That Louis should be the advocate and leader of this war was the one inspiration of Narbonne, and, had the King persevered in this, he might have saved himself and his throne. But, with his fatal vacillation, after having entered upon military preparations and committed himself to Narbonne's policy, he suddenly abandoned him as he had abandoned so many of his advisers. Grave replaced the dismissed and chagrined young minister, and Dumouriez, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, took into his hands all the power and glory of the war movement. He developed and supplemented the plans which Narbonne had already formed, and, by the New Year, a vast army was assembled and the frontier divided into three great military districts. On the left, the territory from Dunkirk to Philippeville was defended by the army under Rochambeau, forty thousand foot and eight thousand cavalry strong; Lafayette, with his army of the centre, of more than a hundred thousand men and some seven thousand horse, commanded between Philippeville and Weissenberg, while Luckner, with his army of the Rhine, stretched from Weissenberg to Bâle. Dumouriez's diplomatic negotiations were apparently nearly as successful as his military operations. Though he could not dissolve that "unnatural alliance" formed the year before at Pilnitz and enthusiastically adhered to by Prince Henri and the Duke of Brunswick with the young King of Hungary and Bohemia, yet, by the assassination of the King of Sweden, that country was no longer to be feared, England remained neutral by virtue of Pitt's commercial policy, and many of the petty German principalities openly approved of and aided the French revolutionists.
With military and diplomatic affairs in this state and with Austria still holding out for her impossible conditions, 'twas easy for Dumouriez and the war party to browbeat the wellnigh desperate King into a declaration of hostilities that was to convulse the whole of Europe for nearly a quarter of a century. This was done on the 20th of April, three days after Mr. Calvert had joined Lafayette at Metz, and was almost instantly followed by orders from Dumouriez to that general to advance with ten thousand men upon Namur and thence upon Brussels and Liège.
'Twas Dumouriez's policy (and surely a wise one) to strike the first blow against Austria through her dependency, Flanders, which country, but two years before, had shown the strongest disposition to throw off Austrian rule. How strong that disposition was, Dumouriez himself knew fully, for he had been sent by Montmorin on a secret mission into Belgium, and he felt assured that the Brabant patriots would rally to the standards of the French army. Had that army been what he supposed, his plans might have succeeded and the humiliations and defeats of the spring campaign averted.
As has been said, Calvert joined the army at Metz a few days before the formal declaration of war was made, and so was there when General de Lafayette received orders to advance upon Namur. He was much touched by the reception which Lafayette accorded him.
"I will give you a regiment, Calvert, but I need you near my person. There is no one upon whom I can rely—I wish you could be my aide-de-camp again. It would be like old times once more," he said, looking at the young man with so harassed and despondent a glance that Calvert was both surprised and alarmed.
"I could wish for nothing better," he replied, "but surely you do not mean what you say—you have many others upon whom you can count."
"Almost no one," replied Lafayette, briefly. "I distrust my officers and am myself suspected of intriguing with the enemy. I know not what day I may be forced to fly across the frontier. No one is safe, and I dare not count upon my troops to obey commands. Although there are only thirty thousand Austrians in Flanders, I am not sure that we can beat them," he said, bitterly.
On the 27th of April, Lafayette, who had moved his camp to Givet, received despatches from Dumouriez detailing the plan of campaign against Belgium. According to this plan, Lafayette, with ten thousand picked men, was to advance by forced marches upon Namur. He was to be supported by two divisions of the army of the North, one of four thousand men under General Dillon, which was to move from its encampment at Lille upon Tournay, and the other of ten thousand troops under General Biron, which was to advance from Valenciennes upon Mons. Before daybreak on the morning of the 28th Lafayette had his army in motion and, as they rode out of the city gates together, Calvert noted that the depression and anxiety which had weighed upon the General so heavily had disappeared and that he had regained something of his old fire and intrepidity.
This renewal of confidence was cruelly dissipated three days later when, on reaching Bouvines, half-way to Namur, after a fifty-league march over bad roads, Lafayette was met by frightened, breathless couriers with despatches detailing the humiliating disasters which had befallen both Biron's and Dillon's divisions. The former, who had advanced upon Quiévrain and succeeded in occupying that town, was utterly routed on arriving before Mons, and fled with the loss of all his baggage. Dillon met with even a more tragic and shameful fate. Moving upon Tournay, where a strong body of Austrians was ready to receive him, his men were seized with a sudden panic and fled back to the gates of Lille, where, mad with fear and crying that Dillon had betrayed them, they brutally murdered him. This disastrous news being confirmed the following day by further despatches, Lafayette was forced to fall back to Maubeuge without striking a blow, and thus ended Calvert's hopes of seeing a campaign which had promised most brilliantly. The news of these defeats creating the greatest sensation both at the front and in Paris, Rochambeau resigned his command, Grave was replaced by Servan in the ministry, and the army was reorganized.
During the entire month of May Lafayette and his army remained inactive at Maubeuge awaiting orders which the distracted ministers at Paris were incapable of giving. 'Twas a pretty little place near the Belgian frontier, lying on both sides of the Sambre, and which had been ceded to France by the treaty of Nymwegen. Mr. Calvert spent much of his leisure time—of which he had more than enough—admiring and studying the fortifications of this town, which had been engineered by the great Vauban. Much of it he also spent with Lafayette, who, in the intervals of disciplining his troops and attending to his increased military duties—Rochambeau's command had been divided between himself and Luckner—conversed freely with his young aide-de-camp. Sometimes, too, at Lafayette's urgent request, Calvert would sing as he had used to do around the camp-fires in the Virginia campaign. During those days and evenings of inactive and anxious waiting, the old friendship between the two was renewed. Lafayette had heard of Calvert's marriage through Mr. Morris and, with the utmost delicacy, touched upon the subject. Calvert told him frankly as much of the story as he intended to reveal to anyone, and this confidence became another bond of friendship between them. The years of separation and disagreement somehow melted away. The Lafayette of Maubeuge was like the Lafayette whom Calvert had first known and admired; he noticed how much of his rabid republicanism had vanished—indeed, Lafayette himself owned as much, for if he was impetuous and extreme, he was also courageous and was not afraid or ashamed to confess his faults.