anged ministers every day. Each new attempt but revealed a new
weakness. France could not sustain war and could not obtain peace.
Vainly she offered to abandon Spain, and limit her frontier. This was
not sufficient humiliation. They exacted that the king should allow the
hostile armies to cross France, in order to chase his grandson from the
throne of Spain; and also that he should give up, as pledges, Cambray,
Mettray, La Rochelle, and Bayonne, unless he preferred dethroning him
himself, by open force, during the following year.

These were the conditions on which a truce was granted to the conqueror
of the plains of Senef, Fleurus, of Steerekirk, and of La Marsalle; to
him who had hitherto held in the folds of his royal mantle peace and
war; to him who called himself the distributer of crowns, the chastiser
of nations, the great, the immortal; to him in whose honor, during the
last half century, marbles had been sculptured, bronzes cast, sonnets
written, and incense poured.

Louis XIV. had wept in the full council. These tears had produced an
army, which was intrusted to Villars.

Villars marched straight to the enemy, whose camp was at Denain, and who
slept in security while watching the agony of France. Never had greater
responsibility rested on one head. On one blow of Villars hung the
salvation of France. The allies had established a line of
fortifications between Denain and Marchiennes, which, in their pride of
anticipation, Albemarle and Eugene called the grand route to Paris.

Villars resolved to take Denain by surprise, and, Albemarle conquered,
to conquer Eugene. In order to succeed in this audacious enterprise, it
was necessary to deceive, not only the enemy's army, but also his own,
the success of this coup de main being in its impossibility.

Villars proclaimed aloud his intention of forcing the lines of
Landrecies. One night, at an appointed hour, the whole army moves off in
the direction of that town. All at once the order is given to bear to
the left. His genius throws three bridges over the Scheldt. Villars
passes over the river without obstacle, throws himself into the marshes
considered impracticable, and where the soldier advances with the water
up to his waist; marches straight to the first redoubts; takes them
almost without striking a blow; seizes successively a league of
fortifications; reaches Denain; crosses the fosse which surrounds it,
penetrates into the town, and on arriving at the pla