The convention was, as it were, taken by surprise. It was disorganized, because emerging from a struggle, and because the conquerors had not had time to establish themselves. After the 2nd of June, before the danger became so pressing both on the frontiers and in the departments, the Mountain had sent commissioners in every direction, and immediately turned its attention to the constitution, which had so long been expected, and from which it entertained great hopes. The Girondists had wished to decree it before the 21st of January, in order to save Louis XVI., by substituting legal order for the revolutionary state of things; they returned to the subject previous to the 31st of May, in order to prevent their own ruin. But the Mountain, on two occasions, had diverted the assembly from this discussion by two coups d'état, the trial of Louis XVI., and the elimination of the Gironde. Masters of the field, they now endeavoured to secure the republicans by decreeing the constitution. Hérault de Séchelles was the legislator of the Mountain, as Condorcet had been of the Gironde. In a few days, this new constitution was adopted in the convention, and submitted to the approval of the primary assemblies. It is easy to conceive its nature, with the ideas that then prevailed respecting democratic government. The constituent assembly was considered as aristocratical: the law it had established was regarded as a violation of the rights of the people, because it imposed conditions for the exercise of political rights; because it did not recognise the most absolute equality; because it had deputies and magistrates appointed by electors, and these electors by the people; because, in some cases, it put limits to the national sovereignty, by excluding a portion of active citizens from high public functions, and the proletarians from the functions of acting citizens; finally, because, instead of fixing on population as the only basis of political rights, it combined it, in all its operations, with property. The constitutional law of 1793 established the pure régime of the multitude: it not only recognised the people as the source of all power, but also delegated the exercise of it to the people; an unlimited sovereignty; extreme mobility in the magistracy; direct elections, in which every one could vote; primary assemblies, that could meet without convocation, at given times, to elect representatives and control their acts; a national assembly, to be renewed annually, and which, properly speaking, was only a committee of the primary assemblies; such was this constitution. As it made the multitude govern, and as it entirely disorganized authority, it was impracticable at all times; but especially in a moment of general war. The Mountain, instead of extreme democracy, needed a stern dictatorship. The constitution was suspended as soon as made, and the revolutionary government strengthened and maintained until peace was achieved.
Both during the discussion of the constitution and its presentation to the primary assemblies, the Mountain learned the danger which threatened them. These daring men, having three or four parties to put down in the interior, several kinds of civil war to terminate, the disasters of the armies to repair, and all Europe to repel, were not alarmed at their position. The representatives of the forty-four thousand municipalities came to accept the constitution. Admitted to the bar of the assembly, after making known the assent of the people, they required the arrest of all suspected persons, and a levy en masse of the people. "Well," exclaimed Danton, "let us respond to their wishes. The deputies of the primary assemblies have just taken the initiative among us, in the way of inspiring terror! I demand that the convention, which ought now to be penetrated with a sense of its dignity, for it has just been invested with the entire national power, I demand that it do now, by a decree, invest the primary assemblies with the right of supplying the state with arms, provisions, and ammunition; of making an appeal to the people, of exciting the energy of citizens, and of raising four hundred thousand men. It is with cannon-balls that we must declare the constitution to our foes! Now is the time to take the last great oath, that we will destroy tyranny, or perish!" This oath was immediately taken by all the deputies and citizens present. A few days after, Barrère, in the name of the committee of public safety, which was composed of revolutionary members, and which became the centre of operations and the government of the assembly, proposed measures still more general: "Liberty," said he, "has become the creditor of every citizen; some owe her their industry; others their fortune; these their counsel; those their arms; all owe her their blood. Accordingly, all the French, of every age and of either sex, are summoned by their country to defend liberty; all faculties, physical or moral; all means, political or commercial; all metal, all the elements are her tributaries. Let each maintain his post in the national and military movement about to take place. The young men will fight; the married men will forge arms, transport the baggage and artillery, and prepare provisions; the women will make tents and clothes for the soldiers, and exercise their hospitable care in the asylums of the wounded; children will make lint from old linen; and the aged, resuming the mission they discharged among the ancients, shall cause themselves to be carried to the public places, where they shall excite the courage of the young warriors, and propagate the doctrine of hatred to kings, and the unity of the republic. National buildings shall be converted into barracks, public squares into workshops; the ground of the cellars will serve for the preparation of saltpetre; all saddle horses shall be placed in requisition for the cavalry; all draught horses for the artillery; fowling-pieces, pistols, swords and pikes, belonging to individuals, shall be employed in the service of the interior. The republic being but a large city, in a state of necessity, France must be converted into a vast camp."
The measures proposed by Barrère were at once decreed. All Frenchmen, from eighteen to five-and-twenty, took arms, the armies were recruited by levies of men, and supported by levies of provisions. The republic had very soon fourteen armies, and twelve hundred thousand soldiers. France, while it became a camp and a workshop for the republicans, became at the same time a prison for those who did not accept the republic. While marching against avowed enemies, it was thought necessary to make sure of secret foes, and the famous law, des suspects, was passed. All foreigners were arrested, on the ground of their hostile machinations, and the partisans of constitutional monarchy and a limited republic were imprisoned, to be kept close, until the peace was effected. At the time, this was so far only a reasonable measure of precaution. The bourgeoisie, the mercantile people, and the middle classes, furnished prisoners after the 31st of May, as the nobility and clergy had done after the 10th of August. A revolutionary army of six thousand soldiers and a thousand artillerymen was formed for the interior. Every indigent citizen was allowed forty sous a day, to enable him to be present at the sectionary meetings. Certificates of citizenship were delivered, in order to make sure of the opinions of all who co-operated in the revolutionary movement. The functionaries were placed under the surveillance of the clubs, a revolutionary committee was formed in each section, and thus they prepared to face the enemy on all sides, both abroad and at home.
The insurgents in Calvados were easily suppressed; at the very first skirmish at Vernon, 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 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 eight thousand 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 Lyonnais 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 positions 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, where they awaited the orders of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself, 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.
Everywhere the convention was victorious. The Vendéans 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 Vendéan 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 one at Nantes, and the other at Saumur, placed under contrary influences. General Canclaux could not agree with general Rossignol, nor the moderate Mountain commissioner Philippeaux with Bourbotte, the commissioner of the committee of public safety; and this attempt at invasion failed like the preceding attempts, for want of concert in plan and action. 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 seventeen thousand veterans, who, relieved from operations against the allied nations 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. 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 eighty thousand persons. This emigration through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection, became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly routed at Mans, they were destroyed at Savenay, 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 the island of Noirmoutiers from Charette, the dispersion of the troops of that leader, the death of La Rochejaquelin, rendered the republicans masters of the country. 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 moveable 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.
The foreign armies had also been driven back from the frontiers they had invaded. After having taken Valenciennes and Condé, blockaded Maubeuge and Le Quesnoy, the enemy advanced on Cassel, Hondschoote, and Furnes, under the command of the duke of York. The committee of public safety, dissatisfied with Custine, who was further regarded with suspicion as a Girondist, superseded him by general Houchard. The enemy, hitherto successful, was defeated at Hondschoote, and compelled to retreat. The military reaction began with the daring measures of the committee of public safety. Houchard himself was dismissed. Jourdan took the command of the army of the north, gained the important victory of Watignies over the prince of Coburg, raised the siege of Maubeuge, and resumed the offensive on that frontier. Similar successes took place on all the others. The immortal campaign of 1793-1794 opened. What Jourdan had done with the army of the north, Hoche and Pichegru did with the army of the Moselle, and Kellermann with that of the Alps. The enemy was repulsed, and kept in check on all sides. Then took place, after the 31st of May, that which had followed the 10th of August. The want of union between the generals and the leaders of the assembly was removed; the revolutionary movement, which had slackened, increased; and victories recommenced. Armies have had their crises, as well as parties, and these crises have brought about successes or defeat, always by the same law.
In 1792, at the beginning of the war, the generals were constitutionalists, and the ministers Girondists. Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, did not at all agree with Dumouriez, Servan, Clavière, and Roland. There was, besides, little enthusiasm in the army; it was beaten. After the 10th of August, the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Kellermann, and Dillon, replaced the constitutionalist generals. There was unity of views, confidence, and co-operation, between the army and the government. The catastrophe of the 10th of August augmented this energy, by increasing the necessity for victory; and the results were the plan of the campaign of Argonne, the victories of Valmy and Jemappes, and the invasion of Belgium. The struggle between the Mountain and the Gironde, between Dumouriez and the Jacobins, again created discord between the army and government, and destroyed the confidence of the troops, who experienced immediate and numerous reverses. There was defection on the part of Dumouriez, as there had been withdrawal on the part of Lafayette. After the 31st of May, which overthrew the Gironde party, after the committee of public safety had become established, and had replaced the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Houchard, and Dillon, by the Mountain generals, Jourdan, Hoche, Pichegru, and Moreau; after it had restored the revolutionary movement by the daring measures we have described, the campaign of Argonne and of Belgium was renewed in that of 1794, and the genius of Carnot equalled that of Dumouriez, if it did not surpass it.
During this war, the committee of public safety permitted a frightful number of executions. Armies confine themselves to slaughter in battle; it is not so with parties, who, under violent circumstances, fearing to see the combat renewed after the victory, secure themselves from new attacks by inexorable rigour. The usage of all governments being to make their own preservation a matter of right, they regard those who attack them as enemies so long as they fight, as conspirators when they are defeated; and thus destroy them alike by means of war and of law.