Fleurus

They asked the military commission to come up with a plan.

And this is led by Jean-Baptiste Jourdain, the general, the hero of Fleurus.

He'll go on to be one of Napoleon's marshals.

He leads this military commission, and they discuss various options.

Um, okay.

I, I, I wanna, I wanna come to, uh, I wanna ask, a- after the victory at, uh, Fleurus in, in late June 1794, uh, the danger for foreign armies had sharply receded.

Uh, you've described the terror as controls on public life, and the question that summer, uh, was when it was safe to end them and return to a constitutional government.

Uh, we talked about this just a minute ago.

I mean, literally bombshell news.

Three days earlier, at a village called Fleurus near Charleroi in Belgium, the French army under General Jourdan has fought this big battle against the Austrians under the Prince of Coburg, and the French won a big victory.

This is a great victory for their new citizen army, for their new guns that the manufacturers have been working so hard to make, and actually for their new technology.

This is the first battle in history that used aerial observation in the form of a hot air balloon.

I've probably executed a few people just for the fun of it.

I don't want to be the next Danton." So that's the Convention, and we should just say a word about the public as well.

What do the people of Paris think? Well, actually, the committees are not terribly popular in June 1794, and the first reason actually paradoxically goes back to that military victory at Fleurus.

So when the news of the battle broke, people in Paris were understandably delighted.

Tourcoing was to be the first heavy blow that should begin to settle matters.

Fleurus was to clinch them.

No battle can be less satisfactorily described in a few lines than that of Tourcoing.

So different did it appear to either combatant, so opposite are the plans of what was expected on either side and of what happened, so confused are the various accounts of contemporaries.

Charleroi, which is the main fortress blocking the passage of the Sombre at this place, could be and was invested when once the river was crossed by the French.

It capitulated in a week, but the evacuation of Charleroi was but just accomplished when Coburg, 70,000 strong, appeared in relief of the city.

The plateau above the town where the great struggle was decided is known as that of Fleurus, and it was upon the 26th of June that the armies were there engaged.

Never before had forces so equal permitted the French any success.

Meanwhile, all Europe was looking anxiously towards the Low Countries.

The great warrior who had been victorious at Fleurus, at Steinkirk, and at Landen had not left his equal behind him.

But France still possessed marshals well qualified for high command.

Already Catinat and Boufflers had given proofs of skill, of resolution, and of zeal for the interests of the state.

Just, Couthon, Lebas, Fouquet, Fleurot, the mayor of Paris, and Henriot, the commander of the National Guard, no one felt his head safe on his shoulders.

It needed but security on the northern frontier to cause the social center of gravity to shift and Robespierre to fall, and security came with the campaign of Fleurus.

Jourdan and Pétigru were in command on the Belgian border, and on June 26, 1794, just 16 days after the passage of the law of Priariale, Jourdan won the battle of Fleurus.

This battle, though not decisive in itself, led to decisive results.

It uncovered Valenciennes and Condé, which were invested, closing the entrance to France.

He took her with him to Paris, and there Robespierre threw her into prison and accused Tallien of corruption.

On June 12, Robespierre denounced him to the Convention, and on June 14, 1794, the Jacobins struck his name from the list of the club.

When Fleurus was fought, Theresia lay in La Force, daily expecting death, while Tallien had become the soul of the reactionary party.