History of the United Netherlands, 1595Motley, John Lothrop
History
History of the United Netherlands, 1595
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
There was much censure cast on both Bouillon and Villars respectively
by the antagonists of each chieftain; and the contest as to the cause of
the defeat was almost as animated as the skirmish itself. Bouillon was
censured for grudging a victory to the Catholics, and thus leaving the
admiral to his fate. Yet it is certain that the Huguenot duke himself
commanded a squadron composed almost entirely of papists. Villars, on
the other hand, was censured for rashness, obstinacy, and greediness for
distinction; yet it is probable that Fuentes might have been defeated had
the charges of Bouillon been as determined and frequent as were those of
his colleague. Savigny de Rosnes, too, the ancient Leaguer, who
commanded under Fuentes, was accused of not having sufficiently followed
up the victory, because unwilling that his Spanish friends should
entirely trample upon his own countrymen. Yet there is no doubt whatever
that De Rosnes was as bitter an enemy to his own country as the most
ferocious Spaniard of them all. It has rarely been found in civil war
that the man who draws his sword against his fatherland, under the banner
of the foreigner, is actuated by any lingering tenderness for the nation
he betrays; and the renegade Frenchman was in truth the animating spirit
of Fuentes during the whole of his brilliant campaign. The Spaniard's
victories were, indeed, mainly attributable to the experience, the
genius, and the rancour of De Rosnes.
But debates over a lost battle are apt to be barren. Meantime Fuentes,
losing no time in controversy, advanced upon the city of Dourlens, was
repulsed twice, and carried it on the third assault, exactly one week
after the action just recounted. The Spaniards and Leaguers, howling
"Remember Ham!" butchered without mercy the garrison and all the
citizens, save a small number of prisoners likely to be lucrative. Six
hundred of the townspeople and two thousand five hundred French soldiers
were killed within a few hours. Well had Fuentes profited by the
relationship and tuition of Alva!
The Count of Dinant and his brother De Ronsoy were both slain, and two or
three hundred thousand florins were paid in ransom by those who escaped
with life. The victims were all buried outside of the town in one vast
trench, and the effluvia bred a fever which carried off most of the
surviving inhabitants. Dourlens became for the time a desert.
Fuentes now received deputies with congratulations from the obedient
provinces, especially from Hainault, Artois, and Lille. He was also
strongly urged to attempt the immediate reduction of Cambray, to which
end those envoys were empowered to offer contributions of four hundred
and fifty thousand florins and a contingent of seven thousand infantry.
Berlaymont, too, bishop of Tournay and archbishop of Cambray, was ready
to advance forty thousand florins in the same cause.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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