430

THE CONVENTION DECLARES WAR.

[CHAP. LV. 10th, at Mardyck. But Dumouriez, instead of going to London, as he wished, was directed to attack Holland with all possible speed. Soon after declaring war, the Convention decreed a levy of 500,000 men, and assumed the superintendence of the armies by means of nine commissaries armed with power to remove those who were incapable, to punish those who were indifferent, to annihilate (foudroyer) traitors. A progressive income-tax was assessed on the rich, and all Frenchmen between the ages of eighteen and forty, being bachelors or widowers without children, were held in permanent requisition for the war.

Thus was initiated by far the greatest struggle ever witnessed by modern Europe, or, perhaps, by all time; a war that was to last with little intermission more than twenty years, and to be concluded only by the exhaustion of France, and it may almost be said of Europe combined against her. Austria and Prussia had, indeed, commenced the war; but those Powers would speedily have retired from the contest had not Great Britain intervened; and this country must be regarded as the main prop of all the coalitions subsequently formed against France. Both England and France seem to have underrated each other's resources. Brissot concludes the report already referred to with a most depreciatory account, which it is curious to read at the present day, of the resources and population of England, and of the precarious tenure of her colonies, especially India. British statesmen seem also to have undervalued the power of France, and to have concluded that internal anarchy would, before long, compel her to succumb. Pitt was of opinion that the war would be ended in one, or at most, two campaigns. Lord Grenville even thought that the capture of Toulon would be a decisive blow. But the social earthquake which had shaken France to her foundations, and seemed to threaten her with dissolution, was, in fact, the secret of her strength. A French political writer of those times, and a Royalist, observed that the Republic was richer and put forth more resources than all the Sovereigns of the Coalition together.2

After the declaration of war Great Britain proceeded to conclude a series of treaties with various Powers, which we shall here record together, though some of them were not made till several months later. A treaty with Hanover, March 4th, 1793, for 15,000 men, augmented by 5,000 in January, 1794. A double for Lord Elgin, Mém. et Corr. de Malla du Pan, t. ii. p. 20.

See Life of Wilberforce, and Courts and Cabinets of George III. ap. Massey, vol. iv. p. 45 note.

2 Mallet du Pan's Résumé, drawn up

Ed.).

Martens, Recueil, t. v. p. 422 (9

CHAP. LV.]

TREATIES CONCLUDED BY ENGLAND.

431 treaty with Russia, at London, March 25th, 1793-one commercial, the other directed against France. The ports of both countries were to be shut against France; no provisions were to be exported thither; her commerce was to be molested; neutrals were to be hindered from assisting her. This clause was intended to cut off the commerce of France with her colonies by means of neutral vessels. Notwithstanding this treaty, however, the Empress Catharine took no part in the war upon the Continent, directing all her efforts against Poland, though she sent a fleet into the Baltic and North Sea in August to assist in intercepting the commerce of neutrals with France. A treaty with Sardinia, April 25th. The King of Sardinia to keep on foot an army of 50,000 men during the war, receiving a subsidy of 200,000l. sterling per annum. Great Britain to send a fleet into the Mediterranean." A treaty

3

6

with Spain, May 25th. Both countries to shut their ports against French vessels and to prevent neutral vessels from aiding French commerce. A treaty with the King of the Two Sicilies, July 12th, who was indignant at having been forced to recognize the French Republic. Great Britain undertook to maintain a respectable fleet in the Mediterranean, while the King of the Two Sicilies was to provide 6,000 soldiers, four ships of the line, and four smaller vessels. A treaty between England and Prussia at the camp before Mentz, July 14th, for the most perfect union and confidence in carrying on the war against France, subsequently converted into a treaty of Subsidies. A treaty at London, August 30th, between Great Britain and the Emperor. Portugal also entered into the Coalition by a treaty signed at London, September 26th, by which she undertook to shut her ports against the French during the war, and to prohibit her subjects from carrying warlike stores and provisions to France. Treaties for troops were also concluded with some of the smaller German States. The execution of Louis XVI. had decided the Spanish Government to join the Coalition; the French Ambassador was dismissed, and the Convention unanimously declared war against Spain, March 7th, 1793. Thus, all the Christian Powers except Sweden, Denmark, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Switzerland, Venice, and Genoa, entered successively into the League against France, which remained completely isolated and dependent on her own resources. The Spanish Court had been disposed to war chiefly by the

1 Martens, Recueil, t. v. pp. 433, 439; Garden, t. v. p. 202.

2 Ibid. p. 462.

3 Garden, t. v. p. 204.

Martens, t. v. p. 480 (2e Ed.). 5 Ibid. p. 483.

6 Ibid. p. 447.

7 Ibid. p. 519.

432

GODOY.

[CHAP. LV. counsels of Don Emanuel Godoy, and in opposition to the opinion of the Count d'Aranda. Charles IV., who had succeeded his father Charles III. in 1788, and who, as Prince of Asturias, had displayed the most ungovernable violence of temper, manifested after his accession quite a contrary disposition, the result, it is said, of an illness with which he was afflicted. He was destitute neither of intelligence nor education; his heart was good, his judgment sound; but he was of a pusillanimous temper, and of so idle a disposition that anything requiring thought and application became a fatigue. His sole delight was in the chase, and, in order to enjoy it without interruption, he gladly resigned affairs of State into the hands of his Queen, Maria Louisa, daughter of the last Duke of Parma. Unfortunately, Maria Louisa was an artful, violent, and vindictive woman, of dissolute morals, vulgar mind, and imperious temper. She gladly seized the reins of power, though totally unqualified to rule, and she handed them over to a favourite not much better fitted for the task than herself. Don Emanuel Godoy, born at Badajoz in 1767 of a poor but noble family, has, perhaps, in some respects been defamed by the envy which his success could not fail to attract. He seems naturally to have possessed a good understanding and a humane temper; he was well acquainted with mankind, and used his knowledge with tact. But he was so ignorant that he could not even speak his own language correctly, and was deficient in grace and dignity of manner. He owed his advancement to his personal beauty. He attracted the notice of the Queen, and was suddenly advanced from the station of a simple garde du corps to manage the affairs of Spain. Charles IV. showed an entire submission to his Queen; Godoy also became his favourite and Prime Minister, and was loaded with favours and distinctions. But this sudden elevation perverted all his natural good qualities. He became idle and avaricious, fond of show, extravagantly ambitious, corrupted, and debauched. Modern history presents few instances of a crowned head and a favourite who have made a more frightful use of their power, or more shamelessly abused a great and generous nation.

CHAP. LVI.]

ANARCHY IN FRANCE.

433

CHAPTER LVI.

HILE the French were thus throwing down the gauntlet to all Europe, their own country seemed sinking into anarchical dissolution. Paris was filled with tumult, insurrection, and robbery. At the denunciations of Marat against "forestallers," the shops were entered by the mob, who carried off articles at their own prices, and sometimes without paying at all. The populace was agitated by the harangues of low itinerant demagogues. Rough and brutal manners were affected, and all the courtesies of life abolished. Moderate persons of no strong political opinions were denounced as "suspected, " and their crime stigmatized by the newly-coined word of moderantisme. The variations of popular feeling were recorded like the heat of the weather, or the rising of a flood. The principal articles in the journals were entitled, "Thermometer of the Public Mind;" the Jacobins talked of the necessity of being "up to the level." Many of the provinces were in a disturbed state. A movement had been organizing in Brittany ever since 1791, but the death of the Marquis de la Rouarie, its principal leader, had for the present suspended it. A more formidable insurrection was preparing in La Vendée. Chiefly agricultural, with few roads or large towns, and thus almost isolated from the rest of France, La Vendée had been little infected by the new opinions. It contained a class of haughty gentlemen, warmly attached to their ancient feudal customs and privileges, who had not joined the emigration, and still resided on their estates; while the peasantry were superstitiously devoted to their priests. La Vendée, from its undulating surface, numerous streams, narrow roads, and the cover afforded by hedges and small woods, is well adapted to defensive warfare. On March 10th, 1793, the day appointed for levying men for the war, the insurrection broke out at several points at once, principally under the leadership of Cathelineau, a working man, Stofflet, a gamekeeper, and Athanase Charette, a naval officer styling himself Le Chevalier Charette. They were afterwards joined by Henry de la Roche'Hist. Parl. t. xxiv. p. 421. F F

IV.

434

REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.

[CHAP. LVI. jaquelein, Bonchamps, De Lescure, D'Elbée, and others; under whose auspices a force was raised of some 40,000 or 50,000 men, in seven divisions of unequal size. In the course of April and May they took Bressuire, Thouars, Parthenay, and other places, and they applied for assistance to England and Spain.

It was in the midst of these disturbances, aggravated by a suspicion of General Dumouriez's treachery, which we shall presently have to relate, that the terrible court known as the REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL was erected. Danton, after his return from Belgium, whither he had been despatched by the Convention to inquire into the state of that country and the conduct of Dumouriez, had become impressed with the necessity of establishing a dictatorship, or some despotic power in France, in order to restore order and enable her to meet the dangers with which she was surrounded. In this view Robespierre participated, who had become disgusted with the proceedings of the Hôtel de Ville, and imagined that he should get on better with the Convention. The Tribunal was first formally proposed in the Convention, March 9th, by Carrier, the miscreant afterwards notorious by his massacres at Nantes, urged by Cambacérès on the 10th, and completed that very night at the instance of Danton, who rushed to the tribune, and insisted that the Assembly should not separate till the new Court had been organized. The Girondists had hoped at least to adjourn the subject; but Danton told them, in his terrible voice, that there was no alternative between the proposed tribunal and the more summary method of popular vengeance. The extraordinary tribunal of August, 1792, had not been found to work fast enough, and it was now superseded by this new one, which became, in fact, only a method of massacring under the form of law. The Revolutionary Tribunal was designed to take cognizance of all counter-revolutionary attempts, of all attacks upon liberty, equality, the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, the internal and external safety of the State. A commission of six members of the Convention was to examine and report upon the cases to be brought before it, to draw up and present the acts of accusation. The tribunal was to be composed of a jury to decide upon the facts, five judges to apply the law, a public accuser, and two substitutes; from its sentence there was no appeal.1

Meanwhile Dumouriez had returned to the army, very dissatisfied that he had failed in his attempts to save the King and baffle the Jacobins. He had formed the design of invading Holland,

1 Hist. Parl. t. xxv. p. 59 sq.; Cf. Croker, Essays, &c. p. 445.