space beneath us, with the moat and ditch between, crowded with baggage, and artillery near the walls, with gentlemen on foot and horseback, their shorn plumes and soiled looks telling of the deadly strife—­messengers rushing up every moment with tidings, and carrying orders from the group which contained the Prince, and wounded men being carried or helped out at the openings of the three chief suburban streets, whose irregular high-roofed houses and trees, the gray walls and cloisters of the abbey, hid the actual fight, only the curls of smoke were rising continually; and now and then we saw the flash of the firearms, while the noise was indescribable—­of shots, shrieks, cries to come on, and yells of pain.  My brother told me afterwards that in all the battles put together he had seen in England he did not think he had heard half the noise that came to him in that one afternoon on the top of the Hotel de Nidemerle.  The Cavaliers gave a view halloo, and cried, ‘God save the King!’ the Ironsides sang a Psalm, and then they set their teeth and fought in silence, and hardly any one cried out when he was hurt—­while here the shots were lost in the cries, and oh! how terrible with rage and piteous with pain they were!

Beyond the houses and gardens, where lie the heights of Charonne, were to be seen, moving about like ants, a number of troops on foot and on horseback, and with colours among them.  Mademoiselle distinguished carriages among them.  ‘The King is there, no doubt,’ she said; and as I exclaimed, ‘Ah! yes, and my son,’ she handed me the glass, by which I could make out what looked very like the royal carriages; but the King was on horseback, and so was my dear boy, almost wild with the fancy that his mother was besieged, and scarcely withheld from galloping down by assurances that no lady was in the slightest danger.

Below, in the hollow, towards where Bagnolet rose white among the fields and vineyards, the main body of Turenne’s troops were drawn up in their regiments, looking firm and steady, in dark lines, flashing now and then in that scorching July sunshine, their colours flying, and their plumes waving.  A very large proportion of them were cavalry, and the generals were plainly to be made out by the staff which surrounded each, and their gestures of command.

We presently saw that the generals were dividing their horse, sending one portion towards Pincourt, the other towards Neuilly.  Mademoiselle, who really had the eye of a general, instantly divided that they were going to advance along the water-side, so as to cut off the retreat of the Prince’s forces by interposing between thefaubourg and the moat, and thus preventing them from availing themselves of the retreat through Paris.  M. le Prince was, as we could perceive, on the belfry of the Abbey of St. Antoine, but there he could not see as we could, and Mademoiselle instantly dispatched a page to warm him, and at the same time she gave orders to the artillerymen to fire