Louis XV at first possessed the affections of his people to such a
degree, that he was named the ‘Much-beloved;’ and when he was attacked
by a dangerous illness in Metz, the whole land went into mourning, and
his recovery was celebrated by the greatest rejoicings. But this love
gradually changed into hatred and contempt when the king gave himself
up to the most shameless debaucheries, and surrendered the government
of the country, the command of the army, and the decision upon points
of law and state policy, to the companions of his orgies and the
ministers of his lusts and pleasures; and when mistresses, without
morals or decency, ruled the court and the empire. Among these women,
none possessed greater or more enduring influence than the Marchioness
of Pompadour, who guided the whole policy of France for a period of
twenty years, filled the most important offices with her favorites,
decided upon peace or war, and disposed of the revenues of the state
as she did of her private purse, so that, after a life passed in
luxury and splendor, she left millions behind her. She and her
creatures encouraged Louis’ excesses and love of pleasure, that he
might plunge continually deeper in the pool of vice, and leave to them
the government of the state. For the rest, the Pompadour used her
position and her influence with a certain dignity, and with tact and
discretion; but when the countess Du Barry, a woman from the very
dregs of the people, occupied her place, the court lost all authority
and respect.
When Louis XV, in consequence of his excesses, was carried off in the
midst of his sins by a frightful distemper, the treasury was
exhausted, the country in debt, credit gone, and the people oppressed
by their burdens.
It was under these melancholy circumstances, that an absolute throne
descended to a prince who certainly possessed the best of hearts, but
a weak understanding; who was good-natured enough to wish to relieve
the condition of the people, but possessed neither strength nor
intellect for efficient measures. This prince was Louis XVI. Weak and
indulgent, he allowed the frivolity and extravagance of his brothers,
the count of Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII), and the count of
Artois (Charles X); and permitted his wife, Marie Antoinette, the
highly-accomplished daughter of Maria Theresa, to interfere in matters
of state, and to exert a considerable influence upon the court and
government. The queen, by her pride and haughty bearing, incurred the
dislike of the people, so that they ascribed every unpopular measure
to her influence, and put a bad construction upon every liberty she
allowed herself in private.
The prevailing want of money, and the disordered state of the revenue,
could only be remedied by including the nobility and clergy in the
taxation, by large reforms in the whole system of government, like
those proposed by Turgot and Malesherbes, and by order and economy in
the expenditure. But Louis XVI had neither strength nor resolution to
carry out such decisive measures; and as for economy, the extravagant
court of Versailles would not listen to it. The Genevese banker,
Necker, who undertook the management of the finances after Turgot, was
as little in a position as his predecessor to reduce the disorder in
the state economy; and when, upon the occasion of a loan, he exposed
the financial condition of France in a pamphlet, he drew upon himself
the displeasure of the court and the aristocracy to such a degree,
that he was obliged to resign his office. This happened at a time when
the American war had increased the scarcity of money, and aroused the
feeling of liberty and republicanism in France. It was, therefore, a
great misfortune for the French monarchy, that just at this critical
moment the frivolous and extravagant Calonne undertook the management
of the finances. This man departed from the frugal plan of Necker,
acceded to the wishes of the queen and the necessities of the princes
and courtiers, and deluded the world with high-sounding promises of
putting an end to all difficulties. The most splendid festivals were
celebrated in Versailles, and the talents of Calonne loudly extolled.
But his means, also, were soon exhausted.
The popular favorite Necker, was a second time summoned, in 1788, to
the ministry. He first allayed the irritation by repealing resolutions
against the parliament, and then made preparations for summoning the
Estates. Owing to this, there soon arose a division between him and
the parliament and Notables, whom he had again consulted. The latter
were of opinion that the new assembly should conform itself, both as
to the number of representatives and the mode of procedure, to the
Estates of 1614, while Necker wished to allow a double representation
to the third Estate, and that they should vote individually, and not
as a class; a view that was supported by some of the ablest writers of
the nation in a multitude of pamphlets. (Abbè Sieyes: ‘What is the
third Estate?’) Necker’s opinion triumphed. An order of the king fixed
the number of noble and ecclesiastical members at 300 each, that of
the citizens at 600, and appointed the following May as the time of
opening. Necker was the hero of the day, but he was not the pilot of
the ship, he only ‘drove the wind.’
In the beginning of May 1789, the deputies of the three Estates, and
among them some of the ablest and most accomplished men of France,
assembled at Versailles. The third Estate, irritated by the neglect of
the court at the opening and during the audience, came to a rupture
with the two privileged Estates at the first sitting, when the latter
required that the Estates should carry on their debates separately,
whilst the former insisted upon a general council and individual
votes. After a contest of some weeks, the third Estate, which had
chosen the astronomer, Bailli, the freedom-inspired representative of
Paris, for its President, but which was guided by the superior talents
of Sieyes and Mirabeau, declared itself a National Assembly, upon
which it was joined by portions of the other Estates. The Assembly at
once passed the resolution of allowing the levying of the present
taxes only so long as the Estates should remain undissolved. This
proceeding disturbed the court, and inspired it with the thought of
granting a constitution to the nation, and thus rendering the estates
unnecessary. For this purpose, a royal sitting was appointed, and the
hall of assembly closed for a few days. Upon the intelligence of this,
the deputies proceeded to the empty saloon of the Tennis Court, and
raised their hands in a solemn vow not to separate till they had given
a new constitution to the nation. When this Court also was closed, the
meetings were held in the church of St. Louis. The royal sitting took
place on the 23d of June. But neither the speech of the king, nor the
sketch of the new constitution, afforded due satisfaction, and they
were consequently received with coldness. After the termination of the
sitting, Louis dissolved the Assembly. The nobility and clergy obeyed,
but the citizen class retained their seats, and when the master of the
ceremonies called upon them to obey, Mirabeau exclaimed: ‘Tell your
master that we sit here by the power of the people, and that we are
only to be driven out by the bayonet!’ The weak king did not venture
to encounter this resolute resistance by force, but rather advised the
nobility and clergy to join the citizens.
The government of the city was made over to a democratic municipality,
at the head of which stood Bailli, as mayor. The court, alarmed at the
increasing ferment, determined upon retiring to Versailles with a few
regiments of German and Swiss troops. In this proceeding, the leaders
of the movement believed they saw the purpose of some act of violence,
and made use of it accordingly to excite fresh irritation. The
intelligence was spread abroad in Paris, that Necker had been suddenly
dismissed and banished from the country, and a favorite of the queen
placed in his office. This was interpreted as the first step in the
contemplated outrage, and proved the signal for a general rise. Crowds
of the citizens, wearing the newly-invented national cockade, (blue,
white, and red,) paraded through the streets, the alarm-bell was
sounded, the work-shops of the gunsmiths plundered; tumult and
confusion reigned everywhere. On the 14th of July, after the populace
had taken 30,000 stand of arms and some cannon from the Hospital des
Invalides, took place the storming of the Bastille, an old castle that
served as a state prison. The governor, Delaunay, and seven of the
garrison, fell victims to the popular rage; their heads were carried
through the streets upon poles; and many men who were hated as
aristocrats were put to death. The banished Necker was recalled, and
his entrance into the towns and villages of France was celebrated as
that of a hero crowned with victory. In this joyous reception of the
minister, the people displayed their enthusiasm for liberty and their
hatred to the court and the aristocracy. Lafayette, the champion of
the liberty of America, was appointed commander of the National Guard,
and whilst the king returned to Paris, and exhibited himself to the
assembled people from the balcony of the council-house with the
cockade in his hat, the count of Artois, and many nobles of the first
rank, as Condé, Polignac, left their country in mournful anticipation
of coming events.
Since the storming of the Bastille, the laws and magistrates had lost
their authority in France, and the power lay in the hands of the
populace. The country people no longer paid their tithes, taxes, and
feudal dues to the clergy and nobles, but took vengeance for the long
oppression they had suffered, by destroying the manorial castles. When
intelligence of these proceedings spread abroad, it was proposed in
the National Assembly, that the upper classes should prove to the
people by their actions, that they were willing to lighten their
burdens, and that, with this purpose, they should renounce, of their
own free will, all the inherited feudal privileges of the middle ages.
This proposal excited a storm of enthusiasm and self-renunciation.
None would be behind-hand. Estates, towns, provinces, each strove for
the honor of making the greatest sacrifices for the common good. This
was the celebrated 4th of August, when, in one feverish and excited
session, all tithes, labor-dues, manorial rights, corporate bodies,
etc., were abolished, the soil was declared free, and the equality of
all citizens of the state before the law and in regard to taxation was
decreed. These resolutions, and the necessary laws and arrangements
required for their reduction to practice, which were gradually
adopted, produced in a short time a complete revolution in all
existing conditions. The Church lost her possessions and was subjected
to the state; monasteries and religious orders were dissolved, and the
clergy paid by the state, the bishoprics newly regulated, and
religious freedom established. Priests were required to swear
allegiance, like officers of state, to the new constitution; but as
the pope forbade it, the greater number refused the oath, which was
the occasion of the French clergy being divided into sworn and unsworn
priests; the latter lost their offices and were exposed to all kinds
of persecutions, but enjoyed the confidence of the faithful among the
people. The noble forfeited not only his privileges and the greater
part of his income, but he also lost the external distinctions of his
rank, by the abolition of all titles, coats of arms, orders, etc. Upon
the principle of equality, all Frenchmen were to be addressed as
‘citizens.’ For the purpose of annihilating every remnant of the
ancient system, France received a new geographical division into
departments and _arrondissements_; a new system of judicature with
jurymen; equality of weights, measures, and standards; and lastly, a
constitutional government, in which the privileges of royalty were
limited, and the legislative power committed to a single chamber, with
a universal right of suffrage.
On the 5th of October, an immense multitude, chiefly of women,
proceeded to Versailles to demand from the king relief from the
scarcity of bread, and a return of the court to Paris. The king first
attempted to pacify them by a conciliatory answer. But a wing of the
palace was stormed during the night, and the guard put to the sword;
the arrival of Lafayette, with the National Guard, prevented any
further mischief. Upon the following day, the king was obliged to
consent to proceed to Paris with his family, under the escort of this
frightful crew, and to take up his residence in the Tuileries, which
had for many years remained unoccupied. Shortly after, the National
Assembly also followed, for whom the riding-school in the neighborhood
of the palace had been prepared. The power now fell more and more into
the hands of the lower class, who were kept in perpetual excitement by
journalists and popular leaders, and were goaded to hatred against the
court and the “aristocrats.”
On the day of the year in which the Bastille was taken, a grand
federative festival was arranged in the Champ de Mars (July 14, 1790).
It must have been a moving spectacle, when Talleyrand, at the head of
300 priests, clothed in white, and girded with tri-colored scarfs,
performed the consecration of the banner at the altar of the country;
when Lafayette, in the name of the National Guard, the president of
the National Assembly, and, at length, the king himself, vowed
fidelity to the Constitution; when the innumerable multitude raised
their hands aloft and repeated after him the oath of citizenship, and
the queen herself, carried away by enthusiasm, raised the Dauphin in
the air and joined in the acclamations. This was the last day of
happiness for the king, whose situation after this grew constantly
worse. Necker, no longer equal to the difficulties, left France and
retired to Switzerland. Mirabeau, won over by the court, opposed
farther encroachments upon the kingly power with the whole of his
eloquence, inasmuch as he believed a constitutional monarchy and not a
republic to be the best government for France. Unfortunately for the
king, this great man died, in his forty-second year, of a sickness
brought on by his disorderly life and by over-exertion. A splendid
funeral ceremony gave evidence of the influence of the man in whom
sank the last strong pillar of the throne. Weak and unselfreliant as
Louis XVI was, he now lost all firmness. By his refusal to receive a
sworn priest as his confessor, or to declare the emigrants traitors,
who were endeavoring from Coblentz to excite the European courts to a
crusade against France, he excited a suspicion that he was not
honestly a supporter of the constitution he had sworn to maintain, and
not altogether ignorant of the efforts of the emigrants. The more this
suspicion gained ground with the people, the more perilous became the
position of the king. At this crisis, Louis embraced the desperate
resolution of secretly flying to the northern frontier of his kingdom.
Bouillé, a resolute general in Lorraine, was let into the secret, and
promised to support the scheme with his troops. Leaving behind him a
letter, in which he protested against all the acts which had been
forced from him since October, 1789, the king happily escaped, with
his family, from Paris in a large carriage. But the clumsily executed
project nevertheless miscarried. Louis was recognized in St. Menehould
by the postmaster, Drouet, stopped by the militia at Varennes, and led
back to Paris at the command of the National Assembly, who sent three
of their members, and among them, Pètion, to receive the royal family.
The suspension of the royal authority, which had already been
pronounced by the Assembly, remained in force, till Louis proclaimed
and swore to observe, the Constitution completed at the end of
September.
The attention of the government and the Assembly was particularly
directed to the priests, who had refused the oath, and to the
emigrants. Both were endeavoring to overthrow the existing order of
things: the former by exciting hatred and discontent among the French
people; the latter by making military preparations at Coblentz, and
endeavoring to stir up foreign powers to an armed invasion of France.
The Assembly therefore determined upon seeking out and arresting the
unsworn priests, and declaring the emigrants traitors and
conspirators, and punishing them by the loss of their estates and
incomes. The king put his veto upon both these resolutions, and
prevented their execution. This refusal was ascribed to the secret
hopes, entertained by the court, of assistance from foreign powers and
of the triumph of the emigrants, and thus the temper of the people
grew continually more hostile. It was also known that the queen was in
correspondence with her brother, the emperor of Austria, and that she
looked for support and safety to the emigrant nobility. Neither was it
any longer doubtful that war must soon break out, since the emperor of
Austria and the king of Prussia, after a conference in Pillnitz
(August, 1791,) were making preparations, and demanded of the French
government not only to make befitting indemnification to the German
princes and nobles who had suffered loss by the abolition of tithes
and feudal burdens, and to restore the province of Avignon, that had
been wrested from the pope, but to arrange the government upon the
plan proposed by the king himself in June, 1789. These demands were
followed by a declaration of war against Austria and Prussia on the
part of the French government, to which the king yielded his consent
with tears. For the purpose of securing the capital and the National
Assembly against any attack it was resolved to summon 20,000 of the
federates from the southern provinces, under pretense of celebrating
the festival of the Bastille, and to commit the defense of Paris to
them. But Louis refused his consent to this resolution also. Upon
this, the Girondist ministers laid down their offices, after Madame
Roland had reproached and reprimanded the king in a letter that was
soon in the hands of every body. These proceedings increased the
irritation to such an extent that it became easy for the republicans
to excite a popular insurrection. On the 20th of June, the anniversary
of the meeting in the Tennis Court, the terrible mob, armed with
pikes, marched from the suburbs, under the conduct of the brewer,
Santerre, and the butcher, Legendre, into the Tuileries, to force the
king to confirm the decree against the unsworn priests and for the
summoning of the National Guard. But here also Louis remained firm. He
defied for several hours all threats and dangers, and endured the
insolence of the mob, who even placed the red Jacobin cap upon his
head and gave him wine to drink, with the courage of a martyr. The
rather tardy arrival of Pètion with the National Guard at length freed
him from his perilous position.
At midnight on the 10th of August, a fearful mob proceeded to the
Hôtel de Ville, for the purpose of establishing a new democratic
municipality, and then marched to the royal palace, which was defended
by 900 Swiss, and the Parisian National Guard under the command of
Mandat. The honest Mandat was resolved to check the advancing masses,
which were ever assuming a more menacing aspect, by force; his
destruction was consequently resolved upon by the democrats. He was
commanded to appear at the Hôtel de Ville, and assassinated on his way
thither; upon which the National Guard, uncertain what to do, and
disgusted by the presence of a number of nobles in the palace, for the
most part dispersed. The mob constantly assumed a more threatening
aspect; cannon were turned upon the palace, the pikemen pressed
forwards upon every entrance, the people loudly demanded the
deposition of the king. At this crisis, Louis suffered himself to be
persuaded to seek for protection with his family in the hall of the
National Assembly, where they passed sixteen hours in a narrow closet.
The king had scarcely left the palace, before the tumultuous multitude
pressed forward more violently; the Swiss guard maintained a gallant
resistance, and defended the entrance. When the report of musketry was
heard in the adjoining Assembly, the indignant representatives of the
people compelled the intimidated king to give his guard orders to
cease firing. By this order, the faithful defenders of monarchy were
doomed to destruction. Scarcely had the furious mob observed that the
enemy’s fire had ceased, before they stormed the palace, slaughtered
those they found in it, and destroyed the furniture. Nearly 5,000 men,
and among them, 700 Swiss, fell in the struggle, or died afterwards,
the victims of the popular fury. In the mean time, the National
Assembly, upon the proposal of Vergniaud, embraced the resolution “to
suspend the royal authority, to place the king and his family under
control, to give the prince a tutor, and to assemble a National
Convention.” The Temple, a strong fortress erected by the Knights
Templars, soon enclosed the imprisoned royal family.
After the suspension of the king, a new ministry was formed by the
National Assembly, in which, by the side of the Girondist, Roland, and
others, the terrible Danton held office as minister of justice. This
ministry, and the new Common Council of Paris which had appointed
itself, and which, after the 10th of August, had strengthened itself
by members who might be depended upon as hesitating at no wickedness,
now possessed the whole power. The Municipal Council ordered the
police of the capital to be conducted by pikemen, and the prisons were
quickly filled with the ‘suspected’ and ‘aristocrats.’ It was now that
the frightful resolution was matured of getting rid of the opponents
of the new order of things by a bloody tribunal, and of suppressing
all resistance by terror. After the recusant priests had been
slaughtered by hundreds in the monasteries and prisons, the dreadful
days of September were commenced. From the 2d to the 7th of September,
bands of hired murderers and villains were collected round the
prisons. Twelve of them acted as jurymen and judge, the others as
executioners. The imprisoned, with the exception of a few whose names
were marked upon a list, were put to death by this inhuman crew under
a semblance of judicial proceedings. Nearly 3,000 human beings were
either put to death singly, or slaughtered in masses, by these
wretches, who received a daily stipend from the Common Council for
their ‘labors.’ Among the murdered was the princess Lamballe, the
friend of the queen; a troop of pikemen carried her head upon a pole
to the Temple, and held it before Marie Antoinette’s window. The
example of the capital was imitated in many of the departments. The
barbarous destruction of all statues, coats of arms, incriptions, and
other memorials of a former period, formed the conclusion of the
August and September days, which were the transition period between
the French monarchy and republic. The autumnal equinox was
distinguished as the commencement of the reign of liberty and equality
under the republican National Convention.
Lafayette, who was serving with the northern army, and who, after the
days of June, had returned to Paris on his own responsibility, for the
purpose, if possible, of saving the king, was now summoned before the
National Assembly to answer for his conduct. Convinced that the
Jacobins were seeking for his death, he fled, with some friends who
shared his sentiments, to Holland, that he might escape to America;
but he fell into the hands of enemies, who treated him like a prisoner
of war, and allowed him to live for five years in the dungeons of
Olmutz and Magdeburg. Talleyrand repaired to England, and thence to
America, where he awaited better times.
The new Assembly, which, under the influence of the Jacobins, had been
elected by universal suffrage, was composed almost exclusively of
republicans, but of different dispositions and opinions.
The trial of the king, ‘Louis Capet,’ was one of the first proceedings
of the National Convention. An iron safe had been discovered in a wall
of the Tuileries, containing secret letters and documents, from which
it was apparent that the French court had not only been in alliance
with Austria and the emigrants, and had projected plans for
overthrowing the Constitution that had been sworn to by Louis, but
that it had also attempted to win over single members of the National
Assembly (for example, Mirabeau), by annuities, bribery, and other
means. It was upon this that the republicans, who would willingly have
been quit of the king, founded a charge of treason and conspiracy
against the country and the people. Louis, with the assistance of two
advocates, to whom the noble Malasherbes, of his own free impulse,
associated himself, appeared twice before the Convention (11th and
26th December), but despite his own dignified bearing and defense, and
despite the efforts of the Girondist party to have the sentence
referred to a general assembly of the people, Louis was condemned to
death in a stormy meeting, by a small majority of five voices, January
17th, 1793. The party of the Mountain, where the advocate, Maximilian
Robespierre, the former marquis St. Just, the frightful Danton, the
lame Couthon, and the duke of Orleans, who had assumed the name of
Citizen Egalité, were the leaders and chiefs, had left no means
unattempted to produce this result by terror; they would,
nevertheless, have failed in their purpose, had they not carried a
resolution beforehand in the Assembly, that a bare majority should be
sufficient for a sentence of death, and not, as had heretofore been
the custom, that two thirds of the votes should be necessary. The
murder was thus veiled by a show of justice. On the 21st of January,
the unfortunate king ascended the scaffold in the square of the
Revolution. The drums of the National Guard drowned his last words,
and ‘Robespierre’s women’ greeted his bloody head with the shout of
‘Vive la République.’
The Girondists, enraged at the increasing power of the populace in
Paris, and the unbridled acts of violence committed by the mob,
entertained the project of converting France into a republican union
like North America, and by this means, destroying the supremacy of the
capital. The Mountain and the Jacobins, who saw that this scheme would
weaken the revolutionary power of France, and endanger the future of
the democratic republic, commenced a war of life and death with the
Girondists (also called Brissotins) upon this point. They reproached
them with weakening the power of the people, and destroying the
republic at a moment when France was threatened with enemies both
within and without; and when all these attacks were ignominiously
repulsed by the victorious eloquence of the Girondists, the savage
Marat, in his ‘Friend of the People,’ called upon the populace to rise
against the moderate and lukewarm, and thus gave occasion to daily
riots and tumults, which disturbed the capital and endangered life and
property.
The National Convention acquired greater unanimity by the exclusion of
the Girondists and the moderates; so that, from this time, it was
enabled to develop a frightful power and activity. For the purpose of
better superintending its multitudinous affairs, it resolved itself
into committees, of which the committee of public safety and that of
public security acquired a frightful celebrity by the persecution of
every one opposed to the new order of things. A revolutionary
tribunal, consisting of twelve jurymen and five judges, to which that
man of blood, Fouquier Tinville, occupied the office of public
accuser, seconded the activity of these committees by a cruel and
summary administration of justice. At the head of the committee of
public safety stood three men, whose names became the terror and
horror of all just men; the envious and malignant Robespierre, the
bloodthirsty Couthon, and the frantic for republican liberty and
equality, St. Just. They pursued their bloody object without regard to
human life; every thing that ventured to oppose their stormy course
was unpityingly hurled down. Thus originated the terrible period of
the years ‘93 and ‘94, which displayed itself in three different
directions――within, by a cruel persecution of all citizens who were
known as aristocrats or favorers of royality, and by a bloody
suppression of insurrections in the south and west; without, by a
vigorous defensive war against innumerable enemies.
The former minister, Malasherbes, the members of the Constituent
Assembly, Bailli, etc. all who belonged to the old monarchy, and who
had not saved themselves by flight, died by the guillotine. Among them
was the severely-tried queen, Marie Antoinette, who displayed, during
her trial and at her execution, a firmness and strength of soul that
was worthy of her education and her birth. Her son died beneath the
cruel treatment of a Jacobin; her daughter (the duchess of Angoulême)
carried a gloomy spirit and an embittered heart with her to the grave.
Louis XVI’s pious sister, Elizabeth, also died on the scaffold; the
head of the profligate duke of Orleans, whom even the favor of Danton
could not preserve from the envy of Robespierre, had fallen before her
own.
The bloody rule of the Mountain party displayed itself in its most
frightful excess in the suppression of the revolt against the reign of
terror. When the inhabitants of Normandy and Bretagne rose in support
of the excluded Girondists, the committee of public safety ordered the
district between the Seine, the Loire, and the extreme sea-coast, to
be visited with blood and slaughter by the terrible Carrier. This
monster ordered, at Nantes, his victims to be drowned by hundreds in
the Loire by means of ships with movable bottoms (_noyades_.) The
proceedings of the Jacobins in the cities of the south, Lyons,
Marseilles, and Toulon, were still more barbarous. In the first of
these towns Chalier, who had formerly been a priest, and now was
president of the Jacobin club, excited the people by scandalous
placards to plunder and destroy the ‘aristocrats.’ Irritated at this
audacity, the respectable and wealthy citizens of Lyons, who were thus
menaced in their lives and property, procured the execution of the
demagogue, July 16th, 1793. This deed filled the Parisian terrorists
with fury. A republican army appeared before the walls of the town,
which, after an obstinate contest, was taken and fearfully punished.
Fréron a companion of Marat, Fouché, Couthon, and others, caused the
inhabitants to be shot down in crowds, because the guillotine was too
tedious in its operations; whole streets were either pulled down or
blown into the air with gunpowder. The goods of the rich were divided
among the populace; Lyons was to be annihilated, reduced to a nameless
common. The republicans raged in a similar way in Marseilles and
Toulon. The royalists of Toulon had called upon the English for
assistance, and surrendered to them their town and harbor. Confident
in this assistance, and in the strength of their walls, the citizens
of Toulon bade defiance to their republican enemies. But the army of
sans-culottes, in which the young Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte,
exhibited the first proofs of his military talents, overcame all
obstacles. Toulon was stormed. The English, unable to maintain the
town, set fire to the fleet, and left the unfortunate inhabitants to
the frightful vengeance of the Convention. Here also the barbarous
Frèron ordered all the wealthy citzens to be shot, and their property
to be divided among the sans-culottes. The respectable inhabitants
fled, and abandoned the city to the mob and the galley-slaves. Tallien
behaved in a similar manner in Bourdeaux; and in the north of France,
Lebon marched from place to place with a guillotine.
But the fate of La Vendée was the most frightful. This singular
country, situated in the west of France, was covered with woods,
hedges, and thickets, and intersected by ditches. Here dwelt a
contented people, in rural quietude, and in the simplicity of the
olden time. The peasants and tenants were attached to their landlords;
they loved the king; and clung with reverence to their clergy and
their church usages, which had been dear and sacred to them from their
youth. When the National Assembly slaughtered or expelled their
unsworn priests, when the blood of their king was poured out on the
guillotine, when the children of the peasants were called away by a
general summons, to the army――then the enraged people roused
themselves to resistance and civil conflict. Under brave leaders, of
undistinguished birth, as Charette, Stofflet, Cathelineau, who were
joined by a few nobles, Laroche-Jaquelein, D’Elbée, etc., they at
first drove back the republican army, conquered Saumur, and threatened
Nantes. Upon this the Convention despatched a revolutionary army to La
Vendée, under the command of Westermann and the frantic Jacobins,
Ronsin and Rossignol. These fell upon the inhabitants like wild
beasts, set fire to towns, villages, farms, and woods, attempted to
overcome the resistance of the ‘royalists’ by terror and outrage. But
the courage of the Vendéan peasants remained unsubdued. It was not
until general Kleber marched against La Vendée with the brave troops
who had returned to their homes after the surrender of Mayence, that
this unfortunate people gradually succumbed to the attacks of their
enemies, after the land had become a desert, and thousands of the
inhabitants had saturated the soil with their blood. La Vendée,
however, was only restored to tranquillity when Hoche, who was equally
renowned for his courage and philanthropy, assumed the command of the
army, offered peace to those who were weary of the contest, and
reduced the refractory to submission. Stofflet and Charette were made
prisoners of war, and shot.
The rage and cruelty of the Jacobins at length excited the disgust of
the chiefs of the Cordeliers, Danton and Camille Desmoulins. The
former, who was rather a voluptuary than a tyrant, and who was capable
of kindly feelings, had grown weary of slaughter, and had retired into
the country for a few months with a young wife, to enjoy the wealth
and happiness that the revolution had brought him; but Camille
Desmoulins, in his much read paper, ‘The Old Cordelier,’ applied the
passages where the Roman historian, Tacitus, describes the tyranny and
cruelty of Tiberius, so appropriately to his own times, that the
application to the three chiefs of the committee of safety and their
laws against the suspected was not to be mistaken. This enraged the
Jacobins; and when, about this time, several friends and adherents of
Danton (Fabre d’Eglantine, Chabot, etc.) were guilty of deceit and
corruption in connection with the abolition of the East India Company,
and others gave offense by their sacrilegious proceedings, the
committee of safety made use of the opportunity to destroy the whole
party of Danton. For since the Convention had altered the calendar and
the names of the months, had made the year commence on the 22d of
September, had abolished the observance of Sunday and the festivals,
and introduced in their place the decades and sans-culotte feasts,
many Dantonists, like Hebert, Chaumette, Momoro, Cloots, and others,
had occasioned great scandal by their animosity to priests and
Christianity. They desecrated and plundered the churches, ridiculed
the mass, vestments and the church utensils, which they carried
through the streets in blasphemous processions, raged with the spirit
of Vandals against all the monuments of Christianity, and at length
carried a resolution through the Convention that the worship of Reason
should be introduced in place of the Catholic service of God. A solemn
festival, in which Momoro’s pretty wife personated the Goddess of
Reason in the church of Nôtre Dame, marked the commencement of this
new religion. Robespierre, who plumed himself upon his reputation for
virtue, because he was not a participator in the excesses or avarice
of Danton and his associates, took offense at these proceedings. He
determined to destroy their originators, and in their fall to involve
the destruction of Desmoulins and Danton, before whose powerful
natures his own spirit, which was filled with envy and ambition, stood
abashed. Scarcely, therefore, had Danton resumed his seat in the
Convention, before St. Just began the violent struggle by a remarkable
proposal, in which he divided the enemies of the republic into three
classes: the corrupt, the ultra-revolutionary, and the moderates, and
insisted upon their punishment. This proposal resulted in nineteen of
the ultra-revolutionaries, and among them Cloots, Momoro, Ronsin, and
several members of the Common Council, being led to the guillotine on
the 19th of March, 1794. On the 31st of April, the corrupt were placed
before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Danton, Camille Desmoulins,
Herault de Sechelles, etc., were maliciously distinguished as their
partisans and involved in their fate. But Danton and Desmoulins,
supported by a raging mob that were devoted to them, demanded with
vehemence that their accusers should be confronted with them. For
three days, Danton’s voice of thunder and the tumult among the
populace rendered his condemnation impossible. For the first time, the
bloody men of the Revolutionary Tribunal became confused. The
Convention, at length, by a law of its own, gave the Tribunal the
power of condemning the accused who were endeavoring to subvert the
existing order of things by an insurrection, without further hearing;
upon which the blood-stained heroes of the 10th of August and the days
of September, who during their trial had shown that a lofty spirit
might dwell even in the bosom of criminals, were led to the guillotine
and beheaded, with a crowd of inferior Hebertists. They died with
courage and resolution.
Since the fall of Danton, the committee of safety had ruled with
well-nigh unlimited sway, and by repeated executions and arrests had
brought the reign of terror to its highest point. But its chiefs had
lost the confidence of the people and of the Convention. The friends
of Danton were on the watch for the favorable moment of attack, and
the number of their enemies was increased, when Robespierre, to put an
end to the blasphemous proceedings of the adherents of the worship of
Reason, had a resolution passed by the Convention in May, ‘That the
existence of a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul were
truths:’ and rendered himself at once hateful and ridiculous by his
pride at the new festival in honor of the Supreme Being in the
Tuileries, at which he officiated as high priest. Among his opponents
was Tallien, who at a former period had been guilty of excesses in
Bourdeaux, but who had been brought to adopt different principles by
the fascinating Fontenay Cabarrus. With him were joined Frèron,
Fouché, Vadier, the polished rhetorician Barrère, and others. On the
9th Thermidor, a battle for life or death commenced in the Convention.
Robespierre and his adherents were not allowed to speak; their voices
were drowned in the cries of their enemies, who carried through a
stormy meeting the resolution, ‘That the three chiefs of the committee
of safety, Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, and their confederate,
Henriot, should be denounced, and conveyed as prisoners to the
Luxembourg palace.’ They were liberated by the mob on their way;
whereupon the drunken Henriot threatened the Convention with the
National Guard, whilst the others betook themselves to the Hôtel de
Ville. But the National Assembly was beforehand with them by a hasty
resolution. A loudly proclaimed sentence of outlawry suddenly
dispersed Henriot’s army, whilst the citizens who were opposed to the
Jacobins arranged themselves around the Convention. The accused were
again secured in the Hôtel de Ville. Henriot crept into a sewer,
whence he was dragged forth by hooks. Robespierre attempted to destroy
himself by a pistol-shot, but only succeeded in shattering his lower
jaw, and was first conveyed, horribly disfigured, amidst the curses
and execrations of the people, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and
then guillotined, with twenty-one of his adherents. On the two
following days, seventy-two Jacobins shared the fate of their leaders.
Robespierre’s overthrow by the ‘Thermidorians’ was the commencement of
a return to moderation and order. The assemblies of the people were
gradually limited, the power of the Common Council diminished, and the
lower classes deprived of their weapons. Frèron, converted from a
republican bloodhound into an aristocrat, assembled the young men, who
from their clothing were called the ‘gilded youth,’ around him. These,
with the heavy stick they usually carried about them, attacked the
Jacobins in the streets and in their clubs at every opportunity, and
opposed the song of the ‘Awakening of the People’ to the Marseillaise.
At length, the club was shut up and the cloister of the Jacobins
pulled down. The Convention strengthened itself by the recall of the
expelled members and of such Girondists as were still left, and
ordered the worst of the Terrorists, Lebon, Carrier, Fouquier,
Tinville, etc., to be executed. But when four of the most active
members of the committee of safety, (Barrère, Vadier, Collot
d’Herbois, and Billaud Varennes) were denounced, the Jacobins
collected the last remains of their strength, and drove the people,
who were suffering from a scarcity and want of money, to a frightful
insurrection. Crowds of grisly wretches surrounded the house of
assembly, and demanded, with threatening cries, the liberation of the
patriots, bread, and the constitution of 1793. Pichegru, who was just
at this moment in Paris, came to the assistance of the distressed
convention with soldiers and citizens, and dispersed the crowd. The
still more formidable insurrection of the 1st Prairial, 1795, in which
the mob surrounded the convention both within and without from seven
o’clock in the morning till two at night, for the purpose of enforcing
a return to the reign of terror, was also suppressed by the courageous
president, Boissy d’Anglas. From this time, the power of the
Terrorists was no more. Many Jacobins died by their own hands; others
were beheaded, imprisoned, or transported. By so much the stronger
became the party of the royalists, who wished to have a king again;
and when the new government was shortly after determined upon, by
which the executive powder was to be delivered to the Directory of
five persons, the legislative power to a council of Ancients and a
council of Five Hundred, the republican members of the Convention
feared that in the new election they might be thrust aside by the
royalists. They therefore made additions to the original charter of
the constitution, wherein it was declared that two-thirds of the two
legislative councils must be chosen from members of the Convention.
The royalists raised objections to this and some other limitations of
the freedom of election; and when these were unattended with success,
they occasioned the insurrection of the Sections. Hereupon, the
Convention made over to the Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, the
suppression of the insurgent royalists, who were joined by all the
enemies of the republic and of the revolution. The victory of the 13th
Vendemiaire, (October 5, 1795,) which was fought in the streets of
Paris, gave the supremacy to the republicans of the Convention, and
the command of the Italian army to Napoleon, who was then twenty-six
years of age, and who, a short time before, had married Josephine, the
widow of General Beauharnois.
The French army in Savoy and on the frontiers of Italy was in a
melancholy condition. The soldiers were in want of every thing. At
this crisis, Napoleon appeared as their commander-in-chief, and in a
short time contrived so to inspirit the desponding troops and attach
them to his person, that under his guidance they cheerfully
encountered the greatest dangers. Where the love of glory and the
sentiment of honor were not sufficient, there the treasures of wealthy
Italy served as a stimulous to valor. In April 1796, Napoleon defeated
the octogenarian Austrian general, Beaulieu, at Nilesimo and
Montenotte, separated, by this victory, the Austrians from the
Sardinians, and so terrified the king, Victor Amadeus, that he
consented to a disadvantageous peace, by which he surrendered Savoy
and Nice to the French, gave up six fortresses to the general, and
submitted to the oppressive condition of allowing the French army to
march through his land at any time.
The course of Napoleon’s victories in Upper Italy was equally rapid.
After the memorable passage of the bridge of Lodi, he marched into
Austrian Milan, subjected the Lombard towns, and so terrified the
smaller princes by the success of his arms, that they were only too
happy to make peace with the victor at any price. Napoleon extorted
large sums of money, and valuable pictures, treasures of art and
manuscripts, from the dukes of Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, etc.
Wurmser now took the place of the old Beaulieu. But he also was
defeated at Castiglione, and afterwards besieged in Mantua. The army
under Alvinzi that was sent to his relief sustained three defeats (at
Arcola, Rivoli, La Favorita), by which the whole Austrian force in
Italy was destroyed, dispersed, or captured. This compelled the
gallant Wurmser to deliver up Mantua to the glorious victor.
Bonaparte, respecting the courage of his enemy, permitted a free
retreat to the gray-headed marshal, his staff, and a part of the brave
garrison. Pope Pius VI, terrified at these rapid successes, hastened
to purchase the peace of Tolentino by cessions of territory, sums of
money, and works of art. Archduke Charles now assumed the command of
the Austrian army in Italy. But he also was compelled to a disastrous
retreat, and was pursued by Bonaparte as far as Klagenfurt, with the
view of falling upon Vienna. The emperor Francis, anxious for the fate
of his capital, allowed himself to be persuaded by female influence to
conclude the disadvantageous preliminary peace of Leoben, at the very
moment when, by the non-arrival of the expected reinforcements, and
the threatening movements of the Tyrolese, Styrians, and Carinthians,
the position of the French army was becoming critical. About the time
this treaty of peace was concluded, a popular insurrection arose in
the rear of the French army, in the territory of the republic of
Venice, in consequence of which many Frenchmen were murdered in Verona
and its neighborhood, and even the sick and wounded in the hospitals
were not spared. This was taken advantage of by Napoleon to destroy
the Venetian republic.
The French marched into Venice, carried off the ships and the stores
of the arsenal, robbed the churches, galleries, and libraries of their
choicest ornaments and most valued treasures, and kept possession of
the city till the negotiations with Austria were so far advanced, that
the peace of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), by which Upper Italy
fell into the hands of France under the name of the Cisalpine
Republic, was concluded. Austria, who by this peace also surrendered
Belgium to the French republic, and consented to the cession of the
left bank of the Rhine with Mayence, received the territory of Venice,
together with Dalmatio, as a recompense for this loss. The princes,
prelates, the nobles, who suffered by this abandonment of the farther
Rhineland, were to be indemnified on the right bank of the river, and
this as well as all other points relating to Germany, were to be
settled at the Congress at Rastadt. Napoleon opened this congress
himself, and then returned to Paris, where he was received with
acclamation.
The expedition of Napoleon to Egypt and Syria, produced a fresh
coalition of the three great European powers, Russia, England, and
Austria, against France. Russia had been governed since the year 1796
by Paul, the eldest son of Catherine, a prince with a mind somewhat
deranged, who cherished the bitterest hatred against the Revolution;
and who, as a great admirer of the Order of Malta, to the Grand
Mastership of which he had himself appointed, saw in the capture of
that island by Napoleon, cause for war. England feared danger to her
foreign possessions from the Egyptian expedition, and scattered money
with a liberal hand to raise up fresh enemies against France. Austria
was at variance with the directoral government, because the house of
the French ambassador in Vienna, Bernadotte, had been broken open, and
the tricolor flag torn down and burnt, without the Austrian government
having afforded the required satisfaction. War was waged, at the same
time, in Germany, in Italy, in Switzerland, and in the Netherlands.
After his disembarkation at Alexandria, the whole of the French fleet
at Aboukir, owing to the carelessness of the admiral, was defeated and
captured by the English naval hero, Nelson; and Napoleon was in
consequence obliged to make arrangements for a longer stay. In July,
he marched from Alexandria through the Egyptian desert to Cairo. The
distress of the army, unprovided with water or sufficient necessaries,
in the burning heat, was very great. In the battle of the Pyramids,
July 21st 1798, ‘from the tops of which 4,000 years looked down upon
the combatants,’ the Mamalukes, who at that time swayed Egypt under
the Turkish government, were defeated; whereupon Bonaparte marched
into Cairo, and established a new government, police, and taxation,
upon the European pattern, and ordered the curiosities of this
wonderful land to be examined, and its monuments and antiquities to be
collected and described, by the artists and men of learning who
accompanied his army.
A dreadful insurrection broke out in Cairo, October 21st 1798, which
could only be suppressed with difficulty by the superiority of
European tactics, after nearly 6,000 Mahommedans had been slain.
Napoleon made use of the victory to extort money, and then marched
with his Turkish troops against Syria. After the conquest of Jaffa,
where he ordered 2,000 Arnauts, whom he had a second time taken
prisoners, to be shot as perjured, he proceeded to the siege of Jean
d’Acre. It was there that the fortune of Napoleon met with its first
rebuff. The Turks, provided with artillery by the English admiral, Sir
Sidney Smith, repelled the assaults of the enemy, despite their
wonderful valor. At the same time, a Turkish army threatened the
European soldiers in the interior of the country. The former was,
indeed, defeated and dispersed by Junot at Nazareth, and at Mount
Tabor by Kleber; nevertheless, upon the plague breaking out among his
troops, Napoleon found himself compelled to give up Acre and to
commence a retreat. The horses were laden with the sick, the soldiers
suffered the most dreadful privations; the dangers and the distresses
of the war were frightful. Napoleon shared all the fatigues with the
meanest of his army; he is even said to have visited a hospital filled
with those sick of the plague. He again reached Cairo in June, and in
the following month, defeated a Turkish army of three times his
number, at Aboukir. A short time after this, he learned the disasters
of the French in Italy from some newspapers; and the intelligence
produced such an effect upon him, that he determined upon returning to
France. He quietly made his preparations for departure with the
greatest expedition. After transferring the command of the Egyptian
army to Kleber, Napoleon sailed from the harbor of Alexandria with two
frigates and a few small transports, and about 500 followers, and,
guided by the star of his fortunes, reached the coast of France
undiscovered by the English, and landed at Frejus amidst the
acclamations of the people.
Upon his arrival in Paris, Napoleon embraced the resolution of
overthrowing the directoral government which had lost all authority
and consideration. With this purpose, he made himself secure of the
officers and troops that were in Paris, and consulted with Sieyes, one
of the directors, and his own brother, Lucien Bonaparte, who had been
elected president of the Five Hundred, on the means of carrying his
plan into execution. Lucien transferred the sittings of the council to
St. Cloud, for the purpose of bringing the members within the power of
the soldiers. There, Napoleon first attempted to win over the members
to his plans by persuasion; when he found that he could not succeed in
this, but rather, that he was overwhelmed with threats and reproaches,
he commanded his grenadiers to clear the room with leveled bayonets.
The republicans, who presented a bold front to the danger, were at
length compelled to yield to superior force, and sought their safety
through the doors and windows. This done a commission of fifty persons
was appointed to draw up a fresh constitution, November 9th 1799. Thus
ended the violent procedure of the 18th Brumaire, in consequence of
which Napoleon Bonaparte took the conduct of affairs into his own
strong hands.
According to the consular constitution, the power of the state was
divided in the following manner:――1. To the Senate, which consisted of
eighty members, belonged the privilege of selecting from the list of
names sent in by the departments the members of the legislative power,
and the chief officials and judges. 2. The legislative power was
divided into the Tribunate, which numbered one hundred members, and
whose office it was to examine and debate upon the proposals of the
government; and the legislative bodies, who had only to receive or
reject these proposals unconditionally. 3. The government consisted of
three Consuls, who were elected for ten years. Of these Consuls, the
first, Bonaparte, exercised the powers of government, properly so
called; whilst the second and third Consuls (Cambacéres and Lebrun)
were merely placed at his side as advisers. Bonaparte, as first
Consul, surrounded himself with a state council and a ministry, for
which he selected the most talented and experienced men. Talleyrand,
the dexterous diplomatist, was minister of the exterior; the astute
Fouché superintended the police; Berthier held the staff of general.
Bonaparte was at first engaged in reconciling the old with the new, in
combining the results of the Revolution with the forms and manners of
the monarchical period. But he very soon made known his preference for
the ancient system, by the restoration of all the former arrangements
and customs.
The reductions in the emigrant lists brought back many royalists to
their homes, and the favor shown to them made them courteous and
pliant in the service of the new court. Madame de Stael (daughter of
Necker) collected, as in the old time, a circle of accomplished and
illustrious men in her saloon. The vanity of the French favored
Napoleon’s efforts; when he instituted the Order of the Legion of
Honor, republicans and royalists grasped eagerly at the new plaything
of human weakness.
One of the first cares of the Consul was the restoration of Christian
worship in the French churches. After he had abolished the republican
festivals (10th August, 21st January), and introduced the observance
of the Sabbath, negotiations were opened with the Roman court, which
at length led to the conclusion of the Concordat. No less attention
did Napoleon devote to the affairs of education; but he particularly
patronized the establishments for practical science, as the
Polytechnic School in Paris.
Repeated conspiracies against the life of the First Consul, sometimes
undertaken by the republicans and sometimes by the royalists, were
always followed by fresh restrictions and a more rigorous system of
espionage. The most desperate undertaking of this kind was the
attempt, by means of the so-called infernal machine,――a cask filled
with gunpowder, bullets, and inflammable materials, to blow up
Bonaparte on his way to the opera-house,――an attempt which he escaped
by the rapidity with which his coachman was driving, but which
destroyed many houses and killed several people. In consequence of
this atrocious deed, a great number of Jacobins were condemned to
deportation, though it afterwards turned out that the plot was
undertaken by the royalists. Still more dangerous and extensive were
the conspiracies against Napoleon, when the office of Consul was
conferred upon him for life by the voice of the people, with the
privilege of naming his successor, (August 2, 1802). By this means,
the Bourbons were cut off from the last hopes of a return, and the
emigrants accordingly left no means untried of destroying him. The
desperate George Cadoudal, and Pichegru, who were residing in England,
allowed themselves to be employed as tools. They conveyed themselves
secretly to France, but were discovered and arrested, with about forty
confederates. Before their fate was decided, Napoleon allowed himself
to be hurried into the commission of a revolting crime. It had been
represented to him that the duke d’Enghien, the chivalrous grandson of
the prince of Condé, was the soul of all the royalist conspiracies.
Accordingly, this young nobleman, who was residing at Ettenheim, a
small town of Baden, was seized at Napoleon’s command, by a troop of
armed men, conducted with the greatest haste through Strasburg to
Paris, condemned to death by a hurried court-martial, and, despite a
magnanimous defense, shot in the trenches of Vincennes.
The fate of the conspirators was shortly after decided upon. Pichegru
had already died a violent death in prison, whether by his own hand or
that of another is uncertain. George Cadoudal, with eleven
confederates, ascended the guillotine. General Moreau, who was
implicated, retired into voluntary banishment in America.