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LAZARE HOCHE: THE INVADER OF IRELAND.*

Hoche, a Private in the French Guard-With the Army of the ArdennesDefence of Dunkirk-At the Lines of Wissemburg-His Marriage, Disgrace, and Captivity-War in La Vendée-The Affair of Quiberon-Expedition to Ireland-Campaign of 1797 on the Rhine-Coup d'Etat of Fructidor-Illness and Death of General Hoche.

LAZARE HOCHE was one of the heroes of the French Revolution. His biographer, Emile de Bonnechose, goes so far as to compare him as a warrior of modern times, at an epoch when all the glories of France had taken refuge and were concentrated in its armies, with that great heroic figure of the middle ages-Du Guesclin.

He was born at Versailles, June 24, 1768. His father, an old soldier, held a situation in the Royal Kennels, and his mother dying when he was only two years of age, he was brought up by an aunt, a greengrocer at Montreuil. Heroism has sometimes the most humble antecedents. A maternal uncle, Abbé Merlière, priest of St. Germain en Laye, noticed the boy as of a lively and promising disposition, took him in hand, and made a chorister of the future head of the armies of the Moselle and the Rhine. At fifteen he obtained a situation in the royal stables-became, in plain English, a stable-boy. His military instincts, however, raising him above such an employment, he enlisted at sixteen as a private in the French Guards, and he so distinguished himself by his aptitude in arms, by his generous, open disposition, and by his handsome appearance, that he passed into the grenadiers of the Guard within a year's time.

This was in 1785-an epoch when the approach of that great political and social movement, which ended in the French Revolution, was felt on all sides, and young Hoche looked forward with enthusiasm to a change which would put aside all obstacles presented to personal merit by defects in birth, education, and fortune. Probably he was not the only one by many thousands who was impelled by similar feelings; but he was one of the few to whom they became a reality. Hoche was, furthermore, one of that class of men who felt keenly the disadvantages of an imperfect education, and, in order to be able to purchase books, he passed his leisure hours in digging and drawing water for gardeners, or in embroidering caps and waistcoats. His promotion was, however, retarded by the irrepressible energy of his disposition. He challenged his corporal, received a cut on the head, but plunged his own sword up to the hilt into the body of his antagonist. On another occasion, not finding a man who had offended him, he ravaged his house. For this act of violence he was immured for three months in prison on bread and water. Thus it happened that he spent five years in the service before he passed as corporal. This was in 1789, the year of the capture of the Bastille-a feat which would never have been accomplished but for the assistance

* Lazare Hoche, Général en Chef des Armées de la Moselle, d'Italie des Côtes de Cherbourg, de Brest, et de l'Océan, de Sambre et Meuse, et du Rhin, sous la Convention et le Directoire, 1793-1797. Par Emile de Bonnechose. Hachette et Cie.

tendered to the populace by the French Guard. Hoche was, however, among those who remained faithful to his flag. He was on duty in the Rue Verte, and he closed the gates against the infuriated mob.

The French Guard was disbanded after the fall of the Bastille, and incorporated in the National Guard, under La Fayette. Hoche, as sergeantmajor in the new force, assisted in protecting the person of the king and queen on the occasion of the visit paid by the mob to Versailles in the month of October the same year. His conduct upon this occasion attracted the notice of La Fayette. Hoche was a revolutionist, but he also felt that his duty as a soldier was to confront insurrection, not to side with it. It is true that he sought for advancement, but it was by legitimate means, and he would have blushed to have been indebted for such to treachery and rebellion.

Hoche made his first appearance in history in 1793, when the Austrians surprised the French division, at that time investing Maestricht, under General le Veneur, and obliged it to raise the siege. Hoche, lieutenant, and soon afterwards captain, in the 58th regiment of infantry, was entrusted with the arduous duty of protecting the removal of the guns and ammunition, and he did this so effectually that the general at once attached him to his person as his aid-de-camp. Dumouriez having hastened from Holland to rally the retreating army, Hoche further distinguished himself in the affair of Nerwinde, and in covering the retreat at the passage of the Dyle, near Louvain. He was in consequence named "chef de bataillon," and offered an adjutancy, but he preferred remaining with General le Veneur. This was indeed a happy incident for the young soldier; for, as the general's aid-de-camp, he became more polished in his manners, and learnt to control his language, and he always looked up to the old count with the same respectful affection that he would have shown to a parent. This feeling continued even after he had risen in rank and held a command superior to that of his former protector.

When Dumouriez, disgusted with the violence of the Convention and the tyranny of the commune of Paris, went over to the enemy, Hoche was selected to lay before the executive a true picture of the disorganised state of the army of the North. He found Paris itself in little better condition. The Committee of Public Safety was inaugurating its dreadful sway, and the fatal struggle between the Montagnards and the Girondins was at its height. The heart of the young soldier was indeed completely sickened by the aspect of things in the capital; and after the 31st of May, when the Girondins were led to the scaffold, he felt he had nothing to do in a city where the principles of the revolution, "liberty, fraternity, and equality," were utterly set aside-mere sounds, in fact and he hastened back to the army, where love of liberty and national independence were not yet extinguished. When General le Veneur was arrested as a suspect," Hoche's indignation attained its acme, and he was himself placed under arrest and removed to Douai, charged with having exclaimed, "Do Pitt and Cobourg govern France, since the bravest defenders of the Republic are placed under arrest ?" Notwithstanding this temporary disgrace, Hoche indited reports, addressed to Couthon, of the Committee of Public Safety, upon the military defence of the country,

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which were so much approved of that he was set at liberty, and appointed to an adjutancy in the army of the North. He advocated in these reports the principles subsequently acted upon by Napoleon I., and which consisted in avoiding to weaken the army by garrisoning strong places, but attacking each separate division of the enemy in succession, and in the greatest possible strength and efficiency. Nor does he appear to have been wanting in republican assurance, for he says in his official reports, "Your generals have no plans: there is not among them a man capable of saving the frontier."

Dunkirk was at that epoch (1793) invested by the Duke of York on the sea side, and by Marshal Freytag on land. Hoche was sent to aid in the defence of the place, and, although a subaltern of twenty-four years of age, the character of the man at once displayed itself. He took the command over his superiors in rank; ordered, dictated, and wrote to the ministry that "if the citizen guard attempted to interfere, it must expect to see those arms turned against it which were destined for tyrants and traitors." Such an exceeding spirit of republican independence at once won over the soldiery to his cause; the commandant of the place was put under arrest, strangers and "suspects" were expelled the city, the defences were put in order, and ultimately the English and Hanoverians having been prevented, by a vigorous sortie, from supporting Freytag, attacked by Generals Houchard and Jourdan, the seige was raised, and Hoche elevated to the rank of general of brigade, soon became a general of division, and on the 23rd of October, 1795, he was appointed generalin-chief of the army of the Moselle.

The so-called army of the Moselle was at that epoch as demoralised as the armies of the Rhine and of the North. Successes had been followed by signal reverses on all sides, and the Imperial troops held Wissemburg in front, and, blockading Landau, were advancing on the Sarre and the Blise. Hoche re-established discipline, and, what is more, revived the flagging spirits of the soldiery. The energy of his language and of his acts begat confidence, and aroused hopes of success. Regardless of all rights of promotion on seniority, he looked only to talent and courage, and selecting his officers from the ranks, lieutenants became colonels, whilst sergeants were raised to the rank of lieutenants and captains. Hopeful despatches were transmitted at the same time to Paris, written in the inflated language of the time-the jargon of the clubs-which was alone acceptable at head-quarters.*

On the 17th of November, 1793, Hoche advanced against the Prussians stationed on the Sarre, his troops disposed in three columns. The Duke of Brunswick withdrawing to the heights of Blise-Castel, a sharp engagement took place, which ended in the Prussians retreating to Kayser-Slautern. Had Hoche succeeded in driving the Prussians from this last position, he would have been able to turn the Vosges and relieve Landau, where Würmser held the army of the Rhine under Pichegru in check. But after two days' hard fighting, the young general, tossing up his hat in republican fashion to incite the soldiers, he was obliged to sound "La marche rétrograde,”—an expression which at that time as * Bergounioux, Vie de Lazare Hoche, pp. 26, 27; Correspondence de Hoche: Rousselin, p. 25.

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ingeniously covered a defeat, as in our own days does the still more elaborate disguise of "taking up a new basis of operations." Hoche was excused by the Committee of Public Safety, who generally punished defeat by the penalty of death, upon the plea that the plan of attack had emanated from the committee itself, and that it was not his own. He also accused Pichegru with having witheld all co-operation from motives of jealousy, and the two generals found each of them advocates in the committee to envenom the existing bitterness. Carnot, who directed the military operations, was opposed to Hoche, so the latter resolved in future to act for himself, and to keep the secret of his plans within his own bosom. By these means, and by marching his troops, although winter had come on, without tents or impediments of any kind, he was enabled to convey them through the Vosges by the defiles of Pirmasens. The Austrians made two ineffectual stands at Reischoffen and Freischwiller, but Hoche putting a price of six hundred francs upon each of the enemy's guns, the half-starved soldiery rushed upon the batteries, and slew the gunners, in order to win the coveted prize. The Austrians made a further unsuccessful stand at Wert, and at last Würmser himself advanced and took up a position on the upland of Sultz. But the republicans came up with the enemy on the 23rd of December, and the Austrian general being compelled to retreat upon the celebrated lines of Wissemburg, a junction was effected with the army of the Rhine.

Hoche, now commander-in-chief of the armies of the Rhine and Moselle, for Pichegru, his senior, had to succumb before the indomitable audacity of his young rival, he determined upon attacking the lines of Wissemburg. To this effect two divisions were despatched to the left to hold the Prussians in check near the Vosges, another division was sent to blockade Lauterbourg, occupied by the French emigrants under the Prince of Condé, whilst Hoche himself led on the centre against the heights of Geitsberg, where the Austrians held a position of great strength. Hoche had under his orders in this affair, Desaix, Soult, Moreau, and a host of men, all destined to become illustrious leaders. The result of the battle of the 26th of December, 1793, was, that the French entered Wissemburg, the seige of Landau was raised, and the Austrians and Prussians had to withdraw upon the Rhine, each throwing the blame of their reverses upon the other.

The very successes of the young general of twenty-six years of age only served to augment the bitterness of his enemies. There were many in power, who could not forgive his taking the command over Pichegru, and, with Carnot and Robespierre, were suspicious and envious of so brilliant a career. Just as in our own country, trades' unions will not permit superior skill or industry, sapping thereby the very foundations of and excellence and prosperity, so the republican chiefs could not tolerate grace superiority in talent or science, in rank or virtue, or even in beauty. Mesdames Roland, Bailly, Barhave, Malesherbes, had followed the queen to the scaffold; Biron, Custine, Luckner, Houchard, had been also sacrificed by men who could no more tolerate the pride of victory, than they could the disgrace of defeat! Thus it was that to Hoche, after his signal victory, the command of the army of the Moselle was alone consigned, and he was at once placed in the back-ground.

Disgusted with the treatment he met with at the hands of the committee, he sought solace in the calm and contentment of domestic life, having wedded a young lady whom he had accidentally met at Thionville. He was not, however, allowed to repose himself even for a few days; the committee, determined to remove him from a soldiery by whom he was beloved, sent orders for him to assume the command of the army of Italy.

The head-quarters of this latter force were at Nice. Hoche joined at once, and was well received by the troops, who were familiar with his name by repute. Scarcely, however, had he arrived than the command was transferred to Petit, and he himself was arrested and transferred to Paris. There he was consigned for five weeks to the prison of the Carmes before being removed to the Conciergerie. Luckily for Hoche, the moment was at hand when Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint Just, having decreed that witnesses and counsel might be dispensed with in presence of the revolutionary tribunal, no one felt his life safe for a moment. The conspiracy, headed by Tallien, received thereby a new impetus, and on the 9th Thermidor the sanguinary triumvirate were themselves consigned to durance vile. Hoche, who had seen his brother-inlaw, Thoiras, torn from his side to be led to the guillotine, was set at liberty, and he had not been free a fortnight before he received orders to stifle the rebellion of the so-called Chouans in the west, and was named general in command of the army of the coast at Cherbourg. Thus it had been with him a question of positively a week's time if he should be in command of an army or perish on the scaffold.

The insurrection of La Vendée had at that time extended into Anjou, Maine, and Brittany. The object of the royalist insurgents had been all along to place themselves in communication with the emigrants in England. But this was not effected until some time afterwards, and when Hoche, in consequence of the intrigues and divisions which still prevailed in the Convention, had been consigned solely to a command at Brest. But an English squadron, having on board several regiments of emigrants, having made its appearance off Quiberon, a descent was effected on the 27th of June, 1795, and the emigrants, some five thousand in number, were joined by a nearly equal number of Chouans. M. de Bonnechose, who enjoys a well-merited reputation as an historian, attributes the failure of this expedition to three errors-first, that it was divided into three parts; secondly, that the Count d'Artois did not assume the command; and, thirdly, that the command was divided between Count de Puisaye and Count d'Hervilly. Hoche, on his side, advanced against the royalists at the head of from ten to twelve thousand men. The emigrants had effected their landing on the peninsula of Quiberon, which was defended by the fort of Penthièvre, but which surrendered to superior numbers. When Hoche then advanced to the attack, the royalists, under Puisaye and D'Hervilly, and the Chouans, under Vauban and George Cadoudal, held the neck of the peninsula between St. Michael, Karnac, and Sainte Barbe. Hoche directed his chief attack on the latter post, which commanded the communication between the peninsula and the mainland. D'Hervilly having been driven back on the peninsula, he was followed by the Chouans, men, women, and children, in frightful dis