struction, if we do not anticipate its vengeance by delivering ourselves." Moved by these considerations, the sections unanimously resolved upon resistance. The national guard amounted to above thirty thousand men-but it was totally destitute of artillery, the sections having, in the belief that they were no longer required, delivered up the pieces with which they had been furnished in 1789, upon the final disarming of the insurgent faubourgs. Their want was now severely felt, as the Convention had fifty pieces at their command, stationed at Sablons near Paris, whose terrible efficacy had been abundantly proved on the 10th August; and the cannoneers who were to serve them were the same who had broken the lines of Prince Cobourg. The national guard hoped, by a rapid advance, to capture this formidable train of artillery, and then the victory was secure. 59. The leaders of the Convention, on their side, were not idle. In the evening of the 3d October (11 Vendémiaire) a decree was passed, ordering the immediate dissolution of the electoral bodies in Paris, and embodying into a regiment fifteen hundred of the Jacobins, many of whom were liberated from the prisons for that especial purpose. These measures brought matters to a crisis between the sections and the government. This decree was openly resisted, and the national guard having assembled in force to protect the electors at the Théâtre Français, the Convention ordered the military to disperse them. General Menou was appointed commander of the armed force, and he advanced with the troops of the line to surround the Convent of the Filles St Thomas, the centre of the insurrection, where the section Lepelletier was assembled. Menou, however, had not the decision requisite for success in civil contests. Instead of attacking the insurgents, he entered into a negotiation with them, and retired in the evening without having effected anything. His failure gave all the advantages of a victory to the sections; the national guard mustered in greater strength than ever, and resolved to attack the Convention at its place of assembly on the following day. Informed of this failure, and the dangerous excitement which it had produced in Paris, the Convention, at eleven at night, dismissed General Menou, and gave the command of the armed force, with unlimited powers, to General Barras. He immediately demanded the assistance, as second in command, of a young officer of artillery, who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon and in the war in the Maritime Alps-NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 60. This young officer was immediately introduced to the Committee. His manner was timid and embarrassed; the career of public life was as yet new; but his clear and distinct opinions, the energy and force of his language, already indicated the powers of his mind. By his advice, the powerful train of artillery in the plain of Sablons, consisting of fifty pieces, was immediately brought by a lieutenant, afterwards well known in military annals, named MURAT, to the capital, and disposed in such a position as to command all the avenues to the Convention. Early on the following morning, the neighbourhood of the Tuileries resembled a great intrenched camp. The line of defence extended from the Pont Neuf, along the quays of the river to the Pont Louis XVI.; the Place du Carrousel and the Louvre were filled with cannon, and the entrances of all the streets which open into the Rue St Honoré strongly guarded. In this position the commanders of the Convention awaited the attack of the insurgents. Buonaparte was indefatigable in his exertions to inspire the troops with confidence: he visited every post, inspected every battery, and spoke to the men with that decision and confidence which is so often the prelude to victory. 61. The action was soon commenced. Above thirty thousand men, under Generals Danican and Duhoux, surrounded the little army of six thousand, who, with this powerful artillery, defended the seat of the legislature. The combat began in the Rue St Honoré at half VOL. IIL past four; the grenadiers, placed in the | their adversaries, but by the terrible Church of St Roch, opened a fire of mus- effect of their artillery, by the power of ketry on the cannoneers of the Con- military discipline, and the genius of vention, who replied by a discharge of that youthful conqueror before whom grape-shot, which swept destruction all the armies of Europe were destined through the serried ranks of the na- to fall. The moral strength of the national guard who occupied the Rue St tion was all on their side; but, in revoHonoré. Though the insurgents fought lutions, it is seldom that moral strength with the most determined bravery, and proves ultimately victorious; and the the fire from the Church of St Roch examples of Cæsar and Cromwell are was well sustained, nothing could resist not required to show that the natural the murderous grape-shot of the regu- termination of civil strife is military lar soldiers. Many of the cannoneers despotism. fell at their guns, but the fire of their pieces was not diminished. In a few minutes the Rue St Honoré was deserted, and the flying columns carried confusion into the ranks of the reserve, who were formed near the Church of the Filles St Thomas. General Danican galloped off at the first discharge, and never appeared again during the day. Meanwhile the Pont Neuf was carried by the insurgents, and a new column, ten thousand strong, advanced along the opposite quay to the Tuileries, to attack the Pont Royal. Buonaparte allowed them to advance within twenty yards of his batteries, and then opened his fire; the insurgents stood three discharges without flinching; but, not having resolution enough to rush upon the cannon after they were fired, they were ultimately driven back in disorder, and by seven o'clock the victory of the Convention was complete at all points. At nine, the troops of the line carried the posts of the national guard in the Palais Royal, and on the following morning the section Lepelletier was disarmed, and the insurgents everywhere submitted. 62. Such was the result of the LAST INSURRECTION of the people in the French Revolution; all the subsequent changes were effected by the government or the armies, without their interference. The insurgents, on this occasion, were not the rabble or the assassins who had so long stained its history with blood; they were the flower of the citizens of Paris, comprising all that the Revolution had left that was generous, or elevated, or noble in the capital. They were overthrown, not by the superior numbers or courage of 63. The Convention made a generous use of their victory. The Girondists, who exercised an almost unlimited sway over its members, put in practice those maxims of clemency which they had so often recommended to others; the officers who had gained the victory felt a strong repugnance to their laurels being stained with the blood of their fellow-citizens. Few executions followed this decisive victory: M. Lafond, one of the military chiefs of the revolt, obstinately resisting the means of evasion which were suggested to him by the court, was alone condemned, and died with a firmness worthy of the cause for which he suffered. Most of the accused persons were allowed time to escape, and sentence of outlawry was merely recorded against them; many returned shortly after to Paris, and resumed their place in public affairs. The clemency of Buonaparte was early conspicuous; his counsels, after the victory, were all on the side of mercy, and his interces sion saved General Menou from a military commission. 64. In the formation of the Councils of Five Hundred and of the Ancients, the Convention made no attempt to constrain the public wishes. The third of the legislature, who had been newly elected, were almost all on the side of the insurgents, and even included several Royalists; and a proposal was in consequence made by Tallien, that the election of that third should be annulled, and another appeal made to the people. Thibaudeau, with equal firmness and eloquence, resisted the proposal, which was rejected by the Convention. They merely took the precaution, to prevent a return to royalty, to name for the periors; when they became those superiors themselves, they passed over to their enemies. 66. Human institutions are not like the palace of the architect, framed according to fixed rules, capable of erection in any situation, and certain in the effect to be produced. They resemble rather the trees of the forest, slow of growth, tardy of development, readily susceptible of destruction. An instant will destroy what it has taken centuries to produce; centuries must again elapse before, in the same situation, a similar production can be formed. Transplantation, difficult in the vegetable, is impossible in the moral world; the seedling must be nourished in the soil, inured to the climate, hardened by the winds. Many examples are to be found of institutions being suddenly imposed upon a people-none of those so formed having any duration. To be adapted to their character and habits, they must have grown with their growth, and strengthened with their strength. Directors five persons who had voted for the death of the King-LaréveillèreLepaux, Rewbell, Letourneur, Barras, and Carnot. Having thus settled the new government, they published a general amnesty, changed the name of the Place de la Révolution into that of Place de la Concorde, and declared their sittings terminated. The last days of an Assembly stained with so much blood were gilded by an act of clemency, of which, Thibaudeau justly said, the annals of kings furnished few examples. 65. The Convention sat for more than three years-from the 21st September 1791 to the 26th October 1795. During that long and terrible period, its precincts were rather the field on which faction strove for ascendancy than the theatre on which legislative wisdom exerted its influence. The destruction of human life which took place during its government, in civil dissension, was unparalleled: it amounted to above A MILLION of human beings! All the parties which divided France there endeavoured to establish their 67. The progress of improvement is power, and all perished in the attempt. irresistible. Feudal tyranny must give The Girondists attempted it, and per- way in an age of increasing opulence, ished; the Mountain attempted it, and and the human mind cannot be for ever perished; the Municipality attempted enchained by the fetters of superstition. it, and perished; Robespierre attempt- No efforts of power could have prevented ed it, and perished; the Royalists at- a change in the government of France; tempted it, and perished. În revolu- but they might have altered its charactions it is easy to destroy; the difficulty ter and checked its horrors. Nature is to establish and secure. All the ex- has ordained that mankind should, perience of years of suffering, fraught when they are fit for it, be free; but with centuries of instruction-all the she has not ordained that they should wisdom of age, all the talent of youth, reach this freedom steeped in blood. were unable to form one stable govern- Although, therefore, the overthrow of ment. A few years, often a few months, the despotic government and modificawere sufficient to overturn the most tion of the power of the privileged orders apparently stable institutions. A fab- of France was inevitable, yet the dreadric, seemingly framed for permanent ful atrocities with which their fall was duration, disappeared almost before its attended might have been averted by authors had consummated their work. human wisdom. The life of the monThe gales of popular favour, ever fickle arch might have been saved instead of and changeable, deserted each succes- sacrificed; the constitution modified, sive faction as it rose into power; and without being subverted; the aristothe ardent part of the nation, impatient cracy purified, without being destroyed. of control, deemed any approach to re- Timely concession from the crown, pergular government insupportable ty-haps, might have altered the character ranny. The lower classes, incapable of of the French Revolution. Had Louis, rational thought, gave their support to in the commencement of the troubles, the different parties only as long as they yielded the great and reasonable decontinued to inveigh against their sumands of the people, and the nobility |