RETALIATION OF THE SOLDIERS.

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We need not wonder at this. The Swiss of that regiment were not natives of German Switzerland, but men from the country of Vaud, and the environs of Lausanne and Geneva. Who are more truly French than they?

Ye men of Vaud, friends of Geneva and Savoy, we had given you Calvin, and you have given us Rousseau ! Let this be the seal of an eternal alliance between us. You declared yourselves our brethren at the dawn of our first day, at the truly awful moment, when nobody was able to foresee the victory of liberty.

The French went and took the two Swiss beaten in the morning, dressed them in their clothes and caps, promenaded them through the town, and forced the Swiss officers to pay to each of them a hundred louis by way of indemnity.

The revolt was at first only a burst of good feeling, equity, and patriotism; but, the ice having been once broken-the officers having been once threatened, and forced to pay, other acts of violence soon followed.

The officers, instead of leaving the cash-boxes of the regiments at the quarters, where they ought to have been, according to the regulations, had placed them at the treasurer's, and said insultingly that they would have them guarded by patrols (maréchaussée) as from thieves. The soldiers, by way of retaliation, said they were afraid the officers might carry off the cash-boxes in deserting to the enemy. They took them back to the quarters; and found they were nearly empty. This became a new cause of accusation. The soldiers made the officers give them what was owing them-sums with which the French treated the Swiss, and the Swiss the French, as well as the poor of the town.

These military orgies occasioned no serious disturbance, if we may believe the testimony of the National Guards of Nancy to the Assembly. Nevertheless, they appeared somewhat alarming; and the state of things evidently required a speedy remedy. But neither the Assembly, nor Lafayette understood what it was necessary to do.

What they ought to have perceived at once, was that the usual course of proceeding was altogether inapplicable. The army was no longer an army; but two peoples face to face, two hostile peoples, the nobles and the non-nobles. These nonnobles, the soldiers,-had conquered by the Revolution; for

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DECREE CONCERNING ACCOUNTS.

it had been made on their account. To believe that the conquerors would continue to obey the conquered, who moreover insulted them, was absolute nonsense. Very many officers had already gone over to the enemy; and such as remained had deferred or declined taking the civic oath. It was really doubtful whether the army could, without peril, obey the friends of the enemy.

There was but one reasonable and practicable course, the one advised by Mirabeau: To dissolve the army, and compose it anew. The war was not so imminent as to prevent there being time to perform this operation. The obstacle, the grand impediment, was that the great ones of that day, Mirabeau himself, Lafayette, the Lameths, all those revolutionary nobles, would hardly have appointed any officers but such as were of noble birth. Prejudice and tradition were still too strong in favour of the latter: no military spirit was attributed to the lower classes; neither did they suspect what a multitude of true nobles there were among the people.

It was Lafayette who, by means of his friend Emmery, the deputy, urged the Assembly into the false and violent measures which it took against the army, making itself a party, and not the judge a party in favour of the counter-revolution.

On the 6th of August, Lafayette caused a decree to be proposed by Emmery and adopted by the Assembly, that, in order to verify the accounts kept by the officers, the king would appoint inspectors chosen among the officers, that no degrading congé should be inflicted upon the soldiers till after a judgment according to the ancient forms, that is to say, given by the officers. The soldier had his appeal to the king, that is to say, to the minister (himself an officer), or to the National Assembly, which was no doubt to lay aside its immense labours to listen to the complaints of the soldiers !

This decree was only a weapon to be kept in case of need. They next hastened to strike a blow. Decreed on the 6th, it was sanctioned by the king on the 7th, and on the 8th M. de Lafayette wrote to M. de Bouillé who was to strike the blow. It is the very expression he uses, and he repeats it several times.*

*Mémoires de Lafayette, letter of August 18th, 1790, Vol. III., p. 135. I regret that the French and Swiss historians have generally either omitted or disfigured this affair of the Châteauvieux regiment.

A BLOW RESOLVED TO BE STRUCK.

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In this

Lafayette was by no means a sanguinary man. matter, we are not attacking his disposition, but his intelligence.

He imagined that this violent but necessary blow would restore order for ever; and order once restored would at length enable him to establish and put in practice the grand constitutional machine, royal democracy, which he looked upon as his own work, and admired and defended with an author's partiality.

And this first act, so useful to the constitutional government, was about to be performed by the enemy of the constitution, M. de Bouillé, who had deferred taking the oath as long as he had been able, and was now galled by it,—a man who was personally irritated against the soldiers, who had so lately paid no attention to his orders, and had forced him to pay them a part of what was owing to them. Was such a man the calm, impartial, disinterested person to whom such a measure of severity might be intrusted? Was it not to be feared that it might serve as an opportunity for a personal revenge?

M. de Bouillé says himself, that he had a secret plan: To allow the greater part of the army to become disorganised, and to keep apart a few select troops, especially foreigners, in strict discipline. It is evident that with the latter the others could have been overpowered.

In order to employ such a man in full security, without compromising himself, Lafayette applied directly to the Jacobins, and frightened their leaders with the peril of a vast military insurrection. Singular to relate, the Jacobin deputies, whose emissaries had contributed not a little to excite the soldiers to rebel, nevertheless voted against them in the National Assembly: all the coercive decrees being voted unanimously.

The Court was so emboldened that it did not fear to intrust to Bouillé the command of the troops throughout the Eastern frontier, from Switzerland to the Sambre. These troops, it is true, were hardly to be trusted. He was able to rely confidently on only twenty battalions of infantry (Germans or Swiss); but he had a great quantity of horse, twenty-seven squadrons of German huzzars, and thirty-three of French cavalry. Moreover, orders were issued to every administrative body to aid and support him in every way, especially by the National Guard.

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MALSEIGNE INSPECTOR OF ACCOUNTS.

Lafayette, in order to make the thing more sure, wrote fraternally to these National Guards, and despatched to them two of his own aid-de-camps; one of whom became aid-de-camp to Bouillé; and the other strove on one hand to lull the garrison of Nancy into security, and on the other hand to collect the National Guards that they wanted to bring against it.

Bouillé, who explains to us himself his plan of campaign, lets us into a great many secrets when he confesses that he wanted, by means of Montmedy, to secure a communication with Luxembourg and foreigners.'

In his letter of the 8th of August, Lafayette told Bouillé that they would send to Nancy, as inspector of accounts, a M. de Malseigne, an officer who had been summoned on purpose from Besançon. This was a very threatening choice. Malseigne was reckoned "the most dashing swordsman in the army,' a very brave man, very impetuous, very provoking, and unrivalled in fencing. A strange sort of accountant! There was reason to believe that he would settle matters with his sword. Remark also that he was sent alone, as if in defiance.

Meanwhile the soldiers had written to the National Assembly; but their letter was intercepted. They then despatched a few of their own party to carry a second; but Lafayette caused these letter-carriers to be arrested as soon as they arrived at Paris.

On the contrary, they presented and read to the Assembly the accusation made against the soldiers by the municipality of Nancy, entirely devoted to the officers. Emmery boldly maintained that the affair of Châteauvieux (the 5th and 6th of August) had taken place after they had proclaimed the decree of the Assembly which it had enacted on the 6th. The affair, thus expounded, without any mention of its date, seemed a violation of the decree, which was not violated since it was unknown at Nancy and had been made at Paris on the very same day. In like manner, an insurrection of the soldiery at Metz, which had taken place several days before the 6th, was also presented as a violation of the same decree.

By means of this artful and fraudulent explanation, the Assembly was induced to enact a violent, indignant decree, which seemed at once a condemnation of the soldiery. According to this decree, they were to declare to their commanders

HOSTILE PREPARATIONS OF BOUILLÉ.

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their errors and their repentance, even in writing, if so required; that is to say, to give up to the adverse party written testimony against themselves. It was decreed unanimously, without any observation: “ 'It is urgent and vital," said Emmery; there is danger in the least delay."

On the 26th, Malseigne arrived at Nancy, armed with the decree. Order had been restored; but Malseigne soon occasioned trouble, dissatisfaction, and confusion. Instead of verifying, he commenced insulting. Instead of taking up his residence quietly at the Hôtel-de-Ville, he repaired to the quarters of the Swiss, and refused to give them justice in what they claimed of their chiefs. Judge us!" exclaimed the soldiers. He then wanted to withdraw; but they prevented him.

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Then he stepped back, drew his sword, and wounded several men. His sword broke; he seized another, and fought his way out, calmly enough, through that furious crowd, that nevertheless respected his life.

They had, what they wanted, adequate provocation, all that might appear a violation, a contempt of the decrees of the Assembly. The Swiss were compromised in the most terrible manner. Bouillé, to give them an opportunity of aggravating their offence, sent them orders to evacuate Nancy; but to come forth, was giving themselves up, not only to Bouillé, but to their leaders and judges, or rather to their executioners; they knew perfectly well the horrible punishment they had to expect from their officers; so they remained in the town.

Bouillé had now nothing to do but to act. He selected and assembled three thousand infantry and fourteen hundred cavalry, almost all Germans. In order to give a somewhat more national appearance to this army of foreigners, Lafayette's aid-de-camps were beating about the country, and endeavouring to gain over the National Guards. They brought with them seven hundred, either aristocrats or Lafayettists, who followed Bouillé, and behaved with much violence and fury. But the bulk of the National Guards, about two thousand, were not to be deceived; they felt perfectly convinced that Bouillé's side could never be that of the Revolution, and they threw themselves into Nancy. The carabineers of Luneville, among whom Malseigne had taken refuge, had also no wish to take any share in the sanguinary execution then in preparation. They themselves gave