9 
70s FRANCE. 
Doyle, the Britifh quarter-mafter-general, who made the 
burgomaftbr of Bruges believe the army confifted of fifteen 
thoufand men, and that as many more would arrive the fame 
evening; which intelligence was conveyed to the French 
general, and prevented his attacking the Englifh troops. 
But this junction was not effected for feveral days, during 
which the French took pofl'eliion of Oftend, and marched 
towards Ghent. The prince of Cobourg being again de¬ 
feated, they gained pofleflion of Mons ; the duke of York 
was obliged to retreat from Renaix to Gramont, and fub- 
fequently to Malines and Konticq, while Ghent, Oude- 
tiard, and Tournay, furrendered to the republicans. 
The French army of the Sambreand Meufe, in conjunc¬ 
tion with that of the North, preffed their advantages on 
every fide, and, after a feries of fkirmiflies, pofiTelferi them- 
felves of Bruftels. They were thus enabled to eftablifh 
pofitions reaching from Liege to Antwerp; while the 
Aitftrians defended the banks of the Meufe from Rure- 
inond to Maellricht : the troops of England and Holland 
having retired beyond Breda, were encamped at Ofterwifi, 
and a corps was polled at Ludhoven to keep open the 
communication between the armies. Malines, Louvain, 
Judoigne, Namur, Antwerp, Tongtes, Liege, St. Amand, 
Marchiennes, Cateau, and feveral other places, had al¬ 
ready been evacuated ; and CondC, Valenciennes, Quef- 
noy, and Landrecies, abandoned to their own flrength, 
were inverted by the republicans, who were fortified by 
the additional terror of a barbarous decree of the conven¬ 
tion, forbidding them to give quarter to any of the garri- 
fons, unlefs they furrendered on the fir ft fummons. 
Fortune was equally favourable to the republicans on 
the Rhine, where the indecilion of the king of Pruflia 
combined with other circumftances to render their career 
profperous. The refignation of the duke of Brunfwick 
was preceded by the capture of Spires and Kaiferflautern, 
and followed by the evacuation of fort Vauban, after an 
ineffectual attempt to blow it up by fpringing of mines. 
Several fkirmifhes afterwards occurred, but no aEtion of 
importance till the king of Pruflia had confented to con¬ 
tinue the alliance; then marfhal Mullendorff, who fuc- 
ceeded the duke of Brunfwick, furprifed the French in 
their entrenchments at Kaiferflautern, put them to the 
rout with great daughter, and captured many prifoners 
and fome artillery. But no attempt was made to profe- 
cute this fuccdfs with further advantage; the month of 
June palled only in fkirmilhes; and early in July, the 
French, by great reinforcements, having acquired a fu- 
periority in numbers, attacked the allies at Edikhoffen, 
and after an obflinate engagement, which lafled from the 
12th to the 15th of July, drove the Auftrians acrofs the 
Rhine, and compelled the Prullians to fall back towards 
Mentz ; this action decided the fate of the campaign in 
that quarter; the allies evacuated twenty leagues of the 
French territory, and enabled the republicans to invade 
the deflorate of Treves. Thus the arms and enthufiafm 
of the French republicans became victorious and infur- 
mountable in every quarter. 
But lYom the wide-extended and relentlefs devaftations 
of this bloody campaign, the reader muft be conitrained 
to turn his-nye to the ftill more fanguinary and cruel 
fcenes, which degraded and purpled the flreets of Paris ; 
andtoblefs his happy lot in not having been born a mem¬ 
ber of fuch a government, or conflrained to witnefs the 
horrors of a reign of monfters, who, worfe than crocodiles, 
beguiled and deftroyed each other by the femblance of 
affedtion and fraternal regard. 
It will not be expeCted that we fhall enter into a reca¬ 
pitulation of horrors in every part otYhe republic where 
the narratives of them call our attention; or that we can 
purf’ne the detail of half the crimes committed under the 
name of law ; fuffice it to mention the principal inftru- 
ments, and the mod: prominent of their deeds of inhu¬ 
manity. Thofe who claim ihe higheft celebrity for their 
fertile invention of new modes of barbarity, were Jean 
Bon St. Andre, Treilhardj and Lequinio, at Bred and 
L’Orient ; Beaudot, St. Juft, and Le Bas, in the depart¬ 
ments of the Upper and Lower Rhine; Fouche in the 
department of l’Allier; Freron, Barras, Robefpierre ju¬ 
nior, Salicetti, and Ifnard, at Marfeilles and Totdon ; 
Maignet, an ex-prieft, in the department of Vauclufe, and 
particularly at a village called Bedouin ; and Jofeph Le 
Bon, at Arras. All thefe feemed to contend with each 
other for the palm of fuperior cruelty ; they left 1 far be¬ 
hind all the inquifitors and deffroyers of the human race, 
who had ever gone before them, or who aCted in other 
places: but all thefe, and even Carrier himfelf, were 
eclipfed by the dreadful ruffian Collot a’Herbois, who 
exercifed at Lyons the mod unfpeakable and dreadfuf tor¬ 
tures againft the wretched inhabitants who had dared to 
exprefs their attacliments to the houfe of Bourbon. The 
number of Frenchmen who fell by various means of de- 
ftruCtion, on the fcaffold, in the waves, and in the field, 
by the hands of Frenchmen, is eftimated at 900,000, of 
whom 15,000 were women, and 22,000 children ; and 
more than 20,000 dwelling-houfes were deftroyed and 
razed to the ground ! 
At an early period of the year 1794, Robefpierre made 
a report to the convention on the nature and operations 
of the revolutionary government, in which he contrived, 
with fingular art, to imprefs on its members the-great ne- 
ceffity of carefully avoiding the two dangerous extremes 
of imbecility, and of temerity ; or of fuffering men to live, 
whofe plots and well-known defection were fo dangerous 
to a well-difpofed and moderate government. Thus his 
arbitrary.will came to be at once fuperior to all controul. 
The prifons of Paris were rapidly filled with victims of 
every rank and clals in life, and from all parts of the re¬ 
public. Dwellings originally erefled for prifons were 
foon found incapable of containing the crowds put under 
ai'reft ; and the palaces and houfes of princes and noble¬ 
men, which were confifcated but not fold, were converted 
into gaols. Rigorous decrees were multiplied againft the 
devoted prifoners; nor were their friends permitted to 
fee them. New decrees daily pointed out new objects of. 
fufpicion ; and the victims of private refentment, or for¬ 
mer grudge, were fent indifcrirriinately to the Concier- 
gerie, and then diftributed into others, or fent to the 
place of execution without delay ; thus falling a facrifice 
to the refentment and caprice of thofe who held- places or 
appointments: dreadful ftate of anarchy and deliberate 
murder! Fourteen young ladies from Verdun were led 
to the fcaffold, charged with dancing at a ball with fome 
Pruftian officers, and giving them treafonable information 
againft the ftate. Twenty women from Poitou, moftly 
poor peafants, who had afforded refuge to Charette, were 
likewife deftroyed together. Their looks were expref- 
five of no intelligence on the fate which threatened them. 
While conducting them to the fcaffold, feveral women 
died in the cart, foppofed with hunger and fatigue : but 
the executioner guillotined their carcafles. 
From the lower order of fnfferers, the decrees now pafted 
to theclafs of fuperior victims; and by a law of the 10th 
of June, juries were authorised to pronounce fentence 
without any evidence but their own internal conviction 
of the prifoners’ guilt. The qourfe of deftruCtion was 
thus rendered extremely rapid. The numbers marked 
out for each day’s execution were called batches ; many 
of them were coinpofed of perfons whole only crime was 
their birth, or accidental ftation in life. Nobles, priefts, 
fermiers-generaux, members of the parliament of Paris, 
or even of the conftituent affembly, were doomed to ge¬ 
neral deftruCtion; and a relationfliip with them, or even 
an appearance of commiferation, was confidered fo dan¬ 
gerous, that engravers broke the copper-plates on which 
likenefies were engraved, left they (liould be brought as 
evidence of counter-revolutionary projects. “I fa w, (fays 
Rioutfe,) five-and-forty magiltrates of the parliament of 
Paris, and thirty-three of that of Touloufe, go to the 
fcaffold with the fame dignity that they formerly difplay¬ 
ed in public ceremonies; 1 law thirty fermiers-generaux 
march 
