ple. But they do not perceive, that _there_ lies
the very merit for which the Republic must uphold him. His troops were
in an exhausted country; they had but provisions for two days. He must
fight at once or retreat. Another general might have retreated; and made
his apology by the state of his haversacks. Dumourier took the other
alternative: he fought; and the general who fights is the only general
who gains victories."

One of the tacticians at whom he had indulged in a sneer, Santerre, the
commandant of the city horse, a huge and heavy hero with enormous
jackboots and a clattering sabre, now strode up to us, and pronounced
that the campaign had been hitherto "against all rule."

"You mistake, my good friend," said the now half-angry minister--"you
mistake acting above rule for acting against rule. Our war is new, our
force is new, our position is new; and we must meet the struggle by new
means every where. Follow the routine, and all is lost. Invent, act,
hazard, strike, and we shall triumph as Dumourier has done--France is
surrounded with enemies. To conquer, we must astonish. If we wait to be
attacked, we must feel the weakness of defence--the spirit of the French
soldier is attack. Within the frontier he is a bird in a cage; beyond it
he is a bird in the air. Why has France always triumphed in the
beginning of a war? because she has always invaded. The French soldier
must march, he must fight, he must feel that he hazards every thing,
before he rises to that pitch of daring, that ardour, that _elan_, by
which he gains every thing. Let him, like the Greek, burn his ships
behind him, and from that moment he is invincible."

I listened with speechless interest to this development of the
principles on which the great war of Europe was to be sustained. The
speaker uttered his oracular sentences with a glow, which left his
hearers almost as breathless as himself. I could imagine that I saw
before me the living genius of French victory.

While we were standing, silenced by this burst; an incident occurred, as
if to give demonstration to his theory; an aide-de-camp entered the
room, bringing despatches from the army of Flanders. He had but just
arrived in Paris, and not finding the war-minister at his bureau, had
followed him here. Of course, the strongest conceivable curiosity
existed; but not a syllable was to be learned from the official mystery
of the aide-de-camp. He made his advance to the minister, deposited th