The
firing party awakened the echoes of Vendee, for Charette instantly put
his prisoners to death; and the Chouans afterwards contrived to cut
down every man of the four battalions charged with the execution.

The battle of Quiberon took place on July 21, and when all that ensued
was over on August 25, another expedition sailed from Portsmouth with
the Count d'Artois on board. He landed on an island off La Vendee, and
Charette, with fifteen thousand men, marched down to the coast to
receive him, among the haggard veterans of the royal cause. There, on
October 10, a message came from the Prince informing the hero that he
was about to sail away, and to wait in safety for better times. Five
days earlier the question had been fought out and decided at Paris,
and a man had been revealed who was to raise deeper and more momentous
issues than the obsolete controversy between monarchy and republic.
That controversy had been pursued in the constitutional debates under
the fatal influence of the events on the coast of Brittany. The
royalists had displayed their colours, sailing under the British flag,
and the British alliance had not availed them. And they had displayed
a strange political imbecility, contrasting with their spirit and
intelligence in war.

* * * * *

The constitutional committee had been elected on April 23 under
different auspices, when the Convention was making terms with Charette
and Cormatin, as well as with the foreign Powers. Sieyes, of
necessity, was the first man chosen; but he was on the governing
committee, and he declined. So did Merlin and Cambaceres, for the same
reason, and the three ablest men in the assembly did not serve.

Eleven moderate but not very eminent men were elected, and the draft
was made chiefly by Daunou, and advocated by Thibaudeau. Daunou was an
ancient oratorian, a studious and thoughtful if not a strong man, who
became keeper of the archives, and lived down to 1840 with a somewhat
usurped reputation for learning. Thibaudeau now began to exhibit great
intelligence, and his writings are among our best authorities for
these later years of the Republic and for the earlier years of the
Empire. The general character of their scheme is that it is influenced
more by experience than by theory, and strives to attach power to
property. They reported on June 23; the debate began on July 4; and on
the 20th Sieyes intervened. His advice turned mainly on the i