0 francs
which had been paid to him during the Revolution. Luckner, indifferent
to constitutions, believed himself a revolutionist from gratitude. He
was almost the only one amongst the ancient general officers who had not
emigrated. Surrounded by a brilliant staff of young officers of the
party of La Fayette, Charles Lameth, du Jarri, Mathieu de Montmorency,
he believed he had the opinions which they instilled into him. The king
caressed, the Assembly flattered, the army respected, him. The nation
saw in him the mysterious genius of the old war coming to give lessons
of victory to the untried patriotism of the Revolution, and concealing
its infinite resources under the bluntness of his exterior, and the
obscure Germanism of his language. They addressed to him, from all
sides, homage as though he were an unknown God. He did not deserve
either this adoration, or the outrages with which he was soon after
overwhelmed. He was a brave and coarse soldier, as misplaced in courts
as in clubs. For some days he was an idol, then the plaything of the
Jacobins, who, at last, threw him to the guillotine, without his being
able to comprehend either his popularity or his crime.

XIV.

Berthier, who afterwards became Napoleon's right hand, was then the head
of Luckner's staff. The old general seized, with warlike instinct, on
Dumouriez's bold plan. He had entered at the head of 22,000 men on the
Austrian territory at Courtray and Menin. Biron and Valence, his two
seconds in command, entreated him to remain there, and Dumouriez, in his
letters, urged him in similar manner. On arriving at Lille, Dumouriez
learnt that Luckner had suddenly retreated on Valenciennes, after having
burnt the suburbs of Courtray; thus giving, on our frontier, the signal
of hesitation and retreat.

The Belgian population, their impulses thus checked by the disasters or
timidity of France, lost all hope, and bent beneath the Austrian yoke.
General Montesquiou collected the army of the south with difficulty. The
king of the Sardinians concentrated a large force on the Var. The
advanced guard of La Fayette, posted at Gliswel, at a league from
Maubeuge, was beaten by the Duke of Saxe-Teschen, at the head of 12,000
men. The great invasion of the Duke of Brunswick, in Champagne, was
preparing. The emigration took off the officers, desertion diminished
our soldiery. The clubs disseminated distrust against the commanders of
our strong places.

The Girondists wer