X. 1792. 24. Ste-Méne the French unite. repaired, and I answer for the safety of France." But he CHAP. was far from feeling, in reality, the confidence which these words seemed to indicate. The rout of so large a portion of his forces by so small a body of the enemy, demon- Dumourier strated how little reliance was to be placed on the undis- takes post at ciplined levies, of which they were in great part composed, hould, and when performing movements in presence of a numerous armies and warlike enemy. He resolved, in consequence, to make Sept. 18. the war one of positions, and to inspire his troops with fresh confidence by placing them behind impregnable intrenchments. The situation of the new camp which he selected was well calculated to effect these objects. Standing on a rising-ground in the centre of a large and open valley, it commanded all the country around; the centre of the army, under his own immediate orders, faced towards Champagne, while the corps of Dillon was stationed on the road leading from Verdun, and still held the passes of Islettes and Chalade, through which the principal road to Paris was conducted. A numerous artillery defended all the avenues to the camp, and water was to be had in abundance from the river Aisne, which bounded its right side, and the Auve, which protected its left. In this position the French general anxiously awaited the Sept. 19. arrival of the expected reinforcements. Terrified at the reports which they received of the rout at Vaux, Kellermann and Beurnonville retired, when almost close to the camp of Ste-Ménehould, the former to Vitry, the latter to Châlons. They would have been irretrievably separated, if the Allies had shown the least vigour in improving their advantages. But their extraordinary delays gave Dumourier time to reiterate his orders for an immediate 1 Dum. iii. junction. Kellermann and Beurnonville made a long circuit by the rear; and at length, on the 19th, the whole three armies were united in the neighbourhood of Ste- 31,37. Jom. Ménehould. The orders to Beurnonville were carried by iii. 106, 109. an aide-de-camp of Dumourier, named MACDONALD,1 * Etienne Jacques Joseph Macdonald, one of the most spotless and distinguished marshals of France, was born at Sédan, the birthplace of Turenne, ii. 124. Th. CHAP. afterwards Duke of Tarentum, and victor of the field of Wagram. X. 1792. 25. Consterna rear of the tion in the French army. Their arrival totally changed the state of affairs. The spirit of the French soldiers was prodigiously elated by so great an accession of strength. It was no longer a corps of twenty-five thousand who maintained an unequal struggle with eighty thousand enemies, but a great army, seventy thousand strong, which sought to measure its strength with the invaders. Meanwhile, however, disorder and dismay, the consequence of their recent disasters, prevailed in the rear of the French position. The fugitives from Vaux, who fled almost thirty leagues into the interior, declared everywhere that the army was destroyed, that Dumourier was a traitor, and that all was lost. The national guard and gendarmerie at Rheims, Soissons, and Châlons, were seized by the same spirit; pillage became universal; the corps disbanded, and wreaked their disappointment on their own officers, many of whom they put to death. Such was the general consternation, that the 322. Th. people of the capital began to despair of the Republic, and hesitation became visible in the new levies who were daily St Cyr, i. forwarded from its gates to the frontier. Nothing could be clearer than that, if the Allies had acted with the least vigour at this period, they could with ease have arrived at 1 Toul. ii. iii. 110. Dum. iii. 39. 74, 75. Introd. on 17th November 1765. He was descended, as his name indicates, from an old Scottish family, whose fidelity to their monarchs in misfortune had led them to follow the fortunes of the exiled Stuarts to St Germain. He entered early in life into the legion of Maillebois, raised for the purpose of aiding the French party in Holland. He was afterwards transferred as sub-lieutenant into the Irish regiment of Dillon, in which he was when the Revolution broke out. Upon that event, though strongly attached to the Royalist party, he did not quit France, being induced to remain there by an attachment to the daughter of M. Jacob, who had embraced the popular side. To that fortunate circumstance he with reason ascribed his subsequent elevation, for it retained him in the path where promotion was to be acquired and glory won. abilities for military combination procured him a place, at the commencement of hostilities, first on the staff of General Beurnonville, and afterwards of General Dumourier. Such was the valour he displayed at Jemappes, that he was made colonel of the old regiment of Picardy on the spot, and he commanded that body in the subsequent invasion of Flanders. He did not follow Dumourier in his abandonment of the Republican cause, but continued to serve under Pichegru in the Army of the North in the campaign of 1794, His Paris, and crushed the Revolution before it had acquired CHAP. either the energy or consistency of military strength. X. 1792. 26. troops. The troops of Beurnonville, which arrived first, were stationed at Sainte-Cohiers. When those of Kellermann Positions taken up by came up, Dumourier ordered them to encamp between the French Dampierre and Elise, behind the river Auve; and, as an attack from the enemy was anticipated, to advance in that event to the heights of VALMY. Kellermann conceived the order to mean, that he should take post there from the first, and accordingly occupied the heights with all his artillery and baggage, and began to erect his tents. The confusion occasioned by their arrival attracted the attention of the Prussians, who had arrived on the opposite heights of La Lune, and led to an action inconsiderable in itself, but most important in the consequences which it produced. The Duke of Brunswick, hearing of the departure of Dumourier from the camp at Grandpré, at length put his troops in motion, passed the now unguarded defiles of the forest, and on the 18th crossed the Aisne, and advanced between the French army and Paris. By this bold movement he hoped to cut off the enemy from their resources, and compel them either to abandon the Jom. ii. capital or surrender.1 In this way the hostile armies 115. Toul. were placed in the most singular position; the Prussians Dum.iii. 41. faced towards the Rhine, and had their back to Champagne, against the English, in the course of which he greatly distinguished himself. In 1798 he was employed under Massena and Berthier in the invasion of the Roman States, and inflicted a notable defeat on Mack, at the head of the unwarlike troops of Naples, in the neighbourhood of Otricoli. After this he took part in the invasion and easy conquest of Naples; carried the ramparts of Capua, and on the retirement of Championnet from the supreme command, became general-in-chief of the republican forces in the Neapolitan territory. Thenceforward his name will be found blended with many of the most important and interesting events of this history. Though often defeated, Macdonald's reputation never suffered his noble charge at the head of the French reserve decided the battle of Wagram in favour of Napoleon; and, amidst the general defection of his other marshals, he exhibited a glorious example of fidelity to him amidst the disasters of Fontainebleau. Other marshals of the empire have exceeded him in the lustre of their military achievements-none have equalled him in the purity of his character, and his adherence, amid all the revolutions of fortune, to the principles of honour.See Biographie Universelle, lxxii. 268 (MACDONALD). 124. Th. ii. ii. 324. CHAP. While Dumourier, with his rear at the forest of Argonne, faced towards the French capital. X. 1792. 27. Arrived on the heights of La Lune, on the morning of Cannonade the 20th, in a thick haze, the Prussians, when the vapours of Valmy cleared away, perceived the French opposite to them on Sept. 28. the heights of Valmy. A cannonade immediately commenced. Dumourier, perceiving that it was too late to draw Kellermann back to the camp originally assigned to him, immediately detached nine battalions and eight squadrons, under General Chazot, to his support; while General Steingel was placed, with sixteen battalions, on the heights which commanded the position of Valmy on the right. The Duke of Brunswick formed his army in three columns, and seemed disposed to commence an attack by the oblique method, the favourite mode at that time in the Prussian forces. An accidental explosion of some ammunition waggons, near the mill of Valmy, occasioned a momentary disorder in the French army, and, if followed up by a vigorous attack, would probably have led to a total defeat. But the powerful fire of the French artillery, the energetic conduct of Kellermann, and the steady front exhibited by his troops, disconcerted the Prussians, and induced the Duke to hesitate before engaging his troops in a general action. The affair terminated in a vigorous cannonade on both sides, and the superb columns of the Prussians were drawn off at night without having fired a shot. Kellermann bivouacked after the action on the Toul.ii. 330, heights of Valmy, and the Prussians on those of La Lune, 112, 113. barring the great road to Châlons, and still between Dumourier and Paris.1 1 Dum. iii. 41, 44, 45. Jom. ii. 131. 331. Th. iii. 28. of this affair. It is with an invading army as with an insurrection : Great effects an indecisive action is equivalent to a defeat. The affair of Valmy was merely a cannonade; the total loss on each side did not exceed eight hundred men: the bulk of the forces on neither was drawn out. Not a musket-shot had been fired, nor a sabre-wound given. It was evident to both armies that political considerations had here over X. 1792. ruled the military operations of the Allies, and that no CHAP. real trial of strength had taken place. Yet it produced upon the invaders consequences equivalent to those of the most terrible overthrow. The Duke of Brunswick no longer ventured to despise an enemy who had shown so much steadiness under a severe fire of artillery. Defeat had been avoided when most dreaded the elevation of victory, the self-confidence which insures it, had passed over to the other side. Gifted with an uncommon degree of intelligence, and influenced by an ardent imagination, the French soldiers are easily depressed by disaster, but proportionally raised by success; they rapidly make the Toul. ii. transition from one state of feeling to the other. From ii. 131. Th. the cannonade at Valmy may be dated the commencement Dum. iii. 44. of the career of victory which carried their armies to 479. Vienna and the Kremlin.1 1 334. Jom. iii. 113. Hard. i.478, tain their After the action, Kellermann was withdrawn from the 29. heights of Valmy to the ground originally assigned him French rein the intrenched camp, while the Prussians strengthened position. themselves in their position on the heights of La Lune, still covering the great road to Châlons and Paris. The Executive Council evinced great disquietude at the situation of the armies, as well they might, as it left Paris entirely unprotected, and the Prussian army interposed between their own troops and that capital. They repeatedly urged Dumourier to change his ground for such a position as might cover Châlons, Meaux, and Rheims, which were threatened by the enemy's light troops. He replied, with the firmness of a great general, that he would maintain his present position; and, so far from detaching forces to cover Châlons, he gave orders for the troops which were collecting there to advance nearer to the scene of action. Irritated by his refusal to obey these orders, the Committee of Public Salvation threatened to deprive Dumourier of his command, if he did not comply with their instructions: but he wrote in answer, "You may do so; but I shall keep my dismissal secret |