Part 23 (1/2)

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 Liege.

'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 a.s.sured 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 hara.s.sed 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 Quievrain 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+p 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.

”I have learned much,” he said to Calvert one evening when they were alone in the General's quarters, ”and am beginning to have radically different opinions upon some subjects from those I entertained but a short while ago. Sometimes I ask myself if my call for the States-General did not open for France a Pandora's box of evils. What has become of all my efforts?” he said, pus.h.i.+ng away a map of the Austrian Netherlands which they had been studying together and beginning to pace the room agitatedly. ”Instead of the wise ministers prevailing at Paris, a horde of mad, insensate creatures are ruling the a.s.sembly, the city, the whole country! If only there were some man courageous enough to defy the Jacobins and their power--to meet them on their own ground and conquer them! What can I do at this distance, overwhelmed with military duties, restricted by my official position? I have been thinking of addressing a letter to the a.s.sembly,” he went on, suddenly turning to Calvert, ”a letter of warning against the Jacobin power, of reproach that they should be ruled by that ign.o.ble faction, or remonstrance against their unwarrantable proceedings, and as soon as I can find the time to write such a letter, I shall do so, and despatch it to Paris by my secretary, let the consequences be what they may.”

This design was not accomplished until the middle of June, for, at the beginning of the month, a number of skirmishes and night attacks took place between the Austrians, who had encamped near Maubeuge, and Lafayette's troops, and the General was too much occupied with the military situation to busy himself with affairs at Paris. These attacks culminated in a b.l.o.o.d.y and almost disastrous engagement for the patriot army on the 11th of June.

The Austrians, reinforced by the emigrant army which had been left at Brussels and in which Calvert knew d'Azay held a captain's commission, advanced during the early afternoon of June 11th and attacked the vanguard of Lafayette's army, encamped two miles from Maubeuge, farther up the Sambre, and commanded by Gouvion. Although the French occupied a formidable position, being securely intrenched on rising ground fortified by a dozen redoubts and batteries arranged in tiers, the enemy advanced with such fierceness and intrepidity that Gouvion had all he could do to keep his gunners from deserting their posts. The infantry, too, behaved ill, and when ordered to advance, wavered and were driven back at the very first charge from the Austrians. Their cavalry pursued the advantage thus gained and pressed forward, advancing in three lines and driving the disordered French troops before them up the hill. At this juncture, Lafayette, with six thousand men and two thousand horse, arrived, having been sent for in hot haste by Gouvion when the action first began, and, attacking the Austrian and emigres from the flank, after a sharp and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle, succeeded by nightfall in putting them to flight. Although the forces engaged in this action were small, the slaughter was terrible and the little battle-field by the Sambre presented a ghastly sight in the moonlight of that June night. Gouvion himself was killed leading the last attack, and the Austrian and emigrant forces suffered severely. The regiment which Calvert commanded was in the thick of the engagement the whole time, once it arrived on the scene of action, and no officer of either side more exposed or distinguished himself than did the young American. Indeed, it was not from reckless bravery that he offered himself a target for the bullets of the enemy, but from a feeling that he would not be sorry to end there, to close forever the book of his life. And, as usual with those who seek, rather than avoid, death in battle, from this action, which was the only one he was destined to engage in, he came out unscathed, while many another poor fellow who longed to live, lay quiet and cold on the b.l.o.o.d.y ground.

So close was the fighting during the late afternoon that Calvert once thought he caught a glimpse of d'Azay and, with a strange presentiment of evil, he determined to look for him among the slain. Accompanied by an orderly bearing a lantern--though the moonlight was so bright that one could easily recognize the pallid, upturned faces--he began his search an hour after the firing had ceased, with many others engaged in the same ghastly work of finding dead comrades. He had looked but a short while, or so it seemed to him, when he came upon d'Azay lying p.r.o.ne upon a little hillock of Austrian slain. As Calvert looked down upon him, grief for this dead friend and an awful sense of the futility of the sacrifice which had been made for him, came upon him. He knelt beside him for a few minutes and looked into the quiet, dead face. He had never before thought that d'Azay resembled Adrienne, but now the resemblance of brother and sister was quite marked, and 'twas with the sharpest pang Calvert had ever known that he looked upon those pallid features. It might have been that other and dearer face, he thought to himself. At length he arose and, helping the orderly place the body upon a stretcher, they bore it back to the camp, where, next day, it was buried with what military honors Calvert could get accorded it. He sent a lock of d'Azay's hair, his seals and rings, back to Paris to Adrienne (he kept for his own her miniature, which he found in d'Azay's pocket and which he had first seen that night at Monticello), and the letter she wrote him thanking him for all he had done were the first written words of hers he had ever had. Though there was not a word of love in the note--not even of friends.h.i.+p--Calvert re-read it a score of times and treasured it, and at last put it with the miniature in the little chamois case that rested near his heart.

The check which Lafayette had put upon the Austrians on the 11th of June having produced a cessation of hostilities, he wrote and despatched to the a.s.sembly the letter which he had had in contemplation for some time and of which he had spoken to Calvert. This courageous letter--the authenticity of which was fiercely denied in the a.s.sembly--not only did not produce the effect Lafayette so hoped for, but was followed by the outrage of the 20th of June. Who does not know the shameful events of that day?--the invasion of the Tuileries by hordes of ruffians and the insults to helpless royalty?

When Lafayette heard of the uprising of the 20th he determined to go in person to Paris, affirm the authors.h.i.+p of his letter, and urge upon the a.s.sembly the destruction of the Jacobin party. He sent Calvert to Luckner's head-quarters to ask of the Marechal permission to go to Paris and, placing his troops in safety under the guns of Maubeuge, he departed for the capital, whither he arrived on the 28th. After two days spent in incessant and fruitless efforts with the a.s.sembly and National Guard, in audiences with the King and consultations with friends, he sped back to the army, more thoroughly and bitterly convinced than ever that the revolution which he had led and believed in was now fast approaching anarchy; that the throne was lost and his own brilliant popularity vanished. He took with him to Calvert the news of the sudden death of the old d.u.c.h.esse d'Azay--she had failed rapidly since hearing of the death of d'Azay, and had pa.s.sed away painlessly on the morning of Lafayette's arrival in Paris--the escape of St. Aulaire to Canada, and a letter from Mr. Morris.

”He desired me to give you this,” said Lafayette, gravely, handing the letter to Calvert. ”The message is of the greatest importance. We had a long interview. I am at last come to the same opinion on certain subjects as himself,” he said, with a gloomy smile, ”and we want your co-operation. He will explain all when he sees you. As for myself, I must say no more,” and he went away, leaving the young man to read his letter alone.

CHAPTER XXI

MR. CALVERT QUITS THE ARMY AND ENGAGES IN A HAZARDOUS ENTERPRISE

The letter which Calvert had received from Mr. Morris was short but very urgent. It begged him to resign his commission at once, which affair, the letter hinted, would be immediately arranged by Lafayette, and come to Paris, as Mr. Morris had business of the first importance on hand in which he wished Calvert's a.s.sistance. It went on to add that the exact nature of that business had best not be divulged until the young man should find himself at the American Legation, and ended by urging Mr.

Calvert not to delay his departure from Maubeuge by a day, if possible.

Conformably with these requests Calvert set out for Paris on the very next day, after the briefest of preparations, and, arriving in the city on the evening of the 7th, made his way straight to the rue de la Planche, where he found Mr. Morris anxiously awaiting him. With a brief greeting, and scarcely allowing the young man time to divest himself of his travelling things, he drew him into his private study, and there, with locked doors, began eagerly to speak about the business upon which he had called Calvert so hastily to Paris.

”I knew I could trust you,” said Mr. Morris to Calvert. ”Lafayette has given you my letter and you have lost no time in coming to me, as I felt a.s.sured you would do, my boy. 'Tis the most satisfactory sensation in the world to feel an absolute trust in one as I do in you,” he went on, with a kindly look at the young man. ”Living in the midst of this people who think less than nothing of breaking every agreement, violating every oath, that feeling of confidence becomes doubly precious. But to the business in hand.” He hesitated slightly and then went on, ”You must know that in the month of November last (and before my appointment by Congress to this post of American Minister to France), inspired by the unhappy consequences to the Royal Family of the flight to Varennes, I, together with several of the stanchest friends of the hara.s.sed monarch, engaged in an enterprise to a.s.sist the King and Queen to escape, from France. This plan, in which Favernay, Monciel, Beaufort, Bremond, and some others whom you know, were leagued together, never ripened, because, by the appointment of Narbonne and the preparations for war which immediately commenced, we hoped that Louis might regain his lost power. It was at this juncture and while I thought that this enterprise was at an end and that there would be no further occasion for me to intermeddle in the politics of this unhappy country, that I received and accepted my appointment as Minister to this court. Most unfortunately, the great opportunity which the King had to retrieve his fortunes he flung away by his subsequent vacillation and his secret negotiations with the allies; and this, together with the reverses of the French array, the growing violence of the opposing political factions here, and the terrible events of the 20th of June, have again made it necessary for the friends of the King, if they wish to save him, to exert themselves in his behalf. When this was made plain, those gentlemen with whom I had formerly been a.s.sociated in the effort to serve His Majesty again applied to me for a.s.sistance, so that I found myself in the cruel position of either betraying my official trust or of abandoning the monarch whom I sincerely pitied and whom I had pledged myself to aid.

The last and most moving appeal made to me was that of Monsieur Lafayette. I met him at the Tuileries when he went to pay his respects to their Majesties before rejoining his army. I know not what had pa.s.sed between the King and himself at the levee, for I arrived just as he was going, but I saw by his countenance that he had the gloomiest forebodings. He drew me into a small anteroom and spoke to me with his old familiarity and affection. Indeed, he is greatly changed, and I could not help but be touched by the consternation and grief that weighed upon him. He opened himself to me very freely and confessed that 'twas his opinion that the King was lost if brave and wise friends did not immediately offer their services in his behalf. He knew of the scheme in which I had been before engaged to a.s.sist the King, and he besought me to renew those engagements and to prosecute them with the utmost diligence. The King, he said, had let fall some expressions indicating his confidence in myself, 'a confidence,' said Lafayette, 'which he did not hesitate to show he did not feel in me. The Queen is even more distrustful of me than the King, so that I think their safety lies in your hands. But, believe me, though they do not trust me, they have no more devoted servant. I am come, at length, to your belief that in the King alone is to be found the cure for the ills of the present time, and not the most ardent royalist is now more anxious to preserve His Majesty than myself.' While Lafayette was speaking, a way out of my difficulties suddenly occurred to me. I thought of you, my boy, and, knowing that I could rely on you as on myself, I determined to appeal to you to act in my stead, to take upon yourself those dangers and risks which, in my position of minister from a neutral power to this country, I have now no right to a.s.sume. I know how great a thing I am asking, but I also know your generous nature, your steadfastness, your capability to carry through discreetly and swiftly any undertaking you engage in. As an American, you will have the confidence of the King and Queen, and will act as a surety for Lafayette, whom 'tis only too true their Majesties distrust profoundly. I reminded Lafayette of the unalterable obligation which prevented me from interesting myself personally in the political situation here and of the plan I had just formed of appealing to you. He approved of it entirely, saying that there was no one in whose hands he would more willingly leave matters. We made an appointment for that evening at Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld's, where he was staying, to discuss some plan of a.s.sistance to his Majesty. I consented to this interview, for it was impossible at that late hour to call together all those interested in the affair and, as Lafayette was leaving the next morning, something had to be done immediately. Our interview was a long one, but the plan we hit upon was, in the end, very simple and, indeed, the circ.u.mstances of the case, the short time, and the necessity for the greatest secrecy demand that the simplest methods should be employed. Shall I tell you that plan?” asked Mr. Morris, suddenly breaking off in the midst of his long talk and regarding Calvert with a keen, questioning glance.

”There is no lead I would follow sooner than yours, Mr. Morris,” replied the young man, quietly and firmly. ”As you know, all my sympathies are with the King and Queen, and in whatsoever way I can serve their Majesties I am ready here and now to pledge myself to that service.”