es his duty; they are the first
to pillage; all the army ought to be put under escort and in detachments,
and then there would have to be escorts for those escorts. I hang, I
imprison; but, as we march by cantonments and the regimental
(particuliers) officers are the first to show a bad example, the
punishments are neither sufficiently known nor sufficiently seen.
Everything smacks of indiscipline, of disgust at the king's service,
and of asperity towards one's self. I see with pain that it will be
indispensable to put in practice the most violent and the harshest
measures." The king's army, meanwhile, was continuing to fall back; a
general outcry arose at Paris against the general's supineness. On the
23d of June he was surprised by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in the strong
position of Crevelt, which he had occupied for two days past; the
reserves did not advance in time, orders to retreat were given too soon,
the battle was lost without disaster and without any rout; the general
was lost as well as the battle. "It is certain," says the Marquis of
Vogel, in his narrative of the affair, "that Count Clermont was at table
in his headquarters of Weschelen at one o'clock, that he had lost the
battle before six, arrived at Reuss at half past ten, and went to bed at
midnight; that is doing a great deal in a short time." The Count of
Gisors, son of Marshal Belle-Isle, a young officer of the greatest
promise, had been killed at Crevelt; Count Clermont was superseded by the
Marquis of Contades. The army murmured; they had no confidence in their
leaders. At Versailles, Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become a
cardinal, paid by his disgrace for the persistency he had shown in
advising peace. He was chatting with M. de Stahrenberg, the Austrian
ambassador, when he received a letter from the king, sending him off to
his abbey of St. Medard de Soissons. He continued the conversation
without changing countenance, and then, breaking off the conversation
just as the ambassador was beginning to speak of business. "It is no
longer to me, sir," he said, "that you must explain yourself on these
great topics; I have just received my dismissal from his Majesty." With
the same coolness he quitted the court and returned, pending his embassy
to Rome, to those elegant intellectual pleasures which suited him better
than the crushing weight of a ministry in disastrous times, under an
indolent and vain-minded monarch, who was governed by a