570 Chapter XXIV
knowledge of each other’s existence. International revolutionism, far from being
actually international, consisted in the parallel efforts of separate groups of nation-
als to take advantage of the war by obtaining French support. Each group had se-
cret interviews with Delacroix, or secret meetings with the Directors, not suspect-
ing that others enjoyed the same privilege. The Italians led by Buonarroti were
involved with the Babouvists, and hoped by gaining a more “democratic” govern-
ment in France to promote revolution in Italy. Occasionally a democratic newspa-
per might contain items on the foreign patriots, as when the Orateur plébéien, on
April 14, printed a letter from a “Polish republican.”^3 But there is no evidence that
the Babouvists had any real knowledge of the simultaneous Poteratz conspiracy for
a South German republic, or the equally simultaneous activities of the Poles and
the Irish in Paris. For the year 1796 we have the detailed diary of Wolfe Tone, a
neglected classic of the Revolution. Living in isolation in Paris, befriended only by
James Monroe, having frequent private talks with Delacroix and others, Tone
knew nothing of the Italians, Poles, or Germans. He heard rumors in March that
the “true original Jacobins” might return to power, and thought this might be a
good thing, but he was ignorant of the Babeuf conspiracy until the conspirators
were arrested, and then disapproved of their plans for insurrection. He was op-
posed to insurrection because, more than some others among the foreign revolu-
tionaries, he had confidence in the Directory, which had brought him from his
exile in America for the explicit purpose of concerting revolution in Ireland.^4
From the point of view of the Directory there were two theaters, the British and
the Austrian or Continental, in which the instigation of revolution might be use-
ful. Revolution seemed not impossible even in England. Tone was dismayed to
find the attention of his mentors so easily diverted from the liberation of Ireland to
the direct overthrow of the British government itself. General Clarke, a French-
man of Irish descent, who spoke perfect English, and was close to the Director
Carnot, had a pet project for sending agitators to England to stir up a chouannerie.^5
In Paris Tone met an American, Colonel William Tate, who had worked with
Genet in 1793 and been secretary to the South Carolina Republican Society. Tate
hated the British, and under protection of the French fleet actually landed several
hundred armed Frenchmen on the coast of Wales in February 1797.”^6 Many
Dutch democrats were also eager to take part in an invasion of either Britain or
Ireland, and the French supported the unitary- democratic party in the Batavian
Republic with that in mind. They also, against Britain, maintained relations with
the Sultan of Mysore in distant India.
It was possible also to work through Spain, with which the Directory signed a
treaty in June, and which declared war on England in November of 1796. One
item of business for the French in Spain concerned Louisiana. There were some in
3 Orateur plébéien, 25 Germinal IV.
4 Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 2 vols. (Washington, 1826), 110. Among the papers of the Babouvists
was found one referring to the Left Bank of the Rhine (Saitta, Buonarroti, 1, 31) but apparently noth-
ing on the activities of Poteratz.
5 Tone, 49–59, 97, 99.
6 Commander E. H. Stuart Jones, The Last Invasion of Britain (Cardiff, 1950), devoted entirely to
this episode and to its repercussions in Great Britain.