“However, as the French, who were camped at Maubeuge, showed a disposition to interfere in the ceremony of Inauguration, and had in the last few days drawn nearer towards Petit, Quévy, and even Bougnies, on the evening of the 10th of June an attack was prepared and carried out at two o’clock in the morning. There was a violent onset and sharp cannonading, which lasted till five.”
Prince Charles, who would not have missed this fight for anything in the world, started off in the middle of the night at the head of his regiment, despite the Archduke Albert’s opposition. He fought with his usual bravery, was very nearly taken prisoner, having imprudently ventured too far amidst the enemy; and at seven in the morning, black with powder and heated with the fight, he arrived on horseback, post haste, barely in time to put on his full dress uniform and get into his coach.
The ceremony of the Emperor’s Inauguration as Count of Hainault is as old as the days of Charlemagne, but this was the last time that the traditional custom was to be celebrated. We have seen the importance attached to it by the States of Hainault at the time of the Flemish insurrection.
At half-past eight all the clergy of Mons, the ladies of the Chapter of Sainte Waudru, following the shrine of the saint, who was the patroness of Mons, all the magistrates, the deputies of the town council, the chief councillor of the Provinces in his State robes, and the twenty-six deputies of the chief towns in Hainault, preceded by magnificent banners from all the parishes, embroidered in gold and silk, took their places in the theatre. At nine o’clock his Highness the Prince Charles de Ligne left his hotel in a coach drawn by six horses and preceded by a detachment of dragoons, by the members of the order of the nobility, each one in a coach drawn by two horses, and by a herald-at-arms on horseback, named O’Kelly, bearing his coat-of-arms, and the cap and wand of his office. The guards and officers of his house closed the procession. On reaching the theatre his Highness seated himself on an arm-chair under a canopy, above which was placed a portrait of his Majesty.
When all the different orders were placed and seated, the trumpets sounded, Murray’s regiment fired a volley of musketry, the artillery on the ramparts answered by a salute, and the herald-at-arms, advancing to the front of the theatre, called Silence three times. Then the Prince rose, and, laying his hand on the Gospels, first took the oath to the Chapter of Sainte Waudru, of which he was named Abbot. The Princesse de Croy, first lady of the Chapter, presented to him the crozier, and a salute of artillery and music and trumpets, etc., announced to the people that the first act of the ceremony had taken place. The Prince afterwards took the oath to the States, in the same manner; and finally, a third time to the town of Mons, after which he solemnly received the oaths of allegiance from the said Chapter, States, and Town.
“During the ceremony,” says the councillor Paridaens, “some national guards, taken prisoners in that night’s encounter, had been brought to the square, and just as the procession was threading its way to Sainte Waudru, at the entrance of the road, it was met by the generals who were returning from fighting the French. At the head of these generals was the Duc Albert de Saxe, with his nephew the Archduke Charles,[109] who had been under fire for the first time in his life. At that very moment the news arrived that M. de Gouvion, Commander-in-Chief of the French army, had been killed. It was vaguely known that the French had been repulsed, after having made, however, a good stand for the first time. Indeed the cannon had been heard without interruption from two o’clock till six in the morning. On the 12th of June H.R.H. Madame arrived about ten o’clock in the morning. “On entering the rooms of the Government House she heartily and repeatedly embraced her nephew, the Archduke Charles, as one might a friend whom one sees for the first time after he has encountered a great danger. I saw this from my dining-room windows.”
The Prince gave a banquet that evening to the principal town authorities; the Archdukes, the Prince de Lambesc, and other generals were present. On the following day he returned to the camp, only too glad to have done with a part so little in keeping with his natural modesty. Two months went by, events were succeeding each other in France with the most startling rapidity, the position of the royal family was becoming daily more critical, till the terrible 10th of August induced the Duke of Brunswick, commander-in-chief of the allied forces, to alter his plan of campaign. He decided to move on the army in the direction of the gorge of Argonne, so as to enter Champagne by Sainte Menehould, and march on Paris by Châlons. He gave orders to General Clairfayt to join him with twenty-five thousand men, who were to form the right wing of his army. This change of position on the part of Count Clairfayt decided Dumouriez, then at the camp of Maulde, to proceed to the plains of Champagne with the greater part of his army.
During the three months that had elapsed since the inauguration at Mons no important battle had afforded Prince Charles an opportunity of distinguishing himself; but, gifted with a sound judgment and an observant mind, he had employed the interval in forming a just estimate of the illusions entertained by the émigrés, and of the very imperfect description they had given of the state of France. He wrote from the camp at Boux a letter, which fell into the hands of the republicans, and was read at a public sitting of the Convention.[110]
“We are beginning to get tired of this war, in respect of which MM. les émigrés had promised us more butter than bread. We have to fight against troops of the line who never desert, and national troops who remain at their posts. The peasants, who are armed, fire on our men, and if one of them is found alone or asleep in a house he is murdered. The weather, since our entry into France, has been horrible; it rains in torrents every day, and the roads are so bad that at the present moment we cannot move our cannon; moreover, we are almost in a state of famine. We have the greatest difficulty in obtaining bread for the soldiers, and meat is often wanting; many of the officers remain for five or six days without warm food. Our shoes and cloaks are rotten, and our men are beginning to fall ill; the villages are deserted, and provide neither vegetables, nor brandy, nor flour; I do not know what we shall do, nor what will become of us.”
This letter expresses a discouragement that must have been general, and circumstances were favourable to Dumouriez in preparing for the attack; but it was indispensable that he should at any cost prevent the allied army from occupying the Argonne pass. The forest was impenetrable except by five passages, which it was necessary to guard and hold against the enemy. These passes were the Chêne-Populeux, the Croix-au-Bois, the Grand-Pré, the Chalade and the Islettes. A camp placed at the Islettes and a position taken up at the Chalade would close the two principal roads to Clermont and to Varennes, and General Dillon was despatched for the purpose. Dumouriez established himself at Grand-Pré, to close the roads to Rheims and to the Croix-au-Bois. He sent orders to General Duval, then at Pont-sur-Sambre, to break up his camp at once and advance by forced marches to the pass of the Chêne-Populeux.