Dumouriez felt certain of success, but an act of imprudence frustrated his hopes.
The pass of the Croix-au-Bois had been considered less important than the others, and was only defended by a couple of battalions of infantry and two squadrons of cavalry. Dumouriez, in the stress of the moment, had not had the time to see and judge personally of the importance of this pass, but the German spies, employed to inspect the different French posts, informed the Duke of Brunswick of the advantages of this badly-guarded pass. Clairfayt confided the attack to Prince Charles de Ligne, who started on the 13th of September at early dawn to seize it. The abatis intended to bar the road had been carelessly made, the half-buried branches not offering any resistance to the enemy; the imperialists easily forced a passage, and the roads had been so slightly damaged that they made their way at once. They met with hardly any resistance, and easily carried the position. The men who held it hastily fell back on Dumouriez’s camp; the latter, anxious at the turn things were taking, immediately despatched two brigades of infantry, and six squadrons of cavalry, to General Chazot, with orders to recapture the pass at any cost. Chazot spent the day without attacking, but, on receiving fresh and urgent orders to risk an attack, he opened fire on the morning of the 14th.
The attack and the defence were vigorous; six times the post was carried by the French, and as often recaptured by the Austrians. Prince Charles sees that in order to keep the position it is necessary to capture a French battery, which, cleverly placed, is inflicting heavy losses on the Austrians. A vigorous charge is necessary; the Prince in person leads the attack on the battery; eight men in the front rank are shot dead. He dashes forward himself, the ninth, but, shot through the head by a bullet, he reels for a moment in the saddle, and falls back dead.
The French regained possession of the pass, and raised the body of the unfortunate Prince. They found two gold chains with a locket round his neck, and in his pocket an unfinished letter.
Clairfayt, in despair at the cruel loss the army had sustained, hastened to avenge it, and took possession of the Croix-au-Bois.
He immediately claimed the body of the Prince, and it was at once given up. Mass was celebrated in the camp the following morning, and the coffin started for Mons. At that moment M. de Villeneuve Laroche, a guest at Bel Œil, and a friend of Prince Charles, arrived on the scene.
“On the battlefield,” he says, “where yesterday the republicans were defeated, I met a funeral procession, escorted by a few foreign troops, going in the direction of Hainault. It was that of the young Prince de Ligne, who was killed in the fight, and the body was being taken to his unhappy father at Bel Œil.”
Prince Charles’s death was universally deplored; his brilliant military qualities caused him to be regretted by the whole army; the Baron de Breteuil wrote from Verdun to the Comte de Fersen: “Yesterday Clairfayt’s army came in for a sharp fight at the outposts, in which, however, it was victorious. Clairfayt’s army lost in the attack five or six hundred men, but what deeply affects me is that Prince Charles de Ligne was killed. I loved him from a child; he was the most distinguished amongst the Austrians of the same age. His father will feel the loss terribly.”
Prince Charles’s body was conveyed to Bel Œil, after passing through Mons[111] at night, but his father was no longer there; he had been recalled, with Marshal de Lascy, to Vienna.
When the terrible news arrived no one dared to tell him of it, and the Marshal alone had the courage to undertake the delicate mission. He sent the Prince word that he had received bad news from Clairfayt’s army, adding that he would himself come and inform him of it. “My son is wounded!” said the Prince as the Marshal entered. The latter remained silent. “But speak, good God!...”—“Alas! I would not, or I could not, understand,” he writes, “when he said that dreadful word: Dead!... I feel crushed by the news, and he had almost to carry me away in his arms. I see it still, the spot where I was when the Marshal told me that my poor Charles was killed; I see my poor Charles himself, as he welcomed me every day with the sunshine of his happy and good face. I had dreamt a few days before that he had received a mortal wound in the head, and had fallen dead from his horse. For five or six days I was anxious, but as one always treats as a weakness that which is often a warning, or perhaps a feeling of nature when there are ties of blood, I cast from my thoughts the fatal foreboding which was only too soon to be realised!”