214

HISTORT OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

X X.

1693 .

his intention to return instantly to Versailles, and to send theDauphin and Boufflers, with part of the army which wasassembled near Namur, to join Marshal Lorges who com-manded in the Palatinate. Luxemburg was thunderstruck. Heexpostulated boldly and earnestly. Never, he said, xvas suchan opportunity thrown away. If His Majesty would marchagainst the Prince of Orange, victory was almost certain.Could any advantage which it xvas possible to obtain on theIthine be set against the advantage of a victory gained in theheart of Brabant ox r er the principal army and the principalcaptain of the coalition? The Marshal reasoned: he implored:he w r ent on his knees; but in vain; and he quitted the royalpresence in the deepest dejection. Lewis left the camp a weekafter he had joined it, and never afterwards made war inperson. '

The astonishment was great throughout his army. All theawe which he inspired could not prevent his old generals fromgrumbling and looking sullen, his young nobles from ventingtheir spleen, sometimes in curses and sometimes in sarcasms,and even his common soldiers from holding irreverent languageround their watchfires. His enemies rejoiced with vindictiveand insulting joy. Was it not strange, they asked, that thisgreat prince should have gone in state to the theatre of war,and then in a week have gone in the same state back again?Was it necessary that all that vast retinue, princesses, damesof honour and tirewomen, equerries and gentlemen of the bed-chamber, cooks, confectioners and musicians, long trains ofwaggons, droves of led horses and sumpter mules, piles ofplate, bales of tapestry, should travel four hundred milesmerely in order that the Most Christian King might look at his

May. Saint Simon says: “On a su depuis'que le Prince d'Orange 6crivitplusieurs fois au prince dc Vaudmont, son ami intimc, qu’il dtait perdu etqu’il n’y avait que par un miracle qu’il pilt 6chapper."