In the month of January, 1691, William III. arrived in Holland.  “I am languishing for that moment,” he wrote six months before to Heinsius.  All the allies had sent their ambassadors thither.  “It is no longer the time for deliberation, but for action,” said the King of England to the congress “the King of France has made himself master of all the fortresses which bordered on his kingdom; if he be not opposed, he will take all the rest.  The interest of each is bound up in the general interest of all.  It is with the sword that we must wrest from his grasp the liberties of Europe, which he aims at stifling, or we must submit forever to the yoke of servitude.  As for me, I will spare for that purpose neither my influence, nor my forces, nor my person, and in the spring I will come, at the head of my troops, to conquer or die with my allies.”

The spring had not yet come, and already (March 15) Mons was invested by the French army.  The secret had been carefully kept.  On the 21st, the king arrived in person with the dauphin; William of Orange collected his troops in all haste, but he did not come up in time:  Mons capitulated on the 8th of April; five days later, Nice, besieged by Catinat, surrendered like Mons; Louis XIV. returned to Versailles, according to his custom after a brilliant stroke.  Louvois was pushing on the war furiously; the naturally fierce temper of the minister was soured by excess of work and by his decline in the king’s favor; he felt his position towards the king shaken by the influence of Madame de Maintenon; venting his wrath on the enemy, he was giving orders everywhere for conflagration and bombardment, when on the 17th of July, 1691, after working with the king, Louvois complained of pain; Louis XIV. sent him to his rooms; on reaching his chamber he fell down fainting; the people ran to fetch his third son, M. de Barbezieux; Madame do Louvois was not at Versailles, and his two elder sons were in the field; he arrived too late; his father was dead.

“So he is dead, this great minister, this man of such importance, whose egotism (le moi), as M. Nicole says, was so extensive, who was the centre of so many things!  What business, what designs, what projects, what secrets, what interests to unfold, what wars begun, what intrigues, what beautiful moves-in-check to make and to superintend!  Ah! my God, grant me a little while; I would fain give check to the Duke of Savoy and mate to the Prince of Orange!  No, no, thou shalt not have one, one single moment!” Thus wrote Madame do Sevigne to her daughter Madame de Grignan.  Louis XIV., in whose service Louvois had spent his life, was less troubled at his death.  “Tell the King of England that I have lost a good minister,” was the answer he sent to the complimentary condolence of King James, “but that his affairs and mine will go on none the worse.”