forced back from one of their positions, with a loss of fifteen pieces of cannon; and on the 6th of June, they were driven from a second intrenchment, and abandoned all their artillery and ammunition. They, however, were not yet discouraged: but, after reorganizing their forces, themselves assumed the offensive, and, on the 29th of August, made a spirited attack on the Spanish posts fortified within the territory of France: but they were repulsed with such loss that they could not renew the strife during the remainder of the campaign.

The success of the army on the eastern side of the frontier was more varied. The Spaniards, under Don Ricardos, invaded Roussillon in the middle of April, and, on the 21st, they made a general attack on the French camp, which ended in the defeat of the Republicans. Soon after, the forts of Bellegrade and Villa Franca were taken; and Ricardos, pursuing his advantage, attacked a large body of French at Millas, who were totally defeated and lost fifteen pieces of cannon. But the French, by great exertions, assembled a reënforcement of fresh troops in this quarter, and fell upon a corps of six thousand Spaniards under Don Juan Comten. The Spaniards made a brave defence, but they were overpowered by numbers, and, at length, lost one thousand men killed, fifteen hundred prisoners, and all their artillery and camp equipage. Elated by this victory, the French, under the command of Dagobert, resolved to attack the entire Spanish army at Truellas. This battle took place on the 22nd of September, and it ended in the total defeat of the French, with a loss of four thousand men and ten pieces of artillery. After this disaster, Dagobert was displaced, and Davoust, with fifteen thousand fresh troops, appointed to the command. Several trifling actions ensued, without any decisive advantage on either side, until the 7th of December, when Ricardos attacked the French lines and totally defeated the Republican army, capturing forty-six pieces of cannon and twenty-five hundred prisoners. He followed up this victory with great promptness, attacked and took the town of Port Vendre with all its artillery, and soon after compelled Coillure to surrender, with more than eighty pieces of cannon; while the Marquis Amarillas overthrew the right of the French forces, and so terrified those inexperienced troops by his assault, that whole battalions disbanded themselves, and fled in confusion under the guns of Perpignan.

The campaign in the districts of the maritime Alps was feebly conducted on both sides; it consisted of a few trifling actions, and resulted in no event of importance. But while the operations of the allies, in this quarter, were thus inefficient, the efforts of the French to shake off the yoke of the Convention, were of a more decided character. Marseilles, Toulon and Lyons, openly espoused the Girondist cause; and, in the month of July, two of the Jacobin leaders were put to death. From that moment, the inhabitants of these towns, knowing that they were doomed to Jacobin vengeance, began to cast cannon, raise intrenchments, and make every preparation for a vigorous defence. Marseilles was the first to suffer for this imprudence. The troops of the Convention reached it before the inhabitants were fully prepared for resistance, defeated the insurrection, and established the guillotine in bloody sovereignty. The next attack of the Jacobins was at Lyons, where the revolt was better organized and the insurrectionists better prepared for defence. During the whole of August and part of September, the besiegers made but little

progress, and the Convention, alarmed at the protracted resistance of the town, directed immediate preparations on a larger scale for its reduction. A hundred pieces of cannon, drawn from the arsenals of Besançon and Grenoble, were mounted on the besieging batteries; veteran troops were dispatched thither from the frontiers of Piedmont, and on the 24th of September a terrible bombardment and cannonade with red hot shot was commenced, which continued without intermission for a whole week. The result of this attack was terrible to the inhabitants of the city: night and day the flaming tempest fell on them, burning their houses, destroying their magazines, and scattering death among them in a thousand forms. Still, their courage faltered not, nor did the garrison slacken in their defence. Soon, famine was added to their sufferings; and, in the mean time, the Convention, exasperated at their obstinacy, displaced Kellerman, who had hitherto conducted the siege, increased the attacking army to sixty thousand, and placing General Coppet at their head, ordered him to reduce Lyons instantly by fire and sword. These measures finally prevailed. The garrison and citizens had maintained their position, until their provisions of every sort were entirely exhausted and a large portion of the town was laid in ashes by the bombs and hot shot of the enemy. Surrender, therefore, became inevitable; but even in this extremity, the brave Precy, who had so nobly directed the defence, refused to submit. He resolved to force his way at the head of a chosen band, through the enemy's lines, and seek in foreign climes that freedom that had departed from France. On the night of the 9th of October, the heroic column, consisting of two thousand men, with their wives and children, set forth on this perilous march. As they proceeded, they found themselves. enveloped on every side by cavalry, infantry and artillery, and they were indiscriminately massacred; of the whole number scarcely fifty forced their way with Precy into the Swiss territories.

On the following day, the Republicans took possession of the city, and Couthon, entering at the head of the authorities of the Convention, reinstated the Jacobin municipality in full force, and commissioned them to seek out and denounce "the guilty." He wrote to Paris that the inhabitants consisted of three classes: first, the guilty rich; second, the selfish rich; third, the ignorant workmen, incapable of any wickedness. "The first," he said, "should be guillotined and their houses destroyed; the fortunes of the second should be confiscated; the third should be removed, and their places supplied by a Republican colony." These directions were carried out with a degree of atrocity unsurpassed by any of the horrors of that horrible period. More than six thousand persons, of both sexes and all ages, perished by the hands of the executioners; twelve thousand were driven into exile; and the number of palaces and houses pulled down and demolished by order of the municipality may be estimated from the fact, that their destruction occupied six months of organized labor, and was effected at an expense to the government of more than seventeen millions of francs.

Toulon was the next object of Republican revenge. That rising seaport possessed a population of twenty-five thousand souls, and was warmly opposed to the Revolution from its commencement. In their present emergency, the inhabitants saw no alternative but to open their harbor to the English fleet which was cruising in the vicinity, and proclaim Louis XVII. king. This was done accordingly, and the English squadron

entered the harbor. Soon after, a Spanish fleet arrived bringing a considerable body of land-troops, and the allied forces, thirteen thousand strong, took possession of all the forts in the city. A large portion of the French fleet lay at this time in the harbor, and their sailors, with the exception of the crews of seven ships of the line who proved refractory, joined the inhabitants in their defence.

On the land side, Toulon is backed by a ridge of lofty hills, on which strong fortifications had long been erected and the artillery of which commanded the greater part of the city and harbor. The mountain of Faron and the Hauteur de Grasse are the principal points of this rocky range, and on their occupation depends, in a great measure, the maintenance of the place. They were now taken possession of by the allied troops. Every exertion was made by the allies and inhabitants to strengthen the defences of the town itself, and particularly to render impregnable the Fort Eguillette, placed at the extremity of the promontory which shuts in the lesser harbor, and was called by the English, Little Gibraltar: yet the regular force was too small and composed of too many heterogeneous materials, to warrant any well-grounded hope of a permanent resistance. The Republican forces soon arrived, to the number of forty thousand men; many of them veterans, all well disciplined, and provided with everything necessary for prosecuting the siege. Dugommier, by order of the Convention, took command of the Republican army, and Lord Mulgrave assumed the direction of the garrison of Toulon.

The first attack of the Republicans was on the hill forts that commanded the harbor, disguised by a false attack against Cape Brun. The breaching batteries were placed in charge of a young officer of artillery, then chief of battalion, who was destined to outstrip all his predecessors in European history-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. Under his superintendence, the works of the forts soon began to be seriously damaged'; and to interrupt his fire, a sally from the garrison was resolved on. This attempt was made on the 30th of November, by three thousand men, who moved against the heights of Arennes, whence this annoyance proceeded; while another column of the allies, of nearly the same strength, attacked the batteries at the gorge of Ollioulles. Both attacks were at first successful. Ollioulles was carried and the guns on the point of being taken, when Dugommier rallied his troops, led them back, and repulsed the assailants. The sally on the side of Arennes was equally fortunate; all the guns of the battery were carried and spiked; but the impetuosity of the allies having led them too far in pursuit of the enemy, they were in turn met by fresh troops headed by Napoleon, and driven back to the city with considerable loss. The whole force of the Republicans was next directed against the English redoubt, styled Little Gibraltar. After that fort had been battered at intervals for several days, the fire of the besiegers was maintained through the whole of the 16th of December, and at two o'clock on the morning of the 17th, Dugommier led his troops to the assault. They were received with a tremendous fire of grape and musketry, which soon filled the ditches with dead and wounded; the column was driven back, and Dugommier despaired of success; but fresh troops continually advanced and at length overpowered the Spanish soldiers, to whom a part of the line was intrusted, and gained the flank of the British detachment, nearly three hundred of whom fell while defending their part of the intrenchments. The possession of this fort, by the enemy, rendered the

farther maintenance of the exterior defences impracticable; and in the night, the whole of the allied troops were withdrawn from the promontory to the city. The attack on this fort was planned and urged by Napoleon, who well knew that it commanded the inner harbor, and that its possession by the besiegers would render the situation of the fleet extremely perilous, and in all probability lead to the evacuation of the town.

While this important success was gained on the side of Fort Eguillette, the Republicans were not less fortunate on the other extremity of the line. A little before daybreak, and shortly after the firing had ceased on the promontory, a general attack was made on the whole range of posts which crowned the mountain of Faron. On the eastern side of the range, the Republicans were repulsed; but on the north, where the mountain is nearly eighteen hundred feet in height, steep, rocky, and supposed to be inaccessible, they made good their ascent; so that when the allies were congratulating themselves on the defeat of what they deemed the main attack, they beheld the heights above them crowded with glittering battalions, and the tricolor-flag waving from the loftiest summit of the mountain. This conquest, projected by Napoleon, was decisive of the fate of Toulon: for though the town was as yet uninjured, the harbor was no longer tenable. The evacuation was therefore resolved on, and information conveyed to the principal inhabitants, that the means of retreat would be afforded them on board the British squadron; and in the mean time, the ships were moved to the outer-roads, beyond the reach of the enemy's fire.

The distress of the inhabitants, who were now forced to choose between exile and the guillotine, was extreme: nor can any words do justice to the scene that ensued, when the last columns of the allied troops commenced their embarkation. Cries, screams and lamentations were heard in every quarter; the sad remnant of those who had favored the Royal cause and had not yet secured the means of escape, came flying to the beach, and with tears and prayers invoked the aid of their British friends. Mothers, clasping their babes to their bosoms, helpless children and decrepit old men, might be seen stretching their hands toward the harbor, shuddering at every sound behind them, and even rushing into the waves to escape the less merciful death that awaited them from their countrySir Sidney Smith, with a degree of humanity worthy of his high character, suspended his retreat until not one individual who claimed his assistance, remained on the strand: the total number borne away was fourteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven.

men.

Before leaving the coast, the allies effected in part the destruction of the French fleet. Fifteen ships of the line, eight frigates and eleven corvettes were burned, three ships of the line and three frigates were brought away uninjured and taken into the English service, and twelve ships of the line and eleven frigates, owing to the lukewarmness or timidity of the Spanish officers, escaped destruction, and remained in the hands of the Republicans.

The storm which now burst on the heads of the remaining inhabitants of Toulon, was a legitimate counterpart of what was endured at Lyons. Several thousand citizens, men, women and children, perished within a few weeks by the sword or the guillotine, and twelve thousand laborers were hired from the surrounding departments to demolish the buildings of the city.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAMPAIGN OF 1794.

WHILE the career of the French armies was thus marked by alternations of victory and defeat, a different fortune awaited her naval armaments. Power at sea, unlike conquest on land, cannot spring from mere suffering, or from the energy of destitute warriors with arms in their hands; nor are triumphs to be achieved on the ocean by merely forcing column after column of conscripts on board ships of war.

At the commencement of the contest, the French navy consisted of seventy-five ships of the line and seventy frigates; but the officers, drawn chiefly from the aristocratic classes, had, for the most part, emigrated on the breaking out of the Revolution, and those who supplied their places were deficient both in naval education and experience. On the other hand, England had one hundred and twenty-nine ships of the line and more than a hundred frigates; ninety of each class were immediately put in commission, and seamen of the best description, to the number of eighty. five thousand, were drawn from the inexhaustible merchant-service. Unable to face the English in large squadrons, the French navy remained for a time in total inactivity; but the French merchants, not having any pacific means of employing their capital, fitted out an immense number of privateers which proved extremely injurious to British commerce. Meanwhile, the ascendency of the navy of Great Britain produced its wonted effects on the colonial possessions of her enemies. Soon after the commencement of hostilities, Tobago was taken by a British fleet, and in the beginning of March, 1794, an expedition was sent against Martinique, which island surrendered on the 23rd of that month. Soon after, the principal forts in St. Domingo were wrested from the Republicans by the English forces, while the wretched planters, a prey to the commotion excited by Brissot and the friends of negro emancipation at the commencement of the Revolution, were totally ruined. St. Lucia and Guadaloupe were next subdued, and thus in little more than a month the French were despoiled of their West India possessions, with hardly any loss to the conquerors.

In the Mediterranean, also, the power of the British navy was speedily felt. Corsica was selected as the point of attack. Three thousand marines and soldiers were landed, and they nearly effected the subjugation of the island by capturing the fortress of Bastia, which capitulated at the end of May and on the 1st of August, Calvi, the only remaining stronghold, surrendered to the British arms. The crown of Corsica was then offered by Paoli and the Royalist party to the King of England, who accepted it.

But a more important achievement was at hand. The French government, by great exertions, had equipped for service twenty-six ships of the line at Brest, in order to secure the arrival of a large fleet laden with provisions from America, and on the 20th of May, the fleet put to sea, under Admiral Joyeuse. On the 28th, Lord Howe hove in sight with the Channel-fleet of England, consisting also of six-and-twenty ships of the