they
began to shun him, to put him aside, to make him perceive what they
thought, and to let others perceive it also.

Villars in his turn was frightened. He saw the prospect of losing what
he had gained, and of sinking into hopeless disgrace. With the
effrontery that was natural to him, he returned therefore to his usual
flatteries, artifices, and deceits; laughed at all dangers and
inconveniences, as having resources in himself against everything!
The coarseness of this variation was as plain as possible; but the
difficulty of choosing another general was equally plain, and Villars
thus got out of the quagmire. He set forth for the frontier, therefore,
in his coach, and travelling easy stages, on account of his wound,
arrived in due time at the army.

Neither Prince Eugene nor the Duke of Marlborough wished for peace; their
object was, the first, from personal vengeance against the King, and a
desire to obtain a still greater reputation; the second, to get rich, for
ambition was the prominent passion of one, and avarice of the other--
their object was, I say, to enter France, and, profiting by the extreme
weakness and straitened state of our troops and of our places, to push
their conquests as far as possible.

As for the King, stung by his continual losses, he wished passionately
for nothing so much as a victory, which should disturb the plans of the
enemies, and deliver him from the necessity of continuing the sad and
shameful negotiations for peace he had set an foot at Gertruydemberg.
But the enemies were well posted, end Villars had imprudently lost a good
opportunity of engaging them. All the army had noticed this fault; he
had been warned in time by several general officers, and by the Marechal
de Montesquiou, but he would not believe them. He did not dare to attack
the enemies, now, after having left them leisure to make all their
dispositions. The army cried aloud against so capital a fault. Villars
answered with his usual effrontery. He had quarrelled with his second in
command, the Marechal de Montesquiou, and now knew not what to do.

In this crisis, no engagement taking place, the King thought it fitting
to send Berwick into Flanders to act as mediator, even, to some extent,
as dictator to the army. He was ordered to bring back an account of all
things, so that it might be seen whether a battle could or could not be
fought.

I think I have already stated who Berwick was; but I will here add