SUPPL

SUPPL. VOL. II. Part II.

The Directory now carried into effect the most fatal of all their projects, that of sending a powerful army to the east to seize upon Egypt, and from thence to attack the empire which Britain has acquired in India. The treaty with Austria had no sooner been signed at Campo Formio, than the Directory excited the expectation of France and of all Europe, by loudly proclaiming their determination to invade Great Britain. They sent troops into their own western departments, called them the Army of England, and appointed Bonaparte their commander in chief. This officer, in the mean time, had resided during the winter at Paris. Here he seems to have endeavoured to guard against the jealousy of government, and the envy of individuals, by passing his time in retirement, and assuming the character of a man of letters. He procured himself to be elected a member of the National Institute; but so seldom did he appear abroad, that when he attended some of its public sittings his person was altogether unknown to the spectators. Greedy of renown, but aware that it ultimately depends upon the labours and the approbation of the learned, he never failed, when called into military service, to remind this order of men of his alliance with them, by adding to his name at all proclamations and dispatches the designation of Member of the National Institute.

Whether the expedition to Egypt was now suggested by Bonaparte himself, or whether it was not a snare by which the present rulers of France imposed upon the vanity of an enterprising young man, to enable them to get quit of him and his veteran army, is not known. It is very possible, however, that Bonaparte might neither be the deviser nor the unconscious victim of this plan; but that he might account himself more safe abroad, upon the most hazardous expedition, than exposed at home to the malice of a government that had become jealous of his reputation, and was by no means scrupulous in its conduct.

The projected invasion of Egypt was conducted with much secrecy. The world was amused with tales of monstrous rafts to be constructed to convey the army of England over into Britain. To favour the deception, Bonaparte made a journey to the western coast. In the mean time, the fleet was preparing at Toulon, and troops assembling in its neighbourhood. When all was in readiness, Bonaparte embarked with 40,000 of the troops that had fought in Italy. On the 9th of June he arrived at the island of Malta, and contrived to quarrel with the Grandmaster, because he refused to admit so large a fleet all at once into his ports to water. The French General immediately landed his troops in different quarters, and endeavoured to reduce the island. The knights were divided into factions. Many of them, as is now well known, were of the order of ILLUMINATI, and of course prepared to act the part of traitors. After making a very feeble resistance, the Grandmaster proposed a capitulation; and thus was treacherously surrendered, in a few days, a fortress which, if defended by faithful troops, might have held out for as many weeks against all the forces of the French Republic. Bonaparte, after leaving a garrison of 4000 men in the island, sailed on the 21st of June for Alexandria.

In the mean time, Rear-admiral Nelson, who, in the station of Commodore, had signalized himself in a very high degree under Lord St Vincent, had been dispatched in quest of him from the British fleet, which still blockaded

French Revolution, 1798. blockaded Cadiz. Not knowing the object of the French expedition, the British Admiral failed first to Naples; and having there been informed of the attack upon Malta, he directed his course to that island. By the time he arrived there, however, Bonaparte had departed. Conjecturing now that Alexandria might be the destination of the French troops, he sailed thither; but they had not been seen in that quarter, and he therefore went eagerly in search of them to other parts of the Mediterranean. Bonaparte, in the mean while, instead of steering in a direct line for Alexandria, had proceeded slowly, with his immense train of nearly 400 transports, along the coast of Greece, till he arrived at the eastern extremity of the island of Candia. Here he suddenly turned southward; and in consequence of his circuitous course, did not arrive at the coast of Egypt till Admiral Nelson's fleet had left it. He landed his troops; and on the 5th of July took by storm the city of Alexandria. The inhabitants defended themselves very desperately, but without skill; and for some time a scene of barbarous pillage and massacre ensued. The transports that had conveyed the army were now placed within the inner harbour of Alexandria, and the ships of war under Admiral Brueys cast anchor in a line close along the shore of what proved to them the fatal Bay of Aboukir. The army proceeded to the Nile, and ascended along the banks of that river, suffering great hardships from the heat of the climate. They were met and encountered by the Mamelukes, or military force that governed Egypt; but these barbarians could not resist the art and order of European war. Cairo was taken on the 23d of July. On the 25th another battle was fought; and on the 26th the Mamelukes made a last effort in the neighbourhood of the celebrated pyramids for the preservation of their empire. Two thousand of them were killed on this occasion, 400 camels laden with their baggage were taken, along with 50 pieces of cannon.

A provisional government was now established in Egypt. Proclamations were issued in the Arabian tongue, declaring that the French were friendly to the religion of Mahomet, that they acknowledged the authority of the Grand Signior, and had only come to punish the crimes committed by the Mamelukes against their countrymen trading to Egypt. Thus far all had gone well; but on the 1st of August the British fleet appeared at the mouth of the Nile; and the situation of the French fleet having been discovered, Admiral Nelson prepared for an attack. In number of ships the fleets were equal; but in the number of guns and weight of metal the French squadron had the superiority. It was drawn up, too, in a form which suggested to its ill-fated commander the idea of its being invincible; but remaining at anchor, the British Admiral was enabled, by running some of his ships between those of the enemy and the shore, to surround and engage one part of their fleet, while the rest remained unemployed and of no service. In executing this plan of attack, a British ship, the Culloden, ran aground; but this accident only served as a beacon to warn the others of the spot that ought to be avoided. The battle commenced at sunset, and was continued at intervals till daybreak. At last, nine sail of the French line were taken; one ship

of the line was burned by her own commander; a frigate was burned in the same manner, to prevent her being taken. The French Admiral's ship L'Orient took fire, and blew up during the action, and only a small number of her crew of 1000 men escaped destruction. Two French ships of the line and two frigates were saved by a timely flight (7).

No naval engagement has in modern times produced such important consequences as this. The unexampled military efforts made by France had gradually dissolved the combination which the princes of Europe formed against her. By the train of victories which Bonaparte had gained, the house of Austria, her most powerful rival, had been humbled and intimidated. The whole continent looked towards the new Republic with consternation; and when the Directory seized upon Rome and Switzerland, none were found hardy enough to interpose in their favour. The current of affairs was now almost instantaneously altered. Europe beheld Bonaparte, with his invincible army, exiled from its shores, and shut up in a barbarous country, from which the triumphant navy of Britain might for ever prevent his return. The enemies of France could not beforehand have conceived the possibility of the event which was now realised; and the hope was naturally excited of being able to form a new and more efficient coalition against a government which had so grossly abused the temporary prosperity it had enjoyed. The northern powers began to listen to the proposals made to them by Great Britain for commencing hostilities anew, and the Italian states prepared to make another effort for independence. The court of Naples in particular openly avowed its joy on account of the recent destruction of the French fleet. The king himself put to sea to meet Admiral Nelson on his return from the Nile. Illuminations took place in the capital, and vigorous preparations were made for war. The Grand Signior, who had possessed of late little authority in Egypt, and might perhaps have been induced to relinquish his claims on that province rather than engage his decaying empire in war, now entered into close alliance with Britain, and engaged in hostilities against the French. Tippoo Sultan had stipulated for the aid of a French army against the British in India; but Bonaparte, on taking possession of Suez and the other Egyptian ports on the Red Sea, found no shipping there fit to transport his army to the Indian peninsula. Instead of proceeding therefore upon any splendid scheme of farther conquest, he was compelled to remain in his present situation, and to contend for existence against the whole force of the Ottoman empire.

The French at this time did not venture to send forth any large fleet upon the ocean; but wherever their smaller squadrons appeared, the fortune of Britain overpowered them there no less than it had done in the Mediterranean. They had long promised aid to the disaffected party in Ireland; but weary of fruitless expectation, the Irish had during this summer broken out into rebellion, without waiting the arrival of the troops whom the Directory had engaged to send to their assistance. While the rebellion was at its height, and although the insurgents for some time occupied the sea port of Wexford, the French did not arrive. After-

wards, however, when the rebellion had been totally subdued, they attempted to elude the vigilance of the British fleet, and to land men in small parties. On the 22d of August, General Humbert came ashore at Killala, at the head of about 1100 men. Even this small party might have been dangerous had it arrived a month earlier; and it actually produced very serious alarm. It consisted of men selected with great care, and capable of enduring much fatigue. They were joined by a few of the most resolute of the discontented Irish in the neighbourhood, and speedily defeated General Lake, who advanced against them with a superior force, taking from him six pieces of cannon. They next marched in different directions, for the purpose of raising the people, and maintained their ground in the country during three weeks. Finding, however, that he was not seconded by additional troops from France, that the rebellion in Ireland had been fully subdued, and that 25,000 men under Lord Cornwallis were closing round him, Humbert dismissed his Irish associates; and four days thereafter, having encountered one of the British columns in his march, he laid down his arms. Now, when it was too late, the Directory was very active in sending troops towards Ireland; but all their efforts were defeated by the superiority of the British navy. On the 12th of October, Sir John Borlase Warren took La Hoche, a ship of 84 guns, and four frigates, attempting to reach Ireland with nearly 3000 men on board. The other ships belonging to the French squadron, which conveyed 5000 men in all, contrived to make their escape by sailing round by the north of the island. On the 20th of the same month another frigate bound for Ireland was taken; and the French finding that the sea was completely occupied by the British fleet, were at last compelled to desist from their enterprise.

Ever since the treaty of Campo Formio had been concluded, a congress of ministers from the French Directory, and from the German princes, had been negotiating at Rastadt a treaty between France and the empire. As these negotiations terminated in nothing, and were tedious and uninteresting during their progress, it is unnecessary to enter into a detail of the steps by which they were conducted. The intended result of them had been previously arranged between the Emperor and the Directory in the secret convention of Campo Formio, which has been already mentioned. That the articles of this convention might be concealed, the French ministers at Rastadt formally brought forward their proposals in succession for the discussion of the German deputies. The French demanded that the Rhine should be the boundary of their Republic. The Germans resisted this. References were made to the diet of Ratisbone, and long discussions and negotiations took place among the different princes. When it was found that little was to be expected from the protection of Austria, the German deputies at Rastadt were instructed to offer one half of the territory demanded. This offer was refused, and new negotiations took place. The other half was at last yielded up, and a long discussion commenced about the debts due by the ceded territory, which the French refused to pay. The tolls upon the rivers, and upon the rivers flowing into the Rhine, also gave rise to much altercation. It was even a matter of no small difficulty, after all, to de-

termine the precise boundary of France; whether her territory should extend to the left bank, the right bank, or the thalweg, that is, the middle of the navigable channel of the river. It became also a question how those princes ought to be indemnified who lost their revenues or territories by the new acquisitions of France; and it was at length agreed that they should receive portions of the ecclesiastical estates in Germany.

These discussions, conducted with endless formality and procrastination, still occupied the congress at Rastadt; but it now became gradually more probable that no treaty would be concluded at that place. Austria began to strengthen her armies in all quarters. Russia, that had hitherto avoided any active interference in the contest, placed a large body of troops in British pay, and sent them towards the German frontiers. The king of Naples avowedly and eagerly prepared for war. This impatient monarch, resolving to attack without delay the French troops who occupied the Roman territory, procured General Mack and other officers from the court of Vienna to assume the command of his army. Without waiting, however, till Austria should commence the attack, he rashly began the war alone and unaided, excepting by the British fleet, and thus drew upon himself the whole force of the French Republic. The Directory did not suspect such imprudent conduct on the part of this prince; and accordingly, when General Mack entered the Roman territory, at the head of 45,000 men, the French troops in that quarter were altogether unequal to the contest. A French ambassador still resided at Naples when this event took place, and war was not declared. When the French General Championnet complained of the attack made upon his posts under these circumstances, he was informed in a letter by General Mack, that the king of Naples had resolved to take possession of the Roman territory, having never acknowledged its existence as a Republic; he therefore required the French quietly to depart into the Cisalpine states; declaring, that any act of hostility on their part, or their entrance into the territory of Tuscany, would be regarded as a declaration of war. Championnet finding himself unable to resist the force now brought against him, actually evacuated Rome. He left, however, a garrison in the castle of St Angelo, and endeavoured to concentrate whatever troops he could hastily collect in the northern extremity of the Roman state. Towards the end of November, General Mack entered Rome without opposition.

When these events came to be known at Paris, war was immediately declared against the king of Naples, and also against the king of Sardinia. This last prince had made no attack upon France; but he was accused by the Directory, in their message to the Councils, of disaffection to the Republic, and of wishing to join the king of Naples in his hostile efforts. This accusation could not well be false. From the period of Bonaparte's successful irruption into Italy, the king of Sardinia had felt himself placed in the most humiliating circumstances; his most important fortresses were occupied by the French; they levied in his country what contributions they thought fit; and when they recently required him to receive a garrison into his capital, he found himself unable to resist the demand. Even now, when they performed the useless ceremony of declaring of the king war, he could make no effort in his own defence, and of Sardinia quietly.

quietly gave them a formal resignation in writing of his whole continental dominions, consenting to retire to the island of Sardinia.

In the mean time, the contest with Naples was soon decided. The French on their retreat were much harassed by the people of the country. The Neapolitan troops regarded them with such animosity, that they scarcely observed the modern rules of war towards the prisoners who fell into their hands. Even their leaders seemed in this respect to have forgotten the practice of nations; for when General Bouchard, by order of General Mack, summoned the castle of St Angelo to surrender, he declared, that he would consider the prisoners of war and the sick in the hospitals as hostages for the conduct of the garrison; and that for every gun that should be fired from the castle, a man should be put to death. It cannot well be imagined that the Neapolitan officers would have acted in this vehement manner, had they not expected countenance and support from the immediate co-operation of Austrian troops. In their hopes from this quarter, however, they were completely disappointed. Mindful of her recent calamities, and attentive only to her own aggrandisement, Austria seems still to have expected more from negotiation than from war, and the territory of Naples soon fell into the hands of the French. Such indeed was the terror of the French name in Italy, or such was the disaffection or cowardice of the Neapolitan troops themselves, that they were beaten by one-fourth of their number in different engagements, at Terni, Porto Fermo, Civita Castellana, Otricoli, and Calvi. At the commencement of the contest, a body of Neapolitans, with the assistance of the British fleet, had been landed at Leghorn, for the purpose of taking the French in the rear: but they, disregarding this attempt on the part of such an enemy, pressed on towards Naples. By degrees, General Mack's army being reduced by the result of the battles which it fought, and by desertion, to 12,000 men, he found it necessary to advise the king and royal family of Naples to take refuge on board the British fleet. They did so; and arrived at Palermo, in Sicily, on the 27th of December, in the British Admiral Lord Nelson's ship. General Mack, in the mean time, requested an armistice, to afford an opportunity for making peace; but this was refused. Being driven from Capua, which is the last military post of any strength in the Neapolitan territory, and his life being in no small danger from the disaffection of his own troops, he at last found it necessary to seek for safety, by surrendering himself, along with the officers of his staff, to the French General. The governor of Naples, in the mean time, offered to the French a contribution in money, if the commander in chief would consent to avoid entering that city. The offer was accepted, and the invading army remained at Capua. General Serrurier, on the 28th of December, at the head of a column of French troops, expelled the Neapolitans from Leghorn, and took possession of that place. So far as the efforts of regular armies are to be considered, the war might now therefore be regarded as brought to a termination; but the French had speedily a new and unusual enemy to contend against.

From the mildness of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, human life can be sustained in the southern parts of Italy with fewer efforts of industry than in al-

most any other country in Europe. Hence arises a general propensity to idleness, which is increased by the numerous charitable institutions to which the Roman Catholic religion gives rise. In the city of Naples there had long existed a body of persons under the denomination of Lazzaroni or Beggars, amounting to the incredible number of from thirty to forty thousand men, who did nothing, and subsisted merely by charity, or by such shifts as occasionally occurred to them. One of these frequently was the menacing the state with an insurrection, in case their wants were not instantly supplied; which usually drew from a feeble administration very liberal distributions of money and provisions. On the present occasion they demonstrated abundance of loyalty; but the king had thought fit to avoid entrusting his safety to such defenders. During the confusion which followed the flight of the court and the approach of the French army, the Lazzaroni became mutinous. They heard that the French abolished, wherever they came, all those monasteries and other religious establishments which are the great sources of public charity. The Lazzaroni, therefore, conceived the most violent hatred against them, and against all who were suspected of favouring opinions hostile to royal government. In the beginning of January they began to shew symptoms of discontent, and in a few days broke out into open insurrection. The members of the government left by the king, overcome by habitual terror of the Lazzaroni, consulted merely their own personal safety, and made no effort to preserve the public tranquillity. Prince Militorini had gained considerable applause on account of his vigorous defence of Capua against the French. The Lazzaroni therefore elected him their commander in chief; but he attempted in vain to restrain their violence and love of plunder. They declared hostility against the French and all the advisers of the armistice. They broke open the prisons, and put to death all those who were confined on account of political offences against the royal government. They next spread themselves over the city in their search of those persons whom they considered as favourable to the invaders, and committed murder and robbery in all quarters, concluding by burning the houses of those accounted disaffected. An attempt was made by a considerable body of the inhabitants, who thought themselves in the greatest danger, to resist their fury, by fortifying the convent of the Celestine, and retiring thither; but the Lazzaroni, after encountering the fire of cannon and of musketry, succeeded in storming the place, and destroyed all who had taken refuge there. Their power and their fury were now equally boundless, and the city became in many quarters a scene of massacre and pillage. Prince Militorini, therefore, went to Capua, and requested Championnet to rescue Naples from utter ruin by occupying it with his army. For this purpose it was arranged, that a column of French troops should secretly advance by a circuitous march, and suddenly enter the city from the opposite quarter. Before this plan could be fully executed, the Lazzaroni had adopted the daring resolution of attacking the French within the fortifications of Capua. Accordingly two-thirds of them marched out upon this enterprise, and spent the 19th and 20th of January in attempting to take Capua by assault. Multitudes of these men here perished by the artillery of the place; for the French,

French, to favour the capture of Naples by the party that had been sent eastward for that purpose, avoided making any sally, and remained upon the defensive. The Lazzaroni at Capua, however, having learned on the 21st that a French column had marched to Naples, and approached the gates, suddenly returned to the assistance of their brethren in the capital. They were closely pursued by the French; but they had leisure, nevertheless, to barricade the streets, and to form themselves into parties for the defence of different quarters. A dreadful and sanguinary contest now ensued, which lasted from the morning of the 22d to the evening of the 23d of January. The Lazzaroni, with some peasants who had joined them, disputed obstinately every spot of ground; and by the energy which they displayed, cast a severe reproach upon the feeble and unskilful government, which had not been able to direct in a better manner the courage of such men. At length, after having been gradually driven from street to street, the Lazzaroni rallied for the last time at one of the gates of the city, where they were nearly exterminated. The inhabitants rejoiced on account of their own escape from immediate ruin; and while the French armies found themselves become odious in all the other countries which they had entered, they here found themselves, from the peculiar circumstances of the case, received with unfeigned welcome, in a city which holds the third place in population and splendour among the capitals of Europe.

This may be regarded as the last triumph enjoyed by the Directory. The consequences of their conduct were now gathering fast around them. They were deservedly unpopular at home; not only from the violations they had offered to the constitution of their country, but also from the manner in which they conducted public affairs in detail. They set no bounds to their profusion, or to the exactions with which their agents vexed the conquered countries. Championnet, ashamed of the extortions of which the commissaries of the Directory were guilty, attempted in Italy to restrain them; and the consequence was, that, upon the complaint of the commissary Tappault, he was deprived of his command, and thrown into prison. Scherer, the minister of war, was appointed his successor. Under him the rapacity of the agents of government, and the embazlement of the public stores, was carried to its height. The numbers of the armies were suffered to decline, that the Directory, the commissaries, and the generals, might become rich. Thus the state was left totally unprepared against the storm which was now rapidly gathering from abroad. Still, however, France was feared by the neighbouring nations, to whom the present state of her internal affairs was obscurely known. Though an army of 45,000 Russians had advanced to the aid of Austria, yet that Cabinet hesitated to declare war. Prussia was eagerly solicited by Britain to take up arms against France, and large pecuniary aid was

offered; but Sieyes, the Directory's ambassador at Berlin, artfully contrived to defeat this negotiation, and to counteract the unpopularity of his country in Germany, by publishing the secret convention at Campo Formio, which we have already mentioned. This treaty demonstrated so clearly to the German princes the utter unconcern with which their independence and their interests were regarded by the head of the empire, that no steady co-operation with Austria could henceforth be expected from them. The greater number of them, therefore, resolved to maintain their neutrality under the protection of Prussia.

On the 2d of January, the French ministers at Rastadt presented a note to the congress, in which they intimated, that the entrance of Russian troops into Germany, if not resisted, would be regarded by them as a declaration of war. Some negotiation took place in consequence of this note, but no satisfactory answer was returned. On the 26th of that month, the strong fortresses of Ehrenbreitstein surrendered, after having remained under blockade since the conclusion of the treaty of Campo Formio. By the possession of this place, and of Mentz and Dusseldorf, France was now rendered very formidable on the Rhine. As she possessed also the strong country of Switzerland, and all the fortified places of Italy, she was well prepared, not only for defence, but for active operation; for it is now known, that the conferences of Rastadt were purposely protracted, by orders from the Directory, till the French armies should be ready to take the field with advantage against an enemy whose conduct betrayed the most culpable tardiness. At this time Jourdan commanded Warren on the Upper Rhine from Mentz to Huningen; Massena occupied with an army the eastern frontier of Switzerland towards the Grisons country; Scherer was commander in chief in Italy; Moreau acted as general of a division under him; and Macdonald commanded the troops that occupied the territory of Rome and Naples. But these armies that kept in subjection, and were now to defend so many countries, scarcely amounted to 175,000 men in all, and were far outnumbered by the armies which Austria alone, without the aid of Russia, could bring into the field. The Directory, however, confiding in the unity of its own plans, in the undecided politics of the court of Vienna, and in the consequent slow movements of the Imperial armies, was eager to renew the war; and the two Councils, on the 13th of March, declared France to be at war with the Emperor of Germany and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The war, however, had already been begun. On the 1st of March Jourdan crossed the Rhine at Strauburg, and occupied several strong positions in Swabia. Mannheim was taken, and Philippsburg summoned to surrender by Bernadotte (c), while St. Cyr entered Stuttgart. On the 4th of March the Austrians crossed the Lech, under the command of the Archduke Charles, to oppose this army. Massena advanced into the territory of

(c) This summons was conceived in very extraordinary terms, and cannot be accounted for but upon the supposition that Bernadotte believed the Austrian officers infected with French principles. He calls upon the commander of the fortresses to surrender without resistance, and thus violate the trust reposed in him by his sovereign. He tells him, that a discharge of his duty would produce the defection of his officers and men. He warns him of the folly and danger of leading troops to action against their will; and, lastly, he threatens him with vengeance if he should dare to resist!

of the Grisons; and surprising a strong body of Austrians, took them all prisoners, together with their General Auffenburgh, and the whole of his staff, after a desperate resistance under the walls of Coire. The reduction of the Grisons was the consequence of this victory.

But in order to complete the plan of the French, which was to effect a junction with their two armies, that of Massena in Switzerland with that of Jourdan in Germany, it was necessary to carry the important post of Feldkirch, which was occupied by the Austrian General Hotze, whose line extended from the frontiers of the Grisons, to the north-east by the Vorelberg, to the eastern extremity of the Lake Constance. Vigorously repulsed in his first attack, Massena renewed it, five different times, with fresh forces, and increased impetuosity. But all could not avail against the steady bravery of the Austrians, who drove back the assailants with immense slaughter. The French, however, being in possession of the Grisons, the invasion of the Engadine, and the county of Bormio, by a division of the army of Italy cantoned in the Valteline, under the orders of General Casabianca, was facilitated. The Austrians, too weak in that quarter to resist them, retreated into the Tyrol, whither they were pursued by the French, who forced some of the defiles by which the entrance of that country was defended, and extended their destructive incursions as far as Glurenz and Nauders.

Meanwhile the van-guard of the main army of the Imperialists pushed forward to meet the enemy. On the 20th of March it was attacked by Jourdan, who drove in the outposts; but on the following day that general was himself attacked in the centre of his army, driven from his position, and compelled to retire during the night to Stockach. Both parties now prepared for a decisive engagement. On the 24th, the Archduke encamped before Stockach, with his right wing towards Nellenburg, and his left near Wallenweis. On the 25th, at day break, the French army began the attack. They directed their chief efforts against the right wing of the Austrians commanded by General Meerfeldt. The battle was long and obstinate. From five o'clock in the morning till past one of the afternoon, its termination remained extremely doubtful. The French succeeded in their attempt against General Meerfeldt. His position was forced, and he retreated into a wood between Liptingen and Stockach. Here he renewed the combat without success. He was gradually driven to the extremity of the wood, though it is a German mile in breadth. The left wing of the Austrians, however, had in the mean time maintained its ground, and reinforcements were sent from it to General Meerfeldt. With the assistance of these he at last succeeded in making a stand, and even obliged the French to retire in their turn. At length, about two o'clock, the French found it necessary to withdraw from this quarter. The battle, however, was continued in different points till night came on. The French remained upon the ground where they had begun the attack, and they even retained 4000 prisoners whom they had taken during the various movements of the day. The result of the battle, upon the whole, however, was fatal to their affairs. Their loss was so great, and the superiority of the Austrians so manifest, that Jourdan dared not to hazard another engagement. On the following day he retired

to Weiler near Duitlingen; and finding his army altogether unequal to offensive operations, he sent back one part of it to cover Kehl and Strasburg, while he withdrew with the other towards Switzerland. This event compelled Massena, who was pressing upon Tyrol and the Engadine, to return to the defence of Switzerland. He was immediately entrusted with the chief command of the troops in this quarter, in the room of Jourdan, who was removed. The Austrians continued to advance in every direction, and immediately occupied the whole of the right, or German side, of the Rhine, from the lake of Constance to Mentz.

In Italy the success of the Austrians was equally conspicuous, notwithstanding the treachery of the French Italy. In attacking them before the expiration of the truce. The attempt of the latter to force the advanced posts of the former, on the 26th of March, at Santa Lucia and Buffelango, was rendered abortive; and at Legnago, the Austrian general, Kray, obtained a complete victory, and compelled them to seek protection under the walls of Mantua. On the 5th of April, the Austrians again attacked them in their position at Membruolo, which lies on the road from Mantua to Peschiera, and compelled them, after an obstinate conflict, once more to retreat. The loss of the French in these different actions was undoubtedly great; but it is probably over-rated at 30,000 men killed, wounded, and taken.

The success of the Austrians, however, was not cheaply purchased. Scherer, who commanded the French army, gained over them, at first, some advantages, which, had he known how to improve them, might have given a different turn to the tide of affairs. One division of his army had actually forced the Austrian posts on the 26th of March, and taken 4000 prisoners; but the other division being repulsed, he withdrew his troops from their advanced position, and thus relinquished the advantage which he had gained. Even on the 5th of April, Moreau's division performed prodigies of valour, and took, it has been said, 3000 prisoners; but from the injudicious dispositions which had been made by Scherer, that general was not supported, and the victory of the Austrians was complete. Kray now quickly drove the French from the Mantuan, and compelled them, after having sustained new losses, to relinquish their strong holds on the Mincio and the Adige, and to retreat to the Adda.

On the banks of this river, rendered remarkable for the dear-bought victories which Bonaparte had obtained at the bridge of Lodi, the French general Moreau, to whom the Directory had given the chief command of their army, prepared to make a vigorous defence. The military talents of this man had been rendered unquestionable by his celebrated retreat through a hostile country, and before a victorious army ably commanded. On the present occasion he did not belie his former character. Nothing that could give courage or confidence to his troops was neglected. Entrenchments were thrown up wherever the river was considered as passable; and a situation, remarkably strong by Nature, was strengthened by every means which art could supply.

Before this period, a considerable body of Russians had joined the Imperialists; and the chief command of the allied army was now assumed by Field Marshal Suwarow Rimnikski. This celebrated leader, whose character

French Revolution, 1798-1800. 357 Suvarrow
rather every democrat labours to misrepresent, had entered into the army at the age of twelve, and risen from the ranks to the station which he now holds, of Generalissimo of the Russian armies. Possessed of strong natural talents, he had likewise the benefit of an excellent education, and is said, by those who are personally known to him, as well as acquainted with the state of literature in Russia, to be one of the best classical scholars of all the natives of that great empire. He had studied, in early life, mathematics and natural philosophy, as branches of science absolutely necessary to the man whose highest ambition is to become a great commander; and his knowledge of the learned, as well as of the fashionable languages, has enabled him to avail himself of all that has been written either by the ancients or the moderns on the art of war. This art has indeed been his chief study from his youth; it has been at once his business and his amusement.

Possessed with his countrymen, in general, of the most undaunted courage, and formed by Nature to endure the greatest fatigue, it is not surprising, that with all these advantages Suvarrow should have long ago acquired the character of one of the ablest generals of his time. It is indeed true, that, till the opening of the campaign of 1799, he had distinguished himself only against the Turks, whom we are too apt to despise, and against the Poles when divided among themselves; but let it be remembered, that the enthusiastic courage of those same Turks had found employment for the talents of some of the ablest generals in Europe, a Laudon and a Cobourg; and that the Polish armies which Suvarrow subdued were united by the strongest of all ties—the knowledge that they must conquer or perish. All this was so well known to Frederic the Great, that he held the military talents of the Russian hero in the highest esteem; and the attention of all Europe was now turned towards the quarter where those talents were to be exerted in the support of social order, and of every thing which ennobles man. His operations in Italy did not disappoint the highest expectations which had been formed of them. At an age considerably above sixty, he began a campaign not less remarkable for its activity than any which had gone before it since the commencement of the French revolution. We are by no means prepared, however, to do justice to the various military efforts which were now made, or to explain clearly the means employed to insure success. If the work entitled the History of Suvarrow's Campaigns be deserving of credit, the superiority of that commander over his rivals and opponents seems to have at all times consisted principally in the promptitude with which he formed his plans, and the rapidity with which he carried them into execution. It is likewise said to be a maxim of his, always to commence the attack when he sees a battle inevitable, from the persuasion that the ardour of the attacking army more than counterbalances the advantage of ground, if that advantage be not very great. Such was certainly the principle upon which he acted at present.

358 Attacks him in his entrenchments,
On the 24th of April the combined army advanced to the Adda; and having driven in Moreau's outposts, Suvarrow resolved, on the 26th, to attack him in his entrenchments. For this purpose, while the shew of an attack was maintained along the whole line, a bridge was secretly thrown over among the rocks at

the upper part of the river, where the French had thought such an enterprise unlikely or impossible. A party of the combined army was thus enabled, on the following morning, after crossing the river, to turn the French fortifications, and to attack their flank and rear, while the rest of the army forced the passage of the river at different points. The French fought obstinately, but were speedily driven from all their positions, and compelled to retire to Pavia, leaving 6000 men on the field; while upwards of 5000 prisoners, including 4 generals, fell into the hands of the allies, together with 80 pieces of cannon. French Revolution, 1799.

The advantage thus obtained over the French, in consequence of the address with which the Adda was crossed, is said to have gained for Suvarrow more estimation from his antagonists than they had originally been disposed to grant to any military officer coming from Russia, and who had never before had personal experience of the mode in which war is conducted in the south of Europe. But this is probably affection. The French had surely no cause to despise Russian generals, since they could not but know that Laudon was born in Russia, that he had his military education there, and that he had risen to a high rank in the army before he entered into the service of the Empress Queen Maria Theresa. Indeed it is evident, that while their officers were declaiming against Suvarrow and his Russians as merciless barbarians, they were secretly trembling at his prowess and resources, which they could not but remember had more than once saved the armies of the Prince of Cobourg in the Turkish war.

Moreau now established the wreck of the French army, amounting to about 12,000 men, upon the Po, between Alessandria and Valentia. On the 11th of May he compelled a body of Austrians to retire, though they had already passed the river, and took a great number of them prisoners. On the following day, 7000 Russians crossed the Po at Bassignano, and advanced on Piacenza. Moreau immediately fell upon them with his army. They maintained a long and desperate conflict; but being at last thrown into confusion, and refusing to lay down their arms, about 2000 of them were drowned in recrossing the river, and the French, with difficulty, took a small number of them prisoners. But Suvarrow soon advanced, and terminated this active, but petty warfare, which was all that the French could now maintain. Moreau was under the necessity of retiring with his troops to occupy the Bocchetta, and other passes which lead to the Genoese territory; and the combined army commenced vigorously, and at once, the siege of all the fortresses in the part of Italy which it now occupied. Peschiera, Mantua, Ferrara, Tortona, Alessandria, and the citadels of Turin and Milan, were all attacked. The French were driven from the Engadine by Bellegarde; Massena, closely pressed in Switzerland by the Archduke Charles, was compelled to retreat to the neighbourhood of Zurich, and almost all Piedmont had risen in insurrection against the French; so that in every quarter their affairs seemed desperate. Few or no reinforcements arrived from the interior, and their generals were left to act upon the defensive, and to detain the enemy at a distance from the frontiers of France as long as possible. One effort of offensive war only remained, and, after some delay, it was made with much vigour.

Macdonald was still with a considerable French army in the southern parts of Italy, and occupied the territories of Rome and Naples. No attempt was made on the part of the combined powers to cut off his retreat; probably from the conviction that such an enterprise could not be accomplished with success in the mountainous countries of Tuscany and Genoa, through which it would be in his power to pass. Aware of this circumstance, he was in no haste to remove, though the combined army now occupied almost the whole territory between him and France. He gradually concentrated his forces, however, and drew near to the scene of action. His army amounted to 30,000 men; and he was ordered by the Directory to evacuate the new-born republics of Rome and Naples, and to form a junction, if possible, with the army of Moreau. The present situation of the allies, however, tempted Macdonald to hazard an action by himself. Marshal Suwarow had extended his forces over Lombardy and part of Piedmont, in order to afford protection to the well-disposed inhabitants of these countries; and Macdonald and Moreau had concerted between them a plan for dividing their antagonists, and vanquishing them, as the French generals had often vanquished their enemies in detail. It was only by Macdonald, however, that any important blow could be struck; but it was necessary that Moreau should draw upon himself a great part of the Austro-Russian forces, that the remainder might be more completely exposed to his colleague's attack. For this purpose he had recourse to a stratagem.

Towards the end of April, the French fleet, amounting to 16 ships of the line, had ventured out of Brest harbour. Ireland was supposed to be the place of its destination; and the British fleet was stationed in the situations most likely to prevent its arrival there. The French, however, intending to form a junction with the Spanish fleet, which was still blockaded in the port of Cadiz, failed southward. When they approached the junction of Cadiz, a storm arose, which prevented any attempt on their part to enter the harbour, and any effort on the part of the British admiral, Lord Keith, to bring them to an engagement. On the 4th and 5th of May, therefore, they passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and sailed for Toulon. Lord Keith kept his station near Cadiz till the 9th of May, and then entered the Mediterranean in quest of the French fleet. The Spaniards immediately put to sea, and went into the Mediterranean also. The French fleet entered Toulon, and afterwards went out in quest of the Spanish fleet. They failed towards Genoa, and afterwards to Carthage, where they met their allies. The two fleets being now united once more, passed Gibraltar, and sailed round to Brest, where they arrived in safety, without being overtaken by the British.

Moreau, in the mean time, took advantage of the arrival of the French and Spanish squadrons in the vicinity of Genoa, to spread a report that they had

brought him a powerful reinforcement of troops, in the hope of withdrawing from Macdonald the attention of Suwarow. This last officer was himself at Turin. His advanced troops possessed the passes of Susa, Pignerol, and the Col d'Affiette; while, at the lower extremity of the vast track of country over which his army was scattered, General Hohenzollern was posted at Modena with a considerable force, and General Ott was at Reggio with 10,000 men. On the 12th of June, Macdonald began his operations. His advanced divisions attacked Hohenzollern at Modena on that day, defeated him, and took 2000 of his men prisoners. The French, at the same time, attacked General Ott; and, after obliging him to retreat, they entered Parma on the 14th of June. On the 17th, General Ott was again attacked, and compelled to retire upon Castel St. Giovanni. But here the progress of Macdonald was arrested.

Suwarow had been informed of his approach and alarming successes; and with that presence of mind, and that promptitude of energy, which so strongly mark the whole of his conduct, he suddenly left Turin on the 15th of June, at the head of 20,000 men; and having marched seventeen leagues in eight-and-forty hours, came up with Macdonald's army on the banks of the Ticino. The Russian Generals Rosenberg and Foerster commanded the right and the centre; the left wing was commanded by the Austrian General Melas; the Russian General Prince Procerstein commanded the advanced guard, and Prince Liechtenstein the reserve. A desperate action now commenced, which, contended with equal obstinacy on both sides, was fought during three successive days. At length victory, still faithful to the standard of Suwarow, declared for the allies. The French, driven on the 1st day from the Ticino to the Trebbia, were there ultimately defeated on the 19th, after a carnage on both sides, such as some of the oldest officers in the army declared that they had never before seen. The Russians and French repeatedly turned each others line, and were mutually repulsed. Suwarow, who appeared in person wherever the fire was heaviest, and his troops most closely pressed, is said to have had 7 horses killed under him, and to have stripped himself to the shirt on the 19th, running on foot from rank to rank, to urge the troops forward by his presence and example (u). With all these exertions of heroism, however, and greater have seldom been made, the issue of the contest continued doubtful, till the gallant Kray, in direct disobedience to the pernicious orders of the Aulic Council at Vienna, arrived at the head of a large detachment from the army besieging Mantua, and, on the 19th, decided the fate of the day.

The French fled during the night; and, on the morning of the 20th, Suwarow pursued them with his army in two columns. It seldom happens that German troops can overtake the French in a march. The Russians now did so, however; and at Zena the rear guard of the French, being surrounded, laid down their arms.

each of the French army found safety in the passes of the Appennines and the Genoese territory, after having lost on this occasion, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, not less than 17,000 men.

Moreau, in the mean time, had attacked the Austrians under General Bellegarde in the vicinity of Alexandria. Though superior to him in numbers, they were completely beaten; but Suvarrow having returned with infinite rapidity after his victory over Maedonalds, the temporary advantage gained by Moreau became of no importance. Suvarrow complained loudly of the conduct of the Aulic Council on this occasion; while they, in return, imputed their disaster under Bellegarde to his unskilful distribution of the whole troops, which had exposed an immense army to great danger from the enterprizes of an handful of men. It is not our business to decide between them. The instructions of the Council to Kray not to co-operate with the commander in chief of the combined army, seem to us in the highest degree absurd, if not treacherous; and we have heard a general officer, whose name, were we at liberty to give it, would do honour to these pages, say, that the distribution of the troops, of which that council complained, was the most masterly thing that has been done during the war. Be this as it may, a distrust and mutual misunderstanding thus commenced, or, at least, made its first open appearance, which gave good reason to suspect that little cordiality of co-operation would long exist between these allies. They continued, however, for some time to enjoy uninterrupted prosperity under the command of Suvarrow. The sieges of the different Italian fortresses were very closely pressed. They all surrendered in succession; and the period appeared fast approaching when it would be in the power of the allied armies to enter the ancient territory of France.

If we turn our eyes to a different quarter, we shall find the French as much humbled at this time in Palestine by British valour, as they were in Italy by the united armies of Russia and Austria. The hero of France, the conqueror of Italy, the boasted legislator of Europe, after having defeated the Mamelukes, taken possession of Alexandria and Cairo, and professed himself a Mahometan in Egypt, led an army into Palestine with the avowed purpose, it has been said, to take possession of Jerusalem, and by rebuilding the temple, and restoring the Jews, to give the lie to the prophecies of the Divine founder of the Christian religion. At the head of a chosen band, exceeding 12,000 in number, and possessed of a staff eminent for military skill and experience, he arrived at the small town of Acre, situated on the sea-coast, 28 miles south of Tyre, and 37 north of Jerusalem. To this town, which was wretchedly fortified, and defended only by a small garrison of Mussulmans, he laid siege in form; and the governor would have surrendered unconditionally, had he not been, we say not persuaded, but decoyed, by an English naval officer, to make a vigorous resistance. We need not add, that the naval officer was Sir Sidney Smith, or that the besieging general was BONAPARTE.

The command of the garrison being entrusted to Sir Sidney Smith, who was not to be bribed by French gold, or corrupted by French philosophy, the hero who, by the aid of these allies, had so quickly routed armies, and conquered states in Italy, was detained before the town of Acre sixty-nine days; though

the number of the allies who defended that town exceeded not 2000 men! Foiled in eleven different attempts to carry it by assault, one of which was made during the truce which he himself had solicited to bury the dead, he was ultimately obliged to retreat, leaving eight of his generals, eighty-five of his officers, and one half of his army behind him. The superiority of the British over the Corsican hero was, during this siege, more fully displayed in conduct than even in courage. The true magnanimity evinced by the former; his temperate replies to the audacious calumnies and atrocious falsehoods of his adversary; and the moderation and humanity which characterized his dispatches, and invariably marked his behaviour to those whom the fortune of war subjected to his power—give additional lustre to the brilliant victory which his valour, his energy, and his perseverance, so essentially contributed to secure.

But while we pay a tribute of justice to the merits of our gallant countryman, we must not omit to notice the high deserts of the brave, the loyal, the virtuous PHILIPPEAUX, his gallant comrade, the partner of his toils, and the partaker of his glory. The skill of this French officer as an engineer was most successfully displayed in the defence of Acre; and, indeed, his exertions on that memorable occasion so far surpassed his strength, that he actually perished through fatigue.

The defeat of Bonaparte at Acre, which effectually stopped his destructive career, will be considered as important indeed, when it is known that his arts of intrigue had so far succeeded as to prevail on the numerous tribe of the Druses to join his standard with sixty thousand men immediately after the reduction of that town. Had this junction been effected, it was intended to proceed to Constantinople, and, after plundering the city, to lay it in ashes! It is scarcely possible to calculate the dreadful consequences of such an event on the political state of Europe. If services are to be estimated in proportion to their effects, we know of none, during the present war, fertile as it has been in brilliant achievements, that deserves a higher reward than the defeat of Bonaparte at Acre.

During these reverses abroad, France had begun to suffer much internal agitation, and the Directory found itself in a very difficult situation. The elections, as usual, were unfavourable to them; and amidst the contempt with which they now began to be regarded, it was no longer possible to secure a majority in the Councils, by unconstitutionally annulling the elections of their political opponents. They demanded money, and were answered by reproaches, on account of their profusion, and the rapacity of their agents. The royalists in the south and the west began to form insurrections. They were subdued with much difficulty, on account of the absence of the troops. The people had totally lost that enthusiasm which, in the earlier periods of the revolution, induced them to submit to so many evils, and to make the most violent efforts without murmuring. They beheld the renewal of the war with regret, and were unwilling to assist by their exertions to restore power and splendour to the faction which had trampled upon their freedom.

Amidst all these difficulties, an event occurred which, for a time, gave the Directory the hope of being once more able to rouse the dormant energies of their countrymen. After the defeat of Jourdan, a detachment

French Revolution, 1799. from the army of the Archduke Charles had occupied Rastadt, where the Congress still sat. On the 28th of April an order was sent by an Imperial officer to the French ministers, requiring them to quit Rastadt in 24 hours. They demanded a passport from Colonel Barbefey, who had sent the order: but this he could not grant, none having that power but the commander in chief. They declared themselves determined to depart without delay, although the evening approached. They were detained about an hour at the gate of the town, in consequence of general orders which had been received by the military to suffer none to pass. In consequence of an explanation, however, and of the interposition of superior officers, they were allowed to depart. The three ministers, Bonnier, Roberjot, and Jean Debry, were in carriages. The wife of Roberjot, and the wife and daughters of Jean Debry, were along with them; and they were attended by the ministers of the Cisalpine republic. When they had advanced to a very short distance from Rastadt, they were met by about 50 hussars of the regiment of Szeckler, who made the carriages halt, and advancing to the first of them, containing Jean Debry, demanded his name. He told them his name, and added that he was a French minister returning to France. On receiving this answer, they immediately tore him from his carriage, wounded him in several places with their sabres, and cast him into a ditch, on the supposition that he was killed. They treated in the same manner the two other ambassadors, Bonnier and Roberjot, whom they murdered upon the spot. They offered no personal violence, however, to the rest of the company, who were allowed to return to Rastadt; but they robbed the carriages of whatever effects they contained; and the papers of the ambassadors were conveyed to the Austrian commander. After the departure of the soldiers, and the return of the carriages to Rastadt, Jean Debry wandered about the woods all night, and returned also to Rastadt on the following day. He claimed the papers belonging to the legation from the Austrian commander, but they were refused to be restored.

During the whole of the long period that the Congress had sat, Rastadt and its vicinity had been occupied by French troops, and it was only a few days since the Austrians had obtained possession of it. This event therefore cast, at least, a severe reproach upon the discipline of the Austrian army. It did more; it made every honest man regret, that troops, engaged in the support of a good cause, should think to promote that cause by the murder even of the greatest villains. The Archduke Charles made haste to disclaim all knowledge of it in a letter to Massena; but the French Directory, regarding it as a fortunate occurrence, from its tendency to rouse the resentment of the nation, addressed to the two Councils, on the 5th of May, a message, in which they ascribed it to a deliberate purpose on the part of the Austrian government to insult France by the assassination of her ambassadors. They thus converted the private act of a few desperate individuals into a measure of public policy; as if the death of those wretched miscreants could have been of consequence to the enemies of the great nation. The unpopularity of the Directory, however, and the obvious inutility of so gross a crime, prevented this accusation from obtaining much credit, or producing great effects upon the people. In

a private letter which a friend of ours received at that period from the Continent, he was assured that the murder of the envoys "fait plus de bruit que de sensation;" and that the general opinion was, that the Directory itself knew more of the authors of that crime than the Archduke or the Austrian government.

Upon the introduction of the new third of this year 1799, into the Councils, a violent opposition to the Directory in France commenced. Sieyes, who was ambassador at Berlin, and who had enjoyed, during the whole progress of the revolution, a very considerable influence over all the parties that had successively enjoyed the supreme authority, was elected into the Directory. At the first establishment of the constitution he had refused to occupy this station, and it excited much surprise when he readily accepted the office in the present calamitous state of the Republic. His admission into the Directory, however, did not reconcile the public or the two Councils to that body. A violent contest for power betwixt the Moderate and the Jacobin parties seemed to approach; but they soon came to a compromise. Treilhard was removed from the Directory, under the pretence that he had held an office in the state within less than a year previous to his nomination. Merlin and Reveille were compelled to resign, to avoid an impeachment with which they were threatened; but Barras still contrived to retain his station. Moulins, Gohier, and Ducos, men little known, and by no means leaders of the contending parties, were appointed Directors. The power was understood to be divided, and that neither party greatly predominated. An attempt was made to revive public spirit, by encouraging anew the institution of clubs, which had been suppressed by the Directory. The violent Jacobins were the first to take advantage of this licence. They resumed their ancient style, their proposals for violent measures, and their practice of denouncing the members and the measures of government. But the Directory becoming alarmed by their intemperance, obtained leave from the Councils to suppress their meetings before they were able to interest the public in their favour.

Considerable efforts were now made by the French Warlike government to recruit their armies; but the deranged state of the finances, which the votes of the Councils could not immediately remedy, prevented the possibility of their gaining a superiority during the present campaign. The difficulty was also increased by the necessity of resiting immense armies in different quarters at the same time, France being assailed at once on the side of Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. Such, however, were the exertions of the Directory, that they seemed not destitute of the hope of being able speedily to assume, on the frontier, a formidable, and even menacing posture. In the beginning of August, their Italian army amounted to 45,000 men. The different bodies of troops of which it consisted had been drawn together, and concentrated nearly in the same positions which Bonaparte had occupied before his battles of Montenotte and Millemimo. The command of the whole was given to Joubert, a young man, who had been much distinguished under Bonaparte; and who, in the style of galconade employed by that general, assured his government of victory, declaring, that he and Suwarow should not both survive the first battle. In this boasting declaration he seems to have been in earnest;

759. French earnest; for, on taking the command, he prevailed with Moreau to remain in the army as a volunteer till the first battle should be fought. The allies had now taken Turin, Alessandria, Milan, Peschiera, and Ferrara, with a rapidity which would lead one to suppose that some new mode had been invented of materially abridging the duration of sieges. The strong citadel of Turin opened its gates, to the astonishment of Europe, after a bombardment of only three days; the citadel of Alessandria surrendered to the Austrian General Bellegarde, on the 22d of July, after a siege of seven days; and the still more important fortress of Mantua surrendered to the brave General Kray, on the 29th of the same month, after a siege of only fourteen days. The garrison of Alessandria amounted to 2400 men; that of Mantua to 13,000. The former were detained prisoners of war, and the latter were allowed to return to France on their parole; a parole which the commanders of the allied armies could not reasonably expect to be kept. This has given rise to a suspicion, that the fortresses were voluntarily surrendered to the Austrians, in order that the Directory might recruit its armies with the garrison.

The allies next began to besiege Tortona, and Joubert resolved to attempt its relief. He hoped to accomplish this object, and to gain some advantage over their army, before General Kray could arrive to the assistance of Suwarow with the troops that had been occupied in the siege of Mantua. On the 13th of August, the French drove in the whole of the Austrian posts, and took possession of Novi. Here they encamped on a long and steep, but not high, ridge of hills, with their centre at Novi, their right towards Serravallo, and their left towards Basaluzzo. On the 14th they remained quiet; and on the 15th they were attacked by Suwarow, whose army was now reinforced by the arrival of General Kray from Mantua. The right wing of the allied army was commanded by Kray, its left by Melas, and its centre was occupied by the Russians, under Prince Ponrazion (Procration) and Suwarow in person. The attack began at 5 o'clock in the morning, and was continued during many hours. Soon after the commencement of the battle, while the French commander in chief, Joubert, was urging his troops forward to a charge with the bayonet, he received a musquet shot in his body, and, falling from his horse, immediately expired. Moreau instantly resumed the command. After an obstinate contest, the allied army gave way, and was compelled to fall back in all quarters. The attack, however, was repeatedly renewed, and much blood was shed. From the obstinate manner in which they fought, the Russians, in particular, suffered very severely. They made three unsuccessful efforts against the centre of the French army, and on each occasion those immediately engaged were rather destroyed than repulsed. The last attack along the whole line was made at three in the afternoon. The French remained unbroken; and the day must have terminated in the defeat of the allies, had not General Melas succeeded in turning the right flank of the French line. Their right wing was thus thrown into confusion. Melas pursued his advantage till he obtained possession of Novi, and the whole French army made a rapid retreat under the direction of Moreau.

According to the accounts given by the Austrians,

the French lost in this battle 4000 killed and an equal number taken prisoners. They acknowledged their own loss in killed to be equal to that of the French, but the loss sustained by the Russians was never published. The general result of the battle was the total ruin of the French affairs in this quarter. The allies retained their decided superiority; and there was no enterprise which, on the present theatre of the war, they might not have ventured to undertake. The French renounced all hope of defending Genoa, and prepared to evacuate that city and its territory. The Directory expected an immediate invasion of the south of France, and addressed a proclamation to the people, urging them to act with firmness and energy amidst the calamities with which the country was now menaced. But these apprehensions were unnecessary. The court of Vienna had other objects in view that were less dangerous to their enemy. They neither invaded Genoa nor France, but quietly proceeded in the siege of Tortona. The vanquished army was surprised to find itself unmolested after such a defeat; and in a few days ventured to send back parties to investigate the movements of the allies. The new commander Championnet, who had succeeded Joubert, found to his no small astonishment that they had rather retreated than advanced; and he immediately occupied the same positions which his army had held before the battle of Novi.

Instead of pursuing the advantages they had gained in Italy, the Aulic council, or council of war at Vienna, now persuaded Suwarow to leave that country with his Russians, and to set out for Switzerland to drive the French from thence. In the early part of the campaign, the Archduke Charles had succeeded, after various attacks, in driving the French from the eastern part of Switzerland beyond Zurich, of which last city he retained possession. The Directory, however, had sent their new levies chiefly towards this quarter; so that in the middle of the month of August Masena's army amounted to 70,000 men. The Archduke was now so far from being able to pursue the advantages he had gained, that of late the French had resumed the offensive, and threatened to endanger his position. Their right wing under Lecourbe had even succeeded in taking possession of Mount St Gothard, which is the great pass that leads from the centre and eastern part of Switzerland into Italy. The cabinet of Vienna probably wished to throw the severest duties of the war upon their northern associates. The veteran Suwarow had never, during his long military career, suffered a single defeat. His presumption of success was there-
375
Suwarow leaves Italy, and marches to Switzerland.
fore high; and he perhaps felt himself not a little flattered by the request to undertake an enterprise in which the Austrians had failed, though led by their most fortunate commander. It is indeed certain that he considered himself as called out of Italy too soon. Though confident of being properly supported, he agreed to proceed with his troops from Piedmont to Switzerland, where another Russian army had lately arrived. Delays, however, were thrown in his way. Tortona did not fall quite so soon as was expected; and when he was ready to march, the Austrian commander in Italy refused to supply him with mules for the transport of his baggage. Unable to reply to the indignant expostulations of the Russian hero, this man descended to a pitiful falsehood, by assuring him that he would find a sufficient

sufficient number of mules at Bellinzona, where, when he arrived, not one was to be had. He had now no other resource but to dismount the cavalry, and employ their horses to drag along the baggage. Under all these difficulties, he arrived, by forced marches, on the confines of Switzerland, on the day appointed by him and the Archduke; but the Austrian cabinet had, in the mean time, taken a step which made all his exertions useless.

Thinking it degrading to a Prince of the Imperial house, who had so long held the highest military rank, to serve under the Russian General, and not having the confidence to require the most experienced leader in Europe to receive the orders of a man so young as the Archduke, they sent that prince with his army to attack the French, who, in a small body, had entered into Swabia. He began accordingly to draw off his troops in the beginning of September, before Suvarrow was in readiness to leave Italy. The number which he took with him has been differently estimated, the lowest computation stating it at 48,000, and the highest at 60,000. The former is the most probable; since it is well known that 20,000 would have been fully adequate to the purpose for which he marched. The army which he left behind him is more perfectly ascertained: it consisted of 21,000 Russians, 18,900 Austrians, Bavarians, and other auxiliaries, forming a total of 39,900 men.

Upon what principle of military tactics the Aulic council could suppose that a skilful and intrepid commander like Massena, with a force nearly double that of the allies, would remain in a state of inactivity, it is not easy to conceive. He perceived at once the advantage which might be derived from this unaccountable movement of the Archduke. The French troops in Swabia were therefore ordered to advance rapidly, as to threaten the rear of the Archduke's army. As the repulse of these troops, and the invasion of France towards Alface, formed a part of the Austrian commander's plan of operations, he marched against them with his army. The French made as much resistance as the smallness of their force would permit. The Archduke, however, gradually drove them towards the Rhine. The better to carry on their plan of deception, they made a serious stand in the neighbourhood of Mannheim, and were defeated with the loss of 1800 men. The Austrians entered Mannheim, and seemed ready to cross the Rhine in this quarter.

All this while Switzerland was left completely exposed to the enterprises of Massena. General Hotze, with the Austrians, occupied the right wing of the allied army there. The newly arrived Russian army was stationed in the centre at Zurich, under the command of General Korsakoff; and the left, consisting chiefly of Bavarians and other troops of the empire, was commanded by Nauendorf. Massena remained quiet till he learned that the Archduke had entered Mannheim, and that Suvarrow, having taken Tortona, was on his march towards Switzerland by Mount St Gothard. This last position was defended by Lecourbe; and Massena resolved, in the mean time, to anticipate the arrival of Suvarrow. On the 24th of September, having drawn the attention of the Russians to another quarter by a false attack, he suddenly crossed the Limmat, a river which divided the two armies near the con-

vent of Farr, which is three leagues distant from Zurich. A part of the French troops engaged the Austrians, while the greater part of the army marched against the Russians at Zurich. The Austrian General Hotze was killed in the commencement of the action. General Petrarca, who succeeded him in the command, contrived to avoid a total rout, and retired during the night with the loss of about 4000 men. The contest with the Russians was singularly obstinate. In a mountainous country, to which they were strangers, and contending against the most skilful military leaders that the south of Europe had been able to produce, they laboured under every disadvantage. They could not be put to flight, however; and even when different divisions of them were surrounded, they refused to lay down their arms, and were slaughtered upon the spot. By the retreat of the Austrians on the evening of the 24th, they found themselves on the 26th nearly surrounded in Zurich. They now began to retreat also; and we are only surprised at the ability of the Russian General in effecting his retreat in such good order, and with such little loss; for if the official accounts deserve credit, his loss in killed, wounded, and taken, did not exceed 3000 men. He was obliged, however, to abandon his baggage and cannon to the enemy.

During these operations, Suvarrow was advancing on the side of Italy with an army rated, in some accounts, at 18,000, in others at only 15,000; and forcing the French from their strong positions on Mount St Gothard, descended, on the very day on which Massena made his general attack, into the valley of Urferen; and driving Lecourbe before him, with considerable slaughter, advanced as far as Altorf. He even penetrated on the next day into the canton of Glaris, and took 1000 of the French prisoners; while the Russian General Rosenberg was equally successful in the canton of Schwitz, where General Avffenberg had effected a junction with him; and General Linken defeated and took another corps of French, consisting of 1300 men.

Massena, however, now turned upon the Field-marshal with the greater part of his army; and, by hemming him in on all sides, expected to have made him, and the Grand Duke Constantine, prisoners. Suvarrow, however, defended himself against every attack with unexampled vigour and address. A single pass among the mountains was all that remained unoccupied by the French. He discovered this circumstance, and escaped, though closely pursued. He lost his cannon, baggage, and provisions, among the dreadful mountains and precipices with which that country abounds. He made his way, however, eastward through the Grison country, and at length arrived at Coire with about 6000 men in great distress.

Nothing could exceed the indignation of this old warrior when he discovered the manner in which affairs had been conducted, the hazardous state in which the Russians had been abandoned by the Archduke, and the consequent ruin which they had encountered. He considered himself and his countrymen as treacherously exposed to destruction; he loudly complained of the Commander of the allied forces in Switzerland; publicly taxed the council of Vienna with selfishness and injustice; and refused all further co-operation with the Austrian army. He sent an account of the whole transaction

such action to St. Petersburg in a letter, of which the composition would do honour to the finest writer of the age, and withdrew with his troops to the neighbourhood of Augsburg to wait for farther orders.

In the mean time, Great Britain prepared to invade Holland with an army of 40,000 men, consisting of British troops and Russian auxiliaries. The first division, under General Sir Ralph Abercromby, failed in the month of August, under the protection of a fleet commanded by Admiral Lord Duncan. Bad weather prevented a landing from being attempted till the 27th. On the morning of that day the troops landed without opposition upon the shore of Helder Point in north Holland, at the entrance to the Zuyder Sea. They had not been expected in this quarter, and the troops in the neighbourhood were consequently few. The British, however, had no sooner begun to move forward, than they were attacked by a considerable body of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, who had been hastily assembled from the nearest towns. The Dutch troops maintained the contest with much obstinacy; but they were gradually fatigued by the steady opposition they encountered, and retired to the distance of two leagues. In the night they evacuated the fort of Helder, of which the British took possession on the morning of the 28th. A detachment from the British fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Mitchell, now entered the Zuyder Sea by the strait of the Texel, to attack the Dutch fleet under Admiral Story. This last officer, instead of retiring for safety to any of the ports, or to the shallow water with which that sea abounds, surrendered the whole fleet on the 30th of August without firing a gun, under pretence that his seamen were mutinous, and would not fight.

Had the expedition terminated here, it might have been regarded as extremely fortunate, and as establishing the power of the British navy without a rival. But it was resolved to follow up this first success by an effort on land to restore the authority of the Stadtholder, and the ancient government of the United Provinces. Many circumstances were hostile to this enterprise. The whole army had not been sent at once from Britain. As no more than the first division had arrived, the troops could only rest upon the ground they had gained till reinforcements should be sent. The terror arising from the first appearance of an invading army was thus allowed to pass away, the enemies of the present Dutch government were discouraged, and leisure was afforded to adopt effectual measures of defence. The place where the landing was effected was well chosen for an attack upon the Dutch fleet; but for an invasion, with a view to the restoration of the Stadtholder, it was the worst that could have been selected. North Holland, at the extremity of which it was made, is a narrow peninsula, everywhere intersected by canals and ditches, of about 40 miles in length. Here the invaders might be detained, and even successfully resisted, by a force greatly inferior to their own. This also is the quarter of the country the most unfavourable to the cause of the Stadtholder. In Zeeland, where his estates are situated, and in Rotterdam, which is full of Scotchmen and of families of Scottish extraction, his friends are numerous and powerful; but in Amsterdam, and in North Holland, which is under its influence, his enemies abound, and the resistance to his power has been very great du-

ring every period of the Dutch history. When to all this it is added, that the rainy season was approaching, and that a winter campaign in Holland is almost impossible, it will not appear surprising that this expedition was attended with little ultimate success. It is said that, amidst the pressure of the many difficulties which surrounded them, the French Directory hesitated much about undertaking the defence of Holland; but the place, and the time of landing the invading army, at once brought them to a determination. General Brune was sent thither, with whatever troops could be hastily collected, to support the Dutch General Daendels.

General Abercromby, in the mean time, remained upon the defensive at Schager Brug, waiting for reinforcements. His inactivity encouraged the enemy on the 10th of September to venture an attack upon his position. They advanced in three columns, two of which consisted of Dutch and one of French troops. They were repulsed, however, in all quarters, and retired to Alkmaar. On the 13th the Duke of York arrived with additional troops, and assumed the chief command. The Russian auxiliaries having also arrived, offensive operations were immediately resolved upon. On the 19th the army advanced. General Abercromby commanded the left, which proceeded along the shore of the Zuyder Sea against Hoorn. The centre columns were commanded by Generals Dundas and Pultney; and the right wing, consisting of Russians, was commanded by their own General D'Herman. In consequence of some strange misunderstanding, the Russians advanced to the attack soon after three o'clock in the morning, which was some hours previous to the movement of the rest of the army. They were successful in their first efforts, and obtained possession of the village of Bergen; but pressing eagerly forward, and being unsupported by the other columns, they were nearly surrounded. Their commander was taken prisoner; and though the British came in time to protect their retreat, they lost at least 3000 men. This failure on the right obliged the British Commander in Chief to recall his troops from the whole advanced positions they had gained, though General Abercromby had actually taken Hoorn with its garrison, and although General Pultney's column had carried by assault the principal position of the Dutch army called Oude Carpel.

The severity of the weather prevented another attack till the 2d of October, when, after an engagement that lasted from six in the morning till the same hour in the evening, the British army succeeded in driving the united Dutch and French troops from Alkmaar and the villages in its neighbourhood. The contest was chiefly conducted among the sand hills in the vicinity of the ocean; and the battle was maintained with such obstinacy, that the fatigue of the troops, together with the difficult nature of the country, prevented the British from gaining any great advantage in the pursuit. The retreating army immediately occupied a new position between Baverwyck and Wyck-op-zee. The Duke of York once more attacked them on the 6th; and after an obstinate and bloody engagement, which was maintained till night, he remained in possession of the field of battle. But this was the last success of the invaders. Finding himself unable to make farther progress, and the impracticable nature of the country, and the badness of the weather, he was obliged to stop.

French Revolution, 1799. of the weather, which, during the whole of this year, was unusually severe, the Duke of York retired to Schager Brug, and there waited for orders from England to return home. He was, in the mean time, closely pressed by the United Dutch and French forces, so that his embarkation must have been attended with much hazard. He therefore entered into a convention with the French and Dutch generals; by which it was agreed, that they should no farther molest him in his retreat, and that, in return, he should not injure the country by breaking down any of the dykes which protected it against the sea, and that Great Britain should restore to France and Holland 8000 prisoners of war, taken previous to the present campaign.

In consequence of these events, the affairs of France now began to assume a less unfavourable aspect. They were indeed driven to the extremities of Italy, Championet was defeated in every effort which he there made against the Austrians during the rest of the year, and Ancona, which was the last place of any strength possessed by the French, also surrendered on the 13th of November to General Frolich; but they retained the Genoese territory, and Switzerland and Holland continued under their power. The new coalition against them seemed once more ready to dissolve. From the commencement of the French Revolution, a spirit of selfishness had mingled with all the efforts made by the continental powers of Europe against it, and had rendered them fruitless. To prevent the aggrandisement of Austria, Prussia had early withdrawn, and still stood aloof. Spain and Holland were retained under the influence of France by the efforts of her arms, and by the universal diffusion of her wild principles among the people. Even the British cabinet, which of all the European powers has remained most true to the original purpose of the war, sometimes forgot that object. Thus, when invading Holland, the Dutch were informed, by a proclamation, that their ancient government was to be restored; but no offer was made to restore their distant possessions. Of all the coalesced powers, however, Austria pursued her separate interests with the least disguise. With much facility she relinquished the Netherlands, and suffered the principal bulwarks of Germany, Mentz, and Ehrenbreitstein, to fall into the hands of the French, upon obtaining in exchange the Venetian territories, which Bonaparte had conquered, and thought himself authorized to sell. During the present campaign, the whole conquests made by the united efforts of the Austrian and Russian forces were seized by Austria in her own name, and none of the Princes of Italy obtained leave to resume the government of their own territories. This conduct on the part of the allies gave every advantage to the French. They broke off the negotiations at Lisle, under the pretence of defending the Dutch and Spanish settlements which the British government refused to relinquish. They found it easy to alarm the King of Prussia, by displaying the unbounded ambition of the house of Austria; and the Emperor of Russia, having publicly declared to the members of the German empire, that the purpose for which he had taken up arms was not to dismember France, but to restore peace to Europe, became jealous of the Court of Vienna, when he saw it pursue a conduct so very different. This jealousy was increased by the misfortunes of the Russian

troops; and all circumstances seemed now to promise that the new coalition would speedily be deserted by its northern auxiliary.

While affairs were in this state, an event occurred which exhibited the French Revolution under a new aspect. When Bonaparte found himself compelled to retreat, baffled and disgraced, from the ruins of Acre, he learned that a Turkish army was ready to invade Egypt by sea. He returned, therefore, with his usual celerity, by way of Suez, across the desert of Arabia Petraea, which divides Syria from that country, and was in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids on the 11th of July, when an army of 18,000 Turks landed from 100 ships at Aboukir. They took this fort by assault, and gave no quarter to the French garrison of 500 men that it contained. On the 15th, Bonaparte began to march down the country against them. On the 25th he came in sight of them, at six o'clock in the morning.

It is not wonderful that those barbarians afforded him an advantage which had so often been presented by the armies of Austria. They had divided their force into two parts, which were encamped on the opposite sides of a beautiful plain. He had now formed a considerable body of cavalry, by obtaining for his men fleet horses from Arabia. These advanced rapidly into the centre of the Turkish army, and cut off the communication between its different parts. His infantry then attacked the right, which was the weakest division of the Turks. They being speedily panic struck, attempted to fly to their ships, and every man was drowned in the sea. The left division of the Turks was next attacked. It made a more obstinate resistance, but was soon also put to flight. Some cast themselves into the sea, and perished in attempting to reach the boats of their fleet; the rest took refuge in the fort of Aboukir. The news of this battle reached France towards the end of September, and revived the memory of Bonaparte's victories, contrasted with the reverses which the Republican armies had lately experienced. On the 10th of October a dispatch was received from him by the Directory, and read to the Councils, giving an account of the capture of the fort of Aboukir, with the whole remains of the Turkish army. On the 14th of the same month a message from the Directory announced, to the astonishment of all men, that Bonaparte, along with his principal officers, had just arrived in France, and that they left the army in Egypt in a prosperous state. This last part of the message was soon afterwards proved, by the intercepted letters of Kleber, and the other generals left behind, to be a scandalous falsehood. In one of these letters, Poussielgue says, "Every victory carries off some of our best troops, and their loss cannot be repaired. A defeat would annihilate us all; and however brave the army may be, it cannot long avert that fatal event."

Bonaparte, however, was received at Paris with distinction, though nobody could tell why he had deserted his army and come thither. The parties in the government were equally balanced; and both the Jacobins, and what were called the Moderates, solicited his assistance. The Jacobins still possessed a majority in the Council of Five Hundred; but in the other Council their antagonists were superior. The Director Sicyes was understood to be of the party of the Moderates; and the Jacobins had of late unsuccessfully attempted

to remove him from his office, under the pretence that the interval appointed by the constitution had not elapsed between his going out of the Council of Five Hundred and his election to the office of director. Neither party was satisfied with the existing authorities; but none of the usual indications of approaching hostilities appeared. The Jacobins were far from suspecting that Sieyes had a plot ripe for execution, which was to overwhelm them in an instant. They were even in some measure laid asleep by an artful scene of festivity, in which the whole members of the Councils were induced to engage, on the 6th of November, under pretence of doing honour to the arrival of Bonaparte. On the morning of the 9th, one of the committees of the Council of Ancients, called the committee of Inspectors of the Hall, presented a report; in which they asserted, that the country was in danger, and proposed to adjourn the sitting of the legislature to St Cloud, a village about six miles from Paris. We have already mentioned, that the constitution entrusted to the Council of Ancients the power of fixing the residence of the legislative bodies, and that this Council could in no other case assume the initiative, or propose any law; their powers of legislation being otherwise limited to the unconditional approbation or disapprobation of the decrees passed by the Council of Five Hundred. The Council of Ancients now suddenly decreed, that both Councils should meet next day at St Cloud. As the Council of Five Hundred had no constitutional right to dispute the authority of this decree, and as the ruling party in it was completely taken by surprise, its members silently submitted, and both Councils assembled on the 10th of November at the place appointed.

The Council of Five Hundred exhibited a scene of much agitation. They received a letter from Legarde, secretary to the Directory, stating, that four of its members had sent resignations of their offices, and that the fifth (Barras) was in custody by order of General Bonaparte, who had been appointed commander of their guard by the Council of Ancients. While the Council were deliberating, Bonaparte entered the hall, attended by about twenty officers and grenadiers. He advanced towards the chair, where his brother Lucien Bonaparte sat as president. Great confusion ensued; he was called a Cromwell, a Cæsar, an usurper. The members began to press upon him, and his countryman Arena attempted to stab him with a dagger. He was rescued by his military escort. Lucien Bonaparte then left the chair, and cast aside the badge of office which he wore as a member of the Council. The confusion did not diminish; but in a short time a party of armed men rushed into the hall, and carried off Lucien Bonaparte. A tumultuous debate now began; in which it was proposed that Bonaparte should be declared an outlaw. The debate was soon terminated, however. The doors of the hall were once more burst open. Military music was heard; and a body of troops proceeding into the hall in full array, the members were compelled to disperse. The Council of Ancients, in the mean time, setting aside the constitution, passed a variety of decrees. They abolished the Directory, and appointed in its stead an Executive Commission; to consist of Bonaparte, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos, under the appellation of Consuls. They adjourned the sittings of the legislative bodies till the 20th of February, and appoint-

ed two committees, consisting of twenty-one members, selected from each of the two councils, to act as legislators in the mean time. They also expelled a great number of members from their seats in the councils.

Most of the members of the Council of Five Hundred returned to Paris, after having been driven from their hall by the military; but a part of them remained at St Cloud, and, on the evening of the same day, confirmed all the decrees of the Council of Ancients. The new government entered upon its functions at Paris on the following day. That city remained tranquil, and the public funds even rose upon the occasion. On the 17th of November the consuls decreed the transportation of a great number of the leading Jacobins and zealous republicans to Guiana, and ordered many others to be imprisoned; but these decrees were speedily recalled, and affairs went on as quietly as if nothing unusual had occurred.

While Bonaparte was thus obtaining boundless personal aggrandisement in Europe, the African expedition in which he had been engaged was utterly unsuccessful in all its objects. The circumstances which led to it, so far as concerned foreign nations, now came to light, and were shortly these: Tippoo Sultan, the son and successor of the celebrated Hyder Ally, and sovereign of the Mysore country, which forms a part of the peninsula of India, had been compelled to conclude a treaty of peace in the year 1792 with the British governor general, Lord Cornwallis, under the walls of Seringapatam his capital. By this treaty he resigned to the invaders a part of his territory, and agreed to pay a large sum of money. He was, moreover, under the humiliating necessity of consenting that two of his sons should be delivered as hostages, to remain with the British till the pecuniary payments could be completed.

A war thus concluded could not become the foundation of much cordial amity between the parties. Tippoo had inherited from his father a deep sentiment of hostility against the growing power of Britain in India. Though he submitted on the occasion now mentioned to the necessity of his circumstances, yet he only waited a more fortunate opportunity to endeavour to recover what he had lost; and even, if possible, to accomplish the favourite object of all his enterprises, the complete expulsion of the British from India. At a former period, almost the whole of the native princes of this vast continent had entered into a combination against the power of Britain; but their designs had been defeated by the talents and exertions of Warren Hastings, Esq; The ascendancy of the British government in this quarter was now so great, that no such combination could again be formed, and Tippoo felt that its power could only be shaken by the aid of an European army. France was the only country from which he could hope to obtain an adequate force. By the events of the revolution, however, and by the pressure of the war at home, the rulers of France had been prevented from attending to distant views and interests. Their settlements in India had been seized by the British, and they had ceased to retain any possessions beyond the Cape of Good Hope, excepting the islands of Mauritius and Bourbon. In the year 1797, Tippoo resolved to endeavour to renew his intercourse with the French by means of these islands. One Repaud, who had once been a lieutenant in the French navy, and had resided for some time at Seringapatam,

gapatam, had misled Tippoo into a belief that the French had a great force at the Mauritius, which could immediately be sent to his aid in case of a war. He therefore fitted out a ship, of which he gave the command to Ripaud, and sent two persons in it as his ministers, with powers to negotiate with the French leaders at the Mauritius. But, at the same time, to avoid exciting the suspicions of the British government in his neighbourhood, he directed his messengers to assume the character of merchants, to act in that capacity in public, and to conduct their political negotiations with secrecy. They arrived at the Mauritius towards the close of the year 1797, and opened their proposals to Malartic the governor, for an alliance between Tippoo and the French nation, with the view of obtaining the aid of an European army. They were received with great joy, and vessels were instantly dispatched to France to communicate their proposals to the Directory.

In the mean time, Malartic the governor of the Mauritius, from folly, from treachery, or from a desire to involve Tippoo, at all hazards, in a quarrel with the British, took a step which ultimately was in a great measure the means of defeating the plans, and accomplishing the ruin of that prince. On the 30th of January 1798, he published and distributed a proclamation, in which he recited the whole private proposals of Tippoo, and invited all French citizens to enlist in his service. Copies of this proclamation were speedily conveyed by different vessels, touching at the Mauritius, to the continent of India, to Britain, and to all quarters of the world. Accordingly, as early as the 18th of June 1798, the secret committee of the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London wrote to their governor general in India, requiring him, in consequence of this proclamation, to watch the conduct of Tippoo, and even to engage in hostilities, if the measure should appear necessary. Before that period, however, the government in India had been alarmed, by the same means, and was making preparations for war. This, however, was no easy matter. It is the nature of European power, in these countries, gradually to decline. The nature of the climate, the view of returning home, and the distance from the seat of government, speedily introduce a relaxation of the efforts and the vigilance by which dominion was originally acquired. The troops require to be continually renewed by levies from the parent country; and if this precaution is neglected for a very short time, or negligently attended to, they become unable to protect the extensive territories such as Britain now possessed in India. When Lord Mornington, the governor-general, enquired into the state of the British army at Madras, and whether he might hazard an offensive war against Tippoo; he was informed, that three, if not six months would be necessary to assemble the scattered divisions of the army, and to prepare them to defend their own territory. It was added, that such was the feeble state of the British forces in that quarter, that it might even be unsafe to excite suspicion in Tippoo by military preparations, as he might, in that case, ruin them by a sudden attack. Lord Mornington, however, resolved to encounter every hazard, and ordered immediate and active preparations in every quarter.

In the meanwhile, Tippoo did not trust for success to the aid of France alone. He endeavoured to bring

an attack upon the British and their allies, or subjects, in India, from the north-west, by inviting Zemaun Shah to invade the country. This prince is at the head of a formidable kingdom, made up of provinces torn from both Persia and India. It was founded about sixty years ago by Ahmed Khan Abdalla, an Afghan chief, who followed Nader Shah on his invasion of India in 1739. He himself afterwards invaded India no less than seven times; and, in particular, he overthrew, with dreadful slaughter, the united forces of the Maharratta empire, in the year 1761, on the plains of Paniput. He was succeeded, in 1773 by his son Timmure Shah, who died, and was succeeded by his own son, the present prince. The dominions of Zemaun Shah extend from the left bank of the river Indus, on the sea-coast, as far northward as the latitude of Cashmeer; and from east to west they are 650 English miles in length, comprehending the provinces of Cabal, Candahar, Peihere, Ghizni, Gaur, Sigistan, and Korafun. He usually keeps in pay an army of 150,000 horse, besides infantry to garrison his fortresses. In expectation of direct aid from France, by Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, and of an important diversion to be made by Zemaun Shah, Tippoo endeavoured to remain quiet, and to temporise with the British.

Since the first victories of Lawrence and of Clive, the native princes of India have been eager to introduce the European art of war among their subjects. For this purpose they retain European adventurers to command and discipline a part of their troops, and even endeavour to form a guard for their persons of European soldiers. The Nizam, a prince in alliance with the British, though in a great measure under their influence, had long retained around his person a considerable body of French, and of troops under their management. These, under the command of one Perou, now possessed great influence at Hyderabad, the capital of the Nizam. It was of much importance that these should be removed out of the way, to enable the British to obtain the aid of this prince as an ally in the approaching contest with Tippoo. Lord Mornington procured this object to be accomplished with so much success, that, on the 22d of October 1798, the French corps under Perou was surrounded and disarmed without bloodshed, and a British force was substituted as a guard to the Nizam in its stead. The military preparations being in a considerable state of forwardness, Lord Mornington next warned Tippoo Sultan, in a letter dated the 8th of November 1798, of his having a knowledge of his hostile designs and connection with the French. He also proposed to send an ambassador to treat about the means of restoring a good understanding between the states. Tippoo avoided returning an answer till the 18th of December, and then generally denied the accusation, and refused to receive the ambassador. On the 9th of January 1799, the British governor again urged in writing that the ambassador should be received. No answer was returned for a month; and, in the mean time, an army of 5000 men having arrived from England, orders were issued to General Harris to advance at the head of the Madras army against the kingdom of Mysore. Tippoo now offered to receive the ambassador, providing he came without an attendance; but this concession was not accounted sufficient, and the army advanced. An army from

reach from Bombay was, at the same instant, advancing on the opposite side of his dominions. A part of Tippoo's forces encountered this army and were defeated; and within a few days thereafter, on the 27th of March, the rest of his army was defeated by General Harris. When an European army in India is tolerably numerous, the detail of its military operations against the natives is by no means interesting; for the inhabitants of these enfeebled and fertile regions can never be made, by any kind or degree of discipline, to possess that moral energy which enables men to encounter danger with coolness and self-command. They can rush on death under the influence of rage or despair, but they cannot meet the hazard of it with calmness and recollection. It is sufficient to remark that, on the 7th of April, General Harris sat down before Seringapatam. On the 9th, Tippoo sent a letter to this officer, alleging his own adherence to treaties, and enquiring into the cause of the war. He was answered by a reference to Lord Mornington's letters. On the 20th he made another attempt to negotiate, by writing to General Harris, requesting him to nominate commissioners to treat of a peace. In answer to this proposal, certain articles were sent to him as the only conditions that would be granted. By these he was required to surrender half his dominions, to pay a large sum of money, to admit resident ambassadors from the British and their allies, to renounce all connection with the French, and to give hostages for the fulfilment of these stipulations.

On the 28th of April Tippoo again wrote to General Harris, requesting leave to treat by ambassadors; but his proposal was refused, upon the footing that he was already in possession of the only terms of peace which would be granted. Could Seringapatam have held out for little more than a fortnight longer, the invading army must have retreated. The rainy season was about to commence; and, by some strange effect of negligence or treachery, provisions were so deficient in the camp, that it was only by reducing the troops to half allowance that they could be made to last till the 15th of May. On the 30th of April, the besiegers began to batter the walls of Seringapatam; and a breach being made, the city was taken by assault on the 4th of May. One o'clock afternoon had been chosen for this purpose, as the hottest hour of the day, and consequently the time when it would be least expected. Tippoo was in his palace; but on being informed of the attack, he hastened to the breach, and fell undistinguished in the conflict. His treasures, and the plunder of the city, which was immense, went to enrich the conquering army, after deducting a share for the British government and East India Company. His kingdom immediately submitted. The part of it which formed the ancient kingdom of Mysore, was bestowed upon a descendant of the former race of its kings, whom Hyder Ally had deprived of the sovereignty; the additional territories that had been conquered by Hyder Ally were divided between the British and their allies, the Nizam and the Mahrattas. The family of Tippoo were either taken in the capital, or voluntarily surrendered themselves to the conquerors. They were removed from that part of the country, and allowed a considerable pension.

In the mean time, Zemaun Shah had actually invaded India from the north-west. He advanced to the

vicinity of Delhi, spreading terror and desolation wherever he came. Had the French army in Egypt been able to detach a body of 15,000 men to the assistance of Tippoo, while all India was in the state of alarm naturally produced by the approach of this northern invasion, it is extremely probable that the British forces might speedily have found themselves deserted by every ally, and sunk under an unequal contest. But the actual result was very different. Satisfied with the plunder he had obtained, Zemaun Shah soon withdrew; and the French army being detained in Egypt by the war with the Turks, and by the want of vessels at Suez, wherewith to reach India, Tippoo was left to contend, unassisted, against the whole power of Britain, and of its allies in the east. By the conquest and division of his territory, the British power was left without a rival in power of that quarter of the world, and raised to such a state of imposing superiority, that if affairs are only preserved in their present situation, by periodical supplies of European troops, no native prince, or even combination of princes, can henceforth bring it into danger. Thus, notwithstanding the vast military efforts made by the people of France during this revolutionary war, yet all foreigners who trusted to their aid were ruined by placing confidence in them. In Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, the rapacity of the commissaries of the French government, soon rendered odious and intolerable the presence of those armies whose arrival had been eagerly desired. In Ireland and in India, the promise and the hope of assistance which they were never able to bestow, only served to produce premature hostility, and to encrease and establish the power of the British government.

But to return to the domestic history of France, which has now become only an history of the usurpation of Bonaparte.

In the middle of the month of December, the Consuls, with their legislative committees, produced to the public their plan of a new constitution, which they presented to the primary assemblies, and which is said to have been accepted by them without opposition, like all the former constitutions. It is a very singular production, and neither admits of representative government, nor indeed of any other form of political freedom. Eighty men, who elect their own successors, possess, under the appellation of a Conservative Senate, the power of nominating the whole legislators and executive rulers of the state; but cannot themselves hold any office in either of these departments. The sovereignty is concentrated in one man, who, under the title of Chief Consul, holds his power for ten years, and may be re-elected. The whole executive authority is entrusted to him, and he enjoys the exclusive privilege of proposing new laws. He is assisted by two other consuls, who join at his deliberations, but cannot controul his will. The legislative power is entrusted to two assemblies: the one, consisting of 100 members, called a Tribunate; and the other, of a Senate, of 300 members. When a law is proposed by the Chief Consul, the Tribunate may debate about it, but have no vote in its enactment. The Senate votes for or against its enactment, but cannot debate about it. Neither the Consuls, nor the members of the legislative bodies, nor of the conservative senate, are responsible for their conduct. The ministers of state, however, who are appointed by

French Revolution, 1799. the Chief Consul, are responsible for the measures they adopt.

The people in the primary assemblies elect one-tenth of their number as candidates for inferior offices; persons thus chosen, elect one-tenth of themselves as candidates for higher offices; and these again elect a tenth of themselves as candidates for all the highest offices of the state. Out of this last tenth the Conservative Senate must nominate the consuls, legislators, and members of their own body. But this last regulation is to have no effect till the ninth year of the republic. In the mean time, the same committees that framed the constitution, appointed also the whole persons who were to exercise the government. Bonaparte was appointed Chief Consul, and Cambacérès and Lebrun second and third Consuls. Sieyès, with his usual caution, avoided taking any active share in the management of public affairs, and was appointed, or appointed himself, a member of his own Conservative Senate; the whole being regarded as produced by him. As a gratuity for his services, the Chief Consul and his legislators presented to him an estate belonging to the nation, called Grosne, in the department of Seine and Oise.

Thus, after all their sanguinary struggles for freedom, did the son of a Corsican drive from their stations the representatives of the French nation, and assume quiet possession of the government of that country, with a power more absolute than ever belonged to its ancient monarchs. The established privileges of the clergy, the nobles, and the parliaments, always restrained, in some degree, the despotism of the kings of France; these being now destroyed, the will of Bonaparte could meet with no controul. Though an usurper, however, he has not hitherto been a tyrant. He has rather attempted to induce the French nation to acquiesce in his authority, in consequence of the mildness with which it has been exercised, and of the ability and reputation of the men whom he has employed in the public service. He immediately sent proposals for negotiating peace to the different powers at war with France. Great Britain refused to listen to him on account of the probable instability of his government, and Austria appears to have given a similar refusal. It is indeed difficult to believe that he wished his proposals to be accepted. They were not addressed to the belligerent powers in the aggregate, but to each individually, as if his object had been to sow dissention and mistrust between the allies. When he made these proposals, he did not even know whether the people of France would accept of the constitution which he had offered them; and he had taken no measures to procure a repeal of those revolutionizing decrees which were the immediate cause of the war with England.

His situation is, in the mean time, attended with great difficulties. The want both of an hereditary title, and of a national representation as the basis of his power, renders his character as an usurper so obvious, that it is only by very cautious measures that his elevation can be maintained. If he is either unsuccessful abroad, or compelled to press the people for money at home, there is little doubt that his fall must follow. Even independent of either of these events, it is a possible case that the violent Jacobins may recover their lost energy, and by force or fraud destroy the man who has baffled all their projects. From the royalists he has less to fear; for the men of ardent spirits and violent

passions belonging to that party, from whom alone great efforts can ever be expected, were early tempted to leave the country by the hopes held out to them by the coalesced powers, which, by weakening, has hitherto prevented their party from becoming of much importance in the interior of France.

In the mean time, Bonaparte has been successful in suppressing a new royalist revolt which had arisen in La Vendée, and has made great exertions to begin the campaign with vigour. The low state of the French finances, however, have much enfeebled all his efforts towards assembling very numerous armies. The army which he left in Egypt, after concluding a treaty with the Grand Vizier, by the terms of which they were to be landed safe in France, have seen reason to break the truce which had been agreed on. Kleber has attacked and completely defeated the main body of the Turkish army, while a detachment of that army has entered Cairo, and massacred, it is said, every Frenchman found in the city, not sparing the members of the National Institute. The probable consequence of this is, that no part of the army of Egypt will ever return to Europe.

War has been recommenced between the Austrians and France, both in Switzerland and in Swabia, and menaced carried on with great vigour. Massena, after giving complete proofs of consummate skill, and the most undaunted valour, has been for some time blocked up in Genoa; and unless he has been relieved by the vigorous exertions of the Chief Consul, he must before this period (June the 12th) have surrendered to the Austrian General Melas. The affairs of the French in that quarter seem indeed to be desperate; but in Germany they have hitherto been successful. Moreau has displayed his wonted abilities, and the gallant Kray has retreated before him, whether from necessity or to draw him into inextricable difficulties, a very short time will evince.

But here we must interrupt this detail, without the faintest prospect of bringing it to a conclusion during the publication of the present Work. We cannot, however, dismiss the momentous subject without correcting some errors into which we fell in the account of the rise and progress of this revolution which was published in the Encyclopædia. We do not consider these errors as disgraceful to ourselves; for in the midst of commotions which have convulsed all Europe, it is hardly possible to arrive at the truth. When time shall have cooled the passions of men, and annihilated the parties which now divide the nation, the calm voice of Truth may be everywhere heard; but when the article referred to was written, the ears of every man was stunned with the clamour of faction.

So sensible of this are the editors of the only impartial periodical history* which we have, that they venture not to publish their volumes till several years have elapsed from the era of the transactions which these volumes record; whilst their rivals—the panders of faction—seize the earliest opportunities of obtruding their partial statements and false reasonings on the public mind.

It cannot be supposed that one or two men, superintending the publication of a work so extensive, and treating of subjects so various, as ours, have leisure or opportunity to examine with much attention the correspondence of ambassadors, or to explicate truth from the contradictory publications of the day. We are therefore

therefore obliged to draw our materials from such works as profess to give a summary, but impartial, detail of what is acting on the theatre of the world; and by these works we have often been misled. For the first error, however, which we shall notice in our former account of the rise of the revolution, we cannot plead even this excuse. We ought to have known, that the French clergy and French noblesse were not exempted from the payment of taxes; and, of course, we ought not to have assigned such exemption as one of the causes of the Revolution. See that article, Encycl. n° 8. and 9.

By a writer, to whose patriotic exertions this country is deeply indebted, it has been proved, with a force of argument which precludes all possibility of reply, that the exemption from taxes so loudly complained of was very trifling, that it was not confined to the nobility and clergy, and that it did not extend over the whole kingdom of France. "The vintiers, which may be considered as an impost merely territorial, was paid alike by the nobility and the tiers-état. A great part of the clergy was indeed exempted; but their contributions, under a different form, constituted an ample equivalent. The duties upon the different articles of consumption were of course paid by all the consumers, except that in the pays d'état, such as Artois and Brittany; the two first orders were exempted from paying the tax upon liquors. But these exemptions cannot be deemed very important, when it is known, that in the province of Artois they did not exceed 800 guineas annually, even including the exemptions enjoyed by the privileged members of the tiers-état." The British officers serving on board ships of war are exempted from the taxes paid by the other members of the state on wine; and we believe no good subject has ever murmured at that exemption. The French nobility were subject to the pole-tax.

"Of the teilles, the impost from which it has been falsely asserted that the nobility and clergy enjoyed a total exemption, there were two species; the one personal, the other real. In one part of the kingdom, the right of exemption was annexed to the property; in the other, to the quality of the proprietor. In the first case, the privilege was enjoyed by every class of persons, by the tenants as well as the proprietor of a fief; whilst the gentleman, whose estate was holden by a different tenure, was obliged to pay the tax. In those provinces where the other custom obtained, the exemption was confined to a certain extent of property, and to that only while it continued in the actual occupation of the privileged person; but as it very seldom happened that the French nobility kept any land in their own hands, and as the tax payable by the farmers was of course deducted from the rent, the teilles was, in this case, ultimately paid by the landlord. The same observations apply, with still greater force, to the clergy, who always let their estates."

In a word, it appears from a formal declaration made by M. Necker to the Constituent Assembly, that all the pecuniary exemptions enjoyed by the privileged classes did not exceed L. 292,000; that the exemptions appertaining to the privileged persons of the tiers-état amounted to one half of that sum; and the droits de contrôle, or duty imposed upon public deeds, and the high capitation tax (proportioned to their rank), paid by the nobility and clergy, made ample amends to the

revenue for the partial exemptions which they enjoyed from other taxes. So far indeed were the tiers-état from murmuring at the exemptions of the privileged orders, that, previous to the illuminism of the 18th century, they displayed, at every convention of the states-general, the greatest anxiety to maintain the rights of the nobility and clergy; and humbly supplicated their sovereign to suffer no invasion thereof, but to respect their franchises and immunities."

We must likewise acknowledge, that in n° 11. of our article REVOLUTION, we have drawn a very overcharged picture of the miseries and oppression of the French peasants under the old government. It is indeed true, that they were obliged to serve in the militia, the establishment of which was conducted in France nearly on the same principles as it is in England. The men were called out by ballot only for a few days in the year during peace, when they received regular pay; but if a militia forms the best constitutional defence of a state, this surely ought not to have been considered as a grievance, especially since married men were exempted from the service. The nobility, too, were exempted from the risk of being drawn, for the best of all reasons—because most of them had commissions in the regulars, and because such as had not were engaged in professions, which rendered it impossible for them to serve in the militia. In France, as elsewhere, the peasants would no doubt be averse from this service, and might look perhaps with an anxious eye to the supposed immunities of their privileged superiors: but if mirth, good humour, and social ease, may be considered as symptoms of felicity and content, these men surely were not miserable; for these symptoms never appeared in any people so strong as among the French peasants. They were indeed liable to be called out by the intendants of the provinces to work a certain number of days every year on the public roads; but to this species of oppression, if such it must be called, the Scotch peasants are liable, and were still more so than at present, during that period when our parliamentary orators declare that the inhabitants of Britain enjoyed as much freedom as is consistent with the public tranquillity. It ought to be remembered, too, that Louis XVI. whose highest gratification seems to have consisted in contributing to the ease and welfare of his subjects, thought he saw the necessity of abolishing the custom of the corvée, and had made considerable advances towards the accomplishment of that object some years before the commencement of the revolution.

That the French monarch was despotic; that no man in the kingdom was safe; that nothing was unknown to the jealous inquisition of the police; and that every man was liable, when he least expected it, to be seized by lettres de cachet, and shut up in the gloomy chambers of the Bastille—has long been common language in England, and language which we must confess that we have adopted (REVOLUTION, n° 12.) without due limitations. The French government was certainly not so free as that of Britain; but he who understood it better than we do, and whose writings betray no attachment to arbitrary power, expressly distinguishes between it and despotism. "If (says Montesquieu) France has, for two or three centuries past, incessantly augmented her power, such augmentation must not be ascribed to fortune, but to the excellence of her laws." This, 20. c. 22.

French Revolution. This, surely, is not the language of a man who thought himself governed by an arbitrary tyrant whose caprice is the law; nor will it be said to be the language of one who was either afraid to speak the truth or not master of his subject.

404 No charge of the old constitution wished by the people of France. The instructions of all the different orders to their representatives, before the fatal meeting of the States General under the unfortunate Louis, are drawn up in language similar to that of this illustrious magistrate, and furnish a complete proof that they knew themselves to be safe under the government of their monarchs. "The constitution of the state (say the clergy) results from the fundamental laws, by which the respective rights of the king and of the nation are ascertained, and from which not the smallest deviation can be made. The first of these laws is, that the government of France is purely monarchical. The nation must preserve inviolate the form of its government, which it acknowledges to be a pure monarchy regulated by the laws; and such it will have it to remain."

On the 28th of November 1788, in a general committee of the nobles assembled at Versailles, the Prince of Conti delivered a note to the president, which was sanctioned by the concurrence of most of the other princes of the blood, and was supposed to speak the general sense of the nobility; in which it was insisted, that the proscription of all NEW SYSTEMS was necessary to insure the stability of the throne, of the laws, and of order; and that the constitution, with the ancient forms, should be preserved entire. In their instructions to their representatives, they insist that it shall be expressly and solemnly proclaimed, that the constitution of the French empire is such, that its government is, and must remain, monarchical; that the king, as supreme chief of the French, is only subordinate to the fundamental law of the kingdom, according to which the constitution must be established on the sacred and immutable principles of monarchy, tempered by the laws; and this form of government cannot be replaced by any other constitution.

"Let our deputies (says the third estate), before they attend to any other object, assist in giving to France a truly monarchical constitution, which must invariably fix the rights of the king and of the nation. Let it be declared, that the monarchical is the only form of government admissible in France; and that in the king alone, as chief of the nation, is vested the power of governing according to the laws." Is this the language of men groaning under the iron rod of despotism, or wishing to reduce the power of the crown?

Even after the power of the crown was almost annihilated, and the order of nobility done away, so far were these innovations from being acceptable to the enlightened part of the French nation, that in many departments of the kingdom they excited open insurrections, whilst the members of all the provincial parliaments opposed them with unanswerable arguments furnished by the law. The chamber of vacation of the parliament of Toulouse, in particular, protested against the proceedings of the States General, because the deputies, who were empowered only to put an end to the ruinous state of the finances, could not change the constitution of the state without violating their instructions, and the faith sworn to their constituents*.

That lettres de cachet were liable to abuse, and that

occasionally they were grossly abused, is certain. The French use of them ought therefore to have been either annulled, or, which would have been infinitely better, subjected to such rules as should prevent all danger from them to the real liberties of the people; for the government would be of no use whatever which should possess no power capable of being abused by despotism. Yet after all the noise that has been made about lettres de cachet, it is but justice to observe, that in the towers of the Bastille, when it was taken by the mob, were found no more than seven prisoners; of whom four were confined for forgery; one was confined at the request of his family on charges of the most serious nature; and two were so deranged that they were sent next day, by those philanthropists who had taken them out of comfortable chambers, to the mad house! That the chambers of the Bastille were as comfortable as the chambers of a prison could be, we are assured by M. Bertrand de Molville, who can be under no inducement to deceive the British public, and whose opportunities of discovering the truth were such as no man will call in question.

405 In our account of the opening of the States General, we have expressed too much deference to the character of M. Necker. To that man's irreligiosity, if not treacherous, conduct, may, with truth, be attributed all the subsequent miseries of France. It was about the mode of verifying their powers that the three orders of the state first differed; but that mode should have been defined by the ministry in the letters sent to the different bailiwicks for the convention of the states. Even this omission might have been repaired after the arrival of the deputies at Versailles; for none of them should have been admitted into the hall of the states, far less should the king have met them there, till the Council had been satisfied of their being duly elected. Had either of these cautions been observed, the tiers-estat never could have got the ascendancy over the other two orders, and the business of the nation would have been conducted as formerly in three different chambers. M. Necker's rejection of Mirabeau's advances shewed him to be very ill qualified to conduct the helm of affairs at such a crisis; and his absenting himself from the royal session, a measure which he had advised, betrayed the utmost ingratitude to his gracious master.

In our account of the royal session, we were led into a mistake, which calls loudly for correction. The circumstances of that session were very different from what they appeared to us when we wrote n° 24. and 25. of the article REVOLUTION. The royal session was proclaimed in consequence of the violent usurpations of the tiers-estat, and the irreconcilable differences which subsisted between that body and the two higher orders; and so far is it from being true that the president and members of the third estate found their hall unexpectedly surrounded by a detachment of guards, that their fittings were only suspended, for the best of all reasons, with those of the other orders. To be convinced of this, we need but attend to the following proclamation which was made by the heralds, on the 20th of June, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, in the streets and cross-ways of Versailles:

"June 20th. (By order of the King.) The King having resolved to hold a royal fitting in the States General, on Monday next the 22d of June, the preparations to be made in the three halls used by the assemblies

French Revolution.

blies of the orders, make it necessary that those assemblies should be suspended until after the said fitting. His Majesty will give notice, by another proclamation, of the hour of his going to the Assembly of the States on Monday."

M. Bailly, the president of the tiers-état, had been made acquainted with the object of this proclamation, by a private letter which was sent to him by the Marquis de Brezé at seven o'clock in the morning; and to which he replied, "that having received no orders from the King, and the assembly having been announced for eight o'clock, he should attend where his duty called him."

He repaired, accompanied by a great number of the members of the tiers-état, to the door of the hall of the States, demanded admission; and on being refused by the officer on guard, according to his orders, with which he acquainted him, he declared that he protested against such orders, and that he should give a report of them to the Assembly. To do this he had not far to go, as three fourths of the deputies of the tiers-état were already collected round him, or in the avenue leading to the palace. There it was that, surrounded by an immense crowd of people, they declaimed in the most violent manner against this pretended act of despotism. "The National Assembly is to be dissolved (said they), and the country to be plunged into the horrors of a civil war. Want reigns every where; every where the people see famine staring them in the face. This we were about to put an end to, by rending the veil which covers the manoeuvres of the monopolists, the engrossers, and the whole tribe of miscreants. The Louises XI. and XIII. the Richelieus, the Mazarins, the Briennes, attacked with their despotism only individuals or small bodies; but here it is the whole nation that is made the sport of the whims of a despotic ministry. "Let us meet upon the Place d'Armes (said one of those orators); there we shall recall some of the noblest days of our history, the National Assemblies of the field of May." "Let us assemble in the gallery of the palace (said another); there we shall present a new sight, by speaking the language of liberty, in that corrupt hall, where a little while since the head of him who should have uttered that sacred word would have been devoted to the executioner." "No, no (said a third), let us go to Marli, and hold our fitting on the Terrace:—let the King hear us; he will come from his palace, and will have nothing more to do than to place himself in the midst of his people to hold the royal fitting."

At the conclusion of these declamations, the sole object of which was to alarm and exasperate the people, the Assembly decided upon transferring their fitting to the Tennis-court, in the street called Rue du Vieux Versailles. There M. Bailly read the letter which he had received from M. de Brezé, and his answer to it; which he had scarcely done, when a second letter from M. de Brezé was put into his hands, the contents of which were as follows:

"It was by the King's positive order, Sir, that I did myself the honour of writing to you this morning, to acquaint you that, his Majesty purposing to hold a royal fitting on Monday, and some preparations being requisite in the three halls of the Assemblies of the orders, it was his intention that no person should be ad-

mitted into them, and that the fittings should be suspended till after that to be held by his Majesty."

In this there was surely no marked disrespect to the representatives of the people; but such notions were countenanced by M. Necker, who appears indeed, on this occasion, to have been in close compact with the leaders of the mob. The popular violence that was employed to compel the majority of the clergy to join the tiers-état is well known; and we have, in Bertrand's Annals of the Revolution, what amounts to evidence almost legal, and quite sufficient to enforce conviction, that Necker directed that violence.

In our account of the commotions which were excited in Paris on the first dismissal of that minister and his banishment from the kingdom, we have been led by our democratic journalists to give circulation to a gross calumny published by them against the Prince de Lambesc. (See Revolution, n° 36. and 37.) The truth, which is so much disguised in these two numbers, is as follows:

"A detachment of the Royal Allemand, sent to disperse the mob which was patrolling the streets in procession with the busts of Necker and the infamous Orleans, received a volley from the French guards as they were passing their quarters on the Chaussée d'Antin, stopped to return it, and continued their march without quickening their pace. There were some soldiers killed and wounded on both sides, but fewer of the regiment of Royal Allemand than on that of the French guards."

"The detachment marched to the Place Louis XV. and there found a body of dragoons who had been dispersing the procession. The two busts were broken to pieces; and the populace in their fright taking refuge in the garden of the Thuilleries, the Prince de Lambesc pursued them thither, at the head of the detachment of Royal Allemand, according to the orders which he received. This small troop coming up to the head of the Pont-tournant (or turning bridge), at the extremity of the garden, found a kind of barricade, hastily formed by chains heaped upon one another: while they were removing this obstacle, they received a shower of stones, broken chairs, and bottles, from the two terraces, between which the Prince de Lambesc drew up his troop, keeping constantly at their head. Some guns and pistols were discharged at them, which did no hurt; but several of the troopers were much bruised by the things that had been thrown at them, and an officer was severely wounded by a stone."

"The Prince de Lambesc, keeping at six paces from the bridge, opposed only a steady front to the aggressions of the populace. Seeing that this post became untenable, and that it was impossible for him any longer to restrain his troopers from repelling force by force, he gave the order for retreating out of the garden. At the same instant a cry was heard from all sides of, turn the bridge, turn the bridge; and some persons, in consequence, ran and began to do it. The Prince de Lambesc, justly fearing that a most bloody carnage would be the inevitable consequence of it, ordered some pistols to be fired in the air towards the bridge, to awe those who were striving to turn it. As the report of this volley did not deter them, he rode up himself, and with his sabre struck one of those who were working hardest. The man ran off; and the Prince passing the bridge with

with his detachment into the Place Louis XV. drew up near the Statue, and being soon joined by the Swiss regiment of Chateauvieux, took his post with this force near the Garde-meuble, where he remained some time, having placed the infantry before him. At ten at night part of the troops were dismissed to their quarters, and the rest sent to Versailles." These facts being all judicially confirmed, prove how much the Prince de Lam-bef's conduct was calumniated by those journalists whose detail we rashly adopted.

In our account of the taking of the Bastille, misled by our treacherous guides, the journalists, we have greatly magnified the military skill and prowess of the assailants. That celebrated fortress was defended by a garrison consisting of no more than 114 men, of whom 82 were invalids. It was attacked by 30,000 men and women, armed with muskets and pikes, and furnished with a train of artillery which they had found at the Hotel des Invalides, given up to them by the timidity of the governor. Even this multitude would have been quickly repulsed from the Bastille, if the governor of that state-prison, who had received no orders from the court, had been less reluctant to shed the blood of his rebellious countrymen; for the Parisian mob had then displayed nothing of determined courage. A few discharges of musketry, and one of canister-shot from a single cannon, had thrown them into confusion, and made them skulk behind the walls, when the ill-timed humanity of the governor made him enter into a treaty with the rebels, stipulating only that the garrison should not be massacred. How the stipulation was observed with respect to the governor himself, we have faithfully related; but we were mistaken when we said that the "French guards succeeded in procuring the safety of the garrison." The guards, with the utmost difficulty, saved indeed some of them, but most of the invalids remaining in the courts of the castle were put to death in the most merciless manner.

Our account of the murder of M. de Flef-selles (n^o 40.) appears likewise to be very incorrect. This man was president of the Assembly of Electors at Paris (See REVOLUTION, n^o 45.), and had not quitted the Hotel de Ville, where their rebellious meetings were held, during the whole time of these dreadful commotions. He had even signed all their atrocious resolutions, but became suddenly suspected from the consternation which he manifested at the sight of so many horrors, and especially at the cruel and treacherous murder of the governor of the Bastille. The consequence was, that he was treacherously murdered himself by one of the villains composing that assembly in which he presided. "The electors (says M. Bertrand de Molleville) hoped to extenuate the horror of this assassination, by causing it to be considered as a natural and almost lawful vengeance for a treachery, the proof of which they pretended to have. In fact, they declared, that when M. de Launay, the governor of the Bastille, was arrested, a letter had been found in his pocket from M. de Flef-selles, containing this expression: 'I am amusing the Parisians with cockades and promises; hold out till night, and you will receive a reinforcement.' But this supposed letter, which, had it existed, they would not have failed to preserve very carefully, was never seen by any body; and I heard M. Bailly himself say, in a visit he paid me when he left the mayoralty, that he had

no knowledge of it, and that it was not in his power to refer to any one who had told him that he had read it."

In our account of the earlier transactions of the Revolution, we omitted to mention a very extraordinary instance of ambition to which the Duke of Orleans was incited by Count Mirabeau, but which that unnatural monster wanted courage to carry into effect. During the commotions which prevailed in the capital on the dismissal of M. Necker from the ministry, Orleans was persuaded by Mirabeau to offer his services as mediator between the king and his rebellious subjects; but to stipulate, at the same time, for his appointment to the high office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom as necessary to give his mediation due weight with the rebels. The real object of the profligate Count, in this dangerous proposal, and which he did not deign even to conceal, was to pave the way for the infamous Duke stepping into the throne of his relation and virtuous sovereign. He even went so far as to compose the speech with which Orleans was to address the king on the occasion; but that coward, when he arrived at the palace, was so embarrassed by the consciousness of his own wicked designs, that instead of asking the office of lieutenant-general, he only requested permission to retire into England!! A request which was instantly granted.

This brought upon him the contempt and indignation of Mirabeau; but still there was a party desirous of placing him on the throne. This we think evident from an atrocious fact mentioned in all the journals, and confirmed by M. Bertrand. "When the king, on his first visit to Paris (See n^o 44.) had arrived at the Champ Elysées, three or four guns were fired at once. It was never known whence they proceeded; but it is certain that an unfortunate woman in the crowd, who was in the direction of his Majesty's carriage, was shot at the time, and fell dead on the spot." As the King's carriage held at the time exactly four persons, M. Bertrand very naturally concludes that these four shots, fired at once in its direction, had been ordered and paid for; and we are unwilling to believe that at that period of the revolution there was any party disposed to pay for the murder of the sovereign but the Duke of Orleans and his infamous adherents. That he was equal to this wickedness cannot be doubted, when it is known that legal evidence was afterwards produced that he, with some other members of the Assembly, secretly directed the insurrection of the 5th of October, and promoted the outrages of that and the succeeding day by the distribution of money and bread *.

We have said (n^o 48.), the origin of the report of a train of gunpowder being laid by M. de Memmay, to blow into the air a number of patriots, has never been well explained. It was proved judicially, that at the period when the feast was given by M. Memmay to the inhabitants of Vesoul, he was setting vines in a stony soil, where he was often obliged to blow up the greater rocks. Some soldiers running through, and ferreting every where in the house and out-houses, unfortunately took a candle to the dark corner where the barrel of gunpowder was lodged, and set it on fire, in trying to see if it contained wine. These facts, reported and attested in a memorial drawn up by M. Courvoisier, so completely justified M. de Memmay, that the Assem-
bly

French Revolution. bly could not avoid testifying his innocence by a decree issued the 4th of June.

In n^o 70. we have said that the National Assembly, after its removal from Versailles to Paris, was in tolerable security; but M. Bertrand has proved, by evidence the most incontrovertible, that it did not think itself secure; and that if the ministers had been capable of employing events to their own advantage, the powers of that factious body must have been recalled by its own constituents. The horrible outrages committed on the 5th and 6th of October had shocked all France. The wanton confiscation of the property of the church, had demonstrated to every man of sound judgment, that under the new order of things no property could be secure; and by the desertion of its more virtuous and moderate members, the Assembly had become a rump assembly. It was therefore much alarmed when the intermediate commission of the states of Cambresis entered, on the 9th of November, into a resolution, in which, considering—"that certain decrees of the National Assembly are paving the way for the ruin of the kingdom, and the annihilation of religion; that if they have been able to place one species of property at the disposal of the nation, men of all kinds of property may expect the same fate; they declare, from this moment, the power of the deputies of Cambresis to the National Assembly to be null and revoked." Had M. Necker and his colleagues had address to get similar resolutions entered into at the same time by the electors of all the bailiwicks of the kingdom, the Assembly must have been dissolved, and France, even then, might have been saved; but those ministers were themselves nothing more than the humble and docile agents of the Assembly.

There is no part of our former narrative more incorrect, or more likely to mislead the public, than our account of the red-book (n^o 75.). It is such, however, as was then current, without any addition or aggravation by us. The villains (x) who, in direct contradiction to their own solemn promise, as well as to every principle of honour, made part of that book public, had the impudence to affirm, that, by the suppression of the superfluous pensions registered in it, a saving would be made to the public of near a fifth in the bulk of the expenses of every year. M. Bertrand, taking for granted the accuracy of their statements, for the exaggeration of which, however, he urges arguments more than plausible, proves, if arithmetical calculation affords proof, that by the suppression of such pensions as even they called superfluous, the saving in the bulk of the annual expenses could not possibly have amounted to more than the two hundredth part! It was not therefore without reason that M. Necker, in answer to their publication, said, "I know not whether the books of the finances of any sovereign in Europe can shew a similar total."

Our account of the mutiny of the soldiers at Nancy (n^o 83.) is very inaccurate. Far from being excited by the officers, that mutiny was the natural consequence of the absurd decrees of the Assembly; which having declared all men equal, and made it criminal to punish

disobedient soldiers in that summary way, without which no armed force can be commanded, had completely disorganised the army, and substituted for martial law patriotic exhortations, legislative decrees, and the novel jurisdiction of municipalities. The soldiers knew their own strength, of which indeed they were continually informed by the friends of the revolution; and while they shook off the authority of their military commanders, they laughed at the impotent decrees of the Assembly. At Nancy they had imprisoned two general officers, and committed other outrages of the most serious nature. It was the duty of the Marquis de Bouillé, as governor of the province, to reduce the insurgents by force, if force should be found necessary; but he had accomplished his object without shedding blood, and was congratulating the two liberated generals, and some of the principal inhabitants, upon so happy a termination of the affair, when the populace, and many soldiers who had not followed their colours, fired upon the troops under his command, and killed fifty or sixty men. The troops immediately returned the fire; and a great number of the rebellious mob and mutinous garrison were of course put to the sword. That such able and firm conduct in Bouillé excited indignation among the Jacobins of Paris, is very probable; but even the king himself did not express higher approbation of it than the National Assembly, who were duly sensible that it saved themselves from destruction, which, had he failed in his enterprise, would have been inevitable. Three months afterwards, indeed, when the fabrication of counter-revolutionary plots became part of the daily business of this enlightened Assembly, some censures were thrown by the Jacobins upon the Marquis's conduct on this occasion; and those censures were loudly applauded.

We have likewise been led, by our fallacious guides, to accuse this gallant officer (n^o 91.) of having laid open the country to the inroads of foreign armies; and we have given an incorrect account of the king's flight from Paris. There is no evidence whatever for the truth of the charge against the Marquis de Bouillé, and it is directly contrary to his general character. He was indeed a royalist, and would doubtless have cooperated with the Prince of Condé and the other emigrants in restoring the king to his lawful authority; but he was likewise a Frenchman and a patriot in the best sense of the word; and he would have died in defence of the rights and independence of his country. He certainly meant to protect the king in his journey from Paris to Montmedi, where it was to terminate; and he had stationed troops of dragoons on the road for that purpose; but the unfortunate Louis had delayed his journey a day longer than was agreed upon; and even when he set out, neglected to send couriers before him to warn the troops of his approach. He thus travelled unprotected; and the consequence was such as we have related. Yet the gallant Bouillé, tho' this journey was undertaken contrary to his advice, declared himself the author of it, in that letter in which he threatened the Assembly with vengeance of all Europe.

French Revolution. rope if they should dare to touch a hair of the heads of the royal family.

418
Erroneous account in n^o 90. corrected.

In n^o 90. we have most unaccountably said that the king was permitted to continue his journey to St Cloud. This is directly contrary to truth. The president, after hearing his complaint against those who had prevented it, replied indeed in a speech, containing some expressions of gratitude and affection, mixed with reflections on the refractory priests; but the Assembly determined nothing respecting the propriety of the journey. They did not even suffer a single motion to be made on the subject; and threatened with imprisonment one of the members who proposed to take it into consideration! The king was therefore obliged to abandon this excursion, though it was first undertaken from religious motives; and it was then that he seriously thought of attempting to elude the vigilance of his rebellious guards, and of taking up his residence at Montmedy.

419
Treaty of Pavia for-
Eccy.

In n^o 96. we have published, with doubts indeed of its authenticity, what was called the treaty of Pavia and the convention at Pilnitz. The terms in which we introduced that scandalous fabrication to the notice of our readers, and the principles which we have uniformly avowed through the whole of this voluminous work, furnish, we hope, sufficient evidence that we could have no intention to deceive the public. Truth, however, demands of us to acknowledge, in the most explicit terms, that the pretended treaty of Pavia is not only a forgery, but a bungling forgery, defective in some of the most usual diplomatic forms; and that the conferences at Pilnitz between the Emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Count d'Artois, related to objects very different from a partition of the French territories.

So early as the month of May 1791, a plan had been digested by the Emperor, the King of Prussia, and the King of Spain, with the concurrence of Louis XVI. for liberating that unfortunate monarch from the confinement in which he was kept in his own capital. The means to be employed were a coalition among the principal powers on the continent to lead armies in every quarter to the borders of France. During the alarm which so menacing an appearance could not but excite in that kingdom, a declaration by the house of Bourbon, complaining of the cruel and iniquitous treatment of its head, was to be circulated through France, and to be immediately followed by the manifesto of the combined powers. This, it was presumed, would furnish a sufficient reason, even to the National Assembly, for the king's going to the frontiers, and placing himself at the head of the army; but if it should not, petitions were to be procured from the army and the provinces, requesting his presence, as the only means left of preventing a civil as well as foreign war. Had this measure, which was partly suggested by Mirabeau and partly by Montmorin and Calonne, been steadily pursued, there can be little doubt but it would have proved completely successful. It was defeated, however, by the king's ill-concerted attempt to escape to Montmedy, and by a very imprudent and degrading letter which he was afterwards persuaded to send to every foreign power.

420
Real convention at Pilnitz.

At Pilnitz, where the Emperor and the King of Prussia met, on the 25th of August, to settle between themselves some interests too delicate to be adjusted by the usual diplomatic modes, an agreement was entered

into by them to support the cause of the French princes, to liberate the king, and to save, if possible, the monarchy. They delivered, accordingly, to the Count d'Artois the following declaration:

"His Majesty the Emperor, and his Majesty the King of Prussia, having heard the desires and the representations of Monsieur and his Royal Highness the Count d'Artois, declare, conjointly, that they consider the situation in which his Majesty the King of France is at present placed, as a matter which concerns the interest of every sovereign of Europe.—They hope that that interest will not fail to be acknowledged by the powers whose assistance is required; and that consequently they will not refuse to employ, in conjunction with their Majesties, the most efficacious means, according to their abilities, to put the King of France in a situation to establish, in perfect liberty, the foundations of a monarchical government, equally agreeable to the rights of sovereigns and the welfare of the French; then, and in that case, their Majesties are determined to act promptly and by mutual consent, with the forces necessary to obtain the end proposed by all of them. In the mean time they will give orders for their troops to be ready for actual service.

"Pilnitz, August 27th, 1791.
"Signed by the Emperor and the King of Prussia."
Such was the agreement entered into at Pilnitz, which was so grossly misrepresented by the French Jacobins, and by their zealous partizans in this country. Had not Louis XVI. accepted the constitution simply and unconditionally, the consequence of this convention might have been the saving of the French monarchy, and the preservation of peace in Europe; but that acceptance, so little looked for by the high contracting powers, completely thwarted their measures for a time; and before their armies were put in motion, the monarchy was overturned, and the monarch a prisoner.

421
In our account of the origin of the war between Great Britain and France (n^o 147, 148.), we have proved, by evidence which to ourselves appears irresistible, that the French regicides were the aggressors, and that the British ministry did all that could be done, consistently with the independence of their own country, to maintain the relations of amity between the two nations. That we have interpreted fairly that decree of the Convention by which this kingdom was forced into the war, is rendered incontrovertible by a subsequent decree on the 15th of December, by which their generals were ordered to regulate their conduct in the countries which their armies then occupied, or might afterwards occupy. In the preamble to this decree, they expressly declared, that their principles would not permit them to acknowledge any of the institutions militating against the sovereignty of the people; and the various articles exhibit a complete system of demolition. They insist on the immediate suppression of all existing authorities, the abolition of rank and privilege of every description, and the suppression of all existing imposts. Nay, these friends to freedom even declare, that they will treat as enemies a whole nation (un peuple entier) which shall presume to reject liberty and equality, or enter into a treaty with a prince or privileged cast!

It is worthy of remark, that the very day on which this decree, containing a systematic plan for disorganizing all lawful governments, passed the Assembly, the provi-

French provisional executive council wrote to their agent, Chauvelin, instructing him to disavow all hostile intentions on the part of France, and to proclaim her detestation of the idea of a war with England! Yet the same provisional council, in their comments on the 11th article of this decree, thus express themselves: "The right of natural defence, the duty of securing the preservation of our liberty, and the success of our arms, the universal interest of restoring to Europe a peace, which she cannot obtain but by THE ANNIHILATION OF THE DESPOTS and their satellites, every thing imposes on us the obligation of exercising all the rigours of war, and the rights of conquest, towards a people so fond of their chains, so obstinately wedded to their degradation, as to refuse to be restored to their rights, and who are the accomplices, not only of their own despots, but even of all the crowned usurpers, who divide among themselves the dominion of the earth and its inhabitants." That Britain is one of those countries which the assembly thought their armies might afterwards occupy, and that the great majority of Britons were a people towards whom their principles obliged them to exercise all the rigours of war, and the rights of conquest, is evident from the following extract of a letter, written on the 31st of December 1792, by Monge, a member of the council, and minister of the marine to the sea-ports. "The King and his parliament mean to make war upon us. Will the English republicans suffer it? Already these free men shew their discontent, and the repugnance which they have to bear arms against their brothers the French. Well! we will fly to their succour. We will make a descent on the island; we will lodge there 50,000 caps of liberty; we will plant there the sacred tree; and we will stretch out our arms to our REPUBLICAN BROTHERS. The tyranny of their government will be destroyed."

As these two decrees of November and December 1792 have never been repealed, and as their object is so plainly avowed in the commentaries of the executive council, and in this letter of the minister of marine, they would alone sufficiently authorise us to adopt as our own the following reflections of M. Bertrand de Moleville*. With these, as they give a concise but peripicuous view of the rise and progress of that revolution, or, to speak more correctly, that series of revolutions which has for seven long years oppressed, not France alone, but all Europe, we shall conclude this long article.

422 Bertrand's view of the rise and progress of the revolution. "Popular insurrections, and an army (says this able and useful writer), have hitherto been the usual means, or chief instruments, of every revolution; but those insurrections being of the most ignorant and unthinking class of the people, were always fomented by a certain number of factious men, devoted to, and dependent upon, some ambitious chief, daring, brave, of military talents, sole and absolute conductor of every step of the revolt, and master of all the means of the insurrection. In the hands of this chief, the soldiers, or people armed, were but machines, which he set in motion or restrained according to his pleasure, and of which he always made use to put an end to revolutionary disorders and crimes, as soon as the object of the revolution was gained. So Cæsar and Cromwell, after they had usurped the supreme power, lost no time in securing it to themselves, by placing it on the basis of a wife and well-

regulated government; and they employed, in quelling the troubles that had favoured their usurpation, those very legions, that same army, which they had used to excite them. French Revolution.

"This was not the case in France: there, the revolution, or rather the first of those it experienced, and of which the others were the inevitable consequence, was not, whatever be supposed, the result of a conspiracy, or preconceived plan, to overturn the throne, or to place an usurper upon it. It was unexpectedly engendered by a commixture of weakness, ignorance, negligence, and numberless errors in the government. The States General, however imprudent their convocation may have been, would have produced only useful reforms, if they had found the limits of their power marked out by a hand sufficiently firm to have kept them within that extent. It was, however, but too evident that, even before their opening, they were dreaded, and that consequently they might attempt whatever they pleased. From that time, under the name of Clubs, various associations and factions sprang up; some more violent than others, but all tending to the subversion of the existing government, without agreeing upon the form of that which was to be substituted; and at that juncture also the projects of the faction, whose views were to have the Duke of Orleans appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom, began to appear.

"This faction, or more properly this conspiracy, was indeed of the same nature as those that had produced all former revolutions, and might have been attended with the same consequences, had the Duke of Orleans been possessed of that energy of character, that bravery and daring spirit, requisite in the leader of a party. The people had already declared in his favour, and he might very easily have corrupted and brought over a great part of the army, had he been equal to the command of it: but, on the very first occasion of personal risk, he discovered such cowardice and meanness, that he defeated his own conspiracy, and convinced all those who had entered into it, that it was impossible to continue the revolution, either in his favour or in conjunction with him. The enthusiasm the people had felt for him ended with the efforts of those who had excited it.

"Mr Neckar, whom the multitude had associated with him in their homage, still preferred for some time his adorer, and that little cabal which was for ever exalting him to the skies. But as he was inferior even to the Duke of Orleans in military talents and dispositions, he was as little calculated to be the leader of a revolution, or of a great conspiracy: for which reason his panegyrics then confined themselves in their pamphlets and placards, with which the capital was overrun, to insinuating, that the only means of saving the state was to declare Mr Neckar Dictator; or at least to confer upon him, under some title more consistent with the monarchy, the authority and powers attached to that republican office. In fact, if after his dismissal, in the month of July 1789, he had dared to make this a condition of his return to the ministry, it is more than probable that the king would have been under the necessity of agreeing to it, and perhaps of re-establishing in his person the office of mayor of the palace. At that moment he might have demanded any thing: eight days later, he might have been refused every thing; and

French Revolution. and very soon after, he was reduced to sneak out of the kingdom, in order to escape the effects of the general contempt and censure which he had brought upon himself.

"General La Fayette, who then commanded the Parisian National Guard, gathered the wrecks of all this popularity, and might have turned them to the greatest advantage, if he had possessed 'that resolute character and heroic judgment' of which Cardinal de Retz speaks, and 'which serves to distinguish what is truly honourable and useful from what is only extraordinary, and what is extraordinary from what is impossible.' With the genius, talents, and ambition of Cromwell, he might have gone as great a length; with a less criminal ambition, he might at least have made himself master of the revolution, and have directed it at his pleasure: in a word, he might have secured the triumph of whatever party he should have declared himself the leader. But as unfit for supporting the character of Monk as that of Cromwell, he soon betrayed the secret of his incapacity to all the world, and was distinguished in the crowd of constitutional ringleaders only by his three-coloured plume, his epaulets, white horse, and famous saying—'Insurrection is the most sacred of duties when oppression is at its height.'

"The revolution, at the period when the faction that had begun it for the Duke of Orleans became sensible that he was too much a coward to be the leader of it, and when La Fayette discovered his inability to conduct it, was too far advanced to recede or to stop; and it continued its progress, but in a line that no other revolution had taken, viz. without a military chief, without the intervention of the army, and to gain triumphs, not for any ambitious conspirator, but for political and moral innovations of the most dangerous nature; the most suited to mislead the multitude, incapable of comprehending them, and to let loose all the passions. The more violent combined to destroy every thing; and their fatal coalition gave birth to Jacobinism, that terrible monster till then unknown, and till now not sufficiently unmasked. This monster took upon itself alone to carry on the revolution; it directed, it executed, all the operations of it, all the explosions, all the outrages: it every where appointed the most active leaders, and, as instruments, employed the profligates of every country. Its power far surpassed that which has been attributed to the inquisition, and other fiery tribunals, by those who have spoken of them with the greatest exaggeration. Its centre was at Paris; and its rays, formed by particular clubs in every town, in every little borough, overspread the whole surface of the kingdom. The constant correspondence kept up between those clubs and that of the capital; or, to use their own expression, des Sociétés populaires affiliées avec la Société mère—'between the affiliated popular Societies and the parent Society,' was as secret and as speedy as that of free-masons. In a word, the Jacobin clubs had prevailed in causing themselves to be looked up to as the real national representation. Under that pretence, they censured all the authorities in the most impious manner; and whenever their denunciations, petitions, or addresses, failed to produce an immediate effect, they gained their point by having recourse to insurrection, assassination, and fire. While Jacobinism thus subjected all France to its controul, an immense

number of emissaries propagated its doctrines among foreign nations, and prepared new conquests for it. French Revolution.

"The National Assembly, the capital, indeed we may say all France, was divided into three very distinct parties. The most considerable in number, but unhappily the weakest through a deficiency of plan and resolution, was the party purely Royal: it was adverse to every kind of Revolution, and was solely desirous of some improvements, with the reform of abuses and pecuniary privileges:—the most able, and most intriguing, was the Constitutional party, or that which was desirous of giving France a new monarchical constitution, but modified after the manner of the English, or even the American, by a house of representatives. The third party was the most dangerous of all, by its daring spirit, by its power, and by the number of proselytes it daily acquired in all quarters of the kingdom: it comprised the Democrats of every description, from the Jacobin clubs, calling themselves Friends of the Constitution, to the anarcho-robbers.

"The Democratic party, which at first was only auxiliary to the Constitutional one, in the end annihilated it, and became itself subdivided into several other parties, whose fatal struggles produced the subsequent revolutions, and may still produce many more. But in principle, the Constitutionalists and the Democrats formed two distinct, though confederate, factions; both were desirous of a revolution, and employed all the usual means of accomplishing it, except troops, which could be of no use to them, for neither of them had a leader to put at the head of the army. But as it was equally of importance to both that the king should be deprived of the power of making use of it against them, they laboured in concert to disorganise it; and the complete success of that manoeuvre was but too fully proved by the fatal issue of the departure of the royal family for Montmedy. The revolution then took a more daring and rapid stride, which was concluded by the pretended constitution act of 1791. The incoherence of its principles, and the defects of its institutions, present a faithful picture of the confusion of its authors, and of the opposite interests by which they were swayed. It was, properly speaking, a compact between the faction of the Constitutionalists and that of the Democrats, in which they mutually made concessions and sacrifices.

"Be that as it may, this absurd constitution, the everlasting source of remorse or sorrow to all who bore part in it, might have been got over without a shock, and led back to the old principles of monarchical government, if the Assembly who framed it had not separated before they witnessed the execution of it; if, in imposing on the king the obligation to maintain it, they had not deprived him of the power and the means; and above all, if the certain consequence of the new mode of proceeding at the elections had not been to secure, in the second Assembly, a considerable majority of the Democratic against the Constitutional party.

"The second Assembly was also divided by three factions, the weakest of which was the one that wished to maintain the constitution. The other two were for a new revolution and a republic; but they differed in this, that the former, composed of the Brissotins and Girondists, was for effecting it gradually, by beginning with divesting the king of popularity, and allowing the public

French Revolution. public mind time to wean itself from its natural attachment to monarchy; and the latter, which was the least numerous, was eager to have the republic established as soon as possible. These two factions, having the same object in view, though taking different roads, were necessarily auxiliaries to each other; and the pamphlets, excitations to commotion, and revolutionary measures of both, equally tended to overthrow the constitution of 1791.

Those different factions, almost entirely composed of advocates, solicitors, apostate priests, doctors, and a few literary men, having no military chief capable of taking the command of the army, dreaded the troops, who had sworn allegiance to the constitution, and obedience to the king, and who moreover might be influenced by their officers, among whom there still remained some royalists. The surest way to get rid of all uneasiness on this subject, was to employ the army in defending the frontiers. For this purpose a foreign war was necessary, to which it was known that the king and his council were equally averse. No more was wanting to determine the attack which was directed, almost at the same time, against all the ministers, in order to compel them to retire, and to put the king under the necessity of appointing others more disposed to second the views of the parties. Unhappily this attempt was attended with all the successes they had promised themselves; and one of the first acts of the new ministry was to declare war against the emperor. At the same time, the emigration that had been provoked, and which was almost every where applauded, even by the lowest class of people, robbed France of the flower of the royal party, and left the king, deprived of his best defenders, exposed to the suspicions and insults that sprang from innumerable calumnies, for which the disasters at the beginning of the war furnished but too many opportunities.

455
the second
revolution. "In this manner was prepared and accelerated the new revolution, which was accomplished on the 10th of August 1792, by the deposition and imprisonment of the king, and by the most flagrant violation of the constitution of 1791. The latter, however, was not entirely abandoned on that day; for the project of the Girondists, who had laid the plot of that horrible conspiracy, was then only to declare the king's deposition, in order to place the prince royal upon the throne, under the guidance of a regency composed of their own creatures; but they were hurried away much farther than they meant to go, by the violence with which the most furious of the Jacobins, who took the lead in the insurrection, conducted all their enterprises. The prince royal, instead of being crowned, was shut up in the Temple; and if France at that moment was not declared a republic, it was less owing to any remaining respect for the constitution, than to the fear the legislative body was in of raising the army against it, and also the majority of the nation, who would naturally be angry to see a constitution which seemed to be rendered secure and stable by so many oaths, thus precipitately overturned, without their having been consulted.

"It was on these considerations that the opinion was adopted, that a National Convention should be convoked, to determine the fate of royalty. Prompt in seizing all the means that might ensure the success of this second revolution, the Assembly, under pretence

of giving every possible latitude to the freedom of elections, decreed, that all its members should be eligible for the National Convention. French Revolution.

"From that moment the Girondists daily lost ground, and the most flaming members of the Democratic party, supported by the club of Jacobins, by the new Commune of Paris, and by the Tribunes, made themselves masters of every debate. It was of the utmost importance to them to rule the ensuing elections; and this was secured to them by the horrible consternation which the massacres of the 2d of September struck throughout the kingdom. The terror of being assassinated, or at least cruelly treated, drove from all the Primary Assemblies, not only the royalists and constitutionalists, but moderate men of all parties. Of course, those assemblies became entirely composed of the weakest men and the greatest villains existing in France; and from among the most frantic of them were chosen those members of the Convention who were not taken from the legislative body. Accordingly, this third Assembly, in the first quarter of an hour of their first sitting, were heard shouting their votes for the abolition of royalty, and proclaiming the republic, upon the motion of a member who had formerly been a player.

"Such an opening but too plainly shewed what was to be expected from that horde of plunderers which composed the majority of the National Convention, and of whom Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and the other ringleaders, formed their party. That of the Brissotins and Girondists still existed, and was the only one really republican. These semi-wretches, glutted with the horrors already committed, seemed desirous of arresting the torrent of them, and laboured to introduce into the Assembly the calm and moderation that were necessary to give the new republic a wise and solid organization. But the superiority of their knowledge, talents, and eloquence, which their opponents could not dispute, had no power over tigers thirsting for blood, who neither attended to nor suffered motions but of the blackest tendency. No doubt they had occasion for atrocities upon atrocities to prepare the terror struck nation to allow them to commit, in its name, the most execrable of all, the murder of the unfortunate Louis XVI: and that martyrdom was necessary to bring about a third revolution, already brewing in the brain of Robespierre. Fear had greatly contributed to the two former: but this was effected by terror alone, without popular tumults, or the intervention of the armies; which, now drawn by their conquests beyond the frontiers, never heard any thing of the revolutions at home, till they were accomplished, and always obeyed the prevailing faction, by whom they were paid.

"By the degree of ferocity discovered by the members of the Convention in passing sentence upon the king, and in the debates relative to the constitution of 1793, Robespierre was enabled to mark which of the deputies were likely to second his views, and which of them it was his part to sacrifice.

"The people could not but with transport receive a constitution which seemed to realize the chimera of its sovereignty, but which would only have given a kind of construction to anarchy, if the execution of this new code had not been suspended under the pretext, belonging in common to all acts of despotism and tyranny, of the supreme law of the safety of the state. Thus suspen-
3 M 2
tion

tion was effected, by establishing the Provisionary Government, which, under the title of Revolutionary Government, concentrated all the powers in the National Convention until there was an end to the war and all intestine troubles.

"Although the faction, at the head of which Robespierre was, had a decided majority in the Assembly, and might consequently have considered themselves as really and exclusively exercising the sovereign power, he was a demagogue of too despotic a nature to stomach even the appearance of sharing the empire with so many co-sovereigns. He greatly reduced their number, by causing all the powers invested in the National Assembly by the decrees that had established the revolutionary government, to be transferred to a committee, to which he got himself appointed, and where he was sure of the sole rule, by obtaining for colleagues men less daring than himself, though equally wicked; such as Couthon, St Just, Barrere, and others like them. This committee, who had the assurance to style themselves the Committee of Public Safety, very soon seized upon both the legislative and executive powers, and exercised them with the most sanguinary tyranny ever yet heard of. The ministers were merely their clerks; and the subjugated Assembly, without murmur or objection, passed all the revolutionary laws which were proposed, or rather dictated, by them. One of their most horrible and decisive conceptions was that of those Revolutionary Tribunals which covered France with scaffolds, where thousands of victims of every rank, age, and sex, were daily sacrificed; so that no class of men could be free from that stupifying and general terror which Robespierre found it necessary to spread, in order to establish and make his power known. He soon himself dragged some members of his own party, such as Danton, Camille des Moulins, and others, whose energy and popularity had offended him, before one of those tribunals, where he had them condemned to death. By the same means he got rid of the chief leaders among the Brissotines and Girondists; while he caused all the moderate republican party who were still members of the Assembly, except those who had time and address to escape, to be sent to prison, in order to be sentenced and executed on the first occasion.

"In this manner ended the third revolution, in which the people, frozen with terror, did not dare to take a part. Instead of an army of soldiers, Robespierre employed an army of executioners and assassins, set up as revolutionary judges; and the guillotine, striking or menacing all heads indiscriminately, made France, from one end to the other, submit to him, by the means of terror or of death. Thus was this nation, formerly so proud, even to idolatry, of its kings, seen to expiate, by rivers of blood, the crime of having suffered his to be spilt who was the most virtuous of all their monarchs.

"In the room of that famous Bastille, whose celebrated capture and demolition had set only seven prisoners at liberty, two of whom had been long in a state of lunacy, the colleges, the seminaries, and all the religious houses of the kingdom, were converted into so many state prisons, into which were incessantly crowded, from time to time, the victims devoted to feed the ever-working guillotines, which were never suffered to stand still for a day, because they were at once the chief

resource of supplies for the government, and the instrument of its ferocity. 'The guillotine coins money for the republic,' was said in the tribune by one of Robespierre's vilest agents*. In fact, according to the jurisprudence of the Revolutionary Tribunals, the rich of every class, being declared suspected persons, received sentence of death, for no other reason than that of giving the confiscation of their property a show of judicial form.

"Still blood flowed too slowly to satisfy Robespierre; his aim was but partly attained by the proscription of the nobles, the priests, and the wealthy. He fancied, not only an aristocracy of talents and knowledge, but of the virtues, none of which would his truly orators and journalists admit, save that horrid patriotism which was estimated according to the enormity of the crimes committed in favour of the revolution. His plan was to reduce the French people to a mere plantation of slaves, too ignorant, too stupid, or too pusillanimous, to conceive the idea of breaking the chains with which he would have loaded them in the name of liberty; and he might have succeeded in it, had not his ambition, as impatient as it was jealous, too soon unveiled the intention of resorting to the guillotine to strike off the shackles with which an assembly of representatives of the nation fettered, or might fetter, his power. He was about to give this decisive blow, which he had concerted with the Commune of Paris, the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Club of Jacobins, and the principal officers of the National Guard, when the members of the Convention, who were marked out to be the first sacrificed, anticipated him at a moment when he least expected it, by attacking himself in the Assembly, with energy sufficient to rouse all the factions of the capital against him and against the Jacobins. The parties came to blows, and victory remained uncertain for several hours; but at length declared against Robespierre. In the space of a day, that execrable monster was dragged from the highest pitch of power ever attained by any tyrant, to the very scaffold that was still reeking with the blood of his last victims. His principal accomplices in the Committee of Public Safety, in the Commune, in the National Guard, in the Revolutionary Tribunal, and many of his agents in the provinces, met the same fate. The Revolutionary Tribunals were suppressed, and the prisons thrown open to all whom they had cast into them.

"This fourth revolution, in which the faction then esteemed the moderate party overthrew the terrorists, and seized the supreme power, was no less complete than those which had preceded it, and produced the constitution of 1795. All France received as a great blessing a constitution that delivered them from the revolutionary government and its infernal policy. Besides, it had, in spite of great defects, the merit of coming nearer than the two preceding ones, to the principles of order, of justice, and real liberty; the violation of which had, for five years before, been the source of so many disasters and so many crimes. The royalists, considering it as a step towards monarchy, were unfortunately so imprudent as to triumph in it; and their joy, as premature as indiscreet, alarmed the Assembly to such a degree, that they passed the famous law, ordaining the Primary Assemblies to return two-thirds of the members of the Convention to the legislative body, which

was to succeed that assembly. It was thus that the spirit of the Convention continued, for the first year, to be displayed in the two councils.

"In the year following, the bias of the public mind, perhaps too hastily turned towards royalty, shewed itself in the elections of the members for the new third, so clearly as to alarm the regicides who composed the Directory, and the Conventionists, who still made a third of the legislative body; nor did they lose a moment in devising means for their defence. That which appeared the surest to them was, to publish notices of plots among the royalists, and annex one or more denunciations, in terms so vague as to leave room for implicating, when necessary, all their adversaries; while by the help of this imposture they procured some secret information, artfully fabricated, and ever easily obtained through threats or rewards by those who have at command the guillotine and the public treasure.

"This masked battery was ready to be opened before the members of the new third took their seats. These at first confined themselves to the securing of a constant majority in the two councils in favour of the moderate opinions; but in a little time every fitting was marked by the repeal of some revolutionary law, or by some decree tending to restrain the executive authority within the limits fixed by the constitution.

"The Directory, alarmed at the abridgment of their power, and dreading still more serious attacks upon it, came to a resolution of no longer postponing the blow they had been meditating against the legislative assembly; and they accomplished, in the manner related in n° 309, a fifth revolution, as complete as any of those by which it was preceded. It differed indeed from them essentially in the facility and promptness with which it was effected, although the party which prevailed, that is to say, the majority of the Directory, and the minority of the Legislative Body, had to combat not only against the constitution, but against the opinion, and even against the indignation, of the public. That moral force, on which the majority of the two councils had unluckily placed all their reliance, vanished in an instant before the physical force of a detachment of troops consisting of six or seven hundred men; so true is it, that the power of the public opinion, ridiculously exaggerated in these days, is and can be no more, under a firm and well ordered government, than a mere fancy. Men accustom themselves too easily to take for public opinion the private opinions made public by certain writers, whose caution or audaciousness depends always upon the energy or feebleness of the supreme authority. It is the same thing with popular commotions: they are easily excited under a weak government, which does not possess the wisdom to prevent or the spirit to suppress them; but a vigorous, just, and strict government has nothing to fear from them. The Directory, compelled to withdraw the larger body of troops, which they had thought necessary to ensure the revolution they were meditating, discovered, no doubt, great ability in securing the two councils, by appearing to dread them: but it was chiefly to the energy of their measures, and to the concentration and promptness with which they were executed, that they owed their success. Two days before, the legislative body might, without obstruction, have impeached, arrested, and even outlawed, the majority of the Directory, who

were execrated by the public under the title of Trumvirate; and, if requisite, they would have been supported by more than 30,000 armed citizens, who, with Pichegru and Villot at their head, would soon have dispersed, and perhaps brought over, the feeble detachments of troops of the line which the Directory had at their command. The legislative body, relying too much upon its popularity, did not sufficiently consider, that the people, whose impetuosity is commonly decisive when allowed to take advantage in attack, are always feeble on the defensive, and totally unable to withstand every assault made previous to an insurrection, for it is always easy to prevent their assembling. It was on this principle that the Directory founded their operations, and the 5th of September too well proves how justly. That day reduced the legislative body, by the most degrading subjugation, to a mere disguising caricature of national representation; it invested the Directory with the most arbitrary and tyrannic power, and restored the system of Robespierre, under a form less bloody, but not less pernicious; for the Revolutionary Tribunals which that monster had established, were scarcely more expeditious than the military ones of the Directory. The power of arbitrary and unlimited transportation is, in time, as destructive as the guillotine, without possessing, like that, the advantage of exciting a filutary horror, which, by recovering the people from the state of stupor and apathy, the constant effects of terror, gives them both recollection and force to break their chains. Though, in violating the most essential regulations of the constitution, the Directory obtained a temporary confirmation of their power, their example pointed out to Bonaparte and Sieyes the path which they pursued with infinite address, and in which they accomplished a sixth revolution.

How long the consular government will continue, it is impossible to conjecture; but we may, without presumption, venture to predict, that it cannot be permanent. To the Jacobins and original constitutionalists it must be more obnoxious than the old government; because Bonaparte is more despotic than was Louis XIV; and the royalists, though they may prefer the vigorous and comparatively mild government of one man, whose talents are indisputable, to the ferocious tyranny of the lowest of the rabble, must look with indignation at a foreign adventurer seated on the throne of their ancient monarchy.