naturally looked with a suspicious eye to almost every other section in his own lines.

Such was the state of the war, one rather of expectation than of action, when on the 23d Eugene arrived in the camp, in sufficient time to take part in the entertainment which Marlborough gave to his army, in commemoration of the victory at Ramilies. The two chiefs were as usual candid and open to each other; but though the prince examined the details of Marlborough's projected operations, and cordially approved of them all, the condition of Germany would not permit that he should lend the aid of his great talents in carrying them into execution. The object of his coming, indeed to himself a painful one, was to cripple Marlborough, by removing from him a large portion of the force, on the efficiency of which he had been led to calculate. Even this circumstance, however, though embarrassing in no ordinary degree, took away neither from the zeal nor the determination of the English general. He knew that to his own government he was become an object of jealous abhorrence; and hence that every proceeding on his part would be scrutinised with the most malicious exactitude; and he resolved that no opening should be afforded even to the bitterest of his enemies to assert, that he had permitted a sense of private injustice to interfere with the discharge of his public duty.

Having tarried nearly three weeks in Marlborough's camp, Eugene on the 13th of June directed his contingent, amounting to not less than 30,000 men, to be under arms, and in line of march, before dawn on the following morning. Marlborough so far turned this lamented separation to account, that he also gave instructions for his own corps to assemble; and while thirty squadrons occupied the heights of Sailly, so as to mask the movements which went on in their rear, both the German and the Anglo-Batavian armies struck their tents. Eugene, having bidden farewell to his comrade in many triumphs, now took the road to Tournay; while the duke, filing to his right, passed Scarpe, and emerged into the plain of Lens. The troops halted in position, with their right at Lieven, on the Souchet, and the left towards Equerchin; and as it formed nɔ part of the general's scheme to disguise the evolution, they were speedily followed by the enemy. Villars no sooner became aware of the movement, than he also broke up from his camp. He marched rapidly towards his left, in the rear of the chain of redoubts, till he had placed himself exactly opposite to Marlborough, with his left upon Montenencourt, his centre at Arras, and his right appuyed by the rugged banks of the Coqueel. Yet though the allies lay exposed in an open plain, and by frequent reconnoissances showed their readiness to engage, Villars would not hazard an attack. He was restrained, as it afterwards appeared, not more by the removal from his own camp of some of his best corps, both of horse and foot, than by the

positive commands of his sovereign and hence a second interval of something more than a month occurred, during which the armies looked at one another, without engaging in any thing more serious than occasional affairs of foragers and convoys.

There were two posts occupied by Villars in advance of his main line, which threatened seriously to interfere with Marlborough's projected operations,—namely, Arleux and Aubigny,—the one on the causeway which leads to the bridge over the Senzet, at Pallue, the other in front of Aubanchæil-au-bac, likewise on the Senzet. These it was essential to reduce; not, indeed, that they might be heid by the allies, for that would have alarmed without weakening the enemy; but that they might be recovered again by the French, and ultimately destroyed. They were accordingly attacked with great fury by detachments sent out for the purpose; and they were both carried, with the loss of a few lives on the part of the assailants. The allies, after dismantling Aubigny, instantly began to strengthen Arleux, by enlarging its enceinte, and surrounding it with fresh outworks; while a camp of reserve being established on the glacis of Douay, every demonstration of a desire to retain the conquest was given.

For some days all was quiet; but on the night of the 9th of July, Villars arranged and executed a complicated movement, with such address, that he surprised the camp before Douay, and killed or made prisoners about 200 men. Marlborough could not conceal a natural chagrin that his troops should have exercised so little vigilance; yet was he far from lamenting the issue of the affair. On the contrary, he anticipated from it a serious increase to the confidence of the enemy, already somewhat excessive; and he manœuvred so as to turn to the best account any error of which they might be guilty. Having reinforced the garrison of Arleux, and mounted ten guns on the ramparts, he suddenly withdrew the detachment which had hitherto supported it; and assembling all his forces on the other side of the Scarpe, left the post to stand or fall by its own resources. Nor was this all. As if anxious to find out some more convenient field of operations, he moved on the 20th to a still greater distance; and halting that night not far from Bethune, took up a fresh position on the 21st, with his right at Etrée Blanche on the Quelle, and his left at Bouvriere.

Though sorely puzzled by these eccentric evolutions, because at a loss to surmise what end they were designed to serve, Villars esteemed it prudent to watch his illustrious opponent with all his strength. With this view he took ground in a direction parallel to that followed by Marlborough, till, by placing his right at Montenencourt, and his left at Oppy, he had manned the formidable works which connected by a belt of iron the Scarpe with the Canche. Nevertheless he was neither regardless nor indifferent to the exposed

situation of Arleux. He caused it to be fiercely attacked by a corps of sixteen battalions and as many squadrons, under Montesquiou: it was won, after a desperate resistance, and, as the English general had anticipated, immediately levelled with the earth. Thus, though at a considerable expense of life, was one important device of Marlborough realised, and a free passage opened for the developement of that grand manœuvre, on the result of which the fate of France appeared to turn.

When intelligence came in that Arleux had fallen, and that a corps from the French army had moved to the Sambre, Marlborough affected an extraordinary degree of chagrin. He shunned the society of his generals, held little or no intercourse with his personal staff, and gave out, on every convenient occasion, that he should avenge these disasters, and save Brabant, by forcing Villars, at all hazards, to a battle. Meanwhile he silently despatched reinforcements to general Hompesch at Douay; caused his own baggage to be escorted to the same place; and commanded six days' bread to be secretly prepared and forwarded to the camp from Lisle; then, after ordering his heavy artillery to the rear, he broke up at an early hour in the morning of the 1st of August, and advanced in eight columns towards the enemy's lines. That night he halted at Pont de Retreuve, where on the extreme left of the line his headquarters were fixed; but next day he was again, with all possible ostentation, in march. Finally, he took up a position at a league's distance from the lines, with his left at Villers aux Bois, and his right near Bailleul, where the cavalry were ordered to provide themselves with fascines, and the infantry warned that it would ere long be their part to use them.

While the mass of the horse were busied in obeying these directions, brigadier-general Sutton marched secretly from the camp, at the head of a strong detachment of infantry, and the whole of the field-artillery, except four light pieces. This movement, of which no one could guess the object, occurred on the 3d; and on the 4th, Marlborough in person executed a close reconnoissance, under the escort of a corps of grenadiers and eighty squadrons of cavalry. He advanced on this occasion within cannon-shot of the enemy's works, pointing out to the generals who accompanied him certain points, as those which they would be required to carry; and the whole cortegé returned to camp about noon, in the full expectation of a decisive battle on the morrow. The same idea was entertained both by Villars and his troops, all of whom anticipated a great and easy victory; for it was as well known to them as it was to the allies that Marlborough had denuded himself of artillery. Marlborough, however, had a widely different game to play. The tattoo was yet sounding, when orders passed quietly through the allied camp that the tents

Yet

should be struck, and the troops, formed in columns of march, left in front; nor did half an hour elapse ere the whole were in rapid and silent movement towards Vitry on the Scarpe. they passed not from their ground without effecting one more manœuvre, of which it was the tendency to distract Villars, and keep him jealous of his position. A few squadrons of well mounted horse passing briskly to the right, swept round by Sart-le-bois, Sace, and Houvigneul, so as to alarm the enemy's left; and then falling back with the same precipitation which marked their advance, formed themselves into a rear-guard to the columns.

Some hours prior to the general move, Cadogan, attended by forty troopers, had quitted the camp, for the purpose, as was given out, of superintending certain arrangements, which, on the eve of a decisive battle, prudence rendered necessary. The real object of his mission was to join general Hompesch, who had now under his orders twentytwo battalions with 2000 horse, and to co-operate with him in an attempt to seize the causeway at Aubanchoil-au-bac, by which the enemy's lines were intersected. The very best success attended this daring but masterly manœuvre. Cadogan made such haste, that he reached Douay long before midnight. Hompesch's troops were instantly in movement, and by three o'clock in the morning the Senzet was crossed, and the works which defended it surmounted. All, moreover, was done without a shot being fired, or a single casualty occurring; for Villars, not dreaming that there could be danger at so great a distance from his enemy's head-quarters, had, with very blameable negligence, left the post of Aubanchoil-au-bac unguarded.

Marlborough, who marched at the head of the leading column, had passed the Scarpe, when a despatch from Cadogan communicated the welcome intelligence that the lines were actually in his possession. He sent urgent and repeated orders to the infantry that they should quicken their pace; while he himself, followed by fifty squadrons, pushed forward at a trot. The day was just breaking, that is to say, five o'clock had struck, when the glad tidings reached him; at eight he was across the Senzet, and joined by the whole of his field-train, which thus arrived in good time to support the detached corps in case of an attack. Of an attack, however, there was no danger. Villara had, it is true, become aware, so early as eleven o'clock on the preceding night, that the allies were moving; and his scouts assured him that the direction of the march was to the eastward: yet the appearance of the cavalry on his left confirmed him in the suspicion that it was nothing more than a feint, and that he should after all be attacked where he stood on the first return of light. Though he kept his men under arms, therefore, he permitted no reconnoissance to be hazarded, lest an affair of posts begun in the

dark might lead to a general assault, and he should thus be deprived of his great superiority in cannon. But Villars, like many other tacticians, had permitted his own plans so completely to engross his attention, that to those of his enemy he was blind. He continued under his delusion till two in the morning; and then awoke from it only to be convinced that the opportunity of baffling an active and intelligent opponent was lost. Irritated by the consciousness that he had been beaten at his own weapons, the French marshal put himself at the head of his cavalry, and flew at the utmost speed of his horses towards the point of danger. One by one his troopers fell behind; and when with reckless haste he had traversed the defile of Saulchy, he found himself with little more that 100 men, in the midst of the allied outposts. His escort, charged by superior numbers, surrendered to a man, and himself escaped almost by a miracle; but he had seen enough to assure him that the error of which he had been deceived into the commission was beyond remedy. Not the cavalry and field-train alone, but the infantry also of the allies were in position within the lines, with their left on the Gauche near Vesey, and their right in the hamlet of Bantigny; and as his own people came up stragglingly, it would have convicted him of absolute frenzy, had he so far forgotten himself as to hazard an attack. He accordingly halted in rear of the defile, and in no very enviable frame of mind passed that night, as he had done the preceding, under arms.

Astonished at an achievement which far surpassed their most sanguine anticipations, the Dutch and Austrians, contrary to their usual practice, urged Marlborough to attack; but this he declined to do. His troops had marched on the preceding night ten leagues without a halt; they were, therefore, in no condition to receive, far less to give a battle; besides, his views pointed elsewhere than to an engagement, which must be fought under imminent risks at the best, and which, if lost, would have utterly destroyed him. He, therefore, spent that night in bivouac ; and though he advanced on the following day a couple of miles on the road to Cambray, the movement was not designed for any thing more important than a feint. It had the effect of restraining Villars from passing the Scheld; and enabled Marlborough himself to complete, unmolested, eight pontoon bridges, across which, before noon on the 7th, he led his columns. Thus were the means prepared, in the face of an army numerically superior to his own, for the investment of one of those places which it formed part of his gigantic design to reduce; and though the movements requisite in order to take advantage of these were, doubtless, not without hazard, the excellence of his dispositions sufficed to neutralise it. Marlborough led his infantry under the guns of Cambray; the shot from which occasionally reached him; yet he made such excellent use of his ca

valry, in the occupation of commanding eminences, that Villars did not venture seriously to molest him.

It was late before the passage of the river was made good, and midnight was at hand, when, amid the pelting of a violent storm, the allies reached the plain of Avesnes le Sec. Here, destitute of all shelter, the troops lay down; but at eight next morning they were again under arms, and, filing into a new position, drew up, with their left extended along the Ille from Douchy to Haspres, and the right thrown back at an obtuse angle, and in a direction towards Houdain. At the same time, various detachments which had been left on the Senzet were called in. A piquet of grenadiers, alone, indeed, continued for a few hours to hold the Roman camp, a post of some importance on the left of the Scheld; but towards evening it also was withdrawn, and the last of the bridges on which the army had crossed was removed. Thus was the ground occupied, by preventing the allies in the seizure of which, Villarg might even yet have retrieved his fortunes; for so long as the right of the Scheld was closed against him, not even the forcing of the lines could have enabled Marlborough to effect the investment either of Bouchain or Valenciennes.

Brilliant as their successes had been, there yet remained many and serious obstacles to be overcome ere the allies could complete their lines of circumvallation, or open their trenches against Bouchain. Situated upon two rivers, the Senzet and the Scheld; of which the former bisects, while the latter covers the eastern face of the town, Bouchain was protected not only by a circle of formidable entrenchments, but by marshes and swamps, through which the only roads of communication were narrow causeways, in no ordinary degree defensible. The situation of Villars, moreover, afforded numerous opportunities of throwing succours into the place; for the enemy occupied the whole extent of the angle between the Senzet and the Scheld, and began promptly to entrench there. Besides, the western front was still open, and it rested with Villars either to keep it so, by traversing the Senzet in force: or, retaining his fortified camp, to straiten in their lines such divisions as Marlborough might detach for the purpose of pressing the siege in that quarter. Now, when to all this is added the circumstance, that a garrison of 6000 chosen men manned the works; that they were commanded by an officer of tried courage and ability, and amply supplied with stores, money, and provisions; it will, we think, be admitted, that nothing but courage of the highest order could have prompted any man to undertake a service so hazardous as that in which the allies were about to embark.

To the many difficulties which were likely to attend the siege, Marlborough was fully alive; and sensible that these could be overcome only by the utmost promptitude of action, he made

He

haste to complete his arrangements. On the morning of the 8th, a bridge was laid upon the Scheld at Neuville, below the town, by which sixty squadrons passed, and took possession of the heights of Vignonette, across which the road from Douay runs. Meanwhile Villars, throwing thirty battalions over the Senzet, made himself master of the hill above Marquette, and began to erect a series of works, which should at once keep open his own communications with the town through the swamp and its southern front, and render any attempt by the allies to push the approaches in that direction abortive. Marlborough was not slow in obtaining information, as well repecting the progress of these works as touching the design which they were meant to serve. determined to storm them ere they should be completed; and with this view general Fagel, at the head of a strong corps both of horse and foot, was passed silently over the river. But the skilful dispositions of Villars thwarted him. Not only was there collected at Wavrechin a force greatly superior to that of Fagel, but the allied piquets at Ivry were suddenly attacked; and Marlborough was compelled to countermarch in all haste, that he might be at hand to repel the danger. Villars, it appeared, had either obtained information of Fagel's movement, or he anticipated it. He accordingly crossed the Scheld at Ramilies with a large portion of his army; advanced, under cover of night, as far as Ivry; and was now manœuvring to bring on a decisive action, by which he hoped to destroy the allies in detail. But Villars, active as he was, could not boast of a superiority, even in that respect, over his rival. Marlborough, who had accompanied Fagel in person, no sooner heard the report of cannon, than he guessed its cause; and, withdrawing under the fire of the works, repassed the Scheld, and resumed his station on the right bank, ere a serious attack could be hazarded.

Though baffled in this attempt, and reduced to the necessity of covering his own camp with a chain of field-works, Marlborough neither despaired of ultimate success, nor relaxed one effort to effect speedily an enterprise, in the accomplishment of which he may be said in some degree to have staked his reputation. He strengthened himself on the right bank by securing a chain of works from Houdain to Ivry, and from Ivry to the Selle near Haspres; while at the same time he instructed Cadogan, who returned, when the immediate danger passed away, to pursue a similar course on the left. He thus secured himself from molestation, by the very same process which closed up all the avenues of approach to Bouchain, except one. Upon that one he next turned; and a trial of skill, which has not many parallels in military history, immediately began.

We have alluded to the position taken up by Villars on the northern bank of the Senzet, and the diligence with which he entrenched there a

corps of infantry. In order to render abortive any effort on Marlborough's part to interpose between that corps and the town, three redoubts were marked out; of which it was the object to form a sort of chain of communication towards the place at right angles with the line in which the works of the besiegers must be drawn. This occurred during the night of the 13th; and the propriety of the measure became apparent, when the return of day showed the allies in the act of leading their breast work forward from the height above Marquette into the interval which would have been otherwise left unguarded. But the precaution of Villars came too late. That very day his unfinished redoubts were stormed; and in spite of a heavy fire both from the town and the entrenched camp, the besiegers carried their zigzag down to the edge of the morass. Batteries were now thrown up, and guns brought to bear upon almost every foot of the causeway; yet the causeway itself could not be closed, without another and still more daring effort.

It has been stated above, that the space between the two rivers consists entirely of a marsh, through which a lève, or raised road, conducts the traveller from Bouchain to Cambray. The better to secure this, Villars erected a battery at Etrun, the fire from which swept directly down the road; and he posted there a battalion of six hundred men, which he supported in the rear by a brigade of three thousand. Marlborough saw that, to complete the investment of the town, it would be necessary to make himself master of this battery. With incredible labour and diligence, two fascine roads were constructed through the marsh from the banks both of the Scheld and Senzet, and on the night of the 16th, six hundred chosen grenadiers were ordered to turn them to account. These boldly advanced, till the paths ended; they then plunged into the swamp, and though covered with water to the shoulders, they struggled forward without firing a shot. They rushed with their bayonets upon the battery, and, at the cost of six lives only, drove the enemy from their guns. Not a moment was lost in converting the barrier thus won into a place of defence. The battery, closed in the rear, became, ere morning, a redoubt; and Bouchain ceased to hold any communication with the army of marshal Villars.

From this time forth the siege of Bouchain was pressed with all the activity and diligence for which the illustrious Marlborough stood conspicuous. The trenches were opened on the night between the 21st and 22d; three separate attacks were pushed on the eastern, the western, and southern faces of the town; a tremendous train of cannon, mortars, and cohorns shook the ramparts to pieces; and outwork after outwork, as it yielded to the fire, was stormed and taken. Neither the repeated attempts of Villars to penotrate the entrenched camp, nor the vigorous sorties of the besieged, retarded the progress of the

operation for one hour; and at last the governor felt himself reduced to the stern necessity of proposing terms of capitulation. They were peremptorily rejected; the bearer of the flag being instructed to inform his commandant that an unconditional surrender could alone save the town from the horrors of an assault. Hard as these conditions were, there was no possibility of evading them. On the 14th of September the remains of the garrison, amounting to 3000 of all ranks, marched out, and laid down their arms in the ditch, when the men were immediately transported to Tournay, the officers to Holland, as prisoners of war.

During the continuance of this arduous operation, no movement of importance occurred on any other point in the theatre of war. An effort was indeed made by the enemy to recover Douay by surprise, which failed; and a detached corps of the allies was attacked and routed at Houdain, with the loss of many prisoners, among whom Bourke the Prussian minister was included. Different encounters between foraging parties, with an occasional affair of posts, likewise gave cause of excitement among those remoter divisions whose situation necessarily precluded them from taking part in the labours of the siege. But from none of these did any memorable result occur. It were, however, unjust towards the memory of the great man whose military life forms the subject of this article, were we to omit an anecdote, so far connected with his professional character as marking the deep sense which this soldier, amid the full career of victory, retained of what is due to distinguished piety an high literary renown. The estates belonging to the see of Cambray, of which the illustrious Fénélon was bishop, lay within reach of every marauding party that might issue from the allied lines: Marlborough not only stationed a guard at the château to protect it from violence, but caused his own wagons, under escort of his own dragoons, to carry the good bishop's corn as far as the suburbs of the city. "Ce fut ce sentiment," says the French biographer, "qui, connu d'Alexandre, conservu, au milieu des ruines de Thébès, et la maison et la famille de Pindare."

It was the anxious wish of Marlborough to take advantage of what yet remained of the season for active operations, by following up the capture of Bouchain by the investment of Quesnoy; with which view he ceased not, during the latter days of the siege, to press both the Dutch and English governments for supplies and means of transport. The latter he found exceedingly averse to come into his wishes; nor did any great while elapse ere intelligence reached him which served to account for a resistance which he had by no means anticipated. Of the secret negotiations which even now were carried on between the cabinets of St. James's and the Tuilleries, some notice has already been taken. These proceeded for a

while, though tardily, with abundant good for tune; Prior, the poet, being despatched to Paris for the purpose of adjusting one or two points which alone stood in the way of a definitive arrangement. But this step, to which both Oxford and St. John trusted as an effectual preservative against any immature disclosure, proved peculiarly disastrous in its issue. Prior, landing at Deal on his return, was arrested by the mayor as a spy, and being destitute of passports underwent a close and severe examination; the consequence was, that the great secret which the queen's ministers had so long laboured to keep from the general-in-chief of the queen's armies, got abroad; and Marlborough, informed of it, became at once satisfied relative to the conduct of the Dutch, and the very false position in which he himself stood. He saw that he was betrayed by his own government; and every hope of bringing the war to the glorious termination on which he had a right to calculate, faded away. His design on Quesnoy was abandoned: he remained, indeed, in position around Bouchain a space of three weeks, during which the breaches were repaired, the trenches filled up, and the navigation of the Scarpe as far as Douay rendered secure; but he no sooner ascertained that Villars had previously withdrawn, than he too broke up his camp, and placed the troops in winter quarters.

The campaign of 1711, though distinguished by a display of talent almost superhuman on the part of Marlborough, cannot be said, even in the Low Countries, to have led to any decisive results. The lines, which the vanity of Villars tempted him to describe, in a letter to his sovereign, as the ne plus ultra of his illustrious opponent, were indeed penetrated, and one of the strongest of the range of fortresses which covered the French frontier was reduced. These were, doubtless, brilliant exploits; yet was the strength of the enemy's columns unbroken, and a second line remained to be forced ere France should lie open to serious injury from those who now threatened her. It is true that both objects might have been attained, had the plans suggested by Marlborough been adopted, and common support afforded him. So confident, indeed, was Louis of this, that he proposed to take the field in person; and, at the head of his last corps of reserve, to fight at once for empire and life under the wells of Paris. But a calamity from which his exhausted means could not in all human probability have shielded him, was averted by the selfish and short-sighted policy of those to whom the queen of England, in an evil hour, had entrusted the management of her affairs. Marlborough, checked in the full career of conquest, quitted the army in disgust, and Louis found himself within a few months afterwards, in a condition to treat with the allies on terms of something more than equality

But if the issue of the contest in the Netherlands was thus unsatisfactory, still less cheering