Vendome had received information of the march of the column, and detached Monsieur de la Mathe with 20,000 men to intercept the convoy.  At five in the evening the force approached the wood, through which the convoy was then filing.  Webb posted his men in the bushes, and when the French—­confident in the great superiority of numbers which they knew that they possessed—­advanced boldly, they were received by such a terrible fire of musketry, poured in at a distance of a hundred yards, that they fell into confusion.  They, however, rallied, and made desperate efforts to penetrate the wood, but they were over and over again driven back, and after two hours’ fighting they retired, leaving the convoy to pass on in safety to the camp.

In this glorious action 8000 English defeated 20,000 French, and inflicted on them a loss of 4000 killed and wounded.  Several fresh assaults were now made, and gradually the allies won ground, until, on the eve of the grand assault, Marshal Boufflers surrendered the town, and retired with the survivors of the defenders into the citadel, which held out for another month, and then also surrendered.  In this memorable siege, the greatest—­with the exception of that of Sebastopol—­that has ever taken place in history, the allies lost 3632 men killed, 8322 wounded, in all 11,954; and over 7000 from sickness.  Of the garrison, originally 15,000 strong, and reinforced by the 1800 horsemen who made their way through the allied camp, but 4500 remained alive at the time of the final capitulation.

Marshall Boufflers only surrendered the citadel on the express order of Louis the 14th not to throw away any more lives of the brave men under him.  At the time of the surrender the last flask of powder was exhausted, and the garrison had long been living on horseflesh.

After Lille had fallen, Marlborough, by a feint of going into winter quarters, threw the French generals off their guard; and then by a rapid dash through their lines fell upon Ghent and Bruges, and recaptured those cities before Vendome had time to collect and bring up his army to save them.

Then ended one of the most remarkable campaigns in the annals of our own or any other history.

Chapter 24:  Adele.

“My dear, dear lad,” the Marquis of Pignerolles said, as he made his way with Rupert back out of the throng in the captured outwork; “what miracle is this?  I heard that you had died at Loches.”

“A mistake, as you see,” Rupert laughed.  “But I shall tell you all presently.  First, how is mademoiselle?”

“Well, I trust,” the marquis said; “but I have not heard of her for eighteen months.  I have been a prisoner in the Bastille, and was only let out two months since, together with some other officers, in order to take part in the defence of Lille.  Even then I should not have been allowed to volunteer, had it not been that the Duc de Carolan, Adele’s persecutor, was killed; and his Majesty’s plans having been thus necessarily upset, he was for the time being less anxious to know what had become of Adele.”