History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 7 of 10)

History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 7 of 10)

"In the new National Assembly there was only one powerful and active party--that of the Gironde. ... When we use the term 'parties' in reference to this Assembly, nothing more is meant by it than small groups of from 12 to 20 persons, who bore the sway in the rostra and in the Committees, and who alternately carried with them the aimless crowd of Deputies. It is true, indeed, that at the commencement of their session, 130 Deputies entered their names among the Jacobins, and about 200 among the Feuillants, but this had no lasting influence on the divisions, and the majority wavered under the influence of temporary motives. The party which was regarded as the 'Right' had no opportunity for action, but saw themselves, from the very first, obliged to assume an attitude of defence. ... Outside the Chamber the beau ideal of this party,--General Lafayette,--declared himself in favour of an American Senate, but without any of the energy of real conviction. As he had defended the Monarchy solely from a sense of duty, while all the feelings of his heart were inclined towards a Republic, so now, though he acknowledged the necessity of an upper Chamber, the existing Constitution appeared to him to possess a more ideal beauty. He never attained, on this point, either to clear ideas or decided actions; and it was at this period that he resigned his command of the National guard in Paris, and retired for a while to his estate in Auvergne. ... The Girondist Deputies ... were distinguished among the new members of the Assembly by personal dignity, regular education, and natural ability; and were, moreover, as ardent in their radicalism as any Parisian demagogue. They consequently soon became the darlings of all those zealous patriots for whom the Cordeliers were too dirty and the Feuillants too luke warm. {1274} External advantages are not without their weight, even in the most terrible political crises, and the Girondists owe to the magic of their eloquence, and especially to that of Vergniaud, an enduring fame, which neither their principles nor their deeds would have earned for them. ... The representatives of Bordeaux had never occupied a leading position in the Girondist party, to which they had given its name. The real leadership of the Gironde fell singularly enough into the hands of an obscure writer, a political lady, and a priest who carried on his operations behind the scenes. It was their hands that overthrew the throne of the Capets, and spread revolution over Europe. ... The writer in this trio was Brissot, who on the 16th of July had wished to proclaim the Republic, and who now represented the capital in the National Assembly, as a constitutional member. ... While Brissot shaped the foreign policy of the Girondist party, its home affairs were directed by Marie Jeanne Roland, wife of the quondam Inspector of Factories at Lyons, with whom she had come the year before to Paris, and immediately thrown herself into the whirlpool of political life. As early as the year 1789, she had written to a friend, that the National Assembly must demand two illustrious heads, or all would be lost. ... She was ... 36 years old, not beautiful, but interesting, enthusiastic and indefatigable; with noble aims, but incapable of discerning the narrow line which separates right from wrong. ... When warned by a friend of the unruly nature of the Parisian mob, she replied, that bloodhounds were after all indispensable for starting the game. ... A less conspicuous, but not less important, part in this association, was played by the Abbé Sieyès. He did what neither Brissot nor Mad. Roland could have done by furnishing his party with a comprehensive and prospective plan of operations. ... Their only clearly defined objects were to possess themselves of the reins of government, to carry on the Revolution, and to destroy the Monarchy by every weapon within their reach."

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. A. Taine, The French Revolution, book 4, (volume 2).

See, also, below.

FRANCE: A. D. 1791-1792. Growth and spread of anarchy and civil war. Activity of the Emigrés and the ejected priests. Decrees against them vetoed by the King. The Girondists in control of the government. War with the German powers forced on by them.

"It was an ominous proof of the little confidence felt by serious men in the permanence of the new Constitution, that the funds fell when the King signed it. All the chief municipal posts in Paris were passing into the hands of Republicans, and when Bailly, in November, ceased to be Mayor of Paris, he was succeeded in that great office by Pétion, a vehement and intolerant Jacobin. Lafayette had resigned the command of the National Guard, which was then divided under six commanders, and it could no longer be counted on to support the cause of order. Over a great part of France there was a total insecurity of life and property, such as had perhaps never before existed in a civilised country, except in times of foreign invasion or successful rebellion. Almost all the towns in the south--Marseilles, Toulon, Nîmes, Arles, Avignon, Montpellier, Carpentras, Aix, Montauban--were centres of Republicanism, brigandage, or anarchy. The massacres of Jourdain at Avignon, in October, are conspicuous even among the horrors of the Revolution. Caen in the following month was convulsed by a savage and bloody civil war. The civil constitution of the clergy having been condemned by the Pope, produced an open schism, and crowds of ejected priests were exciting the religious fanaticism of the peasantry. In some districts in the south, the war between Catholic and Protestant was raging as fiercely as in the 17th century, while in Brittany, and especially in La Vendée, there were all the signs of a great popular insurrection against the new Government. Society seemed almost in dissolution, and there was scarcely a department in which law was observed and property secure. The price of corn, at the same time, was rising fast under the influence of a bad harvest in the south, aggravated by the want of specie, the depreciation of paper money, and the enormously increased difficulties of transport. The peasantry were combining to refuse the paper money. It was falling rapidly in value. ... In the mean time the stream of emigrants continued unabated, and it included the great body of the officers of the army who had been driven from the regiments by their own soldiers. ... At Brussels, Worms, and Coblentz, emigrants were forming armed organisations."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th century, chapter 21 (volume 5).

"The revolution was threatened by two dangerous enemies, the emigrants, who were urging on a foreign invasion, and the non-juring bishops and priests who were doing all in their power to excite domestic rebellion. The latter were really the more dangerous. ... The Girondists clamoured for repressive measures. On the 30th of October it was decreed that the count of Provence, unless he returned within two months, should forfeit all rights to the regency. On the 9th of November an edict threatened the emigrants with confiscation and death unless they returned to their allegiance before the end of the year. On the 29th of November came the attack upon the non-jurors. They were called upon to take the oath within eight days, when lists were to be drawn up of those who refused; these were then to forfeit their pensions, and if any disturbance took place in their district they were to be removed from it, or if their complicity were proved they were to be imprisoned for two years. The king accepted the decree against his brother, but he opposed his veto to the other two. The Girondists and Jacobins eagerly seized the opportunity for a new attack upon the monarchy. ... Throughout the winter attention was devoted almost exclusively to foreign affairs. It has been seen that the emperor was really eager for peace, and that as long as he remained in that mood there was little risk of any other prince taking the initiative. At the same time it must be acknowledged that Leopold's tone towards the French government was often too haughty and menacing to be conciliatory, and also that the open preparations of the emigrants in neighbouring states constituted an insult if not a danger to France. The Girondists, the most susceptible of men, only expressed the national sentiment in dwelling upon this with bitterness, and in calling for vengeance. At the same time they had conceived the definite idea that their own supremacy could best be obtained and secured by forcing on a foreign war. {1275} This was expressly avowed by Brissot, who took the lead of the party in this matter. Robespierre, on the other hand, partly through temperament and partly through jealousy of his brilliant rivals, was inclined to the maintenance of peace. But on this point the Feuillants were agreed with the Gironde, and so a vast majority was formed to force the unwilling king and ministers into war. The first great step was taken when Duportail, who had charge of military affairs, was replaced by Narbonne, a Feuillant. Louis XVI. was compelled to issue a note (14 December, 1791) to the emperor and to the archbishop of Trier to the effect that if the military force of the emigrants were not disbanded by the 15th of January hostilities would be commenced against the elector. The latter at once ordered the cessation of the military preparations, but the emigrants not only refused to obey but actually insulted the French envoy. Leopold expressed his desire for peace, but at the same time declared that any attack on the electorate of Trier would be regarded as an act of hostility to the empire. These answers were unsatisfactory, and Narbonne collected three armies on the frontiers, under the command of Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, and amounting together to about 150,000 men. On the 25th of January an explicit declaration was demanded from the emperor, with a threat that war would be declared unless a satisfactory answer was received by the 4th of March. Leopold II. saw all his hopes of maintaining peace in western Europe gradually disappearing, and was compelled to bestir himself. ... On the 7th of February he finally concluded a treaty with the king of Prussia. ... On the 1st of March, while still hoping to avoid a quarrel, Leopold II. died of a sudden illness, and with him perished the last possibility of peace. His son and successor, Francis II., who was now 24, had neither his father's ability nor his experience, and he was naturally more easily swayed by the anti-revolutionary spirit. ... The Girondists combined all their efforts for an attack upon the minister of foreign affairs, Delessart, whom they accused of truckling to the enemies of the nation. Delessart was committed to prison, and his colleagues at once resigned. The Gironde now came into office. The ministry of home affairs was given to Roland; of war to Servan; of finance to Clavière. Dumouriez obtained the foreign department, Duranthon that of justice, and Lacoste the marine. Its enemies called it 'the ministry of the Sansculottes.' ... On the 20th of April [1792] Louis XVI. appeared in the assembly and read with trembling voice a declaration of war against the king of Hungary and Bohemia."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 22, section 20-21.

The sincere desire of the Emperor Leopold II. to avoid war with France, and the restraining influence over the King of Prussia which he exercised up to the time when Catherine II. of Russia overcame it by the Polish temptation, are set forth by H. von Sybel in passages quoted elsewhere.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1791-1792.

ALSO IN: A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, books 6-14 (volume l).

A. F. Bertrand de Moleville, Annals of the French Revolution, part 2. chapters 1-14 (volume 5-6).

_F. C. Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, 5th period, 2d division, chapter 1 (volume 6)._

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (April). Fête to the Soldiers of Chateauvieux.

See LIBERTY CAP.

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (April-July). Opening of the war with Austria and Prussia. French reverses.

"Hostilities followed close upon the declaration of war. At this time the forces destined to come into collision were posted as follows: Austria had 40,000 men in Belgium, and 25,000 on the Rhine. These numbers might easily have been increased to 80,000, but the Emperor of Austria did no more than collect 7,000 or 8,000 around Brisgau, and some 20,000 more around Rastadt. The Prussians, now bound into a close alliance with Austria, had still a great distance to traverse from their base to the theatre of war, and could not hope to undertake active operations for a long time to come. France, on the other hand, had already three strong armies in the field. The Army of the North, under General Rochambeau, nearly 50,000 strong, held the frontier from Philippeville to Dunkirk; General Lafayette commanded a second army of about the same strength in observation from Philippeville to the Lauter; and a third army of 40,000 men, under Marshal Luckner, watched the course of the Rhine from Lauterbourg to the confines of Switzerland. The French forces were strong, however, on paper only. The French army had been mined, as it seemed, by the Revolution, and had fallen almost to pieces. The wholesale emigration of the aristocrats had robbed it of its commissioned officers, the old experienced leaders whom the men were accustomed to follow and obey. Again, the passion for political discussion, and the new notions of universal equality had fostered a dangerous spirit of license in the ranks. ... While the regular regiments of the old establishment were thus demoralised, the new levies were still but imperfectly organised, and the whole army was unfit to take the field. It was badly equipped, without transport, and without those useful administrative services which are indispensable for mobility and efficiency. Moreover, the prestige of the French arms was at its lowest ebb. A long and enervating peace had followed since the last great war, in which the French armies had endured only failure and ignominious defeat. It is not strange, then, that the foes whom France had so confidently challenged, counted upon an easy triumph over the revolutionary troops. The earliest operations fully confirmed these anticipations. ... France after the declaration of war had at once assumed the initiative, and proceeded to invade Belgium. Here the Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, who commanded the Imperialist forces, held his forces concentrated in three principal corps: one covered the line from the sea to Tournay; the second was at Leuze; the third and weakest at Mons. The total of these troops rose to barely 40,000, and Mons, the most important point in the general line of defence, was the least strongly held. All able strategist gathering together 30,000 men from each of the French armies of the Centre and North, would have struck at Mons with all his strength, cut Duke Albert's communications with the Rhine, turned his inner flank, and rolled him up into the sea. But no great genius as yet directed the military energies of France. ... By Dumouriez's advice, the French armies were ordered to advance against the Austrians by several lines. Four columns of invasion were to enter Belgium; one was to follow the sea coast, the second to march on Tournay, the third to move from Valenciennes on Mons, and the fourth, under Lafayette, on Givet or Namur. {1276} Each, according to the success it might achieve, was to reinforce the next nearest to it, and all, finally, were to converge on Brussels. At the very outset, however, the French encountered the most ludicrous reverses. Their columns fled in disorder directly they came within sight of the enemy. Lafayette alone continued his march boldly towards Namur; but he was soon compelled to retire by the news of the hasty flight of the columns north of him. The French troops had proved as worthless as their leaders were incapable; whole brigades turned tail, crying that they were betrayed, casting away their weapons as they ran, and displaying the most abject cowardice and terror. Not strangely, after this pitiful exhibition, the Austrians--all Europe, indeed--held the military power of France in the utmost contempt. ... But now the national danger stirred France to its inmost depths. French spirit was thoroughly roused. The country rose as one man, determined to offer a steadfast, stubborn front to its foes. Stout-hearted leaders, full of boundless energy and enthusiasm, summoned all the resources of the nation to stem and roll back the tide of invasion. Immediate steps were taken to put the defeated and disgraced armies of the frontier upon a new footing. Lafayette replaced Rochambeau, with charge from Longwy to the sea, his main body about Sedan; Luckner took the line from the Moselle to the Swiss mountains, with head-quarters at Metz. A third general, destined to come speedily to the front, also joined the army as Lafayette's lieutenant. This was Dumouriez, who, wearied and baffled by Parisian politics, sought the freedom of the field."

A. Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals, chapter 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (June-August). The King's dismissal of Girondist ministers. Mob demonstration of June 20. Lafayette in Paris. His failure. The Country declared to be in Danger. Gathering of volunteers in Paris. Brunswick's manifesto. Mob attack on the Tuileries, August 10. Massacre of the Swiss.

"Servan, the minister of war, proposed the formation of an armed camp for the protection of Paris. Much opposition was, however, raised to the project, and the Assembly decreed (June 6) that 20,000 volunteers, recruited in the departments, should meet at Paris to take part in the celebration of a federal festival on July 14, the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. The real object of those who supported the decree was to have a force at Paris with which to maintain mastery over the city should the Allies penetrate into the interior. Louis left the decree unsanctioned, as he had the one directed against nonjurors. The agitators of the sections sought to get up an armed demonstration against this exercise of the King's constitutional prerogative. Though armed demonstrations were illegal, the municipality offered but a perfunctory and half-hearted resistance. ... Louis, irritated at the pressure put on him by Roland, Clavière, and Servan, to sanction the two decrees, dismissed the three ministers from office (June 13). Dumouriez, who had quarreled with his colleagues, supported the King in taking this step, but in face of the hostility of the Assembly himself resigned office (June 15). Three days later a letter from Lafayette was read in the Assembly. The general denounced the Jacobins as the authors of all disorders, called on the Assembly to maintain the prerogatives of the crown, and intimated that his army would not submit to see the constitution violated (June 18). Possibly the dismissal of the ministers and the writing of this letter were measures concerted between the King and Lafayette. In any case the King's motive was to excite division between the constitutionalists and the Girondists, so as to weaken the national defence. The dismissal of the ministers was, however, regarded by the Girondists as a proof of the truth of their worst suspicions, and no measures were taken to prevent an execution of the project of making an armed, and therefore illegal, demonstration against the royal policy. On June 20, thousands of persons, carrying pikes or whatever weapon came to hand, and accompanied by several battalions of the national guard, marched from St. Antoine to the hall of the Assembly. A deputation read an address demanding the recall of the ministers. Afterwards the whole of the procession, men, women and children, dancing, singing, and carrying emblems, defiled through the chamber. Instigated by their leaders they broke into the Tuileries. The King, who took his stand on a window seat, was mobbed for four hours. To please his unwelcome visitors, he put on his head a red cap, such as was now commonly worn at the Jacobins as an emblem of liberty, in imitation of that which was once worn by the emancipated Roman slave. He declared his intention to observe the constitution, but neither insult nor menace could prevail on him to promise his sanction to the two decrees. The Queen, separated from the King, sat behind a table on which she placed the Dauphin, exposed to the gaze and taunts of the crowds which slowly traversed the palace apartments. At last, but not before night, the mob left the Tuileries without doing further harm, and order was again restored. This insurrection and the slackness, if not connivance, of the municipal authorities, excited a widespread feeling of indignation amongst constitutionalists. Lafayette came to Paris, and at the bar of the Assembly demanded in person what he had before demanded by letter (June 28). With him, as with other former members of the constituent Assembly, it was a point of honour to shield the persons of the King and Queen from harm. Various projects for their removal from Paris were formed, but policy and sentiment alike forbade Marie Antoinette to take advantage of them. ... The one gleam of light on the horizon of this unhappy Queen was the advance of the Allies. 'Better die,' she one day bitterly exclaimed, 'than be saved by Lafayette and the constitutionalists.' There was, no doubt, a possibility of the Allies reaching Paris that summer, but this enormously increased the danger of the internal situation. ... To rouse the nation to a sense of peril the Assembly [July 11] caused public proclamation to be made in every municipality that the country was in danger. The appeal was responded to with enthusiasm, and within six weeks more than 60,000 volunteers enlisted. The Duke of Brunswick, the commander-in-chief of the allied forces, published a manifesto, drawn up by the emigrants. If the authors of this astounding proclamation had deliberately intended to serve the purpose of those Frenchmen who were bent on kindling zeal for the war, they could not have done anything more likely to serve their purpose. {1277} The powers required the country to submit unconditionally to Louis's mercy. All who offered resistance were to be treated as rebels to their King, and Paris was to suffer military execution if any harm befell the royal family. ... Meanwhile, a second insurrection, which had for its object the King's deposition, was in preparation. The Assembly, after declaring the country in danger, had authorised the sections of Paris, as well as the administrative authorities throughout France, to meet at any moment. The sections had, in consequence, been able to render themselves entirely independent of the municipality. In each of the sectional or primary assemblies from 700 to 3,000 active citizens had the right to vote, but few cared to attend, and thus it constantly happened that a small active minority spoke and acted in the name of an apathetic constitutional majority. Thousands of volunteers passed through Paris on their way to the frontier, some of whom were purposely retained to take part in the insurrection. The municipality of Marseilles, at the request of Barbaroux, a young friend of the Rolands, sent up a band of 500 men, who first sung in Paris the verses celebrated as the 'Marseillaise' [see MARSEILLAISE]. The danger was the greater since every section had its own cannon and a special body of cannoneers, who nearly to a man were on the side of the revolutionists. The terrified and oscillating Assembly made no attempt to suppress agitation, but acquitted (August 8) Lafayette, by 406 against 280 votes, of a charge of treason made against him by the left, on the ground that he had sought to intimidate the Legislature. This vote was regarded as tantamount to a refusal to pass sentence of deposition on Louis. On the following night the insurrection began. Its centre was in the Faubourg of St. Antoine, and it was organised by but a small number of men. Mandat, the commander-in-chief of the national guard, was an energetic constitutionalist, who had taken well-concerted measures for the defence of the Tuileries. But the unscrupulousness of the conspirators was more than a match for his zeal. Soon after midnight commissioners from 28 sections met together at the Hotel de Ville, and forced the Council-General of the Municipality to summon Mandat before it, and to send out orders to the officers of the guard in contradiction to those previously given. Mandat, unaware of what was passing, obeyed the summons, and on his arrival was arrested and murdered. After this the commissioners dispersed the lawful council and usurped its place. At the Tuileries were about 950 Swiss and more than 4,000 national guards. Early in the morning the first bands of insurgents appeared. On the fidelity of the national guards it was impossible to rely; and the royal family, attended by a small escort, left the palace, and sought refuge with the Assembly [which held its sessions in the old Riding-School of the Tuileries, not far from the palace, at one side of the gardens]. Before their departure orders had been given to the Swiss to repel force by force, and soon the sound of firing spread alarm through Paris. The King sent the Swiss instructions to retire, which they punctually obeyed. One column, passing through the Tuileries gardens, was shot down almost to a man. The rest reached the Assembly in safety, but several were afterwards massacred on their way to prison. For 24 hours the most frightful anarchy prevailed. Numerous murders were committed in the streets. The assailants, some hundreds of whom had perished, sacked the palace, and killed all the men whom they found there."

B. M. Gardiner, The French Revolution, chapter 5.

"Terror and fury ruled the hour. The Swiss, pressed on from without, paralysed from within, have ceased to shoot; but not to be shot. What shall they do? Desperate is the moment. Shelter or instant death: yet How, Where? One party flies out by the Rue de l'Echelle; is destroyed utterly, 'en entier.' A second, by the other side, throws itself into the Garden; 'hurrying across a keen fusillade'; rushes suppliant into the National Assembly; finds pity and refuge in the back benches there. The third, and largest, darts out in column, 300 strong, towards the Champs Elysées: 'Ah, could we but reach Courbevoye, where other Swiss are!' Wo! see, in such fusillade the column 'soon breaks itself by diversity of opinion,' into distracted segments, this way and that;--to escape in holes, to die fighting from street to street. The firing and murdering will not cease: not yet for long. The red Porters of Hotels are shot at, be they 'Suisse' by nature, or Suisse only in name. The very Firemen, who pump and labour on that smoking Carrousel [which the mob had fired]; are shot at; why should the Carrousel not burn? Some Swiss take refuge in private houses; find that mercy too does still dwell in the heart of man. The brave Marseillese are merciful, late so wroth; and labour to save. ... But the most are butchered, and even mangled. Fifty (some say Fourscore) were marched as prisoners, by National Guards, to the Hôtel-de-Ville: the ferocious people bursts through on them, in the Place-de-Greve; massacres them to the last man. 'O Peuple, envy of the universe!' Peuple, in mad Gaelic effervescence! Surely few things in the history of carnage are painfuler. What ineffaceable red streak, flickering so sad in the memory, is that, of this poor column of red Swiss, 'breaking itself in the confusion of opinions'; dispersing, into blackness and death! Honour to you, brave men; honourable pity, through long times! Not martyrs were ye; and yet almost more. He was no King of yours, this Louis; and he forsook you like a King of shreds and patches: ye were but sold to him for some poor sixpence a-day; yet would ye work for your wages, keep your plighted word: The work now was to die; and ye did it. Honour to you, O Kinsmen; and may the old Deutsch 'Biederkeit' and' Tapferkeit,' and Valour which is Worth and Truth, be they Swiss, be they Saxon, fail in no age!"

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 2, book 6, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 1, pages 266-330._

Madame Campan, Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, volume 2, chapters 9-10.

J. Claretie, Camille Desmoulins and his Wife, chapter 3, sections 4-5.

A. F. Bertrand de Moleville, Annals of the French Revolution, part 2, chapters 18-28 (volumes 6-7).

Duchess de Tourzel, Memoirs, volume 2, chapters 8-10.

Count M. Dumas, Memoirs, chapter 4 (volume 1).

{1278}

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August). Power seized by the insurrectionary Commune of Paris. Dethronement and imprisonment of the King. Conflict between the Girondins of the Assembly and the Jacobins of the Commune. Alarm at the advance of the Prussians. The searching of the city for suspects. Arrest of 3,000.

"While the Swiss were being murdered, the Legislative Assembly were informed that a deputation wished to enter. At the head of this deputation appeared Huguenin, who announced that a new municipality for Paris had been formed, and that the old one had resigned. This was, indeed, the fact. On the departure of Santerre the commissioners of the sections had given orders to the legitimate council-general of the municipality to resign, and the council-general, startled by the events which were passing, consented. The commissioners then called themselves the new municipality, and proceeded, as municipal officers, to send a deputation to the Assembly. The deputation almost ordered that the Assembly should immediately declare the king's dethronement, and, in the presence of the unfortunate monarch himself, Vergniaud mounted the tribune, and proposed, on behalf of the Committee of Twenty-one, that the French people should be invited to elect a National Convention to draw up a new Constitution, and that the chief of the executive power, as he called the king, should be provisionally suspended from his functions until the new Convention had pronounced what measures should be adopted to establish a new government and the reign of liberty and equality. The motion was carried, and was countersigned by one of the king's ministers, De Joly; and thus the old monarchy of the Bourbons in France came to an end. But the Assembly had not yet completed its work. The ministry was dismissed, as not having the confidence of the people, and the Minister of War, d'Abancourt, was ordered to be tried by the court at Orleans for treason, in having brought the Swiss Guards to Paris. The Assembly then prepared to elect new ministers. Roland, Clavière, and Servan were recalled by acclamation to their former posts. ... Danton was elected Minister of Justice by 222 votes against 60; Gaspard Monge, the great mathematician, was elected Minister of Marine, on the nomination of Condorcet; and Lebrun-Tondu, a friend of Brissot and Dumouriez, and a former abbé, to the department of Foreign Affairs. At the bidding of the self-elected municipality of Paris the king had been suspended, and a new ministry inaugurated, and this new municipality, which, it must be remembered, only represented 28 sections of Paris, next proceeded to send its decrees all over France. It was joined on this very day by some of the extreme men who hoped through its means to force a republic on France--notably by Camille Desmoulins and Dubois-Dubais; and on the 11th it was still further reinforced by the presence of Robespierre, Billaud-Varenne, and Marat. The Legislative Assembly had become a mere instrument in the hands of the Committee of Twenty-one [a committee specially charged with watchfulness over the safety of the public, and which foreshadowed the later famous Committee of Public Safety]. The majority of the deputies either left Paris, or, if they belonged to the right, hid themselves, while those of the left had to obey every order of their leaders, and left the transaction of temporary business to the Committee of Twenty-one. This committee practically ruled France for forty days, until the meeting of the Convention; the Assembly always accepted its propositions and sent the deputies it nominated on important missions; its only rival was the insurrectionary commune, and the internecine warfare between the Jacobins and the Girondins was foreshadowed in the struggle between this Commune and the Committee of Twenty-one. For, while the extreme Jacobins filled the new Commune of Paris, the Committee of Twenty-one consisted of Girondins and Feuillants, Brissot was its president, Vergniaud its reporter, and Gensonné, Condorcet, Lasource, Guadet, Lacépède, Lacuèe, Pastoret, Muraire, Delmas, and Guyton-Morveau were amongst its members. On the evening of August 10 the Assembly decreed that the difference between active and passive citizens should be abolished, and that every Frenchman of the age of 25 should have a vote for the Convention. ... The last sight the king might have seen on the night of August 10 was his palace of the Tuileries in flames, where, for mischief, fire had been set to the stables. It spread from building to building, and the Assembly only took steps to check it when it threatened to spread to the houses of the Rue Saint Honoré. ... On the day after this terrible night the king was informed that rooms had been found for him in the Convent of the Feuillants; and to four monastic cells, which had not been inhabited since the dissolution of the monastery two years before, the royal family was led, and round them was placed a strong guard. Yet they were no more prisoners in the Convent of the Feuillants than they had been in the splendid palace of the Tuileries. ... The king's nominal authority was annihilated; but though the course of events left him a prisoner, it cannot be said that his influence was diminished, for he had none left to diminish. It was to the Girondins, rather than to the king, that the results of August 10 brought unpleasant surprises. ... The real power had gone to the Commune of Paris, and this was very clearly perceived by Robespierre and by Marat. ... Though Marat was received with the loudest cheers by the insurrectionary commune, Robespierre was the man who really became its leader. He had long expected the shock which had just taken place, and had prepared himself for the crisis. The first requisition was, of course, for a Convention. This had been granted on the very first day. The second demand of the Commune was the safe custody of the king, so that he should not be able to escape to the army. This was conceded by the Assembly on August 12, when they ordered that the king and royal family should be taken to the old tower of the Temple, and there strictly guarded under the superintendence of the insurrectionary commune. Lafayette's sudden flight greatly strengthened the position of the Commune of Paris. ... Relieved from the fear of Lafayette's turning against them, both the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly and the Jacobins in the insurrectionary commune turned to the pursuit of their own special plans, and naturally soon came into violent collision. ... The Girondins were, above all things, men of ideas; the Jacobins, above all things, practical men: and of the issue of a struggle between them there could be little doubt, though, at this period the Girondins had the advantage of the best position. On August 15 the final blow was struck at the unfortunate Feuillants, or Constitutionalists. The last ministers of the king, as well Duport du Tertre, Bertrand de Moleville, and Duportail, were all ordered to be arrested, with Barnave and Charles de Lameth. The Assembly followed up this action by establishing the special tribunal of August 17, which held its first sitting on the same evening at the Hotel de Ville. {1279} Robespierre was elected president, and refused the office. ... The new tribunal was too slow to satisfy the leaders of the Commune of Paris, for its first prisoner, Laporte, the old intendant of the civil list, was not judged until August 21, and then acquitted. This news made the Commune lose all patience, and they determined to urge the Assembly to more energetic measures. Under the pressure of the Commune the Assembly took vigorous measures indeed. All the leaders of the émigrés were sequestrated; all ecclesiastics who would not take the oath were to be transported to French Guiana, and it was decreed that the National Guard should enlist every man, whether an active or a passive citizen. Much of this vigour on the part of the Assembly was due, not only to the pressure of the Commune, but to the rapid advance of the Prussians. ... The Assembly ... decreed that an army of 30,000 men should be raised in Paris, and that every man who had a musket issued to him should be punished with death if he did not march at once. ... On August 28, on the motion of Danton, now Minister of Justice, a general search for arms and suspects was ordered. The gates of the city were closed on August 30; every street was ordered to be illuminated; bodies of national guards entered each house and searched it from top to bottom. Barely 1,000 muskets were seized, but more than 8,000 prisoners were taken and shut up, not only in the prisons, but in all the largest convents of Paris, which were turned into houses of detention. Who should be arrested as a suspect depended entirely on the municipal officer who happened to examine the house, and these men acted under the orders of a special committee established by the Commune, at the head of which sat Marat. ... The residents in Paris at the time of the Revolution seem to have been more struck by this house-to-house visitation than by many other events which were far more horrible."

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Grace D. Elliot, Journal of My Life during the French Revolution, chapter 4.

Gouverneur Morris, Life and Correspondence., edited by Sparks, volume 2, pages 203-217.

G. Long, France and its Revolutions, chapter 29.

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August). Lafayette's unsuccessful resistance to the Jacobins. His withdrawal from France.

"The news of the 10th of August was carried to Lafayette by one of his own officers who happened to be in Paris on business. He learned that the throne was overturned and the Assembly in subjection, but he could not believe that the cause of the constitutional monarchy was abandoned without a struggle. He announced to the army the events that had taken place, and conjured the men to remain true to the king and constitution. The commissioners despatched by the Commune of Paris to announce to the different armies the change of government and to exact oaths of fidelity to it soon arrived at Sedan within Lafayette's command. The general had them brought before the municipality of Sedan and interrogated regarding their mission. Convinced, from their own account, that they were the agents of a faction which had unlawfully seized upon power, he ordered their arrest and had them imprisoned. Lafayette's moral influence in the army and the country was still so great that the Jacobins knew that they must either destroy him or win him over to their side. The latter course was preferred. ... The imprisoned commissioners, therefore, requested a private conference with Lafayette, and offered him, on the part of their superiors in Paris, whatever executive power he desired in the new government. It is needless to say that Lafayette, whose sole aim was to establish liberty in his country, refused to entertain the idea of associating himself with the despotism of the mob. He caused his own soldiers to renew their oath of fidelity to the king, and communicated with Luckner on the situation. ... Meanwhile, emissaries from the Commune were sent to Sedan to influence the soldiers by bribes and threats to renounce their loyalty to their commander. All the other armies and provinces to which commissioners had been sent had received them and taken the new oaths. Lafayette found himself alone in his resistance. His attitude acquired, every day, more the appearance of rebellion against authorities recognized by the rest of France. New commissioners arrived, bringing with them his dismissal from command. The army was wavering between attachment to their general and obedience to government. On the 19th of August, the Jacobins, seeing that they could not win him over, caused the Assembly to declare him a traitor. Lafayette had now to take an immediate resolution. France had declared for the Paris Commune. The constitutional monarchy was irretrievably destroyed. For the general to dispute with his appointed successor the command of the army was to provoke further disorders in a cause that had ceased to be that of the nation and become only his own. Three possible courses remained open to him,--to accept the Jacobin overtures and become a part of their bloody despotism; to continue his resistance and give his head to the guillotine; to leave the country. He resolved to seek an asylum in a neutral territory with the hope, as he himself somewhat naively expressed it, 'some day to be again of service to liberty and to France.' Lafayette made every preparation for the safety of his troops, placing them under the orders of Luckner until the arrival of Dumouriez, the new general in command. He publicly acknowledged responsibility for the arrest of the commissioners and the defiance of Sedan to the Commune, in order that the municipal officers who had supported him might escape punishment. He included in his party his staff-officers, whose association with him would have subjected them to the fury of the Commune, and some others who had also been declared traitors on account of obedience to his orders. He then made his way to Bouillon, on the extreme frontier. There, dismissing the escort, and sending back final orders for the security of the army, he rode with his companions into a foreign land."

B. Tuckerman, Life of Lafayette, volume 2, chapter 3.

{1280}

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August-September). The September Massacres in the Paris prisons.

The house-to-house search for suspects was carried on during the night of August 29 and the following day. "The next morning, at daybreak, the Mairie, the sections, the ancient prisons of Paris, and the convents that had been converted into prisons, were crowded with prisoners. They were summarily interrogated, and half of them, the victims of error or precipitation, were set at liberty, or claimed by their sections. The remainder were distributed in the prisons of the Abbaye Saint Germain, the Conciergerie, the Châtelet, La Force, the Luxembourg, and the ancient monasteries of the Bernardins, Saint Firmin, and the Carmes; Bicêtre and the Salpêtrière also opened their gates to receive fresh inmates. The three days that followed this night were employed by the commissaries in making a selection of the prisoners. Already their death was projected. ... "We must purge the prisons, and leave no traitors behind us when we hasten to the frontiers.' Such was the cry put into the mouth of the people by Marat and Danton. Such was the attitude of Danton on the brink of these crimes. As for the part of Robespierre, it was the same as in all these crises--on the debate concerning war, on the 20th of June, and on the 10th of August. He did not act, he blamed; but he left the event to itself, and when once accomplished he accepted it as a progressive step of the Revolution. ... On Sunday, the 2d of September, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the signal for the massacre was given by one of those accidents that seem so perfectly the effect of chance. Five coaches, each containing six priests, started from the Hôtel-de-Ville to the prison of the Abbaye ... escorted by weak detachments of Avignonnais and Marseillais, armed with pikes and sabers. ... Groups of men, women and children insulted them as they passed, and their escort joined in the invective threats and outrages of the populace. ... The émeute, increasing in number at every step across the Rue Dauphine, was met by another mob, that blocked up the Carrefour Bussy, where municipal officers received enrolments in the open air. The carriages stopped; and a man, forcing his way through the escort, sprung on the step of the first carriage, plunged his saber twice into the body of one of the priests, and displayed it reeking with blood: the people uttered a cry of horror. 'This frightens you, cowards!' said the assassin, with a smile of disdain; 'You must accustom yourselves to look on death.' With these [words] he again plunged his saber into the carriage and continued to strike. ... The coaches slowly moved on, and the assassin, passing from one to the other, and clinging with one hand to the door, stabbed at random at all he could reach; while the assassins of Avignon, who formed part of their escort, plunged their bayonets into the interior; and the pikes, pointed against the windows, prevented any of the priests from leaping into the street. The long line of carriages moving slowly on, and leaving a bloody trace behind them, the despairing cries and gestures of the priests, the ferocious shouts of their butchers, the yells of applause of the populace, announced from a distance their arrival to the prisoners of the Abbaye. The cortège stopped at the door of the prison, and the soldiers of the escort dragged out by the feet eight dead bodies. The priests who had escaped, or who were only wounded, precipitated themselves into the prison; four of them were seized and massacred on the threshold. ... The prisoners ... cooped up in the Abbaye heard this prelude to murder at their gates. ... The internal wickets were closed on them, and they received orders to return to their chambers, as if to answer the muster-roll. A fearful spectacle was visible in the outer court: the last wicket opening into it had been transformed into a tribunal; and around a large table--covered with papers, writing materials, the registers of the prisons, glasses, bottles, pistols, sabers, and pipes--were seated twelve judges, whose gloomy features and athletic proportions stamped them men of toil, debauch or blood. Their attire was that of the laboring classes. ... Two or three of them attracted attention by the whiteness of their hands and the elegance of their shape; and that betrayed the presence of men of intellect, purposely mingled with these men of action to guide them. A man in a gray coat, a saber at his side, pen in his hand, and whose inflexible features seemed as though they were petrified, was seated at the center of the table, and presided over the tribunal. This was the Huissier Maillard, the idol of the mobs of the Faubourg Saint Marceau ... an actor in the days of October, the 20th of June, and the 10th of August. ... He had just returned from the Carmes, where he had organized the massacre. It was not chance that had brought him to the Abbaye at the precise moment of the arrival of the prisoners, and with the prison registers in his hand. He had received, the previous evening, the secret orders of Marat, through the members of the Comité de Surveillance. Danton had sent for the registers to the prison, and gone through them; and Maillard was shown those he was to acquit and condemn. If the prisoner was acquitted, Maillard said, 'Let this gentleman be set at liberty'; if condemned, a voice said, 'A la Force.' At these words the outer door opened, and the prisoner fell dead as he crossed the threshold. The massacre commenced with the Swiss, of whom there were 150 at the Abbaye, officers and soldiers. ... They fell, one after another, like sheep in a slaughter-house. The tumbrils were not sufficient to carry away the corpses, and they were piled up on each side of the court to make room for the rest to die: their commander, Major Reding, was the last to fall. ... After the Swiss, the king's guards, imprisoned in the Abbaye, were judged en masse. ... Their massacre lasted a long time, for the people, excited by what they had drank--brandy mingled with gun-powder-and intoxicated by the sight of blood, prolonged their tortures. ... The whole night was scarcely enough to slay and strip them."

A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, book 25 (volume 2).

"To moral intoxication is added physical intoxication, wine in profusion, bumpers at every pause, revelry over corpses. ... They dance ... and sing the 'carmagnole'; they arouse the people of the quarter 'to amuse them,' and that they may have their share of 'the fine fête.' Benches are arranged for 'gentlemen' and others for 'ladies': the latter, with greater curiosity, are additionally anxious to contemplate at their ease 'the aristocrats' already slain; consequently, lights are required, and one is placed on the breast of each corpse. Meanwhile, slaughter continues, and is carried to perfection. A butcher at the Abbaye complains that 'the aristocrats die too quick, and that those only who strike first have the pleasure of it'; henceforth they are to be struck with the backs of the swords only, and made to run between two rows of their butchers, like soldiers formerly running a gauntlet. ... {1281} All the unfettered instincts that live in the lowest depths of the heart start from the human abyss at once, not alone the heinous instincts with their fangs, but likewise the foulest with their slaver, while both packs fall furiously on women whose noble or infamous repute brings them before the world; on Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; on Madame Desrues, widow of the famous prisoner; on the flower-girl of the Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover, a French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy. Ferocity here is associated with lubricity to add profanation to torture, while life is attacked through attacks on modesty. In Madame de Lamballe, killed too quickly, the libidinous butchers could only outrage a corpse, but for the widow, and especially the flower-girl, they imagine the same as a Nero the fire-circle of the Iroquois. ... At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is cut to pieces. I cannot transcribe what Charlot, the hair-dresser, did with her head. I merely state that another wretch, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, bore off her heart and 'ate it.' They kill and they drink, and drink and kill again. ... As the prisons are to be cleaned out, it is as well to clean them all out, and do it at once. After the Swiss, priests, the aristocrats, and the 'white-skin gentlemen,' there remain convicts and those confined through the ordinary channels of justice, robbers, assassins, and those sentenced to the galleys in the Conciergerie, in the Châtelet, and in the Tour St. Bernard, with branded women, vagabonds, old beggars and boys confined in Bicêtre and the Salpétrière. They are good for nothing, cost something to feed, and, probably, cherish evil designs. ... This time, as the job is more foul, the broom is wielded by fouler hands. ... At the Salpétrière, 'all the bullies of Paris, former spies, ... libertines, the rascals of France and all Europe, prepare beforehand for the operation,' and rape alternates with massacre. ... At Bicêtre, however, it is crude butchery, the carnivorous instinct alone satisfying itself. Among other prisoners are 43 youths of the lowest class, from 17 to 19 years of age, placed there for correction by their parents, or by those to whom they are bound. ... These the band falls on, beating them to death with clubs. ... There are six days and five nights of uninterrupted butchery, 171 murders at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 223 at the Châtelet, 328 at the Conciergerie, 73 at the Tour-Saint-Bernard, 120 at the Carmelites, 79 at Saint-Firmin, 170 at Bicêtre, 35 at the Salpétrière; among the dead, 250 priests, 3 bishops or archbishops, general officers, magistrates, one former minister, one royal princess, belonging to the best names in France, and, on the other side, one negro, several low class women, young scape-graces, convicts, and poor old men. ... Fournier, Lazowski, and Bécard, the chiefs of robbers and assassins, return from Orleans with 1,500 cut-throats. On the way they kill M. de Brissac, M. de Lessart, and 42 others accused of 'lèse-nation,' whom they arrested from their judges' hands, and then, by way of surplus, 'following the example of Paris,' 21 prisoners taken from the Versailles prisons. At Paris the Minister of Justice thanks them, the Commune congratulates them, and the sections feast them and embrace them. ... All the journals approve, palliate, or keep silent; nobody dares offer resistance. Property as well as lives belong to whoever wants to take them. ... Like a man struck on the head with a mallet, Paris, felled to the ground, lets things go; the authors of the massacre have fully attained their ends. The faction has fast hold of power, and will maintain its hold. Neither in the Legislative Assembly nor in the Convention will the aims of the Girondists be successful against its tenacious usurpation. ... The Jacobins, through sudden terror, have maintained their illegal authority; through a prolongation of terror they are going to establish their legal authority. A forced suffrage is going to put them in office at the Hotel-de-Ville, in the tribunals, in the National Guard, in the sections, and in the various administrations."

H. A. Taine, The French Revolution, book 4, chapter 9 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution, (American edition.), volume 1, pages 350-368._

Sergent Marceau, Reminiscences of a Regicide, chapter 9.

_A. Dobson, The Princess de Lamballe ("Four Frenchwomen," chapter 3)._

_The Reign of Terror: A collection of Authentic Narratives, volume 2._

_J. B. Cléry, Journal of Occurrences at the Temple._

Despatches of Earl Gower, pages 225-229.

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (September-November). Meeting of the National Convention. Abolition of royalty. Proclamation of the Republic. Adoption of the Era of the Republic. Establishment of absolute equality. The losing struggle of the Girondists with the Jacobins of the Mountain.

"It was in the midst of these horrors [of the September massacres] that the Legislative Assembly approached its termination. ... The National Convention began [September 22] under darker auspices. ... The great and inert mass of the people were disposed, as in all commotions, to range themselves on the victorious side. The sections of Paris, under the influence of Robespierre and Marat, returned the most revolutionary deputies; those of most other towns followed their example. The Jacobins, with their affiliated clubs, on this occasion exercised an overwhelming influence over all France. ... At Paris, where the elections took place on the 2d September, amidst all the excitement and horrors of the massacres in the prisons, the violent leaders of the municipality, who had organized the revolt of August 10th, exercised an irresistible sway over the citizens. Robespierre and Danton were the first named, amidst unanimous shouts of applause; after them Camille Desmoulins, Tallien, Osselin, Freron, Anacharsis Clootz, Fabre d'Eglantine, David, the celebrated painter, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes, Legendre, Panis, Sergent, almost all implicated in the massacres in the prisons, were also chosen. To these was added the Duke of Orleans, who had abdicated his titles, and was called Philippe Égalité. ... The most conservative part of the new Assembly were the Girondists who had overturned the throne. From the first opening of the Convention, the Girondists occupied the right, and the Jacobins the seats on the summit of the left; whence their designation of 'The Mountain' was derived. The former had the majority of votes, the greater part of the departments having returned men of comparatively moderate principles. But the latter possessed a great advantage, in having on their side all the members of the city of Paris, who ruled the mob, ... and in being supported by the municipality, which had already grown into a ruling power in the state, and had become the great centre of the democratic party. {1282} A neutral body, composed of those members whose principles were not yet declared, was called the Plain, or, Marais; it ranged itself with the Girondists, until terror compelled its members to coalesce with the victorious side. ... The two rival parties mutually indulged in recriminations, in order to influence the public mind. The Jacobins incessantly reproached the Girondists with desiring to dissolve the Republic; to establish three-and-twenty separate democratic states, held together, like the American provinces, by a mere federal union. ... Nothing more was requisite to render them in the highest degree unpopular in Paris, the very existence of which depended on its remaining, through all the phases of government, the seat of the ruling power. The Girondists retorted upon their adversaries charges better founded, but not so likely to inflame the populace. They reproached them with endeavouring to establish in the municipality of Paris a power superior to the legislature of all France, with overawing the deliberations of the Convention by menacing petitions, or the open display of brute force; and secretly preparing for their favourite leaders, Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, a triumvirate of power, which would speedily extinguish all the freedom which had been acquired. The first part of the accusation was well-founded even then; of the last, time soon afforded an ample confirmation. The Convention met at first in one of the halls of the Tuileries, but immediately adjourned to the Salle du Ménage, where its subsequent sittings were held. Its first step was, on the motion of the Abbé Gregoire, and amidst unanimous transports, to declare Royalty abolished in France, and to proclaim a republic; and by another decree it was ordered, that the old calendar taken from the year of Christ's birth should be abandoned, and that all public acts should be dated from the first year of the French republic. This era began on the 22d September 1792. [See, also, below: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).] ... A still more democratic constitution than that framed by the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies was at the same time established. All the requisites for election to any office whatever were, on the motion of the Duke of Orleans, abolished. It was no longer necessary to select judges from legal men, nor magistrates from the class of proprietors. All persons, in whatever rank, were declared eligible to every situation; and the right of voting in the primary assemblies was conferred on every man above the age of 21 years. Absolute equality, in its literal sense, was universally established. Universal suffrage was the basis on which government rested." The leaders of the Girondists soon opened attacks upon Robespierre and Marat, accusing the former of aspiring to a dictatorship, and also holding him responsible, with Marat and Danton, for the September massacres; but Louvet and others who made the attack were feebly supported by their party. Louvet "repeatedly appealed to Pétion, Vergniaud, and the other leaders, to support his statements; but they had not the firmness boldly to state the truth. Had they testified a fourth part of what they knew, the accusation must have been instantly voted, and the tyrant crushed at once. As it was, Robespierre, fearful of its effects, demanded eight days to prepare for his defence. In the interval, the whole machinery of terror was put in force. The Jacobins thundered out accusations against the intrepid accuser, and all the leaders of the Mountain were indefatigable in their efforts to strike fear into their opponents. ... By degrees the impression cooled, fear resumed its sway, and the accused mounted the tribune at the end of the week with the air of a victor. ... It was now evident that the Girondists were no match for their terrible adversaries. The men of action on their side, Louvet, Barbaroux, and Lanjuinais, in vain strove to rouse them to the necessity of vigorous measures in contending with such enemies. Their constant reply was, that they would not be the first to commence the shedding of blood. Their whole vigour manifested itself in declamation, their whole wisdom in abstract discussion. They had now become humane in intention, and moderate in counsel, though they were far from having been so in the earlier stages of the Revolution. ... They were too honourable to believe in the wickedness of their opponents, too scrupulous to adopt the measures requisite to disarm, too destitute of moral courage to be able to crush them. ... The Jacobins ... while they were daily strengthening and increasing the armed force of the sections at the command of the municipality, ... strenuously resisted the slightest approach towards the establishment of any guard or civic force for the defence of the Convention. ... Aware of their weakness from this cause, the Girondists brought forward a proposal for an armed guard for the Convention. The populace was immediately put in motion," and the overawed Convention abandoned the measure. "In the midst of these vehement passions, laws still more stringent and sanguinary were passed against the priests and emigrants. ... First, it was decreed that every Frenchman taken with arms in his hands against France should be punished with death; and soon after, that 'the French emigrants are forever banished from the territory of France, and those who return shall be punished with death.' A third decree directed that all their property, movable and immovable, should be confiscated to the service of the state. These decrees were rigidly executed: and though almost unnoticed amidst the bloody deeds which at the same period stained the Revolution, ultimately produced the most lasting and irremediable effects. At length the prostration of the Assembly before the armed sections of Paris had become so excessive, that Buzot and Barbaroux, the most intrepid of the Girondists, brought forward two measures which, if they could have been carried, would have emancipated the legislature from this odious thraldom. Buzot proposed to establish a guard, specially for the protection of the Convention, drawn from young men chosen from the different departments. Barbaroux at the same time brought forward four decrees. ... By the first, the capital was to cease to be the seat of the legislature, when it lost its claim to their presence by failing to protect them from insult. By the second, the troops of the Fédérés and the national cavalry were to be charged, along with the armed sections, with the protection of the legislature. By the third, the Convention was to constitute itself into a court of justice, for the trial of all conspirators against its authority. By the fourth, the Convention suspended the municipality of Paris. ... The Jacobins skilfully availed themselves of these impotent manifestations of distrust, to give additional currency to the report that the Girondists intended to transport the seat of government to the southern provinces. This rumour rapidly gained ground with the populace, and augmented their dislike at the ministry. ... All these preliminary struggles were essays of strength by the two parties, prior to the grand question which was now destined to attract the eyes of Europe and the world. This was the trial of Louis XVI."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, chapter 8 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre, chapter 16.

A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, books 29-31.

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, chapter 43 (volume 4).

J. Moore, Journal in France, 1792, volume 2.

{1283}

FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (September-December). The war on the northern frontier. Battle of Valmy. Retreat of the invading army. Custine in Germany and Dumouriez in the Netherlands. Annexation of Savoy and Nice. The Decree of December 15. Proclamation of a republican crusade.

"The defence of France rested on General Dumouriez. ... Happily for France the slow advance of the Prussian general permitted Dumouriez to occupy the difficult country of the Argonnes, where, while waiting for his reinforcements, he was able for some time to hold the invaders in check. At length Brunswick made his way past the defile which Dumouriez had chosen for his first line of defence; but it was only to find the French posted in such strength on his flank that any further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance was to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, on the 20th of September, Brunswick, facing half-round from his line of march, directed his artillery against the hills of Valmy, where Kellermann and the French left were encamped. The cannonade continued for some hours, but it was followed by no general attack. Already, before a blow had been struck, the German forces were wasting away with disease. ... The King of Prussia began to listen to the proposals of peace which were sent to him by Dumouriez. A week spent in negotiations served only to strengthen the French and to aggravate the scarcity and sickness within the German camp. Dissensions broke out between the Prussian and Austrian commanders; a retreat was ordered; and, to the astonishment of Europe, the veteran forces of Brunswick fell back before the mutinous soldiery and unknown generals of the Revolution. ... In the meantime the Legislative Assembly had decreed its own dissolution ... and had ordered the election of representatives to frame a constitution for France. ... The Girondins, who had been the party of extremes in the Legislative Assembly, were the party of moderation and order in the Convention. ... Monarchy was abolished, and France declared a Republic (September 21). Office continued in the hands of the Gironde; but the vehement, uncompromising spirit of their rivals, the so-called party of the Mountain, quickly made itself felt in all the relations of France to foreign powers. The intention of conquest might still be as sincerely disavowed as it had been five months before; but were the converts to liberty to be denied the right of uniting themselves to the French people by their own free will? ... The scruples which had lately condemned all annexation of territory vanished in that orgy of patriotism which followed the expulsion of the invader and the discovery that the Revolution was already a power in other lands than France. ... Along the entire frontier, from Dunkirk to the Maritime Alps, France nowhere touched a strong united, and independent people; and along this entire frontier, except in the country opposite Alsace, the armed proselytism of the French Revolution proved a greater force than the influences on which the existing order of things depended. In the Low Countries, in the Principalities of the Rhine, in Switzerland, in Savoy, in Piedmont itself, the doctrines of the Revolution were welcomed by a more or less numerous class, and the armies of France appeared for a moment as the missionaries of liberty and right rather than as an invading enemy. No sooner had Brunswick been brought to a stand by Dumouriez at Valmy than a French division under Custine crossed the Alsatian frontier and advanced upon Spires, where Brunswick had left large stores of war. The garrison was defeated in an encounter outside the town; Spires and Worms surrendered to Custine. In the neighbouring fortress of Mainz, the key to western Germany, Custine's advance was watched with anxious satisfaction by a republican party among the inhabitants, from whom the French general learnt that he had only to appear before the city to become its master. ... At the news of the capture of Spires, the Archbishop retired into the interior of Germany, leaving the administration to a board of ecclesiastics and officials, who published a manifesto calling upon their 'beloved brethren' the citizens to defend themselves to the last extremity, and then followed their master's example. A council of war declared the city to be untenable; and, before Custine had brought up a single siege-gun, the garrison capitulated, and the French were welcomed into Mainz by the partisans of the Republic (October 20). ... Although the mass of the inhabitants held aloof, a Republic was finally proclaimed, and incorporated with the Republic of France. The success of Custine's raid into Germany did not divert the Convention from the design of attacking Austria in the Netherlands, which Dumouriez had from the first pressed upon the Government. It was not three years since the Netherlands had been in full revolt against the Emperor Joseph. ... Thus the ground was everywhere prepared for a French occupation. Dumouriez crossed the frontier. The border fortresses no longer existed: and after a single battle won by the French at Jemappes on the 6th November, the Austrians, finding the population universally hostile, abandoned the Netherlands without a struggle. The victory of Jemappes, the first pitched battle won by the Republic, excited an outburst of revolutionary fervour in the Convention which deeply affected the relations of France to Great Britain, hitherto a neutral spectator of the war. A decree was passed for the publication of a manifesto in all languages, declaring that the French nation offered its alliance to all peoples who wished to recover their freedom, and charging the generals of the Republic to give their protection to all persons who had suffered or might suffer in the cause of liberty. (November 19.) A week later Savoy and Nice were annexed to France, the population of Savoy having almost unanimously declared in favour of France on the outbreak of war between France and Sardinia. {1284} On the 15th December the Convention proclaimed that a system of social and political revolution was henceforth to accompany every movement of its armies on foreign soil. 'In every country that shall be occupied by the armies of the French Republic'--such was the substance of the Decree of December 15th--'the generals shall announce the abolition of all existing authorities; of nobility, of serfage, of every feudal right and every monopoly; they shall proclaim the sovereignty of the people. ... The French nation will treat as enemies any people which, refusing liberty and equality, desires to preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to make any accommodation with them.' This singular announcement of a new crusade caused the Government of Great Britain to arm."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 1.

E. Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, book 1, chapters 3-5 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A.D. 1792 (November-December). Charges against the King. Jacobin clamor for his condemnation. The contest in Convention.

"There were, without a doubt, in this conjuncture, a great number of Mountaineers who, on this occasion, acted with the greatest sincerity, and only as republicans, in whose eyes Louis XVI. appeared guilty with respect to the revolution; and a dethroned king was dangerous to a young democracy. But this party would have been more clement, had it not had to ruin the Gironde at the same time with Louis XVI. ... Party motives and popular animosities combined against this unfortunate prince. Those who, two months before, would have repelled the idea of exposing him to any other punishment than that of dethronement, were stupefied; so quickly does man lose in moments of crisis the right to defend his opinions! ... After the 10th of August, there were found in the offices of the civil list documents which proved the secret correspondence of Louis XVI. with the discontented princes, with the emigration, and with Europe. In a report, drawn up at the command of the legislative assembly, he was accused of intending to betray the state and overthrow the revolution. He was accused of having written, on the 16th April, 1791, to the bishop of Clermont, that if he regained his power he would restore the former government, and the clergy to the state in which they previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to hasten the approach of his deliverers; ... of having been on terms with his brothers, whom his public measures had discountenanced; and, lastly, of having constantly opposed the revolution. Fresh documents were soon brought forward in support of this accusation. In the Tuileries, behind a panel in the wainscot, there was a hole wrought in the wall, and closed by an iron door. This secret closet was pointed out by the minister, Roland, and there were discovered proofs of all the conspiracies and intrigues of the court against the revolution; projects with the popular leaders to strengthen the constitutional power of the king, to restore the ancient regime and the aristocrats; the manœuvres of Talon, the arrangements with Mirabeau, the propositions accepted by Bouillé, under the constituent assembly, and some new plots under the legislative assembly. This discovery increased the exasperation against Louis XVI. Mirabeau's bust was broken by the Jacobins, and the convention covered the one which stood in the hall where it held its sittings. For some time there had been a question in the assembly as to the trial of this prince, who, having been dethroned, could no longer be proceeded against. There was no tribunal empowered to pronounce his sentence, no punishment which could be inflicted on him: accordingly, they plunged into false interpretations of the inviolability granted to Louis XVI., in order to condemn him legally. ... The committee of legislation, commissioned to draw up a report on the question as to whether Louis XVI. could be tried, and whether he could be tried by the convention, decided in the affirmative. ... The discussion commenced on the 13th of November, six days after the report of the committee. ... This violent party [the Mountain], who wished to substitute a coup d'etat for a sentence, to follow no law, no form, but to strike Louis XVI. like a conquered prisoner, by making hostilities even survive victory, had but a very feeble majority in the convention; but without, it was strongly supported by the Jacobins and the commune. Notwithstanding the terror which it already inspired, its murderous suggestions were repelled by the convention; and the partisans of inviolability, in their turn, courageously asserted reasons of public interest at the same time as rules of justice and humanity. They maintained that the same men could not be judges and legislators, the jury and the accusers. ... In a political view, they showed the consequences of the king's condemnation, as it would affect the anarchical party of the kingdom, rendering it still more insolent; and with regard to Europe, whose still neutral powers it would induce to join the coalition against the republic. But Robespierre, who during this long debate displayed a daring and perseverance that presaged his power, appeared at the tribune to support Saint Just, to reproach the convention with involving in doubt what the insurrection had decided, and with restoring, by sympathy and the publicity of a defence, the fallen royalist party. 'The assembly,' said Robespierre, 'has involuntarily been led far away from the real question. Here we have nothing to do with trial: Louis is not an accused man; you are not judges, you are, and can only be statesmen. You have no sentence to pronounce for or against a man, but you are called on to adopt a measure of public safety; to perform an act of national precaution. A dethroned king is only fit for two purposes, to disturb the tranquillity of the state, and shake its freedom, or to strengthen one or the other of them. Louis was king; the republic is founded; the famous question you are discussing is decided in these few words. Louis cannot be tried; he is already tried, he is condemned, or the republic is not absolved.' He required that the convention should declare Louis XVI. a traitor towards the French, criminal towards humanity, and sentence him at once to death, by virtue of the insurrection. The Mountaineers, by these extreme propositions, by the popularity they attained without, rendered condemnation in a measure inevitable. By gaining an extraordinary advance on the other parties, it obliged them to follow it, though at a distance. The majority of the convention, composed in a large part of Girondists, who dared not pronounce Louis XVI. inviolable, and of the Plain, decided, on Pétion's proposition, against the opinion of the fanatical Mountaineers and against that of the partisans of inviolability, that Louis XVI. should be tried by the convention. Robert Lindet then made, in the name of the commission of the twenty-one, his report respecting Louis XVI. The arraignment, setting forth the offences imputed to him, was drawn up, and the convention summoned the prisoner to its bar."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre, chapter 17.

A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, books 32-33 (volume 2).

A. de Beauchesne, Louis XVII.: His Life, his Suffering, his Death, book 9.

{1285}

FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-January). The King's Trial and death sentence.

"On December 11, the ill-fated monarch, taken from his prison to his former palace, appeared at the bar of his republican judges, was received in silence and with covered heads, and answered interrogatories addressed to him as 'Louis Capet,' though with an air of deference. His passive constancy touched many hearts. ... On the 26th the advocates of the King made an eloquent defence for their discrowned client, and Louis added, in a few simple words, that the 'blood of the 10th of August should not be laid to his charge.' The debates in the Assembly now began, and it soon became evident that the Jacobin faction were making the question the means to further their objects, and to hold up their opponents to popular hatred. They clamored for immediate vengeance on the tyrant, declared that the Republic could not be safe until the Court was smitten on its head, and a great example had been given to Europe, and denounced as reactionary and as concealed royalists all who resisted the demands of patriotism. These ferocious invectives were aided by the expedients so often employed with success, and the capital and its mobs were arrayed to intimidate any deputies who hesitated in the 'cause of the Nation.' The Moderates, on the other hand, were divided in mind; a majority, perhaps, condemning the King, but also wishing to spare his life: and the Gironde leaders, halting between their convictions, their feelings, their desires, and their fears, shrank from a courageous and resolute course. The result was such as usually follows when energy and will encounter indecision. On January 14 [the 15th, according to Thiers and others], 1793, the Convention declared Louis XVI. guilty, and on the following day [the speaking and voting lasted through the night of the 16th and the day after it] sentence of immediate death was pronounced by a majority of one [but the minority, in this view, included 26 votes that were cast for death but in favor of a postponement of the penalty, on grounds of political expediency], proposals for a respite and an appeal to the people having been rejected at the critical moment. The votes had been taken after a solemn call of the deputies at a sitting protracted for days; and the spectacle of the vast dim hall, of the shadowy figures of the awestruck judges meting out the fate of their former Sovereign, and tier upon tier of half-seen faces, looking, as in a theatre, on the drama below, and breaking out into discordant clamor, made a fearful impression on many eye-witnesses. One vote excited a sensation of disgust even among the most ruthless chiefs of the Mountain, though it was remarked that many of the abandoned women who crowded the galleries shrieked approbation. The Duke of Orleans, whose Jacobin professions had caused him to be returned for Paris, with a voice in which effrontery mingled with terror, pronounced for the immediate execution of his kinsman. The minister of justice--Danton had resigned--announced on the 20th the sentence to the King. The captive received the message calmly, asked for three days to get ready to die (a request, however, at once refused), and prayed that he might see his family and have a confessor."

W. O'C. Morris, The French Revolution, and First Empire, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 2, pages 44-72._

A. F. Bertrand de Moleville, Private Memoirs, relative to the last year of Louis XVI., chapters 39-40.

_J. B. Cléry, Journal of Occurrences at the Temple._

FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-February). Determination to incorporate the Austrian Netherlands and to attack Holland. Pitt's unavailing struggle for peace. England driven to arms. War with the Maritime Powers declared by the French.

"Since the beginning of December, the French government had contracted their far-reaching schemes within definite limits. They were compelled to give up the hope of revolutionizing the German Empire and establishing a Republic in the British Islands; but they were all the more determined in the resolve to subject the countries which had hitherto been occupied in the name of freedom, to the rule of France. This object was more especially pursued in Belgium by Danton and three other deputies, who were sent as Commissioners of the Convention to that country on the 30th of November. They were directed to enquire into the condition of the Provinces, and to consider Dumouriez's complaints against Pache [the Minister at War] and the Committee formed to purchase supplies for the army." Danton became resolute in the determination to incorporate Belgium and pressed the project inexorably. "It was a matter of course that England would interpose both by word and deed directly France prepared to take possession of Belgium. ... England had guaranteed the possession of Belgium to the Emperor in 1790--and the closing of the Scheldt to the Dutch, and its political position in Holland to the House of Orange in 1788. Under an imperative sense of her own interests, she had struggled to prevent the French from gaining a footing in Antwerp and Ostend. Prudence, fidelity to treaties, the retrospect of the past and the hopes of the future--all called loudly upon her not to allow the balance of Europe to be disturbed, and least of all in Belgium."

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 2).

"The French Government resolved to attack Holland, and ordered its generals to enforce by arms the opening of the Scheldt. To do this was to force England into war. Public opinion was already pressing every day harder upon Pitt [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1793-1796]. ... Across the Channel his moderation was only taken for fear. ... The rejection of his last offers indeed made a contest inevitable. Both sides ceased from diplomatic communications, and in February 1793 France issued her Declaration of War."

J. R. Green, History of the English People, book 9, chapter 4 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 22 (volume 6).

Earl Stanhope, Life of Pitt, chapter 16 (volume 2).

Despatches of Earl Gower, page 256-309.

{1286}

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (January). The execution of the king.

"To this conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis! The Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form of Law. Under Sixty Kings this same form of law, form of Society, has been fashioning itself together these thousand years; and has become, one way and other, a most strange Machine. Surely, if needful, it is also frightful, this Machine: dead, blind: not what it should be: which with swift stroke, or by cold slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumerable men. And behold now a King himself or say rather Kinghood in his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures;--like a Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull! It is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous man: injustice breeds injustice: curses and falsehoods do verily return 'always home,' wide as they may wander. Innocent Louis bears the sins of many generations: he too experiences that man's tribunal is not in this Earth: that if he had no higher one, it were not well with him. A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the imagination; as the like must do, and ought to do. And yet at bottom it is not the King dying, but the man! Kingship is a coat: the grand loss is of the skin. The man from whom you take his Life, to him can the whole combined world do more? ... A Confessor has come; Abbé Edgeworth, of Irish extraction, whom the King knew by good report, has come promptly on this solemn mission. Leave the Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with its malice will go its way, thou also canst go thine. A hard scene yet remains: the parting with our loved ones. Kind hearts, environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here! Let the reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry through these glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches: and see the cruelest of scenes: 'At half-past eight, the door of the ante-room opened: the Queen appeared first, leading her Son by the hand: then Madame Royale and Madame Elizabeth: they all flung themselves into the arms of the King. Silence reigned for some minutes; interrupted only by sobs.' ... For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves asunder. 'Promise that you will see us on the morrow.' He promises: --Ah yes, yes: yet once; and go now, ye loved ones: cry to God for yourselves and met!--It was a hard scene, but it is over. He will not see them on the morrow. The Queen in passing through the ante-room, glanced at the Cerberus Municipals; and, with woman's vehemence, said through her tears, 'Vous étes tous des scélérats.' King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry, as he had been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair: while this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger: it was his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell. At half-past six, he took the Sacrament, and continued in devotion, and conference with Abbé Edgeworth. He will not see his family: it were too hard to bear. At eight the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will, and messages and effects; which they, at first, brutally refuse to take charge of: he gives them a roll of gold pieces, a hundred and twenty-five louis; these are to be returned to Malesherbes, who had lent them. At nine, Santerre says the hour is come. The King begs yet to retire for three minutes. At the end of three minutes, Santerre again says the hour is come. 'Stamping on the ground with his right-foot, Louis answers: Partons, Let us go.'--How the rolling of those drums comes in, through the Temple bastions and bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a widow! He is gone, then, and has not seen us? ... At the Temple Gate were some faint cries, perhaps from voices of pitiful women: Grace! Grace! Through the rest of the streets there is silence as of the grave. No man not armed is allowed to be there: the armed, did any even pity, dare not express it, each man overawed by all his neighbours. All windows are down, none seen looking through them. All shops are shut. No wheel-carriage rolls, this morning, in these streets but one only. 80,000 armed men stand ranked, like armed statues of men; cannons bristle, cannoneers with match burning, but no word or movement: it is as a city enchanted into silence and stone: one carriage with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound. Louis reads, in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers of the Dying: clatter of this death-march falls sharp on the ear, in the great silence; but the thought would fain struggle heavenward, and forget the Earth. As the clock strikes ten, behold the Place de la Revolution, once Place de Louis Quinze: the Guillotine, mounted near the old Pedestal where once stood the Statue of that Louis! Far round, all bristles with cannons and armed men: spectators crowding in the rear; D'Orléans Egalité there in cabriolet. ... Heedless of all Louis reads his Prayers of the Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished: then the Carriage opens. What temper he is in? Ten different witnesses will give ten different accounts of it. He is in the collision of all tempers; arrived now at the black Mahlstrom and descent of Death: in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling to be resigned. 'Take care of M. Edgeworth,' he straitly charges the Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two descend. The drums are beating: 'Taisez-vous, Silence!' he cries 'in a terrible voice, d'une voix terrible.' He mounts the scaffold, not without delay; he is in puce coat, breeches of gray, white stockings. He strips off the coat; stands disclosed in a sleeve-waistcoat of white flannel. The executioners approach to bind him: he spurns, resists; Abbé Edgeworth has to remind him how the Saviour, in whom men trust, submitted to be bound. His hands are tied, his head bare; the fatal moment is come. He advances to the edge of the Scaffold, 'his face very red,' and says: 'Frenchmen, I die innocent: it is from the Scaffold and near appearing before God that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I desire that France--' A General on horseback, Santerre or another, prances out with uplifted hand: 'Tambours!' The drums drown the voice. 'Executioners, do your duty!' The Executioners, desperate lest themselves be murdered (for Santerre and his Armed Ranks will strike, if they do not), seize the hapless Louis: six of them desperate, him singly desperate, struggling there; and bind him to their plank. Abbé Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him: 'Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven.' The Axe clanks down; a King's Life is shorn away. It is Monday the 21st of January 1793. He was aged 38 years four months and 28 days. {1287} Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shouts of Vive la République rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats waving: students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on the far Quais; fling it over Paris. D'Orléans drives off in his cabriolet: the Townhall Councillors rub their hands, saying, 'It is done, It is done.' ... In the coffee-houses that evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot in a more cordial manner than usual. Not till some days after, according to Mercier, did public men see what a grave thing it was. A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have consequences. ... At home this Killing of a King has divided all friends; and abroad it has united all enemies. Fraternity of Peoples, Revolutionary Propagandism; Atheism, Regicide; total destruction of social order in this world! All Kings, and lovers of Kings, and haters of Anarchy, rank in coalition; as in a war for life."

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 3, book 2, chapter 8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (February-April). Increasing anarchy. Degradation of manners. Formation of the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal. Treacherous designs of Dumouriez. His invasion of Holland. His defeat at Neerwinden and retreat. His flight to the enemy.

"While the French were ... throwing down the gauntlet to all Europe, their own country seemed sinking into anarchical dissolution. Paris was filled with tumult, insurrection and robbery. At the denunciations of Marat against 'forestallers,' the shops were entered by the mob, who carried off articles at their own prices, and sometimes without paying at all. The populace was agitated by the harangues of low itinerant demagogues. Rough and brutal manners were affected, and all the courtesies of life abolished. The revolutionary leaders adopted a dress called the 'carmagnole,' consisting of enormous black pantaloons, a short jacket, a three-coloured waistcoat, and a Jacobite wig of short black hair, a terrible moustache, the 'bonnet rouge,' and an enormous sabre. [The name Carmagnole was also given to a tune and a dance; it is supposed to have borne originally some reference not now understood to Carmagnola in Piedmont.] Moderate persons of no strong political opinions were denounced as 'suspected,' and their crime stigmatised by the newly coined word of 'moderantisme.' The variations of popular feeling were recorded like the heat of the weather, or the rising of a flood. The principal articles in the journals were entitled 'Thermometer of the Public Mind;' the Jacobins talked of ... being 'up to the level.' Many of the provinces were in a disturbed state. A movement had been organising in Brittany ever since 1791, but the death of the Marquis de la Rouarie, its principal leader, had for the present suspended it. A more formidable insurrection was preparing in La Vendée. ... It was in the midst of these disturbances, aggravated by a suspicion of General Dumouriez's treachery, which we shall presently have to relate, that the terrible court known as the Revolutionary Tribunal was established. It was first formally proposed in the Convention March 9th, by Carrier, the miscreant afterwards notorious by his massacres at Nantes, urged by Cambacérès on the 10th, and completed that very night at the instance of Danton, who rushed to the tribune, insisted that the Assembly should not separate, till the new Court had been organised. ... The extraordinary tribunal of August 1792 had not been found to work fast enough, and it was now superseded by this new one, which became in fact only a method of massacring under the form of law. The Revolutionary Tribunal was designed to take cognisance of all counter-revolutionary attempts, of all attacks upon liberty, equality, the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, the internal and external safety of the State. A commission of six members of the Convention was to examine and report upon the cases to be brought before it, to draw up and present the acts of accusation. The tribunal was to be composed of a jury to decide upon the facts, five judges to apply the law, a public accuser, and two substitutes; from its sentence there was no appeal. Meanwhile Dumouriez had returned to the army, very dissatisfied that he had failed in his attempts to save the King and baffle the Jacobins. He had formed the design of invading Holland, dissolving the Revolutionary Committee in that country, annulling the decree of December 15th, offering neutrality to the English, a suspension of arms to the Austrians, reuniting the Belgian and Batavian republics, and proposing to France a re-union with them. In case of refusal, he designed to march upon Paris, dissolve the Convention, extinguish Jacobinism; in short, to play the part of Monk in England. This plan was confided to four persons only, among whom Danton is said to have been one. ... Dumouriez, having directed General Miranda to lay siege to Maestricht, left Antwerp for Holland, February 22nd, and by March 4th had seized Breda, Klundert and Gertruydenberg. Austria, at the instance of England, had pushed forward 112,000 men under Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg. Clairfait, with his army, at this time occupied Berghem, where he was separated from the French only by the little river Roer and the fortress of Juliers. Coburg, having joined Clairfait, March 1st, crossed the Roer, defeated the French under Dampierre at Altenhoven, and thus compelled Miranda to raise the siege of Maestricht, and retire towards Tongres. Aix-la-Chapelle was entered by the Austrians after a smart contest, and the French compelled to retreat upon Liege, while the divisions under Stengel and Neuilly, being cut off by this movement, were thrown back into Limburg. The Austrians then crossed the Meuse, and took Liege, March 6th. Dumouriez was now compelled to concentrate his forces at Louvain. From this place he wrote a threatening letter to the Convention, March 11th, denouncing the proceedings of the ministry, the acts of oppression committed in Belgium, and the decree of December 15th. This letter threw the Committee of General Defence into consternation. It was resolved to keep it secret, and Danton and Lacroix set off for Dumouriez's camp, to try what they could do with him, but found him inflexible. His proceedings had already unmasked his designs. At Antwerp he had ordered the Jacobin Club to be closed, and the members to be imprisoned, at Brussels he had dissolved the legion of 'sans-culottes.' Dumouriez was defeated by Prince Coburg at Neerwinden, March 18th, and again on the 22nd at Louvain. In a secret interview with the Austrian Colonel Mack, a day or two after, at Ath, he announced to that officer his intention to march on Paris and establish a constitutional monarchy, but nothing was said as to who was to wear the crown. {1288} The Austrians were to support Dumouriez's advance upon Paris, but not to show themselves except in case of need, and he was to have the command of what Austrian troops he might select. The French now continued their retreat, which, in consequence of these negociations, was unmolested. The Archduke Charles and Prince Coburg entered Brussels March 25th, and the Dutch towns were shortly after retaken. When Dumouriez arrived with his van at Courtrai, he was met by three emissaries of the Jacobins, sent apparently to sound him. He bluntly told them that his design was to save France, whether they called him Cæsar, Cromwell or Monk, denounced the Convention as an assembly of tyrants, said that he despised their decrees. ... At St. Amand he was met by Beurnonville, then minister of war, who was to supersede him in the command, and by four commissaries despatched by the Convention." Dumouriez arrested these, delivered them to Clairfait, and they were sent to Maestricht. "The allies were so sanguine that Dumouriez's defection would put an end to the Revolution, that Lord Auckland and Count Stahremberg, the Austrian minister, looking upon the dissolution and flight of the Convention as certain, addressed a joint note to the States-General, requesting them not to shelter such members of it as had taken any part in the condemnation of Louis XVI. But Dumouriez's army was not with him. On the road to Condé he was fired on by a body of volunteers and compelled to fly for his life (April 4th)." The day following he abandoned his army and went over to the Austrian quarters at Tournay, with a few companions, thus ending his political and military career. "The situation of France at this time seemed almost desperate. The army of the North was completely disorganised through the treachery of Dumouriez; the armies of the Rhine and Moselle were retreating; those of the Alps and Italy were expecting an attack; on the eastern side of the Pyrenees the troops were without artillery, without generals, almost without bread, while on the western side the Spaniards were advancing towards Bayonne. Brest, Cherbourg, the coasts of Brittany, were threatened by the English. The ocean ports contained only six ships of the line ready for sea, and the Mediterranean fleet was being repaired at Toulon. But the energy of the revolutionary leaders was equal to the occasion."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 5 (volume 4).

ALSO IN A. Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals, chapter 5.

F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 1-2.

C. MacFarlane, The French Revolution, volume 3, chapter 11.

FRANCE: A. D: 1793 (March-April). The insurrection in La Vendee.

"Ever since the abolition of royalty and the constitution of 1790, that is, since the 10th of August, a condemnatory and threatening silence had prevailed in Normandy. Bretagne exhibited still more hostile sentiments, and the people there were engrossed by fondness for the priests and the gentry. Nearer to the banks of the Loire, this attachment amounted to insurrection; and lastly, on the left bank of that river, in the Bocage, Le Loroux, and La Vendée, the insurrection was complete, and large armies of ten and twenty thousand men were already in the field. ... It was particularly on this left bank, in Anjou, and Upper and Lower Poitou, that the famous war of La Vendée had broken out. It was in this part of France that the influence of time was least felt, and that it had produced least change in the ancient manners. The feudal system had there acquired a truly patriarchal character; and the Revolution, instead of operating a beneficial reform in the country, had shocked the most kindly habits and been received as a persecution. The Bocage and the Marais constitute a singular country, which it is necessary to describe, in order to convey an idea of the manners of the population, and the kind of society that was formed there. Setting out from Nantes and Saumur and proceeding from the Loire to the sands of Olonne, Lucon, Fontenay, and Niort, you meet with an unequal undulating soil, intersected by ravines and crossed by a multitude of hedges, which serve to fence in each field, and which have on this account obtained for the country the name of the Bocage. As you approach the sea the ground declines, till it terminates in salt marshes, and is everywhere cut up by a multitude of small canals, which render access almost impossible. This is what is called the Marais. The only abundant produce in this country is pasturage, consequently cattle are plentiful. The peasants there grew only just sufficient corn for their own consumption, and employed the produce of their herds and flocks as a medium of exchange. It is well known that no people are more simple than those subsisting by this kind of industry. Few great towns had been built in these parts. They contained only large villages of two or three thousand souls. Between the two high-roads leading, the one from Tours to Poitiers, and the other from Nantes to La Rochelle, extended a tract thirty leagues in breadth, where there were none but cross-roads leading to villages and hamlets. The country was divided into a great number of small farms paying a rent of from five to six hundred francs, each let to a single family, which divided the produce of the cattle with the proprietor of the land. From this division of farms, the seigneurs had to treat with each family, and kept up a continual and easy intercourse with them. The simplest mode of life prevailed in the mansions of the gentry: they were fond of the chase, on account of the abundance of game; the gentry and the peasants hunted together, and they were all celebrated for their skill and vigour. The priests, men of extraordinary purity of character, exercised there a truly paternal ministry. ... When the Revolution, so beneficent in other quarters, reached this country, with its iron level, it produced profound agitation. It had been well if it could have made an exception there, but that was impossible. ... When the removal of the non-juring priests deprived the peasants of the ministers in whom they had confidence, they were vehemently exasperated, and, as in Bretagne, they ran into the woods and travelled to a considerable distance to attend the ceremonies of a worship, the only true one in their estimation. From that moment a violent hatred was kindled in their souls, and the priests neglected no means of fanning the flames. The 10th of August drove several Poitevin nobles back to their estates; the 21st of January estranged them, and they communicated their indignation to those about them. They did not conspire, however, as some have conceived. {1289} The known dispositions of the country had incited men who were strangers to it to frame plans of conspiracy. One had been hatched in Bretagne, but none was formed in the Bocage; there was no concerted plan there; the people suffered themselves to be driven to extremity. At length, the levy of 300,000 men excited in the month of March a general insurrection. ... Obliged to take arms, they chose rather to fight against the republic than for it. Nearly about the same time, that is, at the beginning of March, the drawing was the occasion of an insurrection in the Upper Bocage and in the Marais. On the 10th of March, the drawing was to take place at St. Florent, near Ancenis, in Anjou. The young men refused to draw. The guard endeavoured to force them to comply. The military commandant ordered a piece of cannon to be pointed and fired at the mutineers. They dashed forward with their bludgeons, made themselves masters of the piece, disarmed the guard, and were, at the same time, not a little astonished at their own temerity. A carrier, named Cathelineau, a man highly esteemed in that part of the country, possessing great bravery and powers of persuasion, quitting his farm on hearing the tidings, hastened to join them, rallied them, roused their courage, and gave some consistency to the insurrection by his skill in keeping it up. The very same day he resolved to attack a republican post consisting of eighty men. The peasants followed him with their bludgeons and their muskets. After a first volley, every shot of which told, because they were excellent marksmen, they rushed upon the post, disarmed it, and made themselves master of the position. Next day, Cathelineau proceeded to Chemillé, which he likewise took, in spite of 200 republicans and three pieces of cannon. A gamekeeper at the château of Maulevrier, named Stofflet, and a young peasant of the village of Chanzeau, had on their part collected a band of peasants. These came and joined Cathelineau, who conceived the daring design of attacking Chollet, the most considerable town in the country, the chief place of a district, and guarded by 500 republicans. ... The victorious band of Cathelineau entered Chollet, seized all the arms that it could find, and made cartridges out of the charges of the cannon. It was always in this manner that the Vendeans procured ammunition. ... Another much more general revolt had broken out in the Marais and the department of La Vendée. At Machecoul and Challans, the recruiting was the occasion of a universal insurrection. ... Three hundred republicans were shot by parties of 20 or 30. ...In the department of La Vendée, that is, to the south of the theatre of this war, the insurrection assumed still more consistence. The national guards of Fontenay, having set out on their march for Chantonnay, were repulsed and beaten. Chantonnay was plundered. General Verteuil, who commanded the 11th military division, on receiving intelligence of this defeat, dispatched General Marcé with 1,200 men, partly troops of the line, and partly national guards. The rebels who were met at St. Vincent, were repulsed. General Marcé had time to add 1,200 more men and nine pieces of cannon to his little army. In marching upon St. Fulgent, he again fell in with the Vendeans in a valley and stopped to restore a bridge which they had destroyed. About four in the afternoon of the 18th of March, the Vendeans, taking the initiative, advanced and attacked him ... and made themselves masters of the artillery, the ammunition, and the arms, which the soldiers threw away that they might be the lighter in their flight. These more important successes in the department of La Vendée properly so called, procured for the insurgents the name of Vendeans, which they afterwards retained, though the war was far more active out of La Vendée. The pillage committed by them in the Marais caused them to be called brigands, though the greater number did not deserve that appellation. The insurrection extended into the Marais from the environs of Nantes to Les Sables, and into Anjou and Poitou, as far as the environs of Vihiers and Parthenay. ... Easter recalled all the insurgents to their homes, from which they never would stay away long. To them a war was a sort of sporting excursion of several days; they carried with them a sufficient quantity of bread for the time, and then returned to inflame their neighbours by the accounts which they gave. Places of meeting were appointed for the month of April. The insurrection was then general and extended over the whole surface of the country. It might be comprised in a line which, commencing at Nantes, would pass through Pornic, the Isle of Noirmoutiers, Les Sables, Luçon, Fontenay, Niort, and Parthenay, and return by Airvault, Thouar, Doué, and St. Florent, to the Loire. The insurrection, begun by men who were not superior to the peasants whom they commanded, excepting by their natural qualities, was soon continued by men of a higher rank. The peasants went to the mansions and forced the nobles to put themselves at their head. The whole Marais insisted on being commanded by Charette. ... In the Bocage, the peasants applied to Messrs. de Bonchamps, d'Elbée, and de Laroche-Jacquelein, and forced them from their mansions to place them at their head." These gentlemen were afterwards joined by M. de Lescure, a cousin of Henri de Laroche-Jacquelin.

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 2, pages 146-152._

ALSO IN Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, chapter 12, (volume 3).

_Marquise de Larochejaquelein, Memoirs._

_Henri Larochejaquelein and the War in La Vendée, (Chambers Miscellany, volume 2)._

_L. I. Guiney, Monsieur Henri (de La Rochejaquelein.)_

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (March-June). Vigorous measures of the Revolutionary government. The Committee of Public Safety. The final struggle of Jacobins and Girondins. The fall of the Girondins.

The news of the defeat of Dumouriez at Neerwinden, which reached Paris on the 21st, "brought about two important measures. Jean Debry, on behalf of the Diplomatic Committee, proposed that all strangers should be expelled from France within eight days who could not give a good reason for their residence, and on the same evening the Committee of General Defence was reorganized and placed on another footing. This committee had come into existence in January, 1793. It originally consisted of 21 members, who were not directly elected by the Convention, but were chosen from the seven most important committees. {1290} But now, after the news of Neerwinden, a powerful committee was directly elected. It consisted of 24 members, and the first committee contained nine Girondins, nine deputies of the Plain, and six Jacobins, including every representative man in the Convention. ... The new Committee was given the greatest powers, and after first proposing to the Convention that the penalty of death should be decreed against every emigre over fourteen, and to everyone who protected an emigre, it proposed that Dumouriez should be summoned to the bar of the Convention." Early in April, news of the desertion of Dumouriez and the retreat of Custine, "made the Convention decide on yet further measures to strengthen the executive. Marat, who, like Danton and Robespierre, was statesman enough to perceive the need of strengthening the executive, proposed that enlarged powers should be given to the committees; and Isnard, as the reporter of the Committee of General Defence, proposed the establishment of a smaller committee of nine, with supreme and unlimited executive powers--a proposal which was warmly supported by every statesman in the Convention. ... It is noticeable that every measure which strengthened the terror when it was finally established was decreed while the Girondins could command a majority in: the Convention, and that it was a Girondin, Isnard, who proposed the immense powers of the Committee of Public Safety [Comité de Salut Public]. Upon April 6 Isnard brought up a decree defining the powers of the new committee. It was to consist of nine deputies; to confer in secret; to have supreme executive power, and authority to spend certain sums of' money without accounting for them, and it was to present a weekly report to the Convention. These immense powers were granted under the pressure of news from the frontier, and it was obvious that it would not be long before such a powerful executive could conquer the independence of the Convention. Isnard's proposals were opposed by Buzot, but decreed; and on April 7 the first Committee of Public Safety was elected. It consisted of the following members:--Barère, Delmas, Bréard, Cambon, Danton, Guyton-Morveau, Treilhard, Lacroix, and Robert Lindet. The very first proposal of the new committee was that it should appoint three representatives with every army from among the deputies of the Convention, with unlimited powers, who were to report to the committee itself. This motion was followed by a very statesmanlike one from Danton. He perceived the folly of the decree of November 18, which declared universal war against all kings. ... On his proposition the fatal decree ... was withdrawn, and it was made possible for France again to enter into the comity of European nations. It is very obvious that it was the foreign war which had developed the progress of the Revolution with such astonishing rapidity in France. It was Brunswick's manifesto which mainly caused the attack on the Tuileries on August 10; it was the surrender of Verdun which directly caused the massacres of September. It was the battle of Neerwinden which established the Revolutionary Tribunal, and that defeat and the desertion of Dumouriez which brought about the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety. The Girondins were chiefly responsible for the great war, and its first result was to destroy them as a party. ... Their early influence over the deputies of the Plain rested on a belief in their statesmanlike powers, but as time went on that influence steadily diminished. It was in vain for Danton to attempt to make peace in the Convention; bitter words on both sides had left too strong an impression ever to be effaced. The Jacobin leaders despised the Girondins; the Girondins hated the Jacobins for having won away power from them. The Jacobins formed a small but very united body, of which every member knew its own mind; they were determined to carry on the Republic at all costs, and to destroy the Girondins as quickly as they could. ... The desertion of Dumouriez had caused strong measures to be taken by the Convention, ... and all parties had concurred. ... But as soon as these important measures had been taken, which the majority of the Convention believed would enable France once more to free her frontiers from the invaders, the Girondins and Jacobins turned upon each other with redoubled ardour, and the death-struggle between them recommenced. The Girondins reopened the struggle with an attack upon Marat. Few steps could have been more foolish, for Marat, though in many ways a real statesman, had from the exaggeration of his language never obtained the influence in the Convention to which his abilities entitled him. ... But he remained the idol of the people of Paris, and in attacking him the Girondins exasperated the people of Paris in the person of their beloved journalist. On April 11 Guadet read a placard in the Convention, which Marat had posted on the walls of Paris, full of his usual libellous abuse of the Girondins. It was referred to the Committee of Legislation with other writings of Marat," and two days later, on the report of the Committee, it was voted by the Convention (half of its members being absent), that Marat should be sent before the Tribunal for trial. This called out immediate demonstrations from Marat's Parisian admirers. "On April 15, in the name of 35 sections of Paris, Pache and Hébert demanded the expulsion from the Convention of 22 of the leading Girondists as 'disturbers of the public peace,' including Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Buzot, Barbaroux, Louvet, Petion, and Lanjuinais. ... On April 22 the trial of Marat took place. He was unanimously acquitted, although most of the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal sympathized with the Girondins. ... The acquittal of Marat was a fearful blow to the Girondin party; they had in no way discredited the Jacobins, and had only made themselves unpopular in Paris. ... The Commune of Paris steadily organized the more advanced republicans of the city for an open attack upon the Girondins. ... Throughout the month of May, preparations for the final struggle went on; it was recognized by both parties that they must appeal to force, and arrangements for appealing to force were made as openly for the coup d'état of May 31 as they had been for that of August 10. On the one side, the Commune of Paris steadily concentrated its armed strength and formed its plan of action; on the other, the leading Girondins met daily at the house of Valazé, and prepared to move decrees in the Convention.'" But the Girondins were still divided among themselves. {1291} Some wished to appeal to the provinces, against Paris, which meant civil war; others opposed this as unpatriotic. On the 31st of May, and on the two days following, the Commune of Paris called out its mob to execute the determined coup d'état. On the last of these three days (June 2), the Convention surrounded, imprisoned and terrorized by armed ruffians, led by Henriot, lately appointed Commander of the National Guard, submissively decreed that the proscribed Girondin deputies, with others, to the number altogether of 31, should be placed under arrest in their own houses. This "left the members of the Mountain predominant in the Convention. The deputies of the Marsh or Plain were now docile to the voice of the Jacobin leaders," whose supremacy was now without dispute. On the preceding day, an attempt had been made, on the order of the Commune, to arrest M. Roland and two others of the ministers. Roland escaped, but Madame Roland, the more important Girondist leader, was taken and consigned to the Abbaye.

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, chapters 7-8.

ALSO IN H. A. Taine, The French Revolution, book 4, chapter 13.

W. Smyth, Lectures on the History of the French Revolution, lecture 37 (volume 2).

H. Von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 7, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (March-September). Formation of the great European Coalition against Revolutionary France. The seeds of dissension and weakness in it.

"The impression made at St. Petersburg by the execution of Louis was fully as vivid as at London: already it was evident that these two capitals were the centres of the great contest which was approaching. ... An intimate and confidential correspondence immediately commenced between Count Woronzoff, the Russian ambassador at London, and Lord Grenville, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, which terminated in a treaty between the powers, signed in London on the 25th of March. By this convention, which laid the basis of the grand alliance which afterwards brought the war to a glorious termination, it was provided that the two powers should 'employ their respective forces, as far as circumstances shall permit, in carrying on the just and necessary war in which they find themselves engaged against France; and they reciprocally engage not to lay down their arms without restitution of all the conquests which may have been made upon either of the respective powers, or upon such other states or allies to whom, by common consent, they shall extend the benefit of this treaty.' ... Shortly after [April 25], a similar convention was entered into between Great Britain and Sardinia, by which the latter power was to receive an annual subsidy of £200,000 during the whole continuance of the war, and the former to keep on foot an army of 50,000 men; and the English government engaged to procure for it entire restitution of its dominions as they stood at the commencement of the war. By another convention, with the cabinet of Madrid, signed at Aranjuez on the 25th of May, they engaged not to make peace till they had obtained full restitution for the Spaniards 'of all places, towns, and territories which belonged to them at the commencement of the war, and which the enemy may have taken during its continuance.' A similar treaty was entered into with the court of the Two Sicilies, and with Prussia [July 12 and 14], in which the clauses, prohibiting all exportation to France, and preventing the trade of neutrals with it, were the same as in the Russian treaty. Treaties of the same tenor were concluded in the course of the summer with the Emperor of Germany [August 30], and the King of Portugal [September 26]. Thus was all Europe arrayed in a great league against Republican France, and thus did the regicides of that country, as the first fruits of their cruel triumph, find themselves excluded from the pale of civilized nations. ... But while all Europe thus resounded with the note of military preparation against France, Russia had other and more interested designs in view. Amidst the general consternation at the triumphs of the French republicans, Catharine conceived that she would be permitted to pursue, without molestation, her ambitious designs against Poland [See POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796]. She constantly represented the disturbances in that kingdom as the fruit of revolutionary propagandism, which it was indispensable to crush in the first instance. ... The ambitious views of Prussia were also ... strongly turned in the same direction. ... Nor was it only the ambitious projects of Russia and Prussia against the independence of Poland which already gave ground for gloomy augury as to the issue of the war. Its issue was more immediately affected by the jealousy of Austria and Prussia, which now broke out in the most undisguised manner, and occasioned such a division of the allied forces as effectually prevented any cordial or effective co-operation continuing to exist between them. The Prussian cabinet, mortified at the lead which the Imperial generals took in the common operations, insisted upon the formation of two independent German armies; one composed of Prussians, the other of Austrians, to one or other of which the forces of all the minor states should be joined: those of Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse being grouped around the standards of Prussia; those of Bavaria, Wirtemburg, Swabia, the Palatinate, and Franconia, following the double-headed eagles of Austria. By this means, all unity of action between the two grand allied armies was broken up. ... Prince Cobourg was appointed generalissimo of the allied Armies from the Rhine to the German ocean." In April, a corps of 20,000 English had been landed in Holland, "under the command of the Duke of York, and being united to 10,000 Hanoverians and Hessians, formed a total of 30,000 men in British pay." Holland, as an ally of England, was already in the Coalition, the French having declared war, in February, against the two maritime powers, simultaneously.

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, chapter 13 (volume 4).

ALSO IN F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (April-August): Minister Genet in America. Washington's proclamation of neutrality.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.

{1292}

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June). Flight of most of the Girondists. Their appeal to the country. Insurrection in the provinces. The rising at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulon. Progress of the Vendean revolt.

"After this day [of the events which culminated on the 2d of June, but which are commonly referred to as being of 'the 31st of May,' when they began], when the people made no other use of their power than to display and to exercise the pressure of Paris over the representation, they separated without committing any excess. ... La Montaigne caused the committees to be reinstated on the morrow, with the exception of that of public safety. They threw into the majority their most decided members. ... They deposed those ministers suspected of attachment to the' conquered; sent commissioners into the doubtful departments; annulled the project of the constitution proposed by the Girondists; and charged the committee of safety to draw up in eight days a project for the constitution entirely democratical. They pressed forward the recruiting and armament of the revolutionary army--that levy of patriotism en masse. They decreed a forced loan of a million upon the rich. They sent one after the other, accused upon accused, to the revolutionary tribunal. Their sittings were no longer deliberation, but cursory motions, decreed on the instant by acclamation, and sent immediately to the different committees for execution. They stripped the executive power of the little independence and responsibility it heretofore retained. Continually called into the bosom of their committees, ministers became no more than the passive executors of the measures they decreed. From this day, also, discussion was at an end; action was all. The disappearance of the Girondists deprived the Revolution of its voice. Eloquence was proscribed with Vergniaud, with the exception of those few days when the great party chiefs, Danton and Robespierre, spoke, not to refute opinions, but to intimate their will, and promulgate their orders. The Assemblies became almost mute. A dead silence reigned henceforth in the Convention. In the meanwhile the 22 Girondists [excepting Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos, Tonfrède, and a few others, who remained under the decree of arrest, facing all consequences], the members of the Commission of Twelve, and a certain number of their friends, warned of their danger by this first blow of ostracism, fled into their departments, and hurried to protest against the mutilation of the country. ... Robespierre, Danton, the Committee of Public Safety, and even the people themselves, seemed to shut their eyes to these evasions, as if desirous to be rid of victims whom it would pain them to strike. Buzot, Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Salles, Pétion, Bergoing, Lesage, Cressy, Kervélégan and Lanjuinais, threw themselves into Normandy; and after having traversed it, inciting all the departments between Paris and the Ocean, established at Caen the focus and centre of insurrection against the tyranny of Paris. They gave themselves the name of the Central Assembly of Resistance to Oppression. Biroteau and Chasset had arrived at Lyons. The armed sections of this town were agitated with contrary and already bloody commotion [the Jacobin municipality having been overthrown, after hard fighting, and its chief, Chalier, put to death]. Brissot fled to Moulins, Robaut St. Etienne to Nismes. Grangeneuve, sent by Vergniaud, Tonfrède, and Ducos, to Bordeaux, raised troops ready to march upon the capital. Toulouse followed the same impulse of resistance to Paris. The departments of the west were on fire, and rejoiced to see the republic, torn into contending factions, offer them the aid of one of the two parties for the restoration of royalty. The mountainous centre of France ... was agitated. ... Marseilles enrolled 10,000 men at the voice of Rebecqui and the young friends of Barbaroux. They imprisoned the commissioners of the Convention, Roux and Antiboul. Royalty, always brooding in the south, insensibly transformed this movement of patriotism into a monarchical insurrection. Rebecqui, in despair ... at seeing loyalty avail itself of the rising in the south, escaped remorse by suicide, throwing himself into the sea. Lyons and Bordeaux likewise imprisoned the envoys of the Convention as Maratists. The first columns of the combined army of the departments began to move in all directions; 6,000 Marseillais were already at Avignon, ready to reascend the Rhone, and form a junction with the insurgents of Nismes and of Lyons. Brittany and Normandy uniting, concentrated their first forces at Evreux."

A de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, book 43 (volume 3).

The royalists of the west, "during this almost general rising of the departments, continued to extend their enterprises. After their first victories, the Vendeans seized on Bressure, Argenton, and Thouars. Entirely masters of their own country, they proposed getting possession of the frontiers, and opening the way to revolutionary France, as well as communications with England. On the 6th of June, the Vendean army, composed of 40,000 men, under Cathelineau, Lescure, Stofflet, and La Rochejacquelin, marched on Saumur, which it took by storm. It then prepared to attack and capture Nantes, to secure the possession of its own country, and become masters of the course of the Loire. Cathelineau, at the head of the Vendean troops, left a garrison in Saumur, took Angers, crossed the Loire, pretended to advance upon Tours and Lemans, and then rapidly threw himself upon Nantes, which he attacked on the right bank, while Charette was to attack it on the left."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June-October). The new Jacobin Constitution postponed. Concentration of power in the Committee of Public Safety. The irresistible machine of revolutionary government.

"It was while affairs were in this critical condition that the Mountain undertook the sole conduct of the government in France. They had hitherto resisted all attempts of the Girondists to establish a new constitution in place of that of 1791. They now undertook the work themselves, and in four days drew up a constitution, as simple as it was democratic, which was issued on the 24th of June. Every citizen of the age of 21 could vote directly in the election of deputies, who were chosen for a year at a time and were to sit in a single assembly. The assembly had the sole power of making laws, but a period was fixed during which the constituents could protest against its enactments. The executive power was entrusted to 24 men, who were chosen by the assembly from candidates nominated by electors chosen by the original voters. Twelve out of the 24 were to be renewed every six months. But this constitution was intended merely to satisfy the departments, and was never put into practice. The condition of France required a greater concentration of power, and this was supplied by the Committee of Public Safety. {1293} Ever since the 6th of April the original members of the Committee had been re-elected, but on the 10th of July its composition was changed. Danton ceased to be a member, and Barère was joined by Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and, in a short time, Carnot. These men became the absolute rulers of France. The Committee had no difficulty in carrying their measures in the Convention, from which the opposition party had disappeared. All the state obligations were rendered uniform and inscribed in 'the great book of the national debt.' The treasury was filled by a compulsory loan from the rich. Every income between 1,000 and 10,000 francs had to pay ten per cent., and every excess over 10,000 francs had to be contributed in its entirety for one year. To recruit the army a levee en masse was decreed. 'The young men shall go to war; the married men shall forge arms and transport supplies; the wives shall make tents and clothes and serve in the hospitals; the children shall tear old linen into lint; the aged shall resort to the public places to excite the courage of the warriors and hatred against kings.' Nor were measures neglected against domestic enemies. On the 6th of September a revolutionary army, consisting of 6,000 men and 1,200 artillery men, was placed at the disposal of the Committee to carry out its orders throughout France. On the 17th the famous 'law of the suspects' was carried. Under the term 'suspect' were included all those who by words, acts or writings had shown themselves in favour of monarchy or of federalism, the relatives of the emigrants, etc., and they were to be imprisoned until the peace. As the people were in danger of famine, a maximum price, already established for corn, was decreed for all necessaries; if a merchant gave up his trade he became a suspect, and the hoarding of provisions was punished by death. On the 10th of October the Convention definitely transferred its powers to the Committee, by subjecting all officials to its authority and by postponing the trial of the new constitution until the peace."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 23, section 11.

The Committee of Public Safety--the "Revolutionary Government," as Danton had named it, on the 2d of August, when he demanded the fearful powers that were given to it--"disposed of all the national forces; it appointed and dismissed the ministers, generals, Representatives on Mission, the judges and juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The latter instrument became its strong arm; it was, in fact, a court martial worked by civil magistrates. By its agents it directed the departments and armies, the political situation without and within, striking down at the same time the rebels within and the enemies without: for, together with the constitution were, of course, suspended the municipal laws and the political machinery of the communes; and thus cities and villages hitherto indifferent or opposed to the Revolution were republicanized. By the Tribunal it disposed of the persons of individuals; by requisition and the law of maximum (with which we are going to be better acquainted) it disposed of their fortunes. It can, indeed, be said that the whole of France was placed in a state of siege; but that was the price of its salvation. ... But Danton has committed, a great mistake,--one that he and especially France, will come to rue. He has declined to become a member of the Revolutionary Government, which has been established on his motion. 'It is my firm resolve not to be a member of such a government,' he had said. In other words, he has declined re-election as a member of the Committee de Salut Public, now it has been erected into a dictatorship. He unfortunately lacked all ambition. ... When afterwards, on September 8, one Gaston tells the Convention, 'Danton has a mighty revolutionary head. No one understands so well as he to execute what he himself proposes. I therefore move that he be added to the Revolutionary Government, in spite of his protest,' and it is so unanimously ordered, he again peremptorily declines. 'No, I will not be a member; but as a spy on it I intend to work.' A most fateful resignation! for while he still for a short time continues to exercise his old influence on the government, both from the outside, in his own person, and inside the Committee, in the person of Hérault de Sechelles, selected in his place, he very soon loses ground more and more,--so much so even that Hérault, his friend, is 'put in quarantine,' as was said in the Committee. And very natural. A statesman cannot have power when he shirks responsibility, and without power he soon loses all influence with the multitude. Those who now succeed him in power are Robespierre, Barère, Billaud-Varennes, and Carnot,--the two last very good working members, good men of the second rank, but after Danton not a single man is left fit to be leader."

L. Gronlund, Ça Ira! or Danton in the French Revolution, chapter 4.

ALSO IN C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapter 2.

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution. volume 2, chapter 9.

H. C. Lockwood, Constitutional History of France, chapter 1, and appendix 2.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July). The assassination of Marat.

"Amongst those who had placed faith in the Girondists and their ideals was a young woman of Normandy, Charlotte Corday. ... When the mob of Paris rose and drove with insult from the Convention those who in her eyes were the heroic defenders of the universal principles of truth and justice, she bitterly resented the wrong that had been done, not only to the men themselves, but to that France of which she regarded them as the true representatives. Owing to Marat's persistent cry for a dictatorship and for shedding of blood, it was he who, in the departments, was accounted especially responsible both for the expulsion of the Girondists and for the tyranny which now began to weigh as heavily upon the whole country as it had long weighed upon the capital. Incapable as all then were of comprehending the causes which had brought about the fall of the Girondists, Charlotte Corday imagined that by putting an end to this man's life, she could also put an end to the system of government which he advocated. Informing her friends that she wished to visit England, she left Caen and travelled in the diligence to Paris. On her arrival she purchased a knife, and afterwards obtained entrance into Marat's house on the pretext that she brought news which she desired to communicate to him. She knew that he would be eager to obtain intelligence of the movements of the Girondist deputies still in Normandy. Marat was ill at the time, and in a bath when Charlotte Corday was admitted. {1294} She gave him the names of the deputies who were at Caen. 'In a few days,' he said, as he wrote them hastily down, 'I will have them all guillotined in Paris.' As she heard these words she plunged the knife into his body and killed him on the spot. The cry uttered by the murdered man was heard, and Charlotte, who did not attempt to escape, was captured and conveyed to prison amid the murmurs of an angry crowd. It had been from the first her intention to sacrifice her life for the cause of her country, and, glorying in her deed, she met death with stoical indifference. 'I killed one man,' she said, when brought before the revolutionary court, 'in order to save the lives of 100,000 others.' ... His [Marat's] murder brought about contrary results to those which the woman who ignorantly and rashly had flung away her life hoped by the sacrifice to effect. ... He was regarded as a martyr by no small portion of the working population of Paris. ... His murder excited indignation beyond the comparatively narrow circle of those who took an active part in political life, while at the same time it added a new impulse to the growing cry for blood."

B. M. Gardiner, The French Revolution, chapter 7.

ALSO IN C. Mac Farlane, The French Revolution, volume 3, chapter 13.

J. Michelet, Women of the French Revolution, chapter 18-19.

_Mrs. R. K. Van Alstine, Charlotte Corday._

A. Dobson, Four French Women, chapter 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December). The civil war. Sieges of Lyons and Toulon. Submission of Caen, Marseilles and Bordeaux. Crushing of the Vendeans.

"The insurgents in Calvados [Normandy] were easily suppressed; at the very first skirmish at Vernon [July 13], 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 [August 23] 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 8,000 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 Lyonnese 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 position 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 [October 9], where they awaited the orders of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself [in the siege of which Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the artillery], 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 [December 19]. Everywhere the convention was victorious. The Vendeans 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 Vendean 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 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 17,000 veterans, who, relieved from operations against the coalesced powers 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 [the last being October 17]. 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 80,000 persons. This emigration through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection, became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly routed at Mons [Le Mans, December 12], they were destroyed at Savenay [December 23], 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 their land of Noir-moutiers from Charette, the dispersion of the troops of that leader, the death of Laroche jacquelin, rendered the republicans masters of the country. {1295} 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 movable 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."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 8.

ALSO IN _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 2, pages 328-335, and 398-410._

_Marchioness de Larochejaquelain, Memoirs._

A. des Echerolles, Early Life, volume 1, chapters 5-7.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December). Progress of the war of the Coalition. Dissensions among the Allies. Unsuccessful siege of Dunkirk. French Victories of Hondschotten and Wattignies. Operations on the Rhine and elsewhere.

"The civil war in which France for a moment appeared engulfed was soon confined to a few narrowing centres. What, in the meantime, had been the achievements of the mighty Coalition of banded Europe? Success, that might have been great, was attained on the Alpine and Pyrenean frontiers; and had the Piedmontese and Spaniards been well led they could have overrun Provence and Rousillon, and made the insurrection of the South fatal. But here, as elsewhere, the Allies did little; and, though defeated in almost every encounter, the republican levies held their ground against enemies who nowhere advanced. It was, however, in the North and the North-east that the real prize of victory was placed; and no doubt can exist that had unanimity in the councils of the Coalition prevailed, or had a great commander been in its camp, Paris might have been captured without difficulty, and the Revolution been summarily put down. But the Austrians, the Prussians, and the English, were divided in mind; they had no General capable of rising above the most ordinary routine of war; and the result was that the allied armies advanced tardily on an immense front, each leader thinking of his own plans only, and no one venturing to press forward boldly, or to pass the fortresses on the hostile frontiers, though obstacles like these could be of little use without the aid of powerful forces in the field. In this manner half the summer was lost in besieging Mayence, Valenciennes, and Condé; and when, after the fall of these places [July-August], an attempt was made to invade Picardy, dissensions between the Allies broke out, and the British contingent was detached to besiege Dunkirk, while the Austrians lingered in French Flanders, intent on enlarging by conquest Belgium, at that period an Austrian Province. Time was thus gained for the French armies, which, though they had made an honorable resistance, had been obliged to fall back at all points, and were in no condition to oppose their enemy; and the French army in the North, though driven nearly to the Somme, within a few marches of the capital, was allowed an opportunity to recruit its strength, and was not, as it might have been easily, destroyed. A part of the hastily raised levies was now incorporated in its ranks; and as these were largely composed of seasoned men from the old army of the Bourbon Monarchy, and from the volunteers of Valmy and Jemmapes, a respectable force was before long mustered. At the peremptory command of the Jacobin Government, this was at once directed against the invaders, who did not know what an invasion meant. The Duke of York, assailed with vigor and skill, was compelled to raise the siege of Dunkirk [by the French victory at Hondschotten, September 8]; and, to the astonishment of Europe, the divided forces of the halting and irresolute Coalition began to recede before the enemies, who saw victory yielded to them, and who, feeble soldiers as they often were, were nevertheless fired by ardent patriotism. As the autumn closed the trembling balance of fortune inclined decidedly on the side of the Republic. The French recruits, hurried to the frontier in masses, became gradually better soldiers, under the influence of increasing success. Carnot, a man of great but overrated powers, took the general direction of military affairs; and though his strategy was not sound, it was much better than the imbecility of his foes. At the same time, the Generals of the fallen Monarchy having disappeared, or, for the most part, failed, brilliant names began to emerge from the ranks, and to lead the suddenly raised armies; and though worthless selections were not seldom made, more than one private and sergeant gave proof of capacity of no common order. Terror certainly added strength to patriotism, for thousands were driven to the camp by force, and death was the usual penalty of a defeated chief; but it was not the less a great national movement, and high honor is justly due to a people which, in a situation that might have seemed hopeless, made such heroic: and noble efforts, even though it triumphed through the weakness of its foe. Owing to a happy inspiration of Carnot, a detachment was rapidly marched from the Rhine, where the Prussians remained in complete inaction; and with this reinforcement Jourdan gained a victory at Wattignies [October 16] over the Austrians, and opened the way into the Low Countries. At the close of the year the youthful Hoche, once a corporal, but a man of genius, who had given studious hours to the theory of war, divided Brunswick from the Austrian Würmser by a daring and able march through the Vosges; and the baffled Allies were driven out of Alsace, the borders of which they had just invaded. By these operations the great Northern frontier, the really vulnerable part of France, was almost freed from the invaders' presence; and, though less was achieved on the Southern frontier, the enemies of the Republic began to lose courage."

W. O'C. Morris, The French Revolution, chapter 6.

"The Prussians had remained wholly inactive for two months after the fall of Mayence, contenting themselves with watching the French in their lines at Weissenburg. Wearied at length by the torpor of his opponents, Moreau assumed the initiative, and attacked the Prussian corps at Pirmasens. This bold attempt was repulsed (September 14) with the loss of 4,000 men; but it was not till a month later (October 13) that the Allies resumed the offensive, when the Weissenburg lines were stormed by a mixed force of Austrians and Prussians, and the French fled in confusion almost to Strasburg. But this important advantage led to no results, though the defeat of the Republican movement was hailed by a royalist movement in Alsace. {1296} The Austrians, immovable in their plans of conquest, refused to occupy Strasburg in the name of Louis XVII.; and the unfortunate royalists, abandoned to Republican vengeance, were indiscriminately consigned to the guillotine by a decree of the Convention, while the confederate army was occupied in the siege of Landau. But the lukewarmness of the Prussians had now become so evident, that it was only by the most vehement remonstrances of the Austrian cabinet that they were prevented from seceding altogether from the league; and the Republicans, taking advantage of the disunion of their enemies, again attacked the Allies (December 26), who were routed and driven over the Rhine [abandoning the siege of Landau]; while the victors, following up their success, retook Spires, and advanced to the gates of Mannheim. The operations in the Pyrenees and on the side of Savoy, during this campaign, led to no important results. On the western extremity of the Pyrenees, the Spaniards [had] entered France in the middle of April, routed their opponents in several encounters, and drove them into St. Jean Pied-de-Poet. An invasion of Roussillon, at the same time, was equally successful; and the Spaniards maintained themselves in the province till the end of the year, taking the fortresses of Bellegarde and Collioure, and routing two armies which attempted to dislodge them, at Truellas (September 22) and Boulon (December 7). An attempt of the Sardinians to expel the French from their conquests in Savoy was less fortunate; and, at the close of the campaign, both parties remained in their former position."

A. Alison, Epitome of History of Europe, pages 58-59 (chapter 13, volume 4 of complete work).

ALSO IN: H. Von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 8, chapter 2 (volume 3).

E. Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, volume 1, chapters 9-11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (August). Emancipation in San Domingo proclaimed.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (September-December). The "Reign of Terror" becomes the "Order of the Day." Trial and execution of Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, and the Girondists.

"On the 16th of September, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine surrounded the Hôtel de Ville, clamoring for 'Bread.' Hébert and Chaumette appeased the mob by vociferous harangues against rich men and monopolists, and by promising to raise a revolutionary army with orders to scour the country, empty the granaries, and put the grain within reach of the people. 'The next thing will he a guillotine for the monopolists,' added Hébert. This had been demanded by memorials from the most ultra provincial Jacobins. The next day the Convention witnessed the terrible reaction of this scene. At the opening of the session Merlin de Douai proposed and carried a vote for the division of the revolutionary tribunal into four sections, in order to remedy the dilatoriness complained of by Robespierre and the Jacobins. The municipality soon arrived, followed by a great crowd; Chaumette, in a furious harangue, demanded a revolutionary army with a travelling guillotine. The ferocious Billaud-Varennes declared that this was not enough, and that all suspected persons must be arrested immediately. Danton interposed with the powerful eloquence of his palmy days; he approved of an immediate decree for the formation of a revolutionary army, but made no mention of the guillotine. ... Danton's words were impetuous, but his ideas were politic and deliberate. His motions were carried, amid general acclamation. But the violent propositions of Billaud-Varennes and others were also carried. The decree forbidding domiciliary visits and night arrests, which had been due to the Girondists, was revoked. A deputation from the Jacobins and the sections demanded the indictment of the 'monster' Brissot with his accomplices, Vergniaud, Gensonné, and other 'miscreants.' 'Lawgivers,' said the spokesman of the deputation, 'let the Reign of Terror be the order of the day!' Barère, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, obtained the passage of a decree organizing an armed force to restrain counter-revolutionists and protect supplies. Fear led him to unite with the most violent, and to adopt the great motto of the Paris Commune, 'Let the Reign of Terror be the order of the day!' 'The royalists are conspiring,' he said; 'they want blood. Well they shall have that of the conspirators, of the Brissots and Marie Antoinettes!' The association of these two names shows what frenzy prevailed in the minds of the people. The next day September 6, two of the most formidable Jacobins, the cold, implacable Billaud-Varennes and the fiery Collot d'Herbois, were added to the Committee of Public Safety. Danton persisted in his refusal to return to it. This proves how mistaken the Girondists had been in accusing him of aspiring to the dictatorship. He kept aloof from the Committee chiefly because he knew that they were lost, and did not wish to contribute to their fall. Before leaving the ministry Garat had tried to prevent the Girondists from being brought to trial; upon making known his wish to Robespierre and Danton, he found Robespierre implacable, while Danton, with tears coursing down his rugged cheeks replied, 'I cannot save them!' ... On the 10th of October Saint-Just, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, read to the Assembly an important report upon the situation of the Republic. It was violent and menacing to others beside the enemies of the Mountain; Hébert and his gang might well tremble. He inveighed not only against those who were plundering the government, but against the whole administration. ... Saint-Just's report had been preceded on the 3d of October by a report from the new Committee of Public Safety, concluding with the indictment of 40 deputies; 39 were Girondists or friends of the Gironde; the fortieth was the ex-Duke of Orleans. Twenty-one of these 39 were now in the hands of their enemies, and of these 21 only 9 belonged to the first deputies indicted on the 2d of June; the remainder had left Paris hoping to organize outside resistance, and had been declared outlawed. The deputies subsequently added to this number were members of the Right who had signed protests against the violation of the national representation on that fatal day. ... It was decided at the same session to bring the 40 deputies, together with Marie Antoinette, to trial. The Jacobins and the commune had long been demanding the trial of the unhappy queen, and were raising loud clamors over the plots for her deliverance. {1297} She might perhaps have escaped from the Temple if she would have consented to leave her children. During July a sorrow equal to that of the 21st of January had been inflicted on her; she had been separated from her young son under the pretence that she treated him like a king, and was bringing him up to make 'a tyrant of him.' The child was placed in another part of the Temple, and his education was intrusted to a vulgar and brutal shoemaker, named Simon. Nevertheless the fate of Marie Antoinette at this epoch was still doubtful; neither the Committee of Public Safety nor the ministry desired her death. While Lebrun, the friend of the Girondists, was minister of foreign affairs, a project had been formed which would have saved her life. Danton knew of it and aided it. ... This plan was a negotiation with Venice, Tuscany, and Naples, the three Italian States yet neutral, who were to pledge themselves to maintain their wavering neutrality, in consideration of a guaranty of the safety of Marie Antoinette and her family. Two diplomatic agents who afterwards held high posts in France, Marat and Sémonville, were intrusted with this affair. As they were crossing from Switzerland into Italy, they were arrested, in violation of the law of nations, upon the neutral territory of the Grisons by an Austrian detachment (July 25). ... At tidings of the arrest of the French envoys, Marie Antoinette was separated from her daughter and sister-in-law Elizabeth, and transferred to the Conciergerie. On the 14th of October she appeared before the revolutionary tribunal. To the accusation of the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, made up of calumnies against her private life, and for the most part well-founded imputations against her political conduct, she opposed a plausible defence, which effaced as far as possible her part in the late government. ... The following questions were put to the jurors: 'Has Marie Antoinette aided in movements designed to assist the foreign enemies of the Republic to open French territory to them and to facilitate the progress of their arms? Has she taken part in a conspiracy tending to incite civil war?' The answer was in the affirmative, and the sentence of death was passed on her. The decisive portions which we now possess of the queen's correspondence with Austria had not then been made public; but enough was known to leave no doubt of her guilt, which had the same moral excuses as that of her husband. ... She met death [October 16] with courage and resignation. The populace who had hated her so much did not insult her last moments. ... A week after the queen's death the Girondists were summoned before the revolutionary tribunal. Brissot and Lasource alone had tried to escape this bloody ordeal, and to stir up resistance against it in the South. Vergniaud, Gensonné, and Valazé remained unshaken in their resolve to await trial. Gensonné, who had been placed in the keeping of a Swiss whose life he had saved on the 10th of August, and who had become a gendarme, might have escaped, but he refused to profit by this man's gratitude. ... The act of indictment drawn up by the ex-Feuillant Amar was only a repetition of the monstrous calumnies which had circulated through the clubs and the journals. Brissot was accused of having ruined the colonies by advocating the liberation of slaves, and of having drawn foreign arms upon France by declaring war on kings. The whole trial corresponded to this beginning. ... On the 29th the Jacobins appeared at the bar of the Convention, and called for a decree giving the jurors of the revolutionary tribunal the right to bring the proceedings to a close as soon as they believed themselves sufficiently enlightened. Robespierre and Barère supported the Jacobin demand. Upon Robespierre's motion it was decreed that after three days' proceedings, the jurors might declare themselves ready to render their verdict. The next day the jurors availed themselves of their privilege, and declared themselves sufficiently informed, although they had not heard the evidence for acquittal, neither the accused nor their counsel having been allowed to plead their cause. Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Valazé, Bishop Fauchet, Ducos, Boyer-Fonfrède, Lasource, and their friends were declared guilty of having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, and against the liberty and safety of the French people. ... Danton, who had not been an accomplice in their death, had retired to his mother's home at Arcis-sur-Aube, that he might not be a witness thereof. The condemned were brought back to hear their sentence. The greater part of them rose up with a common impulse, and cried, 'We are innocent! People, they are deceiving you!' The crowd remained motionless and silent. ... At midnight they partook of a last repast, passing the rest of the night in converse about their native land, their remnant of life being cheered by news of victory and pleasant sallies from young Ducos, who might have escaped, but preferred to share his friend Fonfréde's fate. Vergniaud had been given a subtle poison by Condorcet, but threw it away, choosing to die with his companions. One of his noble utterances gives us the key to his life. 'Others sought to consummate the Revolution by terror; I would accomplish it by love.' Next day, October 31, at noon, the prisoners were led forth, and as the five carts containing them left the Conciergerie, they struck up the national hymn ... and shouts of 'Long live the Republic.' The sounds died away as their number decreased, but did not cease until the last of the 21 mounted the fatal platform. ... The murderers of the Girondists were not likely to spare the illustrious woman who was at once the inspiration and the honor of that party, and the very same day Madame Roland who had been for five months a prisoner at St. Pelagie and the Abbaye, was transferred to the Conciergerie. Hébert and his followers had long clamored for her head. During her captivity she wrote her Memoirs, which unfortunately have not been preserved complete; no other souvenir of the Revolution equals this, although it is not always reliable, for Madame Roland had feminine weaknesses of intellect, despite her masculine strength of soul; she was prejudiced against all who disagreed with her, and regarded caution and compromise with a noble but impolitic scorn. ... The 18th Brumaire (November 10), she was summoned before the revolutionary tribunal; when she left her cell, clad in white, her dark hair, floating loosely over her shoulders, a smile on her lips and her face sparkling with life and animation. ... {1298} She was condemned in advance, not being allowed a word in her own defence, and was declared guilty of being an author or accomplice 'of a monstrous conspiracy against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic.' She heard her sentence calmly, saying to the judges: 'You deem me worthy the fate of the great men you have murdered. I will try to display the same courage on the scaffold.' She was taken directly to the Place de la Revolution, a man condemned for treason being placed in the same cart, who was overwhelmed with terror. She passed the mournful journey in soothing him, and on reaching the scaffold bid him mount first, that his sufferings might not be prolonged. As she took her place in turn, her eye fell on a colossal statue of Liberty, erected August 10, 1793. 'O Liberty,' she cried, 'what crimes are committed in thy name!' Some say that she said, 'O Liberty, how they have deceived thee!' Thus died the noblest woman in history since the incomparable Joan, who saved France! ... The bloody tribunal never paused; famous men of every party succeeded each other at the fatal bar, the ex-Duke of Orleans among them, but four days earlier than Madame Roland. ... The day after Madame Roland's trial began that of the venerable Bailli, ex-mayor of Paris and ex-president of the Constituent Assembly, a man who played a great part early in the Revolution, but faded out of sight with the constituent power."

Henry Martin, Popular History of France, 1789-1877, volume 1, chapter 16.

ALSO IN A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, chapters 46-52 (volume 3).

C. D. Yonge, Life of Marie Antoinette, chapter 39.

Madame Campan, Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette, volume 2, conclusion.

S. Marceau, Reminiscences of a Regicide, chapter 11.

Count Beugnot, Life, volume 1, chapter 6.

_Lord R. Gower, Last Days of Marie Antoinette._

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (October). Life in Paris during the Reign of Terror. Gaiety in the Prisons. The Tricoteuses, or knitting women. Revolutionary costumes and modes of speech. The guillotine as plaything and ornament.

"By the end of October, 1793, the Committee of General Security had mastered Paris, and established the Reign of Terror there by means of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and could answer to the Great Committee of Public Safety for the tranquillity of the capital. There were no more riots; men were afraid even to express their opinions, much less to quarrel about them; the system of denunciation made Paris into a hive of unpaid spies, and ordinary crimes, pocket-picking and the like, vanished as if by magic. Yet it must not be supposed that Paris was gloomy or dull; on the contrary, the vast majority of citizens seemed glad to have an excuse to avoid politics, of which they had had a surfeit during the last four years, and to turn their thoughts to the literary side of their favourite journals, to the theatres, and to art. ... The dull places of Paris were the Revolutionary Committees, the Jacobin Club, the Convention, the Hôtel de Brienne, where the Committee of General Security sat, and the Pavillon de l'Egalité, formerly the Pavillon de Flore, in the Tuileries, where the Great Committee of Public Safety laboured. ... Elsewhere men were lighthearted and gay, following their usual avocations, and busy in their pursuit of pleasure or of gain. It is most essential to grasp the fact that there was no particular difference, for the vast majority of the population, in living in Paris during the Reign of Terror and at other times. The imagination of posterity, steeped in tales of the tumbrils bearing their burden to the guillotine, and of similar stories of horror, has conceived a ghastly picture of life at that extraordinary period, and it is only after living for months amongst the journals, memoirs, and letters of the time that one can realize the fact that to the average Parisian the necessity of getting his dinner or his evening's amusement remained the paramount thought of his daily life. ... Strange to say, nowhere was life more happy and gay than in the prisons of Paris, where the inmates lived in the constant expectation that the haphazard chance of being brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal and condemned to death might befall them at any moment. ... A little more must be said about the market-women, the tricoteuses, or knitting-women of infamous memory. These market-women had been treated as heroines ever since their march to Versailles in October, 1789. ... They formed their societies after the fashion of the Jacobin Club, presided over by Renée Audu, Agnès Lefevre, Marie Louise Bouju, and Rose Lacombe, and went about the streets of Paris insulting respectably dressed people, and hounding on the sans-culottes to deeds of atrocity. These Mænads were encouraged by Marat, and played an important part in the street history of Paris, up to the Reign of Terror, when their power was suddenly taken from them. On May 21, 1793, they were excluded by a decree from the galleries of the Convention; on May 26 they were forbidden to form part of any political assembly; and when they appealed from the Convention to the Commune of Paris, Chaumette abruptly told them 'that the Republic had no need of Joans of Arc.' Thus deprived of active participation in politics, the market-women became the tricoteuses, or knitting-women, who used to take their seats in the Place de la Revolution, and watch the guillotine as they knitted. Their active power for good or harm was gone. ... Life during the Terror in Paris ... differed in little things, in little affectations of liberty and equality, which are amusing to study. The fashions of dress everywhere betrayed the new order of things. A few men, such as Robespierre, might still go about with powdered hair and in knee-breeches, but the ordinary male costume of the time was designed to contrast in every way with the costume of a dandy of the 'ancien régime.' Instead of breeches, the fashion was to wear trousers; instead of shoes, top-boots; and instead of shaving, the young Parisian prided himself on letting his moustache grow. In female costume a different motive was at work. Only David's art disciples ventured to imitate the male apparel of ancient Greece and Rome, but such imitation became the fashion among women. Waists disappeared; and instead of stiffened skirts and narrow bodices, women wore short loose robes, which they fancied resembled Greek chitons; sandals took the place of high-heeled shoes; and the hair, instead of being worked up into elaborate edifices, was allowed to flow down freely. For ornaments, gun-metal and steel took the place of gold, silver and precious stones. ... The favourite design was the guillotine. {1299} Little guillotines were worn as brooches, as earrings and as clasps, and the women of the time simply followed the fashion without realizing what it meant. Indeed, the worship of the guillotine was one of the most curious features of the epoch. Children had toy guillotines given them; models were made to cut off imitation heads, when wine or sweet syrup flowed in place of blood; and hymns were written to La Sainte Guillotine, and jokes made upon it, as the 'national razor.' ... It is well known that the desire to emphasize the abolition of titles was followed by the abolition of the terms 'Monsieur' and 'Madame,' and that their places were taken by 'Citizen' and 'Citizeness;' and also how the use of the second person plural was dropped, and it was considered a sign of a good republican to tutoyer everyone, that is, to call them 'thou' and 'thee.' ... The Reign of Terror in Paris seems to us an age of unique experiences, a time unparalleled in the history of the world; yet to the great majority of contemporaries it did not appear so; they lived their ordinary lives, and it was only in exceptional cases that the serenity of their days was interrupted, or that their minds were exercised by anything more than the necessity of earning their daily bread."

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, chapter 10.

ALSO IN J. Michelet, Women of the French Revolution, chapters 20-30.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (October). The new republican calendar.

"Before the year ended the legislators of Paris voted that there was no God, and destroyed or altered nearly everything that had any reference to Christianity. Robespierre, who would have stopped short at deism, and who would have preserved the external decencies, was overruled and intimidated by Hébert and his frowsy crew, who had either crept into the governing committees or had otherwise made themselves a power in the state. ... All popular journalists, patriots, and public bodies, had begun dating 'First Year of Liberty,' or 'First Year of the Republic;' and the old calendar had come to be considered as superstitious and slavish, as an abomination in the highest degree disgraceful to free and enlightened Frenchmen. Various petitions for a change had been presented; and at length the Convention had employed the mathematicians Romme and Monge, and the astronomer Laplace, to make a new republican calendar for the new era. These three philosophers, aided by Fabre d'Eglantine, who, as a poet, furnished the names, soon finished their work, which was sanctioned by the Convention and decreed into universal use as early as the 5th of October. It divided the year into four equal seasons, and twelve equal months of 30 days each. The five odd days which remained were to be festivals, and to bear the name of 'Sansculottides.' ... One of these five days was to be consecrated to Genius, one to Industry, the third to Fine Actions, the fourth to Rewards, the fifth to Opinion. ... In leap-years, when there would be six days to dispose of, the last of those days or Sansculottides was to be consecrated to the Revolution, and to be observed in all times with all possible solemnity. The months were divided into three decades, or portions of ten days each, and, instead of the Christian sabbath, once in seven days, the décadi, or tenth day, was to be the day of rest. ... The decimal method of calculation ... was to preside over all divisions: thus, instead of our twenty-four hours to the day, and sixty minutes to the hour, the day was divided into ten parts, and the tenth was to be subdivided by tens and again by tens to the minutest division of time. New dials were ordered to mark the time in this new way, but, before they were finished, it was found that the people were puzzled and perplexed by this last alteration, and therefore this part of the calendar was adjourned for a year, and the hours, minutes and seconds were left as they were. As the republic commenced on the 21st of September close on the [autumnal] equinox, the republican year was made to commence at that season. The first month in the year (Fabre d'Eglantine being god-father to them all) was called Vendémiaire, or the vintage month, the second Brumaire, or the foggy month, the third Frimaire, or the frosty month. These were the three autumn months. Nivôse, Pluviôse, and Ventôse, or the snowy, rainy and windy, were the three winter months. Germinal, Floreal, and Prairial, or the bud month, the flower month, and the meadow month, formed the spring season. Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor, or reaping month, heat month, and fruit month, made the summer, and completed the republican year. In more ways than one all this was calculated for the meridian of Paris, and could suit no other physical or moral climate. ... But the strangest thing about this republican calendar was its duration. It lasted till the 1st of January, 1806."

C. Mac Farlane, The French Revolution, volume 4, volume 3.

The Republican Calendar for the Year Two of the Republic (September 22, 1793-Sept. 21, 1794) is synchronized with the Gregorian Calendar as follows: 1 Vendémiaire = September 22; 1 Brumaire = October 22; 1 Frimaire = November 21; 1 Nivôse = December 21; 1 Pluviôse = January 20; 1 Ventôse = February 19; 1 Germinal = March 21; 1 Floreal = April 20; 1 Prairial = May 20; 1 Messidor = June 19; 1 Thermidor = July 19; 1 Fructidor= August 18; 1st to 5th Sansculottides = September 17-21.

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, appendix 12.

ALSO IN _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 2, pages 364-365._

FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (November). Abandonment of Christianity. The Worship of Reason instituted.

"The earliest steps towards a public abandonment of Christianity appear to have been taken by Fouché, the future minister of Police, and Duke of Otranto. ... He published at Nevers (October 10, 1793) a decree" ordaining that "no forms of religious worship be practised except within their respective temples;" that "ministers of religion are forbidden, under pain of imprisonment, to wear their official costumes in any other places besides their temples;" and that the inscription, "Death is an eternal sleep," should be placed over the entrance to the cemetery. "This decree was reported to the municipality of Paris by Chaumette, the fanatical procureur of the Commune, and was warmly applauded. ... The atheistical cabal of which he was the leader (his chief associates being the infamous Hébert, the Prussian baron Anacharsis Clootz, and Chabot, a renegade priest), now judged that public feeling was ripe for an avowed and combined onslaught on the profession of Christianity. ... They decreed that on the 10th of November the 'Worship of Reason' should be inaugurated at Notre Dame. {1300} On that day the venerable cathedral was profaned by a series of sacrilegious outrages unparalleled in the history of Christendom. A temple dedicated to 'Philosophy' was erected on a platform in the middle of the choir. A motley procession of citizens of both sexes, headed by the constituted authorities, advanced towards it; on their approach, the Goddess of Reason, impersonated by Mademoiselle Maillard, a well known figurante of the opera, took her seat upon a grassy throne in front of the temple; a hymn, composed in her honour by the poet Chenier, was sung by a body of young girls dressed in white and bedecked with flowers; and the multitude bowed the knee before her in profound adoration. It was the 'abomination of desolation sitting in the holy place.' At the close of this grotesque ceremony the whole cortège proceeded to the hall of the Convention, carrying with them their 'goddess,' who was borne aloft in a chair of state on the shoulders of four men. Having deposited her in front of the president, Chaumette harangued the Assembly. ... He proceeded to demand that the ci-devant metropolitical church should henceforth be the temple of Reason and Liberty; which proposition was immediately adopted. The 'goddess' was then conducted to the president, and he and other officers of the House saluted her with the 'fraternal kiss,' amid thunders of applause. After this, upon the motion of Thuriot, the Convention in a body joined the mass of the people, and marched in their company to the temple of Reason, to witness a repetition of the impieties above described. These demonstrations were zealously imitated in the other churches of the capital. ... The interior of St. Eustache was transformed into a 'guinguette,' or place of low public entertainment. ... At St. Gervais a ball was given in the chapel of the Virgin. In other churches theatrical spectacles took place. ... Representatives of the people thought it no shame to quit their curule chairs in order to dance the 'carmagnole' with abandoned women in the streets attired in sacerdotal garments. On Sunday, the 17th of November, all the parish churches of Paris were closed by authority, with three exceptions. ... Chaumette, at a sitting of the Commune on the 26th of November, called for further measures for the extermination of every vestige of Christian worship;" and the Council of the Commune, on his demand, ordered the closing of all churches and temples, of every religious denomination; made priests and ministers of religion responsible for any troubles that might arise from religious opinions, and commanded the arrest as a "suspect" of any person who should ask for the reopening of a church. "The example set by Paris, at this melancholy period, was faithfully repeated, if not surpassed in atrocity, throughout the provinces. Religion was proscribed, churches closed, Christian ordinances interdicted; the dreary gloom of atheistical despotism overspread the land. ... These infamies were too monstrous to be tolerated for any length of time. ... Robespierre, who had marked the symptoms of a coming reaction, boldly seized the opportunity, and denounced without mercy the hypocritical faction which disputed his own march towards absolute dictatorship."

W. H. Jervis, The Gallican Church and the Revolution, chapter 7.

ALSO IN A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, book 52 (volume 3).

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, book 5, chapter 4 (volume 3).

E. de Pressense, Religion and the Reign of Terror, book 2, chapter 2.

FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (October-April). The Terror in the Provinces. Republican vengeance at Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, Bordeaux, Nantes. Fusillades and Noyades.

"The insurgents of Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, and Bordeaux, were punished with pitiless severity. Lyons had revolted, and the convention decreed [October 12] the destruction of the city, the confiscation of the property of the rich, for the benefit of the patriots, and the punishment of the insurgents by martial law. Couthon, a commissioner well tried in cruelty, hesitated to carry into execution this monstrous decree, and was superseded by Collot d'Herbois and Fouché. Thousands of workmen were employed in the work of destruction: whole streets fell under their pickaxes: the prisons were gorged: the guillotine was too slow for revolutionary vengeance, and crowds of prisoners were shot, in murderous 'mitraillades.' ... At Marseilles, 12,000 of the richest citizens fled from the vengeance of the revolutionists, and their property was confiscated, and plundered. When Toulon fell before the strategy of Bonaparte, the savage vengeance and cruelty of the conquerors were indulged without restraint. ... The dockyard labourers were put to the sword: gangs of prisoners were brought out and executed by fusillades: the guillotine also claimed its victims: the sans-culottes rioted in confiscation and plunder. At Bordeaux, Tallien threw 15,000 citizens into prison. Hundreds fell under the guillotine; and the possessions and property of the rich were offered up to outrage and robbery. But all these atrocities were far surpassed in La Vendee. ... The barbarities of warfare were yet surpassed by the vengeance of the conquerors, when the insurrection was, at last, overcome. At Nantes, the monster Carrier outstripped his rivals in cruelty and insatiable thirst for blood. Not contented with wholesale mitraillades, he designed that masterpiece of cruelty, the noyades; and thousands of men, women and children who escaped the muskets of the rabble soldiery were deliberately drowned in the waters of the Loire. In four months, his victims reached 15,000. At Angers, and other towns in La Vendee, these hideous noyades were added to the terrors of the guillotine and the fusillades."

Sir T. E. May, Democracy in Europe, chapter 14.

"One begins to be sick of 'death vomited in great floods.' Nevertheless, hearest thou not, O Reader (for the sound reaches through centuries), in the dead December and January nights, over Nantes Town,--confused noises, as of musketry and tumult, as of rage and lamentation; mingling with the everlasting moan of the Loire waters there? Nantes Town is sunk in sleep; but Représentant Carrier is not sleeping, the wool-capped Company of Marat is not sleeping. Why unmoors that flatbottomed craft, that 'gabarre'; about eleven at night; with Ninety Priests under hatches? They are going to Belle Isle? In the middle of the Loire stream, on signal given, the gabarre is scuttled; she sinks with all her cargo. 'Sentence of Deportation,' writes Carrier, 'was executed vertically.' The Ninety Priests, with their gabarre-coffin, lie deep! It is the first of the Noyades [November 16], what we may call 'Drownages' of Carrier; which have become famous forever. {1301} Guillotining there was at Nantes, till the Headsman sank worn out: then fusillading 'in the Plain of Saint-Mauve;' little children fusilladed, and women with children at the breast; children and women, by the hundred and twenty; and by the five hundred, so hot is La Véndee: till the very Jacobins grew sick, and all but the Company of Marat cried, Hold! Wherefore now we have got Noyading; and on the 24th night of Frostarious year 2, which is 14th of December 1793, we have a second Noyade; consisting of '138 persons.' Or why waste a gabarre, sinking it with them? Fling them out; fling them out, with their hands tied: pour a continual hail of lead over all the space, till the last struggler of them be sunk! Unsound sleepers of Nantes, and the Sea-Villages there-abouts, hear the musketry amid the night-winds; wonder what the meaning of it is. And women were in that gabarre; whom the Red Nightcaps were stripping naked; who begged, in their agony, that their smocks might not be stript from them. And young children were thrown in, their mothers vainly pleading: 'Wolflings,' answered the Company of Marat, 'who would grow to be wolves.' By degrees, daylight itself witnesses Noyades: women and men are tied together, feet and feet, hands and hands; and flung in: this they call Mariage Républicain, Republican Marriage. Cruel is the panther of the woods, the she-bear bereaved of her whelps: but there is in man a hatred crueler than that. Dumb, out of suffering now, as pale swollen corpses, the victims tumble confusedly seaward along the Loire stream; the tide rolling them back: clouds of ravens darken the River; wolves prowl on the shoal-places: Carrier writes, 'Quel torrent révolutionnaire, What a torrent of Revolution!' For the man is rabid; and the Time is rabid. These are the Noyades of Carrier; twenty-five by the tale, for what is done in darkness comes to be investigated in sunlight: not to be forgotten for centuries. ... Men are all rabid; as the Time is. Representative Lebon, at Arras, dashes his sword into the blood flowing from the Guillotine; exclaims, 'How I like it!' Mothers, they say, by his orders, have to stand by while the Guillotine devours their children: a band of music is stationed near; and, at the fall of every head, strikes up its 'Ça-ira.'"

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 3, book 5, chapter 3.

ALSO IN H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, chapter 11.

H. A. Taine, The French Revolution, book 5, chapter 1, section 9 (volume 3).

_Horrors of the Prison of Arras ("The Reign of Terror: A Collection of Authentic Narratives," volume 2)._

_Duchesse de Duras, Prison Journals during the French Revolution_

A. des Echerolles, Early Life, volume 1, chapters 7-13, and volume 2, chapter l.

See, also, FRANCE: 1794 (JUNE-JULY).

FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (November-June). The factions of the Mountain devour one another. Destruction of the Hebertists. Danton and his followers brought to the knife. Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. The Feast of the Supreme Being.

"Robespierre was unutterably outraged by the proceedings of the atheists. They perplexed him as a politician intent upon order, and they afflicted him sorely as an ardent disciple of the Savoyard Vicar. Hébert, however, was so strong that it needed some courage to attack him, nor did Robespierre dare to withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch from making an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the 21st of November one of the most admirable of his oratorical successes. ... 'Atheism [he said] is aristocratic. The idea of a great being who watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is essentially the idea of the people. This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; it is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached neither to priests, nor to superstitions, nor to ceremonies; it is attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to the idea of an incomprehensible Power, the terror of wrong-doers, the stay and comfort of virtue, to which it delights to render words of homage that are all so many anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.' This is Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as statesman. ... Danton followed practically the same line, though saying much less about it. 'If Greece,' he said in the Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too shall solemnize her sans-culottid days. ... If we have not honoured the priest of error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to honour the priest of incredulity: we wish to serve the people. I demand that there shall be an end of these anti-religious masquerades in the Convention.' There was an end of the masquerading, but the Hébertists still kept their ground. Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally impotent against them for some months longer. The revolutionary force had been too strong to be resisted by any government since the Paris insurgents had carried both king and assembly in triumph from Versailles in the October of 1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to strive with all their might to build a new government out of the agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months the battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance against atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of masked skirmishes. ... Collot D'Herbois had come back in hot haste from Lyons. ... Carrier was recalled from Nantes. ... The presence of these men of blood gave new courage and resolution to the Hébertists. Though the alliance was informal, yet as against Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and the rest of the Indulgents, as well as against Robespierre, they made common cause. Camille Desmoulins attacked Hébert in successive numbers of a journal ['Le Vieux Cordelier'] that is perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the revolution. Hébert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of Desmoulins in the Club, and the unfortunate wit, notwithstanding the efforts of Robespierre on his behalf, was for a while turned out of the sacred precincts. ... Even Danton himself was attacked (December, 1793) and the integrity of his patriotism brought into question. Robespierre made an energetic defence of his great rival in the hierarchy of revolution. ... Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and timidity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had been premature; and a convenient illness, which some supposed to have been feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks from a scene where he felt that he could no longer see clear. We cannot doubt that both he and Danton were perfectly assured that the anarchic party must unavoidably roll headlong into the abyss. {1302} But the hour of doom was uncertain. To make a mistake in the right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant death. Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. ... His absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed events to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in dangerous action which he had dreaded on the 10th of August, as he dreaded it on every other decisive day of this burning time. The party of the Commune became more and more daring in their invectives against the Convention and the Committees. At length they proclaimed open insurrection. But Paris was cold, and opinion was divided. In the night of the 13th of March, Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin Club. He joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public Safety in striking the blow. On the 24th of March the Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were beheaded. The first bloody breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by the second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the execution of the Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest of the Moderates. When the seizure of Danton had once before been discussed in the Committee, Robespierre resisted the proposal violently. We have already seen how he defended Danton at the Jacobin Club. ... What produced this sudden tack? ... His acquiescence in the ruin of Danton is intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The Committee [of Public Safety] hated Danton for the good reason that he had openly attacked them, and his cry for clemency was an inflammatory and dangerous protest against their system. Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up his mind that the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, he could work out his own vague schemes of power and reconstruction. And, in any case, how could he resist the Committee? ... All goes to show that Robespierre was really moved by nothing more than his invariable dread of being left behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not seeming practical and political enough. And having made up his mind that the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the Dantonists, he became fiercer than Billaud himself. ... Danton had gone, as he often did, to his native village of Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of sight in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles. ... It is not clear that he could have done anything. The balance of force, after the suppression of the Hébertists, was irretrievably against him, as calculation had already revealed to Robespierre. ... After the arrest, and on the proceedings to obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and others of its members, one only of their friends had the courage to rise and demand that they should be heard at the bar. Robespierre burst out in cold rage; he asked whether they had undergone so many heroic sacrifices, counting among them these acts of 'painful severity,' only to fall under the yoke of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried out impatiently that they would brook no claim of privilege, and suffer no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for the Convention dreaded to have its independence suspected, and it dreaded this all the more because at this time its independence did not really exist. The vote against Danton was unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the deepest stain on the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the 16th Germinal (April 5, 1794), Paris in amazement and some stupefaction saw the once dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast bound in the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging knife [with Camille Desmoulins and others]. 'I leave it all in a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a man of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow me; he is dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the governing of men!' ... After the fall of the anarchists and the death of Danton, the relations between Robespierre and the Committees underwent a change. He, who had hitherto been on the side of government, became in turn an agency of opposition. He did this in the interest of ultimate stability, but the difference between the new position and the old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable republic with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions. ... The base of Robespierre's scheme of social reconstruction now came clearly into view; and what a base! An official Supreme Being and a regulated Terror. ... How can we speak with decent patience of a man who seriously thought that he should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the Feast of the Supreme Being. This was designed as a triumphant ripost to the Feast of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends had celebrated in the winter. ... Robespierre persuaded the Convention to decree an official recognition of the Supreme Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of their mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for the decade in which the festival would fall. When the day came (20th Prairial, June 8, 1794), he clothed himself with more than even his usual care. As he looked out from the windows of the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in the gardens, he was intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, 'how sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow pale at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical pride he walked at the head of the procession, with flowers and wheat-ears in his hand, to the sound of chants and symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the first of the great basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised an allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was prepared. Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the midst of an amiable group of human Vices, with Madness by her side, and Wisdom menacing them with lofty wrath. Great are the perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied a torch to Atheism, but alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and Madness were damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was hapless Wisdom who took fire. ... The whole mummery was pagan. ... It stands as the most disgusting and contemptible anachronism in history."

_J. Morley, Robespierre (Critical Miscellanies, Second Series)._

ALSO IN T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 3, book 6.

G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre, chapters 19-20.

L. Gronlund, Ça ira: or Danton in the French Revolution, chapter 6.

J. Claretie, Camille Desmoulins and his Wife, chapters 5-6.

{1303}

FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (March-July). Withdrawal of Prussia from the European Coalition as an ally, to become a mercenary. Successes of the Republic. Conquest of the Austrian Netherlands. Advance to the Rhine. Loss of Corsica. Naval defeat off Ushant.

"While the alliance of the Great Powers was on the point of dissolution from selfishness and jealousy, the French, with an energy and determination, which, considering their unparalleled difficulties, were truly heroic, had assembled armies numbering nearly a million of men. The aggregate of the allied forces did not much exceed 300,000. The campaign on the Dutch and Flemish frontiers of France was planned at Vienna, but had nearly been disconcerted at the outset by the refusal of the Duke of York to serve under General Clairfait. ... The Emperor settled the difficulty by signifying his intention to take the command in person. Thus one incompetent prince who knew little, was to be commanded by another incompetent prince who knew nothing, about war; and the success of a great enterprise was made subservient to considerations of punctilio and etiquette. The main object of the Austrian plan was to complete the reduction of the frontier fortresses by the capture of Landrecy on the Sambre, and then to advance through the plains of Picardy on Paris;--a plan which might have been feasible the year before. ... The King of Prussia formally withdrew from the alliance [March 13]; but condescended to assume the character of a mercenary. In the spring of the year, by a treaty with the English Government, his Prussian Majesty undertook to furnish 62,000 men for a year, in consideration of the sum of £1,800,000, of which Holland, by a separate convention, engaged to supply somewhat less than a fourth part. The organisation of the French army was effected under the direction of Carnot. ... The policy of terror was nevertheless applied to the administration of the army. Custine and Houchard, who had commanded the last campaign, ... were sent to the scaffold, because the arms of the republic had failed to achieve a complete triumph under their direction. ... Pichegru, the officer now selected to lead the hosts of France, went forth to assume his command with the knife of the executioner suspended over his head. His orders were to expel the invaders from the soil and strongholds of the republic, and to reconquer Belgium. The first step towards the fulfilment of this commission was the recovery of the three great frontier towns, Condé, Valenciennes, and Quesnoy. The siege of Quesnoy was immediately formed; and Pichegru, informed of or anticipating the plans of the Allies, disposed a large force in front of Cambray, to intercept the operations of ... the allied army upon Landrecy. ... On the 17th [of April] a great action was fought in which the allies obtained a success, sufficient to enable them to press the siege of Landrecy. ... Pichegru, a few days after [April 26, at the redoubts of Troisville] sustained a signal repulse from the British, in an attempt to raise the siege of Landrecy; but by a rapid and daring movement, he improved his defeat, and seized the important post of Moucron. The results were, that Clairfait was forced to fall back on Tournay; Courtray and Menin surrendered to the French; and thus the right flanks of the Allies were exposed. Landrecy, which, about the same time, fell into the hands of the Allies, was but a poor compensation for the reverses in West Flanders. The Duke of York, at the urgent instance of the Emperor, marched to the relief of Clairfait; but, in the meantime, the Austrian general, being hard pressed, was compelled to fall back upon a position which would enable him for a time to cover Bruges, Ghent, and Ostend. The English had also to sustain a vigorous attack near Tournay; but the enemy were defeated with the loss of 4,000 men. It now became necessary to risk a general action to save Flanders, by cutting off that division of the French army which had outflanked the Allies. By bad management and want of concert this movement, which had been contrived by Colonel Mack, the chief military adviser of the Emperor, was wholly defeated [at Tourcoign, May 18]. ... The French took 1,500 prisoners and 60 pieces of cannon. A thousand English soldiers lay dead on the field, and the Duke [of York] himself escaped with difficulty. Four days after, Pichegru having collected a great force, amounting, it has been stated, to 100,000 men, made a grand attack upon the allied army [at Pont Achin]. ... The battle raged from five in the morning until nine at night, and was at length determined by the bayonet. ... In consequence of this check, Pichegru fell back upon Lisle." It was after this repulse that "the French executive, on the flimsy pretence of a supposed attempt to assassinate Robespierre, instigated by the British Government, procured a decree from the Convention, that no English or Hanoverian prisoners should be made. In reply to this atrocious edict, the Duke of York issued a general order, enjoining forbearance to the troops under his command. Most of the French generals ... refused to become assassins. ... The decree was carried into execution in a few instances only. ... The Allies gained no military advantage by the action of Pont Achin on the 22nd of May. ... The Emperor ... abandoned the army and retired to Vienna. He left some orders and proclamations behind him, to which nobody thought it worth while to pay any attention. On the 5th of June, Pichegru invested Ypres, which Clairfait made two attempts to retain, but without success. The place surrendered on the 17th; Clairfait retreated to Ghent; Walmoden abandoned Bruges; and the Duke of York, forced to quit his position at Tournay, encamped near Oudenarde. It was now determined by the Prince of Coburg, who resumed the chief command after the departure of the Emperor, to risk the fate of Belgium on a general action, which was fought at Fleurus on the 26th of June. The Austrians, after a desperate struggle, were defeated at all points by the French army of the Sambre under Jourdan. Charleroi having surrendered to the French ... and the Duke of York being forced to retreat, any further attempt to save the Netherlands was hopeless. Ostend and Mons, Ghent, Tournay, and Oudenarde, were successively evacuated; and the French were established at Brussels. When it was too late, the English army was reinforced. ... It now only remained for the French to recapture the fortresses on their own frontier which had been taken from them in the last campaign. ... {1304} Landrecy ... fell without a struggle. Quesnoy ... made a gallant [but vain] resistance. ... Valenciennes and Condé ... opened their gates. ... The victorious armies of the Republic were thus prepared for the conquest of Holland. ... The Prince of Orange made an appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen; but the republicans preferred the ascendancy of their faction to the liberties of their country. ... The other military operation's of the year, in which England was engaged, do not require prolonged notice. The Corsicans, under the guidance of their veteran chief, Paoli, ... sought the aid of England to throw off the French yoke, and offered in return allegiance of his countrymen to the British Crown. ... A small force was despatched, and, after a series of petty operations, Corsica was occupied by British troops, and proclaimed a part of the British dominions. An expedition on a greater scale was sent to the West Indies. Martinique, St. Lucie and Guadaloupe were easily taken; but the large island of St. Domingo, relieved by a timely arrival of succours from France, offered a formidable [and successful] resistance. ... The campaign on the Rhine was undertaken by the Allies under auspices ill calculated to inspire confidence, or even hope. The King of Prussia, not content with abandoning the cause, had done everything in his power to thwart and defeat the operations of the Allies. ... On the 22d of May, the Austrians crossed the Rhine and attacked the French in their intrenchments without success. On the same day, the Prussians defeated a division of the Republican army [at Kaiserslautern], and advanced their head-quarters to Deux-Ponts. Content with this achievement, the German armies remained inactive for several weeks, when the French, having obtained reinforcements, attacked the whole line of the German posts. ... Before the end of the year the Allies were in full retreat, and the Republicans in their turn had become the invaders of Germany. They occupied the Electorate of Treves, and they captured the important fort of Mannheim. Mentz also was placed under a close blockade. ... At sea, England maintained her ancient reputation. The French had made great exertions to fit out a fleet, and 26 ships of the line were assembled in the port of Brest," for the protecting of a merchant fleet, laden with much needed food-supplies, expected from America. Lord Howe, with an English fleet of 25 ships of the line, was on the watch for the Brest fleet when it put to sea. On the 1st of June he sighted and attacked it off Ushant, performing the celebrated manœuvre of breaking the enemy's line. Seven of the French ships were taken, one was sunk during the battle, and 18, much crippled, escaped. The victory caused great exultation in England, but it was fruitless, for the American convoy was brought safely into Brest.

W. Massey, History of England during the reign of George III., chapter 35 (volume 3).

ALSO IN Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 16 (volume 4).

F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3.

Capt. A. T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, chapter 8 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (June-July). The monstrous Law of the 22d Prairial. The climax of the Reign of Terror. A summary of its horrors.

"On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine was concealed in the folds of rich hangings. It was the 20th of Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention the memorable Law of the 22d Prairial [June 10]. Robespierre was the draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own writing. This monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation of all law. Of all laws ever passed in the world it is the most nakedly iniquitous. ... After the probity and good judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal guarantees in state trials are accurate definition, and proof. The offence must be capable of precise description, and the proof against an offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial violently infringed all three of these essential conditions of judicial equity. First, the number of the jury who had power to convict was reduced. Second, treason was made to consist in such vague and infinitely elastic kinds of action as inspiring discouragement, misleading opinion, depraving manners, corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the Revolution by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary inquiry, of witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the accused. Any kind of testimony was evidence, whether material or moral, verbal or written, if it was of a kind 'likely to gain the assent of a man of reasonable mind.' Now, what was Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? ... To us the answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim in Robespierre's mind at this point in the history of the Revolution. His brother Augustin was then the representative of the Convention with the army of Italy, and General Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. Bonaparte said long afterwards ... that he saw long letters from Maximilian to Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the Conventional Commissioners [sent to the provinces]--Tallien, Fouché, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they perpetrated, and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by their atrocities. Again, there is abundant testimony that Robespierre did his best to induce the Committee of Public Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. The text of the Law ... discloses the same object. The vague phrases of depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles perfidiously, were exactly calculated to smite the band of violent men whose conduct was to Robespierre the scandal of the Revolution. And there was a curious clause in the law as originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the right of preventing measures against its own members. Robespierre's general design in short was to effect a further purgation of the Convention. ... If Robespierre's design was what we believe it to have been, the result was a ghastly failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent to apply his law against the men for whom he had specially designed it. The frightful weapon which he had forged was seized by the Committee of General Security, and Paris was plunged into the fearful days of the Great Terror. The number of persons put to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal before the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. From the creation of the Tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution of the Hébertists in March 1794, the number of persons condemned to death was 505. {1305} From the death of the Hébertists down to the death of Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2,158. One-half of the entire number of victims, namely, 1,356, were guillotined after the Law of Prairial. ... A man was informed against; he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at seven he was taken to the Conciergerie; at nine he received information of the charge against him; at ten he went into the dock; by two in the afternoon he was condemned; by four his head lay in the executioner's basket."

_J. Morley, Robespierre (Critical Miscellanies: Second Series)._

"Single indictments comprehended 20 or 30 people taken promiscuously--great noblemen from Paris, day labourers from Marseilles, sailors from Brest, peasants from Alsace--who were accused of conspiring together to destroy the Republic. All examination, discussion, and evidence were dispensed with; the names of the victims were hardly read out to the jury, and it happened, more than once, that the son was mistaken for the father--an entirely innocent person for the one really charged--and sent to the guillotine. The judges urged the jury to pass sentences of death, with loud threats; members of the Government committees attended daily, and applauded the bloody verdicts with ribald jests. On this spot at least the strife of parties was hushed."

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 10, chapter 1 (volume 4).

"The first murders committed in 1793 proceeded from a real irritation caused by danger. Such perils had now ceased; the republic was victorious; people now slaughtered not from indignation, but from the atrocious habit which they had contracted. ... According to the law, the testimony of witnesses was to be dispensed with only when there existed material or moral proofs; nevertheless no witnesses were called, as it was alleged that proofs of this kind existed in every case. The jurors did not take the trouble to retire to the consultation room. They gave their opinions before the audience, and sentence was immediately pronounced. The accused had scarcely time to rise and to mention their names. One day, there was a prisoner whose name was not upon the list of the accused, and who said to the Court, 'I am not accused; my name is not on your list.' 'What signifies that?' said Fouquier, 'give it quick!' He gave it, and was sent to the scaffold like the others. ... The most extraordinary blunders were committed. ... More than once victims were called long after they had perished. There were hundreds of acts of accusation quite ready, to which there was nothing to add but the designation of the individuals. ... The printing-office was contiguous to the hall of the tribunal: the forms were kept standing, the title, the motives, were ready composed; there was nothing but the names to be added. These were handed through a small loop-hole to the overseer. Thousands of copies were immediately worked off and plunged families into mourning and struck terror into the prisons. The hawkers came to sell the bulletin of the tribunal under the prisoners' windows, crying, 'Here are the names of those who have gained prizes in the lottery of St. Guillotine.' The accused were executed on the breaking up of the court, or at latest on the morrow, if the day was too far advanced. Ever since the passing of the Law of the 22d of Prairial, victims perished at the rate of 50 or 60 a day. 'That goes well,' said Fouquier-Tinville; 'heads fall like tiles:' and he added, 'It must go better still next decade; I must have 450 at least.'"

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 3, pages 63-66._

"One hundred and seventy-eight tribunals, of which 40 are ambulatory, pronounce in every part of the territory sentences of death which are immediately executed on the spot. Between April 6, 1793, and Thermidor 9, year II. [July 27, 1794], that of Paris has 2,625 persons guillotined, while the provincial judges do as much work as the Paris judges. In the small town of Orange alone, they guillotine 331 persons. In the single town of Arras they have 299 men and 93 women guillotined. At Nantes, the revolutionary tribunals and military committees have, on the average, 100 persons a day guillotined, or shot, in all 1971. In the city of Lyons the revolutionary committee admit 1684 executions, while Cadillot, one of Robespierre's correspondents, advises him of 6,000.--The statement of these murders is not complete, but 17,000 have been enumerated. ... Even excepting those who had died fighting or who, taken with arms in their hands, were shot down or sabred on the spot, there were 10,000 persons slaughtered without trial in the province of Anjou alone. ... It is estimated that, in the eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all ages exceeded 400,000.--Considering the programme and principles of the Jacobin sect, this is no great number; they might have killed a good many more. But time was wanting; during their short reign they did what they could with the instrument in their hands. Look at their machine. ... Organised March 30 and April 6,1793, the Revolutionary Committees and the Revolutionary Tribunal had but seventeen months in which to do their work. They did not drive ahead with all their might until after the fall of the Girondists, and especially after September, 1793, that is to say for a period of eleven months. Its loose wheels were not screwed up and the whole was not in running order under the impulse of the central motor until after December, 1793, that is to say during eight months. Perfected by the Law of Prairial 22, it works for the past two months faster and better than before. ... Baudot and Jean Bon St. Andre, Carrier, Antonelle and Guffroy had already estimated the lives to be taken at several millions, and, according to Collot d'Herbois, who had a lively imagination, 'the political perspiration should go on freely, and not stop until from twelve to fifteen million Frenchmen had been destroyed.'"

H. A. Taine, The French Revolution, book 8, chapter 1 (volume 3).

ALSO IN _W. Smyth, Lectures on the History of the French Revolution, Lectures 39-42 (volume 2)._

_Abbé Dumesnil, Recollections of the Reign of Terror._

Count Beugnot, Life, volume 1, chapters 7-8.

_J. Wilson, The Reign of Terror and its Secret Police (Studies in Modern Mind, etc.), chapter 7._

_The Reign of Terror: A collection of authentic narratives, 2 volumes._

{1306}

FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (July). The Fall of Robespierre. End of the Reign of Terror.

Robespierre "was already feeling himself unequal to the task laid upon him. He said himself on one occasion: 'I was not made to rule, I was made to combat the enemies of the Revolution;' and so the possession of supreme power produced in him no feeling of exultation. On the contrary, it preyed upon his spirits, and made him fancy himself the object of universal hatred. A guard now slept nightly at his house, and followed him in all his walks. Two pistols lay ever at his side. He would not eat food till some one else had tasted from the dish. His jealous fears were awakened by every sign of popularity in another. Even the successes of his generals filled him with anxiety, lest they should raise up dangerous rivals. He had, indeed ... grounds enough for anxiety. In the Committee of Public Safety every member, except St. Just and Couthon, viewed him with hatred and suspicion. Carnot resented his interferences. The Terrorists were contemptuous of his religious festivals, and disliked his decided supremacy. The friends of Mercy saw with indignation that the number of victims was increasing. The friends of Disorder found themselves restrained, and were bored by his long speeches about virtue and simplicity of life. He was hated for what was good and for what was evil in his government; and meanwhile the national distress was growing, and the cry of starvation was heard louder than ever. Fortunately there was a splendid harvest in 1794; but before it was gathered in Robespierre had fallen. A somewhat frivolous incident did much to discredit him. A certain old woman named Catherine Théot, living in an obscure part of Paris, had taken to seeing visions. Some of the Terrorists produced a paper, purporting to be written by her, and declaring that Robespierre was the Messiah. The paper was a forgery, but it served to cover Robespierre with ridicule, and to rouse in him a fierce determination to suppress those whom he considered his enemies in the Committee and the Convention. For some time he had taken little part in the proceedings of either of these bodies. His reliance was chiefly on the Jacobin Club, the reorganized Commune, and the National Guards, still under the command of Henriot. But on July 26th [8th Thermidor] Robespierre came to the Convention and delivered one of his most elaborate speeches, maintaining that the affairs of France had been mismanaged; that the army had been allowed to become dangerously independent; that the Government must be strengthened and simplified; and that traitors must be punished. He made no definite proposals, and did not name his intended victims. The real meaning of the speech was evidently that he ought to be made Dictator, but that in order to obtain his end, it was necessary to conceal the use he meant to make of his power. The members of the Convention naturally felt that some of themselves were aimed at. Few felt themselves safe; but Robespierre's dominance had become so established that no one ventured at first to criticize. It was proposed, and carried unanimously, that the speech should be printed and circulated throughout France. Then at length a deputy named Cambon rose to answer Robespierre's attacks on the recent management of the finances. Finding himself favourably listened to, he went on to attack Robespierre himself. Other members of the hitherto docile Convention now took courage; and it was decided that the speech should be referred to the Committees before it was printed. The crisis was now at hand. Robespierre went down as usual to the Jacobin Club, where he was received with the usual enthusiasm. The members swore to die with their leader, or to suppress his enemies. On the following day [9th Thermidor] St. Just attacked Billaud and Collot. Billaud [followed and supported by Tallien] replied by asserting that on the previous night the Jacobins had pledged themselves to massacre the deputies. Then the storm burst. A cry of horror and indignation arose; and as Billaud proceeded to give details of the alleged conspiracy, shouts of 'Down with the tyrant!' began to rise from the benches. Robespierre vainly strove to obtain a hearing. He rushed about the chamber, appealing to the several groups. As he went up to the higher benches on the Left, he was met with the cry, 'Back, tyrant, the shade of Danton repels you!' and when he sought shelter among the deputies on the Right, and actually sat down in their midst, they indignantly exclaimed, 'Wretch, that was Vergniaud's seat!' Baited on all sides, his attempts to speak became shrieks, which were scarcely audible, however, amid the shouts and interruptions that rose from all the groups. His voice grew hoarser ... till at length it failed him altogether. Then one of the Mountain cried, 'The blood of Danton chokes him!' Amid a scene of indescribable excitement and uproar, a decree was passed that Robespierre and some of his leading followers should be arrested. They were seized by the officers of the Convention, and hurried off to different prisons; so that, in case of a rescue, only one of them might be released. There was room enough for fear. The Commune organized an insurrection, as soon as they heard what the Convention had done; and by a sudden attack the prisoners were all delivered from the hands of their guards. Both parties now hastily gathered armed forces. Those of the municipality were by far the most numerous, and Henriot confidently ordered them to advance. But the men refused to obey. The Sections mostly declared for the Convention, and thus by an unexpected reaction the Robespierian leaders found themselves almost deserted. A detachment of soldiers forced their way into the room where the small band of fanatics were drawing up a Proclamation. A pistol was fired; and no one knows with certainty whether Robespierre attempted suicide, or was shot by one of his opponents. At any rate his jaw was fractured, and he was laid out, a ghastly spectacle, on an adjacent table. The room was soon crowded. Some spat at the prostrate form. Others stabbed him with their knives. Soon he was dragged [along with Couthon, St. Just, Henriot, and others] before the Tribunal which he himself had instituted. The, necessary formalities were hurried through, and the mangled body was borne to the guillotine, where what remained to him of life was quickly extinguished. Then, from the crowd, a man stepped quickly up to the blood-stained corpse, and uttered over him the words, 'Yes, Robespierre, there is a God!'"

J. E. Symes. The French Revolution, chapter 13.

{1307}

"Samson's work done, there bursts forth shout on shout of applause. Shout, which prolongs itself not only over Paris, but over France, but over Europe, and down to this generation. Deservedly, and also undeservedly. O unhappiest Advocate of Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates? Stricter man, according to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and suchlike, lived not in that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, to have become one of those incorruptible barren Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and funeral-sermons. His poor landlord, the Cabinet-maker in the Rue Saint-Honorè, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God be merciful to him and to us! This is the end of the Reign of Terror; new glorious Revolution named 'of Thermidor'; of Thermidor 9th, year 2; which being interpreted into old slave-style means 27th of July, 1794."

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, book 6, chapter 7 (volume 3).

"He [Robespierre] had qualities, it is true, which we must respect; he was honest, sincere, self-denying and consistent. But he was cowardly, relentless, pedantic, unloving, intensely vain and morbidly envious. ... He has not left the legacy to mankind of one grand thought, nor the example of one generous and exalted action."

_G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre. Conclusion._

"The ninth of Thermidor is one of the great epochs in the history of Europe. It is true that the three members of the Committee of Public Safety [Billaud, Collot, and Barère], who triumphed were by no means better men than the three [Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just], who fell. Indeed, we are inclined to think that of these six statesmen the least bad were Robespierre and St. Just, whose cruelty was the effect of sincere fanaticism operating on narrow understandings and acrimonious tempers. The worst of the six was, beyond all doubt, Barère, who had no faith in any part of the system which he upheld by persecution."

_Lord Macaulay, Barère's Memoirs (Essays, volume 5)._

ALSO IN G. Everitt, Guillotine the Great, chapter 2.

_J. W. Croker, Robespierre (Quarterly Review, September, 1835, volume 34)._

_W. Chambers, Robespierre (Chambers' Edin. Journal, 1852)._

FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (July-April). Reaction against the Reign of Terror. The Thermidorians and the Jeunesse Doree. End of the Jacobin Club. Insurrection of Germinal 12. Fall of the Montagnards. The White Terror in the Provinces.

"On the morning of the 10th of Thermidor all the people who lived near the prisons of Paris crowded on the roofs of their houses and cried, 'All is over! Robespierre is dead!' The thousands of prisoners, who had believed themselves doomed to death, imagined themselves rescued from the tomb. Many were set free the same day, and all the rest regained hope and confidence. Their feeling of deliverance was shared throughout France. The Reign of Terror had become a sort of nightmare that stifled the nation, and the Reign of Terror and Robespierre were identical in the sight of the great majority. ... The Convention presented a strange aspect. Party remnants were united in the coalition party called the 'Thermidorians.' Many of the Mountaineers and of those who had been fiercest in their missions presently took seats with the Right or Centre; and the periodic change of Committees, so long contested, was determined upon. Lots were drawn, and Barère, Lindet, and Prieur went out; Carnot, indispensable in the war, was re-elected until the coming spring; Billaud and Collot, feeling out of place in the new order of things, resigned. Danton's friends now prevailed; but, alas! the Dantonists were not Danton."

H. Martin, Popular History of France from the First Revolution, chapter 22 (volume l).

"The Reign of Terror was practically over, but the ground-swell which follows a storm continued for some time longer. Twenty-one victims suffered on the same day with Robespierre, 70 on the next; altogether 114 were condemned and executed in the three days which followed his death. ... A strong reaction against the 'Terreur' now set in. Upwards of 10,000 'suspects' were set free, and Robespierre's law of the 22 Prairial was abolished. Fréron, a leading Thermidorien, organized a band of young men who called themselves the Jeunesse Dorée [gilded youth], or Muscadins, and chiefly frequented the Palais Royal. They wore a ridiculous dress, 'a la Victime' [large cravat, black or green collar, and crape around the arm, signifying relationship to some of the victims of the revolutionary tribunal.--Thiers], and devoted themselves to punishing the Jacobins. They had their hymn, 'Le réveil du Peuple.' which they sang about the street, often coming into collision with the sans-culottes shouting the Marseillaise. On the 11th of November the Muscadins broke open the hall of the celebrated club, turned out the members, and shut it up for ever. ... The committees of Salut Public and Sureté Générale were entirely remodelled and their powers much restrained; also the Revolutionary Tribunal was reorganized on the lines advocated by Camille Desmoulins in his proposal for a Comité de Clémence--which cost him his life. Carrier and Lebon suffered death for their atrocious conduct in La Vendée and [Arras]; 73 members who had protested against the arrest of the Girondins were recalled, and the survivors of the leading Girondists, Louvet, Lanjuinais, Isnard, Larévillière-Lépeaux and others, 22 in number, were restored to their seats in the Convention."

Sergent Marceau, Reminiscences of a Regicide, part 2, chapter 12.

"Billaud, Collot, and other marked Terrorists, already denounced in the Convention by Danton's friends, felt that danger was every day drawing nearer to themselves. Their fate was to all appearance sealed by the readmission to the Convention (December 8) of the 73 deputies of the right, imprisoned in 1793 for signing protests against the expulsion of the Girondists. By the return of these deputies the complexion of the Assembly was entirely altered. ... They now sought to undo the work of the Convention since the insurrection by which their party had been overwhelmed. They demanded that confiscated property should be restored to the relatives of persons condemned by the revolutionary courts; that emigrants who had fled in consequence of Terrorist persecutions should be allowed to return; that those deputies proscribed on June 2,1793, who yet survived, should be recalled to their seats. The Mountain, as a body, violently opposed even the discussion of such questions. The Thermidorians split into two divisions. Some in alarm rejoined the Mountain; while others, headed by Tallien and Fréron, sought their safety by coalescing with the returned members of the right. A committee was appointed to report on accusations brought against Collot, Billaud, Barère, and Vadier (December 27, 1794). In a few weeks the survivors of the proscribed deputies entered the Convention amidst applause (March 8, 1795). ... There was at this time great misery prevalent in Paris, and imminent peril of insurrection. {1308} After Robespierre's fall, maximum prices were no longer observed, and assignats were only accepted in payment of goods at their real value compared with coin. The result was a rapid rise in prices, so that in December prices were double what they had been in July, and were continuing to rise in proportion as assignats decreased in value. ... The maximum laws, already a dead letter, were repealed (December 24). The abolition of maximum prices and requisitions increased the already lavish expenditure of the Government, which, to meet the deficit in its revenues, had no resource but to create more assignats, and the faster these were issued the faster they fell in value and the higher prices rose. In July 1794, they had been worth 34 per cent. of their nominal value. In December they were worth 22 per cent., and in May 1795 they were worth only 7 per cent. ... At this time a pound of bread cost eight shillings, of rice thirteen, of sugar seventeen, and other articles were all proportionately dear. It is literally true that more than half the population of Paris was only kept alive by occasional distributions of meat and other articles at low prices, and the daily distribution of bread at three half-pence a pound. In February, however, this source of relief threatened to fail. ... On April 1, or Germinal 12, bread riots, begun by women, broke out in every section. Bands collected and forced their way into the Convention, shouting for bread, but offering no violence to the deputies. ... The crowd was already dispersing when forces arrived from the sections and cleared the House. The insurrection was a spontaneous rising for bread, without method or combination. The Terrorists had sought, but vainly, to obtain direction of it. Had they succeeded, the Mountain would have had an opportunity of proscribing the right. Their failure gave the right the opportunity of proscribing the left. The transportation to Cayenne of Billaud, Collot, Barère, and Vadier was decreed, and the arrest of fifteen other Montagnards, accused without proof, in several cases without probability, of having been accomplices of the insurgents. ... The insurrection of Germinal 12 gave increased strength to the party of reaction. The Convention, in dread of the Terrorists, was compelled to look to it for support. ... In the departments famine, disorder, and crime prevailed, as well as in Paris. ... From the first the reaction proceeded in the departments with a more rapid step and in bolder form than in Paris. ... In the departments of the south-east, where the Royalists had always possessed a strong following, emigrants of all descriptions readily made their way back; and here the opponents of the Republic, instigated by a desire for vengeance, or merely by party spirit, commenced a reaction stained by crimes as atrocious as any committed during the course of the revolution. Young men belonging to the upper and middle classes were organised in bands bearing the names of companies of Jesus and companies of the Sun, and first at Lyons, then at Aix, Toulon, Marseilles, and other towns, they broke into the prisons and murdered their inmates without distinction of age or sex. Besides the Terrorist and the Jacobin, neither the Republican nor the purchaser of State lands was safe from their knives; and in the country numerous isolated murders were committed. This lawless and brutal movement, called the White Terror in distinction to the Red Terror preceding Thermidor 9, was suffered for weeks to run its course unchecked, and counted its victims by many hundreds, spreading over the whole of Provence, besides the departments of Rhone, Gard, Loire, Ain, and Jura."

B. M. Gardiner, The French Revolution, chapter 10.

ALSO IN A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 3, pages 109-136; 149-175; 193-225.

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 12, chapters 1-3.

J. Mallet du Pan, Memoirs and Correspondence, volume 2, chapters 5.

A. des Echerolles, Early Life, volume 2, chapter 8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (October-May). Subjugation of Holland. Overthrow of the Stadtholdership. Establishment of the Batavian Republic. Peace of Basle with Prussia. Successes on the Spanish and Italian frontiers. Crumbling of the Coalition.

"Pichegru having taken Bois le Duc, October 9th, the Duke of York retreated to the Ar, and thence beyond the Waal. Venloo fell October 27th, Maestricht November 4th, and the capture of Nimeguen on the 9th, which the English abandoned after the fall of Maestricht, opened to the French the road into Holland. The Duke of York resigned the command to General Walmoden, December 2nd, and returned into England. His departure showed that the English government had abandoned all hope of saving Holland. It had, indeed, consented that the States-General should propose terms of accommodation to the French; and two Dutch envoys had been despatched to Paris to offer to the Committee of Public Welfare the recognition by their government of the French Republic, and the payment of 200,000,000 florins within a year. But the Committee, suspecting that these offers were made only with the view of gaining time, paid no attention to them. The French were repulsed in their first attempt to cross the Waal by General Duncan with 8,000 English; but a severe frost enabled them to pass over on the ice, January 11th, 1795. Nothing but a victory could now save Holland. But Walmoden, instead of concentrating his troops for the purpose of giving battle, retreated over the Yssel, and finally over the Ems into Westphalia, whence the troops were carried to England by sea from Bremen. ... General Alvinzi, who held the Rhine between Emmerich and Arnheim, having retired upon Wesel, Pichegru had only to advance. On entering Holland, he called upon the patriots to rise, and his occupation of the Dutch towns was immediately followed by a revolution. The Prince of Orange, the hereditary Stadtholder, embarked for England, January 19th, on which day Pichegru's advanced columns entered Amsterdam. Next day the Dutch fleet, frozen up in the Texel, was captured by the French hussars. Before the end of January the reduction of Holland had been completed, and a provincial [provisional?] government established at the Hague. The States-General, assembled February 24th, 1795, having received, through French influence, a new infusion of the patriot party, pronounced the abolition of the Stadtholderate, proclaimed the sovereignty of the people and the establishment of the Batavian Republic. A treaty of Peace with France followed, May 16th, and an-offensive alliance against all enemies whatsoever till the end of the war, and against England for ever. {1309} The sea and land forces to be provided by the Dutch were to serve under French commanders. Thus the new republic became a mere dependency of France. Dutch Flanders, the district on the left bank of the Hondt, Maestricht, Venloo, were retained by the French as a just indemnity for the expenses of the war, on which account the Dutch were also to pay 100,000,000 florins; but they were to receive, at the general peace, an equivalent for the ceded territories. By secret articles, the Dutch were to lend the French seven ships of war, to support a French army of 25,000 men, &c. Over and above the requisitions of the treaty, they were also called upon to reclothe the French troops, and to furnish them with provisions. In short, though the Dutch patriots had 'fraternised' with the French, and received them with open arms, they were treated little better than a conquered people. Secret negotiations had been for some time going on between France and Prussia for a peace. ... Frederick William II., ... satisfied with his acquisitions in Poland, to which the English and Dutch subsidies had helped him, ... abandoned himself to his voluptuous habits," and made overtures to the French. "Perhaps not the least influential among Frederick William's motives, was the refusal of the maritime Powers any longer to subsidise him for doing nothing. ... The Peace of Basle, between the French Republic and the King of Prussia, was signed April 5th 1795. The French troops were allowed to continue the occupation of the Rhenish provinces on the left bank. An article, that neither party should permit troops of the enemies of either to pass over its territories, was calculated to embarrass the Austrians. France agreed to accept the mediation of Prussia for princes of the Empire. ... Prussia should engage in no hostile enterprise against Holland, or any other country occupied by French troops; while the French agreed not to push their enterprises in Germany beyond a certain line of demarcation, including the Circles of Westphalia, Higher and Lower Saxony; Franconia, and that part of the two Circles of the Rhine situate on the right bank of the Main. ... Thus the King of Prussia, originally the most ardent promoter of the Coalition, was one of the first to desert it. By signing the Peace of Basle, he sacrificed Holland, facilitated the invasion of the Empire by the French, and thus prepared the ruin of the ancient German constitution." In the meantime the French had been pushing war with success on their Spanish frontier, recovering the ground which they had lost in the early part of 1794. In the eastern Pyrenees, Dugommier "retook Bellegarde in September, the last position held by the Spaniards in France, and by the battle of the Montagne Noire, which lasted from November 17th to the 20th, opened the way into Catalonia. But at the beginning of this battle Dugommier was killed. Figuières surrendered November 24th, through the influence of the French democratic propaganda. On the west, Moncey captured St. Sebastian and Fuentarabia in August, and was preparing to attack Pampeluna, when terrible storms ... compelled him to retreat on the Bidassoa, and closed the campaign in that quarter. On the side of Piedmont, the French, after some reverses, succeeded in making themselves masters of Mont Cenis and the passes of the Maritime Alps, thus holding the keys of Italy; but the Government, content with this success, ventured not at present to undertake the invasion of that country." The King of Sardinia, Victor Amadeus, remained faithful to his engagements with Austria, although the French tempted him with an offer of the Milanese, "and the exchange of the island of Sardinia for territory more conveniently situated. With the Grand Duke of Tuscany they were more successful. ... On February 9th 1795, a treaty was signed by which the Grand Duke revoked his adhesion to the Coalition. ... Thus Ferdinand was the first to desert the Emperor, his brother. The example of Tuscany was followed by the Regent of Sweden."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 7 (volume 4).

ALSO IN C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 4, chapter 3 (volume 3).

L. P. Segur, History of the Reign of Frederick William II. of Prussia, volume 3.

FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1796. Brigandage in La Vendée. Chouannerie in Brittany. The Disastrous Quiberon expedition. End of the Vendean War.

"Since the defeat at Savenay, the Vendée was no longer the scene of grand operations, but of brigandage and atrocities without result. The peasants, though detesting the Revolution, were anxious for peace; but, as there were still two chiefs, Charette and Stoffiet, in the field, who hated each other, this wish could scarcely be gratified. General Thurieu, sent by the former Revolutionary Committee, had but increased this detestation by allowing pillage and incendiarism. After the death of Robespierre he was replaced by General Clancaux, who had orders to employ more conciliatory measures. The defeat of the rebel troops at Savenay, and their subsequent dispersion, had led to a kind of guerilla warfare throughout the whole of Brittany, known by the name of Chouannerie. ['A poor peasant, named Jean Cottereau, had distinguished himself in this movement above all his companions, and his family bore the name of Chouans (Chat-huans) or night-owls. ... The name of Chouan passed from him to all the insurgents of Bretagne, although he himself never led more than a few hundred peasants, who obeyed him, as they said, out of friendship.']

H. Von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, volume 4, page 238.

The Chouans attacked the public conveyances, infested the high roads, murdered isolated bands of soldiers and functionaries. Their chiefs were Scepeaux, Bourmont, Cadoudal, but especially Puisaye ... formerly general of the Girondins, and who wanted to raise a more formidable insurrection than had hitherto been organised. Against them was sent Hoche [September, 1794], who accustomed his soldiers to pacify rather than destroy, and taught them to respect the habits, but above all the religion, of the inhabitants. After some difficult negotiations with Charette peace was concluded (15th February), but the suppression of the Chouans was more difficult still, and Hoche ... displayed in this ungrateful mission all the talents and humanity for which he was ever celebrated. Puisaye himself was in England, having obtained Pitt's promise of a fleet and an army, but his aide-de-camp concluded in his absence a treaty similar to that of Charette. ... Stoffiet surrendered the last. {1310} Not much dependence could be placed on either of these pacifications, Charette himself having confessed in a letter to the Count de Provence that they were but a trap for the Republicans; but they proved useful, nevertheless, by accustoming the country to peace." This deceptive state of peace came to an end early in the summer of 1795. "The conspiracy organised in London by Puisaye, assisted and subsidised by Pitt, ... fitted out a fleet, which harassed the French naval squadron, and then set sail for Brittany, where the expedition made itself master of the peninsula of Quiberon and the fort Penthièvre (27th June). The Brittany peasants, suspicious of the Vendeans and hating the English, did not respond to the call for revolt, and occasioned a loss of time to the invaders, of which Hoche took advantage to bring together his troops and to march on Quiberon, where he defeated the vanguard of the émigrés, and surrounded them in the peninsula. Puisaye [who had, it is said, about 10,000 men, émigrés and Chouans] attempted to crush Hoche by an attack in the rear, but was eventually out-manœuvred, Fort Penthièvre was scaled during the night, and the émigrés were routed; whilst the English squadron was caught in a hurricane and could not come to their assistance, save with one ship, which fired indiscriminately on friend and foe alike. Most of the Royalists rushed into the sea, where nearly all of them perished. Scarcely a thousand men remained, and these fought heroically. It is said that a promise was given to them that if they surrendered their lives should be spared, and, accordingly, 711 laid down their arms (21st July). By order of the Convention ... these 711 émigrés were shot. ... From his camp at Belleville, Charette, one of the insurgent generals, responded to this execution by the massacre of 2,000 Republican prisoners." In the following October another expedition of Royalists, fitted out in England under the auspices of Pitt, "landed at the Ile Dieu ... a small island about eight miles from the mainland of Poitou, and was composed of 2,500 men, who were destined to be the nucleus of several regiments; it also had on board a large store of arms, ammunition, and the Count d'Artois. Charette, named general commander of the Catholic forces, was awaiting him with 10,000 men. The whole of the Vendée was ready to rise the moment the prince touched French soil, but frivolous and undecided, he waited six weeks in idleness, endeavouring to obtain from England his recall. Hoche, to whom the command of the Republican forces had been entrusted, took advantage of this delay to cut off Charette from his communications, while he held Stoffiet and the rest of the Brittany chiefs in check, and occupied the coast with 30,000 men. The Count d'Artois, whom Pitt would not recall, entreated the English commander to set sail for England (December 17th, 1795), and the latter, unable to manage his fleet on a coast without shelter, complied with his request, leaving the prince on his arrival to the deserved contempt of even his own partisans. Charette in despair attempted another rising, hoping to be seconded by Stofflet, but he was beaten on all sides by Hoche. This general, who combined the astuteness of the statesman with the valour of the soldier, succeeded in a short time in pacifying the country by his generous but firm behaviour towards the inhabitants. Charette, tracked from shelter to shelter, was finally compelled to surrender, brought to Nantes, and shot (March 24th). The same lot had befallen Stofflet a month before at Angers. After these events Hoche led his troops into Brittany, where he succeeded in putting an end to the 'Chouannerie.' The west returned to its normal condition."

H. Van Laun, The French Revolutionary Epoch, book 2, chapter 2, and book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 3, pages 144-145; 188-193; 230-240; 281-305; 343-345; 358-363; 384-389._

FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (April). The question of the Constitution. Insurrection of the 1st Prairial and its failure. Disarming of the Faubourgs. End of Sansculottism. Bourgeoisie dominant again.

"The events of the 12th of Germinal decided nothing. The faubourgs had been repulsed, but not conquered. ... After so many questions decided against the democratists, there still remained one of the utmost importance--the constitution. On this depended the ascendancy of the multitude or of the bourgeoisie. The supporters of the revolutionary government then fell back on the democratic constitution of '93, which presented to them the means of resuming the authority they had lost. Their opponents, on the other hand, endeavoured to replace it by a constitution which would secure all the advantage to them, by concentrating the government a little more, and giving it to the middle class. For a month, both parties were preparing for this last contest. The constitution of 1793, having been sanctioned by the people, enjoyed a great prestige. It was accordingly attacked with infinite precaution. At first its assailants engaged to carry it into execution without restriction; next they appointed a commission of eleven members to prepare the 'lois organiques' which were to render it practicable; by and by, they ventured to suggest objections to it on the ground that it distributed power too loosely, and only recognised one assembly dependent on the people, even in its measures of legislation. At last, a sectionary deputation went so far as to term the constitution of '93 a decemviral constitution, dictated by terror. All its partisans, at once indignant and filled with fears, organized an insurrection to maintain it. ... The conspirators, warned by the failure of the risings of the 1st and 12th Germinal, omitted nothing to make up for their want of direct object and of organization. On the 1st Prairial (20th of May) in the name of the people, insurgent for the purpose of obtaining bread and their rights, they decreed the abolition of the revolutionary government, the establishment of the democratic constitution of '93, the dismissal and arrest of the members of the existing government, the liberation of the patriots, the convocation of the primary assemblies on the 25th Prairial, the convocation of the legislative assembly, destined to replace the convention, on the 25th Messidor, and the suspension of all authority not emanating from the people. They determined on forming a new municipality, to serve as a common centre; to seize on the barriers, telegraph, cannon, tocsins, drums, and not to rest till they had secured repose, happiness, liberty, and means of subsistence for all the French nation. They invited the artillery, gendarmes, horse and foot soldiers, to join the banners of the people, and marched on the convention. Meantime, the latter was deliberating on the means of preventing the insurrection. ... {1311} The committees came in all haste to apprise it of its danger; it immediately declared its sitting permanent, voted Paris responsible for the safety of the representatives of the republic, closed its doors, outlawed all the leaders of the mob, summoned the citizens of the sections to arms, and appointed as their leaders eight commissioners, among whom were Legendre, Henri la Riviere, Kervelegan, &c. These deputies had scarcely gone, when a loud noise was heard without. An outer door had been forced, and numbers of women rushed into the galleries, crying 'Bread and the constitution of '93!' ... The galleries were ... cleared; but the insurgents of the faubourgs soon reached the inner doors, and, finding them closed, forced them with hatchets and hammers, and then rushed in amidst the convention. The Hall now became a field of battle. The veterans and gendarmes, to whom the guard of the assembly was confided, cried 'To arms!' The deputy Auguis, sword in hand, headed them, and succeeded in repelling the assailants, and even made a few of them prisoners. But the insurgents, more numerous, returned to the charge, and again rushed into the house. The deputy Feraud entered precipitately, pursued by the insurgents, who fired some shots in the house. They took aim at Boissy d'Anglas, who was occupying the president's chair. ... Feraud ran to the tribune, to shield him with his body; he was struck at with pikes and sabres, and fell dangerously wounded. The insurgents dragged him into the lobby, and, mistaking him for Freron, cut off his head and placed it on a pike. After this skirmish they became masters of the Hall. Most of the deputies had taken flight. There only remained the members of the Crête [the 'Crest'--a name now given to the remnant of the party of 'The Mountain'] and Boissy d'Anglas, who, calm, his hat on, heedless of threat and insult, protested in the name of the convention against this popular violence. They held out to him the bleeding head of Feraud; he bowed respectfully before it. They tried to force him, by placing pikes at his breast, to put the propositions of the insurgents to the vote; he steadily and courageously refused. But the Crêtois, who approved of the insurrection, took possession of the bureaux and of the tribune, and decreed, amidst the applause of the multitude, all the articles contained in the manifesto of the insurrection." Meantime "the commissioners despatched to the sections had quickly gathered them together. ... The aspect of affairs then underwent a change; Legendre, Kervelagan, and Auguis besieged the insurgents, in their turn, at the head of the sectionaries," and drove them at last from the hall of the convention. "The assembly again became complete; the sections received a vote of thanks, and the deliberations were resumed. All the measures adopted in the interim were annulled, and fourteen representatives, to whom were afterwards joined fourteen others, were arrested, for organizing the insurrection or approving it in their speeches. It was then midnight; at five in the morning the prisoners were already six leagues from Paris. Despite this defeat, the Faubourgs did not consider themselves beaten; and the next day they advanced en masse with their cannon against the convention. The sections, on their side, marched for its defence." But a collision was averted by negotiations, and the insurgents withdrew, "after having received an assurance that the Convention would assiduously attend to the question of provisions, and would soon publish the organic laws of the constitution of '93. ... Six democratic Mountaineers, Goujon, Bourbotte, Romme, Duroy, Duquesnoy, and Soubrany were brought before a military commission ... and ... condemned to death. They all stabbed themselves with the same knife, which was transferred from one to the other, exclaiming, 'Vive la République!' Romme, Goujon, and Duquesnoy were fortunate enough to wound themselves fatally; the other three were conducted to the scaffold in a dying state, but faced death with serene countenances. Meantime, the Faubourgs, though repelled on the 1st, and diverted from their object on the 2nd of Prairial, still had the means of rising," and the convention ordered them to be disarmed. "They were encompassed by all the interior sections. After attempting to resist, they yielded, giving up some of their leaders, their arms, and artillery. ... The inferior class was entirely excluded from the government of the state; the revolutionary committees which formed its assemblies were destroyed; the cannoneers forming its armed force were disarmed; the constitution of '93, which was its code, was abolished; and here the rule of the multitude terminated. ... From that period, the middle class resumed the management of the revolution without, and the assembly was as united under the Girondists as it had been, after the 2nd of June, under the Mountaineers."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: Duchesse d'Abrantes, Memoirs, chapters 12-14 (volume l).

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 3, book 7, chapters 4-6.

G. Long, France and its Revolutions, chapter 53.

FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (June-September). Framing and adoption of the Constitution of the Year III. Self-renewing decrees of the Convention. Hostility in Paris to them. Intrigues of the Royalists.

"The royalist party, beaten on the frontiers, and deserted by the court of Spain, on which it placed most reliance, was now obliged to confine itself to intrigues in the interior; and it must be confessed that, at this moment, Paris offered a wide field for such intrigues. The work of the constitution was advancing; the time when the Convention was to resign its powers, when France should meet to elect fresh representatives, when a new Assembly should succeed that which had so long reigned, was more favourable than any other for counter-revolutionary manœuvres. The most vehement passions were in agitation in the sections of Paris. The members of them were not royalists, but they served the cause of royalty without being aware of it. They had made a point of opposing the Terrorists; they had animated themselves by the conflict; they wished to persecute also; and they were exasperated against the Convention, which would not permit this persecution to be carried too far. They were always ready to remember that Terror had sprung from its bosom; they demanded of it a constitution and laws, and the end of the long dictatorship which it had exercised. ... Behind this mass the royalists concealed themselves. ... The constitution had been presented by the commission of eleven. It was discussed during the three months of Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor [June-August], and was successively decreed with very little alteration." {1312} The principal features of the constitution so framed, known as the Constitution of the Year III., were the following: "A Council, called 'The Council of the Five Hundred,' composed of 500 members, of, at least, thirty years of age, having exclusively the right of proposing laws, one-third to be renewed every year. A Council called 'The Council of the Ancients,' composed of 250 members, of, at least, forty years of age, all either widowers or married, having the sanction of the laws, to be renewed also by one-third. An executive Directory, composed of five members, deciding by a majority, to be renewed annually by one-fifth, having responsible ministers. ... The mode of nominating these powers was the following: All the citizens of the age of twenty-one met of right in primary assembly on every first day of the month of Prairial, and nominated electoral assemblies. These electoral assemblies met every 20th of Prairial, and nominated the two Councils; and the two Councils nominated the Directory. ... The judicial authority was committed to elective judges. ... There were to be no communal assemblies, but municipal and departmental administrations, composed of three, five, or more members, according to the population: they were to be formed by way of election. ... The press was entirely free. The emigrants were banished for ever from the territory of the republic; the national domains were irrevocably secured to the purchasers; all religions were declared free, but were neither acknowledged nor paid by the state. ... One important question was started. The Constituent Assembly, from a parade of disinterestedness, had excluded itself from the new legislative body [the Legislative Assembly of 1791]; would the Convention do the same?" The members of the Convention decided this question in the negative, and "decreed, on the 5th of Fructidor (August 22d), that the new legislative body should be composed of two-thirds of the Convention, and that one new third only should be elected. The question to be decided was, whether the Convention should itself designate the two-thirds to be retained, or whether it should leave that duty to the electoral assemblies. After a tremendous dispute, it was agreed on the 13th of Fructidor (August 30), that this choice should be left to the electoral assemblies. It was decided that the primary assemblies should meet on the 20th of Fructidor (September 6th), to accept the constitution and the two decrees of the 5th and the 13th of Fructidor. It was likewise decided that, after giving their votes upon the constitution and the decrees, the primary assemblies should again meet and proceed forthwith, that is to say, in the year III. (1795), to the elections for the 1st of Prairial in the following year." The right of voting upon the constitution was extended, by another decree, to the armies in the field. "No sooner were these resolutions adopted, than the enemies of the Convention, so numerous and so diverse, were deeply mortified by them. ... The Convention, they said, was determined to cling to power; ... it wished to retain by force a majority composed of men who had covered France with scaffolds. ... All the sections of Paris, excepting that of the Quinze-Vingts, accepted the Constitution and rejected the decrees. The result was not the same in the rest of France. ... On the 1st of Vendémiaire, year IV. (September 23, 1795), the general result of the votes was proclaimed. The constitution was accepted almost unanimously, and the decrees by an immense majority of the voters." The Convention now decreed that the new legislative body should be elected in October and meet November 6.

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 3, pages 305-315._

ALSO IN: H. Von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 12, chapter 4 (volume 4).

H. C. Lockwood, Constitutional History of France, chapter 1, and appendix 3.

J. Mallet du Pan, Memoirs and Correspondence, volume 2, chapter 8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (June-December). Death of the late King's son (Louis XVII.) Treaty of Basle with Spain. Acquisition of Spanish San Domingo. Ineffectual campaign on the Rhine. Victory at Loano.

"The Committees had formed great plans for the campaign of 1795; meaning to invade the territories of the allies, take Mayence, and enter Southern Germany, go down into Italy, and reach the very heart of Spain. But Carnot, Lindet, and Prieur were no longer on the Committee, and their successors were not their equals; army discipline was relaxed; a vulgar reactionist had replaced Carnot in the war department and was working ruin. ... The attack in Spain was to begin with the Lower Pyrenees, by the capture of Pampeluna and a march upon Castile, but famine and fever decimated the army of the Western Pyrenees, and General Moncey was forced to postpone all serious action till the summer. At the other end of the Pyrenees, the French and Spaniards were fighting aimlessly at the entry to Catalonia. The war was at a standstill; but the negotiations went on between the two countries. The king of Spain, as in honor bound, made the liberation of his young kinsman, the son of Louis XVI., a condition of peace. This the Republic would not grant, but the prisoner's death (June 8, 1795) removed the obstacle. The counter-revolutionists accused the Committees of poisoning the child styled by the royalist party Louis XVII. This charge was false; the poor little prisoner died of scrofula, developed by inaction, ennui, and the sufferings of a pitiless imprisonment, increased by the cruel treatment of his jailers, a cobbler named Simon and his wife. A rumor was also spread that the child was not dead, but had been taken away and an impostor substituted, who had died. Only one of the royal family now remained in the Temple, Louis XVI.'s daughter, afterwards the Duchesse d'Angoulême. Spain interceded for her, and she was exchanged. ... Peace with Spain was also hastened by French successes beyond the Pyrenees; General Marceau, being reinforced, took Vittoria and Bilboa, and pushed on to the Ebro. On the 22d of July, Barthelémi, the able French diplomatist, signed a treaty of peace with Spain at Basle, restoring her Biscayan and Catalonian provinces, and accepting Spanish mediation in favor of the king of Naples, Duke of Parma, king of Portugal, and 'the other Italian powers,' including, though not mentioning, the Pope; and Spain yielded her share of San Domingo, which put a brighter face on French affairs in America. ... Guadeloupe, Santa Lucia, and St. Eustache were restored to the French. ... Spain soon made overtures for an alliance with France, wishing to put down the English desire to rule the seas; and, before the new treaty was signed, the army of the Eastern Pyrenees was sent to reinforce the armies of the Alps and Italy, who had only held their positions in the Apennines and on the Ligurian coast against the Austrians and Piedmontese by sheer force of will; but in the autumn of 1795 the face of affairs was changed. {1313} Now that Prussia had left the coalition, war on the Rhine went on between France and Austria, sustained by the South German States; France had to complete her mastery of the left bank by taking Mayence and Luxembourg; and Austria's aim was to dispute them with her. The French government charged Marceau to besiege Mayence during the winter of 1794-95, but did not furnish him the necessary resources, and, France not holding the right bank, Kléber could only partially invest the town, and both his soldiers and those blockading Luxembourg suffered greatly from cold and privation. Early in March, 1795, Pichegru was put in command of the armies of the Rhine and Moselle, and Jourdan was ordered to support him on the left (the Lower Rhine) with the army of Sambre-et-Meuse. Austria took no advantage of the feeble state of the French troops, and Luxembourg, one of the strongest posts in Europe, receiving no help, surrendered (June 24) with 800 cannon and huge store of provisions. The French now had the upper hand, Pichegru and Jourdan commanding 160,000 men on the Rhine. One of these men was upright and brave, but the other had treason in his soul; though everybody admired Pichegru, 'the conqueror of Holland.' ... In August, 1795, an agent of the Prince of Condé, who was then at Brisgau, in the Black Forest, with his corps of emigrants, offered Pichegru, who was in Alsace, the title of Marshal of France and Governor of Alsace, the royal castle of Chambord, a million down, an annuity of 200,000 livres, and a house in Paris, in the 'king's' name, thus flattering at once his vanity and his greed. ... He was checked by no scruples; utterly devoid of moral sense, he hoped to gain his army by money and wine, and had no discussion with the Prince of Condé save as to the manner of his treason." In the end, Pichegru was not able to make his treason as effective as he had bargained to do; but he succeeded in spoiling the campaign of 1795 on the Rhine. Jourdan crossed the river and took Dusseldorf, with 168 cannon, on the 6th of September, expecting a simultaneous movement on the part of Pichegru, to occupy the enemy in the latter's front. But Pichegru, though he took Mannheim, on the 18th of September, threw a corps of 10,000 men into the hands of the Austrians, by placing it where it could be easily overwhelmed, and permitted his opponent, Wurmser, to send reinforcements to Clairfait, who forced Jourdan, in October, to retreat across the Rhine. "Pichegru's perfidy had thwarted a campaign which must have been decisive, and Jourdan's retreat was followed by the enemy's offensive return to the left bank [retaking Mannheim and raising the siege of Mayence], and by reverses which would have been fatal had they coincided with the outburst of royalist and reactionary plots and insurrections in the West, and in Paris itself; but they had luckily been stifled some time since, and as the Convention concluded its career, the direction of the war returned to the hands which guided it so well in 1793 and 1794."

H. Martin, Popular History of France from the First Revolution, chapter 24 (volume 1).

"The peace with Spain ... enabled the government to detach the whole Pyrenean army to the support of General Scherer, who had succeeded Kellermann in the command of the army of Italy. On the 23d of November, the French attacked the Austrians in their position at Loano, and, after a conflict of two days, the enemy's centre was forced by Massena and Augereau, and the Imperialists fled with the loss of 7,000 men, 80 guns, and all their stores. But the season was too far advanced to prosecute this success, and the victors took up winter quarters on the ground they had occupied. ... The capture of the Cape of Good Hope (September 16) by the British under Sir James Craig, was the only other important event of this year."

Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, sections 154 and 157 (chapter 18 of the complete work).

ALSO IN: A. Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals, chapter 13.

E. Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, book. 1, chapters 19-20 (volume l).

_A. de Beauchesne, Louis XVII.: His Life, his Sufferings, his Death._

FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (October-December). The Insurrection of the 13th Vendemiare, put down by Napoleon Bonaparte. Dissolution of the National Convention. Organization of the government of the Directory. Licentiousness of the time.

"The Parisians ... proclaimed their hostility to the Convention and its designs. The National Guard, consisting of armed citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of the Convention; and it was openly proposed to march to the Tuilleries, and compel a change of measures by force of arms. The Convention perceiving their unpopularity and danger, began to look about them anxiously for the means of defence. There were in and near Paris 5,000 regular troops, on whom they thought they might rely, and who of course contemned the National Guard as only half soldiers. They had besides some hundreds of artillery men; and they now organised what they called 'the Sacred Band,' a body of 1,500 ruffians, the most part of them old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With these means they prepared to arrange a plan of defence; and it was obvious that they did not want materials, provided they could find a skilful and determined head. The insurgent sections placed themselves under the command of Danican, an old general of no great skill or reputation. The Convention opposed to him Menou; and he marched at the head of a column into the section Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of that district--one of the wealthiest of the capital. The National Guard were found drawn up in readiness to receive him at the end of the Rue Vivienne; and Menou, becoming alarmed, and hampered by the presence of some of the' Representatives of the People,' entered into a parley, and retired without having struck a blow. The Convention judged that Menou was not master of nerves for such a crisis; and consulted eagerly about a successor to his command. Barras, one of their number, had happened to be present at Toulon and to have appreciated the character of Buonaparte. He had, probably, been applied to by Napoleon in his recent pursuit of employment. Deliberating with Tallien and Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, 'I have the man whom you want; it is a little Corsican officer, who will not stand upon ceremony.' These words decided the fate of Napoleon and of France. Buonaparte had been in the Odeon Theatre when the affair of Le Pelletier occurred, had run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in the gallery, and heard the discussion concerning the conduct of Menou. {1314} He was presently sent for, and asked his opinion as to that officer's retreat. He explained what had happened, and how the evil might have been avoided, in a manner which gave satisfaction. He was desired to assume the command, and arranged his plan of defence as well as the circumstances might permit; for it was already late at night, and the decisive assault on the Tuilleries was expected to take place next morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the march of Menou had been chiefly owing to the presence of the 'Representatives of the People,' and refused to accept the command unless he received it free from all such interference. They yielded: Barras was named commander-in-chief; and Buonaparte second, with the virtual control. His first care was to despatch Murat, then a major of chasseurs, to Sablons, five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The Sectionaries sent a stronger detachment for these cannon immediately afterwards; and Murat, who passed them in the dark, would have gone in vain had he received his orders but a few minutes later. On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary almanac the 13th Vendemiaire) the affray accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National Guards advanced about two P. M., by different streets, to the siege of the palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those of Louis XVI. Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, had effectually secured the command of the river, and the safety of the Tuilleries on one side. He had placed cannon also at all the crossings of the streets by which the National Guard could advance towards the other front; and having posted his battalions in the garden of the Tuilleries and Place du Carousel, he awaited the attack. The insurgents had no cannon; and they came along the narrow streets of Paris in close and heavy columns. When one party reached the church of St. Roche, in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on which side the firing began; but in an instant the artillery swept the streets and lanes, scattering grape-shot among the National Guards, and producing such confusion that they were compelled to give way. The first shot was a signal for all the batteries which Buonaparte had established; the quays of the Seine, opposite to the Tuilleries, were commanded by his guns below the palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions, leaving the streets covered with dead and wounded; the troops of the Convention marched into the various sections, disarmed the terrified inhabitants, and before nightfall everything was quiet. This eminent service secured the triumph of the Conventionalists. ... Within five days from the Day of the Sections Buonaparte was named second in command of the army of the interior; and shortly afterwards, Barras finding his duties as Director sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the command-in-chief of the same army to his 'little Corsican officer.'"

J. G. Lockhart, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, chapter 3.

The victory of the 13th Vendemiaire "enabled the Convention immediately to devote its attention to the formation of the Councils proposed by it, two-thirds of which were to consist of its own members. The first third, which was freely elected, had already been nominated by the Reactionary party. The members of the Directory were chosen, and the deputies of the Convention, believing that for their own interests the regicides should be at the head of the Government, nominated La Réveillère-Lepeaux, Sièyes, Rewbel, Le Tourneur, and Barras. Sièyes refused to act, and Carnot was elected in his place. Immediately after this, the Convention declared its session at an end, after it had had three years of existence, from the 21st September, 1792, to the 28th October, 1795 (4th Brumaire, Year IV.). ... The Directors were all, with the exception of Carnot, of moderate capacity, and concurred in rendering their own position the more difficult. At this period there was no element of order or good government in the Republic; anarchy and uneasiness everywhere prevailed, famine had become chronic, the troops were without clothes, provisions or horses; the Convention had spent an immense capital represented by assignats, and had sold almost half of the Republican territory, belonging to the proscribed classes ...; the excessive degree of discredit to which paper money had fallen, after the issue of thirty-eight thousand millions, had destroyed all confidence and all legitimate commerce. ... Such was the general poverty, that when the Directors entered the palace which had been assigned to them as a dwelling, they found no furniture there, and were compelled to borrow of the porter a few straw chairs and a wooden table, on the latter of which they drew up the decree by which they were appointed to office. Their first care was to establish their power, and they succeeded in doing this by frankly following at first the rules laid down by the Constitution. In a short time industry and commerce began to raise their heads, the supply of provisions became tolerably abundant, and the clubs were abandoned for the workshops and the fields. The Directory exerted itself to revive agriculture, industry, and the arts, re-established the public exhibitions, and founded primary, central, and normal schools. ... This period was distinguished by a great licentiousness in manners. The wealthy classes, who had been so long forced into retirement by the Reign of Terror, now gave themselves up to the pursuit of pleasure without stint, and indulged in a course of unbridled luxury, which was outwardly displayed in balls, festivities, rich costumes and sumptuous equipages. Barras, who was a man of pleasure, favoured this dangerous sign of the reaction, and his palace soon became the rendezvous of the most frivolous and corrupt society. In spite of this, however, the wealthy classes were still the victims, under the government of the Directory, of violent and spoliative measures."

E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 2. pages 270-273.

{1315}

FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (April-October). Triple attack on Austria. Bonaparte's first campaign in Italy. Submission of Sardinia. Armistice with Naples and the Pope. Pillage of art treasures. Hostile designs upon Venice. Expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy. Failure of the campaign beyond the Rhine.

"With the opening of the year 1796 the leading interest of European history passes to a new scene. ... The Directory was now able ... to throw its whole force into the struggle with Austria. By the advice of Bonaparte a threefold movement was undertaken against Vienna, by way of Lombardy, by the valley of the Danube, and by the valley of the Main. General Jourdan, in command of the army that had conquered the Netherlands, was ordered to enter Germany by Frankfort; Moreau, a Breton law-student in 1792, now one of the most skilful soldiers in Europe, crossed the Rhine at Strasburg; Bonaparte himself, drawing his scanty supplies along the coast-road from Nice, faced the allied forces of Austria and Sardinia upon the slopes of the Maritime Apennines, forty miles to the west of Genoa. ... Bonaparte entered Italy proclaiming himself the restorer of Italian freedom, but with the deliberate purpose of using Italy as a means of recruiting the exhausted treasury of France. His correspondence with the Directory exposes with brazen frankness this well·considered system of plunder and deceit, in which the general and the Government were cordially at one. ... The campaign of 1796 commenced in April, in the mountains above the coast-road connecting Nice and Genoa. ... Bonaparte ... for four days ... reiterated his attacks at Montenotte and at Millesimo, until he had forced his own army into a position in the centre of the Allies [Austrians and Piedmontese]; then, leaving a small force to watch the Austrians, he threw the mass of his troops upon the Piedmontese, and drove them back to within thirty miles of Turin. The terror-stricken Government, anticipating an outbreak in the capital itself, accepted an armistice from Bonaparte at Cherasco (April 28). ... The armistice, which was soon followed by a treaty of peace between France and Sardinia, ceding Savoy to the Republic, left him free to follow the Austrians, untroubled by the existence of some of the strongest fortresses of Europe behind him. In the negotiations with Sardinia, Bonaparte demanded the surrender of the town of Valenza, as necessary to secure his passage over the river Po. Having thus artfully led the Austrian Beaulieu to concentrate his forces at this point, he suddenly moved eastward along the southern bank of the river, and crossed at Piacenza, 50 miles below the spot where Beaulieu was awaiting him. ... The Austrian general, taken in the rear, had no alternative but to abandon Milan and all the country west of it, and to fall back upon the line of the Adda. Bonaparte followed, and on the 10th of May attacked the Austrians at Lodi. He himself stormed the bridge of Lodi at the head of his Grenadiers. The battle was so disastrous to the Austrians that they could risk no second engagement, and retired upon Mantua and the line of the Mincio. Bonaparte now made his triumphal entry into Milan (May 15). ... In return for the gift of liberty, the Milanese were invited to offer to their deliverers 20,000,000 francs, and a selection from the paintings in their churches and galleries. The Dukes of Parma and Modena, in return for an armistice, were required to hand over forty of their best pictures, and a sum of money proportioned to their revenues. The Dukes and the townspeople paid their contributions with a good grace: the peasantry of Lombardy, whose cattle were seized in order to supply an army that marched without any stores of its own, rose in arms, and threw themselves into Pavia, after killing all the French soldiers who fell in their way. The revolt was instantly suppressed, and the town of Pavia given up to pillage. ... Instead of crossing the Apennines, Bonaparte advanced against the Austrian positions upon the Mincio. ... A battle was fought and lost by the Austrians at Borghetto. ... Beaulieu's strength was exhausted; he could meet the enemy no more in the field, and led his army out of Italy into the Tyrol, leaving Mantua to be invested by the French. The first care of the conqueror was to make Venice pay for the crime of possessing territory intervening between the eastern and western extremes of the Austrian district. Bonaparte affected to believe that the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to occupy Peschiera before he seized upon Brescia himself. ... 'I have purposely devised this rupture,' he wrote to the Directory (June 7th), 'in case you should wish to obtain five or six millions of francs from Venice. If you have more decided intentions, I think it would be well to keep up the quarrel.' The intention referred to was the disgraceful project of sacrificing Venice to Austria in return for the cession of the Netherlands. ... The Austrians were fairly driven out of Lombardy, and Bonaparte was now free to deal with Southern Italy. He advanced into the States of the Church, and expelled the Papal Legate from Bologna. Ferdinand of Naples ... asked for a suspension of hostilities against his own kingdom ... and Bonaparte granted the king an armistice on easy terms. The Pope, in order to gain a few months' truce, had to permit the occupation of Ferrara, Ravenna, and Ancona, and to recognise the necessities, the learning, the taste, and the virtue of his conquerors by a gift of 20,000,000 francs, 500 manuscripts, 100 pictures, and the busts of Marcus and Lucius Brutus. ... Tuscany had indeed made peace with the French Republic a year before, but ... while Bonaparte paid a respectful visit to the Grand Duke at Florence, Murat descended upon Leghorn, and seized upon everything that was not removed before his approach. Once established in Leghorn, the French declined to quit it. Mantua was meanwhile invested, and thither Bonaparte returned. Towards the end of July an Austrian relieving army, nearly double the strength of Bonaparte's, descended from the Tyrol. It was divided into three corps: one, under Quasdanovich, advanced by the road on the west of Lake Garda; the others, under Wurmser, the commander-in-chief, by the roads between the lake and the river Adige. ... Bonaparte ... instantly broke up the siege of Mantua, and withdrew from every position east of the river. On the 30th July, Quasdanovich was attacked and checked at Lonato. ... Wurmser, unaware of his colleague's repulse, entered Mantua in triumph, and then set out, expecting to envelop Bonaparte between two fires. But the French were ready for his approach. Wurmser was stopped and defeated at Castiglione (Aug. 3), while the western Austrian divisions were still held in check at Lonato. ... In five days the skill of Bonaparte and the unsparing exertions of his soldiery had more than retrieved all that appeared to have been lost. The Austrians retired into the Tyrol, leaving 15,000 prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Bonaparte now prepared to force his way into Germany by the Adige, in fulfilment of the original plan of the campaign. In the first days of September he again routed the Austrians, and gained possession of Roveredo and Trent. {1316} Wurmser hereupon attempted to shut the French up in the mountains by a movement southwards; but, while he operated with insufficient forces between the Brenta and the Adige, with a view of cutting Bonaparte off from Italy, he was himself [defeated at Bassano, September 8, and] cut off from Germany, and only escaped capture by throwing himself into Mantua with the shattered remnant of his army. The road into Germany through the Tyrol now lay open; but in the midst of his victories Bonaparte learnt that the northern armies of Moreau and Jourdan, with which he had intended to co-operate in an attack upon Vienna, were in full retreat. Moreau's advance into the valley of the Danube had, during the months of July and August, been attended with unbroken military and political success. The Archduke Charles, who was entrusted with the defence of the Empire," fell back before Moreau, in order to unite his forces with those of Wartensleben, who commanded an army which confronted Jourdan. "The design of the Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the French for six weeks, and revealed how worthless was the military constitution of the Empire, and how little the Germans had to expect from one another. ... At length the retreating movement of the Austrians stopped [and the Archduke fought an indecisive battle with Moreau at Neresheim, August 11]. Leaving 30,000 men on the Lech to disguise his motions from Moreau, Charles turned suddenly northwards from Neuberg on the 17th August, met Wartensleben at Amberg, and attacked Jourdan ... with greatly superior numbers. Jourdan was defeated [September 3, at Würtzburg] and driven back in confusion towards the Rhine. The issue of the campaign was decided before Moreau heard of his colleague's danger. It only remained for him to save his own army by a skilful retreat," in the course of which he defeated the Austrian general Latour at Biberach, October 2, and fought two indecisive battles with the Archduke, at Emmendingen, October 19, and at Huningen on the 24th.

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: A. Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals, chapters 14-15.

General Jomini, Life of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 2.

E. Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, book 1, chapter 22 (volume 1).

C. Adams, Great Campaigns, 1796-1870, chapter 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (September). Evacuation of Corsica by the English. Its reoccupation by the French.

"Corsica, which had been delivered to the English by Paoli, and occupied by them as a fourth kingdom annexed to the crown of the King of Great Britain, had just been evacuated by its new masters. They had never succeeded in subduing the interior of the island, frequent insurrections had kept them in continual alarm, and free communication between the various towns could only be effected by sea. The victories of the French army in Italy, under the command of one of their countrymen, had redoubled this internal ferment in Corsica, and the English had decided on entirely abandoning their conquest. In September 1796 they withdrew their troops, and also removed from Corsica their chief partisans, such as General Paoli, Pozzo di Borgo, Beraldi and others, who sought an asylum in England. On the first intelligence of the English preparations for evacuating the island, Buonaparte despatched General Gentili thither at the head of two or three hundred banished Corsicans, and with this little band Gentili took possession of the principal strongholds. ... On the 5th Frimaire, year V. (November 25, 1796), I received a decree of the Executive Directory ... appointing me Commissioner-Extraordinary of the Government in Corsica, and ordering me to proceed thither at once."

Count Miot de Melito, Memoirs, chapter 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (October). Failure of peace negotiations with England. Treaties with Naples and Genoa.

"It was France itself, more even than Italy, which was succumbing under the victories in Italy, and was falling rapidly under the military despotism of Bonaparte; while what had begun as a mere war of defence was already becoming a war of aggression against everybody. ... The more patriotic members of the legislative bodies were opposed to what they considered only a war of personal ambitions, and were desirous of peace, and a considerable peace party was forming throughout the country. The opportunity was taken by the English government for making proposals for peace, and a pass-port was obtained from the directory for lord Malmesbury, who was sent to Paris as the English plenipotentiary. Lord Malmesbury arrived in Paris on the 2nd of Brumaire (the 23rd of October, 1796), and next day had his first interview with the French minister Delacroix, who was chosen by the directory to act as their representative. There was from the first an evident want of cordiality and sincerity on the part of the French government in this negotiation; and the demands they made, and the political views entertained by them, were so unreasonable, that, after it had dragged on slowly for about a month, it ended without a result. The directory were secretly making great preparations for the invasion of Ireland, and they had hopes of making a separate and very advantageous peace with Austria. Bonaparte had, during this time, become uneasy on account of his position in Italy," and "urged the directory to enter into negotiations with the different Italian states in his rear, such as Naples, Rome, and Genoa, and to form an offensive and defensive alliance with the king of Sardinia, so that he might be able to raise reinforcements in Italy. For this purpose he asked for authority to proclaim the independence of Lombardy and of the states of Modena; so that, by forming both into republics, he might create a powerful French party, through which he might obtain both men and provisions. The directory was not unwilling to second the wishes of Bonaparte, and on the 19th of Vendemiaire (the 10th of October) a peace was signed with Naples, which was followed by a treaty with Genoa. This latter state paid two millions of francs as an indemnity for the acts of hostility formerly committed against France, and added two millions more as a loan." The negotiation for an offensive alliance with Sardinia failed, because the king demanded Lombardy.

T. Wright, History of France, volume 2, page 758.

ALSO IN: W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 27 (volume 7).

_E. Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace._

{1317}

FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (October-April). Bonaparte's continued victories in Italy. His advance into Carinthia and the Tyrol. Peace preliminaries of Leoben.

"The failure of the French invasion of Germany ... enabled the Austrians to make a fresh effort for the relief of [Würmser] in Mantua. 40,000 men under Alvinzi and 18,000 under Davidowich entered Italy from the Tyrol and marched by different routes towards Verona. Bonaparte had employed the recent interlude in consolidating French influence in Italy. Against the wishes of the Directors he dethroned the duke of Modena, and formed his territories into the Cispadane Republic. Then he tried to induce Piedmont and Venice to join France, but both states preferred to retain their neutral position. This was another of the charges which the general was preparing against Venice. On the news of the Austrian advance, Bonaparte marched against Alvinzi, and checked him at Carmignano (6 November). But meanwhile Davidowich had taken Trent and was approaching Rivoli. Bonaparte, in danger of being surrounded, was compelled to give way, and retreated to Verona, while Alvinzi followed him. Never was the French position more critical, and nothing but a very bold move could save them. With reckless courage Bonaparte attacked Alvinzi at Arcola, and after three days' hard fighting [November 15-17, on the dykes and causeways of a marshy region] won a complete victory. He then forced Davidowich to retreat to the Tyrol. The danger was averted, and the blockade of Mantua was continued. But Austria, as if its resources were inexhaustible, determined on a fourth effort in January, 1797. Alvinzi was again entrusted with the command, while another detachment under Provera advanced from Friuli. Bonaparte collected all his forces, marched against Alvinzi, and crushed him at Rivoli (15 January). But meanwhile Provera had reached Mantua, where Bonaparte, by a forced march, overtook him, and won another complete victory in the battle of La Favorita. The fate of Mantua was at last decided, and the city surrendered on the 2nd of February. With a generosity worthy of the glory which he had obtained, Bonaparte allowed Würmser and the garrison to march out with the honours of war. He now turned to Romagna, occupied Bologna and terrified the Pope into signing the treaty of Tolentino. The temporal power was allowed to exist, but within very curtailed limits. Not only Avignon, but the whole of Romagna, with Ancona, was surrendered to France. Even these terms, harsh as they were, were not so severe as the Directors had wished. But Bonaparte was beginning to play his own game; he saw that Catholicism was regaining ground in France, and he wished to make friends on what might prove after all the winning side. Affairs in Italy were now fairly settled: two republics, the Cisalpine in Lombardy, and the Cispadane, which included Modena, Ferrara, and Bologna, had been created to secure French influence in Italy. ... The French had occupied the Venetian territory from Bergamo to Verona, and had established close relations with those classes who were dissatisfied with their exclusion from political power. When the republic armed against the danger of a revolt, Bonaparte treated it as another ground for that quarrel which he artfully fomented for his own purposes. But at present he had other objects more immediately pressing than the oppression of Venice. Jourdan's army on the Rhine had been entrusted to Hoche, whose ambition had long chafed at the want of an opportunity, and who was burning to acquire glory by retrieving the disasters of the last campaign. Bonaparte, on the other hand, was eager to anticipate a possible rival, and determined to hurry on his own invasion of Austria, in order to keep the war and the negotiations in his own hands. The task of meeting him was entrusted to the archduke Charles, who had won such a brilliant reputation in 1796, but who was placed at a great disadvantage to his opponent by having to obey instructions from Vienna. The French carried all before them, Joubert occupied Tyrol, Masséna forced the route to Carinthia, and Bonaparte himself, after defeating the archduke on the Tagliamento, occupied Trieste and Carniola. The French now marched over the Alps, driving the Austrians before them. At Leoben, which they reached on 7th April, they were less than eighty miles from Vienna. Here Austrian envoys arrived to open negotiations. They consented to surrender Belgium, Lombardy, and the Rhine frontier, but they demanded compensation in Bavaria. This demand Bonaparte refused, but offered to compensate Austria at the expense of a neutral state, Venice. The preliminaries of Leoben, signed on the 18th April, gave to Austria, Istria, Dalmatia, and the Venetian provinces between the Oglio, the Po, and the Adriatic. At this moment, Hoche and Moreau, after overcoming the obstacles interposed by a sluggish government, were crossing the Rhine to bring their armies to bear against Austria. They had already gained several successes when the unwelcome news reached them from Leoben, and they had to retreat. Bonaparte may have failed to extort the most extreme terms from Austria, but he had at any rate kept both power and fame to himself."

R. Lodge, English of Modern Europe, chapter 23.

ALSO IN: F. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon I., volume 1, chapters 5-7.

Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena, volume 4, chapters 1-4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (December-January): Hoche's expedition to Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1791-1798.

FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (February-October). British naval victories of Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.

FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (April-May). The overthrow of Venice by Bonaparte.

When Napoleon, in March, entered upon his campaign against the Archduke Charles, "the animosity existing between France and Venice had ... attained a height that threatened an open rupture between the two republics, and was, therefore, of some advantage to Austria. The Signoria saw plainly what its fate would be should the French prove victorious; but though they had 12,000 or 15,000 Slavonian troops ready at hand, and mostly assembled in the capital, they never ventured to use them till the moment for acting was past. On the Terra Firma, the citizens of Brescia and Bergamo had openly renounced the authority of St. Mark, and espoused the cause of France; the country people, on the other hand, were bitterly hostile to the new Republicans. Oppressed by requisitions, plundered and insulted by the troops, the peasants had slain straggling and marauding French soldiers; the comrades of the sufferers had retaliated, and an open revolt was more than once expected. General Battaglia, the Venetian providatore, remonstrated against the open violence practised on the subjects of Venice; Buonaparte replied by accusing the government of partiality for Austria, and went so far as to employ General Andrieux to instigate the people to rise against the senate. The Directory, however, desired him to pause, and not to 'drive the Venetians to extremity, till the opportunity, should have arrived for carrying into effect the future projects entertained against that state.' {1318} Both parties were watching their time, but the craven watches in vain, for he is struck down long before his time to strike arrives." A month later, when Napoleon was believed to be involved in difficulties in Carinthia and the Tyrol, Venice "had thrown off the mask of neutrality; the tocsin had sounded through the communes of the Terra Firma, and a body of troops had joined the insurgents in the attack on the citadel of Verona. Not only were the French assailed wherever they were found in arms, but the very sick were inhumanly slain in the hospitals by the infuriated peasantry; the principal massacre took place at Verona on Easter Monday [April 17], and cast a deep stain on the Venetian cause and character." But even while these sinister events were in progress, Bonaparte had made peace with the humiliated Austrians, and had signed the preliminary treaty of Leoben, which promised to give Venice to them in exchange for the Netherlands. And now, with all his forces set free, he was prepared to crush the venerable Republic, and make it subservient to his ambitious schemes. He "refused to hear of any accommodation: and, unfortunately, the base massacre of Verona blackened the Venetian cause so much as almost to gloss over the unprincipled violence of their adversaries. 'If you could offer me the treasures of Peru,' said Napoleon to the terrified deputies who came to sue for pardon and offer reparation, 'if you could cover your whole dominions with gold, the atonement would be insufficient. French blood has been treacherously shed, and the Lion of St. Mark must bite the dust.' On the 3d of May he declared war against the republic, and French troops immediately advanced to the shores of the lagunes. Here, however, the waves of the Adriatic arrested their progress, for they had not a single boat at command, whereas the Venetians had a good fleet in the harbour, and an army of 10,000 or 15,000 soldiers in the capital: they only wanted the courage to use them. Instead of fighting, however, they deliberated; and tried to purchase safety by gold, instead of maintaining it by arms. Finding the enemy relentless, the Great Council proposed to modify their government,--to render it more democratic, in order to please the French commander,--to lay their very institutions at the feet of the conqueror; and, strange to say, only 21 patricians out of 690 dissented from this act of national degradation. The democratic party, supported by the intrigues of Vittelan, the French secretary of legation, exerted themselves to the utmost. The Slavonian troops were disbanded, or embarked for Dalmatia; the fleet was dismantled, and the Senate were rapidly divesting themselves of every privilege, when, on the 31st of May, a popular tumult broke out in the capital. The Great Council were in deliberation when shots were fired beneath the windows of the ducal palace. The trembling senators thought that the rising was directed against them, and that their lives were in danger, and hastened to divest themselves of every remnant of power and authority at the very moment when the populace were taking arms in their favour. 'Long live St. Mark, and down with foreign dominion!' was the cry of the insurgents, but nothing could communicate one spark of gallant fire to the Venetian aristocracy. In the midst of the general confusion, while the adverse parties were firing on each other, and the disbanded Slavonians threatening to plunder the city, these unhappy legislators could only delegate their power to a hastily assembled provisional government, and then separate in shame and for ever. The democratic government commenced their career in a manner as dishonourable as that of the aristocracy had been closed." They "immediately despatched the flotilla to bring over the French troops. A brigade under Baraguai d'Hilliers soon landed [May 15] at the place of St. Mark; and Venice, which had braved the thunders of the Vatican, the power of the emperors, and the arms of the Othmans, ... now sunk for ever, and without striking one manly blow or firing one single shot for honour and fame! Venice counted 1300 years of independence, centuries of power and renown, and many also of greatness and glory, but ended in a manner more dishonourable than any state of which history makes mention. The French went through the form of acknowledging the new democratic government, but retained the power in their own hands. Heavy contributions were levied, all the naval and military stores were taken possession of, and the fleet, having conveyed French troops to the Ionian islands, was sent to Toulon."

T. Mitchell, Principal Campaigns in the Rise of Napoleon, chapter 6 (Fraser's Magazine, April, 1846).

ALSO IN: E. Flagg, Venice: The City of the Sea, part 1, chapters 1-4 (volume 1).

Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena, volume 4, chapter 5.

FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (May-October). Napoleon's political work in Italy. Creation of the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics. Dismemberment of the Graubunden. The Peace of Campo-Formio. Venice given over to Austria, and Lombardy and the Netherlands taken away.

"The revolution in Venice was soon followed by another in Genoa, also organised by the plots of the French minister there, Faypoult. The Genoese had in general shown themselves favourable to France; but there existed among the nobles an anti-French party; the Senate, like that of Venice, was too aristocratic to suit Bonaparte's or the Directory's notions; and it was considered that Genoa, under a democratic constitution, would be more subservient to French interests. An insurrection, prepared by Faypoult, of some 700 or 800 of the lowest class of Genoese, aided by Frenchmen and Lombards, broke out on May 22nd, but was put down by the great mass of the real Genoese people. Bonaparte, however, was determined to effect his object. He directed a force of 12,000 men on Genoa, and despatched Lavalette with a letter to the Doge. ... Bonaparte's threats were attended by the same magical effects at Genoa as had followed them at Venice. The Senate immediately despatched three nobles to treat with him, and on June 6th was concluded the Treaty of Montebello. The Government of Genoa recognised by this treaty the sovereignty of the people, confided the legislative power to two Councils, one of 300, the other of 500 members, the executive power to a Senate of twelve, presided over by the Doge. Meanwhile a provisional government was to be established. By a secret article a contribution of four millions, disguised under the name of a loan, was imposed upon Genoa. {1319} Her obedience was recompensed with a considerable augmentation of territory, and the incorporation of the districts known as the 'imperial fiefs.' Such was the origin of the Ligurian Republic. Austrian Lombardy, after its conquest, had also been formed into the 'Lombard Republic'; but the Directory had not recognised it, awaiting a final settlement of Italy through a peace with Austria. Bonaparte, after taking possession of the Duchy of Modena and the Legations, had, at first, thought of erecting them into an independent state under the name of the 'Cispadane Republic'; but he afterwards changed his mind and united these states with Lombardy under the title of the Cisalpine Republic. He declared, in the name of the Directory, the independence of this new republic, June 29th 1797; reserving, however, the right of nominating, for the first time, the members of the Government and of the legislative body. The districts of the Valteline, Chiavenna, and Bormio, subject to the Grison League, in which discontent and disturbance had been excited by French agents, were united in October to the new state; whose constitution was modelled on that of the French Republic. Bonaparte was commissioned by the Directory to negociate a definitive peace with Austria, and conferences were opened for that purpose at Montebello, Bonaparte's residence near Milan. The negociations were chiefly managed by himself, and on the part of Austria by the Marquis di Gallo, the Neapolitan ambassador at Vienna, and Count Meerfeld. ... The negociations were protracted six months, partly through Bonaparte's engagements in arranging the affairs of the new Italian republics, but more especially by divisions and feuds in the French Directory." The Peace of Campo Formio was concluded October 17. "It derived this name from its having been signed in a ruined castle situated in a small village of that name near Udine; a place selected on grounds of etiquette in preference to the residence of either of the negociators. By this treaty the Emperor ceded the Austrian Netherlands to France; abandoned to the Cisalpine Republic, which he recognised, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Peschiera, the town and fortress of Mantua with their territories, and all that part of the former Venetian possessions to the south and west of a line which, commencing in the Tyrol, traversed the Lago di Garda, the left bank of the Adige, but including Porto Legnago on the right bank, and thence along the left bank of the Po to its mouth. France was to possess the Ionian Islands, and all the Venetian settlements in Albania below the Gulf of Lodrino; the French Republic agreeing on its side that the Emperor should have Istria, Dalmatia, the Venetian isles in the Adriatic, the mouths of the Cattaro, the city of Venice, the Lagoons, and all the former Venetian terra firma to the line before described. The Emperor ceded the Breisgau to the Duke of Modena, to be held on the same conditions as he had held the Modenese. A congress composed of the plenipotentiaries of the German Federation was to assemble immediately, to treat of a peace between France and the Empire. To this patent treaty was added another secret one, by the principal article of which the Emperor consented that France should have the frontier of the Rhine, except the Prussian possessions, and stipulated that the Imperial troops should enter Venice on the same day that the French entered Mentz. He also promised to use his influence to obtain the accession of the Empire to this arrangement; and if that body withheld its consent, to give it no more assistance than his contingent. The navigation of the Rhine to be declared free. If, at the peace with the Empire, the French Republic should make any acquisitions in Germany, the Emperor was to obtain an equivalent there, and vice versa. The Dutch Stadtholder to have a territorial indemnity. To the King of Prussia were to be restored his possessions on the left bank of the Rhine, and he was consequently to have no new acquisitions in Germany. Princes and States of the Empire, damnified by this treaty, to obtain a suitable indemnity. ... By the Treaty of Campo Formio was terminated not only the Italian campaign, but also the first continental war of the Revolution. The establishment of Bonaparte's prestige and power by the former was a result still more momentous in its consequences for Europe than the fall of Venice and the revolutionising of Northern Italy."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 8 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: _A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 4, pages 214-225._

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, chapter 28.

Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena, chapters 6-8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (September). Conflict of the Directory and the two Councils. The Revolutionary Coup d'État of the 18th of Fructidor. Suppression of the Royalists and Moderates. Practical overthrow of the Constitution.

"The inevitable dissension between the executive power and the electoral power had already displayed itself at the conclusion of the elections of the Year V. The elections were made for the most part under the influence of the reactionary party, which, whilst it refrained from conspiring for the overthrow of the new Constitution, saw with terror that the executive power was in the hands of men who had taken part in the excesses and crimes of the Convention. Pichegru, whose intrigues with the princes of the House of Bourbon were not yet known, was enthusiastically made President of the Council of Five Hundred, and Barbé-Marbois was made President of the Ancients. Le Tourneur having become, by lot, the retiring member of the Directory, Barthélemy, an upright and moderate man, was chosen in his place. He, as well as his colleague, Carnot, were opposed to violent measures; but they only formed in the Directorate a minority which was powerless against the Triumvirs Barras, Rewbel, and La Réveillère, who soon entered upon a struggle with the two Councils. ... There were, doubtless, amongst [their opponents] in the two Councils, some Royalists, and ardent reactionists, who desired with all their hearts the restoration of the Bourbons; but, according to the very best testimony, the majority of the names which were drawn from the electoral urn since the promulgation of the Constitution of the Year III. were strangers to the Royalist party. 'They did not desire,' to use the words of an eminent and impartial historian of our own day [De Barante, 'Life of Royer-Collard'], 'a counter-revolution, but the abolition of the revolutionary laws which were still in force. They wished for peace and true liberty, and the successive purification of a Directorate which was the direct heir of the Convention. ... But the Directorate was as much opposed to the Moderates as to the Royalists.' {1320} It pretended to regard these two parties as one, and falsely represented them as conspiring in common for the overthrow of the Republic and the re-establishment of monarchy. ... If there were few Royalists in the two Councils, there were also few men determined to provoke on the part of the Directors a recourse to violence against their colleagues. But as a great number of their members had sat in the Convention, they naturally feared a too complete reaction, and, affecting a great zeal for the Constitution, they founded at the Hotel Salm, under the name of the Constitutional Club, an association which was widely opposed in its spirit and tendency to that of the Hotel Clichy, in which were assembled the most ardent members of the reactionary party [and hence called Clichyans]. ... The Council of Five Hundred, on the motion of a member of the Clichy Club, energetically demanded that the Legislative power should have a share in determining questions of peace or war. No general had exercised, in this respect, a more arbitrary power than had Bonaparte, who had negotiated of his own mere authority several treaties, and the preliminaries of the peace of Campo Formio. He was offended at these pretensions on the part of the Council of Five Hundred, and entreated the Government to look to the army for support against the Councils and the reactionary press. He even sent to Paris, as a support to the policy of the Directors, General Augereau, one of the bravest men of his army, but by no means scrupulous as to the employment of violent means, and disposed to regard the sword as the supreme argument in politics, whether at home or abroad. The Directory gave him the command of the military division of Paris. ... Henceforth a coup d'état appeared inevitable. The Directors now marched some regiments upon the capital, in defiance of a clause of the Constitution which prohibited the presence of troops within a distance of twelve leagues of Paris, unless in accordance with a special law passed in or near Paris itself. The Councils burst forth into reproaches and threats against the Directors, to which the latter replied by fiery addresses to the armies, and to the Councils themselves. It was in vain that the Directors Carnot and Barthélemy endeavoured to quell the rising storm; their three colleagues refused to listen to them, and fixed the 18th Fructidor [September 4] for the execution of their criminal projects. During the night preceding that day, Augereau marched 12,000 men into Paris, and in the morning these troops, under his own command, supported by 40 pieces of cannon, surrounded the Tuileries, in which the Councils held their sittings. The grenadiers of the Councils' guard joined Augereau, who arrested with his own hand the brave Ramel, who commanded that guard, and General Pichegru, the President of the Council of Five Hundred. ... The Directors ... published a letter written by Moreau, which revealed Pichegru's treason; and at the same time nominated a Committee for the purpose of watching over the public safety. ... Forty-two members of the Council of Five Hundred, eleven members of that of the Ancients, and two of the Directors, Carnot [who escaped, however, into Switzerland] and Barthélemy, were condemned to be transported to the fatal district of Sinnamari. ... The Directors also made the editors of 35 journals the victims of their resentment. They had the laws passed in favour of the priests and emigrants reversed, and annulled the elections of 48 departments. Merlin de Douai and François de Neufchâteau were chosen as successors to Carnot and Barthélemy, who had been banished and proscribed by their colleagues. That which took place on the 18th Fructidor ruined the Constitutional and Moderate party, whilst it resuscitated that of the Revolution."

E. de Bonnechose, History of France, 4th period, book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2).

"During these two days, Paris continued perfectly quiet. The patriots of the fauxbourgs deemed the punishment of transportation too mild. ... These groups, however, which were far from numerous, disturbed not in the least the peace of Paris. The sectionaries of Vendemiaire ... had no longer sufficient energy to take up arms spontaneously. They suffered the stroke of policy to be carried into effect without opposition. For the rest, public opinion continued uncertain. The sincere republicans clearly perceived that the royalist faction had rendered an energetic measure inevitable, but they deplored the violation of the laws and the intervention of the military power. They almost doubted the culpability of the conspirators on seeing such a man as Carnot mingled in their ranks. They apprehended that hatred had too strongly influenced the determinations of the Directory. Lastly, even, though considering its determinations as necessary, they were sad, and not without reason: for it became evident that that constitution, on which they had placed all their hope, was not the termination of our troubles and our discord. The mass of the population submitted and detached itself much on that day from political events. ... From that day, political zeal began to cool. Such were the consequences of the stroke of policy accomplished on the 18th of Fructidor. It has been asserted that it had become useless at the moment when it was executed; that the Directory, in frightening the royalist faction, had already succeeded in overawing it; that, by persisting in this stretch of power, it paved the way to military usurpation. ... But ... the royalist faction ... on the junction of the new third ... would infallibly have overturned everything, and mastered the Directory. Civil war would then have ensued between it and the armies. The Directory, in foreseeing this movement and timely repressing it, prevented a civil war; and, if it placed itself under the protection of the military, it submitted to a melancholy but inevitable necessity."

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 4, pages 205-206._

FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-May). Revolutionary intrigues in Rome. French troops in possession of the city. Formation of the Roman Republic. Removal of the Pope.

"At Rome a permanent conspiracy was established at the French Embassy, where Joseph Bonaparte, as the ambassador of the Republic, was the centre of a knot of conspirators. On the 28th of December, 1797, came the first open attempt at insurrection. General Duphot, a hot-headed young man, one of the military attaches of the French Embassy, put himself at the head of a handful of the disaffected, and led them to the attack of one of the posts of the pontifical troops. In the ensuing skirmish a chance shot struck down the French general, and the rabble which followed him dispersed in all directions. It was just the opportunity for which the Directory had been waiting in order to break the treaty of Tolentino and seize upon Rome. {1321} Joseph Bonaparte left the city the morning after the émeute, and a column of troops was immediately detached from his brother's army in the north of Italy and ordered to march on Rome. It consisted of General Berthier's division and 6,000 Poles under Dombrowski, and it received the ominous title of l'armée vengeresse--the avenging army. As they advanced through the Papal territory they met with no sympathy, no assistance, from the inhabitants, who looked upon them as invaders rather than deliverers. 'The army,' Berthier wrote to Bonaparte, 'has met with nothing but the most profound consternation in this country, without seeing one glimpse of the spirit of independence; only one single patriot came to me, and offered to set at liberty 2,000 convicts.' This liberal offer of a re-inforcement of 2,000 scoundrels the French general thought it better to decline. ... At length, on the 10th of February, Berthier appeared before Rome. ... Wishing to avoid a useless effusion of blood, Pius VI. ordered the gates to be thrown open, contenting himself with addressing, through the commandant of St. Angelo, a protest to the French general, in which he declared that he yielded only to overwhelming force. A few days after, a self-elected deputation of Romans waited upon Berthier, to request him to proclaim Rome a republic, under the protection of France. As Berthier had been one of the most active agents in getting up this deputation, he, of course, immediately yielded to their request. The French general then demanded of the Pope that he should formally resign his temporal power, and accept the new order of things. His reply was the same as that of every Pope of whom such a demand has been made: 'We cannot--we will not!' In the midst of a violent thunder-storm he was torn from his palace, forced into a carriage, and carried away to Viterbo, and thence to Siena, where he was kept a prisoner for three months. Rome was ruled by the iron hand of a military governor. ... Meanwhile, alarmed at the rising in Italy, the Directory were conveying the Pope to a French prison. ... After a short stay at Grenoble he was transferred to the fortress of Valence, where, broken down by the fatigues of his journey, he died on August 19th, 1799, praying for his enemies with his last breath."

Chevalier O'Clery. History of the Italian Revolution, chapter 2, section 1.

ALSO IN: C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapter 4.

J. Miley, History of the Papal States, book 8, chapter 3 (volume 3).

J. E. Darras, History of the Catholic Church, 8th period, chapter 6 (volume 4).

T. Roscoe, Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci. volume 2, chapter 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-September). Invasion and subjugation of Switzerland. Creation of the Helvetic Republic.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.

FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1799. Hostile attitude toward the United States. The X, Y, Z correspondence. Nearness of war.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1797-1799.

FRANCE: A. D. 1798 (May-August). Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt. His seizure of Malta. Pursuit by the English fleet under Nelson. The Battle of the Nile.

"The treaty of Campo Formio, by which Austria obtained terms highly advantageous to her interests, dissolved the offensive and defensive alliance of the continental powers, and left England alone in arms. The humiliation of this country was to be the last and the greatest achievement of French ambition. ... During the autumn and winter of this year [1797-8], preparations for a great armament were proceeding at Toulon, and other harbours in possession of the French. The army of Italy, clamorous for a promised donation of 1,000,000,000 francs, which the Directory were unable to pay, had been flattered by the title of the army of England, and appeased by the prospect of the plunder of this country. But whatever might be the view of the Directory, or the expectation of the army, Bonaparte had no intention of undertaking an enterprise so rash as a descent upon the coast of England, while the fleets of England kept possession of the seas. There was another quarter from which the British Empire might be menaced with a better chance of success. India could never be secure while Egypt and the great eastern port of the Mediterranean were in the possession of one of the great maritime powers. Egypt had been an object of French ambition since the time of Louis XIV. ... It was for Egypt, therefore, that the great armament of Toulon was destined. The project was not indeed considered a very hopeful one at Paris; but such was the dread and hatred of the ruling faction for the great military genius which had sprung out of the anarchy of France, and of the 30,000 creditors whom they were unable to satisfy, that the issue of the expedition which they most desired was, that it might never return from the banks of the Nile. ... The fleet, consisting of thirteen ships of the line, with several frigates, smaller vessels, and transports conveying 28,000 picked troops, with the full equipment for every kind of military service, set sail on the 14th of May. Attached to this singular expedition, destined for the invasion of a friendly country, and the destruction of an unoffending people, was a staff of professors, furnished with books, maps, and philosophical instruments for prosecuting scientific researches in a land which, to a Christian and a philosopher, was the most interesting portion of the globe. The great armament commenced its career of rapine by seizing on the important island of Malta. Under the shallow pretence of taking in water for a squadron which had left its anchorage only two days, a portion of the troops were landed, and, after a show of resistance, the degenerate knights, who had already been corrupted, surrendered Malta, Gozo, and Cumino, to the French Republic. A great amount of treasure and of munitions of war, besides the possession of the strongest place in the Mediterranean, were thus acquired without loss or delay. A conquest of such importance would have amply repaid and justified the expedition, if no ulterior object had been pursued. But Bonaparte suffered himself to be detained no more than twenty-four hours by this achievement; and having left a garrison of 4,000 men in the island, and established a form of civil government, after the French pattern, he shaped his course direct for Alexandria. On the 1st of July, the first division of the French troops were landed at Marabou, a few miles from the city. Aboukir and Rosetta, which commanded the mouths of the Nile, were occupied without difficulty. Alexandria itself was incapable of any effectual defence, and, after a few skirmishes with the handful of Janissaries which constituted the garrison, the French entered the place; and for several hours the inhabitants were given up to an indiscriminate massacre. {1322} Bonaparte pushed forward with his usual rapidity, undeterred by the horrors of the sandy desert, and the sufferings of his troops. After two victories over the Mamelukes, one of which was obtained within sight of the Pyramids [and called the Battle of the Pyramids], the French advanced to Cairo; and such was the terror which they had inspired, that the capital of Egypt was surrendered without a blow. Thus in three weeks the country had been overrun. The invaders had nothing to fear from the hostility of the people; a rich and fertile country, the frontier of Asia, was in their possession; but, in order to hold the possession secure, it was necessary to retain the command of the sea. The English Government, on their side, considered the capture of the Toulon armament an object of paramount importance; and Earl St. Vincent, who was still blockading the Spanish ports, was ordered to leave Cadiz, if necessary, with his whole fleet, in search of the French; but at all events, to detach a squadron, under Sir Horatio Nelson, on that service. ... Nelson left Gibraltar on the 8th of May, with three ships of the line, four frigates, and a sloop. ... He was reinforced, on the 5th of June, with ten sail of the line. His frigates had parted company with him on the 20th of May, and never returned." Suspecting that Egypt was Bonaparte's destination, he made sail for Alexandria, but passed the French expedition, at night, on the way, arrived in advance of it, and, thinking his surmise mistaken, steered away for the Morea and thence to Naples. It was not until the 1st of August that he reached the Egyptian coast a second time, and found the French fleet, of sixteen sail, "at anchor in line of battle, in the Bay of Aboukir. Nelson, having determined to fight whenever he came up with the enemy, whether by day or by night, immediately made the signal for action. Although the French fleet lay in an open roadstead, they had taken up a position so strong as to justify their belief that they could not be successfully attacked by a force less than double their own. They lay close in shore, with a large shoal in their rear; in the advance of their line was an island, on which a formidable battery had been erected; and their flanks were covered by numerous gun-boats. ... The general action commenced at sunset, and continued throughout the night until six o'clock the following morning, a period of nearly twelve hours. But in less than two hours, five of the enemy's ships had struck; and, soon after nine o'clock, the sea and shore, for miles around, were illuminated by a fire which burst from the decks of the 'Orient,' the French flag-ship, of 120 guns. In about half an hour she blew up, with an explosion so appalling that for some minutes the action was suspended, as if by tacit consent. At this time the French Admiral Brueys was dead, ... killed by a chain-shot before the ship took fire. Nelson also had been carried below, with a wound which was, at first, supposed to be mortal. He had been struck in the head with a fragment of langridge shot, which tore away a part of the scalp. ... At three o'clock in the morning four more of the French ships were destroyed or taken. There was then an interval of two hours, during which hardly a shot was fired on either side. At ten minutes to seven another ship of the line, after a feeble attempt at resistance, hauled down her colours. The action was now over. Of the thirteen French ships of the line, nine had been taken, and two had been burnt." Two ships of the line and two frigates escaped. "The British killed and wounded were 895. The loss of the French, including prisoners, was 5,225. Such was the great battle of the Nile."

W. Massey, History of England during the Reign of George III., chapter 39 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: E. J. De La Gravière, Sketches of the Last Naval War, volume 1, part 3.

R. Southey, Life of Nelson, chapter 5.

Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, volume 3.

Bonaparte, Memoirs Dictated at St. Helena, volume 2.

A. T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, chapter 9 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (August-April). Arming against the Second European Coalition. The conscription. Overthrow of the Neapolitan kingdom. Seizure of Piedmont. Campaigns in Switzerland, Italy, and on the upper Danube. Early successes and final reverses.

"The Porte declared war against the French, and, entered into an alliance with Russia and England (12th August). A Russian fleet sailed from Sebastopol, and blockaded the Ionian Islands; the English vessels found every Turkish port open to them, and gained possession of the Levant trade, to the detriment of France. Thus the failure of the Egyptian expedition delivered the Ottoman Empire into the hands of two Powers, the one intent upon its dismemberment, the other eager to make itself master of its commerce; it gave England the supremacy in the Mediterranean; it inaugurated the appearance of Russia in southern Europe; it was the signal for a second coalition." Russia, "under Catherine, had but taken a nominal part in the first coalition, being too much occupied with the annihilation of Poland. ... But now Catherine was dead, Paul I., her son and successor, took the émigrés in his pay, offered the Pretender an asylum at Mittau, promised his protection to the Congress at Rastadt, and fitted out 100,000 troops. Naples had been in a great ferment since the creation of the Roman Republic. The nobles and middle classes, imbued with French ideas, detested a Court sold to the English, and presided over by the imbecile Ferdinand, who left the cares of his government to his dissolute Queen. She hated the French, and now solicited Tuscany and Piedmont to unite with her to deliver Italy from the sway of these Republicans. The Austrian Court, of which Bonaparte had been the conscious or unconscious dupe, instead of disarming after the Treaty of Campo-Formio, continued its armaments with redoubled vigour, and now demanded indemnities, on the pretext that it had suffered from the Republican system which the French introduced into Switzerland and Italy. The Directory very naturally refused to accede to this; and thereupon Austria prepared for war, and endeavoured to drag Prussia and the German Empire into it. ... But Frederick William's successor and the princess of the empire declined to recommence hostilities with France, of which they had reason to fear the enmity, though at present she was scarcely able to resist a second coalition. The French nation, in fact, was sincerely eager for peace. ... {1323} Nevertheless, and though there was little unity amongst them, the Councils and the Directory prepared their measures of defence; they increased the revenue, by creating a tax on doors and windows; they authorised the sale of national property to the amount of 125,000,000 francs; and finally, on the report of Jourdan, they passed the famous law of conscription (5th September), which compelled every Frenchman to serve in the army from the age of 20 to that of 25, the first immediate levy to consist of 200,000 troops. When the victory of the Nile became known at Naples the court was a prey to frenzied excitement. Taxes had already been doubled, a fifth of the population called to arms, the nobles and middle classes were tortured into submission. And when the report spread that the Russians were marching through Poland, it was resolved to commence hostilities by attacking the Roman Republic, and to rouse Piedmont and Tuscany to rebellion. Forty thousand Neapolitans, scarcely provided with arms, headed by the Austrian general Mack, made their way into the Roman states, guarded only by 18,000 French troops, dispersed between the two seas (12th November). Championnet, their commander, abandoned Rome, took up a position on the Tiber, near Civita-Castellana, and concentrated all his forces on that point. The King of Naples entered Rome, while Mack went to encounter Championnet. The latter beat him, routed or captured the best of his troops, and compelled him to retire in disorder to the Neapolitan territory. Championnet, now at the head of 25,000 men, returned to Rome, previous to marching on Naples, where the greatest disorder prevailed. At the news of his approach the Court armed the lazzaroni, and fled with its treasures to the English fleet, abandoning the town to pillage and anarchy (20th December, 1798). Mack, seeing his army deserting him, and his officers making common cause with the Republicans, concluded an armistice with Championnet, but his soldiers revolted and compelled him to seek safety in the French camp. On Championnet's appearance before Naples, which the lazzaroni defended with fury, a violent battle ensued, lasting for three days; however, some of the citizens delivered the fort of St. Elmo to the French, and then the mob laid down its arms (23rd January, 1799). The Parthenopeian Republic [so called from one of the ancient names of the city of Naples] was immediately proclaimed, a provisional government organised, the citizens formed themselves into a National Guard, and the kingdom accepted the Revolution. The demand of Championnet for a war contribution of 27,000,000 francs roused the Calabrians to revolt; anarchy prevailed everywhere; commissioners were sent by the Directory to re-establish order. The French general had them arrested, but he was deposed and succeeded by Macdonald. In commencing its aggression the court of Naples had counted on the aid of the King of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. But Piedmont, placed between three republics, was herself sharing the Revolutionary ferment; the King, who had concluded an alliance with Austria, proscribed the democrats, who, in their turn, declared war against him by means of the Ligurian Republic, whither they had fled. When Championnet was compelled to evacuate Rome, the Directory, afraid that Sardinia would harass the French rear, had ordered Joubert, commanding the army of Italy, to occupy Piedmont. The Piedmontese troops opened every place to the French, entered into their ranks, and the King [December 8, 1798] was forced to give up all claims to Piedmont, and to take refuge in Sardinia ... [retaining the latter, but abdicating the sovereignty of Piedmont]. Tuscany being also occupied by the Republican troops, the moment war was declared against Austria, Italy was virtually under French dominion. These events but increased the enmity of the Coalition, which hurried its preparations, while the Directory, cheered by its successes, resolved to take the offensive on all points. ... In the present struggle, however, the conditions of warfare were changed. The lines of invasion were no longer, as formerly, short and isolated, but stretched from the Zuyder Zee to the Gulf of Tarentum, open to be attacked in Holland from the rear, and at Naples by the English fleet. ... Seventy thousand troops, under the Archduke Charles, occupied Bavaria; General Hotze occupied the Vorarlberg with 25,000 men; Bellegarde was with 45,000 in the Tyrol; and 70,000 guarded the line of the Adige, headed by Marshal Kray. Eighty thousand Russians, in two equal divisions, were on their way to join the Austrians. The division under Suwarroff was to operate with Kray, that one under Korsakoff with the Archduke. Finally, 40,000 English and Russians were to land in Holland, and 20,000 English and Sicilians in Naples. The Directory, instead of concentrating its forces on the Adige and near the sources of the Danube, divided them. Fifteen thousand troops were posted in Holland, under Brune; 8,000 at Mayence, under Bernadotte; 40,000 from Strasburg to Bâle, under Jourdan; 30,000 in Switzerland, under Masséna; 50,000 on the Adige, under Schérer; 30,000 at Naples, under Macdonald. These various divisions were in reality meant to form but one army, of which Massena was the centre, Jourdan and Schérer the wings, Brune and Macdonald the extremities. To Massena was confided the principal operation, namely, to possess himself of the central Alps, in order to isolate the two imperial armies of the Adige and Danube and to neutralise their efforts. The Coalition having hit upon the same plan as the Directory, ordered the Austrians under Bellegarde to invade the Grisons, while on the other side a division was to descend into the Valteline." Masséna's right wing, under Lecourbe, defeated Bellegarde, crossed the upper Rhine and made its way to the Inn. Schérer also advanced by the Valteline to the upper Adige and joined operations with Lecourbe. "While these two generals were spreading terror in the Tyrol, Masséna made himself master of the Rhine from its sources to the lake of Constance, receiving but one check in the fruitless siege of Feldkirch, a position he coveted in order to be able to support with his right wing the army of the Danube, or with his left that of Italy. This check compelled Lecourbe and Dessoles to slacken their progress, and the various events on the Danube and the Po necessitated their recall in a short time. Jourdan had crossed the Rhine at Kehl, Bâle, and Schaffhausen (1st March), penetrated into the defile of the upper Danube, and reached the village of Ostrach, where he was confronted by the Archduke Charles, who had passed the Iller, and who, after a sanguinary battle [March 21], compelled him to retreat upon Tutlingen. The tidings of Masséna's success having reached Jourdan, he wished to support it by marching to Stockach, the key to the roads of Switzerland and Germany; but he was once more defeated (25th March), and retreated, not into Switzerland, whence he could have joined Masséna, but to the Rhine, which he imagined to be threatened. ... {1324} In Italy the Directory had given orders to Schérer to force the Adige, and to drive the Austrians over the Piave and the Brenta." He attacked and carried the Austrian camp of Pastrengo, near Rivoli, on the 25th of March, 1799, inflicting a loss of 8,000 on the enemy; but on the 5th of April, when moving to force the lower Adige, he was defeated by Kray at Magnano. "Schérer lost his head, fled precipitately, and did not stop until he had put a safe distance between himself and the enemy. ... The army of Switzerland, under Masséna, dispersed in the mountains, with both its flanks threatened, had no other means of salvation than to fall back behind the Rhine."

H. Van Laun, The French Revolutionary Epoch, book 3, chapter 1, section 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: R Southey, Life of Nelson, chapter 6 (volume 2).

A. Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals, chapter 18.

A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 5.

P. Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, book 3, chapter 2; book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (August-August). Bonaparte's organization of government in Egypt. His advance into Syria and repulse at Acre. His victory at Aboukir and return to France.

"On hearing of the battle of Aboukir [better known as 'the battle of the Nile'], a solitary sigh escaped from Napoleon. 'To France,' said he, 'the fates have decreed the empire of the land--to England that of the sea.' He endured this great calamity with the equanimity of a masculine spirit. He gave orders that the seamen landed at Alexandria should be formed into a marine brigade, and thus gained a valuable addition to his army; and proceeded himself to organise a system of government, under which the great natural resources of the country might be turned to the best advantage. ... He was careful to advance no claim to the sovereignty of Egypt, but asserted, that having rescued it from the Mameluke usurpation, it remained for him to administer law and justice, until the time should come for restoring the province to the dominion of the Grand Seignior. He then established two councils, consisting of natives, principally of Arab chiefs and Moslem of the church and the law, by whose advice all measures were, nominally, to be regulated. They formed of course a very subservient senate. ... The virtuosi and artists in his train, meanwhile, pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific researches; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and laid the foundation, at least, of all the wonderful discoveries which have since been made concerning the knowledge, arts, polity (and even language), of the ancient nation. Nor were their objects merely those of curiosity. They, under the General's direction, examined into the long-smothered traces of many an ancient device for improving the agriculture of the country. Canals that had been shut up for centuries were reopened; the waters of the Nile flowed once more where they had been guided by the skill of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies. Cultivation was extended; property secured; and it cannot be doubted that the signal improvements since introduced in Egypt, are attributable mainly to the wise example of the French administration. ... In such labours Napoleon passed the autumn of 1798. ... General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt, where the Mamelukes hardly made a single stand against him, but contrived by the excellence of their horses, and their familiarity with the deserts, to avoid any total disruption of their forces. ... The General, during this interval of repose, received no communication from the French Government; but rumours now began to reach his quarters which might well give him new anxieties. The report of another rupture with Austria gradually met with more credence; and it was before long placed beyond a doubt, that the Ottoman Porte, instead of being tempted into any recognition of the French establishment in Egypt, had declared war against the Republic, and summoned all the strength of her empire to pour in overwhelming numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte. ... The General despatched a trusty messenger into India, inviting Tippoo Saib to inform him exactly of the condition of the English army in that region, and signifying that Egypt was only the first post in a march destined to surpass that of Alexander! 'He spent whole days,' writes his secretary, 'in lying flat on the ground stretched upon maps of Asia.' At length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about Cairo, the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons in the chief towns,--Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799 marched for Syria at the head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of crushing the Turkish armament in that quarter, before their chief force (which he now knew was assembling at Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea. Traversing the desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession of the fortress El-Arish (February 15), whose garrison, after a vigorous assault, capitulated on condition that they should be permitted to retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to serve again during the war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah (that ancient city of the Philistines) without opposition; but at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ), the Moslem made a resolute defence. The walls were carried by storm, 3,000 Turks died with arms in their hands, and the town was given up during three hours to the fury of the French soldiery--who never, as Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the license of war more savagely than on this occasion. A party of the garrison--amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1,200 men, but stated by others as nearly 3,000 in number--held out for some hours longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length, seeing no chance of rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of March. ... On the 10th--three days after their surrender--the prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the sand-hills, at some distance from the town, they were divided into small parties, and shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like true fatalists, submitted in silence; and their bodies were gathered together into a pyramid, where, after the lapse of thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening the sand. Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one of the darkest stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the fact himself;--and justified it on the double plea, that he could not afford soldiers to guard so many prisoners, and that he could not grant them the benefit of their parole, because they were the very men who had already been set free on such terms at' El-Arish. ... {1325} Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria, Achmet-Djezzar, was at St. Jean D'Acre (so renowned in the history of the crusades), and determined to defend that place to extremity, with the forces which had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt. He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief from his allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope of a separate independent government, under the protection of France. The first of Napoleon's messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge, while the necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be sent round by sea from Alexandria. Sir Sidney Smith was then cruising in the Levant with two British ships of the line, the Tigre and the Theseus; and, being informed by the Pacha of the approaching storm, hastened to support him, in the defence of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from Egypt, fell into his hands, and he appeared off the town two days before the French army came in view of it. He had on board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a French royalist of great talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at Brienne); and the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore and this skilful ally to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the plan of his defence. The loss of his own heavy artillery, and the presence of two English ships, were inauspicious omens; yet Buonaparte doubted not that the Turkish garrison would shrink before his onset, and he instantly commenced the siege. He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. 'On that little town' said he to one of his generals, as they were standing together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard Cœur-de-Lion--'on yonder little town depends the fate of the East. Behold the Key of Constantinople, or of India.' ... Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, and attack the besiegers in concert with the garrison of Djezzar. Junot, with his division, marched to encounter them, and would have been overwhelmed by their numbers, had not Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April 8) at Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the Orientals were, as usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of the French. Kleber with another division, was in like manner endangered, and in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon, returning to his siege, pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after day, in which his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts of Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies." On the 21st of May, when the siege had been prosecuted for more than two months, Napoleon commanded a final assault. "The plague had some time before this appeared in the camp; every day the ranks of his legions were thinned by this pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The hearts of all men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and began his retreat upon Jaffa. ... The name of Jaffa was already sufficiently stained; but fame speedily represented Napoleon as having now made it the scene of another atrocity, not less shocking than that of the massacre of the Turkish prisoners. The accusation, which for many years made so much noise throughout Europe, amounts to this: that on the 27th of May, when it was necessary for Napoleon to pursue his march from Jaffa for Egypt, a certain number of the plague-patients in the hospital were found to be in a state that held out no hope whatever of their recovery; that the general, being unwilling to leave them to the tender mercies of the Turks, conceived the notion of administering opium, and so procuring for them at least a speedy and an easy death; and that a number of men were accordingly taken off in this method by his command. ... Whether the opium was really administered or not--that the audacious proposal to that effect was made by Napoleon, we have his own admission; and every reader must form his opinion--as to the degree of guilt which attaches to the fact of having meditated and designed the deed. ... The march onwards was a continued scene of misery; for the wounded and the sick were many, the heat oppressive, the thirst intolerable; and the ferocious Djezzar was hard behind, and the wild Arabs of the desert hovered round them on every side, so that he who fell behind his company was sure to be slain. ... Having at length accomplished this perilous journey [June 14], Buonaparte repaired to his old head-quarters at Cairo, and re-entered on his great functions as the establisher of a new government in the state of Egypt. But he had not long occupied himself thus, ere new rumours concerning the beys on the Upper Nile, who seemed to have some strong and urgent motive for endeavouring to force a passage downwards, began to be mingled with, and by degrees explained by, tidings daily repeated of some grand disembarkation of the Ottomans, designed to have place in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once more in command at Cairo, he himself descended the Nile, and travelled with all speed to Alexandria, where he found his presence most necessary. For, in effect, the great Turkish fleet had already run into the bay of Aboukir; and an army of 18,000, having gained the fortress, were there strengthening themselves, with the view of awaiting the promised descent and junction of the Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority of numbers, advancing to Alexandria, and completing the ruin of the French invaders. Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of the 24th of July, found his army already posted in the neighbourhood of Aboukir, and prepared to anticipate the attack of the Turks on the morrow. ... The Turkish outposts were assaulted early next morning, and driven in with great slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within the range of the batteries and also of the shipping that lay close by the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended in a route, but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the Turks engaged in the task of spoiling and maiming those that fell before them--thus giving to Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in flank with his cavalry, at the moment when the French infantry, profiting by their disordered and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments. From that moment the battle was a massacre. ... Six thousand surrendered at discretion: 12,000 perished on the field or in the sea. ... Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on the 9th of August; but it was only to make some parting arrangements as to the administration, civil and military; for, from the moment of his victory at Aboukir, he had resolved to entrust Egypt to other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was already preparing in secret the means of his removal to France."

J. G. Lockhart, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: Duke of Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 9-11.

Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena, volume 2.

Letters from the army of Bonaparte in Egypt.

M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 1. chapter 15-23.

{1326}

FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (April-September). Murder of the French envoys at Rastadt. Disasters in North Italy. Suwarroff's victories. Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and capture of the Dutch Fleet.

"While the French armies were thus humiliated in the field, the representatives of the republic at the congress of Rastadt [where peace negotiations with the states of the empire had been in progress for months] became the victims of a sanguinary tragedy. As France had declared war against the emperor [as sovereign of Austria], and not against the empire, the congress had not necessarily been broken off; but the representatives of the German states were withdrawn one after another, until the successes of the Austrians rendered the position of the French ministers no longer secure. At length they received notice, from the nearest Austrian commander, to depart within twenty-four hours; and the French ministers--Jean Debry, Bonnier, and Roberjeot--left Rastadt with their families and attendants late in the evening of the 8th of Floréal (the 28th of April). The night was very dark, and they appear to have been apprehensive of danger. At a very short distance from Rastadt they were surrounded by a troop of Austrian hussars, who stopped the carriages, dragged the three ministers out, and massacred them in the presence of their wives and children. The hussars then plundered the carriages, and took away, especially, all the papers. Fortunately for Jean Debry, he had been stunned, but not mortally wounded; and after the murderers were gone the cold air of the night restored him to life. This crime was supposed to have been perpetrated at the instigation of the imperial court, for reasons which have not been very clearly explained; but the representatives of the German states proclaimed loudly their indignation. The reverses of the republican arms, and the tragedy of Rastadt, were eagerly embraced by the opposition in France as occasions for raising a violent outcry against the directory. ... It was in the midst of this general unpopularity of the directors that the elections of the year VII. of the republic took place, and a great majority of the patriots obtained admission to the councils, and thus increased the numerical force of the opposition. ... The directory had made great efforts to repair the reverses which had marked the opening of the campaign. Jourdain had been deprived of the command of the army of the Danube, which had been placed, along with that of Switzerland, under the orders of Masséna. The command of the army of Italy had been transferred from Scherer to Moreau; and Macdonald had received orders to withdraw his forces from Naples and the papal states, in order to unite them with the army in Upper Italy. The Russians under Suwarrow had now joined the Austrian army in Italy; and this chief, who was in the height of his reputation as a military leader, was made commander-in-chief of the combined Austro-Russian forces, Melas commanding the Austrians under him. Suwarrow advanced rapidly upon the Adda, which protected the French lines; and, on the 8th of Floreal (the 27th of April), forced the passage of that river in two places, at Brivio and Trezzo, above and below the position occupied by the division of Serrurier, which formed the French left, and which was thus cut off from the rest of the army. Moreau, who took the command of the French forces on the evening of the same day, made a vain attempt to drive the enemy back over the Adda at Trezzo, and thus recover his communication with Serrurier; and that division was surrounded, and, after a desperate resistance, obliged to lay down its arms, with the exception of a small number of men who made their way across the mountains into Piedmont. Victor's division effected its retreat without much loss, and Moreau concentrated his forces in the neighbourhood of Milan. This disastrous engagement, which took place on the 9th of Floreal, was known as the battle of Cassano. Moreau remained at Milan two days to give the members of the government of the Cisalpine republic, and all the Milanese families who were politically compromised, time to make their escape in his rear; after which he continued his retreat. ... He was allowed to make this retreat without any serious interruption; for Suwarrow, instead of pursuing him actively, lost his time at Milan in celebrating the triumph of the anti-revolutionary party." Moreau first "established his army in a strong position at the confluence of the Tanaro and the Po, covered by both rivers, and commanding all the roads to Genoa; so that he could there, without great danger, wait the arrival of Macdonald." But soon, finding his position made critical by a general insurrection in Piedmont, he retired towards the mountains of Genoa. "On the 6th of Prairial (the 25th of May), Macdonald was at Florence; but he lost much time there; and it was only towards the end of the republican month (the middle of June), that he at length advanced into the plains of Piacenza to form his junction with Moreau." On the Trebbia he encountered Suwarrow's advance, under General Ott, and rashly attacked it. Having forced back Ott's advanced guard, the French suddenly found themselves confronted by Suwarrow himself and the main body of his army. "Macdonald now resolved to unite all his forces behind the Trebbia, and there risk a battle; but he was anticipated by Suwarrow, who attacked him next morning, and, after a very severe and sanguinary engagement, the French were driven over the Trebbia. The combat was continued next day, and ended again to the disadvantage of the French; and their position had become so critical, that Macdonald found it necessary to retreat upon the river Nura, and to make his way round the Apennines to Genoa. The French, closely pursued, experienced considerable loss in their retreat, until Suwarrow, hearing Moreau's cannon in his rear, discontinued the pursuit, in order to meet him." Moreau routed Bellegarde, in Suwarrow's rear, and took 3,000 prisoners; but no further collision of importance occurred during the next two months of the summer. {1327} "Suwarrow had been prevented by the orders of the Aulic Council from following up with vigour his victory on the Trebbia, and had been obliged to occupy himself with sieges which employed with little advantage valuable time. Recruits were reaching the French armies in Italy, and they were restored to a state of greater efficiency. It was already the month of Thermidor (the middle of July), and Moreau saw the necessity of assuming the offensive and attacking the Austro-Russians while they were occupied with the sieges; but he was restrained by the orders of the directory to wait the arrival of Joubert. The latter, who had just contracted an advantageous marriage, by which the moderate party had hoped to attach him to their cause, lost an entire month in the celebration of his nuptial festivities, and only reached the army of Italy in the middle of Thermidor (the beginning of August), where he immediately succeeded Moreau in the command; but he prevailed upon that able general to remain with him, at least until after his first battle. The French army had taken a good position in advance of Novi, and were preparing to act against the enemy while he was still occupied in the sieges, when news arrived that Alessandria and Mantua had surrendered, and that Suwarrow was preparing to unite against them the whole strength of his forces. Joubert immediately resolved to fall back upon the Apennines, and there act upon the defensive; but it was already too late, for Suwarrow had advanced with such rapidity that he was forced to accept battle in the position he occupied, which was a very strong one. The battle began early in the morning of the 28th of Thermidor (the 15th of August); and very early in the action Joubert received a mortal wound from a ball which struck him near the heart. The engagement continued with great fury during the greater part of the day, but ended in the entire defeat of the French, who retreated from the field of battle in great confusion. The French lost about 10,000 men in killed and wounded, and a great number of prisoners. The news of this reverse was soon followed by disastrous intelligence from another quarter. The English had prepared an expedition against Holland, which was to be assisted by a detachment of Russian troops. The English forces, under Abercromby, landed near the mouth of the Helder in North Holland, on the 10th of Fructidor (the 27th of August), and defeated the French and Dutch republican army, commanded by Brune, in a decisive engagement [at the English camp, established on a well-drained morass, called the Zyp] on the 22nd of Fructidor (the 8th of September). Brune retreated upon Amsterdam; and the Russian contingent was thus enabled to effect its junction with the English without opposition. As one of the first consequences of this invasion, the English obtained possession of the whole Dutch fleet, upon the assistance of which the French government had counted in its designs against England. This succession of ill news excited the revolutionary party to a most unusual degree of violence."

T. Wright, History of France, book 6, chapters 22-23 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: H. Spalding, Suvóroff, chapters 7-8.

L. M. P. de Laverne, Life of Field-Marshal Souvarof, chapter 6.

E. Vehse, Memoirs of the Court of Austria, chapter 15, section 2 (volume 2).

J. Adolphus, History of England: Reign of George III., chapter 108 (volume 7).

Gen. Sir H. Bunbury, Narratives of the Great War with France, pages 1-58.

FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (August-December). Campaign in Switzerland. Battle of Zurich. Defeat of the Russians. Suwarroff's retreat across the Alps. Reverses in Italy, and on the Rhine. Fall of the Parthenopean and Roman Republics.

Since the retreat of Massena in June, the Archduke Charles had been watching the French on the Limmat and expecting the arrival of Russian reinforcements under Korsakoff; "but the Aulic Council, with unaccountable infatuation, ordered him at this important juncture to repair with the bulk of his army to the Rhine, leaving Switzerland to Korsakoff and the Russians. Before these injudicious orders, however, could be carried into effect, Massena had boldly assumed the offensive (August 14) by a false attack on Zurich, intended to mask the operations of his right wing, which meanwhile, under Lecourbe, was directed against the St. Gothard, in order to cut off the communication between the allied forces in Switzerland and in Italy. These attacks proved completely successful, ... a French detachment ... seizing the St. Gothard, and establishing itself at Airolo, on the southern declivity. Lecourbe's left had meanwhile cleared the banks of the lake of Zurich of the enemy, who were driven back into Glarus. To obtain these brilliant successes on the right, Massena had been obliged to weaken his left wing; and the Archduke, now reinforced by 20, 000 Russians, attempted to avail himself of this circumstance to force the passage of the Limmat, below Zurich (August 16 and 17); but this enterprise, the success of which might have altered the fate of the war, failed from the defective construction of the pontoons; and the positive orders of the Aulic Council forbade his remaining longer in Switzerland. Accordingly, leaving 25,000 men under Hotze to support Korsakoff, he marched for the Upper Rhine, where the French, at his approach, abandoned the siege of Philipsburg, and retired to Mannheim; but this important post, the defences of which were imperfectly restored, was carried by a coup-de-main (September 18), and the French driven with severe loss over the Rhine. But this success was dearly bought by the disasters in Switzerland, which followed the Archduke's departure. It had been arranged that Suwarroff was to move from Bellinzona (September 21), and after retaking the St. Gothard combine with Korsakoff in a front attack on Massena, while Hotze assailed him in flank. But Massena, who was now the superior in numbers, determined to anticipate the arrival of Suwarroff by striking a blow, for which the presumptuous confidence of Korsakoff gave him increased facility. On the evening of 24th September, the passage of the river was surprised below Zurich, and the heights of Closter-Fahr carried by storm; and, in the course of the next day, Korsakoff, with his main army, was completely hemmed in at Zurich by the superior generalship of the French commander, who summoned the Russians to surrender. But the bravery shown by Korsakoff in these desperate circumstances equalled his former arrogance: on the 28th the Russian columns, issuing from the town, forced their way with the courage of despair through the surrounding masses of French, while a slender rear-guard defended the ramparts of Zurich till the remainder had extricated themselves. {1328} The town was at length entered, and a frightful carnage ensued in the streets, in the midst of which the illustrious Lavater was barbarously shot by a French soldier: while Korsakoff, after losing 8,000 killed and wounded, 5,000 prisoners, 100 pieces of cannon, and all his ammunition, stores, and military chest, succeeded in reaching Schaffhausen. The attack of Soult above the lake (September 25) was equally triumphant. The gallant Hotze, who commanded in that quarter, was killed in the first encounter; and the Austrians, giving way in consternation, were driven over the Thur, and at length over the Rhine, with the loss of 20 guns and 3,000 prisoners. Suwarroff in the meantime was gallantly performing his part of the plan. On the 23d of September, the French posts at Airolo and St. Gothard were carried, after a desperate resistance, by the Russian main force, while their flank was turned by Rosenberg; and Lecourbe, hastily retreating, broke down the Devil's Bridge to check the advance of the enemy. A scene of useless butchery followed, the two parties firing on each other from the opposite brinks of the impassable abyss; but the flank of the French was at length turned, the bridge repaired, and the Russians, pressing on in triumph, joined the Austrian division of Auffenberg, at Wasen, and repulsed the French beyond Altdorf. But this was the limit of the old marshal's success. After effecting with severe loss the passage of the tremendous defiles and ridges of the Schachenthal, between Altdorf and Mutten, he found that Linken and Jellachich, who were to have moved from Coire to co-operate with him, had again retreated on learning the disaster at Zurich; and Suwarroff found himself in the midst of the enemy, with Massena on one side and Molitor on the other. With the utmost difficulty the veteran conqueror was prevailed upon, for the first time in his life, to order a retreat; which had become indispensable, and the heads of his columns were turned towards Glarus and the Grisons. But though the attack of Massena on their rear in the Muttenthal was repulsed with the loss of 2,000 men, their onward route was barred at Naefels by Molitor, who defied all the efforts of Prince Bagrathion to dislodge him; and in the midst of a heavy fall of snow, which obliterated the mountain paths, the Russian army wound its way (October 5) in single file over the rugged and sterile peaks of the Alps of Glarus. Numbers perished of cold, or fell over the precipices; but nothing could overcome the unconquerable spirit of the soldiers: without fire or stores, and compelled to bivouac on the snow, they still struggled on through incredible hardships, till the dreadful march terminated (October 10) at Ilantz. Such was the famous, passage of the Alps by Suwarroff. Korsakoff in the meanwhile (October 1-7) had maintained a desperate conflict near Constance, till the return of the Archduke checked the efforts of the French; and the Allies, abandoning the St. Gothard, and all the other posts they still held in Switzerland, concentrated their forces on the Rhine, which became the boundary of the two armies. ... In Italy, after the disastrous battle of Novi, the Directory had given the leadership of the armies, both of Italy and Savoy, to the gallant Championnet, but he could muster only 54,000 troops and 6,000 raw conscripts to oppose Melas, who had succeeded Suwarroff in the command, and who had 68,000, besides his garrisons and detachments. The proposition of Championnet had been to fall back, with his army still entire, to the other side of the Alps: but his orders were positive to attempt the relief of Coni, then besieged by the Austrians; and after a desultory warfare for several weeks, he commenced a decisive movement for that purpose at the end of October, with 35,000 men. But before the different French columns could effect a junction, they were separately assailed by Melas: the divisions of Grenier and Victor were overwhelmed at Genola (November 4), and defeated with the loss of 7,000 men; and though St. Cyr repulsed the Imperialists (November 10) on the plateau of Novi, Coni was left to its fate, and surrendered with all its garrison (December 4). An epidemic disorder broke out in the French army, to which Championnet himself, and numerous soldiers, fell victims: the troops giving way to despair, abandoned their standards by hundreds and returned to France; and it was with difficulty that the eloquent exhortations of St. Cyr succeeded in keeping together a sufficient number to defend the Bochetta pass, in front of Genoa, the loss of which would have entailed destruction on the whole army. The discomfited Republicans were driven back on their own frontiers; and, excepting Genoa, the tricolor flag was everywhere expelled from Italy. At the same time the campaign on the Rhine was drawing to a close. The army of Massena was not strong enough to follow up the brilliant success at Zurich, and the jealousies of the Austrians and Russians, who mutually laid on each other the blame of the late disasters, prevented their acting cordially in concert against him. Suwarroff at length, in a fit of exasperation, drew off his troops to winter quarters in Bavaria, and took no further share in the war; and a fruitless attempt in November against Philipsburg, by Lecourbe, who had been transferred to the command on the lower Rhine, closed the operations in that quarter."

Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, sections 245-251 (chapter 28, volume 7 of complete work).

Meantime, the French had been entirely expelled from southern Italy. On the withdrawal of Macdonald, with most of his army, from Naples, "Cardinal Ruffo, a soldier, churchman, and politician, put himself at the head of a numerous body of insurgents, and commenced war against such French troops as had been left in the south and in the middle of Italy. This movement was actively supported by the British fleet. Lord Nelson recovered Naples; Rome surrendered to Commodore Trowbridge. Thus the Parthenopean and Roman republics were extinguished forever. The royal family returned to Naples, and that fine city and country were once more a kingdom. Rome, the capital of the world, was occupied by Neapolitan troops."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, chapter 38.

ALSO IN: L. M. P. de Laverne, Life of Souvarof, chapter 6.

_H. Spalding, Suvoroff._

P. Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, book 4, chapter 2 and book 5, chapters 1-2 (volume 1).

T. J. Pettigrew, Memoirs of Lord Nelson, volume 1, chapters 8-9.

{1329}

FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (September-October). Disastrous ending of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. Capitulation of the Duke of York. Dissolution of the Dutch East India Company.

"It is very obvious that the Duke of York was selected in an unlucky hour to be the commander-in-chief of this Anglo-Russian expedition, when we compare the time in which Abercrombie was alone on the marshy promontory of the Helder ... with the subsequent period. On the 10th of September Abercrombie successfully repulsed the attack of General Brune, who had come for the purpose from Haarlem to Alkmar; on the 19th the Duke of York landed, and soon ruined everything. The first division of the Russians had at length arrived on the 15th, under the command of General Herrmann, for whom it was originally destined, although unhappily it afterwards came into the hands of General Korsakoff. The duke therefore thought he might venture on a general attack on the 19th. In this attack Herrmann led the right wing, which was formed by the Russians, and Abercrombie, with whom was the Prince of Orange, the left, whilst the centre was left to the Duke of York, the commander-in-chief. This decisive battle was fought at Bergen, a place situated to the north of Alkmar. The combined army was victorious on both wings; and Horn, on the Zuyder Zee, was occupied; the Duke of York, who was only a general for parades and reviews, merely indulged the centre with a few manœuvres hither and thither. ... The Russians, therefore, who were left alone in impassible marshes, traversed by ditches, and unknown to their officers, lost many men, and were at length surrounded, and even their general taken prisoner. The duke concerned himself very little about the Russians, and had long before prudently retired into his trenches; and, as the Russians were lost, Abercrombie and the Crown Prince were obliged to relinquish Horn." The incapacity of the commander-in-chief held the army paralyzed during the fortnight following, suffering from sickness and want, while it would still have been practicable to push forward to South Holland. "A series of bloody engagements took place from the 2nd till the 6th of October, and the object of the attack upon the whole line of the French and Batavian army would have been attained had Abercrombie alone commanded. The English and Russians, who call this the battle of Alkmar, were indisputably victorious in the engagements of the 2nd and 3rd of October. They even drove the enemy before them to the neighbourhood of Haarlem, after having taken possession of Alkmar; but on the 6th, Brune, who owes his otherwise very moderate military renown to this engagement alone, having received a reinforcement of some thousands on the 4th and 5th, renewed the battle. The fighting on this day took place at Castricum, on a narrow strip of land between the sea and the lake of Haarlem, a position favourable to the French. The French report is, as usual, full of the boasts of a splendid victory; the English, however, remained in possession of the field, and did not retire to their trenches behind Alkmar and to the marshes of Zyp till the 7th. ... In not more than eight days afterwards, the want in the army and the anxiety of its incapable commander-in-chief became so great, the number of the sick increased so rapidly, and the fear of the difficulties of embarkation in winter so grew and spread, that the duke accepted the most shameful capitulation that had ever been offered to an English general, except at Saratoga. This capitulation, concluded on the 19th of October, was only granted because the English, by destroying the dykes, had it in their power to ruin the country."

F. C. Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, volume 7, pages 149-151.

"For the failure in accomplishing the great objects of emancipating Holland and restoring its legitimate ruler; for the clamorous joy with which her enemies, foreign and domestic, hailed the event; the government of Great Britain had many consolations. ... The Dutch fleet, which, in the hands of an enterprising enemy, might have been so injuriously employed, was a capture of immense importance: if Holland was ever to become a friend and ally, we had abundant means of promoting her prosperity and re-establishing her greatness; if an enemy, her means of injury and hopes of rivalship were effectually suppressed. Her East-India Company, ... long the rival of our own in power and prosperity, whose dividends in some years had risen to the amount of 40 per cent., now finally closed its career, making a paltry final payment in part of the arrears of dividends for the present and three preceding years."

J. Adolphus, History of England: Reign of George III., chapter 109 (volume 7).

ALSO IN: _G. R. Gleig, Life of General Sir R. Abercromby (Eminent British Military Commanders, volume 3)._

FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (November). Return of Bonaparte from Egypt. The first Napoleonic Coup d'État. Revolution of the 18th Brumaire. End of the First Republic. Creation of the Consulate.

"When Bonaparte, by means of the bundle of papers which Sidney Smith caused to find their way through the French lines, learned the condition of affairs in Europe, there was but one course consistent with his character for him to pursue. There was nothing more to be done in Egypt; there was everything to be done in France. If he were to lead his army back, even in case he should, by some miracle, elude the eager eyes of Lord Nelson, the act would be generally regarded as a confession of disaster. If he were to remain with the army, he could, at best, do nothing but pursue a purely defensive policy; and if the army were to be overwhelmed, it was no part of Napoleonism to be involved in the disaster. ... It would be far shrewder to throw the responsibility of the future of Egypt on another, and to transfer himself to the field that was fast ripening for the coveted harvest. Of course Bonaparte, under such circumstances, did not hesitate as to which course to pursue. Robbing the army of such good officers as survived, he left it in command of the only one who had dared to raise his voice in opposition to the work of the 18th Fructidor ... the heroic but indignant Kléber. Was there ever a more exquisite revenge? ... On the arrival of Bonaparte in Paris everything seemed ready to his hand. ... The policy which, in the seizure of Switzerland and the Papal States, he had taken pains to inaugurate before his departure for Egypt had borne its natural fruit. As never before in the history of Europe, England, Holland, Russia, Austria, Naples, and even Turkey had joined hands in a common cause, and as a natural consequence the Directory had been defeated at every point. Nor was it unnatural for the people to attribute all these disasters to the inefficiency of the government. The Directory had really fallen into general contempt, and at the new election on the 30th Prairial it had been practically overthrown. {1330} Rewbell, who by his influence had stood at the head of affairs, had been obliged to give way," and Sieyès had been put in his place. "By the side of this fantastic statesman ... Barras had been retained, probably for no other reason than that he was sure to be found with the majority, while the other members, Gohier, Moulins, and Roger-Ducos were men from whose supposed mediocrity no very decided opposition could be anticipated. Thus the popular party was not only revenged for the outrages of Fructidor, but it had also made up the new Directory of men who seemed likely to be nothing but clay in the hands of Bonaparte. ... The manner in which the General was received can have left no possible doubt remaining in his mind as to the strength of his hold on the hearts of the people. It must have been apparent to all that he needed but to declare himself, in order to secure a well-nigh unanimous support and following of the masses. But with the political leaders the case, for obvious reasons, was far different. ... His popularity was so overwhelming, that in his enmity the leaders could anticipate nothing but annihilation, in his friendship nothing but insignificance. ... The member of the government who, at the time, wielded most influence, was Sieyès, a man to whom personally the General had so unconquerable an aversion, that Josephine was accustomed to refer to him as her husband's béte noir. It was evident that Sieyès was the most formidable obstacle to the General's advance." As a first movement, Bonaparte endeavored to bring about the removal of Sieyès from the Directory and his own election to the place. Failing this, his party attempted the immediate creation of a dictatorship. When that, too, was found impracticable, Sieyès was persuaded to a reconciliation and alliance with the ambitious soldier, and the two, at a meeting, planned the proceedings "which led to that dark day in French history known as the 18th Brumaire [November 9, 1799]. It remained only to get absolute control of the military forces, a task at that time in no way difficult. The officers who had returned with Bonaparte from Egypt were impatient to follow wherever their master might lead. Moreau, who, since the death of Hoche, was regarded as standing next to Bonaparte in military ability, was not reluctant to cast in his lot with the others, and Macdonald as well as Serurier soon followed his example. Bernadotte alone would yield to neither flattery nor intimidation. ... While Bonaparte was thus marshalling his forces in the Rue de la Victoire, the way was opening in the Councils. A commission of the Ancients, made up of the leading conspirators, had worked all night drawing up the proposed articles, in order that in the morning the Council might have nothing to do but to vote them. The meeting was called for seven o'clock, and care was taken not to notify those members whose opposition there was reason to fear. ... The articles were adopted without discussion. Those present voted, first, to remove the sessions of the Councils from Paris to Saint Cloud (a privilege which the constitution conferred upon the Ancients alone), thus putting them at once beyond the power of influencing the populace and of standing in the way of Bonaparte. They then passed a decree giving to Bonaparte the command of the military forces, at the same time inviting him to come to the Assembly for the purpose of taking the oath of allegiance to the Constitution." Bonaparte appeared, accordingly, before the Council; but instead of taking an oath of allegiance to the constitution, he made a speech which he closed by declaring: "We want a Republic founded on true liberty and national representation. We will have it, I swear; I swear it in my own name and that of my companions in arms." "Thus the mockery of the oath-taking in the Council of Ancients was accomplished. The General had now a more difficult part to perform in the Council of Five Hundred. As the meeting of the Assembly was not to occur until twelve o'clock of the following day, Bonaparte made use of the intervening time in posting his forces and in disposing of the Directory. ... There was one locality in the city where it was probable aggressive force would be required. The Luxembourg was the seat of the Directory, and the Directory must at all hazards be crushed. ... Bonaparte knew well how to turn all such ignominious service to account. In close imitation of that policy which had left Kleber in Egypt, he placed the Luxembourg in charge of the only man in the nation who could now be regarded as his rival for popular favor. Moreau fell into the snare, and by so doing lost a popularity which he was never afterwards able to regain. Having thus placed his military forces, Bonaparte turned his attention to the Directors. The resignations of Sieyès and of Roger-Ducos he already had upon his table. It remained only to procure the others. Barras, without warning, was confronted by Talleyrand and Bruix, who asked him without circumlocution to resign his office," which he did, after slight hesitation. Gohier and Moulins were addressed by Bonaparte in person, but firmly resisted his importunities and his threats. They were then made prisoners by Moreau. "The night of the 18th passed in comparative tranquillity. The fact that there was no organized resistance is accounted for by Lanfrey with a single mournful statement, that 'nothing of the kind could be expected of a nation that had been decapitated. All the men of rank in France for the previous ten years, either by character or genius or virtue, had been mown down, first by the scaffolds and proscriptions, next by war.'" On the morrow, the 19th of Brumaire (November 10) the sitting of the two councils began at two o'clock. In the Council of Five Hundred the partisans of Bonaparte were less numerous than in that of the Ancients, and a powerful indignation at the doings of the previous day began quickly to show itself. In the midst of a warm debate upon the resignation of Barras, which had just been received, "the door was opened, and Bonaparte, surrounded by his grenadiers, entered the hall. A burst of indignation at once arose. Every member sprang to his feet. 'What is this?' they cried, 'swords here! armed men! Away! we will have no dictator here.' Then some of the deputies, bolder than the others, surrounded Bonaparte and overwhelmed him with invectives. 'You are violating the sanctity of the laws; what are you doing, rash man?' exclaimed Bigonnet. 'Is it for this that you have conquered?' demanded Destrem, advancing towards him. Others seized him by the collar of his coat, and, shaking him violently, reproached him with treason. This reception, though the General had come with the purpose of intimidating the Assembly, fairly overwhelmed him. {1331} Eye-witnesses declare that he turned pale, and fell fainting into the arms of his soldiers, who drew him out of the hall." His brother Lucien, who was President of the Council, showed better nerve. By refusing to put motions that were made to vote, and finally by resigning his office and quitting the chair, he threw the Council into confusion. Then, appearing to the troops outside, who supposed him to be still President of the Council, he harangued them and summoned them to clear the chamber. "The grenadiers poured into the hall. A last cry of 'Vive la République' was raised, and a moment later the hall was empty. Thus the crime of the conspirators was consummated, and the First French Republic was at an end. After this action it remained only to put into the hands of Bonaparte the semblance of regular authority. ... A phantom of the Council of Five Hundred--Cornet, one of them, says 30 members--met in the evening and voted the measures which had been previously agreed upon by the conspirators. Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger-Ducos were appointed provisional consuls; 57 members of the Council who had been most prominent in their opposition were excluded from their seats; a list of proscriptions was prepared; two commissioners chosen from the assemblies were appointed to assist the consuls in their work of organization; and, finally, ... they adjourned the legislative body until the 20th of February."

C. K. Adams, Democracy and Monarchy in France, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: _P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon I._

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 4, pages 407-430._

M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume l, chapter 24-27.

Count Miot de Melito, Memoirs, chapter 9.

FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (November-December). The constitution of the consulate. Bonaparte as First Consul.

"During the three months which followed the 18th Brumaire, approbation and expectation were general. A provisional government had been appointed, composed of three consuls, Bonaparte, Siéyes, and Roger-Ducos, with two legislative commissioners, entrusted to prepare the constitution and a definitive order of things. The consuls and the two commissioners were installed on the 21st Brumaire. This provisional government abolished the law respecting hostages and compulsory loans; it permitted the return of the priests proscribed since the 18th Fructidor; it released from prison and sent out of the republic the emigrants who had been ship-wrecked on the coast of Calais, and who for four years were captives in France, and were exposed to the heavy punishment of the emigrant army. All these measures were very favourably received. But public opinion revolted at a proscription put in force against the extreme republicans. Thirty-six of them were sentenced to transportation to Guiana, and twenty-one were put under serveillance in the department of Charante-Inférieure, merely by a decree of the consuls on the report of Fouché, minister of police. The public viewed unfavourably all who attacked the government, but at the same time it exclaimed against an act so arbitrary and unjust. The consuls, accordingly, recoiled before their own act; they first commuted transportation into surveillance, and soon withdrew surveillance itself. It was not long before a rupture broke out between the authors of the 18th Brumaire. During their provisional authority it did not create much noise, because it took place in the legislative commissions. The new constitution was the cause of it. Siéyes and Bonaparte could not agree on this subject: the former wished to institute France, the latter to govern it as a master. ... Bonaparte took part in the deliberations of the constituent committee, with his instinct of power, he seized upon everything in the ideas of Siéyes which was calculated to serve his projects, and caused the rest to be rejected. ... On the 24th of December, 1799 (Nivose, year VIII.), forty-five days after the 18th Brumaire, was published the constitution of the year VIII.; it was composed of the wrecks of that of Siéyes, now become a constitution of servitude."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 14.

"The new constitution was still republic in name and appearance, but monarchical in fact, the latter concealed, by the government being committed, not to the hand of one individual, but of three. The three persons so fixed upon were denominated consuls, and appointed for ten years;--one of them, however, was really ruler, although he only obtained the modest name of First Consul. The rights which Bonaparte caused to be given to himself made all the rest nothing more than mere deception. The First Consul was to invite the others merely to consultation on affairs of state, whilst he himself, either immediately or through the senate, was to appoint to all places of trust and authority, to decide absolutely upon questions of peace or war, and to be assisted by a council of state. ... In order to cover and conceal the power of the First Consul, especially in reference to the appointment of persons to offices of trust and authority, a senate was created, which neither belonged to the people nor to the government, but immediately from the very beginning was an assembly of courtiers and placemen, and at a later period became the mere tool of every kind of despotism, by rendering it easy to dispense with the legislative body. The senate consisted of eighty members, a part of whom were to be immediately nominated from the lists of notability, and the senate to fill up its own body from persons submitted to them by the First Consul, the tribunate, and the legislative body. Each senator was to have a salary of 25,000 f.; their meetings were not public, and their business very small. From the national lists the senate was also to select consuls, legislators, tribunes, and judges of the Court of Cassation. Large lists were first presented to the communes, on which, according to Roederer, there stood some 500,000 names, out of which the communes selected 50,000 for the departmental lists, from which again 5,000 were to be chosen for the national list. From these 5,000 names, selected from the departmental list, or from what was termed the national list, the senate was afterwards to elect the members of the legislature and the high officers of government. The legislature was to consist of two chambers, the tribunate and the legislative body--the former composed of 100, and the latter of 300 members. The chambers had no power of taking the initiative, that is, they were obliged to wait till bills were submitted to them, and could of themselves originate nothing: they were, however, permitted to express wishes of all kinds to the government. Each bill (projet de loi) was introduced into the tribunate by three members of the council of state, and there defended by them, because the tribunate alone had the right of discussion, whilst the mere power of saying Yea or Nay was conferred upon the members of the legislative body. {1332} The tribunate, having accepted the bill, sent three of its members, accompanied by the members from the council of state, to defend the measure in the assembly of the legislative body. Every year one-fifth of the members of the legislative body was to retire from office, being, however, always re-eligible as long as their names remained on the national list. The sittings of the legislative body alone were public, because they were only permitted to be silent listeners to the addresses of the tribunes or councillors of state, and to assent to, or dissent from, the proposed law. Not above 100 persons were, however, allowed to be present as auditors; the sittings were not allowed to continue longer than four months; both chambers, however, might be summoned to an extraordinary sitting. ... When the constitution was ready to be brought into operation, Sieyes terminated merely as he had begun, and Bonaparte saw with pleasure that he showed himself both contemptible and venal. He became a dumb senator, with a yearly income of 25,000 f.; and obtained 800,000 f. from the directorial treasury, whilst Roger Ducos was obliged to go away contented with a douceur of 120,000 f.; and, last of all, Sieyes condescended to accept from Bonaparte a present of the national domain of Crosne, which he afterwards exchanged for another estate. For colleagues in his new dignity Bonaparte selected very able and skilful men, but wholly destitute of all nobility of mind, and to whom it never once occurred to offer him any opposition; these were Cambacérès and Lebrun. The former, a celebrated lawyer, although formerly a vehement Jacobin, impatiently waited till Bonaparte brought forth again all the old plunder; and then, covered with orders, he strutted up and down the Palais Royal like a peacock, and exhibited himself as a show. Lebrun, who was afterwards created a duke, at a later period distinguished himself by being the first to revive the use of hair powder; in fact, he was completely a child and partisan of the olden times, although for a time he had played the part of a Girondist. ... As early as the 25th and 26th of December the First Consul took up his abode in the Tuileries. There the name of citizen altogether disappeared, for the consul's wife caused herself again to be addressed as Madame. Everything which concerned the government now began to assume full activity, and the adjourned legislative councils were summoned for the 1st of January, in order that they might be dissolved."

F. C. Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, volume 7, pages 189-192.

ALSO IN: P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon I., volume 1, chapters 13-14.

A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and Empire, books 1-2 (volume 1).

H. C. Lockwood, Constitutional History of France, chapter 2 and appendix 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1800. Convention with the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800.

FRANCE: A. D. 1800 (January-June). Affairs in Egypt. The repudiated Treaty of El Arish. Kléber's victory at Heliopolis. His assassination.

"Affairs in Egypt had been on the whole unfavourable to the French, since that army had lost the presence of the commander-in-chief. Kléber, on whom the command devolved, was discontented both at the unceremonious and sudden manner in which the duty had been imposed upon him, and with the scarcity of means left to support his defence. Perceiving himself threatened by a large Turkish force, which was collecting for the purpose of avenging the defeat of the vizier at Aboukir, he became desirous of giving up a settlement which he despaired of maintaining. He signed accordingly a convention with the Turkish plenipotentiaries, and Sir Sidney Smith on the part of the British [at El Arish, January 28, 1800], by which it was provided that the French should evacuate Egypt, and that Kléber and his army should be transported to France in safety, without being molested by the British fleet. When the British government received advice of this convention they refused to ratify it, on the ground that Sir Sidney Smith had exceeded his powers in entering into it. The Earl of Elgin having been sent out as plenipotentiary to the Porte, it was asserted that Sir Sidney's ministerial powers were superseded by his appointment. ... The truth was that the arrival of Kléber and his army in the south of France, at the very moment when the successes of Suwarrow gave strong hopes of making some impression on her frontier, might have had a most material effect upon the events of the war. ... The treaty of El Arish was in consequence broken off. Kléber, disappointed of this mode of extricating himself, had recourse to arms. The Vizier Jousseff Pacha, having crossed the Desert and entered Egypt, received a bloody and decisive defeat from the French general, near the ruins of the ancient city of Heliopolis, on the 20th of March, 1800 [following which Kléber crushed with great slaughter a revolt that had broken out in Cairo]. The measures which Kléber adopted after this victory were well calculated to maintain the possession of the country, and reconcile the inhabitants to the French government. ... While busied in these measures, he was cut short by the blow of an assassin. A fanatic Turk, called Soliman Haleby, a native of Aleppo, imagined he was inspired by Heaven to slay the enemy of the Prophet and the Grand Seignior. He concealed himself in a cistern, and springing out on Kléber when there was only one man in company with him, stabbed him dead [June 14]. ... The Baron Menou, on whom the command now devolved, was an inferior person to Kléber. ... Menou altered for the worse several of the regulations of Kléber, and, carrying into literal execution what Buonaparte had only written and spoken of, he became an actual Mahommedan."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, chapter 40.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and Empire, book 5 (volume 1).

{1333}

FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (May-February). Bonaparte's second Italian campaign. The crossing of the Alps. The Battle of Marengo. Moreau in Germany. Hohenlinden. Austrian siege of Genoa.

"Preparations for the new campaign in spring were completed. Moreau was made commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine, 150,000 strong. The plan of the campaign was concerted between the First Consul and Carnot, who had superseded Berthier as Minister at War. The operations were conducted with the utmost secrecy. Napoleon had determined to strike the decisive blow against Austria in Italy, and to command there in person. By an article in the Constitution the First Consul was forbidden to take command of an army. To this interdiction he cheerfully assented; but he evaded it, as soon as the occasion was ripe, by giving the nominal command of the army of Italy to Berthier. He began to collect troops at Dijon, which were, he publicly announced, intended to advance upon Italy. They consisted chiefly of conscripts and invalids, with a numerous staff, and were called 'the army of reserve.' Meantime, while caricatures of some ancient men with wooden legs and little boys of twelve years old, entitled 'Bonaparte's Army of Reserve,' were amusing the Austrian public, the real army of Italy was formed in the heart of France, and was marching by various roads towards Switzerland. ... The artillery was sent piecemeal from different arsenals; the provisions necessary to an army about to cross barren mountains were forwarded to Geneva, embarked on the lake, and landed at Villeneuve, near the entrance to the valley of the Simplon. The situation of the French army in Italy had become critical. Massena had thrown himself into Genoa with 12,000 men, and was enduring all the rigours of a siege, pressed by 30,000 Austrians under General Ott, seconded by the British fleet. Suchet, with the remainder of the French army, about 10,000 strong, completely cut off from communication with Massena, had concentrated his forces on the Var, was maintaining an unequal contest with Melas, the Austrian commander-in-chief, and strenuously defending the French frontier. Napoleon's plan was to transport his army across the Alps, plant himself in the rear of the Austrians, intercept their communications, then manœuvre so as to place his own army and that of Massena on the Austrian right and left flanks respectively, cut off their retreat, and finally give them battle at the decisive moment. While all Europe imagined that the multifarious concerns of the Government held the First Consul at Paris, he was travelling at a rapid rate towards Geneva, accompanied only by his secretary. He left Paris on the 6th of May, at two in the morning, leaving Cambacérès to preside until his return, and ordering Fouché to announce that he was about to review the army at Dijon, and might possibly go as far as Geneva, but would return in a fortnight. 'Should anything happen,' he significantly added, 'I shall be back like a thunderbolt.' ... On the 13th the First Consul reviewed the vanguard of his army, commanded by General Lannes, at Lausanne. The whole army consisted of nearly 70,000 men. Two columns, each of about 6,000 men, were put in motion, one under Tureau, the other under Chabran, to take the routes of Mont Cenis and the Little St. Bernard. A division consisting of 15,000 men, under Moncey, detached from the army of the Rhine, was to march by St. Gothard. Moreau kept the Austrian army of the Rhine, under General Kray, on the defensive before Ulm [to which he had forced his way in a series of important engagements, at Engen, May 2, at Moeskirch, May 4, at Biberach, May 9, and at Hochstadt, June 19], and held himself in readiness to cover the operations of the First Consul in Italy. The main body of the French army, in numbers about 40,000, nominally commanded by Berthier, but in fact by the First Consul himself, marched on the 15th from Lausanne to the village of St. Pierre, at the foot of the Great St. Bernard, at which all trace of a practicable road entirely ceased. General Marescot, the engineer who had been sent forward from Geneva to reconnoitre, reported the paths to be 'barely passable.' 'Set forward immediately!' wrote Napoleon. Field forges were established at St. Pierre to dismount the guns, the carriages and wheels were slung on poles, and the ammunition-boxes carried by mules. A number of trees were felled, then hollowed out, and the pieces, being jammed into these rough cases, 100 soldiers were attached to each and ordered to drag them up the steeps. ... The whole army effected the passage of the Great St. Bernard in three days."

R. H. Horne, History of Napoleon Bonaparte, chapter 18.

"From May 16 to May 19, the solitudes of the vast mountain track echoed to the din and tumult of war, as the French soldiery swept over its heights to reach the valley of the Po and the plains of Lombardy. A hill fort, for a time, stopped the daring invaders, but the obstacle was passed by an ingenious stratagem; and before long Bonaparte, exulting in hope, was marching from the verge of Piedmont on Milan, having made a demonstration against Turin, in order to hide his real purpose. By June 2 the whole French army, joined by the reinforcement sent by Moreau, was in possession of the Lombard capital, and threatened the line of its enemy's retreat, having successfully accomplished the first part of the brilliant design of its great leader. While Bonaparte was thus descending from the Alps, the Austrian commander had been pressing forward the siege of Genoa and his operations on the Var. Masséna, however, stubbornly held out in Genoa; and Suchet had defended the defiles of Provence with a weak force with such marked skill that his adversary had made little progress. When first informed of the terrible apparition of a hostile army gathering upon his rear, Melas disbelieved what he thought impossible; and when he could no longer discredit what he heard, the movements by Mont Cenis and against Turin, intended to perplex him, had made him hesitate. As soon, however, as the real design of the First Consul was fully revealed, the brave Austrian chief resolved to force his way to the Adige at any cost; and, directing Ott to raise the siege of Genoa, and leaving a subordinate to hold Suchet in check, he began to draw his divided army together, in order to make a desperate attack on the audacious foe upon his line of retreat. Ott, however, delayed some days to receive the keys of Genoa, which fell [June 4] after a defence memorable in the annals of war; and, as the Austrian forces had been widely scattered, it was June 12 [after a severe defeat at Montebello, on the 9th, by Lannes] before 50,000 men were assembled for an offensive movement round the well-known fortresses of Alessandria. Meanwhile, the First Consul had broken up from Milan; and, whether ill-informed of his enemy's operations, or apprehensive that, after the fall of Genoa, Melas would escape by a march southwards, he had advanced from a strong position he had taken between the Ticino, the Adda, and the Po, and had crossed the Scrivia into the plains of Marengo, with forces disseminated far too widely. Melas boldly seized the opportunity to escape from the weakened meshes of the net thrown round him; and attacked Bonaparte on the morning of June 14 with a vigor and energy which did him honor. {1334} The battle raged confusedly for several hours; but the French had begun to give way and fly, when the arrival of an isolated division on the field [that of Desaix, who had been sent southward by Bonaparte, and who turned back, on his own responsibility, when he heard the sounds of battle] and the unexpected charge of a small body of horsemen, suddenly changed defeat into a brilliant victory. The importance was then seen of the commanding position of Bonaparte on the rear of his foe; the Austrian army, its retreat cut off, was obliged to come to terms after a single reverse; and within a few days an armistice was signed by which Italy to the Mincio was restored to the French, and the disasters of 1799 were effaced. ... While Italy had been regained at one stroke, the campaign in Germany had progressed slowly; and though Moreau was largely superior in force, he had met more than one check near Ulm, on the Danube. The stand, however, made ably by Kray, could not lessen the effects of Marengo; and Austria, after that terrible reverse, endeavored to negotiate with the dreaded conqueror. Bonaparte, however, following out a purpose which he had already made a maxim of policy, and resolved if possible to divide the Coalition, refused to treat with Austria jointly with England, except on conditions known to be futile; and after a pause of a few weeks hostilities were resumed with increased energy. By this time, however, the French armies had acquired largely preponderating strength; and while Brune advanced victoriously to the Adige--the First Consul had returned to the seat of government--Moreau in Bavaria marched on the rivers which, descending from the Alps to the Danube, form one of the bulwarks of the Austrian Monarchy. He was attacked incautiously by the Archduke John--the Archduke Charles, who ought to have been in command, was in temporary disgrace at the Court--and soon afterwards [December 3] he won a great battle at Hohenlinden, between the Iser and the Inn, the success of the French being complete and decisive, though the conduct of their chief has not escaped criticism. This last disaster proved overwhelming, and Austria and the States of the Empire were forced to submit to the terms of Bonaparte. After a brief delay peace was made at Luneville in February 1801."

W. O'C. Morris, The French Revolution and First Empire, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapters 1-2.

Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, chapter 6 (volume l).

C. Adams, Great Campaigns in Europe from 1796 to 1870, chapter 2.

Duke de Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 19-20.

FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (June-February). The King of Naples spared at the intercession of the Russian Czar. The Czar won away from the Coalition. The Pope befriended.

"Replaced in his richest territories by the allies, the King of Naples was bound by every tie to assist them in the campaign of 1800. He accordingly sent an army into the march of Ancona, under the command of Count Roger de Damas. ... Undeterred by the battle of Marengo, the Count de Damas marched against the French general Miollis, who commanded in Tuscany, and sustained a defeat by him near Sienna. Retreat became now necessary, the more especially as the armistice which was entered into by General Melas deprived the Neapolitans of any assistance from the Austrians, and rendered their whole expedition utterly hopeless. They were not even included by name in the armistice, and were thus left exposed to the whole vengeance of the French. ... At this desperate crisis, the Queen of the Two Sicilies took a resolution which seemed almost as desperate, and could only have been adopted by a woman of a bold and decisive character. She resolved, notwithstanding the severity of the season, to repair in person to the court of the Emperor Paul, and implore his intercession with the First Consul, in behalf of her husband and his territories." The Russian autocrat was more than ready to accede to her request. Disgusted and enraged at the discomfiture of Suwarrow in Switzerland, dissatisfied with the conduct of Austria in that unfortunate campaign, and equally dissatisfied with England in the joint invasion of the Batavian republic, he made prompt preparations to quit the coalition and to ally himself with the First Consul of France. Bonaparte welcomed his overtures and gave them every flattering encouragement, conceding instantly the grace which he asked on behalf of the King and Queen of Naples. "The respect paid by the First Consul to the wishes of Paul saved for the present the royal family of Naples; but Murat [who commanded the army sent to central and southern Italy], nevertheless, made them experience a full portion of the bitter cup which the vanquished are generally doomed to swallow. General Damas was commanded in the haughtiest terms to evacuate the Roman States, and not to presume to claim any benefit from the armistice which had been extended to the Austrians. At the same time, while the Neapolitans were thus compelled hastily to evacuate the Roman territories, general surprise was exhibited when, instead of marching to Rome, and re-establishing the authority of the Roman Republic, Murat, according to the orders which he had received from the First Consul, carefully respected the territory of the Church, and reinstalled the officers of the Pope in what had been long termed the patrimony of St. Peter's. This unexpected turn of circumstances originated in high policy on the part of Buonaparte. ... Besides evacuating the Ecclesiastical States, the Neapolitans were compelled by Murat to restore various paintings, statues, and other objects of art, which they had, in imitation of Buonaparte, taken forcibly from the Romans,--so captivating is the influence of bad example. A French army of about 18,000 men was to be quartered in Calabria. ... The harbours of the Neapolitan dominions were of course to be closed against the English. A cession of part of the isle of Elba, and the relinquishment of all pretensions upon Tuscany, summed up the sacrifices of the King of Naples [stipulated in the treaty of Foligno, signed in February, 1801], who, considering how often he had braved Napoleon, had great reason to thank the Emperor of Russia for his effectual mediation."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, chapter 38.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801 (February). The Peace of Luneville. The Rhine boundary confirmed.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801 (March). Recovery of Louisiana from Spain.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801. Expedition against the Blacks of Hayti.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.

{1335}

FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802. The import of the Peace of Luneville. Bonaparte's preparations for conflict with England. The Northern Maritime League. English bombardment of Copenhagen and summary crushing of the League. Murder of the Russian Czar. English expedition to Egypt. Surrender of the French army. Peace of Amiens.

"The treaty of Luneville was of far greater import than the treaties which had ended the struggle of the first coalition. ... The significance then of the Peace of Luneville lay in this, not only that it was the close of the earlier revolutionary struggle for supremacy in Europe, the abandonment by France of her effort to 'liberate the peoples,' to force new institutions on the nations about her by sheer dint of arms; but that it marked the concentration of all her energies on a struggle with Britain for the supremacy of the world. For England herself the event which accompanied it, the sudden withdrawal of William Pitt from office, which took place in the very month of the treaty, was hardly less significant. ... The bulk of the old Ministry returned in a few days to office with Mr. Addington at their head, and his administration received the support of the whole Tory party in Parliament. ... It was with anxiety that England found itself guided by men like these. ... The country stood utterly alone; while the peace of Luneville secured France from all hostility on the Continent. ... To strike at England's wealth had been among the projects of the Directory: it was now the dream of the First Consul. It was in vain for England to produce, if he shut her out of every market. Her carrying-trade must be annihilated if he closed every port against her ships. It was this gigantic project of a 'Continental System' that revealed itself as soon as Buonaparte became finally master of France. From France itself and its dependencies in Holland and the Netherlands English trade was already excluded. But Italy also was shut against her after the Peace of Luneville [and the Treaty of Foligno with the King of Naples], and Spain not only closed her own ports but forced Portugal to break with her English ally. In the Baltic, Buonaparte was more active than even in the Mediterranean. In a treaty with America, which was destined to bring this power also in the end into his great attack, he had formally recognized the rights of neutral vessels which England was hourly disputing. ... The only powers which now possessed naval resources were the powers of the North. ... Both the Scandinavian states resented the severity with which Britain enforced that right of search which had brought about their armed neutrality at the close of the American war; while Denmark was besides an old ally of France; and her sympathies were still believed to be French. The First Consul therefore had little trouble in enlisting them in a league of Neutrals, which was in effect a declaration of war against England, and which Prussia as before showed herself ready to join. Russia indeed seemed harder to gain." But Paul, the Czar, afraid of the opposition of England to his designs upon Turkey, dissatisfied with the operations of the coalition, and flattered by Bonaparte, gave himself up to the influence of the latter. "It was to check the action of Britain in the East that the Czar now turned to the French Consul, and seconded his efforts for the formation of a naval confederacy in the North, while his minister, Rostopchin, planned a division of the Turkish Empire in Europe between Russia and her allies. ... A squabble over Malta, which had been blockaded since its capture by Buonaparte, and which surrendered at last [September, 1800] to a British fleet, but whose possession the Czar claimed as his own on the ground of an alleged election as Grand Master of the Order of St. John, served as a pretext for a quarrel with England; and at the close of· 1800 Paul openly prepared for hostilities. ... The Danes, who throughout the year had been struggling to evade the British right of search, at once joined this neutral league, and were followed by Sweden in their course. ... But dexterous as the combination was, it was shattered at a blow. On the 1st of April, 1801, a British fleet of 18 men-of-war [under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson second in command] forced the passage of the Belt; appeared before Copenhagen, and at once attacked the city and its fleet. In spite of a brave resistance from the Danish batteries and gunboats six Danish ships were taken, and the Crown Prince was forced to conclude an armistice which enabled the English ships to enter the Baltic. ... But their work was really over. The seizure of English goods and the declaration of war had bitterly irritated the Russian nobles, whose sole outlet for the sale of the produce of their vast estates was thus closed to them; and on the 24th of March, nine days before the battle of Copenhagen, Paul fell in a midnight attack by conspirators in his own palace. With Paul fell the Confederacy of the North. ... At the very moment of the attack on Copenhagen, a stroke as effective wrecked his projects in the East. ... In March, 1801, a force of 15,000 men under General Abercrombie anchored in Aboukir Bay. Deserted as they were by Buonaparte, the French had firmly maintained their hold on Egypt. ... But their army was foolishly scattered, and Abercrombie was able to force a landing five days after his arrival on the coast. The French however rapidly concentrated; and on the 21st of March their general attacked the English army on the ground it had won, with a force equal to its own. The battle [known as the battle of Alexandria] was a stubborn one, and Abercrombie fell mortally wounded ere its close; but after six hours' fighting the French drew off with heavy loss; and their retreat was followed by the investment of Alexandria and Cairo. ... At the close of June the capitulation of the 13,000 soldiers who remained closed the French rule over Egypt." Threatening preparations for an invasion of England were kept up, and gunboats and flatboats collected at Boulogne, which Nelson attacked unsuccessfully in August, 1801. "The First Consul opened negotiations for peace at the close of 1801. His offers were at once met by the English Government. ... The negotiations which went on through the winter between England and the three allied Powers of France, Spain, and the Dutch, brought about in March, 1802, the Peace of Amiens." The treaty secured "a pledge on the part of France to withdraw its forces from Southern Italy, and to leave to themselves the republics it had set up along its border in Holland, Switzerland, and Piedmont. In exchange for this pledge, England recognized the French government, restored all the colonies which they had lost, save Ceylon and Trinidad, to France and its allies [including the restoration to Holland of the Cape of Good Hope and Dutch Guiana, and of Minorca and the citadel of Port Mahon to Spain, while Turkey regained possession of Egypt], acknowledged the Ionian Islands as a free republic, and engaged to restore Malta within three months to its old masters, the Knights of St. John."

J. R. Green, History of the English People, book 9, chapter 5 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: R. Southey, Life of Nelson, chapter 7 (volume 2).

J. Gifford, Political Life of Pitt, chapter 47 (volume 6).

C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 1, chapter 4.

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 11-12.

_G. R. Gleig, Life of General Sir R. Abercromby (Eminent British Military Commanders, volume 3)._

{1336}

FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803. Domestic measures of Bonaparte. His Legion of Honor. His wretched educational scheme. He is made First Consul for life. His whittling away of the Constitution. Revolutions instigated and dictated in the Dutch, Swiss, and Cisalpine Republics. Bonaparte president of the Italian Republic.

"The concordat was succeeded by the emigrants' recall, which resolution was presented and passed April 26. The irrevocability of the sale of national property was again established, and amnesty granted to all emigrants but the leaders of armed forces, and some few whose offences were specially grave. The property of emigrants remaining unsold was restored, excepting forests, which Bonaparte reserved to be gradually returned as bribes to great families. ... Two important projects were presented to the Tribunal and Legislative Corps, the Legion of Honor, and free schools. The Convention awarded prizes to the troops for special acts of daring, and the First Consul increased and arranged the distribution, but that was not enough: he wanted a vast system of rewards, adapted to excite amour propre, repay service, and give him a new and potent means of influencing civilians as well as soldiers. He therefore conceived the idea of the Legion of Honor, embracing all kinds of service and title to public distinction. ... But this plan for forming an order of chivalry was contested even by the Council of State as offensive to that equality which its members were to defend [under the oath prescribed to the Legion], and as a renewal of aristocracy. It only passed the Tribunal and Legislative Corps by a very small majority, and this after the removal of so many of the opposition party. The institution of the Legion of Honor was specious, and, despite the opposition it met within its early days, suits a people who love distinction, despite their passion for equality, provided it be not hereditary. As for the educational scheme, it was wretched, doing absolutely nothing for the primary schools. The state had no share in it. The Commune was to provide the buildings when the pupils could pay a teacher, thus forsaking the plans of the great assemblies. The wisest statesmen desired to sustain in an improved form the central schools founded by the Convention; but Bonaparte meant to substitute barracks to educate young men for his service. ... He diminished scientific study; suppressed history and philosophy, which were incompatible with despotism; and completed his system of secondary instruction by creating 6,000 scholarships, to be used as means of influence, like the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. ... All his measures succeeded, and yet he was not content: he wanted to extend his power. ... Cambacérès ... , when the Amiens treaty was presented to the Tribunal and Legislature, ... proposed, through the president of the former, that the Senate should be invited to give the First Consul some token of national gratitude (May 6, 1802). ... The Senate only voted to prolong the First Consul's power for ten years (May 8), with but one protesting voice, that of Lanjuinais, who denounced the flagrant usurpation that threatened the Republic. This was the last echo of the Gironde ringing through the tame assemblies of the Consulate. Bonaparte was very angry, having expected more; but Cambacérès' calmed him and suggested a mode of evading the question, namely, to reply that an extension of power could only be granted by the people, and then to make the Council of State dictate the formula to be submitted to the people, substituting a life consulate for ten years. This was accordingly done. ... The Council of State even added the First Consul's right to name his successor. This he thought premature and likely to make trouble, and therefore erased it. ... Registers were opened at the record offices and mayoralties to receive votes, and there were three million and a half votes in the affirmative; a few thousand only daring to refuse, and many abstaining from voting. La Fayette registered a 'no' ... and sent the First Consul a noble letter. ... La Fayette then ceased the relations he had hitherto maintained with the First Consul since his return to France. ... The Senate counted the popular vote on the proposal they did not make, and carried the result to the Tuileries in a body, August 8, 1802; and the result was proclaimed in the form of a Senatus-Consultum, in these terms: 'The French people name and the Senate proclaim Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul for life.' This was the first official use of the prenomen Napoleon, which was soon, in conformity with royal custom, to be substituted for the family name of Bonaparte. ... The next day various modifications of the Constitution were offered to the Council of State. ... The Senate were given the right to interpret and complete the Constitution, to dissolve the Legislature and Tribunal, and, what was even more, to break the judgment of tribunals, thus subordinating justice to policy. But these extravagant prerogatives could only be used at the request of the government, The Senate was limited to 120 members, 40 of whom the First Consul was to elect. The Tribunal was reduced to 50 members, and condemned to discuss with closed doors, divided into sections. ... Despotism concentrated more and more. Bonaparte took back his refusal to choose his successor, and now claimed that right. He also formed a civil list of six millions. ... The Senate agreed to everything, and the Senatus-Consultum was published August 5. ... The Republic was now but a name; ... Early in 1808 things grew dark on the English shore," and "the loss of San Domingo [to which Bonaparte had sent an expedition at the beginning of 1801] seemed inevitable [see HAYTI: A. D. 1682-1808]. While making this expedition, doomed to so fatal an end, Bonaparte continued his haughty policy on the European continent. By article second of the Luneville treaty France and Austria mutually guaranteed the independence of the Dutch, Swiss, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics, and their freedom in the adoption of whatever form of government they saw fit to choose. {1337} Bonaparte interpreted this article by substituting for independence his own more or less direct rule in those republics. ... During the negotiations preceding the Amiens treaty he stirred up a revolution in Holland. That country had a Directory and two Chambers, as in the French Constitution of year III., and he wished to impose a new constitution on the Chambers, putting them more into his power; they refused, and he expelled them by means of the Directory, whom he had won over to his side. The Dutch Directory, in this imitation of November 9, was sustained by French troops, occupying Holland under Augereau, now reconciled to Bonaparte (September, 1801). The new Constitution was put to popular vote. A certain number voted against it. The majority did not vote. Silence was taken for consent, and the new Constitution was proclaimed October 17, 1801. ... The English government protested, but did not resist. At the same time he [Bonaparte] imposed on the Cisalpine republic, but without conflict or opposition, a constitution even more anti-liberal than the French one of year VIII.; the president who there replaced the First Consul having supreme power. But who was to be that President? The Cisalpines for an instant were simple enough to think that they could choose an Italian: they decided on Count Melzi, well known in the Milanese. They were soon undeceived, when Bonaparte called Cisalpine delegates to Lyons in midwinter. These delegates were landowners, scholars, and merchants, some hundreds in number, and his agents explained to them that none but Bonaparte 'was worthy to govern their republic or able to maintain it.' They eagerly offered him the presidency, which he accepted in lofty terms, and took Melzi for vice-president (January 25, 1802). Italian patriots were consoled for this subjection by the change of name from Cisalpine to Italian Republic, which seemed to promise the unity of Italy. Bonaparte threw out this hope, never meaning to gratify it. ... He acted as master in Switzerland as well as Italy and Holland. Since Switzerland had ceased to be the scene of war, she had been given over to agitation, fluctuating between revolutionary democracy and the old aristocracy joined to the retrograde democracy of the small Catholic cantons. Modern democracy was at strife with itself. ... Bonaparte encouraged the strife, that Switzerland might call him in as arbiter. Suddenly, late in July, 1802, he withdrew his troops, which had occupied Switzerland ever since 1798. Civil war broke out at once; the smaller Catholic cantons and the aristocrats of Berne and Zurich overthrew the government established at Berne by the moderate democrats. The government retired to Lausanne, and the country was thus divided. Bonaparte then announced that he would not suffer a Swiss counter-revolution, and that if the parties could not agree he must mediate between them. He summoned the insurrectional powers of Berne to dissolve, and invited all citizens who had held office in the central Swiss government within three years, to meet at Paris and confer with him, announcing that 30,000 men under General Ney were ready to support his mediation. The democratic government at Lausanne were willing to receive the French; the aristocratic government at Berne, anxious to restore the Austrians, appealed to European powers, who replied by silence, England only protesting against French interference. ... Bonaparte responded to the English protest by so extraordinary a letter that his charge d'Affaires at London dared not communicate it verbatim. It said that, if England succeeded in drawing the continental powers into her cause, the result would be to force France to 'conquer Europe! Who knows how long it would take the First-Consul to revive the Empire of the West?' (October 23, 1802). ... There was slight resistance to Ney's troops in Switzerland. All the politicians of the new democracy and some of the aristocrats went to Paris at the First Consul's summons. He did not treat their country as he had Holland and Italy, but gave her, instead, a vain show of institutions, a constitution imposing on the different parties a specious compromise. ... Switzerland was dependent on France in regard to general policy, and was bound to furnish her with troops; but, at least, she administered her own affairs (January, 1803)."

H. Martin, Popular History of France from the First Revolution, volume 2, chapters 8-9.

ALSO IN: F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 7, pages 286-302.

Mrs. L. Hug and R. Stead, Story of Switzerland, chapters 30-31.

C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapter 3.

M. Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 2, chapters 20-26.

Duchess D' Abrantes, Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 80.

Count M. Dumas, Memoirs, chapter 9 (volume 2).

H. A. Taine, The Modern Regime, volume 1, book 3, chapter 3.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1804. The Civil Code and the Concordat.

"Four years of peace separated the Treaty of Luneville from the next outbreak of war between France and any Continental Power. They were years of the extension of French influence in every neighbouring State; in France itself, years of the consolidation of Bonaparte's power, and of the decline of everything that checked his personal rule. ... Among the institutions which date from this period, two, equally associated with the name of Napoleon, have taken a prominent place in history, the Civil Code and the Concordat. Since the middle of the 18th century the codification of law had been pursued with more or less success by almost every Government in the western continent. The Constituent Assembly of 1789 had ordered the statutes by which it superseded the variety of local customs in France to be thus cast into a systematic form. ... Bonaparte instinctively threw himself into a task so congenial to his own systematizing spirit, and stimulated the efforts of the best jurists in France by his own personal interest and pride in the work of legislation. A Commission of lawyers, appointed by the First Consul, presented the successive chapters of a Civil Code to the Council of State. In the discussions in the Council of State Bonaparte himself took an active, though not always a beneficial, part. ... In March, 1804, France received the Code which, with few alterations, has formed from that time to the present the basis of its civil rights. ... It is probable that a majority of the inhabitants of Western Europe believe that Napoleon actually invented the laws which bear his name. As a matter of fact, the substance of these laws was fixed by the successive Assemblies of the Revolution; and, in the final revision which produced the Civil Code, Napoleon appears to have originated neither more nor less than several of the members of his Council whose names have long been forgotten. {1338} He is unquestionably entitled to the honour of a great legislator, not, however, as one who, like Solon or like Mahomet, himself created a new body of law. ... Four other Codes, appearing at intervals from the year 1804 to the year 1810, embodied, in a corresponding form, the Law of Commerce, the Criminal Law, and the Rules of Civil and of Criminal Process. ... Far more distinctively the work of Napoleon himself was the reconciliation with the Church of Rome effected by the Concordat [July, 1801]. It was a restoration of religion similar to that restoration of political order which made the public service the engine of a single will. The bishops and priests, whose appointment the Concordat transferred from their congregations to the Government, were as much instruments of the First Consul as his prefects and his gensdarmes. ... An alliance with the Pope offered to Bonaparte the means of supplanting the popular organisation of the Constitutional Church by an imposing hierarchy, rigid in its orthodoxy and unquestioning in its devotion to himself. In return for the consecration of his own rule, Bonaparte did not shrink from inviting the Pope to an exercise of authority such as the Holy See had never even claimed in France. The whole of the existing French Bishops, both the exiled non-jurors and those of the Constitutional Church, were summoned to resign their sees into the hands of the Pope; against all who refused to do so sentence of deposition was pronounced by the Pontiff. ... The sees were reorganised, and filled up by nominees of the First Consul. The position of the great body of the clergy was substantially altered in its relation to the Bishops. Episcopal power was made despotic, like all other powers in France. ... In the greater cycle of religious change, the Concordat of Bonaparte appears in another light. ... It converted the Catholicism of France from a faith already far more independent than that of Fénélon and Bossuet into the Catholicism which in our day has outstripped the bigotry of Spain and Austria in welcoming the dogma of Papal infallibility."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapter 5.

"It is ... easy, from the official reports which have been preserved, to see what part the First Consul took in the framing of the Civil Code. While we recognise that his intervention was advantageous on some minor points, ... we must say that his views on the subjects of legislation in which this intervention was most conspicuous, were most often inspired by suggestions of personal interest, or by political considerations which ought to have no weight with the legislator. ... Bonaparte came by degrees to consider himself the principal creator of a collective work to which he contributed little more than his name, and which probably would have been much better if the suggestions of a man of action and executive authority had not been blended with the views, necessarily more disinterested, larger and more humane, of the eminent jurisconsults whose glory he tried to usurp."

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, volume 1, books 12-14.

W. H. Jervis, History of the Church of France, volume 2, chapter 11.

J. E. Darras, General History of the Catholic Church, volume 4, pages 547-554.

The Code Napoleon, translated by Richards.

FRANCE: A. D. 1802. Fourcroy's education law.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, FRANCE: A. D. 1565-1802.

FRANCE: A. D. 1802 (August-September). Annexation of Piedmont, Parma, and the Isle of Elba.

A "flagrant act of the First Consul's at this time was the seizure and annexation of Piedmont. Although that country was reconquered by the Austro-Russian army in 1799, the-King of Sardinia had not been restored when, by the battle of Marengo, it came again into the possession of the French. Bonaparte then united part of it to the Cisalpine Republic, and promised to erect the rest into a separate State; but he afterwards changed his mind; and by a decree of April 20th 1801, ordered that Piedmont should form a military division of France. ... Charles Emanuel, disgusted with the injustice and insults to which he was exposed, having abdicated his throne in favour of his brother Victor Emanuel, Duke of Aosta, June 4th 1802, Bonaparte ... caused that part of Piedmont which had not been united to the Italian Republic to be annexed to France, as the 27th Military Department, by a formal Senatus-Consulte of September 11th 1802. A little after, October 11th, on the death of Ferdinand de Bourbon, Duke of Parma, father of the King of Etruria, that duchy was also seized by the rapacious French Republic. The isle of Elba had also been united to France by a Senatus-Consulte of August 26th."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 11 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 5.

FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803. Complaints against the English press. The Peltier trial. The First Consul's rage. War declared by Great Britain. Detention of all the English in France, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Occupation of Hanover.

"Mr. Addington was wont to say in after years that the ink was scarcely dry, after the signature of the treaty of Amiens, when discontents arose which perilled the new peace. On the 24th of May [1802], M. Otto told Lord Glenbervie that if the English press were not controlled from censuring Napoleon, there must be a war to the death: and in the course of the summer, six requisitions were formally made to the British government, the purport of which was that the press must be controlled; the royal emigrants sent to Warsaw; the island of Jersey cleared of persons disaffected to the French government; and all Frenchmen dismissed from Great Britain who wore the decorations of the old monarchy. The reply was, that the press was free in England; and that if any of the emigrants broke the laws, they should be punished; but that otherwise they could not be molested. The government, however, used its influence in remonstrance with the editors of newspapers which were abusive of the French. Cobbet was pointed out by name by Napoleon, as a libeller who must be punished; and Peltier, a royalist emigrant, who had published some incentives to the assassination of the French ruler, or prophecies which might at such a crisis be fairly regarded as incentives. M. Peltier's object was to use his knowledge of the tools of Napoleon, and his great political and literary experience, in laying bare the character and policy of Napoleon; and he began, in the summer of 1802, a journal, the first number of which occasioned the demand for his punishment. {1339} He was prosecuted by the Attorney-General, and defended by Sir James Mackintosh, in a speech which was translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, and universally considered one of the most prodigious efforts of oratory ever listened to in any age. The Attorney-General, Mr. Percival, declared in Court, that he could hardly hope for an impartial decision from a jury whose faculties had been so roused, dazzled and charmed. ... M. Peltier was found guilty; but the Attorney-General did not call for judgment on the instant. War was then--at the close of February [1808]--imminent; and the matter was dropped. M: Peltier was regarded as a martyr, and, as far as public opinion went, was rather rewarded than punished in England. He was wont to say that he was tried in England and punished in France. His property was confiscated by the consular agents; and his only near relations, his aged father and his sister, died at Nantes, through terror at his trial. By this time the merchants of Great Britain were thoroughly disgusted with France. Not only had Napoleon prevented all commercial intercourse between the nations throughout the year, but he had begun to, confiscate English merchant vessels, driven by stress of weather into his ports. By this time, too, the Minister's mind was made up as to the impossibility of avoiding war. ... Napoleon had published [January 30, 1803] a Report of an official agent of his, Sebastiani, who had explored the Levant, striving as he went to rouse the Mediterranean States to a desertion of England and an alliance with France. He, reported of the British force at Alexandria, and of the means of attack and defence there; and his employer put forth this statement in the 'Moniteur,' his own paper, while complaining of the insults of the English press towards himself. Our ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, desired an explanation: and the reception of his demand by the First Consul ... was characteristic. ... He sent for Lord Whitworth to wait on him at nine in the morning of the 18th; made him sit down; and then poured out his wrath 'in the style of an Italian bully,' as the record has it: and the term is not too strong; for he would not allow Lord Whitworth to speak. The first impression was, that it was his design to terrify England: but Talleyrand's anxiety to smooth matters afterwards, and to explain away what his master had said, shows that the ebullition was one of mere temper. And this was presently confirmed by his behaviour to Lord Whitworth at a levee, when the saloon was crowded with foreign ambassadors and their suites, as well as with French courtiers. The whole scene was set forth in the newspapers of every country. Napoleon walked about, transported with passion: asked Lord Whitworth if he did not know that a terrible storm had arisen between the two governments; declared that England was a violator of treaties; took to witness the foreigners present that if England did not immediately surrender Malta, war was declared; and condescended to appeal to them whether the right was not on his side; and, when Lord Whitworth would have replied, silenced him by a gesture, and observed that, Lady Whitworth being out of health, her native air would be of service to her; and she should, have it, sooner than she expected.--After this, there could be little hope of peace in the most sanguine mind. ... Lord Whitworth left Paris on the 12th of May; and at Dover met General Andreossi, on his way to Paris. On the 16th, it became publicly known that war was declared: and on the same day Admiral Cornwallis received telegraphic orders which caused him to appear before Brest on the 18th. On the 17th, an Order in Council, directing reprisals, was issued; and with it the proclamation of an embargo being laid on all French and Dutch ships in British ports. ... On the next day, May 18th, 1803, the Declaration of War was laid before parliament, and the feverish state, called peace, which had lasted for one year and sixteen days, passed into one of open hostility. The reason why the vessels of the Dutch were to be seized with those of the French was that Napoleon had filled Holland with French troops, and was virtually master of the country. ... In July, the militia force amounted to 173,000 men; and the deficiency was in officers to command them. The minister proposed, in addition to all the forces actually in existence, the formation of an army of reserve, amounting to 50,000 men: and this was presently agreed to. There was little that the parliament and people of England would not have agreed to at this moment, under the provocation of Napoleon's treatment of the English in France. His first act was to order the detention, as prisoners of war, of all the English then in the country, between the ages of 18 and 60. The exasperation caused by this cruel measure was all that he could have expected or desired. Many were the young men thus doomed to lose, in wearing expectation or despair, twelve of the best years of their lives, cut off from family, profession, marriage, citizenship--everything that young men most value. Many were the parents separated for twelve long years from the young creatures at home, whom they had left for a mere pleasure trip: and many were the grey-haired fathers and mothers at home who went down to the grave during those twelve years without another sight of the son or daughter who was pining in some small provincial town in France, without natural occupation, and well nigh without hope. In June, the English in Rouen were removed to the neighbourhood of Amiens; those in Calais to, Lisle; those at Brussels to Valenciennes. Before the month was out, all the English in Italy and Switzerland, in addition to those in Holland, were made prisoners. How many the whole amounted to does not appear to have been ascertained: but it was believed at the time that there were 11,000 in France, and 1,800 in Holland. The first pretence was that these travellers were detained as hostages for the prizes which Napoleon accused us of taking before the regular declaration of war; but when proposals were made for an exchange, he sent a savage answer that he would keep his prisoners till the end of the war. It is difficult to conceive how there could be two opinions about the nature of the man after this act. The naval captures of which Napoleon complained, as made prior to a declaration of war, were of two merchant Ships taken by English frigates: and we find notices of such being brought into port on the 25th of May. Whether they were captured before the 18th, there is no record that we can find. ... On the sea, our successes seemed a matter of course; but meantime a blow was struck at Great Britain, and especially at her sovereign, which proved that the national exasperation against France was even yet capable of increase. {1340} On the breaking out of the war; George III. issued a proclamation, as Elector of Hanover, declaring to Germany that the Germanic states had nothing to fear in regard to the new hostilities, as he was entering into war as King of Great Britain, and not as Elector of Hanover. Whatever military preparations were going forward in Hanover were merely of a defensive character. Napoleon, however, set such defence at defiance. On the 13th of June, news arrived of the total surrender of Hanover to the French. ... Government resolved to declare the Elbe and the Weser, and all the ports of Western Germany, in a state of blockade; as the French had now command over all the intermediate rivers. It was calculated that this would annoy and injure Napoleon effectually, as it would cause the ruin of foreign merchants trading from the whole series of ports. English merchants would suffer deeply; but it was calculated that English capital and stock would hold out longer than those of foreign merchants. Thus was the sickening process of private ruin, as a check to public aggression, entered upon, before war had been declared a month."

H. Martineau, History of England, 1800-1815, book l, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 2, chapters 28-30.

_Sir J. Mackintosh, Speech in Defense of Jean Peltier (Miscellaneous Works)._

J. Ashton, English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I., volume 1, chapters 24-87.

FRANCE: A. D. 1803 (April-May). Sale or Louisiana to the United States of America.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1808; and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1803. Loss of San Domingo, or Hayti.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1682-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805. Royalist plots and Bonaparte's use or them. The abduction and execution or the Duc d'Enghien. The First Consul becomes Emperor. His coronation by the Pope. His acceptance of the crown or Italy. Annexation of Genoa to France.

The rupture with England furnished Bonaparte "with the occasion of throwing off the last disguise and openly restoring monarchy. It was a step which required all his audacity and cunning. He had crushed Jacobinism, but two great parties remained. There was first the more moderate republicanism, which might be called Girondism, and was widely spread among all classes and particularly in the army. Secondly, there was the old royalism, which after many years of helpless weakness had revived since Brumaire. These two parties, though hostile to each other, were forced into a sort of alliance by the new attitude of Bonaparte, who was hurrying France at once into a new revolution at home and into an abyss of war abroad. England, too, after the rupture, favoured the efforts of these parties. Royalism from England began to open communications with moderate republicanism in France. Pichegru acted for the former, and the great representative of the latter was Moreau, who had helped to make Brumaire in the tacit expectation probably of rising to the consulate in due course when Bonaparte's term should have expired, and was therefore hurt in his personal claims as well as in his republican principles. Bonaparte watched the movement through his ubiquitous police, and with characteristic strategy determined not merely to defeat it but to make it his stepping-stone to monarchy. He would ruin Moreau by fastening on him the stigma of royalism; he would persuade France to make him emperor in order to keep out the Bourbons. He achieved this with the peculiar mastery which he always showed in villainous intrigue. ... Pichegru [who had returned secretly to France from England some time in January, 1804] brought with him wilder partisans, such as Georges [Cadoudal] the Chouan. No doubt Moreau would gladly have seen and gladly have helped an insurrection against Bonaparte. ... But Bonaparte succeeded in associating him with royalist schemes and with schemes of assassination. Controlling the Senate, he was able to suppress the jury; controlling every avenue of publicity, he was able to suppress opinion; and the army, Moreau's fortress, was won through its hatred of royalism. In this way Bonaparte's last personal rival was removed. There remained the royalists, and Bonaparte hoped to seize their leader, the Comte d'Artois, who was expected, as the police knew, soon to join Pichegru and Georges at Paris. What Bonaparte would have done with him we may judge from the course he took when the Comte did not come. On March 15, 1804, the Duc d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince de Condé, residing at Ettenheim in Baden, was seized at midnight by a party of dragoons, brought to Paris, where he arrived on the 20th, confined in the castle of Vincennes, brought before a military commission at two o'clock the next morning, asked whether he had not borne arms against the republic, which he acknowledged himself to have done, conducted to a staircase above the moat, and there shot and buried in the moat. ... That the Due d'Enghien was innocent of the conspiracy, was nothing to the purpose; the act was political, not judicial; accordingly he was not even charged with complicity. That the execution would strike horror into the cabinets, and perhaps bring about a new Coalition, belonged to a class of considerations which at this time Bonaparte systematically disregarded. This affair led immediately to the thought of giving heredity to Bonaparte's power. The thought seems to have commended itself irresistibly even to strong republicans and to those who were most shocked by the murder. To make Bonaparte's position more secure seemed the only way of averting a new Reign of Terror or new convulsions. He himself felt some embarrassment. Like Cromwell, he was afraid of the republicanism of the army, and heredity pure and simple brought him face to face with the question of divorcing Josephine. To propitiate the army, he chose from the titles suggested to him--consul, stadtholder, &c.--that of emperor, undoubtedly the most accurate, and having a sufficiently military sound. The other difficulty after much furious dissension between the two families of Bonaparte and Beauharnais, was evaded by giving Napoleon himself (but none of his successors) a power of adoption, and fixing the succession, in default of a direct heir, natural or adoptive, first in Joseph and his descendants, then in Louis and his descendants. Except abstaining from the regal title, no attempt was made to conceal the abolition of republicanism. ... The change was made by the constituent power of the Senate, and the Senatus-Consulte is dated May 18, 1804. The title of Emperor had an ulterior meaning. {1341} Adopted at the moment when Napoleon began to feel himself master both in Italy and Germany, it revived the memory of Charles the Great. To himself it was the more satisfactory on that account, and, strange to say, it gave satisfaction rather than offence to the Head of the Holy Roman Empire, Francis II. Since Joseph, the Habsburg Emperors had been tired of their title, which, being elective, was precarious. They were desirous of becoming hereditary emperors in Austria, and they now took this title (though without as yet giving up the other). Francis II. bartered his acknowledgement of Napoleon's new title against Napoleon's acknowledgement of his own. It required some impudence to condemn Moreau for royalism at the very moment that his rival was re-establishing monarchy. Yet his trial began on May 15th. The death of Pichegru, nominally by suicide, on April 6th, had already furnished the rising sultanism with its first dark mystery. Moreau was condemned to two years' imprisonment, but was allowed to retire to the United States."

J. R. Seeley, Short History of Napoleon I., chapter 8, section 4.

_C. C. Fauriel, The Last Days of the Consulate._

Chancellor Pasquier, in his Memoirs, narrates the circumstances of the seizure of the Duc d'Enghien at considerable length, and says: "This is what really occurred, according to what I have been told by those better situated to know. A council was held on the 9th of March: It is almost certain that previous to this council, which was a kind of official affair, a more secret one had been held at the house of Joseph Bonaparte. At the first council, to which were convened only a few persons, all on a footing of family intimacy, it was discussed by order of the First Consul, what would be proper to do with a prince of the House of Bourbon, in case one should have him in one's power, and the decision reached was that if he was captured on French territory, one had the right to take his life, but not otherwise. At the council held on the 9th, and which was composed of the three Consuls, the Chief Justice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Fouché, although the latter had not then resumed the post of Minister of Police, the two men who expressed contrary opinions were M. de Talleyrand and M. de Cambacérès. M. de Talleyrand declared that the prince should be sent to his death. M. Lebrun, the Third Consul, contented himself with saying that such an event would have a terrible echo throughout the world. M. de Cambacérès contended earnestly that it would be sufficient to hold the prince as hostage for the safety of the First Consul. The latter sided with M. de Talleyrand, whose counsels then prevailed. The discussion was a heated one, and when the meeting of the council was over, M. de Cambacérès thought it his duty to make a last attempt, so he followed Bonaparte into his study, and laid before him with perhaps more strength than might be expected from his character, the consequences of the deed he was about to perpetrate, and the universal horror it would excite. ... He spoke in vain. In the privacy of his study, Bonaparte expressed himself even with greater violence than he had done at the council. He answered that the death of the duke would seem to the world but a just reprisal for what was being attempted against him personally; that it was necessary to teach the House of Bourbon that the blows struck with its sanction were liable to recoil on its own head; that this was the only way of compelling it to abstain from its dastardly schemes, and lastly, that matters had gone too far to retrace one's steps. M. de Talleyrand supplied this last argument."

Chancellor Pasquier, Memoirs, volume 1, pages 190-191.

"Bonaparte's accession to the Empire was proclaimed with the greatest pomp, without waiting to inquire whether the people approved of his promotion or otherwise. The proclamation was coldly received, even by the populace, and excited little enthusiasm. ... The Emperor was recognised by the soldiery with more warmth. He visited the encampments at Boulogne," and, afterwards, "accompanied with his Empress, who bore her honours both gracefully and meekly, visited Aix-la-Chapelle and the frontiers of Germany. They received the congratulations of all the powers of Europe, excepting England, Russia, and Sweden, upon their new exaltation. ... But the most splendid and public recognition of his new rank was yet to be made, by the formal act of coronation, which, therefore, Napoleon determined should take place with circumstances of solemnity which had been beyond the reach of any temporal prince, however powerful, for many ages. ... Though Charlemagne had repaired to Rome to receive inauguration from the hands of the Pontiff of that day, Napoleon resolved that he who now owned the proud, and in Protestant eyes profane, title of Vicar of Christ, should travel to France to perform the coronation. ... The Pope, and the cardinals whom he consulted, implored the illumination of Heaven upon their councils; but it was the stern voice of necessity which assured them that, except at the risk of dividing the Church by a schism, they could not refuse to comply with Buonaparte's requisition. The Pope left Rome on the 5th November. ... On the 2d December [1804] the coronation took place in the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame. ... The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it from the altar with his own hands, and placed it on his brows. He then put the diadem on the head of his Empress, as if determined to show that his authority was the child of his own actions. ... The northern states of Italy had followed the example of France through all her change of models. ... The authorities of the Italian (late Cisalpine) Republic, had a prescient guess of what was expected of them. A deputation appeared at Paris to declare the absolute necessity which they felt, that their government should assume a monarchical and hereditary form. On the 17th March [1805], they obtained an audience of the Emperor, to whom they intimated the unanimous desire of their countrymen that Napoleon, founder of the Italian Republic, should be monarch of the Italian Kingdom. ... Buonaparte granted the petition of the Italian States, and ... upon the 11th April, ... with his Empress, set off to go through the form of coronation as King of Italy. ... The new kingdom was, in all respects, modeled on the same plan with the French Empire. An order, called 'of the Iron Crown,' was established on the footing of that of the Legion of Honour. A large French force was taken into Italian pay, and Eugene Beauharnais, the son of Josephine by her former marriage, who enjoyed and merited the confidence of his father-in-law, was created viceroy, and appointed to represent, in that character, the dignity of Napoleon. Napoleon did not leave Italy without further extension of his empire. Genoa, once the proud and the powerful, resigned her independence, and her Doge presented to the Emperor a request that the Ligurian Republic ... should be considered in future as a part of the French nation."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, chapter 48 (Paris edition, 1828).

{1342}

"Genoa and the Ligurian Republic were incorporated with France, June 3d 1805. ... The Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which, together with Guastalla, had been already seized, were declared dependencies of the French Empire by an imperial decree of July 21st. The principality of Piombino was bestowed on Napoleon's sister Eliza, wife of the Senator Bacciocchi, but on conditions which retained it under the Emperor's suzerainty: and the little state was increased by the addition of the Republic of Lucca."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 1, chapter 11 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapters 3-4.

Memoirs dictated by Napoleon to his Generals at St. Helena, volume 6, pages 219-225.

J. Fouché, Memoirs, pages 260-274.

Count Miot de Melito, Memoirs, chapters 16-17.

W. Hazlitt, Life of Napoleon, chapters 38-34 (volume 2).

Madame de Rémusat, Memoirs, book 1, chapters 4-10 (volume 1).

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapters 9-10.

M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 3, chapters 1-12.

FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (January-April). The Third European Coalition.

"In England Pitt returned to office in May, 1804, and this in itself was an evil omen for France. He enjoyed the confidence, not only of his own nation but of Europe, and he at once set to work to resume the threads of that coalition of which England had formerly directed the resources. Alexander I. of Russia had begun to see through the designs of Napoleon; he found that he had been duped in the joint mediation in Germany, he resented the occupation of Hanover and he ordered his court to put on mourning for the duke of Enghien. Before long he broke off diplomatic relations with France (September 1804), and a Russian war was now only a question of time. Austria was the power most closely affected by Napoleon's assumption of the imperial title. ... While hastening to acknowledge Napoleon, Austria was busied in military preparations and began to resume its old connection with England. Prussia was the power on which France was accustomed to rely with implicit confidence. But the occupation of Hanover and the interference with the commerce of the Elbe had weakened Frederick William III.'s belief in the advantages of a neutral policy, and, though he could not make up his mind to definite action, he began to open negotiations with Russia in view of a rupture with France. The fluctuations of Prussian policy may be followed in the alternating influence of the two ministers of foreign affairs, Haugwitz and Hardenberg. Meanwhile Napoleon, ignorant or reckless of the growing hostility of the great powers, continued his aggressions at the expense of the lesser states. ... These acts gave the final impulse to the hostile powers, and before Napoleon quitted Italy the Coalition had been formed. On the 11th of April, 1805, a final treaty was signed between Russia and England. The two powers pledged themselves to form an European league against France, to conclude no peace without mutual consent, to settle disputed points in a congress at the end of the war, and to form a federal tribunal for the maintenance of the system which should, then be established. The immediate objects of the allies were the abolition of French rule in Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and Hanover; the restoration of Piedmont to the king of Sardinia; the protection of Naples; and the erection of a permanent barrier against France by the union of Holland and Belgium under the House of Orange. The coalition was at once joined by Gustavus IV. of Sweden, who inherited his father's devotion to the cause of legitimate monarchy, and who hoped to recover power in Pomerania. Austria, terrified for its Italian possessions by Bonaparte's evident intention to subdue the whole peninsula, was driven into the league. Prussia, in spite of the attraction of recovering honour and independence, refused to listen to the solicitations of England and Russia, and adhered to its feeble neutrality. Of the other German states Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg were allies of France. As far as effective operations were concerned, the coalition consisted only of Austria and Russia. Sweden and Naples, which had joined secretly, could not make efforts on a great scale, and England was as yet content with providing subsidies and the invaluable services of its fleet. It was arranged that, one Austrian army under the archduke Charles should invade Lombardy, while Mack, with a second army and the aid of Russia, should occupy Bavaria and advance upon the Rhine."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 24, sections 13-15.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 39 (volume 9).

FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (March-December). Napoleon's plans and preparations for the invasion of England. Nelson's long pursuit of the French fleets. His victory and death at Trafalgar. Napoleon's rapid march to the Danube. Capitulation of Mack at Ulm. The French in Vienna. The great battle of Austerlitz.

"While the coalition was forming, and Napoleon seemed wantonly to be insulting Europe and ignoring the danger of exciting fresh enemies, he was in fact urging on with all rapidity his schemes for the invasion of England, which he probably hoped might be so successful as to paralyse all action on the part of the European powers. The constantly repeated representations of his naval officers had forced him, much against his will, to believe that his descent upon England would be impracticable unless secured by the presence of his fleet. In spite of the general voice of those who knew the condition of the French navy, he determined to act with his fleet on the same principles as he would have acted with his army; a gigantic combination of various squadrons was to be effected, and a fleet great enough to destroy all hope of opposition to sweep the Channel. For this purpose the 18 ships of the line at Brest under Admiral Gantheaume, the squadron at Rochefort under Villeneuve, and the Toulon fleet under Latouche-Tréville, were to unite. The last mentioned admiral was intrusted with the chief command. Sailing up the coast of France, he was to liberate from their blockade the squadrons of Rochefort and Brest, and with their combined fleets appear before Boulogne. But Latouche-Tréville died, and Napoleon intrusted his plans to Villeneuve. {1343} Those plans, all of them arranged without regard to the bad condition of the French ships, or to the uncertainty of the weather, were frequently changed; at one time Villeneuve from Toulon, and Missiessy, his successor, at Rochefort, were to proceed to the West Indies, drawing the English fleet thither; then Gantheaume was to appear from Brest, throw troops into Ireland, and thus cover the flotilla. At another time, all the fleets were to assemble at the West Indies, and, joining with the Spanish fleet at Ferrol, appear in the Straits of Calais. To complete this last measure Villeneuve set sail from Toulon on the 30th of March 1805, joined Gravina at Cadiz, and reached Martinique on the 13th of May with 20 ships of the line, and 7 frigates. His voyage was so slow that Missiessy had returned from the West Indies to France, and the junction failed. In hot pursuit of Villeneuve, Nelson, who had at length found out his destination, had hurried. At Martinique Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, should have joined Villeneuve; unfortunately for him, Admiral Cornwallis blockaded his fleet. Villeneuve therefore had to return to Europe alone, sailing for Ferrol to pick up a squadron of 15 ships. He was then, at the head of 35 ships, ordered to appear before Brest, liberate Gantheaume, and appear in the Channel. Back again in pursuit of him Nelson sailed, but supposed that he would return to the Mediterranean and not to Ferrol; he therefore again missed him; but as he had found means to inform the English Government that Villeneuve was returning to Europe, Calder, with a fleet of 15 ships, was sent to intercept him. The fleets encountered off Cape Finisterre [Northwest corner of Spain]. The French had 27 vessels, Calder but 18, and after an indecisive battle, in which two Spanish ships were taken, he was afraid to renew the engagement; and Villeneuve was thus enabled to reach Ferrol in safety. However, all the operations towards concentration had led to absolutely nothing, and the English fleets, which the movements towards the West Indies were to have decoyed from the Channel, were either still off the coast of France or in immediate pursuit of the fleet of Villeneuve. Nelson returned to Gibralter, and as soon as he found out where Villeneuve was, he joined his fleet to that of Cornwallis before Brest, and himself returned to England. ... Meanwhile Villeneuve had not been able to get ready for sea till the 11th of August. ... He was afraid to venture northwards, and with the full approbation of his Spanish colleague Gravina, determined to avail himself of a last alternative which Napoleon had suggested, and sailed to Cadiz. This was a fatal blow to the gigantic schemes of Napoleon. Up till the 22nd of August he still believed that Villeneuve would make his appearance, and in fact wrote to him that day at Brest, closing his letter with the words, 'England is ours.' As the time for his great stroke drew near he grew nervously anxious, constantly watching the Channel for the approach of the fleet, and at last, when his Minister of Marine, Decrès, told him that the fleet had gone to Cadiz, he broke forth in bitter wrath against both his Minister and Villeneuve, whom he accused of the most shameful weakness. But Napoleon was not a man who let his success be staked upon one plan alone. Though studiously hiding from his people the existence of the coalition, and not scrupling to have recourse to forged letters and fabricated news for the purpose, he was fully aware of its existence. ... Without much difficulty, therefore, he at once resigned his great plans upon England, and directed his army towards the eastern frontier."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, pages 1261-1264.

"In the first days of September, 1805, Napoleon's great army was in full march across France and Germany, to attain the Danube. ... The Allies ... had projected four separate and ill-combined attacks; the first on Hanover and Holland by a Russian and British force; the second, on Lower Italy by a similar body; the third, by a great Austrian army on Upper Italy; and the fourth, by a United Austrian and Russian army, moving across Southern Germany to the Rhine. ... By this time, the Austrian Mack had drawn close to the Inn, in order to compel Bavaria to join the Allies, and was even making his way to the Iller, but his army was far distant from that of the Russian chief, Kutusoff, and still further from that of Buxhöwden, the one in Galicia, the other in Poland. ... Napoleon had seized this position of affairs, with the comprehensive knowledge of the theatre of war, and the skill of arranging armies upon it, in which he has no equals among modern captains. He opposed Masséna to the Archdukes, with a much weaker force, confident that his great lieutenant could hold them in check. He neglected the attacks from the North Sea, and the South; but he resolved to strike down Mack, in overwhelming strength, should he advance without his Russian supports. ... The great mass of the Grand Army had reached the Main and Rhine by the last week of September. The left wing, joined by the Bavarian forces, and commanded by Bernadotte and Marmont, had marched from Hanover and Holland, and was around Würtzburg; the centre, the corps of Soult, and Davoust, moved from the channel, was at Spire and Mannheim, and the right wing, formed of the corps of Ney and Lannes, with the Imperial Guard, and the horse of Murat, filled the region between Carlsruhe and Strasburg, the extreme right under Augereau, which had advanced from Brittany, being still behind but drawing towards Huningen. By this time Mack was upon the Iller, holding the fortress of Ulm on the upper Danube, and extending his forces thence to Memmingen. ... By the first days of October the great French masses ... were in full march from the Rhine to the Main, across Würtemberg and the Franconian plains; and cavalry filled the approaches to the Black Forest, in order to deceive and perplex Mack. ... The Danube ere long was reached and crossed, at Donauwörth, Ingolstadt, and other points; and Napoleon already stood on the rear of his enemy, interposing between him and Vienna, and cut him off from the Russians, even now distant. The net was quickly drawn round the ill-fated Mack. ... By the third week of October, the Grand Army had encompassed the Austrians on every side, and Napoleon held his quarry in his grasp. Mack ... had not the heart to strike a desperate stroke, and to risk a battle; and he capitulated at Ulm on the 19th of October. Two divisions of his army had contrived to break out; but one was pursued and nearly destroyed by Murat, and the other was compelled by Augereau to lay down its arms, as it was on its way to the hills of the Tyrol. An army of 85,000 men had thus, so to speak, been well-nigh effaced; and not 20,000 had effected their escape. France meanwhile had met a crushing disaster on the element which England had made her own. {1344} We have seen how Villeneuve had put into Cadiz, afraid to face the hostile fleets off Brest; and how this had baffled the project of the descent. Napoleon was indignant with his ill-fated admiral. ... At a hint of disgrace the susceptible Frenchman made up his mind, at any risk, to fight. By this time Nelson had left England, and was off Cadiz with a powerful fleet; and he actually weakened his force by four sail-of-the-line, in order to lure his adversary out. On the 20th of October, 1805, the allied fleet was in the open sea; it had been declared at a council of war, that a lost battle was almost certain, so bad was the condition of many of the crews; but Villeneuve was bent on challenging Fate; and almost courted defeat, in his despair. ... On the morning of the 21st, the allied fleet, 33 war ships, and a number of frigates, was off Cape Trafalgar [25 miles west of Gibraltar on the coast of Spain], making for the Straits. ... Nelson advanced slowly against his doomed enemy, with 27 ships and their attendant frigates; the famous signal floated from his mast, 'England expects every man to do his duty'; and, at about noon, Collingwood pierced Villeneuve's centre; nearly destroying the Santa Anna with a single broadside. Ere long Nelson had, broken Villeneuve's line, with the Victory, causing frightful destruction; and as other British ships came up by degrees they relieved the leading ships from the pressure of their foes, and completed the ruin already begun. At about one, Nelson met his death wound, struck by a shot from the tops of the Redoutable. ... Pierced through and through, the shattered allied centre was soon a collection of captured wrecks. ... Only 11 ships out of 33 escaped; and the burning Achille, like the Orient at the Nile, added to the grandeur and horrors of an appalling scene. Villeneuve, who had fought most honourably in the Bucentaure, was compelled to strike his flag before the death of Nelson. The van of the allies that had fled at Trafalgar, was soon afterwards captured by a British squadron. Though dearly bought by the death of Nelson, the victory may be compared to Lepanto; and it blotted France out as a great Power on the ocean; Napoleon ... never tried afterwards to meet England at sea. ... His success, at this moment, had been so wonderful, that what he called 'the loss of a few ships at sea,' seemed a trifling and passing rebuff of fortune. ... He had discomfitted the whole plan of the Allies; and the failure of the attack on the main scene of the theatre had caused all the secondary attacks to fail. ... Napoleon, throwing out detachments to protect his flanks, had entered Vienna on the 14th of November. ... The House of Hapsburg and its chief had fled. ... Extraordinary as his success had been, the position of the Emperor had, in a few days, become grave. ... Napoleon had not one hundred thousand men in hand--apart from the bodies that covered his flanks--to make head against his converging enemies. Always daring, however, he resolved to attack the Allies before they could receive aid from Prussia; and he marched from Vienna towards the close of November; having taken careful precautions to guard his rear. ... By this time the Allies were around Olmütz, the Archdukes were not many marches away, and a Prussian army was nearly ready to move. Had the Russians and Austrians fallen back from Olmütz and effected their junction with the Archdukes, they could, therefore, have. opposed the French with a force more than two-fold in numbers. ... But the folly and presumption which reigned among the young nobles surrounding the Czar--Alexander was now at the head of his army--brought on the Coalition deserved punishment, and pedantry had its part in an immense disaster. The force of Napoleon appeared small, his natural line of retreat was exposed, and a theorist in the Austrian camp persuaded the Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who was at the head of his troops at Olmütz, to consent to a magnificent plan of assailing Napoleon by the well-known method of Frederick the Great, in the Seven Years' War, of turning his right wing, by an attack made, in the oblique order, in great force, and of cutting him off from his base at Vienna, and driving him, routed, into, Bohemia. This grand project on paper, which involved a march across the front of the hostile army within reach of the greatest of masters of war, was hailed with exultation. ... The Allies were soon in full march from Olmütz, and preparations were made for the decisive movement in the night of the 1st December, 1805. Napoleon had watched the reckless false step being made by his foes with unfeigned delight; 'that army is mine,' he proudly exclaimed. ... The sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, the light of victory often invoked by Napoleon. ... The dawn of the winter's day revealed three large columns, succeeded by a fourth at no great distance, toiling through a tract of marshes and frozen lakes, to outflank Napoleon's right on the Goldbach, the allied centre, on the tableland of Prätzen, immediately before the French front, having been dangerously weakened by this great turning movement. The assailants were opposed by a small force only, under Davoust, one of the best of the marshals. ... Ere long Napoleon, who, like a beast of prey, had reserved his strength until it was time to spring, launched Soult in force against the Russian and Austrian centre, enfeebled by the detachment against the French right and exposed to the whole weight of Napoleon's attacks; and Prätzen was stormed after a fierce struggle, in which Bernadotte gave the required aid to Soult. The allied centre was thus rent asunder. Lannes meanwhile had defeated the allied right. ... Napoleon now turned with terrible energy and in overwhelming strength against the four columns, that had assailed his right, but had begun to retreat. His victorious centre was aided by his right, now set free; the Russians and Austrians were struck with panic, a horrible scene of destruction followed, the flying troops were slain or captured in thousands; and multitudes perished, engulfed in the lakes, the French artillery shattering their icy surface. The rout was decisive, complete, and appalling; about 80,000 of the Allies were engaged; they lost all their guns and nearly half their numbers, and the remains of their army were a worthless wreck. Napoleon had only 60,000 men in the fight. ... The memorable campaign of 1805 is, perhaps, the grandest of Napoleon's exploits in war."

W. O'C. Morris, Napoleon, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and Empire, book 22 (volume 2).

R. Southey, Life of Nelson, chapters 8-9 (volume 2).

W. C. Russell, Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England, chapters 17-20.

Lord Nelson, Dispatches and Letters, volumes 6-7.

Capt. E. J. de la Gravière, Sketches of the last Naval War, part 6 (volume 2).

C. Adams, Great Campaigns in Europe, from 1796 to 1870, chapter 3.

Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 20-23.

A. T. Mahan, Influences of Sea Power upon the French Revolution, chapters 15-16 (volume 2).

{1345}

FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-August). The Peace of Presburg. Humiliation of Austria. Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine. Extinction of the Holy Roman Empire. The goading of Prussia to war.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806; and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).

FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-September). Dethronement of the dynasty of Naples. Bestowal of the crown upon Joseph Bonaparte.

The treaty of Presburg was "immediately followed by a measure hitherto unprecedented in European history--the pronouncing a sentence of dethronement against an independent, sovereign, for no other cause than his having contemplated hostilities against the French Emperor; On the 26th December [1805] a menacing proclamation proceeded from Presburg ... which evidently bore marks of Napoleon's composition, against the house of Naples. The conqueror announced that Marshal St. Cyr would advance by rapid strides to Naples, 'to punish the treason of a criminal queen, and precipitate her from the throne. We have pardoned that infatuated king, who thrice has done everything to ruin himself. Shall we pardon him a fourth time? ... No! The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign--its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honour of my crown.' ... The ominous announcement, made from the depths of Moravia, that the dynasty of Naples had ceased to reign, was not long allowed to remain a dead letter. Massena was busily employed, in January, in collecting his forces in the centre of Italy, and before the end of that month 50,000 men, under the command of Joseph Buonaparte, had crossed the Pontifical States and entered the Neapolitan territory in three columns, which marched on Gaeta, Capua, and Itri. Resistance was impossible; the feeble Russian and English forces which had disembarked to support the Italian levies, finding the whole weight of the war likely to be directed against them, withdrew to Sicily; the court, thunderstruck by the menacing proclamation of 27th December, speedily followed their example. ... In vain the intrepid Queen Caroline, who still remained at Naples, armed the lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the troops a portion of her own indomitable courage; she was seconded by none; Capua opened its gates; Gaeta was invested; the Campagna filled with the invaders; she, vanquished but not subdued, compelled to yield to necessity, followed her timid consort to Sicily; and, on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future sovereign, Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls. ... During the first tumult of invasion, the peasantry of Calabria ... submitted to the enemy. ... But the protraction of the siege of Gaeta, which occupied Massena with the principal army of the French, gave them time to recover from their consternation. ... A general insurrection took place in the beginning of March, and the peasants stood firm in more than one position; but they were unable to withstand the shock of the veterans of France, and in a decisive action in the plain of Campo-Tenese their tumultuary levies, though 15,000 strong, were entirely dispersed. The victorious Reynier penetrated even to Reggio, and the standards of Napoleon waved on its towers, in sight of the English videtts on the shores of Sicily. When hostilities had subsided, Joseph repaired in person to the theatre of war. ... He received at Savigliano, the principal town of the province, the decree, by which Napoleon created him king of the two Sicilies. By so doing, however, he was declared not to lose his contingent right of succession to the throne of France; but the two crowns were never to be united."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 40, section 150, and chapter 42, sections 21-23,(volume 9).

"Joseph's tenure of his new dominion was yet incomplete. The fortress of Gaeta still held out, ... and the British in Sicily (who had already taken the Isle of Capri, close to the capital) sent 5,000 men to their aid under Sir John Stuart, who encountered at Maida (July 6) a French corps of 7.500, under Reynier. The battle presented one of the rare instances in which French and British troops have actually crossed bayonets; but French enthusiasm sank before British intrepidity, and the enemy were driven from the field with the loss of half their number. The victory of Maida had a prodigious moral effect in raising the spirits and self-confidence of the British soldiery; but its immediate results were less considerable. The French were indeed driven from Calabria, but the fall of Gaeta (July 18th), after the loss of its brave governor, the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal, released the main army under Massena: the British exposed to be attacked by overwhelming numbers, re-embarked (September 5) for Palermo, and the Calabrian insurrection was suppressed with great bloodshed. But an amnesty was at length ... published by Joseph, who devoted himself with great zeal and admirable judgment to heal the wounds of his distracted kingdom."

Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, section 398.

ALSO IN: P. Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, book 5, chapter 4, and book 6, chapters 1-3.

C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapter 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (January-October). Napoleon's triumphant return to Paris. Death of Pitt. Peace negotiations with England. King making and prince making by the Corsican Cæsar.

ON the 27th of December, the day after the signing of the Treaty of Presburg, Napoleon left Vienna for Paris. "En route for Paris he remained a week at Munich to be present at the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to the Princess Augusta, daughter of the King of Bavaria. Josephine joined him, and the whole time was passed in fêtes and rejoicings. On this occasion he proclaimed Eugene his adopted son, and, in default of issue of his own, his successor in the kingdom of Italy. Accompanied by Josephine, Napoleon re-entered Paris on the 26th of January, 1806, amidst the most enthusiastic acclamations. The national vanity was raised to the highest pitch by the glory and extent of territory he had acquired. The Senate at a solemn audience besought him to accept the title of 'the Great'; and public rejoicings lasting many days attested his popularity. An important political event in England opened new views of security and peace to the empire, William Pitt, the implacable enemy of the Revolution, had died on the 23rd of January, at the early age of 47; and the Government was entrusted to the hands of his great opponent, Charles James Fox. {1346} The disastrous results of the war of which Pitt had been the mainstay probably hastened his death. After the capitulation of Ulm he never rallied. The well-known friendship of Fox for Napoleon, added to his avowed principles, afforded the strongest hopes that England and France were at length destined to cement the peace of the world by entering into friendly relations. Aided by Talleyrand, who earnestly counselled peace, Napoleon made overtures to the English Government through Lord Yarmouth, who was among the détenus. He offered to yield the long-contested point of Malta--consenting to the continued possession of that island, the Cape of Good Hope, and other conquests in the East and West Indies by Great Britain, and proposing generally that the treaty should be conducted on the uti possidetis principle: that is, allowing each party to retain whatever it had acquired in the course of the war. Turkey acknowledged Napoleon as Emperor and entered into amicable relations with the French nation; and what was still more important, Russia signed a treaty of peace in July, influenced by the pacific inclinations of the English Minister. Napoleon resolved to surround his throne with an order of nobles, and to place members of his family on the thrones of the conquered countries adjoining France in order that they might become parts of his system and co-operate in his plans. Two decrees of the 31st of March declared Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples, and Murat Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves. Louis Bonaparte was made King of Holland a few months afterwards, and Jerome King of Westphalia in the following year. The Princess Pauline received the principality of Guastalla, and Talleyrand, Bernadotte, and Berthier those of Benevento, Ponte-Corvo, and Neufchâtel. Fifteen dukedoms were created and bestowed on the most distinguished statesmen and generals of the empire, each with an income amounting to a fifteenth part of the revenue of the province attached to it. These became grand fiefs of the empire. Cambacérès and Lebrun were made Dukes of Parma and Placenza; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Junot, of Abrantes; Lannes, of Montebello, &c. The manners of some of these Republican soldiers were ill adapted to courtly forms, and afforded amusement to the members of the ancient and legitimate order. ... Napoleon's desire to conciliate and form alliances with the established dynasties and aristocracies of Europe kept pace with his daring encroachments on their hitherto exclusive dignity. Besides the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to a Princess of Bavaria, an alliance was concluded between the hereditary Prince of Baden and Mademoiselle Stephanie Beauharnais, a niece of the Empress. The old French noblesse were also encouraged to appear at the Tuileries. During the Emperor's visit at Munich the Republican calendar was abolished and the usual mode of computing time restored in France. ... The negotiations with England went on tardily, and the news of Fox's alarming state of health excited the gravest fears in the French Government. Lord Lauderdale arrived in Paris, on the part of England, in the month of August; but difficulties were continually started, and before anything was decided the death of Fox gave the finishing blow to all hope of peace. Lord Lauderdale demanded his passports and left Paris in October. Napoleon wished to add Sicily to his brother's new kingdom of Naples; but British ships were able to protect the King and Queen of Naples in that insular position, and the English Government refused to desert their allies on this occasion or to consent to any compensation or adjustment offered. On this point principally turned the failure of the attempt at peace as far as can be discovered from the account of the negotiations."

R. H. Horne, History of Napoleon, chapter 26.

ALSO IN: Madame de Rémusat, Memoirs, chapters 16-21 (volume 2).

Duke of Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 1, part 2, chapters 18-21.

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 15.

FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (October). The subjugation of Prussia at Jena.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).

FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1807. Napoleon's campaign against the Russians. Eylau and Friedland.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807; and 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

FRANCE: A.D. 1806-1810. Commercial warfare with England. British Orders in Council and Napoleon's Berlin and Milan Decrees. The "Continental System."

"As the war advanced, after the Peace of Amiens, the neutrals became bolder and more aggressive. "American ships were constantly arriving at Dutch and French ports with sugar, coffee, and other productions of the French and Spanish West Indies. And East India goods were imported by them into Spain, Holland, and France. ... By the rivers and canals of Germany and Flanders goods were floated into the warehouses of the enemy, or circulated far the supply of his customers in neutral countries. ... It was a general complaint, therefore, that the enemy carried on colonial commerce under the neutral flag, cheaply as well as safely; that he was enabled not only to elude British hostilities, but to rival British merchants and planters in the European markets; that by the same means the hostile treasuries were filled with a copious stream of revenue; and that by this licentious use of the neutral flag, the enemy was enabled to employ his whole military marine for purposes of offensive war, without being obliged to maintain a squadron or a ship for the defence of his colonial ports. ... Such complaints made against neutral states found a powerful exposition in a work entitled 'War in Disguise and the Frauds of the Neutral Flag,' supposed to have been written by Mr. James Stephen, the real author of the orders in Council. The British Government did not see its way at once to proceed in the direction of prohibiting to neutral ships the colonial trade, which they had enjoyed for a considerable time; but the first step was taken to paralyse the resources of the enemy, and to restrict the trade of neutrals, by the issue of an order in Council in May 1806, declaring that all the coasts, ports, and rivers from the Elbe to Brest should be considered blockaded, though the only portion of those coasts rigorously blockaded was that included between the Ostend and the mouth of the Seine, in the ports of which preparations were made for the invasion of England. The northern ports of Germany and Holland were left partly open, and the navigation of the Baltic altogether free. Napoleon, then in the zenith of his power, saw, in this order in Council, a fresh act of wantonness, and he met it by the issue of the Berlin decree of November 21, 1806. In that document, remarkable for its boldness and vigour, Napoleon charged England with having set at nought the dictates of international law, with having made prisoners of war of private individuals, and with having taken the crews out of merchant ships. {1347} He charged this country with having captured private property at sea extended to commercial parts the restrictions of blockade applicable only to fortified places, declared as blockaded places which were not invested by naval forces, and abused the right of blockade in order to benefit her own trade at the expense of the commerce of Continental states. He asserted the right of combating the enemy with the same arms used against himself, especially when such enemy ignored all ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment which civilisation imposes. He announced his resolution to apply to England the same usages which she had established in her maritime legislation. He laid dawn the principles which France was resolved to act upon until England should recognise that the rights of war are the same on land as on sea. ... And upon these premises the decree ordered,

1st, That the British islands should be declared in a state of blockade.

2nd, That all commerce and correspondence with the British islands should be prohibited; and that letters addressed to England or Englishmen, written in the English language, should be detained and taken.

3rd, That every British subject found in a country occupied by French troops, or by those of their allies, should be made a prisoner of war.

4th, That all merchandise and property belonging to British subjects should be deemed a good prize.

5th, That all commerce in English merchandise should be prohibited, and that all merchandise belonging to England or her colonies, and of British manufacture, should be deemed a good prize. And

6th, That no vessel coming direct from England or her colonies be allowed to enter any French port, or any port subject to French authority; and that every vessel which, by means of a false declaration, should evade such regulations, should at once be captured.

The British Government lost no time in retaliating against France far so bald a course; and, on January 7, 1807, an order in Council was issued, which, after reference to the orders issued by France, enjoined that no vessel should be allowed to trade from one enemy's port to another, or from one port to another of a French ally's coast shut against English vessels; and ordered the commanders of the ships of war and privateers to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and destined to another such port, to discontinue her voyage, and that any vessel, after being so warned, which should be found proceeding to another such port should be captured and considered as lawful prize. This order in Council having reached Napoleon at Warsaw, he immediately ordered the confiscation of all English merchandise and colonial produce found in the Hanseatic Towns. ... But Britain, in return, went a step further, and, by order in Council of November 11, 1807, declared all the ports and places of France, and those of her allies, and of all countries where the English flag was excluded, even though they were not at war with Britain, should be placed under the same restrictions for commerce and navigation as if they were blockaded, and consequently that ships destined to those ports should be liable to the visit of British cruisers at a British station, and there subjected to a tax to be imposed by the British Parliament. Napoleon was at Milan when this order in Council was issued, and forthwith, on December 17, the famous decree appeared, by which he imposed on neutrals just the contrary of what was prescribed to them by England, and further declared that every vessel, of whatever nation, that submitted to the order in Council of November 11, should by that very act become denationalised, considered as British property, and condemned as a good prize. The decree placed the British islands in a state of blockade, and ordered that every ship, of whatever nation, and with whatever cargo, proceeding from English ports or English colonies to countries occupied by English troops, or going to England, should be a good prize. This England answered by the order in Council of April 26, 1809, which revoked the order of 1807 as regards America, but confirmed the blockade of all the parts of France and Holland, their colonies and dependencies. And then France, still further incensed against England, issued the tariff of Trianon, dated August 5, 1810, completed by the decree of St. Cloud of September 12, and of Fontainebleau of October 19, which went the length of ordering the seizure and burning of all British goods found in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, and in every place occupied by French troops. ... The princes of the Rhenish Confederation hastened to execute it, same for the purpose of enriching themselves by the wicked deed, same out of hatred towards the English, and some to show their devotion towards their master. From Carlsruhe to Munich, from Cassel to Dresden and Hamburg, everywhere, bonfires were made of English goods. And so exacting were the French that when Frankfort exhibited the least hesitation in carrying out the decree, French troops were sent to execute the order. By means such as these [known as the Continental System of Napoleon] the commerce of the world was greatly deranged, if not destroyed altogether, and none suffered more from them than England herself."

L. Levi, History of British Commerce, part 2, chapter 4 (with appended text of Orders and Decrees).

"The object of the Orders in Council was ... twofold: to embarrass France and Napoleon by the prohibition of direct import and export trade, of all external commerce, which for them could only be carried on by neutrals; and at the same time to force into the Continent all the British products or manufactures that it could take. ... The whole system was then, and has since been, roundly abused as being in no sense a military measure, but merely a gigantic exhibition of commercial greed; but this simply begs the question. To win her fight Great Britain was obliged not only to weaken Napoleon, but to increase her own strength. The battle between the sea and the land was to be fought out on Commerce. England had no army wherewith to meet Napo lean; Napoleon had no navy to cope with that of his enemy. As in the case of an impregnable fortress, the only alternative for either of these contestants was to reduce the other by starvation. On the common frontier, the coast line, they met in a deadly strife in which no weapon was drawn. The imperial soldiers were turned into coast-guards-men to shut out Great Britain from her markets; the British ships became revenue cutters to prohibit the trade of France. The neutral carrier, pocketing his pride, offered his service to either for pay, and the other then regarded him as taking part in hostilities. {1348} The ministry, in the exigencies of debate, betrayed some lack of definite conviction as to their precise aim. Sometimes the Orders were justified as a military measure of retaliation; sometimes the need of supporting British commerce as essential to her life and to her naval strength was alleged; and, their, opponents in either case taunted them with inconsistency. Napoleon, with despotic simplicity, announced clearly his purpose of ruining England through her trade, and the ministry really needed no other arguments than his avowals. 'Salus civitatis suprema lex.' To call the measures of either not military, is as inaccurate as it would be to call the ancient practice of circumvallation, unmilitary, because the only weapon used for it was the spade. ... The Orders in Council received various modifications, due largely to the importance to Great Britain of the American market, which absorbed a great part of her manufactures; but these modifications, though sensibly lightening the burden upon neutrals and introducing some changes of form, in no sense departed from the spirit of the originals. The entire series was finally withdrawn in June, 1812, but too late to avert the war with the United States, which was declared in the same month. Napoleon never revoked his Berlin and Milan decrees, although by a trick he induced an over-eager President of the United States to believe that he had done so. ... The true function of Great Britain in this long struggle can scarcely be recognized unless there be a clear appreciation of the fact that a really great national movement, like the French Revolution, or a really great military power under an incomparable general, like the French Empire under Napoleon, is not to be brought to terms by ordinary military successes, which simply destroy the organized force opposed. ... If the course of aggression which Bonaparte had inherited from the Revolution was to continue, there were needed, not the resources of the Continent only, but of the world. There was needed also a diminution of ultimate resistance below the stored-up aggressive strength of France; otherwise, however procrastinated, the time must come when the latter should fail. On both these points Great Britain withstood Napoleon. She shut him off from the world, and by the same act prolonged her own powers of endurance beyond his power of aggression. This in the retrospect of history was the function of Great Britain, in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period; and that the successive ministries of Pitt and his followers pursued the course best fitted, upon the whole, to discharge that function, is their justification to posterity."

Capt. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, chapters 18-19 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: H. Adams, History of the United States, volume 3, chapters 4 and 16, and volume 4, chapter 4.

Lord Brougham, Life and Times, by himself, chapter 10 (volume 2).

See also: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (February-September). The Turkish alliance. Ineffective attempts of England against Constantinople and in Egypt.

See TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (June-July). The Treaties of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia. The latter shorn of half her territory. Formation of the kingdom of Westphalia. Secret understandings between Napoleon and the Czar.

See GERMANY. A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).

FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (July-December). The seeming power and real weakness of Napoleon's empire.

"The dangers ... that lay hid under the new arrangement of the map of Europe [by, the Treaty of Tilsit], and in the results of French conquests, were as yet withdrawn from almost every eye; and the power of Napoleon was now at its height, though his empire was afterwards somewhat enlarged. ... If England still stood in arms against it, she was without an avowed ally on the Continent; and, drawing to itself the great Power of the North, it appeared to threaten the civilized world with that universal and settled domination which had not been seen since the fall of Rome. The Sovereign of France from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the Tiber, Napoleon held under his immediate sway the fairest and most favored part of the Continent; and yet this was only the seat and centre of that far-spreading and immense authority. One of his brothers, Louis, governed the Batavian Republic, converted into the kingdom of Holland; another, Joseph wore the old Crown of Naples; and a third, Jerome, sat on the new throne of Westphalia; and he had reduced Spain to a simple dependency, while, with Austria humbled and Prussia crushed, he was supreme in Germany from the Rhine to the Vistula, through his confederate, subject, or allied States. This enormous Empire, with its vassal appendages, rested on great and victorious armies in possession of every point of vantage from the Niemen to the Adige and the Garonne, and proved as yet to be irresistible; and as Germany, Holland, Poland, and Italy swelled the forces of France with large contingents, the whole fabric of conquest seemed firmly cemented. Nor was the Empire the mere creation of brute force and the spoil of the sword; its author endeavoured, in some measure, to consolidate it through better and more lasting influences. Napoleon, indeed, suppressed the ideas of 1789 everywhere, but he introduced his Code and large social reforms into most of the vassal or allied States; he completed the work of destroying Feudalism which the Revolution had daringly begun and he left a permanent mark on the face of Europe, far beyond the limit of Republican France, in innumerable monuments of material splendour. ... Nor did the Empire at this time appear more firmly established abroad than within the limits of the dominant State which had become mistress of Continental Europe. The prosperity of the greater part of France was immense; the finances, fed by the contributions of war, seemed overflowing and on the increase; and if sounds of discontent were occasionally heard, they were lost in the universal acclaim which greeted the author of the national greatness, and the restorer of social order and welfare. ... In the splendour and success of the Imperial era, the animosities and divisions of the past disappeared, and France seemed to form a united people. If, too, the cost of conquest was great, and exacted a tribute of French blood, the military power of the Empire shone with the brightest radiance of martial renown; Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland could in part console even thinned households. ... {1349} The magnificent public works with which Napoleon adorned this part of his reign increased this sentiment of national grandeur; it was now that the Madeleine raised its front, and the Column, moulded from captured cannon; ... and Paris, decked out with triumphal arches, with temples of glory, and with stately streets, put on the aspect of ancient Rome, gathering into her lap the gorgeous spoils of subjugated and dependent races. ... Yet, notwithstanding its apparent strength, this structure of conquest and domination was essentially weak, and liable to decay. The work of the sword, and of new-made power, it was in opposition to the nature of things. ... The material and even social benefits conferred by the Code, and reform of abuses, could not compensate vanquished but martial races for the misery and disgrace of subjection; and, apart from the commercial oppression [of the Continental System, which destroyed commerce in order to do injury to England], ... the exasperating pressure of French officials, the exactions of the victorious French armies, and the severities of the conscription introduced among them, provoked discontent in the vassal States on which the yoke of the Empire weighed. ... The prostration, too, of Austria and Prussia ... had a direct tendency to make these powers forget their old discords in common suffering, and to bring to an end the internal divisions through which France had become supreme in Germany. ... The triumphant policy of Tilsit contained the germs of a Coalition against France more formidable than she had yet experienced. At the same time, the real strength of the instrument by which Napoleon maintained his power was being gradually but surely impaired; the imperial armies were more and more filled with raw conscripts and ill-affected allies, as their size increased with the extension of his rule; and the French element in them, on which alone reliance could be placed in possible defeat, was being dissipated, exhausted, and wasted. ... Nor was the Empire, within France itself, free from elements of instability and decline. The finances, well administered as they were, were so burdened by the charges of war that they were only sustained by conquest; and flourishing as their condition seemed, they had been often cruelly strained of late, and were unable to bear the shock of disaster. The seaports were beginning to suffer from the policy adopted to subdue England. ... Meanwhile, the continual demands on the youth of the nation for never-ceasing wars were gradually telling on its military power; Napoleon, after Eylau, had had recourse to the ruinous expedient of taking beforehand the levies which the conscription raised; and though complaints were as yet rare, the anticipation of the resources of France, which filled the armies with feeble boys, unequal to the hardships of a rude campaign, had been noticed at home as well as abroad. Nor were the moral ills of this splendid despotism less certain than its bad material results. ... The inevitable tendency of the Empire, even at the time of its highest glory, was to lessen manliness and self-reliance, to fetter and demoralize the human mind, and to weaken whatever public virtue and mental independence France possessed; and its authority had already begun to disclose some of the harsher features of Cæsarian despotism."

W. O'C. Morris, The French Revolution and First Empire, chapter 12.

"Notwithstanding so many brilliant and specious appearances, France did not possess either true prosperity or true greatness. She was not really prosperous; for not only was there no feeling of security, a necessary condition for the welfare of nations, but all the evils produced by so many years of war still weighed heavily on her. ... She was not really great, for all her great men had either been banished or put to silence. She could still point with pride to her generals and soldiers, although the army, which, if brave as ever, had gradually sunk from the worship of the country and liberty to that of glory, and from the worship of glory to that of riches, was corrupt and degenerate; but where were her great citizens? Where were her great orators, her great politicians, her great philosophers, her great writers of every kind? Where, at least, were their descendants? All who had shown a spark of genius or pride had been sacrificed for the benefit of a single man. They had disappeared; some crushed under the wheels of his chariot, others forced to live obscurely in some unknown retreat, and, what was graver still, their race seemed extinct. ... France was imprisoned, as it were, in an iron net, and the issues were closed to all the generous and ardent youth that had either intellectual or moral activity."

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 3, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: H. A. Taine; The Modern Regime, book 1, chapter 2, and book 3, chapter 3 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (September-November). Forcible seizure of the Danish fleet by the English. Frustration of Napoleon's plans. Alliance with Denmark. War with Sweden.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (October-November). French invasion and occupation of Portugal. Flight of the royal family to Brazil. Delusive treaty of partition with Spain.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808. Napoleon's alienation of Talleyrand and others.

Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord, made Bishop of Autun by King Louis XVI:, in 1789, and Prince of Benevento by Napoleon, in 1806, had made his first appearance in public life as one of the clerical deputies in the States-General of 1789, and had taken the popular side. He was the only bishop having a benefice in France who took the new oath required of the clergy, and he proposed the appropriation of church property to the wants of the public treasury. He subsequently consecrated the first French bishops appointed under the new constitution, and was excommunicated therefor by the Pope. On the approach of the Terror he escaped from France and took refuge first in England, afterwards in the United States. In 1795 he was permitted to return to Paris, and he took an important part in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire which overthrew the Directory and made Napoleon First Consul. In the new government he received the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, which he retained under the Empire, until 1807, when he obtained permission to retire, with the title of "vice-grand electeur." "M. de Talleyrand, the Empire once established and fortunate, had attached himself to it with a sort of enthusiasm. The poesy of victory, and the eloquence of an exalted imagination, subdued for a time the usual nonchalance and moderation of his character. He entered into all Napoleon's plans for reconstituting an empire of the Francs, and reviving the system of fiefs and feudal dignitaries. ... {1350} 'Any other system,' he said, 'but a military one, is in our circumstances at present impossible. I am, then, for making that system splendid, and compensating France for her liberty by her grandeur.' The principality he enjoyed, though it by no means satisfied him, was a link between him and the policy under which he held it. ... But he had a strong instinct for the practical; all governments, according to his theory, might be made good, except an impossible one. A government depending on constant success in difficult undertakings, at home and abroad, was, according to his notions, impossible. This idea, after the Peace of Tilsit, more or less haunted him. It made him, in spite of himself, bitter against his chief--bitter at first, more because he liked him than because he disliked him. He would still have aided to save the Empire, but he was irritated because he thought he saw the Empire drifting into a system which would not admit of its being saved. A sentiment of this kind, however, is as little likely to be pardoned by one who is accustomed to consider that his will must be law, as a sentiment of a more hostile nature. Napoleon began little by little to hate the man for whom he had felt at one time a predilection, and if he disliked anyone, he did that which it is most dangerous to do, and most useless; that is, he wounded his pride without diminishing his importance. It is true that M. de Talleyrand never gave any visible sign of being irritated. But few, whatever the philosophy with which they forgive an injury, pardon an humiliation; and thus, stronger and stronger grew by degrees that mutual dissatisfaction which the one vented at times in furious reproaches, and the other disguised under a studiously respectful indifference. This carelessness as to the feelings of those whom it would have been wiser not to offend, was one of the most fatal errors of the conqueror. ... He had become at this time equally indifferent to the hatred and affection of his adherents; and ... fancied that everything depended on his own merits, and nothing on the merits of his agents. The victory of Wagram, and the marriage with Marie-Louise, commenced, indeed, a new era in his history. Fouché was dismissed, though not without meriting a reprimand for his intrigues; and Talleyrand fell into unequivocal disgrace, in some degree provoked by his witticisms; whilst round these two men gathered a quiet and observant opposition, descending with the clever adventurer to the lowest classes, and ascending with the dissatisfied noble to the highest. ... M. de Talleyrand's house then (the only place, perhaps, open to all persons, where the government of the day was treated without reserve) became a sort of 'rendezvous' for a circle which replied to a victory by a bon mot, and confronted the borrowed ceremonies of a new court by the natural graces and acknowledged fashions of an old one."

Sir H. L. Bulwer, Historical Characters, volume 1: Talleyrand, part 4, sections 9-10.

ALSO IN: C. K. McHarg, Life of Prince Talleyrand, chapters 1-13.

Memoirs of Talleyrand, volume 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808. Napoleon's over-ingenious plottings in Spain for the theft of the crown. The popular rising.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1807-1808.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (November-February). Napoleon in Italy. His arbitrary changes in the Italian constitution. His annexation of Tuscany to France. His quarrel with the Pope and seizure of the Papal States.

"Napoleon ... set out for Italy, where great political changes were in progress. Destined, like all the subordinate thrones which surrounded the great nation, to share in the rapid mutations which its government underwent, the kingdom of Italy was soon called upon to accept a change in its constitution. Napoleon, in consequence, suppressed the legislative body, and substituted in its room a Senate, which was exclusively intrusted with the power of submitting observations to government on the public wants, and of superintending the budget and public expenditure. As the members of this Senate were nominated and paid by government; this last shadow of representative institutions became a perfect mockery. Nevertheless Napoleon was received with unbounded adulation by all the towns of Italy; their deputies, who waited upon him at Milan, vied with each other in elegant flattery. He was the Redeemer of France, but the Creator of Italy: they had supplicated heaven for his safety, for his victories; they offered him the tribute of their eternal love and fidelity. Napoleon received their adulation in the most gracious manner; but he was careful not to lose sight of the main object of his policy, the consolidation of his dominions, the rendering them all dependent on his imperial crown, and the fostering of a military spirit among his subjects. ... From Milan the Emperor travelled by Verona and Padua to Venice; he there admired the marble palaces, varied scenery, and gorgeous architecture of the Queen of the Adriatic, which appeared to extraordinary advantage amidst illuminations, fireworks, and rejoicings; and returning to Milan, arranged, with an authoritative hand, all the affairs of the peninsula. The discontent of Melzi, who still retained a lingering partiality for the democratic institutions which he had vainly hoped to see established in his country, was stifled by the title of Duke of Lodi. Tuscany was taken from the King of Etruria, on whom Napoleon had settled it, and united to France by the title of the department of Taro; while magnificent public works were set on foot at Milan to dazzle the ardent imagination of the Italians, and console them for the entire loss of their national independence and civil liberty. The cathedral was daily adorned with fresh works of sculpture; its exterior decorated and restored to its original purity, while thousands of pinnacles and statues rose on all sides, glittering in spotless brilliancy in the blue vault of heaven. The Forum of Buonaparte was rapidly advancing; the beautiful basso-relievos of the arch of the Simplon already entranced the admiring gaze of thousands; the roads of the Simplon and Mount Cenis were kept in the finest order, and daily attracted fresh crowds of strangers to the Italian plains. But in the midst of all this external splendour, the remains of which still throw a halo round the recollection of the French domination in Italy, the finances of all the states were involved in hopeless embarrassment, and suffering of the most grinding kind pervaded all classes of the people. ... The encroachments thus made on the Italian peninsula were not the only ones which Napoleon effected, in consequence of the liberty to dispose of western Europe acquired by him at the treaty of Tilsit. The territory of the great nation was rounded also on the side of Germany and Holland. {1351} On the 11th of November, the important town and territory of Flushing were ceded to France by the King of Holland, who obtained, in return, merely an elusory equivalent in East Friesland. On the 21st of January following, a decree of the senate united to the French empire, besides these places, the important towns of Kehl Cassel, and Wesel, on the right bank of the Rhine. Shortly after, the French troops, who had already taken possession of the whole of Tuscany, in virtue of the resignation forced upon the Queen of Etruria, invaded the Roman territories, and made themselves masters of the ancient capital of the world. They immediately occupied the castle of St. Angelo, and the gates of the city, and entirely dispossessed the papal troops [see PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814]. ... France now, without disguise, assumed the right of annexing neutral and independent states to its already extensive dominions, by no other authority than the decree of its own legislature."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 51, sections 51-53 (volume 11).

ALSO IN: C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapter 5.

FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1809. The American embargo and non-intercourse laws.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809, and 1808.

FRANCE: A.D. 1808 (May-September). Bestowal of the Spanish crown on Joseph Bonaparte. The national revolt. French reverses. Flight of Joseph Bonaparte from Madrid. Landing of British forces in the Peninsula.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (September-October). Imperial conference and Treaty of Erfurt. The assemblage of kings.

"Napoleon's relations with the Court of Russia, at one time very formal, became far more amicable, according as Spanish affairs grew complicated. After the capitulation of Baylen they became positively affectionate. The Czar was too clear-sighted not to understand the meaning of this gradation. He quickly understood that the more difficulties Napoleon might create for himself in Spain, the more would he be forced to make concessions to Russia. ... The Russian alliance, which at Tilsit had only been an arrangement to flatter Napoleon's ambition, had now become a necessity to him. Each side felt this; hence the two sovereigns were equally impatient to meet again; the one to strengthen an alliance so indispensable to the success of his plans, the other to derive from it all the promised advantages. It was settled, therefore, that the desired interview should take place at Erfurt towards the end of September, 1808. ... The two Emperors met on the 27th of September, on the road between Weimar and Erfurt. They embraced each other with that air of perfect cordiality of which kings alone possess the secret, especially when their intention is rather to stifle than to embrace. They made their entry into the town on horseback together, amidst an immense concourse of people. Napoleon had wished by its magnificence to render the reception worthy of the illustrious guests who had agreed to meet at Erfurt. He had sent thither from the storehouses of the crown, bronzes, porcelain, the richest hangings, and the most sumptuous furniture. He desired that the Comédie-Française should heighten the brilliant effects of these fêtes by performing the chief masterpieces of our stage, from 'Cinna' down to 'La Mort de César,' before this royal audience. ... All the natural adherents of Napoleon hastened to answer his appeal by flocking to Erfurt, for he did not lose sight of his principal object, and his desire was to appear before Europe surrounded by a court composed of kings. In this cortege were to be seen those of Bavaria, of Wurtemburg, of Saxony, of Westphalia, and Prince William of Prussia; and beside these stars of first magnitude twinkled the obscure Pleiades of the Rhenish Confederation. The reunion, almost exclusively German, was meant to prove to German idealists the vanity of their dreams. Were not all present who had any weight in Germany from their power, rank, or riches? Was it not even hinted that the Emperor of Austria had implored the favour, without being able to obtain it, of admission to the conferences of Erfurt? This report was most improbable. ... The kings of intellect came in their turn to bow down before Cæsar. Goethe and Wieland were presented to Napoleon; they appeared at his court, and by their glory adorned his triumph. German patriotism was severely tried at Erfurt; but it may be said that of all its humiliations the one which the Germans most deeply resented was that of beholding their greatest literary genius decking himself out with Napoleon's favours [the decoration of the Legion of Honour, which Goethe accepted]. ... The theatrical effect which Napoleon had in view in this solemn show at Erfurt having once been produced, his principal object was attained, for the political questions which remained for settlement with Alexander could not raise any serious difficulty. In view of the immediate and certain session of two such important provinces as those of Wallachia and Moldavia, the Czar, without much trouble, renounced that division of the Ottoman Empire with which he had been tantalised for more than a year. ... He bound himself ... by the Treaty of Erfurt to continue his co-operation with Napoleon in the war against England (Article 2), and, should it so befall, also against Austria (Article 10); but the affairs in Spain threw every attack upon England into the background. ... The only very distinct engagement which the treaty imposed on Alexander was the recognition of the new order of things established by France in Spain.'"

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 3, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: Prince Talleyrand, Memoirs, volume 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1808-1809. Reverses in Portugal. Napoleon in the field. French victories resumed. The check at Corunna.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).

FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (January-September). Reopened war with Austria. Napoleon's advance to Vienna. His defeat at Aspern and victory at Wagram. The Peace of Schönbrunn. Fresh acquisitions of territory.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE), and (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (February-July). Wellington's check to the French in Spain and Portugal. His passage of the Douro. Battle of Talavera.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (May). Annexation of the States of the Church. Removal of the Pope to Savona.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (December). Withdrawal of the English from Spain into Portugal.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

{1352}

FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (February-December). Annexations of territory to the empire. Holland, the Hanse Towns, and the Valais in Switzerland. Other reconstructions of the map of Germany.

"It was not till December 10th 1810 [after the abdication of King Louis--see NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1806-1810] that Holland was united to France by a formal senatus-consulte. By the first article of the same law, the Hanse Towns [Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck], the Duchy of Lauenburg, and the countries situated between the North Sea and a line drawn from the confluence of the Lippe with the Rhine to Halteren, from Halteren to the Ems above Telgte, from the Ems to the confluence of the Werra with the Weser, and from Stolzenau on that river to the Elbe, above the confluence of the Stecknitz, were at the same time incorporated with the French Empire. ... The line described would include the northern part of Westphalia and Hanover, and the duchy of Oldenburg. ... The Duke of Oldenburg having appealed to the Emperor of Russia, the head of his house, against this spoliation, Napoleon offered to compensate him with the town and territory of Erfurt and the lordship of Blankenheim, which had remained under French administration since the Peace of Tilsit. But this offer was at once rejected, and Alexander reserved, by a formal protest, the rights of his relative. This annexation was only the complement of other incorporations with the French Empire during the year 1810. Early in the year, the Electorate of Hanover had been annexed to the Kingdom of Westphalia. On February 16th Napoleon had erected the Grand Duchy of Frankfort, and presented it to the Prince Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine, with a reversal in favour of Eugene Beauharnais. On November 12th the Valais in Switzerland was also annexed to France, with the view of securing the road over the Simplon. Of all these annexations, that of the Hanse Towns and the districts on the North Sea was the most important, and one of the principal causes of the war that ensued between France and Russia. These annexations were made without the slightest negociation with any European cabinet, and it would be superfluous to add, without even a pretext of right, though the necessity of them from the war with England was alleged as the motive."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 15, with foot-note (volume 4).

"'The English,' said Napoleon, 'have torn asunder the public rights of Europe; a new order of things governs the universe. Fresh guarantees having become necessary to me, the annexation of the mouths of the Scheldt, of the Meuse, of the Rhine, of the Ems, of the Weser, and of the Elbe to the Empire appears to me to be the first and the most important. ... The annexation of the Valais is the anticipated result of the immense works that I have been making for the past ten years in that part of the Alps.' And this was all. To justify such violence he did not condescend to allege any pretext--to urge forward opportunities that were too long in developing, or to make trickery subserve the use of force--he consulted nothing but his policy; in other words, his good pleasure. To take possession of a country, it was sufficient that the country suited him: he said so openly, as the simplest thing in the world, and thought proper to add that these new usurpations were but a beginning, the first, according to his own expression, of those which seemed to him still necessary. And it was Europe, discontented, humbled, driven wild by the barbarous follies of the continental system, that he thus defied, as though he wished at any cost to convince every one that no amicable arrangement or conciliation was possible; and that there was but one course for governments or men of spirit to adopt, that of fighting unto death."

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 4, chapter 2.

FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812. Continued hostile attitude towards the United States of America.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1810-1812.

FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812. The War in the Peninsula. Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras. French retreat from Portugal. English advance into Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809-1810 (OCTOBER-SEPTEMBER), and 1810-1812.

FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812. Napoleon's divorce from Josephine and marriage to Marie-Louise of Austria. His rupture with the Czar and preparations for war with Russia.

"Napoleon now revived the idea which he had often entertained before, of allying himself with one of the great ruling families. A compliant senate and a packed ecclesiastical council pronounced his separation from Josephine Beauharnais, who retired with a magnificent pension to Malmaison, where she died. As previous marriage proposals to the Russian court had not been cordially received, Napoleon now turned to Austria. The matter was speedily arranged with Metternich, and in March, 1810, the archduchess Maria Louisa arrived in France as the emperor's wife. The great importance of the marriage was that it broke the last links which bound Russia to France, and thus overthrew the alliance of Tilsit. Alexander had been exasperated by the addition of Western Galicia to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, which he regarded as a step towards the restoration of Poland, and therefore as a breach of the engagement made at Tilsit. The annexation of Oldenburg, whose duke was a relative of the Czar, was a distinct personal insult. Alexander showed his irritation by formally deserting the continental system, which was more ruinous to Russia than to almost any other country, and by throwing his ports open to British commerce (December 1810). ... The chief grievance to Russia was the apparent intention of Napoleon to do something for the Poles. The increase of the grand-duchy of Warsaw by the treaty of Vienna was so annoying to Alexander, that he began to meditate on the possibility of restoring Poland himself, and making it a dependent kingdom for the Czar, in the same way as Napoleon had treated Italy. He even went so far as to sound the Poles on the subject; but he found that they had not forgotten the three partitions of their country, and that their sympathies were rather with France than with Russia. At the same time Napoleon was convinced that until Russia was subdued his empire was unsafe, and all hopes of avenging himself upon England were at an end. All through the year 1811 it was known that war was inevitable, but neither power was in a hurry to take the initiative. Meanwhile the various powers that retained nominal independence had to make up their minds as to the policy they would pursue. For no country was the decision harder than for Prussia. Neutrality was out of the question, as the Prussian territories, lying between the two combatants, must be occupied by one or the other. {1353} The friends and former Colleagues of Stein were unanimous for a Russian alliance and a desperate struggle for liberty. But Hardenberg, who had become chancellor in 1810, was too prudent to embark in a contest, which at the time was hopeless. The Czar had not been so consistent in his policy as to be a very desirable ally; and, even with Russian assistance, it was certain that the Prussian frontiers could not be defended against the French, who had already garrisons in the chief fortresses. Hardenberg fully sympathised with the patriots, but he sacrificed enthusiasm to prudence, and offered the support of Prussia to France. The treaty was arranged on the 24th of February, 1812. Frederick William gave the French a free passage through his territories, and undertook to furnish 20,000 men for service in the field, and as many more for garrison duty. In return for this Napoleon guaranteed the security of the Prussian kingdom as it stood, and held out the prospect of additions to it. It was an unnatural and hollow alliance, and was understood to be so by the Czar. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and other friends of Stein resigned their posts, and many Prussian officers entered the service of the Czar. Austria, actuated by similar motives, adopted the same policy, but with less reluctance. After this example had been set by the two great powers, none of the lesser states of Germany dared to disobey the peremptory orders of Napoleon. But Turkey and Sweden, both of them old allies of France, were at this crisis in the opposition. ... The Swedes were threatened with starvation by Napoleon's stern command to close their ports not only against English, but against all German vessels. Bernadotte, who had just been adopted as the heir of the childless Charles XIII.; determined to throw in his lot with his new country, rather than with his old commander. He had also hopes of compensating Sweden for the loss of Finland by wresting Norway from the Danes, and this would never be agreed to by France. Accordingly Sweden prepared to support the cause of Alexander."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 24, sections 88 and 41.

"Napoleon's Russian expedition should not be regarded as an isolated freak of insane pride. He himself regarded it as the unfortunate effect of a fatality, and he betrayed throughout an unwonted reluctance and perplexity. 'The war must take place,' he said, 'it lies in the nature of things.' That is, it arose naturally, like the other Napoleonic wars, out of the quarrel with England. Upon the Continental system he had staked everything. He had united all Europe in the crusade against England, and no state, least of all such a state as Russia, could withdraw from the system without practically joining England. Nevertheless, we may wonder that, if he felt obliged to make war on Russia, he should have chosen to wage it in the manner he did, by an overwhelming invasion. For an ordinary war his resources were greatly superior to those of Russia. A campaign on the Lithuanian frontier would no doubt have been unfavourable to Alexander, and might have forced him to concede the points at issue. Napoleon had already experienced in Spain the danger of rousing national spirit. It seems, however, that this lesson had been lost on him."

J. R. Seeley, Short History of Napoleon, chapter 5, section 3.

"Warnings and cautions were not ... wanting to him. He had been at several different times informed of the desperate plans of Russia and her savage resolve to destroy all around him, provided he could be involved in the destruction of the Empire. He was cautioned, with even more earnestness, of the German conspiracies. Alquier transmitted to him from Stockholm a significant remark of Alexander's: 'If the Emperor Napoleon should experience a reverse, the whole of Germany will rise to oppose his retreat, or to prevent the arrival of his reinforcements.' His brother Jerome, who was still better situated for knowing what was going on in Germany, informed him, in the month of January, 1811, of the proposal that had been made to him to enter into a secret league against France, but the only thanks he received from Napoleon was reproach for having encouraged such overtures by his equivocal conduct. ... Marshal Davout and General Rapp transmitted him identically the same information from Hamburg and Dantzig. But far from encouraging such confidential communications, Napoleon was irritated by them. ... 'I do not know why Rapp meddles in what does not concern him [he wrote]. ... I beg you will not place such rhapsodies under my eyes. My time is too precious to waste on such twaddle.' ... In presence of such hallucination, caused by pride and infatuation, we seem to hear Macbeth in his delirium insulting the messengers who announced to him the approach· of the enemy's armies."

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 4, chapter 6.

"That period ought to have been esteemed the happiest of Napoleon's life. What more could the wildest ambition desire? ... All obeyed him. Nothing was wanting to make him happy! Nothing, if he could be happy who possessed not a love of justice. ... The being never existed who possessed ampler means for promoting the happiness of mankind. Nothing was required but justice and prudence. The nation expected these from him, and granted him that unlimited confidence which he afterwards so cruelly abused. ... Instead of considering with calmness and moderation how he might best employ his vast resources, he ruminated on projects beyond the power of man to execute; forgetting what innumerable victims must be sacrificed in the vain attempt. ... He aspired at universal despotism, for no other reason than because a nation, isolated from the continent and profiting by its happy situation, had refused to submit to his intolerable·yoke. ... In the hope of conquering that invincible enemy, he vainly endeavoured to grasp the extremities of Europe. ... Misled by his rash and hasty temper, he adopted a false line of politics, and converted in the north, as he had done before in the south, the most useful and powerful of his allies into a dangerous enemy."

E. Labaume, Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia, part 1, book 1.

ALSO IN: C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 2, chapter 3.

_Imbert de Saint Amand, Memoirs of the Empress Marie Louise._

FRANCE: A. D. 1812 (June). The captive Pope brought to Fontainebleau.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1812 (June-August). Defeat by the English in Spain at Salamanca. Abandonment of Madrid by King Joseph.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-AUGUST).

{1354}

FRANCE: A. D. 1812 (June-December). Napoleon's Russian campaign. The advance to Moscow. The burning of the city. The retreat and its horrors.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812.

FRANCE: A. D. 1812-1813 (December-March) Napoleon's return from Russia. His measures for creating a new army.

"Whilst Europe, agitated at once by hope, by fear, and by hatred, was inquiring what had become of Napoleon, whether he had perished or had been saved, he was crossing in a sledge--accompanied by the Duke of Vicenza, the Grand Marshal Duroc, Count Lobau, General Lefevre-Desnouettes, and the Mameluke Rustan--the vast, plains of Lithuania, of Poland, and of Saxony, concealed by thick furs; for if his name had been imprudently uttered, or his countenance recognised, a tragical catastrophe would have instantly ensued. The man who had so greatly excited the admiration of nations, who was the object of their ... superstition, would not at that moment have escaped their fury. In two places only did he allow himself to be known, Warsaw and Dresden. ... That he might not occasion too great surprise, he caused himself to be preceded by an officer with a few lines for the 'Moniteur,' saying that on December 5 he had assembled his generals at Smorgoni, had delegated the command to King Murat, only so long as military operations were interrupted by the cold, that he had traversed Warsaw and Dresden, and that he was about to arrive in Paris to take in hand the affairs of the Empire. ... Napoleon followed close on the steps of the officer who was to announce his arrival. On December 18, at half-past 11 P. M., he entered the Tuileries. ... On the next morning, the 19th, he received the ministers and grandees of the court ... with extreme hauteur, maintaining a tranquil but severe aspect, appearing to expect explanations instead of affording them himself, treating foreign affairs as of minor consequence, and those of a domestic nature as of principal import, demanding some light upon these last,--in short, questioning others in order to avoid being questioned himself. ... On Sunday, the 20th of December, the second day after his arrival, Napoleon received the Senate, the Council of State, and the principal branches of the administration," which severally addressed to him the most fulsome flatteries and assurances of support. "After an infuriated populace basely outraging vanquished princes, nothing can be seen more melancholy than these great bodies prostrating themselves at the feet of a power, bestowing upon it a degree of admiration which increases with its errors, speaking with ardour of their fidelity, already about to expire, and swearing to die in its cause when they are on the eve of hailing the accession of another. Happy are those countries whose established Constitutions spare them these humiliating spectacles!" As speedily as possible, Napoleon applied himself to the recreation of his lost army, by anticipating the conscription for 1814, and by making new calls upon the classes which had already furnished their contingents. All his measures were submissively sanctioned by the obsequious Senate; but many murmurs of discontent were heard among the people, and some movements of resistance needed to be put down. "However, when the enlightened classes of a country approve a measure, their support is extremely efficacious. In France, all those classes perceiving that it was necessary energetically to defend the country against a foreign enemy, though the Government had been still more in the wrong than they were, the levies were effected, and the high functionaries, sustained by a moral acquiescence which they had not always obtained, fulfilled their duty, though in heart full of sad and sinister forebodings."

A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, book 47 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: Duchess d'Abrantes, Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 43.

FRANCE: A. D. 1812-1813. Germanic rising against Napoleon. War of Liberation. Lützen. Bautzen. Dresden. Leipsic. The retreat of the French from beyond the Rhine.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813, to 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

FRANCE: A. D. 1813 (February-March). The new Concordat signed and retracted by the Pope.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1813 (June-November). Defeat at Vittoria and in the Pyrenees. Retreat from Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1813 (November-December). Dutch independence regained.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1813.

FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (January). The Pope set free to return to Rome.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (January-March). The allied invasion. Napoleon's campaign of defense. His cause lost. Surrender of Paris.

"The battle of Leipzig was the overthrow of the French rule in Germany; there only remained, as evidence of what they had lost, 150,000 men, garrisons of the fortresses of the Vistula, the Oder, and the Elbe. Each success of the allies had been marked by the desertion of one of the peoples that had furnished its contingent to the Grand Army of 1812: after Prussia, Austria; at Leipzig the Saxons: the French had not been able to regain the Rhine except by passing over the bodies of the Bavarians at Hanau. Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse, and Darmstadt declared their defection at nearly the same time; the sovereigns were still hesitating whether to separate themselves from Napoleon, when their people and regiments, worked upon by the German patriots, had already passed into the allied camp. Jerome Bonaparte had again quitted Cassel; Denmark found Itself forced to adhere to the Coalition. Napoleon had retired to the left bank of the Rhine. Would Alexander cross this natural frontier of revolutionary France? 'Convinced,' says M. Bogdanovitch, 'by the experience of many years, that neither losses inflicted on Napoleon, nor treaties concluded with him, could check his insatiable ambition, Alexander would not stop at setting free the involuntary allies of France, and resolved to pursue the war till he had overthrown his enemy.' The allied sovereigns found themselves reunited at Frankfort, and an immediate march to Paris was discussed. Alexander, Stein. Blücher, Gneisenau, and all the Prussians were on the side of decisive action. The Emperor Francis and Metternich only desired Napoleon to be weakened, as his downfall would expose Austria to another danger, the preponderance of Russia on the Continent. Bernadotte insisted on Napoleon's dethronement, with the ridiculous design of appropriating the crown of France, traitor as he was to her cause. England would have preferred a solid and immediate peace to a war which would exhaust her in subsidies, and augment her already enormous debt. These divergencies, these hesitations, gave Napoleon time to strengthen his position. {1355} After Hanau, in the opinion of Ney, 'the allies might have counted their stages to Paris.' Napoleon had re-opened the negotiations. The relinquishment of Italy (when Murat on his side negotiated the preservation of his kingdom of Naples), of Holland, of Germany, and of Spain, and the confinement of France between her natural boundaries of the Rhine and the Alps; such were the 'Conditions of Frankfort.' Napoleon sent an answer to Metternich, 'that he consented to the opening of a congress at Mannheim: that the conclusion of a peace which would insure the independence of all the nations of the earth had always been the aim of his policy.' This reply seems evasive, but could the proposals of the allies have been serious? Encouraged by disloyal Frenchmen, they published the declaration of Frankfort, by which they affirmed 'that they did not make war with France, but against the preponderance which Napoleon had long exercised beyond the limits of his empire.' Deceitful assurance, too obvious snare, which could only take in a nation weary of war, enervated by twenty-two years of sterile victories, and at the end of its resources! During this time Alexander, with the deputies of the Helvetian Diet summoned at Frankfort, discussed the basis of a new Swiss Confederation. Holland was already raised by the partisans of the house of Orange, and entered by the Prussians. The campaign of France began. Alexander issued at Freiburg a proclamation to his troops. ... He refused to receive Caulaincourt at Freiburg, declaring that he would only treat in France. 'Let us spare the French negotiator the trouble of the journey,' he said to Metternich. 'It does not seem to me a matter of indifference to the allied sovereigns, whether the peace with France is signed on this side of the Rhine, or on the other, in the very heart of France. Such an historical event is well worth a change of quarters.' Without counting the armies of Italy and the Pyrenees, Napoleon had now a mere handful of troops, 80,000 men, spread from Nimeguen to Bâle, to resist 500,000 allies. The army of the North (Wintzingerode) invaded Holland, Belgium, and the Rhenish provinces; the army of Silesia (Blücher) crossed the Rhine between Mannheim and Coblentz and entered Nancy; the army of Bohemia (Schwartzenberg) passed through Switzerland, and advanced on Troyes, where the Royalists demanded the restoration of the Bourbons. Napoleon was still able to bar for some time the way to his capital. He first attacked the army of Silesia; he defeated the vanguard, the Russians of Sacken, at St. Didier, and Blücher at Brienne; but at La Rothière he encountered the formidable masses of the Silesian and Bohemian armies, and after a fierce battle (1st February, 1814) had to fall back on Troyes. After this victory had secured their junction, the two armies separated again, the one to go down the Marne, the other the Seine, with the intention of reuniting at Paris. Napoleon profited by this mistake. He threw himself on the left flank of the army of Silesia, near Champeaubert, where he dispersed the troops of Olsoufief and Poltaratski, inflicting on them a loss of 2,500 men, and took the generals prisoners. At Montmirail, in spite of the heroism of Zigrote and Lapoukhine, he defeated Sacken; the Russians alone lost 2,800 men and five guns (11th February). At Château Thierry, he defeated Sacken and York reunited, and again the Russians lost 1,500 men and five guns. At Vauchamp it was the turn of Blücher, who lost 2,000 Russians, 4,000 Prussians, and fifteen guns. The army of Silesia was in terrible disorder. 'The peasants, exasperated by the disorder inseparable from a retreat, and excited by exaggerated rumours of French successes, took up arms, and refused supplies. The soldiers suffered both from cold and hunger, Champagne affording no wood for bivouac fires. When the weather became milder, their shoes wore out, and the men, obliged to make forced marches with bare feet, were carried by hundreds into the hospitals of the country' (Bogdanovitch). Whilst the army of Silesia retreated in disorder on the army of the North, Napoleon, with 50,000 soldiers full of enthusiasm, turned on that of Bohemia, crushed the Bavarians and Russians at Mormans, the Wurtembergers at Montereau, the Prussians at Méry: these Prussians made part of the army of Blücher, who had detached a corps to hang on the rear of Napoleon. This campaign made a profound impression on the allies. Castlereagh expressed, in Alexander's presence, the opinion that peace should be made before they were driven across the Rhine. The military chiefs began to feel uneasy. Sesslavine sent news from Joigny that Napoleon had 180,000 men at Troyes. A general insurrection of the eastern provinces was expected in the rear of the allies. It was the firmness of Alexander which maintained the Coalition, it was the military energy of Blücher which saved it. Soon after his disasters he received reinforcements from the army of the North, and took the offensive against the marshals; then, hearing of the arrival of Napoleon at La Ferté Gaucher, he retreated in great haste, finding an unexpected refuge at Soissons, which had just been taken by the army of the North. At Craonne (March 7) and at Laon (10th to 12th March), with 100,000 men against 80,000, and with strong positions, he managed to repulse all the attacks of Napoleon. At Craonne, however, the Russian loss amounted to 5,000 men, the third of their effective force. The battle of Laon cost them 4,000 men. Meanwhile, De Saint Priest, a general in Alexander's service, had taken Rheims by assault, but was dislodged by Napoleon after a fierce struggle, where the émigré commander was badly wounded, and 4,000 of his men were killed (13th, March). The Congress of Châtillon-sur-Seine was opened on the 28th of February. Russia was represented by Razoumovski and Nesselrode, Napoleon by Caulaincourt, Austria by Stadion and Metternich. The conditions proposed to Napoleon were the reduction of France to its frontiers of 1792, and the right of the allies to dispose, without reference to him, of the reconquered countries. Germany was to be a confederation of independent States, Italy to be divided into free States, Spain to be restored to Ferdinand, and Holland to the house of Orange. Leave France smaller than I found her? Never!' said Napoleon. Alexander and the Prussians would not hear of a peace which left Napoleon on the throne. Still, however, they negotiated. Austria and England were both agreed not to push him to extremities, and many times proposed to treat. After Napoleon's great success against Blücher, Castlereagh declared for peace. 'It would not be a peace,' cried the Emperor of Russia; 'it would be a truce which would not allow us to disarm one moment. I cannot come 400 leagues every day to your assistance. {1356} No peace, as long as Napoleon is on the throne.' Napoleon, in his turn, intoxicated by his success, enjoined Caulaincourt only to treat on the basis of Frankfort--natural frontiers. ... As fortune returned· to the allies, the congress was dissolved (19th of March). The Bourbon princes were already in France; Louis XVIII. was on the point of being proclaimed. Alexander, tired of seeing the armies of Bohemia and Silesia fly in turn before thirty or forty thousand French, caused the allies to adopt the fatal plan of a march on Paris, which was executed in eight days. Blücher and Schwartzenberg united, with 200,000 men, were to bear down all opposition on their passage. The first act in the drama was the battle of Arcissur-Aube, where the Russians took six guns from Napoleon. The latter conceived a bold scheme, which perhaps might have saved him if Paris could have resisted, but which was his ruin. He threw himself on the rear of the allied army, abandoning to them the route to Paris, but reckoning on raising Eastern France, and cutting off their retreat to the Rhine. The allies, uneasy for one moment, were reassured by an intercepted letter of Napoleon's, and by the letters of the Parisian royalists, which revealed to them the weakness of the capital. 'Dare all!' writes Talleyrand to them. They, in their turn, deceived Napoleon, by causing him to be followed by a troop of cavalry, continued their march, defeated Marmont and Mortier, crushed the National Guards of Pacthod (battle of La Fère-Champenoise); and arrived in sight of Paris. Barclay de Tolly, forming the centre, first attacked the plateau of Romainville, defended by Marmont; on his left, the Prince of Wurtemberg threatened Vincennes; and on his right, Blücher deployed before Montmartre, which was defended by Mortier. The heights of Chaumont and those of Montmartre were taken; Marmont and Mortier with Moncey were thrown back on the ramparts. Marmont obtained an armistice from Colonel Orlof, to treat for the capitulation of Paris. King Joseph, the Empress Marie-Louise, and all the Imperial Government had already fled to the Loire. Paris was recommended to the generosity of the allied monarchs'; the army could retire on the road to Orleans. Such was the battle of Paris; it had cost, according to M. Bogdanovitch, 8,400 men to the allies, and 4,000 to the French (30th March). ... The allied troops maintained a strict discipline, and were not quartered on the inhabitants. Alexander had not come as a friend of the Bourbons--the fiercest enemy of Napoleon, was least bitter against the French; he intended leaving them the choice of their government. He had not favoured any of the intrigues of the émigrés, and had scornfully remarked to Jomini, 'What are the Bourbons to me?'"

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 3, chapter 1.

_M. de Beauchamp, Narrative of the Invasions of France, 1814-15._

Duke de Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 3, part 2, chapters 20-32.

J. Philippart, Campaign in Germany and France, 1818, volume 1, pages 279 and after, and volume 2.

FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (January-May). Desertion of Napoleon by Murat. Murat's treaty with the allies. French evacuation of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (February-April). Reverses in the south. Wellington's invasion.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (March-April). Friendly reception of the Allies in Paris. Collapse of the empire. Abdication of Napoleon. Treaty of Fontainebleau.

"At an early hour in the morning [of the 31st of March], the Allied troops had taken possession of the barriers, and occupied the principal avenues leading to the city. Picquets of the Cossacks of the Guard were stationed at the corners of the principal streets. Vast multitudes thronged the Boulevards, in anxious and silent expectation of pending events. The royalists alone were active. The leaders, a small band indeed, had early assembled in the Place Louis XV., whence, with Bourbon banners displayed, they proceeded along the principal streets, haranguing the people and National Guard; but though not interfered with by the police,--for all seemed to feel that the Imperial government was at an end,--they were listened to with such perfect indifference, that many began to think their cause absolutely hopeless. It was between ten and eleven o'clock when the procession began to enter the city. Light horsemen of the Russian Guard opened the march; at the head of the main column rode the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. ... Then followed 35,000 men, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, the elite of the armies, in all the pride and circumstance of war and conquest. At first the multitude looked on in silent amazement; but the affability of the officers, above all, the condescending manner of the Czar, dispelled any fear they might still entertain; and shouts of 'Vive Alexander!' began to be heard; cries of 'Vive le Roi de Prusse!' were soon added. ... The shouts of welcome increased at every step. The conquerors were now hailed as liberators; 'Vivent les Allies!' 'Vivent nos liberateurs!' sounded through the air, mingled at last with the long-forgotten cry of 'Vive le Roi!' 'Vivent les Bourbons!' ... The Emperor Alexander had no sooner seen the troops file past on the Place Louis XV., than he repaired to the hôtel of Talleyrand, where in the evening, a council was assembled to deliberate on the important step next to be taken, and, on the best mode of turning the glorious victories achieved to an honourable and beneficial account. ... The points discussed were:

I. The possibility, on sufficient guarantees, of a peace with Napoleon;

II. The plan of regency under Marie Louise; and,

III. The restoration of the Bourbons.

The choice was not without difficulties. The first plan was easily dismissed; as the reception of the Allies proved clearly that the power of Napoleon was broken. The second seemed more likely to find favour, as promising to please the Emperor of Austria; but was finally rejected, as being, in fact, nothing more than a continuance of the Imperial reign under a different title. Against the restoration of the Bourbons, it was urged that the nation at large had evinced no desire for their recall, and seemed to have almost forgotten them. This, Talleyrand said, was owing entirely to the Congress of Chatillon, and the negotiations carried on with Napoleon; introducing at the same time, the Abbé de Pradt and Baron Louis, who fully confirmed the assertion. On being asked how he expected to obtain a declaration in favour of the exiled family, Talleyrand replied, that he was certain of the Senate; and that their vote would influence Paris, the example of which would be followed by all France. {1357} Alexander having on this assurance taken the opinion of the King of Prussia and Prince Schwarzenberg, signed a declaration to the effect that 'the Allies would treat no more with Napoleon Bonaparte, or with any member of his family.' A proclamation was issued at the same time, calling on the conservative Senate to assemble and form a provisional government, for the purpose of drawing up a constitution suitable to the wishes of the French people. This the Allies promised to guarantee; as it was their wish, they said, to see France 'powerful, happy, and prosperous.' A printer was ready in attendance; and before dark, this memorable decree was seen placarded in all the streets of Paris. The inconstant populace had not even waited for such a sig nal, and had been already engaged in destroying the emblems of the Imperial government; an attempt had even been made to pull down the statue of Napoleon from the summit of the column of Austerlitz, in the Place Vendome! The decisive impulse thus given, events moved rapidly forward. Caulaincourt's zealous efforts in favour of his master could effect nothing after the declaration already noticed. On the 2d, he took his departure for Fontainbleau; having, however, received the assurance that Napoleon would be suitably provided for. ... The funds rose five per cent., and all other public securities in proportion, on the very day after the occupation of the capital; and wherever the Allied Sovereigns appeared in public, they were loudly cheered and hailed as liberators. From the first, officers of the Allied armies filled the public walks, theatres, and coffee-houses, and mixed with the people as welcome guests rather than as conquering invaders. The press, so long enslaved by Napoleon, took the most decided part against its oppressor; and from every quarter injurious pamphlets, epigrams, and satires, now poured upon the fallen ruler. Madame de Staël had characterised him as 'Robespierre on horseback'; De Pradt had more wittily termed him 'Jupiter Scapin'; and these sayings were not forgotten. But by far the most vivid sensation was produced by Chateaubriand's tract of 'Bonaparte and the Bourbons'; 30,000 copies of which are said to have been sold in two days. In proportion as the popular hatred of the Emperor evinced itself, grew the boldness of his adversaries. On the first of April, the Municipal Council of Paris met and already declared the throne vacant; on the next day, the Conservative Senate formed a Provisional Government, and issued a decree, declaring, first,'That Napoleon Bonaparte had forfeited the throne and the right of inheritance established in his family; 2d, That the people and army of France were disengaged and freed from the oath of fidelity which they had taken to him and his constitution.' ... The members of the Legislative Assembly who happened to be in Paris, followed the example of the Senate. The Assembly had been dissolved in January, and could not meet constitutionally unless summoned by the Sovereign; this objection was, however, set aside, and the Assembly having met, ratified the act of deposition passed by the Senate. All the public functionaries, authorities and constituted bodies in and near Paris, hastened to send in their submission to the new powers: it was a general race in which honour was not always the prize of speed; for every address, every act of submission sent in to the new government, teemed with invectives against the deposed ruler. ... It was in the night between the 2d and 3d, that Caulaincourt returned from his mission, and informed Napoleon of the events which had passed. ... In what manner the Emperor received these fatal tidings we are not told. ... At first it would seem that he entertained, or affected to entertain, thoughts of resorting to arms; for in the morning he reviewed his Guard, and addressed them in the following terms:--'Officers and soldiers of my Old Guard, the enemy has gained three marches on us, and outstripped us at Paris. Some factious men, emigrants whom I had pardoned, have surrounded the Emperor Alexander; they have mounted the white cockade, and would force us to do the same. In a few days I shall attack the enemy, and force them to quit the capital. I rely on you: am I right?' The troops readily replied with loud cheers to this address, calling out 'To Paris! 'to Paris!' but the Marshals and senior officers were by no means so zealous in the cause. ... The Generals and Marshals ... followed the Emperor to his apartments after the review; and having advised him to negotiate with the Allies, on the principle of a personal abdication, ended by informing him, that they would not accompany him if he persisted in the proposed attack on Paris. The scene which followed seems to have been of a very undignified description. Napoleon was almost convulsed with rage; he tore and trampled under foot the decree of the Senate; vowed vengeance against the whole body, who should yet, he said, be made to pay for their deed of 'felony'; but ended, nevertheless, by ignobly signing the abdication demanded of him. We say ignobly; for nothing can be more debasing in character, than to sink down from a very tempest of passion to tame submission. ... The act of abdication was worded in the following terms: 'The Allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for the good of the country, which is inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the regency in the person of the Empress, and from the maintenance of the laws of the empire. Done at our Palace of Fontainbleau, 4th April 1814. Napoleon.' Caulaincourt, Marshals Ney and M'Donald, were appointed to carry this conditional abdication to Paris. ... The commissioners on returning to Fontainbleau found the Emperor in his cabinet, impatiently awaiting the result of their mission. Marshal Ney was the first to speak; and in that abrupt, harsh and not very respectful tone which he had lately assumed towards his falling sovereign, told him at once, that 'France, the army and the cause of peace, demanded his unconditional abdication.' Caulaincourt added, that the full sovereignty of the Isle of Elba, with a suitable establishment, had been offered by the Emperor Alexander; and Marshal M'Donald, who had so zealously defended the cause of his master, confirmed the statement,--declaring also that, 'in his opinion, the Imperial cause was completely lost, as they had all three'--the commissioners--'failed against a resolution irrevocably fixed.' 'What!' exclaimed Napoleon, 'not only my own abdication, but that of Marie Louise, and of my son? This is rather too much at once.' {1358} And with these words he delayed the answer till next day, intending, he said, to consider the subject, and consult the army; ... Words ran high between the fallen chieftain and his former subordinates; there were altercations, recriminations, and painful scenes, and it was only when Napoleon had signed the following unconditional abdication that perfect calm was restored:--'The Allied Sovereigns having declared that the Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the re-establishment of a general peace, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares, that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the throne of France and Italy; and that there is no personal sacrifice, not even that of life itself, which he is not willing to make for the interest of France. Napoleon. Fontainbleau, 6th April 1814.' This deplorable document is written in so agitated and faltering a hand as to be almost illegible. ... According to the treaty signed at Paris on the 10th, and usually called the Treaty of Fontainbleau, Napoleon, from being Emperor of France and King of Italy, became Emperor of Elba! He was to have a guard and a navy suited to the extent of his dominions, and to receive from France a pension of six millions of francs annually. The Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastala, were to be conferred in sovereignty on Marie Louise and her heirs. Two millions and a half of francs were further to be paid annually by the French government to the Empress Josephine and other members of the Bonaparte family. Splendid as these terms were for a dethroned and defenceless monarch, Napoleon ratified the treaty with reluctance, and delayed the signature as long as possible; still clinging, it would seem, to some vague hope of returning fortune. It is even related by Fain, Norvins, Constant, and in the pretended Memoirs of Caulaincourt, that he attempted to commit suicide by taking poison, 'and was only saved by the weakness of the dose, and the remedies administered by his attendants, who, hearing his groans, hastened to his bedside. It is certain that he was very unwell on the following morning, the 18th April, a circumstance easily accounted for by the anxiety he had undergone; but there can be little difficulty in rejecting the tale of poison, for, it is mentioned in none of the St. Helena Memoirs."

Lieutenant-Colonel J. Mitchell, The Fall of Napoleon, book 8, chapter 8 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 4, chapters 20-23.

Duke of Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 4, part 1, chapters 4-10.

Prince Talleyrand, Memoirs, part 7 (volume 2).

FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (April-June). Departure of Napoleon for Elba. Louis XVIII. called to the throne. Settlement of the constitution. Evacuation of France by the Allies. The Treaty of Paris. Determination of the new boundaries of the kingdom.

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