In his secret heart, and beneath the veil of his majestic observance of the proprieties, the king thought that his business, as well as the agreeableness of his life, would probably gain from being no longer subject to the tempers and the roughnesses of Louvois.  The Grand Monarque considered that he had trained (instruit) his minister, but he felt that the pupil had got away from him.  He appointed Barbezieux secretary for war.  “I will form you,” said he.  No human hand had formed Louvois, not even that of his father, the able and prudent Michael le Tellier; he had received straight from God the strong qualities, resolution, indomitable will, ardor for work, the instinct of organization and command, which had made of him a minister without equal for the warlike and ambitious purposes of his master.  Power had spoiled him, his faults had prevailed over his other qualities without destroying them; violent, fierce, without principle and without scruple in the execution of his designs, he had egged the king on to incessant wars, treating with disdain the internal miseries of the kingdom as well as any idea of pity for the vanquished; he had desired to do everything, order everything, grasp everything, and he died at fifty-three, dreaded by all, hated by a great many, and leaving in the government of the country a void which the king felt, all the time that he was angrily seeking to fill it up.

Louvois was no more; negotiations were beginning to be whispered about, but the war continued by land and sea; the campaign of 1691 had completely destroyed the hopes of James II. in Ireland; it was decided to attempt a descent upon England; a plot was being hatched to support the invasion.  Tourville was commissioned to cover the landing.  He received orders to fight, whatever might be the numbers of the enemy.  The wind prevented his departure from Brest; the Dutch fleet had found time to join the English.  Tourville wanted to wait for the squadrons of Estrees and Rochefort; Pontchartrain had been minister of finance and marine since the death of Seignelay, Colbert’s son, in 1690; he replied from Versailles to the experienced sailor, familiar with battle from the age of fourteen, “It is not for you to discuss the king’s orders; it is for you to execute them and enter the Channel; if you are not ready to do it, the king will put in your place somebody more obedient and less discreet than you.”  Tourville went out and encountered the enemy’s squadrons between the headlands of La Hogue and Barfleur; he had forty-four vessels against ninety-nine, the number of English and Dutch together.  Tourville assembled his council of war, and all the officers were for withdrawing; but the king’s orders were peremptory, and the admiral joined battle.  After three days’ desperate resistance, backed up by the most skilful manoeuvres, Tourville was obliged to withdraw beneath the forts of La Hogue in hopes of running his ships ashore; but in this King James and Marshal Bellefonds opposed him.