ordered the formation of a legion of sans-culottes belges et liégeois, and had started a reign of terror.

The first vote of union with France came from the communes of the Pays de Liège, the heart of the Walloon country. Liège held a position entirely distinct from that of the rest of the Belgian cities. It had had no part in the confederated republic of 1789. Scornful of the conservative spirit and subservience to the church in the rest of Belgium, Liège wished union with France to escape a restoration of the Prince Bishop.1 In race and political structure it had appeared to Dumouriez on his entrance as a second French nation, with the same republican ideas and energy. Confident of its support he had allowed the old municipal council, elected in 1790, to be restored, and to call a National Convention of Liégeois on a basis of universal suffrage.

On December 23, 1792, the communes of the districts of Franchimont 2 and Stavello in the Pays de Liège met in primary assemblies, declared the right of popular sovereignty, abolished feudal rights and voted to form an indissoluble union with the French Republic. Three days later the members of the Congrès franchimontois of 1790, with the other deputies, agreed to this vote in the name of the greater part of the country, reserving to their constituents the right of ratification. On January 7, the deputies of the greater part of the district met again to ratify the vote. This was all done with the approval of the commissioners. The primary assemblies of the commune of Liège were officially summoned on January 16 by the municipal council and met in sixty-one sections on January 20. The vote was not counted until the 28th. Out of 9,700 voting, 9,660 had voted for union and only forty against. In the majority of the sections the vote was by "secret ballot," so-called, in others it was by acclamation" preferring the more enthusiastic method." But whereas the vote of Franchimont had been unaccompanied by any reservations, that of Liège carried stipulations regarding the national debt, indemnities and the assignats. The efforts of Danton to get the whole country incorporated when only the city had voted were unsuccessful. The Convention was still anxious to avoid all appearance of conquest, and refused to decree the union before the rest of the Pays de Liège had been heard from.

The Convention was becoming impatient at the delay of Dumouriez in convoking the primary assemblies in the other Belgian communes. Accord

1 Chuquet, p. 223.

2 Chuquet, p. 222, quotes the following from Merlin de Douai, "Ce que la France a été pour le reste de l'Europe, le pays de Liège l'a été pour la Belgique, et le pays de Franchimont pour celui de Liège.”

3 Borgnet, vol. 2, pp. 196, 198, 200. Letter of Wattel, president of the municipality, to General Miranda. Archives parlementaires, series 1, vol. 59.

ingly, on January 31 another decree was passed, supplementing that of December 15th and providing for its immediate execution, within fifteen days, under penalty of the Belgian people being considered enemies of the Republic.1 The limit appears to have been somewhat elastic for on February 19th the commissioners issued to the Belgian people a proclamation composed of a preposterous mixture of biblical citations and exhortations urging a vote for union with the French Republic at the approaching elections.2

That the commissioners were relying on force rather than on the desire of the inhabitants to win a vote for union is undeniable. The evidence is overwhelming. Borgnet quotes Chaussard to the effect that the National Commissioners had met at Brussels on February 3 to decide the question "Shall Belgium be united to France?" The vote, with one abstention, was unanimously in favor of the union, and the discussion turned on the procedure to be employed. The ballot was rejected for the viva voce vote which "had the advantage of making known the individuals, of incalculable value under the circumstances." 3

The commissioners were confirmed in their distrust of a free vote by the publication of the vote of the Pays de Liège on February 12. The country had, to be sure, given 19,401 votes for union out of 21,519 voting, but 14,103 of these votes were for a union with conditions as to the assignats. No pressure had been applied, and the vote was free, the only free one in Belgium. But the conditions made it distasteful to the Convention, which delayed the final vote of annexation, hoping for another and unreserved vote from Liège. This was delayed too long and could not be managed before the French evacuation. Liège was annexed on May 4 on the basis of the first

vote.

The primary assemblies of Mons met on February 11, of Ghent on the 22d, and of Brussels the 25th. This system of voting in different places on different days enabled the sans-culottes to carry their methods of terror from one city to the next. Everywhere force was displayed "to prevent disorder." 5 The reinforcements requested by the commissioners did not arrive, so the troops as well as the sans-culottes were moved from one town to another. The electoral machinery appears to have been quite as crude as that of Avignon and Savoy, yet whereas some semblance of order was observed in the previous assemblies, in those of the Belgian communes no one asserts that there was the least suggestion of it.

1 Documents, post, p. 318.

2 Cf. Documents, post, p. 318.

3 Borgnet, vol. 2, p. 181, quotation from Chaussard, Mémoires historiques et politiques, p. 437.

Borgnet, p. 200, says 80,000 citizens abstained.

Chuquet, p. 244.

The circumstances appear to have been the same throughout Belgium. Only a small number of citizens voted. The churches where the voting took place were surrounded or filled with soldiers. After an address by the French commissioners, often not understood, and a demonstration by the clubs, the vote was taken at once and by acclamation, or by passing to right or left, and a register opened for protests which no one dared to make. In the small towns where the commissioners lacked the support of the troops there appears to have been a lively resistance.1

Had the Convention desired to question the validity of the votes it had had ample warning and sufficient evidence in the formal minutes themselves to warrant it. But such was the eagerness to consummate the union, that the testimony of the French agents was eagerly credited, and no investigation was attempted. As fast as the formal minutes were laid before the Assembly, it proceeded to annexation, in most cases on the very day or the day after, at times dispensing even with any report of the Diplomatic Committee.

Owing to the military reverses of the French arms these unions were not carried out until 1795 when by a decree of October 1, the decrees of March 2nd and 4th, and of May 8, 1793, were put in execution and the votes cast in 1795 by the communes of Ypres, Grammont, and other parts of Flanders, of Brabant and of the former Austrian part of Gueldres, not included in the former decrees, were accepted.2

THE RHINE Valley, 1793

While the Belgian communes were being forced into a reluctant union, a similar activity was going on in the region to the south. On February 14 the Convention in one decree proclaimed the annexation, based on the popular vote, of Monaco and of numerous small communes along the edge of the departments of the Moselle and Bas-Rhin. These were chiefly in the Saar valley, in the duchy of Deux Ponts, in the bailiwick of Harschkischen, belonging to the Princes of Nassau, as well as other communes belonging to other petty princes. These votes had occurred after the region had been invaded and they were held under the conditions laid down by the decree of December 15. On March 14, Bergzabern and thirty-one neighboring communes were annexed. The most important annexation was, however, that of the "RhenoGermanic" people.

1 Chuquet, p. 249, et seq. See Formal Minutes of the Assemblies of Brussels and Ghent, Documents, post, pp. 322 et seq.

2 Martens, Recueil des traités (2d ed.), vol. 5, p. 186.

3 Documents, post, p. 316.

* Cf. Documents, post, p. 343, note. On March 20 the communes of Biding, Denting and the German part of Lelling-Empire were also annexed.

The courts of the petty princes of the region between Bingen and Landau were partisans of the old régime in France, but the revolutionary principles had been joyfully received by the bourgeoisie. The lodges of Freemasons had long been working for the same ends and at once helped with the propaganda.1 Custine's advance was unopposed. By October 20, 1792, the gates of Worms, Speier and Mayence had been opened to him from within. In Mayence and the regions near Alsace there was a particularly strong French movement composed of the intellectuals, the supporters of the Revolution, and the merchants tired of backward conditions and corrupt rule.2 So long as Custine refrained from autocratic measures the expedition met with no opposition. In the region occupied by the army, belonging to the Archbishop of Mayence, Custine at once assisted in the formation of clubs similar to those active in Belgium, and set up revolutionary governments without the formality of a vote. The club at Mayence played a great part in the later events.3 The general administration named by Custine numbered ten members, six for Mayence, three for Worms and one for Speier. The Mayençais, fearful of the Prussian advance, received the proposal for union with France with coolness. The general administration determined to push the vote and to create a department of Bouches-du-Main. It was feared that the cities would be unfavorable, but they counted on the peasants to control the towns. Commissions were sent to all the towns between Bingen and Landau to assemble all the inhabitants over twenty-one, except domestic servants, to read to them extracts from the constitution and to collect in a formal minute the names of all wishing the constitution. The minute stated that the electors desired to form one family with the French.*

Mayence voted on December 17 and 18, but few signatures were secured. The citizens had been summoned by corporations. The merchants asked for time, the tailors and cordonniers wished to be neutral. Although some outlying localities voted for France the vote came to nothing. Custine refused to give importance to the vote.

To carry out the decree of December 15, which the Convention had just

1 H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, vol. 2, p. 193, says, that it was on account of the repeated invitations to General Custine, himself a freemason, from the lodges of Western Germany, that he had made his bold advance.

2 Chuquet, Mayence, p. 40.

Ibid., p. 46. The club of Mayence had five hundred members. Besides Böhmer and Stamm, adherents of Custine, there were seven professors, the librarian of the University, Georges Forster, and his two assistants, two school teachers, eleven French teachers of languages, three French residents of Mayence, eleven lawyers, officials of all kinds, clergy who had taken the oath, young men, students, literary men, merchants, craftsmen, propagandists brought by Custine and others.

♦ Ibid., pp. 56 and 58. He gives the list as Kastel, Nackenheim, Wöllstein, Nieder-Olm and Klein Winternheim.

adopted, Haussmann, Reubell, Merlin, Simon and Grégoire were sent as commissioners. They arrived in Mayence on January 31, 1793, and at once acted as if in a conquered country, making requisitions without payment. It was determined to force the circulation of the assignats, and for this annexation was necessary. The decree of January 31 put the decree of December 15 into immediate execution.1

In Belgium fear of the strong national feeling had caused the French to oppose a national convention. No such feeling existed in the Rhenish provinces, however, and a convention was determined on. The popular elections were fixed for Sunday, February 24, and the convocation of the National Rhenish Convention for March 10. Each commune was to elect at least one deputy, those of Worms and Speier to elect two each, and Mayence to elect six by districts. Each deputy was to be uninstructed and left with full power to choose a government "suited to liberty and equality."

The clubs instiThe commission

The commissioners were determined that the vote should be one for union. Not only did they openly urge it, but they drew up a list of names of proved patriots whose choice was to be imposed on the electors.3 tuted a reign of terror and many fled from their menace. ers and other agents of Custine, by their oppressive and annoying attitude completed the alienation of popular sympathy.1

On February 18, Custine issued a decree convoking the peoples of the countries between Landau, the Moselle, and the Rhine, in primary assemblies. The nobles, the ecclesiastics, and the former officials were to declare in writing that they solemnly renounced their princes and their privileges and that they would be forever faithful to the principles of liberty and equality. Whoever neglected or refused to make this declaration before the municipal body in his place of residence would be regarded as an enemy of the French Republic and at once expelled from the country.

The electoral provisions were drawn up by Forster who had replaced Grégoire on the commission. The assemblies were to meet on a Sunday, at 8 in the morning after mass. Each assembly was first to name a president, three tellers and a secretary. The bureau constituted, they should then elect the mayor, the communal attorney, the municipal officers and lastly the deputy to represent them at the national convention at Mayence. The electors were to write the names of their candidates on a ballot, or, if illiterate, could tell the name to the tellers in the presence of a friend who could read. Each elector must be twenty-one and domiciled for at least twelve months past in the region between Landau and the Moselle.