The King, who had made numberless promotions, appointed this year the
same generals to the same armies. Villars was chosen for Flanders, as
before. Having, arrived at the very summit of favour, he thought he
might venture, for the first time in his life, to bring a few truths
before the King. He did nothing then but represent to the ministers,
nay, even to the King and Madame de Maintenon themselves, the wretched
state of our magazines and our garrisons; the utter absence of all
provision for the campaign, and the piteous condition of the troops and
their officers, without money and without pay. This was new language in
the mouth of Villars, who hitherto had owed all his success to the
smiling, rose-tinted account he had given of everything. It was the
frequency and the hardihood of his falsehoods in this respect that made
the King and Madame de Maintenon look upon him as their sole resource;
for he never said anything disagreeable, and never found difficulties
anywhere. Now that he had raised this fatal curtain, the aspect appeared
so hideous to them, that they found it easier to fly into a rage than to
reply. From that moment they began to regard Villars with other eyes.
Finding that he spoke now the language which everybody spoke, they began
to look upon him as the world had always looked upon him, to find him
ridiculous, silly, impudent, lying, insupportable; to reproach themselves
with having elevated him from nothing, so rapidly and so enormously; 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 a few
more words about him to signalise his prodigious and rapid advancement.
We were in the golden age of bastards, and Berwick was a man who had
reason to think so. Bastard of James II., of England, he had arrived in
France, at the age of eighteen, with that monarch, after the Revolution
of 1688. At twenty-two he was made lieutenant-general, and served as
such in Flanders, without having passed through any other rank. At
thirty-three he commanded in chief in Spain with a patent of general.
At thirty-four he was made, on account of his victory at Almanza, Grandee
of Spain, and Chevalier of the Golden Fleece. He continued to command in
chief until February, 1706, when he was made Marshal of France, being
then not more than thirty-six years old. He was an English Duke, and
although as such he had no rank in France, the King had awarded it to
him, as to all who came over with James. This was making a rapid fortune
with a vengeance, under a King who regarded people of thirty-odd as
children, but who thought no more of the ages of bastards than of those
of the gods.
For more than a year past Berwick had coveted to be made Duke and Peer;
But he could not obtain his wish. Now, however, that he was to be sent
into Flanders for the; purpose I have just described, it seemed a good
opportunity to try again. He did try, and was successful. He was made
Duke and Peer. He had been twice married. By his first wife he had had
a son. By his second several sons and daughters. Will it be believed,
that he was hardy enough to propose, and that we were weak enough to
accord to him, that his son of the first bed should be formally excluded
from the letters-patent of Duke and Peer, and that those of the second
bed should alone be entered there? Yet so it was. Berwick was, in
respect to England, like the Jews, who await the Messiah. He coaxed
himself always with the hope of a revolution in England, which should put
the Stuarts on the throne again, and reinstate him in his wealth and
honours. He was son of the sister of the Duke of Marlborough, by which
general he was much loved, and with whom, by permission of the King, and
of King James, he kept up a secret intercourse, of which all three were
the dupes, but which enabled Berwick to maintain other intercourses in
England, and to establish his batteries there, hoping thus for his
reinstatement even under the government established. This explains his
motive for the arrangement he made in the letters-patent. He wished his
eldest son to succeed to his English dukedom and his English estates; to
make the second Duke and Peer of France, and the third Grandee of Spain.
Three sons hereditarily elevated to the three chief dignities of the
three, chief realms in Europe, it must be agreed was not bad work for a
man to have achieved at fifty years of age! But Berwick failed in his
English projects. Do what he could all his life to court the various
ministers who came from England, he never could succeed in reestablishing
himself.
The scandal was great at the complaisance of the King in consenting to a
family arrangement, by which a cadet was put over the head of his elder
brother; but the time of the monsters had arrived. Berwick bought an
estate that he created under the name of Fitz-James. The King, who
allowed him to do so, was shocked by the name; and, in my presence, asked
Berwick the meaning of it; he, without any embarrassment, thus explained
it.
The Kings of England, in legitimatising their children gave them a name
and arms, which pass to their posterity. The name varies. Thus the Duke
of Richmond, bastard of Charles II., had the name of "Lennox;" the Dukes
of Cleveland and of Grafton, by the same king, that of "Fitz-Roi," which
means "son of the king;" in fine, the Duke of Berwick had the name of
"Fitz-James;" so that his family name for his posterity is thus "Son of
James;" as a name, it is so ridiculous in French, that nobody could help
laughing at it, or being astonished at the scandal of imposing it in
English upon France.
Berwick having thus obtained his recompense beforehand, started off for
Flanders, but not until he had seen everything signed and sealed and
delivered in due form. He found the enemy so advantageously placed, and
so well prepared, that he had no difficulty in subscribing to the common
opinion of the general officers, that an attack could no longer be
thought of. He gathered up all the opinions he could, and then returned
to Court, having been only about three weeks absent. His report dismayed
the King, and those who penetrated it. Letters from the army soon showed
the fault of which Villars had been guilty, and everybody revolted
against this wordy bully.
He soon after was the subject of common talk at the Court, and in the
army, in consequence of a ridiculous adventure, in which he was the hero.
His wound, or the airs that he gave himself in consequence of it, often
forced him to hold his leg upon the neck of his horse, almost in the same
manner as ladies do. One day, he let slip the remark that he was sick to
death of mounting on horseback like those "harlots" in the suite of
Madame de Bourgogne. Those "harlots," I will observe parenthetically,
were all the young ladies of the Court, and the daughters of Madame la
Duchesse! Such a remark uttered by a general not much loved, speedily
flew from one end of the camp to the other, and was not long in making
its way to the Court and to Paris. The young horsewomen alluded to were
offended; their friends took up arms for them, and Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne could not help showing irritation, or avoid complaining.
Villars was apprised of all, and was much troubled by this increase of
enemies so redoubtable, of whom just then he assuredly had no need. He
took it into his head to try and discover who had blabbed; and found it
was Heudicourt, whom Villars, to advance his own interests, by means of
Heudicourt's mother (who was the evil genius of Madame de Maintenon,) had
protected; and to whom even, much against his custom, he had actually not
lent, but given money.
This Heudicourt (whom I have previously allluded to, 'a propos' of a song
he wrote) was a merry wag who excelled in making fun of people, in
highly-seasoned pleasantry, and in comic songs. Spoiled by the favour
which had always sustained him, he gave full licence to his tongue, and
by this audacity had rendered himself redoubtable. He was a scurrilous
wretch, a great drunkard, and a debauchee; not at all cowardly, and with
a face hideous as that of an ugly satyr. He was not insensible to this;
and so, unfitted for intrigues himself, he assisted others in them, and,
by this honest trade, had acquired many friends amongst the flower of the
courtiers of both sexes--above all with the ladies. By way of contrast
to his wickedness, he was called "the good little fellow" and "the good
little fellow" was mixed up in all intrigues; the ladies of the Court
positively struggled for him; and not one of them, even of the highest
ranks, would have dared to fall out with him. Thus protected, he was
rather an embarrassing customer for Marechal de Villars, who,
nevertheless, falling back as usual upon his effrontery, hit upon a
bright project to bring home to Heudicourt the expedient he had against
him.
He collected together about fifteen general officers, and Heudicourt with
them. When they had all arrived, he left his chamber, and went to them.
A number of loiterers had gathered round. This was just what Villars
wanted. He asked all the officers in turn, if they remembered hearing
him utter the expression attributed to him. Albergotti said he
remembered to have heard Villars apply the term "harlots" to the sutlers
and the camp creatures, but never to any other woman. All the rest
followed in the same track. Then Villars, after letting out against this
frightful calumny, and against the impostor who had written and sent it
to the Court, addressed himself to Heudicourt, whom he treated in the
most cruel fashion. "The good little fellow" was strangely taken aback,
and wished to defend himself; but Villars produced proofs that could not
be contradicted. Thereupon the ill-favoured dog avowed his turpitude,
and had the audacity to approach Villars in order to speak low to him;
but the Marechal, drawing back, and repelling him with an air of
indignation, said to him, aloud, that with scoundrels like him he wished
for no privacy. Gathering up, his pluck at this, Heudicourt gave rein to
all his impudence, and declared that they who had been questioned had not
dared to own the truth for fear of offending a Marechal; that as for
himself he might have been wrong in speaking and writing about it, but he
had not imagined that words said before such a numerous company; and in
such a public place, could remain secret, or that he had done more harm
in writing about them that so, many others who had acted likewise.
The Marechal, outraged upon hearing so bold and so truthful a reply, let
out with, greater violence than ever against Heudicourt, accused him of
ingratitude and villainy, drove him away, and a few minutes after had him
arrested and conducted as a prisoner to the chateau at Calais. This
violent scene made as much stir at the Court and in the army as that
which had caused it. The consistent and public conduct of Villars was
much approved. The King declared that he left Heudicourt in his hands:
Madame de Maintenon and, Madame de Bourgogne, that they abandoned him;
and his friends avowed that his fault was inexcusable. But the tide soon
turned. After the first hubbub, the excuse of "the good little fellow"
appeared excellent to the ladies who had their reasons for liking him and
for fearing to irritate him; and also to the army, where the Marechal was
not liked. Several of the officers who had been publicly interrogated by
Villars, now admitted that they had been taken by surprise, and had not
wished to compromise themselves. It was even, going into base details,
argued that the Marechal's expression could not apply to the vivandieres
and the other camp women, as they always rode astride, one leg on this
side one leg on the other, like men, a manner very different from that of
the ladies of Madame de Bourgogne. People contested the power of a
general to deal out justice upon his inferiors for personal matters in
which the service was in nowise concerned; in a word, Heudicourt was soon
let out of Calais, and remained "the good little fellow" in fashion in
spite of the Marechal, who, tormented by so many things this campaign,
sought for and obtained permission to go and take the waters; and did so.
He was succeeded by Harcourt, who was himself in weak health. Thus one
cripple replaced another. One began, the other ended, at Bourbonne.
Douai, Saint-Venant, and Aire fell into the hands of the enemy during
this 'campaign, who thus gained upon us more and more, while we did
little or nothing. This was the last campaign in Flanders of the Duke of
Marlborough. On the Rhine our troops observed and subsisted: nothing
more; but in Spain there was more movement, and I will therefore turn my
glances towards that country, and relate what took place there.