FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Caen the seat of a central committee of the departments. The Eure, the Calvados, and the Orne, sent their commissioners to that city. The departments of Bretagne, which had at first confederated at Rennes, resolved to join the central Assembly at Caen, and to send commissioners to it. Accordingly, on the 30th of June the deputies of Morbihan, Finistère, the Côtes-du-Nord, Mayenne, Ile-et-Vilaine, and the Loire-Inférieure, conjointly with those of Calvados, the Eure, and the Orne, constituted themiselves the central assembly of resistance to oppression, promised to maintain the equality, the unity, and the indivisibility of the republic, but vowed hatred to anarchists, and engaged to employ their powers solely to insure respect for person, property, and the sovereignty of the people. After thus constituting themselves, they determined that each department should furnish its contingent, for the purpose of composing an armed force that was to proceed to Paris to reestablish the national representation in its integrity. Felix Wimpfen, general of the army that was to have been organized along the coast about Cherbourg, was appointed commander of the departmental army. Wimpfen accepted the appointment, and immediately assumed the title that had been conferred on him. Being summoned to Paris by the minister at war, he replied that there was but one way to make peace, and that was to revoke the decrees passed since the 31st of May; that on this condition the departments would fraternize with the capital, but that, in the contrary case, he could only go to Paris at the head of sixty thousand Normans and Bretons.

The minister, at the same time that he summoned Wimpfen to Paris, ordered the regiment of dragoons of La Manche, stationed in Normandy, to set out immediately for Versailles. On this intelligence, all the confederates already assembled at Evreux drew up in order of battle; the national guard joined them, and they cut off the dragoons from the road to Versailles. The latter, wishing to avoid hostilities, promised not to set out, and fraternized apparently with the confederates. Their officers wrote secretly to Paris that they could not obey without commencing a civil war; and they were then permitted to remain.

The assembly of Caen decided that the Breton battalions which had already arrived should march from Caen for Evreux, the general rendezvous of all the forces. To this point were despatched provisions, arms, ammunition, and money taken from he public coffers. Thither, too, were sent officers won over to the cause of federalism, and many secret royalists, who made themselves conspicuous in all the commotions, and assumed the mask of republicanism to oppose the revolution. Among the counter-revolutionists of this stamp was one named Puisaye,† who affected extraordinary zeal for the cause of the Girondins, and whom Wimpfen, a disguised royalist, appointed general of brigade, giving him the command of the advanced guard already assembled at Evreux. This advanced guard amounted to five or six thousand men, and was daily reinforced by new contingents. The brave Bretons hastened from all parts, and reported that other battalions were to follow them in still greater number. One circumstance prevented them from all coming in a mass,

* "Felix Wimpfen, born in 1745, of a family distinguished but poor, was the youngest of eighteen children, and quitted his father's house at the age of eleven. He served in the Seven Year's war, and distinguished himself on several occasions. He was a major-general in 1789, and embraced the revolutionary party. In 1793 he declared with warmth in favour of the Girondins, who were proscribed by the Mountain, and took the command of the departmental forces assembled by those proscribed deputies. A price was consequently set on his head, but he concealed himself during the Reign of Terror. In 1806 he was mayor of a little commune of which he was formerly lord."-Biographie Moderne. E.

† "Count J. de Puisaye was destined, as the youngest of four brothers, for the church; but at the age of eighteen preferred entering the army. In 1788 he married the only daughter of the Marquis de Menilles, a man of large property in Normandy. He was nominated deputy from the noblesse of Perche to the States-general; and in 1793 declared against the Convention, and became head of the federal army under Wimpfen. Proscribed by the Convention, he took refuge in Bretagne, made several excursions to England, attached himself to the interests of that power, and ruined his reputation by the expedition to Quiberon. It has been said that Puisaye only wanted military talents to be the first party chief the royalists ever had. In 1797, England granted him a great extent of land in Canada, whither he went, and formed an establishment equally brilliant and advantageous. After the peace of Amiens he returned to England and published papers in justification of his conduct." -Biographie Moderne. E.

that was the necessity for guarding the coasts of the ocean against the English squadrons, and for sending battalions against La Vendée, which had already reached the Loire and seemed ready to cross that river. Though the Bretons residing in the country were devoted to the clergy, yet those of the towns were sincere republicans; and while preparing to oppose Paris they were not the less determined to wage obstinate war with La Vendée.

Such was the state of affairs in Bretagne and Normandy early in July. In the departments bordering on the Loire the first zeal had cooled. Commissioners of the Convention, who were on the spot for the purpose of directing the levies against La Vendée, had negotiated with the local authorities, and prevailed upon them to await the issue of events before they compromised themselves any further. There, for the moment, the intention of sending deputies to Bourges was relinquished, and a cautious reserve was kept up.

At Bordeaux the insurrection was permanent and energetic. Treilhard and Mathieu, the deputies, were closely watched from the moment of their arrival, and it was at first proposed to seize them as hostages. There was a reluctance, however, to proceed to this extremity, and they were summoned to appear before the popular commission, where they experienced a most unfavourable reception from the citizens, who considered them as Maratist emissaries. They were questioned concerning the occurrences in Paris, and, after hearing them, the commission declared that, according to their own deposition, the Convention was not free on the 2d of June, neither had it been so since that time; that they were only the envoys of an assembly without legal character; and that consequently they must leave the department. They were accordingly conducted back to its boundary, and immediately afterwards similar measures taken at Caen were repeated at Bordeaux. Stores of provisions and arms were formed; the public funds were diverted, and an advanced guard was pushed forward to Langon, till the main body, which was to start in a few days, should be ready. Such were the occurrences at the end of June and the commencement of July.

Mathieu and Treilhard, the deputies, meeting with less resistance, and finding means to make themselves better understood in the departments of the Dordogne, Vienne, and Lot-et-Garonne, succeeded, by their conciliatory disposition, in soothing the public mind, in preventing hostile measures, and in gaining time, to the advantage of the Convention. But, in the more elevated departments, in the mountains of the Haute-Loire, on their backs, in the Herault and the Gard, and all along the banks of the Rhone, the insurrection was general. The Gard and the Herault marched off their battalions and sent them to Pont-St.-Esprit, to secure the passes of the Rhone, and to form a junction with the Marseillais who were to ascend that river. The Marseillais, in fact, refusing to obey the decrees of the Convention, maintained their tribunal, would not liberate the imprisoned patriots, and even caused some of them to be executed. They formed an army of six thousand men, which advanced from Aix upon Avignon, and which, joined by the forces of Languedoc at Pont-St.-Esprit, was to raise the borders of the Rhone, the Isére, and the Drome, in its march, and finally form a junction with the Lyonnese and with the mountaineers of the Ain and the Jura. At Grenoble, the federalized administrations were struggling with Dubois-Crancé, and even threatened to arrest him. Not yet daring to raise troops, they had sent deputies to fraternize with Lyons. DuboisCrancé, with the disorganized army of the Alps, was in the heart of an all but revolted city, which told him every day that the South could do without the North. He had to retain Savoy, where the illusions excited by liberty and French domination were dispelled, where people were dissatisfied with the levies of men and with the assignats, and where they had no notion of the so much boasted revolution, so different from what it had first been conceived to be. On his flank, Dubois-Crancé had Switzerland, where the emigrants were busy, and where Berne was preparing to send a new garrison to Geneva; and in his rear Lyons, which intercepted all correspondence with the committee of public welfare.

Robert Lindet had arrived at Lyons, but before his face the federalist oath had been taken: UNITY, INDIVISIBILITY, OF THE REPUBLIC; HATRED TO THE

ANARCHISTS; AND THE REPRESENTATION WHOLE AND ENTIRE. Instead of sending the arrested patriots to Paris, the authorities had continued the proceedings instituted against them. A new authority composed of deputies of the communes and members of the constituted bodies had been formed, with the title of Popular and republican commission of public welfare of the Rhone and Loire. This assembly had just decreed the organization of a departmental force for the purpose of coalescing with their brethren of the Jura, the Isére, the Bouches-du-Rhone, the Gironde, and the Calvados. This force was already completely organized; the levy of a subsidy had moreover been decided upon; and people were only waiting, as in all the other departments, for the signal to put themselves in motion. In the Jura, the two deputies, Bassal and Garnier of Troyes, had been sent to re-establish obedience to the Convention. On the news that fifteen hundred troops of the line had been collected at Dol, more than fourteen thousand mountaineers had flown to arms, and were preparing to surround them.

If we consider the state of France early in July, 1793, we shall see that a column, marching from Bretagne and Normandy, had advanced to Evreux, and was only a few leagues distant from Paris; that another was approaching from Bourdeaux, and was likely to carry along with it all the yet wavering departments of the basin of the Loire; that six thousand Marseillais, posted at Avignon, waiting for the force of Languedoc at the Pont-St.-Esprit, was about to form a junction at Lyons with all the confederates of Grenoble, of the Ain, and of the Jura, with the intention of dashing on, through Burgundy, to Paris. Meanwhile, until this general junction should be effected, the federalists were taking all the money from the public coffers, intercepting the provisions and ammunition sent to the armies, and throwing again into circulation the assignats withdrawn by the sale of the national domains. A remarkable circumstance, and one which furnishes a striking proof of the spirit of the parties is, that the two factions preferred the self-same charges against each other, and attributed to one another the self-same object. The party of Paris and the Mountain alleged that the federalists designed to ruin the republic by dividing it, and to arrange matters with the English for the purpose of setting up a king, who was to be the Duke of Orleans, or Louis XVII., or the Duke of York. On the other hand, the party of the departments and the federalists accused the Mountain of an intention to effect a counter-revolution by means of anarchy, and asserted that Marat, Robespierre, and Danton, were sold either to England or to Orleans. Thus it was the republic which both sides professed a solicitude to save, and the monarchy with which they considered themselves to be waging deadly warfare. Such is the deplorable and usual infatuation of parties!

But this was only one portion of the dangers which threatened our unhappy country. The enemy within was to be feared, only because the enemy without was more formidable than ever. While armies of Frenchmen were advancing from the provinces towards the centre, armies of foreigners were again surrounding France, and threatening an almost inevitable invasion. Ever since the battle of Neerwinden and the defection of Dumouriez, an alarming series of reverses had wrested from us our conquests and our northern frontier. It will be recollected that Dampierre, appointed commander-in-chief, had rallied the army under the walls of Bouchain, and had there imparted to it some degree of unity and courage. Fortunately for the revolution, the allies, adhering to the methodical plan laid down at the opening of the campaign, would not push forward on any one point, and determined not to penetrate into France, until the King of Prussia, after taking Mayence, should be enabled to advance, on his part, into the heart of our provinces. Had there been any genius or any union among the generals of the coalition, the cause of the revolution would have been undone. After Neerwinden and the defection of Dumouriez, they ought to have pushed on and given no rest to that beaten, divided, and betrayed army. In this case, whether they made it prisoner or drove it back into the fortresses, our open country would have been at the mercy of the victorious

* Cambon's Report of the proceedings of the committee of public welfare from the 10th of April to the 10th of July.

4

enemy. But the allies held a congress at Antwerp to agree upon the ulterior operations of the war. The Duke of York, the Prince of Coburg, the Prince of Orange, and several generals, settled among them what course was to be pursued. It was resolved to reduce Conde and Valenciennes, in order to put Austria in possession of the new fortresses in the Netherlands, and to take Dunkirk, in order to secure to England that so much-coveted port on the continent. These points being arranged, the operations were resumed. The English and Dutch had come into line. The Duke of York commanded twenty thousand Austrians and Hanoverians; the Prince of Orange fifteen thousand Dutch; the Prince of Coburg forty-five thousand Austrians and eight thousand Hessians. The Prince of Hohenlohe, with thirty thousand Austrians, occupied Namur and Luxemburg, and connected the allied army in the Netherlands with the Prussian army engaged in the siege of Mayence. Thus the North was threatened by eighty or ninety-thousand men.

The Allies had already formed the blockade of Condé, and the great ambition of the French government was to raise that blockade. Dampierre, brave, but not having confidence in his soldiers, durst not attack those formidable masses. Urged, however by the commissioners of the Convention, he led back our army to the camp of Famars, close to Valenciennes, and on the 1st of May attacked, in several columns, the Austrians, who were intrenched in the woods of Vicogne and St. Amant. Military operations were still timid. To form a mass, to attack the enemy's weak point, and to strike him boldly, were tactics to which both parties were strangers. Dampierre rushed, with intrepidity, but in small masses, upon an enemy who was himself divided, and whom it would have been easy to overwhelm on one point. Punished for his faults, he was repulsed, after an obstinate conflict. On the 9th of May, he renewed the attack; he was less divided than the first time, but the enemy, being forewarned, was less divided too; and while he was making heroic efforts to carry a redoubt, on the taking of which the junction of two of his columns depended, he was struck by a cannon-ball, and mortally wounded. General Lamarche, invested with the temporary command, ordered a retreat, and led back the army to the camp of Famars. This camp, situated beneath the walls of Valenciennes, and connected with that fortress, prevented the laying siege to it. The Allies, therefore, determined upon an attack on the 23d of May. They scattered their troops, according to their usual practice, uselessly dispersed part of them over a multitude of points, all which Austrian prudence was desirous of keeping, and did not attack the camp with the whole force which they might have brought to bear. Checked for a whole day by the artillery, the glory of the French army, it was not till evening that they passed the Ronelle, which protected the front of the camp. Lamarche retreated in the night in good order, and posted himself at Cæsar's Camp, which is connected with the fortress of Bouchain, as that of Famars is with Valenciennes. Hither the enemy ought to have pursued and to have dispersed us; but egotism and adherence to method fixed the Allies around Valenciennes. Part of their army, formed into corps of observation, placed itself between Valenciennes and Bouchain, and faced Cæsar's Camp. Another division undertook the siege of Valenciennes, and the remainder continued the blockade of Condé, which ran short of provisions, and which the enemy hoped to reduce in a few days. The regular siege of Valenciennes was begun. One hundred and eighty pieces of cannon were coming from Vienna, and one hundred from Holland; and ninety-three mortars were already prepared. Thus, in June and July, Condé was starved, Valenciennes set on fire, and our Generals occupied Cæsar's Camp with a beaten and disorganized army. If Condé and Valenciennes were reduced, the worst consequences might be apprehended.

The command of the army of the Moselle, after Beurnonville had been appointed minister at war, was transferred to Ligneville. This army was opposed to Prince Hohenlohe, and had nothing to fear from him, because, occupying at the same time Namur, Luxemburg, and Treves, with thirty thousand men at most, and having before him the fortress of Metz and Thienville, he could not attempt anything dangerous. He had just been weakened still more by detaching seven or eight thousand men from his corps to join the Prussian army. It now became easier and more desirable than ever to unite the active army of the Moselle with that of the Upper Rhine, in order to attempt important operations.

On the Rhine, the preceding campaign had terminated at Mayence. Custine, after his ridiculous demonstration about Frankfort, had been forced to fall back, and shut himself up in Mayence, where he had collected a considerable artillery, brought from our fortresses, and especially from Strasburg. There he formed a thousand schemes; sometimes he resolved to take the offensive, sometimes to keep Mayence, sometimes even to abandon that fortress, At last he determined to retain it, and even contributed to persuade the executive council to adopt this determination. The King of Prussia then found himself obliged to lay siege to it, and it was the resistance that he met with at this point which prevented the Allies from advancing in the North.

The King of Prussia passed the Rhine at Bacharach, a little below Mayence; Wurmser, with fifteen thousand Austrians, and some thousands under Condé, crossed it a little above: the Hessian corps of Schönfeld remained on the right bank before the suburb of Cassel. The Prussian army was not yet so strong as it ought to have been, according to the engagements contracted by Frederick-William. Having sent a considerable corps into Poland, he had but fifty-thousand men left, including the different Hessian, Saxon, and Bavarian contingents. Thus, including the seven or eight thousand Austrians detached by Hohenlohe, the fifteen thousand Austrians under Wurmser, the five or six thousand emigrants under Condé, and Our the fifty-five thousand under the King of Prussia, the army which threatened the eastern frontier might be computed at about eighty thousand fighting men. fortresses on the Rhine contained about thirty-eight thousand men in garrison; the active army amounted to forty or fifty-five thousand men; that of the Moselle to thirty: and if the two latter had been united under a single commander, and with a point of support like that of Mayence, they might have gone to seek the King of Prussia himself, and found employment for him on the other side of the Rhine.

The two generals of the Moselle and the Rhine ought at least to have had an understanding with one another, and they might have had it in their power to dispute, nay, perhaps to prevent the passage of the river: but they did nothing of the sort. In the course of the month of March, the King of Prussia crossed the Rhine with impunity, and met with nothing in his course but advanced guards, which he repulsed without difficulty. Custine was meanwhile at Worms. He had been at no pains to defend either the banks of the Rhine or the banks of the Vosges, which form the environs of Mayence, and might have stopped the march of the Prussians. He hastened up, but, panic-struck at the repulses experienced by his advanced guards, he fancied that he had to cope with one hundred and fifty thousand men; he imagined, above all, that Wurmser, who was to debouch by the Palatinate, and above Mayence, was in his rear, and about to cut him off from Alsace; he applied for succour to Ligneville, who, trembling for himself, durst not detach a regiment; he then betook himself to flight, never stopping till he reached Landau, and then Weissenburg, and he even thought of seeking protection under the cannon of Strasburg. This inconceivable retreat opened all the passes to the Prussians, who assembled before Mayence, and invested it on both banks.

Twenty thousand men were shut up in that fortress, and if this was a great number for the defence it was far too great for the state of the provisions, which were not adequate to the supply of so large a garrison. The uncertainty of our military plans had prevented any precautionary measures for provisioning the place. Fortunately, it contained two representatives of the people, Reubel, and the heroic Merlin of Thionville, the generals Kleber* and Aubert-Duboyet,

* "Jean Baptiste Kleber, a French general, distinguished not less for his humanity and integrity, than for his courage, activity and coolness, was one of the ablest soldiers whom the Revolution produced. His father was a common labourer, and he himself was occupied as an architect when the troubles in France broke out. He was born at Strasburg in 1754, and had received some military education in the academy of Munich. Having entered a French volunteer corps as a grenadier in 1792, his talents soon procured him notice, and after the capture of Mayence, he was made general VOL. II.

3

: