MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES.

1710-1711.

Louis XIV. was one of the most remarkable sovereigns who ever sat upon

the throne of France. Yet there is none of whose character, even at this

comparatively remote period, it is more difficult to form a just

estimate. Beyond measure eulogised by the poets, orators, and annalists

of his own age, who lived on his bounty, or were flattered by his

address, he has been proportionally vilified by the historians, both

foreign and national, of subsequent times. The Roman Catholic writers,

with some truth, represent him as the champion of their faith, the

sovereign who extirpated the demon of heresy in his dominions, and

restored to the church in undivided unity the realm of France. The

Protestant authors, with not less reason, regard him as the deadliest

enemy of their religion, and the cruellest foe of those who had embraced

it; as a faithless tyrant, who scrupled not, at the bidding of bigoted

priests, to violate the national faith plighted by the Edict of Nantes,

and persecute, with unrelenting severity, the unhappy people who, from

conscientious motives, had broken off from the Church of Rome. One set

of writers paint him as a magnanimous monarch, whose mind, set on great

things, and swayed by lofty desires, foreshadowed those vast designs

which Napoleon, armed with the forces of the Revolution, afterwards for

a brief space realised. Another set dwell on the foibles or the vices of

his private character--depict him as alternately swayed by priests, or

influenced by women; selfish in his desires, relentless in his hatred;

and sacrificing the peace of Europe, and endangering the independence of

France, for the gratification of personal vanity, or from the thirst of

unbounded ambition.

It is the fate of all men who have made a great and durable impression

on human affairs, and powerfully affected the interests, or thwarted the

opinion of large bodies of men, to be represented in these opposite

colours to future times. The party, whether in church or state, which

they have elevated, the nation whose power or glory they have augmented,

praise, as much as those whom they have oppressed and injured, whether

at home or abroad, strive to vilify their memory. But in the case of

Louis XIV., this general propensity has been greatly increased by the

opposite, and, at first sight, inconsistent features of his character.

There is almost equal truth in the magniloquent eulogies of his

admirers, as in the impassioned invectives of his enemies. He was not

less great and magnanimous than he is represented by the elegant

flattery of Racine or Corneille, nor less cruel and hard-hearted than he

is painted by the austere justice of Sismondi or D'Aubigne. Like many

other men, but more than most, he was made up of lofty and elevated, and

selfish and frivolous qualities. He could alternately boast, with truth,

that there were no longer any Pyrenees, and rival his youngest

courtiers in frivolous and often heartless gallantry. In his younger

years he was equally assiduous in his application to business, and

engrossed with personal vanity. When he ascended the throne, his first

words were: "I intend that every paper, from a diplomatic dispatch to a

private petition, shall be submitted to me;" and his vast powers of

application enabled him to compass the task. Yet, at the same time, he

deserted his queen for Madame la Valliere, and soon after broke La

Valliere's heart by his desertion of her for Madame de Montespan. In

mature life, his ambition to extend the bounds and enhance the glory of

France, was equalled by his desire to win the admiration or gain the

favour of the fair sex. In his later days, he alternately engaged in

devout austerities with Madame de Maintenon, and, with mournful

resolution, asserted the independence of France against Europe in arms.

Never was evinced a more striking exemplification of the saying, so well

known among men of the world, that no one is a hero to his

valet-de-chambre; nor a more remarkable confirmation of the truth, so

often proclaimed by divines, that characters of imperfect goodness

constitute the great majority of mankind.

That he was a great man, as well as a successful sovereign, is

decisively demonstrated by the mighty changes which he effected in his

own realm, as well as in the neighbouring states of Europe. When he

ascended the throne, France, though it contained the elements of

greatness, had never yet become great. It had been alternately wasted by

the ravages of the English, and torn by the fury of the religious wars.

The insurrection of the Fronde had shortly before involved the capital

in all the horrors of civil conflict;--barricades had been erected in

its streets; alternate victory and defeat had by turns elevated and

depressed the rival faction. Turenne and Conde had displayed their

consummate talents in miniature warfare within sight of Notre-Dame.

Never had the monarchy been depressed to a greater pitch of weakness

than during the reign of Louis XIII. and the minority of Louis XIV. But

from the time the latter sovereign ascended the throne, order seemed to

arise out of chaos. The ascendancy of a great mind made itself felt in

every department. Civil war ceased; the rival faction disappeared; even

the bitterness of religious hatred seemed for a time to be stilled by

the influence of patriotic feeling. The energies of France, drawn forth

during the agonies of civil conflict, were turned to public objects and

the career of national aggrandisement--as those of England had been

after the conclusion of the Great Rebellion, by the firm hand and

magnanimous mind of Cromwell. From a pitiable state of anarchy, France

at once appeared on the theatre of Europe, great, powerful, and united.

It is no common capacity which can thus seize the helm and right the

ship when it is reeling most violently, and the fury of contending

elements has all but torn it in pieces. It is the highest proof of

political capacity to discern the bent of the public mind, when most

violently exerted, and, by falling in with the prevailing desire of the

majority, convert the desolating vehemence of social conflict into the

steady passion for national advancement. Napoleon did this with the

political aspirations of the eighteenth, Louis XIV. with the religious

fervour of the seventeenth century.

It was because his character and turn of mind coincided with the

national desires at the moment of his ascending the throne, that this

great monarch was enabled to achieve this marvellous transformation. If

Napoleon was the incarnation of the Revolution, with not less truth it

may be said that Louis XIV. was the incarnation of the monarchy. The

feudal spirit, modified but not destroyed by the changes of time,

appeared to be concentrated, with its highest lustre, in his person. He

was still the head of the Franks--the lustre of the historic families

yet surrounded his throne; but he was the head of the Franks only--that

is, of a hundred thousand conquering warriors. Twenty million of

conquered Gauls were neither regarded nor considered in his

administration, except in so far as they augmented the national

strength, or added to the national resources. But this distinction was

then neither perceived nor regarded. Worn out with civil dissension,

torn to pieces by religious passions, the fervent minds and restless

ambition of the French longed for a _national_ field for exertion--an

arena in which social dissensions might be forgotten. Louis XIV. gave

them this field: he opened this arena. He ascended the throne at the

time when this desire had become so strong and general, as in a manner

to concentrate the national will. His character, equally in all its

parts, was adapted to the general want. He took the lead alike in the

greatness and the foibles of his subjects. Were they ambitious? so was

he:--were they desirous of renown? so was he:--were they set on national

aggrandisement? so was he:--were they desirous of protection to

industry? so was he:--were they prone to gallantry? so was he. His

figure and countenance tall and majestic; his manner stately and

commanding; his conversation dignified, but enlightened; his spirit

ardent, but patriotic--qualified him to take the lead and preserve his

ascendancy among a proud body of ancient nobles, whom the disasters of

preceding reigns, and the astute policy of Cardinal Richelieu, had

driven into the antechambers of Paris, but who preserved in their ideas

and habits the pride and recollections of the conquerors who followed

the banners of Clovis. And the great body of the people, proud of their

sovereign, proud of his victories, proud of his magnificence, proud of

his fame, proud of his national spirit, proud of the literary glory

which environed his throne, in secret proud of his gallantries, joyfully

followed their nobles in the brilliant career which his ambition opened,

and submitted with as much docility to his government as they ranged

themselves round the banners of their respective chiefs on the day of

battle.

It was the peculiarity of the government of Louis XIV., arising from

this fortuitous, but to him fortunate combination of circumstances, that

it united the distinctions of rank, family attachments, and ancient

ideas of feudal times, with the vigour and efficiency of monarchical

government, and the lustre and brilliancy of literary glory. Such a

combination could not, in the nature of things, last long; it must soon

work out its own destruction. In truth, it was sensibly weakened during

the course of the latter part of the half century that he sat upon the

throne. But while it endured, it produced a most formidable union; it

engendered an extraordinary and hitherto unprecedented phalanx of

talent. The feudal ideas still lingering in the hearts of the nation,

produced subordination; the national spirit, excited by the genius of

the sovereign, induced unanimity; the development of talent, elicited by

his discernment, conferred power; the literary celebrity, encouraged by

his munificence, diffused fame. The peculiar character of Louis, in

which great talent was united with great pride, and unbounded ambition

with heroic magnanimity, qualified him to turn to the best account this

singular combination of circumstances, and to unite in France, for a

brief period, the lofty aspirations and dignified manners of chivalry,

with the energy of rising talent and the lustre of literary renown.

Louis XIV. was essentially monarchical. That was the secret of his

success; it was because he first gave the powers of _unity_ to the

monarchy, that he rendered France so brilliant and powerful. All his

changes, and they were many, from the dress of soldiers to the

instructions to ambassadors, breathed the same spirit. He first

introduced a _uniform_ in the army. Before his time, the soldiers merely

wore a banderole over their steel breast-plates and ordinary dresses.

That was a great and symptomatic improvement; it at once induced an

_esprit de corps_ and a sense of responsibility. He first made the

troops march with a measured step, and caused large bodies of men to

move with the precision of a single company. The artillery and engineer

service, under his auspices, made astonishing progress. His discerning

eye selected the genius of Vauban, which invented, as it were, the

modern system of fortification, and wellnigh brought it to its greatest

elevation--and raised to the highest command that of Turenne, which

carried the military art to the most consummate perfection. Skilfully

turning the martial and enterprising genius of the Franks into the

career of conquest, he multiplied tenfold their power, by conferring on

them the inestimable advantages of skilled discipline and unity of

action. He gathered the feudal array around his banner; he roused the

ancient barons from their chateaux, the old retainers from their

villages; but he arranged them in disciplined battalions of regular

troops, who received the pay and obeyed the orders of government, and

never left their banners. When he summoned the array of France to

undertake the conquest of the Low Countries, he appeared at the head of

a hundred and twenty thousand men, all regular and disciplined troops,

with a hundred pieces of cannon. Modern Europe had never seen such an

array. It was irresistible, and speedily brought the monarch to the

gates of Amsterdam.

The same unity which the genius of Louis and his ministers communicated

to the military power of France, he gave also to its naval forces and

internal strength. To such a pitch of greatness did he raise the marine

of the monarchy, that it all but outnumbered that of England; and the

battle of La Hogue in 1792 alone determined, as Trafalgar did a century

after, to which of these rival powers the dominion of the seas was to

belong. He reduced the government of the interior to that regular and

methodical system of governors of provinces, mayors of cities, and other

subordinate authorities, all receiving their instructions from the

Tuileries, which, under no subsequent change of government, imperial or

royal, has been abandoned, and which has, in every succeeding age,

formed the main source of its strength. He concentrated around the

monarchy the rays of genius from all parts of the country, and threw

around its head a lustre of literary renown, which, more even than the

exploits of his armies, dazzled and fascinated the minds of men. He

arrayed the scholars, philosophers, and poets of his dominions like his

soldiers and sailors; the whole academies of France, which have since

become so famous, were of his institution; he sought to give discipline

to thought, as he had done to his fleets and armies, and rewarded

distinction in literary efforts, not less than warlike achievement. No

monarch ever knew better the magical influence of intellectual strength

on general thought, or felt more strongly the expedience of enlisting it

on the side of authority. Not less than Hildebrand or Napoleon, he aimed

at drawing, not over his own country alone, but the whole of Europe, the

meshes of regulated and centralised opinion; and more durably than

either he attained his object. The religious persecution, which

constitutes the great blot on his reign, and caused its brilliant career

to close in mourning, arose from the same cause. He was fain to give the

same unity to the church which he had done to the army, navy, and civil

strength of the monarchy. He saw no reason why the Huguenots should not,

at the royal command, face about like one of Turenne's battalions.

Schism in the church was viewed by him in exactly the same light as

rebellion in the state. No efforts were spared by inducements, good

deeds, and fair promises, to make proselytes; and when twelve hundred

thousand Protestants resisted his seductions, the sword, the fagot, and

the wheel were resorted to without mercy for their destruction.

Napoleon, it is well known, had the highest admiration of Louis XIV. Nor

is this surprising: their principles of government and leading objects

of ambition were the same. "L'etat _c'est moi_," was the principle of

this grandson of Henry IV.: "Your first duty is _to me_, your second to

France," said the Emperor to his nephew Prince Louis Napoleon. In

different words, the idea was the same. To concentrate Europe in France,

France in Paris, Paris in the government, and the government in himself,

was the ruling idea of each. But it was no concentration for selfish or

unworthy purposes which was then desired; it was for great and lofty

objects that this undivided power was desired. It was neither to gratify

the desire of an Eastern seraglio, nor exercise the tyranny of a Roman

emperor, that either coveted unbounded authority. It was to exalt the

nation of which they formed the head, to augment its power, extend its

dominion, enhance its fame, magnify its resources, that they both deemed

themselves sent into the world. It was the general sense that this was

the object of their administration which constituted the strength of

both. Equally with the popular party in the present day, they regarded

society as a pyramid, of which the multitude formed the base, and the

monarch the head. Equally with the most ardent democrat, they desired

the augmentation of the national resources, the increase of public

felicity. But they both thought that these blessings must descend from

the sovereign to his subject, not ascend from the subjects to their

sovereign. "Every thing _for_ the people, nothing _by_ them," which

Napoleon described as the secret of good government, was not less the

maxim of the imperious despot of the Bourbon race.

The identity of their ideas, the similarity of their objects of

ambition, appears in the monuments which both have left at Paris. Great

as was the desire of the Emperor to add to its embellishment,

magnificent as were his ideas in the attempt, he has yet been unable to

equal the noble structures of the Bourbon dynasty. The splendid pile of

Versailles, the glittering dome of the Invalides, still, after the lapse

of a century and a half, overshadow all the other monuments in the

metropolis; though the confiscations of the Revolution, and the

victories of the Emperor, gave succeeding governments the resources of

the half of Europe for their construction. The inscription on the arch

of Louis, "Ludovico Magno," still seems to embody the gratitude of the

citizens to the greatest benefactor of the capital; and it is not

generally known that the two edifices which have added most since his

time to the embellishment of the metropolis, and of which the revolution

and the empire are fain to take the credit--the Pantheon and the

Madeleine--were begun in 1764 by Louis XV., and owe their origin to the

magnificent ideas which Louis XIV. transmitted to his, in other

respects, unworthy descendant.[1]

Had one dark and atrocious transaction not taken place, the annalist

might have stopped here, and painted the French monarch, with a few

foibles and weaknesses, the common bequest of mortality, still as, upon

the whole, a noble and magnanimous ruler. His ambition, great as it was,

and desolating as it proved, both to the adjoining states, and in the

end his own subjects, was the "last infirmity of noble minds." He shared

it with Caesar and Alexander, with Charlemagne and Napoleon. Even his

cruel and unnecessary ravaging of the Palatinate, though attended with

dreadful private suffering, has too many parallels in the annals of

military cruelty. His personal vanities and weaknesses, his love of

show, his passion for women, his extravagant expenses, were common to

him with his grandfather Henry IV.; they seemed inherent in the Bourbon

race, and are the frailties to which heroic minds in every age have been

most subject. But, for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the

heartrending cruelties with which it was carried into execution, no such

apology can be found. It admits neither of palliation nor excuse. But

for the massacre of St Bartholomew, and the expulsion of the Morescoes

from Spain, it would stand foremost in the annals of the world for

kingly perfidy and priestly cruelty. The expulsion of five hundred

thousand innocent human beings from their country, for no other cause

but difference of religious opinion--the destruction, it is said, of

nearly an hundred thousand by the frightful tortures of the wheel and

the stake--the wholesale desolation of provinces and destruction of

cities for conscience sake, never will and never should be forgotten. It

is the eternal disgrace of the Roman Catholic religion--a disgrace to

which the "execrations of ages have not yet affixed an adequate

censure"--that all these infamous state crimes took their origin in the

bigoted zeal, or sanguinary ambition of the Church of Rome. Nor have

any of them passed without their just reward. The expulsion of the

Moors, the most industrious and valuable inhabitants of the Peninsula,

has entailed a weakness upon the Spanish monarchy, which the subsequent

lapse of two centuries has been unable to repair. The reaction against

the Romish atrocities produced the great league of which William III.

was the head; it sharpened the swords of Eugene and Marlborough; it

closed in mourning the reign of Louis XV. Nor did the national

punishment stop here. The massacre of St Bartholomew, and revocation of

the Edict of Nantes, were the remote, but certain cause of the French

Revolution, and all the unutterable miseries which it brought both upon

the Bourbon race and the professors of the Romish faith. Nations have no

immortality; their punishment is inflicted in this world; it is visited

with unerring certainty on the third and fourth generations. Providence

has a certain way of dealing with the political sins of men--which is,

to leave them to the consequences of their own actions.

If ever the characters of two important actors on the theatre of human

affairs stood forth in striking and emphatic contrast to each other,

they were those of Louis XIV. and William III. They were, in truth, the

representatives of the principles for which they respectively so long

contended; their characters embodied the doctrines, and were

distinguished by the features, of the causes for which they fought

through life. As much as the character--stately, magnanimous, and

ambitious, but bigoted and unscrupulous--of Louis XIV. personified the

Romish, did the firm and simple, but persevering and unconquerable mind

of William, embody the principles of the Protestant faith. The positions

they respectively held through life, the stations they occupied, the

resources, moral and political, which they wielded, were not less

characteristic of the causes of which they were severally the heads.

Louis led on the feudal resources of the French monarchy. Inured to

rigid discipline, directed by consummate talent, supported by immense

resources, his armies, uniting the courage of feudal to the organisation

of civilised times, like those of Caesar, had at first only to appear to

conquer. From his gorgeous palaces at Paris, he seemed able, like the

Church of Rome from the halls of the Quirinal, to give law to the whole

Christian world. William began the contest under very different

circumstances. Sunk in obscure marshes, cooped up in a narrow territory,

driven into a corner of Europe, the forces at his command appeared as

nothing before the stupendous array of his adversary. He was the emblem

of the Protestant faith, arising from small beginnings, springing from

the energy of the middle classes, but destined to grow with ceaseless

vigour, until it reached the gigantic strength of its awful antagonist.

The result soon proved the prodigious difference in the early resources

of the parties. Down went tower and town before the apparition of Louis

in his strength. The iron barriers of Flanders yielded almost without a

struggle to his arms. The genius of Turenne and Vauban, the presence of

Louis, proved for the time irresistible. The Rhine was crossed; a

hundred thousand men appeared before the gates of Amsterdam. Dissension

had paralysed its strength, terror all but mastered its resolution.

England, influenced by French mistresses, or bought by French gold, held

back, and ere long openly joined the oppressor, alike of its liberties

and its religion. All seemed lost alike for the liberties of Europe and

the Protestant faith. But William was not dismayed. He had a certain

resource against subjugation left. In his own words, "he could die in

the last ditch." He communicated his unconquerable spirit to his

fainting fellow-citizens; he inspired them with the noble resolution to

abandon their country rather than submit to the invaders, and "seek in a

new hemisphere that liberty of which Europe had become unworthy." The

generous effort was not made in vain. The Dutch rallied round a leader

who was not wanting to himself in such a crisis. The dikes were cut; the

labour of centuries was lost; the ocean resumed its sway over the fields

reft from its domain. But the cause of freedom of religion was gained.

The French armies recoiled from the watery waste, as those of Napoleon

afterwards did from the flames of Moscow. Amsterdam was the limit of the

conquests of Louis XIV. He there found the power which said, "Hitherto

shalt thou come, and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be

staid." Long, and often doubtful, was the contest; it was bequeathed to

a succeeding generation and another reign. But from the invasion of

Holland, the French arms and Romish domination permanently receded; and

but for the desertion of the alliance by England, at the peace of

Utrecht, they would have given law in the palace of the Grand Monarque,

bridled the tyranny of Bossuet and Tellier, and permanently established

the Protestant faith in nearly the half of Europe.

Like many other men who are called on to play an important part in the

affairs of the world, William seemed formed by nature for the duties he

was destined to perform. Had his mind been stamped by a different die,

his character cast in a different mould, he would have failed in his

mission. He was not a monarch of the most brilliant, nor a general of

the most daring kind. Had he been either the one or the other, he would

have been shattered against the colossal strength of Louis XIV., and

crushed in the very outset of his career. But he possessed in the

highest perfection that great quality without which, in the hour of

trial, all others prove of no avail--moral courage, and invincible

determination. His enterprises, often designed with ability and executed

with daring, were yet all based, like those of Wellington afterwards in

Portugal, on a just sense of the necessity of husbanding his resources

from the constant inferiority of his forces and means to those of the

enemy. He was perseverance itself. Nothing could shake his resolution,

nothing divert his purpose. With equal energy he laboured in the cabinet

to construct and keep together the vast alliance necessary to restrain

the ambition of the French monarch, and toiled in the field to baffle

the enterprises of his able generals. With a force generally inferior in

number, always less powerful than that of his adversaries in discipline,

composition, and resources, he nevertheless contrived to sustain the

contest, and gradually wrested from his powerful enemy the more

important fortresses, which, in the first tumult of invasion, had

submitted to his arms. If the treaties of Nimeguen and Ryswick were less

detrimental to the French power than that of Utrecht afterwards proved,

they were more glorious to the arms of the Dutch commonwealth and the

guidance of William; for they were the result of efforts in which the

weight of the conflict generally fell on Holland alone; and its honours

were not to be shared with those won by the wisdom of a Marlborough, or

the daring of a Eugene.

In private life, William was distinguished by the same qualities which

marked his public career. He had not the chivalrous ardour which bespoke

the nobles of France, nor the stately magnificence of their haughty

sovereign. His manners and habits were such as arose from, and suited,

the austere and laborious people among whom his life was passed. Without

being insensible to the softer passions, he never permitted them to

influence his conduct, or incroach upon his time. He was patient,

laborious, and indefatigable. To courtiers accustomed to the polished

elegance of Paris, or the profligate gallantry of St James's, his

manners appeared cold and unbending. It was easy to see he had not been

bred in the saloons of Versailles or the _soirees_ of Charles II. But he

was steady and unwavering in his resolutions; his desires were set on

great objects; and his external demeanour was correct, and often

dignified. He was reproached by the English, not without reason, with

being unduly partial, after his accession to the British throne, to his

Dutch subjects; and he was influenced through life by a love of money,

which, though at first arising from a bitter sense of its necessity in

his long and arduous conflicts, degenerated in his older years into an

avaricious turn. The national debt of England has been improperly

ascribed to his policy. It arose unavoidably from the Revolution, and is

the price which every nation pays for a lasting change, how necessary

soever, in its ruling dynasty. When the sovereign can no longer depend

on the unbought loyalty of his subjects, he has no resource but in their

interested attachment. Louis Philippe's government has done the same,

under the influence of the same necessity. Yet William was not a perfect

character; more than one dark transaction has left a lasting stain on

his memory; and the massacre of Glencoe, in particular, if it did not

equal the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in the wide-spread misery

with which it was attended, rivalled it in the perfidy in which it was

conceived, and the cruelty with which it was executed.

On his arrival in Holland on the 18th March 1710, Marlborough again

found himself practically involved in the still pending negotiations for

peace, over which, on the decline of his influence at court, he had

ceased to have any real control. Still exposed to the blasting

imputation of seeking to prolong the war for his own private purposes,

he was in reality doing his utmost to terminate hostilities. As the

negotiation with the ostensible plenipotentiaries of the different

courts was at an end, but Louis still continued to make private

overtures to the Dutch, in the hope of detaching them from the

confederacy, Marlborough took advantage of this circumstance to

endeavour to effect an accommodation. At his request, the Dutch agent,

Petcum, had again repaired to Paris in the end of 1709, to resume the

negotiation; and the _Marlborough Papers_ contain numerous letters from

him to the Duke, detailing the progress of the overtures.[2] On the very

day after Marlborough's arrival at the Hague, the plenipotentiaries made

their report of the issue of the negotiation; but the views of the

parties were still so much at variance, that it was evident no hopes of

peace could be entertained. Louis was not yet sufficiently humbled to

submit to the arrogant demands of the Allies, which went to strip him of

nearly all his conquests; and the different powers of the confederacy

were each set upon turning the general success of the alliance to their

own private advantage.

Zenzindorf, on the part of Austria, insisted that not the smallest

portion of the Spanish territories in Italy should be ceded to a prince

of the house of Bourbon, and declared the resolution of his imperial

master to perish with arms in his hands, rather than submit to a

partition which would lead to his inevitable ruin. King Charles

expressed the same determination, and insisted further for the cession

of Roussillon, which had been wrested from Spain since the treaty of the

Pyrenees. The Duke of Savoy, who aimed at the acquisition of Sicily from

the spoils of the fallen monarch, was equally obstinate for the

prosecution of the war. Godolphin, Somers, and the Dutch Pensionary,

inclined to peace, and were willing to purchase it by the cession of

Sicily to Louis; and Marlborough gave this his entire support, provided

the evacuation of Spain, the great object of the war, could be

secured.[3] But all their efforts were in vain. The ambitious designs of

Austria and Savoy prevailed over their pacific counsels; and we have the

valuable authority of Torcy, who, in the former congress, had accused

the Duke of breaking off the negotiation, that in this year the rupture

was entirely owing to the efforts of Count Zenzindorf.[4] Marlborough,

however, never ceased to long for a termination of hostilities, and took

the field with a heavy heart, relieved only by the hope that one more

successful campaign would give him what he so ardently desired, the rest

consequent upon a general peace.[5]

War being resolved on, Marlborough and Eugene met at Tournay on the

28th April, and commenced the campaign by the capture of the fort of

Mortagne, which capitulated on the same day. Their force already

amounted to sixty thousand men, and, as the troops were daily coming up

from their cantonments, it was expected soon to amount to double the

number. The plan of operations was soon settled between these two great

men; no difference of opinion ever occurred between them, no jealousy

ever marred their co-operations. They determined to commence serious

operations by attacking Douay--a strong fortress, and one of the last of

the first order which, in that quarter, guarded the French territory. To

succeed in this, however, it was necessary to pass the French lines,

which were of great strength, and were guarded by Marshal Montesquieu at

the head of forty battalions and twenty squadrons. Douay itself also was

strongly protected both by art and nature. On the one side lay the Haine

and the Scarpe; in the centre was the canal of Douay; on the other hand

were the lines of La Bassie, which had been strengthened with additional

works since the close of the campaign. Marlborough was very sanguine of

success, as the French force was not yet collected, and he was

considerably superior in number; and he wrote to Godolphin on the same

night--"The orders are given for marching this night, so that I hope my

next will give you an account of our being in Artois."[6]

The Duke operated at once by both wings. On the one wing he detached the

Prince of Wirtemberg, with fifteen thousand men, by Pont-a-Tessin to

Pont-a-Vendin, where the French lines met the Dyle and the canal of

Douay; while Prince Eugene moved forward Count Fels, with a considerable

corps, towards Pont Auby on the same canal. The whole army followed in

two columns, the right commanded by Eugene, and the left by Marlborough.

The English general secured the passage at Pont-a-Vendin without

resistance; and Eugene, though baffled at Pont Auby, succeeded in

passing the canal at Sant and Courieres without serious loss. The first

defences were thus forced; and that night the two wings, having formed a

junction, lay on their arms in the plain of Lens, while Montesquieu

precipitately retired behind the Scarpe, in the neighbourhood of Vitry.

Next morning the troops, overjoyed at their success, continued their

advance. Marlborough sent forward General Cadogan, at the head of the

English troops, to Pont-a-Rache, to circumscribe the garrison of Douay,

on the canal of Marchiennes on the north; while Eugene, encamping on the

other side of the Scarpe, completed the investment on the west. The

perfect success of this enterprise without any loss was matter of equal

surprise and joy to the Duke, who wrote to the Duchess in the highest

strain of satisfaction at his bloodless triumph. It was entirely owing

to the suddenness and secresy of his movements, which took the enemy

completely unawares; for, had the enterprise been delayed four days

longer, its issue would have been extremely doubtful, and thousands of

men must, at all events, have been sacrificed.[7]

Douay, which was immediately invested after this success, is a fortress

of considerable strength, in the second line which covers the French

province of Artois. Less populous than Lille, it embraces a wider

circuit within its ample walls. Its principal defence consists in the

marshes, which, on the side of Tournay, where attack might be expected,

render it extremely difficult of access, especially in the rainy season.

Access to it is defended by Fort Scarpe, a powerful outwork, capable of

standing a separate siege. The garrison consisted of eight thousand men,

under the command of the Marquis Albergotti, an officer of the highest

talent and bravery; and under him were the renowned Valory, to direct

the engineers, and the not less celebrated Chevalier de Jaucourt, to

command the artillery. From a fortress of such strength so defended, the

most resolute resistance might be expected, and no efforts were spared

on the part of the Allied generals to overcome it.

The investment was completed on the 24th, and the trenches opened on the

5th May. On the 7th, the head of the sap was advanced to within two

hundred and fifty yards of the exterior palisades; but the besiegers

that night experienced a severe check from a vigorous sally of the

besieged with twelve hundred men, by which two English regiments were

nearly cut to pieces. But, on the 9th, a great train of artillery,

consisting of two hundred pieces, with a large supply of artillery,

arrived from Tournay; on the 11th, the advanced works were strongly

armed, and the batteries were pushed up to the covered way, and

thundered across the ditch against the rampart. The imminent danger of

this important stronghold now seriously alarmed the French court; and

Marshal Villars, who commanded their great army on the Flemish frontier,

received the most positive orders to advance to its relief. By great

exertions, he had now collected one hundred and fifty-three battalions

and two hundred and sixty-two squadrons, which were pompously announced

as mustering one hundred and fifty thousand combatants, and certainly

amounted to more than eighty thousand. The Allied force was almost

exactly equal; it consisted of one hundred and fifty-five battalions and

two hundred and sixty-one squadrons. Villars broke up from the vicinity

of Cambray on the 21st May, and advanced in great strength towards

Douay. Marlborough and Eugene immediately made the most vigorous

preparations to receive him. Thirty battalions only were left to

prosecute the siege; twelve squadrons were placed in observation at

Pont-a-Rache; and the whole remainder of the army, about seventy

thousand strong, concentrated in a strong position, covering the siege,

on which all the resources of art, so far as the short time would admit,

had been lavished. Every thing was prepared for a mighty struggle. The

whole guns were mounted on batteries four hundred paces from each other;

the infantry was drawn up in a single line along the intrenchment, and

filled up the whole interval between the artillery; the cavalry were

arranged in two lines, seven hundred paces in rear of the foot-soldiers.

It seemed another Malplaquet, in which the relative position of the two

armies was reversed, and the French were to storm the intrenched

position of the Allies. Every man in both armies fully expected a

decisive battle; and Marlborough, who was heartily tired of the war,

wrote to the Duchess, that he hoped for a victory, which should at once

end the war, and restore him to private life.[8]

Yet there was no battle. The lustre of Blenheim and Ramilies played

round Marlborough's bayonets; the recollection of Turin tripled the

force of Eugene's squadrons. Villars advanced on the 1st June, with all

the pomp and circumstance of war, to within musket-shot of the Allied

position; and he had not only the authority but the recommendation of

Louis to hazard a battle. He boasted that his force amounted to a

hundred and sixty thousand men.[9] But he did not venture to make the

attack. To Marlborough's great regret, he retired without fighting; and

the English general, at the age of threescore, was left to pursue the

fatigues and the labours of a protracted campaign, in which, for the

first time in his life, he was doubtful of success, from knowing the

malignant eyes with which he was regarded by the ruling factions in his

own country. "I long," said he, "for an end of the war, so God's will be

done; whatever the event may be, I shall have nothing to reproach myself

with, having, with all my heart, done my duty, and being hitherto

blessed with more success than was ever known before. My wishes and duty

are the same; but I can't say I have the same prophetic spirit I used to

have; for in all the former actions I never did doubt of success, we

having had constantly the great blessing of being of one mind. I cannot

say it is so now; for I fear some are run so far into villanous faction,

that it would more content them to see us beaten; but if I live I will

be watchful that it shall not be in their power to do much hurt. The

discourse of the Duke of Argyle is, that when I please there will then

be peace. I suppose his friends speak the same language in England; so

that I must every summer venture my life in a battle, and be found fault

with in winter for not bringing home peace. No, I wish for it with all

my heart and soul."[10]

Villars having retired without fighting, the operations of the siege

were resumed with redoubled vigour. On the 16th June, signals of

distress were sent up from the town, which the French marshal perceived,

and he made in consequence a show of returning to interrupt the siege,

but his movements came to nothing. Marlborough, to counteract his

movement, repassed the Scarpe at Vitry, and took up a position directly

barring the line of advance of the French marshal, while Eugene

prosecuted the siege. Villars again retired without fighting. On the

22d, the Fort of Scarpe was breached, and the sap was advanced to the

counterscarp of the fortress, the walls of which were violently shaken;

and on the 26th, Albergotti, who had no longer any hope of being

relieved, and who saw preparations made for a general assault,

capitulated with the garrison, now reduced to four thousand five hundred

men.[11]

On the surrender of Douay, the Allied generals intended to besiege

Arras, the _last_ of the triple line of fortresses which on that side

covered France, and between which and Paris no fortified place remained

to arrest the march of an invader. On the 10th July, Marlborough crossed

the Scarpe at Vitry, and, joining Eugene, their united forces, nearly

ninety thousand strong, advanced towards Arras. But Villars, who felt

the extreme importance of this last stronghold, had exerted himself to

the utmost for its defence. He had long employed his troops on the

construction of new lines of great strength on the Crinchon, stretching

from Arras and the Somme, and he had here collected nearly a hundred

thousand men, and a hundred and thirty pieces of cannon. After

reconnoitring this position, the Allied generals concurred in thinking

that it was equally impossible to force them, and undertake the siege of

Arras, while the enemy, in such strength, and so strongly posted, lay on

its flank. Their first intention, on finding themselves baffled in this

project, was to seize Hesdin on the Cancher, which would have left the

enemy no strong place between them and the coast. But the skilful

dispositions of Villars, who on this occasion displayed uncommon

abilities and foresight, rendered this design abortive, and it was

therefore determined to attack Bethune. This place, which was surrounded

with very strong works, was garrisoned by nine thousand men, under the

command of M. Puy Vauban, nephew, of the celebrated marshal of the same

name. But as an attack on it had not been expected, the necessary

supplies for a protracted resistance had not been fully introduced when

the investment was completed on the 15th July.[12]

Villars, upon seeing the point of attack now fully declared, moved in

right columns upon Hobarques, near Montenencourt. Eugene and Marlborough

upon this assembled their covering army, and changed their front, taking

up a new line stretching from Mont St Eloi to Le Comte. Upon advancing

to reconnoitre the enemy, Marlborough discovered that the French,

advancing to raise the siege, were busy strengthening a new set of

lines, which stretched across the plain from the rivulet Ugie to the

Lorraine, and the centre of which at Avesnes Le Comte was already

strongly fortified. It now appeared how much Villars had gained by the

skilful measures which had diverted the Allies from their projected

attack upon Arras. It lay upon the direct road to Paris. Bethune, though

of importance to the ultimate issue of the war, was not of the same

present moment. It lay on the flank on the second line, Arras in front,

and was the only remaining fortress in the last. By means of the new

lines which he had constructed, the able French marshal had erected a

fresh protection for his country, when its last defences were wellnigh

broken through. By simply holding them, the interior of France was

covered from incursion, and time gained for raising fresh armaments in

the interior for its defence, and, what was of more importance to Louis,

awaiting the issue of the intrigues in England, which were expected soon

to overthrow the Whig cabinet. Villars, on this occasion, proved the

salvation of his country, and justly raised himself to the very highest

rank among its military commanders. His measures were the more to be

commended that they exposed him to the obloquy of leaving Bethune to its

fate, which surrendered by capitulation, with its numerous garrison and

accomplished commander, on the 28th August.[13]

Notwithstanding the loss of so many fortresses on the endangered

frontier of his territory, Louis XIV. was so much encouraged by what he

knew of the great change which was going on in the councils of Queen

Anne, that, expecting daily an entire revolution in the ministry, and

overthrow of the war party in the Cabinet, he resolved on the most

vigorous prosecution of the contest. He made clandestine overtures to

the secret advisers of the Queen, in the hope of establishing that

separate negotiation which at no distant period proved so successful.

Torcy, the Duke's enemy, triumphantly declared, "what we lose in

Flanders, we shall gain in England."[14] To frustrate these

machinations, and if possible rouse the national feeling more strongly

in favour of a vigorous prosecution of the war, Marlborough determined

to lay siege to Aire and St Venant, which, though off the line of direct

attack on France, laid open the way to Calais, which, if supported at

home, he hoped to reduce before the conclusion of the campaign.[15] He

entertained the most sanguine hopes of success from this design, which

was warmly supported by Godolphin; but he obtained at this time such

discouraging accounts of the precarious condition of his influence at

court, that he justly concluded he would not be adequately supported in

them from England, from which the main supplies for the enterprise must

be drawn. He wisely, therefore, resolved, in concert with Eugene, to

forego this dazzling but perilous project for the present, and to

content himself with the solid advantages, unattended with risk, of

reducing Aire and St Venant.

Having takes their resolution, the confederate generals began their

march in the beginning of September, and on the 6th of that month, both

places were invested. Aire, which is comparatively of small extent, was

garrisoned by only five thousand seven hundred men; but Venant was a

place of great size and strength, and had a garrison of fourteen

battalions of foot and three regiments of dragoons, mustering eight

thousand combatants. They were under the command of the Count de

Guebriant, a brave and skillful commander. Both were protected by

inundations, which retarded extremely the operations of the besiegers,

the more especially as the autumnal rains had early set in this year

with more than usual severity. While anxiously awaiting the cessation of

this obstacle, and the arrival of a great convoy of heavy cannon and

ammunition which was coming up from Ghent, the Allied generals received

the disheartening intelligence of the total defeat of this important

convoy, which, though guarded by sixteen hundred men, was attacked and

destroyed by a French corps on the 19th September. This loss affected

Marlborough the more sensibly, that it was the first disaster of moment

which had befallen him during nine years of incessant warfare.[16] But,

notwithstanding this disaster, St Venant was so severely pressed by the

fire of the besiegers, under the Prince of Anhalt, who conducted the

operations with uncommon vigour and ability, that it was compelled to

capitulate on the 29th, on condition of its garrison being conducted to

St Omer, not to serve again till regularly exchanged.

Aire still held out, as the loss of the convoy from Ghent, and the

dreadful rains which fell almost without intermission during the whole

of October, rendered the progress of the siege almost impossible. The

garrison, too, under the command of the brave governor, made a most

resolute defence. Sickness prevailed to a great extent in the Allied

army; the troops were for the most part up to the knees in mud and

water; and the rains, which fell night and day without intermission,

precluded the possibility of finding a dry place for their lodging. It

was absolutely necessary, however, to continue the siege; for,

independent of the credit of the army being staked on its success, it

had become impossible, as Marlborough himself said, to draw the cannon

from the trenches.[17] The perseverance of the Allied commanders was at

length rewarded by success. On the 12th November the fortress

capitulated, and the garrison, still three thousand six hundred and

twenty-eight strong, marched out prisoners, leaving sixteen hundred sick

and wounded in the town. This conquest, which concluded the campaign,

was, however, dearly purchased by the loss of nearly seven thousand men

killed and wounded in the Allied ranks, exclusive of the sick, who,

amidst those pestilential marshes, had now swelled to double the

number.[18]

Although the capture of four such important fortresses as Douay,

Bethune, St Venant, and Aire, with their garrisons, amounting to thirty

thousand men, who had been taken in them during the campaign, was a most

substantial advantage, and could not fail to have a most important

effect on the final issue of the war; yet it did not furnish the same

subject for national exultation which preceding ones had done. There had

been no brilliant victory like Blenheim, Ramilies, or Oudenarde, to

silence envy and defy malignity; the successes, though little less real,

had been not so dazzling. The intriguers about the court, the

malcontents in the country, eagerly seized on this circumstance to

calumniate the Duke, and accused him of unworthy motives in the conduct

of the war. He was protracting it for his own private purposes, reducing

it to a strife of lines and sieges, when he might at once terminate it

by a decisive battle, and gratifying his ruling passion of avarice by

the lucrative appointments which he enjoyed himself, or divided among

his friends. Nor was it only among the populace and his political

opponents that these surmises prevailed; his greatness and fame had

become an object of envy to his own party. Orford, Wharton, and Halifax

had on many occasions evinced their distrust of him; and even Somers,

who had long stood his friend, was inclined to think the power of the

Duke of Marlborough too great, and the emoluments and offices of his

family and connexions immoderate.[19] The Duchess inflamed the discord

between him and the Queen, by positively refusing to come to any

reconciliation with her rival, Mrs Masham. The discord increased daily,

and great were the efforts made to aggravate it. To the Queen, the

never-failing device was adopted of representing the victorious general

as lording it over the throne; as likely to eclipse even the crown by

the lustre of his fame; as too dangerous and powerful a subject for a

sovereign to tolerate. Matters came to such a pass, in the course of the

summer of 1710, that Marlborough found himself thwarted in every request

he made, every project he proposed; and he expressed his entire nullity

to the Duchess, by the emphatic expression, that he was a "mere sheet of

white paper, upon which his friends might write what they pleased."[20]

The spite at the Duke appeared in the difficulties which were now

started by the Lords of the Treasury in regard to the prosecution of the

works at Blenheim. This noble monument of a nation's gratitude had

hitherto proceeded rapidly; the stately design of Vanburgh was rapidly

approaching its completion, and so anxious had the Queen been to see it

finished, that she got a model of it placed in the royal palace of

Kensington. Now, however, petty and unworthy objections were started on

the score of expense, and attempts were made, by delaying payment of the

sums from the Treasury, to throw the cost of completing the building on

the great general. He had penetration enough, however, to avoid falling

into the snare, and actually suspended the progress of the work when the

Treasury warrants were withheld. He constantly directed that the

management of the building should be left to the Queen's officers; and,

by steadily adhering to this system, he shamed them into continuing the

work.[21]

Marlborough's name and influence, however, were too great to be entirely

neglected, and the party which was now rising into supremacy at court

were anxious, if possible, to secure them to their own side. They made,

accordingly, overtures in secret to him; and it was even insinuated

that, if he would abandon the Whigs, and coalesce with them, he would

entirely regain the royal favour, and might aspire to the highest

situation which a subject could hold. Lord Bolingbroke has told us what

the conditions of this alliance were to be:--"He was to abandon the

Whigs, his new friends, and take up with the Tories, his old friends; to

engage heartily in the true interests, and no longer leave his country

a prey to rapine and faction. He was, besides, required to restrain the

rage and fury of his wife. Their offers were coupled with threats of an

impeachment, and boasts that sufficient evidence could be adduced to

carry a prosecution through both Houses."[22] To terms so degrading, the

Duke answered in terms worthy of his high reputation. He declared his

resolution to be of no party, to vote according to his conscience, and

to be as hearty as his new colleagues in support of the Queen's

government and the welfare of the country. This manly reply increased

the repulsive feelings with which he was regarded by the ministry, who

seem now to have finally resolved on his ruin; while the intelligence

that such overtures had been made having got wind, sowed distrust

between him and the Whig leaders, which was never afterwards entirely

removed. But he honourably declared that he would be governed by the

Whigs, from whom he would never depart; and that they could not suspect

the purity of his motives in so doing, as they had now lost the majority

in the House of Commons.[23]

Parliament met on the 25th November; and Marlborough, in the end of the

year, returned to London. But he soon received decisive proof of the

altered temper both of government and the country towards him. In the

Queen's speech, no notice was taken of the late successes in Flanders,

no vote of thanks for his services in the campaign moved by ministers;

and they even contrived, by a sidewind, to get quit of one proposed, to

their no small embarrassment, by Lord Scarborough. The Duchess, too, was

threatened with removal from her situation at court; and Marlborough

avowed that he knew the Queen was "as desirous for her removal as Mr

Harley and Mr Masham can be." The violent temper and proud unbending

spirit of the Duchess were ill calculated to heal such a breach, which,

in the course of the winter, became so wide, that her removal from the

situation she held, as mistress of the robes, was only prevented by the

fear that, in the vehemence of her resentment, she might publish the

Queen's correspondence, and that the Duke, whose military services could

not yet be spared, might resign his command. Libels against both the

Duke and the Duchess daily appeared, and passed entirely unpunished,

though the freedom of the press was far from being established. Three

officers were dismissed from the army for drinking his health. When he

waited on the Queen, on his arrival in England, in the end of December,

she said--"I must request you will not suffer any vote of thanks to you

to be moved in Parliament this year, _as my ministers will certainly

oppose it_." Such was the return made by government to the hero who had

raised the power and glory of England to an unprecedented pitch, and in

that very campaign had cut deeper into the iron frontier of France than

had ever been done in any former one.[24]

The female coterie who aided at St James's the male opponents of

Marlborough, were naturally extremely solicitous to get the Duchess

removed from her situations as head of the Queen's household and keeper

of the privy purse; and ministers were only prevented from carrying

their wishes into effect by their apprehension, if executed, of the

Duke's resigning his command of the army. In an audience, on 17th

January 1711, Marlborough presented a letter to her Majesty from the

Duchess, couched in terms of extreme humility, in which she declared

that his anxiety was such, at the requital his services had received,

that she apprehended he would not live six months.[25] The Queen at

first refused to read it; and when at length, at the Duke's earnest

request, she agreed to do so, she coldly observed--"I cannot change my

resolution." Marlborough, in the most moving terms, and with touching

eloquence, intreated the Queen not to dismiss the Duchess till she had

no more need of her services, by the war being finished, which, he

hoped, would be in less than a year; but he received no other answer,

but a peremptory demand for the surrender of the gold key, the symbol of

her office, within three days. Unable to obtain any relaxation in his

sovereign's resolution, Marlborough withdrew with the deepest emotions

of indignation and sorrow. The Duchess, in a worthy spirit, immediately

took his resolution; she sent in her resignation, with the gold key,

that very night. So deeply was Marlborough hurt at this extraordinary

ingratitude for all his services, that he at first resolved to resign

his whole command, and retire altogether into private life. From this

intention he was only diverted, and that with great difficulty, by the

efforts of Godolphin and the Whigs at home, and Prince Eugene and the

Pensionary Heinsius abroad, who earnestly besought him not to abandon

the command, as that would at once dissolve the grand alliance, and ruin

the common cause. We can sympathise with the feelings of a victorious

warrior who felt reluctant to forego, by one hasty step, the fruit of

nine years of victories: we cannot but respect the self-sacrifice of the

patriot who preferred enduring mortifications himself, to endangering

the great cause of religious freedom and European independence.

Influenced by these considerations, Marlborough withheld his intended

resignation. The Duchess of Somerset was made mistress of the robes, and

Mrs Masham obtained the confidential situation of keeper of the privy

purse. Malignity, now sure of impunity, heaped up invectives on the

falling hero. His integrity was calumniated, his courage even

questioned, and the most consummate general of that, or perhaps any

other age, represented as the lowest of mankind.[26] It soon appeared

how unfounded had been the aspersions cast upon the Duchess, as well as

the Duke, for their conduct in office. Her accounts, after being rigidly

scrutinised, were returned to her without any objection being stated

against them; and Marlborough, anxious to quit that scene of ingratitude

and intrigue for the real theatre of his glory, soon after set out for

the army in Flanders.[27]

Marlborough arrived at the Hague on the 4th March; and, although no

longer possessing the confidence of government, or intrusted with any

control over diplomatic measures, he immediately set himself with the

utmost vigour to prepare for military operations. Great efforts had been

made by both parties, during the winter, for the resumption of

hostilities, on even a more extended scale than in any preceding

campaign. Marlborough found the army in the Low Countries extremely

efficient and powerful; diversions were promised on the side both of

Spain and Piedmont; and a treaty had been concluded with the Spanish

malcontents, in consequence of which a large part of the Imperial forces

were rendered disposable, which Prince Eugene was preparing to lead into

the Low Countries. But, in the midst of these flattering prospects, an

event occurred which suddenly deranged then all, postponed for above a

month the opening of the campaign, and, in its final result, changed the

fate of Europe. This was the death of the Emperor Joseph, of the

smallpox, which happened at Vienna on the 16th April--an event which was

immediately followed by Charles, King of Spain, declaring himself a

candidate for the Imperial throne. As his pretensions required to be

supported by a powerful demonstration of troops, the march of a large

part of Eugene's men to the Netherlands was immediately stopped, and

that prince himself was hastily recalled from Mentz, to take the command

of the empire at Ratisbon, as marshal. Charles was soon after elected

Emperor. Thus Marlborough was left to commence the campaign alone, which

was the more to be regretted, as the preparations of Louis, during the

winter, for the defence of his dominions had been made on the most

extensive scale, and Marshal Villars' lines had come to be regarded as

the _ne plus ultra_ of field fortification. Yet were Marlborough's

forces most formidable; for, when reviewed at Orchies on the 30th April,

between Lille and Douay, they were found, including Eugene's troops

which had come up, to amount to one hundred and eighty-four battalions,

and three hundred and sixty-four squadrons, mustering above one hundred

thousand combatants.[28] But forty-one battalions and forty squadrons

were in garrison, which reduced the effective force in the field to

eighty thousand men.

The great object of Louis and his generals had been to construct such a

line of defences as might prevent the irruption of the enemy into the

French territory, now that the interior and last line of fortresses was

so nearly broken through. In pursuance of this design, Villars had, with

the aid of all the most experienced engineers in France, and at a vast

expense of labour and money, constructed during the winter a series of

lines and field-works, exceeding any thing yet seen in modern Europe in

magnitude and strength, and to which the still more famous lines of

Torres Vedras have alone, in subsequent times, afforded a parallel. The

works extended from Namur on the Meuse, by a sort of irregular line, to

the coast of Picardy. Running first along the marshy line of the Canche,

they rested on the forts of Montreuil, Hesdin, and Trevant; while the

great fortresses of Ypres, Calais, Gravelines, and St Omer, lying in

their front, and still in the hands of the French, rendered any attempt

to approach them both difficult and hazardous. Along the whole of this

immense line, extending over so great a variety of ground, for above

forty miles, every effort had been made, by joining the resources of art

to the defences of nature, to render the position impregnable. The lines

were not continuous, as in many places the ground was so rugged, or the

obstacles of rocks, precipices, and ravines were so formidable, that it

was evidently impossible to overcome them. But whereever a passage was

practicable, the approaches to it were protected in the most formidable

manner. If a streamlet ran along the line, it was carefully dammed up,

so as to be rendered impassible. Every morass was deepened, by stopping

up its drains, or letting in the water of the larger rivers by

artificial canals into it; redoubts were placed on the heights, so as to

enfilade the plains between them; while in the open country, where no

advantage of ground was to be met with, field-works were erected, armed

with abundance of heavy cannon. To man these formidable lines, Villars

had under his command one hundred and fifty-six battalions, and two

hundred and twenty-seven squadrons in the field, containing seventy

thousand infantry, and twenty thousand horse. He had ninety field guns

and twelve howitzers. There was, besides, thirty-five battalions and

eighty squadrons detached or in the forts; and, as Eugene soon took away

twelve battalions and fifty squadrons from the Allied army, the forces

on the opposite side, when they came to blows, were very nearly

equal.[29]

Marlborough took the field on the 1st May, with eighty thousand men;

and his whole force was soon grouped in and around Douay. The

headquarters of Villars were at Cambray; but, seeing the forces of his

adversary thus accumulated in one point, he made a corresponding

concentration, and arranged his whole disposable forces between Bouchain

on the right, and Monchy Le Preux on the left. This position of the

French marshal, which extended in a concave semicircle with the

fortresses, covering either flank, he considered, and with reason, as

beyond the reach of attack. The English general was meditating a great

enterprise, which should at once deprive the enemy of all his defences,

and reduce him to the necessity of fighting a decisive battle, or losing

his last frontier fortresses. But he was overwhelmed with gloomy

anticipations; he felt his strength sinking under his incessant and

protracted fatigues, and knew well he was serving a party who, envious

of his fame, were ready only to decry his achievements.[30] He lay,

accordingly, for three weeks awaiting the arrival of his illustrious

colleague, Prince Eugene, who joined on the 23d May, and took part in a

great celebration of the anniversary of the victory at Ramilies, which

had taken place on that day. The plans of the Allied generals were soon

formed; and, taking advantage of the enthusiasm excited by that

commemoration, and the arrival of so illustrious a warrior, preparations

were made for the immediate commencement of active operations. On the

28th, the two generals reviewed the whole army. But their designs were

soon interrupted by an event which changed the whole fortune of the

campaign. Early in June, Eugene received positive orders to march to

Germany, with a considerable part of his troops, to oppose a French

force, which was moving towards the Rhine, to influence the approaching

election of Emperor. On the 13th June, Eugene and Marlborough separated,

for _the last time_, with the deepest expressions of regret on both

sides, and gloomy forebodings of the future. The former marched towards

the Rhine with twelve battalions and fifty squadrons, while

Marlborough's whole remaining force marched to the right in six

divisions.[31]

Though Villars was relieved by the departure of Eugene from a

considerable part of the force opposed to him, and he naturally felt

desirous of now measuring his strength with his great antagonist in a

decisive affair, yet he was restrained from hazarding a general

engagement. Louis, trusting to the progress of the Tory intrigues in

England, and daily expecting to see Marlborough and the war-party

overthrown, sent him positive orders not to fight; and soon after

detached twenty-five battalions and forty squadrons, in two divisions,

to the Upper Rhine, to watch the movements of Eugene. Villars encouraged

this separation, representing that the strength of his position was

such, that he could afford to send a third detachment to the Upper

Rhine, if it was thought proper. Marlborough, therefore, in vain offered

battle, and drew up his army in the plain of Lens for that purpose.

Villars cautiously remained on the defensive; and, though he threw

eighteen bridges over the Scarpe, and made a show of intending to fight,

he cautiously abstained from any steps which might bring on a general

battle.[32] It was not without good reason that Louis thus enjoined his

lieutenant to avoid compromising his army. The progress of the

negotiations with England gave him the fairest ground for believing that

he would obtain nearly all he desired from the favour with which he was

regarded by the British cabinet without running any risk. He had

commenced a _separate_ negotiation with the court of St James's, which

had been favourably received; and Mr Secretary St John had already

transmitted to Lord Raby, the new plenipotentiary at the Hague, a sketch

of six preliminary articles proposed by the French king, which were to

be the basis of a general peace.[33]

The high tone of these proposals proved how largely Louis counted upon

the altered dispositions of the British cabinet. The Spanish succession,

the real object of the war, was evaded. Every thing was directed to

British objects, and influenced by the desire to tempt the commercial

cupidity of England to the abandonment of the great objects of her

national policy. Real security was tendered to the British commerce with

Spain, the Indus, and the Mediterranean; the barrier the Dutch had so

long contended for was agreed to; a reasonable satisfaction was tendered

to the allies of England and Holland; and, as to the Spanish succession,

it was to be left to "new expedients, to the satisfaction of all parties

interested." These proposals were favourably received by the British

ministry; they were in secret communicated to the Pensionary Heinsius,

but concealed from the Austrian and Piedmontese plenipotentiaries; and

they were _not communicated to Marlborough_--a decisive proof both of

the altered feeling of the cabinet towards that general, and of the

consciousness on their part of the tortuous path on which they were now

entering.[34]

After much deliberation, and a due consideration of what could be

effected by the diminished force now at his disposal, which, by the

successive drafts to Eugene's army, was now reduced to one hundred and

nineteen battalions, and two hundred and fifty-six squadrons, not

mustering above seventy-five thousand combatants, Marlborough determined

to break through the enemies' boasted lines; and, after doing so,

undertake the siege of Bouchain, the possession of which would give him

a solid footing within the French frontier. With this view, he had long

and minutely studied the lines of Villars; and he hoped that, even with

the force at his disposal, they might be broken through. To accomplish

this, however, required an extraordinary combination of stratagem and

force; and the manner in which Marlborough contrived to unite them, and

bring the ardent mind and lively imagination of his adversary to play

into his hands, to the defeat of all the objects he had most at heart,

is perhaps the most wonderful part of his whole military

achievements.[35]

During his encampment at Lewarde, opposite Villars, the English general

had observed that a triangular piece of ground in front of the French

position, between Cambray, Aubanchocil-au-bac, and the junction of the

Sauzet and Scheldt, offered a position so strong, that a small body of

men might defend it against a very considerable force. He resolved to

make the occupation of this inconsiderable piece of ground the pivot on

which the whole passage of the lines should be effected. A redoubt at

Aubigny, which commanded the approach to it, was first carried without

difficulty. Arleux, which also was fortified, was next attacked by seven

hundred men, who issued from Douay in the night. That post also was

taken, with one hundred and twenty prisoners. Marlborough instantly used

all imaginable expedition in strengthening it; and Villars, jealous of a

fortified post so close to his lines remaining in the hands of the

Allies, attacked it in the night of the 9th July; and, though he failed

in retaking the work, he surprised the Allies at that point, and made

two hundred men and four hundred horses prisoners. Though much chagrined

at the success of this nocturnal attack, the English general now saw

his designs advancing to maturity. He therefore left Arleux to its own

resources, and marched towards Bethune. That fort was immediately

attacked by Marshal Montesquieu, and, after a stout resistance, carried

by the French, who made the garrison, five hundred strong, prisoners.

Villars immediately razed Arleux to the ground, and withdrew his troops;

while Marlborough, who was in hopes the lure of these successes would

induce Villars to hazard a general engagement, shut himself up in his

tent, and appeared to be overwhelmed with mortification at the checks he

had received.[36]

Villars was so much elated with these successes, and the accounts he

received of Marlborough's mortification, that he wrote to the king of

France a vain-glorious letter, in which he boasted that he had at length

brought his antagonist to a _ne plus ultra_. Meanwhile, Marlborough sent

off his heavy baggage to Douay; sent his artillery under a proper guard

to the rear; and, with all imaginable secresy, baked bread for the whole

troops for six days, which was privately brought up. Thus disencumbered

and prepared, he broke up at four in the morning on the 1st of August,

and marched in eight columns towards the front. During the three

following days, the troops continued concentrated, and menacing

sometimes one part of the French lines and sometimes another, so as to

leave the real point of attack in a state of uncertainty. Seriously

alarmed, Villars concentrated his whole force opposite the Allies, and

drew in all his detachments, evacuating even Aubigny and Arleux, the

object of so much eager contention some days before. On the evening of

the 4th, Marlborough, affecting great chagrin at the check he had

received, spoke openly to those around him of his intention of avenging

them by a general action, and pointed to the direction the attacking

columns were to take. He then returned to the camp, and gave orders to

prepare for battle. Gloom hung on every countenance of those around him;

it appeared nothing short of an act of madness to attack an enemy

superior in number, and strongly posted in a camp surrounded with

entrenchments, and bristling with cannon. They ascribed it to

desperation, produced by the mortifications received from the

government, and feared that, by one rash act, he would lose the fruit of

all his victories. Proportionally great was the joy in the French camp,

when the men, never doubting they were on the eve of a glorious victory,

spent the night in the exultation which, in that excitable people, has

so often been the prelude to disaster.[37]

Having brought the feeling of both armies to this point, and produced a

concentration of Villars's army directly in his front, Marlborough, at

dusk on the 4th, ordered the drums to beat; and before the roll had

ceased, orders were given for the tents to be struck. Meanwhile Cadogan

secretly left the camp, and met twenty-three battalions and seventeen

squadrons, drawn from the garrisons of Lille and Tournay, which

instantly marched; and continuing to advance all night, passed the lines

rapidly to the left, without opposition at Arleux, at break of day. A

little before nine, the Allied main army began to defile rapidly to the

left, through the woods of Villers and Neuville--Marlborough himself

leading the van, at the head of fifty squadrons. With such expedition

did they march, still holding steadily on to the left, that before five

in the morning of the 5th they reached Vitry on the Scarpe, where they

found pontoons ready for their passage, and a considerable train of

field artillery. At the same time, the English general here received the

welcome intelligence of Cadogan's success. He instantly dispatched

orders to every man and horse to press forward without delay. Such was

the ardour of the troops, who all saw the brilliant manoeuvre by which

they had outwitted the enemy, and rendered all their labour abortive,

that they marched _sixteen hours_ without once halting; and by ten next

morning, the whole had passed the enemies' lines without opposition, and

without firing a shot! Villars received intelligence of the night-march

having begun at eleven at night; but so utterly was he in the dark as to

the plan his opponent was pursuing, that he came up to Verger, when

Marlborough had drawn up his army on the _inner_ side of the lines in

order of battle, attended only by a hundred dragoons, and narrowly

escaped being made prisoner. Altogether, the Allied troops marched

thirty-six miles in sixteen hours, the most part of them in the dark,

and crossed several rivers, without either falling into confusion or

sustaining any loss. The annals of war scarcely afford an example of

such a success being gained in so bloodless a manner. The famous French

lines, which Villars boasted would form the _ne plus ultra_ of

Marlborough, had been passed without losing a man; the labour of nine

months was at once rendered of no avail, and the French army, in deep

dejection, had no alternative but to retire under the cannon of

Cambray.[38]

This great success at once restored the lustre of Marlborough's

reputation, and, for a short season, put to silence his detractors.

Eugene, with the generosity which formed so striking a feature in his

character, wrote to congratulate him on his achievement;[39] and even

Bolingbroke admitted that this bloodless triumph rivalled his greatest

achievements.[40] Marlborough immediately commenced the siege of

Bouchain; but this was an enterprise of no small difficulty, as it was

to be accomplished on very difficult ground, in presence of an army

superior in force. The investment was formed on the very day after the

lines had been passed, and an important piece of ground occupied, which

might have enabled Villars to communicate with the town, and regain a

defensible position. On the morning of the 8th August, a bridge was

thrown over the Scheldt at Neuville, and sixty squadrons passed over,

which barred the road from Douay. Villars upon this threw thirty

battalions across the Seuzet, and made himself master of a hill above,

on which he began to erect works, which would have kept open his

communications with the town on its southern front. Marlborough saw at

once this design, and at first determined to storm the works ere they

were completed; and, with this view, General Fagel, with a strong body

of troops, was secretly passed over the river. But Villars, having heard

of the design, attacked the Allied posts at Ivry with such vigour, that

Marlborough was obliged to counter-march in haste, to be at hand to

support them. Baffled in this attempt, Marlborough erected a chain of

works on the right bank of the Scheldt, from Houdain, through Ivry, to

the Sette, near Haspres, while Cadogan strengthened himself with similar

works on the left. Villars, however, still retained the fortified

position which has been mentioned, and which kept up his communication

with the town; and the intercepting this was another, and the last, of

Marlborough's brilliant field operations.[41]

Notwithstanding all the diligence with which Villars laboured to

strengthen his men on this important position, he could not equal the

activity with which the English general strove to supplant them. During

the night of the 13th, three redoubts were marked out, which would have

completed the French marshal's communication with the town. But on the

morning of the 14th they were all stormed by a large body of the Allied

troops before the works could be armed. That very day the Allies carried

their zig-zag down to the very edge of a morass which adjoined Bouchain

on the south, so as to command a causeway from that town to Cambray,

which the French still held, communicating with the besieged town. But,

to complete the investment, it was necessary to win this causeway; and

this last object was gained by Marlborough with equal daring and

success. A battery, commanding the road, had been placed by Villars in a

redoubt garrisoned by six hundred men, supported by three thousand more

close in their rear. Marlborough, with incredible labour and diligence,

constructed two roads, made of fascines, through part of the marsh, so

as to render it passable to foot-soldiers; and, on the night of the

16th, six hundred chosen grenadiers were sent across them to attack the

intrenched battery. They rapidly advanced in the dark till the fascine

path ended, and then boldly plunging into the marsh, struggled on, with

the water often up to their arm-pits, till they reached the foot of the

intrenchment, into which they rushed, without firing a shot, with fixed

bayonets. So complete was the surprise, that the enemy were driven from

their guns with the loss only of six men; the work carried; and with

such diligence were its defences strengthened, that before morning it

was in a condition to bid defiance to any attack.[42]

Villars was now effectually cut off from Bouchain, and the operations of

the siege were conducted with the utmost vigour. On the night of the

21st, the trenches were opened; three separate attacks were pushed at

the same time against the eastern, western, and southern faces of the

town, and a huge train of heavy guns and mortars thundered upon the

works without intermission. The progress of the siege, notwithstanding a

vigorous defence by the besieged, was unusually rapid. As fast as the

outworks were breached they were stormed; and repeated attempts on the

part of Villars to raise the siege were baffled by the skilful

disposition and strong ground taken by Marlborough with the covering

army. At length, on the 12th September, as the counterscarp was blown

down, the rampart breached, and an assault of the fortress in

preparation, the governor agreed to capitulate; and the garrison, still

three thousand strong, marched out upon the glacis, laid down their

arms, and were conducted prisoners to Tournay.[43] The two armies then

remained in their respective positions, the French under the cannon of

Cambray, the Allied in the middle of their lines, resting on Bouchain;

and Marlborough gave proof of the courtesy of his disposition, as well

as his respect for exalted learning and piety, by planting a detachment

of his troops to protect the estates of Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray,

and conduct the grain from thence to the dwelling of the illustrious

prelate in that town, which began now to be straitened for

provisions.[44]