Blenheim

“ Did you ever hear of a man named Franz von Blenheim?”
“No,” she said blankly; “I never did. Who is he?”
No birds out of that covert! If this was acting it was marvelous; there had not been the slightest flicker of confusion in her face.
“Oh, he isn’t anybody of importance—just a man,” I evaded. “Look here, Miss Falconer, you’ll have to forgive me if you can. You shall stay in Paris, and I’ll be as silent as the grave concerning you; but I’d like to do more than that. Won’t you let me come and call? Really, you know, I’m not such a duffer as you have cause to think me. ”

“ I cried in French, “I order you to arrest these persons! They are agents of the kaiser! They are German spies!”
The pistol, clutched between us, exploded harmlessly into the air. I head shouts, saw men running toward us. Then I caught sight of Blenheim’s face, dark and oddly contorted; he had turned and was leveling his revolver at me, resting one knee on the driver’s seat as he took deliberate aim. ”

“ I cannot, therefore, allow any admirer of the French to be a judge of Blenheim, nor any who takes Bouhours for a complete critick. He generally judges of the ancients by the moderns, and not the moderns by the ancients; he takes those passages of their own authors to be really sublime which come the nearest to it; he often calls that a noble and a great thought which is only a pretty and a fine one; and has more instances of the sublime out of Ovid de Tristibus, than he has out of all Virgil. ”

“ The park of Blenheim, besides the interest which attaches to it from the circumstance of its having been the residence of the early kings of England, and the scene of "Rosamond's" life, has in more modern times acquired additional interest from having been bestowed by the country upon the Duke of Marlborough, in testimony of the gratitude of the nation for the brilliant services he had rendered his country, particularly at the battle of Blenheim. ”

“ Brigadier Rose led the British infantry to the assault of Blenheim under a shower of grape and musketry. He ordered his men to reserve their fire until he struck his sword against the palisades. The troops advanced with great steadiness, but they were repulsed with severe loss; and Marlborough, finding how strongly Blenheim was held, gave up the attempt to capture it, and bent all his energies to breaking through the centre. ”

“ His rapidity of perception, his far-sighted sagacity, his watchful circumspection, his prompt energy, at length triumphed over all obstacles, and eventuated in the glorious battle of Blenheim—than which none more splendid stands on record. The fearful consequences of failure were very eagerly pressed upon him by his own [150] officers. "I know the danger," said he calmly, "yet a battle is absolutely necessary; and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages." ”

“ The year 1704 opened, therefore, with this double situation: to the south Austria had been saved for the moment, but was open to immediate attack in the campaign to come; meanwhile, the French had proved so solidly seated in the Spanish Netherlands (or Belgium) that repeated attacks on them in this quarter would in all probability prove barren.
It was under these circumstances that [Pg 29] Eugene of Savoy came to the great decision which marked the year of Blenheim. ”

“ His determination to carry the war into Bavaria could at once be carried into effect.
[Pg 70] With this junction the first chapter in that large piece of strategy which may be called “the campaign of Blenheim” comes to an end.
Between the successful termination of his first effort, which was accomplished when he joined forces with Baden upon the Danube side of the watershed in the village of Ursprung, and the great battle by which Marlborough is chiefly remembered, there elapsed, I say, seven summer weeks. These seven weeks are divided into the three parts just distinguished. ”

“ Blenheim, I grant you, is a splendid three year old, but my Cressy is just about twenty yards swifter in two miles. There is not another such colt in all Virginia, and it gives me great pride to be his owner."
The other laughed, a soft drawling laugh, but it was touched with incredulity.
"You're a vain man, James," he said, "not vain for yourself, but vain for your sorrel colt." ”

“ Thus by the operations of one single campaign was Bavaria crushed, Austria and Germany delivered. Marlborough's cross-march from Flanders to the Danube, had extricated the Imperialists from a state of the utmost peril, and elevated them at once to security, victory, and conquest. The decisive blow struck at Blenheim, resounded through every part of Europe; it at once destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had taken Louis XIV., aided by the talents of Turenne, and the genius of Vauban, so long to construct. ”

“ To follow the second phase of the seven weeks, that is, the phase subsequent to the capture of the Schellenberg and the retirement of Marcin and the Elector of Bavaria on to Augsburg, it is necessary to hark back a little, and to trace from its origin that advance of Tallard’s reinforcements which was to find on the field of Blenheim so disastrous a termination. ”

“ At any rate, risk was in the temperament of the man, and it is a temperament which in warfare accounts for the greatest things.
First and last, some 10,000 men were employed against the one point of Blenheim; and the assault upon the village, though a failure, forms one of the noblest chapters in the history of British arms.
It was one o’clock of the afternoon when the serious part of the action opened by the two first lines of Marlborough’s extreme left advancing under Lord Cutts to pass the Nebel, to cross the pasture beyond, and to force the palisades of the village. ”

“ The French rapidly put Blenheim into a state of defence—the walls were loopholed, the garden fences (or palisades as they were called by the historians of the time) were strengthened; the entrances were barricaded with carts, gates, furniture from the houses; while twelve squadrons of cavalry, sent to hold the two hundred yards of ground between the village and the Danube, entrenched themselves behind a “laager” of waggons. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV THE OBUS
I stood in the gallery for an instant, indulging in a reconnoissance. The hall was now illuminated by an electric torch and three guttering candles; at the foot of the staircase lay the table which had done such yeoman’s service, split in two. As for the besiegers, they were gathered near the chimney-place in a worse-for-wear group, one nursing a nosebleed; another feeling gingerly of a loose tooth; Blenheim himself frankly raging, and decorated with a broad cut across his forehead and a cheek that was rapidly taking on assorted shades of blue, green, and black ”

“ Aren’t you afraid, for instance, that I might be tempted to share my knowledge of your name and your profession with the first French soldiers we meet?”
“As to that, we will take our chances.” Blenheim’s face was adamant, though my suggestion had produced a not entirely enlivening effect on his two friends. “You see, Mr. Bayne, in this business the risks will be mostly yours. There will be no flights of stairs to dart up and no tables to over turn and no candles to extinguish; you will sit in the tonneau with a man beside you, a very watchful man, and a pistol against your side. ”

“ This danger as to the troops in Blenheim, the flower of their army, was much augmented by the circumstance, that if their centre was forced where it was formed of cavalry only, and the victors turned sharp round towards Blenheim, the horse would be driven headlong into the Danube, and the foot in that village would run the hazard of being surrounded or pushed into that river, which was not fordable, even for horse, in any part. ”

“ Crossing this plain transversely, on their way to the Danube, ooze and trickle rather than run certain insignificant streams; each rises in the wooded hills to the north, falls southward, and in the length of a very few miles reaches the main river. These streams are found, as one goes up the great valley, at every mile or so. With one, the Nebel, we shall be particularly concerned, for during the action at Blenheim it formed the only slight obstacle separating the two armies. ”

“ This is a censure too dogmatical and violent. The poem of Blenheim was never denied to be tolerable, even by those who do not allow its supreme excellence. It is, indeed, the poem of a scholar, "all inexpert of war;" of a man who writes books from books, and studies the world in a college. He seems to have formed his ideas of the field of Blenheim from the battles of the heroick ages, or the tales of chivalry, with very little comprehension of the qualities necessary to the composition of a modern hero, which Addison has displayed with so much propriety. ”

“ They lay in heaps of dead or wounded, cut down with the sword, for the most part unbroken in formation, their feet eastward whence the charge had come, and their faces to the sky. Over and beyond those corpses rode the full weight of Marlborough’s cavalry, right through Tallard’s left, which was the centre of the French line, while Tallard vainly called for troops to come out of Blenheim and check the fury, and as vainly sent for reinforcements to come from Marcin on the left, which should try and dam the flood that was now pouring through the bulwark of his ranks. ”

“ The floor on which the Danube runs is still a mass of undergrowth and weeds and grass, which marks off the cultivated land on the south, as it has been limited since men first ploughed.
I have said that the little slow and muddy streamlet called the Nebel must particularly meet with our attention, because it formed at the beginning of the action of Blenheim a central line dividing the two hosts, and round its course may be grouped the features of the terrain upon which the battle was contested. ”

“ Thirty thousand lives sacrificed in one battle! Neither Blenheim nor Ramillies could compare with Malplaquet in monstrosity of carnage. Nor was the impression produced equal to the destruction. The French, under the able command of Villars, notwithstanding their defeat, felt rather reassured than depressed. They had inflicted far more damage than they had received; and Villars declared that, had he not been so severely wounded, he would not have left the field without the victory. ”

“ At Blenheim, perhaps he thought he had given an overdose of nonsense, and made her believe, as Meta really did, that the Duchess Sarah was his model woman; for as they walked in the park in search of Phoebe Mayflower’s well, he gathered a fern leaf, to show her the Glenbracken badge, and talked to her of his home, his mother, and his sister Marjorie, and the little church in the rocky glen. ”

“ In the evening orders were issued for a general engagement, and were received by the army with an alacrity which justified his confidence.
The French and Bavarians were posted behind the little stream called the Nebel, which runs almost from north to south into the Danube immediately in front of the village of Blenheim. The Nebel flows along a little valley, and the French occupied the rising ground to the west of it. The village of Blenheim was the extreme right of their position, and the village of Luetzingen, about three miles north of Blenheim, formed their left. ”

“ At Blenheim’s proposition I glanced at her. She was measuring him steadily. Then she looked at me, and her eyes seemed to hold some message that I could not read.
“Perhaps, Miss Falconer,” I interposed, “you have not quite grasped the situation.” I was sparring for time; she wanted to convey something to me, I was sure. “It is rather complicated. This gentleman has turned out to be a well-known agent of the kaiser. He was traveling on the Re d’Italia, I gather, on a forged passport, and had helped himself to my baggage as the most convenient way of smuggling some papers to the other side.” ”

“ Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon!’ Blenheim is not inferior in waving woods and sloping lawns and smooth waters to Pembroke’s princely domain, or to the grounds of any other park we know of. The building itself is Gothic, capricious, and not imposing—a conglomeration of pigeon-houses—
‘In form resembling a goose pie.’ But as a receptacle for works of art, (with the exception of Cleveland House,) it is unrivalled in this country. There is not a bad picture in it: the interest is sustained by rich and noble performances from first to last. It abounds in Rubens’ works. ”

“ A whole country will be looking for him, and he takes some one else’s passport, puts on a disguise, and good-by—he’s gone! That’s Franz von Blenheim. No; that’s just an outline of him. And on pretty good authority, he’s in Washington now.”
Mr. Van Blarcom, I reflected, was surely coming out of his shell ”

“ Of Sidney Blenheim he spoke with an equable, impartial composure.
At last one day he did come home. He had been in the United States during the closing years of the American Civil War, and in Washington, when peace was concluded, he had met at the English Ministry a young girl of great beauty, of a family that was old for America, that was wealthy, though not wealthy for America. He fell in love with her, wooed her, and was accepted. They were married in Washington, and soon after the marriage they returned to England. ”

“ Bayne,” said Franz von Blenheim. “It is war. Those papers belong to my government and they are going back. I shall stop at nothing, nothing on earth, to get them; so if you have any influence with this young lady, you had better use it now.”
“I am not afraid.” The girl’s voice was unshaken, bless her. “I said you could kill me—and I meant it. But I will not tell.”
“And I will not kill you, Miss Falconer.” The German’s tones were level, and his eyes, as they dwelt steadily on her, were as hard and cold as steel. “I don’t want you dead; I want you living, with a tongue and using it ”