the risk either of defeat or great loss, and receiving information that
the town had already opened negotiations for surrender, he fell back
some five miles from the town, sending news to the court that his force
was insufficient to attack the Imperialists. Mazarin thereupon sent
orders to Enghien to set out at once for Germany. As soon as he
reached the Rhine and his army prepared to cross, Enghien, who had been
appointed generalissimo, rode forward with Marshal de Gramont, who was
in command of the army under him, to the camp of Turenne. The meeting
between Enghien and Turenne was most cordial. Enghien had always felt
the warmest admiration for the talents of the older marshal, had been
most intimate with him whenever he was at court, and regarded him as his
master in the art of war. Turenne was free from the vice of jealousy;
and as the armies of France were almost always placed under the supreme
if sometimes nominal command of princes of the blood, it seemed nothing
but natural to him that Enghien should receive supreme authority.

The characters of the two men were in complete contrast with each
other--the one was ardent, passionate, prompt in action and swift in
execution; the other, though equally brave, was prudent and careful,
anxious above all things to accomplish his object with the smallest
possible loss of men, while Enghien risked the lives of his soldiers as
recklessly as his own. They always acted together in the most perfect
harmony, and their friendship remained unimpaired even when in
subsequent days they stood in arms against each other. At the council
Turenne was in favour of making a circuit and taking up their post in
the valley of St. Pierre, by which they would intercept the Bavarians'
communications and force them by famine to issue out from their strong
lines and fight in the open, and urged that to attack a position so
strongly fortified would entail terrible loss, even if successful.

Marshal de Gramont, and d'Erlac, governor of Breisach, were of the same
opinion. The Duc d'Enghien, however, was for attacking the enemy in
their intrenchments; the idea of starving out an enemy was altogether
repugnant to one of his impetuous disposition, and as generalissimo
he overruled the opinions of the others. He himself, led by Turenne,
reconnoitred the position of the enemy, and decided that the one army,
which was called the army of France, consisting of six thousand foot and
four thousand horse, co