ance, and had met with no resistance.
Lafayette had deserted. The military breakdown was so apparent that
the colonel of infantry, as he marched out of Longwy, threw himself
into the river, and the governor of Verdun blew out his brains.

Clerfayt's success on the 14th and the rout of the following day
raised the hopes of the Germans, and they wrote on the 19th that they
were turning the enemy, and were sure of destroying him, if he was
rash enough to wait their attack. From his prison at Luxemburg
Lafayette urged them onward, and hinted that Dumouriez might be
induced to unite with them for the rescue of the king.

Therefore, on the morning of September 20, when the mist rose over the
French army drawn up on the low hills before them, there was joy in
the Prussian camp, and the battalions that had been trained at
Potsdam, under the eye of the great king, to the admiration of Europe,
received for the first time the republican fire. They were 34,000.
Kellermann opposed them with 36,000 men, and 40 guns against 58. It
soon appeared that things were not going as the invaders had expected.
The French soldiers were not frightened by the cannonade. Beurnonville
rode up to one of his regiments and told them to lie down, to make
way for shot. They refused to obey whilst he exposed himself on
horseback. After time had been allowed for artillery to produce its
effect on republican nerve, the Prussian infantry made ready to
attack. Gouvion St. Cyr, the only general of his time whom Napoleon
acknowledged as his equal, believed that the French would not have
stood at close quarters. But the word to advance was never given.

The secret of war, said Wellington, is to find out what is going on on
the other side of the hill. When Brunswick rode over the field some
days later, a staff officer asked him why he had not moved forward. He
answered, "Because I did not know what was behind the hill." There was
Dumouriez's reserve of 16,000 men. He had sent to the front as many as
were needed to fill Kellermann's line, and left to his colleague the
part for which he was fitted. For his conduct that day Kellermann was
named a marshal of the Empire and duke of Valmy; but the whole world
was aware that the event was due to the brain of the man in the
background. When the French had lost 300 men without wavering, the
Prussians ceased firing, and broke off the engagement. Their loss was
only 184. Yet this third-rate and mediocre action is counted,