shes which we often had with the spahis, my young volunteers did
not fail to be among them, discharging their pistols, though
cannon-balls intermingled also. And one day, D'Esrade, the governor of
the Prince of Dombes, had his leg shot off by his side, and one of his
pages was killed. All our princes, whom I have enumerated above,
distinguished themselves, and loved me like their father.

I had caused the country in the rear of the grand vizier's army to be
ravaged: but these people, as well as their horses and especially their
camels, will live almost upon nothing. Scarcely an hour passed in which
I did not lose a score of men by the dysentery, or by the cannon from
the lines, which the infidels advanced more and more every night toward
my intrenchments. I was less the besieger than the besieged. My affairs
toward the city went on better. A bomb which fell into a magazine of
powder completed its destruction and occasioned the loss of three
thousand men.

At length I recovered from my illness; and, on August 15th,
notwithstanding the ill-advice of persons who were not fond of battles,
the matter was fixed. I calculated that listlessness and despair would
produce success.

I did not sleep, as Alexander did before the battle of Arbela; but the
Turks did, who were no Alexanders: opium and predestination will make
philosophers of us. I gave brief and explicit instructions touching
whatever might happen. I quitted my intrenchments one hour after
midnight: the darkness first and then a fog rendered my first
undertakings mere chance. Some of my battalions, on the right wing,
fell, unintentionally, while marching, into a part of the Turkish
intrenchments. A terrible confusion among them, who never have either
advanced posts or spies; and, among us, a similar confusion, which it
would be impossible to describe: they fired from the left to the centre,
on both sides, without knowing where. The janizaries fled from their
intrenchments: I had time to throw into them fascines and gabions, to
make a passage for my cavalry who pursued them, I know not how: the fog
dispersed and the Turks perceived a dreadful breach. But for my second
line, which I ordered to march there immediately, to stop this breach,
I should have been lost. I then wished to march in order: impossible! I
was better served than I expected. La Colonie, at the head of his
Bavarians, rushed forward and took a battery of eighteen pieces of
cannon. I was obliged to do