THE

HISTORY

OP

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

BY M. A. THIERS,

LATE PRIME MINISTER OF FRANCE

TRANSLATED,

WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

FROM THE

MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES,

BY

FREDERICK SHOBERL.

COMPLETE IN FOUR VOLUME S,

WITH ENGRAVINGS.

VOL. II.

NEW-YORK:

D. APPLETON & COMPANY,

:

HISTORY

OF THE

FRENCH REVOLUTION.

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.

INVASION OF BELGIUM.

Wo to the vanquished when the victors disagree! The latter suspend their own quarrels, and seek to surpass each other in zeal to crush their prostrate enemies. At the Temple were confined the prisoners on whom the tempest of the revolutionary passions was about to burst. The monarchy, the aristocracy, in short all the past, against which the Revolution was furiously struggling, were personified, as it were, in the unfortunate Louis XVI. The manner in which each should henceforth treat him was to be the test of his hatred to the counter-revolution. The Legislative Assembly, too closely succeeding the constitution which declared the King inviolable, had not ventured to decide upon his fate; it had suspended and shut him up in the Temple; it had not even abolished royalty, and had bequeathed to a Convention the duty of judging all that belonged to the old monarchy, whether material or personal. Now that royalty was abolished, the republic decreed, and the framing of the constitution was consigned to the meditations of the most distinguished minds in the Assembly, the fate of Louis XVI. yet remained to be considered.

Six weeks had elapsed, and a crowd of pressing affairs, the supply and superintendence of the armies, the procuring of provisions, then scarce, as in all times of public disturbance, the police, and all the details of the government, which had been inherited from royalty, and transferred to an executive council, merely to be continually reverted to with extreme diffidence; lastly, violent quarrels had prevented the Assembly from turning its attention to the prisoners in the Temple. Once only had a motion been made concerning them, and that had been referred, as we have seen, to the committee of legislation. At the same time, they were everywhere talked of. At the Jacobins the trial of Louis XVI. was every day demanded, and the Girondins were

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accused of deferring it by quarrels, in which, however, every one took as great part and interest as themselves. On the first of November, in the interval between the accusation of Robespierre and his apology, a section having complained of new placards instigating to murder and sedition, the opinion of Marat was asked, as it always was. The Girondins alleged that he and some of his colleagues were the cause of all the disorder, and on every fresh circumstance they proposed proceedings against them. Their enemies, on the contrary, insisted that the cause of the troubles was at the Temple; that the new republic would not be firmly established, neither would tranquillity and security be restored to it, till the ci-devant King should be sacrificed, and that this terrible stroke would put an end to all the hopes of the conspirators.* Jean de Bry, the deputy, who in the Legislative Assembly had proposed that no other rule of conduct should be followed but the law of the public welfare, spoke on this occasion, and proposed that both Marat and Louis XVI. should be brought to trial. "Marat," said he, "has deserved the appellation of man-eater; he would be worthy to be king. He is the cause of the disturbances for which Louis XVI. is made the pretext. Let us try them both, and insure the public quiet by this twofold example." In consequence, the Convention directed that a report on the denunciations against Marat should be presented before the Assembly broke up, and that, in a week at latest, the committee of legislation should give its opinion respecting the forms to be observed at the trial of Louis XVI. If, at the expiration of eight days, the committee had not presented its report, any member would have a right to express his sentiments on this important question from the tribune. Fresh quarrels and fresh engagements delayed the report respecting Marat, which was not presented till long afterwards, and the committee of legislation prepared that which was required of it respecting the august and unfortunate family confined in the Temple.

Europe had at this moment its eyes fixed on France. Foreigners beheld with astonishment those subjects, at first deemed so feeble, now become victorious and conquering, and audacious enough to set all thrones at defiance. They watched with anxiety to see what they would do, and still hoped that an end would soon be put to their audacity. Meanwhile, military events were preparing to double the intoxication of the one, and to increase the astonishment and the terror of the world.

Dumouriez had set out for Belgium at the latter end of October, and, on the 25th, he had arrived at Valenciennes. His general plan was regulated according to the idea which predominated in it, and which consisted in driving the enemy in front, and profiting by the great numerical superiority which our army had over him. Dumouriez would have had it in his power, by following the Meuse with the greater part of his forces, to prevent the junction ion of Clairfayt, who was coming from Champagne, to take Duke Albert in the rear, and to do what he was wrong not to have done at first, for he neglected to run along the Rhine, and to follow that river to Cleves But his plan was now different, and he preferred to a scientific march a bril liant action, which would redouble the courage of his troops, already much

• "The Jacobins had several motives for urging this sacrifice. By placing the King's life in peril, they hoped to compel the Girondins openly to espouse his cause, and thereby to ruin them without redemption in the eyes of the people; by engaging the popular party in so decisive a step, they knew that they would best preclude any chance of return to the royalist government. They were desirous, moreover, of taking out of the hands of the Girondins, and the moderate part of the Convention, the formation of a republican government."Alison F..