France, and among its deputies to Raftadt, had fent the regicide, Jean Debrie, as well as the ruftic, Bonnier. Barbaczy, and another officer, Bourkhendt, were arrefted, by orders of prince Charles, in order to undergo a trial by a court-martial: but, as it was afterwards declared, that the affaffins were not` Auftrians, but French emigrants, under the affamed appearance of buffars, headed by one Danicou, this trial did not take place. The French government had not the fame candour or forbearance. For, who ever were the affaffins, or by whatever orders the affaffination was committed, the court of Vienna was peremptorily charged with the murder, by the directory, who fent a mellage to the councils, with official notice of the event. The councils adopted a refolution, the principal articles of which were, "that this act fhould be denounced, in the the name of the French nation, to all good men, and to the governments of every country, as commanded by the cabinet of Vienna, and executed by its troops; that funeral folemnities fhould be performed in honour of the murdered deputies, throughout the republic; that the government, guilty of this aflaffination, fhould be configned to the vengeance of nations, and the execrations of pofterity; that, in the place of fitting, of every municipal adminiftration, in tribunals, fchools, and public establishments, an infcription fhould be put up, ftating, that the Auftrian government had caufed this aflaffination to be committed by its troops; that a banner fhould be fent to every army by fea or land, with an infeription provocative of vengeance against the Auftrians, for VOL. XLI.

this murder; which banners were to be carried at the head of each army; and that indemnities fhould be given to the widows and children of the deceafed minifters." His imperial majefty, in an Aulic decree to the German diet, after expreffing the utmost abhorrence at the barbarous and atrocious deed, declared, "that an inquiry had been inftituted, ac cording to the prefcription of the laws, and which was to be conducted with every degree of rigour, that the horrid act might be traced in all its circumftances, its authors and accomplices difcovered, and the imputation of the offence be properly fixed: and charged the diet to appoint deputies of their own to be prefent at the inquiry; thus, by giving its conjoint advice, to convince the whole impartial world, that both the emperor and empire were animated with the fame uniform fentiments, for the execution of the most rigorous juftice." After a long examina tion, there did not appear fufficient evidence to bring home the charge and guilt of affaffination to any party. Myftery ftill hangs about this dark tranfaction: which, like Gouwrie's confpiracy against James VI. of Scotland, may, perhaps, even for centuries, remain a fub ject of curiofity and investigation, to antiquaries and hiftorians. Neverthelefs, it excited a very lively fentiment of horror and refent ment throughout France, and diverted, for a moment, the public indignation, which was every where poured down on the directory, on account of their profufion and ra pacity at home, and their neglect to recruit and ftrengthen their armies abroad. This fufpenfion and diverfion of the public attention [S]

and

and diffatisfaction, was probably the precife object that the directory had in view when they penned the piece juft quoted. Whether any thing very profperous or adverle happened to the nation, it was fure, for a fhort time, to afford fome relief to the directory, by turning the keen edge of the French genius to fomething elfe than the former conduct of adminiftration. But, it would appear that, hafty and precipitate as the French are in giving way to their imaginations and paflions, the fentiment of horror and resentment, infpired by the accounts they received, with many comments and conjectures from their own countrymen, who had come from Raftadt, were not of long duration. Their paffion cooled, they began firft to doubt; and then, very probably, to difbelieve what had been fo peremptorily charged against the imperial cabinet. Certain it is, that it did not render the decrees, which had paffed eleven days before, for making the military confcription general, more popular or effective. It was, on the eighteenth of April, a few days before the final rupture of the negociation at Raftadt, that the French government, from a defire of exciting odium against the emperor, for his felfifh ambition and inattention to the interefts of the Germanic body, and alfo of augmenting the jealoufy entertained of the views of that prince, by the court of Berlin, published a ftate paper, which they ftyled, "The Secret Articles and additional Convention of the Treaty of Campo Formiq." By this agreement, his imperial majefty was to be affifted by the influence of France, in the acquifition of the archbishopric of

Saltzburgh and other territories. In return, the emperor confented to the ceffion of the left bank of the Rhine, and promifed the evacuation of Mentz, Manheim, and other confiderable towns and fortrefles. From this political digreffion we return to military operations.

The French, in the outfet of the prefent campaign, had not contented themfelves with tracing out a particular plan of each of their three armies; but combined every partial operation, fo as to direct the whole to the attainment of one common object. The cafe was now the fame with the Auftrians, who, after victory had fuddenly enabled them to act on the offenfive in Germany and Italy, found themfelves obliged to regulate each operation, giving the idea of a military manoeuvre, in which the different corps, advancing dependently on each other, would regulate, by their left, their march, and direction. A plan was combined between general Hotze and Bellegarde, for a general attack on the country of the Grifons. General Bellegarde, after feveral engagements, gained poffeffion of the upper and lower Engadine. On the firft of May, general Hotze, whofe army, reinforced by the archduke, confifted of more than 20,000 men, advanced through the valley of the Grifons against the fort of Lucienfteig, whilft another column marched towards the fame point by the defiles of Langwart; and other detachments, in order to keep the French in check upon all points, penetrated by correfponding vallies. General Hoize's plan was to attack Fort Lucienfteig, on two fides at once, and thereby prevent

it from being relieved. But the column, coming by the way of Langwart, did not come out of the defiles at Flaifch and Mayenfield, till feveral hours after general Hotze had appeared before the Lucienfteig, which, for want of the co-operation, on which he had relied, he could not carry. The French general, Menard, who commanded in those parts, had already refifted general Hotze, with fuccefs, when he faw the fecond column coming upon him. At first he retired, but, being speedily reinforced by fome troops, which had fet out from Chur on hearing the fire, he found himself ftronger than the Auftrians, attacked them at the moment when they were iffuing out of the defile, beat them, and killed, or took, the greateft part of

the corps.

The failure of this attack was the more to be regretted by the Auftrians, that, if it had fucceeded, they might at once have gained poffeffion of the whole of the Grifon league, and even of part of the leffer cantons. General Hotze, a native of Switzerland, had collected the emigrants from that country, and had formed them into a corps of Infantry, about 1000 ftrong. The confidence which his countrymen repofed in his talents, enabled him to promote the difpofition to infurrection, manifefted by the in-, habitants of the leffer cantons of the Grifon country, and of the Valais, who, being informed of the general attack projected by the Auftrians, took up arms, and occupied at once the vallies of the higher Rhine, of the Ticino, of the Reufs, the Mutten, and the Rhone; forming a chain of infurrection upon the line of the great

Alps, in the rear of the two French corps, pofted in the valley of Chur, and at the head of that of the Inn. The failure of general Hotze's expedition enabled the French to unite their whole force against the infurgents. A part, in the canton of Schwitz, laid down their arms: the reft, to the number of several thoufands, were cut to pieces in two battles which they fought in the valley of the Rhine, and near Altdorf. These cruel difafters ftifled in its birth the general infur rection, by which the Auftrians had hoped to be fupported.

The pofition that had been taken by general Bellegarde, upon the chain of the Alps, which covers the principal valley of the Grifons, greatly favoured an attack on that territory. General Hotze, therefore, prepared to make a fecond effort, and arranged his meafures with general Bellegarde in fuch a manner, and with fuch a force, as to render fuccefs almoft infallible: and, the better to fecare, and af terwards improve it, the archduke had fent to general Hotze fresh reinforcements, including the fine regiment of light-horle, of Kinfky. The fort of Steig, aflailed on both fides by Auftrian columns, the one under the command of general Hotze, in perfon, the other under that of general Jellacheik, on the fourteenth of May. The reduction of this place was quickly followed by the total expulfion of the French from the country of the Grifons, and the Auftrians, under the command of Hotze, took poft on the left bank of the Rhine. In the mean time, feveral detachments of French, which had retired out of the Valtelline into the Rhetion Alps, afraid of being fut in by the [S2] - different

different Auftrian corps, that already occupied the paffes of Splugen and Gunkels, endeavoured to traverfe the mountains and reach St. Gothard. They were purfued by the corps of general Bellegarde, who went himself to Chiavenna, his co-operation being no longer of use to general Hotze; with whom, however, he left fome troops, and his prefence becoming more and more neceflary every day to the army of the allies in Italy.

In confequence of the furprize, defeat, and loffes, which the divifion of general Menard had fuffered, in the country of the Grifons, on the fourteenth of May, the French in the Foggenburg, in the canton of Appenzel, and fome other places, could not maintain themfelves in those territories, or even beyond the Thur, without recovering the poft at Wallenftadt. This they attempted to do on the nineteenth, a few hours after the advanced guard of the Auftrians had taken poffeffion of it; but were repulfed, towards the clofe of the day, as far as Murg, on the fouth bank of the lake of Wallenftadt. It was no longer in Maffena's power to keep poffeffion of the eastern part of Switzerland. The generals Hotze and Bellegarde had gained his right flank, and even his rear, and, therefore, he could not, without much danger, longer delay to ftrengthen his centre, and shorten his line. He ordered the Foggemberg, the canton of Appenzel, the country of St. Gall, and the Tongaw, to be evacuated on the twentieth, and withdrew all his forces

behind the Thur.

But the fuccefs obtained by general Hotze would not have been fufficient to induce Massena to evacuate fo great an extent of country,

had he not been certain that the archduke Charles would alfo very foon pafs the Rhine. The hoftile appearances in Suabia had not induced the archduke to change the concentrated pofition which he had taken between Stock-ach and Schaffhaufen, and as little did the entrenchments, made along the river, hinder him from paffing it. That prince had refolved not to enter Switzerland till its fouth and east quarters fhould have been previoufly invaded: which being done, he loft not a moment in executing an enterprize, too long delayed, and anxiously waited for by all Europe. As foon as the retreat of the French was known, the advanced pofts of the Auftrians, which guarded the Rhine from Field-kirk to Rheineck, paffed that river, and the flotilla of colonel Williams had landed fome troops on the weft fide of the lake of Conftance. On the twenty-firft, the main body of the archduke's army marched from Stock-ach ̧to Singen, and on the twenty-third, from that place to Schaffhaufen: where it began, the fame day, pafs the Rhine on bridges of boats, and to occupy a camp marked out near Paradife. A junction was formed on the twenty-fixth: and, on the fame evening, it was determined to take advantage of this for attacking the pofition of the enemy at Winterthur. The French, on the twenty-feventh, were forced to abandon their fituation, retired in good order, and with little loss, beyond the river Tofs, their retreat being greatly favoured by the woody and mountainous nature of the country. The Auftrians had now the advantage of refuming of fenfive operations, and of being firmly established in Switzerland

barked on the town of that name, whence they were conducted by general Bellegarde, across the Milanefe to the fiege of Tortona. The reft of that army, under the command of general Haddick, drove the French from St. Gothard, and forced them to retire behind the Reufs. The lofs of St. Gothard, and the progrefs made by the imperialists, in the cantons of Glarus, Schwitz, and Uri, threatened the whole pofition of the French in Switzerland. Repeated attempts were made to regain a part of the territory they had loft. General Lecourbe, on the thirtieth, forced the Auftrians to yield a little ground in the vallies of Reufs and Schagen: and, on the fecond of June, in a very obftinate battle, which ended in his favour, he killed, wounded, or took one thousand men. This affair obliged the Auftrians to fall back to Urferen.

with about fifty-five thousand men, while Maffena, on account of the length of his line, and the neceffity of lending ten thousand men into the Valais, could not oppofe to them quite that number. Though the country, bordering on the Tofs, prefents many advantageous poftions, for oppofing the paffage of that river, yet Maffena, fearing to be out-flanked, refolved to draw heater to the central pofition of Zurich, where alone he could ftop the progrefs of the Auftrians. He decamped, therefore, in the night, between the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth, and retired to the Glatt. The archduke, in confequence, pufhed on his advanced guard, on the right to Balach, and on the left to Baffendorf; on which account, the French, on the following day, falling back ftill farther, put the Glatt between them and the enemy, and occupied the pofition before Zurich, which, for two months, they had been carefully entrenching. Their right, at the fame time, evacuated Rapperfchwill, lefs, from any apprehenfions of danger in their front, than by the progrefs already made on their rear, by the left wing of general Hotze's army. General Bellegarde, who had ceafed to co-operate with general Hotze, and, on the eighteenth of May, gone in purfuit of the different corps of the enemy which had defended the fources of the Rhine, having on the fixteenth pushed on a column to Chiavenna, advanced, on the eighteenth, with the reft of his army, in three columns, towards the valley of the Adda. Two of thefe did not direct their march against the enemy, but towards the lake Como, on which they em

The poffeffion of St. Gothard was fo important to the allied armies, that they neglected nothing that could contribute to its defence. And general Lecourbe, through movements by the Auftrians, fatigue, loffes, and the difficulty of procuring fubfiftence in a ravage country, was obliged to give up every hope of recovering the St. Gothard. He embarked his troops, part on the lake of the Four Cantons, and part on that of Zug, and took a pofition behind thefe, to cover the town and lake of Lucerne. The Auftrians occupied the valley of the Reufs to the lake of the Four Cantons, and Allorf, Fluelen, Brunnen, and Schwiltz; from which they communicated with the rest of the army, across the Sihl and the lake of Zurich.