ast the attention of our ministers was awakened. They
found, with her, that it was the duty of the King not to allow this
morsel to be carried off from his subjects; and that there was danger in
leaving it in the hands of such a powerful Protestant prince, capable of
making a fortified place of it so close to the county of Burgundy, and on
a frontier so little protected. Thereupon, the King despatched a courier
to our minister in Switzerland, with orders to go to Neufchatel, and
employ every means, even menaces, to exclude the Elector, and to promise
that the neutrality of France should be maintained if one of her subjects
was selected, no matter which one. It was too late. The affair was
finished; the cantons were engaged, without means of withdrawing. They,
moreover, were piqued into resistance, by an appeal to their honour by
the electoral minister, who insisted on the menaces of Puysieux, our
representative, to whose memoir the ministers of England and Holland
printed a violent reply. The provisional judgment received no
alteration. Shame was felt; and resentment was testified during six
weeks; after which, for lack of being able to do better, this resentment
was appeased of itself. It may be imagined what hope remained to the
claimants of reversing at the peace this provisional judgment, and of
struggling against a prince so powerful and so solidly supported. No
mention of it was afterwards made, and Neufchatel has remained ever since
fully and peaceably to this prince, who was even expressly confirmed in
his possession at the peace by France.

The armies assembled this year towards the end of May, and the campaign
commenced. The Duc de Vendome was in command in Flanders, under the
Elector of Bavaria, and by his slothfulness and inattention, allowed
Marlborough to steal a march upon him, which, but for the failure of some
of the arrangements, might have caused serious loss to our troops. The
enemy was content to keep simply on the defensive after this, having
projects of attack in hand elsewhere to which I shall soon allude.

On the Rhine, the Marechal de Villars was in command, and was opposed by
the Marquis of Bayreuth, and afterwards by the Duke of Hanover, since
King of England. Villars was so far successful, that finding himself
feebly opposed by the Imperials, he penetrated into Germany, after having
made himself master of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and all the Palatinate, and
seized upon a number of c