782 
FRANCE. 
port the king and the confutation ; but, finding they were 
not to be depended upon, on the 19th of Auguft he left 
his camp in the night, accompanied onlv by his (faff and 
a few fervants. They took the route of Rochefort in 
Liege, which was a neutral country ; but were met by 
a party of the enemy, who took them prifoners, and they 
were detained in Pruffian and Andrian dungeons till au¬ 
tumn, 1794. The fevere treatment of this dirtinguifhed 
officer was probably a confiderable error in policy on the 
part of the allies. His fidelity to the king is very gene¬ 
rally admitted ; though fome have entertained firong fuf- 
picions of his having ailed a very bafe part to that un¬ 
fortunate monarch. 
General Dillon had at fil'd: entered into the fentiments 
of La Fayette ; but the politic Dumouriez^divcrted him 
from his purpofe, and by this means regained his credit 
with the Jacobins, ififomuch that he was appointed com¬ 
mander in chief. The other generals, Biron, Montel- 
quieu, Kellerman, and Cuftine, made no oppofition to 
the will of the national affembly, and retained their ap¬ 
pointments. Meanwhile, the combined armies of Auftrja 
and Pruflia had entered France. The duke of Brunf- 
wick’s army was above fifty thoufand ftrong. General 
Clairfait bad joined him with fifteen thoufand Andrians, 
and a confiderable body of HeOians, along with twenty 
thoufand French emigrants, amounting in all to 90,000. 
To oppofe thefe, Dumouriez had only feventeen thou¬ 
fand men collected near the point from which the enemy 
were approaching in Luxembourg. The French emi¬ 
grants had impofed upon the duke of Brunfwick fuch an 
account of the diftrafied date of their own country, and 
of the pretended difaffe£tion of all orders of men towards 
ihe ruling faction in Paris, that no refidance of any im¬ 
portance was expedted. When the combined troops, 
confiding either of deady Audrian or Hungarian batta¬ 
lions, or of thofe well-difciplined Prudians which the 
great Frederic bad inured to military difcipline, were 
reviewed in Germany, before fetting out on their march, 
it is faid that the ipedlators, among whom the French 
caufe was not unpopular, beheld them with anxiety and 
regret, and pitied the unhappy country againft which 
this irreddible force was-directed. The beginning of 
their progrefs judified thefe expectations. Longwy fur- 
rendered after a dege of fifteen hours, although well for¬ 
tified, podefied of a garrifon of three thoufand five hun¬ 
dred men, and defended by feventy pieces of cannon. 
The news of this event irritated the alfembly fo much, 
that they decreed, whenever retaken, the houfes of the 
citizens diould be razed to the ground. Verdun was 
next fummoned ; and here the municipality compelled 
the governor M. Beaurepaire to furrender. That officer, 
difappointed and enraged, fhot himfelf in prefence of the 
council; and, on the 2d of September, the Pruffian 
troops entered the town. 
The news of this capture, and of the approach of the 
Pruffians, lpread inftant alarm throughout Paris. It was 
propofed to raife a volunteer corps, which fiiould fet out 
immediately to meet the enemy. The council, Which 
was now led by Robefpierre, Danton, Marat, and others 
of the mod fanguinary character, ordered the alarm-guns 
to be fired, and the populace to be fummoned to meet 
in the Champ de Mars, to enrol themfeives ro march 
againft the invaders. The people afiembled, and, as is 
fuppofed, in confequence of a premeditated plan, a num¬ 
ber of voices exclaimed, that “the domeftic foes of the 
nation ought firft to be defiroyed, before its foreign ene¬ 
mies were attacked.” In an inftant parties of armed men 
proceeded to the prifons where the non-juring clergy, 
the Swifs officers, and thofe confined fince the 10th of 
Auguft, on a charge of mal-praftices againft the ftate, 
were detained in cuftody. They took out thefe unfor¬ 
tunate men one by one, gave them a kind of mock trial 
before a jury of themfeives, acquitted fome few, and de¬ 
liberately murdered the reft. Among thefe was the 
princefs de Lamballe. She was taken from her bed be¬ 
fore this bloody tribunal, and maftacred ; her head was* 
carried by the populace to the Temple, and exhibited to 
the queen, whofe friend ftie was. . Thefe maffacres lafted 
for two days, and upwards of one thoufand perfons fell 
a facrifice to the favage barbarity of the mob. Yet, ex¬ 
traordinary as it might appear, the ringleaders of this 
mob confided not of more than three hundred perfons of 
the dregs and refnfe of Paris, who might with eafe have 
been fecured, and the lives of the innocent (offerers pre- 
ferved, had there exifted the (mailed fpirit in the go¬ 
vernment, or virtue or magnanimity in any of the privi¬ 
leged orders. 
In the mean time Dumouriez was taking the beft mea- 
fures to impede the progrefs of the enemy, till the army 
of Kellerman confiding of twenty thoufand men could 
join him from Lorraine, and that of Bournonville from 
Flanders amounting to thirteen thoufand, together with 
the new levies that Luckner might be able "to procure 
him from Chalons. The forefl of Argonne extends from 
north to fouth upwards of forty miles ; it lay direftly in 
the route of the duke of Brunfwick, who mud either 
force his way acrofs it, or make a circuit of forty miles 
by tbe pafs of Grandpre on the north, or by Barleduc on 
the fouth. The pafs that lay direftly in his route was 
that of Biefme. After furveying Dillon’s pofition here, 
he left a party of twenty thoufand men to watch it; and, 
with the main body of his army, took the circuitous' 
route by Grandpre on the north. Here Dumouriez waited 
to receive him, and was attacked on the 12th and 13th 
without fuccefs ; but, on the 14th, the attack of the 
Pruffians was irrefiftible, and Dumouriez, retreating, gave 
up the pafs. On his march he was fo violently preffed 
by the advanced cavalry of the Pruffians, that his army 
was feized with a panic, and fled before only fifteen hun¬ 
dred men ; who, if they had puffied their advantage, 
might have difperfed it. On the 15th, however, Du¬ 
mouriez encamped at St. Menehould, and began to for¬ 
tify it. Bournonville’s army joined Dumouriez on the 
17th. The duke of Brunfwick formed a plan of attack¬ 
ing Kellerman before his junction could be completed. 
That general arrived, on the 19th, within a mile of Du- 
mouriez’s camp ; the projected attack took place ; the- 
Prudians manoeuvred with their ufual coolnefs and ad- 
drefs; they attempted to furround Kellerman’s army, 
but tltis could not be accompliffied. The French troops 
preferved excellent order, while the national vivacity 
was conftantly ffiewing itfelf in their ftiouts and patriotic 
fongs : in this affair four hundred French were killed, 
and five hundred wounded ; the lofs of the Pruffians was 
much greater ; and, in the face of the enemy, Kellerman 
joined Dumouriez at the end of the engagement without 
oppofition. At the fame time that the attack was made 
on the army of Kellerman, an attempt was made to force 
Dillon’s camp at Biefme by the twenty thoufand men that 
had been left in its vicinity, but without fuccefs; and 
this large detachment was thus prevented from crofting 
the foreft of Argonne, and fupporting the duke of Brunf¬ 
wick. It is to be obferved, that in thefe engagements 
the French owed their luperiority chiefly to the number 
and excellence of their artillery ; a circumftance which 
ferved to convince their enemies that they had to contend 
with regular military bodies, and not with undifeiplined 
multitudes, as they expected. 
The duke of Brunfwick encamped his army at La Lun, 
near the camp of Dumouriez. And here the Pruffians- 
began to experience extreme diftrefs, both from ficknefs 
and famine. No temptation could induce the inhabitants 
of the country to carry provifions to the hoftile troops; 
while on the other hand the French army was abundantly* 
fupplied. Bournonville, with four thoufand men, inter¬ 
cepted feveral droves of cattle and convoys of provifions 
deftined for the Pruffian camp ; while the rain fell in tor¬ 
rents, and the roads were uncommonly deep. Expofed 
to the cold, the moifture, and want of provifions, the 
Prudians ralhly ate great quantities of the grapes of 
Champagne,, 
