and to France. The troops of the line did not appear pursuing him, and another were preparing to cut off to be dissatisfied with what had happened.

On receiving this intelligence, the Convention declared Dumouriez a traitor, out of the protection of the law; and they offered a reward of 300,000 livres to any man who should bring him to Paris, alive or dead. The defection of Dumouriez was a blow to the Gironde, for the Jacobins believed, or affected to believe, that the Gironde was in league with him. "Citizens," said Robespierre, after the decree was passed for declaring Dumouriez a traitor, "at this moment I owe to myself, I owe to my country a profession of faith." He had been named a member of the Committee of General Defence, but he said that he could not consider himself as forming a part of it. "I will not deliberate with those who have spoken the language of Dumouriez, with those who have calumniated the men against whom Dumouriez now declares implacable war; with those who, like Dumouriez, have calumniated Paris and that portion of the Assembly which really loves liberty." He said that Brissot had been, and was still, the intimate friend of Dumouriez: "Brissot is attached to all the threads of the conspiracy of Dumouriez I declare that there is not an honest man, who has observed the political life of Brissot, who can remain unconvinced of what I say." He concluded with saying that the first measure of safety to take was to impeach all who were charged as accomplices of Dumouriez, and especially Brissot. Brissot defended himself against the vague charges of Robespierre; he denied his complicity with Dumouriez; he disavowed the execrable declaration of Dumouriez, that he would re-establish the Constitution of 1791; and he asked if he could be accused of loving kings, "he who had devoted himself to republicanism long before his accuser,—he who, even in July, 1791, was the only man, with one other, who dared to propagate republican principles." This was all true, and Robespierre knew it. Yet he may have suspected Brissot, for he was always suspicious. Zealous as he now was for republicanism, Robespierre was a young republican compared with Brissot.

Dumouriez saw that he had no time to lose. Dampierre and several generals of division were ready to abandon him, and his soldiers were worked upon by Jacobin emissaries. The 4th of April was the day on which he was to make his final arrangements with the prince of Coburg near Condé. He set out with Thouvenot, the two sons of the duke of Orleans, and some servants; and on the road to Condé he met two battalions of volunteers, whom he was much surprised to see. He got from his horse to write an order for them to return, when he was interrupted by shouts and discharges of musketry. One part of the volunteers were

his flight. He pushed on with his companions to the border of a ditch, which his horse refused to take, and he threw himself into it and got across amidst a shower of balls. He continued his flight towards Bury, which he reached in the evening, and saw colonel Mack. He was employed all the night in writing and arranging the terms of his alliance with the prince of Coburg, and drawing up a proclamation, in the name of the prince of Saxe-Coburg to the French. It was signed by the prince, and published the next day it announced the alliance of Dumouriez and the prince to establish in France a constitutional king. At daybreak, on the 5th, Dumouriez mounted his horse, and accompanied by a body of imperial cavalry, rode to the camp at Maulde to rally his army and accomplish his design upon Lille. Some of the troops of the line showed that they were still attached to him; but on approaching St. Amand, he learned that on the news of his flight, the artillery had left the camp, and those who remained were discouraged. Whole divisions were passing over to Dampierre at Valenciennes. The plot had completely failed, and Dumouriez returned to the Austrians at Tournay, accompanied by a numerous staff, among whom were the two young sons of the duke of Orleans, Thouvenot, and the hussars of Bercheny.

It is said that the prince of Coburg proposed to Dumouriez to put himself at the head of a new emigration. But Dumouriez replied, that his plan had been to march against Paris at the head of Frenchmen, and that he had only agreed to accept the help of the Imperialists; that, as a Frenchman, he would not lead foreigners against France. He asked and obtained a passport; he became, and continued during his long life, an exile from France, and died in a foreign land.* Gifted with wonderful versatility of talent, pre-eminent courage, singular dexterity and address, and varied acquirements, he wanted the steadiness of principle and the singleness of purpose which make a great and an honest man. "Thus ended the brilliant dream of this warrior diplomatist, who, quitting Paris at the end of January, and leaving it a prey to factions and tumult, aimed at conquering Holland, changing the political condition of Belgium, and re-establishing the monarchy, in one campaign." +

* He died in England, at the age of eighty-four, in 1823. Mémoires d'un homme d'Etat,' ii., p. 162. They contain an account of the negotiations of Dumouriez with the Austrians, founded on the notes of the Austrian negotiators. The coalition had entertained great hopes from the defection of Dumouriez, and expected that the reign of the Convention would be overthrown.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE TRIUMPH OF MARAT.

|

The Revolutionary Tribunal had began its labours. Rouxel Blanchelande, who was appointed by La Luzerne, governor of the French Windward Islands, was tried for acts done in his capacity of governor, condemned, and executed. He was the third person who was tried by the new tribunal. The fate of the duke of Orleans was already settled, for he was confined at Marseille, where the Convention had decreed that the whole family should be imprisoned, and there only remained the formality of his trial. All the duke's property was sequestered. A few days after the execution of Blanchelande, a woman fifty-five years of age was condemned and executed for having uttered counter-revolutionary language, probably when she was drunk. The case was considered in the Convention, but execution was not stayed. The guillotine was getting ready for its work.

Guadet, on the 12th of April, also replied to Robes- | Lanjuinais, Valazé, Hardy, Lehardy, Louvet, Gorsas, pierre's calumnies; and his reply was distinct and | Fauchet, Lanthenas, Lasource, Valazdy, Chambon. satisfactory. Speaking of Brissot, he said, "Brissot "If," said Boyer Fonfrède, " modesty was not a duty was combating for liberty, he was suffering for it, rather than a virtue in a public man, I should be he was writing for it, at the time when Robespierre offended that my name has not been entered on the was saying that he did not know what a Republic honourable list which has just been presented to you." was.""In all the public places at Paris," continued Three-fourths of the Convention by acclamation Guadet, "who was always by the side of Dumouriez ? adopted the words of Fonfrède, and the discussion on Your Danton."—" Ah," said Danton, you accuse the petition was deferred. me, me ! You know not my strength." Guadet declared that Dumouriez was only the instrument of an infamous conspiracy, of which d'Orleans was the soul and the head." He ended his discourse with reading an address from the Society of the Friends of Liberty at Paris to their brethren in the departments, signed by Marat, which called on the citizens to arm, for the counter-revolution was in the government, in the National Convention. When this inflammatory address was read, "It is true," cried Marat, and he sprung to the tribune amidst the applause of the galleries. "Why," said he, "all this idle talk? they are attempting to raise up among you an imaginary conspiracy, in order to stifle one which unhappily is too real: Dumouriez himself has declared that he was marching upon Paris to secure the triumph of the faction, which he calls the sound part of the Assembly, against the patriots of the Mountain." He said that The Commune had long been struggling for authothe paper which was denounced had been signed by rity with the Convention; and the petition of the him during the seven or eight minutes that he hap- thirty-five sections was an essay to see how far it could pened to be in the chair at the Jacobins; it was pre-go. For the present it was a failure: the Convention sented to him, and he had not read it. Marat was, | decreed that the petition was calumnious (April 20th); however arrested, and orders were given for his formal impeachment. Robespierre hurried to the Jacobins, to tell them his sorrows and the wrongs of the patriots. "Guadet," he said, “had breathed forth all the poison of an impure soul; they had called for the impeachment of the warmest patriots: Marat spoke with force, precision, and moderation; he depicted the crimes of our enemies in colours which would have made any man blush who had a sentiment of modesty: Marat has been placed provisionally in arrest." On the 13th, Marat was sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal, only to re-appear with greater influence. On the 15th | council-general would consider itself attacked, if one of April the Commune of Paris, with Pache the mayor of its members, or a president or secretary of a section at their head, in the name of thirty-five sections out or club should be prosecuted for their opinions. This of forty-eight, appeared at the bar of the Convention. last resolution was designed for the protection of Marat, The address was read by Rousselin: it was in the who was now under accusation. Yet the Revolustyle that the Commune had used on previous occa- tionary Tribunal was now sending people to the guilsions. Legislators, kings love not the truth; their | lotine for their opinions. Two were executed on the reign will pass away : the people wish the truth every- | 20th, and their goods forfeited to the nation for exwhere and at every time; their rights will not pass pressing counter-revolutionary opinions; and a third away." After designating the various crimes of the for having emigrated and returned, was condemned Gironde, it concluded with presenting a list of the to death pursuant to the law of the 23rd of October greater part of the deputies who were guilty of felony | and 26th of November, 1792.* towards the sovereign people, "in order that as soon as A man of the Mountain moved for the honours of the majority of the departments shall have manifested the sitting to be granted to the municipal officers after their adhesion, they may retire from this chamber." their minutes had proved that the Commune was in The names denounced were twenty-two: Brissot, open hostility to the Convention; that it was in fact Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Barbaroux, Salles, Biroteau, Pontécoulant, Pétion,

and that the Commune should produce the minutes of their proceedings to the Convention. At this time the côté droit and the plaine formed a majority. The municipal officers produced their books, which showed what the Commune was doing. The council-general had declared itself in a state of revolution so long as the question of subsistence was uncertain; it had illegally formed a committee of correspondence with all the municipalities of the Republic; it had ordered 12,000 copies of the petition against the two-andtwenty to be printed and distributed; and that the

* ، Hist. Parl.,'xxvi., 88.

"in a state of revolution." After a stormy debate | correspondence, and they ought to address themselves of more than two hours, there were only 143 members to the Committee of Safety, whose first care ought to to vote to the municipal officers the honours that were be to purify all branches of administration." "This seldom refused: six members voted against the motion. reason," said Marat, "is frivolous; for a pure patriot The côté droit and the plaine were not there; the might communicate with the devil: we will say to the Mountain and the galleries were only just able to save ministers, we ask you for a list of all who are emthe Commune from disgrace. But the Commune was ployed, that we may be able to tell you who those are now engaged in a common cause with those who aimed whom the public interest permits you to keep." at destroying the authority of the Convention. Robespierre silently submitted to the insult.

Though the provinces had accepted the Revolution,

On the 24th, Marat was charged before the Revolutionary Tribunal with having, by his writings, "pro-and were favourable to it, they disliked the excesses voked to pillage, murder, and the dissolution of the of Paris, and a great majority were in favour of the National Convention." The papers of the 'Ami du moderate party in the Convention. But there were Peuple' and of the 'Publiciste,' on which the charges turbulent men in the provinces as well as in Paris, and were founded, were read by the public accuser, and a turbulent minority is much more active and forMarat acknowledged them. After some trifling ex-midable than a quiet majority. Pursuant to a decree amination of witnesses, Marat made his defence at of the Legislative Assembly, after the 10th of August, length. The jury declared that the alleged facts were not proved; and Fouquier-Tinville, now the public accuser, informed Marat that he was acquitted. Thus ended the farce of the trial, and the triumph of Marat begun. The business of the Convention was interrupted by a volunteer citizen announcing to the president that the brave Marat was coming, and those who were bringing him requested that they might be allowed to defile before the Assembly. The prayer was granted; and a crowd of men and women soon filled the hall, which resounded with their shouts. The hero himself made his appearance crowned with laurel, and escorted by commissioners of the municipality and other citiHe is received into the arms of several of the members, embraced, and carried to the tribune; but the prolonged applause prevents him from being heard. At last there was silence, and Marat spoke: "Legislators of the French people, a citizen is before you who has been accused and completely justified: he offers to you a pure heart; he will continue to defend with all the energy of which he is capable, the rights of man, liberty, and the rights of the people." Danton said, it was a glorious spectacle for every good Frenchman to see that the citizens of Paris show such respect to the Convention, that the day on which one of their counter-revolutionary movements, which roused the members was acquitted, was a day of rejoicing: the Assembly had decreed that the citizens should defile before them; "Well then, let them defile, and clear the chamber where we are deliberating, that we may resume our business." Danton wished to be rid of them. The thing was not to his taste.

zens.

At the Jacobins, Marat had another triumph, but he affected disdainfully to refuse the crowns that were offered to him. His weak head was completely turned. After the rejoicings were over, the Jacobins began to consider how the administration should be purged of all traitors. "Let me have a list," said Marat," of all persons who are employed, and I will show you those who deserve the confidence of the people." Bazire moved that the ministers be fraternally invited to give them a list of all the citizens who were employed in the bureaus. "There are ministers," said Robespierre," with whom the society ought to have no

the municipal authorities had been changed, and the most violent men had been elected; the power of the moderate citizens, of the middle class, was thus limited to giving their votes and to the general exercise of their civic rights. The departmental functions were in the hands of the rich and those who enjoyed most consideration; but this is a class that is never very active. The correspondence of the parent club of the Jacobins with the other clubs in France, formed indirectly a bond of union between the Commune of Paris and the numerous municipalities; for the most active men in the Jacobin clubs were also the men who held functions in the municipalities. A well-united minority of ardent, restless men, was a force which a larger number, ill-united, could not ultimately resist. The common danger from the enemy on the northern frontier prevented any violent explosion of party-spirit there. But there were places where peculiar causes contributed to fan the flame of discord and internal commotion. The origin of the war in La Vendée has been briefly explained. Lyon was another centre of trouble, in a great degree in consequence of its posi tion near the frontiers; and from the time of the first emigration it had been occasionally distracted by

spirit of Jacobinism to as exalted a pitch as at Paris. The troubles which at last became a civil war in Lyon during 1793 and 1794, commenced with the domiciliary visits which were made on the nights of the 4th and 5th of Februray, 1793.* There were popular clubs at Lyon; a Central Club, which was Jacobin, and the Club de la Grande-Côte, which was Girondin; and in the month of February, 1793, they quarrelled. The Jacobin club had for its leader a violent man named Chalier. The municipality of Lyon became, in the spring of 1793, completely Jacobin, and supported by the central club and Chalier, they called for a revolutionary tribunal like that of Paris. Marseille, always republican, was now moderate, jealous of the supremacy

of Paris, and indignant at the insults put upon its | Constitution of 1791; but since the 10th of August, deputy, Barbaroux. The deputy of the Convention, when royalty was abolished, the disposition of Norwho was sent there, found the people eager enough to mandy had been menacing towards the revolution. volunteer for the general defence, but devoted to the Its silence condemned the excesses of Paris; and Gironde. Bordeaux was in the same disposition, Normandy had not always been silent.* Thus the averse to the Mountain and the revolutionary tribunal, elements of resistance to the tyranny of the Mountain ready to support the deputation of the Gironde, of were scattered over the broad surface of France; and which it was proud. North of Bordeaux, and along the matter was furnished for many episodes in the the ocean, as far as the mouth of the Loire, and even Revolution, which in themselves would require a the Seine, there was not only moderate republicanism separate history. and hostility to the Mountain, but a strong royalist party, of which La Vendée was the centre. Rouen, and other parts of Normandy, had gladly accepted the 1792. Hist. Parl.,' xix.

The address of Calvados to the Convention, in October,

CHAPTER XL.

THE DEFEAT OF THE GIRONDE.

THE flight of Dumouriez, and the arrest of the | it commissaries of their own body.* Santerre, "having commissioners of the Convention, threw the army of the heard the voice of his country in danger," proposed north into confusion; and on the 9th of April the to the council of the Commune to set out to fight the enemy entered the territory of the republic. On the rebels, and the council told him to follow "the inclina20th an English force of ten thousand men landed at tion of his heart, and to return quickly to share with Ostend under the duke of York, and joined the Hol- his brethren in arms, the Parisians, the laurels of viclanders and the Hanoverians. Dampierre did all that tory." But men alone were not enough: men must he could to restore order and to check the enemy, be fed, clothed, and armed. Accordingly the Commune whose design was upon the strong post of Condé. On by an order of the 3rd of May laid a tax, or forced the 30th of March, Custine left Mainz and marched to loan, on the citizens of Paris. The order fixed what Worms, whence he retreated to Landau, and finally should be considered a necessary income for a father of placed himself behind the lines of the Lauter. In the a family, and how much should be considered necessary meantime the Austrian general, Wurmser, crossed the for the support of each child: all above this amount Rhine, posted himself between Spire and Neustadt, was entitled superfluous (superflu); and on this superand pushed his light troops to within a league of Lan- fluous amount a progressive tax was levied. A man dau, by which movement he cut off all communication whose superfluity was from 1000 to 2000 livres, paid between the French army and Mainz, which the king 30 livres. If the superfluity was from 40,000 to 50,000, of Prussia was preparing to besiege. While Keller- he paid 20,000 livres. Those whose superfluity exmann was with the army of the Alps, making prepara- ceeded 50,000 livres, were allowed to retain 30,000 tions to oppose the Austrians and the King of Sardinia, livres, and were required to pay the rest into the comhe received an order from the Convention on the 30th munal treasury. The property, moveable and immoveof April, to come to Paris to explain his conduct. able, of those who should not satisfy the patriotic Luckily for himself he came out pure from his examin-demand, was to be seized and sold by the revolutionary ation before the Committee of Public Safety. Servan committees, and the defaulters were to be considered was still with the army of the Pyrenees, and hostilities suspected. Thus the Commune was exercising sovehad commenced. The Convention declared war against reignty in Paris, raising an army, and raising money.† Spain on the 7th of March, 1793, and on the 23rd the But this was not quietly submitted to, and some of the king of Spain replied by a manifesto and a declaration sections resisted the recruiting: clerks, shop-boys, and the old retainers of the aristocracy, all combined, and cried out, Down with the Jacobins! Down with the Mountain! The opponents of these violent measures of the Commune relied on the support of the majority of the Convention, and they were encouraged by articles in the Patriote Français.' For several days this party were masters of several sections, set seals on the papers

of war.

The dangers which menaced France were met with beroic vigour. The department of Hérault set the example of a forced loan and a new mode of raising men; and the measure was approved by the Convention. Upon this the Commune of Paris resolved to raise 12,000 men in Paris to march against La Vendée, and after the example of the Convention, to send with

6

"Arrêté sur la levée de douze mille hommes," 1st May.

"Vues présentées au comité de Salut Public," &c., Hist. Parl.,' xxvi., 332. Hist. Parl.,' xxvi, 177. Hist. Parl.,' xxvi., 399.