sition. The
Duke of Brunswick was on the morrow the same as he was the previous
evening, and had, moreover, extended his right wing beyond Gizaucourt
and cut off the route to Chalons.

Early on the morning of the 21st Dumouriez went to the camp of his
colleague, and ordered him to pass the river Auve, and fall back on the
camp of Dampierre, in the position previously assigned him. This
position, less brilliant, yet more secure, strengthened and united the
French army. Kellermann felt this and obeyed without a murmur.

The Prussians had lost so much time that they had no longer any to
spare. The rainy season had already affected them, and the winter would
be sufficient in itself to force them to retreat. The Duke of Brunswick
lost ten days in observing the French army; and the rain and fever
season surprised him, while yet undecided. The rains cut up the roads
from Argonne, by which his convoys arrived from Verdun, while his
soldiers, destitute of shelter and provisions, wandered about in the
fields, the orchards and vineyards, plucking the unripe grapes which
these inhabitants of the North tasted for the first time. Their
stomachs, already weakened by bad living, were soon disordered, and they
were attacked by that dysentery which is so fatal to the soldier; the
contagion spread rapidly through the camp, and thinned the corps.

The situation of Dumouriez did not appear, however, less perilous to
those who were not in the secret of his intentions. Hemmed in on the one
side of Les Eveches by the Prince de Hohenlohe; on the Paris side by the
King of Prussia, the Prussians were within six leagues of Chalons, the
emigres still nearer. The Uhlans, the light cavalry of the Prussians,
pillaged at the gates of Rheims, and between Chalons and the capital
there was not a position or an army. Paris dreaded to find itself thus
exposed. Kellermann, a brave, but susceptible general, shaken by the
opinion in Paris, threatened to quit the camp and abandon his colleague
to his fate. Dumouriez, employing alternately the ascendency of his rank
and the seduction of his genius, passed, in order to detain him, from
menace to entreaty, and thus gained day by day his victory of patience.
Sometimes he threatened to deprive of their uniform and arms those who
complained of the want of provisions, and drive them from the camp as
cowards who were unworthy to suffer privations for their country. Eight
battalions of federes, recently arrived from t