General St. Ruth, if we are to believe Lord Macaulay and other Williamite partisans, was more distinguished for fierce persecution of the French Protestants, called Huguenots, than anything else in his career. He had served in the French army, in all its campaigns, under Turenne, Catinat, and other celebrated soldiers, since 1667, and, while yet in vigorous middle life, had won the rank of lieutenant-general. He had married the widow of old Marshal De Meilleraye, whose page he had been in his boyhood, and, according to St. Simon’s gossipy memoirs, the couple led a sort of cat-and-dog existence, the king having been often compelled to interfere between them. Of St. Ruth’s person, St. Simon says: “He was tall and well-formed, but, as everybody knew, extremely ugly.” The same authority says the general was “of a brutal temper,” and used to baton his wife whenever she annoyed him. It is well known that St. Simon was a venomous detractor of those who had incurred his resentment, or that of his friends, and this may account for his uncomplimentary references to St. Ruth. Irish tradition says that the latter was hard-featured, but of commanding person, with a piercing glance and a voice like a trumpet. It is certain that he had an imperious disposition and was quick to fly into a rage. When appointed to the command in Ireland, he had just returned from a successful campaign in Savoy, where Mountcashel’s Irish Brigade, as already stated, had formed a portion of his victorious forces. He had learned to appreciate Irish courage and constancy during that campaign, and was, on that account as much as any other, deemed the fit man to lead the Irish soldiers on their own soil to victory.