365] THE PLEBISCITE IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 67 



Tribunal of Nice of October 8 speaks of their courageous 

 labors to make the French laws liked (a faire aimer) by 

 applying them with the severest impartiality.*^ The French 

 Convention of November 4 refused to entertain the re- 

 quest, repeated by a deputation, until presented in the form 

 of a popular free vote.*^ Ten days later the substance of a 

 letter presented by a deputation from Nice, was presented 

 in the French Convention to the effect that the country 

 (Nice) was being treated as a conquered and rebellious 

 land. The soldiers of the French army had committed great 

 disorders and had given themselves over to obnoxious ex- 

 cesses. "To-day," so they wrote, "the inhabitants, instead 

 of going to meet the French, as' they had planned, take 

 refuge in the mountains. . . ." The Convention took im- 

 mediate steps to remedy the conditions complained of.*® 



Nevertheless, in a Primary Convention, called for the 

 purpose of electing magistrates and of discussing the mode 

 of the impending expression of the national vote in the 

 matter of its future political status, dissension broke out. 

 A letter from the commissaries of the Armee du Var speaks 

 of it as sedition which had to be quelled by French troops. 

 The letter charges Piedmontese agitators with the attempt 

 to disunite the people of Nice in order to dissolve the Pri- 

 mary Convention and to bring about disorder and bloodshed 

 to be laid at the door of the French army.'"' 



The popular free vote for annexation to France having 

 finally been secured, the National Convention decreed the 

 union on January 31, 1793."^^ 



The enthusiasm of the first months of the French Revo- 

 lution had found an echo also in the Belgian Netherlands 

 and resulted in the revolution of 1789 and 1790 against 



" Ibid., p. 609. 



*** Il)icl., p. 147. 



*" Ibid., vol. liii, p. 405; vol. Iv, pp. 156-157. See also Saliceti's 

 report which largely discounts these disorders (ibid., vol. liii, p. 567), 

 and the report of the Commissaries of the National Convention to 

 the Armee du Midi (ibid., vol. liii, i)p. 633-634). 



'^''Arch. pari., ser. 1, vol. Iv, i). 157. 



"1 Martens, vol. vi, pp. 416-419. 



