Claude Louis Hector de Villars

“ Villars was so far successful, that finding himself feebly opposed by the Imperials, he penetrated into Germany, after having made himself master of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and all the Palatinate, and seized upon a number of cannons, provisions, and munitions of war. He did not forget to tax the enemy wherever he went. He gathered immense sums—treasures beyond all his hopes. Thus gorged, he could not hope that his brigandage would remain unknown. He put on a bold face and wrote to the King, that the army would cost him nothing this year. ”

“ Villars’s glory thus begins with the year 1709 when France, apparently helpless, was roused to a great effort of self-defence by the exorbitant demands of the Coalition. In that year he was called to command the main army opposing Eugene and Marlborough on the northern frontier. During the famine of the winter he shared the soldiers’ miserable rations. When the campaign opened the old Marshal Boufflers volunteered to serve under him, and after the terrible battle of Malplaquet (q.v.) ”

“ At two in the morning of the 4th, he arrived in front of him with his cavalry; but conceiving the whole allied army was before him, he did not venture to make an attack at a time when his great superiority of force would have enabled him to do it with every chance of success. The movement of Villars, however, and general feux-de-joie which resounded through the French lines on the arrival of Marshal Boufflers, warned the allied leaders that a general battle was at hand; and orders were in consequence given to the whole army to advance at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th. ”

“ Fort Louis was surrounded, and Villars found himself obliged to retire upon Strasburg, whence he protected Elsass during the whole campaign of 1706.
The defeat of Hochstett, in 1704, had been the first step down the ladder; the defeat of Ramillies, on the 23d of May, 1706, was the second and the fatal rung. The king’s personal attachment to Marshal Villeroi blinded him as to his military talents. Beaten in Italy by Prince Eugene, Villeroi, as presumptuous as he was incapable, hoped to retrieve himself against Marlborough. “The whole army breathed nothing but battle ”

“ He showed himself possessed of an extraordinary genius for war, and Marshal Villars paid him the high compliment of saying that he was as courageous in attack as he was prudent in retreat, and that by his extraordinary knowledge of the country he displayed in the management of his troops a skill as great as that of the ablest officers. ”

“ It was then that every Frenchman was called to bleed for his country, and Villars willingly quitted the ungrateful scenes that were passing in France, to place himself in the ranks of her defenders. In the field as in the city, the same calm firm spirit still animated him. He fought as if life had for him no charms, nor death any terrors. But it was not the courage of romance. There was none of the headlong ardour of enthusiasm; there was none of the daring of thoughtless temerity; there was none of the reckless valour of despair. ”

“ Villars, the victor of Hochstädt and Friedlingen, saw that conciliation was necessary; he took advantage of the feeling of horror with which the quiet Protestants of Nimes and other towns now regarded the war, and published an amnesty. In May 1704 a formal meeting between Cavalier and Villars took place at Nimes. ”

“ His name, and the newly roused patriotism of the country, raised the spirits of the army, though they were in want of many of the necessaries of life. Villars, determined to act upon the defensive, saw Tournay fall without moving. Thence the conquerors advanced to Mons, the capital of Hainault. It seemed necessary, if possible, to prevent the siege of this town. The rapidity of the movements of the allies prevented Villars from attaining that object, but the investment was scarcely formed when he crossed the Scheldt at Valenciennes, and appeared with his army in the immediate neighbourhood. ”

“ The lustre of Blenheim and Ramilies played round Marlborough's bayonets; the recollection of Turin tripled the force of Eugene's squadrons. Villars advanced on the 1st June, with all the pomp and circumstance of war, to within musket-shot of the Allied position; and he had not only the authority but the recommendation of Louis to hazard a battle. He boasted that his force amounted to a hundred and sixty thousand men. ”

“ The battle was now gained. Villars' position, how strong and gallantly defended soever, was no longer tenable. Pierced through in the centre, with a formidable enemy's battery thundering on either side, in the very heart of his line, on the reserve squadrons, turned and menaced with rout on the left, it was no longer possible to keep the field. Boufflers, upon whom, in the absence of Villars in consequence of his wound, the direction of affairs had devolved, accordingly prepared for a retreat ”

“ A strong man was needed at the helm—that was his verdict. And in amazement Villard listened without a word from his lips. Had the man suddenly gone crazy!—that was his first thought, but—as Parkins continued, Villard became convinced that he was a knave. ”

“ Marlborough and Eugene now resolved to attack Mons. By a rapid march the Prince of Hesse seized a position near Mons on 6 Sept. The main army followed, and Villars hastened to interrupt the siege. The town was now completely invested, and Villars approached from the south. A broken country, covered in great part by forests, pierced by narrow glades, fills the angle between the Hain and the Trouille, two rivers which join at Mons. Villars formed a strong position in face of two little valleys which intersect this region. Each army appears to have consisted of over ninety thousand men. ”

“ Abbe Pons declared him to be the superior of the marshal of the same name. "The latter," said he, "kills men—the former prolongs their existence." At length Villars' secret leaked out; and his patients, unwise in coming to him, unwisely deserted him. His occupation was gone.
The displeasure of Villars' dupes, on the discovery of the benevolent hoax played upon them, reminds us of a good story. Some years since, at a fashionable watering-place, on the south-east coast of England, resided a young surgeon—handsome, well-bred, and of most pleasant address. ”

“ Henry Villard, aged 51 Frontispiece From a photograph by W. Höffert, Berlin. Henry Villard, aged about 13 to face page 6 From a daguerreotype. (He stands at the left of the group, which includes also his mother, his sister Emma, and his uncle, Robert Hilgard.) ”

“ Every morass was deepened, by stopping up its drains, or letting in the water of the larger rivers by artificial canals into it; redoubts were placed on the heights, so as to enfilade the plains between them; while in the open country, where no advantage of ground was to be met with, field-works were erected, armed with abundance of heavy cannon. To man these formidable lines, Villars had under his command one hundred and fifty-six battalions, and two hundred and twenty-seven squadrons in the field, containing seventy thousand infantry, and twenty thousand horse. ”

“ Upon the French side the plan was purely defensive, as their inferior numbers and their reliance upon earthworks both necessitated and proved. It was Villars’ plan to hold every part of his line with a force proportionate to its strength; to furnish the woods a little more heavily than the entrenchments of the open gap, but everywhere to rely upon the steadiness of his infantry and their artificial protections in the repelling of the assault. ”

“ All Frenchmen know of Jerome's gallant death at Malplaquet. It is a fireside legend now, and young French lads turn their moistened eyes away at the hearing. Marshal Villars being sorely hurt and in peril of capture, there fought beside his litter an unknown gentleman who, without name or rank, yet bore himself so commandingly, the discouraged guard rallied again and gave him willing obedience. ”

“ The dispositions which the French army would take in such a defensive position were evident enough. It must defend the gap by entrenchment; it must put considerable forces into the woods upon the right and to the left of the gap to prevent the entrenchments being turned. The character of Villars and the French tradition of depending upon earth wherever that be possible, was bound, if time were accorded, to make the entrenchment of the open gap formidable. ”

“ A steer gilt-horned and garlanded the conquering man should gain,
A sword and noble helm should stay the vanquished in his woe.
No tarrying was there: Dares straight his face to all doth show,
And riseth in his mighty strength amidst the murmur great:
He who alone of all men erst with Paris held debate,370
And he who at the mound wherein that mightiest Hector lay,
Had smitten Butes' body huge, the winner of the day,
Who called him come of Amycus and that Bebrycian land:
But Dares stretched him dying there upon the yellow sand. ”

“ And strung the shield, and in his arms enwound,
And gently through the helmet kissed his son.
"Learn, boy, of me, how gallant deeds are done,
Fortune of others. I will guard thee now,
And lead to fame. Let riper manhood con
Thy kinsmen's deeds. Remember, and be thou 496 What uncle Hector was, and what thy sire is now."
LVII . He spake, and swinging his tremendous spear,
Swept through the gate; then Antheus, with his train,
Rushed forth, and Mnestheus. With a general cheer
Forth pours the host; a dust-cloud hides the plain;
Earth, startled by their trampling, throbs in pain. ”

“ It is unnecessary to state that Hector France is content with his own name, and would not have changed it even had it been less noble than it really is, believing with us that a man's work are sufficient title to nobility, however odd may be the cognomen bequeathed him from bygone sires. ”

“ Men showered their gold out of blackness. They rose on strong pinions only to sink down below the level surely of even the average man. And angry passions attended them along the pilgrimage of their lives, seemed born and bred of their very being. Few books made Claude feel so sad as the books which chronicled the genius of men submitted to the conditions which prevail in the ardent struggle for life.
He closed them, and was happy with his own quiet fate, his apparently humdrum existence, which provided no material for any biographer, the fate of the unknown man who does not wish to be known. ”

“ She praised his talents very highly, and assured me that it was she who gave him to the Duke George William.
The wife of the Marechal de Villars is running after the Comte de Toulouse. My son is also in her good graces, and is not a whit more discreet. Marechal de Villars came one day to see me; and, as he pretends to understand medals, he asked to see mine. Baudelot, who is a very honest and clever man, and in whose keeping they are, was desired to show them; he is not the most cautious man in the world, and is very little acquainted with what is going on at Court. ”

“ My shining armor and my Trojan shield,
Astonish'd at the sight, the vital heat
Forsakes her limbs; her veins no longer beat:
She faints, she falls, and scarce recov'ring strength,
Thus, with a falt'ring tongue, she speaks at length:
"'Are you alive, O goddess-born ?' she said,
'Or if a ghost, then where is Hector's shade?'
At this, she cast a loud and frightful cry.
With broken words I made this brief reply:
'All of me that remains appears in sight;
I live, if living be to loathe the light.
No phantom; but I drag a wretched life,
My fate resembling that of Hector's wife. ”

“ And lie by noble Hector on the plain,
Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields
Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields
Of heroes, whose dismember'd hands yet bear
The dart aloft, and clench the pointed spear!"
Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails,
Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails,
And rent the sheets; the raging billows rise,
And mount the tossing vessels to the skies:
Nor can the shiv'ring oars sustain the blow;
The galley gives her side, and turns her prow;
While those astern, descending down the steep,
Thro' gaping waves behold the boiling deep. ”

“ Villaret was in command of the French fleet at the battle of the First of June. He was appointed a member of the Council of the Ancients in 1796, and was sentenced to deportation in the following year on account of his royalist sympathies. He escaped arrest, however, and until the Consulate lived in obscurity at Oléron. In 1801 he commanded the squadron which transported the French army to San Domingo, and the following year was made captain-general of Martinique, which he surrendered to the English in 1809 after a brave defence. ”

“ I presume that you are aware that the only copy of your report which has yet been published was the rough draft furnished by you to Major-General Rosecrans, that officer being in great haste to make out his own report. General Rosecrans gave this rough draft which you had sent him to Mr. Villard, the correspondent of the Tribune, and it was published in that paper. The final report which you sent to Washington was, so far as I am aware, never seen by Mr. Villard. I am confident that you have not imputed to the War Department the mutilation of any official documents ”

“ Fame was but a shadow when the breast of the great mother heaved under the least of her children. A bird chirped. Its little voice meant more to Claude than the tempest of applause which had carried him away in the theater.
Nature took him in the dawn and carried him back to himself. And that was terrible. For when he was himself he knew that he wished he had never written that letter of love to Charmian. ”