MONTJOIE ST. DENIS!
Next morning, before daybreak, preparations were made to capture the
disarmed bastion, and to effect a lodgment under the walls and town
gates.
The rain and wind had passed away, and the keen, bright stars were
looking out of the blue sky; but there was no moon, and half-an-hour
before dawn, three hundred chosen men of the Scottish regiments of
Hepburn, Ramsay, and Lesly--one hundred from each--mustered in front
of their wet tents, to storm the Bastion de Louise. They were all
volunteers, lightly accoutred, and supplied each with the _chardon de
fer_, or crampiron, which was strapped over the shoe by means of a
buckle. Previous to this invention, stormers used to take one shoe
off, to prevent them from slipping on a rampart.
The Vicomtes de Turenne and Arpajou, neither of whom had completed
his twenty-third year, and Sir John Hepburn, led the assault. With
them were twenty dismounted cuirassiers of the Scottish guard, of
whom I was one, armed with partizans, and carrying daggers and
pistols in our girdles.
'Forward, gentlemen, quickly and in silence,' said Sir John, as we
marched to the front, and began the ascent of the mountain; 'to-night
we shall sup in La Mothe, and drink to the fair maids of old Scotland
in the best Burgundy of Duke Charles.'
Followed by a strong covering column, under Colonel Ramsay, we left
the trenches in our rear, and almost without a sound advanced over
the wet and slippery ground I had so lately traversed twice, until we
were within musket-shot of the walls, when the unfortunate explosion
of an arquebuse, as a soldier stumbled and fell, gave an alarm, and
in a moment after, we heard the drums beating in La Mothe; curving
and sparkling, the rockets hissed aloft in fiery circles as the walls
were manned and the Lorrainers stood by their guns in the Bastion de
Louise, and opened, at random, a fire of small arms upon us.
A brilliant flash, with a deep, hoarse, booming sound, from the town
barrier, made me stoop instinctively, as a cannon shot passed over my
head, and tore to pieces a poor pikeman in my rear. It struck him
right in the breast; a portion of his body hit Lord Dundrennan with
such force that he could scarcely breathe for some minutes after; but
on we hurried with all speed, anxious to come to blows at a shorter
distance.
The coolness of the brilliant Marquis de Gordon, as we advanced, was
somewhat amusing. Drawing off his gauntlet, he said to a captain of
Ramsay's corps--
'Forbes, I'll trouble you for a pinch of snuff.'
The captain was about to comply, when a second flash broke from the
town rampart, and a ball cut him in two.
'Zounds!' said the Marquis, 'M. le Vicomte Arpajou, I shall trouble
you, for poor friend and his box have gone together. Comrade,' he
added, to a man who fell with a shriek, as his left leg was shattered
by a musket-shot, 'why are you making such an outcry? it will not
cure you; but here is my silk scarf, 'tis at your service as a
bandage.'
'Bravo, comrades and gentlemen!' exclaimed Sir John Hepburn,
brandishing his sword; 'here we are at the foot of the glacis!'
Over it, the arquebuses à croc were pouring death and havock among
us; but the destruction of their cannon had evidently dismayed the
Lorrainers, and deprived them of all confidence. Still their fire
was so steady and severe, directed as it was by the dawn which was
breaking behind us, and clearly defined our figures, that we wavered
now at the edge of the fosse, after surmounting and destroying the
stockade by axes, hammers, and crowbars, and there was an
unmistakeable reluctance to advance, while the stormers fell fast on
every hand, and we heard the tumultuous cheers of Ramsay's covering
column, which was pressing on our rear.
Hepburn held aloft his purse.
'Forward, comrades!' he cried; 'a thousand francs to the first with
me in the bastion.'
Not a man among us stirred; he grew deathly pale, but still continued
to brandish his sword, while the bullets sawed all the turf about him.
'Come on, sirs--my old Scots musketeers and gentlemen of the
guard--Dundrennan, Douglas, Blane, and Bruce, follow me!'
'Hepburn, you have insulted us all by this offer of money,' said the
Marquis of Gordon.
'My cross of Mont Carmel, in the King's name then,'
he replied, with a flushing cheek, as he tore it from his breast and
flung it into the fosse.*
* An incident almost similar occurred with the Irish Brigade at
Havannah.
'Hurrah!' burst from every tongue.
'Montjoie St. Denis!' cried Turenne.
'France--France and Scotland for ever!' added the Vicomte Arpajou.
And with wild shouts that rent the air of the calm morning sky, we
rushed into the fosse, and planting our echelles against the bastion,
ascended, fighting hand-to-hand, and firing our pistols into the
faces of the foe, as we grappled for life and death on the summit,
and forced a passage in, with the loss of eighty brave Scottish
soldiers.
Sir John was the first man on the rampart; the second, and
consequently the winner of the cross of Mont Carmel, was one of his
own private musketeers, a poor gentleman from the braes of Angus, who
rose to be count and general of cavalry in the French army.
The Lorrainers were driven furiously back; but a savage conflict
ensued with them between the bastion and the town-gate; and there, in
the cold gray light of the morning, were Scottish musketeers and
German pikemen, chevaliers in brilliant plate-armour, gentlemen of
our Garde du Corps, and those of Lorraine, with the lean and famished
bourgeoisie of the town, in their black and battered harness, all
mingled in one wild melée of whirling swords and clubbed muskets, as
they closed up round the tall figure of Hepburn on one side, and the
fierce and energetic Raoul d'Ische on the other.
Side by side two of our cuirassiers had almost hewed a passage to the
shattered barrier, the archway of which was encumbered by paths of
dead and dying, and behind these the musketeers and pistoleers were
nestling, and plying fast their shot.
These two were young Sir Robert Bruce of Blairhall, and old Sir
Archibald Douglas of Heriotmuir, who had lost his helmet, and whose
silver tresses were glittering in the dewy air.
'You have the precedence here by age,' said Blairhall, saluting him
with his bloody rapier; 'my brave friend, lead on!'
'Nay,' said Sir Archibald, lowering also his blade, 'do thou advance,
my brave boy; where a Bruce leads, a Douglas may be proud to
_follow_!'
Fatal courtesy! It was scarcely exchanged, ere the first was run
through by a pike, and a gigantic bourgeois brained the latter by the
ampoulette of his clubbed musket. The poor old baronet's brains flew
over me, but I pistolled his destroyer, who fell prone into that gory
puddle where the two bravest gentlemen of the Garde du Corps Ecossais
were lying side by side.
In a moment afterwards I found myself opposed to the Chevalier
d'Ische, hand-to-hand, and so closely, that our weapons were engaged
up to the very hilt, and being encumbered by a wounded man, who
grasped my right leg in his death agony, I received a severe cut on
the right cheek.
'Ah, thou diabolical Scot! at last I have thee!' said the Chevalier,
grinding his teeth.
'Beware, Chevalier, beware!' said I, infuriated by the sight of my
own blood; 'I have sworn to write my name on your skin with a good
Scottish dagger!'
'And yet, dog, 'tis to my worthless sister you owe your
frippery!--yea, life itself!' he added, with a terrible glance.
'True, true; let us pass--let us part!' said I, feeling sudden
compunction, and standing only on my defence.
'In a moment I shall kill you--adieu! do you call that fencing? no
lover could be a greater fool than you!--Ah, queen of heaven!--I am
gone!' he exclaimed, and tossed his sword into the air. As he threw
up his hands, the blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell on his
face. A ball, fired by Lord Dundrennan at another person, had
pierced his chest, and slain him!
On his fall all resistance ceased; and thus, after considerable loss,
at seven o'clock on the morning of the 25th July, 1635, the Scottish
general of Louis XIII. hoisted the French standard on the ramparts of
La Mothe.