God and the King

by Marjorie Bowen

  CHAPTER III

  ATTAINMENT

  It was the commencement of the campaign of 1695; as yet nothing had beendone either side. The men at Versailles who managed the war hadconcentrated their forces in Flanders, and there the allies had gatheredto meet them; the Elector of Bavaria and other princes of the Empirewere encamped with the Germans guarding Brussels; the Brandenburghersand Spanish lay at Huy; the Dutch and British under the command of theKing of England, at Ghent.

  The French waited. Villeroy was not Luxembourg; he had no genius forcommand, and he was hampered by the presence of the Duc de Maine, hispupil and his superior, who showed no aptitude for war, not even commoncourage. Boufflers watched the King of England, the meaning of whosemarches he could not fathom; his oblique moves might cover a design oneither Ypres or Dunkirk; for a month they continued, and neitherVilleroy nor Boufflers suspected an attempt on Namur.

  But on June 28th, the King, the Elector, and the Brandenburghersadvanced with a swift concerted movement straight on Namur with suchsuddenness and rapidity that M. de Boufflers had scarcely time to throwhimself into the fortress before the three divisions of the allied armyclosed round the walls of the town.

  The Prince de Vaudemont had been left in Flanders to watch Villeroy.That general believed he could wipe out this force and then drive theallies from Namur--he said as much in his dispatches to Versailles; butM. de Vaudemont effected a masterly retreat into Ghent, and the easinessof the French Court was disturbed, especially as it was whispered thatan action had been avoided owing to the poltroonery of M. de Maine.

  M. de Kohorn, the principal engineer of the allies, had set his heart onthe capture of the fortress that he had seen taken by his great masterand rival, M. de Vauban. The Frenchman had since added considerably tothe fortifications, and rendered Namur the strongest fortress in theworld, and M. de Kohorn was spurred by professional pride into adesperate attempt to make good his failure of three years ago.

  A week after the trenches were opened the English foot guards gained theoutworks on the Brussels side; on the seventeenth the first counterscarpof the town was captured; on the twentieth the Germans gained Vauban'sline of fortifications cut in the rock from the Sambre to the Meuse andthe great sluice or waterworks; on the twenty-third the Dutch andEnglish made conquest of the second counterscarp, and the towncapitulated, Boufflers and the garrison retiring into the citadel,leaving behind them about fifteen hundred wounded men to be cared for bythe allies.

  On the 6th of August the allies, led by the King of England, marchedinto Namur by the St. Nicolas Gate, and prepared for the last andterrible assault on the garrison.

  Villeroy, who had meantime taken the petty towns of Dixmuyde and Deynse,endeavoured to induce the King to raise the siege of Namur by menacingBrussels, which he shelled and greatly damaged; but in vain, for Williamwas not to be lured into relinquishing his prey, and Villeroy, after twodays, marched on to Enghien, and, having collected the greater number ofthe French troops in the Netherlands, amounting in all to over eightythousand men, advanced to the relief of Namur.

  But the Prince de Vaudemont having now joined the allied forces it wasconsidered that they were strong enough to face Villeroy, and at thesame time continue the siege of the castle and hold the town.

  On the fifteenth the French host fired a salute of ninety guns as ahaughty promise of relief to Boufflers; from then to the nineteenth thetwo mighty armies faced each other, neither making any movement. Europeheld its breath, Paris and London, The Hague and Vienna, Brussels, stillhalf prostrate from French fires, Rome and Madrid waited in almostunbearable suspense for the result of the promised and, it seemed,inevitable combat between the two finest and largest armies that hadever met on European soil.

  Boufflers burnt fire signals every night on his watch-towers, whichurged haste to Villeroy, who still lay beyond the mighty ring of theconfederate army who incessantly stormed the citadel.

  On the nineteenth the King rose at dawn, got his forces under arms, androde from post to post surveying his troops and watching the enemy; hewas in the saddle from four in the morning till nightfall, and tired outthree horses. When he returned to his tent that had been pitched in theencampment on the west of the town near the Abbey of Salsines, there wasno portion of his vast army that he had not personally inspected.

  He dined alone; the Elector of Bavaria and the other German princesbeing in immediate command of the troops that were actually stormingNamur.

  He expected that Villeroy would attack him as soon as it was light, andhis preparations were complete.

  He had an interview with M. Dyckfelt, who was with the army asrepresentative of the States General, and was then alone, it being aboutten of the clock and a hot summer night.

  All the light in the tent came from a silver lamp suspended from thecross-poles, which gave an uncertain and wavering illumination. TheKing sat in the shadows; on the little table beside him was his sword,his pistols, and a map of Namur.

  He was thinking of twenty-three years ago when, in his early youth, hehad first led an army against France; his entire force then had numberedlittle more than the servants, footmen, and attendants in his retinuenow. All Europe had been against him, half his country in the hands ofthe enemy, the home government in the control of the opposing factions.The man of forty-four looked back at the achievements of the youth oftwenty-one with an extraordinary sense--almost of wonder.

  He recalled with painful vividness how Buckingham and Arlington had cometo offer him the shameful terms of France and England, their scorn athis rejection of the bitter bargain, and how even William Bentinck, gayand thoughtless then, had despaired. Hopeless, indeed, it had seemed;there had not been one to believe in him; but he had never doubted hisown destiny.

  And now he was justified in what he had undertaken, at least that,whatever sorrows, humiliations, and disappointments had darkened his waythe outward semblance was of great and steady success.

  The Prince, who had been little better than a State prisoner and a pawnin the politics of Europe, heir to a ruined family and leader of adespairing nation, was now a King, directing half Europe, with one ofthe mightiest armies the world had seen behind him. Of the monarchs whohad offered to silence his despised defiance with dishonourable termsone was now dead, and he held his kingdoms; and the other, who then hadthreatened to overrun the world, was now with difficulty holding his ownagainst a coalition that included all the principal countries of Europe.

  Not without concession, infinite patience, endless trouble, and longwaiting had William got these allies together. For the support and themillions of England he was paying a price none but himself could gaugethe bitterness of. To Scandinavia he had had to sacrifice some of hischerished maritime privileges; Spain, the most provoking of theconfederates, had been kept by much expenditure of art and money; theGerman princes had been held together by a title, a garter, a subsidy,an honour, a promise of a prospective dignity. Now, before the walls ofNamur, the man whose genius and indomitable courage had, during twentyyears, toiled towards this end, might feel that he was beginning totaste his reward.

  He was facing France, equal to equal; he was feared and respectedthroughout the world. The Protestant faith, threatened with extinctionby Louis, he had placed on a basis from which, as long as any faithlasted, it could never be displaced. His country was free, andprosperous, and foremost among nations again; the power of France wasalready too crippled for there to be longer any fear of her upsettingthe balance of power.

  The English fleet, useless since Elizabeth, again was mistress of theseas. Russell passed unmolested between Spain and Italy, defied theremnant of the French fleet imprisoned in Toulon port, and dared thewhole of the Mediterranean seaboard. Berkeley passed unmolested alongthe French coast, burnt Granville, shelled Calais and Dunkirk, and keptthe English flag high and undisputed above the Channel.

  The man who had been the boy who had once passionately res
olved to dothese things found the realization of them different indeed to thosebright imaginings. Attainment of fame, honour, power, success could notgive more than a faint remembrance of the throb of exultation theyouthful Prince had felt when he, penniless, unsupported, hampered inevery possible way, had first flung his challenge to overwhelming odds.Then there had been everything to do; but ardent courage and unspoiltfaith had gilded difficulties, and the heroic pride of youth had smiledat obstacles; now the loss of a love the boy had never dreamt of hadmade all things else appear small to the man.

  Twenty years of toil, of acquaintance with treachery, deceit, smallness,weakness, twenty years of misunderstood endeavour, of constant strain,of constant fatigue had done their work. The fine spirit did not shrinkfrom its task, but never again could it recapture the early glow ofhope, the early ecstasy of labour, the early pride of achievement.

  What was his achievement, after all. He might well think that the Godhe had served so patiently had mocked him. He had loved but to lose hislove; he had bartered his personal ease, almost his liberty, almost hispride for bitter honours held in exile; his health was utterly worn out,his days were a continual weariness and pain; he was again as lonely ashe had been when he was the prisoner of the States; he had no heir, andthe main branch of his family died with him; if he could not finishhimself his task he must entrust it to strangers to complete. Surelyall was utter vanity and vexation. The cold consolations of a sombrefaith only supported him. He clung to those beliefs in which Mary haddied, and faced the few years that at best remained to him with the samehigh courage with which she had met her fate.

  He rose presently, in the perfect stillness, and went to the entrance ofhis tent, lifted the flap, and looked out.

  The French red flares on the towers of Namur were visible across thegreat plain of the Sambre and Meuse; the starlight showed the hugeencampment stretching out of sight under the clear sky: near by a sentrypaced with his musket over his shoulder; it was very hot and not a bladeof grass stirred in the absolute arrested stillness.

  Presently a surgeon passed through the tents carrying a lantern andfollowed by a servant leading a mule laden with his chest. The lightflickered awhile amid the canvas then disappeared; a dog barked and aman whistled to it; the silence fell again as intense as before.

  The King went back and flung himself on his couch; he could not comenear sleep, but lay watching the long, pale beams of light the lamp castover the worn grass that formed the floor of the hastily constructedtent.

  His mind kept dwelling on his first campaign, his miserable army, hisown ignorance of all but book tactics, his lack of money, ofauthority--yet that had been the first spark of that fire that now litEurope. He had formed and trained his own armies--Dutch,Brandenburghers, Swedes, Germans, and lately the English--until theywere equal to those consummate French troops who had laughed at him in'72; but they fought with no more devotion and courage than the handfulof Hollanders who had rallied round him then, now incorporated into thefamous Dutch Guards, the most beloved of all his beloved army.

  He thought of these Guards marching against Villeroy now, feared andhonoured, and his heart fluttered faintly with a fleeting pleasure thatthey should ever face the French on these terms.

  He closed his eyes and instantly there spread before him a vision of thegreat banqueting hall at Whitehall hung with black, and the banners andarmours of his family, while in the centre was a mighty catafalque ofblack velvet which bore an open coffin, at the foot of which lay a royalcrown and sceptre. She who rested there was covered to the chin in goldstuff, and round her head was twisted her dark, curling, auburn hair.

  The King sprang up and walked up and down the uneven ground; he drewfrom under his shirt and cravat a long, black ribbon, to which wasattached a gold wedding-ring and a long lock of that same rich hair thathe had seen in his vision.

  He paused under the lamp and gazed at it; in that moment he prayed thathe might find his death in to-morrow's battle with as much passion asany poor wretch ever prayed for hope of life. He was still standing so,forgetful of time and place, when he heard voices without, and hastilyput the ribbon back over his heart.

  The flap was raised and the figure of a young officer showed against thepaling sky.

  "Is it M. van Keppel?" asked the King quietly.

  "Yes, sire." The speaker entered. He had been sent with the King'scommands to the Elector of Bavaria.

  "M. de Bavaria understands everything?" inquired William.

  "He is quite ready, sire."

  "So are we," said the King. "I should think M. de Villeroy would makethe attack in an hour or so--the dawn is breaking, is it not?"

  "The sun was just rising, sire, above the river, as I rode from the campof His Highness."

  "Yet the light is very faint here. Will you, Mynheer, light the otherlamp?" The King spoke gently, but he had quite regained that command ofhimself which rendered his demeanour so stately and impressive.

  M. van Keppel obeyed and was then retiring, but William, who was seatedby the table, asked him to stay.

  "I may have another message for you," he added.

  The officer bowed.

  William rang the little hand-bell near him and a valet instantlyappeared from the curtained inner portion of the tent. The King livedvery simply when at the camp. He now asked for wine, and when it wasbrought made M. van Keppel drink with him, which honour caused the youngsoldier to redden with pleasure.

  "I hear," said William, "that the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse havebeen sent prisoners to France. That breaketh the treaty we made for theexchange of captives--treachery and insolence, it seemeth, are the onlymethods of France."

  "Treachery and insolence will not for ever prevail," answered Joost vanKeppel, in his sweet, ardent voice. "The fortunes of Your Majesty beginto overleap the arrogance of France."

  "There will be a great battle to-day," remarked the King quietly andirrelevantly.

  The powerful summer dawn, strengthening with every moment, penetratedthe tent and mingled with the beams of the two lamps. The King sat inthe crossed lights; his gentleman knelt before him, fastening the greatgilt spurs to his close riding-boots. He looked at Joost van Keppelgravely and kindly; his face, pale in its proper complexion, was tanneddarkly by the Lowland sun; his eyes were extraordinarily bright andflashing, but languid lidded and heavily shadowed beneath; his large,mobile mouth was set firmly; his long, thick curls hung over his blackcoat, across which showed the blue ribbon and star that he had notremoved since he had reviewed his forces yesterday.

  "Mynheer," he said to M. van Keppel. "Lift the flap and look out----"

  The young Dutchman obeyed and a full sunbeam struck across the dimartificial light.

  "A fine day," remarked William; he was ever fond of sun and warmth.

  As M. van Keppel stood so, holding back the canvas and gazing over thetents that spread across the plain of the Meuse, a gentleman, armed onback and breast with a gold inlaid cuirass, wrapped in a black silkmantle and carrying a hat covered with white plumes, rode up,dismounted, and entered the King's tent without a word of ceremony.

  M. van Keppel bowed very respectfully; it was the Earl of Portland.

  On seeing the King alone with the young officer his face darkened; heanswered the King's greeting of unconscious affection with sternbrusqueness.

  "There are letters from England--I met the messenger," he said, and laidthe packet on the table by the wine-glasses.

  Joost van Keppel was quick to see the instant shock that Williamquivered under, and to perceive the cause of it. When last the King hadbeen at the war not a post had arrived from London without a letter fromthe Queen. The young man thought Portland had acted with someharshness; he came forward and said impulsively--

  "Letters from England, my lord, are not of such importance that theycannot wait till after the battle."

  This was to Portland incredible impertinence; he stared at the flushed,generous face with bitterly angry eyes; but W
illiam seemed relieved.

  "Yes, let the news wait," he said, and rose.

  "If this was known in London what would they say?" broke out Portland.

  "How can it be known in London when I have none here but friends?"answered the King.

  "I thank Your Majesty for including me with M. van Keppel as yourfriend," flashed Portland.

  The King looked at him sharply, then from one man to another.

  "Mynheer van Keppel," he said, "you will return to M. de Bavaria andtell him to be in readiness for a message from us."

  The officer bowed with great deference and sweetness to his master andthe Earl, and instantly retired.

  "Will you not read those letters?" asked Portland, in no way appeased.

  William gave him a glance between reproach and wonder, broke the seals,and looked over the letters.

  "Nothing," he said, when he laid them down, "save that some sugar shipsfrom Barbadoes have been taken by the French, that there is greatuneasiness on the Stock Exchange."

  "Nothing of M. de Leeds?" asked Portland.

  "No," said the King; he was standing up and his gentleman buckled himinto his light cuirass; "but I will not have him touched--he is punishedenough." He added, with some contempt, "Is Leeds so much worse than theherd that he should be hunted from it?"

  "A corrupt man," answered Portland gloomily; "but you were always tenderwith him."

  William was silent. His obligation to Leeds consisted entirely of thatnobleman's devotion to the Queen; he thought that Portland knew this anddespised him for such sentiment in politics. Neither spoke any more onthe subject.

  "M. Montague is a clever man," remarked the King, after a little;"another pensioner of my Lord Dorset. How goeth the other, yoursecretary?"

  "Ah, Prior," replied the Earl, "well enough, but I think him an atheist.His poetry is full of heathen gods, and when I probed him on the subjecthe was not satisfactory in his answers, but well enough."

  "Put my Lord Sarum on to converting him," said William drily; "but Ishould not take much account of his poetry."

  The King's gentleman went into the back part of the tent and Portlandinstantly addressed his master with great heat.

  "Sir, I must tell you that it is a source of great wonder to all thatyou should so encourage, favour, and caress a worthless young rake likeM. van Keppel--a mere hanger-on to court favour; your dignity suffers byit----"

  The King interrupted.

  "Are you jealous--you--of him?" he asked mournfully.

  "I have enough to make me jealous," was the hot answer, "when I see thecreature of such as my Lord Sunderland creep into your affections."

  The King answered in gentle, dignified tones, without a touch of angeror resentment--

  "You are indeed wrong. I like M. van Keppel for himself--I find himsweet and intelligent, a willing servant--and I have not too many. Butyou know, even while you speak, that nothing could come between me andyou."

  "I think he hath come between us," said Portland sternly; "during thewhole campaign he hath hardly left your side. I believe you even consulthim as to your actions--he!--why, the whole camp knoweth his reputation.I could tell some tales----"

  The King broke in.

  "I'll hear no scandals. You know that of me. If we are to listen totale-bearing there is not one of us safe. If I favoured any man do younot think there would be tales against him? But I did not think to findyou leaning on gossip."

  He still spoke with an utter calm; but Portland took his words heavily.

  "If you choose to reprimand me----" he began.

  "Forgive me," said the King instantly. "I thought you would understand.Indeed, forgive me. I would do anything in the world not to vex you."

  The return of the gentleman with William's gloves and cloak cut shortthe conversation. The King fastened his sword-belt over his shoulderand adjusted the weapon; as he took up his hat with the long blackfeathers a magnificent Brandenburgher officer entered, followed by M.Dyckfelt.

  "Your Majesty," said the Dutchman quietly, "M. de Villeroy hathretreated in the night--leaving M. de Boufflers to his fate."

  The Brandenburgher went on one knee and handed William a dispatch fromthe commander of the scouts, who had seen the last vanishing rearguardof the French.

  The King showed no emotion of any kind.

  "Count," he said to the officer, "you will go to M. de Bavaria andrequest him to make an immediate assault on Namur."

  When the officer had withdrawn, with profound obeisance, William turnedto Portland.

  "I will ask you to go to M. de Boufflers and demand a surrender. Tellhim that there is no further hope for him from M. de Villeroy, and thatif he wisheth to spare his garrison he must capitulate to-day."

  Portland bowed gravely and turned away. William looked after himkeenly, then took up his perspective glass, his gloves, and his baton,and left the tent.