1693. ing every possible effort, retreated over the bridge BC OK II. thrown across the Geete, and rallied the fugitives. The king, seeing the battle lost, yet remained in the field, to give the necessary orders for the safety of the troops, displaying in the opinion of all, no less conduct than valour. "I saw," said the prince of Conti in an intercepted letter to his princess, "the king of England exposing himself to the greatest dangers. Surely so much valour well deserves the peaceable possession of the crown he wears." The duke of Berwick being taken prisoner in the heat of the battle, was carried to the king by general Churchill. "The first thing which," as that nobleman afterwards declared, "struck him, who had never seen the person of the prince of Orange before, was his eye like that of an eagle." He took off his hat without speaking to the duke, and continued giving his orders with a calmness which shewed the most perfect negligence of danger. The French commander himself joined in the general applause; and when the king of France read the accounts transmitted to him of this battle, he declared, "that Luxemburg had attacked like Condé, and that the prince of Orange had retreated like Turenne.""Whatever reason," says maréchal Berwick, "I may have not to be fond of the memory of this prince, I cannot deny him the character of a great man, and even of a great king, had be not been an usurper."-Memoirs of M. BERWICK, BOOK II. The loss sustained by the two armies was nearly 1693. equal; about 9 or 10,000 men. On the part of the confederates, count Solmes, whose name had been rendered odious by his misconduct at Steinkirk, was mortally wounded; and on that of France fell the gallant Sarsfield, created lord Lucan by king James, and promoted to an high rank in the French service. King William being joined in a few days by the duke of Wirtemberg, and recalling his detachment from Liege, found himself immediately in a situation to risque another engagement*. Both armies however remained for some weeks inactive till maréchal Boufflers having led back the reinforcement detached some months since to the Upper Rhine, siege was laid to Charleroy, which the utmost ef forts of the allies were inadequate to relieve. After a very gallant resistance of thirty-one days, . "Ses malheurs," says the president Henault, speaking of this monarch," ne servirent qu'à faire voir les ressources de son génie, et il fut toujours battu sans avoir jamais été défait.” Histoire de France. "Les alliés battus à Fleurus, à Steinkerque, a Nerwinde, ne l'avaient jamais été d'une manière complette.-On ne parlait que de victoires; cependant Louis XIV. avait autrefois conquis la moitié de la Hollande et de la Flandre, toute la FrancheComté sans donner un seul combat; et maintenant après les plus grands efforts et les victoires les plus sanglantes on ne pouvait entamer les Provinces-Unies. On ne pouvait niême faire le siege de Bruxelles." VOLTAIRE Histoire Generale, vol. v. p. 213. the governor capitulated on the most honorable BOOK II. conditions; and the reduction of the place was 1693. celebrated with a Te Deum and other rejoicings Charleroy at Paris. The conquest of Charleroy concluded the campaign in the Netherlands. taken. on the Sack of berg. The French army on the Rhine, commanded Campaign by the maréchal de Lorges, passed that river in Rhine. May, and invested the city of Heidelberg, which, Heidel being taken by storm, was delivered up to all the horrors of cruelty, lust, and rapine. Every house was ransacked and plundered. The churches were no longer sanctuaries. The same impious hand that robbed the altar, left it stained with human gore. The capuchins, on imploring that their monastery might be spared, were told, that not one stone would be left upon another. Even the sacred monuments of the dead were violated, and the bones of the electoral family torn with unhallowed rage from the vault where they had reposed for ages. All the quarters of the town were set on fire, and the inhabitants, without respect to age, sex, or condition, were driven almost naked to the castle to enforce a capitulation. When on the surrender of the citadel they were set at liberty, numbers of them died on their march, which was by night along the banks of the Necker, of hunger, cold, weariness, and all the anguish of mind arising from such a burst of calamities. All Europe rung with the horrors of so dire a tragedy. Prince Lewis of Baden, who 1693. BOOK I. commanded the imperial army, astonished and shocked at these atrocities, sent a message to maréchal de Lorges, "that he was come from a war against the Turks, and that he expected Christian enemies would have treated each other with Christian usage; but that he found the French acted more like barbarians than their Turkish allies-He should therefore in future make such reprisals as would teach them, from concern to themselves, to shew compassion to others." The Most Christian king was no sooner apprised of the infamous success of his arms at Heidelberg, than he sent his royal mandate to the archbishop of Paris to celebrate this joyful event by a Te Deum. "I ordered," said he, "my cousin the maréchal duc de Lorges to make himself master of Heidelberg; and he has executed my orders. This conquest, which begins the campaign so gloriously, affords me time, a freer entrance into the heart of the empire, and an almost certain presage of farther success." But though M. de Lorges continued his march to Hailbron, and made several attempts to pass the Necker in order to attack the prince of Baden, * On this occasion a medal was struck by order of the French monarch representing the city of Heidelberg in flames, with the impious inscription "Rex dixit et factum est." Who that hears or reads of these scenes of barbarity and devastation can wonder that Louis XIV. should be the object of horror to his contemporaries. he was invariably repulsed, and at length obliged BOOK II. to retreat, by way of Philipsburg, back to France. 1695. In Catalonia, the Spaniards suffered the loss of the important town of Roses, almost without resistance. In Piedmont the French had, as in all other parts during this summer, greatly the advantage. The campaign opened on the part of the allies with the siege of Pignerol; in which the duke of Savoy had made some progress when he understood that maréchal de Catinat had descended into the plains, and menaced the city of Turin. Alarmed at the danger of his capital, the duke immediately drew off his army from Pignerol, and marched in quest of the enemy, whom he found encamped in the vicinity of Masiglia. The left of the confederate army, composed of Battle of Marsiglia Spanish troops and imperial cavalry, was commanded by the marquis de Leganez; the right, of imperial and Piedmontese cavalry and infantry intermixed, by the duke himself, assisted by the Count de Caprara; and the centre, which consisted of imperial, British, and Piedmontese infantry, by prince Eugene of Savoy and the count de Las Torres. The duke of Schomberg, who had been denied his just rank, fought in the capacity of colonel only, at the head of his own regiment. Early in the morning of the 4th of October (1693), the enemy advanced to the attack with undaunted resolution, charging with fixed bayonets at the end of their fusees, with |
