wing to advance against the enemy, whose infantry gave way: prince Waldec led up the centre: Mareschal Bathiani made a motion with the right wing towards Herdeeren, and victory seemed ready to declare for the confederates, when the fortune of the day took a sudden turn to their prejudice. Several squadrons of Dutch horse, posted in the centre, gave way, and flying at full gallop, overthrew five battalions of infantry that were advancing from the body of reserve. The French cavalry charged them with great impetuosity, increasing the confusion that was already produced, and penetrating through the lines of the allied army, which was thus divided about the centre. The duke of Cumberland, who exerted himself with equal courage and activity in attempting to remedy this disorder, was in danger of being taken; and the defeat would in all probability have been total, had not sir John Ligonier taken the resolution of sacrificing himself and a part of the troops to the safety of the army. At the head of three British regiments of dragoons, and some squadrons of Imperial horse, he charged the whole line of the French cavalry, with such intrepidity and success that he overthrew all that opposed him, and made such a diversion as enabled the duke of Cumberland to effect an orderly retreat to Maestricht. He himself was taken by a French carabineer, after his horse had been killed: but the regiments he commanded retired with deliberation. The confederates retreated to Maestricht, without having sustained much damage from the pursuit, and even brought off all their artillery, except sixteen pieces of cannon. Their loss did not exceed six thousand men killed and taken; whereas the French general purchased the victory at a much greater expense. The common cause of the confederate powers is said to have suffered from the pride and ignorance of their generals. On the eve of the battle, when the detachment of the count de Clermont appeared on the hill of Herdeeren, mareschal Bathiani asked permission of the commander in chief to attack them before they should be reinforced, declaring he would answer for the success of the enterprise. No regard was paid to this proposal: but the superior asked in his turn, where the mareschal would be in case he should be wanted? He replied, "I shall always be found at the head of my

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troops," and retired in disgust; the subsequent disposition has likewise been blamed, inasmuch as not above one half of the army could act, while the enemy exerted their whole force.

§ XXII. The confederates passed the Maese, and encamped in the Dutchy of Limburgh, so as to cover Maestricht; while the French king remained with his army in the neighbourhood of Tongres. Mareschal Saxe, having amused the allies with marches and countermarches, at length detached count Lowendahl with six-and-thirty thousand men to besiege Bergen-op-Zoom, the strongest fortification of Dutch Brabant, the favourite work of the famous engineer Coehorn, never conquered, and generally esteemed invincible. It was secured with a garrison of three thousand men, and well provided with artillery, ammunition, and magazines. The enemy appeared before it on the twelfth day of July, and summoned the governor to surrender. The prince of Saxe Hildburghausen was sent to its relief, with twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons of the troops that could be most conveniently assembled; he entered the lines of Bergen-op-Zoom, where he remained in expectation of a strong reinforcement from the confederate army; and the old baron Cronstrom, whom the stadtholder had appointed governor of Brabant, assumed the command of the garrison. The besiegers carried on their operations with great vivacity; and the troops in the town defended it with equal vigour. The eyes of all Europe were turned upon this important siege: count Lowendahl received divers reinforcements; and a considerable body of troops was detached from the allied army, under the command of baron Schwartzember, to cooperate with the prince of Saxe Hildburghausen. The French general lost a great number of men by the close and continual fire of the besieged; while he, in his turn, opened such a number of batteries, and plied them so warmly, that the defences began to give way. From the sixteenth day of July to the fifteenth of September, the siege produced an intermitting scene of horror and destruction: desperate sallies were made, and mines sprung with the most dreadful effects: the works began to be shattered; the town was laid in ashes: the trenches were filled with carnage; nothing was seen but

fire and smoke; nothing heard but one continued roar of bombs and cannon. But still the damage fell chiefly on the besiegers, who were slain in heaps; while the garrison suffered very little, and could be occasionally relieved or reinforced from the lines. In a word, it was generally believed that count Lowendahl would be baffled in his endeavours; and by this belief the governor of Bergen-opZoom seems to have been lulled into a blind security. length, some inconsiderable breaches were made in one ravelin and two bastions, and these the French general resolved to storm, though Cronstrom believed they were impracticable and on that supposition presumed that the enemy would not attempt an assault. For this very reason

At

count Lowendahl resolved to hazard the attack, before the preparations should be made for his reception. He accordingly regulated his dispositions, and at four o'clock in the morning on the sixteenth day of September, the signal was made for the assault. A prodigious quantity of bombs. being thrown into the ravelin, his troops threw themselves into the fossé, mounted the breaches, forced open a sally. port, and entered the place, almost without resistance. In a word, they had time to extend themselves along the curtains, and form in order of battle, before the garrison could be assembled. Cronstrom was asleep, and the soldiers upon duty had been surprised by the suddenness and impetuosity of the attack. Though the French had taken possession of the ramparts, they did not gain the town without opposi tion. Two battalions of the Scottish troops, in the pay of the states general, were assembled in the market place, and attacked them with such fury, that they were driven from street to street, until fresh reinforcements arriving, compelled the Scots to retreat in their turn; yet they disputed every inch of ground, and fought until two-thirds of them were killed on the spot. Then they brought off the old. governor, abandoning the town to the enemy: the troops that were encamped in the lines retreating with great precipitation, all the forts in the neighbourhood immediately surrendered to the victors, who now became masters of the whole navigation of the Schelde. The French king was no sooner informed of Lowendahl's success, than he promoted him to the rank of mareschal of France; appointed count VOL. III. E

Saxe governor of the conquered Netherlands; and returned in triumph to Versailles. In a little time after this transac tion, both armies were distributed into winter quarters, and the duke of Cumberland embarked for England.

XXIII. In Italy, the French arms did not triumph with equal success, though the mareschal de Belleisle saw himself at the head of a powerful army in Provence. In April he passed the Var without opposition, and took pos session of Nice. He met with little or no resistance in reducing Montalban, Villafranca, and Ventimiglia; while general Brown with eight-and-twenty thousand Austrians, retired towards Final and Savona. In the mean time, another large body, under count Schuylemberg, who had succeeded the marquis de Botta, cooperated with fifteen thousand Piedmontese in an attempt to recover the city of Genoa. The French king had sent their supplies, succours, and engineers, with the duke de Boufflers, as ambassador to the republic, who likewise acted as commander in chief of the forces employed for its defence. The Austrian general assembled his troops in the Milanese: having forced the passage of the Bochetta on the thirteenth of January, he advanced into the territories of Genoa, and the Rivera was ravaged without mercy. On the last day of March he appeared before the city, at the head of forty thousand men, and summoned the revolters to lay down their arms. The answer he received was, that the repub lie had fifty-four thousand men in arms, two hundred and sixty cannon, thirty-four mortars, with abundance of am munition and provision; that they would defend their liberty with their last blood, and be buried in the ruins of their capital, rather than submit to the clemency of the court of Vienna, except by an honourable capitulation, guaranteed by the kings of Great Britain and Sardinia, the republic of Venice and the United Provinces. In the beginning of May, Genoa was invested on all sides; a furious sally was made by the duke de Boufflers, who drove the besiegers from their posts; but the Austrians rallying, he was repulsed in his turn, with the loss of seven hundred men. General Schuylemberg carried on his ope rations with such skill, vigour, and intrepidity, that he made himself master of the suburbs of Bisagno; and in

all probability would have reduced the city, had he not been obliged to desist, in consequence of the repeated remonstrances made by the king of Sardinia and count Brown, who represented the necessity of his abandoning his enterprise, and drawing off his army, to cover Piedmont and Lombardy from the efforts of mareschal de Belbeisle. Accordingly, he raised the siege on the tenth day of June, and returned into the Milanese, in order to join his Sardinian majesty; while the Genoese made an irruption into the Parmesan and Placentin, where they committed terrible outrages, in revenge for the mischiefs they had undergone.

.. XXIV. While the mareschal de Belleisle remained at Ventimiglia, his brother, at the head of four-and-thirty thousand French and Spaniards, attempted to penetrate into Piedmont on the sixth day of July he arrived at the pass of Exilles, a strong fortress on the frontiers of Dauphiné, situated on the north side of the river Doria. The defence of this important post the king of Sardinia had committed to the care of the count de Brigueras, who formed an encampment behind the lines, with fourteen battalions of Piedmontese and Austrians, while divers detachments were posted along the passes of the Alps. On the eighth day of the month the Piedmontese intrenchments were attacked by the chevalier de Belleisle, with incredible intrepidity; but the columns were repulsed with great loss in three succes sive attacks. Impatient of this obstinate opposition, and determined not to survive a miscarriage, this impetuous general seized a pair of colours, and advancing at the head of his troops, through a prodigious fire, pitched them with his own hand on the enemy's intrenchments. At that instant he fell dead, having received two musket balls and the thrust of a bayonet in his body. The assailants were so much dispirited by the death of their commander, that they forthwith gave way, and retreated with precipitation towards Sesteries, having lost near five thousand men in the attack. The mareschal was no sooner informed of his brother's misfortune, than he retreated towards the Var, to join the troops from Exilles, while the king of Sardinia, having assembled an army of seventy thousand men, threatened Dauphiné with an invasion; but the excessive