The Father of our country, then, was right, when he said, in his farewell address to the American nation, that religion and morality are the "props" of society and the "pillars" of the state. History tells in its every page that the decline and downfall of nations have ever been caused by immorality and irreligion.
Our national institutions, our prosperity and civilization depend for their permanence and perpetuity not so much on the culture of the arts, sciences, literature, or philosophy, as on the general diffusion of the salutary and vivifying principles of religion.
Let us then infuse good morals by the most powerful of all means, Christian education; let doctrine be taught simultaneously with science; let the class-room be impregnated with the sweet and life-giving aroma of Christianity, and we shall soon check the torrent of infidelity, avert impending evils, and prepare the golden age of our republic.
TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE MILITAIRE FRANCAISE.
THE JOURNAL OF THE CAMPAIGN OF CLAUDE BLANCHARD,
COMMISSARY-GENERAL TO THE AUXILIARY TROOPS SENT TO AMERICA UNDER THE COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THE COUNT DE ROCHAMBEAU. 1780-1783.
"I spent three years, in the capacity of commissary-general, with the body of troops which General Rochambeau brought to the assistance of the Americans. During the entire war, I wrote down every day, dating from our departure from Brest, both the events I witnessed, and those that were personal. This journal is not in very good order, and now that I have leisure, (Messidor, second year of the Republic,) I intend to copy it out clearly, without making any important change in either the style or the matter. I wrote, however, merely for my own amusement, and for an occupation in idle moments."
Thus begins a manuscript, hitherto unpublished and entirely unknown, which appears worthy of being noticed and rescued from oblivion. The author of this journal, Commissary Blanchard, became later commissary-general, but was deprived of this position by the government of the Reign of Terror, whose persecutions at the time—the eve of the fall of Robespierre—ending generally in a sentence of death, he hid himself in Paris. Such is the leisure he speaks of in the passage cited above; leisure very short, however, and which he occupied in the manner indicated, by reviewing his notes of past times and collecting his personal reminiscences of the American expedition so dear to all who had taken part in it. Soon afterward he was restored to active service, and thought no more, in a career occupied with the wars of the period, of the manuscript which he had not intended for publicity, and which, after his death in 1803, remained forgotten among family papers, as so many other documents have which are still unknown. Compared with the works published on the same events which he writes of, this journal, now ninety years old, certainly has its own value and special interest. It is apparent from the first lines of the manuscript, quoted at the beginning of this article, that M. Blanchard wrote without special thought—merely for his own satisfaction, and prompted by the natural desire to note down whatever he saw, without any intention of composing a history or a book of memoirs. This is an excellent disposition for sincerity, and our epoch loves and prefers to all others these unstudied writings, when they refer, as they do in this case, to interesting periods of the past.
The author of this journal was forty years of age at the time of the American war. Though now completely forgotten, he attracted considerable attention in his day, and he figures in the "Biographies Universelles" of the beginning of the century. Born at Angers, on the 16th of May, 1742, and sprung from a distinguished family of that city, he appears, for the first time in 1762 in the war bureau, under the orders of one of his relations, M. Dubois, "Chief of the War Bureau and General Secretary of the Swiss and Grisons."[290] He was appointed commissary in 1768, and served in this capacity throughout the Corsican campaign, remaining on the island ten years. As commissary-general, in 1780 he accompanied General Rochambeau to America. In 1788, he was commissary at Arras, where the following year he was put in command of the national guard of the city; and soon afterward became, with Carnot, then unknown, its representative in the legislative assembly. Here M. Blanchard played a modest but active and useful part, and he, with Lacuée and Matthieu Dumas, formed the standing committee on military questions. Removed by the Committee of Public Safety, he afterward held the position of commissary-general successively to the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, to that of the interior, to the army of Holland, and finally to the Hotel des Invalides, where he died, leaving the reputation of an officer "remarkable for his talents and virtues."[291]
The First Consul, on hearing of his death, expressed deep regret, according to the testimony of General Lacuée. Blanchard, although at the time but sixty years of age, was the oldest among the commissaries of the army.[292]