of livres. Part of this sum was intended to redeem the assignats in circulation at the rate of thirty of these for one of the former; and the lands on sale were to be mortgaged, as a security for the payment of the remaining part. The purchasers of these lands were to pay for them by in stalments; and, as the property disposed of was a solid and visible asset; it was hoped that the new emission would retain its original value. The directory insisted in the most serious terms on the immediate want of this supply, for the carrying on of the war, and the service of the current year.

The various failures of the French government in its pecuniary operations, had so much discouraged the speculators in these matters, that it was highly necessary to hold out every encouragement to them. On the decline of the assignats, a paper, known by the name of rescriptions, had been given for advances to government, and made payable in specie at a fixed period: but this too had lost its credit, by non-payment. The new fabrication, which went by the name of mandats, lost, at its first issuing, one-fourth of its nominal value, and was reduced shortly after to one-fifth. It continued to decrease, and fell at last to the bare proportion of one-tenth. a loss alarmed the directory, as, at that rate, the national property, which was paid for in mandats, must of course be sold for one-tenth of its value. It came to the determination to shorten the periods of payment, in order to diminish thereby the quantity of mandats in circulation, which would raise the worth of those that had remained: but this expedient did not much restore it, and government,

So heavy

to secure any farther detriment, ordained the last instalment, which was the fourth part of the purchase, to be paid in specie.

Thus the speculators were to tally deceived in their calculations of the profit they had expected the more indeed as private land sold at a cheaper rate than public: but as they were chiefly monied men, and much of their opulence had arisen from their successful speculations during the public distress, as their losses were unheeded, and the conduct of government, however irregular and arbitrary, passed uncensured.

So great, in the mean time, were the difficulties of the republic, that, according to a statement of the revenue, made at this time by the committee of finances, the whole of it amounted to no more than five hundred millions of livres, while the expenditure was not less than one thousand. The directory was fully sensible that in such a situation the boldest, as well as the most prudent measures must be resorted to, and that no alternative remained, but either of finishing the contest with the enemies of France, on disadvantageous conditions, or of straining the authority and power of government to the farthest extent that could be borne with, or submitted to, regardless of the dissatis faction and murmurs that such a conduct would in all likelihood occasion.

France was, at this period, nearly exhausted of all extraordinary means of levying money. The sale of national property, which was almost the only one remaining, had been decreed. This measure however had not yet taken place in the Austrian Netherlands, now incorporated

rished a spirit of revenge which prompted them to endless efforts to regain the mastery. In the mean while, their expulsion had not been, complete. Many of their partizans still remained in places of trust: the legislature counted many anong its members, and the directory itself had one of their wellwishers.

Emboldened by these circumstances, and unintimidated by the discovery and suppression of the dreadful conspiracy, headed by Babeuf, they had the audacity to frame another, at a distance from the capital, hoping, if successful, to rally around the insurgents, the numerous jacobins still remaining in those parts. The place where the insurrection broke out was Marseilles, a city famous, in the annals of the revolution, for tumults and disturbances. On the nineteenth of July, while the citizens were occupied in the annual election of their magistrates, the jacobins assembled in multitudes, armed with a variety of weapons. They ran through the streets, exclaiming live the mountain and the constitution of ninety-three. A party of them rushed into the hall of election, from whence they drove the citizens, and murdered all who opposed them.

As the plan of this hasty insurrection was ill contrived, it had no other consequence than to throw the city of Marseilles into a temporary confusion. It appeared, however, that the interest of the jacobins, in that place, had more strength patronage than had been imagined. The commissary of the directory, in his dispatches to government, instead of laying before it the criminal behaviour of the jacobins, represented the whole as an

and

affray between the royalists and the republicans. But the council of five hundred ordered an inquiry to be made, which detected the perfidy of the commissary, in consequence of which, the forced elections of magistrates, that had been made by the jacobin party, were annulled, and proper measures taken to prevent them from disturbing the peace of that municipa lity.

But the jacobins were not, the only disturbers of the public tranquillity. The royalists, however just their cause, frequently disgraced it by the ridiculous zeal which they manifested in its support. Actuated by those illiterate and bigoted priests, that swarm in France, they formed themselves into bands that assumed the appellation of companions of Jesus and the king. They fell upon those, who, during the reign of terrorism, had persecuted and treated them with barbarity, on whom they exercised the most unmerciful retaliation. Affrays of this nature often happened, especially in the south of France, where the vindictive disposition of the inhabitants is apt to lead them into excesses of a fatal tendency, from the duration and obstinacy of their re

action, without needing any other stimulation. Men of this character are not easily tamed into subjection to those who differ from them in sentiments, and are much more ready to rise in opposition to them, than those who are governed by the dictates of others.

This conspicuously appeared in that other attempt, which the jaco. bins made to overthrow the establishment, so very soon after having failed in their late conspiracy. The numbers that voted against the impeachment of Drouet, and his eva sion from confinement, plainly shew. ed the influence of the jacobin faction. Relying on its many concealed partisans, a resolution was taken, by the undiscovered accomplices of Babeuf in that conspiracy, to rescue him and his associates from the hands of government, at the time when they were to be removed from their prison at Paris, and transferred to Vandame, for trial before the high criminal court.

In order to conceal from the public the real actors in the intended rescue, the jacobins assumed the appearance of royalists. They put on white cockades, displayed white colours, and every other token of royalism, and in this manner proceeded in their enterprize: but they were quickly discovered, and their project entirely frustrated.

Whether through neglect or connivance, no inquiry was made into this business. This induced the jacobins to meditate another plan, and to take what they hoped might prove more efficient means to succeed. They collected as many of their most daring associates as could be procured in the capital and its vicinity. They tampered with the soldiery, some of whom they se

duced, by whose medium they vainly imagined the majority of the remainder would be brought over to them. When they thought they were sufficiently prepared, they embodied themselves, to the number of five or six hundred, and marched to the camp in the Plain of Grenelle, at a very small distance from Paris. They seemed to entertain no doubt of being joined by the troops there, and confidently entered the camp, crying out, the constitution of ninety-three, and down with the two councils and the five tyrants. At the head of this desperate body of men were three members of the late convention, with as many generals who had been dismissed the service, and Drouet himself, it was said, not long escaped from his prison. They warmly exhorted the soldiers to join them, promising every remuneration that could be required; but they were totally deceived in their expectations. The soldiers remained true to their officers, and, at the word of command, fell upon the conspirators, who, unable to contend with such a force, betook themselves to flight. Numbers were killed upon the spot, and about one hundred and thirty taken. They were tried as insurgents by a military commission. Sentence of death or banishment was passed upon the most notoriously guilty, and the others were discharged.

The objects proposed by these rash and furious conspirators, were similar in every respect to those of Babeuf and his associates. Blood and the extermination of all persons in power, those only excepted whom they considered as favourable to their designs.

While the jacobins were intent upon those destructive schemes,

which, happily for France, were so seasonably prevented, the government was preparing a law, by which it hoped to reconcile the parties that divided the nation, so far as to extinguish the motives of terror that rendered so many Frenchmen enemies, through necessity, of their countrymen in power.

This law, from which such salutary effects were expected to flow, was an act of universal amnesty, which was to put an immediate stop to all prosecutions for revolutionary crimes and offences, committed since the commencement of July, 1789, to the fourth of Brumaire, in the fourth year of the republic, 1796. The only exceptions to this amnesty were those contained in the law enacted in the last sitting of the late convention, and called the law of the third Brumaire.

These exceptions were levelled at the opposers of the new constitution, transported priests, and emigrants, and those who had participated in the insurrection at Paris against the decree of the convention, ordaining the re-election of two thirds of its members.

But this law had always been considered, by the impartial, as too indiscriminately favourable to the adherents of the party which had framed it, as it not only put a stop to the proceedings against the agents of terrorism, but even against individuals guilty of crimes, for which they had been sentenced to severe and merited punishment, and whom it set at liberty in direct violation of all justice, and to the consternation of all persons inclined to mo deration and pacific measures.

A committee had been appointed to draw up the plan of this proposed

amnesty, the report of which led to a variety of discussions relating to it, and occasioned at last a proposal to repeal the very law of the third of Brumaire, as bearing too inequitably upon those who were related to emigrants, whom it excluded from public offices, together with those who had been concerned in the insurrection of last October, against the decrees of the convention for the re-elections.

These members of the legislature, who favoured the repeal of this law, considered it as inconsistent with the real principles of the constitution, by which no man ought to be subjected to so heavy a punishment as the forfeiture of his civic rights, without evident proof of his deserving it. In consequence of the reasonings they used in support of this opinion, a committee was chosen to deliberate on the merits of this law, and whether it could, with safe ty, be repealed at the present period.

The public was, in the mean time, greatly divided in its opinion on this question. Some pronounced it at once a trial of strength between the royalists and the republicans. Were the law to be repealed, an inundation of the former would infallibly take place in every department, and the restoration of monarchy would be the unavoidable consequence.

The nation at large held itself deeply concerned in the decision of this important question, and waited for it with the utmost impatience. The committee, appointed to examine the advantages and illconsequences resulting from the law alluded to, was considered as holding in its hands the fate of the nations. Loud and fervent were the