Buonaparte's first military service occurred, as we have seen, in the
summer of 1793. The king of France had been put to death on the 21st of
January in that year; and in less than a month afterwards the convention
had declared war against England. The murder of the king, alike
imprudent as atrocious, had in fact united the princes of Europe against
the revolutionary cause; and within France itself a strong reaction took
place. The people of Toulon, the great port and arsenal of France on the
Mediterranean, partook these sentiments, and invited the English and
Spanish fleets off their coast to come to their assistance, and garrison
their city. The allied admirals took possession accordingly of Toulon,
and a motley force of English, Spaniards, and Neapolitans, prepared to
defend the place. In the harbour and roads there were twenty-five ships
of the line, and the city contained immense naval and military stores of
every description, so that the defection of Toulon was regarded as a
calamity of the first order by the revolutionary government.

This event occurred in the midst of that period which has received the
name of _the reign of terror_. The streets of Paris were streaming with
innocent blood; Robespierre was glutting himself with murder; fear and
rage were the passions that divided mankind, and their struggles
produced on either side the likeness of some epidemic frenzy. Whatever
else the government wanted, vigour to repel aggressions from without was
displayed in abundance. Two armies immediately marched upon Toulon; and
after a series of actions, in which the passes in the hills behind the
town were forced, the place was at last invested, and a memorable siege
commenced.

It was conducted with little skill, first by Cartaux, a vain coxcomb who