The Romance of War; or, The Highlanders in France and Belgium, A Sequel to the Highlanders in Spain

by James Grant

"A pretty fellow you are, Ronald, to keep the whole regiment waiting in this manner! We were just about to march without you."

Ronald made no reply, but dashed up at full gallop, raised his hand to his bonnet, and then wheeling his charger round, backed him upon his haunches, causing him to curvet and rear that the rider might display a little horsemanship, as he galloped round the flank of the grenadiers and came up in his place on the left of the line with his sword drawn. As the band struck up, and the battalion broke into sections of threes and moved off, a cheer burst from the lips of every man, as a parting call to those comrades whom they were to leave behind them.

Saint Germains was the first stage. They were quartered for the night in the ancient palace, which had long been uninhabited and empty, and was consequently hastening to decay. Eighty years before, who could have imagined that the residence of the exiled Stuarts would have become the quarters of a Scottish regiment in the British service, and plaided and plumed in the garb of the Gaël! Who could have imagined that those desolate chambers, which had been the scene of so many sorrows and troubles to the royal exiles, would re-echo the strains of the heart-stirring pibroch! But the place was dreary, damp, and desolate. The court-yard was overgrown with grass, the gardens had become a wilderness, and the fountains and ornamental statues were in ruins, and covered with the moss of years. Strange and old associations connected with the palace and its inhabitants were awakened in the hearts of the Highlanders, and Ronald-dhu, when the pipers played the retreat in the quadrangle, desired that it should be the 'Prince's Lament,' one of the most difficult pieces of our pipe music.

To the officers and soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders, being generally men from the most remote parts of the Highlands, the empty palace of Saint Germains formed a scene of no common interest. It was intimately connected with the misfortunes of that illustrious race, "of which (says a modern writer) no man can trace the beginning, and of which no Scotsman can bear to contemplate the end;" and the kilted sons of the North, as they wandered about its desolate chambers, made many observations which would have startled honest old George III., and have caused the Horse-Guards authorities to stand quite aghast, had they heard them. Although time, as it rolls on, is changing the manners of the Highlander and of his Lowland neighbour, the same chivalric feeling which brought forth the host of 1745 exists in the bosom of the former, and a spark yet lingers there which little might fan into a flame.

Mereville was the next halt. At the gate of the town they were received by a French regiment of royal volunteers, who had no uniform, but wore their cross-belts, &c. over their peasant's blouses of blue or white linen. They paid the compliments of war in very good style, while their band played the national anthem of Britain, and the burghers of Mereville rent the air with shouts of applause. At the barrier appeared the maire, arrayed in the garb of a past age,—a wide waistcoat and old-fashioned coat, with a silver-hilted sword and ruffles, and a wig and queue. He invited the officers to a déjeûné in the Hôtel de Ville, where he made a long and flourishing speech, descriptive of veneration for the British king and for the Scottish people. He spoke of the field of Vernuil, where the Scot and the Frenchman, drawing their swords side by side, as brothers and allies, had tamed the pride of England. La belle Marie! He laid his hand on his heart, and became quite eloquent on the subject of her wrongs and woes. He spoke of the alliances between the houses of Stuart and Bourbon, and of the many years of exile which the descendants from these marriages had spent in each other's territories.

The worthy old fellow was so much in earnest, and so enthusiastic on the occasion, that he even shed tears, struck himself a thousand times on the breast, and shrugged his shoulders and turned up his eyes quite as often.

Campbell replied in a short speech, which he had prepared during the long oration of Monsieur le Maire; but the good-will he gained by the first part of his address, was entirely lost by some unlucky after-allusion to the plains of Egypt and Sir Ralph Abercrombie.

From Mereville they marched to Montfort l'Amaury, a town twenty-eight miles west of Paris, where they were to join the 4th battalion of the Royals, and the 42nd Highlanders, also under orders for England.

At Beauvais, styled—because it has never been taken by force of arms—La Pucelle, the 92nd, to their no small joy, received intelligence that, on landing in England, their destination was to be the capital of their native country, where they were to be quartered for the ensuing winter.

Within four days afterwards, the streets of Calais rang to the notes of the pipe and drum, as the Scots brigade, on its homeward march, passed through the city to the harbour, where a fleet of small craft, provided by the authorities, lay in readiness to carry them over the Passage of Calais, as the straits are named by the French. The Cour de Guise, formerly the ancient English mint, was pointed out to Stuart by a French staff-officer, who rode beside him part of the way. He also showed him the statue of the patriotic Saint Pierre, which stands above the entrance of the town-hall, with its neck encircled by a rope,—the emblem of Saint Pierre's heroism, and of the obduracy of an English king. Many other places he pointed out which would have been interesting to the mind of a South-Tweeder, for often had the bluff English yeoman in his steel breast-plate, and the strong-handed archer in his doublet of Lincoln-green, kept watch and ward on the walls and towers of Calais.