the cavalry showed them the British infantry advancing to meet them. The disciplined battalions fought well, but they were overmatched. Bourquin was the first to leave the field. The rout was then complete. Bourquin surrendered, with five officers, three days later, to the English, and disappeared not only from the field of battle, but from the field of history.
A character superior in every way to Bourquin was the Chevalier Dudrenec. A native of Brest, the son of a commodore in the French navy, Dudrenec had come out to India as a midshipman in a French man-of-war about the year 1774. Why he left the French navy, or the occupation to which he betook himself after leaving it, I have never been able to ascertain. He first appears upon the Indian scene in command of Bígam Sombre's brigade. He left this command in 1791 to join Túkají Holkar, by whom he was commissioned to raise, drill, and equip four battalions on the principle previously employed for Sindia by de Boigne. Dudrenec acquitted himself of this commission with great success. The following year, however, his battalions were destroyed — the men dying at their posts — at the fatal battle of Lakhairí, an account of which I have given in the sketch of de Boigne's career. Not disheartened, Holkar commissioned Dudrenec to raise four more battalions. This task he successfully accomplished, and with them, on the 12th March, 1795, he contributed to the victory of Kardlá, gained by the combined Maráthá forces against the Nizám.
