Therefore many of the French forces were now back in the citadel and Chartreuse at Liége, or lying out on the heights of St. Walburg; while Tallard, who was afterwards to command the French and be defeated at Blenheim, was now second in command in the vicinity under De Boufflers. For the Duke of Burgundy had some time since returned to Paris, where he received but a freezing welcome from his august grandsire, and the Maréchal de Boufflers became first in command and Tallard second.
These changes in both the command of the French army and in the redistribution of the French forces, provided a sufficient number of officers to form a Court of Inquiry on the prisoners in the citadel--a court which, as Tallard had left orders before marching towards the Rhine, was to be commenced at once.
Of these prisoners there were now three, since another had been added to Bevill and Francbois, all of whom were charged with separate offences. The charge against those two has already been told; that against the third had still to be promulgated, though it came under the general one of treason, and was described in the quaint wording of the time as "_Lèse majesté_ against the King, his State, and friends."
Of Francbois short work had been made by those assembled in the old _salle d'armes_ in the citadel. The letters he had overlooked, and which had been found by the Comtesse de Valorme and handed to De Violaine, were sufficient to condemn any man in a time of peace, let alone one of war; but further inquiries, subtly made in the city by other such spies as Sparmann had been, showed that the traitor had made considerable sums of money by obtaining early knowledge of the French plans and future movements, and by selling them to the Dutch agents who were instructed by the States General to obtain all information of a similar nature. Francbois had consequently been condemned to death by hanging, and that death only awaited the signature of Tallard to be immediately effected. Meanwhile, he, proved spy and traitor as he was, was not regarded as too base and ignoble to be allowed to testify against one of the other prisoners--namely, the Englishman, Bracton.
Against the third prisoner, a Hollander named Hans Stuven, the charge was that he had attempted to slay two of his own countrymen in Liége, who were now in the service of the French King as couriers and frequent bearers of despatches from Louis to his marshals in the Netherlands; and that, when in drink at a tavern, he had been heard to announce that when he came into contact with the newly-created marshal, Montrével, he would slay him as an apostate from the reformed faith and a persecutor of the Protestants. For this man there could be but one hope--that he should be found to be insane.