Burial of Gen. Kellerman'S Heart

Francois Christophe Kellerman, Duke of Valmy and Marshal of France, was born, according to some accounts, at Strasbourg, and according to others, near Rothenburg, Bavaria, May 30, 1735.

He entered the French army as a volunteer, and served in the Seven Years' War, and in the Polish expedition of Louis XV. in 1771.

In 1789 he embraced the cause of the Revolution and in 1791 became general of the army in Alsace.

In August, 1792, he was made commander of the Army of the Centre, with orders to effect a connection with Dumouriez in Champagne.

The invading army of Prussians was marching to attack the almost defenceless city of Paris, with perfect confidence of success, when Kellerman, who saw how important it was that they should not accomplish their purpose, by a series of brilliant manoeuvres joined his forces with those of Dumouriez: then by his daring and bravery, though his army numbered but forty-seven thousand men, he routed the allies, numbering a hundred and fifty thousand, on the field of Valmy, and saved Paris.

When Napoleon came into power, Kellerman was successively made senator, Marshal of France, and Duke of Valmy.

In 1814 he voted for the deposition of the emperor, and became a peer under the royal government.

Kellerman always considered the battle of Valmy, though not a sanguinary battle, the most important of his many engagements. On his death-bed he requested that his body should be buried in Paris, and his heart on the field where the battle had taken place, that it might repose with his old comrades-in-arms. He died in Paris, Sept. 12, 1820. France now calls herself a republic. She first assumed that title on the 26th of September, 1792, the very day on which the battle of Valmy was fought and won. To that battle the democratic spirit owes its preservation; and its influence has been felt ever since, and even at the present day. The "republic" of 1792 became the consulate of 1799, and the empire of 1804, both democratic in theory, at least. The return of the Bourbons, in 1815, was but an episode in the march of democracy in France. Louis Philippe was a "citizen king;" Louis Napoleon, a declining ray of his uncle's glory; and France is to-day a republic again, in reality and in name.