CHAPTER XIV.
THE BATTLE OF VALMY, A.D. 1792.
Purpurei metuunt tyranni
Injurioso ne pede proruas
Stantem columnam: neu populus frequens
Ad arma cessantes ad arma
Concitet, imperiumque frangat.
A little fire is quickly trodden out,
Which, being suffered, rivers can not quench.
A few miles distant from the little town of St. Menehould, in the northeast of France, are the village and hill of Valmy; and near the crest of that hill a simple monument points out the burial-place of the heart of a general of the French republic and a marshal of the French empire.
The elder Kellerman (father of the distinguished officer of that name, whose cavalry charge decided the battle of Marengo) held high commands in the French armies throughout the wars of the Convention, the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire. He survived those wars, and the empire itself, dying in extreme old age in 1820. The last wish of the veteran on his death-bed was that his heart should be deposited in the battle-field of Valmy, there to repose among the remains of his old companions in arms, who had fallen at his side on that spot twenty-eight years before, on the memorable day when they won the primal victory of Revolutionary France, and prevented the armies of Brunswick and the emigrant bands of Condé from marching on defenseless Paris, and destroying the immature democracy in its cradle.
The Duke of Valmy (for Kellerman, when made one of Napoleon’s military peers in 1802, took his title from this same battle-field) had participated, during his long and active career, in the gaining of many a victory far more immediately dazzling than
