Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/620

606 by the mob in the general carnage which then took place.

Louis was deeply affected at this treatment of a minister whom he esteemed for his moderate and pacific sentiments. Duport-Dutertre and Cahier de Gerville, the other ministers, resigned, in terror of a like fate, and the king was left at the mercy of the Gironde.

General Dumouriez, whom we have seen assisting Gensonné in the commission to La Vendée, obtained the post of minister for foreign affairs. Charles François Dumouriez was born at Cambray in 1739, and, consequently, was now in his fifty-third year. He had led a life of adventure; he had fought bravely in the German wars; he had played a questionable part in the events which made over Corsica to France; he had been sent by Louis XV. into Poland to support the Poles—though not as the avowed agent of France, but, as it were, an adventurer on his own account against their enemies, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. He found the Poles debased by misery, slavery, and the custom of bearing a foreign yoke. He found the Polish aristocracy corrupted by luxury, enervated by pleasures. He fought bravely but vainly against Russia. He saw the Polish leaders ruined by discord he saw the Russians prevail, and he quitted the country, despairing for ever of an aristocracy without a people of a kingdom which he called "The Asiatic nation." At the outbreak of the French revolution he joined the revolutionists, having himself been a prisoner in the Bastille, and he contrived to conciliate all parties, foreseeing that in such a state of things war must come, and generals would be wanted. He had courage for anything; he was extremely fascinating in his manners; and, with a certain looseness of principle—for everything must, in him, give way to his thirst for fame and leadership—he was inclined to the good and the generous. In his intercourse with Gensonné in La Vendée, he had made a deep impression on that eloquent member of the Gironde, who introduced him to all the leaders of the party—the Rolands, Condorcet, Brissot, Vergniaud, and the rest. They were seeking able instruments, but not masters, for they were determined to rule themselves. They were enchanted with Dumouriez, who seemed calculated to serve their views admirably as a general; they had no dread of him as a dictator. Yet