“The duke de la Feuillade, full of ardour and activity, more capable than most persons of enterprises which only demand courage, but incapable of such as require skill, thought, and time, pressed on the siege against all rules. The Marshal de Vauban, the only general, perhaps, who loved the state better than himself, had proposed to the duke de la Feuillade to come and direct the siege as an engineer, and to serve in his army as a volunteer; but the haughty De la Feuillade took the offers of Vauban for pride concealed under the mask of modesty. He was weak enough to be piqued because the best engineer in Europe offered to give him advice. He wrote, in a letter which I have seen: ‘I hope to take Turin à la Cohorn.’
“This Cohorn was the Vauban of the allies—a good engineer, a good general, who had more than once taken places fortified by Vauban. After writing such a letter, Turin ought to have been taken. But, having attacked it by the citadel, which was the strongest side, and not having surrounded the whole city, succours and provisions had free entrance. The duke of Savoy could come out when he pleased; and the more impetuosity the duke de la Feuillade exhibited in his reiterated and fruitless attacks, the longer the siege seemed protracted. The duke of Savoy left the city with some troops of cavalry, for the purpose of deceiving De la Feuillade. The latter abandoned the siege to run after the prince, who, being better acquainted with the country, escaped the pursuit. La Feuillade missed the duke of Savoy, and the siege stood still during his absence.
“In the mean time, after the departure of the duke de Vendôme, the duke of Orleans, nephew to the king, came to take the command of the troops of observation. He could not prevent Prince Eugene from joining the duke of Savoy near Asti. This junction compelled him to unite with the duke de la Feuillade, and to enter the camp before Turin. There were but two parts to take; that of waiting for Prince Eugene in the lines of circumvallation, or that of going to meet him while he was still in the neighbourhood of Vegliana. The duke of Orleans called a council of war, composed of Marsin, who lost the battle of Hochstet, La Feuillade, Albergotti, St. Frémont, and other lieutenant-generals. ‘Gentlemen,’ said the prince to them, ‘if we remain in our lines, we shall lose the battle. Our circumvallation is five leagues in extent; we are not able to line all our intrenchments. You see here the regiment of the marine, which is not more than two men’s height: there you may see places entirely unmanned. The Dora, which passes through our camp, will prevent our troops from rendering each other prompt assistance. When Frenchmen wait to be attacked, they lose the greatest of their advantages,—that impetuosity and those first moments of ardour which so often decide the fate of battles. Take my word, we must march to meet the enemy.’ The resolution was agreed to, when Marsin drew from his pocket an order of the king’s, by which it was commanded that, in the event of action being proposed, his opinion was to be deferred to; and his opinion was, that they should remain in the lines. The duke of Orleans saw that he had only been sent to the army as a prince of the blood, and not as a general; and, forced to follow the counsel of the marshal, he made all necessary preparations for the battle, which was fought on the 7th of September.
“The enemy appeared to wish to form several attacks at once. Their movements threw the whole French camp into a state of uncertainty. The duke of Orleans desired one thing; Marsin and Feuillade another: they disputed and argued, but they decided upon nothing. At length they allowed the enemy to cross the Dora. They advanced with eight columns of twenty-five men deep: they must instantly be opposed by battalions equally deep. Albergotti, placed far from the army, upon the mountain of the Capuchins, had with him twenty thousand men, and had in face nothing but some militia, who did not dare attack him. He was asked for twelve thousand men: he replied that he could not spare them, and gave specious reasons for his refusal. He was listened to, and time was lost. Prince Eugene attacked the intrenchments, and, at the end of two hours, forced them. The duke of Orleans, who exposed himself with all the bravery of the heroes of his blood, having received a dangerous wound in the arm, had retired to have it dressed. He was scarcely in the hands of the surgeon, when he was informed that all was lost, that the enemy were masters of the camp, and that the rout was general. Immediate flight was necessary. The lines, the trenches, were abandoned, and the army dispersed. All the baggage, provisions, munitions, and the military chest fell into the hands of the conqueror. Marshal de Marsin, wounded in the thigh, was made prisoner. A surgeon in the service of the duke of Savoy amputated the limb, and he died a few minutes after the operation. The Chevalier Methuen, the English ambassador to the duke of Savoy, the most frank, generous, and brave man his country ever employed in an embassy, had upon all occasions fought at the side of that prince: he saw the Marshal de Marsin taken, and was a witness of his last moments. He told me that Marsin said these very words, ‘At least believe, monsieur, that it was against my advice that we remained in our lines.’ These words appeared to contradict formally what had passed in the council of war; and they were nevertheless true: Marshal de Marsin, on taking leave at Versailles, had represented to the king that the enemy must be met, in case they appeared for the purpose of succouring Turin; but Chamillard, intimidated by preceding defeats, had caused it to be decided that they ought to wait and not offer battle; and this order, given at Versailles, was the cause of sixty thousand men being defeated and dispersed.”
This defeat, which cost nine or ten thousand men killed or made prisoners, was still more fatal to France by its consequences; for it brought on the loss of Modena, Mantua, Milan, Piedmont, and in the end, of the kingdom of Naples.
ARRAS.
A.D. 1654.
Two of the most illustrious generals, not only of France but of the world, were opposed to each other before Arras. The great Condé had allowed party feeling so far to prevail over his sense of duty as to lead him not only to deprive his country of his services, but to turn them against it. It is rather a remarkable fact, that one of the generals of whom France has most to boast, earned his brightest laurels when in arms against her. When his son was desirous of having the history of his father painted in the gallery of Chantilly, he found himself at a loss on account of the above-mentioned circumstance. In order to avoid being quite silent on these subjects, he ordered the muse of history to be portrayed holding a book, upon the back of which was written, Life of the Prince de Condé. This muse was tearing leaves from the book and throwing them on the ground, and on the leaves appeared,—“Succour of Cambrai,” “Succour of Valenciennes,” “Retreat from before Arras;” in short, all the great actions of Condé during his sojourn in the Low Countries,—actions which would have been worthy of the highest praise, if the hero who performed them had worn another scarf.
Condé proposed to the Spanish court to besiege Arras, to avenge itself for the siege of Stenay. Arras contained a garrison of little more than two thousand men; the army of the archduke Leopold consisted of thirty-two thousand men, Italians, Lorrains, Flemings, Spaniards, and discontented Frenchmen. Alarmed at this enterprise, Mazarin had recourse to Turenne, and an army of fourteen thousand men was sent under his command to succour Arras. Six hundred determined Frenchmen broke through the enemy’s lines, and threw themselves into the place before the Spaniards had completed their intrenchments. The army of Turenne, too weak to venture to contend with the superior forces of the enemy in an open country, awaited some time at Peronne for the necessary provisions. Turenne’s first object was to starve his enemy, and to occupy a position, the strength of which might render his army respectable. His camp was at first at Monchi-le-Preux, upon a height which commanded a valley, watered on one side by the Scarpe, and on the other by the Cogel. From this point he intercepted the enemy’s communication with Douai, Bouchain, and Valenciennes; the marquis de Beauvais, sent to Bapaume, prevented their receiving anything from Cambrai. Two thousand men, posted towards Lens, intercepted the passage of Lille, whilst Lilleboane, with fifteen hundred men, was to scour the country and block up the roads of Aire and Saint-Omer. The Spanish army, thus inclosed, might have been forced by famine to raise the siege, if it had been possible to stop up the road of Saint-Pol; but that could not be accomplished. The Spaniards opened their trenches on the 14th of July; the besieged defended their ground so completely foot by foot, that they had only lost a single hornwork at the end of a month; still more, they had cost the besiegers two thousand men. Marshal d’Hocquincourt, having entered Stenay, came to reinforce the viscount before Arras. On his route he took Saint-Pol, and carried off a detachment of five hundred men from the abbey of Saint-Eloi. Turenne, who had been to meet him with fifteen squadrons, made on his return a reconnaissance upon all the enemy’s lines to the north: they were of two toises in width, and ten feet in depth; in front was a fosse, nine feet wide and six feet deep. Twelve rows of trous de loup, placed chequerwise, were between the intrenchments and the avant-fossé; little palisades of a foot and a half high were planted in the intervals of these, to prevent the approach of cavalry. The Spaniards, commanded by the count de Fuensaldagne, occupied the north of these long lines, on the road to Lens; the prince de Condé was on the opposite side with the French. The archduke, with the Germans and the Flemings, extended to the east, from the road of Cambrai to the Scarpe; Don Ferdinand de Solis completed the investment from the west to the south, with Italians and Lorrains. In a second reconnaissance, the marshal went so close to the quarters of Fuensaldagne, that some of his officers represented to him that he would expose himself to an almost certain defeat if the Spaniards availed themselves of the opportunity offered. “Oh! there is nothing to fear,” said Turenne; “they will employ more time in consulting and holding council than it will take me to examine their lines.” He was right: the Spaniards did not put themselves in motion till he was out of sight. Terrified by these formidable lines, none of the French generals dared attempt to succour Arras; Turenne alone maintained that certainly some weak point would be found if they were attacked by night; he often conversed with his officers on the conduct to be observed on entering intrenchments, and upon the means of overcoming all the obstacles that art can oppose to valour. The court were of the opinion of Turenne, and gave orders for an attack on the 24th of August.