No More Learning

With the Elector of Saxony a composition was made. He had, together with
a strong appetite for subsidies, a great desire to be a member of the
most select and illustrious orders of knighthood. It seems that, instead
of the four hundred thousand rixdollars which he had demanded, he
consented to accept one hundred thousand and the Garter. [296] His prime
minister Schoening, the most covetous and perfidious of mankind,
was secured by a pension. [297] For the Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg,
William, not without difficulty, procured the long desired title of
Elector of Hanover. By such means as these the breaches which had
divided the coalition were so skilfully repaired that it appeared still
to present a firm front to the enemy. William had complained bitterly to
the Spanish government of the incapacity and inertness of Gastanaga.
The Spanish government, helpless and drowsy as it was, could not be
altogether insensible to the dangers which threatened Flanders and
Brabant. Gastanaga was recalled; and William was invited to take upon
himself the government of the Low Countries, with powers not less than
regal. Philip the Second would not easily have believed that, within
a century after his death, his greatgrandson would implore the
greatgrandson of William the Silent to exercise the authority of a
sovereign at Brussels. [298]

The offer was in one sense tempting; but William was too wise to accept
it. He knew that the population of the Spanish Netherlands was firmly
attached to the Church of Rome. Every act of a Protestant ruler was
certain to be regarded with suspicion by the clergy and people of those
countries. Already Gastanaga, mortified by his disgrace, had written to
inform the Court of Rome that changes were in contemplation which would
make Ghent and Antwerp as heretical as Amsterdam and London. [299] It
had doubtless also occurred to William that if, by governing mildly
and justly, and by showing a decent respect for the ceremonies and the
ministers of the Roman Catholic religion, he should succeed in obtaining
the confidence of the Belgians, he would inevitably raise against
himself a storm of obloquy in our island. He knew by experience what it
was to govern two nations strongly attached to two different Churches. A
large party among the Episcopalians of England could not forgive him
for having consented to the establishment of the presbyterian polity in
Scotland. A large party among the Presbyterians of Scotland blamed him
for maintaining the episcopal polity in England. If he now took under
his protection masses, processions, graven images, friaries, nunneries,
and, worst of all, Jesuit pulpits, Jesuit confessionals and Jesuit
colleges, what could he expect but that England and Scotland would join
in one cry of reprobation? He therefore refused to accept the government
of the Low Countries, and proposed that it should be entrusted to the
Elector of Bavaria. The Elector of Bavaria was, after the Emperor, the
most powerful of the Roman Catholic potentates of Germany. He was young,
brave, and ambitious of military distinction. The Spanish Court was
willing to appoint him, and he was desirous to be appointed; but much
delay was caused by an absurd difficulty. The Elector thought it beneath
him to ask for what he wished to have. The formalists of the Cabinet of
Madrid thought it beneath the dignity of the Catholic King to give what
had not been asked. Mediation was necessary, and was at last successful.
But much time was lost; and the spring was far advanced before the new
Governor of the Netherlands entered on his functions. [300]

William had saved the coalition from the danger of perishing by
disunion. But by no remonstrance, by no entreaty, by no bribe, could
he prevail on his allies to be early in the field. They ought to have
profited by the severe lesson which had been given them in the preceding
year. But again every one of them lingered, and wondered why the rest
were lingering; and again he who singly wielded the whole power of
France was found, as his haughty motto had long boasted, a match for
a multitude of adversaries. [301] His enemies, while still unready,
learned with dismay that he had taken the field in person at the head of
his nobility. On no occasion had that gallant aristocracy appeared with
more splendour in his train. A single circumstance may suffice to give
a notion of the pomp and luxury of his camp. Among the musketeers of his
household rode, for the first time, a stripling of seventeen, who soon
afterwards succeeded to the title of Duke of Saint Simon, and to whom we
owe those inestimable memoirs which have preserved, for the delight and
instruction of many lands and of many generations, the vivid picture of
a France which has long passed away. Though the boy's family was at that
time very hard pressed for money, he travelled with thirty-five horses
and sumpter mules. The princesses of the blood, each surrounded by a
group of highborn and graceful ladies, accompanied the King; and
the smiles of so many charming women inspired the throng of vain and
voluptuous but highspirited gentlemen with more than common courage. In
the brilliant crowd which surrounded the French Augustus appeared the
French Virgil, the graceful, the tender, the melodious Racine. He had,
in conformity with the prevailing fashion, become devout, had given
up writing for the theatre; and, having determined to apply himself
vigorously to the discharge of the duties which belonged to him as
historiographer of France, he now came to see the great events which
it was his office to record. [302] In the neighbourhood of Mons, Lewis
entertained the ladies with the most magnificent review that had ever
been seen in modern Europe. A hundred and twenty thousand of the finest
troops in the world were drawn up in a line eight miles long. It may be
doubted whether such an army had ever been brought together under the
Roman eagles. The show began early in the morning, and was not over
when the long summer day closed. Racine left the ground, astonished,
deafened, dazzled, and tired to death. In a private letter he ventured
to give utterance to an amiable wish which he probably took good care
not to whisper in the courtly circle: "Would to heaven that all these
poor fellows were in their cottages again with their wives and their
little ones! " [303]

After this superb pageant Lewis announced his intention of attacking
Namur. In five days he was under the walls of that city, at the head
of more than thirty thousand men. Twenty thousand peasants, pressed in
those parts of the Netherlands which the French occupied, were compelled
to act as pioneers. Luxemburg, with eighty thousand men, occupied a
strong position on the road between Namur and Brussels, and was prepared
to give battle to any force which might attempt to raise the siege.
[304] This partition of duties excited no surprise. It had long been
known that the great Monarch loved sieges, and that he did not love
battles. He professed to think that the real test of military skill was
a siege. The event of an encounter between two armies on an open plain
was, in his opinion, often determined by chance; but only science could
prevail against ravelins and bastions which science had constructed. His
detractors sneeringly pronounced it fortunate that the department of
the military art which His Majesty considered as the noblest was one in
which it was seldom necessary for him to expose to serious risk a life
invaluable to his people.

Namur, situated at the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse, was one
of the great fortresses of Europe. The town lay in the plain, and had
no strength except what was derived from art. But art and nature had
combined to fortify that renowned citadel which, from the summit of a
lofty rock, looks down on a boundless expanse of cornfields, woods and
meadows, watered by two fine rivers. The people of the city and of the
surrounding region were proud of their impregnable castle. Their boast
was that never, in all the wars which had devastated the Netherlands,
had skill or valour been able to penetrate those walls. The neighbouring
fastnesses, famed throughout the world for their strength, Antwerp and
Ostend, Ypres, Lisle and Tournay, Mons and Valenciennes, Cambray and
Charleroi, Limburg and Luxemburg, had opened their gates to conquerors;
but never once had the flag been pulled down from the battlements of
Namur. That nothing might be wanting to the interest of the siege,
the two great masters of the art of fortification were opposed to
each other. Vauban had during many years been regarded as the first of
engineers; but a formidable rival had lately arisen, Menno, Baron of
Cohorn, the ablest officer in the service of the States General. The
defences of Namur had been recently strengthened and repaired under
Cohorn's superintendence; and he was now within the walls. Vauban was in
the camp of Lewis. It might therefore be expected that both the attack
and the defence would be conducted with consummate ability.

By this time the allied armies had assembled; but it was too late. [305]
William hastened towards Namur. He menaced the French works, first from
the west, then from the north, then from the east. But between him and
the lines of circumvallation lay the army of Luxemburg, turning as he
turned, and always so strongly posted that to attack it would have been
the height of imprudence. Meanwhile the besiegers, directed by the skill
of Vauban and animated by the presence of Lewis, made rapid progress.
There were indeed many difficulties to be surmounted and many hardships
to be endured. The weather was stormy; and, on the eighth of June,
the feast of Saint Medard, who holds in the French Calendar the same
inauspicious place which in our Calendar belongs to Saint Swithin, the
rain fell in torrents. The Sambre rose and covered many square miles on
which the harvest was green. The Mehaigne whirled down its bridges to
the Meuse. All the roads became swamps. The trenches were so deep in
water and mire that it was the business of three days to move a gun from
one battery to another. The six thousand waggons which had accompanied
the French army were useless. It was necessary that gunpowder, bullets,
corn, hay, should be carried from place to place on the backs of the war
horses. Nothing but the authority of Lewis could, in such circumstances,
have maintained order and inspired cheerfulness. His soldiers, in truth,
showed much more reverence for him than for what their religion had made
sacred. They cursed Saint Medard heartily, and broke or burned every
image of him that could be found. But for their King there was nothing
that they were not ready to do and to bear. In spite of every obstacle
they constantly gained ground. Cohorn was severely wounded while
defending with desperate resolution a fort which he had himself
constructed, and of which he was proud. His place could not be supplied.
The governor was a feeble man whom Gastanaga had appointed, and whom
William had recently advised the Elector of Bavaria to remove. The
spirit of the garrison gave way. The town surrendered on the eighth day
of the siege, the citadel about three weeks later. [306]

The history of the fall of Namur in 1692 bears a close resemblance
to the history of the fail of Mons in 1691. Both in 1691 and in 1692,
Lewis, the sole and absolute master of the resources of his kingdom, was
able to open the campaign, before William, the captain of a coalition,
had brought together his dispersed forces. In both years the advantage
of having the first move decided the event of the game. At Namur, as at
Mons, Lewis, assisted by Vauban conducted the siege; Luxemburg covered
it; William vainly tried to raise it, and, with deep mortification,
assisted as a spectator at the victory of his enemy.

In one respect however the fate of the two fortresses was very
different. Mons was delivered up by its own inhabitants. Namur might
perhaps have been saved if the garrison had been as zealous and
determined as the population. Strange to say, in this place, so long
subject to a foreign rule, there was found a patriotism resembling that
of the little Greek commonwealths. There is no reason to believe that
the burghers cared about the balance of power, or had any preference
for James or for William, for the Most Christian King or for the Most
Catholic King. But every citizen considered his own honour as bound up
with the honour of the maiden fortress. It is true that the French did
not abuse their victory. No outrage was committed; the privileges of the
municipality were respected, the magistrates were not changed. Yet the
people could not see a conqueror enter their hitherto unconquered castle
without tears of rage and shame. Even the barefooted Carmelites, who
had renounced all pleasures, all property, all society, all domestic
affection, whose days were all fast days, who passed month after month
without uttering a word, were strangely moved. It was in vain that Lewis
attempted to soothe them by marks of respect and by munificent bounty.
Whenever they met a French uniform they turned their heads away with a
look which showed that a life of prayer, of abstinence and of silence
had left one earthly feeling still unsubdued. [307]

This was perhaps the moment at which the arrogance of Lewis reached the
highest point. He had achieved the last and the most splendid military
exploit of his life. His confederated foes, English, Dutch and German,
had, in their own despite, swelled his triumph, and had been witnesses
of the glory which made their hearts sick. His exultation was boundless.
The inscriptions on the medals which he struck to commemorate his
success, the letters by which he enjoined the prelates of his kingdom
to sing the Te Deum, were boastful and sarcastic. His people, a people
among whose many fine qualities moderation in prosperity cannot be
reckoned, seemed for a time to be drunk with pride. Even Boileau,
hurried along by the prevailing enthusiasm, forgot the good sense and
good taste to which he owed his reputation. He fancied himself a lyric
poet, and gave vent to his feelings in a hundred and sixty lines of
frigid bombast about Alcides, Mars, Bacchus, Ceres, the lyre of Orpheus,
the Thracian oaks and the Permessian nymphs. He wondered whether Namur,
had, like Troy, been built by Apollo and Neptune. He asked what power
could subdue a city stronger than that before which the Greeks lay ten
years; and he returned answer to himself that such a miracle could be
wrought only by Jupiter or by Lewis. The feather in the hat of Lewis
was the loadstar of victory. To Lewis all things must yield, princes,
nations, winds, waters. In conclusion the poet addressed himself to the
banded enemies of France, and tauntingly bade them carry back to their
homes the tidings that Namur had been taken in their sight. Before many
months had elapsed both the boastful king and the boastful poet were
taught that it is prudent as well as graceful to be modest in the hour
of victory.

One mortification Lewis had suffered even in the midst of his
prosperity. While he lay before Namur, he heard the sounds of rejoicing
from the distant camp of the allies. Three peals of thunder from a
hundred and forty pieces of cannon were answered by three volleys from
sixty thousand muskets. It was soon known that these salutes were fired
on account of the battle of La Hogue. The French King exerted himself to
appear serene. "They make a strange noise," he said, "about the burning
of a few ships. " In truth he was much disturbed, and the more so because
a report had reached the Low Countries that there had been a sea fight,
and that his fleet had been victorious. His good humour however was soon
restored by the brilliant success of those operations which were under
his own immediate direction. When the siege was over, he left Luxemburg
in command of the army, and returned to Versailles. At Versailles
the unfortunate Tourville soon presented himself, and was graciously
received. As soon as he appeared in the circle, the King welcomed him in
a loud voice. "I am perfectly satisfied with you and with my sailors. We
have been beaten, it is true; but your honour and that of the nation are
unsullied. " [308]

Though Lewis had quitted the Netherlands, the eyes of all Europe were
still fixed on that region. The armies there had been strengthened by
reinforcements drawn from many quarters. Every where else the military
operations of the year were languid and without interest. The Grand
Vizier and Lewis of Baden did little more than watch each other on the
Danube. Marshal Noailles and the Duke of Medina Sidonia did little more
than watch each other under the Pyrenees. On the Upper Rhine, and
along the frontier which separates France from Piedmont, an indecisive
predatory war was carried on, by which the soldiers suffered little
and the cultivators of the soil much. But all men looked, with anxious
expectation of some great event, to the frontier of Brabant, where
William was opposed to Luxemburg.

Luxemburg, now in his sixty-sixth year, had risen, by slow degrees,
and by the deaths of several great men, to the first place among the
generals of his time. He was of that noble house of Montmorency which
united many mythical and many historical titles to glory, which boasted
that it sprang from the first Frank who was baptized into the name of
Christ in the fifth century, and which had, since the eleventh century,
given to France a long and splendid succession of Constables and
Marshals. In valour and abilities Luxemburg was not inferior to any of
his illustrious race. But, highly descended and highly gifted as he was,
he had with difficulty surmounted the obstacles which impeded him in the
road to fame. If he owed much to the bounty of nature and fortune, he
had suffered still more from their spite. His features were frightfully
harsh, his stature was diminutive; a huge and pointed hump rose on his
back. His constitution was feeble and sickly. Cruel imputations had been
thrown on his morals. He had been accused of trafficking with sorcerers
and with vendors of poison, had languished long in a dungeon, and had at
length regained his liberty without entirely regaining his honour. [309]
He had always been disliked both by Louvois and by Lewis. Yet the war
against the European coalition had lasted but a very short time when
both the minister and the King felt that the general who was personally
odious to them was necessary to the state. Conde and Turenne were no
more; and Luxemburg was without dispute the first soldier that France
still possessed. In vigilance, diligence and perseverance he was
deficient. He seemed to reserve his great qualities for great
emergencies. It was on a pitched field of battle that he was all
himself. His glance was rapid and unerring. His judgment was clearest
and surest when responsibility pressed heaviest on him and when
difficulties gathered thickest around him. To his skill, energy and
presence of mind his country owed some glorious days. But, though
eminently successful in battles, he was not eminently successful in
campaigns. He gained immense renown at William's expense; and yet there
was, as respected the objects of the war, little to choose between the
two commanders. Luxemburg was repeatedly victorious; but he had not the
art of improving a victory. William was repeatedly defeated; but of all
generals he was the best qualified to repair a defeat.

In the month of July William's headquarters were at Lambeque. About six
miles off, at Steinkirk, Luxemburg had encamped with the main body
of his army; and about six miles further off lay a considerable force
commanded by the Marquess of Boufflers, one of the best officers in the
service of Lewis.

The country between Lambeque and Steinkirk was intersected by
innumerable hedges and ditches; and neither army could approach the
other without passing through several long and narrow defiles. Luxemburg
had therefore little reason to apprehend that he should be attacked in
his entrenchments; and he felt assured that he should have ample notice
before any attack was made; for he had succeeded in corrupting an
adventurer named Millevoix, who was chief musician and private secretary
of the Elector of Bavaria. This man regularly sent to the French
headquarters authentic information touching the designs of the allies.

The Marshal, confident in the strength of his position and in the
accuracy of his intelligence, lived in his tent as he was accustomed
to live in his hotel at Paris. He was at once a valetudinarian and a
voluptuary; and, in both characters, he loved his ease. He scarcely ever
mounted his horse. Light conversation and cards occupied most of his
hours. His table was luxurious; and, when he had sate down to supper, it
was a service of danger to disturb him. Some scoffers remarked that
in his military dispositions he was not guided exclusively by military
reasons, that he generally contrived to entrench himself in some place
where the veal and the poultry were remarkably good, and that he was
always solicitous to keep open such communications with the sea as
might ensure him, from September to April, a regular supply of Sandwich
oysters.

If there were any agreeable women in the neighbourhood of his camp, they
were generally to be found at his banquets. It may easily be supposed
that, under such a commander, the young princes and nobles of France
vied with one another in splendour and gallantry. [310]

While he was amusing himself after his wonted fashion, the confederate
princes discovered that their counsels were betrayed. A peasant picked
up a letter which had been dropped, and carried it to the Elector of
Bavaria. It contained full proofs of the guilt of Millevoix. William
conceived a hope that he might be able to take his enemies in the snare
which they had laid for him. The perfidious secretary was summoned to
the royal presence and taxed with his crime. A pen was put into his
hand; a pistol was held to his breast; and he was commanded to write on
pain of instant death. His letter, dictated by William, was conveyed to
the French camp. It apprised Luxemburg that the allies meant to send out
a strong foraging party on the next day. In order to protect this party
from molestation, some battalions of infantry, accompanied by artillery,
would march by night to occupy the defiles which lay between the armies.
The Marshal read, believed and went to rest, while William urged forward
the preparations for a general assault on the French lines.

The whole allied army was under arms while it was still dark. In the
grey of the morning Luxemburg was awakened by scouts, who brought
tidings that the enemy was advancing in great force. He at first treated
the news very lightly. His correspondent, it seemed, had been, as usual,
diligent and exact. The Prince of Orange had sent out a detachment to
protect his foragers, and this detachment had been magnified by fear
into a great host. But one alarming report followed another fast. All
the passes, it was said, were choked with multitudes of foot, horse
and artillery, under the banners of England and of Spain, of the
United Provinces and of the Empire; and every column was moving towards
Steinkirk. At length the Marshal rose, got on horseback, and rode out to
see what was doing.

By this time the vanguard of the allies was close to his outposts. About
half a mile in advance of his army was encamped a brigade named from the
province of Bourbonnais. These troops had to bear the first brunt of the
onset. Amazed and panicstricken, they were swept away in a moment, and
ran for their lives, leaving their tents and seven pieces of cannon to
the assailants.

Thus far William's plans had been completely successful but now fortune
began to turn against him. He had been misinformed as to the nature of
the ground which lay between the station of the brigade of Bourbonnais
and the main encampment of the enemy. He had expected that he should be
able to push forward without a moment's pause, that he should find the
French army in a state of wild disorder, and that his victory would be
easy and complete. But his progress was obstructed by several fences
and ditches; there was a short delay; and a short delay sufficed to
frustrate his design. Luxemburg was the very man for such a conjuncture.
He had committed great faults; he had kept careless guard; he had
trusted implicitly to information which had proved false; he had
neglected information which had proved true; one of his divisions was
flying in confusion; the other divisions were unprepared for action.
That crisis would have paralysed the faculties of an ordinary captain;
it only braced and stimulated those of Luxemburg. His mind, nay his
sickly and distorted body, seemed to derive health and vigour from
disaster and dismay. In a short time he had disposed every thing. The
French army was in battle order. Conspicuous in that great array were
the household troops of Lewis, the most renowned body of fighting men
in Europe; and at their head appeared, glittering in lace and embroidery
hastily thrown on and half fastened, a crowd of young princes and lords
who had just been roused by the trumpet from their couches or their
revels, and who had hastened to look death in the face with the gay and
festive intrepidity characteristic of French gentlemen. Highest in
rank among these highborn warriors was a lad of sixteen, Philip Duke of
Chartres, son of the Duke of Orleans, and nephew of the King of France.
It was with difficulty and by importunate solicitation that the gallant
boy had extorted Luxemburg's permission to be where the fire was
hottest. Two other youths of royal blood, Lewis Duke of Bourbon, and
Armand Prince of Conti, showed a spirit worthy of their descent. With
them was a descendant of one of the bastards of Henry the Fourth, Lewis
Duke of Vendome, a man sunk in indolence and in the foulest vice, yet
capable of exhibiting on a great occasion the qualities of a great
soldier. Berwick, who was beginning to earn for himself an honourable
name in arms, was there; and at his side rode Sarsfield, whose courage
and ability earned, on that day, the esteem of the whole French army.
Meanwhile Luxemburg had sent off a pressing message to summon Boufflers.
But the message was needless. Boufflers had heard the firing, and, like
a brave and intelligent captain, was already hastening towards the point
from which the sound came.

Though the assailants had lost all the advantage which belongs to a
surprise, they came on manfully. In the front of the battle were the
British commanded by Count Solmes. The division which was to lead the
way was Mackay's. He was to have been supported, according to William's
plan, by a strong body of foot and horse. Though most of Mackay's
men had never before been under fire, their behaviour gave promise of
Blenheim and Ramilies. They first encountered the Swiss, who held a
distinguished place in the French army. The fight was so close and
desperate that the muzzles of the muskets crossed. The Swiss were driven
back with fearful slaughter. More than eighteen hundred of them appear
from the French returns to have been killed or wounded. Luxemburg
afterwards said that he had never in his life seen so furious a
struggle. He collected in haste the opinion of the generals who
surrounded him. All thought that the emergency was one which could be
met by no common means. The King's household must charge the English.
The Marshal gave the word; and the household, headed by the princes
of the blood, came on, flinging their muskets back on their shoulders.
"Sword in hand," was the cry through all the ranks of that terrible
brigade: "sword in hand. No firing. Do it with the cold steel. " After
a long and desperate resistance the English were borne down. They never
ceased to repeat that, if Solmes had done his duty by them, they would
have beaten even the household. But Solmes gave them no effective
support. He pushed forward some cavalry which, from the nature of the
ground, could do little or nothing. His infantry he would not suffer to
stir. They could do no good, he said, and he would not send them to
be slaughtered. Ormond was eager to hasten to the assistance of his
countrymen, but was not permitted. Mackay sent a pressing message to
represent that he and his men were left to certain destruction; but all
was vain. "God's will be done," said the brave veteran. He died as
he had lived, like a good Christian and a good soldier. With him fell
Douglas and Lanier, two generals distinguished among the conquerors of
Ireland. Mountjoy too was among the slain. After languishing three years
in the Bastile, he had just been exchanged for Richard Hamilton, and,
having been converted to Whiggism by wrongs more powerful than all the
arguments of Locke and Sidney, had instantly hastened to join William's
camp as a volunteer. [311] Five fine regiments were entirely cut to
pieces. No part of this devoted band would have escaped but for the
courage and conduct of Auverquerque, who came to the rescue in the
moment of extremity with two fresh battalions. The gallant manner
in which he brought off the remains of Mackay's division was long
remembered with grateful admiration by the British camp fires. The
ground where the conflict had raged was piled with corpses; and those
who buried the slain remarked that almost all the wounds had been given
in close fighting by the sword or the bayonet.

It was said that William so far forgot his wonted stoicism as to utter
a passionate exclamation at the way in which the English regiments
had been sacrificed. Soon, however, he recovered his equanimity, and
determined to fall back. It was high time; for the French army was every
moment becoming stronger, as the regiments commanded by Boufflers came
up in rapid succession. The allied army returned to Lambeque unpursued
and in unbroken order. [312]

The French owned that they had about seven thousand men killed and
wounded. The loss of the allies had been little, if at all, greater. The
relative strength of the armies was what it had been on the preceding
day; and they continued to occupy their old positions. But the moral
effect of the battle was great. The splendour of William's fame grew
pale. Even his admirers were forced to own that, in the field, he
was not a match for Luxemburg. In France the news was received with
transports of joy and pride. The Court, the Capital, even the peasantry
of the remotest provinces, gloried in the impetuous valour which had
been displayed by so many youths, the heirs of illustrious names. It was
exultingly and fondly repeated all over the kingdom that the young Duke
of Chartres could not by any remonstrances be kept out of danger, that
a ball had passed through his coat that he had been wounded in the
shoulder. The people lined the roads to see the princes and nobles who
returned from Steinkirk. The jewellers devised Steinkirk buckles; the
perfumers sold Steinkirk powder. But the name of the field of battle was
peculiarly given to a new species of collar. Lace neckcloths were then
worn by men of fashion; and it had been usual to arrange them with great
care. But at the terrible moment when the brigade of Bourbonnais was
flying before the onset of the allies, there was no time for foppery;
and the finest gentlemen of the Court came spurring to the front of the
line of battle with their rich cravats in disorder. It therefore
became a fashion among the beauties of Paris to wear round their necks
kerchiefs of the finest lace studiously disarranged; and these kerchiefs
were called Steinkirks. [313]

In the camp of the allies all was disunion and discontent. National
jealousies and animosities raged without restraint or disguise. The
resentment of the English was loudly expressed. Solmes, though he was
said by those who knew him well to have some valuable qualities, was not
a man likely to conciliate soldiers who were prejudiced against him as
a foreigner. His demeanour was arrogant, his temper ungovernable. Even
before the unfortunate day of Steinkirk the English officers did not
willingly communicate with him, and the private men murmured at his
harshness. But after the battle the outcry against him became furious.
He was accused, perhaps unjustly, of having said with unfeeling levity,
while the English regiments were contending desperately against great
odds, that he was curious to see how the bulldogs would come off.
Would any body, it was asked, now pretend that it was on account of his
superior skill and experience that he had been put over the heads of so
many English officers? It was the fashion to say that those officers
had never seen war on a large scale. But surely the merest novice was
competent to do all that Solmes had done, to misunderstand orders, to
send cavalry on duty which none but infantry could perform, and to look
on at safe distance while brave men were cut to pieces. It was too much
to be at once insulted and sacrificed, excluded from the honours of war,
yet pushed on all its extreme dangers, sneered at as raw recruits, and
then left to cope unsupported with the finest body of veterans in the
world. Such were the complains of the English army; and they were echoed
by the English nation.

Fortunately about this time a discovery was made which furnished both
the camp at Lambeque and the coffeehouses of London with a subject of
conversation much less agreeable to the Jacobites than the disaster of
Steinkirk.

A plot against the life of William had been, during some months,
maturing in the French War Office. It should seem that Louvois had
originally sketched the design, and had bequeathed it, still rude, to
his son and successor Barbesieux. By Barbesieux the plan was perfected.
The execution was entrusted to an officer named Grandval. Grandval was
undoubtedly brave, and full of zeal for his country and his religion.
He was indeed flighty and half witted, but not on that account the less
dangerous. Indeed a flighty and half witted man is the very instrument
generally preferred by cunning politicians when very hazardous work is
to be done. No shrewd calculator would, for any bribe, however enormous,
have exposed himself to the fate of Chatel, of Ravaillac, or of Gerarts.
[314]

Grandval secured, as he conceived, the assistance of two adventurers,
Dumont, a Walloon, and Leefdale, a Dutchman. In April, soon after
William had arrived in the Low Countries, the murderers were directed
to repair to their post. Dumont was then in Westphalia. Grandval and
Leefdale were at Paris. Uden in North Brabant was fixed as the place
where the three were to meet and whence they were to proceed together
to the headquarters of the allies. Before Grandval left Paris he paid
a visit to Saint Germains, and was presented to James and to Mary of
Modena. "I have been informed," said James, "of the business. If you and
your companions do me this service, you shall never want. "

After this audience Grandval set out on his journey. He had not the
faintest suspicion that he had been betrayed both by the accomplice who
accompanied him and by the accomplice whom he was going to meet.
Dumont and Leefdale were not enthusiasts. They cared nothing for the
restoration of James, the grandeur of Lewis, or the ascendency of the
Church of Rome. It was plain to every man of common sense that, whether
the design succeeded or failed, the reward of the assassins would
probably be to be disowned, with affected abhorrence, by the Courts
of Versailles and Saint Germains, and to be torn with redhot pincers,
smeared with melted lead, and dismembered by four horses. To vulgar
natures the prospect of such a martyrdom was not alluring. Both these
men, therefore, had, almost at the same time, though, as far as appears,
without any concert, conveyed to William, through different channels,
warnings that his life was in danger. Dumont had acknowledged every
thing to the Duke of Zell, one of the confederate princes. Leefdale
had transmitted full intelligence through his relations who resided in
Holland. Meanwhile Morel, a Swiss Protestant of great learning who
was then in France, wrote to inform Burnet that the weak and hotheaded
Grandval had been heard to talk boastfully of the event which would soon
astonish the world, and had confidently predicted that the Prince of
Orange would not live to the end of the next month.

These cautions were not neglected. From the moment at which Grandval
entered the Netherlands, his steps were among snares. His movements were
watched; his words were noted; he was arrested, examined, confronted
with his accomplices, and sent to the camp of the allies. About a week
after the battle of Steinkirk he was brought before a Court Martial.
Ginkell, who had been rewarded for his great services in Ireland with
the title of Earl of Athlone, presided; and Talmash was among the
judges. Mackay and Lanier had been named members of the board; but they
were no more; and their places were filled by younger officers.

The duty of the Court Martial was very simple; for the prisoner
attempted no defence. His conscience had, it should seem, been suddenly
awakened. He admitted, with expressions of remorse, the truth of all
the charges, made a minute, and apparently an ingenuous, confession, and
owned that he had deserved death. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn
and quartered, and underwent his punishment with great fortitude and
with a show of piety. He left behind him a few lines, in which he
declared that he was about to lose his life for having too faithfully
obeyed the injunctions of Barbesieux.

His confession was immediately published in several languages, and was
read with very various and very strong emotions. That it was genuine
could not be doubted; for it was warranted by the signatures of some of
the most distinguished military men living. That it was prompted by the
hope of pardon could hardly be supposed; for William had taken pains to
discourage that hope. Still less could it be supposed that the prisoner
had uttered untruths in order to avoid the torture. For, though it was
the universal practice in the Netherlands to put convicted assassins to
the rack in order to wring out from them the names of their employers
and associates, William had given orders that, on this occasion, the
rack should not be used or even named. It should be added, that the
Court did not interrogate the prisoner closely, but suffered him to tell
his story in his own way. It is therefore reasonable to believe that his
narrative is substantially true; and no part of it has a stronger air of
truth than his account of the audience with which James had honoured him
at Saint Germains.

In our island the sensation produced by the news was great. The Whigs
loudly called both James and Lewis assassins. How, it was asked, was it
possible, without outraging common sense, to put an innocent meaning on
the words which Grandval declared that he had heard from the lips of
the banished King of England? And who that knew the Court of Versailles
would believe that Barbesieux, a youth, a mere novice in politics, and
rather a clerk than a minister, would have dared to do what he had done
without taking his master's pleasure? Very charitable and very ignorant
persons might perhaps indulge a hope that Lewis had not been an
accessory before the fact. But that he was an accessory after the fact
no human being could doubt. He must have seen the proceedings of the
Court Martial, the evidence, the confession. If he really abhorred
assassination as honest men abhor it, would not Barbesieux have been
driven with ignominy from the royal presence, and flung into the
Bastile? Yet Barbesieux was still at the War Office; and it was not
pretended that he had been punished even by a word or a frown. It was
plain, then, that both Kings were partakers in the guilt of Grandval.
And if it were asked how two princes who made a high profession of
religion could have fallen into such wickedness, the answer was that
they had learned their religion from the Jesuits. In reply to these
reproaches the English Jacobites said very little; and the French
government said nothing at all. [315]

The campaign in the Netherlands ended without any other event deserving
to be recorded. On the eighteenth of October William arrived in England.
Late in the evening of the twentieth he reached Kensington, having
traversed the whole length of the capital. His reception was cordial.
The crowd was great; the acclamations were loud; and all the windows
along his route, from Aldgate to Piccadilly, were lighted up. [316]

But, notwithstanding these favourable symptoms, the nation was
disappointed and discontented. The war had been unsuccessful by land.
By sea a great advantage had been gained, but had not been improved. The
general expectation had been that the victory of May would be followed
by a descent on the coast of France, that Saint Maloes would he
bombarded, that the last remains of Tourville's squadron would be
destroyed, and that the arsenals of Brest and Rochefort would be laid in
ruins. This expectation was, no doubt, unreasonable. It did not follow,
because Rooke and his seamen had silenced the batteries hastily thrown
up by Bellefonds, that it would be safe to expose ships to the fire of
regular fortresses. The government, however, was not less sanguine than
the nation. Great preparations were made. The allied fleet, having been
speedily refitted at Portsmouth, stood out again to sea. Rooke was sent
to examine the soundings and the currents along the shore of Brittany.
[317] Transports were collected at Saint Helens. Fourteen thousand
troops were assembled on Portsdown under the command of Meinhart
Schomberg, who had been rewarded for his father's services and his
own with the highest rank in the Irish peerage, and was now Duke of
Leinster. Under him were Ruvigny, who, for his good service at Aghrim,
had been created Earl of Galway, La Melloniere and Cambon with their
gallant bands of refugees, and Argyle with the regiment which bore
his name, and which, as it began to be rumoured, had last winter done
something strange and horrible in a wild country of rocks and snow,
never yet explored by any Englishman.

On the twenty-sixth of July the troops were all on board. The
transports sailed, and in a few hours joined the naval armament in the
neighbourhood of Portland. On the twenty-eighth a general council of war
was held. All the naval commanders, with Russell at their head, declared
that it would be madness to carry their ships within the range of the
guns of Saint Maloes, and that the town must be reduced to straits by
land before the men of war in the harbour could, with any chance of
success, be attacked from the sea. The military men declared with equal
unanimity that the land forces could effect nothing against the town
without the cooperation of the fleet. It was then considered whether it
would be advisable to make an attempt on Brest or Rochefort. Russell
and the other flag officers, among whom were Rooke, Shovel, Almonde
and Evertsen, pronounced that the summer was too far spent for either
enterprise. [318] We must suppose that an opinion in which so many
distinguished admirals, both English and Dutch, concurred, however
strange it may seem to us, was in conformity with what were then the
established principles of the art of maritime war. But why all these
questions could not have been fully discussed a week earlier, why
fourteen thousand troops should have been shipped and sent to sea,
before it had been considered what they were to do, or whether it would
be possible for them to do any thing, we may reasonably wonder. The
armament returned to Saint Helens, to the astonishment and disgust
of the whole nation. [319] The ministers blamed the commanders; the
commanders blamed the ministers. The recriminations exchanged between
Nottingham and Russell were loud and angry. Nottingham, honest,
industrious, versed in civil business, and eloquent in parliamentary
debate, was deficient in the qualities of a war minister, and was not
at all aware of his deficiencies. Between him and the whole body of
professional sailors there was a feud of long standing. He had, some
time before the Revolution, been a Lord of the Admiralty; and his own
opinion was that he had then acquired a profound knowledge of maritime
affairs. This opinion however he had very much to himself. Men who
had passed half their lives on the waves, and who had been in battles,
storms and shipwrecks, were impatient of his somewhat pompous lectures
and reprimands, and pronounced him a mere pedant, who, with all his book
learning, was ignorant of what every cabin boy knew. Russell had always
been froward, arrogant and mutinous; and now prosperity and glory
brought out his vices in full strength. With the government which he
had saved he took all the liberties of an insolent servant who believes
himself to be necessary, treated the orders of his superiors with
contemptuous levity, resented reproof, however gentle, as an outrage,
furnished no plan of his own, and showed a sullen determination to
execute no plan furnished by any body else. To Nottingham he had a
strong and a very natural antipathy. They were indeed an ill matched
pair. Nottingham was a Tory; Russell was a Whig. Nottingham was a
speculative seaman, confident in his theories. Russell was a practical
seaman, proud of his achievements. The strength of Nottingham lay in
speech; the strength of Russell lay in action. Nottingham's demeanour
was decorous even to formality; Russell was passionate and rude. Lastly
Nottingham was an honest man; and Russell was a villain. They now became
mortal enemies. The Admiral sneered at the Secretary's ignorance of
naval affairs; the Secretary accused the Admiral of sacrificing the
public interests to mere wayward humour; and both were in the right.
[320]

While they were wrangling, the merchants of all the ports in the kingdom
raised a cry against the naval administration. The victory of which the
nation was so proud was, in the City, pronounced to have been a positive
disaster. During some months before the battle all the maritime
strength of the enemy had been collected in two great masses, one in
the Mediterranean and one in the Atlantic. There had consequently been
little privateering; and the voyage to New England or Jamaica had been
almost as safe as in time of peace. Since the battle, the remains of
the force which had lately been collected under Tourville were dispersed
over the ocean. Even the passage from England to Ireland was insecure.
Every week it was announced that twenty, thirty, fifty vessels belonging
to London or Bristol had been taken by the French. More than a hundred
prices were carried during that autumn into Saint Maloes alone. It
would have been far better, in the opinion of the shipowners and of the
underwriters, that the Royal Sun had still been afloat with her thousand
fighting men on board than that she should be lying a heap of ashes
on the beach at Cherburg, while her crew, distributed among twenty
brigantines, prowled for booty over the sea between Cape Finisterre and
Cape Clear. [321]

The privateers of Dunkirk had long been celebrated; and among them, John
Bart, humbly born, and scarcely able to sign his name, but eminently
brave and active, had attained an undisputed preeminence. In the country
of Anson and Hawke, of Howe and Rodney, of Duncan, Saint Vincent and
Nelson, the name of the most daring and skilful corsair would have
little chance of being remembered. But France, among whose many
unquestioned titles to glory very few are derived from naval war, still
ranks Bart among her great men. In the autumn of 1692 this enterprising
freebooter was the terror of all the English and Dutch merchants who
traded with the Baltic. He took and destroyed vessels close to the
eastern coast of our island. He even ventured to land in Northumberland,
and burned many houses before the trainbands could be collected to
oppose him. The prizes which he carried back into his native port were
estimated at about a hundred thousand pounds sterling. [322] About the
same time a younger adventurer, destined to equal or surpass Bart, Du
Guay Trouin, was entrusted with the command of a small armed vessel.