allied army was commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, the most
admired and popular prince of his time. His own celebrity disabled
him. Many years ago Marshal Macmahon said to an officer, since in high
command at Berlin, that an army is best when it is composed of
soldiers who have never smelt gunpowder, of experienced
non-commissioned officers, and of generals with their reputation to
make. Brunswick had made his reputation under the great king, and he
feared to compromise it. Want of enterprise made him unfit for his
position, although nobody doubted his capacity. In France, they
thought of him for the command of their armies, and even for a still
higher post. In spite of the disasters I am about to describe, the
Prussians believed in him, and he was again their leader when they met
Napoleon. The army which he led across the Rhine fell short of the
stipulated number by 35,000 men. Francis, the new emperor, did not
fulfil his engagements, and entered on the expedition with divided
counsels.

Kaunitz, who was eighty-two years of age, and knew the affairs of
Europe better than any other man, condemned the policy of his new
master. He represented that they did not know what they were going to
fight for; that Lewis had never explained what changes in the
Constitution would satisfy him; that nothing could be expected from
disaffection, and nothing could be done for a system which was
extinct. On August 2 he resigned office, and made way for men who
speculated on the dismemberment of France, and expected to see a
shrunken monarchy in the north and a confederate republic in the
south.

The entire force brought together for the invasion amounted to about
80,000 men, of which half were Prussians. When they were assembled on
the Rhine, it became necessary to explain to the French people why
they were coming, and what they meant to do. Headquarters were at
Frankfort, when a confidential emissary from Lewis XVI., Mallet du
Pan, appeared on the scene. Mallet du Pan was neither a brilliant
writer like Burke and De Maistre and Gentz, nor an original and
constructive thinker like Sieyes; but he was the most sagacious of all
the politicians who watched the course of the Revolution. As a
Genevese republican he approached the study of French affairs with no
prejudice towards monarchy, aristocracy, or Catholicism. A Liberal at
first, like Mounier and Malouet, he became as hostile as they; and his
testimony, which had been enlightened and