In this interval, while Buonaparte remained, according to the best authority, within reach of Avignon, securing artillery supplies and writing a political pamphlet in support of the Jacobins, Carteaux had, on August twenty-fifth, 1793, taken Marseilles. The capture was celebrated by one of the bloodiest orgies of that horrible year. The Girondists of Toulon saw in the fate of those at Marseilles the lot apportioned to themselves. If the high contracting powers now banded against France had shown a sincere desire to quell Jacobin bestiality, they could on the first formation of the coalition easily have seized Paris. Instead, Austria and Prussia had shown the most selfish apathy in that respect, bargaining with each other and with Russia for their respective shares of Poland, the booty they were about to seize. The intensity of the Jacobin movement did not rouse them until the majority of the French people, vaguely grasping the elements of permanent value in the Revolution, and stung by foreign interference, rallied around the only standard which was firmly upheld,--that of the Convention,--and enabled that body within an incredibly short space of time to put forth tremendous energy. Then England, terrified into panic, drove Pitt to take effective measures, and displayed her resources in raising subsidies for her Continental allies, in goading the German powers to activity, in scouring every sea with her fleets. One of these was cruising off the French coast in the Mediterranean, and it was easy for the Girondists of Toulon to induce its commander to seize not only their splendid arsenals, but the fleet in their harbor as well--the only effective one, in fact, which at that time the French possessed. Without delay or hesitation, Hood, the English admiral, grasped the easy prize, and before long war-ships of the Spaniards, Neapolitans, and Sardinians were gathered to share in the defense of the town against the Convention forces. Soon the Girondist fugitives from Marseilles arrived, and were received with kindness. The place was provisioned, the gates were shut, and every preparation for desperate resistance was completed. The fate of the republic was at stake. The crisis was acute. No wonder that in view of his wonderful career, Napoleon long after, and his friends in accord, declared that in the hour appeared the man. There, said the inspired memorialist of St. Helena, history found him, never to leave him; there began his immortality. Though this language is truer ideally than in sober reality, yet the Emperor had a certain justification for his claim. CHAPTER XVII. Toulon.