Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/551

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tinned at the college of Louis-le-Grande for three years. In 1757, his father having been attached to the army under D Estrees about to invade Hanover, he accompanied him to Mauberge, and served with distinction during the Seven Years War. In 1763 he attained the rank of captain; but, in consequence of a reform reducing the numbers of the army, he retired with a small pension and the cross of St Louis. He afterwards received a subordinate situation

in the secret service.

On his return from a pedestrian tour in Italy, he addressed a memorial to the Due de Choiseul, urging him to embrace the cause of the Corsicans against the Genoese ; and a public audience which he had with the minister on the subject led to a violent altercation, the result of which was a lettre de cachet which forced Dumouriez to leave France. But the expedition which he had advised being afterwards resolved on, Choiseul made him an honourable public reparation, and appointed him quartermaster-general of the troops. The political conjunctures of the times offered an unlimited scope for his fertility in diplomatic expedient, and he mingled in all the intrigues of the age. In 1770 he was sent on a secret mission to Poland with the view of neutralizing the efforts of Catherine II., and suc ceeded in seeming fifty senators for the cause of independ ence, effected a unity of action among the confederates, and disciplined a militia ; but, when there was some appearance of the resurrection of Poland being effected, Choiseul lost his place, owing to the machinations of the Due d Aiguillon and Madame Du Barry, and Dumouriez was recalled to Paris. He was soon, however, sent back on a similar mission by D Aiguillon. He endeavoured to assist the revolutionists in Sweden, and to raise troops in the Hanse towns to menace Stockholm, but this was contrary to the views of the French cabinet ; and the Due d Aiguillon, hav ing discovered his project, had him arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille for six months. He was afterwards sent to the castle of Caen, from which he was not released until the accession of Louis XVI.

Dumouriez had naturally little inclination to resume the connection with foreign politics which had proved so dangerous, and he accordingly devoted his attention to the internal economy of his own country. He wrote a memoir on the great importance that might be given to the harbour of Cherbourg, one result of which was that he was appointed governor of the place in 1778.

In 1788 Dumouriez was promoted to the rank of major- general. When the revolutionary movement began he pronounced in favour of political reform without breaking with the court. The connections which he held with the leading men of the Girondist party greatly advanced his political career. At the opening of the second legislative assembly he was appointed, minister for foreign affaire in place of Delessart, but he held the position for only three months. During his short tenure of office he exerted him self to the utmost in reforming abuses, and in introducing the greatest economy into every department.

He held for one month the office of minister of war after the dismissal of his colleagues Roland, Servan, and Claviere. At length his own resignation followed, which increased his popularity. When the troops of the coalition advanced against France, he was appointed to the command of the army of the north as lieutenant-general under Marshal Luckner. He made a determined stand against the advance of the allies, which was decisively checked by the defeat inflicted on them at Valmy on the 20th September 1792. This was followed by a campaign in the Austrian Nether lands, in which Dumouriez was uniformly successful, until he was signally defeated by Coburg in the battle of Neerwinden in January 1793. The execution of Louis had estranged him from the republican party ; and, when in consequence of his defeat he was recalled by the Convention and threatened with a charge of treason, he sought refuge in the camp of the Austrians, accompanied by the Due de Chartres (afterwards Louis Philippe) and his brother.

Lost without hope of return to his native country, Dumouriez wandered a long time an exile in Brussels, England, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and St Peters burg. At last in 1804 he took up his permanent residence in England, where the Government conferred on him a pension of 1 200 a year. In 1814 and 1815 he endeavoured to procure from Louis XVIII. the baton of a marshal of France, but was refused. He died at Turville Park, near Henley-on-Thames, on the 14th March 1823. His memoirs, written by himself, were published at Hamburg in 1794. An enlarged edition, undsr the title La Vie et les Memoircs da General Dumouriez, appeared at Paris in 1822. Dumouriez was also the author of a large number of political pamphlets.

DUNABURG, a town of European Russia, at the head of a district in the government of Vitebsk, for the most part on the right bank of the Dwina, 12 miles south-east of Riga, in 55 53 N. lat. and 31 29 9" E. long. It consists of four portions the main-town or fortress, the old suburb, the new suburb, and on the left bank of the river the village of Grive. The fortress is of the first class, and forms the most important point in the line of defences of the Dwina ; the floating bridge across the river is protected by a splendid tete-de-pont. Among the public buildings are five churches, a Roman Catholic chapel, a Jewish synagogue, a gymnasium, and a theatre ; and among the industrial establishments several tanneries and breweries, a saw-mill, a flour-mill, brick and tile works, and limekilns. Its position on the railway between Warsaw and St Petersburg, and its double means of communication with Riga, render the town an important commercial centre, especially for the trade in flax, hemp, tallow, and timber. There are weekly markets and two large annual fairs. Of the" 25, 674 in habitants registered in 1861, 7561 were Jews, 3994 Roman Catholics, and 690 Protestants. In 1873 the total popula tion was 29,613.


Diinaburg was originally founded in 1273 by the Livonian Knights of the Sword, about 12 miles further down the river than its present site, at a spot still known as the Old Castle or Starui Zamok. In 1559, along with other portions of the territory belong ing to the order, it was moitgaged by the grand-master Gothard Kettler to Sigismund Augustus king of Poland for the sum of 700,000 guldens ; and two years afterwards it became the centre of the new Polish province of Infland. Captured in 1576 by Ivan the Terrible, it was again restored to Poland ; and in 1582 Stephen Bathori transferred the fortress to its present site. In the 17th century it was held now by the Swedes and now by the Russians ; and in 1656 it ran the risk of losing its old name for that of Borissoglebsk, bestowed by the emperor Alexis Michaelovitch. Finally incorporated with Russia in 1772, it received its present administrative rank in 1777, and its recognition as a first-class fortress in 1811. In July 1812 the tete-de-pont was vainly stormed by Oudinot, but a few weeks afterwards the town was captured by Macdonald.

DUNBAR, a royal and parliamentary burgh and

seaport of Scotland, hi the county of Haddington, situated on an eminence near the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 29 J miles E.N.E. of Edinburgh by the North British railway. The ruins of the castle, the remains of the Grey Friars monastery founded in 1218, and a mansion house of the Lauderdale family, are the principal objects of historical interest. The parish church is a fine building of red sandstone, with a tower about 107 feet in height, which forms a well-known landmark to seamen ; it dates only from 1819, but occupies the site of what was probably the first collegiate church established in Scotland, and still preserves the large marble monument of Sir George Home, created earl of Dunbar and March by James VI. in 1605. The

town-hall, the assembly rooms, the public schools, the