importunities of his followers, declaring that he could no longer
command, and must submit to obey." Not long before he had beaten Cæsar
at Dyrrachium, with much loss to the vanquished, completely spoiling his
plans; and the great contest might have had a very different result, had
not political and personal considerations been permitted to outweigh
those of a military character. Politicians are pests in a camp. Cæsar
was in his fifty-first year when he crossed the Rubicon and began his
wonderful series of campaigns in the Civil War,--campaigns characterized
by an almost superhuman energy. The most remarkable of his efforts was
that which led to his last appearance in the field, at the Battle of
Munda, where he fought for existence; he was then approaching
fifty-five, and he could not have been more active and energetic, had he
been as young as Alexander at Arbela.

In modern days, the number of old generals who have gained great battles
is large, far larger than the number of young generals of the highest
class. The French claim to be the first of military peoples, and though
no other nation has been so badly beaten in battles, or so completely
crushed in campaigns, there is a general disposition to admit their
claim; and many of their best commanders were old men. Bertrand du
Gueselin performed his best deeds against the English after he was
fifty, and he was upward of sixty years when the commandant of Randon
laid the keys of his fortress on his body, surrendering, not to the
living, but to the dead. Turenne was ever great, but it is admitted that
his three last campaigns, begun when he was sixty-two, were his greatest
performances. Condé's victory at Rocroi was a most brilliant deed, he
being then but twenty-two; but it does not so strikingly illustrate his
genius as do those operations by which, at fifty-four, he baffled
Montecuculi, and prevented him from profiting from the fall of Turenne.
Said Condé to one of his officers, "How much I wish that I could have