French Revolution their altars". In October the Convention troops captured Lyon and reinstated a Montagnard government there. Criteria for bringing someone before the Revolutionary Tribunal, created March 1793, had always been vast and vague. By August, political disagreement seemed enough to be summoned before the Tribunal; appeal against a Tribunal verdict was impossible. Late August 1793, an army general had been guillotined on the accusation of choosing too timid strategies on the battlefield. Mid-October, the widowed former queen Marie Antoinette was on trial for a long list of charges such as "teaching [her husband] Louis Capet the art of dissimulation" and incest
HMS Alert (1793) HMS Alert (1793) HMS "Alert" was launched in 1793 for the Royal Navy. In May 1794 the French Navy captured her and took her into service as "Alerte". A few months later the Royal Navy destroyed her. Commander Charles Smyth commissioned her in October 1793. He then sailed for Nova Scotia in May 1794. "Alerte" was off the coast of Ireland when she had the misfortune to encounter the 40-gun French frigate "Unité". At daybreak on 14 May "Alert" was at when she sighted three vessels. These edged towards "Alert", as she edged away, and the strangers did not respond