving Switzerland to Korsakoff and the Russians.
Before these injudicious orders, however, could be carried
into effect, Massena had boldly assumed the offensive (August
14) by a false attack on Zurich, intended to mask the
operations of his right wing, which meanwhile, under Lecourbe,
was directed against the St. Gothard, in order to cut off the
communication between the allied forces in Switzerland and in
Italy. These attacks proved completely successful, ... a
French detachment ... seizing the St. Gothard, and
establishing itself at Airolo, on the southern declivity.
Lecourbe's left had meanwhile cleared the banks of the lake of
Zurich of the enemy, who were driven back into Glarus. To
obtain these brilliant successes on the right, Massena had
been obliged to weaken his left wing; and the Archduke, now
reinforced by 20, 000 Russians, attempted to avail himself of
this circumstance to force the passage of the Limmat, below
Zurich (August 16 and 17); but this enterprise, the success of
which might have altered the fate of the war, failed from the
defective construction of the pontoons; and the positive
orders of the Aulic Council forbade his remaining longer in
Switzerland. Accordingly, leaving 25,000 men under Hotze to
support Korsakoff, he marched for the Upper Rhine, where the
French, at his approach, abandoned the siege of Philipsburg,
and retired to Mannheim; but this important post, the defences
of which were imperfectly restored, was carried by a
coup-de-main (September 18), and the French driven with severe
loss over the Rhine. But this success was dearly bought by the
disasters in Switzerland, which followed the Archduke's
departure. It had been arranged that Suwarroff was to move
from Bellinzona (September 21), and after retaking the St.
Gothard combine with Korsakoff in a front attack on Massena,
while Hotze assailed him in flank. But Massena, who was now
the superior in numbers, determined to anticipate the arrival
of Suwarroff by striking a blow, for which the presumptuous
confidence of Korsakoff gave him increased facility. On the
evening of 24th September, the passage of the river was
surprised below Zurich, and the heights of Closter-Fahr
carried by storm; and, in the course of the next day,
Korsakoff, with his main army, was completely hemmed in at
Zurich by the superior generalship of the French commander,
who summoned the Russians to surrender. But the bravery shown
by Korsakoff in these desperate circumstances equalled his
former arrogance: on the 28th the Russian columns, issuing
from the town, forced their way with the courage of despair
through the surrounding masses of French, while a slender
rear-guard defended the ramparts of Zurich till the remainder