, and was palpably dispirited and
disappointed. His address to me was gracious as ever; but he was more of
the prince and the diplomatist, and less of the soldier. Our sitting
closed with a resolution, to agree upon an armistice, and to make the
immediate release of the king one of the stipulations. I combated the
proposal as long as I could with decorum. I placed, in the strongest light
that I could, the immense impulse which any pause in our advance must give
to the revolutionary spirit in France, or even in Europe--the
impossibility of relying on any negotiation which depended on the will of
the rabble--and, above all, the certainty that the first sign of tardiness
on the part of the Allies would overthrow the monarchy, which was now kept
in existence only by the dread of our arms. I was overruled. The proposal
for the armistice was signed by all present but one--that one myself. And
as we broke up silently and sullenly, at the first glimpse of a cold and
stormy dawn, the fit omen of our future fate, I saw a secretary of the
duke, accompanied by Macdonald, sent off to the headquarters of the enemy.

All was now over, and I thought of returning to my post at Paris. I spent
the rest of the day in paying parting civilities to my gallant friends,
and ordered my caleche to be in readiness by morning. But my prediction
had been only too true, though I had not calculated on so rapid a
fulfilment. The knowledge of the armistice was no sooner made
public--and, to do the French general justice, he lost neither time nor
opportunity--than it was regarded as a national triumph. The electric
change of public opinion, in this most electric of all countries, raised
the people from a condition of the deepest terror to the highest
confidence. Every man in France was a soldier, and every soldier a hero.
This was the miracle of twenty-four hours. Dumourier's force instantly
swelled to 100,000 men. He might have had a million, if he had asked for
them. The whole country became impassable. Every village poured out its
company of armed peasants; and, notwithstanding the diplomatic cessation
of hostilities, a real, universal, and desperate peasant war broke upon us
on every side.

After a week of this most harassing warfare, in which we lost ten times
the number of men which it would have cost to march over the bodies of
Dumourier's army to the capital, the order was issued for a general
retreat to the frontier. I remembered Mordecai's lett