re the Princes, who for some time had been
looking from a mill at so strange a combat, so disadvantageously
commenced. As soon as our troops saw pouring down upon them others much
more numerous, they gave way towards their left with so much promptitude
that the attendants of the Princes became mixed up with their masters,--
and all were hurried away towards the thick of the fight, with a rapidity
and confusion that were indecent. The Princes showed themselves
everywhere, and in places the most exposed, displaying much valour and
coolness, encouraging the men, praising the officers, asking the
principal officers what was to be done, and telling M. de Vendome what
they thought.

The inequality of the ground that the enemies found in advancing, after
having driven in our right, enabled our them to rally and to resist. But
this resistance was of short duration. Every one had been engaged in
hand-to-hand combats; every one was worn out with lassitude and despair
of success, and a confusion so general and so unheard-of. The household
troops owed their escape to the mistake of one of the enemy's officers,
who carried an order to the red coats, thinking them his own men. He was
taken, and seeing that he was about to share the peril with our troops,
warned them that they were going to be surrounded. They retired in some
disorder, and so avoided this.

The disorder increased, however, every moment. Nobody recognised his
troop. All were pell-mell, cavalry, infantry, dragoons; not a battalion,
not a squadron together, and all in confusion, one upon the other.

Night came. We had lost much ground, one-half of the army had not
finished arriving. In this sad situation the Princes consulted with M.
de Vendome as to what was to be done. He, furious at being so terribly
out of his reckoning, affronted everybody. Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne wished to speak; but Vendome intoxicated with choler and
authority; closed his mouth, by saying to him in an imperious voice
before everybody, "That he came to the army only on condition of obeying
him." These enormous words, pronounced at a moment in which everybody
felt so terribly the weight of the obedience rendered to his idleness and
obstinacy, made everybody tremble with indignation. The young Prince to
whom they were addressed, hesitated, mastered himself, and kept silence.
Vendome went on declaring that the battle was not lost--that it could be
recommenced the next morning, when the rest