Paris, 13 Thermidor (July 31) 4th Year of the French republic. The Executive Directory to Citizen Buonaparte, Commander in Chief of the Army of Italy. THE executive directory, who cannot but praife, citizen general, the indefatigable activity with which you combat the enemies of liberty; the executive directory, who participate with all the good citizens, with all the true friends of their country, with all the fincere republicans in the admiration which the great military talents you difplay infpire, and which give you a juft claim to national gratitude, fee with indignation the efforts which libellers, under different masks, are daily making to mislead the public, and to fecond the enemies of our country, by rumours which can have no other end, than to diffeminate diffention among the friends of order and peace. The directory fee with indignation the perfidy with which thofe confederate libellers have dared to attack the loyalty, the conftant fidelity of your fervices; and they owe to themselves the formal denial which they give to the abfurd calumnies which the neceflity of foftering malignity has made them hazard, by accounts which tended to prove a stimulus to the directory to read their productions. Some avowed roy lifts, flatly cir culate a falfehood; others, calling themfelves prime patriots, but purfuing the fame end, comment upon it, and eke it out in their own way, under the pretence of combating their pretended antagonist. Loth parties are thus at work to flop the progress of order, which is establishing; both fecond the enemies of the revolution; both with to fow difcord, and to diforganize the arwith the good faith of their readers, mies; both with thus to fport of thofe who afford them fubfiftence, and indecently prefent to them, as facts, accounts which are nothing but the fruit of a difordered imagination. No, citizen general, never have the friends of Auftria been able to prepoffefs the directory against you, because the friends of Austria have neither access to, nor influence over the directory; becaufe the directory know your principles, and your inviolable attachment to the repub lic. No, never has your recal been the queftion; never have any of the members wifhed to give a fucceffor to him who fo gloriously leads on our republicans to victory. The libeller, who would feign to be your defender, dares affert that he knows the intrigues hatched against you, and of which fome money affair was only the pretence: who affuming a virtue not his own, dares add, that delicacy made him pafs in filence events which would only have made our enemies laugh; fuch a man impofes upon, fuch a man deceives the public; and is evidently unworthy their confidence. If this well-informed man, who, like his fellow calumniators, wishes to give himself an air of importance, pretending to know all all the fecrets of ftate; if this man knows of an intrigue of fuch a nature as he states; let him difcover it; let him make it known to the Directory: it is important enough; it has, no doubt, fufficient intereft for the public welfare. The march of our armies -for him who can bring it to light, not to difpenfe himself from denouncing it to those whom it is deftined to lead into error. But the filence of that man, his filence, which will be his condemnation, will open the eyes of the public refpecting the confidence they ought forthwith to give to his infinuations. You poffefs, citizen general, the confidence of the Directory; the fervices you render every day entitle you to it; the confiderable fums which the republic owes to your victories, proves that you at once occupy yourself with the glory and the intereft of your country; all the good citizens agree on this point: you will not find it difficult to confign the boafts and calumnies of the reft to the contempt they from themfelves merit, and ftill more from the fpirit that dictates them. (Signed) to take again into confideration a fep fo conformable to the good intelligence which fubfifts between the two countries, I beg you will permit me to make fome obfervations, which I fubmit to the Directory. The confidence which friendly and allied powers reciprocally owe each other, the respect which is its refult, has always been indifcriminately granted to the perfon chofen by his fovereign to represent him; it is even infeparable from it. Both have, however, been neglected in the perfon of M. de Rehaufen. His private fentiments can the lets give umbrage to the government, as he would certainly facrifice them in the exercise of his fun&tions, if they could be contrary to the inftructions he has received; and if in his conduct, or in his language, he could be wanting to the treaty which fubfifts between Sweden and France. And it is in this cafe only, if a mifunderftanding thould take place between the two governments, that his recal would become neceffary. But fince this is not the cafe, his fentiments cannot be confidered as a valid motive of exclufion, and the refufal becomes confequently lefs an injury done to M. de Rehaufen than a want of respect to his fovereign. I muft likewife remark, that M. de Rehaufen being at Paris, has been appointed to attend ad interim to the affairs of Sweden, at a time when a rupture with Rulia was every infant expected, and when the Swedish ambaffador at that court was on the eve of quitting his post. His appointment could not, therefore, have been influenced by the Emprefs of Ruflia, to R 4 whom: whom he is otherwife an utter ftranger. It is for thefe reasons, citizen minifter, that I am unable to attribute to the perfon of M. de Rehaufen the refufal of the Directory to acknowledge him in his public character. This refufal appears evidently to announce the intention of ditobliging, in the face of Europe, the most ancient friend of France. I hesitate to pronounce a more decifive fuppofition; it is too repugnant to the known withes of the Swedes and the French themfelves, as likewife to their respective interefts; and at the fame time, it would be difficult for the enemies of both countries, not to find great fatisfaction in the difunion of which the French republic may have given the fignal. It is prefcribed to me to declare, that if M. de Rehaufen be not acknowledged, his majefty will be obliged, in fupport of his dignity, to ufe reciprocity with regard to citizen Perrochel. This neceflity will otherwife have no influence on the defire which his majetty will always have to ftrengthen the bands of friendship and good underftanding which ought ever to fubfift between the two powers. Please, citizen minifter, to accept the affurance of my moft fincere attach baffador of Sweden, dated Augui 2, 1795, old style, Refolves, Article I. The executive directory perfifting in their refufal of admitting M. de Rehaufen; they confequently charge the minifted of general police to notify to him the laws of the republic concerning foreigners. II. The executive directory recal citizen Perrochel, chargé d' Affaires, and citizen Marivaux, fecretary of legation, and formerly charge d'Affaires in Sweden. III. The executive directory proteft, nevertheless, that the Swedish nation may always rely on their fentiments of affection. IV. The minifters of foreign relations and of general police, are charged, each in his capacity, with the execution of the prefent refolution, which fhall be printed with the note. (Signed) REVELLIERE LEPEAUX, prefident. By order of the executive directory, (Signed) LAGARDE, Jecretary. (A true copy.) Official Note from the Minifter for Foreign Affairs to the Ambajador (Barthelemy) in Switzerland. THE French government is informed that the English, after having ftopped, during the war, under the mott frivolous pretexts, every neutral veffel, have juft given the moft pofitive orders to the commanders of their thips of war, to feize, indifcriminately, all the cargoes which they may fuppofe to be deftined for the French. Whatever injury France may have fuftained from this conduct, he has, nevertheless, continued to to give the only example of the most inviolable respect for the law of nations, which constitutes the pledge and fecurity of their civilization. But after having long toderated the offence of this Machiavelian. fyftem of policy, the at length finds herself compelled, by the most urgent motives, to have recourfe to reprif ls against England. The executive directory, there fore, orders all the political agents of the French republic to inform the different governments, that the fquadrons and privateers of the republic will act against the thips of every country, in the fame manner in which thofe governments fuffer the English to act against them. This measure ought not to furprise them, fince it would be very eafy to demonftrate that it is imperioutly prefcribed by neceflity, and is only the effect of a lawful defence. If thefe powers had known; how to make their commerce respected by the English, we thould have had no occafion to have recourfe to this afflicting extremity. They will recollect, that the French republic, ever generous, propofed to all the belligerent powers to refpect commerce; but that this propofition, bonourable to the government which made it, and dictated by a most perfect philanthropy, was rejected with pride, by a government accustomed to treat with contempt the most facred laws of humanity, &c. 20th 1 hermidor, (August 7,) Proclamation of the General in Chief of the Army of Italy. Head-quarters at Caftigliona, 19 Teermidor, (Auguft 6,) forth Year. I SOLDIERS, YOU have conquered Italy a fecond time! In five days you have gained two pitched battles, and five inferior actions; you have taken fifteen thousand prifoners, three generals, eighty pieces of cannon, two hundred waggons, and fix ftand of colours. Thofe fierce Hungarians, triumphant last year on the Rhine, are now in your chains, or fly before you. You have cruthed in an inftant the principal enemy of the republic. So many high exploits ought not to make you proud, but to infpire you with confidence; they ought to teach you never to count your enemies, however numerous they may be. The conquerors of Lodi, of Lonado, of Caftigliona, ought to attack and deftroy them. renew the boafted examples of Marathon and Platea: like the brave Greek phalanxes, the brigades of the army of Italy fhall be immortal. You BURGHERS REPRESENTATIVES! THE underfigned minifter plenipotentiary of the French Republic has the honour to intimate, that occafions do not offer fo frequently as he could with of giving you publicly a repetition of thofe affarances of esteem and regard which he daily receives from the ,executive directory, as well towards your affembly as the people which you reprefent. This efteem is not limited to thofe public atteftations which France has given to all Europe; nor to thofe lefs generally known, to which your commiffion for the management of foreign affairs can also teftify. The executive directory is fteadily vigilant, is unceasingly bufy; and the maxim applied to great undertakings-that all which is done must be cfteemed trivial, while any thing remains to be accomplished, feems to have been adopted by the French government in the ratification of her engagements with the Batavian Republic. In that moment, when, during the winter, it maturely and wifely regulated the operations of war, and removed hoftilities far from your dominions, it neglected in no manner to do away your lighteft apprehenfions; and the powerful intervention of the French government banished a remaining, but infignificant fhadow of counter-revolulionary defigns, which being fanned in your vicinity, afforded fome caufe of difquietude. That government now directs its moft ardent and zealous endeavours to fecure the political exiftence of Batavia, and to procure it again a place among potentates, with the rank to which it can with juftice afpire. But it views a government wifely and folidly formed, as one of the moft certain means of attaining fpeedily this defired end; and the executive directory cannot conceal its opinion, that it is time, by a powerful and lafting band, to faften together again the bundle which runs the risk of being difperfed, and loft for want of thefe properties. Such would quickly be the inevitable confequence of an order of things, which thould permit the burgher to adore exclufively his city or his province, looking on the country at large as a ftep-mother, for whom he has no love, to whom he owes no allegiance, and whose lawful rights he misconceives. "It is time"-these are the words of the executive directory,— "it is time, for the interests of the Batavian Republic, and for our contract with her, that the new order of things, expected by all the friends and lovers of liberty, fhould take place; and that all oppofite pretenfions fhould give way and difappear before a constitution triumphing over federalifm and ariftocracy. And it falls within the pale of our department to labour, in concert with the Batavian people, to establish their indepen dency, by haftening the approaches of their revolution to the object which is its ultimate aim. These fentiments of the executive directory might be easily explained by examples which the national hiftory affords—yes, by what has happened under our own eyes—were it not likely to produce the most painful recollections. They afford you, |