o occupied the defiles of Varennes, with very inferior
forces. Against this mighty invasion the French nation rose as one
man. Recruits poured to the borderland singing the Marseillaise, their
newly adopted national hymn. Rapidly reducing this motley force to
order, Kellermann, with 22,000 men, marched from Metz, on September
4th, for Chalons with the utmost celerity, reached Bar before the
Prussians, saved the magazines on the upper Saone and Marne, and put
himself in a situation to communicate with Dumouriez. The latter
general was attacked on September 16th, and immediately ordered
Kellermann to take a designated position on his left, which was,
accordingly, accomplished on the 19th. No sooner had Kellermann
arrived here, than he perceived that the position was altogether
defective. A pond on his right separated him from Dumouriez; the
marshy river of the Auve, traversed by a single narrow bridge, cut off
his retreat in the rear; and the heights of Valmy commanded his left.
While he was shut up in this isolated position, the enemy might march
upon the magazines at Dampierre and Voilmont, cut both the French
armies off from Chalons, and then fall upon each of them in
succession. Kellermann instantly resolved to rectify this error in the
disposition of the troops; and by four o'clock on the following
morning, his army was in motion by its rear upon Dampierre and
Voilmont. But the Prussians, equally alive to the disadvantage in
which Kellermann had been placed, were already in movement to attack
him, and it became impracticable to pass the Auve. Leaving his
advanced-guard and his reserve to check the Prussians on the plain,
Kellermann drew off the rest of his army to the heights of Valmy, and
placing a battery of eighteen pieces near the mill of Valmy, at seven
in the morning was drawn up in a strong position to receive the attack
of the enemy. The King of Prussia, who commanded in person, drew up
his army in three columns on the heights of La Lune, and advancing in
an oblique direction a vehement fire was kept up on both sides for two
hours. About nine, a new battery on the enemy's right suddenly opened
in the direction of the mill, near which Kellermann and his escort,
with the reserve cuirassiers, were stationed, and produced the utmost
confusion. Most of the escort were killed or wounded, and Kellermann
had a horse shot under him, while about the same time the explosion of
two caissons of ammunition near the mill add