History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 Part 15

The a.s.sembly, which had only fought in its own defence, displayed much moderation. The 13th Vendemiaire was the 10th of August of the royalists against the republic, except that the convention resisted the bourgeoisie much better than the throne resisted the faubourgs. The position of France contributed very much to this victory. Men now wished for a republic without a revolutionary government, a moderate regime without a counter- revolution. The convention, which was a mediatory power, p.r.o.nounced alike against the exclusive domination of the lower cla.s.s, which it had thrown off in Prairial, and the reactionary domination of the bourgeoisie, which it repelled in Vendemiaire, seemed alone capable of satisfying this twofold want, and of putting an end to the state of warfare between the two parties, which was prolonged by their alternate entrance into the government. This situation, as well as its own dangers, gave it courage to resist, and secured its triumph. The sections could not take it by surprise, and still less by a.s.sault.

After the events of Vendemiaire, the convention occupied itself with forming the councils and the directory. The third part, freely elected, had been favourable to reaction. A few conventionalists, headed by Tallien, proposed to annul the elections of this _third_, and wished to suspend, for a longer time, the conventional government. Thibaudeau exposed their design with much courage and eloquence. The whole conventional party adopted his opinion. It rejected all superfluous arbitrary sway, and showed itself impatient to leave the provisional state it had been in for the last three years. The convention established itself as a _national electoral a.s.sembly_, in order to complete the _two-thirds_ from among its members. It then formed the councils; that of the _Ancients_ of two hundred and fifty members, who according to the new law had completed forty years; that of _The Five Hundred_ from among the others. The councils met in the Tuileries. They then proceeded to form the government.

The attack of Vendemiaire was quite recent; and the republican party, especially dreading the counter-revolution, agreed to choose the directors only, from the conventionalists, and further from among those of them who had voted for the death of the king. Some of the most influential members, among whom was Daunou, opposed this view, which restricted the choice, and continued to give the government a dictatorial and revolutionary character; but it prevailed. The conventionalists thus elected were La Reveillere-Lepaux, invested with general confidence on account of his courageous conduct on the 31st of May, for his probity and his moderation; Sieyes, the man who of all others enjoyed the greatest celebrity of the day; Rewbell, possessed of great administrative activity; Letourneur, one of the members of the commission of five during the last crisis; and Barras, chosen for his two pieces of good fortune of Thermidor and Vendemiaire. Sieyes, who had refused to take part in the legislative commission _of the eleven_, also refused to enter upon the directory. It is difficult to say whether this reluctance arose from calculation or an insurmountable antipathy for Rewbell. He was replaced by Carnot, the only member of the former committee whom they were disposed to favour, on account of his political purity, and his great share in the victories of the republic. Such was the first composition of the directory. On the 4th Brumaire, the convention pa.s.sed a law of amnesty, in order to enter on legal government; changed the name of the Place de la Revolution into Place de la Concorde, and declared its session closed.

The convention lasted three years, from the 21st of September, 1792, to October 26, 1795 (4th Brumaire, year IV.). It took several directions.

During the six first months of its existence it was drawn into the struggle which arose between the legal party of the Gironde, and the revolutionary party of the Mountain. The latter had the lead from the 31st of May, 1793, to the 9th Thermidor, year II. (26th July, 1794). The convention then obeyed the committee of public safety, which first destroyed its old allies of the commune and of the Mountain, and afterwards perished through its own divisions. From the 9th Thermidor to the month of Brumaire, year IV., the convention conquered the revolutionary and royalist parties, and sought to establish a moderate republic in opposition to both.

During this long and terrible period, the violence of the situation changed the revolution into a war, and the a.s.sembly into a field of battle. Each party wished to establish its sway by victory, and to secure it by founding its system. The Girondist party made the attempt, and perished; the Mountain made the attempt, and perished; the party of the commune made the attempt, and perished; Robespierre's party made the attempt, and perished. They could only conquer, they were unable to found a system. The property of such a storm was to overthrow everything that attempted to become settled. All was provisional; dominion, men, parties, and systems, because the only thing real and possible was--war. A year was necessary to enable the conventional party, on its return to power, to restore the revolution to a legal position; and it could only accomplish this by two victories--that of Prairial and that of Vendemiaire. But the convention having then returned to the point whence it started, and having discharged its true mission, which was to establish the republic after having defended it, disappeared from the theatre of the world which it had filled with surprise. A revolutionary power, it ceased as soon as legal order recommenced. Three years of dictatorship had been lost to liberty but not to the revolution.

THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY

CHAPTER XII

FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THE DIRECTORY, ON THE 27TH OCTOBER, 1795, TO THE COUP-D'eTAT OF THE 18TH FRUCTIDOR, YEAR V. (3RD AUGUST, 1797)

The French revolution, which had destroyed the old government, and thoroughly overturned the old society, had two wholly distinct objects; that of a free const.i.tution, and that of a more perfect state of civilization. The six years we have just gone over were the search for government by each of the cla.s.ses which composed the French nation. The privileged cla.s.ses wished to establish their regime against the court and the bourgeoisie, by preserving the social orders and the states-general; the bourgeoisie sought to establish its regime against the privileged cla.s.ses and the mult.i.tude, by the const.i.tution of 1791; and the mult.i.tude wished to establish its regime against all the others, by the const.i.tution of 1793. Not one of these governments could become consolidated, because they were all exclusive. But during their attempts, each cla.s.s, in power for a time, destroyed of the higher cla.s.ses all that was intolerant or calculated to oppose the progress of the new civilization.

When the directory succeeded the convention, the struggle between the cla.s.ses was greatly weakened. The higher ranks of each formed a party which still contended for the possession and for the form of government; but the ma.s.s of the nation which had been so profoundly agitated from 1789 to 1795, longed to become settled again, and to arrange itself according to the new order of things. This period witnessed the end of the movement for liberty, and the beginning of the movement towards civilization. The revolution now took its second character, its character of order, foundation, repose, after the agitation, the immense toil, and system of complete demolition of its early years.

This second period was remarkable, inasmuch as it seemed a kind of abandonment of liberty. The different parties being no longer able to possess it in an exclusive and durable manner, became discouraged, and fell back from public into private life. This second period divided itself into two epochs: it was liberal under the directory and at the commencement of the Consulate, and military at the close of the Consulate and under the empire. The revolution daily grew more materialized; after having made a nation of sectaries, it made a nation of working men, and then it made a nation of soldiers.

Many illusions were already destroyed; men had pa.s.sed through so many different states, had lived so much in so few years, that all ideas were confounded and all creeds shaken. The reign of the middle cla.s.s and that of the mult.i.tude had pa.s.sed away like a rapid phantasmagoria. They were far from that France of the 14th of July, with its deep conviction, its high morality, its a.s.sembly exercising the all-powerful sway of liberty and of reason, its popular magistracies, its citizen-guard, its brilliant, peaceable, and animated exterior, wearing the impress of order and independence. They were far from the more sombre and more tempestuous France of the 10th of August, when a single cla.s.s held the government and society, and had introduced therein its language, manners, and costume, the agitation of its fears, the fanaticism of its ideas, the distrust of its position. Then private life entirely gave place to public life; the republic presented, in turn, the aspect of an a.s.sembly and of a camp; the rich were subject to the poor; the creed of democracy combined with the gloomy and ragged administration of the people. At each of these periods men had been strongly attached to some idea: first, to liberty and const.i.tutional monarchy; afterwards, to equality, fraternity, and the republic. But at the beginning of the directory, there was belief in nothing; in the great shipwreck of parties, all had been lost, both the virtue of the bourgeoisie and the virtue of the people.

Men arose from this furious turmoil weakened and wounded, and each, remembering his political existence with terror, plunged wildly into the pleasures and relations of private life which had so long been suspended.

b.a.l.l.s, banquets, debauchery, splendid carriages, became more fashionable than ever; this was the reaction of the ancient regime. The reign of the sans-culottes brought back the dominion of the rich; the clubs, the return of the salons. For the rest, it was scarcely possible but that the first symptom of the resumption of modern civilization should be thus irregular. The directorial manners were the product of another society, which had to appear again before the new state of society could regulate its relations, and const.i.tute its own manners. In this transition, luxury would give rise to labour, stock-jobbing to commerce; salons bring parties together who could not approximate except in private life; in a word, civilization would again usher in liberty.

The situation of the republic was discouraging at the installation of the directory. There existed no element of order or administration. There was no money in the public treasury; couriers were often delayed for want of the small sum necessary to enable them to set out. In the interior, anarchy and uneasiness were general; paper currency, in the last stage of discredit, destroyed confidence and commerce; the dearth became protracted, every one refusing to part with his commodities, for it amounted to giving them away; the a.r.s.enals were exhausted or almost empty.

Without, the armies were dest.i.tute of baggage-wagons, horses, and supplies; the soldiers were in want of clothes, and the generals were often unable to liquidate their pay of eight francs a month in specie, an indispensable supplement, small as it was, to their pay in a.s.signats; and lastly, the troops, discontented and undisciplined, on account of their necessities, were again beaten, and on the defensive.

Things were at this state of crisis after the fall of the committee of public safety. This committee had foreseen the dearth, and prepared for it, both in the army and in the interior, by the requisitions and the _maximum_. No one had dared to exempt himself from this financial system, which rendered the wealthy and commercial cla.s.ses tributary to the soldiers and the mult.i.tude, and at that time provisions had not been withheld from the market. But since violence and confiscation had ceased, the people, the convention, and the armies were at the mercy of the landed proprietors and speculators, and terrible scarcity existed, a reaction against the _maximum_. The system of the convention had consisted, in political economy, in the consumption of an immense capital, represented by the a.s.signats. This a.s.sembly had been a rich government, which had ruined itself in defending the revolution. Nearly half the French territory, consisting of domains of the crown, ecclesiastical property, or the estates of the emigrant n.o.bility, had been sold, and the produce applied to the support of the people, who did little labour, and to the external defence of the republic by the armies. More than eight milliards of a.s.signats had been issued before the 9th Thermidor, and since that period thirty thousand millions had been added to that sum, already so enormous. Such a system could not be continued; it was necessary to begin the work again, and return to real money.

The men deputed to remedy this great disorganization were, for the most part, of ordinary talent; but they set to work with zeal, courage, and good sense. "When the directors," said M. Bailleul, [Footnote: _Examen Critique des Considerations de Madame de Stael, sur la Revolution Francaise_, by M. J. Ch. Bailleul, vol. ii., pp. 275, 281.] "entered the Luxembourg, there was not an article of furniture. In a small room, at a little broken table, one leg of which was half eaten away with age, on which they placed some letter-paper and a calumet standish, which they had fortunately brought from the committee of public safety, seated on four straw-bottom chairs, opposite a few logs of dimly-burning wood, the whole borrowed from Dupont, the porter; who would believe that it was in such a condition that the members of the new government, after having investigated all the difficulties, nay, all the horror of their position, resolved that they would face all obstacles, and that they would either perish or rescue France from the abyss into which she had fallen? On a sheet of writing-paper they drew up the act by which they ventured to declare themselves const.i.tuted; an act which they immediately despatched to the legislative chambers."

The directors then proceeded to divide their labours, taking as their guide the grounds which had induced the const.i.tutional party to select them. Rewbell, possessed of great energy, a lawyer versed in government and diplomacy, had a.s.signed to him the departments of law, finance, and foreign affairs. His skill and commanding character soon made him the moving spirit of the directory in all civil matters. Barras had no special knowledge; his mind was mediocre, his resources few, his habits indolent.

In an hour of danger, his resolution qualified him to execute sudden measures, like those of Thermidor or Vendemiaire. But being, on ordinary occasions, only adapted for the surveillance of parties, the intrigues of which he was better acquainted with than any one else, the police department was allotted to him. He was well suited for the task, being supple and insinuating, without partiality for any political sect, and having revolutionary connexions by his past life, while his birth gave him access to the aristocracy. Barras took on himself the representation of the directory, and established a sort of republican regency at the Luxembourg. The pure and moderate La Reveillere, whose gentleness tempered with courage, whose sincere attachment for the republic and legal measures, had procured him a post in the directory, with the general consent of the a.s.sembly and public opinion, had a.s.signed to him the moral department, embracing education, the arts, sciences, manufactures, etc.

Letourneur, an ex-artillery officer, member of the committee of public safety at the latter period of the convention, had been appointed to the war department. But when Carnot was chosen, on the refusal of Sieyes, he a.s.sumed the direction of military operations, and left to his colleague Letourneur the navy and the colonies. His high talents and resolute character gave him the upper hand in the direction. Letourneur attached himself to him, as La Reveillere to Rewbell, and Barras was between the two. At this period, the directors turned their attention with the greatest concord to the improvement and welfare of the state.

The directors frankly followed the route traced out for them by the const.i.tution. After having established authority in the centre of the republic, they organized it in the departments, and established, as well as they could, a correspondence of design between local administrations and their own. Placed between the two exclusive and dissatisfied parties of Prairial and Vendemiaire, they endeavoured, by a decided line of conduct, to subject them to an order of things, holding a place midway between their extreme pretensions. They sought to revive the enthusiasm and order of the first years of the revolution. "You, whom we summon to share our labours," they wrote to their agents, "you who have, with us, to promote the progress of the republican const.i.tution, your first virtue, your first feeling, should be that decided resolution, that patriotic faith, which has also produced its enthusiasts and its miracles. All will be achieved when, by your care, that sincere love of liberty which sanctified the dawn of the revolution, again animates the heart of every Frenchman. The banners of liberty floating on every house, and the republican device written on every door, doubtless form an interesting sight. Obtain more; hasten the day when the sacred name of the republic shall be graven voluntarily on every heart."

In a short time, the wise and firm proceedings of the new government restored confidence, labour, and plenty. The circulation of provisions was secured, and at the end of a month the directory was relieved from the obligation to provide Paris with supplies, which it effected for itself.

The immense activity created by the revolution began to be directed towards industry and agriculture. A part of the population quitted the clubs and public places for workshops and fields; and then the benefit of a revolution, which, having destroyed corporations, divided property, abolished privileges, increased fourfold the means of civilization, and was destined to produce prodigious good to France, began to be felt. The directory encouraged this movement in the direction of labour by salutary inst.i.tutions. It re-established public exhibitions of the produce of industry, and improved the system of education decreed under the convention. The national inst.i.tute, primary, central, and normal schools, formed a complete system of republican inst.i.tutions. La Reveillere, the director intrusted with the moral department of the government, then sought to establish, under the name of _Theophilanthropie_, the deistical religion which the committee of public safety had vainly endeavoured to establish by the _Fete a l'Etre Supreme_. He provided temples, hymns, forms, and a kind of liturgy, for the new religion; but such a faith could only be individual, could not long continue public. The _theophilanthropists_, whose religion was opposed to the political opinions and the unbelief of the revolutionists, were much ridiculed.

Thus, in the pa.s.sage from public inst.i.tutions to individual faith, all that had been liberty became civilization, and what had been religion became opinion. Deists remained, but _theophilanthropists_ were no longer to be met with.

The directory, pressed for money, and shackled by the disastrous state of the finances, had recourse to measures somewhat extraordinary. It had sold or pledged the most valuable articles of the Wardrobe, in order to meet the greatest urgencies. National property was still left; but it sold badly, and for a.s.signats. The directory proposed a compulsory loan, which was decreed by the councils. This was a relic of the revolutionary measures with regard to the rich; but, having been irresolutely adopted, and executed without due authority, it did not succeed. The directory then endeavoured to revive paper money; it proposed the issue of _mandats territoriaux_, which were to be subst.i.tuted for the a.s.signats then in circulation, at the rate of thirty for one, and to take the place of money. The councils decreed the issue of _mandats territoriaux_ to the amount of two thousand four hundred millions. They had the advantage of being exchangeable at once and upon presentation, for the national domains which represented them. Their sale was very extensive, and in this way was completed the revolutionary mission of the a.s.signats, of which they were the second period. They procured the directory a momentary resource; but they also lost their credit, and led insensibly to bankruptcy, which was the transition from paper to specie.

The military situation of the republic was not a brilliant one; at the close of the convention there had been an abatement of victories. The equivocal position and weakness of the central authority, as much as the scarcity, had relaxed the discipline of the troops. The generals, too, disappointed that they had distinguished their command by so few victories, and were not spurred on by an energetic government, became inclined to insubordination. The convention had deputed Pichegru and Jourdan, one at the head of the army of the Rhine, the other with that of the Sambre-et-Meuse, to surround and capture Mayence, in order that they might occupy the whole line of the Rhine. Pichegru made this project completely fail; although possessing the entire confidence of the republic, and enjoying the greatest military fame of the day, he formed counter-revolutionary schemes with the prince of Conde; but they were unable to agree. Pichegru urged the emigrant prince to enter France with his troops, by Switzerland or the Rhine, promising to remain inactive, the only thing in his power to do in favour of such an attempt. The prince required as a preliminary, that Pichegru should hoist the white flag in his army, which was, to a man, republican. This hesitation, no doubt, injured the projects of the reactionists, who were preparing the conspiracy of Vendemiaire. But Pichegru wishing, one way or the other, to serve his new allies and to betray his country, allowed himself to be defeated at Heidelberg, compromised the army of Jourdan, evacuated Mannheim, raised the siege of Mayence with considerable loss, and exposed that frontier to the enemy.

The directory found the Rhine open towards Mayence, the war of La Vendee rekindled; the coasts of France and Holland threatened with a descent from England; lastly, the army of Italy dest.i.tute of everything, and merely maintaining the defensive under Scherer and Kellermann. Carnot prepared a new plan of campaign, which was to carry the armies of the republic to the very heart of the hostile states. Bonaparte, appointed general of the interior after the events of Vendemiaire, was placed at the head of the army of Italy; Jourdan retained the command of the army of the Sambre-et- Meuse, and Moreau had that of the army of the Rhine, in place of Pichegru.

The latter, whose treason was suspected by the directory, though not proved, was offered the emba.s.sy to Sweden, which he refused, and retired to Arbois, his native place. The three great armies, placed under the orders of Bonaparte, Jourdan, and Moreau, were to attack the Austrian monarchy by Italy and Germany, combine at the entrance of the Tyrol and march upon Vienna, in echelon. The generals prepared to execute this vast movement, the success of which would make the republic mistress of the headquarters of the coalition on the continent.

The directory gave to general Hoche the command of the coast, and deputed him to conclude the Vendean war. Hoche changed the system of warfare adopted by his predecessors. La Vendee was disposed to submit. Its previous victories had not led to the success of its cause; defeat and ill-fortune had exposed it to plunder and conflagration. The insurgents, irreparably injured by the disaster of Savenay, by the loss of their princ.i.p.al leader, and their best soldiers, by the devastating system of the infernal columns, now desired nothing more than to live on good terms with the republic. The war now depended only on a few chiefs, upon Charette, Stofflet, etc. Hoche saw that it was necessary to wean the ma.s.ses from these men by concessions, and then to crush them. He skilfully separated the royalist cause from the cause of religion, and employed the priests against the generals, by showing great indulgence to the catholic religion. He had the country scoured by four powerful columns, took their cattle from the inhabitants, and only restored them in return for their arms. He left no repose to the armed party, defeated Charette in several encounters, pursued him from one retreat to another, and at last made him prisoner. Stofflet wished to raise the Vendean standard again on his territory; but it was given up to the republicans. These two chiefs, who had witnessed the beginning of the insurrection, were present at its close. They died courageously; Stofflet at Angers, Charette at Nantes, after having displayed character and talents worthy of a larger theatre.

Hoche likewise tranquillized Brittany. Morbihan was occupied by numerous bands of Chouans, who formed a formidable a.s.sociation, the princ.i.p.al leader of which was George Cadoudal. Without entering on a campaign, they were mastering the country. Hoche directed all his force and activity against them, and before long had destroyed or exhausted them. Most of their leaders quitted their arms, and took refuge in England. The directory, on learning these fortunate pacifications, formally announced to both councils, on the 28th Messidor (June, 1796), that this civil war was definitively terminated.

In this manner the winter of the year IV. pa.s.sed away. But the directory could hardly fail to be attacked by the two parties, whose sway was prevented by its existence, the democrats and the royalists. The former const.i.tuted an inflexible and enterprising sect. For them, the 9th Thermidor was an era of pain and oppression: they desired to establish absolute equality, in spite of the state of society, and democratic liberty, in spite of civilization. This sect had been so vanquished as effectually to prevent its return to power. On the 9th Thermidor it had been driven from the government; on the 2nd Prairial, from society; and it had lost both power and insurrections. But though disorganized and proscribed, it was far from having disappeared. After the unfortunate attempt of the royalists in Vendemiaire, it arose through their abas.e.m.e.nt.

The democrats re-established their club at the Pantheon, which the directory tolerated for some time. They had for their chief, "Gracchus"

Babeuf, who styled himself the "Tribune of the people." He was a daring man, of an exalted imagination, an extraordinary fanaticism of democracy, and with great influence over his party. In his journal, he prepared the reign of general happiness. The society at the Pantheon daily became more numerous, and more alarming to the directory who at first endeavoured to restrain it. But the sittings were soon protracted to an advanced hour of the night; the democrats repaired thither in arms, and proposed marching against the directory and the councils. The directory determined to oppose them openly. On the 8th Ventose, year IV. (February, 1796), it closed the society of the Pantheon, and on the 9th, by a message informed the legislative body that it had done so.

The democrats, deprived of their place of meeting, had recourse to another plan. They seduced the police force, which was chiefly composed of deposed revolutionists; and in concert with it, they were to destroy the const.i.tution of the year III. The directory, informed of this new manoeuvre, disbanded the police force, causing it to be disarmed by other troops on whom it could rely. The conspirators, taken by surprise a second time, determined on a project of attack and insurrection: they formed an insurrectionary committee of public safety, which communicated by secondary agents with the lower orders of the twelve communes of Paris.

The members of this princ.i.p.al committee were Babeuf, the chief of the conspiracy, ex-conventionalists, such as Vadier, Amar, Choudieu, Ricord, the representative Drouet, the former generals of the decemviral committee, Rossignol, Parrein, Fyon, Lami. Many cashiered officers, patriots of the departments, and the old Jacobin ma.s.s, composed the army of this faction. The chiefs often a.s.sembled in a place they called the Temple of Reason; here they sang lamentations on the death of Robespierre, and deplored the slavery of the people. They opened a negotiation with the troops of the camp of Grenelle, admitted among them a captain of that camp, named Grisel, whom they supposed their own, and concerted every measure for the attack.

Their plan was to establish common happiness; and for that purpose, to make a distribution of property, and to cause the government of true, pure, and absolute democrats to prevail; to create a convention composed of sixty-eight members of the Mountain, the remnant of the numbers proscribed since the reaction of Thermidor, and to join with these a democrat for each department; lastly, to start from the different quarters in which they had distributed themselves, and march at the same time against the directory and against the councils. On the night of the insurrection, they were to fix up two placards; one, containing the words, "The Const.i.tution of 1793! liberty! equality! common happiness!" the other, containing the following declaration, "Those who usurp the sovereignty, ought to be put to death by free men." All was ready; the proclamations printed, the day appointed, when they were betrayed by Grisel, as generally happens in conspiracies.

On the 21st Floreal (May), the eve of the day fixed for the attack, the conspirators were seized at their regular place of meeting. In Babeuf's house were found a plan of the plot and all the doc.u.ments connected with it. The directory apprised the councils of it by a message, and announced it to the people by proclamation. This strange attempt, savouring so strongly of fanaticism, and which could only be a repet.i.tion of the insurrection of Prairial, without its means and its hopes of success, excited the greatest terror. The public mind was still terrified with the recent domination of the Jacobins.

Babeuf, like a daring conspirator, prisoner as he was, proposed terms of peace to the directory:--

"Would you consider it beneath you, citizen directors," he wrote to them, "to treat with me, as power with power? You have seen what vast confidence centres in me; you have seen that my party may well balance equally in the scale your own; you have seen its immense ramifications. I am convinced you have trembled at the sight." He concluded by saying: "I see but one wise mode of proceeding; declare there has been no serious conspiracy.

Five men, by showing themselves great and generous may now save the country. I will answer for it, that the patriots will defend you with their lives; the patriots do not hate you; they only hated your unpopular measures. For my part, I will give you a guarantee as extensive as is my perpetual franchise." The directors, instead of this reconciliation, published Babeuf's letter, and sent the conspirators before the high court of Vendome.

Their partisans made one more attempt. On the 13th Fructidor (August), about eleven at night, they marched, to the number of six or seven hundred, armed with sabres and pistols, against the directory, whom they found defended by its guard. They then repaired to the camp of Grenelle, which they hoped to gain over by means of a correspondence which they had established with it. The troops had retired to rest when the conspirators arrived. To the sentinel's cry of "_Qui vive?_" they replied: "_Vive la republique! Vive la const.i.tution de '93!_" The sentinels gave the alarm through the camp. The conspirators, relying on the a.s.sistance of a battalion from Gard, which had been disbanded, advanced towards the tent of Malo, the commander-in-chief, who gave orders to sound to arms, and commanded his half-dressed dragoons to mount. The conspirators, surprised at this reception, feebly defended themselves: they were cut down by the dragoons or put to flight, leaving many dead and prisoners on the field of battle. This ill-fated expedition was almost the last of the party: with each defeat it lost its force, its chiefs, and acquired the secret conviction that its reign was over. The Grenelle enterprise proved most fatal to it; besides the numbers slain in the fight, many were condemned to death by the military commissions, which were to it what the revolutionary tribunals had been to its foes. The commission of the camp of Grenelle, in five sittings, condemned one-and-thirty conspirators to death, thirty to transportation, and twenty-five to imprisonment.

Shortly afterwards the high court of Vendome tried Babeuf and his accomplices, among whom were Amar, Vadier, and Darthe, formerly secretary to Joseph Lebon. They none of them belied themselves; they spoke as men who feared neither to avow their object, nor to die for their cause. At the beginning and the end of each sitting, they sang the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_.

This old song of victory, and their firm demeanour, struck the public mind with astonishment, and seemed to render them still more formidable. Their wives accompanied them to the trial, Babeuf, at the close of his defence, turned to them, and said, "_they should accompany them even to Calvary, because the cause of their punishment would not bring them to shame_." The high court condemned Babeuf and Darthe to death: as they heard their sentence they both stabbed themselves with a poignard. Babeuf was the last leader of the old commune and the committee of public safety, which had separated previous to Thermidor, and which afterwards united again. This party decreased daily. Its dispersal and isolation more especially date from this period. Under the reaction, it still formed a compact ma.s.s; under Babeuf, it maintained the position of a formidable a.s.sociation. From that time democrates existed, but the party was broken up.

In the interim between the Grenelle enterprise and Babeuf's condemnation, the royalists also formed their conspiracy. The projects of the democrats produced a movement of opinion, contrary to that which had been manifested after Vendemiaire, and the counter-revolutionists in their turn became emboldened. The secret chiefs of this party hoped to find auxiliaries in the troops of the camp of Grenelle, who had repelled the Babeuf faction.

This party, impatient and unskilful, unable to employ the whole of the sectionaries, as in Vendemiaire, or the ma.s.s of the councils, as on the 18th Fructidor, made use of three men without either name or influence: the abbe Brothier, the ex-counsellor of parliament, Lavilheurnois, and a sort of adventurer, named Dunan. They applied at once, in all simplicity, to Malo for the camp of Grenelle, in order by its means to restore the ancient regime. Malo delivered them up to the directory, who transferred them to the civil tribunals, not having been able, as he wished, to have them tried by military commissioners. They were treated with much consideration by judges of their party, elected under the influence of Vendemiaire, and the sentence p.r.o.nounced against them was only a short imprisonment. At this period, a contest arose between all the authorities appointed by the sections, and the directory supported by the army; each taking its strength and judges wherever its party prevailed; the result was, that the electoral power placing itself at the disposition of the counter-revolution, the directory was compelled to introduce the army in the state; which afterwards gave rise to serious inconvenience.

The directory, triumphant over the two dissentient parties, also triumphed over Europe. The new campaign opened under the most favourable auspices.

Bonaparte, on arriving at Nice, signalised his command by one of the most daring of invasions. Hitherto his army had hovered idly on the side of the Alps; it was dest.i.tute of everything, and scarcely amounted to thirty thousand men; but it was well provided with courage and patriotism; and, by their means, Bonaparte then commenced that world-astonishment by which he carried all before him for twenty years. He broke up the cantonments, and entered the valley of Savona, in order to march into Italy between the Alps and the Apennines. There were before him ninety thousand troops of the coalition, commanded in the centre by Argentau, by Colle on the left, and Beaulieu on the right. This immense army was dispersed in a few days by prodigies of genius and courage. Bonaparte overthrew the centre at Montenotte, and entered Piedmont; at Millesimo he entirely separated the Sardinian from the Austrian army. They hastened to defend Turin and Milan, the capitals of their domination. Before pursuing the Austrians, the republican general threw himself on the left, to cut off the Sardinian army. The fate of Piedmont was decided at Mondovi, and the terrified court of Turin hastened to submit. At Cherasco an armistice was concluded, which was soon afterwards followed by a treaty of peace, signed at Paris, on the 18th of May, 1796, between the republic and the king of Sardinia, who ceded Savoy and the counties of Nice and Tenda. The occupation of Alessandria, which opened the Lombard country; the demolition of the fortresses of Susa, and of Brunette, on the borders of France; the abandonment of the territory of Nice, and of Savoy, and the rendering available the other army of the Alps, under Kellermann, was the reward of a fortnight's campaign, and six victories.

War being over with Piedmont, Bonaparte marched against the Austrian army, to which he left no repose. He pa.s.sed the Po at Piacenza, and the Adda at Lodi. The latter victory opened the gates of Milan, and secured him the possession of Lombardy. General Beaulieu was driven into the defiles of Tyrol by the republican army, which invested Mantua, and appeared on the mountains of the empire. General Wurmser came to replace Beaulieu, and a new army was sent to join the wrecks of the conquered one. Wurmser advanced to relieve Mantua, and once more make Italy the field of battle; but he was overpowered, like his predecessor, by Bonaparte, who, after having raised the blockade of Mantua, in order to oppose this new enemy, renewed it with increased vigour, and resumed his positions in Tyrol. The plan of invasion was executed with much union and success. While the army of Italy threatened Austria by Tyrol, the two armies of the Meuse and Rhine entered Germany; Moreau, supported by Jourdan on his left, was ready to join Bonaparte on his right. The two armies had pa.s.sed the Rhine at Neuwied and Strasburg, and had advanced on a front, drawn up in echelons to the distance of sixty leagues, driving back the enemy, who, while retreating before them, strove to impede their march and break their line.

They had almost attained the aim of their enterprise; Moreau had entered Ulm and Augsburg, crossed the Leek, and his advanced guard was on the extreme of the defiles of Tyrol, when Jourdan, from a misunderstanding, pa.s.sed beyond the line, was attacked by the archduke Charles, and completely routed. Moreau, exposed on his left wing, was reduced to the necessity of retracing his steps, and he then effected his memorable retreat. The fault of Jourdan was a capital one: it prevented the success of this vast plan of campaign, and gave respite to the Austrian government.

The cabinet of Vienna, which had lost Belgium in this war, and which felt the importance of preserving Italy, defended it with the greatest obstinacy. Wurmser, after a new defeat, was obliged to throw himself into Mantua with the wreck of his army. General Alvinzy, at the head of fifty thousand Hungarians, now came to try his fortune, but was not more successful than Beaulieu or Wurmser. New victories were added to the wonders already achieved by the army of Italy, and secured the conquest of that country. Mantua capitulated; the republican troops, masters of Italy, took the route to Vienna across the mountains. Bonaparte had before him prince Charles, the last hope of Austria. He soon pa.s.sed through the defiles of Tyrol, and entered the plains of Germany. In the meantime, the army of the Rhine under Moreau, and that of the Meuse under Hoche, successfully resumed the plan of the preceding campaign; and the cabinet of Vienna, in a state of alarm, concluded the truce of Leoben. It had exhausted all its force, and tried all its generals, while the French republic was in the full vigour of conquest.

The army of Italy accomplished in Europe the work of the French revolution. This wonderful campaign was owing to the union of a general of genius, and an intelligent army. Bonaparte had for lieutenants generals capable of commanding themselves, who knew how to take upon themselves the responsibility of a movement of a battle, and an army of citizens all possessing cultivated minds, deep feeling, strong emulation of all that is great; pa.s.sionately attached to a revolution which aggrandized their country, preserved their independence under discipline, and which afforded an opportunity to every soldier of becoming a general. There is nothing which a leader of genius might not accomplish with such men. He must have regretted, at this recollection of his earlier years, that he ever centred in himself all liberty and intelligence, that he ever created mechanical armies and generals only fit to obey. Bonaparte began the third epoch of the war. The campaign of 1792 had been made on the old system, with dispersed corps, acting separately without abandoning their fixed line.

The committee of public safety concentrated the corps, made them operate no longer merely on what was before them, but at a distance; it hastened their movement, and directed them towards a common end. Bonaparte did for each battle what the committee had done for each campaign. He brought all these corps on the determinate point, and destroyed several armies with a single one by the rapidity of his measures. He disposed of whole ma.s.ses of troops at his pleasure, moved them here or there, brought them forward, or kept them out of sight, had them wholly at his disposition, when, where, and how he pleased, whether to occupy a position or to gain a battle. His diplomacy was as masterly as his military science.

All the Italian governments, except Venice and Genoa, had adhered to the coalition, but the people were in favour of the French republic. Bonaparte relied on the latter. He abolished Piedmont, which he could not conquer; transformed the Milanese, hitherto dependent on Austria, into the _Cisalpine Republic_; he weakened Tuscany and the petty princes of Parma and Modena by contributions, without dispossessing them; the pope, who had signed a truce on Bonaparte's first success against Beaulieu, and who did not hesitate to infringe it on the arrival of Wurmser, bought peace by yielding Romagna, Bologna, and Ferrara, which were joined to the Cisalpine republic; lastly, the aristocracy of Venice and Genoa having favoured the coalition, and raised an insurrection in the rear of the army, their government was changed, and Bonaparte made it democratic, in order to oppose the power of the people to that of the n.o.bility. In this way the revolution penetrated into Italy.