[1792 A.D.] exclusively attributed to the duke; whereas a great part of the cause lies in the simple fact that the potent monarchies of Prussia and Austria thought proper to attempt the conquest of France with no greater force than that which their enemies could without effort oppose to them. The task of invasion requires something more than equality of strength. This the duke knew, and hence the feebleness, the incertitude, the tardiness of his operations.

The French army seemed no doubt to offer itself as an easy prey. Its first feat was a panic flight. It was distracted by the disorders of the capital. La Fayette tampered with his troops, and sought to array them against the anarchists. Failing in this, he fled, and the army remained without a leader until the appointment of Dumouriez. The duke of Brunswick might indeed have taken advantage of this disorganised state of the French army, have attacked and routed the portion of

The

it under La Fayette. A Bonaparte
would not have hesitated.
duke, over wary, feared to leave the
smallest fortress unreduced behind
him. He laid siege to Longwy, took
it, then invested Verdun with the
same success. In the capture of
these towns was spent the month
of August; and early in September
Dumouriez, promoted to the chief
command, was able to take active
measures of defence.

It was just at this moment, when the French had recovered unity and force, under a talented leader, that the Prussian monarch and his general thought fit to shake off dilatoriness, and march boldly towards the capital. The duke of Brunswick, indeed, still deprecated the hardihood of the scheme, for which he deemed his army not sufficiently strong. A month previous, it would have been more practicable; now, Dumouriez, with the quick eye of military genius, had, by forced marches, occupied all the passes of the forest of Argonne, the only route of the allied army leading towards the capital. The grand merit of that general was his moral courage. When all his countrymen despaired of their cause when the Parisian legislature meditated a retreat beyond the Loire, and the Parisian mob made what they considered to be the last use of their sovereignty, in massacring their imprisoned enemies, Dumouriez never once lost confidence. "Argonne is the French Thermopyla," wrote he; "but I shall be more fortunate than Leonidas." The ministry wrote to him in a panic to retreat, to come to their aid, to retire beyond the Marne. Dumouriez mocked their fears; and even when the passages of the Argonne were forced, he took another position at Ste. Menehould, and summoned the several divisions of the army,

[1792 A.D.] scattered by the Prussians, having forced their lines, to rally thither, and stand again on the defensive. The tardiness of the Prussians here again saved the French. Strong detachments from Metz and from Lille were allowed to join Dumouriez; who, thus reinforced, determined to hold firm in the camp and position which he occupied, and which formed a line of heights protected by the Aisne and the Auve, and by the marshes on their

banks.

The road to Paris was indeed open to the Prussians, if they wished to leave Dumouriez in their rear; but their object was now to capture that general and his army. With this view the king of Prussia by his personal order hastened forward his divisions to cut off the retreat of the French, occupying the road betwixt them and the capital. Dispositions were then made for the attack, concerning the success of which the monarch was sanguine, and his general by no means so. The latter, however, acted in obedience to the ardour of the king, and, on the 20th of September, a cannonade opened on both sides, and was supposed to be the prelude to an engagement. The advanced division of the French was at Valmy, an eminence surmounted by a mill. The duke of Brunswick formed his troops in column of attack, and advanced to carry this point by assault. Despite the cannonade, the Prussian bayonets already glistened at the foot of the eminence ; the French unmoved showed themselves ready for the charge, and gave vent to their ardour in shouts of Vive la nation! This bold shout was sufficient to appal the duke of Brunswick, and awaken all his doubts of success. An instant order recalled the troops that were on the point of attacking. The assault was abandoned, and the French were left to exult in the irresolution, if not in the pusillanimity of their antagonist.

Such was the cannonade, miscalled the battle, of Valmy, which, however unproductive of loss or of glory, proved as decisive as a victory to Dumouriez. Henceforth the retreat of the Prussians, the unfulfilment of all their high menaces and schemes, became inevitable. Unable to force the French position, or leave it behind; finding it difficult to support themselves in an enemy's country, with the Argonne betwixt them and their magazines; afflicted by disease as well as by want, the Prussians commenced their retreat ten days after the affair of Valmy. There were some attempts made at negotiation; but the ruling powers at Paris would listen to none whilst an enemy trod the territory of France. The retreat of the Prussians, who but a few days since menaced Paris with destruction, was inexplicable to Europe, and has been accounted for as proceeding from a purchase or a bribe. The assertion is unproved and improbable. The duke of Brunswick retired with his troops towards the Rhine. The republicans re-entered Longwy and Verdun, and many of the inhabitants of the latter town, who had betrayed attachment to the royal cause, suffered under the guillotine; amongst these victims were six young ladies, who had offered a bouquet of flowers, in token of congratulation, to the king of Prussia.b

Thus, in its very first campaign, new France, by means of its young soldiers trained under fire, repulsed the attack of the kings, and grasped territories already half-French, that Louis XIV himself had not been able to seize. The great German poet Goethe was in the Prussian army at Valmy, not as a soldier but as a sight-seer; for it was less a war that the allies were making than a journey to Paris, a rapid flight or progress having at its end a triumphal entry. He shared their presumptuous confidence, a confidence that the cannon of Valmy were soon to destroy. At night, around the camp-fires, the poet was asked to dispel, with his usual cheerful vivacity, the gloomy presentiments

[1792 A.D.] that were assailing all. But he was himself in a sombre mood and remained for a long time silent. When at last he spoke his voice was grave and solemn, and his words were merely these: "In this place and on this day there commences a new epoch in the history of the world."

THE REPUBLIC PROCLAIMED (SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1792)

The state of things had of course its influence in the elections, more especially of the capital, where not to be royalist, but to be moderately republican, brought instant denunciation and arrest. Robespierre and Danton were the first names that came from the electoral urn; the famous David, Legendre, Collot-d'Herbois, Philippe Égalité [duke of Orleans], and Marat were their colleagues. The members elected by the city of Paris, says Thiers, "consisting of some tradesmen, a butcher, an actor, an engraver, a painter, a lawyer, two or three journalists, and a fallen prince, did not ill represent the confusion and variety of personages that figured in this great capital."

k

The national convention assembled on the 20th of September, the very day in which the Prussians quailed at Valmy, and gave up victory to the cause of republicanism. The members of the Gironde had all been returned, and even their numbers reinforced; so indocile as yet were the provinces to the rule of the Jacobins. The Girondists occupied the Right of the assembly: Robespierre and his comrades took post on the upper benches of the Left, in order to be near to and in communication with their supporters, the noisy audience of the public galleries. From this position the Jacobin party was called the Mountain, whilst those members who filled the middle place, both with respect to their seats and principles, were designated the Plain, or the Marsh. Barrère was considered the chief of this central and at first neutral party; principally consisting of men new to political questions or life, and whose public education was yet to be completed. These formed the majority of the convention: on their votes and leanings evidently depended the march of both legislature and government. At the present moment they were inspired by extreme respect for the Gironde. Pétion, one of the most influential of that party, was elected president; whilst Vergniaud, Condorcet, and Brissot filled the office of secretaries.b

The legislative assembly, which since the 10th of August had been sitting permanently, was informed on the 20th, by a deputation, that the national convention was formed, and the legislature terminated. The two assemblies had merely to resolve the one into the other, and the convention proceeded to occupy the hall of the legislative.

Manuel, procurator-syndic of the commune, who had been suspended after the 20th of June with Pétion, and become extremely popular on account of that suspension; who had subsequently taken office with the furious usurpers of the commune, but retreated from them, and drawn towards the Girondists at sight of the massacres in the Abbaye — Manuel, as early as the 21st, made a proposition which excited murmurs amongst the enemies of the Gironde. "Citizen-representatives," said he, "it is fitting that everything here bear a character of dignity and grandeur calculated to awe the universe. I move that the president of France be lodged in the national palace of the Tuileries; that he be preceded by the public force

[1 Girondists, a part of the Left of the former legislative assembly, was now the Right.]

[1792 A.D.] and the symbols of the law; and that the citizens rise at his approach. At these words the Jacobin Chabot, and Tallien, the secretary of the commune, protested with vehemence against a ceremonial imitated from royalty. Chabot said that the representatives of the people ought to assimilate themselves to the citizens from whose ranks they came to the sans-culottes, who formed the majority of the nation. Tallien added that the president of the convention should be sought for in a garret, since it was in such abodes that genius and virtue dwelt. The proposition of Manuel was rejected, and the enemies of the Gironde asserted that it had intended to decree sovereign honours to its chief, Pétion.

After this motion had been disposed of, a multitude of others succeeded, without pause or order. On all sides the wish was expressed to record by authentic declarations the sentiments which animated the assembly and France. Various demands were made, to the effect that the new constitution should be based on absolute equality, the sovereignty of the people decreed, hatred sworn to royalty, to a dictatorship, to a triumvirate, to every individual authority; and the penalty of death pronounced against whomsoever should propose any project with that tendency. Danton put an end to all these motions, by procuring a decree that the new constitution should be valid only after being sanctioned by the people. It was subjoined that the existing laws should provisionally continue to have effect; the authorities, not displaced, be provisionally maintained; and the taxes levied as before, until the new systems of contribution were organised.

After these motions and decrees, Manuel, Collot-d'Herbois, and Gregoire entered upon the question of royalty, and demanded that its abolition should be forthwith pronounced. The people, said they, had just been declared sovereign, but they could not really be so until they were delivered from a rival authority-that of kings. The assembly, all the galleries, rose with one accord to express a unanimous reprobation of royalty. But Bazire wished a solemn discussion upon so momentous a question. "What occa

sion is there to discuss," exclaimed Gregoire, "when everyone is of the same opinion? Courts are the workshops of crime, the furnace of corruption. The history of kings is the martyrology of nations. Since we are all equally impressed with these truths, what need of discussion?"

The debate was in fact closed. A profound silence prevailed, and, according to the unanimous declaration of the assembly, the president pronounced royalty abolished in France. This decree was hailed with universal acclamation; its publication was instantly voted, as likewise its transmission to the armies and all the municipalities.

When the institution of a republic was thus proclaimed, the Prussians still menaced the country. Dumouriez, as we have related, had fixed himself at Ste. Menehould, and the cannonade of the 21st, so auspicious for the French arms, was not yet known at Paris. The next day, the 22nd, Billaud-Varennes proposed to date, no longer from the year 4 of liberty, but from the year 1 of the republic. This proposition was adopted. The year 1789 was no longer considered as the commencement of liberty, and the new republican era opened that very day, the 22nd of September.

In the evening the cannonade of Valmy was reported, and joy beamed on every countenance. On the petition of the citizens of Orleans, who complained of their magistrates, it was decreed that all the members of administrative bodies and tribunals should be re-elected, and that the conditions of eligibility, as fixed by the constitution of 1791, should be deemed null. It was declared no longer necessary to select the judges from lawyers, nor the

[1792 A.D.] administrators from a certain class of proprietors. The legislative assembly had already abolished the mark of silver, and conferred upon all citizens at the age of majority the electoral franchise. The convention effaced the last traces of distinction, by calling all the citizens to all, the most diverse, functions. Thus was commenced the system of absolute equality.

GIRONDISTS vs. JACOBINS

Immediately now broke out the fierce war betwixt the Mountain and the Girondists, the most inveterate and fatal that the annals of any assembly record, and at the same time the most important to be studied, as a phase which every revolution in its downward course is likely to present.

In common with the Jacobins, the Girondists had warred upon royalty to its destruction. Aristocracy had been proscribed. Universal equality of political and civil rights had been decreed. There scarcely remained a public principle on which two republican parties could differ. Personal hatred, however, supplied any want of the kind; and royalty and republicanism never worked each other such mutual ill as did these parties, the colours of whose political creeds differed but by a shade. The Girondists were aristocratic in comparison with the Mountain: they were men of education and of talent.

Both parties courted popular favour, and pretended to lead the popular cause. But the Girondists were merely amateur democrats, would-be rabble, not the actual rabble itself, as Marat and his tribe were. And these were indignant that men respectable in birth and profession should dare to assume the place of representatives of the people. Favourers, as the Girondists were, to a certain degree, of law and social order, they required some more certain and congenial support than that of the mob. The middle classes, united, organised, and armed, would have been their natural auxiliaries; but the middle classes of the capital had supported the constitutionalists, or feuillants, and with them had been crushed by the Jacobins and Girondists themselves, during the latter months of the legislative assembly. The Girondists had favoured the insurrection of the 20th of June; and by having done so, by having fatally condescended to make use of the popular arm, had rendered themselves powerless to resist the movements of either the 10th of August or the 2nd of September. By the same fault they had alienated the middle classes of the Parisians, who thenceforth had, either in timidity or zeal, become blended in the ranks of the Jacobins. The Girondists had, however, a numerous body of partisans of the middle classes in the provinces; and to bring a chosen band of these to protect them against the insurrectionary spirit of the lower orders in Paris, became one of their early endeavours.

Of the ministry, or executive council, established on the king's suspension, the Girondists were indeed the majority; but the honest simplicity of Roland and his friends was overmatched by the energy of Danton. The Gironde was indignant at the massacre which had been perpetrated, and at the criminal stain cast by such deeds upon the Revolution. To wipe this away, to prevent the recurrence of these acts of blood, to disarm and reprove at least, if not to punish the perpetrators, was the first effort of the party now seated on the Right of the assembly.

Tidings arrived that assassinations, similar to those of the capital, were commencing in the provinces, no doubt produced by the circulars and instructions of the Jacobins. The choler of the Girondists instantly burst forth and, on the proposal of Buzot, a triple decree was passed, appointing