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The crisis of the 18th Fructidor, which retarded for three years the extinction of the pentarchy, presents one of the most remarkable events of its short existence. It will be seen how the Directors extricated themselves from this difficulty. I subjoin the correspondence relating to this remarkable episode of our Revolution, cancelling only such portions of it as are irrelevant to the subject.
The Pentarchy, or Five Great Powers, pledged themselves to the continued maintenance of peace by means of conferences and congresses. But the court party, with his brother the Count d'Artois at its head, were unyielding in their despotic ideas. They were for restoring the system of the old monarchy. A more liberal man, Decazes, succeeded him.
Prussia, us we have seen, sided with Austria; and though it is impossible to believe in her sincerity, her moral power, so far as it went, was adverse to the Italian cause. The other European nations were of no account, having no will of their own, and being influenced only by the action of the members of the Pentarchy.
The nation groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannical laws; despotism was systematically established; the law of hostages struck a blow at personal liberty, and forced loans menaced every man's property. The generality of the citizens had declared themselves against a pentarchy devoid of power, justice, and morality, and which had become the sport of faction and intrigue.
At the right hand there were fifty musicians and singers of the Opera, Laine, Lays, Regnault, and the actresses, not all dead of old age, roaring a patriotic cantata to the music of Mehul. Facing them, on another elevation, there were two hundred young and beautiful women, with their arms and bosoms bare, all in ecstasy at the majesty of our Pentarchy and the happiness of the Republic.
The nation groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannical laws; despotism was systematically established; the law of hostages struck a blow at personal liberty, and forced loans menaced every man's property. The generality of the citizens had declared themselves against a pentarchy devoid of power, justice, and morality, and which had become the sport of faction and intrigue.
The crisis of the 18th Fructidor, which retarded for three years the extinction of the pentarchy, presents one of the most remarkable events of its short existence. It will be seen how the Directors extricated themselves from this difficulty. I subjoin the correspondence relating to this remarkable episode of our Revolution, cancelling only such portions of it as are irrelevant to the subject.
Contemporary Europe had resulted in the unstable equilibrium of the five dominant Powers of Britain, Russia, Austria, France, and Germany. Europe has almost consolidated into a pentarchy. If it be true that the national State almost inevitably must develop into a great Power, conversely it is no less true that small States are an anomaly.
The nation groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannical laws; despotism was systematically established; the law of hostages struck a blow at personal liberty, and forced loans menaced every man's property. The generality of the citizens had declared themselves against a pentarchy devoid of power, justice, and morality, and which had become the sport of faction and intrigue.
This peace the fruit of Marengo and Hohenlinden restored France to that honourable position which had been put in jeopardy by the feeble and incapable government of the pentarchy and the reverses of 1799. This peace, which in the treaty, according to custom, was called perpetual, lasted four years.
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