CHAPTER XXXIX.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS.

(1789-1802.)

1. Beginning of the French Revolution.-In 1789, a few days after the king had returned thanks at St. Paul's for his recovery, the French Revolution began. For a great many years the French had been governed almost as badly as was possible. Not only had the people to pay very heavy taxes, but the taxes were not fairly laid on. Poor people had to pay whilst rich people were let off. The rich people were favoured in all sorts of ways. Besides the taxes paid to the king, the peasants in the country had a great deal to pay to the nobles and gentlemen who lived in their country houses, and who very seldom did any good to those amongst whom they lived, in the way in which English country gentlemen often did. The king of France, Lewis XVI., was a well-meaning man, but he was not wise enough to know how to set things straight. He was so much in debt, and spent so much more than he received, that he was now obliged to call together an assembly elected by different classes of his subjects, which called itself the National Assembly soon after it had met. It was not long before the National Assembly began to do things that the king did not like, and the king then wanted to force it to do what he thought right. When this was known there

was an insurrection in Paris. The people took a great fortress called the Bastille, and the king was so frightened that he let the National Assembly do as it pleased. A few months later the mob of Paris went to the place where he lived and brought him into Paris. After that, though he was called king still, he was really more like a prisoner than a king. The National Assembly made a great many new laws, and abolished all the payments which had been made by the peasants to the gentlemen. Some of the gentlemen were very badly treated, and of these several left the country. The king, too, tried to escape and leave the country, but he was stopped and brought back to Paris, and was treated more like a prisoner than before. In 1792, three years after the Revolution began, the Prussians and the Austrians seemed likely to help the king and the gentlemen. The French declared war against them, and they invaded France. The people of Paris thought that the king wished the enemies to succeed, and there can be very little doubt that he did. They rose in insurrection, and drove him out of his palace. A new Parliament, as we should call it, named the National Convention, met, declared the king to be deposed, and established a Republic. They sent the king to prison, and in the beginning of 1793 they tried him on the charge of favouring the enemies of France, and condemned him to death. He was executed on the guillotine, an instrument made to cut off heads quickly.

2. War between England and France. When the French Revolution began, people in England

were much pleased. They thought that the French were going to have a quiet parliamentary government like their own, and they did not think how angry different classes of people in France were with one another, and how little likely it was that a nation which had never had a parliamentary government before should know at once exactly how to behave when they had it. When news came of disturbances and insurrections, and murders, most people in England began to think that the French Revolution was altogether bad, and when a great many of the French gentlemen took refuge in England after losing all, or nearly all their property, the English gentlemen were so very sorry for them that most of them were ready to go to war with France for their sake. For a long time Pitt did all he could to keep peace. He said that England ought not to go to war because it did not like the way in which another nation managed its own affairs. After the invasion of France, however, by Austria and Prussia, the French got the better of their enemies, and invaded the country which was then known as the Austrian Netherlands, and which was very much the same as that which is now known as Belgium. Pitt thought that it would be dangerous to allow France to join to itself a country so near England, and just as he was making up his mind that he must try to stop the French from doing this, the news came that the king of France had been executed. A feeling of horror and anger passed over almost the whole country, and within a few days England and France were at war with one another.

3. English Feeling against the Revolutionists.The mass of the English people, both rich and poor, had no wish to see the violence of the French Revolutionists copied in England. People in general were far better off than they were in France, and when people are well off they do not usually rise in insurrection. But there were people, especially in the towns, who thought that there ought to be a great many changes made in the Government here, and that a much larger number of people ought to have votes to elect Members of Parliament. Some, no doubt, used very violent language, and even spoke of imitating the French Revolutionists in almost everything that they did. This language frightened the upper and the middle classes, and the House of Commons, supported by the great bulk of the nation, resolved to have nothing more to do with any changes, and to put down with violence all who joined together in asking for them. This feeling soon turned into a thorough alarm. Almost every European nation joined in the war against France. France was again invaded, and the French people grew suspicious of every one whom they suspected of wishing to help the enemy, or even of not caring much about keeping him off. Hundreds of persons were hurried off to the guillotine and beheaded without any fair trial. This was called the Reign of Terror, and lasted for more than a year. In England and Scotland juries were ready to give verdicts, and judges were ready to pass the heaviest sentences on all who were trying to urge others to ask for Parliamentary Reform, as if they could not

ask for this without wanting to bring in all the horrors which were heard of in France. Pitt persuaded Parliament to pass a law allowing the king to imprison without trial those whom he suspected to be conspiring against him. Several persons were accused of high treason for very doubtful reasons. Fortunately for them their trials were delayed till after the Reign of Terror was at an end in France. The juries were not so excited then as they had been some months before, and they gave verdicts of not guilty. After this the excitement died away.

4. Progress of the War.-On land the war against France did not prosper. The French reconquered the Austrian Netherlands and conquered Holland. At sea, Lord Howe defeated the French, near the mouth of the Channel, in a battle known as the Battle of the First of June. Then Prussia made peace with France. After a time a young French General, Napoleon Bonaparte, was sent to Italy. He won a number of victories, and drove the Austrians out of Italy. So useless did it seem to attempt to stop the French conquests that Pitt offered to make peace. He and the French, however, were unable to agree, and the war went on as before.

5. The Battle of St. Vincent. The year 1797 was one of great danger for England. The Dutch and the Spanish had joined the French, and it was expected that their fleets would attempt to combine with the French fleet against England. The English Admirals were ordered to keep them separate. Admiral Jarvis came up with the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent. There were twenty-five Spanish