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The Duke of Brunswick fell fiercely upon his left wing, and, breaking through, poured his troops like a flood into the plains of Champagne. For a time a terrific panic spread through the French army, and it became needful for Generals Dumouriez and Kellerman to unite their forces. In the mean time, the triumphant Prussians, defiling rapidly by Grandpré and Croix-aux-Bois, were approaching Chalons.
But Maret came too late, and Dumouriez on his journey to the coast was overtaken by instructions that Amsterdam, not London, was his destination. The news from Paris reached London on the evening of the 23rd, and the audience at the theatre insisted that the performance should be stopped. There was to be a drawing-room next day. The drawing-room was countermanded.
Undoubtedly Dumouriez, though not a thorough-going Royalist like M. Bertrand, was not only in intention an honest and friendly counselor, but was by far the ablest adviser who had had access to her since the death of Mirabeau, and in one respect was a more judicious and trustworthy adviser than even that brilliant and fertile statesman; since he did not fall into the error of miscalculating what was practical, or of overrating his own influence with the Assembly or the nation.
It has often been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez hesitate at the last moment before the breach of faith and break down; and to this too Pompeius succumbed.
My courier should deliver you this letter as you are on the Point of reentering France, on your return from the mission which you have discharged with so much glory to yourself and credit to me who recommended you for the task. I make you my compliments on the tact and adroitness you have employed to bring this stubborn Dumouriez into some semblance of sympathy with the Convention.
Brunswick, pushing on from Verdun into the defiles of the Argonne, had two armies operating against him, trying to stop his march; the one under Dumouriez, the other under Kellermann. He forced a way, however, but at the further side, about the hills of Valmy, had to face the combined armies of his adversaries.
"Apprenez, Monsieur," he said angrily on one occasion to Dumouriez, who had accidentally referred to one of the "considerable" personages of the Court, "Apprenez qu'il n'y a pas de considerable ici, que la personne a laquelle je parle et pendant le temps que je lui parle!"* * This saying is often falsely attributed to Nicholas. The anecdote is related by Segur.
The republic had at first great military successes, but they were not long lived. After the execution of the king in January 1793, all Europe banded together against France, the French armies were crushingly defeated, their general, Dumouriez, fled to the enemy, and the Girondins, who had been in power all this while, were fatally weakened.
Dumouriez at once named Vergennes for finance, Naillac for foreign affairs, Mourgues for the interior. He reserved the war department for himself: dictatorial minister at the moment when France was becoming an army.
Russia, through the ascendency of Catherine, forced Prussia and Austria to make common cause against the Revolution. At Vienna, the young Emperor Francis I. made far greater preparations for war than for negotiation. The Prince de Kaunitz, his principal minister, replied to the notes of Dumouriez in language that seemed a defiance of the Assembly.
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