XVI. 1794. he proposed to advance to the valley of Coni, while CHAP. sixteen thousand men, from the army of the Alps, covered their operations. The result of this would have been, that fifty thousand men would have taken up their winter-quarters on the southern side of the Alps. The fall of Robespierre prevented the execution of this plan, and postponed for two years the glories of the Italian campaign. Confined by the orders of the new government to defensive measures, the army of the Alps yet gained a brilliant advantage, by defeating a corps of ten thousand Austrians and Piedmontese, who had advanced, in concert with the British fleet, against Savona, in in order to cut off the communication between the Republicans and the state of Genoa, from which their principal resources were derived. After this success both parties retired into their winter-quarters, and the snows Th. vii. 90, of that rigorous season there, as elsewhere, gave repose 97,110,114. to the contending armies.1 The contest in the west of France, which a little humanity on the part of the government would have completely terminated after the victories of Savenay and Mans, was rekindled during this year by the atrocious severities exercised towards the vanquished. The state of la Vendée at this period is thus painted by an eyewitness attached to the Republican armies :-" I did not see a single male being at the towns of Saint Amand, Chantonnay, or Herbiers. A few women alone had escaped the Republican sword. Country-seats, once so numerous in that country, farm-houses, cottages,in fine, habitations of every sort had been reduced to ashes. The herds and flocks were wandering in terror around their usual places of shelter, now smoking in ruins, and lowing in vain for the hands which were wont to feed them. night, the flickering and dismal blaze of conflagration afforded light over the whole country. The bleating of the disturbed flocks, and the bellowings of the terrified cattle, were drowned in the hoarse notes of the ravens, At 91. Jom. vi. 105. Renewal of the war in a vendée. XVI. 1794. Ancien Ad Republi caines, p. 97. CHAP. and the howling of the wolves and other wild animals who had been attracted from afar to the scene of slaughter. As I journeyed in the night, guided by the uncertain light of the flames, a distant column of fire, widening and increasing as I approached, served as a beacon. It was the town of Mortagne in flames. When I arrived there, no living creatures were to be seen except a few wretched women, who were striving to save some remnants of their Mém. d'un property during the general conflagration."1 These ministrateur appalling cruelties were universal, and produced the usual des Armées effect of such excessive and uncalled-for severity. The infernal columns of Thurreau, the Noyades of Carrier, drove the Vendeans to desperation. "Nulla spes victis si non desperare salutem,”* became the principle of a new war, if possible more murderous and disastrous than the former. But it was conducted on a different principle. Broken and dispersed by the Republican forces, pierced in every direction by the infernal columns, the Vendeans were unable to collect any considerable body of forces ; but from amidst their woods and fastnesses, they maintained in detached parties an undaunted resistance. Stofflet and Charette continued, after the death of the other chiefs, to direct their efforts, though their mutual jealousy prevented any operations of considerable importance, and led them to sacrifice to their ambition the gal278. Lac. lant M. de Marigny, one of the most intrepid and constant of the Royalist leaders. 2 2 Jom. v. xii. 295. 106. Thurreau's intrenched camps. In the spring of 1794, General Thurreau established Storming of sixteen intrenched camps round the insurgent district; but the detachment of twenty-five thousand men from la Vendée to the Pyrenees and the Moselle having compelled him to remain on the defensive, the Royalists took advantage of the respite thus afforded to reorganise their forces. Forty thousand men, including two thousand horse, were soon under arms in this unconquerable district, with which Charette stormed three of the intrenched * "No hope to the vanquished, but in the efforts of despair."-Sallust. camps, and put their garrisons to the sword. Meanwhile CHAP. XVI. 1794. the severities of the Republicans, in persecuting the peasants of Brittany who sheltered the fugitive Vendeans, kindled a new and terrible warfare in that extensive province, which, under the name of the Chouan War, long consumed the vitals, and paralysed the forces, of the Republic. The nobles of that district, Puisaye, Bourmont, Georges Cadouhal, and others, commenced a guerilla struggle with murderous effect, and soon, on a space of twelve hundred square leagues, thirty thousand men were 243, 246, in arms in detached parties of two or three thousand xii. 297. each.1 1 Jom. vi. 248. Lac. 107. insurrection ter of Brittany, intersected by woody ridges, abounding with hardy smugglers, ardently devoted to the Royalist cause, Chouan and containing a population of 2,500,000 souls, afforded in Brittany, far greater resources for the Royalist cause than the and characdesolated la Vendée, which never could boast of a third Puisaye. of that number of inhabitants. Puisaye was the soul of the insurrection. Proscribed by the Convention, with a price set upon his head, wandering from chateau to chateau, from cottage to cottage, he became acquainted with the spirit of the Bretons, and their inextinguishable hatred of the Convention. Perceiving the elements of resistance thus rife, he conceived the bold design of hoisting the royal standard again amidst its secluded fastHis indefatigable activity, energetic character, and commanding eloquence, eminently qualified this intrepid chief to become the leader of a party, and soon brought all the other Breton nobles to range themselves under his standard. Early in 1794, he opened a communication with the British government, and strongly urged the immediate landing of an expedition of ten thousand men, with arms and ammunition, with which he answered for the re-establishment of the Royalist cause. So formidable did this war soon become, that, according to an official report of Carnot, before the end of the year, there were no less than a hundred and twenty thousand nesses. XVI. 1794. CHAP. Republicans on the shores of the ocean, of whom above eighty thousand were in active warfare. Even in Normandy, the seeds of revolt were beginning to manifest themselves; and detached parties of Royalists showed themselves between the Loire and the Seine, and struck terror into Paris itself. "On considering this state of affairs," says Jomini, "it is evident that there existed over all the west of France powerful elements of resistance, and that, if they had been united under one head, and seconded by the Allied powers, it was by no means impossible to have restored the Royalist cause." Had the Duke d'Enghien, with a few thousand men, landed in Brittany, and established a council, directing alike Puisaye, Bernier, Stofflet, Sapinaud, Scapeaux, and others, so as to combine their energies for one common object, instead of acting, as they did, without any concert in detached quarters, it is impossible to calculate what the result might have been. It is painful to think what at that crisis might have been effected, had fifteen thousand troops from Britain formed the nucleus of an army, Mém. iv. 1 Puisaye, made the Royalists masters of some of the fortified seaport towns with which the coast abounded, and lent to the insurgents the aid of her fleet and the terrors of her name.1 117, 141. Jom. vi. 234, 252. 108. Immense results of the campaign. Such was the memorable campaign of 1794; one of the most glorious in the annals of France; not the least memorable in the history of the world. Beginning on every side under disastrous or critical circumstances, it terminated with universal glory to the Republic. The Allies, at its commencement, were besieging, and soon captured, the last of the Flemish frontier towns; the Republican forces on the Rhine were unable to make head against their adversaries; the Alps were still in the possession of the Sardinian troops, and severe disasters had checkered the campaign at both extremities of the Pyrenees. At its conclusion, the Spaniards, defeated both in Biscay and Catalonia, were suing for peace; the XVI. 1794. Piedmontese, driven over the summit of the Alps, were CHAP. trembling for their Italian possessions; the Allied forces had every where recrossed the Rhine; Flanders was subdued, la Vendée all but vanquished, Holland revolutionised, and the British auxiliaries had fled for refuge into the states of Hanover. From a state of depression greater than in the darkest era of Louis XIV., France had passed at once to triumphs greater than had graced the proudest period of his reign. 109. gious forces But these immense successes had not been gained without proportionate losses, and it was already evident The prodithat the enormous sacrifices by which they had been of the Reachieved, could not be continued for any length of time public. without inducing national ruin. During the course of the campaign the Republic had strained every nerve. Seventeen hundred thousand men had at one time been enrolled by sea and land under its banners; and at its close, a million were still numbered in the rolls of the army. But of this great force only six hundred thousand were actually under arms; the remainder encumbered the hospitals, or were scattered in a sickly or dying state in the villages on the line of the army's march. The disorder in the commissariat, and departments intrusted with the clothing and equipment of the troops, had risen to the highest pitch: hardly any exertions could have provided for the wants of such a multitude of armed men, and the cupidity or selfishness of the Revolutionary agents had diverted great part of the funds destined for these objects to the augmentation of their private fortunes. It increases our admiration for the soldiers of the Republic, when we recollect that their triumphs were generally achieved without magazines, tents, or equipments of any kind; that the armies, destitute of every thing, bivouacked in the most rigorous season equally with the mildest, and that the innumerable multitudes who issued from its frontiers almost always provided for their daily wants from the country through which they passed.1 Jom. vi. 214, 215. Toul. v. 194. |