e, and to scatter everywhere, in country, towns, and private houses,
the gentle influences of abundance and peace, which follow in his train."
To secure the gentle influences of peace, Louis XIV. had collected an
army of fifty thousand men, carefully armed and equipped under the
supervision of Turenne, to whom Louvois as yet rendered docile obedience.
There was none too much of this fine army for recovering the queen's
rights over the duchy of Brabant, the marquisate of Antwerp, Limburg,
Hainault, the countship of Namur, and other territories. "Heaven not
having ordained any tribunal on earth at which the Kings of France can
demand justice, the Most Christian King has only his own arms to look to
for it," said the manifesto. Louis XIV. set out with M. de Turenne.
Marshal Crequi had orders to observe Germany.

The Spaniards were taken unprepared: Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, and
Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost without
striking a blow. Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray,
Louis XIV. returned to Compiegne to fetch the queen. The whole court
followed him to the camp. "All that you have read about--the
magnificence of Solomon and the grandeur of the King of Persia, is not to
be compared with the pomp that attends the king in his expedition," says
a letter to Bussy-Rabutin from the Count of Coligny. "You see passing
along the streets nothing but plumes, gold-laced uniforms, chariots,
mules superbly harnessed, parade-horses, housings with embroidery of fine
gold." "I took the queen to Flanders," says Louis XIV., "to show her to
the peoples of that country, who received her, in point of fact, with all
the delight imaginable, testifying their sorrow at not having had more
time to make preparations for receiving her more befittingly." The
queen's quarters were at Courtrai. Marshal Turenne had moved on
Dendermonde, but the Flemings had opened their sluices; the country was
inundated; it was necessary to fall back on Audenarde; the town was taken
in two days; and the king, still attended by the court, laid siege to
Lille. Vauban, already celebrated as an engineer, traced out the lines
of circumvallation; the army of M. de Crequi formed a junction with that
of Turenne; there was expectation of an attempt on the part of the
governor of the Low Countries to relieve the place; the Spanish force
sent for that purpose arrived too late, and was beaten on its retreat;
the burgesses of