marked by scarcely a decisive action; nor could a brief sen tence do justice to the heroism of La Rochejaquelein. The Vendéan war forms a brilliant episode in French history, al together isolated, in its progress and in its nullity of effect, from the great chain of events. It must suffice here to mark, from time to time, its good or evil fortune.

From the spring of 1793 the republic had been at war not only with Austria, Prussia, Piedmont, but also with Spain and with England. France declared war against the latter country, which by its honest pride and just indignation certainly tended to provoke it. But Pitt, however able a minister, was most unfit for the station in which hostilities placed him. His was no hand to wield, as his sire's had done, the thunders of war. The bolts trembled in his grasp; and, instead of darting them at the enemy with uplifted arm, he let them drop, scorching far more the soil on which he stood than that which he aimed at. Yet such was his ascendency and high character, that he was the very bugbear of the republicans, who saw in every shadow what they deemed his gold and his intrigues. On the 7th of August the convention voted Pitt to be "the enemy of the human race," which, considering that Clootz was the chosen orator of the species, was certainly a compliment to the minister. His view of France, in return, if not so unjust, was more erroneous. He looked upon the revolution with narrow and professional ideas,-as a financier, rather than as a statesman; and because he could not perceive the possibility of a French administration making up a budget and raising supplies in a regular way, he thought they must come to a stand and sue for peace. A few thousand men, in addition to a body of Hanoverians, seemed therefore a sufficient force to join the Austrians on the northern frontier. The facilities offered of leaguing with Vendéans, Girondists, were all neglected, with the exception of Toulon, which chance threw into the hands of Admiral Hood; and the capture of one or two insignificant frontier towns seemed to be the utmost object proposed by the English and their allies. Early in September, the duke of York laid siege to Dunkirk, when Houchard and Jourdan attacked him. A combat ensued, called that of Hoondschoot, in which an equal number perished on both sides; but, in consequence, the English were obliged to retreat precipitately from before Dunkirk.

The most remarkable event in the military history of 1793 is the siege of Toulon, not so much from its importance, as from its first bringing to light the talents of Napoleon Buonaparte. He was born in Corsica, of a good family, in 1769.

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and educated at the artillery school of Brienne. As all the students of this establishment, and, indeed, all intended to hold rank in the army under the ancient regime, were noble, the officers emigrated at the revolution; Buonaparte and three comrades being the only ones that remained of his regiment. The place of an officer of artillery could not be supplied from the lower and uninformed ranks of life, as those of the line were in France; and thus he found himself, at the age of twenty-four, with the rank of major, and the chief of his arm before Toulon. Two successive generals appointed to command the siege were totally ignorant of their profession. The members of the convention present with the army were self-sufficient, and still less capable of conducting a siege. The task fell upon young Buonaparte, who had not only to devise good counsel, but to make it prevail. The latter he effected by reports and written plans, that proved his talents to the war committee at home, as his acts proved them to the besieging army. Instead of making a regular attack upon the main fortification, he proposed to get possession of the prominent points commanding the harbor, which would render it untenable to the English fleet. Were this once effected, the motley garrison he knew would not hold the town. Although amounting to 14,000, it numbered but 3000 English. Even their commander, O'Hara, was taken in a sortie. The important posts designated by Buonaparte were captured; and as the cannon from them reached the fleet, the evacuation of the town was decided on. The English, in departing, set fire to the magazines, and to the French fleet, consisting of nine vessels of the line and four frigates; a melancholy spectacle to the men of Toulon, an exasperating one to their republican conquerors. The circumstances of the siege were, however, useful to the cause of the latter. It proved an example to awe all towns and parties from mounting the white flag of the Bourbons, or from receiving under any pretext the enemies of their country within their walls.

In the mean time, the victorious Jacobins were about to split into two contending parties. But first let us regard a picture of the convention at present. drawn by one of its members, Thibaudeau. "The national convention itself was no longer aught than a nominal representation, than a passive instrument of terror. On the ruins of its independence was raised that monstrous dictatorship, called the Committee of Public Safety. Terror isolated and struck with stupor the deputies as much as the mass of citizens. On entering the assembly, each member, full of mistrust, governed his words and demeanor, lest either should be construed into a crime.

Nothing was indifferent,-the place one sat on, a gesture, a look, a murmur, a smile. The highest bench of the Mountain marking the highest degree of republicanism, all pressed towards it; the right side remaining deserted since the fall of the Gironde. Those who had voted with that party, and had too much conscience to become Jacobins, took refuge in the Plain, ever ready to receive those who sought.safety in inaction. Other members, more pusillanimous, still assumed no fixed place, but changed continually, seeking thus to deceive and baffle suspicion. Some, still more cunning, in the fear of being compromised, never sat down at all, but remained standing at the foot of the tribune. On trying occasions, when there was repugnance to vote for a violent measure, and danger to oppose it, they escaped by stealth from the assembly.'

The trying moment for a revolutionary party is when it has conquered, and essays to govern. The followers and the weapons, which have hitherto aided it in crushing and overthrowing, prove most unmanageable instruments of administration. When the Girondists had conquered royalty, and found themselves possessed of the ministry and the majority of the convention, they sought to stop the revolutionary current by the force of reason, of eloquence, and of law. All had proved unavailing. Robespierre, and the committee of public safety over which he ruled, devised more efficient measures. They took the mob into pay, and formed it into a revolutionary army. They multiplied executions, in order to strike all classes with terror, the only sentiment powerful enough, they well judged, to check the discording passions of the time. Still the never-failing rule held good, that a party more extreme than the government exists of necessity, however popular and extreme that government. The anarchical party now formed itself in what had ever been the most violent furnace of the revolution, the Cordelier club, of the men whom even Marat had denounced, but who had nevertheless been the most violent agitators of the 31st of May.. When the alllevelling constitution of 1793 was proposed, the anarchists found it not democratical enough, and petitioned accordingly. When it was set aside, and the committee of public safety installed with dictatorial power in its place, the anarchists demanded the constitution. Whilst Robespierre defended the government of the day against the violent opposition, he was at the same time menaced by another, the Moderates, who thought that blood enough had been shed, and measures of vengeance or rigor were no longer necessary. This party, which already began to lean to the side of humanity vas un

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fortunately brought thither by no honorable path. It was formed of successful plunderers,-of those who had enriched themselves in the revolution, who loved pleasure and tranquillity, and who thought the time was come for enjoyment. These were necessarily few. The great and famishing mass of the undistinguished and uninvited pressed on their rear, demanded the continuance of the revolutionary times and habits, and exclaimed against moderatism as their ruin. This was the sentiment of the Jacobin club, and of the talking majority of the public. Robespierre could not but adopt and lead this opinion; the Jacobins being his true support, the chief source of his popularity as a demagogue. But then, as a member of the government, he had to repress the anarchists; and the difficulty was to refute them, and repulse, without incurring the suspicion of moderatism. This position was dangerous, betwixt the two parties. If the anarchists succeeded in proving him moderate to the Jacobins, he was lost: and he was wise enough to see that the moderates had no force or class on whom they could rely; and that to rely on them would be to lean on a broken reed. The subtle tyrant, therefore, whilst obliged to denounce and menace the anarchists, cleansed himself from the crime of moderation by enforcing measures of blood and keeping the guillotine in action; and at the same he prepared the means, and watched the opportunity, of delivering himself from the dilemma by the ruin of both parties.

Danton wanted his colleague's acuteness and his perseverance. He was one of those sated revolutionists who wished to stop the effusion of blood. He knew his eloquence or influence was as yet as unequal to the task: he therefore, rather than imitate Robespierre in indulging the sanguinary feeling of the time, thought it best to retire to the country, and wait till the revolutionary fury had ebbed, and humanity began to flow, a feeling fatal to him, and most advantageous to Robespierre; thus ridding the latter of a formidable rival.

Previous to the secession of Danton, the anarchists had recourse to a singular manœuvre. Denied all influence in directing the civil or military affairs of the state, they determined to set up as its religious legislators, and determined tc usurp the authority of high-priests, since that of representatives was denied them. In this scheme they enlisted the commune or municipality, which had grown weary of its inactivity since the 31st of May, and was jealous to observe that its old rival, the convention, had even in defeat continued to establish a paramount and dictatorial power. Pache, the mayor, was still the grave, stolid, useful tool. Chaumette,

the procureur of the commune, and Hebert, its secretary, set themselves at the head of the project. On the 7th of November, they either terrified or induced Gobel, archbishop of Paris, with other renegade bishops and clergy, including Julien, a Protestant minister, to appear at the bar of the convention, and strip themselves of their sacerdotal garments, and declare that they rejected Christianity as a religion. The goddess Reason was set up to be worshipped, and substantially represented by a female in the nudity of her immodest charms. This new idol was enthroned in the church of Nôtre Dame. Robespierre, Danton, the convention itself, blushed at such a scene: shame made even them recoil. They affected to stop at deism, although their attempts to separate it from atheism were as unsuccessful as that of the Gironde had been to separate liberty from license.

Soon after broke out the quarrel between the moderates and the anarchists, which enabled Robespierre and his committee, placed between them, to crush both in succession. The moderate party has been represented as composed prin cipally of successful plunderers, of wealthy fortunate men, desirous of enjoying their spoils. There were others, however, moderate from honest indignation. One of these, Phelippeau, in the blindness of zeal, began the attack upon those moderate from corruption, by proposing an inquest into the fortunes and dilapidations of the deputies. Phelippeau here lifted the ax that was to fall upon his own head. Baxire and Chabot, the Jacobins who had grown tenderhearted because gorged with plunder, defended themselves, and ex claimed against denunciations. "Let us not decimate and devour each other. Already the royalists exult in our destruction; they see us sending each other to the scaffold. 'To-day,' say they, ''tis Danton's turn, then Billaud's, last Robespierre's.' Let us pass a law, that no deputy shall be arrested, at least until heard." This decree passed. The anarchists exclaimed against it: the Jabobins joined them; and a complete outcry was raised against the moderates. The rabble were in want of victims. The royalists, constitutionalists, Girondists, had all perished. The source that supplied the guillotine was running dry, when the moderates were presented as the victims of popular vengeance. Robespierre had here the wit to perceive that the current was setting in the wrong direction, and moreover the courage to resist and turn it right. The revolution, in his idea, had descended far enough; he wished that it should continue indeed, but on a level, not a downward course. He therefore set his face against the anarchists, thundered against H ·bert, and boldly