the Duke of Burgundy, and in probability would have defeated the rest of the army. Each of these princes retired to his quarters greatly astonished at the boldness of the attempt; and immediately a council of war was called to consult what measures were to be taken the next morning in relation to the assault, which had been resolved upon before. The King was in great perplexity, as fearing that if the Duke took not the town by storm, the inconvenience would fall upon him, and he should either be kept still in restraint, or made an absolute prisoner, for the Duke could not think himself secure against a war with France if he should suffer him to depart. By this mutual distrust of each other one may clearly observe the miserable condition of these two princes, who could not by any means confide in one another, though they had made a firm peace not a fortnight before, and had sworn solemnly to preserve it." *

French historians are tolerably unanimous in their testimony that the Guard were faithful fellows. As a small select body of men, highly endowed with rank and remuneration, they were naturally the prizeholders of a considerable body of their countrymen, who in the army of France strove to prove themselves worthy of reception into the chosen band. Thus the Scots in the French army carried the spirit of the service beyond the mere number selected as the

* Memoirs of Philip de Comines,' book ii. chap. 12.

Guard; and there was among them a fellow-feeling, mixed with a devotion to the crown of France, of a kind which there is no good term for in English, while it is but faintly expressed by the French esprit de corps. A few of the facts in the history of the Scots troops employed by France bring it closer home than any generalisation can; for instance, after other incidents of a like character, M. Michel quotes from D'Auton's Chronicle, how, in a contest with the Spaniards in Calabria, in 1503, the banner-bearer, William Turnbull, was found dead with the staff in his arms and the flag gripped in his teeth, with a little cluster of his countrymen round him, killed at their posts, "et si un Ecossais était mort d'un côté, un Espagnol ou deux l'étaient de l'autre." The moral drawn from this incident by the old chronicler is, that the expression long proverbial in France, "Fier comme un Ecossais," was because the Scots "aimaient mieux 'mourir pour honneur garder, que vivre en honte, reprochez de tache de lascheté.""

When the two British kingdoms merged towards each other in the sixteenth century, the native element was gradually thinned out of the Scots Guard. When Scotland became part of an empire which called France the natural enemy, it seemed unreasonable that her sons should expect to retain a sort of supremacy in the French army. But there are no bounds to human unreasonableness when profitable offices are coming and going, and many of

our countrymen during the seventeeth century were loud in their wrath and lamentation about the abstraction of their national privileges in France. Some Scotsmen, still in the Guard in the year 1611, had a quarrel with the French captain, De Montespan, and brought their complaint before King James. As French soldiers appealing to a foreign monarch, they were very naturally dismissed. Of course,

they now complained at home still more loudly, and their cause was taken up by some great men. The French behaved in the matter with much courtesy. The men dismissed for a breach of discipline could not be replaced at the instigation of a foreign Court, but the Government would fill their places with other Scotsmen duly recommended. So lately as the year 1642, demands were made on the French Government to renew the ancient League and restore the "privileges" of the Scots in France, including the monopoly of the appointments in the Guard. But though made in the name of King Charles I. by the Scots Privy Council, these demands were, like many of the other transactions of the day, rather made in hostility to the King than in obedience to his commands. Louis XIV. gave a brief and effective answer to them. He said that he would renew the League only on the condition that the Scots should cease to act as the ally of England, either by giving obedience to the King of that country, "or under pretext of religion, without express permission from the King, their master".

a

pretty accurate diplomatic description of the position of the Covenanting force.*

corps

Down to the time when all the pomps and vanities of the French crown were swept away along with its substantial power, the Scots Guard existed as pageant of the Court of France. In that immense conglomerate of all kinds of useful and useless knowledge, the 'Dictionnaire de Trevoux,' it is set forth that "la première compagnie des gardes du de nos rois" is still called "La Garde Ecossaise," though there was not then (1730) a single Scotsman in it. Still there were preserved among the young Court lackeys, who kept up the part of the survivors of the Hundred Years' War, some of the old formalities. Among these, when the Clerc du Guet challenged the guard who had seen the palace gate closed, "il repond en Ecossois, I am hirec'est à dire, me voilà ;" and the lexicographer informs us that, in the mouths of the Frenchmen, totally unacquainted with the barbarous tongue in which the regimental orders had been originally devised, the answer always sounded, "Ai am hire."

In some luxurious libraries may be found a gorgeous volume in old morocco, heavily decorated with symbols of royalty, bearing on its engraved titlepage that it is "Le Sacre de Louis XV., Roy de France et de Navarre, dans l'Eglise de Reims, le

* See Papers relative to the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers in France :' Maitland Club, 1835.

Dimanche, xxv. Octobre, MDCCXXII." After a poetical inauguration, giving assurance of the piety, the justice, the firmness, the devotion to his people, of the new King, and the orthodoxy, loyalty, and continued peace that were to be the lot of France, with many other predictions, wide of the truth that came to pass, there come a series of large pictures, representing the various stages of the coronation, and these are followed by full-dress and full-length portraits of the various high officers who figured on the solemn occasion. Among these we have the Capitain des Gardes Ecossois in full state uniform. This has anything but a military aspect; it is the singlebreasted broad-flapped coat of the time, heavily embroidered, a short mantle, and a black cap, with a double white plume. The six guards are also represented in a draped portrait. It is far more picturesque than that of their captain, yet in its white satin, gold embroidery, and fictitious mail, it conveys much less of the character of the soldier than of the Court attendant, as will be seen by the inventorial description given below.* In the original engrav

* "Un habit de satin blanc; par dessus une cotte d'armes en broderie d'or. Sur le corselet, les armes de France, surmontées d'un soleil, avec le devise: le tout brodé en cartisanne d'or sur un fond de trait d'argent, formant des mailles ; les manches et basques de la cotte d'armes brodées en or, sur un fond blanc; un chapeau blanc, garni d'un` bouquet de plumes blanches à deux rangs; la partuisanne à la main."