They cowered before him, and he, in his wrath, turned the officer’s horse himself, and when the man still hesitated he took his whip from his boot and lashed them back into the battle.…
It was now nearly dusk, and as the sun struck level rays across the battlefield, before it sunk below the flat horizon, the sound of the Marquis de Rochfort’s guns was heard in the distance.
No human endeavour could do any more. The Prince had kept up a fight of eight hours against overwhelming odds, holding at bay, with his raw, tired troops, the splendid forces of France.
More than half his army was slain; his guns were dismounted, his powder spent. Reluctantly he drew off his exhausted men, first firing the mill and the farmhouses to impede the enemy in the pursuit, which they were, however, by no means inclined to make.
M. de Soubise was quite satisfied with his victory, and it was no part of the training of his school of warfare to follow up a success.
He still imagined the Dutch to have been at least twice their number, and consequently magnified his own glory.
His men were tired, and with the dark great clouds blew up and warm rain fell. The French camp was pitched on the field of battle, and glowing dispatches written to His Majesty and M. de Louvois.
The Prince and his officers on the Utrecht road were not ill content either, for they had done what they intended, and at no higher a price than they had been prepared to pay.
Utrecht was saved; M. de Zuylestein installed within its walls.
Riding through the soft raining dark, William repeated that to himself—