remained in this uncertainty as to the real losses that had been
sustained. Everybody was afraid to write bad news; all the letters which
from time to time arrived, gave, therefore, but an unsatisfactory account
of what had taken place. The King used every means in his power to
obtain some news. Every post that came in was examined by him, but there
was little found to satisfy him. Neither the King nor anybody else could
understand, from what had reached them, how it was that an entire army
had been placed inside a village, and had surrendered itself by a signed
capitulation. It puzzled every brain. At last the details, that had
oozed out little by little, augmented to a perfect stream, by the,
arrival of one of our officers, who, taken prisoner, had been allowed by
the Duke of Marlborough to go to Paris to relate to the King the
misfortune that had happened to him.

We were not accustomed to misfortunes. This one, very reasonably, was
utterly unexpected. It seemed in every way the result of bad
generalship, of an unjustifiable disposition of troops, and of a series
of gross and incredible errors. The commotion was general. There was
scarcely an illustrious family that had not had one of its members
killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Other families were in the same
case. The public sorrow and indignation burst out without restraint.
Nobody who had taken part in this humiliation was spared; the generals
and the private soldiers alike came in for blame. Denonville was
ignominiously broken for the speech he had made at Blenheim. The
generals, however, were entirely let off. All the punishment fell upon
certain regiments, which were broken, and upon certain unimportant
officers--the guilty and innocent mixed together. The outcry was
universal. The grief of the King at this ignominy and this loss, at the
moment when he imagined that the fate of the Emperor was in his hands,
may be imagined. At a time when he might have counted upon striking a
decisive blow, he saw himself reduced to act simply on the defensive, in
order to preserve his troops; and had to repair the loss of an entire
army, killed or taken prisoners. The sequel showed not less that the
hand of God was weighty upon us. All judgment was lost. We trembled
even in the midst of Alsace.

In the midst of all this public sorrow, the rejoicing and the fetes for
the birth of the Duc de Bretagne son of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne,
were not disc