DECLARATION OF WAR. still adhered to the Leader of Opposition, there were several reluctant votes. Ch. 33. 1793 against All the principal Powers of Europe were now in arms against France; Austria, Russia, Prussia, Alliance Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Rome, and France. Sardinia, severally declared war; while the Republic had not an ally in the world. Undismayed by this combination, the Regicide Government made the most vigorous efforts. The Duke of Brunswick's insolent proclamation, which treated the French as a nation of rebels, to be scourged by foreigners into submission to their rightful rulers, did more to prepare this great people for effectual resistance to the foreign enemy than the most prudent and patriotic efforts of their statesmen and generals could have accomplished. Every Frenchman felt that the domestic calamities under which his country groaned were as nothing compared with the dictation of a foreigner, and the partition of the Empire by the rapacious intruders. The military blunders of the Allied Powers, and their ignoble abandonment of the conquests they had made, before the invaded people were prepared to offer resistance, had greatly elated the natural confidence in their own resources, of a proud and warlike race. in the 9 The French had already occupied the Austrian The French Netherlands, and drawn large contributions from Netherlands. those provinces. Within a fortnight after their declaration of war against Great Britain and Holland, they had nearly overrun the territory of Ch. 33. 1793 of the French. FRENCH INVASION the States General. But they were now to experience reverses. A turn of fortune enabled the Allies to regain some important posts in Flanders; Harsh conduct and, following up their successes, the French were, in a few weeks, deprived of all their conquests in Flanders, and forced to retreat on their own territory. These events caused great consternation at Paris. They were owing, in a great measure, to conduct on the part of the French, similar to that which they so justly resented, when practised, or threatened by the Allies. The military progress of the French army in Flanders, had been a series of exactions and pillage, ending in annexation. The Flemish people, groaning under this oppression, and resenting the treatment to which they had been subjected, afforded every assistance in their power to the Allied armies, and mainly facilitated the re-conquest of the country. But the French Government, after the fashion of democracies, laid the whole blame of the disaster their unsuccessful General, and despatched Commissioners to the camp to summon him before the Convention. Dumourier, who knew that to obey such a summons, was to submit his head to the guillotine, placed the Commissioners under arrest. This act was the prelude to a treason which he had for some time meditated. He fancied that he could play a similar part to that which General Monk, favoured by a concurrence of circumstances, successfully performed in the history of England. His idea was to march to Paris, OF FLANDERS. 1793 Dumourier. and proclaim the Restoration of the Monarchy. Ch. 33. With this design, he had obtained a truce from the Allied Generals, and he sent the Commissioners of the French Convention to the prince of Coburg, Plans of as hostages for his fidelity to his new engagements. A more rash and hopeless enterprise could hardly be conceived. If Dumourier had been at the head of an army which had fulfilled its duty, and scattered the German hosts, he might have hoped to achieve the deliverance of his country from her domestic tyrants, as well as from the foreign foe. But his army was beaten; all the conquests which he had made a few months before were wrested from him; and if he marched to Paris, he must be accompanied by the victorious legions of Austria, which had threatened his country with the extreme of military law. It is not surprising that, under such circumstances, his attempt to seduce his army from their allegiance, met with a cold reception. His design, instead of being kept secret until the moment of action, had long been canvassed throughout the camp; and the agents of the Convention had already taken measures to secure the fidelity of the troops. A few regiments were, nevertheless, disposed to follow their leader; but an attempt which he made to deliver up Condé to the enemy wholly failed. Dumourier himself escaped with difficulty from a regiment, under Davoust, a young officer, who was afterwards a distinguished General of the Empire; and when he appeared the next day, 12 1793 INCREASED ENERGY OF Ch. 33. guarded by a body of Austrian dragoons, he was driven away with indignation by the French soldiers, and compelled, finally, to take refuge within the Austrian lines. Louis Philippe, the young son of Egalité, with two or three other officers, and about fifteen hundred men, accompanied his flight. Defection of The defection of Dumourier caused no surprise at Paris; his hostility to the Revolutionary Government having been openly declared to the deputies, who had been sent to confer with him on his retreat from Flanders. But the signal discomfiture of this formidable treason gave new vigour to the regicides, at the moment when they were threatened by the advance of the European armies, and by the Loyalist insurrection in La Vendée, and in the great city of Lyons. The truce which the Allies had made with Dumourier, to afford him time for maturing his design of marching to Paris, resulted in the loss of an opportunity, which, if judiciously used, might have brought the war to a speedy and successful termination. Had the Prince of Coburg, after the battle of Nerewinden, instead of tampering with the French general, pushed his advantage, and made a general attack on the French army, it is more than probable that he would have obtained an easy and a final victory; after which, there would have been nothing to prevent the Allies from dictating a treaty of peace at Paris. The Convention, fully sensible of the dangers they had escaped, and of those which still threat THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT. ened them, took prompt and vigorous measures. They ordered an additional levy of 300,000 men, and enforced this decree with the utmost rigour. The army was to consist of ten divisions, over each of which were placed three commissioners of their own body, with absolute control. Dampierre, an officer of tired fidelity, was appointed as the successor of Dumourier. Ch. 33. 1793 York in 13 The allied armies had remained inactive for se- The Duke of veral weeks, when they were joined by the British Flanders. contingent of ten thousand men, under the Duke of York. A congress of the numerous Powers at war with the French Republic, was held at Antwerp, to consider the future course of proceeding. Lord Auckland and Count Staremberg, the representatives of England and Austria, took the lead at this Conference. At the instance of Dumourier, the Prince of Coburg had recently issued a proclamation in studied contrast to the famous manifesto with which the Duke of Brunswick opened the first campaign. The Austrian general now declared that the sole object of the Allies was to terminate anarchy in France, and to restore "limited monarchy," according to the constitution of 1791, subject to any modifications which the French people might themselves think proper to adopt; that it was his wish to see these benefits conferred on France by the agency of her own army; that the troops of the Emperor wonld take no part without the requisition of the French themselves; and that if any fortified post was |