Part 41

But the fate of La Vendée was the most frightful. This singular country, situated in the west of France, was covered with woods, hedges, and thickets, and intersected by ditches. Here dwelt a contented people, in rural quietude, and in the simplicity of the olden time. The peasants and tenants were attached to their landlords; they loved the king; and clung with reverence to their clergy and their church usages, which had been dear and sacred to them from their youth. When the National Assembly slaughtered or expelled their unsworn priests, when the blood of their king was poured out on the guillotine, when the children of the peasants were called away by a general summons, to the army――then the enraged people roused themselves to resistance and civil conflict. Under brave leaders, of undistinguished birth, as Charette, Stofflet, Cathelineau, who were joined by a few nobles, Laroche-Jaquelein, D’Elbée, etc., they at first drove back the republican army, conquered Saumur, and threatened Nantes. Upon this the Convention despatched a revolutionary army to La Vendée, under the command of Westermann and the frantic Jacobins, Ronsin and Rossignol. These fell upon the inhabitants like wild beasts, set fire to towns, villages, farms, and woods, attempted to overcome the resistance of the ‘royalists’ by terror and outrage. But the courage of the Vendéan peasants remained unsubdued. It was not until general Kleber marched against La Vendée with the brave troops who had returned to their homes after the surrender of Mayence, that this unfortunate people gradually succumbed to the attacks of their enemies, after the land had become a desert, and thousands of the inhabitants had saturated the soil with their blood. La Vendée, however, was only restored to tranquillity when Hoche, who was equally renowned for his courage and philanthropy, assumed the command of the army, offered peace to those who were weary of the contest, and reduced the refractory to submission. Stofflet and Charette were made prisoners of war, and shot.

The rage and cruelty of the Jacobins at length excited the disgust of the chiefs of the Cordeliers, Danton and Camille Desmoulins. The former, who was rather a voluptuary than a tyrant, and who was capable of kindly feelings, had grown weary of slaughter, and had retired into the country for a few months with a young wife, to enjoy the wealth and happiness that the revolution had brought him; but Camille Desmoulins, in his much read paper, ‘The Old Cordelier,’ applied the passages where the Roman historian, Tacitus, describes the tyranny and cruelty of Tiberius, so appropriately to his own times, that the application to the three chiefs of the committee of safety and their laws against the suspected was not to be mistaken. This enraged the Jacobins; and when, about this time, several friends and adherents of Danton (Fabre d’Eglantine, Chabot, etc.) were guilty of deceit and corruption in connection with the abolition of the East India Company, and others gave offense by their sacrilegious proceedings, the committee of safety made use of the opportunity to destroy the whole party of Danton. For since the Convention had altered the calendar and the names of the months, had made the year commence on the 22d of September, had abolished the observance of Sunday and the festivals, and introduced in their place the decades and sans-culotte feasts, many Dantonists, like Hebert, Chaumette, Momoro, Cloots, and others, had occasioned great scandal by their animosity to priests and Christianity. They desecrated and plundered the churches, ridiculed the mass, vestments and the church utensils, which they carried through the streets in blasphemous processions, raged with the spirit of Vandals against all the monuments of Christianity, and at length carried a resolution through the Convention that the worship of Reason should be introduced in place of the Catholic service of God. A solemn festival, in which Momoro’s pretty wife personated the Goddess of Reason in the church of Nôtre Dame, marked the commencement of this new religion. Robespierre, who plumed himself upon his reputation for virtue, because he was not a participator in the excesses or avarice of Danton and his associates, took offense at these proceedings. He determined to destroy their originators, and in their fall to involve the destruction of Desmoulins and Danton, before whose powerful natures his own spirit, which was filled with envy and ambition, stood abashed. Scarcely, therefore, had Danton resumed his seat in the Convention, before St. Just began the violent struggle by a remarkable proposal, in which he divided the enemies of the republic into three classes: the corrupt, the ultra-revolutionary, and the moderates, and insisted upon their punishment. This proposal resulted in nineteen of the ultra-revolutionaries, and among them Cloots, Momoro, Ronsin, and several members of the Common Council, being led to the guillotine on the 19th of March, 1794. On the 31st of April, the corrupt were placed before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Herault de Sechelles, etc., were maliciously distinguished as their partisans and involved in their fate. But Danton and Desmoulins, supported by a raging mob that were devoted to them, demanded with vehemence that their accusers should be confronted with them. For three days, Danton’s voice of thunder and the tumult among the populace rendered his condemnation impossible. For the first time, the bloody men of the Revolutionary Tribunal became confused. The Convention, at length, by a law of its own, gave the Tribunal the power of condemning the accused who were endeavoring to subvert the existing order of things by an insurrection, without further hearing; upon which the blood-stained heroes of the 10th of August and the days of September, who during their trial had shown that a lofty spirit might dwell even in the bosom of criminals, were led to the guillotine and beheaded, with a crowd of inferior Hebertists. They died with courage and resolution.

Since the fall of Danton, the committee of safety had ruled with well-nigh unlimited sway, and by repeated executions and arrests had brought the reign of terror to its highest point. But its chiefs had lost the confidence of the people and of the Convention. The friends of Danton were on the watch for the favorable moment of attack, and the number of their enemies was increased, when Robespierre, to put an end to the blasphemous proceedings of the adherents of the worship of Reason, had a resolution passed by the Convention in May, ‘That the existence of a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul were truths:’ and rendered himself at once hateful and ridiculous by his pride at the new festival in honor of the Supreme Being in the Tuileries, at which he officiated as high priest. Among his opponents was Tallien, who at a former period had been guilty of excesses in Bourdeaux, but who had been brought to adopt different principles by the fascinating Fontenay Cabarrus. With him were joined Frèron, Fouché, Vadier, the polished rhetorician Barrère, and others. On the 9th Thermidor, a battle for life or death commenced in the Convention. Robespierre and his adherents were not allowed to speak; their voices were drowned in the cries of their enemies, who carried through a stormy meeting the resolution, ‘That the three chiefs of the committee of safety, Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, and their confederate, Henriot, should be denounced, and conveyed as prisoners to the Luxembourg palace.’ They were liberated by the mob on their way; whereupon the drunken Henriot threatened the Convention with the National Guard, whilst the others betook themselves to the Hôtel de Ville. But the National Assembly was beforehand with them by a hasty resolution. A loudly proclaimed sentence of outlawry suddenly dispersed Henriot’s army, whilst the citizens who were opposed to the Jacobins arranged themselves around the Convention. The accused were again secured in the Hôtel de Ville. Henriot crept into a sewer, whence he was dragged forth by hooks. Robespierre attempted to destroy himself by a pistol-shot, but only succeeded in shattering his lower jaw, and was first conveyed, horribly disfigured, amidst the curses and execrations of the people, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and then guillotined, with twenty-one of his adherents. On the two following days, seventy-two Jacobins shared the fate of their leaders.

Robespierre’s overthrow by the ‘Thermidorians’ was the commencement of a return to moderation and order. The assemblies of the people were gradually limited, the power of the Common Council diminished, and the lower classes deprived of their weapons. Frèron, converted from a republican bloodhound into an aristocrat, assembled the young men, who from their clothing were called the ‘gilded youth,’ around him. These, with the heavy stick they usually carried about them, attacked the Jacobins in the streets and in their clubs at every opportunity, and opposed the song of the ‘Awakening of the People’ to the Marseillaise. At length, the club was shut up and the cloister of the Jacobins pulled down. The Convention strengthened itself by the recall of the expelled members and of such Girondists as were still left, and ordered the worst of the Terrorists, Lebon, Carrier, Fouquier, Tinville, etc., to be executed. But when four of the most active members of the committee of safety, (Barrère, Vadier, Collot d’Herbois, and Billaud Varennes) were denounced, the Jacobins collected the last remains of their strength, and drove the people, who were suffering from a scarcity and want of money, to a frightful insurrection. Crowds of grisly wretches surrounded the house of assembly, and demanded, with threatening cries, the liberation of the patriots, bread, and the constitution of 1793. Pichegru, who was just at this moment in Paris, came to the assistance of the distressed convention with soldiers and citizens, and dispersed the crowd. The still more formidable insurrection of the 1st Prairial, 1795, in which the mob surrounded the convention both within and without from seven o’clock in the morning till two at night, for the purpose of enforcing a return to the reign of terror, was also suppressed by the courageous president, Boissy d’Anglas. From this time, the power of the Terrorists was no more. Many Jacobins died by their own hands; others were beheaded, imprisoned, or transported. By so much the stronger became the party of the royalists, who wished to have a king again; and when the new government was shortly after determined upon, by which the executive powder was to be delivered to the Directory of five persons, the legislative power to a council of Ancients and a council of Five Hundred, the republican members of the Convention feared that in the new election they might be thrust aside by the royalists. They therefore made additions to the original charter of the constitution, wherein it was declared that two-thirds of the two legislative councils must be chosen from members of the Convention. The royalists raised objections to this and some other limitations of the freedom of election; and when these were unattended with success, they occasioned the insurrection of the Sections. Hereupon, the Convention made over to the Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, the suppression of the insurgent royalists, who were joined by all the enemies of the republic and of the revolution. The victory of the 13th Vendemiaire, (October 5, 1795,) which was fought in the streets of Paris, gave the supremacy to the republicans of the Convention, and the command of the Italian army to Napoleon, who was then twenty-six years of age, and who, a short time before, had married Josephine, the widow of General Beauharnois.

The French army in Savoy and on the frontiers of Italy was in a melancholy condition. The soldiers were in want of every thing. At this crisis, Napoleon appeared as their commander-in-chief, and in a short time contrived so to inspirit the desponding troops and attach them to his person, that under his guidance they cheerfully encountered the greatest dangers. Where the love of glory and the sentiment of honor were not sufficient, there the treasures of wealthy Italy served as a stimulous to valor. In April 1796, Napoleon defeated the octogenarian Austrian general, Beaulieu, at Nilesimo and Montenotte, separated, by this victory, the Austrians from the Sardinians, and so terrified the king, Victor Amadeus, that he consented to a disadvantageous peace, by which he surrendered Savoy and Nice to the French, gave up six fortresses to the general, and submitted to the oppressive condition of allowing the French army to march through his land at any time.

The course of Napoleon’s victories in Upper Italy was equally rapid. After the memorable passage of the bridge of Lodi, he marched into Austrian Milan, subjected the Lombard towns, and so terrified the smaller princes by the success of his arms, that they were only too happy to make peace with the victor at any price. Napoleon extorted large sums of money, and valuable pictures, treasures of art and manuscripts, from the dukes of Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, etc.

Wurmser now took the place of the old Beaulieu. But he also was defeated at Castiglione, and afterwards besieged in Mantua. The army under Alvinzi that was sent to his relief sustained three defeats (at Arcola, Rivoli, La Favorita), by which the whole Austrian force in Italy was destroyed, dispersed, or captured. This compelled the gallant Wurmser to deliver up Mantua to the glorious victor. Bonaparte, respecting the courage of his enemy, permitted a free retreat to the gray-headed marshal, his staff, and a part of the brave garrison. Pope Pius VI, terrified at these rapid successes, hastened to purchase the peace of Tolentino by cessions of territory, sums of money, and works of art. Archduke Charles now assumed the command of the Austrian army in Italy. But he also was compelled to a disastrous retreat, and was pursued by Bonaparte as far as Klagenfurt, with the view of falling upon Vienna. The emperor Francis, anxious for the fate of his capital, allowed himself to be persuaded by female influence to conclude the disadvantageous preliminary peace of Leoben, at the very moment when, by the non-arrival of the expected reinforcements, and the threatening movements of the Tyrolese, Styrians, and Carinthians, the position of the French army was becoming critical. About the time this treaty of peace was concluded, a popular insurrection arose in the rear of the French army, in the territory of the republic of Venice, in consequence of which many Frenchmen were murdered in Verona and its neighborhood, and even the sick and wounded in the hospitals were not spared. This was taken advantage of by Napoleon to destroy the Venetian republic.

The French marched into Venice, carried off the ships and the stores of the arsenal, robbed the churches, galleries, and libraries of their choicest ornaments and most valued treasures, and kept possession of the city till the negotiations with Austria were so far advanced, that the peace of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), by which Upper Italy fell into the hands of France under the name of the Cisalpine Republic, was concluded. Austria, who by this peace also surrendered Belgium to the French republic, and consented to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine with Mayence, received the territory of Venice, together with Dalmatio, as a recompense for this loss. The princes, prelates, the nobles, who suffered by this abandonment of the farther Rhineland, were to be indemnified on the right bank of the river, and this as well as all other points relating to Germany, were to be settled at the Congress at Rastadt. Napoleon opened this congress himself, and then returned to Paris, where he was received with acclamation.

The expedition of Napoleon to Egypt and Syria, produced a fresh coalition of the three great European powers, Russia, England, and Austria, against France. Russia had been governed since the year 1796 by Paul, the eldest son of Catherine, a prince with a mind somewhat deranged, who cherished the bitterest hatred against the Revolution; and who, as a great admirer of the Order of Malta, to the Grand Mastership of which he had himself appointed, saw in the capture of that island by Napoleon, cause for war. England feared danger to her foreign possessions from the Egyptian expedition, and scattered money with a liberal hand to raise up fresh enemies against France. Austria was at variance with the directoral government, because the house of the French ambassador in Vienna, Bernadotte, had been broken open, and the tricolor flag torn down and burnt, without the Austrian government having afforded the required satisfaction. War was waged, at the same time, in Germany, in Italy, in Switzerland, and in the Netherlands.

After his disembarkation at Alexandria, the whole of the French fleet at Aboukir, owing to the carelessness of the admiral, was defeated and captured by the English naval hero, Nelson; and Napoleon was in consequence obliged to make arrangements for a longer stay. In July, he marched from Alexandria through the Egyptian desert to Cairo. The distress of the army, unprovided with water or sufficient necessaries, in the burning heat, was very great. In the battle of the Pyramids, July 21st 1798, ‘from the tops of which 4,000 years looked down upon the combatants,’ the Mamalukes, who at that time swayed Egypt under the Turkish government, were defeated; whereupon Bonaparte marched into Cairo, and established a new government, police, and taxation, upon the European pattern, and ordered the curiosities of this wonderful land to be examined, and its monuments and antiquities to be collected and described, by the artists and men of learning who accompanied his army.

A dreadful insurrection broke out in Cairo, October 21st 1798, which could only be suppressed with difficulty by the superiority of European tactics, after nearly 6,000 Mahommedans had been slain. Napoleon made use of the victory to extort money, and then marched with his Turkish troops against Syria. After the conquest of Jaffa, where he ordered 2,000 Arnauts, whom he had a second time taken prisoners, to be shot as perjured, he proceeded to the siege of Jean d’Acre. It was there that the fortune of Napoleon met with its first rebuff. The Turks, provided with artillery by the English admiral, Sir Sidney Smith, repelled the assaults of the enemy, despite their wonderful valor. At the same time, a Turkish army threatened the European soldiers in the interior of the country. The former was, indeed, defeated and dispersed by Junot at Nazareth, and at Mount Tabor by Kleber; nevertheless, upon the plague breaking out among his troops, Napoleon found himself compelled to give up Acre and to commence a retreat. The horses were laden with the sick, the soldiers suffered the most dreadful privations; the dangers and the distresses of the war were frightful. Napoleon shared all the fatigues with the meanest of his army; he is even said to have visited a hospital filled with those sick of the plague. He again reached Cairo in June, and in the following month, defeated a Turkish army of three times his number, at Aboukir. A short time after this, he learned the disasters of the French in Italy from some newspapers; and the intelligence produced such an effect upon him, that he determined upon returning to France. He quietly made his preparations for departure with the greatest expedition. After transferring the command of the Egyptian army to Kleber, Napoleon sailed from the harbor of Alexandria with two frigates and a few small transports, and about 500 followers, and, guided by the star of his fortunes, reached the coast of France undiscovered by the English, and landed at Frejus amidst the acclamations of the people.

Upon his arrival in Paris, Napoleon embraced the resolution of overthrowing the directoral government which had lost all authority and consideration. With this purpose, he made himself secure of the officers and troops that were in Paris, and consulted with Sieyes, one of the directors, and his own brother, Lucien Bonaparte, who had been elected president of the Five Hundred, on the means of carrying his plan into execution. Lucien transferred the sittings of the council to St. Cloud, for the purpose of bringing the members within the power of the soldiers. There, Napoleon first attempted to win over the members to his plans by persuasion; when he found that he could not succeed in this, but rather, that he was overwhelmed with threats and reproaches, he commanded his grenadiers to clear the room with leveled bayonets. The republicans, who presented a bold front to the danger, were at length compelled to yield to superior force, and sought their safety through the doors and windows. This done a commission of fifty persons was appointed to draw up a fresh constitution, November 9th 1799. Thus ended the violent procedure of the 18th Brumaire, in consequence of which Napoleon Bonaparte took the conduct of affairs into his own strong hands.

According to the consular constitution, the power of the state was divided in the following manner:――1. To the Senate, which consisted of eighty members, belonged the privilege of selecting from the list of names sent in by the departments the members of the legislative power, and the chief officials and judges. 2. The legislative power was divided into the Tribunate, which numbered one hundred members, and whose office it was to examine and debate upon the proposals of the government; and the legislative bodies, who had only to receive or reject these proposals unconditionally. 3. The government consisted of three Consuls, who were elected for ten years. Of these Consuls, the first, Bonaparte, exercised the powers of government, properly so called; whilst the second and third Consuls (Cambacéres and Lebrun) were merely placed at his side as advisers. Bonaparte, as first Consul, surrounded himself with a state council and a ministry, for which he selected the most talented and experienced men. Talleyrand, the dexterous diplomatist, was minister of the exterior; the astute Fouché superintended the police; Berthier held the staff of general.

Bonaparte was at first engaged in reconciling the old with the new, in combining the results of the Revolution with the forms and manners of the monarchical period. But he very soon made known his preference for the ancient system, by the restoration of all the former arrangements and customs.

The reductions in the emigrant lists brought back many royalists to their homes, and the favor shown to them made them courteous and pliant in the service of the new court. Madame de Stael (daughter of Necker) collected, as in the old time, a circle of accomplished and illustrious men in her saloon. The vanity of the French favored Napoleon’s efforts; when he instituted the Order of the Legion of Honor, republicans and royalists grasped eagerly at the new plaything of human weakness.

One of the first cares of the Consul was the restoration of Christian worship in the French churches. After he had abolished the republican festivals (10th August, 21st January), and introduced the observance of the Sabbath, negotiations were opened with the Roman court, which at length led to the conclusion of the Concordat. No less attention did Napoleon devote to the affairs of education; but he particularly patronized the establishments for practical science, as the Polytechnic School in Paris.