ing distinction, and in 1681 became lieutenant-general. He
commanded the French army on the Moselle, which opened the War of the
League of Augsburg with a series of victories; then he led a corps to
the Sambre, and reinforced Luxemburg on the eve of the battle of
Fleurus. In 1691 he acted as lieutenant-general under the king in
person; and during the investment of Mons he was wounded in an attack on
the town. He was present with the king at the siege of Namur in 1692,
and took part in the victory of Steinkirk. For his services he was
raised in 1692 to the rank of marshal of France, and in 1694 was made a
duke. In 1694 he was appointed governor of French Flanders and of the
town of Lille. By a skilful manoeuvre he threw himself into Namur in
1695, and only surrendered to his besiegers after he had lost 8000 of
his 13,000 men. In the conferences which terminated in the peace of
Ryswick he had a principal share. During the following war, when Lille
was threatened with a siege by Marlborough and Eugene, Boufflers was
appointed to the command, and made a most gallant resistance of three
months. He was rewarded and honoured by the king for his defence of
Lille, as if he had been victorious. It was indeed a species of triumph;
his enemy, appreciating his merits, allowed him to dictate his own terms
of capitulation. In 1708 he was made a peer of France. In 1709, when the
affairs of France were threatened with the most urgent danger, Boufflers
offered to serve under his junior, Villars, and was with him at the
battle of Malplaquet. Here he displayed the highest skill, and after
Villars was wounded he conducted the retreat of the French army without
losing either cannon or prisoners. He died at Fontainebleau on the 22nd
of August 1711.

See F...., _Vie du Mal. de Boufflers_ (Lille, 1852), and Pere
Delarue's and Pere Poisson's _Oraisons funebres du Mal. B._ (1712).

BOUFFLERS, STANISLAS JEAN, CHEVALIER DE (1737-1815), French statesman
and man of letters, was born near Nancy on the 31st of May 1738. He was
the son of Louis Francois, marquis de Boufflers. His mother, Marie
Catherine de Beauveau Craon, was the mistress of Stanislas Leszczynski,
and the boy was brought up at the court of Luneville. He spent six
months in study for the priesthood at Saint Sulpice, Paris, and during
his residence there he put in circulation a story which became extremely
popular, _Aline, reine de Golconde_. Boufflers did not, however, take