The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-06-02
INFANTRY.
CAvALR Y.

IS SO:
These regiments were kept constantly
recruited by all the daring young spirits
| who preferred toll and wounds and death
| in foreign land to degradation and serf
dom at home, until fully DC, 600 men had
fought and died in the service of France.
"oh Heaven. how many sleep afsr unmndful of these
Tired wanderers who fell ssleep Europe's battle
aefee strong hsadlons fight they fell as ships 70
They fell. aud hnmsn whirlwinds swspt above their
No shrond bat glory wrapped them round no requiem
But the wandering winds and the heavy couds-poor
exiles far away!
The temptation is strong to follow the
fortunes of these ''fiery bands" which shed
such Imperishable lustre on the Irish race
to show You their hght-hearted gaity in
camp, their steady endurance on the long,
weary march, aud their wild, dashing,
headlong valor In the field ito relate how
they fought and how they fell,-ever first
in the advance and last in the retreat,-at
Alcoy, Alcyrus, Almanza, Altenheim, Bar
celona, Bergen -Op Zoom, Blenheim, Ba
lumata, Cassano, Castiglione, Dudenhoven,
Dunkirk, Fontenoy, Friburg, Hockstedt,
Loffeldt, Lundem, Landen, LuzarIo, Man.
stricht, Malplaquet, Neiluzzo, Philipsburg,
Families, Rosbach. Spire, Saragossa,
Schellenber, Foonlon, Fournay, Villayici-
oSd, anu uhuy OIutT wen IOuRnG DAuJlGS In
Europe; and at Eustache, Savannah and
Yorktown, in the war of the American
Revolution.
But time rbids, and can pause bat a
moment to relate the ever glorious death
of their illustrious chief, the type of SOL
dierly honor, the mirror of chivalry, the
truest of the true and the bravest of the
brave, "the cavalier sans peur ct sans re-
proche," Patrick Sarstield, Earl of Lucan
and Marshal of France how, when he fell ,
at Landen, in the very forefront of battle
he was raised, "unhelmed and dying" to
cast his last look on earth, his glazing ey es
beheld the broken rear of Williams army,
overwhelmed and broken by his own vic
torious troops, aud his ears heard the exul-
tapt shouts of triumph rs they swept,
like a tornado of destruction, across the
bloody field. And then, as a faint CLEAN
of joy passed over his pallid face, as his
battle bropzed veterans laid him gently
down, he pressed his hand to his gallant
breast, and feebly raised it up filed with
his hearts best blood-then, raising his
eyes to Heaven, exclaimed-"OH GoD |!
THAT THIS WAS FOR IRELAND !" Glorious,
su blime words, which will yet be written
in letters of gold,
when Erin is free and her fetters are b: :oken."
Oh my countrymen surely soldier never
died a nobler death than this.
But here permit me to make q ehOrt di
gression to reply to an assertion, as ungen-
erous as it is uLjust, which our enemies
are never tired of repeating viz, that
the Irish soldier never fights in the cause
Of ireland as in foreign service; and to
atswef ah ehiaetie.4 " hisieh has been made
to our celebrating the anniversary Of Foa
EteDoy, because it was not fought for Ire
laId. Let me remind these mendac,ous
critics that, from the landing of Earl
Strongbow in iI72, to the embarkation Of
the garrison of Limerick, in 1890, an al
mo oct incessant warfare was kept up against
the Invaders, that nearly every field in the
island has at some time been a field of bat
tie that DO single generation, even till
low, has passed from eayth without making
it's Own bloody protect against the he'accurse5
rule of the Sassepach and that the clans
men who met the Norman pirates of Henry
II. did not hate them with any more
bitter or inveterate hatred than qOe loathe
and deteet the English robbers; and
From ags to age consuming, it will blaze quenoh
And the son viii thirst and burn still fercely
By our sorrows, songS and battleS,-by crOmleach1,
By naked Rla,veS and yAwnng graves and OeaSeloss
Till battles ocd wash out ood your footsteps frc
the shore"
Now let us see whether there is any good
reason for cele ebrating the splendid achieve
ment of our Irish Brigadee. From the an cient
days, when the clear beams of history are
obscured by the myths and mists of ant. .
guilty, down to ali the paesipg ages to our
times, ceaeeless contest has been sustain
ed, between the birelings of despotism onthe
one hand, and the soldiers and martyrs of
freedom on the other. Greece, young, proud,
and beautiful, Tesplendent with the glories
of her luminous ecivilizatioD,-w threat,
ened with annihiiation by the barbaric in
vasiOn of Persia, arose in her might, like
her own Minerva, springing armed cap a.
pie from the brain of Jove and, at Man
tinea, Salamis, Thermopyle and Marathon,
smote the power of the invader and drove
his scattered hosts in wild terror back
across the stormy waters of the Helleapont.
Switzerland, the child of the avalanche
and the storm, perched away up amid the
rugged fastnesses of the snowy Alps, re-
sisted to the death the licentio1s brutality
of the etolid Austrian, and from the midst
of their serried spears rescued full and
ample freedom, which has been guaranteed
and secured to her amid all the wars and
M mutatiOns of ak hundred years. Poland,
hn fryiv, 30 T-ol