HISTORY OF EUROPE. [171 



tages of secret understandings with 

 France and with Prussia, they had 

 iallen ; the Austrians, seconded by 

 theEnglish prepared formilitary ope- 

 rations with great alacritv and via;or : 

 notwithstanding the defection of the 

 Russians, under marshal prince Su- 

 warrow,* and the opposition of a 

 powerful party at court in favour of 

 peace on any tolerable terras ; in 

 Avhich number was the archduke 

 Charles, though he knew^ as he 

 declared, that it was only by pre- 

 senting an imposing military force, 

 ready for action, that any tolerable 

 terms of peace were to be expected. 

 Nor were the militaiy preparations 

 of the French slackened, as is truly 

 stated in the archduke's lettei", but 

 more and more quickened, during 

 the short period of the attempt at a 

 negociation for peace with the Aus- 

 trians and English. The insurrec- 

 tions in the western departments, 

 while they justified military con- 

 scriptions and movements, to the 

 greatest lovers of peace, were only 

 a kind of a great military review 

 and rendezvous for assembling and 

 exercising a vast body of troops to 

 he emp]o3'ed, as occasion might re- 

 quire, in any direction. 



After the mstallation of the con- 

 suls, a ceremony which was per- 

 formed with vast pomp, at tlie 

 Thuilleries, on the nineteenth of 

 February, and the final reduction 

 of the rebellion in the west, an- 

 nounced to the French nation at the 

 same period, the first consul gave 

 official notice of the rejection of 

 tliosc overtures for peace, which 

 he had tendered to diflercnt powers, 



and particularly of their rejection 

 by England. He addressed a pro- 

 clamation, complaining of the ob- 

 stinate determination of the English 

 to continue the war, and inviting 

 the French to furnish the subsidies 

 and men, that vrere necessary for 

 acquiring peace by force of arms, 

 if it could not be regained by con- 

 ciliatory measures, of which, how- 

 ever, he said, that he was not yet 

 v/ithout some hopes. It was also, 

 at the same time, decreed by the 

 consuls, that an army of reserve 

 should be raised, to consist of sixty 

 thousand men, composed of con- 

 scripts, and to be assembled at Di- 

 jon, where the first consul himself 

 was to take the command of it in 

 person. The proclamation and de- 

 cree of the first consul were appro- 

 ved of by the legislative body and 

 tribunate. A part of the new con- 

 sular guard, amounting to thirty- 

 six thousand men, of the finest youth 

 of France, received orders to hold 

 themselves in readiness to march, 

 on the twenty-fifth of March, to 

 Dijon, to join the army of reserve, 

 where different bodies of troops had 

 already assembled. Berther,minis- 

 ter-at-war, was to accompany the 

 general-in-chief, and the ex-direc- 

 tor, Camot, was to take charge of 

 his department in his absence. Ber- 

 nadotte was also appointed to be 

 one of his lieutenant-generals. 



While the French army of re- 

 serve is drawing from different 

 parts of France to Dijon, the great 

 centre of military design and opera- 

 tion, on the part of France, it will 

 be proper to look back to the situa- 



• .\s stated ill our last voliiine. Piiuce Siiwanoiv, with the reiuains of his army, 

 retiiincd to Rus.siaii Poland. tlirouf;h Havaiia and IJohcinia. The chagrin heexperi- 

 ciiccd from this reverse of fortune, at the end of his brilliant career, occasioned, or 

 at least precipitated, liis deatli. 



