ard with
three regiments of infantry instantly, Gassion, La Meilleraie, and
Lesdiguieres! Take the enemy's columns in flank. Order the rest of the
army to cease from the attack, and to remain motionless throughout the
whole line. Bring paper! I will write myself to Schomberg."

A page alighted and advanced, holding a pencil and paper. The minister,
supported by four men of his suite, also alighted, but with difficulty,
uttering a cry, wrested from him by pain; but he conquered it by an
effort, and seated himself upon the carriage of a cannon. The page
presented his shoulder as a desk; and the Cardinal hastily penned that
order which contemporary manuscripts have transmitted to us, and which
might well be imitated by the diplomatists of our day, who are, it
seems, more desirous to maintain themselves in perfect balance between
two ideas than to seek those combinations which decide the destinies of
the world, regarding the clear and obvious dictates of true genius as
beneath their profound subtlety.

"M. le Marechal, do not risk anything, and reflect before you
attack. When you are thus told that the King desires you not to
risk anything, you are not to understand that his Majesty forbids
you to fight at all; but his intention is that you do not engage in
a general battle unless it be with a notable hope of gain from the
advantage which a favorable situation may present, the
responsibility of the battle naturally falling upon you."

These orders given, the old minister, still seated upon the
gun-carriage, his arms resting upon the touch-hole, and his chin upon
his arms, in the attitude of one who adjusts and points a cannon,
continued in silence to watch the battle, like an old wolf, which, sated
with victims and torpid with age, contemplates in the plain the ravages
of a lion among a herd of cattle, which he himself dares not attack.
From time to time his eye brightens; the smell of blood rejoices him,
and he laps his burning tongue over his toothless jaw.

On that day, it was remarked by his servants--or, in other words, by all
surrounding him--that from the time of his rising until night he took no
nourishment, and so fixed all the application of his soul on the events
which he had to conduct that he triumphed over his physical pains,
seeming, by forgetting, to have destroyed them. It was this power of
attention, this continual presence of mind, that raised him almost
to genius. He would have a