The king and M.d'Argenson, to save appearances with Russia and Prussia, threw him and Favier into the Bastille, and he there passed a year in cursing the ingratitude of courts and the weakness of kings, and recovered his natural energy in retreat and study.

The king changed his prison into exile to the citadel of Caen; there Dumouriez found again, in a convent, the cousin he had loved.
Free, and weary of a monastic life, she became softened on again beholding her former lover, and they were married.

He was then appointed commandant of Cherbourg, and his indefatigable mind contended with the elements as if it were opposing men.

He conceived the plan of fortifying this harbour, which was to imprison a stormy sea in a granite basin, and give the French navy a halting place in the channel.

Here he passed fifteen years in domestic life, much troubled by the ill humour and ascetic devotion of his wife; in military studies constant, but without application, and in the dissipation of the philosophic and voluptuous society of his time.
The Revolution, which was drawing nigh, found him indifferent to its principles, and prepared for its vicissitudes.