XIII. 1793. stronghold they were not long permitted to retain. In CHAP. the beginning of August, they were attacked and driven from its trenches with so much ease, that the rout could hardly be called a battle. The Republicans fled in con- August 8. fusion the moment the Allies appeared in sight. So precipitate was their flight, that, as at the battle of the Spurs, three centuries before, hardly a shot was fired or a stroke given, before the whole army was dissolved. After this disaster, the Republicans retreated behind the Scarpe, the last defensible ground in front of Arras; beyond which there remained neither position to take, nor fortified place to defend, on the road to Paris. The Allies in great force were grouped within one hundred and sixty miles of that capital; fifteen days' march would have brought them to its gates. Already Cambray was invested; Cateau Cambresis occupied; a camp formed between Péronne and St Quentin, and the light troops pushed on to Péronne and Bapaume. Irresolution prevailed in the French army, dismay in the capital, every where the Republican authorities were taking to flight. The Austrian generals, encouraged by such extraordinary successes, were at length urgent to advance and improve them, before the enemy recovered from their consternation; and if they had been permitted to do so, what incalculable disasters might Europe have been spared! We shall see hereafter the deplorable division of interests which 1 Hard. ii. prevented this early termination of the war; and how 348, 349. deeply Great Britain has cause to regret the narrow 45-49. Ann. and selfish views which prompted the part she took in 191. the transaction.1 Toul. iv. Reg. 1793, measures of But how desperate soever the fortunes of the Republic 46. now appeared, and in reality were, had the Allies acted Vigorous with vigour and unanimity, no weakness or faltering the govern appeared in the conduct of the French government. ment. When the invasion had, on every side, pierced the territory of France, and civil war tore its bosom, its rulers took the most energetic steps to meet the danger. The Con VOL. III. D XIII. CHAP. vention had armed the Committee of Public Salvation with a power more absolute than ever had been wielded 1793. by an eastern conqueror; and the decrees of the legislature corresponded to the energy of their measures. They felt, in the language of Danton, "The coalesced kings of Europe are leagued against us we hurl at them, for gage of battle, the head of a king ;" and that life or death was in the struggle. The whole power of France was called forth; ten thousand committees, spread over every part of the country, carried into execution the despotic mandates of the Committee of Public Salvation, and its resistless powers wrung not less out of the sufferings than the patriotism of the country the means of successful resistance. It was well for France that it was so; for no situation could be more perilous than that in which the Revolutionary government was now placed. No less than two hundred and eighty thousand men were in the field on the side of the Allies, from Bâle to Dunkirk; the ancient barrier of France was broken through by the capture of Valenciennes and Condé; Mayence gave the invaders a secure passage into the heart of the country; while Toulon and Lyons had raised the standard of revolt, and a devouring fire consumed the western provinces. Sixty thousand insurgents in la Vendée threatened Paris in the rear, while one hundred and eighty thousand Allies in front seemed prepared to encamp under its walls. The forces of the Republic were not only inferior in number, but their spirit, discipline, and equipment were in the most wretched state.1 1 Jom. iv. 21, 24, 25. Th. v. 170, 207. Mig. i. 248. 47. But all these deficiencies in numbers and organisation Their efforts were speedily supplied, by the extraordinary energy and whole popu- ability which rose to the head of military affairs after the to rouse the lation. 3d Aug. insurrection of 31st May, and the establishment of the Committee of Public Salvation. Barère, on the part of that able body, declared in the Assembly, "Liberty has become the creditor of every citizen; some owe it their industry; others their fortune; some their counsels; XIII. 1793. others their arms; all their lives. Every native of CHAP. France, of whatever age or sex, is called to the defence of his country. All moral and physical powers,—all political and industrial resources, are at its command. Let every one, then, occupy his post in the grand national and military movement which is in preparation. The young men will march to the frontiers; the more advanced forge the arms, transport the baggage and artillery, or provide the subsistence requisite for their defence. The women will make the tents, the dresses of the soldiers, and carry their beneficent labours into the interior of the hospitals; even the hands of infancy may be usefully employed; and the aged, imitating the example of ancient virtue, will cause themselves to be transported into the public places, to animate the youth by their exhortations and their example. Let the national edifices be converted into barracks, the public squares into workshops, the cellars into manufactories of saltpetre; let the saddlehorses be furnished for the cavalry, the draught-horses for the artillery; the fowling-pieces, the swords, and pikes, 1 Hist. Parl. will suffice for the service of the interior. The Republic 470, Th. v. is a besieged city; all its territory must become a vast ii. 286. camp."1 1 xxviii. 467, 207. Mig. men order cuted. These energetic measures were not only adopted by 48. the Assembly, but immediately carried into execution. A Great levy new levy of twelve hundred thousand men was ordered of 1,200,000 by the Convention; and, what is still more extraordinary, ed, and exethe greater part of this immense body was soon under 3d Aug. arms. France became an immense workshop, resounding with the note of military preparation; the roads were covered with conscripts hastening to the different points of assembly; fourteen armies, numbering twelve hundred thousand soldiers, were soon assembled round the standards of the Republic. The whole property of the state, by means of confiscations, and the forced circulation of assignats, was put at the disposal of the government; the insurgent population every where threw the better classes XIII. 1793. CHAP. into captivity, while bands of revolutionary ruffians, paid by the state, perambulated every village in its territory, and wrung from the terrified inhabitants unqualified submission to the despotic Republic. At the same time, the means of raising supplies were provided with equal energy. All the old claims on the state were converted into a great revolutionary debt, in which the new could not be distinguished from the ancient creditors. A forced tax of a milliard, or £40,000,000 sterling, was ordered to be instantly levied from the rich, which was realised in paper, secured at once on the national domains. As the prices of every article, even those of the first necessity, were altogether deranged by these measures, and the prospect of famine was every where immediate, the municipalities throughout France were invested with the power of seizing subsistence and merchandise of every kind in the hands of the owners, and compelling their sale for a fixed price in assignats; in other words, taking them for an elusory payment. The great object of all these measures was at once to repel the foreign invasion, and render the national domains an immediate source of income, at a time when purchasers could not be found; and it must be confessed, that never did a government adopt such vast and energetic measures to attain these objects. Fear became the great engine for filling the ranks the bayonets of the Allies appeared less formidable than the guillotine of the Convention; and safety, 1 Hist. Parl. despaired of every where else, was found alone in the xxviii. 470, armies on the frontier. The destruction of property, the iv. 21, 22. ruin of industry, the agonies of millions, appeared as nothing to men who wielded the engines of the Revolution; fortune or wealth have no weight with those who are engaged in a struggle of life and death.1 479. Jom. Hard. ii. 278, 279. Th. v. 207, 208. By a strange combination of circumstances, the ruin of commercial credit, the loss of the colonies, the stagnation of industry, the drying up of the sources of opulence, augmented the present resources of the revolutionary CHAP. 1793. 49. suffering in filling the government. Ruling an impoverished and bankrupt state, the Convention was for the time the richest power in Europe. Despotism, it is true, extinguishes the sources of future wealth, but it gives a command of present Effect of resources which no regular government can obtain. The general immense debts of government were paid in paper money, army. issued at no expense, and bearing a forced circulation ; the numerous confiscations gave a shadow of security to its engagements; the terrible right of requisition put every remnant of private wealth at its disposal; the conscription filled the army with all the youth of the state. Terror and famine impelled multitudes voluntarily into its ranks. Before them was the garden of hopebehind them a howling wilderness. At the head of the military department was placed Carnot,* a man whose extraordinary talents and resolute * Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot was born at Nolay in Burgundy, on 13th May 1753, of a respectable and highly esteemed burgher family. His father was an advocate; and as he had eighteen children, and no fortune, he esteemed himself fortunate in getting an entrance for Lazare to the college of Autun, with a view to his entering the ecclesiastical profession. No sooner, however, had young Carnot commenced his studies, than he showed so decided a predilection for mathematical and mechanical pursuits, that his father, wisely yielding to an impulse which he could not control, removed him from his ecclesiastical labours, and sent him to one of the military schools of the capital. There, at the expiration of two years, he went through a brilliant examination, and was admitted to the corps of engineers, the only branch of the service which was then open to young men who had not the advantage of aristocratic birth. From thence he was removed to the military school of Mézières, where he studied for two years under the celebrated Professor Monge. His first employment in active life was in the year 1773, when he was engaged in aiding in the superintendence of considerable additions to the fortifications of Calais. After this occupation ceased, as the continuance of peace left him much leisure time upon his hands, he applied himself to the study of literature and poetry; and the "Almanach des Muses," for some years after, contains several poetical pieces of his composition. In 1783, he was the successful competitor for a prize offered by the Academy of Dijon, for an Eloge on Vauban; and on this occasion he was publicly crowned by the Prince of Condé, who happened to be there at the time, and who took him in so effectual a manner under his protection, that at the age of thirty-two he was captain of engineers and chevalier of the order of St Louis. Though highly estimating the genius of Vauban, however, Carnot was not a mere follower of his principles, and constantly maintained in private, as he did at a subsequent period in his writings on the subject, that the well-known assertion of that great man, that the means of defence in sieges were inferior to those of attack, and that the hour of the fall of every fortress might be calculated with mathematical |