As De Torcy could not bring the Dutch Ministers to concede anything, he consented to meet Prince Eugene and Marlborough, who had now returned from England with Lord Townshend. To these was added Count Zinzendorf, as Minister for the Emperor. The French Minister, assisted by Bouillé, though he was treating in a condition of the deepest anxiety, yet maintained all the high pretensions which his Court had so long assumed. He offered the surrender of Spain, but he would give no guarantee for its evacuation. He contended that the word of his king was enough—-as if the word of any king could be accepted in such a case, and especially of Louis, who had broken his a thousand times. He pleaded that the king's great age, his earnest desire for peace and repose in his declining years, and the situation of his affairs, were of themselves ample guarantees for the fulfilment of that Article of the treaty; and he even melted into tears in his earnestness to bring the ambassadors to accept the word of the Grand Monarque. This was all mere child's play in a treaty which was to be the result of such a war, and to establish the future peace of Europe. As time was going on, the representatives of the Allies, at the end of May, presented their ultimatum, in forty Articles, the chief of which were these:—That Philip should within two months totally evacuate Spain and Sicily, which with the Indies were to be made over to Charles; that if Philip refused to evacuate Spain and Sicily, the King of France, so far from helping him, should assist the Allies to expel him; that Spain should never, nor any part of it, be united to the crown of France; that the Dutch should receive, as a barrier to their States, Furnes, Fort Kenoq, Menin, Saverge, Ypres, Warneton, Comines, Vervick, Lille, Condé, Tournay, and Maubeuge; that the French should deliver up all the towns, cities, and fortresses which they had taken in the Netherlands; that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed and never again be restored; that the Pretender should quit France; that the Queen of England's title and that of the Protestant succession should be acknowledged; that the interests of the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne should be settled by the congress which should settle this peace; and that the Duke of Savoy should receive back everything taken from him, and should also retain Exilles, Feneshelles, Chaumont, and the valley of Pragelas. Strasburg and Kehl were to be given up by Louis, but Alsace itself retained. The new King of Prussia and the new Elector of Hanover should both be acknowledged, and all these preliminaries should be adopted and the treaty completed within two months.
De Torcy, who could not expect for a moment that Louis would consent to any such terms, to gain time, however, engaged to send them to Versailles. He set off for Paris, but at Douay he saw Marshal Villars, showed him the conditions of peace, and told him to put his army in order, for they would never be accepted. Villars replied that he should be prepared, but that the army was on the point of utter starvation, and such was the destitution of the country that he had no conception how the troops were to exist. No sooner did De Torcy reach Paris than it was announced to the Allies that Louis would never accept such terms. Bouillé was recalled, and was commissioned by the Allies to assure the king that no others would be offered; and that, if they were not accepted by the 15th of June, they should take the field. But the French king had gained one great object by the negotiation—it enabled him to represent to his subjects his earnest efforts for peace, and the arrogant obstinacy of the Allies. He had letters circulated all over France representing the anxious endeavours he had made to put an end to bloodshed and to the miseries of Europe; that he had offered to make unheard-of sacrifices, but to no purpose; everything had been rejected by the Allies but a fresh carnage and spoliation. He represented that the more he had conceded, the more they had risen in their demands; that he found it impossible to satisfy their inordinate demands, except at the cost of the ruin and the eternal infamy of France.
The effect of this representation was wonderful. The whole of France was so roused by indignation at the supposed treatment of their king, the insolent rejection of his peaceful desires, that they execrated the selfish arrogance of the Allies, for Louis had insinuated that they were carrying on the war only for their own personal interests. The kingdom, impoverished and reduced as it was, determined to support the ill-used monarch with the last remnant of its substance; and such exertions were made for the continued struggle as astonished the world. Nor was the effect of Louis's representations lost on Marlborough's enemies in England. They declaimed on the unreasonableness of the Allies almost as loudly as the French, and they particularly denounced the demand that Louis should help to dethrone and expatriate his own grandson, as the most astounding piece of assumption that had ever been heard of.
On the 21st of June Marlborough and Prince Eugene crossed the frontiers of France, and with a force of one hundred and ten thousand men drew up in a plain near Lille. Marshal Villars, considered now the ablest general of France, encamped his army on the plain of Sens, between two impassable morasses, and began to entrench himself. The Allies reconnoitred his position, but found it too strong to attack him in it; and as they could not advance towards Paris, leaving such an enemy behind them, they made a feint of attacking Ypres; and then, suddenly marching on Tournay in the night of the 27th of June, they presented themselves before it on the 7th of July. The place was strong, but the garrison was weak. It consisted of only twelve battalions of infantry and four squadrons of horse, in very inefficient condition. Villars endeavoured to throw into the place seven thousand fresh troops, but he could not effect it. The governor, Lieutenant de Surville, was a man of great military skill and determination, and he maintained the siege with such vigour that the Allies were not only detained before the place for a long and invaluable time, but lost many men. The town capitulated on the 28th of July, when the Allies were about to carry it by storm, but the citadel held out till the 3rd of September. The same day, leaving a detachment under the Earl of Albemarle to level the defences, the Allies crossed the Scheldt and determined to besiege Mons. They sent forward a detachment under the Prince of Hesse to attack the French lines from the Haine to the Sambre, which were abandoned at his approach. At this juncture Marshal Boufflers arrived to support Villars, and, though his superior in command, agreed to serve under him. Marlborough, hearing that Villars had quitted his camp, and that the French were on the march to attack the Prince of Hesse and cut off the approaches to Mons, made a rapid movement, which brought him face to face with the French army, which consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand men—ten thousand more than the army of the Allies. Villars and Boufflers were encamped behind the woods of Lanière and Tasnière, in the neighbourhood of Malplaquet. The Allies encamped with their right near Sart and Bleron, and the left on the edge of the wood of Lanière, the headquarters being at Blaregines. On the 9th of September the outposts of the two armies began to skirmish; but the French fell back on an encampment near Malplaquet, and spent the night in fortifying their position. Had the Allies immediately attacked them the battle would have been less obstinate; but Marlborough was waiting for the coming up of eighteen battalions, left to rase the fortifications of Tournay. For the two days that he thus continued to wait, the French, with unremitting activity, proceeded to cast up triple entrenchments; and were, in fact, so completely covered with lines, hedges, entrenchments, cannon, and trees laid across, that the Dutch field-deputies declared that it would be madness to attack them in such a situation. But on the 10th, when the expected battalions had arrived, Marlborough and Eugene determined to give battle.
Early on the morning of the 11th of September they availed themselves of a thick fog to erect batteries on each wing, and, the day clearing about eight o'clock, the engagement began. The battle began on the right by eighty-six battalions, commanded by General Schuylemberg and the Duke of Argyll, supported by two-and-twenty battalions under Count Lottum, who broke through the French lines, and fought with such fury that, notwithstanding their strong barricades, the French in less than an hour were forced from their entrenchments, and compelled to seek refuge in the woods of Sart and Tasnière. The contest was far more desperate on the left, where the Prince of Orange and Baron Fagel, with six-and-thirty battalions, attacked the right of the enemy, posted in the woods of Lanière, and covered with three entrenchments. The Prince of Orange led on the charge with wonderful bravery, having two horses killed under him, and the greater part of his officers killed around him. The engagement was now general, and the French continued to fight with the fury of despair from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon, when, seeing all their lines forced, their left being utterly routed, and the centre under Villars giving way, Villars himself being dangerously wounded, they began to retreat towards Bavay, under the direction of Boufflers, and retired to a position between Quesnoy and Valenciennes. The forest of Ardennes served to protect the French from the pursuit of their enemies, and enabled them to carry off most of their cannon and standards. About forty colours and standards, and sixteen pieces of cannon, were taken by the Allies, with a considerable number of prisoners. But on surveying the field of battle they found that this was the dearest victory which they had ever purchased. About twenty thousand of their soldiers lay slain, and about ten thousand of the enemy. Thirty thousand lives sacrificed in one battle! Neither Blenheim nor Ramillies could compare with Malplaquet in monstrosity of carnage. Nor was the impression produced equal to the destruction. The French, under the able command of Villars, notwithstanding their defeat, felt rather reassured than depressed. They had inflicted far more damage than they had received; and Villars declared that, had he not been so severely wounded, he would not have left the field without the victory. The French having retired into Valenciennes, the Allies continued the siege of Mons, which capitulated on the 23rd of October, and the armies then retired into winter quarters, after which some resultless negotiations ensued.
FIVE-GUINEA PIECE OF ANNE.
The Parliament of Great Britain met on the 15th of November, and the queen, opening it in person, announced in her speech that France had been endeavouring, by false and hollow artifices, to amuse the Allies with a prospect of peace, but with the real intent to sow jealousies amongst them; that the Allies had wisely rejected the insidious overtures; that our arms had been as successful as in any former campaign, and had now laid France open to the advance of the confederate troops; and that if they granted her, as she trusted they would, liberal supplies, she believed that she would now soon reduce that exorbitant and oppressive power which had so long threatened the liberties of Europe. Both Lords and Commons presented addresses fully approving of the rejection of the king of France's delusive overtures. They thanked the Duke of Marlborough for his splendid victory at Malplaquet. The Commons voted six million two hundred thousand pounds for the services of the year, and established the lottery and other schemes for raising this heavy sum.
FARTHING OF ANNE.