Although, in consequence of the necessary formalities, it was late in the evening before the representatives of the nation had assented to the demand of his majesty, this decree was immediately carried to the palace by a deputation of 24 members, and the next day received the royal sanction. This intelligence was communicated by extraordinary couriers to all the ambassadors at foreign courts, and also to all the departments. Prompt and vigorous means were adopted for increasing the troops, supplying the garrisons, and furnishing the magazines; measures, which, however obvious, had hitherto been most shamefully neglected; and such was the deficiency of fire-arms in particular, that agents were dispatched to different parts of Europe, and even to America, on purpose to obtain them..

The assembly also published an address to the citizens armed for the defence of their country, which tended not a little to inflame the minds of the people, and infuse a martial spirit into the nation.

"The fate of our liberty," said they," that perhaps of the whole world, is in our hands. We do not tell you of our confidence; like your courage, it is unbounded. We have not provoked the war; and when the king proposed to us, at length, to avenge the outrage committed against the dignity of the nation, we resisted for a long time the wish expressed by the general indignation of the French.— A free people recurs to arms with regret, but it does not recur in vain. The shame and tortures incident to an internal servitude, would not be an adequate punishment for a nation who should suffer their liberty to be wrested from them after having conquered it.

"And what object can be more worthy of your courage? The period is passed, in which French warriors, the docile instruments of one man's will, armed themselves only to defend the interests, the caprice, or the passions of kings. At present, yourselves, your children, your own rights, are to be defended. We must conquer, or we must return to the dominion of feudal privileges, of arbitrary imprisonment, and of every sort of vexation, oppression, and servitude. Your own individual happiness, the happiness of all those who are dear to you, is thus intimately connected with the safety of the country.

"But those are unworthy to defend it, who do not add virtue to courage. The men whom we fight to-day, are our brothers; to-morrow, perhaps, they will be our friends. Intrepid in battle; firm during misfortunes; modest after victory; generous to the vanquished ;-such are a free people.

"The laws will punish with just severity all outrages against the rights of nations, and the still mere sacred rights of nature. Rewards, on the contrary, will attend faithful warriors; their names will obtain for ever the gratitude and the homage of the friends of liberty; and, if they

die in battle, their children shall be the children of their country.

"As for us, immoveable in the midst of political storms, we will carefully watch over all the machinations of all the enemies of the empire. The world shall determine, whether we are the representatives of a great people, or the timid subjects of an arbitrary king. We have sworn not to capitulate either with pride or tyranny; we will keep our oath, Death! Death! or victory and equality !" "

This address was immediately succeeded by offers of voluntary contributions from numerous classes of society, and demands from some of them to be sent to the posts of the greatest danger, might know the men of the 14th of July." "in order that kings, their valets, and princes,

The next concern of the assembly was to provide a sufficient force for the exigencies of the state; and for this purpose a vote was passed, by which it was enacted, that the army should be increased to 450,000 men, and that a sum of money amounting to 300,000,000 livres, in government paper, called assignats, should be placed at the disposal of ministers, to support and uphold that large military establishment.

It is proper to observe, that Great Britain took no part in the campaign of 1792, and that as soon as it was known that there was a war on the continent, a proclamation was published by the king, prohibiting all his subjects from taking any part in it, by accepting commissions from either party, fitting out privateers or letters of marque, by virtue of such commission, or serving on board any ship of war belonging to one of the belligerent powers, against the other. And in his speech to both houses of parliament, on the 15th of June, he thus expresses himself:-" In the present situation of affairs, it shall be my principal care to maintain that harmony and good understanding which subsists between me and the several belligerent powers, and to preserve to my people the uninterrupted blessings of peace."

The command of the French army destined to act against Germany, which consisted of three separate bodies of troops, extending from Switzerland to Dunkirk, was confided to three commanders of approved talents. The Marshal RoCHAMBEAU, who bad acquired renown in the seven years' war, commanded an army of from 30 to 35,000 men in the north, and took up his headquarters at Valenciennes, having under his com mand d'Arville, Biron, Delbeck, and D'Aumont. The Marquis de la FAYETTE, who had distinguished himself in America, commanded the army of the centre, and while he occupied Nancy, Thionville, and Luneville, established his head-quarters at Mentz, having at his disposal an army of 20,000, and under his com mand De Wittgenstein, De Bellemont, Crillon," Parquet, and Defranc. While the army of the Rhine, consisting of 50,000 men, was placed

under the command of Marshal LUCKNER, a foreigner, extended itself from Landau to the frontiers of Switzerland, and in which army Berthier, Lameth, and Jary had subordinate stations.

The first operations of the French army were directed against the Low Countries, usually called the Austrian Netherlands. To this vulnerable point, the attention of both ministers and generals was directed, but the plan of operations marked out by Dumouriez, who conducted the war department, was at variance with that proposed by the generals, and it is not difficult to trace the disasters which soon after fell upon the French army, to these conflicting counsels. The plan laid down by the cabinet was precisely the same as that which General Dumouriez himself afterwards carried into execution, and according to which there were to be two real and two false attacks. But the three generals, without consulting the cabinet, had concerted among themselves a different scheme for obtaining the same object, by which La Fayette was to have been intrusted with the execution of the enterprise against the Low Countries, at the head of 50,000 men, supported by a second army under Rochambeau, while a third was destined to take possession of Mentz.t

On the first of May, General Dillon, with a force consisting of ten squadrons of cavalry, marched from Lisle towards Tournay; this force was opposed by a body of Austrians under Count d'Happencourt, and the French troops, not being yet accustomed to sustain the fire of regular soldiers, were soon thrown into disorder. Their general did what he could to rally them, but in vain. Struck with an universal panic, the whole body fled precipitately, and were pursued to the gates of Lisle. No sooner had General Dillon entered that city, than he was murdered by his fugitive soldiers, and his dead body torn in pieces by the mob, under pretence of his having betrayed his troops to the enemy: Lieutenantcolonel Berthois, of the engineers,shared the same fate, and the surviving officers were stigmatized as aristocrats.

Count Theobald Dillon, descended from an ancient Irish family, which had followed the fortunes of the house of Stuart, was a colonel in the service of France anterior to the revolution, and had recently been invested with the rank of marechal de champ. It was at first asserted, even in Paris, that he had betrayed his army, and deserved his fate; but the national assembly did justice to his memory, June 9, 1792, having on that day voted him funeral honours, and provided both for his family, and for the widow and children of Lieutenant-colonel Peter Francois Berthois.

(No. 2.)

1792

The same day another expedition, consisting BOOK I. of ten thousand men, under Lieutenant-general Biron, directed their march towards Mons.- CHAP. I. They took possession of Quievrain without opposition; but when they arrived in sight of Mons, they found the heights before the city occupied by a considerable body of Austrians. This determined Biron to wait for news of the attack upon Tournay, before he proceeded to action. But a part of his right wing were attacked about five o'clock in the evening by the Austrians, whom they repulsed. Notwithstanding this success, two regiments of his cavalry mounted their horses, without orders, about ten o'clock, and moved off to the left of the camp. The general observing this, rode after them alone and unarmed. But they being on a quick trot, carried him along with them for more than a league :nor could he procure a hearing, while they all cried out that they were betrayed. At length, however, they were prevailed with to listen to him, and he succeeded so far as to bring them all back to the camp, except about forty or fifty, who proceeded to Valenciennes, reporting that the whole army was betrayed by their general, who had deserted to the Austrians. Next morning, which was the 30th of April, Biron having been informed of the failure of Dillon, began his retreat; and leaving a part of his army to keep possession of Quievrain, he led the rest to a camp which he had formerly occupied in that neighbourhood. The party who had been left in Quievrain were soon driven thence by a body of Hulans. Biron, finding his camp not tenable, while the enemy was in possession of that place, determined to attempt the recovery of it, which he effected. But not being able to keep it without reinforcements, he was obliged to give it up; and leaving his camp and his whole train of artillery to the enemy, he retreated with the utmost precipitation to Valenciennes. In this expedition the French lost a number of men, by hunger and fatigue, as well as by the sword of their opponents.

The third expedition consisted only of fourteen hundred infantry, and two hundred and fifty horse, under the command of M. Carl. These presented themselves before Furnes; and upon their declaring that they came not to make war upon the Flemings, but to treat them as brethren, the magistrates offered them the keys of their gates. But the failure of the general plan obliged Carl also to retreat; and he arrived at Dunkirk without effecting any thing.

In the mean time, M. La Fayette, who had the command of the main army, had orders to proceed to Givet, where he was to be on the 30th of the month; and they, with the other arinies under Dillon, Biron, and Rochambeau, were to G

1792

BOOK I. from a general rendezvous in the heart of the Austrian Netherlands. La Fayette having colCHAP. I. lected a train of seventy-eight pieces of cannon, sent it off with a large convoy, under the command of M. Narbonne, who marched fifty-six leagues in the space of five days; himself followed with the rest of the army, and arrived on the day appointed; but the failure of Dillon and Biron rendered this expedition also in a great measure abortive, though La Fayette continued to keep his ground.

The Austrian army, on the contrary, was a considerable time before they were able to act on the offensive, and it was not till the 17th of May that they made an attack upon Bavai, and took the garrison prisoners. As soon as the French were informed of this, M. Noailles was sent against them with a van-guard of cavalry, accompanied by Marshal Luckner himself.-Marshal Rochambeau followed with a body of infantry to support him; but before their arrival, the Austrians had retreated, carrying with them a considerable quantity of forage, which seems to have been their principal object.

La Fayette's army occupied the tract of country extending from Givet to Bouvines. His advanced guard under the command of M. Gouvion, being employed in foraging, were attacked on the 23d of May, near Florennes, by a body of Austrians, who obliged them to retreat with the loss of twenty tents, three pieces of cannon, and nearly one hundred men killed and wounded. Another attack was made upon them near Maubege on the 11th of June. Gouvion, as soon as he perceived their designs, sent off his camp equipage to that town, and began a retreating fight. La Fayette, having got intelligence of his danger, sent him a considerable reinforcement under Narbonne, who fell upon the flank of the Austrians, while Fayette himself advanced against them with the main army. This obliged them to retreat, leaving some killed and wounded behind them. In this skirmish the French lost Gouvion, who was esteemed one of their best generals; but the troops which he had commanded took possession of their former post.

In the month of June, the armies of France made some progress in the Netherlands. They obtained possession of Courtenay, Ypres, Menin, and some other places of less importance. But they did not long enjoy these conquests. Being informed that the Austrians and Prussians were bearing down upon them in two columns, with a force much superior to their own, they retreated to Valenciennes and Givet.

While these events were taking place in the field, the French cabinet was distracted by angry contests, which terminated in the resignation of Marshal Rochambeau, the commander-in-chief of

the northern army, and of M. de Grave, the minister for the war department; the former of whom was succeeded by Luckner, and the latter by Servan. The determination of the king not to give the royal assent to a decree for embodying 20,000 men in the neighbourhood of Paris, and his refusal to discard his confessor, who had refused to recognize the new order of things, produced an intemperate letter from Roland to his majesty, which led not only to his removal from the cabinet, but also to the dismissal of Servans and Clavieres; and after some other changes, they were succeeded by a new administration of the Feuillant party.

In the mean time, a great change bad taken place in the public mind in Paris, and the conduct of the king had given rise to suspicions, which the dismission of Roland, one of the Girondists, had tended considerably to increase. On the 20th of June, the suburbs of St. Antonin were perceived to be in commotion: and one Santerre, who placed himself at the head of the mob, produced a petition to the king for the dismission of the new administration, and the withdrawing of the veto, by means of which he had been persuaded to suspend the execution of several decrees. An immense multitude then commenced their march, armed with pikes, preceded by two pieces of cannon, and accompanied by a crowd of woman : increasing as they advanced, they at length reached the assembly, and having halted some time, deputed a few persons to require permission to present their homage, and file through its hall. They then proceeded to the palace, which was shut; but they soon burst their way, in spite of every opposition, and arrived in the presence of his majesty, to whom they read their petition.— Louis XVI. exhibited on this occasion a degree of courage, which had been supposed wholly incompatible with his character; neither the threats nor howlings of this insolent mob could prevail upon him to alter his intentions, or withdraw his veto; but he was under the necessity of wearing the red cap, the symbol of the jacobins, which was placed on his head by the hands of a man inebriated with liquor, and ejaculating the most terrible oaths.

At length, in consequence of a long and animated speech, delivered by Vergniaux, who placed himself on the shoulders of one of the mob, and a few words from Petion, Mayor of Paris, the populace was persuaded to retire, without committing the least injury against any part of the royal family. This visit to the Thuilleries was but a prelude to one far more terrible ; for though the Girondists, who only wished for a popular administration, always exhibited a laudable aversion to the shedding of blood; yet it was otherwise with their rivals, who now began

to display a degree of ferocity hitherto unexampled in any age or country. It must be confessed, on the other hand, that the new ministers did not enjoy the coufidence of the people; and that the hostile preparations at the castle, the retention of a body of the Swiss guards, in express opposition to the laws, and the seduction of some battalions of the national volunteers, tended not a little to irritate the minds of the Parisians.

On the 14th of July, the day of the federation, when Louis approached the altar to renew his oath, a thousand tongues denounced him as a perjured prince; and it was with some difficulty that the Swiss guards, and the national grenadiers, could insure his safety, amidst the immense and exasperated crowd that surrounded him.* His enemies, however, were divided in respect to his punishment; Brissot, Vergniaux, and the other popular leaders, desirous to act in compliance to the constitution, repeatedly invoked the assembly to depose him; but the jacobins, in conformity to the violence of their character, were for recurring to more desperate measures.

On the 29th of April, a declaration of war against France, was promulgated in the names of MARIA CHRISTINA, Princess Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, and ALBERT CASIMIR, Prince Royal of Poland and Lithuania, the Governor-general of the Austrian Low Countries. This proclamation was followed, on the 5th of July, by a counterdeclaration against France, on the part of FRANCIS II. King of Hungary and Bohemia; and on the 26th of the same month, FREDERICK-WILLIAM II. published a concise exposition of the reasons which determined Prussia to take up arms against France. It was at this crisis, that the armies of the allied sovereigns, amounting to 80,000 of the best troops in Europe, accompanied by a formidable band of expatriated nobles, were about to enter France under the command of the Duke of Brunswick, a leader who had served with distinguished reputation under Frederick the Great, and who had gained fresh laurels by the sudden conquest of Holland. On the arrival of the Duke at Coblentz, with the first division of his army, he was proclaimed GENERALISSIMO, and on the 25th of July, he put forth a manifesto, explanatory of the reasons which actuated the allied sovereigns in taking up arms against France, and pointing out the line of conduct which would be pursued by the invading army towards that nation. This memorable document was expressed in the following terms:

DECLARATION.

Addressed by his Most Serene Hr. hness the reigning Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg, commanding the combined

* Preis Historique de la Revolution, par Lacretelle, p. 257.

Armies of their Majesties the Emperor and the King of BOOK I. Prussia, to the Inhabitants of France.

"THEIR Majesties the Emperor and the King of Prussia having intrusted me with the command of the combined armies, assembled on the frontiers of France, I think it my duty to inform the inhabitants of that kingdom of the motives which have influenced the conduct of the two sovereigns, and of the principles by which they are guided.

"After arbitrarily suppressing the rights and invading the possessions of the German princes in Alsace and Lorraine; after having disturbed and overthrown, in the interior part of the kingdom, all order and lawful government; after having been guilty of the most daring attacks, and having had recourse to the most violent measures, which are still daily renewed, against the most sacred person of the king, and against bis august family; those who have seized on the reigos of goverment have, at length, filled the measures of their guilt, by declaring an unjust war against his majesty the Emperor, and by invading his provinces of the LowCountries. Some of the possessions belonging to the German empire have been equally exposed to the same oppression, and many others have only avoided the danger by yielding to the impetuous threats of the domineering party and their emissaries.

"His majesty the King of Prussia, united with his imperial majesty in the bands of the strictest defensive alliance, and as a preponderant member himself of the Ger manic body, could not refuse marching to the assistance of his ally and his co-estates. It is under this double relation that he undertakes the defence of that monarch and of

Germany.

"To these high interests is added another important object, and which both sovereigns have most cordially in view, which is, to put an end to the anarchy which prevails in the interior part of France, to put a stop to the attacks made on the throne and the altar, to restore the king to his legitimate power, to liberty, and to safety, of which he is now deprived, and to place him in such a situation, that he may exercise that legitimate authority to which he is entitled.

"Convinced that the sober part of the nation detest the excesses of a faction which has enslaved them, and the majority of the inhabitants wait with impatience the moment when succours shall arrive, to declare themselves openly against the odious enterprises of their oppressors; his majesty the Emperor, and his majesty the King of Prussia, earnestly invite them to return without delay into the paths of reason and of justice, of order and peace. It is with this view that I, the under-written general commandant-in-chief of the two armies, do declare—

"1st. That, drawn into the present war by irresistible circumstances, the two allied courts have no other object in view than the welfare of France, without any pretence to enrich themselves by making conquests.

"2dly. That they do not mean to meddle with the internal government of France, but that they simply intend to deliver the king, the queen, and the royal family, from their captivity, and to insure to his most christian majesty that safety which is necessary for his making, without danger and without obstacles, such convocations as he shall judge proper, and for endeavouring to insure the welfare of his subjects, according to his promises, and to the utmost of his power.

"3dly. That the combined armies shall protect the towns, bourgs, and villages, as well as the persons and property of all those who shall submit to the king; and that they will concur in the restoration of order and police throughout France.

CHAP. I.

1792