BATTLE OF FLEURUS.
About a month before the fall of Robespierre, on the 26th of June, the celebrated battle of Fleurus was fought. The sanguinary engagement extended along a semicircle nearly thirty miles in extent. The French had brought up about eighty thousand troops, to oppose an equal number of the Allies. The French, under Pichegru, were victorious at every point, and the Allies were compelled to retreat. They rallied for a short time in the vicinity of Brussels, but were soon again compelled to retire, and all Belgium fell into the hands of the Republicans.
About the middle of July two armies of the French, amounting to one hundred and fifty thousand, effected a junction in the city of Brussels. The Committee of Public Safety had passed an inhuman decree that no quarter should be given to the English. The soldiers refused obedience to this decree. A sergeant, having taken some English prisoners, brought them to an officer.
"Why did you spare their lives?" the officer inquired.
"Because," the sergeant replied, "it was saving so many shots."
"True," rejoined the officer, "but the Representatives will oblige us to shoot them."
"It is not we," retorted the sergeant, "who will shoot them. Send them to the Representatives. If they are barbarous enough, why, let them kill and eat them if they like."[435]
While the French armies were gaining these signal victories all along the Rhine, war was raging with almost equal ferocity in the ravines of the Alps and at the base of the Pyrenees, as the Republicans struggled to repel the invading hosts of Austria, England, and Spain.