le to the power of change on the surface, but that surface
undergoing every impulse and influence of art and nature.

The army now advanced unopposed. Still we received neither cheers nor
reinforcements from the population. Yet we had now begun to be
careless on the topic. The intelligence from Paris was favourable in
all the leading points. The king was resuming his popularity, though
still a prisoner. The Jacobins were exhibiting signs of terror, though
still masters of every thing. The recruits were running away, though
the decree for the general rising of the country was arming the
people. In short, the news was exactly of that checkered order which
was calculated to put us all in the highest spirits. The submission of
Paris, at least until we were its conquerors, would have deprived us
of a triumph on the spot, and the proclamation of a general peace
would have been received as the command for a general mourning.

The duke was in the highest animation, and he talked to every one
round him, as we marched along, with more than condescension. He was
easy, familiar, and flushed with approaching victory. "We have now,"
said he, "broken through the 'iron barrier,' the pride of Vauban, and
the boast of France for these hundred years. To-morrow Verdun will
fall. The commandant of Thionville, in desperation at the certainty of
our taking the town by assault, has shot himself, and the keys are on
their way to me. Nothing but villages now lie in our road, and once
past those heights," and he pointed to a range of woody hills on the
far horizon, "and we shall send our light troops _en promenade_ to
Paris." We all responded in our various ways of congratulation.

"Apropos," said the duke, applying to me, "M. Marston, you have been
later on the spot than any of us. What can you tell of this M.
Dumourier, who, I see from my letters, is appointed to the forlorn
hope of France--the command of the broken armies of Lafayette and
Luckner?"

My answer was briefly a hope that the new general would be as much
overmatched by the duke's fortunes in the field, as he had been by
party in the capital. "Still, he seemed to me a clever, and even a
remarkable man, however inexperienced as a soldier."

"If he is the officer of that name who served in the last French war,
he is an old acquaintance of mine," observed the duke. "I remember him
perfectly. He was a mere boy, who, in a rash skirmish with some of our
hussars, was wounded severely a