While the military genius of Dumouriez triumphed over the Prussian army, his political genius was not asleep; for his camp, during the last days of the campaign, was at once the head-quarters of an army and the centre of diplomatic negotiations. Dumouriez had created a connection, half apparent, half secret, with the Duke of Brunswick and those officers and ministers who had most influence over the King of Prussia. Danton, the only minister who possessed any authority over Dumouriez, was in the secret of these negotiations. The Duke of Brunswick was no less desirous than Dumouriez to negotiate, while fighting at the head-quarters of the King of Prussia were two parties, one of whom wished to retain the King with the army, and the other to remove him from it. The Count de Schulemberg, the King's confidential agent, was the leader of the first, the Duke of Brunswick of the second; Haugwitz, Lucchesini, Lombard, the King's secretary, Kalkreuth, and the Prince de Hohenlohe were of the party of the latter. The King resisted with the firmness of a man who has engaged his honor in a great cause in the eyes of the world, and who wished to come off with credit, or at least without loss of reputation. He remained with the army, and sent the Count de Schulemberg to direct the operations in Poland. From this day the Prince was exposed in his camp to an influence whose interest it was to slacken his march and enervate his resolutions; and from this day everything tended to a retreat. The Duke of Brunswick only sought a pretext for opening negotiations with the French at head-quarters. So long as he was behind the Argonne, within ten leagues of Grandpré, this pretext did not offer itself, for the King of Prussia would look on these advances as a proof of treason or cowardice. The combat of Valmy, in the idea of the Duke of Brunswick, was but a negotiation carried on by the mouth of the cannon. Dumouriez held the fate of the French Revolution in his hands, and he could not believe that this general would become the mere tool of anarchical democracy. "He will cast the weight of his sword," said he, "to weigh down the scale in favor of a constitutional monarchy; he will turn upon the jailers of the King and the murderers of September. Guardian of the frontiers, he has only to threaten to open them to the coalition, to insure obedience from the National Assembly. An arrangement between monarchical France and Prussia, under the auspices of Dumouriez, is a thousand times preferable to a war in which Prussia stakes her army against the despair of a nation." FOOTNOTES: [36] The royalists who left Paris or France in 1789 and after, on account of the Revolution.--ED. [37] The National Convention, which succeeded the Legislative Assembly, actually opened September 21st.--ED. [38] This was Louis Philippe, afterward known as "the Citizen-King." He was the son of Philippe Égalité, Duc d'Orléans, and was at this time about twenty years old.--ED.