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He had gathered a general account of the battle from the lips of that young Scottish colonel, who was the only one of the party who was capable of relating it, the others being almost speechless with fatigue, for the road from Rocroi hither is long and rough." "You may well say the young Scottish colonel, cardinal.
You don't know Dunbar, and you don't know the Good Hope, which carries a brass twelve-pounder and fifteen men as valiant as Dunbar himself. He returned the attack of the Rocroi with such amazing skill and fierceness that he was able to board her and take her, with only three of his men wounded and they not badly.
In the same year Louis XIV came to the throne; and Conde, by smiting the Spaniards at Rocroi, won for France the fame of having the best troops in Europe. It was not the good fortune of Frontenac to serve under either Conde or Turenne during those campaigns, so triumphant for France, which marked the close of the Thirty Years' War.
Rocroi was a town of considerable strength lying in the forest of Ardennes. It was the key to the province of Champagne, and its capture would open the road to the Spaniards. The siege was being pressed forward by de Malo, who had with him an army of twenty-seven thousand veteran troops, being five thousand more than the force under Enghien.
The soldier made a profound bow, and, as if the name of the conqueror of Rocroi and Lens had given him wings, he stepped lightly up the steps leading to the ante-chamber.
"No, indeed," Enghien replied, holding out his hand; "I have good reason to recollect you, Colonel Campbell. You have heard, marshal, what a good service he rendered me at Rocroi?" "He has rendered me one no less this night," Turenne said. "I never saw a regiment stand more steadily than the one which he commands, and which he has trained to what seems to me perfection.
That the King's death made no alteration in affairs was owing to the bravery of the Prince de Conde and the famous battle of Rocroi, in 1643, which contributed both to the peace and glory of the kingdom, and covered the cradle of the present King with laurels.
It was my servant Michelot, a grizzled veteran of huge frame and strength, who had fought beside me at Rocroi, and who had thereafter become so enamoured of my person for some trivial service he swore I had rendered him that he had attached himself to me and my luckless fortunes. He came to inform me that M. de Mancini was below and craved immediate speech with me.
The happiness of private families seemed to be fully secured in the prosperity of the State. The perfect union of the royal family settled the peace within doors; and the battle of Rocroi was such a blow to the Spanish infantry that they could not recover in an age. Had not I, then, reason for saying that it did not become an honest man to be on bad terms with the Court at that time of day?
"I see, Monsieur Campbell," the cardinal said, turning the subject, "that you have been five days coming here from Mayence. It is a very different rate of speed to that at which you traveled from Rocroi." "It is so, your eminence; but on that occasion the Duc d'Enghien had placed relays of his best horses all along the road, so that we were enabled to travel without making a halt."
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