During his second interrogatory, he asked Chaumette from what country he came?" From the department of the Nièvre."-" It is a delightful country."-" Have you been there?"—"No: but I propose to make the tour of France in two years, and to acquire a knowlege of all its beauties."

When he saw that the secretary had his hat on in the carriage, he said to him, in a laughing tone: "When you came to fetch me for the first time from the Temple, you forgot your hat ; you have been more cautious to-day.'

"It was the Breviary that comforted him for all his lost grandeur.'

There is rather an appearance of sneer in this account: but, if it be true that religion was the basis of that firmness which this unfortunate monarch is allowed to have displayed, (no matter what were the particular tenets of his system,) be it recorded to his everlasting honor!

be

This work contains 271 chapters; and it is not yet finished. Since the publication of it, other changes have taken place; and it is not improbable that, though the New Paris may considered as the realization of MERCIER'S Dream, it may nevertheless, before long, pass away "like the baseless fabric of a vision."

ART. XVII. Précis des Evènemens Militaires, &c. i. e. A concise Account of Military Events, Nos. I-VII. ; to which are annexed Maps and Plans. One Number appears every Month:-the Subscrip.. tion is for three Months, at the Rate of two Crowns for the three Numbers, with the Maps; printed and delivered at Hamburgh, at the House of Fr. PERTHES, and sold by J. Debrett, London. 8vo. 1799.

T

HE immense importance of the military operations of the present war, on some of which depended the fate of several nations, and each of which has been in a greater or a less degree connected with the most valuable interests, if not the destiny of Europe, has made them, more than those of any former contest, objects of deep concern and universal attention. The wider range which these military operations have been made to comprehend, and the unusually extensive scale on which they have been conducted, contribute to increase the number of those who regard them with curiosity and surprise; while the ability with which they have been planned, the courage with which they have been executed, and the many important improvements in the science of tactics which they have exemplified, will secure to them the attentive regard of the military as well as the political historian..

A work, therefore, calculated to give a faithful, a collected, and a clear view of the principal events resulting from these operations, must be not only highly valuable to the reader of

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the present day, but a precious bequest to posterity. Such a work, that which is now before us professes to be, and such in our opinion it is :-but it is more than a mere detail of particular operations or events. The authors do not confine themselves to the humble labour of transcribing or comparing the accounts published in the different gazettes: they accompany those details by observations on the nature of the war, on the conduct and plans of the Generals, on the tendency and result of particular successes and defeats, on the relative strength of places and of armies; and they mark the novelties which occur in tactics, and compare corresponding events in former wars with those of the present. To do all this well is manifestly a very arduous undertaking; but, arducus as it is, the authors have succeeded in a degree which places their labours in this department far beyond those of any contemporary periodical writers; and they have impressed on this interesting performance a character of great military skill, of impartial fidelity, and of philosophic observation.

It is not perhaps possible to convey, by a detached extract, a fair idea of the merit of a work destined to describe a series of continued operations. We therefore quote the following passage rather to excite the reader, if military affairs can interest him, to peruse this excellent summary, than to enable him to appreciate, by what he shall here find, the value of the performance. The passage which we select is taken from the 4th number, and contains a calculation of the force of the French armies at the time when the revolution in the Directory of the 30th Prairéal took place, and produced a change of Generals, and a substitution of a plan of offensive for defensive operations. (Vide No. 4. p. 243 to 255.)

In supposing the army of Moreau to have completely effected their retreat into Nice county, after having collected the wreck of that which had been commanded by Macdonald, and on the frontier of France those reinforcements which might have been obtained in Provence; this army, when Joubert came to take the command of it, might have consisted of from forty to fifty thousand men. These were but the remains of a body originally amounting to nearly

120,000.

The corps which occupied the entrenchments and passages of Dauphiné and Savoy did not together exceed 25,000.

The principal re-inforcements, the divisions which had retreated from the Lower Rhine, some fresh cavalry, and the greater number of the conscripts, having been sent in preference towards the army of Switzerland, we may reckon that at this time Massena had at least 6,000 men under his orders.

They calculate at 30,000 men the efficient garrisons of Strasburgh, Mayence, Ehrenbeitstein, and the different corps posted along the Rhine as far as Dusseldorff.

• Gen.

Gen. Brune, who commanded in Holland, and to whom the Batavian republic had recently given the conduct of its lately organized army, had not under his orders more than from 8 to 10,000 French.

In a word, the troops near the coast, known by the name of the army of England, did not exceed in all 25,000 men.

In the interior, remained no more troops than were absolutely necessary for the security of the republican government.

The total of the republican forces, then, which were effectively in action at the end of July, would be, on this calculation, about 195,000 men.

To these must be added 20,coo Batavian troops, and 8,000 Spaniards, employed on the coasts; which will make the whole 218,000 men, dispersed along the Frontier from Holland to the Mediterranean.

It was the strict demonstration of the truth of this result, which we here give but as a rough calculation, that gave rise to the rapid levy of all classes of the conscription;-and to the resolution of raising the army of the republic to above 500,000 men. This dreadful mode of recruiting an army had once before succeeded, in a situation of extreme danger, like the present ;-it could not now be put in practice but by similar means, and in the agitation of a great crisis. It was a bold experiment, and one of which the effect was likely to baffle all the calculations of political economy, to attempt to draw suddenly from the territory of France an army of 250,000 men, in the flower of age, after eight campaigns, and the loss of above a million of lives. It is worth observation, too, that the 450,000 men of the requisition, which recruited or renewed the French armies in 1794, had been organized, formed into battalions, equipped, armed, and disciplined, in the short period which had elapsed since the close of 1793-'

The mention of this novel, and, as it has been called, llegitimate mode of recruiting an army, leads the authors to a train of reflections on that subject, which mark a profound knowlege of the motives of a paramount party in a revolutionized state. The then describe shortly the steps which, in France, successively led to the dangerous practice of levy by conscrip tion, and thus proceed :

In 1799, the party which had regained the upper hand of the Directory measured its efforts by the double danger in which they stood. The new government thought themselves bound to repair the errors committed by the preceding Directory; and if possible, in order that they might be able to offer and conclude peace, to resume that situation in which the former Directory disdained it. They found it still more necessary than their predecessors had done, to strengthen themselves at home by the success of their arms abroad. Why should they not, therefore, try every means to resume offensive operations against the ene, my? The difficulty of recovering the ordinary contributions, and the excessive tardiness of recruiting by individual requisition, would no longer suffice; they therefore had recourse to the progressive taxes, and to the conscription, which is properly the organization of the levy in mass proposed to the Convention in the year 1793. Already

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they have come to the formation of battalions, in the departments in which the great number of men before initiated in war, whom the conscription reached, and of officers who are again brought into the service, afford great facility in collecting and rapidly appointing this The official returns already presented make the total of troops, which the Republic will have in pay in the month of October (1799), from 565 to 575,000 men.

new army.

In order to render this force capable of being employed abroad as efficiently as possible, and to complete the levy in mass, the national guard is again forming; the moveable columns of which are to be employed in the interior, or to re-inforce the garrisons on the frontiers. Such are the efforts which the Republic is making, in order to balance the still increasing numbers of the coalition. We shall have given an exact idea of them, when we have added some observations on the re-partition of the armies, and on the new destination of the Generals.

The army of Italy, in the environs of Genoa, found itself in nearly the same positions which Bonaparte had occupied before he passed the Apennines, to penetrate into the vallies of Tanaro and La Bormida. The army of which he then took the lead was very little stronger than that commanded by Moreau, after his re-inforcement by the corps of Macdonald-it was equally ill-provided, and suffered extremely from the difficulty of communication. It received its reinforcements through the county of Nice, and had not yet possession of Genoa, nor Coni, nor any posts on the high grounds; which were not obtained until after the battles of Montenotte and Millesimo. In adverting to the very remarkable similitude between this and the former position of the French army, it were superfluous to point out how much more considerable and formidable, in every respect, are the forces of the allies at the present moment, placed between the Alps and the Apennines, on the frontier of France, and on the confines of the state of Genoa, (though acting offensively) in the same posts which they had occupied before Bonaparte, in order to prevent his entrance into Italy. We wished only to shew that the French, in this situation, might yet, if they received considerable re-inforcements, meditate offensive operations, and re-enter Piedmont. This difficult task has devolved on Joubert, disgraced under the old Directory, and now raised to the command of the army of Italy. Of that which is forming on the Rhine, Moreau is to take the command, and to oppose it against that of Russia and of the empire. This change, which appears so whimsical, was perhaps necessary to prevent the misunderstanding that might easily arise between two armies, which are mutually to support each other. It has been conceived that the organization of the new French army of Italy would meet fewer impediments under a new General.

Whatever may have been the motives of these changes, Moreau had already performed his part on this great theatre; and Suwarrow had borne hira honourable testimony that he supported, in defensive war, the character which he had acquired for talents and for courage. The army of Gen. Joubert they determined to augment to

70,000 men.

Gen.

Gen. Championnet, who had been brought before a council of war by the old Directory, for having endeavoured to put a stop to the disorders of the republican agents in Italy, is appointed to the command of the army of the Alps; and he has been sent to Grenoble, to form that army which is to be occupied chiefly in the defence of Dauphiné and Savoy,-and to re-inforce, according to circumstances, the wings of the armies of Joubert and Massena. It is to be increased to 60,000 men.

We have already said that the army of Switzerland formed a principal object of the attention of government; and that they designed to augment it to 80 or 90,000 men.

The army of the Rhine, of which the head quarters are at Mayence, is to be increased to 60,000 men, distributed between Huningen and Dusseldorff. If, then, we suppose that 40,000 French troops, and 40,000 Dutch, are spread over Holland, in Belgium, and on the coasts of la Manche, menaced by the English, we may conclude that, if these different angmentations take place, they will form together a total of 320,000 men: but, in order that the French armies should attain this complement, they must receive an addition of at least 100,000 conscripts, exclusively of those re-inforcements which we suppose them to have received on the 1st of August.

In concluding this sketch, this kind of general review, of which we doubt not that our readers will perceive the utility, in order to a perfect understanding of subsequent operations, we cannot help suggesting to their observation this afflicting result :-that, if we add to the enumeration which we have above made of the French armics, and of those of the allies, the army of Bonaparte in Egypt and in Syria, and that of the Turks which is opposed to him; and if we count the troops embarked, the crews of about 400 ships of the line or frigates actually armed on the ocean, in the Mediterranean, and the Baltic; we shall find that, at the close of this, as it is called enlightened, century,-at the termination of this golden age which Philosophy had promised us,— upwards of one million two hundred thousand men are engaged in combat; and yet this frightful war is, as it has been denominated by Mr. Pitt, but a war of armed opinions.'

Of this distinguished performance, we have to lament that the commencement was not coincident with that of the war itself. Had it been so, with what ease might the reader at this day re-trace the progress of a contest, at every stage of which his bosom must have beaten high with hope or fear, with pleasure or dismay. Since, however, it has unfortunately begun so late, we console ourselves with the hope that, until the long wished-for return of peace shall furnish more pleasing topics for the exertion of genius, the talents of these authors will continue to be exercised in recording the operations of the war.

In a future Review, we shall resume our attention to this work, and report the contents of Nos. V, VI, & VII, which have recently come to our hands. A translation of the numbers is publishing by Mr. Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall.

INDEX

Wall..e.