ed to the new
government. Out of 9000 officers in the king's service, 6000 had
resigned, and, for the most part, had emigrated. Their places were
filled by new men. In 1791, 100,000 volunteers had been enrolled, and
enjoyed the privilege of electing their own officers. This became the
popular force, and recruits preferred it to the line, where discipline
was sterner and elected commanders were unknown. The men who now rose
from the ranks proved better professional soldiers than the fine
gentlemen whom they replaced. Talent could not fail to make its way.
Those volunteer officers of 1791 and 1792 included most of the men
whom the long war raised to eminence. Seventeen of the twenty-six
marshals of Napoleon were among them.

* * * * *

On the 19th of August, four months after war had been declared, the
allies entered France by the line of the Moselle. There was one French
army to their left at Metz, and another to their right along Vauban's
chain of fortresses, with an undefended interval between. To widen the
gap they laid siege to Longwy, the nearest fortified place, and took
it, after a feeble resistance, on August 24. When the news spread
there was a moment of alarm, and the Council of Defence proposed to
retire from the capital. Danton declared that he would burn Paris to
the ground rather than abandon it to the enemy. Lavergne, who made so
poor a defence at Longwy, was afterwards condemned to death. He was
disheartened by disaster, but his wife cried out that she would perish
with him, and the judges granted her prayer. She strove to give him
comfort and courage along the way, and they were guillotined together.

From Longwy the Prussians advanced upon Verdun, which surrendered
September 2, after one day's bombardment, and there was not a rampart
between them and the capital. A few miles beyond Verdun the roads to
the west traversed the Argonne, a low wooded range of hills pierced
in five places by narrow defiles, easy to defend. Then came the open
country of Champagne, and the valley of the Marne, leading, without a
natural or artificial obstacle, to Paris.

On the 7th of September Pitt wrote that he expected Brunswick soon to
reach his goal. There was no enemy in his front, while on his flank
Dumouriez clung to his frontier strongholds, persuaded that he would
arrest the invasion if he threatened the Austrians at Brussels, where
they were weakened by recent insurrection and civil