ONE:[94]

ONE:One of the most appalling of the narratives sent to the Central Committee of the Society of Friends was Mr. William Bennet's account of his journey in Ireland. He left Dublin on the 12th of January, and proceeded by coach to Longford, and thence to Ballina, from which he penetrated into remote districts of the county Mayo. In the neighbourhood of Belmullet he and his companion visited a district which may serve as a representation of the condition of the labouring class generally in the mountainous and boggy districts, where they burrowed and multiplied, more like a race of inferior animals than human beings. "Many of the cabins," wrote Mr. Bennet, "were holes in the bog, covered with a layer of turf, and not distinguishable as human habitations from the surrounding moors, until close down upon them. The bare sod was about the best material of which any of them were constructed. Doorways, not doors, were provided at both sides of the latter, mostly back and front, to take advantage of the way of the wind. Windows and chimneys, I think, had no existence. A second apartment or partition of any kind was exceedingly rare. Furniture properly so called, I believe, may be stated at nil. I cannot speak with certainty, and wish not to speak with exaggeration, we were too much overcome to note specifically; but as far as memory serves, we saw neither bed, chair, nor table at all. A chest, a few iron or earthen vessels, a stool or two, the dirty rags and night coverings, formed about the sum total of the best-furnished. Outside many were all but unapproachable from the mud and filth surrounding them; the scene inside is worse, if possible, from the added closeness, darkness, and smoke.... And now language utterly fails me in attempting to depict the state of the wretched inmates.... We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a portion of the covering, perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last stage of actual starvation. Crouched over the turf embers was another form, wild and all but naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred not nor noticed us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her, on something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer to our inquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a look of unutterable anguish and despair.... Every infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some, reason and intelligence had evidently flown. Many were remnants of families, crowded together in one cabin; orphaned little relatives taken in by the equally destitute, and even strangers��for these poor people are kind to each other, even to the end. In one cabin was a sister, just dying, lying beside her little brother, just dead. I have worse than this to relate; but it is useless to multiply details, and they are, in fact, unfit."

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Meanwhile the Convention determined to proceed to the abolition of the Constitution of '93, and to the establishment of one more accordant[448] with their own tendencies. In 1793 the Revolutionists were as violent against aristocracy as against monarchy, and had allowed only one legislative body. The precipitate acts of the last three years had now persuaded them that at least a second, if not an aristocratic, chamber might be useful, as a balance against legislation under violent impulses. They proposed, then, to have two chambers��one called the Council of Five Hundred, composed of that number of members of at least thirty years of age, having exclusively the right of proposing laws, of whom one-third should be renewed every year; the second, called the Council of the Ancients, to consist of two hundred and fifty members, of at least forty years of age, all either widowers or married, having the sanctioning of the law, and also to be annually renewed by one-third. No sooner were these decrees passed than there was a violent outburst of discontent. On April 1st, and again on May 20th, the Parisian mob rose in insurrection, but were completely suppressed. This was the death-blow of the Democratic party. Then came the turn of the Royalists. A meeting took place in the Od��on theatre, on the 3rd of October, under protection of some battalions of National Guard. The Duke of Nivernois presided. The Committees of Public Safety and Welfare gave the alarm to the Convention, and the Convention sent a force to disperse the meeting, but it had already dissolved itself. The Sections had committed the mistake of refusing to allow the ultra-Jacobins to vote, and the Convention now embodied and armed one thousand eight hundred of these, ready, in their indignation, to do anything. On the 4th, the Section Lepelletier beat to arms, and the committee held its meeting in the convent of Filles St. Thomas, in the Rue Vivienne. General Menou was summoned from the camp at Sablons, and ordered to disperse the meeting. He proceeded to the convent, found the committee of the Section armed, and, instead of dispersing them, agreed to retire on a promise that they would withdraw of themselves. The Convention immediately arrested Menou as a traitor, and deprived him of his command. They forthwith appointed Barras general of the interior in the place of Menou, and ordered him to clear the streets, and place troops in a position to insure the safety of the Convention. Barras was a general of brigade, but he was not too fond of exposing himself and, fortunately for him and for another, he had his eye on one who would execute the orders of the Convention without shrinking. This was Napoleon Buonaparte. The Convention had about five thousand troops; but the decision of the conflict must depend on the cannon. These were in the camp at Sablons. Buonaparte instantly dispatched Murat to secure them, and received the insurrectionists with such a shower of grape that after a short resistance they were completely defeated.[See larger version]Thus it happened that the King of Prussia, with hands full of aggression, did not appear on the Rhine to chastise the aggressions of France, before the month of April. He brought with him about fifty thousand men, Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, and Bavarians. He was joined by fifteen or twenty thousand Austrians, under Wurmser, and five or six thousand French Emigrants under the Prince of Cond��. But the French had on the Rhine one hundred and forty thousand men at least, of whom twenty thousand were within the walls of Mayence. The Prussians laid siege to that city, and the Austrians and British to Valenciennes. On the 21st of July the French engaged to give up Mayence on condition that they should be allowed to march out with the honours of war, and this the King of Prussia was weak enough to comply with. They must, of necessity, have soon surrendered at discretion; now they were at liberty to join the rest of the army and again resist the Allies. Valenciennes did not surrender until the 28th of July, and not till after a severe bombardment by the Duke of York. Thus three months of the summer had been wasted before these two towns, during which time the French had been employed in drawing forces from all quarters to the frontiers of Belgium, under the guidance of Carnot. The Duke of York was recalled from Valenciennes to Menin, to rescue the hereditary Prince of Orange from an overwhelming French force, against which his half-Jacobinised troops showed no disposition to act. Having effected his deliverance, the Duke of York marched on Dunkirk, and began, towards the end of August, to invest it; but he was left unsupported by the Prince of Orange, and being equally neglected by the Austrians, he was compelled to raise the siege on the 7th of September, and retreated with the loss of his artillery. The Prince of Orange was himself not long unassailed. Houchard drove him from Menin, and took Quesnoy from him, but was, in his turn, routed by the Austrian general Beaulieu, and chased to the very walls of Lille. According to the recent decree of the Convention, that any general surrendering a town or post should be put to death, Houchard was recalled to be guillotined. There continued a desultory sort of warfare on the Belgian frontiers for the remainder of the campaign. On the 15th and 16th of October Jourdain drove the Duke of Coburg from the neighbourhood of Maubeuge across the[421] Sambre, but the Duke of York coming up with fresh British forces, which had arrived at Ostend under Sir Charles Grey, the French were repulsed, and the Netherland frontiers maintained by the Allies for the rest of the year.