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Lestonneaux retired suddenly in the beginning of 1789; and de Boigne, as above-mentioned, had also left the army, and was engaged in commercial pursuits at Lucknow.
On the absconding of Lestonneaux, in 1788, as above described when that officer was supposed to have appropriated the plunder taken by Gholam Kadir on his flight from Meerut Perron succeeded to the command of a battalion, from which, after the successes of the army against Ismail Beg, he rose to the charge of a brigade.
The skeletons of his two original battalions remained to form the nucleus of the new force. The battalion of Lestonneaux or whatever the name was deserted by its commandant, with eight months' arrears due to it, was disorganized and mutinous; and Sindhia meditated an attack upon it with an overwhelming body of horse.
Lestonneaux, with the formidable "Telinga" battalions of de Boigne, had already arrived; all was movement and din in the Pathan camp at Shahdara. Finally, as the short chill evening of the autumn day closed in, the high walls of the Red Castle blabbed part of their secret to those who had so long watched them.
Besides M. de Boigne there was another French officer present, whose name is given by Duff as Listeneaux, perhaps a mistake for some such word as Lestonneaux. John Hessing was also in this campaign, as may be gathered from the epitaph on his tomb, which is close to that of Sumroo at Agra.
In the meanwhile the almost effete machinery of the Empire, directed and administered by Sindhia, made the best available substitute; General de Boigne who had the most complete information on the subject bears unequivocal testimony on this subject. His words will be found at the beginning of the next chapter. In Skinner's life, it is conjectured that he came into the hands of M. Lestonneaux.
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