Arthur Thomas Malkin - The Gallery of Portraits (Vol. 1-7)

Our limits will not allow of the relation of those campaigns in which the subject of this memoir filled a subordinate part. In 1637–8 he again served under La Valette, in Flanders and Germany, after which he was made Lieutenant-General, a rank not previously existing in France. The three following years he was employed in Italy and Savoy, and in 1642 made a campaign in Roussillon, under the eye of Louis XIII. In the spring of 1643, the King died; and in the autumn of the same year, Turenne received from the Queen Mother and Regent, Anne of Austria, a Marshal’s baton, the appropriate reward of his long and brilliant services. Four years a captain, four a colonel, three Marechal de Camp, five lieutenant-general, he had served in all stations from the ranks upwards, and distinguished himself in them not only by military talent, but by strict honour and trustworthiness, rare virtues in those turbulent times when men were familiar with civil war, and the great nobility were too powerful to be peaceful subjects.

Soon after his promotion, he was sent to Germany, to collect and reorganise the French army, which had been roughly handled at Duttlingen. It wanted rest, men, and money, and he settled it in good quarters, raised recruits, and pledged his own credit for the necessary sums. The effects of his exertions were soon seen. He arrived in Alsace, December, 1643, and in the following May was at the head of 10,000 men, well armed and equipped, with whom he felt strong enough to attack the Imperial army, and raise the siege of Fribourg. At that moment the glory which he hoped and was entitled to obtain, as the reward of five months’ labour, was snatched from him by the arrival of the celebrated Prince de Condè, at that time Duc d’Enghien, to assume the command. The vexation which Turenne must have felt was increased by the difference of age, for the Prince was ten years his junior, and of personal character. Condè was ardent and impetuous, and flushed by his brilliant victory at Rocroi the year before; Turenne cool, calculating, and cautious, unwearied in preparing a certainty of success beforehand, yet prompt in striking when the decisive moment was come. The difference of their characters was exemplified upon this occasion. Merci, the Austrian commander, had taken up a strong position, which Turenne said could not be forced; but at the same time pointed out the means of turning it. Condè differed from him, and the second in command was obliged to submit. On two successive days two bloody and unsuccessful assaults were made: on the third Turenne’s advice was taken, and on the first demonstration of this change of plan Merci retreated. In the following year, ill supplied with every thing, and forced to separate his troops widely to obtain subsistence, he was attacked at Mariendal, and worsted by his old antagonist Merci. This, his first defeat, he felt severely: still he retained his position, and was again ready to meet the enemy, when he received positive orders from Mazarin to undertake nothing before the arrival of Condè. Zealous for his country and careless of personal slights, he marched without complaint under the command of his rival: and his magnanimity was rewarded at the battle of Nordlingen, in 1645, where the centre and right wing having failed in their attack, Turenne with the left wing broke the enemy’s right, and falling on his centre in flank, threw it into utter confusion. For this service he received the most cordial and ample acknowledgments from Condè, both on the field, and in his despatches to the Queen Regent. Soon after, Condè, who was wounded in the battle, resigned his command into the hands of Turenne. The following campaigns of 1646–7–8 exhibited a series of successes, by means of which he drove the Duke of Bavaria from his dominions, and reduced the Emperor to seek for peace. This was concluded at Munster in 1648, and to Turenne’s exertions the termination of the thirty years’ war is mainly to be ascribed.

The repose of France was soon broken by civil war. Mazarin’s administration, oppressive in all respects, but especially in fiscal matters, had produced no small discontent throughout the country, and especially in Paris; where the parliament openly espoused the cause of the people against the minister, and were joined by several of the highest nobility, urged by various motives of private interest or personal pique. Among these were the Prince of Conti, the Duc de Longueville, and the Duc de Bouillon. Mazarin, in alarm, endeavoured to enlist the ambition of Turenne in his favour, by offering the government of Alsace, and the hand of his own niece, as the price of his adherence to the court. The Viscount, pressed by both parties, avoided to declare his adhesion to either: but he unequivocally expressed his disapprobation of the Cardinal’s proceedings, and, being superseded in his command, retired peaceably to Holland. There he remained till the convention of Ruel effected a hollow and insincere reconciliation between the court and one of the jarring parties of which the Fronde was composed. That reconciliation was soon broken by the sudden arrest of Condè, Conti, and the Duc de Longueville. Turenne then threw himself into the arms of the Fronde; urged partly by indignation at this act of violence, partly by a sympathy with the interests of his brother, the Duc de Bouillon; but more, it is said, by a devoted attachment to the Duchesse de Longueville, who turned the great soldier to her purposes, and laughed at his passion. He sold his plate; the Duchess sold her jewels: they concluded an alliance with Spain, and the Viscount was soon at the head of an army. But the heterogeneous mass of Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans, melted away during the first campaign; and Turenne, at the head of eight thousand men, found himself obliged to encounter the royal army, twenty thousand strong. In the battle which ensued, he distinguished his personal bravery in several desperate charges: but the disparity was too great; and this defeat of Rhetel was of serious consequence to the Fronde party. Convinced at last that his true interest lay rather on the side of the court, then managed by a woman and a priest, where he might be supreme in military matters, than in supporting the cause of an impetuous and self-willed leader, such as Condè, Turenne gladly listened to overtures of accommodation, and passed over to the support of the regency. His conduct in this war appears to be the most objectionable part of a long and, for that age, singularly honest life. The fault, however, seems to have been rather in espousing, than in abandoning, the cause of the Fronde. Many of that party were doubtless actuated by sincerely patriotic motives. Such, however, were not the motives of Turenne, nor of the nobility to whom he attached himself: and if, in returning to his allegiance, he followed the call of interest as decidedly as he had followed the call of passion in revolting, it was at least a recurrence to his former principle of loyalty, from which, in after-life, he never swerved.

The value of his services was soon made evident. Twice, at the head of very inferior troops, he checked Condè in the career of victory: and again compelled him to fight under the walls of Paris; where, in the celebrated battle of the Faubourg St. Antoine, the Prince and his army narrowly escaped destruction. Finally, he re-established the court at Paris, and compelled Condè to quit the realm. These important events took place in one campaign of six months, in 1652.

In 1654 he again took the field against his former friend and commander, Condè, who had taken refuge in Spain, and now led a foreign army against his country. The most remarkable operation of the campaign was the raising the siege of Arras; which the Spaniards had invested, according to the most approved fashion of the day, with a strong double line of circumvallation, within which the besieging army was supposed to be securely sheltered against the sallies of the garrison cooped up within, and the efforts of their friends from without. Turenne marched to the relief of the place. This could only be effected by forcing the enemy’s entrenchments; which were accordingly attacked, contrary to the opinion of his own officers, and carried at all points, despite the personal exertions of Condè. The Spaniards were forced to retreat. It is remarkable that Turenne, not long after, was himself defeated in precisely similar circumstances, under the walls of Valenciennes, round which he had drawn lines of circumvallation. Once more he found himself in the same position at Dunkirk. On this occasion he marched out of his lines to meet the enemy, rather than wait, and suffer them to choose their point of attack: and the celebrated battle of the Dunes or Sandhills ensued, in which he gained a brilliant victory over the best Spanish troops, with Condè at their head. This took place in 1657. Dunkirk and the greater part of Flanders fell into the hands of the French in consequence; and these successes led to the treaty of the Pyrenees, which terminated the war in 1658.