^6 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [374 



adversaries. Merlin and Reubell had already deported all the monks 

 beyond the Rhine. " The obdurateness is such," said Foster on 

 March 14, "that it is necessary to use the most implacable severity; 

 every day there are deported to the other side of the river thirty 

 or forty persons refusing homage; if necessary we shall end by 

 depopulating the city," and he compared the revolution of Mayence 

 to an energetic and violent cure which demands the use of emetics 

 and the resort to amputations.^^ 



A series of decrees were passed against the non-con- 

 formists. All who within three days would not render the 

 oath of homage were to be transported with their families. 

 All property of those refusing to render the oath was to be 

 confiscated. All those who had fled since the arrival of the 

 French were declared emigrants. They were ordered to 

 present themselves within three weeks for the oath. Any- 

 one entertaining relations with these emigrants was subject 

 to deportation and confiscation of property. On March 29 

 another decree ordered all functionaries of the old regime 

 who had not yet rendered the oath, nor intended to render 

 it, to present themselves the next morning at eight o'clock 

 with their families in the place du Chateau for deportation. 

 Failure to comply was to be punished as espionage and 

 treason. From four to five hundred persons were marched 

 across the bridge to the other side of the Rhine on March 

 30.^" 



The deductions to be drawn from the preceding survey of 

 the plebiscites of the French revolution are these : The 

 French revolution formulated the doctrine of " no con- 

 quests " as a guiding principle for France and for man- 

 kind. But " no conquests " was not to imply " no annexa- 

 tions," for soon revolutionary France was to be confronted 

 with the possibility of annexations"" which, from a na- 



"8 Ibid., p. 131. 



"" Ibid., pp. 131-133. For the history of the annexations of Miil- 

 hauscn and Geneva in 1798 see Wambaugh, pp. 55-57, 359-369. 



1°° Concerning the annexation of Savoy, M. Gregoire expressed 

 the majority opinion of the French national convention in the fol- 

 lowing words: "Si des peuples occupant un territoire enclave dans 

 le notre, ou renferme dans Ics bornes posecs a la Rcpublique par les 

 mains de la nature, desirent I'affiliation politique, devons-nous les 

 recevoir? Oui, sans doutc; en renonqant au brigandage des con- 



