The

not tolerate even the ashes of departed greatness. contents of the tombs were destroyed and that the corpse of the illustrious Marshal was not torn to pieces was due partly to the ignorance of the spoilers, and partly to its sound preservation. For a time it had a place in "Le Cabinet nationale d'histoire naturelle," and was exhibited to the gaze of the friends of liberty among stuffed quadrupeds and preserved lizards. In 1796 it was promoted to a place in the Musée des Monuments," and the earth which once awed the might of Spain and Germany was a subject of criticism by prying antiquarians. But the vice and folly of the Revolution became mere tools in the hands of another soldier. Bonaparte, when first Consul, put an end to this degradation and, rightly honouring the relics of his most famous predecessor, gave them a final and glorious resting place among the departed brave, in the Church of the Invalides.

After the peace of Nimeguen, the power of Louis XIV was at its height, but the evil influence of the female superstition by which he was surrounded, overpowered him, and inflicted an irreparable disaster on France. The enormous exodus of the Huguenots at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, not only improved the industries of neighbouring lands, but gave to the Dutch, to Prussia, and to England, a race of honourable, valiant and very able military men, trained in the school of Turenne, and hardened by long experience in war. When William, the Stadholder of Holland, took up arms against his father-in-law in defence of the Protestant religion and the liberties of England, his ranks were full of French Protestants, and his most efficient chiefs were of the same nation and creed.

A very able officer was John de Bolt. He had fled from France when only in his eighteenth year, and shortly after joined the Dutch artillery. He accompanied William to England, and was made captain, 1690. He fought at the Boyne and at Aughrim, and eventually rose to the command of the Huguenot Corps of Engineers. In that capacity he served at the battles of Steinkirk and Neerwinden and, at the siege of Namur, 1695, he directed the operations which led to the surrender of the fortress to the allies. The fort into which Boufflers had thrown himself was assaulted and carried by La Cave at the head of two thousand volunteers. William III generously acknowledged that it was mainly to the aid of the brave refugees that he owed the capture of that important fortress. All through the wars in the Low

Countries, under William III, Eugene, and the Duke of Marlborough, wherever the fighting was hardest there they were. Henry de Chesnoi led the assault which gave Landau to the allies. At battles and sieges they were conspicuous for their valour. La Roche, the Huguenot engineer, conducted the operations at Lille, doing "more execution in three days than Meer, the German, in six weeks." See Smiles, 199, 239, 240.

The flower of the little army with which William III landed at Torbay consisted of Huguenot soldiers. In addition to the second in command, Schomberg, a great number of the principal officers were Frenchmen. "William's three Aides-deCamp, de l'Etang, de la Melonière and the Marquis d'Argilliers, were French officers, as were also the chiefs of the Engineers and Artillery, Cambon and Goulon, the latter being one of Vauban's most distinguished pupils. Fifty-four French gentlemen served in William's regiment of horse guards and thirty-four in his body guard, among these were the distinguished cavalry officers, Didier de Boncourt, and Chalant de Remeugnac, Danserville, Petit, and Picard."

But the most celebrated of all these was the Marshal Schomberg. He has always appeared to me as the very ideal of a gentleman and a soldier, recalling vividly the splendid picture in which the poetry of Chaucer has immortalized the Knight

"A Knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the tyme that he first began

To riden out, he loved chevalrie,

Truthe and honour, fredom and courtesie,
And though that he was worthy, he was wise,
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.'

Let us compare with this Macaulay's description of Schomberg :

For his religion he had resigned a splendid income, had laid down the truncheon of a Marshal of France, and had, at nearly eighty years of age, begun the world again as a needy soldier of fortune. As he had no connection with the United Provinces, and had never belonged to the little Court of the Hague, the preference given to him over English captains was justly ascribed, not to national or personal partiality, but to his virtues and his abilities. His deportment differed widely from that of the other foreigners who had just been created English peers. They, with many respectable qualities, were, in tastes, manners, and predilections, Dutchmen, and could not catch the tone of the society to which they had been transferred. He was a citizen of the world, had travelled over all Europe, had commanded armies on the Meuse, and on

the Ebro, and on the Tagus; had shone in the splendid circle of Versailles, and had been in high favour at the court of Berlin. He had often been taken by French noblemen for a French nobleman. He had passed some time in England, spoke English remarkably well, accommodated himself easily to English manners, and was often seen walking in the park with English companions. In youth his habits had been temperate; and his temperance had its proper reward, a singularly green and vigorous old age. At fourscore he retained a strong relish for innocent pleasures; he conversed with great courtesy and sprightliness: nothing could be in better taste than his equipages and his table; and every cornet of cavalry envied the grace and dignity with which the veteran appeared in Hyde Park on his charger at the head of his regiment."

I am sure the ladies and gentlemen whom I address must feel gratified and proud to be descended from a race of martyrs and heroes, of whom the gallant Marshal was a typical representative.

The passage, quoted from Macaulay, by no means exaggerates the services of Schomberg to France. He was born in 1619, and was the son of Ménard de Schomberg, who negotiated the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart with the Elector Palatine, and of Anne, daughter of Lord Dudley. He was brought up by the Elector, as his father died when he was only a few months old. At the age of sixteen he fought at the battle of Nordlingen, He learned the art of War under the famous Rantzau, and as his property was confiscated by the Emperor of Germany, he entered the Dutch Army, in which he remained till 1650, and then, joining the French, he so distinguished himself in the wars of the Fronde that Mazarin promoted him. He next fought on the northern frontier against the Spanish with great distinction, and at the siege of Valenciennes gave a remarkable proof of his firm character by continuing to give orders calmly though his eldest son was slain under his eyes. As Spain was about to seize upon Portugal he offered his services to the Regency of the latter nation and secured its independence by a brilliant victory over the Spanish at Villa Viciosa. In the next war he served in Catalonia with such good fortune as to win the bâton of Marshal in 1675. Next year he fought his old masters, the Dutch, along the Meuse. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes he passed into Portugal, and then was eagerly welcomed by the Elector of Brandenburg, who

appointed him Generalissimo. He saved the English army which was sent into Ireland in 1689 from the consequences of the utterly inefficient way in which it was equipped and organized. His death was worthy of his career; he fell in the crisis of the battle of the Boyne, and the Protestants of Ireland buried his remains in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, and still they venerate his memory, and it is no wonder, for his death occurred in this wise. When the English centre was wading across the Boyne, a strong body of Irish cavalry charged the advancing infantry with great vigour, shook them until they reeled, and compelled them to give way. "The Old Marshal" (we quote Smiles) "now saw that the crisis of the fight had arrived and he prepared to act accordingly. Placing himself at the head of his Huguenot regiment of horse, which he had held in reserve and, pointing with his sword across the river he called out Allons mes amis ! rappelez votre courage et vos resentements; Voila vos persecuteurs and plunged into the stream." He was found amongst the fallen. Thus in 1690 by the Boyne, died the veteran, who began his record of fighting fifty-five years before by the banks of the Danube.

The career of Lord Galway was not one of constant brightness, and indeed it is associated with the defeat of British Armies. Yet it is worth recording as illustrating the very varied character of the Huguenot services to England, and also the extraordinary energy and enterprise of the British people at the close of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth. It would be well if at present, with more than twenty times the resources in money, and five times the numbers, they had the same confidence in their prowess and determination to assert and maintain their position.

Count Henry de Ruvigny, Earl of Galway, (which is spelt Galloway in the Biographie Universelle) was an illustrious refugee who entered the British service when he learned that his brother, De la Caillemotte, had been killed at the Boyne. He served at the siege of Athlone, an important strategic point on the river Shannon, and he defeated his fellow countryman, St. Ruth, at the battle of Aughrim, which won the west of Ireland for William III. His charge was decisive, and his regiment lost 144 killed and wounded. For this he was created an Irish peer. He justified King William's reward, for at the battle of Neerwinden, in Flanders, 1693, when the English king was beaten by Marshal Luxembourg, his retreat was covered by the brave Huguenot, whose troopers

HENRI, MARQUIS DE RUVIGNY, EARL OF GALWAY.

From an oil-painting at the French Hospital, Victoria Park Road, London. (By permission).