eat the enemy, he must leave himself able to
follow them--and this he can do only on a plain. In the end, after
beating the enemy in a dozen attempts to carry our batteries, but
without the power of striking a blow in retaliation, we saw them
carried all at once, and were totally driven from the field."

"So much for bravery and discipline against bravery and enthusiasm,"
said I. "Yet the enemy's loss must have been tremendous. Every
assault must have torn their columns to pieces." Even this attempt at
reconciling him to his ill fortune failed.

"Yes," was the cool reply; "but they could afford it, which was more
than we could do. Remember the maxim, my young friend, when you shall
come to be a general, that the only security for gaining battles is,
to have good troops, and a good many of them.--The French recruits
fought like recruits, without knowing whether the enemy were before
or behind them; but they fought, and when they were beaten they
fought again. While we were fixed on our heights, they were formed
into column once more, and marched gallantly up to the mouth of our
guns. Then, we had but 18,000 men to the Frenchman's 60,000. Such
odds are too great. Whether our great king would have fought at all
with such odds against him, may be a question; but there can be none,
whether he would have fixed himself where he could not manoeuvre. The
Frenchman attacked us on flanks and centre, just when and where he
pleased; there stood we, mowing down his masses from our fourteen
redoubts, and waiting to be attacked again. To do him justice, he
fought stoutly; and to do us justice, we fought sturdily. But still
we were losing men; the affair looked unpromising from the first half
hour; and I pronounced that, if Dumourier had but perseverance
enough, he must carry the field."

I made some passing remark on the singular hazard of bringing untried
troops against the proverbial discipline of a German army, and the
probability that the age of the wild armies of peasantry in Europe
would be renewed, by the evidence of its success.

"Right," said Varnhorst. "The thing that struck me most was, the new
character of the whole engagement. It was Republicanism in the field;
a bold riot, a mob battle. Nor will it be the last of its kind. Our
whole line was once attacked by the French demi-brigades, coming to
the charge, with a general chorus of the _Marseillaise_ hymn. The
effect was magnificent, as we heard it pealing over the fiel