193 



TURENNE, VICOMTE DE. 



TURENNE, VICOMTE DE. 



191 



His name first became generally known by the publication in 1839 of 

 'Proverbial Philosophy." In spite of the severest and most hostile 

 criticism, this work soon became popular, mainly perhaps on account 

 of its novel and almost Eastern style, and has uow (1857) reached a 

 30th edition in England alune, while upwards of half a million of 

 copies have been sold in America. It was rapidly followed by ' The 

 Crock of Gold ;' 'A Modern Pyramid;' 'A Thousand Liues;' 'Heart,' 

 a social novel ; ' The Twins,' a domestic novel ; and a large number of 

 ballads, soug.s, and occasional poems, &c,, among which, ' The Dirge 

 on Wellington ; ' ' Ballads for the Times on White Slavery ; ' and 

 ' American Ballads,' are the most generally known. He has also 

 recently published a work on Christian evidences, entitled ' Proba- 

 bilities, an aid to Faith,' as well as ' Paterfamilias's Diary of Every- 

 body's Tour ;' and a translation from the Anglo-Saxon language of 

 King Alfred's poems, into similar English metres. 



TURENNE, HENRI, VICOMTE DE, second son of Henri due de 

 Bo.uillon and of Elizabeth of Nassau, was born on the llth of Septem- 

 ber 1611. His constitution showed symptoms of weakness till he 

 attained his twelfth year. His imagination however had been inflamed 

 by the perusal of the lives of celebrated warriors, and perhaps by the 

 conversation at his father's court> before ho was ten years of age; and 

 it is possible that the opposition at first offered to his embracing arms 

 as a profession on account of his indifferent health may have con- 

 firmed his wish to become a soldier. The Due de Bouillon was one 

 of the ablest soldiers bred in the school of Henri IV. ; his high rank, 

 love of letters, attachment to the Calvinistic faith, and abilities as a 

 statesman, raised him to be the leader of the Huguenot party after the 

 death of that prince; and his position as sovereign of the small state 

 of Sedan opened a range to his ambitious views, and lent to his 

 character a tone of independence which he could not have acquired as 

 a mere peer of France. The spirit instilled into the young mind of 

 Turenne in a court which took its character from such a prince was 

 even from the first more the ambition of the statesman and scientific 

 commander than the imaginative chivalry which inspired most boys. 

 He learned slowly and with difficulty ; he rebelled against punishment 

 and constraint ; but when his ambition was appealed to, he made 

 dogged perseverance a substitute for quick apprehension. His moral 

 character was developed under the control of Tilenus, a moderate 

 Calvinist, by whom he was confirmed in a natural benevolence and 

 sincerity of disposition, and accustomed to subject his naturally strong 

 and excitable passions to the dictates of reason by his still more 

 powerful will. He evinced a taste for athletic exercises, which con- 

 tiibuted materially to strengthen his naturally weak constitution. 



The Due do Bouillon died in 1623; but the system of education he 

 had adopted for the young Turenne was persevered in by his widow. 

 Jealousy of the designs supposed to be entertained by Cardinal 

 Richelieu to the prejudice of the Huguenots induced this lady to send 

 Turenue, in 1625, to Holland, to the charge of his uncle Prince 

 Maurice. This statesman and Warrior soon detected a large fund of 

 good sense beneath the nowise showy exttrior of his nephew, and 

 exerted himself to cultivate the lad's natural talents. He made him 

 commence his apprenticeship to the art of war by carrying a musket 

 as a volunteer, and rendering himself practically familiar with the 

 duties of the private soldier and subaltern officer. Three months after 

 the arrival of Turenne in Holland, Prince Maurice died; but his 

 brother Henry Frederic, who succeeded to his high office, was equally 

 attentive to their young relative. In 1626 Turenne obtained a com- 

 pany of infantry, and continued to serve under his uncle till 1630. 

 He distinguished himself by anxiety to learn the whole theory as well 

 as the practice of war. His company was the best disciplined and 

 accoutred in the army ; his own routine duties were performed with 

 unfailing regularity ; and his leisure time was spent in taking part in 

 every enterprise where experience was to be acquired. He was natu- 

 rally of a fearless disposition : in his anxiety to learn he appeared to 

 forget the very existence of danger. Eagerness to do bis work 

 thoroughly was apt, when an attack was ordered, to carry him beyond 

 the bounds of prudence. Under Prince Frederic Henry, and opposed 

 to Spinola, he acquired in the course of six years an intimate and 

 extensive knowledge of the kind of war at that time carried on in 

 Holland a succession of sieges. 



In 1630 Richelieu contemplated placing a French garrison in the 

 town of Sedan, and the only means by which the dowager duchess of 

 Bouillon could avert so dangerous a step for the independent sove- 

 reignty of the young duke, yet a minor, was by sending a hostage to 

 the French court. For this purpose her younger son was sent to 

 Paris. Turenne, whose reputation had preceded him, was received 

 with open arms at court, and though only nineteen, appointed to the 

 command of a regiment of infantry. His history for the next four 

 years is a blank. The first opportunity he had of distinguishing him- 

 self after entering the service of France was at the siege of La Motte 

 in 1634 : his conduct on that occasion procured for him, in his 

 twenty-third year, the appointment of mare'chal-du-camp, then the 

 next in rank to that of mare'chal de France. 



In 1635 the Cardinal de Richelieu sent four armies into the field to 

 attack the Spaniards simultaneously on as many different points. 

 One under Chatillon and De Bre'ze' marched into the Low Countries ; 

 the Mare'chal de Cre"qui led another into the Milanese ; the Due de 

 Rohan a third into the Valteline; the Cardinal de la Valette was 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. VI. 



placed at the head of the forces destined to co-operate with the 

 Swedes in Germany, and Turenne was attached to him as mare'chal- 

 du-camp. La Valette joined the Duke of Weimar at Bingen on the 

 Rhine in August, and the combined forces forced Mansfeld to raise 

 the siege of Mayence. The Imperial general Galas contrived, by a 

 movement from Worms, to cut off their communication with France, 

 and the allied forces, stationed in a country exhausted by war, were 

 thus exposed to famine. Turenne sold his plats to procure provisions 

 for the soldiers under his immediate command. In the disastrous 

 retreat that ensued, while discipline was almost entirely lost and the 

 baggage thrown away by the rest of the army, he retained his troops 

 in their accustomed order, abandoned only so much of the baggage as 

 enabled him to procure waggons for those who were unable to march, 

 and by mixing familiarly with the eoldiers and sharing his provisions 

 with them kept up their spirits. The duty of protecting the rear 

 devolved mainly upon him, and in the discharge of this arduous task 

 he had occasion to show how he had profited by his education in 

 Holland, in the art of seizing upon defensible posts and maintaining 

 them as long as might be necessary. The disasters of this campaign 

 indisposed La Valette to undertake the command of that projected 

 for the countries on the Upper Rhine in 1636, and Richelieu only 

 overcame his reluctance by consenting that Turenne should agaiu 

 accompany him. The success which attended this division of the 

 French forces, while those on the frontiers of the Netherlands were 

 less fortunate, induced Richelieu in 1637 to give the command of the 

 army against Flanders to La Valette, who again insisted upon having 

 Turenue for one of his mare'chaux-de-camp. This was a campaign of 

 sieges, and the conducting of them devolved almost exclusively upon 

 Turenne. With infinite difficulty he took Landre"cies ; obliged Solre, 

 with a garrison of two thousand men, to surrender at discretion in 

 a few hours; defended Maubeuge successfully against the Cardinal 

 Infant ; and being intrusted with the pursuit of the retreating enemy, 

 closed the campaign by driving the Spaniards across the Sambre. In 

 1638 Richelieu sent two reinforcements to the Duke of Weimar on 

 the Upper Rhine, under Turenne and Gudbriant, who were designated 

 lieutenants-general, the first of that title in France. After the death 

 of the Duke of Weimar in 1639, Turenne returned to Paris. Richelieu 

 wished to marry the viscount to one of his relations ; but Turenne, 

 who foresaw difficulties that might arise on the score of religion, 

 frankly, but respectfully declined the alliance. He was soon after 

 sent to Italy, second in command to the Comte d'Harcourt. In 1640 

 the French commander adopted the advice of Turenne in opposition 

 to all the rest of his generals, and formed the siege of Turin. He 

 sat down before the city on the 1 Oth of May, and it held out till the 

 17th of September. The garrison amounted to twelve thousand men, 

 and thg enemy were in force in the neighbourhood ; but Turenne 

 calculated upon the moral effects of the surrender of the town. He 

 was employed to cover the siege with a strong detachment from tlio 

 army, a task which he discharged successfully. Still the attack would 

 have been abandoned, but for the excellence of his arrangements for- 

 supplying the besieging camp with provisions. After the surrender 

 of Turin, D'Harcourt returned to France, leaving the army under the 

 command of Turenne. The relations in which his brother the Due de 

 Bouillon stood to the court rendered it unadvisable in the eyes of the 

 minister to intrust Turenne with an army, and D'Harcourt was ordered 

 in 1641 to resume the command. During the remainder of the reign 

 of Louis XIII. the political conduct of the Due de Bouillon kept 

 Turenne in the background. One of the first acts of Anne of Austria 

 as regent was to send him letters patent appointing him general of 

 the armies of the king in Italy. 



Italy was not however destined to be the scene of his exploits as a 

 coinmauder-in-chief. The Due de Bouillon, who had reconciled him- 

 self to the new court, soon quarrelled with it, as with the old, and 

 took refuge at Rome. Mazarin thought it unsafe to leave the brother 

 of this disaffected prince in command of an army so near him, and 

 ordered Turenne to repair to Germany and re-organise the army 

 which, originally raised by the duke of Weimar, had again been left 

 without a leader through the death of Gue"briant and capture of 

 Rantzau by the Imperialists. Turenne took the command of this 

 collection of soldiers of fortune without a country, most of them 

 Germans by birth, in December 1643, and retained it till after the 

 conclusion of the peace of Westphalia in October 1648. During the 

 winter 1643-44 he succeeded, by the most strenuous exertions, and by 

 raising money on his own credit, in re-equipping his army and 

 restoring its discipline. He gave an army to the kiug, instead of 

 receiving the command of one from him. And in the last year pre- 

 ceding the peace of Westphalia it was his judgment and decision that 

 restored this same army to France, after it was on its march to join 

 the enemy on the allegation that the French government had broke 

 faith with it, at a time when he could only pay the mutinous soldiers 

 one month out of a six months' arrear. Yet with such an army, so 

 great was his power of conciliating the affections and keeping up the 

 spirits of the soldiery, he struggled through five campaigns, agaiusfc 

 leaders of no ordinary ability, to a complete triumph. In conjunction 

 with Conde" he kept head against the Imperialists, flushed with recent 

 success in 1644. In 1645 he prevented the bad effects of the defeat 

 at Mariendal, incurred through the misconduct of Rosen, _ by his 

 splendid retreat; and concluded the campaign by reinstating the 



o 



