FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[35]Now, in English, Cape Haitien. The place is a seaport of northern Haiti.—Ed.

[35]Now, in English, Cape Haitien. The place is a seaport of northern Haiti.—Ed.

In the battle of Valmy the French, under Dumouriez and Kellermann, repulsed the Prussians and their allies, commanded by the Duke of Brunswick. Though not in itself a great victory, its results have led some historians to call that action one of the decisive battles of the world. The final withdrawal of the Prussians, owing to Russian intrigues in Poland, left an open way for the French army into the Austrian Netherlands, which at Jemapes (November 6, 1792) were won for France. Other victories for the Revolution quickly followed, greatly advancing its cause.After the fall of the Bastille (July 14, 1789), the National Assembly abolished special privileges, slavery, and serfdom in France and all her territories, and decreed equal taxation. A new constitution was made. These acts heightened popular enthusiasm for the revolt. Political clubs, chief of which was that of the Jacobins, were formed in Paris. They were fiercely uncompromising in their demand for the overthrow of the monarchy. Many of the nobles hastened to quit the country. The King was virtually made prisoner in Paris, whence he attempted to escape, but was captured by insurgents and closely guarded in the city.The National Assembly came to an end and was succeeded (October 1, 1791) by the Legislative Assembly, a still more radical body, which for a year practically ruled France over the head of the King.Such was the state of affairs in France when, notwithstanding the complications in the East, the Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Convention of Pillnitz (August, 1791). This was the basis of an alliance for the rescue of Louis XVI from his enemies, and for his full restoration to power. It led a little later to a formidable coalition of sovereigns against the Revolution. Brunswick advanced toward Paris, but while he hesitated in his progress the French army, under Dumouriez, was increased in numbers and discipline. Dumouriez was on the Belgian border, preparing for his "Argonne campaign," the first events of which no one has better described than Lamartine.

After the fall of the Bastille (July 14, 1789), the National Assembly abolished special privileges, slavery, and serfdom in France and all her territories, and decreed equal taxation. A new constitution was made. These acts heightened popular enthusiasm for the revolt. Political clubs, chief of which was that of the Jacobins, were formed in Paris. They were fiercely uncompromising in their demand for the overthrow of the monarchy. Many of the nobles hastened to quit the country. The King was virtually made prisoner in Paris, whence he attempted to escape, but was captured by insurgents and closely guarded in the city.

The National Assembly came to an end and was succeeded (October 1, 1791) by the Legislative Assembly, a still more radical body, which for a year practically ruled France over the head of the King.

Such was the state of affairs in France when, notwithstanding the complications in the East, the Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Convention of Pillnitz (August, 1791). This was the basis of an alliance for the rescue of Louis XVI from his enemies, and for his full restoration to power. It led a little later to a formidable coalition of sovereigns against the Revolution. Brunswick advanced toward Paris, but while he hesitated in his progress the French army, under Dumouriez, was increased in numbers and discipline. Dumouriez was on the Belgian border, preparing for his "Argonne campaign," the first events of which no one has better described than Lamartine.

While the interregnum of royalty and republicanism delivered Paris over to the revolutionists, France, with all its frontiers open, had for security nothing but the small forest of Argonnes and the genius of Dumouriez. On September 2, 1792, this general was shut up with sixteen thousand men in the camp of Grandpré, occupying with weak detachments the intermediate defiles between Sedan and Sainte-Menehould, by which the Duke of Brunswick might attempt to break his line and turn his position. He caused the tocsin to be rung in the villages, hoping to excite the enthusiasm of the inhabitants; but the captures of Longwi and Verdun, the understanding between the gentlemen of the country and theémigrés,[36]the hatred of the Revolution, and the disproportionate amounts of the coalesced army, discouraged resistance. Dumouriez, left to himself by the inhabitants, could only rely on his own troops. His sole hope was in forming a junction with Kellermann. If that could be effected behind the forest of Argonne before the troops of the Duke of Brunswick could force the natural rampart, Kellermann and Dumouriez, uniting their troops, would have a body of forty-five thousand soldiers to ninety thousand Prussians, and might then with some hope hazard the fate of France on a battle.

Kellermann, who was worthy to understand and second this grand idea, served without jealousy Dumouriez's design, satisfied with his share of the glory if his country should be saved. He marched to Metz, at the extremity of the Argonne, informing Dumouriez of every step he took. But their superior intelligence was a mystery for the majority of officers and soldiery. Provisions were scarce and bad, the general himself eating black bread. Ministers, deputies, Luckner himself—influenced by his correspondents in the camp—wrote perpetually to Dumouriez to abandon his position and retire to Châlons.

Slight skirmishes with the advanced guard of the Prussians, in which the French were always victorious, gave the troops patience. Miaczinski, Stengel, and Miranda drove back the Prussians at all points. Dumouriez, in his position, deadened the shock of the one hundred thousand men whom the King of Prussiaand the Duke of Brunswick collected at the foot of Argonne. Chance nearly lost all.

Overcome by fatigue of body and mind, he had forgotten to reconnoitre with his own eyes, and quite close to him, the defile of Croix-au-Bois, which had been described to him as impracticable for troops, particularly cavalry and artillery. He had placed there, however, a dragoon regiment, two battalions of volunteers, and two pieces of cannon, commanded by a colonel; but in consequence of the recall of the dragoons and the two battalions before the troops ordered to replace them had come up, the defile was for a moment open to the enemy. A great many volunteer spies, whom the émigrés had in the villages of Argonne, hastened to point out this weakness to Clerfayt, the Austrian general, who instantly despatched eight thousand men, under the command of the young Prince de Ligne, who seized on the position.

A few hours afterward, Dumouriez, informed of this reverse, placed General Chazot at the head of two brigades, six squadrons of his best troops, four pieces of cannon, besides the artillery belonging to the battalions, and ordered him to attack the place at the bayonet's point, and recover the position at any sacrifice. Every hour the impatient commander despatched aides-de-camp to Chazot to expedite his march and bring him back information. Twenty-four hours passed away thus in doubt. On the 14th Dumouriez heard the sound of firing on his left, and judged by the noise, which receded, that the Imperialists were in retreat and Chazot had gained the forest. In the evening a note from Chazot informed him that he had forced the intrenchments of the Austrians, in spite of their desperate defence; that eight hundred dead lay in the defile, among whom was the Prince de Ligne.

Scarcely, however, had this note reached Dumouriez, whose mind had been thereby set at ease, than Clerfayt, burning to avenge the death of the Prince de Ligne and make a decisive attack on this rampart of the French army, advanced all his columns into this defile, gained the heights, rushed headlong down on Chazot's column in front and on both flanks, took his cannon, and compelled Chazot himself to leave the forest for the plain, cutting off his communication with the camp of Grandpré,and driving him in full flight on the road to Vouziers. At the same moment the corps of the émigrés attacked General Dubouquet, in the defile of the Chêne-Populeux. Frenchman against Frenchman, their valor was equal: the one side fighting to save, the other to reconquer, their country. Dubouquet gave way and retreated upon Châlons. These two disasters came upon Dumouriez at the same moment. Chazot and Dubouquet seemed to trace out to him the road. The clamor of his whole army pointed out to him Châlons as a refuge. Clerfayt, with twenty-five thousand men, was about to cut off his communication with Châlons. The Duke of Brunswick, with eighty thousand Prussians, enclosed him on the three other sides in the camp of Grandpré. His detachments cut off reduced his army to fifteen thousand men.

A retreat before an enemy, conquering in two partial encounters, was to prostrate the fortune of France before the foreigner. The "audacity" of Danton passed into the mind and tactics of Dumouriez. He conceived a plan even more bold than that of Argonne, and closed his ear to the timid counsels of art. He dictated to his aides-de-camp orders to the following effect:

Kellermann was to continue his advance to Sainte-Menehould; Beurnonville was to march instantly for Rhétel, advancing by the river Aisne, taking care not to go too near to Argonne, to save its flanks from Clerfayt's attacks. Dillon was to defend and check the two defiles of Argonne, and to send out troops beyond the forest in order to perplex the Duke of Brunswick's motions, and come as soon as possible into communication with Kellermann's advanced guard. Chazot was to return to Autry. General Sparre, the commandant at Châlons, was desired to form the advanced camp at Châlons.

These orders despatched, he prepared his own troops for the manœuvre which he himself intended to execute during the night. He sent to the heights which cover the left of Grandpré on the side of the Croix-au-Bois, where Clerfayt made him most uneasy, six battalions, six squadrons, six pieces of cannon, as a lookout, in case of any sudden attack on the part of the Austrians. At nightfall he caused the park of artillery to defile in silence by the two bridges which traverse the Aisne, and halt on the heights of Autry.

The Prince of Hohenlohe requested an interview with Dumouriez that evening, his motive being to judge of the state of the army. Dumouriez granted this, and substituted for himself in this conference General Duval, whose advanced years, white hair, and commanding stature imposed on the Austrian general. Duval affected an appearance of security, telling the Prince that Beurnonville was expected next day with eighteen thousand men, and Kellermann at the head of thirty thousand troops. Discouraged in his offers of arrangement by Duval, the Austrian chief withdrew, firmly convinced that Dumouriez meant to await the battle in his camp.

At midnight Dumouriez left the Château of Grandpré, on horseback, and went to the camp in the pitchy darkness of the night. All was hushed in repose: he forbade drums to beat or trumpets to sound, but sent round in a low voice the order to strike the tents and get under arms. The darkness and confusion were unfavorable to these orders, but before the first dawn of day the army was in full march. The troops passed in double file over the bridges of Senuc and Grand Champ, and ranged themselves in battle array on the eminences of Autry. Thus covered by the Aisne, Dumouriez gazed upon the foe to see if they followed; but the mystery of his movements had disconcerted the Duke of Brunswick and Clerfayt. The army cut down the bridges behind them, and then, advancing four leagues from Grandpré to Dumartin, encamped there; and in the morning General Duval dispersed a host of Prussian hussars. Dumouriez resumed his march next day, and on the 17th entered his camp of Sainte-Menehould.

The camp of Sainte-Menehould seemed to have been designed by nature to serve as a citadel for a handful of patriot soldiers, against a vast and victorious army. Protected in the front by a deep valley, on one side by the Aisne, and on the other by marshes, the back of the camp was defended by the shallow branches of the river Auve. Beyond these muddy streamlets and quagmires arose a solid and narrow piece of ground, admirably adapted for the station of a second camp; and here the general intended that Kellermann's division should be placed, then commanding the two routes of Rheims and Châlons. Dumouriez had studied this position during his leisure hours at Grandpré, and took uphis quarters with the confidence of a man who knows his ground and seizes on success with certain hand.

All his arrangements being made and head-quarters established at Sainte-Menehould, in the centre of the army, Dumouriez, annoyed at the reports, spread by fugitives, of his having been routed, wrote to the assembly: "I have been obliged," he wrote to the President, "to abandon the camp of Grandpré; our retreat was complete, when a panic spread through the army—ten thousand men fled before one thousand five hundred Prussian hussars. All is repaired, and I answer for everything."

At the news of the retreat of Grandpré, Kellermann, believing Dumouriez defeated, and fearful of falling himself among the Prussian forces, whom he supposed to be at the extremity of the defile of Argonne, had retreated as far as Vitry. Couriers from Dumouriez reassuring him, he again advanced, but with the slowness of a man who fears an ambush at every step. He hesitated while he obeyed. On the other side, Beurnonville, the friend and confidant of Dumouriez, had met the fugitives of Chazot's corps. Wholly disconcerted by their statements of the complete rout of his general, Beurnonville, with some dragoons, had ascended a hill, whence he perceived Argonne, and the bare heaths which extend from Grandpré to Sainte-Menehould.

It was on the morning of the 17th, at the moment when Dumouriez's army was moving from Dammartin to Sainte-Menehould. At the sight of this body of troops, whose uniforms and flags he could not distinguish in the heavy mist, Beurnonville had no doubt but that it was the Prussian army advancing in pursuit of the French. He immediately faced about, and advanced to Châlons by forced marches, in order to join his general. Hearing his mistake at Châlons, Beurnonville gave only twelve hours' rest to his harassed men, and arrived on the 19th with the ten thousand warlike soldiers whom he had led so far to the field of battle. Dumouriez passed them all in review, recognizing all the officers by their names, and the soldiers by their countenances, while they all saluted their leader with the loudest acclamations. The battalions and squadrons which he had carefully formed, disciplined, and accustomed to fire during the dilatory proceedings of Luckner with the army of the North, defiled before him, covered with the dust of their long march, their horses jaded,uniforms torn, shoes in holes, but their arms as perfect and as bright as if they were on parade.

Dumouriez had scarcely dismounted when Westermann and Thouvenot, his two confidential staff officers, came to inform him that the Prussian army,en masse, had passed the peak of Argonne, and were deploying on the hills of La Lune, on the other side of the Tourbe, opposite to him. At the same instant young Macdonald, his aide-de-camp, who had been sent, on the previous evening, on the road to Vitry, came galloping up, and brought him intelligence of the approach of the long-expected Kellermann, who at the head of twenty thousand men of the army of Metz, and some thousands of volunteers of Lorraine, was only at two hours' distance. Thus the fortune of the Revolution and the genius of Dumouriez, seconding each other, brought at the appointed hour and to the fixed spot, from the two extremities of France and from the depths of Germany, the forces which were to assail and those which were to defend the empire.

At the same moment Dumouriez, recalling his isolated detachments, prepared for a struggle, by concentrating all his scattered forces. General Dubouquet had retired to Châlons with three thousand men, where he also expected to find Dumouriez, but had only found in the city ten battalions offédérésand volunteers, who had arrived from Paris, and, hearing of the retreat of the army, mutinied against their chiefs, cut off the head of one of their officers, taking others with them, plundered the army stores, murdered the colonel of the regiment of Vexin, and then, in confused masses, took the road to Paris, proclaiming everywhere Dumouriez's treason and demanding his head. Dumouriez was alarmed lest these ruffians should come in contact with his army, for such bands sowed sedition wherever they went.

General Stengel, after having ravaged the country between Argonne and Sainte-Menehould, in order to cut off all supplies from the Prussians, fell back beyond the Tourbe, and posted himself with the vanguard on the hills of Lyron, opposite the heights of La Lune, where the Duke of Brunswick was posted.

Dampierre's camp, separated from that of Dumouriez by the trenches and shallows of the Auve, was assigned to Kellermann, but he passed beyond this spot, and posted his entire army andbaggage on the heights of Valmy, in advance of Dampierre, on the left of that of Sainte-Menehould. The line of Kellermann's encampment, nearer to the enemy, on its left, touched on its right the line of Dumouriez, and thus formed with the principal army an angle, against which the enemy could not send forth its attacking columns without being at once overwhelmed by the French artillery in both flanks. Dumouriez, perceiving in a moment that Kellermann, who was too much involved and too much isolated on the plateau of Valmy, might be turned by the Prussian masses, sent General Chazot, at the head of eight battalions and eight squadrons, to post them behind the heights of Gizaucourt, and be under Kellermann's orders. He next desired General Stengel and Beurnonville to advance to the right of Valmy with twenty-six battalions—his rapidcoup d'œilassuring him that this would be the Duke of Brunswick's point of attack.

This plan displayed at a glance the intelligence of the warrior and the politician. Defiance was thus cast by forty-five thousand men to one hundred ten thousand soldiers of the coalition.

The French army had its right flank and retreat covered by the Argonne, which was impassable by the enemy, and defended by its ravines and forests. The centre, bristling with batteries and natural obstacles, was impregnable. The army faced the country toward Champagne, leaving behind it the road clear to Châlons and Lorraine.

"The Prussians," argued Dumouriez, "will either fight or advance on Paris. If the former, they will find the French army in an intrenched camp as a field of battle. Obliged, in order to attack the centre, to pass the Auve, the Tourbe, and the Bionne, under the fire of my redoubts, they will take Kellermann in flank, who will crush their attacking columns between his battalions, charging down from Valmy and the batteries of mycorps d'armée. If they leave the French army, and cut off its retreat to Paris by marching on Châlons, the army, facing about, will follow them to Paris, increasing in number at every step. The reënforcements of the army of the Rhine and army of the North, which are on the march; the battalions of scattered volunteers, which I shall assemble as I cross the revolted provinces, will swell the amount of my armed troops to sixty thousand or seventy thousand men. The Prussians will march across a hostile country, and makeevery step with hesitation, while each advance will give me fresh troops. I shall await them under the walls of Paris. An invading army, placed between a capital of six hundred thousand souls, who close their gates, and a national army, which cuts off their retreat, is a destroyed army. France will be saved in the heart of France, instead of on the frontiers; but still she will be saved."

Thus reasoned Dumouriez, when the first sounds of the Prussian cannon, resounding from the heights of Valmy, came to announce to him that the Duke of Brunswick, having perceived the danger of advancing, and thus leaving the French army behind him, had attacked Kellermann. It was not the Duke of Brunswick, however, but the young King of Prussia, who had commanded the attack. The Prussian army, which the generalissimo wished to extend gradually from Rheims to Argonne, parallel to the French army, received orders to advance in a body on Kellermann's position. On the 19th it marched to Somme-Tourbe, and remained all night under arms. The report was spread in the head-quarters of the King of Prussia that the French were meditating a retreat on Châlons, and that the movements perceptible in their line were only intended to mask this retrograde march. The King was vexed at a plan of a campaign which always allowed them to escape. He thought he should surprise Dumouriez in the false position of an army which had raised his camp. The Duke of Brunswick, whose military authority began to suffer with the failure of his preceding manœuvres, in vain sought the intervention of General Koeler to moderate the ardor of the King. The attack was resolved upon.

On the 20th, at 6a.m., the Duke marched at the head of the Prussian advanced guard upon Somme-Bionne, with the intention of attacking Kellermann, and cutting off his retreat by the high road of Châlons. A thick autumnal fog floated over the plain into the marshy grounds where the three rivers flow, in the hollow ravines which separated the two armies, leaving only the points of the precipices and the crests of the hills shining in the light above this ocean of fog. An unexpected shock of the cavalry of the two advanced guards alone revealed, in this darkness, the march of the Prussians to the French. After a rapidmêléeand some firing, the advanced guard of the French fell back uponValmy, and warned Kellermann of the enemy's approach. The Duke of Brunswick continued to advance, reached the high road to Châlons, crossed it, and then deployed his whole army. At ten o'clock, the mist having suddenly disappeared, showed to the two generals their mutual situation.

Kellermann's army was en masse in the plain and behind the mill of Valmy. This bold position projected like a cape into the midst of the lines of the Prussian bayonets. General Chazot had not, as yet, come up with his twenty-six battalions to flank Kellermann's left. General Leveneur, who was to have flanked his right and to unite it with Dumouriez's army, advanced with hesitation and slowly, fearing to draw on his feeble force all the weight of the Prussian body, which he saw in battle array before him. General Valence, who commanded Kellermann's cavalry, deployed into high line with a regiment of carbineers, some squadrons of dragoons, and four battalions of grenadiers, between Gizaucourt and Valmy, thus covering the whole space which Kellermann could fill up, and where that general was expected. Kellermann's lines formed in the centre of the heights. His powerful artillery bristled by the side of the mill of Valmy, the centre and key to the position. Almost surrounded by semicircular lines of the enemy, which were perpetually increasing in numbers, and embarrassed on this very narrow elevation by his twenty-two thousand men, horses, guns, and baggage, Kellermann was unable to extend the wings of his army.

From this height Kellermann saw come in succession, from the white mist of the morning, and glitter in the sunshine, the countless Prussian cavalry, which must envelop him, as in a net, if he were driven from his position. About noon the Duke of Brunswick, having formed his whole army into two lines, and decided on his plan of the day, was seen to detach himself from the centre, and advance toward the declivities of Gizaucourt and La Lune, at the head of a body of infantry, cavalry, and three batteries. Fresh troops filled up the space these left.

Such was the horizon of tents, bayonets, horses, cannon, and staff which displayed itself on September 20th, in the hollows and ravines of Champagne. At the same hour the convention[37]began its sittings and deliberations as to a monarchy or a republic. Within and without, France and liberty sported with destiny.

The exterior aspect of the two armies seemed to declare beforehand the issue of the campaign. On the side of the Prussians, one hundred ten thousand combatants; a system of tactics the inheritance of the Great Frederick; discipline, which converted battalions into machines of war, and which, destroying all personal will in the soldier, made him bend submissively to the thought and voice of his officers; an infantry solid and impenetrable as walls of iron; cavalry mounted on the splendid horses of Mecklenburg, whose docility, well-controlled ardor, and high courage were not alarmed either at the fire of artillery nor the glitter of cold steel; officers trained from their infancy to fighting as a trade, born, as it were, in uniforms, knowing their troops and known to them, exercising over their soldiers the twofold ascendency of nobility and command; as auxiliaries, the picked regiments of the Austrian Army, recently from the banks of the Danube, where they had been fighting against the Turks; the emigrant French nobility, bearing with them all the great names of the monarchy, every soldier of whom fought for his own cause and had his individual injuries to avenge—his King to save, his country to recover at the end of his bayonet or the point of his sabre; Prussian generals, all pupils of a military king, having to maintain the superiority of their renown in Europe; a generalissimo which Germany proclaimed its Agamemnon, and which the genius of Frederick covered with a prestige of invincibility; and, also, a young King, brave, adored by his people, dear to his troops, avenger of the cause of all kings, accompanied by representatives of every court on the field of battle, and supplying the inexperience of war by a personal bravery which forgot its rank in the sole consideration of its honor—such was the Prussian army.

In the French camp a numerical inferiority of one against three; regiments reduced to three or four hundred men by the effect of the laws of 1790, which only admitted volunteers; these regiments, deprived of their best officers by emigration, which had induced more than half to go to the enemy's soil, and by the sudden creation of one hundred battalions of volunteers, at the head of which they had placed the officers remaining in Franceas instructors; these battalions and regiments, without anyesprit de corps, regarding each other with jealousy or contempt; two feelings in the same army—the spirit of discipline in the old ranks, the spirit of insubordination in the new corps; old officers suspecting their men, soldiers doubtful of their officers; a cavalry ill equipped and badly mounted; an infantry competent and firm in regiments, raw and weak in battalions; pay in arrear and paid in assignats greatly depreciated; insufficiently armed; uniforms various, threadbare, torn, often in tatters; many soldiers without shoes, or substituting handfuls of hay tied round the legs with cord; the troops arriving from different armies and provinces, unknown to each other, and scarcely knowing the name of the generals under whom they had been enlisted—these generals themselves young and rash, passing suddenly from obeying to command, or, old and methodical, unable to make their formal modes comply with the dash required in desperate warfare; and, finally, at the head of this incongruous army, a general-in-chief fifty-three years of age, new to war, whom everybody had a right to doubt, mistrustful of his troops, at variance with his second in command, at issue with his government, whose daring yet dilatory plan was not understood by any, and who had neither services in the past nor the spell of victory on his sword to give authority or confidence to his command—such were the French at Valmy. But the enthusiasm of the country and the Revolution struggled in the heart of this army, and the genius of war inspired the soul of Dumouriez.

Uneasy as to Kellermann's position, Dumouriez, on horseback from the dawn of day, visited his line, extended his troops between Sainte-Menehould and Gizaucourt, and galloped toward Valmy in order that he might the better judge himself of the intentions of the Duke of Brunswick and the point on which the Prussians were to concentrate their efforts. He there found Kellermann giving his final orders to the generals, who, on his left and right, were to have the responsibility of the day. One of these was General Valence, and the other the Duc de Chartres.

The Duc de Chartres[38]had been welcomed by the old soldiersas a prince, by the new ones as a patriot, by all as a comrade. His intrepidity did not carry him away; he controlled it, and it left him that quickness of perception and that coolness so essential to a general; amid the hottest fire he neither quickened nor slackened his pace, for his ardor was as much the effect of reflection as of calculation, and as grave as duty. His familiarity—martial with the officers, soldierly with the soldiers, patriotic with the citizens—caused them to forgive him for being a prince. But beneath the exterior of a soldier of the people lurked thearrière penséeof a prince of the blood; and he plunged into all the events of the Revolution with the entire yet skilfulabandonof a mastermind. Men feared, in spite of his bravery and his exalted enthusiasm for his country, to catch a glimpse of a throne raised upon its own ruins and by the hands of a republic. This presentiment, which invariably precedes great names and destinies, seemed to reveal to the army that, of all the leaders of the Revolution, he might one day be the most useful or the most fatal to liberty.

Dumouriez, who had seen the young Duc de Chartres with the army at Luckner, was struck with his intrepidity and coolness during the action, and, perceiving a spark of no ordinary fire in this young man, resolved to attach him to himself.

The Prussians held the heights of La Lune, and had commenced descending them in battle array. The veteran troops of Frederick the Great, slow and measured in all their movements, displayed no rash impetuosity and left naught to chance.

On their side the French did not behold without a feeling of dread this immense and hitherto invincible army silently advance its first line in columns of attack, and extend its wings to pierce their centre and cut off all retreat, either on Châlons or Dumouriez. The soldiers remained motionless in their position, fearing to expose by a false movement the narrow battle-field on which they could defend themselves, but did not dare manœuvre. The Prussians descended half-way down the heights of La Lune, and then opened their fire both in front and flank.

On this attack Kellermann's artillery moved forward and took up its position in front of the infantry. More than twenty thousand balls were exchanged during two hours from one hundred twenty guns, which thundered from the sides of the oppositehills, as though they strove to batter a breach in the mountains. The Prussians, more exposed than the French, suffered more severely, and their fire began to slacken. Kellermann, who narrowly watched the enemy's movements, fancied he saw some confusion in their ranks, and charged at the head of a column to carry the guns. A Prussian battery, masked by an inequality in the ground, suddenly opened its fire on them, and Kellermann's horse, struck by a ball in the chest, fell on its rider. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Lormier, was killed, and the head of the column, exposed on three sides to a withering fire, fell back in disorder, while Kellermann, disengaged and carried off by his troops, sought for a fresh charger. The Prussians, witnessing his fall and the retreat of his column, redoubled their fire, and a well-directed volley of shells silenced the French artillery.

The Duc de Chartres, who for three hours had supported the fire of the Prussians at the decisive post of Valmy, without drawing a trigger, saw the danger of his general. He hastened to the second line, put himself at the head of the reserve of artillery, advanced to the plateau by the mill, covered the disorder of the centre, rallied the flying caissons, supported the fire, and checked the enemy's onset.

The Duke of Brunswick would not give the French time to strengthen their position, but formed three formidable columns of attack, supported by two wings of cavalry. These columns advanced in spite of the fire of the French batteries, and were about to crush beneath their masses the division of the Duc de Chartres, who at the mill of Valmy awaited the onset. Kellermann, who had renewed the line, formed his army into columns by battalions, sprang from his horse, and casting the bridle to his orderly, bade him lead it behind the ranks, showing the soldiers that he was resolved to conquer or die. "Comrades," cried Kellermann, in a voice of thunder, "the moment of victory is at hand. Let us suffer the enemy to advance, and then charge with the bayonet." Then waving his hat on the top of his sword, "Vive la nation!" cried he more enthusiastically than before; "let us conquer for her."

This cry of the general, repeated by the nearest battalions, and taken up successively by the rest, created an immense clamor like the country herself encouraging her defenders. This shoutof the whole army, resounding from one hill to another, and heard above the cannon's roar, reassured the troops, and made the Duke of Brunswick pause, for such hearts promised equally terrible hands. Kellermann still advanced at the head of his column. The Duc de Chartres, his sword in one hand and a tricolored flag in the other, followed the horse artillery with the cavalry. The Duke of Brunswick, with the quick eye of a veteran soldier, and that economy of human life that characterizes an able general, saw that this attack would fail when opposed to such enthusiasm; and he re-formed the head of his columns, sounded the retreat, and slowly retired to his positions unpursued.

The fire ceased on both sides and the battle was as it were suspended until four in the evening, when the King of Prussia, indignant at the hesitation of his army, formed in person, and with the flower of his infantry and cavalry, three formidable columns of attack; then riding down the line, he bitterly reproached them with suffering the standard of the monarch to be thus humiliated. At the voice of their sovereign the troops marched to the conflict, and the King, surrounded by the Duke of Brunswick and his principal officers, marched in the first rank, exposed to the fire of the French, which mowed down his staff around him. Intrepid as the blood of Frederick, he commanded as a king jealous of the honor of his nation, and exposed himself like a soldier who holds his life but lightly compared to victory. All was in vain; the Prussian columns, assailed by the fire of twenty-four pieces of cannon, in position on the heights of Valmy, retreated at nightfall, leaving behind them eight hundred dead. Not to have been defeated was to the French army a victory. Kellermann felt this so fully that he assumed the name of Valmy in after-years,[39]and in his will bequeathed his heart to the village of that name, in order that it might repose on the theatre of his greatest renown, and sleep amid the companions of his first field.

While the French army fought and triumphed at Valmy, the Convention decreed the Republic at Paris.

Dumouriez returned to his camp amid the roar of Kellermann's cannon; but while he congratulated himself on the success of a day that strengthened the patriotic feelings of the army,and that rendered the first attack on the country fatal to her enemies, he was too clear-sighted not to perceive the faults of Kellermann and the temerity of his position. The Duke of Brunswick was on the morrow the same as he was the previous evening, and had, moreover, extended his right wing beyond Gizaucourt and cut off the route to Châlons.

Early on the morning of the 21st Dumouriez went to the camp of his colleague, and ordered him to pass the river Auve, and fall back on the camp of Dampierre, in the position previously assigned him. This position, less brilliant, yet more secure, strengthened and united the French army. Kellermann felt this and obeyed without a murmur.

The Prussians had lost so much time that they had no longer any to spare. The rainy season had already affected them, and the winter would be sufficient in itself to force them to retreat. The Duke of Brunswick lost ten days in observing the French army; and the rain and fever season surprised him, while yet undecided. The rains cut up the roads from Argonne, by which his convoys arrived from Verdun, while his soldiers, destitute of shelter and provisions, wandered about in the fields, the orchards and vineyards, plucking the unripe grapes which these inhabitants of the North tasted for the first time. Their stomachs, already weakened by bad living, were soon disordered, and they were attacked by that dysentery which is so fatal to the soldier; the contagion spread rapidly through the camp, and thinned the corps.

The situation of Dumouriez did not appear, however, less perilous to those who were not in the secret of his intentions. Hemmed in on the one side of Les Evêchés by the Prince de Hohenlohe; on the Paris side by the King of Prussia, the Prussians were within six leagues of Châlons, the émigrés still nearer. The Uhlans, the light cavalry of the Prussians, pillaged at the gates of Rheims, and between Châlons and the capital there was not a position or an army. Paris dreaded to find itself thus exposed. Kellermann, a brave, but susceptible general, shaken by the opinion in Paris, threatened to quit the camp and abandon his colleague to his fate. Dumouriez, employing alternately the ascendency of his rank and the seduction of his genius, passed, in order to detain him, from menace to entreaty, and thus gainedday by day his victory of patience. Sometimes he threatened to deprive of their uniform and arms those who complained of the want of provisions, and drive them from the camp as cowards who were unworthy to suffer privations for their country. Eight battalions of fédérés, recently arrived from the camp at Châlons, and intoxicated with massacre and sedition, were those who most threatened the subordination of the camp, saying openly that the ancient officers were traitors, and that it was necessary to purge the army, as they had Paris, of its aristocrats. Dumouriez posted these battalions apart from the others, placed a strong force of cavalry behind them, and two pieces of cannon on their flank. Then, affecting to review them, he halted at the head of the line, surrounded by all his staff and an escort of one hundred hussars. "Fellows," said he—"for I will not call you either citizens or soldiers—you see before you this artillery, behind you this cavalry; you are stained with crimes, and I do not tolerate here assassins or executioners. I know that there are scoundrels among you charged to excite you to crime. Drive them from among you, or denounce them to me, for I shall hold you responsible for their conduct." The battalions trembled and at once assumed the same spirit that pervaded the army.

The ancient feelings of honor were associated in the camps with patriotism, and Dumouriez encouraged it among his troops. Every day he received from Paris threats of dismissal, to which he replied in terms of defiance. "I will conceal my dismissal," he wrote, "until the day when I behold the flight of the enemy: I will then show it to my soldiers, and return to Paris, to suffer the punishment my country inflicts on me for having saved her in spite of herself."

Three commissioners of the Convention, Sillery, Carra, and Prieur, arrived at the camp on the 24th, to proclaim the Republic, and Dumouriez did not hesitate. Although a royalist, he yet felt that at present it was not a question of government, but of the safety of the country; and besides, his ambition was vast as his genius, vague as the future. A republic agitated at home, threatened from abroad, could not but be favorable to an ambitious soldier at the head of an army who adored him; for when royalty was abolished, there was no one of higher rank in the nation than its generalissimo. The commissioners had also instructions toorder the retreat of the army behind the Marne. Dumouriez asked and obtained from them six days' delay; on the seventh, at sunrise, the French videttes beheld the heights of La Lune deserted, and the columns of the Duke of Brunswick slowly defiling between the hills of Champagne, and taking the direction of Grandpré. Fortune had justified perseverance, and genius had baffled numbers. Dumouriez was triumphant, and France was saved.

At this intelligence, one general shout of "Vive la nation!" burst from the French army. The commissioners, the generals Beurnonville, Miranda, even Kellermann, threw themselves into the arms of Dumouriez, and acknowledged the superiority of his judgment and the accuracy of his perception—while the soldiers proclaimed him the Fabius of his country. But this name, which he accepted for a day, but ill responded to the ardor of his soul; and he already meditated playing the part of Hannibal, which was more consonant with the activity of his character and the determination of his genius. At home, that of Cæsar might one day tempt him. This ambition of Dumouriez explains the unmolested retreat of the Prussians through an enemy's country, and through defiles which might easily have been converted into Caudine Forks, and under the cannon of seventy thousand French, before which the weakened and enervated army of the Duke of Brunswick had to make a flank movement.

While the military genius of Dumouriez triumphed over the Prussian army, his political genius was not asleep; for his camp, during the last days of the campaign, was at once the head-quarters of an army and the centre of diplomatic negotiations. Dumouriez had created a connection, half apparent, half secret, with the Duke of Brunswick and those officers and ministers who had most influence over the King of Prussia. Danton, the only minister who possessed any authority over Dumouriez, was in the secret of these negotiations.

The Duke of Brunswick was no less desirous than Dumouriez to negotiate, while fighting at the head-quarters of the King of Prussia were two parties, one of whom wished to retain the King with the army, and the other to remove him from it. The Count de Schulemberg, the King's confidential agent, was the leader of the first, the Duke of Brunswick of the second; Haugwitz, Lucchesini,Lombard, the King's secretary, Kalkreuth, and the Prince de Hohenlohe were of the party of the latter. The King resisted with the firmness of a man who has engaged his honor in a great cause in the eyes of the world, and who wished to come off with credit, or at least without loss of reputation. He remained with the army, and sent the Count de Schulemberg to direct the operations in Poland. From this day the Prince was exposed in his camp to an influence whose interest it was to slacken his march and enervate his resolutions; and from this day everything tended to a retreat.

The Duke of Brunswick only sought a pretext for opening negotiations with the French at head-quarters. So long as he was behind the Argonne, within ten leagues of Grandpré, this pretext did not offer itself, for the King of Prussia would look on these advances as a proof of treason or cowardice. The combat of Valmy, in the idea of the Duke of Brunswick, was but a negotiation carried on by the mouth of the cannon. Dumouriez held the fate of the French Revolution in his hands, and he could not believe that this general would become the mere tool of anarchical democracy. "He will cast the weight of his sword," said he, "to weigh down the scale in favor of a constitutional monarchy; he will turn upon the jailers of the King and the murderers of September. Guardian of the frontiers, he has only to threaten to open them to the coalition, to insure obedience from the National Assembly. An arrangement between monarchical France and Prussia, under the auspices of Dumouriez, is a thousand times preferable to a war in which Prussia stakes her army against the despair of a nation."

FOOTNOTES:[36]The royalists who left Paris or France in 1789 and after, on account of the Revolution.—Ed.[37]The National Convention, which succeeded the Legislative Assembly, actually opened September 21st.—Ed.[38]This was Louis Philippe, afterward known as "the Citizen-King." He was the son of Philippe Égalité, Duc d'Orléans, and was at this time about twenty years old.—Ed.[39]Kellermann was created Duc de Valmy by Napoleon.—Ed.

[36]The royalists who left Paris or France in 1789 and after, on account of the Revolution.—Ed.

[37]The National Convention, which succeeded the Legislative Assembly, actually opened September 21st.—Ed.

[38]This was Louis Philippe, afterward known as "the Citizen-King." He was the son of Philippe Égalité, Duc d'Orléans, and was at this time about twenty years old.—Ed.

[39]Kellermann was created Duc de Valmy by Napoleon.—Ed.

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