Under these circumstances government by terror could not endure. Robespierre was not a man of action; he knew not how to form or lead a party; he lived not with his fellows but with his own thoughts and ambitions. He was hated and feared by most of the oligarchy. They laughed at his religion, resented his puritanism, and felt themselves in daily peril. His only loyal friends in the Committee of Public Safety, Couthon and St❘ Just, were themselves unpopular. Robespierre professed consideration for the deputies of the Plain, who were glad to buy safety by conforming to his will; but he could not reckon on their help in time of danger. By degrees a coalition against Robespierre was formed in the Mountain. It included old followers of Danton like Tallien, independent Jacobins like Cambon, some of the worst Terrorists like Fouché, and such a consummate time-server as Barère. In the course of July its influence began to be felt. When St Just proposed Robespierre to the committees as dictator, he found no response. On the 8th Thermidor (26th of July) Robespierre addressed the Convention, deploring the invectives against himself and the Revolutionary Tribunal and demanding the purification of the committees and the punishment of traitors. His enemies took the speech as a declaration of war and thwarted a proposal that it should be circulated in the departments. Robespierre felt his ascendancy totter. He repeated his speech with more success to the Jacobin Club. His friends determined to strike, and Hanriot ordered the National Guards to hold themselves in readiness. Robespierre's enemies called on the Committee of Public Safety to arrest the traitors, but the committee was divided. Fall of On the morning of the 9th Thermidor St Just was beginRobespierre. ning to speak in the Convention when Tallien cut him The 9th short. Robespierre and all who tried to speak in his Thermidor. behalf were shouted down. The Plain was deaf to Robes pierre's appeal. Finally the Convention decreed the arrest of Robespierre, of his brother Augustin, of Couthon and of St Just. But the Commune and the Jacobin Club were on the alert. They sounded the tocsin, mustered their partisans, and released the prisoners. The Convention outlawed Robespierre and his friends and sent out commissioners to rally the citizens. It named Barras, a deputy who had served in the royal army, to lead its forces. Had Robespierre possessed Danton's energy, the result might have been doubtful. He did nothing himself and benumbed his followers. Without an effort Barras captured the Hôtel de Ville. Robespierre, whose jaw had been shattered by a pistol shot, was left in agony for the night. On the next morning he was beheaded along with his brother, Couthon, St Just, Hanriot and seventeen more of his adherents. On the day after seventyone members of the Commune followed them to the scaffold. Such was the revolution of the 9th Thermidor (27th of July 1794) which ended the Reign of Terror. In a period of fifteen months, it has been calculated, about 17,000 persons had been executed in France under form of law. The number of those who were shot, drowned or otherwise massacred without the pretence of a trial can never be accurately known, but must be reckoned far greater. The number of persons arrested and imprisoned reached hundreds of thousands, of whom many died in their crowded and filthy jails. The names on the list of émigrés at the close of the Terror were about 150,000. Of these a small proportion had borne arms against their country. The rest were either harmless fugitives from destruction or had never quitted France and had been placed on the list simply in order that they might incur the penalties of emigration. Every one of this multitude was liable to instant death if found in French territory. Their relatives were subjected to various pains and penalties. All the property of those condemned to death and of émigrés was confiscated. The carnage of the Terror spread far beyond the clergy and the nobility, beyond even the middle class, for peasants and artisans were among the victims. It spread far beyond those who could conspire or rebel, for bedridden old men and women and young boys and girls were often sacrificed. It made most havoc in the flower of the nation, since every kind of eminence marked men for death. By imbuing Frenchmen with such a mutual hatred as nothing but the arm of despotic power could control the Reign of Terror rendered political liberty impossible for many years. The rule of the Terrorists made inevitable the reign of Napoleon. Reaction after the Terror. The fall of Robespierre had consequences unforeseen by his destroyers. Long kept mute by fear, the mass of the nation found a voice and demanded a total change of government. When once the reaction against Jacobin tyranny had begun, it was impossible to halt. Great numbers of prisoners were set at liberty. The Commune of Paris was abolished and the office of commandant of the National Guard was suppressed. The Revolutionary Tribunal was reorganized, and thenceforwards condemnations were rare. The Committees of Public Safety and General Security were remodelled, in virtue of a law that one-fourth of their number should retire at the end of every month and not be re-eligible until another month had elapsed. Somewhat later the Convention declared itself to be the only centre of authority, and executive business was parcelled out among sixteen committees. Most of the representatives on mission were recalled, and many office-holders were displaced. The trial of 130 prisoners sent up from Nantes led to so many terrible disclosures that public feeling turned still more fiercely against the Jacobins; Carrier himself was condemned and executed; and in November the Jacobin Club was closed. In December 73 members of the Convention who had been imprisoned for protesting against the violence done to the Girondins on the 2nd of June 1793 were allowed to resume their seats, and gave a decisive majority to the anti-Jacobins. Soon afterwards the law of the Maximum was repealed. A decree was passed in February 1795 severing the connexion of church and state and allowing general freedom of worship. At the beginning of March those Girondin deputies who survived came back to their places in the Convention. after But the return to normal life after the Jacobin domination was not destined to be smooth or continuous. Beside the remnant of Terrorists, such as Billaud Varennes and Parties lo Collot d'Herbois, who had joined in the revolt against the AsRobespierre, there were in the Convention at that time sembly three principal factions. The so-called Independents, Thermidor, such as Barras and Merlin of Douai, who were all Jacobins, but had stood aloof from the internal conflicts of the party, hated Royalism as much as ever and desired the continuance of the war which was essential to their power. The Thermidorians, the immediate agents in Robespierre's overthrow, such as Tallien, had loudly professed Jacobinism, but wanted to make their peace with the nation. They sought. for an understanding with the Girondins and Feuillants, and some went so far as to correspond with the exiled princes. Lastly, those members who had never been Jacobins wanted a speedy return to legal government at home and therefore wished for peace abroad. While bent on preserving the civil equality introduced by the Revolution, many of these men were indifferent as between constitutional monarchy and a republic. The government, mainly Thermidorian, trimmed between Moderates and Independents, and for this reason its actions were often inconsistent. Progress of the reaction. The Jacobins were strong enough to carry a decree for keeping the anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI. as a national festival. They could count on the populace, because work was still scarce, food was still dear, and a multitude of Parisians knew not where to find bread. A committee having recommended the indictment of Collot d'Herbois and three other Terrorists, there ensued the rising of the 12th Germinal (April 1). The mob forced their way into the hall of the Convention and remained there until the National Guards of the wealthy quarters drove them out. By a decree of the Convention the four accused persons were deported to Cayenne, a new mode of dealing with political offenders almost as effective as the guillotine, while less apt to excite of the war. tion of 13 Vende miaire. compassion. The National Guard was reorganized so as to | renewed every year. The Ancients had a suspensory veto, but exclude the lowest class. The property of persons executed no initiative in legislation. The executive was to consist of five since the 10th of March 1793 was restored to their families. directors chosen by the Ancients out of a list elected by the The signs of reaction daily became more unmistakable. Wor- Five Hundred. One director was to retire every year. The shippers crowded to the churches; the émigrés returned by directors were aided by ministers for the various departments thousands; and Anti-Jacobin outbreaks, followed by massacre, of State. These ministers did not form a council and had no took place in the south. The despair of the Jacobins produced general powers of government. Provision was made for the a second rising in Paris on the 1st Prairial (May 20). Again stringent control of all local authorities by the central govern the mob invaded the Convention, murdered a deputy named ment. Since the separation of powers was still deemed axiomatic, Féraud who attempted to shield the president, and set his head the directors had no voice in legislation or taxation, nor could on a pike. The ultra-Jacobin members took possession and directors or ministers sit in either house. Freedom of religion, embodied their wishes in decrees. Again the hall was cleared freedom of the press, and freedom of labour were guaranteed. by the National Guards, but order was restored in Paris only by Armed assemblies and even public meetings of political societies employing regular troops, a new precedent in the history of the were forbidden. Petitions were to be tendered only by individuals Revolution. Paris was disarmed, and several leaders of the or through the public authorities. The constitution was not, insurrection were sentenced to death. The Revolutionary however, allowed free play from the beginning. The Convention Tribunal was suppressed. Toleration was proclaimed for all was so unpopular that, if its members had retired into private life, priests who would declare their obedience to the laws of the state. they would not have been safe and their work might have been Royalists began to count upon the restoration of young Louis undone. It was therefore decreed that two-thirds of the first the Dauphin, otherwise Louis XVII.; but his health had been legislature must be chosen out of the Convention. ruined by persevering cruelty, and he died on the 10th of June. When the constitution was submitted to the primary The Thermidorian government also endeavoured to pacify assemblies, most electors held aloof, 1,050,000 voting for and only the rebels of the west. Its best adviser, Hoche, recommended 5,000 voting against it. On the 23rd of September it Insurrec an amnesty and the assurance of religious freedom. was declared to be law. Then all the parties which Progress On these terms peace was made with the Vendeans resented the limit upon freedom of election combined at La Jaunaie in February and with the Chouans at to rise in Paris. The government entrusted its defence La Mabilais in April. Some of the Vendean leaders persevered to Barras; but its true man of action was young. General in resistance until May, and even after their submission the peace Bonaparte, who could dispose of a few thousand regular troops was ill observed, for the Royalists hearkened to the solicitations and a powerful artillery. The Parisians were ill-equipped and of the princes and their advisers. In the hope of rekindling the ill-led, and on the 13th of Vendémiaire (October 5) their insurcivil war a body of émigrés sailed under cover of the British rection was quelled almost without loss to the victors. No fleet and landed on the peninsula of Quiberon. They were further resistance was possible. The Convention dissolved itself presently hemmed in by Hoche, and all who could not make on the 26th of October. their escape to the ships were forced to surrender at discretion (July 20). Nearly 700 were executed by court-martial. Yet the spirit of revolt lingered in the west and broke out time after time. Against the coalition the Republic was gloriously successful. (See FRENch RevolutionARY WARS.) In the summer of 1794 the French invaded Spain at both ends of the Pyrences, and at the close of the year they made good their footing in Catalonia and Navarre. By the beginning of 1795 the Rhine frontier had been won. Against the king of Sardinia alone they accomplished little. At sea the French had sustained a severe defeat from Lord Howe, and several of their colonies had been taken by the British. But Great Britain, when the Netherlands were lost, could do little for her allies. Even before the close of 1794 the king of Prussia retired from any active part in the war, and on the 5th of April 1795 he concluded with France the treaty of Basel, which recognized her occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. The new democratic government which the French had established in Holland purchased peace by surrendering Dutch territory to the south of that river. A treaty of peace between France and Spain followed in July. The grand duke of Tuscany had been admitted to terms in February. The coalition thus fell into ruin and France occupied a more commanding position than in the proudest days of Louis XIV. But this greatness was unsure so long as France remained without a stable government. A constitutional committee was Constitunamed in. April. It resolved that the constitution Lion of the of 1793 was impracticable and proceeded to frame a new one. The draft was submitted to the Convention in June. In its final shape the constitution established year III. The Directory. a parliamentary system of two houses: a Council of Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients, 250 in number. Members of the Five Hundred were to be at least thirty years of age, members of the Ancients at least forty. The system of indirect election was maintained but universal suffrage was abandoned. A moderate qualification was required for electors in the first degree, a higher one for electors in the second degree. When the 750 persons necessary had been elected they were to choose the Ancients out of their own body. A legislature was to last for three years, and one-third of the members were to be ture. The feeling of the nation was clearly shown in the elections, Among those who had sat in the Convention the anti-Jacobins were generally preferred. A leader of the old Right Balance of was sometimes chosen by many departments at once. parties in Owing to this circumstance, 104 places reserved to the new members of the Convention were left unfilled. When legisla the persons elected met they had no choice but to coopt the 104 from the Left of the Convention. The new one-third were, as a rule, enemies of the Jacobins, but not of the Revolution. Many had been members of the Constituent or of the Legislative Assembly. When the new legislature was complete, the Jacobins had a majority, although a weak one. After the Council of the Ancients had been chosen by lot, it remained to name the directors. For its own security the Left resolved that all five must be old members of the Convention and regicides. The persons chosen were Rewbell, Barras, La Révellière Lépeaux, Carnot and Letourneur. Rewbell was an able, although unscrupulous, man of action, Barras a dissolute and shameless adventurer, La Révellière Lépeaux the chief of a new sect, the Theophilanthropists, and therefore a bitter foe to other religions, especially the Catholic. Severe integrity and memorable public services raised Carnot far above his colleagues, but he was not a statesman and was hampered by his past. Letourneur, a harmless insignificant person, was his admirer and follower. The division in the legislature was reproduced in the Directory. Rewbell, Barras and La Révellière Lépcaux had a full measure of the Jacobin spirit; Carnot and Letourneur favoured a more temperate policy. of the With the establishment of the Directory the Revolution might seem closed. The nation only desired rest and the healing of its many wounds. Those who wished to restore Louis Character XVIII. and the ancien régime and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant Directory. in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the coalition. Nevertheless the four years of the Directory were a time of arbitrary government and chronic disquiet. The late atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. As the majority of Frenchmen wanted to be rid of them, they could achieve their purpose only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, when the elections went against them, appealed to the sword. They resolved to prolong the war as the best expedient for prolonging their power. They were thus driven to rely upon the armies, which also desired war and were becoming less and less civic in temper. Other reasons influenced them in this direction. The finances had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank and file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could in a moment brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity. or imprisoned in the hulks of Ré and Oleron. La Révellière Lépeaux seized the opportunity to propagate his religion. Many churches were turned into Theophilanthropic temples. The government strained its power to secure the recognition of the décadi as the day of public worship and the non-observance of Sunday. Liberty of the press ceased. Newspapers were confiscated and journalists were deported wholesale. It was proposed to banish from France all members of the old noblesse. Although the proposal was dropped, they were all declared to be foreigners and were forced to obtain naturalization if they would enjoy the rights of other citizens. A formal bankruptcy of the state, the cancelling of two-thirds of the interest on the public debt, crowned the misgovernment of this disastrous time. In the spring of 1798 not only a new third of the legislature had to be chosen, but the places of the members expelled by the revolution of Fructidor had to be filled. The constitutional party had been rendered helpless, and the mass of the electors were indifferent. But among the Jacobins themselves there had arisen an extreme party hostile to the directors. With the support of many who were not Jacobins but detested the government, it bade fair to gain a majority. Before the new deputies could take their seats the directors forced through the councils the law of the 22nd Floréal (May 11), annulling or perverting the elections in thirty departments and excluding forty-eight deputies by name. Even this coup d'état did not secure harmony between the executive and the legislature. In the councils the directors were loudly charged with corruption and misgovernment. The retirement of François of Neufchâteau and the choice of Treilhard as his successor made no difference in the position of the Directory. While France was thus inwardly convulsed, its rulers were doubly bound to husband the national strength and practise moderation towards other states. Since December 1797 a congress had been sitting at Rastadt to regulate the future of Germany. That it should be brought to a successful conclusion was of the utmost import for France. But the directors were driven by self-interest to new adventures abroad. Bonaparte was resolved not to sink into obscurity, and the directors were anxious to keep him as far as possible from Paris; they therefore The contitutional party in the legislature desired a toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward Military triumphs the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such under the endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conDirectory. spiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled (see BABEUF, Bonaparte. FRANÇOIS N.). Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value. But the Directory was sustained by the military successes of the year 1796. Hoche again pacified La Vendée. Bonaparte's victories in Italy more than compensated for the reverses of Jourdan and Moreau in Germany. The king of Sardinia made peace in May, ceding Nice and Savoy to the Republic and consenting to receive French garrisons in his Piedmontese fortresses. By the treaty of San Ildefonso, concluded in August, Spain became the ally of France. In October Naples made peace. In 1797 Bonaparte finished the conquest of northern Italy and forced Austria to make the treaty of Campo Formio (October), whereby the emperor ceded Lombardy and the Austrian Netherlands to the Republic in exchange for Venice and undertook to urge upon the Diet the surrender of the lands beyond the Rhine. Notwith-sanctioned the expedition to Egypt which deprived the Republic standing the victory of Cape St Vincent, England was brought into such extreme peril by the mutinies in the fleet that she offered to acknowledge the French conquest of the Netherlands and to restore the French colonies. The selfishness of the three directors threw away this golden opportunity. In March and April the election of a new third of the Councils had been held. It gave a majority to the constitutional party. Among the directors the lot fell on Letourneur to retire, and he was succeeded by Barthélemy, an eminent diplomatist, who allied himself with Carnot. The political disabilities imposed upon the relatives of émigrés were repealed. Priests who would declare their submission to the Republic were restored to their rights as citizens. It seemed likely that peace would be made and that moderate men would gain power. Barras, Rewbell and La Révellière-Lépeaux then sought help from the armies. Although Royalists formed but a petty fraction of the majority, they raised the alarm that Coup d'état it was seeking to restore monarchy and undo the work of the 18th Fructidor. of the Revolution. Hoche, then in command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, visited Paris and sent troops. Bonaparte sent General Augereau, who executed the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor (September 4). The councils were purged, the elections in forty-nine departments were cancelled, and many deputies and other men of note were arrested. Some of them, including Barthélemy, were deported to Cayenne. Carnot made good his escape. The two vacant places in the Directory were filled by Merlin of Douai and Francois of Neufchâteau. Then the government frankly returned to Jacobin methods. The law against the relatives of émigrés was reenacted, and military tribunals were established to condemn émigrés who should return to France. The nonjuring priests were again persecuted. Many hundreds were either sent to Cayenne of its best army and most renowned captain. Coveting the treasures of Bern, they sent Brune to invade Switzerland and remodel its constitution; in revenge for the murder of General Duphot, they sent Berthier to invade the papal states and erect the Roman Republic; they occupied and virtually annexed Piedmont. In all these countries they organized such an effective pillage that the French became universally hateful. As the armies were far below the strength required by the policy of unbounded conquest and rapine, the first permanent law of conscription was passed in the summer of 1798. The attempt to enforce it caused a revolt of the peasants in the Belgian departments. The priests were made responsible and some eight thousand were condemned in a mass to deportation, although much the greater part escaped by the goodwill of the people. Few soldiers were obtained by the conscription, for the government was as weak as it was tyrannical second Under these circumstances Nelson's victory of Aboukir (1st of August), which gave the British full command of the Mediterranean and secluded Bonaparte in Egypt, was the signal The for a second coalition. Naples, Austria, Russia and Turkey joined Great Britain against France. Ferdinand coalition. of Naples, rashly taking the offensive before his allies were ready, was defeated and forced to seek a refuge in Sicily. In January 1799 the French occupied Naples and set up the Parthenopean republic. But the consequent dispersion of their weak forces only exposed them to greater peril. At home the Directory was in a most critical position. In the elections of April 1799 a large number of Jacobins gained seats. A little later Rewbell retired. It was imperative to fill his place with a man of ability and influence. The choice fell upon Sieyes, who had kept aloof from office and retained not only his immeasur able self-conceit but the respect of the public. Sieyes felt that the Directory was bankrupt of reputation, and he intended to be far more than a mere member of a board. He hoped to concentrate power in his own hands, to bridle the Jacobins, and to remodel the constitution. With the help of Barras he proceeded to rid himself of the other directors. An irregularity having been discovered in Treilhard's election, he retired, and his place was taken by Gohier. Merlin of Douai and La Révellière Lépeaux were driven to resign in June. They were succeeded by Moulin and Ducos. The three new directors were so insignificant that they could give no trouble, but for the same reason they were of little service. French reverses. Such a government was ill fitted to cope with the dangers then gathering round France. The directors having resolved on the offensive in Germany, the French crossed the Rhine early in March, but were defeated by the archduke The Direc- Charles at Stockach on the 25th. The congress at Rastory distadt, which had sat for fifteen months without doing credited. anything, broke up in April and the French envoys were murdered by Austrian hussars. In Italy the allies took the offensive with an army partly Austrian, partly Russian under the command of Suvarov. After defeating Moreau at Cassano on the 27th of April, he occupied Milan and Turin. The republics established by the French in Italy were overthrown, and the French army retreating from Naples was defeated by Suvarov on the Trebbia. Thus threatened with invasion on her German and Italian frontiers, France was disabled by anarchy within. The finances were in the last distress; the anti-religious policy of the government kept many departments on the verge of revolt; and commerce was almost suspended by the decay of roads and the increase of bandits. There was no real political freedom, yet none of the ease or security which enlightened despotism can bestow. The Terrorists lifted their heads in the Council of Five Hundred. A Law of Hostages, which was really a new Law of Suspects, and a progressive income tax showed the temper of the majority. The Jacobin Club was reopened and became once more the focus of disorder. The Jacobin press renewed the licence of Hébert and Marat. Never since the outbreak of the Revolution had the public temper been so gloomy and desponding. In this extremity Sieyès chose as minister of police the old Terrorist Fouché, who best understood how to deal with his brethren. Fouché closed the Jacobin Club and deported a number of journalists. But like his predecessors Sieyes felt that for the revolution which he meditated he must have the help of a soldier. As his man of action he chose General Joubert, one of the most distinguished among French officers. Joubert was sent to restore the fortune of the war in Italy. At Novi on the 15th of August he encountered Suvarov. He was killed at the outset of the battle and his men were defeated. After this disaster the French held scarcely anything south of the Alps save Genoa. The Russian and Austrian governments then agreed to drive the enemy out of Switzerland and to invade France from the east. At the same time Holland was assailed by the joint forces of Great Britain and Russia. But the second coalition, like the first, was doomed to failure by the narrow views and conflicting interests of its members. The invasion of Switzerland was baffled by want of concert between Austrians and Russians and by Masséna's victory at Zürich on the 25th and 26th of September. In October the British and the Russians were forced to evacuate Holland. All immediate danger to France was ended, but the issue of the war was still in suspense. The directors had been forced to recall Bonaparte from Egypt. He anticipated their order and on the 9th of October landed at Fréjus. Dazzled by his victories in the East the public forgot that the Egyptian expedition was ending in calamity. It received him with an ardour which convinced Sieyès that he was Coup d'état the indispensable soldier. Bonaparte was ready to act, of the 18th but at his own time and for his own ends. Since the close of the Convention affairs at home and abroad had been tending more and more surely to the establishment of a military dictatorship. Feeling his powers equal to such an Brumaire. | office he only hesitated about the means of attainment. At first he thought of becoming a director; finally he decided upon a partnership with Sieyes. They resolved to end the actual government by a fresh coup d'état. Means were to be taken for removing the councils from Paris to St Cloud, where pressure could more easily be applied. Then the councils would be induced to decree a provisional government by three consuls and the appointment of a commission to revise the constitution. The pretext for this irregular proceeding was to be a vast Jacobin conspiracy. Perhaps the gravest obstacles were to be expected from the army. Of the generals, some, like Jourdan, were honest republicans; others, like Bernadotte, believed themselves capable of governing France. With perfect subtlety Bonaparte worked on the feelings of all and kept his own intentions secret. On the morning of the 18th Brumaire (November 9) the Ancients, to whom that power belonged, decreed the transference of the councils to St Cloud. Of the directors, Sieyes and his friend Ducos had arranged to resign; Barras was cajoled and bribed into resigning; Gohier and Moulins, who were intractable, found themselves imprisoned in the Luxemburg palace and helpless. So far all had gone well. But when the councils met at St Cloud on the following day, the majority of the Five Hundred showed themselves bent on resistance, and even the Ancients gave signs of wavering. When Bonaparte addressed the Ancients, he lost his self-possession and made a deplorable figure. When he appeared among the Five Hundred, they fell upon him with such fury that he was hardly rescued by his officers. A motion to outlaw him was only baffled by the audacity of the president, his brother Lucien. At length driven to undisguised violence, he sent in his grenadiers, who turned out the deputies. Then the Ancients passed a decree which adjourned the Councils for three months, appointed Bonaparte, Sieyes and Ducos provisional consuls, and named the Legislative Commission. Some tractable members of the Five Hundred were afterwards swept up and served to give these measures the confirmation of their House. Thus the Directory and the Councils came to their unlamented end. A shabby compound of brute force and imposture, the 18th Brumaire was nevertheless condoned, nay applauded, by the French nation. Weary of revolution, men sought no more than to be wisely and firmly governed. ution. Although the French Revolution seemed to contemporaries a total break in the history of France, it was really far otherwise. Its results were momentous and durable in proportion General as they were the outcome of causes which had been estimate of working long. In France there had been no historic the Revol preparation for political freedom. The desire for such freedom was in the main confined to the upper classes. During the Revolution it was constantly baffled. No Assembly after the states-general was freely elected and none deliberated in freedom. After the Revolution Bonaparte established a monarchy even more absolute than the monarchy of Louis XIV. But the desire for uniformity, for equality and for what may be termed civil liberty was the growth of ages, had been in many respects nurtured by the action of the crown and its ministers, and had become intense and general. Accordingly it determined the principal results of the Revolution. Uniformity of laws and institutions was enforced throughout France. The legal privileges formerly distinguishing different classes were suppressed. An obsolete and burthensome agrarian system was abolished. A number of large estates belonging to the crown, the clergy and the nobles were broken up and sold at nominal prices to men of the middle or lower class. The new jurisprudence encouraged the multiplication of small properties. The new fiscal system taxed men according to their means and raised no obstacle to commerce within the national boundaries. Every calling and profession was made free to all French citizens, and in the public service the principle of an open career for talent was adopted. Religious disabilities vanished, and there was well-nigh complete liberty of thought. It was because Napoleon gave a practical form to these achievements of the Revolution and ensured the public order necessary to their continuance that the majority of Frenchmen endured so long the fearful sacrifices | en 1789, by C. L. Chassin (4 vols., Paris, 1888); Cahiers de plaintes et which his policy exacted. That a revolution largely inspired by generous and humane feeling should have issued in such havoc and such crimes is a paradox which astounded spectators and still perplexes the historian. Something in the cruelty of the French Revolution may be ascribed to national character. From the time when Burgundians and Armagnacs strove for dominion down to the last insurrection of Paris, civil discord in France has always been cruel. More, however, was due to the total dissolution of society which followed the meeting of the states-general. In the course of the Revolution we can discover no well-organized party, no governing mind. Mirabeau had the stuff of a great statesman, and Danton was capable of statesmanship. But these men were not followed or obeyed save by accident or for a moment. Those who seemed to govern were usually the sport of chance, often the victims of their colleagues. Neither Royalists nor Feuillants nor Girondins had the instinct of government. In the chaotic state of France all ferocious and destructive passions found ample scope. The same conditions explain the triumph of the Jacobins. Devoid of wisdom and virtue in the highest sense, they at least understood how power might be seized and kept. The Reign of Terror was the expedient of a party which knew its weakness and unpopularity. It was not necessary either to secure the lasting benefits of the Revolution or to save France from dismemberment; for nine Frenchmen out of ten were agreed on both of these points and were ready to lay down their lives for the national cause. attention. In the history of the French Revolution the influence which it exerted upon the surrounding countries demands peculiar The French professed to act upon principles of universal authority, and from an early date they began to seek converts outside their own limits. The effect was slight upon England, which had already secured most of the reforms desired by the French, and upon Spain, where the bulk of the people were entirely submissive to church and king. But in the Netherlands, in western Germany and in northern Italy, countries which had attained a degree of civilization resembling that of France, where the middle and lower classes had grievances and aspirations not very different from those of the French, the effect was profound. Fear of revolution at home was one of the motives which led continental sovereigns to attack revolution in France. Their incoherent efforts only confirmed the Jacobin supremacy. Wherever the victorious French extended their dominion, they remodelled institutions in the French manner. Their sway proved so oppressive that the very classes which had welcomed them with most fervour soon came to long for their expulsion. But revolutionary ideas kept their charm. Under Napoleon the essential part of the changes made by the Republic was preserved in these countries also. Moreover the effacement of old boundaries, the overthrow of ancestral governments, and the invocation, however hollow, of the sovereignty of the people, awoke national feeling which had slumbered long and prepared the struggle for national union and independence in the 19th century. See also FRANCE, sections History and Law and Institutions. For the leading figures in the Revolution see their biographies under separate headings. Particular phases, facts, and institutions of the period are also separately dealt with, e.g. ASSIGNATS, CONVENTION, THE NATIONAL, JACOBINS. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The MS. authorities for the history of the French Revolution are exceedingly copious. The largest collection is in the Archives Nationales in Paris, but an immense number of documents are to be found in other collections in Paris and the provinces. The printed materials are so abundant and varied that any brief notice of them must be imperfect. The condition of France and the state of public opinion at the beginning of the Revolution may be studied in the printed collections of Cahiers. The Cahiers were the statements of grievances drawn up for the guidance of deputies to the States-General by those who had elected them. In every bailliage and sénéchaussée each estate drew up its own cahier and the cahiers of the Third Estate were condensed from separate cahiers drawn up by each parish in the district. Thus the cahiers of the Third Estate number many thousands, the greater part of which have not yet been printed. Among the collections printed we may mention Les Elections et les cahiers de Paris doléances des paroisses de la province de Maine, by A. Bellée and V. Duchemin (4 vols., Le Mans, 1881-1893); Cahiers de doléances de 1789 dans le département du Pas-de-Calais, by H. Loriquet (2 vols., Arras, 1891); Cahiers des paroisses et communautés du bailliage d'Autun, by A. Charmasse (Autun, 1895). New collections are printed from time to time. A more general collection of cahiers than any above named is given in vols. i.-vi. of the Archives parlementaires. The cahiers must not be read in a spirit of absolute faith, as they were influenced by certain models circulated at the time of the elections and by popular excitement, but they remain an authority of the utmost value and a mine of information as to old France. Reference should also be made to the works of travellers who visited France at the outbreak of the Revolution. Among these Arthur Young's Travels in France during the years 1787, 1788 and 1789 (2 vols., Bury St Edmunds, 1792-1794) are peculiarly instructive. For the history of the Assemblies during the Revolution a main authority is their Procès verbaux or Journals; those of the Constituent Assembly in 75 vols., those of the Legislative Assembly in 16 vols.; those of the Convention in 74 vols., and those of the Councils under the Directory in 99 vols. See also the Archives parlementaires edited by J. Mavidal and E. Laurent (Paris, 1867, and by P. J. B. Buchez and P. C. Roux (Paris, 1838), and the Histoire the following years); the Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution, de la Révolution par deux amis de la liberté (Paris, 1792-1803). The newspapers, of which a few have been mentioned in the text, were numerous. They are useful chiefly as illustrating the ideas and passions of the time, for they give comparatively little information as to facts and that little is peculiarly inaccurate. The ablest of the Royalist journals was Mallet du Pan's Mercure de France. Pamphlets of the Revolution period number many thousands. Such pamphlets as Mounier's Nouvelles Observations sur les EtatsGénéraux de France and Sieyes's Qu'est-ce que le Tiers État had a notable influence on opinion. The richest collections of Revolution pamphlets are in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris and in the British Museum. The contemporary memoirs, &c., already published are numerous and fresh ones are always coming forth. A few of the best known and most useful are, for the Constituent Assembly, the memoirs of Bailly, of Ferrières, of Malouet. The Correspondence of Mirabeau with the Count de la Marck, edited by Bacourt (3 vols., Paris, 1851), is especially valuable. Dumont's Recollections of Mirabeau and the Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris give the impressions of foreigners with peculiar advantages for observing. For the LegisRoland, of Bertrand de Molleville, of Barbaroux, of Buzot, of Louvet, lative Assembly and the Convention the memoirs of Madame of Dumouriez are instructive. For the Directory the memoirs of Barras, of La Révellière Lépeaux and of Thibaudeau deserve mention. singularly barren, the result, no doubt, of deliberate suppression. The memoirs of Lafayette are useful. Those of Talleyrand are The memoirs of the marquise de La Rochejacquelein are important for the war of La Vendée. The most notable Jacobins have seldom left memoirs, but the works of Robespierre and St Just enable us to form a clearer conception of the authors. The correspondence of the count of Mercy-Argenteau, the imperial ambassador, with Joseph II. and Kaunitz, and the correspondence of Mallet du Pan with the court of Vienna, are also instructive. But the contemporary literature of the French Revolution requires to be read in an unusually critical spirit. At no other historical crisis have passions been more fiercely excited; at none have shameless disregard of truth and blind credulity been more common. Among later works based on these original materials the first place belongs to general histories. In French Louis Blanc's Histoire de la Révolution (12 vols., Paris, 1847-1862), and Michelet's Histoire de la Révolution Française (9 vols., Paris, 1847-1853), are the most elaborate of the older works. Michelet's book is marked by great cloquence and power. In H. Taine's Origines de la France contemporaine (Paris, 1876-1894) three volumes are devoted to the Revolution. They show exceptional talent and industry, but their value is impaired by the spirit of system and by strong prepossessions. F. A. M. Mignet's Histoire de la Révolution Française (2 vols., Paris, 1861), short and devoid of literary charm. has the merits of learning and judgment and is still useful. F. A. Aulard's Histoire politique de la Révolution Française (Paris, 1901) is a most valuable précis of political history, based on deep knowledge and lucidly set forth, although not free from bias. The volume on the Revolution in Lavisse and Rambaud's Histoire générale de l'Europe (Paris, 1896) is the work of distinguished scholars using the latest information. In English, general histories of the Revolution are few. Carlyle's famous work, published in 1837, is more of a prose epic than a history, omitting all detail which would not heighten the imaginative effect and tinged by all the favourite ideas of the author. Some fifty years later H. M. Stephens published the first (1886) and second (1892) volumes of a History of the French Revolution. They are marked by solid learning and contain much information. Volume viii. of the Cambridge Modern History, published in 1904, contains a general survey of the Revolution. The most notable German work is H. von Sybel's Geschichte der Revolutionszeit (5 vols., Stuttgart, 1853-1879). It is strongest in |