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 51)

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

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

Marquise de Larochejaquelein, Memoirs.

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

L. I. Guiney, Monsieur Henri (de La Rochejaquelein.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

{1292}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. R. K. Van Alstine, Charlotte Corday.

A. Dobson, Four French Women, chapter 1.

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

"The insurgents in Calvados [Normandy] were easily suppressed; at the very first skirmish at Vernon [July 13], the insurgent troops fled. Wimpfen endeavoured to rally them in vain. The moderate class, those who had taken up the defence of the Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the constitution was accepted by the other departments, it saw the opportunity for admitting that it had been in error, when it thought it was taking arms against a mere factious minority. This retractation was made at Caen, which had been the headquarters of the revolt. The Mountain commissioners did not sully this first victory with executions. General Carteaux on the other hand, marched at the head of some troops against the sectionary army of the south; he defeated its force, pursued it to Marseilles, entered the town [August 23] after it, and Provence would have been brought into subjection like Calvados, if the royalists, who had taken refuge at Toulon, after their defeat, had not called in the English to their aid, and placed in their hands this key to France. Admiral Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for 8,000 Spaniards by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux, who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles. Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point. The Mountain commissioners had made their entry into the rebel capitals; Robert Lindet into Caen; Tallien into Bordeaux; Barras and Fréron into Marseilles. Only two towns remained to be taken Toulon and Lyons. A simultaneous attack from the south, west, and centre was no longer apprehended, and in the interior the enemy was only on the defensive. Lyons was besieged by Kellermann, general of the army of the Alps; three corps pressed the town on all sides. The veteran soldiers of the Alps, the revolutionary battalions and the newly levied troops, reinforced the besiegers every day. The people of Lyons defended themselves with all the courage of despair. At first, they relied on the assistance of the insurgents of the south; but these having been repulsed by Carteaux, the Lyonnese placed their last hope in the army of Piedmont, which attempted a diversion in their favour, but was beaten by Kellermann. Pressed still more energetically, they saw their first position carried. Famine began to be felt, and courage forsook them. The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army entered the walls [October 9], where they awaited the orders of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself [in the siege of which Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the artillery], defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell into the power of the republicans. The battalions of the army of Italy, reinforced by those which the taking of Lyons left disposable, pressed the place closely. After repeated attacks and prodigies of skill and valour, they made themselves masters of it, and the capture of Toulon finished what that of Lyons had begun [December 19]. Everywhere the convention was victorious. The Vendeans had failed in their attempt upon Nantes, after having lost many men, and their general-in-chief, Cathelineau. This attack put an end to the aggressive and previously promising movement of the Vendean insurrection. The royalists repassed the Loire, abandoned Saumur, and resumed their former cantonments. They were, however, still formidable; and the republicans, who pursued them, were again beaten in La Vendée. General Biron, who had succeeded General Berruyer, unsuccessfully continued the war with small bodies of troops; his moderation and defective system of attack caused him to be replaced by Canclaux and Rossignol, who were not more fortunate than he. There were two leaders, two armies, and two centres of operation; … The committee of public safety soon remedied this, by appointing one sole general-in-chief, Lechelle, and by introducing war on a large scale into La Vendée. This new method, aided by the garrison of Mayence, consisting of 17,000 veterans, who, relieved from operations against the coalesced powers after the capitulation, were employed in the interior, entirely changed the face of the war. The royalists underwent four consecutive defeats, two at Châtillon, two at Cholet [the last being October 17]. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d'Elbée were mortally wounded: and the insurgents, completely beaten in Upper Vendée, and fearing that they should be exterminated if they took refuge in Lower Vendée, determined to leave their country to the number of 80,000 persons. This emigration through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection, became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly routed at Mons [Le Mans, December 12], they were destroyed at Savenay [December 23], and barely a few thousand men, the wreck of this vast emigration, returned to Vendée. These disasters, irreparable for the royalist cause, the taking of their land of Noir-moutiers from Charette, the dispersion of the troops of that leader, the death of Laroche jacquelin, rendered the republicans masters of the country. {1295} The committee of public safety, thinking, not without reason, that its enemies were beaten but not subjugated, adopted a terrible system of extermination to prevent them from rising again. General Thurreau surrounded Vendée with sixteen entrenched camps; twelve movable columns, called the infernal columns, overran the country in every direction, sword and fire in hand, scoured the woods, dispersed the assemblies, and diffused terror throughout this unhappy country."

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

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

Marchioness de Larochejaquelain, Memoirs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Count Beugnot, Life, volume 1, chapter 6.

Lord R. Gower, Last Days of Marie Antoinette.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Duchesse de Duras, Prison Journals during the French Revolution

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

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

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

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

J. Morley, Robespierre (Critical Miscellanies, Second Series).

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

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

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

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

{1303}

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

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