eight hundred men, yet it produced on the allies the effect of an overthrow: it proved that the French troops could endure fire with steadiness, and repel an assault with bravery; and it destroyed the illusion under which both armies had hitherto labored-namely, that the allied troops, when joined on equal terms, were superior to the French. Indeed, the conduct of the Duke of Brunswick, both in this action and in the movements which for three weeks preceded it, would be altogether inexplicable, if the external aspect of the military events were alone considered. The truth is, as it was afterward revealed, that during this time a secret negotiation was depending between the Duke and Dumourier, with the avowed object of obtaining the recognition by Dumourier of the constitutional throne, and to accomplish a junction between his force and the allies to sustain it. The Duke was quite sincere in this project, but it soon appeared that Dumourier was not, and he had encouraged the proposal and protracted the negotiations merely to gain time for the better organization of his forces. This accounts for the Duke's partial operations at Valmy; he was fearful by a decided battle and probable victory of converting a promised ally into an irreconcileable opponent.

No sooner was the action terminated, than the interchange of secret messengers became more active than ever. Lombard, the private secretary of the Duke, allowed himself to be made prisoner in disguise, and conducted the negotiation. The Duke insisted on the immediate liberation of the French king, and the reëstablishment of a constitutional monarchy; while Dumourier avowed that, anxious as he was to accomplish these objects, he could not hope to bring the Convention to such a decision until the allies should first evacuate the French territory; and he reasoned that after rendering such signal service to his government, they would naturally yield to his influence in behalf of the king: on the other hand, should the allies refuse this preliminary condition, he would throw all his energies into the scale of war, which, with his present reenforcements, he was well able to maintain. Besides, were the contest continued, the lives of the king and the whole royal family would be sacrificed to the resentment of the Convention.

These representations were so well put by Dumourier and sustained by such able arguments, that the allies after some discussion, in which the King of Prussia strenuously opposed the plan of Dumourier, finally consented to retreat; agreeing to evacuate the fortresses they had taken on condition of being unmolested on their homeward march. They were not long in discovering that they had been trifled with; but in the mean time, they had lost all their advantages, and the French frontier was put in a state of defence.

Dumourier, having thus foiled the enemy by diplomacy and relieved the country from the danger that threatened it on the east, found himself at liberty to make a new attempt on Flanders.

While these decisive events were taking place in the central provinces, operations of minor importance, though material to the issue of the campaign, were going on in Alsace and the Low Countries. The French camp at Maulde was broken up, and a retreat commenced toward the camp at Bruillé, a strong position in the rear: but in executing this movement, they were, on the 14th of September, attacked and completely routed by the Austrians. Encouraged by this success, the Archduke Albert, with a force of twenty-five thousand men, undertook the siege of

Lisle, one of the strongest towns in Europe, and which, in 1708, had made a glorious defence against the united armies of Eugene and Marlborough. The garrison consisted of ten thousand men, who, with their commander, a man of courage and ability, were devoted to the cause of the Republic. In this case, little success could be anticipated from a regular siege, but the Austrians endeavored to intimidate the garrison by a bombardment, which was continued night and day for a whole week. The soldiers, however, in their bomb-proof casements, were secure from this terrible storm which fell with desolating effect on the inhabitants: and soon after, the arrival of General Lamartiliere and the approach of Dumourier forced the Austrians to raise the siege and withdraw from France. This affair, also, estimated by its results, was regarded as a glorious triumph to the French arms, and inspired the Republican troops with new energy. Meanwhile, General Custine, who was posted near Landau with seventeen thousand Frenchmen, undertook an offensive movement against Spires, where the allies had collected large magazines. By a rapid advance, he surrounded and made prisoners a corps of three thousand men-an event that led to the immediate capture of Spires, Worms and Frankenthal. Custine next moved, at the head of an army now reenforced to twenty-two thousand men, against Mayence. He invested that important fortress on the 19th of October and on the 21st, by reason of Jacobin influence and defection in the garrison, it was forced to capitulate. The allies thus lost their only fortified post on the Rhine.

Dumourier now advanced upon Flanders at the head of a central force of forty thousand men, in the highest spirits and anticipating nothing but triumph: while three auxiliary armies moved in the same direction, amounting together to sixty thousand men.

The Austrians could bring to oppose Dumourier but eighteen thousand men: they were, however, intrenched at the village of Jemappes behind fourteen redoubts strengthened by all the resources of art and armed by nearly a hundred pieces of artillery: it was thought that the difference in position of the respective armies nearly atoned for their disparity in numbers, and both parties, with equal confidence, resolved on a general action.

The battle commenced at daybreak on the 6th of November. General Bournonville led the first attack against the village of Cuesmes, on the Austrian left. A sustained fire of artillery for a time arrested his efforts, but at length the flank of Jemappes was turned and the redoubts on the left of the Austrian position were carried by an impetuous assault of the French infantry. Dumourier seized this moment to bring his whole centre against the front of Jemappes. He moved on rapidly and with little loss till he reached the village, where his columns were disturbed and thrown into some confusion by a flank charge of the imperial cavalry, while the leading battalions, checked by a tremendous fire of grapeshot, were beginning to waver at the foot of the redoubts. In this extremity, a young general, rallying the broken regiments into one column, placed himself at its head, and renewed the attack with such spirit that the vil lage and redoubts were carried and the Austrians driven at once from their intrenchments into the centre of the field beyond. This young officer was the Duke de Chartres, afterward LOUIS PHILIPPE, king of the French. Meantime, Bournonville, though at first successful on the right, had not followed up his attack with sufficient vigor; the Austrians had rallied,

returned to the charge, and Bournonville began, in turn, to give ground; when Dumourier hastened to the spot and rode along in front of the wavering columns, who received him with cries of vive Dumourier! The effect was decisive: the Austrians were repulsed, and the French dragoons, taking advantage of their confusion, charged home and completely routed them. Dumourier now returned to the centre to reenforce the Duke de Chartres, but he had not proceeded far when an aid-de-camp met him with the intelligence that the battle there, as well as on the left, was already won and the Austrians were retiring on all points to Mons. The Austrians lost in this action five thousand men; but they saved all their artillery except fourteen pieces and withdrew from the field in good order. The French loss exceeded six thousand men, but they had gained a victory which greatly increased the moral strength of their army and in fact led to the immediate conquest of the whole Netherlands; for the Austrians were so disheartened by the defeat of Jemappes, that between their own want of conduct and the Jacobin influence which pervaded their garrisons, every fortress of the Low Countries, including Antwerp and Namur, fell into the hands of the French before the middle of December.

But the revolutionary party in Flanders, which had contributed so much to the success of the French arms, soon reaped the bitter fruits of Republican conquest. The French Convention issued a decree on the 15th of December, proclaiming in their conquered provinces, "the sovereignty of the people, the suppression of all the constituted authorities, subsisting taxes and imposts, feudal and territorial rights, the privileges of the nobility and exclusive privileges of every description." Immediately after the issuing of this decree, Flanders was inundated by a host of revolutionary agents, with "liberty," "patriotism," and "protection" on their tongues, and violence, confiscation and bloodshed in their measures. Danton, Lacroix and Carrier were at the head of this band; and, infusing their own infernal energy into their agents, they gave the inhabitants of Flanders a foretaste of the Reign of Terror.

The French troops, thus successful on the northern and eastern frontier, and also (as related at the close of the last Chapter) in Piedmont and Savoy on the southeastern side, were destined to some reverses on the Upper Rhine, where the King of Prussia, by a vigorous assault, took possession of Frankfort and slew or made prisoners its entire garrison, with the exception of two hundred men. As the season was now far advanced, however, this success was not followed up, and both armies went into winter-quarters.

Thus terminated the campaign of 1792; a period fraught with valuable instruction for the statesman and the soldier. The contagion of Republican principles had gained for France many conquests, but the severity af Republican rule had rendered the delusion in the conquered provinces as short lived as it was fallacious. The campaign which opened under such untoward auspices, had been marked by brilliant success on the part of the French; but it was evident that their conquests had exceeded their strength, and that at its close, their affairs in many quarters were declining. The army of Dumourier fell into the most disorderly state, whole battalions having deserted their colors and returned home or spread themselves as banditti over the vanquished territory. The armies of Bournonville and Custine were in little better condition, their recent fail. ures having gone far to neutralize the effect of their previous success;

while the troops who had overrun Savoy and Piedmont, were suffering under the consequences of their own plunder and devastation in the districts where they were quartered.

CHAPTER V.

FRENCH REPUBLIC-FROM THE DEATH OF THE KING TO THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.

Ir is necessary, now, to resume the narrative of events in the French Capital, where the recent death of the king had disappointed by its results the expectations of his murderers, and, by increasing their reciprocal hatred, had excited them to renew with even aggravated ferocity their strife of violence, outrage and blood.

The difficulty of procuring subsistence in Paris-the necessary result of revolutionary convulsions-had increased to an alarming degree during the months of February and March, 1793. Dread of pillage and unwillingness of the cultivators to sell their commodities for payment in the depreciated currency-for the issue of assignats was unlimited and confidence in their value was already destroyed-rendered abortive the efforts of government to supply the public necessities. At the same time, the price of every article of consumption increased so greatly as to excite the most vehement clamors among the people and soon inflamed them to fury. A tumultuous body surrounded the hall of the Jacobins urging them to petition the Convention for a law reducing the prices of provisions, the penalty of which should be death. The demand was refused; and Marat, on the following morning, published a violent tirade in his journal directly recommending the pillage of the shops. The populace were not slow in following his suggestion, and many shops were accordingly broken open and ransacked. All the public bodies were filled with consternation at these disorders. The shop-keepers especially, who had been at the first such decided revolutionists, were in despair when anarchy approached

their own doors.

In the midst of this convulsion, the Jacobins, despite the opposition of the Girondists, organized a Revolutionary Tribunal which was empowered to "take cognizance of every attempt against liberty, equality, the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, the internal and external security of the state, all conspiracies tending to the reestablishment of royalty, or hostile to the sovereignty of the people, whoever might be the parties accused." The members of the jury, the judges, and the public accuser were chosen by the Convention; the Tribunal decided on the opinion of a majority of the jury; the decision of the court was without appeal; and the effects of the condemned were confiscated to the Republic. The pub. lic accuser was Fouquier Tinville, and his name soon became as terrible as that of Robespierre.

The creation of this fearful Tribunal gave the greatest alarm to the Girondists, and they found it indispensable from mere self-defence to give some check to the mad career of the Jacobins. They accordingly, by a

great effort, caused Marat to be sent for trial to the Revolutionary Tribunal, on a charge of having instigated the people to demand the punishment of the national representatives. This was the first instance of destroying the privilege of inviolability of the members of the Convention; but the Jacobins were not idle in counteracting it. Their leaders accompanied Marat to the Tribunal, influenced its deliberations, obtained his acquittal, and brought him back in triumph. An immense multitude followed them to the hall, crowded into it with shouts, and seated themselves in the vacant places of the deputies.

Defeated in this attempt, the Girondists saw that there was no time to be lost in making some new organization. Guadet, one of their most energetic members, rose in his place and proposed to "annul the authorities of Paris, to replace the municipality by the presidents of the Sections, to unite the supplementary members of the Convention at Bourges, and to announce this resolution to the departments by extraordinary couriers." These decisive measures, if adopted, would have destroyed the designs and influence of the Jacobins ; but they would also have occasioned a civil war, and, by dividing the centre of action, augmented the danger of foreign subjugation. Barere saw this, and proposed a commission of twelve persons to watch over the designs of the municipality, to examine into the recent disorders, and arrest their authors," but he denounced the measures of Guadet as a virtual declaration that they were unequal to combat the influence of the municipality. This proposal was adopted.

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The Commission of Twelve commenced their proceedings with vigor. They were aware that a conspiracy against the Girondists in the Convention had for some time been organized in Paris by the club of Cordeliers, who demanded the proscription of three hundred deputies. The Commission obtained evidence of this conspiracy and arrested one of its leaders, Hebert. The municipality denounced this arrest and invited the people to revolt. Some of the most violent of the Revolutionary Sections followed the example, while the more moderate ones who held out for the Convention were besieged by clamorous bands of armed men.

On the 25th of May, a furious multitude assembled around the hall of the Convention, and sent a deputation to the bar of that body, demanding in the most threatening terms the suppression of the Commission of Twelve and the liberation of Hebert. Isnard, president of the Assembly, a courageous Girondist, replied indignantly, refusing the demand and averring that if the Convention were again to be outraged by an armed faction, France would rise as one man to avenge their cause, Paris would be destroyed, and strangers would soon inquire on which side of the Seine it formerly stood.

For the time, the conspirators were baffled and forced to retire : but they resolved to proceed to insurrection. The remainder of that day and the whole of the next was spent in agitation and in exciting the people by inflammatory harangues; and such was their success, that by the morning of the 27th, eight-and-twenty of the Sections were assembled to petition for the liberation of Hebert. The Commission of Twelve could now rely on the armed force of three Sections only; yet these hastened on the first summons to the support of the Convention, and ranged themselves with their arms and artillery around the outside of the hall. But an immense multitude crowded about their ranks; cries of "death to the Girondists!" resounded on all sides, and the hearts of the most resolute began to quail.