Louis XIV. was not so blind as Fenelon supposed; he saw the danger at the very moment when his kingly pride refused to admit it.  The King of England had just retaken Namur, without Villeroi, who had succeeded Marshal Luxembourg, having been able to relieve the place.  Louis XIV. had already let out that he “should not pretend to avail himself of any special conventions until the Prince of Orange was satisfied as regarded his person and the crown of England.”  This was a great step towards that humiliation recommended by Fenelon.

The secret negotiations with the Duke of Savoy were not less significant.  After William III., Victor-Amadeo was the most active and most devoted as well as the most able and most stubborn of the allied princes.  In the month of June, 1696, the treaty was officially declared.  Victor-Amadeo would recover Savoy, Suza, the countship of Nice and Pignerol dismantled; his eldest daughter, Princess Mary Adelaide, was to marry the Duke of Burgundy, eldest son of the dauphin, and the ambassadors of Piedmont henceforth took rank with those of crowned heads.  In return for so many concessions, Victor-Amadeo guaranteed to the king the neutrality of Italy, and promised to close the entry of his dominions against the Protestants of Dauphiny who came thither for refuge.  If Italy refused her neutrality, the Duke of Savoy was to unite his forces to those of the king and command the combined army.

Victory would not have been more advantageous for Victor-Amadeo than his constant defeats were; but, by detaching him from the coalition, Louis XIV. had struck a fatal blow at the great alliance:  the campaign of 1696 in Germany and in Flanders had resolved itself into mere observations and insignificant engagements; Holland and England were exhausted, and their commerce was ruined; in vain did Parliament vote fresh and enormous supplies.  “I should want ready money,” wrote William III. to Heinsius, “and my poverty is really incredible.”

There was no less cruel want in France.  “I calculate that in these latter days more than a tenth part of the people,” said Vauban, “are reduced to beggary, and in fact beg.”  Sweden had for a long time been proffering mediation:  conferences began on the 9th of May, 1697, at Nieuburg, a castle belonging to William III., near the village of Ryswick.  These great halls opened one into another; the French and the plenipotentiaries of the coalition of princes occupied the two wings, the mediators sat in the centre.  Before arriving at Ryswick, the most important points of the treaty between France and William III. were already settled.