ed the defensible and historic, or, as they unscientifically
called it, the natural frontier of the Rhine, and that the grand
conflict with Austria should be transferred to Italy. Germany was a
nation of armed men, and was best let alone. In Italy, the Austrians
would have only their own resources for war. Their most vulnerable
point was the outlying principality of Belgium, so distant from Vienna
and so near to Paris.

Dumouriez was now at liberty to deliver the stroke by which he had
hoped to stop the invasion, as Scipio drove Hannibal from Italy by
landing in Africa. By carrying the war in that direction he would
occupy the Imperialists, and would not excite the resentment of
Prussia. The country had not long been pacified, and it presented the
unusual feature that Conservatives and Liberals alike were patriotic
and rebellious. As a place where disaffection would assist war, it was
there that the process of European revolution would properly begin. On
October 19 Dumouriez assumed the command of 70,000 men, in the region
he had held before his flank march to the Argonne. One of his
lieutenants was the Peruvian adventurer Miranda, whose mission it was
to apply the movement in Europe to the rescue of Spanish America. The
other was known as Prince Egalite, senior, whose wonderful future was
already foreseen both by Dumouriez and Danton.

During the operations in Champagne the Austrians had begun the siege
of Lille, and at the turning of the tide they withdrew across the
frontier, and took up a strong position at Jemmapes, in front of Mons,
with 13,000 men. Clerfayt, again, was at their head; and when, on
November 6, he saw the French army approaching, nearly 40,000 strong,
like Nelson in the hour of death he appeared in all his stars and gold
lace, that his men, seeing him, might take heart. He was defeated, and
the next evening, at the theatre of Mons, Dumouriez was acclaimed by
the Flemish patriots. A week later he was at Brussels, and before the
end of the month he was master of Belgium. Holland was undefended, and
he proposed to conquer it; but Antwerp was already in the power of the
French, and his government feared that England would come to the
defence of the Dutch. They directed him to march upon Cologne and
complete the conquest of the Rhine.

By a decree of November 19 the Convention proffered sympathy and
succour to every people that struck a blow for freedom; but the cloven
hoof of annexation soon appeared