Of the hundred Scottish cuirassiers who marched from Paris, there were now only sixty under the king's standard. We had escaped the snare prepared for us, and slain Count Pappenheim; but while De Bitche was left alive, I deemed the work of that day but half done. 'Raynold's sword has done you a good service,' said Dundrennan, in a low voice, and with a grim smile, as he reloaded his pistols while we rode together at an easy trot along the path of rock that led to Zaberne. 'Pappenheim is removed for ever from your path.' 'That matters little, Viscount,' said I, bitterly. 'She is beautiful and nobly born, and will always find those who will love her and beg her love. I would that she were still but the little soubrette I first knew her! Pappenheim was brave, but foully treacherous, as the last act of his life proved amply. Yet 'tis said this fellow really loved Marie Louise.' 'He--then, if so, and common rumour be believed, he never loved anything else.' 'Save his wine-pot.' 'True; but the Count is a German.' I looked back to the mountains, where a silver haze was rising in the sunshine from the valley, where poor Quentin Home of Redden with so many of our comrades lay. 'Twenty of our brother soldiers have gone this morning to their last account,' said the Marquis of Gordon, with emotion. 'Alas! how this cursed soil of Alsace soaks up our Scottish blood!' CHAPTER LXIV. MADAME LA DUCHESSE. Severe operations in Alsace, which luckily left me little time for reflection, followed this cavalry affair. Picardy was invaded by twenty thousand horse and ten thousand foot, all Spaniards, led by Piccolomini and Prince Thomas of Savoy. Hepburn's Scottish corps, now known as the Regiment de Douglas (their new colonel the Laird of Waughton was recently killed in Alsace), being commanded by Lord James, son of the first Marquis of Douglas, was withdrawn from the army to oppose them, and stopped their career on the banks of the Somme. I saw those gallant veterans no more; but the Scots of Ramsay and Leslie remained with us under the Duke of Weimar. The Austrians, led by Count Galias, broke into Franche Compte, but were driven back by the Vicomte de Turenne, with the loss of five thousand men; while De la Force defeated the troops of Colloredo on the Alsatian side of the Rhine, with the loss of twelve hundred slain and taken. Moreover, to increase the general confusion and complete the ruin of Duke Charles of Lorraine, about the close of this year his friend and patron the Emperor Ferdinand II. died suddenly; and by an unexpected movement of the troops of Lavalette, the fine palace at Nanci was retaken, sacked, stripped, and destroyed; all the court of Duke Charles were dispersed or taken, and where Marie Louise found shelter, whether in a German convent near the Rhine, or at Vienna, I knew not; as in our camp we heard but little of the war in which we were engaged.