e 1709, the King of France and his forces had particularly to dread an
invasion of the country and the march on Paris.

The accompanying sketch map will show under what preoccupations the French
commander upon the north-eastern frontier lay.

Lille was in the hands of the enemy. There was still a small French
garrison in Ypres, another in Tournai, and a third in Mons. These of
themselves (considering that Lille, the great town, was now occupied by
the allies, and considering also the width of the gap between Ypres and
Tournai) could not prevent the invasion and the advance on the capital.

It was necessary to oppose some more formidable barrier to the line of
advance which topography marked out for the allies into the heart of
France.

[Illustration: Sketch Map showing how the Allies holding Lille thrust the
French back on to the defensive line St Venant-Valenciennes, and thus cut
off the French garrisons of Ypres, Tournai, and Mons.]

Some fear was indeed expressed lest a descent should be made on the coasts
and an advance attempted along the valley of the Somme. The fear was
groundless. To organise the transportation of troops thus by sea, to
disembark them, to bring and continue the enormous supply of provisions
and ammunition they would require, was far less practical than to use the
great forces already drawn up under Marlborough and Eugene in the Low
Countries. Of what size these forces were we shall see in a moment.

The barrier, then, which Villars at the head of the French forces
proceeded to erect, and which is known in history as "The Lines of La
Bassee," are the first point upon which we must fix our attention in order
to understand the campaign of Malplaquet, and why that battle took place
where it did.

It was upon the 3rd of June that Louis XIV. had written to Villars telling
him that a renewal of the war would now be undertaken. On the 14th,
Villars began to throw up earth for the formation of an entrenched camp
between the marshy ground of Hulluch and that of Cuinchy. Here he proposed
to concentrate the mass of his forces, with La Bassee just before him,
the town of Lens behind. He used the waterways and the swamped ground in
front and to the right for the formation of his defensive lines. These
followed the upper valley of the Deule, the line of its canal, and finally
reposed their right upon the river Scarpe. Though the regularly fortified
line went no further than the camp near La Bassee, h