CHAPTER XV.

_Views of Parties in Britain relative to the

Revolution--Affiliated Societies--Counterpoised by Aristocratic

Associations--Aristocratic Party eager for War with France--The

French proclaim the Navigation of the Scheldt--British

Ambassador recalled from Paris, and French Envoy no longer

accredited in London--France declares War against

England--British Army sent to Holland, under the Duke of

York--State of the Army--View of the Military Positions of

France--in Flanders--on the Rhine--in Piedmont--Savoy--on the

Pyrenees--State of the War in La Vendée--Description of the

Country--Le Bocage--Le Louroux--Close Union betwixt the Nobles

and Peasantry--Both strongly attached to Royalty, and abhorrent

of the Revolution--The Priests--The Religion of the Vendéans

outraged by the Convention--A general Insurrection takes place

in 1793--Military Organization and Habits of the

Vendéans--Division in the British Cabinet on the Mode of

conducting the War--Pitt--Windham--Reasoning upon the

Subject--Vendéans defeated--They defeat, in their turn, the

French Troops at Laval--But are ultimately destroyed and

dispersed--Unfortunate Expedition to Quiberon--La Charette

defeated and executed, and the War of La Vendée finally

terminated--Unsuccessful Resistance of Bourdeaux, Marseilles,

and Lyons, to the Convention--Siege of Lyons--Its surrender and

dreadful Punishment--Siege of Toulon._

The Jacobins, by their successive victories on the 31st May and 2d June,

1793, had vanquished and driven from the field their adversaries; and we

have already seen with what fury they had pursued their scattered

enemies, and dealt among them vengeance and death. But the situation of

the country, both in regard to external and internal relations, was so

precarious, that it required the exertion of men as bold and

unhesitating as those who now assumed the guidance of the power of

France, to exert the energies necessary to repel foreign force, and at

the same time to subdue internal dissension.

[Sidenote: STATE OF PARTIES IN BRITAIN.]

We have seen that England had become, in a great measure, divided into

two large parties, one of which continued to applaud the French

Revolution, although the wise and good among them reprobated its

excesses; while the other, with eyes fixed in detestation upon the

cruelties, confiscations, and horrors of every description which it had

given rise to, looked on the very name of this great change,--though, no

doubt, comprehending much good as well as evil,--with the unmixed

feelings of men contemplating a spectacle equally dreadful and

disgusting.

The affair of the 10th of August, and the approaching fate of the King,

excited general interest in Britain; and a strong inclination became

visible among the higher and middling classes, that the nation should

take up arms, and interfere in the fate of the unhappy Louis.

Mr. Pitt had been making up his mind to the same point; but, feeling how

much his own high talents were turned to the improvement of the internal

regulations and finances of the country, he hesitated for some time to

adopt a hostile course, though approved by the sovereign, and demanded

by a large proportion of his subjects. But new circumstances arose every

day to compel a decision on this important point.

The French, whether in their individual or collective capacities, have

been always desirous to take the lead among European nations, and to be

considered as the foremost member of the civilized republic. In almost

all her vicissitudes, France has addressed herself as much to the

citizens of other countries as to those of her own; and it was thus,

that in the speeches of her statesmen, invitations were thrown out to

the subjects of other states, to imitate the example of the Republic,

cast away the rubbish of their old institutions, dethrone their Kings,

demolish their nobility, divide the lands of the Church and the

aristocracy among the lower classes, and arise a free and regenerated

people. In Britain, as elsewhere, these doctrines carried a fascinating

sound; for Britain as well as France had men of parts, who thought

themselves neglected,--men of merit, who conceived themselves

oppressed,--experimentalists, who would willingly put the laws in their

revolutionary crucible,--and men desirous of novelties in the Church and

in the State, either from the eagerness of restless curiosity, or the

hopes of bettering by the change. Above all, Britain had a far too ample

mass of poverty and ignorance, subject always to be acted upon by the

hope of license. Affiliated societies were formed in almost all the

towns of Great Britain. They corresponded with each other, held very

high and intimidating language, and seemed to frame themselves on the

French model. They addressed the National Convention of France directly

in the name of their own bodies, and of societies united for the same

purpose; and congratulated them on their freedom, and on the manner in

which they had gained it, with many a broad hint that their example

would not be lost on Britain. The persons who composed these societies

had, generally speaking, little pretension to rank or influence; and

though they contained some men of considerable parts, there was a

deficiency of any thing like weight or respectability in their meetings.

Their consequence lay chiefly in the numbers who were likely to be

influenced by their arguments; and these were extraordinarily great,

especially in large towns, and in the manufacturing districts. That

state of things began to take place in Britain, which had preceded the

French Revolution; but the British aristocracy, well cemented together,

and possessing great weight in the State, took the alarm sooner, and

adopted precautions more effectual, than had been thought of in France.

They associated together in political unions on their side, and, by the

weight of influence, character, and fortune, soon obtained a

superiority, which made it dangerous, or at least inconvenient, to many,

whose situations in society rendered them, in some degree, dependent

upon the favour of the aristocracy, to dissent violently from their

opinions. The political Shibboleth, used by these associations, was a

renunciation of the doctrines of the French Revolution; and they have

been reproached, that this abhorrence was expressed by some of them in

terms so strong, as if designed to withhold the subscribers from

attempting any reformation in their own government, even by the most

constitutional means. In short, while the democratical party made, in

their clubs, the most violent and furious speeches against the

aristocrats, the others became doubly prejudiced against reform of

every description, and all who attempted to assert its propriety. After

all, had this political ferment broke out in Britain at any other

period, or on any other occasion, it would have probably passed away

like other heart-burnings of the same description, which interest for a

time, but weary out the public attention, and are laid aside and

forgotten. But the French Revolution blazed in the neighbourhood like a

beacon of hope to the one party, of fear and caution to the other. The

shouts of the democratic triumphs--the foul means by which their

successes were obtained, and the cruel use which was made of them,

increased the animosity of both parties in England. In the fury of party

zeal, the democrats excused many of the excesses of the French

Revolution, in respect of its tendency; while the other party, in

condemning the whole Revolution, both root and branch, forgot that,

after all, the struggle of the French nation to recover their liberty,

was, in its commencement, not only justifiable, but laudable.

The wild and inflated language addressed by the French statesmen to

mankind in general, and the spirit of conquest which the nation had

lately evinced, mixed with their marked desire to extend their political

principles, and with the odium which they had heaped upon themselves by

the King's death, made the whole aristocratic party, commanding a very

large majority in both Houses of Parliament, become urgent that war

should be declared against France; a holy war, it was said, against

treason, blasphemy, and murder, and a necessary war, in order to break

off all connexion betwixt the French Government and the discontented

part of our own subjects, who could not otherwise be prevented from the

most close, constant, and dangerous intercourse with them.

Another reason for hostilities, more in parallel with similar cases in

history, occurred, from the French having, by a formal decree,

proclaimed the Scheldt navigable. In so doing, a point had been assumed

as granted, upon the denial of which the States of Holland had always

rested as the very basis of their national prosperity. It is probable

that this might, in other circumstances, have been made the subject of

negotiation; but the difference of opinion on the general politics of

the Revolution, and the mode in which it had been carried on, set the

governments of France and England in such direct and mortal opposition

to each other, that war became inevitable.

[Sidenote: BRITISH AMBASSADOR RECALLED.]

[Sidenote: WAR WITH ENGLAND.]

Lord Gower,[394] the British ambassador, was recalled from Paris,

immediately on the King's execution. The prince to whom he was sent was

no more; and, on the same ground, Chauvelin, the French envoy at the

Court of St. James's, though not dismissed by his Majesty's government,

was made acquainted that the ministers no longer considered him as an

accredited person.[395] Yet, through Maret,[396] a subordinate agent,

Pitt continued to keep up some correspondence with the French

Government, in a lingering desire to preserve peace, if possible. What

the British minister chiefly wished was, to have satisfactory

assurances, that the strong expressions of a decree, which the French

Convention had passed on the 19th November, were not to be considered as

applicable to England. The decree was in these words: "The National

Convention declares, in the name of the French nation, that it will

grant fraternity and assistance to all people who wish to recover their

liberty; and it charges the executive power to send the necessary orders

to the generals, to give succours to such people, and to defend those

citizens who have suffered, or may suffer, in the cause of

liberty."--"That this decree might not remain a secret to those for

whose benefit it was intended, a translation of it, in every foreign

language, was ordered to be printed."[397] The Convention, as well as

the ministers of France, refused every disavowal of the decree as

applicable to Great Britain; were equally reluctant to grant explanation

of any kind on the opening of the Scheldt; and finally, without one

dissentient voice, the whole Convention, in a full meeting, [Feb. 1,]

declared war upon England;[398]--which last nation is, nevertheless,

sometimes represented, even at this day, as having declared war upon

France.

In fact, Mr. Pitt came unwillingly into the war. With even more than his

great father's ministerial talents, he did not habitually nourish the

schemes of military triumph, which were familiar to the genius of

Chatham, and was naturally unwilling, by engaging in an expensive war,

to derange those plans of finance by which he had retrieved the revenues

of Great Britain from a very low condition. It is said of Chatham, that

he considered it as the best economy, to make every military expedition

which he fitted out, of such a power and strength, as to overbear, as

far as possible, all chance of opposition. A general officer, who was to

be employed in such a piece of service, having demanded a certain body

of troops, as sufficient to effect his purpose,--"Take double the

number," said Lord Chatham, "and answer with your head for your

success." His son had not the same mode of computation, and would,

perhaps, have been more willing to have reduced the officer's terms,

chaffered with him for the lowest number, and finally despatched him at

the head of as small a body as the general could have been prevailed on

to consider as affording any prospect of success. This untimely economy

of resources arose from the expense attending the British army. They are

certainly one of the bravest, best appointed, and most liberally paid in

Europe; but in forming demands on their valour, and expectations from

their exertions, their fellow-subjects are apt to indulge extravagant

computations, from not being in the habit of considering military

calculations, or being altogether aware of the numerical superiority

possessed by other countries. That one Englishman will fight two

Frenchmen is certain; but that he will beat them, though a good article

of the popular creed, must be allowed to be more dubious; and it is not

wise to wage war on such odds, or to suppose that, because our soldiers

are infinitely valuable to us, and a little expensive besides, it is

therefore judicious to send them in small numbers against desperate

odds.

Another point, well touched by Sheridan, during the debate on the

question of peace or war, was not sufficiently attended to by the

British Administration. That statesman, whose perception of the right

and wrong of any great constitutional question was as acute as that of

any whomever of his great political contemporaries, said, "He wished

every possible exertion to be made for the preservation of peace. If,

however, that were impracticable, in such case, but in such case only,

he proposed to vote for a vigorous war. Not a war of shifts and scraps,

of timid operation, or protracted effort; but a war conducted with such

energy as might convince the world that we were contending for our

dearest and most valuable privileges."[399]

Of this high-spirited and most just principle, the policy of Britain

unfortunately lost sight during the first years of the war, when there

occurred more than one opportunity in which a home and prostrating blow

might have been aimed at her gigantic adversary.

A gallant auxiliary army was, however, immediately fitted out, and

embarked for Holland, with his Royal Highness the Duke of York at their

head; as if the King had meant to give to his allies the dearest pledge

in his power, how serious was the interest which he took in their

defence.

But, though well equipped, and commanded, under the young prince, by

Abercromby, Dundas, Sir William Erskine, and many other officers of

gallantry and experience, it must be owned that the British army had not

then recovered the depressing and disorganizing effects of the American

war. The soldiers were, indeed, fine men on the parade; but their

external appearance was acquired by dint of a thousand minute and

vexatious attentions, exacted from them at the expense of private

comfort, and which, after all, only gave them the exterior appearance

of high drilling, in exchange for ease of motion and simplicity of

dress. No general system of manœuvres, we believe, had been adopted

for the use of the forces; each commanding officer managed his regiment

according to his own pleasure. In a field-day, two or three battalions

could not act in concert, without much previous consultation; in action,

they got on as chance directed. The officers, too, were acquainted both

with their soldiers and with their duty, in a degree far inferior to

what is now exacted from them. Our system of purchasing commissions,

which is necessary to connect the army with the country, and the

property of the country, was at that time so much abused, that a mere

beardless boy might be forced at once through the subordinate and

subaltern steps into a company or a majority, without having been a

month in the army. In short, all those gigantic abuses were still

subsisting, which the illustrious prince whom we have named eradicated

from the British army, by regulations, for which his country can never

be sufficiently grateful, and without which they could never have

performed the distinguished part finally destined to them in the

terrible drama, which was about to open under less successful auspices.

There hung also, like a cloud, upon the military fame of England, the

unfortunate issue of the American struggle; in which the advantages

obtained by regulars, against less disciplined forces, had been trifled

with in the commencement, until the genius of Washington, and the

increasing spirit and numbers of the continental armies, completely

over-balanced, and almost annihilated, that original preponderance.

Yet the British soldiery did not disgrace their high national character,

nor show themselves unworthy of fighting under the eye of the son of

their monarch; and when they joined the Austrian army, under the Prince

of Saxe-Cobourg, gave many demonstrations both of valour and discipline.

The storming the fortified camp of the French at Famars--the battle of

Lincelles--the part they bore in the sieges of Valenciennes and Condé,

both of which surrendered successively to the allied forces, upheld the

reputation of their country, and amounted, indeed, to what, in former

wars, would have been the fruits of a very successful campaign.[400] But

Europe was now arrived at a time when war was no longer to be carried on

according to the old usage, by the agency of standing armies of moderate

numbers; when a battle lost and won, or a siege raised or successful,

was thought sufficient for the active exertions of the year, and the

troops on either side were drawn off into winter quarters, while

diplomacy took up the contest which tactics had suspended. All this was

to be laid aside; and instead of this drowsy state of hostility, nations

were to contend with each other like individuals in mortal conflict,

bringing not merely the hands, but every limb of the body into violent

and furious struggle. The situation of France, both in internal and

external relations, required the most dreadful efforts which had ever

been made by any country; and the exertions which she demanded, were

either willingly made by the enthusiasm of the inhabitants, or extorted

by the energy and severity of the revolutionary government. We must

bestow a single glance on the state of the country, ere we proceed to

notice the measures adopted for its defence.

[Sidenote: MILITARY POSITION OF FRANCE.]

On the north-eastern frontier of France, considerable advances had been

made by the English and Hanoverian army, in communication and

conjunction with the Austrian force under the Prince of Saxe-Cobourg, an

excellent officer, but who, belonging to the old school of formal and

prolonged war, never sufficiently considered, that a new description of

enemies were opposed to him, who were necessarily to be combated in a

different manner from those whom his youth had encountered, and who,

unenterprising himself, does not appear either to have calculated upon,

or prepared to counteract, strokes of audacity and activity on the part

of the enemy.

The war on the Rhine was furiously maintained by Prussians and Austrians

united. The French lost the important town of Mentz, were driven out of

other places, and experienced many reverses, although Custine,[401]

Moreau, Houchard,[402] Beauharnais,[403] and other general officers of

high merit, had already given lustre to the arms of the Republic. The

loss of the strong lines of Weissenburgh, which were carried by General

Wurmser, a distinguished Austrian officer, completed the shade of

disadvantage which here hung on the Republican banners.[404]

In Piedmont, the French were also unsuccessful, though the scale was

less grand and imposing. The republican general Brunet[405] was

unfortunate, and he was forced from his camp at Belvidere; while, on the

side of Savoy, the King of Sardinia also obtained several temporary

advantages.

On the Pyrenees, the Republican armies had been equally unsuccessful. A

Spanish army, conducted with more spirit than had been lately the case

with the troops of that once proud monarchy, had defeated the republican

general Servan, and crossed the Bidassoa. On the eastern extremity of

these celebrated mountains, the Spaniards had taken the towns of Port

Vendre and Ollioulles.[406]

Assailed on so many sides, and by so many enemies, all of whom,

excepting the Sardinians, had more or less made impression upon the

frontiers of the Republic, it might seem, that the only salvation which

remained for France, must have been sought for in the unanimity of her

inhabitants. But so far was the nation from possessing this first of

requisites for a successful opposition to the overpowering coalition

which assailed her, that a dreadful civil war was already waged in the

western provinces of France, which threatened, from its importance and

the success of the insurgents, to undo in a great measure the work of

the Revolution; while similar discords breaking out on different points

in the south, menaced conclusions no less formidable.

[Sidenote: LA VENDÉE.]

It does not belong to us to trace the interesting features of the war in

La Vendée with a minute pencil, but they mingle too much with the

history of the period to be altogether omitted.

We have elsewhere said, that, speaking of La Vendée as a district, it

was there alone, through the whole kingdom of France, that the peasants

and the nobles, in other words, the proprietors and cultivators of the

soil, remained in terms of close and intimate connexion and friendship,

which made them feel the same undivided interest in the great changes

created by the Revolution. The situation of La Vendée, its soil and

character, as well as the manners of the people, had contributed to an

arrangement of interests and habits of thinking, which rendered the

union betwixt these two classes indissoluble.

La Vendée is a wooded and pastoral country, not indeed mountainous, but

abounding in inequalities of ground, crossed by brooks, and intersected

by a variety of canals and ditches, made for drainage, but which become,

with the numerous and intricate thickets, posts of great strength in the

time of war. The enclosures seemed to be won, as it were, out of the

woodland; and the paths which traversed the country were so intricate

and perplexed, as to render it inaccessible to strangers, and not easily

travelled through by the natives themselves. There were almost no roads

practicable for ordinary carriages during the rainy season; and the

rainy season in La Vendée is a long one. The ladies of rank, when they

visited, went in carriages drawn by bullocks; the gentlemen, as well as

the peasants, travelled chiefly on foot; and by assistance of the long

leaping-poles, which they carried for that purpose, surmounted the

ditches and other obstacles which other travellers found impassable.

The whole tract of country is about one hundred and fifty miles square,

and lies at the mouth and on the southern bank of the Loire. The

internal part is called Le Bocage (the Thicket,) because partaking in a

peculiar degree of the wooded and intricate character which belongs to

the whole country. That portion of La Vendée which lies close to the

Loire, and nearer its mouth, is called Le Louroux. The neighbouring

districts partook in the insurrection; but the strength and character

which it assumed was derived chiefly from La Vendée.

The union betwixt the noblesse of La Vendée and their peasants, was of

the most intimate character. Their chief exportations from the district

consisted in the immense herds of cattle which they reared in their

fertile meadows, and which supplied the consumption of the metropolis.

These herds, as well as the land on which they were raised, were in

general the property of the seigneur; but the farmer possessed a joint

interest in the latter. He managed the stock, and disposed of it at

market, and there was an equitable adjustment of their interests in

disposing of the produce.

Their amusements were also in common. The chase of wolves, not only for

the sake of sport, but to clear the woods of those ravenous animals, was

pursued as of yore by the seigneur at the head of his followers and

vassals. Upon the evenings of Sundays and holydays, the young people of

each village and métairie repaired to the court-yard of the chateau, as

the natural and proper scene for their evening amusement, and the family

of the baron often took part in the pastime.

In a word, the two divisions of society depended mutually on each other,

and were strongly knit together by ties, which, in other districts of

France, existed only in particular instances. The Vendéan peasant was

the faithful and attached, though humble friend of his lord; he was his

partner in bad and good fortune; submitted to his decision the disputes

which might occur betwixt him and his neighbours; and had recourse to

his protection if he sustained wrong, or was threatened with injustice

from any one.

This system of simple and patriarchal manners could not have long

subsisted under any great inequality of fortune. Accordingly, we find

that the wealthiest of the Vendéan nobility did not hold estates worth

more than twelve or fifteen hundred a-year, while the lowest might be

three or four hundred. They were not accordingly much tempted by

exuberance of wealth to seek to display magnificence; and such as went

to court, and conformed to the fashions of the capital, were accustomed

to lay them aside in all haste when they returned to the Bocage, and to

reassume the simple manners of their ancestors.

All the incentives to discord which abounded elsewhere through France,

were wanting in this wild and wooded region, where the peasant was the

noble's affectionate partner and friend, the noble the natural judge and

protector of the peasant. The people had retained the feelings of the

ancient French in favour of royalty; they listened with dissatisfaction

and disgust to the accounts of the Revolution as it proceeded; and

feeling themselves none of the evils in which it originated, its whole

tendency became the object of their alarm and suspicion. The

neighbouring districts, and Bretagne in particular, were agitated by

similar commotions; for although the revolutionary principles

predominated in the towns of the west, they were not relished by the

country people any more than by the nobles. Great agitation had for some

time taken place through the provinces of Bretagne, Anjou, Maine, and

Poitou, to which the strength of the insurrection in La Vendée gave

impulse. It was not, however, a political impulse which induced the

Vendéans to take the field. The influence of religion, seconded by that

of natural affection, was the immediate stimulating motive.

In a country so simple and virtuous in its manners as we have described

La Vendée, religious devotion must necessarily be a general attribute of

the inhabitants, who, conscious of loving their neighbours as

themselves, are equally desirous, to the extent of their strength and

capacity, to love and honour the Great Being who created all. The

Vendéans were therefore very regular in the performance of their

prescribed religious duties; and their parish priest, or curé, held an

honoured and influential rank in their little society, was the attendant

of the sick-bed of the peasant, as well for rendering medical as

religious aid; his counsellor in his family affairs, and often the

arbiter of disputes not of sufficient importance to be carried before

the seigneur. The priests were themselves generally natives of the

country, more distinguished for the primitive duty with which they

discharged their office, than for talents and learning. The curé took

frequent share in the large hunting parties, which he announced from the

pulpit, and after having said mass, attended in person with the

fowling-piece on his shoulder. This active and simple manner of life

rendered the priests predisposed to encounter the fatigues of war. They

accompanied the bands of Vendéans with the crucifix displayed, and

promised, in the name of the Deity, victory to the survivors, and honour

to those who fell in the patriotic combat. But Madame La

Roche-Jacquelein repels, as a calumny, their bearing arms, except for

the purpose of self-defence.[407]

Almost all these parish priests were driven from their cures by the

absurd and persecuting fanaticism of that decree of the Assembly, which,

while its promoters railed against illiberality, and intolerance,

deprived of their office and of their livelihood, soon after of liberty

and life, those churchmen who would not renounce the doctrines in which

they had been educated, and which they had sworn to maintain.[408] In La

Vendée, as elsewhere, where the curates resisted this unjust and

impolitic injunction of the legislature, persecution followed on the

part of the government, and was met in its turn by violence on that of

the people.

The peasants maintained in secret their ancient pastors, and attended

their ministry in woods and deserts; while the intruders, who were

settled in the livings of the recusants, dared hardly appear in the

churches without the protection of the national guards.

So early as 1791, when Dumouriez commanded the forces at Nantes, and the

districts adjacent, the flame of dissension had begun to kindle. That

general's sagacity induced him to do his best to appease the quarrel by

moderating betwixt the parties. His military eye detected in the

inhabitants and their country an alarming scene for civil war. He

received the slightest concessions on the part of the parish priests as

satisfactory, and appears to have quieted the disturbances of the

country, at least for a time.[409]

But in 1793, the same cause of discontent, added to others, hurried the

inhabitants of La Vendée into a general insurrection of the most

formidable description. The events of the 10th of August, 1792, had

driven from Paris a great proportion of the Royalist nobility, who had

many of them carried their discontents and their counter-revolutionary

projects into a country prepared to receive and adopt them.

Then followed the Conventional decree, which supported their declaration

of war by a compulsory levy of three hundred thousand men throughout

France. This measure was felt as severe by even those departments in

which the revolutionary principles were most predominant, but was

regarded as altogether intolerable by the Vendéans, averse alike to the

republican cause and principles. They resisted its exaction by main

force, delivered the conscripts in many instances, defeated the national

guards in others, and finding that they had incurred the vengeance of a

sanguinary government, resolved by force to maintain the resistance

which in force had begun. Thus originated that celebrated war, which

raged so long in the very bosom of France, and threatened the stability

of her government, even while the Republic was achieving the most

brilliant victories over her foreign enemies.[410]

It is remote from our purpose to trace the history of these hostilities;

but a sketch of their nature and character is essential to a general

view of the Revolution, and the events connected with it.

[Sidenote: LA CHARETTE.]

The insurgents, though engaged in the same cause, and frequently

co-operating, were divided into different bodies, under leaders

independent of each other. Those of the right bank of the Loire were

chiefly under the orders of the celebrated La Charette, who, descended

from a family distinguished as commanders of privateers, and himself a

naval officer, had taken on him this dangerous command. An early

wandering disposition, not unusual among youth of eager and ambitious

character, had made him acquainted with the inmost recesses of the

woods, and his native genius had induced him to anticipate the military

advantages which they afforded.[411] In his case, as in many others,

either the sagacity of these uninstructed peasants led them to choose

for command men whose talents best fitted them to enjoy it, or perhaps

the perils which environed such authority prevented its being aspired

to, save by those whom a mixture of resolution and prudence led to feel

themselves capable of maintaining their character when invested with it.

It was remarkable also, that in choosing their leaders, the insurgents

made no distinction between the noblesse and the inferior ranks. Names

renowned in ancient history--Talmont, D'Autichamp, L'Escure, and La

Roche-Jacquelein, were joined in equal command with the gamekeeper

Stoflet; Cathelineau, an itinerant wool-merchant; La Charette, a

roturier of slight pretensions; and others of the lowest order, whom the

time and the public voice called into command, but who, nevertheless, do

not seem, in general, to have considered their official command as

altering the natural distinction of their rank in society.[412] In their

success, they formed a general council of officers, priests, and others,

who held their meetings at Chatillon, and directed the military

movements of the different bodies; assembled them at pleasure on

particular points, and for particular objects of service; and dispersed

them to their homes when these were accomplished.

[Sidenote: WAR OF LA VENDÉE.]

With an organization so simple, the Vendéan insurgents, in about two

months, possessed themselves of several towns and an extensive tract of

country; and though repeatedly attacked by regular forces, commanded by

experienced generals, they were far more frequently victors than

vanquished, and inflicted more loss on the Republicans by gaining a

single battle, than they themselves sustained in repeated defeats.

Yet at first their arms were of the most simple and imperfect kind.

Fowling-pieces, and fusees of every calibre, they possessed from their

habits as huntsmen and fowlers; for close encounter they had only

scythes, axes, clubs, and such weapons as anger places most readily in

the hands of the peasant. Their victories, latterly, supplied them with

arms in abundance, and they manufactured gunpowder for their own use in

great quantity.

Their tactics were peculiar to themselves, but of a kind so well suited

to their country and their habits, that it seems impossible to devise a

better and more formidable system. The Vendéan took the field with the

greatest simplicity of military equipment. His scrip served as a

cartridge box, his uniform was the country short jacket and pantaloons,

which he wore at his ordinary labour; a cloth knapsack contained bread

and some necessaries, and thus he was ready for service. They were

accustomed to move with great secrecy and silence amongst the thickets

and enclosures by which their country is intersected, and were thus

enabled to choose at pleasure the most favourable points of attack or

defence. Their army, unlike any other in the world, was not divided into

companies, or regiments, but followed in bands, and at their pleasure,

the chiefs to whom they were most attached. Instead of drums or military

music, they used, like the ancient Swiss and Scottish soldiers, the

horns of cattle for giving signals to their troops. Their officers wore,

for distinction, a sort of chequered red handkerchief, knotted round

their head, with others of the same colour tied round their waist, by

way of sash, in which they stuck their pistols.[413]

The attack of the Vendéans was that of sharpshooters. They dispersed

themselves so as to surround their adversaries with a semicircular fire,

maintained by a body of formidable marksmen, accustomed to take aim with

fatal precision, and whose skill was the more dreadful, because, being

habituated to take advantage of every tree, bush, or point of shelter,

those who were dealing destruction amongst others, were themselves

comparatively free from risk. This manœuvre was termed _s'égaler_;

and the execution of it resembling the Indian bush-fighting, was, like

the attack of the red warriors, accompanied by whoops and shouts, which

seemed, from the extended space through which they resounded, to

multiply the number of the assailants.

When the Republicans, galled in this manner, pressed forward to a close

attack, they found no enemy on which to wreak their vengeance; for the

loose array of the Vendéans gave immediate passage to the head of the

charging column, while its flanks, as it advanced, were still more

exposed than before to the murderous fire of their invisible enemies. In

this manner they were sometimes led on from point to point, until the

regulars, meeting with a barricade, or an _abatis_, or a strong position

in front, or becoming perhaps involved in a defile, the Vendéans

exchanged their fatal musketry for a close and furious onset, throwing

themselves with the most devoted courage among the enemy's ranks, and

slaughtering them in great numbers. If, on the other hand, the

insurgents were compelled to give way, a pursuit was almost as dangerous

to the Republicans as an engagement. The Vendéan, when hard pressed,

threw away his clogs, or wooden shoes, of which he could make himself a

new pair at the next resting-place, sprang over a fence or canal, loaded

his fusee as he ran, and discharged it at the pursuer with a fatal aim,

whenever he found opportunity of pausing for that purpose.

This species of combat, which the ground rendered so advantageous to the

Vendéans, was equally so in case of victory or defeat. If the

Republicans were vanquished, their army was nearly destroyed; for the

preservation of order became impossible, and without order their

extermination was inevitable, while baggage, ammunition, carriages,

guns, and all the material part, as it is called, of the defeated army,

fell into possession of the conquerors. On the other hand, if the

Vendéans sustained a loss, the victors found nothing on the field but

the bodies of the slain, and the _sabots_, or wooden shoes of the

fugitives. The few prisoners whom they made had generally thrown away or

concealed their arms, and their army having no baggage or carriages of

any kind, could of course lose none. Pursuit was very apt to convert an

advantage into a defeat; for the cavalry could not act, and the

infantry, dispersed in the chase, became frequent victims to those whom

they pursued.

In the field, the Vendéans were courageous to rashness. They hesitated

not to attack and carry artillery with no other weapons than their

staves; and most of their worst losses proceeded from their attacking

fortified towns and positions with the purpose of carrying them by main

force. After conquest they were in general humane and merciful: but this

depended on the character of their chiefs. At Machecoul, the insurgents

conducted themselves with great ferocity in the very beginning of the

civil war; and towards the end of it, mutual and reciprocal injuries had

so exasperated the parties against each other, that quarter was neither

given nor taken on either side. Yet until provoked by the extreme

cruelties of the Revolutionary party, and unless when conducted by some

peculiarly ferocious chief, the character of the Vendéans united

clemency with courage. They gave quarter readily to the vanquished, but

having no means of retaining prisoners, they usually shaved their heads

before they set them at liberty, that they might be distinguished if

found again in arms, contrary to their parole. A no less striking

feature, was the severity of a discipline respecting property, which was

taught them only by their moral sense. No temptation could excite them

to pillage; and Madame La Roche-Jacquelein has preserved the following

singular instance of their simple honesty:--After the peasants had taken

the town of Bressuire by storm, she overheard two or three of them

complain of the want of tobacco, to the use of which they were addicted,

like the natives of moist countries in general. "What," said the lady,

"is there no tobacco in the shops?"--"Tobacco enough," answered the

simple-hearted and honest peasants, who had not learned to make steel

supply the want of gold,--"tobacco enough; but we have no money to pay

for it."[414]

Amidst these primitive warriors were mingled many gentlemen of the first

families in France, who, Royalists from principle, had fled to La Vendée

rather than submit to the dominion of the Convention, or the

Convention's yet more cruel masters. There were found many men, the

anecdotes told of whom remind us continually of the age of Henri Quatre,

and the heroes of chivalry. In these ranks, and almost on a level with

the valiant peasants of which they were composed, fought the calm,

steady, and magnanimous L'Escure,--D'Elbée, a man of the most

distinguished military reputation,--Bonchamp, the gallant and the able

officer, who, like the Constable Montmorency, with all his talent, was

persecuted by fortune,--the chivalrous Henry La Roche-Jacquelein, whose

call upon his soldiers was--"If I fly, slay me--if I advance, follow

me--if I fall, avenge me;" with other names distinguished[415] in the

roll of fame, and not the less so, that they have been recorded by the

pen of affection.

The object of the insurrection was announced in the title of The Royal

and Catholic Army, assumed by the Vendéans. In their moments of highest

hope their wishes were singularly modest. Had they gained Paris, and

replaced the royal authority in France, they meditated the following

simple boons:--1. They had resolved to petition, that the name of La

Vendée be given to the Bocage and its dependencies, which should be

united under a separate administration, instead of forming, as at

present, a part of three distinct provinces. 2. That the restored

monarch would honour the Bocage with a visit. 3. That in remembrance of

the loyal services of the country, a white flag should be displayed from

each steeple, and the King should add a cohort of Vendéans to his

body-guard. 4. That former useful projects of improving the navigation

of the Loire and its canals, should be perfected by the government. So

little of selfish hope or ambition was connected with the public spirit

of these patriarchal warriors.

The war of La Vendée was waged with various fate for nearly two years,

during which the insurgents, or brigands as they were termed, gained by

far the greater number of advantages, though with means infinitely

inferior to those of the government, which detached against them one

general after another, at the head of numerous armies, with equally

indifferent success. Most of the Republicans intrusted with this fatal

command suffered by the guillotine, for not having done that which

circumstances rendered impossible.

Upwards of two hundred battles and skirmishes were fought in this

devoted country. The revolutionary fever was in its access; the shedding

of blood seemed to have become positive pleasure to the perpetrators of

slaughter, and was varied by each invention which cruelty could invent

to give it new zest. The habitations of the Vendéans were destroyed,

their families subjected to violation and massacre, their cattle houghed

and slaughtered, and their crops burnt and wasted. One Republican column

assumed and merited the name of the Infernal, by the horrid atrocities

which they committed. At Pillau, they roasted the women and children in

a heated oven. Many similar horrors could be added, did not the heart

and hand recoil from the task. Without quoting any more special

instances of horror, we use the words of a Republican eyewitness, to

express the general spectacle presented by the theatre of civil

conflict:--

"I did not see a single male being at the towns of Saint Hermand,

Chantonnay, or Herbiers. A few women alone had escaped the sword.

Country-seats, cottages, habitations of whichever kind, were burnt. The

herds and flocks were wandering in terror around their usual places of

shelter, now smoking in ruins. I was surprised by night, but the

wavering and dismal blaze of conflagration afforded light over the

country. To the bleating of the disturbed flocks, and bellowing of the

terrified cattle, was joined the deep hoarse notes of carrion crows, and

the yells of wild animals coming from the recesses of the woods to prey

on the carcasses of the slain. At length a distant column of fire,

widening and increasing as I approached, served me as a beacon. It was

the town of Mortagne in flames. When I arrived there, no living

creatures were to be seen, save a few wretched women who were striving

to save some remnants of their property from the general

conflagration."[416]

Such is civil war! and to this pass had its extremities reduced the

smiling, peaceful, and virtuous country, which we have described a few

pages before!

It is no wonder, after such events, that the hearts of the peasants

became hardened in turn, and that they executed fearful vengeance on

those who could not have the face to expect mercy. We read, therefore,

without surprise, that the Republican General Haxo,[417] a man of great

military talent, and who had distinguished himself in the Vendéan war,

shot himself through the head, when he saw his army defeated by the

insurgents, rather than encounter their vengeance.

During the superiority of the Vendéans, it may be asked why their

efforts, so gigantic in themselves, never extended beyond the frontier

of their own country; and why an insurrection, so considerable and so

sustained, neither made any great impression on the French Convention,

where they were spoken of only as a handful of brigands, nor on foreign

nations, by whom their existence, far less their success, seems hardly

to have been known? On the former subject, it is perhaps sufficient to

observe, that the war of the Vendéans, and their mode of conducting it,

so formidable in their own country, became almost nugatory when extended

into districts of an open character, and affording high-roads and

plains, by which cavalry and artillery could act against peasants, who

formed no close ranks, and carried no bayonets. Besides, the Vendéans

remained bound to their ordinary occupation--they were necessarily

children of the soil--and their army usually dispersed after the battle

was over, to look after their cattle, cultivate the plot of arable land,

and attend to their families. The discipline of their array, in which

mere good-will supplied the place of the usual distinctions of rank,

would not have been sufficient to keep them united in long and distant

marches, and they must have found the want of a commissariat, a train of

baggage, field-pieces, a general staff, and all the other accompaniments

of a regular army, which, in the difficult country of La Vendée,

familiar to the natives, and unknown to strangers, could be so easily

dispensed with. In a word, an army which, under circumstances of hope

and excitation, might one day amount to thirty or forty thousand, and on

the next be diminished to the tenth part of the number, might be

excellent for fighting battles, but could not be relied on for making

conquests, or securing the advantages of victory.

It is not but that a man of D'Elbée's knowledge in the art of war, who

acted as one of their principal leaders, meditated higher objects for

the Vendéans than merely the defence of their own province.

A superb prospect offered itself to them by a meditated attack on the

town of Nantes. Upon the success of this attempt turned, perhaps, the

fate of the Revolution. This beautiful and important commercial city is

situated on the right bank of the Loire, which is there a fine navigable

river, about twenty-seven miles from its junction with the sea. It is

without fortifications of any regular description, but had a garrison of

perhaps ten thousand men, and was covered by such hasty works of defence

as time had permitted them to erect. The force of the Vendéans by which

it was attacked, has been estimated so high as thirty or forty thousand

men under D'Elbée, while the place was blockaded on the left bank by

Charette, and an army of Royalists equal in number to the actual

assailants. Had this important place been gained, it would probably have

changed the face of the war. One or more of the French princes might

have resorted there with such adherents as they had then in arms. The

Loire was open to succours from England, the indecision of whose cabinet

might have been determined by a success so important. Bretagne and

Normandy, already strongly disposed to the royal cause, would have, upon

such encouragement, risen in mass upon the Republicans; and as Poitou

and Anjou were already in possession of the Royal and Catholic Army,

they might probably have opened a march upon Paris, distracted as the

capital then was by civil and foreign war.[418]

Accordingly, [June 18th,] the rockets which were thrown up, and the

sound of innumerable bugle-horns, intimated to General Canclaux, who

commanded the town, that he was to repel a general attack of the

Vendéans. Fortunately, for the infant republic, he was a man of military

skill and high courage, and by his dexterous use of such means of

defence as the place afforded, and particularly by a great superiority

of artillery, he was enabled to baffle the attacks of the Vendéans,

although they penetrated, with the utmost courage, into the suburbs, and

engaged at close quarters the Republican troops. They were compelled to

retreat after a fierce combat, which lasted from three in the morning

till four in the afternoon.[419]

At different times after the failure of this bold and well-imagined

attempt, opportunities occurred during which the allies, and the English

government in particular, might have thrown important succours into La

Vendée. The island of Noirmoutier was for some time in possession of the

Royalists, when arms and money might have been supplied to them to any

amount. Auxiliary forces would probably have been of little service,

considering in what sort of country they were to be engaged, and with

what species of troops they were to act. At least it would have required

the talents of a Peterborough or a Montrose, in a foreign commander, to

have freed himself sufficiently from the trammels of military pedantry,

and availed himself of the peculiar qualities of such troops as the

Vendéans, irresistible after their own fashion, but of a character the

most opposite possible to the ideas of excellence entertained by a mere

martinet.

[Sidenote: DIVISIONS IN THE BRITISH CABINET.]

But it is now well known, there was a division in the British Cabinet

concerning the mode of carrying on the war. Pitt was extremely unwilling

to interfere with the internal government of France. He desired to see

the barrier of Flanders, so foolishly thrown open by the Emperor Joseph,

again re-established, and he hoped from the success of the allied arms,

that this might be attained,--that the French lust for attacking their

neighbours might be ended--their wildness for crusading in the cause of

innovation checked, and some political advances to a regular government

effected. On the other hand, the enthusiastic, ingenious, but somewhat

extravagant opinions of Windham, led him to espouse those of Burke in

their utmost extent; and he recommended to England, as to Europe, the

replacing the Bourbons, with the ancient royal government and

constitution, as the fundamental principle on which the war should be

waged. This variance of opinion so far divided the British counsels,

that, as it proved, no sufficient efforts were made, either on the one

line of conduct or the other.

Indeed, Madame La Roche-Jacquelein (who, however, we are apt to think,

has been in some degree misled in her account of that matter) says, the

only despatches received by the Vendéans from the British Cabinet,

indicated a singular ignorance of the state of La Vendée, which was

certainly near enough to Jersey and Guernsey, to have afforded the means

of obtaining accurate information upon the nature and principles of the

Vendéan insurrection.

The leaders of _The Royal and Catholic Army_ received their first

communication from Britain through a Royalist emissary, the Chevalier de

Tinténiac, who carried them concealed in the wadding of his pistols,

addressed to a supposed chief named Gaston, whose name had scarce been

known among them. In this document they were required to say for what

purpose they were in arms, whether in behalf of the old government, or

of the constitution of 1791, or the principles of the Girondists? These

were strange questions to be asked of men who had been in the field as

pure Royalists for more than five months, who might have reasonably

hoped that the news of their numerous and important victories had

resounded through all Europe, but must at least have expected they

should be well known to those neighbours of France who were at war with

her present government. Assistance was promised, but in a general and

indecisive way; nor did the testimony of M. de Tinténiac give his

friends much assurance that it was seriously proposed. In fact, no

support ever arrived until after the first pacification of La Vendée.

The ill-fated expedition to Quiberon, delayed until the cause of royalty

was nigh hopeless, was at length undertaken, when its only consequence

was that of involving in absolute destruction a multitude of brave and

high-spirited men. But on looking back on a game so doubtful, it is easy

to criticize the conduct of the players; and perhaps no blunder in war

or politics is so common, as that which arises from missing the proper

moment of exertion.[420]

The French, although more able to seize the advantageous opportunity

than we, (for their government being always in practice something

despotic, is at liberty to act more boldly, secretly, and decisively,

than that of England,) are nevertheless chargeable with similar errors.

If the English Cabinet missed the opportunities given by the

insurrection of La Vendée, the French did not more actively improve

those afforded by the Irish rebellion; and if we had to regret the too

tardy and unhappy expedition to Quiberon, they in their turn might

repent having thrown away the troops whom they landed at Castlehaven,

after the pacification of Ireland, for the sole purpose, it would seem,

of surrendering at Ballinamuck.

It is yet more wonderful, that a country whose dispositions were so

loyal, and its local advantages so strong, should not have been made by

the loyalists in general the centre of those counter-revolutionary

exertions which were vainly expended on the iron eastern frontier, where

the fine army of Condé wasted their blood about paltry frontier redoubts

and fortresses. The nobles and gentlemen of France, fighting abreast

with the gallant peasants of La Vendée, inspired with the same

sentiments of loyalty with themselves, would have been more suitably

placed than in the mercenary ranks of foreign nations. It is certain

that the late King Louis XVIII., and also his present Majesty,[421] were

desirous to have exposed their persons in the war of La Vendée. The

former wrote to the Duke d'Harcourt--"What course remains for me but La

Vendée? Who can place me there?--England--Insist upon that point; and

tell the English ministers in my name, that I demand from them a crown

or a tomb."[422] If there were a serious intention of supporting these

unfortunate princes, the means of this experiment ought to have been

afforded them, and that upon no stinted scale. The error of England,

through all the early part of the war, was an unwillingness to

proportion her efforts to the importance of the ends she had in view.

Looking upon the various chances which might have befriended the

unparalleled exertions of the Vendéans, considering the generous,

virtuous, and disinterested character of those primitive soldiers, it is

with sincere sorrow that we proceed to trace their extermination by the

bloodthirsty ruffians of the Reign of Terror. Yet the course of

Providence, after the lapse of time, is justified even in our weak and

undiscerning eyes. We should indeed have read with hearts throbbing with

the just feelings of gratified vengeance, that La Charette or La

Roche-Jacquelein had successfully achieved, at the head of their gallant

adherents, the road to Paris--had broke in upon the committees of public

safety and public security, like Thalaba the Destroyer[423] into the

Dom-daniel; and with the same dreadful result to the agents of the

horrors with which these revolutionary bodies had deluged France. But

such a reaction, accomplished solely for the purpose of restoring the

old despotic monarchy, could not have brought peace to France or to

Europe; nay, could only have laid a foundation for farther and more

lasting quarrels. The flame of liberty had been too widely spread in

France to be quenched even by such a triumph of royalty as we have

supposed, however pure the principles and high the spirit of the

Vendéans. It was necessary that the nation should experience both the

extremes of furious license and of stern despotism, to fix the hopes of

the various contending parties upon a form of government, in which a

limited power in the monarch should be united to the enjoyment of all

rational freedom in the subject. We return to our sad task.

[Sidenote: WAR OF LA VENDÉE.]

Notwithstanding the desolating mode in which the Republicans conducted

the war, with the avowed purpose of rendering La Vendée uninhabitable,

the population seemed to increase in courage, and even in numbers, as

their situation became more desperate. Renewed armies were sent into the

devoted district, and successively destroyed in assaults, skirmishes,

and ambuscades, where they were not slaughtered in general actions. More

than a hundred thousand men were employed at one time, in their efforts

to subjugate this devoted province. But this could not last for ever;

and a chance of war upon the frontiers, which threatened reverses to the

Convention, compensated them by furnishing new forces, and of a higher

description in point of character and discipline, for the subjection of

La Vendée.

This was the surrender of the town of Mentz to the Prussians. By the

capitulation, a garrison of near fifteen thousand experienced soldiers,

and some officers of considerable name, were debarred from again bearing

arms against the allies. These troops were employed in La Vendée, where

the scale had already begun to preponderate against the dauntless and

persevering insurgents. At the first encounters, the soldiers of Mentz,

unacquainted with the Vendéan mode of fighting, sustained loss, and were

thought lightly of by the Royalists.[424] This opinion of their new

adversaries was changed, in consequence of a defeat [Oct. 17] near

Chollet, more dreadful in its consequences than any which the Vendéans

had yet received, and which determined their generals to pass the Loire

with their whole collected force, leave their beloved Bocage to the axes

and brands of the victors, and carry the war into Bretagne, where they

expected either to be supported by a descent of the English, or by a

general insurrection of the inhabitants.[425]

In this military emigration the Royalists were accompanied by their

aged people, their wives, and their children; so that their melancholy

march resembled that of the Cimbrians or Helvetians of old, when

abandoning their ancient dwellings, they wandered forth to find new

settlements in a more fertile land. They crossed the river near Saint

Florent, and the banks were blackened with nearly a hundred thousand

pilgrims of both sexes, and of every age. The broad river was before

them, and behind them their burning cottages and the exterminating sword

of the Republicans. The means of embarkation were few and precarious;

the affright of the females almost ungovernable; and such was the tumult

and terror of the scene, that, in the words of Madame La

Roche-Jacquelein, the awe-struck spectators could only compare it to the

day of judgment.[426] Without food, directions, or organization of any

kind--without the show of an army, saving in the front and rear of the

column, the centre consisting of their defenceless families marching

together in a mass--these indomitable peasants defeated a Republican

army under the walls of Laval.

The garrison of Mentz, whose arrival in La Vendée had been so fatal to

the insurgents, and who had pursued them in a state of rout, as they

thought, out of their own country, across the Loire, were almost

exterminated in this most unexpected defeat. An unsuccessful attack upon

Granville more than counterbalanced this advantage, and although the

Vendéans afterwards obtained a brilliant victory at Dol, it was the last

success of what was termed the Great Army of La Vendée, and which well

deserved that title, on more accounts than in its more ordinary sense.

They had now lost, by the chances of war, most of their best chiefs; and

misfortunes, and the exasperating feelings attending them, had

introduced disunion, which had been so long a stranger to their singular

association. Charette was reflected upon as being little willing to aid

La Roche-Jacquelein; and Stoflet seems to have set up an independent

standard. The insurgents were defeated at Mons, where of three

Republican generals of name, Westermann, Marçeau, and Kleber, the first

disgraced himself by savage cruelty, and the other two gained honour by

their clemency. Fifteen thousand male and female natives of La Vendée

perished in the battle and the massacre which ensued.[427]

But though La Vendée, after this decisive loss, which included some of

her best troops and bravest generals, could hardly be said to exist, La

Charette continued, with indefatigable diligence, and undaunted courage,

to sustain the insurrection of Lower Poitou and Bretagne. He was

followed by a division of peasants from the Marais, whose activity in

marshy grounds gave them similar advantages to those possessed by the

Vendéans in their woodlands. He was followed also by the inhabitants of

Morbihan, called, from their adherence to royalism, the Little La

Vendée. He was the leader, besides, of many of the bands called

Chouans, a name of doubtful origin given to the insurgents of Bretagne,

but which their courage has rendered celebrated.[428] La Charette

himself, who, with these and other forces, continued to sustain the

standard of royalty in Bretagne and Poitou, was one of those

extraordinary characters, made to shine amidst difficulties and dangers.

As prudent and cautious as he was courageous and adventurous, he was at

the same time so alert and expeditious in his motions, that he usually

appeared at the time and place where his presence was least expected and

most formidable. A Republican officer, who had just taken possession of

a village, and was speaking of the Royalist leader as of a person at

twenty leagues' distance, said publicly,--"I should like to see this

famous Charette."--"There he is," said a woman, pointing with her

finger. In fact, he was at that moment in the act of charging the

Republican troops, who were all either slain or made prisoners.

[Sidenote: TREATY WITH LA CHARETTE.]

After the fall of Robespierre, the Convention made offers of

pacification to La Charette, which were adjusted betwixt the Vendéan

chief and General Canclaux,[429] the heroic defender of Nantes. The

articles of treaty were subscribed in that place, which La Charette

entered at the head of his military staff, with his long white plume

streaming in the wind. He heard with coldness shouts of welcome from a

city, to which his name had been long a terror; and there was a gloom on

his brow as he signed his name to the articles agreed upon. He certainly

suspected the faith of those with whom he transacted, and they did not

by any means confide in his. An armistice was agreed on until the

Convention should ratify the pacification. But this never took place.

Mutual complaints and recriminations followed, and the soldiers of La

Charette and of the Republic began once more to make a petty war on each

other.

Meantime, that party in the British Cabinet which declared for a descent

on France, in name and on behalf of the successor to the crown, had

obtained the acquiescence of their colleagues in an experiment of this

nature; but unhappily it had been postponed until its success had become

impossible. The force, too, which composed this experimental operation,

was injudiciously selected. A certain proportion consisted of emigrants,

in whom the highest confidence might be with justice reposed; but about

two battalions of this invading expedition were vagrant foreigners of

various descriptions, many or most of them enlisted from among the

prisoners of war, who readily took any engagement to get out of

captivity, with the mental resolution of breaking it the first

opportunity. Besides these imprudences, the purpose and time of

executing a project, which, to be successful, should have been secret

and sudden, were generally known in France and England before the

expedition weighed anchor.

The event, as is universally known, was most disastrous: The mercenaries

deserted to the Republicans as soon as they got ashore; and the

unfortunate emigrants, who became prisoners in great numbers, were

condemned and executed without mercy. The ammunition and muskets, of

which a quantity had been landed, fell into the hands of the enemy; and

what was worse, England did not, among other lighter losses, entirely

save her honour. She was severely censured as giving up her allies to

destruction, because she had yielded to the wishes which enthusiastic

and courageous men had elevated into hope.

Nothing, indeed, can be more difficult, than to state the just extent of

support, which can prudently be extended by one nation to a civil

faction in the bosom of another. Indeed, nothing short of

success--absolute success--will prove the justification of such

enterprises in the eyes of some, who will allege, in the event of

failure, that men have been enticed into perils, in which they have not

been adequately supported; or of others, who will condemn such measures

as squandering the public resources, in enterprises which ought not to

have been encouraged at all. But in fair judgment, the expedition of

Quiberon ought not to be summarily condemned. It was neither inadequate,

nor, excepting as to the description of some of the forces employed, ill

calculated for the service proposed. Had such reinforcements and

supplies arrived while the Royalists were attacking Nantes or Grenoble,

or while they yet held the island of Noirmoutier, the good consequences

to the royal cause might have been incalculable. But the expedition was

ill-timed, and that was in a great measure owing to those unfortunate

gentlemen engaged, who, impatient of inactivity, and sanguine by

character, urged the British Ministry, or rather Mr. Windham, to

authorise the experiment, without fully considering more than their own

zeal and courage. We cannot, however, go so far as to say, that their

impatience relieved ministers from the responsibility attached to the

indifferent intelligence on which they acted. There could be no

difficulty in getting full information on the state of Bretagne by way

of Jersey; and they ought to have known that there was a strong French

force collected from various garrisons, for the purpose of guarding

against a descent at Quiberon.[430]

After this unfortunate affair, and some subsequent vain attempts to

throw in supplies on the part of the English, La Charette still

continued in open war. But Hoche, an officer of high reputation, was now

sent into the disturbed districts, with a larger army than had yet been

employed against them. He was thus enabled to form moveable columns,

which acted in concert, supporting each other when unsuccessful, or

completing each other's victory when such was obtained. La Charette,

after his band was almost entirely destroyed, was himself made prisoner.

Being condemned to be shot, he refused to have his eyes covered, and

died as courageously as he had lived. With him and Stoflet, who suffered

a similar fate, the war of La Vendée terminated.

To trace this remarkable civil war, even so slightly as we have

attempted the task, has carried us beyond the course of our narrative.

It broke out in the beginning of March 1793, and La Charette's

execution, by which it was closed, took place at Nantes, 29th March,

1796. The astonishing part of the matter is, that so great a

conflagration should not have extended itself beyond a certain limited

district, while within that region it raged with such fury, that for a

length of time no means of extinguishing it could be discovered.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: STATE OF THE PROVINCES.]

We now return to the state of France in spring 1793, when the Jacobins,

who had possessed themselves of the supreme power of the Republic, found

that they had to contend, not only with the allied forces on two

frontiers of France, and with the Royalists in the west, but also with

more than one of the great commercial towns, which, with less

inclination to the monarchical cause, than a general terror of

revolutionary measures, prepared for resistance, after the proscription

of the Girondists upon the 31st of May.

Bourdeaux, Marseilles, Toulon, and Lyons, had declared themselves

against the Jacobin supremacy. Rich from commerce and their maritime

situation, and, in the case of Lyons, from their command of internal

navigation, the wealthy merchants and manufacturers of those cities

foresaw the total insecurity of property, and in consequence their own

ruin, in the system of arbitrary spoliation and murder upon which the

government of the Jacobins was founded. But property, for which they

were solicitous, though, if its natural force is used in time, the most

powerful barrier to withstand revolution, becomes, after a certain

period of delay, its most helpless victim. If the rich are in due season

liberal of their means, they have the power of enlisting in their cause,

and as adherents, those among the lower orders, who, if they see their

superiors dejected and despairing, will be tempted to consider them as

objects of plunder. But this must be done early, or those who might be

made the most active defenders of property will join with such as are

prepared to make a prey of it.

We have already seen that Bourdeaux, in which the Brissotines or

Girondists had ventured to hope for a zeal purely republican, at once

adverse to royalty and to Jacobin domination, had effectually

disappointed their expectations, and succumbed with little struggle

under the ferocious victors.

Marseilles showed at once her good-will and her impotency of means. The

utmost exertions of that wealthy city, whose revolutionary band had

contributed so much to the downfall of the monarchy in the attack on the

Tuileries, were able to equip only a small and doubtful army of about

three thousand men, who were despatched to the relief of Lyons. This

inconsiderable army threw themselves into Avignon, and were defeated

with the utmost ease, by the republican general Cartaux,[431] despicable

as a military officer, and whose forces would not have stood a single

_également_ of the Vendéan sharp-shooters. Marseilles received the

victors, and bowed her head to the subsequent horrors which it pleased

Cartaux, with two formidable Jacobins, Barras and Fréron,[432] to

inflict on that flourishing city. The place underwent the usual terrors

of Jacobin purification, and was for a time affectedly called, "the

nameless commune."[433]

[Sidenote: REVOLT OF LYONS.]

Lyons made a more honourable stand. That noble city had been subjected

for some time to the domination of Châlier, one of the most ferocious,

and at the same time one of the most extravagantly absurd, of the

Jacobins. He was at the head of a formidable club, which was worthy of

being affiliated with the mother society, and ambitious of treading in

its footsteps; and he was supported by a garrison of two revolutionary

regiments, besides a numerous artillery, and a large addition of

volunteers, amounting in all to about ten thousand men, forming what was

called a revolutionary army. This Châlier was an apostate priest, an

atheist, and a thorough-paced pupil in the school of terror. He had been

created Procureur of the Commune, and had imposed on the wealthy

citizens a tax, which was raised from six to thirty millions of livres.

But blood as well as gold was his object. The massacre of a few priests

and aristocrats confined in the fortress of Pierre-Seize, was a pitiful

sacrifice; and Châlier, ambitious of deeds more decisive, caused a

general arrest of an hundred principal citizens, whom he destined as a

hecatomb more worthy of the demon whom he served.

This sacrifice was prevented by the courage of the Lyonnois a courage

which, if assumed by the Parisians, might have prevented most of the

horrors which disgraced the Revolution. The meditated slaughter was

already announced by Châlier to the Jacobin Club. "Three hundred heads,"

he said, "are marked for slaughter. Let us lose no time in seizing the

members of the departmental office-bearers, the presidents and

secretaries of the sections, all the local authorities who obstruct our

revolutionary measures. Let us make one fagot of the whole, and deliver

them at once to the guillotine."

But ere he could execute his threat, terror was awakened into the

courage of despair. The citizens rose in arms, [May 29,] and besieged

the Hôtel de Ville, in which Châlier, with his revolutionary troops,

made a desperate, and for some time a successful, yet ultimately a vain

defence. But the Lyonnois unhappily knew not how to avail themselves of

their triumph. They were not sufficiently aware of the nature of the

vengeance which they had provoked, or of the necessity of supporting the

bold step which they had taken, by measures which precluded a

compromise. Their resistance to the violence and atrocity of the

Jacobins had no political character, any more than that offered by the

traveller against robbers who threaten him with plunder and murder. They

were not sufficiently aware, that, having done so much, they must

necessarily do more. They ought, by declaring themselves Royalists, to

have endeavoured to prevail on the troops of Savoy, if not on the Swiss,

who had embraced a species of neutrality, (which, after the 10th of

August, was dishonourable to their ancient reputation,) to send in all

haste soldiery to the assistance of a city which had no fortifications

or regular troops to defend it; but which possessed, nevertheless,

treasures to pay their auxiliaries, and strong hands and able officers

to avail themselves of the localities of their situation, which, when

well defended, are sometimes as formidable as the regular protection

erected by scientific engineers.

The people of Lyons vainly endeavoured to establish a revolutionary

character for themselves, upon the system of the Gironde; two of whose

proscribed deputies, Biroteau and Chasset, tried to draw them over to

their unpopular and hopeless cause; and they inconsistently sought

protection by affecting a republican zeal, even while resisting the

decrees, and defeating the troops of the Jacobins. There were

undoubtedly many of royalist principles among the insurgents, and some

of their leaders were decidedly such; but these were not numerous or

influential enough to establish the true principle of open resistance,

and the ultimate chance of rescue, by a bold proclamation of the King's

interest. They still appealed to the Convention as their legitimate

sovereign, in whose eyes they endeavoured to vindicate themselves, and

at the same time tried to secure the interest of two Jacobin deputies,

who had countenanced every violence attempted by Châlier, that they

might prevail upon them to represent their conduct favourably. Of course

they had enough of promises to this effect, while Messrs. Guathier and

Nioche, the deputies in question, remained in their power; promises,

doubtless, the more readily given, that the Lyonnois, though desirous to

conciliate the favour of the Convention, did not hesitate in proceeding

to the punishment of the Jacobin Châlier. He was condemned and executed,

along with one of his principal associates, termed Ribard.[434]

To defend these vigorous proceedings, the unhappy insurgents placed

themselves under the interim government of a council, who, still

desirous to temporize and maintain the revolutionary character, termed

themselves "The Popular and Republican Commission of Public Safety of

the Department of the Rhone and Loire;" a title which, while it excited

no popular enthusiasm, and attracted no foreign aid, noways soothed, but

rather exasperated, the resentment of the Convention, now under the

absolute domination of the Jacobins, by whom every thing short of

complete fraternization was accounted presumptuous defiance. Those who

were not with them, it was their policy to hold as their most decided

enemies.

The Lyonnois had, indeed, letters of encouragement, and promised

concurrence, from several departments; but no effectual support was ever

directed towards their city, excepting the petty reinforcement from

Marseilles, which we have seen was intercepted and dispersed with little

trouble by the Jacobin General Cartaux.

Lyons had expected to become the patroness and focus of an Anti-jacobin

league, formed by the great commercial towns, against Paris and the

predominant part of the Convention. She found herself isolated and

unsupported, and left to oppose her own proper forces and means of

defence, to an army of sixty thousand men, and to the numerous Jacobins

contained within her own walls. About the end of July, after a lapse of

an interval of two months, a regular blockade was formed around the

city, and in the first week of August hostilities took place. The

besieging army was directed in its military character by General

Kellerman, who, with other distinguished soldiers, had now begun to hold

an eminent rank in the Republican armies. But for the purpose of

executing the vengeance for which they thirsted, the Jacobins relied

chiefly on the exertions of the deputies they had sent along with the

commander, and especially of the representative Dubois-Crancé, a man

whose sole merit appears to have been his frantic Jacobinism. General

Précy, formerly an officer in the Royal service, undertook the almost

hopeless task of defence, and by forming redoubts on the most

commanding situations around the town, commenced a resistance against

the immensely superior force of the besiegers, which was honourable if

it could have been useful. The Lyonnois, at the same time, still

endeavoured to make fair weather with the besieging army, by

representing themselves as firm Republicans. They celebrated as a public

festival the anniversary of the 10th of August, while Dubois-Crancé, to

show the credit he gave them for their republican zeal, fixed the same

day for commencing his fire on the place, and caused the first gun to be

discharged by his own concubine, a female born in Lyons. Bombs and

red-hot bullets were next resorted to, against the second city of the

French empire; while the besieged sustained the attack with a constancy,

and on many parts repelled it with a courage, highly honourable to their

character.

But their fate was determined. The deputies announced to the Convention

their purpose of pouring their instruments of havoc on every quarter of

the town at once, and when it was on fire in several places to attempt a

general storm. "The city," they said, "must surrender, or there shall

not remain one stone upon another, and this we hope to accomplish in

spite of the suggestions of false compassion. Do not then be surprised

when you shall hear that Lyons exists no longer." The fury of the attack

threatened to make good these promises.

In the meantime the Piedmontese troops made a show of descending from

their mountains to the succour of the city, and it is probable their

interference would have given a character of royalism to the

insurrection. But the incursion of the Piedmontese and Sardinians was

speedily repelled by the skill of Kellerman, and produced no effect in

favour of the city of Lyons, except that of supporting for a time the

courage of its defenders.

The sufferings of the citizens became intolerable. Several quarters of

the city were on fire at the same time, immense magazines were burnt to

the ground, and a loss incurred, during two nights' bombardment, which

was calculated at two hundred millions of livres. A black flag was

hoisted by the besieged on the Great Hospital, as a sign that the fire

of the assailants should not be directed on that asylum of hopeless

misery. The signal seemed only to draw the republican bombs to the spot

where they could create the most frightful distress, and outrage, in the

highest degree, the feelings of humanity. The devastations of famine

were soon added to those of slaughter; and after two months of such

horrors had been sustained, it became obvious that farther resistance

was impossible.

The military commandant of Lyons, Précy, resolved upon a sally, at the

head of the active part of the garrison, hoping that, by cutting his way

through the besiegers, he might save the lives of many of those who

followed him in the desperate attempt, and gain the neutral territory of

Switzerland, while the absence of those who had been actual combatants

during the siege, might, in some degree, incline the Convention to

lenient measures towards the more helpless part of the inhabitants. A

column of about two thousand men made this desperate attempt. But,

pursued by the Republicans, and attacked on every side by the peasants,

to whom they had been represented in the most odious colours by the

Jacobin deputies, and who were stimulated besides by the hope of

plunder, scarcely fifty of the devoted body reached, with their leader,

the protecting soil of Switzerland. Lyons reluctantly opened her gates

after the departure of her best and bravest. The rest may be described

in the words of Horace,--

"Barbarus heu cineres insistet victor, et urbem,

--------dissipabit insolens."

The paralytic Couthon, with Collot D'Herbois,[435] and other deputies,

were sent to Lyons by the Committee of Public Safety, to execute the

vengeance which the Jacobins demanded; while Dubois-Crancé was recalled

for having put, it was thought, less energy in his proceedings than the

prosecution of the siege required. Collot D'Herbois had a personal

motive of a singular nature for delighting in the task intrusted to him

and his colleagues. In his capacity of a play-actor, he had been hissed

from the stage at Lyons, and the door to revenge was now open. The

instructions of this committee enjoined them to take the most

satisfactory revenge for the death of Châlier, and the insurrection of

Lyons, not merely on the citizens, but on the town itself. The principal

streets and buildings were to be levelled with the ground, and a

monument erected where they stood, was to record the cause;--"_Lyons

rebelled against the Republic_--_Lyons is no more_." Such fragments of

the town as might be permitted to remain were to bear the name of

_Commune Affranchie_. It will scarcely be believed, that a doom like

that which might have passed the lips of some Eastern despot, in all the

frantic madness of arbitrary power and utter ignorance, could have been

seriously pronounced, and as seriously enforced in one of the most

civilized nations in Europe; and that in the present enlightened age,

men who pretended to wisdom and philosophy, should have considered the

labours of the architect as a proper subject of punishment. So it was,

however; and to give the demolition more effect, the impotent Couthon

was carried from house to house, devoting each to ruin, by striking the

door with a silver hammer, and pronouncing these words--"House of a

rebel, I condemn thee in the name of the Law." Workmen followed in great

multitudes, who executed the sentence by pulling the house down to the

foundations. This wanton demolition continued for six months, and is

said to have been carried on at an expense equal to that which the

superb military hospital, the Hôtel des Invalides, cost its founder,

Louis XIV. But republican vengeance did not waste itself exclusively

upon senseless lime and stone--it sought out sentient victims.

The deserved death of Châlier had been atoned by an apotheosis,[436]

executed after Lyons had surrendered; but Collot D'Herbois declared that

every drop of that patriotic blood fell as if scalding his own heart,

and that the murder demanded atonement. All ordinary process, and every

usual mode of execution, was thought too tardy to avenge the death of a

Jacobin proconsul. The judges of the revolutionary commission were worn

out with fatigue--the arm of the executioner was weary--the very steel

of the guillotine was blunted. Collot d'Herbois devised a more summary

mode of slaughter. A number of from two to three hundred victims at once

were dragged from prison to the Place de Brotteaux, one of the largest

squares in Lyons, and there subjected to a fire of grape-shot.[437]

Efficacious as this mode of execution may seem, it was neither speedy

nor merciful. The sufferers fell to the ground like singed flies,

mutilated but not slain, and imploring their executioners to despatch

them speedily. This was done with sabres and bayonets, and with such

haste and zeal, that some of the jailors and assistants were slain along

with those whom they had assisted in dragging to death; and the mistake

was not discerned, until, upon counting the dead bodies, the military

murderers found them amount to more than the destined tale. The bodies

of the dead were thrown into the Rhone, to carry news of the Republican

vengeance, as Collot d'Herbois expressed himself, to Toulon, then also

in a state of revolt. But the sullen stream rejected the office imposed

on it, and heaved back the dead in heaps upon the banks; and the

Committee of Representatives were compelled at length to allow the

relics of their cruelty to be interred, to prevent the risk of

contagion.[438]

The people of the south of France have always been distinguished by the

vivacity of their temperament. As cruelties beget retaliation, it may be

as well here mentioned, that upon the fall of the Jacobins, the people

of Lyons forgot not what indeed was calculated for eternal remembrance,

and took by violence a severe and sanguinary vengeance on those who had

been accessary to the atrocities of Couthon and Collot d'Herbois. They

rose on the Jacobins after the fall of Robespierre, and put to death

several of them.

Toulon, important by its port, its arsenals, and naval-yard, as well as

by its fortifications both on the sea and land side, had partaken deeply

in the feelings which pervaded Marseilles, Bourdeaux, and Lyons. But the

insurgents of Toulon were determinedly royalist. The place had been for

some time subjected to the administration of a Jacobin club, and had

seen the usual quantity of murders and excesses with the greater pain,

that the town contained many naval officers and others who had served

under the King, and retained their affection for the royal cause. Their

dissatisfaction did not escape the notice of men, to whom every sullen

look was cause of suspicion, and the slightest cause of suspicion a

ground of death. The town being threatened with a complete purification

after the Jacobin fashion, the inhabitants resolved to anticipate the

blow.

At the dead of night the tocsin was sounded by the citizens, who

dispersed the Jacobin club, seized on the two representatives who had

governed its proceedings, arrested seven or eight Jacobins, who had been

most active in the previous assassinations, and, in spite of some

opposition, actually executed them. With more decision than the

inhabitants of Lyons, they proceeded to proclaim Louis XVII. under the

constitution of 1791. Cartaux presently marched upon the insurgent city,

driving before him the Marseillois, whom, as before mentioned, he had

defeated upon their march towards Lyons. Alarmed at this movement, and

destitute of a garrison which they could trust, the Toulonnois implored

the assistance of the English and Spanish admirals, Lord Hood and

Gravina, who were cruising off their port. It was instantly granted, and

marines were sent on shore for their immediate protection, while efforts

were made to collect from the different allied powers such a supply of

troops as could be immediately thrown into the place. But the event of

the siege of Toulon brings our general historical sketch into connexion

with the life of that wonderful person, whose actions we have undertaken

to record. It was during this siege that the light was first

distinguished, which, broadening more and more, and blazing brighter and

brighter, was at length to fill with its lustre the whole hemisphere of

Europe, and was then to set with a rapidity equal to that with which it

had arisen.

Ere, however, we produce this first-rate actor upon the stage, we must

make the reader still more particularly acquainted with the spirit of

the scene.

FOOTNOTES:

[394] Afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and created Duke of Sutherland. He

died in 1833.

[395] Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 128.

[396] In 1789, Maret published the proceedings of the States-General,

under the title of "Bulletin de l'Assemblée," taking Woodfall's

Parliamentary Register for his model. The success of the experiment was

so great, that when Pankouke, the bookseller, projected the plan of the

"_Moniteur_," he prevailed on Maret to transfer his labours to the new

journal. Such was the origin of Napoleon's well-known Duke of Bassano.

[397] Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 153.

[398] See the Declaration, Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 139.

[399] Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 250.--S.

[400] Jomini, tom. iii., pp. 163-181; Toulongeon, tom. iv., pp. 6-43.

[401] On the loss of Mentz, the Convention ordered Custine to Paris to

answer for his conduct, and delivered him over to the revolutionary

tribunal, by whom, in August, 1793, he was condemned and executed.

[402] Accused of not having followed up the advantages at Hondscoote, by

an immediate attack upon the British force. Houchard was brought before

the revolutionary tribunal, condemned, and executed, 17th Nov., 1793.

[403] Alexander, Viscount de Beauharnais, first husband of Josephine.

Denounced as an aristocrat by his own troops, he was, in July, 1794,

dragged before the revolutionary tribunal, which instantly condemned him

to death.

[404] Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 142; Jomini, tom. iv., pp. 86-165.

[405] Condemned to death, Nov. 6, 1793, by the revolutionary tribunal.

[406] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 273.

[407] La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 35; Guerres des Vendéans et des Chouans,

tom. i., p. 31.

[408] See _ante_, p. 110.

[409] Dumouriez, vol. ii., p. 144.

[410] Guerres des Vendéans, tom. i., p. 65; La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 38.

[411] Thiers, tom. iv., p. 175.

[412] Madame La Roche-Jacquelein mentions an interesting anecdote of a

young plebeian, a distinguished officer, whose habits of respect would

scarce permit him to sit down in her presence. This cannot be termed

servility. It is the noble pride of a generous mind, faithful to its

original impressions, and disclaiming the merits which others are ready

to heap on it.--S.

[413] The adoption of this wild costume, which procured them the name of

_brigands_, from its fantastic singularity, originated in the whim of

Henri La Roche-Jacquelein, who first used the attire. But as this

peculiarity, joined to the venturous exposure of his person, occasioned

a general cry among the Republicans, of "Aim at the red handkerchief,"

other officers assumed the fashion to diminish the danger of the chief

whom they valued so highly, until at length it became a kind of

uniform.--S.

[414] La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 90.

[415] The Memoirs of Madame Bonchamp, and still more those of Madame La

Roche-Jacquelein, are remarkable for the virtues of the heart, as well

as the talents which are displayed by their authors. Without

affectation, without vanity, without violence or impotent repining,

these ladies have described the sanguinary and irregular warfare, in

which they and those who were dearest to them were engaged for so long

and stormy a period; and we arise from the perusal sadder and wiser, by

having learned what the brave can dare, and what the gentle can endure

with patience.--S.

[416] Mémoires d'un Ancien Administrateur des Armées Republicaines.--S.

[417] Haxo died at Roche-sur-yon, April 26, 1794.

[418] See Jomini, tom. vi., p 400.

[419] A picture by Vernet, representing the attack on Nantes, estimable

as a work of art, but extremely curious in an historical point of view,

used to be in the Luxembourg palace, and is probably now removed to the

Louvre. The Vendéans are presented there in all their simplicity of

attire, and devoted valour; the priests who attended them displaying

their crosses, and encouraging the assault, which is, on the other hand,

repelled by the regular steadiness of the Republican forces.--S.--[This

picture is still in the Luxembourg. The paintings of living artists are

never admitted to the Louvre.]

[420] La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 69; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 143.

[421] King Charles the Tenth.

[422] Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 145.

[423] See Southey's Thalaba, b. 12.

[424] They punned on the word _Mayence_ (Mentz,) and said, the newly

arrived Republicans were soldiers of _fayence_ (potter' ware,) which

could not endure the fire.--S.

[425] Beauchamp, Hist. de la Guerre de la Vendée, tom. ii., p. 99;

Jomini, tom. iv., p. 318; La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 239; Lacretelle, tom.

xi., p. 151.

[426] Mémoires, p. 240.

[427] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 319. Beauchamp, tom. ii., p. 102.

[428] Some derived it from _Chat-huant_, as if the insurgents, like

owls, appeared chiefly at night; others traced it to _Chouin_, the name

of two brothers, sons of a blacksmith, said to have been the earliest

leaders of the Breton insurgents.--S.

[429] Canclaux was born at Paris in 1740. After the revolution of the

18th Brumaire, Napoleon gave him the command of the 14th military

division, and made him a senator. At the restoration he was created a

peer. He died in 1817.

[430] We can and ought to make great allowances for national feeling;

yet it is a little hard to find a well-informed historian, like M.

Lacretelle, [tom. xi., p. 146,] gravely insinuate, that England threw

the unfortunate Royalists on the coast of Quiberon to escape the future

burden of maintaining them. Her liberality towards the emigrants,

honourable and meritorious to the country, was entirely gratuitous. She

might have withdrawn when she pleased a bounty conferred by her

benevolence; and it is rather too hard to be supposed capable of

meditating their murder, merely to save the expense of supporting them.

The expedition was a blunder; but one in which the unfortunate sufferers

contributed to mislead the British Government.--S.

[431] "This man, originally a painter, had become an adjutant in the

Parisian corps; he was afterwards employed in the army; and, having been

successful against the Marseillois, the deputies of the Mountain had, in

the same day, obtained him the appointments of brigadier-general and

general of division. He was extremely ignorant, and had nothing military

about him, otherwise he was not ill-disposed."--NAPOLEON, _Memoirs_,

vol. i., p. 19.

[432] Stanislaus Fréron was son of the well-known victim of Voltaire,

and godson of the unfortunate King of Poland. He accompanied the French

expedition to St. Domingo in 1802, and being appointed sub-prefect at

the Cayes, soon sunk under the influence of the climate. His portfolio

falling into the hands of the black government, some of its contents

were published by the authority of Dessaline, and subjoined to a work

entitled "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Hayti." Among them are

several amatory epistles from Napoleon's second sister Pauline, by which

it appears that Fréron was the earliest object of her choice, but that

Napoleon and Josephine would not hear of an alliance with the friend of

Robespierre, and ready instrument of his atrocities.

[433] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 208; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 63.

[434] Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 98; Thiers, tom. iv., p. 161.

[435] Before the arrival of Collot d'Herbois, Fouché (afterwards Duke of

Otranto) issued a decree, directing that all religious emblems should be

destroyed, and that the words "Death is an eternal sleep!" should be

placed over the entrance of every burial ground.--See _Moniteur_, Nos.

57, 64.

[436] An ass formed a conspicuous part of the procession, having a mitre

fastened between his ears, and dragging in the dirt a Bible tied to its

tail; which Bible was afterwards burnt, and its ashes scattered to the

winds. Fouché wrote to the Convention--"The shade of Châlier is

satisfied. Yes, we swear that the people shall be avenged. Our severe

courage shall keep pace with their just impatience."--_Moniteur_;

Montgaillard, tom. iv., pp. 113, 138.

[437] Fouché, on the 19th December, wrote to Collot d'Herbois--"Let us

show ourselves terrible: let us annihilate in our wrath, and at one

blow, every conspirator, every traitor, that we may not feel the pain,

the long torture, of punishing them as kings would do. We this evening

send two hundred and thirteen rebels before the thunder of our cannon.

Farewell, my friend! tears of joy stream from my eyes, and overflow my

heart.--(Signed) FOUCHÉ."--_Moniteur_, No. 85.

[438] Guillon de Montléon, Mémoires pour servir à l'Hist. de la Ville de

Lyon, tom. ii., p. 405; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 68; Jomini, tom. iv.,

p. 186; Thiers, tom. v., p. 310; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 109.