promised
to carry out all that was proposed. He sent for Boufflers, who had
returned from Lille, and having, as I have said, recompensed him for his
brave defence of that place with a peerage and other marks of favour,
despatched him privately into Flanders to make preparations for the
siege. The abandonment of Ghent by our troop, after a short and
miserable defence, made him more than ever anxious to carry out this
scheme.

But the King had been so unused to keep a secret from Madame de
Maintenon, that he felt himself constrained in attempting to do so now.
He confided to her, therefore, the admirable plan of Chamillart. She had
the address to hide her surprise, and the strength to dissimulate
perfectly her vexation; she praised the project; she appeared charmed
with it; she entered into the details; she spoke of them to Chamillart;
admired his zeal, his labour, his diligence, and, above all, his ability,
in having conceived and rendered possible so fine and grand a project.

From that moment, however, she forgot nothing in order to ensure its
failure. The first sight of it had made her tremble. To be separated
from the King during a long siege; to abandon him to a minister to whom
he would be grateful for all the success of that siege; a minister, too,
who, although her creature, had dared to submit this project to the King
without informing her; who, moreover, had recently offended her by
marrying his son into a family she considered inimical to her, and by
supporting M. de Vendome against Monseigneur de Bourgogne! These were
considerations that determined her to bring about the failure of
Chamillart's project and the disgrace of Chamillart himself.

She employed her art so well, that after a time the project upon Lille
did not appear so easy to the King as at first. Soon after, it seemed
difficult; then too hazardous and ruinous; so that at last it was
abandoned, and Boufflers had orders to cease his preparations and return
to France! She succeeded thus in an affair she considered the most
important she had undertaken during all her life. Chamillart was much
touched, but little surprised: As soon as he knew his secret had been
confided to Madame de Maintenon he had feeble hope for it. Now he began
to fear for himself.

CHAPTER XLIV.

One of the reasons Madame de Maintenon had brought forward, which much
assisted her in opposing the siege of Lille, was the excessive cold of
this winter. The win