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Updated: May 10, 2025
I saw several persons in the streets who saluted me with an air of familiarity but I did not know one of them. The same evening I changed my route to pass Villeroy. At Lyons the couriers were conducted to the commandant. This might have been embarrassing to a man unwilling either to lie or change his name.
It was on this subject," continued the ambassador, "that Monsieur de Villeroy wished a secret interview with me, pledging himself if your Majesty would deign to unite yourself with this King, and to aid him with your forces to a successful result."
"He was at Winchester when the young countess arrived, and I rode over to him to tell him that I had news that it was not probable that Villeroy would be attacked. It was then that his Majesty informed me that the Earl of Dorset with a large body of nobles would ere long cross the Channel for the purpose that I have named, and begged me to ride with them.
Villeroy repeated that the contingent to be sent was furnished out of pure love to the Netherlands, the present government being in no wise bound by the late king's promises.
On the extreme left of the line of the war, in the Netherlands, the French armies were to act only on the defensive. Large detachments were, therefore, to be made from the French force in Flanders, and they were to be led by Marshal Villeroy to the Moselle and Upper Rhine.
By this codicil the King submitted all the civil and military household of the young King to the Duc du Maine, and under his orders to Marechal de Villeroy, who, by this disposition became the sole masters of the person and the dwelling place of the King, and of Paris, by the troops placed in their hands; so that the Regent had not the slightest shadow of authority and was at their mercy; certainly liable to be arrested or worse, any time it should please M. du Maine.
Marshal Villeroy opposed Marlborough in the Netherlands. But Marlborough conceived the bold project of marching his troops to the banks of the Danube, and there uniting with the Imperialists under Prince Eugene, to cut off the forces of the enemy before they could unite.
Of the triumvirate then constituting his council, Villeroy, Sillery, and Sully, the two first were ancient Leaguers, and more devoted at heart to Philip of Spain than to Henry of France and Navarre.
The man who had been able to make himself agreeable and useful, while preserving his integrity, to characters so dissimilar as the refining, self-torturing, intellectual Duplessis-Mornay, the rude, aggressive, and straightforward Sully, the deep-revolving, restlessly plotting Bouillon, and the smooth, silent, and tortuous Villeroy men between whom there was no friendship, but, on the contrary, constant rancour had material in him to render valuable services at this particular epoch.
The King was so wearied, so fatigued, with learning, with rehearsing, and with dancing this ballet, that he took an aversion for these fetes and for everything offering display, which has never quitted him since, and which does not fail to leave a void in the Court; so that this ballet ceased sooner than was intended, and the Marechal de Villeroy never dared to propose another.
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