Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/642

 606 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1793. rose to defend the defeated party; in the Cevennes the white flag was unfurled, and the emigrants began to stream back into France. &quot; On the one side was Europe with three- fourths of France ; on the other side Paris with a few depart ments &quot; (La Vallee). The position of things might well have seemed desperate for the Mountain, had therebeen any strong man, any true head, to direct the attack on them. But they had unity, energy, devotion to their principles, the main part of the army at their back ; while their antagonists were divided in views and principles, and were in confusion. Danton, who in fact carried his party through the crisis, showed real power and energy. Under his direction the Convention proclaimed martial law in the hostile depart ments, called up the army, as far as possible, to the capital, and in eight days constructed a new constitution, that of the year I. simple, thoroughly democratic. It never was really acted on ; men were too busy to care about constitu tions. The .assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday, which occurred at this moment, inflamed men s minds still more against the Girondists ; she had come from Caen, one of their towns, and was thought to agree with them. The first active measures taken by the Jacobins showed that the Girondists were powerless ; Paris and the army were at once triumphant, and by the beginning of August the Girondists were crushed. Elsewhere things looked very dark : Toulon fell into Eng lish hands ; La Vendee remained unsubdued, and defeated the incompetent officers sent to reduce it ; Mainz and Valenciennes fell ; all France, was vexed with famine, and the assignat-system had utterly paralysed commerce. The republic, however, was full of energy. After the fete of the 10th of August, with its statues of Nature and Reason, its classical and pagan affectations, and those light frivolities which were natural to Paris even in the darkest days, men turned at once to the ever-recurring question, how the re public should be saved. The Convention decreed a levee en masse to resist the invader and to keep down the ill-affected at homo ; to the Committee of Public Safety was entrusted the real government of the country ; the new constitution was not to be introduced till peaceful days came round. The overthrow of all things old was further indicated by the The re- issue, on 24th November 1793, of the new republican calen- publican dar. Year I. was fixed to have begun on the 22d of Sep- calemlar. t em b er 1792, the date of the proclamation of the Republic. The new year should have twelve months like its predeces sors, each with a new name, in four groups of three ; each of 30 days, and each divided into three decades, of which the tenth days should be days of rest, in lieu of the old ex ploded Sunday. These 1 2 months of 30 clays a piece, cutting across the old months so awkwardly, only made up 3 GO days ; so that a little bundle of 5 days (in leap years of 6) had to be tacked on at the end of the Fructidor month (August-September) in an awkward and shapeless way, and called, poor things, the Sans-culottides. Such interferences with symmetry will nature cause, when she sets herself against the spirit of system, and the advance of enlight enment. Attempts were also made at this time to grapple with the confusion in the currency and the crushing deficit ; the mass of assignats was reduced by more than a half ; a maximum price was set on the necessaries of life ; trade also had to bow to the will of the Revolution. War in In the affairs of war the new life of the Revolution found 1793. expression in the vigorous plans of Carnot, an engineer officer, who saw the truth of the principle afterwards acted on by Napoleon, that &quot;God aids the big battalions.&quot; &quot; Attack in mass, and cover the want of discipline and skill by numbers and enthusiasm,&quot; this was the new order. For neglecting this Houchard was deprived of command in the north, and had to give place to Jourdain, who, helped by Carnot himself, defeated Coburg at Wattignies (16th Oct. 1793) ; on the Rhine the battle of Pirmasens was lost (13th October), and the allies occupied Hagenau and Fort- Vauban ; they threatened Landau, and had friends in Stras- burg. Hoche was then sent down to the army of the Moselle, and Pichegru to that of the Rhine. The former, after a series of rather unsuccessful battles against the duke of Brunswick, in which he failed to relieve Landau, sud denly left his adversary, and, in concert with Pichegru, cleared the Vosges, and brilliantly stormed the Wissemburg lines. The Austrians at the end of the year had raised the siege of Landau, and were across the Rhine ; the Prussians took winter-quarters at Mainz ; the French lay in the Pala tinate. In the south also things went better with the new Government; Lyons and Toulon were retaken, though on the slopes of the Pyrenees the Spaniards forced the French to take refuge under the walls of Perpignan. In the Vendee the terrible civil war still raged ; the peasants, point after point, defeated the isolated columns of the army. A more coherent plan of action, however, gave the victory at Chatillon (16th October 1793) to the Republicans ; then the Vendeans crossed the Loire, and defeated Lechelle near Laval. They next attacked Cherbourg, meaning to make it their point of union with the English ; here, however, they were manfully withstood, and, incapable of siege-opera tions, withdrew. On their return they defeated Rossigr.ol and made a push for Angers, meaning there to recross the Loire to the left bank. Westermann and KK ber drove them thence with loss, and with Marceau pursued then 1 to Le Mans, where, after a terrible battle in the streets, in which no quarter was given or taken, the Vendeans were utterly defeated. Westermann pressed on their heels with pitiless vigour ; caught at last between the Loire and the Republicans, they were finally defeated (23d December 1793). Thenceforward they ceased to be formidable, though still troublesome at times. So ended 1793, with fortunes, on the whole, very favour able to the French army, and very fatal to the Girondists. Meanwhile, the Reign of Terror had begun at Paris ; the queen, the leading Girondists, all who were &quot; aristocrats &quot; or &quot;ci-devants,&quot; as the phrases of the day called them, Philip Egalite, and a crowd of others, passed under the guillotine. In La Vendee, the revolutionary fury, goaded by the blood shed by its opponents, spared none it suspected. From Toulon most of the inhabitants had fled for refuge to the English ships ; at Lyons the Convention ordered the destruction of the city, and the establishment of a new town to be called &quot;Commune Affranchie&quot;; many hundreds of the citizens were guillotined, and when that process proved too slow, were shot down by platoon fire. Two parties were now to be discerned in opposition to the rule of the Committee of Public Safety, the Uxagcres, or Hebertists, so named from their leader Hebert, the party of terror and reckless bloodshed; and the Moderes, the Dantonists, who tried to calm men s minds, and lessen the atrocities of the time. The Hebertists were the stronger party ; they abolished the Catholic worship, swept away the past, set up a goddess of Reason, and professed atheism. The party of Robespierre in the Committee disliked both the indulgent and the savage sections. Early in 1794 the Hebertists were seized and condemned to death ; it was a first victory of the Government over the violent party. Had Robespierre been willing to ally himself with Danton, a stable rule, at least for a while, would have been possible. But he refused ; he was not a person to brook a manly rival at his side ; and Danton, with his party, fell victims to the ambition of the ascetic and heartless Robespierre. &quot; If my friend is culpable, I will sacrifice him to the Republic,&quot; was his phrase, had ho said &quot; to myself,&quot; he would have hit the truth. Then Robespierre became for a while a dictator ; all France bowed before him ; the revolutionary spirit in 1793 Clos&amp;lt; the A in Li Yem Het ists 1 Dan ists-