Chapter IV: , VII (61)

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

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

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

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

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

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

_F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 6._

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

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

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

{1285}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Despatches of Earl Gower,
page 256-309._

{1286}

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALSO IN
_A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 5._

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

_C. MacFarlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 11._

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

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

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

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

_Marquise de Larochejaquelein,
Memoirs._

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

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

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