Chapter XVI: WAR

With dawn next day came an order from M. de la Ferte Imbault, Colonel-General des Ecossais, in the name of the King, for the cuirassiers of the Scottish Guard to march that evening towards Lorraine. Thus did the whispered tidings of Nicola become verified!

During the long war which desolated Germany by the armies of Sweden under Gustavus, Horn, and Banner, and those of the Empire under Tilly, Pappenheim, and the Duke of Friedland, Cardinal Richelieu had ruled France with a rod of iron, and, instead of fighting abroad, contented himself by counteracting the innumerable plots, and rendering abortive the desperate intrigues formed against his government by Mary de Medicis or the Duc d'Orleans, until he conceived the plan of rendering his services as Premier unavoidable, by involving poor Louis XIII. in a war with the formidable empire; and acting on a hint, some say, from Marion de l'Orme, of whom he was secretly enamoured, he resolved to put his Majesty in possession of Philipsburg, in the fine frontier-province of Alsace.

Exasperated by this wanton and projected usurpation, the Duke of Lorraine, to whom this territory belonged, placed himself under the protection of the German emperor.

Duke Charles IV. was esteemed by all, as a brave, generous, and skilful soldier; he had commanded in the Imperial army at the battle of Prague, and fought the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Marshal Gustaf Horn at the battle of Nerling. He fought for seven hours in his saddle at the attacks on Poligni and Brissac, and had been more than one hundred times under fire. By his first wife, the Princess Nicola of Lorraine, he had a daughter, Marie-Louise, who was famous throughout France for her wit, beauty, and accomplishments; by his second wife he had a son, the Prince de Vaudemont, a tall youth of eighteen years (in after times the Governor of Milan), who had already attained a name for adventurous bravery, and to whom I have twice had the honour of introducing the reader.

Immediately on war being declared against the Empire by Louis, who did it with great formality, by sending, in the ancient fashion, a herald-at-arms to Brussels, the Duke of Lorraine, after victualling and fortifying all his castles, placed strong garrisons in them, and, at the head of eight hundred horse and two thousand foot, joined the Emperor.

The most Christian King was sorely perplexed by all the turmoil and warlike bustle in which he found himself involved; and he spent more time than ever in the silver and blue boudoir of Madame d'Amboise, or in his dog-kennel at Versailles, while Richelieu, restless, active, and able, enrolled the Arrière Ban, and poured five armies into the field, after laying in the lap of his beautiful monitress the plan of the new campaign, which, he boasted, would carry the frontiers of France far beyond the borders of Champagne and Picardy, and all the outlines of which, the Prince de Vaudemont and the Chevalier d'Ische, disguised as abbés, or musketeers, had heard freely discussed in the salons of Paris, and duly transmitted to the Duke and to the Emperor.

The oriflamme was taken from the Abbey of St. Denis; in a week, the whole country vibrated with war; all the troops in France were concentrated at five points, and on the march.

The first army, under the Dukes d'Angoulême and De la Force, marched towards Lorraine, and assailed the troops of Duke Charles, under the terrible John de Wert, and stormed St. Michel and other places.

The second, led by the Duke de Rohan, after fortifying many places in the Valteline, had a desperate conflict near Bormio, and defeated Serbellon with the loss of five thousand men.

The third, twenty-six thousand strong, led by the Marechal Duke de Crecqui, entered Italy, laid siege to Valenza, and stormed the castle of Fontana, when the gallant Marechal de Thoiras was slain in the assault.

The fourth, under the Marechals de Breze and Chatillon (who had still the garter of Mademoiselle de Guerchi tied to his sword-arm), entered Picardy, attacked Prince Thomas of Savoy, and defeated him with the loss of five thousand slain, taking fifteen hundred men, ninety-five standards, and sixteen brass guns.

The fifth was led by the Cardinal Duke de Lavalette and Camp-Marechal Sir John Hepburn of Athelstaneford, in Lothian, who had then the proud pre-eminence of being esteemed "THE BRAVEST SOLDIER IN THE WORLD;" and it is of this army alone I shall treat, for, in its ranks, I had the honour to serve against the veterans of the Empire and the high-spirited chevaliers of the house of Lorraine.

In this army were the ancient regiments of Piedmont, Normandy, Navarre, and Picardy, styled _les vieilles bandes_. The latter corps was six thousand strong, and led by Louis de Bethune, Duc de Charost. We had also the younger corps, La Tour du Pin, Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Belsunce, Meilly, and the distinguished regiment du Hoi. Then we had also the Scottish regiments of Ramsay, Lesly, and Hepburn; the latter was seven thousand strong; the other Scots regiments were about five thousand each. We had with us a fine train of artillery and a body of cavalry, the flower of which were the gendarmerie, all clad in coats of scarlet, richly laced with cuirasses and helmets; the light horse of the Guard, consisting of two hundred gallant gentlemen of Navarre, and the hundred cuirassiers of the Scottish Guard, who were second to none in the world. Our foot company remained in Paris to guard the King. All the horse had triple-barred cabossets, back and breast pieces, iron gloves, buff coats, and jack-boots. The infantry had nearly laid aside defensive armour, or it was worn by their officers alone; their uniforms were white, richly faced and laced.

We had with us the heavy dragoons of Marechal de Brissac, commanded by Roger de St. Lacy, for whom the charming Mademoiselle de Chevreuse had recently obtained a coronet, with the title of Duc de Bellegarde, and thus he carried her glove on his helmet. These dragoons were wont to boast that they "were the _Scots_ of the French army."

In France, I often found the high chivalric bearing of the noblesse clouded by a lofty imperiousness towards inferiors--a bearing unknown to us in Scotland, where all men went abroad armed, and where the ties of kin and clanship gave the peer and the peasant a community of name and blood. In France, none but men of 'good birth' were permitted to wear a sword; in Scotland, every man went armed to the teeth. On attaining his fifteenth year, the son of the French noble was ceremoniously conducted to church, accoutred with belt and sword; his parents preceded him with lighted tapers to the altar, where the priest, at the offertory, took the weapon from his boyish hand, and, after a solemn consecration, returned it to the youth, who did not sheath it until the conclusion of mass, after which he was entitled to wear it in peace and war, as a badge of rank and honour. Such were the ideas impressed in boyhood on the young French nobles; hence their spirit was matchless--their military honour unblemished.

It was on a warm and sunny day of spring when we bade farewell to the gay and beautiful city of Paris, and with all our trumpets sounding and kettle-drums beating a lively Scottish air; with our long swords gleaming around the Cardinal Duke de Lavalette, whose escort we formed, the hundred cuirassiers of the Garde du Corps Ecossais took the road to Lorraine, thousands sending their cheers and prayers after us, while hundreds of pretty girls strewed the way before us with the early flowers of the summer that was at hand--the summer that many of us might never live to see.

It was evening when we defiled through the barriers, and I remembered with surprise how true the warning of the pretty Nicola had proved.

'M. le Cardinal,' asked the King, as the troops marched from Paris, 'how are all these armies to be victualled?'

'That is the enemy's affair, sire--not ours,' was the reply of the imperturbable Richelieu.