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Updated: August 24, 2024
Christovao de Figueiredo went close to the trench before the walls, keeping himself as much concealed as possible, and seeing how fearlessly the Moors exposed themselves on the wall, began, with the musqueteers whom he had brought, to open fire on them in such a way that he slew many, the Moors being careless and free from fear, as men who up to then had never seen men killed with firearms nor with other such weapons.
The French marshals and the Elector were now in position a little farther to the east, between Blenheim and Lutzingen, and with the little stream of the Nebel between them and the troops of Marlborough and Eugene. The Gallo-Bavarian army consisted of about sixty thousand men, and they had sixty-one pieces of artillery. It had formerly been usual to mingle pike-men with musqueteers.
Does the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the books which delighted our young days, "Darnley," and "Richelieu," and "Delorme,"* relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the "Three Musqueteers?" Does the accomplished author of the "Caxtons" read the other tales in Blackwood? Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous pudor!
Yet in such a struggle numbers must in the end prevail, and I confess that I for one had begun to have fears for the upshot of our contest, when the heavy tramp of disciplined feet rang through the Cathedral, and the Baronet's musqueteers came at a quick run up the central aisle.
But, as Hinojosa observed that Valdivia took no precautions to prevent his arrest, and had no suspicions that any force would be used against him, he resolved to attempt to make him prisoner with the assistance only of six musqueteers, in which he succeeded without opposition.
On getting into the plain, this body of musqueteers divided in two, Mexia marching to the right along the river, and Palomino keeping to the left along the skirts of the mountain.
Captain Bachicao marched at the head of the vanguard with the artillery, consisting of twenty field pieces, which with all their ammunition, carriages, and other equipments, were carried on the shoulders of six thousand Indians, who completely filled all the streets through which they had to pass. The artillery was accompanied by a guard of thirty musqueteers and fifty canoneers.
During the whole of the struggle the foot upon the further bank of the Bussex Rhine were pouring in a hail of bullets, which our musqueteers, having to defend themselves against the horse, were unable to reply to. It needed no great amount of soldierly experience to see that the battle was lost, and that Monmouth's cause was doomed. It was broad daylight now, though the sun had not yet risen.
Esmond and Frank Castlewood both escaped without hurt, though the division which our General commanded suffered even more than any other, having to sustain not only the fury of the enemy's cannonade, which was very hot and well served, but the furious and repeated charges of the famous Maison du Roy, which we had to receive and beat off again and again, with volleys of shot and hedges of iron, and our four lines of musqueteers and pikemen.
At the sound the soldiers on the other side raised a fierce huzza, and the whole air was full of clamour. Our musqueteers had been brought to the very edge of the Bussex Rhine, and the Royal troops had also advanced as far as they were able, so that there were not five pikes'-lengths between the lines.
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