had sent him a re-enforcement of eight thousand men under the orders of the Duke of Lauzun.

On the 1st of July the two armies met on the banks of the Boyne, near the town of Drogheda.
William had been slightly wounded in the shoulder the evening before during a reconnaissance.

"There's no harm done," said he at once to his terrified friends, "but, as it was, the ball struck quite high enough." He was on horseback at the head of his troops; at daybreak the whole army plunged into the river; Marshal Schomberg commanded a division; he saw that the Huguenot regiments were staggered by the death of their leader, M.de Caillemotte, younger brother of the Marquis of Ruvigny.
He rushed his horse into the river, shouting, "Forward, gentlemen; yonder are your persecutors." He was killed, in his turn, as he touched the bank.

King William himself had just entered the Boyne; his horse had taken to swimming, and he had difficulty in guiding it with his wounded arm; a ball struck his boot, another came and hit against the butt of his pistol; the Irish infantry, ignorant and undisciplined, everywhere took flight.

"We were not beaten," said a letter to Louvois from M.de la Hoguette, a French officer, "but the enemy drove the Irish troops, like sheep, before them, without their having attempted to fire a single musket-shot." All the burden of the contest fell upon the troops of Louis XIV.