from the armies of almost every power in hostility with France. His Lordship took possession of it in the name of the French King, in 1793, proclaiming at the same time the constitution accepted by Louis in the Champ de Mars in 1790. The elements of discontent existed in an extraordinary degree in the south of France. The possession by an enemy, of the first sea-port of the republic, and that enemy proclaiming its adherence to a form of government which had still many supporters among the people, was a disgrace and a calamity which taxed to the uttermost the terrible energies of the Convention. A large army was raised, armed, and equipped with incredible rapidity, and furnished with a tremendous artillery.

The town and harbour of Toulon are commanded and almost environed by a chain of lofty and precipitous hills. The possession of these hills, and of the batteries raised upon them, was an object of primary importance to both armies. Desperate efforts were accordingly made for their acquisition or retention by each, with various and alternate fortune; but the French gained ground upon the besieged. In this situation the appointment of a competent officer for the scientific direction of the artillery of the besiegers, engaged the anxious attention of the conventional commissioners, Barras and Freron, and their choice fell upon Buonaparte, who was then serving as an artillery officer. On entering his new command, he perceived the importance of occupying a strong position called Malbusquet, which commanded the tower and arsenal. On this height he constructed a battery of heavy cannon, and commenced a tremendous bombardment. The allied forces made a sally to recover the post. They succeeded in their original design; but pursuing the enemy with precipitate courage, too far, were overpowered by the French, and compelled to retreat with great loss; as well as to resign Malbusquet. From this period the assaults of the besiegers became more terrible, the lines of the besieged growing every day more contracted. Throughout the operations of this protracted siege, the courage, promptitude, and genius of Napoleon, drew

from his general, Dugomier, who afterwards commanded a French army in Spain, a public and highly flattering acknowledgment. It is stated that, in the midst of the engagement, Barras found fault with the direction of a gun which had been pointed under the order of Buonaparte: the young gentleman requested he would attend to his duty as a Naval Commissioner; "I will do my duty," said he, "according to my own judgment, and be answerable for the consequences with `my head." Neither friend nor foe could induce him to forego any purpose upon which he had previously formed a resolution.

The results of the siege are well known. On 20th December, 1793, the Allies finally evacuated the town, burning the arsenal, and the ships in the harbour. On this, as well as on too many other occasions, the victories of the French were dishonoured by unwarrantable cruelty and bloodshed; and it is stated upon respectable authority, that Buonaparte was an instrument in the hands of greater criminals, in putting to death, in cold blood, a number of unfortunate royalists who were found, after the departure of the Allies, in the town. But this was only one of the many gross excesses indulged in by the revolutionary powers when victory attended their arms. The recovery of Toulon, the capture of Lyons, the submission of Marseilles, the signal defeat of the Duke of York by Houchard before Dunkirk, and the raising the siege of Maubeuge by Jourdan, placed the Convention in comparative security, and enabled the Committee of Public Safety, that remarkable combination of profligate guilt and splendid talent, to avail themselves of the immense military resources which the Convention (by the famous decree proposed to Barrere, of arming and employing the whole male population of France in defence of the country,) placed at their disposal. The campaign of the years 1794 and 1799, were accordingly eminently successful. Pichegreu on the side of maritime Flanders, and Jourdan on that of the Sombre and Meuse, after many sanguinary battles, drove the allied forces from the Netherlands into Germany.

Holland was also conquered by this general, and the Rhine, from its confluence with the sea to Basle, was a line, which bounded on that frontier the acquisition of France.

:: Dugomier, on the other hand, signally defeated the enemy, and compelled the King of Spain to sue for peace. The insurrection in the western departments, prolonged chiefly by the infamous cruelties and flagitious conduct of the agents of the Convention; the capture of her colonies by England; the destruction of the Brest fleet by Lord Howe, (on the memorable 1st of June, 1794,) and the defeat of the French armies in Germany, in 1795, were the principal, and perhaps, only deductions from the achievements of France. Glorious, however, as was the outward appearance of the Republic at this juncture, "within were rottenness, wounds, and putrifying sores."

We have already noticed that the faction, called the Mountain, had triumphed over the Brissotines. The incarnate fiend Robespierre, Henriot, Collet d'Herbois, Barrere, and other chiefs of that party, ruled the Convention with a rod of iron. So blood-thirsty a set of miscreants had probably never before united themselves with such unyielding decision, in the pursuit of a particular object, as were to be found among this knot of ultra-republicans. At length Robespierre conceived the design of raising himself to the supreme authority. Blinded by his ambition, he did not perceive, or at least did not regard, the insurmountable difficulties which impeded the execution of his project. Possessing no one quality which could command the esteem, nor any endowments which could excite the admiration of the French; having no great and acknowledged public services to plead; unknown to, and therefore disregarded by, the armies; alternately the director and the tool of the ruffians of a jacobinical mob; he had acquired his influence only by a dexterous appeal to the passions and fears of the multitude. His colleagues in guilt were alarmed when they saw the heads of their associates falling in hecatombs under the guillotine. They first abandoned, and then accused him. The Convention, whose members hated Robes

pierre even more than they feared him, seized with alacrity the opportunity of combining their safety with their vengeance. After a brief but ineffectual struggle, this assassin perished, with his remaining supporters, on the scaffold; and with them soon after expired the reign of blood.

After a long dreary night of crime and horror, the first dawning streaks of a more auspicious day began to appear on the political horizon of France. The Convention, who, while they converted their country into one vast slaughter-house, had saved it by the firmness and sagacity of their measures from foreign subjugation, and civil war, appeared to resume the feelings and the sentiments of men. The exiled members of the Brissotine party were recalled; the prison doors were opened; the operations of the guillotine were suspended; religion, the only perfect source of morality, and the only consistent and infallible guide and protector of human virtue, raised her declining head; and France, from the reformation, however imperfect, of her governors, could once more urge some pretensions to be regarded as a civilized country.

The

In the short space of six years, this nation had tried, and tried in vain, the efficacy of the administration of a republic, thinly disguised under the veil of a monarchy, and then of an avowed republic. The 'first experiment utterly failed, as well, it must be acknowledged, from the intrigues of the cabinet of Louis, as from the absurd and tyrannical limitations imposed upon the necessary exercise of the royal authority. second experiment also failed, not only from the guilt and folly of the Convention, but from the moral impossibility of governing a corrupt, licentious, turbulent, and powerful nation, by a system adapted, generally speaking, only to small and virtuous countries, such as Switzerland; or the emancipated colonies of a free people, like the United States of America. A new constitution was therefore prepared and adopted, which divided the legislature into two chambers, and intrusted the executive administration to a Directory composed of five members; thus assimilating it in some degree to the British constitution.

We left our hero at the close of the year 1793, distinguished by the approbation of General Dugomier, and signalized by his zeal, bravery, and talents, at the siege of Toulon, where he obtained the rank of general. Soon after the capture of that city, he repaired to Nice, where he was arrested on the charge of being a terrorist, and of having been implicated in the sanguinary and atrocious scenes which followed the evacuation of Toulon. He was soon after released, but was deprived of his command in the artillery, although he was not dismissed the service. He was subsequently offered a command in the infantry, which he declined. While at Nice, his attention to his military studies was uniform and unremitting.

From this city Buonaparte repaired to Paris to prefer his complaint; but could only obtain the renewal of the offer of a command in the infantry. Disgusted with the conduct of his superiors, he then demanded his discharge, and permission to repair to Constantinople, both of which requests were refused him.

In 1794, he was entrusted with the command of the expedition against Ajaccio, his native town, which was wholly unsuccessful. The period which intervened between this event and his appointment to command the troops destined to protect the Convention, appears to have been one of the most forlorn epochs of his life. Destitute of money and powerful friends, he is said, about this time, privately to have visited England, and to have taken up his residence in the Adelphi. What his views were in this extraordinary measure, it is not easy to determine. But for the struggles of the Convention, the origin and progress of which we have now to record, Buonaparte might never again have emerged into the active walks of his profession. He might have been confounded with the innumerable crowds of whom history vouchsafes no record, had not his services been thus imperiously called into requisition.

It would lead us into too wide a field of discussion were we to enter into a review of the directorial constitution, framed by