I am
aware that armies so considerable are never defeated to such an extent as
to prevent the greater part of mine from retiring upon the Somme. I know
that river; it is very difficult to cross; there are forts, too, which
could be made strong. I should count upon getting to Peronne or St.
Quentin, and there massing all the troops I had, making a last effort
with you, and falling together or saving the kingdom; I will never
consent to let the enemy approach my capital. [_Memoires de Villars,
t. ii. p. 362.]"

God was to spare Louis XIV. that crowning disaster reserved for other
times; in spite of all his defaults and the culpable errors of his life
and reign, Providence had given this old man, overwhelmed by so many
reverses and sorrows, a truly royal soul, and that regard for his own
greatness which set him higher as a king than he would have been as a
man. "He had too proud a soul to descend lower than his misfortunes had
brought him," says Montesquieu, "and he well knew that courage may right
a crown and that infamy never does." On the 25th of May, the king
secretly informed his plenipotentiaries as well as his generals that the
English were proposing to him a suspension of hostilities; and he added,
"It is no longer a time for flattering the pride of the Hollanders, but,
whilst we treat with them in good faith, it must be with the dignity that
becomes me." "A style different from that of the conferences at the
Hague and Gertruydenberg," is the remark made by M. de Torcy. That which
the king's pride refused to the ill will of the Hollanders he granted to
the good will of England. The day of the commencement of the armistice
Dunkerque was put as guarantee into the hands of the English, who
recalled their native regiments from the army of Prince Eugene; the king
complained that they left him the auxiliary troops; the English ministers
proposed to prolong the truce, promising to treat separately with France
if the allies refused assent to the peace. The news received by Louis
XIV. gave him assurance of better conditions than any one had dared to
hope for.

Villars had not been able to prevent Prince Eugene from becoming master
of Quesnoy on the 3d of July; the imperialists were already making
preparations to invade France; in their army the causeway which connected
Marchiennes with Landrecies was called the Paris road. The marshal
resolved to relieve Landrecies, and, having had bridges thrown over the
Sche