Chapter XXXIX: The Directory

Constitution of the Directory.--Distracted State of Public
Affairs.--New Expedition to La Vendee.--Death of the
Dauphin.--Release of the Princess.--Pacification of La Vendee.--Riots
in London.--Execution of Charette.--Napoleon takes command of the
Army of Italy.--The first Proclamation.--Triumphs in Italy.--Letter
of General Hoche.--Peace with Spain.--Establishment of the Cispadane
Republic.--Negotiations with England.--Contemplated Invasion of
Ireland.--Memorials of Wolfe Tone.--Deplorable State of Public
Affairs.--Description of Napoleon.--Composition of the Directory.

The government of the Directory went into operation on the 27th of October, 1795. The two legislative bodies, the Council of the Ancients and the Council of the Five Hundred, met and chose for the five directors Lareveillere Lepeaux, Le Tourneur, Rewbel, Carnot, and Barras. "Among these," says Thiers, "there was not a man of genius, nor even any man of high reputation, excepting Carnot. But what was to be done at the end of a sanguinary revolution which, in a few years, had devoured several generations of men of genius of every description? In the Assemblies there was not left one extraordinary orator; in diplomacy there remained not one celebrated negotiator."[451] The state of public affairs at this time was deplorable in the extreme. Innumerable factions disturbed the state. A very sanguinary war was raging around the frontiers. The embers of civil war were still smoldering and frequently bursting out into flame. Three powerful parties were struggling almost with the energies of despair for the supremacy--the old Royalists, the Thermidorians or moderate Republicans, and the Jacobins, who wielded, as the great instrument of terror, the energies of the Parisian mob. Many of the most intelligent men already foresaw that there was no hope for distracted France but in the action of some mighty mind which could mould the tumultuous elements and evolve order from the confusion.[452]

The British government, undismayed by the disaster of Quiberon, now sent another expedition to the shores of La Vendee to rouse the Royalists to insurrection. The expedition consisted of two thousand English infantry, five hundred horse, several regiments of French emigrants, a great number of officers to take command of the marshaled peasantry, and arms, ammunition, provisions, clothing, and gold in abundance. Should this expedition successfully land and rally around it the Royalist insurgents in promising numbers, it was immediately to be followed by another still more powerful. The Count d'Artois (Charles X.) was placed in command of this force. Charette, a very intrepid Royalist chieftain, had raised some ten thousand peasants, and was in command of the coast to welcome the invaders. But General Hoche fell upon the insurgent Vendeeans and scattered them; and the English fleet, after hovering for some time along the coast, being unable to effect a landing, and disappointed in the support they hoped to have met, abandoned the enterprise and returned to England.[453]

While the coast of France was thus threatened the Allies on the Rhine gained some very decisive victories, and drove the routed Republicans before them. There was no money in the treasury of the Directory. The paper money, which had been freely issued, had become almost worthless, and the armies were now in destitution and rags. Such were the difficulties with which the new government had to grapple.[454]

On the 8th of June the dauphin died in the Temple. While he lived he was considered by the Royalists the legitimate King of France, under the title of Louis XVII. Upon his death the emigrants declared the Count of Provence king, and he assumed the title of Louis XVIII. It will be remembered that the Convention sent some deputies to arrest Dumouriez, and that he seized these commissioners and handed them over to the Austrians as hostages. The Directory now exchanged the young princess, who still survived in woeful captivity, for these commissioners and a few other distinguished prisoners held by the Austrians. It was the 19th of December when this unhappy child left her cell, where she had endured agonies such as few on earth had known, to be conveyed back to the palaces of her maternal ancestors.

The guns of Napoleon, quelling the insurgent sections, had established the government of the Directory. To secure Paris and France from similar scenes of violence, an imposing force was organized, called the Army of the Interior, and Napoleon was placed in command. As by magic, under his efficient command, this body was organized into the highest discipline and efficiency, and, overawing the discontented, maintained public order. A formidable camp of these troops was established at Grenelle. But for Napoleon the Directory could not have come into being. But for Napoleon it could not have lived a year, struggling against the conspiracies which ever crowded it.[455] General Hoche, operating with singular wisdom and humanity, succeeded in the pacification of the inhabitants of La Vendee. They surrendered their arms, and peace was restored to that distracted region. Still William Pitt clamored for war against the French Republic. The English _people_ were indignant at these unjust assaults against a neighboring nation struggling to throw off the chains of intolerable servitude, and demanded peace with France. The liberty-loving Englishmen met in immense gatherings in the open air, and denounced the war system in the most bold and decisive resolves. As the king rode to Parliament the populace pursued him, pelted his carriage with stones, broke the windows, and it was asserted that an air-gun was fired at him. Pitt, riding on horseback, was recognized by the populace, and with difficulty escaped from their hands covered with mud. Fox and Sheridan in Parliament were loud and eloquent in the denunciation of the war measures of the ministry.[456] Pitt endeavored to defend himself against the assaults of the opposition by saying that _English blood_ had not been shed. "True," replied Sheridan, "English blood has not been shed, but English honor has oozed from every pore."

The Allies, exhilarated by their successes on the Rhine, prepared to press the war with new vigor. Pitt obtained from Parliament a new loan of thirty-five millions of dollars. General Bonaparte was promoted from the command of the Army of the Interior to that of the Army of Italy. He immediately entered upon that Italian campaign which gave him renown throughout the world.

Though the Vendeeans had surrendered their arms and were rejoicing in the enjoyment of peace, Charette wandered about the country, refusing all overtures at reconciliation, and striving, with great energy, to rouse new forces of insurrection. The entire pacification of La Vendee now depended upon the capture of Charette. With almost unparalleled energy and bravery he succeeded for several months in eluding his foes. At last, on the 24th of March, 1796, he fell into an ambuscade. He was armed to the teeth, and fought with the ferocity of a tiger at bay. He received several sabre-blows before he fell and was secured. At his examination he with dignity averred his detestation of republicanism and his devotion to royalty. He had deluged the land with the blood of civil war, and, as a traitor, was doomed to die. On the 30th of March he was led out to execution. A platoon of soldiers was drawn up but a few paces before him. He stood erect, with his eyes unbandaged, and, apparently without the tremor of a nerve, gave the command to fire. He fell dead, pierced by many bullets. He had displayed marvelous heroism in a bad cause. Refusing to submit to laws established by the overwhelming majority of his countrymen, he was deluging the land in blood in the endeavor to rivet again upon France the chains of the most intolerable despotism. The Royalists all over Europe mourned his death. But France rejoiced, for the fall of Charette terminated the civil war.

One hundred thousand men had been under the command of General

Hoche in the strife of La Vendee. These were now at liberty to march to repel the foreign invader. Two powerful armies, of eighty thousand each, were collected on the Rhine. But they could not hold their ground against the outnumbering Austrians. In one of these engagements the distinguished young general Marceau was killed. He was struck by a ball fired by a Tyrolean marksman, and fell from his horse mortally wounded. His soldiers, on the rapid retreat, were unable to rescue him, and he was left in his blood to the humanity of the victors. The Austrians generously did every thing in their power for his relief, but he died, three days after, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.

About thirty thousand French soldiers, in rags, destitute of the munitions of war, and almost famished, were ineffectually struggling against their foes on the southern slopes of the Apennines. Napoleon was placed in command of these starving troops, but the government was unable to supply him with any funds for the prosecution of the war. On the 27th of March he placed himself at the head of these enfeebled and discouraged battalions. Young generals, who subsequently obtained great renown--Angereau, Massena, Laharpe, Serrurier, and Berthier--composed the officers of his staff. The levy _en masse_ had filled the ranks with young men from good families, well informed, distinctly understanding the nature of the conflict, detesting the old feudal despotism which allied Europe was striving to impose upon them anew, and enthusiastically devoted to the principles of liberty and equal rights which the Revolution was endeavoring to implant. Though most of them were young, they had many of them spent years in the field, had seen many bloody battles, and, inured to the hardships of war, were veteran soldiers. Sixty thousand Piedmontese and Austrians, under Colli and Beaulieu, crowded the northern slopes and the crest of the mountains, endeavoring to force their way through the defiles upon France. Napoleon's first words to his troops roused them as with electric fire.

"Soldiers," said he, "you are ill fed, almost naked. The government owes you much, but can do nothing for you. Your patience, your courage, do you honor, but procure you neither glory nor advantage. I am about to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. You will there find large cities, rich provinces; you will there find honor, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of Italy, will your courage fail you?"

On the 12th of April his troops were in motion. A series of desperate battles and of resplendent victories ensued. At the close of two weeks Napoleon issued the following proclamation:

"Soldiers, in a fortnight you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one pairs of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You have made fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded more than ten thousand men. You had hitherto been fighting for barren rocks, rendered glorious by your courage, but useless to the country. You now rival, by your services, the army of Holland and the Rhine. Destitute of every thing, you have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles without cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without brandy and often without bread. The Republican phalanxes, the soldiers of liberty alone, could have endured what you have endured. Thanks be to you for it, soldiers. Your grateful country will owe to you its prosperity; and if your conquest at Toulon foreboded the glorious campaign of 1793, your present victories forbode one still more glorious. The two armies which so lately attacked you boldly, are fleeing affrighted before you. The perverse men who laughed at your distress, and rejoiced in thought at the triumph of your enemies, are confounded and trembling.

"But, soldiers, you have done nothing, since more remains to be done. Neither Turin nor Milan is yours. The ashes of the conquerors of Tarquin are still trampled upon by the murderers of Basseville."[457]

Napoleon now summoned all his energies to drive the Austrians out of Italy. In two months the work was done; and Paris, France, Europe was electrified by the narrative of deeds of daring and success, such as war had never recorded before. In all the towns and cities of Italy the French armies were received as deliverers, for the subjugated Italians were eager to throw off the hateful yoke of Austrian despotism. Napoleon, having unbounded confidence in himself, and but very little respect for the weak men who composed the Directory, took all matters of diplomacy, as well as war, into his own hands, and, sustained by the enthusiasm of his soldiers, settled the affairs of Italy according to his own views of expediency.

The Royalists, hoping for the overthrow of the Republic and for the return of Louis XVIII., were exceedingly chagrined by these victories. They left no means of calumny untried to sully the name of Napoleon. Europe was filled with falsehoods respecting him, and reports were circulated that General Hoche was to be sent from Paris to arrest him in the midst of his army. These rumors assumed such importance that the government wrote a letter to Napoleon contradicting them; and General Hoche, with the magnanimity of a man incapable of jealousy, over his own name published a letter expressing his admiration of the commander of the Army of Italy.

"Men," he wrote, "who, concealed or unknown during the first years of the foundation of the Republic, now think only of seeking the means of destroying it, and speak of it merely to slander its firmest supporters, have, for some days past, been spreading reports most injurious to the armies, and to one of the general officers who commanded them. Can they, then, no longer attain their object by corresponding openly with the horde of conspirators resident at Hamburg? Must they, in order to gain the patronage of the masters whom they are desirous of giving to France, vilify the leaders of the armies? Why is Bonaparte, then, the object of the wrath of these gentry? Is it because he beat themselves and their friends in Vendemiaire?[458] Is it because he is dissolving the armies of kings, and furnishing the Republic with the means of bringing this honorable war to a glorious conclusion? Ah! brave young man, where is the Republican soldier whose heart does not burn with the desire to imitate thee? Courage, Bonaparte! lead our victorious armies to Naples, to Vienna; reply to thy personal enemies by humbling kings, by shedding fresh lustre over our armies, and leave to us the task of upholding thy glory."

Still the Royalists were busy with incessant plots and intrigues for the overthrow of the government. The treasury was utterly bankrupt, paper money, almost utterly worthless, flooded the land, and the finances were in a state of inextricable embarrassment. The Jacobins and the Royalists were equally eager to demolish the Directory by any conceivable measures of treason and violence. Never was a nation in a more deplorable state, harassed by a foreign war which demanded all its energies, and torn by domestic dissensions which no human wisdom seemed capable of healing.

The Jacobins adopted even the desperate measure to feign a Royalist insurrection; to scatter white cockades, the emblem of Bourbon power; to shout _Vive le Roi!_ and to discharge musketry and throw petards into the streets, that the people, alarmed by the peril of Bourbon restoration, might throw themselves into the arms of the Jacobins for protection.[459] A mob of nearly a thousand most determined men marched, in the night of the 10th of September, upon the camp at Grenelle, hoping to fraternize with the soldiers in this treasonable endeavor to overthrow the government. Several hundreds fell dead or wounded in this frantic attempt.

The Directory now attempted to enter into peaceful relations with other powers, and effected a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Spain. Envoys were also sent to the Ottoman Porte and to Venice for the same purpose. Piedmont had sued for peace and obtained it. The Italians of Upper Italy, exulting in their emancipation from the Austrians, under the protection of Napoleon established the Cispadane Republic. Without the support of his strong arm they could not for a day resist the encroachments of the surrounding despotisms. The first National Assembly of this infant republic met at Modena, October 16, 1796. The people were electrified with delight at this unexpected achievement of freedom. The Assembly sent an address to Napoleon, informing him of the principles of their new government.

"Never forget," said Napoleon, in his reply, "that laws are mere nullities without the force necessary to support them. Attend to your military organization, which you have the means of placing on a respectable footing. You will then be more fortunate than the people of France, for you will arrive at liberty without passing through the ordeal of revolution."

The Directory had for some time been attempting to effect peace with England. On the 18th of December the British government stated on what terms it would consent to sheathe the sword. M. Thiers expresses the feelings of France in reference to this offer in the following terms:

"Thus France, having been iniquitously forced into war, after she had expended enormous sums, and from which she had come off victorious--France was not to gain a single province, while the northern powers had just divided a kingdom between them (Poland), and England had recently made immense acquisitions in India. France, who still occupied the line of the Rhine, and who was mistress of Italy, was to evacuate the Rhine and Italy at the bare summons of England! Such conditions were absurd and inadmissible. The very proposal of them was an insult, and they could not be listened to."[460]

To conquer a peace, the Directory now meditated a direct attack upon England. The Catholic Irish, over three millions in number, hating implacably their English conquerors, were ardent to rise, under the guarantee of France, and establish a republican government. They had sent secret agents to Paris to confer with the Directory. Wolfe Tone, one of the leaders of the Irish revolutionists, addressed memorials to the French Directory soliciting aid.

"The Catholics of Ireland," said he, "are 3,150,000, all trained from their infancy in an hereditary hatred and abhorrence of the English name. For these five years they have fixed their eyes most earnestly on France, whom they look upon, with great justice, as fighting their battles, as well as that of all mankind who are oppressed. Of this class I will stake my head there are 500,000 who would fly to the standard of the Republic if they saw it once displayed in the cause of liberty and their country.

"The Republic may also rely with confidence on the support of the Dissenters, actuated by reason and reflection, as well as the Catholics impelled by misery and inflamed by detestation of the English name. In the year 1791 the Dissenters of Belfast first formed the Club of United Irishmen, so called because in that club, for the first time, Dissenters and Catholics were seen together in harmony and union. Corresponding clubs were rapidly formed, the object of which was to subvert the tyranny of England, establish the independence of Ireland, and frame a free republic on the broad basis of liberty and equality.

"The Catholics also have an organization, commencing about the same time with the clubs last mentioned, but composed of Catholics only. In June last it embraced the whole peasantry of the provinces of Ulster, Leinster, and Connaught, three fourths of the nation, and I have little doubt that it has since extended into Munster, the remaining province. The eyes of this whole body, which may be said, almost without a figure, to be the people of Ireland, are turned with the most anxious expectation to France for assistance and support. The oath of their union recites that they will be faithful to the united nations of France and Ireland."[461]

An expedition to Ireland was secretly resolved upon. A fleet of fifteen sail of the line, twenty frigates, six luggers, and fifty transports, containing sixteen thousand troops, sailed on the 16th of December to land in Bantry Bay, on the coast of Ireland. But the very night after the squadron left port a heavy storm arose, in which one ship foundered and the fleet was widely dispersed. A singular series of casualties ensued. Some of the ships entered the bay, but not finding their companions, after waiting a short time, returned to France. Other ships of the expedition soon after entered, but, finding the bay deserted, they also returned. The expedition thus proved a total failure.[462]

The inefficient Directory was quite unable to rectify the disorders into which the internal affairs of the state were plunged. They uttered loud complaints, which did but increase discontent and disgust. The press, being entirely free, indulged in the utmost violence; Royalists and Jacobins assailing the feeble government without mercy and thwarting its operations in every possible way. The army of Italy was triumphant--almost miraculously so. Every where else the Republic was in disgrace. The Directory endeavored to throw the blame of the public calamities upon the two Councils, and published the following message, which was as true as it was ill-advised:

"All departments are distressed. The pay of the troops is in arrear; the defenders of the country, in rags and enervated by want, in disgust are led to desertion. The hospitals are destitute of furniture, fire, and drugs. The charitable institutions, utterly impoverished, repel the poor and infirm. The creditors of the state, the contractors who supply the armies, with difficulty obtain but a small portion of the sums that are their due. Distress keeps aloof men who could perform the same services better and cheaper. The roads are cut up; the communications interrupted. The public functionaries are without salary; from one end of the Republic to the other judges and administrators may be seen reduced to the horrible alternative either of dragging on, with their families, a miserable existence, or of being dishonored by selling themselves to intrigue. The evil-disposed are every where busy. In many places murder is being organized, and the police, without activity, without energy, because it is without pecuniary means, can not put a stop to these disorders."

All eyes were directed to the achievements of Napoleon, who, with superhuman energy, was destroying army after army of the Allies, astounding Europe by his exploits, and exciting the admiration of his countrymen. Thiers thus describes the position he then occupied in the public mind:

"Sickness, together with the excessive fatigues of the campaign, had weakened him extremely. He could scarcely sit on horseback; his cheeks were hollow and livid. His whole appearance was deplorable. His eyes alone, still bright and piercing as ever, indicated that the fire of his soul was not extinguished. His physical proportions formed a singular contrast with his genius and his renown, a contrast amusing to soldiers at once jovial and enthusiastic. Notwithstanding the decline of his strength, his extraordinary energy supported him and imparted an activity which was applied to all objects at once.

"He had begun what he called _the war against robbers_. Intriguers of all kinds had thronged to Italy for the purpose of introducing themselves into the administration of the armies and profiting by the wealth of that fine country. While simplicity and indigence pervaded the armies of the Rhine, luxury pervaded that of Italy--luxury as great as its glory. The soldiers, well clothed and well fed, were every where cordially received, and lived in pleasure and abundance. The officers, the generals, participated in the general opulence, and laid the foundations of their fortunes.

"Bonaparte, who had within him all the passions, but who, at that moment, was engrossed by one passion, that of glory, lived in a simple and austere manner, seeking relaxation only in the society of his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, and who had come, at his desire, to his head-quarters. Indignant at the disorders of the administration, he strictly scrutinized the minutest details, verified by personal inspection the accounts of the companies, denounced the dishonest administrators without mercy, and caused them to be prosecuted."

Among the Directors, Carnot was one of the noblest of men. The purity of his character slander has never attempted to taint. Barras was a fearless soldier and a shameless debauchee. He boasted of the profligacies in which he openly indulged, and he rioted in boundless extravagance, which he supported through corruption and bribes. Rewbel was a lawyer, a man of ability and integrity.[463] These three men had belonged to different political parties during the Revolution, and each detested the others. Lareveillere was an honest man, but destitute of those commanding qualities so essential to the post he occupied. Le Tourneur was a vain, good-natured man who merely echoed the voice of Carnot. All the Directors but Barras occupied, with their families, apartments in the Palace of the Luxembourg. In the public mind this discordant Directory consisted of two parties, Barras, Rewbel, and Lareveillere in the majority, and Carnot and Le Tourneur in the opposition.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 451: Thiers, History of the French Revolution, vol. iii., p. 338.]

[Footnote 452: "France, exhausted by every species of suffering, had lost even the power of uttering a complaint; and we had all arrived at such a point of depression that death, if unattended by pain, would have been wished for even by the youngest human being, because it offered the prospect of repose, and every one panted for that blessing at any price. But it was ordained that many days, months, and years should still continue in that state of horrible agitation, the true foretaste of the torments of hell."--_Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes_, p. 296.]

[Footnote 453: A _Republican_ does not view this endeavor on the part of the British government to foment civil war in France as a _Royalist_ views it. "It is _painful_," says Mr. Alison, "to reflect how different might have been the issue of the campaign had Great Britain really put forth its strength in the contest, and, instead of landing a few thousand men on a coast bristling with bayonets, sent thirty thousand men to make head against the Republicans till the Royalist forces were so organized as to be able to take the field with regular troops." It was this persistent determination, on the part of the British government and allied Europe, that France should not enjoy free institutions, which led to nearly all the sanguinary scenes of the French Revolution, and which, for nearly a quarter of a century, made Europe red with blood.]

[Footnote 454: "All these forces [of the Republic] were in a state of extreme penury, and totally destitute of the equipments necessary for the carrying on of a campaign. They had neither caissons, nor horses, nor magazines. The soldiers were almost naked and the generals, even, frequently in want of the necessaries of life. Multitudes had taken advantage of the relaxation of authority following the fall of Robespierre to desert and return to their homes, and the government, so far from being able to bring them back to their colors, were not even able to levy conscripts in the interior to supply their place."--_Alison_, vol. i., p. 369.

Paper money had been issued to the almost incredible amount of 2,000,000,000 dollars, or 10,000,000,000 francs. This paper money had so depreciated that a pound of sugar cost eighty dollars in paper money.]

[Footnote 455: Thiers, Hist. French Rev., vol. iii., p. 353.]

[Footnote 456: Ibid., vol. iii., p. 364.]

[Footnote 457: M. Basseville, an envoy of the French Republic at Rome, was attacked by a mob and cruelly murdered.]

[Footnote 458: Quelling the insurgent sections.]

[Footnote 459: Thiers's French Revolution, vol. iv., p. 10.]

[Footnote 460: Thiers's French Revolution, vol. iv., p. 66.]

[Footnote 461: Wolfe Tone's First Memorial to the French Directory, vol. ii., p. 187.]

[Footnote 462: "It is a curious subject for speculation what might have been the result had Hoche succeeded in landing with sixteen thousand of his best troops on the Irish shores. To those who consider, indeed, the patriotic spirit, indomitable valor, and persevering character of the English people, and the complete command they had of the sea, the final issue of such a contest can not appear doubtful; but it is equally evident that the addition of such a force and so able a commander to the numerous bodies of Irish malcontents would have engendered a dreadful domestic war, and that the whole energies of the empire might for a very long period have been employed in saving itself from dismemberment."--_Alison's History of Europe_, vol. i., p. 444.]

[Footnote 463: "Carnot, Barras, Rewbel, and Lareveillere had been members of the Convention; and, although none of them had been famous during the Reign of Terror for any atrocious act, still the three first had voted the death of the king--a vote which, notwithstanding the fatal though powerful considerations that may be presented in alleviation, placed them among the most furious Jacobins, and was prejudicial to the respect with which they ought to have been invested."--_Memoirs of Lavalette._]