energy of its chiefs, could have driven all the young population of France in a mass to the armies, and swept Belgium, as had been done, by an inundation of conscripts. Had Robespierre fallen six months sooner, Flanders and Holland would not have been conquered. But the impulse was given; and now all westward of the Rhine was under the sword of he French. Holland was allowed the name of a separate tate. Tuscany was, however, the first country that signed treaty with the French republic; Prussia, the next.* The chivalrous monarch, who had first armed in the cause of royalty, first abandoned it, and wisely, if not honorably. Spain was forced to imitate the example; and the smaller German states wished for peace. Even Austria hesitated, despite her loss of the Low Countries, till encouraged by the counsels and subsidies of England.

The latter country stood alone in unmitigated hostility. Despite of a loud dissentient voice, both in parliament and the country, the king and his minister were both bent at all hazards on continuing the war. This was a resolution worthy of British courage, however little in accordance with statesmanlike prudence. France presented an invulnerable aspect, so much so that her enemies knew not how to attack her. But Pitt could never stoop to leave Holland and Antwerp in the hands of the great rival of England. The French historians we have before mentioned, vie with each other in representing Pitt as a monster. They laud his profound policy, his indomitable mind; but unite with this al perfidy and machiavelism. They make him, in the political world, precisely what Byron painted his heroes in the romantic, a union of intellect and crime. Strange to say, the French royalists have taken the same view as their brother republicans,† and both echo each other's plaints against our great minister.

In truth, Pitt was far more a Quixote than a Mephistophiles. It was his pride, his paternal as well as his country's pride, and a courageous feeling of obstinate honor, that supported him in hostility to France. Statesmanlike or cunning policy, instead of having too much, had far too little influence on his conduct; and instead of taking the French view of the character of Pitt, in admiring the statesman while they abhor th

* The treaty betwixt France and Prussia was signed at Bâle the 5th o April, 1795. That betwixt France and Spain was signed at the same place the 14th of July in the same year.

† The French Royalist writers are universally much more bitter against England than even the republicans, or than they are in favor of the revolution. The reader has but to compare Lacretelle and Thiers, in order to be sonvinced of this.

1795.

EXPEDITION TO QUIBERON.

91

man, we, on the contrary, bestow a fair and large tribute of respect to the man, whilst prepared to moot, if not to deny, the prudence of the statesman.

Although Austria and England, under the influence of this great man, turned away from all proffers of peace, the campaign of 1795 was, nevertheless, productive of no effect. The great effort achieved of leaving no enemy westward of the Rhine, the young French soldiers abandoned the army and the executive government had neither energy nor immedi ate aim in pushing conquest farther. Pichegru, indeed, crossed the Rhine, where the royalists succeeded in corrupting and shaking him by offers similar to those which had seduced Dumouriez. The most striking military event was the unfortu nate expedition to Quiberon. Having allowed La Vendée to succumb for it too had made its peace with the republic,the British government resolved, on the information of De Puisaye, an emigrant noble, to raise the banner of insurrection in Brittany, where the Chouans, under cover of a pacification, were ready to resume their arms. As the accounts of the emigrants were, however, little to be trusted; and as to send an English force into the province would be idle, unless the French royalists themselves were able to make a respectable stand; it was resolved first to try the influence and the power of the latter, arming and equipping a little army of them, and transporting them to Brittany. This was done. They were landed on a peninsula, forming one side of the bay of Quiberon. They took the fort commanding the little isthmus communicating with the main land. The Chouans, to the number of 12,000, joined them; and, for a few days, the expedition seemed to prosper. But Hoche, the republican general in Brittany, had now the disciplined forces of the republic at his disposal; war was everywhere quelled, and not the most brilliant success of the Chouans could finally avail. Hoche soon drove back their advanced parties, and shut up the emigrant army in the isle (as the peninsula is called) of Quiberon. The royalist party in France did its utmost to distract and weaken Puisaye, of whom they werė jealous; whilst miserable dissensions betwixt the emigrant officers themselves distracted them from fit measures of defence. Routed several times, the English gun-boats still repulsed the republicans, till the latter, guided by deserters from the ernigrants, surprised in the night the fort that guarded the isthmus, and in the morning the emigrant army fell into the power of Hoche. They had not time to embark, nor power to resist. Many fell, many were drowned, many slew themselves. The English admiral did all in h's power to rescue

and to aid the unfortunate emigrants. A great body of them, however, fell into the hands of their enemies. Sombreuil, their chief, asserted that they had capitulated. Some soldiers had indeed cried to them to surrender; but Hoche denied positively that any such offer had been made. Indeed, ccnsidering the rigid laws against emigrants, a republican general durst not have made any such concession, and would not at any rate to a thousand men. All those taken prisoners were shot. The Thermidorian government at the very time incurring the suspicion of leniency and a tendency to royalism, durst not have spared them, even if it had the inclination, which is doubtful: such are the inevitable horrors of revolution and civil war.

The convention, in the mean time, was drawing to its natu ral term. All France was weary of its rule; and public opinion, though extending pardon on account of its late recovery of courage and moderation, still could not forget its pusillanimity, its betrayal of the liberties and lives of the whole nation to tyrants, its crimes, the mutual slaughter of its members; its reign, in short, of three years, uniting in that small space more than 'three centuries of any history could present of guilt, anarchy, and suffering. In these three eventful years, the convention had isolated itself, its opinions, and its interests, from France, which it certainly could no longer be said to represent. The higher classes, or such of them as survived, abhorred it as regicide; those of common and of middling fortune, the burgesses of towns, were averse likewise to the body which decreed the maximum, and deluged the land with a valueless paper-money, and which still screened the terrorists. The lower orders, and the speculative democrats who led them, held in equal hate the conquerors of Prairial, If the convention were dissolved, in this state of public feeling, the members could not hope for reelection. The administration of the state would pass into other hands, which might not only modify the government, but think fit to punish the Thermidorians themselves. Tallien himself was weighed down with crime; Fouché equally, Carnot too,-all heroes and leaders in the convention, but without any supporters whatsoever in the nation. To save themselves, in other words, to perpetuate their power, was therefore the first consideration with the convention; and this was no easy matter to accomplish, considering that a share of liberty and of republican organization was still necessary. A commission of eleven had been long employed upon a new constitution. They had undertaken the task to satisfy the clamors of the democratic party, at that time uncrushed.

1795.

NEW CONSTITUTION PREPARED.

93

They had been chosen, too, amongst the best informed and most honorable members of the convention, those belonging to the committees of government being excluded. A point upon which all agreed was, that two chambers were necessary. The lower chamber was to consist of 500 members, called the council of five hundred, the upper of 250, called the senate, or council of ancients. As both were to be elected by the people, and as age was the only requisite for a senator, one could prove no real counterpoise to the other. There was greater difference of opinion as to the executive. Three of the commission were monarchic, another for a single president. Two and three councils were proposed. It was finally arranged that there should be five directors, chosen by the two councils, one of them to go out of office each year. Such was the directorial constitution, which was voted without difficulty by the convention.

It was, however, far from reassuring the leading members, or the majority of the assembly, who could not mistake in the public the universal symptoms of their unpopularity. The form of government being now in discussion, it was of course free to all to entertain opinions thereon. Many, very many, inclined to a monarchic form of government; we have seer that one fourth of the committee for framing the constitution was of this opinion. The higher classes, of course, dared not intimate their existence, much less their sentiments; but those of the middling orders who had been reinclined to monarchy, spoke out; found themselves the majority in the sections of Paris; and looked forward to the dissolution of the convention, and the manifestation of the popular will in the new elections. This was fair and courageous. If republicanism be not a crime, neither is royalism: but the convention professed to be alarmed at these reviving sentiments, and prepared to combat them. It could not assert, after the experience of the last years, that liberty was more in danger from royalism than from republicanism; but in the place of liberty they set up a new idol, an abstract thing, which they called revolution. "The cause of the revolution," cried the constitutionalists, "is in danger. What! shall we have braved the menaces of native loyalty, and the armies of foreign potentates? shall we have undergone anarchy and bloodshed, and famine, the terror, and all its consequences, ruin of fortune, loss of life-shall al. this have been borne in vain, and so much blood idly shed tc support it?" Such was their argument; a fatal one, since if all these causes had been endured for an empty shadow, this was no reason why further sacrifices were to be made. The appeal, however, touched the national vanity, and many a voice

and arm were raised in behalf of the revolution, without attaching any other idea to the word than that of a flag under which one had fought, and which was at best an empty symbol

There remained, however, a strong party in the capital who were deaf to this cant, whose rallying-point was war to the territorists, and hatred to the convention. Many were monarchically inclined, and the ancient royalists, raising their heads, began to intrigue and make partisans. The convention made use of the pretext to pass a decree, that only one third of their number should be immediately re-elected, the remaining two thirds to subsist, one half to be renewed in eighteen months, the other at a more distant period; moreover, that the convention was itself to make choice of the two thirds destined to be of the new legislature. This was, in fact, to constitute and secure the majority. Never was a more gross and dictatorial act committed. The Parisian citizens were indignant. They united in their sections, declaimed with all the fury of Jacobins, though in a very different sense, against this new tyranny. Petitions were drawn up, and the boldest remonstrances sent to the convention. Many young men distinguished themselves by their eloquence and zeal in the sections; amongst others, Lacretelle the historian, who drew up and presented one of the most famous petitions at the bar of the assembly.

The opposition was a serious one. It was that of the middle class, the burgesses composing the national guard, according to its new organization, which excluded the populace The convention, however, though it could look for support to no rank of citizens, was highly popular with the army, which it had sent to victory, and which had been disciplined to fear and to obey it. The tactics of the convention, therefore, were to bring the army to its aid. A camp was formed in the plain of Sablons, near Paris. In order to give color to their usurpation, they ordered the new constitution and additional decrees to be submitted to all the primary assemblies of France, and also the armies. This was no small flattery to the latter. The new constitution and its additional decrees were voted with acclamation by the army. The sections, or primary assemblies of the capital, approved the constitution; but unanimously rejected the decrees perpetuating the two thirds of the convention. In the provinces, however, the importance of the decrees were not perceived: the opinions and enlightened views of the capital were slow in reaching them. And although it was notorious that the anti-terrorist party was even stronger in the provinces than in Paris; yet the constitution, including the decrees, was declared to have the assent of the primary