“Who are they?” asked the Prince of the German, who had travelled much in France.
“Regiments of the line, Highness, dragoons,—and in the centre one of the Household brigades.” He raised his perspective glass. “Yes, the company under the Prince de Soubise. I can see the colours.”
William said nothing, he turned and galloped to the centre of the line of guns, just beneath the mill.
The French, assuming the Netherlanders would have remained under cover if their numbers were weak, took the daring charge of the cavalry as a sign that their entire force was concealed by the rising ground.
This was the impression the Prince had hoped to create.
Instantly the French, wishing to draw their enemy into the open and to put themselves beyond the range of the guns, retreated with a skilful backward movement, steady and swift as the reflux of a wave.
Then the foremost company of cavalry, regardless of the empty saddles already made, divided, wheeled to left and right, met again and charged. This was the French mode; reckless, showy, expensive, but irresistible, at once the glory and the ruin of their arms. It exposed the very flower of their youth, gallantry, and nobility to the whole brunt of the battle, while the infantry remained comparatively immune.
Again and again the French were to buy dashing and profitless victories at the price of their best blood; again and again the aristocrats and gentlemen were to be sacrificed in cruel slaughter, until all the finest lives in France were hurled away in pursuance of the reckless policy of the cavalry charge of the Household troops.
So now they came on, reins hanging loose, the horses with lengthened necks, flattened ears, and staring eyes; ribbons, feathers, laces, and curls blowing back over the shoulders of the men.
The Dutch formed close and received the shock of the onset without flinching.