418 Chapter XVII
while it was Brissot, the most voluble of the French world- revolutionaries, who
thought Dumouriez went too far. The Dutch exiles in Paris complained of op-
position to them at the Jacobin Club. Late in July, the French Assembly at last
authorized a Dutch Legion, at first calling it the Free Foreign Legion to prevent
trouble with the Dutch government. The Dutch exiles called it the Batavian Le-
gion, after the Latin name for Holland. Not until October were its officers really
named. It was then organized on a basis of 2,822 men, 500 horse, and two com-
panies of artillery, under an administrative committee of the Dutch exiles. The
Batavian Legion fought with Dumouriez in Belgium, and was naturally impa-
tient to push on into the United Provinces.^25
The early weeks of the National Convention saw a remarkable upturn in the
military fortunes of the newborn Republic. The hopes of the Counter- Revolution,
so confidently expressed at Frankfurt on July 14, were completely crushed for the
time being; indeed the French general Custine occupied Frankfurt itself in Octo-
ber. Other columns entered Savoy, where many of the French- speaking population
favored annexation. The turning point came with the battle of Jemappes, near
Mons in Belgium, where the Austrians retreated before Dumouriez’ army of
40,000 ragged republicans. Poorly clothed, poorly supplied, spontaneous and un-
disciplined, a true revolutionary horde, spurning all military proprieties, they over-
whelmed the enemy by sheer numbers, while bellowing the Marseillaise. The
French spread throughout Belgium. The Belgian and Dutch revolutionaries were
delighted. Success breeds enthusiasm, and in England the sympathy for the French
Revolution among the popular classes, undeterred by the dethronement of Louis
XVI or the September Massacres, reached a new height of excitement. English
political clubs sent congratulations to the French Convention. In the English mi-
litia companies, not only the soldiers but even some of the officers contributed
sums of money to buy muskets and shoes for the triumphant sans- culottes. There
was a banquet on November 18 of the English- speaking residents of Paris, pre-
sided over by Harfurd Stone, an English business man who owned an ammonia
plant in France, and attended by various English and Irish, including Lord Ed-
ward Fitzgerald and Arthur Dillon, the latter a general in the French army. They
drafted a statement to the French Convention, which received one from the Lon-
don Constitutional Society on the same day.
The French government and army had an international coloring. They were
dominated at the moment by the Brissot group. Brissot, having traveled in the
United States in former years, and having been at Geneva during the troubles of
1782, considered himself well informed on international revolution. Clavière, the
finance minister, was an exile from the Geneva counter- revolution. Lebrun, the
foreign minister, had spent years as an editor in Liège, and was closely involved
with the Belgians. Dumouriez was the friend and patron of Lebrun. His second-
in- command in Belgium was the Venezuelan, Miranda, who already had plans for
revolution in South America. Other generals in Dumouriez’ army were the New
Yorker, John Eustace, the Swiss A. E. La Harpe, exiled by the Bern authorities on
25 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken, I, 38–45.