Chapter II (part 9 of 23)

Chapter II (part 9 of 23)

On the return of Richelieu and the king from their Italian expedition, in the beginning of August, 1630, "both the monarch and his minister had passed in safety through a whole tract infected with the plague; but, shortly after their arrival at Lyons, Louis XIII. fell ill, and in a few days his physicians pronounced his case hopeless. It was now that all the hatred which his power had caused to hide its head, rose up openly against Richelieu; and the two queens [Marie de Medicis, the queen-mother, and Anne of Austria, the king's wife], united only in their enmity towards the minister, never quitted the bedside of the king but to form and cement the party which was intended to work the cardinal's destruction as soon as the monarch should be no more. … {1222} The bold and the rash joined the faction of the queens; and the prudent waited with wise doubt till they saw the result they hoped for. Happy was it for those who did conceal their feelings; for suddenly the internal abscess, which had nearly reduced the king to the tomb, broke, passed away, and in a very few days he appeared perfectly convalescent. Richelieu might now have triumphed securely; … but he acted more prudently. He remembered that the queen-mother, the great mover of the cabal against him, had formerly been his benefactress; and though probably his gratitude was of no very sensitive nature, yet he was wise enough to affect a virtue that he did not possess, and to suffer the offence to be given by her. … At Paris [after the return of the court] … the queen-mother herself, unable to restrain any longer the violent passions that struggled in her bosom, seemed resolved to keep no terms with the cardinal." At an interview with him, in the king's presence, "the queen forgot the dignity of her station and the softness of her sex, and, in language more fit for the markets than the court, called him rogue, and traitor, and perturber of the public peace; and, turning to the king, she endeavoured to persuade him that Richelieu wished to take the crown from his head, in order to place it on that of the count de Soissons. Had Richelieu been as sure of the king's firmness as he was of his regard, this would have been exactly the conduct which he could have desired the queen to hold; but he knew Louis to be weak and timid, and easily ruled by those who took a tone of authority towards him; and when at length he retired at the command of the monarch … he seems to have been so uncertain how the whole would end, that he ordered his papers and most valuable effects to be secured, and preparations to be made for immediate departure. All these proceedings had been watched by the courtiers: Richelieu had been seen to quit the queen's cabinet troubled and gloomy, his niece in tears; and, some time after, the king himself followed in a state of excessive agitation, and … left Paris for Versailles without seeing his minister. The whole court thought the rule of Richelieu at an end, and the saloons of the Luxembourg were crowded with eager nobles ready to worship the rising authority of the queen-mother." But the king, when he reached Versailles, sent this message to his minister: "'Tell the cardinal de Richelieu that he has a good master, and bid him come hither to me without delay.' Richelieu felt that the real power of France was still in his hands; and setting off for Versailles, he found Louis full of expressions of regard and confidence. Rumours every moment reached Versailles of the immense concourse that was flocking to pay court to the queen-mother: the king found himself nearly deserted, and all that Richelieu had said of her ambition was confirmed in the monarch's mind; while his natural good sense told him that a minister who depended solely upon him, and who under him exercised the greatest power in the realm, was not likely to wish his fall. … In the mean time, the news of these … events spread to Paris: the halls of the Luxembourg, which the day before had been crowded to suffocation, were instantly deserted; and the queen-mother found herself abandoned by all those fawning sycophants whose confidence and disappointment procured for the day of St. Martin, 1630, the title in French history of The Day of Dupes."

G. P. R. James, Eminent Foreign Statesmen, volume 2, pages 88-92.

The ultimate outcome of The Day of Dupes was the flight of Marie de Medicis, who spent the remainder of her life in the Netherlands and in England; the trial and execution of Marshal de Marillac; the imprisonment or exile and disgrace of Bassompierre and other nobles; a senseless revolt, headed by Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, which was crushed in one battle at Castlenaudari, September 1, 1632, and which brought the Duke de Montmorency to the block.

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, volume 1, chapters 7-8.

ALSO IN: M. W. Freer, Married Life of Anne of Austria, volume 1, chapter 4.

C. M. Yonge, Cameos of English History, 6th series, chapter 20.

Miss Pardoe, Life of Marie de Medicis, book 3, chapters 7-13 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1631. Treaty and negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. Promotion of the Protestant Union.

See GERMANY: A.D. 1631 (JANUARY); 1631-1632; and 1632-1634.

FRANCE: A. D. 1632-1641. War in Lorraine. Occupation and possession of the duchy.

See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1638. Campaigns on the Flemish frontier. Invasion by the Spaniards. Paris in Peril.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1639. Active participation in the Thirty Years War. Treaties with the Germans, Swedes, and Dutch. Campaigns of Duke Bernhard in Lorraine, Alsace and Franche-Comté. The fruit gathered by Richelieu. Alsace secured.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1642. The war in northern Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.

FRANCE: A. D. 1637-1642. The war in Spain. Revolt of Catalonia. Siege and capture of Perpignan. Conquest of Roussillon.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640, and 1640-1642.

FRANCE: A. D. 1640-1645. Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645, and 1643-1644.

FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642. The conspiracies of Count de Soissons and Cinq Mars. Extinction of the Principality of Sedan.

"There were revolts in various quarters to resist [the yoke of Richelieu], but they were quelled with uniform success. Once, and once only, the fate of the Cardinal seemed finally sealed. The Count de Soissons, a prince of the blood, headed the discontented gentry in open war in 1641, and established the headquarters of revolt in the town of Sedan. The Empire and Spain came to his support with promises and money. Twelve thousand men were under his orders, all influenced with rage against Richelieu, and determined to deliver the king from his degrading tutelage. Richelieu was taken unprepared; but delay would have been ruin. He sent the Marshal Chatillon to the borders of Sedan, to watch the proceedings of the confederates, and requested the king to summon fresh troops and go down to the scene of war. While his obedient Majesty was busied in the commission, Chatillon advanced too far. Soissons assaulted him near the banks of the Meuse, at a place called Marfée, and gave him a total and irremediable overthrow. The cavalry on the royalist side retreated at an early part of the fight, and forced their way through the infantry, not without strong suspicions of collusion with their opponents." {1223} Paris itself was in dismay. The King and Cardinal expected to hear every hour of the advance of the rebels; but no step was taken. It was found, when the hurry of battle was over, that Soissons was among the slain. The force of the expedition was in that one man; and the defeat was as useful to the Cardinal as a victory would have been. The malcontents had no leaders of sufficient rank and authority to keep the inferiors in check; for the scaffold had thinned the ranks of the great hereditary chiefs, and no man could take his first open move against the Court without imminent risk to his head. Great men, indeed, were rising into fame, but of a totally different character from their predecessors. Their minds were cast in a monarchical mould from their earliest years. … From this time subserviency to the king became a sign of noble birth. … Richelieu has the boast, if boast it can be called, of having crushed out the last spark of popular independence and patrician pride. … One more effort was made [1642] to shake off the trammels of the hated Cardinal. A conspiracy was entered into to deliver the land by the old Roman method of putting the tyrant to death; and the curious part of the design is, that it was formed almost in presence of the king. His favourite friend, young Cinq Mars, son of the Marshal d'Effiat, his brother Gaston of Orleans, and his kinsman the Duke de Bouillon, who were round his person at all hours of the day, were the chief agents of the perilous undertaking. Others, and with them de Thou, the son of the great French historian, entered into the plan, but wished the assassination to be left out. They would arrest and imprison him; but this was evidently not enough. While Richelieu lived, no man could be safe, though the Cardinal were in the deepest dungeon of the Bastile. Death, however, was busy with their victim, without their aid. He was sinking under some deep but partially-concealed illness when the threads of the plot came into his skilful hands. He made the last use of his strength and intelligence in unravelling [it] and punishing the rebels, as he called them, against the king's authority. The paltry and perfidious Gaston was as usual penitent and pardoned, but on Cinq Mars and de Thou the vengeance of the law and the Cardinal had its full force. The triumphant but failing minister reclined in a state barge upon the Rhone, towing his prisoners behind him to certain death. On their arrival at Lyons the process was short and fatal. The young men were executed together, and the account of their behaviour at the block is one of the most affecting narratives in the annals of France."

J. White, History of France, chapter 12.

The Duke de Bouillon, implicated in both these conspiracies—that of the Count de Soissons and that of Cinq Mars—saved his life on the latter occasion by surrendering to the crown the sovereignty of Sedan, which belonged to him, and which had been the headquarters of the Soissons revolt. This small independent principality—the town and a little territory around it—had formerly been in the possession of the powerful and troublesome family of La Marck, the last heiress of whom brought it, together with the Duchy of Bouillon, into the family of La Tour d'Auvergne. The Prince and Duke who lost it was the second of that family who bore the titles. He was the elder brother of the great soldier, Turenne. The Principality of Sedan was extinguished from that time.

_T. O. Cockayne, Life of Turenne._

ALSO IN: W. Robson, Life of Richelieu, chapters 11-12.

M. W. Freer, Married Life of Anne of Austria, volume 2, chapter 3.

Miss Pardoe, Life of Marie de Medicis, book 3, chapter 13 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643. The death of Richelieu and of Louis XIII. Regency of Anne of Austria. Cardinal Mazarin and the party of the Importants. The victory at Rocroi.

Cardinal Richelieu died on the 4th of December, 1642. "He was dead, but his work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d of December, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal Mazarin [whom Richelieu had commended to him]. … Scarcely had the most powerful kings yielded up their last breath when their wishes had been at once forgotten: Cardinal Richelieu still governed in his grave." But now, after two and a half centuries, "the castle of Richelieu is well-nigh destroyed; his family, after falling into poverty, is extinct; the Palais-Cardinal [his splendid residence, which he built, and which he gave to the crown] has assumed the name of the Palais-Royal; and pure monarchy, the aim of all his efforts and the work of his whole life, has been swept away by the blast of revolution. Of the cardinal there remains nothing but the great memory of his power and of the services he rendered his country. … Richelieu had no conception of that noblest ambition on which a human soul can feed, that of governing a free country, but he was one of the greatest, the most effective, and the boldest, as well as the most prudent servants that France ever had." Louis XIII. survived his great minister less than half a year, dying May 14, 1643. He had never had confidence in Anne of Austria, his wife, and had provided, by a declaration which she had signed and sworn to, for a council (which included Mazarin) to control the queen's regency during the minority of their son, Louis XIV. But the queen contrived very soon to break from this obligation, and she made Cardinal Mazarin her one counsellor and supreme minister. "Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master. Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to Richelieu to the death. With different feelings, Anne of Austria was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin. A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the House of Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of Louis XIII.'s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May [1643]. The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien [afterwards known as the Great Condé], the prince of Condé's son, scarcely 22 years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hôpital; and the latter feared to give battle. {1224} The Duke of Enghien, who 'was dying with impatience to enter the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish by address what he could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion alone. As he [Gassion, one of the boldest of Condé's officers] was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hôpital found himself imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for him any longer to hinder an engagement.' … The army was in front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in the tone of a master 'that he meant to fight, and would answer for the issue.'" The battle, which was fought May 19, 1643, resulted in the destruction, almost total, of the Spanish army. Of 18,000 men who formed its infantry, nearly 9,000 were killed and 7,000 were made prisoners. The whole of the Spanish artillery and 300 of their standards fell into the hands of the victors, who lost, according to their own reports, only 2,000 men, killed and wounded. "'The prince was a born captain,' said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with him on hearing of the victory of Rocroi. The delight was all the keener in the queen's circle, because the house of Condé openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was by the Importants [a court faction or party so called, which was made up of 'those meddlers of the court at whose head marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty,' and all expecting to count importantly among the queen's favorites], who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu. … And, indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel [August, 1643] between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of the prince of Condé, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort, who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned [after being exiled by Richelieu] to court, where she would fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the Duke of Vendôme. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same disgrace. … The party of the Importants was dead, and the power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. 'It was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad terms with the court,' says Cardinal de Retz."

F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapters 41-43.

"Cardinal Richelieu was not so much a minister, in the precise sense of the word, as a person invested with the whole power of the crown. His preponderating influence in the council suspended the exercise of the hereditary power, without which the monarchy must cease to exist; and it seems as if that may have taken place in order that the social progress, violently arrested since the last reign, might resume its course at the instigation of a kind of dictator, whose spirit was free from the influences which the interest of family and dynasty exercises over the characters of kings. By a strange concurrence of circumstances, it happened that the weak prince, whose destiny it was to lend his name to the reign of the great minister, had in his character, his instincts, his good or bad qualities, all that could supply the requirements of such a post. Louis XIII., who had a mind without energy but not without intelligence, could not live without a master; after having possessed and lost many, he took and kept the one, who he found was capable of conducting France to the point, which he himself had a faint glimpse of, and to which he vaguely aspired in his melancholy reveries. … In his attempts at innovation, Richelieu, as simple minister, much surpassed the great king who had preceded him, in boldness. He undertook to accelerate the movement towards civil unity and equality so much, and to carry it so far, that hereafter it should be impossible to recede. … The work of Louis XI. had been nearly lost in the depth of the troubles of the sixteenth century; and that of Henry IV. was compromised by fifteen years of disorder and weakness. To save it from perishing, three things were necessary: that the high nobility should be constrained to obedience to the king and to the law; that Protestantism should cease to be an armed party in the State; that France should be able to choose her allies freely in behalf of her own interest and in that of European independence. On this triple object the king-minister employed his powerful intellect, his indefatigable activity, ardent passions, and an heroic strength of mind. His daily life was a desperate struggle against the nobles, the royal family, the supreme courts, against all that existed of high institutions, and corporations established in the country. For the purpose of reducing all to the same level of submission and order, he raised the royal power above the ties of family and the tie of precedent; he isolated it in its sphere as a pure idea, the living idea of the public safety and the national interest. … He was as destitute of mercy as he was of fear, and trampled under foot the respect due to judicial forms and usages. He had sentences of death pronounced by commissioners of his own selection: at the very foot of the throne he struck the enemies of the public interest, and at the same time of his own fortune, and confounded his personal hatreds with the vengeance of the State. No one can say whether or not there was deceit in that assurance of conscience which he manifested in his last moments: God alone could look into the depth of his mind. We who have gathered the fruit of his labours and of his patriotic devotion at a distance of time—we can only bow, before that man of revolution, by whom the ways which led to our present state of society were prepared. But something sad is still attached to his glory: he sacrificed everything to the success of his undertaking; he stifled within himself and crushed down in some noble spirits the eternal principles of morality and humanity. When we look at the great things which he achieved, we admire him with gratitude; we would, but we cannot, love his character."

A. Thierry, Formation and Progress of the Tiers État or Third Estate in France, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: _V. Cousin, Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin, chapters 3-4._

_V. Cousin, The Youth of Madame de Longueville._

Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, Prince of Condé, chapter 1.

Cardinal de Retz, Memoirs, books 1-2.

M'lle de Montpensier, Memoirs, chapter 2-3.

{1225}

FRANCE: A. D. 1643. Accession of Louis XIV.

FRANCE: A. D. 1643. Enghien's (Condé's) campaign on the Moselle. Siege and capture of Thionville.

"On the 20th of May … Enghien made his triumphal entry into Rocroy. He allowed his troops to repose for two days, and then it was towards Guise that he directed his steps. He soon heard that Don Francisco de Melo had taken shelter at Phillipeville, that he was trying to rally his cavalry, but that of all his infantry not above 2,000 men remained to him, and they disarmed and nearly naked. No army any longer protected Flanders, and the youthful courage of Enghien already meditated its conquest. But the Court, which had expected to sustain war in its own provinces, was not prepared to carry it into foreign countries. It became necessary to give up all idea of an invasion of Maritime Flanders and the siege of Dunkirk, with which Enghien had at first flattered himself. Then finding that the Spaniards had drawn off their troops from the fortifications on the Moselle, Enghien proposed to march thither, and take possession of them. … Although this project was very inferior to his first, its greatness surprised the Council of Ministers: they at first refused their consent, but the Duke insisted—and what could they refuse to the victor of Rocroy? Thionville was at that time considered to be one of the best fortresses in Europe. On arriving before its walls, after a seven days' march, Enghien … established his lines, erected bridges, raised redoubts, and opened a double line of trenches on the 25th of June. The French were several times repulsed, but always rallied; and everywhere the presence of Enghien either prevented or repaired the disorder. … The obstinate resistance of the garrison obliged the French to have recourse to mines, which, by assiduous labor, they pushed forward under the interior of the town. Then Enghien, wishing to spare bloodshed, sent a flag of truce to the governor, and allowed him a safe conduct to visit the state of the works. This visit convinced the Spaniards of the impossibility of defending themselves any longer. … They evacuated the town on the 22d of August. Thionville was then little more than a heap of ruins and ashes. … By this conquest Enghien soon became master of the whole course of the Moselle down to the gates of Trèves. Sierch alone ventured to resist him, but was reduced in 24 hours. Then, disposing his army in autumn quarters, he set off for Paris."

Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, Prince of Condé, chapter 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1644-1646. Campaigns in Catalonia. The failures at Lerida.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.

FRANCE: A. D. 1645-1648. Campaigns in Flanders. Capture of Dunkirk. Loss of the Dutch alliance. Conde's victory at Lens.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1634-1646; 1646-1648; 1647-1648.

FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1648. The last campaigns of the Thirty Years War. Turenne and the Swedes in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.

FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1654. Hostility to the Pope. Siege of Orbitello. Attempts to take advantage of the insurrection in Naples.

See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.

FRANCE: A. D. 1647-1648. Conflict between Court and Parliament. The question of the Paulette. Events leading to the First Fronde.

"The war was conducted with alternate success and failure, but with an unintermitted waste of the public revenue; and while Guébriant, Turenne, and Condé were maintaining the military renown of France, D'Emery, the superintendent of finance, was struggling with the far severer difficulty of raising her ways and means to the level of her expenditure. The internal history of the first five years of the regency is thenceforward a record of the contest between the court and the Parliament of Paris; between the court, promulgating edicts to replenish the exhausted treasury, and the Parliament, remonstrating in angry addresses against the acceptance of them." Of the four sovereign courts which had their seat at that time in the Palais de Justice of Paris, and of which the Parliament was the most considerable—the other three being the Chamber 'des Comptes,' the Cour des Aides, and the Grand Conseil—the counselors or stipendiary judges held their offices for life. "But, in virtue of the law called Paulette [named from Paulet, its originator, in the reign of Henry IV.] … they also held them as an inheritance transmissible to their descendants. The Paulette … was a royal ordinance which imposed an annual tax on the stipend of every judge. It was usually passed for a term of nine years only. If the judge died during that term, his heir was entitled to succeed to the vacant office. But if the death of the judge happened when the Paulette was not in force, his heir had no such right. Consequently, the renewal of the tax was always welcome to the stipendiary counselors of the sovereign courts; and, by refusing or delaying to renew it, the king could always exercise a powerful influence over them. In April, 1647, the Paulette had expired, and the queen-mother proposed the revival of it. But, to relieve the necessities of the treasury, she also proposed to increase the annual per centage which it imposed on the stipends of the counselors of the Chamber 'des Comptes,' of the Cour des Aides, and of the Grand Conseil. To concert measures of resistance to the contemplated innovation, those counselors held a meeting in the Great Hall of St. Louis; and at their request the Parliament, though not personally and directly interested in the change, joined their assembly." The queen sarcastically replied to their remonstrances that the "king would not only withdraw his proposal for an increase in the rate of the annual tax on their stipends, but would even graciously relieve them from that burden altogether. … Exasperated by the threatened loss of the heritable tenure of their offices, and still more offended by the sarcastic terms in which that menace was conveyed, the judges assembled in the hall of St. Louis with increased zeal, and harangued there with yet more indignant eloquence. Four different times the queen interdicted their meetings, and four different times they answered her by renewed resolutions for the continuance of them. She threatened severe punishments, and they replied by remonstrances. A direct collision of authority had thus occurred, and it behooved either party to look well to their steps." The queen began to adopt a conciliatory manner. "But the associated magistrates derived new boldness from the lowered tone and apparent fears of the government. {1226} Soaring at once above the humble topic on which they had hitherto been engaged into the region of general politics, they passed at a step from the question of the Paulette to a review of all the public grievances under which their fellow subjects were labouring. After having wrought during four successive days in this inexhaustible mine of eloquence, they at length, on the 30th of June, 1648, commenced the adoption of a series of resolutions, which, by the 24th of July, had amounted in number to 27, and which may be said to have laid the basis of a constitutional revolution. … Important as these resolutions were in themselves, they were still more important as the assertion, by the associated magistrates, of the right to originate laws affecting all the general interests of the commonwealth. In fact, a new power in the state had suddenly sprung into existence. … That was an age in which the minds of men, in every part of Europe, had been rudely awakened to the extent to which the unconstitutional encroachments of popular bodies might be carried. Charles I. was at that time a prisoner in the hands of the English Parliament. Louis XIV. was a boy, unripe for an encounter with any similar antagonists. … The queen-mother, therefore, resolved to spare no concessions by which the disaffected magistracy might be conciliated. D'Emery was sacrificed to their displeasure; the renewal of the Paulette on its ancient terms was offered to them; some of the grievances of which they complained were immediately redressed; and the young king appeared before them in person, to promise his assent to their other demands. In return, he stipulated only for the cessation of their combined meetings, and for their desisting from the further promulgation of arrêts, to which they ascribed the force and authority of law. But the authors of this hasty revolution were no longer masters of the spirits whom they had summoned to their aid. … With increasing audacity, therefore, they persevered in defying the royal power, and in requiring from all Frenchmen implicit submission to their own. Advancing from one step to another, they adopted, on the 28th of August, 1648, an arrêt in direct conflict with a recent proclamation of the king, and ordered the prosecution of three persons for the offense of presuming to lend him money. At that moment their debates were interrupted by shouts and discharges of cannon, announcing the great victory of Condé at Lens. During the four following days religious festivals and public rejoicings suspended their sittings. But in those four days, the court had arranged their measures for a coup d'état. As the Parliament retired from Notre Dame, where they had attended at a solemn thanksgiving for the triumph of the arms of France, they observed that the soldiery still stood to the posts which, in honour of that ceremonial, had been assigned to them in different quarters of the city. Under the protection of that force, one of the presidents of the Chamber 'des Enquêtes,' and De Broussel, the chief of the parliamentary agitators, were arrested and consigned to different prisons, while three of their colleagues were exiled to remote distances from the capital. At the tidings of this violence, the Parisian populace were seized with a characteristic paroxysm of fury. … In less than three hours, Paris had become an entrenched camp. … They dictated their own terms. The exiles were recalled and the prisoners released. … Then, at the bidding of the Parliament, the people laid aside their weapons, threw down the barricades, re-opened their shops, and resumed the common business of life as quietly as if nothing had occurred. … It was, however, a short-lived triumph. The queen, her son, and Mazarin effected their escape to St. Germains; and there, by the mediation of Condé and of Gaston, duke of Orleans, the uncle of the king, a peace was negotiated. The treaty of St. Germains was regarded by the court with shame, and by the Parliament with exultation." Fresh quarrels over it soon arose. "Condé was a great soldier, but an unskillful and impatient peacemaker. By his advice and aid, the queen-mother and the king once more retired to St. Germains, and commanded the immediate adjournment of the Parliament from Paris to Montargis. To their remonstrances against that order they could obtain no answer, except that if their obedience to it should be any longer deferred, an army of 25,000 men would immediately lay, siege to the city. War was thus declared."

Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 21.

ALSO IN: Cardinal De Retz, Memoirs, book 2 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1648. The Peace of Westphalia. Acquisition of Alsace, etc.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

FRANCE: A. D. 1649. The First Fronde. Doubtful origin of the name. Siege of Paris by Condé. Dishonorable conduct of Turenne. Deserted by his army. The Peace of Reuil.

"The very name of this movement is obscure, and it is only certain that it was adopted in jest, from a child's game. It was fitting that the struggle which became only a mischievous burlesque on a revolution should be named from the sport of gamins and school-boys. Fronde is the name of a sling, and the boys of the street used this weapon in their mimic contests. How it came to be applied to the opponents of the government is uncertain. Some claimed it was because the members of the Parliament, like the young frondeurs, hurled their weapons at Mazarin, but were ready to fly when the officers of the police appeared. Others said the term had been used by chance by some counsellor, and had been adopted by the writers of epigrams and mazarinades. However derived, it was not ill applied."

J. B. Perkins, France Under Mazarin, chapter 9 (volume 1).

"Paul de Gondi, Coadjutor of Paris [Coadjutor, that is, of the Archbishop of Paris, who was his uncle], famous afterwards under the name of Cardinal de Retz, placed himself at the head of the revolution. … The Prince of Conti, brother of Condé, the Duke of Longueville, the Duke of Beaufort, and the Duke of Bouillon adopted the party of the coadjutor and the parliament. Generals were chosen for an army with which to resist the court. Although taxes levied by Mazarin had been resisted, taxes were freely paid to raise troops—12,000 men were raised; Condé [commanding for the queen] had 8,000 soldiers. These he threw around Paris, and invested 100,000 burgesses, and threatened to starve the town. The citizens, adorned with feathers and ribbons, made sorties occasionally, but their manœuvres were the subject of scorn by the soldiers. … As Voltaire says, the tone of the civil discords which afflicted England at the same time mark well the difference between the national characters. {1227} The English had thrown into their civil war a balanced fury and a mournful determination. … The French on the other hand threw themselves into their civil strife with caprice, laughter, dissolution and debauchery. Women were the leaders of factions—love made and broke cabals. The Duchess of Longueville urged Turenne, only a short time back appointed Marshal of France, to encourage his army to revolt, which he was commanding for his king. Nothing can justify Turenne's action in this matter. Had he laid down his command and taken the side of his brother [the Duke de Bouillon], on account of his family grievance [the loss of the principality of Sedan—see above, A. D. 1641-1642], the feudal spirit which in those days held affection for family higher than affection for country, might have excused him; but, while in the service of a sovereign and intrusted with the command of an army, to endeavour to lead his troops over to the enemy can be regarded as nothing short of the work of a traitor. He himself pleads as his apology that Condé was starving the population of Paris by the investment. … As it was he sacrificed his honour, and allowed his fair fame to be tarnished for the sake of a worthless woman who secretly jeered at his passion, and cared nothing for his heart, but merely for his sword for her own worldly advantage. As it was he endeavoured to persuade his army to declare for the parliament, and purposed taking it into Champagne, and marching for the relief of the capital; but the treachery of the marshal was no match for the subtlety of the cardinal. Before Turenne issued his declaration to his troops the colonels of his regiment had already been tampered with. The cardinal's emissaries had promised them pensions, and distributed £800,000 among the officers and soldiers. This was a decisive argument for mercenaries, who taught Turenne by forsaking him that mercenary services can only be commanded by money. D'Erlach had also stood firm. The regiments of Turenne, six German regiments, called by d'Erlach, marched one night to join him at Brisach. Three regiments of infantry threw themselves under the guns of Philipsburg. Only a small force was left to Turenne, who, finding the blow he intended hopeless, sent the troops still with him to join d'Erlach at Brisach, and retired himself with fifteen or twenty of his friends to Heilbron, thence to Holland, where he awaited the termination of the civil war. The news of the abandonment of Turenne was received with despair at Paris, with wild joy at St. Germain. His banishment, however, was not long. The leaders of the parliament became aware that the princes of the Fronde were trying to obtain foreign assistance to overturn the monarchy; that their generals were negotiating a treaty with Spain. They felt that order, peace, and the independence of parliament, which would in this case become dependent upon the nobility, was in danger. They took the patriotic resolution quickly to act of their own accord. A conference had been opened between the parliament and the Court. Peace was concluded at Reuil, which, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Conti [brother of Condé, the family being divided in the First Fronde], Bouillon, and the other nobles of the Fronde, was accepted by the whole parliament. Peace was proclaimed in Paris to the discontent of the populace. … Turenne, on the conclusion of the treaty of Reuil, embarked in Zeeland, landed at Dieppe, and posted to Paris."

H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapter 6.

"After the signing of the peace, the Château of St. Germain became the resort of many Frondeurs; the Duchess de Longueville, the Prince of Conti, and nearly all the other chiefs of the party, hastened to pay their respects to the Queen. She received everybody without bitterness, some even with friendship; and the Minister on his part affected much general good-will. … One of the first effects of the peace between the parties was a reconciliation in the House of Condé. The Princess Dowager employed herself with zeal and success in reestablishing harmony between her children. Condé, who despised his brother too much to hate him, readily agreed to a reconciliation with him. As to his sister, he had always felt for her great affection and confidence, and she no less for him: these sentiments were revived at their very first interview at Ruel, and he not only gave her back his friendship, but began to enter into her views, and even to be guided by her counsels. The Prince's policy was to make Royalty powerful and respected, but not absolute. He said publicly that he had done what he ought in upholding Mazarin, because he had promised to do so: but for the future, if things took a different line, he should not be bound by the past. … A prey to a thousand conflicting feelings, and discontented with everybody, and perhaps with himself, he took the resolution of retiring for several months to his government in Burgundy. On returning from Dijon in the month of August, the Prince found the Queen and the Cardinal at Compiègne, and very much dejected. … He … pressed her to return to Paris with her Minister, answering for Mazarin's safety, at the risk of his own head. … Their entry into Paris took place a few days after."

Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, Prince of Condé, chapter 3-4.

ALSO IN: Guy Joli, Memoirs, volume 1.

Cardinal De Retz, Memoirs, book 2.

Miss Pardoe, Louis XIV., chapters 9-11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1650-1651. The New Fronde, or the Petits Maitres. Its alliance with Spain and defeat at Rethel. Revolt, siege and reduction of Bordeaux.

"Faction, laid asleep for one night, woke again fresh and vigorous next morning. There was a Parliamentary party, a De Retz party, and a Condé party, and each party plotted and schemed unceasingly to discredit the others and to evoke popular feeling against all except itself. … Neither of the leaders, each pretending fear of assassination, ever stirred abroad unless in the company of 400 or 500 gentlemen, thus holding the city in hourly peril of an 'émeute.' Condé's arrogance and insolence becoming at last totally unbearable, the Court proceeded to the bold measure of arresting him. New combinations: De Retz and Orleans coalesce once more; De Retz coquets with Mazarin and is promised a cardinal's hat. Wily Mazarin strongly supports De Retz's nomination in public, and privately urges every member of the council to vote against it and to beseech the Queen to refuse the dignity. It was refused; upon which De Retz turned his energies upon a general union of parties for the purpose of effecting the release of Condé and the overthrow of the minister.'

_De Retz and the Fronde (Temple Bar, volume 38, pages 535-536)._

{1228}

Condé, his brother Conti, and his brother-in-law Longueville, were arrested and conducted to Vincennes on the 18th of January, 1650. "This was the second crisis of the sedition. The old Fronde had expired; its leaders had sold themselves to the Court; but in its place sprang up the New Fronde, called also, from the affected airs of its leaders, the Petits Maîtres. The beautiful Duchess of Longueville was the soul of it, aided by her admirer, Marsillac, afterwards Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and by the Duke of Bouillon. On the arrest of her husband and her brother, the duchess had fled to Holland, and afterwards to Stenai; where she and Bouillon's brother, Turenne, who styled himself the 'King's Lieutenant-General for the liberation of the Princes,' entered into negotiations with the Archduke Leopold. Bouillon himself had retired into Guienne, which province was alienated from the Court because Mazarine maintained as its governor the detested Epernon. In July Bouillon and his allies publicly received a Spanish envoy at Bordeaux. Condé's wife and infant son had been received in that city with enthusiasm. But on the approach of Mazarine with the royal army, the inhabitants of Guienne, alarmed for their vintage, now approaching maturity, showed signs of submission; after a short siege Bordeaux surrendered, on condition of an amnesty, in which Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld were included; and the Princess of Condé was permitted to retire (October 1st 1650). In the north, the Frondeurs, with their Spanish allies, seemed at first more successful. In the summer Leopold had entered Champagne, penetrated to Ferté Milon, and some of his marauding parties had even reached Dammartin. Turenne tried to persuade the Archduke to march to Vincennes and liberate the princes; but while he was hesitating, Gaston transferred the captives to Marcoussis, whence they were soon after conveyed to Havre. Leopold and Turenne, after a vain attempt to rouse the Parisians, retreated to the Meuse and laid siege to Mouzon. The Cardinal himself, like his master Richelieu, now assumed the character of a general. Uniting with his troops in the north the army of Guienne, he took up his quarters at Rethel, which had been captured by Du Plessis Praslin. Hence he ordered an attack to be made on the Spaniards. In the battle which ensued, these were entirely defeated, many of their principal officers were captured, and even Turenne himself narrowly escaped the same fate (December 15th 1650). The Cardinal's elation was unbounded. It was a great thing to have defeated Turenne, and though the victory was Du Plessis', Mazarine assumed all the credit of it. His head began to turn. He forgot that he owed his success to the leaders of the old Fronde, and especially to the Coadjutor; he neglected his promises to that intriguing prelate, though Gondi plainly declared that he must either be a prince of the Church or the head of a faction. Mazarine was also imprudent enough to offend the Parliament; and he compared them with that sitting at London—which indeed was doing them too much honour. The Coadjutor went over to the party of the princes, dragging with him the feeble-minded Orleans, who had himself been insulted by the Queen. Thus was produced a third phase of this singular sedition—the union of the old Fronde with the new. The Parliament now clamoured for the liberation of the princes. As the Queen hesitated, Gaston bluntly declared that the dismissal of Mazarine was necessary to the restoration of peace; while the Parliament added to their former demand another for the Cardinal's banishment. Mazarine saw his mistake and endeavoured to rectify it. He hastened to Havre in order to liberate the princes in person, and claim the merit of a spontaneous act. But it was too late; it was plain that he was acting only by constraint. The princes were conducted back in triumph to Paris by a large retinue sent to escort them. On February 25th 1651, their innocence was established by a royal declaration, and they were restored to all their dignities and charges. Mazarine, meanwhile, who saw that for the present the game was lost, retired into exile; first into Bouillon, and afterwards to Brühl on the Rhine, where the Elector of Cologne offered him an asylum. From this place he corresponded with the Queen, and continued to direct her counsels. The anarchy and confusion that had ensued in France were such as promised him a speedy return."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 1 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: T. Wright, History of France, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2).

Miss Pardoe, Louis XIV. and the Court of France, volume 1, chapter 13-15.

FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1652. The loss of Catalonia.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1648-1652.

FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1653. The arrogance of Condé and his renewal of civil war. The King's majority proclaimed. General changing of sides. Battle of Porte St. Antoine and massacre of the Hôtel de Ville. End of the Fronde. Condé in the service of Spain.

"The liberated captives were received with every demonstration of joy by all Paris and the Frondeurs, including the Duke of Orleans. The Queen, melancholy, and perhaps really ill, lay in bed to receive their visit of cold ceremony; but the Duke of Orleans gave them a grand supper, and there was universal joy at being rid of Mazarin. … There was a promise to assemble the States General, while Condé thought himself governing the kingdom, and as usual his arrogance gave offence in various quarters. One article in the compact which had gained his liberty was that the Prince of Conti should marry Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but this alliance offended the pride of the elder brother, and he broke the marriage off hastily and haughtily. Madame de Chevreuse, much offended, repented of the aid she had given, went over to the Queen's party, and took with her the coadjutor, who was devoted to the rejected daughter, and could always sway the mob of Paris. So many persons had thus come to desert the cause of the Prince that Anne of Austria thought of again arresting him." Condé, supposing himself in danger, fled from the city on the 6th of July, and "went to his château of St. Maur, where his family and friends joined him; and he held a kind of court. Queen and Parliament both sent entreaties to him to return, but he disdained them all, and made the condition of his return the dismissal of the secretaries whom Mazarin had left. The Queen, most unwillingly, made them retire, and Condé did return for a short time; but he was haughtier than ever, and openly complained of Mazarin's influence, making every preparation for a civil war. Strangely violent scenes took place," between the Prince and the Coadjutor and their respective adherents; and presently the Prince "quitted Paris, went to Chantilly, and decided on war. {1229} Mazarin wrote to the Queen that the most prudent course would be to ally herself with the Parliament to crush the Princes. After they should have been put down the Parliament would be easily dealt with. She acted on this advice. The elections for the States General were beginning, but in order to quash them, and cancel all her promises, the Queen decided on proclaiming the majority of the King, and thus the close of her own regency. It was of course a farce, since he had only just entered his fourteenth year, and his mother still conducted the Government; but it made a new beginning, and was an occasion for stirring up the loyalty of the people. … Condé was unwilling to begin a civil war, and was only driven into it by his sister's persuasions and those of his friends. 'Remember,' he said, 'if I once draw the sword, I shall be the last to return it to the scabbard.' On the other side, Anne of Austria said, 'Monsieur le Prince shall perish, or I will.' From Montrond, Condé directed his forces to take possession of the cities in Guyenne, and he afterwards proceeded to Bordeaux. On the other hand, Mazarin repaired to Sedan, and contrived to raise an army in the frontier cities, with which he marched to join the King and Queen at Poitiers. War was raging again, still as the Fronde, though there had been a general change of sides, the Parliament being now for the Court, and the Princes against it, the Duke of Orleans in a state of selfish agitation between the two. Learning that the royal army was advancing to his own appanage of Orleans, and fearing that the city might open its gates to them, he sent off his daughter, Mademoiselle [de Montpensier], to keep the citizens to what he called their duty to himself. She went with only two ladies and her servants … and found the gates closed against her." The persevering Mademoiselle succeeded, however, in gaining admission to the town, despite the orders of the magistrates, and she kept out of it the soldiers of both factions in the war. But her own inclinations were strongly towards Condé and his side. "She went out to a little inn to hold a council with the Dukes of Beaufort and Nemours, and had to mediate between them in a violent quarrel. … Indeed, Condé's party were ill-agreed; he had even quarreled with his sister, and she had broken with De la Rochefoucauld! The Duke de Bouillon and his brother Turenne were now on the Queen's side, and the command of the royal army was conferred on the Viscount. Condé, with only eight persons, dashed across France, to take the command of the army over which Beaufort and Nemours were disputing. The very morning after he arrived, Turenne saw by the disposition of the troops who must be opposed to him. 'M. le Prince is come,' he said. They were the two greatest captains of the age, and they fought almost in sight of the King and Queen at Bleneau. But though there were skirmishes [including, at the outset, the serious defeat of a division of the royal forces under Hocquincourt], no decisive engagement took place. It was a struggle of manœuvres, and in this Condé had the disadvantage. … Week after week the two armies … watched one another, till at last Condé was driven up to the walls of Paris, and there the gates were closed against both armies. Condé was at St. Cloud, whence, on the 2nd of July [1652], he endeavoured to lead his army round to Charenton at the confluence of the Seine and the Loire; but when he came in front of the Porte St. Antoine, he found that a battle was inevitable and that he was caught in a trap, where, unless he could escape through the city, his destruction was inevitable. He barricaded the three streets that met there, heaping up his baggage as a protection, and his friends within, many of them wives of gentlemen in his army, saw the situation with despair." The only one who had energy to act was Mademoiselle. She extorted from her hesitating father an order, by virtue of which she persuaded the magistrates of the city, not only to open the gates to Condé, but to send 2,000 men to the Faubourg St. Antoine. "Mademoiselle now repaired to the top of the great square tower of the Bastille, whence she could see the terrible conflict carried on in the three suburban streets which converged at the Porte St. Antoine." Seeing an opportunity to turn the cannon of the Bastille on the pursuing troops, she did so with effect. "Turenne was obliged to draw back, and at last Condé brought his army into the city, where they encamped in the open space of the Pré des Clercs. … Condé unworthily requited the hospitality wrung from the city. He was resolved to overcome the neutrality of the Parliament, and, in concert with Beaufort, instigated the mob to violence. Many soldiers were disguised as artizans, and mingled with the rabble, when, on the 4th of July, he went to the Hotel de Ville, ostensibly to thank, the magistrates, but really to demand their support against the Crown. These loyal men, however, by a majority of votes, decided on a petition to the King to return without Mazarin. On this Condé exclaimed publicly, 'These gentlemen will do nothing for us. They are Mazarinists. Treat them as you please.' Then he retired to the Luxembourg with Gaston, while Beaufort let loose the mob. The Hotel de Ville was stormed, the rabble poured in at doors and windows, while the disguised soldiers fired from the opposite houses, and the magistrates were threatened and pursued on all sides. They had one advantage, that they knew their way through the intricate passages and the mob did not. The first who got out rushed to the Luxembourg to entreat the Duke and Prince to stop the massacre; but Monsieur only whistled and beat his tattoo, and Condé said he knew nothing about sedition. Nor would Beaufort interfere till the disturbance had lasted many hours; but after all many more of the rabble were killed than of the magistrates. It was the last remarkable scene in the strange drama of the Fronde. The Parliament suspended its sittings, and the King transferred it to Pontoise, whither Molé and all the other Presidents proceeded, leaving Paris in disguise. This last ferocious proceeding of Condé's, though he tried to disavow it, had shocked and alienated everyone, and he soon after fell sick of a violent fever. Meanwhile, his castle of Montrond was taken after a year's siege, Nemours was killed in a duel by the Duke of Beaufort, and the party was falling to pieces. … Mazarin saw the opportunity, and again left the Court for the German frontier. This was all that was wanting to bring back the malcontents. Condé offered to make terms, but was haughtily answered that it was no time for negotiation, but for submission. Upon this, he proceeded to the Low Countries, and offered his sword to the Spaniards. {1230} The King entered Paris in state and held a bed of justice, in which he proclaimed an amnesty, excepting from it Condé and Conti, and some others of their party, and forbidding the Parliament to interfere in State affairs. The Coadjutor, who had become a Cardinal, was arrested, and imprisoned until he made his escape, dislocating his shoulder in his fall from the window, but finally reaching Rome, where he lived till the Fronde was forgotten, but never becoming Archbishop of Paris. … When all was quiet, Mazarin returned, in February, 1653, without the slightest opposition, and thus ended the Fronde, in the entire triumph of the Crown. … The misery, distress and disease caused by these wars of the Fronde were unspeakable. There was nothing to eat in the provinces where they had raged but roots, rotten fruit, and bread made of bran. … Le misère de la Fronde' was long a proverbial expression in France."

C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapters 8-9.

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., chapters 11-12.

Cardinal de Retz, Memoirs, books 3-4 (volumes 2-3).

M'lle de Montpensier, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 11-17.

FRANCE: A. D. 1652. Loss of Gravelines and Dunkirk. Spanish invasion of Picardy.

"In the spring of 1652, the Spanish forces, under the command of the archduke had undertaken the siege of Gravelines, which was obliged to capitulate on the 18th of May. The archduke next undertook the siege of Dunkirk, but, at the earnest desire of the princes, he merely blockaded the place, and sent Fuensaldaña with about 14,000 men into Picardy to their assistance. … The court, in great alarm, sought first a retreat in Normandy, but the Duke of Longueville, who still held the government of that province, refused to receive Mazarin. The fears of the court were not lessened by this proceeding, and it was even proposed to carry the king to Lyons; but the wiser counsels of Turenne finally prevailed, and it was resolved to establish the army at Compiègne, and lodge the court at Pontoise. Fuensaldaña forced the passage of the Oise at Chauni, and then joined the duke of Lorraine at Fismes, on the 29th of July, when their joint forces amounted to full 20,000 men, while Turenne had not more than 11,000 to oppose to them. But the Spaniards were, as usual, only pursuing a selfish policy, and Fuensaldaña, in pursuance of the archduke's orders, left a body of 3,000 cavalry to reinforce the duke of Lorraine, and returned with the rest of his troops to assist in the siege of Dunkirk," which soon surrendered to his arms.

T. Wright, History of France, volume 2, page 89.

FRANCE: A. D. 1652-1653. Last phase of the Fronde at Bordeaux. Attempted revolution by the Society of the Ormée.

See BORDEAUX: A. D. 1652-1653.

FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656. Condé's campaigns against his own country, in the service of Spain.

"Condé, unfortunately for his fame, made no attempts at reconciliation, and retired to the Spaniards—an enemy of his country! He captured several small places on the [Flemish] frontier, and hoped to return in spring victorious. A few days after the entry into Paris, Turenne set out to oppose him; and, retaking some towns, had the satisfaction, of compelling him to seek winter quarters beyond the limits of France. … Condé persuaded the Spanish to bring 30,000 men into the field for the next campaign: Turenne and La Ferté had but 13,000. To paralyze the plans of the enemy, the Viscount proposed, and his proposal was allowed, to be always threatening their rear and communications; to occupy posts they would not dare to attack, and so to avoid fighting, at the same time hindering them from all important undertakings. He began by throwing himself between two corps of their army, at the point where they expected to effect a junction; and in the eight or nine days thus gained, he recovered Rhétel, without which it would have been, as he declares himself, impossible to defend Picardy and Champagne. Rhétel, so much an object of anxiety, was taken in three days. Baffled in their original purposes, and at a loss, the Spanish expected a large convoy from Cambray, escorted by 3,000 horse. Turenne got news of this, and, posting himself near Peronne to intercept it, drove it back to Cambray [August 11, 1653]. There Condé and Fuensaldaña turned upon him; but he took up a position, which they watched for three or four days, and there defied their attack. They refused the challenge. Thence the enemy drew off," with designs on Guise, which Turenne frustrated. "Condé then laid siege to Rocroi, where his own first glory had been gained; and this place is so hemmed in by woods and defiles, that the relief of it was impossible. But Turenne compensated for the loss of it by the equally valuable recapture, of Mouson. Thus the whole year was spent in marches and countermarches, in gains and losses, which had no influence on events. By this time the malcontents were so prostrate that Condé's brother, the Prince de Conti, and his sister, the Duchesse de Longueville, made their peace with the court. … The year 1654 opened with the siege of Stenay by the young king in person, who was carried thither by Mazarin, to overawe Condé's governor with the royal name and majesty. That officer was more true to his trust than to his allegiance, and Stenay cost a siege. … Condé could do no better than imitate Turenne's policy of the previous year, and besiege Arras as an equivalent for Stenay; to which end he mustered 32,000 men. Arras was a town of some value. Condé had caught it at disadvantage; the governor, Mondejeu … was put on his defence with 2,500 foot and 100 horse. To reinforce this slender garrison was the first care of Turenne. … Mazarin was anxious for Arras, and offered Turenne to break up the siege of Stenay, for the sake of reinforcing the army of relief. This proposal the Viscount declined. He must have been very confident of his own capacity; for he could collect only 14,000 men to hover around the enemy's camp. … He proposed no attempt upon the intrenchments till he had the aid of the troops from Stenay … ; but he disposed his parties around so as to prevent the enemy's convoys from reaching them." Stenay surrendered on the 6th of August, and Turenne, with reinforcements from its besiegers, attacked the Spanish lines at Arras on the night of the 24th, with complete success. The Spaniards raised the siege and retreated to Cambray, leaving 3,000 prisoners and 63 pieces of cannon in the hands of the French. "The capture of Quesnoy and Binches filled up the rest of the year; the places were weak and the garrisons feeble. {1231} Nor did the next season, 1655, offer anything of interest. Turenne reduced Landrecies, Condé, and Guislain, while his active opponent was sometimes foiled by his precautions, and sometimes baffled by the absurd behaviour of the Spanish authorities. … The great event of 1656 was the siege of Valenciennes. This place … was invested by Turenne about the middle of June: but hardly had his camp been intrenched before he repented of his undertaking. The Scheldt flows through the town, and by reservoirs and sluices was flooded at the will of the enemy. Turenne's camp was largely inundated. … He had overestimated his means: so great was the circle of his circumvallation that he had not men enough to guard it adequately, when Condé and the Spanish appeared with 20,000 men to the relief of the place." They broke through his lines and forced him to retreat, with a heavy loss of prisoners taken. "The Viscount retrieved his credit by the bold stand he made after the defeat."

T. O. Cockayne, Life of Marshal Turenne, pages 58-69.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapter 10.

J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin, chapters 16-17 (volume 2).

FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1660. First persecution of the Jansenists.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS.

FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658. Alliance with the English Commonwealth against Spain. The taking of Dunkirk for England and Gravelines for France. End of the war.

"Mazarin was now bent upon an enterprise which, if successful, must finish the war. A deadly blow would be struck at the strength of Spain if Dunkirk, Mardyck, and Gravelines—the possession of which was of vital importance to her communication with Flanders, as well as enabling her to ruin French commerce on that coast—could be wrested from her. For this the cooperation of some maritime power was necessary, and Mazarin determined at all costs to secure England. With Cromwell, the only diplomatist by whose astuteness he confessed himself baffled, he had been negotiating since 1651. … At length on November 3, 1655, a treaty was signed at Westminster, based upon freedom of commerce and an engagement that neither country should assist the enemies or rebels of the other; Mazarin consented to expel Charles II., James, and twenty named royalists from France. Cromwell similarly agreed to dismiss from England the emissaries of Condé. But Mazarin was soon anxious for a more effectual bond. … Cromwell had equally good reasons for drawing closer to France, for Spain was preparing actively to assist Charles II. French and English interests thus coinciding, an alliance was signed at Paris on March 23, 1657

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1655-1658.

Gravelines and Dunkirk were to be at once besieged both by land and sea. England was to send 6,000 men to assist the French army. Gravelines was to become French and Dunkirk English; should the former fall first it was to be held by England until Dunkirk too was taken. … The alliance was not a moment too soon. The campaign of 1657 had opened disastrously. The tide was however turned by the arrival of the English contingent. Montmédy was immediately besieged, and capitulated on August 4. The effect was again to make Mazarin hang back from further effort, since it seemed possible now to make peace with Spain, and thereby avoid an English occupation of Dunkirk. But Cromwell would stand no trifling, and his threats were so clear that Mazarin determined to act loyally and without delay. On September 30, Turenne laid siege to Mardyck, which protected Dunkirk, and took it in four days. It was at once handed over to the English." In the spring of 1658 the siege of Dunkirk was begun. The Spaniards, under Don John of Austria and Condé, attempting to relieve the place, were defeated (June 13) in the battle of the Dunes, by Turenne and Cromwell's Ironsides (see ENGLAND: A. D.1655-1658). "Dunkirk immediately surrendered, and on the 25th was in Cromwell's possession. Two months later Gravelines also fell. A short and brilliant campaign followed, in which Don John and Condé, shut up in Brussels and Tournai respectively, were compelled to remain inactive while fortress after fortress fell into French hands. A few days after the fall of Gravelines Cromwell died; but Mazarin was now near his goal. Utterly defeated on her own soil, beaten, too, by the Portuguese at Elvas, and threatened in Milan, her army ruined, her treasury bankrupt, without a single ally in Europe, Spain stood at last powerless before him."

O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 6.

FRANCE: A. D. 1657. Candidacy of Louis XIV. for the imperial crown.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.

FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661. The treaty of the Pyrenees. Marriage of Louis XIV. to the Spanish Infanta.

"The Spaniards could struggle no longer: they sued for peace. Things were prepared for it on every hand: Spain was desperate; matters far from settled or safe in France; in England the Protector's death had come very opportunely for Mazarin; the strong man was no longer there to hold the balance between the European powers. Questions as to a Spanish marriage and the Spanish succession had been before men since 1648; the Spaniards had disliked the match, thinking that in the end it must subject them to France. But things were changed; Philip IV. now had an heir, so that the nations might hope to remain under two distinct crowns; moreover, the needs of Spain were far greater than in 1648, while the demands of France were less. So negociation between Mazarin and Louis de Haro on the little Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa, under the very shadow of the Pyrenees, went on prosperously; even the proposal that Louis XIV. should espouse the Infanta of Spain, Maria Theresa, was at last agreed to at Madrid. The only remaining difficulty arose from" the fact that the young King, Louis XIV., had fallen in love with Maria Mancini, Cardinal Mazarin's niece, and wished to marry her. "The King at last abandoned his youthful and pure passion, and signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees [concluded November 7, 1659], condemning himself to a marriage of state, which exalted high the dignity of the French Crown, only to plunge it in the end into the troubles and disasters of the Succession War. The treaty of peace begins with articles on trade and navigation: then follow cessions, restitutions, and exchanges of territories.

{1232}

1. On the Northern frontier Spain ceded all she had in Artois, with exception of Aire and S. Omer; in Flanders itself France got Gravelines and its outer defences. In Hainault she became mistress of the important towns, Landrecies, Quesnoy, and Avesnes, and also strengthened her position by some exchanges: in Luxemburg she retained Thionville, Montmédy, and several lesser places; so that over her whole northern border France advanced her frontier along a line answering to her old limits. … In return she restored to Spain several of her latest conquests in Flanders: Ypres, Oudenarde, Dixmüden, Furnes, and other cities. In Condé's country France recovered Rocroy, Le Câtelet and Linchamp, occupied by the Prince's soldiers; and so secured the safety and defences of Champagne and Paris.

2. More to the East, the Duke of Lorraine, having submitted with such good grace as might be, was reinstated in his Duchy. … But France received her price here also, the Duchy of Bar, the County of Clermont on the edge of Champagne, Stenay, Dun, Jametz, Moyenvic, became hers. The fortifications of Nancy were to be rased for ever; the Duke of Lorraine bound himself to peace, and agreed to give France free passage to the Bishopricks and Alsace. This was the more necessary, because Franche-Comté, the other highway into Alsace, was left to the Spaniards, and such places in it as were in the King's hands were restored to them. Far out in Germany Louis XIV. replaced Jülich in the hands of the Duke of Neuberg; and that element of controversy, the germ or pretext of these long wars, was extinct for ever. On the Savoyard border France retained Pinerolo, with all the means and temptations of offence which it involved: she restored to the Duke her other conquests within his territories, and to the Spaniards whatever she held in Lombardy; she also honourably obtained an amnesty for those subjects of Spain, Neapolitans or Catalans, who had sided with France. Lastly, the Pyrenees became the final, as it was the natural, boundary between the two Latin kingdoms. … Roussillon and Conflans became French: all French conquests to the south of the Pyrenees were restored to Spain. The Spanish King renounced all claims on Alsace or Breisach: on the other hand the submission of the great Condé was accepted; he was restored to all his domains; his son, the young Duke of Enghien, being made Grand Master of France, and he himself appointed Governor of Burgundy and Bresse: his friends and followers were included in the amnesty. Some lesser stipulations, with a view to the peace of Europe, for the settlement of the differences between Spain and Portugal, between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua, between the Catholic and the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, and an agreement to help forward peace between the Northern Courts, worthily close this great document, this weighty appendix to the Treaties of Westphalia. A separate act, as was fitting, regulated all questions bearing on the great marriage. It contains a solemn renunciation, intended to bar for ever the union of the two Crowns under one sceptre, or the absorption into France of Flanders, Burgundy, or Charolais. It was a renunciation which, as Mazarin foresaw long before, would never hold firm against the temptations and exigencies of time. The King's marriage with the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain did not take place till the next year, by which time Mazarin's work in life seemed well nigh over; racked with gout, he had little enjoyment of his triumphs. … He betook himself to the arrangement of his own affairs: his physicians giving him, early in 1661, no hopes of recovery. … These things arranged, the Cardinal resigned himself to die 'with a serenity more philosophic than Christian'; and passed away on the 8th of March, 1661."

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 4, chapter 8 (volume 3).

"The Treaty of the Pyrenees, which completed the great work of pacification that had commenced at Munster, is justly celebrated as having put an end to such bitter and useless animosities. But, it is more famous, as having introduced a new æra in European politics. In its provisions all the leading events of a century to come had their origin—the wars which terminated with the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle, Nimeguen, and Ryswick, and that concerning the Spanish succession. So great an epoch in history has the Pyrenean Treaty been accounted by politicians, that Lord Bolingbroke was of opinion, 'That the only part of history necessary to be thoroughly studied, goes no farther back than this treaty, since, from that period, a new set of motives and principles have prevailed all over Europe.'"

J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain during the Reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., volume 1. chapter 11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1660-1688. A footing gained in Newfoundland.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.

FRANCE: A. D. 1661. Personal assumption of the government by Louis XIV. The extraordinary characteristics of the reign of the Grand Monarch, now begun.

On the death of Mazarin Louis XIV., then twenty-three years old, announced to his council his intention of taking the government solely upon himself. His ministers were henceforward to receive instructions from him in person; there was to be no premier at their head. The reign which then began "was the culminating epoch in the history of the French Monarchy. What the age of Pericles was in the history of the Athenian Democracy, what the age of the Scipios was in the history of the Roman Republic, that was the reign of Louis XIV. in the history of the old Monarchy of France. … It is not only the most conspicuous reign in the history of France—it is the most conspicuous reign in the history of Monarchy in general. Of the very many kings whom history mentions, who have striven to exalt the monarchical principle, none of them achieved a success remotely comparable to his. … They may have ruled over wider dominions, but they never attained the exceptional position of power and prestige which he enjoyed for more than half a century. They never were obeyed so submissively at home, nor so dreaded, and even respected, abroad. For Louis XIV. carried off that last reward of complete success, that he for a time silenced even envy, and turned it into admiration. We who can examine with cold scrutiny the make and composition of this Colossus of a French Monarchy; who can perceive how much the brass and clay in it exceeded the gold; who know how it afterwards fell with a resounding ruin, the last echoes of which have scarcely died away, have difficulty in realising the fascination it exercised upon contemporaries who witnessed its first setting up. Louis XIV.'s reign was the very triumph of commonplace greatness, of external magnificence and success, such as the vulgar among mankind can best and most sincerely appreciate. … His qualities were on the surface, visible and comprehensible to all. … {1233} He was indefatigably industrious: worked on an average eight hours a day for fifty-four years; had, great tenacity of will; that kind of solid judgment which comes of slowness of brain, and withal a most majestic port and great dignity of manners. He had also as much kindliness of nature as the very great can be expected to have. … He must have had great original fineness of tact, though it was in the end nearly extinguished by adulation and incense. His court was an extraordinary creation, and the greatest thing he achieved. He made it the microcosm of all that was most brilliant and prominent in France. Every order of merit was invited there, and received courteous welcome. To no circumstance did he so much owe his enduring popularity. By its means he impressed into his service that galaxy of great writers, the first and the last classic authors of France, whose calm and serene lustre will for ever illumine the epoch of his existence. It may even be admitted that his share in that lustre was not so accidental and undeserved as certain king-haters have supposed. That subtle critic, M. Ste. Beuve, thinks he can trace a marked rise even in Bossuet's style from the moment he became a courtier of Louis XIV. The king brought men together, placed them in a position where they were induced and urged to bring their talents to a focus. His Court was alternately a high-bred gala and a stately university. … But Louis XIV.'s reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity. It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of mankind. It stretches across history like a great mountain-range, separating ancient France from the France of modern times. On the farther slope are Catholicism and feudalism in their various stages of splendour and decay—the France of crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On the hither side are free-thought, industry, and centralization—the France of Voltaire, Turgot and Condorcet. When Louis came to the throne, the Thirty Years' War still wanted six years of its end, and the heat of theological strife was at its intensest glow. When he died, the religious temperature had cooled nearly to freezing-point, and a new vegetation of science and positive inquiry was overspreading the world. This amounts to saying that his reign covers the greatest epoch of mental transition through which the human mind has hitherto passed, excepting the transition we are witnessing in the day which now is. We need but recall the names of the writers and thinkers who arose during Louis XIV.'s reign, and shed their seminal ideas broadcast upon the air, to realise how full a period it was, both of birth and decay; of the passing away of the old and the uprising of the new forms of thought. To mention only the greatest;—the following are among the chiefs who helped to transform the mental fabric of Europe in the age of Louis XIV.:—Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Boyle. … But the chief interest which the reign of Louis XIV. offers to the student of history has yet to be mentioned. It was the great turning-point in the history of the French people. The triumph, of the Monarchical principle was so complete under him, independence and self-reliance were so effectually crushed, both in localities and individuals, that a permanent bent was given to the national mind—a habit of looking to the Government for all action and initiative permanently established. Before the reign of Louis XIV. it was a question which might fairly be considered undecided, whether the country would be able or not, willing or not, to co-operate with its rulers in the work of the Government and the reform of abuses. On more than one occasion such co-operation did not seem entirely impossible or improbable. … After the reign of Louis' XIV. such co-operation of the ruler and the ruled became impossible. The Government of France had become a machine depending upon the action of a single spring. Spontaneity in the population at large was extinct, and whatever there was to do must be done by the central authority. As long as the Government could correct abuses it was well; if it ceased to be equal to this task they must go uncorrected. When at last the reform of secular and gigantic abuses presented itself with imperious urgency, the alternative before the Monarchy was either to carry the reform with a high hand, or perish in the failure to do so. We know how signal the failure was, and could not help being, under the circumstances; and through having placed the Monarchy between these alternatives, it is no paradox to say that Louis XIV. was one of the most direct ancestors of the Great Revolution."

_J. C. Morison, The Reign of Louis XIV. (Fortnightly Review, March, 1874)._

ALSO IN: _J. I. von Döllinger, The Policy of Louis XIV. (Studies in European History, chapter 11)._

FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1680. Revived and growing persecution of the Huguenots.

"One of the King's first acts, on assuming the supreme control of affairs at the death of Mazarin, was significant, of his future policy with regard to the Huguenots. Among the representatives of the various public bodies who came to tender him their congratulations, there appeared a deputation of Protestant ministers, headed by their president Vignole; but the King refused to receive them, and directed that they should be ordered to leave Paris forthwith. Louis was not slow to follow up this intimation by measures of a more positive kind, for he had been carefully taught to hate Protestantism; and, now that he possessed unrestrained power, he flattered himself with the idea of compelling the Huguenots to abandon their convictions and adopt his own. His minister Louvois wrote to the governors throughout the provinces that 'his majesty will not suffer any person in his kingdom but those who are of his religion.' … A series of edicts was accordingly published with the object of carrying the King's purposes into effect. The conferences of the Protestants were declared to be suppressed. Though worship was still permitted in their churches, the singing of psalms in private dwellings was declared to be forbidden. … Protestant children were invited to declare themselves against the religion of their parents. Boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years old might, on embracing Roman Catholicism, become enfranchised and entirely free from parental control. … The Huguenots were again debarred from holding public offices, though a few, such as Marshal Turenne and Admiral Duquesne, who were Protestants, broke through this barrier by the splendor of their services to the state. In some provinces, the exclusion was so severe that a profession of the Roman Catholic faith was required from simple artisans. … {1234} Colbert, while, he lived, endeavored to restrain the King, and to abate these intolerable persecutions. … He took the opportunity of cautioning the King lest the measures he was enforcing might tend, if carried out, to the impoverishment of France and the aggrandizement of her rivals. … But all Colbert's expostulations were in vain; the Jesuits were stronger than he was, and the King was in their hands; besides, Colbert's power was on the decline. … In 1666 the queen-mother died, leaving to her son, as her last bequest, that he should suppress and exterminate heresy within his dominions. … The Bishop of Meaux exhorted him to press on in the path his sainted mother had pointed out to him. … The Huguenots had already taken alarm at the renewal of the persecution, and such of them as could readily dispose of their property and goods were beginning to leave the kingdom in considerable numbers for the purpose of establishing themselves in foreign countries. To prevent this, the King issued an edict forbidding French subjects from proceeding abroad without express permission, under penalty of confiscation of their goods and property. This was followed by a succession of severe measures for the conversion or extirpation of such of the Protestants—in numbers about a million and a half—as had not by this time contrived to make their escape from the kingdom. The kidnapping of Protestant children was actively set on foot by the agents of the Roman Catholic priests, and their parents were subjected to heavy penalties if they ventured to complain. Orders were issued to pull down the Protestant places of worship, and as many as eighty were shortly destroyed in one diocese. … Protestants were forbidden to print books without the authority of magistrates of the Romish communion. Protestant teachers were interdicted from teaching children any thing more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. … Protestants were only allowed to bury their dead at daybreak or at nightfall. They were prohibited from singing psalms on land or on water, in workshops or in dwellings. If a priestly procession passed one of their churches while the psalms were being sung, they must stop instantly on pain of the fine or imprisonment of the officiating minister. In short, from the pettiest annoyance to the most exasperating cruelty, nothing was wanting on the part of the 'Most Christian King' and his abettors."

S. Smiles, The Huguenots, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: A. Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (Fontaine), chapters 4-7.

W. S. Browning, History of the Huguenots, chapters 59-60.

FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1683. The administration of Colbert. His economic system and its results.

"With Colbert the spirit of the great Cardinal came back to power. Born at Reims on the 29th of August, 1619, Colbert was educated by the Jesuits, and at the early age of nineteen entered the War Office, in which department Le Tellier, a connection of his family by marriage, filled the post of Under-Secretary of State. From the first Colbert distinguished himself by his abnormal powers of work, by his extraordinary zeal in the public service, and by an equal devotion to his own interests. His Jesuit training showed fruit in his dealings with all those who, like Le Tellier or Mazarin, could be of use to him on his road to power, whilst the old tradition of his Scotch blood is favoured by a certain 'dourness' of character which rendered him in general difficult of access. His marvellous strength of brain, seconded by rare powers of endurance, enabled him to work habitually fourteen hours a day to enter into every detail of every branch of the administration, whilst at the same time he never lost sight of that noble project of universal reform which he had conceived, and which embraced both Church and State. … Qualified in every way for the work of administration, absolutely indifferent to popularity, Colbert seemed destined by nature to lead the final charge against the surviving forces of the feudal system. After the troubles of the Fronde had died away and the death of Mazarin had left Louis XIV. a king in deed as well as in name, these forces of the past were personified by Fouquet, and the duel between Fouquet and Colbert was the dramatic close of a struggle predestined to end in the complete triumph of absolutism. The magnificent and brilliant Fouquet, who for years past had taken advantage of his position as 'Surintendant des Finances' to lavish the resources of the State on his private pleasures, was plainly marked out as the object of Colbert's hostility. … On the losing side were ranged all the spendthrift princes and facile beauties of the Court, all the greedy recipients of Fouquet's ostentatious bounties. He had reckoned that the greatest names in France would be compromised by his fall, and that by their danger his own safety was assured. He had reckoned without Colbert; he had reckoned without that power which had been steadily growing throughout all vicissitudes of fate during the last two generations, and which was now centred in the King. No stranger turn of fortune can be pictured than that which, on the threshold of the modern era, linked the nobles of France in their last struggle for independence with the fortunes of a rapacious and fraudulent financier, nor can anything be more suggestive of the character of the coming epoch than the sight of this last battle fought, not in the field of arms, but before a court of law. To Colbert, the fall of Fouquet was but the necessary preliminary to that reform of every branch of the administration which had been ripening in his mind ever since he had entered the public service. To bring the financial situation into order, it was necessary first to call Fouquet to account. … The fall of the chief offender, Fouquet, having been brought about, it was easy to force all those who had been guilty of similar malversations on a minor scale to run the gauntlet of the High Commission. Restitution and confiscation became the order of the day, and when the Chamber of Justice was finally dissolved in 1669, far beyond any advantage which might be reckoned to the Treasury from these sources was the gain to the nation in the general sense of security and confidence. It was felt that the days of wholesale dishonesty and embezzlement were at an end. … Colbert went forward from this moment without hesitation, devoting his whole energies to the gigantic task of re-shaping the whole internal economy of France. … Backed by despotic power, his achievements in these directions have to an incredible extent determined the destinies of modern industry, and have given origin to the whole system of modern administration, not only in France, but throughout Europe. {1235} In the teeth of a lavish expenditure which he was utterly unable to check, once and again did Colbert succeed in establishing a financial equilibrium when the fortunes of France seemed desperate. … He aimed … at the fostering of home production by an elaborate system of protection, whilst at the same time the markets of other countries were to be forced open and flooded with French goods. Any attempt on the part of a weaker power to imitate his own policy, such for instance as that made in the papal states by Alexander VII. and Clement IX., was instantly repressed with a high hand. … His leading idea was to lower all export dues on national produce and manufactures, and, whilst diminishing import duties on such raw materials as were required for French manufactures, to raise them until they became prohibitive on all foreign goods.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1664-1667 (FRANCE).

The success of the tariff of 1664 misled Colbert. That tariff was a splendidly statesmanlike attempt to put an end to the conflict and confusion of the duties, dues, and customs then existing in the different provinces and ports of France, and it was in effect a tariff calculated for purely fiscal purposes. Far other were the considerations embodied in the tariff of 1667, which led to the Dutch and English wars, and which, having been enacted in the supposed interests of home industry, eventually stimulated production in other countries. … If, however, the industrial policy of Colbert cannot be said to have realised his expectations, since it neither brought about a great increase in the number of home manufactures nor succeeded in securing a larger share of foreign trade, there is not a doubt that, in spite even of the disastrous wars which it provoked, it powerfully contributed, on the whole, to place France in the front rank as a commercial nation. … The pitiless and despotic Louvois, who had succeeded his father, Colbert's old patron Le Tellier, as Secretary of State for War, played on the imperious vanity of King Louis, and engaged him in wars big and little, which in most cases wanted even the shade of a pretext. … All the zeal of the great Minister's strict economy could only stay for a while the sure approach of national distress. … When Colbert died, on 6th September, 1683, the misery of France, exhausted by oppressive taxation, and depopulated by armies kept constantly on foot, cried out against the Minister who, rather than fall from power, had lent himself to measures which he heartily condemned. For the moment men forgot how numerous were the benefits which he had conferred … and remembered only the harshness with which he had dealt justice and stinted mercy. Yet order reigned where, before his advent, all had been corruption and confusion; the navy of France had been created, her colonies fostered, her forests saved from destruction; justice and the authority of the law had been carried into the darkest corners of the land; religious toleration, socially if not politically, had been advocated; whilst the encroachments of the Church had been more or less steadfastly opposed. To the material prosperity of the nation—even after we have made all possible deductions for the evils arising from an exaggerated system of protection—an immense and enduring impulse had been given; and although it is true that, with the death of Colbert, many parts of his splendid scheme fell to the ground, yet it must be confessed that the spirit in which it was originated and improved still animates France."

_Lady Dilke, France under Colbert (Fortnightly Rev., February, 1886)._

ALSO IN: H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapters 1-7.

See, also, TAILLE AND GABELLE.

FRANCE: A. D. 1662. The purchase of Dunkirk from Charles II.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662.

FRANCE: A. D. 1663-1674. New France made a Royal Province. The French West India Company.

See CANADA: A. D. 1663-1674.

FRANCE: A. D. 1664. Aid given to Austria against the Turks. The victory of St. Gothard.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.

FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1666. War with the piratical Barbary States. The Jijeli expedition. Treaties with Tunis and Algiers.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.

FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1690. The building of Versailles.

See VERSAILLES.

FRANCE: A. D. 1665. The Great Days of Auvergne.

"We must read the curious account of the Great Days of Auvergne, written by Fléchier in his youth, if we would form an idea of the barbarism in which certain provinces of France were still plunged, in the midst of the brilliant civilization of the 17th century, and would know how a large number of those seigniors, who showed themselves so gallant and tender in the boudoirs of Paris, lived on their estates, in the midst of their subjects: we might imagine ourselves in the midst of feudalism. A moment bewildered by the hammer of the great demolisher [Richelieu], which had battered down so many Chateaux, the mountain squires of Auvergne, Limousin, Marche and Forez had resumed their habits under the feeble government of Mazarin. Protected by their remoteness from Paris and the parliament, and by the nature of the country they inhabited, they intimidated or gained over the subaltern judges, and committed with impunity every species of violence and exaction. A single feature will enable us to comprehend the state of these provinces. There were still, in the remoter parts of Auvergne, seigniors who claimed to use the wedding right (droit de jambage), or, at the least, to sell exemption from this right at a high price to bridegrooms. Serfhood of the glebe still existed in some districts. August 31, 1665, a royal declaration, for which ample and noble reasons were given, ordered the holding of a jurisdiction or court 'commonly called the Great Days,' in the city of Clermont, for Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Nivernais, Forez, Beaujolais, Lyonnais, Combrailles, Marche, and Berry. A president of parliament, a master of requests, sixteen councillors, an attorney-general, and a deputy procurator-general, were designated to hold these extraordinary assizes. Their powers were almost absolute. They were to judge without appeal all civil and criminal cases, to punish the 'abuses and delinquencies of officers of the said districts,' to reform bad usages, as well in the style of procedure as in the preparation and expedition of trials, and to try all criminal cases first. It was enjoined on bailiffs, seneschals, their lieutenants and all other judges, to give constant information of all kinds of crimes, in order to prepare matter for the Great Days. A second declaration ordered that a posse should be put into the houses of the contumacious, that the chateaux where the least resistance was made to the law should be razed; and forbade, under penalty of death, the contumacious to be received or assisted. {1236} The publication of the royal edicts, and the prompt arrival of Messieurs of the Great Days at Clermont, produced an extraordinary commotion in all those regions. The people welcomed the Parisian magistrates as liberators, and a remarkable monument of their joy has been preserved, the popular song or Christmas hymn of the Great Days. Terror, on the contrary, hovered over the châteaux; a multitude of noblemen left the province, and France, or concealed themselves in the mountains; others endeavored to conciliate their peasants. … The Great Days at least did with vigor what it was their mission to do: neither dignities, nor titles, nor high connections preserved the guilty. … The Court of Great Days was not content with punishing evil; it undertook to prevent its return by wise regulations: first, against the abuses of seigniorial courts; second, against the vexations of seigniors on account of feudal service due them; third, concerning the mode and abbreviation of trials; and lastly, concerning the reformation of the clergy, who had no less need of being reformed than the nobility. The Great Days were brought to a close after three months of assizes (end of October, 1665—end of January, 1666), and their recollection was consecrated by a medal."

H. Martin, History of France: The Age of Louis XIV:, volume 1, chapter 2.

FRANCE: A. D.1665-1670. The East India Company.

See INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.

FRANCE: A. D. 1666. Alliance with Holland against England.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666.

FRANCE: A. D. 1667. The War of the Queen's Rights. Conquests in the Spanish Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS (SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1667.

FRANCE: A. D. 1668. The king's conquests in Flanders checked by the Triple Alliance.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

FRANCE: A. D. 1670. The secret treaty of Dover. The buying of the English king.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.

FRANCE: A. D. 1672-1678. War with Holland and the Austro-Spanish Coalition.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714; and NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678.

FRANCE: A. D. 1673-1682. Discovery and exploration of the Mississippi by Marquette and La Salle. Possession taken of Louisiana.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673, and 1669-1687.

FRANCE: A. D. 1678-1679. The Peace of Nimeguen.

See NIMEGUEN. PEACE OF.

FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681. Complete absorption of Les Trois-Evêchés and Alsace. Assumption of entire sovereignty by Louis XIV. Encroachments of the Chambers of Reannexation. The seizure of Strasburg.

"The Lorraine Trois-Evêchés, recovered by France from the Holy Roman Empire, had remained in an equivocal position, as to public law, during nearly a century, between their old and new ties: the treaty of Westphalia had cut the knot by the formal renunciation of the Empire to all rights over these countries; difficulties nevertheless still subsisted relative to the fiefs and the pendencies of Trois-Evêchés possessed by members of the Empire. Alsace, in its turn, from the treaty of Westphalia to the peace of Nimeguen, had offered analogous and still greater difficulties, this province of Teutonic tongue not having accepted the annexation to France as easily as the Walloon province of Trois-Evêchés, and the treaty of Westphalia presenting two contradictory clauses, one of which ceded to France all the rights of the Emperor and the Empire, and the other of which reserved the 'immediateness' of the lords and the ten cities of the prefecture of Alsace towards the Empire. …

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

At last, on the complaints carried to the Germanic Diet by the ten Alsacian cities, joined by the German feudatories of Trois-Evêchés, Louis, who was then very conciliatory towards the Diet, consented to take for arbiters the King of Sweden and some princes and towns of Germany (1665). The arbitration was protracted for more than six years. In the beginning of 1672, the arbiters rendered an ambiguous decision which decided nothing and satisfied no one. War with Holland broke out meanwhile and changed all the relations of France with Germany. … Louis XIV. disarmed or took military occupation of the ten cities and silenced all opposition. … In the conferences of Nimeguen, the representatives of the Emperor and the Empire endeavored to return to the 'immediateness,' but the King would not listen to a renewal of the arbitration, and declared all debate superfluous. 'Not only,' said the French plenipotentiaries, 'ought the King to exercise, as in fact he does exercise, sovereign domain over the ten cities, but he might also extend it over Strasburg, for the treaty of Münster furnishes to this city no special title guaranteeing its independence better than that of the other cities.' It was the first time that Louis had disclosed this bold claim, resting on an inaccurate assertion. The Imperialists, terrified, yielded as regarded the ten cities, and Alsace was not called in question in the treaty of Nimeguen. Only the Imperialists protested, by a separate act, against the conclusions which might be drawn from this omission. The ten cities submitted and took to the King an oath of fidelity, without reservation towards the Empire; their submission was celebrated by a medal bearing the device: 'Alsatia in provinciam reducta' (1680). The treaty of Nimeguen was followed by divers measures destined to win the Alsacian population. … This wise policy bore its fruits, and Alsace, tranquillized, gave no more cause of anxiety to the French government. France was thenceforth complete mistress of the possessions which had been ceded to her by the Empire; this was only the first part of the work; the point in question now was, to complete these possessions by joining to them their natural appendages which the Empire had not alienated. The boundaries of Lower Alsace and the Messin district were ill defined, encroached upon, entangled, on the Rhine, on the Sarre, and in the Vosges, by the fiefs of a host of petty princes and German nobles. This could not be called a frontier. Besides, in the very heart of Alsace, the great city of Strasburg preserved its independence towards France and its connection with the Empire. A pacific method was invented to proceed to aggrandizements which it would seem could only be demanded by arms; a pacific method, provided that France could count on the weakness and irresolution of her neighbors; this was to investigate and revendicate everything which, by any title and at any epoch whatsoever, had been dependent on Alsace and Trois-Evêchés. {1237} We may comprehend whither this would lead, thanks to the complications of the feudal epoch; and it was not even designed to stop at the feudal system, but to go back to the times of the Frankish kings! Chambers of 'reannexation' were therefore instituted, in 1679, in the Parliament of Metz, and in the sovereign council of Alsace, with a mission which their title sufficiently indicated. … Among the nobles summoned, figured the Elector of Treves, for Oberstein, Falkenburg, etc.; the Landgrave of Hesse, for divers fiefs; the Elector Palatine, for Seltz and the canton situated between the Lauter and the Keich (Hogenbach, Germersheim, etc.); another prince palatine for the county of Veldentz: the Bishop of Speyer, for a part of his bishopric; the city of Strasburg, for the domains which it possessed beyond the Rhine (Wasselonne and Marlenheim); lastly, the King of Sweden, for the duchy of Deux-Ponts or Zweibrücken, a territory of considerable extent and of irregular form, which intersected the cis-Rhenish Palatinate. … By divers decrees rendered in March, August, and October, 1680, the sovereign council of Alsace adjudged to the King the sovereignty of all the Alsacian seigniories. The nobles and inhabitants were summoned to swear fidelity to the King, and the nobles were required to recognize the sovereign council as judge in last resort. The chamber of Metz acted on a still larger scale than the chamber of Breisach. April 12, 1680, it united to Trois-Evêchés more than 80 fiefs, the Lorraine marquisate of Pont-à-Mousson, the principality of Salm, the counties of Saarbourg and Veldentz, the seigniories of Sarrebourg, Bitche, Homburg, etc. The foundation of the new town of Sarre-Louis and the fortification of Bitche consolidated this new frontier; and not only was the course of the Sarre secured to France, but France, crossing the Sarre, encroached deeply on the Palatinate and the Electorate of Treves, posted herself on the Nahe and the Blies, and threw, as an advance-guard, on a peninsula of the Moselle, the fortress of Mont-Royal, half-way from Treves to Coblentz, on the territories of the county of Veldentz. The parliament of Franche-Comté, newly French as it was, zealously followed the example of the two neighboring courts. There was also a frontier to round towards the Jura. … The Duke of Würtemberg was required to swear allegiance to the King for his county of Montbéliard. … The acquisitions made were trifling compared with those which remained to be made. He [Louis XIV.] was not sure of the Rhine, not sure of Alsace, so long as he had not Strasburg, the great city always ready to throw upon the French bank of the river the armies of the Empire. France had long aimed at this conquest. As soon as she possessed Metz she had dreamed of Strasburg. … Though the King and Louvois had prevented Créqui from besieging the place during the war, it was because they counted on surprising it after peace. This great enterprise was most ably manœuvred." The members of the regency of the city were gained over, one by one. "The Imperial troops had evacuated the city pursuant to the treaty of Nimeguen; the magistrates dismissed 1,200 Swiss which the city had in its pay; then, on the threatening demands of the French, they demolished anew Fort Kehl, which they had rebuilt since its destruction by Créqui. When the fruit seemed ripe, Louis stretched out his hand to gather it. In the latter part of September, 1681, the garrisons of Lorraine, Franche-Comté, and Alsace put themselves in motion. … The 28th, 35,000 men were found assembled before the city; Baron de Montclar, who commanded this army, informed the magistrates that 'the sovereign chamber of Breisach having adjudged to the king the sovereignty of all Alsace, of which Strasburg was a member, his Majesty desired that they should recognize him as their sovereign lord, and receive a garrison." On the 30th the capitulation of the city was signed; on the 23d of October the King entered Strasburg in person and was received as its sovereign.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapter 7.

FRANCE: A. D. 1680. Imprisonment of the "Man in the Iron Mask."

See IRON MASK.

FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1684. Threatening relations with the Turks. War with the Barbary States. Destructive bombardment of Algiers.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.

FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698. Climax of the persecution of the Huguenots. The Dragonnades. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The great exodus of French Protestants and the consequent national loss.

"Love and war suspended for a considerable time" the ambition of the king to extinguish heresy in his dominions and establish uniformity of religious worship; "but when Louis became satiated at once with glory and pleasure, and when Madame de Maintenon, the Duke de Beauvilliers, the Duke de Montausier, Bossuet, the Archbishop of Rheims, the Chancellor Letellier, and all the religious portion of the court, began to direct his now unoccupied and scrupulous mind to the interests of religion, Louis XIV. returned to his plans with renewed ardor. From bribery they proceeded to compulsion. Missionaries, escorted by dragoons, spread themselves at the instigation of Bossuet, and even of Fénelon, over the western, southern and eastern provinces, and particularly in those districts throughout which Protestantism, more firmly rooted among a more tenacious people, had as yet resisted all attempts at conversion by preaching. … Children from above seven years of age were authorized to abjure legally the religion of their fathers. The houses of those parents who refused to deliver up their sons and daughters were invaded and laid under contributions by the royal troops. The expropriation of their homes, and the tearing asunder of families, compelled the people to fly from persecution. The king, uneasy at this growing depopulation, pronounced the punishment of the galleys against those who sought liberty in flight; he also ordered the confiscation of all the lands and houses which were sold by those proprietors who were preparing to quit the kingdom. … Very soon the proscription was organized en masse: all the cavalry in the kingdom, who, on account of the peace, were unemployed, were placed at the disposal of the preachers and bishops, to uphold their missions [known as the dragonnades] with the sabre. … Bossuet approved of these persecutions. Religious and political faith, in his eyes, justified their necessity. His correspondence is full of evidence, while his actions prove that he was an accomplice: even his eloquence … overflowed with approbation of, and enthusiasm for, these oppressions of the soul and terrors of heresy."

A. de Lamartine, Memoirs of Celebrated Characters, volume 3: Bossuet.

{1238}

"The heroism of conviction, it has been truly said, was now displayed, not in resistance, but, if the paradox may be admitted, in flight. The outflow was for the moment arrested at the remonstrance of Colbert, now for the last time listened to in the royal councils, and by reason of the sympathy aroused by the fugitives in England: but not before 3,000 families had left the country. The retirement and death of the great minister were the signal for revived action, wherever an assembly of Huguenots larger than usual might warrant or colour a suspicion of rebellion. In such excuses, not as yet an avowed crusade, the troopers of the duke de Noailles were called in at Grenoble, Bourdeaux, and Nimes. Full forty churches were demolished in 1683, more than a hundred in 1684. But the system of military missions was not organized until in 1685 the defence of the Spanish frontier offered the opportunity for a final subjugation of the Huguenots of Bearn. The dragonnade passed through the land like a pestilence. From Guienne to Dauphine, from Poitou to Upper Languedoc, no place was spared. Then it pervaded the southeast country, about the Cevennes and Provence, and ravaged Lyons and the Pays de Gex. In the end, the whole of the north was assailed, and the failing edict of Nantes was annulled on the 1st of October. The sombre mind of Madame de Maintenon had postulated the Recall as a preliminary to the marriage which the king had already conceded. On the 21st of the month the great church at Charenton was doomed; and on the 22nd the 'unadvised and precipitate' Edict of Revocation was registered in the Chambre des Vacations. … The year 1685 is fitly identified with the depopulation of France. And yet, with a blindness that appears to us incredible, the government refused to believe in the desire or the possibility of escape. The penalties attached to capture on the road,—the galleys or the nunnery,—the vigilant watch at the frontier, the frigates cruising by every coast, all these difficulties seem to have persuaded Louvois that few would persist in risking flight. What these measures actually effected was doubtless to diminish the exodus, but in no marked degree. At length, it came to be thought that the emigration was due to its prohibition, as though the Huguenots must do a thing from mere perverseness. The watch was relaxed, and a result unlooked for issued. It was the signal of the greatest of the emigrations, that of 1688. … In the statistical question [as to the total number of the Huguenot exiles from France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes] it is impossible to arrive at a certain result; and the range which calculation or conjecture has allowed to successive historians may make one pause before attempting a dogmatic solution. Basnage, a year after the Recall, reckoned the emigrants above 150,000: next year Jurieu raised the total above 200,000. Writing later Basnage found between 300,000 and 400,000; and the estimate has been accepted by Sismondi. Lastly Voltaire, followed in our own day by Hase, counted 500,000. These are a few of the sober calculations, and their mean will perhaps supply the ultimate figure. I need only mention, among impossible guesses, that of Limiers, which raises the account to 800,000, because it has been taken up by the Prussian statesman Von Dohm. … The only historian who professes to have pursued the enquiry in exact detail is Capefigue; and from his minute scrutiny of the cartons des généralités, as prepared in the closing years of the 17th century, he obtains a computation of 225,000 or 230,000. Such a result must be accepted as the absolute minimum; for it was the plain interest of the intendants who drew up the returns, to put all the facts which revealed the folly of the king's action at the lowest cipher. And allowing the accuracy of Capefigue's work, there are other reasons for increasing his total. … We cannot set the emigration at a lower fraction than one-fifth of the total Huguenot society. If the body numbered two millions, the outflow will be 400,000. If this appear an extreme estimate, it must be remembered that one-fifth is also extreme on the other side. Reducing the former aggregate to 1,500,000, it will be clearly within the bounds of moderation to leave the total exodus a range between 300,000 and 350,000. How are we to distribute this immense aggregation? Holland certainly claims near 100,000; England, with Ireland and America, probably 80,000. Switzerland must have received 25,000; and Germany, including Brandenburg, thrice that number. The remainder will be made up from the north of Europe, and from the exiles whom commerce or other causes carried in isolated households elsewhere, and of whom no record is preserved to us. … The tale then of the emigrants was above 300,000. It follows to ask what was the material loss involved in their exodus. Caveirac is again the lowest in his estimate: he will not grant the export of more than 250,000 livres. He might have learnt from Count d'Avaux himself, that those least likely to magnify the sum confessed that by the very year of the Recall twenty million livres had gone out of the country; and it is certain that the wealthier merchants deferred their departure in order to carry as much as they could with them. Two hundred and fifty traders are said to have quitted Rouen in 1687 and 1688. Probably the actual amount was very far in excess of these twenty millions: and a calculation is cited by Macpherson which even affirms that every individual refugee in England brought with him on an average money or effects to the value of £60. … It will be needless to add many statistics of the injury caused by their withdrawal from France. Two great instances are typical of the rest. Lyons which had employed 18,000 silk-looms had but 4,000 remaining by the end of the century. Tours with the same interest had had 800 mills, 80,000 looms, and perhaps 4,000 work-people. Of its 3,000 ribbon-factories only sixty remained: Equally significant was the ruin of the woollen trade of Poitou. Little was left of the drugget-manufacture of Coulonges and Châtaigneraie, or of the industry in serges and bombazines at Thouars; and the export traffic between Châtaigneraie and Canada, by way of La Rochelle, was in the last year of the century absolutely extinct."

R. L. Poole, History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion, chapters 3 and 15.

ALSO IN: _C. Weiss, History of the French Protestant Refugees._

N. Peyrat, The Pastors in the Wilderness, volume 1, chapters 5-7.

_A. Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (Fontaine), chapters 4-9._

J. I. von Döllinger, Studies in European History, chapters 11-12.

C. W. Baird, History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, chapters 4-8 (volumes 1-2).

FRANCE: A. D. 1686. Claims upon the Palatinate. Formation of the League of Augsburg.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1686.

{1239}

FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690. War of the League of Augsburg. The second devastation of the Palatinate.

"The interference of Lewis in Ireland on behalf of James [the Second, the dethroned Stuart king] caused William [prince of Orange, now King of England] to mature his plans for a great Continental confederacy against France. On May 12, 1689, William, as Stadtholder of the United Provinces, had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor against Lewis. On May 17, as King of England, he declared war against France; and on December 30 joined the alliance between the Emperor and the Dutch. His example was followed on June 6, 1690, by the King of Spain, and on October 20 of the same year by Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. This confederation was called the 'Grand Alliance.' Its main object was declared to be to curb the power and ambition of Lewis XIV.; to force him to surrender his conquests, and to confine his territories to the limits agreed upon between him and the Emperor at the treaty of Westphalia (1648), and between France and Spain at the treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). The League of Augsburg, which William had with so much trouble brought about, had now successfully developed into the Grand Alliance."

E. Hale, The Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe, chapter 14, section 5.

"The work at which William had toiled indefatigably during many gloomy and anxious years was at length accomplished. The great coalition was formed. It was plain that a desperate conflict was at hand. The oppressor of Europe would have to defend himself against England allied with Charles the Second King of Spain, with the Emperor Leopold, and with the Germanic and Batavian federations, and was likely to have no ally except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of Austria on the Danube. Lewis had, towards the close of the preceding year, taken his enemies at a disadvantage, and had struck the first blow before they were prepared to parry it. But that blow, though heavy, was not aimed at the part where it might have been mortal. Had hostilities been commenced on the Batavian frontier, William and his army would probably have been detained on the continent, and James might have continued to govern England. Happily, Lewis, under an infatuation which many pious Protestants confidently ascribed to the righteous judgment of God, had neglected the point on which the fate of the whole civilised world depended, and had made a great display of power, promptitude, and energy, in a quarter where the most splendid achievements could produce nothing more than an illumination and a Te Deum. A French army under the command of Marshal Duras had invaded the Palatinate and some of the neighbouring principalities. But this expedition, though it had been completely successful, and though the skill and vigour with which it had been conducted had excited general admiration, could not perceptibly affect the event of the tremendous struggle which was approaching. France would soon be attacked on every side. It would be impossible for Duras long to retain possession of the provinces which he had surprised and overrun. An atrocious thought rose in the mind of Louvois, who, in military affairs, had the chief sway at Versailles. … The ironhearted statesman submitted his plan, probably with much management and with some disguise, to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour for his fame, assented. Duras received orders to turn one of the fairest regions of Europe into a wilderness. Fifteen years had elapsed since Turenne had ravaged part of that fine country. But the ravages committed by Turenne, though they have left a deep stain on his glory, were mere sport in comparison with the horrors of this second devastation. The French commander announced to near half a million of human beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that, within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from their homes. Many died of cold and hunger: but enough survived to fill the streets of all the cities of Europe with lean and squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers and shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction began. The flames went up from every marketplace, every hamlet, every parish church, every country seat, within the devoted provinces. The fields where the corn had been sown were ploughed up. The orchards were hewn down. No promise of a harvest was left on the fertile plains near what had once been Frankenthal. Not a vine, not an almond tree, was to be seen on the slopes of the sunny hills round what had once been Heidelberg. No respect was shown to palaces, to temples, to monasteries, to infirmaries, to beautiful works of art, to monuments of the illustrious dead. The far-famed castle of the Elector Palatine was turned into a heap of ruins. The adjoining hospital was sacked. The provisions, the medicines, the pallets on which the sick lay, were destroyed. The very stones on which Manheim had been built were flung into the Rhine. The magnificent Cathedral of Spires perished, and with it the marble sepulchres of eight Cæsars. The coffins were broken open. The ashes were scattered to the winds. Treves, with its fair bridge, its Roman baths and amphitheatre, its venerable churches, convents, and colleges, was doomed to the same fate. But, before this last crime had been perpetrated, Lewis was recalled to a better mind by the execrations of all the neighbouring nations, by the silence and confusion of his flatterers, and by the expostulations of his wife. … He relented; and Treves was spared. In truth he could hardly fail to perceive that he had committed a great error. The devastation of the Palatinate, while it had not in any sensible degree lessened the power of his enemies, had inflamed their animosity, and had furnished them with inexhaustible matter for invective. The cry of vengeance rose on every side. Whatever scruple either branch of the House of Austria might have felt about coalescing with Protestants was completely removed."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: _H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 2._

S. A. Dunham, History of the German Empire, book 3, chapter 3 (volume. 3).

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691. Aid to James II. in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

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FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691. Campaigns in the Netherlands and in Savoy.

"Our limits will not permit us to describe at any length the war between Louis XIV. and the Grand Alliance, which lasted till the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, but only to note some of the chief incidents of the different campaigns. The Imperialists had, in 1689, notwithstanding the efforts it was still necessary to make against the Turks, brought an army of 80,000 men into the field, which was divided into three bodies under the command of the Duke of Lorraine, the Elector of Bavaria, and the Elector of Brandenburg; while the Prince of Waldeck, in the Netherlands, was at the head of a large Dutch and Spanish force, composed, however, in great part of German mercenaries. In this quarter, Marshal d'Humières was opposed to Waldeck, while Duras commanded the French army on the Rhine. In the south, the Duke of Noailles maintained a French force in Catalonia. Nothing of much importance was done this year; but on the whole the war went in favour of the imperialists, who succeeded in recovering Mentz and Bonn.

1690: This year, Marshal d'Humières was superseded by the Duke of Luxembourg, who infused more vigour into the French operations. … Catinat was sent this year into Dauphiné to watch the movements of the Duke of Savoy, who was suspected by the French Court, and not without reason, of favouring the Grand Alliance. The extravagant demands of Louis, who required Victor Amadeus to unite his troops with the army of Catinat, and to admit a French garrison into Vercelli, Verrua, and even the citadel of Turin itself, till a general peace should be effected, caused the Duke to enter into treaties with Spain and the Emperor, June 3d and 4th; and on October 20th, he joined the Grand Alliance by a treaty concluded at the Hague with England and the States-General. This last step was taken by Victor Amadeus in consequence of his reverses. He had sustained from Catinat in the battle of Staffarda (August 17th) a defeat which only the skill of a youthful general, his cousin the Prince Eugene, had saved from becoming a total rout. As the fruits of this victory, Catinat occupied Saluzzo, Susa, and all the country from the Alps to the Tanaro. During these operations another French division had reduced, without much resistance, the whole of Savoy, except the fortress of Montmélian. The only other event of importance during this campaign was the decisive victory gained by Luxembourg over Prince Waldeck at Fleurus, July 1st. The captured standards, more than a hundred in number, which Luxembourg sent to Paris on this occasion, obtained for him the name of the 'Tapassier de Notre Dame.' Luxembourg was, however, prevented from following up his victory by the orders of Louvois, who forbade him to lay siege to Namur or Charleroi. Thus, in this campaign, France maintained her preponderance on land as well as at sea by the victory off Beachy Head. …

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1690.

The Imperialists had this year lost one of their best leaders by the death of the Duke of Lorraine (April). He was succeeded as commander-in-chief by Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria; but nothing of importance took place upon the Rhine.

1691: The campaign of this year was singularly barren of events, though both the French and English kings took a personal part in it. In March, Louis and Luxembourg, laid siege to Mons, the capital of Hainault, which surrendered in less than three weeks. King William, who was in the neighbourhood, could not muster sufficient troops to venture on its relief. Nothing further of importance was done in this quarter, and the campaign in Germany was equally a blank. On the side of Piedmont, Catinat took Nice, but, being confronted by superior numbers, was forced to evacuate Piedmont; though, by way of compensation, he completed the conquest of Savoy by the capture of Montmélian. Noailles gained some trifling successes in Spain; and the celebrated French corsair, Jean Bart, distinguished himself by his enterprises at sea. One of the most remarkable events of the year was a domestic occurrence, the death of Louvois."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 44 (volume 5).

FRANCE: A. D. 1692. The taking of Namur and the victory of Steinkirk, or Steenkerke.

Never perhaps in the whole course of his unresting life were the energies of William [of Orange] more severely taxed, and never did his great moral and intellectual qualities shine forth with a brighter lustre, than in the years 1692-93.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.

The great victory of La Hogue and the destruction of the flower of the French fleet did, it is true, relieve England of any immediate dread either of insurrection or invasion, and so far the prospect before him acquired a slight improvement towards the summer of 1692. But this was the only gleam of light in the horizon. … The great coalition of Powers which he had succeeded in forming to resist the ambition of Louis was never nearer dissolution than in the spring of 1692. The Scandinavian states, who had held aloof from it from the first, were now rapidly changing the benevolence of their neutrality into something not easily distinguishable from its reverse. The new Pope Innocent XII. showed himself far less amicably disposed towards William than his two predecessors. The decrepitude of Spain and the arrogant self-will of Austria were displaying themselves more conspicuously than ever. Savoy was ruled by a duke who was more than half suspected of being a traitor. … William did succeed in saving the league from dissolution, and in getting their armies once more into the field. But not, unfortunately, to any purpose. The campaign of the present year was destined to repeat the errors of the last, and these errors were to be paid for at a heavier cost. … The French king was bent upon the capture of the great stronghold of Namur, and the enemy, as in the case of Mons, were too slow in their movements and too ineffective in their dispositions to prevent it. Marching to the assault of the doomed city, with a magnificence of courtly pageantry which had never before been witnessed in warfare, Louis sat down before Namur, and in eight days its faint-hearted governor, the nominee of the Spanish viceroy of the Netherlands, surrendered at discretion. Having accomplished, or rather having graciously condescended to witness the accomplishment of this feat of arms, Louis returned to Versailles, leaving his army under the command of Luxembourg. The fall of Namur was a severe blow to the hopes of William, but yet worse disasters were in store for him. He was now pitted against one who enjoyed the reputation of the greatest general of the age, and William, a fair but by no means brilliant strategist, was unequal to the contest with his accomplished adversary. {1241} Luxembourg lay at Steinkirk, and William approaching him from a place named Lambeque, opened his attack upon him by a well-conceived surprise which promised at first to throw the French army into complete disorder. Luxembourg's resource and energy, however, were equal to the emergency. He rallied and steadied his troops with astonishing speed, and the nature of the ground preventing the allies from advancing as rapidly as they had expected, they found the enemy in a posture to receive them. The British forces were in the front, commanded by Count Solmes, the division of Mackay, a name now honourable for many generations in the annals of continental, no less than of Scottish, warfare, leading the way. These heroes, for so, though as yet untried soldiers, they approved themselves, were to have been supported by Count Solmes with a strong body of cavalry and infantry, but at the critical moment he failed them miserably, and his failure decided the fortunes of the day. … The division was practically annihilated. Its five regiments, 'Cutt's, Mackay's, Angus's, Graham's, and Leven's, all,' as Corporal Trim relates pathetically, cut to pieces, and so had the English Life-guards been too, had it not been for some regiments on the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and, received the enemy's fire in their faces, before anyone of their own platoons discharged a musket.' Bitter was the resentment in the English army at the desertion of these gallant troops by Count de Solmes, and William gave vent to one of his rare outbursts of anger at the sight. We have it indeed on the authority above quoted—unimpeachable as first-hand tradition, for Sterne had heard the story of these wars at the knees of an eye-witness of and actor in them—that the King 'would not suffer the Count to come into his presence for many months after.' The destruction of Mackay's division had indeed decided the issue of the struggle. Luxembourg's army was being rapidly strengthened by reinforcements from that of Boufflers, and there was nothing for it but retreat. The loss on both sides had been great, but the moral effect of the victory was still greater. William's reputation for generalship, perhaps unduly raised by his recent exploits in Ireland, underwent a serious decline."

H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapter 10.

On the Rhine and on the Spanish frontier nothing of importance occurred during 1692. The Duke of Savoy gained some advantages on his side and invaded Dauphiny, without any material result. The invasion called into action a young heroine, Mademoiselle de La Tour-du-Pin, whose portrait has a place at Saint-Denis by the side of that of Jeanne D'Arc.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 20.

FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (July). The Battle of Neerwinden, or Landen.

"Lewis had determined not to make any advance towards a reconciliation with the new government of England till the whole strength of his realm had been put forth in one more effort. A mighty effort in truth it was, but too exhausting to be repeated. He made an immense display of force at once on the Pyrenees and on the Alps, on the Rhine and on the Meuse, in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. That nothing might be wanting which could excite the martial ardour of a nation eminently high-spirited, he instituted, a few days before he left his palace for the camp, a new military order of knighthood, and placed it under the protection of his own sainted ancestor and patron. The cross of Saint Lewis shone on the breasts of the gentlemen who had been conspicuous in the trenches before Mons and Namur, and on the fields of Fleurus and Steinkirk. … On the 18th of May Lewis left Versailles. Early in June he was under the walls of Namur. The Princesses, who had accompanied him, held their court within the fortress. He took under his immediate command the army of Boufflers, which was encamped at Gembloux. Little more than a mile off lay the army of Luxemburg. The force collected in that neighbourhood under the French lilies did not amount to less than 120,000 men. Lewis had flattered himself that he should be able to repeat in 1693 the stratagem by which Mons had been taken in 1691 and Namur in 1692; and he had determined that either Liege or Brussels should be his prey. But William had this year been able to assemble in good time a force, inferior indeed to that which was opposed to him, but still formidable. With this force he took his post near Louvain, on the road between the two threatened cities, and watched every movement of the enemy. … Just at this conjuncture Lewis announced his intention to return instantly to Versailles, and to send the Dauphin and Boufflers, with part of the army which was assembled near Namur, to join Marshal Lorges who commanded in the Palatinate. Luxemburg was thunderstruck. He expostulated boldly and earnestly. Never, he said, was such an opportunity thrown away. … The Marshal reasoned: he implored: he went on his knees: but all was vain; and he quitted the royal presence in the deepest dejection. Lewis left the camp a week after he had joined it, and never afterwards made war in person. … Though the French army in the Netherlands had been weakened by the departure of the forces commanded by the Dauphin and Boufflers, and though the allied army was daily strengthened by the arrival of fresh troops, Luxemburg still had a superiority of force; and that superiority he increased by an adroit stratagem." He succeeded by a feint in inducing William to detach 20,000 men from his army and to send them to Liege. He then moved suddenly upon the camp of the allies, with 80,000 men, and found but 50,000 to oppose him. "It was still in the [English] King's power, by a hasty retreat, to put between his army and the enemy the narrow, but deep, waters of the Gette, which had lately been swollen by rains. But the site which he occupied was strong; and it could easily be made still stronger. He set all his troops to work. Ditches were dug, mounds thrown up, palisades fixed in the earth. In a few hours the ground wore a new aspect; and the King trusted that he should be able to repel the attack even of a force greatly outnumbering his own. … On the left flank, the village of Romsdorff rose close to the little stream of Landen, from which the English have named the disastrous day. On the right was the village of Neerwinden. Both villages were, after the fashion of the Low Countries, surrounded by moats and fences. "Notwithstanding the strength of the position held by the allies, and the valor with which they defended it, they were driven out of Neerwinden [July 29]—but only after the shattered village had been five times taken and retaken—and across the Gette, in confusion and with heavy loss. {1242} "The French were victorious: but they had bought their victory dear. More then 10,000 of the best troops of Lewis had fallen. Neerwinden was a spectacle at which the oldest soldiers stood aghast. The streets were piled breast high with corpses. Among the slain were some great lords and some renowned warriors. … The region, renowned as the battle field, through many ages, of the greatest powers of Europe, has seen only two more terrible days, the day of Malplaquet and the day of Waterloo. … There was no pursuit, though the sun was still high in the heaven when William crossed the Gette. The conquerors were so much exhausted by marching and fighting that they could scarcely move. … A very short delay was enough for William. … Three weeks after his defeat he held a review a few miles from Brussels. The number of men under arms was greater than on the morning of the bloody day of Landen: their appearance was soldierlike; and their spirit seemed unbroken. William now wrote to Heinsius that the worst was over. 'The crisis,' he said, 'has been a terrible one. Thank God that it has ended thus.' He did not, however, think it prudent to try at that time the event of another pitched field. He therefore suffered the French to besiege and take Charleroi; and this was the only advantage which they derived from the most sanguinary battle fought in Europe during the seventeenth century."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 20 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 5 (1693), volume 4.

Duc de Saint-Simon, Memoirs (translated by St. John), volume 1, chapter 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (October). Defeat of the Duke of Savoy at Marsaglia.

"The great efforts made by Louis in the north prevented him from strengthening the army of Catinat sufficiently to act with energy against the Savoyard prince, and it was determined to restrict the campaign of 1693 to the defensive on the part of France. The forces of the duke had in the meantime been reinforced from Germany, and he opened the campaign with a brilliant and successful movement against Pignerol. … He is said to have entertained hopes of carrying the war in that one campaign to the very gates of Lyons; but the successes which inspired him with such expectations alarmed the court of France, and Louis detached in haste a large body of cavalry to reinforce Catinat. That general marched at once to fight the Duke of Savoy, who, presuming on his strength, suffered the French to pour out from the valley of Suza into the plain of Piedmont, abandoned the heights, and was consequently defeated at Marsaglia on the 4th of October. Catinat, however, could not profit by his victory; he was too ill supplied in every respect to undertake the siege of Coni, and the state of the French armies at this time marks as plainly that Louvois was dead, as the state of the finances speaks the loss of Colbert."

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1694. Campaigns without battles. Operations at sea.

In 1694, King William was "in a position to keep an army afoot in the Netherlands stronger than any had hitherto been. It was reckoned at 31,800 horse, including a corps of dragoons, and 58,000 foot; so great a force had never been seen within the memory of man. All the best-known generals, who had hitherto taken part in the wars of western Europe, were gathered round him with their troops. The French army, with which the Dauphin, but not the King, was present, was not much smaller; it was once more led by Marshal Luxembourg. These two hosts lay over against one another in their camps for a couple of months; neither offered battle to the other. … This campaign is notable in the annals of the art of war for the skill with which each force pursued or evaded the other; but the results were limited to the recovery by the allies of that unimportant place, Huy. William had thought himself fortunate in having come out of the previous campaign without disaster: in this campaign the French were proud to have held their lines in presence of a superior force. On the coast also the French were successful in repelling a most vehement and perilous attack. They had been warned that the English were going to fall on Brest, and Vauban was sent down there in haste to organise the defence; and in this he was thoroughly successful. When the English landed on the coast in Camaret Bay (for the fort of that name had first to be taken) they were saluted by two batteries, which they had never detected, and which were so well placed that every shot told, and the grape-shot wounded almost every man who had ventured ashore. The gallant General, Talmash, was also hit, and ere long died of his wounds. The English fleet, which had come to bombard Brest, was itself bombarded from the walls. But though this great effort failed, the English fleet still held the mastery of the Channel: it also blockaded the northern coast of France. After Brest it attacked Dieppe, laying it almost entirely in ashes; thence it sailed to Havre, and St. Malo, to Calais, and Dunkirk. This was of great use in the conduct of the war. King William observes that had not the coasts been kept in a state of alarm, all the forces detained there for defensive purposes would have been thrown on the Netherlands. … But the most important result of the maritime war lay on another side. In May, 1694, Noailles pushed into Catalonia, supported by Tourville, who lay at anchor with the fleet in the Bay of Rosas. … It was of incalculable importance to Spain to be in alliance with the maritime powers. Strengthened by a Dutch fleet and some Spanish ships, Admiral Russell now appeared in the Mediterranean. He secured Barcelona from the French, who would never have been kept out of the city by the Spaniards alone. The approach of the English fleet had at this time the greatest influence in keeping the Duke of Savoy staunch to the confederation. In Germany the rise of the house of Hanover to the Electoral dignity had now caused most unpleasant complications. A shoal of German princes, headed by the King of Denmark, as a Prince of the Empire, and offended by the preference shown to Hanover, inclined, if not to alliance with France, at least to neutrality. … We can have no conception, and in this place we cannot possibly investigate, with what unbroken watchfulness King William, supported by Heinsius, looked after the German and the Northern courts, so as to keep their irritation from reacting on the course of the great war. … When the French, in June, 1694, crossed the Rhine, meaning, as they boasted with true Gallic arrogance, soon to dip their swords in the Danube, they found the Prince of Baden so well prepared, and posted so strongly near Wisloch, that they did not venture to attack him. … The general result is this: neither side was as yet really superior to the other: but the French power was everywhere checked and held within bounds by the arms and influence of William III."

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 20, chapter 6 (volume 5).

{1243}

FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696. The end of the War of the League of Augsburg. Loss of Namur. Terms with Savoy. The Peace of Ryswick.

"Military and naval efforts were relaxed on all sides: on the Rhine the Prince of Baden and the Marechal de Lorges, both ill in health, did little but observe each other; and though the Duke of Savoy made himself master of Casal on the 11th July, 1695, no other military event of any consequence took place on the side of Italy, where Louis entered into negotiations with the duke, and succeeded, in the following year, in detaching him from the league of Augsburg. As the price of his defection the whole of his territories were to be restored to him, with the exception of Suza, Nice, and Montmeillan, which were promised to be delivered also on the signature of a general peace. Money was added to render the consent of a needy prince more ready. … The duke promised to obtain from the emperor a pledge that Italy should be considered as neutral ground, and if the allies refused such a pledge, then to join the forces of Savoy to those of France, and give a free passage to the French through his dominions. In consequence of this treaty … he applied to the emperor for a recognition of the neutrality of Italy, and was refused. He then hastened, with a facility which distinguished him through life, to abandon his friends and join his enemies, and within one month was generalissimo for the emperor in Italy fighting against France, and generalissimo for the King of France in Italy fighting against the emperor. Previous to this change, however, the King of England opened the campaign of 1695 in the Netherlands by the siege of Namur. The death of Luxemburg had placed the French army of Flanders under the command of the incapable Marshal Villeroi: and William, feeling that his enemy was no longer to be much respected, assumed at once the offensive. He concealed his design upon Namur under a variety of manœuvres which kept the French generals in suspense; and, then leaving the Prince of Vaudemont to protect the principal Spanish towns in Flanders, he collected his troops suddenly; and while the Duke of Bavaria invested Namur, he covered the operations of the siege with a considerable force. Villeroi now determined to attack the Prince of Vaudemont, but twice suffered him to escape: and then, after having apparently hesitated for some time how to drive or draw the King of England from the attack upon Namur, he resolved to bombard the city of Brussels, never pretending to besiege it, but alleging as his motive for a proceeding which was merely destructive, the bombardment of the maritime towns of France by the English. During three days he continued to fire upon the city, ruining a great part thereof, and then withdrew to witness the surrender of the citadel of Namur on the 2nd September, the town itself having capitulated on the 4th of the preceding month. As some compensation, though but a poor one, for the loss of Namur, and the disgrace of the French arms in suffering such a city to be captured in the presence of 80,000 men, Montal took Dixmude and Deynse in the course of June. … The only after-event of any importance which occurred in Flanders during this war, was the capture of Ath by the French, in the year 1697, while negotiations for peace were going on with activity at Ryswick. … Regular communications regarding peace having been once established, Ryswick, near the Hague, was appointed for the meeting of plenipotentiaries; and Harlay, Torci, and Callières appeared at that place as representatives of Louis. The articles which had been formerly sketched out at Utrecht formed the base of the treaties now agreed upon; and Louis yielded far more than could have been expected from one so proud and so successful."

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, volume 3, chapter 5.

Sir J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 3, book 4 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1697 (April). The sacking of Carthagena.

See CARTHAGENA: A. D. 1697.

FRANCE: A. D. 1697. The Peace of Ryswick.

"The Congress for the treaty or series of treaties that was to terminate the great European war, which had now lasted for upwards of nine years, was held at Ryswick, a château near the Hague. The conferences were opened in May, 1697. Among the countries represented were Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark and the various States of the German Empire. The treaties were signed, in severalty, between the different States, except Austria, in September and October, 1697, and with the Emperor, in November. The principal features of the treaty were, as between France and Spain, that, the former country was to deliver to Spain Barcelona, and other places in Catalonia; also various places which France had taken in the Spanish Netherlands, during the war, including Luxembourg and its Duchy, Charleroi, Mons and Courtrai. Various others were excepted, to be retained by France, as dependencies of French possessions. The principal stipulations of the treaty, as between France and Great Britain, were that France formally recognized William III. as lawful king of Great Britain, and agreed not to trouble him in the possession of his dominions, and not to assist his enemies, directly or indirectly. This article had particular relation to the partisans of the exiled Stuart king, then living in France. By another article, all places taken by either country in America, during the war, were to be relinquished, and the Principality of Orange and its estates situated in the south of France were to be restored to William. In the treaty with Holland, certain possessions in the East Indies were to be restored to the Dutch East India Company: and important articles of commerce were appended, among which the principle was laid down that free ships should make free goods, not contraband of war. By the treaty with the Emperor and the German States, the Treaties of Westphalia and Nymeguen were recognized as the basis of the Treaty of Ryswick, with such exceptions only as were to be provided in the latter treaty. France also was to give up all territory she had occupied or controlled before or during the war under the name of 'reunions,' outside of Alsace, but the Roman Catholic religion was to be preserved in Alsace as it then existed. {1244} This concession by France included among other places Freiburg, Brisach, and Treves; and certain restitutions were to be made by France, in favor of Spire, the Electors of Treves, and Brandenburg and the Palatinate; also, others in favor of certain of the smaller German Princes. The city of Strasburg, in return, was formally ceded to France, … and the important fort of Kehl was yielded to the Empire. The navigation of the Rhine was to be free to all persons. The Duke of Lorraine was to be restored to his possessions with such exceptions as were provided in the treaty. By the terms of this treaty, a more advantageous peace was given to Spain than she had any expectation of. … Not only were the places taken in Spain, including the numerous fortified places in Catalonia, yielded up, but also, with some exceptions, those in the Spanish Netherlands, and also the important territory of Luxembourg; some places were even yielded to Spain that France had gained under former treaties."

J. W. Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht, chapter 4.

"The restitutions and cessions [from France to Germany] comprised Treves, Germersheim, Deux-Ponts, Veldentz, Montbéliard, Kehl, Freiburg, Breisach, Philippsburg, the Emperor and the Empire ceding in exchange Strasbourg to the King of France in complete sovereignty. … Louis XIV. had consented somewhat to relax the rigor of the treaty of Nimeguen towards the heir of the Duchy of Lorraine, nephew of the Emperor by his mother; he restored to the young Duke Leopold his inheritance in the condition in which Charles IV. had possessed it before the French conquest of 1670; that is to say, he restored Nancy, allowing only the ramparts of the Old Town to remain, and razing all the rest of the fortifications without the power of restoring them; he kept Marsal, an interior place calculated to hold Lorraine in check, and also Sarre-Louis, a frontier-place which separated Lorraine from the Germanic provinces; he restored Bitche and Homburg dismantled, without power to reestablish them, and kept Longwy in exchange for a domain of similar value in one of the Trois-Evêchés; finally, he no longer demanded, as at Nimeguen, four great strategic routes through Lorraine, and consented that the passage should always be open to his troops. The House of Lorraine was thus reestablished in its estates after twenty-seven years of exile."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 20, chapter 11 (volume 5).

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1692-1697; and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697.

FRANCE: A. D. 1698-1712. The colonization of Louisiana. Broad claims to the whole valley of the Mississippi.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

FRANCE: A. D. 1700. Bequest of the Spanish crown to a French royal prince.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

FRANCE: A. D. 1701-1702. Provocation of the Second Grand Alliance and War of the Spanish Succession.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702, and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1710. The Camisard rising of the French Protestant's in the Cévennes.

"The movement known as the War of the Camisards is an episode of the history of Protestantism in France which, though rarely studied in detail and perhaps but partially understood, was not devoid of significance. When it occurred, in the summer of 1702, a period of little less than 17 years had elapsed since Louis XIV., by his edict of Fontainebleau, October, 1685, solemnly revoked the great and fundamental law enacted by his grandfather, Henry IV., for the protection of the adherents of the Reformed faith, known in history as the Edict of Nantes. During the whole of that period the Protestants had submitted, with scarcely an attempt at armed resistance, to the proscription of their tenets: … The majority, unable to escape from the land of oppression, remained at home … nearly all of them cherishing the confident hope that the king's delusion would be short-lived, and that the edict under which they and their ancestors had lived for three generations would, before long, be restored to them with the greater part, if not the whole, of its beneficent provisions. Meanwhile, all the Protestant ministers having been expelled from France by the same law that prohibited the expatriation of any of the laity, the people of the Reformed faith found themselves destitute of the spiritual food they craved. True, the new legislation affected to regard that faith as dead, and designated all the former adherents of Protestantism, without distinction, as the 'New Converts,' 'Nouveaux Convertis.' And, in point of fact, the great majority had so far yielded to the terrible pressure of the violent measures brought to bear upon them … that they had consented to sign a promise to be 're-united' to the Roman Catholic Church, or had gone at least once to mass. But they were still Protestants at heart. … Under these circumstances, feeling more than ever the need of religious comfort, now that remorse arose for a weak betrayal of conscientious conviction, the proscribed Protestants, especially in the south of France, began to meet clandestinely for divine worship in such retired places as seemed most likely to escape the notice of their vigilant enemies. … It was not strange that in so exceptional a situation, a phase of religious life and feeling equally exceptional should manifest itself. I refer to that appearance of prophetic inspiration which attracted to the province of Vivarais and to the Cévennes Mountains the attention of all Europe. … Historically … the influence of the prophets of the Cévennes was an important factor in the Protestant problem of the end of the 17th and the commencement of the 18th centuries. … Various methods were adopted to put an end to the prophets with their prophecies, which were for the most part denunciatory of Rome as Antichrist and foreshadowed the approaching fall of the papacy. But this form of enthusiasm had struck a deep root and it was hard to eradicate it. Imprisonment, in convent or jail, was the most common punishment, especially in the case of women. Not infrequently to imprisonment was, added corporal chastisement, and the prophets, male and female, were flogged until they might be regarded as fully cured of their delusion. … But no utterances of prophets, however fervid and impassioned, would have sufficed to occasion an uprising of the inhabitants of the Cévennes Mountains, had it not been for the virulent persecution to which the latter found themselves exposed at the hands of the provincial authorities directly instigated thereto by the clergy of the established church. {1245} For it must be noticed that a large part of the population of the Cévennes was still Protestant, and made no concealment of the fact, even though the king's ministers affected to call them 'New Catholics,' or 'New Converts.' The region over which the Camisard war extended with more or less violence comprised six episcopal dioceses, which, in 1698, had an aggregate population of about two-thirds of a million of souls. Of these souls, though Protestantism had been dead in the eye of the law for 13 years, fully one-fourth were still Protestant. … The war may be said to have begun on the 24th of July, 1702, when the Abbé du Chayla, a noted persecutor, was killed in his house, at Pont de Montvert, by a band of 40 or 50 of the 'Nouveaux Convertis,' whom he had driven to desperation by his cruelty to their fellow believers. If we regard its termination to be the submission of Jean Cavalier, the most picturesque, in the month of May, 1704, the war lasted a little less than two years. But, although the French government had succeeded, rather by craft than by force, in getting rid of the most formidable of its opponents … it was not until five or six years later—that is, until 1709 or 1710—that … comparative peace was finally restored. … During the first months of the insurrection the exploits of the malcontents were confined to deeds of destruction accomplished by companies of venturesome men, who almost everywhere eluded the pursuit of the enemy by their superior knowledge of the intricacies of the mountain woods and paths. The track of these companies could easily be made out; for it was marked by the destruction of vicarages and rectories, by the smoke of burned churches, too often by the corpses of slain priests. The perpetrators of these acts of violence soon won for themselves some special designations, to distinguish them from the more passive Protestants who remained in their homes, taking no open part in the struggle. … About the close of 1702, however, or the first months of 1703, a new word was coined for the fresh emergency, and the armed Protestants received the appellation under which they have passed into history—the Camisards. Passing by all the strange and fanciful derivations of the word which seem to have no claim upon our notice, unless it be their evident absurdity, we have no difficulty in connecting it with those nocturnal expeditions which were styled 'Camisades'; because the warriors who took advantage of the darkness of the night to ride out and explore or force the enemy's entrenchments, sometimes threw over their armor a shirt that might enable them to recognize each other. Others will have it that, though the name was derived from the same article of apparel—the 'camisa' or shirt—it was applied to the Cévenol bands for another reason, namely," that when they found opportunities, they carried off clean linen from the villages and left their soiled garments in exchange. The final overthrow of the Camisards "was not accomplished without the employment of 100,000 troops, certainly far more than ten times the total number ever brought into the field by the Camisards. … Not less than three officers of the highest grade in the service, marshals of France, were successively appointed to put down a revolt which it might have been expected a simple colonel could suffice to quell—M. de Broglie being succeeded by the Marshal de Montrevel, the Marshal de Montrevel by the Marshal de Villars, and the Marshal de Villars by the Marshal de Berwick."

H. M. Baird, The Camisard Uprising (Papers of the American Society of Church History, volume 2, pages 13-34).

ALSO IN: _Mrs. Bray, The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes._

_N. Peyrat, The Pastors in the Wilderness._

S. Smiles, The Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, chapters 5-8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1711. The War of the Spanish Succession in America (called Queen Anne's War).

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1713. The War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.

See ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; SPAIN: A.D. 1702, to 1707-1710; GERMANY: A. D. 1702, to 1706-1711; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, to 1710-1712.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1715. Renewed Jesuitical persecution of the Jansenists. The odious Bull Unigenitus and its tyrannical enforcement.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

A. D. 1710. The War of the Spanish Succession: Misery of the nation. Overtures for Peace. Conferences at Gertruydenberg.

"France was still reduced to extreme and abject wretchedness. Her finances were ruined. Her people were half starving. Marlborough declared that in the villages through which he passed in the summer of 1710, at least half the inhabitants had perished since the beginning of the preceding winter, and the rest looked as if they had come out of their graves. All the old dreams of French conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, in Italy, and in Germany were dispelled, and the French generals were now struggling desperately and skilfully to defend their own frontier. … In 1710, while the Whig ministry [in England] was still in power, but at a time when it was manifestly tottering to its fall, Lewis had made one more attempt to obtain peace by the most ample concessions. The conferences were held at the Dutch fortress of Gertruydenberg. Lewis declared himself ready to accept the conditions exacted as preliminaries of peace in the preceding year, with the exception of the article compelling Philip within two months to cede the Spanish throne. He consented, in the course of the negotiations, to grant to the Dutch nearly all the fortresses of the French and Spanish Netherlands, including among others Ypres, Tournay, Lille, Furnes, and even Valenciennes, to cede Alsace to the Duke of Lorraine, to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, and those on the Rhine from Bale to Philipsburg. The main difficulty was on the question of the Spanish succession. … The French troops had already been recalled from Spain, and Lewis consented to recognise the Archduke as the sovereign, to engage to give no more assistance to his grandchild, to place four cautionary towns in the hands of the Dutch as a pledge for the fulfilment of the treaty, and even to pay a subsidy to the allies for the continuance of the war against Philip. The allies, however, insisted that he should join with them in driving his grandson by force of arms from Spain, and on this article the negotiations were broken off."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 1.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

{1246}

FRANCE: A. D. 1713-1714. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

FRANCE: A. D. 1714. The desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.

FRANCE: A. D. 1715. Death of Louis XIV. The character of his reign.

Louis XIV. died September 1, 1715, at the age of 77 years, having reigned 72 years. "Richelieu, and after him Mazarin, governing as if they had been dictators of a republic, had extinguished, if I may use the expression, their personality in the idea and service of the state. Possessing only the exercise of authority, they both conducted themselves as responsible agents towards the sovereign and before the judgment of the country; while Louis XIV., combining the exercise with the right, considered himself exempted from all rule but that of his own will, and acknowledged no responsibility for his actions except to his own conscience. It was this conviction of his universal power, a conviction genuine and sincere, excluding both scruples and remorse, which made him upset one after the other the twofold system founded by Henry IV., of religious liberty at home, and abroad of a national preponderance resting upon a generous protection of the independence of states and European civilisation. At the personal accession of Louis XIV., more than fifty years had passed since France had pursued the work of her policy in Europe, impartial towards the various communions of Christians, the different forms of governments, and the internal revolutions of the states. Although France was catholic and monarchical, her alliances were, in the first place, with the Protestant states of Germany and with republican Holland; she had even made friendly terms with regicide England. No other interest but that of the well-understood development of the national resources had weight in her councils, and directed the internal action of her government. But all was changed by Louis XIV., and special interests, the spawn of royal personality, of the principle of the hereditary monarchy, or that of the state religion, were admitted, soon to fly upward in the scale. Thence resulted the overthrow of the system of the balance of power in Europe, which might be justly called the French system, and the abandonment of it for dreams of an universal monarchy, revived after the example of Charles V. and Philip II. Thence a succession of enterprises, formed in opposition to the policy of the country, such as the war with Holland, the factions made with a view to the Imperial crown, the support given to James II. and the counter-revolution in England, the acceptance of the throne of Spain for a son of France, preserving his rights to the Crown. These causes of misfortune, under which the kingdom was obliged to succumb, all issued from the circumstance applauded by the nation and conformable to the spirit of its tendencies, which, after royalty had attained its highest degree of power under two ministers, delivered it unlimited into the hands of a prince endowed with qualities at once brilliant and solid, an object of enthusiastic affection and legitimate admiration. When the reign, which was to crown under such auspices the ascendant march of the French monarchy, had falsified the unbounded hopes which its commencement had excited; when in the midst of fruitless victories and continually increasing reverses, the people beheld progress in all the branches of public economy changed into distress,—the ruin of the finances, industry, and agriculture—the exhaustion of all the resources of the country,—the impoverishment of all classes of the nation, the dreadful misery of the population, they were seized with a bitter disappointment of spirit, which took the place of the enthusiasm of their confidence and love."

A. Thierry, Formation and Progress of the Tiers État or Third Estate in France, chapter 9.

FRANCE: A. D. 1715. Accession of King Louis XV.

FRANCE: A. D. 1715-1723. State of the kingdom at the death of Louis XIV. The minority of Louis XV. and Regency of the Duke of Orleans.

"Louis XIV. … left France excessively exhausted. The State was ruined, and seemed to have no resource but bankruptcy. This trouble seemed especially imminent in 1715, after the war, during which the government had been obliged to borrow at 400 per cent., to create new taxes, to spend in advance the revenue of two years, and to increase the public debt to 2,400 millions. The acquisition of two provinces (Flanders, Franche-Comté) and a few cities (Strassburg, Landau, and Dunkirk) was no compensation for such terrible poverty. Succeeding generations have remembered only the numerous victories, Europe defied, France for twenty years preponderant, and the incomparable splendor of the court of Versailles, with its marvels of letters and arts, which have given to the 17th century the name of the age of Louis XIV. It is for history to show the price which France has paid for her king's vain attempts abroad to rule over Europe, and at home to enslave the wills and consciences of men. … The weight of the authority of Louis XIV. had been crushing during his last years. When the nation felt it lifted, it breathed more freely; the court and the city burst into disrespectful demonstrations of joy; the very coffin of the great king was insulted. The new king [Louis XV., great-grandson of Louis XIV.] was five years old. Who was to govern? Louis XIV. had indeed left a will, but he had not deceived himself with regard to the value of it. 'As soon as I am dead, it will be disregarded; I know too well what became of the will of the king, my father!' As after the death of Henry IV. and Louis XIII. there was a moment of feudal reaction; but the decline of the nobility may be measured by the successive weakening of its efforts in each case. Under Mary de'Medici it was still able to make a civil war; under Anne of Austria it produced the Fronde; after Louis XIV. it only produced memorials. The Duke of Saint-Simon desired that the first prince of the blood, Philip of Orleans, to whom the will left only a shadow of power, should demand the regency from the dukes and peers, as heirs and representatives of the ancient grand vassals. But the Duke of Orleans convoked Parliament in order to break down the posthumous despotism of the old king, feigning that the king had committed the government to his hands. The regency, with the right to appoint the council of regency as he would, was conferred upon him, and the command of the royal household was taken from the Duke of Maine [one of the bastard sons of Louis XIV.], who yielded this important prerogative only after a violent altercation. {1247} As a reward for the services of his two allies, the Duke of Orleans called the high nobility into affairs, by substituting for the ministries six councils; in which they occupied almost all the places, and accorded to Parliament the right of remonstrance. But two years had hardly passed when the ministries were re-established, and the Parliament again condemned to silence. It was plain that neither nobility nor Parliament were to be the heirs of the absolute monarchy. … Debauchery had, until then, kept within certain limits; cynicism of manners as well as of thought was now adopted openly. The regent set the example. There had never been seen such frivolity of conduct nor such licentious wit as that exhibited in the wild meetings of the roués of the Duke of Orleans. There had been formerly but one salon in France, that of the king; a thousand were now open to a society which, no longer occupied with religious questions, or with war, or the grave futilities of etiquette, felt that pleasure and change were necessities. … Louis XV. attained his majority February 13, 1723, being then 13 years old. This terminated the regency of the Duke of Orleans. But the king was still to remain a long time under tutelage; the duke, in order to retain the power after resigning the regency, had in advance given [Cardinal] Dubois the title of prime minister. At the death of the wretched Dubois he took the office himself, but held it only four months, dying of apoplexy in December, 1723."

V. Duruy, History of France, chapters 52 and 55.

ALSO IN: W. C. Taylor, Memoirs of the House of Orleans, volume 1, chapters 11-17, and volume 2, chapters 1-3.

F. Rocquain, The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution, chapter 1.

_J. B. Perkins, France under the Regency._

FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1719. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance. War with Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720. John Law and his Mississippi Scheme.

"When the Regent Orleans assumed the government of France, he found its affairs in frightful confusion. The public debt was three hundred millions; putting the debt on one side, the expenditure was only just covered by the revenue. St. Simon advised him to declare a national bankruptcy. De Noailles, less scrupulous, proposed to debase the coinage. … In such desperate circumstances, it was no wonder that the regent was ready to catch eagerly at any prospect of success. A remedy was proposed to him by the famous John Law of Lauriston. This new light of finance had gambled in, and been banished from, half the courts of Europe; he had figured in the English 'Hue and Cry,' as 'a very tall, black, lean man, well-shaped, above six feet high, large pock-holes in his face, big-nosed, speaks broad and loud.' He was a big, masterful, bullying man, one of keen intellect as well; the hero of a hundred romantic stories. … He studied finance at Amsterdam, then the great school of commerce, and offered his services and the 'system' which he had invented, first to Godolphin, when that nobleman was at the head of affairs in England, then to Victor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, then to Louis XIV., who, as the story goes, refused any credit to a heretic. He invented a new combination at cards, which became the despair of all the croupiers in Europe; so successful was this last invention, that he arrived for the second time at Versailles, in the early days of the regency, with upwards of £120,000 at his disposal, and a copy of his 'system' in his pocket. … There was a dash of daring in the scheme which suited well with the regent's peculiar turn of mind; it was gambling on a gigantic scale. … Besides, the scheme was plausible and to a certain point correct. The regent, with all his faults, was too clever a man not to recognize the genius which gleamed in Law's dark eyes. Law showed that the trade and commerce of every country was crippled by the want of a circulating medium; specie was not to be had in sufficient quantities; paper, backed by the credit of the state, was the grand secret. He adduced the examples of Great Britain, of Genoa, and of Amsterdam to prove the advantage of a paper currency; he proposed to institute a bank, to be called the 'Bank of France,' and to issue notes guaranteed by the government and secured on the crown lands, exchangeable at sight for specie, and receivable in payment of taxes; the bank was to be conducted in the king's name, and to be managed by commissioners appointed by the States-General. The scheme of Law was based on principles which are now admitted as economical axioms; the danger lay in the enormous extent to which it was intended to push the scheme. … While the bank was in the hands of Law himself, it appears to have been managed with consummate skill; the notes bore some proportion to the amount of available specie; they contained a promise to pay in silver of the same standard and weight as that which existed at the time. A large dividend was declared; then the regent stepped in. The name of the bank was changed to that of the Royal Bank of France, the promise to pay in silver of a certain weight and standard was dropped, and a promise substituted to pay 'in silver coin.' This omission, on the part of a prince who had already resorted to the expedient of debasing the currency, was ominous, and did much to shake public confidence; the intelligence that in the first year of the new bank 1,000,000,000 of livres were fabricated, was not calculated to restore it. But these trifles were forgotten in the mad excitement which followed. Law had long been elaborating a scheme which is for ever associated with his name, and beside which the Bank of France sank into insignificance. In 1717, the year before the bank had been adopted by the regent, the billets d'état of 500 livres each were worth about 160 livres in the market. Law, with the assent of the regent, proposed to establish a company which should engross all the trade of the kingdom, and all the revenues of the crown, should carry on the business of merchants in every part of the world, and monopolize the farming of the taxes and the coining of money; the stock was to be divided into 200,000 shares of 500 livres each. The regent nearly marred the scheme at starting by inserting a proviso that the depreciated billets d'état were to be received at par in payment for the new stock, on which four per cent. was guaranteed by the State." Law's company was formed, under the name of the Company of the West, and obtained for the basis of its operations a monopoly of the trade of that vast territory of France in the valley of the Mississippi which bore the name of Louisiana. The same monopoly had been held for five years by one Crozat, who now resigned it because he found it unprofitable; but the fact received little attention.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.

{1248}

"Louisiana was described as a paradise. … Shareholders in the company were told that they would enjoy the monopoly of trade throughout French North America, and the produce of a country rich in every kind of mineral wealth. Billets d'état were restored to their nominal value; stock in the Mississippi scheme was sold at fabulous prices; ingots of gold, which were declared to have come from the mines of St. Barbe, were taken with great pomp to the mint; 6,000 of the poor of Paris were sent out as miners, and provided with tools to work in the new diggings. New issues of shares were made; first 50,000, then 50,000 more; both at an enormous premium. The jobbers of the rue Quincampoix found ordinary language inadequate to express their delight: they invented a new slang for the occasion, and called the new shares 'les filles,' and, 'les petites filles,' respectively. Paris was divided between the 'Anti-system' party who opposed Law, and the Mississippians who supported him. The State borrowed from the company fifteen hundred millions; government paid its creditors in warrants on the company. To meet them, Law issued 100,000 new shares; which came out at a premium of 1,000 per cent. The Mississippians went mad with joy—they invented another new slang phrase; the 'cinq cents' eclipsed the filles and the petites filles in favour. The gates of Law's hotel had to be guarded by a detachment of archers; the cashiers were mobbed in their bureaux; applicants for shares sat in the ante-rooms; a select body slept for several nights on the stairs; gentlemen disguised themselves in Law's livery to obtain access to the great man. … By this time the charter of the company of Senegal had been merged in the bank, which also became sole farmer of the tobacco duties; the East India Company had been abolished, and the exclusive privilege of trading to the East Indies, China, and the South Seas, together with all the possessions of Colbert's company were transferred to Law. The bank now assumed the style of the Company of the Indies. Before the year [1719] was out the regent had transferred to it the exclusive privilege of the mint, and the contract of all the great farms. Almost every branch of industry in France, its trade, its revenue, its police, were now in the hands of Law. Every fresh privilege was followed by a new issue of shares. … The shares of 500 franks were now worth 10,000. The rue Quincampoix became impassable, and an army of stockjobbers camped in tents in the Place Vendome. … The excitement spread to England [where the South Sea Bubble was inflated by the madness of the hour].

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

… Law's system and the South Sea scheme both went down together. Both were calculated to last so long, and so long only, as universal confidence existed; when it began to be whispered that those in the secret were realizing their profits and getting out of the impending ruin, the whole edifice came down with a crash. … No sooner was it evident that the system was about to break down, than Law, the only man who could at least have mitigated the blow, was banished."

Viscount Bury, Exodus of the Western Nations, volume 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: C. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, volume 1, chapter 1.

_A. Thiers, The Mississippi Bubble._

W. C. Taylor, Memoirs of the House of Orleans, volume 2, chapter 2.

C. Gayarre, History of Louisiana, second series, lecture 1.

Duke de Saint-Simon, Memoirs: abridged translation by St. John, volume 3, chapter 25, and volume 4, chapters 4, and 13-15.

FRANCE: A. D. 1720. The fortifying of Louisbourg.

See CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1720-1745.

FRANCE: A. D. 1723-1774. Character and reign of Louis XV. The King's mistresses and their courtiers who conducted the government. State and feeling of the nation.

After the death of the Duke of Orleans, "a short period of about two years and a-half comprehends the administration of the Duke of Bourbon, or rather of his mistress, la Marquise de Prie. Fleury [Cardinal] then appears on the stage, and dies in 1743. He was, therefore, minister of France for seventeen years. On his death, the king (Louis XV.) undertook to be his own prime minister; an unpromising experiment for a country at any time. In this instance the result was only that the king's mistress, Madame de Chateauroux, became the ruler of France, and soon after Madame de Pompadour, another mistress, whose reign was prolonged from 1745 to 1768. Different courtiers and prelates were seen to hold the first offices of the state during this apparent premiership of the monarch. The ladies seem to have chosen or tolerated Cardinal Tençin, Argençon, Orsy, Mauripaux, and Amelot, who, with the Dukes Noailles and Richelieu, succeeded to Fleury. Afterwards, we have Argençon and Machault, and then come the most celebrated of the ministers or favourites of Madame de Pompadour, the Abbé de Bemis and the Duc de Choiseul. The last is the most distinguished minister after Fleury. He continued in favour from 1758, not only to 1763, when Madame de Pompadour died, but for a few years after. He was at length disgraced by la Comtesse Dubarri, who had become the king's mistress soon after the death of Madame de Pompadour, and remained so, nearly to the death of the monarch himself, in 1774."

W. Smyth, Lectures on the History of the French Revolution, lecture 3.

"The regency of the Duke of Orleans lasted only eight years, but it was not without a considerable effect upon the destinies of the country. It was a break in the political and the religious traditions of the reign of Louis XIV. The new activity imparted to business during this period was an event of equal importance. Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose that constantly increasing misery at last excited revolt against the government and the institutions of the old regime. The Revolution in France at the close of the eighteenth century was possible, not because the condition of the people had grown worse, but because it had become better. The material development of that country, during the fifty years that preceded the convocation of the States General, had no parallel in its past history. Neither the weight of taxation, nor the extravagance of the court, nor the bankruptcy of the government, checked an increase in wealth that made France in 1789 seem like a different land from France in 1715. The lot of large classes was still miserable, the burden of taxation upon a large part of the population was still grievous, there were sections where Arthur Young could truly say that he found only poverty and privileges, but the country as a whole was more prosperous than Germany or Spain; it was far more prosperous than it had been under Louis XIV. … {1249} Such an improvement in material conditions necessitated both social and political changes. … But while social conditions had altered, political institutions remained unchanged. New wine had been poured in, but the old bottles were still used. Tailles and corvées were no more severe in the eighteenth than in the fifteenth century, but they were more odious. A feudal privilege, which had then been accepted as a part of the law of nature, was now regarded as contrary to nature. … A demand for social equality, for the abolition of privileges and immunities by which any class profited at the expense of others, was fostered by economical changes. It received an additional impetus from the writings of theorists, philosophers, and political reformers. The influence of literature in France during the eighteenth century was important, yet it is possible to overestimate it. The seed of political and social change was shown by the writers of the period, but the soil was already prepared to receive it. … The course of events, the conduct of their rulers, prepared the minds of the French people for political change, and accounted for the influence which literature acquired. The doctrines of philosophers found easy access to the hearts of a people with whom reverence for royalty and a tranquil acceptance of an established government had been succeeded by contempt for the king and hatred for the regime under which they lived. We can trace this change of sentiment during the reign of Louis XV. The popular affection which encircled his cradle accompanied him when he had grown to be a man. … Few events are more noticeable in the history of the age than the extraordinary expressions of grief and affection that were excited by the illness of Louis XV. in 1744. … A preacher hailed him as Louis the well beloved, and all the nation adopted the title. 'What have I done to be so loved?' the king himself asked. Certainly he had done nothing, but the explanation was correctly given. 'Louis XV. is dear to his people, without having done anything for them, because the French are, of all nations, most inclined to love their king.' This affection, the result of centuries of fidelity and zeal for monarchical institutions, and for the sovereigns by whom they were personified, was wholly destroyed by Louis's subsequent career. The vices to which he became addicted were those which arouse feelings not only of reprehension, but of loathing. They excited both aversion and contempt. The administration of the country was as despicable as the character of the sovereign. Under Louis XIV. there had been suffering and there had been disaster, but France had always preserved a commanding position in Europe. … But now defeat and dishonor were the fate of a people alike powerful and proud. … The low profligacy into which the king had sunk, the nullity of his character, the turpitude of his mistress, the weakness of his administration, the failure of all his plans, went far toward destroying the feelings of loyalty that had so long existed in the hearts of the French people. Some curious figures mark the decline in the estimation in which the king was held. In 1744, six thousand masses were said at Nôtre Dame for the restoration of Louis XV. to health; in 1757, after the attempted assassination by Damiens, there were six hundred; when the king actually lay dying, in 1774, there were only three. The fall from six thousand to three measures the decline in the affection and respect of the French people for their sovereign. It was with a public whose sentiments had thus altered that the new philosophy found acceptance."

J. B. Perkins, France under the Regency, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: F. Rocquain, The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution, chapters 2-8.

_J. Murray, French Finance and Financiers under Louis XV._

FRANCE: A. D. 1725. The alliance of Hanover.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

FRANCE: A. D. 1727-1731. Ineffectual congress at Soissons. The Treaty of Seville, with Spain and England. The Second Treaty of Vienna.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

FRANCE: A. D. 1733. The First Family Compact of the Bourbons (France and Spain).

"The two lines of the house of Bourbon [in France and in Spain] once more became in the highest degree prominent. … As early as November 1733 a Family Compact (the first of the series) was concluded between them, in which they contemplated the possibility of a war against England, but without waiting for it entered into an agreement against the maritime supremacy of that power. … The commercial privileges granted to the English in the Peace of Utrecht seemed to both courts to be intolerable."

L. von Ranke, History of England, book 22, chapter 4 (volume 5).

"It is hardly too much to say that the Family Compact of 1733, though even yet not generally known to exist, is the most important document of the middle period of the 18th century and the most indispensable to history. If that period seems to us confused, if we lose ourselves in the medley of its wars—war of the Polish election, war of Jenkins's ears, war of the Austrian succession, colonial war of 1756—the simple reason is that we do not know this treaty, which furnishes the clue. From it we may learn that in this period, as in that of Louis XIV. and in that of Napoleon, Europe struggled against the ambitious and deliberately laid design of an ascendant power, with this difference, that those aggressors were manifest to all the world and their aims not difficult to understand, whereas this aggression proceeded by ambuscade, and, being the aggression not of a single state but of an alliance, and a secret alliance, did not become clearly manifest to Europe even when it had to a considerable extent attained its objects. … The first two articles define the nature of the alliance, that it involves a mutual guarantee of all possessions, and has for its object, first, the honour, glory, and interests of both powers, and, secondly, their defence against all damage, vexation, and prejudice that may threaten them." The first declared object of the Compact is to secure the position of Don Carlos, the Infant of Spain, afterwards Charles III., in Italy, and "to obtain for him the succession in Tuscany, protecting him against any attack that may be attempted by the Emperor or by England. Next, France undertakes to 'aid Spain with all her forces by land or sea, if Spain should suspend England's enjoyment of commerce and her other advantages, and England out of revenge should resort to hostilities and insults in the dominions and states of the crown of Spain, whether within or outside of Europe.'" {1250} Further articles provide for the making of efforts to induce Great Britain to restore Gibraltar to Spain; set forth "that the foreign policy of both states is to be guided exclusively by the interests of the house"; denounce the Austrian Pragmatic as "opposed to the security of the house of Bourbon." "The King of France engages to send 32,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry into Italy, and to maintain other armies on his other frontiers; also to have a squadron ready at Toulon, either to join the Spanish fleet or to act separately, and another squadron at Brest, 'to keep the English in fear and jealousy'; also, in case of war with England breaking out, to commission the largest possible number of privateers. Spain also promises a fixed number of troops. The 11th and 12th articles lay the foundation of a close commercial alliance to be formed between France and Spain. Article 13 runs as follows:—'His Catholic majesty, recognising all the abuses which have been introduced into commerce, chiefly by the British nation, in the eradication of which the French and Spanish nations are equally interested, has determined to bring everything back within rule and into agreement with the letter of treaties'"—to which end the two kings make common cause. "Finally the 14th article provides that the present treaty shall remain profoundly secret as long as the contracting parties shall judge it agreeable to their interests, and shall be regarded from this day as an eternal and irrevocable Family Compact. … Here is the explanation of the war which furnished the immediate occasion of the first Compact, a war most misleadingly named from the Polish election which afforded an ostensible pretext for it, and deserving better to be called the Bourbon invasion of Italy. Here too is sketched out the course which was afterwards taken by the Bourbon courts in the matter of the Pragmatic Sanction. Thirdly, here most manifestly is the explanation of that war of Jenkins's ears, which we have a habit of representing as forced upon Spain by English commercial cupidity, but which appears here as deliberately planned in concert by the Bourbon courts in order to eradicate the 'abuses which have been allowed to creep into trade.'"

_J. R. Seeley, The House of Bourbon (English History Review, January, 1886)._

ALSO IN: J. McCarthy, History of the Four Georges, chapter 22 (volume 2).

FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735. War with Austria, in Germany and Italy. Final acquisition of Lorraine. Naples and Sicily transferred to Spain.

In the war with Austria which was brought about by the question of the Polish succession (see POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733), the French "struck at the Rhine and at Italy, while the other powers looked on unmoved; Spain watching her moment, at which she might safely interfere for her own interests in Italy. The army of the Rhine, which reached Strasburg in autumn 1733, was commanded by Marshal Berwick, who had been called away from eight years of happy and charming leisure at Fitz-James. With him served for the first time in the French army their one great general of the coming age, and he too a foreigner, Maurice, son of Augustus II. of Poland and the lovely Countess of Königsmark. … He is best known to us as Marshal Saxe. It was too late to accomplish much in 1733, and the French had to content themselves with the capture of Kehl: in the winter the Imperialists constructed strong lines at Ettlingen, a little place not far from Carlsruhe, between Kehl, which the French held, and Philipsburg, at which they were aiming. In the spring of 1734 French preparations were slow and feeble: a new power had sprung up at Paris in the person of Belle-Isle, Fouquet's grandson, who had much of the persuasive ambition of his grandfather. He was full of schemes, and induced the aged Fleury to believe him to be the coming genius of French generalship; the careful views of Marshal Berwick suited ill his soaring spirit; he wanted to march headlong into Saxony and Bohemia. Berwick would not allow so reckless a scheme to be adopted; still Belle-Isle, as lieutenant-general with an almost independent command, was sent to besiege Trarbach on the Moselle, an operation which delayed the French advance on the Rhine. At last, however, Berwick moved forwards. By skilful arrangements he neutralised the Ettlingen lines, and without a battle forced the Germans to abandon them. Their army withdrew to Heilbronn, where it was joined by Prince Eugene. Berwick, freed from their immediate presence, and having a great preponderance in force, at once sat down before Philipsburg. There, on the 12th of June, as he visited the trenches, he was struck by a ball and fell dead. So passed away the last but one of the great generals of Louis XIV.: France never again saw his like till the genius of the Revolution evoked a new race of heroes. It was thought at first that Berwick's death, like Turenne's, would end the campaign, and that the French army must get back across the Rhine. The position seemed critical, Philipsburg in front, and Prince Eugene watching without. The Princes of the Empire, however, had not put out any strength in this war, regarding it chiefly as an Austrian affair; and the Marquis d'Asfeld, who took the command of the French forces, was able to hold on, and in July to reduce the great fortress of Philipsburg. Therewith the campaign of the Rhine closed. In Italy things had been carried on with more vigour and variety. The veteran Villars, now 81 years old, was in command, under Charles-Emmanuel, King of Sardinia. … Villars found it quite easy to occupy all the Milanese: farther he could not go; for Charles-Emmanuel, after the manner of his family, at once began to deal behind his back with the Imperialists and the campaign dragged. The old Marshal, little brooking interference and delay, for he still was full of fire, threw up his command, and started for France: on the way he was seized with illness at Turin, and died there five days after Berwick had been killed at Philipsburg. With them the long series of the generals of Louis XIV. comes to an end. Coigny and the Duke de Broglie succeeded to the command. Not far from Parma they fought a murderous battle with the Austrians, hotly contested, and a Cadmean victory for the French: it arrested their forward movement, and two months were spent in enforced idleness. In September 1734 the Imperialists inflicted a heavy check on the French at the Secchia; afterwards however emboldened by this success, they fought a pitched battle at Guastalla, in which, after a fierce struggle, the French remained masters of the field. Their losses, the advanced time of the year, and the uncertainty as to the King of Sardinia's movements and intentions, rendered the rest of the campaign unimportant. {1251} As however the Imperialists, in order to make head against the French in the valley of the Po, had drawn all their available force out of the Neapolitan territory, the Spaniards were able to slip in behind them, and to secure that great prize. Don Carlos landed at Naples and was received with transports of joy: the Austrians were defeated at Bitonto; the Spaniards then crossed into Sicily, which also welcomed them gladly; the two kingdoms passed willingly under the rule of the Spaniards. In 1735 Austria made advances in the direction of peace; for the French had stirred up their old friend the Turk, who, in order to save Poland, proposed to invade Hungary. Fleury, no lover of war, and aware that England's neutrality could not last forever, was not unwilling to treat: a Congress at Vienna followed, and before the end of 1735 peace again reigned in Europe. The terms of the Treaty of Vienna (3 October 1735) were very favourable to France. Austria ceded Naples and Sicily, Elba, and the States degli Presidii to Spain, to be erected into a separate kingdom for Don Carlos: France obtained Lorraine and Bar, which were given to Stanislaus Leczinski on condition that he should renounce all claim to the Polish Crown; they were to be governed by him under French administration: Francis Stephen the former Duke obtained, as an indemnity, the reversion of Tuscany, which fell to him in the following year. Parma and Piacenza returned to the Emperor, who also obtained from France a guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction. Thus France at last got firm hold of the much-desired Lorraine country, though it was not absolutely united to her till the death of Stanislaus in 1766."

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 6, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 52 (volume 6).

FRANCE: A. D. 1738-1740. The Question of the Austrian Succession. Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.

FRANCE: A. D. 1740-1741. Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession. Seizure of Silesia by Frederick the Great. French responsibility for the war.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741; and 1741 (APRIL-MAY), (MAY-JUNE).

FRANCE: A. D. 1741-1743. The War of the Austrian Succession in Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743; and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741, to 1743.

FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (October). The Second Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.

"France and Spain signed a secret treaty of perpetual alliance at Fontainebleau, October 25th, 1743. The treaty is remarkable as the precursor of the celebrated Family Compact between the French and Spanish Bourbons. The Spaniards, indeed, call it the Second Family Compact, the first being the Treaty of November 7th, 1733, of which, with regard to colonial affairs, it was a renewal. But this treaty had a more special reference to Italy. Louis XV. engaged to declare war against Sardinia, and to aid Spain in conquering the Milanese. Philip V. transferred his claims to that duchy to his son, the Infant Don Philip, who was also to be put in possession of Parma and Piacenza. All the possessions ceded by France to the King of Sardinia, by the Treaty of Utrecht, were to be again wrested from him. A public alliance was to be formed, to which the Emperor Charles VII. was to accede; whose states, and even something more, were to be recovered for him. Under certain circumstances war was to be declared against England; in which case France was to assist in the recovery of Gibraltar, and also, if possible, of Minorca. The new colony of Georgia was to be destroyed, the Asiento withdrawn from England, &c."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1743-1752. Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India.

See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.

FRANCE: A. D. 1744-1745. The War of the Austrian Succession in America.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744, and 1745.

A. D. 1741-1747. War of the Austrian Succession in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.

See ITALY: A. D. 1744, to 1746-1747; AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744; and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1745, and 1746-1747.

FRANCE: A. D. 1748 (October). Termination and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748; and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.

FRANCE: A. D. 1748-1754. Active measures in America to fortify possession of the Ohio valley and the West.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

FRANCE: A. D. 1749-1755. Unsettled boundary disputes in America. Preludes of the last contest with England for dominion in the New World.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

FRANCE: A. D. 1755. Causes and provocations of the Seven Years War.

See GERMANY: A.D. 1755-1756; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755.

FRANCE: A. D. 1755. Naval reverse on the Newfoundland coast.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).

FRANCE: A. D. 1755-1762. The Seven Years War: Campaigns in America.

See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, and 1755; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, and 1755; CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

FRANCE: A. D. 1756 (May). The Seven Years War: Minorca wrested from England.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.

FRANCE: A. D. 1757-1762. The Seven Years War: Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER), to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST); 1760; and 1761-1762.

FRANCE: A. D. 1758-1761. The Seven Years War: Loss of footing and influence in India. Count Lally's failure.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

FRANCE: A. D. 1760. The Seven Years War: The surrender of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760.

FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (August). The Third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.

"On the 15th of August [1761] … Grimaldi [Spanish ambassador at the French court] and Choiseul [the ruling minister, at the time, in France] signed the celebrated Family Compact. By this treaty the Kings of France and Spain agreed for the future to consider every Power as their enemy which might become the enemy of either, and to guarantee the respective dominions in all parts of the world which they might possess at the next conclusion of peace. Mutual succours by sea and land were stipulated, and no proposal of peace to their common enemies was to be made, nor negotiation entered upon, unless by common consent. The subjects of each residing in the European dominions of the other were to enjoy the same commercial privileges as the natives. {1252} Moreover, the King of Spain stipulated the accession of his son, the King of Naples, to this alliance; but it was agreed that no prince or potentate, except of the House of Bourbon, should ever be admitted to its participation. Besides this treaty, which in its words at least applied only to future and contingent wars, and which was intended to be ultimately published, there was also signed on the same day a special and secret convention. This imported, that in case England and France should still be engaged in hostilities on the 1st of May 1762 Spain should on that day declare war against England, and that France should at the same period restore Minorca to Spain. … Not only the terms but the existence of a Family Compact were for some time kept scrupulously secret. Mr. Stanley, however, gleaned some information from the scattered hints of the Duke de Choiseul, and these were confirmed to Pitt from several other quarters." As the result of the Family Compact, England declared war against Spain on the 4th of January, 1762. Pitt had gone out of office in October because his colleagues and the King would not then consent to a declaration of war against the Spanish Bourbons.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763.

The force of circumstances soon brought them to the measure.

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 37 (volume 4).

FRANCE: A. D. 1761-1764. Proceedings against the Jesuits. Their expulsion from the kingdom.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.

FRANCE: A. D. 1763. The end and results of the Seven Years War. The Peace of Paris. America lost, nothing gained.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: A. D. 1763.

FRANCE: A. D. 1763. Rights in the North American fisheries secured by the Treaty of Paris.

See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1763.

FRANCE: A. D. 1768. Acquisition of Corsica.

See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.

FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788. The Court and Government of Louis XV!., his inheritance of troubles, his vacillations, his helpless ministers. Turgot, Necker, Calonne, Brienne. Blind selfishness of the privileged orders. The Assembly of Notables. The Parliament of Paris.

"Louis XVI., an equitable prince, moderate in his propensities, carelessly educated, but naturally of a good disposition, ascended the throne [May 11, 1774] at a very early age. He called to his side an old courtier, and consigned to him the care of his kingdom; and divided his confidence between Maurepas and the Queen, an Austrian princess [Marie Antoinette], young, lively, and amiable, who possessed a complete ascendency over him. Maurepas and the Queen were not good friends. The King, sometimes giving way to his minister, at others to his consort, began at an early period the long career of his vacillations. … The public voice, which was loudly expressed, called for Turgot, one of the class of economists, an honest, virtuous man, endowed with firmness of character, a slow genius, but obstinate and profound. Convinced of his probity, delighted with his plans of reform, Louis XVI. frequently repeated: 'There are none besides myself and Turgot who are friends of the people.' Turgot's reforms were thwarted by the opposition of the highest orders in the state, who were interested in maintaining all kinds of abuses, which the austere minister proposed to suppress. Louis XVI. dismissed him [1776] with regret. During his whole life, which was only a long martyrdom, he had the mortification to discern what was right, to wish it sincerely, but to lack the energy requisite for carrying it into execution. The King, placed between the court, the parliaments, and the people, exposed to intrigues and to suggestions of all sorts, repeatedly changed his ministers. Yielding once more to the public voice, and to the necessity for reform, he summoned to the finance department Necker, a native of Geneva, who had amassed wealth as a banker, a partisan and disciple of Colbert, as Turgot was of Sully; an economical and upright financier, but a vain man, fond of setting himself up for arbitrator in everything. … Necker re-established order in the finances, and found means to defray the heavy expenses of the American war. … But it required something more than financial artifices to put an end to the embarrassments of the exchequer, and he had recourse to reform. He found the higher orders not less adverse to him than they had been to Turgot; the parliaments, apprised of his plans, combined against him, and obliged him to retire [1781]. The conviction of the existence of abuses was universal; everybody admitted it. … The courtiers, who derived advantage from these abuses, would have been glad to see an end put to the embarrassments of the exchequer, but without its costing them a single sacrifice. … The parliaments also talked of the interests of the people, loudly insisted on the sufferings of the poor, and yet opposed the equalization of the taxes, as well as the abolition of the remains of feudal barbarism. All talked of the public weal, few desired it; and the people, not yet knowing who were its true friends, applauded all those who resisted power, its most obvious enemy. By the removal of Turgot and Necker, the state of affairs was not changed: the distress of the treasury remained the same. … An intrigue brought forward M. de Calonne [in 1783, after brief careers in office of M. de Fleury and M. d'Ormesson]. … Calonne, clever, brilliant, fertile in resources, relied upon his genius, upon fortune, and upon men, and awaited the future with the most extraordinary apathy. … That future which had been counted upon now approached: it became necessary at length to adopt decisive measures. It was impossible to burden the people with fresh imposts, and yet the coffers were empty. There was but one remedy which could be applied; that was to reduce the expenses by the suppression of grants; and if this expedient should not suffice, to extend the taxes to a greater number of contributors, that is, to the nobility and clergy. These plans, attempted successively by Turgot and Necker, and resumed by Calonne, appeared to the latter not at all likely to succeed, unless the consent of the privileged classes themselves could be obtained. Calonne, therefore, proposed to collect them together in an assembly, to be called the Assembly of the Notables, in order to lay his plans before them, and to gain their consent either by address or by conviction. The assembly [which met February 22, 1787] was composed of distinguished members of the nobility, clergy, and magistracy, of a great number of masters of requests and some magistrates of the provinces. … Very warm discussions ensued." The Notables at length "promised to sanction the plans of Calonne, but on condition that a minister more moral and more deserving of confidence should be appointed to carry them into execution." {1253} Calonne, consequently, was dismissed, and replaced by M. de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse. "The Notables, bound by the promises which they had made, readily consented to all that they had at first refused: land-tax, stamp-duty, suppression of the gratuitous services of vassals ('corvées'), provincial assemblies, were all cheerfully granted. … Had M. de Brienne known how to profit by the advantages of his position; had he actively proceeded with the execution of the measures assented to by the Notables; had he submitted them all at once and without delay to the parliament, at the instant when the adhesion of the higher orders seemed to be wrung from them—all would probably have been over; the parliament, pressed on all sides, would have consented to everything. … Nothing of the kind, however, was done. By imprudent delays occasion was furnished for relapses; the edicts were submitted only one after another; the parliament had time to discuss, to gain courage, and to recover from the sort of surprise by which the Notables had been taken. It registered, after long discussions, the edict enacting the second abolition of the 'corvées,' and another permitting the free exportation of corn. Its animosity was particularly directed against the land-tax; but it feared lest by a refusal it should enlighten the public, and show that its opposition was entirely selfish. It hesitated, when it was spared this embarrassment by the simultaneous presentation of the edict on the stamp-duty and the land-tax, and especially by opening the deliberations with the former. The parliament had thus an opportunity of refusing the first without entering into explanations respecting the second; and, in attacking the stamp-duty, which affected the majority of the payers of taxes, it seemed to defend the interest of the public. At a sitting which was attended by the peers, it denounced the abuses, the profligacy, and the prodigality of the court, and demanded statements of expenditure. A councillor, punning upon the 'états' (statements) exclaimed … —'It is not statements, but States-General that we want.' … The utterance of a single word presented an unexpected direction to the public mind: it was repeated by every mouth, and States-General were loudly demanded."

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 1, pages 17-21._

"There is no doubt that the French administrative body, at the time when Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and self-seeking. In the management of the finances and of the army, illegitimate profits were made. But this was not the worst evil from which the public service was suffering. France was in fact governed by what in modern times is called 'a ring.' The members of such an organization pretend to serve the sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do so; but their rewards are determined by intrigue and favor, and are entirely disproportionate to their services. They generally prefer jobbery to direct stealing, and will spend a million of the state's money in a needless undertaking, in order to divert a few thousands into their own pockets. They hold together against all the world, while trying to circumvent each other. Such a ring in old France was the court. By such a ring will every country be governed, where the sovereign who possesses the political power is weak in moral character or careless of the public interest; whether that sovereign be a monarch, a chamber, or the mass of the people. Louis XVI., king of France and of Navarre, was more dull than stupid, and weaker in will than in intellect. … He was … thoroughly conscientious, and had a high sense of the responsibility of his great calling. He was not indolent, although heavy, and his courage, which was sorely tested, was never broken. With these virtues he might have made a good king, had he possessed firmness of will enough to support a good minister, or to adhere to a good policy. But such strength had not been given him. Totally incapable of standing by himself, he leant successively, or simultaneously, on his aunt, his wife, his ministers, his courtiers, as ready to change his policy as his adviser. Yet it was part of his weakness to be unwilling to believe himself under the guidance of any particular person; he set a high value on his own authority, and was inordinately jealous of it. No one, therefore, could acquire a permanent influence. Thus a well-meaning man became the worst of sovereigns. … Louis XV. had been led by his mistresses; Louis XVI. was turned about by the last person who happened to speak to him. The courtiers, in their turn, were swayed by their feelings, or their interests. They formed parties and combinations, and intrigued for or against each other. They made bargains, they gave and took bribes. In all these intrigues, bribes, and bargains, the court ladies had a great share. They were as corrupt as the men, and as frivolous. It is probable that in no government did women ever exercise so great an influence. The factions into which the court was divided tended to group themselves round certain rich and influential families. Such were the Noailles, an ambitious and powerful house, with which Lafayette was connected by marriage; the Broglies, one of whom had held the thread of the secret diplomacy which Louis XV. had carried on behind the backs of his acknowledged ministers; the Polignacs, new people, creatures of Queen Marie Antoinette; the Rohans, through the influence of whose great name an unworthy member of the family was to rise to high dignity in the church and the state, and then to cast a deep shadow on the darkening popularity of that ill-starred princess. Such families as these formed an upper class among nobles. … It is not easy, in looking at the French government in the eighteenth century, to decide where the working administration ended, and where the useless court that answered no real purpose began. … There was the department of hunting and that of buildings, a separate one for royal journeys, one for the guard, another for police, yet another for ceremonies. There were five hundred officers 'of the mouth,' table-bearers distinct from chair-bearers. There were tradesmen, from apothecaries and armorers at one end of the list to saddle-makers, tailors and violinists at the other. … The military and civil households of the king and of the royal family are said to have consisted of about fifteen thousand souls, and to have cost forty-five million francs per annum. The holders of many of the places served but three months apiece out of every year, so that four officers and four salaries were required, instead of one. With such a system as this we cannot wonder that the men who administered the French government were generally incapable and self-seeking. Most of them were politicians rather than administrators, and cared more for their places than for their country. Of the few conscientious and patriotic men who obtained power, the greater number lost it very speedily."

E. J. Lowell, The Eve of the French Revolution, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: F. Rocquain, The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution, chapters 9-11.

Mme. de Stael, Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution, chapters 3-10 (volume 1).

J. Necker, On the French Revolution, part. 1, section 1 (volume 1).

Condorcet, Life of Turgot, chapters 5-6.

L. Say, Turgot, chapters 5-7.

C. D. Yonge, Life of Marie Antoinette, chapters 8-21.

{1254}

FRANCE: A. D. 1778 (February). Treaty with the United States of America.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778, and 1778 (FEBRUARY).

FRANCE: A. D. 1780 (July). Fresh aid to the United States of America.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (July).

FRANCE: A. D. 1782. Disastrous naval defeat by Rodney. Unsuccessful siege of Gibraltar.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.

FRANCE: A. D. 1782. The negotiation of Peace between Great Britain and the United States of America. Dissatisfaction of the French minister.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (SEPTEMBER), and (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

FRANCE: A. D. 1784-1785. The affair of the Diamond Necklace.

The chief actor in the affair of the diamond necklace, which caused a great scandal and smirched the queen's name, was an adventuress who called herself the Comtesse de Lamotte, and claimed descent from Henry II., but who had been half servant, half companion, to a lady of quality, and had picked up a useful acquaintance with the manners and the gossip of court society. "Madame de Lamotte's original patroness had a visiting acquaintance with the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan, and in her company her protégée learned to know him also. Prince Louis, who had helped to receive Marie Antoinette at Strasburg, had been the French ambassador at Vienna, where he had disgusted and incensed Maria Theresa by his worldliness, profligacy, and arrogance. She had at last procured his withdrawal, and her letters expressing a positive terror lest he should come near Marie Antoinette and acquire an influence over her, were not without their effect. He was not allowed to appear at Court, and for ten long years fretted and fumed under a sense of the royal displeasure. … He was now a man bordering on fifty, grey-headed, rosy, 'pursy,' with nothing save his blue blood and the great offices which he disgraced to recommend him. Madame de Lamotte, hovering about Paris and Versailles, where she had lodgings in La Belle Inage, tried to make her own of backstairs gossip, and picked up a hint or two. Suddenly a great idea struck her, founded on the history of a magnificent necklace dangled before bright eyes, over which many an excitable imagination gloated. The Queen had a court jeweller, Bœhmer, who had formerly been jeweller to the King of Saxony at Dresden. … For a period of years he had been collecting and assorting the stones which should form an incomparable necklace, in row upon row, pendants and tassels of lustrous diamonds, till the price reached the royal pitch of from eighty to ninety thousand pounds English money. This costly 'collar,' according to rumour, was … meant, in the beginning, for the Comtesse du Barry. In the end, it … was offered with confidence to the Queen. … She declined to buy—she had enough diamonds. … There was nothing for it but that Bœhmer should 'hawk' his necklace in every Court of Europe, without success, till the German declared himself ruined, and passionately protested that, if the Queen would not buy the diamonds, there was no resource for him save to throw himself into the Seine. But there was a resource, unhappily for Bœhmer, unhappily for all concerned, most so for the poor Queen. Madame de Lamotte, in keeping up her acquaintance with Prince Louis de Rohan, began to hint darkly that there might be ways of winning the royal favour. She threw out cunning words about the degree of importance and trust to which she had attained in the highest quarters at Versailles; about the emptiness of the Queen's exchequer, with consequent difficulties in the discharge of her charities; about the secret royal desire for the famous necklace, which the King would not enable Marie Antoinette to obtain. The blinded and besotted Cardinal drank in these insinuations. The black art was called in to deepen his convictions. In an age when many men, especially many churchmen, believed in nothing, in spite of their professions, naturally they were given over to believe a lie. Cagliostro, astrologer and modern magician, was flourishing in Paris, and by circles and signs he promised the priest, De Rohan, progress in the only suit he had at heart. Still the dupe was not so infatuated as to require no proof of the validity of these momentous implications, and proof was not wanting; notes were handed to him, to be afterwards shown to Bœhmer, graciously acknowledging his devotion, and authorising him to buy for the Queen the diamond necklace. These notes were apparently written in the Queen's hand (that school-girl's scrawl of which Maria Theresa was wont to complain); but they were signed 'Marie Antoinette de France,' a signature which so great a man as the Cardinal ought to have known was never employed by the Queen, for the very good reason that the termination 'de France' belonged to the children and not to the wife of the sovereign. Even a further assurance that all was right was granted. The Cardinal, trembling in a fever of hope and expectation, was told that a private interview with the Queen would be vouchsafed to him at midnight in the Park of Versailles. At the appointed hour, on the night of the 28th of July, 1784, De Rohan, in a blue greatcoat and slouched hat, was stationed, amidst shrouding, sultry darkness, in the neighbourhood of the palace. Madame de Lamotte, in a black domino, hovered near to give the signal of the Queen's approach. The whisper was given, 'In the Hornbeam Arbour,' and the Cardinal hurried to the spot, where he could dimly descry a tall lady in white, with chestnut hair, blue eyes, and a commanding air, if he could really have seen all these well-known attributes. He knelt, but before he could do more than mutter a word of homage and gratitude, the black domino was at his side again with another vehement whisper, 'On vient' (They come). {1255} The lady in white dropped a rose, with the significant words, 'Vous savez ce que cela veut dire' (You know what that means), and vanished before the 'Vite, vite' ('Quick, quick ') of the black domino, for the sound of approaching footsteps was supposed to indicate the approach of Madame and the Comtesse d'Artois, and the Cardinal, in his turn, had to flee from detection. What more could be required to convince a man of the good faith of the lady. … Bœhmer received a hint that he might sell his necklace, through the Prince Cardinal Louis de Rohan, to one of the great ones of the earth, who was to remain in obscurity. The jeweller drew out his terms—sixteen hundred thousand livres, to be paid in five equal instalments over a year and a-half—to which he and Prince Louis affixed their signatures. This paper Madame de Lamotte carried to Versailles, and brought it back with the words written on the margin, 'Bon Marie Antoinette de France.' In the meantime, Bœhmer, the better to keep the secret, gave out that he had sold the necklace to the Grand Turk for his favourite Sultana. The necklace was, in fact, delivered to Prince Louis and by him entrusted to Madame Lamotte, from whose hands it passed —not into the Queen's. Having been taken to pieces, it was sent in all haste out of the kingdom, while the Cardinal, according to his own account, was still played with. … It goes without saying that no payment, except a small offer of interest on the thirty thousand, was forthcoming. The Cardinal and Bœhmer were betrayed into wrath, dismay, and despair. Bœhmer took it upon him to apply, in respectful terms, to her Majesty for payment; and when she said the whole thing was a mistake, the man must be mad, and caused her words to be written to him, he sought an interview with Madame Campan, the first woman of the bedchamber, at her house at Crespy, where he had been dining, and in the gardens there, in the middle of a thunder-shower, astounded her with his version of the story. … The Cardinal was taken to the Bastille. More arrests followed, including those of Madame de Lamotte, staying quietly in her house at Bar-sur-Aube, and the girl Gay d'Oliva, an unhappy girl, tall and fair haired, taken from the streets of Paris, and brought to the park of Versailles to personate the Queen. It was said the Queen wept passionately over the scandal—well she might. The court in which the case was tried might prove the forgery, as in fact it did, though not in the way she expected; but every Court in Europe would ring with the story, and she had made deadly enemies, if not of the Church itself, of the great houses of De Rohan, De Soubise, De Guéménée, De Marsan, and their multitude of allies. The process lasted nine months, and every exertion was made for the deliverance of the princely culprit. … The result of the trial was that, though the Queen's signature was declared false, Madame de Lamotte was sentenced to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned for life, her husband was condemned to the galleys, and a man called Villette de Retaux, who was the actual fabricator of the Queen's handwriting, was sentenced to be banished for life. The Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan was fully acquitted, with permission to publish what defence he chose to write of his conduct. When he left the court, he was escorted by great crowds, hurrahing over his acquittal, because it was supposed to cover the Court with mortification."

Sarah Tytler, Marie Antoinette, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: _T. Carlyle, The Diamond Necklace (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 5)._

_H. Vizetelly, The Story of the Diamond Necklace._

FRANCE: A. D. 1787-1789. Struggle of the Crown with the Parliament of Paris. The demand for a meeting of the States-General yielded to. Double representation of the Third Estate conceded. The make-up of the States-General as elected by the three Estates.

Banished to Troyes (August, 1787), in consequence of its refusal to register two edicts relating to the stamp-duty and the land-tax, the Parliament of Paris "grew weary of exile, and the minister recalled it on condition that the two edicts should be passed. But this was only a suspension of hostilities; the necessities of the crown soon rendered the struggle more obstinate and violent. The minister had to make fresh applications for money; his existence depended on the issue of several successive loans to the amount of 440,000,000. It was necessary to obtain the enrolment of them. Brienne, expecting opposition from the parliament, procured the enrolment of this edict, by a 'bed of justice,' and to conciliate the magistracy and public opinion, the protestants were restored to their rights in the same sitting, and Louis XVI. promised an annual publication of the state of finances, and the convocation of the states-general before the end of five years. But these concessions were no longer sufficient: parliament refused the enrolment, and rose against the ministerial tyranny. Some of its members, among others the duke of Orleans, were banished. Parliament protested by a decree against 'lettres de cachet,' and required the recall of its members. This decree was annulled by the king, and confirmed by parliament. The warfare increased. The magistracy of Paris was supported by all the magistracy of France, and encouraged by public opinion. It proclaimed the rights of the nation, and its own incompetence in matters of taxation; and, become liberal from interest, and rendered generous by oppression, it exclaimed against arbitrary imprisonment, and demanded regularly convoked states-general. After this act of courage, it decreed the irremovability of its members, and the incompetence of any who might usurp their functions. This bold manifesto was followed by the arrest of two members, d'Eprémenil and Goislard, by the reform of the body, and the establishment of a plenary court. Brienne understood that the opposition of the parliament was systematic, that it would be renewed on every fresh demand for subsidies, or on the authorization of every loan. Exile was but a momentary remedy, which suspended opposition, without destroying it. He then projected the reduction of this body to judicial functions. … All the magistracy of France was exiled on the same day, in order that the new judicial organization might take place. The keeper of the seals deprived the Parliament of Paris of its political attributes, to invest with them a plenary court, ministerially composed, and reduced its judicial competence in favour of bailiwicks, the jurisdiction of which he extended. Public opinion was indignant; the Châtelet protested, the provinces rose, and the plenary court could neither be formed nor act. Disturbances broke out in Dauphiné, Brittany, Provence, Flanders, Languédoc, and Béarn; the ministry, instead of the regular opposition of parliament, had to encounter one much more animated and factious. {1256} The nobility, the third estate, the provincial states, and even the clergy, took part in it. Brienne, pressed for money, had called together an extraordinary assembly of the clergy, who immediately made an address to the king, demanding the abolition of his plenary court, and the recall of the states-general: they alone could thenceforth repair the disordered state of the finances, secure the national debt, and terminate these disputes for power. … Obtaining neither taxes nor loans, unable to make use of the plenary court, and not wishing to recall the parliaments, Brienne, as a last resource, promised the convocation of the states-general. By this means he hastened his ruin. … He succumbed on the 25th August, 1788. The cause of his fall was a suspension of the payment of the interest on the debt, which was the commencement of bankruptcy. This minister has been the most blamed because he came last. Inheriting the faults, the embarrassments of past times, he had to struggle with the difficulties of his position with inefficient means. He tried intrigue and oppression; he banished, suspended, disorganized parliament; everything was an obstacle to him, nothing aided him. After a long struggle, he sank under lassitude and weakness; I dare not say from incapacity, for had he been far stronger and more skilful, had he been a Richelieu or a Sully, he would still have fallen. It no longer appertained to anyone arbitrarily to raise money or to oppress the people. … The states-general had become the only means of government, and the last resource of the throne. They had been eagerly demanded by parliament and the peers of the kingdom, on the 13th of July, 1787; by the states of Dauphiné, in the assembly of Vizille; by the clergy in its assembly at Paris. The provincial states had prepared the public mind for them; and the notables were their precursors. The king after having, on the 18th of December, 1787, promised their convocation in five years, on the 8th of August, 1788, fixed the opening for the 1st of May, 1789. Necker was recalled, parliament re-established, the plenary court abolished, the bailiwicks destroyed, and the provinces satisfied; and the new minister prepared everything for the election of deputies and the holding of the states. At this epoch a great change took place in the opposition, which till then had been unanimous. Under Brienne, the ministry had encountered opposition from all the various bodies of the state, because it had sought to oppress them. Under Necker, it met with resistance from the same bodies, which desired power for themselves and oppression for the people. From being despotic, it had become national, and it still had them all equally against it. Parliament had maintained a struggle for authority, and not for the public welfare; and the nobility had united with the third estate, rather against the government than in favour of the people. Each of these bodies had demanded the states-general: the parliament, in the hope of ruling them as it had done in 1614; and the nobility, in the hope of regaining its lost influence. Accordingly, the magistracy proposed as a model for the states-general of 1789, the form of that of 1614, and public opinion abandoned it; the nobility refused its consent to the double representation of the third estate, and a division broke out between these two orders. This double representation was required by the intellect of the age, the necessity of reform, and by the importance which the third estate had acquired. It had already been admitted into the the provincial assemblies. … Opinion became daily more decided, and Necker wishing, yet fearing, to satisfy it, and desirous of conciliating all orders, of obtaining general approbation, convoked a second assembly of notables on the 6th of November, 1788, to deliberate on the composition of the states-general, and the election of its members. … Necker, having been unable to make the notables adopt the [double] representation of the third estate, caused it to be adopted by the council. The royal declaration of the 27th of November decreed, that the deputies in the states-general should amount to at least a thousand, and that the deputies of the third estate should be equal in number to the deputies of the nobility and clergy together. Necker moreover obtained the admission of the curés into the order of the clergy, and of protestants into that of the third estate. The district assemblies were convoked for the elections; every one exerted himself to secure the nomination of members of his own party, and to draw up manifestoes setting forth his views. Parliament had but little influence in the elections, and the court none at all. The nobility selected a few popular deputies, but for the most part devoted to the interests of their order, and as much opposed to the third estate as to the oligarchy of the great families of the court. The clergy nominated bishops and abbés attached to privilege, and cures favourable to the popular cause, which was their own; lastly, the third estate selected men enlightened, firm and unanimous in their wishes. The deputation of the nobility was comprised of 242 gentlemen, and 28 members of the parliament; that of the clergy, of 48 archbishops or bishops, 35 abbés or deans, and 208 curés; and that of the communes, of two ecclesiastics, 12 noblemen, 18 magistrates of towns, 200 county members, 212 barristers, 16 physicians, and 216 merchants and agriculturists. The opening of the states-general was fixed for the 5th of May, 1789."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, introd.

ALSO IN: W. Smyth, Lectures on the History of the French Revolution, lecture 6 (volume 1).

J. Necker, On the French Revolution, part 1, section 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1789. The condition of the people on the eve of the great Revolution. The sources and causes of its destructive fury.

"In 1789 three classes of persons, the Clergy, the Nobles, and the King occupied the most prominent position in the State, with all the advantages which it comports; namely, authority, property, honors, or, at the very least, privileges, immunities, favors, pensions, preferences, and the like. … The privileged classes number about 270,000 persons, comprising of the nobility 140,000 and of the clergy 130,000. This makes from 25,000 to 30,000 noble families; 23,000 monks in 2,500 monasteries, and 37,000 nuns in 1,500 convents, and 60,000 curates and vicars in as many churches and chapels. Should the reader desire a more distinct impression of them, he may imagine on each square league of territory, and to each thousand of inhabitants, one noble family in its weathercock mansion, in each village a curate and his church, and, every six or seven leagues, a conventual body of men or of women. … {1257} A fifth of the soil belongs to the crown and the communes, a fifth to the third estate, a fifth to the rural population, a fifth to the nobles and a fifth to the clergy. Accordingly, if we deduct the public lands, the privileged classes own one half of the kingdom. This large portion, moreover, is at the same time the richest, for it comprises almost all the large and handsome buildings, the palaces, castles, convents, and cathedrals, and almost all the valuable movable property. … Such is the total or partial exemption from taxation. The tax-collectors halt in their presence, because the king well knows that feudal property has the same origin as his own; if royalty is one privilege seigniory is another; the king himself is simply the most privileged among the privileged. … After the assaults of 450 years, taxation, the first of fiscal instrumentalities, the most burdensome of all, leaves feudal property almost intact. … The privileged person avoids or repels taxation, not merely because it despoils him, but because it belittles him; it is a mark of plebeian condition, that is to say, of former servitude, and he resists the fisc as much through pride as through interest. … La Bruyère wrote, just a century before 1789, 'Certain savage-looking beings, male and female, are seen in the country, black, livid and sunburnt, and belonging to the soil which they dig and grub with invincible stubbornness. They seem capable of articulation, and, when they stand erect they display human lineaments. They are, in fact, men. They retire at night into their dens, where they live on black bread, water and roots. They spare other human beings the trouble of sowing, ploughing and harvesting, and thus should not be in want of the bread they have planted.' They continue in want of it during 25 years after this, and die in herds. I estimate that in 1715 more than one-third of the population, six millions, perish with hunger and of destitution. The picture, accordingly, for the first quarter of the century preceding the Revolution, far from being overdrawn, is the reverse; we shall see that, during more than half a century, up to the death of Louis XV., it is exact; perhaps, instead of weakening any of its points, they should be strengthened. . . . Undoubtedly the government under Louis XVI. is milder; the intendants are more humane, the administration is less rigid, the 'taille' becomes less unequal, and the 'corvée' is less onerous through its transformation, in short, misery has diminished, and yet this is greater than human nature can bear. Examine administrative correspondence for the last thirty years preceding the Revolution. Countless statements reveal excessive suffering, even when not terminating in fury. Life to a man of the lower class, to an artisan, or workman, subsisting on the labor of his own hands, is evidently precarious; he obtains simply enough to keep him from starvation and he does not always get that. Here, in four districts, 'the inhabitants live only on buckwheat,' and for five years, the apple crop having failed, they drink only water. There, in a country of vineyards, 'the vine-dressers each year are reduced, for the most part, to begging their bread during the dull season.' … In a remote canton the peasants cut the grain still green and dry it in the oven, because they are too hungry to wait. … Between 1750 and 1760, the idlers who eat suppers begin to regard with compassion and alarm the laborers who go without dinners. Why are the latter so impoverished, and by what chance, on a soil as rich as that of France, do those lack bread who grow the grain? In the first place, many farms remain uncultivated, and, what is worse, many are deserted. According to the best observers 'one-quarter of the soil is absolutely lying waste. … Hundreds and hundreds of arpents of heath and moor form extensive deserts.' … This is not sterility but decadence. The régime invented by Louis XIV. has produced its effect; the soil for a century past is reverting back to a wild state. … In the second place, cultivation, when it does take place, is carried on according to mediæval modes. Arthur Young, in 1789, considers that French agriculture has not progressed beyond that of the 10th century. Except in Flanders and on the plains of Alsace, the fields lie fallow one year out of three and oftentimes one year out of two. The implements are poor; there are no ploughs made of iron; in many places the plough of Virgil's time is still in use. … Arthur Young shows that in France those who lived on field labor, and they constituted the great majority, are 76 per cent. less comfortable than the same laborers in England, while they are 76 per cent. less well fed and well clothed, besides being worse treated in sickness and in health. The result is that, in seven-eighths of the kingdom, there are no farmers but simply métayers. ['The poor people,' says Arthur Young, 'who cultivate the soil here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and seed, and he and his tenants divide the product.'] … Misery begets bitterness in a man; but ownership coupled with misery renders him still more bitter"; and, strange as it appears, the acquisition of land by the French peasants, in small holdings, went on steadily during the 18th century, despite the want and suffering which were so universal. "The fact is almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true. We can only explain it by the character of the French peasant, by his sobriety, his tenacity, his rigor with himself, his dissimulation, his hereditary passion for property and especially for that of the soil. He had lived on privations and economized sou after sou. … Towards 1760, one-quarter of the soil is said to have already passed into the hands of agriculturists. … The small cultivator, however, in becoming a possessor of the soil assumed its charges. Simply as day-laborer, and with his arms alone, he was only partially affected by the taxes; 'where there is nothing the king loses his dues.' But now, vainly is he poor and declaring himself still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion of his new possessions. … In 1715, the 'taille' [see TAILLE AND GABELLE] and the poll-tax, which he alone pays, or nearly alone, amounts to 66,000,000 livres, the amount is 93,000,000 in 1759 and 110,000,000 in 1789. … 'I am miserable because too much is taken from me. Too much is taken from me because not enough is taken from the privileged. Not only do the privileged force me to pay in their place, but, again, they previously deduct from my earnings their ecclesiastical and feudal dues. When, out of my income of 100 francs, I have parted with 53 francs, and more, to the collector, I am obliged again to give 14 francs to the seignior, also more than 14 for tithes, and, out of the remaining 18 or 19 francs, I have additionally to satisfy the excise-men. {1258} I alone, a poor man, pay two governments, one, the old government [the seigniorial government of the feudal regime], local and now absent, useless, inconvenient and humiliating, and active only through annoyances, exemptions and taxes; and the other [the royal government], recent, centralized, everywhere present, which, taking upon itself all functions, has vast needs and makes my meagre shoulders support its enormous weight.' These, in precise terms, are the vague ideas beginning to ferment in the popular brain and encountered on every page of the records of the States-General. … The privileged wrought their own destruction. … At their head, the king, creating France by devoting himself to her as if his own property, ended by sacrificing her as if his own property; the public purse is his private purse, while passions, vanities, personal weaknesses, luxurious habits, family solicitudes, the intrigues of a mistress and the caprices of a wife, govern a state of 26,000,000 men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness, a prodigality, an unskilfulness, an absence of consistency, that would scarcely be overlooked in the management of a private domain. The king and the privileged excel in one direction, in good-breeding, in good taste, in fashion, in the talent for self-display and in entertaining, in the gift of graceful conversation, in finesse and in gayety, in the art of converting life into a brilliant and ingenious festivity. … Through the habit, perfection and sway of polished intercourse they stamped on the French intellect a classic form, which, combined with recent scientific acquisitions, produced the philosophy of the 18th century, the ill-repute of tradition, the ambition of recasting all human institutions according to the sole dictates of reason, the appliance of mathematical methods to politics and morals, the catechism of the rights of man, and other dogmas of anarchical and despotic character in the 'Contrat Social.'—Once this chimera is born they welcome it as a drawing-room fancy; they use the little monster as a plaything, as yet innocent and decked with ribbons like a pastoral lambkin; they never dream of it becoming a raging, formidable brute; they nourish it, and caress it, and then, opening their doors, they let it descend into the streets.—Here, amongst a middle class which the government has rendered ill-disposed by compromising its fortunes, which the privileged have offended by restricting its ambition, which is wounded by inequality through injured self-esteem, the revolutionary theory gains rapid accessions, a sudden asperity, and, in a few years, it finds itself undisputed master of public opinion.—At this moment, and at its summons, another colossal monster rises up, a monster with millions of heads, a blind, startled animal, an entire people pressed down, exasperated and suddenly loosed against the government whose exactions have despoiled it, against the privileged whose rights have reduced it to starvation."

H. A. Taine, The Ancient Régime, book 1, chapters 1, 2, and book 5, chapters 1, 2, 5.

"When the facts of history are fully and impartially set forth, the wonder is rather that sane men put up with the chaotic imbecility, the hideous injustices, the shameless scandals, of the 'Ancien Regime,' in the earlier half of the century, many years before the political 'Philosophes' wrote a line,—why the Revolution did not break out in 1754 or 1757, as it was on the brink of doing, instead of being delayed, by the patient endurance of the people, for another generation. It can hardly be doubted that the Revolution of '89 owed many of its worst features to the violence of a populace degraded to the level of the beasts by the effect of the institutions under which they herded together and starved; and that the work of reconstruction which it attempted was to carry into practice the speculations of Mably and of Rousseau. But, just as little, does it seem open to question that, neither the writhings of the dregs of the populace in their misery, nor the speculative demonstrations of the Philosophers, would have come to much, except for the revolutionary movement which had been going on ever since the beginning of the century. The deeper source of this lay in the just and profound griefs of at least 95 per cent. of the population, comprising all its most valuable elements, from the agricultural peasants to the merchants and the men of letters and science, against the system by which they were crushed, or annoyed, whichever way they turned. But the surface current was impelled by the official defenders of the 'Ancien Régime' themselves. It was the Court, the Church, the Parliaments, and, above all, the Jesuits, acting in the interests of the despotism of the Papacy, who, in the first half of the 18th century, effectually undermined all respect for authority, whether civil or religious, and justified the worst that was or could be said by the 'Philosophes' later on."

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715; and JESUITS: A.D. 1761-1767.

Prof. T. H. Huxley, Introduction to F. Rocquain's "The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution"

"I took part in the opening of the States-General, and, in spite of the pomp with which the royal power was still surrounded, I there saw the passing away of the old regime. The regime which preceded '89, should, it seems to me, be considered from a two-fold aspect: the one, the general condition of the country, and the other, the relations existing between the government and the country. With regard to the former, I firmly believe that, from the earliest days of the monarchy, France had at no period been happier than she was then. She had not felt the effects of any great misfortune since the crash which followed Law's system. The long lasting ministry of Cardinal de Fleury, doubtless inglorious, but wise and circumspect, had made good the losses and lightened the burdens imposed at the end of the reign of Louis XV. If, since that time, several wars undertaken with little skill, and waged with still less, had compromised the honor of her arms and the reputation of her government; if they had even thrown her finances into a somewhat alarming state of disorder, it is but fair to say that the confusion resulting therefrom had merely affected the fortune of a few creditors, and had not tapped the sources of public prosperity; on the contrary, what is styled the public administration had made constant progress. If, on the one hand, the state had not been able to boast of any great ministers, on the other, the provinces could show many highly enlightened and clever intendants. Roads had been opened connecting numerous points, and had been greatly improved in all directions. It should not be forgotten that these benefits are principally due to the reign of Louis XV. Their most important result had been a progressive improvement in the condition of agriculture. {1259} The reign of Louis XVI. had continued favoring this wise policy, which had not been interrupted by the maritime war undertaken on behalf of American independence. Many cotton-mills had sprung, up, while considerable progress had been made in the manufacture of printed cotton fabrics, and of steel, and in the preparing of skins. … I saw the splendors of the Empire. Since the Restoration I see daily new fortunes spring up and consolidate themselves; still nothing so far has, in my eyes, equalled the splendor of Paris during the years which elapsed between 1783 and 1789. … Far be it from me to shut my eyes to the reality of the public prosperity which we are now [1822] enjoying. I am cognizant of the improvement in the condition of the country districts, and I am aware of the fact that all that rests on this solid foundation, even though its appearance may be somewhat more humble, is much to be preferred to a grander exterior that might hide a less assured solidity. I do not seek to disparage the present time—far from it. I am ready to admit the advantages which have accrued, in many respects, as the results of the Revolution; as, for instance, the partition of landed property, so often assailed, and which, so long as it does not go beyond certain limits, tends to increase wealth, by introducing into many families a well-being hitherto unknown to them. But, nevertheless, when I question my reason and my conscience as to the possible future of the France of 1789, if the Revolution had not burst, if the ten years of destruction to which it gave birth had not weighed heavily upon that beautiful country … I am convinced that France, at the time I am writing, would be richer and stronger than she is to-day."

Chancellor Pasquier, Memoirs, pages 44-47.

"In the spring of 1789 who could have foreseen the bloody catastrophe? Everything was tinged with hopefulness; the world was dreaming of the Golden Age. … Despite the previous disorders, and seeds of discord contained in certain cahiers, the prevailing sentiment was confidence. … The people everywhere hailed with enthusiasm the new era which was dawning. With a firm king, with a statesman who knew what he wished, and was determined to accomplish it, this confidence would have been an incomparable force. With a feeble prince like Louis XVI., with an irresolute minister like Necker, it was an appalling danger. The public, inflamed by the anarchy that had preceded the convocation of the States, disposed, through its inexperience, to accept all Utopias, and impelled by its peculiar character to desire their immediate realization, naturally grew more exacting in proportion as they were promised more, and more impatient and irritable as their hopes became livelier and appeared better founded. In the midst of this general satisfaction there was but one dark spot,—the queen. The cheers which greeted the king were silent before his wife. Calumny had done its work; and all the nobles from the provinces, the country curates, the citizens of the small towns, came from the confines of France imbued with the most contemptible prejudices against this unfortunate princess. Pamphlets, poured out against her by malicious enemies; vague and mysterious rumours, circulated everywhere, repeated in whispers, without giving any clew to their source,—the more dangerous because indefinite, and the more readily believed because infamous and absurd,—had so often reiterated that the queen was author of all the evil, that the world had come to regard her as the cause of the deficit, and the only serious obstacle to certain efficacious reforms. 'The queen pillages on all sides; she even sends money, it is said, to her brother, the emperor,' wrote a priest of Maine, in his parochial register, in 1781; and he attributed the motive of the reunion of the Notables to these supposed depredations. If, in 1781, such reports had penetrated to the remotest parts of the country, and found credence with such enlightened men as the Curé Boucher, one can judge what it must have been two years later, when the convocation of the States-General had inflamed the minds of the people. If the States should encounter any inevitable obstacle in their path; if certain imprudent promises should be unfulfilled; if promised reforms should fail,—public resentment and ill-will, always on the alert, would be sure to blame Marie Antoinette; they would impute to her all the evil done, and all the good left undone. The symptoms of this distrust were manifest at the outset. 'The deputies of the Third Estate,' Madame Campan observes, 'arrived at Versailles with the strongest prejudice against the court. The evil sayings in Paris never failed to be spread through the provinces: they believed that the king indulged in the pleasures of the table to a most shameful excess; they were persuaded that the queen exhausted the State treasury to gratify her inordinate love of luxury; almost all wished to visit Little Trianon. As the extreme simplicity of this pleasure-house did not correspond with their ideas, they insisted on being shown even the smallest closets, saying that richly furnished apartments were being concealed from them. Finally they designated one, which according to their account was ornamented with diamonds, and twisted columns studded with sapphires and rubies. The queen was amused at these mad fancies, and told the king of them.'"

M. de la Rocheterie, Life of Marie Antoinette, volume 2, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: A. de Tocqueville, On the State of Society in France before the Revolution.

_A. Young, Travels in France, 1787-89._

_R. H. Dabney, Causes of the French Revolution._

_E. J. Lowell, The Eve of the French Revolution._

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (May). Meeting of the States-General. Conflict between the three Estates. The question of three Houses or one.

"The opening of the States-general was fixed for the 5th of May, 1789, and Versailles was chosen as the place of their meetings. On the 4th, half Paris poured into that town to see the court and the deputies marching in procession to the solemn religious ceremony, which was to inaugurate the important epoch. … On the following day, the States-general, to the number of 1,200 persons, assembled in the spacious and richly decorated 'salle des menus plaisirs.' The King appeared, surrounded by his family, with all the magnificence of the ancient court, and was greeted by the enthusiastic applause of the deputies and spectators." The king made a speech, followed by Barentin, the keeper of the great seal, and by Necker. The latter "could not prevail upon himself to avow to the Assembly the real state of affairs. He announced an annual deficit of 56,000,000 francs, and thereby confused the mind of the public, which, since the meeting of the Notables, had always been discussing a deficit of from 120,000,000 to 140,000,000. {1260} He was quite right in assuming that those 56,000,000 might be covered by economy in the expenditure; but it was both irritating and untrue, when he, on this ground, denied the necessity of summoning the States-general, and called their convocation a free act of royal favour. … The balance of income and expenditure might, indeed, easily be restored in the future, but the deficit of former years had been heedlessly allowed to accumulate, and by no one more than by Necker himself. A floating debt of 550,000,000 had to be faced—in other words, therefore, more than a whole year's income had been expended in advance. … The real deficit of the year, therefore, at the lowest calculation, amounted to more than 200,000,000, or nearly half the annual income. … These facts, then, were concealed, and thus the ministry was necessarily placed in a false position towards the States-general; the continuance of the former abuses was perpetuated, or a violent catastrophe made inevitable. … For the moment the matter was not discussed. Everything yielded to the importance of the constitutional question—whether the three orders should deliberate in common or apart—whether there should be one single representative body, or independent corporations. This point was mooted at once in its full extent on the question, whether the validity of the elections should be scrutinised by each order separately, or by the whole Assembly. We need not here enter into the question of right; but of this there can be no doubt, that the government, which virtually created the States-general afresh [since there had been no national meeting of the Estates since the States-general of 1614-see above: A. D. 1610-1619], had the formal right to convoke them either in one way or the other, as it thought fit. … They [the government] infinitely lowered their own influence and dignity by leaving a most important constitutional question to the decision and the wrangling of the three orders; and they frustrated their own practical objects, by not decidedly declaring for the union of the orders in one assembly. Every important measure of reform, which had in view the improvement of the material and financial condition of the country, would have been mutilated by the clergy and rejected by the nobles. This was sufficiently proved by the 'cahiers' of the electors ['written instructions given by the electors to the deputies']. The States themselves had to undertake what the government had neglected. That which the government might have freely and legally commanded, now led to violent revolution. But there was no choice left; the commons would not tolerate the continuance of the privileged orders; and the state could not tolerate them if it did not wish to perish. The commons, who on this point were unanimous, considered the system of a single Assembly as a matter of course. They took care not to constitute themselves as 'tiers état,' but remained passive, and declared that they would wait until the Assembly should be constituted as a whole. Thus slowly and cautiously did they enter on their career. … Indisputably the most important and influential among them was Count Mirabeau, the representative of the town of Aix in Provence, a violent opponent of feudalism, and a restless participator in all the recent popular commotions. He would have been better able than any man to stimulate the Assembly to vigorous action; but even he hesitated, and kept back his associates from taking any violent steps, because he feared that the inconsistency and inexperience of the majority would bring ruin on the state. … It was only very gradually that the 'tiers état' began to negotiate with the other orders. The nobles shewed themselves haughty, dogmatical, and aggressive; and the clergy cautious, unctuous, and tenacious. They tried the efficacy of general conferences; but as no progress was found to have been made after three weeks, they gave up their consultations on the 25th of May. The impatience of the public, and the necessities of the treasury, continually increased; the government, therefore, once more intervened, and Necker was called upon to propose a compromise," which was coldly rejected by the nobles, who "declared that they had long ago finished their scrutiny, and constituted themselves as a separate order. They thus spared the commons the dreaded honour of being the first to break with the crown. The conferences were again closed on the 9th of June. The leaders of the commons now saw that they must either succumb to the nobility, or force the other orders to submission."

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution., book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. Smyth, Lectures on the History of the French Revolution, lecture 8 (volume 1).

Prince de Talleyrand, Memoirs, part 1 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (June). The Third Estate seizes the reins, proclaims itself the National Assembly, and assumes sovereign powers. The passionate excitement of Paris. Dismissal of Necker. Rising of the mob.

"At last … on the proposal of Sieyès [the Abbé, deputy for Paris] and amid a storm of frantic excitement, the Third Estate alone voted themselves 'the National Assembly,' invited the other two orders to join them, and pushing their pretensions to sovereignty to the highest point, declared that the existing taxes, not having been consented to by the nation, were all illegal. The National Assembly, however, allowed them to be levied till its separation, after which they were to cease if not formally regranted. This great revolution was effected on June 17, and it at once placed the Third Order in a totally new relation both to the other orders and to the Crown. There were speedy signs of yielding among some members of the privileged orders, and a fierce wave of excitement supported the change. Malouet strongly urged that the proper course was to dissolve the Assembly and to appeal to the constituencies, but Necker declined, and a feeble and ineffectual effort of the King to accomplish a reunion, and at the same time to overawe the Third Order, precipitated the Revolution. The King announced his intention of holding a royal session on June 22, and he summoned the three orders to meet him. It was his design to direct them to unite in order to deliberate in common on matters of common interest, and to regain the royal initiative by laying down the lines of a new constitution. … On Saturday, the 20th, however, the course of events was interrupted by the famous scene in the tennis court. Troops had lately been pouring to an alarming extent into Paris, and exciting much suspicion in the popular party, and the Government very injudiciously selected for the royal session on the following Monday the hall in which the Third Order assembled. The hall was being prepared for the occasion, and therefore no meeting could be held. {1261} The members, ignorant of the fact, went to their chamber and were repelled by soldiers. Furious at the insult, they adjourned to the neighbouring tennis court [Jeu-de-Paume]. A suspicion that the King meant to dissolve them was abroad, and they resolved to resist such an attempt. With lifted hands and in a transport of genuine, if somewhat theatrical enthusiasm, they swore that they would never separate 'till the constitution of the kingdom and the regeneration of public order were established on a solid basis.' … One single member, Martin d'Auche, refused his assent. The Third Estate had thus virtually assumed the sole legislative authority in France, and like the Long Parliament in England had denied the King's power to dissolve them. … Owing to the dissension that had arisen, the royal session was postponed till the 23rd, but on the preceding day the National Assembly met in a church, and its session was a very important one, for on this occasion a great body of the clergy formally joined it. One hundred and forty-eight members of the clergy, of whom 134 were curés, had now given their adhesion. Two of the nobles, separating from their colleagues, took the same course. Next day the royal session was held. The project adopted in the council differed so much from that of Necker that this minister refused to give it the sanction of his presence. Instead of commanding the three orders to deliberate together in the common interest, it was determined in the revised project that the King should merely invite them to do so. … It was … determined to withdraw altogether from the common deliberation 'the form of the constitution to be given to the coming States-General,' and to recognise fully the essential distinction of the three orders as political bodies, though they might, with the approval of the Sovereign, deliberate in common. Necker had proposed … that the King should decisively, and of his own authority, abolish all privileges of taxation, but in the amended article the King only undertook to give his sanction to this measure on condition of the two orders renouncing their privileges. On the other hand, the King announced to the Assembly a long series of articles of reform which would have made France a thoroughly constitutional country, and have swept away nearly all the great abuses in its government. … He annulled the proceedings of June 17, by which the Third Estate alone declared itself the Legislature of France. He reminded the Assembly that none of its proceedings could acquire the force of law without his assent, and he asserted his sole right as French Sovereign to the command of the army and police. He concluded by directing the three orders to withdraw and to meet next day to consider his proposals. The King, with the nobles and the majority of the clergy, at once withdrew, but the Third Order defiantly remained. It was evident that the attempt to conciliate, and the attempt to assert the royal authority, had both failed. The Assembly proclaimed itself inviolable. It confirmed the decrees which the King had annulled. Sieyès declared, in words which excited a transport of enthusiasm, that what the Assembly was yesterday it still was to-day; and two days later, the triumph of the Assembly became still more evident by the adhesion of 47 of the nobility. After this defection the King saw the hopelessness of resistance, and on the 27th he ordered the remainder of the nobles to take the same course. … In the mean time the real rulers of the country were coming rapidly to the surface. … Groups of local agitators and of the scum of the Paris mob began to overawe the representatives of the nation, and to direct the course of its policy. Troops were poured into Paris, but their presence was an excitement without being a protection, for day after day it became more evident that their discipline was gone, and that they shared the sympathies and the passions of the mob. … At the same time famine grew daily more intense, and the mobs more passionate and more formidable. The dismissal of Necker on the evening of July 11 was the spark which produced the conflagration that had long been preparing. Next day Paris flew to arms. The troops with few exceptions abandoned the King."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 20 (volume 5).

ALSO IN: E. Dumont, Recollections of Mirabeau, chapters 4-5.

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July). The mob in arms. Anarchy in Paris. The taking of the Bastille.

"On the 12th of July, near noon, on the news of the dismissal of Necker, a cry of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille Desmoulins, mounted on a table, announces that the Court meditates 'a St. Bartholomew of patriots.' The crowd embrace him, adopt the green cockade which he has proposed, and oblige the dancing-saloons and theatres to close in sign of mourning: they hurry off to the residence of Curtius [a plaster-cast master], and take the busts of the Duke of Orleans and of Necker and carry them about in triumph. Meanwhile, the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on the Place Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance of the Tuilleries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and bottles. Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hôtel Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the 'Royal Allemand.' The tocsin is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; 15 or 16 well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to be assembled and armed.—The new sovereign, the people in arms and in the street, has declared himself. The dregs of society at once come to the surface. During the night between the 12th and 13th of July, 'all the barriers, from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and set on fire.' There is no longer an 'octroi'; the city is without a revenue just at the moment when it is obliged to make the heaviest expenditures. … 'During this fearful night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each trembling at home for himself and those belonging to him.' On the following day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits and the lowest of the low. … During these two days and nights, says Bailly, 'Paris ran the risk of being pillaged, and was only saved from the marauders by the national guard.' … Fortunately the militia organized itself, and the principal inhabitants and gentlemen enrol themselves; 48,000 men are formed into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie buy guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabres or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are hung on the spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again becomes political. {1262} But, whatever its object, it remains always wild, because it is in the hands of the populace. … There is no leader, no management. The electors who have converted themselves into the representatives of Paris seem to command the crowd, but it is the crowd which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to send for six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants that he is about to blow everything into the air. The commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an hour, and, more than once, the whole committee is near being massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, 'a concourse of 1,500 men pressed by 100,000 others who are forcing an entrance,' the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset one over another … a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of judgment,' the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and 'people beside themselves, for the most part not knowing where they are nor what they want.' Each district is also a petty centre, while the Palais-Royal is the main centre. … One wave gathers here and another there, their strategy consists in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is effected only because they are let in. If they get into the Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers.—At the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning to five in the evening against walls 40 feet high and 30 feet thick, and it is by chance that one of their shots reaches an 'invalide' on the towers. They are treated the same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. The governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger dispatched from the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he receives several discharges without returning them, and lets the first bridge be carried without firing a shot. When, at length, he does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is going to do so. … The people, in turn, are infatuated with the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their expedients being on a level with their tactics: A brewer fancies that he can set fire to this block of masonry by pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archæological notions, proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think that they have seized the governor's daughter, and want to burn her in order to make the father surrender. Others set fire to a projecting mass of buildings filled with straw, and thus close up the passage. 'The Bastille was not taken by main force,' says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; 'it was surrendered before even it was attacked,' by capitulation, on the promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing, and, on the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense crowd. Eight or nine hundred men only were concerned in the attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers, and wine-dealers, mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille, however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded with the curious who came to witness the sight; 'among them,' says a witness, 'were a number of fashionable women of very good appearance, who had left their carriages at some distance.' To the 120 men of the garrison, looking down from their parapets, it seemed as though all Paris had come out against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge and introduce the enemy; everybody has lost his head, the besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and the latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; 'each one fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells.' Sudden omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too strong for human nature. … Elie, who is the first to enter the fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in advance, the French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of war, try to keep their word of honour; but the crowd pressing on behind them know not whom to strike, and they strike at random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who have fired on them, and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to be prisoners; on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fall furiously on the 'invalides' who opened the gates to them; the man who prevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his wrist severed by the blow of a sabre, is twice pierced with a sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one of the districts of Paris is promenaded through the streets in triumph. The officers are dragged along and five of them are killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the way." M. de Launay, the governor, after receiving many wounds, while being dragged to the Hotel-de-Ville, was finally killed by bayonet thrusts, and his head, cut from his body, was placarded and borne through the streets upon a pitchfork.

H. A. Taine, The French Revolution, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"I was present at the taking of the Bastille. What has been styled the fight was not serious, for there was absolutely no resistance shown. Within the hold's walls were neither provisions nor ammunition. It was not even necessary to invest it. The regiment of gardes françaises which had led the attack, presented itself under the walls on the rue Saint Antoine side, opposite the main entrance, which was barred by a drawbridge. There was a discharge of a few musket shots, to which no reply was made, and then four or five discharges from the cannon. It has been claimed that the latter broke the chains of the drawbridge. I did not notice this, and yet I was standing close to the point of attack. What I did see plainly was the action of the soldiers, invalides, or others, grouped on the platform of the high tower, holding their muskets stock in the air, and expressing by all means employed under similar circumstances their desire of surrendering. The result of this so-called victory, which brought down so many favors on the heads of the so-called victors, is well-known. The truth is, that this great fight did not for a moment frighten the numerous spectators who had flocked to witness its result. Among them were many women of fashion, who, in order to be closer to the scene, had left their carriages some distance away."

Chancellor Pasquier, Memoirs, pages 55-56.

ALSO IN: D. Bingham, The Bastille, volume 2, chapters 9-12.

R. A. Davenport, History of the Bastile, chapter 12.

J. Claretie, Camille Desmoulins and his Wife, chapter 1, section 4.

{1263}

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July). Practical surrender of authority by the king. Organization of the National Guard with Lafayette in command. Disorder and riot in the provinces. Hunger in the capital. The murder of Foulon and Berthier.

"The next morning the taking of the Bastille bore its intended fruit. Marshal de Broglie, who had found, instead of a loyal army, only disaffected regiments which had joined or were preparing to join the mob, sent in his resignation. … The king, deserted by his army, his authority now quite gone, had no means of restoring order except through the Assembly. He begged that body to undertake the work, promising to recall the dismissed ministers. … The power of the king had now passed from him to the National Assembly. But that numerous body of men, absorbed in interminable discussions on abstract ideas, was totally incapable of applying its power to the government of the country. The electors at the Hotel de Ville, on the 15th of July, resolved that there must be a mayor to direct the affairs of Paris, and a National Guard to preserve order. Dangers threatened from every quarter. When the question arose as to who should fill these offices, Moreau de Saint Méry, the president of the electors, pointed to the bust of Lafayette, which had been sent as a gift to the city of Paris by the State of Virginia, in 1784. The gesture was immediately understood, and Lafayette was chosen by acclamation. Not less unanimous was the choice of Bailly for mayor. Lafayette was now taken from the Assembly to assume the more active employment of commanding the National Guard. While the Assembly pursued the destruction of the old order and the erection of a new, Lafayette, at the age of 82, became the chief depositary of executive power. … Throughout France, the deepest interest was exhibited in passing events. … The victory of the Assembly over the king and aristocracy led the people of the provinces to believe that their cause was already won. A general demoralization ensued." After the taking of the Bastille, "the example of rebellion thus set was speedily followed. Rioting and lawlessness soon prevailed everywhere, increased and imbittered by the scarcity of food. In the towns, bread riots became continual, and the custom-houses, the means of collecting the exorbitant taxes, were destroyed. In the rural districts, châteaux were to be seen burning on all sides. The towers in which were preserved the titles and documents which gave to the nobleman his oppressive rights were carried by storm and their contents scattered. Law and authority were fast becoming synonymous with tyranny; the word 'liberty,' now in every mouth, had no other signification than license. Into Paris slunk hordes of gaunt foot-pads from all over France; attracted by the prospect of disorder and pillage. … From such circumstances naturally arose the National Guard. "The king had been asked, on the 13th, by a deputation from the Assembly, "to confide the care of the city to a militia," and had declined. The military organization of citizens was then undertaken by the electors at the Hotel de Ville, without his consent, and its commander designated without his appointment. "The king was obliged to confirm this choice, and he was thus deprived even of the merit of naming the chief officer of the guard whose existence had been forced upon him." On the 17th the king was persuaded to visit the city, for the effect which his personal presence would have, it was thought, upon the anxious and excited public mind. Lafayette had worked with energy to prepare his National Guard for the difficult duty of preserving order and protecting the royal visitor on the occasion. "So intense was the excitement and the insurrectionary spirit of the time, so uncertain were the boundaries between rascality and revolutionary zeal, that it was difficult to establish the fact that the new guard was created to preserve order and not to fight the king and pillage the aristocracy. The great armed mob, now in process of organization, had to be treated with great tact, lest it should refuse to submit to authority in any shape." But short as the time was, Lafayette succeeded in giving to the powerless monarch a safe and orderly reception. "The king made his will and took the sacraments before leaving Versailles, for … doubts were entertained that he would live to return." He was met at the gates of Paris by the new mayor, Bailly, and escorted through a double line of National Guards to the Hotel de Ville. There he was obliged to fix on his hat the national cockade, just brought into use, and to confirm the appointments of Lafayette and Bailly. "Louis XVI. then returned to Versailles, on the whole pleased, as the day had been less unpleasant than had been expected. But the compulsory acceptation of the cockade and the nominations meant nothing less than the extinction of his authority. … Lafayette recruited his army from the bourgeois class, for the good reason that, in the fever then raging for uncontrolled freedom, that class was the only one from which the proper material could be taken. The importance of order was impressed on the bourgeois by the fact that they had, shops and houses which they did not wish to see pillaged. … The necessity for strict police measures was soon to be terribly illustrated. For a week past a large crowd composed of starving workmen, country beggars, and army deserters, had thronged the streets, angrily demanding food. The city was extremely short of provisions, and it was impossible to satisfy the demands made upon it. … On July 22, an old man named Foulon, It member of the late ministry, who had long been the object of public dislike, and was now detested because it was rumored that he said that 'the people might eat' grass,' was arrested in the country, and brought to the Hotel de Ville, followed by a mob who demanded his immediate judgment." Lafayette exerted vainly his whole influence and his whole authority to protect the wretched old man until he could be lodged in prison. The mob tore its victim from his very hands and destroyed him on the spot. The next day, Foulon's son-in-law, Berthier, the Intendant of Paris, was arrested in the country, and the tragedy was re-enacted. "Shocked by these murders and disgusted by his own inability to prevent them, Lafayette sent his resignation to the electors, and for some time persisted in his refusal to resume his office. But no other man could be found in Paris equally fitted for the place; so that on the personal solicitation of the electors and a deputation from the 60 districts of the city, he again took command."

B. Tuckerman, Life of General Lafayette, volume 1, chapters 9-10.

ALSO IN: _J. Michelet, Historical View of the French Revolution, book 2, chapters 1-2._

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FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July-August). Cause and character of the "Emigration."

"Everything, or nearly everything, was done by the party opposed to the Revolution in the excitement of the moment; nothing was the result of reasoning. Who, for instance, reasoned out the emigration? It has oftentimes been asked how so extraordinary a resolution came to be taken; how it had entered the minds of men gifted with a certain amount of sense that there was any advantage to be derived from abandoning all the posts where they could still exercise power; of giving over to the enemy the regiments they commanded, the localities over which they had control; of delivering up completely to the teachings of the opposite party the peasantry, over whom, in a goodly number of provinces, a valuable influence might be exerted, and among whom they still had many friends; and all this, to return for the purpose of conquering, at the sword's point, positions, a number of which at least could be held without a fight. No doubt it has been offered as an objection, that the peasantry set fire to châteaux, that soldiers mutinied against their officers. This was not the case at the time of what has been called the first emigration, and, at any rate, such doings were not general; but does danger constitute sufficient cause for abandoning an important post? … What is the answer to all this? Merely what follows. The voluntary going into exile of nearly the whole nobility of France, of many magistrates who were never to unsheath a sword, and lastly, of a large number of women and children,—this resolve, without a precedent in history, was not conceived and determined upon as a State measure; chance brought it about. A few, in the first instance, followed the princes who had been obliged, on the 14th of July, to seek safety out of France, and others followed them. At first, it was merely in the nature of a pleasant excursion. Outside of France, they might freely enjoy saying and believing anything and everything. … The wealthiest were the first to incur the expense of this trip, and a few brilliant and amiable women of the Court circle did their share to render most attractive the sojourn in a number of foreign towns close to the frontier. Gradually the number of these small gatherings increased, and it was then that the idea arose of deriving advantage from them. It occurred to the minds of a few men in the entourage of the Comte d'Artois, and whose moving spirit was M. de Calonne, that it would be an easy matter for them to create a kingdom for their sovereign outside of France, and that if they could not in this fashion succeed in giving him provinces to reign over, he would at least reign over subjects, and that this would serve to give him a standing in the eyes of foreign powers, and determine them to espouse his cause. … Thus in '89, '90, and '91, there were a few who were compelled to fly from actual danger; a small number were led away by a genuine feeling of enthusiasm; many felt themselves bound to leave, owing to a point of honor which they obeyed without reasoning it out; the mass thought it was the fashion, and that it looked well; all, or almost all, were carried away by expectations encouraged by the wildest of letters, and by the plotting of a few ambitious folk, who were under the impression that they were building up their fortunes."

Chancellor Pasquier, Memoirs, pages 64-66.

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (August). The Night of Sacrifices. The sweeping out of Feudalism.

"What was the Assembly doing at this period, when Paris was waiting in expectation, and the capture of the Bastille was being imitated all over France; when châteaux were burning, and nobles flying into exile; when there was positive civil war in many a district, and anarchy in every province? Why, the Assembly was discussing whether or not the new constitution of France should be prefaced by a Declaration of the Rights of Man. In the discussion of this extremely important question were wasted the precious days which followed July 17. … The complacency of these theorists was rudely shaken on August 4, when Salomon read to the Assembly the report of the Comité des Recherches, or Committee of Researches, on the state of France. A terrible report it was. Châteaux burning here and there; millers hung; tax-gatherers drowned; the warehouses and depots of the gabelle burnt; everywhere rioting, and nowhere peace. … Among those who listened to the clear and forcible report of Salomon were certain of the young liberal noblesse who had just been dining with the Duc de la Roehefoucauld-Liancourt, a wise and enlightened nobleman. At their head was the Vicomte de Noailles, a young man of thirty-three, who had distinguished himself at the head of his regiment under his cousin, Lafayette, in America. … The Vicomte de Noailles was the first to rush to the tribune. 'What is the cause of the evil which is agitating the provinces?' he cried; and then he showed that it arose from the uncertainty under which the people dwelt, as to whether or not the old feudal bonds under which they had so long lived and laboured were to be perpetuated or abolished, and concluded an impassioned speech by proposing to abolish them at once. One after another the young liberal noblemen, and then certain deputies of the tiers état, followed him with fresh sacrifices. First the old feudal rights were abolished; then the rights of the dovecote and the game laws; then the old copyhold services; then the tithes paid to the Church, in spite of a protest from Siéyès; then the rights of certain cities over their immediate suburbs and rural districts were sacrificed; and the contention during that feverish night was rather to remember something or other to sacrifice than to suggest the expediency of maintaining anything which was established. In its generosity the Assembly even gave away what did not belong to it. The old dues paid to the pope were abolished, and it was even declared that the territory of Avignon, which had belonged to the pope since the Middle Ages, should be united to France if it liked; and the sitting closed with a unanimous decree that a statue should be erected to Louis XVI., 'the restorer of French liberty.' Well might Mirabeau define the night of August 4 as a mere 'orgie.' … Noble indeed were the intentions of the deputies. … {1265} Yet the results of this night of sacrifices were bad rather than good. As Mirabeau pointed out, the people of France were told that all the feudal rights, dues, and tithes had been abolished that evening, but they were not told at the same time that there must be taxes and other burdens to take their place. It was of no use to issue a provisional order that all rights, dues, and taxes remained in force for the present, because the poor peasant would refuse to pay what was illegal, and would not understand the political necessity of supporting the revenue. … This ill-considered mass of resolutions was what was thrown in the face of France in a state of anarchy to restore it to a state of order."

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 1, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution, (American edition), volume 1, pages 81-84.

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (August-October). Constitution-making and the Rights of Man. The first emigration of nobles. Famine in Paris. Rumors of an intended flight of the King.

"One may look upon the peculiarity of the Assembly as being a singular faith in the power of ideas. That was its greatness. It firmly believed that truth shaped into laws would be invincible. Two months—such was the calculation—would suffice to construct the constitution. That constitution by its omnipotent virtue would convince all men and bend them to its authority, and the revolution would be completed. Such was the faith of the National Assembly. The attitude of the people was so menacing that many of the courtiers fled. Thus commenced the first emigration. … As if the minds of men were not sufficiently agitated, there now were heard cries of a great conspiracy of the aristocrats. The papers announced that a plot had been discovered which was to have delivered Brest to the English. Brest, the naval arsenal, wherein France for whole centuries had expended her millions and her labours: this given up to England! England would once more overrun France! … It was amidst these cries of alarm—with on one hand the emigration of the nobility, on the other the hunger of a maddened people; with here an irresolute aristocracy, startled at the audacity of the 'canaille,' and there a resolute Assembly, prepared, at the hazard of their lives, to work out the liberty of France; amidst reports of famine, of insurrections, and wild disorders of all sorts, that we find the National Assembly debating upon the rights of man, discussing every article with metaphysical quibbling and wearisome fluency, and, having finally settled each article, making their famous Declaration. This Declaration, which was solemnly adopted by the Assembly, on the 18th of August, was the product of a whole century of philosophical speculation, fixed and reduced to formulas, and bearing unmistakeable traces of Rousseau. It declared the original equality of mankind, and that the ends of social union are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. It declared that sovereignty resides in the nation, from whence all power emanates; that freedom consists in doing everything which does not injure another; that law is the expression of the general will; that public burdens should be borne by all the members of the state in proportion to their fortunes; that the elective franchise should be extended to all; that the exercise of natural rights has no other limit than their interference with the rights of others; that no man should be persecuted for his religious opinions, provided he conform to the laws and do not disturb the religion of the state; that all men have the right of quitting the state in which they were born, and of choosing another country, by renouncing their rights of citizenship; that the liberty of the press is the foremost support of public liberty, and the law should maintain it, at the same time punishing those who abuse it by distributing seditious discourses, or calumnies against individuals." Having adopted its Declaration of the rights of man, the Assembly proceeded to the drawing up of a constitution which should embody the principles of the Declaration, and soon found itself in passionate debate upon the relations to be established between the national legislature and the king. Should the king retain a veto upon legislation? Should he have any voice in the making of laws? "The lovers of England and the English constitution all voted in favour of the veto. Even Mirabeau was for it." Robespierre, just coming into notice, bore a prominent part in the opposition. "The majority of the Assembly shared Robespierre's views; and the King's counselors were at length forced to propose a compromise in the shape of a suspensive veto; namely, that the King should not have the absolute right of preventing any law, but only the right of suspending it for two, four, or six years. … It was carried by a large majority." Meantime, in Paris, "vast and incalculable was the misery: crowds of peruke-makers, tailors, and shoemakers, were wont to assemble at the Louvre and in the Champs Elysées, demanding things impossible to be granted; demanding that the old regulations should be maintained, and that new ones should be made; demanding that the rate of daily wages should be fixed; demanding … that all the Savoyards in the country should be sent away, and only Frenchmen employed. The bakers' shops were besieged, as early as five o'clock in the morning, by hungry crowds who had to stand 'en queue'; happy when they had money to purchase miserable bread, even in this uncomfortable manner. … Paris was living at the mercy of chance: its subsistence dependent on some arrival or other: dependent on a convoy from Beauce, or a boat from Corbeuil. The city, at immense sacrifices, was obliged to lower the price of bread: the consequence was that the population for more than ten leagues round came to procure provisions at Paris. The uncertainty of the morrow augmented the difficulties. Everybody stored up, and concealed provisions. The administration sent in every direction, and bought up flour, by fair means, or by foul. It often happened that at midnight there was but half the flour necessary for the morning market. Provisioning Paris was a kind of war. The National Guard was sent to protect each arrival; or to secure certain purchases by force of arms. Speculators were afraid; farmers would not thrash any longer; neither would the miller grind. 'I used to see,' says Bailly, 'good tradesmen, mercers and goldsmiths, praying to be admitted among the beggars employed at Montmartre, in digging the ground.' Then came fearful whispers of the King's intention to fly to Metz. What will become of us if the King should fly? He must not fly; we will have him here; here amongst us in Paris! This produced the famous insurrection of women … on the 5th October."

G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre, chapter 9.

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 1, chapters 3-4 (volume 1).

{1266}

FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (October). The Insurrection of Women. Their march to Versailles.

"A thought, or dim raw-material of a thought, was fermenting all night [October 4-5], universally in the female head, and might explode. In squalid garret, on Monday morning Maternity awakes, to hear children weeping for bread. Maternity must forth to the streets, to the herb-markets and Bakers'-queues; meets there with hunger-stricken Maternity, sympathetic, exasperative. O we unhappy women! But, instead of Bakers'-queues, why not to Aristocrats' palaces, the root of the matter? Allons! Let us assemble. To the Hôtel-de-Ville; to Versailles; to the Lanterne! In one of the Guard houses of the Quartier Saint-Eustache, 'a young woman' seizes a drum,—for how shall National Guards give fire on women, on a young woman? The young woman seizes the drum; sets forth, beating it, 'uttering cries relative to the dearth of grains.' Descend, O mothers; descend, ye Judiths, to food and revenge!—All women gather and go; crowds storm all stairs, force out all women: the female Insurrectionary Force, according to Camille, resembles the English Naval one; there is a universal 'Press of women.' Robust Dames of the Halle, slim Mantua-makers, assiduous, risen with the dawn; ancient Virginity tripping to matins; the Housemaid, with early broom; all must go. Rouse ye, O, women; the laggard men will not act; they say, we ourselves may act! And so, like snowbreak from the mountains, for every staircase is a melted brook, it storms; tumultuous, wild-shrilling, towards the Hôtel-de-Ville. Tumultuous; with or without drum-music: for the Faubourg Saint-Antoine also has tucked-up its gown; and with besom-staves, fire-irons, and even rusty pistols (void of ammunition), is flowing on. Sound of it flies, with a velocity of sound, to the utmost Barriers. By seven o'clock, on this raw October morning, fifth of the month, the Townhall will see wonders. … Grand it was, says Camille, to see so many Judiths, from eight to ten thousand of them in all, rushing out to search into the root of the matter! Not unfrightful it must have been; ludicro-terrific, and most unmanageable. At such hour the overwatched Three Hundred are not yet stirring: none but some Clerks, a company of National Guards; and M. de Gouvion, the Major-general. Gouvion has fought in America for the cause of civil Liberty; a man of no inconsiderable heart, but deficient in head. He is, for the moment, in his back apartment; assuaging Usher Maillard, the Bastille-sergeant, who has come, as too many do, with 'representations.' The assuagement is still incomplete when our Judiths arrive. The National Guards form on the outer stairs, with levelled bayonets; the ten thousand Judiths press up, resistless; with obtestations, with outspread hands,—merely to speak to the Mayor. The rear forces them; nay from male hands in the rear, stones already fly: the National Guard must do one of two things; sweep the Place de Greve with cannon, or else open to right and left. They open: the living deluge rushes in. Through all rooms and cabinets, upwards to the topmost belfry: ravenous; seeking arms, seeking Mayors, seeking justice;— while, again, the better-dressed speak kindly to the Clerks; point out the misery of these poor women; also their ailments, some even of an interesting sort. Poor M. de Gouvion is shiftless in this extremity;—a man shiftless, perturbed: who will one day commit suicide. How happy for him that Usher Maillard the shifty was there, at the moment, though making representations! Fly back, thou shifty Maillard: seek the Bastille Company; and O return fast with it; above all, with thy own shifty head! For, behold, the Judiths can find no Mayor or Municipal; scarcely, in the topmost belfry, can they find poor Abbé Lefèvre the Powder-distributor. Him, for want of a better, they suspend there: in the pale morning light; over the top of all Paris, which swims in one's failing eyes:—a horrible end? Nay the rope broke, as French ropes often did; or else an Amazon cut it. Abbe Lefèvre falls, some twenty feet, rattling among the leads; and lives long years after, though always with 'a tremblement in the limbs.' And now doors fly under hatchets; the Judiths have broken the Armory; have seized guns and cannons, three money-bags, paper-heaps; torches flare: in few minutes, our brave Hôtel-de-Ville, which dates from the Fourth Henry, will, with all that it holds, be in flames! In flames, truly,—were it not that Usher Maillard, swift of foot, shifty of head, has returned! Maillard, of his own motion,—for Gouvion or the rest would not even sanction him,—snatches a drum: descends the Porch-stairs, ran-tan, beating sharp, with loud rolls, his Rogues'-march: To Versailles! Allons; à Versailles! As men beat on kettle or warming-pan, when angry she-bees, or say, flying desperate wasps, are to be hived; and the desperate insects hear it, and cluster round it,—simply as round a guidance, where there was none: so now these Menads round shifty Maillard, Riding-Usher of the Châtelet. The axe pauses uplifted; Abbé Lefèvre is left half-hanged: from the belfry downwards all vomits itself. What rub-a-dub is that? Stanislas Maillard, Bastille hero, will lead us to Versailles? Joy to thee, Maillard; blessed art thou above Riding-Ushers! Away, then, away! The seized cannon are yoked with seized cart-horses: brown-locked Demoiselle Théroigne, with pike and helmet, sits there as gunneress. … Maillard (for his drum still rolls) is, by heaven-rending acclamation, admitted General. Maillard hastens the languid march. … And now Maillard has his Menads in the Champs Elysées (Fields Tartarean rather); and the Hôtel-de-Ville has suffered comparatively nothing. … Great Maillard! A small nucleus of Order is round his drum; but his outskirts fluctuate like the mad Ocean: for Rascality male and female is flowing in on him, from the four winds: guidance there is none but in his single head and two drum-sticks. … On the Elysian Fields there is pause and fluctuation; but, for Maillard, no return. He persuades his Menads, clamorous for arms and the Arsenal, that no arms are in the Arsenal; that an unarmed attitude, and petition to a National Assembly, will be the best: he hastily nominates or sanctions generalesses, captains of tens and fifties;—and so, in loosest-flowing order, to the rhythm of some 'eight drums' (having laid aside his own), with the Bastille Volunteers bringing up his rear, once more takes the road. Chaillot, which will promptly yield baked loaves, is not plundered; nor are the Sèvres Potteries broken. … The press of women still continues, for it is the cause of all Eve's Daughters, mothers that are, or that ought to be. No carriage-lady, were it with never such hysterics, but must dismount, in the mud roads, in her silk shoes, and walk. In this manner, amid wild October weather, they, a wild unwinged stork-flight, through the astonished country wend their way."

T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 1, book 7, chapters 4-5.

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FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (October). The mob of men at Versailles, with Lafayette and the National Guard. The king and royal family brought to Paris.

Before the memorable 5th day of October closed, the movement of the women upon Versailles was followed by an outpouring, in the same direction, of the masculine mob of Paris, headed by the National Guard. "The commander, Lafayette, opposed their departure a long time, but in vain; neither his efforts nor his popularity could overcome the obstinacy of the people. For seven hours he harangued and retained them. At length, impatient at this delay, rejecting his advice, they prepared to set forward without him; when, feeling that it was now his duty to conduct as it had previously been to restrain them, he obtained his authorisation from the corporation, and gave the word for departure about seven in the evening. "Meantime the army of the amazons had arrived at Versailles, and excited the terrors of the court. "The troops of Versailles flew to arms and surrounded the château, but the intentions of the women were not hostile. Maillard, their leader, had recommended them to appear as suppliants, and in that attitude they presented their complaints successively to the assembly and to the king. Accordingly, the first hours of this turbulent evening were sufficiently calm. Yet it was impossible but that causes of hostility should arise between an excited mob and the household troops, the objects of so much irritation. The latter were stationed in the court of the château opposite the national guard and the Flanders regiment. The space between was filled by women and volunteers of the Bastille. In the midst of the confusion, necessarily arising from such a juxtaposition, a scuffle arose; this was the signal for disorder and conflict. An officer of the guards struck a Parisian soldier with his sabre, and was in turn shot in the arm. The national guards sided against the household troops; the conflict became warm, and would have been sanguinary, but for the darkness, the bad weather, and the orders given to the household troops, first to cease firing and then to retire. … During this tumult, the court was in consternation; the flight of the king was suggested, and carriages prepared; a piquet of the national guard saw them at the gate of the orangery, and having made them go back, closed the gate: moreover, the king, either ignorant of the designs of the court, or conceiving them impracticable, refused to escape. Fears were mingled with his pacific intentions, when he hesitated to repel the aggression or to take flight. Conquered, he apprehended the fate of Charles I. of England; absent, he feared that the duke of Orleans would obtain the lieutenancy of the kingdom. But, in the meantime, the rain, fatigue, and the inaction of the household troops, lessened the fury of the multitude, and Lafayette arrived at the head of the Parisian army. His presence restored security to the court, and the replies of the king to the deputation from Paris satisfied the multitude and the army. In a short time, Lafayette's activity, the good sense and discipline of the Parisian guard, restored order everywhere. Tranquillity returned. The crowd of women and volunteers, overcome by fatigue, gradually dispersed, and some of the national guard were entrusted with the defence of the château, while others were lodged with their companions in arms at Versailles. The royal family, re-assured after the anxiety and fear of this painful night, retired to rest about two o'clock in the morning. Towards five, Lafayette, having visited the outposts which had been confided to his care, and finding the watch well kept, the town calm, and the crowds dispersed or sleeping, also took a few moments repose. About six, however, some men of the lower class, more enthusiastic than the rest, and awake sooner than they, prowled round the château. Finding a gate open, they informed their companions, and entered. Unfortunately, the interior posts had been entrusted to the household guards, and refused to the Parisian army. This fatal refusal caused all the misfortunes of the night. The interior guard had not even been increased; the gates scarcely visited, and the watch kept as negligently as on ordinary occasions. These men, excited by all the passions that had brought them to Versailles, perceiving one of the household troops at a window, began to insult him. He fired, and wounded one of them. They then rushed on the household troops, who defended the château breast to breast, and sacrificed themselves heroically. One of them had time to warn the queen, whom the assailants particularly threatened; and, half dressed, she ran for refuge to the king. The tumult and danger were extreme in the château. Lafayette, apprised of the invasion of the royal residence, mounted his horse, and rode hastily to the scene of danger. On the square he met some of the household troops surrounded by an infuriated mob, who were on the point of killing them. He threw himself among them, called some French guards who were near, and, having rescued the household troops and dispersed their assailants, he hurried to the château. He found it already secured by the grenadiers of the French guard, who, at the first noise of the tumult, had hastened and protected the household troops from the fury of the Parisians. But the scene was not over; the crowd assembled again in the marble court under the king's balcony, loudly called for him, and he appeared. They required his departure for Paris; he promised to repair thither with his family, and this promise was received with general applause. The queen was resolved, to accompany him; but the prejudice against her was so strong that the journey was not without danger; it was necessary to reconcile her with the multitude. Lafayette proposed to her to accompany him to the balcony; after some hesitation, she consented. They appeared on it together, and to communicate by a sign with the tumultuous crowd, to conquer its animosity, and awaken its enthusiasm, Lafayette respectfully kissed the queen's hand; the crowd responded with acclamations. It now remained to make peace between them and the household troops. Lafayette advanced with one of these, placed his own tricoloured cockade on his hat, and embraced him before the people, who shouted 'Vivent les gardes-du-corps!' Thus terminated this scene; the royal family set out for Paris, escorted by the army and its guards mixed with it."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: B. Tuckerman, Life of Lafayette, volume 1, chapter 11.

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FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791. The new constitution. Appropriation and sale of Church property. Issue of Assignats. Abolition of titles of honor. Civil constitution of the clergy. The Feast of the Federation. The Émigrés on the border and their conduct.

"The king was henceforth at the mercy of the mob. Deprived of his guards, and at a distance from his army, he was in the centre of the revolution; and surrounded by an excited and hungry populace. He was followed to Paris by the Assembly; and, for the present, was protected from further outrages by Lafayette and the national guards. Mirabeau, who was now in secret communication with the court, warned the king of his danger, in the midst of the revolutionary capital. 'The mob of Paris,' he said, 'will scourge the corpses of the king and queen.' He saw no hope of safety for them, or for the State, but in their withdrawal from this pressing danger, to Fontainebleau or Rouen, and in a strong government, supported by the Assembly, pursuing liberal measures, and quelling anarchy. His counsels were frustrated by events; and the revolution had advanced too far to be controlled by this secret and suspected adviser of the king. Meanwhile, the Assembly was busy with further schemes of revolution and desperate finance. France was divided into departments: the property of the Church was appropriated to meet the urgent necessities of the State; the disastrous assignats were issued: the subjection of the clergy to the civil power was decreed: the Parliaments were superseded, and the judicature of the country was reconstituted, upon a popular basis: titles of honour, orders of knighthood, armorial bearings—even liveries—were abolished: the army was reorganised, and the privileges of birth were made to yield to service and seniority. All Frenchmen were henceforth equal, as 'citoyens': and their new privileges were wildly celebrated by the planting of trees of liberty. The monarchy was still recognised, but it stood alone, in the midst of revolution."

Sir T. E. May, Democracy in Europe, chapter 13 (volume 2).

"The monarchy was continued and liberally endowed; but it was shorn of most of its ancient prerogatives, and reduced to a very feeble Executive; and while it obtained a perilous veto on the resolutions and acts of the Legislature, it was separated from that power, and placed in opposition to it, by the exclusion of the Ministers of the Crown from seats and votes in the National Assembly. The Legislature was composed of a Legislative Assembly, formed of a single Chamber alone, in theory supreme, and almost absolute; but, as we have seen, it was liable to come in conflict with the Crown, and it had less authority than might be supposed, for it was elected by a vote not truly popular, and subordinate powers were allowed to possess a very large part of the rights of Sovereignty which it ought to have divided with the King. This last portion of the scheme was very striking, and was the one, too, that most caused alarm among distant political observers. Too great centralization having been one of the chief complaints against the ancient Monarchy, this evil was met with a radical reform. … The towns received extraordinary powers; their municipalities had complete control over the National Guards to be elected in them, and possessed many other functions of Government; and Paris, by these means, became almost a separate Commonwealth, independent of the State, and directing a vast military force. The same system was applied to the country; every Department was formed into petty divisions, each with its National Guards, and a considerable share of what is usually the power of the government. … Burke's saying was strictly correct, 'that France was split into thousands of Republics, with Paris predominating and queen of all.' With respect to other institutions of the State, the appointment of nearly all civil functionaries, judicial and otherwise, was taken from the Crown, and abandoned to a like popular election; and the same principle was also applied to the great and venerable institution of the Church, already deprived of its vast estates, though the election of bishops and priests by their flocks interfered directly with Roman Catholic discipline, and probably, too, with religious dogma. … Notwithstanding the opposition of Necker, who, though hardly a statesman, understood finance, it was resolved to sell the lands of the Church to procure funds for the necessities of the State; and the deficit, which was increasing rapidly, was met by an inconvertible currency of paper, secured on the lands to be sold. This expedient … was carried out with injudicious recklessness. The Assignats, as the new notes were called, seemed a mine of inexhaustible wealth, and they were issued in quantities which, from the first moment, disturbed the relations of life and commerce, though they created a show of brisk trade for a time. In matters of taxation the Assembly, too, exceeded the bounds of reason and justice; exemptions previously enjoyed by the rich were now indirectly extended to the poor; wealthy owners of land were too heavily burdened, while the populace of the towns went scot free. … Very large sums, also, belonging to the State, were advanced to the Commune of Paris, now rising into formidable power. … The funds so obtained were lavishly squandered in giving relief to the poor of the capital in the most improvident ways—in buying bread dear and reselling it cheap, and in finding fanciful employment for artizans out of work. The result, of course, was to attract to Paris many thousands of the lowest class of rabble, and to add them to the scum of the city. … On the first anniversary [July 14, 1790] of the fall of the Bastille, and before the Constitution had been finished … a great national holiday [called the Feast of the Federation] was kept; and, amidst multitudes of applauding spectators, deputations from every Department in France, headed by the authorities of the thronging capital, defiled in procession to the broad space known as the Field of Mars, along the banks of the Seine. An immense amphitheatre had been constructed [converting the plain into a valley, by the labor of many thousands, in a single week], and decorated with extraordinary pomp; and here, in the presence of a splendid Court, of the National Assembly, and of the municipalities of the realm, and in the sight of a great assemblage surging to and fro with throbbing excitement, the King took an oath that he would faithfully respect the order of things that was being established, while incense streamed from high-raised altars, and the ranks of 70,000 National Guards burst into loud cheers and triumphant music; and even the Queen, sharing in the passion of the hour, and radiant with beauty, lifted up in her arms the young child who was to be the future chief of a disenthralled and regenerate people. … {1269} The following week was gay with those brilliant displays which Paris knows how to arrange so well; flowery arches covered the site of the Bastille, fountains ran wine, and the night blazed with fire; and the far-extending influence of France was attested by enthusiastic deputations of 'friends of liberty' from many parts of Europe, hailing the dawn of an era of freedom and peace. The work, however, of the National Assembly developed some of its effects ere long. The abolition of titles of honor filled up the measure of the anger of the Nobles; the confiscation of the property of the Church, above all, the law as to the election of priests, known as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, shocked all religious or superstitious minds. … The emigration of the Nobles, which had become very general from the 5th and 6th of October, went on in daily augmenting numbers; and, in a short time, the frontiers were edged with bands of exiles breathing vengeance and hatred. In many districts the priests denounced as sacrilege, what had been done to the Church, divided the peasantry, and preached a crusade against what they called the atheist towns; and angry mutinies broke out in the Army, which left behind savage and relentless feelings. The relations between the King and the Assembly, too, became strained, if not hostile, at every turn of affairs, to the detriment of anything like good government; and while Louis sunk into a mere puppet, the Assembly, controlled in a great measure by demagogues and the pampered mobs of Paris, felt authority gradually slipping from it." To all the many destructive and revolutionary influences at work was now added "the pitiful conduct of those best known by the still dishonorable name of 'Émigrés.' In a few months the great majority of the aristocracy of France had fled the kingdom, abandoned the throne around which they had stood, breathing maledictions against a contemptuous Nation, as arrogant as ever in the impotence of want, and thinking only of a counter-revolution that would cover the natal soil with blood. … Their utter want of patriotism and of sound feeling made thousands believe that the state of society which had bred such creatures ought to be swept away."

W. O'C. Morris, The French Revolution and First Empire, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: H. Van Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 1, chapter 5, and book 2, chapters 3-5.

M'me de Stael, Considerations on the French Revolution, part 2, chapters 12-19 (volume l).

_E. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France._

A. F. Bertrand de Moleville, Annals of the French Revolution, part 1, chapters 22-35 (volumes 2-3).

Duchess de Tourzell, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 3-11.

W. H. Jervis, The Gallican Church and the Revolution., chapters 1-4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1790. The rise of the Clubs. Jacobins, Cordeliers, Feuillants, Club Monarchique, and Club of '89.

"Every party sought to gain the people; it was courted as sovereign. After attempting to influence it by religion, another means was employed, that of the clubs. At that period, clubs were private assemblies, in which the measures of government, the business of the state, and the decrees of the assembly, were discussed; their deliberations had no authority, but they exercised a certain influence. The first club owed its origin to the Breton deputies, who already met together at Versailles to consider the course of proceeding they should take. When the national representatives were transferred from Versailles to Paris, the Breton deputies and those of the assembly who were of their views held their sittings in the old convent of the Jacobins, which subsequently gave its name to their meetings. It did not at first cease to be a preparatory assembly, but as all things increase in time, the Jacobin Club did not confine itself to influencing the assembly; it sought also to influence the municipality and the people, and received as associates members of the municipality and common citizens. Its organization became more regular, its action more powerful; its sittings were regularly reported in the papers; it created branch clubs in the provinces, and raised by the side of legal power another power which first counselled and then conducted it. The Jacobin Club, as it lost its primitive character and became a popular assembly, had been forsaken by part of its founders. The latter established another society on the plan of the old one, under the name of the Club of '89. Siéyes, Chapelier, Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld, directed it, as Lameth and Barnave directed that of the Jacobins. Mirabeau belonged to both, and by both was equally courted. These clubs, of which the one prevailed in the assembly, and the other amongst the people, were attached to the new order of things, though in different degrees. The aristocracy sought to attack the revolution with its own arms; it opened royalist clubs to oppose the popular clubs. That first established, under the name of the Club des Impartiaux, could not last because it addressed itself to no class opinion. Reappearing under the name of the Club Monarchique, it included among its members all those whose views it represented. It sought to render itself popular with the lower classes, and distributed bread; but, far from accepting its overtures, the people considered such establishments as a counter-revolutionary movement. It disturbed their sittings, and obliged them several times to change their place of meeting. At length, the municipal authority found itself obliged, in January, 1791, to close this club, which had been the cause of several riots."

F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, chapter 3.

"At the end of 1790 the number of Jacobin Clubs was 200, many of which—like the one in Marseilles—contained more than a thousand members. Their organization extended through the whole kingdom, and every impulse given at the centre in Paris was felt at the extremities. … It was far indeed from embracing the majority of adult Frenchmen, but even at that time it had undoubtedly become—by means of its strict unity—the greatest power in the kingdom."

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).

"This Jacobin Club soon divided itself into three other clubs: first, that party which looked upon the Jacobins as lukewarm patriots left it, and constituted themselves into the Club of the Cordeliers, where Danton's voice of thunder made the halls ring; and Camille Desmoulins' light, glancing wit played with momentous subjects. The other party, which looked upon the Jacobins as too fierce, constituted itself into the 'Club of 1789; friends of the monarchic constitution;' and afterwards named Feuillant's Club, because it met in the Feuillant Convent. Lafayette was their chief; supported by the 'respectable' patriots. These clubs generated many others, and the provinces imitated them."

G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre, chapter 10.

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"The Cordeliers were a Parisian club; the Jacobins an immense association extending throughout France. But Paris would stir and rise at the fury of the Cordeliers; and Paris being once in motion, the political revolutionists were absolutely obliged to follow. Individuality was very powerful among the Cordeliers. Their journalists, Marat, Desmoulins, Fréron, Robert, Hébert and Fabre d'Églantine, wrote each for himself. Danton, the omnipotent orator, would never write; but, by way of compensation, Marat and Desmoulins, who stammered or lisped, used principally to write, and seldom spoke. … The Cordeliers formed a sort of tribe, all living in the neighbourhood of the club."

J. Michelet, Historical View of the French Revolution, book 4, chapters 7 and 5.

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, volume 2, book 1, chapter 5.

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

FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791. Revolution at Avignon. Reunion of the old Papal province with France decreed.

"The old residence of the Popes [Avignon] remained until the year 1789 under the papal government, which, from its distance, exercised its authority with great mildness, and left the towns and villages of the country in the enjoyment of a great degree of independence. The general condition of the population was, however, much the same as in the neighbouring districts of France—agitation in the towns and misery in the country. It is not surprising, therefore, that the commotion of August 4th should extend itself among the subjects of the Holy see. Here, too, castles were burned, black mail levied on the monasteries, tithes and feudal rights abolished. The city of Avignon soon became the centre of a political agitation, whose first object was to throw off the papal yoke, and then to unite the country with France. … In June, 1790, the people of Avignon tore down the papal arms, and the Town Council sent a message to Paris, that Avignon wished to be united to France." Some French regiments were sent to the city to maintain order; but "the greater part of them deserted, and marched out with the Democrats of the town to take and sack the little town of Cavaillon, which remained faithful to the Pope. From this time forward civil war raged without intermission. … The Constituent Assembly, on the 14th of September, 1791, decreed the reunion of the country with France. Before the new government could assert its authority, fresh and more dreadful atrocities had taken place," ending with the fiendish massacre of 110 prisoners, held by a band of ruffians who had taken possession of the papal castle.

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 3, chapter 2 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791. The oath of the clergy. First movements toward the European coalition against French democracy. Death of Mirabeau. The King's flight and arrest at Varennes. Rise of a Republican Party.

"By a decree of November 27th, 1790, the Assembly required the clergy to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law and the king, and to maintain the constitution. This oath they were to take within a week, on pain of deprivation. The King, before assenting to this measure, wished to procure the consent of the Pope, but was persuaded not to wait for it, and gave his sanction, December 3rd. … Of 300 prelates and priests, who had seats in the Assembly, those who sat on the right unanimously refused to take the oath, while those who sat on the left anticipated the day appointed for that purpose. Out of 138 archbishops and bishops, only four consented to swear, Talleyrand, Loménie de Brienne (now Archbishop of Sens), the Bishop of Orleans, and the Bishop of Viviers. The oath was also refused by the great majority of the curés and vicars, amounting, it is said, to 50,000. Hence arose the distinction of 'prêtres sermentés' and 'insermentés,' or sworn and non-juring priests. The brief of Pius VI., forbidding the oath, was burnt at the Palais Royal, as well as a mannikin representing the Pope himself in his pontificals. Many of the deprived ecclesiastics refused to vacate their functions, declared their successors intruders and the sacraments they administered null, and excommunicated all who recognised and obeyed them. Louis XVI., whose religious feelings were very strong, was perhaps more hurt by these attacks upon the Church than even by those directed against his own prerogative. The death of Mirabeau, April 2nd 1791, was a great loss to the King, though it may well be doubted whether his exertions could have saved the monarchy. He fell a victim to his profligate habits, assisted probably by the violent exertions he had recently made in the Assembly. … He was honoured with a sumptuous funeral at the public expense, to which, says a contemporary historian, nothing but grief was wanting. In fact, to most of the members of the Assembly, eclipsed by his splendid talents and overawed by his reckless audacity, his death was a relief. … After Mirabeau's death, Duport, Barnave, and Lameth reigned supreme in the Assembly, and Robespierre became more prominent. The King had now begun to fix his hopes on foreign intervention. The injuries inflicted by the decrees of the Assembly on August 4th 1789, on several princes of the Empire, through their possessions in Alsace, Franche Comté, and Lorraine, might afford a pretext for a rupture between the German Confederation and France. … The German prelates, injured by the Civil Constitution of the clergy, were among the first to complain. By this act the Elector of Mentz was deprived of his metropolitan rights over the bishoprics of Strasburg and Spires; the Elector of Trèves of those over Metz, Toul, Verdun, Nanci and St. Diez. The Bishops of Strasburg and Bale lost their diocesan rights in Alsace. Some of these princes and nobles had called upon the Emperor and the German body in January 1790, for protection against the arbitrary acts of the National Assembly. This appeal had been favourably entertained, both by the Emperor Joseph II. and by the King of Prussia; and though the Assembly offered suitable indemnities, they were haughtily refused. … The Spanish and Italian Bourbons were naturally inclined to support their relative, Louis XVI. … The King of Sardinia, connected by intermarriages with the French Bourbons, had also family interests to maintain. Catherine II. of Russia had witnessed, with humiliation and alarm, the fruits of the philosophy which she had patronised, and was opposed to the new order of things in France. … {1271} All the materials existed for an extensive coalition against French democracy. In this posture of affairs the Count d'Artois, accompanied by Calonne, who served him as a sort of minister, and by the Count de Durfort, who had been despatched from the French Court, had a conference with the Emperor, now Leopold II., at Mantua, in May 1791, in which it was agreed that, towards the following July, Austria should march 35,000 men towards the frontiers of Flanders; the German Circles 15,000 towards Alsace; the Swiss 15,000 towards the Lyonnais; the King of Sardinia 15,000 towards Dauphiné; while Spain was to hold 20,000 in readiness in Catalonia. This agreement, for there was not, as some writers have supposed, any formal treaty, was drawn up by Calonne, and amended with the Emperor's own hand. But the large force to be thus assembled was intended only as a threatening demonstration, and hostilities were not to be actually commenced without the sanction of a congress. … The King's situation had now become intolerably irksome. He was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner at Paris. A trip, which he wished to make to St. Cloud during the Easter of 1791, was denounced at the Jacobin Club as a pretext for flight; and when he attempted to leave the Tuileries, April 18th, the tocsin was rung, his carriage was surrounded by the mob, and he was compelled to return to the palace. … A few days after … the leaders of the Revolution, who appear to have suspected his negociations abroad, exacted that he should address a circular to his ambassadors at foreign courts, in which he entirely approved the Revolution, assumed the title of 'Restorer of French liberty,' and utterly repudiated the notion that he was not free and master of his actions." But the King immediately nullified the circular by despatching secret agents with letters "in which he notified that any sanction he might give to the decrees of the Assembly was to be reputed null; that his pretended approval of the constitution was to be interpreted in an opposite sense, and that the more strongly he should seem to adhere to it, the more he should desire to be liberated from the captivity in which he was held. Louis soon after resolved on his unfortunate flight to the army of the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmédy. … Having, after some hair-breadth escapes, succeeded in quitting Paris in a travelling berlin, June 20th, they [the King, Queen, and family] reached St. Menehould in safety. But here the King was recognised by Drouet, the son of the postmaster, who, mounting his horse, pursued the royal fugitives to Varennes, raised an alarm, and caused them to be captured when they already thought themselves out of danger. In consequence of their being rather later than was expected, the military preparations that had been made for their protection entirely failed. The news of the King's flight filled Paris with consternation. The Assembly assumed all the executive power of the Government, and when the news of the King's arrest arrived, they despatched Barnave, Latour, Maubourg and Pétion to conduct him and his family back to Paris. … Notices had been posted up in Paris, that those who applauded the King should be horsewhipped, and that those who insulted him should be hanged; hence he was received on entering the capital with a dead silence. The streets, however, were traversed without accident to the Tuileries, but as the royal party were alighting, a rush was made upon them by some ruffians, and they were with difficulty saved from injury. The King's brother, the count of Provence, who had fled at the same time by a different route, escaped safely to Brussels. This time the King's intention to fly could not be denied; he had, indeed, himself proclaimed it, by sending to the Assembly a manifest, in which he explained his reasons for it, declared that he did not intend to quit the kingdom, expressed his desire to restore liberty and establish a constitution, but annulled all that he had done during the last two years. … The King, after his return, was provisionally suspended from his functions by a decree of the Assembly, June 25th. Guards were placed over him and the Queen; the gardens of the Tuileries assumed the appearance of a camp; sentinels were stationed on the roof of the Palace, and even in the Queen's bedchamber. … From the period of the King's flight to Varennes must be dated the first decided appearance of a republican party in France. During his absence the Assembly had been virtually sovereign, and hence men took occasion to say, 'You see the public peace has been maintained, affairs have gone on, in the usual way in the King's absence.' The chief advocates of a republic were Brissot, Condorcet, and the recently-established club of the Cordeliers. … The arch-democrat, Thomas Payne, who was now at Paris, also endeavoured to excite the populace against the King. The Jacobin Club had not yet gone this length; they were for bringing Louis XVI. to trial and deposing him, but for maintaining the monarchy."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapters 2-3 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: J. Michelet, Historical View of the French Revolution, book 4, chapters 8-14.

M'me Campan, Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, volume 2, chapters 5-7.

Marquis de Bouillé, Memoirs, chapters 8-11.

Duchess de Tourzel, Memoirs, volume 1, chapter 12.

A. B. Cochrane, Francis I., and other Historical Studies, volume 2 (The Flight of Varennes).

FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (July-September). Attitude of Foreign Powers. Coolness of Austria towards the Émigrés. The Declaration of Pilnitz. Completion of the Constitution. Restoration of the King. Tumult in the Champs de Mars. Dissolution of the Constituent National Assembly.

"On the 27th of July, Prince Reuss presented a memorial [from the Court of Austria] to the Court of Berlin, in which the Emperor explained at length his views of a European Concert. It was drawn up, throughout, in Leopold's usual cautious and circumspect manner. … In case an armed intervention should appear necessary—they would take into consideration the future constitution of France; but in doing so they were to renounce, in honour of the great cause in which they were engaged, all views of selfish aggrandizement. We see what a small part the desire for war played in the drawing up of this far-seeing plan. The document repeatedly urged that no step ought to be taken without the concurrence of all the Powers, and especially of England; and as England's decided aversion to every kind of interference was well known, this stipulation alone was sufficient to stamp upon the whole scheme, the character of a harmless demonstration." {1272} At the same time Catharine II. of Russia, released from war with the Turks, and bent upon the destruction of Poland, desired "to implicate the Emperor as inextricably as possible in the French quarrel, in order to deprive Poland of its most powerful protector; she therefore entered with the greatest zeal into the negociations for the support of Louis XVI. Her old opponent, the brilliant King Gustavus of Sweden, declared his readiness—on receipt of a large subsidy from Russia—to conduct a Swedish army by sea to the coast of Flanders, and thence, under the guidance of Bouillé, against Paris. … But, of course, every word he uttered was only an additional warning to Leopold to keep the peace. … Under these circumstances he [the Emperor] was most disagreeably surprised on the 20th of August, a few days before his departure for Pillnitz, by the sudden and entirely unannounced and unexpected arrival in Vienna of the Count d'Artois. It was not possible to refuse to see him, but Leopold made no secret to him of the real position of affairs. … He asked permission to accompany the Emperor to Pillnitz, which the latter, with cool politeness, said that he had no scruple in granting, but that even there no change of policy would take place. … Filled with such sentiments, the Emperor Leopold set out for the conference with his new ally; and the King of Prussia came to meet him with entirely accordant views. … The representations of d'Artois, therefore, made just as little impression at Pillnitz, as they had done, a week before, at Vienna. … On the 27th, d'Artois received the joint answer of the two Sovereigns, the tone and purport of which clearly testified to the sentiments of its authors. … The Emperor and King gave their sanction to the peaceable residence of individual Émigrés in their States, but declared that no armed preparations would be allowed before the conclusion of an agreement between the European Powers. To this rejection the two Monarchs added a proposal of their own—contained in a joint declaration—in which they spoke of the restoration of order and monarchy in France as a question of the greatest importance to the whole of Europe. They signified their intention of inviting the coöperation of all the European Powers. … But as it was well ascertained that England would take no part, the expressions they chose were really equivalent to a declaration of non-intervention, and were evidently made use of by Leopold solely to intimidate the Parisian democrats. … Thus ended the conference of Pillnitz, after the two Monarchs had agreed to protect the constitution of the Empire, to encourage the Elector of Saxony to accept the crown of Poland, and to afford each other friendly aid in every quarter. The statement, therefore, which has been a thousand times repeated, that the first coalition for an attack on the French Revolution was formed on this occasion, has been shown to be utterly without foundation. As soon as the faintest gleam of a reconciliation between Louis and the National Assembly appeared, the cause of the Emigrés was abandoned by the German Courts."

H. Von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 2, chapter 6. (volume l).

At Paris, meantime, "the commissioners charged to make their report on the affair of Varennes presented it on the 16th of July. In the journey, they said, there was nothing culpable; and even if there were, the King was inviolable. Dethronement could not result from it, since the King had not staid away long enough, and had not resisted the summons of the legislative body. Robespierre, Buzot, and Pétion repeated all the well known arguments against the inviolability. Duport, Barnave, and Salles answered them, and it was at length resolved that the King could not be brought to trial on account of his flight. … No sooner was this resolution passed than Robespierre rose, and protested strongly against it, in the name of humanity. On the evening preceding this decision, a great tumult had taken place at the Jacobins. A petition to the Assembly was there drawn up, praying it to declare that the King was deposed as a perfidious traitor to his oaths, and that it would seek to supply his place by all the constitutional means. It was resolved that this petition should be carried on the following day to the Champ de Mars, where everyone might sign it on the altar of the country. Next day, it was accordingly carried to the place agreed upon, and the crowd of the seditious was reinforced by that of the curious, who wished to be spectators of the event. At this moment the decree was passed, so that it was now too late to petition. Lafayette arrived, broke down the barricades already erected, was threatened and even fired at, but … at length prevailed on the populace to retire. … But the tumult was soon renewed. Two invalids, who happened to be, nobody knows for what purpose, under the altar of the country, were murdered, and then the uproar became unbounded. The Assembly sent for the municipality, and charged it to preserve public order. Bailly repaired to the Champ de Mars, ordered the red flag to be unfurled, and, by virtue of martial law, summoned the seditious to retire. … Lafayette at first ordered a few shots to be fired in the air: the crowd quitted the altar of the country, but soon rallied. Thus driven to extremity, he gave the word, 'Fire!' The first discharge killed some of the rioters. Their number has been exaggerated. Some have reduced it to 30, others have raised it to 400, and others to several thousand. The last statement was believed at the moment, and the consternation became general. … Lafayette and Bailly were vehemently reproached for the proceedings in the Champ de Mars; but both of them, considering it their duty to observe the law, and to risk popularity and life in its execution, felt neither regret nor fear for what they had done. The factions were overawed by the energy which they displayed. … About this time the Assembly came to a determination which has since been censured, but the result of which did not prove so mischievous as it has been supposed. It decreed that none of its members should be re-elected. Robespierre was the proposer of this resolution, and it was attributed to the envy which he felt against his colleagues, among whom he had not shone. … The new Assembly was thus deprived of men whose enthusiasm was somewhat abated, and whose legislative science was matured by an experience of three years. … The constitution was … completed with some haste, and submitted to the King for his acceptance. From that moment his freedom was restored to him; or, if that expression be objected to, the strict watch kept over the palace ceased. … After a certain number of days he declared that he accepted the constitution. … He repaired to the Assembly, where he was received as in the most brilliant times. Lafayette, who never forgot to repair the inevitable evils of political troubles, proposed a general amnesty for all acts connected with the Revolution, which was proclaimed amidst shouts of joy, and the prisons were instantly thrown open. At length, on the 30th of September [1791], Thouret, the last president, declared that the Constituent Assembly had terminated its sittings."

_A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (American edition), volume 1, pages 186-193._

ALSO IN: M'me de Stael, Considerations on the French Revolution, part 2, chapters 22-23, and part 3, chapters 1-2.

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

{1273}

FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (August). Insurrection of slaves in San Domingo.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (September). Removal of all disabilities from the Jews.

See JEWS: A. D. 1791.

FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (October). The meeting of the Legislative Assembly. Its party divisions. The Girondists and their leaders. The Mountain.

"The most glorious destiny was predicted for the Constitution, yet it did not live a twelve month; the Assembly that was to apply it was but a transition between the Constitutional Monarchy and the Republic. It was because the Revolution partook much more of a social than of a political overthrow. The Constitution had done all it could for the political part, but the social fabric remained to be reformed; the ancient privileged classes had been scotched, but not killed. … The new Legislative Assembly [which met October 1, its members having been elected before the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly] was composed of 745 deputies, mostly chosen from the middle classes and devoted to the Revolution; those of the Right and Extreme Right going by the name of Feuillants, those of the Left and Extreme Left by the name of Jacobins. The Right was composed of Constitutionalists, who counted on the support of the National Guard and departmental authorities. Their ideas of the Revolution were embodied in the Constitution. … They kept up some relations with the Court by means of Barnave and the Lameths, but their pillar outside the Assembly, their trusty counsellor, seems to have been Lafayette. … The Left was composed of men resolved at all risks to further the Revolution, even at the expense of the Constitution. They intended to go as far as a Republic, only they lacked common unity of views, and did not form a compact body. … They reckoned among their numbers Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonné, deputies of the Gironde [the Bordeaux region, on the Garonne], powerful and vehement orators, and from whom their party afterwards took the name of 'Girondins'; also Brissot [de Warville] (born 1754), a talented journalist, who had drawn up the petition for the King's deposition; and Condorcet (born 1743), an ultra-liberal, but a brilliant philosopher. Their leader outside the Assembly was Pétion (born 1753), a cold, calculating, and dissembling Republican, enjoying great popularity with the masses. The Extreme Left, occupying in small numbers the raised seats in the Assembly, from which circumstance they afterwards took the name of 'the Mountain,' were auxiliaries of the 'Girondins' in their attempts to further a Revolution which should be entirely in the interest of the people. Their inspirers outside the Assembly were Robespierre (born 1759), who controlled the club of the Jacobins by his dogmatic rigorism and fame for integrity; and Danton (born 1759), surnamed the Mirabeau of the 'Breechless' (Sansculottes), a bold and daring spirit, who swayed the new club of the Cordeliers. The Centre was composed of nonentities, their moderation was inspired by fear, hence they nearly always voted with the Left."

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

"The department of the Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens who formed its deputies. … The names (obscure and unknown up to this period), of Ducos, Guadet, Lafond-Ladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonné, Vergniaud, were about to rise into notice and renown with the storms and disasters of their country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the Revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, before which it still trembled with apprehension, and which was to precipitate it into a republic. Why was this impulse fated to have birth in the department of the Gironde and not in Paris? Nought but conjectures can be offered on this subject. … Bordeaux was a commercial city, and commerce, which requires liberty through interest, at last desires it through a love of freedom. Bordeaux was the great commercial link between America and France, and their constant intercourse with America had communicated to the Gironde their love for free institutions. Moreover Bordeaux … was the birthplace of Montaigne and Montesquieu, those two great republicans of the French school."

A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, book 4, section 1 (volume 1).

"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.

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"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)._

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