In the Irish Brigade: A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain. Henty George Alfred
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so, sir," Desmond replied with a smile. "I have no doubt that it was my fault. Perhaps I was not patient enough with him; but, indeed, my efforts to rouse him to take exercise, to practise in arms, and so on, were so ill received, that I felt I was doing more harm than good."
"I was afraid that it would be so," the other said, regretfully. "You see, during his later years, his father gave up his time almost entirely to religious observances; and, consequently, the lad's life was very dull and monotonous. Constitutionally, he undoubtedly takes after his father, who, with all his virtues, was at once indolent and undecided. We have observed, with regret, his disinclination to bestir himself in any way. Seeing that we, who were his father's companions, are too old, or too much disheartened, to be lively companions for him, we had hoped that the talk of one of spirit, and of his own age, might have roused him to make some exertions to overcome his disinclination for anything like active exercise. I think now, however, that we were wrong; that the tonic was too strong; that he could not but feel that your abundance of spirits, and life, were too much for him; and that the companion he needs is one who could, to some extent, sympathize with him, and who could, perhaps, make more allowance for the manner in which he has been brought up.
"We do not blame you at all. I am sure that you have done your best. But it is evident that the contrast between you and himself has been too strong a one; and that, feeling he cannot hope to emulate your soldierly activity, he has come to resent it, as a sort of reflection upon himself."
Desmond was, by no means, sorry at being relieved of the necessity of paying frequent visits to Saint Germain. In the first place, he begrudged the time that was taken from his fencing lessons, at which he had worked enthusiastically; and in the next, he had felt, after two or three visits, that between himself and the young king there was really nothing in common. Full of life and spirits himself, it seemed to him nothing short of disgraceful that one, who aspired to rule, should take no pains whatever to fit himself for a throne, or to cultivate qualities that would render himself popular among a high-spirited people. And, as he came to understand James more thoroughly, he had found his visits increasingly irksome, all the more so, as he felt their inutility.
"Thank goodness," he said, to his two friends, when he went home that day, "I have done with Saint Germain. I am as warm an adherent as ever of the cause of the Stuarts, and should be perfectly ready, when the time comes, to fight my hardest for them; but I would vastly rather fight for the king, than converse with him."
"I suppose, by what I have seen of him, that he must be somewhat wearisome," Phelim O'Sullivan said, with a laugh. "Fortunately, wit and gaiety are not essential qualities on the part of a monarch; but I must own that, treasonable as it may sound, I fear His Majesty is lacking in other qualities, far more essential in a monarch. I should say that he is kindly and well disposed, he wishes to be fair and just, and may turn out a wise ruler; but he is altogether deficient in energy. I suppose there is no occasion for a king, safely seated upon a throne, to be energetic; but a prince in exile should possess the qualities that excite enthusiasm, and bind men to him. Possibly, the qualities King James possesses would be highly valued by the Scotch, but they would certainly fail to inspire our people."
"Yes," Patrick O'Neil agreed. "His father did more to ruin his cause, in Ireland, than all William's Dutch generals and troops, together. It was disheartening to be risking life and possessions for a man who would do nothing for himself, whose indecision paralysed our leaders, and who, the moment a reverse came, sought safety in flight, instead of taking his place among the men who were devoted to his cause. I can understand that, in England, where the majority of those who professed to be devoted to him were betraying him, and were in secret communication with William, he should be by turns obstinate and vacillating; but in Ireland, where every man who surrounded him was risking his life in his cause, he should have shown absolute confidence in them, listened to their advice, set an example of personal gallantry and courage, and, at least, remained among them until all was definitely lost. It was the desertion of James, rather than the loss of the battle of the Boyne, that ruined his cause.
"Well, I am glad you are out of it, for it was a pity that you should be going without your work at the salle d'armes, when you were making such progress that, the master reported, in a few months you would become one of the best swordsmen in the regiment."
There were, in Paris, many Irish officers besides those belonging to Colonel O'Brien's regiment. These were, for the most part, men who had been severely wounded in the preceding campaign, and who now remained in the capital with the depots of their regiments. These were constantly recruited by fresh arrivals from Ireland, by which means the Irish Brigade was not only kept up to their original strength, in spite of the heavy losses they suffered, in the engagements in which they had taken part, but largely increased its force, new regiments being constantly formed. Naturally, O'Brien's corps, being the only complete regiment in Paris, at the time, was regarded as the headquarters and general meeting place of all the Irish officers there; and, as some of these had campaigned in Flanders, in Italy, and in Spain, Desmond learned, from their talk and anecdotes, far more of the doings of the Brigade than he had hitherto known. From the first they had, by their reckless bravery, in almost every engagement that had taken place, so distinguished themselves that they received the highest commendation from the French generals, and were almost invariably selected for specially dangerous service.
"I think the hottest affair I was ever engaged in," a major, who had served in Burke's regiment, said one evening, when some ten or twelve of his companions had gathered, at the room which was the general meeting place of the officers of the corps, "was at the attack on Cremona by Eugene. You have all heard how our regiment, and that of Dillon, distinguished themselves there, but you may not have heard particulars. The place was a strong one, and it was garrisoned by some 4000 men–all French, with the exception of our two regiments. Marshal Villeroy was himself in command; an excellent officer, but, as is often the case in the French army, very badly served by his subordinates.
"Here, as you know, almost everything goes by influence; and the generals are surrounded by men who have been forced upon them by powerful persons, whom they cannot afford to disoblige. The consequence was that, relying upon the strength of the place, no proper watch was set. There were guards, indeed, at the gates, but with no communication with each other; no soldiers on the ramparts; no patrols were sent out beyond the town, or maintained in the streets.
"No harm might have come of this, had it not been that treachery was at work. There was a scoundrel, who was brother of the priest of one of the parishes near the wall, and both were in favour of the enemy. The priest's residence was near a sewer, which communicated with the moat outside the walls. The entrance was closed by an iron grating. Were this removed, troops could enter, by the sewer, into the priest's wine cellar.
"The priest, being promised a large sum of money, set to work. First, he laid a complaint before the governor that the sewer was choked with filth, which might be a source of disease to the town unless removed; and to do this, it was necessary that the grating should be taken down. Being altogether unsuspicious of evil, the governor granted his request.
"As soon as the grating was removed, Eugene despatched eight miners, who crossed the moat at night, made their way up the sewer, and opened a communication between it and the priest's house. When all was ready, four or five hundred picked grenadiers entered, and were concealed in the house of the priest, and other adherents of the emperor.
"Eugene set two strong bodies of picked troops in motion. The one was to enter by the Saint Margaret gate, which would be seized by the force already in the city. This column consisted of five thousand men. The second force, of two thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, under the Prince de Vaudemont, was to cross the river by a bridge of boats.
"We slept like stupid dogs. Such watchmen as there were on the walls gave no alarm. The gate of All Saints was seized, its guard being instantly overpowered, and a party of engineers broke down the gate of Saint Margaret, which had been walled up; and at daylight Eugene rode into the town, followed by his troops and one thousand cavalry; while another mounted force watched the gate, and the country round, to prevent the escape of fugitives.
"Before any alarm was given, Eugene had established himself at the Hotel de Ville, was master of the great street that separated half the garrison from the other half, had taken possession of the cathedral; and,