character of the King, had the mental horizon of Manstein been more extended, and his selfishness on all occasions a patriotic one. He would then have seen that it may in certain cases be even prudent to subordinate for a moment the immediate interests of the State to loftier views. We shall frequently find him engaged in such questions, and exercising great influence; on this occasion, at Valmy, he made no secret of his opinion that the conclusion of peace was urgently necessary. He was quite of Dumouriez's opinion that Prussia allowed herself to be made use of by Austria in an unwarrantable manner; that while the former was incurring cost and danger for an object which concerned Austria alone, the latter only furnished a handful of soldiers, and was sparing and strengthening herself, and intriguing against Prussia in Eastern Europe. With these sentiments he eagerly listened to Dumouriez's overtures. The extent of his zeal was shewn when Dumouriez, on the 22nd, sent to beg for a personal conference in Dampierre. The envoy was Westermann, Danton's Alsatian friend, who on the 10th of August had commanded at the storming of the Tuileries. But even this person, disgusting as he was to the King, did not deter the adjutant. That which most of all induced the King to enter into negotiations at all, was the diplomatic intelligence which had just arrived from Vienna and St. Petersburg. Catharine still withheld the expression of her views respecting Poland, so that the partition was as yet uncertain. The Emperor continued indeed to advocate the cession of a Polish province to Prussia, but he also adhered firmly to his condition of receiving Bavaria in exchange for Belgium, and the two Franconian Principalities besides. It was in vain that the Prussian ambassador in Vienna represented to him that in this way the gain of Prussia would be reduced to null; all that he could obtain was the offer to give Prussia a portion of Lusatia in return for the Principalities, as soon as the Saxon male line should be extinct. Under these circumstances, the war with France be

CH. IV.] NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN FRENCH AND PRUSSIANS.. 143

came extremely distasteful to the King, and on the 23rd, at Dampierre, he gave his adjutant permission to make the following proposals to the two French Generals, as the basis of further negotiations.

First; the King and his allies wish to have a representative of the French nation in the person of Louis XVI., with whom they may negotiate a peace; which condition, however, is not to be understood as implying a restoration of the ancien régime in any other respect.

2ndly; the King and his allies desire that all revolutionary propaganda on the part of the French should cease.

3dly; it is wished (above everything else, might be added) that Louis XVI. should be set at liberty.

Here then, we find nothing about Emigrés, or Seigniors or constitutional questions;-nor is there anything which points to the corruption of Dumouriez, or the conclusion of a separate peace with Prussia. The restoration of Louis, and the renunciation of revolutionary conquests, make up the whole Prussian programme. But when Manstein had brought forward these propositions, Dumouriez was obliged to answer, on the following day,1 by the intelligence that the Convention at its very first sitting had abolished Royalty. It was clear that the Prussian proposals had hereby lost their basis, and that the further progress of the negotiation was rendered extremely precarious. Dumouriez sincerely regretted this; for though military considerations had given occasion to his first note, he regarded peace with Prussia as the focus of all sound policy, and would have gladly taken almost every kind of constitution into the bargain. The matter was not, therefore, immediately broken off; a few messages passed betweeen the parties, for which the exchange of prisoners formed an excuse. An entire week was thus spent, and Dumouriez fully attained his primary object-the suspension of military operations.

1 Diary of Marquis Lucchesini.

men.

He made use of this interval with indefatigable activity in drawing his reinforcements to his camp, securing what he had already gained, and opening out new prospects. In Chalons and Rheims, General Harville and Sparre had drilled 10,000 men, which raised the army of Champagne to 70,000 Dumouriez further urged the Minister to send 15,000 men of the Rhine Army by way of Metz to Verdun-a movement in the highest degree dangerous to the Prussian retreat. In the interval a quarrel with Kellermann and Servan threw great and unexpected difficulties in his way. The former, who claimed all the merit of the victory at Valmy, was irritated by the undoubted ascendancy of Dumouriez; and Servan was incessantly urged in Paris to provide for the defence of the capital; and they vied with one another in pressing Dumouriez to retire from his hazardous position, beyond the Marne. Dumouriez on this occasion displayed his great talents in their full splendour. His position, which on the 15th was perhaps a perilous one, now fixed the enemy to the spot on which they stood; and he was just as little inclined to be driven out of it by the Parisians as by the Germans. He was, at this time, the only man in France who steadily defied the roar of the capital; although the volunteers of his army brought its echoes closely and sharply to his ears. It was no easy task to keep his illdisciplined, hungry, and quarrelsome men inactive, in a position in which the enemy cut them off from Paris and their magazines, where the supplies were often interrupted, while the negotiation with Manstein appeared to the volunteers a barefaced act of treachery. But Dumouriez was able to attach his soldiers to his person, to keep down the volunteers, to inspire Kellermann with respect, and to enlighten the minds of the Ministers. The advantages of his system were seen in the daily increasing distresses of the enemy. The Prussians were five days without bread; the exhausted land could supply no more. Bad food produced sickness in man and beast; the cold wet weather, which had annoyed

CH. IV.] DUMOURIEZ ADVOCATES PEACE WITH PRUSSIA. 145

them on the march, settled into incessant rain, which drenched the ground, destroyed the tents, and in a few days spread a murderous dysentery through one third of the army. Under these circumstances the prospects of the French improved every day; and on the 27th Dumouriez was formally raised to the chief command over Kellermann, a promotion which implied the sanction of his plan of operations. An exhortation was added that he should take the idea of falling back beyond the Marne into consideration; to which Dumouriez replied, by return of post, that he should beware of obeying so foolish an order.

He continued his diplomatic exertions in the midst of these military cares and anxieties. He strongly urged Servan not to let fall the negotiations with Prussia. "I confess," he wrote on the 16th, "that in my opinion. nothing would be so important to France as the separation of Prussia from the Coalition. Hitherto I have only played the part of battledore to keep the question in motion; but as the Prussians feel confidence in me as a quondam Minister, I could at once proceed to actual negotiation, as soon as it seemed advisable to you." He would then, he said, demand of the King, recognition of the Republic, evacuation of France, dissolution of the Austrian coalition, and perfect neutrality in a war between France and Austria; and Prussia, on her side, must content herself with a simple intercession on behalf of Louis XVI., without any express stipulations. "I have not, as yet," he concluded, "made any overtures to Manstein on the subject; but I have hinted that it is only in this shape that negotiations can be carried on, and that, moreover, the French care but little about negotiating

at all."

These views were received with great satisfaction in Paris, since the immediate danger was past, and the self-confidence of the People knew no bounds. The parties in the Convention thought of nothing but victories, revolution, booty and conquest; and the execution of Dumouriez's Belgian

plan was among the most cherished hopes of Danton as well as of Lebrun. Nothing would conduce more to its success than a rupture of the European coalition by a separate peace with Prussia. And what a triumphant satisfaction would it be, if, in addition to the confidently expected successes against Austria, they could win over the Prussian Monarch to the side of the Revolution! To effect this latter purpose, they considered that they had allurements enough to offer, and the negotiations were therefore zealously resumed, but with the deepest secresy. In deference to the Convention and the Jacobinical theorists, the Council of Ministers decreed that Dumouriez should not treat with the enemy until they had evacuated the soil of France; but Westermann and Benoit were secretly despatched to the Prussian head-quarters, to conclude, if possible, a separate peace. Dumouriez, meanwhile, had endeavoured to prepare the way. The proclamation of the Republic had not yet cooled the zeal of Brunswick and Manstein. On the 26th the arrangement for the exchange of prisoners was completed, in which Prussia made the important concession of silently passing over the Emigrés. Still however the King showed no inclination to desert the Coalition; and Dumouriez, who gradually began to doubt of success, determined to press this all-important point. On the 27th he handed to Colonel Manstein a new memorial for the King, in which he made the separation of Prussia from Austria his sole theme, and purposely expressed himself in sharp and strong language, in order to test thereby the real inclinations of Prussia.

But he had chosen a most unfortunate moment for this communication. The day before, the Marquis Lucchesiniwho, since the return of the Minister Schulenburg to Berlin, had managed the diplomatic business at head-quarters, but had been absent for a few days in Verdun-had again been with the King, and had completely changed the appearance

1 Il ne faut pas, he wrote, que ceci dégenère en fourberie royale.