History of the Girondists, Volume I: Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French RevolutionLamartine, Alphonse de
History
History of the Girondists, Volume I: Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution
Lamartine, Alphonse de
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799; Girondists
Blood flowed every where. The clubs seduced the regiments; patriotic
motions, denunciations against the generals, perfidious insinuations
against the fidelity of the officers, were constantly instilled into the
minds of the army by the people. The officer was a prey to terror, the
soldier to mistrust. The premeditated plan of the Jacobins and
Girondists was to destroy in concert this body that was yet attached to
the king, deprive the nobility of their command, substitute plebeians
for nobles as officers, and thus give the army to the nation. In the
meantime they surrendered it to anarchy and sedition; but these two
parties finding that the disorganisation was not sufficiently rapid,
wished to sum up in one act the systematic corruption of the army, the
ruin of all military discipline, and the legal triumph of the
insurrection.
We have already mentioned how prominent a part the Swiss regiment of
Chateauvieux had taken in the famous insurrection of Nancy during the
latter period of the existence of the Constituent Assembly. An army
under M. de Bouille had been necessary to repress the armed revolt of
several regiments that threatened all France with the rule of the
tyrannical soldiery. M. de Bouille, at the head of a body of troops from
Metz, and the battalions of the national guard, had surrounded Nancy,
and after a desperate contest at the gates, and in the streets of the
town, forced the rebels to lay down their arms. These vigorous measures
for the restoration of order were applauded by all parties, and
reflected equal glory on M. de Bouille and disgrace on the soldiers.
Switzerland, by virtue of her treaties with France, preserved her right
of federal justice over the regiments of her nation, and this
essentially military country had tried by court-martial the regiment of
Chateauvieux. Twenty-four of the ringleaders had been condemned and
executed in expiation of the blood they had shed, and the fidelity they
had violated, the remainder had been decimated, and forty-one soldiers
now were undergoing their sentence on board the galleys at Brest. The
amnesty proclaimed by the king for the crimes committed during the civil
troubles, when he accepted the constitution, could not be applied to
these foreign soldiers, for the right to pardon belongs alone to those
who have the right to punish.
Sentenced by the judgment of the Helvetian jurisdiction, neither the
king nor the Assembly could invalidate the judgment, or annul its
effects. The king had, at the entreaty of the Constituent Assembly, in
vain attempted to obtain the pardon of these soldiers from the Swiss
confederation.
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