was the matter discussed article by article; Rouille for some time believed that he had gained Lille.  “You misinterpreted our intentions,” said the deputies of the States General; “we let you believe what you pleased; at the commencement of April.  Lille was still in a bad condition; we had reason to fear that the French had a design of taking advantage of that; it was a matter of prudence to let you believe that it would be restored to you by the peace.  Lille is at the present moment in a state of security; do not count any longer on its restitution.”  “Probably,” said the States’ delegate to Marlborough, “the king will break off negotiations rather than entertain such hard conditions.”  “So much the worse for France,” rejoined the English general; “for when the campaign is once begun, things will go farther than the king thinks.  The allies will never unsay their preliminary demands.”  And he set out for England without even waiting for a favorable wind to cross.

Louis XIV. assembled his council, the same which, in 1700, had decided upon acceptance of the crown of Spain.  “The king felt all these calamities so much the more keenly,” says Torcy, “in that he had experienced nothing of the sort ever since he had taken into his own hands the government of a flourishing kingdom.  It was a terrible humiliation for a monarch accustomed to conquer, belauded for his victories, his triumphs, his moderation when he granted peace and prescribed its laws, to see himself now obliged to ask it of his enemies, to offer them to no purpose, in order to obtain it, the restitution of a portion of his conquests, the monarchy of Spain, the abandonment of his allies, and forced, in order to get such offers accepted, to apply to that same republic whose principal provinces he had conquered in the year 1692, and whose submission he had rejected when she entreated him to grant her peace on such terms as he should be pleased to dictate.  The king bore so sensible a change with the firmness of a hero, and with a Christian’s complete submission to the decrees of Providence, being less affected by his own inward pangs than by the suffering of his people, and being ever concerned about the means of relieving it, and terminating the war.  It was scarcely perceived that he did himself some violence in order to conceal his own feelings from the public; indeed; they were so little known that it was pretty generally believed that, thinking more of his own glory than of the woes of his kingdom, he preferred to the blessing of peace the keeping of certain places he had taken in person.  This unjust opinion had crept in even amongst the council.”