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The headlong desperate charge, the snow-white plume waving where the fire is hottest, the large capacity for enjoyment of the man, rioting without affectation in the 'certaminis gaudia', the insane gallop, after the combat, to lay its trophies at the feet of the Cynthia of the minute, and thus to forfeit its fruits; all are as familiar to us as if the seven distinct wars, the hundred pitched battles, the two hundred sieges; in which the Bearnese was personally present, had been occurrences of our own day.
There were certain stations, like those at the Pantano Wash and the crossing of the San Pedro, whose adobe buildings were all pitted with bullet-marks from successive sieges; and at these lonely outposts the arrival of the east or west bound mail was always more or less of a gamble.
There is left for me, in the matter of sieges, to explain how generals can win victories and cities be defended, by means of machinery. It is related that the battering ram for sieges was originally invented as follows. The Carthaginians pitched their camp for the siege of Cadiz. They captured an outwork and attempted to destroy it.
The angry Ritters, too, their country had got much trampled to pieces in the Charles-Twelfth Wars, Stralsund Sieges: money seemed necessary to the Duke, and the Ritters were very scarce of it.
The resistance was to be long, the place being manned by good troops, and constantly revictualled by the English vessels. Generals Blake and Castanos had collected their forces, and ceaselessly harassed the corps occupied by the sieges, as well as the armies which kept the country.
He had hardly eight thousand men under his orders, but his strength lay in the weakness of his adversaries. A small war now succeeded, with small generals, small armies, small campaigns, small sieges. For the time, the Prince of Orange was even obliged to content himself with such a general as Hohenlo. As usual, he was almost alone. "Donec eris felix," said he, emphatically
But I like to think that what I write of is a normal and universal trait of human nature. In our drawing-rooms and offices we wonder how people ever do go through battles, sieges and shipwrecks. We quiver and sicken in imagination, and think those heroes superhuman. Physical pain whether suffered alone or in company, is always more or less unnerving and intolerable.
The headlong desperate charge, the snow-white plume waving where the fire is hottest, the large capacity for enjoyment of the man, rioting without affectation in the 'certaminis gaudia', the insane gallop, after the combat, to lay its trophies at the feet of the Cynthia of the minute, and thus to forfeit its fruits; all are as familiar to us as if the seven distinct wars, the hundred pitched battles, the two hundred sieges; in which the Bearnese was personally present, had been occurrences of our own day.
Nearly every man makes a good soldier, but not every man, or nearly every man makes a good citizen: the tests of war are not so searching as the tests of peace, but still the soldier is the hero. Very early in the lives of our children we begin to inculcate the love of battle and sieges and invasions, for we put the miniature weapons of warfare into their little hands.
The Duc de Luxembourg, sole general of his own army, covered the siege operations, and observed the enemy. The ladies went away to Dinant. On the third day of the march M. le Prince went forward to invest the place. The celebrated Vauban, the life and soul of all the sieges the King made, was of opinion that the town should be attacked separately from the castle; and his advice was acted upon.
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