THE CLUB-HOUSE OF THE JACOBINS CLOSED.
Thus terminated the long reign of the Jacobin Club. The act was greeted with acclaim by the general voice of France.[436]
The French, who had twelve hundred thousand men under arms, were now in possession of all the important points on the Rhine, and every where held their assailants at bay.[437] The latter part of December, Pichegru, driving the allied Dutch, English, and Austrians before him, crossed the Meuse on the ice and entered Holland. The Republican party in Holland was numerous and detested their rulers. They immediately prepared to rise and welcome their friends, the French. In this desperate situation the Stadtholder implored a truce, offering as a condition of peace neutrality and indemnification for the expenses of the war.[438] Pichegru refused the truce; but sent the terms of peace for the consideration of the government in Paris. The proffered terms were refused, and Pichegru was ordered to press on and restore the Dutch Republic. At the head of two hundred thousand troops he spread, like a torrent, over all Holland. He was every where received with open arms and as a deliverer. The Allies, with the emigrants, fled in all directions, some by land and some by sea. A portion of the Dutch fleet, at anchor near the Texel, was frozen in by the unparalleled severity of the winter. A squadron of horse-artillery galloped across the ice and summoned it to surrender. The fleet was compelled to strike its flags to these novel assailants. On the 20th of January, 1795, Pichegru entered Amsterdam in triumph. The inhabitants crowded from the walls to meet him, shouting "The French Republic forever! Liberty forever!"
THE FRENCH ENTERING AMSTERDAM ON THE ICE.
Holland, organizing as the Republic of the United Provinces, on the 16th of May entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the French Republic, to be perpetual during the continuance of the war. The two infant republics needed mutual support to resist the combined monarchies of England and the Continent.[439]
While Pichegru was gaining such victories on the Lower Rhine and in Holland, Kleber was also, on the Upper Rhine, driving the Austrians before him. He boldly crossed the river in the impetuous pursuit, and carried the horrors of war into the enemies' country. Soon, however, he was crowded with such numbers of antagonists that he was compelled, in his turn, to commence a retreat. Again, re-enforcements arriving, he assumed the offensive. Thus the tide of war ebbed and flowed.
Prussia, alarmed by these signal victories of the Republican troops, and threatened with invasion, was anxious to withdraw from the coalition. The king sent a commissioner to Pichegru's head-quarters to propose peace. The commissioners from the two countries met at Basle, and on the 5th of April a treaty of peace was signed. The French agreed to evacuate the Prussian provinces they had occupied on the right bank of the Rhine, and the Prussian monarchy agreed that there should be peace, amity, and a good understanding between the King of Prussia and the French Republic.
