had not the execution been entrusted to the Duke of Maine.  At the first glimpse of danger the bastard’s heart had died within him.  He had not been able to conceal his poltroonery.  He had stood trembling, stuttering, calling for his confessor, while the old officers round him, with tears in their eyes, urged him to advance.  During a short time the disgrace of the son was concealed from the father.  But the silence of Villeroy showed that there was a secret; the pleasantries of the Dutch gazettes soon elucidated the mystery; and Lewis learned, if not the whole truth, yet enough to make him miserable.  Never during his long reign had he been so moved.  During some hours his gloomy irritability kept his servants, his courtiers, even his priests, in terror.  He so far forgot the grace and dignity for which he was renowned throughout the world that, in the sight of all the splendid crowd of gentlemen and ladies who came to see him dine at Marli, he broke a cane on the shoulders of a lacquey, and pursued the poor man with the handle.605

The siege of Namur meanwhile was vigorously pressed by the allies.  The scientific part of their operations was under the direction of Cohorn, who was spurred by emulation to exert his utmost skill.  He had suffered, three years before, the mortification of seeing the town, as he had fortified it, taken by his great master Vauban.  To retake it, now that the fortifications had received Vauban’s last improvements, would be a noble revenge.

On the second of July the trenches were opened.  On the eighth a gallant sally of French dragoons was gallantly beaten back; and, late on the same evening, a strong body of infantry, the English footguards leading the way, stormed, after a bloody conflict, the outworks on the Brussels side.  The King in person directed the attack; and his subjects were delighted to learn that, when the fight was hottest, he laid his hand on the shoulder of the Elector of Bavaria, and exclaimed, “Look, look at my brave English!” Conspicuous in bravery even among those brave English was Cutts.  In that bulldog courage which flinches from no danger, however terrible, he was unrivalled.  There was no difficulty in finding hardy volunteers, German, Dutch and British, to go on a forlorn hope; but Cutts was the only man who appeared to consider such an expedition as a party of pleasure.  He was so much at his ease in the hottest fire of the French batteries that his soldiers gave him the honourable nickname of the Salamander.606

On the seventeenth the first counterscarp of the town was attacked.  The English and Dutch were thrice repulsed with great slaughter, and returned thrice to the charge.  At length, in spite of the exertions of the French officers, who fought valiantly sword in hand on the glacis, the assailants remained in possession of the disputed works.  While the conflict was raging, William, who was giving his orders under a shower of bullets, saw with surprise and anger,