Soon after this great battle he died of a severe illness. The descendants of his brother distinguished themselves repeatedly in the future wars of the grasping House of Austria, particularly in those waged against Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; and there is now living in Bohemia an old nobleman named Baron Bütler, who boasts of being the fourth in descent from James Butler of Ormond, one of the slayers of the great Duke of Friedland.
[Footnote 14: _Swedish Intelligencer, 1632._]
[Footnote 15: Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis), _Itinerarium_, 12mo. 1639-1641.]
Henry James William Clarke, Duc de Feltre, Minister of War under the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and afterwards under the Bourbons, was born on the 17th October, 1765, at Landrecies, a town of France, situate on the Sambre, westward of Maubeuge, and about one hundred miles from Paris.
His father belonged to one of the many exiled Irish families who followed to France the abdicated James VII. of Scotland, and II. of England; and after serving King Louis as a subaltern officer, died at an early age on obtaining the rank of colonel, leaving his son, the future general, an orphan, to the care of his uncle, Colonel Shee, who was then "Sécretaire des Commandement du Duc d'Orléans," and afterwards Prefect of Strasbourg, and a peer of France. It is strange how well fortune favoured all these Irish exiles in the various lands of their adoption.
By Colonel Shee, Henry Clarke was well and carefully reared, as he intended him for the service of Louis XVI. Thus, on the 17th of September, 1781, he entered the Military School at Paris as a cadet; and after going through a brief curriculum, left it on the 11th of November, 1782, to join the regiment of the Duc de Berwick as a sub-lieutenant. Wishing to join the cavalry, on the 5th of September, 1784, he was appointed cornet of hussars, with the rank of captain in the regiment of the colonel-general of this branch of the service.
On the 11th of July, 1790, he obtained a captaincy of dragoons, and in the same year received leave of absence to visit Great Britain, as a gentleman in the suite of the ambassador.
It was to the friendship and patronage of the Duke of Orleans that Clarke owed these favours, and generally, his rapid advancement in the army; and it was to this prince that the hussar regiment of the colonel-general belonged, according to a custom of the old _régime_.