Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 50)

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.