of the existing government, and dread of the return of the reign of terror began to take a general hold of the public mind..

The anniversary of the fall of the reign of terror, and the punishment of Robespierre, had taken place during this struggle. The jacobins hung their tribune with black, significative of their mourning for the events of that day, while the people, with the constituted authorities, repaired to the Champ de Mars, to celebrate it as a day of thanksgiving and festival. Sieyes was then president of the directory; it was usual for presidents to deliver discourses on those public days analogous to the cause of the meeting. The circumstances of the times gave Sieyes a favourable opportunity not only of expressing his personal feelings respecting the jacobins, but, in his official capacity, of conveying to the whole republic the abhorrence in which the government held them. The picture which he drew of the crimes and tyranny of the actors in those memorable and dreadful scenes was pointed and eloquent, and the public assurances given by the government diminished considerably the inquietudes of the people. The council of elders remained also faithful to its alliance in the rejection of a project sent up by the council of five hundred, granting an amnesty in favour of Barrere, who had figured during the reign of terror as the valet of Robespierre, and who had been condemned to banishment for his crimes. This noted personage, though defended by Garrat, who had also had his share in the iniquitous transactions of those times, was once more consigned to the execration of posterity, by the recapitulation of what are called his Anacreontics: but the most impor1799.

tant point gained by the discussion, was the firm resolution shown by the council of elders, to oppose the council of five hundred in every thing which bore relation to the admission of the principles or partisans of that reprobated system.

The jacobins imagined themselves too firmly seated to fear any thing from attacks of enemies so feeble, and the patience of the executive power served only to embolden them. But a longer forbearance on the part of government would have been unpardonable weakness; and as matter for complaint was easy to collect, the directory transmitted, in answer to a message from the council of elders, denouncing the society of jacobins, a report of the minister of police, in which the societies of Paris and the departments were represented as directed by foreign agents, alienating the public mind. by calumnious denunciations, and openly violating the constitution. The report of the minister received a more ample developement in the speech delivered by Sieyes in the Champ de Mars, on the anniversary of the tenth of August, when, in a strain of indignant eloquence,. he held up the members of those societies as "traitors subsidised by the common enemy, or slaves only to their passions, anxious either for the speedy return of royalty, or preferring rather the return of that terror so justly abhorred by the French." The jacobins and the government were now in open hostilities; the declaration of Sieyes, and the report of the minister of the police, furnished them with new matter for discussion; the necessity of saving the country, incapable of saving itself, and of putting themselves in a state of defence, became the order of the day, and proof was

about to be alleged that the chief conspirators against the republic were the members who composed the executive power. Further he sitation on the part of government was hardly to be expected. The directory passed a decree which shut up the society. The seals were placed on its papers and doors, the military force put an end to its further meetings, and domiciliary visits for a month were ordered to take place, to clear Paris of the swarms of royalists and jacobins that had poured in from the departments to share in the new revolution that was expected to take place in consequence of the patriotic energies of the latter party.

While these events were passing at Paris, the armies, though far from being in a state of inaction, had taken time to recruit their forces, so considerably diminished in the four first months of the campaign. Massena, posted on Mount Albis, behind the Limmat, continued to prevent the approach of the archduke beyond Zurich; while Moreau, keeping firm the chains of the Apennines, and covering Genoa, hindered Suwarrow from executing his threatened invasion of France. The conquest of Italy, which the court of Vienna was so anxious to terminate, and of which it did not think itself assured till it was completely evacuated by the French, led the archduke to weaken his forces on the side of Switzerland, where the most important blow for the success of the general plan of the allies might have been struck. Perhaps, if such means had been given or preserved to the archduke as to force the evacuation of Switzerland, and if Piedmont had not been invaded till the summits of the Alps had been occupied by sufficient forces and the most

dangerous inlets towards the heart of Italy had been closed, the private views of the Austrian cabinet might have been equally attained, the frontiers of the Tyrol and of the ancient state of Venice secured, and the victories of Suwarrow might have further advanced the execution of the general plan of the allies.

The destination of the new auxiliary army of the Russians was not mistaken by the French government, which, while it ordered its generals in Italy to make the last efforts to maintain themselves as long as possible in the Ligurian republic, were sending into Switzerland, towards the centre of the line of defence, the best part of the reserve of the interior, together with the new levies, and forming an army on the Rhine to oppose that which the archduke was about to assemble, in order to penetrate, through Switzerland, into those departments on the east of France which formerly composed part of the provinces of Dauphiny, Provence, and Franche-Comté. The plan of the coalition was thus at once developed; but as the forces necessary to insure its execution could not reach the points where they were destined to act till the middle of August, the French had likewise time to recruit their armies.

As the French plan, at the opening of the campaign, was that of a general attack on the whole line before Suwarrow had joined the Austrian army, and before the archduke had assembled his forces, so the French government had been anxious this time to resume the offensive at once, to prevent the junction of the reinforcements expected by the allies on the Rhine and in Italy. This was a wise combination, since the slow pro

gress

gress of the second auxiliary Russian army, comprehending the corps of the prince of Condé, and also the siege of Mantua, had at that moment made a difference in the imperial armies of abont 70,000 men in favour of the French; whilst the reserve of the interior and the new battalions of conscripts were about to furnish nearly the same number of recruits to the armies of the republic. Supposing, therefore, that, for some days, the army of general Kray had been detained before Mantua, and that the offensive movement was executed before the second Russian army was ready to enter the field, the French had, on the Upper Rhine, the advantage of number, and might have balanced in Italy, within 10,000 men, if not all the forces of general Suwarrow, at least those which he had with him, and which were employed in covering the sieges of Tortona and Coni.

A sketch of the movements executed nearly at the same period by the four French armies, on the four principal and leading points on which the attention of the French government was fixed, will elucidate the important acts which marked the opening, as it were, of this second campaign. These four points were the Ligurian republic, the occupation of which, till the close of the campaign, could alone secure the southern provinces of France from the invasion meditated by Suwarrow; the frontiers of Mount Blanc, and the Lower Alps, on which points the allies had only armies of observation, who occupied the posts at the entrance of the Vallais, but were not strong enough to carry those on the heights, and keep them; in Switzerland, the entire evacuation of which would have opened a way into the heart of

France, but of which the defence. could not be secure, till the imperialists had been dislodged from the highest summits of the Great Alps, and the French had again possession of those passages and communications with Italy, to the season when the snows came to shut out both parties from those desert rocks, those abysses covered with blood, and into which so many brave men were about to precipitate themselves, to dispute and decide the advantage of the general position, and, perhaps with the fate of Switzerland, that of France; and lastly, the Lower Rhine, where the imperialists had reinforced by degrees their army of observation, and to which a Russian corps and the contingents of the empire were to be added.

To order general Joubert, who had now been promoted to the command of the army of Italy, to descend the Apennines; to give battle to Suwarrow, and favour this movement by that of different corps of the army of the Alps, under Championet; to engage Massena, in a general action, to drive from the little cantons, and from St. Gothard, the left of the Austrian army, enfeebled by its being too extended, since the detachment of the corps of Bellegarde, Landohn, and Haddick, to the army of Suwarrow; to operate on the right side of the Lower Rhine, as yet empty of troops, and covered with rich harvests, reserved for the allies, a powerful diversion, which should force the archduke, if not to come to the aid of general Stzarry, at least to lead him to expect no assistance from Suabia, menaced at the moment in which he should be vigorously attacked ;such, from the Lower Rhine to the Mediterranean, was the plan of 2 A 2 attack

attack indicated and executed by the French, but of which the results were so different.

It was on the frontier of Switzerland, as has already been observed, that France was most endangered, and where the government censequently had sent most reinforcements, which, reaching the main army successively, by different roads, were directed at the same time on the centre and wings of Massena's army, whilst the archduke could receive the Russian divisions only by Schaffhausen, on the rear of his right, and altogether at a fixed and known period. This aug mentation of forces was to be very considerable, and composed of good troops, particularly of excellent infantry; but it was their first essay in a mountain war, in which they were immediately to be employed; and consequently, however excellent in other respects, were not equal to those corps of Austrian troops mixed with Mountaineers, Tyrolians, and Swiss, who had defended the Voralberg, retaken the Grisons and St. Gothard, and the greater part of the little cantons.

Although Massena had for some time past received orders from the new directory to resume immediately the offensive, he had resisted that imprudent anxiety so far as to incur its displeasure, and even receive orders to quit the command of his army. The report indeed was accredited at Paris that he was in intelligence with the archduke, and had betrayed the confidence of his country. Massena, on the contrary, calculating the time in which the Russian troops could arrive with the greatest possible diligence, preferred ripening his plan, and, by delay, striking a surer blow, since every day augmented his numerical force, which the archduke was un

able to hinder, or procure for himself the same advantages. It appears also that the want of resources, and the difficulty of subsistence in a country which had been eaten up by so long an abode of two great armies, and was so little productive, had retarded his preparations, and even disgusted a part of his army.

It was about the 17th or 18th of August that the first columns of the Russian army of 26,000 men, under the orders of general Rimsi Korsakow, were to reach Schaffhausen; it was only the 11th that Massena began his operations; he had reinforced his right wing, commanded by general Lecourbe, as much as he was able, without too greatly weakening his centre against Zurich, and his left, which was flanked by the Rhine. As he proposed to detach entirely this right wing from the centre, and to make its marches, manoeuvres, and attacks, in the whole mass of the Great Alps, from the Valais to the Lake of Zurich, totally independent, he endeavoured so to fix on the opposite side the attention of the archduke, as to conceal from him, by vigorous attacks on the centre of his position, the reinforcements which he had sent to general Lecourbe, and hinder him from making the same manœuvre by his left, and supporting the generals Jellachich and Simpschen. On the Reuss, and in the space between St. Gothard and the Lake of Zurich, those generals occupied only the principal points of a chain of positions, which were too extended; these different corps, amounting on the whole to no more than 20,000 men, could neither form sufficient reserves to stop the columns which should attempt to cut their communications, nor even to maintain themselves, notwithstanding the advantages of ground,

in insulated posts, or in camps which might be flanked or taken in the rear by superior forces.

Massena began the attack with his left (12th of August) in the neighbourhood of Baden, by skirmishes between the advanced posts: the next morning, at day-break, covered by a thick fog, he sent a column across the Limmat, which carried at first one of the mainguards, penetrated into the camp of the cavalry, where a regiment of dragoons, and a few squadrons of hussars, had to sustain a very vigorous shock, and were roughly treated. This surprise spread alarm at Zurich, the French had pushed their column within a very short distance of the city, across which the archduke dispatched fresh troops; they had also penetrated as far as the rear of some points of the line when attacked in their turn by superior forces, and taken in flank by two batteries, they were constrained to act on the defensive; much blood was shed, and the carnage was the greater, as the Swiss of both parties met in the combat, and charged each other with that desperate fury which marks the violence of parties in civil contentions. As victory on this point was but a secondary object, Massena withdrew his columns to the left of the Limmat, and the next day (15th of August) the centre of each army took its former position.

During this attack, all the columns of the right, the whole force of which, on either side the Lake of Lucerne, comprehending the divivsion of general Thureau in the Vallais, was about 30,000 men, moved all at the same time, and directed their march on the principal posts of the imperialists. The French division, commanded by

general Chabran, passed the Sihl, surprised and drove back the Austrian posts on the western side of the Lake of Zurich, climbed the heights of Richterswyl, Etzel, and Schindelezzi, and turned and attacked an Austrian corps which occupied the strong position between Lechen and Einsidlen. This intermediary corps between the centre of the army and the left wing, which, occupying the course of the Reufs, covered the cantons of Schwitz and Uri, was almost entirely destroyed, taken, or dispersed. General Jellachich, who commanded, was forced to abandon his posts on the Lake of Zurich, and, unable to maintain that of Rapperschywl, retreated upon the cen tre of the army, leaving the canton of Glaris exposed. The French, pushing their advanced guard within sight of Pfefficon, threatened to turn the position of Zurich. This. first success cut off the communication of the rest of the left wing of the archduke with the centre of his army, and favoured the movements and the attacks of general Lecourbe upon Schwitz, and on the whole course of the Reufs, from Altorf to the top of St. Gothard. The display of his front of attacks formed a line of about fifty or sixty miles.

In order to have an accurate judgment of this brilliant and singular expedition of general Lecourbe on the Reufs, we should take a momentary survey of the whole of the High Alps, and observe the constant progress of nature in the formation of these masses. The waters quitting the upper parts, where they are suspended as it were in reservoirs, and following the laws of gravitation, produce every where, notwithstanding their inexhaustible variety, similar effects, and, ac2 A 3

cording