FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THE DIRECTORY, ON THE 27TH OCTOBER, 1795, TO THE
COUP-D'ÉTAT OF THE 18TH FRUCTIDOR, YEAR V. (3RD AUGUST, 1797)
The French revolution, which had destroyed the old government, and
thoroughly overturned the old society, had two wholly distinct objects;
that of a free constitution, and that of a more perfect state of
civilization. The six years we have just gone over were the search for
government by each of the classes which composed the French nation. The
privileged classes wished to establish their régime against the court and
the bourgeoisie, by preserving the social orders and the states-general;
the bourgeoisie sought to establish its régime against the privileged
classes and the multitude, by the constitution of 1791; and the multitude
wished to establish its régime against all the others, by the constitution
of 1793. Not one of these governments could become consolidated, because
they were all exclusive. But during their attempts, each class, in power
for a time, destroyed of the higher classes all that was intolerant or
calculated to oppose the progress of the new civilization.
When the directory succeeded the convention, the struggle between the
classes was greatly weakened. The higher ranks of each formed a party
which still contended for the possession and for the form of government;
but the mass of the nation which had been so profoundly agitated from 1789
to 1795, longed to become settled again, and to arrange itself according
to the new order of things. This period witnessed the end of the movement
for liberty, and the beginning of the movement towards civilization. The
revolution now took its second character, its character of order,
foundation, repose, after the agitation, the immense toil, and system of
complete demolition of its early years.
This second period was remarkable, inasmuch as it seemed a kind of
abandonment of liberty. The different parties being no longer able to
possess it in an exclusive and durable manner, became discouraged, and
fell back from public into private life. This second period divided itself
into two epochs: it was liberal under the directory and at the
commencement of the Consulate, and military at the close of the Consulate
and under the empire. The revolution daily grew more materialized; after
having made a nation of sectaries, it made a nation of working men, and
then it made a nation of soldiers.
Many illusions were already destroyed; men had passed through so many
different states, had lived so much in so few years, that all ideas were
confounded and all creeds shaken. The reign of the middle class and that
of the multitude had passed away like a rapid phantasmagoria. They were
far from that France of the 14th of July, with its deep conviction, its
high morality, its assembly exercising the all-powerful sway of liberty
and of reason, its popular magistracies, its citizen-guard, its
brilliant, peaceable, and animated exterior, wearing the impress of order
and independence. They were far from the more sombre and more tempestuous
France of the 10th of August, when a single class held the government and
society, and had introduced therein its language, manners, and costume,
the agitation of its fears, the fanaticism of its ideas, the distrust of
its position. Then private life entirely gave place to public life; the
republic presented, in turn, the aspect of an assembly and of a camp; the
rich were subject to the poor; the creed of democracy combined with the
gloomy and ragged administration of the people. At each of these periods
men had been strongly attached to some idea: first, to liberty and
constitutional monarchy; afterwards, to equality, fraternity, and the
republic. But at the beginning of the directory, there was belief in
nothing; in the great shipwreck of parties, all had been lost, both the
virtue of the bourgeoisie and the virtue of the people.
Men arose from this furious turmoil weakened and wounded, and each,
remembering his political existence with terror, plunged wildly into the
pleasures and relations of private life which had so long been suspended.
Balls, banquets, debauchery, splendid carriages, became more fashionable
than ever; this was the reaction of the ancient régime. The reign of the
sans-culottes brought back the dominion of the rich; the clubs, the
return of the salons. For the rest, it was scarcely possible but that the
first symptom of the resumption of modern civilization should be thus
irregular. The directorial manners were the product of another society,
which had to appear again before the new state of society could regulate
its relations, and constitute its own manners. In this transition, luxury
would give rise to labour, stock-jobbing to commerce; salons bring parties
together who could not approximate except in private life; in a word,
civilization would again usher in liberty.
The situation of the republic was discouraging at the installation of the
directory. There existed no element of order or administration. There was
no money in the public treasury; couriers were often delayed for want of
the small sum necessary to enable them to set out. In the interior,
anarchy and uneasiness were general; paper currency, in the last stage of
discredit, destroyed confidence and commerce; the dearth became
protracted, every one refusing to part with his commodities, for it
amounted to giving them away; the arsenals were exhausted or almost empty.
Without, the armies were destitute of baggage-wagons, horses, and
supplies; the soldiers were in want of clothes, and the generals were
often unable to liquidate their pay of eight francs a month in specie, an
indispensable supplement, small as it was, to their pay in assignats; and
lastly, the troops, discontented and undisciplined, on account of their
necessities, were again beaten, and on the defensive.
Things were at this state of crisis after the fall of the committee of
public safety. This committee had foreseen the dearth, and prepared for
it, both in the army and in the interior, by the requisitions and the
_maximum_. No one had dared to exempt himself from this financial system,
which rendered the wealthy and commercial classes tributary to the
soldiers and the multitude, and at that time provisions had not been
withheld from the market. But since violence and confiscation had ceased,
the people, the convention, and the armies were at the mercy of the landed
proprietors and speculators, and terrible scarcity existed, a reaction
against the _maximum_. The system of the convention had consisted, in
political economy, in the consumption of an immense capital, represented
by the assignats. This assembly had been a rich government, which had
ruined itself in defending the revolution. Nearly half the French
territory, consisting of domains of the crown, ecclesiastical property, or
the estates of the emigrant nobility, had been sold, and the produce
applied to the support of the people, who did little labour, and to the
external defence of the republic by the armies. More than eight milliards
of assignats had been issued before the 9th Thermidor, and since that
period thirty thousand millions had been added to that sum, already so
enormous. Such a system could not be continued; it was necessary to begin
the work again, and return to real money.
The men deputed to remedy this great disorganization were, for the most
part, of ordinary talent; but they set to work with zeal, courage, and
good sense. "When the directors," said M. Bailleul, [Footnote: _Examen
Critique des Considérations de Madame de Staël, sur la Révolution
Française_, by M. J. Ch. Bailleul, vol. ii., pp. 275, 281.] "entered the
Luxembourg, there was not an article of furniture. In a small room, at a
little broken table, one leg of which was half eaten away with age, on
which they placed some letter-paper and a calumet standish, which they had
fortunately brought from the committee of public safety, seated on four
straw-bottom chairs, opposite a few logs of dimly-burning wood, the whole
borrowed from Dupont, the porter; who would believe that it was in such a
condition that the members of the new government, after having
investigated all the difficulties, nay, all the horror of their position,
resolved that they would face all obstacles, and that they would either
perish or rescue France from the abyss into which she had fallen? On a
sheet of writing-paper they drew up the act by which they ventured to
declare themselves constituted; an act which they immediately despatched
to the legislative chambers."
The directors then proceeded to divide their labours, taking as their
guide the grounds which had induced the constitutional party to select
them. Rewbell, possessed of great energy, a lawyer versed in government
and diplomacy, had assigned to him the departments of law, finance, and
foreign affairs. His skill and commanding character soon made him the
moving spirit of the directory in all civil matters. Barras had no special
knowledge; his mind was mediocre, his resources few, his habits indolent.
In an hour of danger, his resolution qualified him to execute sudden
measures, like those of Thermidor or Vendémiaire. But being, on ordinary
occasions, only adapted for the surveillance of parties, the intrigues of
which he was better acquainted with than any one else, the police
department was allotted to him. He was well suited for the task, being
supple and insinuating, without partiality for any political sect, and
having revolutionary connexions by his past life, while his birth gave him
access to the aristocracy. Barras took on himself the representation of
the directory, and established a sort of republican regency at the
Luxembourg. The pure and moderate La Réveillère, whose gentleness tempered
with courage, whose sincere attachment for the republic and legal
measures, had procured him a post in the directory, with the general
consent of the assembly and public opinion, had assigned to him the moral
department, embracing education, the arts, sciences, manufactures, etc.
Letourneur, an ex-artillery officer, member of the committee of public
safety at the latter period of the convention, had been appointed to the
war department. But when Carnot was chosen, on the refusal of Sieyès, he
assumed the direction of military operations, and left to his colleague
Letourneur the navy and the colonies. His high talents and resolute
character gave him the upper hand in the direction. Letourneur attached
himself to him, as La Réveillère to Rewbell, and Barras was between the
two. At this period, the directors turned their attention with the
greatest concord to the improvement and welfare of the state.
The directors frankly followed the route traced out for them by the
constitution. After having established authority in the centre of the
republic, they organized it in the departments, and established, as well
as they could, a correspondence of design between local administrations
and their own. Placed between the two exclusive and dissatisfied parties
of Prairial and Vendémiaire, they endeavoured, by a decided line of
conduct, to subject them to an order of things, holding a place midway
between their extreme pretensions. They sought to revive the enthusiasm
and order of the first years of the revolution. "You, whom we summon to
share our labours," they wrote to their agents, "you who have, with us, to
promote the progress of the republican constitution, your first virtue,
your first feeling, should be that decided resolution, that patriotic
faith, which has also produced its enthusiasts and its miracles. All will
be achieved when, by your care, that sincere love of liberty which
sanctified the dawn of the revolution, again animates the heart of every
Frenchman. The banners of liberty floating on every house, and the
republican device written on every door, doubtless form an interesting
sight. Obtain more; hasten the day when the sacred name of the republic
shall be graven voluntarily on every heart."
In a short time, the wise and firm proceedings of the new government
restored confidence, labour, and plenty. The circulation of provisions was
secured, and at the end of a month the directory was relieved from the
obligation to provide Paris with supplies, which it effected for itself.
The immense activity created by the revolution began to be directed
towards industry and agriculture. A part of the population quitted the
clubs and public places for workshops and fields; and then the benefit of
a revolution, which, having destroyed corporations, divided property,
abolished privileges, increased fourfold the means of civilization, and
was destined to produce prodigious good to France, began to be felt. The
directory encouraged this movement in the direction of labour by salutary
institutions. It re-established public exhibitions of the produce of
industry, and improved the system of education decreed under the
convention. The national institute, primary, central, and normal schools,
formed a complete system of republican institutions. La Réveillère, the
director intrusted with the moral department of the government, then
sought to establish, under the name of _Theophilanthropie_, the deistical
religion which the committee of public safety had vainly endeavoured to
establish by the _Fête à l'Etre Suprême_. He provided temples, hymns,
forms, and a kind of liturgy, for the new religion; but such a faith could
only be individual, could not long continue public. The
_theophilanthropists_, whose religion was opposed to the political
opinions and the unbelief of the revolutionists, were much ridiculed.
Thus, in the passage from public institutions to individual faith, all
that had been liberty became civilization, and what had been religion
became opinion. Deists remained, but _theophilanthropists_ were no longer
to be met with.
The directory, pressed for money, and shackled by the disastrous state of
the finances, had recourse to measures somewhat extraordinary. It had sold
or pledged the most valuable articles of the Wardrobe, in order to meet
the greatest urgencies. National property was still left; but it sold
badly, and for assignats. The directory proposed a compulsory loan, which
was decreed by the councils. This was a relic of the revolutionary
measures with regard to the rich; but, having been irresolutely adopted,
and executed without due authority, it did not succeed. The directory then
endeavoured to revive paper money; it proposed the issue of _mandats
territoriaux_, which were to be substituted for the assignats then in
circulation, at the rate of thirty for one, and to take the place of
money. The councils decreed the issue of _mandats territoriaux_ to the
amount of two thousand four hundred millions. They had the advantage of
being exchangeable at once and upon presentation, for the national domains
which represented them. Their sale was very extensive, and in this way was
completed the revolutionary mission of the assignats, of which they were
the second period. They procured the directory a momentary resource; but
they also lost their credit, and led insensibly to bankruptcy, which was
the transition from paper to specie.
The military situation of the republic was not a brilliant one; at the
close of the convention there had been an abatement of victories. The
equivocal position and weakness of the central authority, as much as the
scarcity, had relaxed the discipline of the troops. The generals, too,
disappointed that they had distinguished their command by so few
victories, and were not spurred on by an energetic government, became
inclined to insubordination. The convention had deputed Pichegru and
Jourdan, one at the head of the army of the Rhine, the other with that of
the Sambre-et-Meuse, to surround and capture Mayence, in order that they
might occupy the whole line of the Rhine. Pichegru made this project
completely fail; although possessing the entire confidence of the
republic, and enjoying the greatest military fame of the day, he formed
counter-revolutionary schemes with the prince of Condé; but they were
unable to agree. Pichegru urged the emigrant prince to enter France with
his troops, by Switzerland or the Rhine, promising to remain inactive, the
only thing in his power to do in favour of such an attempt. The prince
required as a preliminary, that Pichegru should hoist the white flag in
his army, which was, to a man, republican. This hesitation, no doubt,
injured the projects of the reactionists, who were preparing the
conspiracy of Vendémiaire. But Pichegru wishing, one way or the other, to
serve his new allies and to betray his country, allowed himself to be
defeated at Heidelberg, compromised the army of Jourdan, evacuated
Mannheim, raised the siege of Mayence with considerable loss, and exposed
that frontier to the enemy.
The directory found the Rhine open towards Mayence, the war of La Vendée
rekindled; the coasts of France and Holland threatened with a descent from
England; lastly, the army of Italy destitute of everything, and merely
maintaining the defensive under Schérer and Kellermann. Carnot prepared a
new plan of campaign, which was to carry the armies of the republic to the
very heart of the hostile states. Bonaparte, appointed general of the
interior after the events of Vendémiaire, was placed at the head of the
army of Italy; Jourdan retained the command of the army of the Sambre-et-
Meuse, and Moreau had that of the army of the Rhine, in place of Pichegru.
The latter, whose treason was suspected by the directory, though not
proved, was offered the embassy to Sweden, which he refused, and retired
to Arbois, his native place. The three great armies, placed under the
orders of Bonaparte, Jourdan, and Moreau, were to attack the Austrian
monarchy by Italy and Germany, combine at the entrance of the Tyrol and
march upon Vienna, in echelon. The generals prepared to execute this vast
movement, the success of which would make the republic mistress of the
headquarters of the coalition on the continent.
The directory gave to general Hoche the command of the coast, and deputed
him to conclude the Vendéan war. Hoche changed the system of warfare
adopted by his predecessors. La Vendée was disposed to submit. Its
previous victories had not led to the success of its cause; defeat and
ill-fortune had exposed it to plunder and conflagration. The insurgents,
irreparably injured by the disaster of Savenay, by the loss of their
principal leader, and their best soldiers, by the devastating system of
the infernal columns, now desired nothing more than to live on good terms
with the republic. The war now depended only on a few chiefs, upon
Charette, Stofflet, etc. Hoche saw that it was necessary to wean the
masses from these men by concessions, and then to crush them. He skilfully
separated the royalist cause from the cause of religion, and employed the
priests against the generals, by showing great indulgence to the catholic
religion. He had the country scoured by four powerful columns, took their
cattle from the inhabitants, and only restored them in return for their
arms. He left no repose to the armed party, defeated Charette in several
encounters, pursued him from one retreat to another, and at last made him
prisoner. Stofflet wished to raise the Vendéan standard again on his
territory; but it was given up to the republicans. These two chiefs, who
had witnessed the beginning of the insurrection, were present at its
close. They died courageously; Stofflet at Angers, Charette at Nantes,
after having displayed character and talents worthy of a larger theatre.
Hoche likewise tranquillized Brittany. Morbihan was occupied by numerous
bands of Chouans, who formed a formidable association, the principal
leader of which was George Cadoudal. Without entering on a campaign, they
were mastering the country. Hoche directed all his force and activity
against them, and before long had destroyed or exhausted them. Most of
their leaders quitted their arms, and took refuge in England. The
directory, on learning these fortunate pacifications, formally announced
to both councils, on the 28th Messidor (June, 1796), that this civil war
was definitively terminated.
In this manner the winter of the year IV. passed away. But the directory
could hardly fail to be attacked by the two parties, whose sway was
prevented by its existence, the democrats and the royalists. The former
constituted an inflexible and enterprising sect. For them, the 9th
Thermidor was an era of pain and oppression: they desired to establish
absolute equality, in spite of the state of society, and democratic
liberty, in spite of civilization. This sect had been so vanquished as
effectually to prevent its return to power. On the 9th Thermidor it had
been driven from the government; on the 2nd Prairial, from society; and it
had lost both power and insurrections. But though disorganized and
proscribed, it was far from having disappeared. After the unfortunate
attempt of the royalists in Vendémiaire, it arose through their abasement.
The democrats re-established their club at the Panthéon, which the
directory tolerated for some time. They had for their chief, "Gracchus"
Babeuf, who styled himself the "Tribune of the people." He was a daring
man, of an exalted imagination, an extraordinary fanaticism of democracy,
and with great influence over his party. In his journal, he prepared the
reign of general happiness. The society at the Panthéon daily became more
numerous, and more alarming to the directory who at first endeavoured to
restrain it. But the sittings were soon protracted to an advanced hour of
the night; the democrats repaired thither in arms, and proposed marching
against the directory and the councils. The directory determined to oppose
them openly. On the 8th Ventôse, year IV. (February, 1796), it closed the
society of the Panthéon, and on the 9th, by a message informed the
legislative body that it had done so.
The democrats, deprived of their place of meeting, had recourse to another
plan. They seduced the police force, which was chiefly composed of deposed
revolutionists; and in concert with it, they were to destroy the
constitution of the year III. The directory, informed of this new
manoeuvre, disbanded the police force, causing it to be disarmed by other
troops on whom it could rely. The conspirators, taken by surprise a second
time, determined on a project of attack and insurrection: they formed an
insurrectionary committee of public safety, which communicated by
secondary agents with the lower orders of the twelve communes of Paris.
The members of this principal committee were Babeuf, the chief of the
conspiracy, ex-conventionalists, such as Vadier, Amar, Choudieu, Ricord,
the representative Drouet, the former generals of the decemviral
committee, Rossignol, Parrein, Fyon, Lami. Many cashiered officers,
patriots of the departments, and the old Jacobin mass, composed the army
of this faction. The chiefs often assembled in a place they called the
Temple of Reason; here they sang lamentations on the death of Robespierre,
and deplored the slavery of the people. They opened a negotiation with the
troops of the camp of Grenelle, admitted among them a captain of that
camp, named Grisel, whom they supposed their own, and concerted every
measure for the attack.
Their plan was to establish common happiness; and for that purpose, to
make a distribution of property, and to cause the government of true,
pure, and absolute democrats to prevail; to create a convention composed
of sixty-eight members of the Mountain, the remnant of the numbers
proscribed since the reaction of Thermidor, and to join with these a
democrat for each department; lastly, to start from the different quarters
in which they had distributed themselves, and march at the same time
against the directory and against the councils. On the night of the
insurrection, they were to fix up two placards; one, containing the words,
"The Constitution of 1793! liberty! equality! common happiness!" the
other, containing the following declaration, "Those who usurp the
sovereignty, ought to be put to death by free men." All was ready; the
proclamations printed, the day appointed, when they were betrayed by
Grisel, as generally happens in conspiracies.
On the 21st Floréal (May), the eve of the day fixed for the attack, the
conspirators were seized at their regular place of meeting. In Babeuf's
house were found a plan of the plot and all the documents connected with
it. The directory apprised the councils of it by a message, and announced
it to the people by proclamation. This strange attempt, savouring so
strongly of fanaticism, and which could only be a repetition of the
insurrection of Prairial, without its means and its hopes of success,
excited the greatest terror. The public mind was still terrified with the
recent domination of the Jacobins.
Babeuf, like a daring conspirator, prisoner as he was, proposed terms of
peace to the directory:--
"Would you consider it beneath you, citizen directors," he wrote to them,
"to treat with me, as power with power? You have seen what vast confidence
centres in me; you have seen that my party may well balance equally in the
scale your own; you have seen its immense ramifications. I am convinced
you have trembled at the sight." He concluded by saying: "I see but one
wise mode of proceeding; declare there has been no serious conspiracy.
Five men, by showing themselves great and generous may now save the
country. I will answer for it, that the patriots will defend you with
their lives; the patriots do not hate you; they only hated your unpopular
measures. For my part, I will give you a guarantee as extensive as is my
perpetual franchise." The directors, instead of this reconciliation,
published Babeuf's letter, and sent the conspirators before the high court
of Vendôme.
Their partisans made one more attempt. On the 13th Fructidor (August),
about eleven at night, they marched, to the number of six or seven
hundred, armed with sabres and pistols, against the directory, whom they
found defended by its guard. They then repaired to the camp of Grenelle,
which they hoped to gain over by means of a correspondence which they had
established with it. The troops had retired to rest when the conspirators
arrived. To the sentinel's cry of "_Qui vive?_" they replied: "_Vive la
république! Vive la constitution de '93!_" The sentinels gave the alarm
through the camp. The conspirators, relying on the assistance of a
battalion from Gard, which had been disbanded, advanced towards the tent
of Malo, the commander-in-chief, who gave orders to sound to arms, and
commanded his half-dressed dragoons to mount. The conspirators, surprised
at this reception, feebly defended themselves: they were cut down by the
dragoons or put to flight, leaving many dead and prisoners on the field of
battle. This ill-fated expedition was almost the last of the party: with
each defeat it lost its force, its chiefs, and acquired the secret
conviction that its reign was over. The Grenelle enterprise proved most
fatal to it; besides the numbers slain in the fight, many were condemned
to death by the military commissions, which were to it what the
revolutionary tribunals had been to its foes. The commission of the camp
of Grenelle, in five sittings, condemned one-and-thirty conspirators to
death, thirty to transportation, and twenty-five to imprisonment.
Shortly afterwards the high court of Vendôme tried Babeuf and his
accomplices, among whom were Amar, Vadier, and Darthé, formerly secretary
to Joseph Lebon. They none of them belied themselves; they spoke as men
who feared neither to avow their object, nor to die for their cause. At
the beginning and the end of each sitting, they sang the _Marseillaise_.
This old song of victory, and their firm demeanour, struck the public mind
with astonishment, and seemed to render them still more formidable. Their
wives accompanied them to the trial, Babeuf, at the close of his defence,
turned to them, and said, "_they should accompany them even to Calvary,
because the cause of their punishment would not bring them to shame_." The
high court condemned Babeuf and Darthé to death: as they heard their
sentence they both stabbed themselves with a poignard. Babeuf was the last
leader of the old commune and the committee of public safety, which had
separated previous to Thermidor, and which afterwards united again. This
party decreased daily. Its dispersal and isolation more especially date
from this period. Under the reaction, it still formed a compact mass;
under Babeuf, it maintained the position of a formidable association. From
that time democrates existed, but the party was broken up.
In the interim between the Grenelle enterprise and Babeuf's condemnation,
the royalists also formed their conspiracy. The projects of the democrats
produced a movement of opinion, contrary to that which had been manifested
after Vendémiaire, and the counter-revolutionists in their turn became
emboldened. The secret chiefs of this party hoped to find auxiliaries in
the troops of the camp of Grenelle, who had repelled the Babeuf faction.
This party, impatient and unskilful, unable to employ the whole of the
sectionaries, as in Vendémiaire, or the mass of the councils, as on the
18th Fructidor, made use of three men without either name or influence:
the abbé Brothier, the ex-counsellor of parliament, Lavilheurnois, and a
sort of adventurer, named Dunan. They applied at once, in all simplicity,
to Malo for the camp of Grenelle, in order by its means to restore the
ancient régime. Malo delivered them up to the directory, who transferred
them to the civil tribunals, not having been able, as he wished, to have
them tried by military commissioners. They were treated with much
consideration by judges of their party, elected under the influence of
Vendémiaire, and the sentence pronounced against them was only a short
imprisonment. At this period, a contest arose between all the authorities
appointed by the sections, and the directory supported by the army; each
taking its strength and judges wherever its party prevailed; the result
was, that the electoral power placing itself at the disposition of the
counter-revolution, the directory was compelled to introduce the army in
the state; which afterwards gave rise to serious inconvenience.
The directory, triumphant over the two dissentient parties, also triumphed
over Europe. The new campaign opened under the most favourable auspices.
Bonaparte, on arriving at Nice, signalised his command by one of the most
daring of invasions. Hitherto his army had hovered idly on the side of the
Alps; it was destitute of everything, and scarcely amounted to thirty
thousand men; but it was well provided with courage and patriotism; and,
by their means, Bonaparte then commenced that world-astonishment by which
he carried all before him for twenty years. He broke up the cantonments,
and entered the valley of Savona, in order to march into Italy between the
Alps and the Apennines. There were before him ninety thousand troops of
the coalition, commanded in the centre by Argentau, by Colle on the left,
and Beaulieu on the right. This immense army was dispersed in a few days
by prodigies of genius and courage. Bonaparte overthrew the centre at
Montenotte, and entered Piedmont; at Millesimo he entirely separated the
Sardinian from the Austrian army. They hastened to defend Turin and Milan,
the capitals of their domination. Before pursuing the Austrians, the
republican general threw himself on the left, to cut off the Sardinian
army. The fate of Piedmont was decided at Mondovi, and the terrified court
of Turin hastened to submit. At Cherasco an armistice was concluded, which
was soon afterwards followed by a treaty of peace, signed at Paris, on the
18th of May, 1796, between the republic and the king of Sardinia, who
ceded Savoy and the counties of Nice and Tenda. The occupation of
Alessandria, which opened the Lombard country; the demolition of the
fortresses of Susa, and of Brunette, on the borders of France; the
abandonment of the territory of Nice, and of Savoy, and the rendering
available the other army of the Alps, under Kellermann, was the reward of
a fortnight's campaign, and six victories.
War being over with Piedmont, Bonaparte marched against the Austrian army,
to which he left no repose. He passed the Po at Piacenza, and the Adda at
Lodi. The latter victory opened the gates of Milan, and secured him the
possession of Lombardy. General Beaulieu was driven into the defiles of
Tyrol by the republican army, which invested Mantua, and appeared on the
mountains of the empire. General Wurmser came to replace Beaulieu, and a
new army was sent to join the wrecks of the conquered one. Wurmser
advanced to relieve Mantua, and once more make Italy the field of battle;
but he was overpowered, like his predecessor, by Bonaparte, who, after
having raised the blockade of Mantua, in order to oppose this new enemy,
renewed it with increased vigour, and resumed his positions in Tyrol. The
plan of invasion was executed with much union and success. While the army
of Italy threatened Austria by Tyrol, the two armies of the Meuse and
Rhine entered Germany; Moreau, supported by Jourdan on his left, was ready
to join Bonaparte on his right. The two armies had passed the Rhine at
Neuwied and Strasburg, and had advanced on a front, drawn up in echelons
to the distance of sixty leagues, driving back the enemy, who, while
retreating before them, strove to impede their march and break their line.
They had almost attained the aim of their enterprise; Moreau had entered
Ulm and Augsburg, crossed the Leek, and his advanced guard was on the
extreme of the defiles of Tyrol, when Jourdan, from a misunderstanding,
passed beyond the line, was attacked by the archduke Charles, and
completely routed. Moreau, exposed on his left wing, was reduced to the
necessity of retracing his steps, and he then effected his memorable
retreat. The fault of Jourdan was a capital one: it prevented the success
of this vast plan of campaign, and gave respite to the Austrian
government.
The cabinet of Vienna, which had lost Belgium in this war, and which felt
the importance of preserving Italy, defended it with the greatest
obstinacy. Wurmser, after a new defeat, was obliged to throw himself into
Mantua with the wreck of his army. General Alvinzy, at the head of fifty
thousand Hungarians, now came to try his fortune, but was not more
successful than Beaulieu or Wurmser. New victories were added to the
wonders already achieved by the army of Italy, and secured the conquest of
that country. Mantua capitulated; the republican troops, masters of Italy,
took the route to Vienna across the mountains. Bonaparte had before him
prince Charles, the last hope of Austria. He soon passed through the
defiles of Tyrol, and entered the plains of Germany. In the meantime, the
army of the Rhine under Moreau, and that of the Meuse under Hoche,
successfully resumed the plan of the preceding campaign; and the cabinet
of Vienna, in a state of alarm, concluded the truce of Leoben. It had
exhausted all its force, and tried all its generals, while the French
republic was in the full vigour of conquest.
The army of Italy accomplished in Europe the work of the French
revolution. This wonderful campaign was owing to the union of a general of
genius, and an intelligent army. Bonaparte had for lieutenants generals
capable of commanding themselves, who knew how to take upon themselves the
responsibility of a movement of a battle, and an army of citizens all
possessing cultivated minds, deep feeling, strong emulation of all that is
great; passionately attached to a revolution which aggrandized their
country, preserved their independence under discipline, and which afforded
an opportunity to every soldier of becoming a general. There is nothing
which a leader of genius might not accomplish with such men. He must have
regretted, at this recollection of his earlier years, that he ever centred
in himself all liberty and intelligence, that he ever created mechanical
armies and generals only fit to obey. Bonaparte began the third epoch of
the war. The campaign of 1792 had been made on the old system, with
dispersed corps, acting separately without abandoning their fixed line.
The committee of public safety concentrated the corps, made them operate
no longer merely on what was before them, but at a distance; it hastened
their movement, and directed them towards a common end. Bonaparte did for
each battle what the committee had done for each campaign. He brought all
these corps on the determinate point, and destroyed several armies with a
single one by the rapidity of his measures. He disposed of whole masses of
troops at his pleasure, moved them here or there, brought them forward, or
kept them out of sight, had them wholly at his disposition, when, where,
and how he pleased, whether to occupy a position or to gain a battle. His
diplomacy was as masterly as his military science.
All the Italian governments, except Venice and Genoa, had adhered to the
coalition, but the people were in favour of the French republic. Bonaparte
relied on the latter. He abolished Piedmont, which he could not conquer;
transformed the Milanese, hitherto dependent on Austria, into the
_Cisalpine Republic_; he weakened Tuscany and the petty princes of Parma
and Modena by contributions, without dispossessing them; the pope, who had
signed a truce on Bonaparte's first success against Beaulieu, and who did
not hesitate to infringe it on the arrival of Wurmser, bought peace by
yielding Romagna, Bologna, and Ferrara, which were joined to the Cisalpine
republic; lastly, the aristocracy of Venice and Genoa having favoured the
coalition, and raised an insurrection in the rear of the army, their
government was changed, and Bonaparte made it democratic, in order to
oppose the power of the people to that of the nobility. In this way the
revolution penetrated into Italy.
Austria, by the preliminaries of Leoben, ceded Belgium to France, and
recognised the Lombard republic. All the allied powers had laid down their
arms, and even England asked to treat. France, peaceable and free at home,
had on her borders attained her natural limits, and was surrounded with
rising republics, such as Holland, Lombardy, and Liguria, which guarded
her sides and extended her system in Europe. The coalition was little
disposed to assail anew a revolution, all the governments of which were
victorious; that of anarchy after the 10th of August, of the dictatorship
after the 31st of May, and of legal authority under the directory; a
revolution, which, at every new hostility, advanced a step further upon
European territory. In 1792, it had only extended to Belgium; in 1794, it
had reached Holland and the Rhine; in 1796, had reached Italy, and entered
Germany. If it continued its progress, the coalition had reason to fear
that it would carry its conquests further. Everything seemed prepared for
general peace.
But the situation of the directory was materially changed by the elections
of the year V. (May, 1797). These elections, by introducing, in a legal
way, the royalist party into the legislature and government, brought again
into question what the conflict of Vendémiaire had decided. Up to this
period, a good understanding had existed between the directory and the
councils. Composed of conventionalists, united by a common interest, and
the necessity of establishing the republic, after having been blown about
by the winds of all parties, they had manifested much good-will in their
intercourse, and much union in their measures. The councils had yielded to
the various demands of the directory; and, with the exception of a few
slight modifications, they had approved its projects concerning the
finance and the administration, its conduct with regard to the
conspiracies, the armies, and Europe. The anti-conventional minority had
formed an opposition in the councils; but this opposition, while waiting
the reinforcement of a new third, had but cautiously contended against the
policy of the directory. At its head were Barbé-Marbois, Pastoret,
Vaublanc, Dumas, Portalis, Siméon, Tronçon-Ducoudray, Dupont de Nemours,
most of them members of the Right in the legislative assembly, and some of
them avowed royalists. Their position soon became less equivocal and more
aggressive, by the addition of those members elected in the year V.
The royalists formed a formidable and active confederation, having its
leaders, agents, budgets, and journals. They excluded republicans from the
elections, influenced the masses, who always follow the most energetic
party, and whose banner they momentarily assume. They would not even admit
patriots of the first epoch, and only elected decided counter-
revolutionists or equivocal constitutionalists. The republican party was
then placed in the government and in the army; the royalist party in the
electoral assemblies and the councils.
On the 1st Prairial, year V. (20th May), the two councils opened their
sittings. From the beginning they manifested the spirit which actuated
them. Pichegru, whom the royalists transferred on to the new field of
battle of the counter-revolution, was enthusiastically elected president
of the council _des jeunes_. Barbé-Marbois had given him, with the same
eagerness, the presidentship of the elder council. The legislative body
proceeded to appoint a director to replace Letourneur, who, on the 30th
Floréal, had been fixed on by ballot as the retiring member. Their choice
fell on Barthélemy, the ambassador to Switzerland, whose moderate views
and attachment to peace suited the councils and Europe, but who was
scarcely adapted for the government of the republic, owing to his absence
from France during all the revolution.
These first hostilities against the directory and the conventional party
were followed by more actual attacks. Its administration and policy were
now attacked without scruple. The directory had done all it had been able
to do by a legal government in a situation still revolutionary. It was
blamed for continuing the war and for the disorder of the financial
department. The legislative majority skilfully turned its attention to the
public wants; it supported the entire liberty of the press, which allowed
journalists to attack the directory, and to prepare the way for another
system; it supported peace because it would lead to the disarming of the
republic, and lastly, it supported economy.
These demands were in one sense useful and national. France was weary, and
felt the need of all these things in order to complete its social
restoration; accordingly, the nation half adopted the views of the
royalists, but from entirely different motives. It saw with rather more
anxiety the measures adopted by the councils relative to priests and
emigrants. A pacification was desired; but the nation did not wish that
the conquered foes of the revolution should return triumphant. The
councils passed the laws with regard to them with great precipitation.
They justly abolished the sentence of transportation or imprisonment
against priests for matters of religion or incivism; but they wished to
restore the ancient prerogatives of their form of worship; to render
Catholicism, already re-established, outwardly manifest by the use of
bells, and to exempt priests from the oath of public functionaries.
Camille Jordan, a young Lyonnais deputy, full of eloquence and courage,
but professing unreasonable opinions, was the principal panegyrist of the
clergy in the younger council. The speech which he delivered on this
subject excited great surprise and violent opposition. The little
enthusiasm that remained was still entirely patriotic, and all were
astonished at witnessing the revival of another enthusiasm, that of
religion: the last century and the revolution had made men entirely
unaccustomed to it, and prevented them from understanding it. This was the
moment when the old party revived its creed, introduced its language, and
mingled them with the creed and language of the reform party, which had
hitherto prevailed alone. The result was, as is usual with all that is
unexpected, an unfavourable and ridiculous impression against Camille
Jordan, who was nicknamed _Jordan-Carillon, Jordan-les-Cloches_. The
attempt of the protectors of the clergy did not, however, succeed; and the
council of five hundred did not venture as yet to pass a decree for the
use of bells, or to make the priests independent. After some hesitation,
the moderate party joined the directorial party, and supported the civic
oath with cries of "Vive la République!"
Meantime, hostilities continued against the directory, especially in the
council of five hundred, which was more zealous and impatient than that of
the ancients. All this greatly emboldened the royalist faction in the
interior. The counter-revolutionary reprisals against the _patriots_, and
those who had acquired national property, were renewed. Emigrant and
dissentient priests returned in crowds, and being unable to endure
anything savouring of the revolution, they did not conceal their projects
for its overthrow. The directorial authority, threatened in the centre,
and disowned in the departments, became wholly powerless.
But the necessity of defence, the anxiety of all men who were devoted to
the directory, and especially to the revolution, gave courage and support
to the government. The aggressive progress of the councils brought their
attachment to the republic into suspicion; and the mass, which had at
first supported, now forsook them. The constitutionalists of 1791, and the
directorial party formed an alliance. The club of _Salm_, established
under the auspices of this alliance, was opposed to the club of _Clichy_,
which for a long time had been the rendezvous of the most influential
members of the councils. The directory, while it had recourse to opinion,
did not neglect its principal force--the support of the troops. It brought
near Paris several regiments of the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, commanded
by Hoche. The constitutional radius of six myriametres (twelve leagues),
which the troops could not legally pass, was violated: and the councils
denounced this violation to the directory, which feigned an ignorance,
wholly disbelieved, and made very weak excuses.
The two parties were watching each other. One had its posts at the
directory, at the club of _Salm_, and in the army, the other, in the
councils, at _Clichy_, and in the _salons_ of the royalists. The mass were
spectators. Each of the two parties was disposed to act in a revolutionary
manner towards the other. An intermediate constitutional and conciliatory
party tried to prevent the struggle, and to bring about an union, which
was altogether impossible. Carnot was at its head: a few members of the
younger council, directed by Thibaudeau, and a tolerably large number of
the Ancients, seconded his projects of moderation. Carnot, who, at that
period, was the director of the constitution, with Barthélemy, who was the
director of the legislature, formed a minority in the government. Carnot,
very austere in his conduct and very obstinate in his views, could not
agree either with Barras or with the imperious Rewbell. To this opposition
of character was then added difference of system. Barras and Rewbell,
supported by La Réveillère, were not at all averse to a coup-d'état
against the councils, while Carnot wished strictly to follow the law. This
great citizen, at each epoch of the revolution, had perfectly seen the
mode of government which suited it, and his opinion immediately became a
fixed idea. Under the committee of public safety, the dictatorship was his
fixed system, and under the directory, legal government. Recognising no
difference of situation, he found himself placed in an equivocal position;
he wished for peace in a moment of war; and for law, in a moment of coups-
d'état.
The councils, somewhat alarmed at the preparations of the directory,
seemed to make the dismissal of a few ministers, in whom they placed no
confidence, the price of reconciliation. These were, Merlin de Douai, the
minister of justice; Delacroix, minister of foreign affairs; and Ramel,
minister of finance. On the other hand they desired to retain Pétiet as
minister of war, Bénésech as minister of the interior, and Cochon de
Lapparent as minister of police. The legislative body, in default of
directorial power, wished to make sure of the ministry. Far from falling
in with this wish, which would have introduced the enemy into the
government, Rewbell, La Réveillère and Barras dismissed the ministers
protected by the councils, and retained the others. Bénésech was replaced
by François de Neufchâteau, Pétiet by Hoche, and soon afterwards by
Schérer; Cochon de Lapparent, by Lenoir-Laroche; and Lenoir-Laroche, who
had too little decision, by Sotin. Talleyrand, likewise, formed part of
this ministry. He had been struck off the list of emigrants, from the
close of the conventional session, as a revolutionist of 1791; and his
great sagacity, which always placed him with the party having the greatest
hope of victory, made him, at this period, a directorial republican. He
held the portfolio of Delacroix, and he contributed very much, by his
counsels and his daring, to the events of Fructidor.
War now appeared more and more inevitable. The directory did not wish for
a reconciliation, which, at the best, would only have postponed its
downfall and that of the republic to the elections of the year VI. It
caused threatening addresses against the councils to be sent from the
armies. Bonaparte had watched with an anxious eye the events which were
preparing in Paris. Though intimate with Carnot, and corresponding
directly with him, he had sent Lavalette, his aid-de-camp, to furnish him
with an account of the divisions in the government, and the intrigues and
conspiracies with which it was beset. Bonaparte had promised the directory
the support of his army, in case of actual danger. He sent Augereau to
Paris with addresses from his troops. "Tremble, royalists!" said the
soldiers. "From the Adige to the Seine is but a step. Tremble! your
iniquities are numbered; and their recompense is at the end of our
bayonets."--"We have observed with indignation," said the staff, "the
intrigues of royalty threatening liberty. By the manes of the heroes slain
for our country, we have sworn implacable war against royalty and
royalists. Such are our sentiments; they are yours, and those of all
patriots. Let the royalists show themselves, and their days are numbered."
The councils protested, but in vain, against these deliberations of the
army. General Richepanse, who commanded the troops arrived from the army
of the Sambre-et-Meuse, stationed them at Versailles, Meudon, and
Vincennes.
The councils had been assailants in Prairial, but as the success of their
cause might be put off to the year VI., when it might take place without
risk or combat, they kept on the defensive after Thermidor (July, 1797).
They, however, then made every preparation for the contest: they gave
orders that the _constitutional circles_ should be closed, with a view to
getting rid of the club of _Salm_; they also increased the powers of the
commission of inspectors of the hall, which became the government of the
legislative body, and of which the two royalist conspirators, Willot and
Pichegru, formed part. The guard of the councils, which was under the
control of the directory, was placed under the immediate orders of the
inspectors of the hall. At last, on the 17th Fructidor, the legislative
body thought of procuring the assistance of the militia of Vendémiaire,
and it decreed, on the motion of Pichegru, the formation of the national
guard. On the following day, the 18th, this measure was to be executed,
and the councils were by a decree to order the troops to remove to a
distance. They had reached a point that rendered a new victory necessary
to decide the great struggle of the revolution and the ancient system. The
impetuous general, Willot, wished them to take the initiative, to decree
the impeachment of the three directors, Barras, Rewbell, and La
Réveillère; to cause the other two to join the legislative body; if the
government refused to obey, to sound the tocsin, and march with the old
sectionaries against the directory; to place Pichegru at the head of this
_legal insurrection_, and to execute all these measures promptly, boldly,
and at mid-day. Pichegru is said to have hesitated; and the opinion of the
undecided prevailing, the tardy course of legal preparations was adopted.
It was not, however, the same with the directory. Barras, Rewbell, and La
Réveillère determined instantly to attack Carnot, Barthélemy, and the
legislative majority. The morning of the 18th was fixed on for the
execution of this coup-d'état. During the night, the troops encamped in
the neighbourhood of Paris, entered the city under the command of
Augereau. It was the design of the directorial triumvirate to occupy the
Tuileries with troops before the assembling of the legislative body, in
order to avoid a violent expulsion; to convoke the councils in the
neighbourhood of the Luxembourg, after having arrested their principal
leaders, and by a legislative measure to accomplish a coup-d'état begun by
force. It was in agreement with the minority of the councils, and relied
on the approbation of the mass. The troops reached the Hôtel de Ville at
one in the morning, spread themselves over the quays, the bridges, and the
Champs Élysées, and before long, twelve thousand men and forty pieces of
cannon surrounded the Tuileries. At four o'clock the alarm-shot was fired,
and Augereau presented himself at the gate of the Pont-Tournant.
The guard of the legislative body was under arms. The inspectors of the
hall, apprised the night before of the movement in preparation, had
repaired to the national palace (the Tuileries), to defend the entrance.
Ramel, commander of the legislative guard, was devoted to the councils,
and he had stationed his eight hundred grenadiers in the different avenues
of the garden, shut in by gates. But Pichegru, Willot, and Ramel, could
not resist the directory with this small and uncertain force. Augereau had
no need even to force the passage of the Pont-Tournant: as soon as he came
before the grenadiers, he cried out, "Are you republicans?" The latter
lowered their arms and replied, "Vive Augereau! Vive le directoire!" and
joined him. Augereau traversed the garden, entered the hall of the
councils, arrested Pichegru, Willot, Ramel, and all the inspectors of the
hall, and had them conveyed to the Temple. The members of the councils,
convoked in haste by the inspectors, repaired in crowds to their place of
sitting; but they were arrested or refused admittance by the armed force.
Augereau announced to them that the directory, urged by the necessity of
defending the republic from the conspirators among them, had assigned the
Odéon and the School of Medicine for the place of their sittings. The
greater part of the deputies present exclaimed against military violence
and the dictatorial usurpation, but they were obliged to yield.
At six in the morning this expedition was terminated. The people of Paris,
on awaking, found the troops still under arms, and the walls placarded
with proclamations announcing the discovery of a formidable conspiracy.
The people were exhorted to observe order and confidence. The directory
had printed a letter of general Moreau, in which he announced in detail
the plots of his predecessor Pichegru with the emigrants, and another
letter from the prince de Condé to Imbert Colomès, a member of the
Ancients. The entire population remained quiet; they were mere spectators
of an event brought about without the interference of parties, and by the
assistance of the army only. They displayed neither approbation nor
regret.
The directory felt the necessity of legalizing, and more especially of
terminating, this extraordinary act. As soon as the members of the five
hundred, and of the ancients, were assembled at the Odéon and the School
of Medicine in sufficient numbers to debate, they determined to sit
permanently. A message from the directory announced the motive which had
actuated all its measures. "Citizens, legislators," ran the message, "if
the directory had delayed another day, the republic would have been given
up to its enemies. The very place of your sittings was the rendezvous of
the conspirators: from thence they yesterday distributed their plans and
orders for the delivery of arms; from thence they corresponded last night
with their accomplices; lastly, from thence, or in the neighbourhood, they
again endeavoured to raise clandestine and seditious assemblies, which the
police at this moment are employed in dispersing. We should have
compromised the public welfare, and that of its faithful representatives,
had we suffered them to remain confounded with the foes of the country in
the den of conspiracy."
The younger council appointed a commission, composed of Sieyès, Poulain-
Granpré, Villers, Chazal, and Boulay de la Meurthe, deputed to present a
law of _public safety_. The law was a measure of ostracism; only
transportation was substituted for the scaffold in this second
revolutionary and dictatorial period.
The members of the five hundred sentenced to transportation were: Aubry,
J. J. Aimé, Bayard, Blain, Boissy d'Anglas, Borne, Bourdon de l'Oise,
Cadroy, Couchery, Delahaye, Delarue, Doumère, Dumolard, Duplantier, Gibert
Desmolières, Henri La Rivière, Imbert-Colomès, Camille Jordan, Jourdan
(des Bouches-du-Rhône) Gall, La Carrière, Lemarchand-Gomicourt, Lemérer,
Mersan, Madier, Maillard, Noailles, André, Mac-Cartin, Pavie, Pastoret,
Pichegru, Polissard, Praire-Montaud, Quatremère-Quincy, Saladin, Siméon,
Vauvilliers, Vienot-Vaublanc, Villaret-Joyeuse, Willot. In the council of
ancients: Barbé-Marbois, Dumas, Ferraud-Vaillant, Lafond-Ladebat, Laumont,
Muraire, Murinais, Paradis, Portalis, Rovère, Tronçon-Ducoudray. In the
directory: Carnot and Barthélemy. They also condemned the abbé Brottier,
Lavilleheurnois, Dunan, the ex-minister of police, Cochon, the ex-agent of
the police Dossonville, generals Miranda and Morgan; the journalist,
Suard; the ex-conventionalist, Mailhe; and the commandant, Ramel. A few of
the proscribed succeeded in evading the decree of exile; Carnot was among
the number. Most of them were transported to Cayenne; but a great many did
not leave the Isle of Ré.
The directory greatly extended this act of ostracism. The authors of
thirty-five journals were included in the sentence of transportation. It
wished to strike at once all the avenues of the republic in the councils,
in the press, in the electoral assemblies, the departments, in a word,
wherever they had introduced themselves. The elections of forty-eight
departments were annulled, the laws in favour of priests and emigrants
were revoked, and soon afterwards the disappearance of all who had swayed
in the departments since the 9th Thermidor raised the spirits of the cast-
down republican party. The coup-d'état of Fructidor was not purely
central; like the victory of Vendémiaire; it ruined the royalist party,
which had only been repulsed by the preceding defeat. But, by again
replacing the legal government by the dictatorship, it rendered necessary
another revolution, which shall be recounted later.
We may say, that on the 18th Fructidor of the year V. it was necessary
that the directory should triumph over the counterrevolution by decimating
the councils; or that the councils should triumph over the republic by
overthrowing the directory. The question thus stated, it remains to
inquire, 1st, if the directory could have conquered by any other means
than a coup-d'état; 2ndly, whether it misused its victory?
The government had not the power of dissolving the councils. At the
termination of a revolution, whose object was to establish the extreme
right, they were unable to invest a secondary authority with the control
of the sovereignty of the people, and in certain cases to make the
legislature subordinate to the directory. This concession of an
experimental policy not existing, what means remained to the directory of
driving the enemy from the heart of the state? No longer able to defend
the revolution by virtue of the law, it had no resource but the
dictatorship; but in having recourse to that, it broke the conditions of
its existence; and while saving the revolution, it soon fell itself.
As for its victory, it sullied it with violence, by endeavouring to make
it too complete. The sentence of transportation was extended to too many
victims; the petty passions of men mingled with the defence of the cause,
and the directory did not manifest that reluctance to arbitrary measures
which is the only justification of coups-d'état. To attain its object, it
should have exiled the leading conspirators only; but it rarely happens
that a party does not abuse the dictatorship; and that, possessing the
power, it believes not in the dangers of indulgence. The defeat of the
18th Fructidor was the fourth of the royalist party; two took place in
order to dispossess it of power, those of the 14th of July and 10th of
August; two to prevent its resuming it; those of the 13th Vendémiaire and
18th Fructidor. This repetition of powerless attempts and protracted
reverses did not a little contribute to the submission of this party under
the consulate and the empire.