The second, or Legislative, Assembly during its year of existence made no radical changes in the organization it found; but the increasing want of officers led inevitably to lowering the qualifications exacted for the different grades, which was done by several acts. The National Convention went still farther in the same direction. January 13, 1793, immediately before the war with Great Britain, it decreed that rear-admirals might be taken from any captains whose commission dated back the month before. Merchant captains who had commanded privateers or ships in the foreign trade for five years, could be at once made post-captains. To be made lieutenant were needed only five years' sea-service, either in the navy or on board merchant ships. Decree now followed decree, all in the same direction, winding up on July 28 by authorizing the minister of marine, until otherwise ordered, to fill the places of flag and other officers from any grade and without regard to existing laws. Most of these measures were probably justified by stern and pressing necessity. [28]
The reign of terror was now at hand. The scourge fell upon the naval officers who had not fled the country as well as upon others. Grimouard, whose activity in the West Indies has been noted; Philippe d'Orléans, admiral of France, who had commanded the van at Ushant; Vice-Admiral Kersaint, who had stood in the foremost rank of revolutionists till the murder of the king; D'Estaing, also admiral of France, who had held high command with distinguished courage, if not with equal ability, in the war of American Independence—perished on the scaffold. The companions of their glory had for the most died before the evil days. D'Orvilliers, De Grasse, Guichen, the first Latouche-Tréville, Suffren, La Motte Piquet, passed away before the meeting of the States-General.
Besides the judicial and other murders, the effect of the general suspiciousness was felt by the navy in new legislation of a yet more disastrous kind. By a decree of October 7, 1793, the minister of marine was to lay before the naval committee of the Assembly a list of all officers and aspirants whose ability or civisme—i.e., fidelity to the new order of things—was suspected. This may have been well enough; but, in addition, lists of all officers and aspirants were to be posted in different places, and all people were invited to send in denunciations of those whom they believed to be lacking in ability or fidelity. These denunciations were to be passed upon by an assembly, made up of the general council of the Commune and all the seamen of the district. The decision was reached by majority of votes and forwarded to the minister, who was obliged to dismiss those against whom the charges were thus sustained. [29]
The navy being in this way purged, the vacancies were to be filled on a similar principle. The naval officers, merchant captains and other seamen of each district, who had qualified for enseignes, were to meet and name three candidates for each of the different vacancies. In the great want of officers then prevailing, some such system of nomination might have been very useful in lightening the immense burden resting on the minister; but it is obvious that the assemblies thus constituted were too numerous, too popular, too little fitted to carry on formal discussion, and too destitute of special technical knowledge, to be good judges. There was found here the same essential defect that underlay all the conceptions of the different assemblies of the early republic; ignorant of, and therefore undervaluing, the high and special requirements of the naval profession, they were willing to entrust its interests and the selection of its officers to hands that could not be competent.
The result was depicted in a letter of Admiral Villaret Joyeuse, who was at once an officer of the old service, and yet had entered it from the auxiliary navy, having been captain of fireship; who, therefore, stood as nearly as possible between the two extremes of opinion. As a subordinate he had won the admiration of Suffren in the East Indies, and as admiral he commanded with honor the fleets of the Republic. He wrote: "The popular societies have been called on to point out the men having both seamanship and patriotism. The societies believed that it was enough for a man to have been long at sea to be a seaman, if he was besides a patriot. They did not reflect that patriotism alone cannot handle a ship. The grades consequently have been given to men without merit beyond that of having been much at sea, not remembering that such a man often is in a ship just as a bale is. It must be frankly said it is not always the man at once most skilful and patriotic that has had the suffrages of the societies, but often the most intriguing and the falsest—he, who by effrontery and talk has been able to impose upon the majority." [30] In another letter he says: "You doubtless know that the best seamen of the different commercial ports kept behind the curtain in the beginning of the Revolution; and that on the other hand there came forward a crowd who, not being able to find employment in commerce, because they had no other talent than the phraseology of patriotism, by means of which they misled the popular societies of which they were members, got the first appointments. Experienced captains, who might have served the republic efficiently by their talents and skill, have since then steadily refused to go to sea, and with inexcusable self-love still prefer service in the National Guard (ashore) to going to sea, where they say they would have to be under captains to whom they have often refused the charge of a watch. Hence the frequent accidents met with by the ships of the republic. Since justice and consequently talents are now (1795) the order of the day, and all France is now convinced that patriotism, doubtless one of the most necessary virtues in an officer of the government, is yet not the only one required to command armies and fleets, as was once claimed, you are quite right," etc. [31]
Enough has been said to show the different causes that destroyed the corps of French naval officers. Some of these were exceptional in their character and not likely to recur; but it is plain that even their operation was hastened by the false notions prevalent in the government as to the character and value of professional training, while the same false notions underlay the attempts both to fill the vacant places and to provide a new basis for the official staff of the future. The results of these mistaken ideas will be seen in the narrative; but it may be useful to give here the professional antecedents (taken from a French naval historian) of the admirals and captains in the first great battle of this war, June 1, 1794, by which time the full effect of the various changes had been reached. These three admirals and twenty-six captains of 1794 held in 1791 the following positions: the commander-in-chief, Villaret Joyeuse, was a lieutenant; the two other flag-officers, one a lieutenant, the other a sub-lieutenant; of the captains, three were lieutenants, eleven sub-lieutenants, nine captains or mates of merchant ships, one a seaman in the navy, one a boatswain, one not given. [32]
The action of the Assemblies with regard to the enlisted men of the fleet was as unreasonable and revolutionary as that touching the officers. For twenty years before the meeting of the States-General the navy had contained nine divisions of trained seamen-gunners, numbering some ten thousand men, and commanded, as in all services, by naval officers. It is scarcely possible to over-rate the value, in esprit-de-corps as well as in fighting effect, of such a body of trained men. In 1792 these were replaced by a force of marine artillerists, commanded by artillery officers. The precise relation of these to the sea-officers is not stated; but from the change must have sprung jealousies harmful to discipline, as well as injury to the military spirit of the naval officer. In 1794, these marine artillerists, and also the marine infantry, were suppressed on motion of Jean Bon Saint-André, so well known in connection with the French navy of the day. In his opinion, endorsed by the vote of the National Convention, it savored of aristocracy that any body of men should have an exclusive right to fight at sea. "The essential basis of our social institutions," said he, "is equality; to this touchstone you must bring all parts of the government, both military and civil. In the navy there exists an abuse, the destruction of which is demanded by the Committee of Public Safety by my mouth. There are in the navy troops which bear the name of 'marine regiments.' Is this because these troops have the exclusive privilege of defending