History. 
634 
Austrians retired, and maritime Flanders was again inva- 
—Y— ded, and partly conquered by the French. 
Chel war 
is the south frontiers 
of France, 
and in la 
Vendée. 
At this period, when they were victorious on their 
bert their enemies, a-civil war raged in dif- 
ferent parts of France. Lyons, ‘Marseilles, and Toulon, 
still opposed the authority of the Mountain party, and 
of course of the Convention, who were completely subser- 
vient to the yop cmhree hited git! On the 
Sth of August, Lyons was attacked by the conventional 
troops, and ¢ h soon reduced almost: to ruins, it did 
not surrender till the 8th of October, when its walls and 
public buildings were razed to the ground, and an im- 
mense number of its citizens destroyed, by firing grape 
shot among them; the usual mode of execution by 
guillotine being too slow and easy a death for the vora- 
cious cruelty of the conquerors. Marseilles, terrified at 
the fate of Lyons, submitted ; and Toulon put itself in- 
to the power of Lord Hood, who, however, was soon 
Bm to evacuate it. p . 
“This civil war was between two parties, each of whom 
was friendly to the revolution ; but the civil war in La 
Vendée was of a different character. In this district of 
France, the Bourbons had numerous and powerful 
friends, Divided from the rest of France in some de- 
gree by its situation, and much more by the difference of 
the manners, language, and habits of the people, La Ven- 
dée had not participated in the change of opinions which 
had produced the revolution. Into it, as a secure re- 
treat, cory Beg the priests who had refused to’ take the 
civic oath fied, and as the inhabitants were supersti-' 
tious, the priests did not fail to call in the aid of reli- 
gion to the cause of the Bourbons. At first, the insur- 
gents of La Vendée were rapidly successful ; they besie- 
ged Nantes, and even threatened “Paris ; but a te- 
dious war, in which the most dreadful cruelties were 
committed on both sides, they were reduced to apparent 
and temporary submission. ‘ 
The grand conflict between the allies and the French, 
in the months of October, November, and December of 
this year, was on the Rhine. As the latter did not deem 
themselves sufficiently numerous to oppose their enemies, 
they had erected very strong ‘fortifications at Weissem- 
burg, on the Lauter. On the 13th of October, general 
Wurmser made an attack upon them with all his force, 
and, notwithstanding their strength, he succeeded with 
little difficulty in driving the French from their lines ; 
from thence they retreated to Hagenau ; hence also 
were driven ; and a were subsequently defeated on 
the 25th and 27th. The design of the allies to.conguer 
at least parts of France for themselves, was now mani- 
fested ; for Wurmser refused to accept the surrender of 
Strasburg, wmless to his Imperial Majesty. As the de- 
feats which the French had suffered were ascribed to 
, or to a want of enthusiasm, commissioners 
were sent by the Convention to the army, who, by the 
severity of their measures, as well as by the doctrines 
that-they preached to the common soldiers, succeeded in 
rendering them victorious. This effect, however, must 
also be ascribed, in part, to the numerous reinforcements, 
which the measures adopted by the convention supplied 
to all the French armies, the nature of which will be af- 
the difference in the ardour and efforts of the army op- 
syed to him, after the arrival of the commissioners ; 
, by the middle of November, his advance and success 
were at an end—the French became the assailants. Not 
FRANCE. 
only the Austrians, but also the Prussians, were defeated 
in all quarters ; they could not withstand the immense 
umerical 
aided as it was by the maddening Heaton: 
aisinsialls the French, even in their strongly forti 
cole anet Mabe they were d aon peuorul ab tay 
most all o , riven th is 
onet. Generals Hoche and zru directed these 
wonderful atchievements of the French. The campaign’ 
terminated in this quarter by the reduction of Spires and 
Fort Louis. aoe 
We have already alluded to the means by which the. 
French armies were supplied with such a great numeri- 
cal superiority, as to com , in some _ for’ 
their want of experience and discipline: it will now be 
proper to explain them. As the Convention had ‘com=" 
pleted the business for which they had been elected,’ 
viz. the formation of a constitution, they ought to have 
dissolved themselves ; but under the pretext, that, in the 
state of France, their dissolution, and the election of a 
new assembly, might be dangerous 
m) : , the Mountain a 
which was still’ triumphant, determined that it 5 
continue till the end of the war. ‘They also succeeded’ 
in establishing what was called a i 
of public safety. Th 
rior committees ; and united in itself a wonderful degree’ 
of secrecy, dispatch, skill, and energy. It correspond" 
ed with all the Jacobin clubs throughout France, and’ 
sent cornmissioners, with unlimited powers, into all parts 
of the kingdom. It is evident that this form of govern-" 
ment possessed wonderful means of carrying all its mea- 
sures into complete effect ; and, as its members were ac~ 
tuated by one sole motive—that of establishing their pe- 
culiar principles,—these means were cted 
through inattention, or sacrificed to interest. In short, 
at this period, the whole population of France, with all’ 
its corporea ; 
wild and energetic enthusiasm, was directed by a body of 
men, who knew all the resources of the state, and who 
exercised their unlimited and almost unquestioned autho= ~~ 
rity, with a degree of talent, vigilance, secrecy, activity, 
and zeal, never perhaps before combined. were 
despotic, not less by the power which they actually pos~ 
sessed, than by the feeling which actuated France ; for 
such was the abhorrence o 
by foreigners, such the desire of rendering what they 
conceived to be liberty triumphant, that the people almost 
offered themselves to the of those measures, 
which, with different feelings, and under different circum 
stances, they would have as rand tyran= 
nical. Thus the decree for placing France in a state of 
requisition, by which all unmarried citizens, from 18 to 
25, were ordered to join the armies ; while the married, 
the aged, and even the women and children, were to be 
employed in various ways in the service of their mre 
by forging arms, making tents and clothes, attending the 
hospitals, preaching hatred against the enemies of the res 
public, &c. was not op ; so far from this, it produs 
ced all the effects which aia d ihe ic safety 
(from which it originated, anticips r i 
The Mountain party having thus succeede oben 
the whole population of France against their enemies, 
in psy Sees Raion tee toy me of 
armies, resolved to destroy the Queen and the Girondist’ 
party. Against the former acct re : 
abhorrent to human nature, that even the most depraved 
: (error 
qn. A revolu- — 
ment, the principal engines of which was the committe tionary go 
is superintended a number OPT TS eared 
1 and mental powers, stimulated by the most _ 
