Marshal Saxe, carried about everywhere in his osier-litter, saw the danger with a calm eye; he sent the Marquis of Meuse to the king.  “I beg your Majesty,” he told him to say, “to go back with the dauphin over the bridge of Calonne; I will do what I can to restore the battle.”  “Ah!  I know well enough that he will do what is necessary,” answered the king, “but I stay where I am.”  Marshal Saxe mounted his horse.

[Illustration:  Battle of Fontenoy——­157]

In its turn, the cavalry had been repulsed by the English; their fire swept away rank after rank of the regiment of Vaisseaux, which would not be denied.  “How is it that such troops are not victorious?” cried Marshal Saxe, who was moving about at a foot’s pace in the middle of the fire, without his cuirass, which his weakness did not admit of his wearing.  He advanced towards Fontenoy; the batteries had just fallen short of ball.  The English column had ceased marching; arrested by the successive efforts of the French regiments, it remained motionless, and seemed to receive no more orders, but it preserved a proud front, and appeared to be masters of the field of battle.  Marshal Saxe was preparing for the retreat of the army; he had relinquished his proposal for that of the king, from the time that the English had come up and pressed him closely.  “It was my advice, before the danger was so great,” he said; “now there is no falling back.”

A disorderly council was being held around Louis XV.  With the fine judgment and sense which he often displayed when he took the trouble to have an opinion on his affairs, the king had been wise enough to encourage his troops by his presence without in any way interfering with the orders of Marshal Saxe.  The Duke of Richelieu vented an opinion more worthy of the name he bore than had been his wont in his life of courtiership and debauchery.  “Throw forward the artillery against the column,” he said, “and let the king’s household, with all the disposable regiments, attack them at the same time; they must be fallen upon like so many foragers.”

The retreat of the Hollanders admitted of the movement; the small field-pieces, as yet dragged by hand, were pointed against the English column.  Marshal Saxe, with difficulty keeping his seat upon his horse, galloped hastily up to the Irish brigade, commanding all the troops he met on the way to make no more false attacks, and to act in concert.  All the forces of the French army burst simultaneously upon the English.  The Irish regiments in the service of France, nearly all composed of Jacobite emigrants, fought with fury.  Twice the brave enemy rallied, but the officers fell on all sides, the ranks were everywhere broken; at last they retired, without disorder, without enfeeblement, preserving, even in defeat, the honor of a vigorous resistance.  The battle was gained at the moment when the most clear-sighted had considered it lost.  Marshal Saxe had still strength left to make his way to the king.  “I have lived long enough, sir,” he said, “now that I have seen your Majesty victorious.  You now know on what the fortune of battles depends.”