had previously been sent to the army of the North, where he had obtained the character of an able and intelligent officer.

To all these administrative and military measures were added measures of vengeance, agreeably to the usual custom of following up acts of energy with acts of cruelty. We have already seen that, on the demand of the envoys of the primary assemblies, a law against suspected persons had been resolved upon. The projet of it was yet to be presented. It was called for every day, on the ground that the decree of the 27th of March, which put the aristocrats out of the pale of the law, did not go far enough. That decree required a trial, but people wanted one which should permit the imprisonment without trial of the citizens suspected on account of their opinions, merely to secure their persons. While this decree was pending, it was decided that the property of all those who were outlawed should belong to the republic. More severe measures against foreigners were next demanded. They had already been placed under the surveillance of the committees styled revolutionary, but something more was required. The idea of a foreign conspiracy, of which Pitt was supposed to be the prime mover, filled all minds more than ever. A pocket-book found on the walls of one of our frontier towns contained letters written in English, and which English agents in France addressed to one another. In these letters mention was made of considerable sums sent to secret agents dispersed in our camps, in our fortresses, and in our principal towns. Some were charged with contracting an intimacy with our generals in order to seduce them, and to obtain accurate information concerning the state of our forces, of our fortified places, and of our supplies; others were commissioned to penetrate into our arsenals and our magazines with phosphoric matches and to set them on fire. "Make the exchange," it was also said in these letters, "rise to two hundred livres for one pound sterling. The assignats must be discredited as much as possible, and all those which have not the royal effigy must be refused. Make the price of all articles of consumption rise too. Give orders to all your merchants to buy up all the articles of first necessity. If you can persuade Cott- to buy up the tallow and the candles, no matter at what price, make the publie pay five francs per pound for them. His lordship is highly pleased with the way in which B-t-z has acted. We hope that the murders will be prudently committed. Disguised priests and women are fittest for this operation."

These letters merely proved that England had some military spies in our armies, some agents in our commercial towns for the purpose of aggravating there the distress occasioned by the dearth, and that some of them might perhaps take money upon the pretext of committing seasonable murders.* But all these means were far from formidable, and they were certainly exaggerated by the usual boasting of the agents employed in this kind of manœuvre. It is true that fires had broken out at Douai, at Valenciennes, in the sailmakers' building at Lorient, at Bayonne, and in the parks of artillery near Chemillé and Saumur. It is possible that these agents might have been the authors of those fires; but assuredly they had not pointed either the dagger of Paris, the life-guardsman against Lepelletier, or the knife of Charlotte Corday against Marat; and, if they were engaged in stockjobbing speculations upon foreign paper and assignats, if they bought some goods by means of the credits opened in London by Pitt, they had but a very slight influence on our commercial and financial situation, which was the effect of causes far more general, and of far greater magnitude than these paltry intrigues. These letters, however, concurring with several fires, two murders, and the jobbing in foreign paper, excited universal indignation. The Convention, by a decree, denounced the British government to all nations, and declared Pitt the enemy of mankind. At the same time it ordered that all foreigners domiciliated in France since the 14th of July, 1789, should be immediately put in a state of arrest.

Lastly, it was directed by a decree that the proceedings against Custine should be speedily brought to a conclusion. Biron and Lamarche were put upon trial. The act of accusation of the Girondins was pressed afresh, and orders were given to the revolutionary tribunal to take up the proceedings against them with the least possible delay. The wrath of the Assembly was again directed against the remnant of the Bourbons and that unfortunate family which was deploring in the tower of the Temple the death of the late King. It was decreed that all the Bourbons who were still in France should be exiled, excepting those who were under the sword of the law; that the Duke of Orleans, who had been transferred in the month of May to Marseilles, and whom the federalists were against bringing to trial, should be conveyed back to Paris, and delivered over to the revolutionary tribunal. His death would stop the mouths of those who accused the Mountain of an intention to set up a king. The unhappy Marie Antoinette, notwithstanding her sex, was, like her husband, devoted to the scaffold. She was reputed to have instigated all the plots of the late court, and was deemed much more culpable than Louis XVI. Above all, she was a daughter of Austria, which was at this moment the most formidable of all the hostile powers. According to the custom of most daringly defying the most dangerous enemy, it was determined to send Marie Antoinette to the scaffold, at the very moment when the imperial armies were advancing towards our territory. She was, therefore, transferred to the Conciergerie to be tried, like any ordinary accused person, by the revolutionary tribunal. The Princess Elizabeth, destined to banishment, was detained as a witness against her sister. The two children were to be maintained and educated by the republic, which would judge, at the return of peace, what was fitting to be done in regard to them. Up to this time the family imprisoned in the Temple had been supplied with a degree of luxury consistent with its former rank. The Assembly now decreed that it should be reduced to what was barely necessary. Lastly, to crown all these acts of revolutionary vengeance, it was decreed that the royal tombs at St. Denis should be destroyed.*

Such were the measures which the imminent dangers of the month of August, 1793, provoked for the defence and for the vengeance of the Revolution.

* " The royal tombs at St. Denis near Paris, the ancient cemetery of the Bourbons, the Valois, and all the long line of French monarchs, were not only defaced on the outside, but utterly broken down, the bodies exposed, and the bones dispersed. The first vault opened was that of Turenne. The body was found dry like a mummy, and the features perfectly resembling the portrait of this distinguished general. Relics were sought after with eagerness, and Camille Desmoulins cut off one of the little fingers. The features of Henry IV. were also perfect. A soldier cut off a lock of the beard with his sabre. The body was placed upright on a stone for the rabble to divert themselves with it; and a woman, reproaching the dead Henry with the crime of having been a King, knocked down the corpse, by giving it a blow in the face. Two large pits had been dug in front of the north entrance of the church, and quicklime laid in them: into those pits the bodies were thrown promiscuously; the leaden coffins were then carried to a furnace, which had been erected in the cemetery, and cast into balls, destined to punish the enemies of the republic." - Scott's Life of Napoleon. E.

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.

MOVEMENT OF THE ARMIES IN AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER, 1793-INVESTMENT OF LYONS-TREASON OF TOULON-PLAN OF CAMPAIGN AGAINST LA VENDEE-VICTORY OF HONDTSCHOOTE-GENERAL REJOICING-FRESH REVERSES-DEFEAT AT MENIN, AT PIRMASENS, AT PERPIGNAN, AND AT TORFOU-RETREAT OF CANCLAUX UPON NANTES.

AFTER the retreat of the French from Cæsar's Camp to the camp of Gavarelle, it was again the moment for the allies to follow up a demoralized army, which had been uniformly unfortunate ever since the opening of the campaign. Since the month of March, in fact, beaten at Aix-la-Chapelle and at Neerwinden, it had lost Dutch Flanders, Belgium, the camp of Famars, Cæsar's Camp, and the fortresses of Condé and Valenciennes. One of its generals had gone over to the enemy, another had been killed. Thus, ever since the battle of Jemappes, it had been making only a series of retreats, highly meritorious, it is true, but by no means encouraging. Without even entertaining the too bold design of a direct march to Paris, the allies had it in their power to destroy this nucleus of an army, and then they might take at their leisure all the places which it might suit their selfishness to occupy. But as soon as Valenciennes had surrendered, the English, in virtue of the agreement made at Antwerp, insisted on the siege of Dunkirk. Then, while the Prince of Coburg, remaining in the environs of his camp at Herin, between the Scarpe and the Scheldt, meant to occupy the French, and thought of taking Le Quesnoy, the Duke of York, marching with the English and Hanoverian army by Orchies, Menin, Dixmude, and Furnes, sat down before Dunkirk between the Langmoor and the sea. Two sieges to be carried on would therefore give us a little more time. Houchard sent to Gavarelle, hastily collected there all the disposable force in order to fly to the relief of Dunkirk. To prevent the English from gaining a seaport on the continent, to beat individually our greatest enemy, to deprive him of all advantage from this war, and to furnish the English opposition with new weapons against Pitt-such were the reasons that caused Dunkirk to be considered as the most important point of the whole theatre of war. "The salvation of the republic is there" wrote the committee of public welfare to Houchard; and at the instance of Carnot, who was perfectly sensible that the troops collected between the northern frontier and that of the Rhine, that is on the Moselle, were useless there, it was decided that a reinforcement should be drawn from them and sent to Flanders. Twenty or twenty-five days were thus spent in preparations, a delay easily conceivable on the part of the French, who had to reassemble their troops dispersed at considerable distances, but inconceivable on the part of the English, who had only four or five marches to make in order to be under the walls of Dunkirk.

We left the two French armies of the Moselle and of the Rhine endeavouring to advance, but too late, towards Mayence, and without preventing the reduction of that place. They had afterwards fallen back upon Saarbruck, Hornbach, and Weissenburg. We must give the reader a notion of the theatre of war, to enable him to comprehend these movements. The French frontier is of a singular conformation to the north and east. The Scheldt, the Meuse, the Moselle, the chain of the Vosges, and the Rhine, run towards the north, forming nearly parallel lines. The Rhine, on reaching the extremity of the Vosges, makes a sudden bend, ceases to run in a parallel direction with those lines, and terminates them by turning the foot of the Vosges, and receiving in its course the Moselle and the Meuse. On the northern frontier, the allies had advanced as far as between the Scheldt and the Meuse. Between the Meuse and the Moselle they had not made any progress, because the weak corps left by them between Luxemburg and Treves had not been able to attempt anything; but they were stronger between the Moselle, the Vosges, and the Rhine.

FRENCH REVOLUTION.

We have seen that they placed themselves à cheval at the Vosges, partly on the eastern and partly on the western slope. The plan to be pursued was, as we have before observed, extremely simple. Considering the backbone of the Vosges as a river, all the passages of which you ought to occupy, you might throw all your masses upon one bank, overwhelm the enemy on that side, and then return and crush him on the other. This idea had not occurred either to the French or to the allies; and ever since the capture of Mayence, the Prussians, placed on the western slope, faced the army of the Rhine. We had retired within the celebrated lines of Weissenburg. The army of the Moselle, to the number of twenty thousand men, was posted at Saarbruck, on the Sarre; the corps of the Vosges, twelve thousand in number, was at Hornbach and Kettrick, and was connected in the mountains with the extreme left of the army of the Rhine. The army of the Rhine, twenty thousand strong, guarded the Lauter from Weissenburg to Lauterburg. Such are the lines of Weissenburg. The Sarre runs from the Vosges to the Moselle, the Lauter from the Vosges to the Rhine, and both form a single line, which almost perpendicularly intersects the Moselle, the Vosges, and the Rhine. You make yourself master of it by occupying Saarbruck, Hornbach, Kettrick, Weissenburg, and Lauterburg. This we had done. We had scarcely sixty thousand men on this whole frontier, because it had been necessary to send succours to Houchard. The Prussians had taken two months to approach us, and had at length arrived at Pirmasens. Reinforced by the forty thousand men who had just brought the siege of Mayence to a conclusion, and united with the Austrians, they might have overwhelmed us on one or the other of the two slopes, but discord prevailed between Prussia and Austria, on account of the partition of Poland. Frederick William, who was still at the camp of the Vosges, did not second the impatient ardour of Wurmser. The latter, full of fire, notwithstanding his age,* made every day fresh attempts upon the lines of Weissenburg; but his partial attacks had proved unsuccessful, and served only to slaughter men to no purpose. Such was still, early in September, the state of things on the Rhine.

In the South, events had begun to develop themselves. The long uncertainty of the Lyonnese had at length terminated in open resistance, and the siege of their city had become inevitable. We have seen that they offered to submit and to acknowledge the Constitution, but without explaining themselves respecting the decrees which enjoined them to send the imprisoned patriots to Paris, and to dissolve the new sectionary authority: nay, it was not long before they infringed those decrees in the most signal manner, by sending Chalier and Riard to the scaffold, making daily preparations for war, taking money from the public coffers, and detaining the convoys destined for the armies. Many partisans of the emigration gained admittance among them, and alarmed them about the re-establishment of the old Mountaineer municipality. They flattered them, moreover, with the arrival of the Marseillais, who, they said, were ascending the Rhone, and with the march of the Piedmontese, who were about to debouch from the Alps with sixty thousand men. Though the Lyonnese, stanch federalists, bore an equal enmity to

the foreign powers and to the emigrants, yet they felt such a horror of the Mountain and the old municipality, that they were ready to expose themselves to the danger and the infamy of a foreign alliance rather than to the vengeance of the Convention.

The Saône, running between the Jura and the Côte-d'Or, and the Rhone, coming from the Valais between the Jura and the Alps, unite at Lyons. That wealthy city is seated at their confluence. Up the Saône, towards Macon, the country was entirely republican, and Laporte and Reverchond, the deputies, having collected some thousands of the requisitionary force, cut off the communication

* " Wurmser, observed Bonaparte, was very old, brave as a lion, but so extremely deaf, that he could not hear the balls whistling about him. Wurmser saved my life on one occasion. When I reached Rimini, a messenger overtook me with a letter from him, containing an account of a plan to poison me, and where it was to have been put into execution. It would in all probability have succeeded, had it not been for this information. Wurmser, like Fox, acted a noble part." -A Voice from St. Helena. E.

VOL. II.

11

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with the Jura. Dubois-Crancé was approaching on the side next to the Alps, and guarding the upper course of the Rhone. But the Lyonnese were completely masters of the lower course of the Rhone, and of its right bank as far as the mountains of Auvergne. They were masters also of the whole Forez, into which they made frequent incursions, and supplied themselves with arms at St. Etienne. A skilful engineer had erected excellent fortifications around their city; and a foreigner had founded cannon for the ramparts. The population was divided into two portions. The young men accompanied Precy, the commandant, in his excursions; the married men, the fathers of families, guarded the city and its intrench

ments.

At length, on the 8th of August, Dubois-Crancé, who had quelled the federalist revolt at Grenoble, prepared to march upon Lyons, agreeably to the decree which enjoined him to reduce that rebellious city to obedience. The army of the Alps amounted at the utmost to twenty-five thousand men, and it was soon likely to have on its hands the Piedmontese, who, profiting at length by the month of August, made preparations for debouching by the great chain. This army had lately been weakened, as we have seen, by two detachments, the one to reinforce the army of Italy, and the other to reduce the Marseillais. The Puy-de-Dôme, which was to send its recruits, had kept them to stifle the revolt of La Lozère, of which we have already treated. Houchard had retained the legion of the Rhine, which was destined for the Alps; and the minister was continually promising a reinforcement of one thousand horse, which did not arrive. Dubois-Crancé, nevertheless, detached five thousand regular troops, and added to theni seven or eight thousand young requisitionaries. He came with his forces and placed himself between the Saône and the Rhone in such a manner as to occupy their upper course, to intercept the supplies coming to Lyons by water, to remain in communication with the army of the Alps, and to cut off all communication with Switzerland and Savoy. By these dispositions he still left the Forez and the still more important heights of Fourvières to the Lyonnese; but in his situation he could not act otherwise. The essential point was to occupy the courses of the two rivers, and to cut off Lyons from Switzerland and Piedmont. Dubois-Crancé awaited, in order to complete the blockade, the fresh forces which had been promised him, and the siege artillery which he was obliged to fetch from our fortresses near the Alps. The transport of this artillery required five thousand horses.

On the 8th of August, he summoned the city. The conditions on which he insisted were the absolute disarming of all the citizens, the retirement of each to his own house, the surrender of the arsenal, and the formation of a provisional municipality. But at this moment, the secret emigrants in the commission and the staff continued to deceive the Lyonnese, and to alarm them about the return of the Mountaineer municipality, telling them at the same time that sixty thousand Piedmontese were ready to debouch upon their city. An action which took place, between two advanced posts, and which terminated in favour of the Lyonnese, excited them to the highest pitch and decided their resistance and their misfortunes. Dubois-Crancé opened his fire upon the quarter of the Croix Rousse, between the two rivers, where he had taken position, and on the very first day his artillery did great mischief. Thus one of our most important manufacturing cities was involved in the horrors of bombardment, and we had to execute this bombardment in presence of the Piedmontese, who were ready to descend from the Alps.

Meanwhile Cartaux* had marched upon Marseilles, and had crossed the Durance in the month of August. The Marseillais had retired from Aix towards their own city, and had resolved to defend the gorges of Septème, through which the road from Aix to Marseilles runs. On the 24th, General Doppet attacked them with

• "General Cartaux, originally a painter, had become an adjutant in the Parisian corps; he was afterwards employed in the army; and, having been successful against the Marseillais, the deputies of the Mountain had on the same day obtained him the appointments of brigadier-general, and general of division. He was extremely ignorant, and had nothing military about him; otherwise he was not ill-disposed, and committed no excesses at Marseilles on the taking of that city."

Bourrienne. E.