Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

by William Makepeace Thackeray

“I fear, colonel, you are no better than a republican at heart,” says the priest, with a sigh.

“I am an Englishman,” says Harry, “and take my country as I find her. The will of the nation being for Church and [pg 323] King, I am for Church and King, too; but English Church, and English King; and that is why your Church isn't mine, though your king is.”

Though they lost the day at Malplaquet, it was the French who were elated by that action, whilst the conquerors were dispirited by it; and the enemy gathered together a larger army than ever, and made prodigious efforts for the next campaign. Marshal Berwick was with the French this year; and we heard that Mareschal Villars was still suffering of his wound, was eager to bring our duke to action, and vowed he would fight us in his coach. Young Castlewood came flying back from Bruxelles, as soon as he heard that righting was to begin; and the arrival of the Chevalier de St. George was announced about May. “It's the king's third campaign, and it's mine,” Frank liked saying. He was come back a greater Jacobite than ever, and Esmond suspected that some fair conspirators at Bruxelles had been inflaming the young man's ardour. Indeed, he owned that he had a message from the queen, Beatrix's godmother, who had given her name to Frank's sister the year before he and his sovereign were born.

However desirous Marshal Villars might be to fight, my lord duke did not seem disposed to indulge him this campaign. Last year his grace had been all for the Whigs and Hanoverians; but finding, on going to England, his country cold towards himself, and the people in a ferment of High-Church loyalty, the duke comes back to his army cooled towards the Hanoverians, cautious with the Imperialists, and particularly civil and polite towards the Chevalier de St. George. 'Tis certain that messengers and letters were continually passing between his grace and his brave nephew, the Duke of Berwick, in the opposite camp. No man's caresses were more opportune than his grace's, and no man ever uttered expressions of regard and affection more generously. He professed to Monsieur de Torcy, so Mr. St. John told the writer, quite an eagerness to be cut in pieces for the exiled queen and her family; nay more, I believe, this year he parted with a portion of the most precious part of himself—his money—which he sent over to the royal exiles. Mr. Tunstal, who was in the prince's service, was twice or thrice in and out of our camp; the French, in theirs of Arlieu and about Arras. A little river, the Canihe, I think 'twas called (but this is writ away from books and Europe; and the [pg 324] only map the writer hath of these scenes of his youth, bears no mark of this little stream), divided our pickets from the enemy's. Our sentries talked across the stream, when they could make themselves understood to each other, and when they could not, grinned, and handed each other their brandy-flasks or their pouches of tobacco. And one fine day of June, riding thither with the officer who visited the outposts (Colonel Esmond was taking an airing on horseback, being too weak for military duty), they came to this river, where a number of English and Scots were assembled, talking to the good-natured enemy on the other side.

Esmond was especially amused with the talk of one long fellow, with a great curling red moustache, and blue eyes, that was half a dozen inches taller than his swarthy little comrades on the French side of the stream, and being asked by the colonel, saluted him, and said that he belonged to the Royal Cravats.

From his way of saying “Royal Cravat”, Esmond at once knew that the fellow's tongue had first wagged on the banks of the Liffey, and not the Loire; and the poor soldier—a deserter probably—did not like to venture very deep into French conversation, lest his unlucky brogue should peep out. He chose to restrict himself to such few expressions in the French language as he thought he had mastered easily; and his attempt at disguise was infinitely amusing. Mr. Esmond whistled “Lillibullero,” at which Teague's eyes began to twinkle, and then flung him a dollar, when the poor boy broke out with a “God bless—that is, Dieu bénisse votre honor”, that would infallibly have sent him to the provost-marshal had he been on our side of the river.

Whilst this parley was going on, three officers on horseback, on the French side, appeared at some little distance, and stopped as if eyeing us, when one of them left the other two, and rode close up to us who were by the stream. “Look, look!” says the Royal Cravat, with great agitation, “pas lui, that's he; not him, l'autre,” and pointed to the distant officer on a chestnut horse, with a cuirass shining in the sun, and over it a broad blue ribbon.

“Please to take Mr. Hamilton's services to my Lord Marlborough—my lord duke,” says the gentleman in English; and, looking to see that the party were not [pg 325] hostilely disposed, he added, with a smile, “There's a friend of yours, gentlemen, yonder; he bids me to say that he saw some of your faces on the 11th of September last year.”

As the gentleman spoke, the other two officers rode up, and came quite close. We knew at once who it was. It was the king, then two-and-twenty years old, tall and slim, with deep brown eyes, that looked melancholy, though his lips wore a smile. We took off our hats and saluted him. No man, sure, could see for the first time, without emotion, the youthful inheritor of so much fame and misfortune. It seemed to Mr. Esmond that the prince was not unlike young Castlewood, whose age and figure he resembled. The Chevalier de St. George acknowledged the salute, and looked at us hard. Even the idlers on our side of the river set up a hurrah. As for the Royal Cravat, he ran to the prince's stirrup, knelt down and kissed his boot, and bawled and looked a hundred ejaculations and blessings. The prince bade the aide de camp give him a piece of money; and when the party saluting us had ridden away, Cravat spat upon the piece of gold by way of benediction, and swaggered away, pouching his coin and twirling his honest carroty moustache.

The officer in whose company Esmond was, the same little captain of Handyside's regiment, Mr. Sterne, who had proposed the garden at Lille, when my Lord Mohun and Esmond had their affair, was an Irishman too, and as brave a little soul as ever wore a sword. “Bedad,” says Roger Sterne, “that long fellow spoke French so beautiful that I shouldn't have known he wasn't a foreigner, till he broke out with his hulla-balloing, and only an Irish calf can bellow like that.”—And Roger made another remark in his wild way, in which there was sense as well as absurdity—“If that young gentleman,” says he, “would but ride over to our camp instead of Villars's, toss up his hat and say, ‘Here am I, the king, who'll follow me?’ by the Lord, Esmond, the whole army would rise and carry him home again, and beat Villars, and take Paris by the way.”