ostentatiously taken possession of by the allies, not under the name of the King of France, or the Comte d'Artois, but in that of the Emperor; which appeared to give colour to the invidious report, that the allies were to be indemnified for the cost of their assistance, at the expense of the French line of frontier towns. Neither did the duke use his fine army of Prussians, or direct the motions of the Austrians under Clairfait, to any greater advantage. He had, indeed, the troops of the Great Frederick; but under the command of an irresolute and incapable leader, it was the sword of Scanderbeg in the hands of a boy. This tardiness of the Duke of Brunswick's movements intimated a latent doubt of his own capacity to conduct the campaign. The superiority of his veteran and finely disciplined forces over the disorganized army of Dumouriez, reinforced as it was by crowds of Federates, who were perfect strangers to war, would have been best displayed by bold and rapid movements, evincing at once activity and combination, and alarming raw troops by a sense of danger, not in front alone, but on every point. Each day which these new soldiers spent unfought, was one step towards military discipline, and what is more, towards military confidence. The general who had threatened so hard, seemed to suspend his blow in indecision; and he remained trifling on the frontiers, "when Frederick, had he been in our front," said the French general, "would long since have driven us back upon Chalons."[295] The result of so many false steps began soon to appear. Brunswick, whose army was deficient in battering guns, though entering France on a frontier of fortifications, was arrested by the obstinate defence of Thionville. Having at length decided to advance, he spent nine days in marching thirty leagues, but omitted to possess himself of the defiles of Argonnes, by which alone the army of Luckner could co-operate with that of Dumouriez. The allied general now found himself in the most elevated part of the province of Champagne, branded for its poverty and sterility with the unseemly name "La Champagne Pouilleuse," where he found difficulty to subsist his army. Meantime, if corn and forage were scarce, grapes and melons were, unfortunately, plenty. These last fruits are so proverbially unwholesome, that the magistrates of Liege, and some other towns, forbid the peasants to bring them to market under pain of confiscation. It was the first time such delicacies had been presented to the hyperborean appetites of the Prussians; and they could not resist the temptation, though the same penalty was annexed to the banquet, as to that which produced the first transgression. They ate and died. A fatal dysentery broke out in the camp, which swept the soldiers away by hundreds in a day, sunk the spirits of the survivors, and seems to have totally broken the courage of their commander.[296]