“I send you a copy of Monsieur Cavalier’s Letter to the Queen. If you think what he proposes practicable, and that the circumstances of affairs do allow it, Her Majesty thinks that it would be of great advantage to the common cause. But that must be left to your judgment.”
At the battle of Almanza, says Professor Weiss, “Cavalier’s regiment, composed entirely of Protestant refugees, found itself opposed to a Catholic regiment which had perhaps shared in the pitiless war of the Cevennes. As soon as the two French corps recognised each other, they charged with their bayonets, disdaining to fire, and slew each other with such fury that, according to Berwick’s testimony, not more than three hundred men survived. Cavalier’s regiment was but seven hundred strong, and if, as is possible, the Catholic regiment was complete, its almost total destruction was a bloody glorification of Cevenol valour. Marshal Berwick, though familiar with fierce encounters, never spoke of this tragical event without visible emotion.” Oldmixon informs us that “Colonel Cavalier gave repeated proofs of that courage by which he had before acquired great reputation in the Cevennes. He received several wounds, and having lain some time among the slain, made his escape by the favour of a horse given him by an English officer. Mr Prat, his lieutenant-colonel, five captains, six lieutenants, and five ensigns of his regiment were killed, and most of the other officers wounded or taken prisoners.”
After this, Cavalier was again in the service of the Duke of Savoy, as appears from his letter to the States of Holland, written after his recovery from his wounds received on the field of Almanza[1]:—
“High and Mighty Lords, with the most profound respect, I have to represent the misfortune I have had to lose my regiment at the battle of Almanza. I have had the additional pain of witnessing, on this, the first occasion on which I have had the honour to fight under your standards, that your arms have not had the desired success. The only consolation that remains to me is, that the regiment I had the honour to command never looked back, but sold its life dearly on the field of battle, as Baron Friesheim has probably informed you. I fought as long as a man stood beside me, until numbers overpowered me, losing also an immense quantity of blood, from a dozen wounds which I received. I was looked upon as one of the slain, and as such I was plundered, but Providence gave me sufficient strength to drag myself off from the enemy’s hands. When I began to be conscious of recovery, the generals intimated to me that the service of the States required that I should be transferred to the Duke of Savoy’s forces.[2] At once I joyfully closed with the opportunity thus presented to me; and having received my orders from his Excellency, the Comte de Noyelles, I embarked for Leghorn, and thence for Genoa, whence I shall set out to join the army forthwith. I wish some new occasion, and a more auspicious one, may happen to enable me to continue giving proofs of my attachment and affection to the service of the States. I cherish the hope, that with the wonted generosity of your Highnesses, you will take measures to enable me to replace my regiment, one-third of the officers having survived, the greater part wounded or made prisoners — also, that my solicitor may receive the arrears of pay due to myself and to my regiment. — I have, &c,
The Duke of Savoy made Cavalier a Colonel of hussars, and took him with him in the expedition against Toulon — that great arsenal and dockyard of France, which the Allies had concerted to besiege by land as well as by sea. The only hope of success was a very rapid march, so that the siege might be commenced before the arrival of a French army beneath the walls. Such a surprise, however, was prevented by the vigilance of the French General De Tesse, who found that “the fortifications of Toulon on the land-side could not maintain a six-days’ siege.” There was no slackness in the Duke of Savoy’s dash towards the walls, yet De Tesse succeeded in making an entrenched camp as well as to strengthen the fortifications. Fighting began in earnest on the 15th August (1707), but day after day victory declared more and more for the French; and the Allies’ army retired precipitately during the night between the 21st and 22d August. In the correspondence connected with this expedition, I find the following information:— “Cavalier, chief of the Camisars, is at the head of the Hussars, one Meissonier of Souliers is with him.”[3]
- ↑ Bulletin, vol. vi., p. 70.
- ↑ The Editor of Richard Hill’s Correspondence (page 691) uses the word “desertion” as applicable to Cavalier’s going to Holland; but that the Duke of Savoy did not regard him as a deserter is a fair inference from the above intimation.
- ↑ The information as to the Toulon Expedition is from “The History of the Siege of Toulon, with an Account of the Political Reasons that induc’d the Confederates to undertake it. Together with all the Transactions from the Duke of Savoy’s entrance into Provence to his going out of it. Written in Erench by Monsieur Deviss, Author of the Mercur-Galant. Done into English, from the Paris edition, by Mr. A. Boyer, London, 1708.”
