Page:A Short History of the World.djvu/347

The French Revolution 327 presentative from England upon the execution of Louis, and it declared war against England. It was an unwise thing to do, because the revolution which had given France a new enthusiastic infantry and a brilliant artillery released from its aristocratic officers and many cramping conditions, had destroyed the discipline of the navy, and the English were supreme upon the sea. And this provocation united all England against France, whereas there THE TRIAL OF LOUIS XVI {From a print in the British Mtiseum) had been at first a very considerable liberal movement in Great Britain in sympathy with the revolution. Of the fight that France made in the next few years against a European coalition we cannot tell in any detail. She drove the Austrians for ever out of Belgium, and made Holland a republic. The Dutch fleet, fro ' en in the Texel, surrendered to a handful of cavalry without firing its guns. For some time the French thrust towards Italy was hung up, and it was only in 1796 that a new general. Napoleon Bonaparte, led the ragged and hungry republican armies in triumph across Piedmont to Mantua and