Conde was not mistaken: the issue of a battle begun under such auspices could not be doubtful.

'My lord,' said he to the young Duke of Gloucester, who was serving in the Spanish army by the side of his brother, the Duke of York, 'did you ever see a battle ?' 'No, prince.' 'Well, then, you are going to see one lost.' The battle of the Dunes was, in fact, totally lost by the Spaniards, after four hours' very hard fighting, during which the English regiments carried bravely, and with heavy losses, the most difficult and the best defended position; all the officers of Lockhart's regiment, except two, were killed or wounded before the end of the day; the Spanish army retired in disorder, leaving four thousand prisoners in the hands of the conqueror.

'The enemy came to meet us,' wrote Turenne, in the evening, to his wife; 'they were beaten, God be praised! I have worked rather hard all day; I wish you good night, and am going to bed.' Ten days afterwards, on the 23d of June, 1658, the garrison of Dunkerque was exhausted; the aged governor, the Marquis of Leyden, had been mortally wounded in a sortie; the place surrendered, and, the next day but one, Louis XIV.

entered it, but merely to hand it over at once to the English.

'Though the court and the army are in despair at the notion of letting go what he calls a rather nice morsel,' wrote Lockhart, the day before, to Secretary Thurloe, 'nevertheless the cardinal is staunch to his promises, and seems as well satisfied at giving up this place to his Highness as I am to take it.
The king, also, is extremely polite and obliging, and he has in his soul more honesty than I had supposed.'" The surrender of Dunkerque was soon followed by that of Gravelines and several other towns; the great blow against the Spanish arms had been struck; negotiations were beginning; tranquillity reigned everywhere in France; the Parliament had caused no talk since the 20th of March, 1655, when, they having refused to enregister certain financial edicts, for want of liberty of suffrage, the king, setting out from the castle of Vincennes, "had arrived early at the Palace of Justice, in scarlet jacket and gray hat, attended by all his court in the same costume, as if he were going to hunt the stag, which was unwonted up to that day.