“Not very often, I grant, though when allied with your countrymen they fairly beat them on the sands near Ostend, and that over and over again they fought them in their breaches on even terms, and, burghers though they were, beat back Alva’s choicest troops.”

The next morning the army marched forward.  Hector rode with the group of young nobles who followed Enghien.  Rocroi was a town of considerable strength lying in the forest of Ardennes.  It was the key to the province of Champagne, and its capture would open the road to the Spaniards.  The siege was being pressed forward by de Malo, who had with him an army of twenty-seven thousand veteran troops, being five thousand more than the force under Enghien.  Gassion, who as Enghien’s lieutenant had the control of the movements, so arranged the marches that, while steadily approaching Rocroi, the marshal believed that he intended to force the Spaniards to fall back, rather by menacing their line of communications than by advancing directly against them.

After the first day Gassion invited Hector to ride with him, an invitation which he gladly accepted, for the conversation of his younger companions turned chiefly upon court intrigues and love affairs in Paris, and on people of whose very names he was wholly ignorant.  Riding with Gassion across from one road to another along which the army was advancing, he was able to see much of the movements of bodies of troops through a country wholly different from that with which he was familiar.  He saw how careful the general was to maintain communication between the heads of the different columns, especially as he approached the enemy.

“De Malo ought,” he said, “to have utilized such a country as this for checking our advance.  In these woods he might have so placed his men as to annihilate one column before another could come to its assistance.  I can only suppose that he relies so absolutely upon his numbers, and the valour and discipline of his soldiers, that he prefers to fight a pitched battle, where a complete success would open the road to Paris, and thus lay France at his feet and bring the war to a conclusion at one stroke.”

CHAPTER VIII:  ROCROI

Gassion conducted the movements of the army so adroitly that he had brought it to within almost striking distance of the Spanish divisions before Marshal l’Hopital perceived the fact that it was so placed that a battle was almost inevitable.  He besought Enghien to fall back while there was yet time, pointing out the orders that had been given that a battle was not to be hazarded, and the terrible misfortunes that would fall upon France in case of defeat.  Enghien, however, was deaf to his advice, and refused to acknowledge his authority.