General Dumouriez had vainly endeavored to resist the power of the Convention. He had formed culpable relations with the enemies of France. Obliged to quit his army, he had taken refuge in England at the moment when his friends the Girondins were overthrown and destroyed by the Jacobins, in Paris. The Committee of Public Safety reigned in France, and the Reign of Terror extended its sombre veil throughout that unhappy country. The allied forces took possession of Belgium; the French garrison at Mayence had just surrendered, after a brave resistance; the Austrians had seized Valenciennes and Condé, not in the name of the young captive king, but as personal conquests of the Emperor Francis. The national enthusiasm of France, violently excited by these reverses, sent to the frontiers troops barely disciplined, generals of various origin, servants of the ancient régime or new geniuses which rose suddenly from the ranks, but all equally animated by an ardent patriotism. { 367} The Duke of York was repulsed before Dunkirk by General Hoche, as the Prince of Orange at Hondschoote. The Prince of Coburg, whose name is always found united with that of Pitt, in revolutionary execrations, found himself constrained to raise the siege of Maubeuge, and to recross the Sambre. In the interior, civil war desolated Vendée; it ravished the city of Lyons. Toulon, held in the name of Louis XVII., had called to its aid the English fleet under Admiral Howe. The siege was eagerly pushed by the republican troops. The artillery was commanded by a young Corsican officer, who was soon to become General Bonaparte, and ten years later the Emperor Napoleon. On the 18th of December, 1793, the redoubts were taken, and the allied forces were compelled to put to sea. The English and Spanish vessels were crowded with provincial royalists who fled the vengeance of their compatriots. Toulon was delivered to fire and sword.
The National Convention voted, at the instigation of Barère, a decree ordaining that henceforth no quarter should be given to either English or Hanoverian soldiers. The Duke of York immediately published an order of the day--dignified and noble: "His Royal Highness foresees the indignation which will naturally be aroused in the minds of the brave troops whom he addresses. He desires to remind them that mercy to the vanquished is the brightest gem in the soldier's character; and to exhort them not to suffer their resentment to lead them to any precipitate act of cruelty, which may sully the reputation they have acquired in the world. The English and Hanoverian armies are not willing to believe that the French nation, even in its present blindness, can so far forget its military instincts as to pay the least attention to a decree as injurious to the troops, as disgraceful to those who voted it." { 368} The French army justified this noble confidence. "Kill our prisoners!" said a sergeant, "no, no, not that! Send them all to the Convention, that the representatives may shoot them if they wish; the savages might also eat them, if they chose." Everywhere in Flanders the success of the French arms was brilliant; Brussels was retaken. Nevertheless Corsica revolted and was annexed to Great Britain.