his desire was that he should obey M. de Turenne without any fuss.  The marshal, without asking for time (that was his mistake), said that he should not be worthy of the honor his Majesty had done him if he dishonored himself by an obedience without precedent.  Marshal d’Humieres and Marshal Crequi said much the same.  M. de la Rochefoucauld says that Bellefonds has spoilt everything because he has no joints in his mind.  Marshal Crequi said to the king, ’Sir, take from me my baton, for are you not master?  Let me serve this campaign as Marquis of Crequi; perhaps I may deserve that your Majesty give me back the baton at the end of the war.’  The king was touched; but the result is, that they have all three been at their houses in the country planting cabbages (have ceased to serve).”

“You will permit me to tell you that there is nothing for it but to obey a master who says that he means to be obeyed,” wrote Louvois to M. de Crequi.  The king wanted to have order and one sole command in his army:  and he was right.

The Prince of Orange, who had at last been appointed captain-general for a single campaign, possessed neither the same forces nor the same authority; the violence of party-struggles had blinded patriotic sentiment and was hampering the preparations for defence.  Out of sixty-four thousand troops inscribed on the registers of the Dutch army, a great number neglected the summons; in the towns, the burgesses rose up against the magistrates, refusing to allow the faubourgs to be pulled down, and the peasants threatened to defend the dikes and close the sluices.”  When word was sent yesterday to the peasants to come and work on the Rhine at the redoubts and at piercing the dikes, not a man presented himself,” says a letter of June 28, from John van Witt to his brother Cornelius; “all is disorder and confusion here.”  “I hope that, for the moment, we shall not lack gunpowder,” said Beverninck; “but as for guncarriages there is no help for it; a fortnight hence we shall not have more than seven.”  Louvois had conceived the audacious idea of purchasing in Holland itself the supplies of powder and ball necessary for the French army and the commercial instincts of the Hollanders had prevailed over patriotic sentiment.  Ruyter was short of munitions in the contest already commenced against the French and English fleet.  “Out of thirty-two battles I have been in I never saw any like it,” said the Dutch admiral after the battle of Soultbay (Solebay) on the 7th of June.  “Ruyter is admiral, captain, pilot, sailor, and soldier all in one,” exclaimed the English.  Cornelius van Witt in the capacity of commissioner of the Estates had remained seated on the deck of the admiral’s vessel during the fight, indifferent to the bullets that rained around him.  The issue of the battle was indecisive; Count d’Estrees, at the head of the French flotilla, had taken little part in the action.