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Updated: June 30, 2025
The defeat of Aix-la-Chapelle produced the abortive insurrection of the Tenth of March; and the treason of Dumouriez, the reverses of Custine, and the rebellion in La Vendée, produced the effectual insurrection of the Thirty-first of May 1793.
Do you think the sansculottes like to be commanded by the Count de Canclaux, the Viscount de Miranda, the Viscount de Beauharnais, the Count de Valence, the Marquis de Custine, and the Duke de Biron?" "What a combination!" "And the Duke de Chartres!" "Son of Egalité. By the way, when will he be king?" "Never!" "He aspires to the throne, and his very crimes serve to promote his interests."
He was a marquis but an ardent reformer, and a born soldier. He began as a volunteer captain on the staff of Custine, and rising like the others mentioned became an excellent general, though his chances for distinction were few. Jourdan was likewise a nobleman, born at Limoges to the rank of count in 1762.
Dumouriez, Custine, Biron, Dillon, &c. are doing wonders, in spite of the season; but the laurel is an ever-green, and these heroes gather it equally among the snows of the Alps, and the fogs of Belgium. If we may credit the French papers too, what they call the cause of liberty is not less successfully propagated by the pen than the sword.
At the same time, Custine was being driven out of Alsace by the Prussians, who, on the 14th of April, laid siege to Mainz. With the Mountain immensely strengthened by the formation of the Committee of Public Safety, the attack on the Girondins increased in vigour. Robespierre accused them of complicity with Dumouriez in treasonable intentions against the Republic.
Now he was dead, who was there to denounce Custine loitering in idleness in the Camp of Cæsar and refusing to relieve Valenciennes, Biron tarrying inactive in the Lower Vendée letting Saumur be taken and Nantes blockaded, Dillon betraying the Fatherland in the Argonne?... Meantime, all about him, rose momentarily higher the sinister cry: "Marat is dead; the aristocrats have killed him!"
They have all been delighted with General Washington, and I perceive with pleasure that he will be much beloved by the auxiliary troops. Laval and Custine disputed together during the whole journey, and at each station would have done much better than the American and English generals, but never both in the same manner.
He expressed to M. de Custine with military frankness his pride and gratitude that the price attached to his merits by France must inspire in him: "But," he added, "my blood is German and my honour Prussia's; my ambition is satisfied with being the second person in this monarchy, which has adopted me.
New generals were appointed; Custine to the Netherlands, Beauharnais to the Rhine, Biron to the Vendée; and at the same time negotiations were opened with the powers. But fortune refused to smile on Danton. Ill success met him at every turn, and opened the way to power for Robespierre.
General de Beauharnais saw full well the blow aimed at him, and at all the officers from the nobility in the army; he foresaw that they would not stop at these measures; that soon he and his companions of fate would be accused and charged with treason, as had been already done to General Custine, and to so many others who had paid with their lives their tried loyalty to the republic.
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