kill
of Vauban and animated by the presence of Lewis, made rapid progress.
There were indeed many difficulties to be surmounted and many hardships
to be endured. The weather was stormy; and, on the eighth of June,
the feast of Saint Medard, who holds in the French Calendar the same
inauspicious place which in our Calendar belongs to Saint Swithin, the
rain fell in torrents. The Sambre rose and covered many square miles on
which the harvest was green. The Mehaigne whirled down its bridges to
the Meuse. All the roads became swamps. The trenches were so deep in
water and mire that it was the business of three days to move a gun from
one battery to another. The six thousand waggons which had accompanied
the French army were useless. It was necessary that gunpowder, bullets,
corn, hay, should be carried from place to place on the backs of the war
horses. Nothing but the authority of Lewis could, in such circumstances,
have maintained order and inspired cheerfulness. His soldiers, in truth,
showed much more reverence for him than for what their religion had made
sacred. They cursed Saint Medard heartily, and broke or burned every
image of him that could be found. But for their King there was nothing
that they were not ready to do and to bear. In spite of every obstacle
they constantly gained ground. Cohorn was severely wounded while
defending with desperate resolution a fort which he had himself
constructed, and of which he was proud. His place could not be supplied.
The governor was a feeble man whom Gastanaga had appointed, and whom
William had recently advised the Elector of Bavaria to remove. The
spirit of the garrison gave way. The town surrendered on the eighth day
of the siege, the citadel about three weeks later. [306]

The history of the fall of Namur in 1692 bears a close resemblance
to the history of the fail of Mons in 1691. Both in 1691 and in 1692,
Lewis, the sole and absolute master of the resources of his kingdom, was
able to open the campaign, before William, the captain of a coalition,
had brought together his dispersed forces. In both years the advantage
of having the first move decided the event of the game. At Namur, as at
Mons, Lewis, assisted by Vauban conducted the siege; Luxemburg covered
it; William vainly tried to raise it, and, with deep mortification,
assisted as a spectator at the victory of his enemy.

In one respect however the fate of the two fortresses was very
different. Mons was delivered