 Chapter 16 of the French Revolution. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kay Hand. The French Revolution by Robert Madison Johnston. Chapter 16, The Directoir. With the Directoir, the Revolution enters its last phase, and with that phase all readers of history connect certain well-marked external characteristics, extravagance of dress, of manners, of living, finality and immorality unblushing and unrestrained. The period of the Directoir is that during which the political men of the Revolution, with no principles left to guide them, gradually rot away while the men of the sword become more and more their support and finally oust them from power. The councils, apart from the ex-members of the convention, were found to be far less royalist than had been expected. The farming class, which had had great influence in the elections, had gained much from the Revolution. The farmers had got rid of the feudal burdens they had acquired land, they had profited from free transit. Anxious to retain what they had won, they elected men of moderate views rather than reactionaries. The voice of these new members could not, however, influence the choice of the directors, who were all taken from the ex-conventionals. They were Barris, Rubel, Carnot, Laverier, and LaTernière. Of these LaTernière and Carnot were ready to listen to the wishes of the electorate and to join hands with the new party of moderates in a constructive policy. The other three, however, took their stand firmly on the maintenance of the settlement affected by the convention and on deriving all the personal advantage they could from power. Rubel began to accumulate a vast fortune and Barris to squander and luxuriate. The officials appointed by the directors were as needy and rapacious as their chiefs. Everything could be had for money. England and the United States were offered treaties on the basis of first purchasing the goodwill of ministers for foreign affairs or directors. In the gilded halls of the Luxembourg, Barris, surrounded by a raffish court, dispensed the honors and the spoils of the new regime. Women in astounding and willfully indecent dresses gravitated about him and his entourage, women representing all the strata heaped upward by the revolution, with here and there a surviving aristocrat, like the widow of Bourne-Honnais, needy and turning to the new son to relieve her distress. Among them morality was at the lowest ebb. For the old sacrament of marriage had been virtually demolished by law, civil marriage and divorce had been introduced, and in the governing classes so much affected in family life and fortune by the reign of terror, the step between civil marriage and what was no marriage at all soon appeared a distinction without much difference. There seemed only one practical rule for life, to find the means of subsistence and to have as good a time as possible. The external situation which the new government had to face required energetic measures. There had been great hopes after the victories of 1794 that the year 1795 would see the French armies pressing into the valley of the Danube and bringing the Austrian monarchy to terms. But the campaign of 1795 went to pieces. The generals were nearly as venal as the politicians, and Pichegrew was successfully tampered with. He failed to support Jordan, he made false movements, and as a result the French armies at the close of the summer were no further than the Rhine. Preparations were made by the directoir to retrieve this comparative failure. The campaign of 1796 was to see a strong offensive against the Austrians to the north and to the south of the Alps. Jordan and Morot, the latter displacing Pichegrew, were once more to attempt to penetrate toward Vienna by the valley of the Danube. At the same time a smaller army was to invade Italy and from the valley of the Po perhaps lend a helping hand to the armies in Germany. Bonaparte was selected for this last command. Bonaparte owed his new appointment to a combination of reasons. He had for some time passed, knowing the ground, placed plans for the invasion of Italy before the government. These plans gave promise of success and Carnot was ready to give their author a chance of carrying them into execution. Alongside of this was the strong personal impression made by Bonaparte. His capacity was unmistakable, and last of all came the element of romance. He had fallen in love with Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, protégé of Barras, and Barras worked for the appointment. Early in March Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais were married. Before the end of the month the young general had reached his headquarters at Nice. In the middle of April news reached Paris of a series of brilliant engagements in which the army of Italy had defeated the Austrians and Sardinians. But immediately afterwards the directoir was faced by the unpleasant facts of the new general, disregarding his instructions, had concluded an armistice with Sardinia. Already in less than a month Bonaparte, as he now called himself, had shown that he was a great general and moreover a politician who might become a danger to the directoir itself. From that moment a failed struggle began between the two, the directoir attempting to reduce the power and influence of its general, Bonaparte constantly appealing from the directoir to the public by rhetorical accounts of his victories and proceedings. While Bonaparte was invading Lombardy and attacking the great Austrian fortress of Mantua, the directoir had to deal with conspiracy in Paris. Conspiracy was a striking feature of the period that followed the follow-forbes Pierre. In fact for the ten years that follow it may be said that all internal politics revolve about conspiracies. One of the most noteworthy was the one that came to the ahead in the spring of 1796 under the lead of Bobov. Bobov was a revolutionist of extreme views, but views rather social than political. His experience before the revolution had been that of a surveyor and land agent, and in this business he had apparently gone below the surface and had thought over that great nexus of social, political and economic questions that center on that of the proprietorship of the soil. The revolution turned him into a collectivist, and with the directoir in power and a middle-class reaction in full swing, Bobov began to be an influence. The revolution so far produced popular leaders, but not popular leaders who were of the people and whose policy was for the people. Mirobo and Danton looked to the people, but only as opportunist statesmen. Ebert had imitated the people, but for the sake of his own advancement. Robespierre more honestly had attempted to be the prophet of the people, but with him democracy was only the sickly residue of Rousseau's contract social. And when it came to measures to social legislation, he proved only a narrow bourgeois and a lawyer. And so it had been all the way through. The people, the great national battering ram that Danton had guided, retained a mass without expression. The people had never had leaders of their own, had never had a policy saved for their demand for a vote and for the blood of their oppressors. And now here was a man of the people who had a popular policy who put his finger on the question that lay even deeper than that of privilege, that of proprietorship. But Buff's doctrine was collectivist. Nature has given every man an equal right to enjoy her benefits. It is the business of society to maintain this equality. Nature imposes the obligation of labor, but both labor and enjoyment must be in common. Monopolizing benefits of land or industry is a crime. There should be neither rich men nor poor, nor should there be individual proprietorship of land. The earth is no man's property. These doctrines were fervently accepted by a small group of devoted followers. They were widely acquiesced in by Jacobin Malcontents, seeking an inconvenient arm against the government. Clubs were formed. The Serk de Ego, the club de Pantheon, propaganda was carried out, conspiracy was involved. Wholesale efforts were made to gain over the police and some troops. Finally, the directoir got wind of the proceedings and by prompt measures broke up the conspiracy and captured its leaders. Buff, arrested on the 10th of May, was sentenced to death a year later by a special court and executed. On the 19th of May, the directoir endorsed Bonaparte's action by signing a favorable peace with Sardinia, then taking advantage of its further successes at Lonanto and Castiglione, it half bullied, half bribed the feeble government of Spain into a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive, the Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed on the 19th of August. This placed a redoubtable naval force in line against England, with the immediate result that she withdrew her fleet from the Mediterranean where it had been considerably impeding the operations of the French generals along the Italian seaboard. Before the close of the year, the directoir pushed a step further and Hoche made an attempt, frustrated by bad weather, to disembark in Ireland, which was ready to revolt against England. In February 1797, however, Admiral Gervais crushed the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, restoring by this stroke England's commanding position at sea. In Germany, matters had not gone well with the Republic. The young Archduke Charles, massing cleverly against Jordan, drove him back to the Rhine before Morot could affect his junction. Morot had nothing left but retreat. This success enabled the Austrian government to reinforce its troops in the T-roll when its generals made repeated efforts to drive Bonaparte from the siege of Mantua. In September he won a considerable victory over the Austrians at Bassano in November at Arcola in January at Rivoli. Finally in February Mantua surrendered. Bonaparte in less than 12 months had disposed of five Austrian armies and captured the stronghold of the Habsburgs in Italy. Preparations were now made for a new move. The directoir withdrew Bernadotte with a strong division from Germany to strengthen Bonaparte and raised his army to 70,000 men. He advanced through Friuli and the Julian Alps, outflanking the Archduke Charles who attempted to bar his way with a detached corps under Jobert and Massena. Bonaparte was irresistible. He forced his way to within a short distance of Vienna and finally at Liobe, on the 18th of April, Austria accepted peace preliminaries. She agreed to cede the Netherlands and Lombardi in return for which she was to receive certain compensations. Bonaparte was now negotiator as well as general. For the directoir was in great danger. It had come face to face with a situation in which it required all the support its general could give and in return conceded to him a corresponding increase of powers. In March and April the first election for the renewal of the councils was held and out of 216 outgoing ex-conventionals who appealed to the electorate, 205 were defeated at the polls. A more unanimous pronouncement of public opinion was hardly possible. But the directors were not capable of accepting the verdict of the country. Power was theirs and they resolved it should remain theirs. In the councils, an extreme party led by Boise des Anglais, Pichegrew and Camille Jourdan embarked on a policy of turning out the directors and repealing all the revolutionary legislation, especially that directed against the Émégerais and the church. They formed the Clube des Clichés. In the center of the house opinions were more moderate, moderate progressive and moderate Jacobin. In the latter party, Saez, Talirand, Benjamin Constant and as a social and literary influence, the daughter of Necker, Madame Distelle. The first step in the struggle was marked by the election of Bartolomé, the negotiator of the Treaty of Basel and a moderate to the directoire instead of La Tournier who retired by rotation. Long debates followed on the Émégerais and the priest and their course led to an attack by the councils supported by Carnot and Bartolomé on the ministry. Some changes were made and it was at this moment that Talirand secured the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. The 500 now became interested in some rather obscure negotiations that Bonaparte was conducting in Italy with a view to converting the peace preliminaries of Le Ben into a definite treaty. No sooner had he disposed of Austria than he had treacherously turned on Venice and seized the city. He was now juggling with this and the other French acquisitions in Italy in rather dubious fashion and the orders of the opposition fastened on this as a text. It was just at this moment that Barris turned to his old protege and asked for his help. Bonaparte's sword leapt from the scabbard instantly. He issued a proclamation to his army denouncing the factious opposition of the Clichens and he said, Our re-grew his Grenadier General to Barris' assistance. The result was the revolution of Fructador. Late on the 3rd of September, Barris, Rebell and La Revier announced the discovery of a great royalist conspiracy. Bartellemé was arrested, Carnot just succeeded in escaping. Next morning, Argerou with 2,000 men surrounded the assembly, arrested Pichegrew and several leading members and prevented the other members from meeting. Meanwhile, small groups of supporters of Barris from the two councils came together and proceeded to transact business. On the 5th, the 19th of Fructador, decrees were passed by the usurping bodies. They provided for the deportation of Carnot, Bartellemé, Pichegrew and others. They arbitrarily annulled a number of elections. They ordered all return M&Js to leave France. They repealed a recent law in favor of liberty of worship and they placed the press under strict government control. On the next day, two new directors were chosen from the successful faction, Merlin Des-Douais and François Des-Nouff-Chateau. The Fructadorians now controlled the situation, led by Taïen, Cheney, Jordan in the councils. Many officials were removed and replaced by their adherents. Priests were severely repressed, thousands being imprisoned. Military tribunals were formed to deal with M&Js and in the course of the next two years sent nearly 200 to the firing party. Six weeks after Fructador, on the 17th of October, the long struggle between France and Austria was concluded by the Treaty of Campo Formio, signed by Bonaparte and Combenzel. Austria ceded the Netherlands to France. Her Lombard province was incorporated in the newly formed Cisalpine Republic, which she recognized. All the left bank of the Rhine from Bale was ceded to France. Austria took Venice and a Congress was to meet at Ristat to consider territorial readjustments within the empire. After Fructador and Campo Formio, matters proceeded more quietly for a while, the close of the year being marked by only two incidents that need recorded here. One the departure of Saez as ambassador to Berlin, the other the triumphant return of Bonaparte from Italy and the ovations with the Parisian public gave him. But meanwhile, even with the councils packed, the directors were once more in difficulties for the financial situation was getting worse and worse and the venality, extravagance and incapacity of the government seemed likely to result in a general bankruptcy. Already, 145 trillion of assinats had been issued. Gold was difficult to procure, a quotation for a Louis in 1797 being 3,080 francs in paper. A new form of assinat had been tried but without much success. The expenses of the war were enormous and an army of over one million men having doubled the annual expenses of the state. Had not Bonaparte systematically bled Italy of money and treasure, the direct toire could not have conducted business so long. As it was, it could go on no longer. The new taxes on property and income had not become effective, largely because collection was devolved in the communes. And so, a few days after the revolution of Fructador, a partial bankruptcy was declared, interest payments were suspended on two thirds of the debt. In the following spring, March to April 1798, the elections once more proved disastrous to the directors. They really had few supporters beyond those who held office under them or who hoped for their turn to come to hold office. Over 400 deputies were to be chosen and opinion was still so hostile that the only chance of the directors was an illegal action. They tampered with the elections and finding this insufficient to accomplish their object succeeded by another stroke of violence in getting a decree on the 4th of May, 2nd of Floral, excluding a number of the newly elected deputies. All this proved in vain. The temper of the councils was solidly hostile and now the hostility came as much from the Jacobin as from any other part of the house. Partly from weakness, partly to creative diversion, the direct toire was now drifting into a new war. In February, owing to the French intrigues, a riot took place at Rome, which resulted in a republic being proclaimed and the pope being driven from the city. Further north, the same process was repeated. French troops occupied Bairne and under their influence a heraldic republic came into existence. Meanwhile, the war with England continued with increased vigor. A great stroke was aimed at England's colonial empire of east, boat apart sailing from Toulon for Egypt on the 19th of May. On the 12th of June, he seized Malta on the 21st of July. The Mamaluks in the Battle of the Pyramids. And on the 1st of August, his fleet was destroyed at its anchorage near the mouth of the Nile by Admiral Nelson. The best army and the best general of the direct toire were cut off in Egypt. Meanwhile, Nelson, returning to Italy to refit his ships, decided the court of Naples to join in the war against France and determined the march of Ferdinand and his army against Rome, which city he occupied on the 29th of November. Ferdinand, commander of the French forces in southern Italy, brought one more flash of triumph to his country's arms. Though heavily outnumbered, he drove Ferdinand out of Rome, followed him to Naples, and took the city by storm after desperate street fighting at the end of December. At Naples, as elsewhere, France set up a vassal state, the Partheniopian Republic, that lived but few weeks and ended in tragedy. For early in the year 1799, Austria and Russia placed an army in the field in northern Italy, the war with Austria beginning in March. Its first events took place in Germany, where Jordan, for the fourth time attempting to force his way through the valley of the Danube, once more met with failure. The Archduke Charles fought him at Stockach and there defeated him. This defeat gave the northern command to Messena and sent Jordan back to politics. When, some years later, the victor of Florus was again entrusted with the command of large armies, it was only to leave them to failure until the Vera and to disaster of Vittoria. Just as the war with Austria broke out again, the yearly elections for the councils were being held. The war brought about a recurrence of revolutionary fever, which resulted in great Jacobin successes at the Poles. But the new deputies, like the old, were hostile to the discredited directoir. France wanted some stronger, abler, more honest, more dignified executive than she had. She would no longer tolerate that a gang of shady politicians should fatten in an office they did nothing to make effective. And as the war cloud grew blacker and the national finances more exhausted, the Jacobins themselves undertook to reform the Republic. The first step was to get a strong foothold in the enemy's camp. This was affected by electing Sayez to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Rubel from the directoir. Sayez, who was known for his hostility to the existing system, whose reputation for solidity and political intrigue was wide, his capacity as a constitutionalist and reformer was extraordinarily overrated. With Sayez on the directoir, there comes into existence an ill-defined vague conspiracy, all the more dangerous in that it was far more a general push of a great number of men towards a new set of conditions than a cut-and-dried plot involving precise action and precise results at a given moment. In this new set of conditions, Sayez and those who thought with him recognized one fact as inevitable. The fact Robespierre had so early foreseen and so constantly dreaded. The influence of the army must be brought in, and the influence of the army meant the influence of one of the generals. And as Sayez and his friends looked about for a general to suit their purpose, they found it difficult to pick their man. Both a part had long been cut off in Egypt by the English fleet, and news of his army only reached Paris after long delays and at long intervals. Jordan had almost lost his prestige by his continued ill success, and was in any case indisposed to act with Sayez. In Italy, all the generals were doing badly. The Russian Field Marshal, Suvarov, with an Austro-Russian army was sweeping everything before him. On the 27th of April, he defeated Moro at Cassano. He then occupied Milan and drove the French south into Genoa. At this moment, McDonald, who had succeeded Championette at Naples, was marching northwards to join Moro. Suvarov got between them, and after three days' hard fighting from the 17th to the 19th of June, inflicted a second severe defeat on the French at La Trebia. These reverses shattered the whole French domination of Italy. Their armies were defeated, their vassal republics sank, that of Naples under horrible conditions of royalist reprisal and massacre. The direct toire suffered heavily and prestige by the events of a war which it had so lightly provoked and was so incompetent to conduct. In June, the councils made a further successful attack on the executive and succeeded in quick succession in forcing out three of the directors, Trailhardt, La Reveille, and Merlin. For them were substituted Gohiae, who was colorless, Mouline, who was stupid, and Ducos, who was pliable. Of the Thermadorians, Baris alone remained, and Baris, after five years of uninterrupted power and luxury, was used up as a man of action. He was quite ready to come to reasonable terms with Saez, or if matters should turn that way with the Comte de Provence, whose agents were in touch with him. Saez, who owed his position in great part to the support of the Jacobins and the council of 500, now found them an obstacle. The defeats of the armies were making them unruly. They had formed a club, meeting in the ménage, that threatened to develop all the characteristics of the old Jacobin club, and that caused widespread alarm. The agents ordered the closing of the ménage, but the Jacobins, led by Jordan, Bernadotte, Minister of War, and others, continued their meetings in new quarters. They began to clamor for a new committee of public safety. Saez now selected Jaubert to retrieve the situation. This young general had been one of Bonaparte's most brilliant divisional commanders. Jaubert had a strong following in the army, was a staunch Republican, and was probably a general of the First Order. He was sent for, was told to assume command in Italy, was given every battalion that could possibly be scraped together. With these he was to win a battle decisive not only of the fate of Italy, but of that of the Republic and of the direct toire. Jaubert left Paris on the 16th of July, a month later having concentrated all that was left of the Italian armies together with his reinforcements that marched north. At Novi, halfway to the Po, Suvarov barred his advance. A great battle was fought, the French were heavily defeated, and Jaubert was killed. One week later, just as the disastrous news of Novi was reaching Paris, General Bonaparte, with a few officers of his staff, embarked at Alexandria, and risking the English men of war set sail for France. Bonaparte now becomes the central figure on the historical sage, and the events that follow belong to the history more than to that of the revolution. Here all that remains to be done is to indicate the nature of the change that now took place, his connection with the schemes of Sayez for ridding France of the direct toire, and placing something more effective in it instead. While Bonaparte was sailing the Mediterranean, seven long weeks from Alexandria to Frejoux, the disgust and wariness of France increased. Jordan and Bernadotte, in a blundering way attempted to rest power from the directors, but proved unequal to the sage and ability to the task. A more powerful and more subtle political craftsman was needed. Then in the gloom of the public despondence, three sudden flashes electrified the air, flash on flash. Messena, with the last army of the Republic turning sharply right and left, beat the Austrians, destroyed Suvarov in the mountains of Switzerland about Zurich. Before the excitement had subsided, came a despatch from the depths of the Mediterranean, penned with salvation by the greatest of political romanticists, and which was announced the destruction of a turbaned army of Turks at Abokir, by the irresistible, demi-brigades of the old army of Italy. And then suddenly people ran out into the streets to be told that the man himself was in France. Bonaparte had landed at Frejoux. Barely has a country turned to an individual as France turned to Bonaparte at that moment. And he, playing with cool mastery political instrument fate had placed in his hands, announced himself as the man of peace, of reform, of strong civil government, of republican virtue. It was one long ovation from Frejoux to Paris. At Paris, Bonaparte judged and judged rightly that the pair, as he crudely put it, was right. All parties came to him and Saez came to him. The author of that epic-making pamphlet, and the greatest soldier produced by the revolution put their heads together to bring the revolution to an end. Saez and Bonaparte affected their purpose on the 9th and 10th of November, the 18th and 19th of Brumiere. The method they adopted was merely a slight development of that used by Barass and Archer Rowe at the revolution of Fructador two years earlier. Some of the directors were put under constraint. Others supported the conspiracy. But the council of 500 resisted strenuously and it was only after scenes of great violence that it succumbed. It was only at the tap of the army drums and at the flash of serried bayonets that the last assembly of the revolution abandoned its post. The man of the sword, so long foreseen and dreaded by Robespierre had come into his own, and the republic had made way for the consulate. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of the French Revolution This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sonia The French Revolution by Robert Madison Johnston Chapter 17 Art and Literature French literature has great names before 1789 and after 1815 Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, to mention only the giants wrote before the revolution and Chateaubriand, Thierre, Hugo, Mucey, Béranger, Courier after Napoleon had fallen. In between there is little or nothing. The period is like a desolate site, devastated by flame, stained with blood with only here and there a timid flower landing a little color, a touch of grace, a gleam of beauty, to a scene of destruction and violence. No verse or prose of the period gives the note of the revolution on its idealistic side more strikingly than Fabre de Grantin's nomenclature of the month for the revolutionary calendar. Although slightly tinged with pedantism and preciousity, its freshness, its grace, its inspiration and sincerity give it a flavor almost of primitive art. It remains one of the few notable poems of French literature. Vendémière, premier mois de l'année républicaine et de l'automne, prend son etymologie des vendanges qui ont lieu pendant ce mois. Brumère, deuxième mois de l'année républicaine, il tire son nom des brouillards et des brumes basses qui font en quelque sorte la transudation de la nature pendant ce mois. Frimaire, troisième mois de l'année républicaine, ainsi nommé du froid tantôt sec, tantôt humide, qui se fait sentir pendant ce mois. Niveauze, quatrième mois de l'année républicaine et le premier de l'hiver, il prend son etymologie de la neige qui blanchit la terre pendant ce mois. Pluviose, cinquième mois de l'année républicaine, il tire son nom des pluies qui tombent plus d'abondance pendant ce mois. Ventose, sixième mois de l'année républicaine, ainsi nommé des giboulets qui ont lieu et du vent qui vient sécher la terre pendant ce mois. Germinal, septième mois de l'année républicaine et le premier du printemps, il prend son etymologie de la fermentation et du développement de la sève pendant ce mois. Floréale, huitième mois de l'année républicaine, ainsi nommé de l'épanouissement des fleurs que la terre produit pendant ce mois. Prairieale, neuvième mois de l'année républicaine, il tire son nom de la fécondité riyante et de la récolte des prairies pendant ce mois. Messidore, dixième mois de l'année républicaine et le premier de l'été, il prend son etymologie de l'aspect des épis ondoyants et des mois qui couvrent le champ pendant ce mois. Termidor, onzième mois de l'année républicaine, ainsi nommé de la chaleur tout à la fois solaire et terrestre qui embrase l'air pendant ce mois. Fructidor, douzième mois de l'année républicaine, il tire son nom des fruits que le soleil dort et murie pendant ce mois. Fabre de Glantine was not the only member of the assemblies of the place in literature. The great orators, Mirabeau, Danton, Verneau, Robespierre and others rose to a high pitch of rhetoric in their speeches. Famous apostrophes which they uttered are still current phrases. Nous sommes ici par la volonté du peuple et nous n'en sortirons que par la force des bayonettes. Silence aux trente voies. De l'audace, encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace. Some extracts from the orators have been given in preceding chapters and the pamphletiers have also been drawn from. The letter, even in the pages of Démoulin, Gustalo or Malais, rarely attained the level of the best literature. The following passage from Démoulin shows the unfortunate journalist at his best, when back by Danton, in December 1793, he raised the standard of mercy against terrorism and the infamous terrorism of Hébert. Ô mes chers concitoyens, serions-nous donc arrivés à ce point que de nous prosternés devant de telles divinités? Non. La liberté, cette liberté descendue du ciel, ce n'est point une nymphe de l'opéra, ce n'est point un bonnet rouge, une chemise sale ou des haillons. La liberté, c'est le bonheur, c'est la raison, c'est l'égalité, c'est la justice. Voulez-vous que je la reconnaisse, que je tombe à ses pieds, que je verse tout mon sang pour elle? Ouvrez les prisons! Few poets marked the epoch, and of their works, the most famous are battle songs. Rougé de Lille, on the declaration of war against Austria in April 1792, composed the music and words of the best known song in the world, the famous Marseillaise. One of its love's follows. T'es mal accent, que tes ennemis expirant, voient ton triomphe et notre gloire aux almes citoyens formez vos bataillons, marchons, marchons qu'un sang un pur abre nos sillons. A better song poem than the Marseillaise, though not quite so famous, was written by Joseph Chignier, the chant du départ. It was a great favorite with Bonaparte. La victoire en chantant nous ouvre la barrière, la liberté guide nos pas, et du nord au midi, la trompette guerrière a sonné l'heure des combats, tromblés ennemis de la France, rois ivres et d'orgueil, le peuple souverain s'avance, tirant, descendez au cercueil. La République nous appelle sachant vaincre ou sachant périr. Un Français doit vivre pour elle. Pour elle, un Français doit mourir. With the Chignier, we come to the one considerable poet of the revolutionary period, André, brother of the author of the chant du départ. He was sent to the guillotine on the sevens of Termidor at the age of thirty-one, having published only two poems, one on the oath of the tennis court in 1789, and the other on the festival, organized for the Swiss of Château Vieux's mutious regiment by Collo der Bois in the spring of 1792. The opening lines of his first poems strike the note of a new era. Reprend ta robe d'or, Saint-on Riche-Bandeau, Saint-en-Édivine Poésie. Quoi que cet endorage eclipse ton flambeau, la liberté du génie et de l'art t'ouvre tous les trésors, ta grâce auguste et fière, de nature et d'éternité fleuri. T'es pas sangrant, ton franc, saint de lumière, touche les cieux. And for seeing as the poet should the tragedies to come, he pleads for guidance to avert the resulting woes of the people. Ah, ne le laissez pas dans la sanglante rage d'un ressentiment inhumain souiller sa cause et votre ouvrage. Ah, ne le laissez pas sans conseil et sans frein, armant, pour soutenir ses droits si légitimes, la torche incendière et le fer assassin, venger la raison par des crimes. Always among the moderates, by the apotheosis, accorded by Colau and the Democratic Party to the Swiss of the Regiment of Chateauvue. On the 15th of April 1792, he published some stinging verses on the subject that possibly cost him his life. Salut d'Ivain Triomphe, entre dans nos murailles, rend nous ses guerriers illustrés par le sang de décis et par les funérailles de tant de Français massacrés. Un seul jour d'atteindre à attendre renommé et ce beau jour lui ira bientôt. C'est quand tu conduiras jourdant à notre armée et la faillette à l'échafaud. Invoquent leur galère ornament des étoiles les Suisses de Colau d'herbois. C'est héros que j'a dit sur les bancs des galères assitent un arrêt outrageant et qui n'ont dégorgé que très peu de nos frères et volé que très peu d'argent. Among the verses published after Chigny's death, the most striking are those that have to deal with the period of the reign of terror. Of these, a few lines will be quoted. The poet raised his voice while all Paris howled against Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Marat. Non, non, je ne veux point honoré en silence, toi qui crue par ta mort ressuscité la France, et dévoie tes jours à punir des forfaits. Le glave arme à ton bras, fille grande et sublime, pour faire honte au Dieu pour réparer leurs crimes quand d'un homme à ce monstre il donnera les traits. Mais la France à la hache abandonne ta tête. C'est un monstre égorgé qu'on prépare une fête. Parmi ses compoignants, tous dignes de son sort, oh, quel noble dédain fit sourire ta bouche quand un brigand, vangeur de ses brigands farouches, crue de faire pallir au menace de mort. C'est lui qui du pallir, et tes juges sinistres, et notre affreux Sénat, et ses affreux ministres, quand, à leur tribunal, sans crainte et sans appui, ta douceur, ton langage est simple et magnanim, leur appris qu'en effet, tout puissant qu'est le crime, qui renonce à la vie, et plus puissant que lui. Carrier and the atrocities at Nantes gave him an even stronger text. Vain barque faute-issue de planches fugitives s'entrouveront au milieu des eaux, ont-elles, par millier, dans les gouffres de loire, vomi des Français enchaînés, au proconsul carrier implacable après boire, pour son passe-temps amené, et ses portes plumées, ses commis de carnage, ses noirs accusateurs fouquillés, ses dumas, ses jurés, horribles aréopages de voleurs et de meurtriers, les aiges poursuivies jusqu'en leur bacanal, lorsque les yeux encore ardents, à tabler, le bordeaux de chaleur brutale, allumant leurs fronts impudents, ivres et bégoyants lacrapules et les crimes, ils rappellent avec déri, leurs meurtres d'aujourd'hui, leurs futurs victimes, et parmi les chansons, l'écrit, trouvent de ça, de là, sous leur main, sous leur bouche, de femmes invénales sains, des pouilles du vaincu, transfuge de sa couche, pour la couche de l'assassin. The writer of such lines could not hope to escape the proscriptions of the terror, and it was in prison awaiting his turn for the guillotine that his last fragments were written. There a young girl, a fellow prisoner, became the heroine of perhaps his most beautiful lines. In the morning I want to see the fish, and like the sun of 16 years in 16 years, I want to achieve my year, shining on my rod, and the honor of the garden. I have not yet seen the fire of the morning, I want to achieve my day. Thus, sad and captive, I have to read to myself, awake, listening to his complaints, this voice of his desire of a young captive, and what we do of my languid days at the sweet law of the green I used to fold the accents of his pitiful and naive mouth. One last quotation gives a picture of the prison of Saint Lazar when he went to the scaffold a few days after penning these lines. Here itself we know that death makes us suffer, where the ash draws us to the spring, beautiful chicken is written, Mary, without dupes, cacotage, intrigue of salt, we sing, we play, we raise dupes, we sing and make good words. One thumb and makes good say on the roofs, on the windows a ball all inflated in front, like without the discourses of 700 lbs in barracks and the most in front. The other court, the other jump, ebrae, drink, laugh, politicoeur et raisonneur et sur les gonds de fer soudain les portes crient des juges tigres nos seigneurs, le pourvoyeur paraît quel sera la proie que la hache appelle aujourd'hui? François de Neuf-Château, who became a director after the revolution of Fructidor and the younger Chignet were perhaps the best dramatists of the epoque. The former hardly deserves extended notice. Chignet's Charles Neuf played at the outbreak of the revolution had a great success as a political play and he followed it up with several others that served as pegs on which excited audiences might hang their political heads. Voltaire's Brutus, unplayable half a century before was all the vogue now and the dramatist had only to air democratic sentiments to please his audience. The thing went far and art suffered in the process, plot and dialogue took on the feverish colours of the revolution. Audiences hurled la Carmaniol or the Saïra before the curtain went up and when the play began, reveled in highly spiced political dramatics in which the Pope soon became the most reviled and popular villains. The Pope drunk, the Pope kicked in the stomach by his brutal confederate George III, the Pope making love to Madame de Polignac, the Pope surrounded by the tyrants of Europe, swallowed up by the flame belching volcano of an enchanted island, such were the tidbits that brought moisture to the palates of the connoisseurs of the drama in Paris. The efforts of Joseph Chignier to get his tragedy Tim Mouliens played at a moment when he was not in good repute with the Committee of Public Safety may serve as an example of many similar incidents. The words We Did Laws, Not Blood in his Charles Neuf had displeased Robespierre and Pio Varin and the Jacobins were resolved to prevent any new production. He read the manuscript of his Tim Mouliens, however, with great success to the Company of the Théâtre de la République. Villat may be left to continue the tale. Le lendemois je me trouve placé dans la société des Jacobins près d'avis des Michauds. Celui-ci disait à l'autre ah, la belle tragédique celle de Tim Mouliens, c'est un chef d'œuvre. Demande à Villat. Je ne puis me défendre de rendre une justice éclatante au génie de l'auteur. Le peintre, David, nous répond. Chignier, une belle tragédie, c'est impossible. Son âme a-t-elle jamais pu sentir la liberté pour la bienvendre? Non, je n'y crois pas. À quelques jours de là, me trouvant avec Barère et Bio Varin, on parle de Tim Mouliens. Elle ne vaut rien. Elle n'aura pas l'honneur de la représentation. Qu'entend-il par ce verre contre-révolutionnaire n'étant jamais tirant qu'avec un diadem? Barère, qui avait mêlé ses applaudissements à la lecture de la pièce mais auquel j'avais déjà rapporté les propos de David, ajoute oui, il n'y a pas de génie révolutionnaire, elle manque dans le plan. Bio, à Barère, ne souffrant pas qu'elle soit jouée. Barère, donnant lui le plaisir de quelques répétitions. Several rehearsals were accordingly permitted to take place. Two performances followed. At the third, there came a collapse. On laisse aller la tragédie jusqu'à la scène où Aristocle va pourplacer le bandeau royal sur la tête de Timophane, sous prétexte que le peuple de Corinth concentre son indignation. A man in the pits there upon rose and called out. Si le peuple eu besoin d'être provoqué pour s'élever contre la tyrannie, c'est une injure faite au peuple français que de lui offrir cet exemple de faiblesse et d'inepsie à bas la toile. The cry was taken up. A riot, a scene followed. And presently, on pousse l'horreur jusqu'au point de forcer Chignet à brûler lui-même sur le théâtre le fruit d'un mois de travaux et de veille. Art, like literature, languished during the revolution or meritoriously touched herself up with the fashionable rouge. Before and after are great periods, but for the moment art seems to have lost its cunning. The artist, like David, turns politician. Fragonar and Greuse both survive to see the empire but lost their vogue. The touch of Greuse could hardly be created in the age of Danton. The luscious sweetness of Fragonar was in like case. Both of these great artists were ruined by the revolution and died in poverty. Instead of these graceful masters of the false pastoral taste of the decaying century, a robust group of military painters arises Vernay, Charlet, Giricot and Leiter Raffae, most brutal, but most candid portrayer of the armies of the Republic. The false political style inherited from the period of Louis XVI is metamorphosed by David and Greux, becomes inflated, declamatory, vapid and wooden. David's immense picture, the most insistent canvas now hanging in the Louvre, representing the three Horatii, swearing to Rome that they would conquer or die, gives the note of the period. False sentiment, mock heroics, glittering formula, lay figure attitude, all are there. A few artists succeeded in carrying the elegance of the 18th century through the storm into the period beyond, notably Prudon, who has been called the water of the revolution. His portraits of the women of the Bonaparte family, Josephine, Ortens, Pauline, have all the grace and fascination of the earlier age merge with it the abandon of the directoire period, and touch the whole with the romanticism and individualism of the coming century. In terrible contrast with these lovely and alluring women of the new age is the grim figure caught in a few masterly strokes by David, as Marie-Antoinette, proud and unbending as ever, but shorn of all the glory of Versailles, her face haggard, her hair gray, dishevelled, mutilated by scissors, passed by on the prisoner's cart on her way to the guillotine. It is the guillotine in art as in politics, the most potent of solvents that stands between Trianon and the romantics.