Bourbon armies in that quarter. As
the forces in the Peninsula afforded no hopes of effecting that object,
he conceived, with reason, that the only way to make an effectual
diversion in that quarter was to take advantage of the superiority of
the Allies in Piedmont, since the decisive victory of Turin in the
preceding year, and threaten Provence with a serious irruption. For this
purpose, Marlborough no sooner heard of the disasters in Spain, than he
urged in the strongest manner upon the Allied courts to push Prince
Eugene with his victorious army across the Maritime Alps, and lay siege
to Toulon. Such an offensive movement, which might be powerfully aided
by the English fleet in the Mediterranean, would at once remove the war
from the Italian plains, fix it in the south of France, and lead to the
recall of a considerable part of the French forces now employed beyond
the Pyrenees. But though the reasons for this expedition were thus
pressing, and it afforded the only feasible prospect of bringing affairs
round in the Peninsula; yet the usual jealousies of the coalesced
powers, the moment it was proposed, opposed insurmountable objections to
its being carried into effect. It was objected to the siege of Toulon,
that it was a maritime operation, of value to England alone: the Emperor
insisted on the Allied forces being exclusively employed in the
reduction of the fortresses yet remaining in the hands of the French in
the Milanese; while Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, between whom and the
Imperialists the most violent jealousy had arisen, threatened to
withdraw altogether from the alliance, unless Eugene's army was directed
to the protection and consolidation of his dominion. The real reason of
these obstacles thrown by the Emperor in the way of these operations,
was, that he had ambitious designs of his own on Naples, and he had, to
facilitate their accomplishment, concluded a secret convention with
Louis for a sort of neutrality or understanding in Italy, which enabled
that monarch to direct the forces employed, or destined to be employed
there, to the Spanish peninsula. Marlborough's energetic
representations, however, at length prevailed over all these
difficulties; and the reduction of the Milanese having been completed,
the Emperor, in the end of June, consented to Prince Eugene invading
Provence at the head of thirty-five thousand men.[16]

The invasion of the territory of the Grande Monarque accordingly took
place