kingdom. Aware of the necessity of striking a blow before the enemy's forces were concentrated, Kosciusko, with twelve thousand men, marched to attack the Russian General Denisoff; but on approaching his corps, he discovered that the Russians were already united with the king of Prussia. He retreated immediately, but was pursued by the allies, overtaken near Sckoczyre, and after a gallant defence, defeated; upon which Cracow fell into the hands of the conquerors. This check was the more unfortunate, as about the same time General Zayonschuk was defeated at Chelne, and compelled to cross the Vistula, leaving the whole right bank of that river without defence.

The combined Russian and Prussian armies now advanced against Warsaw, where Kosciusko occupied an intrenched camp with twentyfive thousand men. During the whole of July and August they pressed the siege of this capital, at the end of which time, the king of Prussia, despairing of success, raised the siege and withdrew his army, leaving a portion of his sick and stores in the hands of the patriots.

Encouraged by this event, the Poles were enabled to recruit their forces to nearly eighty thousand men under arms; but they were injudiciously scattered over too extensive a line of country, and exposed to being beaten in detail. Indeed, the enthusiasm occasioned by the raising of the siege of Warsaw had not subsided before Sizakowski, with ten thousand men, was defeated by the Russians under Suwarrow, on the 17th of September. This celebrated general, to whom the principal conduct of the war was now committed, followed up his success with the utmost spirit. The retreating army was again assailed on the 19th, and, after a brave resistance, driven into the woods below Janow and Biala, with a loss of four thousand men and twenty-eight pieces of cannon. On receiving intelligence of this disaster, Kosciusko resolved to concentrate his forces and fall upon General Fersen before he could join Suwarrow, who was now advancing against Warsaw. With this view, he ordered General Poninsky to come up with his forces, and himself moved on to the attack. But when he arrived at the Russian position, he found that Poninsky had delayed his march, and was not there to join in the combat. Nevertheless, fearing to retreat, he was forced to make his dispositions for the battle, which took place on the 4th of October. The Poles contested the ground most gallantly; but they were inferior to the enemy, both in numbers and discipline, and were at length defeated with a loss of nearly half their number, and Kosciusko was himself made prisoner. The retreating army, reduced to seven thousand five hundred men, fell back in confusion toward Warsaw.

After the fall of Kosciusko, nothing but a series of disasters awaited the Poles. The Austrians overran the yet unconquered provinces; and Suwarrow, with his entire army, advanced upon Praga, where twenty-six thousand Poles, with one hundred pieces of cannon, defended the bridge of the Vistula and the approach to Warsaw. On the 4th of November the Russians, in seven columns, assailed the ramparts, rapidly filled up the ditches with their fascines, broke down the defences, and poured their battalions into the intrenched camp. The defenders in vain did their utmost to resist the torrent. The wooden houses of Praga took fire, and amid the shouts of the victors and the cries of the inhabitants, the Poles were borne back to the edge of the Vistula. Ten thousand soldiers fell on the spot, nine thousand were made prisoners, and twelve thousand citi

zens, Without distinction of sex or age, were put to the sword: a dreadful carnage, which has left a lasting stain on the name of Suwarrow, and which Russia expiated in the conflagration of Moscow.

The tragedy now closed. Warsaw capitulated; the detached parties of the patriots melted away, and Poland was no more.

Such was the termination of the oldest Republic in existence, and such the first instance of the total destruction of a member of the European family by its ambitious kindred. The event excited a profound sensation in Europe. The folly of its preceding career, the irretrievable defects of the Polish constitution, were forgotten; and Poland was remembered only as the bulwark of Christendom against the Ottomans. The bloody march of the French Revolution was overlooked, and the Christian world was penetrated with a grief akin to that felt by all civilized nations at the fall of Jerusalem.

The poet has celebrated these events in the immortal lines:

"Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of Time:

Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,

Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her wo!

Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career:

Hope for a season bade the world farewell,

And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell!"

But the truth of history must dispel this illusion, and unfold, in the fall of Poland, the natural consequences of its national delinquencies. Sarmatia did not fall unwept, nor without a crime: she fell the victim of her own dissensions; of the chimera of equality insanely pursued, and the rigor of aristocracy unceasingly maintained: of extravagant jealousy of every superior, and merciless oppression of every inferior rank. The eldest born of the European family was the first to perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of the social union; because she had united the turbulence of democratic, to the exclusion of aristocratic societies; because she had the vacillation of a Republic without its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without its stability. Such a system neither could be, nor ought to be, maintained.

CHAPTER X.

CONSOLIDATION OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT: CAMPAIGN OF 1795.

On the day after the fall of Robespierre, there were but two parties in Paris; that of the Committee, who strove to maintain their Jacobin ascendency, and that of the Liberators, who labored to overthrow it. The latter party was known by the name of Thermidorians, from the month in which its members had triumphed over the dictator; it consisted of the whole centre of the National Convention, together with the remnant of the Royalists and the party of Danton. The Jacobins were still powerful, however, and the Thermidorians were cautious about measuring their

strength with them; but the friends of clemency gained daily accessions to their force. On the 30th of July, 1794, the contest was brought to an issue. Barere, on the part of the Jacobins, rose in his place and proposed that the Revolutionary Tribunal should be continued, and that Fouquier Tinville should still act as public accuser. At the pronouncing of that name a murmur of indignation was heard in the assembly, and Freron cried out, "I propose that we purge the earth of that monster, and that he be sent to lick up in hell the blood that he has shed." This proposal being carried by acclamation, Barere left the tribune; and Tinville was brought to trial with fourteen of his most guilty associates, who were all condemned and executed.

The next measures of the Convention were of a humane tendency. They repealed the law against suspected persons; and although the Revolutionary Tribunal continued its sittings, its forms were remodelled, and its vengeance was directed chiefly against the authors of former outrages. The captives were gradually released from confinement, and instead of the fatal tumbrils that formerly stood at the gates of the prisons, crowds of joyous citizens there welcomed with transport their liberated parents or children. At the end of two months, out of ten thousand suspected persons, not one remained in the prisons of Paris.

In order to strengthen themselves more effectually for the future, the Thermidorians enlisted in their support such youths of the metropolis as belonged to the most respectable families who had lost some relative at the guillotine, and were therefore irreconcilably hostile to the Jacobins. To distinguish them from the populace, they wore a particular dress called the Costume à la Victime; they bore in their arms short, loaded clubs; and were known by the name of La Jeunesse Dorée. The contests between them and the Jacobins at length assumed an important character. Paris became one vast field of battle, in which each strove for the mastery. The strife was long and obstinate; but finally the Convention passed a decree dissolving the Jacobin clubs all over Paris, and the Jeunesse Dorée carried it into execution with force of arms.

The Convention gradually repealed the laws passed during the Revolutionary government: that, namely, regulating the price of provisions, the prohibitions against the Christian worship, the statutes confiscating the Girondists' property and passed an act restoring to the original owners such property, confiscated by the government, as had not been disposed of to third parties. They next proceeded to the decided step of impeaching Varennes, Collot d' Herbois, Barere, Vadier, and other prominent leaders of the Jacobins, who had been most active in the cruelties of the Reign of Terror. This bold measure produced a great agitation, and a revolt was organized in the fauxbourgs to prevent their trial from proceeding. The insurgents forced their way into the assembly, and were about to recoinmence their scenes of violence, so common in the preceding year, when a band of the Jeunesse Dorée made their appearance and quickly dispersed the mob. The trial proceeded and the parties were all found guilty; but the Thermidorians, from considerations of policy, made a humane use of their victory. Varennes, Collot d' Herbois, and Barere were condemned to the limited punishment of transportation; and seventeen members of the Mountain were put under arrest and conducted to the château of Ham. By the fall of Robespierre and the execution of his associates, the Jacobins had lost the municipality; the closing of their clubs had deprived

them of their centre of operations; and the late exile of so many of their members had taken from them their ablest leaders. Still, there remained to them the forces of the fauxbourgs, the inhabitants of which had retained their arms; and their failure in attempting to rescue Varennes and the rest had not discouraged them. A new insurrection was agreed on for the 20th of May, 1795, on which day no less than thirty thousand men, armed with pikes, proceeded to the hall of the Convention. When the members were informed of their approach, they passed resolutions for summoning the National Guard, and making other provision for their defence; but the danger that was at their very door, could not be resisted by legislative enactments. The multitude crowded into the hall, tore the president from his chair, and as Ferraud, with generous devotion, threw himself before the mob, to intercept the blows destined for the president, he was mortally wounded, dragged out, and beheaded in the lobby. The rabble then took possession of the seats vacated by the terrified members of the Convention, and proceeded at once to organize a new government. Everything seemed to indicate a complete revolution.

But, though the Convention was thus forcibly dissolved, its committees still existed, and their firmness saved France. They immediately convened, passed resolutions befitting the emergency, and, when night approached, proceeded with the National Guard and the Jeunesse Dorée to the hall where the insurgents were legislating. A violent contest ensued, but it resulted in the defeat of the Jacobins, and, at midnight, the members of the Convention resumed their places. All that had been done by the rebel authority was annulled, and twenty-eight members who had supported their proceedings were put under arrest. On the following day, the Jacobins renewed their attempts, and again surrounded the Convention, bringing with them a train of artillery, which was deliberately placed in position for an attack. But the National Guard and Jeunesse Dorée stood this time on the alert, and the insurgents were summarily defeated.

Instructed by such disasters and escapes, the Convention now resolved on decisive measures: and six of the most turbulent leaders of the Mountain were delivered over to the military commission, and executed. The murderer of the deputy Ferraud was next discovered, tried, and condemned. On the occasion of his execution, the Convention, anticipating another revolt, ordered the disarming of the fauxbourgs, which was effectually accomplished by the firmness of the National Guard, who, thirty thousand strong, and provided with artillery and mortars, brought the refractory inhabitants to submission. Soon after, the National Guard was reorganized by the exclusion from its ranks of all indigent citizens, and from that day the multitude ceased to rule in Paris.

The Convention now proceeded to form a new Constitution, in which some of the fundamental principles of the Revolution were unequivocally repudiated; and, so contagious was this spirit of reaction, Royalist doctrines began rapidly to gain currency. The National Guard and Jeunesse Dorée of several sections openly espoused the Royalist side, while in the South of France bands were organized, who traversed the country, and executed dreadful reprisals on the Revolutionary party. At Lyons, Aix, Tarascon and Marseilles, they massacred the Jacobin prisoners without trial or discrimination, and the horrors of the 2nd of September, with the exception of the reverse of parties, were reënacted

in most of the prisons of that part of the country. The people, exasperated with their remembrances of the Reign of Terror, were insatiable in their vengeance. They invoked the names of parents, brothers, or sisters, when retaliating on their oppressors; and, while themselves committing murders, cried to their victims, with every stroke: "Die, assassins!"

Meanwhile, the framing of the new Constitution was completed. By this instrument, the third one that had been formed in France during a few years, the legislative power was divided into two Councils; that of the Five Hundred, and that of the Ancients. The Council of Five Hundred was intrusted with the sole power of originating laws, and the Council of the Ancients, with the power of passing or rejecting them; and to insure the prudent discharge of this duty, no person could be a member of the latter Council till he had reached the age of forty. The executive power was lodged in the hands of five Directors, to be nominated by the Council of Five Hundred, and approved by the Ancients: they were liable to impeachment for misconduct, were each to be president for three months by rotation, and every year one new Director was to be chosen, and one to retire to make room for him. This Directory had the disposal of the army and finances, the appointment of public functionaries, and the control of public negotiations. They were lodged, during the period of their official duty, in the Palace of the Luxembourg, and attended by a guard of honor. The elective franchise was greatly restricted by the new charter, being confined entirely to proprietors; all popular societies were interdicted, and the press was declared absolutely free.

It is important to recollect that this Constitution, so cautiously framed to exclude the direct influence of the people, and curb the excesses of popular licentiousness, was the voluntary work of the very Convention which had come into power under the democratic Constitution of 1793, and immediately after the 10th of August; which had voted the death of the King, the imprisonment of the Girondists, and the execution of Danton; which had supported the bloody excesses of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and survived the horrors of the reign of Robespierre. Let it no longer be said, therefore, that the evils of popular rute are imaginary dangers, contradicted by the experience of mankind. The checks thus imposed on the power of the people, were the work of their own delegates, chosen by universal suffrage, during a season of unexampled public excitement, whose proceedings had been marked by a more violent love of freedom than any that ever before existed from the beginning of the world. Nothing can speak so strongly for the necessity of controlling the people, as the acts of the representatives whom they had themselves chosen to confirm their power.

The discussion of this Constitution in the assemblies of the people to whom it was referred, produced the most violent agitation throughout France. Paris, as usual, took the lead. Its forty-eight Sections were constantly in session, and the public effervescence resembled that of 1789. This was brought to its height by an additional clause in the Constitution, wherein the Convention decreed that two-thirds of their own number should be incorporated into the new legislature, and that, therefore, the electors should fill up only the remainder.

This rapid stride toward despotism was loudly resisted all over France. The National Guard of Paris declared their opposition, and the Jeunesse Dorée pledged themselves to resist it. But the Convention did not waver.