Charles-François, general of the French republican army, was born at Cambrai in 1739 of a respectable family of Provence. His father was an intendant of the royal army, and had acquired some celebrity from an important publication on military affairs; and from him young Dumouriez received his earliest instructions. His studies were continued at the college of Louis-le-Grand for three years; but in 1757, his father having been attached to the army under d'Estrees about to invade Hanover, he accompanied him to Mainzberg, and there, at nineteen years of age, made his first campaign as cornet in the regiment of Escart. In 1763 he attained the rank of captain; but in consequence of a reform reducing the numbers of the army he retired with a small pension, and the cross of St Louis. He afterwards received a subaltern situation in the secret missions.

On his return from a pedestrian tour in Italy, he addressed a memorial to the Duc de Choiseul, urging him to embrace the cause of the Corsicans against the Genoese; and in a public audience which he had with the minister on the subject, it led to a violent altercation, the result of which was a lettre de cachet which forced Dumouriez to leave France. But the expedition which he had advised being afterwards resolved on, Choiseul made him an honourable public reparation, and appointed him quartermaster-general of the troops.

The political conjunctures of the times offered an unlimited scope for the fertility of his diplomatic expedients, and he mingled in all the intrigues of the age. In 1770 he was sent on a secret mission to Poland with the view of neutralizing the efforts of Catherine II., and succeeded in securing fifty senators for the cause of independence, effected a unity of action among the confederates, and disciplined a militia; but when there was some appearance of the resurrection of Poland being effected, Choiseul fell under a cabal of the Duc d'Aiguillon and Madame Du Barry, and Dumouriez was recalled to Paris. He was soon, however, sent back on a similar mission by D'Aiguillon. He endeavoured to assist the revolutionists in Sweden, and to raise troops in the Hanse towns to menace Stockholm, but this was contrary to the views of the French cabinet; and the Duc d'Aiguillon, having discovered his project, had him arrested and thrown into the Bastile, where he was imprisoned six months, and then sent to the castle of Caen.

Disgusted with the dangerous career of intrigue, he now directed his attention to the improvement of his own country. He wrote a memoir on the great importance of the harbour of Cherbourg; and in the month of June 1786 he there met Louis XVI., who had come to assist at laying the first stone. In 1788 Dumouriez was promoted to the rank of maréchal-de-camp, and pronounced in favour of political reform without breaking with the court. The connections which he held with the leading men of the Girondist party greatly advanced his political career. At the opening of the second legislative assembly he was appointed minister for foreign affairs in place of Delessart. This portfolio, however, he only held for three months. During his short tenure of office he exerted himself to the utmost in reforming abuses, and in introducing the greatest economy into every department.

He held for one month the office of minister of war after the dismissal of his colleagues Roland, Servan, and Clavière. At length his own resignation followed, which increased his popularity. When the troops of the coalition advanced against France, he was appointed to the command of the army of the north as lieutenant-general under Marshal Luckner. (For the military operations which followed, see FRANCE.)

After the unsuccessful battle of Neerwinden in January 1793, being recalled by the Convention and threatened with the scaffold, he sought refuge in the camp of the Austrians, accompanied by the Duc de Chartres (afterwards Louis Philippe) and his brother.

Lost without hope of return to his native country, Dumouriez wandered a long time an exile in Brussels, England, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and Petersburg. At last he returned to England, where the government conferred on him a pension of £1,200 a-year. In 1814 and 1815 he endeavoured to procure from Louis XVIII. the baton of a marshal of France, but was refused. After a long residence in England, where he enjoyed the hospitality and friendship of many distinguished men, he died at Turville Park on the 14th March 1823, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.