de Vattel: Of Civil War

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)Emmerich de Vattel

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Of Civil War§ 287 Foundation of the sovereign's rights against the rebels.§ 288. Who are rebels.§ 289. Popular commotion, insurrection. sedition.§ 290. How the sove-§ 291. He is bound to perform the promises he has made to the rebels. § 293. A civil war produces two independent parties.§ 294. They are to observe the common laws of war.§ 295. The effects of civil war distinguished according to cases.§ 296. Conduct to be observed by foreign nations.
   1. An instance of this occurs in the transactions which took place after the insurrection at Madrid, in 1766. At the requisition of the Cortes, the king revoked the concessions which he had been obliged to make to the insurgent populace, but he suffered the amnesty to remain in force.
   2. The prince of Condé, commander of Louis XIII.'s forces against the reformed party, having hanged sixty-four officers whom he had made prisoners during the civil war, the Protestants resolved upon retaliation; and the duke de Rohan, who commanded them, caused an equal number of Catholic officers to he hanged. See Memoires de Rohan. The duke of Alva made it a practice to condemn to death every prisoner he took from the confederates in the Netherlands, They, on their part, retaliated, and at length compelled him to respect the law of nations and the rules of war in his conduct toward them. Grotius, Ann. lib. ii.
   3. See the historians of the reign of Louis XIII.