at the head of an army marching against his country. This was to be regarded as the highest crime he could possibly commit, and even for this he could be punished no otherwise than by being dethroned. “No crime whatever,” says the constitution, “shall be construed to affect his life.” This constitution every Frenchman had sworn, “to obey, and to maintain with all his might.” When, therefore, it was proposed to the Lyonnese, by the emissaries of the National Convention, to petition for the death of the king, they replied almost with one voice: “No; we have sworn, with all France, to maintain the new constitution with all our might; that constitution declares that no crime whatsoever shall affect the life of the king. For any thing we have yet seen or heard, we believe him innocent of every crime that has been laid to his charge. The mode of his trial is unprecedented in the annals of injustice, the Convention being at once accuser, evidence, and judge. We believe him perfectly innocent; but whether he be or not, the constitution that we have, by a solemn oath, bound ourselves to maintain with all our might, declares that no crime whatever shall be construed to affect his life; that life, therefore, we cannot, we will not demand. The rest of the nation may sport with engagements which they have called the Almighty to witness, they may add the crime of assassination to that of perjury, they may stain themselves with the blood of their innocent and unfortunate prince, the Lyonnese never will.”
Reader, you will hardly believe that this answer, so full of good sense, justice, piety, and honour, drew down on the gallant Lyonnese the most dreadful chastisement that ever was inflicted on any part of the human race. Read and be convinced.
No sooner was the determination of the Lyonnese made known to the Convention, than the latter began to concert schemes of vengeance. A numerous army was prepared, while the democratic agents of the Convention, who still had the executive authority at Lyons, spared no pains in endeavouring to drive the city to what they termed open rebellion, and thus to furnish a pretext for its destruction. The doctrine of equality, so flattering to those who possess nothing, had gained them many converts among the lower classes of the people. To these was committed all authority, civil and military, and it is hardly necessary to say that they exercised every species of tyranny that envy, revenge, and popular fury could invent. All this was borne with a degree of resignation that has been justly regarded as astonishing in people who have since exhibited such unequivocal proofs of inherent valour. A sense of more immediate danger, however, roused them from their lethargy.
There was held, every night, a meeting of the leaders among the partizans of the Convention. It consisted, in general, of men of desperate fortunes, bankrupts, quacks, the dregs of the law, apostate priests, and the like, not forgetting some who had been released from the galleys. In this infamous assembly, which took the name of Democratic Club, a plot was laid for the assassination of all the rich in one night; but this plot, notwithstanding the precautions of the conspirators, was happily discovered; the President Challier, and two others, were tried and condemned to die, the democrats were driven from all the public offices, and the former magistrates reinstated.
This act of self-preservation was called a revolt against the republic, and in consequence of it, the Convention passed Ref 021 decree upon decree, bearing death and destruction against the Lyonnese. Thus, those very men who had formed a constitution, which declares resistance against oppression to be a natural right, passed an act of proscription against a whole city, because they had dared to lift their hands to guard their throats against the knives of a band of assassins!
The city now began to arm for its defence; but being totally unprepared for a siege, having neither fortifications nor magazines, and being menaced on every side by myriads of ferocious enemies, the people were backward in declaring for hostility, knowing that in that case death or victory must be the consequence. There were, therefore, but about ten thousand men who had the courage to take up arms; but the desperate bravery of these amply made up for every want. During the space of sixty days they withstood an army of fifteen times their strength, plentifully provisioned, and provided with every instrument of destruction. Never, perhaps, were there such feats of valour performed as by this little army; thrice their numbers did they lay dead before their injured city.
The members deputed from the Convention to direct the attack, left nothing untried that might tend to the accomplishment of their object. They succeeded at last, in opening a communication with their partizans in the city, and in seducing many of the mob to espouse their interest. This was the more easy to effect, as the besieged were, by this time, upon the point of starving; the flesh of horses, dogs, and cats, had been for some days their only food, and even that began to grow extremely scarce. In this situation, without the least hopes of succour, some of those who wished well to their city, and who had not borne arms during the siege, undertook to capitulate with the enemy; but these, knowing the extremities to which they were driven, insisted upon executing the decrees of the Convention, which ordered them to put to death indiscriminately, all those who had taken up arms against its authority.
The besieged, then, seeing no hopes of a capitulation, seeing the city without another day’s provision, and the total impossibility of succour from without (being completely invested on every side), had but one measure to adopt; to cut their way through their enemy, or fall in the attempt. A plan of retreat was therefore settled upon; the outposts were to be called in, and the whole were to assemble at the Vaise.
In the mean time, the deputies from the Convention, who were informed by their spies of all that was passing in the city, took care to have the road by which the retreating army was to pass, well lined with troops. The whole country round was under arms. Every person was ordered, on pain of death, not to let pass, or give shelter to, a single Lyonnese, man, woman, or child.
The out-posts were hardly called in, when their stations were taken possession of by the democratic army. Being so closely pressed, rendered the assembling more difficult; all was bustle, confusion, and terror. Not half of these who were under arms had time to join. A little corps was, however, at last formed. It consisted of between three and four thousand persons in all, headed by four field-pieces, and followed by six waggons, bearing the wreck of many a splendid fortune. Thus marched off the remains of these generous defenders of their city, bidding an eternal adieu to the scenes of their youth, the dwellings of their ancestors; resolving to die bravely, as they had lived, or find an asylum in a foreign land.
It was midnight when they began their retreat, lighted by the blaze of bombs and burning houses.——Reader, cast your eyes on this devoted city. See children clinging to their fathers, distracted mothers to their sons; wives, holding in their arms what they held dearer than life, forgetting all but their husbands, marching by their side, and braving death from ten thousand hands!
They had hardly begun their march, when a discharge of artillery, bearing full upon them, threw them into some confusion. One of their waggons, in which were several old men and some children, was set on fire by a shell. Morning coming on, they perceived themselves beset on every side; they were charged by the cavalry, exposed to the fire of a numerous artillery, harassed at every turning, fired upon from every house, every bank and every hedge. Seeing therefore no hopes of escape, they were determined to sell every drop of blood as dear as possible. They broke off into platoons, putting their wives and children in the centre of each, and took different directions, in order to divide the force of the enemy. But what were they to do against fifty times their number? The whole, about fifty persons excepted, were either killed or taken.
The victors showed such mercy as might be expected from them: not content with butchering their prisoners in cold blood, they took a pleasure in making them die by inches, and insulting them in the pangs of death. Placing several together, they killed one of them at a time to render death more terrible to the rest. Neither sex nor age had any weight with them; above two hundred women, thirty of whom had children at the breast, whom conjugal love had led to follow their husbands; more than fifty old men, whom filial piety had snatched from the assassin’s stab, were all most savagely butchered. The death of Madame de Visague deserves particular notice. This young lady was about seventeen years of age, and very near her time of delivery:
