Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/644

 608 F K A N C E [HISTORY. Paris. in tho West. 1795. and dissatisfied with the new Government. Men who knew Disturb- how to excite the populace to fury told them that the ances in scarcity was factitious ; and they broke out into insurrec tion on the 1st of April, and again on the 20th of May. On each occasion the disturbance was easily put down. The multitude was thus completely overthrown, and the guidance of affairs lay entirely with the middle classes ; the reign of wealth and comfort was what men longed for ; it was in sharp contrast with the general distress and suffering of the people, and provoked vain contests and bloodshed. The royalists thought that their time was come ; and in a large part of the south of France they rose, and pitilessly massacred their political opponents. The murders com mitted by them far exceeded in indiscriminate butchery and savageness even the brutal bloodshed which had denied the progress of the Revolution. Throughout 1795 the efforts of the armies of France were languid there was a feeling of uncertainty ; the troops were firm to the republic, but it was not clear that the generals were so as well. Pichegru paralysed the army of the Rhine, as well as Jourdain s army of the Sambre and Meuse, and ended the year by making an armistice with the Austrians, after which he Troubles was recalled and deprived of his command. The English armament, destined to rekindle the troubles of Brittany and La Vendee, failed wretchedly at Quiberon Bay ; the genius of Hoche crushed it in the outset, and captured a large number of royalists. The central Government sent him orders to destroy them all. He shot 711 emigre s. And Charette on the other side, to be at least even with him, murdered in cold blood 2000 republican prisoners in his hands. Consti- The Constitution of the year III. now appeared, the tution of work of the restored Girondists. It was republican, of a the j ear mo[ jifi e( j type ; it entrusted legislation to two councils, the council of the Ancients, 250 persons of forty years of age and upwards, a kind of senate, who sanctioned the laws (or, to put it the other way, had the veto-power) ; and the council of Five Hundred, men at least thirty years old, who had the preparation and initiation in law-making. The executive power was entrusted to a Directory of five mem bers, under whom should be responsible ministers, and all the machinery of practical government. The general principles of the rights of man were reaffirmed. The Convention at once accepted it, only taking care that the royalists should not be able to get hold of power by means of it. The country generally adopted the new constitution, which seemed likely to be moderate and stable. The royalists Bona- made one determined effort (5th October 1795) to over- pai-to throw it ; the fighting was severe, and for a time Paris crushes seemet j likely to accept a counter-revolution. The energy royaluta. ^ Bonaparte, who had been set aside because of his Jacobin opinions, but was now recalled by Barras, swept away the insurrection ; Bonaparte had guns, he was a great artillery officer already, and the loose resistance of the royalists was vain against his skill and iron resolution. The elections, which took place this same month, being over, the Conven tion, as a last and, for the time, a very significant act, de creed the abolition of the punishment of death, and then declared its mission ended, and so ceased to exist. The army had saved the Convention ; it had set a new man forward ; and he, for all his faults, a great man and a true ruler, became after a short time the central figure of all Europe. Earlier Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, on the 15th history August 1769, just two months after the patriot Paoli had kon^Bo&quot; ^ een kl g ec l to ce de that island to France. His was a naparte.&quot; ^ ar ^ an( ^ thoughtful boyhood. He loved history, above all tho history of great men in the republics of anti quity. He read with eagerness both Caesar s Commentaries and, like so many other great men, Plutarch s Lives. The French tongue was a foreign language to the boy ; he learnt 179. it late, and never altogether mastered it. In 1785 he was at the military school at Paris, where he learnt to grumble at and to criticize the ancient regime ; in the next year he entered the army. When the Revolution began he declared warmly for it, though at first his ambition seemed rather to point to a career in Corsica than to one in France. When Paoli ejected him thence in 1792, ho settled, first at Nice, then at Marseilles, with his mother and sisters, who had gone from Corsica with him. In 1793 he became captain of artillery, and was charged to put down the Marseilles federalists ; this successfully accomplished, he was made adjutant-general at the siege of Toulon, and by storming the figuillette fort, secured the fall of the town. He was at once, at the age of twenty-four, named a brigadier-general, and, after arming the Provenal shores against English attacks, was sent to command the artillery (in 1794) in Italy. Here his vigour, amazing power of organization, and genius in war gave a new turn to affairs, and secured the brilliant success of the campaign, which, in about a mouth s time, made France the mistress of the Alps. This triumph made Bonaparte a great favourite with the Robespierres, especially with the younger brother, who had at this moment the charge of the army of Italy; and the young general, without believing much in them, echoed the high- fiown sentiments of his chiefs, accepted, with contempt, their opinions, while, as far as he dared, to his honour be it said, he sheltered those who in Italy were obnoxious to their vengeance. In after life he always shunned reference to this period of his career, and his connexion with the brief ascendency of Rousseau s reign of virtue as expounded by Robespierre. At the time he saw that it would not last, and tried his best to avoid compromising himself. He got his reward; when Robespierre fell, though he was arrested, and had a narrow escape, his prudence had kept him suf ficiently clear of the fallen leader to save him. For a time he was in disgrace, and with other officers of the army of Italy was suspected of strong Jacobin tendencies. When, however, Barras, in October 1795, needed a vigorous artillery-officer for the streets of Paris, he found one in Bonaparte, whom Pontecoulant, with a clear sight which does him great ere/lit, had made president of the &quot;topo graphical cabinet.&quot; For Bonaparte, not being a real French man, knew the value of geography, and understood how to use a map. The remarkable skill and energy with which the young general crushed the Vendemiaire insurrection secured his fortunes ; with the army he had defeated Paris. He was made general of division and commander-in-chief of the army of the interior at the age of twenty-six. The event &quot; showed the world,&quot; says Lanfrey, &quot;what can be the weight of a soldier s sword in the balance ; from this inauspicious day power learnt to reckon on the army, the army to dis pose of power ; the path towards a military government was now open.&quot; First, however, the Directory must have its course. The Tl ft Legislative Assembly, with seemingly the fairest prospects, rei * had lasted less than a year. The National Convention saw the fall of the Girondists, then of Hebert and Danton, lastly of Robespierre, and existed three clear years. The Direc tory, which came into office with a new constitution on October 28, 1795, had before it no less than four years of power. And yet at first, so far as could be seen, its chances were bad. The five directors, with exception of Barras, who was a noble, and suspected of reactionary leanings, were honest republicans, and men of character ; they set them selves to allay the commercial and popular misery of the country, by absorbing a large portion of the assignats, and then by replacing them with &quot; territorial mandates,&quot; which represented a fixed amount of public lands ; a considerable amount oLcoin came again into circulation, and credit