1793 - Political Events
Political Events
Louis XVI goes to the guillotine January 21 in the Place de la Revolution that will later be the Place de la Concorde. Dead at age 38, the king has been tried before the convention, which has declared him guilty by a vote of 683 to 38 and voted that he be executed rather than imprisoned or banished. He proclaims his innocence as he goes to his death. His 37-year-old brother Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, comte de Provence, fled the country in 1791, has been organizing émigré societies while trying to enlist the support of other European monarchs, and promptly proclaims himself regent for his 7-year-old nephew Louis-Charles, duc de Normandie, who is proclaimed Louis XVII by royalist émigrés (see 1795).
The French republic declares war February 1 against Britain, Holland, and Spain and annexes the Belgian provinces. Britain, Holland, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire join in an alliance against France with Savoy (Sardinia), which has been at war with the French since July 1792.
A French army under the command of General Dumouriez invades Holland February 26, the Convention at Paris sends 82 representatives in early March into the provincial départements to expedite the conscription of 300,000 men, but Austrian forces prevail over the French March 18 at Neerwinden and March 21 at Louvain. Dumouriez concludes an armistice with the Austrians and prepares to march on Paris and overthrow the National Convention, which sends the minister of war Pierre Riel, comte de Beurnonville, with four commissaries to relieve him of his command. Dumouriez turns them over to the Austrians April 2, his troops desert, and he goes over to the Austrian side April 5, a defection that discredits his Girondist associates.
The comtesse du Barry returns from London March 3 against the advice of her English friends, saying that she has "a debt of honor to be settled in France."
Paris lawyer Antoine-Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, 46, is appointed public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal in March and launches a determined and merciless prosecution of counterrevolutionaries in the growing Reign of Terror. A friend and relative of the journalist Camille Desmoulins, he will in the next 2 years prosecute well over 2,000 people, including Desmoulins himself.
A Committee of Public Safety organized at Paris April 6 has dictatorial powers and will use force to nationalize military production, impose mass requisitions, and raise, arm, equip, and feed 14 armies by means of a mass levy. Lawyer Bertrand Barère (de Vieuzac), 37, has made a "Report to the French Nation" in January favoring war against Europe's royalist powers as an extension of the revolutionary principles and formulates much of the propaganda against the "aristocratic conspiracy" issued by the new Comité de salut public, whose members include also Georges Jacques Danton and Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (see 1794).
French Girondists attack the radical Jacobin Jean Paul Marat, 49, and bring him to trial. Acquitted April 24, Marat joins with Danton and Robespierre of the Comité de salut public in overthrowing the power of the Girondists, 31 Girondist deputies are arrested June 2, and they are expelled from the Convention.
The Convention at Paris introduces a law in July authorizing local authorities to arrest anyone suspected of "uncivic behavior such as lack of patriotism or aristocratic tendencies" and Mme. du Barry is imprisoned. As many as 17,000 people go to the guillotine in July; at one point, 21 heads fall into wicker baskets in the space of just 38 minutes.
French patriot Charlotte Corday (Marie Charlotte Corday d'Armont), 25, assassinates the radical Jacobin Jean-Paul Marat July 13. Horrified by the excesses of the Jacobin terrorists, she stabs Marat to death in his bath, where he nurses a persistent skin disease. Corday has gained entrance to his rooms at 20 rue de Cordeliers by claiming to have detailed knowledge about a group of Girondin conspirators in the Calvados area; an ardent royalist and daughter of an impoverished aristocrat, she lives with an aunt in Caën and is involved with the same Girondist group that she has pretended to betray. Corday makes no effort to escape but stands calmly at the window, watching the mob that gathers, and offers no resistance to the police when they arrive to arrest her.
The Convention at Paris decrees that women may no longer join the army but offers only 5 sous per mile to help volunteers return home.
Prussian forces recover Mainz from the French after a 3-month siege, and the Allies take Conde and the Valenciennes (see 1792). The French general Adam Philippe, comte de Custine, is accused of treason, a revolutionary tribunal finds him guilty, and he goes to the guillotine at Paris August 28 at age 53 (he is survived by his 3-year-old son Astolphe).
Spain declares war on France at the insistence of her handsome but reactionary new prime minister Manuel de Godoy y Alvarez de Faria, 26, who gained favor with Carlos IV (and the indolent king's wife, Maria Luisa of Naples) and last year replaced the count of Aranda as head of government, being created duke of Alcudia and a grandee.
France begins a levy of all men capable of bearing arms August 23 as the Allies drive republican troops back on all fronts; a squadron under the command of Royal Navy Vice Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood of Whitley, and Spanish admiral Juan de Lángara lays siege August 28 to Toulon, which has rebelled against the Convention. Maria Carolina of Naples, consort to Ferdinand IV, sends warships to join the British fleet; now 41, she has brought about the downfall of the liberal minister Bernardo Tanucci and been persuaded by her favorite (and reputed lover) Sir John Acton to side with Britain against the French. Fourteen new French armies succeed in taking Caen, Bordeaux, and Marseilles.
Lyons falls to the French republicans in October after a 2-month siege; the city is partially destroyed and much of its population massacred. The Convention at Paris has appointed military engineer Lazare (-Nicolas-Marguerite) Carnot, 40, a member of the Committee of Public Safety and sent him north to relieve the siege of Maubeuge; he is instrumental in winning the Battle of Wattignies October 16, leading the attack, raising the siege, and entering Maubeuge alongside the generals. Carnot then resumes his seat on the Committee of Public Safety, where he insists that France give up the ancient tactic of line combat and switch to attacking decisive points with concentrated masses of men.
The Reign of Terror gathers force at Paris and elsewhere. Marie Antoinette goes to the guillotine October 16 after being prosecuted by Antoine-Quentin Fouquier-Tinville. Some 15,000 are guillotined in 3 months at Nantes, and the 21 Girondist deputies arrested June 2 are guillotined October 31.
Poet Jeanne-Marie Roland (née Phlipon) goes to the guillotine at Paris November 8 at age 39, and her Girondist husband, Jean Marie Roland de La Platiere, 59, commits suicide a week later in Normandy at news of Mme. Roland's death (she has directed his career, singling out his rival Georges Danton for special venom). Known as Manon Phlipon, she has written her memoirs under the title "Appeal to Impartial Posterity" ("Appel à l'impartiale postérité") while in prison and her last words are reported to have been, "O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!"
Former National Assembly orator Antoine Barnave is convicted of treason in a trial November 28 and goes to the guillotine November 29 at age 32.
The comtesse du Barry goes to the guillotine December 7 at age 52 after a trial that has taken up most of the previous day.
A purge of priests in the Vendée and efforts to conscript peasants into the revolutionary army incite a popular uprising. Generals Louis-Marie Turreau and François Westermann suppress the revolt with unbridled brutality, killing 300,000 to 600,000 men, women, and children. Jacobin judge Jean-Baptiste Carrier orders the execution of 13,000 at Nantes (many are deliberately drowned in the Loire in specially-built boats). General Westermann routs the Vendée rebel army at Savenay December 23.
Napoleon Bonaparte gains prominence for the first time as the French take Toulon from the British December 19 after a siege of nearly 4 months. Now 24, the Corsican-born artillery officer has won the favor of Robespierre's brother and been put in charge of directing siege operations to recover Toulon from Admiral Hood's British squadron, which came to the aid of the city in August; he moves his cannon to the high ground overlooking the city and uses them to good effect, but the British burn 41 ships of the French fleet on their way out of the great naval base, taking with them every royalist citizen who can be crammed aboard, and they destroy also Toulon's arsenal, cargo ships, and stores, all of which must be rebuilt (see Bonaparte, 1794). Several hundred remaining royalists are rounded up and shot after being tried by a special tribunal.
Poland is partitioned for a second time January 23, with Russia taking most of Lithuania and the western Ukraine, including Podolia, and Prussia taking Danzig, Thorn, and Great Poland (see 1792; first partition, 1772). Russia has been given free entry for her troops in Poland plus the right to control Poland's foreign relations (see 1794).
President Washington meets with department heads at his New York house February 25 in the first U.S. cabinet meeting. The cabinet is composed of the secretaries of state, treasury, and war, the attorney general, and the postmaster general.
President Washington issues a Proclamation of Neutrality in the European war April 22. He has resisted pressure from Alexander Hamilton to support the British and from Thomas Jefferson to support the French.
U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson suggests that the nation's sovereignty should extend offshore as far as cannonball range (see van Bynkershoek, 1702; marine resources [Santiago Declaration], 1952). Jefferson quits politics and retires to Monticello (but see 1796).
U.S. senator and Declaration of Independence signer Roger Sherman dies at New Haven, Connecticut, July 23 at age 72; former British colonial secretary Wills Hill, earl of Hillsborough and marquess of Devonshire, at London October 7 at age 75; Massachusetts governor and Declaration of Independence signer John Hancock at Quincy October 8 at age 56.
The Afghan king Timur dies and his throne is seized by his fifth son, Zaman, who has gained support from the Barakzai chief Sardar Payenda Khan, but the activities of the new king will alarm British colonial authorities in India, and they will persuade Persia's Fath Ali Shah to move against him (see 1800).
Japan's Tokugawa shōgun Ienari begins a personal reign of 45 years after a 6-year regency during which Matsudaira Sadanobu, now 34, has put through a series of reforms. The reign begins with the failure by Russian lieutenant Adam Laxman to establish friendly relations and will be marked by the collapse of military rule and the growth of extravagance and inefficiency in the Tokugawa court.
A British fleet arrives at Guangzhou (Canton) with an emissary who has been given instructions to establish ties with China. Lord George Macartney meets with a rebuff from the emperor Qianlong (Chien-lung), who gives him a message for George III that says his country has no need of Britain's friendship. "As your ambassador can see for himself, our Celestial Kingdom possesses all things in prolific abundance. We have never valued strange objects nor do we have the slightest need for your country's manufactures" (see opium, 1799).
Vietnamese nationalist Nguyen Nhac of the Tay Son brothers dies December 16 at age 41 (approximate), having outlived his brother Nguyen Hue, who died last year (see 1788). They have been unable to reform Vietnam's land-ownership system, their disillusioned followers have left them in droves, and they have been defeated by forces loyal to the young prince Nguyen Anh, a nephew of the legimate heir to the throne. Descendants of the Tay Son brothers try to continue the fight (but see 1801).
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