The French owned that they had about seven thousand men killed and wounded.  The loss of the allies had been little, if at all, greater.  The relative strength of the armies was what it had been on the preceding day; and they continued to occupy their old positions.  But the moral effect of the battle was great.  The splendour of William’s fame grew pale.  Even his admirers were forced to own that, in the field, he was not a match for Luxemburg.  In France the news was received with transports of joy and pride.  The Court, the Capital, even the peasantry of the remotest provinces, gloried in the impetuous valour which had been displayed by so many youths, the heirs of illustrious names.  It was exultingly and fondly repeated all over the kingdom that the young Duke of Chartres could not by any remonstrances be kept out of danger, that a ball had passed through his coat that he had been wounded in the shoulder.  The people lined the roads to see the princes and nobles who returned from Steinkirk.  The jewellers devised Steinkirk buckles; the perfumers sold Steinkirk powder.  But the name of the field of battle was peculiarly given to a new species of collar.  Lace neckcloths were then worn by men of fashion; and it had been usual to arrange them with great care.  But at the terrible moment when the brigade of Bourbonnais was flying before the onset of the allies, there was no time for foppery; and the finest gentlemen of the Court came spurring to the front of the line of battle with their rich cravats in disorder.  It therefore became a fashion among the beauties of Paris to wear round their necks kerchiefs of the finest lace studiously disarranged; and these kerchiefs were called Steinkirks.313

In the camp of the allies all was disunion and discontent.  National jealousies and animosities raged without restraint or disguise.  The resentment of the English was loudly expressed.  Solmes, though he was said by those who knew him well to have some valuable qualities, was not a man likely to conciliate soldiers who were prejudiced against him as a foreigner.  His demeanour was arrogant, his temper ungovernable.  Even before the unfortunate day of Steinkirk the English officers did not willingly communicate with him, and the private men murmured at his harshness.  But after the battle the outcry against him became furious.  He was accused, perhaps unjustly, of having said with unfeeling levity, while the English regiments were contending desperately against great odds, that he was curious to see how the bulldogs would come off.  Would any body, it was asked, now pretend that it was on account of his superior skill and experience that he had been put over the heads of so many English officers?  It was the fashion to say that those officers had never seen war on a large scale.  But surely the merest novice was competent to do all that Solmes had done, to misunderstand orders, to send cavalry on duty which none but infantry could perform, and to look on at safe distance while brave men were cut to pieces.  It was too much to be at once insulted and sacrificed, excluded from the honours of war, yet pushed on all its extreme dangers, sneered at as raw recruits, and then left to cope unsupported with the finest body of veterans in the world.  Such were the complains of the English army; and they were echoed by the English nation.