re lytism of their countrymen of the Batavian was placed under the command of General legion, fraternised with the French. Siege Dampierre. was immediately laid to Williamstadt; but The Prince of Saxe-Coburg, who was he was arrested there in his progress, the now at the head of 52,000 men, having garrison of that town, which commanded been joined by the troops under the Duke the passage of an arm of the sea, Bies Bosch, of York, determined to undertake the siege having been strengthened by a detachment of Condé and Valenciennes. To defeat of the English guards just arrived in Holland. that object, on the 1st of May, Dampierre At the same time that Dumourier had re- attacked the allied position, but was ceived this check, his lieutenant, Miranda, who pulsed with the loss of 2,000 men. Renewwas laying siege to Maestricht, was attacked ing the battle on the 8th, he again met the by the Austrians under Clairfait, and driven same fate; except in the wood of Vicogne, across the Meuse, with the loss of 7,000 where the English guards, advancing to the men in killed, wounded, and prisoners; assistance of the Prussians who had been and, a few days afterwards, Miazinski, who driven back, the French fled to their fortified was posted in front of Aix-la-Chapelle, to position in great confusion. This was the defend the passage of the river Roer and first occasion in which English and French cover Liege, was routed by the imperial soldiers were brought into collision during general, with the loss of 5,000 men and the French revolutionary wars. On the twenty pieces of cannon. The two fugitive 23rd, the allies advanced to the attack armies fell back to Louvain, when Dumou- of the entrenched camp at Famars, which rier, by the order of the executive council, covered Valenciennes; but Lamarthe, who resumed their command for the protection had succeeded to the command on the of Belgium. death of Dampierre, unwilling to await the As soon as he reached Louvain he con-issue, evacuated his position during the voked the soldiers, and finding them eager for battle, on the morning of the 18th, he marched against the enemy posted on the heights of Nerwinden, and, after a severe contest during the whole day, the fate of the action, both in the centre and the right, appearing to be in favour of the French, that portion of the army bivouaced on the field of battle, with the intention of renewing the engagement on the day following. But the left wing, under Miranda, having sustained a complete déroute, Dumourier the 25th, three globes of compression being was compelled to retreat to the heights behind Tirlemont, with the loss of 4,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and the desertion of 10,000, who had fled with the news to France. The issue of this battle compelling the French to abandon all their conquests in Belgium, Dumourier, apprehensive of the resentment of the club of Jacobins, where his head had been loudly called for as a sacrifice to national justice, entered, under pretence of treaty about the wounded and prisoners, into a conference with the Prince of Saxe-Coburg and the allied generals, for the suspension of arms, and the restoration of the constitutional government of 1791. But, being discovered in his designs, he was compelled to seek refuge within the Austrian lines, with 1,500 of his adherents. The remainder of the French army, being collected in the entrenched camp at Famars, under the walls of Valenciennes, night, and fell back to Cæsar's Camp, near the Scheldt. The investment of Valenciennes immediately took place, and the conduct of the siege was entrusted to the Duke of York. On the 14th of June, the trenches were opened, and a vigorous and incessant fire was kept up on the place from 250 pieces of heavy artillery and ninety mortars. The garrison, consisting of 9,000 men, under the command of General Ferrand, made a gallant defence. On the night of fired under the glacis and horn-work of the fortress, the assembled columns immediately rushed forward and carried the outworks. Next day the place surrendered, and the garrison marched out with the honours of war. During the siege, 84,000 cannon-balls, 20,000 shells, and 48,000 bombs had been thrown into the town. More than half the town had been reduced to ashes or battered to pieces. On the 8th of August, the French were driven from the strong position of Cæsar's Camp. The Prussians, after a siege of three months, captured Mayence on July 25th. On the 14th of September, Moreau had been beaten by the Prussians, with the loss of 4,000 men and twenty-two cannon; and on the 13th of October, he was driven from the lines of Weissembourg in the greatest confusion. To retrieve the desperate fortune which be set the republic at this time, the convention, at the suggestion of the Committee of Public Salvation, decreed a levy of 1,200,000 men, ordered a tax of a milliard of francs (forty millions sterling) to be levied upon the rich, and converted all the old claims on the state into great revolutionary debt. "Liberty has become the creditor of every citizen," said Barrère, on the part of the Committee of Public Salvation: "some owe it their industry; others their fortunes; some their councils; all their lives. Every native of France, of whatever age or sex, is called to the defence of his country. The republic is a besieged city: all its territory must become a vast camp." After the French had been driven from Cæsar's Camp, in a council of war held by the allies, it was determined that the British, Hanoverians, Dutch, and Hessians should form a distinct army, under the command of the Duke of York. On the 18th of August, the duke advanced to Menin, to the relief of the hereditary Prince of Orange, who was enveloped by the French. The prince was liberated by a gallant charge of the English guards, under General Lake, and driven from the strong post of Lincelles. The enemy abandoning their camp at Ghivelde, the duke advanced to Dunkirk, and opened the breaches on the 24th; but finding his army harassed by Houchard, who had, in a series of engagements between the 5th and 7th of September, defeated the Austrian covering army, under Marshal Freytag, he, on the 8th, raised the siege, leaving fifty-two pieces of heavy artillery, and a large quantity of baggage and ammunition in the hands of the enemy. The allies, now desirous of possessing themselves of Maubeuge on the Sambre, which would render them masters of nearly all the country between that river and the Meuse, prepared to reduce it. Jourdan advanced to its succour, and took possession of the entrenched camp on the right bank of the river. Issuing, on the 15th of October, from that camp, he attacked the imperialists, under Coburg, at Wattignies, but was repulsed, with the loss of 1,200 men. Renewing the attack on the 16th, he compelled the enemy to recross the Sambre, with the loss of 6,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The arrival, at Ostend, of a considerable armament, under Sir Charles Grey, contributed to retard the advance of the enemy, and the retension of the possession of the Netherlands for the remainder of the year. On the Pyrenean frontier, the Spaniards, advancing from Figueras, attacked, on the 6th of June, the French fortified camp at Mas d'Eu, and drove the republican troops, under Deflers, out of it, with the loss of fifteen pieces of cannon. On the 22nd of September, the Spanish general, Ricordos, with 15,000 men, attacked the republican general Dagobert, on the eastern extremity of the Pyrenean chain, and defeated him, with the loss of 4,000 men and ten pieces of artillery. On the 14th of December, he again attacked the republicans, who had been reinforced with 15,000 fresh levies, under Davoust, in their fortified camp near Boulon, and defeated them, with the loss of 2,500 men and forty-six pieces of cannon. Towards the end of June, the forts of Bellegarde and Les Bains had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards. On the side of the Maritime Alps, the important post of Saorgio, on which depended the quiet possession of Nice, was the scene of many bloody combats; but that of June ended in the complete rout of the French. Towards the end of July, the French made themselves masters of the Col d'Argentière and the Col de Sauteron. ENGLAND'S BATTLES BY SEA AND LAND:-THE SIEGE OF TOULON, ETC., 1793. THE citizens of Toulon, warned by the terrible fate to which the bloody commissioners of the convention had subjected the citizens of Lyons and Marseilles, entered into a treaty with Vice-admiral Lord Hood, who was cruising with a British fleet before that city, to afford them his co-operation in their defence. On the 29th of August, 1793, a treaty being concluded that the town should be held by the English on the behalf of Louis XVII., the English admiral entered the port, and was soon joined by the Spanish fleet, under Admiral Langara, and a small Neapolitan fleet. The English troops amounted to about 5,000 men; the Spanish, Piedmontese, and Neapolitan to about 8,000. At the request of Lord Hood, Lord Mulgrave took the temporary command of the garrison till the arrival of Major-general O'Hara from Gibraltar. Doppet, originally a physician, and who had succeeded | received on board the British fleet. The Carteaux (formerly a music-master, and who had the command of the republican forces at the commencement of the siege), was superseded by the veteran Dugommier, who had seen fifty years of service. On the 30th of November, the breachingbatteries being placed under the direction of Napoleon Buonaparte, at the time a captain of artillery, an attack was made on Fort Malbosquet. To repel the attack, O'Hara made a sally in great force. The English were at first successful; but pursuing the discomfited foe too far, they were attacked by a strong body of troops which Napoleon Buonaparte had rallied, and forced back with considerable loss. On the 17th of December, the other hill-forts having fallen. into the hands of the enemy, the allied troops withdrew into the city, and, in a council of war, it was determined to evacuate the place, and destroy the French fleet. On the morning of the 18th, the sick and wounded were embarked, and at the same time nearly 15,000 of the inhabitants were destruction of the French fleet was committed to Sir Sydney Smith. Of thirty-one ships of the line and twenty-five frigates, which were in the harbour at the time Toulon surrendered to the allies, eighteen of the former, and nine of the latter, were captured or destroyed. The retreating fleets steered for the islands of Hières, on the coast of Provence. The city was given up to pillage by the republican soldiery; and many thousands of the remaining citizens perished, in the course of a few weeks, by the sword or the guillotine. By order of the convention, the buildings of the city were ordered to be razed to the foundations, and its name changed to that of Port de la Montagne. It was in the course of the siege of Toulon that Napoleon Buonaparte first attracted notice, and began that career which eventually made him the arbiter of the destinies of kings and kingdoms, and the most powerful and influential, but immeasurably the most gifted and enlightened, despot who had ever appeared on the face of the earth. to French domination, her husband received, under the government of the Count of Marbœuf, the appointment of Procureur du Roi in the royal Court of Assize at Ajaccio an official employment, corresponding nearly to that of the English attorney-general. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE'S BIRTH AND EARLY YOUTH. NAPOLIONE BUONAPARTE, or as, during his Italian campaigns, he wrote his name, Napoléon Bonaparte,* was born on the 15th of August, 1769, at Ajaccio, in the island of Corsica. His father was, by profession, an advocate of sessions in that town; but, in the struggle for Corsican liberty, under General Paoli, he manifested his patriotism His family, on his father's side, was of in the ranks of his countrymen, as adjutant Tuscan origin, and had been eminent as to Paoli against the French; and through- senators of the republics of Florence, San out the toils and dangers of his mountain Miniato, Bologna, and Treviso, during the campaigns, was accompanied by his young middle ages. The branch from which Naand beautiful wife, Letitia Ramolini, apoleon Buonaparte was directly descended, woman possessed of high spirit and great was that which had flourished in San strength of understanding. Perhaps the Miniato; whence they removed to Corsica high-wrought feelings which circumstances then produced in her bosom, had an influence on the temperament and destiny of her future offspring, the subject of this memoir. On the subjugation of Corsica • He dropped the u in his surname during the first Italian campaign; the i in the christian name was transmuted into an e; and its final e dropped in early life. The reasons he assigned for the change were, to assimilate the orthography to the pronunciation, and to abbreviate his signature. His first wife adopted a like plan: her name was not Joséphine, but Marie-Joseph-Rose; and so she signed her name in the register of her marriage, which was attested in the troubled times of the Guelph and The |