sent with reinforcements, and to take the chief command. On the 26th June 1674,[1] he arrived in time to rescue Lieutenant-General Le Bret, who had been defeated, and whose cavalry had been entrapped by an ambuscade. By striking an effective blow, which he followed up by a masterly disposition of his troops, he checked the advance of the Spaniards, who retired into their own country. In September a revolt broke out in Sicily against Spanish rule, and the quarrel was fomented and prolonged by the French during that year and the year following.
In 1675 Schomberg was favoured by the withdrawal of a portion of the Spanish forces for the defence of Sicily, but his achievements were nevertheless admirable. He entered Catalonia, and secured an extensive tract of country for the subsistence of his army. After a siege of five days, he re-took from the Spaniards the first-rate fortress of Bellegarde in Roussillon. In Catalonia he took the maritime town and castle of Ampurias, and the fortresses of Bascara, Figuieres, and Joui. The 30th of July 1675 was the most eventful date in his life, and of it the historian Benoist shall speak:—
“Marshal Turenne was killed, and his death occasioned great changes in public affairs. The most considerable consequence was, that the event compelled the court to do justice to the Comte de Schomberg, to whom a baton of Marshal of France had long been due. Religion had been the pretence for the injustice of withholding it. The King had with his own mouth assured him that he would promote him to that dignity if he would declare himself a Catholic. Schomberg had the courage to reply that his religion was more dear to him than everything else, and that if it hindered him from being actually invested with that honour, it was a sufficient consolation to him that His Majesty judged that he was worthy of such rank in his service. At last political necessity became stronger than Catholic zeal. It was now necessary to offer to the Comte de Schomberg an honour which he did not court, and even to make the offer in a manner to make it plain that they did not expect to draw him into abandoning his religion by the bait of such promotion. On one occasion they had exacted of him that he should give a hearing to some Doctors, who would (they predicted) remove his scruples of conscience. He had had the complaisance to listen to the Doctors, and the resolution to declare that they had not satisfied him. That had happened while he had the command in Catalonia. It was soon after that last declaration of his that he there received the news of the justice which had been rendered to him.”
In reviewing Schomberg’s career at a later date, Macaulay gives his testimony as follows:— “His rectitude and piety, tried by strong temptations, and never found wanting, commanded general respect and confidence. Though a Protestant, he had been during many years in the service of Louis, and had, in spite of the ill offices of the Jesuits, extorted from his employer, by a series of great actions, the staff of a Marshal of France.”
The date of his promotion was 30th July 1675. Among Pastor Du Bosc’s letters is one headed À Monsieur Le Due de Schomberg, 12th May 1675, thanking him for giving his son a commission in his regiment. Another is to Madame Schomberg, who seems to have resided at Perpignan during her husband’s command in Catalonia. There is a third letter to Monsieur Le Maréchal Due de Schomberg, 7th August 1675, which I shall quote as expressing the sentiments of the French Protestants:—
- ↑ I. Gifford’s “History of France.”
