The English army had the advantage of position. They were drawn up in battle upon rising ground, their front armed with twenty-two brass field-pieces--the Palace battery which De Ramsay refused to Send to M. de Montcalm. The engagement began by the attack of a house (Dumont's) between the right wing of the English army and the French left wing, which was alternately attacked and defended by the Scotch Highlanders and the French Grenadiers, each of them taking it and losing it by turns. Worthy antagonists!--the Grenadiers, with their bayonets in their hands, forced the Highlanders to get out of it by the windows; and the Highlanders getting into it again by the door, immediately obliged the Grenadiers to evacuate it by the same road, with their daggers. Both of them lost and retook the house[B] several times, and the contest would have continued whilst there remained a Highlander and a Grenadier, if both generals had not made them retire, leaving the house neuter ground. The Grenadiers were reduced to fourteen men--a company at most. No doubt the Highlanders lost in proportion. The left of the French army, which was in hollow ground, about forty paces from the English, was crushed to pieces by the fire of their artillery loaded with grape-shot. M. de Levis, perceiving their bad position, sent M. de La Pause, Adjutant of the Guienne Regiment, with orders for the army to retire some steps behind them, in order to occupy an eminence parallel to the rising ground occupied by the English; but whether this officer did not comprehend M. de Levis' intentions, or whether he delivered ill the orders to the different regiments, by his stupidity the battle was very near being lost irremediably. He ran along the line, ordering each regiment to the right about, and to retire, without any further explanation of M. de Levis' orders. Some of the left of the French army being so near as twenty paces to the enemy, the best disciplined troops in that case can scarce be expected to be able to retire without the greatest disorder and confusion, or without exposing themselves evidently to be defeated and slaughtered. Upon this movement, the English, believing them in flight, quitted their advantage of the rising ground in order to pursue them, complete their disorder, and break them entirely. M. Dalquier, who commanded the Bearn Regiment, with the troops of the colony upon the left of the French army, a bold, intrepid old officer, turned about to his soldiers when La Pause gave him M. de Levis' order to retire, and told them, "It is not time now, my boys, to retire when at twenty paces from the enemy; with your bayonets upon your muskets, let us throw ourselves headlong amongst them--that is better." In an instant they fell upon the English impetuously--with thrusts of bayonets hand to hand, got possession, like lightning, of their guns; and a ball which went through Dalquier's body, which was already quite covered with scars of old