THREE:These godless atrocities, these enormous murders, beyond all historic precedent, proclaimed a people which had renounced God as well as humanity; and they soon proceeded to avow this fact, and to establish it by formal decree. In their rage for destroying everything old, there was nothing that escaped them. They altered the mode of computing time, and no longer used the Gregorian calendar, but dated all deeds from the first year of Liberty, which they declared to have commenced on the 22nd of September, 1792. The next and greatest achievement was to dethrone the Almighty, and erect the Goddess of Reason in His place. Under the auspices of the Goddess of Reason they did a very unreasonable thing: they deprived all working people and all working animals of one rest-day in every month. Instead of having the four weeks and four Sundays in a month, they[426] decimalised the months, dividing them each into three decades, or terms of ten days each, so that there were only three rest-days, instead of four, in the month.[257]
THREE:Tobias Smollett (b. 1721; d. 1771), before he appeared as a novelist, following in the track of Fielding rather than in that of Richardson, had figured as poet, dramatist, and satirist. Originally a surgeon from Dumbartonshire, and afterwards surgeon's mate on board of a man-of-war, he had then lived as an author in London. Thus he had seen great variety of life and character, and, having a model given him, he threw his productions forth in rapid succession. His first novel was "Roderick Random," which appeared in 1748, the same year as Richardson's "Clarissa," and a year preceding perhaps the greatest of Fielding's works, "Tom Jones." Then came, in rapid sequence, "Peregrine Pickle," "Count Fathom," "Sir Launcelot Greaves," and "Humphrey Clinker." Whilst writing these he was busy translating "Don Quixote"a work after his own hearttravelling and writing travels, editing The Briton, and continuing Hume's "History of England." In his novels Smollett displayed a deep knowledge of character, and a humour still broader and coarser than that of Fielding. In Smollett the infusion of indecency may be said to have reached its height. In fact, there is no more striking evidence of the vast progress made in England since the commencement of the reign of George III., in refinement of manners and delicacy of sentiment, than the contrast between the coarseness and obscenity of those early writers and the novelists of the present day. The picture which they offer of the rude vice, the low tastes, the debauched habits, the general drunkenness, and the ribaldry and profanity of language in those holding the position of gentlemen and even of ladies, strikes us now with amazement and almost with loathing.
THREE:The Girondists were, at the opening of the year 1792, vehemently urging on war against the Emigrants and the Emperor of Germany. Just at this crisis, as we have seen, Leopold of Austria died, and was succeeded by his nephew, Francis II.; and war became more inevitable, for Francis had not the same pacific disposition as Leopold, and the Gironde was bent on war. The internal condition of France also seemed to indicate that there must soon be war abroad or civil war at home. The Ministers were at variance; the Jacobins and Girondists were coming to an open and desperate feud; the people, both in Paris and throughout the country, were excited by the Jacobin publications to the utmost pitch of fury against the Royalists and the priests.Mack, who was advancing rashly out of reach of any supporting bodies of troops, expected to encounter the French in front. He therefore took possession of Ulm and Memmingen, and threw his advanced posts out along the line of the Iller and the Upper Danube, looking for the French advancing by way of the Black Forest. But Buonaparte's plan was very different. He divided his army into six grand divisions. That commanded by Bernadotte issued from Hanover, and, crossing Hesse, appeared to be aiming at a junction with the main army, which had already reached the Rhine. But at once he diverged to the left, ascended the Main, and joined the Elector of Bavaria at Würzburg. Had Mack had a hundredth part of the strategic talent attributed to him, he would have concentrated his forces into one powerful body, and cut through the cordon which Buonaparte was drawing around him, and, under good generalship, such soldiers as the Hungarians would have done wonders; but he suffered his different detachments to be attacked and beaten in detail, never being ready with fresh troops to support those which were engaged, whilst the French were always prepared for this object. Accordingly, Soult managed to surround and take one entire Austrian division at Memmingen, under General Spangenberg, and Dupont and Ney defeated the Archduke Ferdinand at Günzburg, who had advanced from Ulm to defend the bridges there. Ferdinand lost many guns and nearly three thousand men. This induced Mack to concentrate his forces in Ulm, where, however, he had taken no measures for supplying his troops with provisions during a siege. He was completely surrounded, and compelled to capitulate on the 19th of October, 1805.