1793–1795
France at War with Europe—Altered Character of the War—The
Revolutionary Propaganda—First Campaign of 1793—Battle of
Neerwinden—Desertion of Dumouriez—Creation of the Committee
of Public Safety—Insurrection in La Vendée—Creation of
the Revolutionary Tribunal—Struggle between the Girondins
and the Mountain—Overthrow of the Girondins—Second
Campaign of 1793—Loss of Valenciennes and Mayence—Civil
War in France—Royalist and Federalist Risings—Loss
of Toulon—Constitution of 1793—The work of the first
Committee of Public Safety—The Great Committee of Public
Safety—Growth of its Power—Position of Robespierre—The Reign
of Terror—The Committee of General Security, the Deputies
on Mission, the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Laws of the
Suspects and the Maximum—Results of the Terror—Battles
of Hondschoten, Wattignies, and the Geisberg—Relief of
Maubeuge—Recovery of Lyons and Toulon—Fall of the Hébertists
and the Dantonists—Campaign of 1794—Battles of Fleurus,
Kaiserslautern, and 1st June 1794—Fall of Robespierre—Rule
of the Thermidorians: First Phase: the Survivors of the
Mountain—Conquest of Holland—The Batavian Republic—Successes
on the Rhine, in Savoy, Italy, and Spain—Insurrection
in Poland—The Campaign of Kosciuszko—Third and Final
Partition of Poland—Contrast between the Polish and
French Revolutions—Its Causes—Change in the Attitude of
the Continental Powers to the French Republic—Rule of the
Thermidorians: Second Phase: the Survivors of the Girondins
and Deputies of the Centre—Insurrections of 12th Germinal
and 1st Prairial in Paris—The Constitution of the Year III.
(1795)—The Treaties of Basle—France again enters the Comity
of Nations.
[Sidenote: France at War with Europe.]
The first months of 1793 found France at war with Europe. Though
such minor states as Denmark and Sweden and Venice declared their
neutrality, they manifested no desire to assist the French Republic,
and their neutrality was but of slight service. It was otherwise with
the neutrality of Switzerland. The Swiss cantons had nearly been drawn
into the general war by the support given to the revolutionary party
in the Republic of Geneva by the French ministry, which included among
its members Clavière, a Genevese exile. The canton of Berne went so
far as to occupy the city of Geneva, and it was only by the exercise
of much diplomatic skill that open war was avoided. The neutrality of
Switzerland made the land blockade of the French Republic of no avail.
Through secret agents in Switzerland, arms, provisions, and necessaries
were obtained from Southern Germany, and diplomatic relations were
maintained with the democrats residing in the states of the belligerent
powers. The declaration of war by the Holy Roman Empire completed the
armed opposition of the greater countries of Europe against France.
Of these countries Russia alone sent no army or fleet against the
Republic, and Catherine satisfied herself with stating that she was
engaged in conquering Jacobins in Poland.
[Sidenote: Altered character of the War.]
The character of the war in 1793 differed from that waged in 1792.
In 1792 France was invaded on behalf of Louis XVI., and the fighting
was carried on according to the principles which had existed in the
eighteenth century. But in 1793 the powers were at war with France for
a different and more far-reaching reason. The revolutionary propaganda,
that is, the idea consecrated in the decree of the Convention on the
19th of November 1792, that France was to spread among all countries
the new doctrines of liberty, equality, and fraternity, vitally
affected every government in Europe. England in particular, which
had studiously kept aloof while the Revolution was pursuing its
course at home, only felt obliged to interfere when the new rulers of
France announced their intention of disregarding all principles of
international law, and of converting other nations to their doctrines.
It was this common opposition to the revolutionary propaganda which
united the powers of Europe against France in 1793. England made
herself the paymaster of the coalition. She lavished money freely,
not only in subsidies to Prussia and Austria, but to less important
countries, such as Spain and Sardinia. With this community of aim
necessarily came a community of action. The war against France became a
matter of principle and not of intrigue. This new attitude was marked
by changes of ministry both in Prussia and in Austria. The failure of
the invasion of 1792 disgusted Frederick William II. with his advisers.
The Duke of Brunswick fell into open disgrace, and Schulemburg, the
foreign minister, made way for Haugwitz. At Vienna, Count Philip
Cobenzl, the Vice-Chancellor of State, who had managed foreign affairs
owing to the old age of Kaunitz, was dismissed, and his place was taken
by Thugut, a man of low origin, whose sole political object was the
humiliation of France, and his guiding principle a horror of French
principles. Even in the secondary states similar ministerial changes
took place, of which the most remarkable was the dismissal of Aranda in
Spain, who was succeeded in power by Godoy, the Queen’s lover.
[Sidenote: First Campaign of 1793.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Neerwinden. 21st March 1793.]
The first result of the formation of the coalition was a determined
attack upon Dumouriez’ position in Belgium. That general had hitherto
not despaired of detaching Prussia from Austria, but the execution of
Louis XVI. destroyed his last hope. Both Prussia and England declined
to listen to his lavish promises; his army had wasted away while in
winter quarters; the first volunteers returned to their homes in
thousands when France was freed from the invaders; the troops he
retained were deprived of all necessaries by the disorganisation
of the French War Office; and the people of Belgium, finding that
their country was annexed to the French Republic, in spite of their
patriotic desire for independence, showed their hostility in every
way, and harassed instead of aiding the French troops. Under these
circumstances, Dumouriez’ invasion of Holland failed, as it was certain
to fail. His right wing, which was besieging Maestricht under the
command of General Miranda, was defeated by the Austrians under the
command of the Prince of Coburg, and he had to withdraw his advanced
divisions, for fear of being cut off from France. He was rapidly
pursued. An English army, under the Duke of York, joined the Austrians,
under the Prince of Coburg, and Dumouriez was utterly defeated by
the allies at Neerwinden on the 21st March 1793. The defeat became a
rout, and the French were driven from Belgium as speedily as they had
conquered it. Dumouriez then made a fruitless effort to lead his army
against the Convention. He arrested four deputies and the Minister for
War who had been sent to suspend him from his command, but, finding
that his army would not follow him, he deserted to the Austrians on the
5th April.
[Sidenote: Effect on the Convention.]
[Sidenote: The Committee of Public Safety.]
[Sidenote: Insurrection in La Vendée. 1793.]
The effect of Dumouriez’ reverses, and, finally, of his desertion,
on the temper of the Convention was most striking. The enthusiasts
who believed in the inauguration of a new era, who boasted that free
Frenchmen, even without arms and discipline, would be able to defeat
all foreign armies, and who considered that the career of the Republic
was certain to be one of victory, were rudely awakened. The need of
the creation of a strong government was forced upon the attention of
the Convention. Danton, recurring to the views of Mirabeau, proposed
that a new ministry should be chosen from among the members of the
Legislature. But the republicans had the same horror of the power
of the executive as the constitutionalists, and Danton’s motion was
rejected. Nevertheless, it was quite impossible that an unwieldy
assembly and a discredited ministry could defend France with any
degree of success. As early as January 1793, a Committee of General
Defence had been elected by the principal committees of the Convention;
this was replaced, on the news of the defeat at Neerwinden, by a
Committee of General Defence of twenty-five members chosen directly
by the Convention; this was still too unwieldy, and on the news of
the desertion of Dumouriez, the first Committee of Public Safety of
nine members, exercising supreme executive authority, was appointed.
But the question was, how was the Committee to be enabled to rule.
Its first duty was to raise soldiers to meet the enemies upon every
frontier. For this purpose eighty-two deputies of the Convention were
sent through France, two and two, to raise by volunteering where
possible, but by conscription if other measures failed, 300,000 men.
This call for recruits caused disturbances in many parts of France;
in La Vendée it started civil war. It was to protest against the
conscription, and not to defend the Church or the nobility, that
the people of La Vendée rose in insurrection. But the leadership
of the movement, which had at first been taken by gamekeepers and
postillions, was speedily assumed by members of the ancient French
clergy and nobility. Cohesion was thus given to the insurgents, and a
large and important district in the west of France maintained for a
time a successful opposition to the decrees of the Convention. But the
reverses and desertion of Dumouriez not only caused, for the first time
in the history of the Revolution, the creation of a real executive,
it caused also the forging of the weapons by which that executive
was in the future to establish the Reign of Terror. On 9th March the
Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was established. Its special object was
the summary punishment of all enemies of the Revolution. On the 4th of
April the Convention decreed that a maximum price of food should be
fixed. Extended powers were granted to deputies sent on mission to the
armies or to the departments; and an army, consisting of the very poor,
or _sans culottes_, was proposed.
[Sidenote: Overthrow of the Girondins. 2d June 1793.]
While these measures, which did not take full effect for some months,
were being debated, the Convention was torn by the opposition between
the Girondins and the deputies of the Mountain. The details of the
struggle are not important. The arguments used by the Girondins were
that their enemies were responsible for the massacres of September
in the prisons, that they were under the influence of the Commune
of Paris, and that they encouraged anarchy. The Mountain, on their
side, alleged that the Girondins were concealed royalists, because
they had voted against the execution of Louis XVI., that they were
federalists, who desired to destroy the unity of the Republic, and that
they preferred a weak to a strong government. The struggle was mainly
carried on in the tribune of the Convention; Robespierre attacked
Brissot, Vergniaud, and Guadet, and these orators replied by attacking
Robespierre and Danton. The latter for a time endeavoured to avoid
breaking with the Girondins, but he was so violently impeached for his
conduct while on mission in Belgium, and accused of being an accomplice
of Dumouriez, that in self-defence he was forced to take up the
gauntlet. He had been elected to the first Committee of Public Safety,
and though his constitutional indolence prevented him from becoming its
most important member, he shared with Cambon, the financier, the chief
responsibility of the new method of government. Meanwhile, worse news
kept coming from every frontier. It was felt to be both injudicious and
unpatriotic for the Convention to be occupied in personal squabbles
when the fate of France was in the balance. The Commune of Paris
decided to intervene. The deputies who sat in the Plain, or Centre of
the Convention, were more influenced by the eloquence of the Girondins
than by the energy of the Mountain, and it was with regret that they
felt obliged to yield to the Commune of Paris. On the 31st May 1793,
regular troops and national guards, under the direction of Hanriot, the
commander of the National Guard of Paris, surrounded the Tuileries,
to which the Convention had removed on the 10th May, and the Commune
demanded that the leading Girondins should be expelled from the
Convention, and sent for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The
_coup d’état_ was completed on the 2d June, when these demands were
complied with, and from that date the Girondins as a political party in
the Convention ceased to exist.
[Sidenote: Second Campaign of 1793.]
The desertion of Dumouriez left the way clear for the Austrians and
English to invade France. They advanced slowly and did not attempt,
like the Duke of Brunswick in the previous year, to mask the frontier
fortresses and move straight upon Paris. On 24th May the French camp at
Famars was stormed; on 12th July Condé, on 28th July Valenciennes, were
taken after making an obstinate resistance, and the allies were thus
firmly established in France. Then, fortunately for the Convention,
the allied commanders-in-chief quarrelled. The Duke of York, acting
under the orders of the English ministry, besieged Dunkirk, which port
he desired to hold for the disembarkation of supplies. The Prince of
Coburg, with the Austrians, refused to assist in the siege of Dunkirk,
and invested Le Quesnoy. Further south the Prussians captured Mayence
on the 22d of July, and a mixed army of Austrians and troops of the
Empire under Würmser forced their way into Alsace. At both ends of
the Pyrenees Spanish armies invaded the French Republic. In the
eastern Pyrenees nearly the whole of Roussillon was conquered, and in
the western Pyrenees the passage of the Bidassoa was forced. These
repeated reverses in so many quarters did not destroy the courage of
the Convention or of the French people, but they proved that hastily
raised undisciplined masses can never be a match for trained soldiers.
The successes of Dumouriez and Custine had been as much the result of
accident and of the hearty reception given to them by the natives of
the districts they invaded as of talent and bravery, but the first
defeats showed how thoroughly the policy of the Constituent Assembly
had sapped the discipline of the French army.
[Sidenote: Civil war in France.]
To add to the dangers which threatened France during the summer of
1793, civil war in many quarters redoubled the perils caused by the
foreign invasion. The war in La Vendée increased in magnitude almost
daily, and the soldiers of the Republic were frequently defeated by
the hardy peasants who fought in guerilla fashion among their woods
and marshes. Throughout Brittany and in the mountains of Auvergne
similar movements took place, generally guided by priests and country
gentlemen; but except in La Vendée there was no serious royalist
manifestation. But the expulsion of the Girondins from the Convention
had given rise to another movement of even greater importance. The
insurrections in La Vendée and similar risings in country or mountain
districts were the work of ignorant peasants; the movement in favour of
the Girondins was headed by wealthy and intelligent cities. The news of
the _coup d’état_ of the 2d of June was received with consternation in
most of the chief cities of France. Girondin journals had long preached
the wickedness of the Commune of Paris, and that the leaders of the
Mountain were either anarchists or ambitious men aiming at power.
These words now had their effect. Several of the deputies proscribed
on the 2d of June escaped into the provinces, and a group of them,
collected at Caen in Normandy, endeavoured to organise an army against
the Convention. Other cities followed the example. Marseilles arrested
the representatives on mission; Bordeaux refused to receive the
deputies sent to it; Lyons started a counter-revolution and executed
Chalier, the leader of the local democratic party; and several cities
agreed to send detachments of local troops to form a central army
against the Convention at Bourges. For a few days matters looked most
threatening for the victorious members of the Mountain, but they were
well served by the deputies on mission. The Norman army was easily
defeated at Pacy on the 13th of July; Bordeaux and Marseilles quickly
submitted, and Lyons was invested. But the success of the Mountain was
due to something more than the vigour of its representatives in the
provinces. The general sentiment in France was that the conduct of
the Girondins in causing civil war showed the very excess of want of
patriotism; even if the Commune of Paris had done wrong in interfering
with the Convention, the Girondins had behaved worse in attempting
to rouse the provinces, and owing to this sentiment many departments
and many cities speedily repented of the encouragement they had given
to the Girondin designs, and withdrew their support to the proposed
concentration of local troops at Bourges.
[Sidenote: The Constitution of 1793.]
[Sidenote: The work of the first Committee of Public Safety.]
The deputies of the Mountain met the unparalleled dangers of foreign
and civil war with undaunted courage. Their first measure was to
draw up with extreme rapidity a republican constitution, which is
known as the Constitution of 1793. As it never came into effect, the
details of this proposed system of government need not be described.
But the fact that it was drawn up, promulgated, and sent before the
primary assemblies of the people, deprived the Girondin insurgents
of one of their chief weapons. They had asserted that the Mountain
admired anarchy and wished to retain power for the Convention and
themselves. To these allegations the issue of the Constitution of
1793 was an adequate reply. But it was quite impossible, according to
the leaders of the Mountain, for the Convention to abandon the reins
of power. A general election at such a time would but increase the
difficulty of the situation. So, while declaring the existence of the
new Constitution, it deferred putting it into effect, and strengthened
the authority of its new executive, the Committee of Public Safety.
The advantages to be derived from the concentration of authority in
a few hands became quite clear to the Convention after the expulsion
of the Girondins. It may be doubted whether the distinguished orators
who directed Girondin opinion, from their constant apprehension of
the dangers of a strong executive to individual liberty, would ever
have perceived them. The existence of the Committee made it possible
for representatives on mission and other agents of government to
have a central authority on which to rely. It was the Committee
which directed the short campaign in Normandy which overthrew the
most promising movement of the escaped Girondin deputies; it was the
prudence of a member of the Committee, Robert Lindet, which pacified
Normandy, after the victory had been won, by ruthlessly tracking down
the ringleaders and generously sparing those who had been led away;
it was the Committee which first attempted to re-establish discipline
in the armies and to supply them with provisions and munitions of war;
and it was on the motion of the most important member of the first
Committee, Danton, that the fatal decree of the 19th of November, which
consecrated the revolutionary propaganda, and gave good reason for the
continued opposition of foreign powers, was repealed. This good work
in all directions showed the members of the Convention that they were
acting in the right direction.
[Sidenote: The Great Committee of Public Safety.]
On 10th July 1793 the first Committee was dissolved on the motion of
Camille Desmoulins, but a new Committee with similar powers was at
once elected. This Committee, which may be called the Great Committee
of Public Safety, remained in power for more than a year. Danton was
not a member of it, partly because he believed he could do better work
outside, partly because of his dislike of continued labour; Cambon also
was not re-elected, preferring to confine himself to the charge of
the finances of the Republic as the principal member of the Financial
Committee. The nine members originally elected in July were Barère, who
acted as reporter throughout its tenure of office, and was therefore in
some respects the most important of them all; Jean Bon Saint-André, who
took charge of naval matters; Prieur of the Marne and Robert Lindet,
whose main duties were to provide for the feeding of the armies;
Hérault de Séchelles, the chief author of the Constitution of 1793, who
busied himself with foreign affairs; Couthon, Saint-Just, Gasparin, and
Thuriot. Robespierre entered the Committee in the place of Gasparin on
the 27th of July; Carnot and Prieur of the Côte-d’Or were added on the
14th of August to superintend the military operations on the frontiers;
Billaud-Varenne and Collot-d’Herbois were added on September the 6th
to establish the Reign of Terror; and on the 20th of September Thuriot
retired. The steps in the growth of the supremacy of this second
Committee of Public Safety are significant. On the 1st of August 1793
Barère read his first report to the Convention. In it he proposed the
most energetic, not to say sanguinary, measures. The war was to be
carried on with the utmost energy; La Vendée was to be destroyed; and
Marie Antoinette was to be sent for trial before the Revolutionary
Tribunal. On the same day Danton proposed that the Committee should be
formally recognised as a provisional government, and that the ministers
should be directed to act as its subordinates. This motion was not
carried, but the entire control over the resources of France, and the
lives of Frenchmen, which Danton contemplated, was secured without the
passing of a formal decree. The Convention seems to have been very
glad to rid itself of the work of government. It accepted without a
murmur every measure proposed by the Committee of Public Safety; it
re-elected the members month after month; it threw all responsibility
upon them and registered all the decrees they proposed. As has been
said, it definitely gave them the charge of the military operations by
the election of Carnot and Prieur of the Côte-d’Or, and it established
the unity of their internal administration by the election of
Billaud-Varenne and Collot-d’Herbois.
[Sidenote: The Position of Robespierre.]
The rule of the second or Great Committee of Public Safety is generally
known as the Reign of Terror. The Committee itself divided the chief
functions of government among its members. The special functions of
all, except those of Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just, have been
already noticed. Robespierre was the only one amongst them who had any
reputation outside, or indeed within, the walls of the Convention.
His conduct during the session of the Constituent Assembly, his
clear-sighted opposition to the war with Austria, his sagacious
views on the subject of the treatment of the King, his war against
the Girondin federalists, his oratorical talent, and above all his
reputation for being absolutely incorruptible and sincerely patriotic,
made him the man of mark among the Committee. He was well aware of the
importance of his position. His colleagues on the Committee used him
as their figure-head to represent them on great occasions, and he made
it his business to lay down the general principles which underlay the
system of revolutionary government—that is, of the Reign of Terror. But
though to the Convention and to France at large Robespierre was the
most conspicuous member of the Committee of Public Safety, he really
exercised but very slight influence on the actual work of government.
He had no department of the State given into his charge; he had not
the necessary fluency or facility to take Barère’s place as ordinary
reporter; he was not on terms of friendship with the majority of his
fellow-workers; he was made use of, but was neither trusted nor liked
by the real governors of France. It was to their benefit that the
system of the solidarity of the Committee was established, which gave
to all their measures the sanction of Robespierre’s great reputation
for incorruptibility and patriotism. The majority of the Committee
had no positive views on government; they tried to do the work which
lay to their hands in the best way they could; Robespierre alone
hoped to evolve out of the Reign of Terror a new system of republican
government. His only real friends in the Committee were the two men
least suited to give him effectual help, for Couthon was a cripple,
and unable to attend with the necessary assiduity, and Saint-Just was
but five-and-twenty, the youngest of the Committee, and was generally
absent from Paris on special missions.
[Sidenote: The Reign of Terror.]
[Sidenote: Committee of General Security.]
The system by which the Great Committee of Public Safety regulated the
Reign of Terror was based upon two important institutions. The first of
these was the Committee of General Security which sat in Paris, and was
elected from the members of the Convention, and which exercised general
police control over all France. On great occasions its members sat with
the Committee of Public Safety as a Committee of Government, but its
special functions were to deal with men, while the Committee of Public
Safety dealt with measures. Danton, who was the principal creator of
the supremacy of the Great Committee of Public Safety—though he himself
refused to join it—saw the importance of subordinating in fact, if not
in name, the Committee of General Security to the Committee of Public
Safety. On 11th September 1793 a Committee of General Security had been
elected, containing certain deputies of independent character, and
Danton, fearing a rivalry would arise between the two Committees, at
once obtained its dissolution, and secured, on September the 14th, the
election of a Committee of General Security which would act in harmony
with the great Committee. The members elected at this time were with
but few exceptions re-elected every month.
[Sidenote: Deputies on Mission.]
The second instrument by which the Great Committee ruled were the
deputies on mission. The practice of sending deputies on special
missions originated in August 1792. It had grown in importance, and
the deputies proved their value in their vigorous suppression of the
Girondin movement in the provinces in the summer of 1793. The power
of deputies on mission was more than once specifically declared to be
unlimited. On grounds of public safety they were not only permitted,
but were ordered, to alter the composition of local authorities,
whether municipal or departmental. They had full powers to arrest
and to make requisitions. They were consistently supported by the
Committee of Public Safety sitting in Paris, and the greatest latitude
was given to them in administering the local government. As long as
they preserved the peace and sent up plenty of supplies of money, and,
when demanded, of recruits to Paris, their methods of government were
not minutely inquired into. Besides the deputies on mission employed
in the internal administration, another important body of similar
representatives were kept at the headquarters of the different armies.
These deputies likewise had unlimited authority. They could arrest even
generals-in-chief at their absolute will; they could degrade officers
of any rank; they could interfere with military operations; and could
overrule the orders of a general in the field. The Committee of General
Security and the deputies on mission ruled by means of inspiring
terror. This terror was based on the existence of the Revolutionary
Tribunal in Paris, and of its imitations termed revolutionary or
military commissions in the provinces, and the armies.
[Sidenote: Law of the Suspects.]
[Sidenote: Law of the Maximum.]
The Revolutionary Tribunal took cognisance of all political offences,
and its sentence was almost invariably death. Nearly every Frenchman
or Frenchwoman could be brought within the net of the Revolutionary
Tribunal by the Law of the Suspects. By this law, which was most
carefully drafted by Merlin of Douai, any one who for any reason could
be suspected of disliking the new state of affairs could be arrested.
All relatives of _émigrés_ or of noblemen came into this category as
well as all former functionaries and officials of whatever sort. But
since the Law of the Suspects was not sufficiently wide to impress the
ordinary bourgeois, more especially the petty bourgeois, with terror, a
new weapon was forged in the Law of the Maximum. This law was put into
operation in September 1793. The laws of political economy could not be
seriously affected by such a measure as the Law of the Maximum, which
fixed maximum prices at which all articles of prime necessity were
to be sold. Such a law was certain to be evaded; but its existence,
and the fact that evasions of the Law of the Maximum brought the
offender under the Revolutionary Tribunal, was enough to establish the
Reign of Terror over the petty bourgeois. There were other means for
extending the system which need not here be particularised, such as
the necessity of every person carrying a card with him giving a full
history of his conduct during the Revolution, the encouragement of
denunciations by the bestowal of rewards, and similar precautions. The
Revolutionary Tribunal was provided with victims under these measures
by the Committee of General Security, and by the numerous little
Revolutionary Committees sitting in every section of Paris, and in
every city, district, and village throughout France. The Revolutionary
Committees consisted of tried Jacobins, and were in the provinces
appointed by the deputies on mission. They were frequently purified by
the expulsion of any member who gave evidence of moderate opinions. The
Revolutionary Committees filled the prisons—it was the business of the
Revolutionary Tribunal to empty them. This it did with much expedition.
The death sentences of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, which only
averaged three a week from April to September 1793, averaged thirty-two
a week from September 1793 to June 1794, and 196 a week in June and
July 1794. This increase was very gradual; it became an established
system to send batches of victims to the guillotine every day; and the
numbers in these batches increased steadily. The Committee of Public
Safety, through its agent, the Committee of General Security, did not
much care who were executed as long as a considerable number went to
the scaffold every day. Exceptions to this rule are, however, to be
noted in the executions of Marie Antoinette on 16th October 1793, of
twenty-one Girondins on 31st October, of certain generals, such as
Custine, Houchard, and Biron, and of the Duke of Orleans and Bailly,
which intimidated courtiers, deputies, generals, and ex-Constituants.
This system of terror was not suddenly evolved—it was the result of
gradual growth. The two men mainly responsible for systematising it and
carrying it into effect were Billaud-Varenne and Collot-d’Herbois, who
were specially added to the Committee of Public Safety to superintend
the internal administration of France. On 10th October 1793, on the
motion of Saint-Just, the Constitution of 1793 was declared suspended,
and revolutionary government, that is, the Reign of Terror, was ordered
to continue until a general peace. On 10th December Billaud-Varenne
read a report which defined the system, of which the most important
clause was the substitution of national agents nominated by the
government,—that is, by the deputies on mission,—to take the place of
the elected procureurs-syndics of the districts. The Reign of Terror
in the provinces varied greatly. Some proconsuls, such as Carrier at
Nantes and Le Bon at Arras, carried out their government in the most
bloodthirsty fashion, but the ‘Noyades,’ or drowning of prisoners
wholesale at Nantes, must not be regarded as typical of the terror
in the provinces. Many proconsuls, such as André Dumont, contented
themselves with threats, and while filling their prisons with suspects
declined to empty them by means of the guillotine. Other proconsuls,
such as Bernard of Saintes, preferred to send an occasional batch of
prisoners to Paris to having a revolutionary tribunal of their own;
but in every case except those of Carrier and Javogues, which were
too atrocious to be passed over, the Committee of Public Safety gave
its agents in the provinces a free hand to rule as they would so long
as they maintained internal tranquillity and passive obedience to the
decrees of the revolutionary government.
[Sidenote: Results of the Terror.]
[Sidenote: Battles of Hondschoten and Wattignies. 1793.]
While the government of the Committee of Public Safety was being
organised in Paris and in the provinces, disasters succeeded each other
with rapidity both on the frontiers and in the interior of France. The
Prussians, after the capture of Mayence, only advanced a short distance
into France; but the Austrians made steady progress in the north-east
in conjunction with the English, and, under Würmser, penetrated Alsace
and stormed the lines of Wissembourg. The Comte d’Artois declared his
intention to place himself at the head of the insurgents in La Vendée,
at Lyons, and in the mountains of Auvergne. The English also promised
to send armed assistance in every direction. But the younger brother of
Louis XVI. thought it enough to make promises—he did absolutely nothing
to fulfil them. The English on their part confined themselves to one
important operation. They had on the outbreak of war despatched a fleet
to the Mediterranean under the command of Lord Hood, and on the 4th of
August 1793 the insurgents at Toulon, in the course of their opposition
to the Convention, surrendered their city to the allied English and
Spanish fleets. In Lyons the same progress of opposition was to be
observed. The original insurgents had professed federalist opinions,
but when the Convention sent an army against them open royalists took
the place of the federalists. The vigorous action of the new government
soon freed the French Republic from its foreign and internal foes.
Carnot, on taking charge of military measures, saw that the only means
of defeating the invaders was to take advantage of the numbers of his
soldiers and to act in masses. Acting on this policy General Houchard
raised the siege of Dunkirk and defeated the English and Hanoverians
in the battle of Hondschoten (8th September). In spite of his victory
Houchard was disgraced for not following it up with vigour. Jourdan,
his successor, carrying out the same policy, concentrated his army
against the Austrians, raised the siege of Maubeuge, and defeated the
Austrians at Wattignies (16th October). These victories did not drive
the Anglo-Austrian army out of France, but they stopped the progress
of the allies and caused them to stand upon the defensive. Farther
south the same vigour was displayed. Saint-Just restored discipline
in the armies of the Rhine and the Moselle. Hoche, at the head of the
latter, won the victory of the Geisberg (25th September) over the
Austrians and Prussians, while Pichegru, at the head of the Army of
the Rhine, relieved Landau and drove Würmser across the Rhine. Almost
at the same time a powerful army, of which the best regiments were
the former garrison of Valenciennes, captured Lyons on the 9th of
October, and on the 18th of December Toulon was retaken by an army
under the command of General Dugommier. It was at the siege of Toulon
that Napoleon Bonaparte first made himself conspicuous and won the rank
of general of brigade. The republican armies were equally successful
against the Spaniards. The Army of the Eastern Pyrenees, under D’Aoust,
recovered Roussillon, while that of the Western Pyrenees, under Müller,
drove the Spaniards across the Bidassoa. In La Vendée equal success
was achieved. The former garrison of Mayence, which was composed of
excellent soldiers who had gained experience and discipline from their
long resistance to the Prussians, destroyed the Vendéan armies, and
the insurrection of the province was severely punished by Carrier at
Nantes and by the infernal columns which, under General Turreau, were
directed to devastate the country. These repeated successes in every
quarter reconciled the French people to the hideous _régime_ of the
Reign of Terror. Its despotism was excused because of its success, and
its absolute authority reluctantly submitted to as a necessary evil.
[Sidenote: Fall of the Hébertists and Dantonists.]
In Paris the supremacy of the Committee of Public Safety and the Reign
of Terror met with opposition in two distinct quarters. On the one
hand the Commune of Paris, which was principally influenced by the
Procureur-Syndic, Chaumette, and his substitute, Hébert, soon began
to resent the loss of its former authority. The Commune had actually
carried out the _coup d’état_ which overthrew the Girondins, and had
expected to reap the chief advantage for itself. In order to form a
party it demanded that the revolutionary government should cease and
that the Constitution of 1793 should be put into force. But this cry
did not raise a sufficiently powerful support. The leaders of the
Commune, therefore, allied themselves with the most extreme democratic
party, which met generally at the Cordeliers Club. This extreme party
professed absolutely atheistic principles. It proclaimed the Worship
of Reason; it celebrated that worship with orgies in the cathedral of
Notre Dame; it induced Gobel, Bishop of Paris, to resign his see; it
carried its opposition to Christianity to an extreme; and started a
system of persecution against the Christian religion. In home politics
it did not defend the socialistic notions which had found some currency
in Paris, but it nevertheless declared itself the party of the _sans
culottes_, and denounced all rich men and bourgeois as selfish egotists
and enemies of the people. In foreign policy it adopted the doctrines
of the revolutionary propaganda and declared it the destiny of France
to destroy all tyrants. The Committee of Public Safety, as soon as
its power was firmly organised, resolved to overthrow this party of
opposition by striking at its leaders. Robespierre attacked them in the
Jacobin Club, and caused them to be excluded as atheists and enemies of
all government; Danton denounced the Worship of Reason as a disgraceful
masquerade; Camille Desmoulins exhausted his resources of eloquence
and sarcasm to hold them and their doctrines up to reprobation in the
_Vieux Cordelier_. As soon as the extreme party, which is commonly
called the Hébertist party, after its most conspicuous leader Hébert,
the editor of the _Père Duchesne_, was thoroughly discredited, the
Committee of Public Safety struck. On 24th Ventôse (14th March 1794)
Hébert and his principal supporters were arrested on the report of
Saint-Just. They were at once sent for trial before the Revolutionary
Tribunal, and on 4th Germinal (24th March) they were guillotined.
The Hébertists fell because they opposed the despotism of the new
government. The Dantonists, who followed them to the guillotine, fell
because they believed the Reign of Terror to be carried too far. Danton
had done more than any man to bring about the supremacy of the Great
Committee of Public Safety. Convinced as he was that only a strong
executive could possibly disentangle France from the dangers which
beset her on every side, he had consistently advocated the creation
of a strong government. Though not himself a member of the Great
Committee, he had believed it to be his duty to support its power on
every possible occasion. He had not only been the chief author of its
supremacy, but the principal creator of the system by which it ruled.
But he began to believe, in the beginning of the year 1794, that the
Reign of Terror was being too stringently exercised. He was quite in
accord with Billaud-Varenne and Collot-d’Herbois in considering it
necessary to frighten the people of France into acquiescence with the
new order of things, but he did not consider that it was necessary
to shed so much blood to accomplish the work of fright. His friend
Camille Desmoulins had in the _Vieux Cordelier_ not only exposed the
Hébertists, but had hinted at the need for mercy and the advantages of
appointing a Committee of Mercy. The Great Committee of Public Safety
was not only determined to maintain its autocratic power, but to defend
its system of government. Danton’s influence in the Convention was
still sufficiently great to give the members of the Committee a cause
for uneasiness. It therefore resolved, in order to stop all murmuring
against the Reign of Terror, and to establish a reign of terror
over the Convention itself, to make an example of the most vigorous
patriot in France. On 10th Germinal (30th March 1794) Danton, Camille
Desmoulins, and their chief adherents were arrested, and on 16th
Germinal (5th April 1794) the Dantonists followed the Hébertists to the
guillotine. These two blows ensured the supremacy of the Committee of
Public Safety and the continuance of the Reign of Terror.
[Sidenote: Campaign of 1794.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Fleurus. June 26, 1794.]
The Great Committee of Public Safety knew that its tenure of power
rested on its successful conduct of the foreign war. Throughout
the interior tranquillity prevailed except in La Vendée, where the
sanguinary measures adopted perpetuated a guerilla warfare. The French
troops were, in 1794, in a very different condition from that in which
they had been left at the commencement of 1793. The measures of terror
which pacified France had been in the army the cause of the restoration
of discipline. Constant fighting had converted the men into efficient
soldiers. Excellent officers had come to the front during the campaign,
and, owing to the rapidity of promotion, most of the generals were
young and energetic men. All that was best in France had gone to the
front. There, and there alone, men who might have fallen under the
terrible Law of the Suspects at home, were not only safe themselves,
but by their presence in the ranks of the Republic protected their
relatives. All the resources of France were laid at the disposal of her
armies. The country became one vast arsenal. The soldiers were well
fed, clothed, and armed, and the ablest administrators were employed in
rendering them efficient. The result of this concentration of France
upon the foreign war was success in every quarter. In the spring of
1794 the various armies took the offensive, the Army of the North,
under Pichegru, marched by the northern line into Belgium, while a new
army, afterwards called the Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse, which was
formed out of the Army of the Ardennes, and a wing of the Army of the
Moselle penetrated Belgium from the south. Before these two armies the
English and Austrians fell back. They were rapidly pursued, and on the
26th of June 1794 Jourdan won the battle of Fleurus. This victory, like
the victory of Jemmappes the year before, laid Belgium open to the
French armies. Brussels was reoccupied; the English and Dutch retired
into Holland; the Austrians fell back behind the Meuse. Meanwhile, the
Army of the Moselle, under René Moreaux, stormed the Prussian position
at Kaiserslautern, and with the Army of the Rhine drove the Austrians
across that river. The Army of Italy, which had taken Toulon, also took
the offensive, and defeated the Piedmontese at Saorgio. Dugommier, with
the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees, turned the tables on the Spaniards,
and crossing the mountains penetrated into Catalonia, while the Army of
the Western Pyrenees invaded Spain in that quarter, and threatened San
Sebastian.
[Sidenote: Battle of the 1st of June.]
The only checks which the Great Committee received were at sea. Whether
it was because it is more difficult to improvise a navy than an army,
or because sufficient attention was not paid to the republican navy, it
is impossible to decide, but it is quite certain that the sailors of
the Republic did not rival the soldiers in success, though they did in
valour. One reason for this was that all the best sailors preferred the
lucrative work of preying upon the commerce of the world in frigates
and privateers to serving in the regular fleets, where no prizes were
to be made. The two principal French fleets were those stationed at
Toulon and at Brest. An ineffectual effort had been made by Sir Sidney
Smith to burn the Toulon fleet when the English and Spaniards evacuated
that port. Nevertheless, a new fleet was soon prepared, but its action
against the English and the Spaniards who blockaded the coast were
ineffectual. The English on leaving Toulon had proceeded to Corsica.
That island had been raised against the Convention by the native
patriot, Paoli, who invited the English to come and take possession in
the name of George III. In Corsica, owing to the weakness of the French
Mediterranean fleet, the English remained unmolested for nearly a
year. The Brest fleet, however, came to blows with the English Channel
fleet, under the command of Lord Howe. The United States of America
had agreed to pay part of the debt which they owed France for money
lent during the War of American Independence in grain, and a convoy was
sent to protect the grain-ships. Lord Howe was directed to cut off this
convoy, and the French fleet left Brest to ensure its safe arrival.
From one point of view, the action of the French fleet was crowned
with success, for the convoy arrived safely, but the fleet itself was
utterly defeated by Lord Howe on the 1st of June 1794. Since the object
had been attained, the Committee of Public Safety claimed credit for
the action in which the fleet had been engaged, and the reports which
Barère read daily from the tribune of the Convention were invariably of
battles won and of feats of valour.
[Sidenote: Fall of Robespierre, 9th Thermidor (27th July) 1794.]
The brilliant successes which followed the establishment of the power
of the Great Committee of Public Safety justified its despotism in the
eyes of France, but as soon as those successes had freed France from
the invaders, it was generally felt that the weight of the Reign of
Terror was intolerable, and that it had become unnecessary. It was at
this period of most brilliant military triumphs that the Terror grew
to its greatest height in Paris. On 22d Prairial (10th of June 1794)
a law was passed to accelerate the procedure of the Revolutionary
Tribunal, and the number of deaths upon the guillotine increased to
an average of 196 a week. Robespierre, who, as has been said, was
more of a statesman than his colleagues upon the Committee of Public
Safety, who were simply administrators, understood the tenor of feeling
in France. He believed that the time was coming when the Reign of
Terror should cease, and a new Reign of Virtue, carrying into effect
the maxims of Rousseau, could be established. The working members of
the Committee allowed Robespierre to theorise to his heart’s content;
as long as he did not interfere with them, he might advocate what
principles he pleased. The first evidence of Robespierre’s new tendency
appeared in his establishment of the Worship of the Supreme Being. He
was a profoundly religious and virtuous man, and the chief cause of
his hatred of Hébert and Danton was his belief that they were immoral
atheists. On 18th Floréal (7th May 1794) Robespierre made his most
famous speech in the Convention, by which he induced the Convention
to officially acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being and the
immortality of the soul. The speech was followed on 20th Prairial by
a great festival in honour of the Supreme Being, at which Robespierre
presided. This was the day when his power seemed greatest, but many of
his colleagues laughed at his assumption of virtue and at his posing
as a high priest. He perceived clearly that he could not establish his
chimerical Reign of Virtue without destroying the scoffers who refused
to believe in him and his doctrines. He absented himself for six weeks
from the meetings of the Committee, and prepared a speech by which he
hoped to induce the Convention to proscribe his opponents.
On 8th Thermidor (26th July 1794) he read this speech to the
Convention, and attacked covertly, and without mentioning many names,
not only certain of his colleagues in the Committee of Public Safety,
but also the majority of the Committee of General Security and of the
Financial Committee. These men, who had been governing France while
Robespierre was theorising, would not tamely submit to be ejected from
power and guillotined. On the evening of the same day Robespierre
read his speech to the Jacobin Club, which was the headquarters of
the puritans who believed in the possibility of a Reign of Virtue.
But on 9th Thermidor the accused deputies determined to act. It was
not only the working members of the Committees, but also the friends
of Danton, the independent deputies of the Mountain, and the members
of the Centre, who felt threatened, and their attitude was speedily
declared. Saint-Just began to read a report accusing Billaud-Varenne
and Collot-d’Herbois by name, but he was interrupted, and Robespierre
himself, with Couthon, Saint-Just, and two other deputies were, after
a stormy scene, ordered under arrest. But the puritan party were not
only strong in the Jacobin Club; they dominated the Commune of Paris
ever since the overthrow of the Hébertists. Hanriot, the commandant
of the National Guard of Paris, rescued Robespierre and the other
imprisoned deputies, and took them to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where a
scheme of government was discussed. The Convention did not wait to be
attacked. It declared Robespierre and all his adherents to be outlaws,
and Barras, Fréron, and Léonard Bourdon collected columns of regular
troops and national guards to attack the Hôtel-de-Ville. The Convention
was completely successful. The people of Paris, like the people of all
France, persisted in considering Robespierre as the author of the Reign
of Terror, while not only his enemies but his colleagues threw upon
him the responsibility for all the atrocities included under the name
of the Terror. Though personally he had very little influence in the
Committee, he was represented and regarded as its master. Consequently
no hand was raised to protect Robespierre and the puritans; the
Hôtel-de-Ville was easily occupied by Barras; Robespierre was wounded
in the mouth by a gendarme, and on 10th Thermidor (28th July) he was
guillotined, and was accompanied or followed to the scaffold by the
small group of colleagues who had been impeached with him, and by the
majority of the Commune of Paris.
[Sidenote: The Rule of the Thermidorians. First Phase.]
The death of Robespierre did not lead to a change of government, but
it led to an alteration in the system by which the government was
administered. The deputies who had been most instrumental in the
revolution of Thermidor belonged to the Mountain, and expected to
retain power in their hands; but they saw the necessity of preventing
such a permanence of power as had existed during the previous year. It
was, therefore, resolved that the Committees of Government—that is, the
Committees of Public Safety and of General Security—should be renewed
by a quarter every month, and that the retiring members should not
be eligible for re-election until a month had passed. The survivors
of the Great Committee still believed in the system of government by
terror, but their new colleagues understood that now that France was
victorious the country would no longer submit to such rigorous measures
of repression. The victory of Fleurus had done away with the necessity
of continually employing the guillotine. The system of terror was
therefore tacitly abandoned; the supremacy of the Committees continued;
the Law of the Suspects was unrepealed; the Revolutionary Tribunal
continued to exist; representatives were still sent on mission with
unlimited powers; but the succession of executions ceased, and the
method of government, though arbitrary, was no longer sanguinary. The
men who ruled France from Thermidor (July) 1794 to Ventôse (March) 1795
were deputies of the Mountain, men of the type of Carnot and Robert
Lindet, the most sagacious of the members of the Great Committee of
Public Safety. The most conspicuous of the new men of this period were
Merlin of Douai and Treilhard, who took charge of the foreign policy.
These statesmen, while Carnot superintended the carrying on of the
war with his accustomed vigour and success, finally broke with the
propagandist doctrines which had made the war of unparalleled magnitude
and bitterness, and Merlin of Douai, on 14th Frimaire (4th December)
1794 read a report in the name of the Committee of Public Safety,
declaring that the Republic did not wish to be at war with Europe for
ever, and laying down the bases on which treaties of peace honourable
to France could be made. While the Thermidorians were administering
the government strongly and honourably, they were beset with cries
of vengeance against the Terrorists of the previous year. They felt
it necessary to yield to the general outcry, and on 21st Brumaire,
Year III. (11th November 1794), Carrier, the most ferocious of the
proconsuls of the Terror, was sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
He was tried and eventually executed for his crimes. The agitation
was stronger against the organisers of the Terror, Billaud-Varenne,
and Collot-d’Herbois, with whom were associated in the popular hatred
Barère, the reporter, and Vadier, who had been the most conspicuous
member of the Committee of General Security. Both the doctrines and
the men of the Terror had still plenty of supporters in Paris, who
now dominated the Jacobin Club, which was therefore closed by the
Thermidorians in December 1794. Almost at the same date the Law of
the Maximum was repealed. In the same month the survivors of the
seventy-three deputies who had protested against the proscription of
the Girondins, and consequently been imprisoned, were recalled to their
seats in the Convention.
[Sidenote: Conquest of Holland. 1794–5.]
[Sidenote: The Batavian Republic.]
[Sidenote: Successes in other quarters.]
Meanwhile the series of victories which had commenced during the rule
of the Great Committee of Public Safety continued. Pichegru at the
head of the Army of the North pursued the English and their Dutch and
Hanoverian allies. On the 9th of October he took Nimeguen, and forcing
his way across the frozen rivers drove the English through Holland. He
occupied Amsterdam, and then with his hussars took the Dutch fleet,
which was unable to leave its moorings in the Texel owing to the ice.
By the end of January 1795 the whole of Holland was in the possession
of the French. The Stadtholder, the Prince of Orange, fled to England,
and the English troops were soon after withdrawn. The conquest of
Holland was of the greatest service to the Thermidorians, for it
enabled them, by drawing upon the wealth of that country, to relieve
the financial distress of the French Republic. With regard to Belgium
there was no difficulty in coming to a decision as to its future, for
the Decree of Reunion passed in the days of Dumouriez’ success remained
unrepealed, and the Austrian Netherlands were therefore organised as
part of the French Republic. It was otherwise with regard to Holland.
The Thermidorians did not desire to further aggravate the fears of
Europe by annexing that country, but at the same time they were quite
resolved that it should not again fall under the power of the English.
Reubell and Sieyès, two ex-Constituants who had remained in obscurity
during the Reign of Terror, were despatched to Holland to see what
could be done. They found many Dutch admirers of the doctrines of
the French Revolution, and speedily conciliated the burghers of the
Dutch cities, who had always resented the power of the Stadtholder.
With the help of these parties and of the Dutch patriots who had been
exiled in 1787, and who now returned from France full of enthusiasm
for democracy, they organised a Batavian Republic on the model of the
French Republic, and in March 1795 a Treaty of Peace and Alliance was
signed between the French and Batavian Republics. In other quarters
the French Republic was likewise triumphant. Maestricht was taken
by Kléber on the 4th of November 1794. Jourdan with the Army of the
Sambre-and-Meuse, defeated the Austrians under Clerfayt at Aldenhoven
on the 2d of October, and marching south occupied Aix-la-Chapelle,
Bonn, Cologne, and Coblentz. Meanwhile the Army of the Moselle,
under René Moreaux, finally drove the Prussians out of France and
occupied the Palatinate and the whole of the Electorate of Trèves. On
the southern frontier there were similar successes. The Army of the
Eastern Pyrenees, which had invaded Catalonia, stormed the Spanish
camp at Figueras on the 20th of November 1794, and took Rosas on
the 3rd of February 1795. In the first of these actions the French
General Dugommier was killed in action. Moncey, with the Army of the
Western Pyrenees, took Bilbao, Vittoria, and San Sebastian. The Army
of Italy won the victory of Loano on the 24th of November, which
opened communication with Genoa. The Army of the Alps finally reached
the summits of Mont Cenis and the Little St. Bernard, and drove the
Piedmontese before it.
[Sidenote: Poland. 1794–5.]
While the French nation had thus after much suffering and long
submission to the Reign of Terror secured its independence and made
itself feared by Europe, a Polish insurrection had taken place which
was not crowned with the same success. The second partition of
Poland, which was consummated in 1793, has been described. But the
Polish nation was not inclined to acknowledge its extinction without
another blow. Many Polish exiles came to France, and the leader of
the Polish patriots, Kosciuszko, received a flattering reception,
though no promise of active help. On the 23d of March 1794 Kosciuszko
entered Cracow and raised the standard of national independence.
This news caused a general rising in Prussian Poland, where the new
administrators of Prussia had behaved with extreme cruelty. Stanislas
Poniatowski, King of Poland, acting under the influence of the Russian
general commanding at Warsaw, Igelstrom, disavowed Kosciuszko and
declared him a rebel. But the Polish people welcomed Kosciuszko
as a liberator. He defeated the Russians at Raclawice on the 4th
of April 1794, and after a further victory occupied Warsaw on the
19th. Both Russians and Prussians prepared to defend the provinces
they had annexed in 1793, and laid siege to Warsaw in July 1794. By
the beginning of September all Prussian Poland was in a flame of
insurrection; Frederick William II., who was conducting the siege
in person, rapidly retreated and summoned to his assistance a large
proportion of the troops hitherto employed against France. But though
the Prussians had temporarily retired, Catherine of Russia determined,
at all hazards, to conquer the Poles. She gathered a great army from
all parts of her empire, and placed it under the command of the most
famous of the Russian generals, Suvórov. Caught between the army of
Suvórov and the army of Fersen, who had succeeded Igelstrom in command
of the Russians already in Poland, the Polish patriots were utterly
defeated at Maciejowice on the 12th of October 1794, when Kosciuszko
was wounded and taken prisoner. On the 4th of November, Praga, the
suburb of Warsaw on the right bank of the Vistula, was stormed by
Suvórov, and on the 9th of November the capital surrendered. Catherine
determined to complete the work of the destruction of Poland. Stanislas
Poniatowski was removed from Poland on the 7th of January 1795, and on
the 25th of November 1795 he abdicated the throne.
[Sidenote: Extinction of Poland. 1795.]
The division of the spoils caused much trouble to the allies. The
Austrians, who had been left in the lurch at the second partition,
claimed a share, and, like the Prussians, weakened their armies on
the frontier of France in order to defend their claims on Poland. By
the final partition, which was arranged between the powers in 1795,
Prussia received Warsaw and the surrounding palatinates; Austria
received Cracow and the rest of Galicia, and the Russians were content
with rectifying their frontier from Grodno to Minsk. It is interesting
to contrast the simultaneous failure of the Poles and success of the
French. The cause lay in the fact that the great bulk of the Polish
people were serfs, to whom it mattered little what master they served,
whereas the French people had long thrown off the bonds of personal
serfdom, and had just succeeded in getting rid of the last shackles of
the privileged classes. The Polish Constitution of 1791 was the work of
a few enlightened noblemen and priests, and was gladly accepted by the
educated bourgeois of the cities, but the peasants were in too degraded
a condition to understand what personal liberty meant. In France every
peasant, every farmer had profited by the Revolution, and was wedded to
its cause not only for political reasons, but because of the purchases
of ecclesiastical property which he had made. The national feeling in
France embraced the whole people, and made France successful against
her foreign foes; the national feeling in Poland only existed among
a minority of the population, and the result was that Kosciuszko was
unable to attain the triumph which he so well merited.
[Sidenote: Change in the attitude of Continental Powers.]
The successes of the French Republic and the failure of the Polish
national movement affected the attitude of the coalition both towards
France and towards its own members. The Prussians, ever since the
defeat of Brunswick in 1792, had openly expressed their belief
that the Austrians were betraying them and using them as catspaws.
Frederick William II. for a long time battled against these views,
which were held by the chief Prussian statesmen, such as Haugwitz and
Alvensleben, by the most respected Prussian generals such as Kalkreuth
and Möllendorf, and by his own personal clique of favourites, headed
by Lucchesini. In the year 1793 he had confined his operations against
France to the siege of Mayence, while his best troops were directed
on Poland, and in 1794 he had still further reduced the number of his
soldiers upon the Rhine. England, which had paid large subsidies to the
Prussian government, resented this conduct, and declared its intention
of withdrawing all subsidies unless Prussia would do as she was
directed. Frederick William II. declared that he would not receive the
English subsidies on these terms; but the truth was, that his attention
was far more occupied by the gains he hoped to get in Poland than with
the prosecution of the war against France. Austria, also, where Thugut
had in 1794 become the nominal as well as the real director of the
foreign policy of the Emperor Francis, was getting tired of the war
with France. Prussia’s conduct in making the second partition of Poland
in 1793, and leaving the Emperor out, had sown the seeds of discontent.
Thugut was determined that the same thing should not occur again, and,
therefore, when the Polish insurrection broke out in 1794, Austria
also denuded her armies upon the French frontier. This attitude of
Prussia and Austria does not entirely account for the victories of the
French republican armies, but it explains to some extent the ease with
which those victories were obtained. Spain also was weary of the war.
Godoy felt that his tenure of office was imperilled by the existence of
two French armies in Spain which might easily march upon Madrid, and
the Queen, and therefore the King, was entirely under the influence of
Godoy. Many of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire likewise wished to
see the war at an end, for it was their states upon the left bank of
the Rhine which were occupied by the French armies; it was their states
upon the right bank of the Rhine which would be invaded by the passage
of that river, whereas the home dominions of Austria and Prussia were
far to the east, and not likely to be reached by an invading army.
England was the only power which seriously desired to prosecute the
war, for in England a national feeling of repulsion against the French
had arisen. The English government, however, was unable to strike any
effective blow; Hoche destroyed a body of _émigrés_ landed from English
ships at Quiberon Bay in July 1794; the continental powers who received
subsidies were not very earnest in doing the work for which they were
paid; the French occupation of Holland had deprived England of the only
base from which an army could act in Europe; and the English government
had therefore to be contented with blockading the French ports and
occupying the French West Indian Colonies.
[Sidenote: The Rule of the Thermidorians. Second Phase.]
[Sidenote: Insurrection of 12th Germinal. 1st April 1795.]
[Sidenote: Insurrection of 1st Prairial. 20th May 1795.]
The recall of those sympathisers with the Girondin party, who had been
imprisoned, in December 1794 was followed in March 1795 by the recall
to their seats in the Convention of the outlawed Girondin leaders, of
whom the most conspicuous were Lanjuinais and Louvet. The return of
these victims increased the clamour against the surviving Terrorist
leaders and proconsuls who had ruled France in 1793–94 in Paris, or
on mission in the provinces. Hot debates took place on the necessity
of punishing what was now termed ‘Robespierre’s tail.’ In Paris a
powerful section of the populace—namely, the young bourgeois, who
were commonly called the Jeunesse Dorée, or after their leader Fréron
the Jeunesse Fréronienne—never ceased to demand the punishment of the
Terrorists. Popular sympathy was generally with the Jeunesse Dorée;
conspicuous Jacobins of the Terror were beaten in the streets; the
heart of Marat was taken from the Pantheon and thrown down a sewer; and
the busts of Marat, who was regarded as the apostle of Terrorism, were
everywhere broken. The former rulers of Paris, the old members of the
Jacobin Club and the Revolutionary Committees, were not inclined to
submit to popular vengeance without striking a blow. On 12th Germinal,
Year III. (1st April 1795) they raised an insurrection in the turbulent
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the insurgents broke into the Convention
shouting ‘Bread and the Constitution of 1793.’ The only result of
this riot was that Billaud-Varenne, Collot-d’Herbois, Barère, and
Vadier were ordered to be deported to French Guiana without trial. The
persecution of the Terrorists continued. A commission was appointed
to inquire into the acts of the former proconsuls; power passed into
the hands of the returned Girondins and the members of the Plain or
Centre. Certain of the remaining deputies of the Mountain, supported by
the Jacobins of Paris, then resolved on a second insurrection. On 1st
Prairial, Year III. (20th May 1795) the Convention was again invaded
by a Saint-Antoine mob, headed by women who had gained the unenviable
name of the ‘Furies of the Guillotine.’ A deputy named Féraud was taken
for Fréron and murdered on the spot, and throughout the day the hall of
the Convention was occupied by a howling mob, which vainly endeavoured
to compel the President, Boissy-d’Anglas, to pass the decrees they
desired. Meanwhile the Committees of Government prepared to act with
vigour. With the help of some regular troops quartered in Paris, of the
national guards of the bourgeois sections, and of the Jeunesse Dorée,
they expelled the mob, and on the following days a force composed of
these elements under the command of General Menou, an ex-Constituant,
disarmed the revolutionary sections. The victory of the Committees was
the victory of the enemies of the Reign of Terror. Some of the former
Terrorist deputies were condemned to death and committed suicide,
others were impeached and placed under arrest, and the Mountain as a
party ceased to exist. The expulsion of the deputies of the Mountain
caused the Committees of Government to be filled by the members of the
Centre, the men who during the Reign of Terror had been peacefully
occupied in the legislative and educational reforms, which were the
most lasting works of the Convention. Of these new members the most
typical is Cambacérès, the great jurist and principal law reformer of
the period, on whose labours Napoleon compiled the Code Civil. While
the Committees were engaged in the work of government, a commission
of eleven deputies was appointed to draw up a new Constitution which
should avoid the errors of its predecessors. The chief authors of this
Constitution, which is known as the Constitution of the Year III., were
Boissy-d’Anglas and Daunou.
[Sidenote: Treaties of Basle. 1795.]
The direction of foreign policy was still mainly conducted by Merlin
of Douai, who was now aided in this department by Cambacérès,
Sieyès, and Reubell. Their great work—indeed the great work of the
Thermidorians—was the conclusion of the Treaties of Basle. The causes
of these treaties have been shown in the examination just made of the
changed attitude of the powers of Europe towards the French Republic.
The agent of the French Republic in Switzerland, Barthélemy, was the
diplomatist who negotiated the series of treaties. Switzerland had
throughout the Reign of Terror been the centre of diplomatic action,
for in Switzerland alone France could meet the representatives of
foreign powers. The first and the most important of the Treaties of
Basle was that between France and Prussia, which was signed upon the
5th of April 1795. By it not only was peace concluded between the
contracting powers, but a line of demarcation was agreed to be drawn
by which Prussia might secure safety from French invasion for the
states of Northern Germany. One point only was left in abeyance by
Barthélemy and Hardenberg, the negotiators of this treaty. The French
Government insisted that France, in reward for her exertions, and in
compensation for the long war, should receive her natural limits of the
Rhine. Prussia’s territory upon the left bank of the Rhine was very
small in amount, and it was agreed that the amount of compensation
she should receive for ceding it to France should be left unsettled
for the present. Frederick William II., who posed as a guardian of
the Holy Roman Empire, refused openly to assent to the doctrine that
France should reach the Rhine and thus consecrate the infringement of
the limits of the Empire. He had no desire to appear ready to consent
to any such arrangement, for he felt that such a policy would leave to
Austria the position of protector of the Empire. The Treaty of Basle
with Prussia was succeeded at the same place by a treaty with Spain
on the 22d of July, and finally by a treaty with the most energetic
of the petty princes of the Empire, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel,
on the 29th of August. Peace had already on February 9th been made
with Tuscany, which had most unwillingly declared war on France under
pressure from England. Of these treaties, the most important was that
with Spain, which was excessively popular at Madrid, and won for Godoy
the high-sounding title of ‘Prince of the Peace.’ Thus, after three
years of war, France re-entered the comity of nations and broke up the
coalition formed against her independence.