After the system which the Fructidoreans establish in France, we may consider the system they impose abroad—always the same contrast, between the name and the thing, the same phrases covering the same misdeeds, and, under proclamations of liberty the institution of brigandage.—Undoubtedly, in any invaded province which thus passes from an old to a new despotism, fine words cleverly spoken produce at first the intended effect. But, in a few weeks or months, the ransomed, enlisted and forcibly "Frenchified" inhabitants, discover that the revolutionary right is much more oppressive, more harassing and more rapacious than divine right.

It is the right of the strongest. The reigning Jacobins know no other, abroad as well as at home, and, in the use they make of it, they are not restrained like ordinary statesmen, by a thorough comprehension of the interests of the State, by experience and tradition, by far-reaching plans, by an estimate of present and future strength. Being a sect, they subordinate France to their dogmas, and, with the narrow views, pride and arrogance of the sectary, they profess the same intolerance, the same need of domination and his instincts for propagandas and invasion.—This belligerent and tyrannical spirit they had already displayed under the Legislative Assembly, and they are intoxicated with it under the Convention. After Thermidor,51108 and after VendÉmiaire, they remained the same; they became rigid against "the faction of old boundaries," and against any moderate policy; at first, against the pacific minority, then against the pacific majority, against the entreaties of all France, against their own military director, "the organizer of victory " Carnot, who, as a good Frenchman, is not desirous of gratuitously increasing the embarrassments of France nor of taking more than France could usefully and surely keep.—If, before Fructidor, his three Jacobin colleagues, Reubell, Barras and La RÉvelliÈre, broke with him, it was owing not merely to inside matters, but also to outside matters, as he opposed their boundless violent purposes. They were furious on learning the preliminary treaty of Leoben, so advantageous to France; they insulted Carnot, who had effected it;51109 when BarthÉlÉmy, the ablest and most deserving diplomat in France, became their colleague, his recommendations, so sensible and so well warranted, obtained from them no other welcome than derision.51110 They already desire, and obstinately, to get possession of Switzerland, lay hands on Hamburg, "humiliate England," and "persevere in the unlucky system of the Committee of Public Safety," that is to say, in the policy of war, conquest and propaganda. Now that the 18th Fructidor is accomplished, BarthÉlÉmy deported, and Carnot in flight, this policy is going to be applied everywhere.

Never had peace been so near at hand;51111 they almost had)it in their grasp; conference at Lille it was only necessary to take complete hold of it. England, the last and most tenacious of her enemies, was disarming; not only did she accept the aggrandizement of France, the acquisition of Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, the avowed as well as the disguised annexations, the great Republic as patron and the smaller ones as clients, Holland, Genoa, and the Cis-Alpine country, but, again, she restored all her own conquests, all the French colonies, all the Dutch colonies, except the Cape of Good Hope,51112 and all the Spanish colonies except Trinidad. All that amour-propre could demand was obtained, and they obtained more than could be prudently expected; there was not a competent and patriotic statesman in France who would not have signed the treaty with the greatest satisfaction.—But the motives which, before Fructidor, animated Carnot and BarthÉlÉmy, the motives which, after Fructidor, animated Colchen and Maret, do not animate the Fructidoreans. France is of but little consequence to them; they are concerned only for their faction, for power, and for their own persons. La RÉvelliÈre, president of the Directory, through vainglory, "wanted to have his name go with the general peace;" but he is controlled by Barras, who needs war in order to fish in troubled waters,51113 and especially by Reubell, a true Jacobin in temperament and intellect, "ignorant and vain, with the most vulgar prejudices of an uneducated and illiterate man," one of those coarse, violent, narrow sectarians anchored on a fixed idea and whose "principles consist in revolutionizing everything with cannon-balls without examining wherefore."51114 There is no need of knowing the wherefore; the animal instinct of self-preservation suffices to impel the Jacobins onward, and, for a long time, their clear-sighted men, among them SiÉyÈs, their thinker and oracle, have told them that "if they make peace they are lost."51115—To exercise their violence within they require peril without; lacking the pretext of public safety they cannot prolong their usurpation, their dictatorship, their despotism, their inquisition, their proscriptions, their exactions. Suppose that peace is effected, will it be possible for the government, hated and despised as it is, to maintain and elect its minions against public clamor at the coming elections? Will so many retired generals consent to live on half-pay, indolent and obedient? Will Hoche, so ardent and so absolute, will Bonaparte, who already meditates his coup-d'État,51116 be willing to stand sentry for four petty lawyers or litterateurs without any titles and for Barras, a street-general, who never saw a regular battle? Moreover on this skeleton of France, desiccated by five years of spoliation, how can the armed swarm be fed even provisionally, the swarm, which, for two years past, subsists only through devouring neighboring nations? Afterwards, how disband four hundred thousand hungry officers and soldiers? And how, with an empty Treasury, supply the millions which, by a solemn decree, under the title of a national recompense, have once more just been promised to them.51117 Nothing but a prolonged war, or designedly begun again, a war indefinitely and systematically extended, a war supported by conquest and pillage can give armies food, keep generals busy, the nation resigned, the maintenance of power of the ruling faction, and secure to the Directors their places, their profits, their dinners and their mistresses. And this is why they, at first, break with England through repeated exactions, and then with Austria and the Emperor, through premeditated attacks, and again with Switzerland, Piedmont, Tuscany, Naples, Malta, Russia and even the Porte.51118 At length, the veils fall and the character of the sect stands out nakedly. Defense of the country, deliverance of the people, all its grand phrases disappear in the realm of empty words. It reveals itself just as it is, an association of pirates on a cruise, who after ravaging their own coast, go further off and capture bodies and goods, men and things. Having eaten France, the Parisian band undertakes to eat all Europe, "leaf by leaf, like the head of an artichoke."51119

Why recount the tragic comedy they play at home and which they repeat abroad? The piece abroad is the same as that played in Paris for the past eight years,51120 an absurd, hasty translation in Flemish, Dutch, German, and Italian, a local adaptation, just as it happens, with variations, elisions and abbreviations, but always with the same ending, a shower of blows with gun and sword on all property-owners, communities, and individuals, compelling the surrender of their purses and valuables of every description, and which they gave up, even to remaining without a sou or even a shirt. As a rule, the nearest general, or resident titulary in every small state which has to be turned to account, stirs up malcontents against the established authorities, never lacking under the ancient rÉgime, especially all social outcasts, adventurers, coffee-house ranters and young hot-heads, in short the Jacobins of the country; these, to the French representative, are henceforth the people of the country, if only a knot of the vilest sort. The legal authorities are forbidden to repress them, or punish them; they are inviolable. Employing threats or main force, he interferes in their support, or to sanction their assaults; he breaks up, or obliges them to break up, the vital organ of society; here, royalty or aristocracy, there, the senate and the magistracy, everywhere the old hierarchy, all cantonal, provincial and municipal statutes and secular federation or constitutions. He then inaugurates on this cleared ground the government of Reason, that is to say, some artificial imitation of the French constitution; he himself, to this end, appoints the new magistrates. If he allows them to be elected, it is by his clients and under his bayonets; this constitutes a subject republic under the name of an ally, and which commissioners dispatched from Paris manage to the beat of the drum. The revolutionary rÉgime with anti-Christian despoiling and leveling laws, is despotically applied. The 18th of Fructidor is carried out over and over again; the constitution is revised according to the last Parisian pattern, while the Legislative Corps and Directory are repeatedly purged in military fashion.51121 Only valets are tolerated at the head of it: its army is added to the French army; twenty thousand Swiss are drafted in Switzerland and made to fight against the Swiss and the friends of Switzerland. Belgium, incorporated with France, is subjected to the conscription. National and religious sentiment suppressed, exploited, offended, to the extend of stirring up insurrections,51122 religious and national. Five or six rural and lasting VendÉes take place in Belgium, Switzerland, Piedmont, Venetia, Lombardy, the Roman States and Naples, while fire, pillaging and shooting are employed to repress them. Any description of this would be feeble; statements in figures are necessary and I can give but two.

One of them is the list of robberies committed abroad,51123 and this comprises only the rapine executed according to order; it omits private plunderings without any orders by officers, generals, soldiers and commissaries; these are enormous, but cannot be estimated. The only approximate total which can be arrived at, is the authentic list of robberies which the Jacobin corsair, authorized by letters of marque, had already committed in December, 1798, outside of France, on public or on private parties; exactions in coin imposed in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Italy, amounting to 655 millions; seizure and removal of gold and silver objects, plate, jewels, works of art and other precious objects, 305 millions; requisitions of provisions, 361 millions; confiscations of the property, real estate and movables, of deposed sovereigns, that of the regular and secular clergy, that of corporations and associations even laic, of absent or fugitive proprietors, 700 millions; in all, in three years 2 billion livres.—If we closely examine this monstrous sum, we find, as in the coffers of an Algerian pirate, a booty which up to this time, belligerent Christians, commanders of regular armies, would have shrunk from taking, and on which the Jacobin chiefs incontinently and preferably lay hands:

* the plate and furniture of churches in the Netherlands, in LiÈge, and in the Electoral sections of the Lower Rhine, 25 millions;

* the plate and furniture of churches in Lombardy, in the three Legations, in the State of Venice, in Modena, and the States of the Church, 65 millions;

* diamonds, plate, gold crosses and other depots of the Monts.de-piÉtÉ at Milan, Bologna, Ravenna, Modena, Venice and Rome, 56 millions;

* furniture and works of art at Milan and in other towns, 5 millions;

* furniture and works of art in the Venetian towns and palaces of Brenta, 6, 500,000;

* the spoils of Rome sacked, as formerly by the mercenaries of the Duc de Bourbon, collections of antiques, pictures, bronzes, statues, the treasures of the Vatican and of palaces, jewels, even the pastoral ring of the Pope, which the Directorial commissary himself wrests from the Pope's finger, 43 millions,

and all this without counting analogous articles, and especially direct assessments levied on this or that individual as rich or a proprietor,51124 veritable ransoms, similar to those demanded by the bandits of Calabria and Greece, extorted from any traveler they surprise on the highway.—

Naturally operations of this kind cannot be carried on without instruments of constraint; the Parisian manipulators must have military automatons, "saber hilts" in sufficient numbers. Now, through constant slashing, a good many hilts break, and the broken ones must be replaced; in October, 1798, 200,000 new ones are required, while the young men drafted for the purpose fail to answer the summons and fly, and even resist with arms, especially in Belgium,51125 by maintaining a revolt for many months, with this motto: "Better die here than elsewhere."51126 To compel their return, they are hunted down and brought to the depot with their hands tied. If they hide away, soldiers are stationed in their parents' houses. If the conscript or drafted man has sought refuge in a foreign country, even in an allied country as in Spain, he is officially inscribed on the list of ÉmigrÉs, and therefore, in case of return, shot within twenty-four hours; meanwhile, his property is sequestrated and likewise that of "his father, mother and grandparents."51127—"Formerly," says a contemporary, "reason and philosophy thundered against the rigors of punishment inflicted on deserters; but, since French reason has perfected Liberty it is no longer the small class of regular soldiers whose evasion is punished with death, but an entire generation. An extreme penalty no longer suffices for these legislative philanthropists: they add confiscation, they despoil parents for the misdemeanors of their children, and render even women responsible for a military and personal offence."

Such is the admirable calculation of the Directory—that, if it loses a soldier it gains a patrimony, and if the patrimony fails, it recovers the soldier: in any event, it fills its coffers and its ranks, while the faction, well supplied with men, may continue turning all Europe to account, wasting, in the operation, as many French lives as it pleases; requiring more than one hundred thousand men per annum, which, including those which the Convention has squandered, makes nearly nine hundred thousand in eight years.51128 At this moment the five Directors and their minions are completing the mowing down of the virile, adult strength of the nation,51129 and we have seen through what motives and for what object. I do not believe that any civilized nation was ever sacrificed in the same way, for such a purpose and by such rulers: the crippled remnant of a faction and sect, some hundreds of preachers no longer believing in their creed, usurpers as despised as they are detested, second-rate parvenus raised their heads not through their capacity or merit, but through the blind upheavals of a revolution, swimming on the surface for lack of weight, and, like foul scum, borne along to the crest of the wave-such are the wretches who strangle France under the pretence of setting her free, who bleed her under the pretence of making her strong, who conquer populations under the pretence of emancipating them, who despoil people under the pretence of regenerating them, and who, from Brest to Lucerne, from Amsterdam to Naples, slay and rob wholesale, systematically, to strengthen the incoherent dictatorship of their brutality, folly and corruption.