I.
Night was far advanced at the moment when Robespierre concluded his
eloquent discourse in the midst of the enthusiasm of the Jacobins. The
Jacobins and the Girondists then separated more exasperated than ever.
They hesitated before this important severance, which, by weakening the
patriotic party, might deliver the army over to La Fayette, and the
Assembly to the Feuillants.[20] Pétion, friend of Robespierre and
Brissot, at the same time closely allied to the Jacobins and with Madame
Roland, kept his popularity in equilibrium for fear of losing half of it
if he decided positively for one side or the other. He tried next day to
effect a general reconciliation. "On both sides," he said, with a
tremulous voice, "I see my friends." There was an apparent truce; but
Guadet and Brissot printed their speeches, with offensive additions,
against Robespierre. They doggedly sapped his reputation by fresh
calumnies. On the 30th of April another storm broke out.
It was proposed to interdict all denunciations unaccompanied by proofs.
"Reflect on what is proposed to you," said Robespierre: "the majority
here belongs to a faction, which desires by this means to calumniate us
freely, and stifle our accusations by silence. If you decree that I am
prohibited from defending myself from the libellers who conspire against
me, I shall quit this place, and will bury myself in retreat." "We will
follow you, Robespierre," exclaimed the women in the tribunes. "They
have profited by the discourse of Pétion," he continued, "to disseminate
infamous libels against me. Pétion himself is insulted. His heart beats
in sympathy with mine; he groans over the insults with which I am
assailed. Read Brissot's journal, and you will there see that I am
invited not always to be apostrophising the people in my discourses.
Yes, it is to be forbidden to pronounce the name of the people under
pain of passing for a malcontent,--a tribune. I am compared to the
Gracchi: they are right so to compare me. What may be perhaps common
between us is their tragical end. That is little: they make me
responsible for a writing of Marat, who points me out as a tribune by
preaching blood and slaughter. Have I ever professed such principles? Am
I guilty of the extravagance of such an excited writer as Marat?"
At these words, Lasource, the friend of Brissot, wished to speak, and
was refused. Merlin demanded if the peace sworn yesterday ought to bind
only one of two parties, and to authorise the other to spread calumnies
against Robespierre? The Assembly tumultuously insisted on the orators
being silent. Legendre declared that the chamber was partial.
Robespierre quitted the tribune, approached the president, and addressed
him with menacing gestures, and in language impossible to be heard in
the noise of the chamber, and the taunts and sneers profusely scattered
by the opposing factions.
"Why do we see this ferocity among the _intrigants_ against
Robespierre?" exclaimed one of the partisans when tranquillity was
re-established. "Because he is the only man capable of making head
against their party, if they should succeed in forming it. Yes, in
revolutions we require those men, who, full of self-denial, deliver
themselves as voluntary victims to factions. The people should support
them. You have found those men--Robespierre and Pétion. Will you abandon
them to their enemies?" "No! no!" exclaimed a thousand voices, and a
motion, proposed by the president (Danton), declaring that Brissot had
calumniated Robespierre, was carried in the affirmative.
II.
The journals took part, according to their politics, in these intestine
wars of the patriots. "Robespierre," said the _Revolution de Paris_,
"how is it that this man, whom the people bore in triumph to his house
when he left the Constituent Assembly, has now become a problem? For a
long while you believed yourself the only column of French liberty. Your
name was like the holy ark, no one could touch it without being struck
with death. You sought to be the man of the people. You have neither the
exterior of the orator, nor the genius which disposes of the will of
men. You have stirred up the clubs with your language; the incense burnt
in your honour has intoxicated you. The God of patriotism hath become a
man. The apogee of your glory was on the 17th July, 1791. From that day
your star declined. Robespierre, the patriots do not like that you
should present such a spectacle to them. When the people press around
the tribune to which you ascend, it is not to hear your self-eulogies,
but to hear you enlighten popular opinion. You are incorruptible--true;
but yet there are better citizens than you: there are those who are as
good, and do not boast of it. Why have you not the simplicity which is
ignorant of itself, and that right quality of the ancient times which
you sometimes refer to as possessed by you?
"You are accused, Robespierre, of having been present at a secret
conference, held some time since at the Princesse de Lamballe's, at
which the queen Marie Antoinette was present. No mention is made of the
terms of the bargain between you and these two women, who would corrupt
you. Since then some changes have been seen in your domestic
arrangements, and you have had the money requisite to start a newspaper.
Could there have been such injurious suspicions against you in July,
1791? We believe nothing of these infamies: we do not think you the
accomplice of Marat, who offers you the dictatorship. We do not accuse
you of imitating Cæsar when Anthony presented to him the diadem. No: but
be on your guard! Speak of yourself with less egotism. We have in our
time warned both La Fayette and Mirabeau, and pointed out the Tarpeian
rock for citizens who think themselves greater than their country."
III.
"The wretches," replied Marat, who was then sheltered beneath the
patronage of Robespierre, "they cast a shade upon the purest virtues!
His genius is offensive to them. They punish him for his sacrifices. His
inclinations lead him to retirement. He only remained in the tumult of
the Jacobins from devotion to his country; but men of mediocre
understanding are not accustomed to the eulogiums of another, and the
mob likes to change its hero.
"The faction of the La Fayettes, Guadets, Brissots circumvent him. They
call him the leader of a party! Robespierre chief of a party! They show
his hand in the disgraceful columns of the Civil List. They make the
people's confidence in him a crime, as if a simple citizen without
fortune and power had any other means of acquiring the love of his
fellow-countrymen but from his deserts! as if a man who has only his
isolated voice in the midst of a society of _intrigants_, hypocrites,
and knaves, could ever be feared! But this incorruptible censor annoys
them. They say he has an understanding with me to offer him the
dictatorship. This is my affair, and I declare that Robespierre is so
far from controlling my pen, that I never had the slightest connection
with him. I have seen him but once, and the sole conversation has
convinced me that he was not the man whom I sought for the supreme and
energetic power demanded by the Revolution.
"The first word he addressed to me was a reproach for having dipped my
pen in the blood of the enemies of liberty,--for always speaking of the
cord, the axe, and the poignard; cruel words, which unquestionably my
heart would disavow, and my principles discredit. I undeceived him.
'Learn,' I replied to him, 'that my credit with the people does not
depend on my ideas, but on my audacity, the daring impetuosity of my
mind, my cries of rage, despair, and fury against the wretches who
impede the action of the Revolution. I know the anger, the just anger,
of the people, and that is why it listens to, and believes in, me. Those
cries of alarm and fury, that you take for words in the air, are the
most simple and sincere expression of the passions which devour my mind.
Yes, if I had had in my hand the arms of the people after the decree
against the garrison of Nancy, I would have decimated the deputies who
confirmed it. After the information of the events of the 5th and 6th
October, I would have immolated every judge on the pile; after the
massacre of the Champ-de-Mars, had I but had 2000 men, animated with the
same resentment as myself, I would have gone at their head to stab La
Fayette in the midst of his battalion of brigands, burnt the king in his
palace, and cut the throats of our atrocious representatives on their
very seats!' Robespierre listened to me with affright, turned pale, and
was for a long time silent. I left him. I had seen an honest man, but
not a man of the state."
Thus the wretch had excited horror in the fanatic: Robespierre had
obtained Marat's pity.
IV.
The first struggle between the Jacobins and the Girondists gave the
skilful Dumouriez a double _point d'appui_ for his policy. The enmity of
Roland, Clavière, and Servan no longer disturbed him in council. He
balanced their influence by his alliance with their enemies. But the
Jacobins demanded wages; he proffered them in war. Danton, as violent
but more politic than Marat, did not cease to repeat that the
revolutionists and the despots were irreconcileable, and that France had
no safety to expect except from its audacity and despair. War, according
to Danton, was the baptism or the martyrdom which liberty was to
undergo, like a new religion. It was necessary to replunge France into
the fire, in order to purify it from the stains and shame of its past.
Dumouriez, agreeing with La Fayette and the Feuillants, was also anxious
for war; but it was as a soldier, to acquire glory, and thus crush
faction. From the first day of his ministry he negotiated so as to
obtain from Austria a decisive answer. He had removed nearly all the
members of the diplomatic body; he had replaced them by energetic men.
His despatches had a martial accent, which sounded like the voice of an
armed people. He summoned the princes of the Rhine, the emperor, the
king of Russia, the king of Sardinia, and Spain, to recognise or oppose
the constitutional king of France. But whilst these official envoys
demanded from the various courts prompt and categorical replies, the
secret agents of Dumouriez insinuated themselves into the cabinets of
princes, and compelled some states to detach themselves from the
coalition that was forming. They pointed out to them the advantages of
neutrality for their aggrandisement: they promised them the patronage of
France after victory. Not daring to hope for allies, the minister at
least contrived for France secret understanding: he corrupted by
ambition the states that he could not move by terror: he benumbed the
coalition, which he trusted subsequently to crush.
V.
The prince on whose mind he operated most powerfully was the Duke of
Brunswick, whom the emperor and the king of Prussia alike destined for
the command of the combined armies against the French. This prince was
in their hopes the Agamemnon of Germany.
Charles-Frederic-Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, bred in combats
and in pleasures, had inspired in the camps of the great Frederic the
genius of war, the spirit of French philosophy, and the Machiavellianism
of his master. He had accompanied this philosopher and soldier-king in
all the campaigns of the seven years' war. At the peace he travelled in
France and Italy. Received everywhere as the hero of Germany, and as the
heir to the genius of Frederic, he had married a sister of George III.,
king of England. His capital, where his mistresses shone or philosophers
harangued, united the epicureism of the court to the austerity of the
camp. He reigned according to the precepts of sages; he lived after the
example of the Sybarites. But his soldier's mind, which was but too
easily given up to beauty, was not quenched in love; he only gave his
heart to women, he reserved his head for glory, war, and the government
of his states. Mirabeau, then a young man, had stayed at his court, on
his way to Berlin, to catch the last glimpses of the shining genius of
the great Frederic. The Duke of Brunswick had favourably received and
appreciated Mirabeau. These two men, placed in such different ranks,
resembled each other by their qualities and defects. They were two
revolutionary spirits; but from their difference of situations and
countries, the one was destined to create, and the other to oppose, a
revolution.
Be this as it may, Mirabeau was seduced by the sovereign, whom he was
sent to seduce.
"This prince's countenance," he writes in his secret correspondence,
"betokens depth and finesse. He speaks with eloquence and precision: he
is prodigiously well-informed, industrious, and clear-sighted: he has a
vast correspondence, which he owes to his merit alone: he is even
economical of his amours. His mistress, Madame de Hartfeld, is the most
sensible woman of his court. A real Alcibiades, he loves pleasure, but
never allows it to intrude on business. When acting as the Prussian
general, no one so early, so active, so precisely exact as he. Under a
calm aspect, which arises from the absolute control he has over his
mind, his brilliant imagination and ambitious aspirations often carry
him away; but the circumspection which he imposes on himself, and the
satisfactory reflection of his fame, restrain him and lead him to
doubts, which, perhaps, constitute his sole defect."
Mirabeau predicted to the Duke of Brunswick, from this moment, leading
influence in the affairs of Germany after the death of the king of
Prussia, whom Germany called the Great King.
The duke was then fifty years of age. He defended himself, in his
conversations with Mirabeau, from the charge of loving war. "Battles are
games of chance," said he to the French traveller: "up to this time I
have been fortunate. Who knows if to-day, although more lucky, I should
be as well used by fortune?" A year after this remark he made the
triumphant invasion of Holland, at the head of the troops of England.
Some years later Germany nominated him generalissimo.
But war with France, however it might be grateful to his ambition as a
soldier, was repugnant to his mind as a philosopher. He felt he should
but ill carry out the ideas in which he had been educated. Mirabeau had
made that profound remark, which prophesied the weaknesses and defects
of a coalition guided by that prince: "This man is of a rare stamp, but
he is too much of a sage to be feared by sages."
This phrase explains the offer of the crown of France made to the Duke
of Brunswick by Custine, in the name of the monarchical portion of the
Assembly. Freemasonry, that underground religion, into which nearly all
the reigning princes of Germany had entered, concealed beneath its
mysteries secret understandings between French philosophy and the
sovereigns on the banks of the Rhine. Brothers in a religious
conspiracy, they could not be very bitter enemies in politics. The Duke
of Brunswick was in the depth of his heart more the citizen than the
prince--more the Frenchman than the German. The offer of a throne at
Paris had pleased his fancy. He fights not against a people, whose king
he hopes to be, and against a cause, which he desires to conquer, but
not to destroy. Such was the state of the Duke of Brunswick's
mind;--consulted by the king of Prussia, he advised this monarch to turn
his forces to the Polish frontier and conquer provinces there, instead
of principles in France.
VI.
Dumouriez's plan was to separate, as much as possible, Prussia from
Austria, in order to have but one enemy at a time to cope with; and the
union of these two powers, natural and jealous rivals of each other,
appeared to him so totally unnatural, that he flattered himself he could
prevent or sever it. The instinctive hatred of despotism for liberty,
however, overthrew all his schemes. Russia, through the ascendency of
Catherine, forced Prussia and Austria to make common cause against the
Revolution. At Vienna, the young Emperor Francis I. made far greater
preparations for war than for negotiation. The Prince de Kaunitz, his
principal minister, replied to the notes of Dumouriez in language that
seemed a defiance of the Assembly. Dumouriez laid these documents before
the Assembly, and forestalled the expressions of their just indignation,
by bursting himself into patriotic anger. The _contre coup_ of these
scenes was felt even in the cabinet of the emperor at Vienna, where
Francis I., pale and trembling with rage, censured the tardiness of his
minister. He was present every day at the conferences held at the
bedside of the veteran Prince de Kaunitz and the Prussian and Russian
envoys charged by their sovereigns to foment the war. The king of
Prussia demanded to have the whole direction of the war in his hands,
and he proposed the sudden invasion of the French territory as the most
efficacious means of preventing the effusion of blood, by striking
terror into the Revolution, and causing a counter-revolution, with the
hope of which the _emigrés_ flattered him, to break out in France. An
interview to concert the measures of Austria and Prussia, was fixed
between the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince de Hohenlohe, general of
the emperor's army. For form's sake, however, conferences were still
carried on at Vienna between M. de Noailles, the French ambassador, and
Count Philippe de Cobentzel, vice-chancellor of the court. These
conferences, in which the liberty of the people and the absolute
sovereignty of monarchs continually strove to conciliate two
irreconcileable principles, ended invariably in mutual reproaches. A
speech of M. de Cobentzel broke off all negotiations, and this speech,
made public at Paris, caused the final declaration of war. Dumouriez
proposed it at the council, and induced the king, as if by the hand of
fatality, himself to propose the war to his people. "The people," said
he, "will credit your attachment when they behold you embrace their
cause, and combat kings in its defence."
The king, surrounded by his ministers, appeared unexpectedly at the
Assembly on the 20th of April, at the conclusion of the council. A
solemn silence reigned in the Assembly, for every one felt that the
decisive word was now about to be pronounced--and they were not
deceived. After a full report of the negotiations with the house of
Austria had been read by Dumouriez, the king added in a low but firm
voice, "You have just heard the report which has been made to my
council; these conclusions have been unanimously adopted, and I myself
have taken the same resolution. I have exhausted every means of
maintaining peace, and I now come, in conformity with the terms of the
constitution, to propose to you, formally, war with the king of Hungary
and Bohemia."
The king, after this speech, quitted the Assembly amidst cries and
gestures of enthusiasm, which burst forth in the salle and the tribunes:
the people followed their example. France felt certain of herself when
she was the first to attack all Europe armed against her. It seemed to
all good citizens that domestic troubles would cease before this mighty
external excitement of a people who defend their frontiers. That the
cause of liberty would be judged in a few hours on the field of battle,
and that the constitution needed only a victory, in order to render the
nation free at home, and triumphant abroad. The king himself re-entered
his palace relieved from the cruel weight of irresolution which had so
long oppressed him. War against his allies and his brothers had cost him
many a pang. This sacrifice of his feelings to the constitution seemed
to him to merit the gratitude of the Assembly, and by thus identifying
himself with the cause of his country, he flattered himself that he
should at least recover the good opinion and the love of his people. The
Assembly separated without deliberating, and gave a few hours up to
enthusiasm rather than to reflection.
VII.
At the sitting in the evening, Pastoret, one of the principal
Feuillants, was the first to support the war. "We are reproached with
having voted the effusion of human blood in a moment of enthusiasm; but
is it to-day only that we are provoked? During four hundred years the
house of Austria has violated every treaty with France. Such are our
motives; let us no longer hesitate. Victory will adhere faithfully to
the cause of liberty."
Becquet, a constitutional royalist, a profound and courageous orator,
alone ventured to speak against the declaration of war. "In a free
country," said he, "war is alone made to defend the constitution or the
nation. Our constitution is but of yesterday, and it requires calm to
take root. A state of crisis, such as war, opposes all regular movements
of political bodies. If your armies combat abroad, who will repress
faction at home? You are flattered with the belief that you have only
Austria to cope against. You are promised that the other northern powers
will not interfere; do not rely on this. Even England cannot remain
neuter: if the exigencies of the war lead you to revolutionise Belgium,
or to invade Holland, she will join Prussia to support the stadtholder
against you. Doubtless England loves the liberty which is now taking
root amongst you; but her life is commercial, she cannot abandon her
trade in the Low Countries. Wait until you are attacked, and then the
spirit of the people will fight in your cause. The justice of a cause is
worth armies. But if you can be represented to other nations as a
restless and conquering people, who can only exist in a vortex of
turmoil and war, the nations will shun and dread you. Besides, is not
war the hope of the enemies of the Revolution? Why give them cause to
rejoice by offering it to them. The _emigrés_, now only despicable, will
become dangerous on that day when foreign armies lend them their
assistance."
This sensible and profound speech, interrupted repeatedly by the
ironical laughter and the insults of the Assembly, was concluded amidst
the outcries of the tribunes. It required no small degree of heroism to
combat the proposed war in the French chambers. Bazire alone, the friend
of Robespierre, ventured, like Becquet, the king's friend, to demand a
few days' reflection, before giving a vote that would shed so much human
gore. "If you decide upon war, do so in such a manner that treason
cannot envelope it," said he. Feeble applause showed that the republican
allusion of Bazire had been comprehended, and that above all, it was
necessary to remove a king and generals whose fidelity was suspected.
"No, no," returned Mailhe, "do not lose an hour in decreeing the liberty
of the whole world." "Extinguish the torches of your disagreements in
the blaze of your cannon, and the glitter of your bayonets," added
Dubayet. "Let the report be made instantly," demanded Brissot. "Declare
war against kings, and peace to all nations," cried Merlin. The war was
voted.
Condorcet, who had been informed already of this by the Girondists of
the council, read in the tribune a proposed manifesto to the nations.
The following was its substance: "Every nation has the right of giving
itself laws, and of altering them at pleasure. The French nation had
every reason to believe that these simple truths would obtain the assent
of all princes. This hope has not been fulfilled. A league has been
formed against its independence; and never did the pride of thrones more
audaciously insult the majesty of nations. The motives alleged by
despots against France are but an outrage to her liberty. This insulting
pride, far from intimidating her, serves only to excite her courage. It
requires time to discipline the slaves of despotism; every man is a
soldier when he combats against tyranny."
VIII.
But the principal orator of the Gironde mounted the tribune the last.
"You owe it to the nation," said Vergniaud, "to employ every means to
assure the success of the great and terrible determination by which you
have signalised this memorable day. Remember the hour of that general
federation when all Frenchmen devoted their life to the defence of
liberty and the constitution. Remember the oath which you have taken on
the 14th of January, to bury yourselves beneath the ruins of the temple
rather than consent to a capitulation, or to the least modification in
the constitution. Where is the icy heart that does not palpitate in
these important moments--the grovelling soul that does not elevate
itself (I venture to utter the words) to heaven amidst these
acclamations of universal joy; the apathetic man who does not feel his
whole being penetrated and his forces raised by a noble enthusiasm far
above the common force of the human race? Give to France, to Europe,
the imposing spectacle of these national fêtes. Reanimate that energy
before which the Bastille fell. Let every part of the empire resound
with these sublime words: '_To live free or die! The entire constitution
without any modification, or death!_' Let these cries reach even the
thrones that have leagued against you; let them learn that it is useless
to reckon upon our internal dissensions; that when our country is in
danger, we are animated by one passion alone--that of saving her, or of
perishing for her; in a word, should fortune prove false to so just a
cause as ours, our enemies might insult our lifeless corpses, but never
shall one Frenchman wear their fetters."
IX.
These lyrical words of Vergniaud re-echoed at Berlin and at Vienna. "War
has been declared against us," said the Prince de Kaunitz to the Russian
ambassador, the Prince de Galitzin, "it is the same thing as if it had
been declared against you." The command of the Prussian and Austrian
forces was given to the Duke of Brunswick. The two princes by this act
only ratified the choice of all Germany, for opinion had already
nominated him. Germany moves but slowly: federations are but ill fitted
for sudden wars. The campaign was opened by the French before Prussia
and Austria had prepared their armaments.
Dumouriez had reckoned upon this sluggishness and inactivity of the two
German monarchies. His skilful plan was to sever the coalition, and
suddenly invade Belgium before Prussia could take the field. Had
Dumouriez alone framed and carried out his own plan, the fate of Belgium
and Holland was sealed; but La Fayette, who was charged to invade them
at the head of 40,000 men, had neither the temerity nor the rapidity of
this veteran soldier. A general of opinion rather than the general of an
army, he was more accustomed to command citizens in the public square,
than soldiers in a campaign. Personally brave, beloved by his troops,
but more of a citizen than a soldier, he had, during the American war,
headed small bodies of free men, but not undisciplined masses. Not to
peril his soldiers; defend the frontiers with intrepidity; die bravely
at a Thermopylæ; harangue the national guard; and excite his troops for
or against opinions; such was the nature of La Fayette. The daring
schemes of great wars, that risk much to save every thing, and which
expose the frontiers for a moment to strike at the heart of an empire,
accorded but ill with his habits, much less with his situation.
By becoming a general, La Fayette had become the chief of a party; and
whilst he was opposing foreign powers, his eyes were constantly turned
towards the interior. Doubtless he needed glory to nourish his
influence, and to regain the _rôle_ of arbitrator of the Revolution,
which now began to escape his grasp; but before every thing, it was
necessary that he should not compromise himself; one defeat would have
ruined all, and he knew it. He who never risks a loss, will never gain a
victory. La Fayette was the general of temporisation; and to waste the
time of the Revolution, was to destroy its force. The strength of
undisciplined forces is their impetuosity, and every thing that slackens
that ruins them.
Dumouriez, impetuous as the volcano, instinctively felt this, and
strove, in the conferences that preceded the nomination of the generals,
to infuse some portion of his own fire into La Fayette. He placed him at
the head of the principal _corps d'armée_, destined to penetrate into
Belgium, as the general most fitted to foment popular insurrection, and
convert the war on the Belgian provinces into revolution; for to rouse
Belgium in favour of French liberty, and to render its independence
dependent on ours, was to wrest it from the power of Austria, and turn
it against our foes. The Belgians, according to Dumouriez's plan, were
to conquer Belgium for us; for the germs of revolt had been but
imperfectly stifled in these provinces, and were destined to bud again
at the step of the first French soldier.
X.
Belgium, which had been long dominated over by Spain, had contracted its
jealous and superstitious Catholicism. The nation pertains to the
priests, and the privileges of the priests appear to it the privileges
of the people. Joseph II., a premature but an armed philosopher, sought
to emancipate the people from sacerdotal despotism. Belgium had risen in
arms against the liberty offered to her, and had sided with her
oppressors. The fanaticism of the priests, and of the municipal
privileges, united in a feeling of resistance to Joseph II., had set all
Belgium in a flame. The rebels had captured GHENT and BRUSSELS,
and proclaimed the downfall of the house of Austria, and the sovereignty
of the Pays Bas. Scarcely had they triumphed, than the Belgians became
divided amongst themselves. The sacerdotal and aristocratic party
demanded an oligarchical constitution, whilst the popular party demanded
a democracy, modelled on the French revolution.
VAN-DER-NOOT, an eloquent and cruel tribune, was the leader of the first
party; VAN-DER-MERSH, a brave soldier, of the people. Civil war broke
out amidst a struggle for independence. VAN-DER-MERSH, made
prisoner by the aristocratic party, was immured in a gloomy dungeon
until Leopold, the successor of Joseph II., profited by these domestic
feuds, again to subjugate Belgium. Weary of liberty, after having tasted
it, she submitted without resistance. Van-der-noot took refuge in
Holland. Van-der-mersh, freed by the Austrians, was generously pardoned,
and again became an obscure citizen.
All attempts at independence were repressed by strong Austrian
garrisons, and could not fail to be awakened at the approach of the
French armies. La Fayette appeared to comprehend and approve of this
plan. It was agreed that the Maréchal de Rochambeau should be appointed
commander-in-chief of the army that threatened Belgium, that La Fayette
should have under his orders a considerable _corps_ that would invade
the country, and then La Fayette would command alone in the Netherlands.
Rochambeau, old and worn out by inactivity, would thus only receive the
honour due to his rank. La Fayette would in reality direct the whole of
the campaign and of the armed propaganda of the revolution. "This _rôle_
suits him," said the old maréchal. "I do not understand this war of
cities." To cause La Fayette to march on Namur, which was but ill
defended, capture it, march from thence on Brussels and Liège, the two
capitals of the Pays Bas, and the focus of Belgian independence--send
General Biron forward at the head of ten thousand men on Mons, to oppose
the Austrian General Beaulieu, whose force was only two or three
thousand men--detach from the garrison at Lille another corps of three
thousand men, who would occupy Tournay, and who, after having left a
garrison in this town, would swell the corps of Biron--send twelve
hundred men from Dunkirk to surprise Furnes, and then advance by
converging into the heart of the Belgian provinces with these forty
thousand men under the command of La Fayette--attack, on every side, in
ten days an enemy ill prepared to resist--to rouse the populations to
revolt, and then increase the attacking army to eighty thousand troops,
and join to it the Belgian battalions raised in the name of freedom, to
combat the emperor's army as it arrived from Germany:--such was
Dumouriez's bold idea of the campaign. Nothing was wanting to ensure its
success but a man capable of executing it. Dumouriez disposed of the
troops and the generals in conformity with this plan.
XI.
The impulse of France responded to the impulse of her genius.
On the other side of the Rhine the preparations were making with
promptitude and energy. The emperor and the king of Prussia met at
Frankfort, where they were joined by the Duke of Brunswick. The empress
of Russia adhered to the aggression of the powers against France, and
marched her troops into Poland, to repress the germs of the same
principles that were to be combated at Paris. Germany yielded, in spite
of herself, to the impulse of the three cabinets, and poured her masses
towards the Rhine. The emperor preluded this war of thrones against
people by his coronation at Frankfort. The head-quarters of the Duke of
Brunswick were at Coblentz, the capital of the emigration. The
generalissimo of the confederation had an interview there with the two
brothers of Louis XVI., and promised to restore to them, ere long, their
country and their rank, whilst they, in their turn, styled him the _Hero
of the Rhine_, and the _Right arm of kings_.
Every thing wore a military aspect. The two princes of Prussia,
quartered in a village near Coblentz, had but one room, and slept on the
floor. The king of Prussia was welcomed on every bank of the Rhine by
the salvos of his artillery. In every town through which he passed the
_emigrés_, the population, and the troops, proclaimed him beforehand the
preserver of Germany. His name, written in letters of fire at the
illuminations, was surrounded by this adulatory device, "_Vivat
Villelmus, Francos deleat, jura regis restituat!"--"Long live William,
the exterminator of the French, the restorer of royalty._"
XII.
Coblentz, a town situated on the confluence of the Moselle and the
Rhine, in the states of the Elector of Trèves, had become the capital of
the French _emigrés_. A constantly increasing body of gentlemen, to the
number of twenty-two thousand, assembled there, around the seven
fugitive princes of the house of Bourbon. These princes were, the Comte
de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, the king's brothers; the two sons of
the Comte d'Artois, the Duc de Berri and the Duc d'Angoulême; the Prince
de Condé, the king's cousin, the Duke de Bourbon, his son, and the Duc
d'Enghien, his grandson. All the military noblesse of the kingdom, with
the exception of the partisans of the constitution, had quitted their
garrisons or their Châteaus to join this crusade of kings against the
French revolution. This movement--which now appears sacrilegious, since
it armed citizens against their country, and led them to implore the
assistance of foreign powers to combat France--did not at that time
possess in the eyes of the French noblesse that parricidal character
with which the more enlightened patriotism of the present age invests
it. Culpable in the eyes of reason, it could at least explain itself
before feeling. Infidelity to their country was termed fidelity to their
king, and desertion, honour.
Allegiance to the throne was the religion of the French nobles; and the
sovereignty of the people appeared to them an insolent dogma, against
which it was imperative to take arms, unless they wished to be partakers
of the crime. The noblesse had patiently supported the humiliation and
the personal spoliation of title and fortune which the National Assembly
had imposed on them by the destruction of the last vestiges of the
feudal system; or rather, they had generously sacrificed them to their
country on the night of the 6th of August. But these outrages on the
king appeared more intolerable to them than those inflicted on
themselves. To deliver him from his captivity--rescue him from impending
danger--save the queen and her children--restore royalty--or perish
fighting for this sacred cause, appeared to them the duty of their
situation and their birth. On one side was honour, on the other their
country: they had not hesitated, but had followed honour; and this was
sanctified even more in their eyes by the magic word devotion. There was
real devotion in the feeling that induced these young and these old men
to abandon their rank in the army--their fortune--their country--their
families, to rally around the white flag in a foreign land, to perform
the duty of private soldiers, and brave eternal exile, the spoliation
pronounced against them by the laws of their country, the fatigues of
the camp, and death and danger on the battle-field. If the devotion of
the patriots to the Revolution was sublime as hope, that of the emigrant
nobles was generous as despair. In civil wars we should ever judge each
party by its own ideas, for civil wars are almost invariably the
expression of two duties in opposition to each other. The duty of the
patriots was their country; of the _emigrés_, the throne: one of the two
parties was deceived as to its duty, but each believed it fulfilled it.
XIII.
The emigration was composed of two entirely distinct parties--the
politicians and the combatants. The politicians, who crowded round the
Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, and poured forth idle
invectives against the truths of philosophy and the principles of
democracy. They wrote books and supported papers, in which the French
Revolution was represented to the foreign sovereigns as an infernal
conspiracy of a few scoundrels against kings, and even against heaven.
They formed the councils of an imaginary government--they sought to
obtain missions--they formed plans--renewed intrigues--visited every
court--stirred up the sovereigns and their ministers against
France--disputed the favour of the French princes--devoured their
subsidies--and transported to this foreign soil the ambitions, the
rivalries, and the cupidity of a court.
The military men had brought nothing but the bravery, the _insouciance_,
the recklessness, and the polish of their nation and profession.
Coblentz became the camp of illusion and devotion. This handful of brave
men deemed themselves a nation; and prepared, by accustoming themselves
to the manoeuvres and fatigues of war, to conquer in a few days a
whole monarchy. The emigrants of every country and every age have
presented this spectacle; for emigration, like the desert, has its
mirage. The emigrants believe that they have borne away their country on
the soles of their shoes, to employ the language of Danton, but they
carry away nought but its shadow, accumulate nothing but its anger, and
find nothing but its pity.
XIV.
Amongst the first _emigrés_, three factions corresponded to these
different parties in the emigration itself.
The Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII., was a philosophic
prince--a politician and a diplomatist somewhat inclined towards
innovation; an enemy of the nobility, of the priesthood; favourable to
the aristocracy; and who would have pardoned the Revolution, if the
Revolution itself would have pardoned royalty. His early infirmities
closing the career of arms to him, he became addicted to politics--he
cultivated his mind--he studied history--he wrote well, and foreseeing
the approaching downfall, he predicted the probable death of Louis
XVI.--he believed in the vicissitudes of the Revolution, and prepared
himself to become the pacificator of his country, and the conciliator of
the throne and liberty. His heart possessed all the qualities and all
the faults of a woman--he needed friendship, and he gave himself
favourites; but he chose them rather for their elegance than their
merit, and saw men and things only through books and the hearts of
courtiers. Somewhat theatrical, he exhibited himself as a statue of
right and misfortune to all Europe; studied his attitudes; spoke
learnedly of his adversaries; and assumed the position of a victim and a
sage: he was, however, unpopular with the army.
XV.
The Comte d'Artois, his junior, spoiled by nature, by the court, and by
the fair sex, had taken on himself the _rôle_ of a hero. He represented
at Coblentz antique honour, chivalrous devotion, and the French
character; he was adored by the court, whose grace, elegance, and pride
were personified in him: his heart was good, his mind apt, but not well
informed, and of limited comprehension. A philosopher, through indolence
and carelessness before the Revolution, superstitious afterwards,
through weakness and _entrainment_, he threatened the Revolution with
his sword from a distance. He appeared more fitted to irritate than to
conquer, and at this early period he already manifested that unbridled
rashness and that useless spirit of provocation which was one day to
cost him a throne. But his personal beauty, his grace, and his
cordiality, covered all these defects, and he seemed destined never to
die. Old in years, he was fated to reign, and die, eternally young. He
was the prince of youth: at another epoch he would have been Francis I.,
in his own he was Charles X.
The Prince de Condé was a soldier by birth, inclination, and profession.
He despised these two courts, transposed to the banks of the Rhine, for
his court was his camp. His son, the Duc de Bourbon, served his first
campaign under his orders, and his grandson, the Duc d'Enghien, in his
seventeenth year, acted as his aide-de-camp. This young prince was the
representative of manly grace in the camp of the _emigrés_; his bravery,
his enthusiasm, his generosity, all seemed to promise another hero to
the heroic race of Condé. He was worthy of conquering in a cause not
doomed, of dying sword in hand on the battle field, and not to fall,
some years later, in the fosse at Vincennes, by the "lantern dimly
burning," with no other friend than his dog, by the balls of a platoon
of soldiers, ordered out at dead of night, as if for an assassination.
XVI.
Louis XVI. trembled in his palace at the shock of this war which he
himself had proclaimed, and which loured on the frontiers. He did not
conceal from himself that he was less the chief than the hostage of
France, and that his head and that of his children would be forfeited to
the nation on the first reverse or peril. Danger sees treason on every
side, and the public journals and the clubs denounced more vehemently
than ever the existence of the _comité Autrichien_, of which the queen
was the centre. This report was universally believed by the nation, and
only cost the queen her popularity during the peace, but during the war
it might cost her her life. Thus, formerly accused of betraying the
peace, this unfortunate family was now accused of betraying the war. In
false positions every thing is a danger; the king comprehended the
extent of his perils, and hastened to avert the most impending.
He despatched a secret emissary to the king of Prussia and the emperor,
to entreat them, as they valued his safety, to suspend hostilities, and
to precede the invasion by a conciliating manifesto, which might allow
France to retire from the contest without disgrace, and would place the
life of the royal family under the safeguard of the nation. This secret
agent was Mallet-Dupan, a young journalist of Geneva, established in
France, and mixed up with the counter-revolutionary movement.
Mallet-Dupan was attached to the monarchy by principle, and to the king
by personal devotion. He left Paris under pretext of returning to
Geneva, and from thence went to Germany, where he had an interview with
the Maréchal de Castries, the foreign confidant of Louis XVI., and one
of the leaders of the _emigrés_. Accredited by the Duc de Castries, he
presented himself at Coblentz to the Duke of Brunswick, at Frankfort to
the ministers of the king of Prussia and the emperor; they however
refused to place any faith in his communications, unless he produced a
letter in the king's own hand. On this the king transmitted him a slip
of paper, about two inches long, on which was written: "_The person who
will produce this note knows my intentions; implicit credence may be
given to all he says in my name._" This royal sign of recognition gave
Mallet-Dupan access to the cabinets of the coalition.
Conferences were opened between the French negotiator, the Comte de
Cobentzel, the Comte d'Haugwitz, and general Heyman, the
plenipotentiaries of the emperor, and the king of Prussia. These
ministers, after having examined the credentials of Mallet-Dupan,
listened to his communications. They were to the effect that "the king
alike prayed and exhorted the _emigrés_ not to cause the approaching war
to lose its appearance of power against power, by taking part in it, in
the name of the re-establishment of the monarchy. Any other line of
conduct would produce a civil war, endanger the lives of the king and
queen, destroy the throne, and occasion a general massacre of the
royalists. The king added, that he besought the sovereigns who had taken
up arms in his cause, to separate, in their manifesto, the faction of
the Jacobins from the nation, and the liberty of the people from the
anarchy that convulsed them; to declare formally and energetically to
the Assembly, the administrative and municipal bodies, that their lives
should be answerable for all and every attempt against the sacred
persons of the king, the queen, and their children; and to announce to
the nation that no dismemberment would follow the war, that they would
treat for peace with the king alone, and that in consequence the
Assembly should hasten to give him the most perfect liberty, in order to
enable him to negotiate in the name of his people with the allied
powers."
Mallet-Dupan explained the sense of these instructions with that
enlightened good sense, and that devoted attachment to the king that
marked him; he painted in the most lively colours the interior of the
Tuileries, and the terror to which the royal family was a prey.
The negotiators were moved almost to tears, and promised to communicate
these impressions to their sovereigns, and gave Mallet-Dupan the
assurance that the intentions of the king should be the measure of the
language which the manifesto of the coalition would address to the
French nation.
They did not however dissimulate their astonishment at the fact that the
language of the emigrant princes at Coblentz was so opposed to the views
of the king at Paris. "They openly manifest," said they, "the intention
of re-conquering the kingdom for the counter-revolution, of rendering
themselves independent, of dethroning their brother and proclaiming a
regency." The confidant of Louis XVI. left for Geneva after this
conference; whilst the emperor, the king of Prussia, the principal
princes of the confederation, the ministers, the generals, and the Duke
of Brunswick went to Mayence. Mayence, where the fêtes were interrupted
by the councils, became for some days the head-quarters of the monarchs,
and there, at the instigation of the _emigrés_, extreme resolutions were
adopted. It was resolved to combat a revolution that but increased in
proportion as it received indulgence. The supplications of Louis XVI.,
and the warnings of Dupan were forgotten, and the plan of the campaign
was fixed.
XVII.
The emperor was to have the supreme control of the war in Belgium, where
his army was to be commanded by the Duke of Saxe-Teschen. Fifteen
thousand men were to cover the right of the Prussians, and affect a
junction with them at Longwy. Twenty thousand more of the emperor's
troops, commanded by the Prince de Hohenlohe, were to establish
themselves between the Rhine and the Moselle, cover the Prussian left,
and operate upon Landau, Sarrelouis, and Thionville. A third corps,
under Prince Esterhazy, and strengthened by five thousand _emigrés_
under the Prince de Condé, would threaten the frontiers from Switzerland
to Philipsbourg, and the king of Sardinia would have an army of
observation on the Var and the Isère. These dispositions made, it was
resolved to reply to terror by terror, and to publish in the name of the
generalissimo the Duke of Brunswick, a manifesto, which would leave the
French revolution no other alternative than submission or death.
M. de Calonne proposed it, and the Marquis de Limon, formerly intendant
des finances to the Duke of Orleans, first an ardent revolutionist like
his master, then an _emigré_ and an implacable royalist, wrote the
manifesto and submitted it to the emperor, who in his turn submitted it
to the king of Prussia. The king of Prussia sent it to the Duke of
Brunswick, who murmured, and demanded a modification of some of the
expressions, which was accorded. The Marquis de Limon, however,
supported by the French princes, again restored the text. The Duke of
Brunswick became indignant, and tore the manifesto to pieces, without
however daring to disavow it, and the manifesto appeared, with all its
insults and threats, to the French nation.
The emperor and the king of Prussia, informed of the secret leaning of
the Duke of Brunswick to France, and of the offer of the crown made to
him by the factions, caused him to undertake the responsibility of this
proclamation either as a vengeance or a disavowal. This imperious
defiance of the kings to freedom threatened with death every national
guard taken with arms in his hand, protecting the independence of his
country, and that in case the least outrage was offered by the factions
to the king, Paris should be razed to the ground.