;--and do, with
indignant patience, wind themselves through, pretty much beyond direct
shot-range of either d'Eu or Fontenoy. And have actually got into the
interior mystery of the French Line of Battle,--which is not a little
astonished to see them there! It is over a kind of blunt ridge, or
rising ground, that they are coming: on the crown of this rising ground,
the French regiment fronting it (GARDES FRANCAISES as it chanced to
be) notices, with surprise, field-cannon pointed the wrong way; actual
British artillery unaccountably showing itself there. Regiment of GARDES
rushes up to seize said field-pieces: but, on the summit, perceives with
amazement that it cannot; that a heavy volley of musketry blazes into
it (killing sixty men); that it will have to rush back again, and report
progress: Huge British force, of unknown extent, is readjusting itself
into column there, and will be upon us on the instant. Here is news!

"News true enough. The head of the English column comes to sight, over
the rising ground, close by: their officers doff their hats, politely
saluting ours, who return the civility: was ever such politeness seen
before? It is a fact; and among the memorablest of this Battle. Nay
a certain English Officer of mark--Lord Charles Hay the name of him,
valued surely in the annals of the Hay and Tweeddale House--steps
forward from the ranks, as if wishing something. Towards whom [says the
accurate Espagnac] Marquis d'Auteroche, grenadier-lieutenant, with air
of polite interrogation, not knowing what he meant, made a step or two:
'Monsieur,' said Lord Charles (LORD CHARLES-HAY), 'bid your people fire
(FAITES TIRER VOS GENS)!' 'NON, MONSIEUR, NOUS NE TIRONS JAMAIS LES
PREMIERS (We never fire first).' [Espagnac, ii. 60 (of the ORIGINAL,
Toulouse, 1789); ii. 48 of the German Translation (Leipzig, 1774), our
usual reference. Voltaire, endlessly informed upon details this time,
is equally express: "MILORD CHARLES HAY, CAPITAINE AUX GARDES ANGLAISES,
CRIA: 'MESSIEURS DES GARDES FRANCAISES, TIREZ!' To which Count
d'Auteroche with a loud voice answered" &c. (_OEuvres,_ vol. xxviii.
p. 155.) See also _Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons_ (edited by a
Grand-Nephew, Paris, 1860), p. 151;--a poor, considerably noisy and
unclean little Book; which proves unexpectedly worth looking at, in
regard to some of those poor Battles and personages and occurrences: the
Bohemian Belleisle-Broglio part, to my regret, if to no other person's