Louis was fully as vivid as at London: already it was evident
that these two capitals were the centres of the great contest
which was approaching. ... An intimate and confidential
correspondence immediately commenced between Count Woronzoff,
the Russian ambassador at London, and Lord Grenville, the
British secretary of state for foreign affairs, which
terminated in a treaty between the powers, signed in London on
the 25th of March. By this convention, which laid the basis of
the grand alliance which afterwards brought the war to a
glorious termination, it was provided that the two powers
should 'employ their respective forces, as far as
circumstances shall permit, in carrying on the just and
necessary war in which they find themselves engaged against
France; and they reciprocally engage not to lay down their
arms without restitution of all the conquests which may have
been made upon either of the respective powers, or upon such
other states or allies to whom, by common consent, they shall
extend the benefit of this treaty.' ... Shortly after [April
25], a similar convention was entered into between Great
Britain and Sardinia, by which the latter power was to receive
an annual subsidy of £200,000 during the whole continuance of
the war, and the former to keep on foot an army of 50,000 men;
and the English government engaged to procure for it entire
restitution of its dominions as they stood at the commencement
of the war. By another convention, with the cabinet of Madrid,
signed at Aranjuez on the 25th of May, they engaged not to
make peace till they had obtained full restitution for the
Spaniards 'of all places, towns, and territories which
belonged to them at the commencement of the war, and which the
enemy may have taken during its continuance.' A similar treaty
was entered into with the court of the Two Sicilies, and with
Prussia [July 12 and 14], in which the clauses, prohibiting
all exportation to France, and preventing the trade of
neutrals with it, were the same as in the Russian treaty.
Treaties of the same tenor were concluded in the course of the
summer with the Emperor of Germany [August 30], and the King
of Portugal [September 26]. Thus was all Europe arrayed in a
great league against Republican France, and thus did the
regicides of that country, as the first fruits of their cruel
triumph, find themselves excluded from the pale of civilized
nations. ... But while all Europe thus resounded with the note
of military preparation against France, Russia had other and
more interested designs in view. Amidst the general
consternation at the triumphs of the French republicans,
Catharine conceived that she would be permitted to pursue,
without molestation, her ambitious designs against Poland [See
POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796]. She constantly represented the
disturbances in that kingdom as the fruit of revolutionary
propagandism, which it was indispensable to crush in the first
instance. ... The ambitious views of Prussia were also ...
strongly turned in the same direction. ... Nor was it only the
ambitious projects of Russia and Prussia against the
independence of Poland which already gave ground for gloomy
augury as to the issue of the war. Its issue was more
immediately affected by the jealousy of Austria and Prussia,
which now broke out in the most undisguised manner, and
occasioned such a division of the allied forces as effectually
prevented any cordial or effective co-operation continuing to
exist between them. The Prussian cabinet, mortified at the
lead which the Imperial generals took in the common
operations, insisted upon the formation of two independent
German armies; one composed of Prussians, the other of
Austrians, to one or other of which the forces of all the
minor states should be joined: those of Saxony, Hanover, and
Hesse being grouped around the standards of Prussia; those of
Bavaria, Wirtemburg, Swabia, the Palatinate, and Franconia,
following the double-headed eagles of Austria. By this means,
all unity of action between the two grand allied armies was
broken up. ... Prince Cobourg was appointed generalissimo of
the allied Armies from the Rhine to the German ocean." In
April, a corps of 20,000 English had been landed in Holland,
"under the command of the Duke of York, and being united to
10,000 Hanoverians and Hessians, formed a total of 30,000 men
in British pay." Holland, as an ally of England, was already
in the Coalition, the French having declared war, in February,
against the two maritime powers, simultaneously.
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 13 (volume 4)._
ALSO IN
_F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3_.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (April-August):
Minister Genet in America.
Washington's proclamation of neutrality.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
{1292}
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June).
Flight of most of the Girondists.
Their appeal to the country.
Insurrection in the provinces.
The rising at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulon.
Progress of the Vendean revolt.
"After this day [of the events which culminated on the 2d of
June, but which are commonly referred to as being of 'the 31st
of May,' when they began], when the people made no other use
of their power than to display and to exercise the pressure of
Paris over the representation, they separated without
committing any excess. ... La Montaigne caused the committees
to be reinstated on the morrow, with the exception of that of
public safety. They threw into the majority their most decided
members. ... They deposed those ministers suspected of
attachment to the' conquered; sent commissioners into the
doubtful departments; annulled the project of the constitution
proposed by the Girondists; and charged the committee of
safety to draw up in eight days a project for the constitution
entirely democratical. They pressed forward the recruiting and
armament of the revolutionary army--that levy of patriotism en
masse. They decreed a forced loan of a million upon the rich.
They sent one after the other, accused upon accused, to the
revolutionary tribunal. Their sittings were no longer
deliberation, but cursory motions, decreed on the instant by
acclamation, and sent immediately to the different committees
for execution. They stripped the executive power of the little
independence and responsibility it heretofore retained.
Continually called into the bosom of their committees,
ministers became no more than the passive executors of the
measures they decreed. From this day, also, discussion was at
an end; action was all. The disappearance of the Girondists
deprived the Revolution of its voice. Eloquence was proscribed
with Vergniaud, with the exception of those few days when the
great party chiefs, Danton and Robespierre, spoke, not to
refute opinions, but to intimate their will, and promulgate
their orders. The Assemblies became almost mute. A dead
silence reigned henceforth in the Convention. In the meanwhile
the 22 Girondists [excepting Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos,
Tonfrède, and a few others, who remained under the decree of
arrest, facing all consequences], the members of the
Commission of Twelve, and a certain number of their friends,
warned of their danger by this first blow of ostracism, fled
into their departments, and hurried to protest against the
mutilation of the country. ... Robespierre, Danton, the
Committee of Public Safety, and even the people themselves,
seemed to shut their eyes to these evasions, as if desirous to
be rid of victims whom it would pain them to strike. Buzot,
Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Salles, Pétion, Bergoing, Lesage,
Cressy, Kervélégan and Lanjuinais, threw themselves into
Normandy; and after having traversed it, inciting all the
departments between Paris and the Ocean, established at Caen
the focus and centre of insurrection against the tyranny of
Paris. They gave themselves the name of the Central Assembly
of Resistance to Oppression. Biroteau and Chasset had arrived
at Lyons. The armed sections of this town were agitated with
contrary and already bloody commotion [the Jacobin
municipality having been overthrown, after hard fighting, and
its chief, Chalier, put to death]. Brissot fled to Moulins,
Robaut St. Etienne to Nismes. Grangeneuve, sent by Vergniaud,
Tonfrède, and Ducos, to Bordeaux, raised troops ready to march
upon the capital. Toulouse followed the same impulse of
resistance to Paris. The departments of the west were on fire,
and rejoiced to see the republic, torn into contending
factions, offer them the aid of one of the two parties for the
restoration of royalty. The mountainous centre of France ...
was agitated. ... Marseilles enrolled 10,000 men at the voice
of Rebecqui and the young friends of Barbaroux. They
imprisoned the commissioners of the Convention, Roux and
Antiboul. Royalty, always brooding in the south, insensibly
transformed this movement of patriotism into a monarchical
insurrection. Rebecqui, in despair ... at seeing loyalty avail
itself of the rising in the south, escaped remorse by suicide,
throwing himself into the sea. Lyons and Bordeaux likewise
imprisoned the envoys of the Convention as Maratists. The
first columns of the combined army of the departments began to
move in all directions; 6,000 Marseillais were already at
Avignon, ready to reascend the Rhone, and form a junction with
the insurgents of Nismes and of Lyons. Brittany and Normandy
uniting, concentrated their first forces at Evreux."
_A de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 43 (volume 3)._
The royalists of the west, "during this almost general rising
of the departments, continued to extend their enterprises.
After their first victories, the Vendeans seized on Bressure,
Argenton, and Thouars. Entirely masters of their own country,
they proposed getting possession of the frontiers, and
opening the way to revolutionary France, as well as
communications with England. On the 6th of June, the Vendean
army, composed of 40,000 men, under Cathelineau, Lescure,
Stofflet, and La Rochejacquelin, marched on Saumur, which it
took by storm. It then prepared to attack and capture Nantes,
to secure the possession of its own country, and become
masters of the course of the Loire. Cathelineau, at the head
of the Vendean troops, left a garrison in Saumur, took
Angers, crossed the Loire, pretended to advance upon Tours
and Lemans, and then rapidly threw himself upon Nantes, which
he attacked on the right bank, while Charette was to attack
it on the left."
_F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 8._
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June-October).
The new Jacobin Constitution postponed.
Concentration of power in the Committee of Public Safety.
The irresistible machine of revolutionary government.
"It was while affairs were in this critical condition that the
Mountain undertook the sole conduct of the government in
France. They had hitherto resisted all attempts of the
Girondists to establish a new constitution in place of that of
1791. They now undertook the work themselves, and in four days
drew up a constitution, as simple as it was democratic, which
was issued on the 24th of June. Every citizen of the age of 21
could vote directly in the election of deputies, who were
chosen for a year at a time and were to sit in a single
assembly. The assembly had the sole power of making laws, but
a period was fixed during which the constituents could protest
against its enactments. The executive power was entrusted to
24 men, who were chosen by the assembly from candidates
nominated by electors chosen by the original voters. Twelve
out of the 24 were to be renewed every six months. But this
constitution was intended merely to satisfy the departments,
and was never put into practice. The condition of France
required a greater concentration of power, and this was
supplied by the Committee of Public Safety.
{1293}
Ever since the 6th of April the original members of the
Committee had been re-elected, but on the 10th of July its
composition was changed. Danton ceased to be a member, and
Barère was joined by Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon,
Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and, in a short time,
Carnot. These men became the absolute rulers of France. The
Committee had no difficulty in carrying their measures in the
Convention, from which the opposition party had disappeared.
All the state obligations were rendered uniform and inscribed
in 'the great book of the national debt.' The treasury was
filled by a compulsory loan from the rich. Every income
between 1,000 and 10,000 francs had to pay ten per cent., and
every excess over 10,000 francs had to be contributed in its
entirety for one year. To recruit the army a levee en masse
was decreed. 'The young men shall go to war; the married men
shall forge arms and transport supplies; the wives shall make
tents and clothes and serve in the hospitals; the children
shall tear old linen into lint; the aged shall resort to the
public places to excite the courage of the warriors and hatred
against kings.' Nor were measures neglected against domestic
enemies. On the 6th of September a revolutionary army,
consisting of 6,000 men and 1,200 artillery men, was placed at
the disposal of the Committee to carry out its orders
throughout France. On the 17th the famous 'law of the
suspects' was carried. Under the term 'suspect' were included
all those who by words, acts or writings had shown themselves
in favour of monarchy or of federalism, the relatives of the
emigrants, etc., and they were to be imprisoned until the
peace. As the people were in danger of famine, a maximum
price, already established for corn, was decreed for all
necessaries; if a merchant gave up his trade he became a
suspect, and the hoarding of provisions was punished by death.
On the 10th of October the Convention definitely transferred
its powers to the Committee, by subjecting all officials to
its authority and by postponing the trial of the new
constitution until the peace."
_R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 23, section 11._
The Committee of Public Safety--the "Revolutionary
Government," as Danton had named it, on the 2d of August, when
he demanded the fearful powers that were given to
it--"disposed of all the national forces; it appointed and
dismissed the ministers, generals, Representatives on Mission,
the judges and juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The
latter instrument became its strong arm; it was, in fact, a
court martial worked by civil magistrates. By its agents it
directed the departments and armies, the political situation
without and within, striking down at the same time the rebels
within and the enemies without: for, together with the
constitution were, of course, suspended the municipal laws and
the political machinery of the communes; and thus cities and
villages hitherto indifferent or opposed to the Revolution
were republicanized. By the Tribunal it disposed of the
persons of individuals; by requisition and the law of maximum
(with which we are going to be better acquainted) it disposed
of their fortunes. It can, indeed, be said that the whole of
France was placed in a state of siege; but that was the price
of its salvation. ... But Danton has committed, a great
mistake,--one that he and especially France, will come to rue.
He has declined to become a member of the Revolutionary
Government, which has been established on his motion. 'It is
my firm resolve not to be a member of such a government,' he
had said. In other words, he has declined re-election as a
member of the Committee de Salut Public, now it has been
erected into a dictatorship. He unfortunately lacked all
ambition. ... When afterwards, on September 8, one Gaston
tells the Convention, 'Danton has a mighty revolutionary head.
No one understands so well as he to execute what he himself
proposes. I therefore move that he be added to the
Revolutionary Government, in spite of his protest,' and it is
so unanimously ordered, he again peremptorily declines. 'No, I
will not be a member; but as a spy on it I intend to work.' A
most fateful resignation! for while he still for a short time
continues to exercise his old influence on the government,
both from the outside, in his own person, and inside the
Committee, in the person of Hérault de Sechelles, selected in
his place, he very soon loses ground more and more,--so much
so even that Hérault, his friend, is 'put in quarantine,' as
was said in the Committee. And very natural. A statesman
cannot have power when he shirks responsibility, and without
power he soon loses all influence with the multitude. Those
who now succeed him in power are Robespierre, Barère,
Billaud-Varennes, and Carnot,--the two last very good working
members, good men of the second rank, but after Danton not a
single man is left fit to be leader."
_L. Gronlund,
Ça Ira! or Danton in the French Revolution,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN
_C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution.
volume 2, chapter 9._
_H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1, and appendix 2._
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July).
The assassination of Marat.
"Amongst those who had placed faith in the Girondists and
their ideals was a young woman of Normandy, Charlotte Corday.
... When the mob of Paris rose and drove with insult from the
Convention those who in her eyes were the heroic defenders of
the universal principles of truth and justice, she bitterly
resented the wrong that had been done, not only to the men
themselves, but to that France of which she regarded them as
the true representatives. Owing to Marat's persistent cry for
a dictatorship and for shedding of blood, it was he who, in
the departments, was accounted especially responsible both for
the expulsion of the Girondists and for the tyranny which now
began to weigh as heavily upon the whole country as it had
long weighed upon the capital. Incapable as all then were of
comprehending the causes which had brought about the fall of
the Girondists, Charlotte Corday imagined that by putting an
end to this man's life, she could also put an end to the
system of government which he advocated. Informing her friends
that she wished to visit England, she left Caen and travelled
in the diligence to Paris. On her arrival she purchased a
knife, and afterwards obtained entrance into Marat's house on
the pretext that she brought news which she desired to
communicate to him. She knew that he would be eager to obtain
intelligence of the movements of the Girondist deputies still
in Normandy. Marat was ill at the time, and in a bath when
Charlotte Corday was admitted.
{1294}
She gave him the names of the deputies who were at Caen. 'In a
few days,' he said, as he wrote them hastily down, 'I will
have them all guillotined in Paris.' As she heard these words
she plunged the knife into his body and killed him on the
spot. The cry uttered by the murdered man was heard, and
Charlotte, who did not attempt to escape, was captured and
conveyed to prison amid the murmurs of an angry crowd. It had
been from the first her intention to sacrifice her life for
the cause of her country, and, glorying in her deed, she met
death with stoical indifference. 'I killed one man,' she said,
when brought before the revolutionary court, 'in order to save
the lives of 100,000 others.' ... His [Marat's] murder brought
about contrary results to those which the woman who ignorantly
and rashly had flung away her life hoped by the sacrifice to
effect. ... He was regarded as a martyr by no small portion of
the working population of Paris. ... His murder excited
indignation beyond the comparatively narrow circle of those
who took an active part in political life, while at the same
time it added a new impulse to the growing cry for blood."
_B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 7._
ALSO IN
_C. Mac Farlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 13._
_J. Michelet,
Women of the French Revolution,
chapter 18-19._
_Mrs. R. K. Van Alstine,
Charlotte Corday._
_A. Dobson,
Four French Women,
chapter 1._
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December).
The civil war.
Sieges of Lyons and Toulon.
Submission of Caen, Marseilles and Bordeaux.
Crushing of the Vendeans.
"The insurgents in Calvados [Normandy] were easily suppressed;
at the very first skirmish at Vernon [July 13], the insurgent
troops fled. Wimpfen endeavoured to rally them in vain. The
moderate class, those who had taken up the defence of the
Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the
constitution was accepted by the other departments, it saw the
opportunity for admitting that it had been in error, when it
thought it was taking arms against a mere factious minority.
This retractation was made at Caen, which had been the
headquarters of the revolt. The Mountain commissioners did not
sully this first victory with executions. General Carteaux on
the other hand, marched at the head of some troops against the
sectionary army of the south; he defeated its force, pursued
it to Marseilles, entered the town [August 23] after it, and
Provence would have been brought into subjection like
Calvados, if the royalists, who had taken refuge at Toulon,
after their defeat, had not called in the English to their
aid, and placed in their hands this key to France. Admiral
Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he
proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for 8,000 Spaniards
by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux,
who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles.
Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in
isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point. The
Mountain commissioners had made their entry into the rebel
capitals; Robert Lindet into Caen; Tallien into Bordeaux;
Barras and Fréron into Marseilles. Only two towns remained to
be taken Toulon and Lyons. A simultaneous attack from the
south, west, and centre was no longer apprehended, and in the
interior the enemy was only on the defensive. Lyons was
besieged by Kellermann, general of the army of the Alps; three
corps pressed the town on all sides. The veteran soldiers of
the Alps, the revolutionary battalions and the newly levied
troops, reinforced the besiegers every day. The people of
Lyons defended themselves with all the courage of despair. At
first, they relied on the assistance of the insurgents of the
south; but these having been repulsed by Carteaux, the
Lyonnese placed their last hope in the army of Piedmont, which
attempted a diversion in their favour, but was beaten by
Kellermann. Pressed still more energetically, they saw their
first position carried. Famine began to be felt, and courage
forsook them. The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility
of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army
entered the walls [October 9], where they awaited the orders
of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself [in the
siege of which Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the artillery],
defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell
into the power of the republicans. The battalions of the army
of Italy, reinforced by those which the taking of Lyons left
disposable, pressed the place closely. After repeated attacks
and prodigies of skill and valour, they made themselves
masters of it, and the capture of Toulon finished what that of
Lyons had begun [December 19]. Everywhere the convention was
victorious. The Vendeans had failed in their attempt upon
Nantes, after having lost many men, and their
general-in-chief, Cathelineau. This attack put an end to the
aggressive and previously promising movement of the Vendean
insurrection. The royalists repassed the Loire, abandoned
Saumur, and resumed their former cantonments. They were,
however, still formidable; and the republicans, who pursued
them, were again beaten in La Vendée. General Biron, who had
succeeded General Berruyer, unsuccessfully continued the war
with small bodies of troops; his moderation and defective
system of attack caused him to be replaced by Canclaux and
Rossignol, who were not more fortunate than he. There were two
leaders, two armies, and two centres of operation; ... The
committee of public safety soon remedied this, by appointing
one sole general-in-chief, Lechelle, and by introducing war on
a large scale into La Vendée. This new method, aided by the
garrison of Mayence, consisting of 17,000 veterans, who,
relieved from operations against the coalesced powers after
the capitulation, were employed in the interior, entirely
changed the face of the war. The royalists underwent four
consecutive defeats, two at Châtillon, two at Cholet [the last
being October 17]. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d'Elbée were
mortally wounded: and the insurgents, completely beaten in
Upper Vendée, and fearing that they should be exterminated if
they took refuge in Lower Vendée, determined to leave their
country to the number of 80,000 persons. This emigration
through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection,
became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly
routed at Mons [Le Mans, December 12], they were destroyed at
Savenay [December 23], and barely a few thousand men, the
wreck of this vast emigration, returned to Vendée. These
disasters, irreparable for the royalist cause, the taking of
their land of Noir-moutiers from Charette, the dispersion of
the troops of that leader, the death of Laroche jacquelin,
rendered the republicans masters of the country.
{1295}
The committee of public safety, thinking, not without reason,
that its enemies were beaten but not subjugated, adopted a
terrible system of extermination to prevent them from rising
again. General Thurreau surrounded Vendée with sixteen
entrenched camps; twelve movable columns, called the infernal
columns, overran the country in every direction, sword and
fire in hand, scoured the woods, dispersed the assemblies, and
diffused terror throughout this unhappy country."
_F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 8._
ALSO IN
_A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 328-335,
and 398-410._
_Marchioness de Larochejaquelain,
Memoirs._
_A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 1, chapters 5-7._
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December).
Progress of the war of the Coalition.
Dissensions among the Allies.
Unsuccessful siege of Dunkirk.
French Victories of Hondschotten and Wattignies.
Operations on the Rhine and elsewhere.