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Exploring the Variety of Random
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lies in the departement of the Meurthe. But Clarke felt that these
two posts were alike insignificant and unworthy one of his talent and
enterprise; for the recent victories in Germany and Italy had greatly
simplified his duties as a negotiator, and the little that remained
Bonaparte directed in Paris. When the arrangements were
completed, to the infinite annoyance of Clarke, he sent his brother
Joseph to sign them.
Clarke had meanwhile been preparing for the departure of a body of
Russian officers who were prisoners of war at Lisle; and the kindness
with which he did so, caused the Emperor Paul I. to present him
with a magnificent sword, and other marks of his approbation.
Such is the weakness of the human heart, that these honours
inflated Clarke so much, that for a time he appeared to feel himself
equal to the First Consul, and indeed he was rash enough, and
unwise enough, to say so.
Coming early one evening to the opera, he entered the box usually
appropriated to Napoleon, and assumed that august person's place
in the front seat. When the First Consul came, Clarke had the bad
taste to sit still during the performance, and leave to his master the
second place!
These mistakes of temper, united to his punctilious spirit, in affairs of
state, and love of diplomatic work, caused the French government to
give him the office of minister of France at Florence, that he might
be away from Paris and near the young Duke of Parma, who wished
to be named King of all Italy; but this post, say the Memoirs of St.
Helena, proved exceedingly distasteful to him.
Clarke's talent—a most useful, if not brilliant one—consisted in an
amazing facility for keeping on the best possible terms with all the
parties among whom he was cast. The secret of his influence with
Bonaparte appears to have been, a sentiment of profound gratitude
in the latter for the high praise bestowed by Clarke in his "Secret
Report" to the Directory on the conduct of the young general in
Italy. This document afterwards fell into the hands of the First
Consul, who never forgot its contents.
Clarke, tired of his residence in Florence, wrote letter after letter,
demanding his recal to Paris, terming his embassy a species of exile;
and Bonaparte, believing that his punishment was sufficiently
severe, at last gave him leave to return; but desired him to travel by
the way of Lisle (a fortified city in the departement of the north), to
the camp at Boulogne. In Belgium he gave him the title of Councillor
of State, and created for him two places in the cabinet—one as
secretary for the marine, and the other for the war.
Arrived at the camp of Boulogne, one of the earliest matters
entrusted to the general was the proposed establishment of Irish
brigades, to co-operate in the projected invasion of Britain; and
these corps Clarke believed might be recruited among the Irishmen
who were prisoners of war in France. While this project was on the
tapis, he had many interviews with the famous Theobald Wolfe
Tone, who had been appointed by the Directory chef-de-brigade,
and afterwards adjutant-general; and with Lazarus Hoche, a frank,
resolute, and zealous republican, who, from being a stable-boy and
private of the French guards, raised himself to one of the highest
positions in the army of France. In 1792, he was a corporal; in 1793,
he was a general, commanding the army of the Moselle; and in the
two subsequent years he subdued La Vendée.
Tone was introduced to Hoche by Clarke, and in his Memoirs he
details the questions they asked him concerning the state of Ireland;
where a landing might be effected; where provisions might be relied
on, particularly bread; whether French auxiliaries might count on
being able to form an Irish Provisional Government, either of the
Catholic Committee, or of the chiefs of the Irish patriots? On these
subjects Tone had many a long and anxious conference with his
countryman Clarke, and with Hoche.
After a long interview with Hoche, in the cabinet of Fleury one day,
Wolfe Tone was asked, what form of government the Irish would
adopt, in the event of their successfully encountering the British
troops?
"I was going to answer him with great earnestness," says Tone, in
his interesting Memoirs, "when General Clarke entered, to request
that we would come to dinner with Citizen Carnot. We accordingly
adjourned the conversation to the apartment of the President, where
we found Carnot, and one or two more. Hoche, after some time,
took me aside, and repeated his question. I replied, 'Most decidedly
a republic.' He asked again, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'As sure as I can
be of anything. I know nobody in Ireland who thinks of any other
system——.' Carnot joined us here, with a pocket-map of Ireland,
and the conversation between Clarke, Hoche, and him became
pretty general, every one else having left the room. I said scarcely
anything, as I wished to listen. Hoche related to Carnot the
substance of what passed between him and me. When he
mentioned his anxiety as to bread, Carnot laughed and said, 'There
is plenty of beef in Ireland—if you cannot get bread, you must eat
beef.' I told him I hoped they would find both; adding, that within
twenty years Ireland had become a great corn country, so that at
present it made a considerable article in her exports."—Vol. ii. pp.
14-18.
The patience of Wolfe Tone was sorely tried by many and
unnecessary delays; and, after all, the hopes of the Irish exiles
ended only in mustering a regiment of their countrymen, which,
instead of embarking for Ireland, marched to the invasion of Spain,
under the unfortunate Colonel Lewis Lacy, the son of a race of
hereditary Irish soldiers, as related elsewhere.
In the year following his double appointment as minister for the war
and marine, Clarke made the German campaign on the staff of
Bonaparte, and was present at the capture of the free city of Ulm, in
the Swabian circle, on the 17th October, 1805, and at other
operations, which drove the army of the Archduke Ferdinand across
the Danube; and, on the capture of Vienna by the corps of the brave
Murat and Lannes, he was named governor of the city and also of
Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia, Styria, Friuli, Trieste, &c. His
moderation and justice in this high command elevated him among
the victors, and won him the love and esteem of the vanquished. He
also received the cordon of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour,
and soon after was ordered to define the line of demarcation
between Brisgau, in the kingdom of Wirtemberg, and the Grand
Duchy of Baden.
Two months were spent by him in conferences and diplomacy. From
the 9th to the 20th of July, 1806, he was engaged with the Russian
plenipotentiary, and their interviews were terminated by the
wonderful treaty which opened and ceded to France, Cattaro, a
Venetian territory in Dalmatia, with its capital, harbour, and citadel;
and which maintained Gustavus IV. in possession of the ancient
Duchy of Pomerania, and left to be achieved, at an early period, the
junction of Sicily to the kingdom of Murat—the whole being arranged
by them, without condescending to ask the advice of Great Britain,
which was then the faithful ally of Prussia. This treaty was never
ratified by the Emperor Alexander. The other conferences took place
between Clarke and Lord Yarmouth, to whom Charles Fox added the
Scottish Earl of Lauderdale; while, to assist Clarke, the French
government added Jean Baptiste Champagny, the Duc de Cadore,
who was only a spectator of the negotiations, which were without
result, and are of no consequence to the reader; but Clarke, who
had displayed his usual acuteness, tact, and skill in all his meetings
with the Lords Yarmouth and Lauderdale, was not a little proud of
having prevailed upon M. D'Oubril to sign certain clauses he
submitted to him.
Russia, however, was in no haste to evacuate Cattaro, and the
Emperor Alexander began to augment his army; so from September,
1806, it became evident that if France declared war against Prussia,
she would have to encounter Russia also. In the first meeting
concerning these affairs Clarke said, "that the convention recently
concluded with Russia was for France equivalent to a victory; and
that henceforward his master, the Emperor Napoleon, had the right
of proposing articles more advantageous than those he had lately
made." He qualified the terms of the treaty which he wished them to
adopt, and in particular l'uti possedetis; of vague conversations on
the politics of Rome, he said that Bonaparte had never adopted this
uti possedetis for a basis, without which Moravia, Styria, and
Carniola would have remained still in his hands.
Similar language, encumbered by diplomatic technicalities, was
applied to the two envoys of Fox, but failed to succeed with them, as
they were resolved not to depart in a single instance from the basis
of the position taken before by the envoy of Prince Talleyrand. The
death of Charles Fox put an end to all the hopes of peace, although
Lauderdale and Champagny did not despair of procuring it until the
6th of October; but by this time Clarke had set out for Germany,
having accompanied Napoleon to the Prussian campaign. After the
two battles of the 14th October, he was named Governor of Erfurt, a
fortified city on the Gera, and capital of the Elector of Mentz. It was
then crowded with Prussian prisoners, and with sick and wounded
Frenchmen.
For having been more in the palaces than in the camps of
Bonaparte, and being, moreover, of foreign blood, Clarke was
reproached with being more of a diplomatist than a soldier by those
who were envious of the favour shown him by the Emperor. While at
Erfurt he caused the Saxon grenadiers of Hündt to take arms, and
supplied them with ammunition, colours, and several pieces of
cannon.
On the 27th Napoleon summoned him to Berlin, and appointed him
governor, saying:—
"I wish that in the same year you should have under your orders the
capitals of two monarchies we have conquered—Prussia and
Austria."
"Thus Clarke, the inevitable Clarke, was appointed Governor of
Berlin," says De Bourienne, "and under his administration the
wretched inhabitants, who could not flee, were overwhelmed by
every species of impost and oppression. As in the execution of every
measure there operated the most servile compliance with the orders
of Napoleon, so the name of Clarke is held in detestation throughout
Prussia."
The measures of Clarke, as Governor of Berlin, were doubtless
mortifying, ruinous, and often sanguinary; but then it must be
remembered that he was compelled to enforce the iron will, and
obey the stern orders, of his inflexible master; though it must be
acknowledged that it would have been more noble in him to have
softened them to the vanquished Prussians. The military
contributions were rigorously levied, and those were not the least of
the severities exercised upon the people of Berlin. Offences were
uselessly created, and then barbarously judged of by a military
commission.
The punishment of the unfortunate Burgomaster of Ciritz is forgotten
amid the many barbarous executions of which Prussia became the
theatre, and against which her people dared not protest. When the
king, Frederick William, found himself seated with Clarke at the table
of Louis XVIII. in 1815, he could not refrain from bitterly reproaching
Clarke with what he termed "the useless murder of the father of a
family."
"Sire," responded Clarke, "it was an unfortunate error."
"An error, monsieur?" reiterated the king, striking his hand upon the
table; "an error—it was a crime!"
Withal, it must be acknowledged that Clarke, in the high place he
occupied, fulfilled, in every way, the trust reposed in him by
Napoleon; and that during his command at Berlin, which occupied a
year, he gave ample proof of his inflexible probity; and we may
perhaps believe, that many of the accusations made against him
were the echoes of those complaints which are naturally raised by
the vanquished against the troops of the victor. Doubtless he would
have received greater praise had he striven to please others more,
and his master less. By the official collections of Schœll, we are
informed that Vendomme one day wished to appropriate to himself
the magnificent furniture in the palace of Potsdam, where he
resided; but that Clarke, by his determined intervention, forced him
to relinquish the idea.
Clarke was again named minister of war, vice Marshal Berthier, Duke
of Neufchatel and Prince of Wagram. He acquitted himself with great
credit during his administration, which was prolonged without
interruption for several years; but it was marked by two remarkable
episodes—the descent upon Walcheren in 1809, and the conspiracy
of Mallet in 1812. But we ought previously to have mentioned that in
1808 Clarke had been ennobled by the title of Count Hunebourg,
and in 1809 he was created Duc de Feltre, from a town in Venetian
Lombardy.
The descent of the British upon Walcheren took Clarke by surprise;
but seconded by Bernadotte and Fouche he collected, in less than
five weeks, an army of 100,000 men, near the mouths of the
Scheldt, to watch their operations; but the swamps of South
Beveland, and the Walcheren fever, proved more deadly to the
British troops than the bayonets of France.
When Napoleon was absent on his disastrous Russian campaign, the
unfortunate disturbance, or rather wild enterprise of the republican
General Mallet, with his compatriots Guidal and Lahoire, placed Paris
for some hours in the hands of an armed mob. The coolness and
presence of mind exhibited by Clarke during this momentous crisis is
above all common praise. Mallet forged an account of Bonaparte's
death; and on obtaining twelve hundred men from the 10th cohort
of the National Guard, made prisoners M. Pasquer and Savary, the
Duke of Rovigo, and assailing General Hullin, Commandant of Paris,
in his quarters, shot him through the head by a pistol-ball. Mallet led
his party to seize Clarke as minister of war; but the plot was soon
discovered, and Mallet was captured and disarmed. This finished his
proposed reassertion of the Republic, and fourteen of his followers
were put to death, while Clarke ordered the arrest of many others
upon very slight suspicions. He then dispatched to Bonaparte a
report, which displayed his own vigilance and acuteness in escaping
the snare into which General Hullin, Colonel Soulier, Savary, and
Pasquer had fallen so easily.
The excessive zeal of Clarke began to relax about the end of 1813,
although his language always continued the same; thus, when
Napoleon, acting under the pressure of his disasters in Russia,
proposed to make a peace, and yield up some of his conquests, the
Duc de Feltre, knowing how to touch one of the sensitive chords in
his breast, said, "that he would consider the Emperor dishonoured if
he consented to abandon the smallest village which had been united
to the Empire by a senatorial decree!"
"What a fine thing it is to talk!" added old Bourienne.
Clarke's opinion, however, prevailed with Napoleon, and the war, so
fatal to him, continued; though without doubt, in his secret soul, he
had begun to see the exact and perilous position of the Emperor.
Before the startling events of March, 1814, when the allies advanced
upon Paris, and before the communications of Joseph had forced the
determination of the Assembly, the acute Clarke had advised, very
decidedly, the departure of Maria Louisa, who set out at once for
Blois. The ostentatious language with which he accompanied this
advice failed to deceive any one; but in spite of his efforts it was
singularly cold and discouraging.
He commenced his oration by a vivid picture of the conflicting state
of parties, and of the state of Paris and its environs; and his enemies
accused him not only of exaggerating the dangers which menaced
the capital, but of concealing its actual resources; but one fact is
evident, Clarke was clearly and honestly of opinion that Paris was
indefensible, and that to resist would be to destroy it! It is said that
Bonaparte had a contrary opinion, though it was not then publicly
avowed.
When once Maria Louisa had left Paris, Clarke, foreseeing its certain
capitulation, did not take the necessary measures either to defend it
or to check the progress of the allies. For three days he did not open
the arsenals to the Parisians, nor would he allow them to transport
the cannon from the Hôtel des Invalides, and the Ecole Militaire to
the heights about the city; finally he clubbed all the troops of the
line about Montmartre. "Posterity," says a recent writer, "will decide
if these measures were correct."
Then followed the battle of Paris; Marshal Marmont's return within
its walls; the nights of the 30th and 31st of March; the capitulation;
the entry of the allies, and the strange enthusiasm with which the
vacillating population received them. Napoleon was dethroned by a
decree of the Senate, and a Provisional Government was formed;
and changing, like many others, in that time of change, to this new
government, Clarke sent in his formal adhesion on the 8th of April,
about one week after Paris was taken.
On the 4th of the following June he was created, by Louis XVIII., a
peer of France.
When Marshal Soult retired from office, King Louis appointed Clarke
Minister of War—the same post he had held under the Emperor, who
was then maturing plans of new operations in the little isle of Elba.
It was tauntingly said of Clarke that it was his destiny and
misfortune to see the affairs of both Bonaparte and the Bourbons go
to wreck, while entrusted to his care.
The Memoirs of St. Helena assure us that Clarke, during the events
of the Hundred Days, wished to retake service under the Emperor
Napoleon! If so, how different was his conduct from the faith that
characterized Ney, Cambronne, and Macdonald! A rumour of this, in
1815, led to the immediate departure of Clarke for Ghent, where, at
the fugitive court of Louis XVIII., he exercised his functions as
Minister of War; and from thence, some time after, he travelled to
London, charged with a mission from the king to the Prince Regent,
afterwards George IV.
During the time the allied armies occupied Paris, Clarke had a
remarkable interview with the King of Prussia. On this occasion he
was accompanied by M. de Bourienne and Marshal Berthier. They
remained for some time in the saloon, before his Prussian Majesty
appeared from his closet, and when he did so, the embarrassment of
his manner, and the cloudy severity of his countenance, was
apparent to the three visitors.
"Marshal," said he to Berthier, "I should have preferred receiving you
as a peaceful visitor at Berlin; but war has its successes, as well as
its reverses. Your troops are brave and ably led; but you cannot
oppose numbers, and Europe is armed against the Emperor;
patience has its limits. You have passed no little time, marshal, in
making war on Germany, and I have great pleasure in saying to you
that I shall never forget your conduct, your justice, and moderation
in those seasons of misfortune."
Marshal Berthier, who deserved this eulogium, made a suitable reply;
after which the King of Prussia turned sternly to the Duc de Feltre,
saying,—
"As for you, General Clarke, I cannot say the same of your conduct
as of the marshal's. The inhabitants of Berlin will long remember
your government. You abused victory strangely, and carried to an
extreme measures of rigour and vexation. If I have an advice to give
you, it is—never show your face in Prussia."
"Clarke was so overwhelmed by this reception from a crowned
head," says M. de Bourienne, "that Berthier and myself, each taking
an arm, were absolutely obliged to support him down the grand
stair."
On returning to King Louis, at Ghent, he resumed his duties of
Minister for the War Department; and assuredly his task was both a
severe and a difficult one.
He had to arrange the disbanding of the Imperial and the re-
organization of a Royal army; he had to examine and decide upon
the various claims presented by hundreds of soldiers; he had to
satisfy the demands of two thousand officers who adhered to the
king, and to send them into the interior; he had to classify nine
thousand officers of the disbanded army; to arrange for the pay of
six thousand others who were re-formed—that is, continued on pay,
but without being regimented; he had to examine six thousand
claims for arrears of pay and pensions, claims that could admit of no
delay, and which amounted to forty-six millions of francs; he had to
organize the Royal Garde du Corp; to reconstitute the gendarmerie;
to provide for the maintenance of the allied armies of occupation;
and all this he had to do, amid obstacles, disorders, and complexities
without example.
Such was the mighty mass of labour submitted to the care of Clarke;
and of this herculean task he nobly and ably acquitted himself in less
than two years.
All impartial writers unite in exculpating him from the angry and
unjust accusation of peculating with the enormous sums which were
required and absorbed by the re-organization of the French army.
But he was severely handled by military men for instituting those
tribunals styled Les Cours Prévotales.
In June, 1815, Clarke was with Louis XVIII. at Arnouville, and while
there saved his friend, François Marquis de Lagrange, a lieutenant-
general who in 1813 commanded the 3rd Regiment of Gardes
d'Honneur, from great danger, if not from death. The marquis had
been accused of offering his services to Napoleon, and hastily
arrived at Arnouville with his son, on the 30th June. As he was about
to wait upon Louis he was assailed by several soldiers, in whose
hearts the love of Napoleon was strong. They called him a traitor,
and tore away his sword, cross, and epaulettes. On becoming aware
of these outrages, Clarke sent two influential officers to repress the
tumult, and himself led the marquis to Louis XVIII., who appointed
him captain of the Black Musketeers.
The zeal which Clarke now employed in the cause of the house of
Bourbon was ultimately the means of his downfall. Louis XVIII., who
each day conceded more and more to the enemies of his dynasty,
after bestowing upon Clarke the bâton of a Marshal of France,
displaced him from office, and appointed Gouvin St. Cyr in his room.
We know that after his dismissal all was changed in the department
of the Minister of War.
The position in which Clarke found himself during the last years of
his stirring, active, and useful life was very painful and humiliating,
especially to one of so proud a spirit as his. Some of the more
favoured personages who crowded the court of Louis XVIII., could
not behold with a favourable eye this foreigner, who had been the
War Minister of the great Napoleon, a confidant of his, and his co-
operator in a thousand schemes of conquest; on the other hand, his
old comrades of the Imperial army affected to see in Clarke a
deserter, a transferer of his allegiance, and, indeed, all but a traitor.
Those whose base extortions he had repressed in other times now
joined their clamours against him, and the Royalists cared not to say
a word in his defence.
Thus, at the end of his career, he was unjustly despised alike for his
talents and virtues, as for his mistakes and weaknesses—for the
good he had done as well as for evil. Clarke now found himself
isolated and abandoned, and the conviction of this, together with
the coldness with which he was treated, sank deeply into his proud
and sensitive heart.
It aggravated an illness which preyed upon him, and he died on the
28th of October, 1818, in his fifty-third year.
Such was the career of the Duc de Feltre, one of the most famous of
the Irish exiles.
Clarke was master of many languages. He wrote with ease, with
elegance, and with correctness; his style was often brilliant, and he
knew thoroughly all that appertained to the details of a war
administration. The state of complete disorganization in which he
found the French service after March, 1814, proves the admirable
tact and skill with which he could bring order out of disorder.
Many of the old Imperialists, his enemies, coarsely accused him of
treason and treachery, but Napoleon takes care partly to exculpate
him from charges so severe. On being asked at St. Helena if he
believed that Clarke had been true to him, the fallen Emperor said,
with a sigh—
"True to me—yes, when I was in my strength;" and after a time he
added—"I cannot boast of him being more constant to me than
Fortune."
This lessens the alleged crime of Clarke, while, at the same time, it
lessens his nobility of conduct; though it must be acknowledged that
he did not leave Napoleon until he could no longer be of service to
him. The Emperor was not easily deceived as to the fidelity of a
follower.
From Bourienne we know that, in 1796 and 1797, after all that
passed between Napoleon and Clarke, the former still trusted in the
latter, and never attempted to interrupt his despatches to the
Directory or to the Chevalier de la Croix; and nothing was ever found
in them displeasing to the Commander-in-chief.
Two great traits in the character of Clarke were, first, his hatred of
all peculation and political knavery; the other was his mania for
office, and the despatches and details connected therewith. So poor
was he during the earlier years of his career, that Napoleon had to
portion one of his daughters; and no instance of profusion or luxury
has been cited against him.
Inflated by his patent of nobility, he wished to make his genealogy
great and lofty, and one day he believed that he had discovered his
descent, by the female side, from the Plantagenets—an idea which
exceedingly amused Napoleon, who once said to him in a numerous
company, about the time of his projected invasion of Britain,—
"Clarke, you have not yet spoken of your claims to the English
throne—you ought now to make them good!"[16]

FOOTNOTES:
[16] Biographie Universelle, &c.
 General Kilmaine,
COMMANDANT OF LOMBARDY AND GENERAL OF THE ARMÉE
D'ANGLETERRE.
Charles Jennings Kilmaine, a gallant and celebrated general in the
French army, was born in Dublin in the year 1750, and was
descended from an ancient Irish family which had always been
strongly attached to the Roman Catholic religion, and opposed to the
interests of England. So deep was the animosity of his father to the
church and government as established in Ireland, that in 1765 he
took Charles to France, and there recommended him, when only in
his fifteenth year, to enlist as a private hussar in the Regiment de
Lauzun, a distinguished cavalry corps of the old French service,
raised originally in the departement of the Garonne. He accompanied
this corps to America, where he served in the War of Independence
under the celebrated Marquis de Lafayette, Grand Provost of the
kingdom of France, and was present in most of those battles in
which Washington and his generals so signally discomfited the
troops of Great Britain. Association with officers of the United States
army, added to those impressions made upon him during his youth
in Ireland and the teachings of his father, caused Kilmaine to imbibe
strongly the sentiments of a revolutionist.
He repeatedly distinguished himself in action; and his colonel, the
gallant Biron, after passing him through the more subordinate ranks,
appointed him sous-lieutenant of a troop.
On the conclusion of the war, the Irish hussar returned with his
regiment to France, full of those ideas of liberty and insurrection
which he had seen so signally triumphant in the New World; and
nearly all his brother officers had imbibed the same opinions. Thus it
was with ill-concealed joy that the young Kilmaine and his comrades,
the Hussars de Lauzun, in 1789, saw a Revolution which seemed
destined to achieve results like those they had witnessed in America,
break forth in old monarchical France.
In 1789 he was appointed captain of his troop, and continued to
serve with the hussars, who became so much attached to him, that
during the tumults of 1794 he contributed greatly, by his influence,
presence and example, to retain under their colours nearly the whole
of the regiment, which like the regiment of Royal Germans and the
Hussars de Saxe, seemed disposed to desert en masse. Thanks to
the patriotic zeal displayed by Kilmaine in the cause of his adopted
country, the officers of noble family who chose to become emigrants
were alone lost to the service; but this proved to him a new source
of advancement, and he was soon appointed a chef d'escadre, which
in the French army is equal to the rank of a general officer, being
commander of a division; and about this time he enjoyed the
friendship of his countryman, the Comte O'Kelly, who was
ambassador of France at Mayence, with an income of 30,000 livres
per annum.
As a chef d'escadre Kilmaine served throughout the first campaigns
of the Revolution, and under Dumourier and Lafayette commanded a
corps of that army which burst into the Netherlands and annexed
that territory to republican France.
He fought with remarkable bravery at the great battle of Gemappes,
on the 6th November, 1792, and with his hussars repeatedly charged
the Austrians, driving them sabre à la main along the road that leads
from Mons to Valenciennes; and so pleased was his general, the
unfortunate Dumourier, that in the moment of victory he named him
colonel; but this nomination was not confirmed by the minister of
war. However, he was soon after gratified by a brevet of maréchal de
camp, which made him, in rank, second only to a lieutenant-general.
He continued to serve with this army, and to be one of its most
active and able officers, during all the sufferings which succeeded
the victory at Gemappes. It consisted of forty-eight battalions of
infantry, and three thousand two hundred cavalry. In December, by
the neglect of the Revolutionary Government, these troops were
shirtless, shoeless, starving and in rags; fifteen hundred men
deserted; the cavalry of Kilmaine were soon destitute of boots,
saddles, carbines, pistols and even sabres; the military chest was
empty, and six thousand troop and baggage horses died at Lisle and
Tongres, for want of forage. "To such a state," says Dumourier, "was
the victorious army of Gemappes reduced after the conquest of
Belgia!"
Honourable testimony has been given to the unceasing efforts of
Kilmaine to preserve order among his soldiers amid these horrors;
and with other staff-officers, he frequently endeavoured by private
contribution to make out a day's subsistence for their men, who
roved about in bands, robbing the villages around their cantonments
at Aix-la-Chapelle, and in revenge many were murdered by the
peasants when found straggling alone beyond their out—posts.
After the defection and flight of General Dumourier, Kilmaine
adhered to the National Convention, and by that body was appointed
a general of division; and now he redoubled his energies to restore
order in the army, which by the defection of its leader was almost
disbanded; thus, in one month after General Dampierre took
command, so ably was he seconded by Kilmaine, the discipline was
completely established.
He commanded the advance-guard of Dampierre in the new
campaign against the allied powers, on the failure of the congress at
Antwerp on the 8th of April, 1793; and his leader bears the highest
testimony to the gallantry and noble conduct of Kilmaine, in the
"murderous affairs of the 1st and 2nd May;" in which, according to
the official report, he had two chargers shot under him.
Six days of incessant skirmishing succeeded, during which Kilmaine
never had his boots off, nor returned his sabre once to the scabbard;
and he displayed the most reckless valour on the 8th of May, in that
battle fought by Dampierre to deliver Condé.
The French were routed with great loss; Dampierre was slain; and
on Kilmaine as an active cavalry officer devolved the task of covering
the retreat of the infuriated and disorderly army, which fell back
from Condé-sur-l'Escaut, which is a barrier town, and was then the
nominal lordship of the unfortunate Duke d'Enghien.
On General la Marche succeeding Dampierre, he sent Kilmaine with
his division to the great forest of Ardennes, which formed a part of
the theatre of war, on the invasion of France by the allies; but he
remained there only a short time, and rejoined the main army, which
he found in the most critical circumstances.
The fall of Dampierre and the arrestment of Custine acted fatally on
the army of the North, which was now reduced to about thirty
thousand rank and file, and these remained in a disorderly state,
without a proper chief, and without aim or object—its manœuvres
committed to chance or directed by ignorance; for, with the
exception of Kilmaine, its leaders were destitute of skill, experience,
and energy. Quitting the camp of Cæsar, they returned to their
fortified position at Famars, three miles distant from Valenciennes,
the approach to which it covered. Here they were attacked on the
23rd of May, driven back, and obliged to abandon the city to its own
garrison under General Ferrand; a success which enabled the allies
under the Duke of York to lay immediate siege to Condé and to
Valenciennes, the two most important barrier towns upon the
northern frontier. While the army of the North continued in full
retreat towards the Scheldt, the British commander-in-chief briskly
attacked Valenciennes, which General Ferrand first laid in ashes, and
then delivered up; his garrison, as the reward of their obstinate
defence, being permitted to march out by the gate of Cambray, on
the 28th of July, with all the honours of war. Condé had already
fallen on the 10th of the same month.
General Custine, who in the two preceding campaigns had rendered
such essential services to the faithless Convention, was meanwhile
brought to trial on the charge of corresponding with the enemy, and
fell a sacrifice to the malice of his accusers.
It was on the banks of the Scheldt that Kilmaine rejoined the army
early in August, with his division from Ardennes; and now his
position became almost desperate. In presence of the scaffold
erected by the ferocious mutineers for all the vanquished generals,
and in a camp where no suspected person dared to assume the
precarious office of leader, when pressed upon him, he accepted the
bâton provisionally, and in the meantime said to the representatives
who were sent from Paris to manage affairs and act as spies upon
the army, "that he wished another more skilful than himself should
take the great responsibility of leading the troops of the Republic."
His presence for a time appeased the tumults in the army. Though
upon the banks of the Scheldt, and having before him both the Duke
of York and the Prince of Coburg, Kilmaine, with only twenty-four
thousand ill-appointed troops, dared not attempt to attack them; for
if he fought and lost the day, he could thereafter assume no position
of sufficient strength to prevent the allies from penetrating to Paris
and crushing the power of the Convention. After so many levies and
enrolments, that body had no longer a battalion to spare, and had
around it only the frothy orators of armed clubs, and the refuse of
prisons; thus it dared not abandon the capital or retire beyond the
Loire, for now the men of Poitou, Bretagne, and La Vendée were in
arms under the white banner, and elsewhere the tides of war and
politics were setting in against them. At this crisis Mayence had
capitulated, after a three months' bombardment. Toulon was under
the cannon of the British; the Spaniards had invaded Roussillon; the
Austro-Sardinians menaced Provence, the ancient patrimony of the
House of Anjou; and on the Alps their troops hung over Dauphine
and Vienne; finally, after the revolution of the 31st of May, which
had assured the triumph of Robespierre, Lyons, Marseilles, and all
the departments of the south, with those of the west, were roused
against the pride, power, and oppression of the Convention.
If it was really true that the allied monarchs wished to re-establish
the fallen throne of Louis XVI.,—if, as they had so proudly
announced in their manifestos, it was to restore order to bleeding
and desolated France, and to repress the Republic and its horrors,—
they had displayed their standards in the Netherlands, never were
circumstances more favourable to them than after the retreat of
Kilmaine towards the Scheldt: but the secret measures of wily
diplomatists had more influence then, on events, than the arms of
the allied kings.
It appears that, in the second campaign, when the allies were
masters of Condé and Valenciennes, and saw that the road to Paris
was almost open to them, the Austrians wished to take their revenge
locally for the cruel deeds of which they had been spectators in the
Camp de la Lune; and were more intent upon gratifying this
sentiment than advancing into the heart of France.
The Prince of Coburg had shown himself from the first frank, loyal,
and gallant; he had promised to Dumourier to concur in his daring
project for re-establishing the monarchy, and for that purpose had
engaged to form an auxiliary force to aid him, while solemnly
renouncing all projects of aggrandizement for the crown of Austria.
But for these engagements he had not received from his cabinet
either instructions or authority. When Thugut was supreme director
of the Austrian affairs, it was to these rash promises of the prince his
consent was required; he disapproved of them so strongly, that they
were cancelled by the Emperor of Austria, and a congress met at
Antwerp, where, in concert with Britain, it was decided that in the
result of the war the allies ought to find indemnities for the past,
and guarantees for the future peace of Europe.
These were the expressions of the protocol which the members of
the congress comprehended without difficulty; but French
diplomatists loudly declared that a projected dismemberment of
France was clearly announced in its phraseology.
One thing is certain: not a reference was made therein to the House
of Bourbon, or to the throne of Louis—that throne of which
Dumourier, in concert with the Prince of Coburg, had so boldly
promised the restoration in his manifesto of the 5th April; and not a
measure was taken for the advantage or safety of the beautiful and
unhappy Marie Antoinette, then languishing in prison at Paris, and
over whose devoted head hung the blade of the guillotine, and
whom a simple menace from her nephew the Emperor, threatening
the advance of his armies, might perhaps have saved.
At all events, it seemed sufficiently evident to the jealous and
excitable French that the allies were no longer true to the interests
of the fallen Bourbons; and equally so that it was not to restore
them the Austrians at least made war. It was in his own name—not
that of Louis XVII., king of France and Navarre—their emperor took
possession of those fortified places and provinces which his armies
overran; and after he became master of Condé and Valenciennes, he
no longer cared to define or form a frontier for those districts of the
Netherlands which once he proposed to cede to the Prussians; but
which Thugut now wished to preserve to the descendants of
Rudolph of Hapsburg.
At the same time the Duke of York, who from his own cabinet had
received orders and instructions similar to those given to the Prince
of Coburg, in the name of George III., resolved to seize upon
Dunkerque, which the English had coveted of old; but he did not
wait for the departure of a British fleet prepared for this object. The
naval squadron was delayed, and in the meantime the duke
deliberated with the Austrian general under the ramparts of
Valenciennes, to learn if, before engaging in new sieges, they might
not give to the French army a final blow which would deprive
Kilmaine of all power of interrupting their combined operations.
This was a very simple question, yet they were fourteen days in
coming to a conclusion. Though Valenciennes, as already stated, had
capitulated on the 28th of July, it was not until the 8th of August
that the Austro-British army was in motion, and its advance guard
beheld the camp of Cæsar; this on the very day after Kilmaine had
wisely evacuated the fortifications and retreated southwards.
It is said that he fully anticipated the march of the combined armies;
and this was sufficiently probable, for we know that the committees
of the National Convention had mysterious means of procuring
secret intelligence, not only from the cabinets of the allies, but from
the staff officers of the German troops!
Kilmaine in retiring only obeyed the dictates of wisdom and
necessity, and quitted a position which he could not defend, as his
army was reduced by defeat and desertion, mutinous, or as the
French style it, demoralized.
If the allies had wished to follow and engage him upon the Scarpe
or the Somme, a last effort could easily have been made to disperse
his troops completely, and then seize upon Paris, where they might
have torn the Revolution from its very basis. But such was not the
intention of the allied generals. "Their aim on this occasion," says a
French writer, "was to profit by our disorders and revolutions to
make themselves masters of our places and provinces after assuring
themselves of indemnities and guarantees, and to leave the volcano
to consume itself, as a Prussian prince said, not long ago: it must be
admitted, that never had this policy shown itself more evidently in its
shameful nudity!" But the reader must bear in mind that these are
the opinions of a Frenchman and a sympathizer with the Convention.
Such was the state of matters when Kilmaine, having abandoned the
untenable camp of Cæsar, and fallen back beyond the Scarpe, a
navigable river of French Flanders (but still a narrower barrier than
the Scheldt) prepared again for retreat, and marched towards the
Somme, another river which falls into the British Channel between
Crotoy and Sainte Valori. This was his last position—his last asylum;
and now the chiefs of the allies, instead of pushing on in pursuit of
his retiring bands to complete the triumphs so well begun, faced
about, and wheeled off to seize Dunkerque and Quesnay.
It was in autumn that the Royal Duke appeared before the former;
and there his troops received a check which proved but the
commencement of a long series of disasters; the latter was stormed
by the Austrians, and retaken by the French in the following year.
But what must astonish us, even at this epoch of deception and
duplicity, political insanity and revenge, is the startling fact that the
brave Kilmaine, who had rendered such gallant services to that new
and most faithless Republic—he who by a judicious retreat (executed
against the advice of the meddling and presumptuous
representatives of the people, and in consequence thereof perilled
his life) had preserved to shattered France her most important army,
was precisely for that reason denounced to the Convention, arrested
by its orders, and flung into a loathsome prisons at Paris, where he
passed a year; being but too happy, in the obscurity of his dungeon,
that he had not perished on the scaffold like the gallant Custine, his
predecessor in the command; like his old colonel and protector
Biron, and like Houchard, who for the brief period of fifteen days had
been his successor, and who, after winning a signal and decided
victory over the Duke of York—a victory alike honourable to himself
and to the arms of France, expiated by a cruel death the grave fault
of having forgotten for a moment the powers of a bullying
representative of the people!
Kilmaine only recovered his liberty after the fall of Robespierre; but
he still remained for some time in Paris, without military
employment, though he eagerly and anxiously sought it. He found
himself there at the epoch of the insurrection of the 22nd May, 1795,
and with much zeal and valour he seconded General Pichegru in the
struggle made by that officer to defend the National Convention
against the excited mobs of the Parisian fauxbourgs. Amid a
thousand dangers Kilmaine continued to fight for the Convention
until the 13th Vendemaire of the year following, actively co-
operating with Bonaparte and the revolutionary party.
Being appointed to the command of a division in the army of Italy,
he marched with Napoleon across the Alps to the invasion of that
country, and shared in the glory of his first victories, and in that
brilliant campaign in which the French destroyed two armies, took
two hundred and eighty pieces of cannon, and forty-nine stand of
colours from the Austrians, who were commanded by the veteran
Wurmser, the bravest of all brave men.
At the head of his division Kilmaine fought with remarkable courage
at Castiglione delle Stiviere, a fortified town in Lombardy, where, in
the beginning of August, 1796, several severe engagements took
place between the French and Austrians, which resulted in the
discomfiture of the latter. Mantua was the next scene of Kilmaine's
achievements; and in July that ancient city, after fifty years of peace,
beheld the army of Napoleon before its walls, while all the country
on the right bank of the Po was laid under contribution.
The whole direction and charge of the siege of Mantua was
committed to Kilmaine by Bonaparte in September, when Wurmser,
after being successful against General Massena, was overthrown by
Augereau and our Irish soldier, and after a six days' contest shut
himself up in the city on the 12th, after which the siege was pressed
with great vigour. Twice after this did an Austrian army under Alvinzi
attempt its relief, and twice were they baffled by the besiegers; on
the last occasion an advancing corps of seven thousand men were
compelled to surrender to Bonaparte and Kilmaine within gunshot of
the walls, and the position of the aged Wurmser, his garrison, and
the Mantuans, became desperate in the extreme.
In an action before Mantua in October, Kilmaine had his horse killed
under him, and a rumour was spread through France and Britain
that he was killed. Wurmser made several furious sallies, and on one
occasion was severely routed by Bonaparte. In the Courier du Bas
Rhin, we are told that the French repulsed him with the loss of
eleven hundred men and five pieces of cannon, and that "their
dispositions were made by General Kilmaine, commander of the
siege of Mantua." Bonaparte, in his dispatch to the Directory, dated
the first day of October, writes thus:—
"On the 20th of September, the enemy advanced towards
Castellocio, with a body of horse 12,000 strong. Pursuant to the
orders they had received, our advanced posts fell back, but the
enemy did not push forward any further. On the 23rd September,
they proceeded to Governolo, along the right bank of the Mincio, but
were repulsed, after a very brisk cannonade, with the loss of eleven
hundred men and five pieces of cannon.
"Le Général Kilmaine, who commands the two divisions which press
the siege of Mantua, remained on the 29th ultimo in his former
position, and was still in hopes that the enemy would attempt a
sortie to carry forage into the place; but instead they took up a
position before the gate of Pradello, near the Carthusian convent
and the chapel of Cerese. The brave General Kilmaine made his
arrangements for an attack, and advanced in two columns against
these two points; but he had scarcely begun to march when the
enemy evacuated their camps, their rear having fired only a few
musket-shots at him. The advanced posts of General Vaubois have
come up with the Austrian division which defends the Tyrol, and
made one hundred and ten prisoners."
In November a series of sanguinary actions were fought between
the French and Austrians at Arcola, where the latter were completely
overthrown; and there fell Citizen Elliot, a Scotsman, who was one of
Bonaparte's principal aides-de-camp. During this time Kilmaine was
at Vicenza with three thousand men; all the French cavalry were
sent there to be under his orders; and though still commanding the
operations against Mantua, he shared in the disastrous battle fought
near Vicenza by the aged Alvinzi, who was advancing to raise the
siege. Despairing to reach Mantua, the latter fell back upon the
Vicenza road, and was routed after a bloody conflict of eight hours'
duration.
Early in December, Wurmser led a sortie, sword in hand, against
Kilmaine. The Imperialists sallied out of Mantua at seven in the
morning, and almost in the dark, under a furious cannonade, which
lasted all day; "but General Kilmaine," says Bonaparte, "made him
return, as usual, faster than he came out, and took from him two
hundred men, one howitzer, and two pieces of cannon. This is his
third unsuccessful attempt." So energetic were the measures, and so
able the precautions of Kilmaine, that Wurmser, seeing all hope of
succour at an end, surrendered, after a long, desperate, and
disastrous defence, at ten o'clock on the morning of the 3rd
February, 1797, giving up his soldiers as prisoners of war. The
following is a translation of Kilmaine's brief letter on this important
acquisition:—
 "Kilmaine, Général de Division and Commandant of Lombardy,
to the Minister of War. Milan, 17 Pluviose (Feb. 5), 1797.
"Citizen Minister—I avail myself of a courier which General
Bonaparte sends from Romagna (in order to announce to the
Directory the defeat of the Papal troops), to acquaint you with
the capture of Mantua, the news of which I received yesterday
evening by a courier from Mantua itself. I thought it necessary
to announce this circumstance, because General Bonaparte,
who is occupied in Romagna annihilating the troops of his
Holiness, may probably have been ignorant of this fact when his
courier departed. The garrison are our prisoners of war, and are
to be sent into Germany in order to be exchanged. I have not
yet received the articles of capitulation; but the commander-in-
chief will not fail to send them by the first courier.
"Kilmaine."

The capture of Mantua was celebrated in Paris by the firing of

cannon and the erection of arches in honour of Bonaparte and the
Irish Commandant of Lombardy, and a general joy was diffused
through every heart in the city on the fall of what they styled the
Gibraltar of Italy; while Bonaparte, loaded with the diamonds of the
vanquished Pope, and the spoils of our Lady of Loretto, pushed on to
seek fresh conquests and new laurels.
Kilmaine remained for some time in command at Mantua after its
capitulation.
During the siege and other events, a revolutionary spirit had
pervaded the Venetian States. Peschiera, a fortified town in the
province of Verona, and Brescia, a large city in the beautiful plain on
the Garza, had been both seized, garrisoned, and republicanized by
the French. The people rose in arms, fired by new and absurd ideas
of liberty and equality, and frightful scenes of bloodshed ensued
when the more loyal and sensible inhabitants resisted these new
patriots; but the latter, on being joined by fifteen hundred banditti
from Bergamo, pressed the Venetian troops, who were driven out
with great slaughter.
On hearing of these things, the politic Kilmaine wrote from Mantua
to the French general commanding in Brescia, desiring him "not to
interfere in behalf of these insurgents, lest by so doing he might
infringe that strict neutrality which the generals of the French
Republic were bound to observe."
In April, however, he was compelled, by the violent proceedings of
the Italians against the French garrison in Verona, to unite his forces
to those of Generals Victor and La Hotze, and march to the succour
of General Ballaud, who was there assailed by forty-five thousand
men, whose war-cry was Viva San Marco! who had cut to pieces six
hundred Frenchmen, taken two thousand more after a four hours'
contest, and driven the rest into the castle. From its ramparts
Ballaud threatened to lay in ruins the unfortunate city, which had
enjoyed profound peace for ages, until Bonaparte arrived on the
banks of the Adige, and added it to the new kingdom of Italy.
On the 24th the insurgent Veronese capitulated, for on the approach
of Kilmaine the governor, the two proveditori, and the Venetian
general Stratico, fled with all their cavalry; on which he took as
hostages the bishop, four of the principal nobles of the city, and
several cavaliers of distinction, and peace was thus restored for a
time. He disarmed all the insurgents, and seized three thousand
slaves, whom he marched under an escort to Milan. In every way
Kilmaine aided Napoleon most efficiently in these operations which
preceded the capture and subjugation of Venice; and thus gave his
great leader a thousand causes to admire and appreciate him during
those campaigns which were so disastrous to Italy, but so glorious to
the arms of France. During his command in Lombardy he settled or
compromised the contested question of the free navigation of the
Lake of Lugano, in the south of Switzerland, which had occasioned
many angry disputes between the jealous Switzers and the
aggressive generals of the French army in Italy. By his intervention it
was satisfactorily arranged that France should have the open
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