618 Chapter XXVI
1798, in a pamphlet sadly entitled Cassandre, Danican predicted the progressive
Cisalpinization of the whole Continent except Russia.^9
“The intention of the French,” wrote Axel de Fersen in his diary in January
1798, “is clearly to turn all Europe into republics.”^10 The German journalist, K. J.
Lange, who was warmly hostile to England, which he blamed for the continuation
of the war and hence for the spread of revolution, was not so much friendly to the
French as ambivalent toward them. He reflected philosophically, after the peace of
Campo Formio, that the French had always favored “freedom” for others: Henry
IV had helped the Dutch, Mazarin had helped Cromwell, Louis XVI had helped
the Americans, and by the Westphalia system the French had assured the liberties
of princes and cities in the Holy Roman Empire—and now that France was a re-
public it would republicanize or “municipalize” all Europe.^11
“To municipalize,” said Dumouriez in February 1798, “to divide up into depart-
ments, to establish a provisional Executive Directory and a National Guard, to form
primary assemblies to elect representatives to two Chambers, to seize the public
funds and the estates of the clergy, to confiscate the property of all kinds of aristo-
crats, that is of the rich, to demand the protection of France, which has offered it to
all peoples aspiring to liberty: it is all very easy, quick and alarming for the various
peoples.” Since Dumouriez believed it entirely possible for England to be invaded,
as was generally expected in February 1798, he called upon all the European mon-
archies to re- enter the war at once. If they did not, he warned, the “fall of all thrones
and the destruction of all political, civil and religious constitutions would be the
terrible result. Democracy would devour Europe, and end by devouring itself.”^12
In the older “sister republics” there were coups d’état of Fructidorian type, by
which the more ardent democrats came into power, in January among the Dutch,
in April at Milan. In the Batavian and Cisalpine republics, as in France, political
clubs of neo- Jacobin type, now often called “constitutional circles,” enjoyed a pe-
riod of lively activity; a law of February 24, 1798, created such a circolo costituzio-
nale in each of the Cisalpine departments.
Newer “sister- republics” now sprang up also, in time of peace or apparent peace,
as the older ones had sprung up in time of war. In the summer of 1797 a group of
Rhineland Germans, working with the French General Hoche—both of them in-
spired by Bonaparte and the Cisalpine Republic—organized a movement for a Cis-
rhenane Republic to comprise the Left Bank of the Rhine. One of their spokes-
men, Rebmann, saw a “heavenly dream in which the Batavian, Cisrhenane, Helvetic,
Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics” should be joined.^13 The French soon decided,
9 Quoted by A. Meynier, Les coups d ’ état du Directoire, 3 vols. (Paris, 1927–1928), II, 279, from
Cassandre, 152.
10 Axel von Fersens dagbok., 4 vols. (Stockholm, 1925–1936), III, 173, 222–23. I am indebted to
Dr. H. A. Barton for translation of this and other Swedish materials, incorporated in his doctoral
dissertation at Princeton on the career of Fersen. French and English versions of Fersen’s diary are
much abridged.
11 Deutsche Reichs- und Staatszeitung für den Geschäfts- und Weltmann (Bayreuth, Nov. 3, 1797),
1,399–1,401.
12 Tableau speculatif, 131; Nouveau tableau, 279.
13 J. Hansen, Quellen zur Geschichte des Rheinlandes im Zeitalter der französischen Revolution, 4 vols.
(Bonn, 1931–1938), IV, 308. On the Cisrhenane movement see below, pp. 697–98.