Rue St. Honoré. Danican having sent a flag of truce to the Convention requiring them to disarm their troops, Boissy d'Anglas and some other members were for negotiating; but Chénier flew to the tribune, and declared that there was no alternative but death or victory. Volleys of musketry soon afterwards announced that the conflict had begun; 700 muskets were brought into the Assembly, and the members armed themselves as a corps de réserve. As the insurgents were crossing the Pont Royal with cries of Vive le Roi! the artillery, taking them in front and flank, threw them into disorder and flight. The combat was more obstinate on the side of the Rue St. Honoré and Palais Royal; where it was not before nine o'clock in the evening that the insurgents were driven from all their posts; but, after a loss of life, variously estimated, order was entirely restored.' The Convention used its victory with moderation. Of the military leaders of the insurgents Lafond alone was executed. On the motion of Barras, Bonaparte was named second in command of the Army of the Interior, Barras himself retaining the commandin-chief.

The Convention now proceeded to form the two new Chambers and the Directory. As the electors had not returned two-thirds of its members to the new Chambers, those who had been elected formed themselves into an Electoral Assembly to supply the deficiency. The late Royalist insurrection influenced the choice of Directors, who were selected from among the members of the late Convention, and, indeed, the majority of them had been regicides. They were La Réveillère-Lepaux, Sieyès, Rewbel, Letourneur, and Barras. Sieyès, however, declined to serve, and was replaced by Carnot. Of these men none had particularly distinguished himself except Carnot, who, in the popular phrase, had "organized victory" by his military projects and reforms. Barras, a gentleman of Provence, had been a representative of the people at the siege and massacre of Toulon. Menaced on that account by Robespierre, he had taken part against that demagogue on the 9th Thermidor, and had subsequently joined the reactionary party. Réveillère-Lepaux, a gentleman of Anjou, had voted in the Convention against the death of the King, and had been proscribed as a Girondist. Rewbel had been procureur fiscal in Alsace, and had served with Merlin at Mentz as representative of the people; but was accused of not having done his duty, and

For this insurrection see Barras's Report, already quoted, and that of Merlin in the same vol. of the Histoire Parlementaire.

26

THE CONVENTION DISSOLVED.

[CHAP. LVIII. suspected of having received Prussian gold. Of Letourneur little or nothing was known. Rewbel, of an imperious character, took the lead in the Directory, assumed the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Justice. Barras, ignorant and idle, though capable of acting with decision on an emergency, had the direction of the police, for which the suppleness of his character seemed to qualify him. Réveillère-Lepaux, a visionary belonging to a sect called Theophilanthropes, but, in spite of his absurdities, of a mild and moderate character, presided over education, science, art, manufactures, &c. Carnot had the war office, and Letourneur the administration of the navy and colonies.

The Convention held its last sitting 4th Brumaire, an IV (October 26th, 1795), when it passed a general amnesty, with only a few exceptions, changed the name of the Place de la Révolution to that of Place de la Concorde, and declared its session terminated. It had lasted rather more than three years.

3

What was now the condition of France after six years of revolution, and the reign of virtue enforced by terror? The work of a Republican, a member of the Convention and of the Council of Five Hundred,' will convey some idea of it. There was not a sou in the treasury. Assignats were almost valueless; the quantity absolutely necessary for the service of the following day was printed over night. Public credit was annihilated; there was no regular system of revenue, not a tax whose produce was worth carrying to account. Yet in this state of things it was necessary to feed the capital gratis, to supply the great towns and the army of the interior. Each inhabitant of Paris of the poorest sort received only two ounces of bread a day or a handful of rice, and even this wretched supply was often wanting. Meat, oil, sugar, and other necessaries could scarcely be procured. The state of the provinces was not better. The conveyance of a load of corn from one village to another could often be effected only by an exchange of musket-shots. The forests were exposed to pillage. The armies were without clothes or bread. All the main roads, canals, bridges, and other public works were in a deplorable state of dilapidation. The moral state of France was as bad as the physical. There was

Hist. Parl. t. xxxvii. p. 88.

2 Bailleul, Examen crit, de l'ouvrage de Madame de Staël sur la Rév. Fr. t. ii. p. 276 sq.

3 On the 22nd Brumaire, a few weeks after the installation of the Directory, when they demanded from the Legislature some means to obviate the prevailing

famine, the exchange for the louis d'or was from 3,000 to 3,180 livres in assignats. Hist. Parl. t. xxxvii. p. 110. The issue of assignats ceased January 30th, 1796, as they no longer paid the expense of manufacture. At this time the exchange for the louis d'or was 5,300 livres in paper. Montgaillard, t. iv. p. 419.

no longer any public education; the recent convulsions had produced a shameless cynicism; public decency was openly outraged in every posssible manner. Bands of brigands, called chauffeurs, had been organized, who scoured the country in all directions, committing the most horrible excesses. Thus the French nation, by attempting to carry into practice the theories of Rousseau, had almost attained the beau idéal of that philosopher's anti-social state, and become dissolved into its primitive and barbaric elements. Indeed, a French historian of the Revolution1 observes with much naïveté, "This epoch-that of the Directory-beheld the termination of the movement towards freedom, and the commencement of that towards civilization." The first dream of the French, he proceeds to observe, had been liberty and a Constitutional Monarchy; the next, equality, fraternity, and a Republic: but at the commencement of the Directory, people no longer believed in anything; all had been lost in the great strife of parties, the virtue of the middle classes, as well as that of the populace. The public amusements, in which, we suppose, may be included. the Republican and Atheistical fêtes and processions, and the exciting little interlude of the guillotine, had ceased, and people began to direct their thoughts towards the pleasures of private life. The revival of civilization was marked by the balls, feasts, debauches, display of sumptuous equipages, and other luxuries, which again became the order of the day.

As the year 1795 drew to a close the aspect of her foreign affairs was hardly more encouraging for France than that of her domestic state. Her fleets were nearly destroyed; Corsica was in the hands of the English; Prussia, Spain, and Tuscany had, indeed, been detached from the Coalition, but a large part of Europe still remained arrayed against her; Switzerland, though neutral, was the centre of plots against the Republic; Holland, by reason of the anarchy which reigned there, was rather an encumbrance than a help. The submission of the United Provinces to French domination had produced a war with England. The Dutch colonies of Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo, in the West Indies, those of Ceylon, Malacca, Cochin, and other of their settlements in the East Indies, as well as the Cape of Good Hope, fell into the hands of the English. The French had, indeed, recovered the islands of St. Lucie and St. Vincent, which they were destined to lose again the following year. In the interior, the troops were deserting in bands, with their arms and Mignet, Hist. de la Rép. Fr. t. ii. p. 145.

1

28

CAMPAIGN OF 1795.

[CHAP. LVIII. baggage. There was no concert or unity of views either in the Legislative Chamber or in the Directory. The French arms had been successful in Italy, but the war on the Rhine had terminated in disaster. To these campaigns we must now advert.

The

Owing to the negotiations at Basle, as well perhaps as to the distressed condition of the French armies, no military operations took place on the north-eastern frontier till September; except that Marshal Bender, despairing of being relieved, surrendered Luxembourg to the French, June 5th. The following was the position of the armies on the Rhine. Pichegru occupied the left bank of that river from Hüningen to Mannheim, while the Austrians under Wurmser were opposed to him on the other bank. Clairfait, who had the command-in-chief of the Austrian army and also of that of the Empire, was posted on the Rhine from Mannheim to Düsseldorf, with his centre at Mentz. Opposed to him was Jourdan with the army of the Sambre and Meuse. Prussians, as an army of observation, occupied the line of demarcation already described (p. 15). On September 6th two divisions of the army of the Sambre and Meuse crossed the Rhine at Duisburg and Neuss, when the Austrians retired behind the Lahn. On the 15th Jourdan crossed at Neuwied with his centre. Pichegru had appeared before Mannheim on the 14th, and on the 18th that town capitulated, when the Elector Palatine made the arrangement mentioned before (p. 19). After the fall of Mannheim Clairfait retreated between the Main and Neckar; but Quosdanowich and Klenau having beaten the French at Handschuheim, September 24th, and thus restored the communications between Clairfait and Wurmser, Mannheim was blockaded, and the Austrians in their turn began to advance. Clairfait, crossing the Main at Aschaffenburg, defeated the French at Bergen, October 11th, pushed on beyond Wetzlar, driving away the Prussian pickets, and violating the neutral line, and was thus in a position to turn the left wing of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, which fled in disorder over the Rhine. Abandoning its pursuit Clairfait suddenly turned towards Mentz, which Jourdan had invested, and surrounded with enormous lines of circumvallation. The French, surprised by the unexpected attack of the main body of the Austrians, were driven from their lines, thrown into disorder, and so terribly cut up by Clairfait's cavalry that this battle decided the campaign. Their baggage, ammunition, and whole park of artillery fell into the hands of the victor (October 29th). Clairfait's success was aided by the treachery of Pichegru.

That general, who contemplated playing the part of Monk, and restoring the monarchy, entered into correspondence with the Prince of Condé, and was tempted with the most magnificent offers; but he hesitated when required to arrest at once the representatives of the people and proclaim Louis XVIII. on the left bank of the Rhine. He disconcerted, however, the French operations by neglecting, after the capture of Mannheim, to march, as instructed, with the greater part of his forces on the Main, to cut off Clairfait's retreat and form a junction with Jourdan. He contented himself with sending 10,000 men to Heidelberg, who were soon completely beaten.'

In consequence of these defeats the French held, on the right bank of the Rhine, only Mannheim and Düsseldorf; and Mannheim they were forced to surrender by capitulation to Wurmser (November 22nd). Yet, in spite of his successes, Clairfait concluded with the French an unaccountable armistice, December 31st, for an indefinite period, and terminable at ten days' notice. It seems probable that he acted on secret instructions from Thugut. Nevertheless, on his return to Vienna, he was called to a severe account by the Aulic Council of War, and dismissed from the command. The Archduke Charles, the Emperor's brother, was appointed in his place. In Italy, as we have said, the French arms were more prosperous. The peace with Spain. proved of great service to them in the Italian campaign. Schérer, with the army of the Eastern Pyrenees, proceeded into Italy, and inflicted a severe defeat on De Vins, the Austrian general, at Loano, on the Genoese Riviera, November 23rd and 24th. This battle, the only one deserving the name during four campaigns in Italy, cost the Austro-Sardinians 7,000 men killed, wounded, or prisoners, eighty guns and all their magazines, compelled them to retreat to their entrenched camp at Ceva, and by the occupation of Savona opened Piedmont to the French in the following year. The victory is chiefly ascribed to Masséna.

The establishment of a new and apparently more firm and orderly Government in France had inspired the British Ministry with the hope that it might not be impossible to effect a peace. A bad harvest and other causes had produced a good deal of distress in England; discontent had manifested itself in sedition and riots, and cries for Bread and Peace. The King, in a message to Par

Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. Fr. t. xii. p 475 sqq.

2 Homme d'état, t. iii. p. 274. Montgaillard, t. iv. p. 412, says, that it was

entered into on account of the negotiations between Condé and Pichegru, of which Conde had informed the Austrian generals.