"Bravo, prince, this is noble!"
"Bravo! it equals anything in Scuderi!" exclaimed two officers, who were at breakfast with the prince.
The first of these was Maurice Count Saxe, general of the cavalry; the second was the famous Victor Marquis de Mirabeau, the future political economist, who was then a captain in the French line.
In twenty-four years this grenadier became a general officer and peer of France by the title of Comte de Montmorin; and in 1758, he commanded the French garrison in Ticonderoga, where he left nothing undone to render that post impregnable. Thus a desperate encounter was expected.
Formed with the grenadiers in the reserve, the 42nd marched with muskets slung, and their thirteen pipers, led by Deors MacCrimmon their pipe-major, made the deep dark forests ring to that harsh but wild music, which speaks a language Scotsmen only feel; and the air they played was that old march, now so well known in Scotland as the "Black Watch;" and loudly it rang, rousing vast flocks of wild birds from the lakes and tarns, and scaring the Red men from their wigwams and camps in the dense forests of pine that covered all the then unbroken wilderness.
The day was hot—the sun being 96° in the shade; the shrubs were all in blossom, and the wild plum and cherries grew in masses and clusters in the jungle, through which the heavily-laden columns of attack forced a passage towards Ticonderoga, leaving their artillery in the rear, as the officer commanding the engineers had reported, that without employing that arm, the works might be carried by storm.
While the reflection of all Lucy might suffer, should he fall, cost poor White a severe pang, he was the first man who sent his name to the brigade-major, as a volunteer to lead the escalade.
"But," thought he, "if successful, my promotion is insured; and if I miss death, I shall, at least, be one step nearer Lucy."
Jack Oswald, who volunteered next, consoled himself by some trite quotation from Bossuet (he was always quoting French writers), that he had not a relation to regret in the world.
The country was thickly wooded, and the guide having lost the track through those hitherto almost untrodden wastes, the greatest confusion ensued. Brigadier-General Viscount Howe, who was at the head of the right centre column, suddenly came upon a French battalion led by the Marquis de Launay, who was in full retreat, and a severe conflict ensued. The viscount, a young and gallant officer, whom Abercrombie styles "the Idol of the Soldiers," fell at the head of his own regiment, the 55th, as he was calling upon the French to surrender. A chevalier of St. Louis rushed forward and shot him by a pistol ball, which pierced his left breast. The chevalier was shot by Captain Monipennie, and received three musket balls as he fell. The French were routed; many were slain, and five officers with one hundred and forty-eight privates were taken.