The delusion of the Prussians was so complete that Bischofswerder said to the officers, "Do not purchase too many horses, the affair will soon be over;" and the duke of Brunswick remarked, "Gentlemen, not too much baggage, this is merely a military trip."

The Prussians, it is true, wondered that the inhabitants did not, as the emigrants had alleged they would, crowd to meet and greet them as their saviours and liberators, but at first they met with no opposition. The noble-spirited Lafayette, who commanded the main body of the French army, had at first attempted to march upon Paris for the purpose of saving the king, but the troops were already too much republicanized and he was compelled to seek refuge in the Netherlands, where he was, together with his companions, seized by command of the emperor of Austria, and thrown into prison at Olmütz, where he remained during five years under the most rigorous treatment merely on account of the liberality of his opinions, because he wanted a constitutional king, and notwithstanding his having endangered his life and his honour in order to save his sovereign. Such was the hatred with which high-minded men of strict principle were at that period viewed, whilst at the same time a negotiation was carried on with Dumouriez,* a characterless Jacobin intriguant, who had succeeded Lafayette in the command of the French armies.

Ferdinand of Brunswick now became the dupe of Dumouriez, as he had formerly been that of the emigrants. In the hope of a counter-revolution in Paris, he procrastinated his advance and lost his most valuable time in the siege of fortresses. Verdun fell: three beautiful citizens' daughters, who had presented bouquets to the king of Prussia, were afterwards sent to the guillotine by the republicans as traitoresses to their country. Ferdinand, notwithstanding this success, still delayed his advance in the hope of gaining over the wily French commander and of thus securing beforehand his triumph in a contest in which his ancient fame might other

* Dumouriez proposed as negotiator John Müller, who was at that time teaching at Mayence, and who was in secret correspondence with him. Vide Memoirs of a Celebrated Statesman, edited by Rüder. Rüder remarks that John Müller is silent in his autobiography concerning his correspondence with the Jacobins, for which he might, under a change of circumstances, have had good reason.

wise be at stake. The impatient king, who had accompanied the army, spurred him on, but was, owing to his ignorance of military matters, again pacified by the reasons alleged by the cautious duke. Dumouriez, consequently, gained time to colect considerable reinforcements and to unite his forces with those under Kellermann of Alsace. The two armies came within sight of each other at Valmy; the king gave orders for battle, and the Prussians were in the act of advancing against the heights occupied by Kellermann, when the duke suddenly gave orders to halt and drew off the troops under a loud vivat from the French, who beheld this movement with astonishment. The king was at first greatly enraged, but was afterwards persuaded by the duke of the prudence of this extraordinary step. Negotiations were now carried on with increased spirit. Dumouriez, who, like Kaunitz, said that the French, if left to themselves, would inevitably fall a prey to intestine convulsions, also contrived to accustom the king to the idea of a future alliance with France. The result of these intrigues was an armistice and the retreat of the Prussian army, which dysentery, bad weather, and bad roads rendered extremely destructive.

Austria was now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of Brunswick and the credulity of Frederick William, left unprotected. As early as June, old Marshal Lukner invaded Flanders, but, being arrested on suspicion, was replaced by Dumouriez, who continued the war in the Netherlands and defeated the stadtholder, Albert, duke of Saxon-Teschen, (sonin-law to Maria Theresa, in consideration of which he had been endowed with the principality of Teschen and the stadtholdership at Brussels,) at Jemappes, and the whole of the Netherlands fell into the hands of the Jacobins, who, on the 14th of November, entered Brussels, where they proclaimed liberty and equality. A few days later (19th November) the national convention at Paris proclaimed liberty and equality to all nations, promised their aid to all those who asserted their liberty, and threatened to compel those who chose to remain in slavery to accept of liberty. As a preliminary, however, the Netherlands, after being declared free, were ransacked of every description of movable property, of which Pache, a native of Freiburg in Switzerland, at that time the French minister of war, received a large share. The fluctua

tions of the war, however, speedily recalled the Jacobins. Another French army under Custines, which had marched to the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in Mayence.

CCXLVII. German Jacobins.

IN Lorraine and Alsace, the Revolution had been hailed with delight by the long-oppressed people. On the 10th of July, 1789, the peasants destroyed the park of the bishop, Rohan, at Zabern, and killed immense quantities of game. The chateaux and monasteries throughout the country were afterwards reduced to heaps of ruins, and, in Suntgau, the peasants took especial vengeance on the Jews, who had, in that place, long lived on the fat of the land. Mülhausen received a democratic constitution and a Jacobin club. In Strassburg, the town-house was assailed by the populace,* notwithstanding which, order was maintained by the mayor, Dietrich. The unpopular bishop, Rohan, was replaced by Brendel, against whom the people of Colmar revolted, and even assaulted him in the church for having taken the oath imposed by the French republic, and which was rejected by all good Catholics. Dietrich, aided by the great majority of the citizens of Strassburg, long succeeded in keeping the sans culottes at bay, but was at length overcome, deprived of his office, and guillotined at Paris, whilst Eulogius Schneider, who had formerly been a professor at Bonn, then court preacher to the Catholic duke, Charles of Würtemberg,† became the tyrant of Strassburg, and, in the character of public accuser before the revolutionary tribunal, conducted the executions. The national convention at Paris nominated as his colleague Monet, a man twenty-four years of age, totally ignorant of the German language, and who merely made himself remarkable for his open

* Oberlin, the celebrated philologist, an ornament to German learning, a professor at Strassburg, rescued, at the risk of his life, a great portion of the ancient city archives, which had been thrown out of the windows, by re-collecting the documents with the aid of the students. On account of this sample of old German pedantry, he pined, until 1793, in durance vile at Metz, and narrowly escaped being guillotined.

+ At Bonn he had the impudence to say to the elector, "I cannot pay you a higher compliment than by asserting you to be no Catholic."Van Alpen, History of Rhenish Franconia.

rapacity. This was, however, a mere prelude to far greater horrors. Two members of the convention, St. Just and Lebas, unexpectedly appeared at Strassburg, declared that nothing had as yet been done, ordered the executions to take place on a larger scale, and [A. D. 1793] imposed a fine of 9,000,000 livres on the already plundered city. The German costume and mode of writing were also prohibited; every sign, written in German, affixed to the houses, was taken down, and, finally, the whole of the city council and all the officers of the national guard were arrested and either exiled or guillotined, notwithstanding their zealous advocacy of revolutionary principles, on the charge of an understanding with Austria, without proof, on a mere groundless suspicion, without being permitted to defend themselves, for the sole purpose of removing them out of the way in order to replace them with true-born Frenchmen, a Parisian mob, who established themselves in the desolate houses. Schneider and Brendel continued to retain their places by means of the basest adulation. On the 21st of November, a great festival was solemnized in the Minster, which had been converted into a temple of Reason. The bust of Marat, the most loathsome of all the monsters engendered by the Revolution, was borne in solemn procession to the cathedral, before whose portals an immense fire was fed with pictures and images of the saints, crucifixes, priests' garments, and sacred vessels, among which Brendel hurled his mitre. Within the cathedral walls, Schneider delivered a discourse in controversion of the Christian religion, which he concluded by solemnly renouncing; a number of Catholic ecclesiastics followed his example. All the statues and ecclesiastical symbols were piled in a rude heap at the foot of the great tower, which it was also attempted to pull down for the promotion of universal equality, an attempt, which the extraordinary strength of the building and the short reign of revolutionary madness fortunately frustrated. All the more wealthy citizens had, meanwhile, been consigned either to the guillotine or to prison, and their houses filled with French bandits, who revelled in their wealth and dis

66

*He mulcted the brewers to the amount of 255,000 livres, on account of their well-known avarice," the bakers and millers to that of 314,000, a publican to that of 40,000, a baker to that of 30,000, “because he was an enemy of mankind," etc.-Vide Friese's History of Strassburg.

honoured their wives and daughters. Eulogius Schneider was compelled to seek at midnight for a wife, suspicion having already attached to him on account of his former profession. It was, however, too late. On the following morning, he was seized and sent to Paris, where he was guillotined. All ecclesiastics, all schoolmasters, even the historian, Friese, were, without exception, declared suspected and dragged to the prisons of Besançon, where they suffered the harshest treatment at the hands of the commandant, Prince Charles of Hesse. In Strassburg, Neumann, who had succeeded Schneider as public accuser, raged with redoubled fury. The guillotine was ever at work, was illuminated during the night-time, and was the scene of the orgies of the drunken bandits. On the advance of the French armies to the frontiers, the whole country was pillaged.*

In other places, where the plundering habits of the French had not cooled the popular enthusiasm, it still rose high, more particularly at Mayence. This city, which had been rendered a seat of the Muses by the elector, Frederick Charles, was in a state of complete demoralization. On the loss of Strassburg, Mayence, although the only remaining bulwark of Germany, was entirely overlooked. The war had already burst forth; no imperial army had as yet been levied, and the fortifications of Mayence were in the most shameful state of neglect. Magazines had been established by the imperial troops on the left bank of the Rhine, seemingly for the mere purpose of letting them fall into the hands of Custine; but eight hundred Austrians garrisoned Mayence; the Hessians, although numerically weak, were alone sincere in their efforts for the defence of Germany. Custine's advanced guard no sooner came in sight than the elector and all the higher functionaries fled to Aschaffenburg. Von Gymnich, the commandant of Mayence, called a council of war and surrendered the city, which was unanimously declared untenable by all present with the exception of Eikenmaier, who, notwithstanding, went forthwith over to the French, and of Andujar, the commander of the eight hundred Austrians, with whom he instantly evacuated the place. The Illuminati, who were here in great number,

*It was asserted that the Jacobins had formed a plan to depopulate the whole of Alsace, and to partition the country among the bravest soldiers belonging to the republican armies.