war. The French
government rejected his audacious project, and ordered him to move on
Chalons, and cover the heart of France. At Sedan, Dumouriez could hear
heavy firing at a distance, and knew that Verdun was attacked, and
could not hold out. He quickly changed his plan, postponing Belgium,
but not for long, and fell back on the passes of the forest that he
was about to make so famous. "They are the Thermopylae of France," he
said, "but I mean to do better than Leonidas."

Brunswick, delaying his cumbrous march for ten days, while Breteuil
organised a new administration at Verdun, gave time for the French to
strengthen their position. Before moving forward, he pointed out on
the map the place where he intended to halt on the 16th, and men heard
for the first time the historic name, Valmy. On the 14th Clerfayt,
with the Austrians, forced one of the passes, and turned the French
left. At nightfall, Dumouriez evacuated his Thermopylae more
expeditiously than became a rival Leonidas, and established himself
across the great road to Chalons, opposite the southern defile of the
Argonne, which extends between Clermont and St. Menehould, where
Drouet rode in pursuit of the king. His infantry encountered Prussian
troopers and ran away. Ten thousand men, he wrote, were put to flight
by fifteen hundred hussars.

Napoleon said, at St. Helena, that he believed himself to be bolder
than any general that ever lived, but he would never have dared to
hold the position that Dumouriez took up. He was outnumbered, three to
one. He had been outmanoeuvred, and driven from his fastness by the
most enterprising of the allied generals; and his recruits refused to
face the enemy. He never for a moment lost confidence in himself, for
the time wasted at Verdun had given him the measure of his opponents.
He summoned Kellermann, with the army of Metz, and Beurnonville, with
10,000 men, from Lille, and they arrived, just in time, on the 19th.
Beurnonville, when his telescope showed him a regular army in order of
battle, took alarm and fell back, thinking it must be Brunswick. It
proved to be Dumouriez; and on the morning of September 20 he was at
the head of 53,000 men, with the allies gathering in his front. The
Prussians had come through the woods by the pass he had abandoned, and
as they turned to face him, they stood with their backs to the great
Catalaunian plain, which was traversed by the high road to Paris. They
had been for a month in Fr