dred and forty battalions and
one hundred and eighty squadrons at his command, to a battle, in which
he was disappointed, he resigned the command to Overkirk, put the army
into winter quarters, and hastened to Brussels, to commence his
arduous duties of stilling the jealousies and holding together the
discordant powers of the alliance.[21]

Marlborough was received in the most splendid manner, and with
unbounded demonstrations of joy, at Brussels, not only by the
inconstant populace, but by the deputies of the Three Estates of
Brabant, which were there assembled in regular and permanent
sovereignty. Well might they lavish their demonstrations of respect
and gratitude on the English general; for never in modern times had
more important or glorious events signalized a successful campaign. In
five months the power of France had been so completely broken, and the
towering temper of its inhabitants so lowered, that their best
general, at the head of above a hundred thousand men, did not venture
to measure swords with the Allies, not more than two-thirds of their
numerical strength in the field. By the effects of a single victory,
the whole of Brabant and Flanders, studded with the strongest
fortresses in Europe, each of which, in former wars, had required
months--some, years--for their reduction, had been gained to the
Allied arms. Between those taken on the field of Ramilies, and
subsequently in the besieged fortresses, above twenty thousand men had
been made prisoners, and twice that number lost to the enemy by the
sword, sickness, and desertion; and France now made head against the
Allies in Flanders only by drawing together their forces from all
other quarters, and starving the war in Italy and on the Rhine, as
well as straining every nerve in the interior. This state of almost
frenzied exertion could not last. Already the effects of Marlborough's
triumph at the commencement of the campaign had appeared, in the total
defeat of the French in their lines before Turin, by Prince Eugene, on
the 18th September, and their expulsion from Italy. It was the
reinforcements procured for him, and withheld from his opponents, by
Marlborough, which obtained for him this glorious victory, at which
the English general, with the generosity of true greatness, rejoiced
even more sincerely than he had done in any triumphs of his own;[22]
while Eugene, with equal greatness of mind, was the first to ascribe
his success mainly to the succours