Liberty or Death The French Revolution

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Liberty or Death

i
ii
PETER M c PHEE
Liberty
or
Death
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW HAVEN AND LONDON

iii
Copyright © 2016 Peter McPhee

Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.

For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:

U.S. Office: sales.press@yale.edu yalebooks.com

Europe Office: sales@yaleup.co.uk yalebooks.co.uk

Typeset in Adobe Caslon Regular by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd

Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McPhee, Peter, 1948- author.

Liberty or death : the French Revolution, 1789-1799 / Peter McPhee.
New Haven : Yale University Press, 2016.
LCCN 2015040677 | ISBN 9780300189933 (cloth : alk. paper)
LCSH: France—History—Revolution, 1789-1799.
LCC DC148.M4535 2016 | DDC 944.04—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040677

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

iv
For Kit

v
vi
 Contents

List of Maps ix
Introduction x

1 Patchworks of Power and Privilege: France in the 1780s 1

2 A World of Intellectual Ferment 23
3 Mismanaging Crisis, 1785–88 39
4 The People’s Revolution, 1789 58
5 Regenerating the Nation, 1789–90 81
6 The Revolution Triumphant, 1790 102
7 Fracturing Christ’s Family: Religious Schism and the
King’s Flight, 1790–91 119
8 Fear and Fury, 1791–92, and a Second Revolution 142
9 Republicans at the Crossroads, 1792–93 164
10 Liberty or Death: Choosing Sides in Violent Times, 1793 188
11 ‘Terror until the peace’, July–October 1793 205
12 Saving a Republic of Virtue, October 1793–April 1794 228
13 Terror, Victory and Collapse, April–July 1794 252
14 Settling Scores: The Thermidorian Reaction, 1794–95 274
15 Men with a Stake in Society, 1795–97 297
16 The Great Nation and its Enemies, 1797–99 321
17 The Significance of the French Revolution 342

vii
viii cont ent s

Chronology 371
The Revolutionary Calendar 380
Notes 381
Select Bibliography 434
Index 455
Illustration Credits 469
 Maps

1 French provinces in the eighteenth century. xiv

2 Revolutionary Paris. xv
3 Départements of France, 1800. xvi
4 Zones of conflict, 1793–94. xvii

ix
 Introduction

n the years after , French revolutionaries sought

I to remake their world on the basis of the principles of popular
sovereignty, national unity and civic equality. This was an awesome chal-
lenge in a large, diverse kingdom hitherto based on absolute monarchy,
entrenched privilege and provincial exemptions. Other people, both French
and foreign, took up arms in an attempt to destroy a revolution seen to
be inimical to established practices of social hierarchy, religious belief and
authority.
Contemporaries were polarized in their assessment of what the
Revolution achieved. For all of the vicissitudes of the revolutionary decade,
all the strength of the reaction against revolutionary excesses both real and
imagined, it left an unforgettable, durable image of the possibilities of civic
emancipation. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant, aged seventy-
four, concluded in 1798 that

such a phenomenon in the history of the world will never be forgotten,

because it has revealed at the base of human nature a possibility for
moral progress which no political figure had previously suspected. Even
if we must return to the Old Régime, these first hours of freedom, as a
philosophical testimony, will lose nothing of their value.1

Victoire de Froulay de Tessé, Marquise de Créquy, was twenty years older

than Kant. In contrast, she was vitriolic about what she saw around her at
the same time:

x
 i n t r od uc t ion xi

In the towns you see only insolent or evil people. You are spoken to only
in a tone which is brusque, demanding or defiant. Every face has a
sinister look; even children have a hostile, depraved demeanour. One
would say that there is hatred in every heart. Envy has not been satis-
fied, and misery is everywhere. That is the punishment for making a
revolution.2

Historians, like those who lived through those years, have agreed on the
unprecedented and momentous nature of the great acts of revolution in
the months between May and October 1789. They have never agreed,
however, about why what came to be called the ancien régime was over-
thrown with such widespread support, or about why the Revolution took
its subsequent course, or about its outcomes. The consequences of the
events of 1789 were so complex, violent and significant that reflection and
debate on their origins and course show no signs of concluding. The
Revolution continues to fascinate, perplex and inspire. Indeed, the two
great waves of revolutionary change since the 1980s—the overthrow of
regimes in eastern and south-eastern Europe and the ‘Arab spring’—have
served to revivify our interest in the world-changing upheavals of the late
eighteenth century.3
The drama, successes and tragedies of the Revolution, and the scale of
the attempts to arrest or reverse it, have attracted scholars to the subject
for more than two centuries.4 By the time of Napoleon Bonaparte’s
seizure of power in November 1799, the first historians of the Revolution
had begun to outline their narratives of these years and their judgements
about the origins and consequences of revolutionary change. Why and
how did an apparently stable regime collapse in 1789? Why did it prove
to be so difficult to stabilize a new order? Did the political turmoil of
these years disguise a more fundamental social and economic continuity?
Was the French Revolution a major turning point in French—even
world—history, or instead a protracted period of violent upheaval and
warfare that wrecked millions of lives? This book seeks to answer those
questions.
Like all major revolutions, the French Revolution had many episodes of
heroism and horror, civic sacrifice and slaughter. When commenting in
1927 on peasant uprisings in Hunan province, Mao Tse-Tung famously
wrote that
xii int r od uct ion

a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting, or

doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so
temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is
an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.5

Mao was then thirty-four years of age, the same age as a French revolu-
tionary, Maximilien Robespierre, when he responded in November 1792 to
the taunts of his political opponents that he had blood on his hands:
‘Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?’ The Parisians who
had overthrown Louis XVI in August 1792 and slaughtered hundreds of
his guards were, Robespierre insisted, acting for all patriots: ‘to make a
crime of a few apparent or real misdemeanours, inevitable during such a
great upheaval, would be to punish them for their devotion’.6
Most general histories of the French Revolution have been written as if
it was purely Parisian, and imposed on a recalcitrant, increasingly hostile,
countryside. Paris made the Revolution; the provinces reacted to it.7 In
contrast, the underlying approach of this book is that the Revolution is best
understood as a process of negotiation and confrontation between govern-
ments in Paris and people across the country, in cities, towns and villages.
So readers of this book will find much about how the ordinary people of
town and country made, opposed and experienced revolutionary change as
well as about the history of political struggle in Paris.
It is true that Paris was the epicentre of revolution, but only approxi-
mately one French person in forty—about 650,000 of more than 28
million—lived in Paris in the 1780s. This was a land of villages and small
towns. The men who governed France through a decade of revolution were
overwhelmingly of provincial origin and brought to their nation-building
the perspectives that their constituents communicated to them in waves of
correspondence. The book will investigate the ways in which the lived
experience of legislative, cultural and social change in France from 1789 to
1799 challenged and transformed assumptions about power and authority
across provincial society. How did rural and small-town men and women
adopt, adapt to and resist change from Paris? The results are surprising.
As a turbulent, violent crisis in a predominantly visual and oral culture,
the Revolution generated a vast quantity of visual representations designed
to make sense of what had happened and to pour vituperation or mockery
on one’s enemies. It also produced a mass of ephemera: objects such as
entry cards for political clubs, cartoons, or the revolutionary banknotes
 int r od uct ion xiii

known as assignats. It certainly generated extensive plans to memorialize

what it had achieved in monumental architecture, but these were never
realized in a context of instability, war and privation. Few physical vestiges
remain of a revolution that has shaped contemporary France.8
In identifying some of the few signs that survive in the built environ-
ment, I received particular assistance from Bernard Richard, who shared
his vast knowledge of the physical objects commemorating the Revolution,
such as the Bastille stone in the village of Saint-Julien-du-Sault. I have
benefited directly from conversations over many years with fine historians,
among them David Andress, Michel Biard, Stephen Clay, Ian Coller,
Suzanne Desan, Alan Forrest, Paul Hanson, Lynn Hunt, Colin Jones, Peter
Jones, Hervé Leuwers, Marisa Linton, Jean-Clément Martin, John
Merriman, Noelle Plack, Timothy Tackett, Charles Walton, and genera-
tions of my students. Heather McCallum, Candida Brazil and Rachael
Lonsdale of Yale University Press and their readers have offered encour-
agement and wisdom; Richard Mason and Samantha Cross applied their
professional expertise to copy-editing and design respectively. Mira Adler-
Gillies helped me locate some of the illustrations that are so important to
this volume, while Julie Johnson produced the index. Other specific assist-
ance was offered by Juliet Flesch, Kit McPhee, Jeremy Teow and Aurore
Mulkens. Most important, I am deeply grateful to my partner Charlotte
Allen for her engaged, insightful readings of drafts.
A book of this type inevitably owes a profound debt of scholarship, in
this case to the many hundreds of historians who have probed questions
about the French Revolution over the past 225 years. For all the polemics
that divide them, they have made the quality of research and writing about
the Revolution one of the jewels in the crown of historical scholarship, as
befits an historical period of such profound importance. The service provided
by the staff of French archival repositories has underlined my good fortune
in being the historian of a country of great archival guardianship. When the
Archives Départementales in Nancy were closed for refurbishment, its staff
went so far as to open them solely to enable me to work there.
Parts of Chapter 4 are reproduced with the publisher’s permission from
my chapter in David Andress (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the French
Revolution, ch. 10 (Oxford University Press, 2015). Sections of Chapter
17 are reproduced with the publisher’s permission from Peter McPhee
(ed.), A Companion to the French Revolution, ch. 27 (Blackwell Publishers,
2013).
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1 French provinces in the eighteenth century.

xiv
 MONTMARTRE

BUTTES-CHAUMONT
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Louvre Place de Grève
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LOI R E- Angers Chaumont Colmar
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Biscay I SÈ R E KINGDOM OF
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GIRON DE
LOT LOIRE Valence
LOT-ET Mende
GARONNE Cahors Privas HAUTE-
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LANDES Agen TARN-ET AVEY RON LOZÈRE ALPES
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G A R D VAUCLUSE
Auch TARN Avignon BASSES-
BASSES- Pau Toulouse Nîmes ALPES
HAUTE- Montpellier
BOUCHES-
ORIENTALES Tarbes GARONNE HÉRAULT DU-RHÔNE VA R Draguignan
Foix Carcassonne Marseille
AR IÈGE AUDE
HAUTES- Perpignan
ORIENTALES Bastia
PYRÉNÉES ORIENTALES
S P A I N GOLO
Corsica
Albi Département name Mediterranean Ajaccio
Département capital Sea
LIAMONE
Département boundary

3 Départements of France, 1800.

xvi
1. Antoine-François Callet, Louis XVI, c.1778. Callet’s formal portrait of the king in his coronation
robes was used as a ‘prime version’ for later copies used as gifts.
2. The Place Royale, Bordeaux, was completed c.1755. The stock exchange at its apex symbolized
the wealth and confidence of the city’s mercantile élite. A statue of Louis XV in the centre was
melted down during the Revolution.

3. The young Louis-Léopold

Boilly (b.1761) painted
this portrait of the barrister
Maximilien Robespierre
in 1783 while studying in
Arras. Robespierre, aged
twenty-five, seems be flushed
with his first major court
success. He always enjoyed
the companionship offered
by dogs.
4. This is one of the bas-reliefs on the thirty-metre obelisk erected in 1783 in the Mediterranean
town of Port-Vendres to commemorate major port works commissioned by Louis XVI. This one
shows Louis assisting American independence; the others lauded him for abolition of serfdom, free
trade and a stronger navy.

5. While completed more than a century before the Revolution, Jacques de Stella’s La Veillée à la
ferme pendant l’hiver captures the ambiance of comfortable peasant households gathered for an
evening in winter.
6. The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 is here captured by one of the most talented of the
revolutionary artists, Jean-Louis Prieur, who contributed 67 of the 144 quasi-official ‘Tableaux
historiques’ series. Prieur, a juror on the Revolutionary Tribunal, was guillotined with Fouquier-
Tinville in May 1795, the day after the death of his father.
7. Anne-Louis Girodet, a twenty-two-year-old student of Jacques-Louis David, captured his horror
at the killings of the royal officials Launay, Foulon and Bertier de Sauvigny in July 1789 before
leaving to take up an artistic residency in Rome.

8. There are few visual

representations of the
Great Fear of July–August
1789. In fact, physical
intimidation of seigneurs
or their estate managers,
and destruction of feudal
registers was far more
common than the burning
of châteaux.
9. The value of the revolutionary banknotes (assignats) was backed by the nationalized property
of the Church. The later flood of assignats and consequent inflation was resented across much of
the country.

10. Pierre Gabriel Berthault here captures the scale of the celebrations in Paris for the first
anniversary of the seizure of the Bastille. The Festival of Federation of July 1790 was the high point
of revolutionary unity and optimism.
 11. This barely surviving plane tree was
probably planted in the tiny village of
Tamniès, north of Sarlat, to mark the first
anniversary of the storming of the Bastille.
It grows in front of the parish church,
from where it was photographed. It is now
probably the only living ‘liberty tree’ from
that point of the Revolution.

12. In the tiny southern village of Camps-

sur-l’Agly, on the frontier of Languedoc and
Roussillon, one Occitan-speaking family
decided to mark the significance of the great
year by placing a carved stone image of the
Bastille as the lintel over their door, and it
remains there today.

13. After the building entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy was contracted to demolish the Bastille,
he sent carvings of it made from its foundation stones to the eighty-three new departments. This
stone was acquired in 1790 by the village of Saint-Julien-du-Sault in Burgundy on ‘Liberty Square’.
It remains there today. Palloy’s certification of authenticity is just discernible along the bottom.
14. The proclamation of
martial law at the Champ de
Mars on 17 July 1791, here
captured by Jean-Louis Prieur,
and the subsequent killing
of people signing a petition
calling for Louis to abdicate,
was a violent rupture in
revolutionary unity.

15. François Bonneville’s

1796 portrait of Jacques-
Pierre Brissot, the ‘moderate’
republican leader and
advocate of war executed in
October 1793.
16. The capture of the Tuileries Palace in Paris on 10 August 1792 as seen by Jacques Bertaux.

17. The Revolution changed the material objects of daily life, as with this
plate marking the nation’s unity and resolve in 1792. Household crockery was
a particularly common choice for symbolizing support for the Revolution.
18. Charlotte Corday was born in 1768 into a minor noble family at this farm of Les Champeaux,
near Écorches in Normandy. A committed Girondin republican, she murdered Jean-Paul Marat on
13 July 1793. She was executed four days later.

19. Jacques-Louis David’s brilliant work of political deification, commemorating Jean-Paul Marat,
assassinated by Charlotte Corday in July 1793.
 20. In 1793 Revolutionary administrators in Nantes found this note, a call to celebration
of the ‘holy sacraments’, referring also to the role of Marie Giron. The commitment of
women to the ‘traditional’ church was at the heart of the rejection of revolutionary change
in the west.

21. Political life after 1789 centred on a small area between the Jacobin Club (lower left), the Rue
St-Honoré, where Robespierre and other deputies lived, and the National Convention, housed
until 10 May 1793 in the Manège (bottom), then in a theatre within the Tuileries Palace (top). The
Committee of Public Safety met on the left-hand side of the Tuileries. Robespierre’s life ended on
the Place de la Révolution at lower right.
22. A meeting of a ‘popular society’ or political club in Paris in 1793, by Louis René Boquet,
foregrounds a sans-culottes, distinguished by his full-length work trousers rather than the culottes of
the well-to-do.

23. Members of the Jacobin

Club (Société des amis de la
constitution) of Mont-Égalité,
thirty miles east of Paris, celebrated
the credo, ‘Unity, indivisibility,
fraternity or death’, on their
membership cards. The village was
formerly known as Faremoutiers
and known chiefly for its seventh-
century Benedictine abbey founded
by St Fara.
Another random document with
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and seventh about equal; first four abruptly cut out on the inner web;
secondaries broad and rounded. Tail rather long, broad, slightly
rounded.
Bill light blue at the base, with the margins yellowish, the tip black;
the cere yellow. Iris hazel. Feet yellow; claws black, at the base
bluish. The general colour of the upper parts is chocolate-brown. The
quills are of the general colour externally, but the primaries are black
toward the tip, a great part of the inner web, with the shaft, white,
and barred with brownish-black, the bars more extended on the
secondaries. The tail is marked with about ten dusky bars on a
reddish-brown ground, tinged with grey, the last dark bar broader,
the tips paler. The eyelids are whitish, as is the throat, which is
longitudinally streaked with dusky. The rest of the lower parts are
yellowish or brownish white, barred with brown. The lower wing-
coverts are white, barred or spotted with dusky; the white of the inner
webs of the primaries forms a conspicuous patch, contrasted with
the greyish-black of their terminal portion.
Length to end of tail 23 inches; wing from flexure 17; tail 10 1/2; bill
along the ridge 1 8/12, along the edge of lower mandible 1 7/12; tarsus
3 5/12; hind toe 1, its claw 1 1/12; middle toe 1 10/12, its claw 1 1/12.

Another specimen in my possession, procured by Dr Townsend on

the plains of Snake River, has the upper parts brown, streaked and
spotted with reddish-white; the upper tail-coverts white, barred with
dusky, the lower parts as above described. The colours however
vary, and in some the upper parts are deep brown, the lower reddish
or brownish white, barred with reddish-brown.
When compared with European specimens, mine have the bill
somewhat stronger; but in all other respects, including the scutella
and scales of the feet and toes, and the structure of the wings and
tail, the parts are similar.
 Marsh Hare.

Lepus palustris, Bachman.

The Hare figured in the plate is thus described by my learned friend
Dr Bachman, in his excellent observations on the different species of
the genus Lepus inhabiting the United States and Canada, inserted
in the seventh volume of the Journal of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia:—
“Smaller than the American Hare. Ears much shorter than the head;
eyes rather small; tail very short; feet small, thinly clothed with hair.
Upper surface yellowish-brown; beneath, grey.

4 0—0 6—6
Incisors Canines Molars = 28
2, 0—0, 5—5,

“The upper incisors are longer and broader than those of the
American Hare, marked, like all the rest of the species, with a deep
longitudinal furrow. The small accessory incisors are smaller and
less flattened than those of the last mentioned species, and the
molars are narrower and a little shorter. The transverse diameter of
the cranium is much smaller, the vertical diameter about equal.
Orbits of the eyes one-third smaller. This is a striking peculiarity,
giving it a smaller and less prominent eye than that of any other
American species. The pterygoid processes of the temporal bone
project downwards nearly in a vertical line, whilst those of the
American Hare are almost horizontal.
“Head and ears shorter than those of the Lepus Americanus; legs
short, and rather small; body short and thick; feet small, thinly
clothed with hair beneath, so as not to cover the nails, which are
larger than those of the American Hare. Tail shorter than that of any
other species of true hare inhabiting the United States, except the
Lepus Nuttalli. Hair on the back long and somewhat rough. From the
short legs and ears of this species, and its general clumsy habit, it
has the appearance when running through the marshes, splashing
through mud and mire, and plunging into creeks and ponds of water,
of some large Norway Rat, hastening to escape from its pursuers.
“The teeth are yellowish-white; the eyes are dark brown, appearing
in certain lights quite black. Upper parts of the head brown and
greyish-ash. Around the orbits of the eyes slightly fawn-coloured.
Whiskers black. Ears dark greyish-brown. The back and whole upper
parts yellowish-brown, intermixed with many strong black hairs. The
hairs, when examined singly, are bluish-grey at the roots, then light
brown, and are tipped with black. The fur, beneath, is light
plumbeous; under the chin grey; throat yellowish-brown; belly light
grey, the fur beneath bluish. Under surface of the tail ash-colour,
edged with brown. During winter the upper surface becomes
considerably darker than in summer.

Dimensions, taken from a specimen in the flesh:

Length, from point of nose to insertion of tail, 13 inches
Height, from the top of the fore-shoulder to the 7
end of the middle claw
Length of the head, 3 1/2
..... ..... ears, 2 1/2
..... ..... hind foot, 3
..... ..... tail (vertebræ), 5/
6
..... ..... tail, including the fur, 1 1/2
Weight 2 1/2 lb.

“I have not heard of the existence of this small species of Hare to the
north of the State of South Carolina, nor is it found in the upper parts
of this State,—confining itself to the maritime districts, to low marshy
grounds partially inundated, to the borders of rivers subject to the
overflowing of their banks, and to the ponds, usually termed
reserves, where the waters intended to overflow the rice-fields are
preserved. In these situations, rendered almost inaccessible on
account of mud, entangled vines, and stagnant waters, sending up
poisonous miasmata, the fruitful source of disease, surrounded by
frogs, water-snakes, and alligators, this species resides through the
whole year, scarcely molested by man. In these forbidden retreats,
frequented by Herons (Ardea), Snake-birds (Plotus Anhinga), and
Ibises, this almost aquatic quadruped finds a home suited to its
habits; making up for its want of speed in eluding pursuit, by its
facility in winding through miry pools and marshes overgrown with
rank weeds and willows. In such situations, I have met with it fifty
miles north of Charleston; but, as soon as the traveller arrives at the
high grounds of the middle country, where the marshes disappear,
this Hare is no longer seen. It is common in all the lower parts of
Georgia, and I have observed it for sale in the market of Savannah.
It is abundant in East Florida, even at its farthest southern extremity.
I received a living animal of this species, taken on one of the islands
near Indian Key, called Rabbit Key, separated from the main-land by
several miles of sea; where it could have proceeded only by
swimming, but where it is now found in great numbers. In all the low
grounds of Florida, this species takes the place of the American
Hare, which has not been observed in those situations.
“The Marsh Hare is one of the most singular in its habits of all the
species. It runs low on the ground, and cannot be said to possess
the fine leaping gait of the American Hare. It is so slow of foot, that
nothing but the sheltered and miry situations in which it resides can
save it from being easily overtaken and captured. I have, indeed,
observed the domestics on a plantation, during a holiday, setting fire
to a piece of marsh ground, in a very dry season, and armed with
clubs, waiting till the flames drove these Hares from their retreats,
when they were run down and killed in considerable numbers, I
noticed that when the American Hare made its appearance it was
suffered to pass, on account of the speed they knew it to possess,
but no sooner did the Marsh Hare appear, than with a whoop, they
gave chase, and seldom failed to overtake it.
“The feet of the Marsh Hare are admirably adapted to its aquatic
habits. A thick covering of hair on its soles, like that on the other
species, would be inconvenient; they would not only be kept wet for
a considerable length of time, but would retard them in swimming. All
quadrupeds that frequent the water, such as the Beaver, Otter,
Muskrat, Mink, &c., and aquatic birds, have nearly naked palms; and
it is this peculiar structure, together with the facility of distending its
toes, that enables this quadruped to swim with such ease and
rapidity. The track, when observed in moist or muddy situations,
differs very much from that of the other species. Its toes are spread
out, each leaving a distinct impression, like those of the rat.
“The Marsh Hare deposits its young in a pretty large nest, composed
of a large species of rush (Juncus effusus) growing in a convenient
situation. These appeared to have been cut into pieces of about a
foot in length. I have seen these nests nearly surrounded by, and
almost floating on, the water. They were generally arched, by
carefully bending the rush-grass over them, admitting the mother by
a pretty large hole in the side. A considerable quantity of hair was
found lining the nest, but whether plucked out by the parent, or the
effect of the season, (it being late in spring when these animals shed
their coat) I was unable to ascertain. The young were from five to
seven. They evidently breed several times in the season, but I have
observed that the females usually produce their young two months
later, at least, than the American Hare. Twenty-one specimens were
obtained from the 9th to the 14th day of April; none of the females
had produced young that season, although some of them would
have done so in a very few days. On one occasion only, have I seen
the young in March. These bear a strong resemblance to the adults,
and may almost at a glance be distinguished from those of the last-
mentioned species.
“This species possesses a strong marshy smell at all times, even
when kept in confinement, and fed on the choicest food. Its flesh,
however, although dark, is fully equal, if not superior, to that of the
American Hare. The Marsh Hare never visits gardens or cultivated
fields, confining itself throughout the year to the marshes. It is
occasionally found in places overflown by salt or brackish water, but
seems to prefer fresh-water marshes, where its food can be most
conveniently obtained. It feeds on various grasses, gnaws off the
twigs of the young sassafras, and of the pond spice (Laurus
geniculata). I have seen many places in the low grounds dug up, the
foot-prints indicating that it was the work of this species in search of
roots. It frequently is found digging for the bulbs of the wild potato
(Apios tuberosa), as also for those of a small species of Amaryllis
(Amaryllis Atamasco).
“I possess a living animal of this species, which was sent me a few
weeks ago, having been captured when full grown. It became so
gentle in a few days that it freely took its food from the hand. It is fed
on turnip and cabbage leaves, but prefers bread to any other food
that has been offered to it. It is fond of lying for hours in a trough of
water, and seems restless and uneasy when the trough is removed,
scratching the sides of its tin cage until it has been replaced, when it
immediately plunges in, burying the greater part of its body in the
water.
“It has already shed a great portion of its summer, and resumed its
winter, dress. The hairs on the upper surface, instead of becoming
white at the point, as in the American Hare, have grown long and
black, through which the brownish parts beneath are still distinctly
visible.
“This species, like others of the genus existing in this country, as well
as in the deer and squirrels, is infested with a troublesome larva of
an œstrus in the summer and autumn, which, penetrating into the
flesh, and continually enlarging, causes pain to the animal, and
renders it lean. One of these larvæ dropped from an orifice in the
throat of the hare which I have in confinement. It was of the usual
cylindrical shape, but appears to differ in some particulars from the
Œstrus cuniculi.”
 EVENING GROSBEAK.

Fringilla vespertina, Cooper.

PLATE CCCLXXIII. Male.

This fine species of Grosbeak was first introduced to the notice of

ornithologists by Mr William Cooper, who published an account of
it in the Annals of the Lyceum of New York. Mr Schoolcraft
observed a few individuals, in the beginning of April 1823, near the
Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan, from which the species was traced to
the Rocky Mountains. Dr Richardson mentions it as a common
inhabitant of the maple groves on the Saskatchewan plains, whence
“its native appellation of Sugar-bird.” The female remained utterly
unknown until it was obtained by Dr Townsend, who found this
Grosbeak abundant about the Columbia River, and procured a great
number of specimens, several of which are in my possession. The
following note from him contains all the information respecting its
habits that I can lay before you.
“Columbia River, May 27, 1836.—The Evening Grosbeak, Fringilla
vespertina, is very numerous in the pine-woods at this time. You can
scarcely enter a grove of pines at any hour in the day without seeing
numbers of them. They are very unsuspicious and tame, and I have,
in consequence, been enabled to procure a fine suite of specimens.
The accounts that have been published respecting them by the only
two authors to whom I have access, Mr Nuttall and Prince
Bonaparte, are, I think, in many respects incorrect. In the first place,
it is stated that they are retiring and silent during the day, and sing
only on the approach of evening. Here they are remarkably noisy
during the whole of the day, from sunrise to sunset. They then retire
quietly to their roosts in the summits of the tall pines, and are not
aroused until daylight streaks the east, when they come forth to feed
as before. Thus I have observed them here, but will not say but that
at other seasons, and in other situations, their habits may be
different. They are now, however, very near the season of breeding,
as the organs of the specimens I have examined sufficiently indicate.
They appear fond of going in large bodies, and it is rare to see one
alone in a tree. They feed upon the seeds of the pine and other
trees, alighting upon large limbs, and proceeding by a succession of
hops to the very extremities of the branches. They eat, as well as
seeds, a considerable quantity of the larvæ of the large black ant,
and it is probable that it is to procure this food that they are not
uncommonly seen in the tops of the low oaks which here skirt the
forests. Their ordinary voice, when they are engaged in procuring
food, consists of a single rather screaming note, which from its tone I
at first supposed to be one of alarm, but soon discovered my error.
At other times, particularly about mid-day, the male sometimes
selects a lofty pine branch, and there attempts a song; but it is a
miserable failure, and he seems conscious of it, for he frequently
pauses and looks discontented, then remains silent sometimes for
some minutes, and tries it again, but with no better success. The
note is a single warbling call, exceedingly like the early part of the
Robin’s song, but not so sweet, and checked as though the
performer were out of breath. The song, if it may be so called, is to
me a most wearisome one: I am constantly listening to hear the
stave continued, and am as constantly disappointed. Another error of
the books is this,—they both state that the female is similar to the
male in plumage. Now, this is entirely a mistake: she is so very
different in colour and markings, that were it not for the size and
colour of the bill, and its peculiar physiognomy, one might be induced
to suppose it another species. The specimens in possession of Mr
Leadbeater of London, and from which Prince Bonaparte drew up
his descriptions, must have been all males.”
In the present plate you will find the figure of a male only; but in Plate
CCCCXXIV. are representations of the young male and adult female,
which are however here described.

Fringilla vespertina, Cooper, Ann. Lyc. New York, vol. i. p. 220.—Ch.

Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 113.
Evening Grosbeak, Fringilla vespertina, Ch. Bonaparte, Amer. Orn. vol.
ii. pl. 14. fig. 1.
Coccothraustes vespertina, Evening Grosbeak, Richards. and Swains.
Fauna Bor.-Amer. vol. ii. p. 269.
Evening Grosbeak, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. Appendix, p. 594.

Adult Male. Plate CCCLXXIII.

Bill of moderate length, extremely thick, conical, pointed; upper
mandible with the dorsal line very slightly convex, the sides rounded;
the edges sharp, overlapping, with a slight sinus close to the acute
tip; lower mandible with the angle very short and broad, the dorsal
line straight, or very slightly concave, the back very broad, the sides
rounded, the edges inflected, the tip acute. Nasal sinus extremely
short and broad: nostrils round, basal, concealed by short reflected
bristly feathers.
Head large, roundish-ovate; neck short; body moderately full. Feet
short, of moderate strength; tarsus short, compressed, with seven
anterior scutella, and two plates behind forming a sharp edge; hind
toe large, outer toe somewhat longer than inner; claws rather large,
moderately arched, much compressed, acute.
Plumage full, soft, blended, the feathers oblong. Wings rather long,
broad, abruptly pointed; the outer three primaries almost equal, the
first longest; outer secondaries emarginate. Tail of moderate length,
rather narrow, emarginate, of twelve rather narrow feathers.
Bill yellow; iris hazel; feet flesh-colour, claws brown. The upper part
of the head and the occiput are brownish-black, bounded anteriorly
by a broadish band of bright yellow across the forehead, and laterally
by a streak of the same, passing over the eye; the stiff feathers over
the nostrils black, as is the loral space. The cheeks, hind neck, and
throat are dark yellowish-olive, and that colour gradually brightens
until, on the outer edges of the scapulars, the rump, the axillars and
inner lower wing-coverts, the abdomen and lower tail-coverts, it
becomes pure yellow. The smaller wing-coverts, alula, primary
coverts, three outer secondaries, outer web of the next, and the
bases of the inner secondaries, black; as is the tail; six of the inner
secondaries, inner web of the next, and inner margin of the rest, as
well as their coverts, white, the basal part excepted.
Length to end of tail 8 inches; wing from flexure 4 3/4; tail 3; bill along
1/2
the ridge 10/12, along the edge of lower mandible 11/12; tarsus 9 /12;
hind toe 5/12, its claw, 4 1/2/12; middle toe, 8/12, its claw 3 3/4/12.
Adult Female. Plate CCCCXXIV. Fig. 5.
The adult female, which is here figured and described for the first
time, from a specimen obtained from Dr Townsend, and marked
“Black Hills, Female, June 3, 1834,” wants the yellow band on the
forehead, the streak of the same colour over the eye, the black line
along the basal margin of the upper mandible, and the large patch of
white on the wings. The bill and feet are as in the male, but paler.
The upper part of the head is dark brownish-olive; the cheeks lighter;
the hind neck, back, and scapulars light brownish-grey, with a slight
olivaceous tint, shaded into brownish-yellow on the rump. The wings
are black; a portion of the edge of the wing, the tips and part of the
margins of the secondary coverts, a concealed band on the basal
part of the primaries, the outer three excepted, and the edges of all
the quills toward the end, white, which is broader on the
secondaries, and forms a band on them. Tail-coverts black, tipped
with a triangular spot of white; tail-feathers also black, with a white
spot on the inner web at the tip, eight-twelfths long on the outermost
feather, gradually diminishing towards the central feathers, which are
slightly tipped. Throat greyish-white, margined on either side by a
longitudinal band of black, from the base of the lower mandible, and
ten-twelfths in length; the lower parts yellowish-grey; abdomen and
lower tail-coverts white, axillars and some of the lower wing-coverts
yellow.
Length to end of tail 7 1/2 inches; wing from flexure 4 1/4; tail 2 10/12;
bill along the ridge 9 1/2/12.

Young Male. Plate CCCXXIV. Fig. 6.

The young male bears a considerable resemblance to the female,
differing chiefly in wanting the black bands on the throat, and in
having the upper parts much lighter, and the lower more yellow. Bill
yellow; iris hazel; feet flesh-colour, claws dusky. Head and cheeks
light greyish-brown, the rest of the upper parts of a paler tint, slightly
tinged with yellow on the margins. The wings and tail are black, as in
the female, and similarly spotted with white, but tinged with yellow.
The lower parts are yellowish-grey, the sides of the neck and the
axillars pale yellow, the abdomen and lower tail-coverts white.
The young male has been described as the adult female by Mr
Swainson in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, and has been made a
distinct species by M. Lesson, under the name of Coccothraustes
Bonapartii. The Prince of Musignano, it is observed, has erred in
stating that “no difference of any consequence is observable
between the sexes; though it might be said that the female is a little
less in size, and rather duller in plumage.”
 BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK.

Fringilla melanocephala.
PLATE CCCLXXIII. Male and Female.

The following account of this Grosbeak affords another proof of the

ardent zeal of my excellent friend Thomas Nuttall, who, though
more especially engaged with botany on his recent journey to the
Columbia, has not neglected opportunities of noting many interesting
facts relative to birds.
“On the central table-land of the Rocky Mountains, and on the upper
branches of the Colorado of the west, we first heard the powerful
song of this most delightful Finch. From thence, in the thick groves of
all the streams on our western course to the borders of the
Columbia, and throughout the dense forests of that river nearly to the
sea, we were frequently cheered amidst the wildest desolation by the
inimitable voice of this melodious bird. Jealous of all intrusion on his
lonely and wild haunts, it was seldom that we had the opportunity of
witnessing this almost fairy musician, which gave a charm to the
saddest gloom, and made the very woods as it were re-echo to his
untiring song. With the modesty of superior merit, and almost with
the solicitude of the Nightingale, our favourite Finch seeks the
darkest thicket of the deepest forest. The moment his eye rests on
the intruding observer he flits off in haste, calls to his mate, and
plunging into the thicket sits in silence till he is satisfied of the
restoration of solitude, when he again cautiously mounts the twig
and pours out afresh the oft-told but never-tiring tale of his affection
and devotion to the joys of nature. His song, which greatly resembles
that of the Red-breasted Grosbeak, is heard at early dawn, and at
intervals nearly to the close of night. It is a loud, varied, high-toned
and melodious fife, which rises and falls in the sweetest cadence;
but always, like the song of the nightingale, leaves a sensation of
pleasing sadness on the ear, which fascinates more powerfully than
the most cheering hilarity. In fact, the closing note of our bird is often
so querulous as to appear like the shrill cry of appealing distress: it
sinks at last so faintly, yet still so charmingly on the sense. When
seen, which is only by accident, he sits conspicuously on some lofty
bough, below the summit of the tree, and raising his head, and
swelling his throat with a rising motion, almost amounting to a flutter,
he appears truly rapt in ecstacy, and seems to enjoy his own powers
of melody as much as the listener. Even the cruel naturalist, ever
eager to add another trophy to his favourite science, feels arrested
by his appeal, and connives at his escape from the clutch of the
collector.
“About the month of July, in the Rocky Mountains, I observed the
female feeding her fledged young, and they also spent the summer
in the thickest branches, but with the nest and eggs I am
unacquainted. The song, as I have heard it, in the forests of
Columbia, seems to be like the syllables ’tait, weet, teet, weowit, teet
weowit, teet weeowit, verr, and sometimes terminating weet, weet,
weet, every note a loud tender trill of the utmost sweetness,
delivered in his own “wood-notes wild,” mocking nothing, but still
exulting in his powers, which, while exerted, seem to silence every
songster around. The Robin seems almost his pupil in song and
similarity of expression, but falls short, and after our Orpheus, seems
at best but a faultering scholar.”

Guiraca melanocephala, Swainson.

Adult Male. Plate CCCLXXIII. Figs. 2, 3.
Bill rather short, very robust, bulging at the base, conical, acute;
upper mandible with its dorsal outline a little convex, the sides
rounded, the edges sharp, ascending from the base to beyond the
nostrils, then deflected with a slight median festoon, and an obscure
notch close to the tip; lower mandible with the angle short and very
broad, the dorsal line straight, the back very broad at the base, the
sides high and convex, the edges inflected, the tip acute. Nostrils
basal, roundish, partly concealed by the feathers.
Head large, roundish-ovate; neck short; body rather full. Legs of
moderate length, rather strong; tarsus anteriorly covered with seven
scutella, posteriorly with two plates forming a sharp edge; toes rather
large, the first stout, the lateral nearly equal, the middle toe much
longer. Claws rather long, arched, much compressed, acute.
Plumage soft and blended. Wings of moderate length, broad. The
first quill two-twelfths shorter than the second, which is longest, but
scarcely exceeds the third, the fourth longer than the first;
secondaries slightly emarginate. Tail rather long, nearly even.
Bill with the upper mandible dusky, the lower white. Iris hazel. Feet
and claws wood-brown. Head, cheeks, and a small portion of the
throat black; the upper parts brownish-black; the feathers on the
lower part of the hind neck all round, a streak over each eye, another
along the middle of the hind head, the greater part of the rump, and
the lower parts generally, yellowish-red or brownish-orange; the
edges of some of the feathers on the back, a broad band formed by
the first row of small coverts, a narrow band formed by the tips of the
secondary coverts, a band on the base of the primaries, the outer
web of the first excepted, the margins of three of the primaries
toward the end, and a spot on the outer web of most of the
secondaries at the end; a large patch on the inner web of all the tail-
feathers, excepting the two middle, and largest on the outer, pure
white; the middle of the breast and abdomen, with the axillaries and
lower wing-coverts, yellow.
Length to end of tail 8 1/2 inches; wing from flexure 4 1/4; tail 3 8/12;
bill along the ridge 9/12, along the edge of lower mandible 10/12;
tarsus 11/12; hind toe 4 1/2/12, its claw 5/12; middle toe 8/12, its claw
3 1/2/ .
12

Adult Female. Plate CCCLXXIII. Fig. 4.

The female is much less beautiful. The bill is of a lighter brown
above, brownish-white beneath, with the edges and tip of the lower
mandible light brown; the feet and claws wood-brown. The upper
parts are wood-brown, the head darker, with three longitudinal bands
of brownish-white; a band of reddish-white across the hind neck, the
feathers of the back margined with whitish; the wings marked as in
the male, but with brownish-white; the tail without white spots. The
lower parts are of a much paler tint than those of the male; the
axillars and lower wing-coverts yellow.
Length to end of tail 8 1/4 inches; bill along the ridge 9/12; tarsus 11/12;
middle toe and claw 1 3/12.
SHARP-SHINNED OR SLATE-COLOURED HAWK.

Falco fuscus, Gmel.

PLATE CCCLXXIV. Male and Female.

There is a pleasure which that ornithologist only can feel who spends
his days in searching for the materials best adapted for his purpose,
and which arises from the contemplation of the objects he is anxious
to portray and describe, as they roam in freedom over Nature’s wild
domains. Another pleasure is derived from finding in different
countries birds so much alike in form, colour, and habits, that they
seem as if formed for the purpose of exercising our faculties of
observation and comparison. But this pleasure passes into pain, or
at least perplexity, when, as in the present instance, two species
differ so slightly that you cannot clearly define their characters,
although they yet seem to be distinct. In fact, I long felt uncertain
whether the American bird described by Wilson under the names of
Sharp-shinned Hawk, and Slate-coloured Hawk, was distinct from
the Sparrow Hawk, F. Nisus, of Europe.
It is mentioned in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, that a specimen of
this bird was killed in the vicinity of Moose Factory, and that it has
been deposited by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Zoological
Museum of London. This specimen I have not seen, but confiding
entirely in the accuracy of every fact mentioned by the authors of
that work, I here adduce it as a proof of the extraordinary range of
this species in America, which from the extreme north extends to our
most southern limits, perhaps far beyond them, during its autumnal
and winter migrations. I have met with it in every State or Territory of
the Union that I have visited. In the spring of 1837, it was abundant
in Texas, where it appeared to be travelling eastward. I have a
specimen procured by Dr Townsend in the neighbourhood of the
Columbia River; and, when on my way towards Labrador, I met with
it plentifully as far as the southern shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence,
beyond which, however, none were observed by me or any of my
party.
I never saw this daring little marauder on wing without saying or
thinking “There goes the miniature of the Goshawk!” Indeed, reader,
the shortness of the wings of the Sharp-shinned Hawk, its long tail,
though almost perfectly even, instead of being rounded as in the
Goshawk, added to its irregular, swift, vigorous, varied, and yet often
undecided manner of flight, greatly protracted however on occasion,
have generally impressed upon me the idea alluded to. While in
search of prey, the Sharp-shinned Hawk passes over the country,
now at a moderate height, now close over the land, in so swift a
manner that, although your eye has marked it, you feel surprised that
the very next moment it has dashed off and is far away. In fact it is
usually seen when least expected, and almost always but for a few
moments, unless when it has procured some prey, and is engaged in
feeding upon it. The kind of vacillation or wavering with which it
moves through the air appears perfectly adapted to its wants, for it
undoubtedly enables this little warrior to watch and to see at a single
quick glance of its keen eyes every object, whether to the right or to
the left, as it pursues its course. It advances by sudden dashes, as if
impetuosity of movement was essential to its nature, and pounces
upon or strikes such objects as best suit its appetite; but so very
suddenly that it appears quite hopeless for any of them to try to
escape. Many have been the times, reader, when watching this
vigilant, active, and industrious bird, I have seen it plunge headlong
among the briary patches of one of our old fields, in defiance of all
thorny obstacles, and, passing through, emerge on the other side,
bearing off with exultation in its sharp claws a Sparrow or Finch,
which it had surprised when at rest. At other times I have seen two or
three of these Hawks, acting in concert, fly at a Golden-winged
Woodpecker while alighted against the bark of a tree, where it
thought itself secure, but was suddenly clutched by one of the
Hawks throwing as it were its long legs forward with the quickness of
thought, protruding its sharp talons, and thrusting them into the back
of the devoted bird, while it was endeavouring to elude the harassing
attacks of another, by hopping and twisting round the tree. Then
down to the ground assailants and assailed would fall, the
Woodpecker still offering great resistance, until a second Hawk
would also seize upon it, and with claws deeply thrust into its vitals,
put an end to its life; when both the marauders would at once
commence their repast.
On several such occasions, I have felt much pleasure in rescuing
different species of birds from the grasp of the little tyrant, as
whenever it seizes one too heavy to be carried off, it drops to the
ground with it, and being close by, I have forced it to desist from
committing further mischief, as it fears man quite as much as its poor
quarry dreads itself. One of these occurrences, which happened in
the neighbourhood of Charleston, in South Carolina, is thus related
in my journal.
Whilst walking one delightful evening in autumn, along a fine hedge-
row formed by the luxuriant Rocky Mountain rose-bushes, I observed
a male of this species alighted in an upright position on the top-bar of
a fence opposite to me. I marked it with particular attention, to see
what might follow. The Hawk saw me as plainly as I did him, and
kept peeping now at me, and now at some part of the hedge
opposite, when suddenly, and with the swiftness of an arrow, it shot
past me, entered the briars, and the next instant was moving off with
a Brown Thrush, Turdus rufus in its talons. The Thrush, though
seized by the sharp claws of the marauder, seemed too heavy for
him to carry far, and I saw both falling to the ground. On running up, I
observed the anxiety of the Hawk as I approached, and twice saw it
attempt to rise on wing to carry off its prize; but it was unable to do
so, and before it could disengage itself I was able to secure both.
The Thrush must have been killed almost instantaneously, for, on
examining it, I found it quite dead.
My friend Thomas Nuttall, Esq., tells us that in the “thinly settled
parts of the States of Georgia and Alabama, this Hawk seems to
abound, and proves extremely destructive to young chickens, a
single one having been known regularly to come every day until he
had carried away between twenty and thirty. At noon-day, while I was
conversing with a planter, one of these Hawks came down, and
without ceremony, or heeding the loud cries of the housewife, who
most reluctantly witnessed the robbery, snatched away a chicken
before us.” Again, while speaking of the wild and violent manner of
this bird, he adds “descending furiously and blindly upon its quarry, a
young Hawk of this species broke through the glass of the green-
house, at the Cambridge Botanic Garden; and fearlessly passing
through a second glass partition, he was only brought up by the
third, and caught, though little stunned by the effort. His wing-
feathers were much torn by the glass, and his flight in this way so
impeded as to allow of his being approached.”
Whilst travelling to some distance, the Sharp-shinned Hawk flies
high, though in a desultory manner, with irregular quick flappings of
the wings, and at times, as if to pause for a while and examine the
objects below, moves in short and unequal circles, after which it is
seen to descend rapidly, and then follow its course at the height of
only a few feet from the ground, visiting as it were every clump of low
bushes or briar patches likely to be supplied with the smaller birds,
on which it principally feeds. Again, after having satisfied its hunger,