, and was supported by a powerful English squadron, which, as
Eugene's army advanced into Provence by the Col di Tende, kept the
sea-coast in a constant state of alarm. No resistance, as Marlborough
had predicted, was attempted; and the Allies, almost without firing a
shot, arrived at the heights of Vilate, in the neighbourhood of Toulon,
on the 27th July. Had Eugene been aware of the real condition of the
defences, and the insubordination which prevailed in the garrison, he
might, without difficulty, have made himself master of this important
fortress. But from ignorance of these propitious circumstances, he
deemed it necessary to commence operations against it in form; and the
time occupied in the necessary preparations for a siege proved fatal to
the enterprise. The French made extraordinary efforts to bring troops to
the menaced point; and, amongst other reinforcements, thirteen
battalions and nine squadrons were detached from Vendome's army in the
Netherlands. No sooner did Marlborough hear of this detachment, than he
concentrated his forces, and made a forward movement to bring Vendome to
battle, to which the Dutch deputies had at length consented; but that
general, after some skilful marches and countermarches, retired to an
intrenched camp under the guns of Lille, of such strength as to bid
defiance to every attack for the remainder of the campaign. Meanwhile
the troops, converging towards Toulon, having formed a respectable array
in his rear, Eugene was under the necessity of raising the siege, and he
retired, as he had entered the country, by the Col di Tende, having
first embarked his heavy artillery and stores on board the English
fleet. But though the expedition thus failed in its ostensible object,
it fully succeeded in its real one, which was to effect a diversion in
the south of France, and relieve the pressure on the Spanish peninsula,
by giving the armies of Louis employment in the defence of their own
territory.

Marlborough led his army into winter quarters in the end of October, and
Vendome did the same; the weather being so thoroughly broken as to
render it impossible to keep the field. He repaired first to Frankfort,
where he met the Elector of Hanover, and then to the Hague, where he
exerted himself to inspire a better feeling in the Dutch government, and
to get Eugene appointed to the supreme command in Spain: a project which
afforded the only feasible prospect of retrieving affairs in the
Penin