The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  Spirited debate resulted again in a public expression of the assembly’s gratitude to the commissioners and the citizens of Brest. The penal code would, after all be modified and, as a gesture to the Revolution, the pure white national ensign, as worn by the fleet, would be defaced by the addition of the new tricolour in its upper hoist.

  An immediate result was the resignation of de Luzerne, the minister of marine. While not the most effective, he had been the latest in a series of ministers to devote honest effort to strengthening the service. On his departure, he noted with disillusion that while ‘the fleets of other nations cover the seas … our naval forces [are] condemned to inaction and inertia by … indiscipline’.

  Not surprisingly, there was a general exodus of experienced naval officers, stimulated by a combination of hostility shown them and the generous retirement terms agreed by the Marine Committee. Convinced that France was descending into anarchy, many went abroad. It was the task of the committee (itself considerably affected by change and resignation) to define the form of a new and acceptable officer corps to the provision and maintenance of which the Constituent Assembly could give its approval.

  The way ahead, agreed in April 1791, was that the standing strength of the French fleet should first be defined and, based on this strength, that of the permanent corps of officers with which to man it. All permanent naval officers would be recruited as aspirants, who would be required to make an early career commitment. In addition there would be a body of officers, serving in the merchant marine, who would be accepted as enseignes non-entretenus and who, in times of fleet expansion, could be commissioned as lieutenants. On the basis of this proposal the assembly formally dismissed the whole officer corps on 1 May 1791. Those who were not then retired were reappointed a fortnight later to the revised structure.

  The navy reflected the condition of the nation itself in that the Constituent Assembly discovered that widespread dissent was easier to foment than it was to halt. Having been fulsomely congratulated on the outcome of the damaging Brest mutiny, the various parties involved were made quickly aware that the general outrage had been damped down but was far from extinguished. On the American station, French crews were in open revolt, refusing orders on the specious grounds that the only will that mattered was ‘the Will of the People’, i.e. themselves. This distorted logic soon escaped ashore, first to the European population, then to the native. Military authority had imposed unpopular colonial rule; its weakening revealed both its fragility and the true extent of popular resentment. As an awful warning to France herself, her richest colony, San Domingo, fell prey to total and bloody insurrection, leading to its eventual loss.

  In an effort to placate the rumblings at Brest, the new minister of marine, the transient comte de Fleurieu, made what he assumed to be a popular appointment to replace the unfortunate d’Albert. The comte de Bougainville was already a notable figure – scientist, explorer and naval commander of proven ability. Of the nobility, yet a known opponent of privilege, he was still obliged to meet the mutineers head-on. He published and distributed a general call to reason but, having had it disregarded, he made examples of some ringleaders by having their names removed from the register of seamen. This, with the current arrangements, meant that they could not seek alternative employment in commerce or in fishing. Like his predecessor, Bougainville was unable to convince his men that he embodied ‘the Will of the State’ or that, as the state was now personified in the elected Constituent Assembly rather than in the sovereign, his orders represented ‘the Will of the People’.

  A diplomatic solution between Britain and Spain fortunately solved the Nootka Sound crisis and the French navy could be stood down from its embarrassingly unsuccessful attempt at mobilization. Aware that it had been only with the greatest difficulty that he had mustered a reliable squadron for despatch to the West Indies, the distinguished Bougainville ended his career by resigning in disgust, fulminating at ‘perverse men, deaf to the voice of reason’.

  By mid 1791, the flow of officers deserting the service had become a flood. Traditional hierarchical discipline had disintegrated. Naval authority, centrally exercised through the Ministry of Marine, was subordinated to that of local municipalities. Insubordination and outright mutiny were rife. In the name of the ‘People’s Will’, neither was corrected by the Constituent Assembly.

  Reduced to a figurehead, the minister of marine had little more function than to legitimize the assembly’s demands. In an attempt to define the structure of the new officer corps, he published in May 1791 a list justifying a core strength of 9 vice admirals, 18 rear admirals (contre-amiraux), 170 captains and 530 lieutenants. This cadre would be expanded from the reserve in time of general mobilization.

  In the following October yet another minister, Bertrand de Moleville, took over the increasingly thankless task of directing naval affairs. In February 1792 the assembly charged him with creating a register of available officers. Each electing to serve had then to provide evidence of domicile in France and to swear a civic oath. Yet more were alienated and the haemorrhage continued. Published in March 1792, the list comprised just 2 vice admirals, 3 rear admirals, 42 captains and 356 lieutenants. Even this total was diminishing daily.

  From the Atlantic ports to the Caribbean, from the Mediterranean to India, the French navy was now afflicted by revolt. The colonies themselves were in a ferment but crews of French warships obliged their commanding officers to return home rather than take action against their ‘brothers’ ashore, action for which they claimed they would be ‘reproached and denounced’ by authorities at home.

  Increasingly politicized, crews saw themselves as an integral part of the Revolutionary movement. Experienced officers noted that their attitudes had little or nothing to do with poor conditions, rations or pay, or even with the customary level of distaste shown by the lower deck for its officers. Rather, the latter were viewed as counter-revolutionaries to be watched, reported upon and if necessary denounced. Those who orchestrated this breakdown in relationship were fully protected in their activities, being granted absolution through the Constituent Assembly’s general amnesty for ‘political’ action, declared in September 1791.

  A new and more sinister turn of events occurred when a newly appointed commanding officer was attacked in Brest by an armed group unknown to him but who obviously targeted him. He escaped with his life only through fortuitous intervention by members of the National Guard. The municipal authorities, far from condemning the act, or seeking out the perpetrators, declared that the officer concerned was known to have quelled trouble in San Domingo. In the current hothouse atmosphere of France, this translated as ‘oppression of patriots’ and, therefore, the officer should be debarred from returning in a new command.

  Pressing home their attack, the civic authorities blamed the minister of marine for provoking trouble through his unsuitable selection, i.e. poor judgement. As similar accusations could be levelled at many commanding officers, a significant number were sufficiently alarmed to refuse offered commands.

  This only added to the general problem of the disintegration of the officer corps. As shortfalls increased, procedures were tightened, preventing many from leaving the service by request. The result was that officers simply deserted, sufficiently alarmed to abandon career and pension. As they would be damned if they stayed or damned if they left, it is not surprising that many became émigrés.

  Individual decisions taken by officers could not help but have been influenced by the abortive flight of the king and his family in June 1791. Their apprehension at Varennes, ignominious return to the capital and subsequent house arrest could only have been deeply unsettling. The monarch was the embodiment of the state to which they had pledged their oaths of loyalty. That state was visibly disintegrating, its figurehead reduced to a puppet. With their customary authority no longer enforceable, all that awaited them was what one termed ‘a continual source of grief, perhaps of disgrace and humiliation’.

  D
e Moleville articulated a royal appeal to officers who were considering desertion and, indeed, to those who had already gone abroad, through a letter to all port commandants. In its emphasis on loyalty, honour and duty, however, it served only to inflame the temper of the Left of what was, by now, the Legislative Assembly. This body, in November 1791, went on to decree that all émigrés were suspected of conspiracy and that all those who did not return by 1 January 1792 to explain themselves would be condemned, in absentia, to capital punishment. The king still retained sufficient authority to veto this monstrous proposal, but the minister of marine’s further attempts to defend and to appeal to the officer corps only drew upon himself the full fire of the assembly.

  Accused of entirely misrepresenting the state of the navy and conniving with its officers to facilitate their desertion, the minister attracted a stinging vote of no confidence from the Marine Committee. As ministers were appointed by the crown rather than by the assembly, this did not mean that de Moleville was obliged to resign. With some courage he stuck to his post, but the wilder elements of the assembly continued their personal attack, seeking no less than his impeachment for treason. Pushed to the limit, the assembly finally ran into the question that none wished to answer: what if the king, informed that his minister had lost the confidence of the assembly, replied that he retained every confidence? In the face of this constitutional issue the assembly recoiled, voting by a slender majority to reject the demands for the minister’s impeachment. The resulting implication was important inasmuch as the supremacy of royal executive power had been reaffirmed. This was, however, not an end to the matter as the Legislative Assembly was by now divided hopelessly into small factions that could not be categorized as simply Left or Right but which pursued their own shrill agendas.

  De Moleville had disagreed with the comte de Narbonne-Lara, the minister of war, who believed that the concept of constitutional monarchy would best be served through the various ministers giving their wholehearted support to the assembly. Narbonne, however, was all for war against the émigré forces that were gathering beyond the frontiers of France, although the robust response from Austria and Prussia early in 1792 had thrown the assembly into confusion. Charges and counter-charges of treason were bandied, the king dismissing Narbonne, who was also associated with the now-disgraced Lafayette, on 9 March.

  The position of the minister of marine was now intolerable but rather than step down because of public opinion, and thus appear to accept the accusations levelled at him, he agreed to go a week later, which date coincided with the review of the revised officer corps. Implicit in his resignation, rather than impeachment, was that the constitutional monarchy remained the absolute authority in the state and, by extension, in the navy, despite the actions of Revolutionary civic communes.

  In handing over to his successor, the ineffective Lacoste, de Moleville left a government headed by a king who was now completely a prisoner of the situation in which he found himself. A major crisis could only be a matter of time.

  EVEN DURING THE American War of Independence the French navy had suffered a shortage of experienced officers. Measures taken to reform the system and to expand the Navy List had had too little time to take real effect before Revolution saw the near dissolution of the officer corps. By mid 1792 it was acknowledged that, in the event of a general mobilization, there would be too few commanding officers and lieutenants to man even existing numbers of ships.

  Deputations of merchant marine officers had been lobbying hard at the assembly, their workaday image creating a favourable impression. Opportunities for rapid career advancement were obvious and numbers were so short that the acceptance of those eligible was inevitable.

  In September 1792 the Legislative Assembly declared France a republic. With the monarchy thus suspended, other European monarchies evinced varying degrees of hostility. War became a growing possibility and one involving the British would again hinge upon sea control. Urgent action was necessary, the assembly’s Marine Committee having to lower its preferred standard of qualification in order to attract sufficient entrants. Any regular naval captain with just one month’s experience now found himself eligible to be considered for promotion to rear admiral. Masters from the merchant marine who could demonstrate a minimum of five years in the foreign trade could be made post captain with immediate effect. Five years of sea service of any kind qualified a mate to be made a regular lieutenant.

  As so few of the Rouges remained, it might be assumed that class tensions had relaxed. Class may, indeed, have diminished as the primary cause of trouble, but it had now been replaced by a deep-felt sense of inequality. The Bleus, having endured the attitudes of the aristos for so long, felt strongly that they should fill the greater part of the vacuum now created among senior ranks only to find themselves competing with a flood of entrants from the merchant marine, men who had never trod the decks of a warship but who were being fraternally embraced by the now all-powerful civic authorities.

  Purged of ‘counter-revolutionaries’, the officer corps was increasingly cooperative with local communes. New-style oaths were taken under the latter’s auspices, swearing loyalty to the state, no longer to the crown. These were but a contribution to a wider ceremony, a jour de fête to emphasize the new-found solidarity between the local populace (‘the People’) and the service. The few remaining Rouges had by now adopted a pragmatic approach, accepting the situation in return for keeping their posts. Otherwise the readiness with which the corps exhibited its fealty reflected its vastly altered composition.

  In a spirit of fraternity, each ship received a large representation of the Phrygian cap, the red cap of Revolution sported by activists nationwide and now to be secured at the masthead.

  IN THE FRENCH FLEET’S ports de l’océan, naval authorities succeeded in maintaining some sense of order and discipline despite municipal interference and the occasional lapse into mutiny, but at Toulon the situation was intractable.

  Superficially, the problems faced by the city were no different from those affecting many others. Established authority had been overthrown in a sincere desire by all to achieve an eventual goal of a stable and equitable society based on a revised and fair constitution. Class divisions ran deep, however, and city populations were every bit as stratified as the navy. National movement toward a new society involved many a contest, no less bruising, between professionals and artisans to exercise power on a local scale. As matters developed, it was apparent that unrest, due initially to social problems and injustices, had also acquired a political dimension. The general foment suited the purposes of local activists, who tended inevitably to gravitate toward membership of the nearest Jacobin Club.

  Lack of central funding had obliged the commandant of the Toulon arsenal first to introduce a new system of payment by result. If this proved deeply unpopular with the workforce, worse was to come in the shape of short-time working and lay-offs. Genuine hardship caused inevitable unrest in an already volatile general atmosphere. Troublemakers easily exploited the situation, resulting in the commandant, like his predecessor, being hauled physically before the town’s Revolutionary council. Here, he was instructed to approach the Constituent Assembly to reverse all earlier decisions made on economic grounds and to release weapons from the arsenal to arm the expanding National Guard.

  The assembly did, in fact, agree to return to the previous system of payment but, in the absence of actual funds, settlement would needs be partly in the unpopular government assignats, already widely issued to compensate for sequestrations. This paper money carried an in-built devaluation at each exchange, and deprivation increased to the extent that the new ordonnateur approved the distribution of bread from the arsenal’s bakery, normally dedicated to supplying the fleet. Growing hardship did not convert the arsenal’s workforce overnight into rampant revolutionaries. Ordinary men, however, responsible for the welfare of their families, were becoming deeply discontented. A large workforce, vital to both the navy and the local econo
my, was here wide open to agitation.

  Following the trend set by the assembly in Paris, provincial revolutionaries split into factions, Toulon being no exception. Thus the Jacobin Club, formed in 1790, was opposed by a new group formed in the following year. Its members were not easily labelled, but may be termed ‘moderate’. Each group sought to control the municipality and, in doing so, necessarily wooed the National Guard. This factionalized the guard in turn, which climaxed its division in a public shoot-out.

  The virulently left-wing, who stubbornly retained control of the authority in the town of Toulon, contrasted with the relatively moderate administration of the greater Toulon district and Var département. Events in the capital were causing grave misgivings in these bodies which, none the less, praised the assembly for its confirmation that a monarchy-based constitution would persist (which, of course, proved in September to be totally untrue). Despite this gesture, in May 1792 local Jacobins demanded that an armed detachment be sent to Paris in response to the appeal for forces to repel the invaders, whose advance was threatening the capital.

  The bloody events in the Tuileries in Paris during the June again provoked comment from the Var departmental administration, which publicly denounced such action carried out in the name of the people. This brought about a violent response from the Toulon civic authorities, virulent protest being followed by the murder of four Var administrators by Jacobin extremists.