be communicated with by paths laid with fascines which required to
be renewed every day, as they sank down into the soil. The camps and
quarters were no longer accessible; the trenches were full of mud and
water, and it took often three days to remove cannon from one battery to
another. The waggons became useless, too, so that the transport of
bombs, shot, and so forth, could not be performed except upon the backs
of mules and of horses taken from the equipages of the Court and the
army. The state of the roads deprived the Duc de Luxembourg of the use
of waggons and other vehicles. His army was perishing for want of grain.
To remedy this inconvenience the King ordered all his household troops to
mount every day on horseback by detachments, and to take sacks of grain
upon their cruppers to a village where they were to be received and
counted by the officers of the Duc de Luxembourg. Although the household
of the King had scarcely any repose during this siege, what with carrying
fascines, furnishing guards, and other daily services, this increase of
duty was given to it because the cavalry served continually also, and was
reduced almost entirely to leaves of trees for provender.

The household of the King, accustomed to all sorts of distinctions,
complained bitterly of this task. But the King turned a deaf ear to
them, and would be obeyed. On the first day some of the Gendarmes and of
the light horse of the guard arrived early in the morning at the depot of
the sacks, and commenced murmuring and exciting each other by their
discourses. They threw down the sacks at last and flatly refused to
carry them. I had been asked very politely if I would be of the
detachment for the sacks or of some other. I decided for the sacks,
because I felt that I might thereby advance myself, the subject having
already made much noise. I arrived with the detachment of the Musketeers
at the moment of the refusal of the others; and I loaded my sack before
their eyes. Marin, a brigadier of cavalry and lieutenant of the body
guards, who was there to superintend the operation, noticed me, and full
of anger at the refusal he had just met with, exclaimed that as I did not
think such work beneath me, the rest would do well to imitate my example.
Without a word being spoken each took up his sack; and from that time
forward no further difficulty occurred in the matter. As soon as the
detachment had gone, Marin went straight to the King and told him what