Revolutionizing of the Revolution 417
Italian named l’Aurora to set up an Italian Legion was rejected by the Convention
in February 1793.^23
At the same time, on the remote borders of civilization, in Kentucky, “at the falls
of the Ohio” (i.e., Louisville), George Rogers Clark penned an unsolicited letter to
the French minister at Philadelphia.^24 He asserted that if the French gave a little
secret assistance, he could raise a party of some 1,500 men to liberate Louisiana
and New Mexico from the rule of tyrants. When Edmond Genet arrived as French
minister shortly thereafter, he set about forming “legions” in America, and com-
missioned Clark as a brigadier- general in the French Republican army.
It is important to realize that in this formation of legions, the demands of for-
eign revolutionaries and French military requirements were at least as important as
a Jacobin crusade to overturn the world. Once the war began, the French Assem-
bly had no difficulty in recognizing a Belgian Legion, because Belgium was a
Hapsburg country, in which military operations were to be conducted. The Allo-
brogian Legion was intended mainly for Savoyards after the king of Sardinia, to
whom Savoy belonged, became a belligerent. Genet’s legions on the American
frontier were obviously of a different kind; they were not intended to revolutionize
the United States, nor were they composed of revolutionaries in exile. They were
intended, by operations in Florida, Louisiana, or Canada, to cause trouble to the
powers in possession of these regions, namely Spain and Britain, after France was
at war with them also.
More difficulties attended the formation of the Batavian Legion. Of the vari-
ous revolutionary agitations in Europe before the French upheaval, the Dutch
Patriot movement had been the strongest. The provinces of Holland and Utrecht
especially were full of former Patriots who looked forward to the return of their
friends among the Dutch exiles. These exiles saw in the war between France and
Austria a chance to advance the Dutch Revolution. They found it hard to per-
suade the French Jacobins, who, for all their crusading mentality, did not wish the
Dutch and British governments to be drawn into the war. Dumouriez, when still
foreign minister, wrote the French minister at the Hague, five days after the
declaration of war against Austria, that it was in France’s interest to have as few
enemies as possible, and for the Dutch government to remain neutral. Since,
however, the Dutch government was very hostile to the French Revolution
(which was true), he, de Maulde at the Hague, should keep up secret contact with
Dutch Patriots; if the Dutch government departed from neutrality, then de
Maulde should come out more openly, “to accelerate a change in the Form of
Government for which [Dutch] opinion seems to be entirely prepared.” Mean-
23 On the “legions” see A. Mathiez, La Révolution et les étrangers, pp. 65–68, who however sees
them from a French point of view, and does not mention the Italian proposal, or Genet’s activities in
America. On the idea of an Italian Legion there is some reference in R. Soriga, L’ idea nazionale itali-
ana del secolo XVIII all ’unificazione (Modena, 1941), 166. More will be found on the Belgian Legion in
S. Tassier, Histoire de la Belgique sous l ’occupation française en 1792 et 1793 (Brussels, 1934), 42, 52–53;
on the Batavian Legion in H. Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der algemeene geschiedenis van Nederland,
I. Nederland en de Revolutie, 1789–95, I, 35–41, 74, 79, etc. There was also a Polish Legion in 1796–
1799; see below, pp. 572, 653.
24 Report of the American Historical Association for 1896, “Correspondence of Clark and Genet,”
967–71.