tach
himself from the centre, and advance toward the declivities of
Gizaucourt and La Lune, at the head of a body of infantry, cavalry, and
three batteries. Fresh troops filled up the space these left.

Such was the horizon of tents, bayonets, horses, cannon, and staff which
displayed itself on September 20th, in the hollows and ravines of
Champagne. At the same hour the convention[37] began its sittings and
deliberations as to a monarchy or a republic. Within and without, France
and liberty sported with destiny.

The exterior aspect of the two armies seemed to declare beforehand the
issue of the campaign. On the side of the Prussians, one hundred ten
thousand combatants; a system of tactics the inheritance of the Great
Frederick; discipline, which converted battalions into machines of war,
and which, destroying all personal will in the soldier, made him bend
submissively to the thought and voice of his officers; an infantry solid
and impenetrable as walls of iron; cavalry mounted on the splendid
horses of Mecklenburg, whose docility, well-controlled ardor, and high
courage were not alarmed either at the fire of artillery nor the glitter
of cold steel; officers trained from their infancy to fighting as a
trade, born, as it were, in uniforms, knowing their troops and known to
them, exercising over their soldiers the twofold ascendency of nobility
and command; as auxiliaries, the picked regiments of the Austrian Army,
recently from the banks of the Danube, where they had been fighting
against the Turks; the emigrant French nobility, bearing with them all
the great names of the monarchy, every soldier of whom fought for his
own cause and had his individual injuries to avenge--his King to save,
his country to recover at the end of his bayonet or the point of his
sabre; Prussian generals, all pupils of a military king, having to
maintain the superiority of their renown in Europe; a generalissimo
which Germany proclaimed its Agamemnon, and which the genius of
Frederick covered with a prestige of invincibility; and, also, a young
King, brave, adored by his people, dear to his troops, avenger of the
cause of all kings, accompanied by representatives of every court on the
field of battle, and supplying the inexperience of war by a personal
bravery which forgot its rank in the sole consideration of its
honor--such was the Prussian army.

In the French camp a numerical inferiority of one against three;
regiments reduced to thre