on**, in politics, signifies a change in the constitution of a state; and is a word of different import from revolts, with which it is sometimes confounded. When a people withdraw their obedience from their governors for any particular reason, without overturning the government, or waging an offensive war against it, they are in a state of revolt; when they overturn the government and form a new one for themselves, they effect a revolution.

That which is termed the revolution in Britain is the change which, in 1688, took place in consequence of the forced abdication of king James II. when the Protestant succession was established, and the constitution restored to its primitive purity. Of this important transaction, which confirmed the rights and liberties of Britons, we have endeavoured to give an impartial account under another article (see *Britain*, no 281, &c.). Of the rise and progress of the American revolution, which is still fresh in the memory of our readers, a large detail is given under the article *America*: But there are two other revolutions yet depending, of which some account will be expected in this place.

The Polish revolution, which, in all its circumstances, was perhaps the least exceptionable of any in the records of history, we have already traced to the period when the amiable king, over awed by the arms of Russia, was obliged to undo his patriotic work, and give his sanction to the restoration of the old and wretched government (see *Poland*). Since that period, Kościuszko's army has been completely defeated, himself made a prisoner, Warsaw taken, and the whole kingdom subdued by the powers combined against it. What will be the consequence of this success may perhaps be conceived, but the rumours of the day are various. At one time we are told, that Poland is to be no longer an independent state, but to be divided among the three great powers which formerly wrestled from it some of its most valuable provinces. At another time, we hear of the disinterested intention of the Empress, to restore the king to his original authority; although she has, in the mean time, driven him from his capital, where she herself exercises sovereign power. And a third report says, that Stanislaus is to retire with a large pension, and a Russian prince to step into his throne. The first of these rumours we think much more probable than the other two: especially as it seems confirmed by the following letter sent from Grodno, on the 18th of January, by the unfortunate king to the British ambassador.

"My dear Gardiner—The characters with which I and I have been invested seem to be now almost at an end. I do not expect to see you again, but it is of importance to me to bid you farewell; and this I do from the bottom of my heart. You will preserve a place in my heart till death; and I hope that at last we shall meet again, in a place where upright minds, according to my opinion, will be for ever united.

Every thing belonging to the usual etiquette has been so much deranged and interrupted by my sad fate, that most probably neither you nor I will be able to fulfill the diplomatic customs.

But be assured, that I love and honour your king..." and nation. This you will apprize them of. Be assured also, that I wish you should preserve an affection towards your friend. If I am able to speak to you no more, my picture will speak to you for me! (Signed) Stanislaus Augustus, King."

This shows, at least, the fate of the king; and leaving that of the kingdom to be ascertained by time, we proceed to fulfill a promise which we made respecting another revolution, to which all the nations of Europe are still looking with anxiety and alarm.

When treating of France under a former article, we stated a few of the more striking historical facts which led to the commencement of the revolution; and we now come to trace the series of transactions which have marked its terrible career. In doing this, we shall compress our ideas as much as possible; and out of the endless variety of materials of which the public are in possession, we shall endeavour to extract a short and, if possible, a tolerably clear detail. For this purpose, however, it will be necessary that we begin, by stating the internal situation of France at the period immediately preceding the revolution, along with the more obvious political circumstances which contributed to the production of that event. The moral history of man is always more important than the mere recital of any physical occurrences that may take place in his lot. It is not the fall of a mighty monarch and the dispersion of his family; it is not the convulsion of empires, and the oceans of human blood which have been shed, that render the French revolution peculiarly interesting. Such events, however deplorable, are far from being without example in the history of mankind. In the populous regions of the east, where superstition and slavery have always prevailed, they are regarded as forming a part of the ordinary course of human affairs; because an intrepid and skilful usurper finds it easy to intimidate or enslave millions of weak and credulous men.

In Europe the case is very different; no adventurer can advance far without encountering thousands as artful and as daring as himself. Events are not the result either of blind hazard or of individual skill; conspiracies or plots produce little effect. Like other arts, the art of government has been brought to much perfection; and an established constitution can only be shaken by the strong convulsion produced by national passions and efforts. The wonderful spectacle which we are now to contemplate, is that of a mild and polished people becoming in an instant sanguinary and fierce; a well-established government, celebrated for its dexterity and skill, overturned almost without a struggle; a whole nation apparently uniting to destroy every institution which antiquity had hallowed or education taught them to respect; a superstitious people treating the religion of their fathers with contempt; a long enslaved people, whose very chains had become dear to them, occupied in their public councils in the discussion of refined, and even visionary schemes of freedom: in short, 25,000,000 of persons suddenly treading under foot every sentiment and every prejudice that they themselves had once regarded as sacred and venerable.

Like the other nations of Europe, France was anciently governed by a barbarous aristocracy, whose different members were feebly united by the authority of a succession of kings destitute of power or influence. The nobles, within their own territories, enjoyed privileges entirely royal: they made peace and war; they coined money; they were judges in the last resort; their vassals were their slaves, whom they bought and sold along with the lands; the inhabitants of cities, although freemen, were depressed and poor, depending for protection upon some tyrannical baron in their neighbourhood. At length, however, by the progress of the arts, the cities rose into considerable importance, and their inhabitants, along with such freemen of low rank as resided in the country, were considered as entitled to a representation in the states-general of the kingdom, under the appellation of tiers etat, or third estate; the clergy and the nobles forming the two first estates. But the sovereign, having speedily become despotic, the meetings of the states general were laid aside. This absolute authority, on the part of the crown, was not acquired, as it was in England by the house of Tudor, by abolishing the pernicious privileges of the nobles and elevating the commons; but by skilful encroachments, by daring exertions of prerogative, and the use of a powerful military force. In France, therefore, the monarch was absolute, yet the nobles retained all their feudal privileges, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy did the same. The following was, in a few words, the state of that country during these two last centuries.

The kingdom of France, previous to the revolution, was never reduced to one homogenous mass. It consisted of a variety of separate provinces acquired by different means; some by marriage, some by legacy, and others by conquest. Each province retained its ancient laws and privileges, whether political or civil, as expressed in their capitularies or conditions by which they were originally acquired. In one part of his dominions the French monarch was a count, in another he was a duke, and in others he was a king; the only bond which united his vast empire being the strong military force by which it was overawed. Each province had its barriers; and the intercourse between one province and another was often more restrained by local usages than the intercourse of either with a foreign country. Some of the provinces, such as Bretagne and Dauphiné, even retained the right of assembling periodically their provincial states; but these formed no barrier against the power of the court.

The clergy formed the first estate of the kingdom in point of precedence. They amounted to 130,000, formed the higher orders of them enjoyed immense revenues; first estate but the curés or great body of acting clergy seldom possessed more than about £28 Sterling a-year, and their vicaires about half that sum. A few of their dignified clergy were men of great piety, who resided constantly in their dioceses, and attended to the duties of their office; but by far the greater number of them passed their lives at Paris and Versailles, immersed in all the intrigues and dissipation of a gay and corrupted court and capital. They were almost exclusively selected from among the younger branches of the families of the most powerful nobility, and accounted it a kind of dishonour to the order of bishops for any person of low rank to be admitted into it. The lower clergy, on the contrary, were persons of mean birth, and had little chance of preferment. At the same time, we find several respectable exceptions to this last rule. The clergy, as a body, independent of the tithes, possessed a revenue arising from their property in land, amounting to four or five millions Sterling annually; at the same time they were exempt from taxation. The crown had of late years attempted to break through this privilege. To avoid the danger, the clergy presented to the court a free gift of a sum of money somewhat short of a million Sterling every five years.

The nobility was nominally the second order of the state, but it was in reality the first. The nobles amounted to no less than 200,000 in number. The title and rank descended to all the children of the family, but the property to the eldest alone; hence vast multitudes of them were dependent upon the bounty of the court. They regarded the useful and commercial arts as dishonourable, and even the liberal professions of the law and physic as in a great measure beneath their dignity, disdaining to intermarry with the families of their professors. The feudal system in its purity was extremely favourable to the production of respectable qualities in the minds of those who belonged to the order of the nobles; but the introduction of commerce has rendered its decline equally unfavourable to that class of men. Instead of the ancient patriarchal attachment between the feudal chieftain and his vassals, the nobility had become greedy landlords in the provinces, that they might appear in splendour at court and in the capital. There, lost in intrigue, sensuality, and vanity, their characters became frivolous and contemptible. Such of the French nobility, however, as remained in the provinces, regarded with indignation this degradation of their order, and still retained a proud sense of honour and of courage, which has always rendered them respectable. The order of the nobles was exempted from the payment of taxes, although the property of some of them was immense. The estates of the prince of Conde, for example, were worth L. 200,000 a year, and those of the duke of Orleans nearly twice as much. The crown had indeed imposed some trifling taxes upon the nobility, which, however, they in a great measure contrived to elude.

Next to the nobles, and as a privileged order possessing a secondary kind of nobility of their own, we may mention the parliaments. These were large bodies of men, in different provinces, appointed as courts of law for the administration of justice. In consequence of the corruption of the officers of state, the members purchased their places, which they held for life; but the son was usually preferred when he offered to purchase his father's place. In consequence of this last circumstance, the practising lawyers had little chance of ever becoming judges. Courts thus constituted consisted of a motley mixture of old and young, learned and ignorant, men. Justice was ill administered. The judges allowed their votes in depending causes to be openly solicited by the parties or their friends. No wise man ever entered into a litigation against a member of one of these parliaments; no lawyer would undertake to plead his cause; it never came to a successful issue, and usually never came to any issue at all. After the states-general had fallen into disuse, the parliaments acquired a certain degree of political consequence, and formed the only check upon the absolute power of the crown. The laws, or royal edicts, before being put in force, were always sent to be registered in the books of the parliaments. Taking advantage of this, in favourable times and circumstances, they often delayed or refused to register the royal edicts, and presented remonstrances against them. This was done under a kind of legal fiction; for they pretended that the obnoxious edict being injurious to the public happiness, could not be the will of the king, but must either be a forgery or an imposition by the ministers. These objections were got the better of, either by a positive order from the king, or by his coming in person and ordering the edict to be registered. The parliaments, however, often carried their opposition very far, even to the ruin of themselves and their families as individuals. This rendered them extremely popular with the nation, and enabled them to embarrass a weak administration. After all, however, the opposition of the parliaments was so feeble, that it was never thought worth while to abolish them entirely till towards the end of the reign of Louis XV., but they were restored as a popular measure at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI.

The tiers état, or commons, formed the lowest order of the state in France, and they were depressed and miserable in the extreme. To form a conception of their situation, it is necessary to observe that they bore the whole pecuniary burdens of the state: They alone were liable to taxation. An expensive and ambitious court; an army of 200,000 men in time of peace, and of twice that number in war; a considerable marine establishment, public roads and works, were all supported exclusively by the lowest of the people. To add to the evil, the revenues were ill collected. They were let out to farmers-general at a certain sum, over and above which they not only acquired immense fortunes to themselves, but were enabled to advance enormous presents to those favourites or mistresses of the king or the minister, by means of whom they procured their places. To raise all this money from the people, they were guilty of the cruellest oppression, having it in their power to obtain whatever revenue laws they pleased, and executing them in the severest manner. For this last purpose they kept in pay an army of clerks, subalterns, factots, and spies, amounting to 80,000 men. These men were indeed detested by the king, whom they deceived and kept in poverty; by the people, whom they oppressed; and by the ancient nobility, as purblind upstarts. But the court of France could never contrive to manage without them. The peasants could be called out by the intendants of the provinces in what they called "révolte" to work upon the high roads for a certain number of days in the year, which was a source of severe oppression, as the intendant had the choice of the time and place of their employment, and was not bound to accept of any commutation in money. They were moreover subject to the nobles in a thousand ways. The nobles retained all their ancient manorial or patrimonial jurisdictions. The common people being anciently slaves, had obtained their freedom upon different conditions. In many places they and their posterity remained bound to pay a perpetual tribute to their feudal lords. Such tributes formed a considerable part of the revenue of many of the provincial nobles. No man could be an officer of the army, by a late regulation, who did not produce proofs of nobility for four generations. The parliaments, although originally of the tiers état, attempted also to introduce a rule that none but the noblest should be admitted into their order. In such a situation, it will not be accounted surprising that the common people of France were extremely superstitious. French tious and ignorant. They were, however, passionately devoted to their monarch, and whatever concerned him.

In 1754, when Louis XV. was taken ill at Metz, the whole nation was truly in a kind of despair. The courier and his horse that brought the news of his recovery to Paris were both almost suffocated by the embraces of the people.

We have said that the French monarch was despotic. His power was supported by his army and by a watchful police, having in pay an infinite host of spies and other servants. In France no man was safe. The secrets of private families were searched into. Nothing was unknown to the jealous inquisition of the police. Men were seized by lettres de cachet when they least expected it, and their families had no means of discovering their fate. The sentence of a court of law against a nobleman was usually reversed by the minister. No book was published without the licence of a censor-general appointed by the court, and the minister was accountable to none but the king. No account was given of the expenditure of the public money. Enormous gratifications and pensions were given as the reward of the most infamous services. The supreme power of the state was usually lodged with a favourite mistress, and she was sometimes a woman taken from public prostitution. This was not indeed the case under Louis XVI., but it was nevertheless one of the misfortunes of his life that he was far from being absolute in his own family. Still, however, with all its faults, the French court was the most splendid and polished in Europe. It was more the resort of men of talents and literature of every kind, and there they met with more ample protection, than anywhere else. The court was often jealous of their productions, but they met with the most distinguished attention from men of fortune and rank; inasmuch that for a century past the French have given the law to Europe in all questions of taste, of literature, and of every polite accomplishment. The gay elegance that prevailed at court diffused itself through the nation; and amidst much internal misery, gave it to a foreigner the appearance of happiness, or at least of levity and vanity.

Such as it was, this government had stood for ages, and might have continued, had not a concurrence of causes contributed to its overthrow. The inferior orders of clergy, excluded from all chance of preferment, regarded their superiors with jealousy and envy, and were ready to join the laity of their own rank in any popular commotion. The inferior provincial nobility beheld with contempt and indignation the vices and the power of the courtiers, and the higher nobility wished to diminish the power of the crown. The practising lawyers, almost entirely excluded from the chance of becoming judges, wished eagerly for a change of affairs, not doubting that their talents and professional skill would render them necessary amidst any alterations that could occur. Accordingly, they were the first instruments in producing the revolution, and have been its most active supporters. The monied interest wished eagerly for the downfall of the ancient nobility. As for the great mass of the common people, they were too ignorant, too superstitiously attached to old establishments, and too much depressed, to have any conception of the nature of political liberty, or any hope of obtaining it. We have already stated the leading circumstances which led to the French revolution (see France, n° 184, &c.); but there were other circumstances which contributed in an equal degree both to its commencement and its progress.

For 40 years the principles of liberty had been disseminated with eagerness in France by some men of great talents, as Rousseau, Helvetius, and Raynal, to whom the celebrated Montesquieu had led the way. Besides these, there was in France a vast multitude of what were called men of letters, or persons who gave this account of the manner in which they spent their time. All these were deeply engaged on the side of some kind of political reform. The men of letters in Paris alone are said to have amounted to 20,000. One of the last acts of the administration of the archbishop of Thoulouse was, on the 5th July 1788, to publish a resolution of the king in council, inviting all his subjects to give him their advice with regard to the state of affairs. This was considered as a concession of an unlimited liberty of the press; and it scarcely possible to form an idea of the infinite variety of political publications which from that period diffused among the people a dissatisfaction with the order of things in which they had hitherto lived.

The established religion of France had for some time past been gradually undermined. It had been solemnly assaulted by philosophers in various elaborate performances; and men of wit, among whom Voltaire took the lead, had attacked it with the dangerous weapon of ridicule. The Roman Catholic religion is much exposed in this respect, in consequence of the multitude of false miracles and legendary tales with which its history abounds. Without discriminating between the respectable principles on which it rests, and the superstitious follies by which they had been defaced, the French nation learned to laugh at the whole, and rejected instead of reforming the religion of their fathers. Thus the first order in the state had already begun to be regarded as useless, and the minds of men were prepared for important changes.

The immense population of the city of Paris, amounting to upwards of 800,000 souls, rendered it an important engine in the hands of the conductors of the revolution. An overgrown capital has always proved dangerous to a government that is or attempts to be despotic, as appears from the history of ancient Babylon and Rome, as well as of modern Constantinople, of London under Charles I., and Paris under several of its kings.

We cannot here avoid mentioning a physical event, which assisted not a little in producing many of the convulsions attending the revolution, a general scarcity of grain, which occurred about that period. On Sunday the 13th of July 1788, about nine in the morning, without any eclipse, a dreadful darkness suddenly spread several parts of France. It was the prelude of fuel a tempest as is unexampled in the temperate climates of Europe. Wind, rain, hail, and thunder, seemed to contend in impetuosity; but the hail was the great instrument of ruin. Instead of the rich prospects of an early autumn, the face of nature in the space of an hour presented the dreary aspect of universal winter. The soil was converted into a morass, the standing corn beaten into the quagmire, the vines broken to pieces, the fruit trees demolished, and unmelted hail lying in heaps like rocks of solid ice. Even the robust French forest trees were unable to withstand the fury of the Revolution tempest. The hail was composed of enormous, solid, and angular pieces of ice, some of them weighing from eight to ten ounces. The country people, beaten down in the fields on their way to church, amidst this concus- sion of the elements, concluded that the last day was arrived; and scarcely attempting to extricate themselves, lay despairing and half suffocated amidst the water and the mud, expecting the immediate dissolution of all things. The storm was irregular in its devastations. While several rich districts were laid entirely waste, some intermediate portions of country were comparatively little injured. One of 60 square leagues had not a single ear of corn or a fruit of any kind left. Of the 66 parishes in the district of Pontoise, 43 were entirely desolated, and of the remaining 23 some lost two-thirds and others half their harvest. The isle of France, being the district in which Paris is situated, and the Orleanais, appear to have suffered chiefly. The damage there, upon a moderate estimate, amounted to 80,000,000 of livres, or between three and four millions Sterling. Such a calamity must at any period have been severely felt; but occurring on the eve of a great political revolution, and amidst a general scarcity throughout Europe, it was peculiarly unfortunate, and gave more embarrassment to the government than perhaps any other event whatever. Numbers of families found it necessary to contract their mode of living for a time, and to dismiss their servants, who were thus left destitute of bread. Added to the public discontent and political dissensions, it produced such an effect upon the people in general, that the nation seemed to have changed its character; and instead of that levity by which it had ever been distinguished, a settled gloom now seemed fixed on every countenance.

The spring of the year 1789 was a period of much political anxiety in France. The superior orders wished to reduce the power of the crown, but were jealous of their own privileges, and determined to retain them; while the popular philosophers and others were endeavouring to render them odious, and to rouse the people to a love of freedom. Still, however, the great body of the common people remained careless spectators of the struggle and unconscious of the approaching commotion. Such was their indifference, that few of them took the trouble even to attend and vote at the elections of the deputies to the states-general. In many places, where a thousand voters were expected, not fifty came forward; but such of them as did appear showed that a seed was sown which might one day rise into important fruits. In the instructions which they gave to their deputies, the British constitution was in general the model of what they wished their government to be. They demanded equal taxation, the abolition of lettres de cachet or arbitrary imprisonment, the responsibility of ministers, and the extinction of the feudal privileges of the nobles; but they wished that the whole three orders of the state should sit and vote in one house, well knowing that their nobility were not prepared to act the moderate part of a British house of lords. The nobles, on the contrary, although willing to renounce some of their pecuniary privileges, and to sacrifice the power of the crown, were most decisively resolved neither to surrender their feudal prerogatives nor the right of sitting in three separate assemblies; by means of which each of the orders could easily resist the encroachments of the other two. Mr Neckar has been improperly censured for not deciding this last important question previous to the meeting of the states-general; but it must be observed, that the very purpose of calling that assembly was to overturn the unjust privileges of the higher orders through its medium, and without any direct interposition on the part of the ministers. Had the king positively decided in favour of three chambers, the nobles and the clergy would have retained all those ancient abuses established in their own favour, of which it was his wish to deprive them, and the crown and its prerogatives would have been the only objects of sacrifice. It was therefore thought safer to leave the tiers état to fight its own battle; nor was it yet imagined that the commons of France, depressed and poor, and dispersed by situation over a multitude of provinces, could ever unite in enterprises dangerous to the sovereign.

The states had been summoned to meet at Versailles on the 27th of April, and most of the deputies arrived there at that time; but the elections for the city of Paris were not being concluded, the king deferred the commencement of their sessions till the 4th of May. During this period, the members, left in idleness, began to find out and form acquaintance with each other. Among others, a few members from Brittany (Bretagne) formed themselves into a club, into which they gradually admitted many other deputies that were found to be zealous for the popular cause, and also many persons who were not deputies. This society, thus originally established at Versailles, was called the Comité Bretons, and was one day defined, under the appellation of the Jacobin Club, to give laws to France, and to diffuse terror and alarm throughout Europe. On the other side, the aristocratic party established conferences at the house of Madame Polignac, for the purpose, it is said, of uniting the nobles and the clergy.

An event occurred at this time which all parties ascribed to some malicious motive. In the populous suburb of St Antoine, a M. Reveillon carried on a great paper factory. A false report was spread that he intended to lower the wages of his workmen, and that he had declared bread was too good for them, and that they might subsist very well on potato-flour. A commotion was raised, he was burnt in effigy, and his house was thereafter burnt and pillaged by the mob, who were not dispersed till the military had been called in, and much carnage ensued. The popular party alleged that the commotion had been artfully excited by the party of the queen and the Count D'Artois, to afford a pretence for bringing great bodies of the military to the neighbourhood to overawe the states-general, or induce the king more decisively to resolve on assembling that body at Versailles, in preference to Paris, where they and the popular minister M. Neckar wished it to be held.

On the 4th of May the states-general assembled at Versailles. They commenced business by going in a General solemn procession, preceded by the clergy, and followed by the king, according to ancient custom, to church, to perform an act of devotion. The nobles were arrayed in a splendid robe, and they and the higher clergy glittered in gold and jewels. The commons appeared in black, the dress belonging to the law. The assembly assembly was thereafter opened by a short speech from the throne, in which the king congratulated himself upon thus meeting his people assembled; alluded to the national debt, and the taxes, which were severely felt because unequally levied; he took notice of the general discontent and spirit of innovation which prevailed, but declared his confidence in the wisdom of the assembly for remedying every evil. "May an happy union (added he) reign in this assembly; and may this epocha become ever memorable for the happiness and prosperity of the country. It is the wish of my heart; it is the most ardent desire of my prayers; it is, in short, the price which I expect from the sincerity of my intentions and my love for my people."

M. Barretin, the keeper of the seals, next addressed the assembly in a congratulatory and uninteresting speech. He was followed by the popular minister M. Neckar, who spoke for three hours. Though much applauded on account of the clear financial details which his speech contained, he encountered a certain degree of censure from all parties, on account of the cautious ambiguity which he observed with regard to the future proceedings of the states-general.

Next day the three orders assembled separately. The deputies of the tiers état amounted to 600 in number, and those of the nobles and clergy to 300 each. During their first sittings much time was spent in unimportant debates about trifling points of form; but the first important question, that necessarily became the subject of their discussion, was the verification of their powers, or production of the commissions of the members, and investigation of their authenticity. The commons (tiers état) laid hold of this as a pretext for opening the grand controversy, whether the states-general should sit in one or in three separate chambers? They sent a deputation inviting the nobles and the clergy to meet along with them in the common hall for the purpose of verifying their powers in one common assembly. In the chamber of the clergy 114 members voted for the performance of this ceremony in the general assembly; and 133 against it. But in the more laudable order of the nobles, the resolution for the verification in their own assembly was carried by a majority of 188 against 47. The commons paid no regard to this. They were conducted by bold and skilful leaders, who discerned the importance of the point in contest, and resolved not to abandon it. Aware of the exigencies of the state, they knew that the crown was nearly verging upon bankruptcy; and that such were the deficiencies of the revenue that only a short delay was necessary to accomplish the absolute dissolution of the government. They suffered five weeks to pass away therefore in total inactivity. During this period proposals were made on the part of the ministry for a pacification between the three orders, and conferences were opened by commissioners from each. But no art could seduce the commons from their original purpose, or prevail with them to enter upon the business of the state.

The nation had expected much from the assembling of the states-general, and learnt the news of their inaction with no small degree of concern. The tiers état was naturally popular, and the public censure could not readily devolve upon that favourite order. Moreover, from the first period of their assembling the commons made every effort to augment their own natural popularity. They admitted all persons promiscuously into the galleries, and even into the body of their hall. No restraint was attempted to be laid upon the most vehement marks of popular applause or censure. Lists of the voters' names were publicly taken and sent to Paris upon every remarkable occasion; and the members suddenly found themselves become, according to their political sentiments, the objects of general execration or applause. The new and bold notions of liberty that were daily advanced by the leaders of the tiers état were received with acclamation by their hearers. The capital became interested in the issue of every debate; and the political fervor was eagerly imbibed by the nation with that vivacity which is so peculiar to the French. The commons accused the nobles of obstinately impeding the business of the state, by refusing to verify their powers in one common assembly. The accusation was ill-founded by the multitude, who saw not, or were unwilling to see, that the attack was made by their own favourite order. In the mean time the nobles became rapidly more and more unpopular. Their persons were insulted, new publications daily came forth, and were greedily bought up, which reviled their whole order, and represented them as an useless or pernicious body of men, whose existence ought not to be tolerated in a free state. Whoever adhered to them was branded with the odious appellation of Aristrocratie. The clergy, from the influence of the parish curés or parsons, seemed ready to desert their cause. They were even opposed by a minority of their own body, which derived little from having at its head the duke of Orleans, the first prince of the blood. Still, however, the majority of the nobles remained firm; well aware, that if they once consented to fit in the same assembly, and to vote promiscuously, with the ambitious and more numerous body of the commons, their whole order, and all its splendid privileges, must speedily be overthrown.

The leaders of the commons saw the change that was taking place in the minds of men; and they at length regarded the period as arrived when they ought to emerge from their inactivity, and execute the daring project of seizing the legislative authority in their country. They declared that the representatives of the authority; nobles and the clergy were only the deputies of particular incorporations whom they would allow to sit and vote along with themselves; but who had no title in a collective capacity to act as the legislators of France. For conducting business with more facility, they appointed 20 committees. In consequence of a proposal by the Abbé Sieyès, a final message was sent to the privileged orders requiring their attendance as individuals, and intimating that the commons, as the deputies of 96 out of every hundred of their countrymen, were about to assume the exclusive power of legislation. None of the nobles obeyed this summons; but three curés, Messrs Céfve, Ballard, and Jalot, presented their commissions, and were received with loud acclamations. They were next day followed by five more, among whom were Messrs Grégoire, Dillon, and Bodineau. After some debate concerning the appellation which they ought to assume, the commons, with such of the clergy as had joined them, solemnly voted themselves the sovereign legislators of their country under the name of the National Assembly. The result of the vote was no sooner declared, than the hall resounded with shouts from the immense concourse of spectators of "Vive le Roi et vive l'assemblée nationale," Long live the king and the national assembly. M. Bailly was chosen president for four days only; Messrs Camus and Pifon de Galand secretaries, and the assembly proceeded to bu- siness.

Its first acts were decisively expressive of its own sov- ereignty. All taxes imposed without the consent of the representatives of the people were declared to be null and void; but a temporary sanction was given to the present taxes, although illegal, till the dissolution of the assembly and no longer. It was added, that "as soon as, in concert with his majesty, the assembly should be able to fix the principles of national regeneration, it would take into consideration the national debt, placing from the present moment the creditors of the state un- der the safeguard and honour of the French nation."

The popular cause now gained ground so fast, that on the 19th of June a majority of the clergy voted for the verification of their powers in common with the national assembly, and they resolved to unite with them on the following day.

Affairs were now come to a crisis, and the nobles perceived that they must instantly make a decisive stand, or yield up their cause as finally lost. Such was their alarm, that M. d'Espremont proposed, at one of the fittings of their order, to address the king, intreating him to dissolve the states-general. Hi- thereto that prince had gone along with M. Neckar in favouring the popular cause in opposition to the aristo- cracy. But every art was now used to alarm his mind upon the subject of the late assumptions of power on the part of the commons, and these arts were at length unsuccessful. Repeated counsels were held; M. Neckar was absent attending a dying father, and the king was prevailed upon to act agreeably to the advice of the leaders of the nobles. But the first measure which they adopted was so ill conducted as to afford little prospect of final success to their cause. On the 20th of June, when the president and members were about to enter as usual into their own hall, they found it unexpectedly surrounded by a detachment of the guards, who refused them admission, while the heralds at the same time pro- claimed a royal session. Alarmed by this unforeseen event, the meaning of which they knew not, but ap- prehending that an immediate dissolution of the assembly was designed, they instantly retired to a neighbouring tennis-court, where, in the vehemence of their enthu- siasm, they took a solemn oath "never to separate till the constitution of their country should be completed."

On the 22d a new proclamation intimated that the royal session, was deferred till the following day. It was now found that the assembly had been excluded from their hall merely because the workmen were oc- cupied in preparing it for the intended solemnity. This information was ill calculated to excite favourable ex- pectations of the measures about to be adopted at a royal session, ushered in by such circumstances of marked disrespect for the representatives of the people. The assembly, after wandering about in search of a place of meeting, at length entered the church of St Louis, and were immediately joined by the majority of the clergy, with their president, the archbishop of Vienne, at their head. Two nobles of Dauphiné, the marquis de Blacon and the count d'Agout, presented their com- missions at the same time. Encouraged by these events, and by the applause of surrounding multitudes, the assembly now expected with firmness the measures about to be adopted.

The royal session was held in the most splendid form, but altogether in the style of the ancient despotism. The Soldiers surrounded the hall. The two superior orders were seated, while the representatives of the people, left standing a full hour in the rain, were in no humour, when at last admitted, to receive with much compla- cency the commands of their sovereign. The king read a discourse, in which he declared null and void the resolutions of the 17th, but at the same time presented the plan of a constitution for France. It contained many good and patriotic principles, but preferred the distinction of orders, and the exercise of lettres de ca- chet; it said nothing about any active share in the le- gislative power to be possessed by the states-general, and was silent both about the responsibility of ministers and the liberty of the press. The king concluded by com- manding the deputies immediately to retire, and to as- semble again on the following day. He then withdrew, and was followed by all the nobles and a part of the clergy. The commons remained in gloomy silence on their feet. It was interrupted by the grand master of the ceremonies, who reminded the president of the inten- tions of the king. Instantly the vehement count com- mon de Mirabeau, starting from his seat, exclaimed with in- dignation, "The commons of France have determined to debate. We have heard the intentions that have been suggested to the king; and you, who cannot be his agent with the states-general, you who have here neither seat nor voice, nor a right to speak, are not the person to remind us of his speech. Go tell your matter, that we are here by the power of the people, and that nothing shall expel us but the bayonet." The applause of the assembly seconded the enthusiasm of the orator, and the master of the ceremonies withdrew in silence.

M. Camus then rose; and in a violent speech indig- nantly stigmatized the royal session by the obnoxious appellation of a bed of justice; he concluded by moving that the assembly should declare their unqualified adhe- sion to their former decrees. This motion was fol- lowed by another, pronouncing the persons of the de- puties inviolable. Both were supported by Messrs Pe- tion, Barnave, Glaizen, the Abbés Grégoire, Sieyès, and many others, and were unanimously decreed. The assembly therefore continued their sittings in the usual form. On the following day the majority of the clergy attended as members; and on the 25th the duke of Orleans, along with 49 of the deputies belonging to the order of nobles, joined them also. The remaining nobles, as well as the small minority of the clergy, now found themselves awkwardly situated. Whether on this account, or because their leaders had by this time form- ed a plan for carrying their point not by peaceable means but by the aid of a military force, the king, on the 27th, invited by a pressing letter both orders to join the commons. This request was immediately complied with, although many of the nobility disappro- ved of the measure.

The situation of France was now become truly alarm- ing. When the king retired from the assembly after the royal session, he was followed by more than 6000 citizens, citizens, from whom loud clamours and every mark of disapprobation broke forth. All Versailles was speedily in an uproar. M. Neckar had repeatedly solicited his diffusion, and the report of this had increased the popular clamour. The court was in consternation. The king probably discovered, with no great satisfaction, that his minister was more popular than himself. At six o'clock in the evening the queen sent for M. Neckar. When he returned from the palace, he assured the crowd that waited for him that he would not abandon them; upon which they retired satisfied. At the same time the news of the royal petition had thrown the city of Paris into violent agitation. The peace of that capital was at this time endangered by a variety of causes. A dreadful famine raged through the land, which in a great city is usually felt severely. This prepared the minds of men for receiving unfavourable impressions of their political state. Every effort was moreover made to disorganize the government, and produce a dislike to the ancient order of things. The press poured forth innumerable publications, filled with new and seducing, though generally impracticable, theories of liberty. These were distributed gratis among the bulk of the people of Paris, and dispersed in the same manner throughout the provinces. Philip duke of Orleans (presumptive heir to the crown failing the children and brothers of the king) is with good reason believed to have supplied this expense out of his more than royal revenues. In the gardens of the Palais Royale at Paris, which belonged to him, an immense multitude was daily assembled, listening from morning to night to orators who declaimed upon the most violent subjects of popular politics. Many of these orators were suspected to be in his pay. It was even believed that his money found its way into the pockets of some of the most distinguished leaders in the national assembly.

But the government was, if possible, still more dangerously assaulted by the methods now generally used to seduce the military. Every officer of the French army belonged to the order of the nobles; and from that quarter, therefore, it might have been imagined that there was little danger. But this very circumstance became the means of disorganizing that great engine of despotism. As the soldiers could not avoid imbibing some of the new opinions, their own officers became the first objects of their jealousy; especially in consequence of that impolitic edict of Louis XVI., which required every officer to produce proofs of four degrees of nobility; and thus insulted, by avowedly excluding the private men from promotion. Perhaps with a view to what might happen, the instructions to the deputies of the tiers état had recommended an increase of the pay of the soldiers. And now at Paris every art was used to gain them to the popular cause. They were conducted to the Palais Royal, and were there caressed and flattered by the populace, while they listened to the popular harangues. These arts were successful. On the 23rd of June they first refused to fire on the mob in a riot. Some of them were on the 30th reported to be in confinement for this offence; a crowd instantly collected, and rescued them, the dragoons that were brought to suppress the tumult grounding their arms: a deputation of the citizens solicited of the assembly the pardon of the prisoners. The assembly applied to the king, who pardoned them accordingly.

All these events, together with the tumultuous state of the capital, which was daily increasing, made it necessary called celerity for the king to call out the military force to restore, if possible, the public peace. That his intentions were pure, the then state of affairs will permit no man but a democrat to doubt; but the aristocracy, with the Count d'Artois at their head, were bringing forward other measures, which ultimately contributed to the ruin of themselves, the king, and the kingdom. Crowds of soldiers were collected from all parts of the kingdom around Paris and Versailles. It was observed, that these consisted chiefly of foreign mercenaries. Camps were traced out. Marshal Broglie, a tried veteran, was sent for and placed at the head of the army. The king was supposed to have entirely yielded to new counsels, and everything bore the appearance of a desperate effort to restore the energy of the ancient government. This is the most important period of the French revolution; yet the specific designs of the leading actors have never been clearly understood. It was rumoured at the time, that Paris was to be subdued by a siege and bombardment; that the assembly was to be dissolved, and its leaders put to death. These are incredible exaggerations; but the crisis of French liberty was universally regarded as at hand, and also the existence of the national assembly as an independent body; or at least upon any other footing than that proposed by the king on the 23rd of June.

An able and eloquent address to the king against the assembling of foreign troops in their neighbourhood was brought forward by Mirabeau, and voted by the king to assembly. The king properly replied, that the state of the capital was the cause of assembling the troops, and which is offered to transfer the states-general to Noyons or Soissons. "We will neither remove (exclaimed Mirabeau) to Noyons nor to Soissons; we will not place ourselves between two hostile armies, that which is besieging Paris and that which may fall upon us from Flanders or Alsace; we have not asked permission to run away from the troops; we have declared that the troops should be removed from the capital."

Thirty-five thousand men were now stationed in the neighbourhood of Paris and Versailles. The posts were occupied which commanded the city, and camps were marked out for a greater force. The Count d'Artois and his party regarded their plans as ripe for execution; and M. Neckar received a letter from the king, requiring him to quit the kingdom in 24 hours. That popular minister took the route of Brussels on the following day, when his departure was made public. In his diffusion the popular, or as it was now called the democratic, party thought they saw the resolution adopted to accomplish their ruin. The assembly again addressed the throne; they requested anew the removal of the king;

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(a) Popular he certainly was; but he either had not fortitude and talents to execute his own plans, or acted a safe part to his amiable master. From benefits we acquit him. of the troops, offering to be responsible for the public peace, and to proceed in a body to Paris to encounter personally every danger that might occur. But they were coolly told, that the king was the best judge of the mode of employing the troops, and that the presence of the assembly was necessary at Versailles. From a sovereign who doubtsless recollected the proceedings of the long parliament of England, a different reply could not in reason be expected. On receiving it, however, it was instantly decreed, on the motion of the marquis de Lafayette, that the late ministry had carried with them the confidence of the assembly; that the troops ought to be removed; that the ministry are and shall be responsible to the people for their conduct; that the assembly persisted in all its former decrees; and that as it had taken the public debt under the protection of the nation, no power in France was entitled to pronounce the infamous word bankruptcy.

The city of Paris was thrown into deep consternation by the news of M. Neckar's retreat. His buff and that of the Duke d'Orleans were dressed in mourning, and carried through the streets. The royal Allemand, a German regiment, broke in pieces the butts, and dispersed the populace. The prince De Lambesc, grand euyer of France, was ordered to advance with his regiment of cavalry, and take post at the Thulleries. Being a man of a violent temper, and enraged by the appearances of disapprobation which were visible around him, he furiously cut down with his sword a poor old man who was walking peaceably in the gardens. The consequences of this act of inhumanity were such as might have been expected; a shout of execration instantly arose; the cry to arms was heard; the military were assaulted on all sides; the French guards joined their countrymen, and compelled the Germans, overpowered by numbers, and unsupported by the rest of the army, to retire.

All order was now at an end, and as night approached an universal terror diffused itself through the city. Bands of robbers were collecting; and from them or from the foreign soldiery a general pillage was expected. The night passed away in consternation and tumult. It was found in the morning that the hospital of St Lazare was already plundered. The alarm bells were rung; the citizens assembled at the Hotel de Ville, and adopted a proposal that was there made, of enrolling themselves as a militia for general defence, under the appellation of the national guard. This day and the succeeding night were spent in tolerable quietness, without any attempt on the part of the army. On the morning of the memorable 14th of July, it was discovered that the troops encamped in the Champs Elysées had moved off, and an immediate assault was expected. The national guard now amounted to 150,000 men; but they were in general destitute of arms. They had assumed a green cockade; but on recollecting that this was the livery of the Count d'Artois, they adopted one of red, blue, and white. M. de la Salle was named commander in chief; officers were chosen, and detachments sent around in quest of arms. In the Hotel des Invalides upwards of 30,000 stand of arms were found, along with 20 pieces of cannon; a variety of weapons was also procured from the garde meuble de la couronne, and from the shops of armourers, cutlers, &c.

The celebrated fortress of the Bastile was an object of much jealousy to the Parisians. At 11 o'clock in the morning, M. de la Rosiere, at the head of a numerous deputation, waited upon M. de Launay the governor, who promised, along with the officers of his garrison, that they would not fire upon the city unless they should be attacked. But a report was soon spread through Paris, that M. de Launay had, in a short time thereafter, admitted into the fortress a multitude of persons, and then treacherously massacred them. The cause of this piece of perfidy has never been explained. The fact itself has been denied; but it was attested at the time by the duke of Dorset, the British ambassador at the court of France. The effect of the report was, that a sudden resolution was adopted of assaulting the Bastile; an immense and furious multitude rushed into its outer, and soon forced their way into its inner courts, where they received and returned a severe fire for the space of an hour. The French guards, who were now embodied into the national guard, conducted the attack with skill and coolness: they dragged three waggon loaded with straw to the foot of the walls, and there set them on fire; the smoke of these broke the aim of the garrison, while it gave no disturbance to the more distant assailants. The besieging multitude pressed the attack with incredible obstinacy and vigour for the space of four hours; the garrison was in confusion; the officers served the cannon in person, and fired their muskets in the ranks; the governor, in despair, thrice attempted to blow up the fortress. A capitulation, when at last fought, was refused to the garrison, and an unconditional surrender took place. The governor, and M. de Lombe Salbray his major, a gentleman of distinguished humanity and honour, became victims of popular fury in spite of every effort that could be made for their protection; but the French guards succeeded in procuring the safety of the garrison. Only seven prisoners were found in the Bastile. A guard was placed in it, and the keys were sent to the celebrated M. Briffot de Warville, who a few years before had inhabited one of its caverns.

The remaining part of this eventful day was spent at Paris in a mixture of triumph and alarm. In the pocket of the governor of the Bastile a letter was found, encouraging him to resistance by the promise of speedy succours, written by M. de Fleisselles, the prevot de marchands, or chief city magistrate, who had pretended to be a most zealous patriot. This piece of treachery was punished by instant death; and his bloody head was carried through the city on a pole, along with that of M. de Launay. At the approach of night a body of troops advanced towards the city, at the Barriere d'Enfer. The new national guard hurried thither, preceded by a train of artillery, and the troops withdrew upon the first fire; barricades were everywhere formed, the alarm-bells were rung, and a general illumination continued during the whole of this night of confusion.

In the mean time, it was obvious that the new military were entering upon a difficult scene of action, where one false step might lead to ruin, and where their own plan of conduct ought to be maturely digested. Marshall Brogho was made minister of war, the baron de Breteuil president of finance, M. de la Galerie comptroller-general, M. de la Porte intendant of the war department, and M. Foulon intendant of the navy; navy; but these were only meant to act as official men, under the Count d'Artois, and the other leaders of the aristocracy. To these leaders there did not even remain a choice of difficulties; no resource was left but that of overpowering by military power the national assembly and the capital, and of risking the desperate measure of a national bankruptcy, which the court had not formerly dared to encounter, and to avoid which it had convoked the states-general. No trace remains, however, of any attempt to put this criminal, but last resource, in execution. The evening after the departure of M. Neckar was spent by the court of Versailles in feasting and joy, as if a victory had been gained. The courtiers of both sexes went round among the soldiery, striving to secure their fidelity by carelessness, largesse, and every species of flattering attention. The ministry not only failed to support the Prince de Lambescq in the post which he had been sent to occupy, but they festered the whole of the 13th to pass in indecision, while the capital was in a state of rebellion, while an army was formally mustering within its walls, and the names of the principal nobility were put up in lists of proscriptions. They received the news of the capture of the Baillie with confusion and dismay, which were increased, if possible, by information given by Marshal Broglie, that the troops refused to act against Paris or the national assembly. In this perplexity they adopted the miserable device of concealing from the king the state of public affairs; and that unfortunate prince was thus perhaps the only person out of millions around him who remained ignorant of the convulsions in which his country was involved.

At length, at midnight, the Duke de Liancourt forced his way into the king's apartment, and told him of the revolt of his capital, of his army, and of the surrender of the forts of the Baillie. The Count d'Artois, who was present, still attempted to retain the monarch under his fatal delusion; but the Duke de Liancourt turning round, exclaimed, "As for you, Sir, your life can only be saved by instant flight; I have seen with horror your name in the bloody list of the proscribed." Accordingly the Count, with the members of his short-lived administration and their adherents, fled to the frontiers. And thus an emigration commenced, the source of that terrible contest which has covered Europe with bloodshed and mourning. This ministry had, no doubt, many difficulties to contend against; but an accurate attention to their conduct excites a suspicion which, while it exculpates them from many intended crimes that have been laid to their charge, at the same time does little honour to their talents. It is this, that they had come into office without having formed any clear plan of conduct; that they were men acting without decision and at random, and consequently became the sport of those events which they wanted skill and vigour to direct or control. By their introduction into office, and their misconduct while in it, the royal authority fell prostrate before the popular party in the national assembly. The nobles and the clergy still remained, but confounded in one assembly with the more numerous order of the tiers état; and no longer rallying round a throne that was too feeble to afford protection, they soon yielded to that fierce and levelling spirit of democracy that now rose around them.

But the person of the monarch was still beloved. Early next morning the king went to the assembly, but with none of the usual solemnities. He "regretted the commotions of the capital, disavowed any knowledge of an intention against the persons of the deputies, and the king intimated that he had commanded the removal of the gendarmes to the suburbs." A deep and expressive silence prevailed for a few moments; this was succeeded by vehement and universal shouts of applause. The king arose to depart, and instantly the whole assembly crowded around, and attended him to his palace. The queen appeared at a balcony with the dauphin in her arms; the music played the pathetic air of Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de la famille. The enthusiasm of loyalty communicated itself to the surrounding multitudes, and nothing was heard but acclamations of joy.

On the following day, the king declared his resolution to visit the city of Paris in person. Accordingly, day visited the city of that prince, who never wanted personal courage, however deficient he might be in political sagacity, set forth, attended by some members of the assembly and by the militia of Versailles. He was met by the celebrated M. de la Fayette, at the head of a body of the national guard, of which he had now been chosen commander-in-chief. M. Bailly, in whose person the ancient office of mayor of Paris had been revived, received the king at the gates, and delivered to him the keys. All this while no shout was heard from the crowd of innumerable spectators but that of Vive la nation. The king advanced to the Hotel de Ville, where the new cockade was presented to him, which he put on, and presented himself with it at a window. At the sight of this badge of patriotism an universal shout of Vive le Roi burst forth from every quarter; and he returned to Versailles amidst general triumph and applause.

Much confusion still prevailed in the capital; but there was more appearance of regularity than could have been expected at the conclusion of such important events. This arose from a casual concurrence of circumstances. To conduct with ease the elections to the states-general, Paris had been divided into 60 districts, each of which had a separate place of meeting. The people did not elect the members to the states-general; but they chose delegates, who, under the name of electors, voted for the members. At the commencement of the disturbances, the electors, at the request of their fellow-citizens, assumed a temporary authority; of which, however, they were soon weary, and as soon as possible procured the public election of 120 persons as municipal officers for the government of the city. The citizens having got the habit of assembling in their districts, grew fond of it; they assembled frequently, made rules for their own government, and sent commissioners to communicate with other districts. The tumultuous nature of these meetings, and the vehemence of debate which prevailed in them, will best be conceived from the ludicrous contrivance of one of their presidents, who stationed a drummer at the back of his chair, and when the confusion and noise became altogether ungovernable, gave the signal for beating the drum, which speedily overpowered every other noise. These meetings, however, gradually ripened into clubs, in which much dexterity and intrigue were exerted.

The whole of the late ministry escaped excepting M. Foulon. French Foulon. His character, it may well be imagined, was extremely unpopular; for he is said to have affected that he would "make the people of Paris eat hay."

He had retired to the country, but was seized by his own vassals, and brought to Paris with a bundle of hay tied to his back. In spite of every effort made by M. Bailly and Lafayette to procure him a fair trial at least, he was carried to the Place de Grève, and hanged at a lamp-iron by the enraged multitude. His son-in-law M. Berthier, attempting to defend himself against a similar fate, fell, covered with wounds. Their heads were carried round on poles; and thus the populace became habituated to the sight of blood and murder: they were even taught by popular songs to glory in such actions, and particularly by the well-known song Caïra.

In consequence of an invitation from the king, M. Neckar returned to France. He was received by the assembly with great applause, and in Paris with infinite solemnity and triumph. He here, however, committed a political error that made some noise. In deploring the late excesses and murders, and taking notice of the arrest of M. Bezenval, an officer of the Swiss guards, he requested of the electors at the Hôtel de Ville, in a solemn harangue, that the past should be forgotten; that proclamations should cease, and a general amnesty be proclaimed. In a moment of enthusiasm this was agreed to, and the electors decreed what unquestionably exceeded their powers. The districts of Paris were instantly in commotion; the electors alarmed, declared that they only meant that "henceforth the people would punish no man but according to law;" and, at the same time, to prove that they themselves were free from ambition, they formally renounced all their own powers. The assembly took up the question. Meffl Lally, Tolendal, Mounier, Clermont, Tonnerre, Garat junior, and others, declared that no person ought to be arrested without a formal accusation. While Meffl Mirabeau, Robespierre, Barnave, and Gleizen, alleged, on the contrary, that the people were entitled to lay hold of any man who had publicly appeared at the head of their enemies. The debate ended, by admitting the explanation of the electors, and by a declaration that it was the duty of the assembly to see justice executed in all cases.

The commotions and enthusiasm of the capital were speedily communicated to the provinces. In every quarter the people seized upon all the arms that could be found, and the military uniformly refused to act against them. Many acts of outrage were committed in Brittany, at Strasbourg, in the Lionnois, and elsewhere, in which the nobility were the sufferers. The mischiefs that occurred were usually magnified at a distance; but that very circumstance was an additional evil. For example: It was stated in the National Assembly that M. de Mefnay, lord of Quincey, invited a number of patriots, among whom were the officers of a neighbouring garrison, to a splendid entertainment at his house, to celebrate the happy union of the three orders: That in the midst of the feast the master of the house contrived to withdraw unnoticed, and to set fire to a train previously laid, which communicated with a quantity of gunpowder in the cellars, in consequence of which the whole company, by a sudden explosion, were blown into the air. It was found on inquiry, that there was not one word of truth in the whole story.

But before this inquiry could be made, all France had resounded with accounts of the pretended bloody tragedy; and the whole nobility of the kingdom suffered in a less or greater degree, from the prejudices excited by this unhappy report, the origin of which has never been well explained. It would be vain to state all the idle rumours to which at this time the blind credulity of the multitude gave currency. At one time, the Aristocrats were cutting down the green corn, at another time they were burying flour in common sewers, or casting loaves into the Seine. One report was no sooner proved to be false than another arose, and the whole nation was agitated by suspicion and alarm. The National Assembly were engaged in framing their celebrated declaration of the rights of man, which was to form the basis of the new constitution, when the alarming accounts, received from all quarters, of the state of anarchy into which the kingdom was falling, obliged them suddenly to turn their attention to objects of practical necessity. The privileged orders found themselves become the objects of universal jealousy and hatred; and that something must instantly be done to save their families and property, which were menaced on every side with persecution and pillage. Regarding the popular torrent as now become irresistible, to save something they resolved to sacrifice a part.

On the afternoon sitting of the 4th of August, the Viscount de Noailles, seconded by the Duke d'Aiguillon, opened one of the most important scenes in the French Revolution, or in the history of any country. These noblemen stated, that the true cause of the commotions which convulsed the kingdom existed in the misery of the people, who groaned under the double oppression of public contributions and of feudal services. "For three months (said M. de Noailles) the people have beheld us engaged in verbal disputes, while their own attention and their wives are directed only to things. What is the consequence? They are armed to reclaim their rights, and they see no prospect of obtaining them but by force." He therefore proposed to do justice as the shortest way of restoring tranquillity, and for that purpose to decree, that henceforth every tax should be imposed in proportion to the wealth of the contributors, and that no order of the state should be exempted from the payment of public burdens; that the feudal claims should be redeemed at a fair valuation; but that such claims as consisted of personal services on the part of the vassal should be abolished without compensation, as contrary to the imperceptible rights of man. The extensive possessions of the noblemen who made these proposals added much lustre to the disinterested sacrifice which they offered. Their speeches were received with the most enthusiastic applause by the Assembly and the galleries, and their proposals were decreed by acclamation without a vote. No nation is so much led by the influence of sudden emotions as the French. The patriotic contagion now spread fast through every breast, and a contest of generosity ensued. The hereditary jurisdictions possessed by the nobles within their own territories were next sacrificed. All places and pensions granted by the Court were suppressed, unless granted as the reward of merit or of actual services. The game laws, which condemned the husbandman, under severe penalties, to leave his proper abode, ty a prey to infinite multitudes of animals reserved for pastime, had always been numbered among the severe grievances of the French peasantry. These were therefore renounced, along with the exclusive rights of rabbit warrens, fisheries, and dovecotes. The sale of offices was abolished, and the fees exacted from the poor, together with the privilege of holding a plurality of livings, were relinquished by the clergy. The deputies of the *Pais d'Etat*, or privileged provinces, with the deputies of Dauphiné at their head, next came forward, and offered a surrender of their ancient privileges, requesting that the kingdom might no longer remain parcelled out among Dauphinois, Bretons, Provençaux, &c., but that they should all form one great mass of French citizens. They were followed by the representatives of Paris, Marseilles, Lyons, Bourdeaux, Straßbourg, &c., who requested leave to renounce all their separate privileges as incorporations, for the sake of placing every man and every village in the nation upon a footing of equality. Thus the Assembly proceeded, till every member had exhausted his imagination upon the subject of reform. To close the whole, the Duc de Liancourt proposed that a solemn *Te Deum* should be performed, that a medal should be struck in commemoration of the events of that night; and that the title of *Restorer of Gallic Liberty* should be bestowed upon the reigning monarch. A deputation was accordingly appointed to wait upon the king, respectfully to inform him of these decrees.

Several succeeding days were necessary to form into laws the decrees of the 4th August, and committees were appointed to make out reports for that purpose. One of these reports having included the tithes and revenues of the clergy among the abuses that were to be done away, and having proposed in lieu of them to grant a certain stipend to the different ministers of religion to be payable by the nation, the clergy attempted to make a stand in defence of their property, and violent debates ensued. In these they were ably supported by the Abbé Sieyès; but as the clergy had formerly deserted the nobles, so they were now in their turn abandoned to their fate by the hereditary aristocracy. The popular party had long regarded the wealth of the church as an easy resource for supplying the wants of the state. Never was there a more complete proof of the influence of opinion over the affairs of men. The Catholic clergy of France, though possessed of more property than they enjoyed at the time when princes took up arms or laid them down at their command, now found so few defenders, that they were terrified into a voluntary surrender of all that they and their predecessors had possessed for ages. In their overthrow, they scarcely enjoyed even the barren honour of having fallen the last of those privileged orders that so long had ruled over this ancient kingdom. They and the nobles, and the king, still possessed their former titles and nominal dignity; but all of them were now subjugated, and at the mercy of the commons of France, who speedily dismissed them at their pleasure.

As a short season of tranquillity in the Court and the National Assembly succeeded these great popular sacrifices, the King laid hold of it as a fit opportunity for the appointment of a new ministry. They consisted of the Archbishop of Vienne, the Archbishop of Bourdeaux, M. Neckar, the Count de St Prift, Count de Montmorin, the Count de la Luzerne, and the Count de la Tour du Pin Paulin. M. Neckar, as minister of finance, having stated the distressed situation of the revenue, presented the plan of a loan of thirty millions of livres. But M. Mirabeau, from a spirit of rivalry, as who find it would seem, to M. Neckar, prevailed with the Assembly to alter and to narrow the conditions of it in such a degree that very few subscribers were found, and, ney, the loan could not be filled up. This failure involved the Assembly in a considerable degree of unpopularity; in consequence of which they allowed M. Neckar to prefer his own terms for the purpose of obtaining a loan of eighty millions. But the happy infant of public confidence had been allowed to pass away, and this loan was never more than half filled up. Recourse was next had to patriotic contributions; and great numbers of gold rings, silver buckles, and pieces of plate, were presented to the Assembly. The Royal family themselves sent their plate to the mint, either to give countenance to these donations, or, as M. Neckar has since asserted, through absolute necessity, for the purpose of supporting themselves and their family. The confusion into which the nation had been thrown by the late events had produced a suspension of the payment of all taxes. There existed, in fact, no efficient government; and if society escaped entire dissolution, it was merely in consequence of those habits of order which are produced by a state of long continued civilization. The business of government could not be transacted without money, and many vain efforts were made by the ministry to procure it. At length M. Neckar was driven to the desperate resource of proposing a compulsory loan, or that every individual possessed of property should advance to the state a sum equal to one-fourth of his annual income. This bold proposition was supported by Mirabeau, and adopted by the Assembly; but it does not appear to have ever been effectually executed.

In the mean time, the Assembly was busily occupied in framing the celebrated declaration of the *Rights of Man*, which was afterwards prefixed to the new constitution. This was followed by the discussion of a point of much delicacy and difficulty; viz. What share of legislative authority the king ought to possess under the new constitution; whether an absolute negative or veto, a suspensive veto, or no veto at all? This question operated like a touchstone for trying the sentiments of every person; and the assembly, consisting of 1200 men, was now seen to arrange itself into two violent contending factions. The debates were vehement and tumultuous, and continued for many days. As the assembly sat in public, and as multitudes of people of all descriptions were admitted into the galleries, and even into the body of the hall among the members, many indecent scenes took place in consequence of the interference of the spectators to applaud or censure the sentiments which were delivered. Thus the public at large became speedily interested in the discussion; the city of Paris took a side in opposition to the veto, and the whole empire was thrown into agitation by new and speculative questions. The distinguished place which France holds among the nations of Europe rendered these singular events and discussions the object of universal attention. The contagious love of novelty spread rapidly abroad, and gave rise to that well-founded jealousy on the part of the monarchs of Europe, which was speedily to burst forth in a bloody tempest.—In the present case, the people of Paris became most eagerly interested. Rumours of plots were spread through the country, and a new storm was obviously gathering, when the question was thus got quit of. M. Mounier remarked, that the executive power could possess no negative against the decrees of the present assembly, which had been nominated by the nation with supreme powers for the express purpose of framing a constitution, which was to remain binding over all orders of men in the state; and with regard to future legislatures, the king declared by a message, that he wished to possess no more than a suspensive veto. It is remarkable that the popular Mirabeau concluded a speech in favour of the absolute veto of the crown with these words, "That it would be better to live in Constantinople than in France, if laws could be made without the royal sanction." This political adventurer is, however, accused of having taken care to circulate in Paris a report that he had opposed the veto with all his influence; and to give credit to the story, he is said to have quitted the assembly just before the division, that his vote might not appear on record against it.

In the debates about the veto the month of August was spent; and in the beginning of September a new constitutional question was presented to the assembly by one of its numerous committees. This was, Whether the legislative body ought to consist of one or of two chambers? Mounier, Lally, Tollendal, Clermont Tonnerre, and others, who were zealous lovers of freedom upon what were then accounted moderate principles, supported eagerly the idea of establishing two independent chambers in imitation of the British constitution; but they were deserted both by the democratic and aristocratic parties. The first of these regarded an upper house or senate as a refuge for the old aristocracy, or as the cradle of a new one; while the higher nobles and clergy feared lest such an arrangement might prevent the future re-establishment of the ancient division into three orders. Of 1000 members who voted, only 89 supported the proposal for dividing the legislature into two chambers.

Soon after this, the king gave his sanction to the important decrees of the 4th of August, but not without some hesitation, and expressing doubts of the wisdom of some of them in a letter to the assembly. At the same time the inviolability of the person of the monarch was decreed, the indivisibility of the throne, and its hereditary descent from male to male in the reigning family.—But we shall not here attempt to enter into a detail of the various articles of the new constitution as connected with the circumstances under which they became the subject of debate. We shall only state those more remarkable circumstances which tend to ascertain the peculiar changes which the sentiments of the nation underwent in the progress of a revolution the most remarkable that occurs in human history.

In consequence of the debates upon the questions of the veto and the two chambers, the minds of parties had become much irritated. Paris wore the same threatening aspect that it had done in the months of June and of July preceding; and every thing seemed tending towards an important crisis. The aristocratic party accused their antagonists of a design to excite new insurrections; and the charge was reported, by circulating a report that a plot for conveying the king to Metz was already ripe for execution.

From the period of the defection of the French guards, who were now in the pay of the capital, the protection of the royal family had been entrusted to the militia or national guard of Versailles, together with the regiment of the gardes du corps, which was composed entirely of gentlemen. Upon the circulation of the report of the intended flight of the king, the French guards began to wish to be restored to their ancient employment of attending his person, for the purpose of preventing any attempt of this nature. This idea was eagerly cherished by the capital; and, in spite of every effort used by M. de la Fayette, the obvious appearance of approaching disturbances could not be prevented. The popular party saw the advantages which they would derive from placing the assembly and the king in the midst of that turbulent metropolis which had given birth to the revolution, and upon the attachment of which they could most securely depend. Every encouragement was therefore given by the most active leaders of what was now called the Democratic party to the project of establishing the court at Paris. The ministry were under no small degree of alarm; and the count d'Estaing, who commanded the national guard of Versailles, requested the aid of an additional regiment. The regiment of Flanders was accordingly sent for; its arrival caused no small degree of anxiety; and every effort was instantly made to gain over both officers and soldiers to the popular cause.

On the first of October the garde du corps, probably for the purpose of ingratiating themselves with the newly arrived regiment, and perhaps to attach them more steadily to the royal cause, invited the officers of the regiment of Flanders to a public entertainment. Several officers of the national guard, and others of the military, were invited. The entertainment was given in the opera house adjoining to the palace; several loyal toasts were drank; but it is asserted, that when the favourite popular toast The Nation was given, it was rejected by the gardes du corps. In ordinary cases, such a trifling circumstance as this, or even any other of the transactions of a night of festivity, would justly be regarded as unworthy of notice in recording the more remarkable events in the history of a great nation; but such was now the singular state of affairs, that the most trivial occurrences were instrumental, by their combination, in the production of important consequences. The queen, having seen from a window of the palace the gaiety which prevailed among the military, prevailed with the king, who was just returned from hunting, to visit them along with herself and the dauphin. Their sudden appearance in the saloon kindled in an instant the ancient enthusiasm of French loyalty. The grenadiers of the regiment of Flanders, along with the Swiss chasseurs, had been admitted to the depot; and they, as well as their officers, drank the health of the King, Queen, and Dauphin, with their swords drawn. The royal family having bowed with politeness to the company, retired.—Of all nations, the French are most liable to the influence of sudden impressions; the music played the favourite air, O Ricard! O mon Roi! l'univers t'abandonne, "O Richard! O my king! the world abandons thee!" In the eagerness of loyalty, loyalty, the national cockade, which had been adopted by some of the gardes du corps, was thrown aside, and white cockades were supplied as quickly as they could be made by the ladies of the court.

When these events were next day reported at Paris, accompanied by a multitude of exaggerations, they gave rise to the most violent alarm. The capital was at that time suffering all the horrors of famine; and in such a situation, the news of a feast which others have enjoyed, seldom gives much pleasure to hungry men. To the former report of an intended flight on the part of the royal family, it was now added, that a counter revolution was speedily to be attempted by force of arms; and that the present scarcity was artificially created by the court for the purpose of reducing the people to submission. Their aristocratic antagonists have since asserted, that the famine was indeed artificial; but that it was created by a portion of the violent party in the national assembly, which was then denominated the Cabal, whose object was to excite commotions as the means of procuring an opportunity of setting the duke of Orleans at the head of the state, either as regent, or in some other form. To this last party Mirabeau is said to have belonged.

For four days no notice was taken in the assembly of what had passed at the entertainment given by the gardes du corps. On the 5th of October M. Pétion mentioned it for the first time, and a violent debate ensued; during which Mirabeau rose and exclaimed, "Declare that the king's person alone is sacred, and I myself will bring forward an impeachment;" thereby alluding to the conduct of the queen. While this debate was proceeding at Versailles, the city of Paris was in commotion. A vast multitude of women of the lowest rank, with some men in women's clothes, had assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, and were calling aloud for arms and bread. They resolved to proceed instantly to Versailles to demand bread from the king and from the national assembly. La Fayette opposed them in vain; for his own soldiers refused to turn their bayonets against the women. Upon this one Stanislaus Maillard, who had distinguished himself at the taking of the Bastille, offered himself as a leader to the insurgents. He had the address to prevail with them to lay aside such arms as they had procured; and he set out for Versailles about noon with as much order among his followers as could well be expected from such an assemblage. Either because the passion for going to Versailles had suddenly become too infectious to be resisted, or because the multitude already gone thither was now accounted dangerous, the mayor and municipality of Paris thought fit to give orders to la Fayette instantly to set out for that place at the head of the national guard.

In the mean time, Maillard approached Versailles with his tumultuous troop; he arranged them in three divisions, and persuaded them to behave with tolerable decency. The king was hunting in the woods of Mendon when he was informed of the arrival of a most formidable band of women calling aloud for bread. "Alas!" (replied he) if I had it, I should not wait to be asked." Maillard entered the assembly accompanied by a deputation of his followers to state the object of their journey. The assembly, to pacify them, sent a deputation of their own number along with them to lay their complaints before the king. His majesty received the whole with great politeness, and readily agreed to go into any measures for the supply of the capital that could be suggested. The report of this behaviour had such an effect upon the multitude collected around the palace, that they began to disperse; but they were speedily succeeded by another crowd not less numerous. A sudden resolution of flight seems now to have been proposed by the court; for the king's carriages were brought to the gate of the palace which communicates with the Orangery; but the national guard of Versailles refused to allow them to pass, and the king himself refused to remove, or to allow any blood to be shed in his cause.

La Fayette with his army at length arrived about two o'clock at night, and found the assembly in a very uneasy situation. Their hall and galleries were crowded by the Parisian fish-women and others of the mob, who, at every instant, interrupted the debates. La Fayette waited upon the king, and informed him of the proceedings of the day, planted guards in every quarter; and after a scanty banquet had been procured for the multitude, he prevailed with the assembly to close their sitting for the night. In this last part of his conduct M. la Fayette has been much censured, and probably not without reason; for it could scarcely be expected that such a night would be spent in peace by the immense assemblage of turbulent characters that were now brought together. All was quiet, however, till about six in the morning of the 6th, when a great attempt on number of women and desperate persons rushed toward the queen to the palace, and attempted to force their way into it. Two of the gardes du corps were killed; the crowd ascended the stair-case leading to the queen's apartment, but were bravely repulsed by M. Micamand a sentinel, who gave the alarm, and defended his post till he fell covered with wounds, of which, however, he afterwards fortunately recovered. The ruffians, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with bayonets and poniards the bed whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of the king, who was already alarmed, and had gone to seek her.

The tumult became more violent every moment, and the royal family feared to threaten the royal family; but la Fayette was by this time at the head of his troops, only favored whom he beheaded earnestly to save the gardes du corps from massacre. In this he was successful; some that had been taken prisoners were surrounded by the grenadiers of the French guards who protected them, and the retreat of the whole corps was easily secured. The crowd was speedily driven from the different quarters of the palace, which they were already beginning to pillage; and the royal family ventured to show themselves at a balcony. A few voices now exclaimed, "Le Roi à Paris," "the King to Paris." The shout became general; and the king, after consulting with la Fayette, declared that he had no objection to take up his residence at Paris, provided he was accompanied by the queen and his children. When the proposal was reported to the assembly, the popular leaders expressed much satisfaction. They ordered a deputation of 100 members to attend the king thither; they voted the national assembly inseparable from the king. French Revolution mob. Two gentlemen were selected from his body guard, and, with all the parade of an execution, beheaded in the court of his palace. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train, and beheld this spectacle, were conducted so slowly, that a short journey of twelve miles was protracted to six hours. The king, the queen, and their children, were lodged in the old palace of the Louvre, while Monsieur went to reside at the Luxembourg. The city was illuminated, and the evening spent in triumph by the Parisians.

The removal of the king to Paris was regarded as a triumph by the popular party. The higher order of nobles considered it as completely ruinous to their hopes; and even many men of talents, such as Mounier and Lally Tollendal, whom we cannot avoid regarding as friends to the popular cause, in its out-set, now regarded every prospect of attaining a happy constitutional freedom as at an end, as the national representatives must be forever exposed to the insults, and overawed by the influence, of a turbulent capital. Many members of the assembly took refuge in foreign countries, and used every effort to excite the other nations of Europe to hostility against France. As the duke of Orleans had been regarded as a chief agent in promoting the late disturbances, the marquis de la Fayette waited upon him, and insisted upon his leaving the kingdom for a time. The duke was overawed, and, on pretence of public business, went to England, where he remained for several months.

On the 19th of October, the National Assembly held its first session in Paris. The King was closely guarded in his own palace; and no apparent opposition now stood in the way to prevent the popular party from giving to their country such a constitution as they might judge expedient. Much, however, was yet to be done, and many difficulties remained, resulting from the habits of men educated under a very different order of things. Two days after the Assembly came to Paris, a baker was publicly executed by the mob, upon a false accusation of having concealed a quantity of bread. While the Assembly was at a distance, events of this nature had been little attended to, and the leading party avoided attempting to check these ebullitions of popular violence, from which they had derived so much advantage; but that party was now all-powerful, and so flagrant an offence committed against the law was regarded as an insult upon the sovereignty of the National Assembly. Two leaders of the mob were therefore tried and publicly executed, and a severe law was passed, of the nature of the British riot act, authorizing the magistrates to act by military force against any multitude of persons that should refuse to disperse. Thus the peace of the capital was secured for several months; but in the country at large no small degree of anxiety and trouble still subsisted. The same suspicious temper which had prevailed at Paris agitated the provinces with the dread of plots and monopolies of grain. Add to this, that the noblesse in the country were by no means satisfied with the liberality with which their representatives had on the 4th of August voted away their privileges and their property. This produced violent jealousies between the peasants and their lords, and gradually conveyed to every corner of the kingdom the political ferment which had commenced at Paris.

The National Assembly being now, however, in tolerable security, proceeded in the arduous attempt of forming a free constitution for the great empire of France. The Abbé Sieyès presented a plan for dividing the kingdom into 83 départements, of about 324 square leagues, and of each department into several districts, and each district was subdivided into cantons of four square leagues in extent. Thus the whole of the ancient divisions of the kingdom into governments, generalities, and bailiwicks, was in an instant obliterated. An attempt was also made to simplify in an equal degree the relative situation of individuals in civil life, by a decree which put an end to all distinction of orders and immunities, so far as any privilege whatever was concerned. At the same time, a bold and most important measure was adopted, which has since proved the organ of those terrible efforts which France has been enabled to make against the rest of Europe. This was the confiscation of the whole of the lands belonging to the church, for the purpose of supplying the exigencies of the state. In this transaction, all regard to justice was thrown aside. The lands of the church were certainly the property of the then possessors of them as any entailed estate among us is the property of him who occupies it. The state may have had a right to appropriate to itself the church lands upon the death of the incumbents; but it might with equal justice, and perhaps greater propriety, have seized the enormous revenues of the Duke of Orleans, as have confiscated a single acre belonging to the most useless abbot without his own consent. This nefarious measure was proposed by the bishop of Autun, M. Taillegrand Perigord, a man of no religion, who had been promoted to the bench in a most irregular manner to serve this very purpose. The mode in which this property was to be expended was by issuing assignments (affiants) upon it; which assignments were to be received by the state for the payment of taxes, or for the purchase of church lands when set up to sale. A provision was at the same time made for the national clergy, who were for the future to be paid by the state. On the day following that on which this important measure was adopted, a decree was passed, suspending the parliaments of the kingdom from the exercise of their functions.

Decrees, in which the interests of so vast a multitude of individuals were involved, could not be carried into effect without much murmuring and opposition. The parliaments, in particular, began to exert themselves with vigour, and, by protests and other publications, attempted to invalidate the decrees of the Assembly as illegal; but these privileged bodies, who had often been accustomed to contend with some success against the despotic administration of their country, and on that account had been for ages the objects of public applause, now found themselves utterly forsaken, and unable to resist the mandate of a popular Assembly. After a few fruitless struggles, they were all of them under the necessity of submitting to their fate.

Nothing remarkable now occurred for some time. The Assembly proceeded to organize the kingdom by the establishment of municipalities, and by reforming the jurisprudence of the country. It is to be observed, however, that when the parliament of Paris was abol... lashed, the Chatelet, being the second court in that city, was retained for the purpose of trying those persons who had become most obnoxious by their attachment to the royal cause. This court had the spirit to acquit the Baron de Bezenval, Marshal Broglie, and the Prince de Lambesc. But having incurred much popular odium on this account, they were guilty of the unworthy means of condemning to death the Marquis de Favres, for a pretended conspiracy (of which no tolerable proof was ever brought) to massacre La Fayette, Bailly, and Neckar, and to convey the King to Peronne.

During the whole of this winter the King had been very strictly watched by numerous guards placed around his palace, insomuch that the other nations of Europe considered him as in a state of captivity. To do away this impression, if possible, and to make their king appear a voluntary agent in the measures that had lately been adopted, was now regarded as a matter of some importance. Every effort was therefore made to prevail with him to come to the Assembly suddenly, and, as it were, of his own voluntary motion, there to declare his adherence to the measures which had lately been adopted. For some time he resisted this proposal; but at length, on the 4th of February, he did suddenly appear in the National Assembly, where he complained of the attempts that had been made to shake the new constitution. He declared his wish "that it should be universally known that the monarch and the representatives of the nation were united, and their wishes were the same; that he would defend the constitutional liberty of the state; that, in conjunction with the Queen, he would early form the sentiments of his son for that new order of things which the circumstances of the empire had introduced." This declaration dispirited the aristocratic party in no small degree, and increased that unhappy tendency of looking for aid from foreign countries which they had always been too apt to indulge.

On the 13th of February, monastic establishments were suppressed, and their lands confiscated; but the present friars and nuns were allowed pensions for their subsistence, and to continue the observance of their monastic vows, if they thought fit. We may observe here, that, in consequence of the evacuation of the monasteries, it is probable that about this time the Breton committee began to assume the appellation of the Jacobin Club, from the hall belonging to the Jacobin friars at Paris, in which their meetings were now held.

An event occurred at this time which tended in no small degree to increase the odium under which the old government already laboured. This was the publication of the Red Book, or list of pensions and donations granted by the crown. In consequence of the most pressing instances, it had been communicated by M. Neckar to a committee of the Assembly, after many intrigues, and the most solemn promises of secrecy. It afforded, however, too striking an advantage to the popular party not to be made use of, and in a few days M. Neckar, to his no small surprize, saw this register publicly sold by every bookseller in Paris. He ought not, indeed, to have been surprized; and the giving up of this list is one of the many proofs which the transactions of that period afford of his great unfitness for the office which he held. With much indignation, however, he demanded why the committee had published it without the permission of the Assembly or the King? But he was told by the committee, that "as to the Assembly, they were sure of its approbation; and as to the King, they were not his representatives." To give an idea of the effect of this publication, it is only necessary to re-publish it, that, under the short administration of M. Calonne, the two brothers of the King had received from the public treasury, independent of their legitimate income, nearly two millions sterling, and that L. 600,000 had been granted to an individual, because he was the husband of Madame de Polignac. M. Neckar's opposition to this publication tended in no small degree to injure his popularity, and the rest of the ministry began to lose the confidence of the public. Indeed, at this time, fertile causes of alarm prevailed on all sides. The clergy were attempting to revive in the provinces the ancient animosities between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, ascribing the late decrees of the Assembly to the latter. The German Princes who possessed property in the north of France were complaining loudly of the violation of their rights by the abolition of the feudal system, although the National Assembly had voted to them a compensation. The most melancholy intelligence was received from their colonies in the West Indies. In regulating these, the Assembly had not recognized the right of the free negroes to enjoy the same privileges with other citizens; at the same time, they did not go the length of denying these privileges. This uncertain conduct produced infinite calamities. The whites contended with those commonly called people of colour. These again sometimes stood in opposition to the free negroes, or to the slaves; and hence it sometimes happened that no less than three hostile assemblies were held at the same time in the same colony, which made war upon each other with the most inveterate fury. Each party found protectors in the National Assembly of the parent state. Those who favoured or opposed the existence of distinctions at home, in general followed out the same principle with regard to the colonies.

On the 14th of May, M. de Montmorency communicated to the National Assembly the preparations for the royal war in which England and Spain were engaged. This power to bring forward the constitutional question, "Who ought to possess the power of declaring peace and war?" was declared by the Count Clermont Tonnerre, Meffris Serent, Vireau, and Dupont, supported the royal prerogative; while on the other side, the exclusive right of the legislative body to exercise this important prerogative was supported by Meffris d'Aiguillon, Garat jun., Freteau, Jellot, Charles Laneth, Sillery, Pétion, Robespierre, &c. M. Pétion proposed a decree "that the French nation renounced for ever all idea of conquest, and confined itself entirely to defensive war," which was passed with universal acclamation. The Count de Mirabeau at length successfully proposed that peace and war should be declared by the king and the legislative body in conjunction; and the decree that was passed on the subject is a strange farce of contradictions and absurdities. It enjoined the King to "guard the state from external attacks." But how could this be done, without repelling any attack that might be made upon it? This, however, he could not do, without previously informing the National Assembly; and if that body chanced not... not to be fitting at the time, he was bound to let the enemy advance without opposition till he had convened his orators, dispersed over 24,000 square leagues, and listened to their metaphysical quibbles in Paris.

On the 19th June, a very singular farce was acted in the Assembly. A Prussian refugee, who called himself Anacharsis Clouts, and who was struggling hard to bring himself into public notice, on an evening sitting (which, it is to be observed, was generally ill attended by the persons of the highest rank), introduced to the Assembly a number of persons dressed in the different habits of all the different countries that could be thought of. In a formal harangue, he told the Assembly that he was come, as the orator of the human race, at the head of the representatives of all nations, to congratulate them upon the formation of their new constitution. He was answered by the President with abundance of solemnity, and retired with his motley group. This fantastic piece of folly, which in any other country than France would scarcely, perhaps, have excited a smile, was treated by the Assembly in a serious light. Alexander Lameth proposed, that the figures of different nations exhibited in chains at the feet of Louis XIV. should be destroyed as an insult upon mankind.

M. Lambel, a lawyer, at this moment proposed the abolition of all hereditary titles. He was supported by La Fayette, St Fargeau, and the Viscount de Noailles. The decree was passed, along with another suppressing all armorial bearings. It is our intention at present rather to state facts than to hazard any political opinion concerning the wisdom or folly of the transactions which we record. It may here, however, be remarked, that no part of the proceedings of the French National Assembly was received by persons of rank upon the Continent of Europe with so much indignation as this.—The feudal system had been overturned, and the property of the church wrested from it, with little comparative notice; but when those nominal distinctions were attacked which antiquity had sanctioned, and personal vanity rendered dear, the surrounding nations were instantly alarmed, and beheld with terror the levelling precedent. We may likewise add, that no part of their proceedings was more inimical to rational and practical freedom. To preserve a perfect equality of ranks is impossible. In a commercial nation, industry will procure wealth, and wealth will everywhere procure dependents. Now nothing more contributes to keep within some tolerable bounds the insolence of newly acquired wealth, than the rank attached to birth and nobility, which time and prejudice have conspired to make respectable. It is not a little remarkable, that of all the King's ministers, Neckar alone, a plebeian, a republican, born and bred in a democracy, advised his Majesty to refuse his assent to this foolish decree, as a violent but useless encroachment upon the prejudices of a powerful order of the state.

In the mean time, the capital was entirely engrossed by hurry and bustle. M. Bailly had proposed a plan for commemorating the anniversary of the taking of the Battele. It was adopted, because it flattered the vanity of the people, by presenting them with a splendid spectacle in commemoration of their own exertions. —The army had been much disorganized; and it was resolved to attempt to unite all its branches, as well as the whole departments of the state, in one common attachment to the new order of things, by collecting into one place deputations, for the purpose of swearing fidelity to the new constitution. In the middle of the Champ de Mars an altar was erected, at which the civic oath, as it was called, was to be taken. Around the altar an amphitheatre was thrown up capable of containing 400,000 spectators; 2000 workmen were employed in this operation; and the people of Paris, fearing lest the plan might not be completed, assisted in the labour. All ranks of persons, the nobles, clergy, and even ladies, with the eagerness for novelty peculiar to that people, united their efforts. Crowds of foreigners as well as natives hurried to the capital to be present at this solemnity, which was called the Confederation. The long-expected 14th of July at length arrived. At six o'clock in the morning the procession was arranged on the Boulevards, and consisted of the electors of the city of Paris, the representatives of the commons, the administrators of the municipality, a battalion of children, with a standard, inscribed "The hopes of the nation;" deputies from the troops of France wherever quartered, and of every order, along with deputies from all the departments; to these were added immense detachments of the military, and of the national guards, along with an almost infinite multitude of drums, trumpets, and musical instruments. The procession was extremely splendid, as every district had its peculiar decorations. The national assembly passed through a grand triumphal arch, and the king and queen, attended by the foreign ministers, were placed in a superb box. After a solemn invocation to God, the King approached the altar, and, amidst the deepest silence, took the following oath: "I the King of the French do swear to the nation, that I will employ the whole power delegated to me by the constitutional law of the state, to maintain the constitution, and enforce the execution of the law." The president of the national assembly then went up to the altar, and took the civic oath, "I swear to be faithful to the nation, the law, and the king; and to maintain with all my powers the constitution decreed by the national assembly, and accepted by the king." Every member of the assembly standing up, said, "That I swear." La Fayette then advancing, took the oath for himself; the other deputies of the national guards pronouncing after him, "That I swear;" and these words were solemnly pronounced by every individual of this immense assembly. Te Deum was then sung. The performance was sublime beyond the powers of description. Never perhaps before was there such an orchestra, or such an audience: their numbers baffled the eye to reckon, and their shouts in full chorus rent the skies. It is impossible to enumerate all the means which were employed to add splendor to this day. It ended with a general illumination, and no accident disturbed the public tranquillity.

The assembly now proceeded in the formation of the constitution with considerable tranquillity; which, however, was disturbed by an unhappy event at Nancy. Most of the officers of the army were unfriendly to the late revolution, and every means had been employed by them to disgust the soldiers with it. At Nancy, in particular, necessaries had been denied them, and their pay was kept back, under pretence that this was the will of the national assembly. Driven to despair, the regiments in garrison threw off their allegiance, and demanded manded loudly the regimental accounts. They seized at the same time the military chest, and sent a deputation to state their case at Paris to the national assembly. But the officers were beforehand, and prepossessed the minister of war against them; upon whose representation a decree was passed, authorising the commander in chief of the province, M. Bouillé, to reduce the insurgents by force. This was no sooner known than the national guard of Nancy assembled, and sent a deputation to give a fair statement of facts. But Bouillé, without waiting the result of an explanation, hastened to Nancy at the head of all the troops he could suddenly collect; and having fallen upon the regiments of Chateauneuf and Mettre de Camp, after putting an immense multitude to the sword, he took 400 prisoners.

The King's regiment was prevented from acting against Bouillé by the intrepidity of a young officer of the name of Desfillles, who, however, died of the wounds which he received on the occasion. The news of these events filled Paris with indignation. The assembly afterwards revered its own decrees against the insurgents at Nancy. Public honours were decreed to the memory of Desfillles; but Bouillé could not be punished, because he had only acted in obedience to authority.

M. Neckar's popularity had been gradually declining, as he was unwilling to go all the lengths that the ruling party wished. He gave in his resignation on the 4th of September, and speedily thereafter left the kingdom. He was regretted by no party. He was regarded, on the one side, as having conducted the kingdom to its ruin, by the concessions which he originally advised the king to make in favour of the tiers état; while he was despised by the opposite party as a lukewarm politician, of narrow views, and a feeble mind. He departed, however, with the unblemished reputation of strict integrity. M. Neckar does not seem to have penetrated deeply into the characters of men, or to have had any conception of the effects of that terrible and restless energy which is called forth in a nation which attempts to make important changes in its ancient manners and government. Having no conception of the important era which was about to open upon that country of which he was the minister, he was far from being qualified to direct or control it amidst the convulsions which it was destined to encounter. Unable to brook the loss of his popularity, he perversely retired to Switzerland, where he published a work, which flows to the conviction of every unprejudiced reader the integrity of the French king, and the wicked projects of the leading democrates, whom he himself had armed with power.

The remaining part of this year was occupied in attempts to introduce some degree of subordination into the navy of France, which had been much disorganized, and in farther regulating the affairs of the clergy. It was now declared, that such clergymen as should not take the following oath, which had been prescribed some months before, should be considered as ejected from their benefices: "To watch carefully over the faithful in the parish or diocese, which was entrusted to his care; to be faithful to the nation, the law, and the king; and to maintain to the utmost of his power the new constitution of France, and particularly the decrees relative to the civil constitution of the clergy." This decree rendered the situation of conscientious men extremely perplexing; especially as the pope testified in marked terms his disapprobation of the oath. The people were reduced to the dilemma of choosing between their new political and their old religious prejudices, and the result was extremely unfavourable to the interest of religion.

The assembly commenced the new year with a decree, announcing the termination of its session, which was to take place as soon as it should have finished the discussions of a list of constitutional articles. In the mean time, on the side of Germany, Spain, Italy, and Savoy, hostile appearances began to be exhibited, and bodies of troops advanced around the French frontier. The Emperor Leopold was, however, too cautious to announce his intentions; and the King soon communicated a letter from him, containing protestations of amicable dispositions, but adding, that "the innovations occasioned by the decrees of the 4th of August ought to be done away." The King treated this merely as an official measure on the part of the Emperor, that he might not appear to renounce the claims of certain German princes connected with Lorraine and Alsace. But the assembly expressed some alarm, and voted an augmentation of the national force. About this period several new efforts were made by the disaffected clergy in various parts of the kingdom to excite disturbances, which it is unnecessary to mention in detail. On the 20th of February the public attention was roused by a circumstance that in any other state of affairs would have been accounted unimportant. The King announced to the assembly, that his aunts, the daughters of Louis XV., Paris, had that morning left Paris; but as he did not apprehend that the existing laws laid them under any restraint in this respect, he had not opposed their departure. After some debate, the assembly agreed that the King had judged well; and these princesses were left to pursue their journey to Rome, which they reached after some delays occasioned by the jealousy of certain municipalities through which they passed. Thus the kingdom was gradually deserted by every branch of the royal family, excepting the King and his eldest brother Monseigneur. The assembly, however, continued its labours with considerable quietness. In the end of Death of March died the celebrated M. de Mirabeau, Mirabeau at the age of 42 years; a man whose integrity has for many good reasons been much suspected, but whose political address and intrepidity, and whose splendid powers of eloquence, have been seldom equalled. He received from his countrymen at his death marks of respect unparalleled in modern history. During his short illness, his door was besieged by anxious citizens. A mourning of eight days was decreed by the assembly, and also a grand procession, which was attended by all the public functionaries. He was the first who was interred in the new magnificent Pantheon, consecrated to the reception of the remains of illustrious men. But his ashes were afterwards removed, in consequence of very clear proofs that he had not been incorruptible by money.

During the whole of this spring, much fear was entertained that some attempts at a counter revolution army were about to be made. The emigrant army assembled on the borders of Alsace was reviewed by the prince of Condé. Their uniform was black, faced with yellow, with with a death's head, surrounded by a laurel wreath on one cuff, and a sword on the other; with the motto, "Conquer or die." The king was also surrounded by crowds of nonjuring priests and other disaffected persons. Thus, that popular jealousy which in every period of the revolution has strikingly marked the French character, was kept on the alarm. On the 18th of April, therefore, when the royal family was preparing to go to St Cloud to pass some days, a report was instantly spread that the king was about to fly from the country. The carriages were immediately surrounded by people. La Fayette drew out the national guard, but they refused to act. "We know (exclaimed they) that we are violating the laws, but the safety of our country is the first law." The King instantly went to the assembly, and with much spirit complained of the insult. He was answered respectfully by the president, and continued his journey. As the royal family had enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom for some time past, which was demonstrated by the unsuccessful opposition made to this journey—the present opportunity was embraced for intimating to foreign courts his acceptance of the constitution; and all obnoxious persons were dismissed from about his person. The breach of discipline on the part of the national guard on this occasion was so much resented by La Fayette, that he resigned his command. Paris was thrown into consternation; and it was not till after the most universal solicitation that he was prevailed upon to resume his office.

About this time M. de Bouillé, to whom the protection of the frontiers was entrusted, was employing, as it is now said, every means in his power to render the country defenseless. The garrisons were left unprovided; diffusion was spread among the national troops; they were removed from the frontiers, and their place was occupied by foreigners, wherever it could be done. The emigrants abroad, and their friends at home, were lying in wait for an opportunity of revolt;—when suddenly, on the 21st of June, it was announced from the Thulleries, that the king, the queen, the dauphin, with monsieur and madame, had quitted the palace and the capital, without leaving any information of their intention or their route. The emotion excited by this news among the multitude was a mixture of consternation and rage. The national assembly, however, acted with much coolness. They instantly took upon themselves the government, and decreed their fittings permanent. They sent messengers, at the same time, in all directions, to attempt to lay hold of the fugitives. These had taken different routes. Monsieur and madame arrived safely at Brussels on the 23rd. The king, queen, and their children, when they came to a considerable distance from the capital, were furnished by Bouillé with a guard of dragoons, under pretence of protecting treasure for the pay of the troops. At the distance of 156 miles, and when only a few leagues from the frontiers, they were arrested at St Menehould by the postmaster, M. Drouet, formerly a dragoon in the regiment of Condé. At half past seven o'clock in the evening the carriages stopped to change horses at his house; he thought he recollected the queen, and imagined that the king's face resembled the impressions stamped upon assignats. The effort of dragoons increased the suspicion. He suffered them to depart at 11 o'clock without notice; but taking a companion with him, he went by a shorter road to Varennes. With the affluence of the postmaster there he gave the alarm, and overturned a carriage on the bridge, which detained the royal travellers till the national guard of the place had assembled, and the arrest was effected without bloodshed. They were brought back to Paris by a deputation from the assembly. At his departure, the king had imprudently left behind him a memorial, in which he declared, that he never had thought any sacrifice too great for the restoration of order; but that the destruction of the kingdom, and the triumph of anarchy, being the only reward of all his efforts, he thought it necessary to depart from it. He then takes a review of the faults of the new constitution, the grievances he has suffered; and protests against everything that he had been compelled to do during his captivity.

Different parties were very differently affected by this ill-conducted and unfortunate flight of the King. A small republican party had already begun to appear and during the king's absence, attempts were made to induce the public at large to consider the royal authority as no necessary part of a free constitution. But the minds of men were by no means prepared for the reception of this new doctrine. The idea, however, having been thus publicly proposed, left some impressions, which in time contributed to give rise to important events. By far the greater number of leading men, however, were at present convinced, that it was impossible to conduct a great empire like France, well and prosperously, without the affluence of an hereditary chief. They therefore determined to pass over the affair with as much silence as possible, and to hasten the period when their new constitution should be complete. But there is reason to believe, that this journey was at the long-run highly instrumental in producing very fatal effects to the personal safety of the monarch.

His flight seemed a signal for emigration. Many of the aristocratic party felt in resignations of their seats in the national assembly. Troops were levied on the frontiers in the King's name; who took care, however, to disavow any connection with such a procedure. Bouillé emigrated, and afterwards sent to the assembly a furious threatening letter: "You shall answer (says he) for the lives of the king and of the queen to all the monarchs of the universe. Touch but a single hair of their heads, and not one stone shall be left upon another in Paris. I know the roads. I will conduct the foreign armies. This letter is but the forerunner of the manifesto of the sovereigns of Europe."

A considerable calm throughout France followed these events, and it might be regarded as in a state of tranquillity. It contained, indeed, parties entertaining much animosity against each other, and many citizens had withdrawn to foreign countries; but the peace was not broken, and moderate men hoped that much prosperity would follow from the late agitations. But this calm was delusive; and in the midst of it those projects were formed which were afterwards to prove so fatal to the peace of France and of Europe. Towards the close of this summer, a convention took place at Pillnitz in Saxony between the emperor Leopold and the king of Prussia. Its object was not known at the time, but it gradually came into view, and is now by many understood. His majesty the king of Prussia shall besides acquire Lusatia; and his serene highness the elector of Saxony shall in exchange receive the rest of Poland, and occupy the throne as hereditary sovereign.

His majesty the present king of Poland shall abdicate the throne on receiving a suitable annuity.

His royal highness the elector of Saxony shall give his daughter in marriage to his serene highness the youngest son of his royal highness the grand duke of all the Ruffias, who will be the father of the race of the hereditary kings of Poland and Lithuania. (Signed) Leopold. Prince Nassau. Count Florida Blanca. Bischoffswerder.

In the mean time, the national assembly was hastening fast to the completion of the new constitution. It was finished on the 3rd of September, and presented to the king. It begins with the following declaration of the rights of a man and a citizen, and thereafter follow the different branches; the chief of which are here translated.

I. All men are born, and remain, free and equal in rights: social distinctions cannot be founded but on common utility.

II. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man: these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance against oppression.

III. The principle of sovereignty resides essentially in the nation: no body of men, no individual, can exercise an authority that does not emanate expressly from that source.

IV. Liberty consists in the power of doing everything except that which is hurtful to another: hence the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no other bounds than those that are necessary to ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights: those bounds can be determined by the law only.

V. The law has a right to forbid those actions alone that are hurtful to society. Whatever is not forbidden by the law, cannot be hindered; and no person can be constrained to do that which the law ordaineth not.

VI. The law is the expression of the general will: all the citizens have a right to concur personally, or by their representatives, to the formation of the law: it ought to be the same for all, whether it protect, or whether it punish. All citizens being equal in the eye of the law, are equally admissible to dignities, places, and public offices, according to their capacity, and without any other distinction but that of their virtue and their talents.

VII. No man can be accused, arrested, or detained, except in cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which the law hath prescribed. Those who solicit, dispatch, execute, or cause to be executed, arbitrary orders, ought to be punished; but every citizen that is summoned or seized in virtue of the law, ought to obey instantly—he becomes culpable by resistance.

VIII. The law ought to establish such punishments only as are strictly and evidently necessary; and no person can be punished but in virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied.

IX. Every man being presumed innocent till such A public instruction shall be created and organized, common to all citizens, gratuitous with regard to those parts of tuition indispensible for all men, and of which the establishment shall be gradually distributed in a proportion combined with the division of the kingdom.

"The kingdom is one and indivisible;" its territory, for administration, is distributed into 83 departments, each department into districts, each district into cantons.

Those are French citizens,

Who are born in France, of a French father; Who having been born in France of a foreign father, have fixed their residence in the kingdom; Who having been born in a foreign country, of a French father, have returned to settle in France, and have taken the civic oath?

In fine, who having been born in a foreign country, being descended in whatever degree from a Frenchman or a Frenchwoman, who have left their country from religious motives, come to reside in France, and take the civic oath.

The right of French citizenship is lost,

1st, By naturalization in a foreign country; 2dly, By being condemned to penalties which involve the civic degradation, provided the person condemned be not reinstated; 3dly, By a sentence of contumacy, provided the sentence be not annulled; 4thly, By initiation into any foreign order or body which supposes either proofs of nobility "or distinctions of birth, or requires religious vows."

"The law considers marriage only as a civil contract."

The sovereignty is one, indivisible, "inalienable, and imperceptible," and it belongs to the nation: no faction of the people, or individual, can arrogate the exercise of it.

The nation, from which alone flow all powers, cannot exercise them but by delegation.

The French constitution is representative: the representatives are the legislative body and the king.

The National Assembly, forming the legislative body, is permanent, and consists of one chamber only.

It shall be formed by new elections, every two years.

The legislative body cannot be dissolved by the king.

The number of representatives to the legislative body shall be 745, on account of the 83 departments of which the kingdom is composed; and independent of those that may be granted to the colonies.

The representatives shall be distributed among the 83 departments, according to the three proportions of land, of population, and the contribution direct.

Of the 745 representatives 247 are attached to the land. Of these each department shall nominate three, except the department of Paris, which shall nominate only one.

Two hundred and forty-nine representatives are attached to the population. The total mass of the active population of the kingdom is divided into 249 parts, and each department nominates as many of the deputies as it contains parts of the population.

Two hundred and forty-nine representatives are attached to the contribution direct. The sum total of the direct contribution of the kingdom is likewise divided into 249 parts; and each department nominates as many deputies as it pays parts of the contribution. In order to form a legislative national assembly, the active citizens shall convene in primary assemblies every two years in the cities and cantons.

"The primary assemblies shall meet of full right on the first Sunday of March, if not convoked sooner by the public officers appointed to do so by the law."

To be an active citizen, it is necessary,

To be a Frenchman, or to have become a Frenchman;

To have attained 25 years complete;

To have resided in the city or the canton from the time determined by the law;

To pay in any part of the kingdom a direct contribution, at least equal to the value of three days' labour, and to produce the acquittance;

Not to be in a menial capacity, namely, that of a servant receiving wages;

To be inscribed in the municipality of the place of his residence in the list of the national guards;

To have taken the civic oath.

The primary assemblies shall name electors in the proportion of the number of active citizens residing in the city or canton;

There shall be named one elector to the assembly, or not, according as there shall happen to be present 100 active citizens.

There shall be named two, when there shall be present from 151 to 250, and so on in this proportion.

The electors named in each department shall convene, in order to choose the number of representatives, whose nomination shall belong to their department, and a number of substitutes equal to the third of the representatives.

"The assemblies shall be held of full right on the last Sunday of March, if they have not been before convoked by the public officers appointed to do so by law."

All active citizens, whatever be their state, profession, or contribution, may be chosen representatives of the nation.

Excepting, nevertheless, the ministers and other agents of the executive power, &c.

The members of the legislative body may be re-elected to a subsequent legislature, but not till after an interval of one legislature.

No active citizen can enter or vote in an assembly if he is armed.

The representatives shall meet on the first Monday of May, in the place of the fittings of the last legislature.

The royalty is indivisible, and delegated hereditarily to the race on the throne from male to male, by order of primogeniture, to the perpetual exclusion of women and their descendants.

Nothing is prejudged on the effect of renunciations in the race on the throne.

The person of the king is inviolable and sacred; his only title is king of the French.

If the king put himself at the head of an army, and direct the forces of it against the nation, or if he do not oppose, by a formal act, any such enterprise undertaken in his name, he shall be held to have abdicated.

If the king having gone out of the kingdom, do not return to it, after an invitation by the legislative body, within the space which shall be fixed by the proclamation, "and which cannot be less than two months," he shall be held to have abdicated the royalty.

After abdication, express or legal, the king shall be in the clasps of citizens, and may be accused and tried like them, for acts posterior to his abdication.

The nation makes provision for the splendour of the throne by a civil list, of which the legislative body shall fix the sum at the commencement of each reign, for the whole duration of that reign.

The king is a minor till the age of 18 complete; and during his minority there shall be a regent of the kingdom.

The regency belongs to the relation of the king, next in degree according to the order of succession to the throne, who has attained the age of 25; provided he be a Frenchman resident in the kingdom, and not presumptive heir to any other crown, and have previously taken the civic oath.

The presumptive heir shall bear the name of Prince Royal.

"The members of the king's family called to the eventual succession of the throne, shall add the denomination of French Prince to the name which shall be given them in the civil act proving their birth; and this name can neither be patronymic nor formed of any of the qualifications abolished by the present constitution."

"The denomination of prince cannot be given to any individual, and shall not carry with it any privilege or exception to the common right of all French citizens."

To the king alone belongs the choice and dismission of ministers.

"The members of the present national assembly, and of the subsequent legislatures, the members of the tribunal of appeal, and those who shall be of the high jury, cannot be advanced to the ministry, cannot receive any place, gift, pension, allowance, or commission of the executive power or its agents during the continuance of their functions, or during two years after ceasing to exercise them: the same shall be observed respecting those who shall only be inscribed on the list of high jurors as long as their inscription shall continue."

No order of the king can be executed if it be not signed by him, and countersigned by the minister or comptroller of the department.

In no case can the written or verbal order of a king shelter a minister from responsibility.

The constitution delegates exclusively to the legislative body the powers and functions following:

To propose and decree laws—The king can only invite the legislative body to take an object into consideration;

To fix the public expenses;

To establish the public contributions, to determine the nature of them, the amount of each fort, the duration, and the mode of collection, &c.

War cannot be resolved on but by a decree of the national assembly, passed on the formal and necessary proposition of the king, and sanctioned by him.

During the whole course of war, the legislative body may require the king to negotiate peace; and the king is bound to yield to this requisition.

It belongs to the legislative body to ratify treaties of peace, French peace, alliance, and commerce; and no treaty shall have effect but by this ratification.

The deliberations of the legislative body shall be public, and the minutes of the sittings shall be printed.

The legislative body may, however, on any occasion, form itself into a general committee.

The plan of a decree shall be read thrice, at three intervals, the shortest of which cannot be less than eight days.

The decrees of the legislative body are presented to the king, who may refuse them his consent.

In case of refusal of the royal consent, that refusal is only suspensive. When the two following legislatures shall successively present the same decree in the same terms on which it was originally conceived, the king shall be deemed to have given his sanction.

The king is bound to express his consent or refusal to each decree within two months after its presentation.

No decree to which the king has refused his consent can be again presented to him by the same legislature.

The supreme executive power resides exclusively in the hands of the king.

The king is the supreme head of the land and sea forces.

The king names ambassadors, and the other agents of political negotiations.

He bestows the command of armies and fleets, and the ranks of marshal of France and admiral:

He names two-thirds of the rear-admirals, one-half of the lieutenant-generals, camp-marshal, captains of ships, and colonels of the national gendarmerie:

He names a third of the colonels and lieutenant-colonels, and a fifth of the lieutenants of ships:

He appoints in the civil administration of the marine, the directors, the comptrollers, the treasurers of the arsenals, the masters of the works, the under masters of civil buildings, half of the masters of administration, and the under masters of construction.

He appoints the commissaries of the tribunals:

He appoints the superintendents in chief of the management of contributions indirect, "and the administration of national domains:" He superintends the coinage of money, and appoints officers entrusted with this superintendence in the general commission and the mints.

The effigy of the king is struck on all the coinage of the kingdom.

There is in each department a superior administration, and in each district a subordinate administration.

The administrators are specially charged with distributing the contributions direct, and with superintending the money arising from the contributions, and the public revenues in their territory.

The king has the right of annulling such acts of the administrators of department as are contrary to the law or the orders transmitted to them.

He may, in case of obstinate disobedience, or of their endangering, by their acts, the safety or peace of the public, suspend them from their functions.

The king alone can interfere in foreign political connections.

Every declaration of war shall be made in these terms: By the king of the French in the name of the nation.

The judicial power can in no case be exercised either by the legislative body or the king.

Justice shall be gratuitously rendered by judges chosen from time to time by the people, and instituted by letters patent of the king, who cannot refuse them.

"The public accuser shall be nominated by the people."

"The right of citizens to terminate disputes definitely by arbitration, cannot receive any infringement from the acts of the legislative power."

In criminal matters, no citizen can be judged except on an accusation received by jurors, or decreed by the legislative body in the cases in which it belongs to it to prosecute the accusation.

After the accusation shall be admitted, the fact shall be examined, and declared by the jurors.

The person accused shall have the privilege of challenging 20, "without assigning any reason."

The jurors who declare the fact shall not be fewer than 12.

The application of the law shall be made by the judges.

The process shall be public; "and the person accused cannot be denied the aid of counsel."

No man acquitted by a legal jury can be apprehended or accused on account of the same fact.

For the whole kingdom there shall be one tribunal of appeal, established near the legislative body.

A high national court, composed of members of the tribunal of appeal and high jurors, shall take cognizance of the crimes of ministers, and the principal agents of the executive power; and of crimes which attack the general safety of the state, when the legislative body shall pass a decree of accusation.

It shall not assemble but on the proclamation of the legislative body; "and at the distance of 30,000 toiles at least from the place of meeting of the legislative body."

The national guards do not form a military body, or an institution in the state; they are the citizens themselves called to assist the public force.

Officers are chosen for a time, and cannot again be chosen till after a certain interval of service as privates.

None shall command the national guard of more than one district.

All the parts of the public force employed for the safety of the state from foreign enemies are under the command of the king.

Public contributions shall be debated and fixed every year by the legislative body, and cannot continue in force longer than the last day of the following session, if they are not expressly renewed.

"Detailed accounts of the expense of the ministerial departments, signed and certified by the ministers or comptroller-general, shall be printed and published at the commencement of the sessions of each legislature.

"The same shall be done with the statements of the receipt of the different taxes, and all the public revenues."

The French nation renounces the undertaking of any war with a view of making conquests, and will never employ its forces against the liberty of any people.

The constituting national assembly declares, "That the the nation has the imperceptible right of changing its constitution; and nevertheless considering that it is more conformable to the national interest to employ only by means provided in the constitution itself, the right of reforming those articles of it, of which experience shall have shown the inconveniences, decrees, that the proceeding by an assembly of revision shall be regulated in the form following:

"When three successive legislatures shall have expressed an uniform wish for the change of any constitutional article, the revision demanded shall take place.

"The next legislature, and the following, cannot propose the reform of any constitutional article.

"The fourth legislature, augmented with 249 members, chosen in each department, by doubling the ordinary number which it furnishes in proportion to its population, shall form the assembly of revision."

The French colonies and possessions in Asia, Africa, and America, "though they form part of the French empire," are not included in the present constitution.

With respect to the laws made by the national assembly which are not included in the act of constitution, and those anterior laws which it has not altered, they shall be observed, so long as they shall not be revoked or modified by the legislative power.

On the 13th of September the King announced, by a letter to the President of the Assembly, his acceptance of the constitution. This event was ordered to be notified to all the foreign courts, and the Assembly decreed a general amnesty with respect to the events of the revolution. On the following day the King repaired in person to the National Assembly; and being conducted to a chair of state prepared for him at the side of the President, he signed the constitutional act, and took an oath of fidelity to it. He then withdrew, and was attended back to the Tuileries by the whole Assembly, with the President at their head. On the 30th of September, this National Assembly, which has since been known by the name of the Constituent Assembly, dissolved itself, and gave place to the succeeding Legislative National Assembly, which had been elected according to the rules prescribed by the new constitution.

On the character and the labours of the Constituent Assembly, we shall only remark, that it contained many men of talents, and, in all probability, a considerable number of men of integrity. Towards the close of its session, it assumed a very striking character of moderation, and appears to have been completely monarchical, although its jealousy of the ancient aristocracy prevented it from sufficiently guarding the throne against popular violence; for a very striking defect in the new constitution soon appeared. The King possessed a veto, or negative, upon the resolutions of the legislative body; but this negative he was bound to exercise in person, without responsibility, and without the intervention of his ministers. He had no senate, or upper chamber, to stand between him and popular violence; and there was something apparently absurd in settling the vote of an individual, in opposition to the collective wisdom and will of a whole nation. In consequence of this, he was reduced to the hard alternative of yielding to every vote of the National Assembly, or of exposing himself personally to public odium.

The new Assembly was opened by the King on the 7th of October, with much apparent union on all sides. His speech, recommending unanimity and concurrence between the legislative and executive powers, was received with unbounded applause. The character of the men who composed the new National Assembly was not unsuspicious to the Court. At the commencement of the revolution, the great body of the people at a distance from the capital were little interested in those projects of freedom which occupied the more enlightened character or more turbulent inhabitants of Paris. They had gradually, however, been roused from their lethargy. The variety of powers conferred by the new constitution upon the people at large, and the multiplicity of offices of which it gave them the patronage, had kindled in the minds of men a love of dominion, and a wish to interfere in public affairs. This attached them to the new order of things. The love of power, which is the least disguised passion in the human heart, and equally strong in the breast of the meanest and of the highest of mankind, was thus, under the name of liberty, become a leading passion throughout this wide empire. They who flattered it most, and were most loud in praise of the rights of the people, became speedily the favourites of the public. The consequence of this was, that the new National Assembly was chiefly composed of country gentlemen, of principles highly democratic, or of men of letters who had published popular books, or conducted periodical publications. The members of the Constituent Assembly had been excluded by their own decree from holding seats in the new legislature. The members of the latter, therefore, had little regard for a constitution which they themselves had not framed, and which was not protected by the venerable sanction of antiquity.

When this Assembly first met, it showed a very trifling attention to formalities, and a peevish jealousy of the ministers of the crown. In the meantime, the treaty of Pillnitz, already mentioned, began to be murmured abroad, and France was thrown into a state of anxious jealousy for the safety of its newly-acquired liberties. Although the Prussians and Germans (the Elector of Mentz alone excepted) all continued to temporize, the northern powers, Sweden and Russia, entered into strict engagements to restore the old despotism of France. On the 9th of November, a decree was passed, that the emigrants who, after the first of January next, should be found assembled, as at present, in a hostile manner, beyond the frontiers, should be considered as guilty of a conspiracy, and suffer death; that the French Princes, and public functionaries, who should not return before that period, should be punishable in the same manner, and their property forfeited during their own lives. On the 18th, a series of severe decrees was also passed against such of the ejected clergy as still refused to take the civic oath. To both these decrees the King opposed his veto, or negative. The moderate party, who were attached to the constitution, rejoiced at this as a proof of the freedom of their sovereign. But, on the other side, it excited a most violent clamour, and became the means of exciting new suspicion of the wishes of the Court. At this time answers were received from the different foreign Courts to the notification sent them of the King's acceptance of the new constitution. These were generally conceived in a tone of caution, and avoided giving open powers. open offence. The Emperor even prohibited all assemblies of emigrants within his states; and the King intimated to the Assembly that he had declared to the Elector of Treves, that unless the emigrants should cease before the 15th of January to make hostile preparations within his territories, he would be considered as the enemy of France. All this, however, did not prevent the court from suspicion; for although the different foreign courts had openly declared pacific intentions, yet the French emigrants boldly affirmed, that all Europe was actually arming in their favour. Accordingly they ceased not to solicit their equals in rank, who still remained within the country, to leave it to join with them in what they called the royal cause.

The unhappy Louis, placed between a republican party that was gradually gathering strength, and an aristocratical party that was rousing Europe to arms against a nation of which he was the constitutional chief, and a combination of Princes justly suspected of wishing to seize upon a part of his dominions, stood in a situation which would have perplexed the most skilful statesman; and it is no proof of incapacity that he fell a sacrifice to circumstances which might have overwhelmed any known measure of human ingenuity. Addresses were crowding into the Assembly, disapproving the conduct of the court. M. Montmorin resigned; M. Deleffart succeeded him; and M. Cahier de Ger-ville became minister of the interior. M. du Portail resigned also, and M. Narbonne succeeded him as minister of war. In the month of November, M. Bailly's mayoralty terminated; and the once popular La Fayette appeared as a candidate to succeed him. But he was successfully opposed by M. Petion, a violent Jacobin, and a declared republican, who was elected mayor of Paris by a great majority.

At this period the moderate men, who were friends of the constitution, attempted to counteract the influence of the Jacobin club by the establishment of a similar one. It derived its name from the vacant convent of the Feuillans, in which it assembled. The most active members of the Constituent Assembly belonged to it, such as M. M. D'Andre, Barnave, the Lameths, Du Port, Rabaud, Sieyes, Chapelier, Thouret, Labord, Talleyrand, Montesquieu, Beaumetz, &c. The Jacobins contrived to excite a riot at the place of their meeting, which was in the vicinity of the hall of the National Assembly. This afforded a pretext for applying to the Assembly for the removal of the new club. The Assembly showed their disposition, by complying with this request.

At the end of this year, the kingdom of France was by no means prosperous. The public revenue had fallen far short of the expenditure. The emigrant nobility had carried out of the kingdom the greater part of the current coin, and a variety of manufacturers, who depended upon their ostentatious luxury, were reduced to much distress. The dispositions of foreign courts appeared very doubtful. The new year, however, opened with delusive prospects of tranquillity. The German Princes appeared satisfied with the mode of compensation which the French had offered for the loss of their possessions in Alsace and Lorraine. The Prince of Löwenstein accepted, of an indemnification. The Princes of Hohenlohe and Salm-Salm declared themselves ready to treat upon the same terms. Prince Maximilian, and the Dukes of Würtemberg and Deux-Ponts, freely negotiated. It is unnecessary to state in detail the subtleties employed, in the mean time, by the crafty Leopold, for amusing the French with the appearances of peace. M. Deleffart, minister for foreign affairs, fell a sacrifice to them, and probably to the undecided character of Louis. He was accused by M. Brissot of not having given timely notice to the National Assembly of the dispositions of foreign powers, and of not pressing proper measures for securing the honour and safety of the nation. A decree of accusation passed against him in his absence. He was apprehended, tried by the high national court at Orleans, and executed in consequence of its sentence.

The sudden death of Leopold on the first of March gave rise to a transient hope that peace might still be preserved. A suspicion of poison fell upon the French, but it was removed by the detail of his disease that was speedily published. On the 16th of the same month, the King of Sweden was wounded by a nobleman of the name of Ankerstrom, and died on the 29th. This enterprising Prince had overturned the constitution of his own country, and he had formed the project of conducting in person his troops to the frontiers of France, and of commanding or accompanying the combined armies of Europe in their attempt to avenge the cause of insulted royalty. It was in a great measure to counteract this scheme that he was assassinated.

The sudden fall, however, of these two enemies rather accelerated than retarded the meditated hostilities. The young King of Hungary, who succeeded to the open empire, made no secret either of his own intentions or of the existence of a concert of Princes against France. M. Dumourier was now at the head of the war-office, M. Rolland was minister of the interior, and M. Claviere minister of finance. The Jacobins were all-powerful. The Court gave way to the torrent. The property of the emigrants was confiscated, referring the rights of creditors. The Imperial minister, Prince Kaunitz, demanded three things of France; 1st, The restitution of their feudal rights to the German Princes; 2ndly, To restore Avignon to the Pope, the inhabitants of which had some time before thrown off their allegiance, and prevailed with the Constituent Assembly to receive their country as a part of France; and lastly, Prince Kaunitz demanded, that "the neighbouring powers should have no reason for apprehension from the present weakness of the internal government of France." On receiving these demands, the king proposed a declaration of war, which was decreed by the National Assembly on the 20th of April, against the King of Hungary and Bohemia.

The French immediately began the war, by attacking in three different columns the Austrian Netherlands. M. Theobald Dillon advanced from Lille to Tournay, where he found a strong body of Austrians ready to receive him. The national troops, unaccustomed to sustain the fire of regular soldiers, were instantly thrown back into confusion, and fled even to the gates of Lille. The French cry of treason resounded on all sides; and their commander, an experienced and faithful officer, was murdered by his own soldiery and the mob. A second division of 10,000 men, under Lieutenant-General Biron, took possession of Quiverain on the 29th, and marched towards Mons. General Biron was here attacked by the the Austrians, whom he repulsed. Hearing, however, of the defeat of Dillon; he retreated. A third party advanced to Furnes, but afterwards withdrew. La Fayette at the same time advanced towards Bouvines, half way to Namur, from which he afterwards retreated. The whole of these expeditions were ill contrived, in as much as they divided the French undisciplined troops, and exposed them in small bodies to the attack of veteran forces. The Austrians were some time before they attempted to retaliate. At length, however, on the 11th of June, they attacked M. Gouvion, who commanded the advanced guard of La Fayette's army near Mauberge. M. Gouvion was killed by a rolling bullet; but La Fayette himself having come up, the Austrians abandoned the field. In the mean time, matters were halting in Paris towards a violent crisis. Two parties, both of which were hostile to the present constitution, had gradually been formed in the state. One wished to give more effectual support to the royal authority, by establishing a senate or two chambers, to prevent the king's vote from being the sole check upon popular enthusiasm. The other party wished to set aside royalty altogether, and to hazard the bold experiment of converting France into a republic. These last were supported by the Jacobin club, which had now contrived to concentrate itself an immense mass of influence. Innumerable popular societies were established in every town and village throughout the provinces. With these a regular correspondence was kept up by writing and by emissaries. Thus schemes and notions were instantaneously propagated through a great empire, and all the violent spirits which it contained were enabled to act in concert: But the more immediate engine of the republican party consisted of the immense population of the metropolis, whom they now endeavoured to keep in constant alarm. For this purpose they alleged, that an Austrian Committee, that is to say, a conspiracy in favour of the enemies of the country, existed among the friends of the court. M. M. Genonne and Brissot even offered in the assembly to prove the existence of this pretended Austrian committee. A report was next circulated, that the king intended to abdicate from the capital on the 23rd of May. His majesty publicly contradicted these accusations as calumnies, but they made no small impression upon the minds of the public. New decrees were now made against the refractory clergy, but these his majesty refused to sanction. A proposal was also made and decreed in the assembly to form a camp of 20,000 men under the walls of Paris, and that for this levy every canton in the kingdom should contribute one horseman and four infantry. The national guard of Paris disliked the proposal, and the king gave to it his negative. Indeed at this time the king seems to have come to a resolution of standing out against the Jacobin party, to which he had for some time yielded. The ministry were therefore dismissed, excepting M. Dumourier, and others were appointed in their stead. By this event Dumourier lost the confidence of the Jacobin club. He saw his error, resigned his office, and joined the army. In the mean time a decree had been passed, authorising the manufacture of pikes for the purpose of arming cheaply the lower class of citizens. All means were used to render the king odious by inflammatory wrings and harangues; and in both of these the noted French incendiary Marat took the lead.

On the 20th of June M. Roederer, the Procureur General Syndic informed the national assembly, that contrary to law, formidable bodies of armed men were preparing to present petitions to the king, and to the national assembly. A part of them speedily appeared through St Huruge and Santerre a brewer at their head, but they marched through the hall in a procession that lasted two hours, at four o'clock in the afternoon, to the number of about 40,000. They surrounded the royal Thulleries. The gates were thrown open; and on an attempt to break the door of the apartment, where the king then was, he ordered them to be admitted. His sister the princess Elizabeth never departed from his side during four or five hours that he was surrounded by the multitude, and compelled to listen to every indignity. All this while Pétion, the mayor of Paris, was unaccountably absent. He at length, however, arrived, and also a deputation from the assembly. The queen, with her children and the princess de Lamballe, were in the mean time in the council-chamber, where, though protected from violence, they were yet exposed to much insult. At last, in consequence of the approach of evening, and of the entreaties of Pétion, the multitude gradually dispersed.

The indignities suffered on this day by the royal family were in some respects not unfavourable to their establishment. A great number of the most respectable inhabitants of the capital were ashamed of such proceedings. They complained of them severely in a petition to the conduct assembly, and addresses to the same purpose were received from several departments. The directory of the department of Paris, at the head of which were M. Rochefaucault and M. Tulleynrand, published a declaration disapproving of the conduct of the mayor, and of M. Manuel the procureur of the commune, whom they afterwards suspended from their offices, although they were speedily restored by a decree of the assembly. At the same time, La Fayette leaving his army suddenly appeared on the 26th at the bar of the national assembly. He declared that he came to express the indignation which the whole army felt on account of the events of the 20th: he called upon the assembly to punish the promoters of these events, and to dissolve the factious clubs. The sudden appearance of La Fayette threw the Jacobins into confusion, and from that period they never ceased to calumniate him.

On the 1st of July, on the motion of M. Jean de Brie, the assembly ordered a proclamation to be made, of Prussia that the country was in danger. On the 6th, the king marched with 52,000 men to co-operate against France. The French arms were at this time somewhat successful in the Austrian Netherlands; but the cabinet speedily thought it necessary to order the armies to retreat: a measure which was afterwards publicly censured by Marshall Luckner.

On the 7th, a singular scene occurred in the national assembly. At the instant that M. Brissot was about to commence an oration, M. Lannourette bishop of the bishop of Lyons requested to be heard for a few minutes. He expatiated on the necessity of union among the members of the assembly, and of sacrificing their passions and prejudices. judices on the altar of their country. He concluded an animated address with these words, "Let all who hold in equal detestation a republic and two chambers, and who wish to maintain the constitution as it is, rise!" The words were scarcely pronounced when the whole assembly started from their seats. Men of all parties solemnly embraced each other, and protested their adherence to the constitution. A deputation announced this happy event to the king; who immediately came and congratulated them in a short speech, which was received with infinite applause. The only good effect, however, produced by this temporary agreement was, that the festival of the 14th of July, which was celebrated with the usual magnificence, passed over in tranquillity.

On the 25th of July, the duke of Brunswick issued at Coblenz his celebrated manifesto. It declared the purpose of the intended invasion of France to be the restoration of the French king to full authority. It declared the national guard of France responsible for the preservation of tranquillity; and threatened with the punishment of death, as rebels to their king, those who should appear in arms against the allied powers. All men holding offices, civil or military, were threatened in the same manner, as well as the inhabitants of all cities. The city of Paris in particular, and the national assembly, were declared responsible for every insult which might be offered to the royal family. It was declared, that if they were not immediately placed in safety, the allies were resolved to inflict "on those who should deserve it the most exemplary and ever memorable avenging punishments, by giving up the city of Paris to military execution, and exposing it to total destruction; and the rebels who should be guilty of illegal resistance should suffer the punishments which they should have deserved." This languishing and imprudent manifesto operated as a warrant for the destruction of the unfortunate Louis XVI. It left no middle party in the nation. All who wished to preserve freedom in any form, and all who loved the independence of their country, were instantly united. At the same time, the reproaches cast on the king by the Jacobins now gained universal credit. The kings of Prussia and of Hungary told the French nation, that their monarch was secretly hostile to the constitution; and the restoration of him and his family to despotic power was made the sole pretence for a bloody and dangerous war.

The republican party saw the advantage which they had now gained, and resolved upon the deposition of the king. The chief engine which they meant to employ in this service consisted of about 1500 men, who had come to Paris at the period of the confederation on the 14th of July, and therefore called fusiliers, and who were also sometimes denominated Maréchais, from the place from which the greater number of them came. Next to these, dependence was placed in the populace of the suburbs of the capital. The designs of the republicans were not unknown to the court, and both parties were forming plans of operation. It is said that the royal party intended that the king and his family should suddenly leave the capital, and proceed to as great a distance as the constitution permitted. The republicans are said to have intended to seize the person of the king, and to confine him in the castle of Vincennes till a national convention should decide upon his fate. Both allegations are probably true. Every motive which can influence the mind of man must have induced Louis to wish to be at a distance from the factious and languishing capital. And the subsequent conduct of the republicans authorizes us to believe them capable of the worst crime that was laid to their charge.

Various charges had been brought forward in the assembly against La Fayette, and the 8th of August was appointed for their discussion. In the mean time, on the 3d of August, Petion the mayor, at the head of a deputation from the sections of Paris, appeared at the bar, and in a solemn speech demanded the deposition of the king. The discussion of the accusation against La Fayette was considered as a trial of strength between the parties: he was acquitted, however, by a majority of nearly 200; and the republican party, despairing of carrying their point by a vote of the national assembly, resolved to have recourse to insurrection and force.

On the evening of the 9th of August, about 1500 gentlemen, officers of the army, and others, repaired to the palace, resolved to protect the royal family or to die in their defence; added to these were 700 Swiss guards, with a body of cavalry amounting to about 1000. Mandat, the commander of the national guards, a man who was firmly attached to the constitution, had procured 2400 of that body and 12 pieces of cannon. With such a force, it has been generally thought that, by vigorous and steady councils, the palace, which is a kind of castle, might have been successfully defended; and what is now called a revolution might have borne the name of a rebellion. Meanwhile the assembly declared its fittings permanent. Petion was at the palace late on the evening of the 9th. Some apprehensions were entertained, or pretended to be entertained, for his safety (for the whole of this business was, on the part of the republicans, the most infernal plot), and a deputation from the assembly brought him away. At midnight the tocsin or alarm bell was sounded, and the drums beat to arms through the city. At this instant a number of the most active leaders of the republican party assembled, and elected a new common council or commune. The persons thus irregularly chosen instantly took possession of the common hall, and drove out the lawful members; who, with that weakness with which men are apt to shrink from stations of responsibility in perilous times, readily gave place to the usurpers. The new commune sent repeated messages to M. Mandat, requiring his attendance upon important business. He was occupied in arranging the troops in the best order around the palace; but suspecting nothing, he went to the common hall, and was there astonished to find a different assembly from what he expected. He was abruptly accused of a plot to massacre the people, and ordered to prison; but as he defended the stairs, he was shot with a pistol, and Sainterre was appointed his stead to command the national guard.

On this eventful night no person in the palace went to bed. About six o'clock in the morning of the 10th the king descended into the gardens to review the troops. He was received with shouts of Vive le roi excepting from the artillery, who shouted Vive la nation. The king returned to the palace, and the multitude continued to collect. The national guard seemed undetermined about what they were to do, as they assembled in divisions near the palace; and had a steady re- sistance been made from within, it is probable they would have joined the royal party. But towards eight o'clock M. Roederer procured admittance to the palace, and told the king that armed multitudes were assembling in hostile array around the Tuileries; that the national guard was not to be depended upon; and that, in case of resistance, the whole royal family would most certainly be massacred. He therefore advised the king to seek protection in the hall of the national assembly. With this advice the king, with his usual facility of temper, was ready to comply; but the queen opposed with vehemence the humiliating proposal. Becoming gradually, however, alarmed for the safety of her children, she gave her consent; and the king and queen, the princess Elizabeth, with the prince and princess royal, went on foot to the hall of the assembly.

"I am come hither (said his majesty) to prevent a great crime. Among you, gentlemen, I believe myself in safety." By an article of the constitution the assembly could not deliberate in presence of the king. The royal family were, therefore, placed in a narrow box separated from the hall by a railing, where they remained for 14 hours without any place to which they could retire for refreshment, excepting a very small closet adjoining. Here they sat listening to debates, in which the royal character and office were treated with every mark of insult.

When the king left the palace of the Tuileries, he unfortunately forgot to order it to be immediately surrendered. He recollected this as soon as he reached the assembly, and sent orders for this purpose; but it was now too late. The insurgents amounted to about 20,000 effective men. They were drawn up in tolerable order by Westerman a Prussian, and had about 30 pieces of cannon along with them. The gentlemen within the palace, who had assembled to protect the king's person, were now dispirited, and knew not what part to act. The commander of the Swis, M. Affry, was absent, and the captains knew not what to do; and the national guard had no leader in consequence of the death of Mandat. About nine o'clock the outer gates were forced open; and the insurgents formed their line in front of the palace. A bloody combat commenced chiefly between the Marceillois and the Swis. After a brave resistance of about an hour, the Swis were overpowered by numbers, and gave way. All of them that could be found in the palace were massacred; some even while imploring quarter on their knees. Others escaped into the city, and were protected by individuals. Of this brave regiment, however, only 200 survived; but every human being, even the lowest servants found in the palace, were put to death. The Swis taken prisoners in various quarters were conducted to the door of the assembly, and taken by a decree under the protection of the state. But the fugitive multitude inflicted upon putting them to instant death; and the assembly would, in all probability, have been unable to protect them, had not the Marceillois interfered in their favour.

The suspension of the royal authority was now decreed, and the nation was invited to elect a Convention to determine the nature of its future government. On this uncommon occasion all Frenchmen of 21 years of age were declared capable of electing, and of being elected, deputies to the new national Convention. Com-

Vol. XVI. Part I. The army was above 50,000 strong. General Clairfait had joined him with 15,000 Austrians, and a considerable body of Hessians, along with 20,000 French emigrants; amounting in all to 90,000 men. To oppose these, Dumourier had only 17,000 men collected near the point from which the enemy were approaching in Luxembourg. The French emigrants had given the duke of Brunswick such an account of the dilated state of their own country, and of the pretended disaffection of all orders of men towards the ruling faction in Paris, that no resistance of any importance was expected. When the combined troops, consisting either of steady Austrian or Hungarian battalions, or of those well disciplined Prussians which the great Frederick had inured to the best military discipline, were reviewed in Germany before setting out on their march, it is said that the spectators, among whom the French cause was not unpopular, beheld them with anxiety and regret, and pitied the unhappy country against which this irresistible force was directed. The soldiers and their officers regarded themselves as departing for a hunting match, or an excursion of pleasure; and many of the usual accommodations of an army were ill attended to, such as hospitals, &c. The beginning of their progress into France justified these expectations. Longwy surrendered after a siege of 15 hours, although well fortified, possessed of a garrison of 3500 men, and defended by 71 pieces of cannon. The news of this event irritated the assembly so much, that they decreed, that, when retaken, the houses of the citizens should be razed to the ground; and, distrustful of the officers of the army, they decreed that the municipal officers of a town should hereafter have power to control the deliberations of the council of war. Verdun was next summoned; and here the municipality compelled the governor M. Beaurepaire to surrender. That officer, disappointed and enraged, shot himself dead with a pistol in presence of the council, and on the 2d of September the Prussian troops entered the town.

The news of this second capture, and of the approach of the Prussians, spread an instant alarm through Paris. It was proposed to raise a volunteer army, which should set out immediately to meet the enemy. The common council, which was now led by Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and others of the most sanguinary character, ordered the alarm-guns to be fired, and the populace to be summoned to meet in the Champ de Mars to enroll themselves to march against the enemy. The people assembled, and either in consequence of a premeditated plan, or, which is not very probable, of an instantaneous movement, a number of voices exclaimed, that "the domestic foes of the nation ought to be destroyed before its foreign enemies were attacked."

Parties of armed men proceeded without delay to the prisons where the non-juring clergy, the Swiss officers, and those confined since the 10th of August on account of practices against the state, were detained in custody. They took out the prisoners one by one, gave them a kind of mock trial before a jury of themselves, acquitted some few, and murdered the rest. Among these last was the princess de Lamballe. She was taken from her bed before this bloody tribunal, and massacred; her head was carried by the populace to the Temple, to be seen by the queen, whose friend she was.

These massacres lasted for two days, and upwards of 1000 persons were put to death. There is scarce anything in history that can be represented as parallel to them; they were committed, it is said, by less than 300 men, in the midst of an immense city, which heard of them with horror, and in the vicinity of the national assembly, which, by going in a body, could have put an end to them. But such was the confusion and dismay of these two disgraceful days, that no man dared to stir from his own house; and every one believed that the whole city, excepting his own street, was engaged in massacre and bloodshed. The national guards were all ready at their respective posts, but no man directed them to act; and there is too much reason to suspect that Santerre and the chiefs of the commune connived, at least, at the transaction.

In the mean time, general Dumourier was taking steps to protract the march of the enemy until the army of Kellerman, consisting of 20,000 men, could join him from Lorraine, and that of Bourbonville from Flanders, amounting to 13,000; together with whatever new levies Luckner might be able to send him from Chalons. The forest of Argonne extends from north to south upwards of 40 miles; it lay directly in the route of the duke of Brunswick, who must either force his way across it, or make a circuit of 40 miles by the pass of Grandpré on the north, or by Bar-le-Duc on the south. The pass that lay directly in his route was that of Biefme. After surveying Dillon's position here, he left a party of 20,000 men to watch it; and with the main body of his army took the circuitous rout by Grandpré on the north. Here Dumourier waited to receive him, and was attacked on the 12th and 13th without success; but on the 14th, the attack of the Prussians was irresistible, and Dumourier, retreating, gave up the pass. On his march he was followed by the advanced cavalry of the Prussians, that his army, at one time, was seized with a panic, and fled before 1500 men; who, if they had pushed their advantage, might have dispersed it. On the 15th, however, Dumourier encamped at St Menchoix, and began to fortify it. Bourbonville's army joined Dumourier on the 17th. The duke of Brunswick formed a plan of attacking Kellerman before his junction could be completed. That general arrived on the 19th within a mile of Dumourier's camp; the projected attack took place; the Prussians manoeuvred with their usual coolness and address; they attempted to surround Kellerman's army, but this could not be accomplished. The French troops preserved excellent order, while the national vivacity was constantly showing itself in their shouts and patriotic songs; 400 French were killed, and 500 wounded; the loss of the Prussians was much greater; and, in the face of the enemy, Kellerman joined Dumourier at the end of the engagement without opposition. At the time that the attack was made on the army of Kellerman, an attempt was made to force Dillon's camp at Biefme by the 20,000 men that had been left in its vicinity, but without success; and this large detachment was thus prevented from crossing the forest of Argonne and joining the duke of Brunswick. It is to be observed, that in these engagements the French owed their superiority chiefly to the excellence of their artillery; a circumstance which served to convince their enemies that they had had to contend with regular military bodies, and not with undisciplined multitudes, as they expected.

The duke of Brunswick encamped his army at La Lun, near the camp of Dumourier. And here the Prussians began to be in extreme distress both from sickness and famine. No temptation could induce the inhabitants of the country to carry provisions to the hostile camp, while at the same time the French army was abundantly supplied.

Bourbonville, with a body of 4000 men, intercepted several droves of cattle and other convoys of provisions destined for the Prussians. The rain fell in torrents, and the roads were uncommonly deep. Exposed to the cold, the moisture, and want of provisions, the Prussians rapidly ate great quantities of the grapes of Champagne. The consequence of this was, that an epidemical distemper commenced and spread through the army to such an extent, that 10,000 men at one time were unfit for duty. The duke of Brunswick, however, still commanded a force much more numerous than that of Dumourier; and he has been much censured for not attacking his camp, and forcing him to engage. It has been said, that the veteran and numerous force which he commanded would have marched to certain victory against the raw troops that opposed them; that, having defeated Dumourier's army, there was nothing to oppose their march to Paris. But the duke of Brunswick had entered France upon the supposition, that in its present distracted state no regular army could be brought into the field against him, and that the people at large were hostile to the ruling faction. The contrary of all this had turned out to be true. He found himself in the midst of an hostile people, and opposed by skilful military chiefs. A defeat in such a situation would have brought certain ruin to his army; and even the loss sustained in the acquisition of a victory might have proved equally fatal. The remains of the French army would not fail to hang upon his rear; and from the disposition of the people it appeared impossible to ascertain to what amount that army might be suddenly increased. After proposing a truce, therefore, which lasted eight days, he commenced his retreat towards Grandpré, and no advantage was gained over him in the course of it. Verdun was retaken by the French on the 12th of October, and Longwy on the 18th; the siege of Thionville was at the same time raised. That small, but strong fortress, under the command of general Felix Wimpffen, had held in check an army of 15,000 men.

While the Prussians were advancing from the north-east, the Austrians under the duke of Saxe Teschen by laid siege to Lille. The council-general of the commune answered the summons of the besiegers thus, "We have just renewed our oath to be faithful to the nation, and to maintain liberty and equality, or to die at our post. We will not perjure ourselves." Such was the cant of these men who had already perjured themselves by contributing to overturn the constitution which they had repeatedly sworn to defend. The Austrian batteries began to play upon the town on the 29th, and were chiefly directed against that quarter which was inhabited by the lower class of citizens, for the purpose of making them mutinous and seditions. This procedure was ill judged. The lower classes of mankind are always much accustomed to hardships, and they go farthest in support of any enthusiastic principle they have been persuaded to adopt. Accordingly, though a great part of the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, the citizens of Lille became daily more obstinate. They received each other into the houses that were still standing, and every vault and cellar was occupied. Although upwards of 30,000 red-hot balls and 6000 bombs were thrown into the city, besides the efforts made by an immense battering train of artillery, yet the loss both to the garrison and people did not exceed 500 persons, most of whom were women and children. After a fortnight of fruitless labour the Austrians raised the siege.

War had been declared against the king of Sardinia on account of the threatening appearances exhibited in that quarter. On the 20th of September general Montefiore entered the territories of Savoy, and was saluted, received at Chambery and throughout the whole country with marks of unbounded welcome. On the 29th general Anfelin, with another body of troops, took possession of Nice and the country around it. On the 30th general Catinat advanced to Spire, when he found the Austrians drawn up in order of battle. He attacked and drove them through the city, taking 3000 of them prisoners. The capture of Worms succeeded that of Spire; Mentz surrendered by capitulation; and Frankfort fell into the hands of the French on the 23rd. Out of this last place, however, they were afterwards driven on the 2d of December.

On the 20th of September the French National Convention assembled. It was found to contain men of all national characters, orders, and ranks. Many distinguished members of the Constituting Assembly were elected into it, and also several that had belonged to the Legislative Assembly; even foreigners were invited to become French legislators. The famous Thomas Paine and Dr Priestley of England were elected by certain departments; but the latter declined accepting. Clouts a Prussian, whom we formerly noticed as bringing a deputation to the bar of the constituent assembly, conferring of persons representing all the nations of the earth, was also chosen. The general aspect of the new convention showed that the republican party had acquired a decided superiority. On the first day of meeting M. Collot and D'Herbois, who had formerly been an actor, ascended the tribune, and proposed the eternal abolition of royalty in France. The question was carried by acclamation, and the house adjourned. Messages were sent to France all parts of the country to intimate the decree, and by the influence of the Jacobins they were everywhere received with applause. It was next day decreed, that all public acts should be dated by the year of the French republic; and all citizens were declared eligible to all the vacant offices and places. The rage of republicanism soon went so far, that the ordinary titles of Monsieur and Madame were abolished, and the appellation of Citizen substituted in their stead, as more suitable to the principles of liberty and equality.—It may be remarked, that in this last trifling circumstance an attachment to the form of speech to which they had been accustomed appears even in its abolition: For, although the Roman orators addressed their countrymen when assembled by the honourable appellation of Citizen, yet they never, in accosting an individual, called him Citizen Cato, or Citizen Caesar, according to the mode now adopted in France. It was soon discovered that the leading republicans had divided into two opposite factions. The one of these was called Girondists, because Vergniaud, Genet, Danton, and some others of its leaders, were members from the department of La Gironde. The celebrated Condorcet belonged to this party; and they were sometimes denominated Brissotins, from M. Brissot de Warville their principal leader. They supported the ministry now in office, at the head of which was Roland; and the majority of the convention was obviously attached to them. In opposition to these was the smaller party of the Mountain; so called from its members usually sitting in the convention on the upper seats of the hall. They were men possessed of less personal respectability, and fewer literary accomplishments, but of daring and fanatical characters, whom the revolution had brought into public notice. At the head of this party were Danton and Robespierre; and subordinate to these were Couthon, Buzire, Thuriot, Merlin de Thionville, St André, Camilli, Demoulin, Chabot, Collot D'Hérbois, Sergent, Legendre, Fabre D'Eglantine, Panis, and Marat.

These two parties showed the diversity of their characters in the manner in which they treated the massacres of the 2d and 3d of September. The Brissotins, with the majority of the convention, wished to bring the murderers to trial; but the question was always eluded by the other party, with the assistance of the Jacobin club and of the populace.

On the 9th of October it was decreed, that all emigrants, when taken, should suffer death; and on the 15th of November, in consequence of an insurrection in the duchy of Deux Ponts, and an application on the part of the insurgents to the convention for aid, the following decree was passed: "The national convention declare, in the name of the French nation, that they will grant fraternity and assistance to all those people who wish to procure liberty; and they charge the executive power to send orders to the generals to give assistance to such people as have suffered, or are now suffering, in the cause of liberty." Of this decree foreign nations, with great reason, complained much, as will shortly appear.

To return to the military affairs of the new republic. On the 12th of October General Dumourier came to Paris, and was speedily sent to commence a winter campaign in the Netherlands. He suddenly attacked the Austrians at the village of Bossu, and drove them from their ground. On the 5th of November he came in sight of the enemy upon the heights of Jemappes. Three rows of fortifications arose above each other defended by 100 pieces of cannon. Their right was covered by the village and a river, and their left by thick woods. The French were by their own account 30,000, whilst others with great probability of truth compute them at double that number, and the number of the Austrians was at least 20,000. At seven in the morning of the following day a heavy cannonade commenced on both sides, and at noon a close attack was determined on by the French, whose right wing was commanded by Generals Bournonville and Dampierre, and the centre by Generals Egalité (son to the duke of Orleans who had assumed that name), Stetenboff, Defoerts, and Drouet. The music played the popular march of the Marseillais, and the soldiers rushed on with enthusiasm, shouting "Vive la nation." The engagement was warm and bloody; the French were twice repulsed; but their impetuosity was at last irresistible, and about two o'clock the enemy fled from their last entrenchments. The loss on both sides was very great, that of the Austrians amounting to 4000. This victory was decisive of the fate of the Netherlands. Mons and Brussels surrendered to Dumourier; Tournay, Malines, Ghent, and Antwerp, were taken possession of by General Labourdonnaie; Louvain and Namur were taken by General Valence; and the whole Austrian Netherlands, Luxembourg only excepted, fell into the hands of the French. Liege was taken on the 28th of November after a successful engagement, in which the Austrians lost 5 or 600 men and an immense train of artillery.

France was now in a situation not unusual in the history of those nations that either are free, or are attempting to become so; successful in all quarters abroad, but distracted by factions at home. The two parties in the convention were engaged in a struggle, which daily became more implacable. The party called the Mountain did not hesitate about the nature of the means they were to employ to bring about the ruin of their antagonists. They are even suspected of having, through the medium of Pache the war-minister, retarded the supply of the armies, to render the ruling party odious by want of success. They were for some time, however, unfortunate in this respect; and the daily news of victories supported with the public the credit of the Girondists. A new subject was therefore fallen upon, which was the question, how the deposed king was to be disposed of? The moderate party wished to save him; and this was a sufficient reason for their antagonists to resolve upon his ruin. A committee was appointed to give in a report upon his conduct. A variety of accusations were brought against him; and the convention infamously resolved to act the part of accusers and of judges.

It was on the 11th of December when the ill-fated king monarch was ordered to the bar of the convention: the act of accusation was read, and the king was summoned by the president, Barrere, to answer to each separate charge.

Pref. "Louis, the French nation accuses you of having committed a multitude of crimes to establish your tyranny, in destroying her freedom. You, on the 20th of June 1789, attempted the sovereignty of the people, by suspending the assemblies of their representatives, and expelling them with violence from the places of their sittings. This is proved in the process verbal entered at the Tennis-court of Versailles by the members of the constituent assembly. On the 23d of June you wanted to dictate laws to the nation; you surrounded their representatives with troops; you presented to them two royal declarations, subversive of all liberty, and ordered them to separate. Your own declarations, and the minutes of the assembly, prove these attempts. What have you to answer?"

Louis. "No laws were then existing to prevent me from it."

Pref. "You ordered an army to march against the citizens of Paris. Your satellites have shed the blood of several of them, and you would not remove this army till the taking of the Batte and a general insurrection announced to you that the people were victorious. The speeches..." speeches you made on the 9th, 12th, and 14th of July to the deputations of the constituent assembly, shew what were your intentions; and the massacres of the Tuileries rise in evidence against you.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I was master at that time to order the troops to march; but I never had an intention of shedding blood."

Pref. "After these events, and in spite of the promises which you made on the 15th in the constituent assembly, and on the 17th in the town-house of Paris, you have perjured in your projects against national liberty. You long delayed the execution of the decrees of the 11th of August, reflecting the abolition of personal servitude, the feudal government, and tythes: you long refused acknowledging the rights of man: you doubled the number of the life-guards, and called the regiment of Flanders to Versailles: you permitted, in orgies held before your eyes, the national cockade to be trampled under foot, the white cockade to be hoisted, and the nation to be flattered. At last, you rendered necessary a fresh insurrection, occasioned the death of several citizens, and did not change your language till after your guards had been defeated, when you renewed your perfidious promises. The proofs of these facts are in your observations of the 18th of September, in the decrees of the 11th of August, in the minutes of the constituent assembly, in the events of Versailles of the 5th and 6th of October, and in the conversation you had on the same day with a deputation of the constituent assembly, when you told them you would enlighten yourself with their councils, and never recede from them.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I have made the observations which I thought just on the two first heads. As to the cockade, it is false; it did not happen in my presence."

Pref. "You took an oath at the federation of the 14th of July, which you did not keep. You soon tried to corrupt the public opinion, with the assistance of Talon who acted in Paris, and Mirabeau who was to have excited counter-revolutionary movements in the provinces.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I do not know what happened at that time; but the whole is anterior to my acceptance of the constitution."

Pref. "You lavished millions of money to effect this corruption, and you would even use popularity as a means of enslaving the people. These facts are the result of a memorial of Talon, on which you have made your marginal comments in your own handwriting, and of a letter which Laporte wrote to you on the 19th of April; in which, recapitulating a conversation he had with Rivarol, he told you, that the millions which you had been prevailed upon to throw away had been productive of nothing. For a long time you had meditated on a plan of escape. A memorial was delivered to you on the 28th of February, which pointed out the means for you to effect it; you approve of it by marginal notes.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I felt no greater pleasure than that of relieving the needy: this proves no design."

Pref. "On the 28th a great number of the nobles and military came into your apartments in the castle of the Tuileries to favour that escape: you wanted to quit Paris on the 10th of April to go to St. Cloud.—French Revolution, 1792.

What have you to answer?"

Louis. "This accusation is absurd."

Pref. "But the infatuation of the citizens made you sensible that their distrust was great; you endeavoured to disperse it by communicating to the constituent assembly a letter, which you addressed to the agents of the nation near foreign powers, to announce to them that you had freely accepted the constitutional articles, which had been presented to you; and, notwithstanding, on the 21st you took flight with a false passport. You left behind a protest against these selfsame constitutional articles; you ordered the ministers to sign none of the acts issued by the National Assembly; and you forbade the minister of justice to deliver up the seals of state. The public money was lavished to insure the success of this treachery, and the public force was to protect it, under the orders of Bonillé, who shortly before had been charged with the massacre of Nancy, and to whom you wrote on this head, 'to take care of his popularity, because it would be of service to you.' These facts are proved by the memorial of the 23rd of February, with marginal comments in your own handwriting; by your declaration of the 20th of June, wholly in your own handwriting; by your letter of the 4th of September 1790 to Bouillé; and by a note of the latter, in which he gives you an account of the use he made of 993,000 livres, given by you, and employed partly in trepanning the troops who were to escort you.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I have no knowledge whatever of the memorial of the 23rd of February. As to what relates to my journey to Varennes, I appeal to my declaration to the commissaries of the constituent assembly at that period."

Pref. "After your detention at Varennes, the exercise of the executive power was for a moment suspended in your hands, and you again formed a conspiracy. On the 17th of July the blood of citizens was shed in the Champ de Mars. A letter, in your own handwriting, written in 1790 to La Fayette, proves that a criminal coalition subsisted between you and La Fayette, to which Mirabeau acceded. The revision began under these cruel auspices; all kinds of corruptions were made use of. You have paid for libels, pamphlets, and newspapers, designed to corrupt the public opinion, to discredit the emigrants, and to support the cause of the emigrants. The registers of Septeuil show what immense sums have been made use of in these liberticide manoeuvres.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "What happened on the 17th of July has nothing at all to do with me. I know nothing of it."

Pref. "You seemed to accept the constitution on the 14th of September; your speeches announced an intention of supporting it, and you were busy in overturning it, even before it was completed. A convention was entered into at Pillnitz on the 24th of July, between Leopold of Austria and Frederic-William of Brandenburg, who pledged themselves to re-erect in France the throne of absolute monarchy, and you were silent upon this convention till the moment when it was known by all Europe.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I made it known as soon as it came to my knowledge; besides, every thing that refers to this subject concerns the minister." Pref. "Arles had hoisted the standard of rebellion; you favoured it by sending three civil commissaries, who made it their business not to report the counter-revolutionists, but to justify their proceedings.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "The instructions which were given to the commissaries must prove what was their mission; and I knew none of them when the ministers proposed them to me."

Pref. "Avignon, and the county of Venaissin, had been united with France; you caused the decree to be executed; but a month after that time civil war defoliated that country. The commissaries you sent thither helped to ravage it.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I do not remember what delay has been caused in the execution of the decree; besides, this occurrence has no personal reference to me; it only concerns those that have been sent, not those who sent them."

Pref. "Nimes, Montauban, Mende, Jales, felt great shocks during the first days of freedom. You did nothing to stifle those germs of counter-revolution till the moment when Saillant's conspiracy became manifestly notorious.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I gave, in this respect, all the orders which were proposed to me by the ministers."

Pref. "You sent 22 battalions against the Maréchal, who marched to reduce the counter-revolutionists of Arles.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I ought to have the pieces referring to this matter, to give a just answer."

Pref. "You gave the southern command to Wintzenstein, who wrote to you on the 21st of April 1792, after he had been recalled: 'A few instants more, and I shall call around the throne of your Majesty thousands of French, who are again become worthy of the wishes you form for their happiness.'—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "This letter is dated since his recall; he has not been employed since. I do not recollect this letter."

Pref. "You paid your late life-guards at Coblenz; the registers of Septeuil attest this; and general orders signed by you prove that you sent considerable remittances to Bouillé, Rochefort, Vauguyon, Choiseul, Beaupré, Hamilton, and the wife of Polignac.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "When I first learned that my life-guards assembled beyond the Rhine, I stopped their pay: as to the rest, I do not remember."

Pref. "Your brothers, enemies to the state, caused the emigrants to rally under their banners: they raised regiments, took up loans, and concluded alliances in your name; you did not disclaim them; but at the moment when you were fully certain that you could no longer cross their projects, your intelligence with them by a note, written by Louis Stanislas Xavier, signed by your two brothers, was conceived in these words:

'I wrote to you, but it was by post, and I could say nothing. We are two here, who make but one; one, in sentiments, one in principles, one in zeal of serving you. We keep silence; because we were to break it too soon, it would injure you; but we shall speak as soon as we shall be certain of general support, and that moment is near. If we are spoken to on the part of those people, we shall hear nothing; but if on your part, we will listen: we shall pursue our road straight. It is therefore desired that you will enable us to say something. Do not stand on ceremonies. Be easy about your safety: we only exist to serve you; we are eagerly occupied with this point, and all goes well; even our enemies feel themselves too much interested in your preservation to commit an useless crime which would terminate in their own destruction. Adieu.

L. S. Xavier and Charles Philippe.'

What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I disowned all the proceedings of my brothers, according as the constitution prescribed me to do, and from the moment they came to my knowledge. Of this note I know nothing."

Pref. "The soldiers of the line, who were to be put on the war establishment, consisted but of 100,000 men at the end of December, you therefore neglected to provide for the safety of the state from abroad. Narbonne required a levy of 50,000 men, but he stopped the recruiting at 20,000, in giving assurances that all was ready; yet there was no truth in these assurances. Servan proposed after him to form a camp of 20,000 men near Paris; it was decreed by the legislative assembly; you refused your sanction.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I had given to the ministers all the orders for expediting the augmentation of the army: in the month of December last, the returns were laid before the Assembly. If they deceived themselves, it is not my fault."

Pref. "A flight of patriotism made the citizens repair to Paris from all quarters. You issued a proclamation, tending to stop their march; at the same time our camps were without soldiers. Dumourier, the successor of Servan, declared that the nation had neither arms, ammunition, nor provisions, and that the posts were left defenceless. You waited to be urged by a request made to the minister Lajard, when the legislative assembly wished to point out the means of providing for the external safety of the state, by proposing the levy of 42 battalions. You gave commission to the commanders of the troops to disband the army, to force whole regiments to desert, and to make them pass the Rhine, to put them at the disposal of your brothers, and of Leopold of Austria, with whom you had intelligence. This fact is proved by the letter of Toulougeon, governor of Franche Comté.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I know nothing of this circumstance; there is not a word of truth in this charge."

Pref. "You charged your diplomatic agents to favour this coalition of foreign powers and your brothers against France, and especially to cement the peace between Turkey and Austria, and to procure thereby a larger number of troops against France from the latter. A letter of Choiseul-Gouffier, ambassador at Constantinople, verifies the fact.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "M. Choiseul did not speak the truth: no such thing has ever been."

Pref. "The Prussians advanced against our frontiers: your minister was summoned on the 8th of July to give an account of the state of our political relations..." with Prussia; you answered, on the 10th, that 50,000 Prussians were marching against us, and that you gave notice to the legislative body of the formal acts of the pending hostilities, in conformity to the constitution.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "It was only at that period I had knowledge of it: all the correspondence passed with the ministers."

Pref. "You entrusted Dabancourt, the nephew of Calonne, with the department of war; and such has been the success of your conspiracy, that the posts of Longwy and Verdun were surrendered to the enemy at the moment of their appearance.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I did not know that Dabancourt was M. Calonne's nephew. I have not divested the posts. I would not have permitted myself such a thing. I know nothing of it, if it has been so."

Pref. "You have destroyed our navy—a vast number of officers belonging to that corps had emigrated; there scarcely remained any to do duty in the harbours; meanwhile Bertrand was granting passports every day; and when the legislative body represented to you his criminal conduct on the 8th of March, you answered, that you were satisfied with his services.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I have done all I could to retain the officers. As to M. Bertrand, since the legislative assembly presented no complaint against him that might have put him in a state of accusation, I did not think proper to turn him out of office."

Pref. "You have favoured the maintenance of absolute government in the colonies; your agents fomented troubles and counter-revolutions throughout them, which took place at the same epoch when it was to have been brought about in France, which indicates plainly that your hand laid this plot.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "If there are any of my agents in the colonies, they have not spoken the truth; I had nothing to do with what you have just mentioned."

Pref. "The interior of the state was convulsed by fanatics; you avowed yourself their protector, in manifesting your evident intention of recovering by them your ancient power.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I cannot answer to this; I know nothing of such a project."

Pref. "The legislative body had passed a decree on the 29th of January against the factious priests; you suspended its execution.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "The constitution referred to me the free right to refuse my sanction of the decrees."

Pref. "The troubles had increased; the minister declared, that he knew no means in the laws extant to arraign the guilty. The legislative body enacted a fresh decree, which you likewise suspended.—What have you to say to this?"

[Louis replied in the same manner as in the preceding charge.]

Pref. "The uncitizen-like conduct of the guards whom the constitution had granted you, had rendered it necessary to disband them. The day after, you sent them a letter expressive of your satisfaction, and continued their pay. This fact is proved by the treasurer of the civil list.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I only continued them in pay till fresh ones could be raised, according to the tenor of the decree."

Pref. "You kept near your person the Swiss guards: the constitution forbade you this, and the legislative assembly had expressly ordained their departure.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I have executed all the decrees that have been enacted in this respect."

Pref. "You had private companies at Paris, charged to operate movements useful to your projects of a counter-revolution. Dangremont and Gilles were two of your agents, who had salaries from the civil list. The receipts of Gilles, who was ordered to raise a company of 60 men, shall be presented to you.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I have no knowledge whatever of the projects laid to their charge: the idea of a counter-revolution never entered into my mind."

Pref. "You wished to suborn, with considerable funds, several members of the legislative and constituent assemblies. Letters from St Leon and others evince the reality of these deeds.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "Several persons presented themselves with similar decrees, but I have waved them."

Pref. "Who are they that presented you with those projects?"

Louis. "The plans were so vague that I do not recollect them now."

Pref. "Who are those to whom you gave money?"

Louis. "I gave money to nobody."

Pref. "You suffered the French name to be reviled in Germany, Italy, and Spain, since you omitted to demand satisfaction for the bad treatment which the French suffered in those countries.—What have you to answer?"

Louis. "The diplomatical correspondence will prove the contrary; besides, this was a concern of the ministers."

Pref. "You reviewed the Swiss on the 10th of August at five o'clock in the morning; and the Swiss were the first who fired upon the citizens."

Louis. "I went on that day to review all the troops that were assembled about me; the constituted authorities were with me, the department, the mayor, and municipality; I had even invited thither a deputation of the national assembly, and I afterwards repaired into the midst of them with my family."

Pref. "Why did you draw troops to the castle?"

Louis. "All the constituted authorities saw that the castle was threatened; and as I was a constituted authority, I had a right to defend myself."

Pref. "Why did you summon the mayor of Paris in the night between the 9th and 10th of August to the castle?"

Louis. "On account of the reports that were circulated."

Pref. "You have caused the blood of the French to be shed."

Louis. "No, Sir, not I."

Pref. "You authorized Septeuil to carry on a con- French considerable trade in corn, sugar, and coffee, at Hamburg. This fact is proved by a letter of Septeul."

Louis. "I know nothing of what you say."

Prof. "Why did you affix a velo on the decree which ordained the formation of a camp of 20,000 men?"

Louis. "The constitution left to me the free right of refusing my sanction of the decrees; and even from that period I had demanded the assembling of a camp at Soissons."

President, addressing the convention. "The questions are done with."—(To Louis)—"Louis, is there any thing that you wish to add?"

Louis. "I request a communication of the charges which I have heard, and of the pieces relating thereto, and the liberty of choosing counsel for my defence."

Valazé, who sat near the bar, presented and read to Louis Capet the pieces, viz. The memoir of Laporte and Mirabeau, and some others, containing plans of a counter-revolution.

Louis. "I disown them."

Valazé next presented several other papers, on which the act of accusation was founded, and asked the king if he recognized them. These papers were the following:

Valazé. "Letter of Louis Capet, dated June 29th 1790, settling his connections with Mirabeau and Lafayette to effect a revolution in the constitution."

Louis. "I refer to myself to answer the contents?"—(Valazé read the letter.)—"It is only a plan, in which there is no question about a counter-revolution; the letter was not to have been sent."

Valazé. "Letter of Louis Capet, of the 22d of April, relative to conversations about the Jacobins, about the president of the committee of finances, and the committee of domains; it is dated by the hand of Louis Capet."

Louis. "I disown it."

Valazé. "Letter of Laporte, of Thursday morning, March 3d, marked in the margin in the handwriting of Louis Capet with March 3d 1791, implying a pretended rupture between Mirabeau and the Jacobins."

Louis. "I disown it."

Valazé. "Letter of Laporte without date, in his handwriting, but marked in the margin by the hand of Louis Capet, containing particulars respecting the last moments of Mirabeau, and expressing the care that had been taken to conceal from the knowledge of men some papers of great concern which had been deposited with Mirabeau."

Louis. "I disown it as well as the rest."

Valazé. "Plan of a constitution, or revision of the constitution, signed La Fayette, addressed to Louis Capet, April 6th 1790, marked in the margin with a line in his own handwriting."

Louis. "These things have been blotted out by the constitution."

Valazé. "Do you know this writing?"

Louis. "I do not."

Valazé. "Your marginal comments?"

Louis. "I do not."

Valazé. "Letter of Laporte of the 19th of April, marked in the margin by Louis Capet April 19. 1791, mentioning a conversation with Rivarol."

Louis. "I disown it."

Valazé. "Letter of Laporte, marked April 16, 1791, in which it seems complaints are made of Mirabeau, the abbe Perigord, André, and Beaumetz, who do not seem to acknowledge sacrifices made for their sake."

Louis. "I disown it likewise."

Valazé. "Letter of Laporte of the 23d of February 1791, marked and dated in the handwriting of Louis Capet; a memorial annexed to it, respecting the means of his gaining popularity."

Louis. "I know neither of these pieces."

Valazé. "Several pieces without signature, found in the castle of the Tuileries, in the gap which was shut in the walls of the palace, relating to the expenses to gain that popularity."

President. "Previous to an examination on this subject, I wish to ask a preliminary question: Have you caused a press with an iron door to be constructed in the castle of the Tuileries, and had you your papers locked up in that press?"

Louis. "I have no knowledge of it whatever."

Valazé. "Here is a day-book written by Louis Capet himself, containing the pensions he has granted out of his coffers from 1776 till 1792, in which are observed some douceurs granted to Acloque."

Louis. "This I own, but it consists of charitable donations which I have made."

Valazé. "Different lists of sums paid to the Scotch companies of Noailles, Gramont, Montmorency, and Luxembourg, on the 9th of July 1791."

Louis. "This is prior to the epoch when I forbade them to be paid."

Prof. "Louis, where had you deposited those pieces which you own?"

Louis. "With my treasurer."

Valazé. "Do you know these pension-lists of the life-guards, the one hundred Swiss, and the king's guards for 1792?"

Louis. "I do not."

Valazé. "Several pieces relative to the conspiracy of the camp of Jales, the originals of which are deposited among the records of the department of L'Ardèche."

Louis. "I have not the smallest knowledge of them."

Valazé. "Letter of Bouillé, dated Mentz, bearing an account of 993,000 livres received of Louis Capet."

Louis. "I disown it."

Valazé. "An order for payment of 168,000 livres, signed Louis, indorsed Le Bonneirs, with a letter and bill of the same."

Louis. "I disown it."

Valazé. "Two pieces relative to a present made to the wife of Polignac, and to Lavagnyson and Choisel."

Louis. "I disown them as well as the others."

Valazé. "Here is a note signed by the two brothers of the late king, mentioned in the declaratory act."

Louis. "I know nothing of it."

Valazé. "Here are pieces relating to the affair of Choiseul-Gouffier at Constantinople."

Louis. "I have no knowledge of them." Valaee. "Here is a letter of the late king to the bishop of Clermont, with the answer of the latter, of the 16th of April 1791."

Louis. "I disown it."

Prefident. "Do you not acknowledge your writing and your signet?"

Louis. "I do not."

Prefident. "The seal bears the arms of France."

Louis. "Several persons made use of that seal."

Valaee. "Do you acknowledge this list of sums paid to Gilles?"

Louis. "I do not."

Valaee. "Here is a memorandum for indemnifying the civil list for the military pensions; a letter of Dufresne St Leon, which relates to it."

Louis. "I know none of these pieces."

When the whole had been investigated in this manner, the president, addressing the king, said, "I have no other questions to propose—have you anything more to add in your defense?"—"I desire to have a copy of the accusation (replied the king), and of the papers on which it is founded. I also desire to have a counsel of my own nomination." Barrere informed him, that his two first requests were already decreed, and that the determination respecting the other would be made known to him in due time.

It would have been an excess of cruelty to refuse a request so reasonable in itself; it was therefore decreed that counsel should be allowed to the king, and his choice fell upon M. M. Tronchet, Lamoignon Malherbes, and Defezé; he had previously applied to M. Target, who excused himself on account of his age and infirmity. On the 26th of December, the king appeared for the last time at the bar of the convention; and M. Defezé read a defense which the counsel had prepared, and which was equally admired for the fidelity of the argument and the beauty of the composition.

When the defense was finished, the king arose, and holding a paper in his hand, pronounced in a calm manner, and with a firm voice, what follows: "Citizens, you have heard my defense; I now speak to you, perhaps for the last time, and declare that my counsel have affected nothing to you but the truth; my conscience reproaches me with nothing; I never was afraid of having my conduct investigated; but I observed with great uneasiness, that I was accused of giving orders for shedding the blood of the people on the 10th of August. The proofs I have given through my whole life of a contrary disposition, I hoped would have saved me from such an imputation, which I now solemnly declare is entirely groundless."

The discussion was fatally closed on the 16th of January. After a sitting of near 34 hours, the punishment of death was awarded by a small majority of the convention, and several of these differed in opinion from the rest, respecting the time when it should be inflicted; some contending that it should not be put in execution till after the end of the war, while others proposed to take the sentence of the people, by referring the sentence to the primary assemblies.

M. Defezé then solemnly invoked the assembly in the name of his colleagues, to consider by what a small majority the punishment of death was pronounced against the dethroned monarch. "Do not afflict France (added this eloquent advocate) by a judgment that will appear terrible to her, when five voices only were presumed sufficient to carry it." He appealed to eternal French justice, and sacred humanity, to induce the convention Revolution, to refer their sentence to the tribunal of the people.

"You have either forgotten or destroyed (said the celebrated M. Tronchet) the lenity which the law allows to criminals, of requiring at least two-thirds of the voices to constitute a definitive judgment."

The sentence was ordered to be executed in twenty-four hours.

The king and his family had been for some time kept separate from each other; but he was now allowed to see them, and to choose an ecclesiastic to attend him. The meeting, and, above all, the separation from his family, was tender in the extreme. On Monday the 21st January, at eight o'clock in the morning, the unfortunate monarch was summoned to his fate. He ascended the scaffold with a firm air and step. Raising his voice, he said, "Frenchmen, I die innocent; I pardon all my enemies; and may France?"—at this instant the inhuman Santerre ordered the drums to beat, and the executioners to perform their office. When they offered to bind his hands, he started back as if about to resist; but recollected himself in a moment, and submitted. When the instrument of death descended, the priest exclaimed, "Son of St Louis, ascend to heaven." The bleeding head was held up, and a few of the populace shouted Vive la Republique. His body was interred in a grave that was filled up with quicklime, and a guard placed around till it should be consumed.

Thus fell Louis XVI. He possessed from nature a good understanding, which, however, was blunted by the early indulgences of a court. He had a strong sense of justice, and his humanity was perhaps extreme. One defect rendered his virtues of little value, which was the possession of an irrefutable and unsteady character. Unambitious, and easily advised, he was without difficulty induced to change his purposes, especially by his queen, whose connection with the house of Austria had always tended to render his councils unpopular. Whether he was or was not connected with the foreign invaders of his country, posterity must decide; but all men of sense and moderation must be convinced that he was murdered by a band of ruffians. Indeed a sentence so infamous, and in all respects unjust, is not to be found in the records of history. The greater part of the charges brought against him were trifling. Those which seem to be of importance relate to conduct authorized by the constitution under which he acted; and that constitution declared his person inviolable. The severest punishment that he could incur by law, was not death, but deposition; and there is no doubt, that in putting him to death the French nation broke the social compact which their representatives made with him. In a political view, this tragic event was injurious to the republican cause throughout Europe. No man out of France ventured to justify it; and in all countries it excited the most violent indignation against the rulers of the new republic.

New enemies were now hastening to join the general league against France. We do not mean here to enter into a detail of the political struggles that occurred in any other country, than that in the narrative of whose revolution we are now engaged. It will therefore only be necessary to remark in general, that the British government at this time thought itself endangered by the propagation of those speculative opinions which had overturned the French monarchy. Almost all the men of property in the kingdom concurred with the ministry in thinking a war with France necessary for the purpose of securing the constitution at home. After the 10th of August the British minister had been recalled; but the new republic still suffered the former ambassador from France, M. Chauvelin, to remain in England.

The offensive grounds of quarrel on the part of Great Britain were chiefly two; the decree of the 15th of November 1792, by which it was truly observed that encouragement to rebellion was held out to the subjects of every state, and that war was thereby waged against every established government. Of this decree the French executive council gave explanations, denying the fairness of the interpretation put upon it, and alleging, that the intention of the convention was only to give aid to such countries as had already acquired their freedom, and by a declaration of the general will requested aid for its preservation. But this explanation cannot be admitted. The decree expressly says, that the French nation will grant assistance to all who wish to procure liberty; and when it is considered what their notions of liberty are, it cannot be doubted but that their intention was to excite rebellion in foreign nations. The second point of dispute referred to the opening of the Scheldt. This river runs from Brabant through the Dutch territory to the sea. The Dutch had shut up the mouth of it, and prevented any maritime commerce from being carried on by the people of Brabant by means of the river. To render themselves popular in Brabant, the French had declared, that they would open the navigation of the Scheldt. But Great Britain had some time before bound herself by treaty with the Dutch to assist them in obstructing this navigation, and now declared to the French, that the project of opening the Scheldt must be renounced if peace with Great Britain was to remain. The French alleged, that by the law of nations navigable rivers ought to be open to all who reside on their banks; but that the point was of no importance either to France or England, and even of very little importance to Holland; that if the people of Brabant themselves chose to give it up, they would make no objection. It has been thought remarkable, that the Dutch gave themselves no trouble about the matter. They did not ask the assistance of England; and with that coolness which is peculiar to their character, the merchants individually declared, that if the Scheldt was opened, they could manage their commerce as well at Antwerp as at Amsterdam. But in all this there is nothing strange. Among the Dutch were many republicans, who wished for the downfall of the stadtholder. They rejoiced at every thing which distressed him, or had a tendency to render his office useless in the eyes of the people. Others, who thought differently, were afraid to speak their sentiments, as Dumourier was in their neighbourhood with a victorious army. The result of the whole was, that M. Chauvelin was commanded by the British government to leave this country. The French executive council gave powers to another minister, M. Marét, to negotiate, and requested a passport War declared against the king of England and stadtholder of Holland, of the 10th of August 1792 from giving to the French nation proofs of his attachment to the concert of crowned heads; that he had drawn into the same lake the stadtholder of the United Provinces; that, contrary to the treaty of 1783, the English ministry had granted protection to the emigrants and others who have openly appeared in arms against France; that they have committed an outrage against the French republic, by ordering the ambassador of France to quit Great Britain; that the English have stopped divers boats and vessels laden with corn for France, whilst, at the same time, contrary to the treaty of 1786, they continue the exportation of it to other foreign countries; that to thwart more efficaciously the commercial transactions of the republic with England, they have by an act of parliament prohibited the circulation of assignats. The convention therefore declares, that in consequence of these acts of hostility and aggression, the French republic is at war with the king of England and the stadtholder of the United Provinces."

The absurdity of pretending that any treaty with France made in 1783 could be violated by protecting the emigrants who fled from the fury of the convention, must be obvious to every reader. The convention was itself a rebellious usurpation of the government with which such a treaty was made. The prohibition of assignats was certainly contrary to no law, and was sanctioned by every motive of expediency, unless the convention could prove that all nations were bound by the law of nature to risk their own credit upon the credit of the French republic.

About a fortnight after this absurd declaration against Britain, war was likewise declared against Spain; and Spain in the course of the summer France was at war with all Europe, excepting only Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey.

In the mean time General Dumourier, who was proceeding agreeably to his orders, made an attack upon Holland; but in doing this he dispersed his troops in such a manner as to expose them much to any attack on the side of Germany. He commanded General Miranda to invest Maastricht, while he advanced to block up Breda and Bergen-op-zoom. The first of these places, viz., Breda, surrendered on the 24th of February; Klundert was taken on the 26th; and Geertruydenberg on the 4th of March. But here the triumphs of Dumourier ended. The sieges of Williamstadt and Bergen-op-zoom were vigorously but unsuccessfully pressed. On the 1st of March General Clairfait having passed the Roer, attacked the French posts, and compelled them to retreat with the loss of 2000 men.

The following day the archduke attacked them anew with considerable success. On the 3d the French were driven from Aix-la-Chapelle, with the loss of 4000 men killed and 1600 taken prisoners.

The siege of Maastricht was now raised, and the French retreated to Tongres, where they were also attacked and forced to retreat to St Tron. Dumourier here joined them, but did not bring his army along with him from the attack upon Holland. After some skirmishes a general engagement took place at Neerwinden. It was fought on the part of the French with great obstinacy; but they were at length overpowered by the number of their enemies, and perhaps also by the treachery of their commander. This defeat was fatal. The French lost 3000 men, and 600 immediately immediately deserted and went home to France. Dumourier continued to retreat, and on the 22d he was again attacked near Louvain. He now, through the medium of Colonel Mack, came to an agreement with the Imperialists that his retreat should not be seriously interrupted. It was now fully agreed between him and the Imperialists, that while the latter took possession of Condé and Valenciennes, he should march to Paris, dissolve the convention, and place the son of the late king upon the throne.

The rapid retreat and successive defeats of General Dumourier rendered his conduct suspicious. Commissioners were sent from the executive power for the purpose of discovering his designs. They dissembled, and pretended to communicate to him a scheme of a counter-revolution. He confessed his intention of dissolving the convention and the Jacobin club by force, which he said would not exist three weeks longer, and of restoring monarchy. On the report of these commissioners the convention sent Bourdonville the minister of war to supersede and arrest Dumourier, along with Camus, Blanclal, La Marque, and Quinette, as commissioners. The attempt on the part of these men was at least hazardous, to say no more of it; and the result was, that on the first of April Dumourier sent them prisoners to General Clairfait's head quarters at Tournay as hostages for the safety of the royal family. He next attempted to seduce his army from their fidelity to the convention; but he speedily found that he had much mistaken the character of his troops. Upon the report that their general was to be carried as a criminal to Paris, they were seized with sudden indignation; but when they found that an attempt was making to prevail with them to turn their arms against their country, their sentiments altered. On the 5th of April two proclamations were issued; one by General Dumourier, and the other by the prince of Saxe Cobourg, declaring that their only purpose was to restore the constitution of 1789, 1792, and 1791. Prince Cobourg announced that the allied powers wished merely to cooperate with General Dumourier in giving to France her constitutional king and the constitution she had formed for herself, declaring, on his word of honour, that he came not to the French territory for the purpose of making conquests. On the same day Dumourier went to the advanced guard of his own camp at Maulde. He there learned that the corps of artillery had risen upon their general, and were marching to Valenciennes; and he soon found that the whole army had determined to stand by their country. Seven hundred cavalry and 800 infantry was the whole amount of those that deserted with Dumourier to the Austrians, and many of them afterwards returned.

By the defection of Dumourier, however, the whole army of the north was dissolved, and in part disbanded, in presence of a numerous, well-disciplined, and victorious enemy. The Prussians were at the same time advancing on the Rhine with an immense force, and about to commence the siege of Mentz. In the interior of the republic more serious evils if possible were arising. In the departments of La Vendée and La Loire, in the Provinces of Brittany and Poitou, immense multitudes of emigrants and other royalists had gradually assembled in the course of the winter. They professed to act in the name of Monfleur, as regent of France.

About the middle of March they advanced against Nantz to the amount of 40,000. In the beginning of April they defeated the republicans in two pitched battles, and possessed themselves of 50 leagues of country. They even threatened by their own efforts to shake the new republic to its foundation. On the 8th Congress of April a congress of the combined powers assembled at Antwerp. It was attended by the prince of Orange and his two sons, with his excellency Vander Spiegel, on the part of Holland; by the duke of York and Lord Auckland on the part of Great Britain; by the prince of Saxe Cobourg, Counts Metternich, Starzenberg, and Mercy Dargenteau, with the Prussian, Spanish, and Neapolitan envoys. It was here determined to commence active operations against France. The prince of Cobourg's proclamation was recalled, and a scheme of conquest announced.

Commissioners from the convention now set up the standard of the republic anew, and the scattered battalions flocked around it. General Dampierre was appointed commander, and on the 13th he was able to resist a general attack upon his advanced posts. On the 14th, his advanced guard yielded to superior numbers, but on the 15th was victorious in a long and well-fought battle. On the 23rd the Austrians were again repulsed, and on the 1st of May General Dampierre was himself repulsed in an attack upon the enemy. On the 8th another engagement took place, in which the French general was killed by a cannon ball. On the 23rd a very determined attack was made by the allies upon the French fortified camp of Famars, which covered the town of Valenciennes. The French were overcome, and in the night abandoned their camp. In consequence of this the allies were enabled to commence the siege of Valenciennes; for Condé had been blockaded from the 1st of April.

About the same time General Custine on the Rhine made a violent but unsuccessful attack upon the Prussians, in consequence of which they were soon enabled to lay siege to Mentz. The Corsican General Paoli revolted at this period; and the new republic, assaulted from without by the whole strength of Europe, was undermined by treachery and faction within.

While the country was in a state verging upon utter ruin, parties in the convention were gradually waxing more fierce in their animosity; and regardless of what was passing at a distance, they seemed only anxious for the extermination of each other. In the month of March, the celebrated Revolutionary Tribunal was established for the purpose of trying crimes committed against the state; and the Girondist party, the mildness of whose administration had contributed not a little to increase the evils of their country, began to see the necessity of adopting measures of severity. But the public calamities, which now rapidly followed each other in succession, were ascribed by their countrymen to their incapacity or perfidy. This gave to the party of the Mountain a fatal advantage. On the 15th of April the communes of the 48 sections of Paris presented a petition, requiring that the chiefs of the Girondists therein named should be impeached and expelled from the convention. This was followed up on the 1st of May by another petition from the suburb of St Antoine. The Girondist party in the mean time impeached Marat, but he was acquitted by the jury at his trial. Mountain, by the assistance of the Jacobin club, had now acquired a complete ascendancy over the city of Paris. The Girondists or Brissotins proposed therefore to remove the convention from the capital; and to prevent this, the Mountain resolved to make the same use of the people of the capital against the Girondist party that they had formerly done against the monarch on the 10th of August. It is unnecessary to state in detail all the tumults that occurred either in Paris or in the convention during the remaining part of the month of May. On the 31st, at four o'clock in the morning, the tocsin was sounded, the generale was beat, and the alarm guns fired. All was commotion and terror. The citizens flew to arms, and assembled round the convention. Some deputations demanded a decree of accusation against 35 of its members. The day, however, was spent without decision. On the afternoon of the 1st of June an armed force made the same demand. On the 2nd of June this was repeated, the tocsin again sounded, and an hundred pieces of cannon surrounded the national hall. At last Barrere mounted the tribune. He was considered as a moderate man, and respected by both parties; but he now artfully deserted the Girondists. He invited the denounced members voluntarily to resign their character of representatives. Some of them complied, and the president attempted to dissolve the sitting; but the members were now imprisoned in their own hall. Henriot, commander of the armed forces, compelled them to remain; and the obnoxious deputies, amounting to upwards of 90 in number, were put under arrest, and a decree of denunciation against them signed.

It is obvious, that on this occasion the liberties of France were trodden under foot. The minority of the national representatives, by the assistance of an armed force raised in the capital, compelled the majority to submit to their measures, and took the leading members prisoners. Thus the city of Paris assumed to itself the whole powers of the French republic; and the nation was no longer governed by representatives freely chosen, but by a minority of their members, whose sentiments the city of Paris and the Jacobin club had thought fit to approve of. Human history is a mass of contradictions. The Mountain party came into power by preaching liberty, and by violating its fundamental principles. How far the plea of political necessity may excuse their conduct, we shall not venture to decide explicitly. Certain it is, however, that they soon commenced a career of the most terrible energy both at home and abroad that is to be found in the annals of nations.

The first result of their victory in the capital was calamitous to the republic at large. Brissot and some other deputies escaped, and endeavoured to kindle the flames of civil war. In general, however, the influence of the Jacobin club, and of its various branches, was such, that the north of France adhered to the convention as it stood; but the southern departments were speedily in a state of rebellion. The department of Lyons declared the Mountain party outlawed. Marseille and Toulon followed the example of Lyons, and entered into a confederacy, which has since been known by the appellation of Federalism. The departments of La Gironde and Calvados broke out into open revolt. In short, the whole of France was in a state of violent convulsion. Still, however, the enthusiastic garrisons of Montz and Valenciennes protected it against the immediate entrance of a foreign force, and allowed leisure for one of its internal factions to gain an ascendancy, and thereafter to protect its independence. In the meantime, the political enthusiasm of all orders of persons was such, that even the female sex did not escape its contagion. A young woman of the name of Charlotte Cordé, in the beginning of July, came from the department of Calvados to devote her life for what she thought the cause of freedom and of her country. She requested an interview with Marat, the most obnoxious of the Mountain party. Having obtained it, and conversed with him calmly for some time, she suddenly plunged a dagger in his breast, and walked carelessly out of the house. She was immediately seized and condemned. At the place of execution she behaved with infinite constancy, shouting Vive la republique. The remains of Marat were interred with great splendor, and the convention attended his funeral. His party perhaps derived advantage from the manner of his death, as it seemed to soften the odious charge of assassination upon their antagonists, and gave them the appearance of suffering in the cause of liberty. The truth is, that assassination was sanctioned by both parties under pretence of defending the liberties of the republic.

One of the first acts of the Mountain junta after their triumph was to finish the republican constitution. Previous to their fall, the Girondists had brought forward the plan of a constitution, chiefly the work of the Marquis Condorcet; but it never was sanctioned by the convention, and was too intricate to be practically useful. The new constitution now framed, which was afterwards sanctioned by the nation, but has never yet been put in practice, abolishes the former mode of electing the representatives of the people through the medium of electoral assemblies, and appoints them to be chosen immediately by the primary assemblies, which are made to consist of from 200 to 600 citizens, each man voting by ballot or open vote at his option. There is one deputy for every 40,000 individuals, and population is the sole basis of representation. The elections take place every year on the 1st of May. Electoral assemblies are still retained for one purpose. Every 200 citizens in the primary assemblies name one elector; and an assembly of all the electors of the department is afterwards held, which elects candidates for the executive council, or ministry of the republic. The legislative body chooses out of this list of candidates the members of the executive council. One half of this council is renewed by each legislature in the last month of the session. Every law, after it is passed by the legislative body, is sent to the department. If in more than half of the departments the tenth of the primary assemblies of each have not objected to it, it becomes effectual. Trial by jury is established. National conventions may be called for altering the constitution, and must be called, if required by the tenth of the primary assemblies of each department in a majority of the departments.

The publication of this constitution procured no small degree of applause to the convention and the Mountain party. The rapidity with which it was formed (being only a fortnight) seemed to cast a just reproach upon the slowness of their antagonists, and it was regarded as a proof of their being decidedly fe- rious in the cause of republicanism. No regard, however, has been paid to it by the convention, which has declared itself permanent, nor indeed does it seem possible to carry it into execution.

We have mentioned that Condé was invested from the beginning of April. It did not yield till the 16th of July, when the garrison was so much reduced by famine and disease, that out of 4,000 men, of which it originally consisted, only 1,500 were fit for service. The eyes of all Europe were in the mean time fixed upon the siege of Valenciennes. Colonel Moncier had contended, that batteries ought immediately to be placed under the walls without approaching it by regular parallels; but the Imperial engineer Mr Ferraris affirmed, that the work of the great Vauban must be treated with more respect; and his opinion was adopted by the council of war. The trenches were opened on the 14th of June. Few sallies were attempted by the garrison, on account of the smallness of their number. The inhabitants at first wished to surrender; but the violence of the bombardment prevented their assembling or giving much trouble on that head to General Ferrand the governor. Much of the labour of the siege consisted of mines and countermines. Some of these having been successfully sprung by the allies, the town was surrendered on the 27th of July by capitulation to the Duke of York, who took possession of it in behalf of the emperor of Germany. The siege of Mentz was at the same time going on. It suffered much from famine. At last, after an unsuccessful attempt by the French army on the Rhine for its relief, Mentz surrendered on the 22nd of July.

At the termination of the siege of Valenciennes it is said that the allied powers were at a loss how to proceed next. The Austrian commanders are said to have presented two plans: The first was to penetrate to Paris by the affluence of the rivers which fall into the Seine; the other was to take advantage of the confusion occasioned by the surrender of Valenciennes, and with 50,000 light troops to penetrate suddenly to Paris, while a disembarkation should be made on the coast of Brittany to assist the royalists. The proposal of the British ministry was, however, adopted, which was, to divide the grand army, and to attack West Flanders, beginning with the siege of Dunkirk. This determination proved ruinous to the allies. The French found means to vanquish in detail that army, which they could not encounter when united.

It is said that the Duke of York was in secret correspondence with Omeron the governor of Dunkirk; but he was removed before any advantage could be taken of his treachery. On the 24th of August the Duke of York attacked and drove the French outposts into the town, after an action in which the Austrian General Dalton was killed. A naval armament was expected from Great Britain to co-operate in the siege, but it did not arrive. In the mean time, a strong republican force menaced the covering army of the allies, which was commanded by General Freytag. He was soon attacked and totally routed. The siege was raised. The British lost their heavy cannon and baggage, with several thousand men; and the convention, believing that their General Houchard could have cut off the Duke of York's retreat, tried and executed him for this neglect of duty.

Prince Cobourg and General Clairfait in the meantime unsuccessfully attempted to besiege Cambrai and Bouchain. Queffoy was, however, taken by General Clairfait on the 11th of September; and here finally terminated for the present campaign the success of the allies in the Netherlands.

A considerable part of the French army of the north took a strong position near Maubeuge, where they were blockaded by Prince Cobourg; but upon the 15th and 16th of October he was repeatedly attacked by the French troops under General Jourdan, who succeeded Houchard. The French had now recovered their vigour. They brought into the field a formidable train of artillery, in which were many 24-pounders. Commissioners from the convention arranged the soldiers, threatened the fearful, and applauded the brave. Crowds of women, without confusion, went through the ranks, distributing spirituous liquors in abundance, and carrying off the wounded. The attacks were repeated and terrible on both sides; but the Austrians had considerably the disadvantage, and Prince Cobourg retired during the night. The French now menaced maritime Flanders. They took Furnes and besieged Nieuport. A detachment of British troops ready to sail to the West Indies were hastily sent to Ostend, and prevented for the present the farther progress of the French.

Such was the multiplicity of the events that now occurred in France, that it is difficult to state the outlines of them with any tolerable perspicuity. We have already mentioned the extensive differences that occurred throughout the republic in consequence of the triumph of the Mountain party on the 31st of May. The department of Calvados was first in arms against the convention under the command of General Felix Wimpfen; but before the end of July the insurrection was quieted, after a few slight skirmishes. But the federalism of the cities of Marfeilles, Lyons, and Toulon, still fêged by remained. Lyons was attacked on the 8th of August by the conventional troops. Several actions followed, and which were attended with great loss both on the partaken of the assailants and of the besieged. The city was reduced almost to ruins; but it held out during the whole month of September. The besieging General Kellerman was removed from his command, on account of his supposed inactivity; and the city surrendered on the 8th of October to General Doppet, a man who had lately been a physician. Such was the rage of party zeal at this time, that the walls and public buildings of Lyons were ordered to be destroyed, and its name changed to that of Ville Affranchie. Many hundreds of its citizens were dragged to the scaffold on account of their alleged treasonable resistance to the convention. The victorious party, wearied by the slow operation of the guillotine, at last destroyed their prisoners in multitudes, by firing grape-shot upon them. Such indeed was the unrelenting character of the Mountain at this time, not only here but through the whole republic, that they themselves pretended not to execute it, but declared that terror was with them the order of the day.

In the end of July General Cartaux was sent against The Marfeilles. In the beginning of August he gained several victories over the advanced federalist troops. Onged to fall, the 24th he took the town of Aix, and the Marfeillois mit. But the leading people of the important town and harbour of Toulon entered into a negociation, and submitted to the British admiral Lord Hood, under condition that he should preserve as a deposit the town and shipping for Louis XVII. and under the stipulation that he should assist in restoring the constitution of 1789. The siege of Toulon was commenced by General Cartaux in the beginning of September. It continued without much vigour during that and the whole of the succeeding month. Neapolitan, Spanish, and English troops, were brought by sea to assist in its defence. In the beginning of November, General Cartaux was removed to the command of the army in Italy, and General Dugommier succeeded him. General O'Hara arrived with reinforcements from Gibraltar, and took upon him the command of the town, under a commission from his Britannic majesty. On the 30th of November, the garrison made a powerful sally to destroy some batteries that were erecting upon heights which commanded the city. The French were surprised, and the allies succeeded completely in their object; but, elated by the facility of their conquest, the allied troops rushed forward in pursuit of the flying enemy, contrary to their orders, and were unexpectedly met by a strong French force that was drawn out to protect the fugitives. General O'Hara now came from the city to endeavour to bring off his troops with regularity. He was wounded in the arm and taken prisoner. The total loss of the allies in this affair was estimated at nearly one thousand men. The French had now mustered in full force around Toulon, and prepared for the attack.

It was begun on the 16th of December in the morning, and was chiefly directed against Fort Mulgrave, defended by the British. This fort was protected by an entrenched camp, 13 pieces of cannon, 36 and 24 pounders, &c. 5 mortars, and 3000 troops. Such was the ardour of assault, that it was carried in an hour, and the whole garrison was destroyed or taken. The allies now found it impossible to defend the place; and in the course of the day embarked their troops, after having set fire the arsenal and ships. A scene of confusion here ensued, such as has not been known in the history of modern wars. Crowds of people of every rank, age, and sex, hurried on board the ships, to avoid the vengeance of their enraged countrymen. Some of the inhabitants began to fire upon their late allies; others in despair were seen plunging into the sea, making a vain effort to reach the ships; or putting an end at once to their own existence upon the shore. Thirty-one ships of the line were found by the British at Toulon; thirteen were left behind; ten were burnt; four had been previously sent to the French ports of Brest and Rochefort, with 5000 republicans who could not be trusted; and Great Britain finally obtained by this expedition three ships of the line and five frigates.

On the side of Spain the war produced nothing of importance; and in the mountainous country of Piedmont it went on slowly. Nice and Chambery were still retained by the French; but more terrible scenes were acting in other quarters. In La Vendée a most bloody war was perplexed in by the royalists. In that quarter of the country the language of the rest of France is little understood. The people were superstitious, and had acquired little idea of the new opinions that had lately been propagated in the rest of the empire. They were chiefly headed by priests, and regarded their cause as a religious one. Their mode of warfare usually was to go on in their ordinary occupations as peaceable citizens, and suddenly to assemble in immense bands, so much that at one time they were said to amount to 150,000 men. They besieged Nantes and the city of Orleans, and even Paris itself was not thought altogether safe from their enterprises. The war was inconceivably bloody. Neither party gave quarter; and La Vendée proved a dreadful drain to the population of France. On the 28th of June, the conventional general Biron drove the royalists from Lucon; and Nantes was relieved by general Beysser. After some success, general Welteman was surprised by them, and compelled to retreat to Parthenay. In the beginning of August the royalists were defeated by general Rollignot; but on the 10th of that month, under Charette their commander in chief, they again attacked Nantes, but suffered a repulse. It would be tedious to give a minute detail of this obscure but cruel war. The royalists were often defeated and seemingly dispersed, but as often arose in crowds around the astonished republicans. At last, however, about the middle of October, they were completely defeated, driven from La Vendée, and forced to divide into separate bodies. One of these threw itself into the island of Noirmoutier, where they were subdued; another took the road of Maine and Brittany, where they struggled for some time against their enemies, and were at last cut to pieces or dispersed.

The royalists had long expected assistance from England; and an armament under the earl of Moira was actually fitted out for that service, but it did not arrive till too late, and returned home without attempting a landing. —The Mountain party always disgraced their successes by dreadful cruelties. Humanity is shocked, and history would almost cease to obtain credit, were we to state in detail the unrelenting cruelties which were exercised against the unfortunate royalists, chiefly by Carrier, a deputy from the convention, sent into this quarter with unlimited powers. Multitudes of prisoners were crowded on board vessels in the Loire, after which the vessels were sunk. No age nor sex was spared; and these executions were performed with every circumstance of wanton barbarity and insult.

On the side of the Rhine a great variety of events occurred during the months of August and September. Several engagements at first took place, in which the French were, upon the whole, successful. In September, however, Landau was invested by the combined powers; and it was resolved to make every possible effort to drive the French from the strong lines of Weilembourg, on the river Lauter. On the 13th of October, the Austrian general Wurmser made a grand attack upon these lines. The French say that their generals betrayed them, and suffered the lines to be taken almost without resistance. The general of the allies confessed that the lines might have held out for several days. The French retreated to Haguenau, from which they were driven on the 18th; and suffered two other defeats on the 25th and 27th. Some of the principal citizens of Strasbourg now sent a private deputation to general Wurmser, offering to surrender the town, to be preserved as a deposit to be restored to Louis Louis XVII. General Wurmser refused to accept of it upon these terms, insisting upon an absolute surrender to his Imperial Majesty. In consequence of the delay occasioned by disagreement, the negotiation was discovered, and the citizens of Strasbourg engaged in the plot were seized by St Just and Lebas, commissioners from the convention, and brought to the scaffold. Prodigious efforts were now made by the French to recover their ground in this quarter. General Irumbert was shot at the head of the army on the 9th of November, upon a charge, probably ill-founded, of treachery in the affair of the lines of Weissenbourg. On the 14th, however, Fort Louis was taken by the allies, not without suspicion of treachery in the governor. But here the success of general Wurmser might be said to terminate. On the 21st the republican army drove back the Austrians, and penetrated almost to Haguenau. An army from the Moselle now advanced to co-operate with the army of the Rhine. On the 17th the Prussians were defeated near Sarbruck. Next day their camp at Bliescauffel was stormed, and the French advanced to Deux Ponts. On the 29th and 30th the French were repulsed with great loss in two violent attacks made on the duke of Brunswick near Lautern. But it now appeared that the French had come into the field with a determination to conquer whatever it might cost. Every day was a day of battle, and torrents of blood were shed on both sides. The allies had the advantage of possessing the ground, which, in that quarter, at such a late season of the year, is very strong on account of its inequalities and morasses. In military skill, the French officers and those of the allies were perhaps nearly equal; but the French army was by far the most numerous; and although not a match in point of discipline, yet it derived no small superiority from the enthusiasm with which the troops were animated. On the 8th of December, under the command of general Pichegru, the French carried the redoubts which covered Haguenau by means of the bayonet.

This modern instrument of destruction, against which no defensive weapon is employed, is always most successful in the hands of the most intrepid; and it was now a dreadful engine in the hands of French enthusiasm.—The finest troops that ever Europe produced were unable to withstand the fury of the republicans, which seemed only to increase in proportion to the multitude of companions that they lost. On the 22d the allies were driven with immense slaughter from Haguenau, notwithstanding the immense works they had thrown up for their defence. The entrenchments on the heights of Reiffshoffen, Jauderhoffen, &c. were considered as more impregnable than those of Jemappes. They were stormed by the army of the Moselle and the Rhine, under generals Hoche and Pichegru. On the 23d and 24th, the allies were pursued to the heights of Wrotte. On the 26th, the entrenchments there were forced by the bayonet, after a desperate conflict. On the 27th, the republican army arrived at Weissenbourg in triumph. General Wurmser retreated across the Rhine, and the duke of Brunswick hastily fell back to cover Mentz. The blockade of Landau, which had lasted four months, was raised. Fort Louis was evacuated by the allies, and Kaiserlautern, Germersheim, and Spires, submitted to the French.—During this last month of the year 1793, the loss of men on both sides in this quarter was immense, and unexampled in the French history of modern war. It is even said that it might amount to more than 70,000 or 80,000 men.

Thus far we have attended to the military affairs of the republic for some time past. Very violent efforts were in the mean time made at Paris by the new administration, established under the auspices of the Jacobin club, and of the party called the Mountain. The new republican constitution had been presented to the people in the primary assemblies, and accepted. The business, therefore, for which the convention was called together, that of forming a constitution for France, was at an end; and it was proposed that they should dissolve themselves, and order a new legislative body to assemble, according to the rules prescribed by that constitution. This was, no doubt, the regular mode of procedure; but the ruling party considered it as hazardous to convene a new assembly, possessing only limited powers, in the present distracted state of the country. It was indeed obvious, that France at this time stood in need of a dictatorship, or of a government possessed of more absolute authority than can be enjoyed by one that acts, or even pretends to act, upon the moderate principles of freedom. It was therefore determined that the convention should remain undissolved till the end of the war; and that a revolutionary government, to be conducted by its members, should be established, with uncontrolled powers. Committees of its own body were selected for the purpose of conducting every department of business. The chief of these committees was called the committee of public safety. It supervised all the rest, and gave to the administration of France all the secrecy and dispatch which have been accounted peculiar to a military government, together with a combination of skill and energy hitherto unknown among mankind. A correspondence was kept up with all the Jacobin clubs throughout the kingdom. Commissioners from the convention were sent into all quarters, with unlimited authority over every order of persons. Thus a government possessed of infinite vigilance, and more absolute and tyrannical than that of any single despot, was established; and the whole transactions and resources of the state were known to the rulers. On the 23d of August, Barrere, in name of the committee of public safety, procured the celebrated decree to be passed for placing the whole French nation in a state of requisition for the public service. "From this moment (says the decree) till that when all enemies shall have been driven from the territory of the republic, all Frenchmen shall be in permanent readiness for the service of the army. The young men shall march to the combat; the married men shall forge arms, and transport the provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes, and attend in the hospitals; the children shall make lint of old linen; the old men shall cause themselves to be carried to the public squares, to excite the courage of the warriors, to preach hatred against the enemies of the republic; the cellars shall be washed to procure saltpetre; the saddle-horses shall be given up to complete the cavalry; the unmarried citizens, from the age of 18 to 25, shall march first, and none shall send a substitute; every battalion shall have a banner, with this inscription, 'The French nation rizen against tyranny.'" The decree also regulates the mode of organizing this mass. A decree more tyrannical rannical than this was never made by an eastern despot; and when it was first published, foreigners were at a loss whether to regard it as a sublime effort of a powerful government, or as a wild project which could produce nothing but confusion. The effects of it, however, have been truly terrible. We have already mentioned some of them in the bloody contest which occurred upon the Rhine, and Europe was soon destined to bear witness to still more extraordinary events.

In the end of July, general Cottine was brought to trial, and executed, in consequence of a variety of accusations of infidelity to his trust and disrespect to the convention. The queen was next brought to trial before the revolutionary tribunal, on the 15th of October. The charges against her were very various; but the chief tendency of them was to prove that she had always been hostile to the revolution, and had excited all the efforts that had been made by the court against it. On the 16th of October, this beautiful woman, whom fortune once placed so high, ended her days on a scaffold, after a mock trial, in which no regard was paid either to justice or decency. She behaved with much dignity and composure, and appeared deeply impressed with a sense of religion. The members of the convention who had been at the head of the Girondist party, and had either been detained in prison since the 3rd of May, or seized in the departments to which they had retired, were afterwards brought to trial. On the 30th of October, 21 of them were executed, viz. Brillon, Vergniaud, Genon, Duprat, Lehardi, Ducos, Fonfrede, Boileau, Gardien, Duchatel, Sillery, Fauchet, Dufresne, Duperret, La Source, Carra, Beauvais, Mainville, Antiboul, Vigée, and Lacaze. Seventy-one were still detained in confinement. The duke of Orleans was afterwards condemned, on a charge of having aspired to the sovereignty from the beginning of the revolution. His execution gave satisfaction to all parties. His vote for the punishment of death upon the trial of the late king had done him little honour even in the opinion of the Mountain, and had rendered him odious to all the rest of mankind.

The executions of persons of all ranks, particularly of priests and nobles, became now so common, that it would be in vain to attempt to give any detail of them. Every person brought before the revolutionary tribunal was condemned as a matter of course. The Jacobins seemed infatuated in their thirst after blood, and the people at large appeared to regard their conduct with unaccountable indifference.

When the human mind is once roused, its activity extends to every object. At this time a new table of weights and measures was established by the convention, in which the decimal arithmetic alone is employed. The court of Spain had the liberality, notwithstanding the war, to suffer M. Mechain to proceed in his operations for measuring a degree of the meridian in that country. He carried on his series of triangles from Barcelona to Perpignan; and from this place the mensuration was continued to Paris. M. de Lambre, and his pupil M. le Francois, also measured a degree of latitude in the vicinity of the metropolis. In all, 12 degrees of the meridian were measured; of which the mean is 57° 27' toises, and by this the universal standard of measure is calculated. M. M. de Borde and Cassini determined the length of a pendulum that swings freely in vacuo and in a mean temperature at Paris, to be 3 feet and 8.06 lines. M. M. Lavoisier and Haüy found that a cubic foot of distilled water at the freezing point weighs in vacuo 70 pounds and 60 gros French weight. We shall insert a table of the measures and weights now established.

**Long Measure.**

| Metres | French Toise | |--------|--------------| | 10,000,000 | = a quadrant of the meridian which is the principle on which the new measure is founded | | 100,000 | = an hundredth part of a quadrant, ordesimal degree of the meridian | | 1000 | = a milliare, or mile | | 100 | = a stadium | Agrarian | | 10 | = a perch | measure |

**Feet. Inch. Line.**

| 1 | = a metre, or rectilineal unit | | --- | --- | | 3 | = 11.44 | | 1/10 or 0.1 | = a decimetre, or palm | | 3 | = 8.344 | | 1/100 or 0.01 | = a centimetre, or digit | | 0 | = 4.434 | | 1/1000 or 0.001 | = a millemetre | | 0 | = .443 |

**Superficial Measure.**

| Sq. Metres | Sq. Feet | |------------|----------| | 10,000 | = an are, or superficial unit, being a square the side of which is 100 metres in length | | 9483.1 | | | 1000 | = a deciare, or tenth of an are; a superficies an hundred metres long, and ten broad | | 9483.1 | | | 100 | = a centiare |

**Measures of Capacity.**

| Cub. decimetres | Paris Pints. Paris Buys. | |-----------------|-------------------------| | 1000 | = the cubic metre, or cade | | 1051½ | = 78.9 | | 100 | = dedicade, or setier | | 105½ | = 7.89 | | 10 | = centicade, or bushel | | 10½ | = .789 | | 1 | = cubic decimetre, or pint | | 1½ | = .0789 |

**Weights.**

| Cub. decimetres of water | French Pound. | |--------------------------|---------------| | 1000 | = the weight of a cubic metre, or cade of water, is called a bar or millier | | 2044.4 | | | 100 | = 1/10 of a bar, or decibar, or quintal | | 2044.4 | | | 10 | = 1/100 of a bar, or centibar, or decal | | 20.444 | | | 1 | = the weight of a cubic decimetre of water is called a grave, or pound | | 28549 | | | .1 | = 1/10 of a grave, or decigrave, or ounce | | 3212.1 | | | .01 | = 1/100 of a grave, or centigrave, or dram | | 00244.41 | | | .001 | = the weight of a cubic centimetre of water, is named a gravelet, or maille | | 00018841 | | | .0001 | = decigravelet, or grain | | 00018841 | | | .00001 | = centigravelet |

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**Note:** The above table provides conversions between metric units and French measures, including lengths, areas, volumes, and weights. A piece of silver coin weighing a centigrave, and a franc of silver, according to the former standard will be worth 40 sols 10½ deniers. The milliare, or thousand metres, is substituted for the mile; and the are, for the arpent in land-measure. The latter two are to each other as 49 to 25. The astronomical circles with which M. M. de Borda and Cassini made the observations, are divided according to this plan. The quadrant contains 100 degrees, and each degree 100 minutes. Hence the minute of a great circle on our globe is equal to a milliare, or new French mile. If, for the reduction of this measure, we estimate the Paris toise, according to the comparison made with the standard kept in the Royal Society of London, at 6.3925 English feet, the milliare or minute will be equal to 1093.633 yards, and the metre 3.280899 feet.

At the same period a new calendar was formed.—By it the year is made to begin with the autumnal equinox, and is divided into 12 months. These are called Vindemaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivose, Ventose, Pluviosus, Germinal, Floréal, Praireal, Messidor, Fervidor, and Fructidor. The months consist of 30 days each, and are divided into three decades. The days of each decade are known by the names of Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, &c. to Decadi; and the day of rest is appointed for every tenth day, instead of the seventh. The day (which begins at midnight) is distributed into ten parts, and these are decimally divided and subdivided. Five supernumerary days are added every year after the 30th of Fructidor. To these is given the absurd appellation of Sans Culottides, a word borrowed from a term of reproach (sans culotte), which had often been bestowed on the republican party from the meanness of their rank and fortune; but which that party now attempted to render honourable and popular. The childish folly of this innovation has struck every person with surprize, as it can serve no good purpose whatever. It is a wonderful instance of the waywardness of the human mind, which can occupy itself one moment with deeds of savage barbarity, and the next with a matter so unimportant as the artificial division of time.

The religion of France had been gradually losing its influence; and on the 7th of November, Gobet bishop of Paris, along with a great multitude of other ecclesiastics, came into the hall of the convention, and solemnly resigned their functions and renounced the Christian religion. All the clergymen, whether Protestant or Catholic, that were members of the convention, followed this example, excepting only Gregoire, whom we formerly mentioned as having been one of the first priests that joined the Tiers Etat after the meeting of the States General. He had the courage to profess himself a Christian, although he said that the emoluments of his bishopric were at the service of the republic. With the acclamations of the convention, it was decreed that the only French deities hereafter should be Liberty, Equality, Reason, &c. and they would seem to have consecrated these as a kind of new objects of worship.—What political purpose the leaders in the convention intended to serve by this proceeding does not clearly appear; unless, perhaps, their object was to render the French manners and modes of thinking so completely new, that it should never be in their power to return to the state from which they had just emerged, or to unite in intercourse with the other nations of Europe. The populace, however, could not at once relinquish entirely the religion of their fathers. The Commune of Paris ordered the churches to be shut up, but the Convention found it necessary to annul this order; and Robespierre gained no small degree of popularity by supporting the liberty of religious worship on this occasion. Hebert and Fabre d'Eglantine, who led the opposite party, hastened their own fall by this ill-judged contempt of popular opinion.

For, now that the republic saw itself successful in all quarters, when the Mountain party and the Jacobins between had no rival at home, and accounted themselves in no immediate danger from abroad, they began to split into factions, and the fiercest jealousies arose. The Jacobin Club was the usual place in which their contests were carried on; and at this time Robespierre acted the part of a mediator between all parties. He attempted with great art to turn their attention from private animosities to public affairs. He spread a report that an invasion of Great Britain was speedily to take place. He therefore proposed that the Jacobin Club should set themselves to work to discover the vulnerable parts of the British constitution and government. They did so: They made speeches, and wrote essays without number. And in this way was the most fierce and turbulent band of men that ever perhaps existed in any country occupied and amused for a very considerable time. What is no less singular, a great number of British subjects favoured the plans of these reforming Atheists, and, under the specious appellation of the Friends of the People, acted in concert with the French Jacobins.

The winter passed away in tolerable quietness, and no military enterprise was undertaken either by the allies or by the French. On the 1st of February, Barrere acknowledged in the Convention that the confederate powers were willing provisionally to acknowledge the French republic, to consent to a cessation of hostilities for two years, at the end of which a lasting peace should be ratified by the French people. But this proposal the Convention declared itself determined to reject, as affording to the other nations of Europe the means of undermining their new government. In the meantime, vigorous revolutionary government was gradually becoming more vigorous. Thirty committees of the Convention revolutionized the whole business of the state, without sharing much of the direct executive government, which fell in the committee of public safety. These different committees were engaged in the utmost variety of objects. The ruling party had no competitors for power. Without confusion or opposition, therefore, the most extensive plans were rapidly carried into effect. The Convention was little more than a court in which every project was solemnly registered. In the same session 30 decrees would sometimes be passed upon objects the most widely different. The finances were under management of one committee, at the head of which was Cambon. This committee found resources for the most lavish expenditure. The assignats were received as money throughout the state; and thus a paper mill was said to have become more valuable than a mine of gold. Their nation's credit was supported by an arbitrary law regulating the maximum or highest price of all provisions, and by the immense mass of wealth which had come into the hands of the Convention by seizing the church lands, and by confiscating the property of royalists, emigrants, and persons... persons condemned by the revolutionary tribunal. So unequally had property been divided under the ancient government, that by means of these confiscations about seven-tenths of the national territory was supposed to be in the hands of the public. To this was added the plunder of the churches, consisting of gold and silver statues, and utensils employed in divine worship, along with other articles of less value; among which may be mentioned the innumerable church bells, which were regarded as sufficient for the manufacture of 15,000 pieces of cannon. These resources formed a mass of property such as never was possessed by any government.

Other committees were engaged in very different objects. Highways were constructed, and canals planned and cut throughout the country. Immense manufactories of arms were everywhere established. At Paris alone 1,100 muskets were daily fabricated, and 1,000 pieces of cannon cast every month. Public schools were assiduously instituted, and the French language taught in its purity from the Pyrenees to the Rhine. The French Convention possessed immense resources, and they did not hesitate to lavish them upon their schemes. Every science and every art was called upon for aid, and the most accomplished men in every profession were employed in giving splendour to their country. The chemists, in particular, gave essential aid by the facility with which they supplied materials for the manufacture of gunpowder; and, in return for their services, Lavoisier, the greatest of them, suffered death by a most iniquitous sentence. Not fewer than 200 new dramatic performances were produced in less than two years; the object of which was to attach the people to the present order of things. The vigour with which the committees of subsistence exerted themselves is particularly to be remarked. As all Europe was at war with France, and as England, Holland, and Spain, the three maritime powers, were engaged in the contest, it had been thought not impossible to reduce France to great distress by famine, especially as it was imagined that the country had no resources to supply its immense population. But the present leaders of that country acted with the policy of a besieged garrison. They seized upon the whole provisions in the country, and carried them to public granaries. They registered the cattle, and made their owners responsible for them. They provided the armies abundantly, and, as the people were accurately numbered, they dealt out in every district, on stated occasions, what was absolutely necessary for subsistence, and no more. To all this the people submitted; and indeed, throughout the whole of the mixed scenes of this revolution, the calm judgment of the historian is not a little perplexed. We cannot avoid admiring the patience with which the people at large endured every hardship that was represented as necessary to the common cause, and the enthusiastic energy with which they lavished their blood in defence of the independence of their country. At the same time, we must regard with indignation and disgust the worthless intrigues by means of which the sanguinary factions in the Convention and the capital alternately massacred each other.

During the winter the divisions of the Jacobins still increased. They were divided into two clubs, of which the new one assembled at a hall which once belonged to the Cordeliers. The leaders of it were Herbert, Ronfin, Vincent, and others; but the old society retained its ascendancy, and Robespierre was now decidedly its leader. This extraordinary man had gradually accumulated in his own person the confidence of the people and the direction of the government. As the committees were above the Convention, which was become little more than a silent court of record, so the committee of public safety was above the other committees. Robespierre was the leader of this ruling committee. Barrere, St Just, Couthon, and others of its members, only acted a secondary part. They laboured in the bureaus of the state, but the radical power was with Robespierre. He surrounded the members of the Convention with spies. He was jealous and implacable, and set no bounds to the shedding of blood. On the 25th of March he brought to trial the following active Jacobins, who were condemned and executed on the following day: Hebert, Ronfin, Momoro, Vincent, Du Croquet, Kocq, Col. Laumur, M. M. Bourgeois, Mazuel, La Boureau, Ancard, Le Clerc, Proly, Defieux, Anacharis Cloots, Pereira, Florent Armand, Defombes, and Debuillon. Not satisfied with this, on the 2d of April he brought to trial nine of those who had once been his most vigorous associates, Danton, Fabre d'Eglantine, Bazire, Chabot, Philippeaux, Camille Detmoulins, Lacroix, Delaunay d'Angers, Herault de Sechelles, who, along with Weiterman, were executed on the evening of the 5th.

Still, however, the preparations for the ensuing campaign were proceeding with unabated vigour. The committee for military affairs, at the head of which were Carnot, La Fitte, d'Aunis, and others, was busy in arranging along the frontiers the immense force which the requisition had called forth. Plans of attack and defence were made out by this committee; and when approved by the committee of public safety they were sent to the generals to be executed. On the other side, the allies were making powerful preparations for another attempt to subjugate France. The Emperor himself took the field at the head of the armies in the Netherlands. The plan of the campaign is said to have been formed by the Austrian Colonel Mack. West Flanders was to be protected by a strong body of men; the main army was to penetrate to Landrecies, and getting within the line of French frontier towns, it was to cut them off from the interior by covering the country from Maubeuge to the sea. The plan was bold. It belongs to military men to judge whether this was not its only merit. When attempting to put it in execution, the allies must have been ill informed of the immense force which the French were collecting against them. Even the town of Lille alone, which is capable of containing a numerous army within its walls, and which was to be left in their rear, should have seemed an insurmountable objection to the plan.

On the 16th of April the Austrian, British, and Dutch armies assembled on the heights above Cateau, and were reviewed by the emperor. On the following day they advanced in eight columns against the French, drove in their whole-pots, and penetrated beyond Landrecies; which place the French attempted to relieve, but without success. The allied army now amounted to 187,000 men, who were disposed in the following manner; 15,000 Dutch and 15,000 Austrians, under the prince of Orange and general Latour, formed the The allies now found that no progress could be made in France while General Pichegru was advancing successfully and occupying West Flanders in their rear. The emperor, therefore, withdrew the greater part of his army to the neighborhood of Tournay, and resolved to make a grand effort to cut off the communication between Courtray and Lille, thus to prevent completely the retreat of Pichegru. On the night of the 16th, the army moved forwards in five columns for this purpose. Clairfait was at the same time directed to cross the Lys, to effect a general junction, if possible, and complete the plan. The attempt during that evening seemed to promise success; but, in the course of next day, the division under the duke of York was overpowered by numbers and defeated. The progress of the rest of the columns was stopped, and Clairfait completely defeated. In the confusion of the day, when attempting to rally the different parts of the division which he commanded, the duke of York was separated from his own troops by a party of the enemy's cavalry, and only escaped being made prisoner by the swiftness of his horse. The plan of the allies being thus frustrated, their army withdrew to the neighborhood of Tournay.

Pichegru speedily attempted to retaliate against the allies. On the 22nd of May he brought down at daybreak his whole force against them. The attack was commenced by a heavy fire of artillery, and all the advanced posts were forced. The engagement soon became general; the attacks were repeatedly renewed on both sides; the whole day was spent in a succession of obstinate battles. All that military skill could do was performed on both sides. The French and the allied soldiers fought with equal courage and equal discipline. At nine o'clock in the evening the French at last reluctantly withdrew from the attack. The day on which a vanquished enemy flies from the field is not always that on which the victory is won. In this engagement the French were unsuccessful in their immediate object; but the weight of their fire, their steady discipline, and their violent obstinacy of attack, raised their military character high in the estimation of the officers and soldiers of the allied army. It was soon perceived, that in addition to these they possessed other advantages. Their numbers were immense; they implicitly obeyed their generals; who, being men newly raised from the rank of subalterns, as implicitly submitted to the directions of the committee of public safety. A combination of efforts was thus produced whose operation was not retarded by divided counsels. On the other side, the numbers of the allies were daily declining; their leaders were independent princes or powerful men, whose sentiments and interests were often very hostile to each other, and their exertions consequently disunited.

On the 24th the French again crossed the Sambre, but were driven back with much loss. On the 27th an attempt was made to besiege Charleroi, but the prince of Orange on the 3rd of June compelled them to raise the siege. On the 12th a similar attempt was made, and they were again repulsed. In West Flanders, however, Pichegru was sufficiently strong to commence the siege of Ypres. He was soon attacked by Ypres, and general Clairfait for the purpose of relieving it, but without success.—Ypres was garrisoned by 7000 men; reinforcements were therefore daily sent from the grand army to Clairfait for the purpose of relieving it. It is unnecessary to mention the bloody contests in which that unfortunate general was daily engaged with the French; it is sufficient to say, that they were uniformly unsuccessful, and were the means of wasting, in a great degree, the armies of the allies. Ypres held out till the 17th of June, when it capitulated; and such was the discipline of the French army at this time, that no notice could be obtained, for several days, of that event. In consequence of it and of other events, the duke of York found it necessary to retreat to Oudenarde; for Jourdan, after storming the Austrian camp... of Betignies, now advanced with such strength upon Charleroi in the east that its immediate fall was feared. As this would have enabled the two French armies to encircle the whole of Flanders, the prince of Cobourg advanced to its relief. Charleroi surrendered at discretion on the 25th. This circumstance was not known by the prince of Cobourg when he advanced on the 26th to attack in their entrenchments the army that covered the siege near Fleurus; but the covering army being by this time reinforced by the accession of the besieging army, the allies were repulsed. Jourdan then drew his men out of their entrenchments; and, in his turn, attacked the Austrians. He was three times repulsed, but was at last successful: the loss of the vanquished army is said to have been prodigious; but no regular accounts of it have been published. The French unquestionably exaggerated their own success, when they said that it amounted to 15,000 men.

The allies now retreated in all quarters. Nieuport, Ostend, and Bruges, were taken; and Tournay, Mons, Oudenarde, and Brussels, opened their gates. At this last place the French armies of East and West Flanders united. Landrecies, Valenciennes, Condé, and Quevroy, were fruitlessly left with garrisons in them. The allied troops, evacuating Namur, formed a line from Antwerp to Liege to protect the country behind. The French advanced in full force, and attacked general Clairfait, cut to pieces half the troops that now remained under him, and broke the line. The allies retreated before them. The duke of York was joined by some troops under the earl of Moira which with much difficulty had made their way to him from Ostend; and with these and the Dutch troops he retired to the neighbourhood of Bergen-op-zoom and Breda for the protection of Holland. The prince of Cobourg evacuated Liege, crossed the Maas, and placed a garrison in Maastricht. He soon, however, sent back a part of his troops to the neighbourhood of Tongres; for here, to the astonishment of all Europe, the French armies made a voluntary pause in their career of victory, and ceased to pursue their retiring foes. Sluys in Dutch Flanders was the only foreign post that they continued to attack, and it surrendered after a siege of 21 days.

On the Rhine the war was equally successful on the part of the French. On the 12th, 13th, and 14th of July, repeated engagements were fought; in which the French enjoyed their usual success. They had numerous armies in every quarter. Their mode of fighting was to make full preparation for accomplishing their object, and to fight in great bodies day after day till it was obtained. The Palatinate was thus over-run, and Trèves taken, by general Michaud. Flanders and the Palatinate have always been accounted the granaries of Germany; and both of them, at the commencement of the harvest, now fell into the hands of the French.

During the course of this summer Corsica was subdued by Great Britain; and the whole of the French West India Islands, excepting a part of Guadeloupe, yielded to the British troops under the command of Sir Charles Grey and Sir John Jarvis. On the first of June the British fleet, under the command of Earl Howe, gained a most splendid victory over the French fleet to the westward of Ushant. The French committee of safety were known to have purchased in America immense quantities of grain and other stores. These were embarked on board 160 sail of merchantmen, convoyed by six sail of the line. Lord Howe failed to intercept this valuable convoy. The French fleet sailed at the same time to protect it. On the morning of the 28th of May the fleets came in sight of each other. The British admiral had previously dispatched six ships of the line under admiral Montague to intercept the French convoy, while he should engage and detain the French grand fleet. The French dispatched eight sail to defeat this attempt. In the course of the 29th Lord Howe got to windward of the French fleet. His force was 25, and theirs was 26, sail of the line. The following day he bore down upon them, and broke their line. The engagement was one of the severest ever fought. The French admiral, in less than an hour after the close action commenced in the centre, crowded off with 12 of his ships. The British fleet was so much disordered, or separated, that several of the French dismantled ships got away under fires raised on the flanks of their fore-masts. Seven sail of the line, however, remained in possession of the British, and two were unquestionably sunk. In the mean time, admiral Montague fell in with the French convoy, but it was now guarded by 14 sail of the line. As he could not encounter such a force, he returned home, and it was safely conveyed into port. Thus, by one of those contradictions which so often occur in human affairs, the British fleet was victorious, and the French were left in some measure masters of the sea. As this engagement however testified that the British seamen had not lost their ancient superiority on their own element, the nation regarded the present victory as a pledge of its independence, and very general rejoicings took place in consequence of it.

In the mean time, the revolutionary system of government in the hands of committees of the convention existed at Paris, and of committees of the popular societies throughout the country, was arrived at its highest perfection, and proceeded without opposition in its severe and sanguinary measures.

On the 10th of May Madame Elizabeth, sister of the late king, was sacrificed by it in consequence of a decree of the revolutionary tribunal. Multitudes of others of every rank and sex were daily sacrificed in a similar manner; the rich in particular were the greatest objects of persecution, because the confiscation of their property added to the strength of the ruling powers. But neither were the poor safe from the bloody vigilance of this new and singular government. By the different modes of execution Robespierre had contrived to destroy every avowed rival. All the constituted authorities consisted wholly of persons nominated with his approbation; and as the committees which conducted the business of the state were at his disposal, his will was irresistible throughout the republic. He met with no opposition in the convention; for that body was no longer the turbulent popular assembly which it had once appeared; it was little more than a name employed to give some sort of respectability to such schemes as were professed to it.

Amidst this accumulation, however, of seemingly irresistible authority, Robespierre was at the brink of ruin. The whole of the old Girondist party was indeed subdued and silent; but many members of the convention still remained attached to it. The party of the Mountain Mountain, by means of whom Robespierre had risen to power, with little satisfaction now found themselves not only disregarded, but ready at every instant to fall a sacrifice to that system of terror which they had contributed to erect. Even the Jacobins themselves, though neither timid nor cautious in the shedding of blood, began to murmur when they saw that awful privilege confined exclusively within a few hands, or rather monopolized by an individual. In this state things remained for some time; and it appeared how possible it is for an individual to govern a great nation even while the whole of that nation is hostile to his power. The banishment or imprisonment of all foreigners, which had long been rigorously practised, prevents us from possessing much accurate information concerning the internal state of France at this period; but it is certain, that one circumstance in particular tended much to accelerate the fall of Robespierre. He had procured a decree to be passed, authorizing the committee of public safety to imprison at its pleasure, and bring to trial, any member of the convention. All the individuals of that body found themselves placed by this decree in the hands of a man whose severe and foppish temper they well knew. Still, however, they were so much surrounded by spies, that it was difficult to form a party or plan of operations; even the majority of the committee of public safety were among the number of the discontented, but they dared not to withstand their chief. At last, on the 25th of July, the convention began to exhibit signs of agitation. It was understood, that in the course of a few days Robespierre would sacrifice a number of the members to his suspicions. On the following day the sitting of the convention was still more tempestuous. In a long speech Robespierre defended his own conduct against those who had reproached him with aspiring to the dictatorship of France. He attacked the party whom he styled Moderates, as wishing to overturn the revolutionary government, and to restore the feeble system of the Brissotines. The result of a long debate was, that Robespierre was apparently victorious, and his speech was ordered to be printed. On the 27th the convention appeared ripe for a change: St. Just, a member of the committee of public safety, in attempting to defend Robespierre, was repeatedly interrupted; and Billaud Varrennes stood forward and enumerated the crimes, and proclaimed the tyranny, of Robespierre. The speech was received with bursts of applause. Robespierre in vain attempted to defend himself; he was silenced by shouts of execration from every part of the hall. Tallien seconded the former speaker in his accusation. The sitting was declared permanent, and a decree of arrest was passed against Robespierre and a younger brother of his, along with St. Just, Couthon, and Lebas. These men left the convention, and found security in the hall of the commune of Paris; where the municipal officers agreed to protect and stand by them. The town was founded; the armed force was under their command; an insurrection was therefore attempted against the convention: but the sections of Paris refused their support. Very few of the troops could be collected, and these were not firm; the late tyranny had become odious. The hall of the commune was therefore speedily surrounded; and about three o'clock in the morning of the 28th Robespierre and his associates were made prisoners. They had been outlawed by the convention on account of their resistance. They French were not therefore tried, unless for the purpose of identifying their persons; and, in the course of that day, they were executed: 60 of the municipal officers were also executed for joining in their rebellion; and in this way a storm passed over, which at one time threatened to involve the French capital in ruin, and filled all Europe with astonishment. Thus also terminated the career of the most extraordinary man that the French revolution had brought forward. His talents were undoubtedly considerable, and his ambition knew no bounds, bidding defiance to the ordinary feelings of humanity. Had Dumourier possessed his coolness and caution, or had he possessed the military talents of Dumourier, the convention would certainly have been overturned, and we should have seen a second Cromwell on the throne of his murdered sovereign.

After the fall of Robespierre, the convention exhibited no small change of appearance. Instead of that of terror silence which formerly prevailed, all was bustle and noise; all accused each other. There was no longer any leader, and there was no formed party. The former system of terror was declared to be at an end, and a new system of moderation succeeded. This was carried to as great a height as the system of terror had formerly been; and all means were taken to render popular the fall of their late tyrant. The committees were organized anew, and their members ordered to be frequently changed. The correspondence between the affiliated Jacobin clubs was prohibited, and at last the Jacobin club itself was abolished. This last event was accomplished with ease; and that society which had been the great engine of the revolution, was itself without resistance overturned. Seventy-one deputies of the Girondist party, who had been imprisoned since the 31st of May 1793, were set at liberty. The name of Lyons was restored to it. Some of the agents of Robespierre were punished, particularly the infamous Carrier, whose cruelties in La Vendée we formerly mentioned. Still, however, the convention appeared so little united and so little decided with regard to objects of the first importance, that in all probability they would not have conducted the important struggle against the nations of Europe with more success than the Girondist party had formerly done, if the revolutionary government and the late system of terror had not already accumulated in their hands such vast resources, and traced out such a plan of procedure, as rendered it an easy matter to preserve their numerous armies in the train of success to which they were now habituated.

The allies in their retreat had left strong garrisons in the French towns which had surrendered to them. These were Condé, Valenciennes, Queffois, and Lannoy. They now surrendered to the republican armies with so little resistance, that the conduct of the enemy began to be considered as ambiguous, and he was suspected of having entered into some kind of compromise with the French. This idea proved erroneous, and as soon as the army which had besieged these towns was able to join the grand army under Pichegru and Jourdan, the operations of the campaign were resumed after a suspension of almost two months. The French army divided itself into two bodies. One of these under Jourdan advanced against General Clairfait, who had succeeded the prince of Cobourg in the command French in the neighbourhood of Maastricht. On the 15th of September the French attacked the whole Austrian posts in an extent of five leagues from Liège to Maastricht. On that and the following day the losses were nearly equal. On the 17th the French with 50 pieces of cannon attacked General Kray in his entrenched camp before Maastricht. M. de Kray was already retiring when General Clairfait arrived with a strong reinforcement, and after a severe combat the French were once more compelled to retire. On the 18th the French renewed the attack with tenfold fury upon every part of the Austrian line, and the whole was compelled to fly to the neighbourhood of Aix-la-Chapelle. General Clairfait now chose a strong position on the banks of the Roer, where he even declared it to be his wish that he might be attacked. But by this time the spirit of his army was humbled, defections became numerous, and the want of discipline was extreme. On the 1st of October the French crossed the Maas and the Roer, and attacked the whole Austrian posts from Ruremond down to Juliers. After a bloody engagement, the brave and active, though unfortunate, General Clairfait was compelled hastily to cross the Rhine, with the loss of 10 or 12,000 men. The French general did not attempt to cross that river, but one detachment of his army took possession of Coblenz, while others laid close siege to Venlo and Maastricht, which soon surrendered.

The division of the French army, in the mean time, under General Pichegru came down upon Holland, and attacked the allied army under the duke of York between Bois-le-Duc and Grave. They forced the advanced post of Boxtel. Lieutenant-general Abercromby was sent to attempt to recover this post on the 15th of September, but he found the French in such force that he was obliged to retreat. Indeed the French were discovered to be no less than 80,000 strong in that neighbourhood. The duke of York was unable to contend against a force so superior, and retired across the Maas with the loss of somewhat less than 1500 men. Pichegru immediately laid siege to Bois-le-Duc. On the 30th of September, Crevecoeur was taken, and Bois-le-Duc surrendered in 10 days thereafter. In it 408 French emigrants were taken prisoners; and these, as well as 700 that had been taken at Nieuport, 500 at Sluis, and 1100 at Valenciennes, were all put to death, agreeably to the rigorous law formerly made by the convention. The French now followed the duke of York across the Maas. Upon this the greater part of the allied army under his royal highness crossed the Rhine and took post at Arnheim. The remaining part of the army followed soon after, and Nimègue was occupied by the French on the 7th of November. The duke of Brunswick was at this time requested to take the command of the allied army, to protect Holland, if possible. He came to Arnheim for that purpose; but after examining the state of things there, he declined the undertaking. The allied troops had now so often fled before their victorious and almost innumerable enemies, they had so often been in want of every necessity, and had been received so ill by the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed, among whom the French cause was extremely popular, that they had lost that regularity of conduct and discipline which alone can afford a secure prospect of success in military affairs.

The French, on the contrary, well received, abounding in every thing, and proud of fighting in a popular cause, now acted with much order, and submitted to the strictest discipline. In addition to all these advantages, the French leaders had the dexterity to persuade the world that new and unknown arts were employed to give aid to their cause. At this period the telegraph was first used for conveying intelligence from the frontiers of the capital, and from the capital to the frontiers. (See min. Télégraphe). Balloons were also used by the French during this campaign to procure knowledge of the position of the enemy. An engineer ascended with the balloon, which was suffered to rise to a great height, but prevented from flying away by a long cord. He made plans of the enemies encampment; and during an attack he sent down notice of every hostile movement. In the affairs of men, and more especially in military transactions, opinion is of more importance than reality. The French soldiers confided in their own officers as men possessed of a kind of omniscience, while the allied troops, no doubt, beheld with anxiety a new contrivance employed against them, whose importance would be readily magnified by credulity and ignorance. With all these advantages, however, after the capture of Nimègue, they once more made a halt in their career, and abstained from the attack of Holland, which now seemed almost prostrate before them.

While these events occurred in the north, the French arms were scarcely less successful on the side of Spain. Bellagarda was taken; in the Western Pyrenees, Fontarabia surrendered, and also St Sebastian; the whole kingdom of Spain seemed panic-struck. That feeble government, with an almost impregnable frontier, and the most powerful fortresses, could make little resistance; and the difficult nature of their country was their only protection. The history of this war is only a history of victories on the part of the French. In the Eastern Pyrenees, on the 17th of November, the French general Dugommier was killed in an engagement, in which his army was successful. On the 20th of that month the French again attacked the Spaniards, and routed them by means of the bayonet, without firing a single musket-shot. Tents, baggage, and cannon, for an army of 50,000 men, fell into the hand of the conquerors, along with a great part of the province of Navarre. Towards the end of the year, an army of 40,000 Spaniards, entrenched behind 80 redoubts, the labour of six months, suffered themselves to be completely routed; their general count de La Union was found dead on the field of battle, and the whole Spanish artillery was taken. In three days thereafter, the fort Fernando de Figueres, containing a garrison of 9107 men, surrendered, although it mounted 171 pieces of cannon, and possessed abundance of provisions. The French continued their conquests; Rosas was taken, and the whole province of Catalonia was left at the mercy of the invaders.

The successes of this wonderful campaign were not yet terminated; and the last part of them is perhaps the most important, although no great effort was necessary to its execution. The winter now let in with uncommon severity. For some years past the seasons of Europe had been uncommonly mild; there had been little frost in winter, and no intense heat in summer. But during the late season the weather had long been remarkably markably dry till the latter part of harvest, when there fell a considerable, though by no means unusual, quantity of rain. Towards the end of December a severe frost bound up the whole of the rivers and lakes of Holland. The Waal was frozen over in the beginning of January; a circumstance which had not occurred for 14 years past. Taking advantage of this, the French crossed that river, and with little opposition seized the important pass of Bommel, which at other seasons is so strong by its inundations. The allied army had been joined by 17,000 Austrians, and had received orders to defend Holland to the last. They did so, and were successful in repulsing the French for some days between the Waal and the Leek; but the republican army, amounting to 70,000 men, having at last advanced in full force, the allied troops were compelled to retire across the Yssel into Westphalia. In the course of their march through this desert country, in the midst of severe frost and a deep snow, they are said to have suffered incredible hardships, and to have lost a very great number of men. The French, in the mean time, advanced rapidly across the country to the Zuider sea, to prevent the inhabitants from fleeing, and carrying off their property.

On the 16th of January 1795, a party of horse, without resistance, took possession of Amsterdam. The other towns surrendered at discretion. In consequence of an order from the States General, the strong fortresses of Bergen-op-zoom, Williamstadt, Breda, &c. opened their gates to the French. The fleet and the shipping were fixed by the intense frost in their stations, and fell a prey to the enemy; who thus, with little effort, made a complete conquest of this populous and once powerful country. The French were well received by the people at large. The power of the Stadtholder had been supported among them merely by the influence of Prussia and England. Through hatred to this office, which had now become odious chiefly to the mercantile aristocracy of Holland, they were little attached to their allies, and gave them, during the present war, as little support as possible. The Stadtholder and his family now fled to England. The French declared, that they did not mean to make subjects but allies of the Dutch, and invited them to call together popular assemblies for settling their own government, under the protection of the French republic.

Thus terminated a campaign, the most astonishing, perhaps, that has been known in the history of mankind. In the course of it, even before the conquest of Holland, the French had taken 2000 pieces of cannon and 60,000 prisoners. After that event, the conquered territories added to them a population of nearly 14 millions of people. Luxembourg and Mentz were the only places on this side of the Rhine that resisted them. The former was closely blockaded, for the purpose of compelling it to surrender; the latter was several times assaulted, but successfully held out.

Europe was now weary of this bloody strife. The German Diet of Ratisbon declared its resolution to take measures for procuring peace. The Grand Duke of Tuscany concluded a treaty with the French republic. France itself, exhausted by massacres, emigrations, and the terrible efforts which it had made, wished for tranquillity; and the Convention found it necessary to declare that they were willing to treat for peace with any of the powers of Europe, upon honourable terms.

The frequent changes, however, which have with astonishing rapidity taken place in the mode of conducting French affairs, and the different principles displayed by the different factions as they successively got into power, have produced in Great Britain and Austria a very general persuasion that no peace concluded with the present Convention could either be honourable or permanent; and therefore these two mighty nations have resolved to continue the war with redoubled vigour. In support of the wisdom of this resolution, it has been observed, that the hatred of the Mountain to the Girondists was such, that it would have violated any treaty which had been concluded with them; that when Robespierre became all powerful, and terror was the order of the day, all former measures were changed, and peace or war made wholly subservient to the ambitions views of that relentless tyrant; that Tallien, having originally belonged to the Mountain, introduced the present system of moderation, not from principle, but only to reconcile the people to his usurped authority, and the fall of his bloody predecessor; that he may suddenly change his measures, or be denounced and executed by the influence of some more daring demagogue, who would again introduce the system of terror; and that in such a state of uncertainty, the only consequence to be expected from making peace at present is, that it would furnish the next faction which may gain the ascendancy in France with an opportunity of attacking the allies when least prepared to receive them. Such reasoning as this has been admitted in the British parliament, where a loan of five millions Sterling has been voted to the Emperor, to enable him to begin the ensuing campaign with an army of 200,000 men. In what manner the war ought to be conducted, it is not for us to say. The British nation seems to rely its hopes on its superiority at sea; and the greatest exertions are making to augment and man the navy. But we are convinced here under the necessity of dropping this subject, without being able completely to fulfil the promise which we made to our readers at the end of the article France. There is as little appearance at present of peace, and a steady government being soon restored to that distracted country, as there was at the beginning of the troubles; and there is not the smallest probability that the republican constitution, framed by the Convention, will last one year after the dissolution of that assembly.

In tracing the origin and progress of this wonderful revolution, we have consulted every work from which we had reason to look for information, and we have confined ourselves to a simple narration of facts, seldom giving way to the reflections which they suggested. Our facts, too, have been generally stated from writers who are supposed to be not unfriendly to democracy, that they may gain the fuller credit with our own reformers; for in the most favourable point of view in which those facts can be placed, they furnish the strongest objection possible to all their proposed reformation of the British constitution. If the horrible deeds of darkness which have been acted on the theatre of France cannot make us contented with the government under which we live, and which has been brought to its present state of perfection, not by the metaphysical speculations of recluse philosophers, but by observation and the practical experience of ages, we shall be considered by posterity as a people people incapable of instruction, and ripe for the greatest miseries in which we may be involved.