About seven o’clock on that battle morn as the mists were dissipating, the successfully united French forces saw with dismay the slowly advancing army of the allies; long lines of Prussian cavalry, Austrian light troops, solid columns of infantry, batteries of artillery filled the valley and moved slowly, sinuously toward the Valmy height. Dumouriez anxiously scanned the white strained faces of his untried troops. Would they fail him in the crucial hour? Would they break away in panic rout when the death-play began? It was their custom. “He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day.” At Tournay, at Lille, and in general throughout the opening campaign this uncertain “heap of shriekers” had fled away as satyrs pursued by Pan when the death-play began. Would the Carmagnoles of today, and, at deepest heart, the _Jacquerie_ of many a yesterday, dare to fight face to face and hand to hand against the august _seigneurs_ of the old regime--late their dread lords and masters? Three hundred years of culture lay between them. Of all who took part in the battle that day, either among the allies or the revolutionary forces, perhaps not one realized the full importance of what had taken place as did Johan Wolfgang von Goethe--then a young man and comparatively unknown; he had followed the allies as a spectator, a curious seeker of strange scenes, a bold hot-blood eager as his own Wilhelm Meister to taste adventure at its source and to know the ways of the world in love and in war. Goethe, with the unerring insight of genius, perceived that victory to the Carmagnoles marked a new era. In his own words to comrades in camp on the night following the battle; “From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world’s history, and you can all say you were present at its birth.” FRANCE A REPUBLIC. Simultaneously with victory at Valmy, France broke from the cocoon of monarchical forms and proclaimed herself a Republic. Even while the battle was raging, the National Convention in Paris were engaged in this deliberation, this liberation. The Republic of France dates from September 20th, 1792. And under the regrettable excesses of the Revolution, the reactionary repression of the First Empire, of the Bourbon restoration, the revolt of 1830, of 1848, even to Sedan and the hour--the spirit of democracy, of liberty and independence born Sept. 20th, 1792, has flourished and flourishes indestructibly, imperishably.