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But his conception of military leadership is permeated with the ideals of democracy and justice for which he fights. One of his great lectures to student-officers was that in which he made them realize what, besides the route of the Prussians, happened at Valmy in September, 1792. Brunswick and his fellow generals were to banquet with the King of Prussia at the Tuileries.
It was the sort of sight which made Massenbach before Grandpre marvel whether the French forces were soldiers at all, and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to the King of Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen months later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York's plan was a plan "of annihilation." It is a trap for judgment is the French service.
It is a sorrowful thing to say, but we have been taught that safety lies in distrust of Valmy. It is horrible, but it is not our fault, and I distrust now. Tristan is your enemy and ours. The King, the great King, is not above setting a trap.
This came in the shape of three bombs dropped from a German aeroplane, that made a curved flight over the city at an altitude of two thousand meters. The first bomb fell at the corner of the Rue des Vinaigriers and the Rue du Marais, another in the Rue des Recollets, and a third near an asylum for aged workmen on the Quai Valmy.
Meanwhile, on September 20, 1792, the Prussian column recoiled before the fire of Kellermann's mob of "vagabonds, cobblers and tailors," on the slope of Valmy, and with the victory of Valmy, the great eighteenth-century readjustment of the social equilibrium of Europe passed into its secondary stage.
But he had the day before him, and he promised himself some recompense for his disappointment before it was many hours old. Meanwhile, he would show Villon that all who came from Valmy were not sharers in Commines' harsh judgment. He found the poet contemplative over the remains of his breakfast, but in a mood as captious as his own.
Besides these celebrated men, who were in the French army, and besides the King of Prussia, the Duke of Brunswick, and other men of rank and power, who were in the lines of the Allies, there was an individual present at the battle of Valmy, of little political note, but who has exercised, and exercises, a greater influence over the human mind, and whose fame is more widely spread, than that of either duke, or general, or king.
This was exactly what happened in the Dutch campaign of 1787, upon which followed the disasters of Valmy and Jena." Jena! Güntz said that too. Moreover, the colonel does not deny that the Expedition achieved all possible success. But he considers most objectionable that self-asserting propensity to boast about it associated as it so often is with an unctuous piety.
He therefore claimed that, if he joined Russia in a war against Napoleon, he must recover the whole of what had been Prussian Poland, with the exception of the district of Bialystock ceded at Tilsit. It seemed, then, that the Polish Question would once more exert on the European concert that dissolving influence which had weakened the Central Powers ever since the days of Valmy.
"That is right, Jacques," said Simon, "begin early, for you may have this school some day yourself!" "Good morning, Master Simon," said one of the woodcutters, taking off his hat, "we were just saying that we should like something warm before we started." "And you are right. I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting. I was just telling the children about a battle of the Republic at Valmy."
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