His subordinates possessed neither the talents requisite to follow up his plans, nor the confidence of the troops, who perceived their hesitation, and were eager to avenge the death of their beloved general. "Loose the piebald," so they named Turenne's horse, was the cry; "he will lead us on." But those on whom the command devolved thought of anything rather than of attacking the enemy; and after holding a hurried council of war, retreated in all haste across the Rhine. The Swabian peasants let the spot where he fell lie fallow for many years, and carefully preserved a tree under which he had been sitting just before. Strange that the people who had suffered so much at his hands should regard his memory with such respect! The character of Turenne was more remarkable for solidity than for brilliancy. Many generals may have been better qualified to complete a campaign by one decisive blow; few probably have laid the scheme of a campaign with more judgment, or shown more skill and patience in carrying their plans into effect. And it is remarkable that, contrary to general experience, he became much more enterprising in advanced years than he had been in youth. Of that impetuous spirit, which sometimes carries men to success where caution would have hesitated and failed, he possessed little. In his earlier years he seldom ventured to give battle, except where victory was nearly certain; but a course of victory inspired confidence, and trained by long practice to distinguish the difficult from the impossible, he adopted in his later campaigns a bolder style of tactics than had seemed congenial to his original temper. In this respect he offered a remarkable contrast to his rival in fame, Conde, who, celebrated in early life for the headlong valor, even to rashness, of his enterprises, became in old age prudent almost to timidity. Equally calm in success or in defeat, Turenne was always ready to prosecute the one, or to repair the other. And he carried the same temper into private life, where he was distinguished for the dignity with which he avoided quarrels, under circumstances in which lesser men would have found it hard to do so, without incurring the reproach of cowardice. Nor must we pass over his thorough honesty and disinterestedness in pecuniary matters; a quality more rare in a great man then than it is now. CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN By GENERAL JOHN MITCHELL (1682-1718) [Illustration: Charles XII. [TN]] Charles XII., against whom it has been made a fault that he carried virtues to extremes, was born at Stockholm, on June 27, 1682, during a storm that "Rived the mighty oak, and made The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, To be exalted with the threatening clouds."