Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/262

248 occurred. A colonel Quientern, an officer in the imperial army, formed a design of carrying off the dauphin from the court of Versailles. He selected thirty men for this apparently insane enterprise, procured passports for them, and kept them in readiness in the neighbourhood of Paris. On the 24th of March he and his accomplices stopped one of the king's coaches, in which they persuaded themselves that the dauphin was, made themselves master of the person of the imagined prince, and, setting him on horseback, made the best of their way for the Netherland frontiers. They would have succeeded in reaching them, but the supposed prince broke down with fatigue, when they stopped to procure a chaise for him, and lost so much time through his inability to travel except in the easiest position, that they were overtaken at Ham by a detachment of horse within only three hours' ride of the frontier—less time than they had lost in accommodating their prisoner. They were obliged to surrender, when their mortification at the defeat of their enterprise was somewhat abated by the discovery that they had not got the dauphin of France, but only M. Berringen, the first equerry to the king. The affair became so amusing a joke, that the king, in consideration of the humanity which they had shown to their prisoner, ordered Quientern and his accomplices to be discharged, and Madame Berringen made them a handsome present for their kind treatment of her husband, though they thought their courtesies bestowed on a prince of the blood.

The duke of Vendôme, on the 25th of May, posted his army at Soignies, whilst Marlborough was encamped at Billinghen and Halle, only three leagues distant. The French then moved towards Braine-la-Leuvre, and Marlborough, supposing that they meant to occupy the banks of the Dyle and cut him off from Louvaine, made a rapid night march, and on the 3rd of June was at Terbauk, Auverqeurque occupying the suburbs of Louvaine. There, as the allies were yet far inferior in numbers, they imagined the French would give them battle; but such were not the French plans. They had advanced only to Genappe and Braine-la Leuvre, and now sought by stratagem to regain the towns they had lost in Flanders. They knew that the allies had drawn out all their forces, and that few of these towns had any competent garrisons. The inhabitants of many of these places had a leaning to France, from the heavy exactions of the Dutch and the popularity of the elector of Bavaria and the count de Bergeyck, who was a warm adherent of the Bourbons. The French, therefore, resolving to profit by these circumstances, dispatched troops to Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, and were soon admitted to these placed. They next invested Oudenarde; but Marlborough, being now joined by Eugene, made a rapid march to that town, and took up a strong position before it. The French, however, unwilling to come to an engagement, passed the Scheldt, and attempted to defeat the allies by attacking them whilst they were in the act of passing it after them. The allies, however, effected their transit, and came to an engagement with the enemy betwixt the Scheldt and the Lys on the 11th of July. The French amounted to one hundred thousand, the allies to little more than eighty thousand. The latter, however, had this great advantage—that the commanders of the allies were united, those of the French were of contrary views. The duke of Vendôme was prevented attacking the allies during their passage of the river by the remissness of the duke of Burgundy. When it was already three o'clock in the afternoon, and the allies were safe over, then the duke of Burgundy was eager for an attack, and the duke of Vendôme as averse to it, the proper opportunity having been lost. The wiser general was eventually overruled, and major-general Grimaldi was ordered to attack count Rantzau, who was posted on a marshy plain near the village of Heynem, with a muddy rivulet in front of him, with the king's household troops. But these troops, when they saw the nature of the rivulet, would not charge, and filed off to the right. Rantzau then crossed the rivulet himself, and, whilst general Cadogan assaulted the village of Heynem, attacked and drove before him several squadrons of the enemy. In this attack the electoral prince of Hanover greatly distinguished himself by his gallant charge at the head of Bulow's dragoons. He had his horse killed under him, and colonel Laschky killed at his side. Several French regiments were completely broken, and many officers and standards were taken by the Hanoverians. The general engagement, however, did not take place till about five o'clock, when the duke of Argyll came up with the infantry. Auverquerque and Tilly, who led on the left of the allies, were the first to make the French give way, when they were attacked in flank by the Dutch infantry under the prince of Orange and count Oxenstjerna, and completely routed their right. After that the whole line gave way. In vain Vendôme exerted himself to check their flight and re-form them; they fled in wild confusion along the road from Oudenarde towards Ghent, and Vendôme could do nothing but protect their rear. Their greatest protector, however, was the night, which stopped the pursuit of the allies. As soon as it was light the pursuit was resumed; but this was checked by the French grenadiers, who were posted behind the hedges that skirted the road, and the French army reached Ghent at eight in the morning, and encamped on the canal on the other side of the city at Lovendegen, after one of the most thorough defeats that they had ever sustained. They lost three thousand men, were deserted by two thousand more, and had seven thousand taken, besides ten pieces of cannon, more than a hundred colours and standards, and four thousand horses. The loss of the allies was not inconsiderable, amounting to nearly two thousand men.

After resting a couple of days on the field of battle, a detachment was sent to level the French lines between Ypres and the Lys; another to lay the country under contributions as far as Arras, which ravaged the country and greatly alarmed Paris itself by carrying the war into France. This alarm was heightened by the allies next advancing upon the city of Lille, which was considered the very key to Paris and to half of France. Lille was very strongly defended by batteries and entrenchments, and by a garrison of twenty-one battalions of the best troops in France commanded by Boufflers. This daring act combined all the skill and chief leaders on either side for the attack and the defence. The dukes of Burgundy, Vendôme, and Berwick hastened to the relief of the place. Marlborough, Eugene, the prince of Grange, Augustus, king of