XIII. 1793. CHAP. left to raise himself from the ground, and move from the spot. His foot struck against a body, which gave a groan, and, stooping down, he discovered that it was his own son ! After the first transports of joy were over, they crept along the ground, and, favoured by the darkness of the night and the inebriety of the guards, had the good fortune to escape, and lived to recount a tale which would have passed for 1 Ann. Reg. fiction, if experience had not proved, in innumerable Lac. xi. 189. instances, that the horrors and vicissitudes of a revolution exceed any thing which the imagination of romance can conceive.1 xxxiii. 421. Prudhom. vi. 157. 116. ous massa Regarding these fusillades as too slow a method of Promiscu- gratifying their vengeance, Fréron and the commissioners cre in the of the Convention issued a general order that all who Champ de had taken part in the rebellion, or accepted office under Louis XVIII., should repair to the Champ de Mars under pain of death. Deeming prompt obedience the only chance of escaping the denounced penalty, eight thousand persons assembled at the hour appointed in that place. Fréron, Salicetti, Robespierre the younger, and Barras, were there, supported by a large body of troops and a formidable array of artillery; but they were startled at the magnitude of the crowd, and, after a short consultation, delegated the work of destruction to three hundred Jacobin prisoners who had been confined, during the siege, on board the Thémistocle. These infuriate partisans were instantly let loose on the crowd, and seized on their victims as chance, hatred, or caprice, might decide. The persons selected were ranged along a wall opposite to the guns. Among them was an old man of seventy-six, who protested he was too feeble to have aided the besieged"March on," was the answer, and soon a frightful discharge of grape-shot mowed down the greater part of the crowd. A voice then exclaimed-" Let all those who are not dead raise themselves up." No sooner did a few do so than a second discharge cut them off also. This frightful scene XIII. 1793. was continued or renewed till two thousand persons had CHAP. perished. Among them were great numbers of country people, who had come into Toulon intending to celebrate a fête that had been proclaimed in honour of the Republic, and who had followed the crowd to the Champ de Mars in the belief that it was the place of public festivity. Three persons only escaped from this hideous carnage-an old man, a marine officer, and a youth, whose strength of constitution enabled him to crawl away in the night from a multitude of slain, so great as to render all attempts at burial impossible for some days. Meanwhile Fréron continued his labours; the fusillades were several times repeated; and he boasted, in his letters to the Committee of Public Salvation, that he would continue them till, between the flames and the sword, Toulon and its inhabitants had entirely disappeared! Between the fusillades and the guillotine, and the women and children who fell into the sea in trying to escape to the English ships, the number who perished during and after the siege 1 Prudhom. amounted to fourteen thousand three hundred and twenty- vi. 155, 161. five. 1* flections on Thus terminated this memorable campaign, the most 117. remarkable in the annals of France, perhaps in the history General reof the world. From a state of unexampled peril, from the the camattack of forces which would have crushed Louis XIV. in paign. the plenitude of his power, from civil dissensions which threatened to dismember the state, the Republic emerged triumphant. A revolt, apparently destined to sever the opulent cities of the south from its dominions; a civil war which consumed the vitals of the western provinces ; an * "Les fusillades sont ici à l'ordre du jour; en voilà 600 qui ne porteront plus les armes contre la République. La mortalité est parmi les sujets de Louis XVIII. Sans la crainte de faire périr d'innocentes victimes, telles que les femmes infirmes, et les patriotes detenus, tout aurait été passé au fil de l'épée ; comme sans la crainte d'incendier l'arsenal, et les magasins du port échappés à la rage des Anglais, toute la ville eût été livrée aux flammes. Mais elle ne disparaîtra pas moins du sol de la liberté cette cité pourrie de Royalisme. Demain, et jours suivans, nous allons procéder au rasement: fusillades jusqu'à ce qu'il n'y ait plus de traîtres."-FRERON au Comité de Salut Public. 26 Decembre 1793.-PRUDHOMME, Crimes de la Révolution, vi. 160, 161. XIII. 1793. CHAP. invasion which had broken through the iron barrier of the northern, and shaken the strength of the eastern frontier, were all defeated. The discomfited English had retired from Toulon; the Prussians in confusion had recrossed the Rhine; the tide of conquest was rolled back in the north; and the valour of the Vendeans irretrievably arrested. For these immense advantages, the Convention was indebted to the energy of its measures, the ability of its councils, and the enthusiasm of its subjects. In the convulsion of society, not only wickedness, but talent, had risen to the head of affairs; if history has nothing to show comparable to the crimes which were committed, it has few similar instances of undaunted resolution to commemorate. Impartial justice requires that this praise should be bestowed upon the Committee of Public Salvation if the cruelty of its internal administration exceeded the worst despotism of the emperors, the dignity of its external conduct rivalled the noblest instances of Roman heroism. 118. Immense talent de In talent, it was evident that the Republicans had, before the close of the campaign, acquired a decided preveloped in ponderance over their opponents. This was the natural the Revolu- consequence of the concentration of all the ability of lution. France in the military service, and the opening which was France by afforded to merit in every rank to aspire to the highest situations. Drawn from the fertile mines of the middle classes, the talent which now emerged in every department, from the general to the sentinel, formed the basis of a more energetic and intelligent army than had ever appeared in modern Europe; while the inexhaustible supplies of men which the conscription afforded, raised it to a numerical amount beyond any thing hitherto known in the world. After having authorised a levy of three hundred thousand men in spring, the Convention, in the beginning of August, ordered a conscription of twelve hundred thousand more. These immense armaments, which, in ordinary times, could never have been attempted XIII. 1793. by a regular government, were successively brought into CHAP. the field during the fervour of a revolution, through the exaltation of spirit which it had produced, and the universal misery which it had engendered. The destruction of commerce, and the closing of all pacific employment, augmented those formidable bands, which issued, as from a fiery volcano, to devastate the surrounding states; and, after the annihilation of all the known sources of credit, the government derived unparalleled resources in the general confiscation of property. 119. cratic ele to unknown As this was a new element, then for the first time introduced into political contests, so all the established govern- The demoments of Europe were mistaken as to the means of resisting it. They were not aware of the magnitude of the power in modern which was thus roused into action, and hoped to crush it war. by the same moderate efforts which had been found successful in former wars. While France, accordingly, strained every nerve to recruit its armies, they contented themselves with maintaining their contingents at their former moderate amount, and were astonished when the armies calculated to match two hundred thousand soldiers failed in subduing a million. Hence the rapid series of successes which in every quarter, before the end of the year, signalised the Republican arms; and the explanation of the fact, that the Allied forces, which, in the commencement, were every where superior, before the close of the campaign, were on all sides inferior to their opponents. Never was a more memorable year; the events which occurred during its continuance are pregnant with the most important instruction, both to the soldier and the states man. 120. which I. The first reflection which suggests itself is the remarkable state of debility of the French Republic at an early Ease with period of its history, and the facility with which, to all France appearance, its forces would have yielded to a vigorous con and concentrated attack from the Allied arms. armies, during the first three months of the campaign, might have Her quered at first. CHAP. 1793. were defeated in every encounter; a single battle, in which the Republican loss did not exceed four thousand men, occasioned the abandonment of all Flanders; the frontiers of France itself were invaded with impunity, and the iron barrier broken through, to an extent never accomplished by Marlborough and Eugene, after successive campaigns at the head of one hundred thousand men. Her army on the Flemish frontier was at length reduced to thirty thousand combatants, and they were in such a state of disorganisation, that they could not by any exertions be brought to face the enemy. "The Convention," says Dumourier, "had no other resource but the army escaped from the camp of Famars to that of Cæsar. Had the Duke of York been detached by Cobourg against the camp of Cæsar, with half his forces, the siege of Valenciennes might have been continued with the other half, and the fate of France sealed in that position." In the darkest Hard.ii.289 days of Louis XIV., France was never placed in such peril as after the capture of Valenciennes. 1 1 Dum. iv. 4. 121. Impossi bility of a II. These considerations are calculated to dispel the popular illusions as to the capability of an enthusiastic population alone to withstand the attacks of a powerful out a power- regular army. Notwithstanding the ardour excited by resisting an the successful result of the campaign in 1792, and the state with ful army invasion. conquest of Flanders, the Republican levies were, in the beginning of the following campaign, in such a state of disorganisation and weakness, that they were unable to make head against the Austrians in any encounter, and at length remained shut up in intrenched camps, from obvious and admitted inability to keep the field. The enemy by whom they were attacked was by no means formidable, either from activity or conduct, and yet was uniformly successful. What would have been the result had the Allies been conducted with vigour and abilityled by a Blucher, a Paskewitch, or a Wellington ?2 By the admission of the Republicans themselves, their forces would have been subdued; the storming of the camp of |