Page:Dupleix and the Struggle for India by the European Nations.djvu/111

104 reason. Their leader was not much better: they all expected to hear the sound of the enemy's guns thundering in their rear. Had they heard that sound, they could scarcely have escaped destruction. Then, the French, marching rapidly on Trichinopoli, would probably have secured that fortress without a blow, and have firmly established their domination over Southern India.

Why did not D'Auteuil, who, an old soldier, must have known the great advantage to be ensured by pursuing a panic-stricken enemy,—why did not D'Auteuil utter that one word? The only answer that I can give is, that he was suffering at the moment from a severe attack of gout. It is a reason, but not an excuse, for his inaction. Excruciating as may have been his agony, he might have reasoned that Fortune in very jealous of her favours; that she does not often vouchsafe them a second time to the man who may have declined them when opportunely offered. But—he did not reason: he preferred, at this crisis of the fortunes of France in India, to remain idle; to permit the English to fall back towards that very Trichinopoli which it was his mission to secure, and which would thus be greatly strengthened by the addition to its garrison of the very men whom it had been in his power to destroy. Can we wonder that, a little later, it should be that very Trichinopoli which became the grave of the French?

But Fortune, pitying the condition of D'Auteuil, gave him a second chance. After a rest of twenty