"Would you consider it beneath you, citizen directors," he wrote to them, "to treat with me, as power with power? You have seen what vast confidence centres in me; you have seen that my party may well balance equally in the scale your own; you have seen its immense ramifications. I am convinced you have trembled at the sight." He concluded by saying: "I see but one wise mode of proceeding; declare there has been no serious conspiracy. Five men, by showing themselves great and generous may now save the country. I will answer for it, that the patriots will defend you with their lives; the patriots do not hate you; they only hated your unpopular measures. For my part, I will give you a guarantee as extensive as is my perpetual franchise." The directors, instead of this reconciliation, published Babeuf's letter, and sent the conspirators before the high court of Vendôme.
Their partisans made one more attempt. On the 13th Fructidor (August), about eleven at night, they marched, to the number of six or seven hundred, armed with sabres and pistols, against the directory, whom they found defended by its guard. They then repaired to the camp of Grenelle, which they hoped to gain over by means of a correspondence which they had established with it. The troops had retired to rest when the conspirators arrived. To the sentinel's cry of "Qui vive?" they replied: "Vive la république! Vive la constitution de '93!" The sentinels gave the alarm through the camp. The conspirators, relying on the assistance of a battalion from Gard, which had been disbanded, advanced towards the tent of Malo, the commander-in-chief, who gave orders to sound to arms, and commanded his half-dressed dragoons to mount. The conspirators, surprised at this reception, feebly defended themselves: they were cut down by the dragoons or put to flight, leaving many dead and prisoners on the field of battle. This ill-fated expedition was almost the last of the party: with each defeat it lost its force, its chiefs, and acquired the secret conviction that its reign was over. The Grenelle enterprise proved most fatal to it; besides the numbers slain in the fight, many were condemned to death by the military commissions, which were to it what the revolutionary tribunals had been to its foes. The commission of the camp of Grenelle, in five sittings, condemned one-and-thirty conspirators to death, thirty to transportation, and twenty-five to imprisonment.
Shortly afterwards the high court of Vendôme tried Babeuf and his accomplices, among whom were Amar, Vadier, and Darthé, formerly secretary to Joseph Lebon. They none of them belied themselves; they spoke as men who feared neither to avow their object, nor to die for their cause. At the beginning and the end of each sitting, they sang the Marseillaise. This old song of victory, and their firm demeanour, struck the public mind with astonishment, and seemed to render them still more formidable. Their wives accompanied them to the trial, Babeuf, at the close of his defence, turned to them, and said, "they should accompany them even to Calvary, because the cause of their punishment would not bring them to shame." The high court condemned Babeuf and Darthé to death: as they heard their sentence they both stabbed themselves with a poignard. Babeuf was the last leader of the old commune and the committee of public safety, which had separated previous to Thermidor, and which afterwards united again. This party decreased daily. Its dispersal and isolation more especially date from this period. Under the reaction, it still formed a compact mass; under Babeuf, it maintained the position of a formidable association. From that time democrates existed, but the party was broken up.
In the interim between the Grenelle enterprise and Babeuf's condemnation, the royalists also formed their conspiracy. The projects of the democrats produced a movement of opinion, contrary to that which had been manifested after Vendémiaire, and the counter-revolutionists in their turn became emboldened. The secret chiefs of this party hoped to find auxiliaries in the troops of the camp of Grenelle, who had repelled the Babeuf faction. This party, impatient and unskilful, unable to employ the whole of the sectionaries, as in Vendémiaire, or the mass of the councils, as on the 18th Fructidor, made use of three men without either name or influence: the abbé Brothier, the ex-counsellor of parliament, Lavilheurnois, and a sort of adventurer, named Dunan. They applied at once, in all simplicity, to Malo for the camp of Grenelle, in order by its means to restore the ancient régime. Malo delivered them up to the directory, who transferred them to the civil tribunals, not having been able, as he wished, to have them tried by military commissioners. They were treated with much consideration by judges of their party, elected under the influence of Vendémiaire, and the sentence pronounced against them was only a short imprisonment. At this period, a contest arose between all the authorities appointed by the sections, and the directory supported by the army; each taking its strength and judges wherever its party prevailed; the result was, that the electoral power placing itself at the disposition of the counter-revolution, the directory was compelled to introduce the army in the state; which afterwards gave rise to serious inconvenience.
The directory, triumphant over the two dissentient parties, also triumphed over Europe. The new campaign opened under the most favourable auspices. Bonaparte, on arriving at Nice, signalised his command by one of the most daring of invasions. Hitherto his army had hovered idly on the side of the Alps; it was destitute of everything, and scarcely amounted to thirty thousand men; but it was well provided with courage and patriotism; and, by their means, Bonaparte then commenced that world-astonishment by which he carried all before him for twenty years. He broke up the cantonments, and entered the valley of Savona, in order to march into Italy between the Alps and the Apennines. There were before him ninety thousand troops of the coalition, commanded in the centre by Argentau, by Colle on the left, and Beaulieu on the right. This immense army was dispersed in a few days by prodigies of genius and courage. Bonaparte overthrew the centre at Montenotte, and entered Piedmont; at Millesimo he entirely separated the Sardinian from the Austrian army. They hastened to defend Turin and Milan, the capitals of their domination. Before pursuing the Austrians, the republican general threw himself on the left, to cut off the Sardinian army. The fate of Piedmont was decided at Mondovi, and the terrified court of Turin hastened to submit. At Cherasco an armistice was concluded, which was soon afterwards followed by a treaty of peace, signed at Paris, on the 18th of May, 1796, between the republic and the king of Sardinia, who ceded Savoy and the counties of Nice and Tenda. The occupation of Alessandria, which opened the Lombard country; the demolition of the fortresses of Susa, and of Brunette, on the borders of France; the abandonment of the territory of Nice, and of Savoy, and the rendering available the other army of the Alps, under Kellermann, was the reward of a fortnight's campaign, and six victories.
War being over with Piedmont, Bonaparte marched against the Austrian army, to which he left no repose. He passed the Po at Piacenza, and the Adda at Lodi. The latter victory opened the gates of Milan, and secured him the possession of Lombardy. General Beaulieu was driven into the defiles of Tyrol by the republican army, which invested Mantua, and appeared on the mountains of the empire. General Wurmser came to replace Beaulieu, and a new army was sent to join the wrecks of the conquered one. Wurmser advanced to relieve Mantua, and once more make Italy the field of battle; but he was overpowered, like his predecessor, by Bonaparte, who, after having raised the blockade of Mantua, in order to oppose this new enemy, renewed it with increased vigour, and resumed his positions in Tyrol. The plan of invasion was executed with much union and success. While the army of Italy threatened Austria by Tyrol, the two armies of the Meuse and Rhine entered Germany; Moreau, supported by Jourdan on his left, was ready to join Bonaparte on his right. The two armies had passed the Rhine at Neuwied and Strasburg, and had advanced on a front, drawn up in echelons to the distance of sixty leagues, driving back the enemy, who, while retreating before them, strove to impede their march and break their line. They had almost attained the aim of their enterprise; Moreau had entered Ulm and Augsburg, crossed the Leek, and his advanced guard was on the extreme of the defiles of Tyrol, when Jourdan, from a misunderstanding, passed beyond the line, was attacked by the archduke Charles, and completely routed. Moreau, exposed on his left wing, was reduced to the necessity of retracing his steps, and he then effected his memorable retreat. The fault of Jourdan was a capital one: it prevented the success of this vast plan of campaign, and gave respite to the Austrian government.
The cabinet of Vienna, which had lost Belgium in this war, and which felt the importance of preserving Italy, defended it with the greatest obstinacy. Wurmser, after a new defeat, was obliged to throw himself into Mantua with the wreck of his army. General Alvinzy, at the head of fifty thousand Hungarians, now came to try his fortune, but was not more successful than Beaulieu or Wurmser. New victories were added to the wonders already achieved by the army of Italy, and secured the conquest of that country. Mantua capitulated; the republican troops, masters of Italy, took the route to Vienna across the mountains. Bonaparte had before him prince Charles, the last hope of Austria. He soon passed through the defiles of Tyrol, and entered the plains of Germany. In the meantime, the army of the Rhine under Moreau, and that of the Meuse under Hoche, successfully resumed the plan of the preceding campaign; and the cabinet of Vienna, in a state of alarm, concluded the truce of Leoben. It had exhausted all its force, and tried all its generals, while the French republic was in the full vigour of conquest.
The army of Italy accomplished in Europe the work of the French revolution. This wonderful campaign was owing to the union of a general of genius, and an intelligent army. Bonaparte had for lieutenants generals capable of commanding themselves, who knew how to take upon themselves the responsibility of a movement of a battle, and an army of citizens all possessing cultivated minds, deep feeling, strong emulation of all that is great; passionately attached to a revolution which aggrandized their country, preserved their independence under discipline, and which afforded an opportunity to every soldier of becoming a general. There is nothing which a leader of genius might not accomplish with such men. He must have regretted, at this recollection of his earlier years, that he ever centred in himself all liberty and intelligence, that he ever created mechanical armies and generals only fit to obey. Bonaparte began the third epoch of the war. The campaign of 1792 had been made on the old system, with dispersed corps, acting separately without abandoning their fixed line. The committee of public safety concentrated the corps, made them operate no longer merely on what was before them, but at a distance; it hastened their movement, and directed them towards a common end. Bonaparte did for each battle what the committee had done for each campaign. He brought all these corps on the determinate point, and destroyed several armies with a single one by the rapidity of his measures. He disposed of whole masses of troops at his pleasure, moved them here or there, brought them forward, or kept them out of sight, had them wholly at his disposition, when, where, and how he pleased, whether to occupy a position or to gain a battle. His diplomacy was as masterly as his military science.
All the Italian governments, except Venice and Genoa, had adhered to the coalition, but the people were in favour of the French republic. Bonaparte relied on the latter. He abolished Piedmont, which he could not conquer; transformed the Milanese, hitherto dependent on Austria, into the Cisalpine Republic; he weakened Tuscany and the petty princes of Parma and Modena by contributions, without dispossessing them; the pope, who had signed a truce on Bonaparte's first success against Beaulieu, and who did not hesitate to infringe it on the arrival of Wurmser, bought peace by yielding Romagna, Bologna, and Ferrara, which were joined to the Cisalpine republic; lastly, the aristocracy of Venice and Genoa having favoured the coalition, and raised an insurrection in the rear of the army, their government was changed, and Bonaparte made it democratic, in order to oppose the power of the people to that of the nobility. In this way the revolution penetrated into Italy.
Austria, by the preliminaries of Leoben, ceded Belgium to France, and recognised the Lombard republic. All the allied powers had laid down their arms, and even England asked to treat. France, peaceable and free at home, had on her borders attained her natural limits, and was surrounded with rising republics, such as Holland, Lombardy, and Liguria, which guarded her sides and extended her system in Europe. The coalition was little disposed to assail anew a revolution, all the governments of which were victorious; that of anarchy after the 10th of August, of the dictatorship after the 31st of May, and of legal authority under the directory; a revolution, which, at every new hostility, advanced a step further upon European territory. In 1792, it had only extended to Belgium; in 1794, it had reached Holland and the Rhine; in 1796, had reached Italy, and entered Germany. If it continued its progress, the coalition had reason to fear that it would carry its conquests further. Everything seemed prepared for general peace.