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17th of Fructidor, Thibaudeau went to a little theatre in the evening to amuse himself, and wait quietly for what he expected. As he was seated there an unknown man opened the door, and said that he was entrusted to bring him something. It was a packet containing the proclamations and placards of the Directory, which the next day covered the walls of Paris. One of these placards contained the offer made to Pichegru, when he was on the Rhine, by the prince of Condé in the name of the king, and the answer of Pichegru. The next morning Thibaudeau learned that his own name was among that of the deputies who were to be arrested. It was about three on the morning of the 18th Fructidor (4th of September) when the alarmcannon was heard; this was the signal for the execution of the design of the Directory, and Augereau was their agent. Near ten thousand men, most of them troops of the line, occupied the neighbourhood of the Tuileries, with a formidable train of artillery. Ramel commanded the grenadiers of the Legislative body, about 800 in number. He was summoned to give up the Pont Tournant, which communicated between the garden and the Place Louis XV., and he refused; but his own men gave up the post, and all the approaches to the Tuileries were soon in the possession of Augereau's force. Some of Ramel's men were disposed to do their duty; but others who had been worked upon by the agents of Barras, were ready

to join the troops of the Directory. Augereau tore Ramel's epaulettes from him, and he received rough treatment from some furious Jacobins. Augereau, however, rescued him from their hands, and sent him to the Temple. The sound of the cannon and the heavy step of the soldiers startled all Paris: but there was no resistance: everything was performed "as quietly as the ballet of an opera." A single charge of powder settled the matter. Barras was the director of the ceremonies on this occasion, which was just suited to his taste. Carnot was in bed, but he contrived to save himself by escaping through a door of the garden of the Luxembourg, of which he had the key. Barthélemy was arrested and carried to the Temple, where he found Pichegru, Barbé-Marbois, and others. About eight in the morning some of the deputies came to the halls of the two Councils, and the respective presidents occupied their chairs; but they soon received notice to quit. Driven from the chambers, they assembled again, and with their presidents at their head, traversed in silence the crowd collected about the Tuileries, and presented themselves at the doors. They asked for admission; they were refused; they insisted, and they were repulsed, and pursued till they were dispersed.

The members of the two Councils who belonged to the party of the Directory met in a fresh place: the Antients in the amphitheatre of the École de Santé, and the Five Hundred at the Odéon. They sent

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Moreau was summoned to Paris, and

The journalists did not escape, and they were a numerous body. The proprietors and editors of fortytwo journals were condemned to deportation; and the Directory were empowered for the future to suppress all journals which they might consider dangerous.† Clubs were permitted, but the Directory could close them when they liked. The organization of the National Guard, which had just been decreed by the Councils, was suspended. The recent measures in favour of emigrants and priests were repealed. The Directory had a party in the Councils who acted in concert with them: the rest obeyed under the influence of terror. "When I entered the Odéon," says Thibaudeau, "on the 19th, the physiognomy of the Assembly was as gloomy as the ill-lighted theatre in which they sat; terror appeared in every face; a few members only spoke and debated; the majority remained impassive, or appeared to be only there to assist at a funeral ceremony,-in fact, their own funeral."

notice to those of their colleagues who were not in- than one.
volved in the proscription, and when their numbers disgraced.*
were sufficient, the debates began. Both bodies
declared their sittings permanent. The Five Hundred
voted everything that Barras dictated, and the Antients
approved. The only debates of any interest were at
the Five Hundred. "The measures that have been
taken," said Poulain-Grandpré, "the place in which
we are, everything tells us that our country has been
in great danger, and that we are still in danger; let us
thank the Directory, for to them we are indebted for
the salvation of the State." He moved the appoint-
ment of a committee of five members to concert mea-
sures for securing the salvation of the State and the
preservation of the Constitution of the year III.; and
the committee was appointed. Sièyes was one of
them, and Boulay de la Meurthe was another. The
Directory sent a message to the Councils, containing
an account of the conspiracy. The Committee of Five
knew what was wanted, and they proposed to the Five
Hundred to cancel the elections in forty-eight depart-
ments, and to select for deportation the most dangerous
deputies. The Five Hundred cancelled the elections
for the forty-eight departments which were named, and
the deputies for these departments were excluded from
the legislative body. All the functionaries elected by
these departments, such as judges and others, were
also deprived. A list of members for deportation was
proposed, and after a few names were struck from the
list, (Thibaudeau, Dupont de Nemours, and others,) the
rest were condemned to deportation to such place as
the Directory should choose. Fifty-three deputies were
thus summarily disposed of. Cochon, the minister of
police, and Ramel, had the same fate. Not a single
voice was raised against these measures, which the
Antients accepted and confirmed, after a message from
the Directory, which intimated that they must be quick.
Some of the condemned deputies made their escape,
but the Directory seized fifteen, and sent them off to
Rochefort in carriages secured by iron bars. They
were taken through the country like so many wild
beasts, and their keeper was general Dutertre, an igno-
rant and brutal man. Barthélemy, the director, was
among them, and he was accompanied by Letellier,
a faithful servant, who would not leave his master.
Some of them were destined for Cayenne, and others
for the Isle d'Oléron. Of the guilt of Pichegru, who
was among the fifteen, there was no doubt. Moreau
had evidence of it in his possession, but he did not
communicate it to the Directory until the 19th Fruc-
tidor, in a letter to Barthélemy. The letter fell into
the hands of the Directory, who published it. This
evidence completely established the treason of Pichegru,
but it compromised his friend Moreau in more ways

Merlin of Douay, a jurist, and François de Neufchâteau, were chosen for the new directors. The report of J. Ch. Bailleul, the author of the Declaration,' to the Five Hundred, on the conspiracy of the 18th Fructidor, was not read for six months after. It was headed by a text taken from the communication of Duverne de Presle, an agent of Louis XVIII., to the Directory, in which he said, "Many attempts have been made to re-establish the throne; nothing has discouraged the royalists." This is true; the royalists never lost their hopes, and many of them were sacrificed in their attempts. The report of Bailleul may be tolerably just in the main: there was a royalist conspiracy, but the violent measures of the Directory struck both the innocent and the guilty. Carnot, who was calumniated in Bailleul's report, replied to it from his retreat in Germany.

*Hist. Parl.,' xxxvii., 451; Thibaudeau, 'Mém.,' ii., c. 28. A list of these journals is given in the Hist. Parl.,' xxxvii., 385.

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Hist. Parl.,' xxxvii., 388-436. Carnot's answer is entitled 'Réponse de L. N. M. Carnot, citoyen Français, un des fondateurs de la République,' &c. It was absurd to treat Carnot as a royalist. Me," said Carnot, "who have voted the death of one king, caused the rest to tremble, and made the Examen Critique des Considérations de Mde. de Staël.' a breach in the imperial throne." Bailleul is the author of The motto in the title-page is appropriate: "Modo vir, modo femina." Bailleul's chapter on the 18th Fructidor is worth reading,

CHAPTER LX.

CAMPO FORMIO.

BEFORE Bonaparte heard of the revolution of the 18th Fructidor at Paris, he had finished the war in Italy. In January, 1797, Alvinzy, who had received reinforcements, advanced with his force in two columns. Forty-five thousand men followed the roads along the Adige and the Lake of Garda, while Provera, with 20,000 men, was advancing towards Mantua by the road of Vicenza. An obstinate battle was fought between Bonaparte and Alvinzi, at Rivoli, between the Adige and the Lake of Garda, in the early part of January, 1797, and Alvinzy retired up the Adige, pursued by the French as far as Trento.* Provera reached Mantua, and attacked the French besieging army (Jan. 15), and Wurmser made a sally upon the French lines; but Bonaparte hurried from the field of Rivoli, and Provera was compelled to surrender. The Austrians lost a great number of men, and a great quantity of baggage and munitions in this winter campaign. The remnant of the Austrian army retired behind the Piave, and the archduke Charles, took the place of Alvinzy. Bonaparte now entered the Papal states, and met the pope's soldiers at the bridge of the Senio, on the road from Bologna to Rimini. This feeble force was easily dispersed, and the French reached Ancona, and Loreto, famed for the sanctuary of the Virgin. The French plundered the sanctuary of what had not been carried away, and the wooden image of the Madonna was sent by Bonaparte to Paris, who said, in a letter to the Directory, "I send you the Madonna with the relics." According to Bonaparte's account, the spoil of Loreto amounted to a very large sum. The Santa Casa, or Holy Chapel, which, according to the legend, had been transported through the air from Palestine to Italy, was rich in gold and silver offerings, the gifts of kings and princes, and in rubies, diamonds, and pearls. The Directory were eager to destroy the pope's temporal power, but Bonaparte followed his own views: he cared not for the Directory. He protected the people in the papal states; and he issued an order from Macerata in favour of the refractory French priests who had taken refuge in Italy. On the 19th of February, cardinal Mattei and the other commissioners of the pope, met Bonaparte at Tolentino, to sign a treaty of peace. The The pope recognized the French Republic, yielded the legations of Bologna and Ferrara to the Cispadane

Any attempt to describe military movements in a few words must be a failure. Military historians can alone do it; and good maps on a large scale are necessary to understand them. There is a useful sketch of the campaigns of Bonaparte in Knight's Weekly Volume, Napoleon Bonaparte,' c., by Mr. Vieusseux. It does not affect to be more than sketch, but it will be useful to those who have no military histories, or no leisure to read them.

Republic, and formally ceded Avignon, which had been wrested from the papal see some years before. The French were to hold Ancona till the general peace: and the pope agreed to pay thirty millions of livres. These terms were rather hard; but they were not all. The delivery of the works of art, and the manuscripts, comprised in the former treaty, was required. The pope engaged not to make any alliance with the enemies of the French Republic. Bonaparte wrote a letter to the Pope from Tolentino, in which he congratulated himself on having been able to contribute to his repose, and begged his holiness to believe in his desire to give him, on every occasion, proof of his respect and veneration. At the same time he wrote to the Directory, saying, "The commission of savants has had a good harvest at Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Ancona, Loreto, and Perugia; all this shall be immediately forwarded to Paris: when this is added to what will be sent from Rome, we shall have everything that is fine in Italy, except a small number of objects, which are at Turin and Naples." The conqueror of Italy showed his contempt for his presents by such a phrase as "all that.'

Mantua capitulated to the French in the month of February, 1797; and the brave old soldier, Wurmser, obtained honourable terms. The French found an immense quantity of munitions of war in Mantua. The fall of this strong fortress terminated the war in Italy, the successful issue of which was owing to Bonaparte's military talent, aided by the information which he received about the Austrian movements. He had abundance of money at his command to purchase treachery; and there were men among the Austrian inferior officers who meanly sold themselves. This is not merely a conjecture; nor is the fact disputed by some of the most impartial French writers.

The archduke Charles had taken the fort of Kehl, on the Rhine, in January, 1797. In February he was received at Vienna with great rejoicings, and active preparations were made for a campaign against the French in Italy. Bonaparte anticipated the Austrians. He advanced to the banks of the Piave, near the frontier of Italy, where he was joined by Bernadotte, with an army from the Rhine. with an army from the Rhine. From the Piave Bonaparte advanced to the Tagliamento, which he crossed with little resistance from the Austrians. It was still winter (the month of March) when the French forced the passes of the Alps in the midst of the snow.

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Masséna, who commanded the French centre, defeated | Venice was soon filled with disorder; for the country

people were attached to the Venetian government, and rose against the insurgents. The exactions and oppression of the French exasperated the country people, and some French soldiers, it appears, were killed. Bonaparte took advantage of these circumstances to send a threatening letter to the Venetian government: he had just made an armistice with the Austrians (9th of April), and was confident that he should bring them to terms of peace. His great object, to gain time, had been accomplished.

the archduke at Tarvis, in the Julian Alps, on the 24th of March. Joubert advanced by the Tyrol, took Botzen, and marched towards the Drave. Bernadotte, with the right column, took Laybach and Trieste. Bonaparte passed through Villach, on the Drave, and reached Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, on the 31st of March, whence he wrote to the archduke to ask him to come to terms. This proposal was not accepted; and Bonaparte, after defeating the archduke at Neumarkt, reached Judenburg on the Muhr early in April. He was now within a fortnight's march of Verona contained a French garrison. The authorities Vienna; and he pushed his advanced guard as far as of the town wished to save the place from the fate of Leoben, which is about eighty miles direct distance Brescia, and made preparations to defend it against from the Austrian capital. In the negotiations which the insurrectionists, who were coming against it. Placed followed, Bonaparte displayed his usual sagacity and between the French in the town, who were in possesskill; and the preliminaries of peace were signed at sion of the forts and the gates, and threatened by rebels Leoben on the 18th of April. The emperor agreed from without, who must have considered the French to give up Belgium, to recognize the Rhine as the rather as friends than as enemies, it was impossible boundary of the French Republic, and to surrender that the unfortunate citizens of Verona should escape. the duchy of Milan to a Cisalpine republic, which It seems somewhat doubtful how the quarrel began. Bonaparte contemplated. He was to be indemnified The French are said to have commenced firing on for these concessions by the Venetian provinces of the town from the forts (April 17); and for several Istria, Dalmatia, Brescia, and part of the territory of days a furious contest raged within the walls of Verona. Venice. Bonaparte said, in his letter to the Directory: It was terminated by the approach of General Kilmaine, "We must not conceal it from ourselves, that though who commanded at Milan Verona surrendered, and our military position is brilliant, we have not dictated was plundered. Some of the leaders of the people the conditions." In fact, Bonaparte was afraid to were shot, and the Venetian troops in Verona were advance farther into the Austrian dominions; for he made prisoners. was threatened with the Hungarians on his right, and his rear was not secure against the Tyrolese and Venice. The Directory at Paris ratified the preliminaries of peace, though not in such terms as showed their complete satisfaction.

The government of Venice sent a deputation to Bonaparte in reply to his threatening letter. They found him at Grätz, on the 25th of April, ready to deal with them in his own way; for he had now signed the preliminaries of Leoben. They could not make him listen The republic of Venice, whose territory had served to reason; and they were told that their antient republic as battle-ground for the Austrians and French, had was near its end. An unfortunate circumstance gave kept neutral; but neutrality did not save her. Bona- the French general ground for declaring war against parte had already garrisons in Peschiera, Verona, Venice (May 2). The republic would not allow Bergamo, Brescia, and other Venetian towns. An armed vessels belonging to the belligerent powers to insurrection against the Venetian government was got enter their harbour; and a French ship, which was up in Bergamo and Brescia, the result of which was seeking refuge in the Lido against the pursuit of some that these cities declared their independence of the Austrian frigates, was fired upon by the Venetians; Venetian government. The French next took pos- and the captain and part of the crew were killed. It session of Crema without any ceremony. All these seems likely enough that there was some misunderthree places are west of the Mincio. Bonaparte was standing as to the intentions of the French ship; but in the mountains of Carinthia at the end of March, there was no opportunity given of setting the matter when he heard of the revolt of Brescia and Bergamo; right. The symbols of Venetian power-the flag of and here he was visited by the envoys of the Venetian Venice, and the lion of St. Mark, disappeared wherever senate. Though he may not have stirred up the revolt, the French were; and French troops received orders there is no doubt that the French in Italy had done it. from Bonaparte to advance against Venice. Seated He professed to the Venetian envoys his desire to keep in the midst of her lagunes, with numerous galleys peace with them; but he was only seeking to gain and gun-boats, an immense quantity of artillery, and time it was not convenient to quarrel with the senate a strong force of Slavonians and natives, the antient till he had come to terms with the archduke. He mistress of the seas might have made a formidable would do nothing to help Venice against the revolted cities; nor did he consider it expedient that Venice should be allowed to send troops to put down the rebels at Bergamo and Brescia, who had professed a disposition to join a new republic, south of the Alps, of French creation. The whole western territory of

*

*Thiers, Hist. de la Rév. Franç.,' (1797), gives the French version of this affair, and also of that of Verona, which the French call "Pâques Veronaises." The French affirm that the Veronese massacred some of the sick French in the hospitals.

resistance. But treason, cowardice, and disunion put | the political condition of Venice and of Genoa? what the finishing stroke to a system of government that right the Directory had to regulate these matters was worn out. The Doge and all the functionaries abdicated; and they sent away their troops. The old constitution was abolished, a new municipality was established as a provisional government (16th May), and a French force was introduced into Venice. Bonaparte had gone to Milan, where the Venetian plenipotentiaries came to sign a treaty confirmatory of the revolution which had just been effected. Thus fell the oldest government in Europe.

without consulting the Legislative body? He proposed a message to the Directory on this subject. Bailleul and some other members maintained that the conduct of the executive was strictly constitutional. However the matter was referred to a committee; which greatly annoyed both Bonaparte and the Directory. But the committee does not appear to have made any report.* The conferences for the final adjustment of peace between the French Republic and Austria were begun at Montebello, but removed to Udine, in Friuli, on the north-east frontier of Italy. General Clarke went there as the plenipotentiary of the French Republic, for the Directory had associated him with Bonaparte in the final settlement of the terms of peace. The negotiations went on slowly; and it seems that the emperor was not so eager to make peace as the party in the cabinet which had hurried on the preliminaries of Leoben. The events of the 18th Fructidor helped to determine the Austrian cabinet, which had been speculating on the divisions between the French Directory and the Legislative body. After the revolution at Venice, Bonaparte had secured the papers of a French emi

From Milan, Bonaparte published an order for levying a heavy contribution on Verona and the territory, for seizing the gold and silver in the churches, and all the paintings and other works of art. The execution of this merciless robbery was entrusted to Augereau, who had some rough notions of honesty and fair dealing; and he informed Bonaparte that Verona was already so thoroughly pillaged, that there was little more to be had. The general-in-chief having no military enterprize on hand, had time to correspond with the Directory about the secret articles in the treaty of Leoben. He himself proposed to the Directory to give up Venice to the emperor, after first taking all the ships and plundering the arsenal. The Aus-grant, D'Entraigues, who was then in Venice. Some trians immediately occupied Istria and Dalmatia: the French sent troops to take possession of Corfu and the other Ionian islands, which belonged to Venice. The provisions of the preliminaries of Leoben were equally disgraceful to Austria and to France. In Genoa also there was a revolution. This antient state, less exclusively patrician than Venice, contained a violent democratic party, who had always favoured the French. In the month of May the democratic party, aided by numerous foreigners, and probably encouraged by the agents of the French government, made an unsuccessful attempt at an insurrection, in which some lives were lost, and a few Frenchmen were killed. Bonaparte, who was now governing more like a tyrannical Roman proconsul than a general-in-chief, required satisfaction from the Doge of Genoa, and a change in the constitution. The satisfaction was a money-payment of four millions to France, and a change of the constitution into a more popular form. The peasants of the country districts disliked change at Genoa as much as those of the Venetian territories, and they rose against the new order of things. But an undisciplined mass is easily put down: the peasants were shot or sent to the galleys; and a French division, under General Lannes, occupied the fortifications of Genoa. Bonaparte now constructed a new republic out of the Cispadane Republic, and the Lombard territory, and some other portions of North Italy, to which the title of the Cisalpine Republic was given, with a constitution like that of France. The new republic was proclaimed on the 9th of July. All this was done without the concurrence of the Legislative body at Paris, and only one voice was raised against it. Dumolard, in the Five Hundred, asked why the Council had not been informed of the events which had changed

of these papers deeply implicated Pichegru, and Bonaparte sent them to Paris. There was, however, other evidence against Pichegru, as it has been already shown. Bonaparte, though he despised the Directory, saw clearly that if they did not make the Legislative body yield, a revolution might be effected which would not require his services any longer; and accordingly he sent Augereau to Paris to do the work of the Directors. Bonaparte received letters from Augereau, Bernadotte, and Talleyrand, after the 18th of Fruc tidor. Augereau said, "At last, my general, my mission is fulfilled, and the promises of the army of Italy have been performed this night," (18th Fructidor); which seems to be a sufficient admission of the purpose for which Bonaparte sent him to Paris. He also informed Bonaparte that general ambassador Clarke was recalled, for a thousand reasons, among which “ "we may enumerate his correspondence with Carnot, which has been communicated to me, in which he called the generals of the army of Italy by the name of robbers." Such a truth would of course be very disagreeable to the generals; yet Bonaparte defended Clarke, and recommended him to the Directory for employment. He knew that Clarke was an honest man, though of no great ability. On the 26th Fructidor, Bonaparte wrote to the Directory, and sent them a proclamation which he had issued relative to the events of the 18th. "You may rely," he said,

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that you have here 100,000 men, who are by themselves sufficient to cause the measures to be respected which you shall adopt in order to fix liberty on a solid basis: what matters it that we gain victories, if we are outraged in our own country? One may

*Hist. Parl.,' xxxvii., 280.

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