CHAPTER LV.

FRANCE AGAINST EUROPE

 

THE Girondists seemed at first to reap the fruits of a victory achieved by others. The Assembly, in which that party prevailed, assumed at once all the executive power of the State, and, at the instance of Vergniaud, its president, directed the provisional suspension of the King, the nomination of a tutor for the Prince Royal, the installation of the King and Royal family at the Luxembourg, sanctioned the decrees on which the King had placed his veto, ordered the accusation of the Minister, Abancourt, for not carrying out a decree against the Swiss Guard, sent commissaries to the armies to suspend the Generals, decreed domiciliary visits to suspected persons. All this was done, August 10th, in the presence of the King. The Assembly, of which only members of the Left were present, also took upon itself to form a new Ministry; restored Roland, Servan, and Clavière to their former places, appointed Lebrun Minister for Foreign Affairs, Monge to the Department of Marine, Danton to that of Justice. Danton had been an advocate in the King’s Council since 1787, but had little practice. He was remarkable for his high stature, athletic form, stentorian voice, and what he called his audacity. These endowments served to qualify him for a demagogue; but he quailed if boldly met. He had taken little part in the insurrection; but after the victory he appeared at the head of the Marseillese with a great sabre, as if he had been the hero of the day. He appointed Camille Desmoulins and Fabre d'Eglantine his secretaries.

But the reins of power were really held at this juncture by the new Commune, or Municipality, supported by the armed mob. It was not till the morning of August 11th that the wary Robespierre had caused himself to be named a member of it for the Section in which he lived, that of the Piques, Place Vendôme. But he avoided appearing prominently in it, kept himself in a corner of the Council Chamber, yet directed all the steps of the Commune; and while the Legislative Assembly existed, headed several violent deputations to its bar. Marat was also a leading member of the insurrectionary Commune; such was their respect for him that they assigned him a private tribune. A Committee of Surveillance was appointed, which assumed all the functions of Government; ordered, among other things, the barriers to be closed, passports to be suspended; non-juring priests to leave France within a fortnight; the ladies of the Queen and several officers of the National Guard to be interrogated; decreed a number of arrests, thus filling the prisons for the ensuing massacres. The National Guard was reformed and increased; the property in the Royal Palaces and the plate in the churches were seized; the Registers at the Hotel de Ville began to be dated “First year of the Republic”. On August 12 the Assembly surrendered the custody of the King and his family to the Commune, and on the following day Pétion conducted them from the Luxembourg to the Temple. Here the King was lodged in a gloomy apartment lighted by a single window, and furnished with a wretched bed and a few chairs. The Royal family were not even provided with necessary clothes. The Countess of Sutherland, lady of the English Ambassador, sent some of her son’s for the Dauphin.

The Legislative Assembly was itself to be dissolved to make room for a National Convention. Robespierre had proposed this step at the Jacobin Club on the evening of August 10th. On the 11th the Assembly decreed its own abdication, and fixed the mode of electing a Convention. The electoral franchise was now extended; the distinction of active and inactive citizens was suppressed; every Frenchman, aged twenty-five, living by his own labour or income, and not in domestic service, if he had taken the civic oath, was declared an elector. But the double degree of election was retained; that is, primary assemblies to choose electoral assemblies, which last returned the deputies. The former were to meet on Sunday, August 26th; the latter on Sunday, September 2nd.

A mixed commission, composed of members of the Assembly and of the Commune, appointed to search the Tuileries, found some letters and documents, which proved that the King had compromised himself with the counter-Revolution. The Commune compelled the Assembly to appoint an extraordinary criminal tribunal. Robespierre refused the presidency of it, and had also resigned, in April, the office of Public Accuser, which he had exercised since the preceding February. On the establishment of the new tribunal, August 18th, the Commune directed the guillotine to be permanently erected in the Place du Carrousel. The first victims of this tribunal were Delaporte, intendant of the Civil List, D'Angremont, the Queen’s master of languages, one Solomon, convicted of forgery, and the journalist Durozoy. Thus was inaugurated the reign of blood; Robespierre had invoked it in the last number of his Défenseur. The dominion of the men who were to strangle the Revolution by their excesses, and prepare the way for a military despotism had now begun. Its advent was signalized by some acts of senseless brutality. By order of the Commune, the statues of Henry IV, of Louis XIV, and Louis XV, and other monuments, were overthrown; they also decreed the destruction of all emblems and monuments of feudality, even in private houses. The title of Citoyen was to be substituted for that of Monsieur; and in public acts after l’an IV de la liberté was to be added, l‘an I de l’égalité.

But, though Paris seemed unanimous, the Revolution of August 10th was not universally welcomed in France. Symptoms of dissatisfaction were manifested at Metz, Nanci, Rouen, Amiens, Strassburg, and other places. Lafayette conceived the idea of uniting the Directories of the Departments in a Congress, and opposing them to the National Assembly —in short, of confronting Paris with the provinces. The Municipality of Sedan, where his army was stationed, was ready to second the measure. He also thought of marching to Paris, with some regiments devotedly attached to him, when the National Guards would, in all probability, have joined him, and the Marseillese and pikemen might easily have been dispersed. Thus he might have saved the King and Constitution, but he wanted resolution for so bold a stroke, and only did enough to insure his own fall. The Government superseded him, and, on the night of August 19th, he fled with many of his officers, hoping to reach the Dutch frontier and England; but he was arrested by the Austrian outposts, transferred for some unknown reason to Prussian custody, and successively imprisoned at Wesel, Neisse, and Glatz. Dumouriez was now appointed Commander-in-Chief of the two armies which covered the frontiers, and Luckner was superseded by Kellermann.

The allies were now advancing. The Prussian light troops had entered the French territory, August 12th. Some of the inhabitants of Sierck having fired upon them from their windows, that place was abandoned to military execution. The main body of the Prussian army, which had taken three weeks to accomplish forty leagues, crossed the frontier, August 18th, and encamped at Tiercelet, where it formed a junction with the Austrians under Clairfait. Longwy, invested by the Duke of Brunswick and General Clairfait, August 20th, capitulated on the 24th. This event was seized upon by the Jacobin leaders, who artfully fomented the excitement which it naturally produced. The Assembly decreed that every citizen, in a besieged place, who talked of surrender, should be put to death; that Longwy should be razed, and a new levy of 30,000 men made. On August 27th was given a grand funeral fête, in honor of those who had fallen on the 10th; the passions of the people were roused by a long procession of their widows and orphans. Next day Danton declared in the Assembly that the despots could be made to retreat only by “a great national convulsion”, insisted on the necessity of seizing all traitors; demanded authority to make domiciliary visits, for the purpose, as he said, of seizing the arms of suspected persons. These visits were made, by order of the Commune, on the night of August 29th, when several thousand persons were arrested, but the greater part were released on the following day. The Assembly at last made an endeavor to stem the assumption of authority by the Commune, and decreed, August 30th, the election of a new Municipality; but Pétion appeared at the bar at the head of a deputation on the 31st, and frightened the Chamber into an abandonment of the measure.

On Sunday morning, September 2nd, news arrived at Paris that Verdun had been invested; that the Duke of Brunswick, in summoning it, had declared that places which did not surrender would be abandoned to the fury of the soldiery. The Commune now directed the barriers to be closed, horses to be seized to convey troops to the frontier; citizens to hold themselves in readiness to march at the first signal. Alarm-guns were fired, the tocsin was rung, the générale beaten.

THE MASSACRES OF SEPTEMBER

Everything was now ready for the Massacres of September. The first victims were some priests, who were being conveyed in carriages to the prison of the Abbaye, about half-past two in the afternoon; several of whom were murdered before they reached the prison. When the carriages entered the court it was found to be filled with a multitude of people, who must have been admitted by the authorities. The massacre at this place lasted till five o'clock, when a voice exclaimed, “There is nothing more to be done here; let us go to the Carmelites”. This prison contained 186 ecclesiastics and three laymen. The priests were asked whether they would take the civic oath? and on their heroically refusing, they were conducted to the garden of the convent, and dispatched with muskets and swords. Only fourteen contrived to escape over the walls. About six in the evening an officer of the National Guard informed the General Council of the Municipality of what was passing. This body could, doubtless, have arrested the massacres, had they been so inclined, by ordering out the National Guard; but they contented themselves with sending commissioners to the different prisons to protect persons incarcerated for debt. They went through the farce of sending a message to the Assembly to deliberate respecting the crowds assembled at the prisons. But the Assembly was frightened and powerless. The prisoners were subjected to a sort of burlesque trial. Maillard, the hero of the Bastille, acted the part of judge; ten armed men, seated at a table, formed an extempore jury.

Similar scenes passed at the other prisons during five consecutive days. The verdict, “Liberate the gentleman”, was the signal to kill the prisoner who thought he had escaped. Some who boldly avowed that they were Royalists were spared; any equivocation or falsehood was attended with certain death. Among the victims were the Minister Montmorin, and the beautiful Princess de Lamballe, one of the Queen’s favorites, who was murdered because she refused the oath of hatred of Royalty. When the murderers had cleared the chief prisons, they went to the Bicêtre and La Salpêtrière, and massacred women and children, paupers and lunatics. The total number of victims at Paris is reckoned at between 1,400 and 1,500, to whom must be added the prisoners detained at Orleans—forty-three in number. These prisoners were all massacred but three, September 9th. Among them were the ex-Minister De Lessart and the Duke de Brissac, formerly commander of the King’s guard. The ruffian Fournier, called the American, but who was in reality a native of Auvergne, leader of the band which committed this massacre, had a regular commission from Roland, Minister of the Interior.

The Committee of Surveillance addressed a circular to the different departments, September 3rd, calling upon them to follow the example set by the capital, as a necessary means of public safety. This circular, which bears among other signatures that of Marat, was forwarded with the counter­sign of Danton. The circular produced, however, but little effect, and, on the whole, the Septembrists failed in the provinces. At Rheims about eight persons were murdered, eleven at Lyons, fourteen at Meaux. At the last place the assassins are said to have come from Paris.

There can be no doubt that the September massacres were premeditated. They appear to have been determined on at latest by August 26th, and probably one of the chief objects of them was to influence the elections for the Convention. It can be proved that the Ministry knew of them beforehand; that the concierges and other authorities at the prisons were prepared for what was to happen; that the assassins, consisting chiefly of Marseillese and Federal soldiers, were quietly admitted into the prisons; that great part of them were hired and paid for their bloody work; that records of the Sections still existing, as those of the Sections Luxembourg and Poisonnière, show that the massacres were deliberately voted; and that the same thing was done in other places may be inferred from the circumstance that in the registers of several Sections the leaves containing the transactions of September 2nd and 3rd are torn out. A further proof of foreknowledge and design is that many prisoners were liberated by the leaders of the Commune before the massacres began, either from private friendship, or for the sake of money. The Prince de Pois and Beaumarchais bought their lives of Panis and Manuel.

The chief instigators of the massacres were Danton, Marat, and the Committee of Surveillance; one of the principal agents of them was Billaud Varennes. At the prison of La Force, members of the Municipality, in their scarves of office, presided over and legalized the butchery. Robespierre’s share in these atrocities, if more obscure, is hardly less certain. He was too wary to take any prominent part. But that he had a foreknowledge of the massacres appears from the fact, that he, as well as Tallien and others, reclaimed from the prisons some priests who had been their tutors. Panis, one of the most active of the Committee of Surveillance, was Robespierre’s creature, acting only by his command. Robespierre afterwards endeavored to exculpate himself by some glaring falsehoods. He affirmed that he had ceased to go to the Commune before the massacres occurred; yet the minutes record his presence September 1st and 2nd. Pétion also declared that he saw Robespierre at the Hotel de Ville during the massacres, and reproached him with the part he had taken in the denunciations and arrests.

The Girondists are not exempt from blame, though their part in the massacres was that of cowardly connivance. We have mentioned Roland’s agency in the matter of the Orleans prisoners. The journals published under the patronage of the Minister of the Interior represented the massacres as necessary and just. Pétion, when applied to by men bespattered with blood for orders respecting eighty prisoners at La Force, exclaimed, “Do for the best!”, and offered the assassins some wine. Brissot was publicly charged by Chabot with having informed him, on the morning of September 2nd, of the plot to massacre the prisoners. When it was too late, the Girondists bestirred themselves a little, and procured the dissolution of the Committee of Surveillance.

BATTLE F VALMY, SEPT. 20^TH,1792

From these revolting scenes we turn with pleasure to view the French character on a brighter side. With patriotic enthusiasm volunteers enrolled themselves in great numbers; during a fortnight 1,800 men left Paris daily for the frontier. The Marseillese, however, the perpetrators of the massacres, who had been maintained at the expense of the Commune, refused to march. Marat proclaimed that he had other work for them to do at Paris. Patriotic gifts poured in; even the market women brought 4,000 francs. Verdun had surrendered, September 2nd, after a bombardment of fifteen hours; but the suicide of Beaurepaire, the commandant, who had opposed the capitulation, might apprize the Prussians of the resistance they were likely to meet. Dumouriez who had only 25,000 men to oppose to the much superior forces of the Duke of Brunswick, had determined to occupy the forest of Argonne, a branch of the Ardennes which separates the Trois Evêchés from Champagne Pouilleuse, and to make it the Thermopylae of France. But being driven from two of the passes he had occupied, and a superior force of the allies threatening to turn his flank, he retreated in the night of September 14th to St. Menehould. Here he was joined by Kellermann and Bournonville with their divisions, which brought up his army to more than 50,000 men. The Prussians attacked Kellermann at Valmy, September 20th, but the Duke of Brunswick withdrew the columns which had been formed, and were actually marching to storm the heights, to the great chagrin of the King of Prussia, who was present, and had ordered the advance. The Duc de Chartres, eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier, were present at this battle, which was little more than a cannonade. It had, however, important consequences. The Prussians, deceived by the representations of the French emigrants, that their advance would be a mere military promenade, were ill provided for a long campaign; the peasants had laid waste the surrounding country, bad weather set in, the roads became almost impracticable, the men were suffering severely from dysentery. The stories about the Duke of Brunswick having been tampered with by the French are most probably false, but it is certain that he did not push the war with much ardour. Instead of advancing on Châlons, as the King of Prussia, the Russian, Austrian, and emigrant parties desired, the Duke renewed negotiations with Dumouriez; offered much milder conditions than those previously threatened; said nothing about restoring the ancient régime; demanded only the release of the King, and the cessation of all propagandism. Dumouriez would have willingly made a separate peace with Prussia; but the Convention had now assembled; the Executive Council refused to listen to any terms till the French territory had been evacuated; and Dumouriez, in reply to the Duke’s proposals, handed to the Prussian envoy the decree establishing a Republic. There was now nothing left to the Prussians but to retreat, and Dumouriez, authorized by Danton, did not molest them. They crossed the Rhine at Coblenz towards the end of October, and Dumouriez returned to Paris to enjoy his success and arrange a plan of operations against Belgium. On the 17th of October King Frederick William II wrote to the Empress Catharine that the inclemency of the weather had forced him to retreat; that he should not forsake the great cause, but that he must be compensated with a still larger share of Poland! At the same time Austria was urging on the Russian Court her claim to Baireuth and Anspach; and Francis II, in a letter to the King of Prussia (October 29th), expressed his resolution to act with him against the common enemy, and at the same time to procure the compensation to which both were entitled.

The National Convention charged with the drawing up of a new Constitution, assembled September 21st. The Girondists, or Brissotins, who had sat on the left or opposition benches in the Legislative, formed the right of the Convention. In appearance they had the superiority. They occupied the Ministry, they had a majority in the Assembly, and were supported by the moderate party. But they had placed themselves in a false position. They had gone too far for the Constitutionalists, and not far enough for the ultra-democrats and Jacobins. Opposite to them in terrible array was the faction of the Mountain, so called from the members of it occupying the highest benches on the left. The nucleus of this faction was formed by the twenty-four Parisian deputies and some violent Republicans from the Departments. The election of deputies had commenced at Paris, September 2nd, and there can be no doubt that the massacres had a vast influence on the returns. The list, headed by Robespierre and closed by the Duke of Orleans, now called Philippe Egalité, contains, among other names notorious in the annals of the Revolution, those of Danton, Collot d'Herbois, Manuel, Billaud Varennes, Camille Desmoulins, Marat, Legendre the butcher, Panis, Sergent, Fréron, Fabre d'Eglantine, Robespierre’s brother Augustine, David the painter, etc. The Duke of Orleans, by accepting a seat in the Convention, identified himself with the mortal enemies of the King, his relative. Towards the end of 1791 a reconciliation had been attempted through Bertrand de Moleville. The King received the Duke and appeared entirely satisfied. But when the latter attended the levee on the following Sunday, the courtiers pressed round him, and covered him with insult. From this moment he vowed to revenge himself on the King and Queen. The strength of the Mountain lay, not in their number, but in their being supported by the Jacobin Club, the Commune, and consequently the Parisian populace, then the supreme power in the State. They had succeeded in driving the Jacobins from the Club, and had filled their places with Sans-Culottes. Between the Gironde and the Mountain, voting sometimes with one, sometimes with the other, was seated the Plain, or the Marsh (Marais), consisting principally of new members without settled political connections. Their principles generally inclined them to the Right, but terror often compelled them to vote with the Left.

The Convention, on the very first day it assembled, although only 371 members were present out of 749, decreed, on the motion of the Abbé Grégoire, the abolition of Royalty. This event had been prepared in the Legislative Assembly. At the instance of Chabot, September 4th, all the members had cried, “No King!”, and taken an oath of eternal hatred to royalty. On September 22nd, the Republic was proclaimed under the windows of the Temple. Louis XVI heard, it is said, the sentence of deposition without emotion, and continued to read a book on which he was engaged. It was now ordered that the date of fourth year of liberty should be altered to first of the Republic.

A struggle for power between the Girondists and the Mountain was inevitable. The Girondists charged their adversaries with promoting social anarchy in order to establish a dictatorship; while the Mountain denounced the Girondists as aiming to divide France into several Federated Republics, after the manner of the United States of America; nay, they even imputed to them a design to restore royalty by means of a civil war. These were the war-cries of the two parties. Danton made some attempt to conciliate them, but without success. It was the Girondists who began the attack. Brissot preluded it by an article in his Journal, September 23rd; and Kersaint followed it up next day by a speech in the Convention. The massacres were made the chief topic of offence. Barbaroux was put forward to make a desultory informal attack upon Robespierre, which led to nothing.

On October 8th Buzot proposed to the Convention a project for a departmental guard of 4,470 men. The scheme was violently denounced at the Jacobins and in Robespierre’s Journal. But the strongest arguments against the measure were the threatening deputations from the Sections, and especially from the Faubourg St. Antoine. The Girondists were compelled to abandon their guard; but the arrival of a third band of Marseillese, under the auspices of Barbaroux, encouraged them to proceed to their attacks upon the Mountain. On October 29th, Louvet, the author of the novel of Faublas, made a formal, but rambling accusation of Robespierre, when Barère, who represented the Deputies of the centre, or plain (the trimmers) came to his rescue. “If”, he said, “there was in the Assembly a man like Caesar, Cromwell, or Sylla, he would accuse him, for such men were dangerous to liberty; but the little dabblers in revolutions, politicians of the hour, who would never enter the domain of history, were not worthy to occupy the valuable time of the Assembly”. He then moved that they should pass to the order of the day: which was accordingly done.

We must now revert to the war on the frontiers. After the retreat 0f the Prussians, the French General Custine, who was acting against the Austrians, had pushed on with his division to Spires, which he took by a coup de main. Learning here that the French would be welcomed as deliverers in the Rhenish provinces, he sent a detachment of 4,500 men to Worms, who were received with open arms; and he published a proclamation containing the democratic maxim then in vogue; “War to the palace, peace to the cottage”. Custine appeared before Mainz, October 19th, which place surrendered on the 21st. Here he opened a club on the model of the Jacobins, and was joined by many ecclesiastics, eager to break their vows; while the peasants also manifested a disposition to rise. Another French corps had occupied Frankfurt without resistance, October 22nd. These successes, however, were not unmixed with reverses. Bournonville, repulsed in an attempt upon Trèves at an advanced season of the year, retired into Lorraine. Custine, instead of seizing Coblenz, whither the Elector of Mainz had fled with his Court after the capture of his capital, remained inactive, bribed, it is said, by the Prussians; he also neglected the defence of Frankfurt, which the Prussians reentered, December 2nd.

In conformity with their scheme of revolutionizing all Europe, the French had also declared war against the King of Sardinia; a French army under General Montesquiou soon after entered Savoy, and occupied Chambéry, September 23rd. The Savoyards received the French with open arms. Hence Montesquiou was to have pushed on to Geneva, threatening Switzerland and Italy; but his negotiations with the Genevese displeased the Assembly; his impeachment was decreed, and it was with difficulty that he saved himself by flying to Geneva itself. About the same time a French division under General Anselme entered Nice, and captured Villa Franca on the first summons.

BATTLE OF JEMAPPES, NOV.6,1792

Meanwhile on the side of Flanders, the Austrians, under Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, had bombarded Lille, but without effect; and finding themselves deserted by the Prussians, had taken up, under Clairfait, a fortified position at Jemappes, near Mons. Here they were attacked and defeated by Dumouriez, now appointed General of the army of the Ardennes (November 6th). The Duc de Chartres (Louis Philippe) was present in this action. The victory of Jemappes opened Belgium to the French: Mons, Brussels, Liége, Namur, Antwerp, and other places, fell successively into their hands; and by the middle of December the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands was completed. The Jacobins now sent agents thither to propagate their revolutionary doctrines. But the Flemings, who had at first received the French with enthusiasm, soon discovered that their yoke was heavier than that of their former masters; were disgusted by the requisitions made upon them, and a system of general pillage. Dumouriez, who disapproved these things, and had a scheme for the conquest of Holland, to which the Girondists were opposed, now came to Paris to remonstrate. He wished also to baffle the Jacobins and rescue the King from their hands. In addition to these successes, a French fleet had appeared in November before Naples, and had compelled the Bourbon King to recognize the French Republic—the first acknowledgment of it by a foreign Power.

On December 3rd the Convention decreed that Louis XVI should be brought to trial before them. A committee of twenty-four which had been named to examine the papers found at the Tuileries, delivered a report conceived in a spirit of the most virulent hostility towards the King. His death had been demanded by deputations of the sections, and in addresses from the affiliated Jacobin clubs, and had been represented in puppet shows in the public streets and squares. The Constitution had declared the King inviolable, and his Ministers responsible. The only head under which he could be arraigned was treasonable negotiations with foreign Powers, for which the penalty was abdication; but that penalty he had already paid on the 10th of August. It was necessary, therefore, to abandon all appeal to the law, and to substitute the plea of State necessity, of which the Sovereign People was the judge, and the Convention as its representative. In a debate on November 13th the fanatical St. Just contended that the King could not be judged as a citizen, but as an enemy; that he was not included in the national contract, and could not, therefore, be tried by the civil law, but by the law of nations. Robespierre adopted the arguments of St. Just. “Louis”, he exclaimed, “is King, the Republic is founded; either then Louis is already condemned, or the Republic is not acquitted. You invoke the Constitution in his favour; but the Constitution forbids what you have already done; go, fling yourself at his feet and implore his mercy!”. The Ministry and the majority of the Convention were also for a trial, in order to promote their foreign propagandism by the terror which it would inspire. But when they found that England, instead of favouring their views, had been completely alienated by the September massacres, and might probably institute a war of vengeance for the King’s death, they changed their tone, especially as they began to feel some apprehensions about their own fate; for the attacks of the Jacobins were now directed against them as well as the King. They proposed, indeed, that the trial should proceed, but they hoped to avert the sentence by demanding that it should be ratified by the primary electors. A futile method! for the sans-culottes of Paris were the real arbiters of the question, and to get the better of them was a plain impossibility. For though the great mass of the people sympathized with the King and the Gironde, the Mountain prevailed by its unscrupulous audacity, and the better classes were paralyzed by fear.

While Louis was thus savagely denounced, he and his family were leading a most exemplary life at the Temple. The King rose at six o'clock and devoted himself to religious exercises. At nine the family assembled for breakfast, after which Louis instructed his son in Latin and geography; Marie Antoinette gave lessons to her daughter; while Madame Elizabeth read books of devotion or employed herself with needlework. At one, the family again met for dinner; after which the children played together, while the King and Queen played a game of chess or piquet, or took a walk in the wretched garden, but under the inspection of two municipal officers. Nine was the hour for bed-time, when Louis, having given his blessing to his family, concluded the day, as he had begun it, with exercises of devotion.

On December 10th the accusation of the king was read to the Convention. The principal charges alleged against him were: his having suspended the sittings of the National Assembly, June 20th, and subsequently attempted to dictate to and overawe it; having collected troops to support despotism by force; having caused many persons to be killed at the siege of the Bastille, and having ordered the governor to hold out to the last extremity; having summoned the regiment of Flanders to Versailles, followed by the fête of the gardes du corps, etc.; having sanctioned Bouillé’s massacre at Nanci; having corrupted Mirabeau and others; the flight to Varennes and manifesto drawn up on that occasion; having caused the people to be fired on in the Champ de Mars; having kept secret the Convention of Pilnitz, of which he was the head; having paid large sums of money to the emigrants; having purposely neglected the army, thus causing the fall of Longwy and Verdun; having neglected the navy; having provoked the insurrection of August 10th in order to massacre the people, etc. But this last charge was felt to be so shameless that it was subsequently withdrawn.

On the following day Louis was brought before the Convention to be interrogated on these charges. Some he justified, some he denied; of some he declared that he had no knowledge, of others he threw the responsibility on his Ministers. He disclaimed all knowledge of an iron safe found in the walls of the Tuileries, and of the papers it contained. Some of these revealed Mirabeau’s venality; in consequence of which his bust at the Jacobins was overthrown, and that in the Convention veiled till his guilt should be more fully proved.

Louis, after a furious resistance of the Mountain, was allowed counsel for his defence; and he selected Target and Tronchet for that purpose. Target being too ill to act, Lamoignon de Malesherbes volunteered to supply his place. Both Malesherbes and Tronchet being old and feeble, they procured, with the consent of the Assembly, the aid of Desèze, a young and brilliant advocate of Bordeaux. When the King was arraigned, December 26th, Desèze made a powerful speech in his defence. Dividing the heads of accusation into things done before and things done after the King’s acceptance of the Constitution, he argued that the former were covered by that act, the latter by the inviolability which the Constitution conferred upon him; and he concluded with a glowing eulogium on Louis’s virtues, his benevolence, his mildness, and his justice. After his counsel had concluded, the King read a short address, in which he only protested against the imputation of having shed his subjects’ blood on August 10^th.

When Louis had retired it was decreed, on the motion of Couthon, that the debate on the judgment of Louis Capet should be continued without interruption till sentence had been pronounced. The Girondists, either from a sentiment of compassion, or for their own political ends, wished to save the King’s life. Vergniaud’s speech deprecating regicide was a masterpiece of eloquence. The Girondists proposed an appeal to the people, which, as sovereign, possesses the prerogative of mercy, and ought, therefore, to be consulted. This was opposed by Robespierre and Marat. Robespierre, the cold-blooded and sophistical disciple of Rousseau, now showed, by excellent arguments, the absurdity and inconvenience of consulting the people on affairs of State; yet, if they were competent to decide any political question at all, surely none more simple could be submitted to them than that of the condemnation or acquittal of the King. The appeal was lost; and it was decided that the question, as to the king’s guilt, should be put on January 14th, 1793. The Convention, during the interval, exhibited scenes of the most extraordinary violence. To work upon the passions of the people and of the deputies, a procession of the wounded of August 10th, accompanied by the widows and orphans of the slain, defiled through the Convention; the orator of the Sections called for the death of Louis, the infamous assassin of thousands of Frenchmen! The members of the different sides rushed one upon another as if about to engage in a general fight; vociferous cries continued for hours, during which nobody could be heard; the President broke his bell in vain attempts to restore order.

On January 14th the three following questions were submitted to the Convention: 1. Is Louis guilty? 2. Shall the decision of the Assembly on this point, whatever it may be, be submitted to the people for ratification? 3. What punishment has Louis incurred?

 

The first of these questions was decided almost unanimously in the affirmative. The second was negatived by a majority of 423 against 281. The debate on the King’s punishment commenced on January 16th. Danton, who had returned to Paris only that day, proposed and carried a motion, that the King’s fate should be decided by an absolute majority, instead of a majority of two-thirds, as usual in criminal cases. It had been determined that the members should give their votes by the appel nominal, that is, by calling their names. This was commenced at eight o'clock on the evening of the 16th. The Girondists had been alarmed by threats of fresh massacres. Already some twenty votes had been recorded, most of them for death, when the name of Vergniaud was called, the eloquent leader of the Gironde. A breathless silence prevailed; his vote would probably guide the rest of his party, and thus decide the King’s fate. It was for death! but he asked, with a sort of shuffling evasion, as if ashamed of his vote, whether execution would be deferred? Philippe Egalité pronounced his relative’s condemnation without any visible emotion, observing: “Guided only by duty, and persuaded that those who have attempted, or shall attempt, anything contrary to the sovereignty of the people deserve to die, I vote for death!”. The appel lasted till the evening of January 17th, when the votes were declared. As 721 members were present, the absolute majority would be 361, and exactly this number of members voted for death unconditionally; 26 more pronounced the same sentence, but demanded a discussion whether it should not be deferred; thus making the total majority 387. On the other side, 334 voted for banishment, imprisonment, etc., including 46 who were for death with reprieve. Vergniaud, as President of the Convention, now pronounced the sentence of death. The King's counsel offered some objections to the proceedings, but they were overborne by Robespierre, and the sitting was closed.

JANUATY 20, 1793, EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI

On January 19th Brissot and others proposed that the King’s execution should be deferred, on the political ground that it would alienate the friends of the Revolution in England and America; but Barère opposed the motion, and it was decided by a majority of 380 against 310 that Louis should be executed within twenty-four hours. The sentence was carried out the following day in the Place de la Revolution (now, the Place de la Concorde). Louis XVI was thirty-nine years of age, of which he had reigned eighteen. He was buried in the church of the Madeleine.

The murder of Louis XVI, for such it must be called, created a great sensation throughout Europe. A general mourning was assumed in England and other countries. The Empress of Russia interdicted all commerce with France, and expelled the French from her dominions, unless they abjured revolutionary principles, and renounced all commerce with their native country. Spain prepared to take up arms, nor could the sentiments of the Court of Naples be doubtful, where Caroline of Austria, sister of Marie Antoinette, ruled in the name of her husband. The Papal Court had denounced the proceedings in France before the King’s execution, and Basseville, the French Secretary of Legation at Rome, had been murdered for taking down the royal arms at his hotel, and substituting those of the Republic. Spain alone, however, of all the neutral Powers, had made any attempt to save Louis; but the Convention refused to consider the application. The Marquis of Lansdowne and Fox in the British Parliament had moved for some intervention in favour of the King, and the opposition of Pitt and the Ministry has been attributed by some French historians to the most sinister and unworthy motives. But, as Pitt stated in the House of Commons, the intervention of England would only have alarmed the national pride and jealousy of the French, and have hurried on the very crime which it was intended to prevent; nor could Fox deny the justice of this view. Such, undoubtedly, would have been the effect in the relations then existing between England and France, which we must here briefly describe.

Immediately after August 10th, Lord Grower, the English Ambassador, had been recalled from Paris, on the ground that his credentials were annulled by the imprisonment of the King; but he was instructed, while professing the determination of his royal master to observe strict neutrality in respect to the settlement of the French Government, to express his solicitude for the situation of Louis XVI and his family, and to deprecate any act of violence towards them. The Marquis de Chauvelin, the French Ambassador at London, with whom M. de Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was associated, also ceased from the same period, and for similar reasons, to be recognized by the English Court in his official capacity, though he was allowed to remain at London. But, between the French King’s imprisonment and execution, the British Cabinet found several just causes of complaint against the proceedings of the Convention, not at all connected with their internal administration. Pache, the French Minister at War, Danton, Robespierre, and their party, had determined on the acquisition of Belgium at any risk; a proceeding which the English Ministry could not regard with indifference, especially as England had guaranteed that country to the Emperor. Their formulated complaints were chiefly three: viz.

1. A Decree of the French Assembly of November 19th (subsequently complemented by another of December 15th), by which they had established a system of revolutionary propagandism and conquest, by directing their generals to proclaim, in the countries which they entered, fraternity, liberty, and equality, the sovereignty of the people, the suppression of the existing authorities, etc. Peoples who refused or renounced liberty and equality were to be treated as enemies. That these principles were also to be applied to England, was shown by the receptions publicly given in France to the King's seditious subjects;

2. A project for the invasion of Holland by the Republican armies in Belgium, which had begun to be canvassed by French statesmen after the battle of Jemappes;

3. The proclamation by the French of the freedom of the Scheldt (November 22nd, 1792), showing a total disregard and contempt of the rights of neutral nations. That river had been closed by the Treaty of Munster, confirmed by the Treaty of Fontainebleau between the Emperor, as sovereign of the Netherlands, and the United Provinces, under French mediation, November 8th, 1785. Yet the Convention haughtily proclaimed that the obstruction of insolence rivers was contrary to those natural rights which all Frenchmen had sworn to maintain, a relic of feudal servitude and odious monopoly. No treaties, it was asserted, could authorize such concessions, and the glory of the Republic demanded that liberty should be established and tyranny overthrown wherever her arms prevailed. Nor was this decree a mere brutum fulmen; several French vessels of war had forced a passage up the Scheldt in order to bombard Antwerp.

These complaints were aggravated by the offensive tone in which the Minister Lebrun, as he publicly announced to the Convention, instructed M. de Chauvelin to reply to them; namely, by attempting to separate the British Ministry from the British people, and to establish the latter as the proper judge of the questions at issue; a process, it was intimated, that might lead to consequences of which the Cabinet of St. James’s had little dreamt.

Thus France, regardless of all existing treaties, even though sanctioned by her own former Government, was to be the self-constituted arbiter of all international questions; wherever, at least, her arms and her proselyting spirit might prevail. England was called on to resist such pretensions, not alone from motives of general policy, but also by her positive engagements towards Holland, entered into by the Treaty of the Hague, April 15th, 1788. Other grounds of complaint against France were, the annexation of Avignon, Savoy, and Nice, the conquest of Austrian Flanders, etc.; though French statesmen plausibly maintained that these aggregations sufficed only to balance the gains of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, by the dismemberment of Poland. More particular causes of offence were the threatened invasion of Holland and the attempt to propagate revolutionary ideas in England by means of Jacobin agents, and even, it was supposed, through Talleyrand and Chauvelin, the French Ministers in London.

REVOLUTIONATY CLUBS IN ENGLAND

The French Revolution had given birth to several democratic and revolutionary clubs in England, and had communicated fresh activity to those which previously existed. Such were the Constitutional Society, the London Corresponding Society, the Friends of the People, etc. The greater part of these societies were in correspondence with the Jacobin Club; nay, their seditious addresses, though expressing the sentiments of only a small portion of the British people, were publicly and favourably received by the Convention. Thomas Paine, an active agent in the French Revolution, had published this year in England the concluding part of his Rights of Man; in which he attempted to show that the English Government was utterly bad, and incited the people to mend it by following the example of the French; and a cheap edition of the work had been published to enable every class to read it. Monge, the French Minister of Marine, had written to the Jacobin societies in the seaport towns of France, December 31st, 1792, threatening to make a descent on England, hurl thither 50,000 caps of liberty, destroy the tyranny of the Government, and erect an English Republic on the ruins of the throne. Pitt attached, perhaps, more than their due weight to these and some similar proceedings, which, relying on the good sense of the English people, he might securely have despised. But they were nevertheless acts of hostility, and therefore afforded just ground of complaint.

In this state of feeling between the two nations, the English Government had found themselves compelled to adopt some measures of a hostile tendency. The circulation of assignats in England was prohibited; the Government was empowered to prevent the exportation of arms, ammunition, and naval stores; the sending of corn and flour to France was forbidden, an invidious measure. On December 1st a proclamation appeared for embodying the militia. The English Ministry appear to have now foreseen that war was inevitable. Towards the end of November they had made communications to the Court of Vienna tending to reanimate the Coalition. The Parliament, which had been prorogued to January 3rd, was summoned to meet December 13th, 1792, when the King, after lamenting in his speech the attempts at sedition in England, pursued in concert with persons in foreign countries, remarked that he had observed a strict neutrality in the war, and abstained from interference in the internal affairs of France; but he could not without serious uneasiness observe the strong and increasing indications in that country of an intention to excite disturbances in other States, to disregard the rights of neutral nations, and to pursue views of conquest and aggrandizement, as well as to adopt towards his allies, the States-General (who had been equally neutral), measures neither conformable to the law of nations nor to existing treaties. Under these circumstances he had taken steps for augmenting his naval and military force, and by a firm and temperate conduct to preserve the blessings of peace. This statement may be regarded as the English manifesto. A few days after Lord Grenville introduced an Alien Bill, by which foreigners were placed under surveillance.

All these were no doubt unfriendly steps, and the French added to them the shelter which their emigrants found in England; but they were no more than what the safety of the country demanded, or what had been its usual practice.

On the 28th of January, 1793, four days after the execution of the French King, George III sent a message to Parliament that, “in consequence of the atrocious act recently perpetrated at Paris”, it would be necessary to increase the military and naval forces. In truth, a peace policy would have been simply impossible. The leading members of the Whig party supported Pitt’s views, and even Fox himself was compelled to acknowledge that ground for complaint existed. When Fox ventured to divide the House he constantly found himself in small minorities, and it is plain that he could not have carried on the government a single week. For the views of the Ministry were those of the great majority of the nation. An almost universal feeling had been excited against the French by the aggressions before mentioned, inflamed by horror and disgust at the September massacres. This feeling, which is displayed in the Parliamentary speeches of the period, must have been much stronger than anything we can now imagine, and was highly creditable to the English people. War was in fact inevitable. The Girondists had determined on propagating their principles of liberty and equality, or rather their own dominion under those sacred names, with the sword. Brissot, in a letter to one of the French Ministers, observes “Set fire to the four corners of Europe—there lies our safety”.

DECLARATION OF WAR, FEBRUARY, 1^ST, 1793

The French Government had anticipated the dismissal of M. Chauvelin by recalling him. On February 1st, 1793, the Convention unanimously declared war against the King of England and the Stadholder of the United Provinces. Thus, in point of fact, the French were the aggressors. Yet, at this time, negotiations were actually going on between Lord Auckland, the English Minister at the Hague, and Dumouriez, with the view of preserving peace, and a Conference had been fixed for February 10th, at Mardyck. But Dumouriez, instead of going to London, as he wished, was directed to attack Holland with all possible speed. Soon after declaring war, the Convention decreed a levy of 500,000 men, and assumed the superintendence of the armies by means of nine commissioners armed with power to remove those who were incapable, to punish those who were indifferent, to annihilate (foudroyer) traitors. A progressive income-tax was assessed on the rich, and all Frenchmen between the ages of eighteen and forty, being bachelors or widowers without children, were held in permanent requisition for the war.

After the declaration of war Great Britain proceeded to conclude a series of treaties with various Powers, which shall here record together, though some of them were not made till several months later. A treaty with Hanover, March 4th, 1793, for 15,000 men, augmented by 5,000 in January, 1794. A double treaty with Russia, at London, March 25th, 1793—one commercial, the other directed against France. The ports of both countries were to be shut against France; no provisions were to be exported thither; her commerce was to be molested; neutrals were to be hindered from assisting her. This clause was intended to cut off the commerce of France with her colonies by means of neutral vessels. Notwithstanding this treaty, however, the Empress Catharine took no part in the war upon the Continent, directing all her efforts against Poland, though she sent a fleet into the Baltic and North Sea in August to assist in intercepting the commerce of neutrals with France. A treaty with Sardinia, April 25th. The King of Sardinia to keep on foot an army of 50,000 men during the war, receiving a subsidy of £200,000 sterling per annum. Great Britain to send a fleet into the Mediterranean. A treaty with Spain, May 25th. Both countries to shut their ports against French vessels and to prevent neutral vessels from aiding French commerce. A treaty with the King of the Two Sicilies, July 12th, who was indignant at having been forced to recognize the French Republic. Great Britain undertook to maintain a fleet in the Mediterranean, while the King of the Two Sicilies was to provide 6,000 soldiers, four ships of the line, and four smaller vessels. A treaty between England and Prussia at the camp before Mainz, July 14th, for the most perfect union and confidence in carrying on the war against France, subsequently converted into a treaty of Subsidies. A treaty at London, August 30th, between Great Britain and the Emperor. Portugal also entered into the Coalition by a treaty signed at London, September 26th, by which she undertook to shut her ports against the French during the war, and to prohibit her subjects from carrying warlike stores and provisions to France. Treaties for troops were also concluded with some of the smaller German States. The execution of Louis XVI had decided the Spanish Government to join the Coalition; the French Ambassador was dismissed, and the Convention unanimously declared war against Spain, March 7th, 1793. Thus, all the Christian Powers except Sweden, Denmark, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Switzerland, Venice, and Genoa, entered successively into the League against France, which remained completely isolated and dependent on her own resources.

The Spanish Court had been disposed to war chiefly by the counsels of Don Emanuel Godoy, and in opposition to the opinion of the Count d'Aranda. Charles IV, who had succeeded his father Charles III in 1788, and who, as Prince of Asturias, had displayed the most ungovernable violence of temper, manifested after his accession quite a contrary disposition, the result, it is said, of an illness with which he was afflicted. He was destitute neither of intelligence nor education; his heart was good, his judgment sound; but he was of a pusillanimous temper, and of so idle a disposition that anything requiring thought and application became a fatigue. His sole delight was in the chase, and, in order to enjoy it without interruption, he gladly resigned affairs of State into the hands of his Queen, Maria Louisa, daughter of the last Duke of Parma. Unfortunately, Maria Louisa was an artful, violent, and vindictive woman, of dissolute morals and imperious temper. She gladly seized the reins of power, though totally unqualified to rule, and she handed them over to a favorite not much better fitted for the task than herself. Don Emanuel Godoy, born at Badajoz in 1767 of a poor but noble family, seems naturally to have possessed a good understanding and a humane temper; he was well acquainted with mankind, and used his knowledge with tact. But he was so ignorant that he could not even speak his own language correctly, and was deficient in grace and dignity of manner. He owed his advancement to his personal beauty. He attracted the notice of the Queen, and was suddenly advanced from the station of a simple garde du corps to manage the affairs of Spain. Charles IV showed an entire submission to his Queen; Godoy also became his favorite and Prime Minister, and was loaded with favours and distinctions. But this sudden elevation perverted all his natural good qualities. He became idle and avaricious, fond of show, and ambitious. Modern history presents few instances of a crowned head and a favourite who have made a worse use of their power.

 

 

CHAPTER LVI.

THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.