Expect, then, to see the war carried into the Marseilles territory. There a tolerably powerful party is for the Republic; this will be the moment for the struggle; the junction will be made; and your city, the centre of the commerce of the Levant, the entrepôt of the south of Europe, is lost! Recollect the recent example of Lisle,[661] and the barbarous laws of war.
What infatuation has all at once possessed your townsmen? What fatal blindness is leading them to their ruin? How can they fancy themselves powerful enough to oppose the whole Republic? Even should they compel this army to fall back upon Avignon, can they doubt that, in a few days, fresh troops would come to supply the place of the former? The Republic, which gives the law to Europe, will she receive it from Marseilles?
United with Bourdeaux, Lyons, Montpellier, Nimes, Grenoble, the Jura, the Eure, the Calvados, you undertook a revolution. You had a probability of success: those who spurred you on might be ill-intentioned men; but you were an imposing mass of strength. On the contrary, now that Lyons, Nimes, Montpellier, Bourdeaux, the Jura, the Eure, Grenoble, Caen, have accepted the constitution;—now that Avignon, Tarascon, Arles, have submitted, acknowledge that in obstinacy there is folly. The fact is, that you are under the influence of individuals who, having no property of their own to look after, are involving you in their ruin.
Your army will be composed of the best-conditioned, the richest portion of your city; for the Sans-Culottes could but be too easily turned against you. You are about, then, to risk the élite of your youthful population, young men accustomed to hold the commercial balance of the Mediterranean, and enrich you by their economy and their speculations, against veteran soldiers a hundred times stained with the blood of the desperate aristocrat or the ferocious Prussian.
Let poor countries fight to the last extremity. The inhabitant of the Vivarais, of the Cevennes, of Corsica, exposes himself without fear to the issue of a battle; if he gains it, he has obtained his object; if he is beaten, he finds himself as before, in the condition to make peace, and in the same position. But you!—lose but a battle, and the fruits of a thousand years of industry, of economy, of prosperity, become the prey of the soldier.
Marseillese.—You get on a great rate, and you alarm me. I agree with you that our situation is critical. It is perhaps true, that we do not sufficiently consider the position in which we now stand; but you cannot but acknowledge that we have still immense resources to oppose you. You have persuaded me that we could not resist at Aix: your observation as to the want of subsistence is perhaps unanswerable, as applied to a siege of long duration; but do you imagine that all Provence can, for a long period, witness with indifference the blockade of Aix? It will rise spontaneously; and your army, hemmed in on all sides, will be but too happy to repass the Durance.
Militaire.—Ah! how little you know of the spirit of men, and of the times, to talk thus! Everywhere there are two parties. The moment you are besieged, the Sectionary party will be put down in all the country places. The example of Tarascon, Saint-Remy, Organ, Arles, should convince you of this; a score of dragoons have sufficed to restore the old authorities, and put the new ones to flight.
Henceforward, in your department, any powerful movement in your favour is impossible. It might have taken place when the army was on the other side the Durance, and you were unbroken. At Toulon, the active spirits are much divided; and there the Sectionaries have not the same superiority as at Marseilles; they must therefore remain in the city to keep down their adversary. As for the department of the Lower Alps, nearly the whole of it, as you know, has accepted the constitution.
Marseillese.—We shall attack Cartaux in our mountains, where his cavalry will be of no service to him.
Militaire.—As if an army engaged in protecting a town could choose the point of attack. Besides, it is a fallacy to suppose there are any mountains near Marseilles sufficiently inaccessible to render cavalry ineffective: your hills are just steep enough to render the use of artillery more difficult, and to give a great advantage to your enemy; for it is in a country intersected by rivers that the skilful artilleryman, by the rapidity of his movements, the exactness in serving his pieces, and the accuracy of his elevations, is the most sure of having the superiority.