ring and skill. After a short delay, to enable
himself to employ all his energies (having been himself greatly
debilitated by the camp fever), he attacked the Turkish army in their
intrenchments, and at the end of a very short but severe struggle,
succeeded in defeating a force more than three times the number of his
own.

Belgrade surrendered immediately; and the next year, without any great
military event, put an end to the war.

After the conclusion of peace, Eugene, who had been appointed governor
of the Austrian Netherlands, resigned that office, which he had never
personally filled, and was appointed vicar-general for the emperor in
his Italian dominions.

For many years after this Eugene spent his days in peace and
tranquillity, endeavoring to raise up a spirit of commerce among the
Germans, and to improve the finances of his sovereign, by whom he was
appreciated and loved. His greatest efforts were in favor of Trieste,
which he changed from a petty town to a great commercial city, and
which remains to the present day the best and the noblest fruit of all
his talents and all his exertions.

At first, everything promised that the old age of Eugene would have
passed in peace, uninterrupted by any warlike movements; but he was
once more called from his calmer occupations by the short war which
broke out with France in 1733.

Perhaps, in point of military skill, the two campaigns which followed
were the most brilliant of Eugene's life; but with only thirty
thousand men, opposed to a force of double that number, he could alone
act upon the defensive.

He did so, however, with more success than the scantiness of his
resources promised. He prevented the French from penetrating into
Swabia; and, though Philipsburg was taken notwithstanding all his
efforts, he contrived, by turning the course of the neighboring
rivers, to inundate the country on the German side of that city, and
to render its possession unprofitable to France.

Peace soon succeeded, and with these two campaigns ended Eugene's life
as a commander. He lived for some time after this, indeed, amusing
himself with the embellishments of his palace and gardens, and
employing a great many mechanics and laborers, during all seasons of
dearth or scarcity; but the battle-field never saw him more. His
health gradually and slowly declined, and on April 21, 1736, in the
seventy-fourth year of his age, he was found dead in his bed, after
having been slightly i