of Conde, who was stationed with the light horse at the mill where the first skirmish had taken place.  They were soon joined by the Constable, with the main body of the army.  The whole French force now commenced its retrograde movement.  It was, however, but too evident that they were enveloped.  As they approached the fatal pass through which lay their only road to La Fire, and which was now in complete possession of the enemy, the signal of assault was given by Count Egmont.  That general himself, at the head of two thousand light horse, led the charge upon the left flank.  The other side was assaulted by the Dukes Eric and Henry of Brunswick, each with a thousand heavy dragoons, sustained by Count Horn, at the head of a regiment of mounted gendarmerie.  Mansfeld, Lalain, Hoogstraaten; and Vilain, at the same time made a furious attack upon the front.  The French cavalry wavered with the shock so vigorously given.  The camp followers, sutlers, and pedlers, panic-struck, at once fled helter-skelter, and in their precipitate retreat, carried confusion and dismay throughout all the ranks of the army.  The rout was sudden and total.  The onset and the victory were simultaneous, Nevers riding through a hollow with some companies of cavalry, in the hope of making a detour and presenting a new front to the enemy, was overwhelmed at once by the retreating French and their furious pursuers.  The day was lost, retreat hardly possible, yet, by a daring and desperate effort, the Duke, accompanied by a handful of followers, cut his way through the enemy and effected his escape.  The cavalry had been broken at the first onset and nearly destroyed.  A portion of the infantry still held firm, and attempted to continue their retreat.  Some pieces of artillery, however, now opened upon them, and before they reached Essigny, the whole army was completely annihilated.  The defeat was absolute.  Half the French troops actually engaged in the enterprise, lost their lives upon the field.  The remainder of the army was captured or utterly disorganized.  When Nevers reviewed, at Laon, the wreck of the Constable’s whole force, he found some thirteen hundred French and three hundred German cavalry, with four companies of French infantry remaining out of fifteen, and four thousand German foot remaining of twelve thousand.  Of twenty-one or two thousand remarkably fine and well-appointed troops, all but six thousand had been killed or made prisoners within an hour.  The Constable himself, with a wound in the groin, was a captive.  The Duke of Enghien, after behaving with brilliant valor, and many times rallying the troops, was shot through the body, and brought into the enemy’s camp only to expire.  The Due de Montpensier, the Marshal de Saint Andre, the Due de Loggieville, Prince Ludovic of Mantua, the Baron Corton, la Roche du Mayne, the Rhinegrave, the Counts de Rochefoucauld, d’Aubigni, de Rochefort, all were taken.  The Due de Nevers, the Prince of Conde, with a few