FROM THE 1ST PRAIRIAL (20TH OF MAY, 1795) TO THE 4TH BRUMAIRE (26TH OF
OCTOBER), YEAR IV., THE CLOSE OF THE CONVENTION
The exterior prosperity of the revolution chiefly contributed to the fall
of the dictatorial government and of the Jacobin party. The increasing
victories of the republic to which they had very greatly contributed by
their vigorous measures, and by their enthusiasm, rendered their power
superfluous. The committee of public safety, by crushing with its strong
and formidable hand the interior of France, had developed resources,
organized armies, found generals and guided them to victories which
ultimately secured the triumph of the revolution in the face of Europe. A
prosperous position no longer required the same efforts; its mission was
accomplished, the peculiar province of such a dictatorship being to save a
country and a cause, and to perish by the very safety it has secured.
Internal events have prevented our rapidly describing the impulse which
the committee of public safety gave to the armies after the 31st of May,
and the results which it obtained from it.
The levy en masse that took place in the summer of 1793, formed the troops
of the Mountain. The leaders of that party soon selected from the
secondary ranks generals belonging to the Mountain to replace the
Girondist generals. Those generals were Jourdan, Pichegru, Hoche, Moreau,
Westermann, Dugommier, Marceau, Joubert, Kléber, etc. Carnot, by his
admission to the committee of public safety, became minister of war and
commander-in-chief of all the republican armies. Instead of scattered
bodies, acting without concert upon isolated points, he proceeded with
strong masses, concentrated on one object. He commenced the practice of a
great plan of warfare, which he tried with decided success at Watignies,
in his capacity of commissioner of the convention. This important victory,
at which he assisted in person, drove the allied generals, Clairfait and
the prince of Coburg, behind the Sambre, and raised the siege of Maubeuge.
During the winter of 1793 and 1794 the two armies continued in presence of
each other without undertaking anything.
At the opening of the campaign, they each conceived a plan of invasion.
The Austrian army advanced upon the towns on the Somme, Péronne, Saint-
Quentin, Arras, and threatened Paris, while the French army again
projected the conquest of Belgium. The plan of the committee of public
safety was combined in a very different way to the vague design of the
coalition. Pichegru, at the head of fifty thousand men of the army of the
north, entered Flanders, resting on the sea and the Scheldt. On his right,
Moreau advanced with twenty thousand men upon Menin and Courtrai. General
Souham, with thirty thousand men, remained under Lille, to sustain the
extreme right of the invading army against the Austrians; while Jourdan,
with the army of the Moselle, directed his course towards Charleroi by
Arlon and Dinan, to join the army of the north.
The Austrians, attacked in Flanders, and threatened with a surprise in the
rear by Jourdan, soon abandoned their positions on the Somme. Clairfait
and the duke of York allowed themselves to be beaten at Courtrai and
Hooglède by the army of Pichegru; Coburg at Fleurus by that of Jourdan,
who had just taken Charleroi. The two victorious generals rapidly
completed the invasion of the Netherlands. The Anglo-Dutch army fell back
on Antwerp, and from thence upon Breda, and from Breda to Bois-le-Duc,
receiving continual checks. It crossed the Waal, and fell back upon
Holland. The Austrians endeavoured with the same want of success, to cover
Brussels and Maëstricht: they were pursued and beaten by the army of
Jourdan, which since its union had taken the name of the army of the
_Sambre et Meuse_, and which did not leave them behind the Roër, as
Dumouriez had done, but drove them beyond the Rhine. Jourdan made himself
master of Cologne and Bonn, and communicated by his left with the right of
the army of the Moselle, which had advanced into the country of
Luxembourg, and which, conjointly with him, occupied Coblentz. A general
and concerted movement of all the French armies had taken place, all of
them marching towards the Rhenish frontier. At the time of the defeats,
the lines of Weissenburg had been forced. The committee of public safety
employed in the army of the Rhine the expeditious measures peculiar to its
policy. The commissioners, Saint-Just and Lebas, gave the chief command to
Hoche, made terror and victory the order of the day; and generals
Brunswick and Wurmser were very soon driven from Haguenau on the lines of
the Lauter, and not being able even to maintain that position, passed the
Rhine at Philipsburg. Spire and Worms were retaken. The republican troops,
everywhere victorious, occupied Belgium, that part of Holland situated on
the left of the Meuse, and all the towns on the Rhine, except Mayence and
Mannheim, which were closely beset.
The army of the Alps did not make much progress in this campaign. It tried
to invade Piedmont, but failed. On the Spanish frontier, the war had
commenced under ill auspices: the two armies of the eastern and western
Pyrenees, few in number and badly disciplined, were constantly beaten; one
had retired under Perpignan, the other under Bayonne. The committee of
public safety turned its attention and efforts but tardily on this point,
which was not the most dangerous for it. But as soon as it had introduced
its system, generals, and organization into the two armies, the appearance
of things changed. Dugommier, after repeated successes, drove the
Spaniards from the French territory, and entered the peninsula by
Catalonia. Moncey also invaded it by the valley of Bastan, the other
opening of the Pyrenees, and became master of San Sebastian and
Fontarabia. The coalition was everywhere conquered, and some of the
confederated powers began to repent of their over-confident adhesion.
In the meantime, news of the revolution of the 9th Thermidor reached the
armies. They were entirely republican, and they feared that Robespierre's
fall would lead to that of the popular government; and they, accordingly,
received this intelligence with marked disapprobation; but, as the armies
were submissive to the civil authority, none of them rebelled. The
insurrections of the army only took place from the 14th of July to the
31st of May; because, being the refuge of the conquered parties, their
leaders had at every crisis the advantage of political precedence, and
contended with all the ardour of compromised factions. Under the committee
of public safety, on the contrary, the most renowned generals had no
political influence, and were subject to the terrible discipline of
parties. While occasionally thwarting the generals, the convention had no
difficulty in keeping the armies in obedience.
A short time afterwards the movement of invasion was prolonged in Holland
and in the Spanish peninsula. The United Provinces were attacked in the
middle of winter, and on several sides, by Pichegru, who summoned the
Dutch patriots to liberty. The party opposed to the stadtholderate
seconded the victorious efforts of the French army, and the revolution and
conquest took place simultaneously at Leyden, Amsterdam, the Hague, and
Utrecht. The stadtholder took refuge in England, his authority was
abolished, and the assembly of the states-general proclaimed the
sovereignty of the people, and constituted the Dutch Republic, which
formed a close alliance with France, to which it ceded, by the treaty of
Paris, of the 16th of May, 1795, Dutch Flanders, Maëstricht, Venloo, and
their dependencies. The navigation of the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the
Meuse was left free to both nations. Holland, by its wealth, powerfully
contributed towards the continuance of the war against the coalition. This
important conquest at the same time deprived the English of a powerful
support, and compelled Prussia, threatened on the Rhine and by Holland, to
conclude, at Basle, with the French Republic, a peace, for which its
reverses and the affairs of Poland had long rendered it disposed. A peace
was also made at Basle, on the 10th of July, with Spain, alarmed by our
progress on its territory. Figuières and the fortress of Rosas had been
taken; and Perignon was advancing into Catalonia; while Moncey, after
becoming master of Villa Réal, Bilbao, and Vittoria, marched against the
Spaniards who had retired to the frontiers of Old Castile. The cabinet of
Madrid demanded peace. It recognised the French Republic, which restored
its conquests, and which received in exchange the portion of San Domingo
possessed by Spain. The two disciplined armies of the Pyrenees joined the
army of the Alps, which by this means soon overran Piedmont, and entered
Italy--Tuscany only having made peace with the republic on the 9th of
February, 1795.
These partial pacifications and the reverses of the allied troops gave
another direction to the efforts of England and the emigrant party. The
time had arrived for making the interior of France the fulcrum of the
counter-revolutionary movement. In 1791, when unanimity existed in France,
the royalists placed all their hopes in foreign powers; now, dissensions
at home and the defeat of their allies in Europe left them no resource but
in conspiracies. Unsuccessful attempts, as we have seen, never make
vanquished parties despair: victory alone wearies and enervates, and
sooner or later restores the dominion of those who wait.
The events of Prairial and the defeat of the Jacobin party, had decided
the counter-revolutionary movement. At this period, the reaction, hitherto
conducted by moderate republicans, became generally royalist. The
partisans of monarchy were still as divided as they had been from the
opening of the states-general to the 10th of August. In the interior, the
old constitutionalists, who had their sittings in the sections, and who
consisted of the wealthy middle classes, had not the same views of
monarchy with the absolute royalists. They still felt the rivalry and
opposition of interest, natural to the middle against the privileged
classes. The absolute royalists themselves did not agree; the party beaten
in the interior had little sympathy with that enrolled among the armies of
Europe; but besides the divisions between the emigrants and Vendéans,
dissensions had arisen among the emigrants from the date of their
departure from France. Meantime, all these royalists of different
opinions, not having yet to contend for the reward of victory, came to an
agreement to attack the convention in common. The emigrants and the
priests, who for some months past had returned in great numbers, took the
banner of the sections, quite certain, if they carried the day by means of
the middle class, to establish their own government; for they had a
leader, and a definite object, which the sectionaries had not.
This reaction, of a new character, was restrained for some time in Paris,
where the convention, a strong and neutral power, wished to prevent the
violence and usurpation of both parties. While overthrowing the sway of
the Jacobins, it suppressed the vengeance of the royalists. Then it was
that the greater part of _la troupe dorée_ deserted its cause, that the
leaders of the sections prepared the bourgeoisie to oppose the assembly,
and that the confederation of the Journalists succeeded that of the
Jacobins. La Harpe, Richer-de-Sérizy, Poncelin, Tronçon-du-Coudray,
Marchéna, etc., became the organs of this new opinion, and were the
literary clubists. The active but irregular troops of this party assembled
at the Théâtre Feydeau. the Boulevard des Italiens, and the Palais Royal,
and began _the chase of the Jacobins_, while they sang the _Réveil du
Peuple_. The word of proscription, at that time, was Terrorist, in virtue
of which an _honest man_ might with good conscience attack a
revolutionist. The Terrorist class was extended at the will or the
passions of the new reactionaries, who wore their hair _à la victime_, and
who, no longer fearing to avow their intentions, for some time past had
adopted the Chouan uniform--a grey turned-back coat with a green or black
collar.
But this reaction was much more ardent in the departments where there was
no authority to interpose in the prevention of bloodshed. Here there were
only two parties, that which had dominated and that which had suffered
under the Mountain. The intermediate class was alternately governed by the
royalists and by the democrats. The latter, foreseeing the terrible
reprisals to which they would be subject if they fell, held out as long as
they could; but their defeat at Paris led to their downfall in the
departments. Party executions then took place, similar to those of the
proconsuls of the committee of public safety. The south was, more
especially, a prey to wholesale massacres and acts of personal vengeance.
Societies, called _Compagnies de Jésus_ and _Compagnies du Soleil_, which
were of royalists origin, were organized, and executed terrible reprisals.
At Lyons, Aix, Tarascon, and Marseilles, they slew in the prisons those
who had taken part in the preceding régime. Nearly all the south had its
2nd of September. At Lyons, after the first revolutionary massacres, the
members of the _compagnie_ hunted out those who had not been taken; and
when they met one, without any other form than the exclamation, "There's a
Matavon," (the name given to them), they slew and threw him into the
Rhone. At Tarascon, they threw them from the top of the tower on a rock on
the bank of the Rhone. During this new reign of terror, and this general
defeat of the revolutionists, England and the emigrants attempted the
daring enterprise of Quiberon.
The Vendéans were exhausted by their repeated defeats, but they were not
wholly reduced. Their losses, however, and the divisions between their
principal leaders, Charette and Stofflet, rendered them an extremely
feeble succour. Charette had even consented to treat with the republic,
and a sort of pacification had been concluded between him and the
convention at Jusnay. The marquis de Puisaye, an enterprising man, but
volatile and more capable of intrigue than of vigorous party conceptions,
intended to replace the almost expiring insurrection of La Vendée by that
of Brittany. Since the enterprise of Wimpfen, in which Puisaye had a
command, there already existed, in Calvados and Morbihan, bands of
Chouans, composed of the remains of parties, adventurers, men without
employment, and daring smugglers, who made expeditions, but were unable to
keep the field, like the Vendéans. Puisaye had recourse to England to
extend the _Chouanerie_, leading it to hope for a general rising in
Brittany, and from thence in the rest of France, if it would land the
nucleus of an army, with ammunition and guns.
The ministry of Great Britain, deceived as to the coalition, desired
nothing better than to expose the republic to fresh perils, while it
sought to revive the courage of Europe. It confided in Puisaye, and in the
spring of 1795 prepared an expedition, in which the most energetic
emigrants took a share, nearly all the officers of the former navy, and
all who, weary of the part of exiles and of the distresses of a life of
wandering, wished to try their fortunes for the last time.
The English fleet landed, on the peninsula of Quiberon, fifteen hundred
emigrants, six thousand republican prisoners who had embraced the cause of
the emigrants to return to France, sixty thousand muskets, and the full
equipment for an army of forty thousand men. Fifteen hundred Chouans
joined the army on its landing, but it was soon attacked by General Hoche.
His attack proved successful; the republican prisoners who were in the
ranks deserted, and it was defeated after a most energetic resistance. In
the mortal warfare between the emigrants and the republic, the vanquished,
being considered as _outlaws_, were mercilessly massacred. Their loss
inflicted a deep and incurable wound on the emigrant party.
The hopes founded on the victories of Europe, on the progress of
insurrection and the attempt of the emigrants, being thus overthrown,
recourse was had to the discontented sections. It was hoped to make a
counter-revolution by means of the new constitution decreed by the
convention on the 22nd of August, 1795. This constitution was, indeed, the
work of the moderate republican party; but as it restored the ascendancy
of the middle class, the royalist leaders thought that by it they might
easily enter the legislative body and the government.
This constitution was the best, the wisest, and most liberal, and the most
provident that had as yet been established or projected; it contained the
result of six years' revolutionary and legislative experience. At this
period, the convention felt the necessity of organizing power, and of
rendering the people settled, while the first assembly, from its position,
only felt the necessity of weakening royalty and agitating the nation. All
had been exhausted, from the throne to the people; existence now depended
on reconstructing and restoring order, at the same time keeping the nation
in great activity. The new constitution accomplished this. It differed but
little from that of 1791, with respect to the exercise of sovereignty; but
greatly in everything relative to government. It confided the legislative
power to two councils; that of the _Cinq-cents_ and that of the _Anciens_;
and the executive power to a directory of five members. It restored the
two degrees of elections destined to retard the popular movement, and to
lead to a more enlightened choice than immediate elections. The wise but
moderate qualifications with respect to property, required in the members
of the primary assemblies and the electoral assemblies, again conferred
political importance on the middle class, to which it became imperatively
necessary to recur after the dismissal of the multitude and the
abandonment of the constitution of '93.
In order to prevent the despotism or the servility of a single assembly,
it was necessary to place somewhere a power to check or defend it. The
division of the legislative body into two councils, which had the same
origin, the same duration, and only differed in functions, attained the
twofold object of not alarming the people by an aristocratic institution,
and of contributing to the formation of a good government. The Council of
Five Hundred, whose members were required to be thirty years old, was
alone entrusted with the initiative and the discussion of laws. The
Council of Ancients, composed of two hundred and fifty members, who had
completed their fortieth year, was charged with adopting or rejecting
them.
In order to avoid precipitation in legislative measures, and to prevent a
compulsory sanction from the Council of Ancients in a moment of popular
excitement, they could not come to a decision until after three readings,
at a distance of five days at least from each other. In _urgent cases_
this formality was dispensed with; and the council had the right of
determining such urgency. This council acted sometimes as a legislative
power, when it did not thoroughly approve a measure, and made use of the
form "_Le Conseil des Anciens ne peut pas adopter_," and sometimes as a
conservative power, when it only considered a measure in its legal
bearing, and said "_La Constitution annule_." For the first time, partial
re-elections were adopted, and the renewing of half of the council every
two years was fixed, in order to avoid that rush of legislators who came
with an immoderate desire for innovation, and suddenly changed the spirit
of an assembly.
The executive power was distinct from the councils, and no longer existed
in the committees. Monarchy was still too much feared to admit of a
president of the republic being named. They, therefore, confined
themselves to the creation of a directory of five members, nominated by
the council of ancients, at the recommendation of that of the Five
Hundred. The directors might be brought to trial by the councils, but
could not be dismissed by them. They were entrusted with a general and
independent power of execution, but it was wished also to prevent their
abusing it, and especially to guard against the danger of a long habit of
authority leading to usurpation. They had the management of the armed
force and of the finances; the nomination of functionaries, the conduct of
negotiations, but they could do nothing of themselves; they had ministers
and generals, for whose conduct they were responsible. Each member was
president for three months, holding the seals and affixing his signature.
Every year, one of the members was to go out. It will be seen by this
account that the functions of royalty as they were in 1791, were shared by
the council of ancients, who had the _veto_, and the directory, which held
the executive power. The directory had a guard, a national palace, the
Luxembourg, for a residence, and a kind of civil list. The council of the
ancients, destined to check the encroachments of the legislative power,
was invested with the means of restraining the usurpations of the
directory; it could change the residence of the councils and of the
government.
The foresight of this constitution was infinite: it prevented popular
violence, the encroachments of power, and provided for all the perils
which the different crises of the revolution had displayed. If any
constitution could have become firmly established at that period, it was
the directorial constitution. It restored authority, granted liberty, and
offered the different parties an opportunity of peace, if each, sincerely
renouncing exclusive dominion, and satisfied with the common right, would
have taken its proper place in the state. But it did not last longer than
the others, because it could not establish legal order in spite of
parties. Each of them aspired to the government, in order to make its
system and its interests prevail, and instead of the reign of law, it was
still necessary to relapse into that of force, and of coups-d'état. When
parties do not wish to terminate a revolution--and those who do not
dominate never wish to terminate it--a constitution, however excellent it
may be, cannot accomplish it.
The members of the Commission of Eleven, who, previously to the events of
Prairial, had no other mission than to prepare the organic laws of the
constitution of '93, and who, after those events, made the constitution of
the year III., were at the head of the conventional party. This party
neither belonged to the old Gironde nor to the old Mountain. Neutral up to
the 31st of May, subject till the 9th Thermidor, it had been in the
possession of power since that period, because the twofold defeat of the
Girondists and the Mountain had left it the strongest. The men of the
extreme sides, who had begun the fusion of parties, joined it. Merlin de
Douai represented the party of that mass which had yielded to
circumstances, Thibaudeau, the party that continued inactive, and Daunou,
the courageous party. The latter had declared himself opposed to all
coups-d'état, ever since the opening of the assembly, both the 21st of
January, and to the 31st of May, because he wished for the régime of the
convention, without party violence and measures. After the 9th Thermidor,
he blamed the fury displayed towards the chiefs of the revolutionary
government, whose victim he had been, as one of the _seventy-three_. He
had obtained great ascendancy, as men gradually approached towards a legal
system. His enlightened attachment to the revolution, his noble
independence, the solidity and extent of his ideas, and his imperturbable
fortitude, rendered him one of the most influential actors of this period.
He was the chief author of the constitution of the year III., and the
convention deputed him, with some others of its members, to undertake the
defence of the republic, during the crisis of Vendémiaire.
The reaction gradually increased; it was indirectly favoured by the
members of the Right, who, since the opening of that assembly, had only
been incidentally republican. They were not prepared to repel the attacks
of the royalists with the same energy as that of the revolutionists. Among
this number were Boissy d'Anglas, Lanjuinais, Henri La Rivière, Saladin,
Aubry, etc.; they formed in the assembly the nucleus of the sectionary
party. Old and ardent members of the Mountain, such as Rovère, Bourdon de
l'Oise, etc., carried away by the counter-revolutionary movement, suffered
the reaction to be prolonged, doubtless in order to make their peace with
those whom they had so violently combated.
But the conventional party, reassured with respect to the democrats, set
itself to prevent the triumph of the royalists. It felt that the safety of
the republic depended on the formation of the councils, and that the
councils being elected by the middle class, which was directed by
royalists, would be composed on counter-revolutionary principles. It was
important to entrust the guardianship of the régime they were about to
establish to those who had an interest in defending it. In order to avoid
the error of the constituent assembly, which had excluded itself from the
legislature that succeeded it, the convention decided by a decree, that
two-thirds of its members should be re-elected. By this means it secured
the majority of the councils and the nomination of the directory; it could
accompany its constitution into the state, and consolidate it without
violence. This re-election of two-thirds was not exactly legal, but it was
politic, and the only means of saving France from the rule of the
democrats or counter-revolutionists. The convention granted itself a
moderate dictatorship, by the decrees of the 5th and 13th Fructidor (22nd
and 30th of August, 1795), one of which established the re-election, and
the other fixed the manner of it. But these two exceptional decrees were
submitted to the ratification of the primary assemblies, at the same time
as the constitutional act.
The royalist party was taken by surprise by the decrees of Fructidor. It
hoped to form part of the government by the councils, of the councils by
elections, and to effect a change of system when once in power. It
inveighed against the convention. The royalist committee of Paris, whose
agent was an obscure man, named Lemaître, the journalists, and the leaders
of the sections coalesced. They had no difficulty in securing the support
of public opinion, of which they were the only organs; they accused the
convention of perpetuating its power, and of assailing the sovereignty of
the people. The chief advocates of the two-thirds, Louvet, Daunou, and
Chénier, were not spared, and every preparation was made for a grand
movement. The Faubourg Saint Germain, lately almost deserted, gradually
filled; emigrants flocked in, and the conspirators, scarcely concealing
their plans, adopted the Chouan uniform.
The convention, perceiving the storm increase, sought support in the army,
which, at that time, was the republican class, and a camp was formed at
Paris. The people had been disbanded, and the royalists had secured the
bourgeoisie. In the meantime, the primary assemblies met on the 20th
Fructidor, to deliberate on the constitutional act, and the decrees of the
two-thirds, which were to be accepted or rejected together. The
Lepelletier section (formerly Filles Saint Thomas) was the centre of all
the others. On a motion made by that section, it was decided that the
power of all constituent authority ceased in the presence of the assembled
people. The Lepelletier section, directed by Richer-Sérizy, La Harpe,
Lacretelle junior, Vaublanc, etc., turned its attention to the
organization of the insurrectional government, under the name of the
central committee. This committee was to replace in Vendémiaire, against
the convention, the committee of the 10th of August against the throne,
and of the 31st of May against the Girondists. The majority of the
sections adopted this measure, which was annulled by the convention, whose
decree was in its turn rejected by the majority of the sections. The
struggle now became open; and in Paris they separated the constitutional
act, which was adopted, from the decrees of re-election, which were
rejected.
On the 1st Vendémiaire, the convention proclaimed the acceptance of the
decrees by the greater number of the primary assemblies of France. The
sections assembled again to nominate the electors who were to choose the
members of the legislature. On the 10th they determined that the electors
should assemble in the Théâtre Français (it was then on the other side of
the bridges); that they should be accompanied there by the armed force of
the sections, after having sworn to defend them till death. On the 11th,
accordingly, the electors assembled under the presidency of the duc de
Nivernois, and the guard of some detachments of chasseurs and grenadiers.
The convention, apprised of the danger, sat permanently, stationed round
its place of sitting the troops of the camp of Sablons, and concentrated
its powers in a committee of five members, who were entrusted with all
measures of public safety. These members were Colombel, Barras, Daunou,
Letourneur, and Merlin de Douai. For some time the revolutionists had
ceased to be feared, and all had been liberated who had been imprisoned
for the events of Prairial. They enrolled, under the name of _Battalion of
Patriots of '89_, about fifteen or eighteen hundred of them, who had been
proceeded against, in the departments or in Paris, by the friends of the
reaction. In the evening of the 11th, the convention sent to dissolve the
assembly of electors by force, but they had already adjourned to the
following day.
During the night of the 11th, the decree which dissolved the college of
electors, and which armed the battalion of patriots of '89, caused the
greatest agitation. Drums beat to arms; the Lepelletier section declaimed
against the despotism of the convention, against the return of the _Reign
of Terror_, and during the whole of the 12th prepared the other sections
for the contest. In the evening, the convention, scarcely less agitated,
decided on taking the initiative, by surrounding the conspiring section,
and terminating the crisis by disarming it. Menou, general of the
interior, and Laporte the representative, were entrusted with this
mission. The convent of the Filles Saint Thomas was the headquarters of
the sectionaries, before which they had seven or eight hundred men in
battle array. These were surrounded by superior forces, from the
Boulevards on each side, and the Rue Vivienne opposite. Instead of
disarming them, the leaders of the expedition began to parley. Both
parties agreed to withdraw; but the conventional troops had no sooner
retired than the sectionaries returned reinforced. This was a complete
victory for them, which being exaggerated in Paris, as such things always
are, increased their number, and gave them courage to attack the
convention the next day.
About eleven at night the convention learned the issue of the expedition
and the dangerous effect which it had produced; it immediately dismissed
Menou, and gave the command of the armed force to Barras, the general in
command on the 9th Thermidor. Barras asked the committee of five to
appoint as his second in command, a young officer who had distinguished
himself at the siege of Toulon, but had been dismissed by Aubry of the
reaction party; a young man of talent and resolution, calculated to do
good service to the republic in a moment of peril. This young officer was
Bonaparte. He appeared before the committee, but there was nothing in his
appearance that announced his astonishing destiny. Not a man of party,
summoned for the first time to this great scene of action, his demeanour
exhibited a timidity and a want of assurance, which disappeared entirely
in the preparations for battle, and in the heat of action. He immediately
sent for the artillery of the camp of Sablons, and disposed them, with the
five thousand men of the conventional army, on all the points from which
the convention could be assailed. At noon on the 13th Vendémiaire, the
enclosure of the convention had the appearance of a fortified place, which
could only be taken by assault. The line of defence extended, on the left
side of the Tuileries along the river, from the Pont Neuf to the Pont
Louis XV.; on the right, in all the small streets opening on the Rue Saint
Honoré, from the Rues de Rohan, de l'Échelle and the Cul-de-sac Dauphin,
to the Place de la Révolution. In front, the Louvre, the Jardin de
l'Infante, and the Carrousel were planted with cannon; and behind, the
Pont Tournant and the Place de la Révolution formed a park of reserve. In
this position the convention awaited the insurgents.
The latter soon encompassed it on several points. They had about forty
thousand men under arms, commanded by generals Danican, Duhoux, and the
ex-garde-du-corps Lafond. The thirty-two sections which formed the
majority, had supplied their military contingent. Of the other sixteen,
several sections of the faubourgs had their troops in the battalion of
'89. A few, those of the Quinze-vingts and Montreuil, sent assistance
during the action; others, though favourably disposed, as that of
Popincourt, could not do so; and lastly, others remained neutral, like
that of L'Indivisibilité. From two to three o'clock, general Carteaux, who
occupied the Pont Neuf with four hundred men and two four-pounders, was
surrounded by several columns of sectionaries, who obliged him to retire
on the Louvre. This advantage emboldened the insurgents, who were strong
on all points. General Danican summoned the convention to withdraw its
troops, and disarm the terrorists. The officer entrusted with the summons
was led into the assembly blindfold, and his message occasioned some
agitation, several members declaring in favour of conciliatory measures.
Boissy d'Anglas advised a conference with Danican; Gamon proposed a
proclamation in which they should call upon the citizens to retire,
promising then to disarm the battalion of '89. This address excited
violent murmurs. Chénier rushed to the tribune. "I am surprised," said he,
"that the demands of sections in a state of revolt should be discussed
here. Negotiation must not be heard of; there is only victory or death for
the national convention." Lanjuinais wished to support the address, by
dwelling on the danger and misery of civil war; but the convention would
not hear him, and on the motion of Fermond, passed to the order of the
day. The debates respecting measures of peace or war with the sections
were continued for some time, when, about half-past four several
discharges of musketry were heard, which put an end to all discussion.
Seven hundred guns were brought in, and the convention took arms as a body
of reserve.
The conflict had now commenced in the Rue Saint Honoré, of which the
insurgents were masters. The first shots were fired from the Hôtel de
Noailles, and a murderous fire extended the whole length of this line. A
few moments after, on the other side, two columns of sectionaries, about
four thousand strong, commanded by the count de Maulevrier, advanced by
the quays, and attacked the Pont Royal. The action then became general,
but it could not last long; the place was too well defended to be taken by
assault. After an hour's fighting, the sectionaries were driven from Saint
Roch and Rue Saint Honoré, by the cannon of the convention and the
battalion of patriots. The column of the Pont Royal received three
discharges of artillery in front and on the side, from the bridge and the
quays, which put it entirely to flight. At seven o'clock the conventional
troops, victorious on all sides, took the offensive; by nine o'clock they
had dislodged the sectionaries from the Théâtre de la République and the
posts they still occupied in the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal. They
prepared to make barricades during the night, and several volleys were
fired in the Rue de la Loi (Richelieu), to prevent the works. The next
day, the 14th, the troops of the convention disarmed the Lepelletier
section, and compelled the others to return to order.
The assembly, which had only fought in its own defence, displayed much
moderation. The 13th Vendémiaire was the 10th of August of the royalists
against the republic, except that the convention resisted the bourgeoisie
much better than the throne resisted the faubourgs. The position of France
contributed very much to this victory. Men now wished for a republic
without a revolutionary government, a moderate regime without a counter-
revolution. The convention, which was a mediatory power, pronounced alike
against the exclusive domination of the lower class, which it had thrown
off in Prairial, and the reactionary domination of the bourgeoisie, which
it repelled in Vendémiaire, seemed alone capable of satisfying this
twofold want, and of putting an end to the state of warfare between the
two parties, which was prolonged by their alternate entrance into the
government. This situation, as well as its own dangers, gave it courage to
resist, and secured its triumph. The sections could not take it by
surprise, and still less by assault.
After the events of Vendémiaire, the convention occupied itself with
forming the councils and the directory. The third part, freely elected,
had been favourable to reaction. A few conventionalists, headed by
Tallien, proposed to annul the elections of this _third_, and wished to
suspend, for a longer time, the conventional government. Thibaudeau
exposed their design with much courage and eloquence. The whole
conventional party adopted his opinion. It rejected all superfluous
arbitrary sway, and showed itself impatient to leave the provisional state
it had been in for the last three years. The convention established itself
as a _national electoral assembly_, in order to complete the _two-thirds_
from among its members. It then formed the councils; that of the
_Ancients_ of two hundred and fifty members, who according to the new law
had completed forty years; that of _The Five Hundred_ from among the
others. The councils met in the Tuileries. They then proceeded to form the
government.
The attack of Vendémiaire was quite recent; and the republican party,
especially dreading the counter-revolution, agreed to choose the directors
only, from the conventionalists, and further from among those of them who
had voted for the death of the king. Some of the most influential members,
among whom was Daunou, opposed this view, which restricted the choice, and
continued to give the government a dictatorial and revolutionary
character; but it prevailed. The conventionalists thus elected were La
Réveillère-Lépaux, invested with general confidence on account of his
courageous conduct on the 31st of May, for his probity and his moderation;
Sieyès, the man who of all others enjoyed the greatest celebrity of the
day; Rewbell, possessed of great administrative activity; Letourneur, one
of the members of the commission of five during the last crisis; and
Barras, chosen for his two pieces of good fortune of Thermidor and
Vendémiaire. Sieyès, who had refused to take part in the legislative
commission _of the eleven_, also refused to enter upon the directory. It
is difficult to say whether this reluctance arose from calculation or an
insurmountable antipathy for Rewbell. He was replaced by Carnot, the only
member of the former committee whom they were disposed to favour, on
account of his political purity, and his great share in the victories of
the republic. Such was the first composition of the directory. On the 4th
Brumaire, the convention passed a law of amnesty, in order to enter on
legal government; changed the name of the Place de la Révolution into
Place de la Concorde, and declared its session closed.
The convention lasted three years, from the 21st of September, 1792, to
October 26, 1795 (4th Brumaire, year IV.). It took several directions.
During the six first months of its existence it was drawn into the
struggle which arose between the legal party of the Gironde, and the
revolutionary party of the Mountain. The latter had the lead from the 31st
of May, 1793, to the 9th Thermidor, year II. (26th July, 1794). The
convention then obeyed the committee of public safety, which first
destroyed its old allies of the commune and of the Mountain, and
afterwards perished through its own divisions. From the 9th Thermidor to
the month of Brumaire, year IV., the convention conquered the
revolutionary and royalist parties, and sought to establish a moderate
republic in opposition to both.
During this long and terrible period, the violence of the situation
changed the revolution into a war, and the assembly into a field of
battle. Each party wished to establish its sway by victory, and to secure
it by founding its system. The Girondist party made the attempt, and
perished; the Mountain made the attempt, and perished; the party of the
commune made the attempt, and perished; Robespierre's party made the
attempt, and perished. They could only conquer, they were unable to found
a system. The property of such a storm was to overthrow everything that
attempted to become settled. All was provisional; dominion, men, parties,
and systems, because the only thing real and possible was--war. A year was
necessary to enable the conventional party, on its return to power, to
restore the revolution to a legal position; and it could only accomplish
this by two victories--that of Prairial and that of Vendémiaire. But the
convention having then returned to the point whence it started, and having
discharged its true mission, which was to establish the republic after
having defended it, disappeared from the theatre of the world which it had
filled with surprise. A revolutionary power, it ceased as soon as legal
order recommenced. Three years of dictatorship had been lost to liberty
but not to the revolution.
THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY