came in large numbers—every man, as was the custom of the times, mounted on a strong and spirited horse. When all had assembled, St. Ruth, through an interpreter, addressed them in spirited words. One of the chief needs of the hour was cavalry horses. The gentlemen were invited to dismount and turn over their horses to the public service. This most of them did cheerfully, while others were chagrined. However, St. Ruth gained his point, and the Irish troopers were as well mounted as any in the world. The new French general, although much given to pleasure, was a man of extraordinary energy. He gave balls to honor the country gentlemen and their families, and the French uniform became very familiar in all the aristocratic Catholic circles of Munster and Connaught. St. Ruth participated in the dancing and feasting, but was always “up betimes,” and away on horseback, attended by his staff and interpreters, to inspect the posts held by the Irish along the Shannon and Suck. It was during one of those rides, tradition says, he noticed the hill of Kilcommodan, rising above the little hamlet of Aughrim, near Ballinasloe, and, casting a glance at the position, exclaimed to his officers, in French, “That is the choicest battleground in all Europe!” We shall hear more about Aughrim, and what there befell Monsieur St. Ruth and the Irish army. That brave army, at Limerick, Athlone, and Galway, was put through a course of drilling, such as it had never received before, under the orders of the ardent and indefatigable Frenchman. He repressed disorder with an iron hand, and made such examples, under martial law, as seemed necessary. It is said he was severe to his officers and contemptuous to the rank and file of his army, but these assertions come mainly from Chaplain Story and chroniclers of his class. The haughty Irish aristocrats would have run St. Ruth through the body with their swords if he had dared to be insulting toward them. He was necessarily strict, no doubt, and this strictness bore glorious fruit when the reorganized army again took the field. One of the chief embarrassments of the time was lack of money. Lauzun, while in Ireland, had played into the hands of the English by crying down King James’s “brass money,” as it was called, issued on the national security. The poor devoted Irish soldiers took it readily enough, but the trading and commercial classes, always sensitive and conservative where their interests are affected, were slow to take the tokens in exchange for their goods. King Louis had promised a large supply of “good money,” but, somehow, it was not forthcoming, except in small parcels, which did little good. We may be sure, however, that St. Ruth, accustomed to Continental forced loans, did not stand on ceremony, and, under his vigorous régime, the Irish army was better armed, better fed, and better clad than it had been since the outbreak of the war. Old Tyrconnel ruled Ireland nominally. The real ruler, after