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"The fate of the battle was decided by Kellerman's bold charge; had it, however, been made previously to General Desaix's attack, in all probability it would have had a quite different result.
Accordingly, the right wing of the allied army moved forward, in the grey of the morning of the 20th of September, to gain Kellerman's left flank and rear, and cut him off from retreat upon Chalons, while the rest of the army, moving from the heights of La Lune, which here converge semi-circularly round the plateau of Valmy, were to assail his position in front, and interpose between him and Dumouriez.
Amand. Napoleon's instructions were explicit that Ney was to march on Quatre Bras, take position there, and then send an infantry division and Kellerman's cavalry to points eastward, whence the Emperor might summon them to participate in his own operations.
Lifting himself on his hands, his head thrown back, he sent the singing voice that the veterans of the Prussian Guard had heard at Marengo out of the cloud as Kellerman's Green Brigade roared down on them he sent it swinging over grass and knoll, "A la maison, mes enfants!" Kit did not hesitate. Dirk in hand, he leapt at the head flashing in the sun.
These proved wholly unable to encounter Kellerman's cuirassiers and Pire's lancers; the Dutch and Belgian infantry also gave way early in the engagement; so that the whole brunt of the battle fell on the British and German infantry. They sustained it nobly.
Letter of Barbaroux, Caen, June 18. Ibid., 133. Letter of Madame Roland to Buzot, July 7. The contrast between the two parties is well shown in the following extract from the letter of a citizen of Lyons to Kellerman's soldiers. Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels d'Auvergne," p. 181. Louvet, 193. Moniteur, XVII., 101.
Each soldier of Kellerman's army must have remembered the series of panic routs which had hitherto invariably taken place on the French side during the war; and must have cast restless glances to the right and left, to see if any symptoms of wavering began to show themselves, and to calculate how long it was likely to be before a general rush of his comrades to the rear would either harry him off with involuntary disgrace, or leave him alone and helpless, to be cut down by assailing multitudes.
"The fate of the battle was decided by Kellerman's bold charge; had it, however, been made previously to General Desaix's attack, in all probability it would have had a quite different result.
Such little things decide the fortunes of men, as they do of empires. Kellerman's charge at Marengo, Blucher's arrival at Waterloo, Louis XIV.'s disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain, all these great causes of fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but no one ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of their own life.
On the 2d of September the still more important stronghold of Verdun capitulated after scarcely the shadow of resistance. Brunswick's superior force was now interposed between Kellerman's troops on the left, and the other French army near Sedan, which La Fayette's flight had, for the time, left destitute of a commander.
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