Harper's New Monthly Magazine: No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III.Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine: No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
We now approach more eventful scenes in the life of this extraordinary
man. All the monarchies of Europe were allied, in arms, against the
French Revolution, and slowly, but resistlessly, their combined armies
were marching upon Paris. The emigrant nobles and monarchists, many
thousands in number, were incorporated into the embattled hosts of these
allies. The spirit of insurrection against the government began to
manifest itself very strongly in several important cities. Toulon, on
the shores of the Mediterranean, was the great naval dépôt and arsenal
of France. It contained a population of about twenty-five thousand
inhabitants. More than fifty ships-of-the-line and frigates were riding
at anchor in its harbor, and an immense quantity of military and naval
stores, of every description, was collected in its spacious magazines.
The majority of the inhabitants of this city were friends of the old
monarchy. Some ten thousand of the royalists of Marseilles, Lyons, and
other parts of the south of France, took refuge within the walls of
Toulon, and, uniting with the royalist inhabitants, surrendered the
city, its magazines, its ships, and its forts to the combined English
and Spanish fleet, which was cruising outside of its harbor. The English
ships sailed triumphantly into the port, landed five thousand English
troops, and eight thousand Spaniards, Neapolitans, and Piedmontese, took
full possession of the place. This treacherous act excited to the
highest pitch the alarm and the indignation of the revolutionary
government; and it was resolved that, at all hazards, Toulon must be
retaken, and the English driven from the soil of France. But the English
are not easily expelled from the posts which they once have occupied;
and it was an enterprise of no common magnitude to displace them, with
their strong army and their invincible navy, from fortresses so
impregnable as those of Toulon, and where they found stored up for them,
in such profuse abundance, all the munitions of war.
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