for Grammont; and which at length knocked him quite
off the field. 'He was now interlaced with the English,' moans Noailles;
'so that my cannon, not to shoot Grammont as well as the English, had to
cease firing!' Well, yes, that is true, M. le Marechal; but that is not
so important as you would have it. The English had stood nine hours in
this fire of yours; by degrees, leaning well away from it; answering
it with counter-batteries;--and were not yet ruined by it, when the
Grammont crisis came! Noailles should have dashed fresh troops across
his Bridges, and tried to handle them well. Noailles did not do that; or
do anything but wring his hands.

"The Fight lasted four hours; ever hotter on the English part, ever less
hot on the French [fire of anthracite-coal VERSUS flame of dry wood,
which latter at last sinks ASHY!]--and ended in total defeat of the
French. The French Infantry by no means behaved as their Cavalry had
done. The GARDES FRANCAISES [fire burning ashy, after seven hours of
flaming], when Grammont ordered them up to take the English in flank,
would hardly come on at all, or stand one push. They threw away their
arms, and plunged into the River, like a drove of swimmers; getting
drowned in great numbers. So that their comrades nicknamed them 'CANARDS
DU MEIN (Ducks of the Mayn):' and in English mess-rooms, there went
afterwards a saying: 'The French had, in reality, Three Bridges; one of
them NOT wooden, and carpeted with blue cloth!' Such the wit of military
mankind.

"... The English, it appears, did something by mere shouting. Partial
huzzas and counter-huzzas between the Infantries were going on at one
time, when Stair happened to gallop up: 'Stop that,' said Stair; 'let
us do it right. Silence; then, One and all, when I give you signal!'
And Stair, at the right moment, lifting his hat, there burst out such
a thunder-growl, edged with melodious ire in alt, as quite seemed
to strike a damp into the French, says my authority, 'and they never
shouted more.... Our ground in many parts was under rye,' hedgeless
fields of rye, chief grain-crop of that sandy country. 'We had already
wasted above 120,000 acres of it,' still in the unripe state, so hungry
were we, man and horse, 'since crossing to Aschaffenburg;'--fighting for
your Cause of Liberty, ye benighted ones!

"King Friedrich's private accounts, deformed by ridicule, are, That the
Britannic Majesty, his respectable old Uncle, finding the French there