Dumouriez, impetuous as the volcano, instinctively felt this, and strove, in the conferences that preceded the nomination of the generals, to infuse some portion of his own fire into La Fayette. He placed him at the head of the principal corps d'armée, destined to penetrate into Belgium, as the general most fitted to foment popular insurrection, and convert the war on the Belgian provinces into revolution; for to rouse Belgium in favour of French liberty, and to render its independence dependent on ours, was to wrest it from the power of Austria, and turn it against our foes. The Belgians, according to Dumouriez's plan, were to conquer Belgium for us; for the germs of revolt had been but imperfectly stifled in these provinces, and were destined to bud again at the step of the first French soldier.
X.
Belgium, which had been long dominated over by Spain, had contracted its jealous and superstitious Catholicism. The nation pertains to the priests, and the privileges of the priests appear to it the privileges of the people. Joseph II., a premature but an armed philosopher, sought to emancipate the people from sacerdotal despotism. Belgium had risen in arms against the liberty offered to her, and had sided with her oppressors. The fanaticism of the priests, and of the municipal privileges, united in a feeling of resistance to Joseph II., had set all Belgium in a flame. The rebels had captured Ghent and Brussels, and proclaimed the downfall of the house of Austria, and the sovereignty of the Pays Bas. Scarcely had they triumphed, than the Belgians became divided amongst themselves. The sacerdotal and aristocratic party demanded an oligarchical constitution, whilst the popular party demanded a democracy, modelled on the French revolution.
Van-der-noot, an eloquent and cruel tribune, was the leader of the first party; Van-der-mersh, a brave soldier, of the people. Civil war broke out amidst a struggle for independence. Van-der-mersh, made prisoner by the aristocratic party, was immured in a gloomy dungeon until Leopold, the successor of Joseph II., profited by these domestic feuds, again to subjugate Belgium. Weary of liberty, after having tasted it, she submitted without resistance. Van-der-noot took refuge in Holland. Van-der-mersh, freed by the Austrians, was generously pardoned, and again became an obscure citizen.
All attempts at independence were repressed by strong Austrian garrisons, and could not fail to be awakened at the approach of the French armies. La Fayette appeared to comprehend and approve of this plan. It was agreed that the Maréchal de Rochambeau should be appointed commander-in-chief of the army that threatened Belgium, that La Fayette should have under his orders a considerable corps that would invade the country, and then La Fayette would command alone in the Netherlands. Rochambeau, old and worn out by inactivity, would thus only receive the honour due to his rank. La Fayette would in reality direct the whole of the campaign and of the armed propaganda of the revolution. "This rôle suits him," said the old maréchal. "I do not understand this war of cities." To cause La Fayette to march on Namur, which was but ill defended, capture it, march from thence on Brussels and Liège, the two capitals of the Pays Bas, and the focus of Belgian independence—send General Biron forward at the head of ten thousand men on Mons, to oppose the Austrian General Beaulieu, whose force was only two or three thousand men—detach from the garrison at Lille another corps of three thousand men, who would occupy Tournay, and who, after having left a garrison in this town, would swell the corps of Biron—send twelve hundred men from Dunkirk to surprise Furnes, and then advance by converging into the heart of the Belgian provinces with these forty thousand men under the command of La Fayette—attack, on every side, in ten days an enemy ill prepared to resist—to rouse the populations to revolt, and then increase the attacking army to eighty thousand troops, and join to it the Belgian battalions raised in the name of freedom, to combat the emperor's army as it arrived from Germany:—such was Dumouriez's bold idea of the campaign. Nothing was wanting to ensure its success but a man capable of executing it. Dumouriez disposed of the troops and the generals in conformity with this plan.
XI.
The impulse of France responded to the impulse of her genius.
On the other side of the Rhine the preparations were making with promptitude and energy. The emperor and the king of Prussia met at Frankfort, where they were joined by the Duke of Brunswick. The empress of Russia adhered to the aggression of the powers against France, and marched her troops into Poland, to repress the germs of the same principles that were to be combated at Paris. Germany yielded, in spite of herself, to the impulse of the three cabinets, and poured her masses towards the Rhine. The emperor preluded this war of thrones against people by his coronation at Frankfort. The head-quarters of the Duke of Brunswick were at Coblentz, the capital of the emigration. The generalissimo of the confederation had an interview there with the two brothers of Louis XVI., and promised to restore to them, ere long, their country and their rank, whilst they, in their turn, styled him the Hero of the Rhine, and the Right arm of kings.
Every thing wore a military aspect. The two princes of Prussia, quartered in a village near Coblentz, had but one room, and slept on the floor. The king of Prussia was welcomed on every bank of the Rhine by the salvos of his artillery. In every town through which he passed the emigrés, the population, and the troops, proclaimed him beforehand the preserver of Germany. His name, written in letters of fire at the illuminations, was surrounded by this adulatory device, "Vivat Villelmus, Francos deleat, jura regis restituat!"—"Long live William, the exterminator of the French, the restorer of royalty."