IV.
Dumouriez seeing the high roads to fortune closed before him, resolved to cast himself into them by indirect ways; and with this view attached himself to Favier. Favier attached himself to him, and in this connection of his earlier years, Dumouriez acquired that character for adventure and audacity which gave, during all his life, something skilful as intrigue and as rash as a coup de main to his heroism and his policy. Favier initiated him into the secrets of courts, and engaged Louis XV. and the Duc de Choiseul to employ Dumouriez in diplomacy and war at the same time.
It was at this moment that the great Corsican patriot, Paoli, was making gigantic efforts to rescue his country from the tyranny of the republic of Genoa, and to assure to this people an independence, of which he by turns offered the patronage to England and to France. On reaching Genoa, Dumouriez undertook to deceive at the same time the Republic, England, and Paoli, united himself with Corsican adventurers, conspired against Paoli, made a descent upon the island, which he summoned to independence, and was partially successful. He threw himself into a felucca, to bring to the Duc de Choiseul information as to the new state of Corsica, and to implore the succour of France. Delayed by a tempest, tossed for several weeks on the coast of Africa, he reached Marseilles too late; the treaty between France and Genoa was signed. He hastened to Favier, his friend in Paris.
Favier informed him confidentially, that he was employed to draw up a memorial to prove to the king and his ministers the necessity of supporting the republic of Genoa against the independent Corsicans; that this memorial had been demanded of him secretly by the Genoese ambassador, and by a femme de chambre of the Duchesse de Grammont, favourite sister of the Duc de Choiseul, interested, like the brothers of the Du Barry[19], in supplying the army: that 500 louis were the price of this memorial and the blood of the Corsicans; and he offered a portion of this intrigue and its profits to Dumouriez who pretended to accept this, and then hastening to the Duc de Choiseul, revealed the manœuvre, was well received, believed he had convinced the minister, and was preparing to return, conveying to the Corsicans the subsidies and arms they expected. Next day, he found the minister changed, and was sent from the audience with harsh language. Dumouriez retired, and made his way unmolested to Spain. Aided by Favier, who was satisfied with having jockeyed him, and pitied his candour; assisted by the Duc de Choiseul, he conspired with the Spanish minister and French ambassador to effect the conquest of Portugal, whose topography he was empowered to study in a military point of view, as well as its means of defence. The Marquis de Pombal, first minister of Portugal, conceived suspicions as to Dumouriez's mission, and forced him to leave Lisbon. The young diplomatist returned to Madrid, learned that his cousin, over-persuaded by the priests, had abandoned him, and meant to take the veil. He then attached himself to another mistress, a young Frenchwoman, daughter of an architect established at Madrid, and for some years his activity reposed in the happiness of a participated love. An order of the Duc de Choiseul recalled him to Paris,—he hesitated: his beloved herself compelled him, and sacrificed him as if she had from afar anticipated his fame. He reached Paris, and was named quartermaster-general of the French army in Corsica, where, as everywhere else, he greatly distinguished himself. At the head of a detachment of volunteers, he seized on the Château de Corte, the last asylum and home of Paoli. He retained for himself the library of this unfortunate patriot. The choice of these books, and the notes with which they were covered in Paoli's hand, revealed one of those characters which seek their fellows in the finest models of antiquity. Dumouriez was worthy of this spoil, since he appreciated it above gold. The great Frederic called Paoli the first captain of Europe: Voltaire declared him the conqueror and lawgiver of his country. The French blushed at conquering him—fortune at forsaking him. If he did not emancipate his country, he deserved that his struggle should be immortalised. Too great a citizen for so small a people, he did not bear a reputation in proportion to his country, but to his virtues. Corsica remains in the ranks of conquered provinces; but Paoli must always be in the ranks of great men.
V.
After his return to Paris, Dumouriez passed a year in the society of the literary men and women of light fame who gave to the society of the period the spirit and the tone of a constant orgy. Forming an attachment with an old acquaintance of Madame Du Barry, he knew this parvenue courtezan, whom libertinism had elevated nearly to the throne. Devoted to the Duc de Choiseul, the enemy of this mistress of the king, and retaining that remnant of virtue which amongst the French is called honour, he did not prostitute his uniform to the court, and blushed to see the old monarch, at the reviews of Fontainebleau, walk on foot with his hat off before his army, beside a carriage in which this woman displayed her beauty and her empire. Madame Du Barry took offence at the forgetfulness of the young officer, and divined the cause of his absence. Dumouriez was sent to Poland on the same errand that had before despatched him to Portugal. His mission, half diplomatic, half military, was, in consequence of a secret idea of the king, approved by his confidant, the Count de Broglie, and by Favier, the count's adviser.
It was at the moment when Poland, menaced and half-occupied by the Russians, devoured by Prussia, forsaken by Austria, was attempting some ill-considered movements, in order to repair its scattered limbs, and to dispute, at least, in fragments, its nationality with its oppressors—the last sigh of liberty which moved the corpse of a people. The king, who feared to come into collision with the Empress of Russia, Catherine, to give excuses to the hostilities of Frederic and umbrage to the court of Vienna, was still desirous of extending to expiring Poland the hand of France; but concealing that hand, and reserving to himself the power even to cut it off, if it became necessary. Dumouriez was the intermediary selected for this part; the secret minister of France, amongst the Polish confederates; a general, if necessary—but a general adventurer and disowned—to rally and direct their efforts.
The Duc de Choiseul, indignant at the debasement of France, was secretly preparing war against Prussia and England. This powerful diversion in Poland was necessary for his plan of campaign, and he gave his confidential instructions to Dumouriez; but, thrown out of the administration by the intrigues of Madame Du Barry and M. d'Argenson, the Duc de Choiseul was suddenly exiled to Versailles before Dumouriez reached Poland. The policy of France, changing with the minister, at once destroyed Dumouriez's plans. Still he followed them up with an ardour and perseverance worthy of better success. He found the Poles debased by misery, slavery, and the custom of bearing a foreign yoke. He found the Polish aristocrats corrupted by luxury, enervated by pleasures, employing in intrigues and language the warmth of their patriotism in the conferences and confederation of Epéries. A female of remarkable beauty, high rank, and eastern genius, the Countess of Mnizeck, stirred up, destroyed, or combined different parties, according to the taste of her ambition or her amours. Certain patriot orators caused the last accents of independence to resound again in vain. Certain princes and gentlemen formed meetings without any understanding with each other, who contended as partisans rather than as citizens, and who boasted of personal fame, without any reference to the safety of their country. Dumouriez availed himself of the ascendency of the countess, and endeavoured to unite these isolated effects, formed an infantry, an artillery, seized upon two fortresses, threatened in all directions the Russians, scattered in small bodies over the wide plains of Poland, prepared for war, disciplined the insubordinate patriotism of the insurgents, and contended successfully against Souwarow, the Russian general, subsequently destined to threaten the republic so closely.
But Stanislaus, the king of Poland, the crowned creature of Catherine, saw the danger of a national insurrection, which, by drawing out the Russians, would endanger his throne; and he paralysed it by offering to the federates to adhere, in his own person, to the confederation. One of them, Bohuez, the last great orator of Polish liberty, returned to the king, in a sublime oration, his perfidious succour, and then combined the unanimity of the conspirators into the last resource of the oppressed—insurrection. It burst forth. Dumouriez is its life and soul, flies from one camp to the other, giving a spirit of unity to the plan of attack. Cracovis was ready to fall into his hands; the Russians regain the frontier in disorder; but anarchy, that fatal genius of Poland, suddenly dissolves the union of the chiefs, and they surrender one another to the united efforts of the Russians. All desire to have the exclusive honour of delivering their country, and prefer to lose it rather than owe their success to a rival.
Sapieha, the principal leader, was massacred by his nobles. Pulauwski and Micksenski were delivered up, wounded, to the Russians; Zaremba betrayed his country; Oginski, the last of these great patriots, roused Lithuania at the moment when Lesser Poland had laid down its arms. Abandoned and fugitive, he escaped to Dantzig, and wandered for thirty years over Europe and America, carrying in his heart the memory of his country. The lovely Countess of Mnizeck languished and died of grief with Poland. Dumouriez wept for this heroine, adored in a country wherein he said the women are more men than the men. He brake his sword, despairing for ever of this aristocracy without a people, bestowing on it, as he quitted it, the name of Asiatic Nation of Europe.